Chapter Summaries

Hades and Ferrus discovered that the Word Bearers were behaving strangely and learned from Sol Tagron that Lorgar had changed and the Custodian Guards were likely dead. After Sol provided a map suggesting the Iron Warriors were preparing to open the Eye of Terror, Hades and Ferrus committed the Iron Hands to push into enemy territory and stop them.

• Ferrus received a Word Bearers transmission and learned that the Word Bearers and Fourth Legion were stationed in the Cygnus sector, with the Iron Warriors three sectors farther on.
• Ferrus arranged for Gabriel Santo to challenge Sol Tagron, allowing Hades to question Sol aboard the Iron Hands flagship.
• Sol told Hades that Lorgar had begun compiling doctrines that did not concern the God-Emperor, that the Custodian Guards were unwelcome, and that the Iron Warriors were hiding something; he also gave Hades a map of their positions.
• Hades used Sol's map to identify a pattern among Iron Warriors-occupied planets and warned Ferrus that they were close to completing a line to open the Eye of Terror.
• Ferrus and Hades decided the Iron Hands would advance into Iron Warriors territory to strike the anchor point, while Hades affirmed that the Silent Sisterhood could face a daemon army.

Hades and Ferrus led the Iron Hands and Silent Sisterhood into battle against Perturabo’s forces, exploiting divisions in the Word Bearers fleet. The Iron Hands engaged the Iron Warriors while the Silent Sisterhood moved to seize the Law of Faith, but Perturabo continued the Blackstone Obelisk polarity reversal as the battle unfolded.

• Hades and Ferrus discussed the enemy fleets’ strength and chose to split their forces, keeping the two commanders on separate ships.
• Angerthas discovered the approaching Iron Hands fleet as an electronic attack struck the Word Bearers ships.
• The Iron Hands endured the Iron Warriors’ torpedo barrage and advanced through the gap between the two enemy fleets.
• Hades declared that Perturabo had betrayed the Imperium and ordered the Word Bearers not to resist as the Silent Sisterhood charged toward the Law of Faith.
• Ferrus turned the Iron Hands against the Iron Warriors, and both fleets began exchanging fire while the Silent Sisterhood advanced through the Word Bearers formation.
• Perturabo ordered Uria Olathaire to make the Word Bearers attack, while Vashtorr warned that the Greater Daemon was being rejected by Lorgar’s body; Perturabo continued the Obelisk polarity reversal.

Angerthas defied the Word Bearers’ confusion and boarded the Law of Faith to reach the Silent King, pleading for him to save the Legion. After the Silent King seized the ship’s command room, he gave Angerthas five minutes and seven seconds to speak.

• Angerthas commandeered a Fury, ordered its pilot to broadcast a surrender signal, and flew toward the Law of Faith while the Word Bearers’ fleet fell into disorder.
• Angerthas landed on the Law of Faith and ran through a breached, smoke-filled deck, calling on the Silent King to spare the Word Bearers and stop the fighting.
• Angerthas laid down his weapons and told the Silent King that Lorgar was imprisoned on Cadia by Perturabo; the Silent King ordered him to follow.
• The Silent King led the Soulless Ones through the Law of Faith, avoiding defenses and forcing the ship’s captain to turn the vessel around.
• Angerthas reached the command room, where the Silent King told him to speak within five minutes and seven seconds.

Angerthas told Hades how Perturabo had led Lorgar and the Word Bearers into betrayal, and Hades charged him with saving the Legion. Hades’s fleet broke through the battle line toward Cadia, while Perturabo began activating the remaining Blackstone Obelisks.

• Angerthas told Hades that Perturabo had lured the Word Bearers to Cadia, where Lorgar changed and began plotting against the Custodian Guard.
• Angerthas presented Lorgar’s Blackstone staff, and Hades sensed that it held unguided psychic power.
• Hades repaired Angerthas’s armor and tasked him with telling the Word Bearers the truth and turning their guns against the traitors.
• Hades left the Law of Faith under Angerthas’s and the Silent Sisterhood’s control, then led the Black Ships through the Word Bearers’ disrupted fleet toward the Eye of Terror.
• Ferrus’s Iron Hands attacked the Iron Warriors after the Word Bearers fleet fell into chaos, while the Silent Sisterhood continued toward Cadia.
• Perturabo told Vashtorr they were too late and began a countdown as the remaining Blackstone Obelisks on Cadia started to resonate.

