The square lay in silence, broken only by the soft crackle of torches along the perimeter. At its center, the first Night Legion stood assembled—one hundred pale figures arranged in disciplined ranks, their attention fixed forward as they waited for their Sovereign to speak.
Noctis stepped into the open space before them. He drew a blade across his wrist with practiced precision, opening a shallow cut. Blood welled immediately, dark and heavy, spiraling faintly as it flowed down into the waiting basin carved into the stone.
"You will drink," he said, his voice steady and unadorned. "Through my blood, you will inherit the memories I have gathered. Combat not learned through years of repetition, but carried in fragments taken from battle itself. Accept it, and rise sharper than you were born."
The soldiers did not hesitate.
One by one, they approached the basin, cupped their hands, and lifted the Sovereign's blood to their lips. Each drank in silence, eyes forward, bodies already braced for whatever would follow.
The reaction was immediate and unmistakable.
Muscles tightened as foreign knowledge surged through them. Eyes widened as instincts not their own burned into muscle and bone. They felt the weight of a blade settling naturally into the hand, the balance of a shield aligning without conscious thought, the timing of strike and counter embedding itself deeper than memory. Several staggered under the sudden influx, breath coming hard and uneven, but none fell. Within moments, they steadied themselves, posture adjusting as if corrected by an unseen hand.
The saints observed closely.
"They move as if they've trained for years," Alyndra said quietly, disbelief threading through her voice.
Varun stepped forward without warning and struck at the nearest soldier. The response came instantly. The man raised his arm to block, angle perfect, then countered in the same motion, his body flowing through the sequence without hesitation. His eyes widened in shock at his own reflex, but his stance never broke.
Adventurers moved in next, blades drawn, their expressions sharp with interest. One barked an order. "Form lines."
The new vampires responded at once. They shifted into formation smoothly, spacing instinctive rather than measured. Drills began immediately, and the difference was apparent within seconds. Movements were precise. Transitions were clean. Reactions came faster than thought, as though guidance flowed directly through their bodies rather than their minds.
It felt less like training and more like remembering.
Noctis watched from the edge of the square, his spirals glowing faintly beneath his skin.
"This is Blood Memory," he said. "You will advance faster than any army that has come before you. If you betray me, I will take it back. If you obey, you will become more than men."
The Legion struck their fists against their chests in unison. The sound echoed across the square, heavy and final, like stone splitting under pressure.
Satisfied, Noctis turned away from the formation.
"Continue the drills," he instructed the saints. "Refine what I've given them. I have other work to attend to."
He left the square before dawn.
Beyond Twilight's walls, he crossed fields and ridges until the city's lights vanished behind him. The land grew wilder, the air thicker with the presence of untamed life. In ravines and broken valleys, armored beasts roamed—massive creatures with iron-crusted hides and bones that shimmered faintly with latent essence.
Noctis did not slow.
Starblades of condensed blood formed at his call, slicing through hide and armor alike. Beasts roared as he struck, their defenses cracking under the force of his blows. Bone shattered. Iron tore free. He moved through them with ruthless efficiency, drinking deep as essence flooded into him.
Iron settled into his Grid. Bone fragments reinforced his reserves. Each kill followed the same clean pattern—no wasted motion, no excess force. Predator and prey locked into a rhythm that required no thought, only execution.
By the time the sun dipped low again, the field behind him was littered with carcasses. Noctis stood among them, breath steady, his spirals dimming as the last of the essence settled into his veins.
He turned back toward Twilight.
The Night Legion would train with the memories he had given them. He would return with iron enough to forge what they still lacked.
The cycle had been set in motion—blood, memory, and steel, all drawn through him and returned to the city sharpened.
The field was strewn with carcasses when Noctis finished drawing the last of their essence. Blood, marrow, and iron flowed into him in measured streams, settling into his Grid as they always did. As the final threads were absorbed, the glow of his spirals dimmed instead of flaring brighter.
He frowned.
