Recaps

After losing the Primarch’s trail, Gage authorized Hill to organize the defense against Word Bearers boarding Macragge's Honour, while the ship’s forces prepared to aid the battle on the surface. Hill and Nykona then confronted a massive daemon, finding that fire and close combat were more effective than bolter fire.

• Ventanus asked Macragge's Honour for reinforcements to retake the Orbital Platform's Weapon Array, and Gage warned that daemons were attacking aboard the ship.
• Hill proposed organizing a force to stop the Word Bearers from boarding, and Gage gave him authority to lead it.
• Gage learned that Hill had been disciplined for developing theories to counter Space Marines, and recognized the value of those theories against the Word Bearers.
• Hill and Nykona discussed Nykona's unusually durable armor before Hill spotted a massive daemon lurking in the compartment ahead.
• The Ultramarines attacked the daemon with bolters and fire, then Hill and Nykona charged in with power swords to sever its tentacles and wound it.

Hill and the Ultramarines learned to fight and banish daemons, then reclaimed Macragge's Honour's auxiliary bridge. Captain Homed took command and began scanning the ship, while Marius Gage kept the primarch's fate secret as the crew detected suspected Word Bearers boarding sites.

• Hill and Nykona wounded a daemon, then destroyed it with grenades after it fled into another compartment.
• Hill sent his anti-daemon findings over the vox and rallied the Ultramarines, who grew more effective through coordinated fighting.
• Hill's force reclaimed the auxiliary bridge, where Techmarines and officers began restoring control of Macragge's Honour.
• Gage gave the third key to Captain Homed, who took command and connected to the ship's Machine Spirit.
• At Marius's command, Homed activated the scanning array, and the crew identified locations suspected of Word Bearers boarding assaults.
• Marius kept the primarch's fate secret to prevent the Ultramarines from succumbing to fury if he had fallen.

After retaking Macragge's Honour, Gage delayed aid to Calth while the Ultramarines dealt with Word Bearers boarding parties. Ventanus questioned the captured commander Keshir, who recognized Lox as someone displaced from his proper time before dying in a frenzy.

• Gage told Ventanus that Macragge's Honour could not yet send forces to the Orbital Platform because Word Bearers were sabotaging the flagship.
• Ventanus reported that Mobokeshir had willingly allowed the Ultramarines to capture him and ordered him interrogated for intelligence.
• Keshir demanded to meet Lox, claiming he would answer questions in exchange, and Ventanus summoned Lox while keeping him at a distance.
• When Lox arrived, Keshir recognized him as absent from the prophecies and claimed he had awakened from the distant past, then offered him the Lord of Change's favor.
• Keshir taunted the Ultramarines with claims that Guilliman was dead, so Suros cut him nearly in half, and the wounded Word Bearer laughed as he died.

Khir's death summoned the Greater Daemon Sams, which attacked Lox and the Ultramarines before Ventanus destroyed it with Khir's ritual dagger. Ventanus and Lox then prepared to rejoin Macragge's Honour and retake the orbital platform's Weapon Array.

• Khir's corpse transformed into Sams, a Greater Daemon summoned from The Empyrean, and the creature attacked the Ultramarines and targeted Lox.
• Ventanus and Sullus charged Sams while an Ultramarine carried Lox to safety, and a Shadowsword struck the daemon with its Volcano Cannon.
• Sams damaged Sullus and overturned the Shadowsword, but Ventanus stabbed it with Khir's ritual dagger and killed it.
• Ventanus told Lox the sorcerous weapons were only a temporary measure, then led the surviving Ultramarines back into the Universal Museum.
• Lox summoned the Red Alert, which teleported him and the Ultramarines into orbit to rejoin the Legion.

Lox and Pika discussed humanity’s fall and the uncertain truth behind the ancient war between humans and artificial intelligences while Pika secretly slowed Word Bearers ships. Meanwhile, Ventanus and Hill led their Ultramarines through the Macragge’s Honour toward its maneuvering thrusters as the battle for Calth continued.

• Lox teleported Ventanus and his warriors to the Macragge’s Honour, where they joined Sergeant Hill’s kill team to fight Word Bearers aboard the ship.
• Lox returned to the Red Alert and told Pika to cripple enemy ships without exposing the vessel.
• Pika infiltrated Word Bearers ships and flooded their cogitators with data garbage, slowing them while lamenting humanity’s fear of artificial intelligence.
• Lox and Pika questioned whether artificial intelligences and the Iron Men had betrayed humanity, but neither could determine what had happened during the Dark Age.
• Ventanus and Hill led their combined team across the Macragge’s Honour toward its primary maneuvering thrusters, passing through space amid the devastation of Calth’s battle.

