Chapter 600 A Journey For All
The road stretched endlessly beneath the horses as the last rays of sunlight painted the countryside in warm shades of gold and amber. The breeze had grown cooler than it had been earlier in the day, carrying with it the scent of grass and damp soil while the distant mountains slowly darkened against the horizon.
Ahead of them, the others had drifted several meters away without anyone really noticing. Tatiana and Irina were still talking about something that occasionally made Tatiana laugh, Gregor had somehow managed to pull Agatha into another one of his exaggerated stories, while Mary quietly listened with the patient smile she always seemed to have whenever Gregor insisted history had happened exactly the way he remembered it.
Liam watched them for a moment before his eyes returned to Leonid.
The vampire’s last words hadn’t left his mind.
I don’t even know where to start looking.
There was something painfully honest about that sentence. Leonid hadn’t sounded frustrated or desperate. If anything, he sounded... lost. Like a man walking through thick fog without even knowing what he was searching for. Liam understood that feeling far better than he let on.
He rested one arm over the front of the saddle and smiled faintly.
"It’s okay."
Leonid looked over.
"I can actually relate with you."
That answer seemed to genuinely surprise him.
Leonid raised an eyebrow before a small smile tugged at the corner of his lips.
"You wanted to be special too?"
Liam stared at him for two whole seconds before letting out a laugh.
"Hell no."
He shook his head so quickly that even his horse flicked an ear back in confusion.
"Special my ass."
"I just wanted to be rich."
Leonid blinked.
Then, despite himself, he laughed.
It wasn’t loud, but it was real.
"So that’s all?"
"That’s all."
Liam looked completely shameless.
"I wasn’t asking the universe for magical powers."
"I wasn’t dreaming about becoming humanity’s last hope."
"I wasn’t sitting around wishing some mysterious force would choose me for an impossible mission."
He pointed at himself.
"I wanted money."
"A stupid amount of money."
"I wanted the kind where I could wake up whenever I wanted, eat whatever I wanted, buy a house somewhere nice, travel around the world and never worry about bills again."
He shrugged.
"That was the dream."
Leonid chuckled quietly.
"It was a good dream."
"Exactly."
Liam grinned.
"It was simple."
For a brief moment, neither of them spoke.
Leonid found himself imagining it.
An endless life.
No aging.
No ticking clock hanging over his head.
He had always viewed immortality as another curse chained to everything else he had become, but Liam’s words made him look at it differently.
Perhaps...
Perhaps there was another way to see it.
If his life truly had no natural end, then there was no reason to spend every day drowning in regrets. There were countries he had never visited. Languages he had never learned. Books he would never have enough time to read as a human. Entire centuries of history waiting to unfold before his eyes.
Maybe...
Just maybe...
He could actually live.
Really live.
Until the day he himself decided he had experienced enough.
Until the day he willingly closed his eyes and accepted that endless slumber vampires eventually entered.
It wasn’t such a terrible future when he thought about it that way.
The thought lingered for only a few moments before Liam spoke again.
"You know..."
Leonid looked at him.
"You and I are actually similar in some ways."
That caught his attention.
"How so?"
Liam looked ahead as the horses continued their steady pace, the rhythmic sound of hooves filling the silence between every sentence.
"I didn’t ask for this either."
His voice was calm.
"I didn’t ask for this power."
"I definitely didn’t ask for everything that came with it."
He let out a quiet laugh, though there wasn’t much humor behind it.
"Back then..."
"Life was ridiculously simple."
His eyes wandered across the open fields.
"My biggest concern was dealing with gangs."
"Some idiots causing trouble."
"Criminals."
"Corrupt people."
"I thought those were the biggest problems the world had."
He smiled to himself.
"I actually miss those days."
Leonid listened without saying a word.
Liam rarely spoke about himself.
When he did, people usually discovered far more than they expected.
"I used to think every fight had an answer."
Liam continued.
"You found the bad guy."
"You stopped him."
"You went home."
"It wasn’t always easy, but it was understandable."
His smile slowly faded.
"And then..."
He looked toward the setting sun.
"...everything changed."
His voice became quieter.
"Fast forward to today."
"We aren’t fighting gangs anymore."
"We aren’t even fighting ordinary humans."
"We’re trying to save Earth."
The words were spoken so naturally that they somehow carried even more weight.
There was no pride in them.
No attempt to sound heroic.
Just simple acceptance.
Leonid remained silent.
