Chapter Summaries

Boss Slick examined the Skull of Gork’s unstable teleportation engine and began repairing the Ork Battle Star while assigning forces to clear Tyranids from the Octarius Sector. Kuka had left to spread word of Boss Slick and prepare for a Waaagh! on a scale beyond imagination.

• Luo Wen showed Boss Slick his blueprints, and Boss Slick promised the Screw Clan the Skull of Gork and helped them plan its repairs.
• Boss Slick used Mechanical Deconstruction to inspect the Skull of Gork’s teleportation engine and found it could reach destinations across the Galaxy, including several near Terra.
• Over ten days, Greenskins from Octaria joined the Screw Clan’s work-point culture as Boss Slick began refitting the system and the battle star.
• Boss Slick sent Iron Claw and other bosses to fight the remaining Tyranids, then appointed Rambo and Kundra to lead fleets of five hundred thousand Orks in coordinated attacks across the Octarius Sector.
• Boss Slick learned that Kuka had gone east with his Psyker Boys to spread his story and gather Orks for a Waaagh! larger than the Galaxy.

Boss Slick erased his memories to cut off Tzeentch, forgetting his intention to retrieve Kuka before returning to repair Gork's Skull. Tzeentch then watched Mathieu's fleet devastate worlds for supplies, including planets tied to Pex's plans, leaving Pex holding a report of the destruction.

• Tzeentch told Boss Slick that Kuka would give everything for his cause and that Boss Slick had no chance to escape the consequences of his growing power.
• Boss Slick erased too many memories to sever Tzeentch's connection, forgetting that he meant to bring Kuka back and deciding Kuka could manage alone.
• Tzeentch watched Mathieu's Imperial Fleet travel through the Nachmund Gauntlet and saw Mathieu order the Adepta Sororitas to execute an Agri World's governor and seize its supplies.
• Pex read a report and saw that Mathieu's forces had ravaged several worlds, including planets infiltrated by the Four-Armed Emperor Church and one meant to support Pex's negotiations.

After Mathieu’s fleet rejected peace and began forced requisitions, Prelate Pex decided to launch an uprising across key systems of the Nachmund Gauntlet. He secured Cornwall’s limited cooperation, but the alliance remained strained by distrust and strict territorial boundaries.

• Pex tore up the intelligence report and ordered the Four-Armed Emperor Church to begin its uprising in ten days.
• Pex kept a mutated Genestealer bishop behind and used him to contact Cornwall psychically.
• Pex told Cornwall that the church would seize over a hundred key systems, including Vigilus, to slow Mathieu’s fleet and force it to negotiate.
• Pex explained that the church would fight the Imperium across space and on the ground, despite the heavy losses its people would suffer.
• Cornwall refused to persuade Pex further, limited his faction’s help to agreed spheres of influence, and warned that crossing those boundaries would be treated as hostile.

Cornwall adapted his disrupted plan by preparing to unleash several factions across the Nachmund Gauntlet. Meanwhile, the Flames of Vengeance left the Octarius Sector, and Hols discovered he could understand information transmitted through a warship’s vibrations just as he understood music.

• Cornwall reconsidered his plans and decided to help the Cult of Pleasure assemble in Imperium Nihilus, treating them as expendable tools for his master’s goals.
• Slaanesh’s Daemons, Tzeentch’s followers, the Gitz Church, and the T’au prepared to enter the conflict in the Nachmund Gauntlet.
• The Flames of Vengeance emerged from a concealed Webway exit near the Octarius Sector, while Tyranda wondered why the Ulthwé Craftworld had not sent a rendezvous signal.
• Hols transformed into a clothed male Aeldari and listened to Ovisus’s music, quickly learning to reproduce its passages.
• When the room shuddered under attack, Hols understood the vibrations as a warning, astonishing Ovisus.

Drukhari raiders attacked the Flames of Vengeance, crippling its wraithbone systems before Yriel destroyed their ships, but more than a thousand Drukhari boarded. As the Aeldari defenders were overwhelmed, Hols rescued Ovisus and unleashed his psychic power against the attackers.

• Drukhari escorts crippled the Flames of Vengeance with specialized weapons, but Yriel used the warship’s weapons to destroy the attacking fleet after the ships revealed themselves.
• Drukhari boarding troops teleported aboard and overwhelmed Tyranda’s defenders, leaving Parker Pan to rush to their aid.
• Parker Pan fought an Incubus whose scimitars kept him from using his psychic techniques, while Yriel worried that the outnumbered Aeldari could not hold out.
• Ovisus teleported reinforcements to the battle, but the Incubus threw a scimitar at her as Parker Pan was forced back.
• Hols caught the scimitar with psychic power, sent it back to kill the Incubus, and blasted the surrounding Drukhari warriors into defeat.

