The silence after Elder Varclion's death lingered like a wound. Blood steamed on the stone, staining the glyphs that had once bound the sanctum. The other vampires—still chained in their coffins, still suppressed by links of silver and prayer—stared at Noctis with hollow-eyed terror. They had witnessed it. The elder's recognition. His plea. His betrayal revealed. His body cleaved apart, devoured, and erased from existence.
Noctis stood in the center of the chamber, the air thick with the stench of iron and burning sanctity. The new powers of the Duskborne Heresies still rippled beneath his skin. He flexed his clawed fingers once. Shadows stirred around him in answer. The prisoners tried to shrink further back into their coffins. But hunger—ancient, gnawing, unbearable—betrayed them. One snapped forward, straining at his chains, fangs bared at the scent of blood in the air.
Crimson coils erupted from Noctis's wrists, chains formed not of metal but of congealed blood, dripping fang-like hooks from their tips. They cracked through the air like whips and slammed into the nearest sarcophagus. Hooks sank into the prisoner's chest, puncturing pale flesh. The vampire shrieked and twisted, trying to resist. The chains tightened, their hooks burrowing deeper, feeding on the very struggle. With a sharp pull, Noctis ripped him free of his coffin. The chains dragged the prisoner through the air and slammed him against the stone floor, bones breaking like twigs.
He smiled faintly. "Struggle all you like. It only makes you bleed faster."
The chains constricted once more and then retracted into his arm, leaving the vampire limp and drained. He crouched, sank his fangs into the body, and drank deeply.
[Skill: Devour — Activated]+120 Blood Essence+5 Faith Essence+1 Soul Essence
The other prisoners snapped awake, panic and frenzy colliding. Some hissed, others screamed, chains rattling violently as they strained. A few tore their own flesh against the silver etchings in desperation. Noctis rose, his aura flaring. His eyes burned crimson-gold, throwing the sanctum into a sickly glow.
"You smell it, don't you?" he said. His voice carried like a blade. "Freedom, blood, and death. You know what I am."
Several vampires broke into howls. Chains snapped. Hunger made them reckless.
Darkness pooled into his hand, condensing into a jagged spear of shadow streaked with blood. Its edges quivered as though hungry to tear.
[Skill: Umbral Spear — Activated]
He hurled it. The spear slammed through two coffins, impaling the vampires within. For a breath it pinned them like insects on a spike—then exploded. Shadow-fangs burst outward in a shrapnel spray, shredding the prisoners around them. The air filled with screams and the wet rip of flesh. Fragments of crimson shadow fluttered through the air like burning leaves before vanishing.
[Essence Gains: +240 Blood, +10 Faith, +3 Iron]
Another prisoner tore loose from his coffin, sprinting at Noctis with chains still dangling from his arms. Noctis lifted one clawed hand and slashed the air.
[Skill: Night Reaver — Activated]
A blade of darkness erupted from his arm, extending his strike into a thirty-foot slash. It cleaved through the rushing vampire, bisecting him at the waist. The shadow wound lingered, gnawing at flesh and bone until the halves disintegrated into dust. The black arc carved a deep gouge across the sanctum wall, where it continued to hiss and eat at stone like acid.
Noctis exhaled softly. "Efficient."
He dragged the bisected corpse to him with Blood Telekinesis and devoured it.
[Skill: Devour — Activated]+90 Blood Essence+4 Faith Essence
Another prisoner leapt, teeth bared, chain stumps whipping. Noctis met him head-on. His claw shot forward, piercing the vampire's chest.
[Skill: Exsanguine Grasp — Activated]
Blood surged from the prisoner's veins in red threads, pulled directly into Noctis's palm. The vampire withered instantly, body collapsing into a husk before falling to the floor with a dull crack.
[Essence Gain: +100 Blood Essence]
Noctis flexed his hand, crimson light dripping from his claws. The Grid pulsed with approval.
