The Broken Halo

BOOM!

Dark fragments exploded inside the star.

The entire Sea of Consciousness shook, and waves rose across the black sea. The other six stars released faint lights, but none of them moved from their positions.

Simon remained before the black star even as the rune exploded.

No shockwave reached him because of the black star, but he felt the effect of the explosion.

The fragments of the runes did not disappear.

They rotated around one another, faster and faster, until they became a dark storm contained within the star.

Simon’s physical body reacted at the same time.

Inside his room, his fingers clenched around the arm of the chair.

His Demon Heart released a heavy beat.

Thump!

Shadow energy flowed through his demonic pathways without him consciously summoning it. It travelled into his neck, entered his head, and gathered around his eyes.

A cold pain spread across his body and a pressure began rising in his skull causing him to clench his teeth.

Thin black lines appeared beneath the skin around Simon’s eyelids. They moved toward his temples before descending along his neck and spine.

Simon understood the problem immediately.

The separated perception had no anchor.

If he tore away a fragment of his awareness and left it without anything to hold it in place, it would either disperse or return to him immediately.

He needed something capable of carrying the fragment.

Something already connected to him.

Something that could exist away from his body while still remaining part of him.

Simon looked down at his shadow and narrowed his eyes.

’My shadow.’

He found the solution immediately.

His shadow was the connection between his body, the shadows of other individuals, and the darkness around him.

It would also become the origin of every Shadow Eye he created.

Simon poured his demonic energy into it.

His shadow darkened beneath the chair.

It spread across the floor, passed beneath the table, and climbed the wall in front of him and behind him. Its outline became distorted, no longer perfectly matching his seated body.

Then the head of the shadow turned.

Simon’s physical body remained still, but the shadow looked toward the table.

Back inside his Sea of Consciousness, Simon separated a small portion of his mental energy from the black sea.

This part required more care than breaking the old rune.

Mental energy carried thoughts, emotions, memories, and traces of consciousness. If Simon used too much mental energy, he would feel weak and tired.

If the mental energy contained too many unnecessary things, the Shadow Eye might become unstable or attempt to act according to conflicting intentions.

He compressed the mental energy slowly.

First, he removed his memories from it.

Then his emotions.

Then every intention unrelated to perception.

What remained was not another consciousness.

It was a simple purpose.

Watch and Listen.

Simon pushed the compressed mental energy toward his shadow.

The moment it entered, the entire Sea of Consciousness shook.

BOOM!

The runes of ShadowSense shattered once again.

Countless black fragments scattered inside the star, spinning around one another in a violent storm. The star itself remained perfectly intact, containing the transformation without showing a single crack.

The fragments gathered again.

Two curved lines formed first, resembling closed eyelids.

A narrow vertical pupil appeared between them.

Several smaller strokes grew beneath the eye and joined into a thin chain. The chain reached the edge of the rune and disappeared into the surrounding darkness.

Perception.

Concealment.

Connection.

The three principles became one.

However, the new rune was not stable yet.

The pupil repeatedly appeared and vanished, while the chain beneath it twisted as though it could not decide what it was connected to.

Simon felt the fragment of mental energy inside the star and his physical shadow begin to scatter.

He had given it a purpose and an anchor, but it still lacked a boundary.

Without a boundary, the fragment was trying to spread through every shadow around Simon at once.

If he allowed that to happen, the evolution would become another form of ShadowSense instead of the ability he wanted.

Simon immediately restrained it.

’One shadow.’

The darkness stopped spreading.

’One point of perception.’

The vertical pupil became clearer.

’One connection leading back to me.’

The chain beneath the eye straightened.

The new rune released a deep hum.

Hum!

The black storm inside the star vanished.

For a moment, everything became still.

Then the eye-shaped rune opened.

A wave of dark light erupted from the star and passed through Simon.

It flowed into the black sea, causing the entire surface to rise, before travelling out of the Sea of Consciousness and entering his physical body.

The baptism had begun.

Simon’s back straightened sharply.

A cold and dark energy moved through his brain and nervous system. It entered his eyes, ears, spine, arms, and legs before sinking into every part of his shadow.

The sensation was not painful, but it was deeply uncomfortable. It felt as though countless thin fingers were touching the nerves behind his eyes and rearranging how they carried information.

His vision disappeared.

In its place came darkness.

Not empty darkness.

Simon could feel every shadow in his room.

The darkness beneath the bed was broad and still. The shadow cast by the table was divided by its four legs. Smaller shadows gathered around the broken pieces of the cup on the floor.

They were no longer simply places light failed to reach.

Each shadow possessed shape, depth, and a faint connection to the object that created it.

The black lines around Simon’s eyes sank beneath his skin.

His vision returned.

His sky-blue irises briefly became almost black, while a thin dark ring formed around each pupil. Several seconds later, the darkness faded and his eyes returned to normal.

The broken black ring that represented Hollow Sky Eyes flashed with a dark light for a brief moment.

His shadow slowly withdrew from the wall.

It flowed back beneath his chair, but it remained denser than it had been before.

A narrow line appeared near its centre.

The line opened.

A black eye stared upward from Simon’s shadow.

For an instant, Simon saw the room through two different viewpoints.

He saw the table in front of him through his physical eyes.

At the same time, he saw the underside of the chair, his boots, and the lower parts of the room from the shadow on the floor.

The two views collided inside his mind.

His body swayed slightly, and dizziness spread through him.

Simon closed his physical eyes.

He did not panic.

During his past life, he had controlled multiple perception techniques and divided his attention during battles against gods and Demi-Gods. Compared to those experiences, handling one additional viewpoint was not beyond him.

He separated his focus.

The perception belonging to his body remained at the centre of his consciousness.

The moment he made the Shadow Eye to become secondary, the dizziness weakened immediately.

Simon opened his physical eyes again.

This time, the two viewpoints remained distinct. He could move his attention from one to the other without confusing them.

The baptism slowly ended.

A stream of information entered his mind.

ShadowSense had evolved into ShadowEye.

----

I’m starting a super gift exchange for bonus Chapters.

A magic castle for one extra Chapter which means I’ll upload five Chapters instead of the normal four.

A spacecraft for two extra Chapters which means I’ll upload six Chapters instead of the normal four.

A golden gachapon three extra Chapters which means I’ll upload seven Chapters instead of the normal four.