The bishop's column pressed eastward along the broken road. Dust rose in long banners behind them, and the clang of steel and hymn filled the air like a war drum.
At its head rode the bishop himself, spine straight, eyes fixed on the horizon where black smoke still lingered over Redhaven's ruins. His silver staff rested across his saddle, the crystal at its head catching dawnlight with each stride. The Archdeacon's letter weighed heavy in his satchel, its seal unbroken now, but its message etched into his mind: evil festers, come with haste.
Behind him stretched the Templar Guard, twelve knights in gleaming mail, shields raised high as if already warding against a storm. They marched two by two, banners of white and gold hanging limp in the wind, etched with scripture meant to repel corruption. Their steps were heavy, disciplined, like the pounding of a heartbeat.
Flanking them came the Chorus of Light, six priests and priestesses robed in white, censers swinging from their hands. Golden smoke drifted across the ranks, carrying with it the scent of burning myrrh and old prayers. Their voices never ceased—chants rising and falling, weaving protective litanies into the column like threads.
Behind them trudged the Acolyte Scribes, hunched over relic cases and tomes, scribbling even as they walked. They wrote not just history, but prophecy—recording what they expected to become scripture before the march was done. Fear trembled in their hands, but none dared stop writing.
Villagers on the roadside watched in silence as the procession passed. Some crossed themselves, whispering blessings. Others turned away, unwilling to meet the eyes of men marching to Redhaven. Children pointed to the bishop's staff, its crystal burning brighter with every league closer to the ruins.
The bishop said little. His silence was its own sermon, one of grim resolve. But his thoughts churned behind the calm mask.
Veyra's letter had been too sudden. Too convenient. Why Redhaven, and why now? He had felt no divine stirring there before, no sign that the place demanded his hand. Yet the words had burned with urgency, and the Archdeacon's seal had been clear. She had always been devout—until she vanished. Until she was claimed by silence.
His gauntleted fingers tightened on the reins. If this is a deception, I will burn it out.
The first omens came at dusk.
A wind rose from the east, hot and dry, carrying the stink of old blood. The smoke on the horizon thickened, coiling like a serpent across the sky. Horses stamped uneasily, knights muttered prayers louder, and the Chorus of Light swung their censers faster, voices breaking into harsher tones.
When the moon lifted, Redhaven appeared.
Its gates were shattered, its walls crumbling. Blackened husks of homes leaned like broken teeth around streets painted in ash. Not a sound stirred, yet the city seemed to breathe—shadows shifting as though the ruins themselves were alive.
The bishop raised his staff, its crystal blazing brighter than the moon."Hold formation. We enter at dawn."
The knights knelt as one, shields pressed to the ground. The Chorus sang louder, smoke thickening into a dome around the camp. The acolytes dipped their pens, writing faster than their eyes could keep up.
But the bishop did not pray. He stared into Redhaven's hollow streets, where the ashes seemed to shift in the wind like waiting figures.
He felt it. A pressure. A silence so heavy it pressed against his ribs.
And somewhere deep within the ruins, something smiled.
Dawn broke like ash across the sky. Thin light spilled over the ruins of Redhaven, painting its shattered walls in pale fire. The bishop's column advanced at a steady pace, banners lifted high, hymns echoing through streets that had not heard voices in years.
The Templar Guard moved in first, shields raised, boots thudding in unison. Behind them the Chorus of Light swung censers that trailed smoke across the cobblestones. The priests' chants were sharp, urgent, weaving protective hymns around the company as if to push back the weight pressing on them.
The bishop rode at the center. His silver staff caught the first light of the sun, its crystal burning gold. His eyes fixed on the plaza ahead, though every instinct whispered to him that they were being watched.
Noctis stirred above. From the hollow of a leaning tower, he crouched in silence, Omen Eye burning faintly in his skull. Threads of weakness lit across the streets—the bishop's wards humming with strain, the knights' shields bound by hinges, the priests' litanies held together by thin lungs. All of it mapped like prey waiting to be cut open.
[Skill: Omen Eye — Activated][Doctrine: Tempo Ledger — Cadence Step / Rhythm Breaker primed]
He let the servants move first.
A blood thrall stumbled into view from a collapsed alley, its face blank, body riddled with cracks of crimson light. The knights saw it immediately and charged with precision, shields locking. Their blades cut the servant down in a single sweep—yet as it fell, its body convulsed.
[Skill: Blood Flood — Triggered]
The corpse exploded into mist, red tendrils rushing outward, clinging to armor, burning across scripture etched into steel. The knights staggered, their formation breaking for only a heartbeat.
Another thrall appeared, then another, dozens spilling from shadows. They came howling with no minds of their own, cannon fodder driven by one purpose: to drag the column deeper into the city.
