Entering the atmosphere, Amir quickly located Bo-Katan's ship.
The vessel was parked on an elevated platform, facing a mess of tangled vines and ancient, dilapidated dwellings.
It had been empty for over a decade.
Seeing The Traveler arrive, Bo-Katan stepped out of her ship.
Walking down the ramp, Amir looked into the distance.
This was another planet destroyed by war.
A prosperous race had once inhabited and thrived here, continuing their unique civilization. Now, only broken walls and ruins remained. If one looked closely, they could still see the deep scars that time could not erase.
"Are you confident?" Amir asked Bo-Katan.
The woman nodded. Mandalorians never shied away from battle before it began. Right now, her mind was focused solely on how to find that man and how to use all her strength to defeat him.
Amir shook his head helplessly.
The ritual for Mandalorians to decide their leader was extremely strict.
Bo-Katan had to fight alone. Only by defeating Maul without any outside help and reclaiming the Darksaber could she be recognized.
Not just by her people, but by herself.
Bo-Katan's convictions would not allow her to cut corners.
But just how strong was Maul now?
Amir didn't know, but against a powerful Force user with superb lightsaber skills, Bo-Katan definitely did not have a guaranteed win.
Amir even felt the probability of her losing was greater.
So the result might be that she couldn't win, yet wouldn't let her companions help, eventually suffering heavy injuries or even death.
Amir had come to avoid this outcome. After all, everything had started because of him.
"How is the search going?" Amir asked.
"Including our current location, there are only a few former settlements. We will finish scanning them soon. If you didn't lie . . ."
"Let's wait and see." There was no use in swearing oaths now; only waiting remained.
"It's so dim here!" Milisen said uncomfortably, looking at the red sky and the decaying land. In the past, she would have run off to play, but now she just wanted to go back inside the ship.
"Every planet has a unique environment. Just try to appreciate them," Amir said. In a way, there was a ruined beauty here. He found a spot for BD-4 to take a picture.
At this moment, another ship flew into the distant sky. Bo-Katan frowned; that wasn't one of theirs.
"It's my friend, here to help. Don't worry," Amir explained.
Bo-Katan didn't care about these details. As long as it didn't affect her final duel, it didn't matter.
Soon, Han Solo ran over from the landing site.
"I'm going to investigate this area. Do whatever you want," Bo-Katan said, then returned to her ship.
Han stood with his hands in his pockets and asked Amir, "What's the situation now?"
"Just wait. It's not easy to drag this shadow out."
Now, only the four idlers were left. Amir looked ahead and spotted a wall half-buried in the soil, so he decided to go take a look.
With the help of the Force, Amir easily traversed the withered, sharp plants and crossed a muddy swamp, arriving in front of the wall.
Simple patterns were carved onto the stone—faces of figures that had been eroded by time until their specific features were indistinguishable.
Placing his hand on it, Amir suddenly saw a scene that had happened here in the past.
Artillery fire, roaring explosions, an army of droids marching step by step. A thin, weak body leaned against this wall, gasping violently for breath. Immediately after, a blinding light exploded beside her, destroying her along with the wall . . .
The intense emotions she carried before death were connected to the mural she had been gazing at. Thus, the image of her final moments was preserved in the Force of this place.
Amir's touch and his perception through the Force made it manifest.
Obi-Wan had said this Force skill was called a Force Echo.
When one's perception reached a certain level, they could see images of important events that had happened in the past attached to specific objects. Of course, if one had a unique talent in this area, they could perceive it easily.
Many Jedi could use this ability, such as Quinlan Vos, who excelled at tracking, and the fugitive apprentice Cal Kestis.
Amir had seen images through Force Echoes before, but never as clearly as today.
"Death always leaves the deepest memories . . ."
Not far away, the wreckage of a droid could be seen. It was even more severely corroded, but Amir noticed an anomaly.
The bodies of these old battle droids were incomplete.
Being killed by blasters shouldn't have resulted in missing internal components, but Amir saw at a glance that the interiors of the droids had been obviously hollowed out.
Upon closer inspection, Amir found that these traces were not ancient—they were even recent.
This indicated human activity nearby.
. . .
Bo-Katan and her forces had split into teams and were distributed across the various habitable zones of the planet, conducting a rigorous search. This specific area was Bo-Katan's responsibility.
She had just set out to search.
If there was really something here, she should find it very soon.
The process was simple: detect electricity, detect transmission sources, and so on. No one could live without these things. He would need electricity for lighting, cooking, and electromagnetic waves to contact the outside world.
Maul, being the boss of Crimson Dawn, had no need to make himself suffer over such small matters.
Amir climbed to a high point, looking at the surrounding environment, silently sensing and waiting.
Sure enough, not long after, Bo-Katan's comms came through.
"Found him?" Amir asked.
"There's a clue. I sent the coordinates to you and the others in the nearby sectors," Bo-Katan said, her eyes staring intently ahead. "After we find him, do not engage. Leave him to me."
"I understand."
After speaking, a set of coordinates arrived on Amir's wristguard.
"Han! 32!" Amir shouted. "We've got work! Get to the ships and stand by!"
Hearing Amir's words, 32 took Milisen back to The Traveler, and Han returned to the Millennium Falcon.
Amir didn't go back, because the location displayed by the coordinates wasn't far. He could reach it quickly on foot.
Breathing in the smell of mud and decay, Amir ran quickly, rapidly closing the distance to the target location on his wristguard.
The red fog grew thicker and thicker; the terrain ahead was no longer suitable for ships to fly through.
Amir saw Bo-Katan. She had landed nearby and just stepped out of her ship, holding a receiver in her hand, probing the signals coming from the surroundings.
"It's just ahead," Amir said. He could already feel the dense Dark Side of the Force rolling off the area ahead.
Obscured by the mountain, covered by thick fog. No one would have thought that on such an abandoned planet, in such a hidden location, lurked a man who should have died long ago.
Bo-Katan dropped the receiver in her hand and drew her blaster pistol from its holster.
This was just one of the many weapons on her body, but it was the one she was most comfortable with.
To deal with Maul, she had readied every weapon she had.
It was like preparing for a grand hunt.
If successful, she even wanted to carve Maul's likeness onto her armor as a badge of honor.
"Don't be nervous. Maybe he's just a crippled old man now, someone you can kill easily." Amir crossed his arms, looking like he was just there to watch the show.
This was probably what they meant by "it's easy to talk when you don't have to do the work." Bo-Katan rolled her eyes at Amir and walked forward.
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