Chapter Summaries

Shadowsun sought full authority to fight the Imperium as she saw fit while the T'au shield network collapsed and the planet endured devastating bombardments and ground battles. With the Imperium occupying part of the continent and billions dead, Aun'Va gathered the surviving Ethereals to prepare for the final battle.

• Shadowsun ordered forces toward the shield gap and requested full authority from the Supreme Ethereal to use tactics beyond the teachings of the greater good.
• Over the next seventy-two hours, Saul's troops destroyed six more Shield Generators, and the T'au planetary shield system collapsed.
• The Imperial Fleet began full-scale orbital bombardment as T'au troops retreated into underground shelters and fought back across the cities.
• Victor and Karis lost their squad leader in a street battle, then escaped with his body aboard a Thunderhawk transport.
• Three days later, the Imperium had occupied ten percent of T'au's Main Continent, while more than thirty million T'au warriors and billions of civilians had died.
• Aun'Va summoned the remaining Ethereals beneath the Supreme Council Chamber and urged them to keep fighting as the empire faced its final hour.

Saul weighed the Imperium’s options for defeating the T’au and began orbital bombardment while seeking authorization for a planet-killing torpedo. Meanwhile, Shadowsun revealed an escape plan to Aun'Va, leaving him conflicted over whether to flee and preserve the T’au Empire.

• More than a hundred Ethereals used pheromones and psychic influence to make the T’au city’s population fanatically willing to fight to the death.
• Saul compared a ground assault, orbital bombardment, and a Dual-Stage Cyclonic Torpedo, then chose to begin bombardment and request Terra’s approval for the torpedo.
• Shadowsun told Aun'Va that the Imperium had surrounded the city and that she had secretly prepared twenty merchant ships and frigates to evacuate selected survivors.
• Shadowsun urged Aun'Va to escape with them so he could lead the T’au who survived, while Aun'Va struggled with the idea of abandoning the city.

Aun'Va arranged for Shadowsun to lead the T'au evacuation while he stayed behind, as the Imperial bombardment of New Dawn City began. When orbital attacks proved too slow, Saul requested and received the Emperor's authorization to use planet-killing torpedoes, and ordered them prepared.

• Aun'Va told Shadowsun to lead the evacuation fleet during the human assault and promised the Ethereals would create confusion to help it escape.
• The Imperial Fleet bombarded New Dawn City for six hours, destroying its surface districts while most T'au survived in underground shelters.
• Saul learned the bombardment was consuming ammunition while causing few casualties, and asked Constantin Valoris for permission to use Dual-Stage Cyclonic Torpedoes.
• Valoris said he would seek the Emperor's decision, and Saul ordered the bombardment reduced while a conventional ground assault was prepared.
• Seventy-two hours later, Valoris told Saul that the Emperor had authorized the torpedoes, and Saul ordered them prepared.

Saul ordered the launch of a two-stage Cyclonic Torpedo to destroy T'au, while Shadowsun prepared an evacuation fleet and Aun'Va chose to remain behind. The torpedo launched and struck the planet, leaving T'au's fate uncertain.

• Saul told Victor that the Imperium would destroy T'au, and said he believed it was his duty to eliminate the threat despite the moral questions.
• Tech-Priests retrieved and prepared the two-stage Cyclonic Torpedo aboard the warship in orbit.
• Shadowsun told Aun'Va that she would evacuate 180,000 elite warriors, technical personnel, and civilians, but he refused to leave T'au.
• T'au ships escaped into space as Saul gave the order to launch the torpedo.
• The torpedo struck a plain one hundred kilometers from the capital as Aun'Va watched from the council chamber.

Saul’s forces destroyed T'au, leaving Shadowsun and 180,000 survivors to flee and swear revenge. On the return voyage, Saul read that Chapter Master Phoros had died at Macragge, and Gareth came to speak with him about the loss.

• Aun'Va died as T'au shattered into fragments, and Saul ordered his fleet to return after witnessing the planet’s destruction.
• Shadowsun learned that T'au had been destroyed and rallied the 180,000 survivors to find a new home and rebuild their civilization.
• Shadowsun swore that she and the survivors would make the Imperium of Man and Saul pay for destroying their homeworld.
• Saul read that Hive Fleet Behemoth had been annihilated at Macragge and that Chapter Master Phoros had died fighting a Hive Tyrant.
• Saul recalled Phoros’s guidance and struggled to hide his grief when Gareth entered his quarters, having seen the battle report.

