Chapter Summaries

After Pandora and the Void Dragon vanished, Fulgrim surrendered to the Imperial warriors, but the collapsing tomb world forced everyone to flee. Outside, the Outsider, Sara Noga, battled Iglanias and the Void Dragon, while Pandora shielded the humans from the devastating aftershocks.

• Fulgrim spread his hands and offered to be imprisoned and tried on Terra, but a violent tremor interrupted the confrontation.
• Lieutenant General Kalanti led the warriors out of Trazyn's collapsing tomb ship, where they saw the Outsider, Sara Noga, fighting Iglanias in the void.
• The Outsider's presence drove mortals and wounded warriors mad until the Void Dragon roared and stabilized their minds.
• Sara Noga struck Iglanias's energy core, and the Void Dragon joined the battle, helping Iglanias hold the Outsider back.
• Pandora appeared between the human warriors and the battle's aftershocks, raising a shield that protected them from a devastating energy torrent.

The battle between Sara Noga, Iglanias, and the Void Dragon devastated the surrounding star region, and its reality-shattering shockwaves drew powerful beings across the galaxy. Silent King Szarekh arrived with a Necron fleet to support Pandora, but she ordered him to stand aside as she prepared to enter the fight herself.

• Sara Noga absorbed energy from the battle and grew stronger, while Iglanias flickered near collapse and the Void Dragon struggled against its superior power.
• The battle's shockwaves spread across the galaxy, prompting the Tyranid Hive Mind, Chaos Gods, Aeldari, and Necron worlds to take notice.
• Silent King Szarekh recognized Pandora and abandoned his advantage over Storm King Imotekh to lead a fleet to her aid.
• Storm King Imotekh chose not to pursue Szarekh and instead planned to unite the Necron dynasties after the battle destroyed his rival.
• Szarekh offered Pandora his fleet's help, but she told him to retreat and watch from the battlefield's edge.
• Pandora faced the C'tan battle with an excited, disdainful smile and prepared to act personally.

Pandora revealed Glory Star Fortress and fought the complete C'tan Sara Noga in a clash of reality-warping powers. As the battle intensified, Glory Star Fortress gained the upper hand, leaving the Void Dragon convinced Pandora was far more powerful than she appeared.

• Pandora ordered the Void Dragon and Iglanias to protect the humans while she faced Sara Noga alone.
• Pandora rushed into Sara Noga's attack, then transformed into the immense Glory Star Fortress by overriding the darkness with higher authority.
• Glory Star Fortress struck Sara Noga with a powerful energy torrent, and the shockwave hurled Necron ships away and destabilized the surrounding region.
• The Void Dragon and Iglanias shielded the humans and tomb world fragment as Pandora and Sara Noga exchanged attacks that tore at the laws of reality.
• Glory Star Fortress gradually gained the upper hand, and the Void Dragon realized that Pandora was a monster disguised as a young child.

Pandora and Glory Star Fortress overwhelmed the Outsider Sara Noga after Pandora nullified its ultimate attack and prepared to erase it from existence. At the last moment, Pandora spared Sara Noga and offered it a place at her side.

• Pandora and Glory Star Fortress traded attacks with Sara Noga, while both sides rapidly repaired their damage.
• Sara Noga unleashed a vast annihilation vortex, but Pandora made all of its attacks invalid, turning the strike harmless.
• Pandora gathered dark purple energy for an existence-erasing attack, terrifying Sara Noga and prompting the Chaos Gods to sever their perception of the battlefield.
• Pandora stopped the final attack and invited Sara Noga to follow her.

Pandora subdued Sara Noga and purified its chaotic consciousness, while Hua Wei received the C'tan Aha as a new unit and deployed him to Pandora. Aha arrived and greeted Pandora as his boss, eager to find their next amusement.

• Iglanias and the Void Dragon urged Sara Noga to submit to Pandora and join the Hilling Empire.
• Sara Noga withdrew its hostility and declared its submission to Pandora.
• Pandora used Consciousness Purification Authority to remove the chaotic fragments from Sara Noga's mind.
• Hua Wei received a C'tan Gift Pack containing Aha, the God of Fun, and ordered him deployed to Pandora.
• Aha made a flamboyant entrance before Pandora and the assembled forces, then asked where they would find fun next.

Aha arrived after Pandora defeated a thug, then tried to recruit the Necrons and human survivors to the Path of Joy. After Pandora ordered him to stop, he formally introduced himself as an Arbiter sent to support the allies and awaited her orders.

