A little under 48 hours had passed from Noctis' first venture into the Sixth District for reconnaissance on the Los Diablos cult, and in that time Noctis had managed to create two functional prototypes for his operation; a steel vessel capable of holding his Rokumori Gas under high pressure, as well as altering the fabric of his shirt with a flame-retardant woolen weave. While it wasn't the most comfortable thing in the world, it was functional and one of a kind, which is all that mattered to him at the moment. Having informed his ally Devroux of his next venture, Noctis trusted the bat mink to keep an eye on his dwarf companion Three for the time being.

Opening the seal on his metal container, Noctis started to fill the vessel with a steady flow of his Rokumori Gas, something that he could do idly and inconspicuously, as it looked not too different from a large thermos or flask. At least, not enough to the passing eye. Making his way out of the warehouse which he had essentially called home for the past two days, the longleg brought himself together outside of the chained entrance ready to make his way into the Development Sector of the Sixth District.

Noctis anticipated that the sector itself wouldn't be overly difficult to find, as industrial centers tended to leave their mark and influence no matter where they were located, whether it was through smoke stacks and pollution, or even the distinct smell that production tended to make.

Bringing the mask to his face from his last expedition, Noctis dawned the near-blackened purple cloak to conceal his identity fully. After the time that had passed from his encounter with the strange three-eyed preacher, it was likely that his appearance wouldn't come across as familiar or suspicious in any meaningful way.

Starting the trek, Noctis made his way towards his first target, the Sin Priest of Lust.

As Noctis had assumed, the center of the Development Sector wasn't difficult to track down, as the amount of people gradually shifted as he approached. The buildings too, seemed to change in a gradient as well, as the residences and places of worship were supplanted by warehouses, storage units, and factories. Following along the trail, Noctis was surprised to see he had come across the heart of the Development Sector already. It wasn't the largest building there or the most impressive to look at, but it was towering around 2 stories higher than the rest of the sector. However, what really gave it away as his destination, was the sheer amount of people outside of the gray facility.

The crowd of worshipers and faithful surrounded the entire perimeter of the building, and extended out to cover the streets. Noctis stood a decent bit taller than the majority of those in the sea of people, which gave him a unique vantage point. He watched from a distance as the crowd trickled in and out at an incredibly slow pace, while more official looking clerks seemed to be handing out supplies one at a time. It was clear to Noctis that despite this being the location, his target wasn't in the crowd, nor on the ground level. Looking up towards the top of the building, it seemed almost too obvious and too symbolic that the Sin Priest would be at the highest floor. Regardless, making it into the building was Noctis next move.

Retreating back into a less crowded and visible area, Noctis found himself in an empty alley behind one of the neighboring warehouses. Taking a moment to make sure he wasn't being watched, he quickly allowed his form to dissolve into the air itself. Now invisible to the naked eye, Noctis was able to pass through the crowd without being seen, the only indication of his presence being the breeze that constituted his body flowing past the faithful.

Not wasting any time, Noctis made his way through, around, and above the crowd as what seemed to be a stray breeze entered into an entrance being used by one of the distributors. Taking his body to the upper level of the ground floor, Noctis scouted out his surroundings and the layout from the safety of his air body from high above.

Coming out of his gaseous form, Noctis landed softly onto the ground as quietly as possible to not draw any attention to himself, stashed away in one of the less active corners of the ground floor. The size of the operation here took Noctis by a bit of a surprise, the sheer number of explosives and supplies being pushed out of this building could probably rock the entire district with ease. Workers toiled away, none the wiser, as they moved product in and out of the warehouse. Several of the employees held a trained and focused eye over the pile of explosives that rested just in front of Noctis, meaning that moving past them shouldn't be overly difficult, so long as the longleg intruder didn't tamper or interfere with them in anyway.

The real challenge would be making his way to the complete opposite end of the floor, where Noctis' path to the top resided. With a gas creation range of 30 meters, Noctis wagered he could fill at least half of the room with a sufficient distraction quickly enough to create significant distress among the workers, especially considering the nature of their cargo. Pushing the length of his power's influence to the center of the room, the near black Rokumori gas began to accumulate and spread, set to fill the entire area with gas in only a matter of moments. Waiting for sufficient concern and attention from the employees, Noctis would use his Gasu Gasu no Mi abilities to launch himself up to the ceiling of the floor, out of line of sight from the dense Rokumori gas that hung below him. Traveling along towards the elevators, Noctis opted to take what he believed would be the less active of the two, bringing his intangible and gaseous form through the crack of the closed metal door and into the handicapped shaft, where he would hover to plot out his next move.

As Noctis floated within the vacant elevator shaft, he was surprised with how quickly the alarms sounded and the building was mobilized. Air vents began to rumble to life, quickly clearing out what remained of Noctis' distraction, as he felt the flow tug at him ever so slightly even from within the shaft, able to resist it with his constitution alone. Luckily, none of the doors within the shaft seemed air tight, meaning despite the elevated security, Noctis could still travel up to his destination at the top of the building, towards the Sin Priest of Lust.

It was highly likely that the workers within, now on high alert, would begin to arm themselves in the scenario they were under attack. Or rather, that was the worse of the two options for Noctis, and the one he chose to prepare for. If he were incorrect in this assumption, it'd come as a pleasant surprise as opposed to a fatal error.

Propelling himself upward within the shaft, the gaseous longleg made his way to the final doorway in his path. There was no way for him to conclude if this was the uppermost floor, but it was the highest point this elevator traveled too. If the Sin Priest wasn't on this floor, he'd have to just continue on foot. Carefully bringing his form fully gaseous, Noctis merged himself with the air, slowly pressing his invisible form through the seam on the metal doors, making sure to go as gradually as possible to limit the potential for the noise of gas being forced through a small crack. Once he was fully through, he would take a moment to gather his surroundings to make sure he wasn't in immediate danger before reconstituting himself.  

