Her voice was nothing like the cold and harsh one he remembered.
It was soft, kind, full of warmth, lined with a care and affection that shook him to his core.
Uriel's mind waned, and his spark seemed to burn brighter, his will and his spark's will blurring for a moment, almost becoming one.
He opened his eyes slowly, his cheek leaning further into her palm.
Dark azure met hollow ivory.
The last of his tears burned away, leaving nothing but warmth suffused across an expression so fragile and soft that even the Supreme Spirit almost faltered upon laying eyes on him.
The endless shades of Uriel's spark reflected across the white canvas his gaze had become—a prism of all colors, of all emotions, distilled into one, into nothing.
The Supreme Spirit's breath hitched.
But she rapidly recovered, seemingly unbothered by her strange, human-like reactions, smiling as though nothing had happened.
The palm cupping his cheek pulled him in, her form growing larger as her other arm wrapped around him, taking him into her embrace.
[You seem cornered.]
She whispered into his ear, slowly, her hand caressing his face as warmth overflowed within him.
[I can help you. I can fix it.]
Uriel was in a state he couldn't comprehend. He felt unconscious, yet awake, here, yet not, alive, but also dead.
But he could feel his heart at ease.
He could feel it emptied of the overwhelming fear and horror he'd been drowning in, the consuming rage, the dehumanising helplessness, he was free of it all.
He didn't even recognise the Supreme Spirit. He didn't remember his own name. He didn't remember where he was, or who he was, or even what he was.
He knew nothing except one thing.
He knew that as long as he remained within her embrace, nothing could go wrong.
Nothing could ever unsettle his heart again.
He would never feel this horror ever again.
[It'll cost the both of us quite a bit, but we'll rise from it stronger than any could have ever fathomed.]
Uriel's body and soul seemed to resonate with hers, the same way his core resonated with the world when he cast spells.
But this was deeper.
[And then all will be perfect.]
"…please."
His voice was just as unnaturally charming as hers as he begged, its echoes ravaging the Supreme Spirit and plunging her into a daze no less deep than his own.
"…please…"
It was hard to tell who had spoken, whether it was the Spirit, Uriel, or both.
[{???} has formed—Error!]
[{???} has awoken!..?{???!}]
[?]
WHOOOSH!
Her body of fire broke down into tongues of flame, sinking and vanishing into Uriel's body.
In nothing but the blink of an eye, she was gone, entirely absorbed into him, and he was alone once again.
The tear in the world closed, the puzzle pieces of reality fitting back together as space stabilised.
It was silent.
Time and space remained frozen.
…
"Who knows," he chuckled. "Time is a flat circle, is it not? Things are bound to repeat in endless cycles."
"All that changes is the tide and the spin of the circle."
Salazar shook his head, ignoring Thoryl. He snapped a finger, and a glass of wine appeared in his hand, accompanied by a floating tray of grapes.
The grapes plucked themselves from their stems, floating into his and Celeste's mouths. Taking a sip from his glass, he exhaled in satisfaction.
He focused on the trial.
The blank screen shook, and an expanse of metal, grand and wide, was laid bare before them.
"Oh well. Terrible luck, I suppose," Celeste uttered between bites. Salazar nodded, a hint of pity flashing across his gaze.
SHAH!
Uriel appeared within the expanse.
Thoryl shot the duo a glance, instantly noticing the dark flickers that had appeared in their abyssal eyes.
'Interesting,' he thought, before refocusing on the trial unfolding within the titanic cauldron.
They watched the sequence unfold.
They watched Uriel be surrounded, mountain-sized monstrosity after mountain-sized monstrosity taking shape around him, the skies vanishing beneath flocks of avian abominations.
They watched as he fell to his knees, hopeless, his whimpers faintly echoing through the screen.
Salazar watched it all with a gaze that only grew colder with each passing second, his heart flickering with an emotion one could only classify as…strange.
Celeste, too, seemed to react oddly.
But none of them tried to stop what was to come, nor did their gazes shy away from the execution they were about to witness.
[Death Advent will begin in three… two…]
The entire dungeon fell silent, none able to witness the moment with guilt-free hearts.
It was only as they watched Uriel weep that they noticed the boy couldn't have been any older than fifteen, his eyes full of innocence and youth.
Mothers across the settlements felt their hearts ache, wondering if one day their sons would stand there, forced to die for the greater good.
Fathers felt their jaws tighten, wondering if they would have reacted any differently, had they been in the boy's position years ago.
It was silent.
Deathly so.
[…one…!]
Salazar took another sip, a fog of darkness having risen around him.
Celeste summoned a glass of her own, sipping in silence, the drink warming her chest as she snuggled closer into her lover's grasp.
[…Death Advent has begun!]
The creatures surged forward, a symphony of roars peeling through the air as a tide of aether sundered all things apart.
But then—
They stopped.
The monsters, each an artificial creation meant to oppose humanity's warriors, halted dead in their tracks.
"…"
From his prostrated position, Uriel rose to his feet.
His scholar's robes fluttered in the wind, his long silvery-white hair dancing like a sea of fire behind him, coiling and curling with each push and pull.
He opened his eyes.
Ivory.
CRACK!
The glass in Celeste's hands shattered, shards piercing into her slender fingers as wine spilled across her mesmerising body.
Her eyes trembled.
Salazar turned to Thoryl, his gaze cold.
"Oh."
Thoryl turned back to him and smiled faintly. "Keep watching."
"It's not over."