Hill and Nykona led an Ultramarines kill team in a desperate battle against Word Bearers boarding Macragge's Honour. As the depleted survivors prepared to face another attack, Roboute Guilliman appeared behind them in the void.

• Hill and Nykona spotted Word Bearers cutting into Macragge's Honour and led their kill team in a surprise attack on the infiltrators.
• The Ultramarines killed many Word Bearers and destroyed their cutting machines, but enemy reinforcements overwhelmed them with bolter fire.
• Hill and Nykona fought back-to-back as the kill team suffered casualties and ran out of bolter ammunition.
• Hill and Nykona discarded their bolters and hid behind a cooling tower with their power swords, ready to ambush the approaching Word Bearers.
• Roboute Guilliman appeared behind Hill and Nykona, helmetless in the void and consumed by fury.

Guilliman led the Ultramarines in a brutal counterattack against the Word Bearers and reunited with his surviving sons aboard the flagship. He rallied them to continue the war, restore the Librarius to fight daemons, and carry out his orders if he fell.

• Hill announced that Guilliman was alive, and the Ultramarines’ morale surged at their primarch’s return.
• Guilliman fought through the Word Bearers with his bare hands while Hill and the gathered kill teams helped annihilate the enemy aboard the cruiser.
• The surviving warriors returned to the flagship, where Guilliman greeted them and praised their resistance, then urged them to keep fighting across Calth and the Veridian system.
• Guilliman declared that he would set aside the Edict of Nikaea and restore the Librarius so the Ultramarines could use psychic power against daemons.
• Guilliman suspected the Council of Nikaea had been part of a conspiracy, thanked Wayland and Nykona for warning them, and told his warriors to carry out his intent if he fell.

Guilliman reorganized the surviving loyalists after the Iron Hands’ primarch died, then discovered that the Word Bearers had turned Calth’s orbital Weapon Array on its sun. With Calth facing destruction, Guilliman led a force to retake the orbital installations and stop the bombardment.

• Iron Father Wayland vowed that the Iron Hands would avenge their dead primarch, and Guilliman reorganized the warriors into new units with red-helmeted squad leaders.
• Macragge's Honour restarted its engines and escaped the Word Bearers clinging to its hull, while Captain Humeid discovered that the orbital Weapon Array was targeting Calth’s sun.
• Solot Chor received Erebus’s order, and Kor Phaeron activated the Weapon Array to bombard the sun as part of the Word Bearers’ ritual.
• Guilliman watched the sun’s violent flares grow, ordered loyalists on the surface to shelter underground, and insisted that the orbital installations be retaken.
• Guilliman assigned Gage, Ventanus, and Hill to lead the squads, armed himself, and teleported with six hundred Ultramarines to the Zezsweyred Dockyard.

Nykona and the Ultramarines, Iron Hands, and Guilliman fought their way across the Orbital Platform toward its main control room. Guilliman’s fury drove him into a brutal slaughter, and the assault force finally reached the enemy commander.

• Nykona’s kill team assembled after a deadly teleportation that fused several Ultramarines into the platform.
• Nykona and the other Astartes exchanged fire with the Word Bearers as the Iron Hands charged in support.
• Guilliman surged ahead, enduring concentrated fire and tearing through the Word Bearers with his weapons.
• Guilliman felt his reason slipping amid the slaughter, while Hill and Gage guarded him from being overwhelmed by his fury.
• Hill and Ventanus led the Ultramarines forward, and the assault force entered the main control room after losing more than a dozen Ultramarines.

Kor Phaeron used Warp power to overpower Guilliman and prepared to corrupt him, while the Ultramarines struggled against the Word Bearers and their Blessed Sons. As Nykona recognized Solot Chor among the enemy, he took aim and fired.

• Kor Phaeron crushed shield-bearing Ultramarines with psychic power and blasted Guilliman into a wall when the primarch charged him.
• Kor Phaeron repelled the Ultramarines’ attacks and pinned Guilliman down, while Gage, Hill, and their warriors fought to reach him.
• Guilliman rose from the rubble, badly wounded, but Kor Phaeron overwhelmed him again and approached with an obsidian ritual dagger.
• Kor Phaeron declared that he would convert Guilliman and raised the dagger as the Blessed Sons held Gage and Hill’s forces back.
• Nykona recognized Solot Chor, the Word Bearer who had stabbed Luciel, entered a state of complete focus, and fired his bolter.

