Kaelen held Akari as her sobs slowly subsided into exhausted shudders. The sun dipped below the horizon, painting the ruins of Hoshimura in shades of bloody orange and deep purple. The air grew cold.
"You should go to my family's old house," Kaelen said softly, his voice a carefully controlled calm. "The roof is still intact. You need to rest, Akari. Tomorrow... tomorrow we will search for this slime."
Akari looked up, her eyes red-raw. "But why? If it's a servant of the Monster King, why did it save us? If it's not... what is it?"
"I don't know," Kaelen admitted, his warrior's mind churning. "That is exactly why we must find it. An unknown power of that magnitude cannot be left to wander unchecked. It could be a weapon that broke from its master's control. It could be something else entirely. But we must know." He gave her a small, reassuring smile—a hero's smile, meant to instill confidence. "We will find answers."
He helped her to her feet and guided her to the small, sturdy stone house that had once been his. He ensured she had water and a blanket, his movements gentle and precise. "Rest. I will stand watch."
As the door closed, the smile vanished from Kaelen's face as if wiped away. He leaned his back against the cold stone wall, his head bowed. The composure shattered. A single, hot tear traced a path through the grime on his cheek, followed by another. His shoulders shook with silent, ragged breaths. Little Suki. Hana. Jiro. Yumi. The names were a litany of failure in his mind. He was a Half-Divine, blessed with power beyond mortal ken, and he had been too late. His will, which had been so strong—to save his village, to save everyone—felt like a brittle, broken thing.
He was a hero. He had to be strong. He had to smile. It was what they needed.
The sound of a distant, guttural roar echoed from the plains. The horde was not entirely gone. There were still stragglers, lost and enraged, posing a threat to any other settlements in their path.
Kaelen's head snapped up. His tears evaporated, replaced by a cold, focused fire. Here was a problem he could solve. A enemy he could fight.
He didn't run. He vanished.
There was no sound of footsteps, no blur of motion. One moment he was by the house, the next he was a streak of silver and light on the horizon, moving at hyper-sonic speed. The air cracked in a contained cone behind him, a testament to the immense power he normally kept restrained. He was the weakest of the seven heroes, but "weak" was a relative term among legends.
He found a pack of Shadow Jackals cornering a wounded deer. They didn't hear him approach; they simply ceased to exist, bisected by a sword moving faster than sound. He found a Killer Rabbit warren; a single, controlled stomp of his boot sent a shockwave through the earth, collapsing every tunnel and burying them alive. He moved through the night like a vengeful ghost, a silent, divine retribution for his fallen home.
Each monster he cut down was a stand-in for his own powerlessness. Each silent kill was a scream of grief he could not voice. He was calming the land, protecting the innocent, doing his duty. But inside, he was a boy crying in the ruins of his village, his evolution to Half-Divine feeling like a hollow prize for failing the very people he had sought the power to protect.
As the moon rose, he stood on a hill, looking down at the now-quiet plains. The immediate threat was gone. But the larger mystery remained, a green slime haunting the edges of his mind. Tomorrow, he would put on the hero's mask again for Akari. He would smile and lead the search. But his mission was now twofold: to protect the living, and to understand the entity that, in a single, silent moment, had done what he could not.