Recaps

Li Qinwu sacrificed Lucius's daemon weapons and received the God-Emperor's massive Emperor's Bolt Pistol, while Bruce hatched from his egg. The chapter ended with the Adeptus Custodes discovering the pistol was missing from the Terra Imperial Palace armory.

• Li Qinwu sacrificed the Blade of Stings and Whip of Torment, and the God-Emperor's Psychic Flame burned away their daemons and destroyed the weapons.
• Bruce's egg cracked, and Bruce hatched, ate the remaining yolk, and swallowed his eggshell.
• Li Qinwu noticed the Emperor's Bolt Pistol on the shrine, picked it up, and learned from the system that it was a powerful, soul-bound weapon that generated Psychic Power shells.
• The Adeptus Custodes discovered the Bolt Pistol was missing from its Stasis Field display and sounded the alarm.

Li Qinwu tested the Emperor Bolt Pistol and admired its immense firepower before examining the ring Bruce Crocodile had recovered. He discovered that Lilith's Wedding Ring contained a fragment of a C'tan's soul and could grant its wearer some of a C'tan's power.

• Li Qinwu fired hundreds of psychic bolt rounds at a Ceramite target and found that the Emperor Bolt Pistol could eventually shatter even heavily armored targets.
• Li Qinwu hung the pistol above his bed and asked Bruce Crocodile to show him the ring.
• Bruce Crocodile retrieved the ring from Beast God Space and sent it flying to Li Qinwu.
• Li Qinwu used the system to identify the ring as Lilith's Wedding Ring, which held a C'tan soul fragment and could distort the laws of physics.
• Li Qinwu learned how the Necrons shattered the C'tan into fragments and how an Eldar ruler sealed one fragment in the ring.

Li Qinwu learned that Lilith's Wedding Ring could manipulate matter on a small scale, then demonstrated its power to the Iron Skull Archmagos by liquefying Adamantium. The Archmagos was left stunned as Li Qinwu showed he could reproduce the conditions needed to forge the metal.

• Li Qinwu put on Lilith's Wedding Ring and learned it could use Psychic Power to manipulate matter by changing its molecular structure.
• Li Qinwu hurried to the Golden Road and asked the Iron Skull Archmagos what conditions were needed to refine and forge Adamantium.
• The Iron Skull Archmagos explained that Adamantium required extreme pressure and temperature, then tossed a cube of it into the black sphere Li Qinwu created.
• Li Qinwu used the ring to compress the Adamantium cube into a sphere and liquefy it.
• The Iron Skull Archmagos exclaimed in shock and demanded to know how Li Qinwu had done it.

Li Qinwu was preparing to test Lilith's Wedding Ring as a substitute for a Planetary Forge when the war on Sweet Star interrupted him. The planetary governor asked him to appoint a military commander so the exhausted official corps could focus on logistics as liberation reached seventy percent.

• The Iron Skull Archmagos explained how difficult Adamantium production was and urged Li Qinwu to test Lilith's Wedding Ring as a Planetary Forge substitute.
• Li Qinwu planned to return to Agricultural Planet 496b, but the captain relayed a request from Sweet Star's planetary governor about the surface war.
• Li Qinwu joined the Fortune's bridge and saw that the planetary governor had become gaunt after two months without sleep while coordinating the planet-wide war.
• The planetary governor asked Li Qinwu to appoint a military representative to command the fighting so the official corps could concentrate on logistics.
• The planetary governor reported that Sweet Star's liberation had reached seventy percent, with the T'au and their allies reduced to territories around the Arctic and Main Hive City.

After Li Qinwu refused to recall his core aides, he appointed Bruce Crocodile commander of Sweet Star’s one hundred million PDF troops and left for Agricultural World 496B. Bruce took charge of the war effort, astonishing the bridge crew by issuing detailed battlefield orders.