Perturabo tried to activate the final circuit of the Blackstone Obelisk network, but Hades reversed one Obelisk’s polarity and disrupted the ritual. The chapter ended with reinforcements descending toward Hades on Cadia as he prepared to hold out against Perturabo and Lorgar.

• Ingethel, Lorgar, Perturabo, and Vashtorr prepared for the final step of their ritual as Perturabo reached for the Obelisk’s last circuit.
• The Emperor and several primarchs across the galaxy sensed something amiss, and Mortarion wrote, “The time has not yet come. The full moon approaches.”
• When the ritual failed to activate, Perturabo tried to repair and ignite the circuit again, while Ingethel saw smoke rise on the horizon.
• Hades reversed the polarity of a Blackstone Obelisk, unleashing a rapidly growing Null Field that consumed the unguided Psychic Power and disrupted the ritual.
• Perturabo smashed the circuit and cut off the planet’s Psychic Power, then roared Hades’s name in anger.
• Hades called for drop pods as reinforcements descended, and resolved to outlast Perturabo and Lorgar if he had to fight desperately.

Perturabo prepared the Iron Warriors to face Hades on Cadia while Vashtorr offered the Machine God's blessing and urged him to accept support from the Word Bearers. Hades held his position as a Warlord-class Psychic Titan appeared beside him.

• Perturabo examined an image of Hades and began assembling his forces across Cadia.
• Vashtorr offered to bless Perturabo's machinery and summon its army with the Word Bearers' rituals.
• Perturabo questioned Vashtorr about the Forsaken and challenged its account of Hades's abilities.
• Vashtorr asked Perturabo to bring Lorgar and the Word Bearers, and Perturabo questioned why it needed his help.
• Hades watched the Iron Warriors advance as the Silent Sisterhood deployed and Thunderhawks fought for airspace.
• A Warlord-class Psychic Titan appeared beside Hades.

Hades led the Silent Sisterhood in a sudden charge against Perturabo’s Iron Warriors, using Psychic Titans and Wraith Knights to break through their artillery and armored lines. As the fighting reached a second Blackstone Obelisk, it lit up with black lightning.

• Hades noticed the Iron Warriors advancing in eerie silence and prepared to meet their artillery barrage.
• Hades took control of an Omen-Class Psychic Titan and led the Silent Sisterhood’s Knights in a charge rather than sheltering in the trenches.
• The Iron Warriors’ bombardment struck the charging force, but the Knights evaded the shells and the Titans’ void shields absorbed direct hits.
• Hades ordered the Psychic Titan to fire, tearing three vortices through an Iron Warriors armored company as the Knights attacked at close range.
• The Psychic Titan’s pulse wave shattered nearby vehicles, but Hades found that some enemies had no souls and ordered his forces to stay away.
• Perturabo struck the command console as the second Blackstone Obelisk lit up with black lightning.

Hades discovered that the Iron Warriors’ dead had no souls and vowed to make whoever was responsible pay, then led a Titan assault against Perturabo. As the battle escalated and Hades’s psychic power began to fail, Perturabo challenged him while Ferrus approached.

• Hades found a photograph on an Iron Warrior’s corpse and concluded that the dead soldiers had no souls, then ordered Little Herrela to prepare for an attack from the southeast.
• Inglser taunted Vashtorr about Perturabo’s prospects as Lorgar and Uriah completed a sacrificial ritual, after which Vashtorr summoned its own forces.
• Perturabo advanced toward Hades, convinced he needed leverage, while Hades charged the Iron Warriors in a Warlord-class Psychic Titan and called him out.
• Hades and Perturabo traded accusations over the Imperium, Chaos, and their treatment of their forces as Titans and Knights clashed.
• Hades’s Titan destroyed an enemy Titan and advanced on Perturabo, but the Alpha Legion Psyker beneath him collapsed and his psychic power began to fail.
• Hades faced Perturabo as the Knights of the Silent Sisterhood advanced and Ferrus neared the battlefield, then asked whether Perturabo thought he could not beat him.

