His blade had been caught, reverberating through the phrik that made the core of Kala’anda. He looked with eyes carved from steel at a Jedi who had failed in her duty to protect her fleet or her friends, and a desperation in her strength. A desperation built on the assumption, or perhaps the hope, that she could win out against him.
As the Dead, he was the inexorable reality of all that fought against him. In the end, regardless of how hard they fought, they would not surpass death. They thought themselves above it, but Empyrean knew them for the misguided things that they were. Death was all there ever was, the only constant gift reality offers oneself.
Her blade struck out, blue against red in vibrant flashes of purple where they caught one another. Again and again she assailed him, then demanded an answer from him for why he had chosen to burn and break, that in his hubris of conquest he was the first to change what itself had persisted through all history.
“Because I will not build myself on the impression of morality, but the reality of it. These lives don’t matter until I make them matter, and to do for me is to be their greatest reward. My victory is their absolution, and I will not let their dreams die for your sickening apathy.”, a ramble of esoteric speech spewed from him. Messages within messages, all unheard.
He could feel it then, the soft vibration of his ring, then greater until it shook on his hand. The sensations coming from across their bond was of Fear, and he felt it as she did, took on the burden where he could, but he was not trained in the ways of the Dreadmasters, not enough to help her.. It was all he wanted, even as he struck back at a lethal threat in front of him, but he understood something beyond himself.
Empyrean knew he must trust Srina to survive without him, both in this, and should the unthinkable happen in their plan. He had a duty here to break the Alliance fleet, while she broke its armies, and the lives they spent today would earn them glory tomorrow in their reconquest of the Core.
The blade of Ran neared his face as he ducked slightly out of its way. Were he to still feel heat, he knew it would have come close to burning another scar on his shoulder, but the lack thereof only allowed him the freedom to dive away where once he couldn’t have. She fought well, reminded him of Romi Jade, but it stalled them against one another for some time, only for the world to change before them.
—
Whence Death strode, so too did the Sith follow.
The world of Sluis Van burned as Escobar let its orbital cannons fire volley after volley on civilian targets. Cities burned, emergency calls had gone out and remained unanswered. On the ground, the chaos, the lack of evacuation, the communication blackouts, all of it made for a tumultuous narrative for the survivors and their dead companions. Some blamed the Jedi, others had an inkling of the truth that the Sith had fired on their own, and while many took this assumption with the stride of a true adherent to the faith - many revolted in the same instant.
Their revolution was short lived, as the next series of shots rained down on the cities of the Sith’s enemies. There would be no need to deploy security forces to regain control, no need to patch up the rotting beams of a house nearing collapse. A fire of the Sith’s make would burn this world, while they used the ash to cultivate and fertilize a new foundation for Sluis Van. One of loyalty and order.
But the fire raged still.
It was in this heat, in this inferno kept ablaze by the souls of the dead, did the ritual on the Escobar find its growing strength. A black, oily sphere rippled as it was gorged on the souls of hundreds of thousands, kept contained and minded by the Sepulchral. It strained in the Force like a scream, like steel tearing, echoing its strength and fury across the system, wave after wave.
As the strength of those who joined their power to the ritual fed into it, built upon it a foundation for embers to flourish into flames, it came to a critical mass. The power had grown more than self sustaining in the light of the offerings of Sith like
Credius Nargath
,
Darth Caedes
, and more. A child built on the Sith, and their Sepulchral counter parts can come to full fruition.
It was all they could do to contain it now, chanting and feeding it strength. The lich priests witnessed the glory of concentrated death sung into existence, fought to keep freed, but the time had come for its release. The Jedi, the Sith, it would make no difference, they would feel its chains unbinding in equal measure.
One by one, the Sepulchral stood as their chants fell to a low drone, matching in a crescendoing pitch as their hands brought a knife up to their chin. Silence came with the slice of their own throats, and the blood that fell was black and congealed even then. In a silence built on heresy and suicide, the Orb fed on the last of its souls - the richests and darkest souls in existence - then knew itself actualized.
