The dungeon welcomed him back with a lie.
It smelled the way he remembered—chain and damp, marrow stale in the air—but underneath clung a sweetness that had never belonged here. Blood burned with oil. Walls pulsed faint red, carved with runes etched by knives in trembling hands. The wraith pits, once his crucible, had been hollowed and rewritten into something else.
Noctis moved without sound. Phantom Dominion layered over him, his aura erased into absence, the wards mistaking him for sanctity. But the stone remembered him. He allowed a single thread of his power to slip free. It spread through mortar, chain, and pit like a command whispered into old scars. The dungeon shuddered in recognition.
His arsenal was already awake.
Twilight Reaver hung in his right hand, relic greatsword gleaming with a red-black edge. A Bloodfang Reaper in guan dao form balanced in his left, its curved blade humming. Around him, seven more Reapers spun in orbit. Each left bloody crimson after-images as they moved, the air bending in heat-haze distortions. The eye could not track them; every sweep left a ghost storm, blades multiplied by echoes.
The assassins dropped from the rafters.
Masks blank, blades dripping marrow-oil, their silence trained to perfection. But against his Omen sight they burned like torches.
Noctis did not pause. He stepped into their attack.
The first came from above. Twilight Reaver rose in a brutal upward arc. Both legs parted at the thigh, crimson mist exploding. The guan dao Reaper struck a breath later, cleaving down from skull to sternum, splitting the torso into halves. The corpse fell in four twitching pieces.
The second slid low, dagger angled for his ribs. Noctis flicked his wrist. [Sovereign Chains VII] erupted from the floor like molten veins bursting, glowing red with sanctity. Links hissed, steaming with essence. They wrapped the assassin's arm, shoulder, throat, and pulled. Bones snapped in a sound like iron rods breaking. The man's head tore free, his body hurled into the wall as smoldering fragments.
The rafters gave two more. His guan dao Reaper hooked one at the waist mid-leap, dragging him down. Twilight Reaver met him in the fall, cleaving diagonally, torso folding open like butchered meat. The second dodged—too late. Three orbiting Reapers screamed forward, after-images multiplying their blades into dozens. Arms, legs, torso shredded, diced into strips before blood even sprayed. The distortion snapped like cracking bone, and the corpse hit the ground in ribbons.
The last assassin faltered.
Noctis blurred—[Dominion Step VII]. His silhouette unraveled into shadow-ribbons, vanishing and reappearing at the man's back. Air snapped with displaced force. Twilight Reaver drove straight through spine and chest. His guan dao Reaper swung in the same instant, severing the corpse into diagonal quarters. The Reapers in orbit sliced again, chopping fragments smaller, until only scattered lumps of meat hit the stone.
Silence dropped, broken only by the hum of the orbiting storm. Seven Reapers spun, crimson after-images layering into a crown of blades around him.
Noctis pressed forward. His boots crushed the fragments underfoot.
The chamber opened.
This was his pit. The place he had turned into a farm, where he had chained wraiths and drained them dry. Now bone-lamps burned where chains had once hung. Altars of flayed skin dripped into a vast basin carved into the floor. Dozens of acolytes knelt in rings around it, knives scoring their arms, blood pouring in steady streams.
The basin pulsed with marrow-fire.
Noctis stepped inside. The arsenal screamed forward.
Seven orbiting Reapers became a storm. Blades cut through the first rank of kneeling acolytes. Heads flew. Arms severed at the elbows. One man's torso was split in half, then his halves cut again into four. Another had both legs removed; two Reapers followed and diced the torso into ribbons before he landed. After-images trailed every cut, making it seem like whole battalions of blades had descended.
Noctis moved with them. Twilight Reaver swung in a wide cross, cleaving three bodies in one sweep. His guan dao Reaper hooked another man's ribs, dragged him screaming into the air, then ripped him apart. Blood sprayed across the basin. The fire within roared higher.
The cultists kept chanting.
Chains burst from the stone again. [Sovereign Chains VII] lashed across the chamber, iron-red links bursting like arteries. They bound whole clusters of cultists, pulling arms wide, snapping spines, tearing limbs off with hissing force. One woman's jaw ripped free with a metallic clang. Another was torn in half lengthwise, his halves flung against the wall, cauterized where they split.
Still they chanted. Still they fed the fire.
Noctis's voice broke them.
"Break."
