The clash of wills was so violent that the entire Estuary seemed to hold its breath.
Uriel felt his own essence tremble before the overwhelming presence of the Sacred Demon, a creature that should not exist in any conceivable plane of reality.
The shapeless mass of grayish flesh writhed in the air, its countless tentacles tearing at the fabric of time and space as it hurled its will against the three invaders. Each assault was like a hammer striking directly at their souls, a pressure so intense that Uriel felt his teeth grind and his vision blur at moments.
Daeron was the first to react. The Supreme moved with a fluidity that belied his appearance, his fifth-level sacred lance tracing arcs of pure light that impacted the guardian's tentacles. Each impact generated shockwaves that distorted the surrounding reality, causing the Estuary's water to rise in impossible columns. Daeron's will was like a sharpened sword, precise and deadly, capable of facing the very concept the Sacred Demon represented.
"Keep its attention on me!" Daeron shouted as he dodged an attack that would have erased his existence.
Uriel didn't need to be told twice. His right hand closed around the crimson hilt of his black sword, feeling how the fire-etched runes vibrated with an ancestral power he barely understood. The weapon resonated with his own darkness, as if it recognized a distant relative in him. When he charged, the blade pierced the guardian's will defense like a hot knife through butter.
The first wound was superficial but significant. The divine sword, forged with fragments of a Void being, ignored the laws that protected creatures of its rank. The Sacred Demon emitted a sound that was neither a roar nor a groan, but something worse: the distorted echo of a thousand consumed souls in agony.
"Now!" Cronos had been working in silence, his fingers tracing runes in the air with a precision that defied comprehension. Strands of twisted time tangled between his hands, forming a pattern that Uriel vaguely recognized as anchoring sorcery.
The guardian, feeling threatened, redoubled its attack against the most vulnerable of the group. The Sacred Demon's will concentrated on Uriel with the force of a collapsing sun, and he felt his soul cores creak under the pressure. His seven soul cores pulsed within him, threatening to destroy themselves.
"Uriel!" Daeron tried to intercept, but the guardian struck him with a tentacle that distorted reality in its path, taking advantage of the Supreme's distraction. The impact sent the Supreme flying across the Estuary, his body crashing through columns of black rock until he disappeared into the distance.
Suddenly, Uriel was alone.
The full weight of the Sacred Demon's existence fell upon him like an ocean of molten steel. His will, powerful but not at the level of a true Supreme, was like a candle before a hurricane. He felt the creature begin to unravel his essence, to study his soul like a curious child dismantling a toy.
And then he understood.
The Sacred Demon wielded the concept of souls.
It could create them, consume them, erase them from existence. It was a predator of essences, a devourer of identities. And Uriel, with his innate weakness to direct soul attacks, was its perfect prey.
Panic threatened to paralyze him, but something deeper ignited within him. The same survival instinct that had kept him alive through the second nightmare, through Verge, through the madness of Ariel's truth.
"I am not your prey!" Uriel bellowed, and his voice resonated with a power he didn't know he possessed.
He transformed.
His body dissolved into a shapeless mass of pure darkness, a living shadow that spread in all directions. White eyes sharp as blades opened across its surface, and mouths filled with nightmare fangs gnawed at the edge of reality. This was the form he had feared to use since the second nightmare, the aspect that connected him directly to the Void that had created him.
The dark mass enveloped the Sacred Demon.
Uriel felt his intangible form press against the creature's will, his multiple mouths biting and tearing at the guardian's shifting flesh. Each bite generated small wounds on the Demon's body, but also an agonizing pain in his own being. The guardian counterattacked with concepts, with the very essence of what it meant to be a creature of souls.
Uriel felt one of his soul cores crack under a direct attack from the Demon. The pain was like a thousand blades twisting in his chest, and for a moment his form destabilized, almost returning to his human state. But he clung to his tenacity, to that obstinacy that had characterized him since the day he decided he would not be a victim.
"I will not surrender!" he shouted with all his mouths, and the darkness that composed him intensified.
The seven soul cores he possessed—that strange gift that made him different from any other Awakened—began to vibrate in unison. They were like seven hearts beating in perfect synchrony, and although one of them had cracked under the guardian's attack, the other six strengthened in response.
Uriel lashed out with renewed ferocity, his white eyes piercing the Sacred Demon's flesh. The black sword, still in his possession, had merged with his dark form, becoming an extension of his will. Each blow he struck was a wound the guardian felt, an offense to its immortal existence.
But the creature was ancient, powerful, and it adapted.
The Sacred Demon understood that Uriel's body was immune to conventional physical attacks while he remained in that form of pure darkness. So it changed tactics. Its will concentrated on a single point: Uriel's essence. Not his body, not his form, but the fundamental self that defined him far deeper than his soul.
Uriel felt something tear him apart from within.
