Aurelion remained trapped against Noctis with his head forced to the side, the divine god's back pressed firmly against Nocthyrael while golden blood continued to run from the punctures in his neck. Both arms were gone, the surviving wing hung almost uselessly from its damaged root, and the direct divine propulsion that had once allowed him to correct his position instantly now came in short, uneven surges that barely moved their combined bodies. Noctis kept one arm locked across Aurelion's upper torso and the other hand against the side of his head, denying him enough movement to turn the neck away or close the wound around the fangs buried beneath his jaw. The Bloodfang storm continued crossing the battlefield around them, but the bite was no longer the only way Noctis was feeding.
Devour reached through every open wound Aurelion still possessed and began drawing blood toward Noctis from across the entire body. Golden streams lifted from the severed shoulders, the cuts along the ribs and back, the damaged wing-root, and the punctures left by the Bloodfang Reapers, their paths bending through the air before disappearing into Noctis or joining the heavier flow through the neck. The extraction no longer depended upon Aurelion's natural circulation, because Devour actively pulled from the blood and divine essence still trapped inside damaged tissues and pathways. Genesis Vessel accepted the growing influx without resistance while Blood Memory continued opening deeper layers of Aurelion's experience and internal structure.
Aurelion jerked hard enough to drag both of them several feet through the air and forced divine propulsion through the torso in an attempt to throw Noctis away. Genesis Step corrected the displacement almost immediately and returned Noctis to the same position behind him before Aurelion could twist, while a second burst carried even less force because Devour had already begun stripping the essence that sustained the movement. "Get off me," Aurelion growled, forcing another surge through the chest despite the blood continuing to leave him. Noctis tightened the arm around his torso and kept drinking without answering.
Across the battlefield, Malgoryth saw the widening streams of gold and attacked through the clone before Aurelion weakened further. Ghorvath tore through the duplicate's spear and split most of the blood-forged torso apart, but the broken body collapsed around the axe in liquid form rather than falling away, allowing Sovereign Chains to rise from the same blood and wrap around the haft and wounded forearm. The Bloodfang storm closed around the demon god at the same time, dozens of blades striking the rift reinforcement around his ribs, legs, and remaining arm while he tore the bindings apart. By the time he opened another rift toward Aurelion, the clone was already rebuilding behind him and driving a newly formed weapon into one of the anchors supporting the route.
"Aurelion!" Malgoryth shouted as the displacement twisted out of alignment. "Break free with whatever you have!"
The call reached Aurelion even through the blood loss. His body tightened suddenly in Noctis's arms, and the remaining holy power flowing through his damaged form abandoned the weakened limbs and concentrated through the torso, spine, and neck. Noctis felt the change through Blood Memory and through the physical contact between them, recognizing that Aurelion had stopped trying to use his power for movement and was gathering it around the places where their bodies touched. He did not remove his fangs or change his grip as the concentration intensified.
Holy purifying fire erupted directly from Aurelion's body.
The golden-white flames burst from his chest, back, shoulders, and neck, swallowing both gods and spreading through the surrounding Bloodfang storm with enough force to tear apart the closest constructs. Several Reapers burned before their blades could complete their next passes, their blood scattering outward in incandescent droplets while others were forced away by the expanding purification. The fire rolled over Noctis's face and hands, filled every gap between his body and Aurelion's, and poured across the places where his mouth and fingers touched exposed divine flesh. Aurelion drove more power into it until the flames became dense enough to obscure both bodies from the larger battlefield.
"Burn!" Aurelion shouted.
Noctis continued drinking.
The purifying fire reached his body and found nothing it could cleanse. Hostile sanctity pressed against his ascended Genesis resistance and failed at the boundary, unable to burn the flesh beneath it, penetrate Genesis Vessel, corrupt the blood circulating through him, damage his soul, or force his vampiric nature into retreat. The flames remained devastating to nearby blood constructs because those external creations did not possess the same complete resistance as Noctis himself, but the purification wrapped directly around him without leaving so much as a scorch.
Aurelion felt that failure through the body pressed against his own. The arm across his chest had not weakened, the hand controlling his head had not shifted, and the fangs in his neck had never left the wound even while the purifying fire was at its strongest. He forced another surge through the flames and made them flare high enough to consume more Bloodfang Reapers around them, but the increased expenditure only gave Devour more divine essence to pull from a body already struggling to maintain circulation. The fire brightened while Aurelion weakened beneath it.
His next words emerged with far less certainty than the first. "Why aren't you burning?"