• Pandora confronted Aha for arriving late, and he claimed he had rushed across space to support her.
• Aha eyed the three C'tan, but Iglanias ingratiated itself with him and earned his approval.
• Aha invited Silent King Szarekh and the Necron fleet to join the Path of Joy.
• Aha tried to persuade Fulgrim and the human survivors to believe in Joy, angering them.
• Pandora ordered Aha to stop making a spectacle of himself, and he formally announced his Arbiter role and asked for a mission.

Bubble issued a domain-wide warning that Aha had entered Imperium territory and urged everyone to avoid him. Sanguinius, Horus, and Angron discovered they could access the Hilling Empire’s civilian network, while Szarekh resolved to keep his fleet away from Aha unless Pandora ordered otherwise.

• Bubble warned Hilling Empire members and connected allies that Aha was dangerously unpredictable and should not be trusted or approached.
• Sanguinius, Horus, and Angron told Guilliman and the other Imperium leaders about Bubble’s alert, prompting Guilliman to realize they had received a direct Hilling network communication.
• Bubble recognized the three Primarchs as Mind Cube users and granted them temporary access to the civilian network.
• Sanguinius, Horus, and Angron were nearly overwhelmed by the network’s vast flood of information before they adapted and emerged amazed by their connection.
• The Necron girl reported Bubble’s warning to Szarekh, who decided to keep his fleet far from Aha unless Pandora instructed otherwise.

Guilliman sent Sanguinius, Horus, and Angron to study the Hilling Empire through its civilian network while Pandora set off to find Old Ones treasure and Szarekh renewed his war against Imotekh. In the Warp, the Chaos gods convened to assess the Hilling threat and pressed Darth Vader to reveal what he knew of Hilling and the Abyss.

• Guilliman ordered Sanguinius, Horus, and Angron to investigate Hilling society and technology through its civilian network.
• Pandora assigned Aha to transport the human survivors to Terra, then allowed him to seek out the Warp gods and cause trouble for them.
• Pandora offered to help Szarekh defeat Imotekh, but Szarekh insisted on leading the campaign himself and launched a full-scale assault.
• Pandora left with the Void Dragon and the other C'tan to search for Old Ones treasure.
• Tzeentch summoned the Chaos gods and their followers to discuss the threat posed by the Hilling Empire.
• Tzeentch asked the newly empowered Darth Vader to explain what he knew about Hilling and the Abyss.

Aha burst into the Throne Court, returned the rescued human survivors, and treated the Emperor’s remains as a livestream prop before the Imperium could make sense of the intrusion. After Kieran stopped the Custodes from attacking and Guilliman endured Aha’s recruitment pitch, Aha departed, leaving the shaken Imperium with warnings about how to handle him.

• Aha arrived through a chaotic portal in the Throne Court with the rescued human survivors and livestreamed himself beside the Emperor’s remains.
• The Adeptus Custodes charged Aha in fury, but Kieran rewound their attack and warned them not to act rashly.
• Aha’s livestream was permanently banned, and he claimed he had returned the survivors on BOSS’s orders and intended to become the Emperor’s sworn brother.
• Liang Bing warned the Imperium that Aha was an unpredictable Arbiter, while Guilliman recognized him from the Supreme Wisdom’s S-class disaster warning.
• Aha tried to recruit Guilliman and the other Primarchs to the Path of Joy, then vanished after announcing he would go bother Lan.
• Guilliman asked Liang Bing and Kieran how to deal with Aha, and they advised ignoring him or asking Hilling people to lodge a protest.

Guilliman recognized Fulgrim in the Throne Room and launched a furious attack, but the other Primarchs restrained them. Kieran subdued the confrontation and ordered them to resolve their grievances before the Emperor, leaving Fulgrim’s clone confused and Guilliman seething.

• Guilliman recognized the rescued Kalanti and, at Kieran’s urging, let the Adeptus Custodes take his old commander away without waking him.
• Guilliman saw Fulgrim kneeling before the Throne and attacked him with the Emperor’s Sword.
• Fulgrim evaded the strike and protested that he had only just awakened from a nightmare, while Guilliman continued attacking.
• Horus and Angron restrained the brothers as Sanguinius and Lion stopped Guilliman, and Fulgrim was bewildered by their changed appearances.
• Carl judged Fulgrim to be a relatively pure clone, and Kieran used his power to calm the fighting and ordered the brothers to settle their grievances away from the Throne.

