The Broken Halo

Simon noticed a small problem before he could begin his advancement to the Greater Demon realm.

A crimson thread disappeared beneath Devour, and the unfinished Seed of Gluttony became a little clearer.

He stopped directing the stolen power toward his heart.

The seed continued changing.

Simon narrowed his eyes.

He diverted the next portion into Unholy Regeneration instead. A burn closed along his shoulder.

Inside his heart, the dark outline tightened again.

’So that counts too.’

The destination of the power did not matter. He was still consuming something outside himself and making it part of him.

Simon reduced the rate of absorption from Devour.

The seed’s progress slowed.

When he increased it for an instant, the uncertain edge gathered definition fast enough to make him stop.

He finally understood why Gluttony had formed first.

Devour had been feeding it long before he recognised what was happening. Using it to strengthen himself nurtured the sin. Even using the stolen energy to heal did the same.

Of all the seeds he might acquire, this would likely be the easiest to nurture.

Under different circumstances, he would have been pleased.

Now, one careless surge could finish what he was deliberately keeping incomplete.

His gaze moved toward the clouds.

The darkness between them had not retreated.

’Not yet.’

Simon stopped Devour completely.

The blackness withdrew from his fingers. Crimson lightning that had been bending toward his palm snapped free and struck the stone beside his knee.

It left a smoking groove.

Lilith glanced at him.

”You finally noticed.”

Simon looked at her with raised brows.

”You knew?”

Lilith chuckled softly.

”Of course. Have you forgotten who I am?”

Simon looked at her, then he shook his head.

He let the remark pass.

The problem was inconvenient, not serious.

Devour had made taking power easier. It had never been the only way he could absorb demonic energy.

Simon lifted two fingers.

A fine strand of crimson lightning curled between them.

It resisted his control, but he could distinguish that resistance now. Its destructive nature resembled his own lightning. The command driving it to attack him did not.

His affinity gave him a hold upon the lightning, and his Will pressed against what refused that hold.

The strand lashed toward his face.

Simon divided it into thinner threads and stopped them separately. A small burn opened across one knuckle. He let his existing reserves repair it rather than reach for Devour.

Then he tightened his Will.

The lightning shuddered.

Something within its movement broke. The threads remained crimson and they were still dangerous, but they stopped searching for a way beneath his skin.

He drew them into his ordinary circulation.

The Chaos Flame received them.

It burned away the remaining foreign traces and refined the usable demonic energy into his own elemental Chaos.

Simon waited.

The unfinished Seed of Gluttony remained as he had left it.

He was cultivating, not allowing the ability of the Devourers’ hunger to do the work for him. He kept his attention on purification rather than the satisfaction of swallowing another portion of the sky.

’It is slower but it would have to do.’

He reached for another strand.

His improved Lightning affinity and the change to its nature made the process possible. Before the tribulation, attempting such careful control would have meant struggling against a force his body could barely tolerate.

Now he could endure the mistakes long enough to correct them.

That did not make the lightning harmless though.

It merely gave him time.

The openings across his wings moved subtly, keeping the surrounding currents of lightning from reaching him all at once. Beneath his sternum, the cube distributed the power he had already made his own.

He would need a steady supply.

Becoming a Greater Demon was not a matter of filling his Infernal Heart until another rank appeared.

The heart itself had to change.

The Burning Heart of a Fiend was flesh ignited by the Chaos Flame.

The Infernal Heart of an Archfiend carried the demon’s elemental Chaos engraved throughout that flesh. Its creation required the affinities to enter the flame, followed by compression and the implosion that etched their power into the organ.

Refining it afterward drove a demon’s personal Chaos deeper through those engravings, tempering the heart until it could bear more.

But even a thoroughly refined Infernal Heart remained an organ supported by flesh.

A Greater Demon’s did not.

That was the purpose of forging.

The demon had to turn the living substance of the heart into something capable of carrying condensed Chaos as naturally as flesh carried blood.

The result resembled neither a larger heart nor an ordinary heart enclosed in armour.

