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Title drop!!!
Hah... 12k long chapter this time, I think I broke my record... As the title implies, enjoy Godrick's end!
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Solaire's war-drum rhythm still echoed in the stone as they moved, his last shout hanging in the air like the ringing of a bell.
"May the Sun shine upon the Lord of Cinder!"
John couldn't help it.
He smirked and shook his head, a low chuckle slipping out as they jogged through the corridor toward the next courtyard.
'That's Siegward's line, you dick.' He thought, amused. 'Onion bro's gonna sue you for copyright infringement. Or at least ask you to share a drink first.'
Solaire, of course, marched along at the head of the group like a particularly enthusiastic beacon, shield on his arm, sword at his hip, posture radiating a kind of irrepressible optimism that did not fit Stormveil's miserable halls at all.
They spilled back out into open air a moment later.
The next courtyard stretched out ahead of them, it was narrow at first, then widened into a broad killing field. Cracked stone, broken carts, a few ruined pillars… and along one side, a thick, knotted root of the Erdtree had forced its way up through the flagstones, pale gold veins pulsing faintly beneath bark.
John's gaze snagged on it.
In the game, there'd been a Golden Seed here. A neat little glimmer at the base of the root, player-brain candy.
Here there was nothing. Just dirt, scuffed where boots had clearly passed.
He snorted inwardly. 'Yeah, that tracks. Why would the workers leave a shiny magic seed lying around when they've got free will and a shitty boss?'
Marika hummed faintly in his head, following his line of thought.
"Those sprouts are not mere trinkets, mine Champion. They are potent condensations of the Erdtree's grace. I'd be more surprised if they hadn't been hoarded or consumed long ago."
He was about to reply when Nepheli's voice cut through the air, sharp and alert.
"Enemies ahead!"
John lifted his head properly and looked beyond the root.
The field opened onto a choke point between two half-collapsed walls, and there, blocking the path to the massive royal graveyard beyond, was a familiar silhouette.
A Troll.
It towered above the surrounding soldiers, pale, rope-muscled flesh stretched over an emaciated frame that was somehow still huge. Its jaw was bound shut with iron, its eyes small and mean beneath a heavy brow. In both hands it gripped an absurdly large greatsword that looked like more slab than blade, its edge chipped and stained.
Around its legs milled people.
Foot soldiers in Stormveil livery, spears and swords raised. A handful of Banished Knights in heavier armor, their crested helms glinting dully. Archers lined the low battlements up ahead, bows already in hand, and somewhere further back John could feel, more than see, the press of additional bodies ready to flood in.
The moment Godrick's men saw them, a shout went up.
"INTRUDERS!"
"IT'S THEM!"
"FORM RANKS! LORD GODRICK'S ORDERS!"
The front line bristled, shields locking. The Banished Knights moved slightly ahead, like teeth on a blade. Archers scrambled to take positions on the upper ledges, all eyes focused down the funnel of stone that led toward the graveyard gate.
John watched it come together and couldn't help a low whistle.
"Okay, that's… Surprisingly smart." He admitted under his breath.
Melina's gaze swept the courtyard, sharp and calculating. "They mean to draw us in, hold us here, then crush us between this vanguard and reinforcements from behind."
Rogier nodded grimly. "A storm between anvil and hammer, and the hammer is currently wielded by a freshly dragon-grafted Demigod."
"Surprisingly clever, for a shrieking meatball." Millicent added, resting one katana on her shoulder. "Stall us with the Troll and fodder, wait for the rest of the castle to catch up, then throw everything at us in the graveyard while he watches and picks off what's left."
Even Marika sounded grudgingly impressed.
"Slippery wretch he may be, thou canst not say he lacks cunning. When it comes to self-preservation and underhanded cruelty, Godrick's imagination is tragically robust. He would gladly pile his own men chest-deep between himself and danger, if only to dull an enemy's blade ere it reaches him."
There was a brief, instinctive pause before, as if choreographed, every head in their little band turned toward John.
Even Nepheli.
It wasn't submission; she carried herself like someone who was used to leading charges herself. But she still glanced his way for a heartbeat, an unspoken: So, what now, dragon-warrior?
John grinned.
It was that particular grin; the one with his fangs just slightly visible and his eyes crinkling at the corners, one that was equal parts reckless and having the time of his life.
"Same deal as always." He said, rolling his shoulders as the Commander's Standard spun once in his hands. "You guys handle the small fry. I've got the big guy."
Millicent's mouth stretched into a feral smile. "Knew you were gonna say that."
Rogier sighed in a very put-upon way, but there was a spark in his eyes. "Of course you do."
Melina exhaled through her nose, long-suffering. "At least you're consistent."
Solaire laughed, bright and delighted. "A bold heart indeed! Very well, friend! I shall see to the lesser fiends so your dance with the giant may be unmarred!"
Nepheli's lips twitched, somewhere between amused and impressed. "Very well then, we will hold the line. You break it."
Up above, Marika's golden figure materialized again at the edge of his vision, perched cross-legged on some invisible perch of Grace like a queen on a balcony. Her expression was somewhere between fond exasperation and genuine anticipation.
"This shall be quite good. Go on then, mine Champion. Entertain me." She murmured, but her voice was warm as she allowed a small giggle to escape her.
John didn't comment on it. Mostly because if he did, she'd deny it so hard the sky would crack.
He just tightened his grip on the Standard and stepped forward.
The Troll stirred when he crossed some invisible line in the courtyard, small eyes focusing. Its lips peeled back as far as the iron bindings allowed, a muffled bellow building in its chest. The soldiers around it braced, drawing weapons fully, shield rims scraping stone.
John let the world narrow to the Troll.
"Don't die." Melina said behind him.
He flashed a smile over his shoulder. "No promises."
Then he ran, and the Troll roared in response.
It started as a vibration in its massive chest, then tore out through its nose and around the edges of the iron plate over its mouth, a sound like a stone avalanche forced through a narrow gap. The air trembled. It lurched forward, greatsword dragging a furrow through the ground for a few steps before it hefted the weapon up in both hands.
"Here we go…" John muttered.
The first swing came in a wide, horizontal arc, the kind of lazy-but-lethal strike that would've cleared a ninety-degree cone in front of it.
John didn't meet it.
He darted forward and to the inside, boots crashing against stone, the Troll's blade passing just behind his back close enough that he could feel the gust of displaced air tug at his coat. The Standard flicked out in passing, the halberd's crescent biting a shallow line across the Troll's calf as he went.
Blood welled in a thin but bright line. It barely noticed.
"Faster." Marika said softly in his ear. "Do not contest its strength, contest its timing. Thou art a gnat, not a boulder."
"Working on it." He grunted.
The Troll spun, surprisingly nimble for its size. The greatsword came down in a vertical slam where he'd been a half-second before, crunching stone into a crater, sending a shockwave of cracked flagstone radiating outward.
John hopped aside, riding the ripple, keeping himself just out of reach. He kept moving, tight circles around the giant's legs, steps light, Standard singing as it carved at exposed sinew and the gaps between crude, iron fetters.
Around him, the rest of the battlefield erupted.
Banished Knights surged forward to intercept Solaire and Nepheli, shields up, blades ready. The two warriors met them like a thunderclap. Solaire's shield took a spear thrust with a reverberating clang as his sword hacked down onto a helm, while Nepheli's axe whirled in brutal arcs that split a shield and the man behind it in one go.
Millicent blurred along the flank, katanas whispering, hunting archers. Rogier stood further back, already weaving sigils into the air, glintblades forming like glittering stars around him. Melina moved somewhere between them all, putting fire where it was needed, steel where it would hurt most.
Meanwhile, John continued to hack away at more than just the Troll's defences.
The massive creature swung again, this time in a diagonal chop that carved a furrow from high right to low left. John ducked under it, sliding along the ground on one knee, the Standard's blade lashing out to open a line along the Troll's hamstring as he passed.
The Troll bellowed, stumbling a step.
"Good, cripple its base. Bring it low."
