Chapter Summaries

The Emperor destroyed Caliban to free Ouroboros, then captured and bound the ancient serpent before it could escape into the Warp. With the final piece of the Webway tunneling machine secured, the Dark Angels faced rebuilding their homeworld while the Tuchulcha Engine still yearned to become whole.

• The Emperor chose to restore the Webway tunneling machine, and the Dark Watchers agreed to help while warning they would shatter the Keys if the machine became uncontrollable.
• Luther completed the evacuation of Caliban, and the Emperor tore open the veil between realspace and the Warp before annihilating the planet while preserving the Legion monastery and a small fragment.
• Ouroboros awakened from Caliban's destruction and tried to flee, but the Emperor seized it with psychic power and sealed it in chains.
• The Emperor shrank Ouroboros and took it to study, leaving Lox to discuss the remaining Caliban with Lion and Luther.
• Luther proposed rebuilding Caliban as a new battle planet, hoping to put the First Legion's homeworld on the front lines.

Lox and the Emperor planned to guide the Webway tunnel borer’s emerging consciousness with the AllSpark, while Vashtorr resolved to stop them from merging the three artifacts. The chapter ended with Vashtorr offering Khorne a vast feast of war in exchange for aid.

• Luther and the Lion approved Lox’s design to rebuild Caliban as the core of a battle planet, and Lox said the project would take several years.
• The Emperor explained that Lox should use the AllSpark to influence the Webway tunnel borer’s consciousness as the three artifacts fused, and the group chose Commorragh for the process.
• A wave of malice from the Warp reached the treasury, and the Emperor concluded that their enemies were beginning to panic.
• Vashtorr learned that humanity had gathered the artifacts and decided to seize or destroy one before the Webway tunnel borer was formed.
• Vashtorr entered Khorne’s realm and offered the Blood God an extraordinary feast of war, prompting Khorne to demand that he explain.

Vashtorr persuaded Khorne, Nurgle, and Slaanesh to join an assault on Commorragh as the Emperor gathered the three Webway artifacts and began merging them. The Tuchulcha Engine seized control of the fusion, but the Emperor and Lox prepared to exploit its moment of greatest vulnerability.

• Vashtorr warned Khorne that humanity's Webway tunneling machine could let them escape Chaos, and Khorne ordered his armies to attack Commorragh.
• Vashtorr secured Nurgle's and Slaanesh's promises to join the assault, while Kairos Fateweaver told Vashtorr that everything was proceeding according to plan.
• Dorn and Perturabo fortified Commorragh, then opened its gate to admit the Emperor and his fleet as the Emperor warned them that war was coming.
• The Emperor asked Isha and Cegorach to help defend Commorragh, and they reinforced the city's energy nodes and misdirected the approaching enemy.
• The Emperor, Lox, and their allies placed the Heart of Pestilence, Ouroboros, and the Tuchulcha Engine on a ritual platform and began merging them.
• The Tuchulcha Engine absorbed the other artifacts' powers and revealed its plan to seize the Old Ones' treasury, while Lox used the AllSpark to cast the crucial rein.

Lox used the AllSpark to subdue the Tuchulcha Engine and bind it to humanity, but Khorne then attacked Commorragh and shattered the Gate of Khaine. As the Emperor confronted Khorne in the Warp and daemons poured into the city, the Primarchs prepared to defend Commorragh with the arriving Legion of the Damned.

• Lox used the AllSpark and his authority over technology to reshape the Tuchulcha Engine’s consciousness, making it loyal to humanity, though it still required further taming.
• Khorne’s attack shook Commorragh, and his sword strikes destroyed the Gate of Khaine despite Isha and Cegorach’s efforts to reinforce it.
• The Emperor drew on the Trinity system and confronted Khorne in the Warp while Khorne’s daemons invaded Commorragh through the shattered gate.
• Angron and Ka'Bandha led the daemon assault as the Primarchs moved to meet them on the battlefield.
• The Legion of the Damned arrived in black-and-gold flames, and its headless leader joined Lion and the other Primarchs in charging the Bloodthirsters.