Its walls became a dense, crystalline substance, often gleaming like polished metal. The chambers remained, as did the routes through which blood and demonic power circulated.

But no ordinary muscle remained between them.

The new substance was alive.

Its rhythm answered the Chaos Flame within it, allowing it to contract and drive circulation even though it no longer possessed the flesh that had once performed that task.

Simon glanced down at the dark diamond beneath his sternum.

His cube could organise power, but it could not replace the source that kept him alive.

No matter how extraordinary his body became, an Infernal Heart still placed a limit upon what it could sustain.

A gust passed over the basin. Dust struck the folded edge of his lowest wing and scattered.

Lilith remained nearby, watching him and the sky.

Simon continued purifying the lightning.

A steady supply would be useless if he ruined the foundation receiving it.

Before forging, every part that would be transformed needed to accept the demon’s personal Chaos. A neglected section could not simply be hidden beneath stronger material.

It would become the place where the new structure broke.

The refinements performed as an Archfiend were therefore preparation for this moment.

Their engravings provided more than passages for power. During the breakthrough, they would become the framework around which the new heart formed.

The Chaos Flame supplied the heat. Possessing a Fire affinity was not a requirement.

Elemental Chaos supplied the substance being forged into the heart.

Will supplied the pressure and control.

No external metal had to be forced into the chest. The demon worked upon the heart already keeping them alive.

And it had to keep doing so.

That was where the danger began.

The flame first loosened the existing structure until flesh saturated with Chaos could be reshaped. Too little heat, and it resisted every attempt to change. Too much, and the demon burned away the heart before its replacement existed.

Once a section yielded, the demon compressed personal Chaos through its engravings.

Those engravings hardened into a supporting frame. The flesh between them was transformed around it, becoming part of the same dense substance.

The change had to proceed through connected sections.

Finishing an outer shell while leaving unstable flesh trapped inside would not produce a true Forged Heart. Nor would turning the entire organ into a solid lump.

Its chambers had to remain open. Its pathways had to remain connected.

Its beat could not be sacrificed for the convenience of making the work easier.

A moment of lost control could close a vessel, split a newly forged wall, or release the pressure inward against the Chaos Flame.

Healing the chest afterward would accomplish nothing if the heart inside it had already failed.

A demon could die when forging their heart, and many demons usually struggled to forge their hearts and become Greater Demons.

At the end of the day, some chose to halt the process at some point and became Half-Step Greater Demons.

”The heart has to survive being made into something else,” Simon murmured.

The affinities made the work more difficult.

A demon possessing one element had one nature to accommodate. Multiple affinities demanded a structure that could carry them all without tearing itself apart.

Fire could not be allowed to burn through an unfinished section. Wind could not split it from within. Even an element useful for stability could ruin the result if it forced everything else aside.

Balance did not mean making every affinity equally strong.

It meant giving each a place in a heart that functioned as one.

Only when the transformed sections joined and sustained their own rhythm around the Chaos Flame would the Infernal Heart cease to exist.

The Forged Heart would remain.

Simon checked his foundation.

Devouring the Furnaceback Centipede had once carried the refinement of his Infernal Heart to ninety-two percent, but because he needed to evolve his bloodlines, he didn’t move forward and remained an Archfiend.

He gave those last portions the attention they required.

Several careful refinement cycles passed while lightning hissed across the scorched ground. Purified elemental Chaos entered the deepest engravings until the last untempered section finally accepted it.

One hundred percent.

His Heart still burned as an Infernal Heart.

Now it was ready to become something else.

Simon checked the seeds once more.

Both remained unfinished.

Wind, Space, Lightning, Shadow, Fire, Ice, and Earth moved within his Chaos Flame.

Seven affinities.

The crimson destructive nature shared by three of them answered without disturbing the others.

He drew a breath.

Lilith turned from the clouds as the flame inside his heart changed its movement.

The slow rhythm in his chest deepened.

Simon gathered his Will around the organ that had carried him this far.

Then he brought the Chaos Flame against its fully refined flesh.

The forging began.