Saul returned to Optera, where the Lamenters welcomed him and urged him to succeed Chapter Master Phoros. After honoring Phoros at a memorial ceremony, Saul left his former master’s sarcophagus in the Chapter’s Hall of Souls.

• Gareth told Saul that Phoros had believed Saul should lead the Lamenters, leaving Saul silent and thoughtful.
• Saul reached Optera and learned from Karen that the Chapter had lost 3,237 brothers but destroyed the Behemoth swarm and saved Macragge.
• Karen presented Phoros’s Memory Crystal and said the Company Captains wanted Saul to become Chapter Master, but Saul asked for time to think.
• More than fifty thousand Lamenters welcomed Saul at the spaceport, and he told them he was home.
• At Phoros’s memorial, Saul and the other Captains laid treasured weapons and mementos on the sarcophagus, and Saul gave Phoros his Power Sword.
• Saul watched as Phoros’s sarcophagus was carried into the Hall of Souls and bid farewell to his former master.

Saul was consecrated as the thirteenth Chapter Master of the Lamenters after Sanguinius's blood flooded him with golden light, and he vowed never to abandon a brother. He then led the Lamenters into the Ragnarok System to attack the Bloodskull Raiders, whose fleet was already losing ground when the chapter ended.

• Phil consecrated Saul, and Sanguinius's blood flew from its vessel and bathed Saul in golden light.
• Phil declared Saul the thirteenth Chapter Master, and Saul promised the Lamenters he would never abandon anyone in need of protection.
• Saul and the Lamenters arrived at the Ragnarok System and saw the wreckage of refugee ships destroyed by the Bloodskull Raiders.
• Saul ordered the fleet to attack without accepting surrender or taking prisoners, and the Mother of Tears destroyed the Bloodskull Raiders' flagship, the Skull of Slaughter.
• The Lamenters charged the enemy fleet, and their superior skill and Saul's presence gave them a major advantage in the battle.

Saul led the Lamenters to destroy the Bloodskull Marauders on Ragnarok and spent decades winning victories across the galaxy. As the Chaos Gods’ patience wore thin, Governor Ivan Karamazov discovered a reality-defying apparatus beneath the Star of Hope.

• Saul boarded the Bloodskull Marauders’ flagship, killed Krom, and led the Terminators in wiping out the renegades on the bridge.
• Saul and the Lamenters liberated Ragnarok’s enslaved population, destroyed the Marauders’ fortress, and ended the battle in victory.
• Over the following decades, Saul led the Lamenters to major victories against Orks, Tyranids, and other enemies, while his reputation and Warp projection grew.
• The Lamenters expanded to 120,000 warriors as three Dark Gods lost patience with Saul’s growing influence.
• Governor Ivan Karamazov and a Tech-Priest examined an impossible underground apparatus on the Star of Hope that seemed to absorb something more fundamental than energy.

A device unearthed on the Star of Hope corrupted Governor Karamazov and spread Chaos across the planet and the Pacific Subsector. The High Lords considered destroying the device but summoned Saul, Chapter Master of the Lamenters and a living Saint, to try to neutralize it.

• The device's light offered Karamazov power and eternal prosperity, and he accepted its blessing along with his entourage.
• Karamazov imposed a new faith on the Star of Hope, and the device's influence transformed its people and spread corruption to nearby planets.
• The High Lords learned that the Engine could not be destroyed without triggering a sector-wide Warp Storm and that neutralizing it would require one hundred thousand powerful psykers for three months.
• Valoris proposed sending Saul to face the Engine, saying that Saul might withstand its energy and that the Emperor willed it.
• The High Lords ordered an urgent astropathic message sent to Saul with the Star of Hope's coordinates, intelligence, and their request.

Saul accepted Terra’s mission to stop the Chaos Engine on the Star of Hope and led a hundred Lamenters veterans there, despite warning them the mission could be fatal. They reached the engine beneath the Governor’s Palace, where Tzeentch appeared and taunted Saul for coming to save the threatened billions.

• Saul received Terra’s emergency orders, accepted the mission, and instructed the crew to carry out Exterminatus if he failed.
• Saul assembled the veterans and warned them of the danger, but Karen, Gareth, Klaest, and the others vowed to follow him.
• The Mother of Tears reached the corrupted Star of Hope, and Saul led the Lamenters through its hostile atmosphere to the ruins of the Governor’s Palace.
• Saul and the veterans fought twisted former Imperial Guard soldiers, using flamers to destroy the monsters’ writhing remains.
• The Lamenters found the enormous Chaos Engine beneath the palace, and Tzeentch manifested an avatar and taunted Saul for coming to stop it.

