Half-Form (SITO - 202)
·
4h
27
Here's today's chapter. I managed to post it earlier than planned, hope you enjoy it.
I won't drag this out too much—good night everyone, and happy reading!
[...]---[...]
After I spoke, Blaidd stared at me for a few moments before turning into a blur and charging straight at me.
I had to give the guy… dog? Dog-man? Was it racist to think like that?…
… I was getting sidetracked again.
I had to give Blaidd credit, though—he was fast. Not the fastest thing I had ever fought—that would be 'The Eye'. I also wasn't counting Hardy's attack here, since speed hadn't even been involved in that.
But he was solidly faster than General Pink by a pretty wide margin.
And that wasn't even mentioning the fact that his fucking sword had some weird kind of ice magic that cooled the surrounding area in a way extremely similar to the Ice Blade's ability.
Blaidd crossed the twenty meters between us almost instantly, flipping forward and driving the greatsword down in a thrust toward the ground.
Which, in this case, was where I happened to be. Judging by the angle of the strike, it was aimed directly at my heart.
I shifted my body to the side, dodging the blow by mere centimeters. The sword sank halfway into the ground with ease. Blaidd landed already pulling the blade upward, as if he had expected me to dodge.
Before he could continue, I moved one of the ribs that had melted into my right leg and shaped itself into a makeshift armor plate, then kicked the side of his body and sent him flying away.
I felt his armor bend beneath my foot, and a metallic crack echoed around us alongside another quieter one that definitely wasn't metal.
He was tough. I had put some force behind that kick, and even though I wasn't exactly in peak condition, only one of his ribs had cracked, from what I could see with the Transparent World.
Again, I had to give him credit: he didn't let go of the sword, which, the moment it came free from the ground, unleashed a freezing explosion that dropped the surrounding temperature several degrees below zero.
Not that it affected me. Between having the Demon Slayer Mark active and using Sun Breathing—which, now that I thought about it, might have been part of the reason he attacked me—and the fact that I had become absurdly resistant to cold a long time ago...
Especially with the Bone Helm on my face. And I still needed to fix that thing once I got my arm back…
... I want my arm back!
Blaidd twisted through the air in an animalistic motion and stabbed the sword into the ground, stopping his momentum while carving a straight trench through the earth with the blade. He rotated his body before planting both legs and his left hand on the ground, settling into a four-point stance while gripping the blade with his right hand.
The madness leaking out of him had grown even worse.
Before he could attack me again, I commanded three of the five blood ribs—the sixth still fused to my right leg—to fly toward him.
The first one, aimed at his head, he dodged by spinning sideways, his fur cloak whipping around him.
The second he struck aside with the greatsword, knocking it off course, while the third he blocked by rotating the blade, changing his grip, and raising the hilt upward, using it like an improvised shield as he took the impact head-on.
I could see his free palm—the fusion between hand and paw that wasn't holding the hilt—forcing the blade forward while the rib dragged him several dozen meters backward.
The moment the rib lost momentum, Blaidd twisted his body and struck it with the flat of the blade, sending it flying away.
Without wasting even a second—and without so much as turning his head toward me—he charged again with the same flipping motion.
Honestly, I could have killed him already.
Not that he was weak, far from it, but I had the simple trick of turning the blood ribs back into liquid by surprise and attacking his eyes, mouth, snout, or ears.
Even if it didn't kill him, it would at least hurt like hell.
Not to mention I still had a few items I could have used too. I was honestly itching to pull out the Ice Blade and see whose cold-based sword was stronger.
The problem was that I was only half insane, not completely.
The sane part of me made sure I noticed that the dark blue "path" that reeked of the moon—which I could see with Glimpse of Light in the Abyss—connecting Blaidd to his master was twisting every single time I seriously considered killing him.
The path stopped being just a "connection" between Blaidd and whoever was on the other side and started becoming a "possibility" for something that was turning "dangerous" the moment Blaidd died.
And by dangerous, I meant genuinely dangerous. The kind of thing my spirituality was telling me could beat the absolute shit out of me in my current state.
So I was a little hesitant to turn him into a rug.
Especially because the "connection" between Blaidd and his master had given a slight tug, which more or less meant she was getting closer.
