The man stood at the threshold, hammer in hand. His chest tightened—not with fear, but with the recognition of what stood before him.
The serpent struck first. Its massive head lunged, faster than its bulk should have allowed, maw wide enough to swallow him whole. He leapt aside, the impact shattering stone where he had stood, molten blood spattering across the cavern floor. The heat burned his skin even from a distance.
He darted forward, closing the gap in the instant of recovery, his hammer swinging low and smashing into the serpent's jaw. Bone crunched. The beast recoiled, screeching, and the chamber quaked with its rage.
From behind the serpent's form, Rykard's laughter echoed—low and guttural.
"Join me… and together, we shall devour the very gods!"
The man's grip tightened on the Brick Hammer. Each clash sent tremors up his arms, each dodge a narrow escape from jaws that could crush giants. Yet he pressed on, finding openings in the serpent's immense bulk, slamming blow after blow into flesh that oozed molten ichor.
It was not like Radahn, where armies clashed around him. It was not like Rennala, where spells rained like stars. Here, it was only him, and this abomination of godhood. One mortal man against a demigod who had chosen to become a monster.
The serpent reared, maw stretching impossibly wide. Its throat glowed, molten heat building within. Then it spewed a river of fire across the cavern, washing everything in searing orange. The man dove behind a jagged spur of blackened stone, the flames licking around it, his skin blistering even through cover. The rock hissed, glowing faint red.
The instant the fire waned, he broke from cover. He ran low, weaving across the serpent's coils as the beast turned its great head to track him. He swung upward, his hammer crashing into the fleshy ridges beneath its eye. The serpent bellowed, blood and molten fluid spraying, sizzling as it struck the cavern floor.
But the counter came quick. A coil the size of a tower uncoiled in a whip-crack, smashing him across the chamber. His ribs rattled, his breath stolen, his body skipping across jagged stone before slamming into the far wall. Dust fell from above. His vision blurred, ears ringing.
Rykard lunged to finish it.
Through the haze of pain, instinct screamed. He rolled just as fangs the size of pikes drove into the wall where he had been pinned, shattering stone. He came up low, swung from the ground with all his strength, and the hammer met one of those massive fangs. Bone shattered in an echoing crack.
The serpent writhed, its body crashing against the cavern walls as hammer-strikes burst chunks of flesh and shattered scales. It screeched, flames pouring from its maw in sheets that turned the floor into rivers of molten rock. Each swing the man landed drove the profaned creature closer to collapse, though the retaliation was merciless—every strike punished with snapping coils or gouts of fire that boiled the air.
The massive coils stilled.
"More…!" His voice was jagged, broken by flame and fury. "More! All that yet lives shall be consumed in the serpent's flame!"
The serpent was no longer fighting alone. Now, guided by Rykard's will, its strikes became purposeful—no wasted motion, every lunge and coil placed to trap and crush. Where before it had been the thrashings of a beast, now it was strategy, violence sharpened by a demigod's intent.
A coil swept low, forcing him to leap as magma fountained upward from the serpent's gullet. A wall of flame split the chamber, heat searing the hair from his skin. He ducked beneath another snap of its massive jaw, hammer grazing along the serpent's inner mouth before slamming into its tongue. Flesh burst wetly; the serpent shrieked, Rykard's voice layering over the sound in a chorus of agony and rage.
The man staggered back, chest heaving, sweat and blood streaking down his skin. Still he pressed forward, teeth gritted, arms trembling under the hammer's weight. Blow after blow carved ruin into the serpent's form—flesh split, bone shattered, chunks of blackened scale sloughed into the molten pools around them.
But it was not enough.
Rykard laughed, even as the serpent's blood drenched him. "Glorious, isn't it?! The power!" He raised his arm, and the serpent bent with him. The ground cracked. Magma erupted in waves, filling the cavern with choking heat and blinding light.
Every strike now felt like it might be his last. Yet every time the serpent bore down, he found the narrow seam to survive—rolling through a gap between coils, leaping over flame at the last breath, slamming the hammer in those fleeting moments when the serpent left itself bare.
