It had been many years since he'd been home. Since he'd sat down with his brother in the evenings.

But yet he walked.

So long ago was the past. So much pain it held.

And so he walked, and walked, and walked into the sunset.

He was a farmer at heart. He had loved his crops, more than he loved his brother, more than he loved his god. He loved his wheat, and his barley, and his orchard, they were all he cared for. Not anymore.

His brother was dead, and so were his crops, everything near and dear to him, gone in the blink of the eyes.

Now he roamed the paths of the world searching for a new home, or companions to aid him in his new calling, he was not sure.

He slowly became a living legend, a passing rumor. Of a man who survived a god's wrath. And now he was going to kill that god.

The world had changed since he last truly looked at it.

Forests he once wandered in his youth now stood darker, their roots tangled with old magic. Rivers he had crossed barefoot as a boy now carried the ashes of forgotten kingdoms. Even the mountains seemed to bend beneath the weight of centuries, as though exhausted from holding up the sky.

But he kept walking.

His feet knew the rhythm of the road better than they knew rest. Every step was a memory. Every breath tasted faintly of the life he had lost.

He had not spoken his own name in years. Names held meaning, and his had become too heavy to carry. So he let the world call him whatever it wished.

The Wanderer.
The Survivor.
The Godless Man.

Rumors always grew in the telling, and he did not bother to correct them. It was easier if people feared him. Safer for them, and quieter for him.

The sun dipped low behind him as he approached a small village nestled between two broken hills. Smoke rose gently from chimneys, carrying the familiar scent of cooking fires and warm homes. A scent he had once loved. A scent he now avoided.

He almost turned away—almost—but his legs had other plans. Hunger, or habit, or perhaps the whisper of destiny pushed him forward through the worn wooden gates.

The villagers stopped when they saw him.

A few froze mid-step. Children hid behind their mothers. Even the dogs lowered their tails. His cloak, torn from years of weather, billowed slightly in the evening breeze. Beneath it, the faint glow of old magic pulsed from the scars carved across his arms and chest—marks left by a god’s fury.

Someone had recognized him.

A young man, hardly more than a boy, stepped forward with foolish bravery. “Are you… him?” he asked, voice trembling.

The wanderer did not answer.

He didn’t have to.

Gasps spread through the crowd like wildfire. A woman dropped her basket. An elder whispered a prayer under his breath. A farmer—his hands rough and strong, much like the wanderer’s once were—took a hesitant step forward.

“We’ve heard… legends,” the farmer said. “Of a man the gods could not kill.”

The wanderer’s eyes flicked toward him, a storm hiding behind weary eyelids.

“They failed,” he said quietly. His voice sounded like gravel, unused, cracked from years of silence. “But they took everything else.”

A hush fell. The villagers watched him as though he were a blade balanced on its edge. Dangerous, but perhaps… necessary.

A child tugged at her mother’s sleeve. “Mama, is he a hero?”

The wanderer closed his eyes.

Hero.
Villain.
Monster.
He had been called many things.

But none of them were true.

“No,” he said. “Just a man with unfinished business.”

He stepped past the villagers, heading toward the inn at the far end of the path. But before he could reach the door, the farmer called after him.

“If you’re hunting a god,” the man said, “you won’t want to walk alone.”

The wanderer paused.

For the first time in many years—longer than he could count—he felt something stir in his chest. Not hope. Not yet. But something quieter. A faint warmth, like the memory of sunlight.

He turned his head slightly.

“Why?” he asked. “What do you know of gods?”

The farmer lifted his shirt sleeve.

And on his arm, faint but unmistakable, was the same divine scar the wanderer bore—shaped by the same merciless hand.

“I know enough,” the farmer said. “Enough to want revenge.”

The wanderer stared at the mark, then at the man who carried it without flinching. The village seemed to hold its breath.

At last, the wanderer nodded once.

“Then come,” he said. “The road ahead is long. And the god we seek does not forgive.”

And as the two men walked into the fading light, the villagers whispered a new rumor—a new legend beginning.

Of a man once broken.

And of the first companion brave enough to join him on the path to slay a god.