On Arthur's side, Snape ca knocking as well.
Compared to Dumbledore, Snape simply didn't have the sa depth of experience. When it ca to actually running Hogwarts, he couldn't possibly take care of everything.
He was genuinely worried the Dentors might float their way into the castle itself and attack the students, so he specially ca to ask Arthur to keep an eye on things—and step in if anything went wrong.
Arthur naturally agreed. He had no intention of letting sothing like that happen on his turf.
What? You're asking since when Hogwarts beca "his turf"?
Please. His na is literally written on the deed. How is it not his turf?
In the Lands Between, Arthur's slow but steady advance finally led him into the Erdtree Sanctuary in Leyndell.
There, he encountered a golden phantom of Godfrey, the First Elden Lord.
To put it bluntly, it was just a combat puppet that carried a fragnt of Godfrey's strength, nowhere near the real thing.
Arthur cut it down without much effort.
Once the phantom evaporated, he glanced around the sanctuary—and spotted a throne hanging down from the do overhead. A figure in priestly robes sat rigidly on it, a corpse long since dried up. Its head was covered with a white cloth, and in its hands it cradled a book.
Arthur leapt up, plucked the book from the corpse's arms, and let the system identify it for him.
Golden Order Fundantalism — Original Text.
He flipped it open and found a prayer recorded within.
A basic, foundational incantation of Golden Order Fundantalism—one of their root dogmas. It could erase all abnormal statuses, dispel special effects, and strip things back to their "true form."
Its na: Law of Regression.
Return, and all things converge toward the unchanging.
Arthur snorted.
All things are changing, all the ti. You want everything to "converge toward the unchanging"?
He'd suggest they just go full Frenzied Fla and burn the whole world down. Once everything's ashes, sure—then it's all "unchanging."
Ranni heard that little snort and tilted her head.
"My king, is sothing wrong with that prayer?"
"Nothing much," Arthur replied, lips quirking. "It just reminded of an amusing little truth."
"Oh?" Ranni asked. "And what truth would that be?"
"You'll see in a mont," Arthur said, turning to walk toward the church's exit.
He hadn't gone far when the Miquella sleeping within him stirred and floated out.
"Arthur, I sensed sothing familiar," Miquella said softly. "May I see that book?"
Arthur handed it over. Miquella took the volu and lightly tapped the back cover.
Another prayer shimred into existence on the surface, lines of golden script surfacing where there had been none before.
Its na: Radagon's Ring of Light.
Miquella looked at the prayer with a nostalgic expression.
"When I was young, I created a prayer based on the Golden Order and gifted it to my father. As a return gift, he gave one of his own. That prayer… is this one."
Arthur skimd the effect.
Form a golden halo, expand it outward, strike all around. Strengthen the range of charged attacks.
He wasn't particularly impressed. Compared to incantations, he still preferred sorceries.
"Convenient timing," Arthur said. "We're just about to go deal with sothing related to Radagon. Since you're awake, you can co along for a look."
Miquella nodded and returned the book.
They left the sanctuary, descended the staircase, and stood before Radagon's statue.
The stone figure was two stories tall, Radagon's arms spread wide at his sides. A dense tangle of thorns ford a halo behind his back.
Arthur stood at the base of the statue and raised his hands, assuming the gesture for the Law of Regression.
Golden sigils flared beneath his feet.
Before their eyes, the statue's image shifted—Radagon's features lted and redrew themselves into soone else's. The figure beca Queen Marika, exactly the sa as the one Arthur had seen hanging in the Roundtable Hold when he first arrived in the Lands Between.
At the sa ti, words appeared carved into the stone at his feet, as if rising up out of nowhere:
Radagon is Marika.
Arthur looked at the line, then at the transford statue, and chuckled.
"I may not agree with Golden Order Fundantalism," he said, "but they do get a few things right.
For example—only regression reveals secrets. Regression is truth."
The small Ranni in his arms, and Miquella at his side, could only stare blankly for a mont.
Of the two, Miquella was the most shaken.
In his head, there was now only one thought:
My father… is also my mother?
Ranni, anwhile, finally understood why Radagon had suddenly abandoned her mother, wed Marika, and beco the new Elden Lord.
All three of them were Empyreans; they all knew that Empyreans could split off an opposite-gender half of themselves.
What stunned them wasn't that Radagon could be a half of soone else.
It was that Radagon was Marika's half.
But then… why had she done that?
Why create a half of herself, marry it into Caria's royal line, and then abandon everything to return to Leyndell?
Ranni voiced her confusion.
Arthur answered,
"Radagon doesn't represent Marika's will. Marika isn't a creation of the Greater Will; she's one of the Nun, a race from beyond the Lands Between. She has her own mind and her own desires.
