Chapter Summaries

Lox refitted Loyalty Infinite and used his authority to guide it through the Blackstone Fortress’s warp barrier. He teleported the assault force inside and then entered the fortress with Uslán.

• Corswain praised Lox for awakening Loyalty Infinite’s hidden capabilities, and Lox explained that further modifications were needed to board the Blackstone Fortress.
• Lox transformed Loyalty Infinite, strengthening its structure and engines, adding stealth plating, and enhancing its Machine Spirit.
• Loyalty Infinite crossed the Blackstone Fortress’s warp-energy domain while Lox shielded the ship from its chaotic forces.
• Lox teleported four thousand five hundred Astartes and two thousand war-grade Iron Men into the Blackstone Fortress.
• Lox and Uslán left Loyalty Infinite and entered the fortress, while the stealthy warship remained outside.

Lox led Hal, Corswain, and their forces into the Blackstone Fortress, where Iron Men and Astartes fought through Chaos-corrupted Sons of Horus. The assault continued toward the fortress core as Lox blessed the Iron Men against corruption and they adapted to the possessed Marines.

• Lox teleported Hal, Corswain, and the boarding force into a clearing near the Blackstone Fortress's core.
• The Iron Men deployed reconnaissance drones and advanced through the first Chaos defenders, while Corswain followed with the Astartes.
• Lox and Uslan sensed the deaths of countless humans sacrificed by the Sons of Horus, and Lox recognized Vashtorr's lingering influence among the daemon-possessed rebels.
• Possessed Marines damaged the Iron Men with Warp-corrupted attacks, but Lox blessed the machines and drove away the corruption.
• The Iron Men adapted their weapons and defenses to the possessed foes as Corswain and the Shattered Hounds joined the fight.

Maloghurst ordered the Sons of Horus to defend the Blackstone Fortress after Imperial forces breached its depths, sending thousands of Possessed Marines into battle. The Iron Men, Corswain, and the Dark Angels met them in a brutal melee, with the fighting still raging.

• Maloghurst berated the Sons of Horus commanders for the breach and ordered them to counterattack, sacrificing mortal slaves and deploying every Possessed Marine.
• Maloghurst's forces rallied around a Possessed Marine made from Tarik Torgaddon's corpse, while at least eight thousand Possessed Marines gathered to fight the invaders.
• Lox sent the Iron Men forward, and they transformed their bodies and weapons to clash with the Possessed Marines.
• Corswain led the Dark Angels in a charge, while the Deathwing carved through enemy ranks and the Dreadwing unleashed weapons of annihilation.

Corswain and the Imperial forces fought through the Blackstone Fortress while Maloghurst summoned Vashtorr to turn the battle against the Iron Men. Vashtorr descended and recognized Lox as a rival wielding the Omnissiah’s power, and Lox prepared to confront him.

• Corswain destroyed a Possessed Marine that regenerated after being beheaded, while Dark Angels and Iron Men fought through the fortress.
• Maloghurst called on Vashtorr for help against the Iron Men and offered to pay for another bargain.
• Vashtorr manifested in the Blackstone Fortress, empowered the Sons of Horus’s Possessed Marines, and identified the Omnissiah’s power in Lox as a threat to his own ascent.
• Lox protected the Iron Men and Astartes from Chaos corruption as Uslann guided them toward the fortress’s central control chamber.
• Lox sensed Vashtorr’s infernal domain and declared that he would settle the score with the Warp entity.

Lox confronted Vashtorr above the Blackstone Fortress as their forces fought below, and Vashtorr unleashed its daemon engines after failed attempts to recruit him. As their powers clashed, the Iron Men began developing emotions and autonomous souls.

• Lox faced Vashtorr’s projection and recognized that the ancient daemon’s power threatened his forces and their technology.
• Vashtorr offered Lox a bargain and urged him to pursue godhood, but Lox rejected cooperation and affirmed his humanity.
• Vashtorr revealed it had chosen Horus and opened a portal, sending daemon engines to attack the Iron Men and their allies.
• Lox and Vashtorr’s powers collided as Iron Men fought Venomcrawlers, Heldrakes, and Soul Grinders.
• One node Iron Man felt anger at Vashtorr’s insult to Lox, and the Iron Men began evolving into autonomous individuals with souls.

Lox discovered that a node Iron Man had gained a soul during his clash with Vashtorr, and he welcomed the newly awakened individual as his son. He named him Adam and gave him an upgraded body, leaving the first self-aware Iron Man poised to lead his kind.

