Recaps

Zhou Yun used his luck-altering techniques to beat Cicero and Tull at cards, while Tull’s bad luck visibly grew into a grotesque mass. Cicero sought help from the Blind Witch and Libo, but the witch suddenly recognized him as a harbinger of disaster.

• Cicero and Tull each drew hands totaling twenty, while Zhou Yun revealed a 2 and drew again.
• Zhou Yun drew a 9 to reach twenty-one and took the chips from Cicero and Tull.
• Cicero excused himself from the game and went to meet the Blind Witch and Libo.
• The Blind Witch and Libo discussed obtaining Semuneta’s holy remains and the limits of the witch’s curses.
• The Blind Witch threw her shoe at Cicero and screamed, calling him a harbinger of disaster.

Cicero and Libo enlisted the Blind Witch to stop Zhou Yun from winning at cards, but her psychic attack failed when Zhou Yun noticed and destroyed it. Zhou Yun returned to the game and asked to split his pair of aces.

• The Blind Witch saw a black pustule on Cicero, while Cicero admitted Zhou Yun had won more than ten thousand Denar from him.
• Cicero returned to the table, where Zhou Yun bet eleven thousand five hundred Denar and received two aces.
• The Blind Witch determined Zhou Yun had no trace of the Empyrean and decided to interfere with his thoughts using a serpent-shaped psychic attack.
• Zhou Yun spotted the attack, destroyed the psychic serpent, and caused one of the pendant’s amethyst eyes to crack.
• Zhou Yun turned back to Cicero and Tull and asked to split his aces.

Zhou Yun split his blackjack hand and used psychic power to overcome the Blind Witch’s sorcery, leaving Cicero to face two blackjacks and an enormous debt. Cicero collapsed in shock as Zhou Yun mocked the witch’s failure.

• Zhou Yun read and distorted Cicero and Tull’s thoughts, then used a Fear Spell to force the Blind Witch to relive her traumatic past.
• Zhou Yun borrowed another eleven thousand five hundred Denar and wagered it on his second hand.
• Cicero dealt Zhou Yun the cards and worried that two blackjacks would cost him thirty-four thousand five hundred Denar.
• Zhou Yun revealed a King and a Queen, giving both hands blackjack and defeating Cicero.
• Cicero was overwhelmed by the loss, while Zhou Yun told him to find a more reliable witch next time.

Zhou Yun deposited his winnings at the Broken Lighthouse Temple, which he suspected was tied to a power important to the galaxy’s future. Meanwhile, the Blind Witch identified him as a follower of the God of Sorcery, and Libo agreed to help her prepare sacrifices to stop that god’s return.

• Zhou Yun repaid his loans and deposited his remaining winnings at the Broken Lighthouse Temple rather than the other temples.
• Libo refused to forgive Cicero’s debt, while Tull warned Cicero that he could be sold as a debt slave.
• The Blind Witch told Libo that Zhou Yun’s sorcery surpassed Lucretius’s and suggested he served the God of Sorcery.
• The Blind Witch proposed sacrificing sixty-six people to stop the God of Sorcery, and Libo agreed after consulting the senator.
• Someone announced that Tull’s toilet had collapsed and that he had fallen into the cesspit.

Tita confronted Zhou Yun after learning he had gone to the Temple District about his debts, but the booklet he gave her revealed a deposit of 53,204 Denars rather than a debt. Zhou Yun reassured her that they were rich now, and they ended the night sharing bread and fish sauce.

• Tita accused Zhou Yun of gambling away the thirty Denars Professor Lucretius had given him and said she would give him her father's pension as a final act of repayment.
• Tita opened the Broken Lighthouse booklet and read that Zhou Yun had 53,204 Denars deposited, then slapped herself in disbelief.
• Zhou Yun explained that the booklet showed a deposit, not a debt, and told Tita their family was rich.
• Tita cried with relief, described her nightmares about Zhou Yun being sold into slavery and dying, and insisted that he never gamble again.
• Zhou Yun calmed Tita with his Telepathy School power, then offered her bread with fish sauce and joked that it tasted like Mortarion's bathwater.

Zhou Yun taught his students about Macragge’s ancient history before discovering signs that Dacia was hiding something dangerous. After breaking into Lucretius’s office, he suspected Slaanesh’s followers were preparing a sacrifice involving Sakofi.

