Dacis felt only emptiness and freezing cold.
His physical body had ceased to exist in the fire and shockwave of the baradium explosion, while his ethereal essence drifted helplessly in the grey vacuum of the Force.
He saw nothing, and the Dark Side of the Force compressed his fading mind down to animal instincts.
With every passing moment, the sith felt worse. Past memories, ambitions, and pride dissolved under the pressure of the Force, reducing him to meaningless energetic noise.
He was dragged relentlessly toward the deep abyss of Chaos, where the souls of fallen Sith reside.
Dacis did not understand where he was heading, but an ancient survival instinct screamed of appalling danger. He desperately tried to cling to the remnants of his will, but the Force no longer obeyed.
The spirit could only rage helplessly at its own impotence.
At the exact instant when the gravity of Chaos prepared to consume him forever, his vector of movement abruptly shifted.
Dacis's mind awoke violently.
Cold purple energy wrapped around his ethereal body, gripping him like a steel vise. The ghost was torn out of oblivion, coming face to face with those who had intervened in his post-mortem journey.
Directly opposite him stood Erra Kallig. At this sight, his mood soured. He had anticipated salvation, but now he realized that the realm of Chaos was not such a bad place after all.
Her eyes flared brightly with purple death energy, and dense emanations of the Dark Side nearly rivaled the aura of a full-fledged Sith Lord.
The space surrounding her was completely isolated by a thick purple fog, transforming the Force domain into a sealed ritual chamber.
The Force utterly refused to obey Dacis—here he was nothing more than a helpless, stripped spirit. Yet it was precisely this purple field that anchored his consciousness, preventing total dissolution into Chaos.
"A Sith Lord? What a useless, empty title. You were already submissively heading straight into Chaos without even attempting to resist."
A male voice, heavy with malicious power, echoed from the mist. The contemptuous sith was approaching their localized realm of the Force.
Finally, behind the girl, a violent, humming vortex of purple-black energy erupted. From this whirlpool of death, a dense projection of an ancient spirit materialized.
Dacis raised his head. Before him towered a two-meter giant.
His bright red skin burned within the purple fog, and his massive, sculpted torso was bare. Resting on the giant's left shoulder was a heavy pauldrons adorned with a grinning human skull, while his head was crowned by a horrific helmet fashioned from the horned skull of a beast.
A tattered cloak billowed behind his back, and in his right hand the giant gripped a massive sword whose blade sparked with Sith runes.
The Force did not merely exert pressure—it rose into the sky like an unshakeable tower of pure darkness and malice. This monstrous entity was no mere lord; its concentrated essence existed at a height unreachable for Dacis.
The critical situation forced Dacis's memory to operate at its absolute limit. A horned skull, two meters in height, power surpassing Overlord Hord...
"The L-Last King of Korriban?"
Dacis's whisper caused the giant to sneer. Hakagram Graush made no effort to conceal his profound disgust for the half-breed daring to call himself a Sith.
"A mongrel deserving only the title of Grotthu. A slave receives no right to speak in the presence of a Sith King."
Hakagram's spirit expanded in size and extended a colossal red hand toward the Sith Lord. He crushed the ghost within his fist, but refrained from destroying him.
Lowering his head, he looked at one of the few who could claim descent from the line of Graush.
"A worthy sacrifice."
Erra offered a bow to her ancestor, then turned toward a second vortex.
"We find your gift pleasing, child. What does young Erra desire from the dead?"
A calm, elderly voice resounded.
Beside the giant, a second spirit materialized—an even more ancient King of Korriban.
Datka Graush, the greatest necromancer of antiquity.
He was of ordinary height, but his face radiated cold wisdom.
Datka's head was crowned with a similar ritual skull with massive curved horns, but his body was draped in the magnificent robes of a Kissai.
His crimson-and-gold mantle was inscribed with ancient Sith runes.
A well-groomed cloak flowed behind him, and the old man gripped a wooden staff topped with a pulsing, blood-red crystal.
As a gesture of goodwill, Datka Graush snapped his long, wrinkled fingers. This action instantly relieved Erra of the colossal physical strain required to maintain the necromantic ritual.
