Recaps

Dominic received another anonymous letter while Lynn left the Gemstone and learned that Rena’s force had entered the Land Without Extension. Guyu’s squad advanced through the labyrinth under their Shadow in the Warp, but wounded veterans at the rear suddenly triggered melta bombs.

• Adjutant Karen delivered Dominic a second anonymous confidential letter bearing the same seal as the first, and Dominic hesitated before opening it.
• Lynn told Rena that matters with Dominic were settled and asked about the assault squad’s progress on the third underground level.
• Guyu led the Plague Cleansing Assault Squad and the Decapitation Squad through the Land Without Extension, where their combined Shadow in the Warp suppressed the labyrinth’s distortions and whispers.
• The force followed biological and psychic signals toward Luna’s central chamber, overcoming minor daemons and spatial folds along the way.
• As the squad crossed a downward spiral staircase, three wounded veterans at the rear suddenly stopped and detonated melta bombs.

A Tzeentch-corrupted attack broke the column’s domain of non-contact and sent everyone tumbling through a violently distorted spiral staircase. Lynn recognized that the survivors needed a physical anchor, and Guyu ordered Peter to brake against the stairwell wall as they continued to fall.

• Three corrupted Vanguard veterans detonated Melta Bombs, killing several soldiers and wounding the rear bishop, which opened a breach in the domain.
• Warp energy surged through the breach, flipping and stretching the staircase while daemons attacked the falling column and casualties mounted.
• Lynn linked to a Genestealer’s senses and saw Guyu and the survivors clinging to the Armiger Knight as they fell.
• Lynn realized the column needed a physical point of support to stop its descent through the Warp-distorted stairs.
• Guyu landed on the Armiger’s shoulder and told Peter to stop firing and brake against the sidewall.

Peter and Guyu stopped the survivors’ first fall through the warped stairway, but a daemon attack sent them plunging again. Guyu caught the group with a psychic net supported by three sacrificial aberrants, leaving the survivors alive above the abyss.

• Peter drove the Armiger Knight mech’s Chainsword into the stairway wall while Guyu and the two bishops focused the untouchable field, stopping the group’s fall.
• A four-legged, armored monster charged from the darkness and broke off the mech’s Chainsword arm, sending the survivors into another fall.
• Guyu recognized that the distorted gravity relied on Warp energy and commanded three third-generation aberrants to release their grips.
• Guyu wove a psychic net beneath the falling group, and the three aberrants caught it with their bodies.
• The mech and the survivors crashed onto the net, crushing the three aberrants but surviving the fall.

Guyu and the others escaped the warped staircase, only to face two Helbrutes and the Heldrake that had attacked them before. As the group fought to survive, the Heldrake avoided Guyu’s psychic thread and prepared to strike again.

• Guyu froze the warped staircase, allowing everyone to descend safely into an underground hall.
• Two Helbrutes charged the group, and Peter used his Armiger Knight’s Ion Shield to hold one back.
• The captain ordered the veterans to scatter while the acolytes and Purestrain Genestealers attacked the other Helbrute.
• Guyu sensed the Heldrake above and dodged its flame attack as it dove toward her.
• Guyu stretched a psychic thread across the Heldrake’s path, but it twisted aside and evaded the attack.

Guyu and the others destroyed three Daemon Engines, but Luna arrived with sorcerers and trapped them in a ward that disrupted Guyu’s psychic link to her main body. Nine Chaos Knight Drop Pods then landed inside the ward, releasing twisted Knight walkers.

• Guyu severed the Heldrake’s wing with a psychic thread, and four Purestrain Genestealers tore it apart after it crashed.
• Guyu attacked both Helbrutes with psychic whips while Peter and the acolytes helped bring them down.
• Luna arrived aboard a larger Heldrake and mocked the wounded survivors.
• Nine two-faced sorcerers formed a ward that blocked Guyu’s mental connection to her main body and weakened her psychic power.
• Nine Chaos Knight Drop Pods struck the ward’s corners, and twisted Knight walkers emerged from them.

When the Nine-Sided Spirit-Sealing Barrier cut off Rena’s connection to the Hive Mind, Lynn contacted her through their system link and learned that she was trapped underground with Chaos Knights closing in. He ordered reinforcements assembled in the upper city and headed to the council hall to meet Leo.

