Melina wasn't particularly moved by Skyl's talk about "giving her a complete life." Skyl could tell she was the kind of person who was emotionally dull. People like that are usually one of two types: either they were given so much love in childhood that kindness became normal to them, or they were deprived of love for so long that they no longer recognized what it felt like to be cared for.
Melina was the latter. She was emotionally blunted, and she always kept it pressed down. She had her own stubbornness, could endure loneliness, could stay quiet. As a pivotal character in the story, she was even more unassuming than some side characters.
Some people are born to burn—like the ember-butterflies that dance above a flame, nameless and unnoticed, yet able to kindle warmth for travelers shivering in the cold.
"The Erdtree doesn't need you to burn it. Your mission is over," Skyl told her.
It was obvious Melina would need a long time to accept that fact, but she did keep her promise. She followed Skyl and took on the duties of a Finger Maiden. Someone who suddenly loses their purpose in life is like a stray dog—if they don't receive help and care, they're easily put in danger, and in this era, that almost always means death.
Skyl told Melina she didn't need to stay invisible or hide herself. She could appear openly, without fear. The Lands Between held no real danger to him. At most, dealing with certain demigod-level powerhouses might take a bit of effort—when that happened, Melina could simply hide inside the Tower of Tomes.
The spectral steed named Torrent seemed to like Skyl very much, and Skyl also sensed something familiar from it—something like Queen Marika's aura. So Torrent finding Skyl wasn't a coincidence at all. It had always known who its new master was, which was why it guided Melina to this meeting.
Skyl didn't know how to ride a horse, so he only had it carry their luggage while Melina led it by the reins. With the two of them and one horse, they wandered Limgrave at an unhurried pace. The region's major power was Stormveil Castle. Its lord, Godrick the Grafted, was the weakest of the Shardbearers—driven back step by step from the royal capital, he'd holed up here and refused to come out. After the Erdtree's light went out, Godrick's soldiers in this area seemed to be making new moves.
"The soldiers are being mobilized and gathered. Maybe there's going to be a war," Skyl guessed. Both he and Melina felt that war was the stupidest thing possible in this post-Erdtree age. With the law broken, what the world needed most was rest and recovery—time to rebuild this scarred, ruined land.
Later, they traveled to the Weeping Peninsula in southern Limgrave. From a roaming merchant, they heard that Stormveil's lord had died violently, and the Great Rune was missing. It made sense: once the Golden Order failed, the shoddiness of grafting was exposed completely. All those half-broken techniques that relied on the Golden Order—now they were truly, completely broken. That madman Godrick the Grafted didn't get a good end either.
Skyl figured the happiest people right now were the primeval sorcerers. With the Golden Order no longer functioning, those stargazers could finally see the true face of the stars again. And the sorcerer who had turned themself into a star had flown up into the sky on the very day the Erdtree went out.
In the underground cellar beneath the Waypoint Ruins, Skyl met a sorceress named Sellen. It was said she'd killed many of her peers to pursue magic; in the Harry Potter world, she'd easily qualify as a ruthless Dark Lord of her own era. "The Golden Order has failed—what wonderful news!" She was positively delighted when she heard.
Skyl asked if she had any interest in joining the Tower of Tomes. Sellen was intrigued by a wizard organization that spanned different worlds, but she had her own difficulty. "My true body is imprisoned on the southern peninsula. If you can rescue me, then I can offer everything I've learned in my lifetime." She truly seemed frightened of captivity—less negotiating than begging.
It was a reasonable request. Skyl set off south right away. After crossing the great bridge and arriving at the Weeping Peninsula, Skyl's group encountered a solitary blind girl by the roadside. She claimed she came from Castle Morne in the peninsula's south, and that she was the castellan's daughter, Irina. "The Misbegotten servants in the castle have risen in rebellion. Terrifying sounds are everywhere. My father made me flee, but he's still inside. Can you help me deliver a letter to him?"
"You won't be safe alone by the road. Come with us," Skyl said, saving a poor girl who was otherwise almost certainly doomed.
Irina accepted Skyl's arrangement because, as she put it, he "sounds like a very gentle person."
Skyl said he was something of an amateur healer, and that he might be able to treat her congenital blindness. After receiving her permission, he untied the white gauze ribbon covering her eyes. Her eyes were beautiful, but lifeless. Her eyeballs themselves were structurally fine; the reason she couldn't see was likely nerve damage. Using two different branches of magical craft, Skyl made her a special pair of goggles. They converted visual signals into thought-strings and fed them directly into her consciousness—so she effectively gained a mind's eye.
