ER A Foreign Soul Chapter 58: Godrick the Disappointment (Patreon)

Onyx kneeled in front of a giant face.

A troll according to Nepheli. Not at all a new word to him, the term consistently referring to humanoids that tended to be on the bigger side compared to humans and the like even if only slightly. Once capable of speech, most were already maddened or clinging to the edge of sanity like many others in this land, lacking the golden glow that others in service to the Golden Order had yet serving them all the same.

The one laid before him, its legs and faces cut up by them was already dead. It’d fought with plenty of strength but like many places, things, and people he was coming across, it seemed like no more than a shell of its former self.

A shame but there was nothing to be done about it.

He rose, turning.

Nepheli stood at the mouth of a stone hallway, one axe pressed to the ground and the other at her waist, waiting on him.

Power awaited just behind her. The further they got into Stormveil, cutting up or sending knights running, the more prominent it became. It was no small amount of power either. If that was this Shard everyone was talking about, it wasn’t hard to see why it would be coveted.

If that was the demigod-

“Though she lay claim on the name Loux, thou should be rid of her now.” Marika, marginally calmer, or at least calm for her standards, appeared beside Nepheli, speaking. “Or, at the very least, take measures that ensures she remains in line. A shard of the Elden Ring is not easily passed up. Even by those who consider themselves to be guided by honor.”

Loux. He’d brushed it off as little more than a typical family name, but it carried more meaning if she was directly referencing it. And, looking back, none other than that noble, Kenneth introduced themselves with one.

“The lord of this castle awaits us.” Nepheli stated as and Melina stepped up to her. “We should settle the matter of the Shard now. Should we prevail in the coming fight, I would like to avoid any missteps between us afterwards.”

“You know that way of speaking doesn’t really fit you.” Onyx pointed out. Her choice of words were deliberate and slow, that formal approach to conversation far from natural coming from her compared to someone like Kenneth. “I say we keep things simple. We fight this demigod one on one. If you win, you get the shard.”

“I have no issues with that arrangement.” Nepheli raised a brow but let his idle comment be. “But how will we decide who goes first?”

“You ever heard of rock, paper, scissors?”

One curious look, explanation, and game later and the three of them passed through the stone hall.

On the other side, through the exit on its opposite end, was a graveyard. At least that’s what it appeared to be to him, countless tombstones lining the uneven ground around the stone pathway ahead. Despite being dead center of a populated castle, it was in no way taken care of or shown any of the expected respect, the eroded stone dirtied with greenery allowed to grow rampant over them. Weapons, that were likely set up as ornaments to complimented them, had long since rusted too.

At the center of the declining path ahead was a single sizable figure.

Onyx stopped at the entrance way, Nepheli walking ahead, only a single axe drawn for now. She had confidence in her strength, that was for sure.

It wasn’t everyday an, for all intents and purposes, ordinary mortal resolutely walked their way up towards someone with the title demigod, prepared to fight them.

“Tis is foolish.” Marika stated, floating just beside Melina who stopped at his side. “Unlikely as it may be, should she claim victory over that despicable fool, will thou truly allow her to walk away with the Shard?”

“What will you do if she slays Godrick and claim the Shard?” Melina asked the moment Marika stopped speaking, glancing his way from beneath her hood.

A good question.

As Nepheli approached, the figure, in the middle of looking over the corpse of a far smaller dragon than the ones he’s encountered so far, looked at her, dropping the cloak that’d been draped over his shoulders as he turned. Sizable but far smaller than the troll they killed on their way here, his body was grotesque.

Arms and other limbs were connected to him, some armored remains of warriors and others bare, and all baring the faintest remnants of life in them shown through twitches. Whatever his body looked like before, it was no more than an amalgamation now.

A sight Marika found as disgusting as she did angering.

“Then I’ll fight her for it.” He said, leaning against the walkway’s stone wall.

“Lowly tarnished, playing at lord.” Godrick said over their slight surprise, voice carrying throughout the area as he raised an old golden axe before him, another firmly held by one of the arms along his shoulders or back. He slammed the end of that golden axe in the ground, crackling stone. “I command thee kneel! I am the Lord of all that is Golden!”

“Pathetic.” Marika said, glaring down at the sight, her anger flaring. “To be so weak yet make such a claim. Mine children should’ve killed him long ago.”

That bit at the end aside, he was inclined to agree with the description at least.

It was fitting and only grew more fitting as the fight began. Nepheli had more strength than a look at her would suggest but she didn’t try to rely on that against an opponent that dwarfed her several times over, instead using their size difference to her advantage in a different way. Dodging swings and rushes for her, she avoided a direct fight, cutting at his legs and side.

