Nocthyrael guided Noctis beneath the prisoners suspended over the cathedral square. Her steps were measured, but the satisfaction in her expression remained clear as she brought him closer to the results of the operation. The six angels hung highest, their wings spread and pinned open by Crimson Chains that passed through wrists, ankles, shoulders, wing joints, and armor gaps. Their halos remained visible, but the light around each ring was weak and uneven. Beneath them, the bishops and higher clergy were held in lower rows, their robes torn, throats restricted, hands spread apart, and limbs fixed in positions that prevented chanting or scripture gestures. Fortress commanders and relic-protected officers hung even lower, stripped of weapons and bound through armor joints so they could not reach hidden seals, rings, or emergency capsules.
Nocthyrael stood at Noctis's side and lifted one hand toward the prisoners. "The six angels are suspended highest. They descended after the Catalyst Crystal was activated. The bishops and senior clergy are below them. The commanders are lower. That robed one carried the highest authority during the collapse, but we have not confirmed his name yet. Claire recovered several command ledgers, so we should be able to identify him soon."
Noctis followed her gesture and studied the prisoners without speaking at first. His Omni Eyes opened, and the surface condition of each captive separated into layers. Blood flow, sanctity reserves, organ pressure, divine essence circulation, chain punctures, relic residue, and internal damage became clear across his vision. The human clergy were in worse condition than their outward posture showed. Their blood volume had fallen too low, and many of them were anemic to the point of organ failure. Several bishops had unstable sanctity pulses gathering behind the eyes and along the skull, producing severe internal pressure. Those pulses were not strong enough to restore them. They were only strong enough to cause pain, ruptured vessels, and eventual collapse if the bodies were left untreated for too long.
The commanders were less saturated with sanctity, but their bodies had suffered heavy drain from Devour. Their hearts still beat, but several heart rhythms had become uneven. The relic-protected officers had survived because armor and embedded seals had reduced the first wave of extraction, but the relics had also trapped damaged power inside their bodies. Those trapped remnants were scraping against their nerves and blood vessels with every breath.
The angels remained the most valuable and the most stable, but even they were heavily weakened. Their golden holy blood still moved through their bodies, but it no longer circulated with full force. Their wings trembled because the joints had been pierced and held open by chains. Their halos were not extinguished, but the light in them had thinned. The divine essence in their blood attempted to gather around the wounds, yet every gathering point was restricted by the Crimson Chains.
Noctis's gaze returned to the human clergy. Several would die before the end of the hour if nothing changed. Their bodies had survived capture, but survival did not mean they were safe as assets.
Noctis stepped forward.
During that single step, one nail cut across his palm. The motion was small enough that most of the prisoners would have missed it if they had possessed the strength to watch him clearly. Blood opened along the cut and gathered in his hand without falling. He raised his arm toward the suspended rows and extended his palm.
Nocthyrael looked at the blood, then at his face.
Noctis smiled faintly. "Step back for a moment."
Nocthyrael nodded immediately and moved behind him, folding her wings closer to avoid interfering with the flow. She did not question him. She only watched with bright attention as he stood beneath the prisoners and lifted his bleeding hand higher.
The pressure around Noctis increased and moved upward through the square.
His crimson aura rose from his body in controlled streams, not as a wide blast but as lines of energy that separated into dozens of strands. His physical blood mixed into those streams and darkened them. The strands curved upward, entered the Crimson Chains, and spread into the runes along the links. The chain runes brightened one by one, starting at the lowest anchors and traveling upward toward the prisoners. Red light passed through the chains in ordered sequence until every binding connected to the suspended bodies carried Noctis's blood authority.
The blood reached the prisoners through the punctures where the chains pierced their limbs, shoulders, throats, wrists, ankles, and wing joints.
It entered the human prisoners first. The bishops jerked against their restraints as Noctis's blood moved into their veins and contacted the remaining sanctity inside them. Their swollen holy channels reacted with immediate heat. Veins rose under pale skin. Sweat spilled down their faces and necks. One bishop tried to scream, but the chain across his throat compressed the sound into a strained rasp. The corrupted blood did not tear through them without purpose. It entered the bloodstream, stabilized the failing circulation, and then began overwriting the damaged holy flow. Their hearts beat harder. Their lungs pulled in air with more force. The pain increased, but their bodies moved away from death.
