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The only thing they heard from the Crucible Knight at first was breathing.
Slow, steady, almost meditative. It was subtle enough that John might have missed it if not for how utterly still everything else was. The ocean hissed far below, the wind sighed across the overgrown stone, but under it all there was that measured rhythm of air drawn through a helm and released again through clenched teeth.
The Crucible Knight turned.
It was not a quick motion. It was deliberate, weighty, the kind of movement that spoke of someone who had never once needed to rush to kill anything. Each step as he pivoted to face them sent a dull thud through the earth beneath their feet, plate shifting with a low scrape of metal that sounded more like an animal flexing its scales than armor moving.
Melina instinctively shifted closer to John, her cloak fluttering at her ankles as she angled herself slightly in front of him. Millicent's hand went to her sword in the same heartbeat. Even without knowing exactly what he was, their bodies recognized what stood before them: an apex predator that had put on steel and never taken it off.
The knight's faceless helm turned fully toward them at last. For a long, breath-stretched moment, he did not speak. He simply… looked.
His gaze, though unseen beneath bronze, still felt tangible all the same. It swept over Millicent first, weighing and dismissing in a single silent pass. Then Melina, lingering just a fraction longer on the faint glow of Grace that clung to her like an echo. Finally his attention settled on John.
The pressure of that regard was palpable. John felt it like a hand pressed against his chest, like something ancient and heavy was measuring his worth, not in titles or stats, but in scars and choices. The knight's head angled slightly, the tiniest tilt that suggested curiosity. It was not surprise or not hostility just yet.
It was simply recognition of something unusual.
Then, impossibly, the helm lifted.
Not much, barely the height of a finger. But John felt it like a shift in the air. The Crucible Knight's unseen gaze moved not just over him, but up, past his shoulder, past the clear, empty air where nothing physical stood.
Up…
To where Marika hovered, weightless upon her cloud of Grace, just above and behind John's right shoulder, as she often did.
Her golden form, usually so composed, stilled. He could feel it in the way her presence sharpened in his mind. The knight's attention stayed fixed there for several seconds. Seconds that stretched long enough for John to understand something was very, very different about this man compared to every other foe he'd faced.
Marika's lips parted. For once, regal diction and divine poise went straight out the metaphorical window.
"…What the hell?" She whispered under her breath, voice edged with genuine unease. "Can he see me?"
John's brows shot up.
'Can he?' he thought back, fighting the urge to glance over his shoulder. If the knight could see the literal ghost of Queen Marika floating behind him, that opened up whole new categories of "Oh, shit."
He took a step forward anyway, forcing his muscles to relax, lifting a hand in what he hoped passed for a non-hostile gesture. "Hey there, big guy. I-"
The Crucible Knight cut him off.
"You…" The knight rumbled.
The word was low and harsh, like gravel grinding in a furnace. His voice sounded as though it had not been used often, as if speech was an old, dull blade dragged free for the first time in centuries. The single syllable rolled across the platform and settled over them like dust.
John blinked, hand still half-raised.
"…Oh- Okay. Just cut me off. That's fine-" He muttered under his breath, baffled and slightly annoyed.
The knight did not seem to care. His helm tilted forward by a fraction, the slit where his eyes would be catching the sunlight. "Avatar of the Eternal…"
All three of them tensed.
"Thou wishest to duel me…" The knight's voice thickened, the declaration sounding less like a question and more like a statement. "…Dost thou not?"
Silence dropped over the platform as the breeze tugged at their cloaks. Somewhere far below, a wave smashed itself against the cliffs, yet it was still louder than all their breathing.
"...Huh?" John dumbly blurted at last.
Millicent's mouth fell open.
"Avatar of the… what now?" she echoed, eyes flicking between John and the knight.
Melina's single visible eye widened, her gaze darting toward where she knew Marika's presence hovered, even if she could not see her. The name itself made her spine stiffen.
'The Eternal…' John thought, stomach tightening. That wasn't a random title. That wasn't some generic "cool word" the knight came up with. That was her.
Behind him, Marika had gone very, very still. He could feel the change like a drop in pressure. Her golden aura, usually serene, tightened around him.
"Avatar of the Eternal…" She repeated quietly, almost to herself. "He speaks of thee in reference to me." Her tone flickered between incredulous and profoundly unsettled. "How does he know…?"
John swallowed, taking another cautious step forward. "Uh… When you say 'the Eternal, are you referring to-"
The knight cut him off again with the smallest nod.
"Yes." His voice rumbled like distant thunder. "The Eternal. The One who was. The One that is."
His head shifted the barest degree, helm angle lifting again toward the invisible goddess hovering above the Avatar. "Thy… Queen."
John stared at him, brain stuttering. "Okay, first of all: rude, interrupting people twice. Second of all: how the fuck do you know that?"
His voice echoed faintly against the broken stone.
The Crucible Knight regarded him in silence for a long moment. Then his helm turned, ever so slowly, back toward the space above John's shoulder. His unseen gaze slid along an axis only he seemed to sense, locking onto Marika with an almost reverent steadiness.
When he spoke again, the words came slow and sure. "Her form may be hidden from the eyes of most… But not from mine, nor from any of my brethren."
Marika flinched.
It wasn't visible in her ethereal form, not really. But John felt it, the way her presence jolted in his mind, the faint intake of breath no mortal lungs had taken in ages.
"Th-The Crucible Knights…" she murmured, voice unsteady for the first time since he'd met her. "Of course. They were… are… closer to the roots of existence than most. Their senses were always… broader than that of mere mortals…"
John's head turned slightly, just enough to glance at where he saw her hovering. 'So he can see you. Completely?'
