The Broken Halo

Yara and Orvek stared at the opened abyss shell with surprised expressions.

Two objects rested inside it.

It was not the first time an abyss shell had contained more than one object, but such a thing was rare. Most shells formed around a single item, and some formed around nothing valuable at all.

Orvek slowly raised one hand, intending to remove the objects.

”Leave them.”

Simon approached the table and gestured for him not to touch anything.

Orvek paused, then lowered his hand without complaint. Yara also stepped back slightly, giving Simon enough space to inspect the shell.

One of the objects was small and dark red.

It was about the size of a walnut, and its surface was covered in strange folds that made it resemble a dried piece of flesh. A single black line curled around it like a vein, but there was no movement or energy coming from it.

The second object was larger and stranger.

It looked like a fist-sized knot made from a silvery-black cord. The cord had been tied around a dull white bead, but there were no loose ends anywhere. The entire thing looked as if somebody had tied one continuous strand into several loops without ever cutting it.

Simon focused on the dark red object first.

The black star containing UnholyRegeneration trembled violently.

The tree-like rune inside it glowed brighter than before, and several ripples moved across Simon’s Sea of Consciousness.

There was no doubt about it.

This was the object that had been attracting UnholyRegeneration from the moment he entered the pavilion.

Simon stared at it carefully, but he could not recognise it.

It resembled a dried organ, but it was too small. It also did not look like the Heart Resin he had obtained from Lucien.

Just as he wondered what it was, Lilith spoke.

[That’s a Fleshwood seed.]

Simon’s eyes flickered slightly.

[A seed?]

[Yes. A Fleshwood seed.]

Simon looked at the small dark red object again, this time with greater caution.

He remembered what Lilith had told him about Mother Fleshwood.

The first Fleshwood had secretly spread its roots across the foundations of the realm and scattered seeds everywhere. Those seeds eventually grew into new Fleshwoods that consumed Daemons, Daemon Beasts, souls, pain, memories, and despair.

Even the weaker Fleshwoods were difficult to kill.

[It’s barely giving off any aura. It seems to be a normal object. Why?] Simon asked.

[It is in hibernation.] Lilith replied. [The abyss shell isolated it from demonic energy and anything else it could feed on. It has most likely been asleep for hundreds or thousands of years.]

[How long will it take to wake up now that the shell is open? Does it need any special condition?]

[Nothing complicated. It only needs enough demonic energy to awaken. If you leave it alone, it might take a year or two. If you directly feed it your demonic energy, it could wake much faster.]

Simon remained silent.

Lilith’s tone became slightly colder.

[Don’t have any foolish thoughts and don’t attempt to awaken it. Once it wakes, it’ll want to be planted as soon as possible cause it’s hungry. And it might choose you cause it has been fed your demonic energy.]

[I know.]

Simon decided to end the conversation there.

Only a few seconds had passed, and neither Yara nor Orvek noticed anything strange. They simply assumed he was carefully inspecting an unknown object.

Simon decided that he would question Lilith properly after leaving the pavilion.

He wanted to know whether the seed could be controlled, whether it belonged to the Fleshwood in the Forest of the Black Witch, and what exactly would happen if it awakened.

For now, he shifted his attention to the second object.

The moment he looked at the silvery-black knot properly, he could feel space around it become... strange.

It was faint, but unmistakable.

Space around the dull white bead was folded in several layers. Each knot in the cord held one layer in place, preventing the spatial energy from dispersing.

Simon raised a brow the more he looked at it, then his eyes flashed with the light of recognition.

’Ohh. No wonder it looked familiar.’

In his past life, a group of demons had used a similar item to escape from him after he surrounded them. The knots had unravelled in an instant, creating a spatial passage that transported them across an extremely long distance.

It was a long-distance teleportation device.

Simon had never owned one, but he had studied the remains of one after killing another demon who carried it.

The demons of his time called it a Wayfarer’s Knot.

It was a single-use item, and unlike an ordinary teleportation array, it did not require the user to draw runes or prepare a formation. The destination had already been fixed when the knot was created.

All the user had to do was provide their demonic energy and loosen one of the knots.

Simon looked at Yara and Orvek with a slightly curious expression.

He pointed at the knot.

”Do either of you know what this is?”

Yara studied the object, then shook her head.

”I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Orvek leaned closer without touching it. His gaze moved across the cord and the white bead for several seconds.

”Neither have I. It does not resemble an artifact made by any craftsman I know.”

Simon could see that both of them were telling the truth.

Their ignorance surprised him slightly.

Wayfarer’s Knots had been rare during his generation, but they had existed. If Yara and Orvek did not recognise one, then the method of creating them had most likely been lost or abandoned in the current demon realm.

That made the object even more valuable.

However, its value was not Simon’s main concern.

The Fleshwood seed and the Wayfarer’s Knot had been sealed inside the same abyss shell.

That could not be a coincidence.

Simon examined the knot again.

He could feel the folded space inside it, but he could not determine its destination without activating it. Even his spatial affinity could only tell him that the passage remained intact.

The real question was where it would send him.

The abyss shell had been found beside a collapsed ruin in the Silent Trench. It had remained beneath the Dreadfall Sea for hundreds of years, possibly a thousand.

Yet a Fleshwood seed and a long-distance teleportation device had somehow ended up inside it together.

A memory appeared in Simon’s mind.

Lucien.

The Frostborn prodigy had told him about the Forest of the Black Witch, a strange forest in the south filled with withered trees, acidic air, dead faces, and a massive hibernating Fleshwood.

Lucien had also said that there was a teleportation array on one of the Fleshwood’s branches.

His people had sacrificed themselves so he could use that array and escape from Caesar.

Simon stared at the Wayfarer’s Knot with narrowed sky-blue eyes.

’Could this thing lead to the Forest of the Black Witch?’