Bloodfang Chains lashed outward, pulling prisoners from their coffins to be devoured mid-air. Umbral Spears ripped through rows, detonating in showers of shadow-fangs. Night Reaver carved arcs that left only severed halves twitching on the floor. Exsanguine Grasp fed his veins faster than he could swallow. One vampire tried to crawl away, half-chained. Noctis seized him with telekinesis, hurled him into the wall, and drove a chain through his chest. Another tried to plead, "Mercy, Sovereign—" only to be silenced by a spear through his skull.
It was not battle. It was feeding.
[System Update: Devour Chain — Consecutive Vampiric Feasts x11]Essence Surge: +1,100 Blood, +40 Faith, +20 Iron, +5 Soul
As he consumed them, his body changed. The chains that had once burned his flesh now smoked against him but failed to pierce. The sanctified glyphs etched into the coffins dimmed when he neared.
[Passive Evolved: Elder's Resilience]Resistance to holy/sanctified suppression increased from 40% → 80%.
The air tasted lighter. The shackles of saints no longer carried weight.
Noctis rolled his shoulders and laughed under his breath. "Your prison makes me stronger."
Blood Memory surged again—this time not from a single elder, but from dozens of devoured vampires whose legacies still clung to their flesh. Centuries of combat experience bled into him, rewriting his Grid. He felt the shadow bend to his will more sharply, letting him step between one patch of darkness and the next. He felt it twist into a beast's maw, a gaping jaw that could consume essence with a bite. He tasted the terror of his kin, their screams sharpening into a weapon, and when he opened his mouth, he knew he could howl and rip the courage from men's spines. His claws ached with the memory of their frenzy, guiding his arms into a spinning dance of slashes, a crimson dervish that left nothing standing. Cold pressed into his veins. Frost shaped itself around his talons. With a rake of his hand he imagined ice blooming along wounds, freezing them solid, locking prey in place. Another memory taught him to shape that ice into a prison—blood-ice jagged and cruel, sealing a target alive within until shattered.
Steel sang in his ears. Sword memories joined the lattice, filling him with arcs of bloodlight that curved wide, splitting rows like a crescent moon. Another technique folded into silence, a slash so fast and clean the victim would not even know they had been cut until their body fell apart. And then came the eye.
His vision blurred, then sharpened. Crimson lines crawled across the sanctum, tracing faults and fractures that had always been there but unseen. He looked at a wall and saw where it would crack with a single strike. He looked at a chain and saw the point where tension would snap it. He looked at the vampires he had not yet finished and saw their bodies glowing with crimson weak points: hearts, spines, arteries, joints. Even wards etched on the walls pulsed with faint red marks, their flaws exposed.
The Omen Eye had opened.
Noctis blinked once, and the world no longer looked whole. It looked fractured, begging to be broken. He raised his claw, traced one of the glowing lines on the wall, and sliced. The stone split along the weakness as if it had been waiting to die. Dust spilled down in a perfect seam.
He smiled slowly, his fangs catching the light of his own aura. "Everything breaks."
The sanctum floor was drenched in gore, coffins empty, vampires reduced to silence. He stood alone, stronger than ever, his shadow stretching long and crimson across the chains. His breathing was steady, but the Grid inside him burned brighter than ever. The feast had not just fed him—it had remade him. And with the Omen Eye blazing in his skull, nothing in this dungeon would be able to hide from him again.
The sanctum lay quiet, drenched in gore. Coffins hung open, their chains limp and dripping with the last spray of blood. Noctis stood at the center, his claws still wet, the Omen Eye burning in his skull.
The first pulse came unbidden. The world shifted.
[Skill: Omen Eye — Activated]
Crimson light bled across his vision, crawling in thin, deliberate lines over stone, chain, and glyph. Fault-lines glowed where the human eye saw only solid matter. Every wall, every barrier, every relic in the sanctum quivered with red seams of fragility. Weakness was no longer hidden; it was written on the world.