The bishop lifted his staff, crystal blazing. A surge of light erupted, burning half a dozen thralls to ash. Yet when the smoke cleared, more closed in, their numbers unending. The air thickened with the sound of their bodies cracking open, dissolving into blood-mist that seeped into the stones.
Noctis moved from tower to tower, always watching, always adjusting. Each fall was calculated. Each explosion of blood mist fed the wards he had carved into the streets, circles glowing faintly beneath the knights' boots.
The Chorus of Light sang louder, their chants rising to counter the tide. For now, they held.
But Noctis's smile widened in the shadows. They were following the steps of his dance, deeper and deeper, toward the plaza where the jaws of Redhaven waited.
The bishop's column pressed deeper into Redhaven, smoke and ruin closing around them like jaws. The narrow streets spat thralls in waves—pale bodies snapping apart into crimson vapor whenever steel or sanctity cut them down.
The Templar Guard struggled to maintain order. Their shields cracked under the repeated bursts, scripture glowing, faltering, reforging as the Chorus of Light screamed prayers into the haze. Each chant bought them only a few steps more, only a few breaths before the mist clawed at their lungs again.
The bishop raised his staff high."Forward! The plaza—hold to the open ground!"
The knights obeyed, shields raised, forming a wedge. Their boots pounded against cobbles slick with ash and blood. The priests staggered after them, censers swinging, voices raw, their smoke trails thinning in the ruin-thick air.
Noctis tracked them from above.
[Skill: Omen Eye — Active][Doctrine: Tempo Ledger — Pace Lock engaged]
Every step, every stumble, every crack in armor and faltering hymn lit across his sight. He let them reach the plaza, let them believe they had found respite in open ground.
The moment they crossed into the circle he had drawn, the city awoke.
[Skill: Crown of Chains — Activated]
Crimson-gold links erupted from beneath the cobblestones, slamming upward like spears. They coiled around knights' legs, biting into sanctified steel. Horses screamed and toppled. Priests shrieked as the wards beneath their feet inverted, swallowing their chants into silence.
The bishop's staff flared, crystal blazing with desperate light. The chains snapped where his power struck, but each break bled more of his strength into the air.
Then the outer streets poured forth.
Dozens of thralls came lurching, their bodies broken, their eyes blank, but all bound by Noctis's Grid. They filled the plaza's edges, surrounding the company in a tightening circle. Blood-mist rose in curtains, veiling the sky.
The Templar Guard fought like lions, slashing and thrusting, breaking the first wave apart. The Chorus rallied, their voices cracking but fierce, hymns surging back into their throats. But every kill only fed the circle, every corpse another pulse of essence returning to the wards beneath their feet.
Noctis leapt from the tower, wings spread wide.
[Skill: Orbiting Arsenal IV — Engaged]
Three Bloodfang Reapers spun around him, gleaming crimson-gold, scythe, sword, and guan dao flashing as they tore through thralls to clear his path. He landed on the plaza's rim, silent, a predator finally showing himself.
The bishop turned, eyes narrowing. For the first time since dawn, he saw the true enemy.
"APOSTATE!" he roared, staff blazing.
Noctis smiled faintly. He did not answer.
His silence was enough.
The circle tightened, blood and chains rising higher, the bishop's forces pressed into the heart of the plaza. The trap was sprung.
The plaza shook with the weight of hymns and screams. Knights hacked through thralls, their blades flashing gold with every strike, yet for each servant that fell, another lurched from the haze. The Chorus of Light sang louder, smoke curling upward as their censers swung, but their voices cracked under strain.
At the center, the bishop raised his staff, crystal blazing so bright it painted the plaza in searing white. "Hold the line! Do not break!"
The Templar Guard locked shields, blood and scripture mixing on the stone. But above their heads, the predator descended.
[Skill: Orbiting Arsenal IV — Reconfigured]
The Bloodfang Reapers curved like vultures, striking not at shields but at wrists and ankles, slicing tendons, cracking joints, tearing open weakness. Their rhythm matched his breathing, blades falling where Omen Eye revealed faultlines in armor.
Noctis slipped between them.
[Skill: Wraith Step — Activated][Doctrine: Tempo Ledger — Cadence Step]
He was a flicker, a stutter of gold-crimson light. One heartbeat he was above, the next he was behind a knight, claws hooked under a gorget. He pulled, chains erupting from his hands.
[Skill: Crown of Chains — Subjugation Bind]
The knight screamed as links burned into his flesh. His sword clattered to the ground, his shield fell limp. His body froze, and then his knees hit the stone. His head bowed, not by choice but by Grid.
The bishop turned, fury burning. "Hold fast! Do not falter!"
But already another soldier was gone. Noctis leapt, wings snapping wide, his guan dao crashing into the ground with a shockwave. Chains erupted from the cracks, wrapping around three more knights, dragging them into silence.
