The Broken Halo

Chapter 994 - 993: The First Daemon

[Lilith, what was waiting beyond the Uruqath? What could my horned bloodline have become if I’d reached it?]

She didn’t answer.

Simon waited. Footsteps passed his door and faded along the passage. He shifted on the bed, but the silence in his mind continued.

[Lilith?]

[The Uruqath is the final natural evolution of the horned demons.]

His brows drew together.

[Then why did the path continue? I felt something farther ahead. My blood was responding to it.]

[I believe you.]

[And I could have evolved again if I reached it. I wasn’t imagining that.]

[What you sensed wasn’t another horned Daemon.]

Simon stopped arguing.

Lilith let out a soft sigh.

[I’m not surprised you perceived it. Most don’t, but after everything you’ve done, I should have expected you would.]

[Perceived what?]

[What reached you was only a fraction of its presence. The origin of demons and Daemons...The Primordial Daemon.]

Simon’s lips parted.

[What?]

[Some of the most talented descendants reach the final form of their ancestry and discover that there is something beyond it. It happened to others in my time. But not every Daemon can sense it, even after reaching that point.]

[What decides whether they can?]

Lilith’s answer came more slowly.

[Whether they have a chance of becoming the Primordial Daemon themselves.]

Simon stared at the wall opposite him.

[However small that chance might be,] she added solemnly. [If you sensed it, Blackmoon, then the possibility exists for you.]

He looked down at his hands.

He had asked about another bloodline. A stronger ancestor, perhaps, with abilities that would make the Uruqath seem as limited as his original one-horned form.

The origin of every Daemon was something else entirely.

Could he actually become that?

What would happen to his two bloodlines? Would he remain himself?

What or who was the Primordial Daemon?

How was strong was the Primordial Daemon?

Questions crowded his thoughts, but Lilith gave him no encouragement to voice them. She was occupied with a detail she just came to realize.

When he sensed that presence, he had not possessed a Seed of Sin.

Not one.

She knew when his seeds had begun forming. All four he possessed now had come afterward.

In her era, the accepted requirement to sense the Primordial Daemon had been at least one Seed of Sin. A Daemon either formed it before attempting the evolution or birthed it during the process. Those who perceived the Primordial Daemon had met that condition.

Simon hadn’t.

His talent alone didn’t surprise her anymore. Born in her time, he would have stood among the rising stars of that age. She had seen enough of him to admit that with certainty.

But this wasn’t merely a talented descendant reaching farther than others.

She had possessed the Seed of Pride when she made her own attempt. Even then, she had failed.

Lilith remembered the certainty she had carried onto the path. The humiliation of returning without ever seeing what had stopped her.

She kept those thoughts to herself.

[Who was the Primordial Daemon?] Simon asked at last.

[The first Daemon. The being from which all our bloodlines originated.]

[Including Daemon beasts?]

[Yes. The Uruqath, the Byakkos, True Dragons. All their bloodlines came from the Primordial Daemon.]

Simon glanced toward the window. Beyond it lay cities built on Veyra’s remains.

That enormous body, his own horned lineage, the tiger inside his blood... all traced back to one being.

What sort of concept was this?

[What else do you know about it?]

[Less than you would like.]

[You lived among beings like Veyra and your father. Surely someone knew more.]

[Perhaps they did. I didn’t ask enough questions.]

The admission surprised him.

Lilith continued before he could speak.

[I was young and arrogant. I thought my talent would take me wherever I wanted. I didn’t care much for history and many other things when I was young. But now...]

Simon raised a brow.

[And now?]

[Now there are plenty of things I wish I’d bothered to learn.]

Simon rubbed his jaw. He understood that better than he wanted to.

[But I eventually knew enough to attempt evolving my bloodline,] Lilith added.

His hand stopped.

[You tried to become the Primordial Daemon?]

[Yes. Or to be more exact, my parents told me to make an attempt to become the Primordial Daemon.]

[What happened when you fought it?]

Lilith laughed.

It was a short sound, without much amusement.

[What fight?]

[You didn’t fight?]

[I didn’t even see it. The moment I tried to approach, its presence forced me off the path. I found myself back in my body before I understood what had happened.]

Simon sat straighter.

[You couldn’t see even an outline of the Primordial Daemon?]

[Nothing. I had formed the Seed of Pride by then. I went there quite certain that I would manage more than those who had failed before me.]

Her voice grew dry.

