After exploring every corner, the Tarnished found no new path back to the surface. After wandering the labyrinthine halls for what felt like hours, a sudden spark of intuition struck him.
If the path so far has always been about jumping down, then the secret to the final layer must start back on the third level. In that entire section, the only place overhanging a true void was the narrow stone bridge where he'd found the Erdtree's Favor.
He hurried back to the bridge, leaning over the edge and narrowing his eyes. His superior vision caught a faint anomaly in the darkness.
Far below, shrouded in a gloom so deep it mimicked a bottomless pit, was a wide, flat platform. It was a masterpiece of deceptive architecture—an "invisible" path that most would miss in their haste.
"I have to hand it to the architects; they really put their souls into this place. It makes me wonder exactly which 'hero' is buried here." To warrant this level of lethal security, the resident had to have been a legend of the highest order.
He leaped.
He hit the platform with a dull thud. "Another drop? It never ends." He spotted a faint reflection even further down—the glint of stagnant water. He jumped again, this time landing in a pool of reddish, fetid muck that splashed across his face.
"Cough... ugh. That's a pungent vintage." Wiping the foul water from his eyes, he followed a trail of white torches toward a central lift. As the platform ascended, the familiar, thunderous grinding of the chariot returned, louder than ever.
The lift had brought him directly above the path of the mechanical juggernaut.
"Seeing it from above doesn't make it look any less menacing... hm?" His instincts flared. To his right, an aura of cold, silver energy manifested. A spirit in heavy, ornate armor wielding a halberd appeared on the narrow walkway.
"A Banished Knight?"
The spirit wore a hooded crimson surcoat over its helm, but the distinct engraving on its silver plate gave it away. These were once the Storm Knights of Stormveil, masters of the varied arts of the wind who served the old Storm Lord. After their king fell to Godfrey, they were stripped of their homes and names, yet kept their titles as knights due to their peerless bravery.
However, not all Banished Knights were honorable. Some were simply remnants of a broken age.
"To think I'd meet an old rival in a hole like this." The Tarnished unsheathed his curved sword. On this narrow ledge, he couldn't afford to be careless. A Banished Knight's storm arts were wide-reaching; he needed to close the distance before the wind began to howl.
The knight swung its halberd, and a localized cyclone erupted within the tomb. Sharp gusts of pressurized air slashed at the Tarnished as he charged into the gale.
The reason for his head-on assault was simple: the halberd had the reach, and the storm had the range. His only hope was to get inside the knight's guard. These were not the "small fry" of the Gatefront; they were elite warriors whose mastery of the wind made them twice as deadly.
"Fine technique... if you still had your wings, you might have knocked me into the pit. But as a ghost? You're lacking."
Covered in shallow cuts, the Tarnished slipped past the halberd's head. He swung his blade, which the knight parried with the shaft before countering with a brutal elbow strike to the Tarnished's chest.
Both retreated a few steps. Even as a spirit, the knight possessed nearly seventy percent of its living martial prowess. However, a phantom lacked the endurance of the living. After a fierce exchange of steel and wind, the knight could no longer maintain its form and dissolved into white mist.
With the guardian gone, the Tarnished picked up a Stonesword Key from a nearby corpse. His gaze followed the path of the chariot below.
"I am really starting to hate that car. Is there truly no way to scrap it?"
He looked toward the vaulted ceiling and noticed three massive stone pots, each over ten meters tall, suspended by thin, frayed ropes.
"Hah." The design was absurd. Why hang such heavy containers by such flimsy threads? "I've found the evidence of the architect's laziness."
He narrowed his eyes, pulling out his hand crossbow. He tracked the timing—the speed of the chariot versus the swing of the pots.
"Let's try this." He didn't hesitate. He loosed a bolt, severing a rope just as the chariot roared beneath it.
The pot fell like a hammer from the heavens. CRASH! Then came two secondary explosions of blue glintstone energy. When the smoke cleared, the "indestructible" chariot was nothing but a pile of twisted, glowing scrap metal.
