Astartes of the Bear School

Chapter 2071, 2043. Focusing on the front while ignoring the back.

"You said you came to the Shadowlands by accident," Messermo said coldly. "Yet you also said you brought my brother with you... Is that an accident?"

"This accident was caused by your brother."

Lan En responded calmly.

Messermo suddenly changed the subject: "How did you know about the Spiral Tower, the Gate of God, and the Ceremony of Ascension? How long did you search for information in the Species Archives?"

“Someone else told me this,” Lann said meaningfully. “Perhaps the books in the Species Treasury are very old and abundant. But from the perspective of those blessed with gold, the Shadowlands haven’t actually been sealed off for very long, have they?”

Messermo's golden eyes stared at the Witcher: "Solidarity, utter nonsense."

"You said I have a brother named Michaela... I'll assume that's true for now." Ignoring Lann's words, Messermo said decisively, "But you said he wants to enter the Spire, Enil Ilim?"

The piercer let out a cold laugh.

Enil Ilim is the name of the Spire Tower, the pinnacle of spirit summoning technology created by the Horned Ones.

Messermo sneered coldly as he turned to look at Leilana: "Didn't you tell them this when you brought them here?"

The Twin Moon Knight shook his head: "I only know they want to see you, but I don't know what they want to say is about the Spire Tower."

Messermo turned his head and said, “Then I can tell you with certainty: it is impossible to emulate Queen Marika these days.”

Before Lann could ask a question, Messermo raised his flame-patterned spear and pointed it in a direction.

Now that everyone is indoors, it's impossible that Messermo is pointing to anything inside the room. So, Lann naturally figured out that he was referring to a location on the Shadow Ground.

Mentos had just followed Leilana through the winding streets of Shadow City, all the way to the Species Treasury, and then across the corridors and bridges outside the castle. All the memories and scenes from that time were instantly recalled and aligned with the direction Messermo was pointing at that moment.

In the blink of an eye, a strange image appeared in Lan En's mind.

At the same time, Messermo said directly, "When you came, you should have been able to see a huge black shadow floating in the sky in that direction."

"The shadow was elusive and illusory, and it seemed to have no rules or anything to cling to. It was as if a large patch of shadow had detached from the object it was projecting and existed independently."

“That is the Spiral Tower, Enil Ilim.”

"That's the place the Holy War Army besieged as soon as they arrived in Shadowlands. It's built above Tower Town, and although it houses the Horned People's most elite guardians and most devout priests, they rarely come down from the Spiral Tower. It's easy to target only Tower Town."

"But Enil Ilim is ultimately too important, and the large number of powerful beings within it makes it impossible not to take it seriously, so the Spire Tower has always been a problem."

"Later, we conquered cities and territories along the way, and after capturing Shadow City and the ruins of Lauferg, we found a way to solve it."

Messermo described it in a straightforward manner, as if the Spiral Tower, which could elevate the souls of gods to the level of deities, was merely a trivial matter during his march.

“We have successfully drawn upon the power of the Shadowtree. The Shadowtree itself enveloped it with thorns of refusal. From that moment on, Enil Ilim was reduced to a shadow, devoid of any physical form.”

The piercer calmly looked at the bewildered crowd and asked, "Tell me, how do you climb a tower that is nothing but an illusory shadow, with no real substance?"

The Witcher frowned, genuinely surprised that Messermo had already dealt with the crucial Spiral Tower in the Shadowlands, and even sealed it using the Shadow Tree's repulsive thorns.

Lan En had never seen the Shadow Tree reject the thorns of the outside world, but he had seen the thorns of the Golden Tree in Rodel's palace.

That was a seal that even the combined power of Two Fingers and the Blessed King could not break.

As a Shadow Tree that originally grew alongside the Golden Tree, its Rejection Thorns, even if not as powerful as those of the Golden Tree, should still be a seal of a certain level.

“Without climbing the Spiral Tower, you can’t reach the Gate of God, and therefore you can’t initiate the ritual there,” Messermo stated casually. “Even if I don’t question whether this so-called ‘brother’ you speak of actually exists, or whether he is a god-like being burdened with some kind of law, even if he does exist, he is undoubtedly a god-like being who has long planned for the Gate of God, so what?”

