The battle between Gawain and Morgott—in his guise as Margit—was devoid of trickery. Once they truly clashed, it became a collision of fundamental martial styles: heavy, deliberate, and punishing. There was little room for clever maneuvers; it was a pure test of raw power and resolve.
Though Gawain's level wasn't particularly high, he was facing projections of the Omen Twins rather than their true selves. For a moment, the battle hung in a stalemate, but it was clear such a balance could not be sustained.
On the other side of the clearing, Mohg was proving a nightmare. Even without his true Mohgwyn Sacred Spear, his innate Cursed Blood was incredibly difficult to manage.
Gawain was holding his own, but for Elza to face Mohg alone was asking too much. While her ice sorcery could freeze the boiling Bloodflame, fire remained a fundamental weakness for the people of Zamor—it was the very reason they considered the Fire Giants their mortal enemies.
Gawain fought with a retreating rhythm, testing the strength of the Omen projections while looking for openings to coordinate with Elza and alleviate the pressure on her.
Under the effects of the Soul Meld, the two fought with a synergy of ice and fire that was nearly flawless. Every strike was covered, and every opening was filled.
However, the disparity in raw stats was becoming apparent. After Gawain parried another of Margit's golden hammer strikes, a wave of Bloodflame from Mohg finally pushed Elza's weapon to its limit. Her curved blade, worn from years of use, finally succumbed to the corrosion and snapped.
She had no choice but to abandon her offensive, retreating with desperate speed to narrowly avoid Mohg's spear as it lunged for her face.
"Here! Try these!" Gawain shouted, realizing they couldn't let the fight drag on. They needed to eliminate one of them immediately.
Elza regained her footing and caught the new weapons Gawain tossed her without a second's hesitation. She leaped into the air, catching them mid-flight. Before Mohg could retract his spear, she closed the distance, leaving a deep gash across his ornate robes with a twin-blade slash.
Only as she put distance between them did she have a moment to examine the weapons. They were an exquisite pair of curved swords, perfectly balanced for a high-dexterity fighter.
Holding them, she felt a strange resonance—as if she could envision the combat style of the previous owner. It was the image of a dancer clad in silver armor. She realized this was an echo from Gawain, transmitted through their soul link.
Originally, the Dancer's Enchanted Swords possessed one blade of dark magic and one of fire. The fire remained unchanged, but the blade that once held dark magic shifted under Elza's influence. The magic transformed, the steel now radiating a frost far more intense than before.
They locked eyes for a split second. Without a word, they launched a combined assault on Margit.
Gawain had already layered himself with Power Within and Golden Vow. Combined with the Divine Fortification Irina was maintaining for him, the Omen's attacks could barely scratch him.
Through the Soul Meld, he took on the brunt of the burden while sharing the buffs with his partner. Their attack power surged, leaving Margit struggling to fend off their coordinated strikes.
Mohg repeatedly tried to flank them with Cursed Blood, but each wave of boiling flame was met by Elza's superior frost, freezing the blood mid-air into jagged shards of ice.
After several failed attempts to intervene from afar, Mohg realized Margit was at a breaking point. He abandoned his long-range support and moved in close, attempting to bail his brother out.
"You think we were targeting the Fell Omen? Sorry, you were the primary target all along!"
Gawain and Elza had planned to eliminate the troublesome Lord of Blood first; the focus on Margit had been a feint to draw Mohg into melee range.
Gawain had swapped to the Carthus Milkring. His blade, coated in Carthus Rouge, glowed a sinister crimson. Triggering the ring's effect, his form—along with Elza's—vanished into a blur during a roll, reappearing a moment later as Gawain ran his blade through Mohg's abdomen.
But a Demigod's projection isn't so easily dispelled. Mohg ignored the wound as if it were nothing. Despite the pain, he swung his spear to parry Elza's follow-up strike from the flank.
Ordinarily, he would only need to tank the ambush until Margit could recover and assist. That was the plan—but it relied on Margit actually being able to reach him.
Gawain kept the pressure on with one hand, while with the other, he produced a dark object and infused it with power. Golden magic erupted from the item, slamming Mohg into the dirt.
"This is a fragment of the shackle that imprisoned me... How did you get this?! The one who held it should have been hunted down!"
"Blame your Night's Cavalry for being sloppy," Gawain growled. "Now stay down."
The Omen brothers had eventually torn their full shackles asunder, and a mere fragment wouldn't hold forever. The suppression was brief, but in this fight, a moment was an eternity.
Gawain transitioned to a two-handed grip on his greatblade, driving it deeper. He locked strength with Mohg, chest-to-chest. As the Omen tried to summon Bloodflame to retaliate, Elza's frost snuffed it out.
A black mist gathered in Gawain's palm. In an instant, a swarm of insects crawled along his blade, swarming over Mohg's body and beginning to feast. The gnawing of Dorhys' Gnawing was a sensation few could endure.
As the Lord of Blood, Mohg was ironically susceptible to blood loss. Being devoured by the swarm caused massive hemorrhaging across his body. In his agony and rage, he unleashed a burst of power, melting the surrounding ice.
"For the sake of the new dynasty... you must die!"
Mohg ignored Elza entirely. Before this projection failed, he was determined to kill the man who could nullify his Cursed Blood.
He raised his spear, intending to crush Gawain with pure physical might. But when the blow landed, he was shocked to find Gawain unmoved. The Tarnished simply caught the shaft of the spear with one hand; Mohg found himself unable to pull it back.
