Night came down clean as a blade.
From the hollow inside Serana's chamber wall, Noctis opened his eyes to the hush beneath the barracks' routines: the tired scraping of boots, the careful quiet of men who'd learned not to speak too loudly about disappearances. He listened—once, briefly—for the lieutenant's measured tread. Nothing. She hadn't returned. The healers still kept her.
Good. The day was theirs. The night, again, was his.
He slipped from stone to shadow and out into the chill air. The barracks' inner court flared with torchlight; ropes still linked some patrol pairs together, the superstition made policy. He flowed along the corridor's seam, through the gate's darkness, and bled into the city's outer streets without a ripple. Beyond the last watch-fire, the world widened and dimmed—fields silvered by moon, a scatter of thatched roofs far apart, the line of the wood like a black lung drawn full.
He went to ground where the land dipped, where the wind came thin and clean off the trees. The wild met him with a banded stare.
Wolves again. Not a large pack—two rangy shapes and a smaller shadow slinking behind. They froze when he appeared, their shoulders lifting, heads low, teeth bared. He raised an open hand, palm to them, and felt the night dip toward his fingers. The nearest took a warning step; the youngest bolted; the boldest lunged.
He moved once. The forest breathed out. There was no struggle, only the brief, sharp startle of heat and heartbeat and fur, then the quiet closing of a circle. Nothing to find. Nothing to bury.
When he passed back through the underbrush, the leaves barely remembered him.
He stopped in a stand of ash and beech where moonlight fell like poured milk. For a long moment he simply stood and let his senses arrange the world: the distant tick of beetles, sap moving slow in bark, a hare freezing and then unfreezing under bracken thirty paces off. The new wildness in him—thin but bright—caught scent and motion at once. A gift with claws.
"Enough," he said softly, and raised his hand.
The Blood Grid unfurled.
As always, the great branches lit first—the hard red strokes of Blood Arts; the pale, serrated arc of Faithbreaker; the fresh, hooked line of Beastkin. Between those destinies, smaller stars kindled: the attribute stones he had ignored for so long. He'd only ever chased the runes that promised techniques—the lights that moved and cut, that named their appetites. But the small ones had been there all along, patient as seeds.
He traced them with a finger in the air. Power followed, eager to be convinced.
A green spark lay between Blood Arts and the clawed filaments of Beastkin, its light flecked like leaf-shine. He touched it, and it resolved into a single character, spare and swift.
[Agility Node — Minor III]
Unlocks +10 Agility.
The Grid did not ask; it allowed. He pushed essence into the stone and felt it open under his hand like a sluice. The flood struck ankle, knee, hip—tendons banded, muscles strung tighter along bone. The night slowed by a fraction, just enough for the world's edges to seem crisp and placeable. He shifted weight and, without thought, caught himself between two uneven roots as if he'd known they were there all his life.
He smiled into the trees. "Again."
Iron-grey pulsed near a confluence of paths—between a faith-marked spur and a blood-red trunk, where endurance had always hidden its plain face.
[Endurance Node — Minor III]
Unlocks +10 Endurance.
He fed that one too. The change came like heat under cold river water, spreading deep and even. Breath gathered more cleanly; a subtle ache he hadn't named (the old cell, its stone, its iron) loosened from the ribs as if unhooked. The earth felt steadier below him, his stillness truer. Let them hack. Let them drive him into walls. He would hold.
He let the lattice drift, not closing it entirely. Its light made a thin crimson weather inside the leaves.
There—violet, almost invisible until one knew how to look. It burned quietly near the serrations of Faithbreaker, set like a wardstone where the tree bent toward resistance.
[Will Node — Minor II]
Unlocks +10 Will.
He pressed that door. The warmth that answered was not muscle or bone but a tightening of the mind's grip, a clean hardening of where Noctis ended and pressure began. Words would slide less easily. Light would bite duller. What had once silenced him would now have to shout.
He breathed out, and the mist of it rose without tremor.
"Edges," he said. "Now the blade."
He turned the lattice so that the Faithbreaker's sword-script faced him: the four runes he'd read but not claimed. Their shapes held her in different ways—Serana's schooling in steel, picked up and altered. A severance rune for throats; a piercer for shield-gaps; a false moon; a cross that finished what it started.
He set his palm above the thrust.
[Skill Unlocked: Zealot-Piercer]
A precise lunge that glides past the meeting of shield and mail and finds the seam underneath. Taught to believers because it honors lines; perfected by unbelievers because it violates them.
The Grid murmured as it took his essence and returned motion. The cut wrote itself into him: a shift of heel, a hinging of hip, a softening of shoulder not to relax but to thread. He found himself forward without moving, the place one's point wants already drawn between two plates. It was a narrow grammar, almost delicate. Done badly, nothing. Done well, a gap that hadn't been there.
