At the highest point of Stormveil Castle's cliffs, in front of a building that looked like a church and bore a relief of the Erdtree, lay a desolate courtyard dotted with countless gravestones. The few large trees there had all withered, and only one or two small Erdtree saplings stubbornly clung to life. In the courtyard, a strange man wearing a crown, with white hair and beard, a gaunt face, and a luxurious dark green cloak draped over him, slowly felt the head of a motionless black dragon with one of his malformed, disproportionate hands. All the while, he muttered to himself.
"Ah..."
"Dragon, you are a descendant too..."
"Your power is beyond doubt..."
"You will surely elevate my power to even greater heights!"
A closer look at the golden crown on the strange man's head, or the way he spoke, made it easy to tell that he was none other than Stormveil Castle's lord—the legendary Demigod, Godrick the Grafted!
Of course, he was also the true culprit behind the desolate state of Stormveil Castle and the Limgrave region, where nine out of ten homes stood empty.
That much was clear from the miserable, dilapidated state of Stormveil Castle, once said to be second only to the royal capital, Leyndell, as well as from how few people remained in Limgrave and the densely packed gravestones throughout the courtyard.
"The royal capital..."
"I will return..."
"I swear..."
The strange man continued to stroke the dragon's skull and mutter to himself.
His eyes narrowed slightly in his corpse-pale face. It was hard to tell whether he was planning or preparing to do something mad or dangerous.
"Reporting!"
Suddenly, a castle soldier clad in chain mail and carrying a shield hurried through the archway into the courtyard. He saluted Godrick the Grafted, who