Gawain glowed with a faint blue light as black stone erupted from the gaps in his armor, covering his entire body. This was an ability he had refined from the souls of Havel's followers. The title of "The Rock" was not easily overcome.
Realizing the danger, Mohg tried to dissolve into blood to escape, but found he couldn't. The stone on Gawain's body receded, replaced by a violet sigil that enveloped them both.
"This is Vow of Silence. You aren't going anywhere!"
Elza didn't waste the opening. Crossing her twin blades, she performed an elegant rolling leap. Channeled with frost magic, she descended like a silver gale, her blades striking with unavoidable speed.
Even upon landing, she didn't stop. She spun in a continuous, rhythmic dance of steel, her blades a whirlwind of frost and fire.
Mohg's attempts to resist ceased. His head rolled from his shoulders. As Cursed Blood erupted from his form, the projection finally collapsed into a pool of gore.
Margit, having finally broken free of his own suppression, watched as his brother's projection was extinguished. He knew his own end was near. He used his cane-sword to haul himself upright, glaring at the Tarnished who approached him.
"I have marked thy face, Tarnished. Emboldened by the flame of ambition... fear the shadows that lurk in the dark. The Omen will not forget thee."
"I don't need you to forget. This is only the beginning. Your true body is hidden in Leyndell; I'll come for you personally in the future."
Gawain infused the shackle fragment with mana once more, pinning the Fell Omen to the ground. He then tossed the immobilized projection over the cliffside as a massive fireball began to coalesce in his hands.
"I'm in a hurry today, so I won't drag this out. Next time we meet, I'll give you a proper fight."
"Thou shalt never be King..."
Gawain gripped the Omen's horns as the pyromancy ignited within the projection's body, incinerating it from the inside out. He looked at the lingering ash on the ground and whispered a final reply:
"I certainly won't become the pathetic puppet you imagine."
With the brothers defeated, Gawain finally allowed himself a breath. The pressure of that fight had been immense. Margit alone was a challenge; adding Mohg had nearly pushed things to the edge. He was thankful he had taken the time to hunt down the shackle.
However, the battle revealed that the brothers weren't as coordinated as one might expect. They had fought their own separate battles rather than working in tandem. Without that flaw, even the shackle might not have given Gawain the opening to pick them off one by one.
He drank from his Flask of Wondrous Physick to restore his state. He and Elza stood before the massive gates of Stormveil.
"Can you keep going? The road is clear now. The Demigod is just inside."
"I'm fine," Elza replied. "This was just a warm-up. Back home, I used to fight Fire Giants for days on end."
"Good. Those twin blades look good on you. Consider them a gift."
Elza nodded, satisfied with the weapons. They felt like an extension of her own arms; she was already mentally mapping out new combat chains.
As they prepared to breach the gate, a large group emerged from the rear corridor. It was Nepheli and the others. It seemed that through the power of "righteous ganking," even four Night's Cavalry couldn't withstand them.
The newcomers stared in awe at the scorched and frozen battlefield, struggling to imagine the intensity of the clash that had just occurred.
"Looks like I'm a bit late," Nepheli said, looking at Gawain. "I didn't think you could dispatch monsters like that so quickly. Any trouble?"
Gawain looked at the pool of dissolving Cursed Blood and shook his head with a smile. "Nothing I couldn't handle. Now, it's time to go inside and deal with the Demigod. Rogier, haven't your moles opened the gate yet? If not, I'm going to have to break it down."
Rogier looked up at the ramparts, checking the time. "Patience. Sir Gideon probably didn't expect you to clear the Fell Omen guarding the bridge quite this fast. Any second now..."
As if on cue, the sound of grinding machinery echoed through the valley. The massive portcullis began to rise, opening the path into the city. On the walls above, several figures in Godrick's uniform waved down at them.
"Let's go. Inside, now. Don't waste the opening."
As the company stormed Stormveil, Kandane—the Crucible Knight within the Evergaol—finished listening to Lhutel's account of recent events.
He found it hard to believe. An eclipsed sun? The power to fully restore a soul? It couldn't truly be that Lord Godwyn had returned to the Lands Between with his memories lost... could it? It seemed too convenient.
Yet, even setting that aside, he was moved by the Tarnished's actions. Such a man was indeed worthy of service.
Walking to the edge of the Evergaol, he sighed as he looked toward the gathering storms over Stormveil.
"I suppose I should go out there. At least to see with my own eyes. Besides... that fool probably won't wake up unless someone beats some sense into him."
"That fool?" Lhutel asked. "Do you mean him?"
"Who else? He is the only Crucible Knight who still supports Godrick unconditionally. I cannot bring myself to strike Godrick, but I can certainly beat some sense into that old friend."
Since the gaol was already unsealed, Kandane and Lhutel left without issue. He couldn't remember how long he had spent in self-imposed exile, and the world felt strange. He looked up at the Erdtree, which dwarfed the sky, his heart heavy with complex emotions.
He walked to the nearby destroyed outpost, where a tattered banner of Godrick still hung. Kandane stared at it for a long moment before ripping it down, shredding it, and grinding it into the dirt beneath his heel.
Having vented his frustration, he gripped his greatsword and shield. Wings erupted from his back as he took to the sky toward the city. The profanity of the grafting would end today.
Lhutel watched her old friend with a smile. Since Godwyn's death, most warriors who had been drawn to his charisma had become aimless. Even if the hope Gawain represented was a self-deception, it was enough for her.
It reminded her of the old days—how resolute they had been, how strong the desire to build a glorious era had burned. Now, she could finally pick up that mantle once more.
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Elden Ring: In the Name of Ash (73 chapter - Ongoing)
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