Uriel reviewed his new memory after leaving the meeting room.
Memory: [Formless]
Memory Rank: Supreme
Level: II
Type: Weapon
Uriel blinked several times. He had expected a Supreme memory, but the name was undoubtedly strange.
Memory Description: [Fleeing a ruined world under the dominion of their ruler. They crossed the endless desert covered in the aftermath of the war between gods and demons to enter the pyramid built by the Demon of Terror. Following their ruler, they ventured into the black pyramid to build a refuge...]
Uriel frowned. That was where the memory's description ended.
Searching through his memories and quickly reading the descriptions, he found none that completed the missing part.
Enchantments: [Formless] [Minor Water Dominion]
[Formless] Enchantment Description: "This memory possesses no fixed form, therefore it can take any shape."
[Minor Water Dominion] Enchantment Description: "This memory grants you minor dominion over water."
"I feel disappointed." Uriel summoned the memory, observing a liquid surface spilling from his hands. Concentrating, he felt a jade-colored bracelet with a white ring form around his wrist.
"This is better."
Uriel stretched and then simply rejoined his cohort, informing them of everything.
A few hours later, he was lying on the roof of the Rhino, watching the aurora borealis in the night sky.
"What are you thinking about?" Shade asked.
"Are you awake?"
"Yes, I'm generally awake. You know, doing things."
"I'm not even going to think about what kind of things you do in my mind."
"I don't do anything weird."
Uriel looked at Shade suspiciously, not believing a word.
"Well, almost... a little bit."
"Do you have any idea how to kill the Great Black One?"
"No. I've run out of ideas. Gunlaug is still evolving, the Dark Knight is still a Transcendent, Soul is still dealing with thousands of abominations, Skadi will refuse, and the other one is too dangerous if there are people nearby."
"So we're screwed."
"Yes. I'll come up with something, or if not, we'll just improvise a bit here and there and pray everything works out."
Shade fell silent.
"My time has come. You must continue your journey without me." Shade began to slowly fade away dramatically.
Uriel rolled his eyes.
"Stop ruining the classics," he murmured, eating a peach.
...
The next day, Uriel felt the cold air as he stood at the summit of Falcon Scott's great wall. The soldiers of the First Army trembled in the battlements, gazing at the blizzard's haze with grim expressions.
Due to the creature's nature, no one was sure from where the entity named the Heart of Darkness would arrive.
It could be anywhere, and Uriel, using his senses, couldn't feel anything.
Uriel took a sip from his cup of hot chocolate, which he had barely remembered he had after checking his dark storage.
'I wonder why I have so many bones?' he thought to himself.
'Maybe I wanted to be maracas?'
'Why would I want to make maracas? Maybe for decoration? But there's also a leviathan skeleton.'
Uriel frowned.
"Is something wrong, Captain? You look annoyed for some reason," Lucien said.
"I'm just thinking about something. If you had the skeleton of a two-hundred-meter-long giant fish, what would you do with it?"
Lucien blinked several times.
"Why would you want a skeleton of those proportions?"
Uriel shrugged.
"I don't know. There are all kinds of people in the world, so there might be someone interested in buying a skeleton of such proportions."
"Who would want to buy a skeleton like that?"
"I don't know."
"You're crazy, Captain."
"Yeah, I suppose I am a little." Uriel took another sip of chocolate.
"Do you happen to have any more hot chocolate?"
"No."
Uriel looked into the distance and felt it. It was faint, but something else entered his domain and easily gained ground.
Uriel looked at Jet, who, noticing his gaze, nodded in acknowledgment.
Jet gave the signal, and everyone prepared. They watched as, in the distance, a black substance began to spread, consuming everything in its path, leaving nothing behind.
Uriel felt disgusted sensing that thing. Although it was made of darkness, it was so vile and nauseating that it made him want to vomit. If he had to describe it, it would be the most disgusting smell he had ever smelled and the most disgusting thing he had ever seen.
The mass of darkness spread like tar.
Uriel noticed that from the darkness, dark creatures with deep-set eyes began to emerge, crawling out of the enormous dark mass and advancing.
"Asher," he said, looking at his subordinate.
"It's a big one, Captain."
"I see, so a Great Devil," he murmured, closing his eyes and then sighing. Opening his eyes, his gaze was serious.
Uriel took out a dark orb from his dark storage, which pulsed like a heart.
"Well, I hope this actually works; otherwise, I'll have wasted three Supreme cores uselessly."
"What is that?"
"A project I've been working on." Uriel smiled.
Ever since he killed the Winter Beast, he had begun to deepen his knowledge of runic sorcery. With Skadi's help—who had more information than him—and after explaining what he was trying to create, she gave him the missing information.
It had been days of arduous work through trial and error, until he finally completed it.