Noctis lifted his mouth just enough for the answer to carry against the side of Aurelion's neck, golden blood wetting his fangs and lips while Devour continued drawing through the open wounds. "It doesn't work anymore."
He bit down again before Aurelion could respond.
The purifying fire began losing strength at the edges first, where the divine pathways through Aurelion's severed shoulders and injured wing could no longer maintain the flow. Flames that had filled the surrounding air contracted toward the torso, leaving only weaker tongues of golden-white fire crawling along the neck and back while the Bloodfang storm rebuilt beyond them. Devour kept pulling during the collapse, and the more Aurelion tried to sustain the purification, the faster the remaining essence was stripped away through the same internal structures feeding it. Within moments, the desperate inferno had become a diminishing shell around a body that no longer possessed enough blood or power to keep it burning.
Malgoryth had stopped trying to reach Noctis through a single direct route and began opening several rifts in rapid succession, shifting the intended exit every time the clone or the Bloodfang storm attacked an anchor. The clone did not pursue the demon god's body blindly; it struck the structures supporting each displacement, forcing him to spend additional rift power protecting the same network that stabilized Ghorvath and his wounded wrist. When Malgoryth destroyed the clone's weapon, another formed before he completed the next shift, and every moment spent fighting the duplicate allowed more Bloodfang Reapers to fill the possible exit regions. His movement remained violent and technically precise, but the purpose behind it had changed from attacking Noctis to reaching Aurelion before the feeding could continue much longer.
By the time Malgoryth finally forced a stable exit several dozen meters away, the effects of the draining had become visible even from across the storm. Aurelion's cheeks had begun to hollow as the tissue beneath them lost volume, while the muscles along his neck had thinned enough that Noctis's fingers seemed larger against the side of his head. The chest trapped beneath Noctis's restraining arm no longer filled the damaged armor properly, and the surviving wing hung lower because the tissues supporting its root were being emptied along with the rest of the body. Golden light still moved beneath Aurelion's skin, but it had withdrawn from the outer limbs and gathered closer to the center of the torso.
Malgoryth started toward them immediately, forcing Ghorvath through the first wave of Reapers that crossed his route. The axe shattered dozens of blades and rift pressure blasted another layer aside, yet the storm continued feeding new attack lines into the same space while the clone reformed behind him and struck the damaged forearm. Malgoryth turned far enough to stop that attack, and the brief redirection gave the Reapers time to refill the route he had just cleared. His attention kept returning to Aurelion each time he tried to regain forward movement, and with every glance the divine god looked thinner than before.
Aurelion attempted another burst of propulsion, but the power gathered in the chest no longer spread efficiently into the rest of the body. The first movement dragged Noctis only a few feet before Genesis Step corrected their position, while the second failed to create any meaningful separation at all. His neck shifted weakly against the hand holding it to the side, and the remaining wing opened only partway before the damaged root folded under its own weight. Noctis continued feeding at the same steady pace while Devour pulled from wounds whose bleeding had begun slowing only because less remained inside the body.
Aurelion's resistance became increasingly dependent upon raw divine essence rather than physical strength. He tried to reinforce the neck around the bite, but Devour was drawing the same power away from nearby wounds and forcing the reinforcement to compete with the failing circulation through the chest. When he concentrated enough sanctity to form another trace of purifying fire, only a few weak flames appeared around the neck and shoulder before touching Noctis and dying without effect. The effort cost him more than the attack accomplished, and the little strength that remained in his torso diminished further.
"No... my powers..." Aurelion managed, the realization coming only after another attempt to gather holy energy collapsed before it could spread through his body.
Noctis gave him no answer. His mouth remained against the wound while Devour continued stripping away the blood and divine essence Aurelion was trying to gather, turning the divine god's own attempts to resist into clearer evidence of how little remained. Another weak pulse gathered in Aurelion's chest and disappeared almost as quickly, leaving only the concentrated light deeper within the torso untouched by the broader drain.
Malgoryth broke through another portion of the storm and gained several meters before the clone intercepted him at close range. The duplicate caught Ghorvath with a blood-forged sword while a second weapon struck toward the wounded forearm, forcing Malgoryth to protect his grip instead of continuing toward Aurelion. He shattered one weapon, opened a rift behind the clone, and tried to pass around it, only for Sovereign Chains to catch the outer anchor while Bloodfang Reapers filled the exit from above and below. His anger had not disappeared, but desperation was beginning to shape the way he spent power, pushing more into movements that produced less progress each time.
