Chapter Summaries

Boss Slick learned how the Webway could grant control to those who permeated it with psychic power or dominated its population, while Jaghatai Khan fought his way through a Drukhari-controlled maze. After the Duke of Shadow Blades offered to help Jaghatai escape, he showed him evidence that an overwhelming new enemy was overrunning the Drukhari.

• Boss Slick discovered that the Webway could recognize a controller through psychic power or the dominance of a species, and planned to keep sending Orks into it.
• Jaghatai Khan raced through the Webway on a Drukhari motorcycle, killed his pursuers, and won an hour-long running battle.
• Jaghatai searched the wreckage for parts to build a motorcycle when the Duke of Shadow Blades contacted him and proposed cooperation.
• The Duke offered to let Jaghatai escape, and Jaghatai asked why his enemy was willing to negotiate.
• The Duke showed Jaghatai projections of Drukhari forces being driven back by a stronger, more technologically advanced, and vastly more numerous enemy.

Jaghatai refused to help the Duke of Shadow Blades until the duke connected the Ork-invaded Webway to his maze and forced him to fight. Jaghatai soon discovered the Orks were far stronger than he expected, while Boss Copperhead learned that the Primarch had defeated several Nobs.

• Jaghatai questioned where the Orks attacking the Duke of Shadow Blades had come from and refused the duke's request for help.
• The Duke of Shadow Blades claimed the Orks had reverted toward their Krork ancestors and already occupied a fifth of Ultima Segmentum, but Jaghatai doubted him.
• The duke altered the Webway maze to connect it to the Ork invasion, forcing Jaghatai to prepare for battle.
• Jaghatai heard the approaching Orks and recognized them as Evil Sunz riding red motorcycles.
• After two hours of fighting, Jaghatai struggled against the Orks' strength and deadly weapons, though he killed several Nobs.
• Boss Copperhead dismissed the report that a human had stopped his Boyz until the Boy told him Jaghatai had chopped up several Nobs.

Boss Copperhead arrived to challenge Jaghatai Khan after the Primarch defeated several Ork Warbosses in the Webway. Jaghatai, shaken by Copperhead’s size and strength, doubted he could win as Copperhead stepped forward without his armor.

• Boss Copperhead led the Boys through the Webway, dissatisfied with the weak opponents they had fought and eager to challenge Jaghatai.
• Jaghatai defeated one Ork Warboss and battled a second, whose hammer and bite briefly caught him off guard.
• Jaghatai unleashed his psychic power, knocked down the second Warboss and nearby Orks, and reclaimed his Scimitar.
• Boss Copperhead roared to silence the surrounding Orks, approached Jaghatai, and removed his living-metal Power Armor to make the fight fair.
• Jaghatai recognized the Orks’ apparent evolution and questioned whether he could defeat Copperhead, while the Boys retreated to avoid the coming battle.

Jaghatai awakened his Warp essence to fight Boss Copperhead on more equal terms, but the Ork Warboss matched his power and skill. The chapter ended with Boss Copperhead landing unharmed after defending against Jaghatai’s aerial assault.

• Boss Copperhead overpowered Jaghatai with one hand and kicked him into a crowd of Orks.
• Jaghatai recited his true name in the Warp and awakened his Warp essence, taking on the form of an eagle.
• Jaghatai and Boss Copperhead fought as Jaghatai’s growing strength forced the Warboss to draw on the Waaagh! field.
• Jaghatai lifted Boss Copperhead more than a thousand meters into the air, then attacked him as they fell.
• Boss Copperhead adapted to fighting in free fall and blocked Jaghatai’s attacks, landing without a scratch.

Jaghatai and Boss Copperhead battered each other in the Webway until Copperhead seized him and prepared to bite off his head. As Jaghatai drew deeply on the Warp, memories of his past and the Emperor's fate overwhelmed him, and Tzeentch's voice claimed that something in the Webway could save the Emperor.