The beasts had given him what they possessed, but the sum of it was insufficient. The weight was wrong—too light for the scale of what lay ahead. For what he intended to build, this amount would not sustain momentum.
"This won't do," he muttered, turning back toward Twilight.
When he returned to the city, activity had already resumed its rhythm. In the shaded quarter, the saints drilled the Night Legion beneath awnings and stone overhangs, correcting stances and sharpening movements that already carried echoes of his own memory. Commands were clipped and efficient. No hesitation showed in the ranks.
At the steps of the keep, Veyra waited with a ledger tucked against her arm, pages marked with names, tallies, and supply counts. She bowed as he approached, ready to speak.
"Report later," Noctis said. "I have a question instead."
Her posture shifted subtly, attention sharpening. "Ask, Sovereign."
"Are there crypts," he asked, "or graveyards—places where powerful beings were buried? High-ranking beasts. Church authorities. Bishops. Cardinals. Anyone who carried weight in life."
The air seemed to thicken as he spoke. Torches along the steps flickered lower, as if the question itself unsettled the square.
Veyra hesitated before answering. "There are catacombs beneath the old cathedral district," she said carefully. "Several bishops were interred there after the border wars. The entrances were sealed when the plague swept through the city. Most people avoid the area now."
Varun stepped forward next. "The south marshes," he added. "High beasts were buried there in stone crypts when burning their remains failed. Iron collars were driven into the rock to prevent reanimation. Locals feared they might rise again."
Alyndra followed, her expression thoughtful. "Ashara's archives mention a crusader ossuary built after the Demon Purge. Hundreds of paladins and priests were interred in layered vaults. Their bones would still carry residual essence."
Silence settled over the council as the implications took shape. No one recoiled from the direction of the conversation. They understood what he was seeking—blood thick with history, marrow shaped by power, bones heavy with stored essence.
Noctis felt his spirals stir again, faint but deliberate.
"Good," he said. "Then we will dig. Catacombs, marsh crypts, crusader vaults. Every grave that still holds strength will be opened."
Veyra lowered her head. "I'll prepare the crews."
The saints exchanged brief glances. None spoke in protest. They had watched the Night Legion grow steadier with each infusion of his blood. They understood that this was not desecration born of impulse. It was preparation driven by necessity.
Noctis turned away, his voice calm and resolute as he spoke the final truth of it.
"The dead have no use for their strength," he said. "The living do. Twilight will claim it."
The council chamber did not empty when the plans were finished.
Maps still lay open across the long table, their corners weighted with daggers and stone seals. Wax dripped slowly from half-burned candles, pooling near ledgers filled with tallies of men, steel, grain, and blood. The air carried the faint scent of ink, oil, and dust disturbed by too many hands moving too quickly.
No one spoke.
Veyra stood with her hands folded before her, posture composed but tense beneath the calm. She had already listed the known burial sites with care: the catacombs beneath the old cathedral district, sealed since plague and war; the marsh crypts in the south, where high beasts too dangerous to burn had been chained into stone; the crusader ossuary built after the Demon Purge, its vaults stacked with sanctified bones and iron reliquaries.
Each location had been named.Each had been understood.
And now the chamber sat with the weight of what those names implied.
It was Revyn who finally broke the silence.
The shadow-saint stood apart from the others, his presence quieter, harder to pin down. When he spoke, his voice carried no fear, only certainty born of experience.
"Sovereign," he said, inclining his head slightly. "The danger in these places is not theoretical."
All eyes turned to him.
"The catacombs beneath the cathedral were not sealed as tombs," Revyn continued. "They were sealed as weapons. The priests who built them layered the stone with purifying curses meant to scour corruption from the soul. Even now, those wards linger. They do not weaken with time. They wait."
Alyndra nodded once, expression grave.
"The crusader ossuary is worse," Revyn went on. "Every bone there was buried with prayer, anointed with consecrated oils, wrapped in iron etched with scripture. It was meant to be a final denial—to ensure those who fell to darkness in the Purge could never rise again. Unholy presence will be burned there, not merely resisted."