The Fulgrim clone learned that the original had killed Ferrus Manus and begged Guilliman to execute him, while the Emperor remained silent. Carl argued that the clone should instead seek atonement by helping kill the daemon Fulgrim, leaving Guilliman and the clone reconsidering their choices.

• Guilliman told the Fulgrim clone that the original had betrayed Chaos, killed Ferrus Manus, and grievously wounded him.
• The Fulgrim clone was overwhelmed by guilt and asked Guilliman to give him a swift death when the Emperor offered no judgment.
• Sanguinius asked Liang Bing whether the Hilling Empire could remove risks from the clone, but Horus and Lion warned that his nature made him dangerous.
• Liang Bing said technology could alter the clone but could not save him if he still wanted to die or pursued perfection, and the clone refused her help.
• Carl argued that the clone had committed no crimes and urged him to atone by finding and killing the daemon Fulgrim.
• Guilliman stopped dragging the clone away, and the clone's despair gave way to resolve to destroy the original.

Fulgrim's clone resolved to kill his original and accepted Carl's offer to augment him, despite warnings that the procedure carried great risks. Carl arranged to take him to He Xi's laboratory on Mars, and Fulgrim followed her out of the Throne Court.

• Fulgrim's clone vowed to find and kill his original, and Guilliman threw him to the floor before leaving the Throne Court with Lion.
• Angron warned Fulgrim about his original's immense strength, and Sanguinius helped him stand and explained the Imperium's changed circumstances.
• Carl told Fulgrim he was too weak to confront his original and offered to enhance him with a Purification Protocol that would annihilate him if he became irreversibly corrupted.
• Horus objected to augmenting Fulgrim, but Fulgrim accepted Carl's offer, placing his life and soul in her hands.
• Liang Bing recommended He Xi's laboratory on Mars, and Carl led Fulgrim out of the Throne Court.

As Darth Vader briefed the Chaos gods on the Hilling Empire and Pandora’s power, Aha unexpectedly entered their gathering and corrected his claims. Aha tried to recruit Vader, while the Chaos gods watched the Hilling Empire’s Arbiter with alarm.

• At the Great Rift, Kesha and Lan learned that an old acquaintance had arrived, and Lan guessed he had already entered the Warp.
• Darth Vader told the Chaos gods about Kesha, Lan, Pandora, and the possibility that Pandora could reboot the universe.
• The lesser gods and Greater Daemons mocked Vader’s claim, but the Chaos gods’ silence made them reconsider.
• Aha appeared beside the Chaos gods, explained that Pandora could erase the universe but could not reboot it alone, and scolded the laughing daemons.
• Vader recognized Aha as a C’tan of Joy and an Arbiter, and Aha briefly tried to recruit him before giving him a one-point rating.
• The Chaos gods grew wary after realizing another Hilling Empire god had entered their inner domain.

Aha disrupted the Chaos Gods’ meeting by provoking each of them with absurd antics and repeatedly reappearing after being destroyed. The chapter left the four gods’ projections shaken and enraged as Aha turned their gathering into a farce.

• Khorne attacked Aha, but Aha twisted the first blow aside and mocked Khorne while dodging its relentless assaults.
• Khorne split Aha apart, but Aha taunted it from the ruined body and then reappeared behind it to criticize its aim.
• Tzeentch bound Aha with chains of schemes and time, allowing Khorne to annihilate him, but Aha reappeared beside Slaanesh and flirted with her.
• Slaanesh pierced and tore Aha apart, but he reappeared beside Nurgle and complained that the other gods had bullied him.
• Aha recoiled from Nurgle’s filthy body, provoking the displeasure of Nurgle while all four Chaos Gods’ projections fluctuated.

Aha turned Tzeentch’s Maze of Change into a theater and forced the Chaos Gods and demons into his script, feeding on their emotions. Tzeentch and Khorne disrupted the stage, and Khorne’s true body apparently annihilated Aha before leaving the realm.

• Aha transformed the Maze of Change into a stage and forced its demons and the four Chaos Gods’ projections into scripted roles.
• The Chaos Gods attacked the theater, but their anger and powers initially made Aha’s rules and stage grow stronger.
• Khorne’s projection discovered it had been cast as a short-tempered little girl holding a teddy bear, enraging Khorne’s true body.
• Tzeentch manifested his true body and began overwriting Aha’s theater with the Warp’s laws of change.
• Khorne’s true body descended and destroyed Aha as Tzeentch disrupted the theater, leaving no trace of him.
• Tzeentch searched the realm and found nothing, while Khorne left the Ever-Changing Daemonic Realm.