[Doctrine: Predator's Thrall — Triggered]
Their eyes glazed, the light gone from their pupils. They rose again, weapons in hand—but now turned against their brethren.
The Chorus faltered. Their voices wavered as familiar faces bore down upon them, eyes empty, mouths chanting his silence.
The bishop's staff flared, blasting light that shattered chains and burned subjugated knights to ash. Noctis staggered back, tattoos glowing, wings twitching under the holy flare. His silence held steady, but it cost essence to resist.
He grinned anyway.
Because for every knight destroyed, another two fell to him.
He wove through the chaos like a wolf through sheep, his orbiting blades carving blind spots, his claws striking soft places where his Omen Eye revealed weaknesses. Soldiers disappeared mid-battle—one dragged screaming into the mist, another falling silent as crimson light wrapped his body.
Soon, the Guard's line fractured. The Chorus huddled in the center, their hymns breaking into sobs.
The bishop roared, his voice echoing above the din. His light flared like a wall, holding back the tide. But his men were gone, one by one, swallowed into silence, their loyalty rewritten into chains.
From the ruined tower above, Noctis spread his wings, his voice never spoken, but his presence undeniable.
The battle was no longer a contest. It was a harvest of blood.
The bishop's staff blazed like a splinter torn from the heart of the sun.
He drove it into the sky with both hands, veins standing out along his arms, voice cracking as it rose into a desperate roar that shattered the plaza's fragile order.
"By the Light's decree—BANISH!"
The crystal head of the staff detonated.
Not shattered—unleashed.
White fire erupted outward in a perfect, merciless dome. It was not flame as mortals knew it, but sanctified annihilation: light forged to erase shadow, unravel bindings, and scour corruption down to the soul. The air screamed as it expanded, stone flagstones fracturing under the pressure, banners igniting into ash mid-sway.
The Chorus threw themselves into the invocation, hymns shrieking from a hundred throats. Their voices layered over one another, bleeding into frenzy, amplifying the spell until the dome swelled larger, brighter—until Redhaven's plaza drowned in false dawn.
Knights screamed as the wave tore through them. Thralls collapsed, bodies unraveling into smoke and cinders. Holy sigils flared and burst like dying stars.
[Spell: Banishment Dome — Tier IV Holy Invocation]
The blast struck Noctis square in the chest.
Light howled.
The ground beneath him cratered. Shockwaves tore outward, pulverizing stone, throwing armored bodies through the air like discarded dolls. For a breathless moment, the plaza vanished behind blinding radiance.
Then the light began to thin.
And Noctis was still standing.
Unmoved.
Untouched.
[Passive: Celestial Shroud Vein — Nullification up to Tier VII holy/light]
The markings carved into his flesh ignited—tattoos blazing gold-crimson, lines of power flowing like molten script across his skin. His wings tore free in a thunderous unfurling, spanning the plaza, scattering embers and dust. The silence that clung to him surged outward, crushing sound itself beneath its weight.
The so-called cleansing fire lapped against him uselessly, breaking apart like mist against a mountain. It had no bite. No authority. No claim.
Noctis tilted his head.
Just slightly.
His eyes—gold drowned in crimson—narrowed.
Then he laughed.
Not loud.Not wild.
Sharp.
Mocking.
A predator's sound, precise and merciless.
It sliced through smoke and shattered hymns alike. The Chorus faltered mid-verse, voices choking into silence. Several Templars stumbled back, shields trembling in their hands as doubt cracked through their discipline.
"Tier Four?" Noctis said, his voice rolling across the plaza like an execution bell. "You waste your breath."
He stepped forward.
Chains sparked and screamed as they dragged across broken stone. Above him, the Orbiting Arsenal shrieked to life, blades screaming through the air in widening arcs. The guan dao snapped into his grasp, whirled once—
—and cleaved straight through a knight's shield.
Metal parted like cloth.
The man did not even have time to scream. Blood burst into the air in a red mist as his body fell in two uneven halves, armor clattering uselessly against the ground.
Noctis did not slow.
"Your faith," he continued coldly, advancing through the smoke, "is a lantern."
Another step. Another knight fell—impaled, lifted, discarded.
"And I," Noctis said, eyes locking onto the bishop, "am the abyss it dares to shine on."
The bishop stood rigid, staff shaking in his grip.
Rage burned across his face—fury, denial, wounded pride—but beneath it, buried too deep to hide, was something far more corrosive.
Doubt.
Noctis inhaled.
He could smell it.
Fear laced with disbelief. The moment faith realized it had misjudged its god.
He spread his wings fully.
The silence crashed down like a divine verdict, snuffing the last echoes of prayer, choking the plaza into stunned stillness. Even the fires dimmed, as though unwilling to burn in his presence.
The bishop's lips moved.
No words came out.
The Light had failed.
And Noctis stepped forward into the wreckage, shadows gathering eagerly at his heels.