The cavern was chaos. Stone collapsed from above. Fire raged unchecked. The serpent convulsed, blood flooding the floor. Its form sagged beneath the weight of wounds that even Rykard's will could not knit together.
The laughter faltered, and Rykard sagged forward, eyes burning with hatred as he forced words through his ruined throat.
"You dare deny me? Me… who will devour the gods?"
The man planted his feet, lifted the hammer high. His muscles screamed, bones threatening to break under the strain, but the moment was his. He brought the weapon down in a brutal arc, burying it deep into the serpent's head. Bone cracked like shattering mountains. Flesh burst, molten blood spraying across the cavern.
The serpent convulsed, Rykard howling in concert, until both sound and movement collapsed into silence.
The cavern stank of ash and blood. The coils sagged, lifeless. Rykard, Lord of Blasphemy, hung limp within the ruined flesh of the serpent, eyes dimmed, mouth frozen in an echo of hunger never sated.
And above the body, a Great Rune shimmered into being—massive, luminous, its pattern shifting like living fire. It pulsed with raw, blasphemous strength, yet not different in weight or brilliance compared to those already collected. Another fragment of the Ring. Another piece closer to his goal.
He stood beneath it, shoulders heaving, and felt his hammer, slick with the serpent's blood. Not triumph. Not even satisfaction. Just grim inevitability.
The Elden Ring was shattered. But piece by piece, it was coming back… to him.
The air in the blasphemous chamber still burned in his lungs as he staggered through the tunnels, until at last a familiar warmth drew him forward. A site of grace, faint yet steady, shimmered in the dark stone.
He sank down beside it, the Brick Hammer across his lap, as golden light spilled upward from the earth. It wasn't the pale fire of sorcery, nor the bloody flare of rot, nor the serpent's hungry flame. It was pure, unwavering gold, washing over him and softening the weight of his limbs.
Breath steadied. Muscles eased. And still, his thoughts churned.
Rykard had let himself bee devoured for his ambition, bound his very flesh to a god-eating serpent. Yet, in the end, he fell. His Great Rune rose above his corpse just as the others had, no brighter, no darker—another fragment of the same broken whole.
The demigods were powerful, but blind. Each one clutching a shard of eternity without seeing its true purpose. These fragments were not meant to rule alone. They were pieces of the Elden Ring, the one order that bound this world.
His hand tightened on the stone haft of the hammer. He would not be consumed as Rykard was, nor broken as Godrick, nor lost in dream as Rennala. He would gather the pieces, all of them. Not for the Greater Will. Not for hunger, or for blasphemy. For life. For order. For a world that did not rot, did not burn, did not suffer beneath madness.
The golden light of the grace flared faintly brighter, as if acknowledging his resolve. He let himself breathe in its calm, if only for a moment. Tomorrow, the path would rise before him again. More fragments to seize. More power to claim. Until the Ring itself was whole. Until the Lands Between lived again.
—--
The climb toward Leyndell began with a long, winding road carved into the plateau's golden stone. The Erdtree loomed brighter than ever, its massive trunk filling the sky, roots spilling across the horizon like veins of divine light. The closer he drew, the heavier its presence felt—a pressure settling into his chest, a reminder of what he sought to claim.
Now back at the path towards Leyndell, his eye caught on a weathered wagon overturned in the grass within a ruined camp, its timbers split and iron fittings rusted. Among the wreckage, half-buried beneath rotting planks and cloth, lay a colossal shape. He brushed the debris aside, and his hands found the haft of a hammer far larger than even the Brick Hammer he wielded now. Its head was sheer stone, massive and brutal, forged to shatter more than men.
The Giant-Crusher.
Its head was a monolith of stone, bound with weathered bands, the surface scarred from wars so old their names had been lost. The haft was thick, a length of ironwood darkened with age and battle-fire.
He set his hands on it. The earth trembled as he pulled it free, the sheer weight of it breaking apart the stone beneath his boots when the head fell against the ground. He tested it—arms rising, shoulders bracing, body flowing with its impossible burden. It was no burden to him. His strength had been honed beyond human measure. The weapon moved with him, as though it had been waiting for him alone.
