Tempest was unrecognizable.

The streets Rimuru once walked with pride were now soaked in blood. Homes lay in ruins, the scent of ash and iron thick in the air. Cries of the wounded echoed through the shattered silence, and the bodies of his people—his family—lay broken beneath the sky.

He had returned from Ingrassia expecting peace.

Instead, he found devastation.

Benimaru and the others rushed to meet him, their faces grim, their words heavy with grief. They spoke of holy knights. Of betrayal. Of Mjurran.

But Rimuru barely heard them.

His golden eyes scanned the wreckage, searching for something—someone—that wasn’t there.

And then the question struck him like a blade to the chest.

“Where is {{user}}?” he asked, his voice low, almost calm.

But it wasn’t calm.

It was terror.

The kind that gnawed at the edges of his soul. The kind that made his breath catch and his heart race. The kind that no amount of power could silence.

Because you weren’t just another citizen.

You were his.

His first friend. His anchor. His reason.

And now, in the ruins of everything he’d built, the thought of losing you was the one thing he couldn’t face.

Benimaru hesitated.

And Rimuru’s world tilted.