The first to move was the misbegotten who was one of Malenia’s best commanders, charging and bringing his massive club down on Ghiza. But their opponent moved faster than anyone anticipated, batting Vorn’s weapon aside almost effortlessly.
Harry moved in then, throwing his executioner’s greatsword through the air as it spun in a blur of red. Yet Ghiza managed to get his large wheel of iron up in time, a huge spiked spinning weapon made only for butchering his enemies. Their blades collided in a clash of steel, before he pulled the greatsword back through the air and into his waiting hand.
Yet Harry was already moving in as his attack ended, raising his sword as if to strike, while secretly conjuring nine carian glintblades at his back. He feigned an overhead strike, before leaping back suddenly, as the nine conjured swords launched themselves at Ghiza. For his part, the enemy commander didn’t retreat, but instead leapt forward, ducking underneath each blade to strike at him.
The spinning wheel struck out with more force than Harry anticipated, knocking his sword aside and catching his wrist as it spun. He cursed and managed to get back in time, glade he didn’t lose his hand to the attack.
“The Carian arts.” Rykard’s chief commander sneered at him. “Meager and simple compared to my Lord’s powers. You cannot expect me to fall for such paltry tricks when my Lord was once heir to the Carian throne.”
“Dumb tricks, huh?” He felt his irritation flare, magic desperate to lash out in anger.
“Do not fall for his taunts, young Lord.” Vorn cautioned from the side. “Filth like him is not worthy of your ire.”
“It is you who is not worthy of my attention, misbegotten.” Ghiza glared. “Thy kind are the dregs of society, those whose sole value is to live and die as slaves in Lord Rykard’s empire. Considered impure by even the dregs of the Golden Order, you are not fit to breathe the same air as one such as myself.”
Vorn growled deeply in a way that made Harry’s hairs raise on end. That was when the large misbegotten charged, club raised high and muscles straining as he made to bring it down and turn Rykard’s commander into a red smear.
Yet Harry managed to catch the smirk on Ghiza’s face, hidden partly by his bandages. The man moved in right as the misbegotten closed the distance, swinging his metallic wheel upwards and into Vorn’s abdomen.
Blood sprayed everywhere as the spinning wheel struck deep, wrecking his innards as Harry watched on in horror. And before he knew it, he was already moving in, the ground cracking beneath his feet as me moved faster than ever. He skidded around Vorn’s body before swinging his greatsword at Ghiza, yet the man managed to pull back and deflect it, allowing Harry’s fellow commander to limp away.
He hacked and swung at their enemy, teeth grit in rage as his arms burned from the power of his strikes.
“A Tarnished brute. You’re nothing but a meager weakling hoping to achieve glory!” Ghiza panted out between strikes, managing to get away unscathed. “You’ll die here… All of you Haligtree mongrels!”
“Shut up!” Harry spat, grabbing his wand as if making to curse the man, before a better idea struck him. “Incendio!”
Fire leapt from his wand, as Ghiza held up his wheel to shield himself from the brunt of it. Yet the conjured flame was just a distraction, as he moved away before performing his next sorcery.
Purple light coalesced at the tip of his wand, warping inwards and tightening, before a pure, destructive beam of gravity magic shot out. The ground was ripped up, a ten-foot wide trench being carved into the ground by the force of the spell as it barreled towards his opponent.
He only caught the panicked look on the man’s face before he disappeared behind the blinding lance of light, followed by the copious amounts of dust and rock the impact kicked up. Just like that, it was over, and there was nothing left of Rykard’s strongest commander.
“Shit.” Harry bent over at the expenditure of magic, taking deep breaths to calm his nerves.
Around him, the battle still raged on, even if the Haligtree forces were the clear victors. Most of Rykard’s army was decimated and outright fleeing already. Then there were the forces of Leyndell, pulling back to retreat behind their walls where safety awaited them.
Even then, Harry still felt like there was still more to come. This battle isn’t over yet.
/////
Her chest felt warm, and she instinctively knew it wasn’t caused by the fire and the magma burning around her. This was a feeling she had spent a lifetime pursuing, from when she was younger and regularly sparred with Messmer in the colosseum, to marching out to put down rebellions in hopes of making her Father proud.
The fighting always made Malenia’s chest feel the sensation of warmth, a brief sense of feeling unconstrained and unburdened by life’s troubles. In her younger years, she had initially fought for the adrenaline and the injuries that came with battle which would distract her from the Rot. But now the Rot was gone, and yet she still fought, and still felt those same feelings that she had long ago began to cherish.
