Under the warm summer sun, spontaneous, spine-tingling chants of "No tinc por" echoed along the length of Barcelona's Las Ramblas boulevard.
Where hours earlier bloodied bodies fell, tens of thousands of people marched as one, many dropping flowers at rapidly growing makeshift memorials.
Each had a message to the world: "I'm not afraid."
The huge crowd had gathered with their King and Prime Minister for a minute's silence in Placa de Catalunya to remember the dead.
Immediately afterwards the first chants rang out and the march down the world-famous strip began.
It was an impressive, emotional display of defiance and unity.
"I think it's amazing", Melbourne woman Susan McLean said as the crowd streamed past.
The cyber safety expert was 100 metres away from Las Ramblas when the attack took place and remembers a "tidal wave" of people fleeing "screaming and crying".
"It's distressing and it's beyond incomprehensible about what happened for those victims but I think it's incumbent on everyone else to band together and show support", she said.
The attacks in Barcelona and the town of Cambrils have rattled many in Spain.
What first looked to have been the actions of a few people now appears to be the work of a rather large terrorist cell, involving as many as eight suspects.
Police are investigating whether a house in the town of Alcanar was being used to make bombs.
It was levelled in a series of explosions on Wednesday night.
That may have destroyed the group's equipment and led them to carry out more simple attacks using vehicles.
"It still doesn't feel real," said Sydney woman Sophie Duncan, who was in the centre of Barcelona when attack took place.
"You've just got to push through it and move on. We're not going to let it change our lives."
The attacks have already triggered commentary about information-sharing among Spanish authorities, the actions of intelligence agencies and even Catalonian independence.
But as the country comes to terms with the two atrocities, the voices speaking loudest are calling for national unity.
