Omen King

"Have you heard of the 'Power of the Crucible'?" Lansseax asked.

Lucia immediately thought of those Crucible Knights, each possessed of extraordinary skills. They used red-gold incantations distinct from Golden incantations, just like the color of the armor they wore.

No one knew what powerful beings were hidden beneath those suits of heavy red-gold armor. Though the Crucible Knights had human forms, they could effortlessly manifest projections of the ancient Aspects of the Crucible and unleash all manner of mighty battle arts that far exceeded the limits of the human body.

Seeing that she had prompted Lucia to think, Lansseax did not keep him in suspense. Instead, she continued to recount the ancient secrets she knew in an unhurried voice.

"That was a blessing that originated from the Crucible of Life in ancient times—in other words, the primordial Erdtree. According to High Priest Gulan, before that Forbidden War a thousand years ago that destroyed all civilizations, the blessing contained within us was also that interwoven red and gold. Later, the primordial Ring shattered in the war, and the primordial Erdtree was toppled for a time as well. During the War of the Gods, all living beings in The Lands Between endured centuries without blessing."

"When Queen Marika became the final victor of the War of the Gods, the Elden Ring, stripped of Destined Death, rose to become the new law of The Lands Between, and a new blessing lit once more in the pupils of all living beings. It was the golden color that symbolized life. Even for races like us and the Carians, who still maintained other faiths, the essential form of our blessing became no different from that of the Golden People."

Hearing this, Lucia at once resolved a doubt that had lingered in his chest ever since he crossed over: why the ancient dragons, clearly belonging to the ancient dragon faith and the primordial Ring, still had a pure golden blessing in their pupils.

He had never expected that the Tarnished era after the Shattered War had not been the first "faded age" in history. As early as centuries ago, Queen Eternal Marika and War King Godfrey had already walked the road the Tarnished of later ages would tread.

That great undertaking—starting from nothing, setting chaos right, and reestablishing law upon a wasteland where rites had collapsed and order had broken down—was, to later generations, a tragic epic of one general's triumph built upon ten thousand bones. To those of the past, however, it was only a little-known footnote beneath the radiance of law.

"Returning to the Power of the Crucible itself," Lansseax said after a moment of silence. "By common sense, now that the law has completed its transition and golden blessing has spread to every corner of The Lands Between, aside from those ancient Crucible Knights born before the Golden Age, as well as a few outcast races rejected by the Golden Order, such as Misbegotten and Demi-humans, no new living beings with Crucible blessing should be born. Not a single one—do you understand what I mean?"

"But in reality, there clearly are—" Lucia first froze, then felt a chill crawl over his entire body.

That was right. Now, when the Golden Order was at its height, there was still a kind of being born with Crucible blessing. Their bodies were covered in Crucible Knots and hard horns, and they naturally possessed physiques and strength far beyond ordinary humans.

"Omen..." he murmured, lost in thought.

Lansseax sighed softly, her delicate brows drawing together. "In the nearly hundred years after the Golden Order was established, more and more Omens appeared everywhere with each passing year. Especially within the capital, their chance of being born through ordinary childbirth has already approached one percent. The scholars of the royal family have pored over scriptures until their hair turned white for decades, yet still cannot find a single theory sufficient to explain the reason for their birth."

"Imagine a couple who grew up beneath the Erdtree from childhood and devoutly believed in the Golden Order, giving birth, with no evidence of any outside interference, to a twisted-looking infant covered in horns. How could they not see such children as monsters?"

Lucia naturally understood the meaning behind it. To give a not entirely appropriate example, the shock of such an experience to commoners was roughly like a pair of European parents in his previous life suddenly giving birth to a Negro child without warning—perhaps even worse.

Thinking carefully, the sacred blessing of ancient times becoming a symbol of curse and defilement had never been a change that could happen overnight. The root cause that gave rise to such thinking must have been that the Golden People encountered some completely unknown situation, and when the unknown could not be reasonably explained, it would then turn into fear. Fear that could not be relieved would ultimately condense into hatred sunk deep into the bones.

"This nationwide panic reached its peak after Queen Marika gave birth to the twin brothers Morgott and Mohg. At that time, the Giant War had just ended, and the Queen and the War King returned to the capital with their army, carrying the newborn children in their arms. The Golden People had originally prepared a grand celebration for the triumph of god and king. But when they saw those two children, when they saw that even the Queen Eternal could not escape the curse, everyone fell into collapse," Lansseax said.

"They believed they had seen an omen of disaster in what had befallen the royal family, and so they began calling those children 'Omens,' and calling their bloodline and innate blessing 'Cursed Blood' and 'Cursed Power.' Then, shouting, they rushed into the streets, using kitchen knives and hammers to slaughter the Omen descendants they had personally given birth to. Some mobs even formed groups and stormed the Golden Sanctuary, demanding that the Queen execute the newborn twins in public."

"Something like that happened?" Lucia could not help being stunned by the madness of the Leyndellian citizens. But when he thought of what he had seen and heard in the arena a few hours earlier, it was as though he had suddenly found the answer.

"Then how was it resolved?" he asked.

As a former Tarnished, of course he knew that neither Morgott nor Mohg had died. The latter relied on schemes and cunning to avoid the storms of the Shattered War, quietly building the vast Mohgwyn Dynasty underground, while the former defended the golden royal capital to the death from beginning to end, even though this place had never held the warmth of home for him, and instead was more like a cage filled with blades and thorns.

"The War King acted..." Lansseax replied.

Though she was an ancient dragon priestess whose might awed the world, and though she was recounting old events sealed deep within history, when she mentioned that man, she still revealed a reverence that came from the heart.

"He held that enormous Royal Axe and stood guard day and night before the Golden Sanctuary. No matter how those mobs went from pleading to questioning, then to hysterical curses and shoves, he only used his body to withstand their attacks, then condensed his abyss-deep divine power into a barrier to stop their advance... After three full days and nights, the Queen walked out of the Golden Sanctuary and announced the method of handling Omens."

"From that time on, Omens had their hard horns cut off and were abandoned in the depths underground. Though the two princes Morgott and Mohg did not have to suffer this punishment, they still could not avoid the fate of exile. The Leyndellians would also throw specially bred lobsters, crabs, frogs, and other creatures into the wells. Stimulated by the Omens' Cursed Power, they would grow into mutant species far larger than their own kind, for those abandoned children to hunt and eat... Of course, hunters and prey trading places was also common."

"In sixteen years, the Leyndell sewers have already swollen into an extremely complex ecosystem. I once sent Ancient Dragon Knights to explore some areas within, but due to limited manpower, we never obtained much valuable information, except for one rumor whose truth even I cannot verify... Some say that Knight Ordovis became Morgott and Mohg's teacher. Under his secret instruction, those twin princes have already grown into the leaders of the Omens."

"They call the elder Morgott—the Omen King."