The Broken Halo

Varen’s lips parted, but no words came out. His gaze moved over the unbroken skin beneath Darius’s armour, then returned to the face watching him through the crown’s pale light.

”A physique...” he finally whispered.

The God of War waited.

”Your chosen has a unique physique. Something that allows him to contain your presence without his body destroying itself.”

”Correct.”

The answer came so easily that Varen’s stomach tightened. He had expected a denial, a boast, perhaps another threat. Instead, the god sounded pleased that he had finally understood something obvious.

He rested his remaining palm against the crown again.

”There are humans born with bodies unlike those of their kind. Some possess unusual organs. Others have different energy pathways. The more exceptional ones are different down to their bones and souls.”

White light spread beneath his fingers. Varen felt his protective artifact draw more power from the distant king.

”In the Divine Realm, such physiques have a ranking.”

The god smiled.

”My chosen possesses the third.”

Varen’s hand tightened against his injured side.

Third.

Not among the humans assembled on Earth. Not among those the god had personally encountered.

Third in a ranking maintained in the Divine Realm.

”The World-Sovereign Physique.”

Varen’s brows drew together.

”What does it do?”

The God of War regarded him for a moment, then touched two fingers against his borrowed chest.

The black markings parted.

Not the flesh beneath them, but something deeper.

A narrow opening appeared over Darius’s sternum, and Varen found himself staring at a distant sun.

His breathing stopped.

Beneath that sun lay an expanse of dark, unfinished land. Vast cracks divided its surface, and rivers of golden fire moved between them. Far above, something immense occupied the sky.

Varen tried to look at it.

His protective crown flashed, and pain stabbed through his eyes.

The opening closed.

”What... was that?”

”The inside of my chosen.”

The prince stared at the unbroken chest before him.

”There is a world inside his body?”

”He was born with one.”

The god sounded pleased.

”Not a storage space. Not an illusion. A real world, still in its infancy.”

Varen’s gaze moved toward the rift, then returned to Darius.

The God of War smiled when he noticed.

”Yes. You crossed worlds through a formation others struggled to maintain. This child carries one wherever he walks.”

”And you are...”

”Inside it.”

The answer made the prince’s mouth go dry.

”You have been waiting for mortal flesh to split beneath my presence,” the god continued. ”But my descended presence does not have to squeeze itself into his muscles and bones. It occupies the world within him.”

He raised his remaining hand.

”This body is how I reach out.”

Varen remembered the enormous weapons descending upon his Seven Seats. The hand that had summoned them had not trembled afterward.

He had been watching the wrong thing for signs of strain.

”But containing you cannot be all it does,” he said cautiously.

The god chuckled.

”Of course not. I would hardly praise the third-ranked physique merely because it gives me somewhere comfortable to sit.”

His fingers curled slowly.

”When it matures, the boundary between that inner world and this body can be opened wherever its owner chooses.”

”Wherever?”

”A palm. A fingertip. An eye.”

The god held his hand beside the crown’s transparent surface.

”He could close his fingers around an enemy army and draw it into the world within him. No rift to prepare. No gate left standing for their allies to follow.”

Varen’s eyes widened.

”Or he could open his palm above a fortress and empty an ocean onto it.”

The god lowered his hand.

”Should an ocean prove insufficient, he could send the mountain beneath it.”

For several seconds, the prince could only stare.

This was not a greater reservoir of energy or a body difficult to injure.

It was a warrior carrying terrain, weapons, and an entire battlefield inside himself.

”And those are the crude applications,” the God of War added.

He extended one finger toward the crown.

”Consider something smaller. A thrust.”

His fingertip stopped just short of the light.

”The finger touches your shield. Behind it, an entire mountain moves. The body provides the point of contact. The world provides the weight.”

Varen involuntarily leaned back.

The god’s smile widened.

”Or perhaps you strike him. Your weapon enters an opening no wider than its edge, and the force you intended to release inside his chest is discharged across an empty plain.”

”You cannot hurt him?”

”Do not confuse a possibility with a defence that activates itself.”

The correction came coldly.

”He must recognise the attack, open the boundary, and possess enough power to transfer what enters it. Fail any of those, and a sword still passes through his heart.”

Blackmoon had already demonstrated that.

”The world is immature. His rank is low. He cannot yet command most of what he was born with.”

”But you can.”

”More of it than he can.”

The god let that answer stand.

Varen looked toward the missing forearm. The physique had not prevented its destruction. Whatever Blackmoon carried remained capable of harming the flesh through which the god acted.

