The blood suspended around the three gods had not yet begun falling far when Noctis took control of it. Divine blood that had escaped Aurelion's ruined left side, darker blood that continued leaking around Malgoryth's severed arm and wounded torso, and the liquid remains of Bloodfang Reapers destroyed throughout the previous exchange all changed direction through the disturbed air. The currents produced by the Titan gods tugged at the droplets from several directions at once, but the blood no longer belonged to those currents alone, and thin streams began gathering wherever Noctis allowed separate droplets to converge.
Aurelion noticed the movement almost immediately and drove his surviving wing through a hard lateral beat while Judicael remained close to his right side. The wing displaced a massive volume of air, sending a broad pressure front through the aerial battlefield that scattered Reapers, tore apart several forming blood streams, and drove dust still hanging over the devastated ground into new rolling clouds hundreds of meters below. Noctis allowed the streams to break rather than forcing them to remain intact, maintaining his hold on each scattered portion while the divine Titan used the opening created by the wingbeat to advance behind Judicael.
The blade-scepter entered through a compact thrust that was small only in relation to Aurelion's Titan Form. Its movement compressed the air ahead of the point strongly enough to clear another broad channel through the Bloodfang swarm, and several constructs broke apart before the physical weapon reached them. Noctis crossed the attack with Genesis Step and appeared near the heavily reinforced boundary of Aurelion's missing left side, where white-gold power had been layered more densely after the bite that had ended the previous exchange.
Ruin came into his left hand while the shortened blood-forged sword remained ready in his right. Noctis fired into the newly thickened reinforcement before Aurelion could rotate Judicael back toward him, and the shot drove through enough of the outer structure to expose damaged flesh beneath. Divine blood escaped in a wide spray, and Aurelion immediately compressed more power across the wound while turning his enormous torso away and using the surviving wing to push Noctis from the exposed region.
The resulting gust struck Aegis before the wing itself came close enough to matter. Noctis allowed the pressure to carry him away several meters, using the movement rather than resisting it, then shifted through Genesis Step before Aurelion could follow with Judicael. The fresh divine blood left behind by the rupture curved after him even while the wing-generated current tried to throw it in the opposite direction, the droplets separating, joining, and changing paths as he guided them around the strongest portions of the turbulence.
Devour absorbed the first stream when it reached him. Noctis did not have to stop flying, lower his weapons, or interrupt the hundreds of Bloodfang Reapers still moving through the air around the Titans, because controlling spilled blood and drawing it toward himself were abilities he had possessed long before reaching godhood. What had changed was the scale at which he could now perform them and the quality of the blood entering Genesis Vessel. The god blood passed directly into the same systems already operating under combat strain, replenishing what he was spending while accelerating repairs that had begun before the first stream reached him.
Aurelion's blood and Malgoryth's blood were both god blood, and their fundamental value to Noctis was the same. Each carried a concentration of life force and power far beyond the blood sources he had consumed before ascending, though the affinities within them fed different portions of what he already possessed. Aurelion's blood supported the holy and divine forces within him, while Malgoryth's blood fed the demonic side and the powers aligned more closely with that nature. Genesis Vessel processed both without conflict, distributing what it received according to the systems that could use it.
The greater change came through Blood Memory. Knowledge moved beneath Noctis's active awareness as the absorbed blood settled into Genesis Vessel, but he did not lose himself inside another consciousness or experience centuries of memory in a single uncontrolled flood. Blood Memory remained subject to his intent, allowing him to reach into whatever information had become available while leaving the rest untouched. With two gods still trying to kill him, he wanted their combat knowledge first.
Aurelion's blood gave him Judicael from the perspective of the god who had wielded it across an existence far longer than the time Noctis had spent fighting against it. He gained the remembered balance of the weapon through the right hand, the flow of reinforcement from wrist to forearm and shoulder, the internal routes through which divine power entered the blade-scepter, and the mechanical differences between a thrust, redirected cut, compressed release, and the more complex executions Aurelion had not yet used during the current battle. Much of what Noctis had already discovered through observation remained correct, but Blood Memory filled the spaces between what could be seen from the outside and what only Judicael's wielder would normally know.
Aurelion began another adjustment almost as soon as that understanding settled into place. His damaged wrist tightened, the surviving shoulder drew inward, and Judicael rotated closer to the Titan body while white-gold power moved through the lower guard before entering an inner channel. Noctis recognized the transfer sequence from Aurelion's own memory and saw where the weapon had to carry the greatest concentration of power before redistributing it farther along the structure.
A faint change passed through Noctis's expression as the information became clear. "So that is where Judicael transfers its power," he said while Aurelion was still completing the sequence, and Nocturne was already rising in his left hand before the divine god could react to the words.
The pistol fired into the lower guard. The shot struck precisely where the divine power was being concentrated for transfer and broke through part of the reinforcement surrounding the junction, forcing Aurelion to divert power toward the damage before the internal flow could continue. Noctis immediately replaced Nocturne with Ruin and fired into the same region while the outer structure remained disrupted, the heavier shot driving through the weakened layer and breaking the junction deeply enough to collapse the developing attack.
Judicael dropped several degrees as the interrupted divine power dispersed through the wrong portions of the weapon. Aurelion pulled it back toward his surviving side and reinforced the damaged guard, but his attention remained fixed on Noctis longer than the failed attack alone would have justified. The vulnerability was not something Noctis should have identified simply by seeing Judicael move once, especially when Aurelion had not previously used that particular internal transfer against him.