• The barrier severed the Hive Mind link, causing Isolde to collapse, and Lynn confirmed through the system that Rena’s primary consciousness was alive but stranded inside it.
• Rena told Lynn that nine two-faced sorcerers had raised the barrier, that nine Chaos Knights were encircling her, and that fewer than eight Vanguard soldiers remained able to fight.
• Lynn told Rena to hold on while he brought help, then contacted Butcher and learned the undercity forces had briefly faltered before Priest took over as their secondary network node.
• Lynn ordered Butcher to draw combat units from Priest and assemble them secretly in the upper city.
• Lynn grabbed his military cap and headed to the council hall, where Leo was waiting for news from the Decapitation Squad.

Lynn declared Luna St. Garus’s alliance with Chaos a threat to Brevis and led the Vanguard in an assault on Saint Garus Castle. The troops breached the castle’s defenses and advanced underground to rescue the trapped Decapitation Squad and confront Luna.

• Leo told Lynn that the Decapitation Squad had lost contact underground and that his scouts had not returned.
• Lynn revealed that Luna had allied with Chaos and trapped the Decapitation Squad, and Leo placed the St. Garus private troops at his disposal.
• Lynn mobilized tens of thousands of Vanguard soldiers and rallied them to fight Luna’s heretics.
• Butcher brought more than three hundred disguised hybrids, including bishop-level hybrids, to join the Vanguard force.
• Lynn ordered the attack, and the Vanguard blasted through the castle gates and rapidly breached its outer defenses.
• The Vanguard advanced into the underground levels while the Plague-Cleansing Apostles shielded the soldiers from Warp corruption.

Dominic and his companions investigated coordinates from an anonymous letter in Brevis’s northern polar ice plain, where they found signs of a powerful psychic eruption from six months earlier. The Tech-Priest detected nonhuman genetic material beneath the valley’s ice, leaving Dominic to wonder whether the incident was connected to Kerry Von.

• Dominic travelled across the ice plain with two Sisters of Silence, a Tech-Priest, and three six-legged beasts to investigate the letter’s coordinates.
• A Sister of Silence sensed traces of a powerful psychic eruption in a valley, dating it to roughly six months earlier.
• Dominic connected the timing to Kerry Von’s arrival on Brevis and his battle at the Forbidden Wall.
• The Tech-Priest found vitrified crystals beneath the valley and faint traces of nonhuman genetic material.

Dominic investigated a mysteriously scrubbed valley in the northern polar ice fields, then learned that Governor Kerry had mobilized troops against Lord Regent Luna. A follow-up search uncovered flint tool fragments and blue quartz jewelry, suggesting the ice-field savages had been present.

• Dominic found no useful evidence in the valley and left Sister Cassandra and the Tech-Priest to continue investigating.
• Adjutant Karen told Dominic that Governor Kerry had deployed thirty thousand Vanguard troops to besiege Saint Garus Castle, accusing Luna of colluding with Chaos.
• Dominic ordered the fleet to remain on alert, secure the starport, and avoid interfering in Brevis's internal conflict.
• Dominic returned to the valley the next morning after Sister Cassandra and the Tech-Priest found evidence dating the psychic impact to about seven months earlier.
• The Tech-Priest identified two fragments as ground flint from primitive tools and another as cut blue quartz, leading Dominic to suspect the ice-field savages had been there.

Dominic searched the Brevis Ice Plain for savages who knew what had happened in a valley six months earlier, then captured three chieftains and used Psykers to interrogate them. The recovered history identified the Ice Fang Clan and Snow Claw Clan, but the chapter ended before revealing what the tribes knew about the valley or Kerry Von.

• Dominic ordered a search for savage camps after finding remnants in the forbidden valley and no living inhabitants nearby.
• Dominic offered supplies to the Ice Fang Clan's old chieftain in exchange for information, but the chieftain refused and warned that speaking of the valley would anger a divine being.
• Dominic connected the tribes' fear to legends of the Dragons of Frost and wondered whether one was linked to the valley and Kerry Von.
• Dominic seized the old chieftain and two other tribal leaders, then brought them to the Gemstone for psychic interrogation.
• Dominic learned that Brevis's ice plain savages descended from abandoned mutant miners and had divided into the mild Ice Fang Clan and aggressive Snow Claw Clan.

Dominic learned that Kerry Von had been recognized as the Ice Lord after the Dragon of Frost froze a million Snow Claw cavalry, and that Kerry later saved the ice plains tribes from starvation and the Orks. The evidence deepened Dominic’s doubts about Kerry’s alliances with xenos, leaving him wondering what the Dragon of Frost truly was.

