Chapter Summaries

Liu Zhipeng encountered the Emperor after a night out discussing Warhammer 40K, then awoke in the Warp as a Nurgling. An Eternal Reincarnation System promised to protect his soul and grant him a permanent reward after each life.

• Liu Zhipeng left a gathering of Warhammer fans and walked home alone.
• The Emperor appeared behind Liu Zhipeng and asked what he thought the being looked like.
• Liu Zhipeng blurted out that the Emperor looked like a huge yellow rat, then lost consciousness after the Emperor gazed at him.
• Liu Zhipeng awoke in a Nurgling's body in the Garden of Nurgle.
• The Eternal Reincarnation System told Liu Zhipeng that he would be reborn randomly after death and keep a passive ability or talent from each life.

Liu Zhipeng adjusted to life as a Nurgling in Nurgle’s Garden, where he befriended a smaller Nurgling and began imagining how to organize the carefree creatures. He decided to win them over by taking the largest mushroom piece from a stronger Nurgling, then launched a sneaky attack.

• Liu Zhipeng learned that his actions in each reincarnation could become permanent passive abilities in future lives.
• Liu Zhipeng met a smaller Nurgling, and they played with other Nurglings by toppling a mushroom and sharing its pieces.
• Liu Zhipeng noticed that a stronger Nurgling had claimed the largest mushroom piece while the smaller Nurgling watched helplessly.
• Liu Zhipeng decided to organize the Nurglings by offering favors and demonstrating strength, and chose the largest mushroom piece as his first prize.
• Liu Zhipeng crept behind the stronger Nurgling and launched himself at the slippery fungal ground beneath it.

Liu Zhipeng organized the Nurglings in Nurgle’s Garden into a thriving gang, but Khorne’s invasion forced them to muster for war. Seeing both danger and opportunity, Liu formed a plan to insult the Blood God and win greater notice.

• Liu Zhipeng assigned the Nurglings roles and contribution-based food shares, building an organized gang that attracted new members through polluting team-building activities.
• Liu’s orderly system for spreading Nurgle’s corruption caught the attention of a being deep within the Garden, though Liu remained unaware.
• Khorne’s forces tore open a rift into Nurgle’s Garden, and daemons across the realm began mustering for war.
• Liu feared being wasted as cannon fodder but saw the war as a chance to gain status by doing something that would attract Nurgle’s notice.
• Liu devised a plan to survive Khorne’s wrath while gravely insulting the Blood God, as the realms of Nurgle and Khorne collided.

Liu Zhipeng led the Nurgling Gang in building a trench trap filled with a potent mixture he named Grandfather's Surprise Sauce. The gang used it and a barrage of bursting pustules to rout a Khorne patrol, leaving the Nurglings’ battlefield scheme in action.

• Liu Zhipeng rejected Boji’s suggestion to charge the Khorne daemons and ordered the Nurgling Gang to prepare a trap.
• The Nurglings dug trenches, gathered Nurgle daemon corpses, and mixed them with their vomit and excrement to create Grandfather's Surprise Sauce.
• Liu Zhipeng’s gang poured the sauce into the trenches, covered it, and taunted Khorne’s forces to lure them in.
• Flesh Hounds fell into the concealed trenches, where the sauce trapped and infected them.
• Bloodletters leaped toward the Nurglings, who bombarded them with bursting pustules.
• The Khorne patrol retreated in panic, leaving several daemons to be devoured by Grandfather's Surprise Sauce.

Liu Zhipeng’s Nurgling gang harassed the Khorne legions with rotting weapons, sabotaged war machines, and graffiti, drawing Bloodthirster Ka'Bandha into a trap. Liu prepared his gang for a dangerous plan centered on the wounded Great Unclean One Gragg, “The Vomiter,” and left the story before the trap began.

• Liu Zhipeng sent Nurgling squads behind Khorne lines to rot weapons, foul Skull Cannons, and deface Skull Altars with graffiti.
• The Khorne Daemons flew into a rage and diverted their attention from the front lines to hunt the Nurglings, easing pressure on Nurgle’s forces.
• Nurgle’s higher-ranking daemons noticed Liu’s gang after its antics distracted the Khorne legions.
• Ka'Bandha focused on hunting Liu’s gang and vowed to grind the Nurglings into dust for their insults.
• Liu gathered the gang’s core members and explained a plan to crown Ka'Bandha, telling them to wait in mud pits with Surprise Sauce until Gragg fell.

