"There is no Palpatine. No Empire. No Jedi.
There is no light, no dark... just you and I here now."
— Darth Maul to Obi-Wan Kenobi

However, Maul somehow survived his bisection and fall into the shaft on Naboo and was fitted with cybernetic legs. His hunt for the only person to have defeated him, Obi-Wan Kenobi, began. He hunted Kenobi for many years, always being but a step behind him until 16 BBY when he discovered Owen Lars and a toddler-age Luke Skywalker. He attacked them menacingly while still staying in his hooded cloak, his triple-jointed droid legs (simillar to Grievous') the only part of him visible. He proceeded to call out through the Force to an unseen enemy he could nevertheless sense. The evil, psychic voice claimed to have been tracking this adversary for years, just missing him on Kamino, Geonosis and Mustafar and to have killed witnesses on Polis Massa before finally gaining crucial information in Mos Espa from an aged Watto, whom he beheaded for his trouble. The dark creature declared that he knew threatening Luke would bring his adversary out into the open.

At this point, a grey-haired Obi-Wan Kenobi burst out from the sand and the dark figure cast off his hood, revealing himself to be Darth Maul, his severed lower body replaced by a pair of large cybernetic legs and abdomen, and his cranial horns having grown, crown-like, to over three times their original length. Consumed with greater hatred than ever before and clearly having never resumed contact with his former master, Maul had dedicated his new life to avenging himself on the man who had bested him. Kenobi and Maul engaged in furious combat, in which Maul lost a further arm and some horns before being held at Kenobi's mercy.

With his lightsaber hilt to Maul's forehead and his finger on the blade-ignition button, Kenobi hesitated to execute his helpless opponent, but had the decision taken out of his hands when the revived Owen blew the former Sith's head apart with his damaged rifle. Obi-Wan said he would take the body and burn it in the Dune Sea, to which Owen replied, "I told you I'd keep him safe, and I will. Even if that means from YOU. You don't come back here. Understand?" Obi-Wan departed with Maul's corpse, speaking to Luke through the Force, assuring him "Don't worry. I'll be right here... even if you can't see me."