Lucian pushed open the doors of Cathedral of Manus Metyr and stepped outside, feeling refreshed from head to toe.
He glanced back at Ymir, still seated inside the dim cathedral, and at Jolan, who continued to regard him with open hostility. Only then did Lucian turn around and leave along the path.
Just now, Lucian had learned all of the sorceries Ymir was willing to demonstrate.
Of course, in reality, he had only learned two Finger sorceries.
Ymir had also been willing to teach Lucian other sorceries, including Comet and Miriam's Vanishing.
But when Lucian thought about how he would soon be going to find Ranni and could learn those spells directly from her, he decided to learn only the most unique Finger sorceries.
There was no denying that Ymir's Finger sorceries had their own distinctive qualities.
Judging purely by power, Glintstone Nails was actually not particularly strong.
But it was incredibly useful.
Not only could it be used effectively in all kinds of situations, it could also serve as a specialized countermeasure under certain circumstances.
Thinking back on the lesson just now, Lucian still felt that the whole thing was somewhat difficult to process.
Because that lesson...
Had been inexplicably normal.
Far too normal.
The two of them had simply acted as though nothing had happened, exchanging sorcery knowledge in a friendly manner while learning Glintstone Nails.
Ymir did not merely possess the aura of a male mother.
He really did have the patience of a mother as well.
That had slightly shattered some of Lucian's prejudice toward him.
He had genuinely experienced Ymir's broad and generous "love."
If the Lands Between had a profession like kindergarten teacher, Ymir might even have made a name for himself.
Unfortunately, let alone the completely sealed-off Land of Shadow, there were not even many living people left in the Lands Between.
Only after traveling far enough away did Lucian finally put away all his sorcerer attire and remove the Glintstone helm.
With his disguise removed and his original appearance restored, it was time to return to the things he actually needed to do.
Lucian floated into the air and once again flew toward the direction of Shadow Keep, preparing to return to the Lands Between and head up to the Altus Plateau.
After defeating the Magma Wyrm last time, Lucian had already activated the Site of Grace leading toward the plateau, so he could travel there at any time.
However, he would still have to return to Shadow Keep later to pick up Melina, so it would be inconvenient to simply use the Sites of Grace for fast travel.
Fortunately, that road had already been completely cleared and was unobstructed.
Even Melina, who had not yet activated the Site of Grace there, would have no trouble traveling along it.
At the same time, Lucian began wondering whether he should bring some people back with him this time.
He had brought quite a few people over here.
Should he take some of them back?
Melina would definitely be returning.
She had wanted to go back to the Altus Plateau for quite some time now.
However, the medical personnel he had brought over might need to remain here for a while longer.
They needed to take care of the Shamans until they were capable of living normally again, and the subsequent reconstruction of Shaman Village might also require their assistance.
Once all of that was finished, whether they chose to remain in Shadow Keep or return to Stormveil was entirely up to them.
As for Hildegard, she had already told Lucian that she wanted to explore the Land of Shadow for a while.
Lucian thought about it.
It seemed that he only needed to ask Irina and Liliana what they thought.
Perhaps...
Should he ask his brother-in-law whether he wanted to go take a look around the Lands Between?
If Messmer wanted to go, Lucian could even take him on a little incognito visit.
There was also the mysterious "Twin Moon Knight," Rellana.
Lucian still had not met her in person.
As a former Carian princess, who knew whether she might want to return home for a visit?
If there were enough people, Lucian could practically organize a sightseeing tour and bring everyone back together.
Thinking about the Twin Moon Knight, Rellana, Lucian suddenly felt a little headache coming on.
Rellana was Messmer's partner, but at the same time, she was also Ranni's aunt...
Going back and forth through those relationships, there was an entire generation between them.
If he and Ranni eventually became an official couple, should he call Aunt Rellana along with Ranni?
Or should he follow the relationship on Melina's side and call her his sister-in-law?
And if he also took into account Marika and Radagon's relationship as halves of the same being, as well as Radagon's relationship with Rennala as partners...
No matter how he looked at it, the relationships here were simply far too tangled.
Melina and Ranni could even be considered true half-sisters despite having neither the same father nor the same mother.
Lucian had joked before about the massive family soap opera in the Lands Between.
He just had not expected that he would now find himself caught in the middle of it.
While letting his thoughts run wild, Lucian continued flying at high speed.
However, just then, a notification sound suddenly rang out in his mind.
Lucian was extremely familiar with this sound.
And every time he heard it, he became incredibly excited.
Because this was the sound that appeared whenever an achievement was completed.
In other words, it was the sound announcing that his Wind Spirit Moon Shadow counter had increased again.
Only this time, the sound he had once eagerly awaited brought Lucian nothing but confusion.
He hadn't even done anything yet?!
Looking back over his actions just now, Lucian was completely baffled.
Even if Ymir was some kind of boss, the achievement should not suddenly trigger halfway through his journey after he had already left.
The visible achievements had nothing to do with the Land of Shadow, while a hidden achievement was even less likely.
Lucian stopped in midair and instead shifted his consciousness into his panel.