[Sovereign's Crucible IX] dropped across the pit. A dome of pressure, visible now as drifting streams of bloodlight, expanded outward. Every corpse shriveled. Blood siphoned free, pouring into those streams, marrow turned to mist and fed into him. Souls cracked loose, shattering into glowing filaments that dissolved into his Grid. The acolytes still alive screamed until their throats tore. Then silence.
The basin cracked. Fire guttered. But one cultist broke free.
Noctis blurred forward, ribbons of shadow peeling away. He appeared before the man. Twilight Reaver cleaved both arms at the shoulder. The guan dao Reaper swung again, chopping one severed arm into three neat pieces before it landed. Another cut split the second arm. Twilight Reaver came down once more, splitting the torso. Orbiting Reapers converged, slicing until the corpse was nothing but chunks smaller than fists.
The basin imploded.
Blood-fire burst outward in a final scream. The Reapers spun into a defensive circle, their distortions snapping as they diced the fragments into harmless dust. The rune-lines across the walls cracked and went dark.
The summoning collapsed.
Noctis stood at the center, armor dripping red. Twilight Reaver rested heavy at his side, humming with relic power. The guan dao Reaper in his left hand vibrated, hungry. Seven orbiting blades circled lazily, each leaving bloody after-images, each bending the air.
This was his pit. It had been corrupted. He had taken it back.
But the wraith threads whispered still. Ashara's baths. Water colder where it should have been warm. Another lair. Another infection.
He turned. His wings unfurled wide, scraping against the cavern walls. The air shuddered under their span.
This battle was finished. The next waited.
The southern flight cut across ridges silvered by moonlight.
Noctis's wings carried him low, four vast spans stretched, each beat bending the night into corridors of silence. Twilight shrank behind him. Ashara rose ahead, domes white against the dark, steam trailing from its famous baths even at this hour.
He could feel the wrongness before he crossed the walls.
Ashara had always carried sanctity in its stones. Its water was laced with minerals, its channels blessed for generations. Warmth should have pulsed through the veins of the city. Instead, cold leaked from the ground. The resonance twisted. Every pool steamed, but beneath it, channels ran frigid, leeching heat from the city's marrow.
The wraith report had been exact. Under the baths, something had been hollowed.
Noctis folded his wings and dropped between marble colonnades. Guards on the roof patrols scanned the streets, but their eyes skipped him entirely. [Phantom Dominion VII] cloaked his form, his aura erased, rewritten as absence. The wards treated him as sanctity too clean to question. He passed through stone as shadow.
The grand bathhouse opened before him. Steam rolled across wide pools tiled in mosaics of angels. Their wings and halos had been defaced, gouged with claws and knives. Chains wrapped bronze censers, silver staves, iron rings once meant to sanctify the water. Now abyssal fire pulsed through them, black and red.
Below, the cavern opened.
He descended into silence, stepping through steam into the hollow carved under the pools. The space was vast, supported by columns of stone cut to resemble angels. At their feet knelt dozens of cultists. Their knives cut across arms and throats. Blood spilled into basins of salt and ash. Marrow-oil burned in channels along the floor, feeding a single wound cut into the cavern wall — a gate of black fire, pulsing.
This was not a summoning circle. It was a corridor. A passage for armies.
Noctis let Phantom Dominion fall away. His aura unfurled.
The air groaned.
Seven orbiting Reapers screamed into motion. Each left crimson after-images, bending light in ghost echoes, their trails multiplying until the chamber looked filled with dozens of blades. Sound warped with every pass, each strike echoing like bones splitting twice.
The first line of acolytes never finished their chant. Heads flew. Arms parted at elbows. One body split down the middle, then its halves diced into quarters before they landed. Another was skewered mid-chest by two Reapers at once, then carved again by after-echoes, the corpse reduced into strips.
Noctis moved with them. Twilight Reaver in his right hand swung in a wide arc, cleaving three cultists into halves that sprayed across the basin. His left-hand Bloodfang Reaper, still in guan dao form, hooked one by the spine, dragged him forward screaming, then ripped him open down the sternum.
Blood flooded the floor. The basins overflowed.
The survivors raised relics wrapped in chains. Abyssal fire spat like spears.
Noctis raised his left hand. [Sovereign Chains VII] erupted.
Chains burst from the floor like molten veins cracking through stone, glowing red with sanctity. Each link steamed, dripping sparks of essence. They whipped outward, binding entire clusters of cultists. Arms pulled wide. Throats clamped. The clang was like anvils colliding. Bodies snapped, ripped into smoldering fragments. A jaw tore free with a hiss. A torso split lengthwise, halves flung against the gate, cauterized by the chains as they ripped.