He looked at the Brick Hammer strapped across his back. Faithful, brutal, it had carried him through storm and blood. It had broken demigods, crushed sorcerers, and felled dragons. It had been his companion in ruin.
But the truth was plain before him. Against this new weapon, the Brick Hammer seemed almost small. This was no simple instrument of war—it was devastation itself, a weapon to split the earth and level fortresses.
With both hands, he unstrapped the Brick Hammer and laid it down on the earth. He placed it carefully, not discarded but honored, the way one leaves behind a comrade whose part in the battle is done. His palm lingered against the weathered stone head, a silent thanks for what it had carried him through.
Then he rose, the Giant-Crusher now gripped in both hands. When its head struck the ground as he shifted it into place, the land groaned, dust rising in a shuddering wave.
He turned toward the great gates of Leyndell.
—--
The Draconic Tree Sentinel thundered forward, halberd blazing with lightning, his horse's hooves striking sparks from the stone path. He had stood at this gate for an age, unbroken, unyielding—a bulwark against all who dared approach the capital.
The hammer came up. When it fell, the land itself convulsed. Stone shattered, dust roared upward, and the Sentinel's shield groaned beneath the force. The impact wrenched his arm back, shield arm sagging for an instant under the impossible weight. His horse stumbled two steps before it recovered, snorting fire.
He pressed the advantage. The Giant-Crusher swung again, and though the Sentinel angled his shield to meet it, the blow struck with such fury that horse and rider were shoved sideways across the path. Sparks burst from the strained metal as the shield screeched against the stone, the sheer force dragging them back.
The Sentinel rallied, golden lightning coursing down his halberd. He lashed out, thunder breaking the night as the strike arced into his opponent's chest, burning hot enough to make muscles seize. But he only staggered, teeth clenched against the pain, before dragging the hammer back into a brutal upward swing.
It caught the Sentinel squarely against his shield. The sound was like a siege engine smashing through a fortress gate. Man and horse alike lifted from the earth, hurled back a dozen paces before crashing down in a cloud of dust and broken flagstone.
The guardian rose at once, roaring beneath his helm, his armor dented but his spirit unbroken. Again he spurred forward, halberd swinging in great arcs of stormlight, every blow meant to crush, to overwhelm, to prove his endurance.
But every time, the Giant-Crusher answered with ruin. Each strike forced him back, each impact ringing through his shield and rattling his bones. For every step forward he claimed, two more were driven out of him, until the stone path bore craters where the hammer fell, a scarred record of his resistance.
The Sentinel was no toy—he was an unbending gatekeeper, his strength honed and proven across countless trials. But against the sheer, merciless weight of the hammer in these hands, even his long-held dominion at the capital's gate was faltering.
The final clash came as lightning split the sky, the halberd raised high. The hammer surged upward in answer, faster than stone that size had any right to move. When they met, it was a deafening explosion of force—shield and halberd ringing, lightning scattering wild into the air.
This time, the Sentinel's shield cracked. His horse screamed and fell, legs buckling, throwing him to the ground.
And for the first time in an age, the gate's guardian was pressed down, pinned beneath the ruinous weight of a weapon meant to break giants.
The Draconic Tree Sentinel pushed himself upright, dragging in ragged breaths. His shield was split, his halberd sparking with dying arcs of lightning. Still, he did not retreat. His helm turned toward the walls of Leyndell behind him, then back to the one standing before him with the hammer. His post. His oath. His final stand.
He let out a wordless roar and lunged, broken shield still raised, halberd lashing down in one last desperate strike.
The hammer answered.
It rose high, blotting out the glow of the Erdtree above, then came down with the full, merciless weight of its master's strength. The earth cracked open beneath the impact. Stone shattered, dust burst in every direction.
The Sentinel's body buckled under the blow. His armor warped, bones crushed, the last of his lightning snuffed out in silence. Horse and rider were driven into the shattered path, shield and weapon flung from lifeless hands.
When the dust cleared, the Draconic Tree Sentinel lay broken—motionless, golden cloak torn, helm bowed in death. For centuries he had stood unshaken, a guardian of the capital's gates. Now he was gone, felled not by time or decay, but by strength that no shield could bear.