Hades nearly killed Perturabo, but the Primarch escaped his armor and fled, and Vashtorr rescued him from Hades. The Psychic tide receded as bombers arrived, leaving Hades raging amid the ruins while Lorgar collapsed at the altar.

• Hades struck Perturabo and nearly killed him, but the approaching Psychic Storm and daemon army blasted Hades into a Titan and gave Perturabo time to recover.
• Hades used the Null Field to weaken Perturabo and pierce his armor with metal spikes, but Perturabo tore himself free and realized the Null Field had severed the control he had sensed over himself.
• Perturabo offered to ally with Hades and then fled, while Hades pursued him, severed part of his leg, and knocked him down with the Broken Sword.
• Hades pinned Perturabo and tried to kill him, but Vashtorr arrived in a falling warship and lifted Perturabo out of the wreckage.
• Hades charged Vashtorr and damaged its secondary limbs, but Vashtorr escaped with Perturabo on the Crimson Steel Bull as the Psychic tide receded and the Silent Sisterhood fired at the sky.
• Hades roared in fury among the ruins while Lorgar collapsed from exhaustion and the temporary False God sculpture became scorched wasteland.

Hades held the line on Cadia while he awaited Iron Hands reinforcements, and Ferrus prepared to land after witnessing his terrifying clash with Perturabo and Vashtorr. As Vashtorr rebuilt itself, Perturabo recovered and believed he had escaped the control of others, while Radon arrived and welcomed him as a new weapon for their side.

• Hades contacted Ferrus, confirmed the Silent Sisterhood was holding out, and asked the Iron Hands to disrupt the Iron Warriors' bombardment as they prepared to land.
• Ferrus watched scanner footage of Hades confronting Perturabo and Vashtorr, then ordered the Iron Hands to prepare for landing.
• Vashtorr sensed that the Four Gods had withdrawn their pressure and began rebuilding itself while drawing power from the future.
• Lorgar told Perturabo that she could not tell whether she was Lorgar or Uriah after their merging, while Perturabo believed Hades's Null Field had helped him break free of hidden restraints.
• Perturabo sensed that he was connected to the Iron Warriors and their machinery, then Radon arrived and hailed him as the Lord of Calamity.

Angerthas and Kirkland argued over whether the Word Bearers should adopt prayers to the Underking, but Angerthas’s prayer drew them into a vision of the Underking’s battle and apparent fall. They emerged shaken, with Kirkland convinced all hope was lost and Angerthas suggesting they might still find hope.

• Kirkland demanded that Angerthas help establish faith in the Underking among the Word Bearers, and Angerthas agreed to restore a revised prayer before the Legion reached Cadia.
• Angerthas’s staff glowed as he prayed, and a mist swept him and Kirkland into a vision of a battlefield beneath the Blackstone Obelisk.
• Kirkland saw the Underking fighting daemons and towering foes, then watched him behead Perturabo before an arrow struck amid the fall of a god.
• Kirkland collapsed in despair, while Angerthas knelt in tears and said that their vision might still leave room for hope.

Hades and Ferrus prepared to attack despite Hades’s injuries, while Vashtorr, Perturabo, and Radon devised a plan to suppress Hades’s Null Field and kill him. Lorgar’s role in a Warp ritual remained unclear, and Magnus awoke from a vision of a snowstorm, wondering what it meant for Cadia.

• Hades told Ferrus that the Iron Hands and Silent Sisterhood should attack, and Ferrus agreed to fight alongside him.
• Vashtorr learned from Radon that overwhelming Hades with Psychic Power could suppress his Null Field, potentially allowing a primarch to be sacrificed beside him.
• Perturabo asked Radon for the rust that could corrode the Iron Warriors, intending to use it against the Iron Hands.
• Lorgar questioned whether she was meant to guide the ritual that would tear open the Imperium and imprison Hades, but Ingethel said the stage for her part was elsewhere.
• Magnus awoke from a vision of sacrificing herself in a blizzard and wondered why she had seen snow when Cadia had none.

