And so, the battle for Malachor V continued with ever-increasing intensity. As the fleets collided and the orbital war, once presumed uncontested, now engulfed into a maelstorm of violence. The Dark Crusade flogging the numerous pirate and underworld elements forth, providing enough live fodder for the Sith armada to close in almost unhinged from the Obsidian Court's hellfire now let loose.
Chaos reigned.
The very fact that thousands upon thousands of souls were thrown in a mindless carnage on a planetary scale to fight over a Dead world seemed overlooked by the clashing titans of the Sith Empire, all the more eager to carve the millennia-old interstellar dominion into shards of hate and iron resolve, too proud to search for reason before commiting to bloodshed.
On all accounts, the conquest of Malachor V served no significant strategic value for the Dark Crusade; Too far from their strongholds in Minos Sector, and too well-defended to be breached in a swift strike, which was the initially presumed strategy of Darth Eosfor's unprovoked assault against the Obsidian Court, needless to add, no resources or any tactical advantage could be mined from the planet's dead stone. Alas, the Dark Lord paid no heed to such reasonable claims that should prevent any strategist in investing on this reckless chaos.
Darth Eosfor, in his defiance of all discipline and rules of war, planned and executed the bold move of attacking Malachor, for a single reason, that due to wickedness and layers upon layers of Sith schemes went unnoticed for decades. A reason that, in the upcomming war for the Sith legacy, would prove a painful thorn in Eosfor's back:
Darth Malvus.
To attack a powerbase such as Darth Malvus' Obsidian Court was to establish the scale and provoke the powers that had yet to emerge as majors within the Sith, long before the real sides of the civil war were formed. A message that would be heard loud and clear all across the Sith worlds and beyond:
The Dark Crusade fears none. The Dark Crusade halts for none. The Sith would be turned into Darth Eosfor's champions; Or swallowed whole by the relentless and unstoppable onslaught of his armies, from Minos to Dromund, and from Oricon to Hoth alike!
Thousands of fighters, bombers and interceptors swarmed in the lower orbit, buzzing like locust inbetween the hulking warships that blazed eachother with barrages of pure light, sending lesser vessels by the hundreds down the planetside in a rain of black ashes and screams of pilots set aflame, choosing to jump to the void instead of be fused with their broken ships by the heat of the flames dancing wildly from through the burning engines.
The cacophony of thousands of failed communicated transmissions on the bridge of the massive Mandalorian warship indicating the crew reaching their breakpoint. Each of the Beskar-clad warriors onboard having long cast away the Mythosaurus' tusks, in favour of perverted glyphs and seven-pointed emblems welded on their armours in forsaking of the Way. The Dar'Manda horde fought in the very tip of the Crusade's naval spearhead, filling the enemy ships with jump troops and boarding parties, brought into a fighting trans by the sorceries and toxic spices consumed prior to the engagement. Their minds lost, with bloodletting and slaughter becoming their sole purpose, to the point fighting broke in the very decks of the Azalus-Class Dreadnought "Kuryida".
The pirate ships around the Kuryida turning in horror, taking their chances to disengage driven by the Obsidian Court's vile sorceries that found feeding ground on the Rattataki and Duros weak minds... But the Dar'Manda of the Kuryida would have none of it. Their minds fortified with a harness of will and Teras Kazi focus, as strong as the defiled beskar dressing them. The Kuryida openned fire against the fleeing pirates, sparing her main guns to punish the weak instead of battling the enemy's strong. A decision, they would soon come to regret....
As the main Obsidian vanguard ships push their assault, the Kuryida's hulking speartip was soon overwhelmed by the crushing might of the Obsidian Fleet. In a consequetive release of light and radiant heat, strong enough to charge the nearby ships' deflector shield generators, the Kuryia dove her nose towards the planetside. Her anti-gravity generators failing all the more she was pulled by the dead world's gravitational pull.
The durasteel behemoth, trailled by continuous turbolaser fire and beams that purged the shield generators from place, now carved massive wounds on her blackened hide, casting her from orbit engulfed in the fires of vengeance. The black trail of the Azalus Dreadnought curved, marking her descend against the black surface of the world, now seemingly turned to a foul state of life's most hideous perversion. Endless tides of troops, tanks, vehicles and monstrous creatures alike flooded every corner of the blackenned wasteland, flowing like a tidal wave of destruction towards any and all sides, as the hail of gunships continuously deploying more and more troops for both sides.
In a single instant, the entire continent shook in a quake that had not been felt by the dead stones of Malachor ever since the planet's doom half a millennia ago, as the flaming dreadnought's descend ended in a blinding light in the very middle of the battlefield, momentarily vaporising thousands of troops that were dwarfed to insignificant, as the main reactors of the ship errupted in a molecular calamity. After eons in the embrace of darkness, a new star was born in Malachor's own surface, toppeling entire mountains of sharp stone into shrapnel that were kast for kilometers away like artillery shells, and digging a crater so deep, the location became impassable for any of the warring sides.
Back in orbit, the two warring flagships finally met, igniting the most brutal of confrontations. As the batteries of both Dark Eclipse and Shadow's Avenger roared unceasingly, boarding torpedoes were launched from the latter's platforms, piercing through the Dark Eclipse's hull to discharge their dark payload. And so, while the hordes of minions clashed on the planetside, in orbit, the real champions of the Dark Side exchanged spiteful blows in defiance and heresy.
Lightsabers bound. Lightning blazed. Carnage reigned. The decks of the ships transformed to arenas of exalted slaughter, with blood and zealotry flowing apleanty from both sides, drenching the ships with tainted cadavers. And as blood rained and feral forests of fire spanned the shadow shells of continents, the final act was yet to be performed. With the Dark Eclipse and the Shadow's Avenger tied in epic struggle, the ground shook as the heavy artillery of the Sith Marauders begun their own offensive against the citadel's walls. Jump pack troops climed the flak-covered air to reach the top of the citadel's curtain walls, while massive beams from lowered capital ships pierced yet another layer of deep duraconcrete, casting entire squadrons and artillery emplacements to the sea of war beneath in each of their blinding bites against the citadel.
The greatest of all champions of the Dark Crusade, however, boarded the Eclipse. As boarding torpedoes and grabbling hooks pulled the warships ever nearer, many among the possessed Crusaders jumped on their own from one hull to the other, carving the exteriors or battling the very turbolaser batteries with explosives and mines.
It was there, amidst the many infested decks, where the hulking amalgam of hate, rage and ill-intent stepped forth, releasing a mighty wave of blackest will and infamy across the Dark Eclipse, taunting to all those who could muster the wits to challenge the Dark Lord.
Darth Eosfor had made his move, to rid the Stars of his one, true target, of this onslaught:
Darth Malvus.
Chained by black lightning, Sith warriors were tossed overboard to the maw beneath the battling fleets, resembling myriads of flaming serpents devouring the blackness of Malachor by the sheer size of the assembled contingents.
The Dark Lord roared in monstrous Force Screams again and again the war cry of the Dark Crusade, collective statement of any and all plans or tactics most resembling the renegade cause, empowering further his champions that turned rampant by his very presence in the battlefield, his malicious aura consuming the decks with the dread and destruction he brought forth. And so, he roared, taunting any and all around him:
KIA TAVE SPAGGA