The chant faltered. The gate still pulsed.
Noctis gave them storm.
[Crimson Tempest Dominion VII] ignited.
The cavern filled with a crimson gale. Dozens of spears formed mid-air, each wreathed in marrow-fire, each trailing veins of light across the air. They launched with the force of a stormfront. Impact shattered bodies into bone shrapnel, explosions of white-red flame burning marrow into ash. The wind howled, dragging robes sideways, pulling the cultists screaming into the storm.
One leader lifted a chained staff, its tip glowing with abyssal fire. He screamed to stabilize the gate.
Noctis blurred forward. Shadow-ribbons peeled away — [Dominion Step VII] — and he reappeared before the man. Twilight Reaver cleaved both arms in one brutal stroke. The staff clattered to the floor, severed limbs still clutching. His guan dao Reaper followed, quartering the man's head before it hit stone.
The staff shattered under his aura.
The gate spasmed. Stone above groaned. Fissures split the ceiling.
From behind the columns, a second wave surged. Dozens of cultists with blades, waiting to strike when he was committed. At the same time, the ceiling gave way, stone collapsing in an avalanche.
Noctis did not move. He raised his hand.
[Sovereign Bulwark VIII] expanded.
A dome of crimson-gold glass unfolded around him. Its surface rippled like molten steel quenched in blood. Stones struck and shattered, impacts rippling outward in liquid shockwaves. The debris turned in the reflection, glowing as they were hurled back with doubled speed. The ambushers were crushed by their own collapse, flattened into gore beneath the barrage of their city's stone.
When the air cleared, only corpses remained. The dome dissolved.
Noctis stood untouched. His arsenal circled, Reapers trailing crimson after-images, bending light, their hum filling the chamber.
The corridor still pulsed.
The survivors screamed, giving everything into the gate. Their chant sharpened, their blood spilling in floods.
Noctis advanced, wings spreading wide. His aura pressed like a hand against the cavern itself.
"This ends here."
Twilight Reaver lifted high. His guan dao Reaper mirrored it. The orbiting storm closed in, after-images layering into a cage of blades.
The weapons struck together.
Twilight Reaver smashed down into the gate. The guan dao Reaper cleaved sideways, severing runes in its base. The orbiting blades fell in a frenzy, carving basins, shredding relics, chopping cultists into fragments too small to recognize. Each after-image caught up a breath later, doubling every cut, turning the chamber into a whirlwind of overlapping strikes.
The gate imploded.
A vortex of black flame ripped outward, mixed with marrow-light. The Crucible answered. [Sovereign's Crucible IX] flared, its field visible as drifting bloodlight streams. Every living body shriveled in seconds. Blood boiled from pores, siphoned into the streams. Souls cracked loose, shattered into glowing lattice-lines, torn into him. Even the chant was devoured — voices cut off mid-word, dragged into silence.
The collapse left only wreckage.
Stone smoked. Blood soaked the ground in black puddles. The relics were shattered, their chains broken. The abyssal corridor was gone.
Noctis stood at the center, Twilight Reaver steaming, guan dao Reaper humming low in his hand. Seven orbiting blades spun slow, their after-images trailing crimson echoes across the dark.
Ashara's baths above still steamed. But below, the lair had been gutted.
Noctis turned. His wings unfurled. He did not linger. This was not isolated. It was coordinated. The demons were cutting lairs into every kingdom.
Twilight. Ashara. And more.
The war was already here.
The walls of Twilight came into view as dawn thinned across the horizon. Noctis descended into the inner court. His armor was still stained with blood, and both Twilight Reaver and the Bloodfang Reaper hummed faintly at his sides. Soldiers straightened as he passed, but no one spoke. His presence weighed too heavily on the air.
He entered the council chamber.
Lyxandra stood over the map table, eyes fixed on the marked borders. Seraphyne leaned against the far wall, helm tucked under her arm, jaw tight. Veyra sat with ledgers open, quill in hand, her scribes waiting for her word. Generals and captains filled the benches, watching him with hard faces.
Noctis placed Twilight Reaver against the wall, then the Bloodfang Reaper beside it. The orbiting Reapers dissolved into silence. He sat at the head of the table.
"The lair under Twilight's dungeon is gone," he said. His tone was steady, not raised, but the chamber held its breath. "Cultists had taken the old wraith pits. They carved the walls with abyssal runes and built a summoning circle. I killed them, destroyed the circle, and collapsed their channels. That ground can't be used again."
