54. Ranni's Path
The battle is over.
Resistance?
It was futile.
Even if Ranni, Rennala, and Radagon exhausted all their lifelong training, unleashing their most powerful magic and techniques, they faced the manifestation of the Elden Ring—the Elden Beast.
Everything was futile and vain.
The behemoth, so vast it obscured vision, unleashed a whirlwind powerful enough to rip the air apart, blinding mortal eyes. A tangible pressure choked every breath.
All the attacks unleashed upon its sacred form, no matter how brilliant or deadly, were like stones dropped into an abyss, never stirring a single ripple before utterly dissolving in the pure, vast light.
This was the Elden Beast.
It was the Rule itself, its existence transcending all definitions of "hero" and "demigod" in the Lands Between. An unbridgeable chasm lay between them. If Lemuen wanted to, she could even crush all three of them with a single slap.
Looking at the three gasping for breath, unable to recover from excessive mana depletion in this space, Lemuen raised her hand, like a judge declaring fate, and then slammed it down hard!
Buzz!
An invisible gravity field instantly took shape, more oppressive than the tallest mountain! The air groaned under the weight, and the immense pressure descended upon them!
Ranni, Rennala, and Radagon were struck by an invisible hammer, powerless to resist, and slammed back against the horizontal surface.
Rennala, ignoring the shattering pain, struggled to throw herself towards her daughter, tightly hugging the delicate puppet body that had been sent flying by the immense force.
"Ranni! My daughter! How are you? Are you alright?"
The cold, hard puppet body shifted slightly in its mother's arms, emitting a cracking sound. "Mother," Ranni's voice came through the puppet, still carrying that inherent coldness.
"Don't worry, this is just... a puppet body."
Ranni struggled to raise her head slightly in her mother's arms, her deep eyes fixed on Lemuen in the sky.
This power... the absolute disparity.
Every attack was easily negated, every struggle met with a heavier crushing blow.
But how could she give up?!
She had put in so much effort and sacrifice for this day. Now, this was the final step. How could she give up?
The scarred puppet body, lifted by the cold glow of magic, floated through the air, passing over the Radagon that stood between them.
Ranni, with her battered but still upright Darkmoon banner, gazed directly at the newly born god. Her voice, emanating from the puppet, resounded with every word, carrying a weight that could overturn the world:
"Even if the Golden Rule has long since decayed, strayed from its original path, and become a shackle that binds the soul, isn't the very existence of the Elden Ring a mistake?"
"As long as the Elden Ring exists, there will never be freedom in the Lands Between!!"
These words were like a fiery spark thrown into solidified oil, instantly igniting the dead silence!
If the transition between the Golden Rule Age and the Silver Rule Age, represented by Radagon, was a transfer of power between differing ideologies, a war between silver and gold,
Then, the words uttered by Ranni at this moment were a complete and ultimate repudiation of the very foundations of the existing world! She denied not only the current rulers, but the very existence that supported this world—the Elden Ring!
This was tantamount to declaring that all the order, beliefs, and even the logic of existence that the Lands Between had constructed since the Erdtree era were castles built on sand, a false imprint that needed to be completely erased! This couldn't be described as "treacherous."
This was a subversion of the very foundations of existence, a naked declaration of war against the world!
Lemuen hovered in mid-air, unsurprised by Ranni's words.
Some of the key figures in this world had been informed by Xiling.
Ranni of the Moon Princess, the divine being who had chosen to betray the Golden Rule and ascend to the stars, was a particular target of special attention.
Faced with Ranni's questioning,
Lemuen's voice remained steady,
"So, what do you want?"
"What do you think is right?"
"Expel! Completely expel it! This rule, parasitic on the souls of the Lands Between like a maggot, this so-called Elden Ring—along with all the constraints and 'gifts' it represents—annihilate and shatter it! Let it return to nothingness, as if it had never existed!"
"Only then! When these shackles of will imposed upon all living beings are completely broken, when the rule's 'blessings' become cold reality... Only by overcoming the torrent of truth can people truly be liberated! Only then can they see the stars with their own eyes, think their way forward with their own minds, and determine their fate with their own hands! Let the creatures of the Lands Between decide the future of this land for themselves!"
"Even though at first, a world without the protection of rule will seem bone-chilling, and chaos threatens to engulf everything...this is the true beginning! People will learn resilience through struggle, find solutions through reflection, and establish faith amidst doubt!"