• Dominic read that the Dragon of Frost had frozen a million Snow Claw cavalry and that the tribespeople had revered Kerry Von as the Ice Lord.
• Dominic learned from the clan leaders’ interrogations that the Orks had devastated the ice plains and left the tribes facing starvation.
• Karu recalled that Kerry Von had brought supplies, sheltered the tribes’ vulnerable people, and helped reclaim their hunting grounds from the Orks.
• Karu’s account described the Dragon of Frost’s power helping the tribal warriors defeat Orks with almost no casualties.
• Dominic weighed the xenos’ aid to humanity against Imperial law and wondered what the Dragon of Frost was.

Dominic investigated the Dragon of Frost and decided to seek information about it through a local intermediary rather than confront Kerry Von’s allied clans. In Brevis, Villen approached Dilong to arrange trade with the Ice Fang Clan and offered him a tempting payment.

• Dominic ordered Adjutant Karen to gather satellite records and send a team to search for Ork remains near the northern ice fields.
• Dominic concluded that raiding the Ice Fang Clan or Snow Claw Clan would risk a needless break with Kerry, so he planned to reach them indirectly through a local broker.
• Three days later, Villen waited at the Cinder Inn to meet Dilong, a scavenger alliance leader with ties to Ice Fang Kuai.
• Villen asked Dilong to arrange trade with the Ice Fang Clan, but Dilong denied that he still traded in the ice fields.
• Villen pushed a pouch of gold Throne Gelt and a grain card worth over a hundred tonnes across the table to persuade Dilong.

Villen lured Dilong into arranging a supply deal with Ice Fang Kuai, using generous payments and gifts to win his trust. While drinking together, Villen questioned him about the Dragon of Frost, but Dilong’s account was interrupted by a sudden gust of freezing wind that left him frightened.

• Dilong initially refused Villen’s offer to pay him to contact Ice Fang Kuai, but Villen expected him to reconsider because the Ice Fang Clan needed supplies.
• Dilong returned the next evening, accepted Villen’s offer of a thirty-percent premium and five-percent brokerage fee, and said he had sent word to Kuai.
• Villen and Dilong met daily to discuss the trade, and Villen’s spending and gifts gradually won Dilong’s trust.
• During a private dinner, Villen asked whether the Dragon of Frost was real, and Dilong said Kuai had seen the guardian god of the ice plains.
• Dilong claimed the Dragon of Frost had driven off the Orks and began to describe how it happened, but a sudden gust of freezing wind blew the door open and silenced him.

Villen questioned Dilong about the battle at the Forbidden Wall and learned that mysterious Frost Soldiers had helped clear the Orks from the ice fields. He left for the starport, convinced the Dragon of Frost concealed a major threat.

• Villen offered Dilong gold and pressed him to explain how Governor Kerry had cleared the Orks from the ice fields.
• Dilong said the Ice Fang Clan’s savages had located Ork lairs, while Frost Soldiers appeared and swiftly destroyed the Ork settlements and workshops.
• Villen doubted the Frost Soldiers were ordinary creatures and considered whether they might be connected to Chaos, but Dilong could provide no further details.
• Villen told Dilong to contact Chieftain Kuai about the urgent first shipment, then left the Cinder Inn for the starport that night.
• Villen brooded over the Frost Soldiers during the airship ride and suspected the secret behind them surpassed the Plague Cleansing Cult’s Genestealers.

Dominic decided to infiltrate an Ice Fang Clan settlement to uncover the Frost Soldiers’ secrets, while Lynn’s forces fought through fierce Chaos Cultist resistance beneath Saint Garus Castle. The chapter ended with Lynn realizing that time inside the barrier was moving differently as Rena Guyu faced a Chaos Knight.

• Dominic rejected a large-scale scan of the polar ice fields and concluded that the Frost Soldiers’ connection to the tribespeople could lead him to clues in the Ice Fang Clan’s core settlements.
• Dominic ordered preparations to infiltrate a tribal settlement under cover of an ice field trade caravan, planning to take two Sisters of Silence and use optical invisibility equipment.
• Lynn’s forces fought their way through heavy weapons and waves of Chaos Cultists on the first basement level of Saint Garus Castle, but advanced less than a third of the passage after an hour.
• Lynn sensed Rena Guyu defending herself against a Chaos Knight inside the barrier and realized that time was flowing differently there.

