Shade's voice resonated in Uriel's mind like a familiar echo in the midst of the storm. The sea dragon felt some of the pressure crushing him ease, not because the tyrant had relented, but because he was no longer alone in that fight.
"Three months?" Uriel couldn't contain the resentment in his thoughts, even as he continued dodging tentacles and tearing apart abominations. "Who the hell sleeps for three months straight, Shade? I've been carrying all this weight. The battles, the domain expansions, the curses. I've been doing everything!"
Shade let out a dry laugh, that laugh that always preceded a well-aimed jab. "Three months? Are you really complaining about three months?" His tone turned mocking, almost insolent. "Tell me, who was it that endured six months in Antarctica while you were doing who knows what? Six months, Uriel. Fighting a terrifying number of great monsters. Ice to the bone. I almost died three times, and I'm not exaggerating. Three times you saw me at the edge of the abyss, and now you come to complain about three months of restful sleep?"
Uriel cursed silently. The bastard was right, and that infuriated him even more.
Shade seemed to sense his contained fury because his tone changed, becoming warmer, almost affectionate. "But I still love you, partner. Don't forget it."
Before Uriel could respond, Shade continued, his voice regaining the seriousness the situation demanded. "Let's save the chat for later. Now we have to deal with this annoying big bug." He paused, and Uriel could almost feel the crooked smile on his invisible face. "Besides, I have new tricks. Sleeping three months wasn't just snoring, you know?"
"Stop talking and get to work," Uriel growled mentally. He could feel his domain crumbling at the edges, the connections with his weakest subjects fraying like old ropes. "I'm losing parts of my domain. The tyrant is pressing harder."
"So impatient," Shade replied mockingly. "Always so dramatic."
A part of Uriel's dark body, that mass of shadows that made up his sea dragon form, began to stir. The darkness condensed, twisted upon itself, adopting a silhouette Uriel knew well. From the dragon's side, like a fruit detaching from its stem, a humanoid figure completely covered in deep darkness separated itself. Two white eyes, cold as winter moons, opened on that featureless face.
Shade had taken form.
The Cursed One extended his will like a clenched fist. It wasn't a will as vast as Uriel's, nor as ancient as the tyrant's, but it was fierce, indomitable, a flame that refused to be extinguished no matter how much wind blew. Shade joined his will with Uriel's, not as a simple sum but as a multiplication of forces, their essences intertwining in perfect sync.
The combined will struck against the tyrant's pressure like a hammer against an anvil. The great tyrant, accustomed to crushing individual wills with the ease of someone crushing insects, felt that joint pressure repel him. His countless eyes blinked, bewildered for an instant.
Uriel felt his domain connections strengthen again. The minds that had begun to slip held firm. The subjects who had doubted returned to obeying with their former certainty. His domain stabilized.
In the distance, the Winter Beast and Gunlaug continued dealing with the tyrant. The beast raised its titanic body above the river, releasing waves of cold that froze everything in their path. The water solidified into ice sheets that cracked under the weight of the abominations. The tyrant's tentacles, those it managed to reach, became trapped in layers of crystalline ice before breaking them with a sharp movement. But the process was slow, so frustratingly slow. Every time the beast froze a limb, the tyrant freed it seconds later with a jerk that shattered the ice.
Gunlaug, for his part, danced among the tentacles like a golden shooting star. His soul-flame sword left trails of divine fire that burned even underwater. Each cut he managed to land was small compared to the tyrant's colossal mass, but those cuts did not heal. The soul fire kept burning, slowly consuming the ancient god's flesh.
But it wasn't enough.
"None of us can beat him in our current state," Shade communicated through the link they shared. His voice, even in thought, had that cold certainty that Uriel had learned to respect. "A great tyrant, and one of this kind... he's out of our league. At least for now."
Uriel continued moving through the tyrant's army, his dragon body slithering among the enemy ranks. He destroyed abominations left and right, sending his minions to attack the tyrant directly, to bite his tentacles, to create small wounds that would bleed and weaken him. Every drop of blood he managed to spill was a small victory. "What do you suggest then?" he asked, dodging a tentacle by centimeters that threatened to crush his skull. "In case you haven't noticed, we can't escape. His will has us trapped here. The moment we try to flee, he'll devour us."
Shade moved beside him, a shadow among shadows, his white eyes gleaming with an almost annoying intensity. "I never said we should escape."
Uriel turned his enormous head to look at him, confused. "Then what the hell do you propose?"
