[Elden Ring: My Ending] Chapter 60

The Forge of the Giants. A massive bowl, its bottom still glowing with embers—embers that continued to hold the flame of the giants, a fire even Queen Marika the Eternal herself had failed to extinguish. A flame once belonging to a fallen Outer God, defeated by the Erdtree… and yet still clinging to a shred of its might, enough to drag its natural enemy down with it.

Or whatever it was that now stood in place of the Erdtree…

Both enemies and allies of Queen and Goddess Marika knew just how ruthless and meticulous she could be when it came to revenge. Unable to snuff out the flame, she had instead ordered it guarded—and sealed off—by the very one meant to spread it: a giant who had lost the war.

Towering dozens of meters tall, the being stood as a living monument to grandeur and might.

Unfortunately, any self-respecting Soulsliker knew that wasn’t quite true: the bigger the hitbox, the easier the fight—and the clunkier the opponent.

Granted, the Fire Giant was a bit of an exception. His random roll-attacks earned him a touch more respect (and a lot more hatred, since players had to chase him across half the map), but the core truth remained: the smaller the enemy, the more dangerous they probably were.

Even though Kosta had long since grown taller than a normal human, next to the giant, he was still basically a toothpick.

No further clarification was needed.

And as if that wasn’t enough, he wasn’t alone. And no, we’re not talking about his waifu or any summoned spirits.

“Ho-ho! Who would’ve thought? It’s an honor to witness your combat prowess again, Konstantin!”

The Tarnished gave a stoic nod, aiming the Rivers of Blood at the towering figure of the Fire Giant, who was already reaching for his enormous cauldron the moment he spotted the two uninvited guests.

“This time, we’ll fight together,” the man said gravely. “Since the script triggered again(1), I couldn’t not invite you to the fight.”

To Kosta’s surprise, Alexander understood exactly what he meant. It was hard to put into words how grateful the warrior-jar was to his friend.

He knew he’d probably just be underfoot. They both knew. And still…

“It must be fate! You’re too kind to me, my friend!”

Normally, it would've taken him months to reach this place, but some dragon had—completely by accident—picked him up mid-journey, flown him across the continent, and eventually dropped him here after losing interest.

If that wasn’t fate… or scripted event… well, what was?

Alexander laughed, delighted.

Neither Millicent, nor Melina, nor Latenna had expected the man to run into his friend—the living jar Alexander—in a place like this. A spontaneous encounter at the very edge of the continent seemed like it had no rhyme or reason… and yet—

Somehow, it had happened. And the man wasn’t even surprised. After a few brushes with the phenomenon of fate (game script), he had begun to accept certain “random” events as natural, grateful either to the world itself or to the Sun for allowing him to influence the code, drawing ever closer to his ending.

That didn’t mean he planned to lean on the scripted events entirely. It just meant he could keep on tryharding and casualing his way through, doing everything that needed to be done.

And when the time came, he’d figure out the necessary mechanics and—if need be—how many phases fate might actually have.

“Please… don’t interfere,” Melina whispered with uncharacteristic seriousness. “This is not your fight.”

Millicent nodded dumbly.

The unbroken red-haired warrior hadn’t met Melina before crossing paths with Konstantin, but for some reason, she felt a strange sense of kinship. In some abstract way, she saw the Finger Maiden as something like…

An aunt, maybe?..

At the very least, the outwardly-young maiden felt older. Not quite motherly, but aunt-like? Possibly?..

Millicent wasn’t sure, lacking real-life associations for familial ties, only knowing them through stories from her adoptive father.

Still, Melina gave her a sense of quiet comfort. The false Finger Maiden, even if she didn’t seem to like her very much for some reason, still treated her with patience and, in some distant way, even friendliness. That was more than enough. No—

That was already too much for Millicent.

“I… I understand, of course…”

Melina, long used to the sharp-tongued remarks of a certain witch… or perhaps not just one, narrowed her eyes in quiet satisfaction at the girl’s gentle, surprisingly sincere answer.

There was no need to worry that her words would be twisted, ignored, or misunderstood. If Millicent said she understood—she meant it.

Wasn’t she just the sweetest?..

The charm of the unbroken red-haired waifu was simply too strong.

While one side seemed almost too relaxed—treating the fight against one of the Golden Order’s most terrifying foes as little more than a warm-up—that very foe was feeling very different emotions.

The Fire Giant needed only one glance at one of the approaching “gnats” to experience—for the first time in centuries—a surge of raging madness and, along with it, humiliating fear. Fear of something many times smaller(2) than him… but also, so much greater.