He didn't need telling twice.
He rose into a sprint again, circling to the other leg. The Troll tried to track him, but its head moved slower than his feet. Its greatsword slammed into the ground once, twice, always a heartbeat behind, always chasing where he'd been. Gusts of air and dust washed over him; shards of stone pinged off his scales.
He struck in passing, again and again, carving a network of shallow cuts along its shins and calves. The halberd was beginning to feel right now. His patron Goddess' advice was helping him refine it from more than just random swings.
"Not yet. Still too high. Make it bow."
The Troll grew frustrated.
It lifted its foot and stomped, trying to squash him like a bug. John hopped back, feeling the stone jump under the impact. A hairline fracture raced out from under its heel like a spider crack.
"Eyes up." Marika snapped.
John obeyed.
The Troll raised its sword overhead with both hands, elbows flared, every muscle in its arms and shoulders bunching.
This was it.
He juked in closer, right under its guard, baiting.
The giant's bellow peaked into a howl as it brought the weapon down, intending to cleave him and half the courtyard in two.
Stone shattered as the greatsword buried itself in the ground up to the hilt with a teeth-rattling crunch. For a split second, it stuck.
The Troll's wrists strained, tendons popping.
He sprinted up the broad, flat of the blade like it was a ramp, feet kicking up chips of rock and metal. As he reached the hilt he pushed off, twisting in the air. The Commander's Standard whistled, carving a brutal, two-handed arc across both of the Troll's massive wrists in one sweeping motion.
Steel met flesh, then bone as blood fanned out in hot sheets. The Troll howled, fingers spasming open forcing its grip on its blade to break.
John hit the ground, rolled, and came up pivoting. The Troll's hands clutched at its maimed wrists; its face contorted in agony.
He didn't let it recover.
He stepped back in and drove the butt-end of the halberd straight toward its eyes. The heavy metal tip cracked into its brow ridge with a meaty thunk, slipping just between bone and the iron plate that held its jaw.
The Troll jerked back, roaring, both oversized hands flying instinctively up to protect its face, massive shoulders hunching.
It was blinded and off-balance.
"Lovely~..." Marika purred. "Now… show off."
John grinned. "Don't have to tell me twice."
He let the Commander's Standard slip from his fingers, flinging it straight up. The weapon rotated lazily, banner fluttering, freeing up his hands as he turned to the Troll's sword.
The massive greatsword still jutted from the crater it had created, its hilt larger than his torso. As the Troll clutched at its face, the weapon hung there, momentarily abandoned.
John stepped up, wrapped both scaled hands around the leather-wrapped grip, and heaved.
Stone cracked under it as he wrenched it free of the crater, the Troll's previous force working with his. The blade lurched up from the ground, much slower than any proper weapon, but it was moving.
"Come on…" He hissed through his teeth. "C'mon, big guy. Work with me here."
With a final grunt, he got it fully off the ground.
The greatsword swung around, its sheer mass dragging his body with it. John leaned into the motion, letting it pull him rather than resisting, turning it into a spin.
He rotated once, twice, momentum building with each turn, the gargantuan slab of metal arcing out wider. The air screamed as it cut through, the centrifugal force threatening to rip his shoulders out of their sockets.
He laughed.
"GET THE FUCK OUTTA MY WAY, FATASS!" He shouted, the words half a warning for his allies and half a delighted roar at the universe.
Solaire and Nepheli's heads snapped up at the same time.
"MOVE!" Nepheli barked, instincts kicking in.
She and Rogier both threw themselves sideways as the arc of the swing cut across the courtyard. A Banished Knight who had been lining up a strike on Solaire didn't react in time.
The greatsword smashed into the Troll's midsection first and the impact was obscene.
The giant's spine bowed around the blade as if it had been caught mid-bend. Air and blood blasted from its lungs in a spray. Its feet left the ground as for one surreal moment, a fully grown Troll flew.
The force carried it backward into a knot of Banished Knights and soldiers forming up behind it. It hit them like a living boulder.
Armor crumpled. Men screamed, then were abruptly cut off as they were crushed beneath the Troll's bulk. Bodies and limbs pinwheeled, scattering like thrown dolls. Dust and stone shards went up in a cloud.
When the debris settled, there was a new crater in the courtyard and a very still Troll sprawled in the center of it, half-covering a small pile of pulverized Stormveil soldiers.
Rogier lay on his back just beyond the edge of the blast radius, hat askew, staring up at the sky with wide eyes.
"...Insane. He's insane."
Nepheli was on one knee not far from him, axe planted in the ground for balance, chest rising and falling. She looked from the crater to John and back again, a mix of shock and something hotter in her eyes.
"That strength…" She murmured under her breath, voice almost reverent. "To wield a Troll's blade like that…"
Her gaze ran over John's scaled arms, the easy way he straightened after the swing, the wild grin still tugging at his mouth as he casually raised his right scaled arm just in time to catch the lance again. Respect settled in her expression.
Loux blood respected power. It always had.
John threw his head back and laughed.
It was that same wild, unrestrained cackle from before, but louder now it was richer. After all, he was now riding the high of the insane stunt he'd just pulled off. Blood spattered his coat, Troll ichor dripped from his scaled fingers, his heart pounded against his ribs like a drum.
Around them, the remaining soldiers stared.
They saw a draconic-eyed stranger, covered in the blood of their comrades, howling with laughter after sending a Troll flying with its own weapon.
Something in them broke.
"Man… Fuck this..!" Someone whispered.
Weapons hit the ground soon after.
It started with one spear clattering against stone. Then another. A sword. A crossbow dropped from nerveless fingers on the wall. Fear trumped loyalty, trumped training, and even trumped orders.
Soldiers turned and ran.
Some sprinted back toward the inner castle, shoving past their own fleeing comrades. Others veered for side passages and stairwells, anywhere that wasn't this courtyard with the laughing monster in it. None of John's group bothered to stop them; they were already tightening their formation, eyes moving ahead.
John's laughter tapered off into a breathless chuckle.
He looked down at his hands, flexed his claws once, then shook the remaining blood from them as scales retreated, flesh reshaping into more mundane human arms.
"Well?" He said, tilting his head slightly, eyes flicking up toward the faint glow of Marika at the edge of his vision. "That one impress you at least?"
Marika had a hand over her mouth, shoulders shaking faintly.
She lowered it, golden eyes gleaming with wicked amusement.
"A decent show." She conceded, voice honeyed. "Though I have seen mine Old Lord do more… extravagant things."
She leaned her cheek against her knuckles, smile small but genuine. "Once, on the fields of Stormhill, he uprooted a tree taller than thy Troll and hurled it across half the battlefield. It impaled two trolls and a cart of supplies in one throw."
There was fondness in her tone when she spoke of Godfrey. It felt old and complicated, but real nonetheless. And yet she was comparing John to him at all. That said more than she realized.
John snorted, grinning. "Show-off."
"And yet here I am, watching thee instead." She replied lightly,
He blinked at that, just for a second, something warm and strange flickering under his ribs, but Millicent's voice cut in before he could look too closely at it.
"That was sick!" She crowed, trotting up and slapping him on the back hard enough that it might've knocked a normal man over. "You just blasted a Troll at a whole squad!"
"Blasted…" Rogier repeated faintly from his spot as he pushed himself to his feet. "That's… One word for it."
Melina came up on his other side, eye narrowed in that particular way she had when she was equal parts annoyed and begrudgingly amused.
"That was reckless," she said, voice dry. "Showing your back to the archers, overextending with a weapon too heavy for even your altered frame, trusting your team to dodge a several-ton projectile you threw into their path…"
John flashed her a bright, unrepentant smile. "Yeah, yeah~ But you still love me~."
She opened her mouth, paused, then exhaled in a long, slow sigh that somehow managed to sound both irritated and fond.
"...Fortunately for you." She said, the corner of her mouth ticking up in helpless amusement. "Someone has to keep you alive."
She lifted one hand, fingers splaying.
"Golden Vow."