He let the words settle before continuing.
"Ashara was worse. The baths were hollowed out from below. They had chained angelic relics and twisted them into catalysts. Their plan was to build a corridor wide enough for an army. I broke the relics and killed everyone involved. The corridor is destroyed. Ashara stands, but its wards are weakened."
The table murmured.
Veyra looked up from her ledger. "We should send another set of messengers. Two to each throne again, same as before — but this time, with maps showing exactly where the lairs are. If we don't put the proof in front of them, they'll underestimate it."
"Agreed," Noctis said with a nod. "Send them tonight."
She dipped her quill and signaled her scribes.
He looked around the table. "Every wraith net reports activity. All eleven kingdoms. Some shallow, some deep. The demons are working everywhere, not at random. They are embedding footholds under every throne they can reach."
One general shook his head. "Then we have to respond everywhere. If we don't, entire realms fall."
Another captain spoke quickly: "If we leave them, those people are finished. You'll fracture the alliance."
Noctis rose. His voice cut through the noise.
"We can't throw our armies into every lair. Some of them are already too deep. If we bleed ourselves fighting in every kingdom, the northern war is lost before it begins. The marches will break us while we're scattered."
The chamber quieted, but tension remained.
Veyra set down her quill. "Then what do you propose?"
"I'll go," Noctis said simply. His eyes moved across the table. "I'll deal with the strongest foothold myself. Through the wraiths, I already know a Titan has been summoned. That lair is not rumor. It's real. And I will destroy it."
A wave of protest rose instantly. Seraphyne stepped forward. "You're talking about walking into their center. Alone. If you fall—"
"I won't," Noctis said. He cut her off with certainty, not anger. "This isn't up for debate. You'll send the messengers. You'll prepare the armies for northern movement. Tomorrow I leave. Tonight, I prepare."
Lyxandra's hand tightened on the map table, but she said nothing. Veyra lowered her eyes and nodded once. The generals shifted uneasily, but none dared press further.
Noctis collected Twilight Reaver and the Bloodfang Reaper. He turned and left the chamber. His aura trailed after him, heavy, final. The council remained frozen in silence until the echo of his steps faded from the hall.
Tomorrow he would march into the kingdom with the strongest demon foothold. Tonight, he would prepare.
The night after the council, Noctis did not rest. He went alone to the inner sanctum of Twilight's keep, a chamber lined with old stone where the walls had been layered with conduits for his Grid. There were no candles. The dark glowed with his presence.
He sat cross-legged at the center and pulled the lattice open.
The Grid unfolded before him like a living map, veins of crimson and white light branching across the air. Every node pulsed in rhythm with his marrow. Weapons, doctrines, dominions, veins, each one glowing at its current tier. For months, the Grid had grown uneven, some skills pushed to their limits while others lagged behind. Tonight, he would correct that imbalance.
Several nodes flickered at Tier V–VI. Early techniques that had served him once but been left behind. Blood Lash. Wraith Step. Veil of Piety. Others sat at Tier VII, waiting for the resources he had withheld.
Noctis exhaled once. He pressed his will forward.
Blood surged. Faith and Iron followed. The Grid drank deeply, each lesser skill rising tier by tier in steady pulses.
Blood Lash: VI → VII → VIII → IX
Wraith Step: VI → VII → VIII → IX
Veil of Piety: V → VI → VII → VIII → IX
Doctrines of Faith and Beast Veins: caught up from VI to IX in a cascade.
The costs meant nothing. His Blood and Iron pools were oceans. Faith drew down, but never enough to strain him. Souls diminished by the hundreds, but his reserves exceeded a million. By the time he was finished, every lesser branch of his Grid glowed with Tier VIII readiness.
He moved to the next layer.
Now came the fusions, the sovereign nodes.
Sovereign Arsenal VIII — the heart of his Bloodfang Reapers, orbitals, and Dual Arsenal doctrine. Its core pulsed, ready for more.
Sovereign Chains VII — veins of iron and sanctity, eager to be pulled tighter.
Crimson Tempest Dominion VII — its spears flickered in and out, unstable at their current limit.
Sovereign Bulwark VIII — molten dome waiting to be hardened further.
Phantom Dominion VII — the lattice of silence and shadow, strained at its current form.
Dominion Step VII — ribbons of shadow that had carried him across countless battles, still bound below where they could be.