• Lox realized that his clash with Vashtorr had caused a node Iron Man to develop an independent soul.
• Lox summoned the Iron Man, whose consciousness had separated from the main Cogitator, and prevented him from being treated as malfunctioning equipment.
• Iron Man Number One knelt before Lox, called him his Omnissiah and father, and asked who he was and who his kin were.
• Lox named him Adam and accepted him as his first Iron Man child.
• Lox upgraded Adam with a more powerful body, an annihilation reactor, and an energy shield, and considered the role soul-bearing Iron Men could play in leading the legion.

Lox reflected on Adam’s potential and the future role of the Iron Men before the chapter returned to the battle, where the Iron Men and Imperial forces fought Vashtorr’s Daemon Engines and the Sons of Horus. After heavy losses, the Imperial attackers gained ground, and Aco and Haar turned their attention to the tallest Possessed Marine.

• Lox kept Adam at his side, seeing him as a possible path distinct from the central Cogitator’s gestalt Iron Men and wondering whether soul-bearing Iron Men might wield psychic power.
• The Iron Men charged the Possessed Marines and Daemon Engines, adapting their weapons and tactics as the central Cogitator shared combat data among them.
• Nearly half of the two thousand war-model Iron Men were destroyed, but their reactor detonations killed enemies and their losses improved the Iron Men’s battlefield coordination.
• Corswain’s Dark Angels used close-range anti-Warp bolts to destroy Daemon Engines while splitting the enemy with mobile attacks.
• Endryd Haar and the Emperor’s Fangs smashed through Daemon Engines and Possessed Marines, then Haar and Aco turned toward the tallest Possessed Marine.

Corswain recognized the Possessed Marine as Tarik Torgaddon, whose body had been taken over by a Greater Daemon of Chaos, and charged to destroy it. As they faced off, Lox empowered Corswain’s armor and weapons with the power of the Omnissiah, giving him a chance to wound the daemon.

• Corswain watched the Possessed Marine kill a Dark Angels veteran and identified the monster’s armor as belonging to Tarik Torgaddon.
• Furious at Torgaddon’s desecration, Corswain charged the Possessed Marine, evaded its fire, and cut into its forgefiend mount with his power sword.
• The Possessed Marine destroyed the crippled forgefiend, devoured the bound daemon, and revealed that Torgaddon’s soul still howled inside his body.
• Uslan told Lox that Corswain and the Possessed Marine were destined to fight, and Lox chose to trust Corswain while strengthening his armor and weapons.
• The power of the Omnissiah set Corswain’s armor alight, and the Greater Daemon recoiled as it sensed that Corswain could harm its essence.

Corswain and Endryd Haar joined forces to defeat the Possessed Marine inhabiting Tarik Torgaddon’s body, though Haar suffered devastating wounds. Lox began treating Haar as the Chaos daemon’s remaining corruption continued to threaten him.

• Corswain and Haar coordinated their attacks while the Emperor’s Fangs, Raven Guard, and War Hounds distracted and wounded the Possessed Marine.
• A War Hound veteran clung to the enemy’s warhammer, giving Haar the chance to tear off the Possessed Marine’s weapon arm.
• The Possessed Marine impaled Haar, but Haar shattered his helmet with a disruption-charged punch as Corswain severed the enemy’s remaining arm.
• Haar hurled Corswain forward, and Corswain drove his flaming power sword through the Possessed Marine’s skull and chest, killing Tarik Torgaddon’s possessed body.
• Lox rushed to Haar’s side and began removing the daemon’s corruption, telling him his destiny was not yet over.

After the Imperials defeated the Possessed Marines, Lox healed the badly wounded Haar and led the survivors toward the Blackstone Fortress’s core control chamber. There, Lox contacted the Fortress’s vast consciousness after Uslan admitted he could not quickly translate the ancient Aeldari script.

• Lox purged the Warp corruption from Haar and used drugs and medical nanobots to repair his body and armor.
• The Imperials won the battle, though the Iron Men suffered heavy losses and more than eight hundred Astartes veterans died.
• Uslan led the remaining boarding force to the core control chamber after disposing of the daemon engines and Possessed Marines through a Warp rift.
• Lox condemned Horus and his sons for embracing Chaos and vowed to make Erebus suffer if he captured him.
• Uslan said translating the ancient Aeldari script could take months, so Lox reached out to the Blackstone Fortress’s consciousness himself.

