Lucian stared at the circular sigil on his wrist, which remained utterly unresponsive no matter how he tried to activate it, and fell into deep thought.
He could still sense that the Helphen's Steeple stood intact somewhere within the spirit world. It had not been destroyed. Yet its connection to the Lands Between had been severed completely, he could no longer teleport through it.
In other words, if he wished to return now, he would have to locate another place that still maintained a link to the spirit world and enter from there.
Just as he had done this time, when he stumbled into the spirit world by discovering the stronghold of Godwyn's followers in the Lands Between.
Of course, perhaps it would not be so troublesome. He could try visiting other Walking Mausoleums and test whether any of them still functioned as bridges.
Without hesitation, Lucian used the guidance of Grace to teleport away.
"The mausoleum prowls. Cradling the soulless demigod.
O Marika, Queen Eternal. He is your unwanted child."
Beside the Church of Pilgrimage, the wandering White Spirit that endlessly repeated that line glanced at the now-motionless Walking Mausoleum. The sentence faltered midway, its voice growing softer and softer until it faded into silence.
'Why… had the mausoleum stopped moving?'
After a brief moment of stillness, the spirit that had long wandered the Lands Between gradually dissipated before the church.
Lucian had already teleported to the cliffs on the eastern side of Liurnia of the Lakes.
Several Walking Mausoleums roamed here, and below, at the entrance to the Black Knife Catacombs, a headless knight stood guard.
Activating the mark on his wrist once more, Lucian successfully returned to the spirit world.
But what greeted him was utterly different from before.
The bone-littered plain had vanished. In its place stretched a marshland seething with the breath of death. The creatures here bore no resemblance to those he had previously encountered, twisted souls drifted freely above the swamp, grotesque and malformed.
Lucian let out a quiet sigh and teleported back to the Lands Between.
He had no map. No landmarks. To locate Aesthra within this completely different region was not something he could accomplish in a short time.
Searching blindly would likely only make it harder to find her.
His departure earlier had been far too rushed. He had not even said goodbye.
In that moment, he had been single-mindedly focused on destroying the Death Ritual. He had never anticipated this outcome.
He had believed that possessing the ability to travel freely via the Helphen's Steeple meant he could rest easy. Now it seemed that assumption had been naïve.
And yet… there had been no other choice.
The Death Ritual had to be destroyed.
And once destroyed, his separation from Aesthra had been inevitable.
Now, Lucian found himself worrying about her.
The connection to the Helphen's Steeple still existed, which meant nothing catastrophic had occurred there, at least, it had not collapsed outright after the severing of its link to the Lands Between.
Most likely, it had simply lost that connection.
Aesthra had once wandered the spirit world for a long time. But would she remain safe in the days to come?
She was only a frail, pitiful, and helpless maiden, and the spirit world was filled with powerful monsters everywhere.
Even if she avoided provoking them, what if she accidentally wandered into the territory of an ambush predator? She might be injured… or even die once more.
Lucian still had many things he wished to say to her.
He had not expected that after such a brief reunion, it would be followed so quickly by another unannounced farewell. The thought filled him with guilt.
But now that things had come to this, there was nothing he could do to search for her.
Once he returned to Stormveil Castle, he would send people to track down the followers of Godwyn the Golden.
Perhaps he could obtain from them something usable within the spirit world.
—
Meanwhile, within the spirit realm, Aesthra also sensed the sudden shift.
She stepped out of the cavern they had previously occupied and stood upon the white-bone plain, looking up at the sky.
Within the air lit by spiritflame, the waning, colorless sun slowly fractured at one edge.
The fading sun had lost a fragment. The Death Ritual had been partially destroyed.
Aesthra smiled at the sight.
Lucian's purpose in coming to the spirit world this time had been fulfilled.
Though the faded sun still hung overhead, he had undoubtedly made progress.
He had done what she once believed impossible.
However, through her strange perception, she sensed that this region was gradually being peeled away from the Lands Between.
It was a peculiar sensation. She did not know why, but she could feel it clearly.
It was a severance at the level of existence itself.
This portion of the spirit world no longer retained any connection to the Lands Between.
