The Broken Halo

For a moment, Simon expected another Bloodline Origin Gate to appear.

The thought made his expression tighten. He had barely returned through the first one. The skull could not endure another journey, and he had no desire to discover whether Lilith could hold it together twice.

But no gate opened.

The Byakko lowered its body against the mountain.

Its claws sank deeper.

Then it pushed back against the Uruqath’s pressure.

Simon felt the difference immediately. His horned bloodline had needed a road back to something it had lost. The Sky Tiger was reaching into something it already possessed.

He released a breath.

At least he would not have to leave this world again.

The relief lasted until the tiger’s shoulder cracked.

CRACK!

Simon dropped to one knee.

In Velmora, his right shoulder jerked upward. A bulge travelled beneath his silver skin before flattening against the inscriptions.

”What the fuck...”

The Byakko did not look at him.

Its gaze remained fixed upon the Daemon.

The Uruqath stood motionless among the suspended terraces, its face expressionless. It made no attempt to increase its pressure.

It did not need to.

The tiger could barely breathe beneath what was already there.

Yet instead of withdrawing, it dug its forelegs into the stone and raised its chest another inch.

Simon understood what it was doing.

It treated suppression as a threat to its existence. There could be no retreat, no acceptance, no waiting until it grew strong enough someday.

It would stand now.

Or tear itself apart trying.

The power Simon had permitted it to take began moving.

A current rose beneath the mountain, drawn from what remained unsettled inside his changing body. The Byakko opened its mouth and inhaled.

Sky-blue light appeared beneath its fur.

It gathered first along the chest, then spread down the legs. Each line reached a place where the body resisted expanding.

The tiger forced it farther.

Simon’s hands struck the ground.

His physical fingers remained palm-up, but the nails split along their edges. Darker claws pushed through, longer and more sharply curved than the ones the Uruqath had begun suppressing.

Blood ran between them.

Unholy Regeneration repaired the flesh around the new growth.

The pain continued.

He felt his ribs pulling outward and his spine tightening as though something had gripped both ends.

’Keep the energy steady.’

He had repeated Lilith’s instructions so often that they came before the urge to protect himself.

The changes needed power.

Not a desperate surge through whichever part hurt most.

He directed a measured flow into the tissue that was failing, allowing the bloodline to continue reshaping what the regeneration preserved.

Across the array, the black channel thickened again.

Lilith glanced toward it.

”Of course. One bloodline was not enough.”

The array had been prepared to drain the horned lineage. She altered the inscriptions crossing Simon’s back, catching the new impurities before they could spread through his circulation.

Then she widened the channel carrying them into Tarvak.

”Give me another body to repair, another bloodline to manage. Why should either of us have an easy moment?”

Tarvak’s lower back twisted.

Several thin growths pushed through the stretched skin. They bent around one another, each covered in small plates of bone that continued opening like fingers.

White fur sprouted inside the mouths beneath his skin.

His throat worked around a sound that could no longer become a scream.

Lilith shifted a restraint away from a new swelling and forced the malformed flesh clear of his breathing passage.

”All because you cannot bear leaving anything for later, you greedy bastard.”

There was irritation in her voice.

There was no surprise.

She watched the competing patterns move beneath Simon’s skin. Silver remained around the ribs, but faint black bands now appeared across it. His ears sharpened again, rising against his white hair.

His four ivory horns remained. The vertical third eye stayed closed.

The six detached wings trembled behind him.

Lilith’s mouth curved slightly.

”Still...”

Her voice lowered.

”I would be lying if I said this wasn’t entertaining.”

She looked toward Simon’s closed eyes.

”Now show me what comes next.”

Inside the manifestation world, the Byakko’s fur began coming away.

White strands lifted from its back, dissolved into light, and disappeared inside the growing body beneath them.

Its old shape could no longer contain what was unfolding.

The single tail lashed behind it.

Then its shadow divided.

Simon stared as a second tail emerged beside the first.

A third followed.

The tiger’s roar broke into a harsh, pained sound. Its hind legs buckled, and the remaining peak collapsed beneath one paw.

It caught itself before its head could touch the ground.

Its eyes never left the Uruqath.

’You would rather die than lower it again.’

Simon could feel that refusal as clearly as his own.

He steadied the energy entering the beast.

”Then keep your head up.”

The Byakko bared its teeth.

Two more tails forced themselves outward.