Hols helped Ovisus eliminate the Drukhari boarders attacking the Flames of Vengeance, while Parker Pan treated the wounded and investigated the attackers. A shattered Spirit Stone led Parker Pan to suspect the Reaper Host was responsible, leaving the ship and its crew facing a more dangerous threat than an ordinary Kabal.

• Yriel decided not to sacrifice his life for the Drukhari and helped Ovisus teleport Hols to the boarding points, where Hols killed the attackers.
• Ovisus asked Hols to stop mutilating the Drukhari, but Hols misunderstood and continued killing them in the manner he had learned from Boss Slick and the others.
• Parker Pan treated Tyranda, who had lost an arm, and asked her about the Drukhari attackers; Tyranda said they resembled a Kabal from Commorragh but could not identify them.
• Parker Pan sensed an anomaly and found a shattered Spirit Stone beneath the bodies, completely emptied of the soul it had held.
• Parker Pan suspected the Reaper Host, whose members destroyed Spirit Stones, and feared the attackers might belong to that faction rather than an ordinary Drukhari Kabal.

Boss Slick managed the expanding Ork campaign and its growing research and construction projects, then discovered that Daft had forgotten to find Hols. Daft remembered that Hols’s toy spaceship had been upgraded into a battlecruiser, which a Planetary World Devourer destroyed during the Octaria Campaign, leaving Hols’s whereabouts unknown.

• Parker Pan tried to foresee the future but saw only a blur of bloodshed, while Ovisus fought boarding enemies with her friends.
• Boss Slick sent two hundred thousand Ork Fleets under Goldtooth, Grom, and Duncehead to pursue the Tyranids and invade the Imperium’s Ultima Segmentum.
• Ork forces captured a Necron World Engine and an intact Webway entrance, giving Boss Slick new prizes to study alongside his ongoing construction projects.
• Boss Slick contacted Daft and learned that Daft had not gone to find Hols because he had forgotten the task.
• Daft remembered that Mekboys had traded Hols’s teef for materials and built a battlecruiser, which a Planetary World Devourer had destroyed during the Octaria Campaign.

Boss Slick traced Hols’s disappearance to Nurgle, who revealed that he had saved Hols and promised to protect him as he followed the path of recording. After their conversation ended, Boss Slick was left facing his imminent ascent to godhood and the need to choose an authority.

• Boss Slick questioned the patrol Boyz and traveled to the Tarrok System, where he sensed traces of Warp power and divinity.
• Boss Slick contacted Nurgle in the Warp and demanded to know where Nurgle had taken Hols.
• Nurgle explained that he had helped save Hols and believed the young chronicler should see a wider world.
• Boss Slick learned that Hols was safe, and Nurgle promised to protect him as he followed the path of recording.
• Nurgle ended their conversation, warning that further contact could corrupt Boss Slick’s unstable authority.
• Boss Slick returned from the Warp, worried about Hols and about choosing a concept for his approaching ascension to godhood.

Boss Slick organized his projects and chose to investigate the Necrons’ World Engine before studying the captured Webway gate. He returned to the Octaria System and set off through the Warp, where he traced obstructing storms to Chaos Sorcerers.

• Boss Slick took Gork and Mork’s advice to postpone his choice until he was whole again and focused on immediate plans.
• He delegated work on the Ork Battle Stars and future flagships, then planned to deconstruct the World Engine and assign its technology to his research Mekboys.
• Boss Slick decided to study the Webway gate after the World Engine and told Daft to prepare warships and Gargants in the Tarrok System.
• He built an interstellar Krakka Teleporter, returned to the Octaria System, gathered his research Mekboys, and took Boss Slick’s Ship into the Warp.
• Boss Slick traced Warp storms blocking his route to Chaos Sorcerers who were stirring them up with rituals.

Boss Slick broke through the Warp Storm, refused Hops’s offer of a pact, and reached the system where Iron Claw’s Ork Fleet surrounded the World Engine. On Orvisgle Mining Planet, Cheng Mingrui urged the people to imagine futures beyond the lives they had been assigned.

• Boss Slick and Boss Copperhead destroyed the Warp Storm with a punch and the C'tan Shard Cannon, clearing a route to their destination.
• Boss Slick assigned his Mekboys to design capital ships and an Ork Battle Star during the voyage.
• Daemon Hops offered Boss Slick a pact, but Boss Slick refused and received a mysterious weapon from Hops before it vanished.
• Boss Slick's Ship emerged into a binary star system, where Iron Claw’s Ork Fleet surrounded the World Engine.
• Cheng Mingrui spoke to the people of Orvisgle Mining Planet and asked miner Limping John who he was, urging him to see beyond his station.

