Chapter 394 - 297: You Took It Upon Yourself to Become the Sun That Illuminated My Entire World

The golden radiance of the Erdtree fell gently across the Altus Plateau, making the night brighter than ever before.

Ranni had transformed into a Dark Moon, silently drifting and circling through the air as she waited for Lucian to arrive.

Nearly half a day had passed since Lucian contacted Ranni and set out on his journey.

However, the distance between them was simply too great. They were almost on opposite sides of the Altus Plateau.

Without a nearby Site of Grace they could use for teleportation, even someone as fast as Lucian would need some time to cover the distance.

Naturally, Ranni wasn't going to sit around doing nothing, either.

After using moonlight to share their locations, she had flown toward Lucian while continuing to interfere with the Shadows pursuing her.

According to her senses, the distance between them had already grown fairly short.

Although she felt somewhat relieved, Ranni remained extremely vigilant, carefully examining her surroundings.

Among the mist-shrouded mountain ridges, this moon wandering through the forest was even harder to spot.

But Ranni knew that the hunters behind her weren't the sort of opponents she could shake off so easily.

Even so, quite some time passed without the Shadows appearing again.

Curled up within her Dark Moon, Ranni let out a faint sigh.

For now, it seemed she could rest here for a little while.

Her puppet body was already in terrible condition.

More than half the broad brim of her Snow Witch's pointed hat had been sliced away, while her luxurious clothing barely clung to her body, torn apart by the numerous wounds inflicted upon her.

It wasn't just her clothes. The puppet's body itself was covered in cracks, with its seams coming apart.

One of her arms had even been severed, leaving her with only three arms, and those weren't in good condition, either.

Fortunately, thanks to the nature of her puppet body, injuries that looked this serious were practically equivalent to no injuries at all for Ranni.

As long as her soul remained unharmed, she would merely need to switch to another puppet with a slightly poorer degree of compatibility, resulting in a further reduction in the strength she could bring to bear.

Such injuries weren't even capable of causing her any pain.

Yet despite suffering no substantial physical harm, Ranni still found the situation extremely difficult to accept.

Expressionless, she raised an arm and brushed it across her body.

As she moved, a layer of ice immediately formed over the puppet, filling in the cracks of various sizes.

Looking down at her battered and ruined body, which possessed none of the elegance or dignity befitting royalty, Ranni felt as though it were constantly reminding her of her current status.

She, the Carian Princess, had become a princess in name only.

Under the pursuit of the Two Fingers, she had no opportunity to restore her former glory. All she could do was hide and flee from place to place.

At present, she was nothing more than a witch who had cursed the Two Fingers and was being hunted by their Baleful Shadows.

The thought made Ranni grit her teeth. For some reason, an inexplicable irritation surged through her.

The Ranni of the past would never have cared about any of this.

She had stolen the Rune of Death, conspired in the Night of the Black Knives, and killed and abandoned her own Empyrean flesh.

She knew her actions were hardly honorable, so she had never tried to portray herself as righteous or innocent.

She did not conceal her past, nor did she regret it.

Ranni had always understood the consequences her actions would bring.

But what was wrong with acting for her own sake? What did it matter if she had to bear the title of a witch? It was simply the path she had chosen.

She had rejected that fate, rejected the destiny of becoming a vessel manipulated by the Two Fingers.

As long as she could accomplish that, any price was worth paying. Ranni had always believed this.

But after meeting Lucian, after experiencing the warmth and perfection of his sun-like presence, her thinking had changed.

It was all Lucian's fault.

He had taken it upon himself to use the light of the Sun to illuminate her dark path.

And so, the shameful past she had hidden away in the darkness had suddenly become painfully glaring.

It was precisely because she knew how wretched she truly was that Ranni didn't want Lucian to see her in this state.

Before, she could at least maintain a respectable appearance on the surface.

Now, even the last scrap of cover she had left was gone.

In Ranni's eyes, standing before Lucian in such a miserable state was no different from standing naked in front of him.

Not literally naked, of course. The puppet body itself wasn't enough to make her feel embarrassed.

It was the feeling of being completely exposed in spirit, with none of her misery concealed. That was what the proud and fiercely self-respecting Ranni found utterly intolerable.

Ranni had no intention of admitting to Lucian that she had nothing left except her pride.

Because the last thing she wanted was for someone important to her to look down on her.

Ranni lowered her head, a sense of helplessness welling up inside her.

It was all the fault of those damned Baleful Shadows!

Remembering how the situation had suddenly spiraled out of control over the past half-day, Ranni clenched her teeth.

Earlier, while searching for traces of Celes, the Two Fingers, she had left bait along her route and repeatedly hunted the Baleful Shadows using tactics not unlike fishing for her enemies.

With the Fingerslayer Blade in her possession, Ranni hadn't been particularly afraid of the Shadows.

Quite a few of them had already fallen at her hands, dealing Celes a serious blow.

However, Celes seemed to have expanded the number of Shadows under his control again.