Lynn ordered the Vanguard to seize the second underground level after eight hours of fighting cleared the first, while Guyu remained trapped inside Luna’s time-slowing barrier. Meanwhile, Dominic and two companions infiltrated the Ice Fang Clan’s orderly City of Teeth, where he concluded that its Dragon of Frost was unlikely to be a Warp dark god.

• Lynn realized the barrier was slowing time around Guyu and ordered an all-out assault to destroy its core.
• The Vanguard captured the first underground level after eight hours of fighting and nearly three thousand casualties, and Lynn ordered a ten-minute resupply before attacking the next level.
• A trading caravan arrived at the City of Teeth, and Dominic and two companions slipped away from the porters into the settlement.
• Dominic observed the Ice Fang Clan’s peaceful, orderly way of life and judged that its Dragon of Frost was probably not a creation of a dark god of the Warp.

Dominic and the Sisters of Silence infiltrated the City of Teeth’s temple to investigate the Dragon of Frost and the familiar Psychic Power Cassandra sensed there. They found a hidden underground ice hall filled with more than a thousand seated figures beneath an enormous ice lotus containing blue flame.

• Dominic reasoned that the Dragon of Frost did not behave like a Chaos God and led the Sisters of Silence toward the City of Teeth’s central temple.
• The three bypassed the temple’s heavily guarded entrance by climbing over the ice ridges and entering the valley unnoticed.
• Cassandra sensed Psychic Power resembling that of the Plague Cleansing Cult’s undercity stronghold, though Dominic doubted the two were connected.
• Dominic and the Sisters entered the cavern, examined its small-scale animal sacrifices, and discovered a concealed door in the ice wall.
• They opened the hidden door and found a vast underground hall with a blue-flamed ice lotus above more than a thousand seated figures.

Dominic, Cassandra, and a Sister of Silence discovered a vast hall of sleeping worshippers beneath the Ice Lotus, along with a dragon statue and a four-armed figure that suggested a hidden Genestealer army. When Dominic approached one sleeper, the entire congregation awoke and attacked, forcing the group to retreat as a voice called them intruders.

• Dominic and his companions found more than a thousand cyan-robed worshippers in meditation before a dragon-shaped ice statue and a four-armed figure.
• Dominic suspected the sleepers were Genestealers and moved closer to collect a sample from one of them.
• The sleeper turned his head around, opened his cyan eyes, and triggered the awakening of the entire hall.
• Cassandra shielded Dominic as the worshippers attacked, and a Sister of Silence killed one after it struck her ally.
• The worshippers began mutating into Genestealer-like creatures, and Dominic ordered the group to retreat toward the entrance.
• A deep voice from the hall called the three companions intruders.

Dominic and the two Sisters of Silence were discovered in the ice hall by Divine Envoy Four, who unleashed the awakened believers and attacked them. As they tried to escape, Divine Envoy Four blocked their path and struck at Dominic, but one Sister took the blow in his place.

• Divine Envoy Four awakened, identified Dominic and the Sisters as Imperials and Blanks, and attacked them with ice and Psychic Power.
• Dominic ordered a retreat as he and the Sisters fought through the believers, whose psychic attacks the Sisters’ blank fields suppressed.
• Dominic and the Sisters used their thrusters to flee toward the concealed entrance, but Divine Envoy Four overtook them and raised an ice wall across their exit.
• Dominic shattered the ice wall with a concussion grenade, but Divine Envoy Four anticipated their escape route and slashed at him through the icy mist.
• A Sister of Silence shoved Dominic aside and took Divine Envoy Four’s blade across her body.

Dominic and Sister Elaine fought Divine Envoy Four in the ice hall, where Dominic used the family relic Setting Sun to kill him after Elaine disrupted his psychic shield. Divine Envoy Four’s final alarm awakened the City of Teeth, forcing Dominic and Elaine to flee as more believers stirred.

• Divine Envoy Four killed Sister Cassandra and severed Dominic’s mechanical left arm, triggering memories of Rafaelle’s death.
• Dominic drew Setting Sun and melted through Divine Envoy Four’s guandao.
• Sister Elaine attacked from behind with her Blank field, disrupting Divine Envoy Four’s psychic shield.
• Dominic cleaved Divine Envoy Four in half with Setting Sun.
• Divine Envoy Four’s dying psychic alarm spread through the City of Teeth and awakened dormant believers.
• Sister Elaine took Cassandra’s Power Sword and led Dominic out of the ice hall.