Noctis gave him no explanation. Bloodfang Reapers attacked the wrist and lower guard while Aurelion recovered, and Genesis Step carried Noctis beyond the Titan's immediate counter before the surviving wing could generate enough pressure to clear the surrounding space. Aurelion was forced to deal with the swarm while the question raised by Noctis's words remained unanswered.
Malgoryth entered from below while the divine Titan was still correcting. Ghorvath rose through a shorter one-handed attack than the broad swings he had used earlier, black-red rift pressure wrapped around the haft and axe head to keep the enormous weapon aligned despite the missing left arm. The ascent shoved a rolling wall of air upward through the Bloodfang formation and tore several guided blood streams apart, scattering droplets through the turbulent wake behind the axe.
Noctis let ordinary flight take him beyond the blade rather than spending Genesis Step immediately. The pressure wake moved him slightly farther than the physical attack would have, and he used that displacement before reappearing behind Malgoryth's right shoulder. Bloodfang Reapers attacked the rift reinforcement supporting Ghorvath while Ruin struck the demon Titan's upper back and drove the enormous body forward through the air.
Malgoryth corrected through rift power before the momentum could carry him too far, but the sudden change pulled through the wounded left side and shifted the compressed seal beneath the missing arm. Fresh blood escaped where the black-red structure thinned, and Malgoryth immediately forced the wound closed again before turning Ghorvath back toward Noctis. The blood that had already left his body never followed him.
Noctis took it.
The droplets curved through the space behind Malgoryth and gathered into several narrow streams before a rift eruption spread through them. The black-red pressure shattered the streams into hundreds of smaller portions, but Noctis simply divided his control across the scattered material and guided it around the strongest part of the distortion. Some droplets passed above the expanding rift force, others dropped beneath it before turning upward again, and Devour absorbed what reached him without requiring the blood to remain in any particular shape.
Malgoryth's Blood Memory opened alongside Aurelion's. The remembered handling of Ghorvath came first because that was the information Noctis needed immediately, giving him Malgoryth's understanding of the axe under two hands, the imbalance created by losing the left arm, the rift structures now replacing the missing leverage, and the points during acceleration or recovery where those supports became vulnerable. The memory did not give Noctis Malgoryth's physical strength or ownership of Ghorvath, but it showed him exactly what the demon god needed in order to keep the weapon stable.
The same blood carried knowledge of Malgoryth's rift manipulation. Noctis understood how the demon god established anchors before forcing displacement, how the pressure surrounding his body interacted with those anchors, and how the same structures could be extended into Ghorvath to compensate for the loss of the second hand. Knowing the internal logic did not make the techniques Noctis's own, but it gave him far better targets than the visible effects Malgoryth had previously forced him to decipher from the outside.
Malgoryth prepared another movement before those memories had finished settling into place. Ghorvath remained low near his right side while several rift structures tightened around the haft, and Blood Memory showed Noctis the displacement that would follow if those structures completed. Nocturne fired before the axe moved, breaking one of the stabilizing anchors and forcing Ghorvath to travel physically through the intended path rather than appearing farther along the prepared rift line.
Noctis passed beneath the weapon through ordinary flight while Bloodfang Reapers converged on Malgoryth's healthy hand. The demon Titan destroyed the nearest constructs with a short rift burst, but the blood released by their destruction remained within Noctis's control and joined the material already moving through the sky. Aurelion entered from the opposite side before Noctis could press Malgoryth farther, and the exchange continued with both sets of memories remaining available beneath his immediate awareness.
The difference became increasingly apparent. Aurelion could change the exact timing of Judicael's movements, and Malgoryth could alter the way he combined Ghorvath with rift pressure, but neither could remove the foundations upon which those actions depended. Noctis no longer had to discover every mechanical relationship while an attack was already threatening him, because their blood had given him remembered use from inside the systems themselves.
Aurelion responded by simplifying his movements. Judicael remained closer to the surviving center, and the remaining wing shifted from broad battlefield-clearing beats into shorter corrections intended to preserve mobility without repeatedly exposing the damaged root. More divine power moved toward the wound seals along the missing side, reducing the amount of fresh blood escaping but forcing thinner reinforcement around the right wrist and damaged portions of Judicael.
Noctis attacked what that choice left vulnerable. Nocturne struck the wrist while Bloodfang Reapers pressed the wing-root from above and below, forcing Aurelion to divide reinforcement again. Judicael came inward to protect the hand and the surviving wing folded closer to the torso, reducing Aurelion's ability to control his elevation for several moments. The enormous body lost some of its previous stability in the air, and the next corrective wingbeat produced an uneven pressure wave that rolled downward and disturbed the blood streams beneath him.
Malgoryth saw the same opening and brought Ghorvath toward Aurelion instead of Noctis. The demon Titan had never stopped regarding the divine god as an enemy, and the need to focus on Noctis had not erased the opportunity created when Aurelion's mobility weakened. Judicael turned to meet the attack, forcing Aurelion to spend more power through the damaged wrist while his surviving wing tried to keep the Titan body aligned against Ghorvath's approach.
Noctis moved outside both weapon paths and allowed the exchange to develop. Judicael and Ghorvath came close enough that the pressure wakes behind them collided before the weapons themselves did, compressing the air between the Titan Forms and sending a violent gust through the Bloodfang swarm. Aurelion beat the surviving wing once and pushed his body sideways while Malgoryth used a rift-assisted pull to drag the axe away from the final line, preventing another direct weapon collision but bringing their enormous bodies dangerously close.
