The Broken Halo

The first-wave army left Black Horn’s assembly ground in a long, ordered column.

Armoured soldiers occupied the front and outer edges. Behind them marched the Assault Cores, followed by healers, supply units, and rune masters carrying sealed cases. Heavy wagons rolled over the stone roads, while transport beasts snorted dark vapour into the morning air.

The citizens and demons in Velmora watched them pass.

Demons crowded balconies, rooftops, and restricted streets, calling out to relatives or wagering on which unit would earn the most merits.

The campaign bells continued ringing above them.

Assault Core Seventeen marched close to the front.

Their position was not an honour. It existed because they had been assigned to protect one of the first groups of rune masters expected to cross the rift.

Virella walked near the centre of their formation, repeatedly looking toward the sealed cases ahead. Rellis watched the soldiers around them, while Akaza moved with his usual composure.

Sonya looked almost cheerful.

Simon walked beside her, but his mind remained far from the road beneath his feet.

Commander Marek’s words had followed him out of the assembly ground.

Assimilation.

World Laws.

World Grade.

World Vitality.

Much of the explanation made sense.

Simon had witnessed territories around rifts change during his first life. He had seen forests where trees began feeding on Demonic Energy and human formations that weakened after years of contamination.

He had simply never understood the complete mechanism behind those changes because he was not from the demon realm. All he knew and was focused on back then was that all demons needed to die.

However, some of Marek’s words did not fit what Simon knew.

’The Demon Realm cannot produce a Demon God because its World Grade is too low?’

Simon’s expression did not change as the army turned onto a wider military road.

The explanation might contain a large amount of truth, but Simon did not believe it was complete.

Marek had compared the world to a lake that could not contain a fish beyond a certain size, and Simon wondered whether the lake was truly too small...

Or whether something outside it killed every fish that grew too large.

His Balance Theory had not disappeared merely because Marek offered another explanation.

If anything, what Simon had read in the Shadowgrave Academy library made the theory harder to ignore.

After the Demon King of Death died, the concentration of Demonic Energy throughout the Demon Realm increased drastically.

After Simon died, Earth experienced a similar increase in Aether.

The Demon Lords supposedly obtained the Demon King’s corpse and later became Demon Kings. Simon’s old comrades and other heroes were rumoured to have used his flesh and blood to become Demi-Gods.

Two dead beings.

Two worlds strengthened.

Two groups of new rulers born from their remains.

That symmetry felt unnatural.

The Second Great War made it worse.

Eighteen Demon Kings had fought thirteen Demi-Gods. By every reasonable calculation, the demons should have won.

Instead, the gods gave humanity Shell Worlds.

Those Shell Worlds allowed the Demi-Gods to isolate and kill Demon Kings without destroying both realms. With their help, twelve Demon Kings eventually died during the war.

Yet humanity stopped when six remained.

At the same time, only six Demi-Gods survived.

Simon’s wife and his five main companions.

’Exactly six against six.’

If the gods merely wanted humanity to survive, why had the Shell Worlds not been used to finish the remaining Demon Kings?

If they wanted Earth to win, why preserve the enemy’s highest powers?

Marek had spoken about Demon Kings, World Cores, and the limits of a realm.

He had said almost nothing about the gods.

Perhaps Marek was lying, but Simon did not consider that the most likely explanation.

Marek was a Branch Commander and a Demon Lord, yet that did not place him among the beings who understood the deepest secrets of the worlds. He might simply be repeating conclusions accepted by demonic scholars, royal families, ancient clans, and even the Demon Kings themselves.

Conclusions built from what they were permitted to observe.

The recruits had listened as though Marek had revealed the final truth.

Most had forgotten one important question.

Who stood above the Demon Kings?

The gods had interfered in the Second Great War.

The Heralds had brought the System to Earth.

Ancient beings existed whose strength surpassed the gods Simon once knew.

Any theory about why a Demon God had not appeared was incomplete if it ignored those powers.

’The Demon Realm may be capable of producing a Demon God.’

’It may have always been capable.’

The problem could be what happened after one appeared.

A Demon God would not merely become stronger than the six current Demon Kings. Such a being could destroy the balance between Earth and the Demon Realm by an enormous margin.

If Simon’s theory was correct, the gods, or whatever stood above them, would never allow that.

The newly born Demon God might be killed before stabilising his or her advancement, sealed, controlled, or turned into a resource.

The sudden birth of the Hell Holes also bothered Simon.

Marek said scholars connected them to the assimilation of Earth, and that could be true. But the historical account described something far less natural.

The Hell Holes appeared exactly one hundred years after the Demon King of Death died.

The Demon Lords of back then who had secluded themselves moved toward them almost immediately, as though they already knew what was coming.

Natural changes could be predicted.

But that level of preparation suggested hidden knowledge... or a promise.

Someone might have told those Demon Lords when the Hell Holes would appear and what they could provide.

The army passed beneath a reinforced gate leading toward the outer campaign roads.

Even from there, Simon could sense the enormous disturbance created by the rift. Space folded and trembled far beyond the walls, while Demonic Energy flowed toward the same location like water descending into a pit.

Sonya said something to Rellis, and Virella responded nervously.

Simon barely heard them.

The Balance Theory and Marek’s explanation did not necessarily oppose one another.

The Demon Realm could truly be declining.

Earth could possess the vitality needed to restore it.

Assimilation could genuinely strengthen the World Core.

And the gods could still be preserving a balance that forced both worlds to continue fighting without allowing either side to achieve final victory.

Perhaps that was the darkest possibility.

What if the war was not merely tolerated by the gods?

What if it was necessary to them?

The deaths of the Demon King and Simon had strengthened their respective worlds. Great wars left scars that made future rifts easier to open. Both realms gained powerful beings after their strongest defenders died.

The conflict might be feeding something beyond Earth and the Demon Realm.

Simon had no proof.

Only patterns, missing truths, and instincts sharpened by one life of betrayal.

Marek had called the Demon Realm’s condition a slow decline.

But ancient bloodlines were disappearing.

Affinity grades were falling.

Some regions had become dead zones.

And the realm seemed increasingly dependent on Hell Holes and stolen vitality merely to recover what it had lost.

Simon’s eyes narrowed.

Deep inside his Infernal Heart, he reached toward the presence dwelling there.

[Lilith... is the Demon Realm merely declining, or is it dying?]