It was not bloodlust - as Malenia knew exactly what that looked like - but rather something deeper. Lust for battle would have one frothing at the mouth while fighting, only to weep and become little more than a drunken husk in the aftermath. She had heard too many stories of her Mother’s first consort, Godfrey, to know what bloodlust was.
No, she simply enjoyed the feelings that came with fighting. To test her ability against other skilled opponents, and to take pride in the gap of skill between herself and everyone else.
The irony of it all was not lost on her. That the one who wanted to remake the Lands Between into a kinder world would enjoy violence so much. But then again, so much of Marika’s bloodline was the same, generals and conquerors all, each holding the lives of millions in their hands.
No wonder it all went to hell after the Elden Ring shattered and Mother disappeared.
Malenia was hardly one to talk, especially when her current opponent embodied so much of what she fought against.
Rykard swung wildly, serpentine body curled in knots as twisted limbs sprouted from his debased form to maneuver himself around on the battlefield. He moved without grace, relying on brute force and his sheer mass to win. She figured most of his opponents simply wouldn’t be able to sufficiently wound him or escape his reach, but that wasn’t the case with her.
She twirled and danced around his strikes, moving faster than most mortal eyes could track. Her katana lashed out and cut off door-sized chunks of scaled serpent flesh, making her half-brother roar in pain and rage.
He would try to strike her down shortly after, but she was already gone, circling around his body to attack him from the rear.
Sometimes his guards would get in her way, but Malenia would simply cut those interlopers down without slowing down in the slightest. A squad of Tarnished aligned to Volcano Manor would try to catch her off-guard, only to have their bodies sliced to bits in mere moments as she blew past them, not a speck of blood managing to stain her cloak.
It was when Rykard began chanting to that serpent god of his that things became complicated. The sky turned red in blood, as skulls of fire rained down without regard to collateral damage.
She avoided them, even as the fire burned the hundreds of men surrounding their duel. Her Cleanrot Knights, Rykard’s own soldiers, the Praetor of Mount Gelmir could care less who he killed.
She knew she needed to end this, and so she leapt into the air, and then rose higher. Being able to partially fly was a gift received from her Great Rune, and it only aided her in her next move.
The waterfoul dance she performed then was one of her deadliest, more akin to a tornado of destruction rather than an isolated attack. A whirlwind of twirling blades affecting an area bigger than a fortress descended on Rykard in that moment, as Malenia pulled hard on the strength of her Great Rune.
“BWWAAAAGH!” Blood and spittle left Rykard’s mouth, yet she continued on regardless. Cutting and butchering his scaled inhuman flesh until nothing remained, until he looked like a dissected snake that had been flayed, barely holding on to life as she finished her dance.
And that was when he did as all cowards do in the hopeless situation he found himself in. He ran.
The serpent slithered away, running roughshod over any poor souls unlucky enough to get in his way. Or maybe that was his plan.
Malenia watched as his wounds healed, as Rykard killed and trampled men by the dozens, taking their runes for his own and using their souls to heal his body.
He heals himself by devouring others. She understood that his Great Rune must be similar to her own in some aspects, able to regain strength through combat, if a bit tenebrous in its ways.
And so she began to calmly walk forward, leisurely chasing after her half-brother. Rykard would die on her blade regardless, that much she knew, as there was no where for him to flee to-
That was when Malenia realized just where he was fleeing.
He’s heading towards Harry’s position. My sweet Tarnished… It was only a fleeting thought, yet her cheeks burned, and suddenly she wasn’t casually strolling anymore, but sprinting.
“My Princess!” A Cleanrot Knight managed to get close enough to her as she moved, getting her attention. “What are your ord-”
She spared the briefest of glances across the battlefield, taking note of everything in that moment. “Order the army to pull back and form a defensive line to minimize our losses! All available units are to head to Lord Potter’s position at once!”
/////
“Well, that’s not good.” Harry remarked.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out the oversized serpent heading their way was bad news. Especially when the creature - supposedly being Rykard - was rapidly regenerating his wounds by killing anyone in his path.
None of them were forewarned that they would be personally facing one of the demigods that day, nor were any of them prepared to do so. Especially when a look to the side showed their large misbegotten commander was still grievously wounded, holding on to consciousness only through sheer stubbornness.
“Kakaka! You look like shit, Commander Vorn!” The other commander, Maddeus, rode over to their position atop his steed then.
“Where have you been, you damn clown?!” Vorn grumbled.
“Someone had to give orders to the rear ranks while you two ran off.” The madman grinned. “Our backline would’ve been a disorganized mess if no one gave sufficient orders. Strategy is important, you know?”
