Shade observed the horizon with his white eyes, motionless at the prow of the small sailboat. The vessel glided over the great river's waters with deceptive calm, as if the battle against the tyrant had been a distant dream rather than something that had occurred just hours ago.
But Shade knew better than anyone that this calm was a lie.
The great river showed no mercy. The great river never rested. The great river, even after a tyrant had been devoured by an entity Shade still couldn't comprehend, remained a seething cauldron of abominations, monsters, and horrors lurking in the depths.
And Uriel remained unconscious.
He looked back toward the deck where his companion lay motionless, his dark body barely distinguishable from the shadows cast by the sails. He slept deeply, with no sign of waking soon. Shade knew he needed that rest, that the shock of what he had seen in his sea of souls deserved time to process.
But time, on the great river, was a luxury few could afford.
The first assault came at dusk.
They emerged from the depths without warning, a wave of corrupted abominations that must have once served the tyrant and now, orphaned of higher will, acted on pure predatory instinct. There were dozens, perhaps hundreds, creatures of twisted flesh and uneven fangs that threw themselves at the sailboat like hungry wolves at a wounded deer.
Shade sighed.
He extended his will over the army following the boat, that tide of thousands of minions moving beneath the surface like an extension of his own being. The orders were simple, direct, lethal. Surround. Annihilate. Leave none alive.
The water darkened with deeper shadows as the two armies clashed. His minions against the orphaned abominations, his beasts against the river's beasts.
Shade did not participate directly in that first battle; it wasn't necessary. His army, though diminished by the fight against the tyrant, remained powerful enough to crush that skirmish of corrupted ones without his personal intervention.
But he knew it would be the first of many.
He spent the night awake, his red eyes scanning the river's darkness, his senses extended to detect any threat before it came too close.
Every creak of the boat, every splash of water against the hull, every murmur of the current was analyzed, cataloged, judged.
Beside him, Uriel continued sleeping.
---
The second day was worse.
The abominations came in waves, not all at once but one after another, as if the river itself were testing their defenses, searching for weak points, wearing them down through constant exhaustion.
Shade fought.
Not personally, not at first. His minions faced the waves with ferocity, replacing casualties with new absorptions, growing in number even as they lost individuals. But the quality of the abominations increased. The corrupted gave way to great abominations, building-sized creatures that emerged from the water with roars that made the sailboat tremble.
One of them, a mass of tentacles and mouths at least three hundred meters long, nearly capsized the boat. Shade had to intervene personally, using his own will to tear the creature apart from within, turning its own tentacles into weapons that pierced it again and again until it finally sank, writhing in its agony.
His minions died in that battle.
Many. Hundreds. But for every one that fell, two more joined from enemy ranks, absorbed by Uriel's sleeping domain and commanded by Shade's awakened will.
The balance held, but it was fragile.
Shade began to understand what Uriel had meant when he complained about those three months alone. It wasn't just the fighting. It was the constancy, the lack of rest, the need to be always alert, always ready, always one step ahead of the abominations lurking in the darkness.
---
On the third day, Shade had to flee.
It wasn't a defeat, not exactly. It was an assessment of probabilities, a cold calculation of resources and possibilities, a strategic decision any sensible commander would have made when faced with overwhelming evidence of inferiority.
It appeared on the horizon like a mountain deciding to move.
A Great Titan.
It wasn't like the tyrant, that river tyrant who had ruled for centuries. This was different. Simpler in conception but no less terrifying in execution. A colossal mass of stone and flesh, at least two kilometers tall, walking on the river as if it were solid ground. Its body was covered in brilliant crystals that emitted a pale light, and from its shoulders sprouted jets of steam that rose to the surface, creating boiling geysers.
Shade observed the creature for long seconds, calculating distances, speeds, probabilities of victory. The numbers were not favorable. Even with his entire army, even with Gunlaug, even with Nyx and the Winter Beast, the chances of defeating that thing without suffering catastrophic losses were minimal.
