The darkness barrier groaned under the impact of the spectral flames, but held firm. The giant eye within the cocoon observed him with an ancient coldness, as if it had witnessed the birth and death of countless stars.
Uriel clenched his jaw.
"Again," he ordered, tapping Gunlaug's scaly skull lightly with his heel.
The supreme dragon roared once more. This time, the flames weren't a sea, but a spear. A concentrated column of violet fire that pierced the air with an agonizing shriek. The barrier buckled, cracked, and for an instant, Uriel saw black, pulsing flesh inside the cocoon.
There.
"Now!"
Uriel launched himself from Gunlaug's head, his black katana reconfiguring mid-flight. The [Formless] enchantment responded to his will, shaping the weapon into a double-pointed lance with a serpentine edge.
The great devil's darkness twisted to intercept him, but Gunlaug charged with his full weight. The dragon's titanic claws shredded the tentacles sprouting from the cocoon, and his tail swept away dozens of them in one go.
Uriel pierced through the crack in the barrier.
The inside of the cocoon was a nightmare womb. Liquid shadows pulsed like organs, and at the center, a humanoid silhouette writhed, still incomplete. It was missing half its torso, and one arm hung like a dying worm.
It's not finished yet.
Uriel didn't hesitate. The lance became a broadsword, then a war hammer. Formless, infinite possibilities.
He struck the creature's exposed heart with all his will.
The impact released a dark shockwave that threw him back through the opening. He was sent flying, rolled across Gunlaug's back, and clung to one of the dragon's black spines as they fell several meters together.
The cocoon began to swell.
"It's not working," Uriel murmured, feeling how the thing was still alive, more furious than before.
But then he noticed something. The evolution had stopped. The great devil had been forced to emerge early, preventing its evolution from completing.
Uriel moved away, leaping onto his dragon's snout, which retreated from the cocoon, sensing danger.
The cocoon exploded.
Not from Gunlaug's attack, but because the thing inside had decided it could wait no longer. Fragments of solid darkness flew in all directions like obsidian shrapnel. Uriel raised an arm to protect his face, feeling several black shards cut his cheek and forearm.
It hurts. So it can hurt.
That meant the creature was now real. Fully manifested.
From the remains of the cocoon emerged a figure that should not exist. It stood at least fifteen meters tall, with a humanoid but grotesquely elongated body. Its skin was a black so deep it seemed to suck the light from its surroundings. It had no face, only a vertical crack that opened and closed like an inverted eye. From its back sprouted six additional limbs, thin as needles, each tipped with a claw dripping liquid shadow.
And it floated. One meter above the ground, making no sound.
Uriel felt a chill run down his spine.
"It's not complete," he murmured to himself, observing how the creature's torso still had translucent areas, like half-formed flesh. "But it's damn close."
Gunlaug roared, defiant, but didn't lunge immediately. The supreme dragon felt it too. This was no ordinary enemy.
The great devil turned its head—if that block of darkness with a slit could be called a head—toward them. For an instant, time seemed to stop.
Then it attacked.
There was no warning. One of its limbs extended like a whip, crossing the thirty meters between them in a fraction of a second. Uriel barely had time to shout:
"Gunlaug!"
The dragon raised a wing, and the impact resonated like a bell of twisted metal. The claw embedded itself in the wing membrane, piercing it. Gunlaug howled in pain but didn't retreat. His jaws opened and unleashed a blast of spectral flames directly at the devil's chest.
The fire engulfed the creature.
For a second, Uriel thought it had worked.
The darkness dissipated, revealing charred flesh... but the great devil was still there. Motionless. The crack in its "face" opened wider, and from it emerged a sound that was neither a roar nor a groan. It was worse. It was a silence that vibrated in the bones, a hum that made ears bleed.
It's absorbing some of the damage, Uriel thought, feeling his own inner darkness stir with unease. Shit. This is a real great devil.
Diverting his attention for an instant, he looked at Master Jet—she was fighting and pushing back the dark creatures, which exploded into clouds of black insects.