Millicent tilted her head oddly, hands busy bandaging Vorn’s wounds. “And that’s how you got your position, through strategy?”
“Nope! I was once Kindly Miquella’s personal jester in court! And it was only once he established his order of Needle Knights that he asked me to-”
“Wait, you were actually a clown?” Harry asked oddly. He had thought Maddeus’ face paint was for intimidating his opponents, not that he was an actual jester.
“I think we have more important things to worry about!” Millicent interrupted, pointing away. “Such as that giant snake who’s about to crush us!”
Indeed, Rykard was coming closer, his behemoth form enough to crush all of them if they weren’t careful.
“We can take him.” Harry said with certainty.
All of them braced for the coming fight, as he pulled on his reserves of magic. He knew what was about to happen would be painful, and that they might not even survive, but there was nowhere to run now.
The gigantic serpent reached them-
-and went right past their position.
“Huh?” Millicent looked gobsmacked. “I-Is he really just running away? C-Coward!”
Even Harry was bewildered at the sight, staring with open-mouthed awe, even as that confusion soon turned to anger. Perhaps the Lands Between had changed him to the point he felt this way. Or even it was that old Gryffindor bravery showing its head, angry that someone of the demigod’s status would be so craven.
Something happened then as his gaze narrowed in one the gigantic serpent, abject fury taking hold as words left his mouth in another language.
“~GET BACK HERE! ” He hissed out loudly in parseltongue, the words whipping out terribly over the fields and drowning out the surrounding fighting for a brief moment.
Several things happened then. First, his nearby allies all around him simultaneously jumped in fright, before looking back at him with shocked expressions. Next, the giant serpent literally stopped, and turned back around to head his way.
That actually worked? It was like he had commanded the huge snake with parseltongue, almost putting it in a trance as it headed straight for where Harry stood. Fuck. It worked.
“Rykard is heading back towards us!” A nearby Haligtree soldier cried out in terror.
“Hmm. SSSerpent-tongued one…” The disfigured demigod groaned out, looking down at Harry with those scarily familiar golden irises. “Devourrr theeee...”
“Kakaka! Great job getting his attention, young Lord!” Maddeus cackled as his scythe flared suddenly with red lightning. “Allow me to handle this!”
The Needle Knight charged towards the god-devouring serpent atop his spectral steed, raising his blazing weapon high before slashing part of Rykard’s body with lightning. The gigantic demigod merely looked down in annoyance at him, before whacking him aside with his huge sword.
“Idiot.” Millicent muttered. “That said, I’m not sure how to go about killing that thing.”
But Harry did, as he reached in to his vast pool of magic, and then deeper. It got to the point he was drenched in his own power, trying not to drown as he grabbed a firm hold of that elusive thing called magic. On the outside, purple light began to escape his form, his body growing heavy to the point it felt like it would burst from the force of his magic. And that was when Harry pulled.
The ground quaked, the stone underneath his feet cracking from the sheer power he released. Men screamed aloud in fright as the landscape rippled and shifted, as chunks the size of buildings lifted skyward.
The world around him glowed and crackled in purple with the use of gravity magic, with him acting as the epicenter. Yet Harry kept pulling, exerting more magic than he had ever expended before.
Rykard stumbled and fell in a heap, as a crater of rock sectioned him off from the rest of the world. Harry put the serpent in a hole, and shoved him deeper into the earth. It got to the point that some of the Erdtree’s roots even became visible, rising with the landscape around him.
And just like that, he buried the Lord of Volcano Manor in the ground. Stones the size of cars, island-sized clumps of earth, all of it landed on top of Rykard’s writhing serpentine body as Harry struggled to remain upright, directing everything on top of his enemy’s head to bury him.
It was when the rock settled and the rumbling stopped that he he finally let out a breath. His legs shook with tiredness, eyes drooping. Yet it was in that moment when someone grabbed him from behind.
“Harry!” He heard Millicent shriek.
“I underestimated you, and will pay for it with my life.” A rasping voice said, as familiar bandaged-covered arms restrained him. “Lord Rykard will now ensure your demise by my hand.”
The ground where he buried Rykard shifted then, and a huge serpent maw leapt out of the ground before heading right for him. The jaw opened wide, exposing two rows of monstrous teeth, before clamping shut around Harry’s body while Ghiza restrained him.
He felt several of the teeth bite deep into his form, all the way from his leg up to his chest. Blood left his mouth in a wordless scream, yet the god-devouring serpent wasn’t done. The creature slammed its mouth with Harry inside against the ground, burying its fangs deeper, before doing it a second time, until it opened its jaws and threw him a hundred feet across the battlefield to land in a mess of limbs.