And Uriel remained unconscious.
Shade made his decision.
He summoned Gunlaug, not to fight but to buy time. The warrior of golden flames emerged from the water like a shooting star, his sword burning with the fire of the soul, and threw himself at the Great Titan with a ferocity that made even Shade step back.
The next minutes were a nightmare.
Gunlaug danced between the titan's colossal arms, cutting crystals and flesh, leaving trails of golden fire that burned even underwater. But the titan was too large, too resilient. Every blow Gunlaug landed was an annoyance, not a threat.
Meanwhile, Shade ordered a considerable number of his minions to attack the great titan. Though this would weaken his domain, it would give him enough time to distance himself from the great titan.
The sailboat, with Uriel still unconscious aboard, was surrounded by an escort of the fastest and most resilient creatures.
When Gunlaug was finally brought down, when the titan struck him with a fist the size of a hill and sent him flying through the water like a stone thrown by a child, Shade had already escaped.
The titan roared, furious at having lost its prey, but did not pursue them. It remained there, in the middle of the river, its crystals shining in the twilight as it massacred his minions. Shade knew that encounter would not be the last.
Gunlaug returned to Uriel's sea of souls, wounded but not defeated. Shade pressed on, his body exhausted but his will intact.
---
The fourth day brought an endless succession of abominations.
It was as if the river had decided to purge everything dwelling in its depths, hurling it against them in an endless tide of flesh, fangs, and ill will.
Shade fought corrupted ones and great abominations, aquatic beasts of indescribable forms and monsters that seemed pulled from the deepest nightmares.
Each battle was different. Some were easy, resolved in minutes with minimal casualties. Others were difficult, requiring hours of concentrated effort, costing thousands of minions that then had to be replaced.
Shade began to feel the fatigue.
It wasn't physical exhaustion, not in the conventional sense. His dark body, that form he had adopted upon separating from Uriel, was resilient, nearly indestructible. He could keep fighting for days without stopping, without eating, without sleeping.
But mental fatigue was another story.
Every decision, every order, every strategic calculation consumed a part of his concentration, a part of his being. And the decisions accumulated, the orders multiplied, the calculations became more complex as the threats increased in variety and danger.
Shade began to understand why Uriel had complained so much.
---
On the fifth day, Shade faced the Sperm Whale.
It was enormous. Nearly a kilometer long, its dark gray body barely distinguishable from the surrounding water. Hundreds of eyes covered its skin, all open, all gazing with ancient and malignant intelligence. Its mouth, when opened, revealed endless rows of teeth like swords, each the size of a human being.
A Great Demon. Not a tyrant, not a titan, but close enough to be terrifying.
Shade knew, the moment he saw it, that he could not defeat it through conventional means. His minions, no matter how numerous, would be massacred before they could inflict significant damage. Gunlaug was still recovering from his encounter with the titan. The Winter Beast and Nyx, though powerful, were not enough for that creature.
So Shade did what he had to do.
He used the Echo of the Great Tyrant.
The supreme soul core he had extracted from the river god's corpse, that fragment of power containing the essence of its will, activated under his command. The Echo was not the tyrant itself, did not possess its consciousness or intelligence. It was more like an echo, as its name indicated, a reflection of its power that could be used in battle.
The Echo of the Great Tyrant manifested as a replica of that terrible abomination, a shadow of what it had been, but retaining the most important thing: its dominion over water. The river, which had obeyed the tyrant for centuries, recognized that power even in its attenuated form. The waters stirred, rose, became weapons.
The hundred-eyed Sperm Whale was engulfed by whirlpools of immeasurable force. Tentacles of pure water coiled around its kilometer-long body, squeezing, crushing, breaking bone and flesh with terrifying efficiency. The monster's eyes burst one after another, and its mouth, full of sword-teeth, opened in a silent scream that Shade felt more than heard.
