Chapter Summaries

Saul ordered the Adeptus Mechanicus to build anti-stealth equipment before the Imperium’s next battle with the T'au. As the Imperial fleet approached Dalis, a T'au envoy sought peace and trade, and Saul opened a communications link to hear him out.

• Saul gave the Adeptus Mechanicus sages schematics for an anti-stealth device and ordered them to establish a forge on Cysel and equip every Imperial company and squad.
• Aun'Va dismissed reports of the Imperium’s devastation of Cysel and Sydas, assuming its commander wanted to negotiate, and the Ethereal Council sent an unarmed diplomatic vessel toward the Imperial fleet.
• The Imperial commanders debated whether the approaching T'au vessel was a trap or a surrender attempt, while Cardinal Geni demanded its destruction.
• Saul ordered the communications link opened despite the other commanders’ surprise.
• Po Dalis introduced himself as a Water Caste envoy and offered to seek peace and explore mutual interests.

Po Dalis offered the Imperium a ceasefire and resources, but Saul rejected peace and destroyed his diplomatic vessel. The Ethereal Council responded by granting Farsight and Shadowsun command of a vast force to intercept the human fleet at Dal'yth Prime.

• Po Dalis proposed that the T'au cede trade routes and mining worlds in exchange for an end to Imperial military operations and a lasting ceasefire.
• Saul declared that the Imperium would make no deals with xenos and ordered the fleet to advance.
• The Blade of Sorrow destroyed Po Dalis's diplomatic vessel, and the Ethereal Council watched his life signs disappear.
• Supreme Leader Anva admitted the T'au had misjudged the Imperium and authorized a major military mobilization.
• Anva gave Farsight and Shadowsun supreme command and ordered them to intercept the human fleet at Dal'yth Prime.

Farsight’s T'au fleet ambushed the Imperial Fleet in the Dalis System, but enhanced Void Shields blunted its opening Supergravity Railgun barrage. The Imperials charged into the T'au formation, where ramming attacks and Space Marine boarding parties turned the battle into a slaughter.

• Farsight concealed his fleet along the Imperial Fleet’s route and ordered a long-range Supergravity Railgun attack.
• The Imperial Fleet accelerated toward the T'au, and its enhanced Void Shields reduced the railgun barrage to less than twelve percent effective damage.
• Admiral Yanis ordered the Imperial warships to ram the T'au vessels and launched Adeptus Astartes boarding torpedoes.
• Imperial cruisers tore through T'au ships at point-blank range as Terminators boarded and massacred Fire Warriors.
• A Lamenters Terminator crushed a Fire Warrior squad leader’s XV8 Crisis Battlesuit with a Thunder Hammer.

Farsight abandoned the losing space battle and withdrew the T'au fleet to Dal'yth Prime, leaving the Imperium in control of orbit. On the planet, Shadowsun's stealth forces ambushed Imperial supply lines, while T'au attacks in the jungle began to terrorize advancing Guard troops.

• Farsight ordered the surviving T'au ships to retreat to Dal'yth Prime, and Admiral Yanis declined to pursue them.
• General Gage landed Imperial Guard forces on Dal'yth Prime, where the T'au offered no initial resistance.
• Shadowsun led XV25 Stealth and XV95 Ghost Battlesuits in a surprise attack that destroyed Imperial transports, supplies, and officers.
• A Cadian infantryman was dragged into the jungle by an unseen attacker as his company searched for a T'au communications relay.

The T'au’s ambushes and raids devastated the Imperial Guard, leaving General Gage’s forces pinned down and demoralized. After receiving newly made anti-stealth equipment, Saul ordered more than ten thousand Astartes to disguise themselves among the mortal armies and prepare to hunt the T'au.

• Kroot Flesh Eaters ambushed and wiped out an Imperial Guard company.
• XV88 Broadside battlesuits destroyed Leman Russ tanks with long-range railgun fire, while Farsight’s Crisis teams and Vespid raided Imperial forces and weapons.
• General Gage struggled to respond as Imperial casualties mounted, heavy weapons and aircraft were lost, and morale collapsed.
• Saul watched the losses from the Blade of Sorrow and learned that the first batch of True Sight Lenses and Echo-Location Beacons had been manufactured successfully.
• Saul ordered Tactical Squads with anti-stealth equipment to join Imperial Guard patrols and logistics teams in disguise, and more than ten thousand Astartes donned Carapace Armour and camouflage cloaks.