Warm, golden light flared out from her form in a gentle wave, washing over the group. It settled on them like a thin, shimmering cloak, bolstering their resolve, shoring up tired muscles, dimming the ache of bruises and cuts.
She followed it seamlessly with another gesture, lowering her hand to the ground.
"Erdtree's Favor."
A second pulse of softer light rippled outward, curling around ankles and wrists, coiling around ribs and covering their entire party. It settled deeper, a subtle reinforcement and regeneration buff, yet helpful all the same.
John grinned, rolling his shoulders as the buffs layered atop one another like well-fitted armor.
"Much better, my turn."
He thumped a fist against his chest.
"Flame, Grant Me Strength."
Fire blossomed again across his skin, scarlet sigils flaring up his arms and neck. Heat roared through him, not burning this time but filling, like someone had taken whatever part of him was "more" and turned it up a few notches.
The Commander's Standard reappeared in his grip with a flicker, banner snapping in the courtyard breeze.
Solaire lifted his shield, sunlight sigil bright. Millicent spun her katanas, blades singing. Rogier adjusted his hat and took a steadying breath, staff and rapier both at the ready. Nepheli hefted her axe, jaw set, eyes already forward.
Ahead of them, the massive doors to the Stormveil royal graveyard gaped open.
Beyond was a sweep of ancient stone tombs and mausoleums, half-swallowed by creeping roots and overgrown grass. It was a place that had once been solemn and still, but had now been turned into a battlefield. John could already hear distant shouting, the clank of armor, the crackle of fresh flame.
Godrick's trap waited there.
He knew it. They all knew it.
John adjusted his grip on the lance, heart pounding not with fear, but with a fierce, steady exhilaration.
"Alright…" He whispered, voice level now. "Showtime."
Side by side, their odd little fellowship moved forward as one, stepping through the threshold and into the Stormveil royal graveyard. They walked knowingly into Godrick's hastily laid trap, fully intending to break it to pieces and walk out the other side.
The Stormveil royal graveyard wasn't much of a royal anything anymore.
It spread out before them in a shallow bowl of stone and dirt, old mausoleums and leaning gravemarkers jutting up at odd angles like rotten teeth. Tree roots had split slabs and curled through cracked sarcophagi. Moss crawled over carved lions and weather-worn angels. Wind whispered through dead flowers left to crumble on forgotten tombs.
It would've been quiet, somber.
If it weren't for the army awaiting them within it.
Banished Knights in heavy stormcrest plate braced in rough lines among the tombs, shields up, spears out. Common soldiers filled the gaps, a ragged wall of steel and fear. Beyond them, in the rear, archers and crossbowmen clustered on raised platforms and the broken bits of wall that ringed the graveyard, arrows already nocked, bolts already dropped into grooves.
And at the far end, before an ostentatious central mausoleum that might once have housed a line of kings, stood Godrick.
He looked worse, and yet stronger.
His body was still that same grotesque collage of limbs and stolen muscle jammed under cracked golden plate… but now his right arm was no longer just an arm.
A dragon's head jutted from his shoulder. The whole upper limb had been replaced with the front half of a dragon's neck, scales charred and blackened, horns jagged, teeth bared. Its eyes glowed faintly with ember light, jaw flexing with a horrible semblance of life as it curled toward his chest.
He held his greataxe in his remaining main hand, the blade smeared with old blood. Ember sparks drifted from his dragon-hand with every breath.
The moment John's group stepped into the graveyard proper, Godrick threw his head back and laughed.
It was a manic cackle, high and broken, echoing off the tombs like someone had taught a hyena what "royalty" was and it hadn't taken.
"Ahahahahaha!" He barked, spreading his stolen arms wide as if welcoming guests to a banquet. "There you are! My little pests! My vermin! You've come all this way just to die in my garden?! How touching!"
The dragon head on his arm twisted and snapped at empty air, as if agreeing.
John barely heard him at first.
He was counting.
Archers on the far left wall, crossbow cluster behind the central mausoleum, another group on the right's broken ramparts. Maybe thirty ranged in total, give or take, plus the knights and soldiers packed in between the stones.
The graveyard being cramped helped; they couldn't fully encircle them in a perfect ring. The tombs and fence-walls forced the fight into bands. But they could still press from ahead and, if reinforcements arrived, from behind.
The two massive gaping chasms on each side of the graveyard also didn't help their position, though that thankfully applied to both sides.
"Do not forget the flanks." Marika's voice said, calm and cool in his skull. "If the wretch has any sense, he will have stationed archers upon those ramparts." She nodded toward the left and right walls, where indeed, he could imagine men taking position. "Aerial support can turn a narrow field into a killing ground."
"Yeah…" John muttered under his breath as his jaw tightened. "I see them."
He could feel the seconds ticking.
"This is a battle against time." He said quietly, more to his group than himself. "Not just these pricks. If we drag this out, we're getting sandwiched between this lot and the rest of his army behind us."
Melina's eye flicked sideways, acknowledging it. Rogier's mouth pressed into a thin line. Nepheli's fingers flexed on her axe haft.
One had to admit: Godrick had them in a bind.
Which was, in hindsight, precisely why the original plan had been "sneak in and assassinate him in his sleep."
The smart thing to do, right now, would be to bail.
He could feel the small, warm anchor of Grace inside him; Marika's mark on his soul that let him slip places sideways. If he reached for it, if he asked, she could pull him and everyone touching him straight back to the Roundtable Hold.
They could regroup, rethink, and come back another day without an entire castle trying to dogpile them in a graveyard.
He knew that, he really did.
He stared at Godrick standing there, crowing in front of his ancestors' tombs with a dragon sewed onto his stump, and felt his lip curl.
"…But that's how losers think..!"
The words came out before his brain fully processed them. His chest thumped; he became aware of his own heartbeat in a sharp, clear way. His Immortal Heart beat loud and steady in his ears like a war drum.
The idea of turning his back now and fleeing, of teleporting out while the walking tumor laughed at them in their absence…
Every stubborn, unreasonable part of him rejected it. The thought of turning his back and running, allowing this… lesser king to think himself better—It disgusted him.
'Huh…' He thought distantly. 'Where'd that come from?'
Then he shrugged internally.
'Doesn't matter.'
He rolled his shoulders, feeling the layered buffs from Melina and his banner sitting heavy and strong in his muscles, then raised his voice.
"Alright!" He called, grin splitting his face, fangs flashing. "Everyone. Same plan as last time."
He rested the Commander's Standard against his shoulder like a spear, banner fluttering.
"Try to hold off the rabble as long as possible." He said, and there was cheer in his voice this time, mixed with iron and something darker that surprised even him: honest, sharp-edged bloodlust. "I'll deal with the overgrown tumor. Then I'll help you mop up the rest."
Rogier exhaled like a man being told to hold a door against a flood.
"You say that as if it will be easy." He said, glancing at the ranks of soldiers, then at the looming dragon-armed Demigod. The scholar in him looked almost personally offended by the unfairness of the odds. "Mayhaps I should have gone to visit Lady Sellen as I intended instead of coming here to die for a front-row seat."
Solaire clapped a gauntleted hand on his shoulder hard enough to rattle bones.
"Worry not, friend!" He boomed, laughing. "You shall see the end of this day yet! I shall buy you a drink in whatever tavern exists in this land, and we shall toast to a most splendid victory!"
Rogier stared at him for a beat, then sighed. "Your optimism is… deeply unsettling."
"For the record…" Melina said, breaking in before they could spiral further. She drew the second Erdtree Dagger John had given her days ago from the inside of her cloak, the pale blade catching light, and managed a small, helpless smile. "Despite it coming to… this already, I appreciate that we at least tried to do this the smart way. I hope we continue to do so in the future."
Millicent barked out a short, sharp laugh that was equal parts ecstatic and disbelieving, like someone watching a man politely announce he was about to juggle live explosives.
"Oh yeah~... We're totally going to be smart about this."
