"A most… unexpected encounter," Sidious said slowly, choosing his tone Carefully . "You are no Jedi. And certainly no Sith. But power such as yours…"
Sidious , voice smooth, "does not come into existence without reason."
he stepped forward, just slightly. Carefully. "Tell me… what kind of man are you?"
Morgan twitched—just the smallest, almost imperceptible flinch behind the bone mask.
Did he…?Damn it. This disguise does look like a man from the wrong angle.
But she didn't break composure. Instead, she lowered her chin and deepened her tone, .
"I am Yogumunt, And I am your proctor."
Sidious blinked once, intrigued. "…So I am being tested, then? For a greater purpose?"
Morgan floated just slightly higher,, glinted with quiet disdain as she stared down at Sidious .
"To see, if the remains of the losing party have any worth at all."
For all his pride, for all his ambition, Sidious felt that sting. His jaw clenched. The Sith… the losing party?
But he quickly masked the flicker of anger behind his usual smooth confidence. He folded his hands, lifted his chin ever so slightly. "I assure you,", the Sith have risen."
"We are no longer the forgotten ghosts of history. We are above everyone in this galaxy… even the Jedi themselves."
Sidious ignited his red lightsaber with a sharp snap-hiss, "I can prove it, With my current strength."
Morgan didn't flinch. Her hood shifted slightly in the wind, the bone mask hiding whatever expression lay beneath.
"Hmph. How impudent, Very well… let's see how long you can keep that arrogance."
She extended one hand lazily. A swirling pinkish-purple portal opened beside her, humming with Monarch transfiguration mana—dense and unholy cold.
From it emerged a single figure:
A fairy death knight, tall and regal, its armor an elegant nightmare of pinkish-purple steel. The blade it wielded was forged from a translucent crystal, glowing faintly like a cursed rose—equal parts beautiful and lethal. It didn't speak.
Sidious raised an eyebrow, cocky again.
"You're not going to test me yourself, then?"
He smirked slightly. "Hiding behind summons?"
But then—he felt it. The pressure in the air shifted. The pinkish haze darkened. The mana grew thicker, heavier, oppressive. Like trying to breathe in a vacuum..
Morgan's voice came "There's a fine line between foolish… and brilliant. Be careful not to cross to the other side."
The Fairy Death Knight moved first—a blur of ethereal malice.
Its cursed fae blade—glowing like a bleeding rose—came crashing against Sidious's red lightsaber.
CLANG—KRRRK!
Sidious's initial smirk froze. What?!
The cursed blade didn't shatter. It didn't melt. It matched the plasma edge perfectly, sending vibrations up his arms.
Worse—he felt something else.
A slow, creeping drain. His strength—his Force control—it was slipping.
Sidious staggered back a half-step, feeling his knees weaken. His mouth twisted into a snarl.
"My Force abilities…" he rasped. "They're… slowing?!"
The Fairy Death Knight advanced without hesitation, blade arcing for the final blow.
Sidious raised his free hand, rage flooding him. [Force Lightning] erupted from his fingertips—savage, wild, crackling across the black stone like living serpents.
The torrent struck the Death Knight full-on.
The impact hissed—but the pinkish-purple armor only shimmered, absorbing the blast.
Adaptation flickered over the enchanted plating.
Sidious's shock—the knight didn't fall. . Impossible…! What kind of monster is this?
He felt the draining weight still clawing at his body. His Force abilities—blunted.
I'll have to exert more stamina, he realized grimly. More raw control… focus on lightsaber combat instead.
With a sharp inhale, he summoned his second lightsaber—
A twin crimson blade ignited in his other hand with a sinister hiss.
Sidious dropped into a stance—one blade poised with elegant precision, the other raised with vicious aggression.
Makashi for precision.
Form VII—Juyo for overwhelming offense.
He lunged. The Fairy Death Knight responded instantly, its cursed fae blade spinning into a blur.
Its body moved unnaturally fast—the eerie glow from its armor intensifying.
It's reading me?! Sidious realized. No—it's reacting too fast!
Every strike he made was parried—or worse, countered at double the speed.
The Death Knight's Fae Instinct—Predator's Reflex—guided it with supernatural foresight, allowing it to deflect Sidious's furious assaults almost faster than he could commit to them.
Sparks from every impact. Stone split beneath their feet.
Darkness churned in the air like a physical force.
Sidious howled and drove both sabers forward in a brutal cross-slash—only to have the knight slip aside effortlessly, pink blade flashing back toward his throat.
He barely caught it—twisting, riposting with a vicious Makashi thrust.
CLASH—CRACK—KRRRRRSH!!
The two danced like shadows in a violent storm. Seconds stretched into minutes.
And Darth Sidious, felt sweat beading at his forehead. His muscles burned. His lungs heaved.
The battle was draining him.
It's matching me, he realized bitterly. Every technique… every feint…
But he was still Sidious. When the opening came—a tiny flaw in the Death Knight's angle—he seized it without hesitation.
A blinding twist of both sabers—one parry to the left, the other striking from the right.
The cursed fae blade was batted aside.
And with a brutal roar, Sidious slashed both his lightsabers through the Death Knight's neck.
KRASHHHT—!
The pinkish-purple head separated cleanly from its body.
The Fairy Death Knight staggered—still trying to move—before its form finally collapsed into glittering motes of transfigured mana, dissolving into the dust of Malachor.
Sidious stood there, heaving. Both sabers lowered, shoulders trembling from the sheer exhaustion now wracking his body. His mouth curled into a vicious grin—victory claimed, but at a price of his stamina reserve .
Morgan, still floating quietly nearby, only tilted her head slightly, observing him.
Sidious narrowed his eyes, his grin fading. Something was wrong. He turned his gaze back toward the dissolving dust—
Only to see the remains stir. And then, with a bone-splitting screech, the Fairy Death Knight rose again.