Cheng Mingrui called on John to explain his life, and John’s memories of hardship and despair moved the people of Ovisgral to tears. Cheng Mingrui urged the crowd to reject the Imperium’s oppressive order, and the planet answered with the Yellow Turban Army’s slogans.

• John said he was only a miner and did not believe his life had meaning, so Cheng Mingrui asked him to reconsider.
• John recalled his crushed leg, his parents’ illnesses and deaths, and a priest’s claim that ordinary people were burdens to the Emperor.
• John wept as he described his life, and the crowd recognized their own suffering in his story.
• Cheng Mingrui helped John to his feet and declared that his life had meaning and that the rules causing such misery were wrong.
• Cheng Mingrui denounced the Imperium’s nobles, the Ecclesiarchy, the Astra Militarum, and the Corpse Emperor, then called for Yellow Heaven to right the wrongs.
• The crowd shouted “The Corpse Emperor is dead!” and “Yellow Heaven shall rise!” before roaring, “In the year of Jiazi, all under heaven shall prosper!!”

Cheng Mingrui learned that Khorne planned to give him the divine office of the God of Battle and transfer much of the Yellow Turban faith’s power to him. As the Yellow Turban Army prepared for a meeting, Cheng Mingrui considered how to intensify the conflict while its leaders studied the Imperium’s forces.

• John found renewed faith as a golden giant appeared above Cheng Mingrui, while an Officio Assassinorum assassin tried to transmit a warning about an unknown Warp power and Greater Daemon.
• Khorne told Cheng Mingrui that the Yellow Turban Army’s faith would help forge his divine throne, reserving the war-related faith for himself and transferring most of the rest to Cheng Mingrui.
• Veronica reassured Cheng Mingrui that she would help him even at the cost of her life, and he told her he was communicating with Yellow Heaven.
• Khorne revealed that he intended Cheng Mingrui to become the God of Battle and welcomed the possibility that Cheng Mingrui might one day threaten him.
• Cheng Mingrui resolved to stir intense conflict to generate Warp power, then began a meeting after the Yellow Turban Army’s senior officers reviewed intelligence about the Imperial forces gathering against them.

At a war council, Cheng Mingrui rejected retreat, defense, and an unplanned advance, then revealed his ambition to lead the Yellow Turban Army from Ovisgral all the way to Terra within sixty years. He decided to stay behind with the Hive City's people and said his battle plan required it, despite Veronica and the officers fiercely objecting.

• Yellow Turban Army officers argued over whether to retreat, defend Ovisgral, or attack Imperium territory.
• Cheng Mingrui rejected all three proposals and declared that the army must spread its ideals through action.
• Cheng Mingrui traced a route from the Yellow Turban Army's territory across the Great Rift to Terra and vowed to overthrow the Imperium within sixty years.
• When an officer asked what would happen to the Hive City's people, Cheng Mingrui said he would stay behind with them.
• Veronica and the senior officers demanded that Cheng Mingrui not risk his life, but he insisted that he must honor the army's promises and keep the Imperium's forces focused on him.
• Cheng Mingrui told the officers to read the last page of his battle plan, saying it showed why he had to remain behind.

Cheng Mingrui devised a plan to turn Ovisgral into a fortified meat grinder, while Veronica rallied the Yellow Turban Army to carry it out. He also secured agreements with the T'au Empire and the Genestealer Cult before Veronica embraced him in his office.

• Cheng Mingrui drafted the Battle of Ovisgral plan and teleported away, leaving Veronica and the officers to review it.
• Veronica insisted that Ovisgral's fifty billion residents undergo military training and fight, arguing that defeat would mean death or enslavement.
• The Yellow Turban Army's officers began refining the plan to drain the Imperium of Man through a prolonged battle and layered defenses.
• Cheng Mingrui returned to his office with agreements from the T'au Empire's armed merchant fleet and the Genestealer Cult, which had pledged to fight for the Yellow Turban Army.
• Cheng Mingrui explained the agreements to Veronica, and she approached him and threw her arms around him.

Cheng Mingrui reassured Veronica before the Imperium’s Grey Knights arrived at Ovisgral, while Boss Slick advanced the Greenskins’ use of Necron technology. After sharing Canoptek Scarab plans with the Mekboys, Boss Slick traveled through the Warp to meet Rambo on an icy planet.

• Veronica pleaded with Cheng Mingrui not to stay behind, and he promised that commanding Ovisgral’s defense would not get him killed.
• Five months later, Inquisitor Levinie arrived at Ovisgral with the Imperium’s suppression fleet as the battle approached.
• Boss Slick demonstrated that Canoptek Scarabs could rapidly build a Gorkanaut and assigned the Mekboys to develop the technology.
• Boss Slick shared the Canoptek Scarab data with Big Meks including Dio and Crooked Mouth, then left to study the Webway gate.
• Boss Slick traveled through the Warp to the northern Octarius Sector, where Rambo awaited him on an icy planet.

