Twenty-eight bittersweet years for Ashin. On the one hand, she'd felt a frustration and contempt of her own, in more than one direction. But on the other, she'd spent that time achieving the one thing she wanted most, at every cost, and that was the core of the Sith way to her. Lumiya's form of the Sith philosophy had always rung truest.
Darth Solipsis
' acceptance sparked a grin beneath Ashin's mask.
"So be it. As I couldn't assume your presence on the Field would be sustainable, my circle is standing ready."
And would, in certain circumstances, have tried this with or without Solipsis' consent. But that could be left unsaid.
Ashin cocked an ear as, far away but very close, a hammer rang on rock: a precipice of ore on a raggedy slope a thousand miles tall. An even dozen of Ashin's people stood around a vast stretch of stone. A man of early middle age lay there unconscious: a Sith taken in battle, mind erased for use in rituals like this, and otherwise in perfect condition without qualification or trick. A new body for Solipsis.
The ritualists and the vessel all wore breath masks. Even this far down the slope, halfway between the shattered surface and the ever-churning core, Exegol didn't have much of an atmosphere these days.
"Onward, then," said Ashin, and vanished from the Netherworld to take her accustomed place in the circle.
That hammer rang a slow rhythm on the naked ore of the slope. Instead of the usual driving rhythm, Ashin had instructed the hammer's holder - the master alchemist Azel Moran - to add an atonal element and a little arrhythmia. A note of chaos, you might say.
Ashin joined the other dozen in reaching out to the Force, drawing on the profound wound that Exegol's destruction had left behind. A planet's destruction always led to such things, a side effect of the cataclysmic breach in the natural order. Exegol's strength was qualitatively different now, and possibly greater, than it had been when Solipsis ruled it.
The view of the ritual site was similarly unique. The ruined atmosphere barely veiled a sky full of rubble. And down the other way, at the heart of the greatest rent, more rubble swirled and ground against itself where Exegol's core used to be. Even just standing here was a uniquely worthwhile experience, the ritual aside.
As the hammer gonged, the ritual circle reached out to draw Solipsis into his new body.