Genesis Step placed Noctis behind Malgoryth's healthy shoulder as the demon Titan recovered. Ruin struck the rift structure supporting Ghorvath at the moment Malgoryth needed it most, and the external brace broke across one side. The axe dragged farther through his center than intended, twisting the Titan's torso and pulling against the wound beneath the missing arm while Aurelion turned Judicael toward him again.
Noctis left before either god could trap him between their recovering weapons.
The Bloodfang swarm continued growing around them. God blood entering Genesis Vessel allowed Noctis to maintain denser constructs while blood recovered from destroyed Reapers returned immediately to the same circulating system. Hundreds of blades occupied several elevations and distances, with close groups threatening weapons and wounds while others remained far enough away that a single wingbeat, rift eruption, or broad strike could not destroy the entire formation.
Aurelion cut through a large concentration with Judicael and broke dozens of Reapers apart. The weapon's wake scattered their blood across the sky, but Noctis drew the material outward around the fading pressure and hardened much of it again beyond the divine Titan's immediate reach. Malgoryth destroyed another group with expanding rift force, and the same cycle repeated as droplets spread, curved away from the distortion, and rejoined the larger blood circulation.
The Titans began spending more effort on the blood itself. Aurelion used repeated wingbeats to break approaching streams apart before they could reach Noctis, generating overlapping currents that divided the blood into smaller clouds and pushed them through the aerial battlefield. Malgoryth used localized rift distortions to throw other portions into altered paths, trying to increase the distance Noctis had to guide them before Devour could absorb the material.
Neither method removed the blood.
Noctis stopped caring whether a particular stream remained intact. Droplets scattered above Aurelion's wingwake changed direction once the pressure weakened, while blood thrown beneath Malgoryth's rift fields dropped several hundred meters and then curved upward again. Some portions took longer to reach him, some became Bloodfang Reapers before they did, and others remained suspended as reserve material until the battlefield opened another path.
Aurelion tried using Judicael to exploit the process. The blade-scepter drove through one of the larger streams approaching Noctis and scattered it while continuing into a compact thrust, the surviving wing shifting behind the attack to restrict the most obvious Genesis Step exits near the lower side. Blood Memory showed Noctis the intended follow-up before the weapon finished its first line.
He did not move where Aurelion expected. Genesis Step carried him above the divine Titan's right shoulder instead, and several Reapers attacked the damaged wrist while Judicael remained extended below. Noctis cut across the upper shoulder and fired Nocturne into the wing-root before Aurelion could bring the weapon back, forcing the Titan to rotate his entire body and use the surviving wing to drive a violent gust through the region.
Noctis left before the pressure could trap him.
Malgoryth entered through rift-assisted movement from farther below. The anchors forming around the displacement route matched structures already stored within Blood Memory, and Noctis recognized where the demon Titan intended to emerge before the movement completed. Ruin was already aligned when Malgoryth appeared.
The shot struck the right side of the Titan's chest and forced him backward before Ghorvath could finish coming through the attack. Malgoryth answered with a rift eruption large enough to scatter several dozen Reapers, but Noctis had already moved beyond the strongest portion and was drawing the shattered constructs back into liquid circulation.
Deeper memories moved through Malgoryth's blood while the battle continued. One recent event surfaced because Noctis had already retained the unanswered question associated with it. During the earlier phase when Aurelion remained trapped inside Annihilation Trinity, Noctis had noticed Malgoryth receive a message and had seen the subtle change in his attention without knowing what had been communicated.
Blood Memory supplied the missing event from Malgoryth's own perspective.
The Royal Demon King had identified the vampire beside him as Noctis, a student of the Demon Academy. The message had stated that the Academy's Demon God had taken a personal interest in him and that Noctis also owned the 3-Star Fortress. Malgoryth had been warned to understand who he was dealing with, and the memory preserved not only the words but enough of Malgoryth's reaction for Noctis to understand how decisively that information had influenced what happened afterward.
The betrayal no longer required speculation. Malgoryth had learned that Noctis possessed the attention of a Demon God, controlled a fortress significant enough to alter the political landscape, and occupied a position that could become increasingly dangerous if allowed to grow. Aurelion had already been badly damaged, making the divine Titan useful as pressure but less important as a long-term threat than the vampire who might survive the battle and continue expanding.
Malgoryth moved Ghorvath again while Noctis finished sorting the memory. Black-red support began transferring along the haft as the demon Titan prepared another one-handed strike, and three Bloodfang Reapers immediately attacked the section where Blood Memory showed the reinforcement would become vulnerable. Nocturne struck the surviving hand at the same time, forcing Malgoryth to pull the weapon back before the supporting structure could fail completely.
Noctis watched him recover the axe and finally understood the moment of betrayal from beginning to end. "So that was the message," he said while moving through the outer edge of Ghorvath's reach.
Malgoryth's attention snapped toward him. The change was immediate enough that even Aurelion noticed it from across the surrounding Bloodfang formation, because Noctis had referred to something that should have existed only between Malgoryth and the Royal Demon King. Ghorvath remained close to Malgoryth's surviving side while black-red pressure tightened around the wounded torso, and suspicion replaced the irritation that had accompanied Noctis's previous counters.
