The vile bird thrust its beak toward the Supreme Titan to pierce it, but the Void creature evaded it completely, sacrificing a part of itself that regenerated immediately—the dark flesh pulsing and knitting together as if time itself were rewinding on its wound.
An enormous titanic fist crashed against the Cursed Terror, shaking it for a moment while a sea of white flames descended upon its body. The heat was so intense that the air itself distorted around it, creating mirages that danced like tormented spirits.
The Cursed Terror shook itself with a shriek that pierced the ears of the three combatants, shaking off the white flames that clung to its bones like voracious parasites. The burned feathers fell like black ash upon the lake, floating for an instant before sinking into the darkness.
Its claws tore through the enormous colossus of shadows, which dissipated into fragments of blackness revealing Sunny. He transformed into a sea of shadows, adopting the form of himself: a demon mask concealed his face along with a black cloak that waved like a banner of night itself.
Another sea of flames descended upon the Cursed Terror, partially distracting it. The flames danced with sinister intelligence, seeking the cracks in its bone armor, seeping like water into the fissures of a rock.
After eliminating the flames, Sunny's voice rang out clearly, resonating with an ancient echo that seemed to come from the dawn of time itself.
"I am Weaver, the Demon of Destiny!"
"Where is my eye, miserable Thief?!"
The Thieving Bird froze for an instant. Its eyes, which had gleamed with greed and malice, clouded with ancestral recognition. Something in that name awakened a primal fear within its being.
Then it forgot about Nephis, throwing itself at Sunny with maddened eyes, letting out a shriek of anguish that made the lake's waters churn as if the underworld itself were convulsing.
A fierce battle began, causing enormous clashes that resonated through the Estuary like war drums. Claws, bursts of cutting wind, furious shrieks—this was all that occurred in that area of the Estuary. Shadows and light danced in a mortal ballet where every movement could be the last.
Whenever the Cursed Terror was distracted, Nephis would launch an incinerating ray from the sky.
The white light fell like the wrath of a forgotten god, burning the air in its path and leaving trails of fire that persisted even after the impact. At the same time, the Supreme Titan used invisible hands to wound the Terror's soul, tearing fragments of its essence that faded into the void like forgotten sighs.
Slowly, the Cursed Terror's wounds grew worse, like a crack forming and spreading slowly through ice. Each impact left its mark; each wound was a seed of destruction germinating in the soul of the vile bird.
...
While all the battle raged, elsewhere, in a vast nearly limitless space filled with all kinds of treasures and shining remains, was Shade.
Torn away by the Cursed Terror's claws, he had been dragged to the place where the vile bird kept all its stolen things: a dimension folded between the folds of reality, a sanctuary of greed where centuries of plunder rested as a monument to avarice.
Even in that space, Shade could feel he could return to Uriel at any moment. The bond between them was a thread of light in the darkness, a connection that not even the Cursed Terror could fully sever. But he wouldn't do it immediately. No. Instead, he would make sure to deal a great blow to the greatest thief in existence.
Invoking the Dark Warehouse, Shade began storing everything he saw, without stopping to check what entered. His will extended like tentacles of shadow, enveloping the treasures and sucking them into the dimensional space he shared with Uriel.
Enormous shining palaces, with towers that touched the sky of that artificial world, disappeared entirely. Brilliant weapons forged from metals that no longer existed in the current world, whose glow told stories of forgotten battles, were devoured by the darkness. Complete ruins of civilizations that the Cursed Terror had plundered over millennia, fragments of divine souls that still pulsed with a reaping gleam.
Corpses of titanic abominations that glowed with bright and beautiful lights, whose cores shone like stars.
Shade smiled, an expression that would have been terrifying if anyone could see it.
He truly was the best thief in the world.
Even if the Cursed Terror realized that its collection of thousands of years had been completely stolen, it would already be too late. Those treasures would never be seen again. For now, he would just enjoy the theft while the Terror fought for its life against four titans: three of them Supreme and one Transcendent.
He truly was the most greedy being in the world.
...
Uriel ordered his Supreme Titan to take the front in battle. Which it did with enthusiasm, adopting a new form that none of those present had ever seen before.
The creature transformed into a strange figure, wrapped in shifting light and darkness, ethereal as a dream made flesh.
Its body had no fixed form, undulating between matter and spirit, between the tangible and intangible. Its attacks damaged the very soul with enormous intensity, each blow tearing pieces of the Terror's will away like petals from a withered flower.
