"So, how will we prove ourselves worthy?"
"You will prove it by facing...me."
XoXaan's reply took us both by surprise. A shadow of bewilderment crossed Maul's face, though he quickly concealed it. I, on the other hand, frowned. From the side of the chamber, Krayt watched us silently, his posture still firm.
But something was bothering me and I couldn't ignore it.
"Lord XoXaan," I said with a tone of respect, but without hiding my frustration. "I understand your logic, but listen: why so many tests? I thought we had already proven ourselves worthy by this point. At least I proved it. On the way here, I faced the dangers of the tomb, I faced the slugs that live here, your apprentice, and even a Terentatek. I think that alone proves that I am worthy to be here and walk this ground."
My words caused Krayt to clench his fists for an instant, his posture rigid, but he made no move or attempt to interrupt me. As if waiting for his master's response before acting.
XoXaan was silent for a moment. There was no emotion on her spectral face, but the intensity of her presence grew stronger, as if she was considering the best way to respond.
"You do not prove your worth just for me, young warrior. You prove your worth for the future."
Her voice slipped into my mind, icy and firm, but with a tinge of something else. Something that unsettled me.
"The future," I repeated, keeping my guard up. "What do you mean?"
"There are things yet to come. Things that the galaxy has not yet seen... but have already left their mark on this one."
I felt a shiver run down my spine at his words, though I didn't quite know why.
"I saw it, you know? The darkness that creeps among the stars, the shadow that has not yet arrived, but whose presence is already known to some."
XoXaan turned his gaze to Krayt, and for the first time since we arrived, I felt there was something more to their relationship than a simple master-apprentice bond. Something deeper, more ancient.
"The one you see before you, my apprentice, is living proof of that darkness. He was not born with this knowledge, he gained it. He suffered it."
My eyes narrowed. I looked at Krayt, his imposing organic armor, the twisted, alien lines that covered it, the spiky, strange reliefs that looked more like something living than a common metal forge. I quickly connected the dots.
"Your armor...", I murmured, remembering that it had caught my attention before. "They implanted it in you then, didn't they?"
Krayt didn't respond. His posture remained rigid, but there was a tinge of tension in his silence, confirming my thoughts. Meanwhile, XoXaan continued.
"There are forces in the galaxy that neither the Sith nor the Jedi fully understand. Beings who do not fear the Force... because it does not affect them."
Something in her tone still made my chest feel heavier. A fleeting thought flashed through my mind, but it didn't make sense. What could exist in the galaxy that wasn't tied to the Force?
"Those beings have touched this world before. They took my apprentice. They molded him. And he survived."
Krayt bowed his head barely, but said nothing.
"And when the time comes... they will return."
The air in the tomb felt heavier.
"I am not here to protect the treasures of the ancient Sith, child," XoXaan continued. "I am here to prepare those who can weather the coming storm. I do not seek thieves or mere power seekers. I seek warriors who can hold their own in battle when the real war comes."
My jaw tensed.
"What war?"
But she didn't answer.
"If you want the map you seek, you must first prove you are strong enough to bear the burden of what is to come, only if you defeat me will I tell you where to find the map, otherwise believe me you will never find it, not unless I want it."
XoXaan stepped forward and the energy in the tomb changed. Her spectral figure began to glow with an ominous glow, the Force distorting around her.
"So I ask you again, child."
Her voice echoed with an authority that shook the tomb.
"Are you worthy?"
I didn't answer right away, first I thought about what this implied, even speaking cryptically it was understood what he was referring to, he was talking about others, perhaps a species that is immune to the Force and will go to War with the Galaxy, therefore they are not of our Galaxy.
I stepped forward, my saber glowing with renewed intensity.
"We will fight you on one extra condition. If we defeat you, you will not only give us the location of the Star Map... you will tell us everything you know about these... 'beings'."
