Noctis's wings cut into the storm and vanished eastward.
In the chamber below, Selandra stirred. Her body ached from long restraint, but the ache seemed distant. The iron cuffs lay useless at the floor. She touched the inside of her wrist, where the mark of his blood had sunk into her veins. The pulse there answered steady—not hers alone, but his.
She stood, straightened her garments, tied her hair back with a strip of black cloth, and left the room.
The corridors of Obsidian Isle stretched silent. Guards looked at her with surprise. Servants paused, lowered their eyes. They bowed deeper than before, not out of fear but because they sensed something had shifted. She gave them no glance, only moved on, each step carrying her toward the southern tower.
The Council chamber doors opened.
Inside, elders sat already at the long table. Scrolls, maps, and ledgers cluttered the surface. The air smelled of parchment and wax, tinged with iron from the storm seeping through cracks in the stone. They turned when she entered.
Elder Varros, gray-bearded and stern, frowned first. "Selandra. We thought you indisposed."
"I have returned," she said simply, and took her seat.
Quills scratched for a moment longer, then voices resumed.
"The holy treasure of Obsidian is gone," Elder Maeric said, his hands tapping hard against the table. His eyes were sharp, predatory. "The demons took it. With the wards broken, they infest our borders at will."
Elder Thyra, tall and severe, folded her arms. "It is deliberate. A move to weaken us, to show that our strength means nothing without relics. They want us on our knees."
"They already have us on our knees," Maeric snapped back. "You saw the villages last month. Infested, drained. Whole families gone."
Elder Korath, voice slow and heavy, interrupted. "We must strike deals. Bargains. We cannot outlast them alone. With the treasure gone, our isle is vulnerable. The demons will press, and we will fracture."
Selandra listened, eyes lowered. Their words came sharp, but hollow. Bargains, wards, concessions. All meaningless now.
Elder Thyra slammed her palm against the table. "Never. To yield is to serve. Better to burn the isle ourselves than bend knee to filth."
"Then your pride will kill us," Maeric shot back. "You speak of fire while our people starve. You would see ashes before compromise."
"Compromise is death slower, nothing more."
The two glared across the table. Elders on either side murmured, taking sides. The room thickened with suspicion, each voice layering on the last.
Elder Varros raised his hand for quiet. "Enough. The demons knew what they did when they stole the treasure. They loosened their grip on other lines to tighten it here. It is political, not random. They divide us. They mean to make Obsidian a pawn."
Korath leaned forward, voice like stone dragged across stone. "And pawns we are, unless we answer. Armies must march. Alliances must shift. Blood must be paid."
Selandra's eyes flicked up at that, then down again. Once, she would have argued the measure. Once, she would have spoken for restraint, for patience, for the weight of elder authority. Now she only heard Noctis's voice in memory: When I return, we will plan how to deal with the demons, and those who betrayed me.
Her lips curved faintly. The Council debated pawns and pieces. Noctis would overturn the board.
Elder Thyra noticed her smile. "Selandra," she said sharply. "You find this amusing?"
Selandra lifted her eyes, calm. "No. Only predictable."
Thyra's nostrils flared. "Then speak. You've been silent while we argue survival."
Varros nodded. "Yes. What say you, Selandra? You have sat longer than any of us. Do you not see the danger?"
She folded her hands. "I see it. The demons struck to humiliate us. They believe us weak. They believe our treasures define us. They believe their infestations will break us."
"And do they not?" Maeric pressed. "Our wards are gone. Our people die. What would you do?"
Selandra let silence hold for a moment. "I would wait."
"Wait?" Thyra spat. "Wait for what? For them to dig deeper into our soil? To hollow our children and wear their skins?"
Her voice rose, but Selandra's did not. "Wait for the one who will end it."
Varros narrowed his eyes. "You speak in riddles."
"No," Selandra said. Her voice carried no heat, only weight. "I speak in certainty."
The Council erupted again—some laughing, some angry, some dismissive. "Certainty!" "Faith is not strategy!" "The isle burns while she dreams!"
