The preservation formations embedded throughout the cultivation chamber rotated in slow, silent circles above Noctis while faint spiritual light drifted over the shelves surrounding him. Ancient bamboo slips, silk scrolls, linen manuals, and jade-rolled records rested beneath layered seals in every direction, each shelf holding fragments of a civilization that should not have felt so familiar beneath the academy vault.
Noctis sat at one of the lower stone tables with several manuals opened before him while the old ink and preservation herbs filled the air. The writing was ancient Chinese, the same script he had known as Haotian, and every diagram of meridian circulation, spiritual foundation tempering, demonic energy refinement, and movement art structure pulled him deeper into the impossible truth hidden beneath the academy.
Valdred stood near the chamber entrance for nearly half an hour after the principal allowed Noctis to remain, watching him read with the helpless exhaustion of a man who knew a disaster had been permitted by someone above his authority. He warned him again that the vault was not meant for prolonged habitation, that old relic aura and suppression formations could strain the mind over time, and that spending days underground surrounded by forbidden manuals was not normal behavior even by academy standards.
Noctis barely looked up from the scroll spread beneath his hands. "I will be fine."
"That is what people say before becoming vault incidents," Valdred muttered while the preservation glow reflected across his face.
Noctis turned another section of the bamboo scroll carefully. "Then I will try not to become an incident."
Valdred stared at him for several moments before finally leaving, and the layered ward closed behind him with a low hum that returned the chamber to silence. After that, time began losing shape beneath the vault. Noctis read movement manuals that resembled primitive roots of Phantom Dash and Wraith Step, sword arts that refined killing intent through spiritual circulation, demonic body tempering techniques that reinforced flesh through pain and abyssal energy, and ancient paired cultivation methods that made him pause longer than expected before setting them aside for later review.
Above him, beyond the academy, far from the quiet vault, the mansion slowly began to lose its peace.
At first, the fallen angels and clergymen trained out of discipline. They tested the courtyard grounds, reviewed movement paths, practiced blood pistol transitions, and adjusted to the mansion's open space while servants watched nervously from the covered walkways. Rengar observed from the edge of the rear courtyard with arms folded, occasionally correcting spacing or warning someone away from the fountain before another blood round cracked the marble lip.
The first day's training still looked controlled enough to be called training.
The second hour no longer did.
Nocthyrael and Claire stood opposite each other near the center of the rear courtyard while fragments of broken target pillars lay scattered around them. Nocthyrael's silver hair moved softly in the night wind as Eclipse and Halo turned through her fingers, and Claire's dark violet hair shifted against her fitted blood-metal armor while her blood-forged rapier rested angled beside her hip. The clicking of their armored heels sounded clearly against the stone as they circled one another, each step measured, elegant, and far too sharp to be casual.
"You seem tense," Nocthyrael said while the faintest smile touched her lips.
Claire's crimson eyes remained cold. "You seem talkative."
"I am in a good mood."
"You always are when he is mentioned."
Nocthyrael's smile widened slightly while she pivoted on one heel, the pointed metal tip scraping softly against the courtyard stone. "Careful, Claire. You sound like you have something to say."
Claire answered by moving.
Her Phantom Dash did not explode forward wildly; it cut diagonally across the courtyard with disciplined precision, her rapier thrusting toward Nocthyrael's shoulder while a blood pistol formed in her other hand beneath the movement. Nocthyrael twisted sideways at the last instant, her heel striking the stone with a sharp click before Wraith Step blurred her outline into a fading afterimage. Claire's rapier pierced through mist, but her pistol immediately fired backward beneath her own arm without needing to turn.
Nocthyrael ducked under the blood round while sliding close enough that her hair brushed the passing aura trail, and two blood daggers flashed into existence around her hands during the low spin. Claire caught one dagger against the narrow guard of her rapier and angled her wrist just enough to redirect the second strike, but Nocthyrael's right pistol appeared beneath the locked blades and fired upward from a blind angle that forced Claire to twist her torso sharply away. The shot tore through Claire's shoulder armor and grazed flesh before the armor's blood veins pulsed and began knitting the damage closed.
Claire did not retreat.
Her heel scraped across the stone as she pivoted through the pain and drove her knee toward Nocthyrael's ribs, forcing Nocthyrael to break the blade lock and flip backward through the courtyard mist while firing both pistols mid-rotation. Blood rounds crossed at different angles, one aimed at Claire's chest and another curving toward her landing foot. Claire vanished through Wraith Step before either landed, reappearing beside a cracked pillar with her rapier already thrusting toward Nocthyrael's exposed flank.
