Recaps

Li Qinwu recruited Yellow Sand by promising to protect his uncorrupted descendants, then welcomed Swift Shadow into his camp with a pair of Aeldari Power Swords and armor. The chapter left Swift Shadow pleased with the swords but unsure whether the armor would fit his taller frame.

• Swift Shadow spotted Li Qinwu’s religious relics, and Yellow Sand knelt to ask for a chance to serve him.
• Li Qinwu offered to protect Yellow Sand’s uncorrupted descendants and find respectable work for the rest of his family, and Yellow Sand pledged to serve him.
• Li Qinwu considered using Yellow Sand’s Gene-seed and veteran experience to establish an Astartes Company focused on construction and defense.
• Swift Shadow asked Li Qinwu to take him in, and Li Qinwu gave him a pair of Aeldari Power Swords and a set of Wraithbone Power Armor.
• Swift Shadow discovered the swords were a matched pair, but worried the armor would not fit his 2.4-meter frame.

Li Qinwu turned Swift Shadow’s Wraithbone armor purple, then became sworn brothers with Swift Shadow and Yellow Sand. As their ship battled Death Lord’s warship, the enemy launched a boarding attack toward the Knight Legion, and Li Qinwu dismissed the threat.

• Li Qinwu reshaped and decorated Wraithbone Power Armor for Swift Shadow, whose reflection in it stirred questions about his identity.
• Li Qinwu declared that he, Yellow Sand, and Swift Shadow would become sworn brothers, and the three completed an oath ceremony in the Shipboard Cathedral.
• Swift Shadow noticed the saint statue witnessing their oath resembled Li Qinwu, who revealed that he had been canonized as a saint.
• The Fortune fought Death Lord’s smaller warship in a three-day artillery duel, leaving the enemy’s Void Shield close to collapse.
• Death Lord ordered Astartes to launch Boarding Torpedoes, and Li Qinwu readied his men for a counter-boarding attack.
• When the captain reported that every Boarding Torpedo was headed for the Knight Legion, Li Qinwu turned back toward his bedroom and ordered the Fleet Iron Guard to stand down.

After three days of bombardment, the Death Lord ordered a boarding assault on Li Qinwu’s larger warship, the Knight Legion, hoping to seize it as his new flagship. As his Chaos Astartes emerged from their torpedoes, the Death Lord dismissed the possibility that the ship contained an entire Knight Legion.

• The Death Lord learned that the Death’s Void Shields were failing and killed a Dark Tech-Priest who urged him to act.
• The Death Lord ordered his warriors to board the enemy ship and chose the larger vessel as their target.
• The Death Lord donned Saturn Pattern Terminator Armour and led ten Terminators and ninety veterans aboard fifteen Boarding Torpedoes.
• The boarding torpedoes struck the Knight Legion, and the Death Lord announced that he would rename it the Death Knight.
• A Chaos Astartes asked why the ship was called the Knight Legion, and the Death Lord replied that it could not contain an entire Knight Legion.

After defeating the Death Lord’s boarding force, Li Qinwu offered the enemy warship’s mortal crew amnesty in exchange for turning against their Chaos masters. The mortals killed a Chaos Astartes recruit and asked whether the offer was real.

• Knight Mechs killed Death and wiped out the boarding force, while Tech-Priests cleaned and dismantled the wrecked armor.
• Li Qinwu ordered the Fortune to bombard the enemy warship until its Void Shield overloaded, then demanded its surrender.
• A Chaos Astartes recruit rejected surrender and threatened Li Qinwu, who offered the ship’s fallen mortals amnesty if they stopped serving Chaos.
• A fallen mortal stabbed the recruit, and hundreds of mortals fought him until they killed him, though half their number died.
• A blood-covered fallen mortal approached the holographic projector and asked Li Qinwu whether the amnesty was real.

Li Qinwu offered amnesty to fallen mortals in exchange for serving the Imperium, promising them a way to end their souls’ suffering. He gave the corrupted Inquisitor Thraxol a fleet, troops, and weapons, and left Thraxol to choose whether he would fight for the Imperium or fall completely.