The commanders struggled next. Their armor plates scraped against the chains as their bodies convulsed. Noctis's blood moved through wounds, broken vessels, and marrow channels, devouring the unstable relic residue trapped inside them. Several officers shook violently as the embedded holy seals under their skin went dark. The blood did not allow those seals to discharge. It consumed the remaining power and used the residue to strengthen the conversion.
Then the blood reached the angels.
Their golden holy blood reacted at once. Thin light gathered around their chain wounds as their bodies attempted to reject the crimson blood entering them. One angel's halo brightened for a moment. Another angel forced her fingers to curl, trying to form the beginning of a purging sign. A third opened his mouth as if to release a hymn.
The resistance failed almost immediately.
Noctis's blood did not carry only vampiric authority. It carried Genesis bloodline, abyssal pressure, holy compatibility, and blood dominion in one integrated flow. The angels' golden blood tried to push it out, but there was no clear contradiction for their holy essence to attack. The crimson blood met the golden flow, surrounded it, consumed it, and converted the contact point into a red-gold-purple stain inside the vessel. The stain spread through the bloodstream. The angels' eyes widened as they realized their own blood could not hold the line.
The first angel screamed.
The sound broke across the square and caused several fallen angels to look up from the relic stacks. The second angel followed, then the third. Their wings pulled against the chains, but the pinned joints held them open. Their halos flickered as the conversion spread through their blood vessels. Gold lines beneath their skin darkened at the edges. Red and violet threads moved through the veins of their arms and necks. At the roots of their wings, white feathers began to show faint crimson marks where the corrupted blood reached the divine tissue.
The human clergy struggled below them with less strength but no less pain. Veins rose under their skin. Sweat ran down their faces in steady lines. Several bishops shook so hard that the chains had to tighten around their shoulders to keep them from tearing their own limbs further. The highest robed authority tried to lift his head toward Noctis. His eyes focused for a moment, but the conversion reached the sanctity behind his pupils, and his gaze lost its shape as pain overtook him.
Nocthyrael watched from behind Noctis with visible satisfaction. She did not interfere. She understood what he was doing. He was not merely preserving prisoners. He was taking ownership of them.
Less than twenty seconds passed.
Noctis lowered his hand.
The crimson streams withdrew from the chains in reverse order. The runes dimmed from the upper links down to the anchor points, leaving enough power to maintain the bindings but no longer carrying active infusion. The remaining blood on Noctis's palm flowed backward into the cut. Flesh closed behind it, and the wound vanished without leaving a mark.
The prisoners did not stop struggling. The blood had already entered them. The conversion continued inside their bodies, moving through vessels, marrow, organs, sanctity channels, and divine circulation. The angels strained harder than the clergy, but their strength remained insufficient. Their screams weakened into broken breaths. The human prisoners twitched against the chains as their failing blood flow stabilized under Noctis's authority.
Noctis turned to Nocthyrael. "Keep watch. It will not be long until they fully convert."
Nocthyrael stepped closer. "Are you going somewhere?"
Noctis lifted one hand and cupped her chin. Her eyes softened at the contact. "Adrian and the barrier core. I will use it to form a barrier around the fortress."
Nocthyrael hummed in acknowledgment, pleased by the attention even as the prisoners continued to suffer above them.
Noctis leaned forward and kissed her forehead. "Watch them carefully."
"I will."
He released her chin, stepped once, and disappeared through Genesis Step.
For a few seconds after he vanished, Nocthyrael remained still. The wind moved through the broken square, lifting the edge of her dress and shifting the long ponytail behind her. Her face held a blissful softness from the forehead kiss, and the crimson veins inside her wings pulsed with quiet satisfaction.
Then she turned back toward the prisoners.
The softness left her expression. Her eyes narrowed, and the warmth on her face disappeared as she watched the angels and clergy undergo their transformation. One angel pulled weakly against the chains, and Nocthyrael's gaze fixed on him until the movement stopped. She gave no order. She did not need to. The Crimson Chains held, Noctis's blood continued its work, and every captive remained suspended beneath her inspection.
Noctis appeared in the lower cathedral barrier chamber.
Adrian had been standing before the depleted core with his scepter lowered toward the northern conduit. Elias held three strands of abyssal blood in place. Lucian's blood scripture sphere rotated beside the frame, tracking which channels could still carry flow. Damien had his ritual blade set against a damaged scripture seam. Kael's censer released dark red vapor into the lower grooves. Rowan's blood scripture chains remained wrapped around the cracked support pillar. Selene's catalyst rings stabilized the outer frame.
Noctis's arrival made every one of them pause.
Adrian reacted first. He turned, lowered his scepter, and bowed. "Master."