• Li Qinwu considered sending Rudosen and Little Joel to command Sweet Star’s forces but refused to break his promise to keep them away until they found wives.
• Li Qinwu appointed Bruce Crocodile War Marshal and handed him command of the planet’s one hundred million PDF troops before departing through a Portal.
• A bridge officer showed Bruce a battlefield briefing containing four character profiles and little useful information about the war.
• Bruce Crocodile vomited up a marshal’s peaked cap and red cape, then put them on.
• Bruce Crocodile sent detailed orders directing several PDF army groups to advance, flank, ambush, and attack T'au forces, leaving the officers stunned.

Li Qinwu and the Iron Skull Archmagos began testing Lilith's Wedding Ring on Moon 2 to measure its Planetary Forge capacity and its potential for Adamantium production. Li Qinwu successfully created multiple small forges, but confirmed he could not use the ring to create matter from nothing.

• Li Qinwu sent Saint Raiser and the Astartes recruits to Sweet Star for live combat training, then returned with the Iron Skull Archmagos to Agricultural Planet 496b.
• After the Archmagos warned that a failed Planetary Forge experiment could cause a nuclear-level explosion, Li Qinwu chose vacant Moon 2 as the test site.
• Li Qinwu brought Adamantium, monitoring equipment, and assistant scientists to Moon 2, then entered a warehouse alone to conduct the tests.
• Li Qinwu used Lilith's Wedding Ring to create a standard Titan bolt-sized Planetary Forge and began deploying more forges.
• Li Qinwu explained that the ring let him manipulate physical laws but that his Psychic Power could not provide enough energy to create matter from nothing.

Li Qinwu tested how many Planetary Forges Lilith's Wedding Ring could maintain and how large a single forge could become, pushing toward the scale needed for a Gloriana-class Battleship. He died when his Psychic Power ran out, and the unstable forge exploded as hundreds of scientists watched a sun rise over Moon 2.

• Li Qinwu created 1,029 high-temperature, high-pressure spheres before the C'tan Shard's memory reached its limit, and Iron Skull Archmagos calculated that they could produce roughly as much as two standard Industrial Worlds.
• Iron Skull Archmagos had Li Qinwu test larger forges in the vacuum outside the monitoring station, first for an Armed Merchant Ship and then for an Imperial Frigate.
• At Iron Skull Archmagos's urging, Li Qinwu expanded the forge to seven kilometers, the keel length for an Imperial Battleship, and then pushed it toward the fifteen kilometers associated with a Gloriana-class Battleship.
• Li Qinwu expanded the forge to fourteen kilometers before Lilith's Wedding Ring drained his Psychic Power, causing his mind to collapse and his body to die.
• With Li Qinwu no longer maintaining its force field, the Planetary Forge destabilized and exploded, and hundreds of scientists in the Camel Shuttle saw a sun rise over Moon 2.

Li Qinwu woke after the Planetary Forge experiment had exploded, learned that his ring survived but three technicians had died, and gained access to technology for building large warships and Titans. He planned to move heavy industry to Moon 2 and preserve Agricultural Planet 496b from destructive mining.

• Nightingale and the Iron Skull Archmagos tricked Li Qinwu into thinking a hundred years had passed and that Moon 2 had become an Adamantium factory.
• The Iron Skull Archmagos returned Lilith's Wedding Ring to Li Qinwu and explained that the Planetary Forge explosion had destroyed the monitoring station and killed Vyacheslav Barannikov, Anton Yudintsev, and Nikita Buyanov.
• The Iron Skull Archmagos said he would search Agricultural Planet 496b for Adamantium veins so Li Qinwu could use the ring to assist with mining.
• Li Qinwu punished Nightingale for tricking him, then spent time vacationing on Agricultural Planet 496b as the planet continued to develop.
• Li Qinwu planned to move the nuclear industry to Moon 1 and the steel industry to Moon 2, using asteroids as raw materials to protect Agricultural Planet 496b from destructive industrialization.

Li Qinwu watched Li Dadan and Li Zhongdan train and planned to equip them with powerful Knight Mechs and warships. Nightingale insisted that he build a ship for each child at the same time, then urged him to check on Li Danü’s remarkable Psychic Power.

