After meeting the new inhabitant of his soul, Uriel finally opened his eyes in reality, somewhat confused. He was lying on the rocky ground in front of the stone arches where the Great River originated—which, in theory, would allow for time travel.
Now that time had been broken at Cronos's hands—or rather, King Cronos's—this mystical quality was slowly beginning to fade. Until one day, it would simply stop completely.
Sitting up on the ground, he let out a yawn and observed Daeron and Cronos talking seriously about something.
"Are you sure it will work?"
"Yes. It's the only path I can foresee that will lead us to success."
Daeron's expression seemed calm, like that of someone who knew everything would turn out well in the end.
"What are you two talking about? Do you have to be a Supreme to discuss hidden things?" Uriel asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Oh, good morning, Master," Cronos greeted.
"As for what we were discussing—just finding a way to deal with the horrors that will descend upon the river cities," he explained.
Uriel said nothing to that. He had the feeling they had planned something—something that would leave a bitter taste in his mouth.
Looking beyond the now-vanished mist, he could see the complete passage. He also found the correct passage that would lead them to the Estuary River, and then to where Ariel had buried his secrets.
From his dark storage, Uriel pulled out several large plates of fried rice.
"Here, eat this."
Cronos observed the plate with curiosity.
"What is this food?"
"It's rice," Daeron replied. "I thought I'd never taste it again."
"Where did you get it?"
"I have a Memory that allows me to store anything without altering its state. So I throw in anything I find interesting. As for the rice—I made it before falling into this tomb."
Cronos grabbed the silver spoon, took some fried rice, and brought it to his mouth. Upon tasting it, his eyes widened at the glorious flavor that invaded his palate. It was far better than the scarce cultivated wheat grown in Fallen Grace, with a wide variety of different spices he had never tasted before.
"This is delicious," he said, eating faster.
Uriel looked at Daeron, who was eating the rice with surprising composure.
"Do you have more?" Cronos asked.
"Wait, let me check."
Summoning his dark storage, he reached his hand into his own shadow for a few seconds before extracting the enormous skull of a cetacean about fifty meters in diameter.
"Oh, so this is where I put it," he murmured before returning the cetacean skull back to his dark storage.
After a few more seconds, he pulled out several different plates.
"Here it is," he said, smiling as he took one that was still warm.
"Where did you get such a large skull?" Daeron asked curiously.
"I'm a natural collector. I like to keep interesting things or things that catch my attention. It's like a hobby."
"So your Flaw is being a collector of strange things?"
"No. My Flaw is Shade. This is just something I've always had. But speaking of Flaws, I'm curious about yours."
"Do you want to know my Flaw, Master?"
"Yes."
"Well, my Flaw is Carefree. I don't take things seriously—it's more like they're fun or interesting," he explained.
"Well, that explains a lot about your personality."
"And what about you, Daeron?"
"It's Wrath. I'm always angry."
Uriel blinked.
"But you don't seem angry."
"Just because I don't appear to be doesn't mean I'm not. It's just that over the years, I've learned to handle it better—using it as a catalyst rather than a primal instinct."
So that's where the enchantment [Resentment of the King] on that crown Sunny had in his Nightmare came from, said Shade.
I thought you were asleep.
I just woke up from this conversation. That, and well, I'm investigating our soul to find where that divine thing inside us went.
Well, have fun then.
Oh, right—start consuming the soul fragments to recover our seventh soul core.
I'll do it when I finish eating.
Uriel cut off the mental conversation with Shade, his eyes looking at the two Supremes before him.
"I was talking to Shade," he said before they could ask the question.
"Where is Master Shade? I thought he would come out to join the battle against the Guardian."
"He decided not to participate physically, but in another aspect. He helped me with his will to keep me from dying at the Guardian's hands," Uriel recounted.
"Two wills combining into one?" Daeron murmured before remembering something.
During his battle against the Guardian in the depths, he had suddenly received a surge in his strength. Looking at Uriel, he immediately understood that it had been that Transcendent—who was anything but normal. It was as if, instead of being human, he was something else wearing human skin.
If Daeron had to put it in a classification in terms of strength, he would have to create a new classification separate from Ascension and Corruption.
This was certainly something quite interesting to investigate.
---
After the meal, Uriel took out the collars again when they were near where Ariel had carved the truth—a truth so terrifying that even he, immune to corruption, had lost his sanity, his mind unable to bear the weight of it.
After storing the two Supremes and sending the collars into his Sea of Souls, he was alone again in the Estuary.
There was still no trace of the vile thieving bird or its progeny, which meant he still had time before Sunny and company's Third Nightmare ended.
Grabbing two pieces of rock, he extracted two Supreme soul fragments to create two special Memories.
