Uriel remained motionless on the river's surface, his dark body trembling like a leaf shaken by winter wind. His eyes, two black orbs without pupils or depth, stared fixedly at the horizon without truly seeing it. Terror had caught him in its invisible claws, squeezing his chest with a force that had nothing to do with the physical.
A sea of thoughts invaded his mind.
He saw the six white eyes. Over and over again. He closed his eyes and still saw them, open like bottomless wells, looking at him with that terrifying emptiness. He opened his eyes and the outside world distorted, shapes losing meaning, colors fading until only that primordial white light remained, the one that had dispersed the shadows of his sea of souls.
What was that?
How had he gotten there?
How long had he been waiting?
The questions swirled in his head like furious wasps, each one stinging a different part of his consciousness. He couldn't find answers. He couldn't think clearly. Every attempt to rationalize what he had seen collided with a wall of denial, of disbelief, of pure and simple terror.
He heard Shade's voice.
The words reached his ears, distinct and unintelligible, like the murmur of a conversation on the other side of a thick wall. He knew Shade was talking, knew he was probably saying something important, something about the domain, about the army, about what they should do next.
But he couldn't understand anything.
The syllables went in one ear and out the other, bouncing off his brain without finding any foothold. It was as if the connection between sound and meaning had broken, as if his mind had decided to close all doors except the one leading to the memory of those white eyes.
Shade approached. Uriel saw his white eyes, so different from the entity's but similar enough to make his body tense even more. He cursed silently. Cursed his weakness, his fear, his inability to process what had happened.
But the terror remained, firm, unmovable.
Time passed. How much, he couldn't say. Minutes, perhaps hours. The river flowed around him, indifferent to his inner torment. His minions, under Shade's direction, had organized themselves into defensive formations around his position, protecting him from any residual threat. But there were no threats. The great tyrant was dead. His army, orphaned and disoriented, was easy prey for Uriel's domain.
And yet, Uriel couldn't move.
He was still in that state when the blow came.
He didn't see it coming. He couldn't have seen it. It was a compact dark mass, thrown with tremendous force, impacting directly against his abdomen. The pain was immediate and overwhelming, a shockwave that ran through his entire body like lightning, making every muscle fiber contract in unison.
Uriel doubled over, his dark hands gripping the impact site, a grimace of pain distorting his featureless face. The air escaped his lungs in a muffled whistle. His knees buckled, and for a moment he feared falling into the water and sinking forever into those depths that now seemed like the home of monsters even greater than the tyrant.
But the pain, precisely because it was so sharp, so physical, so immediate, had a paradoxical effect. It pierced the fog of terror enveloping his mind like a spear breaking through a wall. For an instant, the white eyes disappeared, replaced by the raw and tangible sensation of his suffering body.
And in that instant, he finally understood what Shade was saying.
"—calm—" said the Cursed One's voice, choppy from distance and concern. "—breathe, Uriel. Breathe slowly and deeply. Focus on my voice. Focus on your breathing. Nothing else matters now. Just breathing."
Uriel nodded, an almost imperceptible gesture, and followed those words like a castaway clinging to a board in the midst of a storm.
He began with breathing. He inhaled slowly and deeply, feeling the air fill his lungs, expanding his chest, pushing against the invisible ribs of his dark form. He exhaled even more slowly, letting the air escape in a prolonged sigh that carried away part of the accumulated tension.
Again. Inhale. Feel the oxygen reach every cell of his body, reminding him he was alive, that he was still there, that the outside world still existed. Exhale. Let go of fear, confusion, terror.
Once more. Inhale. The rhythm was beginning to establish itself, a cadence his body recognized as its own. Exhale. The fog in his mind began to dissipate, slowly, like morning mist under the sun's first rays.
Shade kept talking, but now his words made sense. He wasn't saying anything especially important, not in terms of strategy or survival. He talked about the river, about the current, about the color of the water, about mundane things that anchored Uriel's mind to the present reality, far from those terrifying memories.
Uriel focused on relaxing.
It wasn't easy. His body remained tense, every muscle prepared for flight or combat, neither of which were useful at that moment. He visualized every part of his being, from the tips of his invisible feet to the top of his dark head, and one by one he ordered them to relax.
He relaxed his breathing until it became barely a whisper. He relaxed his mind until the thoughts stopped jostling. And then, in the quiet space that remained, he told himself what he needed to hear.
It was all over.
They had won.
He had won.
The great tyrant lay dead in the river's depths. His army was being absorbed into his domain. His minions, those he had protected and commanded throughout the battle, were still alive and loyal. He survived. Despite the terror, despite the pain, despite that divine entity that dwelled in his soul, he survived.
He didn't have to understand what that thing was. He didn't have to control it. He didn't have to do anything with it, at least not now. Now he only needed to rest.
Sleep came like a silent thief.