Melina's smile didn't fade, but she did sigh in that particular long-suffering way she had. "Yes, yes. Banging my head on a brick wall…"
Nepheli watched this exchange with lifted brows, expression caught between confusion and amusement. She shook her head once, a strand of braid falling against her cheek.
"You are all quite the interesting lot," she said, smirking faintly. "I'm surprised you've made it this far in one piece."
"You and me both, sister!" John shouted, already adjusting his grip on the halberd.
He twirled the Commander's Standard once, twice between his hands; the heavy weapon moved with the fluid ease of something earned, not stolen. Then he bent his knees and kicked off.
The ground where he'd been standing cratered under the force of his leap, stone cracking like thin ice.
"Pfft. Show-off…" Millicent grumbled good-naturedly, but there was no heat in it. She shoved one katana hilt between her teeth, tightened her grip on the other, and sprinted after him. The others followed in a wave: Solaire's armor clanking, Nepheli's axe gleaming, Melina and Rogier hanging back half a step to cast.
They hit the line like a thrown boulder.
John didn't slow.
He darted between two grave-markers, banner trailing, and locked eyes on Godrick across the churn of bodies.
"GODRICK!"
The Demigod's head snapped toward him. His lip curled.
"Ahhh, there you are, little mongrel!" he crowed. The dragon head on his arm snapped and hissed, flames licking between its teeth. "Come to be ground beneath LORD GODRICK'S heel?"
"Came to take the rest of your limbs, actually." John shot back. "Starting with the new one. It doesn't match your eyes."
He didn't wait for an answer.
He closed the last few meters in a blur.
Godrick's first swing was already in motion when he got there: an overhead chop with the greataxe, fueled by fury and bulk. John slid in tight to the inside, bringing the Standard up horizontally.
Steel met steel with a clang like a bell being punched.
The impact rattled his bones. Even braced, it shoved him down a half step, boots skidding. Godrick laughed, pushing, trying to drive him into the ground.
"Little wretch thinks he can parry me?" He gloated.
John dropped the deflection instead, letting the axe slide off the halberd's shaft. He twisted with it, rolling around Godrick's flank. The Commander's Standard snapped out, biting into the Demigod's exposed side just above the hip.
Metal shrieked as the blade scraped plate, then bit into the softer grafted seam beneath.
Godrick snarled, jerking away, dragon-hand whipping around on reflex. The draconic jaw opened, and a gout of flame roared from its throat.
John shoved off with both feet.
Fire washed over the spot he'd been standing a heartbeat earlier, engulfing two unfortunate soldiers who hadn't realized they were in the splash zone. They screamed as dragonfire ate them, armor glowing orange before collapsing inward.
"Note thine distance." Marika barked in his mind. "That head is not mere ornament, it can project. Do not linger on his right."
"Got it!" he shouted back, already veering left. The heat licked his coat, singed hair, but didn't catch.
Around them, the rest of the graveyard ignited.
Solaire and Nepheli crashed into the front rank of knights, shield and axe swinging in brutal harmony. Solaire's Sunlight Straight Sword punched through a Banished Knight's breastplate, golden tabard flashing as he ripped it free. Nepheli hewed the leg out from under another knight, booting him aside and bringing her axe down on his exposed neck.
Millicent was in the archers' faces before half of them could get a second shot off, katana flashing in tight arcs, her movements all sharp angles and sudden stops. Bodies tumbled from the higher ledges into the chasms below.
Rogier's glintblades flew overhead in blue streaks, punching through crossbowmen who thought they were at a safe distance. Melina's Flame Sling and small, precise bolts of light knocked would-be flankers aside.
But the centerpiece, the axis around which the fight spun, was John and Godrick.
Godrick brought the axe around in a sweeping horizontally this time, aiming to clip John and several gravestones in one go. John dropped into a low slide, feeling the wind of the axehead cut just above his shoulders as it passed, smashing three tombs to powder behind him.
He rebounded out of the slide, pivoting on one foot to drive the Standard's spearpoint into Godrick's left thigh.
The blade sank in as far as it could before hitting bone.
Godrick howled.
"YOU FILTHY-!"
His dragon-head spat fire again, but this time John had baited it. He was already springing backward, using the force of his own thrust to launch himself away. Flames chased him, searing gravemarkers black, sending a handful of unfortunate soldiers scrambling for cover.
Godrick's movements were different now that he had the dragon.
The old pattern John half-remembered from the game; the slow, wind-up swings and obvious stomps were still there, but laced through with sudden bursts of speed when he used the dragon-arm for propulsion. A swipe of dragon-claw here, a sudden, lunging bite there. Fire arcs that turned what should have been safe angles into kill zones.
He used the terrain too.
He shoved a mausoleum wall down with a shoulder-check, sending a cascade of stone tumbling toward John. The draconic man jumped, boots hitting falling chunks like platforms, using the debris itself as a path to close the gap again.
He swung from above; Godrick raised the axe to parry, sparks flying as halberd met greataxe.
"Still think you're a lord?" John panted, teeth bared. "Pretty pathetic for someone with granddad's blood."
Godrick's face twisted.
"I am the true heir!" He shrieked back, twisting his torso and lashing out with the dragon's head. "I am the LORD of ALL that is GOLDEN!"
He punctuated the declaration with a point-blank burst of dragonfire.
John crossed his scaled forearms in front of his face, Flame, Grant Me Strength and Golden Vow both flaring as he took the edge of the blast. The world turned orange and white; heat bit through the coat and into skin, pain flaring.
He grit his teeth and shoved forward through it.
The fire stuttered as John's halberd punched through the edge of the flame, angling for Godrick's shoulder. The Demigod had to abort his breath early, jerking back to avoid losing another arm.
The axe came down in a punishing counter, catching John's side as he tried to twist away.
It wasn't a full hit, more a glancing blow, but even that was enough.
"Ghh—!"
He flew sideways, smashing into a carved stone lion that had marked the tomb of some long-dead noble. The statue cracked; his ribs screamed. For a moment his vision doubled as blood spurted between his gritted teeth.
"Johnathan!" Melina's voice snapped from somewhere behind him. "Move!"
He rolled on instinct, just in time for an arrow to shatter into the stone where his head had been. Another thudded into his shoulder, glancing off scales. Millicent's silhouette blurred overhead as she decapitated the archer responsible.
"Archers on the right sides are down!" She yelled. "Left side still shooting!"
Rogier's voice followed, breathless. "Working on it!"
John planted the Standard and levered himself up, gasping for air as he gulped down from his flask till he was fully restored. Runt or otherwise, that hit nearly crippled him.
"Evenly matched…" Marika said quietly, observing through his eyes. "Thou art faster and more precise. He has raw strength, reach, and now… flame."
"And a better terrain…" John rasped, spitting out the blood that remained in his mouth. "Graveyard's his playground."
Godrick was using the tombs as partial cover now. He'd plant the dragon-hand on a mausoleum roof, hauling himself up and leaping down in long, hammering axe-strikes that chewed more of the graveyard into rubble.
His dragonfire forced John to vacate any attempt at establishing a steady position. Even though he was mostly resistant to flames, being hit point blank by Great Rune enhanced Dragonfire was heavily ill-advised.
Still, John was getting hits in.
He darted between gravemarkers, slashing at knees and ankles when Godrick overstepped. He speared the dragon's neck at its base once in a risky lunge, drawing a gout of ember-bright sap that made the dragon-head scream in a disturbingly alive way.
But every exchange cost him.
A shockwave stomp rattled his teeth, sending him stumbling. A follow-up axe swing grazed his thigh, hot blood soaking his pants. Dragonfire washed too close again, cooking the edge of his coat.
His buffs were doing overtime, but they weren't infinite.
Minutes bled away, each one marked by the shriek and clash of steel, the roar of flame, the bellow of commands.
"Hold the line!" Nepheli shouted somewhere to his left, her voice cutting through the din. "Do not give them ground!"
Solaire laughed, blocking a Banished Knight's thrust with his shield and returning a slash to the man's throat. "Marvelous! Absolutely marvelous!"