He let Gravesong come to hand. The blade turned, the weight set. He tried the thrust once, slowly—through air, in moonlight. It made a line most men would miss. He reversed, found it again, lighter. On the third pass he hardly felt the sword leave his palm; the space left the sword.
"Better," he said. "You taught them well, lieutenant."
A quiet passed. The Grid rested.
He closed it and simply stood inside his new body. The additions were small—ten here, ten there—but they nested, they chose each other well. Speed without wobble. Hardness without heaviness. A mind seated with more gravity behind the eyes. And now a single straight answer to shields.
He ran then—not far, not long, but with the unshowy joy of a thing that works. The clearing opened and shut; trunks blurred; the ground gave and took exactly enough. When he broke stride he did it on the width of a knife and sat down on nothing, the posture that isn't a posture, the one that waits without tiring because it knows it can move.
He could have hunted. The cottages were out there—their slow breaths told him so. But not every night needed a tally. Some nights a craftsman shapes his tools.
He turned back toward the walls.
The city, when it took him in, did not feel him. A patrol passed rope-bound across the street, a lantern jittering, a face turning too slowly. He flowed past the watch gate when the guard blinked. In the barracks he crossed under chatter about the lieutenant's surprising vigor, about healers and small miracles. The stone swallowed him in Serana's chamber with a sigh, and the dark went still.
Inside the hollow, he called the lattice once more—not to spend, only to look, the way a general reads a map after midnight because knowing where the rivers run is as useful as crossing them.
The minor spheres were everywhere now that he'd taught himself to see them: flickers tucked into hair-thin capillaries that linked one great decision to another, a nervous system under the Grid's skeleton. He followed a loop around Blood Arts and smiled at the line of red stones that would make hands faster yet. He skimmed the Beastkin branch and saw a pale node under its first claw that did not call to sinew or eye at all but to something older—balance, maybe, or the patience of trackers.
Later. It would keep.
He let the Grid fold shut.
Above him, dawn would come different: stronger steps, orders brighter, her voice edged again to cut. He could almost hear it rehearsing in the boards. Good. Tools honed on tools. He would have her for longer if she stood longer.
He eased back into stone and closed his eyes.
The barracks breathed. The city wheeled. The countryside waited and would not run out. He slept the way predators sleep: like night itself, half listening, half sharpening, wholly sure.
Night pressed against the barracks like a heavy cloak. The torches burned low in the yard, and the steady cadence of patrols drummed faintly along the stone.
Inside Serana's chamber, the door creaked open.
She returned at last. Her boots scraped softly across the floor as she entered, shoulders sagging with exhaustion. With a sigh she began to unbuckle her armor.
Noctis stirred in the hollow of the wall, crimson eyes opening in the dark. The sound of straps loosening, of steel plates clinking, filled the chamber. He smiled faintly.
So, you've come back. And stronger too… enough to make such noise.
He licked his lips. His prey had returned to him, unaware.
Piece by piece Serana shed her armor, laying it neatly aside. A tunic replaced cold steel, her hair falling loose over her shoulders. She rubbed her temples, muttered under her breath about the endless day, then finally extinguished the lantern.
The chamber sank into quiet shadow.
Noctis waited. Patient as stone.
The minutes stretched until her breathing deepened, slow and steady. Only then did he move. The wall sighed faintly as he emerged, shadows peeling back to reveal him.
He stood at the foot of her bed, watching her still figure bathed in silver light through the shutters. Her lips parted slightly, her face relaxed at last in sleep.
He climbed onto the bed, moving with silent precision. His eyes gleamed as he leaned closer.
His tongue brushed her neck. The skin there was warm, pulsing faintly with the rhythm of her heart. His fangs followed.
They sank in.
Blood rushed into him, hot and familiar. He drank deeply, savoring the surge of life flowing from her into himself. Serana stirred faintly, a soft sound caught in her throat, but did not wake.
Noctis closed his eyes, smiling against her skin. Yes. As expected…
Then it came.
A shimmer of script burned across his vision.
[System Message]
New Branch Detected — Faithbreaker: Advanced Integration
Sub-Tree Unlocked: Inquisitor's Bane
First Node Revealed: Hymn Rend II — upgraded anti-Faith sword art.
Noctis pulled back slightly, blood staining his lips. His eyes glowed, sharp and triumphant.
"So drinking you again yields even more gifts…" he whispered, licking the wound closed.
He brushed a strand of her hair aside, watching her chest rise and fall. His prey was not spent yet. She still had more to give.
His smile lingered as he slipped back into the shadows, the new power already burning in his veins.
The taste of Serana's blood lingered on his tongue as Noctis slipped back into the hollow wall. His lips curved, sharp and triumphant. The System's gift still shimmered in his mind — Inquisitor's Bane, its first strike gleaming like a sword of mockery against Faith itself.
He leaned back into the stone, eyes half-shut.