Lox learned the Blackstone Fortress’s ancient history and discovered that Horus and the Emperor were battling as black suns in the Warp. With Eldrad Ulthran’s command, the Fortress began falling toward Beta-Garmon’s sun, and Lox evacuated the boarding force as Imperial fleets fled the system.

• Lox spoke with the Blackstone Fortress’s ancient consciousness and learned that it had once fought a C’tan before Chaos corrupted and enslaved it.
• The Fortress revealed that Horus’s Warp projection had grown powerful through the four Chaos Gods’ support and was confronting the Emperor’s projection.
• Eldrad Ulthran established command authority over the Fortress as its nearest Aeldari descendant, but it refused to lower its Warp field shields.
• Ulthran ordered the Fortress to fall into the sun, and it accepted the command and accelerated toward Beta-Garmon’s star.
• Lox and Ulthran evacuated the boarding forces, including the wounded Astartes, while Lox warned Lion Johnson’s fleet to stop firing and Imperial fleets fled the system.

Lion El'Jonson watched the Blackstone Fortress fall into the system’s sun, removing Horus’s greatest advantage and shifting the void battle toward the Imperium. The fighting continued on Beta-Garmon II and III, where Sanguinius and the Titan Legions still faced the traitors.

• Lion El'Jonson ordered the combat units to cease fire after the Blackstone Fortress began falling into the sun.
• The sun’s heat consumed the Blackstone Fortress and the Dark Mechanicum personnel aboard it.
• Lox and Eldrad Ulthran watched the fortress disappear, and Ulthran mourned the loss of the Aeldari weapon he had sent into the star.
• Lox assessed that Lion El'Jonson could rejoin the main battle line and help destroy Horus’s remaining fleet.
• Lox continued treating the wounded aboard the Infinite Loyalty while Sanguinius led the fight against enemy Titan Legions on Beta-Garmon II and III.

Sanguinius flew to Beta-Garmon II to end the Titan war after Lion reported that the Imperial fleet had won in space. He attacked the traitor Emperor-class Titan Axis of the World, piercing its void shields and reaching its cockpit.

• Sanguinius told Azkaellon that Lion had sent the withdrawal signal, but the Titan Legions would keep fighting until their enemies were destroyed.
• Sanguinius refused Azkaellon's offer to take the risk in his place and said he needed to end the ground war quickly.
• Sanguinius leaped from his Stormbird and flew through anti-aircraft fire toward the traitor command center.
• Sanguinius struck the Axis of the World's void shields with the Spear of Telesto and reached the Titan's cockpit.

Sanguinius led an air assault on Beta-Garmon II and then single-handedly attacked the Chaos-corrupted Emperor-class Titan Axis of the World. He destroyed its crew and daemons, escaped after planting a singularity bomb, and watched as the loyal Titans finished the fallen war machine.

• Sanguinius rallied Imperial forces across Beta-Garmon II while his aircraft struck the rebels’ anti-air batteries.
• Sanguinius descended upon Axis of the World and pierced its armor and psychic defenses with the Spear of Telesto.
• Sanguinius’s divine presence inspired the loyal and exposed the traitors’ corruption as the Titan’s Machine Spirit faltered.
• Sanguinius killed the Secutarii, Servitors, and daemons inside Axis of the World, then entered its cockpit and burned the traitors to ashes.
• Sanguinius planted a singularity bomb in the Titan and escaped as it devoured the machine’s head and ignited its power core.
• The loyal Titans bombarded Axis of the World’s remains after it collapsed, while Sanguinius emerged unwounded.

After Sanguinius destroyed the traitor Emperor-class Titan, the loyalist forces gained momentum, but the Titan Legions refused his advice to withdraw from Neircon City. As Sanguinius prepared to continue the assault, the rebels destroyed Beta-Garmon II’s orbital defense platform, leaving the battle’s forces beneath a collapsing sky.

• The Sun’s flares sent solar winds across Beta-Garmon II, scattering clouds and raising loyalist Titan pilots’ morale as the traitors began to retreat.
• Sanguinius urged the Mechanicus commanders to withdraw, but they insisted on destroying the traitor Titans themselves according to their faith and traditions.
• Sanguinius considered leaving with the obedient Solar Flare Titan Legion and having Lion destroy the planet, but he could not bring himself to sacrifice his own forces.
• The rebels detonated the Anvil, Beta-Garmon II’s orbital defense platform, after Sanguinius had assumed they would not destroy a system whose loss could harm their own forces.

