The strongest boss in Elden Ring would be Malenia, Blade of Miquella.

You would have a lot of questions about Malenia.

Here, a native Japanese explained the lore of Malenia, taking the Japanese backgrounds into consideration.

目次 (Contents)

A Child of Marika and Radagon
Miquella’s Twin
Malenia Has Been Waiting For Miquella
The Strongest Demigod
Postscript

A Child of Marika and Radagon

The text of Malenia’s Great Rune indicates Malenia is daughter to Marika and Radagon.

Malenia’s Great Rune
And yet, due to the infusion of Malenia’s spirit of resistance. attacks made immediately after receiving damage will partially recover HP.
Malenia is daughter to Queen Marika and Radagon, and her Great Rune should have been the most sacred of all.

However, Marika and Radagon is the same person and it is still mysterious how Malenia was born.

Both Marika and Radagon are gods, so they might be capable of parthenogenesis unlike humans.

As the text “the other harbored rot within” implies, Malenia has a rot inside herself.

Remembrance of the Rot Goddess
Miquella and Malenia are both the children of a single god. As such they are both Empyreans, but suffered afflictions from birth. One was cursed with eternal childhood, and the other harbored rot within.

I will explain this rot later in this article.

Miquella’s Twin

Miquella is the other child of Marika and Radagon.

Miquella and Malenia are twins, as Morgott said.

Morgott
Ahh… Godrick the Golden. The twin prodigies, Miquella and Malenia. General Radahn. Praetor Rykard. Lunar Princess Ranni.
Wilful traitors, all.

And, as the text of Remembrance of the Rot Goddess indicates, Miquella has curse of eternal childhood.

In other words, Miquella and Malenia are both cursed.

However, why were they cursed?

Key words are “eternal childhood” and “rot“.

At first glance, “eternal childhood” and “rot” seem unrelated words.

But in fact, the text of Blue Cloth Vest indicates their relation.

Blue Cloth Vest
The blue color of its fabric symbolizes brisk waters, as fluid and flowing as the sword in the hand of its wearer.
Just as still waters turn foul, stagnation leads to decay.
Warriors must remain ever drifting.

In other words, the eternality of Golden Order led to stagnation(≒ eternal childhood) and decay(≒ rot) and the curses appeared on Miquella and Malenia.

Marika faced these cursed children and would have made her mind to end the Golden Order and shatter Elden Ring.

This article is explaining the reason why Marika shattered the Elden Ring.

Malenia Has Been Waiting For Miquella

Malenia has been waiting for Miquella’s return under the Haligtree.

Malenia’s Armor
Malenia awaited Miquella at the foot of the husk.
“My brother will keep his promise. He possesses the wisdom, the allure, of a god—he is the most fearsome Empyrean of all.”

Miquella also cares about Malenia and he abandoned the Golen Order because it was useless against Malenia’s rot.

Radagon’s Rings of Light
One of the incantations of the Golden Order fundamentalists.
A gift of gratitude to the young Miquella from his father,
Radagon.
Produces a golden ring of light and fires it across a wide area.
Charging enhances range.
And yet, the young Miquella abandoned fundamentalism, for it
could do nothing to treat Malenia’s accursed rot. This was the
beginning of unalloyed gold.

So, Miquella would have manipulated mohg to collect his blood in order to establish another Erdtree.

Haligtree Knight Armor
Its left breast is emblazoned with the crest of the Haligtree. Though watered with Miquella’s own blood since it was a sapling, the Haligtree ultimately failed to grow into an Erdtree.

The Strongest Demigod

Malenia is one of the strongest demigod like Radahn.

These strongest two went head to head in the shattering.

STORY TRAILER
The conqueror of the stars, General Radahn.
And the Blade of Miquella, Malenia the Severed.
These two were the mightiest to remain, and locked horns in combat.
But there would be no victor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbPbQMuEyX8u0026t=35s

This movie shows Malenia cut herself to inject the scarlet rot into Radahn.

As a result of this battle, Radahn lost his sanity and became a zombie that eats corpses like a dog.

In addition, the text of Hand of Malenia indicates Malenia has never been defeated, including the draw with Radahn.

Hand of Malenia
Blade built into Malenia’s prosthetic arm.
Through consecration it is resistant to rot.
Malenia’s war prosthesis symbolized her victories.
Some claim to have seen wings when the weapon was raised aloft;
wings of fierce determination that have never known defeat.

As a side note, “rot” and “never defeated” have the same pronounce “FUHAI” in Japanese.

So, Malenia is called “FUHAI no Malenia (不敗のマレニア)” in Japanese.

Postscript

This article explained the lore of Malenia.