Aha survived the Chaos Gods’ assault and escaped after impersonating Khorne to turn the gods against one another. Outside Tzeentch’s Realm, the Binding Legion prepared to leave, but Aha’s voice revealed that he had noticed the being within the black sun.

• After Aha’s apparent destruction, Khorne’s army attacked Tzeentch’s Realm, and Tzeentch destroyed much of the invading force.
• A false Khorne accused Tzeentch and the other Chaos Gods of betrayal until they recognized the impostor as Aha.
• The true Khorne descended, and the four Chaos Gods cornered Aha, who transformed into a bomb that released confetti and balloons before vanishing.
• The Chaos Gods erupted in fury, shaking the Warp, while the surviving demons faced the aftermath of Aha’s prank.
• Outside the Realm, the being inside the black sun confirmed that Aha had escaped, and Aha addressed it as his brother as the Binding Legion prepared to depart.

Aha escaped the Chaos gods and drove the Emperor to cut off their encounter, while Hua Wei watched the aftermath on Hilling Star. The system rewarded him with powerful cosmic beings, and he assigned them to the Abyss as corrupted captives.

• Aha teased the Emperor until the Emperor severed his connection and returned to the Golden Throne, then Aha decided to seek out pretty ladies.
• Hua Wei watched Aha’s spectacle and received system notifications showing a surge in emotional energy from the Chaos gods.
• The system awarded Hua Wei Khorne’s Rage Gift Pack and Tzeentch’s Scheming Gift Pack for recording Khorne’s and Tzeentch’s true bodies.
• Hua Wei opened the packs and obtained Ghroth, Cthulhu and the Deep Ones, Hastur and the Byakhee, and Yog-Sothoth.
• Hua Wei assigned the new units to the Abyss and changed their backgrounds so they were corrupted and enslaved by its power.

Darth Vader agreed to open a gateway to the Abyss for the Chaos Gods in exchange for sacrifices, despite sensing the danger. In the Imperial Palace, a long-lost primarch revealed himself as Icarus, the Eleventh Primarch, leaving Horus and the others stunned.

• Tzeentch demanded that Vader open a gateway to the Abyss, and Vader warned that his ascension and connection to it remained incomplete.
• Under pressure from Tzeentch and Khorne, Vader agreed to fulfill his promise and requested numerous high-quality sacrifices, preferably Eldar.
• The Chaos Gods accepted Vader's terms, and Slaanesh opened a spatial gateway to provide sacrifices.
• In the Imperial Palace, Sanguinius helped a kneeling armored giant rise while the Adeptus Custodes surrounded him.
• The giant removed his helmet, and Horus recognized him as Icarus, the Eleventh Primarch.

Sanguinius and the other Primarchs brought Icarus, the long-erased Primarch of the Eleventh Legion, to a conference room, where Guilliman and Lion learned who he was. Meanwhile, Slaanesh incited the Drukhari to capture Eldar across the Craftworlds, prompting Yvraine to seek Guilliman's help on Terra.

• Sanguinius, Horus, and Angron escorted Icarus from the throne room while the Adeptus Custodes followed at a distance.
• Horus revealed Icarus's identity to Guilliman and Lion, whose sealed memories stirred with shock and horror.
• Slaanesh tempted the Drukhari to offer Eldar captives in exchange for relief from the harvesting of their souls.
• Drukhari fleets attacked Ysera's Dream and other Eldar worlds, capturing countless kin as the Craftworlds struggled to defend themselves.
• Yvraine sensed the Eldar's distress and ordered her ship to Terra so she could ask Guilliman for help.

Icarus recounted his exile and imprisonment in Trazyn’s collection, revealing that Pandora had subdued a C’tan. As Yvraine fled three Drukhari raiders toward the Solar System, her damaged ship was boarded just beyond the Imperium’s borders.

• Icarus described how the Emperor erased his Legion, then spoke of wandering the Imperium before Necrons captured him and placed him in a collection.
• Icarus recounted how a battle involving Tyranids and C’tan disrupted the tomb world, where Pandora subdued a C’tan.
• Sicarius reported that an Eldar vessel and three pursuing Eldar warships had exchanged fire at the edge of the Solar System.
• Yvraine tried to reach the Solar System while fleeing Drukhari raiders who wanted to capture her for their god.
• The Drukhari destroyed Yvraine’s main thrusters and grappled her ship, and she prepared to fight as the Imperium’s monitoring stations recorded the boarding.