There were few things in life that Shade honestly feared. There were, in fact, many things, but fearing and being afraid were two completely different things.
Right now, he was afraid. Afraid of what was emerging from the Nightmare Gate in front of him.
The call of the Nightmare was terrifying. It flooded his mind, making it a struggle not to go mad.
The enormous crack stretched upward like a massive fracture in reality, hundreds of meters high.
Shade wanted to move but couldn't. He felt something heavy and cold—which he recognized as a corrupt will—holding him back.
A massive arm emerged from the crack. The arm was several meters in diameter, ending in orange fingers with enormous claws. Then came an enormous demonic head. Its eyes were two hollow sockets filled with orange-red light, with a third on its forehead, same as its skull and mouth.
Once the head emerged, the upper torso followed, wrapped in flames and molten rock. Then came the lower part, made of fire and stone. Finally, on its back were two enormous wings made of the same rocky, fiery substance.
Shade trembled.
The abomination's malevolent will held him fast. Using all his willpower, Shade finally managed to break free from his fear and move, just in time to avoid being caught by the abomination's enormous hand.
Retreating, Shade calmed the pounding of his heart. His eyes scanned the abomination, noticing something. A massive, mortal wound crossed the abomination's body, releasing something akin to blood. Likewise, it possessed enormous wounds, and part of what he assumed was its rocky armor was shattered, as if they were what remained of an ancient suit of armor.
The creature was undoubtedly mortally wounded, with almost all its power exhausted. Yet it was still terrifyingly strong for Shade.
That creature was undoubtedly a high-rank creature. Possibly a Devil.
'Shit. Screw me. How the hell do they throw a damn Great Devil at me while I'm heading back to Erebus Field? Damn it,' were Shade's thoughts.
He couldn't leave, because if he did, everything would be screwed. If the Great Devil reached Camp Erebus, attracted by all the human souls, it would recover, and that would be the end of Antarctica.
His only option was to kill it.
He had killed a Great Beast before, but there was no comparison between a Beast and a Devil. It was like comparing an Awakened to a Saint—that vast was the difference. And he was just a damn Ascended Titan.
'To hell with it!' Shade thought.
'If I'm scared, let's kill that thing while scared.'
Without hesitation, Shade moved away from the Great Devil, which opened its enormous jaws and spewed an ocean of scorching flames.
Shade felt the heat of those flames and knew that if he didn't avoid them, he would literally be fried.
Taking cover, Shade discarded his crow transformation. He needed options; his options were limited.
He couldn't summon the Illusory Butterfly, as it would be easily destroyed. The same would happen with the Dark Knight, which was a Transcendent Devil and was at Camp Erebus alongside Gunlaug and Soul.
Shade had to move through the darkness, dodging enormous fireballs. A terrifying roar came from the Great Devil, still sensing him alive.
"I'm alone," Shade thought, taking several breaths, calming himself.
"Alright. I have a Supreme Memory, a Transcendent sword, and a powerful Transcendent armor, and that thing is wounded. If I can do it..."
Shade surrounded himself with darkness, adopting the form he was most familiar with: a Stone Saint. But this time, instead of summoning Wyvern's Fang, he summoned White Flower and a shield of manifested darkness, along with crow wings on his back.
Shade summoned White Flower while simultaneously casting a sea of darkness toward the Great Devil, which used its will to completely repel the darkness. The darkness split in two like a sea parted by an invisible blade.
A terrifying pressure struck Shade, sending his manifestation flying, shattering the mountain.
His manifestation took enormous damage, which it quickly repaired. Getting back up, the Great Devil summoned a sea of orange-red flames against Shade, who moved through the darkness, emerging a few hundred meters from the abomination to catch his breath, if only for an instant.
His essence was being consumed at a monstrous rate. Having used the dragon manifestation earlier had already cost him his seventh core, and now he was on the verge of consuming his Terror core.
He would have to finish the battle in less than a minute, or he would die.
Looking ahead, White Flower finally finished weaving itself. Its diameter was long, as long as the Stone Saint's gigantic body.
The Great Devil lunged at him. Letting out a furious cry, Shade did the same.
Raising his sword, he swung it with all his strength, with all his fury, with all his fear, and with all his will against his enemy.
The Devil intercepted the sword with one of its rock-covered hands.
The impact generated a massive earthquake that shook everything for kilometers around. Shade raised his shield, focusing what little will he could into it, leaving a huge crack, on the verge of breaking from that single blow.
He was not a Transcendent, much less a Supreme. So he couldn't use his will to sufficiently damage or kill a Great Devil.
He was barely an Ascended. Though he had spent thousands of years in a Nightmare, those memories had disappeared. All that knowledge, all those cycles, were simply gone. He could barely feel will and use it in the same way a Sleeper used their essence.
His enormous body slid several meters. Swinging his sword, he managed to strike it between one of the Great Devil's exposed areas.
The Soul Break enchantment activated instantly, managing to damage the Great Devil's soul a little.
Furious, the creature wrapped its arms in profane flames and struck a punch into Shade's chest, destroying his manifestation.
Shade abandoned his manifestation. His sword stuck into the ground. He watched as the darkness was burned by the flames. Gathering more darkness, he reformed the Stone Saint's body, making it more compact and harder.