Saul sent his battle-brothers away and entered the engine alone, absorbing the divine power of the three gods despite their warnings. As the gods’ corruption tortured his body and mind, he clung to his belief that humanity deserved to live.

• Tzeentch warned Saul that destroying the engine would release its power across the sector and offered him the choice to leave or absorb it at the cost of his life.
• Saul ordered his battle-brothers to evacuate, and Karen promised to lead the Lamenters if Saul did not return.
• After his brothers withdrew, Saul rejected the gods’ final warnings and removed his Power Armour.
• Saul touched the engine and endured Khorne’s rage, Nurgle’s decay, and Tzeentch’s madness as the divine power corrupted him.
• Saul resisted the gods’ visions and insisted that people deserved to be saved because they were human and had the right to live.

After Saul sacrificed himself to save the Star of Hope, the system fused his new Sorrowful Reflection ability with Miracle Probability into a dormant Primordial Quickening. Liu Zhipeng began his tenth life imprisoned as a C'tan Shard aboard a Novokh Dynasty flagship amid a battle with the Tyranids.

• Saul absorbed the Abyss Engine's divine power, saved the Star of Hope and its surrounding planets, and died as his brothers memorialized him on Optera.
• The system awarded Saul Sorrowful Reflection, which fused with Miracle Probability to form the seemingly dormant Primordial Quickening.
• Liu Zhipeng began his tenth life inside a spinning metal container and sensed both Tyranids and Necrons nearby.
• The container stopped, revealing a space battle between Tyranid bio-ships and Necron warships led by a Novokh Dynasty flagship.
• A Necron voice ordered C'tan Shard C-7749 to activate combat protocols, and Liu Zhipeng realized he had become a C'tan Shard.

Liu Zhipeng broke free of Galmak’s control while being launched into the Tyranid fleet, then killed a Hive Tyrant and turned toward the Necron Phaeron. Galmak ordered the Necron warships to concentrate fire on him.

• Galmak ordered C-7749 to attack the Arachne Hive Fleet and launched Liu Zhipeng at a Hive Tyrant.
• Liu Zhipeng crashed through the hive ship’s shield and used his shell’s defenses to destroy the Tyranids around him.
• Liu Zhipeng activated [Temporal Wraith] and destroyed the binding matrix controlling his shell.
• Liu Zhipeng emerged from the shattered shell, severed the Hive Tyrant’s arms, and beheaded it.
• Liu Zhipeng moved toward Galmak, who ordered every Necron warship to fire on him.

Liu Zhipeng crippled Galmark’s flagship and escaped the Necron fleet’s failed attempts to retrieve him, only to discover that [Primordial Quickening] was ravenously consuming his C'tan Power. He realized that feeding the embryo enough to finish developing might require consuming every star in the Milky Way Galaxy.

• Liu Zhipeng shattered the flagship’s bridge shield, hurled an energy ball inside, and escaped before it exploded, leaving Galmark to teleport to safety.
• With the flagship damaged and its command system crippled, the Necrons fell into disarray as the Tyranid Swarm attacked their warships.
• Galmark’s retrieval protocol failed repeatedly when [Temporal Wraith] blocked the spatial force trying to pull Liu Zhipeng back into containment.
• Liu Zhipeng tried to leave the battlefield and felt [Primordial Quickening] begin drawing C'tan Power from his body at a terrifying rate.
• Liu Zhipeng cut off the energy flow and realized that finishing the embryo’s development might require him to eat every star in the Milky Way Galaxy.

Liu Zhipeng traveled to Solemnace to steal C'tan Shards from Trazyn’s collection and grow his [primordial quickening]. After breaking into the central exhibition hall, he found Trazyn’s vast private collection but had not yet located the shards.

• Liu Zhipeng decided to seek C'tan Shards and chose Trazyn’s collection on Solemnace as his target.
• Liu Zhipeng used his memories and [Temporal Wraith] to bypass Solemnace’s spatial defenses and reach the central exhibition hall.
• Liu Zhipeng nullified the entrance’s scanning beams and Gauss Cannon fire, then blasted the locked door apart with C'tan Power.
• Liu Zhipeng entered the enormous central exhibition hall and saw Trazyn’s rare artifacts and captured xenos specimens.