He turned toward one of the nearest sarcophagi still bound with sanctified wards. Glyphs carved by saints glimmered faintly, their light guttering like candles half-smothered. To others, they were flawless. To him, they were riddled with fractures. Threads of red vein-lines crawled through the glyphs, converging on a single point no larger than the head of a nail.
He raised a claw and pressed.
The glyph shattered silently, unraveling in a cascade of ash and light.
[System Update: Ward Dissection — Weak Point Exploited]+5 Faith Essence
The coffin shook once, then stilled. Noctis tilted his head, golden pupils narrowing. "One touch," he murmured. "That is all it takes."
He swept his gaze over the walls. Every ward, every seal, every chain shimmered with crimson fault-lines. He traced them with his eyes, and each weakness beat faintly, like the pulse of prey too afraid to run.
A chain rattled overhead, its silver links carved with prayers. In the Omen Eye's sight, it glowed with red threads that crossed and tangled at a single point near the ceiling. He leapt, driving his claw straight into that nexus. The entire chain shattered, fragments raining down in a useless clatter.
[System Update: Sanctified Chain — Weak Point Destroyed]+3 Iron Essence
Noctis landed lightly, watching the pieces scatter. His smile was faint, almost amused. "Your saints carve their prayers deep," he said to the empty chamber. "But even prayers have seams."
He walked deeper into the sanctum, crimson light crawling across everything he touched with his gaze. He stopped before a barrier at the far end of the chamber, a wall of sanctity humming with power. To any other vampire, it was unbreakable—an iron curtain of divine suppression. But in his eyes, it writhed with weakness. Cracks ran through it like veins of glass, pulsing with red.
He extended a finger and traced one line. The barrier flickered violently.
He pressed harder.
The line burst open like a cut vein. The entire barrier folded inward, its sanctified glow collapsing into sparks before vanishing.
[System Update: Barrier Fracture — Weak Point Exploited]+10 Faith Essence+5 Iron Essence
Noctis exhaled, the crimson fire in his eyes brightening. He had not struck with force. He had not needed to. The Omen Eye revealed truth: nothing was whole. Everything waited to break.
He turned to a pile of broken chains and coffins. For a test, he picked up a length of sanctified iron and studied it. His vision burned. A crimson seam split the link into thirds. He twisted the metal in his hand and snapped it along the fault-line like brittle bone.
[System Update: Material Weakness Exploited]+1 Iron Essence
Noctis's smile widened. The Eye did not merely expose enemies—it dismantled objects, wards, barriers, and even sanctified matter. There would be no prison strong enough to hold him, no relic secure enough to withstand his strike.
The chamber responded to his testing. Each broken ward fed him Faith Essence, each shattered chain gave Iron. With each surge, his Grid pulsed louder, hungrier. His blood burned hotter, fed by the very tools designed to bind his kind.
He walked along the walls, testing every seal one by one. Touch. Collapse. Touch. Collapse. Ash fell like snow, glowing faintly before fading. Each time, the Omen Eye burned brighter, his mastery sharpening.
[Ward Broken: +4 Faith Essence][Chain Destroyed: +2 Iron Essence][Barrier Collapsed: +7 Faith Essence, +3 Iron Essence]
By the time he finished his circuit, the sanctum was unrecognizable. No glyph remained intact. No chain clung to the coffins. No ward shimmered with false authority. Everything had been dissected, exposed, and erased.
Noctis stood in the center once more, crimson light still bleeding from his eyes. He clenched a fist and felt the echo of every fracture he had broken. The Grid whispered, not with new skills, but with certainty. The Omen Eye was not a weapon—it was absolute knowledge. Knowledge made every strike perfect. Knowledge made every prison a lie.
He closed his eyes and deactivated the sight. Darkness returned, plain and simple. When he opened them again, the glow ignited and the world fractured into seams and cracks once more. His chest rose and fell in steady rhythm. He could choose to see weakness, or he could choose to hide it.
But the truth was always there.