The Sons of Sorrow used disguised ambushes to slaughter Vespid and Kroot raiders across Dal'yth Prime. As Shadowsun investigated the disappearance of her elite teams, a final recording revealed another Imperial trap.

• A Vespid squad attacked an Imperial convoy, but sixty disguised Astartes opened fire and destroyed most of the raiders.
• A Sons of Sorrow Sergeant killed the fleeing Vespid leader with a Melta Bomb.
• Two Kroot Hunters ambushed a lone Guardsman, who revealed himself as an Astartes, killed them, and crushed a Krootox.
• Shadowsun noted that seven Stealth Teams and three Ghost Squads had gone missing over twelve hours.
• A Stealth Team's final recording showed Imperial logistics soldiers drawing Chainswords and Power Axes from ammunition crates as the team prepared to attack an artillery position.

Shadowsun realized the T'au raids had been a trap, and Saul launched a full-scale assault on the T'au capital. With their defenses collapsing, Farsight faced a desperate gamble to strike Saul at Twin Peaks.

• Shadowsun recognized that Imperial forces had turned the battlefield into a trap, devastating the T'au raiding forces.
• Saul ordered the Iron Hands' Land Raiders, a Warlord Titan, Imperial Guard artillery, and the Sons of Sorrow to assault the T'au capital.
• Saul moved his command centre to the ruins of Twin Peaks near the front line.
• Farsight saw that the T'au defenses were failing and concluded that the capital would soon fall.
• Shadowsun reported Saul's location and urged Farsight to attack, despite the likelihood that it was a trap.
• Farsight accepted the desperate gamble, choosing to strike at Saul for a chance of survival.

Farsight launched the T'au Empire's last assault on Twin Peaks, but Saul had anticipated the attack and confronted the T'au commanders alone. Shadowsun was knocked unconscious, and Saul shattered the Dawn Blade before striking Farsight's battlesuit.

• Farsight committed the T'au Empire's remaining forces to a decapitation strike on Twin Peaks.
• Shadowsun and her stealth troops disabled the command center's Void Shield Generators, allowing Farsight's Crisis Battlesuits to attack.
• Farsight stormed the command hall and found Saul waiting alone.
• Shadowsun fired her Fusion Blasters, but they exploded amid Saul's psychic field and knocked her unconscious.
• Farsight attacked Saul with the Dawn Blade, but Saul stopped the strike with his hand and snapped the blade.
• Saul punched Farsight's red battlesuit in the chest.

Saul killed Farsight and shattered the T'au forces’ morale, while Shadowsun escaped to carry news of their defeat back to the T'au Empire. Saul ordered the conquered planet made into an Imperial fortress world, and the ship bearing despair reached the T'au capital.

• Saul crushed Farsight’s battlesuit and broadcast his death to the forces fighting across the Dalis System.
• The T'au defensive line collapsed, while Shadowsun escaped through the ruins determined to warn her people.
• Saul told Gareth that he had spared the fleeing T'au ship to leave its survivors with fear rather than inspire new heroes.
• Saul ordered Gareth to have Cardinal Geni prepare the planet for consecration as the Imperium’s first fortress world in the Damocles Gulf.
• The ship carrying the news of defeat reached T'au, the T'au Empire’s capital.

Shadowsun returned to T'au with evidence that the Imperium had crushed Farsight's expeditionary fleet and killed Farsight. After watching the footage, Aun'Va resolved to keep the truth from the T'au populace.

• Shadowsun's battered cruiser emerged above T'au, but its communications were silent, and her damaged Barracuda descended toward the planet.
• Shadowsun crash-landed at the Ethereal Council's shrine and rushed inside with a data chip containing the fleet's combat records.
• The Ethereal Council watched footage of the Imperium defeating the T'au forces and a golden figure killing Farsight.
• Aun'Va recognized the terrifying power shown in the footage and decided the truth could never be made public.

Aun'Va silenced Shadowsun and reshaped the T'au Empire around secrecy and defense after the Battle of Dalis. Meanwhile, Admiral Yanis recognized the Viola System's nebula as a deliberate Imperial trap and halted the fleet's advance.