"And then die out?" Lemuen interrupted Ranni's story.
"When all rules crumbled in your so-called 'liberation,' did you ever consider how many would die?"
"You haven't!"
"Your 'freedom,' your 'liberation,' is a bloody road paved with billions of bones!"
"You only see the constraints, but fail to see that order itself is the protective shell upon which countless lives depend!"
"You only see the illusory 'freedom' at the end, but ignore the mountains of corpses that will inevitably pile up along the way!"
"Because you don't care..."
"Let the living choose for themselves?"
"But have you ever truly asked for their choice?"
Lemuen's voice suddenly rose:
"Did you ever give them the right to choose? When you arbitrarily decided to shatter the foundations of this world, did you ever ask those who crouched in Storm Point? Those struggling to survive? The civilians praying beneath the Leyndell walls? The people who have endured for years under the protection of the golden tree? "
"Have you ever given them the right to choose?"
"The Elden Ring is not your private property! It's not a tea set in your cupboard to be discarded or smashed at will!"
Lemuen pointed a finger at Ranni's shattered body: "Do you think you're fulfilling some noble mission? No!"
Lemuan declared coldly: "You are simply using your self-righteous 'ideals' to unleash an indiscriminate massacre on the entire Lands Between!"
"Your 'liberation' is an order of extermination more cruel than any other rule!"
Lemuen's final question was like a sharp blade, piercing the very heart of Ranni's path...the price.
Radagon closed his eyes in agony. He knew that what Ranni said was partly true—the price of forcibly uprooting the rules rooted in all things in the world would be unimaginably horrific.
He couldn't understand how his intelligent yet childish daughter, who once gazed at the stars in the Carian royal gardens, had gradually fallen into such...complete nothingness.
He knew Ranni must be hiding other secrets, but he had no idea they were so deep.
Radagon wanted to question Ranni. Didn't she know the consequences? Or...had she already stopped caring?
With her back to her father, filled with pain and confusion, and her mother, whose eyes were filled with worry, Ranni's shattered puppet body still hovered stubbornly.
Her dim eyes met Lemuen's silver pupils.
Short After a brief silence, Ranni's voice rang out, a calmness as if nothing had happened, yet tinged with a cold, bone-chilling determination:
"...Even so, I've never regretted it."
Lemuen's tone also calmed.
"Then there's no need for me to say anything more."
"Because—you don't deserve to hear it."
The Elden Beast, hovering behind her, suddenly erupted with an unbearable silver-white light! The wing-like structures on its massive body suddenly spread open, and unimaginable destructive energy frantically gathered within them. Space itself began to groan as if on the verge of collapse!
The next second—
Light—arrived!
The silver-white light was no longer light, but an all-consuming torrent of light, instantly drowning everything in sight! The last thing Ranni saw was a boundless, pure, despairing paleness.
She closed her eyes silently, almost calmly. The end had come. She didn't make it to the end, didn't reach the cold starry sky... But at least, she chose to fight to the very end, to face the final blow of divine punishment with her shattered body.
To die on the final step toward her goal, to die on the battlefield, defying the will of the gods—perhaps this way... would she have lived up to Blaidd's loyalty and betrayed the hopes of those who followed Dark Moon.
"It's over..." The thought rose in Ranni's heart, bringing with it a hint of relief, yet also a deep sense of resentment.
However, the anticipated complete annihilation never came.
The moment the extreme white light, powerful enough to completely vaporize the soul and flatten existence itself, was about to engulf her—
Two figures, resolutely blocking it from reaching her!
The all-consuming paleness in her vision was obscured by two silhouettes so familiar that they shook her soul!
Ranni suddenly opened her eyes!
As her eyes contracted with shock, two soul-shattering images reflected in her pupils:
Standing before her! Her father, Radagon! Brilliant golden light surged from his body, forming a shaky yet incredibly solid golden barrier in front of Ranni!
Radagon faced the destructive white light head-on, his body becoming his daughter's final shield! Blood flowed from his body, instantly evaporated by the light, but his back remained motionless!
Standing closer! Her mother, Rennala! Icy magic poured forth recklessly! The azure moonlight swirled with the intricacy of Carian magic, rapidly weaving before her and Ranni into a vast, gorgeous, yet equally cracked, full-moon barrier!
