Chapter 86: The Scars We Carry
They all looked at me as I emerged from the gaping maw of the cave, a solitary figure stepping from the abyss into the pale, pre-dawn light. My whole body was a canvas of crimson, the dark, viscous blood of the Goblin King and his horde clinging to my clothes, my skin, my hair. It was not the clean, honorable blood of a warrior, but the thick, cloying gore of a butcher.
Layla’s team, having just arrived, froze. Their expressions, once a mixture of grim determination and weary concern, shifted to ones of pure, unadulterated shock.
"Ashen," Layla said, her voice a sharp, cutting note of alarm as she took an involuntary step back. "What happened? Why do you look like that?"
I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. The words were trapped in my throat, choked by the bile and the horror of what I had just done, of what I had just become.
Cecilia, ever the pragmatist, scoffed, her voice laced with a familiar, aristocratic disdain. "It looks like he had all the fun while we were just killing some low-level beasts and wandering around in the dark."
Nyx, a slow, predatory smile touching her lips, added, "And now he will frown and act all broody, like he’s the hero who has borne the weight of the world. That’s not fair."
I glared at her, my eyes, I knew, still glowing with the faint, residual light of my rage. It was a bloodlust so profound, so raw, that it made even the void-wielding Nyx flinch. I stood for a moment, my body trembling with the aftershocks of the battle, and then I turned and walked away, my footsteps heavy, my own shadow seeming to recoil from me. I needed peace. I needed silence. I knew if I remained with them for a few more minutes, I would lose what little control I had left. I made my way to a small, secluded lake nearby, its surface a perfect, still mirror of the bruised, pre-dawn sky.
As I left, the first of the survivors began to emerge from the cave, their movements slow, hesitant, like ghosts returning to a world that had forgotten them. They were followed by Liora and Aurelia, their own bodies a testament to the brutality of the fight they had just endured. Liora’s arm was in a makeshift sling, her face pale with pain. Aurelia, her golden hair matted with blood, leaned heavily on her, a deep, ugly gash on her forehead still weeping a thin trickle of crimson.
Layla’s team, their own petty squabbles forgotten in the face of this new, grim reality, immediately moved to help. They took out their supply of healing potions, their hands gentle as they tended to the wounded villagers.
"What happened to him?" Layla asked, her gaze fixed on my retreating form as she pointed toward me.