"How do you know that?" Malgoryth demanded.
Another narrow stream of black-red blood was already crossing the air toward Noctis from the wound opened during the previous exchanges. He drew it through the surrounding turbulence and allowed Devour to absorb it while several Bloodfang Reapers moved between himself and Ghorvath. "It's all thanks to your blood."
The answer changed the way both gods looked at him.
Malgoryth understood the implication first. He had already watched Noctis manipulate blood on a scale that exceeded ordinary bloodline techniques, consume god blood remotely through Devour, and become stronger as more of it entered his body. Learning that the same blood had given Noctis access to a private message transformed those observations into something far more dangerous, because memory extraction through consumed blood belonged to an old and feared family of abilities associated with Blood Demon roots.
Aurelion reached the same conclusion from the opposite direction. Noctis had bitten directly into his body during the previous exchange, had begun countering deeper Judicael mechanics afterward, and had just identified an internal transfer point he should not have known simply from watching the weapon. Malgoryth's blood had now exposed a private memory, making it difficult to dismiss the possibility that Aurelion's own blood had done the same with Judicael and the divine knowledge accumulated behind it.
Neither god mistook Noctis for a conventional Blood Demon. Too many other powers surrounded him, from Genesis Step and Aegis to Nocthyrael, the Bloodfang Reapers, the pistols, the Arsenal, and the strange resistance that had already invalidated portions of Aurelion's holy power. The roots were nevertheless recognizable enough that both understood what his blood abilities implied. Every drop taken by Devour could carry more than strength.
Malgoryth's concern shifted immediately from the Royal Demon King's message to everything else his blood might contain. Memories of rift techniques, Ghorvath, political relationships, past battles, territories, alliances, enemies, and knowledge accumulated across his existence could all potentially be available to Noctis now. He had no way of knowing how much had already been extracted or how much Noctis could access at once.
Aurelion faced the same problem with Judicael and his own divine knowledge. The failed attack against the lower guard now made sense in a way he did not like, because Noctis had not discovered the weakness during the current exchange. His own blood had told him where it was.
Noctis did not explain anything further. There was no reason to tell either god the name Blood Memory or define its limits, and their uncertainty about what he had already learned was more useful than any additional taunt. He moved while they were still processing the implication and sent Bloodfang Reapers toward both weapon hands.
Malgoryth brought Ghorvath across from the right. Blood Memory showed how the rift support would transfer farther along the haft during the final portion of the movement, and the Reapers struck the support before that transfer completed. Nocturne fired into the right hand while Genesis Step removed Noctis from the physical arc, leaving Ghorvath to continue several degrees farther than Malgoryth intended before he recovered it through a heavy pull of the shoulder.
Aurelion forced Noctis to change position before he could continue pressing Malgoryth. Judicael descended through another compact attack while the surviving wing produced a short corrective beat, and the pressure rolled through the surrounding Reapers strongly enough to scatter several blades before the weapon reached them. Noctis allowed the constructs to break where necessary and hardened new ones from the liquid blood farther behind Aurelion's movement.
The accumulated god blood inside Genesis Vessel continued strengthening the systems already active. Injuries closed more quickly beneath Nocthyrael, the armor responded with less delay when Noctis changed direction inside Titan-generated turbulence, and successive Genesis Step transitions required less recovery between uses. Ruin and Nocturne accepted greater power without destabilizing, while the shortened blood-forged sword became denser as the amount of usable blood available to support it increased.
Aurelion and Malgoryth were spending in the opposite direction. Both had to maintain wound seals, reinforce damaged weapons, preserve movement despite missing limbs, and defend against a swarm that did not remain destroyed once the individual constructs broke. Every large attack required additional power, every reopened wound demanded more stabilization, and every drop of god blood that escaped became both material and potentially knowledge for Noctis.
They tightened their wound control.
Aurelion compressed overlapping white-gold layers across the missing side until the reinforcement reduced the amount of fresh blood reaching the air, but the increased commitment left less divine power around Judicael's damaged guard and right wrist. Malgoryth thickened the black-red structures around the severed arm and wounded torso until the rift pressure behaved like external clamps, and the greater demand there forced the support around Ghorvath to become thinner whenever he wanted to keep the wounds closed.
Noctis attacked the cost instead of the seals.
Bloodfang Reapers converged on Aurelion's wrist and wing-root while Nocturne struck the damaged lower guard of Judicael. Aurelion shifted power toward the threatened regions and weakened the missing-side reinforcement enough for thin lines of divine blood to escape beneath it. Noctis drew that blood away while the divine Titan fought to restore the seal.
Ruin targeted Malgoryth's healthy shoulder and the rift support around Ghorvath rather than the heavily compressed left side. Malgoryth had to reinforce the weapon hand to keep the axe under control, and part of the power maintaining the wound compression moved with it. Blood appeared beneath the missing arm almost immediately, and Noctis guided it away before Malgoryth could tighten the seal again.
The problem became increasingly difficult for either Titan to manage because every allocation created another opening. Protecting the wounds weakened the weapons and movement, reinforcing the weapons reduced the pressure available to stop blood loss, and maintaining both consumed power that could otherwise have been used to overwhelm Noctis. Knowing now that the blood carried memories made every leak more costly than it had seemed minutes earlier.