The death energy surging through her flesh receded a hundredfold.
"Elder and wise Datka. The younger generation seeks only the purified sphere of his memory. I require his knowledge and every detail of the conspiracy against me."
Erra offered a respectful bow to the founder of necromancy and one of the greatest sorcerers of ancient times.
The old man asked no unnecessary questions. His dry red hand reached out toward the frozen spirit of Dacis.
At that moment, dozens of pairs of glowing red eyes ignited behind Erra's back.
They were all immortal Sith ghosts inhabiting Korriban. Sensing a rare ritual spectacle, they focused their attention on the young sorceress. There was no hostility in their gaze—they merely sought to break the monotony of centuries of boredom by observing a rare performance.
Datka Graush's fingers touched the ghostly forehead of the Sith Lord.
For the dead sith, time instantly altered its flow. His consciousness was torn from reality and plunged into a sequence of illusions artificially constructed by the necromancer.
First, Datka Graush granted Dacis an ideal, happy life. He gave him a loving wife and a beautiful, obedient daughter. The necromancer meticulously profiled the spirit's persona, forcing him to genuinely love this illusory family.
Then Datka began to burn that love away.
All pleasant emotions dissolved into agonizing pain. Dacis was forced to watch helplessly as his beloved wife was taken and violated by other men, unable to move a single step.
The necromancer shattered his mental fortitude, forcing him to witness his only daughter ending up in the filthiest, cheapest brothel. Any attempt by Dacis to resist resulted only in brutal beatings, humiliation, and torture.
When Dacis, out of desperation, began developing an emotional shell to numb the pain, the necromancer simply altered the torture scenario. Dacis's family was subjected to perverse physical agony right before his eyes, while the sith himself was reduced to a powerless house slave, forced to serve the tormentors of his loved ones.
By the end of this first illusory life, Dacis's spirit was morally broken. Yet Datka Graush did not stop.
The necromancer forced him to live through dozens of tragic lives. In every new existence, Dacis found hope, family, and status, only for everything to crumble at the end.
Dozens of red eyes observed the torment as the sorcerer projected the Force constructs demonstrating the Sith Lord's suffering.
Before each new death, the necromancer restored his memory of previous cycles for a brief second, forcing him to relive the accumulated nightmare all over again.
With each rebirth, the spirit sank deeper into an inescapable apathy.
Memories of Lord Dacis's real life peeled away and detached from his core essence. The ghost could no longer distinguish between illusion and reality; the endless torment became his only truth, leading him to beg for final death.
The relentless rebirths completely obliterated his will to resist. Had the necromancer terminated the ritual at that moment, Dacis's spirit would have dissolved into the Force. But the necromancer had a different objective.
The old man plunged his second hand into the illusion-shattered ethereal body. His fingers accurately located and isolated the pure essence of the sith's actual life: all his real secrets, memories, and skills.
This cluster detached from the ghost, becoming redundant—something the sith had willingly surrendered. Moments later, Datka extracted a perfectly smooth, white crystalline prism.
Erra closely observed every motion of the necromancer, striving to memorize the subtle nuances of the ancient art of memory extraction, though the immense complexity of the technique exceeded her current understanding.
The old man handed the glowing prism to her, then gave a subtle nod to the other Sith King.
Hakagram Graush laughed, seized Dacis's broken soul, and vanished with it into the death vortex, carrying the sith off to the sacrificial containers of the Graush catacombs.
"Had you accepted my true legacy, your achievements in necromancy would be tenfold greater."
Datka Graush leaned on his staff with the red crystal. He merely wished to assist a child who continued his art of necromancy.
"I apologize to the Great Ancestor, but I cannot abandon certain principles or my own path."
She was not yet desperate enough to mutilate her body by replacing internal organs with alchemical artifacts.
"Unfortunate. Yet we might arrive at a different agreement."
Datka had spoken with Erra before, but the old man never stooped to pleading.
"I listen to the venerable ancestor and am prepared to show sincerity."