He looked at the sanctum's far wall, deeper than the barriers and coffins, where the stone itself quivered with crimson veins. He knew now that beyond it, more chambers waited. And every chamber would fall, because nothing could hide from his gaze.
Noctis raised his claw, the Omen Eye blazing. "Everything breaks," he whispered again, this time not as observation, but as law.
[Skill Mastery: Omen Eye — Confirmed]Weak Points Revealed: Structural, Ward, Barrier, OrganicIntegration Level: 100%
The chamber groaned, as though acknowledging his claim. Dust fell from the cracked ceiling, sprinkling the floor in gray flakes. The smell of old sanctity still lingered, but it was powerless now. He had reduced it to ash and ruin.
Noctis lowered his hand, crimson glow dimming to a steady ember. The sanctum was his. Its chains, its wards, its history of suppression—all gone, all broken. And in their place stood him: stronger, hungrier, eyes burning with the truth that nothing endured forever.
When he stepped toward the far wall, the cracks glowed brighter, showing him the exact point where the sanctum would yield. He did not strike yet. He savored it, the knowledge, the absolute certainty that when he wished, this place would fall apart with a single blow.
And so he paused, standing tall in the silence, the Omen Eye smoldering in his skull. For the first time in centuries, the prison of saints and betrayers did not hold power over him. It fed him instead.
The cracks in the wall pulsed red in his vision, each line glowing like a vein beneath flesh. The Omen Eye revealed where the sanctum's stone was weakest, where centuries of divine reinforcement had stitched itself clumsily. Noctis raised his claw, drew it through the air, and struck.
The wall split apart with a thunderous crack. Dust rained down. The seam widened from floor to ceiling, stone collapsing exactly where his vision had promised it would. The sanctum groaned as if exhaling its last breath.
Noctis stepped through the breach.
The air changed immediately. The stench of iron thickened, mixed with something colder—sanctity woven into earth itself. The path descended into a vast hall, its pillars shaped from fused bone and stone, its floor marked with spirals of glyphs glowing faintly. Blood mist swirled in the hollows, thicker here, heavier. It clung to his tongue like damp smoke.
The ground trembled.
From alcoves carved into the walls, hulking figures emerged—sanctified golems. Each was a construct of armored stone and burning glyphs, their bodies carved with wards that pulsed like beating hearts. Their heads bore no faces, only helms of runic steel, and in their hands were colossal weapons—hammers, halberds, blades etched with prayer.
They turned toward him, their steps shaking the floor.
[System Alert: Hostiles Detected]Designation: Sanctified Golems — Tier II Ward GuardiansSuppression Effect: −30% vampiric regenerationSpecial Condition: Resistance to raw shadow and blood magic (75%)Weakness: Structural Fracture Points (visible through Omen Eye)
The Omen Eye blazed. Crimson fault-lines laced across the golems' bodies—thin cracks through their armor, glowing weaknesses where their sanctity faltered. Knees. Joints. The seams of chest plates. The fragile intersections of their ward-glyphs.
Noctis flexed his claws. "Show me what breaks."
The first golem roared, its voice like stone grinding against stone. It swung a hammer down with force enough to shatter a wall. Noctis stepped into the shadow of the strike and blinked forward.
[Skill: Umbral Rift Step — Activated]
He vanished in a smear of darkness, reappearing at the golem's flank. His guan dao spun into his hand with a crimson shimmer.
[Skill: Orbiting Arsenal III — Bloodfang Reaper Form]
The blade howled through the air. Guided by the Omen Eye, he struck precisely at the glowing fracture line along the golem's knee. The guan dao bit deep.
[Weak Point Exploited]Critical Damage Applied
The knee exploded into shards. The golem staggered, collapsing sideways with a groan of ruptured wards. Noctis followed through, claws flashing, tearing across another fault-line along its chest. The construct split apart with a shriek of burning glyphs, light spilling out before extinguishing.