The next exchange pushed all three gods lower through the sky. Aurelion attempted to drive Noctis downward with Judicael while Malgoryth climbed from below through rift-assisted movement, placing the smaller fighter between two enormous bodies moving through converging elevations. Noctis allowed the space to narrow while Bloodfang Reapers attacked both Titans from behind and the sides, forcing them to maintain their commitment through a battlefield already crowded with threats.
Ruin struck Malgoryth while Nocturne struck Aurelion from another angle. Both Titans adjusted toward Noctis, and Genesis Step removed him from the space between them only after their momentum had become expensive to reverse. Aurelion opened the surviving wing hard enough to produce a violent pressure front while trying to prevent the divine Titan from descending into Malgoryth, but the wing itself struck the demon god before the enormous bodies could separate cleanly.
Malgoryth twisted under the impact and used rift power to pull away, though the missing left arm and Ghorvath's weight made the upper body slower to follow. Aurelion's right shoulder and surviving wing slammed into Malgoryth's upper torso, displacing a massive volume of atmosphere and sending a shockwave outward through the aerial battlefield. Dozens of Bloodfang Reapers broke apart under the pressure while the rising blood streams were thrown in every direction, and the delayed force reached the devastated ground below hard enough to roll dust across crater rims, widen fractures, and send loose sections of broken rock sliding into collapsed depressions.
The reinforcement across Aurelion's destroyed side shifted under the collision, and Malgoryth's wound seals strained as his torso twisted beneath the divine Titan's weight. Fresh divine and demonic blood entered the air around them before either god could stabilize. Noctis took control of it immediately.
The streams did not need to follow straight lines. Aurelion's corrective wingbeat broke the divine blood apart while Malgoryth's rift-assisted retreat scattered his own blood farther through the sky, but Noctis drew both toward himself through separate curves while Bloodfang Reapers reformed from the constructs destroyed by the shockwave. Devour absorbed the first portions as they arrived, and Genesis Vessel continued turning the Titans' losses into his own replenishment.
Aurelion tried to make the atmosphere itself hostile to that process. Instead of one broad wingbeat, he used several shorter ones in rapid succession, producing layered turbulence that broke guided blood into smaller clouds while Judicael moved through the disturbed air to prevent larger concentrations from gathering. The continuous pressure also shoved Reapers away from his body and forced Noctis to correct their paths repeatedly.
The tactic complicated the blood's route but did not reduce the amount available. Noctis divided the clouds into smaller currents and let them approach from different elevations, absorbing some through Devour while redirecting others into Bloodfang constructs. What Aurelion had turned into scattered droplets simply became more distributed material under Noctis's control.
Malgoryth attempted a different answer by creating localized rift distortions between Noctis and the incoming blood. The altered space pulled several streams away from their original routes and forced the droplets into irregular arcs, but Blood Memory already contained the anchor logic supporting those distortions. Reapers struck two outer structures while Ruin destroyed a denser anchor, and the rift field collapsed before it could hold the redirected blood for long.
Malgoryth changed the configuration. Noctis recognized the foundation beneath the new arrangement as well.
The gods could improvise around their established methods, but they could not rebuild their entire power systems in the middle of the fight. Aurelion still needed divine reinforcement to travel through known structures within Judicael and his surviving body, while Malgoryth still depended on anchors, pressure relationships, and rift control governed by principles stored inside his own memories.
Aurelion tried using an attack Noctis had not personally encountered during the battle. Judicael rotated close to the Titan body while divine power entered an inner channel rather than gathering around the physical edge, and the surviving wing shortened its beat to stabilize the firing line. Blood Memory supplied Aurelion's own experience with the execution before its external effect became obvious.
Aegis changed before the release.
The compressed divine extension struck the strengthened defense and drove Noctis backward through the air without penetrating it. Nocturne fired into the damaged wrist while Aurelion remained connected to Judicael's inner channel, disturbing the reinforcement required to maintain the attack and collapsing the remaining divine force before it could be redirected.
Aurelion stared after him with the growing certainty that the earlier failure at the lower guard had not been an isolated deduction. Noctis had reacted correctly to an execution he had not personally fought before, using the correct defense before the release and attacking the correct supporting structure while the technique remained active. The implication of Noctis's statement to Malgoryth became increasingly difficult to ignore.
Malgoryth attempted an unfamiliar sequence immediately afterward. Ghorvath remained almost still while several rift anchors formed around regions Noctis had repeatedly used for Genesis Step exits, creating a trap designed to punish displacement rather than ordinary flight. Blood Memory identified the structure before the anchors finished closing, so Noctis stayed in ordinary flight and crossed through an open region Malgoryth had expected him to abandon.
Ruin broke one anchor while Bloodfang Reapers destroyed another. The trap failed before Noctis ever entered the movement route it had been prepared to catch, forcing Malgoryth to collapse the remaining structures rather than leave them vulnerable to further attacks. The demon god now had the same confirmation Aurelion did: Noctis was countering things he had no reasonable external history with because the necessary history had come from them.
Aurelion changed again.
Malgoryth changed again.
Noctis kept answering with knowledge taken from their own blood and powers already belonging to him.
Their attacks remained capable of killing or crippling him if they landed cleanly. Judicael still carried immense divine force, Ghorvath could still tear through enormous regions of space, and the environmental pressure created by Titan movement remained dangerous even when the weapons themselves missed. The difference was that fewer attacks reached the stage where Noctis had to solve them from nothing.
His awareness extended downward while the aerial battle continued.
