Expansion The Overtaking of Ideology | The Ancient Sith Planet of Korriban and Ziost

[Sith Master Veraxis]

Location: Korriban — Valley of the Dark Lords — Sith Academy


The blood-colored sky of Korriban churned above jagged peaks and ancient tombs, the air thick with the ever-present hum of the Dark Side. Winds clawed through the Valley of the Dark Lords, howling like the spirits of those long buried beneath its red sands. Yet through that desolate storm, a single figure strode with purpose—graceful, deliberate, unshaken.

Sith Master Veraxis had returned to his birthplace.

His dark purple skin was nearly black beneath the heavy shadows of his alchemically-imbued robes, each fold etched with glowing runes of Sith sorcery. Twisting along his back, his lekku were bound with ornate metal bands, each etched with glyphs representing disciplines only the highest practitioners of the Dark Side understood—domination, illusion, memory manipulation, and transformation. His eyes glowed with a cold, calculating yellow light, steady and unreadable.

Where he walked, silence followed.

Acolytes stopped and bowed low, murmuring his name in reverent tones. Overseers offered quick salutes and subtle nods. Here, in the ancestral seat of Sith power, Veraxis was not questioned. He was myth wrapped in flesh, a specter of doctrine and mystery whose return was neither challenged nor doubted.

No one spoke of the Obsidian Court.

No one suspected his quiet allegiance to Darth Malvus.

And that was exactly how Veraxis wanted it.

He passed under the towering arch of the Sith Academy, robes trailing like smoke across the polished stone. From the entrance hall to the chambers where new acolytes were being drilled, he walked without pause—silent, observing, absorbing. These students were eager, loud, burning with ambition. Crude. Still raw.

But they were the future. And the future could be reshaped.

“Master Veraxis,” a high-ranking instructor approached with visible caution. “Your arrival has been… anticipated. The headmasters have arranged private quarters, and there is a seat for you in the Grand Forum should you wish to observe or instruct.”

Veraxis tilted his head, eyes glowing faintly.

“I will observe first. One must know the strength of the foundation before rebuilding the temple.”

The instructor bowed deeply and stepped aside. Veraxis passed him without further word, drifting toward the inner sanctum like a dark wind.

The halls he once knew so well echoed with chants and debates about Sith tradition, power, and legacy. All of it hollow. All of it weak.

Not through battle, not through force—but through ideological evolution, Veraxis would change this place. He would whisper new truths, plant doctrinal heresies in minds too arrogant to question themselves, and by the time they realized what had happened…

The ancient cradle of the Sith would be his.

His manipulation had already begun.

And no one saw it.

 

[Kaelus Virek Thorne]

The academy reeked of sweat, pride, and desperation.

Kaelus Virek Thorne stood at the edge of the dueling ring, the hiss of sparring sabers filling the air. He wasn’t watching the fight—his opponent had already been carried out, unconscious and bleeding from the nose. Instead, his eyes drifted upward, to the black silhouette gliding through the colonnade overhead.

Veraxis.

The name alone pulled a hush from the walls, as though the stone itself feared to speak too loud in his presence. Even the wind quieted when he passed. The acolytes called him “the Wraith,” some behind trembling lips, others with a sick sort of awe.

Kaelus was different. He didn’t fear Veraxis.

He found him fascinating.

Leaning on the hilt of his saberstaff, Kaelus smirked as the shadows shifted with the Master’s passage, casting half the room into a sickly orange glow. His freshly groomed beard itched beneath the heat, and he scratched it absently as he turned to a nearby acolyte—one of the loud ones, the cocky kind Veraxis would chew through without breaking stride.

“Tell me,” Kaelus said, voice smooth and drawling, “do you think his robes are always that dramatic, or do they just animate when someone important’s watching?”

The other acolyte—Jarn, or Jorn, who cared—gave a startled, stifled laugh. Then promptly stopped when Kaelus fixed him with a look that suggested failure would earn punishment far worse than mockery.

He waited, knowing full well that Veraxis had heard him. He always hears everything. That was the point.

Kaelus didn’t taunt out of foolishness. He taunted because he was seen when he did. Because the only thing more dangerous than being invisible to a Sith like Veraxis… was being interesting.

And Kaelus Virek Thorne would not be forgotten. Not by the instructors. Not by the Court. And certainly not by him.

He let the moment linger, the tension like ozone before a storm, and then straightened his collar, his smile sharpening into something colder.

