The Broken Halo

The Chaos Blade vanished from beside Simon’s knee.

Within his Daemon Heart, its dark outline settled inside the Chaos Flame. Four small seeds surrounded the fire, separated from the blade and from one another.

Gluttony was a black grain with a narrow seam that seemed deeper than its shell. Light bent toward it whenever it pulsed.

Across from it, Greed gleamed pale gold. Fine ridges covered its oval surface, overlapping like tightly closed fingers.

Wrath rested below the flame, and it was crimson beneath a rough black shell. Red light shone through its fissures with every contraction of his heart.

Pride occupied the highest position. It was deep purple and smooth, it carried a silver ridge around its upper half, resembling the rim of a small crown.

They were quiet now.

However, quiet did not mean harmless.

Greed leaned toward each release of power. Gluttony’s seam widened in response, while Wrath’s crimson fissures brightened.

Simon directed his Will through Pride.

Their activity settled into the arrangement he had imposed.

He had given them a leader, not fused them into one seed. And the authority behind that leader remained his.

He turned his attention to Pride first and after observing it for a few minutes, a loose stone rose beside his knee.

Simon had used neither Wind nor Earth to lift it. No rope of mental energy supported its weight.

He had simply required it to rise.

The pressure from the seed spread into his surroundings, forcing that small part of the world to obey.

He turned the stone.

Stopped it.

Then held several grains of falling dust motionless beside it.

This resembled telekinesis, but lifting things was only one application. The same authority had forced the winds to strengthen his attacks.

He could order movement, impose stillness, or press something down.

But distance, strength, and resistance mattered. When he tried extending the command across too much ground, the strain climbed sharply.

Simon released the dust.

Pride had also held his mind together beneath The One. Its authority could be directed inward, reinforcing his own decisions against fear, confusion, and the demands of the other seeds.

It could not make every decision correct.

He remembered almost refusing to retreat simply because retreat offended him.

It was something worth remembering.

Gluttony stirred as he returned to the stubborn power in his shoulder.

With its help, Devour caught another white remnant and stripped it away. UnholyRegeneration closed the exposed tissue behind it.

The improvement was extraordinary.

Gluttony supplied an appetite of its own, but combining it with Devour gave that appetite a far more effective way to consume.

And Simon suspected the change extended beyond quantity.

Abilities, energy, affinities, physical strength...

Those no longer felt like the limits of what he could devour.

When he followed the seed’s response deeper, its hunger reached toward the sensation of his soul.

Simon stopped it immediately.

His eyes narrowed.

Souls.

Fragments of memories.

Perhaps even the sins carried within another person.

The possibility made him glance at Lilith before turning inward again.

He had not proven any of it. A soul could resist, and swallowing memories without separating them properly might leave him with thoughts that were never his.

But the appetite was there.

Given time, understanding, and the Seven Star Blessing’s ability to develop his skills further...

Simon smiled.

Devour could become something truly monstrous.

Wrath answered that thought with a sharp pulse.

He drew out a trace of its power and joined it to a thread of crimson lightning.

Then he touched a nearby rock.

A small hole appeared.

However, the damage did not stop when he withdrew his finger.

Cracks continued spreading beneath the surface. A corner broke off, then another, until the rock collapsed into fragments.

Simon watched the final crack stop.

The power he had left inside was exhausted.

Wrath did more than increase the force of an impact. It gave his attack a destructive persistence, making the power that entered a target continue breaking it apart.

The tribulation lightning accepted that influence readily.

So did the Nine-Tailed Byakko’s transformed power. The destructive nature woven into its lightning and other affinities gave Wrath something particularly suitable to act through.

He could put that force into a sword wound, a wing strike, or a lightning bolt.

But it still required energy. And Pride would need to keep its violent urge from deciding what else deserved destruction.

Then Simon examined Greed.

Simon recalled how the seed of greed made the other seeds release more power.

It was useful, but it was also only a small part of what he felt the seed could do.

”Lilith.”

She looked at him.

”Make something with your power. Something small.”

Her brows rose, but a golden bead appeared above her palm.

Simon reached toward it.

A pale-gold thread extended from his fingertip and wound around the bead.