The barrier shone with the light of stars, illuminating her pale, yet resolute face. She fiercely shielded Ranni's icy, doll-like form behind her, bracing her back against the destructive torrent!
"Why...?" Ranni's voice choked in her throat, like a rusty gear forced to turn, trembling with disbelief.
"Why are you standing in front of me?!" "
Her question sounded faint amid the earth-shattering roar of energy, yet so sharp!
Her "heart" had never beat so violently as it did now, as if it wanted to break free from its icy bonds and leap out of her chest! She had betrayed the Golden Rule; she had denied everything Radagon believed in!
She had chosen a path destined to bring her into hostility with the world!
She was a traitor!
A rebel!
A cold-blooded puppet, severing ties of family to pursue her own will!
She had sought out these two simply because of their immense strength, hoping to borrow their power to achieve her own ideals.
They... were the last people who should have stood in front of her!
The light poured down, mercilessly washing over everything.
Radagon, standing in the forefront,
He could feel it; his body was gradually disappearing.
Intense pain? No, more like the emptiness of being stripped away from existence itself.
My senses were fading, my strength was draining.
...That's fine... This way.
This way, he wouldn't have to think about the Golden Rule, the Silver Rule, or his daughter Ranni's choice.
He was tired, terribly tired.
Perhaps falling asleep, letting his soul merge with the ethereal light, was also a kind of destination...
But... an instinct, far older than any law, emanating from the depths of his soul, like the final eruption of a dying volcano, suddenly dispelled that momentary weakness!
His wife was still behind him! His daughter was still behind him!
But he couldn't just collapse. As a husband, as a father, he couldn't collapse at this moment!
"Ugh, ahh ..." It wasn't a shattering, nor a burning, but a more complete "disappearance."
Golden shreds of light, particles representing his flesh and divinity, were gently and irrevocably peeling from him, dispersing and merging into the all-consuming white light.
His body was dying.
Rennala turned her gaze from Radagon to Ranni.
The look in her eyes was incredibly complex!
It was filled with a sorrow that threatened to drown; with a deep worry for her daughter facing a harsh future alone...
It was also filled with a hint of confusion about Ranni's chosen path, one that perhaps even she couldn't understand.
But in the end, all the emotions subsided, transforming into a pure love that transcended all understanding, all disagreement, all right and wrong.
"Live well from now on, Ranni..." Her voice was as soft as a sigh, so weak that it was almost swallowed by the annihilating storm, yet it carried a strange power, like the sharpest chisel, piercing the deepest depths of Ranni's consciousness. There were no questions, no accusations, only the humblest, most profound plea from a mother at the end of her life, delivered with her final strength: Live!
The moment the words fell, Rennala moved.
With determination and without hesitation, she passed through the cracked, crumbling full moon barrier she had constructed with her own magic—the last, fragile refuge she had set for her daughter.
Without hesitation, like a moth to a flame, she moved lightly yet with a determination that shook fate, arriving behind Radagon.
No words, no need for them.
She placed her hands on Radagon's back, which was constantly radiating light and burning with alarming heat.
Buzz!
The cold, deep magic of the full moon, like the last spring of sweet water, poured unreservedly and violently into Radagon's body, attempting to once again light a faint lamp of protection before the torrent of destruction! Yet, even so...
This resonance, fueled by life itself, was as dwarfed as a candle in the raging sea before the Elden Beast!
The golden barrier's light flickered for a brief moment after its infusion, then quickly dimmed and collapsed like a last ray of light! Rennala's infusion of magic was like a stone sinking into the ocean, instantly devoured by the relentless white light!
The chasm of power was despair itself. Radagon and Rennala's souls burned to the limit, their bodies trembling and transparent in the light.
They had given their all, their flames fading.
The remaining journey... could only be carried on... by those who survived...
"...No..." For the first time, Ranni's icy tone shifted dramatically.
"No..." Her voice was filled with the horror of a completely overturned understanding. She watched her father disintegrate into scattered specks of light, watched her mother transform her final life force into magic and infuse it into her father's body, watched the two figures clinging to each other, flickering like candles in the wind amidst the white light of destruction, only to be completely obliterated in the next moment...
The foundations of the world crumbled beneath her feet! Cold logic, grand ideals, the obsession with freedom... at this moment, crushed to pieces!
"No!!!!" A roar ripped through space.
Just as the all-annihilating silver-white torrent was about to completely engulf Radagon and Rennala, utterly wiping out the last traces of their existence—
Ranni's body moved!