It had awoken, and its great screech echo’d through the Force like a God scorned.
—
The Ritual had completed, and Empyrean could more than feel its ascension. He grit his teeth as the sensation overcame even him and his senses, forcing him to turn away from the Jedi towards the doors, as though simply looking in its direction would help his focus. He could barely hear himself think, barely heard the whispers of the Worm and its darkness, all that existed in his senses now was the Orb.
Without guidance, it would break free within the station, and all their preparation, the sacrifices he had made of Sluis Van, would be for naught. Where he once was focused on the Jedi who sought to free their fleet from the ritual, now only existed as a small blip in the distance of his attention. There was nothing but this and here, the great ritual he was to drag towards the Jedi.
He raised his hands, both real and unreal, and let them grip onto unseen chains as power coursed through his muddled flesh. It cracked as the power of the Ritual rushed into it, blackening skin that had long since lost its color. For even the Emperor, it was painful to hold, painful through nerves that had felt nothing but pain for years. It drove a spike into his focus, but pain only tempered a Sith - and he was greatest among even them.
With a step through reality, he freed himself from the Star Fortress, into the expanse of space where none could breath but the dead. Unseen chains still bound in his hand, he escaped the storm that surrounded his fleet, and bore witness to the great wall that thought itself able to hold back even this. There was nothing that could survive what he had done or what he would do, concentrating thousands of lives into a scar he would paint across reality.
There would be no exception to the price he had chosen to pay - not his fleets, not his world, nothing. His crusade would be the final one, the greatest march to ever hold the Sith’s fervor. It was with this ritual it would begin, where their strike force would be fed to the hells, and nothing would remain to stop his own fleets from driving deep into Alliance territory.
His hands fell then, not against Alliance ships, nor against their wall of protection they had become so assured of, but against Life itself. Reality tore in a great chasm, and with it the echoes of the Force abused rang out like a banshee’s cry - driving a painful spike into the mind of every Sentient in the system. Distant birds would scatter, animals fell into chaotic turmoil, and children fell to their knees in cries of exasperation unsure where this torture originated from.
Within this chasm in reality, strode hunger, harbored hate, and it had been guided towards this tear by the promise of subsistence. The Nether was home to inhospitable, unkillable, gluttonous monsters who preyed upon souls, and thus one was summoned here. It was not a beast of unimaginable proportions, or a creature of a thousand eyes and tentacles, but the very intention of hunger itself. Like a God manifest, Empyrean dragged it’s attention to Sluis Van so that it may feed on his enemies and allies alike.
A dark fog, thick and dense, spewed from the tear in droves. In the blackness of space, it seemed to dull the stars, then cloud them completely as it fell upon both fleets, making even their great storm pale in comparison to this abomination in the air.. It felt at their steel constructs, curiously poked at sensors and weapons alike, until it consumed the entire battlefield, from Alliance Ship to Sith Cruiser. It was in these brief moments of silence that it allowed itself that singular luxury, of unbridled curiosity on the happenings of ants.
But it was the personification of gluttony, and it could not resist itself any longer.
Durasteel and technology would not hold it back, and even the rituals the Sith and Jedi alike had hoped to use to protect themselves would be pressed to their limits as it began to penetrate the Ships looking for sustenance. Hallways and rooms would fill up, doors would be ignored, and energy shields meant little - there was only the Fog, within and without the ships.
The first to die would only feel the sickening sense of oil on their skin, then in a breath their eyes would grey and they would collapse into a heap of death. There was no violent upheaval, no great striking or weapon, but something instant and unknowable but inexorable to all that lived - it was the sudden death of anyone the Fog fed upon.
In a single moment, small, then larger ships began to fall silent and dark as their crews were consumed by an entity that knew only this, who’s only purpose was this. It fed upon all without abandon, and it would feed until it was satiated or the wound was closed.
Taeli Raaf
|
Valery Noble
