Chapter Summaries

Lin Fan reflected on how Isha had softened the Emperor and helped the Primarchs, and imagined bringing them together for a kind-hearted confrontation after the Battle of Cadia. He considered the human-Aeldari alliance’s future wars and planned to speak with the Silent King about the Tyranids once the galaxy’s other crises were resolved.

• Lin Fan realized that Isha had helped Angron avoid capture, guided the Primarchs emotionally, and encouraged the Emperor to express his love for them.
• Lin Fan imagined bringing Isha and the Primarchs to confront the Emperor after the Battle of Cadia, then told Leman Russ that he was laughing about Nurgle’s poor strategy.
• Lin Fan recalled that humanity and the Aeldari had joined forces, overcome old prejudices, and built a flourishing alliance over ten thousand years.
• Lin Fan remembered an Astra Militarum soldier and an Aeldari militiaman who had rescued each other, and wondered whether they were now together.
• Lin Fan considered the awakened Necrontyr dynasties and Tyranid swarms, then planned to discuss the Tyranid threat with the Silent King after the Eye of Terror was sealed, the Golden Throne repaired, and Isha had planted trees across the Milky Way.

Lin Fan suspected Tzeentch and The Deceiver were working with the C'tan and possibly manipulating the Degraded Ones, while he considered how to help the Emperor and free the Primarchs' Warp essences. Nurgle caught up with Lin Fan, Isha, Leman Russ, and Magnus in the Warp, and they fled through an endless expanse of filth giants.

• Lin Fan reasoned that Tzeentch and The Deceiver might be cooperating with the C'tan and directing the Degraded Ones, but he feared that reviving the Fundamental God would damage the Milky Way's physical laws.
• Lin Fan decided to consult the Emperor's plans and go with Leman Russ to retrieve Corax, possibly confronting Lorgar along the way.
• Lin Fan considered freeing the Primarchs' Warp essences and wondered what Leman Russ's essence would look like.
• Nurgle gathered mountains of filth into colossal giants and pursued Lin Fan, Isha, Leman Russ, and Magnus through the Warp.
• Lin Fan destroyed a giant's hand with his light spear, and Isha's vines diverted the falling filth while Nurgle continued calling for her.

Lin Fan and the others escaped Nurgle’s pursuit through Gork and Mork’s toilet, where Nurgle emerged from a cesspit and Gork attacked him. Nurgle protected Isha from Gork’s blows, but Gork’s assault left him shaken as the confrontation continued.

• Gork and Mork resumed fighting after Gork blamed Mork for interrupting his bowel movement.
• A gurgling cesspit erupted, revealing Nurgle’s body, and Gork accused him of scraping against his backside.
• Leman Russ led the group riding Magnus past the giant Orks while Isha helped Lin Fan see Gork and Mork through the mist.
• Gork recognized the tiny group and tried to swat them, but Nurgle knocked his hand aside to protect Isha.
• Gork attacked Nurgle despite his attempt to explain himself, shaking loose fragments and dust without injuring him.

Lin Fan and the others escaped Mork while Gork and Mork fought Nurgle, but Magnus warned that Nurgle would keep pursuing them as long as Isha was with them. The group traveled on, where Lin Fan turned their escape into a meal despite Magnus's protests.

• Mork attacked Lin Fan and the others with a flyswatter, but Lin Fan struck his forehead repeatedly and injured his skull, disrupting Orks across the Milky Way and giving the Imperial forces an opening to attack.
• Lin Fan and his companions escaped while Gork and Mork resumed trying to force Nurgle back into the latrine pit.
• Leman Russ celebrated the escape, while Magnus warned that Nurgle would continue hunting them because Isha remained with them.
• Lin Fan ate fruits and vegetables ripened by Isha, then asked Diego to grill some raw meat as Magnus protested.

Lin Fan and Leman Russ used Isha’s magic to seek Corax in the Warp, setting a fifty-year limit before they would head to Cadia. Guided by a flower grown from Leman Russ’s blood, they began traveling toward Corax or Lorgar while fighting off Warp creatures.

• Lin Fan shared roasted meat with Leman Russ and asked whether he knew Corax’s location.
• Leman Russ said they would have to search the Warp by luck, and he agreed to spend no more than fifty years looking before going to Cadia.
• Isha offered to use Leman Russ’s blood to find his brother, and Leman Russ gave her a drop.
• Isha grew a flower on Magnus using Leman Russ’s blood, and the flower pointed toward Corax or Lorgar.
• Lin Fan and the others followed the flower through the Warp and fought off waves of creatures, hanging their remains on Magnus.

