Morgan dashed forward like a bolt of silver and excitement, her royal composure gone the instant the scent of grilled meat hit her nose. She practically pressed her hands to the glass of the kebab stall.
"I want that rolling meat. Two hundred of them!" she declared, pointing at the rotating spit with a giddy grin.
The griller, a middle-aged man with a thick beard and a London accent, blinked twice. "You sure? I mean—two hundred?"
Morgan only nodded furiously, eyes gleaming like a child at a candy store.
"That'll be… three thousand pounds," the man said, eyebrows raising. "Cash or card—?"
Before she could answer, Morgan puffed her chest and opened her mouth proudly. "I am the Queen of Cam—"
Jin-Woo silently appeared beside her and casually placed a hand over her mouth, gently silencing her mid-sentence.
He smiled at the griller, voice calm and collected. "I've got something better."
From the depths of his coat, Jin-Woo pulled out a red kyber crystal—flawless, pulsating faintly, its glow unnatural. Not just red. It shimmered with a sick undertone, a hue that bent light strangely around it.
The moment it caught the vendor's eyes, he staggered back half a step. "Wh—what is that?"
Jin-Woo twirled it once between his fingers. "Call it... an exotic mineral. Hyperdense. Energy-reactive. Extremely rare."
The griller stared, mouth slightly open. The crystal shimmered like something alive. It wasn't just beautiful—it was wrong in a way he couldn't explain, like holding a piece of the universe's bad dream.
Jin-Woo held it out. "How about this… you give us four hundred kebabs. This is yours."
The man blinked. Looked at the crystal. Looked at Jin-Woo. Then back at the crystal.
"…You want sauces with that?" he asked
Morgan crossed her arms. "Each of them. Make the sauce distribute evenly."
Jin-Woo added, "Recommend whatever usual folks order. Or whatever you normally serve. If that's what she means."
The griller stared at them both for a second, mouth slightly open, then slowly nodded. "Uh… give me like… twenty-five minutes. This is a tall order."
Without a word, Jin-Woo flicked the red kyber crystal toward him. The crystal spun in midair and landed right in the griller's palm.
The moment he touched it, his knees buckled slightly.
"Holy sh—this thing's heavy," he muttered.
It pulsed. The glow from within seemed to sink into his skin, like it wanted to burn a path into his memory.
Jin-Woo leaned casually on the stall counter. "I've got another if you finish in fifteen."
The griller's eyes snapped up. "Fifteen. Yeah. Fifteen it is. I'll have it done in fourteen."
Jin-Woo walked over to a nearby kebab stall's plastic bench and sat down, arms resting on the table. Morgan plopped down beside him with a dignified thump—if royalty could plop—and looked around the bustling 2017 London food district. Her eyes sparkled at the sight of neon lights reflecting off the glass, people laughing, car horns blaring, street performers juggling flaming batons while music boomed from hidden speakers. This place was alive. Alive in a way her Lostbelt never had been.
She finally broke the silence. "Jin-Woo… isn't that crystal, like… really precious to you? It looked like it could power a throne."
Jin-Woo didn't even flinch. "I've still got twenty-eight of those red kyber crystals."
Morgan turned slowly, eyes gleaming now. Her lips twitched like she was about to say something formal.
But she didn't. Instead, she puffed her cheeks, pointed at him, and said with zero shame, "I want one."
Jin-Woo raised an eyebrow. "You want one?"
"I want one," she repeated like a spoiled child caught in a candy shop.
He tilted his head. "You sure? These things aren't toys. They resonate with their user. They react to emotion. If you're too soft, they'll burn you."
Morgan crossed her arms and huffed. "I conquered a my own world , commanded thousands, and Rule for two thousand years without a day of rest. I'll handle a glowing red rock just fine."
Jin-Woo didn't argue. He reached into his coat and pulled out another red kyber crystal, this one slightly sharper at the edges, still glowing like it had a heartbeat of its own.
He slid it across the table.
Morgan caught it in both hands, and the moment she did—the crystal hummed. The air around her shimmered faintly as her mana stirred, subtly syncing with the crystal's power.
"…It likes me," she said quietly.
"It likes your ambition," Jin-Woo replied. "And maybe the fact that you tried to order two hundred kebabs like it was a declaration of war."
She looked down at the crystal, smiling like a girl who just got her first forbidden relic.
"I'm going to name it... Queen," she said with pride.
Morgan held her crimson crystal carefully between her palms, eyes still shimmering with curiosity. "What's its power, Jin-Woo?"
