All life must be swept away. Noctis couldn’t shake the Bladekeeper’s words from mind. At this point, it wasn’t hard to imagine some massive blaze tearing across the surface of the Star. And if that did happen, evacuation would be easier said than done.
“I gotta admit, though, I have no idea where to ask you to take them.”
To Noctis’s relief, Ignis jumped in. This kind of thing was exactly within the royal advisor’s domain.
“We’ll be in touch as soon as we have a handle on the situation,” Ignis said. “Until then, get preparations underway. Have the people ready to move at a moment’s notice.”
At Ignis’s instructions, Sol gave a crisp, “Got it.” Then she turned back to Noctis.
“Your Majesty, please do whatever it takes. Luna has to make it out of this okay.”
“I’ll save her. I promise.”
He had sworn the same to himself countless times already.
Noctis and his companions broke away from the dropship and ran toward the Citadel. So far, their assumption that the Draconian didn’t want any harm to come to the Crystal seemed to be holding up. There was no sign of the avatars.
But the state of the courtyard itself slowed their progress. It was canted down at a pronounced angle, with piles of debris and deep holes offering plenty of hazards. Further complication came from the fact that the Citadel was still rising, the intermittent jerks and shudders of the moving structure throwing them all off balance.
“You okay, Specs? I’m not walking too fast, am I?” Noctis asked.
When Ignis first lost his sight, Noctis had been slow to adapt. Gladio and Prompto had constantly been on Noctis’s case for not accommodating their blinded companion’s slower, less certain pace.
Noctis’s question seemed to remind Ignis of that time, too. He gave a chuckle, insisting “It’s no problem whatsoever, I assure you.”
Noctis took a moment to watch his companion’s progress more carefully and realized the rough terrain wasn’t slowing him down at all.
Ignis hunts, too. Says if anything, he’s more used to the darkness than we are.
When Sol had mentioned Ignis’s reaction to the world gone dark, Noctis hadn’t thought much of it. It seemed reasonable enough. Only now did it occur to him how much determination and effort must have gone into the smooth, natural gait Ignis walked with now, as well as how much time he must have spent honing his hearing, smell, and other senses to make up for the lost sight.
“If anything, we should pick up the pace,” the advisor continued. “We must reach Lady―”
There, his words cut off. Noctis sensed it, too. Footsteps on the long stairway leading up to the Citadel doors. Someone had paused near the top. Noctis looked up. Even through the darkness, there was something about the man’s presence that announced itself plainly for all to know.
“Oh, Noct . . . How I have waited for this,” came the lilting voice.
Ardyn slowly made his way down the staircase, both arms flung wide as if to imply the king and his retinue would pass no farther.
“Out of my way, jester.”
“Oh? And here I thought you came all this way to see me.”
Mere hours ago, Ardyn’s presumption would have been accurate. Noctis had been convinced of his calling to bring an end to Ardyn for the sake of the Star. But now the situation had changed.
Noctis’s tone was cold. “I don’t have time to play games with you.”
“In a hurry, are we? Don’t tell me. You think you have to go save your damsel in distress.”
Ardyn pointed a finger toward the sky, at the point above the Citadel where Lunafreya was.
“Surely you wouldn’t want to interrupt her,” Ardyn continued. “You’d be spoiling her brilliant plan.”
“What are you talking about?” Noctis grated out.
“Oh dear. You mean you haven’t heard?”
Gladio drew his greatsword, clearly ready to pass by force. “Noct, don’t listen to this asshole. Whatever comes out of his mouth is gonna be just another big, fat lie.”
“Now you’re starting to hurt my feelings. Lady Lunafreya approached me herself, in the hopes that I might aid her. It’s nothing but the truth, cross my heart.”
“Luna came to you?”
Time and time again, Noctis had fallen to the Usurper’s deceptions. He knew it, and yet now he still hesitated. What if this time Ardyn was telling the truth? He recalled the notebook sent by Lunafreya. There, on the final page, she’d expressed her hope to speak with Ardyn.
His frustration boiled over into rage.
“Then, tell us!” Noctis snarled. “What was she planning?!”
“Noct, calm down!”
It was Prompto who reeled him back in―Prompto, who had been the victim of Ardyn’s deceptions on board the train to Tenebrae. Nevermind that Noctis had ultimately been the cause of Prompto’s suffering that day.
Ardyn obliged Noctis’s question with an answer, seemingly unfazed by his anger. “A spell of ultimate destruction. Teraflare. She would provide the Bladekeeper with enough power to cast it. Look. It’s already beginning.”
He pointed up again, this time seeming to indicate the lines of the casting circle tracing through the dark sky. Already several massive swords had appeared, radiating from the circle’s edge. The resemblance to Noctis’s own spectral weapons was astonishing, yet they were clearly far more powerful than the arms in his arsenal.