After figuring out the truth, Lucian rubbed his chin, his expression rather strange.
Among the achievements arranged in a row, another one had indeed lit up.
And the newly completed achievement was...
[Ancestral Spirit]
"Ancestral Spirit...?"
Ancestral Spirits were very strange forms of life.
They were born from death and gained power from it, existing beyond the constraints of the Golden Order.
At the same time, Ancestral Spirits were also objects of worship, revered by the inhabitants of the underground.
But Ancestral Spirits did not constantly roam the Lands Between.
They required human intervention to be revived.
Lucian knew how to revive an Ancestral Spirit.
He simply had never bothered to do so.
After all, in Lucian's eyes, Ancestral Spirits were not particularly strong.
They could not even be considered enemies.
Lucian had always regarded Ancestral Spirits as nothing more than mobile achievements, walking sources of achievement-count increases that he could harvest whenever he felt like it.
Even an Ancestral Spirit strengthened by the God of Rot and transformed into a vessel had already been killed by Lucian.
An ordinary Ancestral Spirit was even less worth mentioning.
So even if he simply left them alone, nothing would happen.
Lucian had never bothered dealing with them.
Perhaps he would only go harvest one when his Wind Spirit Moon Shadow counter was getting close to running out.
"But why?"
Lucian was currently in the Land of Shadow.
He had not done anything.
Therefore, the only possibility was that someone else had defeated an Ancestral Spirit, and the achievement had ultimately been credited to him.
Lucian suddenly remembered those previous achievements involving subjugation or peaceful resolution.
Including the Red Wolf of Radagon, his mother-in-law Rennala, the Dragonkin Soldier in Nokstella, and the other cases.
Could it be that the criteria for completing achievements were much more lenient than he had imagined?
Could they even be triggered without him personally taking action?
After thinking about it, Lucian suddenly felt relieved.
If it really had been done by one of the forces under his command, then what was wrong with that?
When you made your way in this world, your forces were naturally part of your strength as well.
What Lucian was more curious about now was who exactly had defeated the Ancestral Spirit.
And he had not even given an order.
Although Ancestral Spirits were relatively weak among all the achievement bosses, they were not some common elite monster that could be found wandering by the roadside.
Their upper limit was quite high.
There was even the existence known as the Regal Ancestral Spirit.
And their lower limit was not low either, with ordinary Ancestral Spirits starting out at the level of top-tier heroes.
The status of the Regal Ancestral Spirit was probably similar to that of the Twinbird, the mother of the Deathbirds.
Perhaps it was an emissary of some Outer God, or the embodiment of some kind of law.
It wielded part of the power governing the cycle of life, death, and reincarnation, so it was undoubtedly a formidable enemy.
After all, even under the transformation of the God of Rot, an Ancestral Spirit that had become a vessel of rot had only reached the peak of the demigod level.
As for ordinary Ancestral Spirits, they were probably around the level that a top-tier hero could defeat.
The stronger ones could even touch the threshold of the demigod level.
Even Godrick could probably beat one.
Of course, to Lucian now, dealing with one would be effortless.
But among the people under his command, there were very few who could accomplish such a feat.
And as far as Lucian knew, none of them seemed to have any particular reason to do it.
'Or was it an army that surrounded and attacked it?'
But without Lucian's personal order, the army could not possibly have been deployed.
After thinking about it from every angle, Lucian eventually shook his head.
Whatever.
He would be returning to Stormveil soon.
He could just see the result when he got there.
——
Some time earlier, an anomaly had occurred in the underground world of the Lands Between.
Deep beneath Limgrave, in the Worshipper's Woods, large numbers of Ancestral Spirit People were prostrating themselves before an altar, bowing in worship.
At the center of that altar was the enormous remains of a beast. After countless years, its corpse had long since dried into something resembling a mummy.
Its abdomen had been cut open, with all of its internal organs removed, leaving behind only flesh, bones, and those enormous horns.
Judging from its appearance, the thing could not possibly have been any more dead.
However, at that very moment, a faint blue-green aura began to rise from the great horns of the enormous beast's corpse.
The Ancestral Followers prostrated themselves in worship, while the priests held the skulls of young Ancestral Spirits in their hands and scattered mist of souls through the air.
As the priests sprinkled the sacred water over the corpse, the shriveled remains gradually became fuller, and vitality continued to fill the body.
And all of these abnormalities were being observed by the Tarnished.
Two Tarnished each held a telescope in their hands, standing behind the remains of some distant ruins as they watched the movements of the Ancestral Followers.
Even though the Ancestral Followers had remarkably good eyesight and could fire an arrow at someone from more than eight hundred meters away, they were still at a disadvantage when faced with technology like telescopes.
The two Tarnished lowered their telescopes and looked at each other in silence.
Then, after a moment, they raised their telescopes again and continued watching.
After a while, the lightly dressed Tarnished spoke first.
"Those braziers were lit by the Ancestral Followers themselves."
"They used to stop us whenever we tried to light them before…"
"Something isn't right…"
The heavily armored Tarnished beside him lowered his telescope and sighed helplessly.