Without speaking, Jin-Woo reached into the inside of his coat and pulled out the hilt of his Vectivus lightsaber. Sleek, dark, and minimalist in design, its frame bore faint Sith etchings—an ancient relic from another galaxy, now bound to his hand like an extension of his will.
He ignited it with a silent flick of his thumb.
Then—fssshhhhkkk—a blade of pure black energy erupted from the hilt. Not just dark—black. The kind that swallowed light. The kind that made space itself look pale in comparison.
Morgan's eyes widened. "You didn't tell me it had that many colors."
Jin-Woo rotated his wrist once, letting the humming blade cast jagged shadows across the sidewalk before slowly retracting it with another click-hiss.
"I only have black and red," he said, sliding the Vectivus lightsaber back into his coat. "Red's easy. I've got plenty of those."
"And the black?" she asked, still staring at where the blade had been.
"You find one, and you can buy an entire planet."
Morgan chuckled, low and dry, her gaze falling to the crystal again. "Or conquer it?"
Jin-Woo smirked. "Up to you."
Morgan blinked. Looked down at her red kyber crystal again like she was reassessing the value of the universe.
Then her voice softened. "To you… this world—my Lostbelt—it's just a backyard, isn't it? Just a quiet corner while you come from a galaxy that sounds like a battlefield carved into elsewhere ."
Jin-Woo gave a casual shrug. "Nope. Still easy."
She tilted her head, surprised.
"I outmaneuvered everyone," he said, voice calm and flat. "The good guys. The bad guys. Doesn't matter. When you're fast enough to see the trap and smart enough to make it look like you fell in, the rest is just clean-up."
Morgan stared at him for a long moment, quiet.
"…You're terrifying, you know that?" she muttered—but she was smiling as she said it.
From the corner, the kebab vendor yelled, "THIRTY SECONDS, BOSS!" while smoke and sizzling meat filled the air like incense for royalty.
Jin-Woo smirked. "Better save some room, Queen. Four hundred kebabs aren't gonna eat themselves."
And right on cue—fifteen seconds later—the sound of creaking wheels filled the air. A large metal carriage, polished from years of oil and fire, rolled toward them. Its trays were stacked in precision rows, skewers lined like spears in a war feast. Four hundred kebabs. Perfectly grilled. Juicy. Glorious.
The vendor grunted as he slowed the cart, wiping sweat from his brow. "Whew… Here you go, milady and mister mysterious. Four hundred. You sure you're human?"
Jin-Woo casually stood up and, without flourish, tossed the second red kyber crystal across the short distance. It arced under the amber lights of the food district and landed neatly in the vendor's hand with a soft clink.
"Here. As promised."
The griller caught it, blinking again at the crimson shard. The glow still pulsed gently in his fingers like molten glass. He swallowed, then hesitated, eyes darting between Jin-Woo and Morgan.
"Thanks very much, but, uh… can I ask something? Where did you even get these things?"
Jin-Woo tilted his head slightly, voice casual.
"Heisted a temple. Not from this galaxy."
Morgan blinked in surprise and turned sharply. "You… stole it?"
He shrugged. "More like recovered it. From the bad guys. Sith shrine, actually. It was hidden right beneath the Jedi Temple—those goody two-shoes never even realized it. I'll explain it all later, Morgan. Trust me, you're not ready for how my galaxy looks."
Morgan's jaw opened slightly, caught between a grin and disbelief.
The vendor just stood there, clearly not understanding a single word that had just been said. He gave an awkward thumbs-up.
"Right… enjoy the meal… I'll, uh… be at the stall. Yeah."
And with that, he dashed off—returning to his sizzling fortress of skewers—while Jin-Woo calmly turned to Morgan, who was already halfway through her first kebab, eyes gleaming like a girl at a royal banquet with no end.
Morgan tore through her kebabs with all the finesse of a child who had just been handed freedom on a silver platter. Her royal poise had vanished—grease stained her fingers, and a tiny bit of sauce clung to the corner of her lip. She looked radiant. Not as a queen, but as a woman unshackled from millenia of burden.
Then—DING.
Jin-Woo's system blinked to life before his eyes, unseen by anyone else.
[Notification: Sith Holocron Updated – Source: Sith Shrine Archive]
[Content Upload: The Fallen Hero – Darth Caedus Holocron]
[Note: Temporal Displacement Detected – Entity Origin: New Republic Era Timeline]
Jin-Woo's eyes narrowed for a split second. Caedus? That name wasn't from the Republic's golden days. This wasn't a Darth from the Jedi Purge… this was later. Far later. Post-Yuuzhan -vong-War later.