• Jaghatai and Boss Copperhead traded devastating blows, injuring each other as the Greenskins cheered.
• Green waaagh energy healed Copperhead and increased his strength, and Jaghatai realized it could grow without limit.
• Copperhead pinned Jaghatai against the Webway ceiling, seized him, and raised the Killer Axe to his neck.
• Jaghatai summoned an enormous warp-powered talon and wounded Copperhead, but Copperhead blocked the attack and tried to bite his head off.
• Jaghatai plunged deeper into the Warp and relived his victories, the Heresy, and the Emperor's suffering on the Golden Throne.
• Tzeentch's voice told Jaghatai that something in the Webway could save the Emperor, leaving him forced to consider the claim.

Jaghatai’s transformation into a cocoon culminated in a blast that expelled him from the Webway, while Boss Copperhead mourned the loss of his prized trophy. Boss Slick realized Jaghatai had survived, though his humanity had dwindled as his divinity grew.

• Jaghatai’s cocoon resisted Boss Copperhead’s bites and axe blows as it began to glow and sprout wings.
• Boss Copperhead summoned his arm bracer and used its Waaagh energy to strike the cocoon, triggering a massive explosion throughout the Webway.
• The Duke of Shadow Blades lost sight of the battle and later found Boss Copperhead badly wounded, with no sign of Jaghatai.
• Boss Copperhead’s grief spread through the Waaagh! field, turning the Orks’ collective energy sickly gray-green.
• Boss Slick sensed that the Webway had expelled Jaghatai’s cocoon because Jaghatai’s divinity had grown too strong.

Jaghatai emerged from the cocoon as a giant eagle and became a Warp demigod, while Tzeentch altered him with a second head. Boss Slick confronted Tzeentch and fought Jaghatai through a Waaagh!-powered incarnation, which Jaghatai struck at faster than light.

• The cocoon hatched after two Gargant battleships collided with it, and Jaghatai emerged as a giant eagle whose cry shook a Gargant and drew the attention of the Four Chaos Gods.
• Tzeentch infused Jaghatai with his power of change, causing a second, twisted head to grow from the eagle's neck.
• Boss Slick confronted Tzeentch, then drew on the Screw Clan's Waaagh! power to create a huge green Ork incarnation and attack Jaghatai.
• Jaghatai dodged the green Ork's blows and struck back, moving faster than light and driving his talons into the incarnation's chest.

Boss Slick defeated the twisted giant eagle, while Tzeentch tried and failed to draw him into a plan to escape the Galaxy. A week later, Tzeentch planted a Daemon in the Maze to repeat his message, crashing Boss Slick while he and Boss Copperhead attacked the Duke of Shadow Blades' territory.

• Boss Slick shattered the giant eagle's second head and destroyed the Ork Gargant battleship, but Tzeentch rescued the eagle before Boss Slick could finish it.
• Tzeentch explained his plan to break the Four Gods free of the Galaxy, but Boss Slick blocked the words from his mind and ignored him.
• Boss Slick gave Boss Copperhead a sealed eagle-bone trophy that boosted speed and agility, then withdrew his consciousness from the star system.
• Tzeentch killed several Psykers in a fit of anger before laughing and deciding Boss Slick was entertaining.
• One week later, Tzeentch placed a Daemon in the Maze to repeat his plan to Boss Slick, causing Boss Slick to crash for several days while controlling Little Slick in an attack on the Duke of Shadow Blades' territory.

Boss Slick recovered from Tzeentch’s mental interference and returned to the battle against the Drukhari with Boss Copperhead. The Screw Clan pushed forward against the Duke of Shadow Blades, but devastating Drukhari weapons continued to destroy Orks and mechs.

