The halls of the palace were silent. The city still burned with the rhythm of drills and hammers, but the palace itself had fallen into a hush. The torches guttered against the stone, their smoke bending in drafts that smelled of iron and ash.
The chamber of queens waited. It was not the throne hall, not the lesser hall — but a room lined with dark banners, a single long table cleared of maps and ledgers. The chairs had been pushed back. The space was bare.
Noctis entered alone.
The queens were already waiting: Lyxandra, Seraphyne, Veyra, Selandra. Behind them stood Vaelora and Nyxira, bound into his dominion and now folded into Twilight's order. The concubines — Tina, Clara, Iris — knelt to the side, their eyes lowered.
They all rose when he entered.
Lyxandra spoke first. Her tone was not soft, but it held a rare steadiness."The empire is prepared. The regents will hold it. But the march will take you into Kaeltharion's lands. You may not return quickly."
Noctis did not stop walking. He crossed the room, stood before them, and said simply:"I will return. If Choirs strike, I will answer. If Demons move, I will cut them. Kaeltharion will be broken first."
Seraphyne's silver eyes caught the torchlight. "Even broken, he has hundreds of years of networks. His clans will not collapse easily. You will be striking at the bones of an elder line."
Noctis's gaze did not shift. "That is why I march first. His bones will be ground down, his treasury seized, his legacy erased. When he is gone, Maltherion's remnants will follow."
The room absorbed the certainty. Even the concubines lifted their heads slightly, breathing faster at the weight of the words.
Selandra stepped closer. Her gauntlet rasped against her armor."You know what leaving means. The Legion will hold the walls, but you are the marrow of the empire. The city will feel your absence like a missing limb."
Veyra's voice was quieter, but her words were heavier. "The faith of the people is bound to your presence. They believed because they saw you on the plain. When you leave, belief will waver. I will hold it, but it will waver."
Noctis looked at them in silence. His aura pressed outward, low and steady, filling the chamber with a weight that cut off hesitation. Shadows bent along the banners. The queens trembled, not in fear, but in recognition of what they carried.
He moved closer. His hand brushed across Selandra's armored shoulder, across Lyxandra's sleeve, across Veyra's beads. He said only one thing:"You will hold it because you must."
The concubines rose from their knees. Tina's hands trembled as she touched his cloak, but her eyes did not look away. Clara's voice broke, but she forced it steady."You are leaving us behind, but we will remain loyal. We belong to you. We will not falter."
Iris bent lower, her hair brushing the stone. "Even if the city burns, we will still wait."
Vaelora, regal even in submission, stepped forward last. Her crimson eyes burned."You claimed me in blood. I was Kaeltharion's queen once. Now I kneel here, bound by your will. His kin will fall, and I will see it done through you. I do not resist."
Nyxira, draped in silks that shimmered faintly with abyssal runes, laughed softly — but it was not mockery. It was the sound of someone who had already chosen."I followed Maltherion once. He is dead, and his legacy rots. You stand where he never could. I will follow you now."
The words pressed into the air like links of chain.
Noctis said nothing for a long time. The room waited. His aura thickened until the torches bent and guttered out. Darkness swallowed the chamber. Only his eyes glowed crimson-gold in the void.
He spoke then, low and final."Hold the empire. When I return, I will not accept weakness. When I march, you will not falter. I leave you my law. You will carry it."
The queens lowered their heads. The concubines trembled. Vaelora and Nyxira knelt together, their loyalty sealed in silence.
When the torches flared back to life, his aura had already receded. But the weight remained in the marrow of every woman in the room.
Noctis turned, cloak trailing against stone. The door opened with a low groan. He stepped into the hall and left them in silence.
The queens and concubines remained bowed, each one trembling with the echo of his presence. They did not rise until long after he was gone.
Months passed like hours in the marrow of the Grid.The Twilight Empire drilled until its streets pulsed with discipline. The regents bound themselves to their burdens. The Cathedral held faith through Veyra's hands. Lyxandra kept the treasury flowing. Seraphyne drilled the border legions without pause. Selandra cut down unrest before it could breathe.
Noctis did not linger in the city. He gave them law, left them strength, and turned west.
