The Broken Halo

The four Runemasters disappeared through the ruined entrance of the command chamber.

Simon watched their shadows separate at the first junction. Veyran continued toward the upper western passage, while Osra, Drevik, and Namis took the corridors leading to the other sides of Ironcrest.

Then he turned toward the remaining members of his core.

”Kill every human who still intends to defend the tower,” Simon said. ”Drive out the ones who choose to flee. Do not damage the four formation pillars.”

Sonya’s lips curved upward.

”Finally. This Honourable was beginning to think the little kitty wanted all the fun.”

Akaza glanced at the headless bodies scattered across the chamber.

”He already took most of it.”

”There are still humans inside,” Rellis said.

Simon had killed many of them while making his way to the command centre. Bodies already filled the western corridors and stairways, but he had moved toward Varga instead of searching every room.

Soldiers remained on the artillery floors.

Others had taken shelter inside the barracks, maintenance passages, and chambers surrounding the formation engine. A few were still trying to restore control over Ironcrest’s autonomous weapons.

”Not for long,” Sonya replied cheerfully.

She skipped through the severed doorway.

Akaza followed despite the unevenness in his steps. Virella and Rellis exchanged a glance before moving after them.

A few breaths later, the tower began screaming again.

Stone groaned somewhere beneath Simon. Metal tore away from a wall, followed by the terrified shouts of several humans. A heavy pulse of gravity shook dust from the ceiling. Roots broke through a corridor, and rushing water swallowed the sound of gunfire.

Simon left them to it.

He stepped over Varga’s head and walked out of the command chamber.

The route to the western platform was lined with the humans he had killed earlier. Some had attempted to block the stairs. Others had fired from behind corners or tried to activate the tower’s inner formations.

However, none had delayed him for more than a heartbeat.

Simon emerged into sunlight a short while later.

Wind struck his face.

He climbed onto the broken support structure beneath Sunshear and stopped at its highest point. From there, Ironcrest’s dark walls fell away beneath him, and most of the mountain basin entered his view.

The battlefield stretched for kilometres, and Simon activated Sky Eyes to watch the battlefield.

His pupils sharpened, and distance seemed to collapse.

The farthest trenches became clear enough for him to see the fear on individual faces. He could follow the turn of an artifact cannon, count the fingers missing from a wounded soldier’s hand, and watch blood drip from the jaw of a Demon Slayer fighting on a distant ridge.

It was like looking through a sniper’s scope, except no narrow circle restricted his sight.

He saw everything.

Near the rift, black-red flames still burned around the crater left by the captives. Demons continued pouring into the mountain basin while human rifle lines fired in controlled waves. Shield units closed gaps between ruined barriers. Healers dragged the wounded away, and Runemasters repaired formations even as Chaos techniques tore them apart.

Above the battlefield, the clashes between Demon Lords and powerful Demon Slayers continued to shake the air.

On the roads leading to the other watchtowers, the battle was worse.

One tower still possessed an unbroken silver barrier. Three artifact cannons fired from behind it while a group of human Runemasters and earthe elementalist altered the ground with Order formations and earth manipulation. Every time the demons approached, the road folded downward and sent them tumbling into trenches filled with Aether flames.

Another watchtower had lost control of formation pillar, but its defenders had reinforced the remaining three. Human soldiers fought from overlapping barriers, retreating from one to the next rather than allowing the demons to overwhelm them in a single charge.

The humans had learned quickly.

They were no longer wasting their strongest attacks on ordinary warriors.

They were targeting the Runemasters and the cases.

Simon shifted his gaze between the eleven other teams.

One assault core had been trapped beneath the road leading to an eastern watchtower. Two of its members were dead, and a third held up a fractured barrier while humans attacked from above. One Runemaster lay motionless beside a fallen case. Another had lost an arm and was using his body to shield the object strapped to his back.

A second core was in worse condition.

Two Runemasters were dead. Only three members of the core remained, and they had been forced into a narrow ravine where a C-rank Demon Slayer and dozens of soldiers were slowly closing the exits.

Farther north, another team had abandoned its advance completely and was retreating toward the rift.

Some cores were still progressing.

None had reached a watchtower like Assault Core Seventeen.

Ironcrest was the first to fall.

The soldiers below were defending their world with weapons, formations, Blessings, discipline, and a willingness to die. Even demons with superior Heart ranks were being killed when they became isolated or careless.

Assault Core Seventeen was simply abnormal.

Simon’s gaze moved to another road.

A tall, heavily built demon stood at its centre.

Ammor.

Even under Earth’s suppression, he was still able to control the ground and mountainside with his Low S grade earth affinity, though he was using far more energy than normal to do so.

He raised both arms, and three walls of stone erupted one behind another. The first stopped a barrage of bullets. The second crushed a trench, while the third carried his core several metres higher like a rising platform.

The humans countered immediately.

Silver stakes struck the ground around the platform. Order runes spread between them and locked the earth in place. An artifact cannon fired, shattering the front half of Ammor’s defence and throwing two demons from their feet.

Ammor roared and forced the broken stone back together.

His core continued, but slowly.

Simon found the other demons he remembered from the affinity test.

The red-skinned Archfiend with a High A grade fire affinity had transformed an entire section of road into a burning river. Flames melted a silver barricade and forced dozens of soldiers from cover, but a human formation drew water from beneath the mountain and drowned half the attack in steam.

The calm demon with an Intermediate A grade ice affinity created thick frozen spears and sent them into a defensive wall. Two pierced through. The rest were destroyed by a C-rank whose burning Blessing turned the air around him red.

The Low A grade water user flooded a trench and swept soldiers down the slope, only for lightning to spread through the water and force him to abandon the technique before it struck his own core.

Talent mattered, but the battlefield did not belong to talent alone.

Simon continued searching.

He had not climbed this high merely to study the war.

Black Banner had hidden formations inside the Chaos Bellows. Its remaining spies had crossed with the army, and they would eventually need to act.

Most demons behaved exactly as expected. They fought, protected their Runemasters, or struggled to remain alive.

Then Simon’s eyes narrowed as he noticed something strange.

Inside Ammor’s core, one demon waited until an explosion covered his movement and pressed two fingers against a damaged human formation marker.

A faint black trace entered the stone and vanished.

Several kilometres away, a member of another assault core made the same movement at almost the same moment.

Neither demon was a Runemaster, and neither had any reason to touch the formation lines.

Simon’s gaze sharpened.

Two different cores, but the same hidden gesture.