After a simple weaving of black threads, he created an anchoring enchantment and an extension enchantment connected to the rock pieces through a thread of essence.
The Memory was simple—it would serve as a guide rope that would lead him to the same place as its other half.
In other words, even if he ended up in another time within Ariel's tomb, by simply following his Memory he could return to his current time without any problem.
And that was exactly what he was going to do.
"Are you sure about this?"
"Yes. Since we're here, it would be a waste not to see what will happen in the future in this place. I just need to go far enough to reach an interesting place—but not far enough that the river stops completely and dies definitively."
Moving a few meters away, he observed the black thread coming from the small rock in his hand, connected to a larger one embedded in the wall.
Discarding the Memory, he headed toward the enormous waterfalls of time. One flowed toward the future, and the other flowed toward the past. Uriel decided to visit the future.
Walking on the water, he took one last look around, then at the gigantic waterfall cascading down.
Finally, he sighed.
"I'll be back..."
And with those words, he leaped into the void.
---
Uriel transformed into a titanic serpent made of the deepest darkness. His eyes were two pools of pure, immaculate white light, with long white fangs capable of piercing even the hardest material in the world.
In his dark serpent form, he navigated through the great waterfall of the Great River of Time, moving through time itself within Ariel's tomb.
The further he moved toward the distant future, the more he observed the divine suns hiding and emerging until they became nothing more than flickers of light and darkness.
Driven by the current of time itself and fueled by a vast amount of Essence, Uriel propelled his body even faster until he saw the edge of the Great River and emerged from its depths, lifting thousands of tons of water in his wake.
His enormous body rose hundreds of meters, causing ripples across the river. With a heavy impact, the water parted once more as his serpentine body crashed upon it.
Remaining still for a moment, he let out a long, deep sigh. He had arrived in the future.
Ceasing his serpent form, he shifted into that of a twenty-meter dragon that soared through the skies.
"It seems the suns aren't here," Shade commented in Uriel's mind, seeing through his eyes.
"Yes. Do you think they were destroyed?"
"That's most likely. Or maybe they were stolen?"
Uriel made a thoughtful noise.
He loved taking anything interesting, and the suns made from the soul fragments of an impious titan would undoubtedly be his greatest heist in years.
Moreover, he could use those fragments to create a Divine-ranked Memory—though it would take him a long time to weave something so vast to make it functional.
Soaring through the skies at great speed, he observed through the veil of darkness. The water was nearly still, and it wouldn't be long before it stopped completely. If he had to calculate, he had about a few days before being forced to return to his own time.
"Hey, look at that."
Looking down, he saw corpses of dead Nightmare Creatures floating on the river.
Descending slightly, he examined the bodies. He noticed no external wounds on the abominations, and upon opening one, he discovered they possessed dull fragments—as if everything had been absorbed, leaving nothing behind.
Uriel frowned, wondering what could have done something like that.
Flying into the past, he decided to head to Verge, which took him a few hours.
As he traveled, Uriel saw hundreds of abominations dead in the same manner. However, when passing through Weave, he saw how it had been devastated—as if a massive explosion had occurred at the city's center, killing everything within a wide radius of kilometers.
Another place he visited was the fragment of one of the suns, which had been destroyed by a devastating impact.
This only confused him, as he didn't know what had happened to the other six divine fragments.
Flying further, he passed by the Isle of Aletheia, which was in ruins, before finally arriving at Verge.
Uriel finally landed in Verge without worrying about being corrupted—since that was impossible.
Advancing in silence, he reached what should have been the Seekers' city itself. He had only seen it from afar while fighting for his life against the great creatures that constantly attacked him.
However, now there were no abominations—only bones.
Enormous bones were scattered everywhere. Some were small, like human bones; others were deformed, belonging to Nightmare Creatures; and some were colossal, like the bones of marine leviathans he already possessed in his dark storage.
Uriel considered taking some of those bones but ultimately decided against it. He already had many bones and didn't want to be known as a bone enthusiast.
Walking among the city's ruins, he noticed there was no trace of the flesh tendrils.
This made him smile. They had killed the Seeker in the past. His plan had succeeded—the loop was correct, or at least partially.
Even knowing that the First Seeker—the source of corruption—would be eliminated, there were still hundreds of thousands of terrifying abominations in the river, and of course, the thing that had killed them all.
From the darkness, Shade emerged with a thoughtful expression.
"There's nothing," he murmured with a sigh.
"Do you want to build something with the bones while we decide how far to go?" he asked.
Uriel shrugged.
"Sure, why not."
Uriel and Shade transformed into two masses of darkness that went in opposite directions.
---
After some time, both could be seen looking at their creations made from ancient bones.