Nykona and Guilliman wounded Kor Phaeron, while Hill destroyed the control system and Lox and Tauren helped the Cogitator reclaim Calth’s Weapon Arrays. The arrays devastated the Word Bearers’ forces, but Kor Phaeron escaped, and Veridian’s star remained on the verge of becoming a supernova.

• Nykona shot through a weakness in Kor Phaeron’s psychic shield, giving Guilliman the opening to impale him with a Lightning Claw.
• Hill killed Solot Chur, then destroyed the data engines that had restricted the Cogitator and blocked Calth’s control of the Orbital Platform.
• Lox unleashed Hurst’s killing code against the captured Weapon Array, while Tauren joined the Cogitator’s assault and helped purge corrupted data.
• Calth’s Weapon Arrays turned against the Word Bearers, destroying enemy ground forces and ships while sparing most loyalist troops.
• Guilliman confronted the wounded Kor Phaeron, who warned that Calth was doomed because Veridian’s star was becoming a supernova.
• Kor Phaeron used psychic power to escape, and Guilliman ordered everyone to return to Macragge's Honour.

Lox’s Red Alert destroyed the fleeing Word Bearers battleship Infidus Imperator, preventing its escape into the Warp. He then traveled to Calth, where Captain Ventanus told him that Roboute Guilliman wished to meet him.

• Infidus Imperator tried to flee as Macragge's Honour pursued, while Kor Phaeron’s followers began a ritual to save him and open a gate to the Warp.
• The Ultramarines prepared a desperate boarding action, but Lox’s Red Alert suddenly rammed Infidus Imperator and destroyed its engines and hull.
• Macragge's Honour’s captain ordered his ship to observe the unknown vessel and attempt communications rather than attack it.
• Lox brought Red Alert into orbit over Calth and decided to meet Guilliman as the battle ended and the planet continued to burn.
• Captain Ventanus greeted Lox and told him that Lord Roboute Guilliman requested his presence.

After the Battle of Calth, Lox met with Guilliman and explained his mission to preserve humanity, while refusing to commit himself to the Imperium. Guilliman urged him to stay and help, but a rapidly intensifying Warp storm had already cut the Five Hundred Worlds off from the outside.

• Ventanus led Lox through the Orbital Platform, where Ultramarines burned and disposed of the Word Bearers' remains to prevent Warp contamination.
• Lox met the wounded Guilliman, who thanked him for bringing veterans from Isstvan V and crucial intelligence to Calth.
• Guilliman questioned Lox about his origins and mission, and Lox explained that he had slept in stasis for ten thousand years and aimed to prevent humanity's extinction.
• Lox said he planned to leave the war zone, possibly visit Terra, and keep his ship safe, while Guilliman argued that abandoning humanity would evade his responsibility.
• Lox challenged Guilliman's trust in his ship's artificial intelligence, and Guilliman revealed that a growing Warp storm had isolated the Five Hundred Worlds and promised to prove they could accept Lox and his ship.

Lox and Guilliman forged an alliance, with Lox agreeing to provide technology and Guilliman promising him protection in Ultramar. After the fleet evacuated Calth, Ventanus stayed behind to lead those stranded underground while Guilliman and Lox departed for Macragge to rebuild the Ultramarines.

• Lox and Guilliman agreed to an unwritten alliance: Lox would share suitable technology, and Guilliman would shelter him and permit the Red Alert to remain in the Five Hundred Worlds.
• Guilliman ordered the evacuation of Calth and appointed Ventanus supreme commander, tasking him with protecting survivors and exterminating the Word Bearers still below ground.
• Macragge's Honour and the fleet left Calth, while Ventanus, Ultramarines, and Senior Tech-priest Tauren remained to guide survivors into the underground cities.
• Lox joined Guilliman as an adviser aboard the flagship as they headed for Macragge to repair the fleet and restore the XIII Legion after its devastating losses.
• Guilliman thanked Lox for warning them about Kor Phaeron and the Word Bearers, while Lox reconsidered leaving the conflict and decided he might help Guilliman so long as the Red Alert remained safe.

Lox reached Macragge with Roboute Guilliman as the Ruinstorm disrupted travel and communications, and Guilliman asked him to help supply the coming war. Lox chose Mustafar as a production base, and Guilliman assigned Hill and an Ultramarines company to support him before Lox set out for the planet.

• After nearly a month of travel, Lox and Guilliman arrived at Macragge, where the fleet underwent repeated security checks before entering the system.
• Guilliman explained that the Ultramarines needed rapid replacements for manpower, equipment, Titans, and warships, which the Imperium’s forge worlds could not provide in time.
• Lox asked for a planet to use as a base and chose Mustafar, rejecting Guilliman’s offer to relocate its population and provide a more hospitable world.
• Guilliman assigned Hill as Lox’s liaison and placed Nykona, Wayland, other veterans, and an Ultramarines company under Lox’s command.
• After Guilliman turned to mobilizing the Five Hundred Worlds, Lox ordered Hill to carry out the primarch’s task and depart for Mustafar.