Liu Zhipeng and his Nurgling companions defeated Ka'Bandha by collapsing him into a pit of plague mixtures and detonating the Ultimate Pustule, causing the Khorne army to flee. After Liu died, the Eternal Reincarnation System protected his soul, forged a permanent ability from his first life, and began a random rebirth.

• Liu Zhipeng and the Nurglings lured Ka'Bandha into a pit of plague mixtures after he killed Gragg.
• Liu Zhipeng and his suicide squad struck Ka'Bandha and detonated the Ultimate Pustule, covering him in fungi and making him laugh uncontrollably.
• The Khorne army fled in disarray while the Nurgle army celebrated its victory.
• The Eternal Reincarnation System protected Liu Zhipeng's soul and awarded him the permanent passive ability Grandfather's Watch and Love.
• The system began Liu Zhipeng's random rebirth, and an unknown coordinate drew his consciousness into darkness.

Liu Zhipeng reinterpreted the Four-Armed Emperor as a union of Khorne, Nurgle, Tzeentch, and Slaanesh, giving Viridia Prime’s miners a doctrine that honored their anger, suffering, desire for change, and longing for pleasure. The new theology spread through the cult and began reshaping its members’ daily lives as Liu’s campaign to overthrow Vaughn gained momentum.

• Liu Zhipeng preached that the Four-Armed Emperor’s four arms represented the powers of Khorne, Nurgle, Tzeentch, and Slaanesh.
• The miners embraced the new doctrine and fervently chanted the four gods’ names, while Liu planned to use it to displace Vaughn and the old order.
• The doctrine spread through Viridia Prime’s mining districts, where believers beat makeshift war drums and openly glared down overseers.
• Nurgle’s followers organized care for sick miners, while Tzeentch’s followers secretly sabotaged machinery and work plans.
• Slaanesh’s followers created murals, music, unusual food, and makeshift fashion shows within the cult.

Liu Zhipeng prepared to meet the Patriarch and announced the end of the old era, while Vaughn sought the Patriarch’s help against the cult’s new faith. Instead of purging the four Chaos powers, the Patriarch absorbed and reshaped them through Vaughn, whose sanity began to collapse as someone arrived at the lair.

• Liu Zhipeng told Little Claw that he would make the rules and ordered him to summon Bishop Kaz and the four divine hall leaders to witness a new era.
• Vaughn knelt before the Patriarch and reported the cult’s division, Peng, and the four false gods, pleading for divine punishment.
• The Patriarch explored the four powers and recognized aspects of the Great Devourer in their rage, resilience, wisdom, and sensation.
• The Patriarch reinterpreted the powers as harvesting, adaptation, hunting strategies, and the joy of evolution, sending the concepts back through Vaughn into the broodmind.
• Vaughn’s faith was overwritten as he became an amplifier for the Patriarch’s new ideas, and metallic scraping sounded at the lair’s entrance.

Liu Zhipeng was accepted by the Patriarch as the cult’s new High Priest after Vaughn’s mind collapsed. He reorganized the cult into four militarized departments and declared that they would begin striking first to overthrow Viridia.

• The Patriarch approved Liu Zhipeng’s teachings, withdrew his link to Vaughn, and appointed Liu Zhipeng in Vaughn’s place.
• Bishop Kaz and the four leaders of the Four Gods’ Halls knelt and pledged allegiance to Liu Zhipeng as High Priest.
• Liu Zhipeng told the cult to rise up and vowed to set Viridia’s skies ablaze in service of their god.
• Liu Zhipeng replaced the old management structure with four departments: the Fury Chapter, the Hand of the Plague Father, the Eye of Change, and the Perfect Voice.
• Liu Zhipeng directed the reorganized cult as its four departments prepared for the coming uprising.

Viridia fell to a coordinated Chaos uprising, then the Tyranids arrived and the Genestealer Cult welcomed them as divine emissaries. Liu Zhipeng urged the cultists and Chaos factions to embrace the invasion, turning the planet into a vast battle where they charged willingly into death.

• Tzeentch's agents sabotaged Viridia's defenses and communications while the Perfect Voice transformed the uprising into a citywide revelry.
• Planetary Governor Baltha von Court watched Viridia collapse as its armies, people, and defenses succumbed to the Chaos factions.
• The Broodlord's Tyranid swarm descended in landing pods and began slaughtering the revelers and residents.
• A Slaanesh follower welcomed a Termagant's attack as exquisite pain, and the Genestealer Cult responded to the invasion with religious ecstasy.
• Liu Zhipeng declared the Tyranids to be the Four-Armed Emperor's vanguard and urged the faithful to embrace their supposed ascension.
• The Fury Chapter berserkers, Hand of the Plague Father followers, Eye of Change technicians, and Perfect Voice artists confronted the Tyranids in their own ways as fighting engulfed Viridia.

