The Broken Halo

Simon held the last demon by the throat until the hands gripping his wrist stopped moving.

The body had shrunk inside its clothes. Dry skin clung to the bones, and the mouth remained open around a scream that had never escaped.

He threw it aside.

Thud

It struck another corpse and rolled beneath the broken table.

Nine mummified bodies now lay inside the room. Some had collapsed near the doorway. Others rested against the bed or atop one another, their fallen weapons scattered between them.

The three guards remained separate, their bodies still untouched by Devour.

Tarvak stared at the newest corpse.

He had stopped shouting several deaths ago. His face was almost blank, but his eyes followed Simon whenever he moved. The smallest turn of that bloodied hand made the muscles around his severed arms tighten.

Simon examined his fingers.

He closed them into a fist, opened them, then sent demonic energy through his shoulders.

No pain.

He checked deeper. His damaged pathways had rejoined. His ribs, muscles, and injured thigh were whole again. Even the stubborn remnants of the God of War’s energy had finally been forced out.

Unholy Regeneration had finished its work.

His body was completely healed, but it was not stronger.

The stolen energy had restored what he had lost, but there was nowhere left for it to push his physical strength. He had reached the limit his current bloodlines and Demon Heart could support.

More bodies would not remove that limit.

He needed to evolve his bloodline or advance into a Greater Demon. Either would give his body room to grow again.

Simon lowered his hand.

”No more waiting.”

Tarvak pressed his back against the wall.

Simon turned toward him and slowly rotated his hand clockwise.

The blood beneath the commander rippled. Dust rose around his legs, tracing a circle that widened until a sphere of wind enclosed his body.

Tarvak tried to push himself away but he failed.

The sphere lifted.

His boots left the floor, and tightening currents held his torso upright without pressing against his throat. His arm stumps remained sealed enough to keep him alive.

”Blackmoon...”

Simon ignored him.

He stored the three intact guard corpses in his spatial ring, retrieved the Chaos Blade, and looked toward the outside wall.

A sweep of wind struck it.

BOOM!

The window burst outward. Stone and plaster followed, tearing a hole through the wall large enough for Simon to walk through.

Someone screamed below.

A falling block smashed a cart, and another struck the street hard enough to scatter fragments into the demons beside it. Shouts rose through the dust.

Simon stepped out.

Wind supported his boots and carried him upward. The sphere followed, Tarvak turning helplessly inside it as the ruined room fell away beneath him.

”Above the inn!”

”Who is that?”

”That’s Blackmoon!”

A demon shielding his head looked up between his forearms.

”Is that Guard Commander Tarvak?”

More faces turned. Voices called from windows. Demons farther along the street stopped to stare at the two figures rising above Pipeline Inn.

Simon continued until the rooftops spread beneath him.

Then he stopped.

Velmora stretched in every direction. Roads ran between crowded buildings. Figures gathered on balconies, pointed from courtyards, and emerged from shops to discover what the shouting was about.

Tarvak hung beside him.

Simon looked across the city, and a reminiscent light passed through his eyes.

He had stood above demon cities before.

Different walls. Different buildings. The same faces turning upward when they realised something had arrived.

In his previous life, he had watched those cities with a sword in his hand and hatred so fierce that the sight of another demon breathing felt like an insult.

He remembered bringing the sword down.

An avenue opening beneath the strike. Towers falling into one another. His old abilities passing across districts and leaving nothing standing behind them.

That strength was no longer his, but the memories were.

’The first city in this life.’

He drew a long breath and released it slowly.

”Let’s begin.”

The Sword Daemon’s mask appeared in his left hand.

A matte black mask with jagged crimson markings descended from its eyes toward its chin.

Tarvak’s gaze fixed upon it.

Simon placed it over his face, then he closed his eyes.

The city became distant as he delved into his memories.

He remembered the beginning. Demons coming through the rifts. Human voices calling for help from streets that no longer existed.

He remembered winning battles and turning to share the relief with someone who had died before the fighting ended.

Hands slipping from his grip.

Blood warming his fingers.

Names called once, twice, then never answered again.

The memories kept coming.

Victories. Retreats. Cities defended until there was nothing left worth defending. Demons laughing over bodies he had arrived too late to save.

He remembered the people he loved.

Then he remembered burying them.

Every battle in which he should have died. Every return to a ruined place that had once been home. The years when killing demons had become easier than imagining a life without war.

His grip settled around the Chaos Blade.

He had reached the Demi-God realm carrying those memories.

Even gods had watched the man he was becoming with unease. He had possessed the potential to stand among them, and not as something they could safely disregard.

His death had taken that future.

It had not taken what he remembered.

Simon opened his eyes.

The air whined.

Tarvak convulsed inside the wind sphere. His mouth opened, but the scream caught in his throat.

Killing intent poured from Simon without restraint.

Below, an entire street fell silent.

Then weapons began striking the ground.

The pressure spread over rooftops, through windows, beneath doors. Sleepers woke up choking. Guards stiffened halfway through drawing their swords. Merchants collapsed against their counters.

Windowpanes rattled in their frames. A low tremor passed through the streets beneath thousands of buckling legs.

Velmora had never endured killing intent like this.

It was not the pressure of Simon’s Infernal Heart.

It belonged to the man who had killed hundreds of thousands of demons and still believed there were too many left.

The mask magnified the fear it carried, then it gave that hatred shape.

A drop of blood struck a guard’s cheek.

He touched it.

Another landed on his knuckles.

Then the sky opened.

Blood fell so heavily that the farther buildings disappeared behind it. It ran over horns, soaked clothing, filled open mouths with the taste of iron.

A demon fled beneath an awning.

The rain kept falling around him.

Inside a locked room, a demoness watched red drops gather on her table. She looked up at the intact ceiling.

Something struck the roof.

Then something else.

Bodies began falling through the crimson downpour.

A human crashed beside the well, his chest split open around a broken spear. A winged demon struck a balcony with its head hanging by torn flesh. Something enormous fell across a street, six legs folding beneath an armoured belly.

The impacts came faster.

Horns tangled with limbs. Wings spread over human faces. Corpses piled against doorways and rose above the rooftops.

”This is an illusion!” a guard shouted. ”Don’t look at-”

A severed head rolled between his feet.

Its mouth opened.

The guard screamed.

The dead began moving.

The human beside the well tore the spear from his chest and drove it into a demon climbing out of the bodies. A beast with exposed ribs lunged across the road, caught a soldier in its jaws, and shook him until blood sprayed through the rain.

Armies emerged behind them.

Humans carrying broken banners charged between the buildings. Horned giants met them with axes. Strange, many-limbed creatures crawled over the piled dead and dropped among the fighting.

Steel rang against steel.

Throats opened. Bodies broke. The wounded dragged themselves beneath boots that never slowed.

The corpses and the rain were visions. The mask was forcing Velmora to witness the wars carried inside Simon’s killing intent.

Knowing that offered little protection from feeling them.

Demons shut their eyes and still heard the wounded begging beside their ears. They covered their mouths and still tasted blood.

The pressure settled into the city itself.

Even where a vision thinned, dark-red smears remained across the stones. The faces that vanished from a wall returned when someone looked again. These impressions were sinking too deeply to disappear the moment Simon withdrew his killing intent.

Velmora would retain traces of this long after the first wave of terror passed.

For now, it could not see beyond them.

From the outer streets to the deepest occupied rooms, its citizens watched human armies and demonic hordes tear one another apart around them.

Above the blood rain, Simon held the Chaos Blade motionless.

He had not swung it yet.