There was no light at the end. No tunnel. No voice calling from the beyond. Only cold.
An infinite, swallowing cold.
And then... pain.
It came like a surge, like being pulled out of frozen water by invisible hooks. His breath caught in his throat—lungs that weren't his, heart beating to a rhythm that felt both ancient and alien.
He awoke not in a bed or hospital, but on cold stone, beneath the cracked remains of a ceiling carved with unfamiliar, curved symbols that pulsed faintly in crimson.
He gasped. The air was thin, metallic, and dust-choked. He was inside a ruin—massive, ancient, humming with energy. Something was vibrating under his skin. Something alive.
His hands—larger, stronger—trembled. They were wrapped in black ceremonial bands. His robes were torn but richly textured, unfamiliar to the touch. And yet... not unfamiliar at all.
"This... can't be real."
The words came out deeper than he expected—commanding, resonant. His voice. But not his voice.
He remembered a car. Slick roads. Headlights. The shatter of glass. And then—silence. He remembered being himself, a man from Earth, no one important. A man who debated Jedi vs Sith on forums, who re-read the Darth Bane trilogy like scripture. Who knew this galaxy only through screens and pages.
And now, he was here.
He scrambled to his feet, knees aching from disuse. The ruin was massive—vaulted and circular, a ring of broken obelisks surrounding a platform of cracked obsidian. Beneath it, a holographic map flickered to life, ancient but still operational. He staggered toward it, drawn like a moth to flame.
A mechanical voice whispered from the dark, speaking in Rakatan—a language he somehow understood.
"Power core stable. Stasis cycle complete. Host integrity… restored."
"Stasis?" he repeated, touching the edge of the platform.
And then the memories hit him like a flood.
Images not his own. Battles under red skies. Clashing sabers. Betrayals. Ascensions. Galaxies burning. Lifetimes lived behind red eyes and armor forged in hatred. A voice calling itself...
Serion.
He clutched his temples, staggering back. The voices in his head, the instincts in his body, the history under his skin—they weren't hallucinations.
He wasn't dreaming.
He wasn't insane.
He was Darth Serion—Sith warlord, ancient force of vengeance, reborn in the Outer Rim, in a galaxy not yet ready for him.
But he—the man from Earth—was still inside. Still watching. Still thinking.
"...This galaxy doesn't know what's coming," he murmured.
He turned toward the flickering map. Planetary systems appeared in fractured light. Some he recognized from lore: Rhen Var, Taris, Mandalore. Others were long-lost names from Rakatan hyperspace charts.
A path was beginning to form. One he would carve.
With Rakatan tech beneath him...Modern knowledge in his mind...And the Dark Side burning through immortal veins...
He would forge something new.
Not a Sith Order. Not a Republic rebellion.An Empire.
The Eclipse Imperium would rise.
And this time, no Skywalker, no Jedi, and no Sith Lord would stop him.