"What didst thou say!?"
Mohg had barely processed the meaning of those words when he felt a crushing, suffocating pressure erupt from the void above—the very space where the Mother's true essence should have resided.
Mohg's power was a gift from the Formless Mother. He had used his Omen body as a medium to complete a conduit, allowing the Outer God's power to descend into the Lands Between without restraint. But he had seemingly forgotten one thing: a conduit works both ways.
Gawain had previously found it difficult to communicate with the Solar Outer God tied to his own origin, but the Mohgwyn Palace, currently saturated with the power of an Outer God, was closer to the stars than anywhere else in the Lands Between. Through the jagged rifts in space, he had found the Sun that bore his soul's mark.
A shriek of mingled agony and fulfillment echoed from the void. Mohg felt his connection to the Mother falter. It wasn't a failure on his end; it was because the Mother herself was enduring a monumental assault. In an instant, the thick, alien divinity permeating the air was drastically weakened.
"A truly magnificent sight..."
Ranni stood upon her Dark Moon, watching the collision of two stars of entirely different hues in the distance. Having witnessed the entirety of the battle in Caelid, she knew exactly what this meant.
She hadn't minded using a few subtle tricks of her own to make that blood-red star appear even more prominent among the constellations.
As she anticipated what was to come, a smile touched her lips. It seemed it would soon be time for her to return to the Lands Between.
"Miquella... I shall certainly reclaim my brother's soul from thy hands."
"What hast thou done to the Mother!?"
Realizing what was happening, Mohg's expression of total control vanished. He was truly shaken now. He swung Mohgwyn's Sacred Spear frantically, causing the blood pool to boil once more as it surged toward Gawain.
"I told you quite clearly," Gawain said, his tone icy. "You aren't the only one with a God backing him up."
Gawain stomped his foot. Countless freezing crystals erupted from the ground around him, flash-freezing the approaching waves of Accursed Blood.
"Or are you just a giant babe who breaks down the moment he's away from his mother's side?"
Before the words had even fully left his mouth, Gawain closed the distance. Bathed in a radiant golden light—an empowered Sunlight Spear infused with both Miracles and Melina's Incantations—he didn't bother throwing it this time. He intended to shove it directly down Mohg's throat.
Mohg was horrified. He dissolved into a pool of blood to dodge the lethal strike. Having observed the Festival of Radahn through the eyes of Okina, he knew he was at a disadvantage. Now that the Mother was being pinned down and could no longer lend him Her full strength, his situation would only worsen. If he couldn't kill this man in one strike, he would never win a war of attrition against that monstrous recovery rate.
Tragically, his most powerful move—the Nihil ritual—was now completely neutralized. With no other choice, he gritted his teeth and prepared to meet Gawain head-on while he still held a modicum of home-field advantage.
The battle, which had ascended beyond the level of Demigods, left the two spectators above in a state of shock. Neither Freyja nor Leda had expected the tides of battle to shift so many times in such a short window.
"Gah! This is the kind of battle I live to see!" Freyja shouted, her eyes wide with battle-lust. "A true King should never stop fighting! It's a pity we never saw General Radahn fight him at full strength."
Though Freyja was obsessed with combat, she possessed enough self-awareness to know she couldn't intervene. Joining a fight of this caliber wouldn't be a "glorious death in battle"; it would be dying like a stray dog to accidental collateral damage.
In contrast to the muscle-brained Freyja, Leda's chronic suspicion was acting up again. When she thought they were headed for a mutual destruction earlier, she had felt a twinge of regret, but also a sliver of relief. Somewhere deep inside, she feared the consequences if Gawain and Lord Miquella were ever to stand as enemies.
Now, watching the increasingly frenzied battlefield, she could only hope that these two gentle and kind lords could reach an understanding and build a better age for the Lands Between. She forced herself not to imagine the worst-case scenario.
A bolt of storm-lightning struck down, shattering the phantoms Mohg had sent to surround him. Gawain could sense his opponent was beginning to flag under the intensity of the fight.