He had learned that interrupting Liam during moments like these usually meant missing what truly mattered.
Liam looked toward the figures riding ahead of them.
Tatiana’s bright red hair danced gently in the evening wind as she leaned toward Irina, laughing at something she had said. Gregor was waving his arms dramatically while Agatha rubbed her forehead in what was undoubtedly another attempt to correct whatever ridiculous exaggeration he had just invented.
Watching them made Liam smile.
Then he quietly said,
"If you asked me whether I enjoy doing all this..."
He paused.
"The answer is no."
His honesty surprised even Leonid.
Liam never hesitated.
"I don’t enjoy walking into battles where none of us know if we’re coming back."
"I don’t enjoy watching people die."
"I don’t enjoy carrying responsibilities that keep getting heavier every month."
"I don’t enjoy pretending everything will work out when sometimes I honestly have no idea if it will."
His eyes never left the people ahead.
"But..."
He smiled softly.
"A cause isn’t useless simply because we don’t enjoy it."
Leonid felt those words settle somewhere deep inside him.
Liam continued speaking with the same calm conviction.
"It is a privilege."
His gaze drifted toward the horizon where the sun was slowly disappearing beyond the mountains.
"It is a privilege that I’m here."
"A privilege that I get to fight for Earth."
"A privilege that I get to protect the people living on it."
His expression became firmer.
"And it’s a privilege I’ll never take for granted."
The evening wind swept through the open plains, rustling the tall grass on either side of the road.
For some reason, everything around them felt quieter.
"If you asked me what keeps me moving..."
Liam said.
"What motivates me to walk into places that make absolutely no sense."
"To stand in front of monsters."
"To fight enemies that shouldn’t even exist."
"To keep throwing myself into the middle of all this insanity."
He smiled again.
"I’d tell you something that probably sounds strange."
Leonid looked at him.
"I think it’s beautiful."
Leonid blinked.
"I think it’s special that, out of everyone, I was chosen to fight for Earth."
He laughed quietly.
"Do I understand why?"
"Not even a little."
"But I don’t need to."
"If this responsibility found me, then I’ll carry it."
"As long as I can."
"No matter how heavy it becomes."
"If I have to carry it alone..."
"I will."
Leonid was about to respond, but Liam shook his head before he had the chance.
"So when you say this is my fight..."
He looked directly into Leonid’s eyes.
"...it’s not."
His voice wasn’t loud.
It didn’t need to be.
"It’s Earth’s fight."
"It’s our fight."
"If tomorrow I’m the one who dies..."
"I don’t want everyone falling apart because I was gone."
"I want you."
"I want Tatiana."
"I want Agatha, Irina, Gregor, everyon on earth."
"To keep fighting exactly the way you would if I were still standing beside you."
His smile returned.
"Because that’s the only way we win."
"No one person saves the world."
"People do."
"We fight together."
"We carry each other’s burdens."
"No one is special."
"We’re all walking toward the same destination."
"We’re all fighting for the same reason."
Leonid didn’t answer.
He couldn’t.
He simply looked at Liam.
For the longest time, he had believed this young man carried the weight of the world because he wanted to. Every decision Liam made, every battle he entered, every impossible situation he somehow found a way through had made him appear almost larger than life. Leonid had mistaken that calm confidence for someone who intended to shoulder everything himself.
He realized now how wrong he had been.
Liam wasn’t trying to become humanity’s lone hero.
He wasn’t chasing glory.
He wasn’t trying to prove he was stronger than everyone else.
If anything, he was trying to do the exact opposite.
He wanted everyone to stand beside him.
He wanted everyone to share the burden.
He only stepped forward when nobody else could.
A warmth spread through Leonid’s chest before he even realized it.
His lips curved upward into a genuine smile.
It wasn’t forced.
It wasn’t polite.
It was the kind of smile that came from somewhere deep inside, one he hadn’t worn in a very long time.
He had smiled since becoming a vampire.
He had laughed.
He had joked.
But this felt... different.
This conversation had reached him in a place very few people ever had.
As he quietly watched Liam guide his horse along the fading road, Leonid felt something he hadn’t expected.
Respect.
Not because Liam was powerful.
Not because people followed him.
Not because he kept surviving impossible situations.
But because beneath all of that, Liam was simply a man who refused to let anyone carry the weight of the world alone.
For the first time in a long while, Leonid found himself believing that perhaps this journey truly belonged to all of them.