The small Tarnished radiated the presence of someone massive—taller than the tallest among the now-extinct race of giants. As tall and terrible as the monster who had once chained him here.

And yet—just as disgustingly small. He would not allow that humiliation to repeat. Not again. Not ever.

Kosta blinked in disbelief at the giant, who had suddenly howled like a mad beast, dropped to his knees… and grabbed his own leg—just to tear it off and offer it up as a sacrifice to a long-dead Outer God. A flicker of power that, though all but extinguished, could still flare to life for one last burst of fury.

‘Second phase already?’

Apparently, the giants’ inferiority complex ran way deeper than Kosta had anticipated.

A blazing eye opened on the giant’s chest. Flames ignited—flames so hateful, so venomous to everything around them, that even space caught fire, warping and distorting in protest.

Kosta felt that familiar pressure crash down on him again, though this time… it was noticeably weaker. He’d been through far worse.

It even seemed like the blade in his hand—blessed by the curse of the Formless Mother—scoffed, as if mocking the very idea that anyone would call on a fallen Outer God expecting to get something useful in return.

Without exchanging a glance (assuming a warrior-jar even could exchange glances), Konstantin and Alexander surged forward at the same time, charging straight into the incoming wave of flame.

Kosta’s casual aura might shield him—but his friend? His friend welcomed the divinely-tainted fire.

After all, it was perfect for tempering his body and spirit.

“This is just the right temperature!!!” bellowed the living jar with a hearty laugh, swinging a mighty blow at the creature’s leg(3).

The maddened monstrosity, seeing that the flames of its dead God couldn’t so much as singe its foes, screamed even louder, throwing up both hands—now blazing with a fire more furious and hateful than ever before.

It would annihilate these gnats, sweep them away like freshly fallen snow!

Its sweeping arms—each wide enough to flatten hills and stir up storms—came crashing down. Melina, watching from afar, quickly grabbed Millicent’s hand and pulled her into immateriality.

Millicent let out a surprised yelp, blinking as the world around her turned vague and shimmery, her body phasing out into something less… solid.

“I could’ve handled it myself… but t-thank you…”

Seeing how flustered the unbroken warrior looked, Melina suddenly felt the urge to pull her into a hug and gently pat her on the head.

She still couldn’t believe something like this had emerged from Malenia’s lineage.

Who would’ve thought that terrifying woman could give life to something so soft and gentle… Melina bit her lip.

Millicent, noticing the odd look on Melina’s usually-calm face, turned even redder. Melina groaned mentally.

She had her limits too! This was too much!

Meanwhile, the battle raged on without pause. The Fire Giant was in a frenzy like never before, tearing through everything in his path. The snow-covered mountain was melting, revealing blackened, scorched earth. Craters formed one after another—scars that would remain for centuries, reminding the world of what had happened here.

…And even then, few would believe the enormous creature had been rolling around the battlefield, trying to squash his enemies with his own body…

…Or that he’d tried to scoop them up with his giant bowl, hoping to bury them under tons of dirt.

Unfortunately, Konstantin couldn’t bring himself to care about the fight anymore. He just lazily pulled aggro from Alexander to keep him safe and experimented with the new blade in his hand, testing its durability.

More and more bloody gashes began to cover the giant’s body—small, but agonizing, signaling the inevitable end of his centuries-long imprisonment.

Such was the burden of one of the strongest—and most casual-friendly—playstyles in the Lands Between: bleed.

Soon enough, the giant fell, his colossal body crashing to the earth with a roar that shook the living and the dead across miles. Another boss defeated, another step toward Konstantin’s inevitable conclusion.

“At first I was happy,” Alexander muttered, settling his jar-body down near the edge of the Forge. “But now I just feel bitter, my friend…”

Kosta sat silently beside him, calm as ever. Far behind them lay the giant’s corpse—fallen after centuries at the hands of just two warriors.

“Bitter?” the Tarnished asked, brows raised.

Alexander’s words worried him. The final step of the jar’s sad questline was drawing near, and Konstantin had hoped his actions would change that outcome. At the start of the fight, Alexander had seemed full of spirit—not weighed down by that old gloom.

Kosta still remembered how, in the original tale, Alexander had lamented that the Tarnished had done everything while he had done nothing. But this time… this time Kosta had taken the role of the supporting phantom, drawing aggro and letting Alexander do the heavy lifting.

Was that… not enough?

The warrior-jar, not expecting fear in the voice of a being as otherworldly as Konstantin, let out a quiet laugh.

