With the Dragon Rage receding like a crashed program being cleared from memory, the world snapped back into high-definition, painful clarity. Noctar became acutely aware of the deep, throbbing agony in his bitten shoulder, a set of puncture wounds that felt like they went to the bone. He felt the gritty plaster dust in his hair, the cool air on his sweat-dampened skin, and, most potently, the firm, unyielding grip Ardyn still maintained on his collar.
He slowly straightened from his defensive slouch, a movement that deliberately brought him closer to her, subtly emphasizing the difference in their height and the fact that he was now looming, not threateningly, but presently, in her space.
That's when the taste fully registered. Metallic, coppery, and profoundly foul. Korvath's blood. It wasn't just on his tongue; it felt like it had seeped into the back of his throat, a pollutant.
Disgust twisted his features into a grimace. "Washroom," he mumbled, the word thick. He gestured vaguely down the hall with his good arm, offering her a lopsided grin that was equal parts apology for the mess and sheer, unadulterated, bloodied charm.
The grin was a precision strike, launched from a place of genuine feeling he didn't bother to encrypt. Ardyn's furious grip on his collar loosened a fraction. Her stern, glacial expression flickered a crack in the permafrost, revealing a glimpse of something warmer and far more chaotic beneath.
// Biometric spike detected in Subject: Ardyn, S.A.R.A. reported, her tone dripping with amused analysis. // Pupil dilation increased by 18%. A sharp rise in dermal temperature around the cheeks and neck. That particular 'lopsided, wounded rogue' grin subroutine appears to have a 94% historical effectiveness rate across multiple cultural narratives. Well played, boss.
Freed, Noctar didn't run dignity, or a facsimile of it, was important, but his walk to the nearest washroom was decidedly swift and purposeful. He needed to scrub the taste of "stupid" and "entitled" from his mouth with the cold, anonymous water of a public sink.
In his brief absence, Korvath found his voice and his feet. He too was bloody, his fine clothes torn, his jaw swelling. But where Noctar had retreated to clean up, the Dragon Knight stood his ground amidst the rubble, his pride a second, more resilient skin. He wiped blood from his mouth with the back of his hand, his emerald eyes blazing.
"Ardyn," he began, his voice a low, wounded growl that tried and failed to sound commanding. "As my woman, why are you allowing this… this farce? Flirting so openly with some gutter-born savage? It's trending on every major social scry-platform! The humiliation is what finally brought me here from Amerisya to this… this administrative backwater!"
Ardyn's glare could have frozen the magma core of the planet. "When, exactly, did the paperwork get filed to make me 'your woman'?" she asked, her voice dangerously quiet. "You never proposed. You never courted. You never even asked me on a date. You issued a demand at a state function, like you were ordering a vintage of wine. You said I should be 'honored' to… service you." The distaste on the final words was so palpable it seemed to sour the dusty air.
Korvath scoffed, waving a hand as if swatting away a trivial, irritating fly. His logic was a closed, narcissistic loop. "I don't need a strong woman. I am strength enough for both. I just want a beautiful one. A trophy worthy of my station. And you…" He looked her up and down, a possessive, assessing glance that made her skin crawl. "…are the most beautiful specimen I've seen in all of Arifa. It's simple."
The statement was so profoundly insulting, so dismissive of her mind, her skill, her rank, her very self, that Ardyn was momentarily rendered speechless. Not from hurt, but from a pure, incandescent disgust that burned away words.
// I am experiencing a system wide revulsion, S.A.R.A. broadcasted into Noctar's mind, providing a crisp, live audio feed from the hallway. // His reasoning contains a fatal recursive error. He values only the surface level output and ignores the core programming. He is, by all definitions, a beautiful, gilded idiot.
Noctar emerged from the washroom, his face clean of blood, his hair damp and pushed back, his eyes clear and focused. He said nothing. He simply walked back through the debris field and took his place beside Ardyn, his stance easy but solid, a silent, unwavering show of solidarity. The message was clear: I am here. With her.
Maybe it was the lingering fury at Korvath's reduction of her to a 'specimen.' Maybe it was the defiant, protective energy radiating from the man who had just bitten a Dragon Knight for her. Maybe it was the desperate, impulsive need to give Korvath a physical, undeniable answer that his primitive, possessive brain could finally understand. Driven by that volatile cocktail of anger, resolve, and something else she couldn't name, Ardyn acted.
She grabbed Noctar's hand, the one not attached to his injured shoulder and pulled. She pulled him down to her level, rose onto her toes, and without ceremony or hesitation, delivered a sweet, but fiercely passionate, kiss square on his lips.
For a single, suspended heartbeat, Noctar froze. Not in rejection, but in sheer, blissful shock. The world, the pain, the wreckage, the snarling rival, all of it vanished into white noise. Then, his instincts, which were far more refined and potent than his brawling skills, roared to life. One arm, his good arm, wrapped firmly around her waist, pulling her flush against him, erasing the space between them.
The other hand came up to cup the back of her head, his fingers tangling in the silken strands of her silver hair as he gently but insistently deepened the kiss. It was not a gentle exploration; it was a claiming, a conversation, a definitive statement written in the language of shared breath and racing pulses. A soft, breathy moan escaped Ardyn's lips, vibration humming against his own, as her legs trembled slightly, her own hands coming up to clutch at the fabric of his jacket for support.
When they finally parted, both were breathless. Noctar's mind was not analyzing; it was a symphony of pure, undiluted, triumphant joy, a core dump of happiness so intense it threatened to crash his systems. Ardyn was left dazed, blissed out, the world having narrowed, crystallized, and then explosively expanded to contain only the scent, the feel, the reality of the man holding her.
Korvath stood frozen a few paces away, his face a thunderous mask of betrayed astonishment and impotent rage, all color draining to leave him pale beneath the blood.
Noctar, too euphoric, too complete to even bother looking at the Dragon Knight, simply raised his free hand vaguely in Korvath's direction. He didn't need violence. Not anymore. He had claimed the ultimate prize, and now he would demonstrate a more elegant, more fundamentally devastating solution.
He activated [Energy Assimilation].
No flashy light, no roaring vortex, just a sudden, profound silence as an invisible, gravitational pull opened around Korvath. The vibrant, fiery, prideful mana that fueled the Dragon Knight's legendary class, the wellspring of his strength, his draconic rage, his very life force, was violently siphoned away. It streamed across the space between them, an unseen river of power, pulled into the hungry, accepting void within Noctar.
Korvath's eyes widened in shock and terror. He felt his muscles weaken, his bones grow heavy, the fiery core of his being guttering like a candle in a hurricane. His knees buckled, and he collapsed to the ruined floor with a dull thud, gasping for air that felt thin and useless, rendered as weak and feeble as a newborn kitten.
Noctar didn't even glance his way. He was too busy looking down at the beautifully, perfectly flustered woman in his arms, her lips still kiss-swollen, her golden eyes wide with a stunned wonder that mirrored his own.