No thought, no hesitation! Only an instinct, rooted in the deepest depths of her blood, transcending all calculations, all paths, and all sacrifices!
Her puppet form resolutely blocked her parents' path!
Using her scarred, tiny body, compared to the behemoth, she forcibly separated them from the extinguishing light!
"Stop! Ahhhhh!!!"
Magic power instantly condensed, compressed, and solidified before her! A magic circle instantly took shape!
Boom!
Silver-white light poured down upon the magic circle. The moment it touched, cracks began to appear on Ranni's puppet form, as if it would completely disintegrate in the next moment!
But—
She blocked it!
Ranni withstood the all-consuming torrent of light! Though it teetered on the brink of collapse, though it was riddled with cracks, though every second consumed Ranni's very being... she had truly given her parents, who were about to vanish, a glimmer of hope!
But at what cost?
The cost, naturally, was Ranni's own demise.
Feeling her body slowly disappear, Ranni felt she must be going mad. She, Ranni, the Moon Princess who had abandoned her divine identity, betrayed the Golden Rule, and planned for years, had actually thrown herself before others like the most foolish knight!
Her intellect screamed frantically: This was the most foolish sacrifice! It ran counter to her pursuit of the cold, transcendent path of freedom!
Her "brain" told her a thousand things not to do, but her "body"—the cold puppet that carried her will—had obeyed the desperate roar from deep within her soul before she could even think, and charged forward!
Should she run away?
It was impossible, right?
She was already standing in front of the torrent. How could she escape?
And...
She felt the two incredibly weak, heavy, panting pulses of souls behind her.
They were the fading embers of Radagon and the last remaining candle of Rennala. Father… Mother…
And then, a strange scene unfolded: Ranni's body shattered and disintegrated in the torrent of light, accelerating even faster, yet the magic circle blocking it only solidified.
She had made her choice. She had chosen to stand before her parents. She had chosen to face annihilation. Now that she had made her choice, Ranni would not flee!
Even if her body was shattered, even if her soul dissolved! This determination was fundamentally similar to her choice to abandon gold and reach for the stars—a single path to the end!
But…
An uncontrollable, cold shudder coiled around the core of her fading soul like a venomous snake.
As expected…she was still a little afraid…
This fear was so familiar. Just like that distant night, when the cold, cursed blade of the black blade pierced her "divine body," the excruciating pain that tore through her soul and burned her will instantly overwhelmed her!
It hurt.
It really hurt. She had never suffered any injury since birth, yet the first injury she endured was this painful.
And now... would she have to face it again? Face the pain that would tear apart her very existence?
... it was...terrifying.
This trembling, almost weak thought rose in Ranni's cold heart, so clear, so unfamiliar, yet so real.
But there was no way. Now she was the only one who could withstand the attack.
It had to be her.
Her arms vanished completely, fading into nothingness. Her legs dissipated completely.
The disintegration of her torso had spread to her chest...
The sounds behind her grew fainter.
She seemed to hear her parents calling something. Was it her name? A cry for her to leave? Or a farewell whisper?
She couldn't tell. All that remained was a continuous, shrill, maddening buzzing in her ears, as if the entire world were wailing.
Her consciousness began to fade, the magic circle could no longer hold, and the light threatened to engulf the three of them.
"...Am I going to experience that kind of pain again?"
"...I...really...don't want to die..."
The girl's final, most humble, most instinctive prayer echoed silently in the ruins of her soul.
It was the purest desire for survival.
The Silver Rule did not respond.
But a silver-white light, purer than the Silver Rule, blossomed in this space.
Just before she fainted, Ranni saw a figure. Silver-white light surrounded their master, a holy sword grasped in his hand.
——
——
A/N [Author Notes]:
The Lands Between? You are the challengers!
A brand new version of the Elden Ring!
The Silver Rule of the Elden Ring!
—You are a Tarnished!
A one-man army, you are believed by many, and they call you the War King!
Yes, you are the first Elden King—Godfrey!
You will enter the Lands Between to complete your induction. The bosses you'll soon face are:
1. Silver God - Lemuen
2. Silver King - Xiling
3. Dusk - Kevin
4. Complete - Radahn
5. Silver, Cursed Blood - Morgott
6. Max Intelligence - The Tarnished
7. The Wisdom of the Royal Capital Soldier.
New bosses will appear in subsequent updates.