Godfrey's army arrived at Volcano Manor without warning. The people running this little cult barely had time to react before they were arrested on the spot. Everyone was rounded up except for Rykard, the ringleader himself.
Most of the Recusants couldn't even stand straight without trembling, let alone fight to the death. After all, they were facing the founding ruler of the Golden Dynasty, the legendary figure who had built their entire civilization. They simply weren't in the same league.
Rykard might have been a demigod who had merged with an immortal serpent, but Godfrey had fought Fire Giants more than ten stories tall and battled the ancient dragons. Having survived countless terrifying encounters, he certainly wasn't going to be frightened by some oversized snake.
It was like the Confederate rebellion breaking out, only for George Washington himself to rise from his grave at Mount Vernon and march out to crush it. The disparity in prestige and military might would have been overwhelming.
Thus, instead of enjoying a delicious roast lamb, the monsters of Volcano Manor found themselves eating prison rations.
The Recusants had made a career out of murdering their own kind. They were essentially extremists obsessed with assassination as a means of achieving their ultimate goal of destroying the Erdtree. If people like them ever seized power, their actions would only be more ruthless and brutal than anything the Erdtree had done.
Of course, in the Lands Between, might made right. No matter what political ideals or ideology someone professed, possessing sufficient power meant they could do whatever they pleased.
Volcano Manor advocated governing the people through harsh punishments and draconian laws. Meanwhile, the great serpent at the top of its hierarchy devoured flesh and blood without end. If Rykard ever conquered the Lands Between, the miserable existence awaiting its inhabitants would probably resemble Cambodia under Pol Pot.
A closer examination of the Shardbearers revealed that not one of them seemed particularly suited to rulership.
Godrick of Limgrave chopped off people's limbs and grafted them onto himself, turning into a grotesque monstrosity.
Rennala of Liurnia had been driven half-mad by longing for her lost love.
Radahn of Caelid had lost his mind and was terminally afflicted by disease.
Mohg of Mohgwyn was vicious, ruthless, and had an unhealthy obsession with men.
Rykard of Volcano Manor was cruel, savage, and possessed the insatiable greed of a serpent.
Malenia of the Haligtree had no interest in governing, allowing discipline and administration to deteriorate. She was hardly an ideal ruler, either.
The most capable and diligent of the bunch was Morgott of Leyndell. Unfortunately, his congenital deformities made him appear unfit for kingship in the eyes of his subjects, leaving them suspicious of him.
Standing in Volcano Manor, Godfrey furiously condemned the Shardbearers. These monsters were responsible for turning the Lands Between into such a miserable place! How could anyone hope to govern properly with vermin like them running around?
Today, he would embrace the heart of a lion and drive the Serpent-Hunter straight into the heart of evil.
With a single military order, he summoned the Crucible Knight guarding Tanith to his side.
"Are you really leaving?" Tanith asked, staring at him in a daze.
"Before Lord Godfrey returned, I was your guardian. Now that he has returned, I am once again his knight. Little Tanith, don't do anything foolish. Farewell."
The nameless knight who had guarded Tanith joined Godfrey's army.
He remained nameless, and there was something faintly sorrowful about his departure. Yet he also resembled a magnificent sword finally drawn from its sheath, its former brilliance restored.
...
Skyl watched these heroes sweep away evil as though he were watching an old-fashioned action movie from the last century. It wasn't that the story was bad. He simply found it boring.
He wasn't the protagonist of these stories because Skyl wasn't a hero. If he ever appeared on the screen, it would be in a mythological epic or a fantasy film.
The grievances, passions, and feuds of the mortal world had become too distant from him. So distant, in fact, that the faces of ordinary people had grown indistinct, as though he were standing among the clouds looking down upon a mountain peak. Even kings and generals appeared insignificant from his perspective.
While Godfrey was busy berating everyone, Skyl wandered over to his roommate and cheerfully patted him on the head.
"Believe me now?"
"Baa."
Skyl pointed a finger at him.
The white ram exploded into a cloud of smoke, which immediately gathered together and transformed back into Doniel.
"That wasn't funny at all!" Doniel roared.
"It wasn't a joke, Doniel. It was a wager between men." Skyl patted him on the shoulder. "Remember what you said? You insisted that absolutely nobody could turn another person into a sheep. That sounded like a challenge to me, so I accepted your wager. Granted, the experience was rather frightening for you, but the rest of us enjoyed a brief moment of happiness."
"What if they'd actually eaten me?"
"Then I would have resurrected you. Don't doubt me. I can do it. Even if your soul were shattered into pieces, I could still bring you back to life. Want to make another bet?"
Doniel felt a chill run through his entire body as he looked at the smiling man before him.
He muttered under his breath, "That's not fair. You're too powerful. Playing games with you means I'll always lose. I'm never playing with you again."
"Ah, yes."
