The ground cracked again. Jin-Woo landed like a meteor a few meters away, the impact punching a circular shock into the earth. Abeloth had already moved, sliding aside and snapping back into stance, eyes locked, breath steadying.
"You looked surprised just now," Jin-Woo said calmly. "Even though I'm only a fraction of myself—and I still overwhelmed you while you were preparing to escape the Gravemind."
Abeloth wiped the blood from her cheek with the back of her hand. Her eyes narrowed, mind racing. He's right. Even diminished, the darkness around him was thick, layered, disciplined.
He's compensating, she realized. Like a Jedi would.
The shadow reinforced his body, compressed inward, every movement efficient.
Jin-Woo continued, voice even. "You noticed it, didn't you? Fighting me—even like this—it's hard. Harder than Morgan."
Abeloth didn't answer. Her silence was confirmation.
"That's because Morgan came from a Lostbelt," Jin-Woo said evenly. "A world that shouldn't exist." The shadow along his blade rippled once. "The Gravemind saw that too. Learned it from Daybit. That's why, for a moment, she could be pushed back. England pulled her home."
Jin woo lifted the sword slightly, darkness tightening around its edge.
"But I'm different. Monarchs existed for ages. One after another. Plague. Frost. Beasts. Destruction." A faint smile touched his lips. "Until there was only one left."
Jin-Woo stepped forward. The pressure rose with him, heavy enough to bend the ground.
"Where you failed to target your own family—the gods of Mortis," he continued calmly, "I succeeded. I killed mine."
Jin-Woo said. "I am the last of the original Monarchs, The Monarch of Shadows." His grip tightened. "And the one who slays Monarchs themselves."
Abeloth felt it settle in her chest like cold truth. that's why, the Gravemind pushed me toward Morgan instead. A contest of power with the Monarch of Transfiguration was difficult—but possible. Morgan was a contradiction, a Lostbelt forced to obey rules that could be exploited.
But the Shadow Monarch?
Her jaw tightened. I can't even imagine killing him, she admitted to herself. Sealing him is beyond me. Forcing him out of this galaxy—I don't have that method.
She shifted her stance anyway. Old instincts. Ancient defiance. Power coiled, thinner now, more desperate, but still lethal.
Jin-Woo watched her adjust and nodded once, almost approving.
"I'm done monologuing," he said evenly. "I hope you're prepared."
The shadows around him surged, tightening, compressing into lethal focus.
"Because we both know," Jin-Woo finished, "we're running out of time on these partial manifestations."
Abeloth didn't answer. She lowered her center of gravity, power folding inward, ancient instincts snapping into place.
Then they collided. The surface of Yavin 4 ruptured as shadow and star-born force slammed together. Forests flattened. Stone vaporized. Each exchange detonated with enough pressure to be seen from orbit—black and pale shockwaves tearing across the planet like scars being carved in real time.
Far above, drifting unsteadily in space, Naga Sadow's meditation sphere hovered—cracked, reforged, barely holding together as it floated on raw Dark Side output.
Malgus crossed his arms, staring down at the chaos below. "Can this go any faster?"
Sadow didn't look at him. "It's a sphere, not a starship," he snapped. "We're floating because we're dumping Dark Side energy into it nonstop."
Freedon Nadd's spirit drifted nearby, translucent and irritatingly calm. "What about Exar Kun?" he asked. "He'd be valuable to bring along."
Another titanic impact rippled across Yavin 4. Even from orbit, they felt it—space itself shuddering.
Sadow finally turned, eyes sharp. "If you want to pass those two lunatics who are actively trying to kill each other down there, go ahead." His voice dropped. "But don't drag us down with you, apprentice who stabbed me in the back."
Freedon scoffed. "It's been millennia," he said. "You're still holding onto that?"
Below them, the planet screamed again as shadow cleaved through light, and Abeloth answered with a force that split the land like brittle glass.
Naga Sadow didn't look down. Instead, he reached into his robe and unveiled what he had kept hidden in his palm.
A fragment of fabric—pink sigils faintly burned into it, still radiating a pressure that didn't belong to the Force.
Malgus narrowed his eyes. "When did you take that? I didn't see you grab anything."