• Aun'Va had Shadowsun drugged and removed after she tried to expose what the T'au had encountered at Dalis.
• Aun'Va ordered the battle's truth concealed, Farsight proclaimed a martyr, and the fallen honored as heroes in the public report.
• Aun'Va abandoned expansion plans, ordered extensive border defenses and research into the golden light, and purged voices favoring peace or expansion.
• The Imperial Expeditionary Force entered the Viola System's sensor-disrupting nebula, where Lord General Gage and Cardinal Esau Gurney argued over its meaning.
• Admiral Yanis judged the nebula a calculated trap, ordered the fleet to slow, and instructed its ships to prepare for attack and maintain position reports.

Commander Qingxi, possessing Shadowsun’s body, launched the first phase of her trap against Admiral Yanis’s fleet inside the nebula. Electromagnetic attacks crippled Imperial sensors, communications, and shields, leaving the fleet in chaos as Yanis tried to restore control.

• Aun'Ve and Shadowsun watched the Imperial fleet halt from Viola Academy’s tactical simulation core.
• Shadowsun began phase one of the operation.
• Millions of T'au smart mines and suicide drones emerged from the nebula and detonated against the fleet’s Void Shields, unleashing electromagnetic pulses.
• The pulses disabled Imperial auspex arrays and communications and overloaded the fleet’s shields.
• Imperial ships fired blindly, drifted, and collided as Admiral Yanis ordered them to restart backup power and switch to manual control.

Shadowsun’s second phase unleashed a stellar plasma torrent against the Imperial Fleet, devastating its ships until Saul shielded the Blade of Sorrow and the Lamenters’ inner battle group. The fleet survived the three-minute coronal mass ejection, and Admiral Yanis recognized Saul as a Living Saint.

• Shadowsun ordered phase two, and hundreds of Orbital Mirrors focused starlight on an unstable sunspot in the Viola Star.
• The focused energy triggered a massive coronal mass ejection that swept toward the Imperial Fleet.
• The plasma torrent vaporized outer Imperial ships and overwhelmed the shields and armor of the fleet’s larger vessels.
• As the Blade of Sorrow faced destruction, Saul raised a golden psychic shield around it and the Lamenters’ principal warships.
• Saul held the shield against the stellar torrent for three minutes as Cardinal Geni proclaimed a miracle and Admiral Yanis called him a Living Saint.

Saul’s golden shield saved part of the Imperial Fleet from the coronal storm, but Shadowsun launched a suicide fleet that destroyed many damaged Imperial ships and formed a debris belt around Viola Prime. Saul ordered an assault through the debris, and the surviving transports began a suicidal landing wave to clear a path for the Adeptus Astartes.

• Saul held back the coronal storm with a golden shield, leaving him exhausted while much of the Imperial Fleet was destroyed or crippled.
• Shadowsun ordered phase three, sending thousands of explosive-laden T'au ships to ram the immobilized Imperial warships.
• The suicide attacks created a debris belt around Viola Prime that blocked safe orbits, precision bombardment, and ordinary landings.
• Saul declared that the Imperials would descend to the planet and ordered an all-out assault.
• Lord General Gage ordered the surviving transports to form the first landing wave and carve a path for the Adeptus Astartes.

Saul and tens of thousands of Space Marines descended onto Viola while Astra Militarum transports were destroyed by the planet’s air defenses. After establishing a beachhead, Saul and his forces prepared to face an approaching T'au army whose equipment was unexpectedly bizarre.

• Viola’s air defenses destroyed many transports, costing General Gage more than thirty percent of his mortal airborne forces.
• Saul ended the transports’ sacrifice and led tens of thousands of Space Marines in an anti-gravity descent through the barrage.
• The Space Marines landed across Viola, crushing anti-air defenses and launching assaults on T'au positions.
• Saul ordered his forces to establish a beachhead, sending the White Scars to scout and leading the Black Templars as the spearhead.
• A mass of unusually equipped T'au soldiers emerged from a fortress city, surprising the waiting Space Marines.