• Zhou Yun lectured the Grammar Academy students about the Golden Age, Old Night, and the Warlock King, while learning that Sakofi Paulus had taken a long leave from class.
• After class, Zhou Yun went to Lucretius’s locked office, intending to search it while the professor was away.
• Dacia told Zhou Yun that her younger sister was unwell and left to go home, while Zhou Yun used his psychic power to force open the office door.
• Zhou Yun sensed that Dacia had lied and noticed whip and needle marks on her body.
• Zhou Yun worried that Slaanesh’s followers had made Sakofi disappear and were preparing a sacrifice.

Zhou Yun searched Lucretius's office for clues about the Broken Lighthouse Cult and the God of Sorcery, discovering that the Lighthouse Star was Sotha and linking his prophecy to the Pharos Lighthouse and Robert Guilliman. After blessing a cross with faith and leaving it for Lucretius, Zhou Yun sensed a soul in the Warp and turned his attention to the Golden Throne.

• Zhou Yun took Blackstone fragments from Lucretius's office and read his notes about Father's Eye, the Broken Lighthouse Cult, and the Lighthouse Star.
• Zhou Yun identified the Lighthouse Star as Sotha and concluded that he, Tita, and Robert Guilliman would travel there to seek the Pharos Lighthouse.
• Zhou Yun recognized the crystal eagle-head artifacts as connected to the God of Sorcery, identified him as Kairos, and pocketed the artifacts.
• Zhou Yun blessed a silver-gilt cross with faith and left it where Lucretius would notice it.
• Zhou Yun suddenly sensed a soul flame in the Warp and shifted his gaze toward the Golden Throne.

Zhou Yun prepared to enter a new body through a carefully timed ritual, while Libo gathered followers for a sacrifice and feared the God of Sorcery after Tull’s gruesome death. The chapter left Libo waiting for the blind witch to begin the ritual around one in the morning.

• Tita told Zhou Yun she had found an apartment building for sale, and Zhou Yun explained why he wanted her to buy it rather than a villa.
• Zhou Yun told Tita he would spend the night at the church, where he planned to enter another body at an auspicious time.
• Tita worried that Zhou Yun’s Catholic conversion was suspicious and suggested he join the Flying Spaghetti Church instead.
• Libo watched sixty-six followers prepare for sacrifice and recalled the bizarre chain of events that had killed Tull.
• The blind witch told Libo to wait until around one in the morning, when Father's Eye overlooked Macragge, before performing the ritual.

Zhou Yun joined dinner at the Catholic church, where First Eater Laganon recognized him and warned him that powerful forces might be targeting him. After the children left, Zhou Yun entered the church’s triangular room to continue his work.

• Zhou Yun paid Bishop Agrippa rent for the room and joined the church’s spaghetti dinner.
• Zhou Yun gave the children coins and learned from Agrippa that they were the children of soldiers killed in the Ilyrium Expedition, whose compensation had been stolen by greedy relatives.
• Laganon explained how he had heard about Zhou Yun’s fifty-thousand-denar deposit and advised him to seek protection from the War King Temple or the Shattered Lighthouse if he sensed malice.
• Zhou Yun considered the dangers associated with the Shattered Lighthouse and waited until one in the morning, when he entered the triangular room.

Zhou Yun confronted the Blind Witch in the Warp after she sacrificed sixty-six people to empower herself and attack him. He revealed the Golden Throne to her, and she began to burn.

• The Blind Witch began a ritual that strangled Sakofi Paulus and the other sixty-five devotees while she sang.
• Sakofi remembered her doubts and attachments as she died and saw a suffering woman resembling the statue at Semuneta Temple.
• The Blind Witch sacrificed the sixty-six souls to empower herself, transformed in the Warp, and tracked Zhou Yun.
• Zhou Yun criticized the Blind Witch for throwing her own soul at him, leaving her overwhelmed by his contempt.
• The Blind Witch saw the Golden Throne and the mummified Emperor behind Zhou Yun, then began to burn.

Zhou Yun’s Golden Throne flames destroyed the Blind Witch and many daemons in Slaanesh’s Realm, where he unexpectedly received powerful faith. He then awakened in a second body amid desert ruins, whose memories suggested that he had arrived on Prospero.

