Shadow Hand
"What better than a little music and drink, I am sure, in spite of his ego, your nephew would be happy to see you."To be seen.
It took Braith's soft words for him to be reminded exactly of what she spoke of, despite its close proximity to the past. Everything changed for the Sith Lord some time ago on the fateful day on Asation, times changed since his deepened bond with the outer entity Great Devourer, the Beast of a Thousand Maws, the Crawling Mist. So much time had been spent in solitary with the outer being, the entity that had been bound to him, the deep bond between them as one merged with the other. So much change went on around him it was often to keep track communing with an outer being so far above and beyond what mortal men were capable of. Every day, every hour, every moment there was constant pull, a lure as he could feel the pull between reality slip, between what was different between he and it. The very mortal concept of self chief among them, the mortal distinction between one being from another and the groups they choose to label themselves with. The entity simply could not understand such primitive things such divisions like living and dead, species, race, nationality, culture, gender, faction, religion, title. The division and the subconscious drive to distinguish one person from another simply didn't make sense to the creature. Jedi, Sith, Dark Lord and Grandmaster. The Great Devourer observed the events through the Lord of Lies insistence watching Taeli Raaf battle Coren Starchaser and Romi Jade, the annoyance flicker on the face of the Lady of Secrets and emotions fly among the three. It showed the Dark Lord Darth Carnifex battle with Arcanus Sunstrider. It simply couldn't distinguish between any of them, it simply couldn't tell t far too alien to comprehend. When he was in the presence of the Entity he could feel his sense of self pulled, his own being floating away from his body.
It was so easy to simply let go, letting more of his sense of self, his concepts slip away. In these instances even trivial things like time seemed to mean nothing. What was time really? A creation by mortal creatures whose lives were short and so often cut short? It was an active resistance to keep from losing himself in the void, even a minor slip and moments spilled into weeks lost, gone in the blink of an eye. It was a concept he found himself struggling to learn as he grew into something greater. To be forced to resist but also not to resist, to command and dominate but to learn and heed all at the same time, when it came to the Entity. Much time was spent by the Lord of Lies in the Zambrano Archives pulling through the holocrons of many Dark Lords and powerful Sith throughout time, even Jedi, anyone who had any experience with what he was going through. Did anyone? Could he be the first to achieve such a feat? No answers came from the conventional orders. It was through their conversations as the Entity was bound to him that both learned from the other. The struggle he faced was the transformation, his ability now to see through two different pairs of eyes as both himself and as a creature, a great old one similar in form to the entity, As they conversed with one another it showed him something.
A vision.
The galaxy obliterated its people annihilated by the untethered, fully unleashed mass of the Great Beyond, a number of things happening a number of ways it seemed to bring about armageddon. The Coalition of Life making their last stand on the former Sith capital of Bastion, Jedi and Sith fighting together against madness incarnate. Bastion was a blasted ruin with debris blasted off the very planet itself as hulks of burning ships, crumbled buildings floated in suspended harmony. It was a fallen world where smoky black ichor swept across its surface in rolling clouds through a landscape given to oblivion where fires endlessly burned beneath the gale corpse winds carrying the ash of the uncountable people buchered. The world was but a threshold, teetering maddeningly on the edge of a vast, roiling, cataclysm. In this twisted hellscape of writing tentacles, a world covered in baleful twilight of the profane. Everything was completely covered in a bacterium, a seething mass of thick bacterium wreathed in a thick, smothering maloder. The strange, moist parasite, shuddered and heaved like a massive, beating heart. It was so vile the light fled from it and the darkness was devoured by its inescapable hunger. In the thick black mist horrors too terrible to describe from the size of bacterium to entities as big as starships roamed among the trackless wastes hunting what remained, savoring every scrap of emotion their victims exerted as howls, screams, and wails of the dead and dying, of the fearful, the psychopaths and sinners broken by the presence of the void their true selves unleashed as slaves to something greater.
It was at the base of the Imperial Palace, Former Seat of the Sith Emperor where the entire structure had been obliterated except for the base. Torn and tattered banners of the former Sith Empire and Jedi Orders flown side by side with the great Eye of Solomon. It was this single patch of permacrete earth that was the last place untouched by the mist. It was here that the last force stood, the likes of [member="Coren Starchaser"], [member="Romi Jade"], [member="Arcanus Sunstrider"], [member="Darth Carnifex"], [member="Yasha Cadera"], and so many others, so many who stood beside them and followed them. They were surrounded by a horde so vast, so deep it defied the imagination. Braxus watched as the seas parted and out stepped himself, the void had changed his very body his eyes were pure black, his skin replaced by a deep gray as protrusions of black ichor and eyes opened irregularly over him, his body clad in torn black rags of a robe. In his hand he gripped a black chain and a single tug forced [member="Taeli Raaf"] to stumble through the crowd. When he let the slack go on the iron chain she sat down clasped in the fetal position at his feet rocking back and forth, tears of blood streaming down her face.