Dominic and Sister Elaine fought their way through the City of Teeth’s savage inhabitants, who had been beguiled by Xenos, while Dominic struggled with killing ordinary humans. Trapped when the ice gate slammed shut, Dominic recovered his resolve and blasted a breaching bomb into it.

• Dominic and Sister Elaine fought through waves of savages as they tried to reach the City of Teeth’s main gate.
• Dominic tried to wound the savages rather than kill them, while Elaine struck them down without hesitation.
• The ice portcullis slammed shut, trapping Dominic and Elaine as cultists and savages closed in around them.
• Dominic regained his resolve, told Elaine to fall back, and sent a breaching bomb through the attackers into the gate.

Dominic and Sister Elaine escaped the City of Teeth and flew toward the starport, while Dominic identified Divine Envoy Four’s blood as belonging to a Genestealer. During the flight, he reconsidered Kerry Von’s rise and feared that the Dragon of Frost and its Frost Soldiers were tied to the Tyranids.

• Dominic and Sister Elaine slipped through the breached ice gate under optical cloaking and evaded the savage warriors guarding the exit.
• They reached their hidden airship, where Dominic examined the blood sample he had taken from Divine Envoy Four and concluded it came from a Genestealer.
• Sister Elaine piloted the airship toward the starport as Dominic recalled the fleet’s recent battles and Lynn’s role in defeating Ragnar.
• Dominic connected the Dragon of Frost legend and Kerry Von’s rise to the Tyranids, then wondered whether the Frost Soldiers were a Tyranid army and what Kerry Von really was.

Dominic weighed the contradictions surrounding Kerry Von and decided he needed to confront him for answers. Meanwhile, Divine Emissary One analyzed the attack on the ice temple and concluded that a Chaos scheme was meant to turn Dominic and Lynn against each other, leaving him to stabilize the Tyranid structure on Brevis.

• Dominic considered whether Kerry Von was a Tyranid creation or a human controlling the swarm, but found both explanations impossible.
• Dominic clutched the sample tube and resolved to confront Kerry Von face-to-face.
• Divine Emissary One learned that Four had died in the temple attack and traced the intruders’ caravan to Dominic’s Tithe Fleet.
• Divine Emissary One inferred that Luna had trapped the matriarch and drawn Lynn into a rescue while steering Dominic toward the Dragon of Frost’s secrets.
• Divine Emissary One recognized that the scheme aimed to make Lynn and Dominic turn against each other and prepared to stabilize the situation on Brevis.

Divine Emissary One warned Priest that Dominic had uncovered the link between the icefield cult and the Dragon of Frost, and ordered the cult’s forces to prepare for conflict. At the governor’s residence, Carter stalled the Tithe Fleet’s ultimatum to protect Lynn’s battle against Luna.

• Divine Emissary One told Priest that Dominic had met Four and obtained samples that could expose the connection between the Plague Cleansing Cult and the Dragon of Frost’s followers.
• Divine Emissary One ordered level-two combat readiness, mobilized the Frost Soldiers, and told the cult’s forces to protect their people and the Patriarch’s rear.
• Chief Archon Carter delayed the Tithe Fleet lieutenant’s demand for Governor Kerry to answer Dominic’s ultimatum, eventually giving him only a receipt confirming it had been received.
• After the lieutenant left, Carter ordered an attendant to slow the ultimatum’s delivery, giving Lynn more time to fight Luna.

Lynn learned that Dominic had evidence linking the Dragon of Frost's followers to the Genestealers, but he prioritized trapping Luna and ordered an assault on the barrier. After genetic tests confirmed the connection, Dominic prepared the fleet for combat and gave Kerry Von one hour to explain himself.

• A bishop told Lynn that Dominic had issued an ultimatum and that intruders had breached the temple, killed Si, and likely taken genetic samples.
• Lynn concluded that Luna was trapped inside the barrier and ordered Sen'er to feign a retreat while the remaining elite troops attacked its flank.
• Dominic received genetic test results showing that the Dragon of Frost's followers and the Plague Cleansing Cult's apostles were Genestealers.
• Dominic ordered the fleet to condition one, the starports sealed, and Kerry Von to come aboard the Gemstone within an hour to explain himself.