He investigated Ranni's eyes, both the spirit and ivory, and saw a great anger that spanned millennia. It was the same anger that drove her to kill her old flesh.
Elias had never seen such emotion.
The Elden Beast regarded the Lunar Princess and her consort with a silent, unnerving tilt of its head. The singular eye, which looked like a bright evening star, blinked erratically. Then, the beast swooped down, its neck oscillating to surround the bubble.
"Thine armament lies in front of the collapsed gate," Ranni whispered. The beast writhed on top of them.
"I know," Elias said as Ranni slowly levitated from the ground. She assumed a graceful fetal position in the air, like that of a crescent moon, and their bubble was bathed in a white light.
Their dome had turned into a smaller Dark Moon, then it exploded in a ball of cold, stinging magic.
The beast staggered back and fell on Carian architecture, its sheer weight levelling the entire library.
Now unprotected, Elias dashed towards the greatsword shimmering on the water. As he grabbed the hilt, the Elden Beast's arm burst through the stone wall and lunged toward him. He grabbed the sword, and using the momentum from his sprint, swung the blade with great force, slashing the large arm before it could hit him. He heard glass shattering, and the beast reeled in pain.
The Elden Beast erupted from the roof, destroying the last intact structures in the academy. It hurled stone and rubble toward Elias with such speed that the top half of the stone rises was gone in a few seconds.
Elias dodged and weaved through the rain of debris, but he had no stamina in him to avoid a piece of wall from the Church of the Cuckoo. Instead, he swung his sword toward the air, unleashing an ice-cold arc of magic that cleaved the wall in two.
The beast turned its attention to Ranni, who had mustered up the magic in her staff to shoot the beast with a sustained beam of Azur's comet. The beast thrashed like a mad dog and spun around aimlessly, until a faint golden crack appeared on its chest, under the base of its long neck.
Ranni halted her magic. She looked at Elias and nodded.
Elias made a desperate dash up a mountain of rubble. His muscles burned and his heart raced. The way he held his sword returned to a battle-born temper, as memories of battles long past rushed back to his mind. It had been a long time since he faced a foe such as this one. He never thought he'd have to fight one again.
The beast rose slowly.
It was the same beast that fought him before Ranni began her new age. How could it have returned when the Elden Ring was far removed from anything? He already killed it!
It didn't matter, he thought. He had to slay a god again.
Elias leaped from a rooftop, raised his sword above, and plunged the cold blade deep into the neck of the beast. The nebulous shell fractured and spewed particles of gold everywhere. Elias hung in the air as the beast twisted carelessly, like someone trying to swat away a bug.
Then, he was pulled down with such a great force that when he struck the ground, all the air shot out from his lungs. But the beast, large as it was, had already disappeared.
His eyes darted everywhere. With the beast gone, he almost loosened the grip on his sword, until a soft rumbling shook under his feet. He was standing on water, and he saw beneath its surface the glow of gold weaving and tottering away from him. The beast left him boxed in the ruins of the academy.
At that moment, his heart dropped.
"Ranni!" he screamed. There was no way out. Stone ruins surrounded him in every direction.
He heard the beast emerge from the water outside the academy.
Elias gritted his teeth. He almost missed it, but he saw an opening to the Church of the Cuckoo above a cascade of rubble. He climbed onto the mountain of debris, dashed with all his might, and crashed into the stained-glass window leading outside. It was quite the fall. His ankle almost gave in, but he stood up shakily amid the pain, as he always did. As he looked up, his face turned pale.
The Elden Beast had caught Ranni. She was suspended in the air, two arms stretched along a wide rune arc, attached to her abdomen by only a few threads.
Golden stars burst into existence, surrounding her crucified body.
"No!" Elias shouted.
The stars pierced Ranni like spears. Dozens of projectiles impaled her within fractions of a second, slicing through wood, ivory, and rope.
The Dark Moon greatsword glowed white-hot like the rage swelling inside him. Elias swung the blade with all the might returned to him from his time In the Lands Between, sending an arc of magic flying like a thunderstorm toward the beast. He swung again, then again, even as his muscles burned. Each swing, he inched closer to the belly of the beast.
It could not all be for naught.
He kept swinging even as the light blinded him.
With one final shout, Elias slashed the glowing weak spot in the beast's abdomen, causing a blazing explosion at the end of his sword. The magic was so great it sent him flying several feet backwards.
The Elden Beast was sliced in two. Mists of nebulae and star dust leaked out of the gaping wounds, then the light of its nervous system dimmed and turned gray. Its body crashed into the water limply, and after a moment all of its being faded into dust and debris, dissolving into the chill nightly air.
Elias crawled to Ranni's body. He was wounded, with scars and burn marks all over his skin, but the Lunar Princess suffered worse. Pieces of her were scattered everywhere. Her head and abdomen were intact, if not battered with nasty cracks and fractures.
For a moment, Ranni had become the lifeless doll she inhabited. She was still, inanimate, and dead, until Elias saw a flicker of her Empyrean ghost. The apparition beside the doll face was motionless, its only eye refusing to open.
"Lady Ranni!" Elias exclaimed. "Please…"
As though she heard his plea, the Empyrean ghost vanished, and a body materialized from thin glowing particles beside the doll.
She was a tall, pale-skinned princess of flesh and blood. Red, wavy hair fell on top of her chest. Blue eyes shimmered against the night sky, like the flowing velvet robes that dragged across the ground. She stood strong and proud like a Carian tower.
Elias was agape.
"My lady…?"
Lunar Princess Ranni stood before him, looking as she did before the Shattering, in her forsaken Empyrean flesh.
Though she carried herself with regal grace, her eyes harbored the silent agony of a million unspoken horrors, which terrified Elias to the bone.
"My dear consort," she said. "Forgive me."