Odyssey Of Survival

The air grew heavy with tension as more figures emerged from the palace, their armor glinting under the sun, weapons drawn as they moved to stand beside User. They were not ordinary soldiers. These men carried themselves with a distinct arrogance, their faces marked with the kind of cruelty that came only from taking too many lives without consequence. Their presence alone confirmed what Nate had already suspected.

He exhaled sharply. His gaze swept over the men, their numbers greater than he had anticipated, but it didn't matter. Numbers meant nothing when faced with overwhelming power.

"I knew it," Nate muttered, his voice carrying across the courtyard. His sharp, golden eyes locked onto User, who remained frozen in place, still in shock from what had just happened. "You couldn't have wiped out an entire settlement alone." His tone darkened, his fingers twitching at his sides. "So this is your little army?"

Sera, standing beside him, clenched her fists as she took in the sight of the men who had destroyed her home. She could still see the bloodstained hands, they didn't even bother washing it even though it had been days, they left it as some sort of achievement, the wicked grins, the soulless eyes that had shown no mercy to the young, the old, the helpless. Her chest tightened as rage burned through her veins, her breath coming out in short, uneven bursts. And then, before she could stop herself, a single word escaped her lips, her voice trembling, not with fear, but with raw, unbearable grief.

"Why?"

Her voice was soft, yet the weight behind it was immense. It was not a question seeking an explanation—because there could be no justification for what they had done. It was an unfiltered expression of the agony twisting inside her, a cry that carried the pain of every soul lost.

The men exchanged glances, then—to her horror—they laughed.

Their cruel, mocking laughter echoed across the palace grounds, filling the air like a taunting melody of wicked amusement. They found humor in her suffering, in the massacre they had committed, in the fact that she still dared to ask for an answer they would never give.

"You're asking why?" one of them sneered, stepping forward. He was tall, broad-shouldered, his face twisted with an expression of pure malice. "Don't worry, princess. We won't kill you."

Sera's breath hitched as he grinned, his teeth yellowed, his eyes gleaming with sick enjoyment.

"We'll just have fun with you first," he continued, his voice dripping with filth, "one by one. And when we're done—"

Another man chuckled, cutting him off. "It'd be such a waste to kill someone as pretty as you."

The laughter continued, low and guttural, the men speaking to each other as if she were nothing more than an object to be used and discarded.

Sera couldn't breathe.

A pressure built up inside her, a storm of hatred so strong it felt as though it might consume her whole. The rage, the grief, the pain—everything came crashing down at once, overwhelming, unbearable. Her hands trembled at her sides, her vision blurred with the weight of everything she had lost, and then—

Darkness.

It seeped from her body like thick, living smoke, twisting and curling around her like tendrils of a nightmare made real. The shadows pulsed with an unnatural energy, an abyss-like force that seemed to devour the very light around them. The temperature plummeted. The laughter ceased.

The men stumbled back, their faces twisting in confusion and unease as the creeping darkness slithered toward them, wrapping around their ankles, crawling up their legs like spectral chains.

"What… What is this?" one of them stammered, his voice laced with fear. He tried to move, but the darkness clung to him, tightening, suffocating. "This… this isn't possible!"

User, unlike the others, remained silent. His gaze stayed locked on Sera, his face pale. His mind was screaming at him to run, to escape before it was too late. He had seen many things in his lifetime, but this? This was something beyond human comprehension.

This was not the power of an ordinary girl.

This was something else.

Meanwhile, Nate, sensing the eruption of power, wasted no time. His body moved on instinct, his arms wrapping around Cleo before he vanished in a blur of motion, carrying the child out of the expanding void of darkness. When he reappeared outside the affected area, he placed her down carefully, making sure she was far enough to be safe.

Then, he turned back toward the palace, his eyes narrowing as he took in the sight before him.

The darkness had spread rapidly, engulfing everything within its reach. The entire courtyard had vanished beneath an obsidian haze, a swirling mass of shadows so dense that nothing could be seen beyond its shifting tendrils. Even from a distance, Nate could hear the panicked screams of the men trapped inside.

And the people of Kemet-Ra had taken notice.

From the safety of their homes and streets, they watched in horror as the black mist spread like an omen of doom. Some clutched at their robes, whispering prayers to the gods, while others fell to their knees, their faces etched with sheer terror.

"The wrath of the gods…" someone murmured.

Another voice, trembling, called out, "This… T-This is the power of the gods!"

Panic erupted through the city.

People screamed, fled, rushed into their homes, slamming doors and barricading windows as if hoping to shield themselves from the divine punishment unfolding before them. The marketplace emptied in seconds, the streets became ghostly silent.