Elsewhere, he observed a massive three-meter-tall demon with four arms fighting savagely against the swarm, pushing them back meter by meter. In another place, flashes could be seen followed by enormous, powerful lightning bolts falling from the sky, eliminating thousands of the dark swarm.
I need to hurry, he thought, returning all his attention to his enemy.
The great devil moved its injured arm. The burnt flesh fell off like dead scales, and underneath... there was already new darkness. Regenerating.
Of course. Of course it regenerates.
Uriel cursed under his breath.
"Gunlaug, sustained fire. Don't let it regenerate completely."
The dragon obeyed. Spectral flames poured from his throat in a continuous torrent, keeping the devil enveloped in a violet inferno. But the creature didn't just endure the attack: it advanced.
With each step it took toward them, the ground blackened. Snow turned to ash. The air smelled of rot and something more ancient, something Uriel had only felt once before, in the castle when he had to fight Isis in his second nightmare.
Uriel clenched his teeth.
Fear.
Not his own. The fear of reality itself at harboring that thing.
"This isn't working!" Uriel growled. He refused to run. He would kill that thing with his own hands, just as he killed the great beast, just as he killed the great monster, just as he killed the Winter Beast and the Stone Titan. He would now kill a great devil.
He separated from Gunlaug with a leap, summoning his [Formless] memory and shaping it into two curved swords, like fangs of shadow. He landed on the devil's shoulder and plunged both blades into its flesh.
The effect was immediate and horrible.
A pain that wasn't physical pierced his consciousness. He screamed. He felt the devil's darkness trying to devour his own darkness, invisible tentacles licking his soul, searching for a weak point.
No. I won't fall.
Uriel clenched his teeth and pulled.
The swords moved downward, opening two deep furrows in the creature's torso. Liquid shadow poured out like blood, but not red. It was black. Blacker than darkness itself.
The great devil reacted.
Three of its limbs bent at impossible angles and embedded themselves in its own back, right where Uriel stood. Only his instinct saved him. He released the swords and fell, rolling down the creature's back until landing awkwardly on the ground.
The claws grazed his head. One more centimeter and they would have ripped off his skull.
"That was close. Too close," he panted, struggling to his feet.
Gunlaug took advantage of the distraction. The dragon hurled himself at the devil—not with fire, but with his entire body. Titanic claws embedded themselves in the creature's shoulders, and both beasts crashed to the ground with a roar that shook the wall hundreds of meters away.
The fight became primal. Bestial.
The great devil didn't roar, but every one of its movements was lethal. Its steely limbs pierced Gunlaug's scales again and again, leaving smoking holes. The dragon responded with bites that tore off chunks of solid darkness, but the damned thing regenerated almost instantly.
Uriel watched, searching for an opportunity, his mind working at a thousand miles an hour.
I can't damage it enough with normal attacks. Gunlaug is keeping it busy, but he's losing. If I keep going like this...
An idea.
It wasn't good. It was stupid, probably fatal. But it was the only one he had.
"Gunlaug!" he shouted. "Hold it! Don't let it move!"
The dragon looked at him for an instant. His vertical eyes seemed to ask, "Are you crazy?" Then he obeyed.
With a wrenching roar, Gunlaug wrapped the devil in his wings and body, pinning it to the ground. The creature's limbs stabbed into the dragon again and again, but the supreme beast didn't let go.
Uriel ran.
As he ran, he reached into his dark storage and pulled out the only thing he had left. The second sphere. The failed project he'd kept in case the first one didn't finish the job.
Although he had used all his Transcendent fragments on the two spheres, he'd made sure to get the most out of them. Once the great devil died, the black swarm would pour from its body like a wave.
If this goes wrong, I go up with him.
He reached the devil's chest, where the flesh was densest, darkest. The creature tried to turn its head toward him, but Gunlaug held it with his jaws, squeezing until the darkness cracked.
Uriel, upon approaching, inserted the sphere into the great devil's body. Then he retreated into the darkness, dismissing Gunlaug quickly.
Withdrawing a kilometer into the deep darkness, Uriel felt it. His body was ripped from the darkness by a titanic explosion that sent him flying at breakneck speed.
