The afternoon was falling over the Immortal Mansion, tinting the sky with purple and copper hues. Below, the creaking of the wind among the trees seemed like an ancient sigh, but for Uriel, the true challenge was not the fate of the world nor the shadows lurking at the confines of reality. It was the stairs.
Uriel let out a long, deep sigh that slightly lifted the gray fabric of his hoodie. Covered by the hood, he contemplated the steep stretch of stone steps with a purely human annoyance. He had recently opted to return to normalcy. He had left behind the imposing, cold, and almost terrifying appearance of that future version of himself—that hierarchical form that breathed divinity and tragedy—to once again be simply the same guy from when he was twenty years old.
Physically, he didn't look a day older than that, despite the fact that the actual count of his life was already approaching twenty-five. Being immortal and transcendent had rather ridiculous inconveniences: he felt like a young man trapped in a meeting of old veterans, even though he himself had dragged the weight of eons on his shoulders.
Setting aside those trivial thoughts with a shake of his head, Uriel began to climb the stairs of the Immortal Mansion, the place chosen for the long-postponed reunion of the Cohort.
Upon reaching the top of the grand staircase, he didn't bother knocking on the main gates or looking for a key. Instead, he lightly invoked his transcendent form. His dense body of flesh and bone dissolved into a black, dense mist, a fluid and silent shadow that filtered effortlessly through the invisible cracks of the door frame. Once on the other side, in the gloom of the interior vestibule, the mist condensed again until it reassembled his figure covered by the hoodie.
Even in the tranquility of the mansion, his divine senses detected the presence of several figures gathered much further below, in the depths of the residence.
Moving among the shadows that folded obediently at his passage, Uriel descended through a second group of stairs, spiral and dark, until he stood before a heavy reinforced wooden door.
He stopped inches from the wood. For a second, his hand hesitated in the air.
"Afraid, Uriel?" Shade's voice resonated in the back of his mind, tinged with that cold and dark irony so characteristic of his shadow.
"Not even a little," Uriel responded mentally, keeping his gaze fixed on the grain of the wood. "It's just... strange. Seeing them all again after so long, knowing everything that has changed."
"Well, you had several hours to think about what you would do and how you would respond to their questions," Shade recalled with detachment. "So stop doubting and go all in."
Just as Uriel extended his fingers to grasp the bronze handle, the mechanism turned from the inside. The door opened wide, revealing Cassie, who stood there with a serene and knowing smile, as if she had been counting the exact seconds of his arrival.
"Come in," Cassie said softly, stepping aside.
Uriel crossed the threshold in silence and walked into the interior of the spacious underground room. His eyes quickly scanned the place, immediately meeting those faces that had defined the most tumultuous years of his existence: Kai, Effie, Nephis, and Jet.
Effie, who was leaning against a side table, raised an eyebrow and looked at the blind prophetess.
"Is that your famous guest, Cassie?" Effie asked, crossing her arms with curiosity.
Cassie nodded elegantly, maintaining that small mysterious smile.
"Yes. I assure you he will be someone of great help to all of us in what is to come."
Jet, leaning against a stone column with a glass in her hand, narrowed her cold, sharp eyes. Her analytical gaze swept over the hooded figure from top to bottom, not hiding for a second her open suspicion of the newcomer.
"I hope he's not another one of your incomprehensible riddles, Cassie," Jet murmured with a raspy voice. "The last time you brought a 'mysterious guest,' we almost ended up fighting a nightmare beast."
"I promise you will be quite surprised," Cassie responded. Then, turning her face slightly toward the young man beside her, she added: "You can take off your hood now, Uriel."
Uriel nodded slowly. With a measured movement, he brought his hands to the gray fabric and pulled the hood back, revealing his face, his messy hair, and his dark eyes.
The silence that followed in the room was overwhelming.
For an instant, no one breathed. Everyone present opened their eyes wide, frozen in different postures like statues of salt.
Effie was the first to react. She stepped forward abruptly, pointing at him with an accusing finger while her jaw almost touched the floor.
"Little?! How the hell are you alive?!"
Beside her, Kai turned so pale that he seemed about to faint. He took half a step back, leaning on the table to keep from losing his balance. His lips trembled slightly as he processed the image of the young man of flesh and bone standing before them.
"You... we saw them burn your body..." Kai stammered, with bulging eyes. "You were in Ariel's Tomb... Your body was reduced to ashes!"
Nephis remained motionless in the center of the room. Her clear eyes, usually cold and calculating, were wide open, fixed on Uriel as if trying to pierce through an illusion. She didn't utter a single word, but the imperceptible trembling of her hands betrayed the absolute shock she was experiencing.
Jet froze completely in her spot. The glass of wine in her hand remained halfway to her lips, her pupils dilated as she analyzed the aura emanating from Uriel: a presence that did not belong to a ghost, nor to an illusion, nor to an echo.
The same question echoed simultaneously in everyone's minds: How the hell was he alive?