• Li Qinwu gave his children spirit tea to strengthen their souls while Li Dadan and Li Zhongdan trained in Knight Mechs.
• Nightingale asked whether Li Qinwu would keep the two boys close, and he described plans to upgrade their mechs and give each a cruiser and supporting forces.
• Li Qinwu explained that he wanted to build a Knight Mothership using a Lunar-class Cruiser frame once they had enough Adamantium.
• Nightingale insisted that Li Qinwu build both ships at once so he would not favor either child, and he agreed.
• Nightingale told Li Qinwu that Li Danü could control one hundred Blue Whales with Psychic Power and asked him to assess the boy himself.

Li Qinwu learned that Li Danü had befriended a colossal Void Whale traveling toward their planet and worried about the danger it posed. Unable to stop the creature from coming, he took Li Danü to the gym and began training her to build strength.

• Li Qinwu visited Li Danü at the Seaside Villa and watched her command over a hundred blue whales.
• The Bear Priest told Li Qinwu that Li Danü had contacted a massive space beast approaching from afar.
• Li Qinwu recognized the creature as a Void Whale, a planet-sized being capable of devouring asteroids and potentially threatening inhabited worlds.
• Li Danü confirmed that her friend, named Void Whale, was coming to visit and said he had no parents and could snack on asteroid belts.
• Li Qinwu worried that the Void Whale might mistake nearby planets for food, but Li Danü said it had already set out.
• Li Qinwu carried Li Danü to the gym and made her begin lifting weights so she could build strength.

Li Qinwu visited Moon 1 to inspect its expanding nuclear industry and learned how its factories could supply reactors and weapons for the growing Fleet Iron Guard. The chapter left Agricultural Planet 496b prosperous but increasingly exposed to powerful outsiders, while its military buildup continued.

• Li Qinwu put Li Danü through an exhausting workout, then left for Moon 1 after the planetary governor asked him to host a business summit.
• Li Qinwu and Governor Zeppelin traveled past the planet's busy space station, where Zeppelin celebrated the new trade wealth and Li Qinwu warned that prosperity would attract enemies and powerful interests.
• Moon 1's supervisor showed Li Qinwu and Governor Zeppelin its Helium-3 extraction facilities and explained the moon's reactor and weapon production capacity.
• Li Qinwu learned that Moon 1 could produce two thousand Small Personal Plasma Reactors and three thousand Plasma Guns monthly when large reactors were not being ordered.
• Governor Zeppelin said the planet had nearly fifty thousand Fleet Iron Guard in reserve and planned to replace its regular infantry with them within ten years.

Li Qinwu inspected the Factory’s Plasma Guns and decided to pursue a Thousand-ton-class weapon to defend Agricultural Planet 496b. Although the supervisor said the Factory could not build one with its current technology, Li Qinwu planned to ask the Iron Skull Archmagos for the design using the favor he owed.

• The supervisor showed Li Qinwu how a standard Plasma Gun destroyed an armored target and explained that old, overused guns were prone to exploding.
• The supervisor presented Plasma Guns ranging from a forty-kilogram Fleet Iron Guard model to a Hundred-ton-class Titan weapon.
• Li Qinwu asked whether the Factory could build a Thousand-ton-class Plasma Gun for planetary defense.
• The supervisor warned that firing a weapon of that scale would melt its barrel and cause a catastrophic explosion.
• Li Qinwu decided to use the favor owed by the Iron Skull Archmagos to obtain Thousand-ton-class Plasma Gun technology.

Governor Zeppelin brought Li Qinwu to a reception with merchants and military representatives to negotiate purchases of the Nuclear Factory’s Plasma Guns and other deals. Li Qinwu learned that a representative of the Blue Dwarf Family had arrived with an unclear purpose, and he began by approaching an Astra Militarum colonel.