The ground beneath them held far more blood than the currents immediately surrounding the three gods. Earlier clashes had soaked craters, fractures, broken slopes, and shattered sections of terrain long before the fight rose into the sky. Divine blood, demonic blood, Noctis's own blood, and material released from destroyed constructs remained scattered across the devastated battlefield in quantities large enough that the streams around them represented only a fraction of what was available.
Noctis reached for it.
Blood pooled in one crater trembled before stretching upward in narrow strands. Material trapped between fractured stones slid against gravity, gathered along broken edges, and lifted free while nearby droplets joined it. Farther away, another pool began moving, followed by blood spread across a collapsed ridge and several dark lines that had settled into cracks created by Titan footsteps and weapon impacts.
The movement spread across the battlefield below.
Dozens of thin streams rose from widely separated locations while dust clinging to the blood-soaked ground lifted with them. Some remained narrow, while others gathered material from nearby pools and fractures before climbing higher. The ruined landscape began yielding the blood that had accumulated through the prolonged battle, and the first streams passed upward through dust clouds still rolling from the Titans' earlier impacts.
Aurelion noticed the movement and drove Judicael downward through one of the larger columns. The blade-scepter scattered the blood over an enormous area while its pressure wake struck the ground and opened another fracture across the already damaged terrain. The droplets continued moving after the weapon passed, slowing within Noctis's control before curving back toward the sky.
Malgoryth released a broad rift disturbance through another rising column. The stream fragmented and spread through the distorted region, but Noctis divided his control across the scattered portions rather than trying to force the original structure through intact. Some blood went around the edge of the rift field, some remained within the weaker outer portions until the distortion shifted, and more continued rising from the ground while Malgoryth remained occupied with what had already reached the air.
Noctis did not need to consume the entire reserve at once. Some of the rising blood entered Devour, some reinforced the Bloodfang swarm, and some remained in circulation between the ground and the three gods as material that could replace constructs whenever they were destroyed. The amount available increasingly separated Noctis from the normal cost of maintaining so many blood-forged weapons at once.
The swarm expanded beyond the density it had maintained earlier. There was no fixed moment when hundreds became something greater because new Reapers formed continuously while others broke apart, but several layers of blood-forged blades gradually occupied the air above, below, and around both Titans. Distant groups remained outside the reach of the largest clearing attacks, while closer concentrations pressed weapon hands, wing-roots, wound seals, rift supports, and exposed portions of armor.
Aurelion forced divine pressure outward and destroyed another broad section. Malgoryth followed with Ghorvath and rift force through a separate region, tearing apart more constructs and scattering liquid blood through the sky. The destruction no longer created relief for long because the material returned through different routes and hardened into new Reapers before the Titans could exploit the openings.
They began spending attacks on the rising blood itself.
Aurelion redirected Judicael toward one stream, and Nocturne struck the right wrist while the weapon remained committed away from Noctis. Malgoryth opened a rift distortion beneath another, and Ruin hit the supporting structure around Ghorvath before the demon Titan could use the weapon and field together. Every attempt to reduce the incoming supply gave Noctis another target elsewhere.
The ground continued emptying beneath them. Pools withdrew from craters and left dark stains across exposed rock, while blood threaded upward from fractures in thin red and black-red lines and gathered into larger currents after leaving the surface. Dust rose around the movement and formed vertical plumes until Aurelion's wingbeats, Ghorvath's wakes, and the pressure from Judicael tore them apart.
Noctis kept drawing the blood through all of it.
The increasing supply improved the balance of the battle in ways that became harder for the Titans to ignore. Genesis Vessel continued repairing the injuries Noctis had accumulated earlier, Nocthyrael adjusted his flight almost immediately whenever Titan-generated turbulence changed, and Genesis Step linked successive movements with less delay. Nocturne's shots damaged Aurelion's reinforcement more deeply than they had at the beginning of the previous chapter, while Ruin forced larger failures through Malgoryth's rift protection.
The blood-forged sword benefited from the same supply. When Noctis brought it against divine or demonic reinforcement, the blade held its form with less distortion and required less effort to restore after heavy contact. The Reapers around him responded faster as well, changing direction through violent crosswinds with greater precision and reforming in safer locations when the Titans destroyed them.
Aurelion attempted to force a direct exchange before Noctis could continue widening the advantage. Judicael came forward while the surviving wing drove the Titan body behind the weapon, producing enough pressure around the thrust to keep nearby Reapers from approaching cleanly. Blood Memory showed Noctis the reinforcement path Aurelion needed to keep the damaged wrist from collapsing beneath the commitment.
Nocturne struck the wrist first.
Several Reapers attacked the forearm.
Genesis Step carried Noctis above Judicael, where Ruin fired into the damaged collarbone route while Aurelion remained committed to the thrust. The reinforcement broke across several points, and Judicael lost enough alignment that Noctis could bring the shortened sword against its side and redirect the weakened movement rather than trying to receive the Titan-scale force head-on.
The god weapon passed beside him.
Malgoryth attacked before Aurelion had fully recovered.
Ghorvath entered through a one-handed strike supported by the rift brace around the weapon, but Malgoryth's own blood had already shown Noctis how the brace distributed pressure during that movement. Dozens of Bloodfang Reapers entered the supporting structure from several angles, forcing Malgoryth to destroy many of them with a close rift burst while Ruin struck the same region during the brief reconstruction that followed.