The hammer rested against the earth beside the corpse, its vast head still humming faintly with the force of the killing blow.
Beyond the corpse, the gates of Leyndell loomed tall and silent. The path forward was open.
He did not look back at the crumpled form of the Draconic Tree Sentinel. The fall of such a guardian was not a marvel, but an inevitability. His strength had long since outgrown the tests laid before him. The hammer's weight, the earth's shudder under each swing, the silence that followed—it was all as it should be.
The colossal gates of Leyndell creaked open, and he stepped through.
The capital unfolded before him: wide, gilded avenues cracked by root and time, colonnades and statues of forgotten kings, walls rising high as mountains with the Erdtree's golden boughs spilling over them. The air shimmered faintly with residual grace, thick with the echo of history and dominion.
Each step he took up the broad staircase rang heavy, the Giant-Crusher's head trailing faint grooves in the stone beside him. Leyndell was not a city of the living but a monument to power—a place raised to serve the Erdtree's shadow.
His eyes tracked upward, to where the Erdtree loomed impossibly vast, golden leaves pouring down like fire frozen in air. That was his destination. His claim. Every street and hall of this place was but another step toward it.
The silence of the capital did not unsettle him. It only confirmed what he already knew: his coming had been written by the strength he now carried.
And so he pressed deeper into Leyndell, each footfall echoing through the hollowed capital.
The path through Leyndell stretched long, but his strength cut it short. Perfumers who lingered in fragrant shadow, knights still bound to hollow vows, warped champions who once carried grace—none slowed him. The Giant-Crusher's weight made mockery of walls, of armor, of bone. Each clash was brief, each echo fading quickly behind him as he strode deeper into the city's heart.
The avenues curved ever upward, stair after stair drawing him closer to the Erdtree itself. The sky was split with gold, every leaf above blazing brighter than the sun. He passed the great dragon that lay coiled in eternal death, its stone body sprawling across battlements and streets, and pressed on. Nothing here was reason to stop—not until the roots themselves came into view.
They writhed downward from the Erdtree's base, thicker than towers, curling into the city as if the divine had driven its veins through stone. They formed a path not meant for mortals, yet there it was—his way forward.
He ascended. Each step upon the twisting bark thrummed with life, with power, the wood still pulsing faintly with golden veins of grace. Higher he climbed, until the sprawl of Leyndell lay far below, until the air itself felt charged with sanctity.
The roots carried him into a grand chamber carved at the tree's edge, its ceilings high, its floor polished with centuries of worship. The Erdtree Sanctuary. Silent, waiting.
And waiting there within the stillness, a figure formed—a golden shade, bright as flame, its axe gleaming like dawn. The first Elden Lord. Godfrey.
The shadow of legend stood between him and the Erdtree.
The chamber shuddered with his arrival. Gold rippled in the air, coalescing into a towering form, and the light bent around it until he stood face to face with legend. Godfrey. First Elden Lord. His eyes were hollow flame, his presence a weight that pressed down heavier than the roots themselves. Even as a shade, power poured off him in waves.
The silence broke with a single step. The floor cracked beneath Godfrey's heel, and then the axe was in motion. A sweep wide enough to tear the sanctuary wall apart blurred toward him. He met it head-on, swinging the Giant-Crusher in a crashing arc.
Stone split. Shockwaves blasted outward, rattling the ancient pillars. The two weapons rebounded with a sound like thunder, force rolling through the chamber as if a storm had been trapped inside its walls.
He pressed forward, his body braced like iron, bringing the colossal hammer down again. Godfrey slid aside, faster than any figure so massive had the right to be, and his counterblow fell with seismic fury. The axe gouged deep trenches in the floor, golden sparks spraying as the earth itself seemed to bleed light.
Clash after clash rang out, neither giving ground. Each swing was not just an attack but a test of will—one titan against another. The Giant-Crusher cratered the flagstones; the golden axe tore great crescents of light through the air. Every exchange sent debris flying, chunks of root and stone raining down.