The Prelates followed immediately.
"Master."
Noctis waved one hand. "Relax. Show me the core."
Adrian straightened but kept his head slightly lowered. "The core is intact. Its stored holy power is mostly depleted. The remaining holy residue prevents abyssal power from accumulating. We have been reducing it through controlled infusions, but full conversion is slow."
Noctis looked past him.
His body shifted from the entrance to the barrier frame before the Prelates finished moving aside. He stood directly in front of the suspended core and opened his Omni Eyes. The structure unfolded in his sight. The central crystal was layered with sanctified alloy, compressed holy essence, and scripture channels designed to distribute power through the fortress's old six-point barrier system. The physical core had survived because the Lance had broken the outer barrier before fully destroying the inner chamber. The energy reservoir was nearly empty, but enough holy residue remained in the upper crystal to interfere with abyssal infusion. The outer gridlines were partially damaged. Three of the old six anchor paths had fractured. Two still carried faint flow. The last one was unstable and leaking into broken scripture channels along the western wall.
Noctis studied it for several seconds.
If he devoured the core, the gain would be small. The stored energy was too depleted, and the remaining holy power had already been reduced by Adrian's repeated infusion attempts. As raw essence, the core was not worth much.
As an anchor, it was far more valuable.
Apex Dominion Ward X existed as a defensive sovereign ward centered around Noctis himself. It combined resistance amplification, allied reinforcement, defensive shell formation, enemy drain, and command synchronization within its range. The limitation had always been its center. The ward moved with him. It protected where he stood. This core could change that. If corrupted and rewritten properly, it could anchor the ward to the fortress instead of his body, allowing the fortress to remain defended even after he left.
Noctis placed both hands on the core's outer frame.
The Prelates stepped back at once.
Adrian's eyes sharpened. "Master?"
"I will use it," Noctis said.
His body changed.
The full power of his Genesis Apex transformation activated. The triple dao wheel manifested behind him, rotating with layered crimson, gold, and black light. Wings spread from his back, carrying the integrated pressure of blood, holy, abyssal, dragon, titan, and wraith inheritances. His aura filled the chamber first, then pushed through the lower cathedral and into the fortress structure above.
The barrier chamber shook.
Dust fell from the ceiling. The cracked pillar under Rowan's chains vibrated. Selene's catalyst rings were pushed outward and almost lost rotation before she forced them steady. Elias's blood threads snapped and withdrew. Lucian gripped the blood scripture sphere with both hands. Damien drove his ritual blade into the ground to brace himself. Kael lowered his censer to stop it from striking the wall. Adrian planted the base of his scepter against the floor and bent one knee under the pressure.
The fortress above them shook next.
In the cathedral square, relic crates trembled. Crimson Chains tightened automatically around the prisoners. Nocthyrael lifted her eyes toward the cathedral floor beneath her. Fallen angels across the rooftops turned toward the center of the fortress. The captured angels screamed harder as the blood inside their bodies reacted to Noctis's expanded authority.
The tremor did not remain inside the fortress.
Across the surrounding region, dust moved off abandoned stones, broken road markers shifted, and distant scouts felt the ground vibrate beneath their boots. The pressure did not travel as a visible wave. It entered the ground through the fortress and passed through the connected terrain. Most who felt it did not know where it came from. They only knew that something far beyond normal fortress power had awakened for a short time.
Inside the barrier chamber, Noctis drove his aura into the core.
It entered every accessible channel at once. The remaining holy residue flashed in the upper crystal, but it had no time to gather into a defensive structure. Noctis's aura surrounded it, engulfed it, and folded it into blood and abyssal flow while preserving the holy function instead of destroying it. The pale gold light inside the core darkened, then separated into layers. Red entered the central crystal. Violet moved through the lower conduits. Gold remained, but it no longer stood apart. It became part of the new structure.
The old scripture frame changed color.
Gold, red, and violet spread through the crystal and alloy. Holy, blood, and abyssal power settled into one integrated flow. The core stopped leaking white sparks. The remaining holy residue no longer clashed against abyssal input because it had been absorbed into Noctis's authority and rewritten into a controlled channel.
Adrian stared at the core.
The Prelates could not speak.
Noctis did not stop there.
His Omni Eyes shifted to the outer formation lines connected to the fortress. The old barrier used a six-point node system. That design had once protected the fortress by distributing power through fixed scripture anchors around the wall, but the Lance had damaged several nodes and exposed the weakness of the structure. A targeted strike could break one anchor, then overload the rest. Repairing it would leave the same flaw in place.
