When Ardyn managed to regain his balance, he murmured, “Moving the Crystal beyond the reach of man? Now that’s not very sporting. I would say that I’d expected better of the Bladekeeper, except that would be an utter lie.”
Dust billowed, and the Citadel in its entirety began rising into the air. The throne room hung in plain sight, its walls and ceiling blown away by the Oracle’s earlier burst of dark energy.
Fissures tore through the large boulevard leading from the Citadel to downtown Insomnia. The ground shrieked as it ripped apart, and debris flew in all directions. The Citadel continued to rise, its great gates dangling limp, bars twisted like crumpled dollhouse ornaments.
“I suppose I should be grateful for the free ride. Stick with the throne, stick with the action.”
A series of phantasmal leaps later, he was aboard the ascending island. So long as this was headed in Lunafreya’s direction, Noctis wouldn’t be far from hand.
“A family reunion in the sky. You won’t keep me waiting this time, will you, Your Majesty?”
Ardyn, standing in the Citadel courtyard and staring down at the receding city streets, began to laugh.
Consciousness returned slowly, and for a while, the world was hazy. The ground beneath him was violently shuddering. It reminded him of that day at the Disc of Cauthess―a rumbling that rose from deep in the earth.
Cauthess. Right. He’d received Titan’s blessing that day, thanks to Luna’s covenant, and . . .
Luna.
The preceding moments reeled back through mind. Noctis jolted to his feet.
“Luna!” he cried, scanning his surroundings.
He wasn’t in the throne room. In fact, he didn’t seem to be inside the Citadel at all. He looked up to see the skyscraper moving ever higher: the whole structure was rising atop a small island of concrete and asphalt, as if it had been pulled up like a weed by some unseen force. The shaking of the earth he’d felt earlier must have come as the building was ripped from the ground.
Higher up, he saw a section of sky darker than its surroundings―a concentration of miasma denser than he’d ever seen before. In the center of the onyx circle was a humanlike figure: the daemon Lunafreya that both looked like his love and did not.
The scourge-tainted Oracle raised both hands high above her head and began to sing. It was a song Noctis had never heard before. Lunafreya had often sung songs of old for him during his recovery at Tenebrae, measures passed down by the people of her homeland, with soothing, simple melodies.
There was nothing gentle about the song Noctis heard now. The tones were dissonant, harsh, and seemed to cause the very air to tremble, as if her voice might pierce the darkness itself. A moment later, light began to encircle Lunafreya. It was a light similar to that of the Armiger, but pure white and tracing the intricate lines of a casting circle in the space around her body.
“Is that . . . ?” Noctis said.
He recalled the words of the Draconian. To cleanse the Star, all life must be swept away. This had to be the beginnings of the Bladekeeper’s spell of destruction absolute. As he stared up at the ominous vision, horror transmuted into urgency.
“I have to stop it!”
If the Draconian managed to complete the spell, the chances of recovering Lunafreya safely were slim. Noctis sprinted forward. He had to get up there. He had to stop the spell. The Citadel was gaining altitude. He didn’t have much time.
He recognized his own unbecoming panic. Any trace of poise or cool was lost. Hours ago, he’d felt collected, ready to return home and fulfill his destiny. The clear and overwhelming images shared by the Crystal told him there was no other choice. He knew what he had to do, and nothing was going to throw him off course.
And yet here he was, panicking. Staying calm seemed an insurmountable task with Lunafreya’s life once more at stake. He couldn’t lose her. Not again. He remembered the pain in Altissia, when he regained consciousness only to learn of her death. His heart had seemed but a moment away from being ripped from his chest. The prospect of enduring that agony all over again left him terrified.
He ran with everything he had. A thrown blade and a warp brought him close to the rising Citadel. Next stop was the edge, and then he’d ride up into the sky, heading toward Lunafreya high above. Without other means to fly, it would be the easiest way up.
Unfortunately, Bahamut seemed to know it, too. As Noctis aimed for the lip of the rising island, he heard the sound of wings diving in. He turned, prepared to face an incoming pack of flying daemons. What he encountered was something quite different.
“It’s the Draconian,” he gasped.
Or if not the god himself, something quite similar. There was no mistaking the shape of the incoming assailants; they looked precisely like the god Noctis had observed inside the Crystal. However, they were much smaller in scale, perhaps twice Noctis’s own stature, with splayed swords for wings and flexible tails like the supple leather of a whip. In their hands, they wielded greatswords.
There were several dozen, arranged in ordered ranks reminiscent of the empire’s automated infantry. Whether these smaller Bladekeepers were incarnations or simply minions, Noctis was not certain, but they were undoubtedly created to execute the Bladekeeper’s will. Avatars, perhaps. At any rate, this was no unordered mob of daemons; these foes behaved intelligently, clearly intending to strike at Noctis with coordinated tactics.