Or something like that. She both was and wasn't getting closer. It was confusing.
That probably should have triggered some warning bells in my head, but it didn't. Maybe it was the strokes. Still, I could "read" that her approach represented an "opportunity."
It wasn't inherently good or bad—just an "opportunity" I could potentially exploit. "Seeing" and "reading" anything beyond that was currently beyond me, both because of my injuries and because of my low Sequence.
... Using powers from Klein's world was confusing as fuck.
While I analyzed my options, Blaidd was already on top of me again. Literally above me this time, trying to impale me. Right behind him, the three blood ribs I had sent flying earlier were already returning.
I noticed from the movement of his ears that he had actually heard them approaching, yet he made no move to stop attacking and defend himself.
Did he want to kill me even if it cost him his own life? Or did he think that if he killed me before the ribs reached him, they would stop?
Judging by the insanity in his eyes, I doubted it was the second option.
Honestly, I doubted he was capable of thinking at all right now. Which was honestly impressive considering the way he moved and fought. All of it was pure instinct, yet there was still a frightening level of mastery behind the madness.
This time I didn't dodge. I simply raised my right hand and struck the flat of the sword with the back of it, knocking the attack aside and driving the blade into the ground.
This time, Blaidd didn't even try to pull it back out. He lunged forward with his body, aiming to bite my throat.
I made the black hand from the Bone Helm—the one serving as my right hand—grow a few extra centimeters and grabbed his snout, forcing his jaws shut before slamming his body into the ground.
… I wanted to joke and say "bad dog," but I felt like someone in the stream would turn that into something sexual, so I decided against it.
And it would probably be racist too. I already had way too many accusations like that hanging over my head lately.
I moved all six blood ribs at once. Four of them partially melted and twisted, curving around Blaidd's wrists and ankles to pin him to the ground.
One of them melted completely and latched onto his back, forcing him down harder.
The last one shot toward the magic coming from my left side: what looked like several blue swords made from what I could only describe as one of the purest forms of mana I had ever seen.
The energy was so overwhelming I could barely classify it as mana at all.
It felt far closer to the Ether contained within the divinity of the angel feather godhood I had eaten—and the divinity of Remnant's God of Light—than anything truly mundane.
The sixth rib exploded into five smaller fragments and collided head-on with the five blue swords. The impact froze the blood on contact, bursting into a crimson frost mist.
I watched Blaidd struggle, trying to rise.
Keeping my right hand—made from the Bone Helm's shadows—firmly pressed over his snout to pin him to the ground, I turned toward the person who had somehow appeared there, halfway up the hill, several meters above me...
Walking slowly with tiny steps was a doll.
And I didn't mean that because the woman was doll-like beautiful. She was literally a doll.
Her skin was pale blue porcelain, her joints connected by thick visible cords around her wrists and neck. She wore a pale dress beneath a white cloak with a massive fur collar. On her head rested an absurdly oversized witch hat that cast a heavy shadow over her face.
One of the easiest things to notice was that she had four arms.
The lower pair hung loosely at her sides. Of the upper pair, one hand rested over her chest while the other held a small bronze bell.
On her face, the doll's left eye glowed blue while the right remained closed and marked by a dark seal. A second face, purely spectral, overlapped the physical one, floating out of sync, with the positions of the eyes reversed: only the specter's right eye was open.
But out of everything, I didn't even feel like joking about her being barefoot and how that almost confirmed this world really was that guy's game. What caught my attention the most was the sensation leaking from her entire existence.
I could taste it on my tongue, smell it in the air, see it with my single eye, feel it against my skin, hear it in the insane whispers.
Moon… Cosmos… Divinity…
… A being whose divinity was aligned with the moon!
I took a deep breath. Everything around me turned orange.
I took a step and reappeared directly in front of the doll, staring down at her.
I barely managed to stop myself from attacking her. I didn't even know whether the sane part of me stopped the insane one, or the other way around.
"Please…" I practically begged. "Tell me you're my enemy."
[…]
POV: Third person.
The ominous feeling gnawing at Ranni only deepened as the minutes passed while she sat amidst the ruins of the Church of Elleh.
Looking up at the night sky above, she felt that something was wrong.