• Governor Zeppelin asked Li Qinwu to wear his Inquisitor’s Rosette at the reception to keep dishonest visitors in line.
• Governor Zeppelin explained that an Astra Militarum colonel representing a Sword-class Frigate wanted to buy several thousand Infantry Plasma Guns.
• Governor Zeppelin told Li Qinwu that a pilgrimage ship’s representative might trade an Armed Merchant Ship for the Psychic Church’s Saint’s Remains.
• Governor Zeppelin warned Li Qinwu that a young representative of the powerful Blue Dwarf Family might have come for reasons beyond business.
• Li Qinwu recalled the family’s past connection to pirate ships that had come to Agricultural Planet 496b and agreed to probe the representative’s intentions.
• Li Qinwu approached the Astra Militarum colonel and asked whether he liked the food on Agricultural Planet 496b.

Li Qinwu negotiated with an Astra Militarum colonel whose warship was preparing to fight a Tyranid splinter fleet. He agreed to provide three thousand Plasma Guns in exchange for an IOU and food for the troops.

• Li Qinwu greeted the Astra Militarum colonel, who saluted him after recognizing his Inquisitorial Rosette.
• The colonel explained that his warship carried nearly thirty thousand recruits with inadequate weapons and was heading to support a world threatened by Tyranids.
• Li Qinwu grew concerned about the Tyranids, but the colonel assured him that the splinter fleet was far away and contained by the Imperial Navy.
• The colonel offered an IOU waiving 0.1% of Agricultural World 496B’s taxes for one year in exchange for three thousand Plasma Guns.
• Li Qinwu accepted the deal and offered one can of food for every Plasma Gun, asking the colonel to obtain an IOU stamped by his captain.

Li Qinwu agreed to provide an Astra Militarum regiment with 3,000 Plasma Guns and revealed his plan to profit by redeeming military IOUs. He then approached an Imperial Cult monk about the saintly bones on Agricultural World 496B, opening negotiations that could also help secure the monk’s armed merchant ship.

• Li Qinwu agreed to supply the Astra Militarum colonel with 3,000 Plasma Guns, and the colonel hurried off to obtain his captain’s signature.
• Li Qinwu explained to Governor Zeppelin that he planned to buy military IOUs cheaply and redeem them, and Zeppelin agreed to keep future paperwork precise.
• Governor Zeppelin urged Li Qinwu to negotiate for the Imperial Cult monk’s armed merchant ship, and Li Qinwu approached the monk.
• Li Qinwu asked the monk about the saintly bones at the Psychic Church, and the monk asked what it would take to take one set away.
• Li Qinwu refused to discuss money and told the monk to talk about fate instead.

Li Qinwu fabricated a saint’s relic by cutting off and burning his own hand, then tried to trade the bone to a monk for an Armed Merchant Ship. The monk questioned the suspicious relic, and Li Qinwu pressed him to accept it.

• Li Qinwu told the monk that the eight saints’ remains could not be removed, but offered a saint’s hand bone instead.
• Li Qinwu injected himself, cut off his left arm in a restroom, regrew his hand, and burned the severed hand down to bone.
• Li Qinwu presented the golden hand bone, which held up a middle finger, and claimed it belonged to Saint Motherfucker.
• Li Qinwu invented a tale about a saint defying a Greater Daemon and said the relic could repel heretics and evil spirits.
• The monk questioned the bone’s reddish and greenish coloring, while Li Qinwu demanded to know whether he would trade.

Li Qinwu traded a miraculous hand bone to a pilgrim fleet for an armed merchant ship, and years later the relic became a weapon against daemons. Back at the banquet, he tested Ireland of the Blue Dwarf Family, suspected the family held the Pale Baron, and completed a reactor deal while Ireland concluded Li Qinwu threatened their ambitions.

• Li Qinwu traded the raised-middle-finger hand bone to a monk, who verified its power against a Lesser Daemon before the pilgrim fleet delivered a 1.5-kilometer armed merchant ship.
• Years later, the Grey Knights used the relic to banish a Greater Daemon and blind it, but the hand bone crumbled to ashes, prompting them to search for more of its parts.
• Li Qinwu approached Ireland, the Blue Dwarf Family's representative, and asked whether the Pale Baron was in his hands; Ireland denied knowing the name.
• Ireland negotiated to buy a Super-Large Plasma Reactor from Li Qinwu for Thrones, steel, and industrial equipment, then left believing Li Qinwu would obstruct his family's dominance of the sector.