[I didn’t.]

Simon tried to picture it. Lilith approaching with the confidence she displayed even now, then being thrown back without ever reaching an opponent.

He couldn’t remember another occasion when she had described herself as so helpless.

[None of the Daemons who attempted that evolution ever saw the Primordial Daemon,] she continued. [And none succeeded in becoming it.]

[Then how is anyone supposed to do it?]

[That is the question many Daemons kept asking.]

Simon furrowed his brows.

[There must have been some idea. Someone must have thought of something.]

[Many believed all seven Seeds of Sin were necessary. But it was never confirmed. We don’t know whether possessing them would be enough.]

Simon lowered his gaze toward his chest.

Four seeds rested within his Daemon Heart.

Lilith spoke before he could ask.

[And no, your four aren’t enough.]

He frowned.

[How can you be certain if nobody succeeded?]

[Because you’re far too weak. You could barely endure the Uruqath ancestor. Do you think a few seeds would make your body and soul ready for something vastly beyond it?]

He remembered the skull that nearly shattered outside the gate. Lilith holding the ritual together while he pushed farther than its materials could bear.

His excitement cooled.

[You aren’t the first Daemon to possess four Seeds of Sin,] she continued. [However, I must admit that you’re the first to have four while being only a Greater Demon. That is extraordinary, but the others were much stronger than you.]

[And they failed too.]

[Yes.]

Simon remained quiet for a while.

He had no intention of making another attempt immediately. Still, he had hoped four seeds might give him more than a distant possibility.

[Then the path doesn’t truly end with any individual race.]

[No. The Bloodline Origin Gate and Path aren’t merely there to help a descendant recover an Uruqath bloodline or another ancient ancestry.]

Lilith paused.

[Their true purpose is to reach the origin of all Daemon bloodlines. The Primordial Daemon.]

Simon thought back to the road continuing past the last ancestor he had killed. He hadn’t felt it leading him away from his bloodline. Somehow, what waited farther ahead belonged to it too.

[You don’t know who created the path, but you know where it ultimately leads.]

[Well, many believe that it’s the Primordial Daemon that created the Bloodline Origin Gate and Bloodline Origin Path, but nobody knows for sure.]

He considered asking whether reaching that origin would erase the differences between his bloodlines. But another question troubled him more.

[What happened to the Primordial Daemon?]

[I don’t know.]

[Is it dead?]

[I don’t know that either.]

[You told me the ancestors on the path were dead.]

[The spirits you encountered were. I can’t tell you what lies behind that final presence. Nobody reached it to find out.]

Simon looked toward the fire beyond his window.

[If the Primordial Daemon is alive, why would it allow its descendants to end up like this? Hiding on a corpse, hunted whenever they try to recover what they used to be.]

Lilith gave no immediate answer.

[And you called The One the strongest being in existence. Is He stronger than the Primordial Daemon?]

[I don’t know how they compare. Records of the Primordial Daemon were scarce even in my time. Finding a reliable account of its strength was another matter.]

[But there were accounts of what happened to it?]

[Only that it disappeared. The Primordial Daemon and several other ancient Daemons vanished one day. That’s what I heard.]

[Together?]

[They were gone. I don’t know whether they left together, where they went, or what happened afterward.]

Simon pressed his lips together.

A single missing being might have died somewhere without anyone finding its remains. Several disappearing raised other possibilities.

Had they left for another place? Had something forced them to go?

The One came to mind immediately, but Simon made himself stop there. He knew too little to turn suspicion into an answer.

Even their disappearance didn’t tell him whether they were dead. The presence on the path might be a remnant, or something neither he nor Lilith understood.

He released a long breath.

’I was truly a frog at the bottom of a well.’

In his first life, reaching the gods had seemed like the greatest height he could aspire to. After his reincarnation, he had measured his progress against that same goal for far too long.

Now there was The One. Veyra, who could have killed gods without exhausting herself. And the Primordial Daemon, whose presence had defeated Lilith before she could see it.

He had lived twice and hadn’t even known enough to judge how much remained beyond him.

Simon leaned back against the headboard. He needed a clearer understanding of the power he already possessed before he started planning how to reach the source of every bloodline.

The Uruqath was the final form of his horned ancestry. His Nine-tailed Byakko was most likely the same. Yet he knew little about how either compared with the other Daemon races.

He gathered his thoughts and addressed Lilith again.

[Is there a ranking for Daemon bloodlines?]