Aurelion's face continued to sink inward while the battle beyond him went on. The cheeks narrowed further, the flesh around the eyes tightened, and the neck beneath Noctis's hand became thin enough that the structure of the jaw and throat showed clearly beneath the skin. His abdomen receded beneath the armor, leaving gaps between the dried body and plates that had once fitted closely, while the rib cage became increasingly visible under the remaining flesh. The surviving wing had lost nearly all of its tension, hanging from the damaged root like something abandoned by the body before death had fully arrived.
Noctis could feel the change from inside the feeding itself. Blood no longer came from the peripheral wounds in the same volume because Devour had already emptied much of the circulation from the outer tissues, forcing the remaining divine essence toward deeper structures around the chest. Blood Memory revealed the gradual contraction of Aurelion's internal pathways as they abandoned areas that could no longer be sustained and redirected what remained toward the center of his existence. Noctis did not interrupt the process because each withdrawal only made the next stage easier to identify.
Aurelion tried once more to pull his head away. The movement was little more than a weak turn against Noctis's palm, and even that stopped when the hand tightened enough to restore the exposed position. His lips parted, but only a strained breath escaped while another thin stream of golden blood ran around Noctis's fangs. The divine god's eyes shifted toward the distant battle as if searching for Malgoryth through the moving Reapers, though his body no longer possessed enough strength to meaningfully assist whatever rescue the demon god was still attempting.
Malgoryth saw the body sag more heavily into Noctis's hold and abandoned another attempt to outmaneuver the clone. He drove Ghorvath directly through the duplicate and shattered most of its torso, then used the spatial recoil from a collapsing rift to blast the blood apart before it could reform around the weapon. For several seconds he had a clear direction toward Aurelion, and he forced himself through the Bloodfang storm with enough rift pressure to scatter a wide section of blades rather than individually blocking them. The expenditure left the brace around his wounded wrist thinner, but he accepted the risk in exchange for reaching the edge of the space around Noctis.
He finally saw Aurelion clearly.
The divine god no longer resembled the towering presence who had entered the earlier battle in Titan Form or even the compact warrior who had continued fighting after shrinking to human size. His skin had drawn tightly across the bones of his face, the chest and abdomen had become narrow enough that broken armor hung around them, and the surviving wing was now a shriveled extension that barely moved behind him. The only part of the body that still held a concentrated divine radiance was the center of the chest, where golden-white light pulsed more strongly as the rest of Aurelion faded.
Malgoryth's forward movement slowed despite the opening he had created. "Aurelion!"
Aurelion's eyes shifted weakly in the direction of the voice, but the head remained held against Noctis's hand and the body lacked enough strength to answer. The brief movement of his gaze was the only acknowledgment he could manage before Noctis drew another surge through Devour and the light in his eyes dimmed further. Malgoryth started moving again immediately, but the pause had been enough for the Bloodfang storm to close around him from the sides.
Ghorvath swept through the incoming blades while the clone reformed behind the demon god from blood scattered across the previous exchange. A spear entered toward the brace around his forearm, forcing Malgoryth to turn and block before the weapon could reach the damaged wrist. Several Reapers cut the ribs and thigh during the same movement, and another struck the rift reinforcement around the hand hard enough to make the fingers shift along the haft. He restored the grip, but the position he had gained toward Aurelion disappeared as the clone and storm pressed him away again.
"Let him go!" Malgoryth roared.
Noctis did not answer because his fangs were still buried in Aurelion's neck. The response came through Devour instead, the pull deepening through the remaining vessels around the torso while Aurelion's body sagged harder against the arm holding him. Malgoryth saw the divine god weaken further even as he spoke and attacked the clone with enough force to break the spear in half, but another weapon began forming before the pieces had finished dissolving.
Noctis increased the force of Devour once the remaining blood had withdrawn toward Aurelion's torso. The deeper pull stripped what remained from vessels that had already begun collapsing and drew divine essence from the same pathways that had sustained the failed purifying fire. Aurelion's chest narrowed visibly against Noctis's arm as the remaining tissue lost volume, while the skin over the sternum tightened until the ribs and bone structure beneath it became pronounced. His breathing became shallow enough that each inhale moved only the upper chest, and even those movements grew farther apart.
The remaining holy light inside the body reacted differently from the blood. Instead of continuing outward through the failing circulation, it drew inward toward a point behind the sternum, concentrating more sharply each time Devour emptied another surrounding pathway. Noctis felt the distinction through Blood Memory before it became obvious from outside, recognizing that something denser than ordinary divine essence was preserving itself while the physical body collapsed. He continued drawing from the blood and surrounding power without trying to seize that central concentration prematurely.