• Li Qinwu promised the fallen mortals protection and true release from their suffering if they surrendered and fought the Imperium’s enemies.
• The fallen mortals accepted his offer, shut down their engines, lowered their Void Shields, and pointed their cannons down.
• Li Qinwu told Inquisitor Thraxol he had secured a light cruiser, two Armed Merchant Ships, roughly one hundred thousand fallen mortals, and a shipment of weapons for him.
• Thraxol warned Li Qinwu that his corruption might make him betray the God-Emperor and suggested Li Qinwu kill him while he remained sane.
• Li Qinwu admitted he did not want to kill his former superior and sent Thraxol away to fight Xenos and heretics, accepting that he might eventually become a Chaos warlord.

Inquisitor Thraxol asked Li Qinwu for advice on his future, and Li Qinwu urged him to build power by fighting the T'au. Equipped with forces, armor, and a blessed Rosette, Thraxol set out as a Daemon Inquisitor protected from the Chaos Gods’ whispers.

• Li Qinwu advised Inquisitor Thraxol to raid T'au territory, use captured weapons and human traitors to strengthen his forces, and spread Chaos if he eventually fell.
• Inquisitor Thraxol declined to see Troy but spoke privately with Nova, who left in tears.
• Li Qinwu sent Inquisitor Thraxol and the purple giant serpent to the Death Lord aboard the Camel-type Shuttle.
• Li Qinwu gave Inquisitor Thraxol Wraithbone Power Armor, supplies, vehicles, weapons, Holy Wine, Holy Oil, and a Rosette.
• Inquisitor Thraxol wore the Rosette, whose Night Watchman effect shielded him from the Chaos Gods’ whispers, and began his new role as a Daemon Inquisitor.

Inquisitor Thraxol assessed the corruption among his forces and turned his fleet into a raiding force across Imperium Nihilus. After decades of fighting, he reached T'au territory and began devastating planets, recruiting human laborers, and planting Chaos Cults before fleeing each time the T'au fleet approached.

• Inquisitor Thraxol inspected his three ships, sorted his corrupted subordinates into three groups, and assigned them different roles.
• Inquisitor Thraxol led the three traitor warships into Mandeville Point and spent decades fighting Orks, Eldar, pirates, and cultists, growing his fleet to seven or eight ships.
• Inquisitor Thraxol's fleet arrived near the T'au home region as Commander Farsight's separatist ambitions strained T'au defenses.
• Inquisitor Thraxol raided T'au-controlled planets, using nuclear weapons on worlds deep in T'au territory and forcing human laborers into his ranks on traitor planets.
• Inquisitor Thraxol looted each target and fled when the T'au main fleet arrived, leaving Cultists behind to spread Chaos among human populations.

Inquisitor Thraxol’s meddling transformed Goddess T'au'va and helped her turn against the T'au while favoring his fleet. The chapter explained how Thraxol used his heightened senses and psychic eye to detect and control disloyal subordinates, then introduced the Ogryn Giant Serpent as his second method of staying alive.

• Foot-washing Acolytes spread Chaos among naturalized human communities, changing Goddess T'au'va’s appearance and attitude.
• Goddess T'au'va mocked a stranded T'au fleet and refused to help it, while guiding Inquisitor Thraxol’s black fleet through the Warp Storm.
• Inquisitor Thraxol’s psychic mutations let him sense others’ emotions and read their thoughts through the eye on his chest.
• Inquisitor Thraxol used his thought-brand to influence weak-minded subordinates, but it eventually wore off and failed against strong minds.
• Inquisitor Thraxol survived repeated assassination attempts and relied on the Ogryn Giant Serpent as his second method of control.

Inquisitor Thraxol survived repeated assassination attempts with the help of the Ogryn Giant Serpent and used Holy Wine and Holy Oil to win the loyalty of fallen crewmen seeking death. These measures secured his position as commander-in-chief of the Night Watch Fleet.

