A pitch-black star appeared at the center of the nebula, swallowing his vision like a black hole. The elder struggled to avert his gaze, but his eyes were held fast as if by a powerful magnet. A vast, cosmic madness from another universe seeped through his pupils, tainting his mind and numbing his very limbs.
The elder dropped his staff and let out a guttural roar. Curling his index and middle fingers, he thrust them savagely into his own eyes with such force it seemed he meant to drive them into his brain. Pulling back his blood-slicked fingertips, he turned and bolted into the depths of the forest, his figure disappearing into the gloom.
Now, the full weight of the pressure fell upon the middle-aged gentleman. He kept his head lowered, refusing to look up, yet the image of the black star manifested automatically within his mind. His reason and sanity began a slow slide into the abyss.
Sellen leaned against the great cypress, masking the fact that she no longer had the strength to stand. The moment that black star appeared, her mana had poured out like water from a breached dam. She felt a weakness unlike anything she had ever known.
The gentleman gripped his staff horizontally with both hands, lifting it painfully to his chest as if preparing to unleash some devastating sorcery. Sellen braced herself, forcing her flagging spirit to respond, but she froze at what happened next.
"Mercy!" the gentleman shrieked, suddenly snapping his staff over his knee. "I surrender!"
The moment the staff broke, every puppet soldier collapsed into a heap on the ground, and the heavy coffin slammed into the earth with a dull thud.
"I admit defeat!" the gentleman screamed. "You cannot control that power! Stop it, quickly! If I go mad, there is no telling what horrors will be born from me! You will destroy everything!"
Sellen hesitated for a heartbeat before lowering her staff. The nebula in the sky began to dissipate, and the black star at its center flickered and vanished as its supply of mana was severed. The gentleman sprawled on the ground, gasping for air with greedy lungs.
"You—" Sellen started, but her words were cut short by a muffled groan. She looked down to see a crossbow bolt buried in her waist, blood trailing down the shaft.
Dozens of meters away, one of the "collapsed" puppet soldiers lowered its arm, the string of its crossbow still vibrating faintly.
With a sudden lunging movement, the gentleman snatched up the staff the elder had left behind and stood up, his face contorted with triumph. "Ha! You Primeval sorcerers... your brains have always been lacking."
Gritting her teeth, Sellen used glintstone to seal the wound and stop the bleeding. She held her staff at an angle, facing the encroaching puppet soldiers. Through the gaps between the puppets, she saw the gentleman retreating rather than advancing, commanding from the rear with several puppets acting as his personal guard. He was being so cautious she couldn't find a single opening.
"That remains to be seen," a hoarse laugh echoed from nearby. "I might not be the smartest man around, but I'm particularly good at dealing with fools who think they're clever."
The moment he heard that voice, the gentleman bolted like a startled vulture, fleeing in the opposite direction without a second look. Behind him, several puppet soldiers loyally formed a human wall, only to be instantly consumed by a torrential flood of light.
The remaining puppet soldiers charged Sellen as ordered, but a sweeping pillar of light pulverized their upper bodies, their metal frames as fragile as sea foam. Sellen, recognizing the newcomer, had already dropped to the ground in a practiced motion; the beam swept just over her head, shearing the cypress tree in half.
"Azur, you dare!" The gentleman only had time to scream those words before the pillar of light, having cleared the puppets, caught up to him. He spun around and unleashed a Comet spell in a desperate attempt to block the beam.
The woods of Liurnia of the Lakes flared with a sudden, brilliant light before returning to silence.
A terrible trench had been torn into the ground. At its end, the gentleman lay embedded in the dirt, his magnificent robes reduced to tattered rags and the broken half of his staff still smoking.
"You're still so afraid of me." A pair of wooden clogs appeared before the gentleman's eyes, a nearly broken strap hanging off a large toe. Looking up, he saw a disheveled old man peering down at him. "How dull. If you didn't spend all your time thinking about running away, you might have actually held your own for a few rounds in a fair fight."