The graveyard floor was becoming a killing field of bodies and shattered stone.
A Banished Knight tried to flank John once, darting in as Godrick yanked his axe free of a tomb. Melina's dagger flashed from the periphery, catching the knight's hamstring and dropping him to his knees. Rogier's glintblade finished him before he could rise.
"We cannot keep this up forever!" Rogier called out, his tone sharp now, sweat staining his collar.
"Then don't!" John shot back, teeth gritted as he slid under another axe arc. "Buy me a little longer. That's all."
He twisted and drove the Standard's spearpoint into Godrick's side again, drawing another snarl. The dragon-hand came whipping toward him like a striking snake; he ducked under it, feeling the heat of its breath scorch his hair.
Godrick was bleeding now, cuts and gouges oozing that strange golden-green ichor from half a dozen places. His breathing had gone harsh, wheezing through stolen lungs. His swings were still heavy, but a fraction less crisp.
John wasn't much better.
His chest burned with every breath. Cuts stung along his arms and ribs. His limbs felt heavier with each dodge, each pivot. Wondrous Physick or not, his body was still being asked to trade blows with a Demigod.
He parried another chop, halberd screeching along the axe's shaft, and felt something give in his wrist.
"Gah–!"
He fell back, boots skidding in a smear of blood and dust.
Godrick stalked forward, dragon-head hissing, frenetic laughter bubbling up again.
"Run, little Tarnished!" He panted. "Run and I'll let you live. I'll find you later. Graft what's useful. Put the rest in the dungheap."
"Hard pass." John said.
He saw the next swing coming.
The axe rose, telegraphed in that same big, obvious way… but John had seen the phase two variations. His brain screamed that the follow-up would be the dragon's lunge, then fire, then a twisting slam.
He moved before Godrick even fully committed.
He stepped inside, ignoring the sick lurch in his stomach as the dragon's jaw snapped inches from his face. Instead of dodging away from the flame, he ducked under the dragon's neck, putting it between himself and the axe's downstroke.
Godrick, committed to his combo, brought the axe down anyway.
The blade slammed into the dragon's own upper neck with a wet, crunchy thud.
The dragon-head howled, jaw spasming, a spurt of ember-bright blood spraying. Fire flared out its nose and mouth in a chaotic blast.
Godrick staggered, momentarily stunned by his own friendly fire.
John didn't have the breath to cackle properly, but he did bare his teeth.
"Bite yourself, why don't you!" He wheezed, dragging the Standard up for another stab.
He didn't get to land it, his attention was completely stolen by what his enhanced senses picked up on.
Under the clash and roar of the graveyard fight, another noise seeped in.
Boots, lots of boots.
A rumble like a distant landslide made of iron and flesh, filtering through the archway they'd come from. There were shouts, too, hoarse voices barking orders, the careful cadence of a unit moving, not the chaotic scramble of a panicked garrison.
John's stomach turned cold.
Their biggest failure condition was never the actual battle between him and Godrick, it was time. In a prolonged battle, one where he didn't need to take risks and could take his time—just as in the game—he would never lose.
But, naturally, this was not a game anymore. And he did not have the luxury of time.
He risked a glance over his shoulder.
Beyond the chaos of his own line, through the narrow choke they'd entered by, shadows were moving. A dense, dark mass of helms and spears, standards and armor. They were the reinforcements they had feared, pouring into the outer courtyard, their shapes resolving with terrifying speed.
The rest of Godrick's army.
His jaw clenched, a muscle jumping.
"Shit…"
Rogier heard it too.
"They're coming!" He called out sharply. "From behind."
"Ah, hell…" Millicent muttered as she spared half a heartbeat to flick a katana-tipped glance toward the entryway.
Melina's eye narrowed, calculations running behind it like clockwork gears.
Even Solaire's bright aura dimmed a fraction. "Ah… That is… less than ideal."
Marika's presence stilled.
"Time is up." She said softly.
John's grip tightened on the Commander's Standard until his knuckles ached.
He turned back to Godrick, who had recovered enough from his self-inflicted hit to straighten, dragon-hand flexing by his side, eyes bright with hateful glee.
"Now then, little Tarnished…" Godrick purred, glancing past John at the oncoming reinforcements like a man watching tide rise. "Let us see how long your friends last… once the jaws close."
John's mind snapped into overdrive.
Reinforcements were already flooding the outer courtyard; if they let themselves get pinched between that tide and what remained of Godrick's forces in the graveyard, they were finished. No fancy buffs, no clever footwork was going to save them from being crushed between two walls of steel with a dragon-armed Demigod at their center.
They had to keep that from happening.
We cannot afford to be sandwiched. So… remove one side of the sandwich.
His gaze flicked across the graveyard in a rapid scan: Banished Knights, scattered soldiers, archers shaken and bloodied. They'd butchered most of the garrison already. What remained was… maybe twenty percent of the original force. Dangerous, sure, but no longer a wall, they were more like a cracked dam.
With a big enough opening, Millicent, Solaire, Nepheli and the others could tear through those remnants fast. Kill them or route them before the reinforcements fully pushed into the choke. If they could do that, they'd at least have one side clear. They'd have room to maneuver, ground to fall back through, options other than "die screaming in a stone bowl."
But with everyone already exhausted and bleeding, they'd need more than brute force.
They'd need cover.
John sucked in a slow, deliberate breath.
The air that flowed into his lungs frosted as he drew it in, vapour curling at the corners of his lips, faint and cold. It was subtle, a thin haze that could've been dismissed as exertion in the chill air. But he shaped it, made sure it was visible enough from the right angle.
He wasn't counting on Godrick to notice.
He was counting on Melina.
Thankfully, blessedly, Melina's single eye was, and perhaps always would be, fixed on Johnathan.
She caught the tint of white on his exhale immediately. Her shoulders stiffened, realization flashing in her gaze. She didn't need him to say anything.
"Be ready!" She said sharply to the others, already moving closer to them as if drawn by instinct. "Now."
The rest nodded.
By the time Godrick realized that John's inhale wasn't just him catching his breath, that the Tarnished was charging something, it was too late to bark anything coherent at his men.
He could only lift his dragon arm and brace.
John's Immortal Heart thudded louder, each beat a hammer-blow behind his ribs as he poured mana into it. It answered in kind, a frosty, heavy miasma coiling in his chest, cold spreading like ink through water. His lungs burned with it. He knew, with a sharp clarity, that he was about to dump everything he had left.
All his mana, all his breath, just to buy them a chance.
He exhaled.
The dragon-head on Godrick's arm reared back and spewed fire at the exact same instant.
The graveyard vanished in a clash of ice and fire.
Frost roared from John's mouth in a wide, pale-blue torrent, a cone of biting cold so intense the air itself crackled. Dragonfire met it head-on, a column of searing orange-red heat surging out of Godrick's grafted head. Where the two breaths collided, the world shattered into steam.
John had chosen frost for one singular reason:
Steam.
The impact point boiled the air. Superheated vapor exploded outward in a rushing wall, flooding across the royal graveyard in a suffocating wave. One heartbeat, the field was fully visible; the next, everything was drowned in thick, white-grey smog.
Gravemarkers disappeared. Archers vanished behind a curtain. Banished Knights found their helms full of mist and their vision slammed to zero.
They'd been unprepared, but John's allies hadn't.
Melina was already moving before the first tendrils of steam even reached her, trusting her instincts and his gambit.
"Now!" She snapped, voice cutting through the muffling fog. "Take them!"
Millicent, Solaire, Nepheli, Rogier. Each lunged into the smothered chaos with purpose.
While John and Godrick's clashing breaths devoured the center line, the others became ghosts in the mist. Shapes half-seen, voices briefly heard, then cut short.
Archers cried out as blades came from nowhere, cut off the moment steel found gaps in armor. Crossbowmen, blinded, tried to fire by sound and hit nothing but gravestones and their own men. Knights stumbled, shields raised in the wrong direction, only to find axes, katanas, and spectral swords already in their guards.