Aesthra waited there for some time.
But Lucian never returned.
At last, she sighed and began walking into the distance.
It seemed that Lucian would not be coming back anytime soon.
Even if he re-entered the spirit world, he would not appear in this region, now cut off from the Lands Between.
When would they meet again?
Then again…
If they were never to meet again, perhaps that would be fine as well.
She was already dead. And now that the Death Ritual within the spirit world had been entirely dismantled, she did not even know what path lay ahead.
The end of their journey would inevitably be a final parting.
Lost in such wandering thoughts, Aesthra drifted farther away.
Suddenly, she glanced down at her wrist.
There, a bead of brilliant crimson had appeared, strung onto her wrist by a simple cord.
In the spirit world, vivid colors were rare. It was a world nearly drained of all hue.
This was the first time Aesthra had ever seen something so strikingly colored.
She held the bead between her fingers. Against the surrounding gray gloom, it shone even more brilliantly, like fresh blood.
"What is this? Did I have this before?"
She fell into silent contemplation.
After some time, unable to find an answer, she continued walking toward the next region.
—
Elsewhere in the spirit world, atop a massive Deathroot thorn formed from writhing worms, a slit slowly opened.
From within the tree-thick bramble, a tall figure was expelled, falling onto the ground.
He possessed a human form, strangely out of place in this aberrant world.
When he was first disgorged from the thorn, his hair shone with brilliant gold.
Yet the moment he came into being, that golden radiance began to fade. It drained away rapidly, until his hair became a ghastly white.
He lay prone for a long time before slowly opening his eyes and pushing himself up.
He looked around blankly at the bizarre and distorted world.
Where was this?
Who was he?
What was he meant to do?
No one answered.
And he had no memories.
Thus, he could only walk forward aimlessly and alone.
As he moved across the ground, the ever-present death-flies gathered near him. Thorny brambles made of worms burst from the black soil.
He looked at these twisted things, a strange expression crossing his face. He did not wish to touch them.
At that very thought, the flies and brambles around him retreated swiftly, vanishing without a trace.
He lowered his gaze to his body, and realized he was naked.
That seemed… improper.
Darkness surged eagerly toward him, coiling over his skin and forming garments.
He blinked in confusion.
Everything here was too strange.
And yet… it did not seem to wish him harm.
Around him stood several other massive brambles nearly identical to the one that had birthed him. They seemed to have once nurtured something within.
But some of them already oozed thick black ichor—failures, perhaps.
Where was he?
Where was he going?
Neither question had an answer.
As for who he was—
A name was necessary.
So he decided to give himself one.
Coatl.
It sounded… acceptable.
—
Lucian returned to Stormveil Castle.
For now, he had no way of re-entering the spirit world to completely destroy the faded sun. But that did not mean he could afford to idle.
Before Melina's rebirth was complete, he intended to further refine his mastery of gravity sorceries and ancient dragon lightning.
Once Melina was reborn, he planned to venture into the Consecrated Snowfield and search for the hidden gateway leading to Mohgwyn Palace.
The barrier outside Mohgwyn Palace, one imposed by the Formless Mother, was troublesome. He did not yet know its exact function.
As for Mohg, Lord of Blood, that dangerous zealot was someone Lucian intended to eliminate as soon as possible.
Once Mohg was dealt with, it would not be long before open war with The Royal Capital, Leyndell began.
Lucian had no desire to be locked in battle with Leyndell while Mohg schemed in the shadows with yet another bloody conspiracy.
When Lucian returned to the residence of Selinsax and Sif, Sif burst out of the room and pounced directly onto him.
Lucian reached down to stroke Sif's fur, only to realize he had grown considerably.
He was now far larger than an ordinary wolf in the Lands Between, nearly approaching the size of the Red Wolves.
Just as Lucian was puzzling over this, Selinsax stepped outside as well.
Seeing that it was Lucian, she hurried forward.
"Master, why have you only just returned?"
Lucian froze.
"…What?"
Then it struck him.
There was a time discrepancy between the Lands Between and the spirit world.
In the spirit world, there was no night. The faded sun hung eternally in the sky, making the passage of time impossible to discern.