The fallen angels watching from the upper terrace gradually stopped talking.
The fight was beautiful in the beginning.
Nocthyrael moved like instinct given body, flowing between pistols, daggers, and sword manifestations as if each weapon was only a different expression of the same predatory rhythm. Claire fought with strict elegance, her rapier creating clean lines through the air while her blood pistols interrupted Nocthyrael's movement paths rather than chasing her directly. Their heels clicked, scraped, and struck against stone with every pivot, making their footwork sound almost delicate despite the violence tearing apart the ground beneath them.
By evening, the courtyard had changed.
Shallow craters spread across the training grounds. The fountain had lost one side. Several decorative pillars were cracked through the middle. Servants had dragged benches, flowerpots, and lantern stands away from the fighting area, only for later shockwaves to destroy the places they moved them to.
Nocthyrael's sword flashed into existence during a close exchange, slim and crimson, catching Claire's rapier with enough force to scatter sparks of blood aura across the courtyard. Claire stepped inward rather than away, her left pistol firing beneath the crossed blades toward Nocthyrael's abdomen. Nocthyrael bent backward, the round tearing across her side instead of piercing cleanly through, and as her armor pulsed to heal the wound, she hooked Claire's ankle with the inside of her armored heel and tried to drag her balance out from under her.
Claire's heel struck hard into the stone to anchor herself, cracking the surface beneath her boot before she used the resistance to twist her body and drive the rapier toward Nocthyrael's throat. Nocthyrael smiled even while leaning away from the blade, her second pistol appearing behind Claire's elbow and firing from an angle no ordinary fighter would have expected.
Claire's arm jerked from the impact, blood scattering across her sleeve before the armor sealed tight around the wound.
"You are aiming more carefully now," Nocthyrael said while sliding backward through broken marble dust.
Claire advanced with her rapier low. "You are still smiling too much."
"That sounds like jealousy."
Claire's next thrust came faster.
The night deepened around the mansion while the courtyard continued breaking apart beneath them. Moonlight mixed with blood aura and holy-abysmal sparks from nearby clergymen drills, though most of the others had gradually stopped training simply to watch the fight. The clergymen stood near the outer walls beneath faintly glowing scripture, while Rengar remained closer than the others, ready to move if the battle threatened the mansion itself. Bahamut tried to sleep near his usual resting place, but every few minutes another shockwave rolled across the courtyard and made one of his eyes open in irritation.
The fight did not stop.
There were moments when both women stood apart breathing heavily while their armor repaired torn sections and sealed deeper wounds. There were moments when they lowered their weapons just enough to recover aura circulation. There were moments when neither moved for nearly a minute, their heels planted in fractured stone while blood mist drifted between them.
But neither yielded, and neither left the courtyard.
By the time the first dawn light touched the mansion roof, their elegance had begun to fray.
Claire's landings grew heavier. Nocthyrael's Wraith Step afterimages flickered unevenly at the edges. Blood pistol shots still came from impossible angles, but not every shot carried perfect rhythm anymore. Some detonated into walls. Others tore through broken statues. One round curved too sharply around a pillar and forced a watching fallen angel to lean aside with an irritated glare.
Nocthyrael's breathing had become heavier beneath her smile. Claire's expression remained cold, but her jaw had tightened, and the hand holding her rapier trembled briefly whenever she reset her stance.
The second day began without either woman acknowledging it.
Sunlight spread across the ruined courtyard while servants stared in disbelief from the mansion entrance, holding repair tools they no longer had the energy to use. Every time they patched one section of stone, another explosion of blood aura cracked a different section open. Every time they rebuilt a pillar, Claire or Nocthyrael used it for movement cover and shattered it again within an hour.
Rengar finally joined the training elsewhere after watching the fallen angels' capabilities long enough to become interested, but even his spars with Marcus and Victor caused less distress than Nocthyrael and Claire's continuous fight. Theirs had stopped feeling like practice.
Near midday, Nocthyrael manifested her scythe for the first time.
The weapon formed during a failed pistol exchange when Claire forced her backward through a sequence of rapier thrusts. Crimson blood aura extended from Nocthyrael's hand, curving into a long scythe blade that dragged through the courtyard stone as she spun. Claire's eyes sharpened instantly, and she used Phantom Dash to retreat diagonally, but exhaustion made her landing slightly uneven. Her heel struck loose rubble instead of stable stone, and that fractional instability was enough for Nocthyrael to close the distance.