But now… Its flesh was half-gone.
The skeleton of its face exposed beneath the tattered armor, pinkish-purple flames leaking from the cracks like an open wound.
It stood taller now, heavier. Its cursed fae blade crackled with a deeper, more ancient malice.
Sidious's grip tightened on his lightsabers. He inhaled sharply, cold sweat beading along his spine.
"I see now, A power... similar to the Dark Side. Unnatural. But not tied to the Force."
He flicked one saber up into a guard position, the other low, ready to strike.
Morgan only watched, silent and still .
Just as the two prepared to clash again—
BOOOOOOOM. A massive column of light erupted from the the Sith shrine superweapon behind them—pure, blinding, and oppressive.
The ground shook violently. Malachor itself trembled as if the planet were have an earthquake under the weight of something ancient being awakened.
The sky tore apart in a jagged spiral of darkness and blood-red lightning, the Force itself recoiling.
Morgan turned her head lazily toward the eruption, her tone casual yet filled with reverence.
"…The Shadow Monarch, He's done it. He's achieved his fourth power."
Her eyes—one pinkish-purple now when she tapped into her Monarch strength—glinted brightly under her hood.
Sidious stood frozen for a brief moment, Then, with a burst of motion, he seized the moment., Sidious leapt forward, his dual red lightsabers aimed to cleave through the Monarch while she was distracted.
But Morgan… She had anticipated it.
She moved her hand slightly, almost bored.
A slash carved through the air—her cloak fluttered—and her bone mask shattered in half, revealing the lower part of her face: sharp, pale skin, and unmistakably a woman's features.
Sidious faltered mid-air, shocked.
"A woman?!" he hissed, his voice snapping with disbelief.
Before he could adjust— A pinkish-purple portal ripped open right beside him.
The Fairy Death Knight—the same one he had decapitated—emerged one last time, its broken body glowing violently.
It detonated itself in a blast of cursed fae energy.
BOOOMMMM!
Sidious was thrown back, crashing against a jagged wall of broken Malachor stone. His robes burned, his flesh scorched by pink flames, suffering medium burns across his body—but he was still alive, still breathing.
Morgan, hovering above the cracked ground, calmly extended both arms.
A massive pinkish-purple portal began swirling open behind her, wide enough to swallow the shattered Sith Temple.
"The Transfiguration Army will be completed …" Morgan declared,
her Transfiguration voice layered with unnatural echo. "An immortal army… one worthy of the Final Monarch… shall rise."
Sidious gritted his teeth, still on one knee, snarling.
"What do you mean by that?! What are you—?!"
Morgan smiled slightly—cold, merciless.
"You'll see soon enough, Sith. Try not to die too soon."
Sidious roared and gathered every ounce of his hatred, summoning a massive [Force lightning] .
But Morgan was already gone—slipping through her portal, vanishing into the pinkish-purple vortex, leaving only the storm to crash uselessly against empty air.
The two Sith—Sidious and the unconscious Maul—were left behind. Alone.
'''''''''''''''''''''
As the beam erupted from the Sith shrine on Malachor, tearing into the sky with blinding force, Jin-Woo's form blurred—transcending distance, slipping through the crack in reality.
He reappeared on foreign soil.
Nathema.
Dead gray skies stretched endlessly above. Cracked black soil crumbled beneath his boots. No wind. No sound. Only silence—a suffocating, hollow stillness that seemed to devour everything.
A swirl of pinkish-purple light opened beside him, and from it stepped Morgan. She discarded her Yogumunt disguise without hesitation—the blackish-purple cloak dissipating into mist as she crushed the bone mask in her hand. Her true form returned: the regal Queen of Lostbelt England, adorned in her flowing, intricate gown, her presence sharp and commanding.
Morgan approached Jin-Woo with a sigh, her voice serious.
"My husband... why are we bothering with the disguise?"
Jin-Woo his expression unreadable for a second. Then, faintly, he smiled. "Because it's fun."
Morgan blinked once, processing that. Then she let out a short, dry laugh.
"Ha ha. Very funny. So that shrine on Malachor was for this?" She gestured around at the corpse-world of Nathema. "This dead, rotting planet?"
Jin-Woo shook his head calmly.
"It's not that. Originally, it was meant for my third anchor. Since my power is sealed whenever I'm in my own galaxy... but Shadow Tython already recovered that."
Morgan stared at him, deadpan. Then she pinched the bridge of her nose in pure exasperation.
"That's the most stupid thing I've ever heard in my life. In your own home—or your own galaxy—you should be more powerful. Not the opposite."
Jin-Woo only smiled faintly at her reaction. Without a word, he reached into his inventory and pulled out a Holocron— Holocron: Ritual of Immortality.
Morgan leaned closer, eyeing it with mild suspicion.
"This Sith Holocron again?" she said, studying the color. "It's red. Unlike the one Caedus used... his was green."
Jin-Woo tilted the artifact slightly in his hand, letting the dim Nathema light play across its surface.
"All Sith Holocrons are supposed to be red," he said simply. "Not green."
A faint ping from his [Notification interface ]flashed across his vision, but Jin-Woo ignored it. Instead, he pressed his hand against the Holocron's surface—activating it.
The skies above them rumbled ominously. Thunder crackled through the dead clouds, and the stillness of Nathema twisted violently.
From the rippling darkness ahead, a figure materialized—tattered robes billowing in a nonexistent wind, a hollow, masked face staring with pure, insatiable hunger.
Darth Nihilus. He floated just above the cracked soil, his blade drawn, his form warped and distorted by the echo of endless consumption.
Jin-Woo stepped forward, his voice calm. "Stay back, Morgan," he said without turning. "I'm going to consume this relic of the dead."