• The Ogryn Giant Serpent protected Inquisitor Thraxol on the bridge, swallowing a senior officer who tried to kill him with a Power Sword.
• When usurpers fired a Leman Russ tank at Inquisitor Thraxol on the hangar deck, the Ogryn Giant Serpent blocked the shot and swallowed the tank, killing its crew.
• More than a hundred traitors attacked Inquisitor Thraxol’s quarters, but the Ogryn Giant Serpent killed them after they blasted a mannequin in the bed; Inquisitor Thraxol had been sleeping inside the serpent.
• Inquisitor Thraxol demonstrated that Holy Wine and Holy Oil burned fallen ones’ bodies and souls, attracting loyal followers who sought eternal death.
• Inquisitor Thraxol’s Eye of Insight, the Ogryn Giant Serpent, and Absolute Death secured his position as commander-in-chief of the Night Watch Fleet.

The chapter described the specialized Navigator, Daemon Sorcerer, and Dark Mechanicus Sage who kept Inquisitor Thraxol’s Night Watch Fleet running and under control. Thraxol kept the surviving Chaos Astartes recruits, and years later five had become loyal Night Watchmen.

• The mutated Eyeball Navigator guided Thraxol’s fleet through the Warp and helped him detect and evade stronger enemies.
• The Daemon Sorcerer used stored samples to curse bridge officers who disobeyed orders or tried to take ships from Thraxol.
• The Dark Mechanicus Sage maintained the fleet’s systems and unleashed an uncontrollable Mechanical Worm that slaughtered T'au before escaping underground.
• Thraxol discovered more than a dozen Chaos Astartes recruits aboard the ships and chose to keep them, ordering the Sage to continue their modifications.
• Several recruits attempted to assassinate Thraxol, who killed them; years later, five remained loyal and served the Imperium as Night Watchmen.

Over centuries, Inquisitor Thraxol’s followers grew into the Night Watch Chapter, a secretive force of corrupted and renegade warriors that attacked the Imperium’s enemies while avoiding all contact with Imperial authorities. After the Imperial Navy learned of them from captured T'au officers, the Imperium classified them as a low-danger suspected Chaos Warband, and the report disappeared into the archives.

• Inquisitor Thraxol gathered Chaos, Pirate, and Wandering Astartes, and his forces eventually established the ten-thousand-strong Night Watch Chapter.
• The Night Watch Chapter adopted strict rules of secrecy, fighting Xenos and withdrawing whenever Imperial forces appeared.
• After Thraxol died, Astartes took command, and the Chapter continued operating for centuries across T'au territory, Ork lands, and pirate-filled asteroid belts.
• Imperial investigators failed to contact the Chapter, and Officio Assassinorum agents sent to infiltrate it vanished.
• The Night Watch Chapter attacked a T'au world, and captured T'au officers later described its black-armored leader bearing an Inquisition Rosette.
• The Imperium labeled the Chapter a suspected Chaos Warband with low danger, and its report was buried in the archives.

Li Qinwu reconnected with Titus and learned that Titus had inflicted heavy losses on the Tyranid fleet, while the Hive Mind stubbornly continued its pursuit. After Li Qinwu and Titus agreed on their next moves, Gadriel admitted that he had lost the Emperor's Bolt Pistol, leaving Li Qinwu speechless and his battle-brothers laughing at his predicament.

• Li Qinwu reported to Titus that he had killed more than five hundred Chaos traitors on the Fortress World.
• Titus described how he had destroyed three Bio-Battleships and many Bio-Cruisers, forcing the Hive Mind to redirect its fleet toward him.
• Li Qinwu told Titus that he would take his warships to the Thunder Saint Alliance to help stop the Daemon Artifact on Raesmon.
• Titus agreed to keep drawing the Tyranid Bio-Fleet away and said he would join Li Qinwu on the ground after dealing with it.
• Gadriel told Li Qinwu that he had lost the Emperor's Bolt Pistol, and Li Qinwu cut off the communication in disbelief.
• Titus avoided Gadriel's gaze as Metaurus sighed and another Astartes veteran laughed at Gadriel for losing the pistol.

Li Qinwu arrived at Thunder Saint Alliance and learned that Tyranid ground facilities were sustaining the invasion despite the absence of Bio-Ships in orbit. His warships attacked the equatorial Digestive Pools and Hatcheries, but powerful Bio-Anti-Aircraft Cannons struck back, leaving the fleet only thirty minutes to bombard before withdrawing.

