Tarnished stood up from the grace and started walking up the hill, every step was heavy, not from the weight of his armor or the pressure of mana, though the draconic energy in the air distorted his balance and gnawed at his focus. What truly weighed him down was something more intangible, more cruel, hope. The hope placed in him by Luth, by his village, by those who still believed despite the odds. Perhaps it wasn't just this moment pressing on him; perhaps it was everything, his own spiraling doubt, riddles that never led to answers, Shabriri's twisted philosophies, and the murky silence of Melina's truths half-told.
Killing should not have been difficult for him, after all, it was what he had done from the very beginning. He had slain and butchered countless foes in his climb toward the title of Elden Lord, his path marked with blood and ash. But now, as he ascended this lonely hill where Adula rested, the weight of every decision, every swing of his blade, returned to him. Each footstep echoed his hesitation. Doubts pooled in his chest like stagnant water.
He wasn't always like this. There was a time his faith in the Golden Order had been unshakable, a pillar of clarity in a world drowning in contradiction. But the ErdTree's rejection struck deeper than any blade, unraveling the foundation of his beliefs. Since then, paradoxes plagued his thoughts, actions that made no sense, orders that contradicted themselves, truths that felt like lies. He began to question everything. And in that questioning, he slowed. He started thinking too much and moving too little. The warrior within him faltered, and something else, uncertain and unfinished, began to emerge.
As he was thinking and walking, the Tarnished arrived at the ancient lair of the Dragon. The air grew colder, heavier, crackling with residual mana like distant thunder. Before him lay the 'Mighty Devourer of Sorcerers', sprawled across the rocky clearing in quiet slumber. She looked almost serene, but her body radiated an overwhelming pressure of arcane energy, dense, suffocating, and unmistakably lethal. Her scaled form shimmered slightly in the moonlight, pulsing with dormant power. Despite the peaceful pose, she exuded an unspoken warning: disturb her, and death would follow swiftly.
The Tarnished eyed her with a complex mix of caution, awe, and conflict. A single, well-timed strike now could give him an edge. He could plunge his blade deep into her skin while she slept, severely wounding her before the battle even began. Tactically, it was sound. It could save him time, strength, and maybe even his life. But still, he hesitated. In the days of old, when he was still known as the 'Undead Butcher of Roundtable Hold', he wouldn't have thought twice. He would've rushed forward, blade first, letting instinct and ruthlessness carry the moment.
But that man, the butcher, felt like a distant memory. Whether he had changed or merely dulled, the Tarnished no longer saw the Elden Ring as his final pursuit. That chapter had closed the moment he chose to wander the Lands Between in search of something deeper, stranger. Not glory. Not power. But answers. The kind no one dared seek. The kind that twisted dreams into nightmares.
He sighed, pulling his blade from its sheath more out of habit than intention. Then, without a word, he walked to the edge of the cliff near Adula's resting ground and sat on a jagged stone. He would wait for her to wake, not because of honor or pride, but because something inside him refused to strike a sleeping foe. Even monsters deserved the dignity of waking. No one understood that better than a cursed soul doomed to walk the earth without sleep or death.
He had already cleared the valley below, dispatching the worst of the beasts that had threatened the path to Luth. For now, the village was safe. Safe enough. He stared into the night, watching the wind sweep across the dragon's wings. And he waited, blade in hand, not out of weakness, but out of something he could no longer name.
Tarnished looked over toward Adula, a dark blue dragon with a shimmering light-blue sheen to her scales, basking under the black velvet sky drenched in an ocean of stars. The night was silent except for the faint whisper of wind across the cliffs, and for a brief moment, despite the weight of destiny hanging over them, the scene looked ironically peaceful, almost beautiful. It was strange how something so feared, so destructive, could appear almost divine in stillness. Her body rested like a mountain, unmoving, her chest slowly rising and falling with slumber. The stars above twinkled like they were holding their breath.
Time passed. The air remained heavy, dense with mana and meaning. Eventually, Adula stirred. Her enormous eyes blinked open with a glowing awareness, and the first thing they fell upon was the Tarnished, seated on a jagged rock not far from her snout. Her response was immediate, reflexive. She rose to her feet, wings half-unfurled, claws embedding into the rock, ready to reduce him to ash.
But dragons are not just beasts, they are intellects, sages in their own right. Despite their might, they are deeply aware, and Adula, like the others of her kind, could sense intent. The tension between them stretched like a wire, but slowly, her posture shifted. Her head tilted slightly, her wings settled with a subtle grace. She understood now: he held no malice. At least not yet. That was why she hadn't sensed him while she slept. Dragons possess an uncanny sense for hostility, it's embedded in their survival instinct. Not that they often needed it. Few beings in the Lands Between could even scratch a true dragon's hide.
The Tarnished rose to his feet, dust brushing off his cloak with the faint rattle of chainmail. He looked at her, not as a predator nor a hero, but something in between, a man burdened with too many truths. His voice was low, steady, and difficult to pin to one emotion. Not quite angry, not quite regretful, but edged with a quiet inevitability.
"Adula," he said, "I have to slay you. Your mana flow is scaring away the monsters from the valley below. They're flooding into the villages now, attacking the people. Luth won't last another moon if this continues."
He didn't raise his blade yet. He didn't take a stance. But the words were a line drawn in the stone. A warning. A declaration. A man who had tried to avoid war until it arrived, undeniable, right in front of him.
Adula tilted her head slightly and looked at him with a curious gaze, as if trying to make sense of the being who stood before her, one who bore no malice, who had chosen not to strike her in her vulnerable slumber, but instead allowed her the dignity of waking. It was something few had ever done. There was an intelligence in her eyes as she examined him, not just as a foe, but as a riddle. With a deep inhale, she unfurled her massive wings, each membrane shimmering like sapphire beneath the starlight. The gesture was elegant, almost ceremonial. It wasn't a roar or a blast of fire, but a quiet, powerful sign: she accepted his challenge.
