Skyl teleported the Grafted Scion back to The Tower of Tomes.
A surge of violent neural current had completely shattered the Grafted Scion's capacity to resist; compared to a fish that had already been filleted, the only difference was that its bones were still intact. But once it arrived in The Tower of Tomes, even if it could still move, it no longer mattered.
Skyl took out his notebook. "Let's start by examining its physical structure."
He pulled away the blanket covering it and saw the Grafted Scion's twisted body, as if several wax figures of different shapes had been thrown into the same crucible, heated until half-melted, then cooled into a single chaotic lump. Its spines were interwoven like a centipede; boils and patches of feathers sprouted all over the surface. The result was a form so warped, so offensive to aesthetics, so utterly profane it defied description.
Whoever designed this monster had probably been inspired by an Indian street-food stall: throw every ingredient that looks even vaguely edible—or not—into the same pot, then keep overworking it until the finished product can only crawl through your intestines.
It barely qualified as a single organism at all, more like a handful of unrelated chunks stitched together. Its internal systems were a complete mess. People say that even a sparrow, small as it is, still has all five organs; this thing had too many, and they were all thrown together like a pot of offal stew. The fact it was alive at all was a miracle, and every second of its continued existence was a brazen insult to everything biology and medicine held to be true.
And yet, the miraculous part was that the grafting process had successfully transplanted the strength of the dead onto the host. This completely illogical system actually ran, like a program riddled with nothing but bugs that still manages to execute—glitching all the way, but getting the job done.
The reason was simple: it was behavior permitted by the Golden Order. Even if the creator of that Order would never approve of grafting, even if the underlying rules of the universe did not support such a thing, the logic of the Order allowed grafting to exist, and so it worked.
Whoever invented grafting was definitely not a competent researcher, but they must have had a very particular understanding of the Golden Order.
Once inside The Tower of Tomes, the Grafted Scion was cut off from the Golden Order's influence, and those grafted limbs no longer contributed any power. Instead, its warped tissues began to collapse on their own.
Skyl didn't interfere. It was precisely when a system collapsed that its hidden contradictions were easiest to see.
The Grafted Scion's skin, flesh, and organs began to "melt," almost like yellow wax, slowly sliding down the ridges of its bones. It was racing headlong toward death.
As the grafted system fell apart, faintly beautiful dark-golden motes of light began to seep out.
Skyl reached out and touched that golden radiance.
In his sight, the Grafted Scion's soul was woven entirely from this substance. It was a strand of thought distorted by the Order, a strange by-product, yet an ingenious one. It was what had kept the grafted system running, what had turned that bug-ridden jumble of meat into a killing machine instead of a bedridden cripple.
From this alone, it was clear that a god's law worked by twisting thought-strings to bind both the universe's rules and the fates of living things.
Those warped threads gathered on the Grafted Scion's corpse, condensing into a small, dim golden ring.
This was called a Golden Rune.
Skyl nodded to the heap of sludge before him, noting down its physiological traits and the collapse process, then added an assessment to his notebook:
[Structural form can practically be described as a lump of excrement. Known factors: crude surgical grafting combined with a pupation-style regeneration ritual to maintain shape; a soul adapted to the new body is then shaped by infusing a Golden Rune. All in all, nothing remarkable. Suggested improvements: none. Not worth further time.]
He was thoroughly disappointed in the Grafted Scion, but the Golden Rune was a pleasant surprise. No wonder people said the dead were sometimes more useful than the living; the Scion had inspired Skyl far more in death than it ever had in life.
Skyl picked up the Golden Rune, and once he left the Lands Between, the power of the Golden Order hidden inside it slowly began to fade.
Even he couldn't reverse that process. Even if he rewound time inside The Tower of Tomes, the law would still keep withdrawing.
The Tower of Tomes was rejecting the law of a foreign god.
The Golden Rune continued to disintegrate, unraveling into pure thought-strings; whatever information it had once carried was gone.