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The necromancer nodded and let out a heavy sigh, weighed down by apathy toward how Sith history was unfolding.
"I have no desire to watch the ancient House of Kissai fade into extinction. We are bound by blood; you are one of my descendants. But the Kalligs are not Graush. At best, our bond allows you to summon me and relieve my eternal boredom in the afterlife."
It was unusual to make such a request, but he refused to instruct those unconnected to him by blood.
"Should I change my surname?"
Contrary to the necromancer's expectations, the girl displayed no offense. Her reaction further motivated the old man to reveal his proposal.
"Unnecessary. Yet sooner or later, you will bear a child. I would have House Kallig lend a talented apprentice to revive the Great House of Graush."
Potential does not always pass to offspring, but he hoped for an apprentice whose gift matched Erra's.
"Wouldn't it be simpler to approach my senior relatives? Aloysius, perhaps?"
Erra saw no issue with the request. Changing a surname mattered only as part of Kissai household traditions.
"Why would I engage in the petty political games of the living? I seek only the rebirth of my house, and your seniors are not worth my time. But you are worthy of guidance."
The necromancer had no interest in dealing with mediocre Sith, nor did he favor intermediaries.
"Only the surname and rights to instruction?"
Erra had no immediate plans for children, but the ancestor's terms seemed neither dangerous nor harmful.
"That is sufficient. I doubt you will give it much thought for the next two centuries. I am confident you will master necromancy to a proper standard and impart the fundamentals to your child. Given your mindset and temperament, you will send the child for further instruction yourself."
The ancestor had raised an uncomfortable topic, but the girl chose to agree only when she eventually considered having children.
"I will consider it. Perhaps I will give my answer in a couple of hundred years."
Datka smiled at his descendant. Caution was a virtue in a sorcerer, and the descendant's character aligned well with his preferences.
"You have already agreed; you are simply not yet entirely convinced of my intentions."
The two necromancers looked at each other and smiled. Erra understood that had the ancestor wished to be reborn, he could easily have secured a physical vessel. The request was merely a formal attempt to dispel the tedium of immortal existence within his tomb.
"My body is reaching its limit. I must return to the living world."
The ancient necromancer required no reminder; he perceived her physical condition better than Erra herself.
"Exercise caution. That pathetic worm nearly killed you. Barely any necromancers remain in the Empire, and I trust this art will not share the fate of House Graush."
Datka Graush dissolved into a vortex of Dark Force energy, returning to his ancient tomb on Korriban. Following him, the dozens of glowing red eyes faded back into the purple gloom.
The Sith ghosts had enjoyed the spectacle and retreated to their tombs, returning to their immortal tedium.
The ritual concluded, and Erra opened her eyes in the physical realm. The sith gripped the warm, white memory crystal of Lord Dacis in her palm.
While the ritual was underway, the other co-conspirator remained aboard his Alsakan warship. Mirs 6 sat in his quarters, awaiting the holosignal from the Sith Lord.
It was not out of fear of failure—Nomi stood no chance of survival—but he was not eliminating her without reason.
This relative posed a threat to his security, and the position of admiral would be better assigned to an officer loyal to Mirs personally.
As a royal figure, she could not be easily pressured, and any attempt at blackmail would yield severe consequences.
He had additional motives for her removal: she was also a graduate of the Alsakan Military Academy, and her examination scores demonstrated superior analytical aptitude.
Mirs 6 was a realist; the loss of Findar was merely a matter of time. They could not fight Coruscant on equal terms—that much had been obvious since the war began.
Alsakan had lost maneuverability and initiative almost immediately. Tactical battles could be won, but strategically they were at a dead end. Coruscant was losing far more ships, yet the combat readiness of Alsakan's fleets was at a critically low level.
Failing to secure a decisive victory meant that a war of attrition was consuming their economy and manpower. Their world simply could not compete with the economic center of the galaxy.
Had they lost Findar at the end of the war, he would have had no objections. But Findar lacked shipyards capable of proper fleet repairs, yet strategic necessity dictated maintaining forces in this system.