This made the Cursed Terror even more cornered, forced to divide its attention between the two Supreme titans causing it the most problems. From the sky, enormous incinerating rays kept striking it, burning its wings and the skin hidden beneath. The smell of scorched flesh mingled with that of calcined bone, creating a putrid fragrance that permeated the air.
Uriel watched as Sunny struck the Cursed Terror, making it stagger. At the same time, thousands of invisible hands held the Terror, reducing its movement for a critical moment. Then, the battlefield filled with new presences.
An enormous Dragon emerged from the darkness, its black scales reflecting the light of the flames. On its back lay a Black Knight made of darkness wielding an enormous sword that cut the void itself. A figure wrapped in shadows fired a rain of arrows from a distance, each projectile piercing the Terror's soul with surgical precision.
Beneath the water, an enormous sea monster emerged launching its tentacles, while thousands of shadows leaped toward the Cursed Terror to drown it like a black mass.
The Cursed Terror, weakened and attacked from so many fronts, was temporarily overwhelmed. Its will, scattered by the multiple assaults, managed to gather in the form of a massive crushing force that sent everything against the ground. An invisible shockwave swept across the battlefield, throwing Uriel's creatures against rocks and water.
At that moment, when the Cursed Terror was about to fly away to regroup, Nephis acted.
Before the fight began, she had read the book Uriel had given her about explosions, whose knowledge had made her improve and increase the power with which she could detonate her soul cores.
She had studied every page, every formula, every principle of concentrated destruction. Now, it was time to put that knowledge into practice.
Her body lit up like a star, shining with an intensity that blinded even the titans around her. She spoke the True Names of Fire, Destruction, Annihilation, and Devastation in a single verse that further increased the destructive power of her attack. The words resonated with a power that predated time itself, a language that gods had spoken before the world took shape.
The black void was illuminated by a pure, iridescent white void. There was no moment of transition, no instant of doubt. Simply, a column of white flames fell upon the Cursed Terror, engulfing it completely. The heat was so intense that the lake's water evaporated instantly around it, creating a crater of steam that rose toward the sky like the breath of a dying dragon.
Uriel dispelled his dark creatures, which had barely managed to maintain their forms before being destroyed. The shadows retreated like a tide receding from the shore, leaving only the glow of the flames.
The Thieving Bird let out a heart-wrenching cry of pain as it was burned by the flames. Its flesh melted, its bones cracked, its will fragmented under the assault of pure light.
Sunny lunged at the Vile Bird to deliver the finishing blow. His demon mask shone with a sinister light while his shadow sword rose for the final slash. But the Terror spread its wings, taking flight toward the sky with a speed that defied logic.
The beating of its wings generated a massive sonic wind blast that shattered nearby rocks and created waves on the lake that extended to the horizon. The Terror flew toward where Nephis was, ascending higher and higher as if wanting to devour the shining star that had wounded it.
Before it could reach her, Nephis shifted to her Transcendent form, becoming an enormous mass of massive flames.
The white flames launched themselves at the Cursed Terror, enveloping it in a burning embrace that made it shriek once more.
Its wings folded inward, heading downward toward the lake, like a terrible comet falling from the sky. The speed of its descent created a trail of fire and destruction that illuminated the darkness like a second sun.
Uriel, without hesitation, took possession of the Supreme Titan, becoming a mass of pure darkness.
Dozens of sharp white eyes fixed upon the Cursed Terror, observing each of its movements with supernatural precision. Its enormous dark mass charged against the Terror just like a massive mass of shadows surging from the other side.
The four entered the lake at the same time to continue their battle through the scattered time of the Great Tomb.
The lake's waters, which had remained calm for millennia, churned as if a god were stirring the bottom of the world. The ripples became waves, and the waves became storms that crashed against the shores of the Estuary.
The three Supreme titans and one Cursed Terror continued their combat in the depths. The clash devastated time and space, opening countless rifts toward the past or future of the Great Tomb. Visions of forgotten battles and wars to come flickered at the edges of reality, like dreams seeping into wakefulness.
At the heart of that storm of time and space, four wills clashed with a fury that threatened to tear the very fabric of existence. And at the center of it all, a star shone with the intensity of a thousand suns, refusing to be extinguished even in the face of the deepest darkness.