Skyl wrote in his notes:
[Runes are the result of law fused with thought-strings; manufacturing method unknown, more samples needed. Once separated from the body, a rune spontaneously forms a solid outer shell to prevent the strings from leaking, similar in principle to a soul's outer skin. Shattering the rune is likely to cause memory dispersion. Note: the Finger Maiden's amnesia may be related to her rune being emptied.]
He closed the notebook.
From the Grafted Scion's dissolving remains, Skyl also collected some data on the biology of creatures from the Lands Between. The data could be used to refine transformation spells. He had little use for them himself, but in the spirit of rigorous research, he recorded them as completely as he could.
Thinking back, Skyl realized he had been grinding away at divine arts in the Lands Between for nearly three months now. It felt about time to come out of seclusion.
Who was the first real boss in Elden Ring?
The Grafted Scion? No, scripted deaths don't count. Godrick's soldiers? They were just warm-up dummies. The Tree Sentinel? Not a mainline boss either.
Oh, right. Margit, the Fell Omen.
By the Law of Regression—Margit is Morgott.
So the first boss was actually Morgott, which meant his destination had to be Leyndell, Royal Capital.
Skyl stepped off the icy cliff outside the Chapel of Anticipation. He spread his arms like unfurling wings, magic power flaring from the backs of his forearms to form glider-like jets, spitting four teal-blue contrails that stretched across the sky as he tore through the desolate clouds, leaving flocks of birds far behind.
He flew toward the radiant Erdtree to the north, crossing Limgrave and Liurnia, then soaring up onto the Altus Plateau.
From high above, the Lands Between resembled a curled-up infant. Starting from its tailbone, he streaked across the sky like a comet, heading straight for its throat.
There, the vast cluster of grand structures was known as Leyndell, Royal Capital.
A homeland at the base of the Erdtree.
Skyl landed in the plaza before the Elden Throne.
Once, this place had been the center of power in the Lands Between; those seated upon the throne were heroes who had stood before the Elden Ring itself, god-serving kings.
The Erdtree, the final rest of all life in the Lands Between, the core of the Order—supreme, exalted, and revered.
This was the spot closest to the Erdtree.
And it was the road leading to the tree's very heart—the stone stage, the supreme altar upon which the Elden Ring was enshrined.
Now, the king was gone and the Ring shattered. The Lands Between writhed in war and chaos. The capital's former glory was as battered as its ancient walls, a desolate place ruled by a cursed Omen who clung to the last shreds of Leyndell's splendor.
Marika had called out to Skyl, bidding him come to the stone stage, offer up the outsider's law, and save this ruined, scarred world.
So he came.
He didn't just show up as promised; he practically rushed the place.
The empty plaza was paved in a carpet of fallen Erdtree leaves. The foreign sorcerer walked lightly across them, the crunch underfoot soft as snow.
On the throne, the twisted, misshapen Omen raised his head.
"Well, a Tarnished." [Oh, a Tarnished.]
The weary regent, draped in tattered robes and gripping his long staff, slowly rose to his feet and looked down at the wandering outsider.
"Fooled by the flame of ambition, daring to lay hands on the Elden Ring? You should never have set foot in this throne-room. Your life, and your ambition with it, shall be snuffed out—by me, Morgott, last of all kings!"
Skyl gazed up at the Erdtree's luxuriant branches and its sun-bright crown. The truly wise could glimpse traces of the Golden Order in the shimmer of those leaves. It was like looking at flowers through mist—out of reach, yet their unfolding fragrance already filled him with joy.
Only after hearing the decree of Morgott, the Grace-Given King, did Skyl finally lower his gaze and look at him.
"I'm guessing you just delivered some very cool lines, but I didn't understand a word. Interested in coming into The Tower of Tomes for a bit? I'd like to pick up the local language of the Lands Between while we're at it."
Morgott's only answer was a merciless swing of his staff!
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