Name, gender, patient ID, department, QR code... and finally, the admission date. It was the very year before he had transmigrated to the Lands Between.
A young nurse hurried into the room, pushing the door open and letting out a startled cry. "You're awake?"
"What year is it? Twenty-twenty what?"
"Wait, you can't move around right now—"
"I asked you for today's date!"
The nurse took a frightened step back and whispered the date.
Has it been nearly four years? Raven thought blankly. The wide sleeve of his patient gown slipped down, revealing a pale, spindly arm underneath. He gripped the bed rail, trying to roll out of bed, but his body lacked even a shred of strength.
He looked at the hand clutching the rail. The skin was loose, and the veins bulged—likely a lingering side-effect of the long-term IV cannulas. This hand should have been radiant with vitality, capable of crushing the metal rail like modeling clay. Now, it resembled a lifeless, withered branch.
Raven rubbed his temples with his other hand, remaining silent.
"Please lie down. You're still very weak," the nurse said, pressing the call button on the wall to summon other staff. "Don't do anything dangerous."
Raven did not argue with her. A few minutes later, the attending physician arrived, marveling at his recovery. What followed was a series of medical tests and rehabilitation exercises. He cooperated with everything. By the time he received his discharge papers, more than half a month had passed.
Leaving the hospital gates, he didn't call a taxi. Instead, he walked with weak steps along the road, scanning the heavy traffic with the eyes of a bystander. He entered an internet cafe, used the little money in his pocket to rent a private booth, logged into his Steam account, downloaded Elden Ring, and double-clicked to open it.
The character he had created in the past was still saved in the cloud. He clicked it. Raven's face appeared on the screen—Raven of Caria.
They stared at each other in silence, like a man looking at himself in a mirror. After a long while, Raven spoke. "I am Raven."
He clicked "Load Game." The progress bar stopped just a fraction before being full. The screen suddenly went pitch black, reflecting his face clearly. After several minutes of black screen, it jumped back to the character creation interface, and the face reflected on the screen was once again covered by the digital Raven of Caria.
It was only natural. Before transmigrating, he hadn't actually had time to enter the game. He knew almost nothing of the game's actual content; in this dream, he couldn't simply conjure it out of thin air.
"Enough." Raven let out a breath and leaned back into his chair, chaotic starlight flickering in his eyes. Countless cracks suddenly bloomed across the computer screen, shattering the face of the digital Raven into fragments. The computer, the booth, everything dissolved into a hazy starlight.
The next moment, he was back atop the Nokstella bell tower. Nothing had changed, yet it felt as if everything had.
"Traveler from beyond, you are not as fearless as you pretend to be."
"I fear loss, for I have gained too much. I was cast into this world by your god, and I stole a body, power, and a family that should never have belonged to me. I have exhausted myself trying to play the part of a Carian prince. All my arrogance comes from my inferiority; all my heroism comes from the weakness in my heart; and all my grand speeches are because I am filled with doubt. Does that answer satisfy you?"
With that, Raven drew the Sword of Night and Flame with a sharp clank.
"Tell me, what does your god want me to do? I am but a weak mortal. But if your god is just another Greater Will, seeking to use me to control Caria and this world, I will never let Him have His way!"
"Even if your true identity is exposed to your family, leaving you utterly alone? Even if you are banished back to your original world?" the black sphere asked.
"Even so," Raven said with some difficulty. He raised his sword toward the sphere, his arm not wavering in the slightest. "Even so."
"You will not be alone," someone said.
The voice came from Raven's own person. He froze, then retrieved the doll Ranni had given him from his pocket.
"Ranni?"
"Call me 'Sister'!" The little doll pushed up the brim of her hat and smoothed her hair, which had been ruffled in his pocket. "I have heard the preceding conversation. Raven, no matter where you originated, you were born as a member of the Carian Royal Family. You are the brother I have acknowledged. That will not change for any reason."
"Sister..." Raven took a deep breath, as if a massive weight had been lifted from his shoulders. "I—"
"Furthermore, you are never to stuff me into a pocket again! It is the height of rudeness! It is cramped and dark; one cannot even stretch their legs, and when you move, several Golden Runes keep knocking against my head!" The little doll continued her tirade in her low, pleasant voice, giving Raven no room to interject.
"...Understood." The emotions he had been brewing for so long were choked back into his throat. Raven didn't know whether to laugh or cry. He looked over himself and finally placed the doll on his shoulder. "Is it alright if I put you here? Hold on tight."
The doll waved her arms, using glintstone magic to fuse her dress to Raven's clothes. "I shall be asleep most of the time, but this way I needn't worry about falling off."
The black sphere had not interrupted his exchange with Ranni. Only now did it speak. "You have misunderstood one point. That great existence is not 'my god.' I serve the Night, not Him. Nor does He require any mortal service."
"He deliberately replaced the object of faith for the Uhl Dynasty," Raven frowned. "As I see it, He seems quite eager to spread His worship."
"Replaced? No. That was merely because the sanity of mortals is too fragile; they were influenced by the murmurs in His dreams. I do not know who is more powerful, Him or the Greater Will, but they share one common trait: neither has ever truly paid attention to the Lands Between."
"No attention? The Greater Will sent the Erdtree here and cast down the Astels—"
Raven cut himself off. To say more would be to reopen the scars of the Eternal City's destruction.
"You do not understand. That was merely... an automated program. The worlds into which the Greater Will has cast Erdtrees are countless. What the Two Fingers call 'contact' with the Greater Will is merely compressing information and sending it to some node in the depths of the universe. Our creation of a god-slaying weapon, which triggered the fall of the Astels, was merely the Erdtree system's automated erasure protocol. Of course, even that much was enough for us to be proud."
Raven's expression flickered as he gained a new realization of the Greater Will's power.
"So, the King in Yellow, the Lord of the Stars and the Deep Sky... He hasn't actually paid attention to me either?"
"No. He noticed you for a single heartbeat—the moment you descended into the Lands Between. That caused a massive impact on this world, the ripples of which even traveled back along the timeline. Certain individuals with strong mentalities who could perceive this influence, such as the kings of the ancient dynasties, have been mired in nightmares ever since, with whispers eternally ringing in their ears.
"We, the Night Maidens, also heard the whispers. Fortunately, the walls of our sanity were sturdy enough; we did not fall into madness. Instead, we gleaned bits of forbidden knowledge from them. It is that very knowledge that allowed the people of the Nox to preserve a glimmer of hope for survival."
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Elden Ring: The Unborn One's Journey Through Elden Ring(258 Chapter - Ongoing)
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