Extending his hand, he grabbed White Flower and withdrew it, his arm returning to normal. Shade saw how the Great Devil was weaker. Its power was diminishing, and its will was becoming more fragile with each passing moment.
Without hesitation, Shade lunged forward. The next few instants would decide everything in the battle.
Shade charged forward. The Great Devil, letting out a cry of fury and rage, did the same. The sword and the fist, wrapped in two different wills, clashed. The impact generated another earthquake. Countless tons of rock were blasted into the sky. The wind rose and dispersed the surrounding dust. The Nightmare Creatures, products of the clash between the two beings, fled like animals whose only instinct was survival.
A deafening boom rumbled throughout the area. Shade paid no attention to his surroundings. His state was singular: the tearing fury of battle and the furious will to destroy the enemy that wanted to kill him.
They fought, destroying everything around them, leaving only a sea of destruction in their wake.
...
The battle became a whirlwind of primal fury. There was no more strategy, only Shade's will, sharpened to desperation, crashing again and again against the moribund malevolence of the Great Devil.
Shade roared, not with his voice, but with the thunder of his manifestation reforming itself over and over. The Stone Saint, now more a liquid armor of rock and darkness than a defined form, absorbed blows that would have pulverized a mountain. Each impact of the fist wrapped in profane flames shattered ribs, tore muscles that no longer existed in his physical form, but he rebuilt them with essence, with rage, with pure survival instinct.
The Great Devil, despite its deplorable state, remained a force of nature. Its three eye sockets burned with hatred, and each time Shade approached, a wave of its corrupt will crushed him against the ground, leaving craters in the molten rock.
"DIE!" Shade shouted, his voice distorted by the echo of his own manifestation. His sword, White Flower, cut through the air like a pale comet, seeking one of the mortal cracks in the devil's rocky armor.
The blow connected. The Soul Break enchantment vibrated with a frequency that made reality screech, and another crack spread through the abomination's already fractured soul. The Great Devil howled, a sound not of pain, but of cosmic fury at being reduced to such a state. Its wings of rock and fire unfurled, sweeping the battlefield and hurling Shade against a promontory that disintegrated on impact.
His manifestation shattered for the fourth, fifth time... Shade lost count. He emerged from the rubble in an amorphous form, a whirlwind of pure darkness tendrils barely holding his consciousness together. His third core had burned out long ago; the beast core was an agonizing ember. He could feel the icy void of essence collapse lurking at the edge of his perception.
But the Great Devil was worse off.
Its chest, pierced by the original wound, gushed a torrent of reddish light resembling blood. Its right arm, which had intercepted most of Shade's attacks, hung inert, the orange claws extinguished. The flames that enveloped it were barely embers, and its will, though still lethal, had become erratic, wild. It was a titan mortally wounded, bleeding out into the material plane.
Shade saw the opportunity. It wasn't a flash of genius, but the last spark of a cornered man.
"NOW!"
With the last remnant of his essence, he didn't summon a new manifestation, but merged with the darkness itself. His body became a liquid shadow, a dart of pure intention that dodged the devil's final, desperate sweep of flames.
He appeared directly in front of the colossus's chest, right over the mortal wound. His form was unrecognizable: a mass of black tendrils from which arms and a torso sprouted, his human face emerging at moments, eyes bloodshot and a smile bordering on madness.
He grabbed White Flower with both hands. The sword, the only constant in that chaos, glowed with a faint light.
The Great Devil tried to raise its last functional arm, but it was too slow. Shade, with a cry that tore his throat, plunged the sword to the hilt into the crack in the abomination's chest.
"DIE, DAMN YOU! DIE, DIE, DIE!"
The Soul Break enchantment didn't just activate; it overloaded. An explosion of blinding white ethereal energy burst from the impact point. The Great Devil tensed, its three eyes opened wide, and for an instant, the malevolence that filled them turned into something Shade, in his frenzy, recognized as panic.
The creature's will, already fragile, collapsed. Without it to sustain its presence in that plane, the colossal body began to crumble.
The rock, once held together by orange-red flames, fell heavily to the ground. The fire vanished completely. The rocky chest plate disintegrated, revealing three enormous Supreme-rank cores on the ground.
Shade didn't let go of the sword. Even when the devil fell onto its back, he was still there, buried up to his shoulders in its chest, repeating the word over and over like a mantra, his voice already a hoarse whisper.
"Kill... kill... kill... ki... ll..." he repeated again and again.
The last fragment of rocky armor crumbled.
The eye sockets emptied of light. The Great Devil lay motionless, and its enormous form began to be absorbed by a crack opening beneath it, sucking its remains back into the nightmare from which it had emerged.
Shade finally fell onto his back, White Flower rolling from his hand. His amorphous form retracted, revealing his human body—bruised, with deep cuts and bleeding.
He couldn't move. His chest rose and fell with labored, painful breaths. He had killed a Great Devil.
He, an Ascended, had just killed a creature that operated on an order of magnitude higher—something impossible to kill.
The mad smile remained on his face. It wasn't joy; it was the release of a man who had looked death in the eyes and spat in its face.
"Fuck you..." he whispered to the sky, as the little essence he had left faded away. He had used up all his essence completely.
Before losing consciousness, he heard the Spell's voice, which seemed to hold surprise.
[You have killed a Great Devil, Skadi, Incarnation of Burning Destruction]
The Spell's voice fell silent for a few moments.
[You have obtained an Echo]