The Emperor fought Khorne in the Warp to keep the Chaos Gods divided and buy time for the Imperium’s defenses in Commorragh. As the battle raged, Russ and Ka'Bandha formed a secret understanding, and Ka'Bandha asked Russ to help it kill Angron.

• The Emperor taunted Khorne into defending the honor of a one-on-one duel, then met the Blood God’s renewed attack with his full Trinity power.
• Dorn and Perturabo coordinated the defenses against eighty-eight Khorne daemon armies, while Ferrus Manus and the other Primarchs fought the daemons at the front.
• Ferrus battered Ang'grath with his warhammer, but Khorne’s influence let the Bloodthirster repeatedly recover from fatal wounds.
• Russ and the Lion fought Angron and Ka'Bandha, and Ka'Bandha hinted that it despised Angron as an unworthy rival among Khorne’s servants.
• Russ recognized Ka'Bandha’s message, drew Angron into a blind rage, and moved with Ka'Bandha away from the Blood God’s notice.
• Ka'Bandha told Russ it wanted to kill Angron completely and asked for his help.

Ka'Bandha revealed to Leman Russ that he wanted to kill Angron to defend Khorne’s old rules from the Blood God’s favored champions, and Russ agreed to hear his plan. Ka'Bandha said Angron’s Butcher’s Nails were the key, but the details depended on Argel Tal and Khârn arriving in person.

• Ka'Bandha told Leman Russ that Angron’s favored status threatened the Skull Stairway and that he intended to kill him as an act of loyalty to Khorne.
• Ka'Bandha’s accusations reminded Russ of Horus’s rebellion, and Russ decided to exploit the possibility of strife within Khorne’s forces.
• Ka'Bandha explained that the Butcher’s Nails anchored Angron’s daemon existence and carried the Blood God’s power.
• Ka'Bandha revealed that Argel Tal and Khârn had devised the plan because they understood Angron’s torment and wanted to give him lasting peace.
• Ka'Bandha showed Russ a black prism and said Argel Tal and Khârn needed to witness Angron and sense his soul before revealing how to destroy the Nails.

Angeltai and Kharn summoned their Chaos Legion to help Ka'Bandha end Angron’s endless enslavement by awakening the humanity buried beneath the Butcher’s Nails. Their appeal reached Angron, and Jochura’s lingering soul confronted him as the chapter ended.

• Ka'Bandha opened a portal that brought Angeltai, Kharn, and the Blessed Sons to the battlefield, where Ka'Bandha demanded their promised way to destroy Angron permanently.
• Angeltai explained that Angron could only claim his life-mark from Khorne himself, and revealed that he and Kharn carried fragile soul fragments of Angron’s Nucerian gladiator companions.
• Kharn challenged Angron and called on him to remember Nuceria, prompting Angron to turn from Lion El'Jonson and approach his former son.
• Angron attacked Kharn, but Angeltai shielded him with the Custodian spear while Kharn continued provoking Angron and invoking his past.
• Angeltai released Jochura’s soul fragment, and Jochura accused Angron of betraying the gladiators who had fought and died for him.

Angeltae, Khârn, and the lingering souls of Angron’s Nucerian companions helped Angron resist Khorne and tear the Butcher’s Nails from his skull. Though the Blood God’s power left Angron near death, Yochuka and Kles steadied his fading soul, and he resolved to face the battle at the heart of Commorragh.

• Yochuka and Klaester’s lingering souls called Angron back to memories of Nuceria, while Khârn urged him to reject Khorne and pull out the Nails.
• Angron resisted the Nails’ control and ripped them from his skull, but Khorne seized his hand and tried to force the final Nail back into place.
• Ka'Bandha challenged Khorne with a battle-axe strike, briefly disrupting the Blood God’s power and giving Angron the opening to tear the last Nail free.
• Angron survived with his skull devastated and his life fading, while Argel Tal warned Khârn that removing his own Nails would kill him.
• The last fragments of Yochuka and Kles’s souls joined with Angron’s fading consciousness, and Angron resolved to go to his death in the battle at Commorragh’s heart.

Angron chose to erase himself in the collision between the Emperor and Khorne, escaping the Blood God’s control through total annihilation. As the battle resumed, Angeltai explained why Khorne had spared Ka'Bandha, who had challenged the Blood God in defense of his own code of war.