Simultaneously, the Tion sector was losing on all fronts, yet they could not spare even a single battleship. Fortunately, this war was conducted by established rules, with many worlds surrendered without combat. Unlike past conflicts, current casualties consisted primarily of mercenaries and colonial conscripts—a outcome advantageous to both Alsakan and Coruscant.
Numerous looted military depots had been destroyed, and officers undesirable to the royal family had fallen on the battlefield. Unfortunately for Mirs, high command had prohibited surrendering positions on Findar, ruling out any arrangement with the enemy forces.
Damaged vessels proved expensive to maintain logistically. Gas, reactor fuel, and metal alloys had to be transported continuously, while constant breakdowns caused perpetual resource deficits for operational ships. Scraping these vessels was far cheaper, but doing so would earn Mirs 6 a reprimand for losses; his objective was to secure a promotion and pass the problem he created down the line.
As for the crews, they completed two-week training courses, but legally they were colonial mercenaries.
They required no death or injury compensations, and their demise caused no economic impact on Alsakan's core worlds. From an economic perspective, the death of these troops was far preferable to continuous maintenance in a blockaded sector.
Only a third of his fleet had engaged in today's battle; the remainder were useless yet demanded crews and would consume precious Alsakan resources for decades to come. Meanwhile, Coruscant was shedding obsolete vessels and sending mercenaries to their deaths.
This rendered their victories meaningless.
The rational choice would be to scrap half the fleet, reallocating crews to new vessels in other sectors. Budgeting should already be directed toward new fleet construction while ruthlessly writing off obsolete hardware. The fleet needed mobility to reinforce sectors where the coalition was suffering defeat.
Static defense without resource replenishment was doomed, locking vast forces in place where they could not influence the wider war.
Thus, the enemy lost ships and crews while Findar held out, yet dozens of Alsakan's allied worlds were surrendering to Coruscant. Was Mirs aware of this trajectory? Naturally—he possessed high naval qualifications.
Did the prince have any interest in altering the status quo? Such thoughts never crossed his mind; only patriotic fools who died for a meaningless title of 'hero' thought in those terms.
Presently, the prince was concerned solely with avoiding blame for Alsakan's defeat at Findar.
As the highest-ranking admiral in this fleet, full responsibility rested on him. When the admiralty council delivered its assessment, his sister would be the only admiral backed by royal status.
When war reaches a stalemate, public opinion dictates state decisions. In an effort to excuse their miscalculations, high command reshuffles commanders frantically.
This worsens the situation at the front, but the populace believes the former commander was incompetent and that a replacement will fix everything. People prefer believing in religion, magic, or unrealistic promises.
Given Nomi's performance at the Academy, he feared the fleet would be placed under her command. Losing fleet command meant political death, followed by appointment as governor of some remote colony populated by under a hundred thousand wretched aliens.
Today's battle confirmed his fears: Nomi's battle group sustained minimal losses, routed the enemy, and captured spoils.
Could he have achieved such a result? Even the sorceress's guidance had failed to offer such capabilities, meaning the girl had brought death upon herself.
At that moment, the Sith Lord's comms codes registered on his console. Verifying the final four digits, Mirs 6 authorized the link.
The hologram resolved into the figure of the Sith Lord, flanked by armored Sith against a backdrop of blast damage.
"The plan worked."
This news brightened his mood considerably. He immediately began drafting his address for the princess's funeral.
"Good..."
Dacis shouted abruptly, causing the Alsakan nobleman to flinch.
"STOP! Check your blaster—there is a listening device inside the barrel!"
The words triggered instant panic in the admiral. Unable to process the claim rationally, his actions were driven purely by emotion.
The prince drew his blaster, turned the barrel toward his face, and peered down the muzzle.
At that moment, the trigger twitched on its own, and a yellow plasma flash signaled his death.
The shot struck his right eye, heating his brain tissue to lethal temperatures instantly. No medical droid could save him.
Mirs 6 collapsed to the deck as his comlink disconnected.
Had a Jedi been present in the room, they would have noticed something sinister preventing the nobleman's soul from achieving a peaceful passing.