The Broken Halo

A dark spatial crack suddenly appeared in the sky above a quiet forest clearing.

The crack was unstable.

Black lines spread from it like cracks on a broken mirror, and the slave around it twisted violently for a few seconds before several figures were thrown out of it.

Sonya came out first.

She was carrying Simon in her arms. The sight was strange because Simon was more than twice her height and size, but she was carrying him effortlessly like he was a baby.

However, the moment she appeared out of the spatial crack, her expression changed.

She couldn’t feel the solid earth beneath her feet, making her to realize that they were in the air.

’A few dozen meters above the ground?’ Sonya calculated using her high affinity with the earth to guess the distance between her and the earth.

Below them was a quiet forest clearing, and not too far away from the clearing was a river that flowed calmly through the trees. The sound of flowing water entered Sonya’s ears, but she had no time to appreciate it.

The moment she started falling, she gritted her teeth and stretched out her hand, and the earth below responded.

The ground trembled slightly, then several thick pillars of earth rose from the clearing and moved upward like arms trying to catch her.

Sonya twisted her body midair while holding Simon close to her chest.

She stepped on one of the rising earth pillars, but because of her injured state and the suddenness of their fall, she could not land properly.

Bang!

The earth pillar cracked beneath her feet, and she fell again.

However, the pillar slowed her fall.

She stepped on another pillar, then another, and then another.

By the time she finally reached the ground, she staggered backward and almost fell on one knee.

Simon grunted softly in her arms.

The fall had not harmed him much, but for his current body, even a small shake felt like somebody was stabbing heated iron into his bones.

Behind them, Akaza fell out of the spatial crack, and his reaction was much simpler.

He cursed.

”Fuck!”

His demonic energy erupted around his body, and the tattoos on his body flashed faintly beneath his torn clothes.

He twisted in the air like a beast, then he placed his fingers into the sides of one of Sonya’s pillars.

His demonic energy surged around his fingers as he slid down the pillar while leaving ten deep marks on the pillar.

The pillar crumbled after a few seconds because of his weight and because the pillars were not build to be sturdy.

Then Akaza jumped to another pillar, then to another, then he crashed on the ground, rolled several times, and slammed into a tree.

Bang!

The tree cracked.

Akaza groaned and slowly raised his head.

”That was not a good escape route.”

He looked around, then he released a soft sigh of relief.

”At least we didn’t end up falling into the mouth of a volcano or on top of a Calamity Beast or Abyssal Beast.”

A second after Akaza said these words, Merath also emerged from the spatial crack.

She fell from the sky with one arm missing, her white hair fluttering wildly behind her, and her eyes filled with hatred and madness.

A bloody aura erupted around her body, and it wrapped around her like a crimson cloak. Her descent slowed slightly, then she stepped on the air once and landed on the ground with a loud thud.

The spatial crack closed above them, and then, silence returned to the forest.

For a few seconds, nobody spoke.

The sound of the river was calm.

The wind was soft.

The leaves rustled gently.

Everything was peaceful.

Maybe even too peaceful in fact.

After everything that had happened in Blackwind Valley, the quietness and peace of the forest felt almost unreal.

Simon lay in Sonya”s arms with his eyes half-open.

The state of his body had gotten worse after the teleportation.

Teleporting was not just disappearing from one place and appearing in another with ease. Teleporting placed a certain level of stress on one’s body, and because Simon was already badly injured before, the spatial pressure on his body made his injuries worse.

Dark golden cracks could still be seen on his skin, especially around his neck, hands, chest, and abdomen.

A few of them had faded slightly, but they had not disappeared.

Blood stained his lips, his clothes, his hair, and even the Chaos Wraps around his arms.

His demonic pathways were ruined.

His body was cracked.

His muscles were torn.

His bones felt as though they had been crushed and pieces back together wrongly.

If not for Devour continuously absorbing the demonic energy in the air and Unholy Regeneration using that demonic energy to heal him, Simon was certain that he would either be dead or close to it.

But even with both abilities working together, his current condition was still extended bad.

He could not move without experiencing severe pain.

His mind felt sluggish too because a rather high quantity of his mental energy and soul energy was consumed after Lilith used the Chaos Wraps to create a spatial crack for them to escape.

Even blinking felt exhausting at this point, yet his eyes remained cold and wary.

He was too vulnerable for his liking in his current state, and even though he could not sense any nearby threat around them, he was still slightly wary of Sonya, Akaza, and obviously, Merath.

Sonya looked down at him, and her lips parted slightly.

”Are you still alive, little kitty?”

Simon slowly looked at her, then he answered with a low and rough voice.

”Fortunately.”

Sonya stared at him for a second, then a small smile appeared on her lips. But before she could speak again, her expression suddenly changed.

A powerful bloody aura erupted beside them, then Merath appeared in front of Sonya like a ghost.

Sonya’s pupils constricted.

She tried to move, but Merath was faster.

Merath grabbed Simon by the neck with her remaining hand and pulled him out of Sonya’s arms.

Sonya’s eyes widened.

”Merath!”