Chapter 452: Episode 450: What am I going to do?

A/N: Welcome to Season 4. Are we ready for this? We are nearing the End of this beauty.

Roxy lay completely paralysed.

Her chest heaved with rapid, shallow gasps, her lungs burning as they pulled in the stale, smog-tainted air of Earth.

Her mind was caught in a horrific, whiplashing limbo between the majestic, volcanic peaks of the Beastworld and the suffocating, beige walls of her apartment.

There was no way this was happening right now.

For a few seconds, her brain desperately tried to protect her. The sudden, violent sensory shift made her believe that the last three years of her existence had merely been a prolonged, vivid hallucination.

A coma dream. A coping mechanism conjured by a dying girl in a hospital bed.

But as the initial, blinding wave of adrenaline slowly began to recede, the brutal, physical reality of her body violently asserted itself.

Roxy shifted her weight against the couch cushions, intending to sit up and rub the sleep from her eyes.

A sharp, blinding, and entirely excruciating spike of pain tore directly through her lower pelvis and abdomen. It was a raw, agonising, tearing sensation that completely stole the breath from her lungs. She let out a choked, ragged gasp, her hands flying downward on pure instinct.

Her palms slapped against her stomach.

It was completely flat. The heavy, pronounced, and beautiful curve of her pregnancy was entirely gone. The solid, comforting weight of the beautiful child that had been nestled safely inside her just moments ago had vanished.

Roxy’s breath hitched. She looked down at herself, the dim light from the streetlamps outside illuminating the absolute horror of her physical state.

She was not wearing her old, oversized Earth clothes. She was wearing the exact same emerald and gold silk nightgown she had been dressed in at the Palace.

The luxurious, otherworldly fabric was completely ruined. It was soaked through with cold, clammy sweat, and the entire lower half of the gown was heavily, undeniably stained with dark, crimson blood.

The metallic, copper scent of her own blood violently assaulted her senses, mixing sickeningly with the faint, lingering smell of draconic smoke and restorative mountain herbs that still clung to the silk fibers.

Roxy’s heart began to hammer a frantic, terrified rhythm against her ribs.

She pushed her trembling hands against the couch cushions, desperately trying to stand. She needed to get up. She needed to find the doors. She needed to find her Kings.

But the absolute second she put her weight onto her legs, her knees completely buckled beneath her.

She hit the cheap laminate flooring of her apartment with a heavy, painful thud. Her muscles possessed absolutely zero strength. Her core was entirely hollowed out, her body physically wrecked and trembling uncontrollably.

A warm wetness slipped down her inner thighs. She was suffering from the intense physical exhaustion, the agonizing soreness, and the active, heavy bleeding of a woman who had just violently pushed a child out of her body mere minutes ago.

This was the absolute, undeniable proof.

The Beastworld had not been a coma. It had not been a dream. The magic, the empires, the monsters who had loved her, and the baby she had just birthed—they were all completely, devastatingly real. And she had been entirely, forcibly ripped away from them.

"No," Roxy whimpered, the sound scraping raw against her throat as she laid on the cold floor. "No, no, no..."

She dug her fingernails into the grooves of the cheap laminate. With every ounce of willpower she possessed, she began to drag herself across the living room. Her body screamed in agony with every agonizing inch. The physical trauma of the birth was completely unmitigated by the restorative magic of the elite midwives; she was bearing the full, brutal brunt of human labor all by herself.

She dragged her broken body down the short, narrow hallway, leaving a faint, smeared trail of dampness on the floorboards, until she finally reached the small, sterile bathroom.

Roxy reached up with a trembling hand, grabbing the edge of the porcelain sink. She gritted her teeth, tears of sheer physical agony streaming down her face as she hauled herself upward, her knuckles turning completely white.

She stood on shaking legs, leaning heavily against the counter for support, and forced herself to look into the smudged bathroom mirror.

The reflection staring back at her was a ghost.

Her face was deathly pale, her skin stripped of the vibrant, radiant glow it had possessed in the mountains.