“Now then,” he murmured to himself, “let’s see what kind of temple the Wraith thinks he’s building… and what he’ll do when I start redesigning the altar.”

Then, like nothing had happened at all, he strolled toward the inner sanctum with the casual arrogance of someone who knew exactly where the power in the room would be… and intended to take it.

@Sith Master Veraxis

 

[Darth Malvus]

Ziost – The Ashen Womb of Shadows
Darth Malvus Establishes His Hidden Stronghold


The Shadow Eclipse emerged from hyperspace above Ziost like a phantom of war, its jagged hull slicing through the void in silence. There were no welcoming beacons, no orbiting fleets, no cities teeming with life. Only black rock, howling winds, and a darkness so ancient it seemed to resist even time itself. Perfect.

Darth Malvus stood at the edge of the descending ramp as his ship touched down in a desolate canyon scorched by eons of Sith blood and forgotten battles. Ash danced like ghosts in the air, falling over his obsidian cloak and mask. Lightning cracked in the far-off sky—quiet thunder rolling over a world that had long since accepted death as its only constant.

Behind him followed a cadre of trusted agents—silent, efficient, and handpicked. There were no banners. No declarations. This was not a world to conquer by force. This was a world to embed into. To use. Ziost was a graveyard, but Malvus had come to make it fertile once again—fertile with secrets, sorcery, and war.

He stepped onto the blackened surface and exhaled through his respirator, his golden eyes narrowing as he scanned the horizon.

“Begin excavation beneath the basalt shelf,” he said to his officers, gesturing toward the ridge where ancient Sith runes had long been buried. “Hollow it. Build downward. The nesting ground must be deep—untraceable.”

This would not be a fortress the Empire could detect from orbit. It would not be a citadel of arrogance like the ones constructed by the current Sith elite. No—what Malvus planned was subtler. A womb of shadows from which the next phase of the Obsidian Court’s rise would gestate.

Dromund Kaas lay only a few systems away, oblivious.

“Once established, I want comm relays encoded and tethered to our listening outposts near Yavin and Athiss,” he ordered, his voice calm but laced with command. “I will hear everything the Dark Council whispers before their lips move.”

The red sands shifted at his feet as if recoiling from his presence. Malvus lowered his hand and pressed it to the earth, channeling a pulse of dark side energy deep into the crust—claiming it. Ziost answered him with a low, tremoring hum from its core. There were old things sleeping here. That was what he counted on.

He stood and turned toward the growing ranks of Obsidian Court engineers and Sith cultists beginning their descent into the planned excavation site.

“Let them believe I play in the Outer Rim,” Malvus murmured beneath his breath. “Let them watch the wrong borders, guard the wrong gates.”

His eyes turned to the storm-choked skies.

“When I rise from this tomb… the heart of the Empire will bleed before it even knows it’s been cut.”

And so began the Buried War, with Ziost as the dagger’s hilt—silent, buried, and poised to strike.

 

[Sith Master Veraxis]

Veraxis – The Wraith Responds


From the high colonnade above, cloaked in flowing robes etched with ancient Sith runes, Veraxis paused mid-step.

The shadows wrapped him like a second skin, his dark purple complexion nearly blending with the obsidian architecture of the Korriban Academy. The ornate metal bands on his lekku caught the firelight below, glinting like serpent eyes. His glowing yellow gaze drifted downward—not just toward the dueling circle, but to him. The one who had dared speak.

Kaelus Virek Thorne.

Bold. Arrogant. Intentional.

Veraxis did not smile—he had long ago carved such gestures out of himself—but something akin to amusement shimmered in his aura, like black smoke curling beneath a cold flame.

With no sound, no footstep, no signal, he moved.

He appeared behind Kaelus before the acolyte could cross the threshold of the inner sanctum. No flare of Force power. No disturbance in the wind. Just a breathless moment—and then, a voice that echoed like it was being spoken through ancient stone.

“The altar cannot be redesigned by a child still lighting incense.”

Veraxis circled Kaelus slowly, each step deliberate, predatory—measured not in distance, but in meaning.

“You speak to be seen, but power is not held by the loud. It is held by the patient. By the ones who watch… listen… and strike when the temple is quiet.”

He stopped, face-to-face now, the glow of his eyes pulsing in the dim corridor torchlight.

“Still, you’re not entirely without merit. Your ambition stinks less than most.”

A beat.

Then, with a flick of his clawed fingers, he summoned Kaelus’ saberstaff from the dueling ring without so much as a twitch of effort. The weapon flew across the room and halted mid-air between them.