The Boss Slick reached the heavily guarded Webway gate and studied the battlefield where Rambo’s Kommandos had defeated the Aeldari defenders. He found that the gate’s partly living, psychic construction resisted deconstruction, but it remained usable, so he prepared to open it and send Boyz inside.

• Rambo escorted the Boss Slick through ten security checkpoints and other defenses to the Webway gate.
• The Boss Slick reconstructed how Kommandos had killed the Aeldari scouts and defenders before Heavy Nobz and reinforcements overwhelmed the remaining warriors.
• The Boss Slick considered expanding his ambitions after seeing how easily his Orks had defeated the Aeldari force.
• The Boss Slick deconstructed the Webway gate and discovered that its living, psychic structure could not be replicated or fully understood.
• The Boss Slick used the information from deconstruction to enter the Aeldari password and prepared to open the gate and send Boyz through.

Boss Slick found that the Webway gate rejected Rambo, then sent him to prepare the Boyz while he sought Big Blade’s advice. On Octaria, Big Blade’s clinic prospered around Boss Slick’s valuable tusk, and he threatened a patient who could not pay for surgery.

• Boss Slick discovered that beings with too much divinity could not enter the Webway and asked Rambo to scout the gate.
• Rambo passed through the gate’s mirror without entering the Webway, and Boss Slick blamed the twigs and sent him to ready the Boyz.
• Boss Slick decided to consult Big Blade about the Webway and considered his expertise in studying life.
• On Octaria, Big Blade’s patients and other Orks speculated about the great value of Boss Slick’s tusk.
• Big Blade recalled trading a tusk for a Mekboy Workshop that its owner later exchanged for a Gargant battleship.
• Big Blade finished a patient’s surgery, demanded a hundred fearsome big teef, and raised his scalpel when the patient could not pay.

Boss Slick summoned Big Blade to study the Webway Gate’s living, psychic materials, and Big Blade proposed replacing its wraithbone with squig flesh. As Big Blade began experiments, Boss Slick joined the research, hoping to expand his ability to deconstruct technology.

• Boss Slick used the Psychic Power Convergence Tower to bring Big Blade from the Ice Planet to the Webway Gate.
• Boss Slick explained that the Gate’s living materials resisted copying and deconstruction, then promised Big Blade a reward for finding a solution.
• Big Blade asked for two of Boss Slick’s tusks, and Boss Slick snapped them off and gave them to him.
• Big Blade proposed dismantling the Gate and testing whether squig flesh could replace wraithbone because both materials held psychic power.
• Boss Slick dismantled the Gate and prepared unfinished copies while Big Blade built a test chamber and began examining wraithbone samples.
• Boss Slick joined Big Blade’s materials research, seeking a way to combine wraithbone and squig flesh.

The Flames of Vengeance debated whether to follow a mysterious signal to the Ulthwé Craftworld, and Hols enthusiastically urged them to fight. Ovisus’s prophecy supported the journey, but the ship arrived in the middle of a brutal Imperial assault with its Webway gate destroyed.

• Yriel argued that the Flames of Vengeance should follow the signal, while Parker Pan warned it could be a trap.
• Yriel asked Ovisus to get Hols’s opinion, and Hols urged them to gather the Boys and welcome the fight.
• Ovisus prophesied that entering the Webway and facing battle would lead them deeper without danger, so the Flames of Vengeance followed the signal.
• The Flames of Vengeance emerged at the Ulthwé Craftworld’s spaceport as Imperial ships attacked and destroyed the Webway gate behind them.

The Ultramarines boarded the Flames of Vengeance to disable it, unaware that the Drukhari virus had already crippled its main gun. As the battle raged around Ovisus, Hols fought to protect her, while Yriel sensed that he was caught in a dangerous vortex of fate.

• Yriel fired the Flames of Vengeance's Pulse Lance and destroyed a human battleship, but the ship's virus-damaged systems prevented it from firing again.
• Six hundred Primaris Space Marines boarded the Flames of Vengeance, splitting their forces between the bridge and the ship's power and weapons systems.
• Parker Pan and Tyranda fought off the Ultramarines assaulting the bridge, while Ovisus used psychic power to save Tyranda from a final Chainsword strike.
• Hols transformed into a Squig Beast and shielded Ovisus from Heavy Bolter fire before charging the Ultramarines and crushing two shield bearers.
• Hols blocked the Lieutenant's plasma shot with psychic power, transformed into an Ancient Aeldari, and attacked him with a Chainsword.
• Yriel, bound to the Flames of Vengeance as an Old One, sensed that he stood in a vortex of fate that could tear him apart.