The flames had mostly died, but the smoke still curled like the ghosts of what had burned.
Volst stood motionless, one hand still hovering near his belt, eyes fixed on the figure above.
Noctis didn't descend.
He hovered.
Watching.
Waiting.
Measuring.
The air held still as if the entire district had forgotten how to breathe.
Then, without warning—movement.
Noctis dropped.
Not like a fall. Like a blade being unsheathed.
The wind split in his wake as he landed at the far edge of the rubble—silent, controlled, cloak sweeping around him like it had its own momentum. He didn't make a sound. Not even his boots crunched against the stone.
Volst straightened fully now, cautious but unshaken.
"You're not one of theirs," he said. "Too quiet. Too… clean."
Noctis didn't respond.
His red eyes glowed through the mask like embers behind frost.
Volst narrowed his gaze. "You here to chase me? Or test me?"
Still, nothing.
Then Noctis took one step forward—and the ground beneath his foot cracked. Not shattered. Compressed.
A spiral ripple of wind peeled outward, pushing ash and dust aside without lifting it—a warning shaped like a gesture.
Volst's lips curved—barely. "Interesting."
He flicked a finger toward one of the collapsed walls, and a piece of stone shot toward Noctis like a cannon round—gravity-bent, lethal.
Noctis didn't flinch.
He shifted, almost casually, and the cloak moved before him—absorbing the force.
The stone collapsed mid-air, its pressure diffused into a spiral of harmless gravel.
Noctis spoke for the first time, voice low, mechanical from the mask.
"Just testing."
He raised one hand. A hum built in the air—not loud, but dense. Like magic wrapped in silence.
Volst didn't wait for the outcome. He launched upward, gravity negated, positioning himself onto a rooftop above.
But Noctis was already there.
Not teleportation. Not speed.
Just inevitability.
Their eyes locked again.
And now Volst knew:
This wasn't a chase.
It was a hunt.
Volst threw the first blade of compressed gravity—twice the weight of a warhammer in the form of a pebble. It should have cracked ribs.
Noctis leaned.
Not dodged—leaned, and the attack passed within an inch of his cloak.
The rooftop cracked from the force behind him.
Volst leapt again, arms out, dragging air pressure around himself like a crashing satellite. His momentum folded space—a direct-line assault too fast for most to track.
Noctis blurred slightly—no flash, no jump.
Volst's impact hit only rooftop tile.
"You're fast," he muttered, scanning the smoke. "But not enough."
From behind him, a sudden twist of air.
WHAM.
Volst was launched backwards—not by a spell, not by contact—but by the absence of pressure in front of him. It was like the air had been pulled from beneath his body.
He skidded across gravel, flipping once before landing on a wall mid-crawl.
Still no words from Noctis.
Just a slow advance.
---
From a shadowed tower in the ruins, a woman crouched behind a broken arch—hood drawn, eye lens glowing faint green. Her badge, hidden beneath her cloak, marked her as part of the upper ranks.
A spy. One of the Captain's intelligence scouts.
She'd followed the trace of a forbidden explosion.
Now she wasn't sure what she'd found.
She adjusted the focus on her enchanted lens—but the figure in black didn't blur. The cloak shifted too naturally. The threads shimmered with unknown ward work. She clicked a glyph on her notepad silently.
Unknown entity. Human form. High-level tactical magic. Observing further.
Below, Noctis turned his head slightly in her direction.
Not all the way.
Not obviously.
But enough.
The spy froze.
He knew.
He let her watch.
---
Back on the ground, Volst was sweating now, crouched low. His coat was torn, his breath sharp.
"Not bad," he said under his breath. "But you've shown your tricks. You're just pressure magic. Smoke and mirrors."
Noctis didn't move.
Didn't defend.
Didn't deny.
Volst attacked again—this time with no reserve. Three gravity spikes. A compressed lunge. A sudden flare that snapped a streetlight in half from pure force.
But every time—
Noctis was either already gone…
…or hadn't needed to move at all.
He was just there. Like fate.
Volst's lungs burned. His arms shook.
He launched one final, full-force strike—an entire wall of twisted air density compacted into a spear.
This time, Noctis caught it.
Not with magic.
With his bare hand.
The gravity spike collapsed in his palm like folded paper.
Noctis tilted his head.
"Playtime's over."
He lifted his hand. Just one.
And whispered something no one heard—not even the spy's audio glyphs caught the word.
The wind stopped.
Not slowed. Not calmed.
Stopped.
Then—
A sound like ink spilling across glass.
A black circle unfurled around Noctis, wide as a fortress, rippling outward in perfect silence. The air inside dimmed. The light pulled thin.
The spy gasped.
Volst took a step back, eyes wide.
"No… what is this—?"
The spell didn't make noise.
It made absence.
Everything within the circle began to slow—debris, flame, even gravity itself. Time bent. Weight hung.
At the center: Noctis, hand outstretched, unmoving.
Volst's knees buckled. His body tried to resist, but his mind had already seen enough.
He was going to die.
This wasn't magic.
It was judgment.
Then—just as quickly as it began—the entire circle imploded.
The implosion came not as sound—but as destruction given voice.
A thunderous, crushing shockwave collapsed inward with a scream of air and cracking matter. Every window within three blocks shattered. Birds launched from rooftops. The tower she hid in groaned from the echo.
At the epicenter—Volst vanished.
Not flung.
Not buried.
Disintegrated.
His form atomized mid-breath, ripped apart by the vacuum pressure of the collapsing circle. The crater beneath him spread like a scar on the city's edge—blackened, molten, and steaming.
And then—silence.
The spy crouching in the tower watched in frozen awe, her hands trembling on the glyph recorder. Every hair on her body lifted.
"No…" she whispered. "What is this?"
The spy's hands had gone numb. Her glyph pad had slipped from her grip. She couldn't move. Couldn't even blink.
She just stared.
Still watching the burning pit.
Still trying to breathe.
Then—
A whisper. Not from sound. From proximity.
A figure now stood beside her.
Right beside her.
Noctis.
She didn't hear him arrive.
She felt him arrive.
The air dropped five degrees. Her body froze like the molecules of her blood had given up trying to flow.
With unbearable slowness, she turned her head. Every vertebra in her neck felt like it resisted her.
And then—
She saw his eyes.
Red.
Not glowing—burning. Two focused embers staring through her, unblinking. Not rage. Not contempt.
Just presence.
Like gravity given shape.
Like death had paused a moment to say hello.
Her breath hitched. Sweat streaked down her jaw. Her lungs refused to pull in air. All the training, all the spy craft—gone. Replaced with a single, paralyzing truth:
She would never forget this face.
Noctis didn't speak.
He didn't need to.
He just turned his head forward again.
And vanished.
Not into shadow.
Not with a flash.
He just—was no longer there.
The spy collapsed against the stone, still trembling.
The crater still smoked below.
And she stayed there, unable to move, barely able to think, with only one word forming in her head:
"Impossible."