Noctis ignored the damaged paths and chose replacement.
His aura moved from the core into the old gridlines.
The remaining scripture lines across the chamber cracked, then shattered. Above the chamber, the old barrier channels embedded in the cathedral floor, the inner streets, the outer walls, the broken scripture towers, and the gatehouses broke apart in sequence. The six-point structure dissolved because Noctis did not repair it. He erased the system and replaced it.
New gridlines formed in its place.
They did not spread toward six fixed anchors. They expanded in all directions at once, creating an omnidirectional formation that used every section of the fortress as part of the ward. Runes formed beneath the cathedral, then moved through the square, streets, walls, towers, vault chambers, gatehouses, and underground conduits. The runes were more complex than the old Church script. They carried blood-red strokes, gold edges, and violet internal lines. Each section reinforced every other section. No exposed node carried the whole burden.
In the square, the ground began to glow.
Nocthyrael looked down as red-gold-purple lines moved beneath her boots. The runes passed under relic crates without disturbing them, climbed broken walls, traced along collapsed tower foundations, and entered the chains holding the prisoners without breaking their bindings. The fallen angels watched the new formation replace the damaged holy system across the fortress grounds. Some stood still in open admiration. Others lowered their heads because the pressure in the air made standing straight more difficult.
The converting prisoners reacted violently.
The angels' halos flickered as the new ward environment reinforced Noctis's blood inside their bodies. The bishops shook against their chains. The highest robed authority gave a hoarse sound and lowered his head as red-gold-purple lines appeared faintly beneath the skin of his throat. Nocthyrael watched them all with steady eyes, ready to increase restraint if one recovered enough strength to resist.
Below, Adrian and the Prelates watched the formation complete.
Selene's catalyst rings stopped rotating for a moment before she forced them to resume. Lucian nearly dropped the blood scripture sphere and caught it against his chest. Elias lowered both hands because there was no conduit left for him to thread. Damien withdrew his ritual blade from the floor but did not step forward. Kael's censer vapor was pressed flat against the ground by the density in the chamber. Rowan's blood scripture chains loosened around the old cracked pillar because the new formation no longer depended on that pillar for support.
The final rune connected.
A dome rose around the fortress.
It did not look like the old holy barrier. The dome formed in layered crimson, gold, and violet bands, the colors moving through one another in stable circulation. The outer surface spread from the walls upward and closed above the highest broken tower. It covered the southern district, the cathedral, the square, the vaults, the underground chambers, and the damaged gatehouses. The pressure inside the fortress changed as soon as the ward settled. Fallen allies felt their wounds stabilize and their reserves recover faster. Their resistance to holy pressure increased. The captured enemies felt the opposite. The ward drew faint power from them through their wounds, blood, and remaining sanctity, feeding the fortress core and reinforcing the barrier.
Apex Dominion Ward X had been anchored.
Noctis held the core for several seconds longer, making sure the ward did not depend on his physical contact. The core remained stable. The gold-red-purple light inside it circulated on its own through the new omnidirectional formation.
Then he released the core.
The triple dao wheel slowed. His wings folded back and disappeared. The Genesis Apex transformation retracted, and the pressure in the chamber reduced enough for the Prelates to breathe normally again. Noctis lowered his hands and turned toward Adrian.
"The fortress is safe now," he said. "Attacks below Tier X will not break this barrier."
Adrian's pupils narrowed.
Noctis looked back at the core and added, "Only a god should be able to force it open."
The chamber went still except for the steady hum of the corrupted core.
Adrian lowered himself to one knee. The Prelates followed, some faster than others because their legs were still unsteady from the pressure. Selene's catalyst rings hovered close to her shoulders. Lucian held the scripture sphere against his chest. Elias lowered his hands fully. Damien bowed his head. Kael's censer rested against the floor. Rowan's chains coiled around his arms again.
Adrian spoke with visible strain in his voice. "Master, we failed to understand the scale of the barrier you intended."
Noctis looked at him. "You did not fail. You preserved the core long enough for me to use it."
Adrian lowered his head further. "Thank you, Master."
Noctis turned back toward the core. The holy barrier engine that had once protected the Church fortress now carried his blood, abyssal power, and controlled holy authority. Above them, the new dome held its shape over the walls. In the square, Nocthyrael stood beneath the captured angels while the conversion continued. The fortress no longer depended on broken Church anchors, depleted reserves, or damaged scripture towers.
It stood under Noctis's ward.