The Broken Halo

The God of War answered with his fist.

An iron-grey spear formed around his remaining forearm, extending several metres beyond his knuckles. He stepped upward, and the ground beneath his boot sank.

Enigma flicked one finger toward Simon.

A black scale flashed past his shoulder. The pressure holding him down snapped apart, and Simon threw himself sideways with wind just before the gully exploded.

BOOOOOOM!

The crooked boulder disappeared. Both slopes burst outward as the god shot into the air, his spear aimed beneath Enigma’s chin.

The Daemon turned his head.

Black scales poured from behind his shoulders, each edged with teal light. They overlapped between him and the spear, forming a curved shield.

The point struck.

Scales shattered, but those behind them turned sideways, carrying the spear away from Enigma’s throat. Its edge grazed his mantle.

Beyond him, a distant ridge split open.

Simon landed on his side and stared as the sky became visible through the gap. Then the severed mass of rock collapsed, taking the slope beneath it along.

’Damn it. I have to get out of here.’

He pushed against the ground. Pain shot through both arms, and he used the wind to drag himself behind a broken boulder instead.

Above, Enigma’s scattered scales changed direction.

”World Serpent Art. Scale Funeral.”

Thousands of black scales closed around the god.

One wave struck toward his back while another swept beneath his legs. A third curved around his shoulder, filling the direction in which he could retreat.

The spear around his arm shortened into a broad axe.

He turned once.

Iron-grey light swept through the first wave, smashing the scales into teal sparks. The axe vanished before he completed the turn, replaced by a shield that caught the second wave beneath his feet.

He kicked against it and rose through the third.

Enigma was already there.

Two clawed fingers caught the god’s wrist. His other palm struck toward the God of War’s chest, and scales gathered over his knuckles.

The god bent his elbow and brought the trapped fist between them.

Their hands met.

BANG!

Enigma’s mantle snapped backward. A ring of pressure expanded across the sky, flattening the rising dust before driving it down over the land.

The Daemon’s arm shook.

The God of War smiled.

”Thousandfold Impact.”

His fist had already stopped.

The blows had not.

A second impact struck the same point. Then a third. Then so many that the separate sounds became a single rolling thunder.

Enigma was driven backward through the air, his scales bursting under each renewed blow. A thin line of blood appeared at his mouth.

He opened his fingers.

A transparent, scaled outline rose from his body.

The next impact struck that instead.

Enigma shed the layer carrying the god’s Aether, taking the remaining blows with it. He slipped free as the discarded shell folded around the force still hammering through it, then kicked it toward the ridge below.

The shell hit the mountainside.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Rock erupted repeatedly from the same point. Each blast drove deeper into the mountain. The entire face bulged, split, then blew outward beneath impacts that had begun with one punch.

The upper ridge collapsed into the hollow beneath it.

Kilometres away, fleeing demons fell as the ground rolled beneath them. Along the supply roads, wagons overturned. Survivors looked back to see another mountain disappearing behind a wall of dust.

Simon pressed his face against the stone while fragments screamed overhead. Blood filled his mouth. Unholy Regeneration was working, but every attempt to crawl sent another jolt through his shoulders.

’I’m definitely not dying in this place. Not like this.’

He sent a thin current of wind ahead, searching for a route between falling stones rather than trying to block them.

Something enormous struck his shelter.

The boulder broke over him.

Simon rolled beneath its falling stones and slid on the ground, the Chaos Blade scraping beside him. One fragment caught his thigh, opening the flesh to the bone.

”Fuck!”

He kept moving.

Above the ruined mountain, the god followed Enigma through the dust.

A spear thrust at the Daemon’s chest.

Enigma’s outline bent strangely.

For an instant, Simon saw something long and scaled moving beneath the air, as though the sky had become thin glass over dark water.

The spear passed through a closing teal slit.

Enigma emerged behind the god.

He swept his arm sideways, and a gigantic serpent tail appeared halfway through the motion.

Its black scales caught the light like overlapping shields. The visible section stretched across hundreds of metres, its tip striking the god before the rest had fully formed.

A shield unfolded from the markings on the God of War’s remaining forearm.

CRAAAAASH!

The god vanished behind it.

The tail carried him across the sky and struck the mountain beyond.

Its summit broke.

Stone rolled over stone as the upper slope sheared away, throwing rubble above the collapsing peak. The shockwave reached Simon a moment later and hurled him along the ground.

He drove his boots into the dirt.

The soil peeled away beneath them.

’I can’t teleport through that.’

Space shook beneath the overlapping attacks. His perception caught possible destinations only for another collision to disturb them before he could establish a connection.

He needed distance, and his body would not give it to him.

A black scale dropped beside his head.

Then another.

They spread into a sloping roof above the ground. Falling debris struck the ground and slid away from him.

Simon looked upward.

Enigma was not watching him.

The Daemon stood facing the collapsing mountain, blood still marking one corner of his mouth.

”Keep moving, child.”

Simon did not waste breath answering.

A crimson point appeared within the mountain’s dust.

Enigma’s eyes narrowed.

The God of War burst out behind it. His shield was gone. An iron-grey spear rested in his left hand, while a shallow cut crossed his cheek.

”Protecting him while fighting me?”

The spear lengthened as he thrust.

Enigma tilted aside, but the shaft struck the scales covering his shoulder and tore several loose. Blood scattered across his pale mantle.

The god reversed the weapon before the droplets fell.

Enigma caught the returning shaft between two banks of floating scales. Metal screamed against them.

”You keep looking at the child,” the god said.

His spearhead widened into a hammer.

Enigma released it immediately.

The hammer crashed down, and the scales beneath it vanished in a white flash.

Far below, a section of ground larger than the original gully caved inward. The channel Simon had been crawling through split ahead of him.

He stopped at the edge, staring down into falling earth.

Behind him, the scale roof shattered beneath another shockwave.

There was nowhere to keep moving.

Above, Enigma wiped his mouth with his thumb.

The scattered scales rose again. They gathered into two enormous curved fangs behind his shoulders, black surfaces gleaming beneath lines of teal.

The God of War rolled the hammer once in his remaining hand.

Enigma smiled without warmth.

”That was your opening. You should have taken more.”

He drove both hands forward.

The fangs descended.

The god rose to meet them, and Simon threw himself into the nearest crack before the next collision swallowed the sky.