Lin Fan’s expedition found signs that they had reached a Primarch, while Isha confirmed Cadia remained stable. The chapter then showed Lorgar overseeing the Word Bearers’ daemon-bonding ritual as he awaited news of Abaddon’s attack.

• After more than fifty years wandering the Warp, Lin Fan’s group saw the guiding flower wither, and Isha said they had found a Primarch.
• Lin Fan asked Isha to check Cadia through the Tree of Life branches, and she reported that the Black Legion was being pushed back without an all-out assault.
• Lin Fan decided to continue according to their plan rather than return to Cadia or retrieve Corax.
• Lorgar preached in his cathedral and watched Word Bearers undergo a ritual that joined them with daemons.
• Some Word Bearers gained controllable daemonic powers, while others failed and melted into scalding meat slurry.

Lorgar celebrated the Word Bearers’ success and ordered the execution of a pontiff who had converted to worshipping the Emperor. He then inspected Corax’s seal, confident in its strength despite the vast losses it had cost his Legion.

• Lorgar praised the successful Word Bearers and proclaimed that the true gods walked among them.
• A pontiff reported that an imprisoned Word Bearers pontiff was persuading priests to worship the Emperor, so Lorgar ordered his execution.
• Lorgar visited the site where Corax was sealed and crushed the guards with his psychic power when they warned him of the danger.
• Lorgar reflected on the costly battle in which thirty thousand Word Bearers and a daemon host had helped him trap Corax in a vortex-shaped seal.
• Lorgar accused Corax of destroying families on Sicarus, where devout residents lived alongside daemons under Word Bearers rule.

Lorgar taunted the sealed Corax, but Corax’s hatred and power overwhelmed him with visions of defeat. After recovering, Lorgar erased a recorder’s memories and altered the written account to portray himself as fearless and compassionate.

• Lorgar approached Corax’s seal and boasted that he had won and changed after enduring over a thousand years.
• Corax’s raven form filled Lorgar with terror and visions of Corax defeating him at Isstvan V and later crushing him as a Daemon Primarch.
• Konrad Curze intervened against Corax, declaring that he had acted only to prevent Corax from winning.
• Explosions jolted Lorgar out of the illusion, and he realized Corax remained bound by the seal.
• Lorgar used psychic power to erase the recorder’s memories and revise the account in his book to make himself appear fearless and merciful.

Lorgar learned that Kaldor Diego had left him a brick said to be made from the ashes of Perfect City, and the reminder enraged him enough to prepare to confront Diego. Meanwhile, Diego waited outside the recreated city as Lin Fan, Leman Russ, and their allies hid nearby and prepared to spring their plan when Lorgar arrived.

• The Word Bearers told Lorgar that Diego had defeated their forces and left a stone brick as a message.
• A Word Bearer relayed Diego's claim that the brick had been made from the ashes of Perfect City, reviving Lorgar's memories of its destruction and humiliation.
• Lorgar flew into a rage and prepared to capture Diego, break his limbs, and spread Chaos through his screams.
• Diego waited at the edge of Sicarus beside the defeated Word Bearers, while Lin Fan, Leman Russ, Isha, and the others watched from concealment.
• Leman Russ doubted Lin Fan's plan to lure Lorgar with the brick, but Lin Fan insisted they would follow the plan when Lorgar arrived.

Lorgar confronted Diego with the Word Bearers, but Leman Russ’s ambush failed when Lorgar escaped using sorcery. With Isha’s forest shielding their advance, Russ and Diego moved toward Lorgar while Lin Fan searched Perfect City for Corax and Magnus.

• Lorgar and Diego clashed in a battle of faith, each loudly proclaiming his beliefs.
• Lorgar attacked Diego with psychic power, but his instincts warned him of Leman Russ’s ambush, and he escaped by leaving behind a sheet of skin.
• Leman Russ and Diego destroyed the discarded skin, then faced Lorgar’s order to attack with the Word Bearers’ concentrated fire.
• Isha raised a vast forest to block the Word Bearers’ weapons, allowing Leman Russ and Diego to advance toward Lorgar.
• Isha rested while Magnus watched, and Lin Fan infiltrated Perfect City to search for Corax and Magnus.