"He can't do anything. Therefore, I don't care much about him."

After finishing his speech, Messermo turned to the side, as if to say that he had finished his conversation and was going back to sit on the platform.

But just as he turned his head, he suddenly saw the Witcher glance in an empty direction, frown, and look back at him. “What if,” Lann’s voice echoed in the hall, “Mikaela abandoned her body, leaving only her soul?”

Messermo paused, turning back as he was about to leave, staring intently at the Witcher.

"With only his soul remaining, could he penetrate the spiral tower, now reduced to mere shadows, and enter the Gate of God?"

This question seemed to have suddenly delved into a perspective that Messermo had never considered, so much so that his gloomy and indifferent face instantly showed a thoughtful and confused expression.

To abandon one's body and go to the gates of God in the form of a soul?
The spiral tower hidden in the shadows seems to be able to be touched with one's soul, and if you can touch it, you can climb it, and if you can climb it, you can go to the gate of the gods at the top of the tower!

But what's the point?

“Abandon the body, and let only the soul go to the Gate of God.” Messermo’s brows furrowed deeply. “Where will his soul be placed after it returns? Without a body, won’t he still be unable to become a complete god?”

The only true and exclusive deity of the borderlands is the one who incorporates the phantom of the Elden Ring into his body.

The physical body is an essential factor.

"But why pursue perfect godhood?" Lan En delivered a powerful punch to Messermo's question at that moment.

"what?"

Messer was a little confused. If a god doesn't aspire to become the only god, what else can a god aspire to?
"Consider the current situation, Your Excellency Messermo. Queen Marika shattered the magic ring, and all the powerful figures and demigods—that is, your relatives who have been granted titles in the dynasty—are itching for action."

"But none of them possessed the decisive power to deliver the final blow. Isn't this just like the situation Queen Marika faced back then?"

"But if Michaela were to take just one step ahead, just a tiny step ahead, and elevate his soul to godhood, he would possess decisive power! All that would remain is for the Golden Dynasty to simply repeat its conquest of the borderlands!"

"As for his body? He can get a new one, or even have one made himself, even a temporary one is fine."

"The future is the future. Problems can be solved gradually when accepting the Elden Ring illusion. But seizing the current opportunity will allow us to consolidate our advantage! And even maintain it indefinitely!"

To put it bluntly, Michaela's plan was actually for the sake of the relationship in the early stages or later stages.

Abandoning the existing physical body to allow the soul to ascend to godhood first raises questions about potential problems during the formal ascension process. This is something to consider only in the very late stages of the journey.

However, by seizing the huge advantage, leaving all the current enemies behind, and eliminating them, Michaela can guarantee that even if he encounters trouble on his path to godhood later in life, no one will be able to challenge him.

However, abandoning one's original physical body might have an enormous impact on formally becoming a god, or even become an insurmountable obstacle.

After all, no god in the history of the border region had ever done this before.

But these kinds of things are all gambles. If you win, everything is fine; if you lose, at least you won't have any more enemies.

Michaela has been planning the Shadowlands and the Gate of Gods for so long, there's no reason for her to give up halfway.

For a moment, Messermo, who had never thought in this direction before, was somewhat taken aback by the naked pragmatism and ruthless determination in Lann's point of view, which only cared about the present and completely disregarded the future.

But then, to his surprise, he thought about it along the same lines and found that it was indeed true!

"...How can you prove it?" After a brief silence, Messermo frowned and looked at Lann, asking, "How can you prove that I have a brother who has come to the Shadowlands and is plotting to ascend to Enil Ilim and become a god?"

The Witcher stood firm: "And then what? Will our demands be met after we prove it?"

"Huff~" Messermo took a deep breath, his eyes filled with a meaningful look. "You mean returning to the border? Very well, have you considered that what we are both concerned about now is precisely the focus of this demand?"

Enil Ilim, or rather the God's Gate on the Spiral Tower, is another path that leads back to the Borderlands.

Lan En immediately realized what was happening.

(End of this chapter)