Suddenly, a towering blade flew down from above, driven into the ground between them.
The Chosen’s purpose is no more.
The words of the Draconian boomed throughout the throne room. The Bladekeeper himself made no appearance. There was only the massive blade and the stentorian voice.
Power is granted that darkness be banished and balance returned to the Star.
When mortals grow arrogant, seeking to repeat blasphemies of old, no longer are they worthy wards.
To cleanse the Star, all life must be swept away.
So it is ordained, and so shall it be.
“All life swept away?” Noctis repeated, uncomprehending. “But I thought you sent me here to . . . ”
His mind needed time to catch up. Was this not the same deity he’d encountered in the Crystal? Still fresh in mind was his own calling, as delivered by the Draconian. The True King was to rid the Star of darkness at the cost of his own life. Had the Bladekeeper’s intentions changed? If so, why?
Bahamut continued to speak. It seemed he would not offer answers or even pause to give Noctis time to comprehend.
The time is come. Let the power be unleashed, O Sovereign of the Scourge.
Lunafreya’s body floated up into the air. That was the last thing Noctis saw, and as his consciousness slipped away, the last thing he felt was a tremendous force hurling him away.
When Ardyn’s eyes reopened, it was to the scourge-darkened sky above. He was no longer in the throne room nor, it seemed, inside the Citadel at all. After another moment, he realized he was sprawled unceremoniously on the ground.
“Lovely,” he announced dryly.
He shook his head and stood. He recalled seeing the Oracle release the darkness. He’d been thrown backward by the blast, and after that, he must have blacked out.
“Well, if nothing else, our dear Lady Lunafreya certainly set her sights high.”
He looked up to find the Oracle―in Bahamut’s words, the “Sovereign of the Scourge”―suspended high up in the sky. Around her swirled a vortex of black miasma.
A swarm of creatures flitted about the vortex. Birds or wyverns, he’d have guessed, until on closer inspection he saw that they possessed the same shape as the Bladekeeper himself. Avatars. Closer to the stature of a man than a god, dark in color, and singularly ominous. Dozens of them were circling the Oracle, protecting her, their black and gold coloration a disturbing echo of the royal colors of the hated Lucian line.
“Behold, the Goddess of Darkness,” Ardyn mused.
The sky seemed to be darkest directly above the Citadel, right where Lunafreya was. This was the spot where all the Starscourge plaguing the world was to be drawn. All the dark power would be concentrated here for the Draconian’s spell.
“Teraflare,” Ardyn murmured. “The preparations are already underway.”
The Draconian’s plan, as relayed by the Oracle, had not come as much of a surprise. This was the type of dramatic solution the God of War was apt to prefer.
However, it was another of the woman’s statements that bothered him.
The Bladekeeper cannot be slain! He exists not only in our world, but also in the one beyond!
That was a distressing revelation. Ardyn, his own soul trapped in the other realm, knew better than any other the truth of that consequent immortality and of the difficulty it would pose for any attempt on the Draconian’s life. One could deal an infinite number of deaths to a foe with a soul stuck in the Beyond, but said foe would always rise again. To worsen matters, the Draconian’s soul, unlike Ardyn’s, was not held captive―the god was as free from restraint there as he was here in the mortal realm.
In short, a battle with Bahamut would be much harder than one with the Glacian or the Infernian. Neither the daemon-infused creations of the empire nor the hands through which flowed the controlling sting of the scourge would suffice to defeat the Draconian.
“Thus her proposal. The Bladekeeper casts his Teraflare, expends his energy, and falls into slumber. Ah, but if only it were so simple.”
Lunafreya’s notion was logical in the sense that history had unfolded in such a manner once before. But there was no guarantee that a reenactment of the War of the Astrals would culminate in the same result. This time, the Draconian’s spell would be charged with all the darkness that now blanketed Eos.
There was another point to consider. At the conclusion of that ancient war, five of the Six had unquestionably fallen into slumber. Each had collapsed, depleted, somewhere upon the surface of the Star. But it was unclear whether Bahamut had slept. Tales told of him retiring to some place unknown; some posited that he’d been asleep high in the heavens. Of course there was no way to ascertain the truth of any of these claims. For ages, the god had simply been missing, without any clue as to his whereabouts or doings.
“The Lady Oracle might be willing to gamble, but I’d much rather take the sure bet,” Ardyn mused aloud.
Put the god to sleep―that was the solution of a gentle soul. However, there were other options. Options that were more decisive. More permanent.
A violent shaking of the ground interrupted his reverie.
“Oh dear. What now?”
The Citadel, already half-destroyed, was quaking along with the earth. No, quaking against the earth, as if struggling to break free of it. Steel split and concrete crumbled. A great roar of wrenching and tearing materials drowned out all other sound. Everything was moving, but the Citadel most of all, in great jagged jerks toward ground and then sky.