Recaps

Li Qinwu and Saint Raiser argued over the newly armored Astartes, then Li Qinwu began assessing the warriors aboard the Explorer. He sparred with Genpei until Genpei collapsed, leaving Li Qinwu’s training plans underway.

• Saint Raiser inducted ten Terminator Astartes into the Broken-winged Angels, while Li Qinwu interrupted to urge caution and demand their loyalty.
• Li Qinwu proposed giving the Astartes heavy vehicles and weapons, and Yamashita Maru asked which of the two leaders the warriors should obey.
• Saint Raiser chased Li Qinwu and Yamashita Maru with his power belt after Li Qinwu mocked his instructions.
• Li Qinwu spent the following days bonding with the Astartes and studying their personalities for future Chapter assignments.
• Li Qinwu trained Genpei in a brutal sword spar, counting each strike against Genpei as a death, until Genpei collapsed after the hundredth hit.

Li Qinwu trained Genpei to make his swordsmanship more forceful, then visited Little Andrew’s workshop to inspect a remote-controlled Skeleton Robot wearing Astartes armor. Little Andrew explained why the device could not be easily adopted by the other battle-brothers.

• Li Qinwu told Genpei that his swordsmanship lacked brutality and advised him to stop overthinking and learn to be more hotheaded.
• Li Qinwu went to the machinery maintenance bay and saw Little Andrew testing a Skeleton Robot fitted with Astartes armor and weapons.
• Little Andrew explained that the Skeleton Robot could not act independently and required him to issue commands through programs he had memorized.
• Li Qinwu suggested giving the battle-brothers robots to use in dangerous missions, but Little Andrew said operating them required specialized training that was not worth the time.

Li Qinwu assessed Little Andrew’s technical skills and assigned him extra Power Armor, then began defining specialized roles for the Broken-Winged Angel Chapter’s Astartes. He left the recruits with plans for a varied force built around engineering, fire support, infiltration, heavy armor, and other battlefield roles.

• Li Qinwu learned that Little Andrew could control three robots naturally or five with difficulty, and approved two more suits of Power Armor for him.
• Yamashita Maru demonstrated his grenade-throwing accuracy, and Li Qinwu appointed him a fire support specialist focused on anti-armor weapons.
• Li Qinwu planned for Hunter to lead an infiltration company using invisible Power Armor and a long-range Laser Sniper Rifle.
• Li Qinwu assigned Aman to operate oversized Terminator Power Armor as a heavily armored fighter, while Doctor trained as an Apothecary and Kuqi trained as a Librarian.
• Li Qinwu designated Kaan as the Chapter Chaplain, considered Yulian for a ship captain role, and identified Kaka as a driver with potential to pilot a heavy combat mech.

Li Qinwu’s warship reached the asteroid field where the Dark Age of Technology colony ship was believed to be, but its sensors could not distinguish the ship among billions of objects. He contacted its AI, Zero, who explained how to locate it, leaving the Explorer ready to scan for heat and life signs.

• Li Qinwu received word from the Explorer’s captain that they had reached the colony ship’s destination, then hurried to the bridge.
• The captain showed Li Qinwu an asteroid field containing billions of sensor returns and more than ten thousand objects around eighty kilometers across.
• Li Qinwu went to the Hideout’s Intelligence Station and messaged Zero, receiving an immediate reply that showed they were close.
• Li Qinwu told Zero that the colony ship was hidden among the asteroids, and Zero said its precision detection instruments were disabled by a lack of power.
• Zero explained that wreckage and asteroid fragments had accumulated on the ship’s surface, where alien life forms were fighting with nuclear and energy weapons, making heat and life-sign scans useful.

Li Qinwu sent Hunter to investigate Big Red, where Hunter discovered two warring factions of space Skaven fighting over a wrecked alien warship. After both sides unleashed nuclear weapons and retreated underground, Hunter detected what appeared to be their two reactor-powered lairs.

• Li Qinwu ordered the ship’s crew to scan for thermal and biological signals, and they found Big Red, a 5,500-kilometer asteroid cluster with 200 million life-forms and recent nuclear explosions.
• Li Qinwu sent Hunter to investigate, and Hunter and Kaka flew a stealth Shuttle to Big Red.
• Hunter spotted red and blue factions of space Skaven fighting across a plain and recorded the coordinates of a wrecked alien warship they were battling to control.
• The blue Skaven fired a nuclear rocket, and both factions responded with nuclear weapons before fleeing into separate underground refuges.
• Hunter scanned beneath Big Red and detected two operating nuclear reactors, which he suspected powered the factions’ lairs.

Hunter infiltrated the red rats’ underground city to investigate the rival factions and their reactors. From a concealed perch, he spotted an elderly rat addressing a crowd of young rats.

• Hunter took a cloaked Shuttle to a cave near the red rats’ underground reactor and entered alone.
• He followed the cave toward the reactor, passed a wall of rat skulls marking the edge of a breathable artificial atmosphere, and reached the city.
• Hunter climbed a rock wall and set up his reconnaissance equipment above the bustling underground settlement.
• He observed an elderly gray-white rat holding a crude plastic skull scepter and speaking to several hundred young rats gathered below.

Hunter listened as an elderly Skaven explained the rats’ social order and their sacred artifacts, including a nuclear reactor they believed had been given to them by the God of the Atomic Bomb. When the elder led the young rats to witness a ritual that would produce atomic bombs, Hunter followed to see what it involved.