Lox gathered an Ultramarines company and its mortal support staff aboard the Red Alert, then took them to Mustafar to deploy an ancient MCV. The vehicle transformed into a clean, advanced complex, leaving Hill and the other Ultramarines amazed.

• Hill assembled the Ultramarines company and its attached personnel, including Nykona, while he and Nykona joked with Lox about power armor.
• Lox promised that Nykona would see the improvements in his planned power armor, then ordered the Red Alert to depart for Mustafar.
• Lox piloted the Red Alert through Mustafar’s toxic atmosphere and landed on the barren, storm-wracked surface.
• Lox ordered the shipboard AI to activate the war protocol, and the awakened MCV drove out of the Red Alert.
• The MCV transformed into a technologically advanced complex, astonishing Hill and the other Ultramarines.

Lox used the war base’s technology to rapidly build industrial facilities and transform Mustafar’s toxic environment, while Hill and Wayland discussed the risks of AI and the Adeptus Mechanicus. The planet’s terraforming began, but it still needed magnetic generators to retain its new atmosphere.

• Lox ordered the war base to build a power plant, an ore refining center, and a planetary control tower, and automated mining and production began.
• Wayland warned Lox that the Adeptus Mechanicus banned Abominable Intelligence, while Hill said the Five Hundred Worlds would protect Lox and insisted that the ships had only Machine Spirits.
• Lox activated a weather control device that generated planet-spanning storms, breaking down and collecting toxic and radioactive substances from Mustafar’s atmosphere.
• Oxygen factories began adjusting the atmosphere, and rain filled low-lying areas with water as Lox designated a basin to become an ocean.
• Lox told Hill that Mustafar still needed magnetic generators at its poles to hold the improved atmosphere in place.

Guilliman assessed the growing threat to the Five Hundred Worlds as the Word Bearers and World Eaters gathered forces and the Ultramarines struggled to rebuild. He ordered gene-seed production and fleet repairs while preparing to defend Ultramar against the traitors.

• Guilliman dismissed inquiries about Mustafar and focused on reports of the Word Bearers and World Eaters entering the Five Hundred Worlds.
• Guilliman examined intelligence about enormous, unknown trident-shaped warships and worried that Mars might be involved in their construction.
• Marius Gage reported that recruit selection was underway on fifty planets and that gene-augmentation success exceeded ninety-five percent.
• Gage reported that only around thirty-six thousand gene-seed had been recovered from Calth, so Guilliman ordered Mechanicus biological specialists to assist with production and implantation.
• Gage said damaged warships would take three to six months to repair and the Macragge's Honour needed a month of maintenance, prompting Guilliman to gather the scattered fleets under unified command.
• Guilliman vowed to bury every invader in the Five Hundred Worlds and bring the traitors before the Emperor.

Lox presented designs for adamantium power armor and a stronger-force suit, then began producing the first adamantium armor at the vehicle factory on Mustafar. The printing had reached only the knees, but the Space Marines saw the prototype taking shape.

• Mustafar’s automated base, mining operations, and resource production expanded as the planet became habitable.
• Lox showed Hill, Nykona, and Wayland a lighter-looking Mk IV-based suit made from adamantium, explaining how matter reconstruction equipment could shape the metal.
• Lox described antimatter furnaces, adamantium-polymer muscles, improved protection and sensors, and a deflection field for the new armor.
• Lox revealed a four-meter strong-force suit with an anti-gravity engine and jet pack, designed to contend with ground vehicles and Titans.
• Lox led the Space Marines to the vehicle factory, where the Cogitator began printing adamantium armor; after about an hour, it had formed up to the knees.

Lox demanded a massive supply of adamantium to produce power armor and planned to re-equip the Ultramar Auxilia, prompting Guilliman to arrange a visit to Mustafar. Lox argued that automated mass production was necessary to arm mortal forces, even while acknowledging the risks of corruption.

• Lox ordered Hill to demand large quantities of adamantium from Guilliman for power armor production.
• Guilliman offered wrecked ships from the Battle of Calth as an initial source of adamantium, but Hill warned that Lox also wanted to re-equip the Ultramar Auxilia.
• Hill explained that Lox prioritized arming garrisons on important worlds because the mortal forces faced too much pressure.
• Guilliman agreed to visit Mustafar with Gage and Ultramar Auxilia commanders to inspect its capabilities.
• Lox told Mustafar's workers and technicians that automated mass production was essential, despite the risks of Warp corruption.