Maul turned his face towards me, his expression seemed interested, he too wanted to know about these beings surely. His presence in the Force intensified, a mixture of anticipation and restrained aggression.
XoXaan watched us silently for a moment. Then, her laughter crept into our minds, though it did not seem a laugh of mirth.
"You challenge me in my own domain? How very Sith of you."
Before I could respond, XoXaan's shadow expanded, enveloping the chamber in gloom. The temperature dropped suddenly, and a suffocating pressure fell over us, as if he were crushing us with his presence.
Maul reacted first. His saber ignited with a snap and he lunged toward her with a horizontal slash, seeking to cut her in two at once. But the crimson blade pierced her form harmlessly, as if she were nothing more than a projection.
Then, she attacked.
From the darkness, bursts of dark energy emerged in a spiral, forcing us to jump to opposite sides. I barely had time to land before I felt an invisible tug on my chest. XoXaan had extended a spectral hand and, with a single gesture, threw me against one of the stone walls. The impact jolted me, but I reacted quickly, sliding to the side just as a spear of dark energy stabbed into the spot where I had been.
Maul, for his part, kept moving, spinning and attacking with precise slashes. Unlike me, he didn't stop to analyze the situation: he simply attacked, again and again, like a cornered beast. But it was useless. XoXaan didn't fight like a physical being, but like a shadow that danced between dimensions, appearing and disappearing with disturbing fluidity.
"They are not worthy."
Her voice enveloped the tomb, and suddenly, the shadow composing it split into multiple silhouettes. There were now several of them, each mirroring her presence, each with the same spectral face.
'These are not illusions.' I thought with horror.
The two of them lunged at Maul, and though he defended himself with impeccable reflexes, their blows passed through the shadows without effect. Instead, every time one of them touched him, dark energy sizzled around his body, draining his strength, slowing him down.
I, on the other hand, closed my eyes for an instant and extended my perception into the Force. If I couldn't physically hit her, I had to find another way.
The echo of its presence was not coming from any fixed point. It wasn't really here.
But there was a core.
I snapped my eyes open and extended my free hand, launching a torrent of Force Lightning at one of the figures. The energy burst into the chamber, bouncing off the stone walls and dispelling several of the shadows on impact.
XoXaan appeared right behind me.
Her ethereal form materialized for an instant, just long enough for me to feel the spectral blade of a lightsaber graze my neck.
But at that moment, Maul intervened.
With a furious snarl, he propelled himself with the Force and spun through the air, his saber whirring with lethal precision. The slash sliced through XoXaan's image, and this time, while it didn't damage her, it did force her back.
"Interesting."
She whispered with a note of approval in her voice.
The shadows disappeared, shrinking to a single figure: the real XoXaan.
I straightened up, my chest rising and falling from the adrenaline of combat. Maul did the same, his face still twisted in an expression of determination and fury.
XoXaan watched us silently. Then he bowed his head slightly.
"Perhaps... you are indeed worthy."
She watched us silently, her spectral form vibrating with an ancient, dark energy. The pressure in the tomb intensified again, but this time she did not attack immediately. She was testing us...still.
Maul did not hesitate. He lunged forward with a roar of fury, his double saber whirling in a burst of red light. This time he did not seek to simply strike, but to unleash all his aggression in a single assault that would devastate her. XoXaan's figure faded just before impact, and for an instant, I thought the attack had failed.
But Maul had learned.
At the last second, he spun on his own axis and threw one of his hands back, palm open. A Force shockwave exploded from his arm, striking the spectral shadow and ripping it from its intangibility for a brief moment.
It was now!
I channeled the Force into my muscles and lunged forward, my saber glowing with fierce intensity. With a downward slash, I aimed for the core of her essence, the very spot I had sensed earlier.
The blow struck.
An ethereal scream echoed from the tomb, not of pain, but of recognition. XoXaan's form twisted, its edges dissipating into black smoke before reforming. But something had changed. His presence was no longer dominant, no longer carried the same weight as before.
