The Broken Halo

The Death Arena was filled with whistles, shouts of excitement, shouts of rage, and pointless chatter among the demons.

The barrier that separated the audience from Simon and Blackblade had a noise cancellation effect, preventing the duo from hearing any noise.

Majority of the audience were enjoying the battle they were seeing, and many were shocked by the fact that Simon was able to go toe to toe with Blackblade.

Bets had been placed, and new bets were placed every passing minute, as many began to wonder who would win.

A larger percentage believed that Blackblade would win for many obvious reasons, but a certain Sunless bet a large sum of money.

She bet that Simon would win, and if he won, she was going to make a lot of money, far more than the money she spent helping Simon with the information on Blackblade and his master.

And if he lost, she planned on bringing him back from the jaws of death and then she would kill him ten times over for making her lose so much money.

Sitting in one of the upper sections of the Death Arena were two demons, and if Simon saw these two demons, he’d recognize one of them.

The first demon was Korth, who was referred to as the Mad Thorn of the faction- The Obsidian Thorns.

And beside Korth was a demon that was wearing the mask of a bored clown.

The demon had violet eyes, and the utter indifference in his eyes was somewhat comparable to Simon’s.

This demon… was Korth’s brother.

And the two brothers were watching the battle between Simon and Blackblade.

“It seems you were right as always, brother. He truly did learn the Mind Spear in less than a day.” Korth said with a tinge of admiration in his voice as he watched Simon’s Mind Spear shatter after crashing into the mental barrier around Blackblade’s head.

There was no response from his brother, but Korth did not mind. He was used to not receiving responses from his brother because his brother was a demon of little words.

Both of their seats were engraved with formations that prevented anything they said from being heard, so they, or Korth to be precise, could speak as much as he wanted.

“I can see why you decided to give Blackblade that necklace. His mind would have been damaged if not for it.”

Korth then frowned as he looked at the dissipating pieces of Simon’s mind spear.

“But why is his Mind Spear black? Shouldn’t it be red? Does he have a unique sea of consciousness? A unique mind? Is that one of the reasons he’s this powerful and has so much control over his demonic energy? Could that be one of his secrets?”

Korth was not the only one that noticed this oddity.

The Mind Spear was basically a slightly more advanced version than the Mind Spike technique that was usually taught to the First Years.

Because both techniques were basic ranked techniques, over 95% of the members of the Shadowgrave Clan knew the technique, so they knew that the Mind Spear technique was meant to be red and not black.

Even Korth’s brother was curious about this since this was not what he expected.

He had a few theories about why Simon’s Mind Spear was black, but he was going to keep his thoughts to himself.

He shifted his gaze and looked at a particular demon, his eyes flickering with a calculating and cold glint.

Korth noticed his brother’s gaze, and he followed his line of sight.

When he saw the demon his brother was looking at, he could not help but snicker.

“Ohh… Blackblade’s master. I’m very sure he must be regretting when he agreed to allow his disciple to fight that slave.”

Korth leaned into his chair and crossed his legs as he shifted his attention back to the battle between Simon and Blackblade.

“Did he really think that he could keep keep something that you want without suffering for it?”

Korth suddenly laughed loudly as he recalled what happened a few days ago and how terrifying his brother was.

“This is why I’m always in awe of you brother.”

“When you told me that you’d take care of that slave, I was wondering how you’d do it. But see what you’ve done.”

“If the slave wins the duel, the First Blade would suffer a tremendous loss and he would either kill the slave or the slave would become enemies with that old fool.”

Korth chuckled and shook his head with a wide smile behind his mask, his eyes brimming with an excited light.

“But I’m curious about something brother, in my own opinion, you’re bound to lose more if the slave loses. I believe that what the First Blade has is more valuable than the matter concerning the slave.”

“Does that mean you rate the slave highly to the point that you’re willing to take such a risk?”

This time around, Korth’s brother glanced at him before looking back at the battle between the two demons whom he regarded as chess pieces.

“I secretly paid one of his classmates to record his performance in the Mind War Theatre Array, and I also met him once.”

This was all he said, but Korth was able to put two and two together.

“I see.”

He looked at Simon.

“You’ve gathered all the information you could find about him, and you’ve deemed him to be extremely powerful and talented to the point that you even fooled that old man by saying that you’ll support his disciple by giving him a Sovereign Artifact and a defensive artifact that could protect him from mental attacks.”

His eyes flashed with a sharp light as he watched Simon dodge the attacks of Blackblade.

“You know that he’s hiding far more than he’s showing, and you empowered Blackblade so that he could force the slave to unleash more of his abilities. You want to expose him, you want everybody to see what he can do, and you yourself want to see what he can truly do.”

“And in the process, you’re giving that foolish old man no reason for him to target you and our faction.”

Korth could not help but chuckle as he said all of these.

“You truly are terrifying, brother.”