Sadow blocked, tail bracing, wings flaring wide to catch the force of the blow. His three sets of eyes narrowed, and the warped jaw curled into a slow, hungry smile.
"For a Grand Master," he said, voice rumbling with layered resonance, "your strike is weaker than expected."
Around them, the Jedi moved as one. Dozens of Knights and Masters surged forward, sabers igniting in unified formation—green, blue, gold, violet. Yaddle knelt behind them, her hands folded, golden light radiating outward as Battle Meditation poured strength into every heart on the field.
Their formation was perfect. flawless. will unified. They struck . and the world shattered.
Sadow inhaled sharply, chest expanding, runes along his spine glowing like molten script.He screamed. A Force scream.
"HUAAHHHHHHHH!"
The courtyard convulsed. Air twisted. Stone cracked. Sabers flickered as the scream ripped through minds, nerves, and breath. Most of the Jedi were thrown to their knees instantly—some dropping their sabers, others gripping their skulls in silent agony.
The world seemed to tilt sideways.
Plo Koon forced himself up first, legs shaking, visor flickering static. "Anyone who can still fight—stand!" he rasped. "Master Yoda said it—this creature must never escape. Not into the city. Not into the galaxy."
Tyvokka rose beside him, massive frame steadying, though his breath was ragged. His great saber dragged sparks as it rose into guard.
"It is… rare," Tyvokka growled, "to see circumstances like these, my former apprentice."
Plo Koon steadied his mask, yellow arcs flickering across his fingertips. "I would prefer we never see them again," he answered. "This thing calling itself Sadow—this is no modern Sith. This is one of the Golden Age. A conqueror from millennia past."
Tyvokka bared his fangs, stance widening. "Then we make sure he stays buried."
Sadow watched them rise again, expression unreadable—curiosity and contempt layered across six burning eyes. Plo Koon stepped forward, electricity gathering along his arm. Golden arcs of Electric Judgment lashed outward, striking Sadow square in the chest.
Yoda moved in the same instant. His stance shifted, Ataru fading into something heavier, deeper—Juyo-Kai, the ancient restraint form. Each motion targeted tendons, tendons locking, joints seizing. The Force wrapped around Sadow's muscles like invisible chains, binding movement, stalling instinct.
Sadow did not fall. He did not scream. He did not even flinch. The lightning washed across his body without burning. The restraints held him, but did not weaken him. He stood at the center of their combined assault—unbroken, but forced still.
Yoda's blade lowered—not to strike, but to channel. His voice dropped into the deep resonance of Qâsh'Tai, green light rippling from his saber and flooding into the space between flesh and essence.
If there was anything left of Dooku within—this would be the strike to reach him.
Sadow reviewed his situation silently. Pinned. An undodgeable attack. The spectral resonance of Qâsh'Tai crawled under his armor, toward his core. He recognized the technique—this was not meant to kill him.
This was meant to separate him. His wings flared in irritation. His tail coiled to anchor. His jaw tightened—but the restraints held.
Then something happened he did not expect. One of Sadow's arms tore open—cleanly severed at the elbow. White and black fluids sprayed across the stone.
The attacker landed beside Yoda, stance grounded, violet saber humming low and focused.
Mace Windu. His breathing was calm. His eyes unwavering. His blade angled for the next cut before the first had finished falling.
Shatterpoint. He wasn't striking at Sadow's strength. He was striking where the possession-state was weakest.
Sadow's gaze flicked to him. The real threat is you.
The six eyes blinked once, slowly, calculating. This body still rejects me. Imperfect host. The skin cannot harden under strain while the Grand Master continues restraining my muscle systems. I cannot fortify. I cannot take flight. I cannot reshape.
The inner jaw clicked with quiet irritation. If I do nothing, they will peel me apart.
Sadow acted. His throat swelled—runes along his jaw glowing molten red—before a compressed sphere of lightning blasted from his mouth. It shot straight toward Mace Windu with a shriek of burning ozone.
Windu was already moving, Vaapad guiding his instincts. He twisted, slid under the blast, sparks flaring off his shoulder guard as he rolled and came up ready to strike. The moment he rose, he swung—aiming for the next fracture line—
—but Sadow threw himself backward, dragging his pinned muscles against Yoda's hold. The invisible restraints snapped taut, slowing the retreat, but he forced space open—meter by grinding meter—until he had clawed out a narrow radius of distance, no more than three meters.
The effort cost him. He felt it.
Thirty percent… no. Twenty.My power continues to drop.
Sadow's six eyes shifted—two locking onto Yoda.
The old master hovered above, golden aura still burning, green blade pressed downward like a spear of will. Every second Yoda held the restraint, Sadow's strength bled out through the fracture points of the possession.
The creature's tail lashed once—decision made. I must remove the Grand Master. If I do not, the next move is not mine to make.
He inhaled, lightning threading between all six eyes, wings tightening to pivot upward, jaw locking into a killing angle. The next strike was aimed at Yoda.
Before he launched, his claws traced a circle in the air—Sith sorcery, ancient and efficient. The ground beneath him rippled like disturbed ash, and dozens of smaller forms erupted from the stone—miniature replicas of himself, each one carrying a flickering red lightsaber formed from hardened shadow.
They burst outward in a coordinated rush.
Tyvokka met the first wave head-on, great saber cleaving through multiple at once, each kill marked by a burst of red vapor. Plo Koon moved beside him, Soresu precision interwoven with arcs of Electric Judgment, cutting down a path and staggering the swarm.
Oppo Rancisis coiled into stance, his long fingers weaving intricate sigils in the air. The environment responded to his will; stone surged upward, slabs rising and locking together into a dome around the battlefield, sealing exits, constraining flight, denying Sadow the sky. A cage.