Deep, bruised purple circles hung beneath her brilliant green eyes. Her dark curls were a tangled, sweat-drenched mess, clinging to her neck and cheeks. She looked exactly like a woman who had just fought a war against her own biology and barely survived.

But she hadn’t survived to hold her prize.

Roxy stared at her flat stomach in the mirror. The realization struck her with the force of a falling meteor, completely obliterating whatever fragile shards of hope she had left.

She had been forcibly pulled away from her family. The Heavens had used her as a vessel, allowing her to stay just long enough to safely deliver the child, only to ruthlessly execute the dimensional correction the absolute second her usefulness expired.

She had left a newborn baby girl entirely alone. A beautiful, tiny daughter with iridescent scales who would never know the warmth of her mother’s chest, who would never hear her mother sing, and who would grow up looking at an empty throne.

And her Kings.

The image of Zarek’s scarred face looking down at her, his golden eyes filled with absolute, overwhelming love, flashed violently across her mind. She thought of Syris pressing his lips to her forehead.

She thought of Kaelen’s fiercely protective ice, Torian’s massive, comforting presence, and Caspian’s gentle, healing touch. She thought of Axel, Onyx, Tanith, Iris, Zale, Tyara, Fedor, and Drax.

They had finally found peace. They had conquered the apocalypse, built a massive empire, and welcomed a new life. And in the very pinnacle of their absolute triumph, she had died in their arms. They were left behind in the Palace, completely shattered, mourning a Matriarch who had simply vanished into the void.

Roxy gripped the edges of the porcelain sink, her knuckles turning bone-white, her chest heaving as a sob tore itself from the very depths of her soul.

She threw her head back, her throat opening as she unleashed a desperate, blood-curdling scream into the tiny apartment.

"Zarek!"

Her voice cracked, echoing harshly off the cheap bathroom tiles. She waited, her heart pounding in her ears, her entire body trembling as she desperately listened for the deep, earth-shattering rumble of a Dragon King tearing through the walls to save her. She waited for the smell of smoke and ash.

But there was nothing. Only the low hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen.

"Zarek, please!" Roxy shrieked, the tears blinding her entirely, streaming down her pale cheeks and dripping onto the blood-stained silk of her gown. "I’m here! I’m still here!"

Silence. The deafening, indifferent silence of the human world pressed down on her like a physical weight.

Panic completely overtook her. She couldn’t breathe. The air felt entirely too thin, completely devoid of the heavy, intoxicating combat auras she had grown so accustomed to.

"Torian!" she screamed, her voice growing increasingly ragged and hoarse. "Torian, where are you?! Kaelen! Syris!"

She hit her fist against the bathroom counter, her reflection blurring as she sobbed.

"Caspian! Please, somebody... please hear me!"

She screamed until her vocal cords were completely shredded, until every ounce of breath was expelled from her lungs. She screamed for her devoted Kings, she screamed for her children, she screamed at the Heavens that had so ruthlessly discarded her.

But Earth did not answer. There were no roars of defiance, no crashing waves of aquatic magic, no freezing blizzards of Northern wrath. There was only the distant wail of a police siren on the street below, a stark, mocking reminder of exactly where she was.

The last remaining thread of her strength violently snapped.

Roxy’s grip on the porcelain sink completely slipped. She collapsed backward, her body sliding heavily down the cold, tiled wall of the bathroom until she hit the floor. She pulled her knees tightly to her chest, wrapping her trembling arms around her empty, hollow abdomen.

She buried her face in her knees, entirely consumed by a dark, bottomless abyss of grief.

She wept uncontrollably. The sobs wracked her broken frame, violent and relentless, tearing through the quiet apartment. She was trapped.

She was entirely alone in a universe that felt completely alien, burdened with the memories of a magnificent empire she could never, ever return to. The physical pain of her body was absolutely nothing compared to the agonizing, catastrophic mutilation of her heart.

She felt like it was all over. The fight was gone.

Roxy pressed her forehead against the cold tiles, her tears mixing with the dark, dried blood on her silk gown. She squeezed her eyes shut, entirely unable to stop crying, the silence of the Earth apartment slowly suffocating her.

"What am I going to do?"