The Broken Halo

Simon did not know this, but if he had devoured the last skill he saw, it would not have ended well for him.

The skill was the reason why Lilith said that the Fleshwood had to die for him to safely consume the heart resin.

If he devoured the chaos rune, he would have developed a connection with the Fleshwood Lucien encountered or even worse... He would have developed a connection with an entity that was more terrifying than the Fleshwood.

And this is even with the protection of his Seven Stars Blessing.

Fortunately for him, he wasn’t greedy and foolish enough to commit such a mistake.

After Simon obtained the three skills he wanted, he entered his sea of consciousness and immediately looked at the seven stars floating above his sea of consciousness.

He looked at a particular star, and his eyes could not help but narrow when he saw what was happening inside it.

He saw the three chaos runes flying haphazardly in the star, and he knew that he had to take control of the three chaos runes and fuse them to form a single skill or he would have to separate them and place them in different stars.

But he obviously would not do such a thing.

His figure vanished, then he reappeared close to the chaotic star.

He placed his hands on it and closed his eyes.

This was not his first time doing such a thing.

If he wanted to fuse two skills or three skills, such a scenario would still occur.

And fortunately for him, to fuse two skills or more does not require him to have a deep understanding of runes or the runes in particular.

If that was the requirement, he would not have been able to fuse some of his skills in his past life.

Learning order runes was just not for him.

To fuse two or more skills that were in his Seven Stars Blessing required just three things.

His mental energy.

His Will.

And compatibility.

For two or more skills to be fused, they had to be compatible and they had to have a clear advancement path.

If he tried to fuse two incompatible skills like Fearless and Devour for example, the chances of failure was 99.99999%.

And if he failed, he would lose both skills and would also suffer serious injuries to his mind, soul, and body.

In his past life, there was a time he was arrogant, foolish, and extremely confident in himself because he was always winning and everything was going right for him.

He tried fusing a fire elemental skill and an ice elemental skill, and it was due to pure luck that he survived.

Whenever one of the seven stars in his sea of consciousness obtains a skill, the skill changes every part of his body... including his mind, soul, and body.

The changes might be minute, but there would always be changes in his body.

If he failed in the fusion of two or more skills, the skills would get destroyed, and his mind, soul, and body would experience serious damages as a result.

But in the case of the three regeneration skills of the Fleshwood, Simon was not bothered about compatibility in the slightest.

They all came from the same source, and they all had the same function, so he was not bothered about it in the slightest.

What he was slightly bothered about were the last two requirements, especially his Will.

Did he have enough mental energy to fuse these three powerful skills?

And was his Will strong enough to force these three skills into fusion?

He had no idea how powerful the Fleshwood Lucien encountered was, but he had a feeling that it was not weak.

And he was more worried about the true origin of the three regeneration skills... The First Fleshwood.

At the end of the day, the true origin of the three skills is the First Fleshwood, and he could not imagine his Will being able to subdue or force the Will of such a terrifying entity.

’Gotta give it a try at least.’

Simon’s exhaled deeply, then he started the fusion process.

Whoosh!

Splash!

Crash!

Waves formed on the surface of his sea of consciousness, and they rose and fell multiple times before a massive stream of mental energy flew toward Simon and the star.

BOOM!

The star trembled violently as Simon’s mental energy crashed onto the surface of the black star.

Simon remained focused throughout the process, then he guided his mental energy into the star then toward the three chaotic runes.

The moment he did this, he felt a resistance coming from the chaos runes, but he continued.

He didn’t stop.

The chaos runes vibrated intensely and they tried to prevent his mental energy from reaching them, but he had a lot of mental energy so he just kept on pouring his mental energy into the star and the chaos runes.

By the time the chaos runes were saturated with his mental energy, he moved the three chaos runes toward one another in order for them to fuse.

At first he felt the three chaos runes struggle, but because he had saturated the runes with his mental energy, their struggle was not as much as it should be.

’Practice makes perfect after all.’

If not for the experience he had, he would not have the knowledge that saturating the runes would make them easier to control.

’This is easier than I expected.’

The three chaos runes came together, then they started fusing.

The fusion process continued smoothly for several seconds, causing Simon’s brows to gradually relax.

The resistance coming from the three chaos runes became weaker and weaker as they slowly merged together.

Ten percent.

Twenty percent.

Thirty percent.

Everything was going according to his expectations.

Then...

The moment the fusion crossed the halfway mark, Simon’s expression suddenly changed.

The fusion process became much faster, almost like the three chaos runes suddenly realized that they were meant to be together and not apart in the first place.

A few seconds later...

Hundred percent.

The three chaos runes successfully fused into a single rune, and this rune looked like a tree.

’... That’s surprising.’

Just as Simon had this thought, his expression changed when the star started emitting a dark light.

”Shit. The baptism.”

A thick ray of black light suddenly descended on Simon from the black star.