He ducked beneath a cleaving strike, felt the wind of death tear inches above his head, then rammed his hammer upward into Godfrey's chest. The impact sent the shade skidding back, cracks spiderwebbing beneath his golden form. But Godfrey's roar shook the air, defiant, as he lunged again with renewed ferocity.
The room became too small for what they carried. Each step, each strike, each deflection turned the Erdtree Sanctuary into a crucible of destruction. The walls quaked, the roots above groaned, and the gold-lit titan before him fought not like memory, not like shadow—but like the First Lord himself.
And still, he held. Each counterblow stronger, each dodge more precise, until the rhythm of battle settled into his bones: the test of strength he had been building toward since Godrick, since Radahn, since all the foes who had sharpened him into this.
Two giants, locked in a storm of power, shaking the very ground of the Erdtree's threshold.
Godfrey's axe blurred again, a golden crescent splitting the air, forcing him back with its sheer weight. The shade did not tire. Every swing carried the authority of a conqueror, the remembered wrath of the First Elden Lord. His arms burned with the strain of each block and parry, but his grip never faltered.
He shifted his stance, meeting the next swing not with resistance but with redirection. The Giant-Crusher angled against the haft of the axe, deflecting the arc just wide enough for him to surge forward. His hammer rose in both hands and came down like the sky collapsing.
Stone detonated under the strike. The floor cratered, cracks veining outward toward the sanctuary walls, the impact hurling dust into a choking haze. Godfrey staggered, but the shade's flame-bright eyes narrowed, steady as ever. He did not fall. Instead, he grinned through that golden mask of light and rushed again.
Their weapons collided, again and again. The axe's golden edge shaved sparks from the hammer's face, carving swathes of blinding light across the room. The Giant-Crusher slammed back with relentless force, shaking the ground as though Leyndell itself could not bear the struggle.
Each impact tore a piece of the chamber apart—roots splintering, stone pillars collapsing in showers of rubble. He was fighting in ruins now, every breath full of dust, every step taken on shattered ground. And still neither broke.
Until at last, he found the rhythm. Godfrey's stride—broad, committed. The arc of the axe—fast, brutal, but telegraphed just enough to read. He felt it through his arms, through the stone at his feet, through the air quaking with every swing.
The axe came down, an overhead strike that could split mountains. He sidestepped, his body screaming under the strain, and brought the Giant-Crusher up in a two-handed swing. The hammer caught Godfrey full in the ribs, the blow reverberating with world-shattering force.
The shade reeled. Golden fragments sprayed from the wound, his form flickering as the strike drove him backward.
He did not let up. He surged after, lifting the Giant-Crusher high, and with a roar that echoed the Lord's own, he brought it down. The hammer struck like judgment itself, crushing through the chest of the golden titan. Light shattered, bursting outward in a radiant storm, and the form of Godfrey collapsed into motes that scattered and burned out in the dust-choked air.
Silence fell. The floor of the sanctuary was ruined, gouged and broken, but he stood amid the wreckage with his weapon steady in hand. Alone. Victorious.
The First Elden Lord's shade was gone.
Then the echoes came—normal runes spilling into him, glowing threads wrapping into his flesh and bone. They thrummed with raw strength, the lingering might of the First Elden Lord even in shade-form. It was not a Great Rune, but the wealth of runes alone carried the ability to press his body closer toward the unshakable titan he sought to become.
He let them sink into him, feeling the weight of the runes settle like iron across his muscles, tightening his frame, hardening him further. This was how far he had come: even the echo of an Elden Lord could not bar his path.
The Giant-Crusher lowered with a slow scrape against the stone, and he turned toward the glow rising behind him. A Grace—golden, pure, steady—had bloomed in the broken chamber. Its rays curled upward like the Erdtree's roots, offering rest after trial.
He approached, kneeling as his breath slowed. His body pulsed from the clash, arms and back heavy from the shade's relentless blows. But fatigue was only a reminder: he had stood, and he had won.
As his hand touched the Grace, warmth coursed through him, steadying him. His thoughts quieted, focused. Every victory carved the way forward. Godfrey's rune-echoes were his now. His resolve, sharper still.
Soon, more trials would come. Soon, the Erdtree itself.
But for now, he let the light wash over him, unyielding, golden, calm.