The march across sea and plain consumed the weeks. Grain was shifted through ports, iron forged into fleet, dominion tests refined into doctrine. The Night Legion expanded its rhythm until even the newest recruits moved with marrow-tempo.
Then the sails fell behind. Then the harbors shrank into horizon.
The Northwestern continent rose from storm seas like a black knife.
Noctis traveled without spectacle. He left his armies veiled in shadow miles behind. He crossed storm cliffs alone, cloak tight, steps carrying him over basalt ridges slick with salt.
The palace of Kaeltharion's line loomed above the coast. Towers of bone-white stone and obsidian fused into spires that bent into the clouds. Banners, crimson and black, sagged against the salt wind.
Noctis did not slow. He walked through gates that stood open, the guards frozen mid-breath as his aura pressed over them. He did not need to raise a hand. Their marrow stilled, and they dropped their weapons as if forgetting they had ever held them.
The corridors echoed. Stone floors clacked under his steps. Torches guttered out as he passed. Shadows followed.
The first elders appeared in the great hall. Six of them, pale and sharp, their eyes burning with fury. Behind them, younger kin drew weapons, iron and marrow-blades lifted with shaking hands.
One of the elders spat. "Noctis. You dare desecrate this hall? You abandoned your kin for humans and traitors. You return now only to butcher your own?"
Noctis stopped at the edge of the dais. His cloak hung loose around him. His voice was cold, level."Kaeltharion betrayed me first. This is balance."
The elders hissed. One raised his hands, abyssal fire coiling in his palms. Another bent his marrow into illusions — shadow images that layered themselves through the chamber, half a dozen false Noctises stepping from the walls.
The younger kin shouted and charged.
Noctis moved without Apex. No wings. No halo. Only his body and the blood running in it.
The first elder's abyssal flame burst across the hall. Noctis stepped once. The fire folded away, dissipating like smoke against his presence. His fist drove through the elder's chest, marrow cracking like iron. The elder fell before he could scream.
Illusions surged from every angle. Noctis let them come. His aura pressed outward, and the false bodies wavered, unraveling into smoke. He found the marrow-thread of the caster and pulled it taut. The elder's head snapped back, blood spraying as the illusion web collapsed.
Guards tried to hold ranks. One swung a marrow-forged spear. Noctis caught it, snapped the shaft, and drove the broken half through the guard's throat. Another stumbled back, eyes wide, before a spectral double struck him down from behind.
He moved step by step. Each step brought a corpse. Each strike dismantled an elder. Their dominions cracked, their marrow bled, their bodies hit stone with sickening thuds.
The hall filled with sound: bone breaking, banners tearing, blades shrieking against the floor.
By the time Noctis reached the dais, the floor was a litter of corpses. Elders sprawled across shattered banners. Guards groaned against walls, their weapons broken beside them.
He stopped, cloak brushing the blood-slick stone. He did not speak. His aura pressed outward in silence, and the survivors staggered back until their backs hit the walls.
One whispered, shaking: "Monster…" Another dropped his sword entirely, eyes wide with terror.
The torches snuffed out. Only the glow of Noctis's eyes lit the hall.
The palace had been breached. Kaeltharion's legacy had begun to bleed.
Months bled into drills and ledgers. The regents bore their burdens, the Cathedral held its wards, the treasury shifted iron into fleets and grain into soldiers. The Night Legion hardened into marrow rhythm, ready to bleed without hesitation.
Noctis left them law and strength. Then he crossed the sea.
Storms broke under the hulls. Leviathans strained at their chains. When the fleets dispersed into shadow veils, Noctis stood on the cliffs of the Northwestern continent, the salt wind pressing his cloak tight.
Kaeltharion's domain rose before him — a palace carved of bone-white stone fused with obsidian, towers jagged against the clouded sky. Black and crimson banners hung heavy with salt.
The gates did not resist. Guards froze as marrow clamped inside them. Spears clattered against stone, and their throats convulsed in silence. Noctis walked through, steps echoing as torches guttered and went out.
The great hall stretched wide. Six elders waited on the dais, robed, faces composed into masks of welcome. Guards and lesser kin lined the walls.
One elder stepped forward with a thin smile."So it is true. Noctis returns at last. We thought you lost, but blood endures. Kaeltharion will rejoice to see his brother walk these halls again."