"That we make something else kill him," Shade replied simply, as if suggesting what to eat for breakfast.
The sea dragon continued his massacre while processing those words. His fangs tore apart a great abomination that stood in his way. His tail swept away dozens of corrupted beings. "Speak clearly, Shade. I don't have time for riddles."
Shade drew closer, his dark form almost invisible against the dragon's body. "The thing inside your sea of souls. The one you restrained." He paused, letting the words sink in. "It was able to restrain Skadi. A supreme devil. Something stronger than this great tyrant in front of us."
Uriel felt a shiver run down his spine, a sensation that had nothing to do with the Winter Beast or the river's cold. Skadi. The name echoed in his memory like a funeral bell. That battle had been the closest he had been to death in a long time. And that thing, that presence that dwelt in the deepest part of his sea of souls, had been able to face her.
"Are you sure about what you're saying?" Uriel asked, his mental voice laden with doubt. "That thing... it's not something we can control. If we release it..."
"Control?" Shade let out a bitter laugh. "I'm not talking about controlling it, Uriel. I'm talking about using it. Like a weapon you point in the enemy's direction and hope it explodes in their face and not yours." His white eyes fixed on the dragon's. "It's the only option we have right now."
Uriel hesitated. The battle raged around him. His minions fell in waves, replaced by more he managed to subjugate from the enemy army. The Winter Beast was beginning to show signs of fatigue, its waves of cold growing weaker. Gunlaug, though as unstoppable as ever, couldn't be everywhere at once.
"It's a risky plan," Uriel admitted finally.
"It's a desperate plan," Shade corrected. "Because we're desperate."
The sea dragon observed the great tyrant. There, in the middle of the river, the colossal mass of flesh and will kept watching him with its countless blue eyes. It no longer looked with amusement. Now there was something else in its gaze: caution. Uriel had made it bleed. He had resisted its will. He had begun to steal its subjects. The river god was beginning to take him seriously, and that was both an advantage and a death sentence.
"If this fails, we're dead," said Uriel.
"If we do nothing, we're also dead," Shade replied. "Just more slowly. And with more suffering."
Uriel closed his enormous eyes for an instant. When he opened them, the hesitation was gone. "Let's do it."
Shade nodded with that slowness that so irritated Uriel. Without further warning, the dark figure launched itself toward the dragon, merging with his body like a shadow returning to its origin. Uriel devoured Shade, feeling how the Cursed One's essence mixed with his own, how their wills intertwined into a single whole, stronger than before.
Both used their combined will.
It was like lighting a star in the middle of the night. The pressure they emitted, that declaration of existence and power, finally matched the great tyrant's will. The river god's blue eyes opened wide, incredulous.
Uriel became a titanic mass of darkness.
His sea dragon body dissolved, not from weakness but by his own will. The scales, the fangs, the horns, everything melted into a black cloud that expanded uncontrollably. It was pure darkness, shadows made flesh, the void before creation. That mass grew and grew, fed by the essence Uriel had been accumulating for so long.
He threw himself against the great tyrant.
The river god responded with fury. Dozens of tentacles, thick as towers, reached toward the dark mass to restrain it. The suckers opened, biting into the shadow. The rings of flesh closed, trying to imprison that which had no fixed form.
They managed to contain it to some extent. The dark mass writhed among the tentacles, unable to advance, but also impossible to destroy. It was like trying to crush a dream or drown a sigh.
But Uriel kept expanding.
He used Nyx's Curse on the great tyrant. The curses he had previously launched against the subjects now concentrated on a single victim. Sleep, weakening, confusion, sloth, fear, paralysis, all fell upon the river god like a storm of stingers. They didn't have a great effect, that was true. The difference in scale was too great. But they affected him. Each curse was a pebble in his shoe, an annoyance that distracted, that irritated, that undermined his concentration.
The great tyrant blinked.
Just an instant. Just long enough for his control over the tentacles to falter.
Uriel took advantage.
The dark mass rushed forward, opening like a gigantic mouth. The darkness enveloped the great tyrant, not completely because his dimensions were immeasurable, but enough. His head, his eyes, part of his body. Uriel used an absurd amount of essence to swallow the abomination, to drag it inside himself.
Not into his domain. Not into his army.
Into his sea of souls.
Uriel's consciousness expanded, opening the doors of that inner space where the souls he had absorbed resided. It was a vast place, infinite, an expanse of consciousness where the laws of the outside world did not apply.
There, in the center of that inner void, the great tyrant was thrown.
Uriel had challenged him to a battle of souls.