Uriel, feeling the crushing weight of all those gazes, broke the tension in the only way he knew how. He let out a clumsy laugh and scratched the back of his neck with an embarrassed gesture.
"Hello, everyone," he said awkwardly. "It's been a while since the last time we saw each other, right?"
Effie pointed at him again, narrowing her eyes in disbelief.
"Are you a ghost?" she demanded to know. "Or a damned Echo sent to play with our minds?"
Uriel smiled. It was a familiar smile, loaded with that old shameless confidence and an almost childish pride that none of them could have ever forgotten.
"I'm flesh and bone, Effie," he assured, stepping forward so they could feel his living presence. "And for your information, I'm now a full-fledged Transcendent."
Jet finally lowered the glass, taking a step toward him with her gaze fixed on his face.
"Stop beating around the bush, Uriel," Jet said, though her voice lacked its usual coldness and denoted deep shock. "How are you alive? We all witnessed your fall."
Uriel shrugged with a half-smile.
"It's a very long story, honestly. Do you want to hear the full version with all the bloody details or would you prefer a quick summary first?"
"The summary," Kai said immediately, passing a hand over his still pale face. "Please, give us the summary before someone has a heart attack."
Uriel nodded, clearing his throat before beginning to recount with total naturalness:
"Well, basically I fell into a Demon's Tomb. There I earned the trust of a Sovereign and his entire civilization. Then I helped kill a God. After that I fought against a God corrupted in the middle of the River of Time, guided an entire civilization toward a new life, and finally challenged darkness itself and sealed it within my own soul. Oh, and I became a Transcendent in the process."
A sepulchral silence once again took over the room.
Kai blinked once, twice, three times. Then he looked at the others and looked back at Uriel.
"On second thought..." Kai said softly, "better tell us the full story."
"Definitely the full story," Effie nodded, still with her eyes wide open.
About twenty minutes later, after the initial shock and an incessant wave of questions, the atmosphere in the grand hall of the mansion had radically transformed. On the central table was displayed an impressive feast: steaming dishes of roasted meats, aromatic stews, freshly baked breads, and bowls filled with delicious side dishes.
The Cohort was gathered around the table eating with gusto, but no one devoured the food with the almost animal ferocity of Effie and Uriel. Both piled plate after plate, devouring portions that would have served to feed an entire platoon.
Effie, chewing a juicy piece of meat, let out a murmur of pure satisfaction.
"Damn, Little... You have no idea how much I missed the taste of your cooking. Nobody seasons things like you."
Uriel, swallowing an enormous bite, smiled with smugness.
"Living for years in the middle of the desolate River of Time with nothing but scarce ingredients, strange spices, and Nightmare beast meat makes anyone elevate their culinary level to divine ranks. If you didn't learn to cook well down there, you died of disgust before you died of hunger."
Jet, who was slowly enjoying a glass of red wine while watching the culinary spectacle of the pair of gluttons, tilted her head toward Uriel.
"Getting back to what's important... You said you've been gone a long time. How long have you been alive exactly? Or did you never actually die in Ariel's Tomb?"
Uriel set his fork aside and took a glass of water to clear his throat.
"Actually, quite a bit of time has passed. Real count... I have about four years since I escaped from Ariel's Tomb. And I can assure you that most of that time I was absurdly busy."
Nephis, who had been eating in silence while analyzing every gesture of Uriel, looked at him fixedly with her silver eyes.
"What kind of busy, Uriel?" she asked with her calm but firm tone. "Four years is a long time to remain hidden."
Uriel let out a slight laugh without humor.
"The kind of busy that takes a superhuman effort, Neph. You have to understand that I wasn't on vacation. I had to settle an entire new civilization of survivors, coordinate the logistics for millions of souls, and rebuild from scratch an entire citadel capable of housing a massive population of humans. Simple things like that."
Kai let his knife fall on the plate with a metallic click.
"A citadel for millions of humans?" Kai repeated, looking at Uriel as if he had suddenly grown a second head. "Uriel, that's absolute madness. Where did you get millions of people? But more importantly... if you were alive for four years, why the hell didn't you tell us anything? Why was Cassie the only one who knew you were breathing?"
Uriel raised his hands in a defensive gesture before pointing at the blind prophetess.
"Hey, don't blame only me! Cassie only found out this very morning. She was investigating some discrepancies in the false identities I was using to move through the real world and came across a well-elaborated trap I left in the network."
All eyes at the table immediately turned toward Cassie. The young woman, sitting elegantly in her place, took a small sip of her drink before speaking.
"Actually, it was very simple," Cassie said with an innocent voice. "I found the breach in the network and left an encrypted message saying I wanted to see another movie. He responded dryly that no. That's when I knew immediately it was Uriel. No one else would respond like that to a request of mine."
Nephis looked at Cassie, raising an eyebrow with a mixture of bewilderment and skepticism.
"Was it really that easy?" Nephis asked.