The Entity told him it was the price she paid. It left her untouched for the entire war allowing her to have a large family, to be happy and her loved ones safe only so that it could rip it all away from her. It seized control her own curiosity dooming the Lady of Secrets, she was forced to destroy those she loved with her bare hands, and in the aftermath she was finally given the gift of infinite knowledge, and that gift broke her mind into tiny pieces. The vast hordes of her creations had their minds seized and they were the first creatures thrown at the Coalition of Life. As this version of the Shadow Hand dropped her chain and strode forward it was the Jedi Arcanus, Coren, and Romi who struck first. Sunstrider came high his blade strike sinking deep into the man's shoulder while Starchaser came low bisecting him at the waist, Jade's snuck in through the cracks a lightsaber swung clear through his neck in one blazing strike to sever head from shoulders. As they stepped back Mand'alor the Infernal and others cut loose with blasters and explosives tearing him to pieces. But when the smoke cleared his body still stood bearing the scars, the marks of their brutal damage. It should've killed him the many wounds now oozing black tar spoke for themselves. One by one the black tar sealed up each wound, one by one they swelled shut by the toxic ichor. As the Jedi moved to fall back they were frozen in place the bones in their legs turned into fine powder, they all collapsed onto small stubs.
The Parasite Lord strode up to Coren and made them watch as he gripped the mans skull. Starchaser a devout Jedi Master would never fall to darkness the light inside him burned too strong, so he was drowned in darkness so deep his body was obliterated only his soul remained. The soul was drowned in so much void energy it was blasted apart into oblivion, his wails carried through the whipping winds until a single irradiated hardlight fragment of puredark remained, the last remaining essence of Master Starchaser, Hope's Lament. Braxus tossed the fragment into a wrought iron necklace and placed it around the neck of Romi Jade, before tearing a rift to the Great Beyond open and dragging her kicking and screaming into the heart of the void, where she was thrown inside. A second rift was opened then but a few seconds passing for them, it was thousands of years for her. Romi Jade emerged once again horribly misfigured. The woman's skin turned a pallid shade of alabaster it was sunken like flesh pulled across bone, her eyes were two black coals and tears were frozen into black ichor like marks across her face, her hair seemed to unnaturally float in the air as her entire body did, while her nails were turned into black talons three feet long, thin razorblades, the same iron necklace glowed around her neck. Romi turned and cut loose with a banshees wail so great it obliterated half of the vast palaces remaining base, completely obliterating most of the remaining forces, she descended on the remaining jedi carving them to ribbons with her talons and consuming them mind, body, and soul.
The Hell Wolf was no stranger to war and she swung a great hammer as he descended upon them. In a blinding fury she swung a hammer down and blasted away with weapons built into her beskar armor. Bone snapped as she crushed limbs and even his skull in her fury. But the more blows she struck the more that black tar spilled out. The pulverized bone and sinew snapped back into place reforming out of the toxic substance, his entire broken form returned and in one fell swoop he shattered the helmet concealing her face. The toxic substance surged onto her form and she flailed trying to get it off, but there was no escaping its horror, it drowned her. The Lotek'k descended on the rest wiping them away into a cloud of encroaching mists to be ripped to pieces. Only Darth Carnifex remained. To it the man was the same as the rest, he was no different in its eyes. But to Braxus? He was brother, nephew, student and mentor, King and Emperor. The last of this nascent galaxy had been swept away and Darth Carnifex was offered a place at the side of the horror, to become an agent of annihilation. So a rift opened and the surviving group walked through it onto the next beacon of life to be snuffed away by the horrors of the Great Beyond.
A vision. It could be many things and the Sith Lord knew all too well how the future ebbed and flowed, the future was never certain and there were dozens, if not hundreds or even thousands of potential outcomes for any one point in time, perhaps even more. It showed him what it wanted him to see and he understood that. As he underwent the transformation he focused on things that mattered around him his position, his family like his nephew and most of all his tether [member="Braith Achlys"]. She was his family they spent much time together close since they reunited for good. They had a family of their own, and he cherished it. For a time he thought that he lost Braith to the whims of the galaxy, killed after being sucked into his orbit as so many had. He hid a light smile at her words and even her disdain for Kaine. "Your right as always. There's an importance to these events, one that requires me to show my face, but they can be enjoyable. Its only for one night my dear." He said as his eyes passed over the crowd. He could already scan their surface thoughts, the force told him what he needed to know. The vast holdings of the Sith Empire and House Zambrano spanned the galaxy and he knew how she disliked him, she tolerated Kaine because of how close he was with his nephew, and usually he kept them apart. One night in proximity wouldn't hurt. He walked through the room arm in arm with her.
He watched the dealings of Darth Carnifex with [member="Vanessa Vantai"], the oath with [member="Osiren Clarmore"], Taeli Raaf and [member="Fiolette Raaf"] and the arrival of her young child Nerralyn. "Quite the crowd tonight indeed. Taeli's brought the newest addition to her family, a daughter Nerralyn." Braxus said. In truth after the attack of Rhen Var he wasn't in the celebratory mood. He put the military to task analyzing targets to hit the Outer Rim Coalition back, and put his network to task on finding everything he possibly could on @Zark. The mysteryious jedi spirit whisked away for his attempted annihilation on Rhen Var. It was the Council of Whills that stopped the Entity and the Lord of Lies from following the path they used to call him back, right into the council's home in the Netherworld. They sacrificed many of their number in the name of holding the beast back, and their defiance of his will brought rage. But it was a well hidden, contained fury on this particular evening.