Selandra lowered her eyes again and let their noise pass. She thought of Noctis. His hand on her thigh, steadying her rise and fall. His voice commanding the vow. The bite that had sealed her to him.
The Council's words were ash in comparison.
They argued for hours. Varros demanded levies from lesser houses. Thyra demanded armies march at once. Maeric shouted for compromise with enemy lords to buy time. Korath muttered for silence and blood-price.
Selandra spoke little. When pressed, she answered in short, clean lines that gave nothing. "The isle must hold." "The demons will press further, yes." "We will endure until strength answers."
Her answers satisfied no one. They accused her of hedging, of silence, of pride. She only folded her hands and let them rage.
Because in her chest, the mark pulsed. She knew their debates were nothing.
Noctis had returned. His revenge would cut through their politics like blade through silk. The demons, the treasures, the councils, even the betrayals—all useless now.
When the session ended, the elders left with tempers unspent, their parchments unrolled and maps scattered. Selandra rose last. She smoothed her cloak, tied the knot tighter, and walked from the chamber.
The corridors seemed quieter. The storm beyond the walls rumbled. She touched her wrist once more where his blood marked her. The pulse answered.
She smiled faint, a curve no one else would see.
Let them argue, she thought. When he returns, none of this will matter.
The sea rolled black beneath him. Rain swept sideways, carried by wind, stinging against his skin before hissing away on his wings. Each beat pushed him faster east. The storm opened in bursts, showing land in shards of gray, then closed again.
Hours passed before the ground below shifted from waves to soil. Hills rose. Rivers cut pale scars through forest. The scars widened, and he smelled it before he saw it—blood, smoke, scorched marrow, demon rot.
The Twilight Army lay stretched across a broken valley.
From height he saw its lines: banners tattered, camps half-sunken in mud, engines cracked. War-beasts lay piled in pits, black ichor smoking. The stench rose in clouds. Soldiers moved like ants, clearing wreckage, binding wounds, raising tents where storm had pulled them down.
He folded his wings once and descended.
When his shadow crossed the camp, heads lifted. Voices hushed. One cry rang, then another, then more. Men dropped to knees in mud. Armor struck earth. Commanders turned, eyes wide, and bent low.
He landed in the center of their lines. Mud hissed under his boots. Black fire folded his wings back, their span settling like coals closing. His halo turned behind him, three rings, faint in stormlight.
The silence after landing stretched heavy. Then the commander of the first host, Lord Kael, stepped forward, helm tucked under his arm, one leg bound in splints. He bent until his forehead touched mud.
"My lord," he said. His voice carried hoarse but unbroken. "You returned."
Noctis looked past him. He saw the engines—the Titan Breakers—lined at the rear. Fourteen leaned crippled. Plates bent inward, gears exposed, marrow furnaces smoking cold. Soldiers worked with hammers and chains but could not move them far.
"Three titans?" he asked, voice flat.
Kael lifted his head enough to meet his eyes. "Yes. They came from the lair pits. Black flame under their plates. They tore through our front lines."
Another commander, Lady Veyth, scar down her cheek, spoke next. "We met them with the Breakers. Held as long as we could. The cost—" She looked back at the engines. "—was strain beyond measure. Joints cracked. Frames bent. Fourteen damaged. If another rises, they will not stand."
The camp went still as his gaze swept the lines. He saw soldiers bandaged, some missing arms, some missing eyes, but alive. He saw pits filled with demon corpses, their flesh still twitching where marrow had not cooled. He saw mounds where the men of the Low Marches had fallen, marked only by stakes and cloth.
"No deaths among my covenant," he said. A statement, not a question.
"None," Veyth answered at once. "Your queens and Veyra stand. Injured, but alive."
Noctis drew breath, slow, deep, rain hissing where it struck his skin. He let silence weigh on them all.
"Rest," he said. The word fell like iron. "I will repair the Breakers."
Relief rippled across the field. Shoulders sagged. Heads bent lower. Soldiers who had kept their spines straight finally let themselves kneel.