Viola’s Fire Warriors launched a close-range assault on the Imperial lines with overclocked Pulse Shotguns, explosive grenades, and bayonets, killing Space Marines in the trenches. A young Lamenter avenged his fallen instructor, but more Fire Warriors kept flooding out of the city ruins as the battle became a brutal meat grinder.

• Viola’s Fire Warriors charged the Space Marines with modified Pulse Shotguns and killed a Black Templars battle-brother with a plasma blast.
• The Fire Warriors threw explosive grenades into the Imperial trenches, knocking Space Marines down with the blasts.
• Viola’s Fire Warriors stabbed fallen Space Marines through gaps in their armour and overwhelmed a Lamenter with repeated bayonet strikes.
• A young Lamenter saw his instructor die, then leapt from cover and blasted the Fire Warriors attacking the corpse.
• More Viola Fire Warriors poured from the city ruins, and the fighting continued without a probing phase.

Imperial forces fought their way through Viola’s fortress city, where the defenders used the ruins and relentless suicide attacks to inflict heavy casualties. As the advance neared the military academy, Malakai’s Boltgun jammed and a T’au sniper shot him through a gap in his armor.

• Iron Hands and Lamenters troops suffered deadly ambushes from concealed plasma guns and mines as they cleared the city’s ruins.
• Viola’s Fire Warriors repeatedly detonated explosives strapped to themselves, killing Imperial troops even when wounded or out of ammunition.
• The Imperial advance approached the military academy, and Malakai led his squad through a bombed commercial district.
• Malakai aimed at a T’au sniper, but his Boltgun jammed when he pulled the trigger.
• The T’au sniper shot Malakai through the gap between his helmet and neck armor, and his squad shouted in alarm.

The Lamenters’ extraordinary luck vanished across the battlefield as a hidden T’au device neutralized the force behind their miracles. Aun'Ve activated the Ancient Amplifier at maximum power, and its wave began oppressing every Space Marine nearby.

• Lion El'Jonson shielded the wounded Malakai and injected him with coagulant and combat stimulant as Malakai realized his luck had left him.
• A Lamenters assault trooper’s Jump Pack malfunctioned, sending him into a hidden mine that blasted off both his legs.
• A Lamenters Dreadnought’s Assault Cannon missed repeatedly, allowing a T'au Broadside Battlesuit to destroy it with a Railgun shot.
• A Lamenters Librarian’s psychic shield faltered and shattered, while battlefield accidents spread through the Lamenters and panic took hold.
• Aun'Ve explained that the Ancient Amplifier’s Stasis Stone could suppress luck, miracles, and divine favour, then ordered it to maximum power.
• The activated device sent an icy wave across the battlefield, making Space Marines from several Chapters feel oppressed and sick.

With the Warp stagnant and the Emperor’s protection absent, Imperial forces suffered mounting casualties as three Tau Riptide Battlesuits devastated an assault squad. Company Captain Augustus died shielding a Crimson Fists recruit, and Saul’s wrath began to fill the command centre.

• The Librarians and Chaplains found their powers ineffective as Imperial defensive lines faltered.
• Three Riptide Battlesuits rose above Butcher's Path and destroyed dozens of Space Marines and their vehicles with ion fire.
• Company Captain Augustus tackled a young Crimson Fists recruit into a crater and shielded him from the Riptides’ second volley.
• Augustus was killed, and the surviving recruit howled in grief as the battlefield recording reached the command centre.
• Saul watched Augustus’s death in silence as a suffocating pressure spread through the command centre, while Gareth saw the casualty figures rise.

Saul left command to confront the enemy’s anti-psychic device and struck the plaza above the academy. Shadowsun prepared to trap and kill him with the Blackstone Device and her final Mont'ka phase.

• Gareth reported that the enemy’s anti-psychic field suppressed psychic support and distorted probability, inflicting heavy casualties.
• Saul put Klaest in command and ordered a withdrawal into a circular defensive perimeter while he went to destroy the device.
• Saul flew to the academy plaza and landed with enough force to pulverize everything nearby, then located the energy source beneath the academy.
• Aun'Ve panicked at Saul’s arrival, but Shadowsun said his anger had made him predictable and vulnerable.
• Shadowsun ordered the Blackstone Device to full power, deployed her forces, and activated the Godslayer phase of the Mont'ka.