• The Emperor shielded Angron from Khorne’s corruption while Angelta urged him to charge into the divine battle’s annihilating vortex.
• Angron accepted his gladiator kin’s support, bid Kharn farewell, and chose freedom through death.
• Angron hurled the Butcher’s Nails at Khorne and vanished completely in the vortex, leaving Kharn and the others grieving his hard-won freedom.
• The Emperor taunted Khorne over Angron’s defiance, while Slaanesh and Nurgle proposed joining forces against the Emperor and Khorne refused them.
• Russ and Lion returned to the fighting as Angeltai stood beside Khârn and Ka'Bandha asked why Khorne had spared him.
• Angeltai told Ka'Bandha that Khorne viewed his challenge as a paradoxical form of loyalty to the Blood God’s code of war.

Angelte persuaded Ka'Bandha to gather Warp beings who wanted to correct the Chaos Gods, then withdrew with Khârn as the battle for Commorragh continued. Lox restored the Webway shield-borer and confronted Vashtorr, rejecting his offer of alliance and vowing to stop his ascension.

• Angelte warned Ka'Bandha that Khorne would eventually destroy him and urged him to unite disillusioned servants of the Chaos Gods; Ka'Bandha fled to gather allies.
• Angelte and Khârn withdrew with the Blessed Sons Space Marines, while Lion and the other primarchs let them go.
• Lox deepened his control of the Webway shield-borer as the Emperor's forces held the line at Commorragh, and the three Chaos Gods forced Vashtorr to reveal his true body.
• Vashtorr proposed that he and Lox use the shield-borer to explore other universes, but Lox accused him of disguising his ambition for godhood as a search for knowledge.
• Lox argued that a Chaos throne would enslave Vashtorr to its concepts and cited the Emperor's refusal of the Dark King's throne; Vashtorr faltered but demanded the key.
• Lox refused to let Vashtorr ascend and declared that he would end the Forge Lord's path to godhood.

Vashtorr launched an all-out war against Lox in Commorragh, but Lox’s command of technology and the Webway overwhelmed the Lord of the Forge. Vashtorr was consumed by the Webway tunneling machine, and his remains sealed the Khaine Gate.

• Vashtorr summoned his daemon engine legions and challenged Lox to a fight to the death.
• Lox rallied the Iron Men and Titan war machines, and his forces clashed with Vashtorr’s army as the two contenders fought across Commorragh.
• Vashtorr’s battle with Lox sent disturbances through technological systems across the galaxy, stirred the Void Dragon beneath Mars, and disrupted the Dark Mechanicum’s daemon engines.
• Vashtorr sacrificed the Dark Mechanicum’s followers, including Kaber Hal, to swell his power and seal the Khaine Gate against the Chaos Gods.
• Lox used the Webway tunneling machine to tear apart and consume Vashtorr, then used Vashtorr’s remains to close the Khaine Gate.

Lox and the Emperor’s forces defeated Khorne’s army in Commorragh, forcing the Chaos Gods to withdraw and securing the Webway shield tunneler for humanity’s plans. Back on Terra, the Emperor removed the Spear of Dionysus from Magnus and, with Lox’s proposal, prepared to make him the God-Emperor’s Apostle, condemning him to eternal torment.

• Lox used the Webway shield tunneler to override Khorne’s battlefield rules, allowing the Iron Men and Titan legions to destroy the daemons with ranged attacks as Lion killed Anggrath and the Blood God’s forces routed.
• The Emperor taunted Khorne over Vashtorr’s death and the betrayals of Skarbrand and Ka’Bandha, until Khorne withdrew and the other Chaos Gods departed Commorragh.
• The Emperor assigned Dorn and Perturabo to secure Commorragh, entrusted its joint administration to Isha and Cegorach, and planned to use the restored Webway shield tunneler to build a galaxy-spanning network from Terra.
• The Emperor, Lox, and the primarchs returned to Terra, where Guilliman welcomed them and learned that Vashtorr had been destroyed and the Webway expansion would begin.
• The Emperor ordered a Custodian to remove the Spear of Dionysus from Magnus, who woke in agony and begged his father for forgiveness.
• Lox proposed turning Magnus into the God-Emperor’s Apostle, a node for humanity’s faith whose soul would endure the ceaseless torment of countless prayers and emotions.