Ferrus Manus led the Iron Hands against Perturabo’s Iron Warriors and Vashtorr’s daemon engines, meeting Perturabo in a direct duel as the battle turned against her Legion. Hades reached the battlefield and unleashed a green electromagnetic assault against Vashtorr’s corruption, while the fighting continued.

• Ferrus and the Iron Hands advanced across the Blackstone Obelisks as Perturabo’s Iron Warriors and Vashtorr’s flesh-and-machine abominations appeared ahead.
• Ferrus ordered an assault, and the Iron Hands, their Auxilia, and their war machines clashed with the Iron Warriors across the battlefield.
• Ferrus confronted Perturabo, who appeared beside Vashtorr in altered Terminator Armour and accused her of serving the Emperor’s empire.
• Ferrus and Perturabo began fighting as Vashtorr’s psychic power corrupted Magi and Skitarii, while the Iron Warriors gained ground.
• Hades arrived at the rear of the battle, invoked the Underking, and sent violent green arcs through the minds of the Omnissiah’s believers.

Hades fought Vashtorr’s forces while Ferrus and Perturabo battled, then hurled a silver spear through Vashtorr and pinned him to the ground. As Lorgar triggered the Blackstone Obelisks and a psychic storm swept toward the battlefield, Hades’s null field faltered, but the Void Dragon’s power rose through him and formed a silver dragon that charged Vashtorr.

• Iron Hands and the Magos fought the Iron Warriors and profane constructs as Vashtorr summoned hellfire across the battlefield.
• Hades intervened in Ferrus and Perturabo’s duel, disrupting Perturabo’s attacks and resisting Vashtorr’s attempt to claim mechanical authority.
• Hades pierced Vashtorr with a silver spear, crossed the battlefield, and pinned him down while Lorgar activated the Blackstone Obelisks.
• The obelisks reversed polarity, unleashing a psychic storm that overwhelmed Hades’s null field and allowed Vashtorr to struggle free.
• Silver and pale-green power gathered around Hades as a fraction of the Void Dragon rose through him and charged Vashtorr.

Hades was swallowed by the Warp tide and lost control of his Null Field as Vashtorr, Fateweaver Kalros, and other Chaos forces gathered against him. On the battlefield, Lorgar killed Ferrus and then turned on Perturabo as silver rain began to fall.

• The Eye of Terror flooded Cadia with Warp power, and Vashtorr tried to invoke its contract with Perturabo but discovered the first traitor had somehow escaped its hold.
• Hades fought through the mist as Vashtorr attacked him, while Fateweaver Kalros struck from the other side and the Null Field gave way to the Shard of the Star God.
• Hades declared that everyone would die together and raised his scythe as silver-white rain poured over Cadia.
• Ferrus and Perturabo continued fighting amid the corpses, and Lorgar secretly approached while Ferrus was distracted by a green monster.
• Lorgar stabbed Ferrus through the heart and knocked him down with her staff, then raised her dagger behind Perturabo as the silver rain fell.

Angerthas and Kirkland learned that Ram had possessed Angerthas to help them reach Cadia and warned them that the Four Gods planned to kill the Underking. Meanwhile, Lorgar struggled through visions and called upon the Underking before redirecting Perturabo toward the altar; the chapter ended with an author’s note discussing leaked details from The End and the Death Volume 2.

• Angerthas and Kirkland fought as Ram emerged from Angerthas and insisted it had come to help them reach Cadia.
• Ram warned Angerthas and Kirkland that the Four Gods intended to kill the Underking and that the Underking might take his own life if his situation became hopeless.
• Lorgar walked through a warped battlefield while resisting the gods’ attempts to turn him against the Underking.
• Lorgar prayed to the Underking and saw visions of the dead, including two Word Bearers, before recognizing the Underking’s answer as mercy.
• Lorgar called upon daemons, drove a blade into Ferrus, stabbed Perturabo, and sent Perturabo toward the altar.
• The author commented on leaked details from The End and the Death Volume 2, including Sanguinius’s death and the Emperor’s possible transformation into the Dark King.