His harvest would continue.
The bishop's staff still glowed—but weakly now, its brilliance thinning like a dying star. What should have been a purifying sun had guttered against the silence wrapped around Noctis, broken and spent before it could take hold. The holy crystal hissed softly, shedding sparks that died before touching the stone.
The bishop tightened his grip.
His lips pressed into a hard line, jaw flexing as though he could grind disbelief into obedience. His knuckles blanched white around the shaft, tendons standing out stark beneath skin etched with prayer-scars. When he looked up again, the wrath was still there—but behind it, flickering like a fault line—
Doubt.
Noctis saw it immediately.
He tasted it.
A slow, low laugh rolled from his chest, not loud, not triumphant—certain. The sound crawled across the plaza, sliding between shattered shields and bodies locked in chains. He stepped forward, deeper into the ring of battle, boots crunching over broken stone and discarded faith.
[Skill: Orbiting Arsenal IV — Continuous]
The Bloodfang Reapers sang.
Not metaphorically—screamed. Metal shrieked as the guan dao carved a brutal arc through the air, its blade slipping beneath a knight's pauldron and biting deep. The sword flashed low, hooking an arm mid-swing, wrenching it free with a wet crack of bone and tendon. The scythe curved wide, graceful and merciless, gliding behind a priestess who had just begun to scream—
—and stopped a breath from her throat.
She froze.
Her eyes widened.
Crimson chains erupted from the ground and seized her ankles, wrists, waist, yanking her down so hard her breath burst from her lungs. She hit the stones gasping, robes darkening as the links cinched tighter.
[Skill: Crown of Chains — Activated]
The plaza answered.
Cobblestones split as links tore free, snapping upward like living things. Wrists were bound. Throats were caught. Knees shattered downward against blood-slick stone. Knights who had moments ago bellowed prayers through clenched teeth now choked in wordless silence, eyes glazing as the Grid burned itself into their flesh—crimson-gold sigils sinking past skin, past will.
Noctis felt the pulse.
Each capture fed him.Each brand widened the gulf.
The Chorus staggered, scrambling to rally. Censers swung wildly as they tried to reclaim rhythm, voices rising in cracked unison.
"Sanctify! Sanctify—!"
Their words barely formed before Noctis swept a clawed hand through the air.
[Doctrine: Radiant Predation — Litany Rend]
The sound tore.
Not silenced—unmade.
Hymns unraveled mid-verse, syllables flayed apart, consonants scattering into empty echoes that died before they could become meaning. Smoke poured from their censers, golden for a heartbeat, then rotting into crimson haze before collapsing altogether. Priests doubled over, coughing, clutching at their throats as if faith itself had lodged there and turned to ash.
The bishop roared.
Spurs bit into his horse's flanks as he drove it forward, rage forcing motion where certainty had failed. His staff blazed again, raw light whipping outward in a savage arc. Three thralls were blasted apart, bodies vaporized into drifting mist. Chains shattered, links snapping and recoiling back into the stones.
He swung again—harder.
Light thundered through the plaza, scattering smoke, burning shadows back for a heartbeat.
But Noctis was no longer where the bishop struck.
[Skill: Wraith Step — Activated][Doctrine: Tempo Ledger — Rhythm Breaker]
The world stuttered.
The bishop's horse screamed and reared as the rhythm collapsed beneath it. Time slipped half a beat sideways. The staff cut air too early. The chant broke apart in the bishop's mouth, syllables colliding uselessly.
Noctis was behind him.
Close enough that the heat of him seeped through consecrated robes.
Claws brushed fabric—not to tear, not to kill—but to remind. A whisper of pressure. A promise restrained.
I could have.
The bishop felt it. His breath hitched.
He twisted back with a snarl, staff blazing anew. "Monster!"
Noctis smiled faintly.
He did not answer.
The word died between them, small and insufficient.
His wings unfurled fully, stretching wide until the plaza drowned in shadow. Silence thickened, pressing down until even screams felt muffled. The Templar lines buckled. The Chorus faltered, broken into scattered, shaking figures. And at the center of it all, the bishop stood rigid, faith cracking under the weight of his own failure.
Still Noctis harvested.
One by one, soldiers vanished into chains—dragged screaming or stunned to their knees, branded as the Grid flared brighter. His arsenal spun faster. His silence deepened. The space between predator and prey widened into an unbridgeable chasm.
The bishop fought on, rage dragging him forward, but frustration bled through every movement. Each spell he hurled guttered against the Celestial Shroud. Each strike met only air, shadow, or a thrall already lost. And with every failed effort, more of his men slipped away into Noctis's dominion.
This was not victory by strength.
It was victory by attrition.By erosion.By inevitability.
And as the plaza emptied—of sound, of resistance, of hope—
Noctis, sovereign of the abyss, smiled as the harvest deepened.