In Velmora, pain struck so deeply along Simon’s spine that his vision inside the manifestation briefly darkened.

He felt movements his physical body had no tails to perform.

Each one pulled through a different part of his back.

His breath escaped between clenched teeth. He kept his body seated inside the circle while Unholy Regeneration repaired the damage.

The sixth tail emerged.

Then the seventh.

Two enormous ridges lifted along the tiger’s shoulders.

The Uruqath watched without moving.

Its suspended wings remained perfectly aligned. Its expression did not change when the tiger drove its forepaws harder into the mountain and tore both ridges open.

The newly formed wings of the Byakko unfolded.

Their first movement scattered blood-coloured light across the silver terraces.

Simon swayed, feeling that strain reach the rebuilt structures beneath his own shoulder blades.

The eighth tail lashed free.

For several heartbeats, nothing followed.

The Byakko shook. Its chest heaved, but the current entering it faltered beneath the pressure pinning it down.

Simon clenched his fists inside the manifestation.

The tiger’s front legs began bending.

”No.”

He did not know whether he had spoken or merely felt the word through it.

The Byakko forced its shoulders upward.

Its ninth tail emerged.

The mountain exploded into wind.

BOOOOOOM!

Simon threw an arm across his face.

The gust struck the Uruqath’s nearest terrace and drove it backward.

For the first time, the Daemon raised a hand.

Its black ring turned. Six translucent wings overlapped before it, catching the wind in a broad, curved defence.

Blue-white lightning struck between their edges.

Behind the impact, space wrinkled.

A falling slab appeared in three places at once before the images snapped together. One of the pale arches twisted, showing the underside of the mountain where its peak should have been.

This was not wind alone.

Simon felt space moving with it, stretching and folding beneath a storm threaded with lightning.

The entire bloodline world trembled.

Then the gust began clearing.

A paw settled upon empty air.

Long black claws opened beneath it, each one sharply curved and edged by a narrow silver gleam.

The beast that followed was enormous.

Its former body would barely have reached the new chest. Dense white fur covered shoulders broad enough to hide the mountain behind them. Black stripes crossed its flanks, their edges shining silver whenever lightning passed beneath the coat.

A thick mane swept back from its jaw.

Two long fangs remained visible beneath its upper lip.

Its sky-blue eyes were clear now. Silver rims surrounded pupils that fixed upon the Daemon without trembling.

One pair of vast wings spread from its shoulders.

Long white vanes overlapped along their upper surfaces. Beneath them, black feathers formed bands matching those across its body, and blue-white sparks travelled between their sharpened tips.

Nine tails moved behind it.

They did not drag upon the ground. Each curved through a separate current, white fur streaming around broad black rings. Where their tips passed, the air creased and distant parts of the world shifted slightly out of place.

Simon looked from one tail to another.

’Nine.’

He instinctively knew what the Sky Tiger had become.

’The nine-tailed Byakko or the nine-tailed Sky Tiger.’

The last of the trembling left its legs.

It raised its head and...

ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAARRRRRR!

The silver terraces shook.

The remaining mountain rose beneath the tiger, rough stone forcing its way between the Uruqath’s ordered structures. Wind returned to the heights. Pale arches held their positions, but the clouds beyond them began moving.

Neither bloodline’s world disappeared.

Both now had the strength to insist upon their presence.

In Velmora, Simon’s physical roar rolled across the ruined city.

The crimson lightning overhead thickened into enormous, branching columns. Their light reached far beyond the ruins, and the thunder struck so loudly that surviving walls shed their remaining plaster.

Lilith braced the array.

Tarvak’s bindings pulled taut.

Simon remained seated beneath it all, his Infernal Heart still burning at the same rank.

Inside his bloodline world, he slowly lowered his arm.

A smile formed.

The tiger no longer had to look up.

’Good. Now-’

He began turning his attention toward his physical body.

The Byakko’s nine tails suddenly straightened.

Across from it, the Uruqath lowered its defensive wings. Its black ring rotated, then its six vanes turned edge-first toward the tiger.

Simon’s smile vanished.

He felt their intentions at the same instant.

Neither was satisfied with standing beside the other.

The Byakko sprang.

The Uruqath shot forward to meet it.

Both carried enough killing intent to leave no doubt about what they intended to do.

Simon’s eyes widened.

”STOP, YOU FUCKING BASTARDS!”