The Broken Halo

Greed

Greed was the desire to possess beyond necessity, and the unwillingness to accept that one already had enough.

The world recognised it most easily in overflowing treasuries and hands reaching for what belonged to others. It condemned the merchant who hoarded food during a famine, the ruler who demanded another territory, the rich man who could not endure seeing someone richer.

Simon understood that definition.

He simply distrusted the word enough.

People used it very freely when deciding what somebody else should be content with.

A faint crimson spark passed across his shoulder. He let Unholy Regeneration tend the burn while his thoughts returned to Earth.

He remembered a Demon Slayer refusing to abandon a fallen enemy’s weapon during a retreat.

The man had already survived a battle that killed most of those beside him. He should have been running.

Instead, he knelt among the corpses, pulling at a hilt trapped beneath a dead demon’s armour.

Simon had shouted.

The man raised one hand.

One moment. That was all he wanted.

The next attack reached him before he could stand.

When Simon passed that place again, the hand remained closed around the weapon.

There had been very little else to bury.

”The sword might have made him stronger,” Simon murmured. ”But he forgot that he needed to live long enough to wield it.”

Yet greed had also brought medicine to an outpost everyone else had abandoned.

He remembered the supplier arriving with armed escorts and demanding an outrageous price. The man had not come because he pitied the wounded.

He had smelled profit.

Simon had paid.

Some of the soldiers treated with those supplies had fought beside him again.

He had despised the price, but he had been grateful the medicine arrived.

Both feelings remained possible.

Greed could make someone cross a dangerous road. It could also make them linger upon it until they died.

It encouraged effort, invention, and risks that contentment would never justify. It could just as easily teach a man to sell tomorrow for something shining in his hand today.

”Wanting more isn’t the difficult part.”

Simon lowered his chin.

”Knowing what you’re spending to obtain it is.”

Inside his Infernal Heart, something flickered beside the unfinished Seed of Gluttony.

Not lightning.

He focused without breaking the steady circulation keeping him alive.

A second outline trembled within the Chaos Flame.

Paler than the first.

It vanished when he tried to examine it directly.

Simon did not chase it.

He returned to what had brought it there.

Some people wanted wealth. Others wanted women, admiration, authority, or a name that would outlive their bodies.

A ruler who owned entire cities might still covet the freedom of a stranger who could leave without asking permission.

A dying man might surrender everything to live for another year.

The object changed.

The reaching hand did not.

And Simon?

His hand had been reaching for power long before he became a demon.

Once, he had wanted enough strength to keep the people beside him alive. Every death had changed his idea of how much that required.

Then the people he trusted had helped arrange his own.

He remembered familiar faces watching for familiar movements. They knew how he fought. They knew what he was likely to try.

Knowledge he had once shared without suspicion had become useful in killing him.

His fingers tightened against his knees.

”I cannot make betrayal disappear.”

Even the greatest power could not force somebody to love him honestly.

”But I can make it fail.”

That was part of what he wanted now.

To stand beside someone without constantly wondering whether revealing another secret would give them a better way to end him.

To survive the moment trust proved misplaced.

The second outline appeared again.

A thin, pale-gold edge curved around an empty centre.

Simon scarcely noticed its colour.

Another memory had risen beneath the first.

Pellin.

The pig’s humming. The cell. The expectation that Simon would have to endure whatever amusement came next.

He remembered the Soul Eating Centipede entering his ear.

His body had belonged to him, yet he had not been able to decide what happened to it.

The thought still made something cold move beneath his ribs.

”Never again.”

The words were quiet.

He had not survived Pellin because suffering was noble. He had survived because dying would have left everything decided by the bastard standing over him.

Then the God of War had closed a hand around his throat.

Another smile. Another stronger being deciding whether Simon remained alive.

His weapons had been interesting. His answers had been insufficient. His life had become something the god could keep or discard according to his mood.

Simon opened his eyes.

Black stone stretched beneath a sky still heavy with tribulation clouds.

”I don’t want a kinder hand around my throat.”

He looked down at his own palm.

”I want the strength to remove it.”

A yearning for safety had become something far larger in this second life.

He no longer wanted merely to escape the next person capable of killing him. He wanted to reach a place where there would be no such person left above him.

That demand had no modest ending.

If a Demon King could decide his fate, he would need more than a Demon King’s strength. If a god could do it, he would have to pass the gods.

Learning of true godhood had not satisfied him.

It had enlarged what he wanted.

The pale-gold outline tightened inside his heart.

Simon felt it gaining weight in his awareness.

He could call this ambition. Independence. A refusal to be helpless.

None of those names made it less greedy.

Nor did his reasons excuse everything he had spent pursuing it.

Velmora lay beneath him.

Calling his desire freedom would not rebuild the city.

He had wanted what its destruction could provide, and he had taken it.

Simon did not look away from that thought.

The outline became clearer.

Greed and Gluttony stood close enough that he had mistaken one for the other at first.

Gluttony began with consumption. Food was its most familiar expression, but Simon had learned how far an appetite could extend beyond a meal.

Greed did not require swallowing anything.

It could desire everything material or immaterial- an artifact, a kingdom, another person’s devotion, forbidden knowledge, the right to make a choice.

Gluttony asked what more could become part of him.

Greed reached for what he wanted to possess and refused to surrender it merely because somebody stronger claimed he had enough.

They could drive the same act.

They did not have to seek the same satisfaction.

”If I could never use Devour again...”

Simon watched a crimson thread pass through his fingers.

”I would still want the power inside that lightning.”

He would seek another way to claim it.

That understanding settled.

The second outline darkened along its edges.

He had not forced himself to adopt a new nature. He had found another reason behind the choices he had already made.

Of the six sins beyond Gluttony, this was the nearest path.

His earlier enlightenment made the difference easier to recognise. His two lives had supplied more examples than he needed.

A dull pulse moved through his heart.

Simon paused.

The unfinished Gluttony seed had shifted.

Its presence pressed against the space where Greed was gathering. The new outline answered, and a faint rejection passed between them.

Lilith’s warning returned to him.

Seeds did not usually welcome company.

”So soon?”

He steadied his heart with his Will.

Neither seed was complete. Their resistance was faint enough to set aside for now, but he could feel what would happen once both possessed a finished existence.

The disagreement would not remain this mild.

He would have to deal with it.

Later.

For now, the Seed of Greed continued gaining definition.

A narrow uncertainty remained along one edge, much like the unfinished part of Gluttony.

Beyond the crater, the lightning’s fading glow seemed to draw closer without becoming brighter.

Simon noticed.

His thoughts were still clear. He could follow the next insight, let it settle, and perhaps discover what power the new seed would give him.

His fingers loosened against his knees.

”No. Not yet.”

He withdrew before the uncertain edge could close.

The seed trembled, then remained unfinished.

Beside it, Gluttony held the state in which he had left it.

Two beginnings, and neither complete.

Simon exhaled and examined them once more.

Understanding his greed did not require obeying every impulse it produced. The man reaching for the trapped sword had wanted more too.

He had lost the chance to possess anything.

”I can want everything without taking it all this instant.”

Lilith looked toward him.

For once, she offered no insult.

Simon returned his attention to the immense power still moving around and inside his body. The seeds would wait. His bloodlines were ready, and his physical body had no room left to grow at its current rank.

His Infernal Heart beat steadily.

He had delayed long enough.

”Now,” Simon said, ”it’s time to become a Greater Demon.”