• Boss Copperhead rescued Little Slick from Drukhari fire, and Painboys fitted an enormous antenna to his head so Boss Slick could recover his memories and disable the memory-deletion system.
• Boss Slick replaced the system with one that blocked Tzeentch’s information from affecting him, allowing him to control Little Slick in the Webway while his true body guided the Greenskins’ fleets.
• Little Slick and Boss Copperhead prepared to fight again, and Copperhead charged ahead with the Jaghatai bone strapped to his back, promising to grow stronger.
• The Screw Clan battled the Duke of Shadow Blades, whose warships fired through connected Webway passages to support the Drukhari as the Orks overwhelmed their defensive lines.
• A Drukhari fighter swept across the battlefield, cutting down Orks with energy beams, while a vast black sphere appeared among the mechs and erased everything inside it.

Little Slick helped the Orks drive the Duke of Shadow Blades into retreat, while the Screw Clan continued fighting in the Webway. Beyond it, the Ultima Segmentum collapsed into disorder as Imperial holdouts, xenos, and Chaos forces fought over its worlds.

• Little Slick shot down a Drukhari phantom fighter by chance and used his authority to sense enemy aircraft.
• After twelve hours of fighting, the Duke of Shadow Blades ordered his troops to retreat and planned to turn the Webway into a maze while seeking reinforcements.
• In the Ultima Segmentum, Sahansen’s withdrawal of elite Imperial forces created a power vacuum that Imperial loyalists and more independent defenders tried to fill.
• The Salamanders, Lamenters, and other Space Marine Chapters gathered forces, formed a new system of governance, and fought Tyranids, though the Orks and the Beast threatened them next.
• Chaos cults and daemons slaughtered mortals across the Ultima Segmentum, spreading corruption, unleashing warp storms, and causing the Great Rift to consume worlds and star systems.

Inquisitor Levinie’s campaign against the Yellow Heaven Cultists collapsed after the T'au fleet arrived and a yellow Warp rift unleashed Khorne’s slaughter fleet. As her outnumbered Imperial fleet faced relentless attacks, Levinie focused on surviving and carrying warnings about the new threat to the Imperium.

• Levinie recalled how the Yellow Heaven uprising in Ovisgral devastated Loyalist troops and forced Space Marine Chapters to withdraw.
• The T'au fleet fought the Imperial fleet to a standstill while landing supplies for Ovisgral, enraging Levinie and the Imperial forces.
• A yellow Warp rift opened across the battlefield, and Khorne’s slaughter fleet emerged to attack both the T'au and Imperial fleets.
• Khorne’s fleet used the rift to strike the Imperial ships unpredictably, making the suppression operation fail and forcing Levinie to withdraw.
• Levinie resolved to survive the slaughter fleet and warn the Imperium about the impending birth of a new Bloodthirster.

The Yellow Turban Army expanded across the southern Ultima Segmentum as Khorne’s forces fought other enemies, while its Expeditionary Fleet gathered for a memorial service for Zhang Jiao. After Veronica presided over the ceremony, she returned to work aboard the General of Heaven.

• Angron boarded Levinie’s damaged battleship after a Chaos warship rammed it, leaving her facing him on the ruined bridge.
• The Yellow Turban Army grew after the Battle of Ovisgral, while Khorne’s Killing Fleets attacked the Imperium’s forces, Tyranids, and Orks.
• The Yellow Turban Army’s Expeditionary Fleet assembled near the Great Rift, with the General of Heaven serving as its flagship.
• Veronica presided over the memorial service for Zhang Jiao, earning greater respect from the army’s senior leaders.
• Two Taoist researchers debated the risks and potential of Yellow Heaven’s Warp power as they walked through the ship.
• Veronica returned to her room to sort documents, and a maid brought her tea, refreshments, and fruit.

Veronica rejected the idea of replacing Zhang Jiao and led the Yellow Turban Army’s fleet toward Terra, convinced he would return there. Khorne revealed that the crusade’s sacrifices were helping forge Cheng Mingrui’s Divine Throne, then introduced the captive giant turtle as Rogal Dorn.

