When Uriel opened his eyes again, it was already night. Quite fortunate, since with that, all the damage he had suffered had already healed thanks to the enchantment of his Void Mantle.
Making a great mental and physical effort, he managed to sit up on a surface of calcined wood.
Looking around, he only saw a wasteland of burned wood stretching for kilometers.
'I can't rest now,' Uriel thought.
Standing up, he took a step only to stumble and fall to the ground.
"Not yet..."
"Stop trying already," said a familiar voice in his mind.
"Shade, you son of a bitch, where the hell were you hiding?" he asked angrily.
"Hey, no cursing. As for where I was—well, kidnapped. That repulsive bird considered me valuable, so it sent me to where it kept its collection. And well, you know, I consider myself someone of incalculable worth, so I took the price and multiplied it many times over."
"While I was fighting a damned Terror, you were... robbing a Cursed Terror?"
"And the best thief in existence. Oh, it'll be furious when it finds out it's left bankrupt. Sure, also furious, but that's no longer our concern—we won't see it again anytime soon," said Shade as he pulled a bottle from the Dark Warehouse.
"Here, drink this. From what I saw, it's a special beverage capable of healing any wound and leaving you as good as new."
Uriel took the bottle, opened the cork, and brought the bitter liquid to his throat. After feeling the liquid go down his trachea and reach his stomach, he felt a wave of essence flood him completely. His strength returned fully, his soul was healing at a monstrous speed, his wounds had closed, and all his exhaustion vanished.
In less than a minute, he was as good as new—even a little stronger.
"I feel invincible," he murmured with a smile.
"Well, I'm glad it worked. Anyway, let's return to our time. Sunny and Nephis will return to theirs if they follow the thread of essence connecting them to the Estuary in the future."
Uriel nodded.
He transformed into an enormous, massive serpent eight hundred meters long.
Coiling his body, he shot off at lightning speed, crossing thousands of kilometers in an instant.
Every abomination in his path was disintegrated on the spot.
The journey to the Estuary at that speed took only a few minutes until he spotted the stone titan's heart, whose sorcery still functioned.
Following the thread of essence connected to his wrist, Uriel entered the Estuary until he reached the labyrinth of time.
Uriel let the thread guide him to his distant future.
Still transformed into a pitch-black sea serpent, he plunged into the water. The familiar sight of light and shadows shifting rapidly relaxed him somewhat.
He sailed for an eternity—or just a blink; Uriel no longer cared. He had enjoyed his strange and crazy adventure helping his future friends fight against a Cursed Terror.
Although the experience had been painful, Uriel had extracted the greatest advantage.
He learned to improve his will. He felt he was much closer to achieving his long-awaited supremacy. He could feel it deep within himself, but it still eluded him.
But this didn't disappoint him; it only drove him to strive harder to attain it.
Aside from that, he gained two things. First, knowing that the plan had succeeded and knowing how to solve some of his problems. Another point was the divine fragments.
At first, he was annoyed that they were stolen before he could take them, but all along, it was he who had stolen the two suns, thus creating a loop.
And if he was right, then his future self had done the same thing he was doing now—and what his past self would do in due time.
Uriel felt like laughing.
Truly, time was his cruelest karma.
Increasing his speed, he followed the line until he finally emerged on the lake's surface, releasing thousands of tons of water in his ascent.
Abandoning his sea serpent form, Uriel leaped toward the rocky cliff.
He observed in the distance the dead body of the tomb's guardian.
Following the line, he saw the piece of rock he had embedded in the wall of his time.
Apparently, not much time had passed since his departure—perhaps a few years, months, or seconds.
Uriel stretched, then blinked, realizing he was still using his Supreme Titan's body. Separating himself, he recovered his real form and then dismissed it to rest.
Although he felt he had weakened, in reality it was the opposite—he had grown stronger. It was just that by controlling the body of a Supreme being, and a Titan at that, his power had multiplied many times over.
"I wonder if they'll read the note I left," he murmured as he left the Estuary.
He still had one last part to do: bring the hundreds of millions of inhabitants of Ariel's Tomb to the real world. And with that, he would finally rest for a while—at least before the Domain war began.
---
In the distant future, Sunny and Nephis emerged from the depths of the Great River after following the black thread connected to a memory Uriel had created before the battle.
"Where do you think he is?" asked Sunny, curious to see no sign that Uriel had emerged from the fissures.
"Maybe he's still trapped in the labyrinth of time. Or perhaps he's collecting something strange," she offered.
"Possible. He looked furious attacking that damned bird."
Nephis looked around before lowering her gaze, spotting a glass bottle sealed with a cork. Inside was a note.
"And this?"
Nephis took the bottle and opened it, noticing it was a letter in Uriel's handwriting.
"What does it say?"
"It's from Uriel," Nephis replied.
Nephis read the letter, which said:
"Hello,
If you're reading this, it means you made it back alive. That's a relief—I didn't know if that memory could last that long during the fight against that repulsive bird.
Anyway, don't wait for me. I'm from the past; my time isn't the same as yours, so our paths separate here. Maybe I'll die, maybe I won't—who knows.
Oh, and Sunny, congratulations on getting back what was stolen from you. Truly, your treachery has no limits..."
Nephis smiled, looking at Sunny, who turned his face away.
"Well, I'm sure you're looking away and saying something like 'That bastard.'"
"That bastard," Sunny murmured before blinking.
I knew it—I'm never wrong.
Well, this is getting too long. At the entrance to the Estuary, I left two things for you under a pile of rubble. Consider it my gift.
Let's see, what else... Mmm...
Oh, yes. I recovered Shade, who left that repulsive bird bankrupt, so it'll be furious for a while—but that's its problem, not mine.
Well, kisses and hugs. Your incredible and friendly friend Uriel and Shade say goodbye.
P.S.: If you see Cassie's boyfriend, cut off his..."
Nephis stopped reading at that point.
"The rest is a list of curses I don't want to read aloud."
"Well, at least that bastard is alive. He won't die so easily," Sunny murmured.
At that moment, footsteps were heard from the other side.
Sunny and Nephis saw a hooded figure, who lowered their hood to reveal an arrogant smile.
The face was that of a young and extremely handsome man, with fair, smooth skin. His hair was black as night, and his eyes were deep black like two pits of darkness.
"Well, well. 'That bastard,' huh? Sunny, even after I went to all that trouble to write those lovely words of encouragement."
---
Elsewhere, outside Ariel's Tomb, in the burned forest within an ancient citadel, the Vile Thieving Bird let out a furious shriek that destroyed everything around it.
The great beasts fled in terror as Cursed-ranked creatures awoke from their long slumber due to the fury-filled shriek of the most hated bird among gods and void beings alike.
The reason?
Its vast, immeasurable treasure of shiny things—stolen with such effort from the hands of gods, demons, and void beings—had been completely taken. Not even a single miserable shiny gem remained, only a desolate and sterile emptiness.
The Vile Thieving Bird swore by its entire extinct species that it would personally hunt down that Void creature and collect its due a hundredfold.
No one robbed the greatest thief in all of existence and got away with it. Even if it had to destroy the world, it would do so to recover what had been stolen from it.