Captain Castor ordered the Iron Hands to retreat from Viridia after Liu Zhipeng sacrificed himself and his followers to summon Chaos daemons, who began fighting the Tyranids. The Tyranids eventually won but found no biomass, while Liu gained the Heretical Leader ability and moved on to reincarnation.

• Captain Castor identified the cult as a new form of heresy, ordered an assault on the communications station, and called for Exterminatus.
• Liu Zhipeng and the Hall Masters sacrificed themselves in a ritual that tore open a warp rift above Viridia.
• Ka'Bandha and other daemons emerged and attacked the Tyranids, whose own forces retaliated despite the two sides being unable to consume one another.
• Captain Castor ordered the Iron Hands and human troops to retreat from the senseless battle.
• Liu Zhipeng received the permanent Heretical Leader ability as his soul prepared to reincarnate.
• After decades of fighting, the Tyranids destroyed the last daemon, found no useful biomass on Viridia, and left the ruined planet.

Alexander graduated from the Schola Progenium after his theory of “emotional fueling” won Imran’s support, then received an assignment to the broken 99th Infantry regiment. He arrived at its camp and faced a hostile veteran who accused Commissars of abusing and abandoning their soldiers.

• Alexander developed his “emotional fueling” theory and wrote a paper proposing that Commissars channel cadets’ emotions into collective loyalty and fighting spirit.
• Imran backed Alexander’s paper, which the Schola classified as a high-risk, high-value experimental theory, bringing Alexander to the Imperial Commissariat’s attention.
• Alexander graduated as the top cadet, and Imran gave him his Bolt Pistol, Chainsword, and assignment to the 99th Infantry, “Pride of Cadia.”
• Alexander arrived at the regiment’s camp and saw a drunken veteran humiliate a young recruit who hoped Cadia would be rebuilt.
• The veteran confronted Alexander and challenged him over whether he had come to execute soldiers or hide behind them in battle.

Alexander planned to gather the 99th Regiment at the Iron Temple and use its grain dust to spring a trap on the Orks, then rallied his soldiers as they headed for Viridia. In orbit, Grak dismissed the approaching regiment’s battered ships and ordered his Orks to let them land.

• Alexander presented Colonel Valeus with a plan to concentrate the regiment at the defensible Iron Temple and turn its grain dust into a weapon against the Orks.
• Alexander addressed the 99th Regiment, recasting its soldiers’ abandonment and poor equipment as reasons the Orks would underestimate them.
• The soldiers answered Alexander’s rallying cries by declaring they fought for their families, their regiment, and the Emperor as their transports departed for Viridia.
• A Gretchin told Grak that a group of battered human ships was approaching Viridia, and Grak’s Orks laughed at the news.
• Grak refused a boss’s offer to attack the ships in space and ordered his forces to let them land.

The 99th Regiment landed in Agricultural Zone 7 and prepared to face Grak’s Ork Waaagh!, whose leader had ordered his forces to leave the area intact for amusement. The regiment met the Ork vanguard in battle, and the chapter ended as the two sides clashed in brutal hand-to-hand combat.

• Grak ordered his boyz not to destroy everything and chose the Steel Outhouse as his throne to watch the fighting.
• The 99th Regiment landed under artillery fire, and Sergeant Orik organized the soldiers into defensive positions while Alexander joined the front line.
• Colonel Valeus ordered the Heavy Bolters to fire on the advancing Ork war wagons, but the Orks charged on through the wreckage.
• Orik rallied the soldiers, and the 99th Regiment opened fire with Lasguns and grenades as the Orks pressed closer.
• The Orks and soldiers collided in melee, and a soldier’s comrade drove a bayonet into an Ork’s eye after the Ork cut him down.

Alexander and the 99th Regiment fought with suicidal fervor, killed Mog "Ironfang," and drove the Orks from the battlefield. In orbit, Grak "Ironjaw" Bonecrusher learned of the defeat and began hearing that the humans were strange.

• Alexander and his Flame Core fought at the center of the battle while Orik killed an Ork boss attacking him and shielded him.
• Alexander declared that he and Orik were family, spurring the soldiers to fight harder to protect him.
• A Griffon mortar shell killed Mog "Ironfang" and his elite bodyguards, causing the remaining Orks to flee.
• Colonel Valeus ordered the regiment to hold its position, clear the battlefield, and treat the wounded, while recognizing Alexander's influence over the soldiers.
• Grak "Ironjaw" Bonecrusher crushed the Gretchin who reported Mog's defeat, and another Ork warned him that the humans were strange.

