The Broken Halo

Simon could feel his back getting drenched in sweat as he barely dodged the ice needles.

If he had not moved in that split second, his head would have been filled with holes.

Simon felt a sharp pain on his cheek, and he didn’t have to touch it to know that he had been cut… severally.

’Cold.’

After the sharp pain, what he felt was a chill on his cheek.

He circulated his demonic energy toward the injuries on his cheek.

Then he tightened his grip on the chaos blade and was about to flood the insides of the puppet with as much chaos flame as he could, but the ice puppet attacked.

Its arm that was shooting out the ice needles suddenly turned to a blade.

Simon quickly dodged the blade, and a massive arc of icy blue demonic energy flew behind Simon.

Bang!

The wall was split in two, then it froze.

Several objects around the wall and the floor suffered the same fate.

Simon’s gaze was cold and calculating, and he saw an opening to attack.

The ice puppet was at the end of the day… a puppet.

It could not move as fluidly as an actual living being, and it could also not think like an actual living being.

Without hesitation, Simon swung the chaos blade at the puppet’s legs, fully intending on cutting them in two.

The chaos flames on the blade flared to life… However…

Simon’s instincts screamed at him once again, and he quickly placed the chaos above him.

Clang!

Bang!

Crack!

“Urghh!”

Simon groaned and coughed out a mouthful of blood after blocking the downward sword strike of the ice puppet.

The ground beneath him caved in and shattered, and Simon could feel his internal organs nearly bursting despite him using his demonic energy to protect them.

He could feel his bones nearly having fractures from the force of the ice puppet’s attack.

The ice puppet had merely swung his sword arm, but Simon felt like he had stopped a mountain from crushing him.

That was the strength of a Greater Demon.

The ice puppet raised its ice sword arm again.

Before he could swing it down, Simon roared and sent a palm strike at the puppet.

There was no contact between his palm and the puppet’s body, but a chaos rune formed in front of Simon’s hand.

The formation of the chaos rune was instant, and a second later, the chaos rune glowed and a powerful wind shot out of the chaos rune and struck the puppet.

Bang!

The puppet flew because of the force of the wind and because of how sudden it was, but it calmly landed on its feet after spinning in the air a few times.

Simon suddenly appeared in front of it with the chaos blade behind him, then he struck it.

Clang!

Clang!

Clang!

Clang!

Clang!

Clang!

The chaos blade in his hands moved so fast that only black flaming lines could be seen after each strike.

The sound of metal hitting metal echoed across the auction hall along with the sound of chairs getting cut and shattered into pieces, the ground shattering with every step Simon and the puppet took, and the walls having sword cuts all around it.

This was the first time Simon was using the sword in a battle of this caliber, and this was the first time he was swinging a sword this much.

He swung and swung and swung and swung.

And everytime he swung the sword, it was always better than the previous swing.

If a swordmaster saw this, they would think that he was improving at a frightening pace.

But no.

That was far from the truth.

He was only regaining his past skills.

He was rusty.

Very rusty.

But he was slowly getting back his sword skills.

Everytime he swung the sword, he would be irritated at the rubbish he did.

Every step he took was also filled with errors for him.

So, he improved and got better.

However…

It was not enough.

Not nearly enough.

It might seem like he was overwhelming the ice puppet and pushing it back, but that was far from the truth.

The ice puppet had the power of a Superior Greater Demon. It might not be as strong as an actual Superior Greater Demon, but it was still a Greater Demon.

Despite the speed of Simon’s sword attacks, it was able to block many of them.

If Simon swung ten times in three seconds, it’d block eight and the last two were non-lethal.

The ice demon was filled with sword cuts, but none of them were lethal aside from the deep cut on its shoulder.

And even that was healing with time.

Eventually, the ice puppet counterattacked.

It distanced itself from Simon, and Simon followed.

He didn’t want to give it the time or space to attack.

But, he could not reach the ice puppet on time.

Its speed was greater than his.

The ice puppet calmly raised its hand, and dozens of ice spears formed in the air above it.

Simon quickly came to a stop, and his head instantly snapped in the direction of the unconscious Lucien’s.

Despite their battle, both he and the ice puppet made sure to not unleash any attack in Lucien’s direction.

Simon did it because he wanted information from the child.

The puppet did it for obvious reasons.

But Simon suddenly stretched out his hand and the chaos wraps extended at a fast speed.

Through Simon’s control, they curled around Lucien and Simon pulled.

The ice puppet was about to send the ice spears at Simon, but the moment it saw Lucien flying toward Simon, it stopped.

Simon held Lucien in front of him and used him as a shield.

The chaos wraps wrapped themselves tightly around Lucien, then Simon held him by the scruff of his clothes.

What happened next was pure and utter silence.

The ice puppet stood with the ice spears floating in the air above it.

And Simon stood, using the precious prodigy of House Mercer as a shield.

None moved or made a sound… until Simon broke that silence.

He spoke to his Grave Mark.

“Vexa. I’m done. I’ve killed Lucien Mercer.”

“Mission accomplished.”