Ghorvath dropped several degrees under its own weight before the demon Titan regained control. Genesis Step carried Noctis away from the falling axe and into a position where both gods remained within his effective attack range. Neither was weak, but both were increasingly forced to spend strength preventing their own techniques from becoming openings.
The nature of the exchange had changed. Earlier, Noctis had needed to identify vulnerabilities while surviving the attacks that revealed them. Now techniques were being interrupted before they reached full expression, reinforcement paths were being struck at the moments they became structurally important, and rift anchors were failing before their completed effects could trap him.
Aurelion recognized the pattern even without knowing exactly how much of his memory Noctis possessed.
Malgoryth recognized it as well.
Both began introducing techniques Noctis had not personally witnessed during the battle, only to find him responding correctly on their first use. What they had inferred from the earlier dialogue was now being confirmed repeatedly through combat, and the conclusion neither wanted became harder to escape.
Their blood had already exposed too much.
Aurelion simplified again and abandoned a more complex Judicael sequence for a direct physical cut reinforced with raw divine power. The blade-scepter moved through enough air to produce a broad wake that scattered Reapers and distorted the rising blood streams, but the Titan scale also created a vast inner region near Aurelion's body where the outer reach of the weapon became difficult to correct against something as small as Noctis.
Genesis Step placed him inside that region.
Bloodfang Reapers attacked the wrist while Noctis cut across the remaining shoulder. Aurelion drove him away with the surviving wing, and the enormous beat sent a pressure wave rolling through the sky strongly enough to scatter dozens of Reapers and bend several rising streams almost horizontal.
The wing-root opened under the strain.
Nocturne fired into it.
Malgoryth simplified his attacks as well. Ghorvath came through a direct rift-assisted strike without the layered anchor network Noctis had been dismantling, but the massive weapon still needed enough physical movement to generate a broad pressure wake and enough rift support to compensate for the missing left arm. Genesis Step carried Noctis around the committed line while Ruin struck the surviving weapon hand and Bloodfang Reapers attacked the sealed wound from the opposite side.
Malgoryth turned to protect the left side.
Noctis attacked the healthy shoulder instead.
The Titan Forms continued giving both gods immense reach, strength, durability, and destructive influence over the surrounding environment, but those advantages were becoming progressively harder to separate from their costs. Their enormous bodies offered the Bloodfang swarm more surface area to threaten, their weapon arcs created longer recoveries for Genesis Step to exploit, and every reopened wound released quantities of god blood large enough to strengthen the opponent already using their memories against them.
Their scale also made them dangerous to each other whenever Noctis moved between them.
Aurelion attacked from above during the next exchange while Malgoryth entered from Noctis's right. Genesis Step placed Noctis near Malgoryth's upper torso just as Judicael reached the region, forcing Aurelion to change the attack rather than allow the divine weapon to strike the demon Titan directly. Noctis left before the correction completed, but Judicael's divine pressure still passed close enough to tear through part of Malgoryth's rift seal beneath the missing arm.
Blood escaped and curved immediately toward Noctis.
Malgoryth answered with Ghorvath and forced Noctis toward Aurelion's remaining wing. The axe changed path before the physical blade could enter the divine Titan's body, but its surrounding rift wake struck the damaged wing-root strongly enough to reopen the injury. More divine blood escaped and joined the streams already moving through the aerial battlefield.
Aurelion and Malgoryth separated without gaining anything from the exchange.
Noctis gained both blood and more access to their memories.
Blood Memory continued opening beneath the combat knowledge already in use. Malgoryth's recent memories preserved not only the Royal Demon King's warning but the political relationships surrounding the Demon Academy, the 3-Star Fortress, and the interests that had shaped his judgment. Aurelion's blood offered an equally deep reserve of divine knowledge accumulated across his existence, though Noctis left most of it untouched while the immediate battle still demanded his attention.
There would be time later to examine what their blood had given him.
For now, the useful information was what kept them from killing him and allowed him to dismantle their attacks before they could reach their strongest state.
The imbalance continued widening. Noctis spent power and replaced part of it with god blood, while the Titans spent power without an equivalent source restoring what they lost. Genesis Vessel repaired Noctis while Aurelion and Malgoryth expended additional energy merely preventing their injuries from becoming more fuel and knowledge.
Aurelion attempted another large Titan-scale attack before the situation deteriorated farther. The surviving wing opened despite the accumulated damage at its root, and Judicael drew close to the right side while divine power moved through reinforcement paths Blood Memory had already exposed. The gathering pressure changed the air around the Titan and pushed several rising blood streams away before the attack itself began.
Noctis moved before the power could complete its circuit.
Bloodfang Reapers converged on the wing-root.
Nocturne fired into the damaged wrist.
Ruin struck the collarbone route.
Genesis Step placed Noctis above Judicael while the blade-scepter remained committed to the gathering sequence, and the shortened sword cut through one of the exposed reinforcement lines before Aurelion could finish the attack.
The divine Titan abandoned the developing strike and released the gathered power defensively. The discharge burst outward through the surrounding sky, destroying hundreds of Reapers and hammering Aegis with enough force to drive Noctis farther away. Genesis Step removed him from the densest portion while shattered Bloodfangs returned to liquid blood and spread throughout the expanding pressure wave.
Noctis kept the blood.
Malgoryth tried to exploit Aurelion's defensive release and moved Ghorvath toward the divine Titan before he could recover. Noctis recognized the rift support forming around the axe and fired Ruin into it first, breaking enough of the brace that Malgoryth had to choose between continuing with reduced weapon control or stabilizing the enormous axe before the weight pulled it farther across his remaining side.