He observed with narrowed eyes a massive explosion that generated a second earthquake.
Crashing into the ground, his body slid dozens of meters. Using darkness, he stopped his momentum with a dark tentacle. With such abrupt braking, his arm dislocated.
But it was worth it. He had stopped.
Sighing, he stood up slowly, grabbed his arm, and popped it back into place. With a disgusting crack, the limb was set.
I hope it's dead. Uriel watched as the dust dissipated, and his heart sank. The great devil still lived. Even after receiving two explosions more powerful than the Winter Beast's, the great devil lived.
Torrents of darkness poured from the missing parts of its body, turning into the black insects that flowed ceaselessly.
Uriel summoned the Formless memory, shaping it into a black lance.
Moving through the darkness, it took Uriel only seconds to emerge a few meters from the enormous great devil, which used its remaining tentacles, launching them at him.
Wielding the lance with skillful movements, he cut them into smaller pieces. The devil extended its hand, but it was likewise severed. It would take only a second to regenerate, but that was all the time he needed.
Uriel closed his eyes and threw the lance toward what he could feel was the abomination's heart.
The lance flew at dizzying speed, embedding itself in the left side of the great devil's torso. Piercing its great heart and its weak point.
The devil shuddered. Its body began to swell and expand like a balloon.
Uriel, upon landing on the ground, plunged into the darkness, moving as far as he could from what was about to happen.
The enormous devil, after inflating, exploded in a massive geyser, releasing thousands of insects that, without the great devil's control, scattered in all directions, heading toward the greatest concentration of human souls.
However, enormous lightning bolts and a swift figure kept the vast majority of the swarm at bay.
Uriel emerged from the darkness, somehow ending up near Jet and Sunny.
Uriel landed and rolled, leaving an irregular line.
At the same time, the spell's voice spoke in his mind.
[You have killed a Great Devil, Heart of Darkness]
[You have obtained a Memory]
[Your darkness strengthens]
Uriel smiled as an unprecedented avalanche of soul fragments poured into his soul, making his counter increase by thousands in an instant.
"Uriel, what happened? Why did the bugs suddenly..."
"The devil is dead. Now, without a leader, that swarm will head toward the city," he explained quickly.
"What? How?"
"Questions later," Jet interrupted.
"Why?" Uriel asked.
"We need to reach the secondary defense line very, very soon... otherwise, army command will probably blow us sky high..."
"Are they going to use Rampart?"
"Yes," Jet replied, eating some peaches Uriel had given her to recover some essence.
Uriel looked ahead, seeing the enormous dark mass advancing rapidly.
"So what the hell are we waiting for? Let's get the hell out of here!"
Without hesitation, everyone began running toward the secondary defense line.
The Saint of the Night Clan, along with Tirys herself, caught up with them.
Since Uriel still had much of his essence, he took the rear, using darkness in the form of enormous tentacles to crush hundreds of insects.
Uriel noticed the ghost city, knowing about the impending explosion. He dismissed Soul, sending him to his sea of souls. He didn't want him to suffer damage from the explosion that was about to occur.
Creating more tentacles, Uriel continued at the rear, crushing insects while enormous lightning bolts eliminated them from a different angle, leaving a wide area for their advance toward the walls of Falcon Scott.
As they approached the army of still-living Awakened, they joined the group, making protection easier. But it wouldn't be enough. There were too many, and the distance was shrinking meter by meter every passing second.
When they were a quarter of the way to the wall, the Saint of the Night Clan spoke.
"Take your soldiers and go, Soul Reaper. I'll hold back the beasts for a while... tell your commanders to activate the explosives as soon as they cross the defense line."
Sunny looked at the Saint of the Night House.
"Are you..."
"Ah... I think you might have misunderstood, Sunless. I'm not trying to sacrifice myself. It's just that an explosion like that won't hurt a Transcendent too much. Awakened or even someone like you... it's better not to take the risk."
Master Jet nodded.
"See you, then."
The Saint summoned multiple memories and then launched himself at the horde to contain it.
Uriel looked at the distance remaining.
