A Journey Unwanted

Chapter 481 - 469: Divine Dawn

[Realm: Uhorus]

[Location: Galadriel]

[Outskirts]

Regrets had a way of building up.

They did not arrive all at once, nor did they announce themselves when they first took root. At the time, they were easy to ignore—dismissed as fleeting thoughts and inconvenient feelings pushed aside in favor of survival, duty, or simple denial.

But they never left; they lingered and waited.

And when there was nothing left to distract from them—no orders to follow or no voices to drown them out—they returned, heavier than before, pressing down with a weight that felt far more suffocating than anything physical.

The soldier had learned that the hard way.

A shrill scream tore through the air at his side, sudden and cut short, making it much worse. It was loud and close, too close.

He didn’t turn; he didn’t need to because he already knew what he would see.

Still, the image forced itself into his mind anyway—another soldier, someone who had been running beside him only seconds ago, now halted mid-stride. A sharpened, unnatural limb—if it could even be called that—had pierced straight through his chest, jutting out grotesquely from his back. There was no elegance to it; it could not be called a clean strike. It was wrong, something that did not belong in any world that made sense.

The man didn’t even have time to process it.

His scream broke into something wet before his body slackened.

The soldier kept running.

He didn’t look back; he couldn’t force himself to anymore. His legs moved on their own, driven by something far more primal than thought. The weight of his armor dragged at him with every step—plates shifting and straps pulling tight against his body—but he ignored it. Or rather, he forced himself to ignore it.

There was no room left for discomfort.

Only distance mattered.

He had already dropped his sword some time ago. He couldn’t even remember when—only that at some point, it had stopped feeling like a weapon and started feeling like a burden. It was merely dead weight. He had no intention of fighting anymore.

Even so, even as he ran, breath growing ragged, lungs burning with every strained inhale—he allowed himself a glance.

Just one.

Behind him.

The sound came first.

Wet thuds that were heavy and sickeningly consistent.

His eyes caught them then—those things.

Formless, yet moving quickly. Dark shapes that seemed to shift as they advanced, their outlines never quite settling into anything recognizable. Limbs—if they could be called that—dragged and struck against the ground in irregular patterns, each impact producing that same awful, damp sound.

There were still so many, maybe over a hundred or just short. He couldn’t be sure; the number didn’t matter.

A thought ignited, weak and fleeting.

If they regrouped, if the remaining soldiers gathered themselves, formed a line, stood together—maybe they could hold them back. Maybe they could fight. Maybe—

But the thought died just as quickly as it came.

Everyone knew.

Everyone understood, even if no one said it aloud, killing them didn’t solve anything. It only made it worse, for every one that fell, more would come. Many more would rise, more would crawl their way into existence until there was nothing left to fight with and nowhere left to stand.

They would be overrun.

Completely.

So no one tried.

There was no formation or orders being shouted, not even a last stand. Soldiers were now reduced to individuals scrambling in different directions, abandoning cohesion for the simple, desperate instinct to survive.

The soldier swallowed hard, his throat dry despite the cold air burning against it.

He regretted it.

All of it.

Swearing loyalty to Galadriel.

Taking up a sword.

Answering a call that had never truly been meant for someone like him. He wasn’t a powerful sorcerer, capable of turning the tide with a single incantation. He wasn’t a knight of renown, clad in glory and remembered in song.

He wasn’t anything.

Just another man.

A nameless grunt.

The kind that filled ranks, followed orders, and died without anyone remembering their face. That was what he was, that was what he had always been. And now, here that was all he would ever be.

He didn’t want glory.

He never had.

No grand recognition or tales of heroism, nothing like that. He just wanted to live, and that was all. Just live.

His foot nearly caught on uneven ground, but he corrected himself, pushing forward, forcing his body to keep moving even as exhaustion began to creep in. Still, he glanced back again; he shouldn’t have. He knew he shouldn’t have.

But he did.

More of them.

More of his comrades falling.

Torn apart.

Limbs ripped away, bodies broken, their resistance meaningless against something that did not feel, did not hesitate, and did not stop.

They were being erased, like they had never mattered. Because maybe they never had, because in the end—

They truly were nothing.

And still...

He ran.

A nobody, clinging desperately to something as simple as survival. There was something almost bitterly ironic about it. Something that, in another life, might have been called humor. A man with no name, no legacy, and no purpose beyond obedience. Running as though his life held value. Running as though it mattered at all.

Because it did.

Because it had to.

Because even here, even now—

He had a right to live.

He refused to die in this ruined town.

But fate had a way of bending at the worst possible moment.

It did not strike with grandeur or warning. It slipped in as something small that should not have mattered, yet did.

His foot caught.

Not on rubble, broken stone, or scattered debris. The soldier’s body lurched forward before his mind could catch up, his balance giving way as panic surged through him. Instinct forced his gaze downward, desperate to understand—just for a second—what had failed him.