"So. Drinking you once yielded Faithbreaker. Drinking you again deepened it further. How far can I push this? How many gifts are hidden in your veins, little lieutenant?"
A low laugh shook his chest. The answer, he decided, did not matter yet. He would take, again and again, until there was nothing left to take.
But a thought unfurled with the hunger.
If her blood yields me gifts… what of the others?
The barracks brimmed with officers and commanders. Each one a vessel of Faith, of will, of skill forged by service. Could he not drink from them as well, and harvest their essence without destroying them? His Grid demanded essence, not corpses.
He pressed two fingers to his lips, then to Serana's throat. The small punctures closed at once, sealing smooth as if they had never existed. She breathed evenly, undisturbed. He smiled.
"Yes. If I can hide the mark, I can feed and leave them alive. Enough to drain what I need, without raising alarm. But…" His eyes narrowed. "…subduing them will not be simple."
Back in his hollow, he raised his hand. The Blood Grid bloomed before him, its crimson lattice branching across the dark. The bold runes of Blood Arts, Faithbreaker, and Beastkin glared brightest. Between them, smaller sparks — attribute nodes — pulsed like stars.
Noctis ignored the great trees for now and traced the thinner capillaries, searching.
What he needed was control. Not a killing strike. Not raw strength. Something that bound without steel. Something that let prey kneel willingly.
Hours passed as he combed the lattice. Sparks flared and faded beneath his hand. Strength, Perception, Endurance. Minor skills in bloodletting, in blade flourish, in hunting stride. Useful, but not what he sought.
Then his gaze caught a faint glimmer tucked between the Wraith branch and the earliest Blood Arts. A spark violet and red, shaped like an eye.
He touched it.
[Skill Node Detected — Allure's Gaze]
Tier I — Charm Art
Effect: Focused eye-contact induces submission in weak-willed targets. Strong-willed targets resist partially.
Pathway: Accessible through minor nodes of Perception and Will.
Cost: 50 Blood Essence + 10 Faith Essence.
Noctis's lips parted in a slow smile.
"Perfect."
He leaned back, fingers steepled. With this skill, he would not need brute force to subdue the officers. He could lure them, soften their wills, and drink without alarm. The city would remain blind.
But it required essence. He ran his eyes across the Grid again, tracing the minor nodes leading toward the charm.
A Perception stone. A Will stone. Both affordable. He would need to unlock them first to bridge the path. Then Allure's Gaze would open, and his hunt could shift from slaughter to cultivation.
He chuckled softly.
"Serana, your blood showed me one path. Soon the others will open their veins willingly. I will drink them all — not to kill, but to feed my Grid until the barracks themselves kneel."
In her chamber, Serana shifted faintly in her sleep, murmuring, turning beneath her sheets. She did not stir enough to wake. She did not feel the eyes that watched her through stone.
Noctis smiled in silence, already seeing further than her dreams.
The charm awaited. The hunt had only just begun.
The barracks slumbered under the quiet drag of midnight. Patrols passed like ghosts beyond Serana's chamber, their ropes binding them in pairs, their torches a halo of false safety.
Noctis remained in the hollow of the wall, eyes open, burning faintly red. His mind lingered not on the soldiers but on the lattice waiting within.
The charm node. The eye-shaped spark he had uncovered hours before. Allure's Gaze.
He whispered the name to himself. A power not of claw or blade, but of dominion. Subtle, insidious, perfect for what he envisioned: officers bent willingly beneath his hunger, prey that did not scream or resist.
He summoned the Grid.
The Path of Sparks
The lattice unfolded, crimson veins threading into infinity. He ignored the great trees — Blood Arts, Faithbreaker, Beastkin — and focused instead on the narrow branch leading toward the charm.
Two sparks pulsed faintly, standing between him and the prize: a pale one near the Perception branch, and a violet one near Will.
He reached first for the pale.
[Perception Node — Minor IIII]Unlocks +10 Perception.
Cost: 15 Blood Essence + 1 Beast Essence.
He fed it. Blood drained from his reserves, the Beastkin's new hunger gnawed briefly, and the rune shattered. A sharp flood of clarity struck his senses.
The chamber unfolded sharper than ever. Every hair of Serana's breath across her pillow. The scrape of a rat in the rafters. Even the faint heartbeat of a guard pacing the outer wall, muffled by stone.
[Perception +10]
Noctis inhaled slowly, smiling. "The world leaves me no secrets now."
Then the violet spark.
[Will Node — Minor III]Unlocks +10 Will.
Cost: 25 Faith Essence.
He pressed into it. Faith Essence bled from him like coals banked into the node. The rune flared, burst, and a surge roared through his mind. Thoughts sharpened, discipline hardened. The gnawing whispers of Faith magic dimmed, as if they could no longer press their weight against him.