Aurelion's face had become little more than skin stretched across bone by the time the flow from the neck slowed to a thin trickle. Noctis kept his fangs in place long enough to draw the last blood still moving through the region, while Devour continued pulling faint streams from the severed shoulders and torso. The surviving wing stopped moving altogether, and the divine propulsion that had once flickered around the body disappeared completely. Aurelion remained upright only because Noctis was still holding him.
Malgoryth attacked the clone with enough force to tear through both weapons and most of the blood-forged body, but the motion nearly cost him Ghorvath when a cluster of Reapers struck the weakened brace around his wrist. He forced more rift support into the arm and pulled the axe back before it could slip, then opened another route toward Aurelion while the clone was still reforming. The exit began stabilizing near Noctis, but the surrounding Bloodfang storm attacked the anchor before Malgoryth could complete the displacement, forcing him to spread reinforcement between the route and the damaged weapon arm.
He chose the rift, allowing the brace to thin just enough for one Reaper to cut deeply into the wounded forearm. Malgoryth recoiled before the blade could pass farther through the arm, and the movement disrupted the route badly enough that the rift collapsed before he could enter it. He restored the brace with a snarl and immediately started another displacement, refusing to stop even though each attempt was taking more power from the same damaged arm.
Noctis finally lifted his mouth from Aurelion's neck when there was almost nothing left to draw through the bite. Golden blood stained his fangs and lips, while the punctures beneath Aurelion's jaw released only a few slow drops before Devour pulled those away as well. He kept one arm around the dried torso and watched the concentrated radiance beneath the sternum, where the remaining divine presence had withdrawn into an increasingly compact point. Blood Memory confirmed that the rest of the body had become little more than abandoned material around it.
Aurelion's eyes remained open, but the awareness behind them had become faint and distant. His mouth moved once without producing anything more than a dry breath, and the muscles of the neck failed to support even the attempt to lift his head when Noctis loosened his grip slightly. Noctis offered no final taunt and did not need one. The withered body in his arm had already answered Aurelion's earlier certainty that godhood placed him beyond death.
The concentration behind Aurelion's sternum suddenly contracted hard enough for Noctis to feel the change through the remaining body. He released the husk before the divine structure completed whatever transition it had begun, allowing the dried corpse to start falling as golden-white radiance illuminated the inside of the hollowed chest. The light broke outward through the desiccated flesh and became a compact sphere of holy energy, which immediately accelerated away from the corpse without any attempt to preserve what remained of the physical body.
"Aurelion!" Malgoryth shouted when he saw the sphere leave the falling husk.
The god-core crossed dozens of meters almost immediately, its surface burning with dense divine radiance while layered structures rotated around a brilliant center. Noctis followed its direction with his eyes rather than pursuing physically, and Abyssal Binding Chains erupted across its path before it could reach the edge of the Bloodfang storm. One chain wrapped beneath the sphere and dragged its trajectory upward, another crossed over the top before the core could correct, and a third wound through both restraints as the sphere reversed direction.
The captured core reacted with more force than Aurelion's drained body had possessed in its final moments. Holy light expanded through the first bindings and stretched them outward as the sphere accelerated sideways, dragging the chains with it while seeking an opening. Noctis added additional Abyssal Binding Chains from several directions before the first layer could fail, overlapping the restraints around the core so that each escape attempt had to pull against several bindings at once. The sphere twisted back the opposite way and gained only a few meters before the chains tightened around the new line.
Malgoryth had started forward when the god-core first escaped, but his advance slowed as the abyssal restraints accumulated. He knocked the clone's weapon away without taking his eyes from the trapped sphere and watched another group of chains close around Aurelion's core as it struggled to turn. The brief relief that had crossed his face when the orb first escaped disappeared completely.
"No... no, no!"
The core expanded sharply, forcing holy power through the gaps between the Abyssal Binding Chains and stretching several restraints under the pressure. Noctis responded by wrapping Sovereign Chains around the outer layer, locking the existing bindings together before the sphere could convert the expansion into enough room to slip free. Blood-forged bands followed from the surrounding storm, crossing over the largest openings and anchoring the prison to several points in the controlled blood around it.
Malgoryth drove toward the core rather than Noctis, but the clone moved into his path with Ghorvath already forced into another defensive line by the surrounding Reapers. He shattered the clone's first weapon and tried to open a rift past it, only for the Bloodfang storm to fill the developing exit before the route could stabilize. His movements became rougher as he saw the god-core compress itself inside the restraints and attempt to force its way through one of the narrowing gaps.
"Release him!" Malgoryth shouted.