Another raised his arms in hollow warmth."The clans will rejoice. You belong here. Stand with us as kin."
Murmurs stirred through the lesser kin. Some whispered, others knelt, their eyes darting between the elders and the figure at the threshold.
Noctis stopped at the edge of the dais. His cloak hung loose, his eyes steady."Do not dress treachery in welcome. You know where I was. You know who chained me to the altars. You know who sold my marrow to the Church."
The torches bent inward, flames snapping sideways under his aura.
"It was Kaeltharion who betrayed me. And you stood with him. I did not return to join you. I came to erase you — your clans, your legacies, and your treasuries."
The lesser kin gasped. Their whispers broke into panic. The elders' masks strained to hold, but their eyes betrayed them.
One spat. "So be it."
The first elder thrust both hands forward, abyssal fire roaring into a pyre that swept the length of the hall. Heat blistered stone; banners curled.
Noctis stepped once. The pyre smashed against emptiness. He reappeared inside the elder's guard, Bloodfang Reaper in sword form drawn. One stroke cut across the chest, and orbitals followed — one through the throat, one through the hip.
The body parted before a scream could form. Blood sheeted across the dais. Behind him, a pillar hissed where fire had licked obsidian, molten cracks glowing.
The second elder slashed his own palm, casting six shadows forward. Blades of smoke rushed from every angle. Noctis's Omen Eyes lit the marrow thread anchoring them. He advanced unfazed, illusions brushing through him. Abyssal Chains lashed out, binding the caster's ribs and dragging him forward.
The Reaper shifted into scythe form. The blade hewed from shoulder to hip. Orbitals widened into crescents and finished the cuts — one severed the remaining shoulder, the other both legs. Illusions collapsed in a rush of smoke. Flesh and bone hit stone in wet fragments.
The third elder stamped, forcing marrow-forged weapons to erupt from the tiles. Spears and hooks rattled upward like a forest of blades.
Noctis extended his hand. Sovereign Arsenal answered. Blood Telekinesis seized the weapons, reversed them, and screamed them back toward their maker. Guards screamed as shards tore through their armor.
He advanced with the Reaper in guan dao spear form. One thrust pinned the elder to a pillar through the stomach. Orbitals became twin swords, intercepting bone lances and shearing them into splinters. He twisted the guan dao upward, splitting the body from gut to collarbone. The pillar fractured; dust cascaded.
Two elders rose together, voices grinding marrow into static. A storm of calcified needles filled the air.
Noctis muted his steps with Phantom Dominion. His aura pulsed with Choir Drown, snapping their voices into silence. Needles shredded air as he raised Sovereign Bulwark. They struck, and half rebounded as a pulse that broke ribs among the guards.
He moved under the fading storm. One palm strike of Marrow Rend caved an elder's chest, snapping the spine. The body folded as though its skeleton had dissolved. The second fell to a clean sword slash, orbitals shearing knees before the throat was opened.
The last elder did not hesitate. He hurled a blood curse, dense and black.
The curse struck Bulwark. Noctis twisted the return into a shockwave that flung nearby guards into columns. He walked through the mist. The Reaper snapped to scythe form, hooking the elder's ankle and ripping the foot free. Before a cry formed, he swung backhand, cleaving through collar and lung. Orbitals cut the rest. Blood sprayed in arcs, coating the dais.
Silence broke only with drip and sob. Limbs lay scattered — a hand flexing, a severed leg twitching, a forearm tapping reflex against tile. Banners sagged, soaked in blood.
A young guard stumbled back, his voice cracking."No… I don't want to die."
Another dropped his blade, boots sliding in blood as he bolted for the doors.
Noctis did not move. Cloak dripping, he stood at the dais, eyes burning crimson-gold. Orbitals rotated down and sank into stillness. The torches guttered and died, leaving the hall lit only by his gaze.
The lesser kin whispered in terror. The truth of betrayal bled across the stones with the bodies of their elders.
Kaeltharion's palace was breached. His spine was cut.
The hall stank of blood. Stone tiles swam under the weight of it, banners hung in tatters, and the broken pillars groaned like ribs under strain. The elders were gone. Only corpses and scattered limbs testified that they had ever stood.