Hades unleashed the power sealed within him and attacked the four Greater Daemons surrounding him, warping space and tearing apart their bodies. As the true gods entered the battle and beams of High Heavens light rose across the battlefield, Hades raised his scythe and said, “Die.”

• Hades, transformed by his unleashed power, chose Kalros as his first target, but Skarbrand charged him while Kalros struck with lightning.
• Hades used spatial distortions to rip away Skarbrand’s arm and wings, while Khorne repeatedly restored the Bloodthirster.
• Ku'gath attacked Hades with a concoction prepared to harm him, but Hades struck at Ku'gath and damaged its cauldron before Shalaxi pulled him away.
• Shalaxi danced around Hades and evaded his spatial attacks, but Hades caught her by the throat and crushed her until Kalros intervened.
• After Kalros suppressed Hades’s Null Field, Skarbrand swelled with power as the true gods entered the battle, and Hades raised his scythe and said, “Die.”

The Emperor and Malcador confronted the cracking sculpture on Terra, and Malcador left for Macragge as the crisis deepened. On Cadia, Hades trapped a fragment of Tzeentch’s power and unleashed the River Styx’s Null Field, then rose from the wreckage to face the approaching enemies as the Death Guard.

• The Emperor admitted that he had underestimated the Chaos Gods, while Malcador volunteered to go to Macragge and the Emperor sent him there to find a new helper.
• On Cadia, the Four Gods’ attacks broke through Hades’s defenses, and Hades took control of his berserk body as he fell toward the battlefield.
• Hades grabbed Karlyle, trapped a fragment of Tzeentch’s power, and stabbed himself in the heart to trigger his Null Field.
• The River Styx’s power erased the Four Gods’ domains within a five-pace space and left the battlefield silent, while the surviving mortals were blinded, deafened, and driven mad.
• Lorgar, Perturabo, and Vashtorr approached the battlefield’s center, and Hades rose from the wreckage and roared that he was Death Guard.

Angerthas and Kirkland crossed Cadia’s warped battlefield toward the main tower, where Kirkland hoped to activate a Blackstone Obelisk. They discovered that Little Herrela and the defenders of Sector D3 were still fighting and calling for reinforcements.

• Kirkland grieved over the Underking as Angerthas stopped him from rushing into danger, and the two chose to infiltrate Cadia while their fleets fought amid the Warp turbulence.
• Angerthas and Kirkland advanced through Cadia’s newly formed terrain, passing corpses and suffering Tech-priests as demons closed in.
• Angerthas urged Kirkland to focus on finding Lorgar, and Kirkland said he might be able to activate the Blackstone Obelisk at the main tower using what the Underking had taught him.
• Angerthas gave Kirkland two Blackstone spears and fought off demons with him until Kirkland detected a call for reinforcements from Sector D3.
• Little Herrela defended the Blackstone Tower in Sector D3 with the wounded Charon and the remaining Silent Sisters, but no reinforcements answered her request.

Hades, grievously wounded and exhausted, fought Vashtorr on Cadia and used the Void Dragon shard's power to destroy the Warp entity. On Mars and Barbarus, Jin and Mortarion sensed that something had happened as Cadia shone brightly.

• Hades recalled Mortarion's lessons and adopted the Death Guard's defensive resolve as he fought Vashtorr.
• Hades traded injuries with Vashtorr, hooking it with the Obituary and driving the scythe deep into its body.
• Hades gripped Vashtorr by the neck and used the Void Dragon shard's power to spread C'tan metal through the entity.
• Vashtorr tried to flee by detonating itself, but Hades crushed its neck and left its mechanical remains on Cadia.
• On Mars, Jin sensed trouble and received a recall order from Malcador, while sages across the Forge Worlds felt that something had changed.
• On Barbarus, Mortarion sensed unease as storms gathered and farmers looked toward Cadia, which shone brightly.