"Not entirely, I hope." She replied quickly, pulling herself back together with visible effort. Her arms folded tightly over her chest, as if protecting something. "Yet he clearly perceives enough. He knows I am here. He knows that thou art bound to me."
Aloud, John cleared his throat. "Just to be absolutely sure we're all on the same page here, uh… Can you hear what she's saying?"
The Crucible Knight was silent as several seconds passed. Then, with a slow shake of his head, he answered. "...Nay."
Marika's shoulders loosened. The tension in her spectral jaw eased, and she allowed herself a slow, careful exhale.
"That is… fortunate." she muttered. "They can perceive my presence, sense my bond to thee, mine Champion, but not the content of our speech. Their sight is deep, but not all-reaching."
She shifted slightly, drawing herself upright once more, regaining the full measure of her old composure. "This confirms much. Maliketh sensing my whisper through thee… this knight seeing me now… Anyone with enough 'INSIGHT', may at least sense I linger yet. 'Tis our curse and their blessing both."
Her gaze went distant for a heartbeat as old memories stirred. "The Crucible Knights see the unseen, have seen all that was, and shall see much of what is to come. This is their curse, their blessing, and the price of their vigilance."
Her eyes sharpened, returning to him. "Be wary. Their sight cuts deep, that includes thy usual trickery."
John tried not to think too hard about the idea of future enemies with enough INSIGHT to feel Marika hanging off his shoulder like some divine parrot.
The Crucible Knight allowed them that moment to process, then took one heavy, echoing step forward. The grass beneath his boots flattened without even a crunch.
"Avatar of the Eternal," he said again, more formal this time. "Do thee truly wish to duel with me… or not?"
John dragged himself from his thoughts, the question snapping him back into the present.
He drew in a breath, squared his shoulders.
"Honestly?" he said, voice levelling. "I'd like to test your blade against my own." His fingers curled absently against the hilt at his hip. "But I don't exactly want you dead."
A quiet rumble rolled out from the knight's chest at that. It wasn't quite a laugh, but it wasn't disgust either. It sounded almost like acknowledgement, something deep in his posture relaxing by a fraction.
Beside John, Marika finally began to move again in earnest, her earlier shock retreating behind a familiar veil of calculation.
"Listen well, mine Champion…" She called out, her tone returning to that calm, instructive cadence he'd learned to pay attention to.
She floated a little closer, eyes fixed upon the Crucible Knight below. "The Crucible Knights are not mere elites. They are relics of the primordial age, born when all life was yet a single tangled root in the Crucible. They fought beside Godfrey in his first conquests. They were the first to take my banners to distant soil."
Her gaze hardened, the soft glow of her form sharpening like a blade. "One such knight is worth hundreds, if not thousands, of your average soldiers. Even among mine own armies they were legends."
She looked down at John, and there was a rare urgency in her voice. "If thou canst gain this man as thy sworn blade, or at least as an ally, thou wouldst gain a trump card no Demigod can lightly ignore."
He swallowed, feeling the weight of her words. 'You're saying I should do everything I can to recruit him.'
"I am saying that thou would be a fool not to." She corrected softly.
He huffed lightly. "Well, when you put it like that…"
He looked up at the Crucible Knight, mind racing, weighing the tension in the air. This wasn't like talking to Edgar or some random Stormveil guard. This man radiated an older kind of gravity. He wouldn't respond to bullshit, flattery, or cheap tricks. He understood only strength, oaths, and truth.
'Okay…' John thought with an inward huff. 'If we're gonna play this old-school, might as well go all in.'
He stepped forward, boots whispering across the grass, and rested his hand on the hilt of his Uchigatana, not drawing it yet, just letting the knight see that he was ready if needed.
"How about this…" John said, letting his voice drop into a more formal cadence, something that at least pretended to resemble knightly decorum. "I'd like to request a non-lethal duel. A test of skill. With… stakes. Something on the line for both of us."
The Crucible Knight did not move. His helm tilted the barest fraction, as if he were… interested.
"Non-lethal?" He repeated slowly, the word unfamiliar on his tongue. "Explain thy meaning."
John pursed his lips, thinking. "To keep things fair and to make sure neither of us gets truly messed up… how about this: first to get hit three times loses."
Behind him, Melina made a small choking sound.
John glanced back. She stood with one hand resting lightly on her chest, the other at her waist, the faintest of sweatdrops practically visible over her brow.
She thought, wryly. 'Knowing him, he has already devised some absurd method to rig this duel in his favor.'
Her gaze slid sideways to Millicent, just in time to catch the girl's amused smirk.
Millicent met her eyes and exhaled a tiny, resigned laugh through her nose. That look alone was a confirmation that yes, this was probably going to be some ridiculous scheme. The worst part? It would probably work.
The Crucible Knight considered the condition in heavy silence. His fingers flexed once over the edge of his shield. Finally, he gave a single, grave nod. "These terms are… acceptable."
He shifted his stance, sword-hand resting against the pommel, shield angled low but ready. "What does the Avatar of the Eternal desire, should he prevail?"
John took a breath. He could dance around it, try to ease into the request, but something told him that would only insult the man's intelligence. Crucible Knights weren't the type to respect coyness, if instinct were to be believed.
So he went for it, bluntly.
"If I win…" John said clearly, meeting the blank slit of the helm as if it were a pair of eyes, "I'd like you to join me. To become my sworn knight… Or, at the very least, lend me your strength as an ally in my cause. I'm on the path to become Elden Lord, and I intend to make good on that. I could use a knight like you."
