Chapter 454: Episode 452: There is no harm in trying.

The sun rose and set over the concrete skyline, entirely indifferent to the fact that Roxy’s universe had just violently ended.

Days passed on Earth. They did not pass with the majestic, sweeping grace of the Beastworld seasons. They dragged by in a dull, agonizing blur of artificial lights, ticking clocks, and the relentless noise of city traffic.

Monday bled into Tuesday, and Tuesday dissolved into Wednesday. The world kept spinning, completely oblivious to the ghost haunting the small, third-floor apartment.

Roxy was forced to navigate her terrestrial life while carrying a crushing, unbearable depression.

The immediate, physical reality of her body demanded her attention, refusing to let her simply lay down and waste away. She was entirely alone, stripped of Syris’s cooling magic, Caspian’s healing waters, and the skilled hands of the mountain midwives.

She had to tend to her postpartum wounds in complete, isolating secrecy.

Her first trip outside the apartment had been a nightmare. She had wrapped herself in a heavy winter coat to hide her trembling frame, walking to the corner drugstore under the harsh fluorescent lights.

She bought heavy-duty pads, ibuprofen, and heating patches. The cashier had barely looked at her, entirely unaware that the pale, exhausted woman standing at the register was the Matriarch of a massive, continent-spanning empire who had just given birth days ago.

Back in her sterile bathroom, Roxy sat on the edge of the cold porcelain tub. She swallowed the cheap painkillers, staring blankly at the white tiles as the agonizing cramps rolled through her empty abdomen. Her physical recovery was brutal.

Every step she took sent a sharp ache through her pelvis. Her breasts were heavy and painful, aching to feed a child that was separated from her.

She pressed a hot towel against her stomach, closing her eyes as the tears slipped silently down her cheeks. The physical pain was nothing compared to the violent, hollow void in her chest.

Later that afternoon, Roxy stood by the small, smudged window of her living room. She pulled the cheap blinds back, looking out at the sprawling city below.

The streets were packed with people. Commuters in gray suits hurried toward subway stations. Delivery trucks honked at intersections. Teenagers laughed outside a coffee shop, holding smartphones. It was humanity in all its mundane, chaotic glory.

Roxy looked at them, feeling completely, utterly alienated.

She did not belong here. This concrete jungle was not her home. Earth felt like a true alien planet now. The air was too thin, completely devoid of the heavy, intoxicating auras that used to blanket her in safety.

The sky was dull and grey, lacking the massive silhouettes of dragons or the bioluminescent glow of the southern oceans. She looked at the city and felt disconnected.

She let the blinds fall shut, plunging the apartment back into shadows.

Roxy dragged herself back to the faded couch, pulling her knees tightly to her chest. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block out the silence, but the memories rushed in with ruthless precision.

Every single time she thought of her newborn daughter, she was filled with a bottomless, suffocating despair. She remembered the tiny, iridescent scales on the baby’s cheeks. She remembered the thick tuft of dark hair and the fierce, demanding wail.

She had carried that beautiful child for months, endured the celestial formatting to protect her, and fought through the agonising labour in a volcanic fortress.

Who was holding her now? Was Zarek crying? Was Syris rocking her to sleep?

The thought of her baby girl growing up without a mother, looking for a face she would never remember, was a physical agony that made Roxy double over on the couch, gasping for breath through her sobs.

And her Kings.

The despair deepened, wrapping around her throat like a vice when she pictured the Warlords. She remembered Zarek’s golden eyes, Kaelen’s stoic devotion, Torian’s fierce loyalty, Syris’s cunning mind, and Caspian’s gentle soul.

She remembered the way they had dropped to their knees in the hallway when they heard the baby cry. She knew exactly what her sudden disappearance would do to them. It would break them. It would turn them back into the ruthless, feral monsters they had been before she arrived.

But as the heavy, dark tears soaked into the fabric of the couch, a tiny, stubborn spark ignited in the deepest, most battered corner of Roxy’s heart.

She wiped her face with the back of her trembling hand.

She refused to just accept her death. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

She knew her Kings. She knew the terrifying, invincible Warlords who ruled the Beastworld. They were men who had stared down a demon apocalypse and refused to blink. They were men who had manipulated continents, forged empires, and bent the very elements of nature to their will just to keep her safe.

They would not let her go.

If they were mourning, their grief would eventually burn into rage. If she knew Zarek, the Dragon King was currently tearing the sky apart looking for her. They would not simply build a grave and move on. They would wage a holy war against reality itself to find her.

And if the greatest warriors in the universe were going to fight for her, she absolutely refused to lay down and die on a cheap apartment couch.

Night fell over the city, casting long, sharp shadows across the living room floor.

Roxy finally moved from the couch to her small bedroom. She was entirely exhausted, her physical body demanding rest. She climbed into her bed, pulling the thin, uncomfortably light comforter up to her chin.

Her hand reached out, resting on the empty pillow beside her. Her fingers brushed against a small, torn piece of fabric.

It was a jagged scrap of the emerald and gold silk nightgown she had been wearing when she reappeared on Earth. She had carefully cut away the blood-stained portions, saving this single, clean piece. It was the only physical evidence she possessed that she had not lost her mind. It was the only tangible proof that the Beastworld existed.

Roxy pulled the scrap of silk to her chest, clutching it tightly in her fist. She closed her eyes, the exhaustion finally pulling her under into a restless, heavy sleep.

A few hours later, the digital clock on her nightstand glowed a harsh red: 3:14 AM.

Roxy suddenly sat up in bed.

She didn’t wake up screaming from a nightmare. She jolted upright, her brilliant green eyes snapping open in the dark, her chest heaving as a sudden, sharp idea crystallized in her mind.

She threw the comforter off her legs, entirely ignoring the dull ache in her pelvis. She swung her feet over the edge of the mattress, planting them firmly on the hardwood floor.

She could not just wait for them to break through the dimensional wall. She had to meet them halfway.

The Beastworld was a realm governed by ancient magic and divine laws, but Earth was a realm governed by logic, science, and recorded history.

If there was a tear in the fabric of the universe that allowed her to cross over in the first place, there had to be a record of it. There had to be an anomaly, a theory, or a myth that explained the intersection of different planes of existence.

Roxy turned on the small bedside lamp, the warm yellow light illuminating the fierce, determined set of her jaw.

She was going to go to the massive public library downtown as soon as the sun rose. Scour the archives and research complex dimensional theories, comb through ancient, forgotten myths of parallel worlds, and dive deep into the theoretical physics of quantum entanglement.

She was going to look for any possible way to pry open a backdoor to a world that normal humanity insisted simply didn’t exist.

She stood up, still clutching the piece of emerald silk in her hand. The crushing depression was still there, a heavy weight pressing down on her shoulders, but it was no longer paralyzing. It was rapidly converting into a desperate, focused drive.

Roxy looked at her pale reflection in the dark bedroom window. She wasn’t just an Earthling anymore. She was a Matriarch.

"There was no harm in trying," she whispered to herself.