Skyl paused at those words, then nodded with a smile.
"You're right. You can only fool someone once. That's no fun at all."
Doniel wanted to argue a little more, but the moment he remembered how Skyl had tormented him, he immediately shut his mouth and ran behind Millicent.
"Why are you hiding behind me?" Millicent asked, caught between laughter and exasperation.
"You and Skyl are husband and wife. If he wants to hurt me, he'll at least have to consider your feelings. There's no way he'd... Uh, never mind. Forget I said anything."
Doniel's emotional intelligence was practically nonexistent, but those particular words made Millicent very happy.
Skyl waved his hand, having lost all interest in teasing anyone further.
His purpose in coming here was to collect bosses for his instanced planes.
The entire spacetime of the Lands Between could serve as an enormous instanced world for future players to explore. As for Great Runes, those fragments of divinity were something he could never have too many of.
Skyl was rather particular about cleanliness, so he had no intention of using Great Runes that other people had already used.
In reality, the Great Runes of the Lands Between could be incorporated into his own Elden Ring. Every additional fragment would strengthen his divinity.
But he no longer pursued power.
After becoming a god, he had stepped outside the river of fate, watching everything unfold along its predetermined course. Life held no more surprises for him.
There was nothing he could lose. Everything simply awaited his experience, and whether those experiences brought sorrow or joy no longer mattered.
For a mortal, becoming a god was a form of death. It was difficult to say whether that was a blessing or a tragedy.
Skyl had now undergone apotheosis twice, and both his divinity and divine power had grown tremendously.
Although he still couldn't compare with creator gods on the level of Stan or Ao, he had surpassed the likes of Mystra, Shar, and Selûne of Toril.
That meant he was powerful enough to beat the Formless Mother and the Greater Will into submission.
And so, he had come to watch Godfrey subdue the serpent.
The great serpent lay dormant deep within the volcano, surrounded by a blackened landscape overflowing with molten lava.
Corpses littered the ground.
These were the knights who had once served Rykard. They had taken up arms in rebellion, hoping to slay the blasphemous serpent and preserve their lord's reputation.
Unfortunately, they had either been engulfed by eruptions of lava and turned into gruesome human pillars or swallowed whole by the serpent.
"What a terrible tragedy," Thops murmured, turning his head away.
"Where in the Lands Between isn't there a tragedy?" Skyl asked in return. "Thops, if you can't bear to look at this, then go to my floating city. But if you don't want your homeland to continue sinking into ruin, then devote yourself to our great undertaking. Misery can be found everywhere in this world, but because I've come here, you will have a peaceful future to look forward to."
"Really?"
"You have my word," Skyl replied. "But I will only concern myself with matters of the heavens. I won't interfere in mortal affairs. From now on, the Outer Gods will no longer trouble the Lands Between. However, if these ambitious Shardbearers continue making a mess of everything, you mortals will have to deal with them yourselves."
This was the first time Thops had heard Skyl speak in such a calm, detached manner.
Only now did he recall that the young sorcerer standing before him was actually a god disguised as a spellcaster.
He was rather like Gandalf, the Maia who disguised himself as a wizard.
One belonged to The Lord of the Rings, while the other belonged to The Lord of the Elden Rings.
There was a certain resemblance between them.
In fact, Skyl could even combine the histories of the two worlds within an instanced plane, turning the story of Elden Ring into something resembling The Lord of the Rings.
One year, the Golden Order of the Greater Will was destroyed by a nameless sorcerer, setting the wheels of fate in motion.
The evil Greater Will dispatched its world-destroying emissary, the Three Fingers, to bring about the apocalypse.
The Three Fingers assumed the form of the Lord of Frenzied Flame and deceived the various kings into forging Elden Rings of their own using the Great Runes in their possession.
Meanwhile, deep within the Crucible of Life, it secretly forged the One Elden Ring, a supreme ring capable of controlling all the others.
The day the One Elden Ring was completed, the entire world descended into turmoil.
The Three Fingers dispatched the Lords of Chaos to slaughter everything in their path.
King Godfrey led the Tarnished into battle against the Lord of Frenzied Flame, swinging his great axe and severing the One Ring from its master's hand.
From that day forward, the One Ring was lost to the world.
Many years later, having accumulated sufficient power, the Three Fingers returned.
It raised a towering fortress in Leyndell and destroyed the dynasty established by Godfrey in a single devastating campaign.
The Eye of Frenzied Flame gazed upon the Lands Between.
With an army of a hundred thousand soldiers serving the Lord of Frenzied Flame, the Lands Between stood on the brink of another catastrophic war.
At this critical moment, the nameless sorcerer gathered a band of Tarnished and formed the Fellowship of the Ring.
Their mission was to carry the Elden Ring to the Crucible of Life and destroy it with a mighty blow from Marika's Hammer...
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