After witnessing that, the sperm whale died. He collected the fragments of supreme soul and let the corpse sink into the great river's depths.
As for the Echo, he discarded it, since its work was done.
Then he pressed on.
---
At dawn on the sixth day, Shade was exhausted.
His body, though unharmed, moved with a slowness not his own. His red eyes, once bright with constant intensity, blinked less frequently, as if even that small gesture required an effort he was no longer willing to make.
He sat at the prow of the sailboat, legs dangling over the water, and let the morning breeze caress his dark face. The river flowed around him, calmer than in previous days, as if it too needed to rest after the succession of horrors it had vomited against them.
Five days.
Five days of constant fighting, of endless waves of abominations, of threats emerging from the depths at the most unexpected moments. Five days without sleep, without rest, without lowering his guard for an instant.
Each battle left its marks. Not on his body, which remained as dark and resilient as ever, but somewhere deeper. In his will, perhaps. In his patience. In his faith that this infernal journey would someday end.
Now he knew what Uriel had meant.
Three months. Three months facing horrors like these, day after day, night after night, with no one to relieve him, no one to share the burden. Just him, his minions, and the endless procession of abominations the world hurled against him.
Shade had lasted five days.
And he was exhausted.
"I suppose I owe you an apology," he murmured, addressing Uriel though his companion remained unconscious. "It's not easy, is it? Being alone. Fighting alone. Deciding alone."
The wind was his only answer.
Shade closed his white eyes for an instant, just an instant, and let the sound of the water and the creaking of the boat fill his senses. He didn't sleep, couldn't afford to sleep, but that small moment of stillness was almost as restorative as sleep.
When he opened his eyes, the sun was beginning to rise over the horizon, painting the sky in orange and gold tones reflected on the river's surface like a broken mirror.
And Uriel moved.
It was a small movement, almost imperceptible. A finger twitching. A flutter beneath closed eyelids. A change in the rhythm of his breathing.
Shade held his breath, not daring to hope.
Uriel opened his eyes.
Two black orbs, without pupil or depth, gazed at the sky for a long moment as his consciousness readjusted to the outside world. He blinked once, twice, three times, as if making sure this was real and not another dream within the dream from which he had just awakened.
Then he turned his head.
Shade was there, sitting at the prow, watching him with white eyes. But he had changed. Not physically, not in his dark form or the intensity of his gaze. It was something more subtle, something in the way he held his body, in the tension of his shoulders, in the shadows under his eyes that should not exist in a being like him.
Uriel saw the exhaustion. Saw the invisible marks of five days of fighting. Saw his twin, identical in appearance but different in essence, smiling with that unique combination of amusement and arrogance that only he possessed.
"Welcome back, sleeping beauty," Shade said, and though his words were mocking, his voice held an undertone of relief he couldn't entirely hide.
Uriel sat up slowly, his dark body responding to his commands with the usual familiarity. He looked around, at the sailboat, at the river, at the horizon. Saw his army moving beneath the surface, tens of thousands of minions that had survived his absence.
Saw Shade, exhausted but victorious.
"How long?" asked Uriel, his voice hoarse from disuse.
"Six days," Shade replied, his white eyes shining with poorly concealed pride. "Six days of an infernal journey. Six days of abominations, titans, eye-whales, and countless horrors I'm not even going to mention because I don't want you to feel guilty for missing them."
Uriel was silent for a moment.
"Did you do it all alone?"
Shade smiled, that crooked smile that so irritated Uriel. "No. Your army helped. And Gunlaug. And the Winter Beast. And Nyx, though only a little because she was in a bad mood." He paused, and his smile softened slightly. "But yes. I was alone. Like you were for three months."
Uriel nodded slowly.
"Welcome to my world," he said.
Shade let out a laugh, the first in days, and dropped his head back to look at the sky tinted with the colors of dawn.
"I hate your world," he said. "It's horrible."
"I know," Uriel replied with a smile as he sat down.