For everyone who wasn't John or Godrick, the battle devolved into a blur of shadows and screams inside a boiling cloud.
For John, there was only the clash.
He held the frost for as long as his lungs allowed, chest feeling like it might split. Godrick did the same with fire, the dragon-head shrieking as flames ripped out of its throat. The pressure between the two breaths mounted, pushing back against them both, ripples of force shuddering through the air.
Then John hit empty.
The frost cut off like a tap turned shut. He coughed, a raw, icy pain lancing up his throat as the flow stopped. The dragonfire sputtered a moment longer, then guttered out too, the dragon-head snapping its jaws shut with a final snarl.
They both staggered a half-step.
For a few seconds more, the steam lingered, rolling over tombs and banners in slow, ghostly currents.
Then the wind took it.
The fog thinned, peeled away in ragged strips.
When it finally cleared, the royal graveyard looked like the aftermath of a storm made of knives.
Every one of Godrick's remaining men within the graveyard lay dead or dying. Archers sprawled on their backs along the walls with arrows and glintblades jutting from their chests and throats. Banished Knights lay in broken heaps, armor split at the joints, blood soaking moss. Common soldiers were scattered like discarded dolls, their weapons fallen from nerveless hands.
Not one of the Demigod's troops in that enclosed field was still standing.
John was, barely.
He stood hunched, shoulders heaving, hands braced on the Commander's Standard like a man leaning on a cane. His breath came in sharp, rough gasps. Frost rimed his lips and jaw; each exhale still curled in a faint white mist.
But his mouth curved into a fanged, toothy grin.
His gambit had worked.
He could feel it in the lingering ache in his chest and the emptiness where his mana had been, but he didn't care. They had their opening. They'd blown away one half of the jaws.
He owed Melina big for reading him that quickly.
Marika hummed approval in his mind, a warm, amused vibration.
"What a bold ploy…" She said, and he could hear the smile in her voice. "Effective, even. Thou shouldst thank her properly later, mine Champion." She paused, then added with a teasing lilt. "Preferably in a manner less suicidal."
He snorted and fumbled for his Flask of Cerulean Tears, popping the stopper and gulping down a long swallow. Cool, liquid clarity slid down his throat, mana trickling back into the empty spaces in his core.
Across from him, Godrick stood stock-still for a moment, dragon-head flexing in obvious agitation as he took in the sight.
His graveyard. His "garden." Paved with his dead.
His eyes bulged.
"You…" He rasped, voice stripped of its theatrical glee for an instant. "You cheating, graceless mongrel-!"
He broke off into an incoherent shriek, rage strangling the rest.
John just rolled his shoulders and spat blood on the ground, giving the Demigod a lazy, provocative smirk.
Behind him, the others shifted, rallying in the brief lull.
They turned toward the entrance they'd originally come through.
The reinforcements came into view at last.
A tide of armor and banners pressed against the narrow choke, a solid block of Stormveil's remaining forces pushing forward with disciplined momentum. Their numbers were intimidating; their gear and training still mattered.
But the choke was just that, a choke.
Only so many could enter at once. The bottleneck strangled their ability to overwhelm through sheer mass.
Solaire lifted his shield, sunlight sigil bright. Nepheli set her feet, battleaxe at the ready. Millicent spat a stray drop of blood from her lip and spun her katanas into position. Rogier and Melina took their places behind the front line, staves and seals ready.
They were bruised, exhausted, and still horribly outnumbered.
But they were no longer being crushed from both sides.
It was still a monumental ask to expect them to hold. To win. Even with the choke, even with Godrick's graveyard forces annihilated, they were pushing their luck as far as it could go.
Marika knew it.
"Thou hast bought them time." She said quietly to John. "But not enough. Not alone." A beat. "Throw thy Cerulean Flask to my daughter. Remind her of her birthright. The one spell I only ever taught to her."
John's eyes widened.
He didn't hesitate.
He snatched the half-empty Cerulean Flask up again and, in one smooth motion, hurled it toward Melina's position with all the strength he had.
"REMEMBER SHAMAN VILLAGE!" He shouted, voice cracking raw across the graveyard.
The words hit harder than the flask.
Godrick's head jerked toward him, shock cutting through his fury like a knife.
"...How does this graceless mongrel know of our home?" He muttered, utterly stunned.
Melina's eye went wide.
Her body moved on instinct, hand snapping up to catch the spinning flask without conscious thought. The glass slapped into her palm; the liquid sloshed. She held it, frozen.
Then the world narrowed.
Flashes slammed through her mind in rapid succession.
A village suffused with flowers and soft, golden light. Not the harsh, judgmental blaze of the Erdtree's later glory, but something gentler, more intimate. Shamanic totems and simple homes built around a central, luminous sapling. Laughter. Voices. The rustle of robes.
A tall, motherly figure in black stepped into focus, golden hair spilling down her back, face blurred by the veil of memory. The woman knelt, and in her hands she held a golden, spectral tree. One small enough to cradle, yet vast in presence.
The image twisted as the figure drew closer.
A whispering voice, older than kingdoms, threaded into Melina's thoughts. One spoken long before Marika married Godfrey, before she took the full weight of Godhood and monarchy onto her shoulders.
"Never forget who you are, Melina." The blurred face sharpened. "You are a Demigod. You are a Princess. You are kind, and proud, and perfect."
The woman smiled, and the expression sat so strangely on that familiar, regal visage that it almost hurt to look at. There was no cold calculation there, no distant mask. Only warmth. Only pride.
"And beyond it all…" The voice finished, soft as a caress. "You are my one and only beloved daughter."
With that final word, the haze over her face evaporated.
Marika's face came into focus. Marika as she had once been, eyes bright with unrestrained love and an almost painful pride. It looked alien on a woman the world knew only as a distant god-queen, but there it was.
Melina's eye blinked.
Reality snapped back in around her.
The flask in her hand was empty.
Her fingers went slack; the glass slipped from her grip and dropped to the ground with a soft clink.
She barely noticed.
Her hands came together in front of her chest, fingers weaving on reflex into a shape they hadn't taken in centuries. Her lips parted.
"Yes…" She whispered, voice almost lost under the rumble of marching boots and crackle of flame. "I remember now… your real face, Mother…"
Light gathered between her palms.
A golden sapling coalesced from a singularity of Grace in her hands. A tiny, perfect tree no larger than a doll's toy, its branches shimmering with life.
"Minor Erdtree…" She breathed.
She let it fall.
The sapling dropped the remaining distance to the broken ground and, upon touching it, exploded upward.
For a brief, blinding moment, it shone brighter than the sun in the sky. A tree of pure, concentrated Grace surged up, its trunk extending, its branches spreading wide as if to embrace the heavens. It didn't reach true Erdtree height, the spell was named "Minor" for a reason, but that hardly mattered.
Its presence was huge.
Its radiance washed over the graveyard like a tidal wave. The aurora of its Grace flooded out in droves, tendrils of golden light curling through every crack, around every stone, into every body Melina recognized as ally or friend.
Wounds knitted. Bruises faded. Ragged breaths eased as lungs refilled with strength. Stamina came roaring back, fatigue burned away. Muscles sang with renewed vigor, strained ligaments soothed in the span of heartbeats.
Even those without a hint of magical aptitude could feel it.
It wasn't just healing; it was… benediction.
It was beautiful, awe-inspiring.
Even Godrick, hateful and twisted as he was, could not deny it.
He stared, mouth hanging open, dragon-head twitching, eyes reflecting the gold. For a moment, the perpetual sag of his lips stilled, his rage hollowed out by sheer wonder.
It was as if someone had taken the Divine Erdtree, the very axis of the Golden Order, and distilled a tiny piece of it into its original, prime form. Pure, overwhelming, untainted by doctrine.
It was clear, even to the dullest soldier, that this was something special. Something they might never witness again.
This Erdtree's light bathed the world it touched.
It inspired only the kindness of Gold, without Order.
The battle paused.