A severed arm.

Bloodied. Torn clean enough to be recognizable, yet mangled. It lay there in the dirt, fingers curled slightly as if still grasping for something that was no longer there.

For the briefest, strangest moment—if he had not already been falling—he might have laughed.

There was something bitterly ironic about it.

Maybe even fitting.

Maybe this was fate in its own twisted way—reminding him of what he had done. Of how many he had left behind. How many had fallen while he chose to run.

And now one of them had tripped him, one of them would drag him down to the same end.

His body hit the ground hard.

The impact drove the air from his lungs in a sharp, involuntary burst as he rolled, armor scraping harshly against the dirt and broken ground beneath him. Pain flared across his side, but it barely registered—lost beneath the far louder pulse of panic roaring through his chest.

"S-shit—!" he gasped, the word breathless, torn from him as he forced himself upright.

His hands pushed against the ground, trembling—not from exhaustion alone, but from the sudden, suffocating awareness of what came next.

He turned.

And saw it.

Death, waiting.

One of the creatures had already closed the distance.

This one was different, if that word even applied. Its form twisted in a way that felt more monstrous. Where others had been vaguely shaped, this one bore something closer to a large, gaping mouth dominating what could be considered its upper mass. No teeth or jaw in any natural sense.

Just ridges, sharp, and layered deep within that endless black opening. It did not need to rush, it simply moved forward. And in that moment everything else seemed to slow with it.

The soldier’s breath hitched as his vision tunneled, locking onto that approaching void. The sounds around him—screams, impacts, and the distant chaos—faded into distant noise.

("Right...") The thought came quietly. ("...a nobody... dying an unremarkable death.") His chest tightened. ("What was I expecting?")

Fear gripped him fully now, not sharp and fleeting, but paralyzing. His limbs felt slow and unresponsive, as if his body had already begun to accept what his mind could not.

Those ridged jaws would tear him apart. They would make something of him—consume him—not out of hunger or need, but simply because that was what they did. There was no purpose in it, no meaning either.

He would die here.

Not as a soldier.

Not as anything.

Just something else for these creatures to erase, there was still a hollow part of him that almost wanted to laugh.

To find some fragment of humor in it.

But—

Light.

It came without warning. A sudden, searing brilliance that cut through the dull haze of that moment, tearing across his vision with such intensity that his eyes instinctively shut. It wasn’t gentle or gradual.

It was violent in its purity.

The soldier flinched, blinking hard as his vision struggled to adjust just in time to see it. A beam, white, brilliant, and powerful. It struck the creature directly and there was no resistance and no time for it to react.

The beam tore clean through what could be considered its head—if such a thing existed—splitting it apart in an instant. The form collapsed in a violent rupture, its body bursting outward into fragments of dark matter that scattered across the ground.

It was gone, just gone.

"W-what—?" The soldier’s voice came out disoriented, as he pushed himself up further, his gaze darting around in confusion.

It wasn’t just that one.

More light followed.

From above.

Beams—dozens of them—rained down in rapid succession, each one precise and cutting through the creatures as if they were nothing more than empty shells. There was no resistance or chance to counter.

They were erased.

Where there had been dozens—scores of them—there was now only scattered remnants, dissolving into nothing under the relentless assault of light. The creatures that remained—those that had begun to scatter, to shift in erratic patterns—did not last long.

They were hunted.

One by one.

Until there was nothing left.

Silence followed.

The soldier realized, distantly, that he was no longer running, his body had simply stopped. Around him, the few who remained did the same—other soldiers, battered and breathless, staring in stunned disbelief at what had just occurred. No one spoke or moved.

They simply watched.

Because something else was happening.

Above them.

He lifted his gaze.

And saw her.

A figure descending slowly from the sky.

Lowering herself with grace that stood in stark contrast to everything that had just occurred.

Her presence was different.

It was not overwhelming in the way the creatures had been.

It did not press down or suffocate.

It lifted, like the first light of dawn breaking through a long, suffocating night. She wore armor—simple in design. Practical and unadorned, silver in tone, lacking the embellishments one might expect from someone of such presence.

And yet none of that mattered.

Because she herself drew the eye.

White hair fell freely, catching the light as it settled around her shoulders, framing a face that seemed untouched by the ruin surrounding them. There was an unreal kind of beauty to her expression. Her eyes were crimson and her gaze steady, looking down upon the scene below.

Her sabatons touched the ruined ground with a soft sound, the smallest impact after such overwhelming force.

And still that light lingered.

The soldier stared.

His breath caught in his throat, something shifting in his chest—something unfamiliar after so much fear.

Recognition.

("T-the spawn of Octavia...!")

The thought came in a rush, almost disbelieving, because there, standing amidst ruin and death—

Was something that felt like hope.