The blood-red longsword slashed through the air, making even the air around it seem to tremble. Locked onto by its bloody aura, the Tarnished felt his blood churn as though it were about to burst out of his body.
"Is this your dynasty's technique?" The Tarnished was not alarmed. If anything, he thought this was far from enough. It would take much more than this to justify calling themselves a dynasty. Even weakened as the forces of gold were, power of this level could not shake them.
"Let's see how long you can keep talking tough!" The Knight Commander was no pushover either. With first-rate swordsmanship and the advantage of his blade's reach, his attacks were relentless.
"Die!" Gripping his sword with both hands, the Knight Commander unleashed a spinning slash. The Tarnished drew his katana with an Unsheathe strike and sent him flying again. This time, however, blood burst from the Tarnished's chest, leaving a hideous wound across it. At the sight, the Knight Commander broke into savage laughter.
"Hahaha! It's useless! As long as there's blood in your body, you can't escape this blood sword! This is what you get for insulting the Mohgwyn Dynasty!"
"..." The Tarnished wiped some blood from his chest and examined it.
"Hahahahaha! Have you been scared witless? Hahaha... huh?" The Knight Commander's laughter froze on his face. He saw the Tarnished looking down at his blood, his shoulders trembling slightly.
"Heh... hahahahahaha!" The Tarnished suddenly dropped his Uchigatana and pressed both hands to his chest, then threw back his head and laughed like a wolf.
"A fine attack. It really got my blood pumping."
When the Tarnished looked back at him, the Knight Commander broke into a cold sweat. He saw the Tarnished's scarlet, wolflike eyes and sharp claws of blood. The blood on his chest flowed upward from the wound toward his neck, winding around it before forming a cloak of blood behind him.
"How is that possible... how is that possible?!" The Tarnished now resembled a ravenous, bloodthirsty wolf, filling the Knight Commander with dread.
"What's wrong? Scared?" The Tarnished rolled his neck, lowered his stance, and placed his right hand on the curved sword at his back.
"I wonder how my control over blood measures up?" His terrifying gaze pierced the Knight Commander, threatening to tear apart his last psychological defenses.
"M-monster! Die! Die!" The Knight Commander hacked wildly, all trace of his earlier fluid swordsmanship gone.
"You've panicked..." The Tarnished gave a cold laugh. His blood-red cloak became a streak of scarlet light as he moved at an outrageous speed. In an instant, the curved sword in his right hand was drenched in blood, while his left held the Knight Commander's severed head.
"The Mohgwyn Dynasty... it does have something interesting to offer." The blood receded from the Tarnished's body as he gradually returned to normal.
"It really has been a long time since I used that power." Feeling the shortage of blood within him, the Tarnished took a sip of Crystal Tear.
This was an innate power of his. When his emotions ran high, he would become like a beast. Combined with his fighting style, it had earned him the name [Blood Wolf] on battlefields long ago. The cost of that power, however, was equally enormous.
"That should count as completing the job." Looking at the trembling soldiers around him, the Tarnished fastened the Knight Commander's head to his waist as proof.
With the job done, the Tarnished was in no hurry to leave. Instead, he headed for the storeroom and the Watchtower. Faithful to his principle of hunting treasure and looting everything, how could he pass them up? Yes, he was a ruthless bandit, and he did not deny it.
Sure enough, he found an interesting object inside the Watchtower: half of a split medallion, bearing the image of a soldier holding a greatshield and a long-handled axe. It was the Dectus Medallion.
It was the mechanism used to activate the Grand Lift of Dectus, which linked Liurnia to the Altus Plateau, where Leyndell stood. For some unknown reason, it had been split in two. If he wanted to reach Leyndell and face the Erdtree, he would need the other half as well.
"What an unexpected find." The Tarnished immediately pocketed the medallion. He would take this as his reward. Then, under the terrified gazes of the soldiers, he walked out of Fort Haight and returned to the Third Church of Marika through the Site of Grace outside the fort.
Before long, he reached the cliff where he had met Kenneth earlier. Sure enough, the man was still waiting there.
"Oh! You're back, Tarnished. How did the task go?"
The Tarnished said nothing, merely throwing the Knight Commander's head from his waist onto the ground.
"Ah! You... well done, very well done! I knew I was right about you!"
"Now, here is your reward..." Just as Kenneth was about to produce his payment, the Tarnished took out the Dectus Medallion.
"No need for anything else. How about giving me this instead?"
"Oh... oh, that medallion..." Kenneth lowered his head in thought. It had been entrusted to Fort Haight's safekeeping long ago. Its time in the fort seemed to exceed even his own age.
"Ah... that's right. You Tarnished are making your way toward Leyndell. In that case, you certainly will need it. Very well! I shall generously bestow it upon you." Kenneth waved a grand hand, looking every inch a leader rewarding his subordinate.
"A pleasure doing business with you." The Tarnished smiled and put the medallion back in his pocket.
"I should return to the fort as well. There's a mountain of work to be done."
"It's also time to reopen talks with the Demi-Humans."
"Oh?" The Tarnished was rather surprised to hear that.
"You seem skeptical... but beneath the Erdtree, even the Demi-Humans can be our neighbors."
"Those savage fellows will not be excluded from a rightful order."