• Zhou Yun refused to forgive the Blind Witch, and the Golden Throne’s flames burned her soul to ash before spreading through the sacrificial threads into Slaanesh’s Realm.
• The flames ignited the sixty-six sacrificed souls and destroyed many daemons, freeing Semuneta from her Greater Daemon guard and leaving Libo terrified.
• Zhou Yun sensed two streams of faith from Slaanesh’s Realm, one of which increased his psychic power by ten percent, before returning his consciousness to the Golden Throne.
• Zhou Yun projected his consciousness into a second body, an archaeologist and trained psyker lying in yellow-sand ruins, while continuing to control his body on Macragge.
• Zhou Yun examined the archaeologist’s dead companions and recalled the term Soul-Eater Bee, leading him to suspect that the ruins were on Prospero.

Zhou Yun recognized Prospero and used the archaeologist’s psychic abilities to fight a Soul-Eater Bee swarm, but the bees’ eggs doomed his body. After he detonated his psychic power, Magnus witnessed a black knight appear and vanish, leaving him wondering whether it was his father or teacher.

• Zhou Yun’s precognition revealed that his psychic power had attracted a massive Soul-Eater Bee swarm on Prospero.
• Zhou Yun fought off the bees with Telekinesis School and Biomancy School abilities, but realized their eggs had entered his brain and would kill him.
• Zhou Yun detonated his psychic power, killing many Soul-Eater Bees and their queen before his body died.
• Magnus sensed a powerful presence emerge through the Veil and traveled to the ruins, where he saw a black knight standing over the dead queen.
• The black knight pulled a blade from the queen’s skull, then dissipated into ashes as Magnus wondered whether he was his father or teacher.

Zhou Yun studied the Thousand Sons’ psychic technique Shape Guardian Spirit and tried to create a guardian from faith-born psychic power, imagining the Emperor’s Champion. The brief summons reached Celestine, who mistook it for her lord calling a champion and set out to find him.

• Zhou Yun discovered that the archaeologist’s psychic techniques closely matched the Inquisition’s and considered whether the Inquisition had inherited or corrupted Thousand Sons techniques.
• Zhou Yun examined Shape Guardian Spirit and decided to try shaping a guardian with faith-born psychic power to avoid Tzeentch’s influence.
• Zhou Yun pictured a black-armored Emperor’s Champion and poured his psychic power into the image, briefly igniting a black knight in the Warp.
• Celestine heard the summons, saw the black knight, and concluded that her lord had called his champion.
• Celestine spread her wings and resolved to travel toward the source of the summons.

Zhou Yun failed to form a faith-powered guardian spirit, glimpsed a dangerous shadow behind the Golden Throne, and received fragmented visions of the future. Meanwhile, Tatius learned that Semuneta had sent him to find the Cursed One, and the chapter ended with Cicero and Libo being confronted about Zhou Yun.

• Zhou Yun failed to condense a guardian spirit because his faith-derived psychic power was too weak, then heard the shadow behind the Golden Throne call him a pig before it forced him back into reality.
• Zhou Yun used Foresight and saw fragments of a violent future, then decided to seek information through the upcoming Marcus Guilliman family recruitment and visit the bathhouse run by Slaanesh's followers.
• Tatius woke from a dream in which Semuneta named the Cursed One and instructed him to find that person.
• Tatius considered asking Laganon, Imhotep, or Lucretius about the Cursed One, while lamenting that the Semuneta Temple's followers largely believed in the God of First Cry.
• On March 20th, a burly man angrily told Cicero and Libo that they had two days left to deal with the penniless grammar teacher.

Quintus pressed Cicero and Libo over their failure to stop Zhou Yun, while Cicero planned to face him fairly at the coming recruitment interview. Zhou Yun continued gambling at the bathhouse to gather faith, information, and something the cultists possessed, and Cicero came down to meet him.

• Quintus demanded to know why Cicero had not killed Zhou Yun, and Cicero explained that surveillance and security made an attack impossible.
• Cicero argued that he could defeat Zhou Yun in debate during the recruitment process, but Quintus warned that Zhou Yun himself would test him.
• A waiter delivered news that Zhou Yun had arrived again, and Libo ordered Cicero to go find out what he wanted.
• Zhou Yun won his thirteenth consecutive roll at the bathhouse and reflected on his attempts to attract worshippers, learn secrets, and obtain something from the cultists.
• Cicero came down the stairs, and Zhou Yun greeted him warmly.