Varun folded his arms. "And the marsh crypts," he added. "Those bindings were hammered in place after beasts broke free of pyres and mass graves. Iron collars, sigils driven deep into stone. Some of them were still screaming when they were sealed."
No one flinched at the words.
These were not rumors. They were records.
For a time, the only sound in the chamber was the low hiss of candle wicks and the distant rhythm of drills echoing faintly through the stone—Night Legion formations repeating movements again and again outside, unaware of the decision taking shape above them.
Noctis remained silent.
The glow of his spirals dimmed as his attention turned inward, calculations unfolding with ruthless clarity. Yield versus risk. Time versus cost. The strain already pressing behind his eyes sharpened as he weighed what it would take to break sanctified ground, to strip consecrated bones of their essence without wasting more strength than he gained.
Sending saints into those depths would cost him more than it returned.
At last, he looked up.
"You are correct," he said. "Those places were sealed with intent. They were designed to kill what I am."
The admission did not weaken his presence. If anything, it sharpened it.
"Sending you would waste strength," he continued, gaze moving from Revyn to the others. "The Night Legions are still forming. They require discipline, cohesion, and command. You will remain here and finish what you have begun."
He rose from his seat.
His shadow stretched across the wall behind him, long and distorted by torchlight, touching old banners and stone carvings alike. The chamber seemed smaller with him standing.
"I will go myself," Noctis said. "I will take what is needed—bone, iron, marrow, blood. I will strip the dead of what they no longer use."
No one spoke against it.
"You will drill the Legions without pause," he went on. "You will correct weakness immediately. When I return, they will march as one body. When I place steel in their hands, they will be ready to use it."
Veyra bowed deeply. "As you command, Sovereign."
The saints followed her lead, kneeling as one. "Yes, Sovereign."
Noctis let his gaze pass over them, lingering briefly on each face. Alyndra's resolve. Varun's iron certainty. Revyn's quiet readiness. They were not ready for what lay beneath consecrated stone—but they would be.
"Hold this city," he said. "Train until fatigue means nothing. I will not return to find you diminished. When I step back through these gates, you will show me an army worthy of Twilight."
Their reply came without hesitation. "We will not fail."
Satisfied, Noctis turned from the council table.
His cloak swept behind him as he left the chamber, boots striking stone with measured finality. He did not call for guards. He did not summon escort or banner. This was not a procession.
This was extraction.
By nightfall, the air around Twilight had changed.
The city behind him glowed with disciplined light—lamps steady, patrols moving in rhythm, drills continuing beneath shaded awnings. Ahead of him, the old cathedral district lay in ruin. Broken spires jutted against the night sky like snapped bones. Streets once walked by pilgrims were cracked and overgrown, stones split by roots and time.
Noctis moved through it without slowing.
The cathedral itself loomed at the center, its great doors long since collapsed inward. Wind passed freely through the shattered nave, carrying the scent of old incense and rot. At the far end, half-hidden behind fallen masonry, the stone archway to the catacombs waited.
Sealed once.Broken later.Never reclaimed.
The steps leading down were worn smooth by generations of feet, then scarred by desperate hands clawing their way back up during the plague years. Old warning sigils still marked the walls, their lines cracked but intact, radiating the faint pressure of lingering holiness.
Noctis stopped at the threshold.
He felt it immediately—the resistance, subtle but pervasive, pressing against his aura like dry heat against skin. This place remembered what it had been built to do.
He lit a torch.
The flame burned lower than it should have, its light struggling against the warded air. Shadows stretched unnaturally long along the stone as he stepped beneath the archway.
The passage yawned open before him, descending into darkness layered with prayer, bone, and buried judgment.
Noctis smiled faintly.
"The dead will not keep their strength," he said quietly. "Twilight will take it."
He stepped forward, and the catacombs swallowed him.
The forge halls of Twilight thundered through the night without pause.
Bellows roared until the stone itself seemed to vibrate. Hammers rang in overlapping cadence, steel on steel, each strike echoing down corridors blackened by generations of smoke. Sparks burst from the anvils in dense showers, scattering across the floor like falling stars before dying against the runes etched into the stone.