He moved past them without further word, toward the crippled engines. Rain slicked their plates. Black marrow streaks leaked down their sides. He set his hand to the first—iron cold, frame trembling under its own weight. He pressed essence into it, not to mend yet, but to listen. The machine shuddered under his palm, its inner veins answering his blood with faint sparks.
He pulled his hand back. "They will hold again," he said.
Kael and Veyth both bowed low. "As you say, my lord."
He turned from them, eyes scanning the camp again. His soldiers waited, breath held, faces lifted in awe and exhaustion. He let them look at him. He let them see that he stood unbroken while the storm tried to press him down. He said nothing more.
Then he spread his wings. Black fire roared, brighter than the lightning overhead. The storm bent around it, rain turning to steam.
"Rest," he repeated, voice carrying across the valley. "When I rise again, so will the Breakers."
He leapt skyward, leaving the camp in silence broken only by the hiss of rain. Soldiers fell to their knees again, mud soaking their armor, heads bowed until he vanished into cloud.
Noctis climbed until the valley was only a scar in the earth, and the storm closed around him. Ahead, more work waited. Behind, his army knelt in mud, but their hearts beat stronger.
The storm broke by evening. Clouds thinned, rain slackened to mist. In the central pavilion of the Twilight camp, lamps burned low, their smoke rising into canvas dark.
Noctis entered.
The queens rose at once—Lyxandra, Seraphyne, Iris, Clara, Tina—and Veyra, iron-clad even in fatigue. They bowed low, then lifted their eyes to him. Surprise lingered, relief stronger. Behind relief, devotion, sharpened by battle survived.
He said nothing at first. He only looked at them, measuring the strain in their faces, the cuts still unhealed, the exhaustion they tried to hide. Then he lifted one hand, slow, deliberate, beckoning them closer.
They obeyed at once.
The night was spent in silence and weight, not words. Noctis moved among them like a shadow through flame. Chains of command, bonds of loyalty, and the mark of his dominion were renewed in breath and in touch. They gave themselves without hesitation. He claimed without restraint. Their devotion was not forced; it was chosen and sealed.
Hours passed. Voices rose, low and unending, until they broke to whispers and silence. When the lamps guttered to ash, the pavilion lay heavy with the scent of blood, sweat, and the sovereign bond that marked them all.
At dawn, Noctis rose from the furs. His wings folded close, their fire dim, his halo faint but unbroken. The queens and Veyra lay strewn about him, bodies slack with exhaustion, sleep heavy. He left them to their rest.
The camp stirred outside. Soldiers moved quietly, not daring to break the hush around the pavilion. Noctis walked past them without word. His path led to the Titan Breakers.
Fourteen stood cracked and broken, marrow engines cold, frames twisted. He touched the first. His Grid opened. Fusion-forging nodes flared: Blood Forging, Iron Weave, Crucible Core, Marrow Chain. He fed them into the engine. The frame glowed, black veins crawling across iron, sealing splits, straightening plates. Sparks burst as marrow veins realigned.
One by one he moved through the engines. His essence poured, thread by thread, binding fractures, welding sanctity-scorched joints. The work lasted until dusk. By the time the sun touched the horizon, all fourteen stood upright again, furnaces pulsing with faint black flame.
The soldiers watched in silence. When he finished, he turned once, eyes sweeping the lines. "They will hold," he said, voice flat. "When titans rise again, they will fall."
Cheers broke the silence. Armor struck earth in salute. Commanders bowed until their foreheads touched mud. Noctis gave no further word. He returned to the pavilion.
That night, the queens and Veyra woke to find him among them again. The second night was fiercer. They had seen him restore what demons had broken; now they saw him reclaim them again, body and will. Their voices filled the pavilion until even the guards outside turned their faces away, unwilling to intrude on the sovereign's dominion.
When dawn came again, he ordered them to remain. "Rest. Another day. When I return, we will march."
They bowed their heads in assent, relief on their faces that they would not be driven further before they could recover.
That night, while the camp slept, Noctis rose. He spread his six wings and climbed into the dark. No torch marked his path, no banner followed. He went alone, black fire trailing across the stars.
Ahead, the next lair waited. Demons would fall.
