"Hey, you lazy fool, wake up."
Frowning, Uriel slowly opened his eyes, seeing the familiar ceiling of his mental home.
The last thing he remembered was simply falling into a deep sleep on the sofa. He looked at the voice that had spoken, seeing Shade.
"Can't you see I'm sleeping?" he asked, somewhat irritated.
"Yes, you can sleep later. You need to see this now."
Sitting up on the strangely comfortable sofa, Uriel followed Shade outside. In his mind, he observed the black, absolute void he was already accustomed to.
Both walked for a few moments until Uriel felt his now six soul fragments—having lost one to his previous battle.
They continued advancing until finally stopping.
"Well, what did you want to show me?"
"This." Shade pointed to a space with his finger. Uriel looked in the direction he indicated, and his eyes opened wide as saucers.
"What the hell? Why is there an egg in my Sea of Souls?" he asked, bewildered.
Uriel frowned, looked around for a moment, then looked down.
"Hey, Shade..."
"I see you noticed. This is the other point I wanted to talk to you about. The thing that was in our soul vanished after consuming the Sacred Demon," Shade explained.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. You should be able to feel the absence of its presence."
Uriel blinked and concentrated. He felt only emptiness where something had once been.
The presence—or the guardian of his soul, as he generally called it—was a strange being. It defended his soul from external invaders, serving as his security mechanism against intruders. He had used it to eliminate great threats he couldn't handle himself. An example of this was the Great Tyrant, the multiple Great Horrors during his journey through the Estuary, and above all, using it to kill a Sacred-ranked being in a risky gamble.
That it had disappeared without a trace worried him.
"Do you think that entity that was here died?" he asked, looking at Shade.
"I don't think so," Shade replied, examining their surroundings. "That thing is too strong to simply die out of nowhere. If I had to guess, it must have escaped while we weren't paying attention."
"But it was mindless—a beast. It completely lacked mentality."
"Maybe it developed one of its own. At this point, we don't really know what that thing was, nor do we even know what we truly are."
Uriel frowned at that.
Although he was somewhat annoyed, he had to admit Shade had a point—they didn't know who they were. For example, Nephis's nature was that of a Nephilim, Cassie was related to memories, so she was possibly a kind of living Remembrance, Sunny was a divine shadow, and so on with the others.
Their Aspects evolved, and with them, their human nature.
But Uriel didn't know which category he fell into. He knew he was a Void creature, but not what type. He was simply navigating blindly.
Perhaps it was because he didn't know his true nature that he had been unable to achieve Supremacy.
Pushing those thoughts aside for later, he decided to focus on the egg that had appeared out of nowhere in his Sea of Souls.
Uriel didn't wait a moment—he invoked the runes, noticing a new set that hadn't been there before.
Aspect: [Lord of Darkness]
Aspect Rank: Divine.
Aspect Legacy: [Relics of the Void]
Uriel blinked once, twice, three times. His jaw dropped.
Aspect Legacy... I finally got my Aspect Legacy! he mentally shouted, excited.
He remembered that the Aspect was personal to every Awakened—something that existed even before the era of the Nightmare Spell—but Aspect Legacies were created by the Spell itself after meeting specific requirements.
Perhaps killing something of Sacred rank had fulfilled the requirements, or perhaps something else triggered it. He didn't really know.
Aspect Legacy Description — Relics of the Void: [???]
Uriel was confused. Where was the description? It only appeared as question marks.
Setting that aside, he noticed another set of runes.
Relics of the Void: [2/7]
First Relic: Claimed.
Second Relic: Claimed.
Third Relic: Unearned.
Fourth Relic...
It continued that way until the Seventh Relic. His Aspect Legacy was divided into seven Relics, and he had claimed the first.
Uriel wondered which one it would be, though he had a suspicion about which the first Relic was.
Uriel continued looking at the runes, observing that two new things had appeared.
Memory: [Egg of the Void]
Memory Rank: Unknown.
Memory Level: Unknown.
Memory Type: Unknown.
Memory Description: [This is part of the truth that the gods hid from existence out of fear.]
Uriel blinked.
"Well. It seems the Spell knows what that egg is and refuses to say anything about it," he murmured.
"Let's move on to the next Memory," said Shade.
"Hey, calm down. I'm thinking."
"What are you thinking about?"
"Eggs."
Shade rolled his eyes at the terrible joke.
Uriel looked at the section of his dark creatures.