At the heart of it all stood Noctis.
He had shed cloak and armor hours ago. Heat rolled off the crucibles in waves, but it never reached him fully; his aura drank it down, diffusing it into pressure rather than pain. His spirals burned bright along his arms and shoulders, flaring in response to each exertion of will.
Blood essence flowed first.
It poured from crystal channels into waiting molds, thick and luminous, spiraling as if alive. Iron essence followed, heavier, denser, its presence bending the air around it. Beast marrow was added last, its texture resisting until Noctis forced it to dissolve and bind.
The crucibles screamed under the strain.
Several failed outright.
A mold split down its seam, disgorging slag that hissed against the floor. Another warped, the Twilight etching collapsing in on itself. Noctis did not curse. He adjusted. He recalibrated the ratio, pulled iron back, forced marrow deeper, reshaped the lattice by hand.
Each correction cost him.
A pressure built behind his eyes, dull at first, then sharper as the hours stretched on. He ignored it. The Night Legions needed steel. Not tomorrow. Not eventually. Now.
Smiths moved in tight, disciplined rotations around him.
They did not speak unless spoken to. They carried ingots, reset molds, scraped failed etchings clean and hauled ruined steel away without comment. Most had never seen forging like this. None had ever seen a Sovereign stand in the crucible himself.
The steel that succeeded was unmistakable.
Armor plates emerged black as midnight, edges clean and severe. Faint crimson lines etched themselves into the surface as the metal cooled, pulsing once before settling into stillness. When struck, the plates did not ring. They absorbed sound, drinking it down as if the noise itself were energy.
Weapons followed.
Swords, some curved, some straight, balanced with impossible precision. Spears whose heads bit deeper with every thrust. Shields shaped not to absorb force, but to turn it aside and return it doubled.
Every piece bore the same mark.
Not a sigil.
A rhythm.
By the time dawn crept pale and thin over Twilight's walls, the forges finally slowed.
Hundreds of completed sets stood stacked in precise rows across the forge floor. Armor aligned by size and squad. Weapons racked by type. Shields nested together like scales.
Noctis stood among them, spirals dimming as the last of the essence settled into place. The headache pulsed harder now, but he did not acknowledge it.
This was enough for the first wave.
Outside, horns sounded.
The Night Legions assembled in the barracks square as the sun edged higher. Pale soldiers stood in ordered ranks, eyes forward, posture rigid. One by one, they were called forward.
Armor was fitted. Weapons placed into waiting hands.
Steel struck steel as shields were tested. Blades were raised, swung once, twice, then held still. A murmur rippled through the ranks—not chaos, but recognition. The weapons felt right.
Oaths followed.
Voices rose together, rough and unified, carrying across Twilight's streets and into the waking city. The sound was not jubilant. It was resolute.
The saints watched from the edge of the square.
And they noticed what was missing.
No blade was offered to them. No armor set aside. Veyra stood unarmed. So did the captains and vice-captains newly appointed beneath her.
When the question finally came, Noctis answered without ceremony.
"The Legions carry the first wave," he said. "You will carry more. When I return with greater bones and deeper essence, I will forge weapons worthy of command."
No one argued.
They understood what that meant.
This steel was only the beginning.
The second day of training began before fatigue from the first had fully faded.
The Legion assembled more slowly this time. Armor was donned with practiced movements, but hands lingered longer on buckles and straps. A few soldiers rolled their shoulders as if testing whether the ache had worsened overnight. It had. No one commented on it.
Blood Memory had not faded with rest.
If anything, it pressed harder.
The borrowed knowledge lay close to the surface now, eager, insistent. Movements arrived before intention formed, and several soldiers found themselves correcting actions they had already begun. The saints noticed immediately. What had been unfamiliar on the first day had become intrusive on the second.
Alyndra adjusted the drills accordingly.
She shortened the sequences but increased their frequency, forcing the Legion to begin and end motions repeatedly rather than flowing through them. The intent was not to suppress Blood Memory, but to teach the body how to interrupt it.
