A civil war raged inside Noctar, a tempest where logic was being torn apart by hurricane force instincts. The synchronized [Dragon Rage] skill wasn't just a stat boost; it was a corrosive, roaring inferno in his veins, flooding his synapses with a single, primal command written in fire: KILL THE RIVAL. DOMINATE. DESTROY. S.A.R.A.'s warnings were a distant, staticky buzz in a far-off server room, utterly drowned out by the bestial chorus.
Logically, in a detached partition of his mind, he knew Ardyn was right there in front of them, delivering a scolding that would make a veteran drill sergeant blanch, her voice a whip-crack of authority sharp enough to cut diamond.
But all his higher brain functions the debugger, the analyst, the man were locked in a soundproof cage. All that remained was the throbbing, crimson hazed imperative to close the distance and tear Korvath's throat out with teeth that felt too long and too sharp.
As if on cue, Korvath, humiliated by being parried, by the bleeding cut on his jaw, by the entire spectacle made his move. With a guttural roar that shook dust from the ceiling tiles, he feinted a shove against Ardyn's blade and lunged past her guard. Not toward Noctar, but directly at her, a massive hand outstretched to grab her neck, to physically remove the obstacle between him and his prey.
It was the catalytic mistake Noctar's feral calculus was waiting for.
Ardyn was faster. Her sword, [Queen'sWrath], was a silver streak of contempt. It didn't block; it punished, slicing a clean, shallow line across Korvath's chest plate, scoring the fine tech weave and drawing a bright line of blood. But in that split second of her focused counter-strike, her flank was momentarily open to Noctar.
He moved.
He didn't pounce like a fighter; he uncoiled like a feral animal, his body becoming a projectile of pure, predatory fury. He didn't chamber a punch or aim a kick. His head snapped forward with viper speed, and his newly elongated canines, sharp as broken code, sank deep into the thick muscle of Korvath's already wounded sword arm, right below the drake-scale pauldron.
The sensation was metallic and hot. Korvath bellowed, a sound of pure, stunned agony and volcanic rage. His own draconic instincts, already simmering, erupted. He twisted violently, not to pull away, but to attack. His head swiveled, jaws distending with an unnatural crack of tendons, and snapped toward Noctar's exposed neck with the force of a hydraulic press.
Noctar jerked back, but not fast enough. Korvath's teeth, thicker and blunter but powered by legendary-class strength, tore through the fabric of Noctar's divine jacket and locked into the meat of his shoulder with a sickening, grinding crunch. It wasn't a clean bite; it was a crushing, rending grip meant to shatter bone and sever tendons.
Pain, white-hot and electric, screamed up Noctar's nervous system, only to be swallowed by the all-consuming red haze of the Rage. It translated not as injury, but as fuel.
The two S-Ranks were now a snarling, biting, bloody knot of limbs in the middle of the ruined hallway, a spectacle of pure, undignified savagery that belonged in a beast pit, not the polished corridors of the Hunter's Authority.
They were a whirlwind of snapping jaws, clawing hands, and brutal, short-range slams into the walls, leaving smears of crimson on the pale stone. The few clerks and junior hunters who hadn't fled were pressed against the far walls, faces pale with a mix of horror and morbid fascination.
Ardyn let out a long, profoundly exasperated sigh that seemed to drop the temperature in the hallway by several degrees. This was beneath her. It was beneath the dignity of her rank, the sanctity of her (now destroyed) office, and the very last vestige of her monumental patience.
She didn't scream for order. She didn't foolishly try to wedge herself between two enraged metaphysical forces. She assessed the tangled equation with a cool, tactical eye.
She simply sheathed her sword with a sharp click.
Then she stepped forward, her movements precise and economical. She grabbed a fistful of the back of Noctar's collar, the miraculously un-torn section, and planted her feet. With a surge of strength that spoke of her own not inconsiderable power, she yanked him backward.
His head, jaws still snapping at the air where Korvath's arm had been, whipped toward her. In the same fluid motion, she brought the hardened, rune-etched metal hilt of her sheathed sword up, and with the unerring accuracy of a master, placed it directly into his open mouth.
CRUNCH.
The sound was jarringly loud,the sound of immense, bestial force meeting unyielding, enchanted steel. The shock of the impact, the solid, unforgiving object suddenly halting his rage fueled bite jerk reflex, sent a seismic jolt through his entire system.
It was a hard system interrupt. For a single, critical millisecond, it short circuited the [Dragon Rage] feedback loop. The crimson haze receded from his vision like a dying tide. The roaring in his ears quieted to a dull, throbbing hum. Control, shaky and raw, flooded back into his trembling limbs.
He released the hilt, saliva and a thread of blood mingling on the polished metal. He was panting, his shoulder a forge of agony, the taste of blood and ozone thick in his mouth. The draconic features the slitted eyes, the pronounced canines receded, leaving behind his normal, if pale and slightly dazed, ice-blue gaze. He blinked, the world snapping back into painful, high definition focus.
His eyes found Ardyn.
Her silver hair was slightly disheveled, a few strands freed from its usual severe order. A smudge of plaster dust decorated her cheekbone. Her golden eyes, however, blazed with a fury hotter and more focused than any dragon's breath.
She stood amidst the wreckage they had made, her expression one of utter, unimpressed exhaustion, a queen surveying the aftermath of a particularly stupid tavern brawl. She was, in that moment, the most violently magnificent thing he had ever witnessed.
Through the pain, the exhaustion, and the fading adrenaline, a slow, cheeky, and utterly unrepentant smile spread across his bloodied face. It was a programmer's smile after executing a hack that shouldn't have worked.
He looked right into her blazing eyes, his voice a rough, gravelly thing torn from his bruised throat.
"You know," Noctar said, each word punctuated by a shallow, pained breath, "angry looks really sexy on you."
The silence that followed was absolute, save for Korvath's pained groaning and the drip of blood onto the scarred floor. Ardyn stared at him, her fury momentarily frozen in place by the sheer, breathtaking audacity of the statement.