The mind's eye was very different from ordinary sight. Its sense of color was chaotic and muddled, but for Irina, simply regaining "light" at all was worth celebrating. After she put on the goggles, she curiously reached out and touched Skyl's face. A human face was unfamiliar to her; she would need a long time to build an entirely new understanding of the world.
After rescuing Sellen's true body, Skyl brought Irina to her father. Castle Morne was still locked in bloody chaos. Those ape-like demi-humans and Misbegotten held the advantage, while the human soldiers were pushed back again and again. The castellan was furious that Skyl had brought back the daughter he'd struggled so hard to send away.
Skyl didn't mince words. "Godrick's already finished. What are you risking your life for as a vassal? Take your soldiers and your daughter and leave Castle Morne. Go to Limgrave. Start a new life."
The castellan had been fighting the Misbegotten day and night and had no idea Godrick had died.
A knight who had lost his liege was hollowed out. In the end, he couldn't withstand his daughter's pleading. That very day, he led his soldiers in a breakout and fled north. Castle Morne was left only to the rioting demi-humans and Misbegotten. They lived by eating corpses—when the day came that the corpses ran out, the mad fire would go out with them.
But before that, Skyl set Castle Morne ablaze himself. His cold magical fire froze flesh into powder; even metal and stone were not spared. The man-eating dogs, the Misbegotten, and the fortress itself were all reduced to dust.
"Where to next?" Melina asked. After all these days, it was the first time she'd spoken on her own initiative. She could see it now—Skyl acted with purpose. He was changing the people and history of the Lands Between.
"Caelid."
Caelid lay to the east of Limgrave. The landscape there was pure post-apocalypse, as if after a nuclear blast. A poisonous ichor called Scarlet Rot had infected the earth and polluted the water sources. The air carried an abnormal sweetness; breathe it too long and a foul, bloody stink clawed up from deep in your sinuses, unbearable—starting in your gut, rotting you from the inside out.
Back when the golden Grace still functioned, countless immortals had been parasitized by the Rot. They watched themselves enter corruption—bodies twisting, skin ulcerating, muscles wasting away—until they became living corpses that could still feel.
With the Golden Order broken, the first ones to be freed were those former immortals: they could finally die in peace.
But the living who were parasitized by Rot still had to suffer through it.
On a low hill behind Sellia, Town of Sorcery, a one-armed young woman lay panting in an abandoned church, Scarlet Rot churning inside her. When Skyl found her, she was still unconscious; in a single day, she wasn't awake for long.
Footsteps and hooves startled her into wakefulness. "You should stay away from me. The Scarlet Rot inside me is writhing," she warned. Her intercostal muscles trembled with pain, breaking each sentence into fragments. It sounded like she was softly sobbing, but there were no tears on her lowered face.
"It hurts, doesn't it? Come with me," Skyl said. With a gentle wave, the ground bulged up and formed an earthen doll, which lifted the girl and carried her into the Tower of Tomes.
Scarlet Rot seeped out from the wound where her arm had been severed—yet it couldn't run rampant inside the Tower of Tomes. Back then, even the aura of Hermaeus Mora couldn't stir up trouble here. The Rot's power came from an unknown Outer God, but it was like spores, carrying a portion of that god's information within it.
"Leave this body," Skyl commanded.
The Scarlet Rot began to pour out. At the same time, the woman's vitality weakened sharply—almost instantly, she became faint and near death. Skyl had Gally prepare hot water and immerse the injured woman in a pool, then he took out a bottle of red wine and poured it over her head.
"You bathe in this water as though bathing in a saint's blood."
The cheap red wine—bought in a London supermarket—became thick and viscous the moment it left the bottle, its color intensely vivid. Skyl was using a vampiric ritual: replenishing the woman's life force and replacing the old blood in her body. Wherever the wine flowed, her skin turned fair and flushed, her complexion brightened, and her internal organs stabilized.
When the last of the Scarlet Rot drained away, the illness was largely cured. Only the missing right arm remained, leaving her disabled.
"You saved me. Why?"
"Because you're pitiful, and I have the ability to save you." Wearing gloves, Skyl performed a simple check. "Your arm can be regenerated. To avoid harming your health, I suggest taking it slowly—drink one bottle of Skele-Gro every day, paired with an Invigoration Draught. In less than a month, you'll be back to normal."
"...My name is Millicent. You removed the Scarlet Rot from me—no method could ever repay a debt like this. I will repay you with my life. It's shameful to say, but my swordsmanship is actually quite good. If you need it, I will fight for you."
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