"Drive the stakes into the ground."
The leader issued the command to the accompanying Volcano soldiers. He wore no helmet, revealing a broad forehead and a prominent, hooked nose. His skin was a peculiar, nearly pinkish hue. He was dressed in a pristine coat, his long boots polished to a high shine.
Were it not for the massive wheel saw slung across his back, he would have looked like an ordinary court noble.
Hidden behind the Man-Serpent, Raven observed the group's movements.
The soldiers carried four short wooden stakes, seemingly fashioned from the sharpened stalks of slender mushrooms. They paced out the distance, arranging the four stakes in a rough isosceles trapezoid before using the heavy pommels of their swords to drive them firmly into the earth.
This task alone took nearly five minutes. Raven furrowed his brow, unable to discern their purpose.
Next, they untied a burlap sack and dragged out a prisoner, bound hand and foot. A cloth was stuffed into the prisoner's mouth, and their hair had been shorn to a buzz cut. Only a pair of eyes darted about in desperate terror.
The soldiers moved the prisoner to the stakes, stripped off the prison rags, and lashed their limbs to the wood, leaving them sprawled spread-eagle on the ground.
"Lord Ghiza, the preparations are complete," a soldier said cautiously. "We shall leave you to your work."
"Leave the lantern. Then, get out."
Ghiza propped a boot against one of the stakes, using a small knife to scrape away the humus clinging to the sole. He began to speak in a slow, leisurely drawl. "I was quite saddened when Lord Rykard selected you as a sacrifice. After all, you are my finest masterpiece."
Raven started, realizing only then that Ghiza was talking to the Man-Serpent.
"I promised you then that if you didn't make a sound, if you didn't move so much as a muscle, I would ensure you lived. To be honest, I made that promise as a joke. After all, no one had ever succeeded before. I've seen warriors from the Land of Reeds who claimed to have no fear of death; I've seen clergymen who viewed the return to the Erdtree as the ultimate glory. The most resilient among them only lasted through a third of the process before their faces were smeared with tears and snot, and they lost control of their bowels.
"Before you, only a certain Depraved Perfumer came close to success. First, I flayed the arms, then the legs. I removed the genitals, lopped off the ears, then peeled back the scalp and the face—stripped it all clean. Throughout it all, he didn't utter a single peep. I was moved to my core... only to find out later that he had cheated by consuming a Frenzy Aromatic made from Yelough Eyeballs. But that's a story for another time.
"Unfortunately, that Perfumer couldn't clear the final hurdle. At the very end, I took the neatly flayed skin of his torso and held it open for him to see, displaying it like a fresh bedsheet. It was a perfect work of art, second only to yours—it even still had the nipples attached! And then, he simply broke. It was so disappointing. It just goes to show that cheating is useless, doesn't it?"
Ghiza finished cleaning one boot and placed the other on the stake, methodically scraping away the mud.
"But your will to survive was truly astonishing. You actually did it. And so, I intended to honor my word. However, I only learned later that when it came to selecting the sacrifices, the Inquisitor checked your name. Your cocoon was the most vigorous, and as luck would have it, you were at the top of the list.
"This makes things difficult! Who could have guessed your luck would be so wretched? A slight difference in the quality of a sacrifice usually isn't a big deal, but the Inquisitor won't change his decision for my personal whims.
"I thought it over and finally found a solution. Right here, I will perform the birth ritual on this prisoner, and let her take your place as the sacrifice. All Man-Serpents look more or less the same; I doubt the Inquisitor will be able to tell the difference."
Ghiza took a deep breath, then his expression suddenly shifted. He looked toward the Man-Serpent leaning against the mushroom stalk. "Hey... I've been talking all this time, and you're still asleep?"
Raven gripped the hilt of his sword.
"Sigh, I know you can't remember anything now. There's no point in waking you," Ghiza sighed, shaking his head. "You've surely forgotten our pact. But even so, I shall fulfill my promise. See? What a man of integrity I am! There aren't many good people like me left in this world."
Ghiza pulled off his white gloves, unslung the wheel saw from his back, and flipped the switch. The blades began to spin at high speed, emitting a terrifying, high-pitched shriek.
He raised the saw and turned toward the prisoner bound to the ground, stooping over with his back to Raven. "Let us begin!"
Now!
Raven lunged. The mushroom stalk beneath his feet shattered with a violent bang as he launched himself forward like a bolt of lightning. The standard-issue Volcano sword let out a groan of protest as the scabbard disintegrated. An explosive surge of brilliant white sword-light sliced through the darkness.
Such a thunderous strike was comparable to that of a Black Knife Ringleader. But halfway through his charge, Raven realized something was wrong.
Ghiza let out a mad laugh, his bones popping as he twisted his body in a way that defied human mechanics. He swung the wheel saw around in a downward arc, having clearly anticipated Raven's attack.
Blade met saw. A section of the sword was instantly ground into fragments. Raven let out a cold snort, his sword-light surging like a howling tsunami, forcing Ghiza back step by step.
The two locked in a frantic dance of advance and retreat. Every footfall carried the weight of a thousand catties, sending rocks and soil flying. Though Ghiza appeared to be overwhelmed by the sword's momentum, the grin on his face only widened.
The Volcano longsword began to break apart piece by piece. Metal fragments, caught in the swirling sword-light, hissed through the air, riddling the surrounding mushroom stalks with holes. Blood sprayed from both men as the shrapnel bit into their flesh.
Eventually, Raven was left holding little more than a hilt. Ghiza dug his feet into the ground, halting his retreat. "Die!"
The wheel saw swept out in a horizontal arc, but it only sliced through a phantom.
Raven reappeared instantly behind Ghiza. Pressing his index and middle fingers together, a narrow blade of light extended from his fingertips, slashing toward Ghiza's throat.
Ghiza jerked his head and hunched his shoulders, trapping the light-blade between his cheekbone and shoulder blade. At the cost of nearly half the skin on his face being sliced away, he forced the blade to a halt. With a grotesque cry, his elbow joint bent backward unnaturally. The heavy wheel saw, light as a feather in his hand, swung back toward Raven.
This time, Raven had no way to dodge. He could only manifest a blurred shield of light with his left arm to block the saw. Upon contact with the high-speed blades, the light-shield shattered into countless sparks. The standard-issue bracer was as useless as paper; the flesh from his palm to his elbow was instantly shredded. However, using that brief obstruction, Raven let out a muffled groan and finally threw himself out of the wheel saw's reach.
The two stood facing each other, blood dripping steadily onto the ground.
"Staff-less casting, Hound's Step," Ghiza snarled, his gums exposed in a horrific grin. "And Sleep smoke. Impressive tricks. Who are you? There is no one of your caliber among the Confessors of the Two Fingers. Could you be a disciple of the All-Hearing Man?"
Raven began to unwind the bandages from his face, wrapping them around his mangled left arm. He flexed his limb; the bone was intact, but his fingers wouldn't obey him—the tendons had likely been severed.
"You are... Raven of Caria?" Ghiza said, his voice laced with shock.
"I came here on the orders of my brother," Raven said coldly. "You have quite the nerve—substituting the sacrifice meant for the Great Serpent and daring to raise a hand against me."
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Elden Ring: The Unborn One's Journey Through Elden Ring(155 Chapter - Ongoing)
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