"Tsk." Noctis muttered to himself mentally, as he surveyed the room before him. Of course, the security would become tighter the closer he came to the Sin Priest. That portion was expected. What wasn't expected was the sense of discipline he felt coming from the men directly in front of him. There was no way to anticipate their capabilities, or what threat they posed to Noctis, meaning the best course of action would be to eliminate them swiftly and with maximum prejudice. Even the slightest portion of downtime could result in a straggler calling for backup, leaving Noctis in a precarious situation.

Worse yet, each guard wore a gas mask, negating a great deal of Noctis' utility with the Gasu Gasu no Mi. Noctis would have to rely on his standard physical ability supplemented by the fruit in order to take the four immediate guards down. Studying his surroundings a bit closer, the steel wall that seemed to position itself at the opposite end from Noctis' position wasn't a natural fixture, but rather a security measure that had been lowered from the ceiling, forming an air-tight seal with the ground. What this meant is that beyond the four enemies within sight of Noctis, were an unknown number of potential enemies and doorways. From what he could assume from the dimensions of the building from the outside, there couldn't possibly be more than ten equal divisions on the floor. Meaning if the number of guards stayed consistent across each division, he could be looking at three dozen more guards at maximum.

The thought was far from the most attractive thing in the world, but even Noctis had to admit to himself that his sense of distance and scale wasn't the most accurate. With the way security was partitioned, taking out the guards with such little commotion that the others wouldn't be on him in seconds was a near impossibility. With that in mind, the cloaked gaseous intruder began to formulate a plan of attack. From the start of his attack until the death of Lust, he would be in a race against the clock.

The distance between the two parallel doorways and pair of guards was 10 meters, wide enough for a fairly large amount of foot traffic and even potential supply to make it's way through, bringing his invisible form slowly up to the ceiling 5 meters up, Noctis let his upper half manifest from the waist up, as he gathered Rokumori Gas into his two palms, compressing it rapidly into spheres. "Let's start this thing up."

Positioned upside down, Noctis manifested his lower half quickly enough to allow his long legs to get a foothold against the surface above, pressing off with Nagare to launch himself at maximum speed [6]. Thrusting his right hand forward, he let the compressed ball of Rokumori Gas press into the center of the hallway, creating a rapid and powerful explosion of the material, ten meters in radius from his point of impact, leaving all four guards well within the danger zone in addition to the closed doors behind them. "Teibaku!" A more offensive and serious version of the technique he had used in his spar against Devroux, trying to unlock his Busoshoku Haki, the rapid expansion of gas was now powerful enough to bore a hole straight through the floor with it's force, or rather, that would be the case with most buildings.

Reinforced likely as a precaution against the exact sort of damage their line of business caused, the explosive distribution centers' floor simply cracked and buckled, leaving a noticeable crater, and packed enough of a punch to blast the lesser doors leading into the side rooms off their hinges, but did little else in terms of structural damage. Still, Noctis landed upright onto his feet, pulling Kuroi off his back with his now free hand, ready to proceed into the next rooms beyond the air-tight seal, only giving the initial guards a passing glance to see if they were truly out of commission.

His initial assault successful, Noctis looked on as the scientists stopped tinkering away at various smaller explosives and gear to look at the cloaked masked man who had blown open their rooms. With all eyes on him, he put a single index finger up to the grinning mouth of his mask, mimicking for them to stay silent. In each room there appeared to be two scientists each with badges attached to their coats, both as a form of identification and as a security method.

Walking into the room on his left, Noctis made no sudden movements and proceeded towards the scientists carefully, a subtle indicator that if they were to keep calm, no irreparable harm would come to them. Reaching out, Noctis yanked the two ID cards off of the scientists in the room as they silently and nervously looked on at the masked longleg. In one swift motion, Noctis delivered a chop to the back of each scientist's neck in sequence, just powerful enough to knock the untrained men unconscious as he gently lowered them onto the floor and careful to not let his still gathering Teibaku loose.

Noctis wasn't normally a fan of leaving witnesses, but given the goal at hand, he opted to simply disguise himself to lessen his burden.  Directing his gaze over to the remaining two scientists in the space opposite to him, Noctis moved swiftly behind them before knocking them unconscious as well. It was a motion casual enough for Noctis, but to the average man it would be completely invisible at the speed he moved [4].

With everyone in Noctis' sealed away section firmly dispatched, he took the time to swipe some of the in-progress explosives and technology on the table, pocketing them for further inspection and research at a later date before pulling out the two cards he had just stolen. Looking at the panel that was fixed into the wall, he read the text that scrolled along the bottom of the screen. 'Please present employee identification.' Noctis quickly identified a scanner required to present his stolen ID and held up the card momentarily as the machine processed the input. 'Please present dual factor authentication at Terminals A and B to clear lockdown.'

"...What?" Noctis thought to himself, stunned at the level of security and technology that the Cultist Kingpin had access to before extending his gaseous arm holding the reserve keycard up to what he could only assume to be the paired terminal at the opposite end of the hall. After another second of scanning and waiting, the screen in front of him flashed slightly before going dark, the sealed metal doors in the center of the passage way rumbling as they prepared to open. Letting the keycards clatter onto the floor, he held his gathered Teibaku tightly in his right hand as he waited silently in the room, waiting for the guards on the opposite side to either come to him, or investigate the opened seal.