Chapter Summaries

Captain Ventanus and his allies assessed their forces and planned to retake Calth’s Weapon Array, while Mir Eldvi Tauren revealed that her dead superior, Hurst, had left a Killing Code to counter Chaos Scrapcode. The group learned they needed to retrieve it from an offline cogitator at the port, as the fate of Macragge's Honour remained uncertain.

• Ventanus met Mir Eldvi Tauren and learned that she had brought about three hundred Secutarii to aid the fight.
• Tauren examined Lox’s transmitter, recognized it as lost technology, and pressed him for information about its source.
• Ventanus identified the Weapon Array as the key to breaking the stalemate, but Lox warned that the Secutarii were too few to retake it alone.
• Ventanus failed to contact Macragge's Honour, raising fears that the flagship had been attacked.
• Tauren told Ventanus that Hurst had hidden a Killing Code in an offline cogitator at the port to counter Chaos Scrapcode.

Ventanus and the defenders of Numenas fought off a massive Word Bearers assault as fanatical mortal troops and Astartes pressed through the fog. Ventanus confronted a powerful Word Bearer wielding a huge chainsword, and their duel continued as the battle raged.

• Ventanus estimated that six to eight thousand Word Bearers forces were attacking Numenas, while bomb-laden cultists and artillery fire battered the defenses.
• Ventanus refused Sullus's demand to join the fight, explaining that Sullus was rushing toward death because his faith had faltered; Sullus asked what they would do if their primarch were dead, and Ventanus vowed vengeance.
• Word Bearers Astartes emerged behind the cultists and attacked the loyalist lines, while Ultramarines, Skitarii, Iron Hands, and mortal troops fought back amid heavy casualties.
• Ventanus led his adjutant into the front line, killing several Word Bearers as his forces struggled to hold the assault.
• A heavily armored Word Bearer attacked Ventanus with a massive two-handed chainsword, and Ventanus blocked the blow before striking back.

Ventanus and the exhausted Ultramarines struggled to hold back relentless Word Bearer attacks as their defenses crumbled and a Fellblade threatened the rear camp. Reinforcements arrived in force, destroying the Fellblade and turning the battle’s momentum.

• Ventanus killed a Word Bearer veteran with help from Ecclesiarchy troops, then ordered the Ultramarines to retreat as enemy attacks mounted.
• Aruk received a signal from other Ultramarines, and Ventanus verified their identity by asking for the number of ornate Aeldari before sending their coordinates.
• Word Bearers intensified their assault with artillery, jump-pack attacks, and a Fellblade super-heavy tank, while Seraton suffered a severe wound defending Ventanus.
• Ventanus wondered why the Fellblade had stopped firing, then recognized the arrival of Ultramarines reinforcements when an electromagnetic beam struck the tank.
• Two Shadowswords destroyed the Fellblade, and Land Raiders, Whirlwinds, and Ultramarines reinforcements swept into battle and attacked the Word Bearers.

Captain Ventanus and the Ultramarines regrouped at the Universal Museum as Word Bearers Titans threatened their position, but Lox secretly disabled one Titan with an electromagnetic pulse. After the kill-code was recovered and the Chaos Scrapcode began to weaken, Ventanus ordered the survivors to gather while repeatedly trying to contact Macragge's Honour.

• Captain Sedans's mixed Ultramarines reinforcements helped Ventanus drive the Word Bearers back, and the loyalists began preparing a counterattack.
• Ventanus spotted a Warlord Titan and two Reaver Titans advancing toward the Universal Museum and searched for a way to stop them.
• Lox sent a metal obelisk from the Red Alert, whose electromagnetic pulse disabled one Titan and killed its princeps, crew, and Servitors.
• Ventanus noticed the Titan had stopped, abandoned his planned attack, and returned with the Ultramarines to the Universal Museum for treatment and regrouping.
• Senior Tech-priest Tauren recovered Hurst's kill-code, and Lox used it to weaken the Chaos Scrapcode affecting Calth.
• Ventanus ordered the Ultramarines to find survivors and instructed the Senior Tech-priest to call Macragge's Honour every thirty seconds.

Marius Gage survived the destruction of the Macragge's Honour's bridge and was rescued from a Warp daemon by Aenid Hill, Nykona Sharrowkyn, and their fighters. Gage learned that most of the Ultramarines' senior command had been lost and could not confirm whether Roboute Guilliman had survived; Nykona then received a communication request from Lox on Calth.

• Marius Gage struggled to fight a Warp daemon despite his grievous wounds, but it tore off his arm before Aenid Hill and Nykona Sharrowkyn intervened and banished it.
• Hill's combat squad burned away the daemon's remains while an Apothecary treated Gage's wounds.
• Gage learned that Hill had organized the survivors and that Nykona and Captain Luciel had returned to warn the Ultramarines about the Word Bearers' betrayal.
• Gage thanked Nykona for the warning and told Hill that the shipmaster and most senior officers, including Chapter Masters Varred, Banzo, and Antoli, had been lost.
• Hill asked whether Roboute Guilliman had survived, and Gage said the primarch had been swept into space and his fate was unknown.
• Nykona received a communication request from Lox on the surface of Calth.

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.