Tyvokka roared over the clash. "Go forward, Mace Windu!"
Plo Koon didn't look back. His voice was steady, resolute. "Do what you must, Master of the Order."
Windu gave only a single nod. He advanced. His saber hummed low, steady, focused.
Sadow's six eyes flicked toward Windu, wings drawing inward, jaw tightening, lightning rolling beneath the blackened skin. Then—he smiled. A slow, knowing, Sith-born smile.
"You all make the same mistake Dooku made," he said, voice layered and hollow. "You believe there is still a fight to win. But you have already lost."
His body began to glow—red lightning surging from the runes beneath his skin, blue lightning crackling through the veins of the host. The air warped, heat rising in waves.
Windu's eyes widened. "Take cover—now!"
Oppo Rancisis reacted first, hands sweeping outward. The plaza floor shifted, stone rising into curved barriers as he pulled every slab within reach to shield as many Jedi as possible. Tyvokka dragged two Knights behind the forming wall. Plo Koon threw up his forearm and braced for impact.
Yoda released his restraint stance instantly, planting both feet and lifting his blade before him. Qâsh'Tai surged—not as offense this time, but as pure defense, the Force dispersing outward in a wide, shimmering dome.
The explosion hit.Sadow's body detonated in a blinding flare, a shockwave expanding outward like a miniature solar eruption. Buildings trembled. The sky lit white. Air turned to fire.
But Yoda held. The Qâsh'Tai dome strained, bending and warping, golden-green light flickering as it fought the blast. The explosion radius shrank—first by meters, then by tens of meters—until the flare collapsed on itself and died.
Silence followed. Yoda staggered. His breathing was heavy. The glow around him guttered and dimmed. The other Jedi leaned against stone, the aftermath visible in their shaking arms and unsteady footing.
The plaza was scarred—stone scorched black, statues shattered, debris scattered like fallen stars.
And Sadow still stood. Or what was left of him. His lower body had been sheared away in the blast; his torso floated above the stone, held by raw Force and sheer, cruel will. Each breath was a ragged grind, a rasp that scraped like stone on stone, but the smile on his warped jaw never left.
Mace Windu stepped forward, chest heaving, saber lowering a fraction. Triumph cut through his exhaustion. "We're still standing, you fucking—" The word ripped out of him like a wild thing.
Around him, a handful of Jedi blinked, surprise cracking their disciplined masks at the raw profanity. Yoda's small mouth tilted in something close to approval.
Sadow's three sets of eyes dilated as if newly aware, pupils widening into small, calculating circles. A slow amusement rolled through his features, then sharpened into a bright, terrible clarity.
"Ah," he breathed. "So that was the shape of it. So simple. So brittle." Then, as if remembering a final, desperate lesson, he raggedly smiled. "I should have done this from the beginning."
His head split like a cluster of cracked stone—fractures spreading into many, many facets—and from each fracture a new miniature of himself bled into being. The conjured golems reformed, not as careful soldiers but as living bombs: unstable, screaming with trapped lightning and rune-fire. Sadow's voice threaded through them all, brittle and commanding.
"Spread. Fill the city. Make the sky burn."
Obi-Wan found his footing first, boots scraping as he pushed himself to stand amid the ruin. "Damn it," he shouted, voice raw, "the civilians—" He didn't finish.
The courtyard's far reaches were already alive with the shimmering silhouettes of Sadow's expendable avatars flowing outward like a spilled tide.
Plo Koon moved to intercept, mask voice clipped. "Contain them. Move in chords—avoid impact zones."
Oppo Rancisis raised a hand, fingers tracing the air; stone shifted, a dome folding into being to catch a cluster of the golems before they could reach the lower city. Tyvokka let loose a howl, charging a wedge through a wave of smaller constructs, his great saber cleaving them apart before they detonated.
Windu's eyes narrowed into a steel line. "We cannot let them scatter. If they reach the spires, they will—"
He didn't finish. The image of exploding neighborhoods hung between them all.
Yoda, exhausted beyond his years, planted his cane and pulled the last of his Qâsh'Tai into place. The air around him shimmered with a dense, pressurized warmth that smelled faintly of ozone; the golden field expanded like a lung. "Hold the line! Hold the line now!" he barked, voice thin but absolute.
Windu moved in tandem, cutting down the nearest golems—but several of them collapsed instantly at the lightest touch, their forms hollow, unstable, like nothing more than shells packed with volatile Force energy., designed to distract on command.
Above them, Sadow's torso lifted, wings beating in uneven, jagged rhythm. Black membranes flexed against the air as he rose higher, trailing runes of red fire. His voice cut the courtyard in a long, cold sneer.
"Worry for others is what makes all of you weak. Mortals. Jedi. Disgusting creatures.."
He hovered now—out of saber reach—out of restraint range. "Goodbye, Grand Master Yoda. The next move is mine."
The remaining constructs—those still intact—stopped attacking entirely. They froze, bodies trembling, and then burst—not outward to kill, but inward, their annihilation twisting the air into a swirling barrier of condensed dark side force. It formed around Sadow like a sphere of black lightning, shielding him from pursuit and magnifying the power of his wings.
The air boomed as the pressure snapped, and the creature's speed surged—flight turning into a streak of violent shadow tearing upward into Coruscant's sky.
Wind tore across the courtyard. Stone dust flew. Jedi braced themselves against the blast.
Sadow looked back only once. His six red eyes gleamed like dying stars.
"The Golden Era of the Sith will rise again—under my banner."
Then he vanished in a flash of black light, his silhouette shooting into the towering maze of Coruscant's skyline—gone before any Jedi could follow.