Maul landed beside me, panting slightly but with a predatory smile on his lips. I knew we had won.
XoXaan watched us for long seconds, her image swaying in the gloom. And then, slowly, she bowed her head in approval.
"Enough."
Her voice was not the same. There was no defiance this time, just quiet acceptance.
The weight that had been crushing the air in the tomb suddenly disappeared, as if a storm had passed and left a vacuum in its wake. The darkness around her gradually dissipated, and her silhouette, though still imposing, seemed less threatening.
"You have proven yourselves worthy."
Maul snorted with a mixture of triumph and contempt. "Of course we are."
I ignored his attitude and stepped forward. "Then hold up your end of the bargain."
XoXaan watched us for a moment longer before speaking, her tone icy but solemn.
"The Star Map... it is hidden deep within these ruins, you will find it by going that way," she said as she pointed to a hallway adjacent to us. "Regarding the other subject, what do you want to know about 'them'?"
"Let's start at the beginning, I want to know everything, everything you know about them, I want to know their name, I want to know where they come from and most of all, their weaknesses." I said to which the spectral figure smiled.
"Well let's start from the beginning then."
She crossed her arms, her translucent form pulsing with dark energy as she spoke.
"They call themselves Yuuzhan Vong. Their origin is uncertain, but there is one thing we know for certain: they are not from this galaxy."
I felt a shiver run down my spine at that statement. The idea of an external threat, something completely alien to everything we knew, was unsettling.
"They come from a distant galaxy, from an unknown world lost in the shadows of the cosmos. Their arrival in this galaxy was not by chance, but part of a much darker destiny. Today, we believe they are already here, albeit in the shadows, moving stealthily, infiltrating everywhere. They possess spies everywhere, and their influence is spreading like a plague, a very silent one."
That took me by surprise. "Spies?"
"Yes. We don't know how many, or how infiltrated they are, but we know they watch. That they wait."
I frowned. The idea of a silent invasion was even more terrifying than an open war.
"They are not affected by pain," XoXaan continued, "indeed, they enjoy it. In their culture, suffering is an offering, a tribute to their twisted gods. They flagellate themselves, they mutilate themselves, and they do it with pride."
Maul snorted with disdain. "Fanatics."
XoXaan nodded slowly. "More than you can imagine. Their hatred of technology goes beyond superstition. They consider it blasphemy, an insult to their beliefs. To them, true life is biotechnology, the organic.
Everything they use, from their weapons to their ships, is alive."
That puzzled me. "I don't understand. If they reject technology, how do they travel through space?"
XoXaan narrowed her eyes, as if waiting for the question. "Their technology is not like ours. Everything they possess, everything they use... has been cultivated."
She paused, giving us time to take it in.
"Their ships are not simple transports. They are living beings, huge creatures shaped and altered to serve as space vehicles. Their armor is not forged, but bred. Their weapons... well, their weapons are things that breathe, that feel, that even feed."
The words echoed in the tomb with a heaviness he could not ignore. An entire civilization based on the living, the organic. Something that defied all logic.
Krayt stepped forward, and for the first time, spoke with a more somber tone than usual.
"I have seen what they are capable of."
His voice was deeper, deeper and denser.
"When I was a young warrior, I was captured by them. They experimented on me, did things to me that no being should have to endure."
He pointed to his armor, the exoskeleton that covered his body like a second skin.
"This is part of their legacy. Their 'gift' to me. Something that keeps me alive... but I will never be able to take it of so it will never let me forget them."
Silence fell over the grave, heavy as a stone slab. Soon after XoXaan resumed his explanation, perhaps wanting to take the focus off his apprentice.
The explanation went on for what seemed like hours as the spirit and his apprentice continued to explain all their knowledge about the Yuuzhan Vong, which made me immediately start thinking of ways to wipe them out. Although with everything I now knew about them, the one thing for sure was that it wouldn't be easy.