Lin Fan fought his way through Perfect City to Corax’s seal and tore it open, freeing the raven swarm. Corax emerged as a monstrous, feathered figure that stared at Lin Fan and answered his calls with shrieks.

• Lin Fan defeated a daemon and forced it to reveal where Corax was being held.
• Lin Fan reached Corax’s seal, fought through the Word Bearers guarding it, and tore a gap open.
• Corax’s raven flock poured through the breach and slaughtered the two thousand Word Bearers guarding the seal.
• Corax took a crude humanoid shape from darkness and feathers, but responded to Lin Fan only with piercing cries.

Lin Fan let Corax’s shadows infiltrate his body, where they encountered the entities in his stomach and became locked in a struggle that devastated Lorgar’s Perfect City. Lorgar arrived to confront Corax and found Lin Fan unharmed but visibly unwell, with something in his stomach about to emerge.

• Lin Fan removed his helmet to lure Corax’s shadows into his body, but Corax found that Lin Fan’s cells could not be controlled.
• Corax’s shadows entered Lin Fan’s stomach and provoked the Deep Dread and the Two-Dimensional Prison into attacking them.
• The battle between the Deep Dread and Corax’s shadows caused widespread destruction in Lorgar’s Perfect City.
• Lorgar broke away from Leman Russ, teleported to Perfect City, and used incantations and a golden net to push back the shadows.
• Lorgar found Lin Fan sitting amid the shadows, while Lin Fan’s stomach rumbled and he opened his mouth as if something were about to come out.

Lin Fan freed Corax from the two beads and knocked Lorgar unconscious as the group escaped Perfect City. Magnus delayed their departure until Gork, Mork, and Nurgle surrounded them, and Corax exposed Magnus’s lies by licking his face.

• Lin Fan defeated Lorgar, broke the golden net, and freed the figure forming between the two beads.
• Corax emerged with his sanity intact and told Lin Fan not to touch the beads.
• Leman Russ and Diego arrived, and Lin Fan knocked Lorgar unconscious before the group left Perfect City.
• Isha laid Magnus down so he could help them escape the Warp, but Magnus stalled as the power of decay approached.
• Gork, Mork, and Nurgle surrounded Lin Fan’s group, and Leman Russ confronted Magnus about his role in their arrival.
• Corax licked Magnus’s face and said he had tasted the flavor of lies.

Corax used his extraordinary sense of taste on Magnus’s face and uncovered the hidden motives behind Magnus’s summoning of Gork, Mork, and Nurgle. Magnus had manipulated the gods with scandalous stories about Slaanesh and Isha, then began urging them to target someone else.

• Corax’s history with Guilliman revealed how his acute sense of taste could detect even the smallest details in wine.
• Corax licked Magnus and tasted the memories Magnus had tried to conceal.
• Corax learned that Magnus had summoned Gork, Mork, and Nurgle because he feared facing the Emperor and wanted a chance to escape.
• Magnus told Gork and Mork a story about Slaanesh’s Green Album and Fulgrim’s fabricated tale about Isha and Cain.
• Gork and Mork agreed to consider teaming up with Nurgle against Slaanesh, but Magnus tried to redirect them toward another target.

Gork and Mork attacked Lin Fan to provoke Slaanesh, while Nurgle demanded that the others hand over Isha. Lin Fan fought the Orks, and Corax and Leman Russ sided with Isha as she rejected Nurgle’s worldview.

• Magnus told Gork and Mork that Lin Fan was Slaanesh’s beloved, and they decided to attack him to provoke her.
• Gork swung his club at Lin Fan, who shattered it with his light spear and blocked the falling fragments with Isha’s vines.
• Mork ambushed Lin Fan with a flyswatter, but Lin Fan tore through it and fought both Orks.
• Lin Fan crawled inside Gork’s body, prompting Mork to strike Gork by mistake and start a brawl between the Orks.
• Nurgle demanded that the others surrender Isha, while Corax and Leman Russ stood by her and refused.
• Isha told Nurgle that she rejected his ideals, and he insisted he was acting for her own good.

Isha, Leman Russ, Diego, and Corax fought Nurgle’s daemons while Lin Fan faced Gork and Mork, as Tzeentch and The Deceiver prepared to exploit the wider conflicts. Tzeentch fixed his plans on the transition from the forty-first millennium to the forty-second, when the galaxy’s collective change would enable an ultimate ascension.