The words fell into the air like a challenge of their own.
Millicent's jaw actually dropped. Melina's lips parted, her eyes widening just enough to betray how bold she thought that was. Even Marika's brows rose, though there was something like… nostalgia?… flickering behind the surprise.
Melina made a sound halfway between a strangled cough and an offended sputter. Several steps behind, she dragged a hand slowly down her face and muttered under her breath. "Haaahh~… We have truly lost the impact of shame in our society…"
The Crucible Knight did not respond immediately.
When he finally did, his voice was… different. Not softer, but there was something almost contemplative in it, as though John's request had tugged on some long-buried thread.
"It would seem…" He drawled dryly. "…That the Eternal's taste in men remains unchanged, even after a several thousand years."
John choked on his own saliva.
Marika's head snapped around in midair.
"I- Excuse thee?" she snapped at the knight. "My 'taste in men'?" There was more color in her voice than John had ever heard. "I shall have thee know-"
'Focus.' John thought at her desperately, feeling his ears burn with embarrassment and indignation.
The knight either didn't notice or didn't care that he'd just casually roasted both goddess and champion. He rolled his sword shoulder once, metal creaking. "Very well." he continued, unbothered. "If this duel is what thee seek, then so be it. I shall accept thy condition."
"On mine own… terms." He added after a moment.
John exhaled slowly. "I figured as much." He tilted his head. "What do you want, if you win?"
There was a brief silence.
"If I prevail…" The Crucible Knight said at last. "I desire two truths."
John blinked. "Two… truths?"
"Aye." The knight's helm lowered a fraction in what might have been a nod. "Two answers. To questions long unanswered."
Melina shifted, curiosity sparking in her gaze. Millicent frowned, intrigued. John's fingers tightened over his hilt.
"Alright. What are they?"
The knight's head turned slightly, as if glancing out toward Limgrave far beyond the ruined walls and crashing sea. "First, I was sent here by my Captain, Ordovis. He bade me seek one of our lost brethren. A Crucible Knight who vanished somewhere upon these lands. He was last heard of battling the forces of the Demigod Godrick within Limgrave."
John's brows twitched up.
Images flickered through his memory: an Evangel not too far away from Stormveil with a Crucible Knight trapped within.
'Riiiight…' he thought. 'That guy.'
"You don't know what became of him?" John asked, even though he already suspected the answer.
The knight shook his head slowly. "Nay. Only that he disappeared. Swallowed by this land's madness. If thee knoweth his fate… or possess the means to find out… thou wilt tell me." His helm turned fully back toward John. "This shall be the first truth."
John nodded slowly. "I… think I might know where he is. Not exactly, but…" He hesitated. "I'll tell you what I can, if you win. Fair enough."
He glanced toward Marika out of pure habit. She was listening intently, eyes narrowed in thought. She said nothing yet, letting him handle this part.
"And the second?" John asked. "What's the other truth you want?"
This time, the silence that followed felt heavier.
The knight's head turned, once again, toward the space where Marika hovered. This time, the movement was unmistakable, almost like a man looking an old commander in the eye.
When he spoke, his voice seemed to reach somewhere far older than their little patch of grass and stone. "The second truth I desire is this…"
He took a step forward, the ground murmuring under his weight.
"I wish to know the last words Queen Marika the Eternal spoke to our Old Lord and Master, Horah Loux." His helm lifted fractionally higher. "Or, as thee may better know him… Godfrey."
The wind seemed to go out of the world.
Millicent blinked, the name catching her off guard.
"Godfrey…?" she echoed softly.
Melina inhaled sharply, her gaze snapping to the empty air above John's shoulder. Her lips parted, but no sound came out.
John turned slowly, heart sinking, to look at Marika.
She looked… struck.
The expression on her face was something far more vulnerable than simply indignant or annoyed. For the first time since he'd met her, the Eternal did not look like a goddess or a schemer or a bitter, weary monarch.
She looked like a woman someone had just punched straight in the gut with a memory.
"Marika…?" John asked quietly. "You okay?"
She did not speak for several seconds. Her eyes were distant, looking at something only she could see. When she finally answered, her voice was rougher than he'd ever heard it.
"Yes…" she said, though it sounded like she had to push the word out. "I am… fine."
Her gaze lowered slightly, the corners of her mouth twitching with something like pain.
"There are many things I regret, mine Champion. And many I… do not." Marika said quietly as she hesitated, golden lashes lowering over golden eyes. "My time with Godfrey is…"
She exhaled, a long, steady breath that seemed to carry centuries with it.
"…To this day, I know not whether what I feel when I recall my first Lord is… regret." Her lips pressed together briefly. "Or nostalgia."
John had no idea what to do with that.
Part of him wanted to be jealous, irrationally, of someone who'd had her love first. Another part wanted to punch something on principle. A third part recognized the aching honesty in her words and just let it be.
He looked back at the Crucible Knight, who waited in perfect, unmoving silence.
"Alright," John said quietly. "If you win… I'll tell you both those truths. As best I can." He glanced up at where Marika hovered, making sure she could see his resolve. "If she's willing for the second."
"I am." Marika confirmed, meeting the knight's invisible gaze through the veil. There was a strange, fragile dignity in her tone. "If nothing else… he and his kind deserve that much."
The Crucible Knight made a faint sound, something like a satisfied rumble. "Then the terms are set. Three blows to decide the victor. Service, should thou triumph. Two truths, should I."
He lifted his sword from his hip at last, the blade dragging a line through the grass as he brought it up with both hands, settling into a stance that looked carved from history itself. His shield tilted, ready to catch and punish, his weight balanced in a way that made John's skin prickle with anticipation.