• Li Qinwu's two warships arrived at Thunder Saint Alliance, where the Grand Marshal requested help against the Tyranids still ravaging the planet.
• The Grand Marshal showed Li Qinwu how Tyranid Digestive Pools and Hatcheries along the Equator produced biomass and troops, and warned him about the Bio-Anti-Aircraft Cannons.
• Li Qinwu ordered his fleet to prepare for battle and head for the Equator.
• The Fortune and the Knight Legion reached the Tyranid-controlled region, where Bio-Anti-Aircraft Cannons fired green plasma at the Fortune's Void Shield.
• The captain estimated the shield would overload within an hour and ordered the fleet to conduct orbital bombardment for thirty minutes before withdrawing.

Li Qinwu learned that a Daemon Artifact had created the Blood Hunters Cult, whose superhuman soldiers were holding back most of the Tyranids on Thunder Saint Alliance. He realized the artifact’s growing distortion could soon let a Greater Daemon enter realspace, but the grand marshal warned that destroying it without a plan would leave the loyalists to be overrun; Father Anthony then requested an audience with a plan to resolve the Tyranid threat.

• The Fortune bombarded Tyranid structures across roughly one hundred square kilometers, but Rippers began recycling the biomass and forming replacements soon afterward.
• Li Qinwu contacted the grand marshal and learned that a Grand Inquisitor had used a Daemon Artifact to create the Blood Hunters Cult, leaving Thunder Saint Alliance divided among the Tyranids, the cultists, and the loyalists.
• The grand marshal explained that Blood Hunters drew strength from the cauldron by collecting enemy blood, resisted ranged attacks, and even caused blood to flow from tanks and armored vehicles when they stabbed them.
• Li Qinwu concluded that the artifact’s distortion could soon allow a Greater Daemon to enter realspace and insisted that he act against it.
• The grand marshal warned that the Blood Hunters tied down most of the Tyranid forces, so eliminating them would doom the loyalists and the planet.
• The captain told Li Qinwu that Father Anthony requested an audience and had a highly efficient plan for resolving the Tyranid problem.

After explaining his illness and warning readers not to treat his Warhammer inventions as canon, the author returned to the story. Li Qinwu visited Father Anthony, who revealed a virus as a weapon for fighting the Tyranids through Microscopic Warfare.

• The author apologized for his illness, described his pain, and said he would slow updates until he recovered.
• The author warned readers that his novel contained private inventions and should not be used to argue with fans of the original work.
• Li Qinwu left the bridge and went to Father Anthony’s expanded laboratory.
• Father Anthony explained that conventional attacks could not stop the Tyranids from recycling their dead into new bugs.
• Father Anthony handed Li Qinwu a test tube containing a virus and called it a weapon for Microscopic Warfare.

Li Qinwu backed Father Anthony’s plan to weaken the Tyranids with tailored biological weapons and supplied him with researchers, equipment, and troops. Father Anthony launched the first virus across the Fortress World and began developing a follow-up before the Tyranids could adapt.

• Father Anthony explained that Generation One could kill an estimated 1.3 billion Tyranids before their immune systems developed resistance, and outlined plans for successive viruses.
• Busi requested research materials, biological researchers, and a combat squad to capture a living Tyranid every hour; Li Qinwu approved his demands and put him in charge of the war against the Tyranids.
• Li Qinwu assigned Father Anthony more than a dozen Shuttles and nearly a thousand Fleet Iron Guard, then brought nearly a thousand biological scientists from Agricultural World 496B to support the laboratory.
• Three days after assembling his team, Father Anthony gave Li Qinwu ten Virus Bombs, assuring him that the virus targeted Tyranids without harming humans or other animals.
• The Fortune fired the Virus Bombs into the Fortress World's atmospheric wind belts, spreading Virus One across the planet.
• Father Anthony reported that Virus One caused severe allergic reactions in Tyranids and returned to the laboratory to develop Virus Two before their immune systems adapted.