He hadn’t defeated the giant. Not really. There hadn’t been much of a battle to begin with. The giant—who had once seemed like a god to Alexander—had been no threat at all to his friend.

A fight without challenge. A dull beatdown, with a predetermined outcome. He had been allowed to pummel the giant’s legs until it fell. Allowed to run circles around a crazed, flame-drunk titan, chained here long ago by Marika herself.

In one word—suffocating.

Alexander had landed the final blow, claiming the victory runes. Konstantin hadn’t even tried to steal the kill, even though he clearly needed more levels.

And yet… Alexander felt no joy. Maybe now he could grow bigger, push beyond the limits nature had imposed. But—

After the victory, he realized that wasn’t what he truly wanted.

“I’m not worthy of this strength… It would corrupt me, Konstantin… And I wouldn’t even use it half as well as you could…”

He was right. His power grew by absorbing the remains of fallen warriors. Only Tarnished, learning the process slowly through the Finger Maidens, could properly use runes to grow stronger. And even among them, Konstantin was… an anomaly.

Alexander reached out with the full torrent of runes earned from the giant’s death and pushed them into a startled Konstantin.

For a moment, the world shimmered with a golden storm of light—an explosion of endless runes.

“You…”

“Gods, please, spare me the words, Konstantin. I can see how little time you have left—I won’t be the one to hold you back. You must finish your quests your way! Don’t you see how important that is?! I already received the one thing I truly wanted—to be forged.”

Alexander slapped his massive hand against his jar-body. The surface, now subtly blackened by the flames of a fallen Outer God, held firm—and, in fact, had grown stronger. Artificial physiology, flavored with a few laws not native to this world, had its own unique view on the concept of tempering living jars.

"So don’t wor—"

Konstantin's eyes lit with the light of the Sun.

"I have something I need to show you. Come."

Without warning, he stood and touched the jar, pulling him into the Flow of Grace.

Alexander had no time to respond. He froze, jarred—figuratively and literally—nearly tipping over from shock.

They stood in the Scarlet Wastes, before an ancient, long-forgotten coliseum. The Coliseum of the Star Wastes, beside which sat a jar the size of the coliseum itself, arms crossed like any self-respecting warrior-jar, towering over them just as the Fire Giant had only recently done.

"W-what…"

"I’ve wanted to show you this for a long time," said Kosta. "I just couldn’t find the right moment. You think that giant was godlike? In a Soulslike, no one stops your growth. You just need the patience to farm and sweat it out. A real tryhard lives inside you, so I believe you can become stronger than this jar. Much stronger."

As Alexander had helped him, now it was Kosta's turn to help him.

No more falling victim to the script!

Kosta paused, letting his friend absorb the weight of his words.

"Call me to a duel when you’re sure you could destroy that jar in a single hit."

"By the stars—do you have any idea how long that’ll take?! Madman, that’s practically impossible!"

"I’ll wait," Konstantin answered simply, then unexpectedly raised his arms to the Sun, breaking through the rot-red sky. "Every time you feel tired—praise the Sun. That always helped me."

Alexander roared with laughter.

Of course the Sun’s chosen would receive aid from it. That was only natural. But the warmth in Konstantin’s voice—the way he spoke, as though reliving countless battles he couldn’t win… until he did—it sparked a strange hope.

The warrior-jar raised his mighty arms toward the heavens, catching a glimpse of that golden light.

If his friend believed in him that much, he couldn't let him down.

"Praise the Sun!!!"

Another quest was officially complete.

One of the greatest disappointments among lore scholars—Vyke, knight of the Roundtable Hold.

A former devotee of the capital’s ancient dragon cult, wielder of red lightning. A favorite of the ancient dragon Lansseax, once known as the Dragon Spear.

He had come closest of any Tarnished to becoming Elden Lord, only to scar himself with the Flame of Frenzy, refusing to inherit it in full.

Say what you will—he was a legend. A half-forgotten, fog-wrapped, rumor-drenched legend.

But he had another, far more humiliating reputation.

The cover character of the game… who ended up as a random hobo in a jail cell on the Mountaintops of the Giants. Missing two Great Runes for some reason. Truly, a mystery worthy of legend!

"Honestly, your potential questline might be the one I feel most sorry about," admitted Konstantin, raising his blade toward Vyke. "Was it really necessary to strip naked when you entered the Three Fingers' room?(4)"

His inner lore scholar was in agony—torn between pity and seething hatred. The plot holes Vyke had left behind still echoed through forums and fragmented wiki entries to this day.

Finding the knight’s prison wasn’t difficult if you knew where to look.