• Hunter used his mech’s computer to translate an elderly rat’s speech and learned that the rats feared the air beyond the skull walls.
• The elderly rat told the young rats that ordinary Skaven became farmers or herders, while the strongest became Warrior Rats, and that dead rats were recycled.
• Hunter learned that the Skaven believed a Water Artifact, an Air Artifact, and a Light Artifact sustained their world, powered by God's Nuclear Reactor.
• The elderly rat described how God-Serving Rats extracted the reactor’s essence to make atomic bombs and announced that the elders would perform a ritual to produce more for the war.
• The elderly rat led hundreds of excited young rats toward a cave, and Hunter followed them to witness the Divine Age Ritual.

Hunter followed the Atomic Bomb Rats to their underground reactor and discovered they worshipped it as a god and planned to use its core against the Hydrogen Bomb Rats. After escaping dangerous radiation and restoring his armor’s stealth coating, he set course to investigate the Hydrogen Bomb Rats.

• Hunter followed the elderly rat’s procession to a vast underground chamber and identified its central structure as a controlled nuclear fusion reactor.
• The Atomic Bomb Rats opened the reactor, and their God-Serving Rats pulled a scorching fuel core from inside.
• The rats touched the highly radioactive core and mistook their injuries for the Atomic Bomb God’s blessing.
• Hunter abandoned his attempt to follow the God-Serving Rats when radiation disabled his stealth coating, then escaped to his Shuttle.
• Hunter decontaminated himself, replaced his stealth coating, and told Kaka to fly to the other side of the Great Plains to investigate the Hydrogen Bomb Rats.

Hunter infiltrated the Hydrogen Bomb Rats' underground city to investigate their society and learn why they hated the nuclear bomb rats. After discovering their mushroom farms and collecting a sample, he continued toward the reactor in search of information from the rats' leaders.

• Hunter entered the Hydrogen Bomb Rats' vast nest and searched for a place where their young learned, eventually finding that the rats used a tavern for informal education.
• Hunter hid in the tavern and overheard drunken rats tell jokes that mocked the atomic bomb rats, revealing contempt and a deep feud between the two groups.
• Hunter left the tavern seeking influential rats who could explain the feud and their beliefs, and headed toward the reactor.
• Hunter passed through the Mushroom Field and scanned a purple mushroom, finding it rich in starch and fiber.
• Hunter collected mushroom mycelium in a vial to take back for study and continued his investigation.

Hunter discovered a black mud lake surrounding the Reactor, where Hydrogen Bomb Rats hunted giant earthworms for meat. Finding the guarded bridges too difficult to cross, he began traversing the lake by clinging to the iron-rich ceiling with his Magnetic Latch.

• Hunter hid as nearly a thousand rats set up a crane beside the muddy lake and lowered Thief Rat on an iron hook as bait.
• A giant earthworm swallowed the hook, and the rats hauled it from the lake before killing it and cutting it into meat.
• After the rats left, Hunter collected some earthworm blood and used the Bird Spectrometer to examine the lake and the territory around the Reactor.
• Hunter saw that the lake and its giant earthworms separated the ruling rats from the others, while guarded bridges and walls blocked his path.
• Hunter used his Magnetic Latch to cling to the iron-rich ceiling and began crossing above the lake.

Hunter crossed the Muddy Lake by clinging to its iron-rich ceiling while Giant Earthworms leapt up to attack him. As he neared the far bank, the lake’s enormous earthworm king swallowed him, but Hunter cut his way out and revealed a pair of wings that lifted him from the sinking beast.

• Hunter dislodged a boulder from the ceiling, alerting the Giant Earthworms in the Muddy Lake below.
• Hunter crawled across the ceiling as increasingly large Giant Earthworms leapt toward him, then sped up by using the Magnetic Latches on his hands and legs.
• Hunter swung toward the opposite bank, but a 4.5-meter-wide, nearly hundred-meter-long earthworm king erupted from the sludge and swallowed him.
• The earthworm king writhed in pain as Hunter cut a long gash through its belly with his Power Sword and emerged onto its back.
• As the wounded earthworm sank into the sludge, Hunter sprouted white wings from his back and flew upward.

Hunter escaped the Muddy Lake by awakening psychic wings and continued infiltrating the Hydrogen Bomb Rats’ territory toward the Reactor. He left the chapter deeper in enemy territory, evading increasingly well-armed Warrior Rats.

• Hunter burned through the Giant Earthworm from inside with his Laser Sniper Rifle and Power Sword, killing it as it sank into the Muddy Lake.
• With the sludge about to reach him, Hunter awakened a pair of golden-white psychic wings and flew across the lake to the opposite cliff.
• Hunter realized his wings resembled those of Sanguinius and became excited that the Broken-winged Angels might share a gift their Gene-Father’s Blood Angels lacked.
• Hunter calmed himself, resumed his stealth, and followed his Power Armor’s heat-source readings toward the Reactor.
• Hunter infiltrated deeper past increasingly large and heavily armed Warrior Rats, staying hidden by freezing whenever they grew suspicious.

Hunter infiltrated the Hydrogen Bomb Rats’ facility, witnessed their psychic-powered bomb production, and recorded reactor data. By listening to their meeting, he learned how the rats’ religious split had sparked centuries of war and discovered that they had reached the planetary core but encountered the Despair Barrier.

• Hunter watched psychic rats use their powers to manufacture hydrogen bombs and recorded data from their reactor.
• Hunter stayed behind to listen as the psychic rats discussed their origins and plans, recording and translating their words.
• The rats’ society had split into atomic-bomb and hydrogen-bomb factions after the Hydrogen Bomb Sect’s discovery and the bombing of rat cities.
• Hunter learned that the rats had reached the planetary core after thousands of years of digging but had encountered the Despair Barrier.