Men lowered their weapons without meaning to. Knights stared up at the glowing branches, faces slack. Even the reinforcements in the choke slowed, eyes squinting against the brilliance.
For a heartbeat or three, one could almost forget they stood in a charnel pit, surrounded by their own dead.
Then an arrow flew.
It hissed through the golden air and buried itself straight into a soldier's eye, dropping him where he stood.
Every head snapped around.
The shot hadn't come from John's side, or any of his companions.
It had come from above, from the very ramparts John had been dreading since the fight began.
A lone archer stood there, silhouette sharp against the fading light. His armor bore a familiar emblem: Castle Morne's crest.
Then others joined him.
Several archers and crossbowmen stepped up beside the first, each bearing the same crest. Bows lifted, strings drew, crossbows leveled; though they aimed not at John's group, but at Godrick's reinforcements.
From behind those same reinforcements came a roar of voices.
Ground troops, soldiers and knights, surged in from the rear, their armor also stamped with Morne's emblem. Some maneuvered abandoned Stormveil ballistas into new positions, cranking them around with grim efficiency to aim back into the narrow choke.
In mere seconds, the battlefield flipped.
It was Godrick's forces who were suddenly pinned and pressured, caught between Johnathan's small, furious band in the graveyard and a fresh, disciplined army behind them. If not outnumbered, then utterly out-positioned. They were caught in a kill box of arrows, bolts, and steel.
John's sharp gaze picked out motion along the ramparts.
A new flag rose. A banner bearing Morne's emblem, but this one was engulfed with the figure of a dragon, as if guarding it.
The man holding that flag stepped into view.
Edgar.
And beside him stood Caelan, the knight who commanded Fort Haight and watched over Mistwood, armor battered but posture iron-straight.
Edgar planted the flag with ceremonial precision, posture perfect despite the chaos. He drew a deep breath into his chest and bellowed, voice carrying like a horn blast.
"JOHNATHAN! MY LORD!" He shouted. "WE, YOUR UNWORTHY SUBJECTS, HAVE COME TO AID YOU IN YOUR GLORIOUS CONQUEST!"
A thunderous chorus of warcries answered him, voices from every man and woman bearing Morne's emblem across ramparts and ground alike.
John's companions turned toward him almost in unison.
The looks on their faces all varied slightly: Melina's baffled deadpan stare, Millicent's shit-eating grin, Solaire's delighted awe, Rogier's "I-have-questions" horror. But the underlying sentiment was the same:
'What the fuck? Did you expect this?'
John did not.
If anything, he was more shell-shocked than anyone in that castle.
"'U-Unworthy s-subjects'??!!" He wheezed, almost choking on the words. "What the fuck is Edgar smoking?"
Marika giggled in his mind, the sound bright and unguarded. "Doth thou not remember, mine champion? Thou hast acquired vassals. Proactive ones at that, it seemeth."
Meanwhile, Godrick was coming apart.
Internally, he spiraled.
Everything was wrong.
His subjects were either rebelling or lying in pieces at his feet. His artillery was gone, his graveyard drenched in his own men's blood, his carefully gathered reinforcements suddenly screaming as someone else's arrows found their backs.
And he still couldn't kill this gnat.
This graceless, taunting insect who had hacked off his arm, mocked his lineage, stolen his army right out from under him, and was now surrounded by glowing Grace like it belonged to him.
With Morne's forces joining, with that ridiculous Minor Erdtree shining in his own damned cemetery, Godrick knew, on some ugly, instinctive level, that he was going to lose.
It wasn't fair.
His hard-won power, his scavenged army, his carefully stolen advantages… all snatched away before his eyes.
Just like before.
It wasn't fair.
The enemies he despised were smiling instead of begging. His "peasant possessions" were rebelling instead of kneeling. His birthright, the rays of Gold he'd dreamed of basking in since childhood, were pouring down on them instead of him.
It wasn't fair.
And now this random girl, this one-eyed nobody, wielded the Grace he had begged the Erdtree for, bathed his enemies in its kindness.
Those rays of gold were his. By blood. By right.
IT WASN'T FAIR.
His body moved without thought.
Jealousy, envy, hatred, rage. All of it boiled over and seized his nerves. He wanted them dead. All of them. Every last one. If he had his way, he'd hunt down their lines to the eighth generation and graft them all into one shrieking pile just to cut them apart again.
But first?
He wanted her.
The one-eyed harlot who dared steal his glorious bloodline's Grace. He didn't care how she wielded it. He didn't care why. She was first.
He exploded.
To mortal eyes, he vanished from where he stood, the spot he'd occupied cratering under the sudden force. Stone shattered. Dust burst outward.
Everyone's eyes but Johnathan's, that is.
His draconic pupils dilated, time dragging syrup-slow in his perception. He saw it all: Godrick's heel digging in, the torsion in his legs, the dragon-arm tensing, the entire grafted body blitzing forward in a straight, murderous line toward Melina.
His own body moved without conscious input.
Two craters appeared on the battlefield an eye-blink apart—one where Godrick had stood, one where John had been. Dirt, dust, wind all slammed outward in a shockwave.
The sonic boom rolled over the graveyard a fraction of a second later and cleared it all instantly.
When the haze cleared, it revealed a new, horrifying tableau.
Johnathan stood in front of Melina, having shoved her body backward with his right arm to get her out of the direct path.
His left arm was in the dragon's mouth.
Or rather, it had been.
The dragon's jaws were clamped at his shoulder.
Everything below that was gone.
Blood sprayed in a hot arc, spattering the ground, his tunic, Godrick's plates. Flesh and bone were simply missing, the stump a ragged, mangled ruin.
Melina stared, lips parted, her expression shattering.
"J-Johnathan…" She whispered, voice broken and small. It was the only thing she could force out. She knew, with a bone-deep certainty that shook her, that she would have died if he hadn't moved. She hadn't even sensed Godrick move. She hadn't even sensed him move.
Godrick let out a low, gleeful chuckle.
"Ahhh~… A shame I couldn't kill that filthy harlot…" He crooned, his voice thick with delight. "You're annoyingly fast. Like a fly you just can't quite squash."
He threw his head back and cackled, self-satisfied madness spilling out.
"At the very least, I managed to take your arm, just as you did to me." he added, looking back down with a sneer. "How does it feel, mongrel?"
Johnathan didn't answer.
He didn't scream, he didn't curse, and he didn't even hiss.
The only sign he was still alive was the way his remaining hand twitched.
It was small and subtle, but frantic.
As if an earthquake's tremor was running through him.
"What's the matter?" Godrick pressed, leaning in. "Run out of quips? Cat got your tongue? No more words to fail?!"
Silence answered him.
Then a sound rose, slow and strange, threading through the graveyard like a distant drum.
At first, it was barely perceptible. Easy to miss beneath the shouts and the crackle of lingering flame. It could have been rocks tumbling. A hammer somewhere.
But it grew, steadily and firmly louder.
And louder.
Until even the dullest soldier could tell what it was.
"A heartbeat…" Millicent breathed, eyes wide. "Is that… a heartbeat?"
As soon as the word left her lips, lightning answered.
Crimson bolts crackled into being around Johnathan's body, arcing off the mangled stump of his left shoulder, crawling down his spine, racing along his remaining arm and legs. They didn't burn him. They wrapped him, like a cloak of a living storm.
The heartbeat thundered in time with the lightning's pulse.
Godrick stepped back without meaning to, instincts clamoring at him to move away from something old and wrong and bigger than him.
"T-This is new, Tarnished." he blustered, trying to force bravado back into his voice. "Th-this is definitely new! But a Tarnished is still a Tar-"
"You…"
The single word was whispered but it cut through his sentence like a blade.
Godrick's jaw hung half-open, the rest of his words dying in his throat as Johnathan lifted his head at last.
His eyes glowed.
Not just gold, not just blue, but a furious, blinding fusion of both. The slitted dragon pupils drowned in a storm of crimson lightning reflected in their depths.
"...Rabid DOG."
