No one knew how long had passed. Deep inside the sealed prison at Stormhill, in the pocket dimension of the Demiplane, the knight who had been slapped flying by a certain bear finally began to slowly regain consciousness.
"..."
"Uh..."
The knight's fingers twitched first. Then, as he rolled over, he finally opened his eyes.
"??"
"I..."
Looking at his hands, the knight slowly sat up, unable to believe what he was seeing.
"Strange."
"I'm... not dead?"
He clearly remembered encountering one of Marika's lackeys earlier. She had fought the enemy fiercely, but despite giving it her all, she had still been knocked flying by the monster the enemy summoned. So how was it that he wasn't dead—and, in fact, didn't seem to have a single injury?
"This... is..."
"The prison?"
After a pause, he realized he was still in the same desolate prison. He sighed, then remained sitting on the ground in his armor, lowering his head.
"..."
He sat there without a word or a movement.
As a powerful Crucible Knight, he had been imprisoned here for who knew how many years. Time had long since lost all meaning to him, and he had grown accustomed to passing it by sitting motionless.
At first, there had been guards watching over the prison. Later, he had managed to kill them one by one. But it made no difference. Even after killing every last one of them, he still couldn't escape.
Throughout those countless years, he had prayed again and again, calling upon the primordial Golden Tree in hopes of gaining the power to break the seal.
But he had failed...
He didn't know whether Marika had tampered with something, or whether something had gone wrong with the Erdtree. Perhaps that evil Elden Beast had interfered?
In any case, all