Magnus accepted the Emperor’s punishment and was remade as an Apostle, bearing the burden of humanity’s faith. Leman Russ awoke in an amniotic tank among his sleeping brothers, recognized Fabius Bile, and learned that he was a clone.

• The Emperor offered Magnus eternal service as an Apostle or annihilation, and Magnus chose to atone.
• The Emperor purged Tzeentch’s mark, restored Magnus’s soul, and bound him to the torrent of human faith as Leman Russ watched.
• Leman Russ awoke in a laboratory, recovered his memories, and found his brothers asleep in nearby tanks.
• Russ smashed his way out of his tank and attacked Fabius Bile with rage after recognizing the Emperor’s Children Apothecary as a traitor.
• Fabius Bile revealed that Russ was a clone he had cultivated.

Leman Russ learned he was a clone and fought Fabius Bile and the Haemonculi to protect the other sleeping primarchs. He awakened Rogal Dorn and Ferrus Manus, while the clones in the tanks marked II and XI were erased by the Emperor, leaving Bile frightened and the reason for the deaths unknown.

• Fabius Bile told Russ that he and the twenty primarchs in the amniotic tanks were clones, and Russ demanded to know what Bile had done to his brothers.
• Bile’s sonic weapon and anesthetic shot weakened Russ, but Russ dodged the needle, killed a Haemonculus with a bone saw, and fought off the Emperor’s Children.
• Russ smashed open Rogal Dorn’s amniotic tank, but Dorn did not immediately awaken, and the Emperor’s Children wounded Russ with their Charnabal sabres.
• Russ broke through the swordsmen and opened Ferrus Manus’s tank, then used the bone saw to smash the tanks marked II and XI.
• Ferrus Manus awakened with memories of Isstvan V and attacked the Emperor’s Children, while the clones from the II and XI tanks withered and died under the Emperor’s erasure, terrifying Bile.

Ferrus Manus and Leman Russ fought Fabius Bile’s Emperor’s Children until Fulgrim descended and nearly killed Ferrus. Rogal Dorn activated the Blackstone matrix, giving Ferrus the chance to drag Fulgrim into the dissolution tank as he died.

• Ferrus slaughtered the Emperor’s Children, sparing one swordsman who had dropped his weapon, while Fabius Bile prepared to overload the laboratory reactor.
• Fulgrim descended, ignored the Blood Mimes, and tried to persuade Ferrus to join him, but Ferrus rejected him and denounced his betrayal.
• Fulgrim attacked Ferrus and Leman Russ with psychic power, wounding both and bringing Ferrus close to death.
• Rogal Dorn activated the Blackstone anti-psyker matrix, suppressing Fulgrim’s Warp powers and weakening him.
• Ferrus seized his chance, overpowered Fulgrim, and dragged him into Fabius Bile’s dissolution tank, where Ferrus’s body dissolved alongside him.

Fabius Bile escaped after trading the laboratory’s data and awakening procedures to Dorn, who awakened the cloned primarchs. As the primarchs compared their last memories, Russ revealed that they were clones and told Fulgrim that the original Fulgrim had killed Ferrus, leaving the newly awakened Phoenix Lord confronting the truth of his past.

• Fulgrim died in the dissolution pool after the Blackstone field stripped away his ability to turn pain into pleasure, and Fabius realized the primarchs’ fight had left him badly outmatched.
• Fabius bargained with Dorn for safe passage, handed over core laboratory data and awakening instructions, and left with the surviving Emperor’s Children.
• Dorn activated the gentle awakening procedure, and Sanguinius, Horus, Magnus, Mortarion, Guilliman, and the other primarchs emerged from their amniotic tanks.
• Russ organized the primarchs into groups and had them recount their last memories, revealing that the clones remembered different points in the Great Heresy.
• Russ told the primarchs that Fabius had cloned them, then explained to Fulgrim that his original self had killed Ferrus at Isstvan V and that Clone Ferrus had perished with the original Fulgrim in the dissolution pool.