[Will +10]
Noctis exhaled through his nose, lips curling. "They will never break me. And now—"
The Eye Opens
He traced the path. The eye-shaped spark pulsed more strongly now, bridged by the nodes he had opened.
[Skill Node Unlocked: Allure's Gaze]Tier I — Charm Art
Effect: Focused eye-contact induces submission in weak-willed targets. Strong-willed resist partially, but still falter.
Cost to Unlock: 50 Blood Essence + 10 Faith Essence.
He smiled, sharp and cold. He poured essence into it.
The spark flared. It cracked open, violet light spilling across the Grid like a ripple of dusk. The lattice whispered, threads bending toward him, pouring the new art into his marrow.
The sensation was strange, unlike the bite of strength or the surge of speed. His eyes burned, a pressure behind them as if fire had been etched into their golden-crimson depths. When he blinked, the air shimmered faintly. Shadows bent where his gaze lingered.
[Skill Acquired: Allure's Gaze]
Noctis tilted his head, amused. He turned toward the sleeping Serana.
He did not activate the skill — not yet. But even without willing it, the thought stirred: what would happen if her eyes opened, met his, and she saw only what he chose?
He licked his lips.
"This will make things easier."
The Predator's Plans
He closed the Grid. The glow vanished, leaving only the steady beat of Serana's breath and the muffled city beyond.
Now he had options.
He could creep into the chambers of other officers, lure them with a glance, drink without resistance, and seal the wounds clean. He could spread his feeding through the barracks like an infection — not of death, but of submission.
Noctis leaned against the wall of his hollow, eyes half-lidded. "Soon I won't need to skulk. They'll kneel for me. Offer themselves. And I will take until there is nothing left."
His smile deepened.
The Grid was endless. The city was full. And now, at last, he had found a way to make prey complicit in their own undoing.
The barracks settled into uneasy quiet. Patrol boots scuffed stone in careful rhythm, rope-bound pairs crossing the corridors like weary specters. Torches burned low, their smoke curling black against the vaulted ceilings.
Noctis stirred in the hollow.
His eyes opened, gold burning over crimson. The charm still hummed behind them — a new weight, a pressure coiled beneath his lids. He had not tested it yet. But tonight would change that.
He slipped from the wall, shadow spreading out with him like wings. His prey awaited.
The Chosen Officer
He moved soundlessly through the corridor until he reached the officers' wing. Doors lined the hall, each leading to private chambers. He listened — breath through wood, the subtle shuffle of sleep.
Then he found it: a lesser officer, newly promoted, his aura faint with untested authority. A man of no great will. Noctis smiled.
Perfect for a first trial.
He stepped into the chamber without opening the door, shadows peeling him through the wall. The officer stirred faintly at the chill, then rolled in his cot, murmuring.
Noctis advanced until his shadow fell across the bed. His eyes glowed faintly in the dark, twin embers piercing the gloom.
The Gaze
The officer awoke with a start, eyes wide, hand fumbling for the dagger at his belt. His mouth opened to shout.
Noctis moved faster.
He caught the man's gaze, pinning it with his own. The charm flared — Allure's Gaze.
A shimmer pulsed between them, unseen yet undeniable. The officer's breath hitched. His pupils dilated, the dagger slipping from his fingers. His body sagged back against the bed as if pressed down by invisible hands.
"Quiet," Noctis whispered, his voice low, silken.
The man's mouth shut instantly. His eyes were wide, trembling, but obedient.
Noctis tilted his head, studying the effect. The man still breathed, still thought, but his will bent beneath the weight of Noctis's gaze. Resistance flickered faintly, then guttered out like a candle in storm.
"Yes," Noctis murmured, leaning closer. "This will serve."
Feeding
He brushed the man's throat, feeling the frantic pulse beneath the skin. The officer shuddered but did not resist. Noctis's lips parted, fangs sliding free.
He sank them in.
Blood surged hot into his mouth, rich with the faint taste of discipline and steel. The officer whimpered softly but did not move. His hands clenched the sheets, eyes locked on Noctis's burning gaze, unable to turn away.
Noctis drank, deep enough to taste essence, shallow enough to leave life. He drew back, sealing the wound with a sweep of his tongue.
The officer sagged, pale but breathing, his mind dazed. Noctis smiled, crimson on his lips.
Aftermath
The charm faded. The officer blinked rapidly, confused. His body trembled, as if waking from a dream. Noctis stepped back into the shadows, watching as the man slumped onto his cot, unconscious but alive.
Noctis's smile deepened. "So simple. A glance, a command, and they yield. No noise, no struggle. All essence, no suspicion."
He melted back into the wall, slipping unseen into the hollow once more. His hunger was eased, his Grid enriched, his power proven.
For the first time since his escape, he did not feel like a hunter chasing prey. He felt like a sovereign of shadows, bending the wills of mortals with nothing but his eyes.