Uriel had created an enormous human skeleton almost twenty meters tall, using various bones he found and carved to give them shape.
Shade, on the other hand, had created a massive thirty-meter-long shark skeleton.
"Mine is better," said Shade.
"Obviously mine is. Don't you see it's a skeleton?"
"Hey, anyone can make a skeleton, but this is a bone shark. When have you ever seen a shark made of bones?"
"I've seen triceratops. Does that count?"
"They're not sharks."
"But they lay eggs."
"What does laying eggs have to do with this conversation?"
"I don't know, I just wanted to mention it."
"Do you have a fetish for eggs now?"
"It's been a while since I've had one. I'd like to fry it with toxin."
"Do you think we can cook our Aspect Legacy?" Uriel asked.
"I already tried. That egg is unbreakable." Shade sighed.
"A terrible shame."
Shade began to laugh quietly.
"I got that reference."
Uriel rolled his eyes.
"Shall we possess them for a skeleton fight?" Uriel asked.
"You read my mind."
Uriel and Shade were about to possess the skeletons they had made when two powerful presences made them stop.
Looking at each other for a moment, they turned their faces to see the dark sky, noticing a whitish point of light approaching them.
"Is it a bird?"
"No, it's not a plane."
"Don't be stupid—there are no planes in this world."
"Who said there couldn't be one?"
"Hey, let's stop talking about these things, or we'll end up discussing whether a cat's tail counts as a fifth leg."
"But it is."
"No, it isn't."
Shade began to walk, as did Uriel.
Both returned to the edge when they saw the light extinguish in the darkness, but the same two imposing presences remained present.
From what they felt, those presences were Supremes—two of them.
The first made him feel a strange longing in his heart—a longing of nostalgia, joy, and warmth.
As for the second, it made him feel something cold, along with peace and, of course, death.
"Could it be possible..." Uriel murmured.
"Shade, do you think—" he didn't finish speaking before Shade interrupted.
"Yes. It must be them. But what are they doing here? How far into the future have we traveled?"
The presences kept approaching. Shade returned inside Uriel, who remained slightly on alert. His body was enveloped in darkness, leaving only his human silhouette with his white eyes.
The minutes passed like hours until he finally managed to make them out.
Walking on a surface made from shadows like a small island.
The first figure that caught his attention was that of a woman of dazzling beauty he had never seen before. Silver hair that moved slightly in the cold wind within the tomb. She wore a white tunic with barely any metal protection—as if she didn't need it. Her eyes were like two silver pools, and her expression was one of calm.
Beside her was a handsome man in his twenties, slightly smaller than the woman beside him. He wore black robes, his skin pale as ivory, his black hair tied back enough not to be a hindrance. A calm smile rested on his face. Both seemed to be chatting casually.
Finally, they stopped chatting before the man spoke, as if he already knew Uriel was there.
"Hey, creature, don't you think it's discourteous to observe us so intently without even showing yourself? How inconsiderate of you."
Uriel blinked.
Interesting.
Uriel took a step, then another, walking atop the shadow-made surface without any problem.
As he approached, he stopped a few meters away, staring at them with narrowed eyes.
"Tell me something, creature—by any chance, do you know what happened in this place?" the handsome man asked.
Uriel tilted his head, feigning ignorance before smiling with mockery and amusement.
"Oh, visitors," he said, changing his voice slightly to a higher pitch.
"It's been a long time since I've seen another human. You must be a divine shadow—oh, and beside you, a Nephilim. Curious," he responded cheerfully.
"But to answer your question—everything is dead."
"We know that," the woman replied in a calm tone.
"We just want to know what killed it."
"Well, that's a difficult question. Many answers. If you want to know what killed the Great River of Time—I had a lot to do with that. As for what killed those creatures—I have no idea."
"You destroyed the Great River?"
"More or less, Nephilim."
The man smiled.
"I see," he said, immediately creating a massive stake of shadows that was about to impale him. But Uriel simply dodged it by moving to the side—only to raise his hand, sharpening it like a sword to block a white blade wreathed in white flames and imbued with a strong will.
Uriel blocked the sword, looking at the Nephilim with his amused white eyes.
"My, my, strangers—you truly know how to welcome someone."
The divine shadow attacked, his sword imbued with a terrifying aura of death, which he used to cut him down.
Raising a wall of darkness, it dissipated from the light of the Nephilim's sword, allowing the divine shadow's attack to land fully, sending him flying at monstrous speed.
"Hey, are you sure about fighting Supreme Sunny and Nephis?"
"Uhm... yes," Uriel replied, getting to his feet.
He observed how the two Supreme versions of Sunny and Nephis looked at him with hostile eyes.
[End of Part Two: Time Killer]