[Enemy Destroyed: Sanctified Golem]+150 Blood Essence+12 Faith Essence+5 Iron Essence
The others advanced, weapons raised. A halberd swept low. Noctis vaulted above it, chains snapping out from his arms.
[Skill: Bloodfang Chains — Activated]
The hooked links slammed into the halberd's shaft, wrapped tight, and yanked. The weapon spun wide, throwing the golem off-balance. Noctis landed on its shoulder, Omen Eye burning. He drove a claw into a glowing seam across its helm.
[Weak Point Exploited]Sanctified Core Ruptured
The golem's body convulsed. Glyphs across its surface cracked and bled light. Noctis ripped his claw free, dragging shadow with it. The helm split. The construct collapsed in silence.
[Enemy Destroyed: Sanctified Golem]+140 Blood Essence+10 Faith Essence+4 Iron Essence
The last two charged together, hammer and blade descending in tandem. The floor split beneath their weight. Noctis spun his guan dao in a wide arc.
[Skill: Night Reaver — Activated]
The black slash carved across both constructs, gouging deep into the glowing seams along their torsos. Shadow hissed at the wounds, eating away at stone and sanctity alike. Both staggered but did not fall. Their weapons rose again.
The Omen Eye flared hotter, painting the weak points brighter. Noctis exhaled, then surged forward, hacking in brutal rhythm.
Slash—weak point on the elbow. Crack.Thrust—weak point at the throat seam. Shatter.Spin—blade edge through chest plate fracture. Burst.
The first collapsed, its core imploding in a scream of light. The second swung its hammer desperately, but Noctis met it head-on, his claws digging into the glowing crack at its wrist. He wrenched. The weapon flew free. His guan dao roared upward in a brutal cleave, bisecting it along its spine.
Both fell in ruin, their sanctified glyphs guttering out.
[Enemies Destroyed: Sanctified Golems ×2]+300 Blood Essence+20 Faith Essence+10 Iron Essence
Silence returned, broken only by the hiss of dying glyphs. The hall shook, settling dust from the ceiling. Noctis stood among the rubble of shattered guardians, his aura smoldering. The Omen Eye dimmed slightly as he blinked, but when it flared again, every fracture in the hall stood revealed to him—every pillar, every glyph, every ward.
The labyrinth had unleashed its protectors. They had fallen as quickly as prey.
Noctis lowered his guan dao, its blade dripping shadowed blood-light. "If this is what guards the path ahead," he said coldly, "then the heart of this labyrinth will bleed for me."
The hall stretched onward, deeper into darkness. The crimson cracks of the Omen Eye marked the way.
He walked forward, each step ringing like a verdict.
The cracks in the wall pulsed red in his vision, each line glowing like veins beneath flesh. The Omen Eye revealed where the sanctum's stone was weakest, where centuries of divine reinforcement had stitched itself clumsily. Noctis raised his claw, drew it through the air, and struck.
The wall split apart with a thunderous crack. Dust rained down. The seam widened from floor to ceiling, stone collapsing exactly where his vision had promised it would. The sanctum groaned as if exhaling its last breath.
He stepped through the breach.
The air changed immediately. The stench of iron thickened, mixed with something colder—sanctity woven into earth itself. The path descended into a vast hall, its pillars shaped from fused bone and stone, its floor marked with spirals of glyphs glowing faintly. Blood mist swirled in the hollows, thicker here, heavier. It clung to his tongue like damp smoke.
The ground trembled.
From alcoves carved into the walls, hulking figures emerged—sanctified golems. Each was a construct of armored stone and burning glyphs, their bodies carved with wards that pulsed like beating hearts. Their heads bore no faces, only helms of runic steel, and in their hands were colossal weapons—hammers, halberds, blades etched with prayer.
They turned toward him, their steps shaking the floor.
The Omen Eye blazed. Crimson fault-lines laced across the golems' bodies—thin cracks through their armor, glowing weaknesses where sanctity faltered. Knees. Joints. The seams of chest plates. The fragile intersections of their ward-glyphs.