It is as though I sense the coming of a great predator from afar. I stand in stillness whilst some dreadful thing draweth ever nearer… and yet, even knowing this, I find myself unwilling to depart.
Why is it I feel thus?... Could that comet, which bore forth humanity, truly be the source of this ill portent?...
Her gaze drifted then unto the distant horizon — toward the place where the comet had fallen.
And that is not the whole of it… I feel as though I stand upon the precipice of loss should I remain here. Something precious already within my grasp… and the promise of a future yet precious to me still.
The stars I hold so dear feel as though they stand upon the verge of being rent from the heavens themselves… swallowed whole should I fail to stir.
The Church of Elleh remained silent beneath the night.
Surrounded by the dense trees of Limgrave, the place was dimly illuminated by the dying remnants of a campfire and the distant, oppressive glow of the Erdtree.
The cold air carried the scent of damp moss and wet stone.
Ranni's doubts and thoughts lingered for several more minutes, her indecision forcing her to remain still. Then, suddenly, she felt a sharp pain tighten within her chest.
Her doll body had no heart, and yet she felt it ache.
Mine own dear shadow standeth upon the brink of peril… consumed wholly by madness.
Hesitating no longer, she closed her eyes and focused, honing in on the sensation she felt — the bond that existed between herself and Blaidd.
She needed to be swift.
Using more power than she ought to have spent, she located where her beloved brother and shadow was.
With a soft dark-blue glow reminiscent of moonlight, the body seated within the ruins of the Church of Elleh vanished as though it had never existed, leaving not even the faintest trace behind.
Kilometers away, upon Stormhill, the winds howled violently and without cease, tearing through the tall grass and curling around the massive fragments of ruins scattered along the slope.
The delicate body of the doll reformed in particles of starlight, her projection rapidly taking shape mere meters away from where the battle raged.
Before Ranni, she could see Blaidd forced to the ground, treated like a stray hound rather than her most loyal, courageous, and mighty companion, by what appeared to be death itself given form.
Ranni had witnessed true death — Destined Death — within her physical body. She knew well the terror it inspired; it was something she was certain she would never forget for as long as she endured.
To gaze upon the figure cloaked in shadows, pale skin covered in symbols, markings, and blood-red veins, with its right eye glowing orange, brought her that very same sensation.
Her projection moved without her consent, spending the little magic sustaining her manifestation there in a strike of Carian Phalanx.
Five magical swords of blue energy materialized in the air and fired forth.
It was not even meant to harm the figure — she knew it would not — but merely to seize its attention and grant Blaidd time to flee.
She herself was not there in physical form. Her shadow was.
Ranni was not surprised when one of the six massive ribs forged from thousands of liters of condensed blood shot toward her sorcery. The impact halted it effortlessly, creating an explosion of crimson frost and shattered magic in the air.
Then that lone orange eye turned toward her.
Ranni had seen madness in the eyes of countless men, women, and creatures. She had seen insanity within the eyes of hundreds of Tarnished who lost themselves in their pursuit of the Elden Ring.
But all of them — every last one — paled in comparison to the madness, insanity, and hunger she saw within that gaze the moment the entirely orange eye focused upon her projection.
Ranni did not blink, yet even so, the figure appeared before her body, staring down at her.
It was a man. Large, yet smaller than her shadow, and nowhere near comparable to the other warriors she had seen, much less her demigod brothers and sisters.
She herself had once been taller whilst she still possessed her true body rather than inhabiting that doll form crafted in the image and honor of her mentor.
Ranni had seen Queen Marika the Eternal up close, had witnessed what true raw power was, and the figure before her, when compared to the Goddess, fell short.
And yet, even before Queen Marika, she had never felt so small.
"Please…" The figure leaking humanity and madness suddenly seemed almost sane as it nearly pleaded. "Tell me you're my enemy."
Ranni raised her gaze, staring directly into that single orange eye.
The human's face, though partially obscured by the gray bone mask covering the left side of it, was strangely ordinary.
Neither handsome nor ugly. Simply ordinary. Ranni felt that he truly was nothing more than a simple man.
Yet the illusion shattered the moment she looked upon the human's forehead.
The mark upon it filled her with revulsion.