Liu Zhipeng broke into Trazyn’s exhibition hall and devoured all seven C'tan Shards, greatly increasing his power and strengthening [primordial quickening]. Trazyn arrived to find his collection gone and confronted Liu Zhipeng.

• Liu Zhipeng reached the protected display of seven high-ranking C'tan Shards and triggered Trazyn’s defenses.
• Liu Zhipeng’s golden shield turned the weapons’ attacks back on themselves, disabling the defense system.
• Liu Zhipeng crushed the Deceiver’s shard and absorbed its energy, strengthening [primordial quickening].
• Liu Zhipeng devoured the remaining six shards, bringing his power to the equivalent of three combined shards.
• Trazyn entered the exhibition hall and reacted with shock and fury to the loss of his collection.

Liu Zhipeng ate Trazyn’s seven C'tan Shards and rejected Trazyn’s attempt to trap him as a collectible. When Trazyn attacked, Liu Zhipeng easily overpowered him and smashed through the collection hall, leaving Trazyn’s prized specimens ruined.

• Trazyn returned to his collection hall and discovered Liu Zhipeng had eaten his seven C'tan Shards.
• Trazyn recognized Liu Zhipeng as a uniquely conscious C'tan Shard and tried to persuade him to join his collection, but Liu Zhipeng refused.
• Trazyn used a super-tier Labyrinth Space to trap Liu Zhipeng, but it had no effect.
• Trazyn attacked with a Space-Time Cannon and Disruption Blade, but Liu Zhipeng blocked the shot and broke the blade.
• Liu Zhipeng punched Trazyn into a display stand, destroying the Silverwing Mantis queen, then dragged him through the hall and smashed more exhibits.

After escaping Trazyn’s ruined exhibition hall with seven C’tan Shards, Liu Zhipeng left Trazyn obsessed with capturing him. On Mars, Ghazghk’s Gretchin caused havoc to draw away the Adeptus Mechanicus defenses while Ghazghk infiltrated a forbidden zone, as Liu Zhipeng advanced beneath the planet.

• Liu Zhipeng smashed Trazyn’s displays, took seven C’tan Shards, and vanished, leaving Trazyn eager to capture and study him.
• Tens of thousands of Gretchin harassed Olympus Forge City, and their flying machines remained unaffected by the Adeptus Mechanicus’s electromagnetic pulse.
• Gretchin riding Mechanical Warhorses raided the Titan foundry district, while an explosive distraction helped more of them slip inside.
• Ghazghk calculated that most defenses had been redeployed, then directed Sharpfang and Snot to cause further trouble and disrupt communications.
• Ghazghk cut through an armored door, crawled through a ventilation duct, and climbed into a mechanical shaft as Liu Zhipeng passed through defenses deep beneath Mars.

Liu Zhipeng infiltrated the Adeptus Mechanicus’s forbidden zone on Mars and attacked the imprisoned Void Dragon shard to consume its energy. He left the shard badly wounded, with the battle still underway.

• Liu Zhipeng descended through Mars’s neglected underground passages and reached the Emperor’s golden seal.
• Liu Zhipeng passed through the seal after its psychic chains shattered against his ability.
• Liu Zhipeng entered the chamber and found the Void Dragon shard bound by golden chains.
• The Void Dragon sensed Liu Zhipeng and challenged him, but Liu said he had come to eat it for its energy.
• Liu Zhipeng battered the Void Dragon with punches that erased its defenses.
• The Void Dragon tried to fire a destructive energy sphere, but Liu thrust his hand into its mouth and detonated the energy inside it.

Liu Zhipeng drained the Void Dragon’s energy on Mars, crippling the planet’s power network, then escaped with Ghazghk. Trazyn was left trapped amid the chaos and blamed for the drained Void Dragon.

• Liu Zhipeng absorbed the Void Dragon’s energy until its body became an empty husk, advancing the soul embryo’s growth.
• The Void Dragon’s depletion crippled Mars’s energy network, shutting down forge furnaces, defenses, and other installations as Garman ordered troops to protect the core.
• Liu Zhipeng prepared to escape in Ghazghk’s Jump-Jump Engine aircraft, but Trazyn arrived and found the drained Void Dragon.
• Liu Zhipeng escaped through a spatial rift, while Mars’s troops mistook Trazyn for the culprit and opened fire on him.
• Liu Zhipeng reunited with Ghazghk beyond Mars and left the planet as chaos continued below.