Leman Russ united the primarch clones and led them to arm themselves before they searched for a way out of Fabius Bile’s laboratory on K-7-451. They found a wrecked Age of Strife Thunderhawk, and Vulkan set about turning the scrap into a means of escape.

• Russ challenged Fulgrim’s belief in his own loyalty, then persuaded the primarchs to set aside their original selves’ crimes and work together.
• The primarchs gathered weapons and armor from the fallen Emperor’s Children, and Vulkan forged the scraps into crude primarch-sized gear with help from Guilliman and Dorn.
• Russ assigned Perturabo and Guilliman to locate an escape route, while Sanguinius and Magnus searched the planet for a craft.
• Sanguinius and Magnus found a faint aircraft signal in a distant valley, and the primarchs followed it to a badly damaged Thunderhawk gunship.
• Guilliman identified the craft as an Age of Strife antique with ruined engines and missing systems, and Vulkan declared that he could rebuild it.

Vulkan repaired the Thunderhawk Unyielding, allowing the primarchs to flee their Warp-touched planet just as Slaanesh sent Fulgrim and a vast daemonic host after them. As Fulgrim began the hunt, Fabius Bile hid his ship and checked on Melusine, confident the Chaos Gods would sabotage one another.

• Vulkan rebuilt the Unyielding from salvaged materials, and the primarchs boarded as Sanguinius and Konrad Curze warned that a hunter was coming.
• Jaghatai Khan piloted the overloaded Thunderhawk out of the planet's atmosphere while Magnus shielded it from the Warp.
• Slaanesh revived Fulgrim, preserved the scars left by Ferrus Manus, and ordered him to capture the escaped primarch clones.
• Fulgrim assembled a vast Slaaneshi force led by Shalaxi Helbane and set off in pursuit of the primarchs.
• Fabius Bile ordered his living warship into maximum stealth to avoid Fulgrim's host, then visited Melusine in her incubation chamber.
• Melusine sensed the daemon host, and Fabius told her that the Chaos Gods' rivalry would make Fulgrim's mission fail while they pursued their own evolution.

After the Thunderhawk was diverted and crashed, the primarchs discovered they had landed on Isstvan III, the world destroyed by the purge that began the Horus Heresy. The discovery reopened old guilt and hostility, and Leman Russ ended the argument by questioning why they had been brought there.

• Jaghatai Khan piloted the Thunderhawk through the Eye of Terror until an unknown force dragged it off course, despite Magnus's efforts to hold the route.
• The Thunderhawk crashed, and Vulkan opened the hatch so the primarchs could escape the wreck and toxic atmosphere.
• The primarchs explored the vitrified, ash-covered world and found evidence of virus bombs, orbital bombardment, and mass death.
• Vulkan recognized the world as Isstvan III, where loyal Astartes from the Emperor's Children, World Eaters, Death Guard, and Sons of Horus had been betrayed and killed.
• Leman Russ confronted Horus and the other primarchs connected to the purge, while Angron, Mortarion, and Fulgrim recalled their own roles and doubts.
• Leman Russ stopped the accusations and asked why the Thunderhawk had been diverted from the Eye of Terror to Isstvan III.

The primarchs dug beneath Isstvan III to find a signal and discovered the ancient Dreadnought Rylanor, who mistook them for traitors before Angron calmed him. Rylanor recounted his survival and unfinished mission, then asked whether the loyalists had won the war.

• Leman Russ and the other primarchs searched underground for usable equipment and followed an artificial signal to a buried cavern.
• Clone Fulgrim recognized the signal as Rylanor’s and rushed ahead, where the freed Dreadnought attacked him and the primarchs discovered an unstable virus bomb nearby.
• Rylanor became confused when he saw both loyalist primarchs and their traitorous counterparts, and Angron used his empathic ability to calm him.
• Fulgrim identified Rylanor as the Emperor’s Children’s Ancient Sage and learned that Rylanor had waited underground to fulfill a promise and unfinished mission.
• Rylanor explained how he had fought on Isstvan III after Tarvitz warned the loyalists, then asked the primarchs whether they had won.