Noctis flexed his claws. "Show me what breaks."
The first golem roared, its voice like stone grinding against stone. It swung a hammer down with force enough to shatter a wall. Noctis stepped into the shadow of the strike and vanished.
[Skill: Umbral Rift Step — Activated]
He reappeared at the golem's flank, his guan dao spinning into his hand with a crimson shimmer.
[Skill: Orbiting Arsenal III — Bloodfang Reaper Form — Activated]
The blade howled through the air, guided by the Omen Eye. He struck precisely at the glowing fracture line along the golem's knee. The guan dao bit deep, stone cracked, and the construct buckled. Noctis followed through, claws tearing across its chest seam. The body split with a shriek of burning glyphs, light spilling out before extinguishing.
[Enemy Destroyed: Sanctified Golem]+150 Blood Essence+12 Faith Essence+5 Iron Essence
The others advanced, weapons raised. A halberd swept low. Noctis vaulted above it, chains snapping out from his arms.
[Skill: Bloodfang Chains — Activated]
The hooked links slammed into the halberd's shaft, wrapped tight, and yanked. The weapon spun wide, throwing the golem off-balance. Noctis landed on its shoulder, Omen Eye burning. He drove a claw into the glowing seam across its helm. Light burst outward before the construct collapsed in silence.
[Enemy Destroyed: Sanctified Golem]+140 Blood Essence+10 Faith Essence+4 Iron Essence
The last two charged together, hammer and blade descending in tandem. The floor split beneath their weight. Noctis spun his guan dao in a wide arc.
[Skill: Night Reaver — Activated]
The black slash carved across both constructs, gouging deep into their torsos. Shadow hissed at the wounds, eating away at stone and sanctity alike. Both staggered, their weapons rising again.
The Omen Eye flared hotter, painting their seams brighter. Noctis exhaled, surged forward, and hacked in brutal rhythm—slashes to elbows, thrusts through chest plates, cleaves across spines. Glyphs shattered, and both guardians fell in ruin, their sanctified light extinguished.
[Enemies Destroyed: Sanctified Golems ×2]+300 Blood Essence+20 Faith Essence+10 Iron Essence
Silence returned, broken only by the hiss of dying wards. The hall shook, dust falling from the ceiling. Noctis stood among the rubble of shattered guardians, his aura smoldering. The Omen Eye dimmed slightly as he blinked, but when it flared again, every fracture in the hall stood revealed to him—every pillar, every glyph, every barrier.
The labyrinth had unleashed its protectors. They had fallen as quickly as prey.
He lowered his guan dao, its blade dripping shadowed blood-light. "If this is what guards the path ahead," he said coldly, "then the heart of this labyrinth will bleed for me."
The hall stretched onward, deeper into darkness. The crimson cracks of the Omen Eye marked the way.
He walked forward, each step ringing like a verdict.
The crimson fractures of the Omen Eye stretched before him, guiding him deeper into the labyrinth. The silence of the shattered golem hall gave way to a low hum—like the heartbeat of the dungeon itself. Each step down the spiraled path thickened the air with sanctity, oppressive, cold, and metallic. The glyphs along the walls no longer whispered. They glared.
The corridor opened into a cavernous chamber. Its ceiling disappeared into shadow, its pillars carved from obsidian streaked with veins of light. At the far end, a monolithic figure slumbered—bound into the wall itself, half stone, half sanctified steel. Chains thicker than trees wrapped its body, glowing faintly with glyphs of restraint.
As Noctis stepped into the chamber, the chains rattled. The figure stirred.
The Sanctified Colossus opened its hollow helm, light blazing where eyes should have been. Its body tore free from the wall with a groan that shook the chamber. Twenty feet tall, its frame was carved from stone but reinforced with runes of blinding sanctity. A sword like a slab of cathedral steel rested in its hand, runes carved down the length of the blade, humming with destructive light.
