Bai Shi crept up behind the Godrick soldier, closing the distance inch by inch.
When he was just four or five paces away, the Godrick soldier finally heard a faint sound.
But the moment the soldier turned his head, Bai Shi shot forward, clapping a hand over his mouth while viciously plunging his sword upward from beneath the man's ribs with his right hand.
The blade ran the Godrick soldier straight through, its tip emerging from his collarbone. A torrent of blood streamed down the hilt; it had clearly pierced his heart.
The Godrick soldier struggled for a few moments before going still. A faint golden light—Runes—drifted from his body and flowed into Bai Shi.
Bai Shi flicked the blood from his sword, then tore a piece of cloth from the corpse and wiped the remaining gore from the blade.
The blood stained the embroidery of the Erdtree and the lion before Bai Shi casually tossed the cloth to the ground.
"Their reactions are sharper than in the game, but still not as good as a normal human's."
Bai Shi knelt and carefully studied the Godrick soldier's face.
After the shattering of the Elden Ring, every life blessed by the Erdtree had been affected.
In the Lands Between of the past, death meant returning to the Erdtree through the catacombs—being absorbed by its roots—to be reborn once more.
But now, with the Ring shattered, the Golden Order had ceased to function. The blessed could no longer return to the Erdtree, which meant they could no longer die.
Under the curse of undeath, they withered away day by day, body and soul eroding together. Many of the soldiers now were little more than empty shells.
Their souls had grown so faint that they likely didn't even know who they were, merely continuing to patrol and fight based on instinct.
One day, they would become walking corpses, their bodies alive but their minds gone... Perhaps they already were.
Bai Shi sighed. What a wretched world.
Bai Shi began to search the body, but there was nothing worth taking from a common soldier.
His armor was stained and battered, and Bai Shi had just run it through. He already had a torch, and picking up another would just weigh him down.
The only thing of any value was the sword still in its scabbard—a Lordsworn's Straight Sword.
It was a standard-issue weapon for common soldiers serving their lords. Its surface was blackened and its quality degraded from long use, yet it bore faint traces of maintenance.
But Bai Shi thought for a moment and decided against taking it. He had plenty of weapons already.
Besides, even after losing his mind, the soldier had still maintained his sword. It was better to leave it here to rest with him.
Bai Shi continued through the trees. He encountered several more soldiers, successfully ambushing two of them and picking up a few Kukris.
One time, however, a soldier whose mind had not yet completely faded spotted him first.
Bai Shi fought him for two exchanges before easily sinking his sword into the soldier's neck.
But the sounds of combat and the soldier's shouts had drawn three others from nearby.
The three soldiers swarmed him, coordinating their attacks intentionally or not. Bai Shi struggled to fend them off, and in a moment of carelessness, they found an opening and struck him twice.
One blow landed on his pauldron, but the armor held firm, leaving only a small dent.
The other strike was far more dangerous, aimed straight for Bai Shi's head.
Bai Shi had no shield, and his straight sword was already busy parrying another attack.
He could only block with the bracer on his forearm, but the blade shattered it, sinking deep into his flesh.
Bai Shi fought as he retreated. He found an opportunity to finish one of them, and the frequency of their attacks immediately lessened. The remaining two were dispatched soon after.
"Pant—pant—" Bai Shi's face was pale. His left hand trembled uncontrollably. The blood loss and the back-to-back fights had left him exhausted.
Though these soldiers had lost their minds, they fought as if they were still alive.
Bai Shi slowly removed the shattered bracer from his arm, revealing the steadily bleeding wound. He tore some cloth from one of the corpses and crudely bandaged it.
"They're basically just walking corpses, yet they somehow know how to coordinate when they have numbers."
"Good thing this armor is decent quality. If that blow to my shoulder had gotten through, my whole left arm would have been useless."
The set of armor Bai Shi wore was already weathered and worn. The defenses on some parts had indeed weakened considerably, or it wouldn't have been broken by a common soldier's strike.
"Heh, good thing this isn't a game. I can loot any corpse I want."
Bai Shi picked up a bracer from a corpse. The Godrick soldier's armguard consisted of a leather glove and a metal vambrace, wrapped in a layer of ragged cloth.
Gritting his teeth against the pain, Bai Shi fitted the new guard onto his left arm. He didn't know what fights lay ahead, and fighting with an exposed limb was far too risky. An unprotected arm could easily be severed by a single sword stroke.
These soldiers also had nothing worth taking, so Bai Shi paid them no more mind and stepped over their bodies to continue on his way.
Fortunately, the path ahead was clear of soldiers, and Bai Shi passed through the dense woods without further incident.
The sky was now beginning to dim; it was the twilight hour, just before nightfall.
Before him lay a stretch of ruins. A few tents for rest and storage were scattered among the debris of some unknown structure.
Even from a great distance and without a spyglass, Bai Shi could see numerous soldiers patrolling within.
To the left was a massive gatehouse, its stone-brick walls stretching between two mountains, with only a single road passing beneath its gate.
The mountainsides on either side were sheer cliffs, impossible to climb.
And there, before the gatehouse, a Site of Grace was shimmering, waiting for Bai Shi to touch it.
Bai Shi had to reach that Site of Grace, because it was the place where Melina first appeared to the player.
He wanted to meet her.
But the terrain gave Bai Shi pause. The world was much larger than the game, but the soldiers weren't the near-deaf, half-blind mobs from the game, either. It would be impossible to sneak past them crouched without being discovered.
And with so many soldiers stationed in the ruins before the gate, a frontal assault would be extremely difficult.
Suddenly, an idea struck Bai Shi. He remembered the Kukris he had picked up from the corpses earlier.
They were a type of large throwing knife, almost a heavy throwing weapon, and they dealt decent damage.
But more importantly, the knife had a particular quality: due to its weight, it made a loud noise when it struck stone.
Bai Shi licked his lips as a plan began to form in his mind.
Before acting on it, however, he moved to a different position and used his spyglass to survey the scene inside the gatehouse.
"The soldiers are spread far apart, but one of them seems to have a crossbow. Getting sniped would be bad."
Still, after some thought, Bai Shi concluded the plan had a high chance of success. Even if it failed, he could still retreat safely.
So Bai Shi found another patch of bushes near the cliff's edge, slipped inside, and waited for night to fall. Nᴇw ɴovel chaptᴇrs are published on 𝔫𝔬𝔳𝔢𝔩✶𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚✶𝕟𝕖𝕥