The system never pinged outside the galaxy except his own realm unless the object was tied to something active. For it to do this now—in the middle of Earth's Proper Human History—meant someone had either brought it here… or was waking it up.
Morgan had noticed his expression shift. The barest tension in his brow. The way his eyes weren't looking at the kebabs anymore.
She slowed her chewing and tilted her head. "Jin-Woo? Are you… not enjoying the kebab?"
His focus didn't waver. He stood beside her, eyes distant, calculating.
"Continue, hungry Queen," he said calmly. "I've got a mystery to resolve."
As he turned to walk, he paused—and with a casual hand, gently patted the top of her head.
Morgan immediately puffed her cheeks out. "You're only allowed to do that if I permit it," she huffed, mock glaring.
Jin-Woo glanced over his shoulder, smirking faintly. "But you like it, don't you?"
Morgan didn't answer out loud.
She just nodded. Quietly. And went back to her kebabs—grinning like a girl .
Fifteen minutes passed. Jin-Woo remained near, silent. Morgan had devoured a shocking one hundred kebabs already, still going strong without hesitation, as if all the burdens of her Lostbelt had vanished. A queen acting like a freed child.
Then, Jin-Woo's hand moved. He pulled out a holocron—green in color. Not the deep crimson of a Sith crystal. This one shimmered with a dangerous, sickly glow.
Morgan, midway through her 101st kebab, paused. Her eyes narrowed.
"…That triangle," she said slowly. "It feels… dangerous. More than that red crystal you gave me."
Jin-Woo didn't answer. The holocron pulsed in his hand, and a quiet message blinked into his vision.
[Notification: Activate Holocron?]
[Y/N]
He pressed Y without hesitation.
The world fractured. Everything around him—Morgan, the market stalls, the London sky—peeled back like shattered glass. The air twisted. His thoughts stretched, accelerated, bent inward.
He was no longer sitting. He was floating in a dead galaxy.
A battlefield suspended between time and memory. A galaxy collapsed inward, frozen in slow-motion decay. Stars blinked in and out like stuttering memories. Moons burned as they rotated unnaturally, caught in shattered orbit.
In the center of this void, a ruined Jedi Council chamber hovered mid-space, inverted and cracked. Its pillars broken. At its core sat a shattered throne—built from broken kyber shards and fragments of Mandalorian armor.
Three ghostly figures watched from thrones around the chamber, each version of the same man.
Jacen Solo.
-The Jedi, serene but haunted.
-The Wanderer, robed in shadows, face unreadable.
-And the Sith, Darth Caedus—eyes burning yellow, a faint smile on his lips.
Jin-Woo landed soundlessly at the center. As his boots touched the fragmented floor, another system prompt appeared.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[WARNING: Darth Caedus is attempting Transfer Essence to invade your soul]
[Emergency Quest: DEFEND YOUR SOUL]
Arena: Vergence of Betrayal
Description: You have entered a battlefield carved from fragmented Force memory—shattered timelines, broken destinies, and echoes of conflict. Darth Caedus, a master of psychological warfare and Force manipulation, is attempting to hijack your body through Essence Transfer. This duel is more than physical—it's spiritual. Resist, or be consumed.
Zone Effects:
• Force Severance Zone: Midichlorian response is slowed by 20%, weakening your Force abilities.
• Essence Drift: Caedus can "drag" your Force techniques into temporal delay, disrupting your reactions.
Caedus Buffs:
• Blade-Phase Mastery: If your composure falters, Caedus's strikes ignore 20% of your durability.
• Dark Empathy: The more unstable your emotions, the faster Caedus adapts to your patterns and counters you.
Objective: Defend your soul from Caedus as he attempts to overwrite your essence and claim your body as his new vessel. This is a battle of wills, identity, and legacy.
Failure: Caedus replaces you permanently—your soul erased from existence.
Reward (Upon Victory):
• Absorb Caedus's abilities upon his death.
• Acquire the Holocron containing the combined knowledge of both Jedi and Sith from the New Republic era.
• Gain access to Caedus's hidden contingency protocols.
• Unlock Essence Memory: [Darth Caedus – Legacy of the Betrayer].
• Hidden Reward: ???
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Jin-Woo… smiled.
He didn't flinch. He didn't hesitate. From his side, he pulled it—his lightsaber, forged from a kyber crystal twisted in truth. The Vectivus hilt gleamed matte black. With one motion, he ignited it.
The blade roared to life—black and rippling, edged in violet smoke.
Across the battlefield, Darth Caedus stood from his throne. His own lightsaber ignited—crimson, sharp, hungry.
Their eyes met. No words.