Lesser kin pressed against the walls, eyes wide, whispers cracking like glass in their throats. Some wept. Others begged silently, their hands trembling.
Noctis stood at the dais. His cloak dripped. His orbitals had gone still, but his aura pressed across the chamber, heavy as a tomb.
The silence was broken by stone shifting under stone. A vibration ran through the hall, low and resonant, like marrow itself groaning awake.
From the far wall, surviving loyalists knelt in blood circles, their arms cut to bone, marrow leaking into carved runes. They chanted names older than their own, binding sacrifice into the palace itself.
The floor trembled. Tiles cracked. Blood poured into the seams, feeding lines that stretched across the hall like veins.
The lesser kin screamed and backed away as shapes pulled free of the stone. Not demons. Not vampires. Something older — marrow-forged titans, wrought of fused bone, bound sinew, and vampiric blood.
They rose slow, each taller than the pillars, their frames groaning with weight. Runes burned across their chests, faces carved into blank helms with teeth made of splintered femurs. Their claws dragged sparks as they scraped against the floor.
Three of them stood, filling the hall. The air grew heavy with marrow pressure.
The nearest titan swung a claw the size of a cart, sweeping the dais. Stone shattered where it struck, leaving a furrow that spat shards into the air.
Noctis stepped into the strike. Dominion Step bent shadow around him; the claw passed through emptiness, ripping banners into dust. He surfaced along the titan's arm, the Bloodfang Reaper in guan dao form braced forward.
One thrust drove through the forearm, orbitals following — sword and scythe cutting deep into tendon and bone. The limb split open, marrow hissing like steam. The titan roared without a mouth, the sound vibrating the walls until mortar cracked.
Noctis yanked the guan dao free and ripped downward, opening the arm in two halves that slammed to the floor with bone-shaking weight.
Another titan charged, its steps hammering the stone until the floor split. It brought both fists down in a crushing arc.
Noctis raised Sovereign Bulwark. The fists crashed into crimson radiance; the shock carried through, but half the impact bent outward, slamming into the walls. Stone ribs burst, and a row of guards were pulped against the masonry.
Before the titan could pull back, Noctis slid under the falling arms. Marrow Rend exploded through his palm, striking at the center of the chest rune. Bone caved inward. The Reaper shifted to scythe, orbitals whirling into crescents.
He swung wide, tearing through ribs, then reversed the blade and hooked upward. The titan's torso split along the seam. Its upper body slid sideways and crashed into the floor, crushing four shrieking loyalists beneath its weight.
The last titan loomed larger than the rest, runes burning brighter. Its claws extended into lances of bone, and it thrust forward, driving through air with shrieks of marrow grinding.
Noctis invoked Phantom Dominion, vanishing into silence. The lances tore through where he had stood, smashing columns into dust. He surfaced above the titan's shoulder, Orbiting Arsenal flaring into full crucible — orbitals multiplied, their edges a storm of blades.
Bloodfang Reaper in sword form cut down the spine. Orbitals carved shoulder, elbow, hip, knee. Each line severed a joint, each cut spilling blood that hissed into vapor against the heat of the hall.
The titan turned, stumbling, pieces of itself hanging by threads of sinew. Noctis finished it with one clean diagonal, the guan dao form driving from clavicle to hip. The body collapsed in slabs, shaking the hall to its foundation.
The chanting stopped. The loyalists who had summoned the titans lay dead, their marrow drained by the rite. The hall was ruin — pillars cracked, floor shattered, banners drenched in gore.
Lesser kin huddled against walls, sobbing, whispering. One wailed, "No more… please… no more…" before collapsing to his knees.
Noctis stood among the corpses, cloak heavy with blood, his eyes burning crimson-gold. Orbiting Arsenal folded back into the lattice. Silence fell again, broken only by the drip of blood and the groan of fractured stone.
From the shadows at the far end of the hall, a door creaked open. A woman stepped through — regal in bearing, but trembling. Her hair was dark, her gown torn at the edges, her eyes wide with horror at the carnage.
She looked at Noctis, her lips forming his name in a whisper that cracked."…Noctis?"
The queen had arrived.