Cassie shrugged elegantly, offering an enigmatic smile.
"The truth is often hidden in the most everyday details."
Jet shook her glass, returning the conversation to the most chilling details of Uriel's initial account.
"Uriel, earlier you mentioned something that left me thinking. You spoke of a Sovereign... What exactly did you mean by that?"
Uriel's expression became a little more serious. He rested his elbows on the table and interlaced his fingers.
"I was referring to Daeron of the Twilight Sea. When I fell into the depths of Ariel's Tomb, I discovered that old monster was still alive. He had been surviving the implacable nature of corruption along with the remnants of his people for an immense amount of time. We met and, well... after certain quite complicated events, we ended up killing the guardian of the River of Time."
Kai blinked in surprise, stopping his glass halfway.
"Wait... so Daeron is still alive down there?"
Uriel slowly shook his head.
"No. I killed him."
Jet looked at him fixedly, her dark eyes full of a mixture of respect and suspicion.
"How did you kill a Sovereign, Uriel? A Supreme is not something you can simply bring down."
"By killing him, simply," Uriel responded with a casual coldness that made more than one of them get goosebumps. "I drove a sacred sword directly into his head and he died. Of course... there was a tragic reason behind all of it. He himself knew it."
"What reason?" Kai asked in a low voice.
"It was the only way to create a kingdom within his sea of souls so that his people could survive the corruption of the river," Uriel explained, his gaze lost for a second in the memories of that somber place.
Cassie, leaning slightly forward, asked with genuine academic and mystical interest:
"How did you achieve such a feat? Transferring an entire population into the sea of souls of a dead man is not something ordinary sorcery can accomplish."
"With runic sorcery," Uriel answered, looking back at the Cohort. "Daeron possessed a unique attribute that allowed him to harbor living beings within his soul. So, combining that ability with advanced runic sorcery, fragments of divine soul, and the incessant work of some thousands of enchanters, we managed to design an artificial world within his soul. We created a living Memory of divine rank capable of containing a few million human beings safely."
Effie let out a long, loud whistle, leaning back in her chair while contemplating Uriel with a mixture of pride and amazement.
"Wow, Little... You definitely keep doing crazier and more off-scale things. A world inside a soul... you're completely insane."
Uriel glanced sideways at her and returned a mocking smile.
"It wasn't anything crazy, I assure you. Though if we're talking about real madness... I think you take the gold prize for giving birth inside a Nightmare. Seriously, Effie, that really is for deranged lunatics."
Effie crossed her arms and pretended to be embarrassed, bringing a hand to her cheeks with an exaggerated dramatism that made Kai smile.
"Hey! It was an emergency," Effie refuted, though she quickly straightened up again with a triumphant air. "Besides, now I have a beautiful son and a wonderful husband. Although, looking at it... you owe your nephew quite a few late birthday presents, Little."
Uriel blinked, taken by surprise by the revelation.
"Presents? But I don't even know your son."
"Ah, but he does know you!" Effie declared with a wide smile. "I've told him tons of stories about 'Uncle Uriel,' the great hero who fought by my side. He's basically your number one fan. So you're not getting out of this easily."
Uriel scratched his chin, pondering Effie's words while a reflective smile drew on his lips.
"Well... if that's the case, I suppose I could give him something worthy. Maybe some Transcendent Echo from my collection, I have several of those stored unused. Or maybe an enchanted armor that grows with him... or a minor runic weapon..."
Uriel began to murmur to himself in a low voice, cataloging possible artifacts and treasures of divine rank that would be ridiculously dangerous to give to a small child, leaving Kai and Jet exchanging looks of absolute stupefaction at the lack of common sense of the newly returned immortal.
Once the meal ended and the empty plates were cleared, the atmosphere in the room became serious and strategic again. Jet leaned back in her seat, crossing her arms while fixing her penetrating gaze on Uriel.
"Uriel... now that you're back and that you've told us all this, there's an inevitable question we must ask. Do you plan to reveal that you're alive to the rest of the world? The great families, the domains, and the Central Command continue operating under the premise that you died in Ariel's Tomb."
Uriel shook his head immediately, without a single second of doubt.
"No," he said with a firm voice. "The world believes I'm dead or disappeared, and I prefer it to stay exactly that way."
Nephis observed him in silence, nodding slightly in agreement with the strategy, while Uriel continued speaking:
"Staying in the shadows gives me a tactical advantage that I don't plan to waste. The current geopolitical situation is a powder keg about to explode, and if the Sovereigns and the great factions find out that a 'dead' Transcendent is running around guiding millions of people, they will try to destroy me or use me before I can consolidate my forces. I'll let them believe I'm a ghost until the right moment comes to reveal myself... and when that moment comes, the entire world is going to find out."
The Cohort remained silent, processing the words of their former companion. He had changed, undoubtedly; he carried the maturity and weight of a leader who had guided a civilization through hell. But looking into his eyes, they could still see the same stubborn and loyal young man who once walked by their side.