Noctis did not answer. His attention remained on the bindings as he added another layer around the compressed sphere, allowing the Abyssal Chains to tighten with the core rather than leaving enough slack for it to escape. When the sphere expanded again, Sovereign Chains caught the movement from outside and redistributed the force through the larger prison while blood-forged bands filled the spaces between them.
The god-core tried to escape upward and managed to drag the entire structure several feet before Noctis reinforced the lower restraints and pulled it back toward the center. It shifted sideways next, then compressed again, each attempt producing a corresponding adjustment in the layers surrounding it. The prison steadily became denser until the sphere could no longer change direction without immediately transferring the movement into several different chains.
Malgoryth continued striking at the clone and storm in an effort to reach the imprisoned core, but every attack took time the bindings used to become stronger. Ghorvath destroyed several Reapers and broke through a blood-forged spear, only for Sovereign Chains to wrap the axe haft during the recovery and force Malgoryth to tear free before he could advance. By the time he cleared the weapon, another set of Abyssal Binding Chains had crossed over the god-core and closed one of the last large gaps.
The trapped sphere released a violent burst of holy power that burned through several blood-forged bands and drove nearby Reapers away, but the deeper Abyssal Binding Chains remained intact. Noctis replaced the destroyed bands almost immediately and added further sovereign restraints around the damaged region, preventing the core from exploiting the temporary weakness. The sphere surged toward that opening anyway and stopped after only a few feet when the reinforced chains tightened around it.
"No!" Malgoryth shouted again as he saw the core dragged back.
Noctis continued adding restraints until there was no useful direction left for it to move. Abyssal chains crossed horizontally, vertically, and diagonally over the divine sphere, Sovereign Chains bound those layers together, and blood-forged bands filled the spaces between them so that compression offered no easier escape than expansion. Holy light continued bleeding through the restraints, but each attempt to accelerate transferred its force into the entire prison rather than into a single chain.
The god-core made one final violent effort to break free by compressing its radiance inward and then erupting against every layer at once. The entire binding structure expanded several feet under the pressure, chains stretching and blood-forged anchors pulling taut while golden-white fire filled the gaps between them. Noctis raised his hand and reinforced the abyssal layer while the outer Sovereign Chains tightened, forcing the expanding prison back inward before any single section could break.
The sphere shuddered within the restraints as the pressure collapsed around it. Its next attempt to move produced only a short vibration against the chains, and the one after that failed to alter its position at all. Noctis maintained the binding until the core could do little more than pulse and shine through the gaps, then allowed the surrounding structures to hold without his constant adjustment.
Malgoryth stared at the immobilized god-core while the clone remained between them. The anger that had driven him through the earlier battle was still visible, but the certainty behind it had broken when Aurelion's surviving divine existence failed to escape. He backed away from the clone's next attack instead of pushing through it, blocked the blood-forged sword with Ghorvath, and opened a rift behind himself while the Bloodfang storm continued attacking his wounded arm and torso.
The first route pointed away from the battlefield rather than toward Aurelion.
The clone struck one of its anchors before Malgoryth could enter, and several Bloodfang Reapers crowded the exit until he abandoned the structure and opened another farther behind him. Ghorvath cleared enough space for the second attempt to begin forming, but the injured wrist shook inside its reinforcement as Malgoryth divided his power between stabilizing the axe and holding the rift together. His attention repeatedly shifted past Noctis toward the bound sphere as if expecting Aurelion to find some final way out.
Noctis turned away from the imprisoned core and toward him.
Malgoryth saw the movement and increased the power feeding the rift.
The clone attacked the anchor again.
Malgoryth destroyed its weapon, shifted the route, and opened another exit farther away, but the Bloodfang storm was already moving across that region. He abandoned the second path before it could trap him, formed a third, and used rift pressure to clear several Reapers from the opening. Noctis began crossing the battlefield while the clone continued forcing Malgoryth to divide his attention.
Malgoryth looked toward the approaching vampire, then past him at Aurelion's god-core trapped inside the dark chains. His expression hardened as the distance between them continued shrinking, and he opened another rift without attempting to attack. When Noctis changed direction with Genesis Step and appeared closer than expected, the demon god finally spoke directly to him.
"Stay away from me."
Noctis had finished feeding long before and could answer without interrupting anything. His eyes remained on Malgoryth as the Bloodfang storm closed around the latest rift.
"You started this."
Malgoryth's jaw tightened, and for a moment the fear in his movement gave way to anger again. He brought Ghorvath around toward Noctis rather than completing the retreat, forcing rift reinforcement into the damaged wrist while the clone approached from the opposite side. Bloodfang Reapers filled the space around all three of them, their blades crossing the remaining routes of escape as Noctis continued forward.