When Shade regained consciousness, the first thing he felt was the cold water of the incessant river.
Although he had not yet recovered his vision, he could sense that most of his wounds had already been healed by the regeneration enchantment of the Saint's Mantle — which, although shattered from receiving such a devastating explosion, continued to exert its power to heal him.
Shade felt sadness.
The Saint's Mantle had accompanied him for nearly two full years, ever since they killed Amalgam. Losing it meant losing a part of those he had known.
I suppose it's time to let it go, Shade thought to himself.
Turning his head, he could feel a breeze on his face as the current carried him somewhere along the great river.
Now that he had time, he had expected many things after the battle between Song and Valor ended and the category four nightmare gates opened. He expected to fall into the Nightmare Desert, into the Burned Forest, even to land in the Underworld. For everything, he had plans to survive wherever he fell.
But never, ever, had it occurred to him that he would be sent directly to Ariel's Tomb.
It was almost ironic. His plan had been to challenge Ariel's Tomb — or at least a version created by the Nightmare Spell — but as if the spell had played a cruel joke on him, it threw him directly into the tomb as if mocking his face.
Shade laughed inwardly.
Now that he had entered the true Tomb of Ariel, his companions would encounter his version within the nightmare.
Will it know that it's a recreation made by the spell? How much will it be like me? he wondered, curious.
Either way, it no longer mattered. His plans had gone to hell.
Concentrating slightly, he appeared within his mental space, where Uriel was waiting for him, somewhat annoyed.
"Scoundrel. You blew us to pieces."
"Oh, Uriel, it was the only way to survive. We almost died, but those are minor details."
"Son of a—" Uriel sighed. "Well, and now what?"
"I have no idea. Or rather, I do. I suppose it's time for us to transcend naturally and remember the centuries of our Second Nightmare."
"What do you mean?"
"Right. Soul blocked that from you," Shade said.
Uriel raised an eyebrow.
"I don't remember asking Soul to block anything from me..." Uriel froze, looking at Shade. "You."
"Yes, but don't get upset. We both agreed on this. I only know that Soul slowly blocked those loops deep in our subconscious, nothing more."
"And what were the loops that he blocked?"
"You'll see."
Shade walked toward the darkness, and Uriel followed him. Neither said anything; they just advanced.
They walked for hours or seconds — time had lost its meaning.
"We're here," Shade said, watching as the darkness moved like a veil, revealing enormous fragments of shattered glass.
"These are the loops that Soul hid from us. Here is all our experiments, information on molding true names of elements, runic sorcery, methods of natural ascension, how we can transcend, also how to create essence threads to craft memories without needing Weaver's lineage," Shade explained.
Uriel walked toward a large fragment and touched it. The fragment burst into dark particles that penetrated Uriel.
Shade felt the wave of memories and information. It was a conversation between Uriel and Grace in one of the cycles, where she taught him about enchantments on objects and how to create complex and broad enchantments, as well as limitations to maintain balance.
When the memory ended, Uriel touched another fragment, and then another.
Each time he assimilated a cycle, both received the information and had to organize it in order. Since there were thousands of fragments, it would take time to remember all the information.
Because the cycles where they failed, lost control, or were unnecessary had been destroyed, only a few cycles and the winning cycle remained. Thus, instead of assimilating thousands of years, they would only have to assimilate a few years — perhaps half a century.
Each time a loop began, it started at a fixed time of one year. In the early days, they tried to stop Isis's corruption. When they couldn't, they locked her in the castle, putting her to sleep. Then they trained and gathered information to defeat her in the next cycle. Then the group of four appeared to teach them. They challenged Isis, died, and repeated, changing their plans and learning more each time.
Time passed — perhaps several full days — until finally the last fragment was consumed.
After acquiring a vast amount of information, they began to organize it, which took another week, and then another week to familiarize themselves.
Finally, after a month since entering Ariel's Tomb without being attacked by any abominations, they had remembered everything.
---
Uriel finally opened his black, calm eyes. All the information from his previous cycles and all the new or old information he now remembered was exhilarating. He now knew how to achieve transcendence and how to achieve supremacy.
The only reason that, despite all the great things he had killed, he had not become a Supreme was related to his own soul.
The only independent path — aside from killing a great Titan to achieve supremacy — was to go to the Underworld and challenge a category four Nightmare Seed related to true darkness.
That was his only viable option to become a Supreme.
Looking toward the sky, he observed the seven divine suns rising.
"Let's begin," he murmured. "It's time to become Transcendent."
---
Night had completely fallen over Ariel's Tomb. The seven suns had hidden behind the ghostly horizon, and the sky was dyed a deep black, dotted here and there with dead stars that still refused to extinguish.
Uriel sat in the middle of the great dark glass fragment he had completely absorbed. Around him, the remains of the broken loops lay inert, like mirrors that no longer reflected anything. Shade remained to the side, watching in silence.
"Are you sure you want to do this here?" Shade asked, his voice echoing in the shared mental space, though now both were fully aware of the outside world.
"There is no better place," Uriel replied, and his voice sounded different. Deeper. Older. "Ariel's Tomb is steeped in death, oblivion, and true darkness. If there is any place where the world will recognize my aspect, it is here."
He closed his eyes.
He needed no preparation. The cycles had taught him enough. He had died dozens of times pursuing this moment. He had failed, learned, forgotten, and now remembered.
True darkness is not the absence of light. It predates it.
Uriel stopped breathing. Not because he needed to hold his breath, but because his human body was no longer more than a temporary vessel. He felt his soul — that dense mass scarred by countless battles and deaths — begin to expand.