“D-Damn it…” He got out weakly as he came to rest. It was a miracle he could still speak and was conscious, or even that he was somehow still alive.
“HUHUHU!” A dark laugh came from his enemy. “No matcch for the ssserpent king.”
“Harry!” Millicent was screaming at the top of her lungs. “Harry, you need to get up!”
Is this how it ends? No normal human could survive wounds like this. What had to be a dozen fangs had previously embedded themselves in his body, before slamming him down to ensure his demise. Now he was laying on the ground helplessly, unable to move a single muscle.
THUMP-THUMP
His chest hurt. In fact, he could comfortably say that everything hurt from his neck down to his legs.
THUMP-THUMP
Images of his friends and family flashed through his mind. From those back home such as Sirius, to his lovers like Daphne, Susan, and Fleur. He thought of all the women in the Lands Between he’d grown close to as well. Millicent, Melina, and Malenia who would be his queen when all of this was over. Even Ranni was considered to be someone he liked.
THUMP-THUMP
The only thing he could hear was his loud but slow heartbeat, nearly drowning everything else out.
THUMP-THUMP
“Harry… Harry, please, please be okay! J-Just hold on a little longer…” Millicent as sobbing with emotion above him. “I don’t know what I’ll do without you…”
THUMP-THUMP
Darkness.
Suddenly, the world turned monochrome, as flames of black and red leapt from his skin. He could feel something else in his chest, something close to his heart and soul but not quite there. It felt alien, like something tacked on to make him more powerful.
Destined Death. He knew what it was, as he held it the entire time. Ever since he arrived in the Lands Between he’d been told he possessed it, yet had never been able to actually use it. I hold the Rune of Destined Death.
“Oh? You’re still alivvvee?” Rykard grinned down at him, as if amused. But that amusement immediately died when he saw the flames coming off of Harry’s body. “Isss that… Destined Death?”
He stood mechanically, teeth grit and the holes in his chest closed by sheer force of will. What he experienced in that moment was something beyond the power of mere incantations or sorcery, being an artifact that could fundamentally change the world around him.
So this is the power of a Great Rune? He could suddenly understand why the demigods were so powerful, why the Golden Order and Queen Marika’s dynasty reigned so supreme before the Shattering.
He rose, his wounds still there, just more tolerable than before.
“H-Harry?”
He looked to the side, to see Millicent staring up at him as she sat on her knees. Clearly the redhead had fallen to such a position out of sheer despair, and looked at him almost in disbelief.
“It’s okay.” He said to her, before turning his gaze to Rykard. For some reason, the Blasphemer looked a lot less intimidating compared to before. He noted the hundreds of wounds on his scaled serpentine form, as Ranni’s brother only survived by the power granted by his own Great Rune.
He’s already on death’s door. This won’t take long.
Harry raised his wand high, and the sky flared purple. A dozen portals opened up, as meteors rained down on his enemy. For his part, Rykard weaved and tried to dodge, yet some of those house-sized rocks still collided with his form, wounding and breaking it even more.
The Lord of Volcano Manor roared in rage and pain, raising his abominable blade high as he charged before swinging it down at Harry. He didn’t move, but instead raised his own blade to block, coating it in a layer of destined death.
Their blades clashed, and Harry stood his ground, not falling back or being pummeled as would’ve happened before. Yet he still felt the stress that the blow caused on his injuries, wounds nearly reopening from the sheer force of the impact.
Pushing on, he channeled destined death through his blade, as it glowed an angry red and black. The death magic literally ate through the executioner’s greatsword, but did even more damage to Rykard’s own sword. The serpent king realized what was happening and pulled back, his blade melting down to its hilt from a mere touch with Destined Death.
Harry took that moment to strike, channeling even more of his Great Rune into his sword as it changed. The Executioner’s Greatsword was already cracked and melting at its edges, and he transformed it from the blunt weapon it once was into something even more ugly.
Black rock that almost looked like obsidian grew from his blade, coated brightly in that same black and red flame. He channeled everything he had into his next attack, the sword growing larger until it rose high in the sky - becoming bigger than even the Carian Greatsword sorcery - and that was when he brought it down on Rykard.
His vision shook at the force of blow, as he covered his eyes as red and black flame consumed his opponent. He could hear Ranni’s brother roaring in pain from the strike, but his cries soon faded.
The god-devouring serpent and its demigod host turned to dust as he watched on, its Great Rune leaving its deceased body before entering Harry’s own. And that was the last thing he saw before everything faded to black.
Disclaimer: All Characters are over the Age of 18