"Art thou prepared?"
John blinked once. Then he smiled slowly as a sly edge crept into the curve of his mouth.
"Almost."
He turned his head, looking over his shoulder at Melina.
"Hey," he called lightly. "Can I borrow one of your daggers?"
Melina blinked, caught off guard by the sudden pivot. "My… dagger?" she repeated.
"Yes, please." He wiggled his fingers at her, palm-up. "Just for a bit."
She frowned faintly, but there was trust in the motion when she reached down to her hip and slipped a slim, simple dagger from its sheath. The blade caught what little light there was in a clean, functional gleam. No ornament, just sharp steel.
She placed it in his outstretched hand, their fingers brushing for a moment.
"Do not lose it." She said softly.
"I won't." He promised.
Millicent squinted at him, suspicion plain on her face.
"And what exactly are you planning with that?" she asked, nodding toward the dagger.
John weighed the knife in his hand, feeling its balance, the way it sat between his fingers, the comfort of having something quick, light, and very throwable in his grip.
He looked up at the Crucible Knight, then back at his companions. The smirk on his face widened by a fraction, eyes gleaming with that familiar, dangerous mixture of mischief and determination.
"You'll see~"
John flipped Melina's dagger once in his hand, feeling the easy balance of it, then slid it into a reverse grip in his left. His other hand rose toward empty air, fingers pulling through nothing and closing around familiar weight.
Reduvia dropped into his right palm with a soft thock of manifested steel.
The little ritual dagger sat there, wicked and jagged, its curved blade ridged like a serrated fang. Dry, dark-red stains clung stubbornly to the microscopic grooves along its edge, and beneath the dull light, the blood-crystal woven into its spine pulsed faintly, like a sleeping ember remembering flame.
He turned it, inspecting the edge. Whoever had sharpened it had brought it up to a razor that gleamed with murderous potential. [+11], his inner HUD whispered.
"Man…" he muttered under his breath, lips tugging up. "You've been collecting dust since day one…"
He remembered Nerijus. The first Bloody Finger he'd met upon waking in the Lands Between, rabid and shrieking by the river, his Reduvia had likely killed many an unfortunate soul until John had put him down and taken the knife off his cooling corpse, with the help of Yura the Bloody Finger Hunter, of course.
Then promptly forgotten about it in favor of bigger, flashier toys.
'Guess it's your time to shine…' He thought, adjusting his grip.
A shadow flickered in his inventory. The Black Knife.
He could feel it even without pulling it out, that wrong, quiet weight of it, the way its very concept hummed with the idea of killing things that shouldn't be able to die. A blade made to carve Death into Immortality.
He hovered there for a heartbeat, tempted.
Then he grimaced and let it go.
'Yeah, no.' He thought, shaking his head slightly. 'Bringing an instrument of pure divine assassination to a friendly non-lethal duel feels… kinda low. Even for me.'
He slid Reduvia into a reverse grip, Melina's dagger into a standard one, crossing his arms loosely as he took a few steps forward across the overgrown stone. The Crucible Knight watched his approach in silence, sword still lowered but ready, his shield a wall of dull gold and old scars at his side.
John planted his feet, rolling his shoulders once. The wind tugged at his tunic, the sea hissed far below as he focused himself.
It was just him, a couple of knives, and a walking monument to an age of war.
"I'm ready." He said.
The Crucible Knight shifted at that.
It wasn't much. Just a rolling of the shoulders, a settling of weight, his shield rising an inch higher, his sword hand flexing once along the hilt. But the entire air around him seemed to tighten, the calm of an old battlefield refocusing itself.
"Crucible Knight." The armored figure rumbled. He drew his blade fully now, the weapon sliding from its scabbard with a deep, ringing scrape. He brought it up in both hands, blade angled forward, shield pivoted just so. "Mesorius."
John couldn't help but smile at that. There was something satisfying and exciting about a man who introduced himself like a living boss title.
He straightened his back, daggers gleaming, and gave the formality the respect it deserved.
"Third Elden Lord." He called back, voice steady even as an excited grin split his mouth. "Johnathan."
The words left his mouth easier than he expected.
Behind him, he felt Marika's presence flicker. For a heartbeat her golden aura pressed closer, as if something inside her chest had jumped. When he glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, he saw a strange, quiet expression on her face.
It was not mocking or skeptical. It felt proud, and just a little sad.
She just sighed softly, though there was the faintest smile at the corner of her mouth.
Mesorius gave no comment. But the knight's helm dipped by the barest fraction, acknowledging the title, if not yet accepting it.
Then, without any further ceremony, he moved.
The opening was measured. No wild charge, no theatrical flourish. Mesorius stepped forward with a calm, predatory inevitability, sword drifting in a slow horizontal cut that could have hewn a lesser man in half, shield already setting up the next motion.
John slid in to meet him, daggers raised.
'Learning dual daggers during the fight, against a war machine with atleast 7000 years of experience on me no less…' He thought wryly as the first swipe hissed past, his feet gliding over the grass. 'Ten out of ten tactical planning as always, me.'
He caught the edge of Mesorius's blade with both knives, one high, one low, the impact ringing up his arms like a hammer to bone. The knight's strength was monstrous. Even holding back, the sheer weight behind the cut almost buckled his wrists.
But almost was not enough.
John angled his blades, letting the steel slide, rolling his shoulders with the motion the way he'd watched a hundred fictional swordsmen do it on screens and pages back in his first life. He stepped in close, twisting his hips, Reduvia's point flicking toward the gap beneath Mesorius's pauldron.
