The Empire begins with the Fourth Scourge

1900. Death Star

Taris, a dead planet.

In fact, 5,300 years ago, at the peak of the Mandalorian Crusaders' rule, the planet Talis was the most prosperous planet under the Crusaders' jurisdiction, with a population of nearly 100 billion, and was known as the 'Outer Rim Coruscant'.

The planet Talis is the core transportation hub of the Hydia Channel. Countless spaceships come and go here, which also brings huge business opportunities and countless wealth, and the planet also develops rapidly.

On the planet Talis more than 5,300 years ago, the entire planet was completely urbanized. Except for about 30% of the ocean area on the planet's surface, all other land has been built into a super huge planet-level city!

During urban development, a very complex underground pipe network system was built underground in this first city, which was simply an underground maze.

After hundreds of years of development, a new second city was built on top of the first city, so the first city was called "Undercity". 4,600 years ago, a third city was built on the surface of the planet, so the second city was called "Middle City".

As the planet Taris continued to prosper and develop, and as the Mandalorian Crusaders began to ally with the Sith Empire to jointly fight against the Galactic Republic, the lower and middle cities of the planet Taris became a place of filth and evil. place. As a result, the high-end families and nobles of the Taris planet once again built a brand new city. This city is at the top of all cities. This is the "upper city".

As a result, the planet Taris became a five-layer structure from top to bottom: sewer, lower city, middle city, first upper city, and second upper city.

During this era, the population of Planet Talis reached its peak, approaching 100 billion!

At this time, the shortcomings of this planet's original lack of agricultural production due to less surface water bodies began to be exposed. Only 30% of the planet's oceans are almost completely covered by kelp farms used for food, but even this cannot meet the needs of the planet's huge population.

As a militarized civilization, the Mandalorian Crusade does not have the economic strength to support the planet Talis in the same way that the Galactic Republic supports super planets such as Coruscant and Rendili. As a result, the planet Taris has become such a deformed ecosystem that places equal emphasis on industry and agriculture.

As a result, excessive farming and mining, as well as excessive industrialization, have caused serious pollution to the planet's kelp farming, and a large number of people have become sick due to long-term use of contaminated food. The infected people were expelled to the lower city of the planet. When the lower city could no longer accommodate them, the middle city was used as a place of exile for these people.

But for the planet Talis, the house leaks coincided with the continuous rain. 4156 years ago, with the continuous opening up of the Corellia trade route, the status of the Hydia route began to decline, and more caravans and spaceships were Willing to sail through the faster Corellian trade routes rather than going around the Hydian route.

As a result, the trade volume of Planet Taris almost suffered a cliff-like decline in just a few decades, and the economy suffered a severe recession. This recession lasted for more than 200 years.

At this time, the Mandalorian Crusaders were unable to cope with the Galactic Republic's counterattack during the war, and the planet Taris was occupied by the Galactic Republic. The Galactic Republic did not want this dirty planet, so after a short period of occupation, it gave up and left.

Finally, the planet Taris was occupied by the Sith Empire more than 3,900 years ago. By this time, the planet's population had dropped to between 6 billion and 10 billion.

After the Sith Empire occupied this place, they would naturally not have much time to govern this planet. In fact, you can imagine that at its peak, Talis planet had a population of almost 100 billion, and the planet-level city had five floors. At that time, you can completely imagine how prosperous and glorious the planet was.

But with the decline of the planet, the population has dropped sharply from 100 billion people to less than one tenth. Naturally, there are not so many resources, financial resources and manpower to maintain such a huge city. In those dark corners of the city, there is no energy, no food, no clean water. All that can be seen as far as the eye can see are countless steel jungles.

Shrouded in darkness, dilapidated, with no end in sight, the ruins of civilization...

Among the last 6 billion people, only a very small number of the top rich live at the top. They still live a life of luxury and luxury based on the huge wealth they accumulated in the past.

Almost all other 'normal citizens' live on the second floor. They work in various relatively decent jobs and maintain the operation of the upper city.

As for the middle city, lower city, and even the sewers further down, no one knows what they are like inside now, and no one cares.

But these people have no idea that for the planet Taris, the real disaster has just begun.

At that time, the war between the Sith Empire and the Galactic Republic was still going on. The Sith Empire, which was defeated on the front line, was unwilling to accept their defeat. They made a crazy decision-to carry out orbital bombing of the planet Taris! !

Powerful lasers rained down from the sky, vaporizing oceans and igniting cities. The noble families and elegant ladies living in the uppermost city screamed and wailed and fled in all directions. When they were desperate, they poured into the lower-level cities one after another.

But facing the powerful firepower of the space battleship, a mere first-level city cannot resist it. When the flames and explosions penetrated the city on the upper level and began to spread to the lower level, countless cracks appeared in the solid dome and collapsed everywhere...

These once pampered rich and nobles finally ran into places they never thought they would set foot in - the middle and lower cities of the planet Talis...

What greeted them was darkness and terror they had never imagined!

Those who live, no, should be said to be abandoned in the middle city and lower city, or even in the sewers, many of them are people who have contracted infectious diseases due to food contamination, or are poor and desperate people, or they are the most vicious criminals !

These people are struggling to survive in the abandoned city, drinking polluted water, eating deformed rats, and walking in the dirty and smelly dilapidated streets.

They were in the dark underground city, looking up at the bright upper city with sick and greedy eyes.

And when they saw the fat-headed, tender-skinned nobles from the upper city running down in panic, the scarlet eyes in the darkness revealed a ferocious light.

From the initial disappearance, loss, kidnapping, and assassination, to the blatant attack and large-scale attack!