Sadow's gaze remained fixed on the fragment. "I took it when that madwoman was cleaved in two by the Lady of the Dark Side. From the upper body—before it disintegrated completely." His fingers tightened slightly. "And don't pretend you aren't curious. I know you are."
He looked up, eyes sharp. "You all want to know it as much as I do. The secret of immortality that Monarchs possess."
Malgus scoffed. "If you were a true Sith," he said flatly, "you'd be trying to take the Ruler of Darkness himself—not scavenging scraps of Transfiguration."
Sadow ignored him. "Today," he continued calmly, "we learned something important. The invaders can be pushed back." His thumb brushed the glowing sigil. "I don't yet know how this can be used. But it means they are not absolute."
Below them, another titanic clash tore across Yavin 4, shadow and starfire colliding like gods grinding the planet between them.
Sadow closed his fist around the fragment. "And that," he said quietly, "is enough—for now."
The meditation sphere drifted onward, slowly pulling them farther into open space, away from the screaming world behind them.
A woman stood among them. She wore a mask—smooth, pale, unreadable. Darkness clung to her form like a living veil, Nazgûl power folded perfectly inward. Rey moved with them effortlessly, her presence erased from every sense that mattered. No Force ripple. No shadow echo. Nothing that could betray her—except to Jin-Woo, and to Morgan.
She watched them from only a few steps away.
Sadow. Malgus. Freedon Nadd's lingering spirit. Targets.
Rey tilted her head slightly, studying the fragment in Sadow's hand, the way its mana signature bled through the dark side like poison into water.
Jin-Woo always warned me, she thought. Mana poisoning is dangerous.
Her eyes curved with quiet amusement behind the mask.
I wonder what happens when someone drenched in the dark side tries to understand mana…
A soft giggle escaped her before she could stop it.
Just a breath of sound. Sadow stiffened.
Sadow turned sharply toward Malgus, eyes narrowing. "Did you just laugh at me, failed Sith?"
Malgus blinked, then scowled. "You're losing it," he snapped. "That Lady of the Dark Side must've rattled what little mind you have left."
Sadow's gaze lingered on Malgus a moment longer—suspicious, unsettled—before he finally turned away, dismissing the feeling as irritation.
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
Far below, on the ruined surface of Yavin 4, the fight reached its breaking point.
Jin-Woo moved first.
His black blade cleaved through Abeloth's body in a brutal, decisive arc, splitting her down the middle. The impact tore the ground apart beneath them, shadow pressure detonating outward like a collapsing star.
But Abeloth struck back.
Her hand lashed out as she fell, fingers cutting across Jin-Woo's neck. Shadow bled from the wound, spilling like smoke and ink, the cut shallow—but close. Too close.
Jin-Woo staggered half a step, one hand lifting to his neck as darkness sealed the injury almost instantly. Not fatal. Never fatal.
Abeloth slammed into the ground, her body already reknitting, fury burning through her fractured form. She forced herself upright, dragging power inward, preparing to end it—Sith volcano surging again, pale lightning crawling across her limbs as she gathered everything she had left.
Jin-Woo's presence flickered. The shadows around him thinned. His form began to blur at the edges, authority unraveling as the limit of his partial manifestation was reached.
He exhaled once, steady despite it all, and looked at her almost fondly.
"What a shame," Jin-Woo said calmly. "You were very close to cleaving my neck."
His body continued to disperse, dissolving into drifting ash and shadow.
"Good luck," he added, voice fading but amused, "planning your escape from the Gravemind's torture."
Abeloth screamed and hurled her lightning forward—pale Force tearing through the space where he stood.
But there was nothing left to strike. The Shadow Monarch vanished completely, his presence snapping out of reality like a blade sheathed too late.
The pale lightning tore into empty space and crashed harmlessly into the ground, carving molten scars across the ruined surface of Yavin 4.
Abeloth staggered. Her power unraveled in real time. The partial manifestation that had forced itself into this galaxy began to collapse, structure failing, form shedding into drifting fragments of pale ash.
She screamed, fury raw and unrestrained.
"CURSE YOU—Shadow Monarch," Abeloth shrieked, her voice tearing through the shattered land. "And all of you invaders. that Gravemind—Keymind filth!"