Gawain, however, was in peak condition. With Melina constantly providing medicine and a barrage of supportive Incantations, he was effectively fighting while standing in a fountain of rejuvenation. He was no longer relying on complex maneuvers; he was simply crushing Mohg with overwhelming stats.
Catching Mohg in a moment of exhaustion between teleports, Gawain seized one of the long, jagged Omen horns on the Lord of Blood's head. He condensed a ball of purple gravity energy in his fist and slammed it into Mohg's chest, throwing him back. The Silence field was reapplied. The battle was decided.
"What's wrong? Not so tough now?" Gawain taunted. "I preferred you when you were arrogant. Why don't you try getting back up?"
Mohg lay in the blood, coughing up massive amounts of ichor. He gazed silently at the two silhouettes clashing in the void above. He knew that with the Mother occupied, his final moments had arrived.
In that moment, the strange golden light in his eyes dissolved. He seemed to recall many things he had forgotten, but it was far too late.
Mohg let out a bitter, raspy laugh. The Dynasty he had spent so long dreaming of had come to this pathetic end. Yet, looking back, he did not regret the path he took after escaping the sunless sewers. Only by using Miquella to found a great Dynasty could he prove worthy of the Mother's favor.
His only regret was for his brother. He needed to warn him, but with his powers sealed, did he have any chance of sending a message? With a trace of lingering defiance, he closed his eyes and waited for death.
But the killing blow did not come. Confused, he propped himself up. The purple aura of silence was fading, seemingly on the verge of vanishing.
"Hmph. Even now, thou wouldst play at this ridiculous game of mercy?"
"Mercy?" Gawain shook his head. He looked at the Shardbearer—battered and broken, yet still holding his head high with the pride of a sovereign. For some reason, he saw the spirit of a true, ambitious hero in the doomed Demigod.
"Nothing you've done gives me a reason for mercy. But I'm not like you; I don't hide behind schemes and shadows. I'm giving you a dignified end. Take up your spear and give me everything you have. If I don't crush you from the front, I'll feel dissatisfied when I look back on today."
Mohg laughed. The sound was raspy and unpleasant, but genuine. He knew Gawain didn't fear any tricks. Even if Mohg tried to stall until the silence wore off, it would only be the desperate delay of a maggot. He would rather use his wounds and blood to please the Mother one last time.
Sensing her child's resolve, the Formless Mother—despite being pinned down—exerted every ounce of strength She could spare to grant him a final blessing. Her true body, deep within the stars, took a heavy blow from the Sun for this small distraction.
Two pale arms, dripping with Accursed Blood, manifested on Mohg's shoulders. The silence was broken.
Mohg swung his sacred spear one last time, channeling his entire being into his final strike. The blood condensed into the hideous, towering form of a blood-giant. With a resolve that discarded all reason, it opened its maw and lunged.
"Melina, this might hurt a bit. Bear with it."
Melina, clinging to Gawain's back, simply shook her head. She could feel the staggering power surging within him, pushing his three Great Runes to their absolute limits.
"Mmm. Do what you must. No matter what happens, I am with you."
Gawain smiled. Storm and gravity magic swirled around him as he kicked off, shattering the stone beneath his feet. He lunged at Mohg like a bullet, moving too fast for the naked eye to follow. He transformed into a ball of searing, radiant light—a brilliance that contained a core of near-invisible black flame.
There was no contest. The strike pierced through the blood-giant and the Mother's spectral arms without resistance, striking Mohg's true body at the center.
Under the weight of that absolute, domineering flame, Mohg's body was torn apart and his wings vaporized. But the true lethal blow was to his soul; under the influence of the First Flame's embers and the power of the Gloam-Eyed Queen, his very essence was incinerated.
Mohg's remains were tossed to the edge of the blood pool. His Great Rune slowly drifted from his body, absorbed by the victor.
