The Broken Halo

The blast did not stop at the basin.

The ground heaved outward in enormous waves, breaking beneath forests and mountain ranges far beyond Velmora. Deep underground, the force kept travelling.

A continent shook.

Above the impact, space fractured. Black fissures opened through the violet light, swallowing shattered cliffs before they could fall. The pillar rising from the spearpoint punched through the clouds, through the highest reaches of the sky, and continued into the darkness beyond.

An immense cloud of dust rolled beneath it.

What remained of the basin disappeared.

Demons fleeing beyond the ruins were thrown from their feet. Others looked back and saw nothing but a violet column towering over an advancing wall of pulverised earth.

Far away, the God of War turned toward the light.

The force of the collision reached him across the distance. His expression hardened.

Lord Enigma felt it too.

Other Demon Kings stopped what they were doing, their gazes drawn toward the same impossible radiance.

The earlier destruction of Velmora had left ruins.

This impact was tearing away the land that held them.

When the first shockwave passed and the dust began breaking apart, Lilith searched the devastation.

”BLACKMOON!”

Her voice vanished into the rumbling.

Nothing remained where he had been lying.

Then she sensed him.

Her head snapped toward a distant stretch of broken ground beyond the deepest destruction.

Crimson light moved behind the settling dust.

He was alive.

Relief loosened something inside her.

Then she saw him clearly.

Simon was standing.

Both legs were whole. His left arm hung at his side, while bone extended from his right elbow and fresh muscle wound around it. Behind him, the torn membranes of his six wings were knitting together.

’When did he heal?’

A fading spatial distortion curled beside his feet.

He had teleported.

The spear had struck the place he left behind, while Simon emerged beyond the region its point annihilated.

But that was not what held Lilith’s gaze.

Crimson lightning lashed around his body. Violent winds carried the same colour, dragging tongues of fire around his shoulders and through his wings.

His white hair had lengthened past his waist. It floated wildly around him, lifting against currents that tore dust from the ground.

His grin was wide enough to seem deranged.

Fury tightened his bloodied face.

Yet his back was straight.

The pressure had not vanished. Simon was standing beneath it anyway.

Lilith’s attention reached his heart.

Four seeds.

Four stable seeds.

Her lips parted.

They were no longer trying to tear one another apart.

”How...?”

Simon did not answer.

The change had begun in the instant before the spear struck.

He had stopped trying to maintain four separate centres of power, each pushing against every other.

He needed one centre of control.

Pride.

The seed embodied the conviction that the highest place should be his. His confidence, ego, and refusal to settle beneath anyone forever had given it form.

Why should three powers born inside him be allowed to disregard that same conviction?

He made Pride the leading seed.

His Will would decide. Pride would carry that decision through their circulation.

The others resisted.

Greed pushed against the new arrangement. Gluttony tried to swallow the power entering its reach. Wrath struck at the restraints.

Simon’s answer had been immediate.

’Enough.’

His control closed around their connections to his heart.

The most terrifying thing about him had never been how much energy he possessed.

It was what he could do with energy that belonged to him.

He could separate currents of demonic energy with frightening precision, redirect them without waste, and hold opposing forces along boundaries too narrow for a careless thought.

The seeds were harder.

Far harder than anything he had expected.

But they were still his.

Still inside his body.

His intent tightened around the points where he would sever their connections.

’You brought this thing down on me.’

There was no anger in the thought.

Only a coldness that made even Wrath’s violent pulse falter.

’Help me survive it, or I’ll rip you out myself.’

He had begun drawing one connection outward.

He was not bluffing.

If the choice was between dying while they fought inside him and discarding the things destroying him, he would discard them.

’You exist inside my heart. You do not get to decide when it stops.’

Their resistance weakened.

Simon gave them no time to renew it.

He guided each current beneath Pride’s direction, allowing the seeds to release their power without striking one another.

They remained four distinct presences.

But their strength finally moved toward the same purpose.

His purpose.

The strain on his Will eased.

Power that had been wasted in their conflict flooded his pathways instead. He seized it, folded space around his body, and left the spear’s path before the point reached him.

Then he continued healing.

Without the constant internal collisions, Devour and Gluttony stripped the obstructing power from his wounds far faster. UnholyRegeneration no longer lost his attention every time the seeds lashed out.

His legs returned.

Then his left arm.

And the arrangement suggested something else.

Four seeds would not be easy to nurture.

If he eventually obtained the remaining three, raising all seven would become an even greater burden.

But he possessed Gluttony.

And Devour.

Why should their appetite serve only his body?

He could consume power, refine it, then distribute what remained among the seeds. Pride could govern the flow, keeping one from taking everything while another received nothing.

The idea was unfinished.

He still needed to discover what each seed could accept, how much it could endure, and whether different powers required different treatment.

But he believed it could work.

For now, keeping himself alive came first.

Demonic energy poured toward him.

Dust traced the inward currents before the crimson winds tore it away. The air around Simon emptied faster than the surroundings could replenish it.

He felt like a black hole.

Devour swallowed. Gluttony deepened the pull.

The incoming energy fed UnholyRegeneration and sustained the violent transformation spreading through his body.

Even that torrent struggled to keep pace with what he was spending.

Wrath was the greatest pressure within him.

Its power surged through his muscles, urging him to destroy everything beneath the violet sky. It wanted movement, violence, something upon which to spend the fury gathering inside him.

Left unchecked, it would have narrowed his thoughts until nothing mattered except the next blow.

Pride refused to yield that control.

Simon would not become a slave to his own rage.

He kept the power.

The blindness could stay out.

Beneath the furious expression, his crimson eyes were calm.

He could feel each current of demonic energy answering him. For a moment, Pride made even the ruined world seem like something waiting for his command.

Simon enjoyed the sensation.

He did not mistake it for certainty.

His understanding of the seeds remained shallow. The balance was working, but he had no time to discover every flaw before using it.

He had to act now.

Above the dust, the violet eyes remained.

Simon looked up.

The last bones of his right hand extended. Tendons pulled into place, flesh closed over them, and five fingers slowly curled.

He opened the hand again.

The Chaos Blade appeared within it.

His fingers closed around the hilt.

Then he lowered the weapon beside him and swept it backward.

A dark line opened in the ground.

For an instant, it looked almost insignificant.

Then the land separated.

The cleft raced from beside his foot into the distance behind him, splitting broken hills and cutting through successive ridges without slowing. Its far end vanished beyond the dust, while its walls fell inward, exposing depths the violet light could not reach.

Crimson lightning struck along the opening.

Black fire followed.

It climbed the severed ridges and poured across the ruined land behind Simon, spreading beneath a storm of branching red discharges.

He glanced at the blade.

His grin widened.

The last tears in his wing membranes closed.

All six wings spread.

The descending pressure met crimson wind, and the ground beneath his feet cracked again.

Then the wings beat.

BOOM!

Lilith saw the dust flatten.

Simon was gone.

Wind tore upward beside the fading violet column as space folded along his ascent.

He appeared before one of the enormous eyes, small against the constellations turning within it.

The owner was still elsewhere.

But this gaze had reached him.

Now he had reached it.

Simon raised the Chaos Blade high, his six wings spread beneath the cosmic pupil and a wild grin on his face.

”You wanted my sins?”

Crimson lightning gathered along the black edge.

”Then choke on them.”