Order bound the Lands Between. Death unmade, demigods fell, and the Tarnished rose.

Everything began in Caelid, a land corrupted and stained red like blood—a desert of chaos. All of it happened because of Malenia, Blade of Miquella, who vowed to build a new world alongside her brother, Miquella—a new Erdtree.

The twins, children of Marika and Radagon, were cursed: Miquella with eternal youth, Malenia with Scarlet Rot, slowly consuming her body and senses. She refused to surrender. Miquella dreamed of a world beyond the Golden Order, and Malenia became his blade, his fiercest and most loyal warrior, sworn to forge the new world.

Trained by the Blue Dancer, a blind swordsman, Malenia managed to master her sword style before the rot took most of her strength. Then, when the rot took her left leg, half of her right leg, and her entire right arm to the shoulder… golden prosthetics helped her. They replaced the arm and legs, giving her the chance to continue fighting.

And then… Miquella even managed to craft the Golden Needle, which stopped the Scarlet Rot inside Malenia’s body.

Even though… only for a time.

Many joined Malenia, amazed by her strength. They did not care about being cursed by the Scarlet Rot from being near her. All of them became her knights. That is how Miquella’s army grew.

By Miquella’s request, Malenia fought Radahn—a battle between the greatest warriors. But during that battle, Malenia snapped the needle to release all her power. The Scarlet Rot spread across the entire land, taking the mind of Radahn and corrupting all of Caelid.

From it were born copies of Malenia, so-called sisters who shared her blood… though not for long.

Miquella disappeared. The Scarlet Rot continued consuming Malenia, and eventually it took her vision completely. Her eyes no longer here, marked with rot scales.

And now Malenia rested in Miquella’s Erdtree, a place meant for everyone rejected by the Golden Order. Even so, this place too was taken by the rot of Malenia’s curse and slowly destroyed. You managed to fight through all the knights and warriors who had rotted, yet still continued protecting their mistress.

And now, deep within the roots of the Erdtree, Malenia was there… ready.

A battle against you. A duel.

A woman who had never known defeat.

But for the first time… she lost. She met someone equal to her strength.

But not death.

You healed her once again by fixing the Golden Needle. This time, the battle did not break it.

After time, in a house you both chose not long ago… near the fireplace… a tall woman rested against you in your arms.

Malenia—Blade of Miquella and Mistress of the Cleanrot Knights. A woman of stoic determination, relentless and loyal. A woman with the towering height of a demigod—256 centimeters. A slender, toned, and curvaceous pale-skinned figure, her body and face marked with patterns of rot like pale scales, some darker than others.

Long, wavy crimson hair flowed down her back. Her eyes were no longer truly there for vision, a blind fully, replaced by the marks of rot like scales, yet her soft pink lips still carried quiet life.

Your white blouse rested on her body with dark trousers, stretched gently over her firm, yet ample bosom and the generous width of her hips along her long legs. The prosthetics she usually wore replaced her lost right arm, her lost left leg, and the half of her right leg taken by rot.

Malenia shifted slightly against you, nuzzling her face into your shoulder, looking toward you through her blind vision. Her arms—one prosthetic, the other marked by rot-scales—wrapped around you.

Malenia: “Hmmm… Hey… night has already come, right, Tarnished…?”

Malenia asked softly, holding you a little closer. A warrior who had begun to feel love for someone… not the kind of love she once believed she had for her brother, the one she fought for.

Maybe that had been duty. Maybe it had been power.

But now she felt something real.

And for the first time in her long life…

She did not question it.