With the battle in the Dynasty settled, the Sun in the void saw no need to continue its struggle with the Formless Mother. Conflict between Outer Gods rarely reached a definitive conclusion; that was why they sought agents in the Lands Between.
As a declaration of victory, the Sun left a scorching, radiant scar across the blood-red star before withdrawing from the center of the conflict.
Within the Mohgwyn Palace, the ripples connecting the world to the void vanished. Without Mohg to serve as an anchor, the Outer God's influence was rapidly pulled back from the Lands Between.
Gawain let out a long breath. It seemed there was no chance of him coming back as a zombie. When he and Melina reached Mohg's remains, they found two pale arms still lingering around the corpse, as if the Mother were performing a final farewell.
In her final moments here, the Formless Mother used the last of Her strength to slice open the fading arms. A deluge of Accursed Blood poured forth, enveloping Mohg's body and mending it until it was whole once more.
But the soul within was gone. No amount of divine grief could bring him back. Gawain turned to Melina.
"Will he become like Godwyn, the Prince of Death?"
Melina composed herself. Her heart was still racing; while the final clash hadn't been painful, she had felt as though she were going to physically ignite. She knelt to examine the body and shook her head.
"The bodies of the Hornsent, once possessed by an Outer God, are no longer bound by the Golden Order. You can feel it, can't you? His Great Rune was long ago remade to represent the Mother's laws. He is truly dead; he will not proliferate like the first of the dead, Godwyn.
"However, his body was bathed in Accursed Blood for too long. He was the vessel for an Outer God's Law. His corpse likely retains a residual trace of that power. If it were destroyed, it might cause a violent leak of energy. I cannot say what the consequences would be. But do not worry too much. Since it hasn't been sealed like Queen Marika did to others, the power within will naturally dissipate over time if left alone."
Gawain withdrew the attack he had been preparing. If leaving it alone was safe, he saw no reason to force a total cremation and risk unknown complications. He was still a bit worried the leaking power might pull a "Caelid" and turn into something else, but he decided to wait for the Mother's influence to fade before dealing with the remains.
"Fine. Let's go see the state Miquella is in."
Deep in the sewers of Leyndell, Morgott stared at the spot where his brother's phantom had just vanished. On the ground remained a message etched in corrosive Accursed Blood:
"BEWARE MIQUELLA!"
He had sensed it on the way down. The power of the Formless Mother was receding from the stars. That could only happen to a Divine Invoker if they had been slain. Mohg was dead.
Morgott's body swayed. His trembling hand gripped his staff so hard the wood creaked. He looked as though he had aged years in an instant. The Grace-Given King, who had held the Royal Capital through two sieges in the dynasty's darkest hour, now looked like a fragile, broken old man.
"Why... why didst thou forsake the Golden Order for such an alien deity? Hadst thou remained with me in the Capital, thou wouldst not have met this end..."
He took a heavy step forward, his eyes sweeping over his brother's final warning. He let out a roar of gnashing teeth.
"Traitors! All of you... traitors!"
Forcing himself to calm down, Morgott walked to the statue of Queen Marika. He knelt and opened the chest beneath it, taking out the Erdtree's Favor talisman—a gift granted by Marika herself at the dawn of the Golden Age.
"Mother... tell me. What must I do?"
In his silent contemplation, Morgott seemed to hear a faint, haunting whisper. The sound came from behind the statue, where a being was imprisoned that must never be released.
The seductive whisper sought to stir his inner rage and despair, promising that if he opened the way, the Frenzied Flame would incinerate all his enemies.
Morgott snapped back to reality, the seductive voice instantly fueling his own curse. His power erupted, destroying everything in the room. When the outburst passed, he manifested a new phantom to replace his brother's duty, guarding the seal.
"Regardless of who the final victor is," Morgott whispered coldly, "I shall never let thee escape this prison."
Silence returned to the depths of the sewers, broken only occasionally by a melancholy tune drifting from behind the statue of Marika.
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Elden Ring: In the Name of Ash (347 chapter - Ongoing)
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