Ardyn closes his eyes on the Ascendant King, his head tipping to the side as his body decays around him. His consciousness frays and scatters like the scourged ash his body becomes, whirling and wafting away on some ethereal breeze to reconstitute in a void of auroral light. There, he waits.
At length, the boy-king appears, descending through the ribboning lights. Ardyn bows grandly, as he had done to Regis a decade past. There is a wickedly triumphant twist to his lips at the thought.
That smirk falls in bafflement when he raises his head to see Noctis guarded on either side by his friends and father. The shock is brief. He shakes his head and they are gone, mere wisps in this sacred void, ghosts of meager obstacles long-resolved.
Noct raises his hand, ring pulsing now with its full power. Ardyn mirrors the gesture. And here at last will be his vengeance: to poison the crystal's light forever. It had deemed him unworthy due to the plague in his veins. Now, gathered wholly in Noct, it could not flee. It could not excise whatever corner of its power Ardyn might have managed to touch. The crystal itself will share his blight.
His lips twist again, this time to something balanced cleverly between a snarl and a smile. The blackened violet of the scourge flames from his outstretched hand—
Then other, gentler hands close over his wrist, and the dark fire sputters and chokes in the golden light of the Oracle.
Ardyn recoils and the specter of the golden lady vanishes, but her light remains, drawing his arm away out to his side. He can feel the scourge roiling under his skin, stifled by the power wrapped tight and hot as a sun-seared chain around his forearm.
He jerks at the restraint, even claws at it with his free hand. The light bites at his fingertips. A pained hiss strains between his clenched teeth.
This has all gone terribly wrong.
The Lucian royal arms tear from Noct's back like the cry of agony from his throat. The last king staggers and sways. The weapons flash into the deified spirits of his forebears.
Noctis regains his bearings and thrusts his fist forward, sending the Lucii hurtling towards the Accursed, and Ardyn finally, fully understands.
The boy had not been the only one chosen.
Fear takes him then, and his soul shreds like silk.