Wind screamed as Noctis descended. The Kingdom of Iron Cast spread below: a valley scarred black, soil split, air thick with rot. The demon swarm stirred at his arrival, wings rasping, claws scraping stone, thousands of throats rising in a layered roar.
He hung mid-air, wings spread, halo blazing. Six arcs of black flame cut the storm behind him. The Twilight Reaver burned crimson in his grip. Around him, the Bloodfang Reapers spun loose, orbiting like predators, scythes angled down. His Crimson Arsenal shimmered into place—blades, chains, and spectral constructs of blood filling the air in a sphere around him.
The swarm surged upward.
Noctis opened his Grid. He chose violence without hesitation. Crimson Tempest IX burst from him, a storm of blood-edged wind shredding the first ranks. Halo Shatter followed, a pulse of inverted sanctity from the rings at his back, staggering everything within sight. Demons screamed, wings folded as they dropped in clouds of ash and marrow dust.
But the swarm was endless. Black dots filled the sky, screeching, spitting, clawing. They swirled around him in a storm of their own. He cut through them with Reaver arcs, blades of the Arsenal slashing alongside. Bodies split, blood sprayed, the air painted red-black.
Below, the ground itself shifted. The titans stirred.
Nine colossal forms rose from the pits, flesh plated with bone, weapons in their hands forged from void marrow. Eyes burned sulfur and hate. Their roar cut through the swarm's screeches. The valley floor cracked under their steps.
One surged forward first, a massive sword in its hand. It lifted the blade, taller than the fortress walls of men, and brought it down at him like the fall of a mountain.
Noctis raised the Twilight Reaver.
The sword struck.
The impact tore the air apart. The shockwave blasted the swarm outward, demons flung like leaves in a gale. Stone below split in jagged lines. But Noctis held. His Reaver met the titan's blade, black fire roaring across crimson steel. His arms trembled with force, but his body held steady. Power surged through him—×20 strength answering the strike.
He smiled, fangs bared.
"Pathetic."
With a thought, he unleashed the Bloodfang Reapers.
They spun, their scythe-forms screaming through the air. They struck the titan's wrist, then carved upward. Flesh split in ribbons, black blood spraying in geysers. The scythes tore along marrow and vein, climbing the limb to the shoulder. Bone cracked. Flesh peeled away in strips.
The titan howled. Its hand spasmed, releasing the massive sword. The blade fell, crushing demons below in a cloud of dust and ichor.
The titan's arm hung ruined, flayed to bone, streams of gore trailing behind.
Noctis did not wait. He surged forward, wings beating once. The Reaver spun in his hand, then he drove it point-first into the titan's skull. At the same instant, he triggered Soul Spear Dominion. The strike became more than steel—a marrow-threaded drill that spun through bone and brain.
The titan's head snapped back. Light burst from its eyes, then went dark. The colossal body swayed once. Then it fell.
The crash shook the valley. Stone split wider. The swarm beneath it was crushed flat, their shrieks cut to silence under the weight.
Noctis pulled the Reaver free and floated above the corpse. Black blood dripped in streams from the blade, spattering across his armor. His halo burned brighter, arcs turning. His wings spread wide, fire trailing.
He grinned through blood. "One down." His voice carried across the valley, low, cruel. "Who is next?"
The swarm answered with more screams. The other titans shifted, weapons raised, eyes burning.
Noctis licked black blood from his fangs and lifted the Reaver again.
The valley shook as the first titan's body collapsed. Stone cracked deeper under its weight. Dust rose in curtains. Black blood spread in rivers, steaming where it touched corrupted ground.
Noctis hovered above the ruin, Twilight Reaver dripping, halo burning. The swarm shrieked around him, shaken but not broken. The remaining titans roared, their voices like mountains grinding. Eight pairs of eyes fixed on him with hatred.
They advanced.
The swarm surged first, demons swarming upward to bury him in their numbers. Black wings beat against the storm, claws slashing, jaws gaping. The air grew thick with them, choking the sky.