One moment he was there, eyes open, processing reality. The next, his eyelids closed, his body completely relaxed, and his consciousness slipped into the depths of rest. He didn't dream of white eyes or infinite abysses. He slept a dark, empty, blessedly empty sleep.
Shade sighed.
The relief that ran through his being was as tangible as the river water. For long minutes, perhaps longer, he had feared Uriel wouldn't come out of that state, that the shock was too deep, that his mind would fragment into irrecoverable pieces.
But he had succeeded. In his own way, with help, but he had succeeded.
Now he slept, and Shade could take care of what remained to be done.
The battle was over, that was true, but the work of managing a victory of that magnitude was almost as exhausting as the battle itself. Shade extended his will over the domain, not to control it — that right belonged only to Uriel — but to organize it, to give orders on his companion's behalf, to ensure every minion knew what to do.
The numbers were impressive. The battle had cost them part of their army, that was inevitable, but the absorption of the tyrant's troops more than compensated for the losses. Now they had more minions than before, and of higher quality. Great abominations that once served the river god now obeyed Uriel's will. Corrupted ones by the thousands formed ranks in the depths, waiting for orders.
Shade made a decision.
Using his minions as extensions of his will, he sent them to devour the great tyrant's corpse. The colossal mass of five kilometers of abominable flesh floated slowly downstream, its gray, empty eyes staring at the water's surface without seeing it. The minions swarmed around the lifeless body like hungry piranhas, beginning the process of accelerated decomposition that would allow extraction of the most valuable elements.
The supreme soul cores.
Those crystals of concentrated power, forged over centuries by the tyrant, were the greatest treasure the corpse offered. Shade wasn't going to let them be lost in the depths.
On the surface, he summoned the small boat.
The sailboat appeared on the water, its stability spells automatically activating to keep it steady in the current. Shade climbed aboard, carefully carrying Uriel's unconscious body, and placed him in the safest part of the deck, away from the edges, protected from wind and water. He adjusted the boat's enchantments to float above the river, slightly raising the hull to avoid any unfortunate encounters with the depths' creatures.
Then he submerged again.
The water received him like a prodigal son, parting at his passage with the familiarity of one who has spent countless hours beneath the surface. Shade moved among the battle's remains, dodging floating corpses and fragments of dismembered abominations, until he reached the place where his minions worked.
The tyrant's corpse was a grotesque spectacle. Dark flesh, severed tentacles, open wounds from which thick blood still flowed slowly. But in the center of that mass, near what had been its head, the soul cores pulsed.
Shade extracted them one by one.
They were beautiful, in a twisted way. Each core was the size of a human fist, a deep blue color that glowed with internal light, as if containing an entire ocean within. When he took them, Shade could feel the echo of the tyrant's will, that ancient and tyrannical presence that had forged them. But without the tyrant to feed them, the cores were just objects, empty vessels waiting to be filled with new will.
He stored them in his dark storage, that interior space he shared with Uriel, where they kept their most valuable treasures. The cores joined the collection, waiting for the moment when Uriel would wake and decide what to do with them.
Shade let the minions continue devouring the corpse. The tyrant's flesh, even dead, contained essence, and every bite his creatures took strengthened the domain. He watched as the colossal body slowly sank, dragged by the current into the depths where it would eventually become food for smaller creatures.
He surfaced again.
The boat waited for him, faithful to its enchantments, with Uriel still asleep on the deck. Shade sat beside him, not out of necessity but for company, and watched the river flow around them.
Then, he dismissed the Winter Beast. The titanic creature, which had remained on the sidelines during the cleanup, nodded its enormous head and faded into shadows, returning to Uriel's sea of souls where it would rest until summoned again.
He dismissed Gunlaug. The warrior of golden flames, whose sword still shone with the fire of the soul, bowed slightly in a gesture that could be interpreted as respect or farewell, and disappeared.
He dismissed Nyx. The living darkness, which had sown curses among the tyrant's ranks, folded back upon itself like a sigh and faded away.
Shade set the sailboat in motion.
The navigation spells activated, adjusting the sails to catch the wind blowing downstream. The boat began to move, slowly at first, gaining speed as the current took it in its embrace.
Behind him, beneath the surface, tens of thousands of abominations advanced in formation. The newly acquired minions mixed with the old ones, all united by their lord's sleeping will, all obedient to Shade's direction. It was a massive army, a tide of flesh and will that followed the sailboat's course like a funeral procession behind a coffin.
The great river carried them toward the unknown.
Shade looked at the horizon, where water met sky in a diffuse line, and then at Uriel. His companion slept deeply, his dark body still for the first time in a long while. There were no tremors, no cold sweat, no signs of nightmares. Just sleep.
"You'd better wake up soon," Shade murmured, more to himself than to Uriel. "I'm not doing everything alone."
The wind blew, the sails swelled, and the sailboat continued its course downstream, followed by an army of shadows, beneath a sky beginning to tint with the colors of dusk.