The Broken Halo

Chapter 995 - 994: Royal Bloodlines

[There is,] Lilith replied. [The same ranking the demons use now.]

Simon raised an eyebrow.

[Lesser, Common, Noble, and Royal?]

[Yes. They kept the old bloodline ranking system.]

He had expected something unfamiliar after everything she had told him about the Primordial Daemon. Instead, she was giving him terms he’d learned while living among the weakest demons.

[Then where did the ancestors I encountered belong?]

[The first two Daemons you reached had Lesser bloodlines.]

Simon recalled the ivory-skinned figure, its horns curving beside its jaw. He had thought reaching it would finish the evolution. Then the path had brought him to another wingless ancestor, with lights beneath its dark skin and branching horns.

Both had made him struggle to remain standing.

[Those two only had Lesser Bloodlines?]

[Among Daemons, yes. The Ithravel had a Common bloodline. The Otheryn was Noble, and the Uruqath which you currently have is Royal Bloodline.]

Simon looked down at his hands. He remembered breaking his companion’s horn to drive it into the Ithravel’s mouth. He’d had to let its fist enter his shoulder just to hold it close enough.

[The Ithravel nearly beat me to death.]

[You were weaker than it,] Lilith said. [Calling its bloodline Common wouldn’t have helped you block the punch.]

He gave a reluctant chuckle.

[No. I suppose it wouldn’t.]

His attention returned to the Otheryn. Six eyes, eight horns, and a confidence that had disappeared when it recognised Devour.

He’d thought its bloodline was extraordinary while it was reshaping his body, not knowing that there had been an entire category above it.

[And the sub-grades?] Simon asked. [Minor, Greater, Superior, Supreme. Have those stayed the same too?]

[Yes. Minor Grade, Greater Grade, Superior Grade, and Supreme Grade measure the purity of the bloodline within its category.]

[So two Uruqath can both have Royal bloodlines but different purity.]

[Exactly. Knowing the race tells you which bloodline you’re dealing with. It doesn’t tell you how pure that individual’s blood is.]

Simon touched one of his horns, considering the distinction. He was also curious about his own bloodline purity.

[How did you measure it?]

[With devices and testing arrays. We had several methods. Some examined a sample of blood. Others tested the bloodline’s response within an array. We didn’t simply count horns and guess.]

[That would have been difficult with mine. The Otheryn had twice as many.]

[And you had one when we began. You should know better than most how little counting the horns would tell you.]

He lowered his hand with a faint smile.

The familiar rankings had seemed simple until she placed those ancestors within them. He understood why the names of each rank had survived, but hearing them applied to Daemons gave him a different sense of their scale.

[What about the Byakko? Where did its one-tailed form belong?]

[Lesser Daemon bloodline.]

Simon leaned back against the headboard.

[And the other ranks?]

[Three tails mark a Common bloodline. Six tails, Noble. Nine tails, Royal. Yours has reached the Royal category.]

He pictured the tiger’s single tail dividing, one after another emerging while the Uruqath watched.

[Then it passed through Common and Noble during the same evolution.]

[Because you became an Uruqath. Your horned bloodline reached Royal, and the Byakko refused to remain beneath it.]

[It could barely lift its head at first.]

[Yet it kept trying. You supplied the power and allowed it to continue. The Uruqath’s pressure drove it to awaken enough of its ancestry to stand against another Royal bloodline.]

Simon remembered the tiger’s shoulders cracking. It had wanted to rise even when the effort was tearing through his own flesh.

He had understood its refusal without knowing how far it needed to go.

[So if I’d stopped at the Otheryn...]

[You wouldn’t have placed it under the same pressure. Don’t assume it would have reached nine tails regardless of what you did.]

Simon glanced toward the window.

Lilith had told him to return before he reached the Uruqath. The skull had already begun failing. At the time, continuing had meant gambling everything he’d gained for something he couldn’t properly judge.

He hadn’t known he was choosing an opportunity for both bloodlines.

The decision had nearly killed him, but he was glad he hadn’t settled for the Otheryn.

Two Royal Daemon bloodlines.

His horned ancestry had reached its highest natural form, and the Byakko had risen to match it. Both now offered him far more than he had learned to use.

He had opened the Uruqath’s third eye and produced a manifestation that nearly emptied his energy reserves. The Byakko’s nine tails had disturbed space inside his bloodline world, yet he hardly understood what else they could do.

There was plenty for him to discover.

[Don’t look so pleased,] Lilith said. [I remember who had to keep that skull together.]

[I haven’t forgotten.]

[You were rather determined to make the task impossible.]

[But we succeeded.]

[Yes. We did.]

Simon smiled at the reluctant admission. Then he shifted on the bed, directing his attention toward the steady beat beneath his ribs.

[What about cultivation? Do Daemons follow the same stages as demons?]

[The names and processes are the same. Your heart doesn’t need an entirely different cultivation method because you’ve recovered a Daemon bloodline.]

[Flickering, Burning, Infernal, Forged, Abyssal, and Cataclysm?]

[Yes. Those stages existed in our time. Demons inherited the cultivation methods along with the names.]

Simon nodded.

He remembered keeping his heart’s chambers open while the flesh changed, trying to join each section without stopping the next heartbeat.

At least that work hadn’t been wasted on a method unsuitable for his new body.

[Then what makes the greatest difference between a demon and a Daemon as they advance? Apart from the bloodlines themselves.]

[The Seeds of Sin.]

Simon straightened.

[A demon cannot possess a Seed of Sin,] Lilith continued. [They are meant for Daemons. There are other differences between the two, but the seeds are the most important.]

He lowered his eyes toward his chest. Four seeds rested inside the heart he had forged.

[So becoming a Daemon made it possible for me to form them.]

[Yes.]

[But a Daemon without a seed is a Daemon regardless.]

[Of course. Recovering your bloodline and forming a seed aren’t the same thing. You already know that from your own evolution.]

Simon nodded slowly. The transformation had happened first. Everything that followed had come so quickly that he’d barely had time to examine the changes before relying on them to survive.

Now he finally had someone to explain them.

[That brings me to my next question.]

Lilith made a weary sound.

[Tell me about the Seeds of Sin.]

[Blackmoon, I’m exhausted,] she complained. [You were supposed to choose your questions, not ask everything you’ve ever wondered about.]