The Omen Eye ignited. Crimson fracture lines crawled across the titan's body—at the joints of its knees, the seam of its breastplate, the etched glyphs at the base of its helm. Weak points, glowing like wounds waiting to be cut open.
The Colossus raised its sword. The weight of the strike dragged air into silence. When it swung, the ground split in a shockwave, the impact collapsing a pillar into rubble.
Noctis blurred forward.
[Skill: Umbral Rift Step — Activated]
He vanished into shadow, reappearing along the titan's flank, guan dao roaring into his hand.
[Skill: Orbiting Arsenal III — Bloodfang Reaper Form — Activated]
The blade slammed into the glowing seam of the Colossus's knee. Sparks and stone shards exploded outward. The titan staggered, its massive frame leaning into the strike, but its runes flared, repairing cracks with sanctified light.
The giant's helm turned. A roar of blinding brilliance erupted, a pulse that scorched the stone beneath Noctis's feet.
He narrowed his eyes, chains already spiraling from his arms.
[Skill: Bloodfang Chains — Activated]
The hooks lashed upward, coiling around the Colossus's sword arm. He wrenched, dragging the weapon wide, its rune-light shrieking against the floor. The titan swung its free arm, massive stone fingers aiming to crush him. Noctis met it head-on, claws bursting with frozen light.
[Skill: Frostfang Rend — Activated]
His strike tore through the giant's palm, freezing the cracks into jagged ice that spread up the forearm. The titan howled, shaking its arm violently, but the ice spread faster than it could mend.
Noctis moved, the Omen Eye burning brighter, exposing the red seam along its chest. He leapt, spinning midair, guan dao blazing with shadow.
[Skill: Night Reaver — Activated]
The arc carved down the Colossus's chest, splitting runes and stone in a trail of lingering blackness. The titan staggered, its glyphs flickering erratically. It tried to lift its sword again, but the chains pulled taut, and the ice cracked its arm at the joint.
Noctis landed at its feet, claws dragging sparks along the floor. He raised his guan dao high, shadows swirling with bloodlight.
[Skill: Sanguine Crescent — Activated]
The slash curved wide, carving a crimson arc across the Colossus's knee. The joint ruptured, shattering in a rain of shards. The giant toppled, its frame crashing to the floor with a roar that shook the chamber.
Still it moved, runes blazing desperately, sanctity trying to stitch its broken body together. It raised its head toward him, light burning in its helm.
The Omen Eye pierced that glow, revealing the final fracture—a crimson line burning across its core, deep within its chest.
Noctis's smile was cold. He surged forward, chains lashing to pull him upward. He landed on the Colossus's chest, guan dao braced for the strike. Shadows coiled around the blade, blood essence vibrating along the edge.
[Skill: Silent Sever — Activated]
The strike made no sound. The guan dao sank clean into the glowing seam. For a heartbeat, silence ruled. Then the core ruptured.
Light poured from the Colossus's chest in a violent storm, runes shattering, stone exploding outward. The titan convulsed once, arms flailing, before collapsing into ruin. The chamber trembled with the weight of its fall, dust spiraling upward in choking clouds.
Noctis stood on its shattered chest, guan dao dripping black-crimson. His Omen Eye dimmed, then flared once more, confirming the death. He exhaled softly, aura still burning.
[Enemy Destroyed: Sanctified Colossus]+500 Blood Essence+35 Faith Essence+20 Iron Essence+5 Soul Essence
The giant's body smoldered, runes flickering faintly before going dark. Only ash and broken fragments remained.
Noctis leapt down from the corpse, his shadow stretching across the ruined chamber. The Omen Eye still painted crimson veins along the walls, showing him where the labyrinth's next fracture waited.
He rolled his shoulders, the echoes of the fight still thrumming in his veins, and whispered, "Colossus or saint, it makes no difference. Everything breaks."
He stepped forward, deeper into the labyrinth, the path already marked for him in glowing red.