Lady Yottun insisted that Guilliman take his honor guard when he visited Mustafar, citing the danger revealed by his past battlefield injuries and the planet’s unexplained anomalies. Guilliman agreed, and Auguston began preparing the escort for their departure.

• Lady Yottun demanded that Guilliman bring Auguston and the Victory Warriors to Mustafar, refusing to be swayed by his arguments.
• Lady Yottun reminded Guilliman that he had been blasted into space during the war and warned him not to travel carelessly while his enemies sought to kill him.
• Lady Yottun raised the unexplained anomalies and planetwide thunderstorms on Mustafar, and Guilliman called Auguston into the room.
• Guilliman agreed to bring his honor guard, and Auguston began organizing the Victory Warriors for the visit.
• Lady Yottun teased Guilliman about his childhood after Auguston left to make the arrangements.

Guilliman visited Mustafar and saw how Lox had transformed the barren world into a thriving technological hub. Lox welcomed Guilliman and Lady Yuttan, then explained that he would not give them the most dangerous weapons in his database.

• Guilliman, Lady Yuttan, and the Victorious Army traveled from Macragge to Mustafar and saw fleets of mining ships at work in the asteroid belt.
• Guilliman recognized the mining ships’ potential and learned from Lox that he had left behind a key piece to help overcome the Five Hundred Worlds’ predicament.
• Guilliman’s ship entered Mustafar’s atmosphere and revealed a restored planet covered in power stations, cables, and technology centers.
• Lox greeted Guilliman and Lady Yuttan at the landing port, and Lady Yuttan introduced herself as Tarasha Yuttan.
• Lox led Guilliman’s party toward the base and said he would not hand over the most dangerous weapons in his database because they were too hazardous for the Imperium.

Lox explained that he would improve existing Imperial weapons and equipment rather than introduce technology the Imperium could not accept, especially AI. He demonstrated adamantium power armor to Guilliman, whose commander Auguston tested its extraordinary speed and resilience against heavy weapons.

• Lox told Guilliman he would upgrade practical Imperial equipment and acknowledged that the Imperium's fear of AI made introducing artificial intelligence dangerous.
• Lox retrieved adamantium power armor and strong-force tactical Dreadnought armor, and Guilliman summoned Auguston to test the new armor.
• Auguston donned the adamantium armor and learned to control its power, finding that it greatly increased his strength, speed, and precision.
• Auguston ran across the training ground and demonstrated his mobility as he adjusted to the armor.
• At Guilliman's direction, the Victorious Army fired bolters, plasma guns, and meltaguns at Auguston, but the armor withstood the attacks with only minor scuffs.

Guilliman tested Lox’s adamantium power armor, equipped his guard and mortal forces with improved armor, and received a unique suit of stronger Tactical Dreadnought Armor. He then asked Lox for help building warships to replace the fleet lost after Calth.

• Guilliman ordered tests of the adamantium power armor, and Lox used a sensor-covered automaton to measure its limits against Knight weapons and tank guns.
• Lady Euten asked Lox to prioritize adamantium armor for the Invictus Guard, and Lox presented Guilliman with a uniquely customized suit of Tactical Dreadnought Armor made from strong nuclear force material.
• Guilliman accepted the suit and asked that Mechanicus priests perform the rituals needed to see whether its basic intelligence system could develop a Machine Spirit.
• Lox showed Guilliman standard-pattern carapace armor for mortal troops, and Guilliman ordered upgrades for auxiliary forces on Macragge, Armatura, Konor, and other important worlds.
• Guilliman asked Lox whether he could build powerful warships to address the fleet losses suffered after the Battle of Calth.

Lox proposed turning an asteroid into a mobile battle planet to counter the Word Bearers and World Eaters, and Guilliman accepted the plan. Lox promised to complete the weapon within a month, and work began on Virgin Star.

• Lox explained that building major warships required time and shipyards, while mining ships could be mass-produced but were vulnerable.
• Guilliman reported that Lorgar and Angron were leading the Shadow Crusade with support from at least two Abyssal Fury-class vessels.
• Lox proposed binding an asteroid with gravity generators, equipping it with superweapons and engines, and using it to trap and destroy the enemy fleet.
• Guilliman agreed to lure the enemy into a suitable star system and use the battle planet for an ambush.
• Lox promised to turn an asteroid near Mustafar into a battle planet within one month and began intense production efforts.
• Factories produced gravity generators, and mining ships deployed them across Virgin Star as the Cogitator calculated that one million were needed.