“Let us test your design instincts, Architect. Show me how you intend to build your empire, starting with your next breath.”

He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t summon lightning or roar with fury. He didn’t need to.

Veraxis was the storm.

And now Kaelus stood before it.

Tag: @Kaelus Virek Thorne

 

[Kaelus Virek Thorne]

He didn’t flinch.

The saberstaff hung in the air, humming softly between them—an accusation, a challenge, a mirror. Kaelus stared past it, eyes locked with those glowing voids beneath Veraxis’s hood. A lesser acolyte might’ve dropped to one knee. Might’ve begged. Might’ve frozen.

But Kaelus?

He grinned.

Not broadly. Not childishly. Just enough to show teeth—well-maintained, like his beard. And his mind.

“Master Veraxis,” he said, voice cool as Korriban stone, “I was under the impression that the incense was already lit. I only meant to point out that the temple smells… old.”

He reached out, slow, deliberate, fingers closing around the hilt of his saberstaff.

But he didn’t ignite it.

Not yet.

His posture shifted slightly—no longer casual, but coiled. Like a spring behind fine glass. Every muscle ready. Every emotion locked down beneath his skin. His voice dropped half a pitch, silk over steel.

“You say power is held by the patient. I say power is seized by those who know when to strike.”

The saberstaff hissed to life in his hand, twin blades igniting in crimson arcs.

“And I have never been fond of waiting.”

Then, with no war cry, no warning, Kaelus lunged—not blindly, not foolishly, but with the careful precision of a knife sliding between ribs. He didn’t expect to win. Not against him. But this wasn’t about winning.

This was the next breath Veraxis had demanded.

Kaelus gave it freely.

And he made damn sure it cut.

Tag; @Sith Master Veraxis

 

[Sith Master Veraxis]

Veraxis – The Breath Between Strikes


The hum of twin crimson blades filled the air, but Veraxis did not retreat.

He breathed.

Slowly. Silently. With utter control.

Each inhale through his nose was deliberate, measured—like the movement of a machine god ticking through time. His dark robes whispered as they shifted around him, metal-banded lekku gleaming with cold light, his glowing yellow eyes locked not on Kaelus’ weapon, but on the subtle tensions in his shoulders, the twitch of a heel, the narrowing of his focus.

Battle precognition.

Kaelus lunged—fast, precise, with purpose sharpened by ambition. The blade came low, a diagonal cut meant to bait high ground. But Veraxis was already gone.

One step.

The breath guided him.

The saberstaff missed nothing. It was not slow. It was not weak. But it swung at shadows.

Veraxis pivoted with elegance, leaning just enough to the left for the crimson blade to sear through the hem of his robes without touching skin. Another step, and he was behind Kaelus, his body a ghost in motion, empowered by the Force Breathing that synced every movement to a flawless rhythm.

“Breathing,” Veraxis said behind him, not even winded, “is not merely survival. It is tempo. Insight. The current beneath the chaos.”

Kaelus spun, the blade arcing in defense—horizontal slash. Preemptive. Calculated. Expected.

Veraxis dipped under it, grace incarnate, his motion barely brushing the tips of Kaelus’ robes. His hand snapped forward—two fingers extended—not to strike, but to tap Kaelus in the center of his chest.

A lesson. Not a blow.

“You feel the future… don’t you?” Veraxis whispered as he stepped aside again, ducking a furious sweep before it finished forming. “A flicker in your mind. A breath before it happens.”

Another dodge, then a twirl behind Kaelus—his robes flaring like a phantom’s wings. Still untouched.

“That is battle precognition, Little Viper.”

Kaelus surged forward in a flurry of strikes—stab, spin, vertical slice. Desperate now. Sharp. Focused. Perfectly controlled.

But Veraxis remained two moves ahead, sliding between the strikes like oil through fingers, his own body not simply reacting—but flowing with intent.

“You do not seize power by force alone,” Veraxis said, sidestepping the final slash and planting his palm gently on Kaelus’ wrist—halting the blade without effort, without strain. “You seize it when you know the outcome… before the strike is made.”

He let go, turning his back on Kaelus without a hint of fear.

“You breathed. That is good. Now learn to listen to it.”

Then he paused… and gave a single, quiet order without turning his head.

“Again.”

Because power was not taken in a single breath.

It was mastered through many.

Tag: @Kaelus Virek Thorne

 

[Kaelus Virek Thorne]

The hum of his saberstaff faded into the back of his mind.