Some part of that being filled her with instinctive hatred and disgust merely by existing as it did. And that, Ranni could not understand. Yet she partially recognized the feeling.
Something within her twisted.
"Tell me… thou human born beyond the stars." She spoke in a low tone that echoed through the surroundings beneath the hill winds. "Why is it that I am compelled to loathe thee, and recoil in revulsion, even whilst mine own reason telleth me I ought not?"
The human answered her question with nothing but a smile.
A crooked, delirious smile that revealed his teeth. Two rows of unnaturally white and impossibly symmetrical teeth, marked by small and strangely straight golden lines along their surface, with pointed canines among them.
Leaking from his lips with every simple breath, an orange mist spread throughout the surroundings.
Ranni understood more than any spoken answer could ever have made her understand.
"Thy kind… the mankind from whence thou camest," she spoke, her cold tone cutting through the raging wind, "is undeniably unlike that which I have known. Or art thou merely an exception?"
The hand holding the Spirit Calling Bell tightened slightly around the bronze metal.
Blaidd moveth not.
Mine own dear shadow is possessed of keen wit. He would surely know that I stand not in danger, and that mine appearance here served only to grant him time to flee. And yet… he remaineth upon the ground, writhing in madness.
I can feel the insanity spilling forth from his mind… Would the Lone Wolves bound unto the bell be capable of fleeing alongside him ere it is too late?...
"What hast thou done unto my shadow?" Both faces — the doll's and the spectral visage overlaid upon it — stared at the human. "Speak, thou human from beyond the stars."
The human's mad smile diminished considerably, a strange calmness and sanity abruptly returning to his expression.
The smile upon his face shifted into something serene, almost pure, touching only the corners of his lips. The orange glow of his single eye receded slightly.
"Would you believe me if I said I did nothing? That I genuinely tried to resolve everything without violence, and that your companion simply lost his mind for reasons even I don't understand just from being near me and attacked me?"
His voice was rough and worn. Yet, emptied of the madness from before, it sounded gentle in some strange manner.
Such abrupt shifting of disposition… It is as though two beings inhabit a single vessel, and yet… I sense not two souls within him…
Regardless… the man is plainly bereft of reason.
The savage winds of Stormhill howled without cease, forcing Ranni's heavy snow-white cloak to lash violently through the air while her great witch's hat fluttered restlessly.
As for the human, only the gray hair reaching his shoulders swayed naturally with the wind.
His clothing, formed entirely from dense shadows, shifted and writhed against the direction of the wind in an unnatural and profane manner.
And upon the ring finger of his left hand, a single golden "strand of hair" remained rigidly inclined toward the Erdtree, utterly unmoved even amidst the storm.
The witch had noticed the "strand of hair" emanating Queen Marika's presence from the very moment she arrived. Yet she had greater priorities.
Ranni crossed the lower pair of her four arms. Truthfully, she believed the words of the human before her.
She was neither naive nor foolish.
And yet, she believed him.
Undeniably, she felt that if she asked politely and did not strike first, he would answer truthfully and no battle would occur.
Such overwhelming power… such lethal and ruinous abnormality, all contained within a vessel bound by curiously twisted courtesies. In certain regards, it would put even nobles to shame…
Nor doth it appear mere falsehood or performance…
Within Ranni's thoughts, golden hair flashed briefly. She had to restrain the urge to openly mock the absurdity of it all.
A moral-bound monster?... Ah, of course it would be something akin unto this…
It was like speaking to calamity itself and watching it courteously offer her a bargain.
Interrupting her thoughts, the figure spoke once more, his serene tone and faint smile unchanged.
He placed his left hand upon his chest while the shadows composing his cloak coiled around his fingers.
"As for your previous question, witch who carries the scent of the moon, my kind is simply what it is. I do not know the humans of this world, yet humanity will always be nothing more than what humanity is."
He smiled softly.
"I am nothing more than the average of all men, neither exceptional nor inferior. Just a simple human bearing the name Devas."
Ranni felt an icy shiver run through her artificial body.