And still, inside the darkness—

The men screamed.

Not the screams of warriors, nor the cries of men in battle. No. These were shrieks of agony, of souls being torn apart.

Within the void, they thrashed, their bodies convulsing as the shadows invaded every pore of their being. It was not just consuming them—it was devouring them from the inside out. Their skin grew pale, their veins darkened, their bodies writhing in torment as the life was drained from them, piece by piece.

They tried to resist, to fight back, but there was no escaping the abyss.

And Sera—

Sera stood at the center of it all, her body surrounded by the writhing darkness, her expression unreadable, her eyes locked onto the men as they suffered the fate they deserved.

Nate stood frozen, his eyes locked onto the swirling abyss of darkness before him, the inky black mass twisting and writhing like a living nightmare. He had seen many things, witnessed powers that defied the natural order, but this—this was something beyond reason.

It wasn't just the sheer scale of destruction unfolding before him. It was the fact that this was Sera. The same girl who, just twenty minutes ago, had been nothing more than a normal human—powerless. And now?

Now, she was an entity of darkness itself.

A force that devoured life without mercy.

His fingers curled into a fist, his mind racing through possibilities. How? How was it possible for her to have gone from nothing to this? His gaze sharpened as he thought back to everything that had happened.

The King.

Whatever he had unleashed in that tunnel befores he killed him—Sera had been caught in the middle of it. She had been unconscious, unmoving, and when she woke up, she was still just… herself. But clearly, something had changed beneath the surface, something she hadn't realized until now.

Nate exhaled, his voice barely above a whisper as the thought left his lips.

"If she just got her powers… then how the hell is she already this strong?"

His words hung in the air, unanswered, lost in the growing silence that had replaced the dying screams.

A gentle tug on his arm pulled him from his thoughts.

He glanced down to see Cleo, her small hands gripping his wrist tightly, her wide eyes shimmering with unshed tears. Her lip quivered as she tried to be brave, but the fear in her expression was unmistakable.

"Nate…" her voice was small, fragile, barely above a whisper. "Will Sera be okay?"

She flinched slightly as another choked scream echoed from the darkness, her tiny fingers tightening around his wrist as if afraid he might disappear too.

Nate's expression softened. Without hesitation, he crouched down, lifting her into his arms with ease. She immediately buried her face into his shoulder, seeking comfort in his presence.

He ran a hand through her hair, his touch gentle, soothing. "She'll be fine," he murmured, his voice firm despite the uncertainty gnawing at him. "Sera is strong. She'll come back to us."

Cleo sniffled, nodding weakly against him.

And then—

The shadows began to recede.

The thick, suffocating blackness that had engulfed the palace courtyard started to dissolve, peeling away like smoke caught in the wind. Slowly, the world returned to view, piece by piece, and the aftermath of what had just occurred was laid bare before them.

Nate's breath caught in his throat.

The bodies—or what was left of them—were scattered across the ground.

What had once been men, breathing, laughing, taunting, were now nothing more than husks of their former selves. Their flesh had shriveled, their skin stretched impossibly tight over their bones. Their faces were frozen in expressions of unimaginable agony, hollow sockets where eyes had once been, their lips twisted as if caught mid-scream.

Mummified.

They looked as if the very essence of their being had been drained, their blood, their organs—everything, gone. All that remained were brittle remains, fragile as old parchment, bodies turned into empty shells.

Nate swallowed hard, his stomach twisting at the sight. He had killed before. He had seen death in more ways than he cared to count. But this? This was something else entirely.

And at the center of it all stood Sera.

She hadn't moved since the shadows had faded.

Her shoulders rose and fell with slow, heavy breaths, her head slightly lowered, strands of dark hair falling over her face. She wasn't shaking. She wasn't sobbing. She wasn't even reacting to the destruction she had caused.

Her gaze swept across the remains, dark, hollow, unreadable.

Nate had seen that look before—the kind that came when someone was standing at the edge of something they couldn't come back from.

She wasn't sad for the men she had killed.

She was still mourning the people she had lost.

The people who had been slaughtered like animals.

The more she thought about them—about the children who would never grow up, about the elders who had spent their entire lives building a home only to have it burned to the ground—the more her sorrow twisted into something else.

Something darker.

Nate's eyes narrowed as he caught the faintest flicker of movement.

A slow pulse of darkness seeped from her skin, curling around her like a living thing. The same abyss that had just consumed an entire squad of murderers and left them as nothing more than dried-out husks.

Her hands clenched at her sides, her nails digging into her palms. Her breathing grew heavier.

And her eyes—

Pitch black.

A void where her irises should have been, swallowing all light, all color.

The darkness was returning.

And this time, it wasn't stopping.