• Veronica violently rejected her maid’s suggestion that she succeed Zhang Jiao as Celestial Master, then erased the maid’s memories of the confrontation.
• Veronica filled her desk with messages insisting Zhang Jiao was alive and would return on Terra.
• A month later, Veronica led the Yellow Turban Army’s three hundred thousand ships through a safe passage in the Great Rift, bound for Holy Terra.
• Khorne told Cheng Mingrui that the crusade’s courage and sacrifices would help forge his Divine Throne and urged him to overcome his humanity.
• Khorne showed Cheng Mingrui Rogal Dorn, who had become a colossal turtle after merging too deeply with his Warp essence while fighting Khorne’s followers.

Cheng Mingrui faced Rogal Dorn in Khorne’s trial, with both needing to win. Meanwhile, Roboute Guilliman struggled with the truth about the Warp and the Emperor as reports described the Imperium’s worsening wars, leaving the Segmentum Obscurus under growing threat from Ghazghkull Thraka.

• Khorne explained that Rogal Dorn had become unstable after absorbing Warp energy and set Cheng Mingrui the trial of defeating him.
• Khorne warned Cheng Mingrui to finish the trial quickly and help his followers, then watched as Rogal Dorn prepared to fight.
• Roboute Guilliman considered Lorgar’s Book, the Emperor’s changed nature, and whether he could sever his own connection to his Warp essence.
• Guilliman reviewed official documents and learned that Ghazghkull Thraka’s growing Waaagh! was overrunning the Segmentum Obscurus despite the Imperium’s forces.

Guilliman assessed the Imperium’s simultaneous crises, from Ork threats and the tangled war in the Nachmund Gauntlet to a growing Adeptus Mechanicus schism and escalating Tyranid attacks. He could spare no forces for Imperium Nihilus and ended facing threats across nearly every segmentum, including attacks on Space Marine recruitment worlds.

• Guilliman learned that Ghazghkull Thraka’s Waaagh! had left Segmentum Obscurus for Segmentum Solar, while war in the Nachmund Gauntlet kept the Imperium’s forces tied down.
• Chapter Master Lawrence reported that a powerful Ork Boss had emerged in Euronia, leaving Guilliman concerned that two Beast-level Orks threatened the Imperium.
• Guilliman told Lawrence that he could not send help to Imperium Nihilus amid widespread sabotage, Tyranid invasions, Necron construction of the Pariah Nexus, and supply shortages.
• Guilliman learned that the Adeptus Mechanicus was fighting the Necrons with ancient weapons but was threatened by a religious schism, so he sent an urgent letter to Archmagos Belisarius Cawl.
• Guilliman reviewed the Tyranid threat as Tendril Fleets attacked across several segmentums and targeted Space Marine homeworlds and recruitment worlds.

Guilliman discovered that the Tyranids were avoiding major Ork forces, while the Great Devourer feared that further fighting would make the Orks even stronger. Tzeentch offered Guilliman coordinates to worlds where the Men of Iron could build an Iron Army, and Guilliman was left to consider the dangerous bargain.

• Guilliman reviewed reports of Tyranids withdrawing from Ork battles and concluded that their behavior was inexplicably cautious.
• The Great Devourer avoided provoking the Orks because it had watched successive Ork warlords grow stronger, culminating in Boss Slick and the Screw Clan.
• Guilliman, unable to explain the Tyranids' actions, considered seeking help from a source of wisdom.
• Tzeentch offered to help Guilliman oppose the Orks and argued that Guilliman could trust only him or pray to the Emperor.
• Tzeentch offered Guilliman coordinates to worlds built by the Men of Iron that could rapidly produce an Iron Army.

Guilliman resisted Tzeentch’s offer of Men of Iron coordinates and planned to focus on Ghazghkull Thraka while monitoring the ancient worlds. In the Webway, Little Slick detected the Duke of Shadow Blades’ trap and ordered the Orks to build flying machines, though they mistook his command for a flying competition.