In addition to the elite Baleful Shadows she had faced before, there were now numerous ordinary Shadows whose strength was considerably lower.

Unlike the original Baleful Shadows, who had been specially selected, these new ones wielded no weapons faintly imbued with Destined Death. Their physical abilities were nowhere near as impressive, either.

Of course, "ordinary" was only a relative term.

Any one of them, taken individually, was still capable of fighting a hero on equal terms somewhere in the Lands Between.

Although their overall quality had clearly declined, their sheer numbers had created genuine trouble for Ranni.

After replenishing his forces, Celes had also become extremely cautious, sending only the weaker Shadows he had newly brought under his control to investigate.

As a result, Ranni's baiting tactics could only lure out ordinary Shadows. Their deaths barely inconvenienced Celes at all.

Since that was the case, Ranni had simply stopped wasting her effort and ceased attacking.

After all, once Lucian arrived, Celes and his Shadows were doomed to perish anyway.

But that was precisely where the problem lay.

Just as Ranni had managed to locate Celes's hiding place, her enemy had also discovered her whereabouts.

And this time, Celes had sent an absolutely terrifying number of Shadows to attack her all at once.

According to Ranni's calculations, Celes had only just enough power to sustain a force of this size.

In other words, he had left practically no defenders beside his own body.

When she realized this, even Ranni couldn't help cursing Celes for his madness.

A beast's final struggle before death was always the most vicious.

Yet even as his opponent, Ranni had to admit that this was Celes's last chance.

If he could seize this final opportunity and kill her before Lucian arrived, then he would undoubtedly come out ahead.

And just before Lucian's arrival was precisely when Ranni had been most confident of victory and had let her guard down.

So when an overwhelming number of Baleful Shadows surrounded her hiding place, she found herself unable to resist them all at once.

During the very first wave of attacks, Ranni had already sustained numerous injuries.

Only by smashing large numbers of Shadows with her Dark Moon had she managed to break through the encirclement and flee.

The Baleful Shadows, however, had no intention of giving up. They pursued her relentlessly, catching up with her several times along the way.

It reminded Ranni of the past, when the Shadows had driven her into hiding, forcing her to flee from place to place and sometimes preventing her from showing herself at all.

What a miserable sight she was once again.

Even obtaining the Fingerslayer Blade hadn't changed much.

Although the Fingerslayer Blade could directly kill the Shadows and break the power of the Two Fingers within them, Ranni simply had no opportunity to land finishing blows while under siege.

Ranni had been a refined sorceress in life.

A very traditional sorceress, in fact. Not the kind who used her staff to beat people over the head.

Moreover, she no longer possessed the powerful demigod body she had once had. All she had now was a fragile puppet.

Expecting her to take a dagger-sized Fingerslayer Blade and carve her way through the Shadows, killing them one after another with effortless finishing blows, was simply unrealistic.

So she had no choice but to run.

Remembering everything that had happened, Ranni grew more and more furious.

If only she could use the Fingerslayer Blade more conveniently!

Suddenly, a streak of reddish-black sword light howled out from the distant mountain forest, shooting toward her at terrifying speed. The air itself seemed to burn, producing an unsettling sound.

Ranni's Dark Moon split off a layer to intercept the terrifying attack.

The layer blocked the blow, then shattered like a piece of external armor.

Ranni looked toward the forest covering the distant mountain ridge.

Pairs of crimson eyes darted through the trees, watching the Dark Moon with murderous intent.

A continuous barrage of attacks shot toward Ranni, but each one was stopped by the Dark Moon using the same technique as before.

As long as the Shadows didn't catch her off guard with another coordinated ambush like the first one, it was difficult for them to hurt her.

The most troublesome things were their relentless pursuit and bodies that feared no death, refusing to stay dead no matter what.

Ranni raised her hand, pouring out all the magic power she had just recovered.

"Not even a moment's respite are they willing to grant me… How tiresome."

The Dark Moon embracing Ranni rose high into the sky, then continued to expand in size.

From the ground, the Dark Moon hanging in midair had already obscured the heavens. The entire mountain forest was illuminated by nothing but moonlight.

At Ranni's command, the enormous Dark Moon came crashing down without mercy.

In an instant, the colossal moon covered the entire mountainside within its attack radius.

The moment this terrifying celestial body descended, the immense magical power composing the Dark Moon erupted all at once.

It wasn't a celestial body with actual mass, but the damage caused by its impact was just as lethal.

In an instant, the heavens and earth seemed to collapse. The bodies of the Baleful Shadows were crushed to pieces, leaving them no opportunity to resist.

The mountainside collapsed from its middle section under the impact. Even the surrounding terrain sank downward by several dozen centimeters.

The place Ranni had deliberately chosen was useful for more than just hiding.

As the ground beneath them crumbled under the Dark Moon, rocks and enormous trees swept through the area together, burying the Baleful Shadows beneath the debris.

But only a few seconds later, countless wisps of reddish-black energy began rising from the cracks in the collapsed rocks, slowly taking shape once more.