"Ha! Beautiful." He clapped his hands. He hadn't expected the pots to be filled with such volatile magical essence. "If I could carry the other two and toss them at my enemies... what a thought. Shame they're too big to pocket."
In the wreckage of the chariot, something glittered. He jumped down and discovered an ancient wooden bow, its frame carved in the likeness of the Erdtree.
The Erdtree Greatbow. A relic from the era of the Order's peak. Its power scaled with the wielder's faith—the more you believed, the harder it hit. Even without faith, the sheer physical tension of such a bow could pin a dragon's wing to the earth.
He didn't equip it yet. At nearly two meters long, it was too cumbersome for a man of his build to carry while exploring. He'd retrieve it once the tomb was clear.
He realized he was back on the "second" level—the area where the spirits had previously swarmed him. He headed down the final slope toward the "Root-Facing" depths. On the way, he encountered Exile Soldiers—the rank-and-file of the old Stormveil army who were never granted knighthood.
He cut through them and reached a fork. One path led down toward the boss chamber, the other up toward a secluded altar. He chose to go up first.
At the end of that path, a Banished Knight spirit was kneeling in prayer before a corpse. A faint, crimson light pulsed from the knight's chest—the unmistakable hue of Dragon Communion.
"A Banished Knight with the Dragon's heart... a familiar combination."
The knight rose, guarding the body with its sword and shield. It wouldn't let him pass without a fight.
...
"As expected of the Storm Knights," the Tarnished panted, looking at the deep gouges the wind had carved into the stone floor. Even as a ghost, this warrior had been more formidable than any knight in Godrick's service.
A crimson seal dropped from the vanishing spirit. As the Tarnished approached, the object flew toward him, merging into his palms.
"A Sacred Seal of the Dragon?"
The Draconic majesty within the seal resonated perfectly with his own blood, amplifying his connection to the dragon's power.
"It merged with me..." In his memory, a catalyst and a caster were separate entities. Since his rebirth, his body had been changing in ways he didn't fully understand. Why can I merge with a seal, yet I can't instinctively absorb Runes from the air like I used to? He shook his head and headed for the final door.
As he entered the grand chamber at the base of the Erdtree's roots, the air grew heavy with the scent of rot. From the ceiling, a massive, twisted, and grotesque mass of flesh and wood plummeted.
"What is that thing?!"
Its skin was like gnarled bark mixed with raw, weeping muscle. It had rows of centipede-like legs along its sides and a serpentine body that writhed with unnatural speed.
"The scent of the Erdtree... but corrupted." He dodged a massive slam. This was an Ulcerated Tree Spirit—a manifestation of the tree's roots gone mad.
Its movements were chaotic and logic-defying. Its massive size should have made it slow, but it lunged and thrashed with terrifying agility, its screams echoing like grinding wood.
The Tarnished danced through the carnage, trading blows. He took a heavy hit to the shoulder but used the opening to bury his curved sword into the beast's side. His left hand, now a massive dragon claw, plunged into the wound. With the new seal's power, the dragon claw expanded inside the creature's body.
"Disgusting." He ripped his hand out, covered in foul-smelling sap and ichor.
The Tree Spirit retreated, its golden-hued eyes glowing with a frenzied light. It unhinged its massive jaw, and a blinding golden radiance gathered in its throat. A wave of pure, volatile holy energy erupted from its mouth—a localized shockwave that threatened to bring the entire tomb down.
"A beam attack, really?" The Tarnished rolled frantically as the explosion shattered the nearby pillars.
"You won't get a second shot!" He stowed his sword, manifesting two dragon claws simultaneously. He lunged at the exhausted spirit, grabbing the edge of its torn bark-flesh to rip it open.
"The dragon's power is indeed something else." Its destructive potential far outstripped his old blades. The spirit thrashed, but it had spent too much energy on its breath attack. Its movements were becoming sluggish.
"Battle doesn't tire me..."
"It only makes me stronger!" A blood-red light flashed in his eyes as he prepared for the finishing blow.
But just then, an unsummoned, primal Storm began to howl within the lightless tomb...