Creating two wings of darkness, he rose into the sky, flying toward the black tar that continued closing the distance.
At the same time, the turrets activated, firing at the dark abominations.
Uriel stopped in the sky, looked at the orb, then smiled and let it fall from a great height.
Immediately, he shot back toward the wall.
It took him only a few seconds to return. Upon arriving, he smiled as he saw a small white flash that was devoured by the darkness, and an instant later, a massive explosion erupted.
The explosion was brutal and devastating. First came a flash of light that made everyone close their eyes for an instant, then a deafening roar followed by a strong earthquake that opened huge fissures.
The shockwave hit the walls without causing much damage.
When the shockwave ended, all that remained was a large mushroom cloud, which was dispersed by a gust of wind.
Everyone's eyes widened as they saw a massive crater—the result of the concentrated explosion. They watched as the sea of darkness retreated, sliding over the great crater until it filled it.
"Is it over?" Lucien asked.
"No," said Uriel. "I didn't get the kill notification for that thing, so..."
Uriel didn't finish before the black pool exploded upward like a massive geyser of ink. Uriel narrowed his eyes and saw it.
"Shit."
"Uriel, what's happening?" Jet asked.
"That thing was evolving. It's become something terrifying—a Great Devil." Uriel didn't know whether to laugh or cry at this point.
Jet's eyes widened upon hearing that, and then she cursed.
To make matters worse, countless dark creatures emerged, beginning to run desperately toward the city.
The numbers increased rapidly: first a hundred, then a thousand, then ten thousand. In seconds, all one could see was a sea of black, hungry bodies.
"Master Jet, what do we do?" Uriel asked.
"Do you have more orbs like the last one?"
"I still have one left, but unless the leader dies, they'll keep being born."
"Can you kill it?"
"I can try."
"Good. Do what you can."
"Understood."
Shortly after, Jet moved away.
"This is Soul Reaper Jet. All Awakened, assemble into cohorts and prepare for the attack. We must push the enemy back. All mundane personnel, abandon the wall! I repeat: abandon the wall! I order a full retreat to the secondary defense line..."
After that, Jet approached the informant soldier. Her face was one full of seriousness.
"Inform army command to prepare for Protocol Rampart and be ready to activate it on my order. If I die, they are to act at their own discretion."
The man nodded and ran at great speed. Jet then turned, looking at Uriel.
"Stop the Devil. Sunny, go to the right; I'll go to the left. Also, send that Echo of yours to the center-left. Bloodwave will handle the last one, and Saint Tirys will deal with reducing their numbers. We cannot allow them to enter the city."
Uriel watched as the masters launched themselves against the sea of dark creatures, beginning to eliminate them along with the swarm of insects that emerged from their bodies when destroyed.
His gaze settled on the Devil.
The creature was still inside the geyser, which had transformed into a large cocoon.
Using darkness, he created wings, rising into the black sky toward the dark cocoon.
When he got close enough, he used the Formless enchantment of his Transcendent memory, creating a black katana.
Instantly, countless tentacles shot toward him at great speed.
Wielding the sword, he managed to cut them all down, using his own darkness to deflect what he couldn't.
His body became a black blur, cutting through the enormous tentacles, but his primary objective was to halt the evolution of the Nightmare creature.
Cutting through another tentacle, Uriel examined the cocoon. He needed firepower, since his darkness attacks wouldn't have much effect on that thing.
"Come on, think," he told himself.
At that moment, he heard a voice.
[Your darkness has evolved]
Without hesitation, Uriel smiled and summoned his greatest weapon of mass destruction.
The darkness rippled, and emerging from it was a massive, scaled head with black scales, black horns with golden accents, followed by a powerful neck covered in impenetrable scales, two titanic wings wrapped in darkness and golden specks that resembled stars.
Then came two large, terrifying legs with black claws, two powerful hind legs, and an enormous, long tail.
This dragon was none other than Gunlaug, who had become a Supreme Beast after killing a Great Monster.
Gunlaug released a roar that shook the sky and the earth. His will spread with overwhelming pressure. His eyes settled on the enormous cocoon of darkness, which opened a massive eye.
Uriel approached Gunlaug, standing on his head. He could feel the dragon's excitement for battle.
"Come on, kill that thing for me."
Somehow, the dragon smiled macabrely, unleashing a sea of flames that affected the soul itself.
The flames advanced with devastating force, consuming everything in their path.
The diabolical eye controlled the darkness, creating an enormous barrier that counterbalanced the flames.
Being a Great Devil, its will was more refined than the newly awakened will of a Supreme Beast.
Although both creatures were equal in rank, in terms of power, Gunlaug was inferior. However, since that creature had not completed its evolution, it was weak.