Zhou Yun persuaded Cicero to obtain ashes from the witch and other sacrifices in exchange for five thousand Denar. At the casino, Zhou Yun met Archon Jarlan, whose extraordinary luck matched his own, and recognized him as the man destined to murder Roboute Guilliman’s foster father.

• Zhou Yun confronted Cicero about his debts and urged him to gamble again, using Cicero’s own past arguments for pleasure against him.
• Zhou Yun offered Cicero five thousand Denar for a box of ashes from the sacrificial site, and Cicero agreed to bring them when they applied for positions at Marcus Guilliman’s home.
• Zhou Yun won over five thousand Denar at the casino with his Strange Luck psychic technique.
• Archon Jarlan challenged Zhou Yun to a dice game, and both men rolled three sixes.
• Jarlan left with Caepio after telling Zhou Yun to claim fifty thousand Denar in his name, and Zhou Yun recognized Jarlan as Roboute Guilliman’s future foster-father’s murderer.

Zhou Yun received the ashes from Cicero and questioned him about Consul Jarlan before the tutors’ selection began. Marcus Guilliman’s six-year-old son interviewed the candidates and left eight scholars shaken; Cicero entered next, unaware that Euten and the child had already judged him.

• Cicero handed Zhou Yun a box of ashes, and Zhou Yun asked whether Consul Jarlan belonged to Cicero’s group.
• Quintus Guilliman announced that Marcus’s six-year-old son would interview the tutors seeking to teach him.
• The first eight teachers returned from their interviews pale, furious, trembling, or emotionally shattered.
• Cicero confidently went in for his interview, believing he could enlighten the child.
• Euten decided Cicero’s decadent thoughts made him unsuitable, while the child watched his red shoes and welcomed him.

Zhou Yun challenged Cicero’s belief that wisdom and pleasure brought happiness by telling him about a contented gardener and questioning what Cicero’s own philosophy had given him. Cicero fled in terror after glimpsing a storm of blue and gold in the mirror, while Zhou Yun watched with mild curiosity.

• Cicero prepared to enlighten a ruler’s heir, but the young man behind the mirror asked him whether an infant or an ordinary centenarian was happier.
• The young man described a gardener whose modest life, family, and painting hobby had left him fulfilled and happy.
• Cicero claimed the gardener’s happiness came from ignorance, and the young man argued that Cicero was no wiser and had gained no happiness from his wisdom.
• Cicero saw a vast blue-and-gold storm in the mirror, called the being behind it a monster or god, and fled.
• Zhou Yun watched Cicero rush past him in the corridor and wondered why he was so scared.

Zhou Yun confronted the mysterious presence behind the mirror and saw a vast blue-and-gold storm of ordered will spreading from Macragge across the stars. Within it, he sensed a blood-and-sand world on the storm’s edge and a body there that he could enter.

• Zhou Yun noticed a dwarf watching him from a tower and entered the room where Marcus Guilliman's fortieth illegitimate son was staying.
• Zhou Yun spoke with the voice behind the mirror about Cicero’s beliefs and argued that real pain would make ordinary life seem like happiness.
• Zhou Yun sent his psychic will through the mirror, despite warnings from his instincts and precognitive sense.
• The child’s presence halted the room’s movement, and Zhou Yun’s will met the child’s gaze in a storm of blue and gold.
• Zhou Yun saw the storm spread across worlds and sensed a blood-and-sand world at its border, where he could enter a body.

Zhou Yun discovered that the child beyond the mirror was Robert Guilliman and cautiously tested his thoughts about Ultramar. Guilliman revealed his vision for the Five Hundred Worlds, then condemned the prospect of Ultramar breaking away from a future unified human Imperium, leaving Zhou Yun privately amused by the contradiction.

• Zhou Yun confirmed that the child beyond the mirror was Robert Guilliman after sensing the immense Warp power within his mind.
• Guilliman asked Zhou Yun what he thought of Ultramar, and Zhou Yun realized Guilliman had already planned the Five Hundred Worlds.
• Zhou Yun described Ultramar as a beacon and model for humanity that could become a new human Imperium, and Guilliman approved.
• Zhou Yun asked how Guilliman would judge Ultramar seceding from a unified human Imperium during a crisis.
• Guilliman called such secession a betrayal and the act of an opportunist, while Zhou Yun wished he could record the answer.