Godrick didn't see the fist.
He barely even registered the movement.
One moment he was a few feet away from Johnathan, looming, taunting. The next he was gone, his entire world consumed by a single, devastating impact and a flash of crimson light.
The punch hit his face with such force it was like a siege ballista fired point-blank.
Lightning exploded from the point of contact, blinding, cracking, flooding outward like a burst dam. Godrick's head snapped sideways; his entire bulk lifted off the ground, flung like a rag doll.
He slammed into the earth several body-lengths away, carving a new crater in the broken graveyard. Blood poured down his face, his jaw hanging at an ugly angle, dislocated and already swelling.
He tried to get up.
But he failed.
He tried again and managed to get halfway to his knees before his arms buckled and he crumpled again in a mess of stolen limbs and dragon-stump.
Everyone else could only watch.
Horror. Awe. Shock. Some raw mix of all three flickered across every face, ally and enemy alike, as they stared at the lightning-wreathed man in the center of the graveyard.
John moved his right foot slightly, the motion sending arcs of crimson across the stone.
He stomped.
The ground beneath his heel shattered with a crack of thunder. The butt of the Commander's Standard, which had been lying nearby, popped up from the broken stone as if kicked by an invisible hand and spun into the air.
His hand snapped up.
The lance-like halberd dropped perfectly into his grip.
"You dared raise a hand against her." John stated, voice low and blank, devoid of his usual humor. The thundering heartbeat and the blind, hot wrath filling his skull left room for nothing else. Even Marika's counsel, always present at the edges of his thoughts, was drowned in static.
"Against the woman I love."
The words fell into the graveyard like stones dropped into a still pond.
He didn't give anyone time to react to them.
"May your death provide some modicum of recompense."
He drew his arm back and hurled the Commander's Standard.
Godrick had just managed to push himself upright, swaying, when the halberd hit his back.
The blade punched through armor, flesh, and bone as if they were wet paper. It speared deep, lodging halfway through his patchwork torso so that both ends jutted out; one from his spine, one from his chest.
Blood sprayed in a gruesome fountain.
Godrick gagged, a wet, choking sound, more blood bubbling out of his mouth as his body tried and failed to process the new trauma.
Another weapon was already in Johnathan's hand before the Demigod even finished tasting iron.
He reached into the air and pulled a Zweihander from his inventory, crimson lightning crackling along its massive length as he spun and threw it in one smooth motion.
The greatsword became a bolt of metal and storm, howling as it crossed the space. It struck Godrick in his exposed side, precisely where John had slashed him earlier in the fight and torn armor away.
The blade drove through with sickening ease, punching out the other side, pinning another chunk of him in place.
Godrick convulsed, hacking up more blood, breath rattling like broken glass.
John stepped, his foot came down and the world blurred.
Crimson lightning burst around his leg, the sound like a thunderclap detonating at close range. To mortal eyes, he simply vanished and reappeared beside Godrick, the surrounding space crackling with residual arcs.
In truth, he'd just moved faster than their minds could follow.
He reached into his inventory again, slower this time, almost deliberate.
An Uchigatana slid into his remaining hand.
Lightning wreathed the blade as soon as it touched his fingers, racing along the steel in jagged lines.
He looked down at Godrick—still kneeling, still coughing, still somehow alive with two massive weapons sticking out of him like skewers.
Then he began to cut.
He didn't speak. Didn't roar, or taunt.
He simply moved.
With every crimson, crackling swing of the katana, a chunk of flesh flew into the air. Arms, grafts, stolen limbs, the collage Godrick had spent centuries assembling, were carved away, seared at the edges as lightning cauterized every line instantly.
To anyone but John's companions, it looked like a blur of red and white flashes and flying meat. Most of the graveyard couldn't even track the blade. They only saw pieces of Godrick coming off, again and again, in a grotesque fountain.
Seven seconds.
That's all it took.
Seven seconds from the first cut to the last.
When John stopped, blood stained chest heaving, the katana was no longer in his hand.
It sat buried up to its hilt in Godrick's sternum.
No one dared breathe too loudly.
The drum of the Dragon's Heart was too loud. It pounded in every ear, filled every thought, dominated the entire world for those endless, stretched-out moments.
Godrick vomited blood.
It poured from his mouth, his nose, the ragged holes in his flesh. It seeped from every edge of every wound, a tide so absurd that it was a miracle that he was still alive. An ugly, stubborn miracle.
The Great Rune in his body wouldn't let him die yet.
Even now, it continued to pulse, forcing his heart to beat, his lungs to drag in air, his nerves to fire, all to keep its bearer alive.
Even to his own detriment.
And its bearer was drowning in the only sensation he still possessed.
'It hurts…' Godrick thought.
'It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts————'
His last two functioning arms, stripped of all the others, twitched and struggled in the blood-soaked dirt. His eyes rolled, then caught, focusing on the primal threat.
He looked up.
All he could see was the creature he had so foolishly provoked.
It had eyes. Cold, blinding eyes. The sun itself seemed dull beside them.
It lacked an arm, blood still dripping from the mangled stump… yet he doubted it was truly injured.
If it were in pain, it would have cried out.
It hadn't.
Was…It…ever…Alive?
Those eyes.
He'd seen eyes like that before.
Eyes filled with contempt. With disgust.
Eyes that looked at him as if he were nothing but filth on the roadside.
They were not a Mortal's eyes, they were a Higher Being's eyes.
Eyes like the crimson-haired Rot Goddess who had broken him a millennia ago, who had brought him to heel, made him kiss her boot, and nearly taken his life. Since that day, he had sworn, sworn, to never again stand against a being who looked at him like that.
Yet here he was– No, he'd been tricked.
Tricked into facing this… Thing. This Monster that masqueraded as a Human.
Its mouth twitched.
A small, almost imperceptible frown formed on its face.
Godrick's heart nearly stopped—
"You are nothing but a slimy Worm."
—He wished it had.
"Who gave you permission to look up at me?"
He drew his leg back, crimson lightning sheathing it.
Then he kicked.
His foot slammed into Godrick's chest with an impact that shattered bone and sent another bloom of lightning erupting from the point of contact. The Demigod's body rocketed backward like a broken doll flung by an angry child.
He sailed across the graveyard, crashing down in the center of the field for all to see.
He lay there, drooling and drowning in his own blood, gasping for what was surely his final breath.
Another weapon appeared in Johnathan's hand, heavy enough that the ground cracked where its many edges dragged.
The Grafted Greatsword.
Its abominable mass of blades scraped and shrieked across the shattered stone as he walked, the sound an ominous counterpoint to the relentless heartbeat.
That heartbeat had been dominating the world for 37 seconds.
That was how much time had passed since it first rose and his crimson, primeval lightning awoke.
"You are not worthy to look upon me." John asserted, voice as calm as a butcher's.
He kept walking toward the ruined Demigod, intent clear. Lightning crawled along the colossal sword's edges, turning every jagged protrusion into a conductor.
"A filthy worm like you should face the ground…"
He stopped over Godrick's final resting place.
The Demigod lay half-curled, head lolling, blood dripping from his mouth in a steady stream, eyes unfocused.
"…crawl on your stomach…"
John raised the hulking weapon, positioning its edge at Godrick's neck.
"…And Die."
Godrick's head flew up and away in a clean arc, crimson bolts snapping along the cut. For a single instant, the only sound was the sizzle of cauterized flesh and the fading hiss of the storm.
Then the Dragon's heartbeat began to slow.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
Until it faded into the background of the world again.
A message, cold and final, hovered in the middle of Johnathan's vision.
[DEMIGOD SLAUGHTERED]
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Author's Note:
Gimme your stones!
…Well… That was quite something, huh? Took us longer than I anticipated to get here, I'll be honest. But hopefully the wait was worth it.
For those in the know, I know, I know… I'm a massive fucking Fate and TYPE MOON nerd. I couldn't help myself with the Mahoyo and Gil references :3
…
Next Chapter Title: ETERNAL SOVEREIGNTY
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