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Chapter 5 - Chapter 4

The Price of Hope

The creatures emerged from the darkness late into the night.

Sir Thomas, on watch, saw it first—something that had once been human, but was now a grotesque abomination. Its skin was rotting and peeling, its once-human eyes glowed with an unnatural green light, and from its mouth came a mournful yet terrifying growl.

"Wake up! Everyone, wake up!" Thomas screamed, drawing his sword with trembling hands.

Gareth awoke with a veteran's reflexes, immediately clutching Carsel tight while grabbing his sword. Sir Elena and Sir Roderick also rose quickly, but the exhaustion of their journey made their movements slow and uncoordinated.

The creature moved with unnatural speed, leaping from tree to tree with long claws gleaming in the darkness. When it finally descended to the ground, they could clearly see what faced them.

"My God," Elena whispered in horror. "It... it used to be a child."

Indeed. Though transformed into a monster, its body proportions still indicated that this creature was once a child of about ten years old. The tattered clothes still clinging to its body suggested it was from one of the villages they had passed.

"Impossible," Roderick murmured. "How could a child..."

The answer to his question came in a more horrifying form. From the darkness of the forest, more similar creatures began to appear. Adult men with hands transformed into fleshy tentacles, old women with burst eyes oozing black fluid, even a baby crawling with unnatural speed, emitting a mournful, gurgling laugh.

"They're all the villagers we passed," Gareth whispered with a terrible realisation. "Somehow, their deaths at the hands of the alliance forces... they didn't die peacefully."

Sir Thomas backed away, raising his sword. "What should we do? They were innocent humans!"

"They're dead, Thomas!" Elena snapped, though tears streamed down her face. "Whatever's left of them now, it's no longer human!"

But their moral hesitation proved fatal. The creature that had once been a child leapt with lightning speed, its claws raking deep into Thomas's arm. The young man screamed in pain, his blood gushing onto the dark forest floor.

"Thomas!" Roderick ran to help, but he was too late. Three other creatures swarmed him, their claws and teeth tearing through armour and flesh with equal ease.

Gareth was forced to retreat, still clutching Carsel, who was crying hysterically as if the baby could sense the horror unfolding around him. "Elena! We have to run!"

"No! We can't leave them!"

"Look closely!" Gareth cried desperately. "They're already dead!"

Elena turned and saw a sight that would haunt her nightmares forever. Thomas was still moving, still screaming, but his abdomen and chest had been torn open. Roderick had already stopped moving, his empty eyes staring up at the dark night sky.

With broken hearts, Elena finally followed Gareth, fleeing into the darkness of the forest. Behind them, sounds of chewing and crunching bone echoed in the night's silence.

They ran non-stop for two hours, leaping over tree roots and ducking under low branches, until Elena finally tripped and couldn't get up again.

"I... I can't anymore," Elena sobbed, clutching her knees. "Thomas... Roderick... they died because I hesitated. I should have moved faster, I should have—"

"Stop," Gareth cut her off, his voice harsh but trembling. "Stop blaming yourself. We all hesitated. Who could easily kill a creature that was once a child?"

Elena lifted her head, her reddened eyes staring at Gareth with a mixture of anger and despair. "For what? For what did we sacrifice them? For a baby who doesn't even know who he is?"

"For hope," Gareth replied, though his own voice was starting to waver. "For the possibility that one day, these sacrifices will mean something."

"Hope?" Elena laughed bitterly. "What hope? We've lost our kingdom, lost our king, lost almost everyone we cared about. And now Thomas and Roderick are also dead because we were too cowardly to kill monsters that were once children!"

Carsel cried even louder, as if he could feel the despair of those protecting him. Gareth tried to soothe him, but his own hands were trembling violently.

"Elena," he said, his voice almost a whisper. "I... I don't know anymore either. Maybe you're right. Maybe we're just betraying the memory of Thomas and Roderick by continuing to run like this."

For the first time since they fled the cave, Gareth—the always stoic Knight Captain—began to weep. His tears fell onto Carsel's small face, and for a moment, the baby stopped crying as if he could feel the pain of his protector.

"What will we say to the Sage of Shadows?" Elena whispered. "That we come to him with hands stained with innocent blood? That we let good people die to protect one life?"

"I don't know," Gareth replied with painful honesty. "I truly don't know anymore."

They sat in silence for an hour, each lost in their own grief and guilt. The forest around them seemed even darker and more terrifying, as if the darkness itself were judging them.

Finally, Elena slowly stood up. Her eyes were now vacant, like someone who had lost something essential from within them.

"We continue," she said, her voice flat and emotionless. "Not because I believe in hope anymore. But because if we stop now, Thomas and Roderick truly died in vain."

Gareth nodded, though he himself felt like a walking corpse. They had both endured something that couldn't be undone, something that had fundamentally changed them.

As they resumed their journey in the darkness, with Carsel finally asleep from exhaustion in Gareth's arms, neither of them realised that from a distance, a pair of wise eyes had observed the entire tragedy that had just unfolded.

The Sage of Shadows had known of their coming long before they knew they were close to their destination. And he had seen the price that had to be paid to bring Stellaris's last hope to him.

The question now wasn't whether he would help them, but whether they still possessed enough humanity left to be worthy of salvation.

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