Not because the battle was over—but because Kaelus was listening now.

To his breath.

To the way Veraxis moved like a ripple over still water. Not dodging—redirecting. Not retreating—inviting. His strikes hadn’t missed. They had never stood a chance of landing.

And Veraxis hadn’t even drawn a weapon.

Kaelus stood in the center of the training hall, chest rising and falling, every muscle pulled taut as wire. The burn of effort simmered beneath his skin, but there was no shame. No collapse. No surrender. He met the retreating back of the Wraith with burning eyes and an expression caught somewhere between defiance and revelation.

He hated how easily the lesson came.

And loved it even more.

The saberstaff disengaged with a snap-hiss, twin red lines folding into the hilt. He caught his breath—no longer ragged, but steadying. A beat. Then another. Tempo.

Kaelus turned slightly, just enough for his voice to carry—measured, calm, but with unmistakable steel behind the words.

“You speak like someone who’s forgotten what it’s like to not know the outcome.”

He stepped forward—not to attack, but to follow. A student now, but only for as long as the knowledge fed the fire inside him.

“I will listen,” he said simply, “because there’s power in the silence.”

A pause.

Then, with a flick of his wrist, he reactivated one blade of his saberstaff—not in challenge, but in acknowledgment.

“But I’ll speak again.”

Another breath.

“Because the temple will change.”

And Veraxis would know that Kaelus Virek Thorne wasn’t just trying to seize power.

He was becoming it. One breath at a time.

Tag; @Sith Lord Veraxis

 

[Sith Master Veraxis]

Veraxis paused—just long enough to let Kaelus’ final words settle like falling ash in the dead air of the training hall.

The Wraith turned, robes trailing like coiling ink in water, weightless yet full of intent. Acolytes at the edge of the chamber held their breath, drawn into the stillness as though caught in the pull of gravity itself. Every eye followed the Sith Master, every ear strained to hear what would come next.

He did not raise a hand.

He did not ignite a blade.

Instead, he inhaled—slow, deliberate.

A breath.

One that echoed not in volume, but in the Force itself.

“The outcome,” Veraxis spoke, voice low and layered, like whispers folded in on themselves, “is not always known. But it can be felt. Anticipated. Measured—not through certainty, but through clarity.”

He stepped forward, circling Kaelus now. Not like a predator. Like a sculptor inspecting the edge of new marble.

“You listened. You adapted. You began to see.” Another breath. “That is where battle precognition begins—not in instinct, but in stillness. In the ability to hear the blade before it sings. To see the strike before it’s born.”

As he passed behind Kaelus, his voice dropped even lower, for him alone. “You cannot control the future… but you can shorten the distance between it and the present. That is the gift the Force offers us. Not foresight. Alignment.”

Then he stopped before the watching crowd.

His voice lifted—cold and clear.

“Observe him.” He gestured to Kaelus without turning. “He is learning not to strike harder, but sooner. Not to overpower, but to outpace. The saber is a tool. The Force is your path.”

A pause, then he turned back to Kaelus, the pale glow of his hollow gaze fixing him in place.

“If you would change the temple, Kaelus Virek Thorne… then first learn to move through it like shadow. Master the breath—not to survive, but to become the rhythm of war itself.”

A sudden flick of motion—Veraxis thrust two fingers out, and Kaelus’ blade was met not with a saber, but with the Force itself, a shove of controlled precision that bent his stance just slightly. A lesson.

“Again,” Veraxis said.

“But this time, listen for your end before it comes.”

Around them, the others watched.

And learned.

Tag: @Kaelus Virek Thorne

 

[Kaelus Virek Thorne]

He staggered—not far, not hard. But enough.

The Force push struck like a whisper laced with iron, bending his stance without breaking it. Controlled. Intentional. A correction, not a punishment. Kaelus caught himself, knees flexing, saber drawn low but ready. His teeth clenched—not from pain, but from the pressure of realization.

Veraxis hadn’t beaten him.

Veraxis had shaped him.

A slow exhale hissed through Kaelus’ nose as he straightened, turning to face the Wraith fully. The weight of the Master’s lesson, of his presence, hung like a cloak across his shoulders—but Kaelus didn’t let it bury him.

He wore it.

Let the acolytes watch.

Let them learn.

His saberstaff rose in a guard that was no longer about showmanship or swagger—it was efficient now. Minimalist. Breathing with him. The stance of a fighter who didn’t just want to win, but understand.