The scythe swept low.
Claire jumped, twisting mid-air while firing downward beneath her own leg, the blood round forcing Nocthyrael to tilt her head aside as it tore through several strands of silver hair. Nocthyrael's scythe dissolved before the swing completed, reforming into twin daggers as she launched upward after Claire. The two collided in the air above the ruined fountain, Claire's rapier piercing through Nocthyrael's shoulder while Nocthyrael's dagger cut across Claire's ribs.
Both wounds began healing.
Neither woman cared.
They crashed back to the ground together, heels skidding across blood-slick stone as they separated by barely a few steps before firing again. Their pistols no longer sounded like clean volleys. The shots came during falls, during twists, during grapples, during broken recoveries, and from positions that made the servants flinch because even watching the angles felt unsafe.
By late afternoon on the second day, the fight had become ugly.
Claire caught Nocthyrael's wrist moments before Eclipse fired toward her throat, forcing the barrel aside so the blood round punched through the mansion wall behind them. Nocthyrael slammed her forehead into Claire's face during the grapple, and Claire answered by driving her knee into Nocthyrael's abdomen hard enough to bend her forward. Nocthyrael hooked Claire's leg with her armored heel and dragged both of them down into shattered stone, where they rolled through blood mist and debris while wrestling for control of pistol barrels and blades.
Claire's rapier scraped across the courtyard floor beside them, briefly out of reach. Nocthyrael tried to manifest a dagger, but the blood construct flickered weakly before stabilizing. Claire grabbed her wrist and forced it down while reaching for her fallen rapier with the other hand, and Nocthyrael fired Halo blindly from beneath Claire's arm, the shot tearing through Claire's side at point-blank range.
Claire gasped, but her hand closed around the rapier.
She thrust upward.
The blade pierced Nocthyrael's armor near the lower ribs, and Nocthyrael's eyes widened briefly before her expression sharpened with raw stubbornness. Her scythe tried to manifest again, but the blade formed unevenly, the outer curve flickering in and out of existence as her blood aura struggled to maintain the shape.
Rengar stepped forward once.
Marcus caught his arm.
"Do not," Marcus said quietly while watching both women claw themselves back to their feet. "They will not accept it."
Rengar's ears twitched beneath the pressure rolling across the courtyard. "This is no longer a spar."
"It has not been one since last night."
Claire stood unsteadily with her rapier lowered, breathing hard while the armor around her side pulsed with regenerative veins that failed to fully close the wound. Nocthyrael staggered several steps away, silver hair tangled, blood at the corner of her mouth, one heel cracked along the side from repeated impacts against stone.
Still, she smiled.
Claire's voice came colder than before. "You look terrible."
Nocthyrael wiped blood from her lips with the back of her hand. "And you still cannot beat me."
Claire moved first.
Her Phantom Dash stuttered.
It still carried terrifying speed, but the recovery was wrong, and her heel hit the ground at an awkward angle during the final step. Nocthyrael tried to exploit it, but her own Wraith Step distorted unevenly and threw her slightly too far left. Both women adjusted through instinct rather than precision, colliding shoulder-first near the remains of the fountain.
The rapier thrust missed Nocthyrael's heart by inches.
Nocthyrael's pistol shot tore through Claire's upper arm instead of her chest.
Both attacks landed badly.
Both still caused damage.
The final hour looked nothing like the first.
Nocthyrael's weapons destabilized repeatedly. Her daggers flickered. Her sword dissolved halfway through a swing. Her scythe formed in broken fragments before scattering into crimson particles. Claire's rapier technique, once precise enough to thread between pistol fire, had become heavier and more direct, her thrusts still dangerous but lacking the earlier elegance. Their pistols remained deadly, but trembling hands and unstable aura made every shot unpredictable even to them.
Eventually Claire's rapier was knocked aside again, and this time neither woman reached for it immediately.
They slammed into each other in close range, armor scraping, hands grabbing wrists, elbows striking ribs, knees driving into abdomen and thigh. Nocthyrael tried to fire from beneath Claire's chin, but Claire forced her wrist outward and the blood round detonated against the broken courtyard wall. Claire tried to choke her against a shattered pillar, and Nocthyrael drove the sharpened heel of her damaged boot into Claire's calf to break the hold.