Li Qinwu prepared to fortify Agricultural World 496B and its moons after learning that the Blue Dwarf Family might be holding the Rogue Trader Warrant. Iron Skull Archmagos gave him plans for plasma-gun defenses, then proposed mining Adamantium by opening a passage to the magma below the Great Desert.

• Li Qinwu refitted the armed merchant ship to carry weapons and steel between the Asteroid Belt and Moon Two, which he planned to turn into a steel factory.
• Li Qinwu concluded that the Pale Baron had fled to the Blue Dwarf Family with the Rogue Trader Warrant and resolved to visit them after his fleet returned.
• Li Qinwu asked Iron Skull Archmagos for anti-ship defenses, and the Archmagos gave him a USB drive containing plasma-gun manufacturing data and turret placements.
• Iron Skull Archmagos revealed rich Adamantium deposits beneath Agricultural World 496B and chose the uninhabited Great Desert as a mining site.
• Iron Skull Archmagos explained that they could reach the magma-filled asthenosphere by digging a passage downward and letting the magma erupt onto the surface.

Li Qinwu discussed Iron Skull Archmagos’s plan to trigger a controlled magma eruption by digging a four-hundred-kilometer shaft, and learned that Lilith’s Wedding Ring could do the excavation. He agreed to begin after Iron Skull Archmagos reassured him that the project would not awaken the Necrons beneath the desert.

• Li Qinwu questioned whether digging a deep shaft would cause a catastrophic magma eruption, and Iron Skull Archmagos explained how earthquakes would seal the passage after roughly one billion tons of magma escaped.
• Li Qinwu worried that the eruption could overheat the planet or awaken the Necrons, but Iron Skull Archmagos said the heat was negligible and no Necron tombs lay beneath the Great Desert.
• Iron Skull Archmagos showed Li Qinwu a prepared, three-hundred-meter-wide pit and told him to dig vertically to a depth of four hundred kilometers.
• Iron Skull Archmagos taught Li Qinwu how to manipulate physical laws to excavate the shaft, and Li Qinwu confirmed that the C'tan Shard inside Lilith's Wedding Ring could perform the required tasks.
• Iron Skull Archmagos ordered Li Qinwu to prepare to dig and began evacuating nearby personnel and equipment.

Li Qinwu used Lilith's Wedding Ring to create a gravity launcher that drilled into the Great Desert, but its eruption filled the sky with black smoke. With the Iron Skull Archmagos's formula, Li Qinwu made a vast barrier that sucked up the smoke and sent the dangerous matter into space.

• Li Qinwu followed the Iron Skull Archmagos's instructions to create a three-hundred-meter black sphere and drop it into a massive pit in the Great Desert.
• The sphere launched earth and rock into the sky as it drilled underground, and Li Qinwu and the Iron Skull Archmagos watched the eruption from a Shuttle and then an orbital space station.
• After an hour, the borehole began spewing black smoke, and Li Qinwu confronted the Iron Skull Archmagos over the environmental damage.
• The Iron Skull Archmagos gave Li Qinwu a formula for a filtering barrier, and Li Qinwu used Lilith's Wedding Ring to form a dome over the borehole.
• The dome drew the black smoke into a narrow current and sent dust and hot matter into space, clearing the desert sky.

Li Qinwu and Iron Skull Archmagos turned the Great Desert’s magma eruption into a rich Adamantium deposit and began building a warship and Titan foundry on Moon 2. Back on Agricultural World 496B, Li Qinwu tried to push his advisers into courting the Sisters of Battle and began handing out his own limbs as relic gifts.