It resisted.

Pain pressed behind his eyes.

Lilith reduced the Will holding it, leaving only a trace.

The golden thread tightened.

Something changed.

Simon moved his finger sideways.

The bead followed.

He had not swallowed its power or forced its position through Pride. He had taken the control that allowed it to answer Lilith.

Even after he withdrew the thread, it still answered him.

She watched it circle his hand.

”Don’t look so pleased. I left almost nothing resisting you.”

”It’s still something.”

His grin widened.

Greed could claim.

An opponent’s released technique. A weapon carrying another person’s mark. Something already shaped and useful, taken without consuming it first.

Gluttony would eat the bead.

Greed let him keep it.

He could imagine an enemy launching an attack, only for it to turn around and return.

However, touching the power was only the beginning. He would have to overcome its owner’s hold and Will over the power, bear the cost of controlling it, and keep the claim from being broken.

A powerful artifact would not obediently become his because he wanted it.

Nor would taking a spear give him its owner’s spearmanship.

Simon let the bead fade.

The ability deserved careful practice.

He continued studying in small attempts, allowing his body to recover between them.

And gradually, the plan he had considered during the battle became clearer.

Pride would keep the seeds under his authority.

Gluttony and Devour could gather nourishment.

He could use the seed of gluttony and devour to consume the respective sins in somebody, and use the sins to nurture his seeds.

Ordinary demonic energy sustained their use. But Simon suspected the concentrated traces of a person’s sins could nourish the corresponding seeds much more directly.

A human’s consuming greed.

A demon’s vicious wrath.

The pride carried by a Daemon or even a god.

Where those sins existed, there might be something he could devour. The individual’s race mattered less than whether he could overcome their resistance and refine what he consumed.

He did not need every victim to possess a Seed of Sin.

He wanted the nourishment, not merely another completed seed.

That could spare him from relying entirely on meditation to raise four sins separately.

But it would not spare him from understanding them.

Power gathered from others could strengthen a seed without improving his ability to direct it. Their desires might also cling to what he consumed.

If he let those impressions determine what his seeds became, the balance he had established could fail.

He would have more power and less ownership of it.

Simon had no intention of letting that happen.

He would refine what he took, feed each seed appropriately, and continue deepening his own understanding.

There was another possibility too.

The seeds’ influence did not have to remain within him.

He could feel their power reaching outward, seeking responses resembling their own nature.

With practice, Pride might swell another person’s arrogance. Greed could make a tempting prize harder to ignore for somebody or a group of people. Gluttony could deepen an appetite, while Wrath could turn resentment into something vicious.

Someone already susceptible to a particular sin would be easier to influence.

An arrogant opponent might refuse a sensible retreat. A greedy one might overlook a trap.

But amplifying a desire was not the same as controlling every thought. Strong Wills could resist, and Simon still needed to learn how to apply that pressure without announcing it.

He would leave that experiment for another time.

The last white remnant finally loosened beneath his collarbone.

Simon gave it his full attention.

Devour seized it. Gluttony pulled.

Then it was gone.

UnholyRegeneration finished joining the tissue. His shoulder moved without pain, and a deep breath no longer dragged against damaged flesh.

However, a pale scar remained.

It ran from his left shoulder down toward his heart, stark against his black skin.

Simon tried healing it again.

Nothing changed.

He sustained the attempt longer.

The same mark remained.

Devour found no foreign power left to remove. Gluttony had nothing more to consume.

The injury was healed.

The scar stayed, as though his flesh now accepted it as part of its proper shape.

His first true scar since his rebirth.

And the strongest being in existence had given it to him.

A small, unreasonable satisfaction stirred beneath his annoyance.

Then he remembered that this had been only a tiny fraction of the Light of Annihilation.

His smile thinned.

He ran a finger over the scar, checked his restored pathways, and let another steady breath fill his chest.

The four seeds remained quiet beneath Pride.

Simon rose.

He stretched slowly, rolling his shoulders before extending both arms. Nothing tore. Nothing bled.

Then he looked at Lilith, and his mouth curved again.

”Let’s go.”

His hands closed into fists.

”I want to find out what a god tastes like.”