The Elden Throne was already fouled, and Skyl rose into the air to avoid the filthy flood spreading across the floor.
Omen children bore the "many aspects of the Crucible"; in the age before the Erdtree, that had been a blessing. After the Golden Order unified the Lands Between, they became a cursed people instead—born twisted, children fated from the start to be forsaken. The deep, labyrinthine sewers of Leyndell, Royal Capital, were full of these Omen children, keeping company with filth and rot, piles of refuse and excrement. Their warped bodies were choked with unclean vapors; their sorrowful souls, filled to the brim with grief and rage.
Morgott, son of the very first Elden Lord of the Erdtree age, bore such noble blood—and was cast out all the same for the curse of the Omen.
He crawled up from the pitch-black horror of the sewers and endured a wretched childhood. Morgott was no longer the feeble infant he had once been; those days were gone. Now he possessed a shard of the Ring, the strength to claim a throne. It was the story of a strong man clawing his way back from utter despair.
Returning to the homeland that had rejected him, confronted with a war that might collapse at any moment, Morgott did not choose to loose his fury and burn this cold world down. Instead, he chose to protect Leyndell, though Leyndell had never protected him. He chose to defend its people, though the moment his Omen blood was exposed, every last one of them would spit on his name.
He chose love, though he had never been loved.
"Tarnished, you have forced me to commit the grievous sin of defiling the throne!"
Morgott's weapon had gone flying from the plaza and landed out in the streets of the capital. Enraged beyond measure, he reached back, grabbed hold of his own twisted tail, and tore it off bare-handed, the nerves too frozen to carry him pain. He swung the stiff, frozen tail as a long, thin cutting blade. The Omen's power boiling around him coalesced behind his back into a raging specter, a ghostly giant wielding two savage, toothed cleavers, gnashing its fangs and chomping at the air.
He strode toward Skyl.
He knew he had no chance of winning, but the king who stood alone beneath the Erdtree would not retreat. For the last king to fall at a throne on the brink of ruin was, in its way, a supreme, sorrowful honor.
"Today, my blood, Morgott's blood, shall wash this shame clean."
His severed tail swept in a lateral cut, the arc of its blade like a curtain of water thrown across the air. The specter behind him leapt forth like a lion vaulting a chasm. In the space of a single blink, it had crossed the impossible gap. To Skyl, Morgott's strike was almost a teleporting blow; every inch of his vision in front of him was filled with the scorching, foul miasma of rage. It felt less like being struck, and more like plummeting into a vast, grey-yellow desert of reeking rot.
Boom—
A muffled explosion heaved up a hundred feet of filthy spray.
Dust ballooned and spread.
Morgott stared unblinking into the cloud.
The mushroom-shaped afterimage of the blast swelled, then a powerful gust surged out from within, blowing the murk clean away.
Skyl stood where he had been, pinching his nose shut. He glared at Morgott, voice ice-cold. "What the fuck—can't beat me, so you blow up the septic tank instead?!"
Skyl had to admit the legend wasn't exaggerated. If he hadn't thrown a Whirlwind Cloak around himself in time and added a Filtration Charm for good measure, he'd have passed out from the stench by now.
Morgott, you really are the Stink King of the Lands Between. You filthy little baby.
Letting the repressed power of the Omen burst out was agony for Morgott too. The tearing in his body, as if he were giving birth, was dulled by nerves numbed from the freezing. But the infant memories that surged up in his mind were like a saw cutting through bone.
A misfit to his era in every way, a cursed child the Erdtree would not tolerate. The mask of the Grace-Given King could no longer conceal the wretched truth beneath. Morgott's last scrap of dignity had been torn away. He was a king with nothing left.