• Iron Skull Archmagos confirmed that the cooled magma contained rich Adamantium, and Li Qinwu approved plans to build warships and Titans.
• Workers mined and processed the obsidian on Moon 2, while Iron Skull Archmagos stayed there to oversee the foundry.
• Li Qinwu berated his advisers for failing to court the Sisters of Battle, and Little Joel revealed he wanted a Saint’s relic to give Lady Aseya.
• Li Qinwu cut off his left arm and gave it to Little Joel, then severed his left thigh for Rudosen and his right leg for Parson.
• Little Knife asked for a relic despite already being married, so Li Qinwu handed him the Power Sword and offered his remaining arm.

Li Qinwu delayed his return from Agricultural World 496B to force Li Danü through an intense workout after learning she feared getting bulky. Nightingale then entrusted Li Dadan and Li Zhongdan to him so they could experience war and learn to stand on their own.

• After his post-smoke session with Nightingale, Li Qinwu asked where Troy was so he could take him back to Catwoman Nova, while noting that Troy was beginning to absorb Psychic Power on his own.
• Nightingale told Li Qinwu that Li Danü had said she did not want to work out because she feared her legs would grow thicker, so he delayed his departure to train her.
• Li Qinwu took Li Danü from the ocean to the basement, made her squat 200 kilograms, and later explained that she should become strong like Sister Yu.
• Nightingale arrived with Li Dadan and Li Zhongdan and told Li Qinwu that their sons were ready to join him and learn through war.
• Li Qinwu agreed to have the Knight Guard prepare the boys for transfer to his warship, where they would live with him and learn to fight.

Li Qinwu brought two Knight Mechs and their supporting forces aboard the Fortune, then sent Li Dadan and Li Zhongdan to learn ship command from its captain. With Sweet Star nearly reclaimed, he set out to join the assault on the last T'au-held part of the Hive City, where Bruce Crocodile prepared to address the assembled troops.

• Li Qinwu opened a Portal aboard the Fortune and deployed two Knight Mechs, six Armiger Knights, tanks, vehicles, and Fleet Iron Guard.
• Li Qinwu showed Li Dadan and Li Zhongdan the cruiser and assigned them to serve as the captain's adjutants and learn to command a warship.
• The captain reported that the PDF had reclaimed nearly all of Sweet Star and that only the Spire remained under T'au control.
• Li Qinwu ordered a Shuttle and left to join the final battle, while the two children began learning from the captain on the bridge.
• The PDF gathered hundreds of thousands of troops near the Spire as surrendered human traitors were disarmed and former officers executed.
• Bruce Crocodile ascended a speaking platform to address the troops assembled for the assault.

Bruce Crocodile rallied the PDF soldiers and awarded medals before preparing to detonate Melta Bombs beneath the Hive City. Flameburst Commander seized him with an XV25 Stealth Battlesuit, leaving the PDF forces facing a hostage crisis.

• Bruce Crocodile delivered a barking speech that a private's comrade pretended to translate for the soldiers.
• Bruce Crocodile handed medals to a hundred soldiers, while the private's comrade supplied an inspiring account of what he was saying.
• The private shouted “For the God-Emperor,” prompting the PDF soldiers to join in the battle cry.
• Bruce Crocodile prepared to detonate the Melta Bombs, but Flameburst Commander appeared from stealth and restrained him with a Power Sword at his throat.
• Flameburst Commander threatened to kill Bruce Crocodile unless the surrounding PDF soldiers stood down.

The PDF killed Flameburst Commander and Bruce Crocodile, then launched a final assault to retake the Spire. After weeks of hunting and flooding the Spire with Ethereal Hormones, Li Qinwu’s forces exterminated the last T'au on Sweet Star.

• Flameburst Commander shot Lewis Lu and threatened to kill Bruce Crocodile unless the PDF withdrew.
• Li Qinwu shot Bruce Crocodile and Flameburst Commander, then ordered the PDF to attack the Spire.
• The PDF detonated Melta Bombs, breached the Spire, and poured in troops and armored units to slaughter the T'au.
• The PDF spent nearly half a month hunting T'au hiding throughout the Spire.
• Li Qinwu ordered Ethereal Hormones pumped through the Spire's air system, driving the remaining T'au into the open or killing them in hiding.
• The PDF exterminated the last T'au, and Sweet Star returned to the Imperium.