The Tarnished returned to the central courtyard. Every soldier in Stormveil who had dared to raise a blade against him had been dealt with. Now, only the heart of the rot remained: Godrick.
"I said I would take this castle alone... and now, only you are left, Godrick." The Tarnished walked with a terrifying, calm aura of slaughter. Any remaining soldiers who caught sight of him fled in terror, their morale shattered. Only the dim-witted Trolls attempted to bar his path, and he cut them down without breaking his stride.
Finally, he reached the secluded courtyard of the Lord and found Nepheli Loux waiting there.
"You've arrived," Nepheli said, her eyes burning with righteous fury as she gripped her axes. "The path is clear. Ahead lies the craven king who has defiled the very wind."
"I wish to see for myself," the Tarnished replied, his voice low. "How far the glorious lineage of Godwyn has truly fallen."
"Aha... a dragon, a fellow descendant... thy strength is unquestionable..."
A twisted figure, his voice high-pitched and frantic, was stroking the head of a dead dragon wyvern with a six-fingered hand. As he indulged in his delusions, the sound of two pairs of footsteps echoed behind him.
"Oh...?" He turned slowly. His face was a map of aged, sagging skin and madness. He wore a cloak of noble black silk that seemed to writhe on its own until it slid away, revealing a torso covered in a chaotic, nauseating forest of grafted arms.
"Mere Tarnished... such boldness," he spat, his eyes bulging. "Dost thou not know to kneel in the presence of a Lord?" Two mismatched, grafted arms hoisted a massive, ornate golden axe and slammed it into the ground.
"I am the Lord of all that is Golden! Godrick the Grafted!"
The Tarnished said nothing. He simply stood there, his eyes scanning Godrick with a look that made the "Lord" visibly uneasy.
"Troll... Tarnished... one, two, three..." The Tarnished actually began counting the number of limbs grafted onto Godrick's body. Nepheli glanced at him, bewildered by his casual demeanor.
"Pauper! Who gave thee permission to look upon me?!" Godrick roared, swinging his great axe in a lumbering arc.
"Watch out!" Nepheli warned, feeling the weight behind the strike.
"I look at what I please. What are you going to do about it, Godrick?" The Tarnished caught the head of the massive axe with a single hand. His eyes, visible through his helm, were cold and piercing.
"Impudence...!" Godrick strained, pouring all his strength into the axe, but he succeeded only in cracking the stones beneath the Tarnished's feet.
"The last man I saw wielding a double-edged axe could split the very mountains," the Tarnished said, shaking his head. "You... are not worthy of that weapon."
With a sudden surge, the Tarnished's right arm shifted into a dragon's claw. He punched the head of the axe, shattering the golden steel into a thousand pieces.
"Ah! Impossible! The power of dragons... how can a lowly Tarnished possess such strength?" Godrick stumbled back, his many arms flailing.
(Godrick... is actually this weak?) Nepheli thought. (The Tarnished is powerful, certainly, but this 'Lord' feels less dangerous than a squad of Banished Knights.)
"You seem to value your status quite highly," the Tarnished said, his voice devoid of emotion.
"I am the Lord of all that is Golden! A true scion of the Golden Lineage!! I will not tolerate the provocation of a base Tarnished!!" Deprived of his axe, Godrick rolled himself into a ball, using his many arms to spin across the ground like a grotesque wheel, kicking up a localized storm.
"Die! Become a part of me!!" He leaped high, slamming his largest grafted arms downward.
"You have no understanding of true strength," the Tarnished sighed. "Your ancestor... even without a weapon, even without a hundred limbs, was a hero for the ages!"
Without using any special arts, the Tarnished met the impact with a raw, physical punch. Godrick was sent flying like a discarded toy, crashing into the stone pedestal that held the dragon's corpse.
"Aaargh! I am a King! I am the rightful heir! I am chosen by destiny!!!" Godrick shrieked, his face twisting into a hideous mask of desperation.
"Godrick... you have failed your ancestors. And you have failed me." The Tarnished walked up to him and removed his helmet, revealing his weathered but piercing eyes.
"Pauper! Do not look at me!" Godrick flailed his arms. The Tarnished promptly grabbed his head and slammed it into the dirt.
"Shut up, brat! You've finally made me angry," the Tarnished barked, startling even Nepheli.
"You...!" Godrick looked up at him with a mixture of malice, madness, and—for the first time—pure terror. He had never felt this level of humiliation, not even against the Blade of Miquella.
"Godrick, a weak body is not a sin. But you are weak in spirit as well. Look at yourself... you are an eyesore." The Tarnished's grip tightened. "This era has no shortage of brilliant minds, but you chose the path of a butcher. You are a disgrace to the Golden Lineage, and a disgrace to the Lion King himself."
"Lies! I have come so far... I will not fall to you!"
"Heh, 'come so far'?" Nepheli interjected, unable to listen to his delusions any longer. "You mean when you dressed as a woman to flee the Royal Capital? Or when you insulted the Malenia only to end up licking her boots for your life? You are pathetic, Godrick!"
The Tarnished's expression grew even colder. Godwyn's blood has truly thinned to water.
"Silence! Silence! Silence! Kneel before me! KNEEL!" Godrick screamed, hammering the ground as a violent wind began to swirl around him.
"You are unworthy of the Storm," Nepheli and the Tarnished spoke in unison. Nepheli stepped forward, her axes crackling with golden electricity. "Let me help. I didn't come all this way to be a spectator!"
"Fine. Let's end this." The Tarnished let go of Godrick and drew his curved blade.
"Aaagh... AAAAAH!" Godrick scrambled toward the dragon's corpse. In a fit of madness, he chopped off his own left hand. As blood sprayed the stones, he shoved his stump into the dragon's neck. "O, Dragon... lend me thy strength!"
"He's grafting the dragon!" Nepheli shouted.
"A dying struggle." The Tarnished raised his blade. As he did, a gentle breeze began to gather—a wind so pure it felt out of place in this rot-filled castle.
"Aaaah..." Godrick gasped as the dead dragon's head began to twitch and roar, now part of his arm. "Great ancestors! Bear witness!!!"
He swung the dragon's head, unleashing a torrent of searing, golden flames across the courtyard.
"This wind is perfect for the occasion," the Tarnished exhaled. Suddenly, the air around the entire castle began to howl. "Nepheli, give me your storm!"
"Right!" Nepheli unleashed her full power. The Tarnished pivoted, his blade acting as a conductor. He drew in Nepheli's golden lightning and the castle's natural gale, spinning them into a single, concentrated vortex around his blade.
"DIE! I SHALL NOT BE DEFEATED! I SHALL CRUSH THEE WITH THE GLORY OF MY KIN!" Godrick screamed, unleashed a final, desperate blast of dragonfire.
"This ends now. Go and face the ancestors you've shamed." The Tarnished swung his blade in a massive diagonal arc.
BOOM!
A pillar of wind and lightning, taller than the palace itself, tore through the dragon's fire. It didn't just strike Godrick; it purified the very air.
"From this day forth, Limgrave is no more," the Tarnished declared over the roar of the gale. "Only the Storm-Veiled Lands remain!"
"NOOOOOO!"
The storm stripped away the grafted limbs, the noble silks, and the delusions, leaving only the shriveled, pathetic body of the original Godrick. He slumped to the ground, twitching in the dirt.
"Ugh... one day... I shall return... to the Capital... beneath the Erdtree... ancestors... bear witness..."
With a final, ragged breath, the spark of life left his eyes.
Godrick the Grafted... has fallen.
•
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