Skyl layered protections on himself right where he floated: Woodflesh, Ironflesh, an Absorb-Magicka Shield, Greater Ward, Greater Magic Protection. Then came more spells from his school of Alteration—Greater Strength, Giant's Body, Bear Claws, Giant's Hand, Vampire's Touch, Bloodletting Claws, Paralysis Touch, Eagle Eye, Windstride, Wolfstride. Next, Illusion magic: Courage, Greater Courage, Inspiration, Rallying Cry, Berserk. Finally, the Destruction and Restoration buffs—Flame Cloak, Lightning Cloak, Regeneration, Circle of Healing, Elemental Empowerment.
Seeing Skyl standing there without moving, Morgott naturally had no intention of observing any "warrior's honor". He hurled himself into an all-out assault, slamming Omen miasma and holy phantom weapons against Skyl in turn. Tail-slashes came in waves like a raging sea, and the stone of the Elden Throne plaza split and buckled under the force.
Skyl did not move. He only stared at him, eyes cold.
Under the blessing of so many peak-tier spells, his body began to grow. His arms lengthened, thick fur coating them. Fingers stretched and sharpened into blood-slick talons. His legs twisted into reverse-jointed limbs. Magic boiled around him like an erupting inferno.
Morgott's frenzied blows kept punching through the shield, tearing his wizard's cloak and gown, leaving wounds on Skyl's unprotected forehead and face.
The wounds closed in an instant.
The few drops of blood that spilled traced down the bridge of his nose and dripped from his chin.
They hit the ground.
A drop of a god.
Morgott's tall frame stood at eight feet. Skyl had originally been only six, forced to look up at him. Now, Skyl towered over the Grace-Given King instead.
"Are you done?" Skyl took a single quiet breath, but it rumbled like a bull's roar. "Is it my turn yet?"
He stretched out his enlarged hand. The Bear Claw could cover half of Morgott's body; the shadow it threw could swallow him whole.
The last king's face was iron-cold, his tone tinged with fatigue, tinged with despair—like a player finally realizing that after scraping at the boss's health bar for ages, he'd only shaved off the tiniest sliver of red.
"Tarnished, I do not fear death. And you… you bleed all the same."
Bang—!!!
The talons came down, the sonic boom shrill as a thunderclap. Morgott raised a phantom greatshield—but in the very next instant he was swatted away like a rubber ball, bouncing and rolling across the shattered stone of the plaza until he crashed into the railings at the edge.
Too fast. Morgott had no way to dodge Skyl's attack. His shield was shattered in a single blow.
A storm of malicious spell-effects rammed into him, driving him straight into paralysis and hemorrhage. He could barely even get to his feet.
"I'm done with turn-based combat. This time, stay down for good."
Skyl's looming shadow fell, blotting out even the light of the Erdtree.
Morgott raised his blood-smeared head, just in time to meet the merciless follow-up strike.
Thunk—!
Like a nail driven into wood, Morgott was pounded into the ground, smashed straight through the plaza, shattering the grand stonework of the capital as he plummeted all the way down to a stone cliff beneath.
Skyl dropped from the opening and landed before Morgott. Bricks from arched ceilings and stone from collapsed vaults cascaded down around them. Massive chunks weighing several tons slammed into Skyl without budging him even half a step, like gravel falling against a boulder.
Looking down at Morgott, he was, without meaning to, blocking the falling stones from crushing the dying king.
Neither of them would ever bother to care about such a tiny kindness.
Morgott's head was like an overripe melon, soft and caving in; his skull had already been pulped.
Golden Runes poured out of his body, an immense torrent of them. This strange substance was both the soul-stuff of living beings in the Lands Between and the source of their strength and memories. As the Runes bled away, the last king's massive, imposing frame shrank bit by bit.
"Stubborn Tarnished… you cannot understand my words. Then go and try it yourself. You will see in time—the Erdtree rejects all things. Even you… are no exception." Morgott gave a sorrowful, yet relieved laugh. He still had a little strength left, but he did not rise again. He only let out the final sigh of his tragic life.
A portal opened on the giant cairn of rubble behind Skyl. He grabbed Morgott and tossed him into The Tower of Tomes with a single swing of his arm.
//Check out my P@tre0n for 20 extra chapters on all my fanfics //[email protected]/Razeil0810