The Broken Halo

[A/N: Please re-read Chapter 897 again. It has been corrected. I’m so sorry for the mistake.]

Wind slipped beneath the nearest corpses and lifted them from the blood-soaked ground.

Simon rose with them. Loose stones fell from torn clothing while Tarvak’s sphere followed him above the ruined street.

[Why did you go down there before gathering everything?] Lilith asked.

[I forgot.]

[Clearly, destroying a city was easier than remembering why.]

Simon shook his head and said nothing.

Sky Eye brought the ruins into focus. He searched for paired horns among the bodies, following broken streets beyond the place where he had landed.

His wind reached ahead of him.

A corpse slid from beneath a fallen beam. Another rose from an overturned carriage. He brought them close enough to inspect, checking each Demon Heart before allowing the body to join the others.

A crushed heart was useless.

He sent those corpses aside and continued searching.

Five suitable bodies were already in his spatial ring. He brought them out first... Tarvak’s three guards and the two hidden experts that were Supreme Greater Demons.

Nine hundred and ninety-four remained to be found.

Some lay exposed. Others required him to lift slabs of stone or pull apart collapsed rooms. He worked in batches, keeping the bodies suspended close together instead of scattering his control across the entire city.

The ache behind his eyes had not disappeared.

Neither had the knowledge that two monsters were still fighting somewhere beyond Velmora.

A two-horned demon lifted from the rubble suddenly grabbed at the air.

”Put me down!”

His horns were intact. So was his heart.

Simon turned toward him.

”You fucking butcher! I’ll-”

The Chaos Blade crossed his neck.

His head fell, and the wind caught the body before it followed.

Farther along, a wounded demoness pressed her palms together when Simon raised her from a collapsed doorway.

”Please. I can pay you. I have a family. Please...”

He checked her chest, then moved the blade once.

Tarvak shut his eyes as he heard her head fall to the bloodied and ruined ground below.

He opened them when another voice began pleading.

”Why? What did we do to you?”

Simon gave none of them an answer.

He separated their heads from their bodies and kept counting.

[Lilith. Do I have to remove every heart from their bodies intact?]

[No. As long as the hearts are undamaged, leave them inside. The array will reach them.]

Simon released a quiet breath.

Removing nine hundred and ninety-nine hearts without damaging any would have taken more time and attention than he wanted to spend.

He inspected the last body twice.

Then he stopped searching.

Nine hundred and ninety-nine Two-Horned Demon corpses floated around him. Tarvak remained separate, alive within his sphere.

Simon lowered the dead onto a broad stretch of exposed ground. Wind cleared broken stone away before laying the bodies beside one another.

Then he descended until his boots hovered just above them.

The rest of the ingredients came next.

Jorra’s heart appeared in a cradle of wind. Its slow contraction drew Tarvak’s gaze, but Simon placed it beyond the commander’s reach.

The head taken from the Seven Seats followed.

A winged Two-Horned Demon, and a Superior Demon Lord.

Simon stripped away the remaining flesh with fine cutting currents. He stopped when only the skull and its two horns remained, then set it beside Jorra’s heart upon a flattened slab.

He moved Tarvak’s sphere closer.

A living Two-Horned vessel. A Prime Greater Demon which was above the minimum Lilith required.

One ingredient remained attached to Simon.

He removed the Sword Daemon’s mask and returned it to his ring. Then he raised the Chaos Blade to the base of his horn.

Tarvak stared.

A short cutting motion separated it.

Blood ran down Simon’s forehead. He caught the horn in his left hand while Unholy Regeneration closed the wound.

He placed it beside the skull.

His own horn. The Daemon heart. The skull and its horns. The living vessel. Nine hundred and ninety-nine intact Demon Hearts within the gathered corpses.

Beneath everything lay Velmora’s bloodied earth.

[Everything is here.]

Warmth stirred inside his Demon Heart.

A dark-golden gleam slipped from his chest and lengthened beside him, resolving into a demoness.

For a moment, Simon forgot the blood drying above his brow.

Lilith’s fair skin seemed untouched by the ash drifting around them. Long black hair fell down her back, so dark that the smoke behind it appeared pale. Her golden draconic eyes moved over his face with familiar indifference.

He had seen her many times, but it still always took him a moment to look away.

A fitted black tunic and trousers had replaced her gown. A sleeveless ivory coat hung over them, reaching her calves above black boots. Her golden scarf remained around her neck, and black gloves covered her hands.

”You changed your clothes.”

Lilith gave him a light smile.

”You sound surprised that I have more than one outfit.”

Tarvak stared past her and kept on looking at the ingredients. He showed no sign of seeing the woman beside Simon.

Lilith examined the skull, then Jorra’s heart. Her gaze passed across the gathered bodies before lifting toward the sky.

The smile disappeared.

Simon noticed immediately.

He followed her gaze but saw only smoke.

”What is it?”

”Nothing you need to concern yourself with.”

His expression became solemn.

”That isn’t what your face says.”

Lilith remained silent for a moment.

”Unfortunately, I cannot explain it without risking exposing myself.”

Simon looked at her.

’Exposing herself to whom?’

Before he could ask, she lowered her eyes toward the ground.

”You have done better here than you realise.”

He followed her attention.

Blood filled the hollows between broken foundations. Some had soaked into the earth. More remained in thick pools beneath the bodies.

”The land has not had time to absorb it properly,” Lilith said. ”Much of the blood is still on the surface.”

”You said ten thousand.”

”And you have exceeded that. The quantity makes up for much of what is lacking.”

She glanced at him.

”But you also killed them yourself.”

Simon frowned.

”Why does that matter?”

”Fear. Hatred. Resentment.”

Her eyes moved toward a surviving demon dragging himself between distant ruins.

”What do you think remains here besides blood?”

Simon listened to the faint cries carried by the wind.

”Their emotions?”

”What they felt when your storms came. What they felt when they watched others die. What they felt toward the demon above them who never stopped.”

Lilith looked back at him.

”So much of it was directed at you. The ritual can use that as well.”

Simon regarded the bodies.

He had chosen Velmora because it contained what he needed. The massacre had supplied the blood and the corpses.

Apparently, it had left something else behind.

”So the stronger their resentment-”

”Do not start.”

Lilith’s tone sharpened.

”You can ask questions when you survive. Every moment you spend here gives something else time to find you.”

Simon closed his mouth. Though he had a few guesses, he wondered what exactly was coming for him that Lilith could sense.

Then he faced Lilith again.

”Start. I’m ready.”

She studied him for a breath.

Her right index and middle fingers pressed against the centre of her left palm. The left fingers closed around them, and her thumbs crossed.

Then she closed her eyes.

Blood beneath the nearest corpse began moving.

It travelled across the exposed earth in a thin, deliberate line, passing over stones without following the cracks between them.

Another line emerged farther away.

Then dozens.

They curved around the bodies, joined across ruined streets, and extended beyond Simon’s immediate view. Rings formed within larger rings. Between them, intricate chaos runes appeared in blood that had stopped sinking into the soil.

Simon felt the air beneath his boots grow heavy.

The final line met the first.

A massive bloody array glowed below them, and it spread across the ruins of Velmora.