**Chapter 378: Shadows Across Universes**
**Dagon's POV**
I stood on a mountain of bones.
The sky above was the color of dried blood, and a vast, tattered flag whipped in a radioactive wind — the double-headed eagle of the Imperium of Man. This was not my galaxy. This was not even the Star Wars universe I had come to know. It was another fantasy world that people from my old Earth had played as a grimdark tabletop game.
And yet… here it was. Real.
*So many universes and galaxies,* I thought bitterly. *Perhaps there's one where Skynet was just a harmless program and the bombs never fell.*
Yeah… as if.
A cold presence brushed against my mind — ancient, vast, and filled with bottomless hatred.
**Darth Vitiate.**
Even here, my mind was still partially connected to him. He had become the God-Emperor of Mankind in that reality. My interference in the Clone Wars had turned his carefully laid plans for the "Sky River" galaxy into ash.
If I somehow won the Clone Wars, defeated the Yuuzhan Vong, and eliminated the Sith… I might still have to face a universe-spanning army of humanity supremacists led by an immortal Sith Emperor wearing the rotting corpse of a god.
*Time to wake up.*
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**Scene 2 – Sovereign, High Orbit above Coruscant**
I opened my eyes in the darkness of my private quarters.
The girls were in their own rooms tonight. Only Zule's two younger sisters, Ashla and Cera, slept peacefully in the small adjacent chamber I had prepared for them. Zule herself had finally fallen into an exhausted sleep after hours of crying.
I moved quietly, preparing for what might come.
I donned my customized armor — matte black with subtle crimson accents — and checked my weapons:
- The crossguard lightsaber with its blood-red blade.
- The dual-bladed spinning white lightsaber.
- The standard blue lightsaber.
- And the ancient holocron of Darth Nox, tucked securely at my side.
I activated the holocron. A translucent figure of a powerful Sith Lord materialized.
"My master," I said quietly.
Darth Nox's spectral eyes narrowed. "Yes, my apprentice. I sense conflict in you… and darkness."
"Master, I fear a great darkness is coming. I might soon need you to help me — not as a ghost, but here, in the flesh."
Nox's image flickered. "Ah… a dream, my apprentice. I am but a ghost, carrying Darth Nox's last memories. Even if you could bring me back without my wife Ashara… there is nothing for me here."
"Then I will break the cycle," I replied firmly. "I will find a way for both of you."
"Dagon, wait—"
I closed the holocron.
"Hmm… Trial of fate. Extinction. And for me to open Pandora's box and find despair… and a handful of hope."
**Scene 3**
The only place I could think of where they might breach reality was **Malachor V**.
The Mass Shadow Generator on that dead world used technology disturbingly similar to what the God-Emperor had employed to destroy entire alien civilizations in his own universe. If Vitiate was looking for a weak point between realities, Malachor was the most likely candidate.
*Time to change the lore.*
I couldn't wait for the enemy to come to me. I had to prepare the battlefield in advance.
I activated a secure comm channel to Tarkin.
"Grand Captain, prepare a small stealth task force. We're going to Malachor V. Quietly. No one outside this ship needs to know."
Tarkin's hologram appeared, eyebrow raised. "Malachor? That world is a graveyard, General. Even the Jedi avoid it."
"Exactly," I replied. "That's why we need to get there first."
As the *Sovereign* maintained its silent orbit above Coruscant, I looked out the viewport at the glittering planet below.
A new war was coming — one that spanned not just galaxies, but entire universes.
And this time, the stakes were no longer just the fate of the Republic.
They were the fate of reality itself.