The Broken Halo

Wind pressed Simon’s bloodstained clothes against a body that was no longer wounded.

His Demon Heart beat steadily. Demonic energy surged through his repaired pathways, and every breath entered his lungs without pain. He had returned to his peak condition. There was even more strength in his limbs than before.

The reason was the burning severed forearm of the God of War.

He had devoured it.

The gust of wind had never been meant to throw the God of War away. Simon had needed the god and the five humans to focus on the dust instead of what moved beneath it.

While they watched the disturbance, a narrow current carried the burning limb low across the road. Simon drew it against his body, concealing it beneath his bent torso and the black wrappings.

Then he used Devour.

It had been a gamble on attention, not an ability to blind a god. The God of War had watched his blood, heard his coughing, and decided he understood what Simon was doing.

Fortunately, the Chaos Flames did not harm him. Protected by the Chaos Wraps, he absorbed the remaining flesh and the power within it while the god mocked his attempt to escape.

There had been no opportunity to obtain a skill from that severed forearm because it was only a forearm and not a corpse. Besides, Simon had wanted energy, and he received so much that controlling its arrival nearly broke his concentration.

He had expected a substantial amount. Experiencing it was another matter.

This was only what remained of a burned forearm. It was not even a god’s actual flesh, but a mortal limb carrying power transformed beneath a god’s presence.

Even that could pull him back from death.

The difference between a Demi-God and a God was vast enough to make his previous life’s strength feel painfully inadequate.

Simon had directed the absorbed energy toward the power preventing his wounds from closing.

Both had passed beneath the same god’s influence. That did not make the hostile Aether obedient, but Devour had made the stolen power available to him. He finally possessed something capable of meeting that refined energy instead of merely retreating before it.

He forced the foreign Aether out in sections, beginning around his damaged heart.

Unholy Regeneration followed immediately.

The collision with the buttress had genuinely hurt him. The blood and pieces of flesh were real. But while he lay with his back turned, the energy from the arm continued flooding through the injuries.

Vessels joined. His Demon Heart repaired itself. Broken ribs and torn muscles followed.

By the time he recalled the Chaos Blade, the coughing had become an act.

Simon kept his body curled and his circulation subdued, letting blood already in his mouth strengthen the deception. He used the same control the god had praised to conceal the new flow of his demonic energy until he was ready to move.

The remaining energy restored his reserves and strengthened his body slightly.

His Infernal Heart had not advanced.

He was stronger than before, but nowhere near strong enough to defeat the God of War.

’I cannot win this fight.’

Simon accepted the thought without shame.

The Chaos Blade, Chaos Wraps, and their flames could harm the god and prevent his borrowed body from regenerating. But possessing weapons capable of killing such a being meant little when Simon could not land a strike.

He had refused Lilith’s offer because he needed to find his own answers.

That did not require standing still and dying.

’I refused to be carried. I didn’t promise to be stupid.’

He was glad he had made that decision. Learning when to retreat mattered as much as learning how to kill. For now, retreat offered the only chance of surviving long enough to make another choice.

There was only one place worth running toward.

The Demon Realm.

The God of War might follow him through the rift. Simon did not assume a boundary between worlds would frighten a god away. But perhaps the realm would suppress him.

Perhaps his presence would attract a Demon King.

Or something else powerful enough to notice an intruding god.

Simon had no desire to stand before even one Demon King, much less several. He knew nothing about how they would respond to him.

But he already knew what the God of War intended for him.

He needed to survive this moment before worrying about the next.

Simon had wanted his first teleportation to end directly at the rift, but his spatial perception had warned him before he teleported to it.

Space around the passage was far too unstable.

The rift itself remained open, held together by its formations, but the surrounding spatial disturbances constantly shifted. Simon possessed enough energy to attempt the jump, but his spatial affinity was not high enough to guarantee where it would end.

Trying to arrive inside that distortion might tear him apart before the god caught him.

He had chosen a safer point six hundred metres away.

Now he was crossing the remaining distance through the air.

Dark emerald wind compressed around him. Simon poured demonic energy into his body without concealing its strength and accelerated until the battlefield rushed beneath him.

Boom!

The pressure of his passage stripped loose earth from the trenches. Torn banners snapped from their poles, and smoke flattened behind him before rolling back into his wake.

A demon looked up just as Simon passed.

”A Demon Lord?”

”No, his Heart-”

Simon was gone before the second voice finished.

He stayed beneath the battles raging higher overhead, angling past a formation firing toward the rift. Aether bullets crossed behind his back.

Too slow.

Three humans beside an overturned cannon turned toward him. One raised a barrier while another brought a burning sword across his path.

Simon swung once.

The Chaos Blade cut through the barrier and the weapon. Wind carried the slash through the three defenders, and they fell before he passed the cannon.

He did not slow.

The rift grew larger.

Beyond the shattered defensive line, demons continued emerging from the red slit opening. Simon could make out movement inside the passage and shapes waiting beyond it.

He knew the god would catch up quickly.

Every breath spent here was another opportunity for that hand to find him.

Wind drove harder against his back.

Boom!

He crossed the last trench. The ground beneath it split under the pressure, and two approaching demons stumbled aside as he swept between them.

The mouth of the rift stood clear.

Nothing blocked the gap he had chosen.

Fifty metres.

Simon brought his legs together, drew the Chaos Blade close to his side, and committed everything to the final burst.

The air cracked.

Twenty meters.

The rough pressure of the spatial disturbances brushed against his skin. He ignored the temptation to teleport and held his course through the centre of the passage.

Ten meters.

His expression loosened by the smallest degree.

’There.’

He could feel the demonic energy spilling from the other realm. It was familiar and dense. Nothing like the resisting Aether that filled this battlefield.

Simon stretched his left hand forward.

His fingers entered the rift.

Then his arm.

The red light passed across his face, and the roar of the battlefield dulled behind him. Beyond the passage lay ground he could reach, space he could use, another direction in which to move.

His shoulders crossed.

Suddenly... fingers closed around his ankle.

Simon stopped.

No.

He was forced to stop.

The wind behind him erupted against the sudden resistance. His body strained forward, but his leg remained fixed, held by a grip that did not tremble.

Then he began moving backward.

Slowly.

Almost pathetically.

The red light slid away from his shoulders and face. Simon forced more energy into the wind, trying to wrench his leg free because he knew what, no, who was holding his ankle.

And the thought made his expression to become twisted.

However, it changed nothing.

His outstretched fingers slipped from the passage.

The God of War stood on Earth’s side of the rift, holding Simon’s ankle in his remaining left hand.

His feet had not shifted.

Simon twisted, bringing the Chaos Blade around.

The god released his ankle.

Before the black edge could reach him, that same hand swept across Simon’s face.

A slap!

BAAAAAAM!

The rift vanished from his view.

Simon tore through the air and struck two demons advancing toward the human positions. Armour crumpled beneath the collision. All three crashed through the edge of a trench, throwing stone and bodies across the ground.

Blood flooded Simon’s mouth.

He hit the bottom hard enough to bury his shoulder in the earth, and the broken bodies beside him did not move.

Above the shattered trench, the God of War looked down.

”And where do you think you’re going?”