Malgoryth stabilized Ghorvath.
Nocturne struck the surviving hand.
Bloodfang Reapers attacked the sealed left side.
The rift protection shifted.
More blood escaped.
The streams rising from the battlefield continued climbing while Noctis absorbed what reached him.
By then, dozens of visible blood currents stretched through the air beneath the three gods, passing through clouds of dust and debris thrown upward from the devastated ground. Some streams remained narrow enough to disappear whenever Aurelion's wing pressure tore through them, while others carried enough material to remain visible after being scattered into clouds of droplets. Ghorvath and Judicael repeatedly disrupted the flow, but the blood continued climbing through altered routes whenever the immediate pressure weakened.
The Bloodfang swarm occupied the spaces between those streams and used the same circulating material to replace its losses.
The Titans still dominated the environment through sheer scale. Aurelion's wingbeats continued hammering the sky with broad gusts that reached the ground as delayed pressure, Malgoryth's rift movements distorted entire volumes of air, and the passage of Judicael and Ghorvath left violent wakes behind them. Their attacks could still destroy huge portions of the swarm and shake the battlefield far below, but those effects no longer translated cleanly into advantage.
Noctis moved through another Judicael attack while Blood Memory already showed him the likely recovery. Reapers occupied the path Aurelion's wing needed for the correction and forced the Titan to clear them before changing direction. Malgoryth attacked from below through a rift structure Noctis recognized in time for Ruin to destroy one of its anchors, pushing the resulting attack far enough off-line that Noctis passed between the two gods and fired at both before either could turn.
Nocturne struck Aurelion while Ruin struck Malgoryth.
Fresh blood entered the air and curved away from them.
Both Titans sealed the wounds.
The blood already outside continued toward Noctis.
Their next movements became more restrained.
Judicael stayed closer to Aurelion's surviving body, and Ghorvath remained nearer Malgoryth's one-handed balance point. Aurelion reduced the breadth of his wingbeats unless the swarm forced him to clear space, while Malgoryth avoided the longest axe arcs that gave Genesis Step too much room to manipulate the weapon's endpoint.
Noctis continued advancing through the Bloodfang formation while blood from below replenished the spaces where destroyed constructs disappeared. Much of the damage accumulated earlier in the battle had already closed, and Genesis Vessel continued using god blood to keep regeneration, armor, flight, weapon control, and the expanding swarm supplied at the same time.
Aurelion watched him through the shifting streams.
Malgoryth maintained more distance from the opposite side.
Neither Titan committed immediately.
The change was small compared with their enormous forms, but it showed in how tightly both gods kept their weapons and how carefully they controlled movements that had once relied on the overwhelming advantage of size. Broad Titan-scale attacks had become easier for Noctis to manipulate, every wound created through those exchanges now carried consequences beyond immediate injury, and both gods knew that blood loss could expose more of what they had spent their lives learning.
They could reduce the movements that exposed those weaknesses.
They could not remove the knowledge already stored in Noctis's Blood Memory.
Aurelion could alter how he used Judicael, but Noctis still possessed the weapon's structural logic, reinforcement routes, and the divine god's accumulated experience with it. Malgoryth could rebuild the way he combined Ghorvath with rift pressure, but the foundations beneath those techniques were already known through the blood he had lost.
Their forms could become more conservative.
Their memories could not be taken back.
The battle carried them farther through the sky while Noctis continued pulling blood from the devastated ground. Reapers formed, attacked, broke apart beneath Titan weapons, and returned through the circulating streams to form again elsewhere. Aurelion and Malgoryth remained strong enough that anything lingering in front of them could still be destroyed, but each attempt to force Noctis into that position gave him more opportunities to recognize the method, move around it, and attack whatever the technique had left exposed.
Judicael began changing alignment, and Noctis attacked the supporting structure before the motion completed. Malgoryth formed another rift configuration around Ghorvath, and Ruin struck the anchor before the displacement could develop. Aurelion changed his approach, Malgoryth altered his own, and Noctis continued changing with them while Devour drew another stream of god blood into Genesis Vessel.
The pressure from the Titans' movements still rolled across the sky and reached the ground below in delayed waves, widening fractures and lifting dust from terrain already ruined by their earlier clashes. Blood continued rising through those disturbances toward Noctis, feeding the swarm and replacing what he spent while the two gods consumed more of their remaining strength simply to keep fighting.
Aurelion and Malgoryth remained in their Titan Forms when they separated farther during the next repositioning. Judicael stayed close to Aurelion's right side, Ghorvath remained tight against Malgoryth's surviving arm, and neither god immediately committed to another enormous attack despite the power still available to them. Their scale had once allowed them to dominate the battlefield through reach, mass, and destructive pressure, but Noctis had turned that same scale into something they now had to manage carefully.
The enormous bodies gave him targets, their movements gave him openings, their wounds gave him power, and their blood had given him knowledge they could never recover from him.
Noctis continued toward them through the circulating Bloodfang Reapers while more blood climbed from the shattered battlefield beneath the three gods. Aurelion and Malgoryth adjusted their weapons again without committing, maintaining greater distance from one another so neither body could become another obstruction Noctis might use against the other.
The next change in the battle would have to address more than the attacks they were using.
Their Titan Forms themselves had become part of what Noctis was defeating.