The knight rolled his shoulder without even thinking, shield shoving his arm aside. The strike scraped harmlessly off plate, sparks spitting into the air.
'Okay,' John thought, heart thudding. 'Yeah, that tracks. This guy's good.'
They reset.
Mesorius stepped again. A vertical cut this time, sword trailing a faint afterimage of air behind it. John hopped back one step, then surged forward under the arc, the move half-stolen from nameless bosses and anime heroes and half pure instinct.
Steel sang as his daggers bit against the flat of the sword, crossing in an X. For a heartbeat, their weapons locked. John felt the muscle behind the knight's arms, the ancient, brutal strength taught by campaigns that had shaped the Lands Between.
He turned with it and made a small circle-step as his shoulder dipped. His heel pivoted and he let the knight's momentum carry them both in a half-spin, slipping to the outside of the shield.
Reduvia flicked like a viper.
This time, it hit.
The jagged edge kissed the underside of Mesorius's breastplate, right at a gap where plate should have met skirt. John pulled the motion, letting the point tap rather than drive in, but they both knew what it meant.
"One." Mesorius rumbled quietly, acknowledging the mark.
John's lips curled. 'Okay. One down.'
The Crucible Knight neither flinched nor complained. He simply shifted, re-centering his weight, shield coming up again. There was no anger in him, no outrage at having been touched first. Only acceptance and recalibration.
He had seen everything before.
"Thy style…" he said as they circled, surprisingly conversational for a man in murder-armor. "'Tis unrefined. A patchwork of stolen movements given life by strength and speed."
John shrugged, knives loose in his hands. "I prefer the term inspired."
Mesorius moved.
The next exchange came faster. The sword blurred in a diagonal slash from low right to high left, followed by an immediate shield bash that cut off the angle John had used before. This time, when their weapons met, John didn't even try to fully block.
He deflected.
Melina's dagger snapped under the knight's blade, turning it just enough to slide harmlessly past his hip. Reduvia dipped, then rose in a quick riposte toward Mesorius's elbow joint. The knight twisted his wrist, catching the thrust on the rim of his shield with frightening precision.
John used his boot instead.
He stepped in and snapped a light kick against the side of the knight's knee. It wasn't enough to damage the armor, but it was enough to count. A clean, decisive touch where a real kick might have snapped ligaments.
"Two." Mesorius said, almost to himself. Still not bothered. Still adjusting.
Behind John, Marika hummed, a sound like a teacher watching a student improvise.
"Crude, yet effective." She observed. "Thou hast a knack for making flawed forms work by sheer obstinacy."
'I call it freestyling.' John shot back, grinning.
The grin disappeared a heartbeat later.
Mesorius stopped testing.
He stepped forward once more, and this time, the air around him changed. It thickened, humming faintly. His sword arm tense not with restraint, but with the barest edge of the true power that slept in his frame.
He swung.
The blow came from above, a seeming repeat of the earlier vertical cut, but the moment their blades met, John realized his mistake.
There was real weight in it now.
His daggers crossed up, catching the sword. For half a second, he thought he'd stopped it. Then Mesorius simply pressed. The pressure doubled, tripled, forcing John's arms down toward his own skull.
He swore and twisted, letting the sword slide off his crossed blades, stepping to the side.
He was a half-second too slow.
The flat edge of the knight's shield smashed into his side like a battering ram. The impact hit him right under the ribs, blasting the air out of his lungs with a harsh, ugly wheeze. Pain exploded up his spine as his feet left the ground for a fraction of a heartbeat.
He hit the grass on one knee, coughing, vision flashing white at the edges.
"G-Ghhk-! Fuck!"
"Careful!" Melina yelled from behind, voice cutting through the ringing in his ears. Millicent cursed in sympathy.
Mesorius stepped back, not following up, giving him space exactly as agreed.
"One." The knight said simply, that gravel-deep voice carrying neither gloating nor apology. Just tally.
John sucked in a breath that felt like swallowing knives, then another.
Marika's tone came sharp and cool in his skull.
"Do not underestimate a Crucible Knight, fool," she admonished. "They are not bosses in thy games. They were trained by Godfrey himself, amongst countless other masters. This one holds back more than he shows."
'Yeah.' John thought, grimacing as he hauled himself upright. 'Got that memo. Chest hurts like hell. Thanks.'
He rolled his shoulders once, forcing his breath into rhythm. His vision steadied, the world snapping back into focus. Mesorius waited, sword held with that same unshakable poise, shield low but ready to rise in a heartbeat.
John exhaled, centering himself.
Two to one.
'Alright…' He thought. 'No more cute shit. Time to actually focus.'
They clashed again.
This time the rhythm changed. The slow, testing cadence gave way to something sharper, more dangerous. Mesorius pressed his advantage with a series of short, brutal combos. A cut, then a bash, then a thrust, each flowing into the next with terrifying efficiency.
John met them with steel and stubbornness.
Melina's dagger flashed, red-tinged under reflected moonlight, batting aside thrusts that should have opened his throat. Reduvia darted in and out like a blood-red viper, testing edges, probing for gaps in armor that had seen more centuries of use than John had years of life.
He leaned heavily on muscle memory he didn't technically have. On half-remembered animations. On sword forms he'd practiced with sticks in a backyard and air in front of a monitor. A spin here, a low duck there, a sudden lunge from a stance no sane swordsman would use.
It should have gotten him killed.