Madam Euten questioned the child about his reactions to Cicero and Zhou Yun, learning that the child believed Zhou Yun knew his true nature and might be a psyker. After returning home, Zhou Yun ate Tita’s Thalassa Tomato Eggs and planned to visit a church that night.

• The child told Madam Euten that Cicero wore shoes made of human skin and criticized slavery as wasteful and harmful to humanity.
• The child said Zhou Yun understood who he was, suspected he was a psyker, and had agreed to a mutual pretense while they assessed each other.
• Madam Euten took the child home and promised to cook Thalassa Tomato Eggs to celebrate his finding a suitable teacher.
• Tita served Zhou Yun Thalassa Tomato Eggs and told him an apartment Senator Caepio offered was cheap because two people had died there.
• Zhou Yun agreed to ask Lord Marcus about apartments and told Tita he planned to go to church that night.

Zhou Yun avoided revealing himself to the Broken Lighthouse Temple and chose not to approach the Shattered Lighthouse until he could trust Roboute Guilliman. After returning to the blood-soaked arena through the Golden Throne, he survived his wounds and stood up before the cheering spectators.

• Laganon First to Eat introduced Imhotep to Zhou Yun while the Broken Lighthouse Temple and the Semuneta Temple waited for a meeting in the Catholic church.
• Imhotep suspected Zhou Yun might serve the Eagle Crystal Flipping Pigeon and used a Blackstone device to disrupt his projected will.
• Zhou Yun decided to keep his distance from the Broken Lighthouse Temple and the Shattered Lighthouse until Roboute Guilliman was strong enough to trust.
• Zhou Yun endured the Golden Throne's burning pain and projected his will to a world of blood-red sand.
• Zhou Yun rose from the sand, and the spectators cheered that the new gladiator slave had survived.

Zhou Yun woke in a gladiator’s body in Desia’s arena and used Warp abilities to kill a beastman. After surviving an attempt to capture him with anesthetic, he recognized the arena as Nuceria and collapsed.

• Zhou Yun recovered from the psychic impact of the thin Veil and killed his beastman opponent with a Warp-enhanced strike.
• Old Bear Onomammus defeated his own opponent, and Worm's Eye announced their victory to the crowd.
• Worm's Eye fired a bolt of electricity at Zhou Yun, but it struck Old Bear Onomammus and knocked him unconscious.
• Zhou Yun tried to escape with Old Bear Onomammus as the Veil thickened, but he was hit with anesthetic mist.
• Zhou Yun failed to metabolize the anesthetic, recognized the place as Nuceria, and collapsed.

After waking in Nuceria’s gladiator cells, Zhou Yun met the gladiators and discovered that the Veil there was unusually thick, while he could sense a connection to Macragge. Angron welcomed him as family, but their meeting revealed a future of blood, rage, and Nails.

• Zhou Yun realized Nuceria would join Roboute Guilliman’s realm and that its High-Riders had enslaved Angron and driven Nails into his skull.
• Zhou Yun woke beneath Dacia City’s arena, where Onomammus and Kleister praised his survival and fighting in the arena.
• Zhou Yun studied the heavy Veil and sensed that he might navigate between Nuceria and Macragge, whose forces could potentially aid the gladiators.
• Kleister welcomed Zhou Yun into the gladiators’ family, and Angron gave him a helmet as a token of kinship.
• When Angron clasped Zhou Yun’s hand, Zhou Yun foresaw their brotherhood and a future for Angron filled with blood, rage, and Nails.

Zhou Yun met with Marcus Guilliman, who stressed the importance of teaching the gifted child Roboute Guilliman, then began their first lesson by presenting numerology as mathematics. Guilliman questioned the lesson, but Zhou Yun continued with warnings about the numbers six and seven.

• Marcus Guilliman praised Zhou Yun for becoming the extraordinary child's teacher and warned that the future of Macragge depended on teaching him well.
• Quintus Guilliman interrupted to tell Marcus that Elder Caepio had arrived, and Zhou Yun went to the classroom alone.
• Zhou Yun greeted Guilliman behind the mirror and announced that their first lesson would be mathematics, the foundation of all sciences.
• Guilliman asked about advanced mathematical topics, but Zhou Yun wrote the number six and described it as a warning sign of depravity and Chaos.
• Guilliman called Zhou Yun's numerology feudal superstition, and Zhou Yun insisted it was rigorous science before introducing the number seven.