His own sense of time had clearly been distorted.
Lucian quickly asked, "How long has it been since I left?"
Before entering the spirit world, he had been visiting Selinsax daily to learn dragon lightning. She knew exactly when he had departed.
After thinking for a moment, Selinsax replied,
"Today is the fifth day."
Lucian felt a headache coming on.
The time difference was far greater than he had expected.
To him, it had felt like no more than one or two days.
Five days…
A sudden thought struck him.
Could it be that Melina's rebirth was nearly complete?
At that moment, the moonlight sigil left upon him by Ranni lit up in perfect timing.
Ranni was contacting him.
Her voice echoed within his mind:
"At last… I may reach thee."
"Whither didst thou depart?"
"Thou didst vanish without so much as a trace, and even the mark could not find thee."
Lucian did not attempt to explain immediately. It was not something that could be clarified in a few sentences.
"It's complicated. I'll explain in detail when I arrive."
"Is the rebirth nearly complete?"
Ranni's voice responded once more:
"Not yet. Yet within a day or twain, it shall be so."
"If thou wouldst come unto the Grand Library, then come now."
"For beyond mine own curiosity… there is somewhat I would bestow upon thee."
Lucian temporarily bid farewell to Selinsax and Sif, then teleported to the academy.
Within the Grand Library of Raya Lucaria, Ranni floated casually in midair.
As Lucian appeared out of thin air through the guidance of Grace, Ranni felt a flicker of surprise.
There was something different about him.
His soul carried a new, unfamiliar aura—distinct, alien… and stronger than before.
The strengthening of his soul could wait. What intrigued her more was his earlier disappearance.
When she had tried to contact him through the sigil, he had vanished from her perception entirely.
The moon in the Lands Between was ever-present. As long as one remained within its domain, contact through the mark should have been possible.
So what had happened?
Such a thing had never occurred before. Naturally, she found it deeply concerning.
Ranni looked at Lucian and spoke calmly.
"So thou hast come. Now then, wilt thou speak and make it plain?"
"I am… in sooth, most keenly curious."
Lucian met her puzzled gaze and answered succinctly:
"I went to the spirit world."
Ranni paused.
Then her eyes slowly widened.
"The spirit world?"
She repeated the term involuntarily.
Lucian nodded at her doubtful expression.
"Yes. The spirit world."
Her confusion deepened.
She knew of it.
It was the place where souls were meant to go before the rise of the Erdtree's dominion.
But that could not be right.
The spirit world had long since vanished. It no longer existed within the Lands Between.
The Erdtree's system of rebirth had replaced it completely.
Lucian explained steadily:
"After the Shattering, there is no Elden Lord, and the Elden Ring no longer manifests the Law in full."
"Those elements that might become Law have begun stirring once more."
"The Deathbirds and the followers of Godwyn have collaborated to reconstruct the spirit world."
Lucian raised his wrist, allowing Ranni to clearly see the circular sigil left behind by the Helphen's Steeple.
Ranni abandoned all pretense of composure and floated directly to his side.
She extended her hand and touched the mark.
The aura upon it was unmistakable, utterly foreign to the Lands Between.
Even if she wished to doubt him, she could not.
Ranni fell into silence.
To think that Godwyn's followers had achieved something like this…
Yet Godwyn's soul had been slain during the Night of the Black Knives.
Even if they used the spirit realm and that pallid sun to summon a soul, would the thing pieced together and revived truly still be Godwyn?
Lucian's voice interrupted her thoughts.
"You said you had something to give me. What is it?"
Only then did Ranni remember her original purpose.
"Ere long, I shall take my leave."
"Yet before I depart, there is somewhat I deemed thou mightest find… of interest."
"Count it as a token of my thanks. I would have thee accept it."
From the wide sleeve of her robe, Ranni withdrew a small wooden statuette.
It was a carving of a magic scholar. At first glance, there seemed to be nothing remarkable about it.
But Lucian recognized it immediately.
It was the key to the Divine Tower of Liurnia.
Within that tower lay the discarded flesh Ranni had once cast aside, and the Cursemark of Death.