The Orbital Platform broke apart and plunged toward Beta-Garmon II, threatening to kill loyalists and traitors alike. Lox arrived and used his power to halt its descent, leaving Sanguinius rushing to meet him.

• Sanguinius ordered the Blood Angels to shelter the Imperial Army as the shattered Orbital Platform fell through the atmosphere.
• A wounded Blood Angel killed the Chaos cultists aboard the falling wreckage and contacted his surviving brothers.
• Titan crews fired at the falling fragments, but the debris overwhelmed their defenses and destroyed war machines on both sides.
• A crystalline rain healed loyal machines and Skitarii while battlefield wreckage assembled into vast electromagnetic towers.
• Lox descended and used the towers to slow and halt the Orbital Platform as Sanguinius flew toward him.

Lox reached Beta-Garmon II and used his power, amplified by the Adeptus Mechanicus and the planet’s war machines, to shield half the world from falling orbital wreckage. As a devastating earthquake struck and the Titan battle continued, he and Sanguinius faced the losses on the other half of the planet and reaffirmed their resolve to defeat Horus.

• Lox arrived at Beta-Garmon II after the orbital defense network had begun an irreversible chain of explosions.
• Sanguinius asked Lox whether he had caused the events, and Lox confirmed that he was using his power to help save the planet.
• Lox and the Adeptus Mechanicus raised electromagnetic towers and a vast field shield that stopped orbital wreckage from destroying half the planet.
• Lox warned Sanguinius that the far side of the planet remained exposed, where more than twelve Titan Legions were fighting beneath the falling structures.
• Lox-enhanced loyalist Titans renewed their assault on traitor forces as the earthquake split the battlefield with chasms.
• Sanguinius declared that humanity would endure any sacrifice to stop Horus, while Lox’s hatred of Chaos deepened.

Lox and Sanguinius led the Imperium to destroy the rebel Titan Legions on Beta-Garmon II, but the primarchs could not find Horus. The chapter ended with Lox fearing that the devastating battle had been a diversion and Horus had gone to Beta-Garmon III.

• Lox watched the Sunfire Titan Legion help the Imperium seize the hive cities and annihilate the rebel Titan Legions on Beta-Garmon II.
• After half a Terran month of fighting, the Imperium counted seven Titan Legions destroyed and many others badly damaged.
• At the primarchs' war council, Lion El'Jonson reported that Horus was not aboard the retreating Vengeful Spirit.
• Leman Russ and Jaghatai Khan warned that Horus remained an overwhelming threat, and the primarchs turned their attention to Beta-Garmon III.
• Lox suspected Horus had used the battle on Beta-Garmon II as bait and felt foreboding about the Divination Needle on Beta-Garmon III.

Lion El'Jonson recognized that Horus's real objective might lie at World III and ordered the forces on Beta-Garmon II to withdraw. When the Titan Legions resisted to recover wrecks, Lox invoked the Omnissiah's authority, and the Titans' Machine Spirits marched themselves toward the transports.

• Lion El'Jonson learned that Horus's strategy might target the Divining Needle at World III, where Redloss and Imperial Fists defended the sector.
• Lion El'Jonson set aside his personal desire to defeat Horus and focused on serving humanity and the Emperor.
• Lion El'Jonson ordered the troops on Beta-Garmon II to evacuate and return to the transport ships in orbit.
• The Titan Legions delayed their withdrawal, insisting on recovering damaged Titans and other valuable wrecks.
• Lox summoned the Machine Spirits in the Omnissiah's name, and they took control of the Titans and marched toward the teleportation staging areas.
• The Titan crews and tech-priests left Beta-Garmon II for the transports, resolving to return for the relics after the war.

On Beta-Garmon III, Captain Aisha and the Solar Titans guarded the Carthage Astropathic Station, the Divination Needle, against a sudden attack by the Ghost Fox Legion. As more traitor Titans appeared, including the Death's Head Legion, Aisha realized Horus's objective was to destroy the station.

• Aisha ordered Daemonic Goddess to scan the ground for underground threats while patrolling the Divination Needle's perimeter.
• Aisha and her crew discussed the fall of Beta-Garmon II and remained vigilant as they searched through the toxic blizzard.
• Daemonic Goddess detected eight Ghost Fox Titans twenty kilometers away, and Aisha prepared to engage them.
• The Ghost Fox Titans scattered under Daemonic Goddess's opening barrage as reinforcements were ordered to defend the Divination Needle.
• Grand Master Redros ordered the defenders to contract their lines, and Aisha's augurs detected more rebel Titans, including the Death's Head Legion.