With a few hits, maybe even a single swing, this Godrick was more than capable of killing her.

But, so long as Npeheli remained a step ahead, there was nothing stopping her from wearing him down with countless cuts, far more skill backing her movements.

Intense golden energy was attached to Godrick. But that’s all it was. It was just there, perhaps adding to his physical strength, but not truly being made use of. Powerful as that thing was, it fell short of his, Marika’s, and Melina’s power.

Nothing connected to that power.

“Thou has a plan of some sort in mind for the Shard.” Marika, turning away from the fight, focused entirely on him. “Share it with me.”

“I still need to see the shard fully first.” Onyx shared.

“But thou does not intend on simply taking the power.”

“That won’t solve anything.” He said.

If this shard was what he expected it to be, her cooperation would make things far easier. Not that she really had a choice in the matter.

XOXO

“Great Godfrey-“ Torrent formed beside Onyx has he walked forward, pulling the golden halberd from his saddle. Up ahead, Godrick, the head of a dragon now attached to his arm, advanced towards Nepheli who was buried under the rumble of gravestone she’d been knocked through. Burnt by flames from that dragon’s head, nearly cut open by his axe, and left unconscious by her rough crash. She’d forced his back against the wall, but she’d lost the fight, no two ways about it. “-did’st thou witness?”

“Hey!” Onyx called out before the demigod could finish his approach to Nepehli, Torrent already faded away by the time Godrick looked over. “Hand over the Shard and I’ll let you leave here alive.”

“Foul tarnished.” That got his attention quickly, Godrick turning away from Nepheli and taking lumbering steps forward, more heft to his steps with that dragon head attached to the arm he’d cut off himself. “Thou’rt unfit to speak such words to a lord.”

He continued to speak but Onyx didn’t care to listen to more puffed up ramblings about strength that didn’t exist, crimson electricity sparking out from his hand and throughout the halberd. The ground cracked as he took an especially heavy step forward, mana rushing through and strengthening his body further.

In a flash of crimson light, the halberd cutting across the distance between them like a bolt of lightning, it pierced clean through Godrick’s left leg, flesh and cloth torn apart as he collapsed, axe used to keep him upright.

“Thou would’st dare!” Enraged Godrick shifted his weight, dragon arm raised up. Onyx had already shot forward by the time the smoking maw was aimed at him, jumping up and slamming a foot down onto the animated head, burying it deep into dirt and stone. Embers of fire still leaked out its teeth, turning to a low flood of fire that burnt at the clothes of his other leg.

It was far too weak to actually burn him though.

The Grafted Blade pulled back, Onyx plunged it dead center through Godrick’s chest, the myriad of blades cutting apart and digging deep into all that combined flesh.

“Y-You.” Godrick’s golden eyes, at first full of nothing but angered condescension, sparked with recognition. “Thou…thou art the one mine soldiers spoke of.”

“Going to hand over the shard?” Onyx questioned, grasping the bloodied handle with of the Grafted Blade with both hands.

“You lowly-“

With a grunt he forced the blade up, cutting through more of the combined flesh. The chest, the neck, the head. Only once all three were split in half, blood spilling freely and The Grafted Blade free did he step back and stab it into the ground, letting the twitching body fall aside.

He’d been interested in the idea of what kind of power a demigod wielded but Nepheli had drawn out everything this guy was capable of even if she lost. With the way others spoke of him, he wasn’t the standard but a weak link. But considering the state of the entire Golden Order and those around it?

Chances were none of these demigods were going to be in their best shape.

“I..I am…Lord of all that is Golden.” Despite having a good portion of his body split open and losing blood quickly, Godrick’s subdued voice filled the air. “..And one day, we’ll return together…”

He had the resilience of a demigod if nothing else.

“To our home, bathed in rays of gold…” Tapering off, his voice eventually fully down and body fully going limp, the smoke coming from that dragon’s mouth wisping away.

Golden trails of light began to rise from the corpse.

Melina stepped up to his left, hood lowered. Marika appeared just above and behind her, arms crossed.

Those trails of light came to form an odd shape of thin fragmented gold. A circle at its center with three different half formed ones intertwined with it, the thing was like a sort of Venn diagram.

An incomplete one.

That was the source of the power he’d been feeling from Godrick. And, just as he thought, even released from its binding to the demigod, it simply persisted on its own. A completely isolated font of power, that while clearly one piece of a whole, had no trouble existing on its lonesome.

Onyx stepped forward, raising a hand.

He barely grazed it before the energy moved, abandoning its shape and swirling around his arm. It raced towards his chest, a warming weight of gold settling within him.

He could feel it. Power aside, this thing would make for a perfect container. It was exactly what he needed to rid himself of this unwanted connection.