It was not violent.
It was like opening a door that had always been there.
The darkness erupted from his chest like a river contained for eons. It was not the vulgar shadow cast by bodies, nor the blackness that dwells in corners. It was True Darkness: the void before the first whisper of creation, the silence before the first sound, the stillness before the first movement.
The torrent spilled over his arms, his legs, his face. His skin became translucent, and for an instant, Shade could see the framework of his soul: dense, swirling, more voluminous than any mortal soul he had ever known.
"Expand," Uriel murmured, and his voice no longer came from a throat but from everywhere.
His soul overflowed from his body like water from a dam finally opened. It spilled into the water of the great river, spilled over his surroundings, spilled toward the reflected sky and descended into the depths of the river of time, veiling everything with a shroud of absolute darkness.
Within that torrent of true darkness was Uriel, undergoing his transcendence.
And then Uriel felt it.
Not the world. Not the tomb. But the connection.
True darkness was everywhere. In the space between atoms. In the silence that follows a scream. In the depths of abysses where even the light of the seven suns could not reach. In death itself, which was nothing more than the return to that primordial state.
Recognize it, Uriel thought. I am of the darkness. The darkness is mine. But I do not possess it. I am part of it.
The world responded.
Not with words. Not with thunder or portents. With a silent agreement, as if reality itself nodded.
Uriel felt his essence transform.
He remembered then the first time he had used his dark creature form when he was a Sleeper for the first time in his fight against Gunlaug, when he still did not understand what darkness truly meant. Back then, he had clung to his human form for fear of losing himself. He had contained the transformation, limited it, used it as a tool and not as an identity.
Now, no.
Now he let the sensation envelop him completely.
His human body dissolved. Not with pain, but with immense gentleness, as if that form had always been an uncomfortable prison. His bones, his flesh, his blood: all dissolved into particles of pure blackness. His face, his hands, his eyes: they were no more.
In their place, an immense torrent of living darkness expanded through the tomb.
It had no fixed form. It was river and cloud, abyss and whisper. It could be as thin as a thread of shadow or as vast as the night sky. It could touch every corner of its reach at the same time or concentrate on a small, dense point.
Shade, who had observed everything from the side, felt a tightness in his chest. Not from fear, but from something akin to awe. He had seen Uriel in his worst moments and his best battles, but never like this.
"Fuck," Shade murmured, his voice trembling slightly. "You did it."
Uriel — or what remained of him — did not respond. His consciousness had expanded along with his soul. He could feel every speck of dust in the tomb, every crack in the floor, every particle of true darkness that dwelled in the air.
And then he felt it.
The Spell.
It was not a voice. It was an inscription in the very fabric of his being, a sentence written upon his soul with ink of reality.
[The fourth seal has been broken.]
[Awakening latent powers.]
Uriel felt a surge of euphoria. He felt as if he were now complete, stronger, more perfect in himself. His soul, previously weak and unstable, stabilized and strengthened more than ever.
Shade felt for the first time his soul cores, which glowed with a great warmth that enveloped his entire body. Although he still could not see his own Sea of Souls beyond the primordial darkness, he could feel it. He could feel his memories, his echoes, and his soul cores somewhere.
He felt his connection to the world.
Shade felt the essence of darkness in his body, flowing through him, filling him with great strength and power. His essence reserves expanded at least twice as much as before.
He also felt his own will, much stronger and more tangible than before. Now he was aware of it and could use it as both a weapon and armor, as well as shape the world with his will.
Shade could feel the faint connection between Ariel's Tomb, the Dream Realm, and the Waking World — separate but slightly connected.
Slowly, the sensation faded. Slowly, the warmth was replaced by the pleasant and comforting cold, like the gentle embrace of darkness. Then the sensation disappeared, imprinting itself in his body, soul, and spirit, as well as in his flesh and bones.
Shade smiled as he closed his eyes. His mind calmed and sharpened. All his memories became clearer, and his mind more powerful. Suddenly, he felt something in his head — an external influence trying to expand to control him — and he crushed it immediately, freeing himself from the mental parasite that was trying to spread.
Uriel smiled weakly. Although he had no body and was a formless mass of darkness, he felt comfortable — much more comfortable than in his human body.
I suppose Skadi was right. I really am a creature of the Void, he thought. But this time, he was not bothered. He simply accepted it, as if the act of acceptance made him comfortable with his true nature.
[End of Volume 4: The Darkness Night]
[Alright, as I always do with this big shot, I'm marking the end of the fourth volume of this fic. I have to say that out of all the things I planned and wrote, I only used about 60 or 70 percent of it.
I bet everyone expected [the MC] to take part in the third nightmare along with the rest of the original story.
The reason for this is simple: if Uriel and Shade entered the replica of the nightmare spell, it would end way too fast. Simply put, they're too strong, and it would wrap up in fewer than twenty chapters—going from point A to point B and crushing everything in between.
So I decided to send him to the real tomb instead. Even though that wasn't in my original plans, sometimes you plan one thing and something completely different comes out.
Anyway, I'm rambling too much about this.
Since not much is known about what actually happened in the real Ariel's tomb, I'll do it my way, so it will be different from the original material. How different? I don't know yet.
Well, as always, leave me your comments about what you liked and didn't like about this volume, which is the longest one yet.
We're also close to 900k readers.
Finally, don't be stingy—leave me some Power Stones and support my novel: "The World Is Die," it's on my profile.
See you in one or two months. Chao.]