Nolan walked side by side with Lansseax, the blazing "sunlight" hanging high above them.
Thunder split the thick, ink-black Darkness like a blade, driving back the gloom and dread bit by bit.
This stone chamber had always been a place the Golden Dynasty Subjects longed for, because returning to the Erdtree was the highest and most glorious reward.
Of course, even if they had not been sent here, they would never have known how else to die.
But now, this once sacred and solemn place had been warped by a strange change and ruined beyond recognition.
Cracks ran across the walls like wounds torn open in the earth.
And through those broken gaps, festering sores could be seen, giving off waves of nauseating stench.
The horror was not limited to the chamber itself. It had already begun spreading through all of Stormveil Castle.
On the floors, across the walls, and in every dark, cramped corner, traces of these grotesque things could be found.
No one could have imagined that this majestic fortress, which had endured countless bloody battles and still stood proud, would one day be eaten away from within by a mass of flesh.
"Oh!"
Lansseax let out a startled cry, her face full of shock.
"You've seen that legendary Golden Prince before, haven't you? Doesn't this thing look a little like him?"
Nolan spoke softly, his eyes fixed on the ruined stone wall.
"How could anyone tell?"
Lansseax hurried over and leaned in, staring with wide eyes. After a moment, she said with a hint of amazement,
"But now that I look closely, it really does. What is this thing?"
Her younger brother had been completely taken in by that so-called Golden Prince, trailing after him all day like a loyal lapdog.
That face was far too familiar to her. Though it had been twisted out of shape, she could still vaguely make out the prince's original features.
"Godwyn's boil," Nolan said with a sigh. "Could you try not to be so curious?"
"Huh!?"
Lansseax had just been about to reach out and touch it, but the moment she heard that, she jerked her hand back as if she had been shocked.
"Why didn't you say so sooner?"
"Aren't you supposed to be brave? Why stop now?"
Nolan gave her a teasing smile. He had thought this woman really feared nothing.
"Give me a break. I'm not that stupid. I'm not ending up like that idiot little brother of mine."
Lansseax waved her hand irritably as she complained.
That useless little brother of hers had thrown away a perfectly good life just to stay beside a dead man, and now he had turned into something that was neither dragon nor ghost.
A hopeless fool.
The more she thought about it, the angrier she became. In the end, she crossed her arms over her chest, stuck out her lips, and sulked in silence.
This time, though, the image of that "idiot little brother" did not stay in her mind for long.
Her attention was caught by a shadow on the ground ahead.
It was like a bottomless black hole, radiating a presence so dreadful it felt as if it could swallow a person's soul whole.
Fear exploded in Lansseax's chest.
Her legs froze in place, and a tremendous force burst from her body.
Red Dragon Lightning flashed and intertwined in the air with sharp, crackling bursts.
"Godwyn. He's actually here! But where is Fortissax? How could Godrick possibly have taken Godwyn's body from him?"
Lansseax stared at the shadow on the ground, eyes wide.
As her gaze focused, she realized there was an enormous face there.
At first glance, it looked like some twisted, hideous human-faced octopus.
But on closer inspection, it was unmistakably Godwyn's face.
She always called her younger brother a fool, but Lansseax knew very well that Fortissax was much stronger than she was.
Compared to her brother, Godrick was nothing.
Just as Lansseax was about to lose control, a hand rested lightly on her shoulder.
"Don't get so worked up. Calm down. Strictly speaking, this is only part of Godwyn's body."
Nolan held her shoulder and gradually steadied her, then tilted his chin toward the area behind the face.
Through the gaps in the floor, parts of a body and several arms could be seen.
And that body was tightly fused with thick tree roots.
Deep beneath the Royal Capital, at the base of the Erdtree's great roots, the body of "Godwyn the Golden" lay quietly there. There was no doubt about that.
His body had fused with the roots. No one could take it away.
"The body here is probably something that grew out from the original after the Erdtree proliferated," Nolan said, voicing his guess.
Lansseax nodded, not giving it much more thought. In her view, the Golden Order rejected death.
For a corpse that had never truly died to go on existing like this might have been both obedience to the Order and some kind of error in the "system."
The Ancient Dragons had once built a glorious dynasty of their own, so they naturally understood the way the Order operated.
To put it bluntly, the workings of the Order and the Law Ring were too rigid, too bound to fixed rules, and there was something almost helplessly inflexible about them.
"So after going to all this trouble, what exactly are you trying to do?"
Though she was full of curiosity, the Ancient Dragon remained composed, her eyes fixed on Nolan as he stood in the middle of that ugly giant face.
He raised his right hand high, his whole body giving off an aura steeped in death.
As Nolan moved, even the air around them seemed to grow heavier.
"I'm going to give His Royal Highness the gift he deserves. A proper death!"
His palm struck the face hard, and black deathly energy spread across the skin at once, slowly covering the entire twisted body.
Under Lansseax's astonished gaze, the giant face began to fall apart, crumbling away bit by bit like a mound of sand caught by the wind.
"Death?"
She could hardly believe it.
The Lightning of Time and Space, Flame of Creation, Death Aura. Mastering any one of those powers would be enough for someone to call themselves a god.
And yet all of them were gathered in one person.
What kind of terrifying monster could someone like that possibly be?
He was something beyond understanding.
Lansseax looked at the figure before her.
He shocked her, unsettled her, and stirred in her a kind of excitement she had never felt before.
"You killed Godwyn?"
"Only a part of him." The White Lord's expression remained calm.
"Just a trace of 'Death'... Is my power not increasing because Godwyn had no soul?"
After killing the thing on the ground, he had indeed felt "Death" enter his body.
But beyond that, it had brought no real change.
"If my body merges with this Death, will Maliketh set his sights on me?"