Grak learned that the humans at the Iron Temple fought with a reckless disregard for death and eagerly ordered his Waaagh! to attack them. The exhausted 99th Regiment reached the Iron Temple, where Alexander planned to use its combustible grain dust against the Orks.

• Grak heard that the human fighters had killed Mog by piling their lives onto him, then became excited to face a worthy enemy.
• Grak ordered his Orks to converge on the Iron Temple and vowed to kill the black-clad cook boss himself.
• Alexander led the exhausted 99th Regiment across the Viridia Plains while Ork scouts and bombers pursued them.
• Colonel Valeus ordered the regiment to enter the Iron Temple and secure its entrances and high ground.
• Alexander told Valeus that the Iron Temple's combustible grain dust would provide the firewood for his plan to destroy the attacking Orks.

Alexander von Lawrence and Colonel Valeus prepared the Iron Temple for a last stand, then faced an enormous Ork horde. The 99th Regiment opened fire and halted the first wave of Ork riders hundreds of meters from their defenses.

• Sergeant Orik reported a concealed Adepta Sororitas armory, and Valeus ordered its weapons and explosives distributed around the Iron Temple.
• Valeus's soldiers built barricades and firing positions while Alexander had them paint fanatical slogans in blood across the fortress.
• An immense Ork horde approached, and Alexander rallied the 99th Regiment to make their stand for the Emperor and their families.
• Valeus drew his Power Sword and joined Alexander as the Orks began their assault on the Iron Temple.
• Valeus ordered the soldiers to open fire, and Heavy Bolters, Multi-meltas, and Lasguns tore through the charging Madboyz and Wildboyz, stopping their advance hundreds of meters from the human lines.

Orks breached the 99th Regiment’s outer defenses and overwhelmed the Iron Temple with brutal close-quarters fighting, while Colonel Valeus watched his troops suffer heavy losses. Alexander refused to reinforce the southern granary and revealed that he intended to lure the Orks into the trap at Granary No. 7.

• Warlord Grak sent the Tin Cans forward, and the Orks’ steel behemoths smashed through the regiment’s barricades despite rocket fire.
• Sergeant Orik and the Kasrkin veterans brought down Tin Cans with attacks on their leg joints, grenades, and a makeshift weapon thrust through a cockpit slit.
• Ork Boyz flooded the Iron Temple, and Astra Militarum soldiers and Orks died in savage street and room-to-room fighting.
• Colonel Valeus saw his soldiers’ markers disappear from the tactical screen, but the defensive line continued to hold as each position fought on.
• Alexander refused Valeus’s request for reserves and said they would let the Orks enter the trap prepared at Granary No. 7.

The Death Korps of Krieg arrived at the Iron Temple as Orks broke through the 99th Regiment’s defenses and poured toward the Central Control Room. Orik fell in a final stand while Colonel Valeus watched the besieged room’s bulletproof glass begin to crack with Alexander inside.

• Colonel Grimm led the 17th Siege Regiment of Krieg toward the Iron Temple after finding the surrounding battlefield littered with Ork corpses and wreckage.
• Ironjaw Bonecrusher Grak mistook the 99th Regiment’s deliberate withdrawal at Grain Depot Area 7 for a collapse and ordered his Boyz to charge toward the Central Control Room.
• Orik and the surviving defenders fought the Orks outside the Central Control Room after running out of ammunition.
• A Kasrkin veteran detonated his last grenade, and Orik charged into the Ork tide to hold the line outside the sealed doors.
• Colonel Valeus watched Orik’s death with Alexander as Orks surrounded the Central Control Room and cracks spread across its bulletproof glass.

Alexander detonated the explosives throughout the Iron Temple, triggering a massive grain-dust explosion that obliterated the Ork horde and devastated the surrounding area. The Death Korps of Krieg’s 17th Siege Regiment watched the blast from afar as Commissar Friedrich called it a judgment.

• Warlord Grak threatened Alexander and struck the strained bulletproof glass with his power klaw.
• Alexander taunted Grak, then smiled at Colonel Valeus and activated the final detonator.
• The explosives ignited the grain dust in the Iron Temple, killing the Orks inside and creating a vast fireball and shock wave.
• The explosion destroyed Ork reserves and war machines and devastated hundreds of thousands of Orks around the temple.
• The Death Korps of Krieg’s 17th Siege Regiment saw the mushroom cloud, and Commissar Friedrich called the blast a judgment.