The mass-produced Shadows crawled out from beneath the rubble on all fours, their bodies twisted into grotesque shapes.

Only after reaching the surface did they unnaturally return to their normal forms.

Looking at the Baleful Shadows, whose numbers had not decreased in the slightest, Ranni let out a long sigh.

If she tried to reduce their numbers with the Fingerslayer Blade, she would undoubtedly be torn to pieces herself.

But without using the Fingerslayer Blade to truly kill them, she couldn't win a war of attrition. All she could do was run for her life.

However, Ranni was no longer the least bit panicked.

Because, guided by the moonlight, the person she had been thinking about so desperately had finally arrived.

As though intent on devouring every trace of light, a stretch of pure darkness extended from the distance.

In an instant, even the gentle radiance cast down by the Erdtree disappeared without a trace, swallowed up completely.

That darkness was practically the night itself.

A wave of lightless black swept across the battlefield, instantly cleaving through the Baleful Shadows' formation.

The Shadows standing in the path of the boundless darkness vanished without making a sound.

Of course, it was also possible that even the sounds they made had been swallowed by the darkness.

As for what had happened to their companions, the Shadows standing at the edge of the attack's terrifying range saw it all clearly.

The moment the shadow of darkness born from the stars came into contact with the bestial Shadows, it completely tore their bodies apart.

Their beast-like bodies were ripped open by the pitch-black blade light. Blood sprayed into the sky before disappearing into the darkness.

By the time the Shadows recovered from their shock, a ravine more than ten meters wide had been carved through the middle of their formation. No one could tell how deep it went.

And the companions swallowed by the darkness never stood up again.

Through the power personally bestowed upon them by the Two Fingers, the Baleful Shadows had been able to rise again and again, pursuing their targets relentlessly until death.

But now, that power had failed them.

One after another, the Baleful Shadows raised their heads and looked toward the source of this overwhelming force.

Lucian's figure finally appeared in their sight. He stood quietly in midair, as though he alone ruled everything beneath heaven and above earth.

The Baleful Shadows felt no fear. The weapons in their hands ignited with faint remnants of Destined Death, and they swung them toward him.

The ordinary Shadows also unleashed various weapon skills, firing their attacks at Lucian from a distance.

But as the Frenzied Flame began to glow along Lucian's left arm, every attack was instantly extinguished beneath a vast blaze of fire.

Even the power of Destined Death was suppressed in an instant.

If he were facing the full power of Destined Death, Lucian might have been a little more cautious.

But these scraps of power were nothing worth worrying about.

Ranni bit her lip. Her heart was filled with a sense of security, yet she still instinctively muttered;

"Thou hast kept me waiting long enough…"

Lucian passed over Ranni's Dark Moon and slowly descended from the sky, walking toward the Baleful Shadows.

He stood alone against the countless Shadows spread across the mountainside, yet somehow, it seemed as though he were the one surrounding every last one of them.

Lucian glanced back at Ranni and chuckled softly.

"Sorry. It was a little too far away."

"And I'm not perfect, either. Things don't always go exactly as I'd like."

"But you can leave everything to me from here on."

Looking at the figure silently standing between her and the enemy, Ranni could no longer keep up her haughty facade.

Curled up inside her Dark Moon with her arms wrapped around her knees, she murmured softly:

"Mine thanks… for coming to my aid, I offer thee."

Her voice was faint, but Lucian heard every word clearly.

He didn't reply. He simply stared coldly at the Baleful Shadows before him.

As Lucian advanced step by step, the kindling flame on his body suddenly blazed fiercely. A miniature sun replaced his head and gradually rose into the air.

Someone had bullied his moon.

That meant it was time for the Sun to make its entrance.

The surviving Shadows suddenly received an order and began preparing to retreat into the shadows.

Yet the ability that had always served them so well was now completely unusable. They could barely even change their forms.

The dazzling radiance illuminated the earth, leaving the Shadows nowhere to hide.

Lucian took a Crystal Staff in his left hand and gently waved it in front of himself, continuously pouring magic power into it.

Four guardian spirits resembling skulls appeared one after another behind him, floating in the air as they absorbed the magic power.

With his other hand free, Lucian cast another spell.

Impenetrable Thorns burst from the ground, crawling upward and piercing the Shadows of Fate through and through.

Even the power sustaining the Shadows was continuously drained by the Impenetrable Thorns, expelled, and cast aside.

The Impenetrable Thorns had no need to absorb power.

They simply wanted others to experience the same despair and suffering they embodied.

The guardian spirits opened their mouths and roared soundlessly, as though the gates of Hell had been thrown open.

Ancient, deep-seated vengeful spirits of the dead surged out of their mouths, each struggling to emerge before the others.

In an instant, a vast tide of ancient vengeful spirits swept across the sky like dark clouds, engulfing the Baleful Shadows.

Lucian had no intention of rushing to use Shadow of the Stars, which was itself another weapon capable of hunting the Fingers.

The Sun was not all mercy and kindness.

When it came to his enemies, he had never been one to show compassion.