Noctis did not wait. He drew the Grid open with a thought. Voice of Eclipse pulsed outward—an aura pressure that rolled like thunder. The hymn-sound struck the swarm, breaking their formation. Wings faltered. Screeches turned to ragged cries. They wavered mid-air.
He followed with Crimson Tempest IX. Wind of blood burst from him, spinning razors through the packed mass. Wings shredded. Torsos split. The storm painted the air red-black. The demons fell in rain, their bodies piling on the corpse of the titan below.
Still they came, but the tide faltered.
Noctis's eyes narrowed. Omen Eyes burned open, crimson pupils splitting. Weak points blazed across the battlefield. Joints of titans glowed faint, seams of armor along thighs, backs of knees, tendons at ankles. But he didn't need the sight anymore. He could feel it in the marrow of his enemies, like cracks waiting for his blade.
The first titan reached him. Its hand swung, claws like spears.
Noctis slipped aside, wings beating once. The claws cut empty air. His Reaver came down in reply, black fire trailing, and bit into the titan's wrist. Bone shattered. Fingers flew free, spraying ichor as they fell. The titan staggered, roaring.
Another came from the side, blade of marrow-iron sweeping low. Noctis met it with a twist of his wrist. His Crimson Arsenal flared, chains of blood catching the blade. They wrapped, pulled, slowed it. He surged forward and slashed the titan's thigh. Flesh tore open in a wide arc. A gout of blood burst, spraying across the ground below.
The titan stumbled, one leg dragging.
The third titan struck from above, hammer raised, intent to crush. Noctis beat wings once, rose into the swing, and met it head-on. The Twilight Reaver locked against the hammer. Shockwave tore the air apart. The swarm scattered, bodies flung away like straw in gale.
Noctis's arms locked, muscles straining. His grin widened. "Stronger now."
He pushed. The hammer wavered, then shifted back. The titan's balance faltered. Noctis twisted, spinning the Reaver, and drove it upward under the titan's jaw. Blade cut through bone, severing tongue, ripping skull. The titan reeled back, roaring blood into the storm.
Noctis landed on its chest as it fell, wings flaring for balance. He raised the Reaver and drove it down. The skull split. The roar ended. The body hit earth with a quake.
The swarm shrieked louder, panic rising.
He turned, halo turning with him, wings trailing fire. "You fear me now."
The titans hesitated. They circled instead of rushing. Noctis saw it in their movements: desperation. They were vast, terrible, but for the first time, uncertain.
He dove into them.
The Reaver cut an arc across the next titan's hand. Fingers severed, blood geysering. The Bloodfang Reapers spun down, scythes shrieking as they bit into the titan's other arm, climbing in twin arcs to the shoulder. The limb fell free, crashing into the swarm below like a collapsing tower.
The titan screamed, staggering, unarmed. Noctis slammed into its chest with a wave strike—Celestial Rend. A cross of crimson light tore through it. Flesh split open in a blazing X, blood spraying in four fountains. The titan fell backward, body bisected in ruin.
He rose into the air, halo blazing brighter, Omen Eyes still burning. Weak points glowed, but he hardly glanced. He no longer needed sight to find them.
Another titan swung, blade flashing. He turned, Reaver meeting it. Sparks burst. His arms trembled only slightly under the weight. Then he twisted, pulled the blade aside, and drove a strike into its thigh. Bone split. The limb buckled. The titan crashed to one knee, leaving it open.
Noctis spun the Reaver, wings beating. He rose above it, blade high. "Fall." He dropped, spinning, and the Reaver cleaved down. The titan's skull split in two. The body fell, thunder cracking with it.
The ground below was a graveyard now: corpses of demons, corpses of titans, rivers of blood.
Noctis hovered above it all, wings burning, halo whirling like judgment. The swarm no longer swarmed—they scattered, shrieking, afraid. The titans that remained backed away, steps faltering. Their massive weapons trembled in their hands.
Noctis's grin sharpened. "You are the ones to fear me."
He spread his arms, Grid flaring, and the Arsenal blazed brighter. Blades spun. Chains lashed. Blood sang in the storm.
The hunt was not his. It was theirs. The titans now hunted for survival, and he was the predator.