The battlefield had fallen silent.
Only the sound of the wind brushing against the ice remained, the blue embers of the ancestral pyre crackling softly, and the eternal cold sigh emanating from Uriel's sleeping body. The serpents had vanished like a poorly digested memory, and the world seemed suspended, as if waiting for an answer that refused to come.
Eskandor looked around, his eyes sharp. There was something unsettling about that prolonged silence. He crossed his muscular arms over his chest and approached Ainz, who was still observing the magical ashes, lost in thought.
"Do you think... someone did that?" Eskandor asked in a low, cautious voice, as if afraid of waking the world itself with poorly chosen words.
Ainz didn't reply right away. His skeletal fingers tapped lightly on the hilt of the black sword now sheathed on his back. His eyeless sockets glowed faintly, unreadable.
"Perhaps," he finally said. "But then again... perhaps not."
"What do you mean?" Eskandor raised an eyebrow.
"It was as if... the earth itself had spat out those serpents. There were no traces of known magic, no arcane signature, not even a hint of will. And yet, they were real. If they were summoned, then whoever brought them forth erased their presence like a ghost wiping away its own footprints." Ainz turned to him. "Or perhaps Uriel's slumber is influencing more than we realized."
Eskandor nodded but didn't look convinced. Both remained there, silent, observing. Time passed strangely in the Realm of the Dead. There was no sun to mark the day, no stars to guide the night. Only that eternal gray hue in the sky and a cold that deepened by the hour.
And so the hours passed.
Motionless hours, without signs of life or threat. The giants returned to rest, forming a protective circle around Uriel, yet remained alert, their eyes glowing beneath the icy mantle. Ainz stayed motionless like a statue — his inhuman patience blending into the landscape. Eskandor, though naturally restless, strangely found serenity in that waiting.
Because there... there he felt at home.
As time passed, he noticed a subtle change: the snow, once sporadic and light, now fell heavier, more constant. The ice had expanded, advancing over the dark stones of the terrain as if trying to claim the whole world for itself.
It was beautiful. And to Eskandor, comforting.
He felt the cold fusing with his skin like an old embrace. Half dragon, yes, but also half frost giant. And that world, blanketed in silent whiteness, whispered to his soul like a lullaby.
He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. The air was biting, yes, but it carried memories he never had — as if the cold awakened ancestral memories slumbering in his bloodline.
"This place... is good," he said, without opening his eyes. "The cold doesn't bother me. It's like... I belong to it."
Ainz turned to him.
"That's natural. Half of your essence is formed of ice. And not ordinary ice... the blood of giants carries the memory of the first cold. It's no surprise you feel at ease."
Eskandor opened his eyes and gave a half-smile.
"I never thought I'd find peace here... in the Realm of the Dead."
"Death takes many forms. Some are violent. Others... are merely rest." Ainz turned again toward Uriel. "And he still sleeps."
The creature's colossal body hadn't moved even once in the past hours. The frozen vapor continued to rise from his white skin, and his long tail was partially buried beneath the snow, piling layer after layer.
Eskandor approached slowly, his eyes fixed on the immense head of the dragon. The scales shimmered with a bluish hue, almost translucent. It was hard to look at Uriel without feeling small. Even Eskandor, who was not easily intimidated, felt he stood before something... divine.
"He looks like a mountain," he commented.
"A mountain that breathes," Ainz replied.
Silence stretched on for another hour. No new tremors, no enemies. Only the cold... and the falling snow.
"It's too quiet," Eskandor said, breaking the silence. "Do you think... it's over?"
"I no longer feel distortions in the ground," Ainz replied, watching the crystals of ice forming on his mantle. "No hidden presence. No magical traces. It seems the attack was... isolated."
"Or a warning," Eskandor added.
Ainz turned and slowly nodded.
"Even so... I'm curious. If it was a being... who was it? If it was the world... what made it react? This place does not awaken by accident."
They both looked back at the dragon.
And then, something changed.
The frozen vapor ceased for a moment. A pause. An even deeper silence fell upon the field. Even the giants froze in place, as if they had sensed the same thing.
The snow stopped falling.
And then... a sound.
Low. Deep. Like the groaning of a cavern opening after millennia. The sound came from within Uriel.
The dragon's left eye — the only one not covered by scales or ice — began to move, slowly, as if it had to push through ages of sleep. The eyelids opened with effort, revealing something hidden for eternity.
A blue pupil, deep, shining like a full moon on a cloudless night.
The light emanating from that eye wasn't just beautiful — it was immense. Eskandor instinctively stepped back, not out of fear, but reverence. Ainz didn't move, yet his aura seemed to intensify for a brief moment.
The eye watched them. It did not blink. It did not tremble. It simply observed.
As if it recognized them both.
As if... it judged them.
"He... woke up," Eskandor whispered, his voice barely audible.
Ainz nodded, slowly.
"Yes. Master has opened his eyes."
The battle from earlier, the remains of serpents, the frost giants — all seemed insignificant before that single open eye. As if the entire world was contained within that blue pupil, and time itself was just one of the many things it understood, but did not respect.
The snow began to fall again. Slower now. As if it, too, had fallen silent to witness Uriel's awakening.
And then, finally, the dragon took a deeper breath.
The cold that escaped his nostrils blanketed half the field in pure frost, freezing even the sound itself. The giants knelt. Ainz stood firm. Eskandor, eyes wide, felt something deep within his blood resonate — like a calling.
Uriel... had awakened.
And nothing would ever be the same.