I feel this is truth, and yet not wholly so…
It is his truth. That which he believes with utter sincerity. A being truly mad and terrifying. Yet if this is truly the truth of the place from whence he came… perhaps that is even worse…
The notion that the being before her might be ordinary among his own kind was perhaps one of — if not the single most — horrifying thoughts Ranni had ever conceived.
"I see…" she finally said. "I am not thine enemy, human named Devas."
After Ranni's words, the human stared at her silently for several long seconds.
Just as Ranni thought her projection would be attacked and was preparing to spend everything she had in an attempt to save Blaidd, the orange-eyed human took a step back.
A sound escaped his throat, something between a weary sigh and a frustrated growl.
"Tell me, witch who carries the scent of the moon, do you not hate me? Are you not disgusted?" he asked, turning his gaze toward the far north. "The last being connected to the moon certainly did, as did the one who carried divinity within herself."
His gaze seemed to stretch endlessly, crossing the borders of Limgrave and staring directly toward the distant lands of Liurnia, where Ranni's "true" body rested hidden within her tower.
"Or perhaps, because this is only a projection of yourself, you are not affected as strongly? The distance is vast, after all."
Ranni blinked.
She almost felt the urge to smell herself despite knowing she inhabited nothing more than a magical projection. It was the second time the human had claimed she reeked.
"How long hast thou known that I was not truly present here in mine own person?" she asked carefully.
"Since the very first second," he stated simply. "My eye can see many things, witch. Including your illusions."
He raised the stump of his right arm.
The frozen blood still floating around him, strangely unaffected by Stormhill's violent winds, gathered together. The mass spun through the air and formed a crude hand of crimson blood marred with solid patches of ice.
From its blood-formed index finger, two small arrows emerged.
They fired forth in a swift curve, leaving trails of floating droplets in the air that fell unnaturally slowly, like tears shed by space itself.
Then they collided with empty air.
The very instant of impact shattered the camouflage. Two gray-furred Lone Wolves emerged from nothingness, frozen mid-crawl as they stealthily attempted to reach Blaidd.
Neither beast was destroyed by the blood.
Upon striking them, the arrows melted and reshaped into heavy collars that swiftly linked themselves to the suspended blood droplets in the air, forming rigid chains which the human grasped and lightly tugged, causing the wolves to stumble.
The human extended the blood-crafted hand, opening it to offer the scarlet chains to Ranni.
"I imagine these belong to you."
Ranni gave no answer. She merely frowned faintly upon her spectral face and dispelled the summon.
The wolves let out low howls before dissolving into particles of ash and pale light, vanishing into the hill's raging winds. With nothing left to hold, the chains unraveled, and the human pulled the blood back into the hand of crimson.
She stared at the bloody appendage for a moment.
Such exquisitely refined manipulation of blood… and yet, I sense neither sorcery, nor incantation, nor ritual at work. It is as though the blood obeyeth him of its own accord, merely because it desireth so.
The same holdeth true for the shadows which form his mantle… Something deeply obscure lieth within them, and yet they remain utterly restrained and obedient.
Her eyes drifted upward.
But that curious mark akin unto a sun… and the lines etched upon his teeth…
"Hatred and disgust are not the proper words," she finally replied.
"But I do feel an unnatural antipathy toward thee, one which I know springeth not wholly from mine own self. Once before have I known the sensation of another thing guiding my fate and the course of my steps. What I feel toward thee, by comparison, is simple enough to resist through reason ere I act."
The human stared at her with a slightly impressed look, as though witnessing something rare.
"And thou?" she asked. "I can sense thy hatred, and thy madness besides. We have never once crossed paths. For what reason dost thou bear such profound animosity?"
"Is being attacked by your shadow not reason enough?" The question carried a trace of amusement.
Ranni's doll-like expression did not change.
"Blaidd yet liveth, and still do we speak calmly one unto the other, so nay." Her spectral face tilted slightly to the side, followed shortly after by the doll's head itself.
She thought for a moment before offering a faint, restrained smile through her spectral visage.
"Thy blood and the very air thou drawest offend me. The teeth within thy hungry mouth appear as though they yearn for flesh this body doth not possess. The warmth of the sun thou bearest upon thy brow standeth opposed to the cold of the moon. Such hatred… is something innate within thee, is it not?"
The "silence" of the wind reigned between them for a brief second after Ranni's words.