"Obviously. I could already see the green light over that corpse's head without a telescope. They're definitely plotting something."
"Then what should we do?"
"What else can we do? It's pretty obvious this isn't something we can handle. Call for backup."
"True… I'll report this to Stormveil first. You keep watching."
The Tarnished who had spoken first put away his telescope and quietly retreated. Once he reached a safe location, he raised an arm and made a particular signal toward the sky.
At his gesture, a Stormhawk rapidly dove down from above and landed in front of him.
After writing down the information in the army's coded language, the Tarnished tied the message to the Stormhawk's talons.
The Stormhawk would immediately carry the intelligence back to Stormveil Castle. All they had to do now was wait for orders from above or for reinforcements to arrive.
Ever since Lucian's underground exploration operation had come to an end, the steady stream of Tarnished had already departed to search for other suitable places to explore.
Only a small number of Tarnished remained here, continuing to collect supplies in exchange for runes.
Of course, among these Tarnished were also several observers deliberately left behind by Stormveil, ensuring that none of the underground inhabitants showed any unusual activity.
Nominally, these Tarnished had all been recruited freely, but in reality, they had been selected from among the Silver Knights.
In other words, they were undercover agents.
After all, this place had not exactly been conquered by force, so the relationship between the two sides remained somewhat ambiguous.
From the very beginning, Lucian had given the order that they were not to initiate attacks against the natives.
If both sides could gradually become accustomed to each other's existence peacefully, that would be ideal.
But if the other side displayed a particularly strong reaction, then Stormveil would take action as well.
——
The Ancestral Followers watched excitedly as flesh and fur continued to sprout from the Ancestral Spirit's body.
Several days earlier, the priests had received an oracle.
The Ancestral Spirit was about to return from the cycle of reincarnation and sprout life once more.
The time had come.
They lit the braziers and began the ritual, and that ritual would guide the Ancestral Spirit back from death.
After a long period of waiting, the corpse had grown most of its flesh back and finally staggered to its feet.
The Ancestral Spirit continued filling out its body. Long, snow-white fur covered its form, while small budding horns began to emerge one after another from between its flesh.
Before long, an enormous beast resembling a great elk stood firmly on its feet.
The cycle of life and death had succeeded.
The Ancestral Spirit had been completely revived.
Seeing the Ancestral Spirit return from death, the Ancestral Followers erupted into cheers, sincerely praising this miracle of new life.
Looking at that majestic and sacred creature, the Ancestral Followers all stood up and began dancing in celebration of its rebirth.
As for the two undercover Tarnished in the distance, they could already feel the oppressive presence emanating from the Ancestral Spirit, and cold sweat poured down their backs.
"What the hell is that thing…"
"Let's retreat a little farther. If it notices us, we're screwed."
However, no one present could have imagined that an unexpected guest was about to intrude upon the ritual.
A series of thunderous, heavy footsteps suddenly rang out in the distance, pounding continuously as something charged violently toward the altar.
The Ancestral Followers turned their heads one after another toward the source of the sound, only to see the shadow of a gigantic creature rapidly approaching through the distant forest.
The figure was taller than the trees.
It charged straight ahead, smashing through everything in its path and completely ignoring every obstacle as it forcibly carved out a path through the forest.
Finally, an enormous wolf covered from head to toe in soft, bluish-gray fur emerged from the forest and arrived before the altar, confronting the Ancestral Spirit.
The Ancestral Followers were stunned when they saw the enormous wolf.
And it wasn't only the Ancestral Followers who were shocked.
The two undercover Tarnished in the distance were equally stunned.
The heavily armored Tarnished turned toward his companion and asked,
"You called it back?"
His companion looked at him, then uncertainly pointed at himself.
"…Me?"
Just as the two of them were hesitating, a gentle female voice suddenly came from behind them.
"There is no need to worry, warriors. You have done well."
The two turned around and saw Selinsax standing before them in human form, with the same Stormhawk from earlier perched upon her arm.
The two Tarnished naturally recognized Selinsax, who often spread her faith among the people, and both immediately dropped to one knee in salute.
Selinsax released the Stormhawk into the air and gestured for the two warriors to rise. She then turned her attention toward the situation in the distance.
Even Selinsax could not have arrived instantly.
In reality, the moment the Ancestral Followers began their ritual, Sif had already sensed it.
He had excitedly charged all the way here from Stormveil Castle.
Selinsax looked at Sif, who was confronting the Ancestral Spirit in the distance, and felt a little anticipation in her heart as well.
The Ancestral Spirit was a mystery that existed beyond the Erdtree.
Life sprouted from death, and life also sprouted from life.
This was what life was supposed to be.
And Sif was a life form belonging to the same system as the Ancestral Spirit.
Just like true wolves and deer, these two forms of life had been competing with one another since the distant past.
The deer ate grass.
The wolf ate the deer.
And in the end, the wolf's corpse would also be consumed by the grass.
Life needed to sprout, but it also needed trials.
Only those who survived had the qualifications to become successors.
This was a battle that would determine the existence of the Ancestral Spirit.
And it would also be Sif's coming-of-age ceremony.