He took a step forward, then another. Slow. Measured. The blade remained unignited.

A beat.

Another.

Then Kaelus spoke—quietly, firmly, and without bravado:

“I heard it.”

He tapped a finger against his temple. “The breath between your steps. The moment before the shove. The rhythm behind the illusion.”

He looked not at the others, but through them, into the shape of what could be.

“And I will move through this temple like shadow,” he said, echoing Veraxis’ words without mocking them. Accepting them. Owning them.

“But shadows don’t just follow.”

His voice dropped low, just for Veraxis again. “They spread.”

Then he ignited the blade once more with a crisp snap-hiss.

And struck.

Not wildly. Not with fire.

But with breath. With clarity.

It wasn’t about besting Veraxis anymore.

It was about closing the gap between what is and what must become.

He would learn. He would listen. He would adapt.

And one day, when his blade moved before thought, when the future was no longer distant, when the temple had forgotten it had ever resisted—

He would be the breath before the storm.

Tag; @Sith Master Veraxis

 

[Sith Master Veraxis]

There was no reprimand.

No sudden strike to humble him.

Only silence—and the weight of approval worn like iron beneath the robes of the Wraith.

Veraxis watched Kaelus move, saw the shift not in posture alone, but in intent. The boy no longer fought the current—he had begun to breathe with it. That was more than most acolytes ever achieved in their short, brutal training lives.

The saberstaff came alive once more, and Kaelus lunged. It was not flawless. The breath was still young in him. But…

He was listening.

Veraxis moved—not away, but through—his body flowing with the windlike grace of a blade unsheathed before it is ever seen. But Kaelus followed. Not with desperation or guesswork, but awareness. His eyes tracked not the hood, not the hands, but the weight of each breath, each shifting movement, each silent prelude to motion.

And for the first time—

His blade met air Veraxis had not yet vacated.

A subtle change. A margin of a heartbeat. But it was there.

The training stopped not with a clash, but with Veraxis vanishing behind Kaelus once more—no flashy flip, no smoke or flair—just a step the Force had already made before the body followed. His voice came low, directly behind Kaelus’ ear.

“A breath can become a blade.”

Then to the rest of the room, louder now—so that every acolyte heard it clearly:

“And today, one has drawn blood.”

He turned then, slowly, hood drifting like smoke, his regard never quite leaving Kaelus even as he moved away.

“Let the archives mark it. Kaelus Virek Thorne has begun to see.”

No further praise was offered.

None was needed.

The silence that followed said more than words ever could.

And every acolyte in that chamber would remember the sound Kaelus made when his saber moved with clarity—the moment he stepped beyond the realm of students and into the shadow of something greater.

Tag: @Kaelus Virek Thorne

 

[Kaelus Virek Thorne]

He stood still long after Veraxis had turned away.


Saber still humming.


Breath still steady.

But the air felt different now—heavier somehow, as though the Force itself had taken note of him, etched his name into the stone and ash of Korriban with invisible ink.

He hadn’t struck Veraxis.

Not truly.

But he had touched the place where Veraxis had been.

A margin. A breath. A beginning.

And the Wraith had acknowledged it.

Kaelus deactivated his blade in silence. The snap-hiss vanished into the charged stillness around him, leaving only the murmur of shifting feet, the hushed whispers of acolytes who moments ago would have scoffed, smirked, or sneered.

Now they watched him differently.

Not as an equal.

Not yet.

But as a name worth remembering.

Kaelus Virek Thorne has begun to see.

He repeated the words in his head, let them settle into his spine. He would not let them swell his ego—that was the trap. Veraxis had not praised him for victory. He had marked him for awareness. For clarity.

Kaelus turned slowly, letting his gaze sweep the room, landing on each face that dared to meet his eyes. He saw in them what he had been not long ago—ambition without guidance, fire without structure.

He would not be like them again.

Not ever.

And then, as if to himself but loud enough to carry, he said:

“The shadow moves. The breath sharpens. The storm gathers.”

He dipped his head once—low, not in subservience, but in acknowledgment.

Not to the crowd.

Not even to Veraxis.

But to the path that now lay before him.

Dark. Ruthless. Purposeful.

His.

Then, without fanfare or flourish, Kaelus turned and walked toward the outer hall.

Not in retreat.

In ascension.

Tag; @Sith Master Veraxis

 

[Myrren Naarah]

Amongst the onlooking crowd for Master Veraxis and Kaelus's battlefield dance, Myrren quietly moved her way to the front. Her dark hood raised, blending in with the lesser acolytes as she observed the training. Taking note of every move and every word spoken.