But his stats were monstrous, his body honed by runes and dragons and madness. He was fast, freakishly so. Strong enough that even bad angles could be salvaged into clumsy parries. And Mesorius, for all his experience, had never seen anyone fight with the combined idiocy and creativity of someone raised on a thousand different fictional fight scenes.
"Godfrey would have hated thee…" Marika muttered fondly. "Thou fightest like every bad habit he beat out of his soldiers with his bare hands, rolled into one man."
'I'm taking that as a compliment, if only because I don't have the time to think of a witty retort.'
They moved at the same time.
Mesorius lunged, sword thrusting out in a straight, brutal line aimed center-mass, all pretense of testing gone. John darted in to meet him, not away, boots tearing furrows in the grass as he closed the distance, both daggers flashing.
The knight's sword came in like a spear.
John snapped Melina's dagger up, the edge catching the flat of the blade just enough to knock it off true. He felt the impact jolt up his arm, felt the steel scrape across his chest instead of punching clean through.
At the same instant, he stepped hard to the side, twisting his hips.
Reduvia came down in a tight arc, its blunt edge rapping against the inside of Mesorius's elbow where plate met mail. It was a clean, decisive strike, exactly where a real cut would have severed tendons.
Mesorius didn't hesitate.
His boot snapped out in the same motion, low and vicious, catching John square on the shin. Even pulled, even controlled, the impact sent a spike of pain all the way to his knee and would have shattered bone if it had been meant to.
Blow for blow, traded in the same heartbeat.
They snapped apart, the momentum of the clash throwing them past each other. John staggered, catching himself with one hand planted against the cracked stone, teeth grit against the throbbing in his leg. Mesorius took two heavy steps, then turned, sword lowering, shield easing.
For a moment, only their harsh breathing and the distant hiss of the sea filled the ruined platform.
Then Mesorius spoke.
"Three." He stated, voice low but steady.
John straightened slowly, chest heaving, sweat stinging his eyes. He tested his weight on his leg, felt the protesting ache, and huffed a rough little laugh.
"Two." He answered with a victorious smirk, acknowledging the kick to his shin. "Guess that makes it three to two."
The Crucible Knight regarded him in silence for a long moment. Then, with a slow, deliberate motion, he sheathed his sword. The shield lowered fully. The tension in his shoulders bled out by degrees.
"Aye." Mesorius rumbled at last. "Three to two. In thy favor, Avatar of the Eternal."
Behind John, Millicent let out a low whistle.
"Damn…" she murmured. "He actually did it…"
"Was there really any doubt?" John fired back smugly, earning him a quiet giggle.
Melina, meanwhile, exhaled a breath she hadn't realized she was holding, hand drifting from her chest back to her side. Her eye softened, pride and relief warring quietly behind it.
In John's mind, Marika's presence eased like a fist slowly unclenching.
"Well done, mine Champion." She said, and there was no teasing in it this time, only quiet pride. "Few beings at all, mortal or otherwise, can claim to have bested a Crucible Knight in an honest duel. Fewer still to be still standing afterwards."
John blew out a shaky breath, rolling his abused shoulder and leg one after the other.
"Heh… 'Standing' might be generous, he hits hard…" he muttered, but he couldn't keep the small, feral grin from his face.
He flipped Melina's dagger in his hand and, without taking his eyes off Mesorius, reached back to offer it to her hilt-first. She took it gently, fingers brushing his knuckles with the careful touch of someone still counting the places he'd been hit.
Mesorius stood very still for a long moment, the weight of his gaze pressing on John through the slit of that faceless helm. Then the Crucible Knight dipped his head, the motion small but unmistakably formal.
"Well fought," he rumbled. "Thy victory is clear."
He lowered himself to one knee with the slow, deliberate gravity of someone for whom the gesture meant everything. His sword point bit into the earth, shield resting against his side as he bowed his head.
"By ancient oath." Mesorius intoned, each word like stone set in place, "I yield mine honour and blade to thee. I have lost a fair and witnessed duel. I pledge my allegiance willingly, Avatar of the Eternal… to thee, Johnathan."
John blinked once.
Then a slow, crooked smile tugged at his mouth.
"Dunno if I'll ever get used to people kneeling…" He muttered, half to himself, then cleared his throat. "I accept, Mesorius. Glad to have you on my side rather than trying to punt me off a cliff."
Millicent huffed a quiet laugh. Melina's lips curved, faint but warm.
Mesorius rose, sword still grounded, waiting for what would come next.
John rolled his shoulders once more, feeling the ache settling into something manageable.
"Since we're doing this properly anyway…" he said, straightening, "I might as well answer your questions. Both of them."
The knight's helm tilted a fraction. "There is no obligation. The wager was mine to claim only in victory. Thou hast no need-"
"Yeah, well…" John interrupted, shrugging. "I want to."
He reached into his inventory and pulled free a familiar smooth shape: a Stonesword Key. Its dull, pale surface glinted in the low light, carved with tiny runic lines that caught Grace like dew.
Mesorius stiffened as John tossed it lightly toward him.
The Crucible Knight's hand snapped up in a blur, catching it mid-air. He looked down at the key in his palm as though John had just handed him a fragment of the past.
"...A Stonesword key…" he murmured, surprise cracking through his usually level tone. "Why…?"
John grinned. "Because I think I know where one of your brothers is. There's an evergaol on the edge of Stormhill. South from here, toward the broken bridge. I'm pretty sure there's a Crucible Knight stuck in there. One of yours."
Mesorius went very still.
Behind his helmet, John could almost feel the way the knight's heart shifted in his chest.
"I don't need a reason to help out my allies." John added, voice casual but sincere. "Do I?"
There was a long silence.