It was as if the Demon were pulling invisible threads, unraveling what made him Uriel. His memories began to fade, his emotions to cloud. For a terrifying moment, he forgot who he was, forgot why he was fighting.
And then he felt a presence.
Cronos.
The Transcendent of Time had completed his other sorcery.
The runes he had been tracing throughout the battle activated with a blinding flash, and the time around the Sacred Demon began to twist and fold upon itself. The creature became trapped in a temporal loop, its movements repeated over and over without being able to advance or retreat.
It was a technique Cronos had perfected over his long life, an anchor that trapped its target in an eternal moment. He couldn't stop the Sacred Demon forever, but he could give Uriel the seconds he needed to recompose himself.
Uriel recoiled, his dark form retracting until he regained his human appearance. He fell to his knees on the Estuary's water, gasping and trembling. One of his soul cores remained cracked, and his mind was clouded by the guardian's attempt to decompose his essence.
"Master, you cannot stop now," Cronos said urgently, his fingers still tracing patterns in the air to maintain the temporal loop. "That creature will break free at any moment."
Uriel raised his gaze, his bloodshot eyes but blazing with determination. "You're right. I haven't come this far to give up."
He stood with effort, feeling the darkness swirl around him in response to his will. The cracked soul core was a problem, but he still had six left. He could fight. He could win.
The temporal loop began to fracture.
The Sacred Demon emerged from its temporal prison with a fury that distorted the space around it. The tentacles extended in all directions, and its will unfurled like a canvas of death that enveloped everything in its path.
But then, from the depths of the Estuary, a shadow rose.
Daeron.
The Supreme had returned, and his form was more imposing than ever. He abandoned his human form, transforming into an enormous sea serpent. Between his sharp scales, flashes of lightning constantly sparkled, and his eyes burned with a primordial fury that recalled a storm.
"Guardian," Daeron roared, his voice booming like thunder that shook the Estuary's foundations. "You are nothing but an obstacle in my path!" The Supreme roared as he launched himself against the Sacred Demon, resuming a devastating battle.
The Estuary became a liquid hell.
Daeron, in his colossal sea serpent form, hurled himself at the guardian with the ferocity of an ancestral predator. His blue scales shone with flashes of electricity as his tail struck the shapeless body of the Sacred Demon, generating shockwaves that distorted the surrounding water. The guardian responded with its countless tentacles, each impact pushing the Supreme back meters.
Uriel and Cronos dove after them, adopting their transcendent forms. Liquid darkness enveloped them, and Uriel expanded his being to merge with Daeron's skin, enhancing his power with his own essence. The advantage began to tilt in their favor, and the Supreme managed to wound the guardian with increasing depth.
But the Sacred Demon did not yield.
Its will became even more unshakeable, immune to many of the blows Daeron struck. Each wound the Supreme managed to inflict closed almost instantly, and the mass of grayish flesh kept advancing, relentless. The battle became desperate, a war of attrition where each lost second was an opportunity for the guardian to annihilate them.
It was then that Cronos saw it.
Further below, in the depths where light had never reached, the nexuses of Ariel's sorcery glowed faintly. They were the foundations of the Great River's temporal cycle, the runes that kept time bound and gave existence to the guardian. If he could destroy them, the river would stop and the Sacred Demon would cease to be.
But to reach there, he needed to pass through the guardian.
Cronos did not hesitate.
His transcendent form of twisted time intensified, and the Transcendent of Time hurled himself toward the heart of the Sacred Demon with all his will and power. His ethereal body pierced the guardian's shifting flesh like a spear, and the pain this caused made the guardian shriek with tearing fury.
The Sacred Demon redirected all its attention toward Cronos, its tentacles enveloping the Transcendent in a mortal embrace. But Cronos did not stop. He dragged the guardian with him, sinking deeper and deeper into the Estuary's depths, pulling it away from Daeron and Uriel.
The Supreme tried to follow them, but the time around him began to accelerate uncontrollably—even using his will as armor wasn't enough. Each second he spent in those depths equaled hundreds of years, and Daeron felt his body aging, his energy draining at an alarming rate. He could not continue. If he followed them, he would die before reaching them.
Daeron stopped.
With a roar of frustration, the Supreme began to ascend back to the surface, leaving Cronos behind in his solitary descent into the depths. The darkness that empowered Daeron receded, revealing Uriel in his human form, exhausted and disoriented.
"Cronos?" Uriel asked, his voice barely a whisper as he emerged from the water.
Daeron shook his head, his expression grim. There were no words. None were needed.
Uriel looked toward the dark water that stretched beneath his feet, feeling the distant echo of the battle raging in the depths. Cronos had made the decision for all of them, dragging the guardian into the Estuary's heart to destroy the nexuses of the temporal cycle.
Silence stretched between them, broken only by the gentle lapping of the water.