The Broken Halo

Simon moved away from the table and sat cross-legged at the centre of the room. He placed both hands on his knees, straightened his back, then slowly closed his eyes.

The wind elemental reservoir inside his Demon Heart was already full. Pale green energy rotated around one section of the heart, remaining completely separate from the darker demonic energy at its centre.

Simon did not immediately attempt to form the Gale Crown.

He first recalled every detail Vhaurak wrote about it.

The circulation routes.

The speed of the three currents.

The distance between the Storm Throne and the user’s spine.

The size of the Crown.

Even the amount of wind elemental energy that should flow through each pathway during the first rotation.

Simon reconstructed the Gale Crown inside his mind several times once again just to be certain, then he began circulating his demonic energy.

It flowed out of his Demon Heart and entered the pathways around his lungs, shoulders, spine, and upper back. The energy did not leave his body or form the Crown.

Its purpose was to reinforce him.

The Gale Crown would gather and preserve the movement of the wind, and the pressure created by its rotation would constantly pass through the Storm Throne and affect the user’s body.

Without demonic energy strengthening his bones, organs, and pathways, the Crown might injure him before he used it against an enemy.

’Well, if my body gets stronger, I won’t need to stregnthen my body with demonic energy. Fortunately, I only need a little quantity of demonic energy to stregnthen my body.’

Simon allowed the circulation to complete three times. When he felt no discomfort, he shifted his attention to the wind elemental reservoir.

The pale green energy stirred.

He separated it into three portions, then guided them through different pathways.

The first portion became the gathering current.

It travelled through the outer pathways around his shoulders before moving toward his upper back.

The second portion became the compressing current. It followed a narrower route close to his spine and rotated in the opposite direction.

The final portion became the command current.

It was smaller than the other two, but it required far more control. It would remain between them, preventing the gathering current from expanding too quickly and the compressing current from collapsing the Crown inward.

Simon released the three currents from his back.

Whoosh!

The air behind him distorted.

The currents met roughly half a metre behind his spine, and a small dark-green point appeared where they converged.

It was not a physical object.

It was a point of pressure formed from wind chaos and held together by Simon’s will.

The Storm Throne.

The gathering current curved around it first.

It moved outward in a wide circle, drawing the still air inside the room toward itself. The curtains beside the window shifted, and several strands of Simon’s hair rose from his shoulders.

The compressing current followed.

It rotated beneath the first current in the opposite direction, forcing the gathered air into a thinner and denser path.

Finally, the command current entered the narrow space between them.

A faint pale green circle began taking shape behind Simon.

Half a metre.

One metre.

The curtains snapped toward the centre of the room.

Dust rose from the floor and moved toward the unfinished Crown. The broken pieces of the cup trembled, then slid several inches across the floor.

Simon remained motionless despite the commotion in his room.

The ring continued expanding until it neared the size written by Vhaurak.

However, before the circle could close, Simon noticed an imbalance.

The upper section of the gathering current became thicker.

More air rushed into that part of the Crown than the compressing current could handle. The command current attempted to correct the difference, but its fixed path prevented it from reaching the unstable section quickly enough.

The pale green ring swelled.

A deep hum passed through the room.

Simon opened his eyes with a slight frown on his face.

He did not wait for the Crown to shatter.

With a thought, he separated the command current from the other two and stopped supplying them with wind elemental energy.

The unfinished ring lost its shape immediately.

Whoosh!

The compressed wind burst outward.

The curtains struck the walls, the bed shifted slightly, and loose pages of the Fury Tempest Art turned rapidly before settling again.

Simon remained seated with a calm expression.

There was no disappointment in his eyes since it was not surprising that he failed on his first attempt. Besides, he had learned from the failure.

’The gathering current is too efficient.’

Vhaurak created the circulation method while possessing a Low A grade wind affinity. The Tempest Tyrant’s gate to the Chaos Wind Elemental Plane was far narrower than Simon’s.

His gathering current would naturally draw in less wind elemental energy and respond more slowly to the surrounding air.

Simon’s High S grade affinity changed that.

The gathering current obeyed him too easily. It pulled in far more air than Vhaurak’s original compressing current was designed to control.

The problem did not come from the Fury Tempest Art being flawed. The original design was simply not made for a demon with Simon’s affinity and control.

Simon closed his eyes once again.

This time, he altered three things.

First, he narrowed the gathering current. It would still draw air into the Crown, but the thinner path would prevent it from swallowing more than the compressing current could handle.

Second, he made the compressing current denser and allowed its speed to change according to the pressure inside the ring.

Vhaurak’s version rotated at a fixed speed. The practitioner was expected to notice every imbalance and manually adjust it.

Simon found that unnecessarily rigid.

The compressing current should become faster whenever the Crown gathered too much air and slow down when the pressure dropped.

The third change concerned the command current.

Instead of making it travel in a fixed circle between the other two currents, Simon changed its path into a slow spiral.

It would wind around the gathering and compressing currents without touching them, constantly observing their speed, density, and pressure.

If one current became stronger than the other, the spiral would guide the excess toward the weaker side.

The change was small, but its purpose was important.

Vhaurak’s Gale Crown depended entirely on the practitioner to correct every minor imbalance.

Simon’s version would correct small changes on its own.

He did not make the Crown completely independent. The user still had to control it, especially during battle.

However, there was no reason to waste attention correcting every tiny fluctuation when the command current could handle them.

Simon also reduced the intended size of the Gale Crown.

Vhaurak’s book placed its diameter at roughly one and a half metres. Simon reduced it by a little more than a handspan.

A smaller Crown would gather less air, but its rotation would become denser, faster, and easier to control inside enclosed spaces.

Whether this modification would affect the later Crowns remained uncertain.

Simon kept their original connection points unchanged so the Rending Crown which was the second crown could still form around the Gale Crown in the future.

After completing the changes in his mind, he began his second attempt.