• Nurgle turned stern and unleashed daemons against Isha, while Isha hurled Magnus into the Perfect City to disrupt the Word Bearers.
• Leman Russ, Corax, Diego, and Isha formed a defensive line against Nurgle’s daemons, and Corax gave Leman Russ a bead to use if he lost control.
• Corax transformed and slaughtered the daemons with living shadows, while Nurgle tried to remove him from the battle.
• Khorne, Slaanesh, and the God-Emperor sensed the conflict but could not intervene, while Tzeentch contacted The Deceiver and confirmed their plans were ready.
• Tzeentch watched the Chaos forces falter at Cadia and the Emperor’s Children raid Biel-Tan, where they encountered a conflicted Fulgrim.
• Tzeentch ordered Rokasna to prepare for an ultimate ascension at the turn from the forty-first millennium to the forty-second and considered the power of nine becoming ten.

Tzeentch set his plan in motion, sending Carlos to Iskandar Khayon and Vect to Biel-Tan while Cegorach watched from the sidelines. Meanwhile, Mork knocked Lin Fan out of Gork’s body and sent him crashing into Perfect City.

• Tzeentch reflected on the gods’ sacred numbers and worried that events might not follow his plan.
• Tzeentch ordered Carlos and Vect to act; Carlos reached the cell holding the tortured Iskandar Khayon and offered him a deal.
• Vect used The Deceiver’s key to enter Biel-Tan and confronted Yvraine near the final Cronesword.
• Cegorach understood Tzeentch’s plan but decided not to interrupt it yet.
• Mork scraped Lin Fan from Gork’s wound, then chopped off part of his own head and struck it like a baseball, sending Lin Fan into Perfect City.

Lin Fan used a power of pure white to make Gork vanish, alarming Mork and provoking Nurgle. Nurgle charged Lin Fan to stop the destruction of the cycle of life and death.

• Lin Fan joined the battle in Perfect City and protected Leman Russ while Gork and Mork attacked him again.
• Gork stormed through the city, shattered Nurgle’s mountain, and hurled Corax away before Leman Russ and Magnus stabilized Corax with the two beads.
• Lin Fan removed his helmet and focused on Gork through a tube made with his hands.
• A patch of pure white appeared on Gork, making him weaken, shrink, and disappear along with part of the Orks.
• Mork hesitated to flee as Nurgle, tearful and furious, roared at Lin Fan to stop.

Nurgle unleashed primordial water after Lin Fan erased part of his life essence, but it could not harm Lin Fan. The resulting catastrophe erased countless lives across the Milky Way, and Lin Fan realized that even his restrained power had caused mass destruction.

• Nurgle became enraged by the Orks’ erasure and drew out primordial water that turned his daemons and Garden into a vast ocean.
• Nurgle’s primordial sea swept through Terra and other worlds, dissolving plague zombies, Titans, and the Adeptus Custodes, before he attacked Lin Fan.
• The primordial water failed to affect Lin Fan, while Isha clutched his thigh and begged him to stop and Corax pointed out Nurgle’s dissolving form.
• Isha explained that Lin Fan’s white light had erased vast numbers of Orks and other life across the Milky Way, including the diseased, the wounded, children, and elders.
• Lin Fan apologized that he had only wanted to escape quickly, then feared that looking less carefully could have destroyed the universe again.

After Lin Fan realized his power had killed countless people, he struggled with the consequences while the Primarchs reacted with fear and suspicion. Lorgar revered Lin Fan as a greater god, prompting Lin Fan to reflect on Lorgar’s upbringing and the gap between his imagined faith and reality.

• Lin Fan urged the others to leave for Cadia, then sat aboard Magnus and wondered whether his actions against Nurgle and Gork and Mork had been right.
• Lin Fan recalled that his power had caused deaths across the Milky Way and resolved to seek the Silent King’s advice.
• Leman Russ stayed silent, Diego viewed Lin Fan as a threat, Corax watched Lorgar, and Isha mourned the lost lives.
• Lorgar gazed at Lin Fan with reverence, believing he had discovered gods greater than Nurgle.
• Lin Fan judged that Lorgar’s loyalty to Kor Phaeron and his treatment of slaves contradicted the goodness shown by other Primarchs in their youth.
• Lin Fan concluded that Lorgar believed in an imagined version of The Emperor rather than the real one.