The middle city and lower city of Taris became a bloody slaughterhouse! !

But is this all disaster?

No!

Far from it! !

In the deepest part of the Taris underground, a place where even the most filthy and evil people would never set foot - the sewer, an extremely evil thing awakened...

One of the original seven Sith Lords, the immensely powerful Karneth-Muur, landed here in the stasis chamber where he was exiled. And as he slept, his Sith artifact, Moore's Amulet, completely lost its restraints, exuding its evil and dark power unscrupulously! !

The massacres that occurred in the middle city and the lower city, the flowing blood donations, the shrill screams, the painful wails, the roaring souls... all of this stimulated the dark side of the Force to continue to grow. Moore's amulet awakened under the nourishment of this dark side! !

Under the influence of Moore's amulet, a large number of dead corpses and lost souls stood up again! !

These corpses began to change and turned into terrifying monsters - Rak Ghouls! These ghouls are extremely powerful and agile, and their tough skin cannot even be penetrated by lower-power blasters!

What's even more frightening is that originally the Rak Ghouls should be able to retain some of their consciousness during life, but because the owner of the Moore Amulet, Karnes Moore, was asleep at the time, no one could control these monsters at all. It has become a monster that only relies on instinct to act, and only knows bloodthirsty and killing!

These Rak ghouls began to rush out of the sewers, killing everyone they saw. It didn't matter whether they were beggars, hooligans, nobles or rich people. As long as they appeared in front of them, any living life would be slaughtered!

The killings spread from the sewers to the lower and middle cities. No one can resist the killings of these monsters!

During the 200 years of the decline of the Taris planet, during the process of the population plummeting from 100 billion to more than 6 billion, God knows how many corpses were abandoned in the sewers, and God knows how many people died silently in the sewers!

And now, these corpses have all turned into terrifying ghouls!

As long as the bodies of people killed by Rak Ghouls are relatively intact, they will soon be transformed into new Rak Ghouls and then be thrown into new massacres!

At this time, the nobles in the upper city also began to organize their own armed forces to resist the massacre by the dark forces in the middle city and lower city, and the two sides were fighting fiercely. The sudden appearance of the Lark ghoul left both warring parties at a loss. Looking at the endless army of ghouls crowded in the underground streets, they could not resist it even if they united.

So people began to retreat towards the upper city again, and the Rak ghouls spread to the lower and middle cities. Finally, these monsters appeared even in the upper city!

There was no other way. Those who survived could only blow up all the entrances and exits of the city, then ran out of the city and struggled to survive among the ruins that had been plowed to the ground during the orbital bombing.

At this time, several years had passed since the orbital bombardment of the Sith Empire. The Sith Empire had been defeated, and the Galactic Republic had no interest in this dirty and chaotic planet and once again abandoned the planet.

The lonely planet of Talis is not managed by anyone, and even pirates and mercenaries have no interest in it.

So the survivors rebuilt several cities among the ruins and lived a difficult life. At this time, they no longer care about nobles or gangsters. Those who can survive such a disaster are all extremely tough elites.

At this time, the number of people who could escape alive was less than 500 million.

The population has dropped from 100 billion at its peak to 500 million now. This process can only be described as miserable or even terrifying.

Now, the once five-story city on the planet Taris has been collectively referred to as an underground city, and the survivors are constantly reinforcing the passages to the underground level to prevent any Rak ghouls from having a chance to break out.

After rebuilding their homes on the surface of the planet, although the survivors lived a difficult life, they were finally away from war and massacre, and they finally lived a peaceful life. And the dungeon has become a taboo that no one on this planet can talk about!

The number of Rak ghouls still in the dungeon of Taris planet is impossible to count. One hundred million? Two hundred million? One billion? Two billion? no one knows. These Rak ghouls have been wandering the dungeons, fed by the endless dark side power emanating from Muir's amulet.

This place is already one of the most terrifying places in the entire galaxy. There are indeed some people who want money rather than their lives. They ran into the underground city and wanted to dig out the huge wealth that was abandoned during the escape. As a result, they went down No one can come out.

It was not until later that Celeste Morn, the shadow of the Jedi Covenant, received the order from Lucian Dre to track down the traces of Carnes Moore, fought all the way into the dungeon, and then picked up Mu in the deepest part of the sewer. Your amulet.

"Actually, I also think about it many times. At that time, I was able to fight all the way to the deepest place in a place like this. Maybe it wasn't because of my great interests, but because Moore's amulet was calling me." Judgment stood in front of the ship's porthole and watched. Looking at the gray planet, he said calmly, "Billions of Rak ghouls... In the face of such killings, even I used the power of the amulet to transform and eliminate more than 8 million Man on the planet Jabour. The behavior of the Dallow Crusaders is just childish.”

She raised her hand and stroked the golden insect-like Muir amulet on her neck, and her tone gradually became firmer, "Such killings should not appear again in the galaxy! And I will be the seal of this power!"

The priestess also frowned and said: "The billions of Rak ghouls on the Taris planet are always a hidden danger and must be solved. Otherwise, if one day the passage of the dungeon is blown up, then this planet The planet will be completely destroyed!"

Darth Malthael looked at these two people, but he thought with some irony in his heart, are these two lotuses that emerged from the mud and remained unstained?

"Can you control the Rak ghouls in the dungeons of Taris?" he asked.

"Theoretically, it should be possible. But these Rak ghouls have been wandering here for four thousand years after Moore's amulet was taken away. I'm not sure whether their current state is still under control." Judgment Seriously said.

"Then give it a try." Darth Malthael said calmly, "Once the war with the Galactic Empire resumes, I will throw all the Rak ghouls here into the empire." (End of this chapter)