Father Anthony’s first virus bomb devastated the Tyranids on Fortress World Thunder Saint Alliance, forcing the Hive Mind to halt its assault while it developed antibodies. After half a month, the Tyranids resumed their attack with resistant forces, just as Father Anthony’s team prepared a second virus.

• Ten Virus Bombs spread Father Anthony’s first bioweapon across Fortress World Thunder Saint Alliance.
• The virus killed Tyranids in huge numbers, and their sudden retreat let exhausted Astra Militarum troops rest and reclaim forward bunkers.
• The Hive Mind stopped the offensive and developed antibodies, while infected Tyranids were sent to die or recycled into Digestive Pools.
• After half a month, the Hive Mind launched a new assault with antibody-bearing Tyranids.
• Father Anthony’s team brought out a second virus.

Father Anthony escalated his biological war against the Tyranids, moving from viruses that killed individual creatures to microbes that disrupted the swarm’s ecosystem. As the Hive Mind’s struggle with him drained its biomass, it ordered the hatching of the Tyranid Saint to break through the human defenses.

• Father Anthony deployed Bioweapon No. 2, which infected Tyranid lungs and killed roughly two billion Tyranids before the next generation developed antibodies.
• Father Anthony released a third-generation, rabies-derived bioweapon that attacked Tyranid brains, but the swarm again evolved immunity after losing more than two billion creatures.
• Father Anthony concluded that killing Tyranid units was ineffective while their recycling system remained intact, so he split his research into the A Series of combat-targeting viruses and the B Series of ecosystem-targeting microbes.
• Father Anthony created bacteria that heated Digestive Pools and fungi and other microbes that damaged Tyranid structures, while the Tyranids repeatedly adapted to his attacks.
• The Hive Mind realized that maintaining its ecosystem against Father Anthony’s microbes was consuming too much biomass, so it directed certain Hatching Chambers to produce the Tyranid Saint.

The Hive Mind mass-produced and rapidly grew more than three hundred Tyranid Saints to overcome the biomass losses caused by Father Anthony’s attacks on the Tyranid ecosystem. It sent the new monsters against human defenses, with over a hundred attacking the Astra Militarum’s Great Wall.

• The chapter explained how the Hive Mind usually conserved biomass by escalating Tyranid forces gradually, growing Tyranid Saints only as large as battlefield needs required.
• After Father Anthony threatened the Tyranids’ ability to recover biomass, the Hive Mind ordered more than three hundred fleshy eggs to grow near digestion pools.
• The Tyranid Saint larvae hatched, consumed their eggs and nutrient conduits, then grew to nearly twenty meters by draining three digestion pools each.
• The Hive Mind equipped the Tyranid Saints with claws, bio-plasma cannons, and lethal spores, then organized them into battle groups.
• The Hive Mind sent more than a hundred Tyranid Saints and hundreds of millions of lesser troops against the Astra Militarum’s Great Wall.

Li Qinwu received a plea for help as more than a hundred Tyranid Saints broke through the Great Wall and threatened the Grand Warehouse. He prepared the Knight Legion for battle, then learned Father Anthony had provoked the Hive Mind by infecting the Tyranid ecosystem with modified diseases.

• The grand marshal showed Li Qinwu footage of Tyranid Saints breaching the Great Wall and warned that orbital bombardment could destroy the underground defenses and Grand Warehouse.
• Li Qinwu ruled out orbital bombardment and ordered Les to awaken all 101 Knight-Errant of the Spirits and prepare the Knight Bastions for deployment.
• Li Qinwu went to the Biological Laboratory to ask Father Anthony why the Hive Mind had created so many Tyranid Saints.
• Father Anthony explained that his b Series Microscopic Warfare targeted the Tyranid ecosystem and that he had released modified contagious infections into it near the Equator.
• Li Qinwu realized Father Anthony had given the Tyranids STDs and blamed this for the Hive Mind's furious counterattack.

Father Anthony warned Li Qinwu that his microscopic warfare would soon run out of new viruses, giving the Thunder Saint Alliance only two or three months to defeat the Tyranids before their weakening ended. As dozens of Tyranid Saints poured through the breached Great Wall, Li Qinwu and Bruce Crocodile set out in a Scorpion Tank to join the fight.