“Lunafreya believes its casting will exhaust the Bladekeeper and send him off for a nice long nap,” Ardyn explained. “She assumes that he is impervious to death, and that sleep is the best we can hope for in the fight against an opponent that exists both here and in the other world.”
By “other world,” Ardyn likely was referring to the Beyond. Noctis knew of it from what he’d learned inside the Crystal. Ardyn’s own soul was trapped in that place, bringing him immortality in this world. That must be why Lunafreya thought Bahamut was impervious to death. And unlike Ardyn’s, the Draconian’s soul was likely not captive in the other realm.
“And so she came to me, asking that I give her the power of the scourge within me.”
“Surprisingly reckless,” Ignis murmured.
“Why, that’s exactly what I thought,” Ardyn said, nodding his head in a parody of grave concern. “Truly, I could not be more wholly in agreement. Who’s to say our blade-loving friend will sleep as predicted? Or that we’ll survive his spell at all? Lady Lunafreya claims the other gods will join together to resist the assault as they did long ago, but if you ask me, there’s nothing more fickle than a god. And that is why . . . ” Ardyn’s words had been coming faster and faster, but here, he paused, and a wicked smile spread across his face, “ . . . I think you ought to give me that ring.”
With a flicker, Ardyn vanished from the top of the stairway.
“Take cover!” Noctis shouted. His three retainers each leapt off to one side. And no sooner had Noctis warped away than Ardyn reappeared right where they’d been standing, red blade in hand.
“How delightfully nimble!” Ardyn laughed.
“Son of a bitch,” Gladio growled, making to rush at Ardyn from the side.
“Gladio, wait!” called Noctis.
Time was of the essence. He knew that overwhelming Ardyn as a team would be the swiftest course of action, that they should just force their way past him and continue on toward Lunafreya. But something inside Noctis told him to stay.
“I’ll put an end to this,” he announced.
His calling no longer held meaning; there was no reason to kill Ardyn when Bahamut endeavored to destroy all mankind. But calling or not, he had a score to settle. Not just for what Ardyn had done to him, but on behalf of all those whose lives he’d witnessed in the Crystal.
“This is a battle of kings.” He looked back. Prompto nodded understanding.
Ignis responded, “As you wish, Your Majesty.”
Ardyn smiled at Noctis. “Me, a king? You do me quite the honor. Are you sure that’s all right?”
Noctis knew the title had once belonged to Ardyn, and he’d seen how it was stripped away from the other man. Ardyn had gone on to claim countless lives and amass a multitude of sins for which he could never fully atone, but that did not give Noctis any desire to deny the truth. Let Ardyn be known for what he was―a rightful king of Lucis.
“Let us begin,” Noctis said, calling his blade to hand.
The shrill cry of steel on steel filled the courtyard. Noctis realized this was the first time he’d exchanged blows with Ardyn face-to-face. The events in Altissia unmasked Ardyn’s malice, but still, king and chancellor had never found a chance to cross swords.
Though awash with scourge, hatred, and malice, Ardyn was nonetheless of Noctis’s own line. The blood of Lucis flowed through the man’s veins, and thus, as Noctis unleashed hell with the Royal Arms, so, too, did Ardyn.
Perhaps Ardyn had attempted to steal away the ring on the assumption that anyone of the line of Lucis would be able to draw on its power. If so, he probably intended to travel to the Beyond and slay Bahamut there. Before the fight, he’d mentioned how the Draconian existed in both realms, and that as long as one of the halves persisted, the god would never perish. Only a soul stripped of mortal flesh could enter the Beyond, a feat that could be accomplished by using the Ring of Light while seated on the throne of Lucis.
Adryn’s soul, too, was in the Beyond, but in all likelihood, that alone would not suffice to contend against the Draconian. Noctis recalled the Crystal’s vision of the future, of the way things were meant to be. In that future, he’d destroyed Ardyn’s soul with one decisive attack. Ardyn had been unable to resist to any meaningful degree.
With mortal flesh intact, one could not cross over, and so the power of the Lucii was required to leave the body behind. Once crossed over, the soul alone could not properly fight, so again, the power of the Old Kings was needed. No matter which of the two worlds one was in, the power of the Ring of the Lucii would almost certainly be essential.
As Noctis’s mind whirled, the fight with Ardyn raged on.
“This is the strength of the True King?” Irritation filled Ardyn’s voice. “This is all the Draconian bestowed?!”
The course of the battle had shown the two to be almost evenly matched. Ardyn seemed unimpressed, as if the fight were wholly insufficient to appease two thousand years’ worth of animosity.
“And the god tells me I’m to fall to this pathetic display,” he cried. “What insult!”
Noctis recalled the Crystal’s final vision of Ardyn, the man yelling with unbridled blood rage.
You say that I live only to die by the hand of the heir to an ill-gotten throne.
That is the fate the gods have chosen to bestow upon me?!
Not once have I begged the gods for such a blessing. And I do not intend to kneel before you now!