Uriel increased his pace from the sky. Saint Tirys, despite her injuries after fighting the swarm of voracious insects, helped the Saint of the Night Clan contain the swarm.
As they passed through the gaps, Uriel saw many empty buildings and others that had collapsed.
As he ran, dozens of Awakened followed behind him. He sighed.
Really, again? I'm in the lead with people following me, he complained internally.
He kept running for several minutes until he reached the second defense line, where mundane soldiers were quickly entering special zones to withstand what was about to happen in the city.
The Awakened quickly went inside. Uriel sighed in relief. A few minutes passed, and then a massive explosion occurred, continuing for two more minutes until finally subsiding. It was all finally over. No great threats remained in the Antarctic center.
The Winter Beast, the Terror of LO49, the Stone Titan Goliath, the Devouring Swarm, the Heart of Darkness, the Cloud Eater, the Great Eel Monster, the Great Devil Heart of Darkness, and other terrifying abominations that should have devastated the entire Antarctic continent were eliminated. And most of those terrors were killed by him.
Fate changed, and millions more would live with hope.
"Not bad at all, Uriel. I even feel like crying," Shade said, amused.
"Shut up, Shade. Don't ruin this for me."
...
Days later, Uriel was sitting in a familiar conference room, eating peaches slowly. Across from him, Sunny savored a hot chocolate.
"Where did you get chocolate?"
"I have my ways," he replied, biting into another peach.
"Where are the members of your cohort?" Sunny asked.
Uriel sighed.
"In the dream realm, possibly facing their second nightmares. In the battle, they suffered severe injuries. I told them not to die, and if their wounds were too severe, to go to the dream realm and ascend."
"Aren't you worried they'll fail?"
"They're my subordinates, Sunny. I trust they'll succeed. They have to."
Sunny said nothing, choosing to remain silent.
Uriel, instead, delved into his Sea of Souls, summoning the little devil that had finished digesting the horn of a corrupt titan, along with fragments of a high-rank creature, and some of his blood to grant it dark powers.
He only lacked a large batch of sacred steel to increase the Voracious One's hardness and make it a true front-line tank.
Uriel returned. He sighed upon seeing the empty room.
Of the eight Ascended, only three remained: Jet, Sunny, and Uriel. And of the Irregular cohort, only Sunny's cohort remained.
Uriel looked at Jet, who was silent, before she shook her head. As she stood up, her chair flew and crashed against the wall.
"...We're just wasting time here. Go rest, especially you, Uriel... you deserve a good rest. Gods, we all deserve it."
Uriel remained silent. Shortly after, Sunny stood up.
"Talk later," were his simple words as he left the room.
Uriel stood up and left the room. After exiting the underground, he moved through the darkness, emerging atop a large building. The cold air struck his body.
From his dark storage, he took out several bottles of beer.
After removing the cap, he took a drink.
"So now you drink?" Shade asked.
"I'm not much of a drinker. But I suppose it's fine for now," he said, finishing the first bottle and then starting the second.
In the distance, he could see Soul, whom he had resummoned after a full day of rest. Once the evacuations ended, he would have a free month, and then he could decide whether to continue dealing with all of Antarctica.
Of course, he would naturally stay in Antarctica, though he wouldn't interfere much with Song and Valor. In the end, he only needed to be there when the gates open in their little war to go to the nightmare desert.
"Do you want to switch now?"
"No... I have some things to think about."
Shade nodded.
"I see. Well then, I'll bother you in a few hours. And Uriel, seriously, you did a great job. You can be proud of that."
"Did you just try to invalidate me?" he asked, looking beside him, but Shade wasn't there.
Uriel looked at the half-empty bottle with an empty gaze. Then he raised his face, noticing snow beginning to fall. Unlike the snow generated by the Winter Beast, this was normal snow, nothing deadly about it.
Uriel took out his communicator and looked at the date. It was May 22nd.
"Happy birthday to me, I suppose."
Today was the day he turned twenty-one years old. Five years since he arrived in this world, when he was sixteen.
Time flies, he thought with a small smile, taking out a piece of cake and beginning to eat it with a faint smile