She both unimpressed and... cautious, her gaze sharply on Kaelus as he learned a new skill. Myrren noted, precognition will make him into a far more obnoxious foe to deal with. It was not infallible, of course, but she has always been wary of the skills her rivals possessed. Since Yulvaris was out of the picture, her next significant rival was Kaelus Thorne.

That was something she needed to deal with through careful planning and patience. The more others failed, her station rises even further.

Perhaps, a measure of boldness wont hurt.

"You would have done better, Kaelus Thorne, if you didn't spend the training attempting to be a poet." Myrren spoke, lowering her hood and stepping past the audience and into the ring. An act that no other acolyte present would dare do most surely, it was enough to elicit a few whispers and odd looks.

"Master Veraxis." She greeted their master with a bow, a way for her presence to hopefully be acknowledged.

 

[Sith Master Veraxis]

The shadows stirred before Veraxis answered. He stood unmoved, yet the atmosphere bent around him—as if the temple itself paused to listen.

Kaelus had walked in silence, his words left hanging like a blade suspended mid-air. Veraxis had let them linger. Tested them against the silence.

And found them true.

Then came the other.

Myrren’s voice cut across the tension with the edge of veiled contempt and ambition. Cloaked in her signature venom, masked with the civility of a bow. She stepped where others would not, and that—more than her words—earned her acknowledgment.

The Wraith turned.

Not sharply. Slowly. Deliberately.

Until that sunken hood faced her fully.

He said nothing at first. The hush of the room deepened like the breath before a storm. The Force gathered subtly around him—coiled, measured, aware.

Then, like thunder spoken low:

“Poets see the storm before it breaks. Warriors move when others blink. And the future belongs to those who can do both.”

His voice echoed through the training hall, not loud but absolute.

He shifted slightly, black robes drifting like ash around him, and extended one hand toward Myrren—not in invitation, but in challenge.

“Then step forward, Myrren.”

A silence fell, heavy with promise.

“Let the fire speak louder than the breath. Show me if your blade is more than bitterness veiled as wit.”

But then, a pause—he angled his head, just slightly, as if listening to something far beneath the surface.

“Or will you retreat once more to the shadow of your own doubt, and call it strategy?”

He did not draw a weapon.

He did not need to.

His presence was the blade.

And now, both Kaelus and Myrren stood within its reach.


Tag: @Kaelus Virek Thorne @Myrren Naarah

 

[Darth Malvus]

The cold winds of Ziost howled through the skeletal remains of its ancient citadels, but the echoes of the past were being swallowed by something far greater.

Progress.

From the jagged cliffs that overlooked the valley below, Darth Malvus stood still, a dark silhouette cloaked in obsidian robes, eyes cast down over the vast construction site that now spread like veins of industry across the blighted land. Crimson banners of the Obsidian Court fluttered from rising spires, their edges singed with frost. Machines groaned as they carved through rock and ruin alike, clearing paths for landing pads, barracks, and the first layers of what would become the central fortress.

The Bastion of Dominion.

Already, towering pylons pulsed with crimson light, acting as anchor points for shield generators and orbital relay stations. Sith engineers, soldiers, and enslaved laborers toiled without rest—driven by fear, discipline, and the looming presence of Sith overseers. The air vibrated with the power of industry and command. Even the Force itself seemed to coil differently here, resonating with a sharpened edge under Malvus’ control.

Each layer of construction—every durasteel plate, every power conduit, every tower piercing the ash-gray sky—was a declaration.

Ziost would no longer be a graveyard of the old Sith.

It would be a crucible for the new.

Malvus extended a hand slightly, sensing the alignment of ley lines beneath the planet’s surface. He could feel it—the convergence point was nearly stable. When the final temple complex was completed, the ritual infrastructure would be ready. Channels for dark energy, pools for Sith alchemical rites, and chambers for cultivating power in its rawest forms.

He said nothing to the entourage behind him. Veraxis was not present—he did not need to be. This phase was not about shadow or whispers.

It was about dominion.

Malvus turned from the overlook, his boots crunching on black stone. As he descended the observation stair, laborers and soldiers alike paused, giving wide berth to their master. His cloak dragged behind him like a shadow made real.

The Sith Empire’s pulse now beat stronger with each rising spire.

Ziost was waking.

And Malvus would shape it into a world of power, pain, and permanence.