But the Greater Will chose her to be the vessel of the Elden Ring. And to the Greater Will, vessels don't need a will of their own.
So it exploited the Nun trait and forced a second self to bud out of her—that second self is Radagon.
Radagon follows the Greater Will, not Marika."
He went on,
"As for why Radagon did all that? He was gathering power for the Greater Will.
For example, Radagon went into the temple at the bottom of the Lake of Rot and obtained the power of Scarlet Rot. Then, when he and Marika had children, they passed that power on—creating Malenia, born with the Rot."
Miquella's expression changed. His sister's affliction—her cursed, inescapable rot—had turned out to have such an origin.
Ranni, however, only gained more questions.
"In that case," she asked quietly, "why would Marika agree to rge with Radagon and bear children?"
Arthur spread his hands.
"That part, I don't know. Maybe she couldn't resist the Greater Will and chose to endure. Or maybe… she had plans of her own."
In truth, Arthur did have a theory: perhaps Marika wanted to reclaim her half.
In his previous life while playing the ga, the first ti he entered the Erdtree proper, he had seen Marika hanging there, crucified in mid-air.
Only when she sensed his intrusion did her form shift into that of Radagon, and the boss fight began.
Which implied that by then, Radagon had already been pulled back into Marika's body. The two of them were locked inside the sa flesh, wrestling for control.
That also explained the scene from the ga's opening cutscene.
One mont, Marika kneels in penitence, hamring at the Elden Ring. The next, the figure becos Radagon, attempting to repair what she was shattering.
Their goals were diatrically opposed.
Marika wanted to break the Ring.
Radagon wanted to restore it.
Arthur shook his head, letting the speculation go.
The Lands Between were full of secrets, layer upon layer. If he wanted answers, he'd just have to keep moving forward.
"Co on," he said. "It's about ti we paid a visit to the final king of Leyndell."
Still tangled up in the knot that was his father (and mother), Miquella quietly slipped back into his crystal, choosing to sleep again.
He couldn't untangle it, and he honestly didn't feel like trying.
He'd parted ways with Radagon long ago—otherwise he wouldn't have run away with Malenia in the first place.
For him, the only thing that mattered now was whether his sister was still safe.
Leyndell, Royal Capital.
The Elden Throne.
This was the highest point of the city, a place from which you could look down over all of Leyndell.
After months of thodically picking the capital clean, Arthur finally set foot there.
He hadn't been in any hurry, but Morgott had long run out of patience.
He'd had to stand in front of the Erdtree doors the whole ti, watching as Arthur looted his glorious capital from top to bottom. He didn't dare abandon his post, and the frustration had been simring ever since.
Now Arthur was finally here.
He could finally put an end to this wretched Tarnished.
Morgott slowly descended the steps in front of the Erdtree's entrance. As he ca down, his voice echoed through the vast chamber.
"Foul Tarnished, driven by the fla of ambition… you have at last co before the Throne.
Now, let the na of Morgott the Grace-Given be carved upon thy wling epitaph!"
Arthur, however, had already tuned him out.
The mont Morgott started monologuing, Arthur had quietly pulled out his summoning bell and called in his "big brother."
He knew perfectly well this was the boss. He wasn't so third-rate villain who wasted ti trading speeches with people trying to kill him.
The Mimic Tear stepped out, drew Moonveil, and charged Morgott without a word.
The two clashed in the center of the arena, sword flashing against cursed blade, and for a while, they were very evenly matched.
Morgott parried the Mimic's strikes while raging,
"Vile Tarnished! Is this all thou canst do? Hide behind borrowed might? If thou hast any pride, face thyself!"
Arthur rolled his eyes and ignored him.
He turned instead toward the entrance and said calmly,
"Aren't you going to co say hello, old friend?"
At the threshold of the arena, a figure slowly appeared out of thin air.
lina.
"You've hardly seen in so long," she said, voice soft as ever. "Yet your senses remain as sharp as ever.
Do you require my aid? At the foot of the Erdtree, I can still wield part of my strength."
Arthur shook his head with a smile.
"No need. Just watch from the side. Once I turn him into glitter, we'll have plenty of ti to catch up."
Morgott was a demigod, after all—and in Arthur's eyes, demigods were basically walking magic crystal ore.
He absolutely was not about to let lina walk in and kill his loot.
The whole reason he'd stayed back and let the Mimic do the opening work was to prepare for converting Morgott into sorcery crystals afterward.
On Morgott's side, the more he fought, the more he realized he couldn't break this summoned copy.
Unable to resolve the battle quickly, he finally made his choice—
He'd release the shackles on his own power.
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