What was difficult was seeing what had become of someone who once graced the box art of his favorite game: now a mindless husk in melted armor, fused to his flesh. Most players didn’t even know Vyke existed… Was this the fate he deserved?

Once a proud knight, now writhing in endless convulsions, eyes glassy and burnt out by Frenzied Flame.

Melina stared at the disgraced Tarnished with disgust, imagining her own Chosen could have followed that path.

Thankfully, that possibility was long behind them.

Getting no reply, Kosta bowed deeply, staring through the blistered visor into those scorched, dead eyes.

With a jerk, the doomed knight clenched his spear and lunged at Konstantin.

It seemed… he understood what this new contender had come to say.

The grace, the mastery, the strength that had once made Vyke worthy of legend—Kosta felt it immediately. He stepped aside from the first blow, but did not counterattack.

He wanted the fallen knight, forgotten by the world, to go all out.

"You can do better," he said quietly, raising his own spear.

A spark of golden lightning danced at the weapon’s tip.

Vyke leapt, whipping up a whirlwind around himself and propelling his body toward Konstantin, striking downward in a flurry.

Kosta dodged again, refusing to return the blow. The knight no longer had the clarity to consider whether or not his opponent was showing honor.

He simply fought with everything he had.

He raised a hand, conjuring two red thunder spears, similar to those Konstantin had recently seen a dead dragon summon.

The spears howled through the air, homing in on where the Tarnished had stood only moments earlier before exploding into a shower of arcing serpents of lightning.

AoE, Kosta thought with a satisfied squint, performing a clean roll.

He'd been rolling less often lately—adjusting his body and soul for a different style, one that would eventually replace rolling once he mastered true parries.

But that didn’t mean he was giving it up completely. After all, rolling was a core mechanic.

"Dragon Strike."

Backstep.

"Lightning Flurry."

Backstep, backstep, backstep…

Even reduced to a mockery of his former self, the once-proud knight of the Roundtable still wielded impressive power. Power that hinted at a fascinating potential questline.

But fate (or script) had… other plans.

When Konstantin saw that the deranged knight was finally beginning to falter, he struck only once—driving his spear, charged with golden lightning, clean through.

Vyke—spent, broken, but still fighting—fell in battle, as a true warrior should.

Strike.

Castle Sol. A once-forgotten fort raised high on the Mountaintops of the Giants. Long ago, its people had served Miquella the Unalloyed—but that era was long past.

Now, like so much of the region, it had been abandoned.

Only one man remained—Commander Niall.

He had long since forgotten what he was guarding. Forgotten who he was, and who his retainers had been. But the memory of duty remained. And it was duty that kept the spirits of his long-dead soldiers bound here, fighting one eternal final battle.

A dead fortress. A garrison protected for centuries by summoned phantoms and one man who still drew breath.

You might think his fate would match all the others: someone would come along and end his life—by blade or by magic.

In a sense… that was true. But only for those who still lived.

After the anticlimactic battle with the cursed giant and Alexander’s shaken soul, Konstantin had been doing some rethinking.

Staring at the fort, Roderika gave a hesitant smile.

"I’m so glad… you found something for me to do, Konstantin."

She looked like she might burst into tears.

Kosta glanced at the homebody waifu, shrugged.

"Just help Master Hewg."

"I know."

Seeing the way her face lit up made him feel weirdly guilty.

Her quest was one of the safest, so he hadn’t given it much attention. Maybe that was a mistake—but in that case, he’d have to make the impossible even more impossible.

Maintaining a stern look, he pulled a bow from nowhere, nocked an arrow, and—

Let’s just say, he needed to get the boss’s attention.

Only the Outer Gods know how many players skipped(5) Commander Niall like this…

Thwip.

(1) During Alexander’s questline, the player can summon him for the Fire Giant boss fight.

(2) In-game hints suggest that, during their lifetime, fire giants placed a great deal of importance on height—without realizing just how wildly wrong they were. Many fans speculate that Radagon was originally part of this monstrous tribe but was rejected for being too short. Personally, I don’t support this theory—because it only adds more plot holes, and we really don’t need that ಠ_ಠ.

(3) Most players instinctively target the giant’s legs, unaware that he also has a weak spot on his arms.

(4) Considering the path to the Three Fingers only opens if the player removes all their clothes, it's easy to make a hilariously awkward assumption: that Vyke stripped down, opened the doors, got dressed again, and then walked in to embrace the Flame of Frenzy.

(5) Source: https://youtu.be/watch?v=ChNNwoJp2Y4