They stumbled apart, then came together again.
Punches landed with less force than before but more desperation. Claire's disciplined counters degraded into short, brutal strikes aimed at joints and ribs. Nocthyrael clawed, kicked, shoved, and fired whenever a barrel happened to align with flesh. Their armor continued trying to heal them, but the regeneration pulsed slower now, overwhelmed by two days of wounds, aura depletion, and exhaustion.
At the end, there was no grand finishing strike.
Claire tried to lift her rapier one more time after retrieving it from the rubble, but her arm failed to fully rise. Nocthyrael tried to form her scythe again, and only a curved fragment of crimson aura appeared before dissolving around her trembling hand. Both women staggered forward anyway, refusing to stop even when their bodies clearly no longer obeyed.
Claire took one step.
Nocthyrael took one step.
Their heels clicked weakly against the destroyed stone.
Then Claire's knees buckled first, though Nocthyrael collapsed almost at the same moment. Both hit the ruined courtyard hard enough to send dust rising around them, their armor still pulsing faintly as it tried to repair what exhaustion had already defeated.
For several seconds no one moved.
Then Bahamut opened both eyes.
The massive dragon slowly lifted his head from his resting place while looking across the ruined mansion grounds, the unconscious women, the cracked walls, the destroyed fountain, the exhausted servants, the broken statues, and the fallen angels watching as if this had been normal training.
He exhaled heavily through his nose.
Far beneath the academy, Noctis turned another scroll beneath the quiet preservation light while the pet contract stirred inside his mind.
"Master," Bahamut's voice rumbled through the connection, carrying exhaustion far more than urgency.
Noctis paused with one hand still resting on an ancient Chinese manual. "Bahamut?"
"The mansion is becoming difficult to live in."
Noctis slowly lifted his gaze from the scroll while the preservation chamber continued humming quietly around him. "What happened?"
Bahamut looked across the destroyed courtyard while servants quietly collapsed onto benches in the background. "Your fallen angels and clergymen became bored. They trained. Then they trained harder. Then Nocthyrael and Claire fought for two days and destroyed most of the rear grounds. The servants are tired. I am tired. Rengar appears entertained, which is not helping."
Noctis remained silent for several moments beneath the vault light.
Then he sighed.
"They need purpose."
"Yes," Bahamut replied flatly. "Preferably outside."
Noctis closed the scroll carefully and rested one hand against the table while his voice extended through the blood connection binding him to the fallen angels and clergymen. The message carried one way, a clear command reaching every one of them regardless of where they stood inside the mansion grounds.
"All of you, listen carefully. While I remain inside the academy vault, you are to organize yourselves into teams and report to the mission hall. Take missions, earn contribution points, gain combat experience, and build your reputation among the demons. You have been granted special privileges within the academy, but privileges are not the same as ownership. If you want resources, you earn contribution points like everyone else."
Across the mansion, the fallen angels and clergymen all stilled as Noctis's voice reached them. Even Nocthyrael, unconscious in the courtyard, seemed to react faintly through the bond before the armor around her continued its slow recovery.
Noctis continued while the preservation formations turned above him.
"I recently contributed greatly to demon society and received many rewards because of it. Do the same. Behave while I am gone, grow stronger through missions, and when I return, I will present all of you with gifts that will benefit your growth greatly."
The word gifts immediately changed the atmosphere in the mansion.
Rengar noticed it first.
The fallen angels straightened with renewed focus. The clergymen exchanged glances. Even Claire, barely conscious after recovery began, opened her eyes faintly at the lingering command.
The next day, the mansion finally emptied.
Teams formed beneath Rengar's supervision while weapons were checked, armor repaired, and mission roles assigned. Nocthyrael and Claire both moved stiffly after two uninterrupted days of combat, neither fully recovered but both refusing to show weakness. Their eyes met once across the courtyard, and the tension remained, though for now it was buried beneath Noctis's command.
By noon, the fallen angels and clergymen departed for the academy mission hall in organized groups.
The mansion became quiet for the first time in days.
Servants sat down where they stood. Escorts leaned against walls in relief. Rengar watched the gates close behind the last departing team and gave a small satisfied nod.
Bahamut lowered his head back onto his crossed forelegs, finally able to sleep without blood pistols detonating near his courtyard.
Far beneath the academy, Noctis opened another cultivation scroll beneath the silent preservation lights, unaware of just how much peace his single order had restored above ground.