The scream echoed, then fractured. Her body broke apart further, edges dissolving, limbs turning translucent as the borrowed existence bled away. She dropped to one knee, claws sinking into scorched soil, breath ragged—not from pain, but from time running out.
Still, her thoughts remained sharp.
However… at the very least, she realized, I matched the frequency.
Enough to reach Yavin 4—even if only temporarily. Even if only in fragments.
A slow, bitter smile twisted across her face as cracks of pale light spread through her form.
Bit by bit, she thought. Small by small. This galaxy has been marked now.
Her body finally lost cohesion. Abeloth dispersed into pale ash, scattering into the wind like the remnants of a star burned too briefly—leaving scars in the land, echoes in the Force, and the quiet certainty that she had found a way back.
On her true world, Abeloth woke with a violent gasp.
Pain struck first. Her hand flew to the infected half of her body, fingers digging into warped flesh as foreign biomass pulsed beneath her skin. The corruption still burned. Still crawled. The Flood's presence throbbed like a second heartbeat she could not silence.
She steadied her breath. The cavern trembled. From the deep, it emerged.
The Gravemind unfurled—vast, serpentine, obscene. A colossal mass of flesh and intellect, enormous tentacles dragging across stone, its central mouth opening in layered petals like a living abyss, spores drifting as it spoke.
Its voice rolled through the chamber, wet and resonant, layered with countless stolen throats.
"Ahhh… Queen of the Stars returns," it intoned. "The echo confirms what the ash already sings. The pink pillar screamed across the void. The Monarch of Transfiguration fled—not slain, but broken. Defeat wrapped in survival. Delicious."
Abeloth clenched her jaw. She chose her words carefully. She could feel it—if she slipped, if she revealed too much, the Gravemind would tighten its hold. Or worse, learn how she had escaped, even briefly.
"It succeeded," Abeloth said, voice controlled despite the pain. "Morgan was brought down. Temporarily. Forced back to her land. The Shadow Monarch intervened, but only partially."
The Gravemind's tentacles twitched, pleased.
"Then the bargain holds," it murmured. "The invaders bleed. The board shifts. You have proven… useful."
Abeloth's eyes burned. "Then honor it," she snapped, fury finally breaking through restraint. "Parasite of invaders. Release me from this corruption. You plague my body, rot my flesh, bind my power. Remove it. Now."
The cavern fell silent except for the slow, wet sound of the Gravemind breathing.
Its many eyes focused on her.
"Patience, beloved Queen," it replied softly, almost tender. "Freedom is not given. It is… grown."
Then the Gravemind acted.
The corruption on Abeloth's face tore away all at once—foreign biomass peeling back, dissolving into ash and spores that screamed as they were reclaimed. The pressure vanished.
Abeloth staggered.
She sucked in air—ragged, desperate—then coughed violently, body folding as if she were drowning on dry land.
"H—hhk—khh—hahh—!"
Her breath came in broken gasps, each one tearing, real, painful, precious. She dropped to one knee, one hand braced against stone, the other clawing at her throat as her lungs burned and refilled again and again.
I can breathe.
The thought struck her harder than any blow. I can actually breathe again.
She swallowed, shaking, chest heaving.
"I will never," Abeloth rasped, voice hoarse and raw, "believe I would be grateful for something as simple as air."
Her gaze lifted, sharp again despite the tremor still running through her body.
"But the rest remains," she said coldly. "Your parasite still infests my shoulder. Half my body."
The Gravemind shifted, massive coils grinding against the cavern floor. Its voice deepened, layers overlapping, tone no longer gentle.
"Patience, Queen of the Stars," it intoned. "Another task has been assigned. You will destroy the other Gravemind—the one bound and hidden by the Shadow Monarch within this galaxy."
Abeloth's eyes widened, fury igniting instantly.
"That was not the bargain," she snapped. "You free me from your spores once Morgan was defeated."
The cavern darkened. The Gravemind's presence sharpened, intellect pressing down like a collapsing ceiling.
"Do not lie," it thundered. "Child of my enemy."
Tentacles slammed into the stone. "You found a way to escape. I allowed it. You violated the condition first."
Its many mouths spoke as one. "We agreed—no deception.. Everything."
Abeloth stiffened, teeth grinding.
the Gravemind continued "You will finish what you started, Or the rest of the infection will be reclaimed."