The Broken Halo

The black rocks surrounding the rebel disappeared.

One moment, he was lying beneath the crimson sky with Simon crouched before him.

The next, he stood ankle-deep in a sea of blood.

There was no end to it.

Broken weapons floated across the dark-red surface, while mountains of corpses rose beneath a black sky. Demons, humans, demonic beasts, and creatures he could not recognise were piled on one another. Some were missing their heads. Others still moved weakly, stretching ruined hands toward him.

At the top of the nearest mountain stood Simon.

He wore the rebel’s face.

The same narrow features.

The same bronze eyes.

The same pale scar across the nose.

Only the smile was different.

It carried none of the fear, pain, or desperation the rebel knew should be on his own face.

The corpses beneath Simon opened their eyes at the same time.

Whispers entered the rebel’s ears.

Some begged.

Some cursed.

Some laughed.

Then the sea around his legs began rising.

The rebel knew it was an illusion. He knew the black rocks, cracked ground, and distant smoke had not truly disappeared.

However, HollowSkyEye placed another interpretation between his mind and that knowledge.

This was not something Simon had created for him.

It was merely a fragment of what followed the masked demon called Blackmoon wherever he went.

A glimpse of the lives buried beneath his killing intent.

And Simon was only releasing a fraction of it.

The rebel’s breathing became ragged.

He was a Half-Step Greater Demon. He had survived battles, interrogations, and years inside Black Banner without breaking under ordinary fear.

This was not ordinary fear.

The Sword Daemon’s mask turned Simon’s killing intent into terror and hallucinations, while HollowSkyEye made every false sight feel natural. The two abilities pressed against the rebel’s mind from different directions until he could no longer separate what he understood from what he felt.

Simon reached forward and held his face with one hand.

The rebel saw his own features staring back at him from behind Simon’s fingers.

The sea rose to his chest.

The corpses began crawling down the mountain.

A few seconds later, Simon stopped before the rebel’s mind completely gave way.

Breaking him would have been easy.

A broken mind, however, produced broken answers.

The blood vanished.

The corpses disappeared.

And the rebel found himself against the black rock again, drenched in sweat and staring into the bronze eyes of his own copied face.

Simon smiled, then he began questioning him.

He did not rely on one method.

He asked about the same subjects in different orders. He mixed information he already knew with deliberate lies and watched what the rebel corrected. HollowSkyEye made harmless sounds seem like approaching Black Horn operatives, while the mask reminded the rebel of what would happen if Simon decided he had become useless.

The rebel resisted at first.

He left out details, changed small parts of the route, and tried to make the handover sound simpler than it was.

Simon caught every inconsistency.

By the end, he had learned that the rebel had never been a Velmora guard. He belonged to a small extraction group hidden among the attackers on the left ridge. After the explosive arrows created enough corpses, he had reached one of the dead guards and used the false-skin artifact to copy the demon’s face, scent, and visible scars.

His real role began only after Dessa created the steam cover.

He had been shown her face before the ambush but was forbidden from speaking to her, approaching her, or acknowledging her after the mission began. He did not know her true position within the eastern faction.

He only knew that her identity was worth more than his life and that the extraction must never expose her.

The rebel also confirmed that the dull-grey spatial ring had no explosive failsafe.

It was bound to his blood, but the restriction only prevented another demon from opening it normally while he remained alive. It would not kill the thief or destroy the cargo if someone forced their way through the restriction.

The three pulses came from the cases just as he suspected.

And unsurprisingly, Black Banner also had preparations for such tracking devices.

Black Banner had expected the possibility of tracking devices. That was why the transport cart at the first handover carried a lead-lined box covered in isolation runes. The route keepers were meant to place the entire spatial ring inside it before moving.

The box would suppress most signals long enough for specialists farther along the route to examine the cargo.

The rebel did not know where the second handover point was.

He had never been permitted to learn it.

Simon also obtained one small piece of information about the Seven Nails.

They were not an assassination unit or a group that travelled together. They were long-term assets placed inside different parts of Velmora’s military and campaign preparations.

The thief had heard that at least one Nail held a position among the selected Earth recruits, while another had access to Black Horn’s internal systems.

He did not know their names, faces, races, or ranks.

He was also unable to confirm whether Dessa was one of them.

For the current operation, he had only been told that a protected insider would open Wagon Eighteen and that the Outsider might interfere on Black Banner’s side.

The rest of his answers matched what Simon had already learned.

The ruined building with the standing chimney was the first handover point.

Two route keepers would arrive with a covered cart.

The split iron token had to match.

The correct response remained... ”It only needs its bones.”

If the route keepers failed to arrive, the ring had to be placed inside the hidden slot beneath the underground chamber.

The rebel also did not know the Voice’s identity or the location of the Chrysalis. His knowledge ended where his task ended.

And this made sense.

Black Banner had survived for centuries by ensuring that captured demons could not expose an entire operation.

Simon released the rebel’s face.

The demon sagged against the rock, breathing as though he had just escaped drowning.

”I have told you everything you asked for,” he said hoarsely. ”Let me live.”

Simon looked at him through the face he had copied.

”Why in the world would I do that?”

The rebel became pale.

He hurriedly tried to explain that he could guide Simon through the handover, support his story, and help convince the route keepers that nothing had gone wrong. He offered loyalty, information from future missions, and service to the Outsider.

Simon listened until he finished.

Then he chuckled softly.

He swept one palm across the air, and a thin blade of wind flashed past the rebel’s neck.

For a heartbeat, nothing happened.

Then a red line appeared beneath his jaw.

His head slid from his shoulders and struck the black stone beside him, the bronze eyes still wide with disbelief and regrets.

The body collapsed a moment later.

And Simon stood over both pieces while wearing the dead rebel’s face.