"I am not afraid of you, Azur!" the gentleman's face twisted. "The Full Moon Queen's military reforms have already sparked intense resentment. If you kill me, the situation will spiral out of control. You shouldn't have sided with the Queen; the Full Moon is only using you to check the power of the Glintstone schools. To the Moon, the Primeval Current is just as much a heresy."
"I never intended to kill you anyway." Azur scratched his messy gray hair; a shard of a test tube fell out of locks that clearly hadn't been washed in a long time. "Go back to Raya Lucaria on your own."
The gentleman's eyes widened, shocked to be let off so easily. He used the half-staff to prop himself up, but just as he stumbled to his feet, Azur turned back.
"Almost forgot something," Azur said, lifting his copper-capped staff. "I told you to go back, but I never said you could walk back."
"What are you doing? I'm warning you—argh!" The gentleman let out a pathetic wail as Azur shattered his left knee with a sharp crack. "The other Masters won't let you get away with this!"
"The other Masters?" Azur snorted with unmistakable contempt, his hand moving to deliver the same fate to the other knee. "With Lusat gone, this Academy may be vast, but which of those 'Masters' is worth a second glance from me?"
Cursing, the gentleman began to crawl away on his stomach, dragging his mangled legs. Before long, his ankles were rubbed bloody against the earth. Azur watched lazily; he doubted the man had the fortitude to crawl all the way back to the Academy. He would likely crawl to the road to beg for help, but that would be suffering enough.
"Master, thank you," Sellen said, her gratitude sincere.
"What's there to thank? This is what happens when someone dares to bully my disciple."
Azur paused, his voice turning somewhat melancholy.
"I sensed his fall while in meditation. Passing away like an ordinary man, leaving this filthy world... it's very much his style. Sigh. Let me look at Lusat's remains once more."
He knelt down and placed a bunch of Altus Blooms on Lusat's chest, remaining silent for a long time.
Altus Bloom
A flower from a succulent plant that has taken on a golden hue. A material used for crafting items. It grows on the Altus Plateau.
Said to be a flower used in funerals in the era before the Erdtree.
"Let us bury him here," Sellen said, walking toward the coffin abandoned by the puppets. "Someone was kind enough to provide a casket, after all."
Azur did not answer.
"Master?"
"I was thinking... perhaps Lusat hasn't truly left this world." He reached out obsessively, his fingertips lightly touching the glintstone encasing Lusat's head. "This place is full of life, like the pulse of the stars."
"He has passed. I saw it with my own eyes. I saw his soul reject the Erdtree's call and dissipate into the air."
"Even so, his consciousness has left a trace within the glintstone. From that trace, I could reconstruct the full map of his mind," Azur murmured. His voice was quiet at first, but it grew louder as if he were convincing himself. "Yes... I could restore him, provided I merge with him!"
Sellen took a wary step back. "Do you know what you are saying?"
Azur snapped his head around, a fiery blue light piercing through the sockets where his eyes should be.
"He shouldn't just vanish from the world. With his wisdom added to mine, what would that Gideon brat even matter? Every secret of the stars would open its doors to us. We would be great, immortal, like the unquenchable stars—our consciousness one with the universe!"
By the end, Azur's voice sounded like the grinding of tectonic plates, vibrating with such force that even the metal scraps of the puppets hummed.
He stood up, and Sellen felt a colossal shadow loom over her. The surroundings grew dark; the morning sun seemed to shrink back into the forest in fear, leaving only Azur's towering silhouette reaching for the sky. His blazing eyes were the only source of light as he looked down at her coldly.
Then, he closed his eyes, and the light vanished. His stature seemed to shrink instantly, returning to the slovenly old man in wooden clogs. His voice was thick with exhaustion and relief.
"I passed the test. I will not desecrate a friend's body for the sake of the Primeval Current," he said, lifting Lusat's remains. "Sellen, come lend a hand. Let us bury him now."
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Elden Ring: The Unborn One's Journey Through Elden Ring(250 Chapter - Ongoing)
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