Then Mesorius closed his fingers around the Stonesword Key, the faint scrape of metal against stone ringing as he tightened his fist. He bowed his head once, sharper this time.
"...My thanks." He said, and there was no ancient ritual in that. Just raw, honest gratitude. "Thy aid shall not be forgotten."
John just nodded. "Good. Because now comes the really heavy bit."
He turned his head slightly, eyes flicking to where Marika hovered just at the edge of his vision. She met his gaze, golden eyes searching his face. For once, she did not try to joke, did not deflect.
He did not say anything aloud, but the look was clear enough.
'You good?' he asked in his thoughts.
She blinked once, then exhaled, shoulders lowering a fraction as if someone had set an old weight back upon them.
"Aye…" she murmured in his mind. "I shall answer. I owe them that much, at the very least."
She straightened, composure assembling itself around her like armor, even as something softer flickered beneath it.
John turned back to Mesorius. "As for your other question…" he said quietly, "Marika is willing to tell you her last words to Godfrey, to Horah Loux. If you still want to hear them."
Mesorius's grip visibly tightened on his sword hilt. The very air around him seemed to still.
"I do." He confirmed bluntly, in his voice there was no hesitation or doubt. "For us… that moment is the wound that never closed. To hear her truth of it… would be no small thing."
Melina took a small step closer without realizing it, curiosity and caution mixing behind her eye. Millicent, uncharacteristically quiet, folded her arms and leaned her weight on one hip, watching John's face.
He glanced down, drew in a breath, then closed his eyes for a heartbeat as Marika began to speak.
"Relay mine words as I give thee them." She instructed softly.
He nodded once, barely perceptible.
Her voice, when it came to him, was different. Stripped of grandeur. Raw.
"In truth…" She began, her thoughts brushing his like a hand over old scars, "I remember him… fondly."
John's throat tightened unexpectedly. He repeated the words aloud, his own voice softer than usual.
Mesorius's helm dipped, just a fraction. The knight did not move otherwise.
"Did I love him?" Marika murmured, thinking more than speaking. "Mayhaps. I believe so. There was a spark, once. Long ago. Before I knew the cost of what I would ask of him…"
Images flickered at the edges of Marika's mind as he relayed her words: a battlefield lit by morning light, a giant of a man laughing with blood on his hands and warmth in his eyes; a golden-haired goddess standing at his side, both of them young by their own standards, not yet buried under epochs of expectation.
"But that spark…" Marika's voice dimmed. "Either never caught flame… or burned out too quickly. What remains is but a dwindling warmth. A remembered color. A beginning that never reached its rightful end."
He could feel her fumbling through words she had never intended to say to anyone but herself. Gods did not confess. They decreed. Yet here she was, letting him pull this out where others could hear.
"In the end…" She whispered in his mind. "All I could offer him… was an apology."
John's chest clenched.
He sensed Mesorius draw himself even straighter, as though physically bracing for impact.
"I was sorry… that we could not love each other as the other deserved. Sorry that I made of him a tool of conquest, then cast him aside when his use waned. Sorry that our parting was cold steel and distant light instead of the warmth that once was."
Her tone wavered, almost imperceptibly. "In another time… in another world, where Gods were not bound to Thrones and Men not bound to legends… I could have stood at his side 'til the end."
The words hung in the air like a bell that had just been struck, the echo stretching out and out and out.
No one spoke.
Mesorius did not move. His hands were tight white-knuckled around the hilt and shield rim, but he stood as still as carved stone. The ocean's hiss against the cliffs below them suddenly felt very far away.
Melina's eye was wide, searching the space near John's shoulder with a look that trembled somewhere between awe and conflict. To hear her mother speak like that, even secondhand, about love and regret and choices… it clipped something inside her she hadn't realized was sitting loose.
Millicent blew out a breath she hadn't meant to hold, looking away toward the sea.
"Well, shit…" she muttered under her breath, reverent despite herself. "That's… heavy."
In John's head, Marika fell quiet. He could feel her withdrawing slightly, not from him, but from the moment, curling inward around the old ache she'd just laid bare.
She felt oddly and uncharacteristically small.
'You okay?' he asked, gently.
"...I do not know." She admitted, and that, more than anything, made his chest ache. "But it is truth. And truth ill-spoken festers. At least now, it breathes. My heart feels lighter, if only slightly."
On the platform, Mesorius finally … moved.
He dropped to one knee again, this time not in fealty, but in something closer to mourning. His head bowed low, sword upright before him like a gravestone.
"...So that was it…" he said, voice quieter than John had ever heard it. "Not abandonment or cruelty, but simple regret…" He exhaled, the breath shaking.
"My Lord faded chasing a throne that had already wept for what it had done to him."
He let that sit. And no one tried to fill the silence.
At last, Mesorius rose again, slower than before, but steadier. Something in his bearing had shifted, an old wound finally tended to, if not yet healed.
"Thy honesty honours him." He said, helm turning slightly as if tracking Marika's unseen form. "And us. For that, Eternal… Avatar… thou hast my loyalty a second time over."
He reached to his belt and pulled free a small object: a weighty charm of dark bronze hung on a chain. Its surface was engraved with the same swirling, rooted motifs as his armor, a stylized spiral of wings and tail coiled into itself.
He extended it toward John.
"Take this. A sigil of the Crucible. Should thou cross paths with my brethren, show it, and speak my name. Mesorius. Most will not move against thee. Some may yet offer thee their blade, should fate align."
John accepted the charm carefully, feeling the cold metal settle into his palm. The significance of it wasn't lost on him. This wasn't just a trinket, it was a key. A promise.