Dark Creatures: [Black Knight] [Gunlaug] [Soul] [Illusory Butterfly] [Iroh] [Winter Beast] [Skady] [Nyx] [My Tyrant...] [...] [???]
Uriel scrolled through the long list of echoes he had obtained. Aside from his ten dark creatures—most of which were already Supreme rank—he had gained at least twenty more during his journey to the Estuary. The weakest was a Transcendent echo of Demon rank, and the strongest was a Supreme rank, which he would of course keep for himself. He would figure out what to do with the rest later.
At the end of the list was an unknown creature.
Dark Creature.
Name: [Unnamed]
Creature Rank: Supreme
Creature Class: Titan
Description: «Born of the profane, crowned with the appearance of the sacred. She is living proof that nothingness can sculpt beauty, and that the purest light can spring from the most abyssal darkness.»
Attributes: [Spawn of Souls] [Soul Devourer] [Legion of the Damned] [Omen of Death] [Throne of a Thousand Souls] [The Heart]
Uriel's eyes widened like saucers. Not just him—Shade also had a skeptical look on his face as he read the attributes.
A shiver ran down both their spines.
That creature they had obtained as part of their Aspect Legacy was ridiculously powerful, and if its attributes were any indication, it was too ridiculous even for him.
But also curious—he wanted to read the attributes, see their descriptions, and also its abilities.
Abilities: [Living Sepulcher] [Edge of the Soul Reaper] [Hands of the Beyond] [Crown of the Dead King] [Eclipse of Existence]
Description [Living Sepulcher]: [The possessor has a spiritual realm within their own body. Every soul of a being they kill is dragged into this inner sepulcher, where it remains trapped eternally. The captive souls feed the creature, strengthening its essence and regenerating any damage it receives.]
[Edge of the Soul Reaper] Description: [Uses the souls trapped within its Living Sepulcher to form claws, fangs, or spectral weapons.]
[Hands of the Beyond] Description: [Thousands of spectral arms emerge from its body. Each hand tries to grasp the victim's soul to tear fragments from it.]
[Crown of the Dead King] Description: [Summons the most powerful spirits it has devoured. These specters retain part of their original abilities and fight as generals of a ghostly army, united under a single will.]
[Spectral Legion] Description: [Everything that dies is dragged in, and everything that has a soul is absorbed. By absorbing souls, it feeds its legion of soldiers for war.]
Uriel's brain disconnected upon reading the set of abilities of his dark creature.
He felt like laughing and crying at the same time.
This is too ridiculous. Too powerful and too perfect.
"Hey, let's summon her," said Shade.
"Are you crazy? Don't you remember what happened with Skady?"
"Hey, that was because when she was turned into a dark creature, she kept her old personality and memories. But this one is new—she won't attack us immediately."
Uriel looked at his twin for a moment before sighing.
"Fine."
Uriel summoned the creature.
He watched as, before him, the endless vast darkness shifted until a new figure emerged.
The figure was clearly small.
Formed from the deepest darkness, which took on a defined shape with each passing instant. In less than a few seconds, before both of them stood a small figure—no larger than a teenager of 13 to 15 years old.
Her skin was white. Her face bore a great resemblance to Uriel's. Her hair was jet black. On her face were three pairs of eyes—two silver and one sky blue.
A mixture of the sacred and the profane radiated from her aura.
The young girl looked at them both for a moment as if analyzing them, then examined her surroundings with curiosity.
Uriel cleared his throat.
"Welcome to the world... well, I still don't know what to call you."
The figure blinked as if barely understanding his words.
She strode forward, grabbing the edges of Uriel's clothes, looking at him with large, curious eyes.
"Looks like she took a liking to you quickly, Uriel," said Shade.
"I suppose so."
"Well, now I can call you the Lolimancer."
"Go to hell, Shade."
"Better go to the Demon."
Uriel grew irritated and was about to respond with another insult when a soft voice made him freeze.
"Fuck," said a voice—clearly the little one's.
"Little one, don't say such macabre words."
"Go to the Demon," she responded with a smile, to Uriel's horror and Shade's amusement.
"I feel like we're going to get along very well."
"Go to hell, Shade," the girl said happily.
Making Uriel laugh until he couldn't breathe.
"Fuck," the girl said, confused, seeing Shade grumbling and Uriel gasping and coughing from laughing so hard.
"Demon," she said, with a clear tone of confusion.