Correction became constant.
A shoulder angle fixed.A stance widened by inches.A shield lowered, then raised again until it stopped trembling.
Progress slowed.
That was intentional.
Varun took over during the third hour, once the Legion had settled into a rhythm that bordered on complacency. He altered nothing about the formations and gave no new instructions. Instead, he began introducing pressure at irregular intervals.
Sometimes it came from the flanks.Sometimes from behind.Sometimes not at all.
The uncertainty wore on them faster than exertion.
Several soldiers reacted too early, muscles tensing in anticipation rather than response. Others hesitated, waiting for confirmation that never came. Varun allowed both errors to stand long enough to be felt, then corrected them with brief, physical demonstration.
By midday, frustration had replaced novelty entirely.
The Legion no longer expected improvement to feel rewarding. They expected it to feel necessary.
The adventurers were brought in again, but their role changed.
Rather than attack formations directly, they moved through them, disrupting spacing subtly, brushing shields aside, stepping into blind spots without striking. The effect was disorienting. Blood Memory recognized the threat but could not prioritize it.
This was where the first real failure occurred.
One squad compressed too tightly under pressure, overlapping shields until movement became impossible. When Varun signaled a shift, they could not respond quickly enough. The formation buckled inward, bodies colliding, weapons tangling.
Noctis was not present to witness it.
That mattered.
Alyndra halted the drill immediately. She did not raise her voice. She did not reprimand them.
She ordered the squad to reset and then forced them to hold position while the rest of the Legion resumed training around them.
They stood in place for nearly an hour.
Armor grew heavy. Muscles stiffened. Sweat cooled under shade and became uncomfortable. The message was clear without being spoken: failure did not bring punishment, but it did bring stagnation.
When the squad was finally released back into motion, they adjusted spacing instinctively, not because they had been told to, but because they had learned the cost of not doing so.
Veyra took note.
By the third day, she began altering the training schedule herself.
Rest periods shortened. Drills shifted unpredictably. Squads were reassigned without explanation, forcing soldiers to adapt to new spacing, new habits, new reactions. Familiarity was denied.
Fatigue deepened.
Blood Memory no longer felt like an advantage. It felt like weight.
This was the turning point.
Late in the afternoon, during a routine formation drill, one soldier faltered. His foot caught the edge of a stone, balance breaking for a fraction of a second. The man beside him adjusted without thinking, shifting his shield to compensate. Another stepped half a pace wider to preserve the line.
No command was given.
The formation held.
It happened again later, in a different squad. Then again, under heavier pressure.
By the end of the day, the Legion had begun correcting itself faster than the saints could intervene.
Not perfectly.
Not cleanly.
But reliably.
The saints noticed, and this time, they did not interfere.
They allowed the Legion to experience controlled autonomy, stepping in only when a failure threatened to propagate rather than remain isolated. This restraint was difficult. It required trust not in individual soldiers, but in the system forming between them.
Blood Memory changed again.
It stopped asserting itself.
Instead, it receded, becoming a quiet framework beneath conscious thought. Soldiers no longer felt the need to chase remembered perfection. They moved within the limits of their endurance, allowing memory to inform rather than dictate.
By the end of the fourth day, exhaustion was no longer a spike. It was a constant.
Armor no longer felt foreign. It felt heavy, and that was accepted.
The Legion was dismissed later than scheduled that evening. No announcement marked the delay. They simply continued until Veyra gave the signal to stop.
When they dispersed, they did so quietly.
No cheers.
No celebration.
Only the sound of armor being removed carefully, hands moving with learned economy to avoid wasting effort.
That night, for the first time, the Legion slept without dreaming of borrowed battles.
The memory had settled deep enough to stop demanding attention.
By the time Noctis was pressing against sanctified stone far beneath the cathedral, dismantling prayers that had been laid with absolute conviction, the Night Legion had ceased thinking of itself as something new.
It had begun to think of itself as something that would endure.