"Thank you." He said simply, closing his fingers around it. "I'll make it count."
Mesorius nodded once. "I have no doubt."
They spoke for a few minutes more, enough to describe the path out of Stormveil, the broken road toward Limgrave, the precise landmarks to find the Evergaol on Stormhill.
Mesorius listened in absolute silence, committing every word to memory, then turned his gaze from John to the two women standing behind him.
"Guard him well." He said to Melina and Millicent both. "The path he walks is cruel. But… mine eyes recall such cruelty bearing fruit before."
Melina inclined her head with quiet solemnity. "I intend to."
Millicent gave a crooked smirk. "Wouldn't miss it for the world."
Mesorius's helm turned back to John one last time.
"We shall meet again, Young lord." He said, conviction ringing in his words. "When fate permits it. With my comrades at my side. Until then… walk with purpose, Avatar."
"Count on it." John answered.
With that, Mesorius turned away. His heavy steps carried him toward the overgrown archway, the stonesword key tucked safely away. As he passed beneath the broken stone, his silhouette folded into shadow and ivy until all that remained was the fading echo of his footsteps and the quiet hum of old power lingering in his wake.
For a long moment, the three of them just… stood there.
"So…" Millicent was the first to break the silence. "...We just recruited an ancient unstoppable murder-knight."
John huffed a laugh. "Yep."
Melina's gaze softened toward the empty archway.
"And mended a fragment of history." She murmured, almost to herself.
In his mind, Marika remained quiet, but the weight of her presence had changed. Less like a crown. More like a woman who had said something she needed to say centuries ago and had finally run out of excuses not to.
"Thank you…" She whispered at last, so faint he almost missed it.
He didn't answer out loud. Just brushed his fingers along the Crucible charm at his belt and started back toward the narrow path.
"Come on. We've got a runt to dethrone."
They retraced their steps along the cliffside trail, the overgrown stones crunching beneath their boots. The lift waited where they had left it, the old wood and chains creaking softly in the wind.
They stepped aboard, John pressing the pressure plate with his heel. The mechanism groaned and hauled them upward, back through the tower's depths toward the mess hall above.
When they reached the top, the familiar cluttered chamber unfolded around them again. The dozing soldiers were still slumped by the cold hearth, cloaks pulled over their faces, snores echoing off the stone.
John stepped off the lift and went straight to the Site of Grace by the wall, kneeling as the gentle light rose to meet his hand. The warmth washed over him, knitting the dull ache in his leg and ribs, smoothing out the bruises Mesorius had left as souvenirs. He took a long, steadying breath and let it go.
When he stood, he turned to the others.
"Alright." He said, dusting his hands. "Got a favour to ask."
Millicent narrowed her eyes immediately. "Oh boy. Here we go."
Melina folded her arms, expectant.
"I need you two to handle these guys," John said, jerking his chin toward the sleeping soldiers. "Tie them up, move them, knock them out harder, I don't care. Just… get them out of the way. Then please hop a few rooftops ahead of the rampart tower, clear the path ahead, and grab a talisman. I'm gonna drop down from the ramparts and show Marika something real quick."
Millicent tilted her head. "So we do cleanup, then parkour while you run off alone?"
"Pretty much, sorry." He admitted.
Melina sighed softly, but there was no real argument in it. "Very well… Although, you do have a troubling fondness for throwing yourself into dark, dangerous holes."
He offered her a weak grin. "To be fair, this one's important."
She studied his face for a moment, then nodded once. "Very well, we will… handle these men. Try not to break anything vital. In yourself."
Millicent popped her knuckles. "We'll have them trussed up like festival hogs by the time you get back."
"Comforting," John muttered. "Thanks."
They split at the hall's far end: Melina and Millicent moving toward the snoring soldiers, already discussing the most efficient way to subdue them without actual murder, while John walked alone toward the open archway that led onto the external ramparts.
The air hit him again, cooler now, tinged with the scent of sea spray and stone dust. He stepped out onto the wall and walked to the edge, boots stopping just shy of the crumbling lip.
Below him yawned a pitch-black abyss between the rampart and the lower roofs: broken battlements, collapsed structures, a maze of shadow and ruin that the sun no longer touched. Somewhere beneath all that, at the very roots of the castle, something foul slept.
He stared down into it.
"...What art thou doing?" Marika asked, appearing at his side, hovering slightly above the stone. Her gaze followed his, narrowing as she regarded the chasm. "Surely thou art not intending to throw thyself down there like some suicidal fool?"
John's lips twitched into a shaky smile. "Well… not suicidally."
He kept his eyes on the darkness below, voice dropping lower. "There's just something you need to see down there."
Something in his tone made her composure falter. She turned her head to look at him fully, golden eyes sharp.
"What is it, mine Champion?" she asked, her voice losing its usual teasing lilt. "What lies beneath that thou speakest so gravely?"
He inhaled once, slow and steady. The truth tasted bitter on his tongue.
"A cancer." He said at last. "A pustule of Godwyn's remains… what's left of him… it's been festering under Stormveil, growing, and spreading. Turning into something else."
He glanced at her then, his eyes serious in a way she rarely saw. "It is a tumour at the very roots of the Golden Lineage. And you… you need to see it for yourself."
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Author's Note:
Stones, please and thank you.
Y'all think I'm done with the Marika PR campaign? NAH, I AIN'T FINISHED JUST YET!
But jokes aside, I've decided to try and best and give my own interpretation of Marika's and this world's old history, as you'll see in the next chapter.
…
Next Chapter Title: (Interlude) The Beginning After The End.
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