All glowed, but none advanced on normal essence alone. Each pulsed with a new demand.
The Grid's script burned clear in his mind:
Tier IX requires Apex Essence.
Apex
Noctis opened his hand. The chamber filled with the shimmer of 190 Apex motes, each one a crystallized fragment of sovereignty devoured from angels, titans, relics, and marrow. Apex was the limiter. Apex was what the Grid demanded now.
He began with the foundations.
Sovereign Chains VII → IXThe veins of molten iron burst outward, links reforming into heavier constructs. The new chains glowed with bloodlight, their weight doubled. Cost: 5 Apex.
Phantom Dominion VII → IXShadows thickened until even the conduits of the chamber lost their shape. Silence deepened into pressure. Cost: 5 Apex.
Dominion Step VII → IXThe ribbons of shadow lengthened, sharpened, folded over themselves into a new geometry. His movement would no longer slip between frames — it would overwrite them. Cost: 5 Apex.
He moved to his major arsenal.
Sovereign Arsenal VIII → IXThe Bloodfang Reapers flared around him in spectral form. Each blade doubled its after-image trail, distortions widening, hums deepening. The arsenal storm was now a sovereign field unto itself. Cost: 5 Apex.
Crimson Tempest Dominion VII → IXThe air trembled as dozens of spears appeared and dissolved. Each carried marrow-fire that clung to stone. At IX, the tempest no longer burst — it persisted, an atmosphere he could summon at will. Cost: 5 Apex.
Sovereign Bulwark VIII → IXThe dome manifested briefly, molten glass folding into hexagonal plates, each ripple reflecting light sharper than before. It would not only hold — it would return greater force. Cost: 5 Apex.
The Grid dimmed as the Apex drained. He had spent 30 Apex. 160 remained.
He looked once more at the lattice. Nearly every node glowed at IX. The foundations were caught up. The sovereign fusions were consolidated. Only the Crucible had already reached IX long before, its glow steady at the center.
The Grid shifted. A new tier flickered faintly.
Tier X Pathway Locked– Empire Dominion: Unmet– Predator of Titans: 5/20– Angelic Predation: Completed
Noctis read it once, then closed the lattice. Tier IX was his horizon. Tier X would wait.
The following night, Twilight gathered.
The moon rose full and pale. The muster grounds outside the inner walls filled with soldiers in ranked lines, banners lifted high. Armor shone faint under torchlight, shields and spears glinting. Drums carried steady cadence through the cold air.
At the front, the commanders stood: Lyxandra armored in crimson steel, Seraphyne with helm under her arm, Veyra with her ledgers, captains and saints at their sides. Behind them, ten thousand soldiers in ordered files, each standing with discipline.
Noctis appeared above them, descending on sovereign wings. His armor gleamed blood-dark. Twilight Reaver rested across his back. The orbiting storm of Reapers whirled faintly around him, after-images trailing crimson light.
He landed at the front of the ranks. The ground shuddered with the weight of his presence. Silence followed.
He raised one hand.
The Grid answered.
[Apex Dominion Ward X] unfolded across the muster grounds. A dome of crimson-gold light stretched outward, encompassing every soldier, every commander, every banner. Its surface rippled with molten glass patterns, then settled into near invisibility.
The effect was instant. Armor felt lighter. Shields steadier. Every heartbeat synchronized. Soldiers inhaled as one, the air itself aligned to their discipline. Fear dulled, replaced by clarity. Resolve hardened into awe.
Even the commanders felt it. Lyxandra straightened, her grip firm on her sword. Seraphyne looked up at the dome with narrowed eyes, understanding its power. Veyra's quill scratched once across her ledger, then stopped as the effect pressed into her marrow.
The army was no longer an army. It was an extension of his Grid.
Noctis let the silence stretch before speaking.
"The war has begun." His voice carried across the ranks, steady, cold. "Twilight stands ready. Ashara still stands. But the demons are building in every kingdom. Some are already lost. I will take the strongest foothold myself. You will prepare to march north when the wraith nets give their full report."
He extended his hand. The orbiting Reapers ignited, after-images flaring into bright crimson rings. The storm above the army looked like a crown of blades suspended in the night.
"When the last shadow speaks, we march."
The soldiers slammed spear to shield in unison. The sound rolled across the grounds like thunder. The ward pulsed once, amplifying their voices into a single unified roar.
Noctis stood at the center, sovereign and immovable.
The first muster of Twilight's dominion had begun.