• Guilliman memorized Tzeentch’s coordinates but rejected the risk of activating the Men of Iron, choosing to attack Ghazghkull Thraka and observe the ancient worlds until he could consult Cawl.
• Little Slick and Boss Copperhead continued leading the Orks against the Duke of Shadow Blades through the Webway, where the Duke repeatedly redirected the Green Tide into traps.
• Little Slick noticed the Webway passage expanding toward a vast chamber and ordered the Orks to stop and build anything capable of flight.
• The Orks misheard Little Slick’s orders as a flying competition and eagerly began constructing aircraft and other flying machines.
• Little Slick worked on a Gorkanaut while Boss Copperhead built its reactor and a spare.

The Duke of Shadow Blades prepared a devastating ambush to stop the Orks from taking the Webway passage and the treasure his family had sought for millions of years. As the passage steepened, the Orks mistook a distorted rumor for an announced race, and Little Slick discovered they were already rushing to compete for a prize he had never offered.

• Boss Copperhead stopped Little Slick from testing the Gorkanaut and had the Canoptek Scarabs install a stabilizer.
• The Duke of Shadow Blades deployed elite skimmer crews, aircraft, and a fleet of two hundred cruisers and battleships to destroy the Ork vanguard.
• The Duke of Shadow Blades resolved to defend the passage and the treasure his family had searched for over tens of millions of years.
• As the Webway tilted, Orks began sliding down it on their vehicles, treating the descent as a race.
• Boss Copperhead caught a Rokkit Boy and learned that the Orks expected a race with a custom Mighty Big Boss as its prize.
• Little Slick heard the distorted rumor over the Gorkanaut's communicator and realized he had never announced a race or prize.

Boss Copperhead believed a rumor that a contest would award a Mighty Big Boss and drove the Gorkanaut through the Webway exit into a huge battle between the Orks and Drukhari. As the Greenskins fought and looted enemy craft, a Drukhari weapon swallowed several Orks near the Gorkanaut.

• Boss Copperhead started the Gorkanaut's engines and, with Little Slick, drove it toward the Webway exit.
• Ork forces surged into the Webway and battled Drukhari skiffs and aircraft in a chaotic fight.
• A Rokkit Boy rammed a Drukhari skiff, killed its crew, and converted it into a faster, unstable looted craft.
• The Orks used the Waaagh! field to pursue the speedy Drukhari, while the Speed Freaks eagerly challenged their faster vehicles.
• A Drukhari weapon formed a huge black sphere that disintegrated an Ork fighter, several Rokkit Boyz, a rocket motorcycle, and an Ork Mega Boss near Little Slick's Gorkanaut.
• Boss Slick recognized the weapon as a dangerous device that created unstable, destructive energy and recalled the Aeldari's Singularity Bombs.

Little Slick used the Gorkanaut to counter the Drukhari’s stealth aircraft and Sonic Weapons, while the Waaagh! field seemed to have grown stronger inside the Webway. As Ork reinforcements turned the battle against the Drukhari, the hired Kabal leaders demanded better payment from the Duke of Shadow Blades.

• Little Slick launched missiles at Drukhari bombers hiding in the bombardment zone, and the Mega Boss survived Sonic Weapons long enough to shoot down an escaping aircraft.
• Little Slick sensed that the Waaagh! field had strengthened and suspected the quadrillions of Orks in the Webway had caused it.
• Boss Copperhead urged Little Slick forward, and the Gorkanaut charged into battle with its guns blazing.
• Little Slick evaded the Voidravens’ Sonic Weapons and used the Gorkanaut’s Lances to shoot down the stealth bombers.
• Hrud dragonflies joined the battle after delivering supplies, while the Duke of Shadow Blades watched his forces suffer mounting losses.
• The hired Kabal leaders complained that the Duke of Shadow Blades’ payment was inadequate for the losses their Kabals were taking.