• Father Anthony told Li Qinwu that microscopic warfare had depleted its microorganism samples and would stop weakening the Tyranids within two or three months.
• Li Qinwu chose an Eldar Scorpion Tank and assigned Bruce Crocodile to drive while he operated the turret.
• Hundreds of millions of Tyranid units and a hundred Tyranid Saints broke through the Great Wall and charged toward the Grand Warehouse.
• The Thunder Saint Alliance unleashed its tanks, artillery, and aircraft to hold the advancing Tyranids at bay.
• After sustained artillery fire destroyed one Tyranid Saint, an artillery observer spotted dozens more Saints advancing through the breach.

More than a hundred Knight Bastions landed among the Tyranids and deployed a powerful force that drove the swarm back toward the Great Wall. Twenty Quadruped Knights then blasted five Tyranid Saints apart and wounded dozens more.

• Tyranid Saints breached the Great Wall and destroyed nearly a hundred Astra Militarum vehicles with their Bio-Plasma Cannons.
• An artillery observer prayed as Knight Bastions fell from orbit into the Tyranid swarm.
• The Knight Bastions unleashed heavy weapons, then deployed Knight Mechs, tanks, Chimera Transports, and Fleet Iron Guard.
• The newly arrived forces worked together to slaughter Tyranids and push them back toward the Great Wall.
• Twenty Quadruped Knights fired forty naval cannons at the Tyranid Saints, killing five and wounding dozens.

More than a hundred Knight Mechs joined the battle against the Tyranid Saints, and Luca and the Sword and Shield Knights cut down their enemies. The Iron Skull Archmagos explained why he refused to add weapons to the Gorilla Knight, which he regarded as a masterpiece of mechanical art.

• Sixty King Knights and twenty Quadraped Heavy Cannon Knights bombarded the Tyranid Saints, burning or blasting several apart.
• Luca charged a Tyranid Saint with his Giant Sword and split it in two, then dismembered the Carnifexes that attacked him.
• The four Sword and Shield Knights used their force-field shields and Disintegration Field blades to kill Tyranid Saints by severing their legs or cutting through their unarmored bellies.
• The chapter described the Sword and Shield Knights as elegant Dark Age of Technology creations shaped by humanity’s self-worship.
• The Iron Skull Archmagos described the Gorilla Knight’s Adamantium skeleton and powerful electronic muscles to Li Qinwu and refused to fit it with weapons, calling it a work of art.

Gorilla Knight tore through Tyranid forces, killing a Tyranid Saint and crushing a horde against the Great Wall. The chapter ended with the narrator's personal note about insomnia and a fanciful comparison of Earth and the Moon to two eggs.

• Gorilla Knight charged through Carnifexes and crushed one beneath its fist.
• Gorilla Knight dodged the Tyranid Saint's bio-plasma shots, tore off one of its legs, and battered its head into the ground until it died.
• Gorilla Knight fought off the surrounding Tyranids, rolled to the Great Wall, and crushed a horde that had formed a living ramp beneath it.
• The narrator described struggling to sleep because of pain beneath his nose, then reflected on the moonlit night and compared Earth and the Moon to a healthy egg and a sick egg.

Li Dadan and Li Zhongdan used Lance-converted sniper rifles to battle Tyranids alongside their wives and other Knight Mechs. When Gargoyles and six Harpies appeared overhead, the brothers lay their mechs down to aim skyward and shot two Harpies out of the sky.

• Li Qinwu equipped Li Dadan and Li Zhongdan's Knight Mechs with Lance-converted sniper rifles and kept their pregnant wives in the rear to snipe.
• Li Dadan and Li Zhongdan used their rifles to kill Carnifexes and badly wound Tyranid Saints.
• Their wives warned them that Gargoyles and six Harpies had appeared overhead.
• Li Dadan and Li Zhongdan lay their mechs down so they could aim their rifles at the circling Harpies.
• Li Dadan and Li Zhongdan shot two Harpies through their abdomens, inflicting catastrophic damage.