But that did not make the revelation comforting.

”And his soul?” he asked.

”Anchored at the centre of his own world. My presence need not crush it to make room for itself.”

The god glanced down at the crossed spears upon his chest.

”His Blessings can take root there as well. Fire need not share the same narrow pathways with every other power he receives. Each can possess its own territory, and he can draw upon them together.”

”His two Blessings...”

”Are only two.”

The prince’s lips parted.

The God of War watched him understand.

A mortal body ordinarily imposed limits upon what could live within it. This physique had been born with room to grow beyond those limits without ceasing to be its owner’s body.

And the being standing before Varen knew how to use parts of it the child himself had never reached.

”How large can that world become?” he asked.

The god of war chuckled.

”Who knows,” he said. ”None of it is knowledge you are worthy of hearing from my lips.”

The prince closed his mouth.

Around them, dust continued settling over the ruins. Somewhere beyond the nearest crater, a wounded demon called for help. The god spoke over the sound without glancing toward it.

Around them, dust continued settling over the ruins. Somewhere beyond the nearest crater, a wounded demon called for help. The god spoke over the sound without glancing toward it.

”Humans occasionally produce things even we do not immediately understand. The previous Hero of Earth was one.”

Varen looked up.

”The dead Hero?”

”Yes. The human they called The Halo of Earth and The Demon Slayer of Earth. His control over his internal energies was absurd. Power followed his intentions with a precision that training alone should not have explained.”

For a moment, something thoughtful entered the god’s expression.

”We suspected an unusual physique. But suspicion was all we had. We never confirmed what it was, or even whether a physique was responsible.”

”So it had no ranking?”

”No. We do not place an unanswered question on a list and pretend we have understood it.”

The god’s gaze returned to Varen.

”My chosen’s case is not an unanswered question.”

Varen felt the crown’s light strengthen. The connection to the distant Demon King remained steady, but it no longer gave him the same reassurance.

”His rank is still low,” he said carefully. ”Whatever the physique can withstand, there must be a limit to the power you can release.”

”There is.”

The God of War chuckled.

”The boy is still too weak for me to bring out even thirty percent of my power through him.”

Varen stared with slightly wide eyes.

’30%?’

The god had spoken of a limit, but he had not said how much he had used to kill the Seven Seats.

”Nevertheless, even if every Demon King approaching surrounded me, I could kill one of them and preserve my chosen’s life.”

His voice held no strain.

”That is the mistake you keep making. You think their arrival means I must abandon this body or watch it collapse.”

He leaned slightly toward the crown.

”I can leave him alive while one of your kings dies.”

Varen’s breathing became shallow.

The god grinned.

”And I would not mind reducing their number by one. We have been considering it for some time.”

”What?”

The word escaped before Varen could control it.

The God of War laughed.

Only moments earlier, Varen had been measuring the time until help arrived. Now the same approaching figures seemed to be walking toward a danger they had not been warned about.

”The gods have been discussing killing our kings?”

”You sound offended that we discuss your realm without inviting you.”

The prince’s fingers pressed against the artifact beneath his collar.

The god followed the movement with amused eyes.

”Go on. Tell him. He should know what sort of rescue his prince has requested.”

Varen’s expression changed.

”You call them kings and begin believing the title makes them untouchable,” the god continued disdainfully. ”Seven Demon Lords stood behind you. You spoke of them with the same confidence.”

He glanced toward the ruins.

”Do you still think counting powerful servants is the same as possessing power?”

Varen said nothing.

The god looked back at the crown, then took a step away and lifted his hand from its surface. The white light steadied immediately.

”I could break this protection and kill you.”

Varen remained rigid.

”But it would take time that you are not worth.”

His iron-grey eyes turned toward the distant slope.

The shift in his attention was worse than another threat. After destroying the Seven Seats and leaving Varen waiting inside his king’s protection, the god already considered the matter beneath further effort.

”I came for the one-horned demon. His weapons, and his secrets.”

His mouth curved.

”And when I have finished learning what I want, his life.”

Varen drew a breath, but the God of War vanished before he could speak.

The crown remained whole around the prince.

For several seconds, Varen stared at the empty space before it. His hand stayed against the artifact connecting him to the king, but he could not decide which warning needed to be spoken first.

The approaching Demon Kings.

The third-ranked physique.

The gods discussing which rulers should be allowed to remain alive.

He had called for protection.

Now he did not know whether he had called his king into an execution.

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[A/N: Longest Chapter ever.]