Then the human's laughter cut through the storm.
It was a genuinely ordinary laugh — loud and amused — echoing throughout the bloodstained ruins. The crushing tension that had weighed upon the surroundings, oppressive and nearly lethal, strangely seemed to vanish entirely in that moment.
Ranni nearly jolted backward in surprise.
"What is it thou findest so amusing?" she asked, the brow of her spectral face furrowing as she struggled to comprehend the abrupt breach of expectation. "I spake no jest."
The human shook his head, the smile still alive upon his lips.
"In my homeland, you would probably be dearly loved by many. I'd wager you would become the favorite of countless people. I know the last doll connected to the moon certainly was…"
Ranni's expression became visibly confused.
Without explaining himself, the human's expression turned serious once more, though not hostile, and still carrying that faint smile.
"No," he denied her earlier assumption. "My species has no predisposition toward such things in that way. All of this is me, and always has been me. Not something innate, but choices."
He briefly turned his gaze toward the night sky before continuing:
"We are this — the accumulation of everything we choose, of every success and every mistake. It is those choices that shape what we become and give meaning to our path. No matter the species."
He did not wait for a philosophical answer before continuing.
"Then choose, witch—"
"Ranni," she interrupted him firmly. "Ranni. That is mine name."
His smile widened, far from irritated by the interruption.
"Ranni…" He repeated the name softly. "Your shadow… I can save him. Choose whether you want that. If not, I will continue on my journey."
Ranni's artificial eyes widened slightly in genuine surprise, her icy composure faltering for a fraction of a second.
Why would he offer such a thing, especially after all that hath transpired?...
Of course, Ranni wished to accept. Blaidd did not appear well, and no matter how confident she was in her knowledge and sorceries, that madness seemed... strange to her.
Yet she was no fool.
A miraculous offer from a being embodying such calamity would never come freely. And there was a saying Iji often spoke that she remembered well:
Things freely given are almost always those which cost the most…
"What price must I pay?" Ranni asked coldly.
Upon hearing the expected question, the human hummed quietly to himself.
It was a deep and rough sound, more akin to the wet friction of cracked bones scraping together within a ruined throat.
After a few seconds, he spoke:
"Knowledge. That is the price."
He gestured to the side with his blood-formed right hand.
"Of this world. Of its magic. And, if I have the time, of its history. That is the price I ask to save your shadow."
Then he extended his hand with a soft, gentle smile, the blood-formed fingers spread open and dripping slowly in an unnatural manner, like heavy tears suspended in the air.
Slowly, a single drop of blood fell.
'Drip...'
"Dost thou accept this accord... Ranni?"
'... Drop.'
[...]---[...]
I switched the POV to third person in Ranni's section, because writing a whole chapter in first person with the kind of English style Ranni and the Elden Ring cast use would melt my brain.
Still, I'm not completely sure I nailed the tone. Let me know if you spot any mistakes or anything like that, sorry about it.
As for why things didn't explode, it's because Devas is still himself. Even if he's insane.
Ranni also isn't an idiot or someone driven purely by emotion. Her entire character is actually built around that, as explained in the lore.
Even though, for all intents and purposes, that conversation should have been like a being made of fire talking to one made of gasoline, it didn't explode or anything like that. Devas' "passives" aren't absolute, and can easily be ignored if both sides allow it. In Hardy's case, it was that she had a predisposition to look down on and "hate" mortals.
Depending on the personality of the god/divine being/moon-aligned creature—or whatever alignment that being has that makes them dislike Devas (there are many)—the reaction will be different.
And with that, Ranni comes into play. Other characters should appear in the next chapter.
Ah, and no, I didn't nerf Blaidd. It's just that against Devas at this point, you either have to fight the way he fights to stand a chance, or completely suppress him using something else.
Well, I think that's it. I'm going to sleep now since I spent the night working and writing. It's currently 5:51, and I finally finished the company work I had to do. Now it's time to enjoy my Sunday.
Good night everyone, and happy reading!
PS: I got my NP6 Draco with 910 SQ. Happiness or happiness?
Edit: 900 SQ + 10 tickets. Sorry, I'm sleepy and only noticed the mistake afterwards.