With one, two, three deliberate flaps of her colossal wings, she lifted into the air. Dust spiraled around her as she rose, casting shadows across the cracked ruins beneath. For a moment, neither of them moved. They hovered in the stillness, the silence stretching thin, taut like the string of a drawn bow. Perhaps it was the dragon's way of showing respect, or perhaps it was something older, an echo of ancient laws only her kind remembered. No one truly knew why they waited. But they did. And then, it began.
It all started with a single drop of water falling and echoing through the ruins, a note of eerie calm before the storm. In an instant, Adula launched herself downward, claws outstretched like meteors tearing through the night. The Tarnished barely managed to roll aside, her claws gouging deep trenches in the stone. Wasting no time, he dashed beneath her massive form and unleashed a flurry of strikes at her hind legs. His blade met flesh, sparks flying. She reared in pain and spun with terrifying speed, her tail whipping into him like a battering ram. The impact sent him sprawling across the ground.
While he coughed blood and clutched his torso, Adula began channeling a glintstone weapon in her maw, light crackling and condensing into a sword forged purely of magic. Knowing he had only seconds, the Tarnished gulped down a swig from his crimson flask and rolled just as the spectral blade came crashing down. The stone where he had just lain shattered into smoking fragments.
Before he could regroup, the sky lit up with a golden flash. A thunderbolt, bright and razor-sharp, cracked the earth inches from his head. He flung himself to the side, rolling through shards of broken rubble, his breath ragged. As he scrambled to his feet, Adula's massive foot slammed down toward him. He barely managed to roll out from under it, dirt and debris exploding around him. There was no space to breathe. No moment to regroup.
She gave him no respite. It was no longer just a battle of strength, it had become a brutal test of endurance. A war of attrition. Her strikes came in waves, perfectly timed, unrelenting, designed to wear him down. Each second was harder than the last, and each movement demanded everything he had. This was no longer just a fight for victory. It was a struggle to survive, a clash of willpower, stamina, and desperation.
Tarnished jumped back on his feet with adrenaline still coursing through his body, the ringing in his ears barely fading. Without hesitation, he triggered his Bloodhound Step, his form flickering like a ghost as he dashed beyond Adula's immediate reach. His breath was ragged, his movements mechanical from repetition and fatigue. Reaching for his crimson flask once again, his hands trembled slightly, more from exhaustion than fear. But Adula wasn't about to give him a moment of peace. With a deafening roar that made the ground quake, she reared her head back and exhaled a stream of glintstone fire, pale and spectral in hue. The light-blue flames raced toward him like liquid magic, tearing across the battlefield in a sweeping arc.
Tarnished braced himself behind a ruined pillar, narrowly avoiding the brunt of the blaze. The heat was immense, alien, almost divine. He couldn't decide whether the eerie hue of the fire was due to its searing intensity or the raw, otherworldly essence of glintstone that infused it. As he peered from behind cover, watching the ghostly fire cascade like a waterfall of starlight, he realized this wasn't mere elemental force, it was knowledge, fury, and magic incarnate. The fire scorched not just earth, but resolve.
Tarnished called Torrent with a sharp whistle and leapt onto the spectral steed's back just in time, the fiery blue wave rushing across the field like a tide of arcane fury. With a powerful double jump, he soared above the roaring fire, the heat licking his boots mid-air. Then, in a split-second decision, he unsummoned Torrent mid-flight, letting gravity pull him toward Adula's massive form. His body spun in the air as he twisted to face downward, eyes locked on the target: her glowing eye. His plan was simple and brutal, drive his blade down into her eye to disrupt her vision, even if only for a few seconds. Those seconds could be the difference between life and death.
He pointed his sword forward like a divine spear and brought it down with all his might. This was no ordinary strike, this was the weight of all his past battles, all his rage, doubt, and sharpened discipline honed over countless deaths. Tarnished might wear the skin of a man, but he was far more. He had earned the name 'Butcher of the Roundtable' through rivers of blood and the corpses of demigods. His strike, infused with pulsing mana, exploded against Adula's jaw with a sound like thunder cracking through bone. The force of the impact shook the ground, sending shockwaves through the air.
Dust erupted into the sky, and a thick mist swirled into the chaos, shrouding the battlefield in uncertainty. For a moment, all was hidden. But Adula, even through pain, was not finished. With a furious roar and a violent flap of her wings, she dispersed the mist in an instant, revealing the truth: her eye was safe, but a deep wound now split the side of her jaw, oozing mana and blood. Her head recoiled slightly, more in irritation than pain, but she was breathing harder now.
Tarnished landed roughly and rolled across the cracked stone, immediately springing up and leaping back to create distance. His heart pounded like war drums. He could see Adula's chest heaving, her wings trembling slightly. The wound wasn't fatal, but it demanded her respect. She was no longer playing.
He glanced down at his crimson flask. Only one, maybe two sips left. His vision blurred for a second. The exhaustion was setting in. His limbs were beginning to betray him. This battle had already stretched past the half-hour mark, though it felt like time itself had dissolved into combat. Every swing, every parry, every dodge chipped away at what little strength remained.
But the physical fatigue wasn't what truly pressed on them, it was the mental war. The pressure. The tension. Both of them were elite predators. Neither of them could afford a mistake. The cost was instant, brutal death. Every move had to be perfect. Every choice calculated. Behind every strike was a cascade of thoughts, strategies, hesitations, gambles. It wasn't a duel anymore, it was chess played with blades and fire.
And both knew it couldn't last much longer. Something, someone, would give up. The only question was. who would blink first?