"That, too, is what I, Kenneth Haight, rightful heir to the rule of Limgrave, ought to do. It is my duty."
"Haha, I've changed my opinion of you." The Tarnished had not expected the man before him to think this way, to yearn so deeply for order. What Kenneth did not know, however, was that the Erdtree was extremely intolerant of outsiders...
"Just watch how I manage Fort Haight... oh, yes, the time is ripe. Would you be interested in joining me? Work under me to rebuild order, and perhaps one day Grace will return to your eyes." Kenneth extended an invitation to the Tarnished.
"I'll pass. You know I have other things to do." The Tarnished's impression of Kenneth had improved considerably, but he had his own business to attend to and could hardly spare him any attention.
"Ah... very well. What a pity. I hold your abilities in very high regard."
"Still, could I ask you to lend a hand along your travels?"
"Let's hear it."
"Help me find someone truly suited to becoming the ruler of Stormveil. I can no longer tolerate Godrick's atrocities and his contempt for order. He is utterly unworthy of being king!"
"Godrick, huh? That won't be a problem. He's already one of my targets." The Tarnished agreed. He could take care of it along the way.
"You intend to challenge Godrick? Strong as you are, Godrick is still a Demigod."
A Demigod...? That fellow is actually one of Marika's descendants?
"A Demigod?" The Tarnished looked questioningly at Kenneth.
"Indeed. Despite appearances, he is a legitimate descendant of the Golden Lineage. But that only makes his actions all the more unforgivable. A royal who enjoys the Erdtree's blessings, committing such heinous crimes! He brings shame upon the royal family." Kenneth always lost his composure whenever he spoke of Godrick.
"I see. I'll be careful." The Tarnished gave a slight nod.
"Then that settles it. If you find a suitable candidate, come to Fort Haight. I'll be waiting for you there." Kenneth laughed, crushed a strange rune in his hand, and vanished.
"A Memory of Grace." The item Kenneth had used was one of the most common means of travel in the Lands Between. It allowed someone to return directly to the last Site of Grace they had touched, without needing to reach another one first.
The Tarnished had one himself since returning to the Lands Between, but had never needed to use it. It could come in handy in a dangerous situation.
After parting with Kenneth, the Tarnished returned to the Site of Grace at the Church of Marika and considered his next move.
"There doesn't seem to be anything else urgent right now. And Stormveil, where Godrick is, lies along the guidance of Grace." Stormveil Castle stood right on the border with Liurnia. To reach the Altus Plateau, he really would have to pass through that castle.
"Stormveil..." It had been a turning point not only in his own fate, but in the fate of every Tarnished, Godfrey included. This was probably how the story went in the outside world.
The lord faced the Storm Lord in single combat. When the lord defeated his enemy, the color faded from his eyes as well.
"Our Grace was indeed stripped away after the Storm Lord, but our actual banishment happened where Limgrave and Caelid met."
Come to think of it, given Godrick's atrocities, Graveyard of Limbs would have been a more fitting name for Limgrave. Few places in history had been renamed because of the atrocities committed there. For Godrick to have achieved that, he truly had to be a beast.
"Since you're a descendant of gold, I'll have to teach you a lesson." A cold glint flashed in his eyes, and he used the Site of Grace to travel to the Church of Elleh.
"Where did Kale go... never mind. He's a Wandering Merchant, after all. It's natural for him to go wherever he likes." The Tarnished paid it little mind. He knew little about the nomadic people, only that they had worked as battlefield merchants, frequently appearing in wars across the land.
He straightened his tattered chainmail and grumbled inwardly. It looked like he would need some new equipment.
Not long after leaving the church, he saw numerous soldiers with sallow skin and listless expressions staggering along on patrol with torches in hand. The collapse of Grace had truly inflicted terrible damage on the living beings of the Lands Between.
In a way, this showed how successfully the Erdtree had domesticated the people of the Lands Between. This madness could rightly be called withdrawal. He had seen it in the past: even newborn babies instinctively craved the power of the Elden Ring. This trait showed itself in the descendants of the Tarnished as well.
"I don't really feel anything." Perhaps he had already been strong enough before receiving Grace. The Grace he gained had merely let him absorb runes more smoothly. But the problem was...
He had already been able to absorb runes.
For some inexplicable reason, much of his power had not recovered after his death in the Land of Fog. Even now, his ability to absorb runes had yet to return.
The Tarnished continued forward as he pondered. With plenty of bushes nearby, he chose to remain stealthy rather than waste his strength fighting the soldiers. He could sense a large force ahead and could not afford to expend unnecessary energy on a few lowly patrolmen here.
Sure enough, a military camp lay ahead. Dozens of soldiers were stationed there, a substantial force, and a knight in armor identical to that of Fort Haight's blood Knight Commander was patrolling nearby.
"Quite a lively place..." Rather than charge in, the Tarnished observed their movements. Many among those dozens of soldiers were no longer in their right minds. Only a handful seemed to retain their reason.
"Looks like I should deal with the sane ones first." As for why he did not approach them to talk-talk? About what? Was he supposed to reason with dozens of soldiers on the verge of madness? Besides, they were clearly Godrick's men, and Kenneth had told him of Godrick's vile habit of hunting Tarnished and grafting their limbs. Why would his soldiers talk peacefully with a Tarnished?
Killing them was the only viable option.
Before you continue