"I hear something. It's inside, underground!"
As she spoke, Lansseax beat her wings and flew down. Nolan jumped after her.
"Remember, don't kill it. Leave the last hit to me," Nolan reminded her.
He had never killed this kind of monster before. He needed to find out whether the thing down there could be turned into "firewood."
"Don't worry, I know," Lansseax replied with a smile.
When it came to prey, killing it was not the only way to enjoy the hunt.
Moonlight poured down like liquid silver, spilling over them and lending this sinister place an eerie sense of mystery.
But the stillness was anything but beautiful. Everything was so quiet that even their breathing sounded unnaturally clear.
Nolan stretched out a hand. A low rumble of thunder sounded in his palm as a dazzling bolt of golden lightning condensed there.
The lightning did not disperse. It remained suspended as a brilliant mass of light, like a blazing sun hanging in the air.
That fierce radiance instantly lit up the surroundings, exposing everything that had been hidden in darkness.
The rock walls around them were densely covered with countless roots, crisscrossing like a gigantic spiderweb.
The soil underfoot was strangely soft. Every step felt like treading on some slick mass of flesh, enough to make anyone uncomfortable.
Bones lay scattered everywhere across the ground. Some were broken and incomplete, while others were still whole.
Nolan carefully examined the area. He could not sense the slightest trace of anything sacred. Instead, every corner seemed steeped in death and decay.
That feeling was not wrong, though. Just ahead lay the underground catacombs.
The roots of the Erdtree spread everywhere, and those roots were where the golden subjects were meant to return when they went back to the tree.
Before anyone realized that something had gone wrong with the Golden Order, no one knew how many people had eagerly thrown themselves into it.
The scene in front of them looked like something out of a horror story. Anyone timid would probably turn around and run on the spot, but the Lord of Cinder had even fought the "First of the Dead."
Compared to the Prince of Death and the rotten tree spirits, death itself was clearly the more terrifying thing.
In Dark Souls, the "First of the Dead," Gravelord Nito, was the one who found the Lord Soul of Death and brought the very concept of death into being.
Older people often liked reminiscing about the past.
Just as Nolan was recalling bits and pieces of his time with that old skeleton in the tombs, the still ground suddenly burst apart.
With a thunderous crash, a massive monster tore its way up from underground.
A rough estimate put it at nearly ten meters long.
Its enormous body was a sickening grayish white.
Rotten roots, long since decayed, twisted and tangled together to form its grotesque body.
The giant hands that propped up its body were thick and long, radiating brute force.
From a distance, the whole thing looked like some fat snake with overlong arms.
Boom!
The falling monster slammed heavily into the ground, as if it had triggered a small earthquake.
It whipped around at once and swung its thick tail at Nolan, the blow tearing through the air with a sharp howl.
With an explosive crack from the air itself, fierce winds came roaring in, sending sand and stones flying everywhere.
But in the middle of that chaos, Nolan had already spread his broad wings and shot up into the air.
Looking down from above, the monster's form became clearer and clearer.
Its body was huge and grotesquely twisted, every part of it reeking of rot and ruin, as if it had been eroded by endless ages.
So this was a Putrid Tree Spirit?
Nolan narrowed his eyes and studied it carefully.
He knew there were two little Erdtrees in Limgrave, but neither of them lay within his territory.
The Putrid Tree Spirit before him felt like a giant rotting tree that had somehow learned to move.
"An Erdtree Avatar?" Lansseax asked uncertainly.
"No. A mutated little Erdtree," Nolan said, shaking his head.
According to the information Vyke had gathered, this giant serpent-like monster had once been a little Erdtree worshipped by the people.
For some unknown reason, that little tree, once brimming with life, had begun to rot and decay, and then gained the ability to move.
At the same time, strange phenomena began appearing in the city as well. Pustules bearing the face of the Prince of Death started cropping up everywhere.
That so-called Prince of Death was "Godwyn the Golden," the victim of the Night of Black Knives.
His soul had been killed, but his body had been absorbed and fused with the Erdtree, and from that point on the Golden Order spiraled out of control.
His soul was gone, but his body still lived. The Golden Prince could not return to the tree, so the Erdtree continued without pause to repair him and resist death.
In the end, the overgrown flesh turned into foul, human-faced pustules, and through the roots, the remnants of death spread across every corner of the Lands Between.
As for the Erdtree Avatar Lansseax mentioned, compared to the Tree Spirit, it was much closer to a human shape. It was the will of a ruined Erdtree trying to protect its offspring.
Lansseax engaged the Tree Spirit while Nolan watched from the side.
Though the monster was massive and bloated, it was surprisingly agile.
Its attacks had no pattern at all. It simply lashed out on instinct, venting its berserk strength however it pleased.
On a battlefield, something like this would no doubt be a terrifying killing machine.
But against Lansseax, it could only be toyed with from start to finish.
"In terms of strength and speed, it's comparable to a first-rate hero. Shame its intelligence is so poor, and it's far too violent."
In less than half a minute, Nolan had already seen through the battle completely.
Then he gave a casual wave of his arm, and thunder mixed with fire engulfed the Rotten Tree Spirit like a raging dragon.
"Hey, hey, what are you doing? I wasn't done having fun yet!" Lansseax shouted unhappily.
"Enough playing around. Don't forget we have something more important to do."
Nolan spoke irritably as he picked up a seed from the scattered debris and tossed it into his Spirit Ring.
The Putrid Tree Spirit was only an appetizer. What he truly cared about was the dead prince, Godwyn.
More precisely, it was the "death" still lingering inside his body.
Nolan had decided to investigate it himself and see whether this death spreading like a plague was any different from the Lord Soul he controlled.
Besides, this was the Lord of Cinder's territory. No one was allowed to run wild here, not even death.
With another sweep of his hand, Nolan unleashed a storm and blew away the Tree Spirit's remains.
"The power gained has no impurities. Compared to a single living thing, it feels more like a cluster of souls fused together."
"There seems to be something else too... this feeling, is it death?"
"Interesting. Looks like monsters like this will be worth hunting in the future."
Nolan murmured to himself as he carefully sensed the changes in the energy flowing through his body.
He could not help feeling a little surprised, and one eyebrow even twitched upward.
A moment later, he lifted his head and looked straight at the pitch-black entrance to the catacombs ahead.
Without the slightest hesitation, Nolan stepped inside.