The Broken Halo

[A/N: This bonus Chapter is thanks to OfcSoccer4]

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Simon felt like a fool.

The answer had been inside him the entire time.

Those eyes had appeared because he had birthed a seed of sin. And because he possessed two, the pressure and power descending upon him were far greater than they would otherwise have been.

He had survived the tribulation brought by his transformation into a Daemon using his abilities.

Why had he not considered the seeds when facing the thing their birth had attracted?

It made sense.

It was so painfully obvious now that he wanted to curse himself.

But knowing where the answer lay did not mean he knew how to use it.

The seeds had only been completed a few minutes ago. He had barely possessed them long enough to examine them before those eyes appeared.

What could they do?

How was he supposed to use them?

Did he direct demonic energy into them? His Will? Something else entirely?

He did not know.

Blood slipped between his lips as another tremor passed through his ruined torso.

He wanted to ask Lilith.

The urge was almost unbearable. She stood right beside him. One question, and perhaps she could explain what he needed to do.

And perhaps he would die before she finished answering.

There was a reason she had told him the answer was inside him instead of naming the seeds outright.

He understood that now.

Demanding a proper explanation might as well be offering his soul to Death itself.

Simon’s thoughts faltered.

Something was moving through him.

Not the pressure. That had never stopped.

This was.... attention.

And it was attention from the eyes above. From The One.

He could feel the curiosity within it, touching his soul with a clarity no expression could convey.

And beneath that curiosity was indifference.

His pain meant nothing to the owner of those eyes. Neither did his struggle to breathe, or the blood gathering where his arms and legs should have been.

If The One wished it, he would be dead.

Simon knew this with a certainty that made his thoughts stumble again.

Whatever time he had left, it was very little.

The perception swept through his body.

Skin, muscle, bones, the pathways carrying demonic energy... nothing seemed to obstruct it. Simon felt it pass through his organs, examining the body his two lineages had created.

Disgust rose beneath his fear.

It was as though he had been stripped naked and laid open for inspection. Unseen hands seemed to move over him and beneath his skin, reaching places he could not cover even if he had possessed the limbs to try.

He wanted it out, but the thought was useless.

The perception had already reached deeper.

Toward his sea of consciousness.

Toward his soul.

Then it slowed.

Simon’s eyes widened.

For a moment, he thought the damage to his mind had confused his senses, but he felt it again.

The intrusion pressed forward, and to his surprise again, it met a resistance, then it pressed once more.

It was struggling to enter his mind and soul.

’How?’

His body had offered almost no resistance. Why were his mind and soul different?

It could not be his mental strength from his previous life.

Even at his strongest back then, he had not been comparable to the gods he knew. Compared to The One who Lilith said was the Supreme Being in existence, that strength was not worth mentioning.

Yet something was preventing the same effortless inspection.

His awareness instinctively turned toward it.

If he could find what was resisting...

A sharper thought interrupted him.

’Is this what I should be doing now?’

He had been given a little more time.

Was he going to spend it investigating why?

But what if the thing protecting his mind was precisely what could save him?

Simon hesitated.

Another stab of pain tore through his soul, scattering the question before he could follow it further.

He did not even know what he was looking for. He would have to find it, understand it, then discover whether he could use it.

The seeds, at least, were something he knew how to locate.

He wanted to understand the resistance. Desperately.

But he could do that later... if he survived.

’The seeds.’

He forced his attention toward his heart.

Survival came first.

Unknown to Simon, a white light had spread through his sea of consciousness.

It rose through the black depths of his sea of consciousness and enveloped the shell of his mind. The same radiance surrounded his soul, meeting the foreign perception pressing inward.

The light came from a ring/halo at the bottom of the sea.

The ring/halo Simon had once glimpsed during his days at Shadowgrave Academy.

He had forgotten it.

He had forgotten the voice he heard when he first saw the ring/halo as well.

Now, while his attention rested elsewhere, the ring shone.

The light did not erase the injuries already inflicted upon his mind and soul. His damaged consciousness continued to reel beneath the pressure.

But the scrutiny attempting to penetrate deeper encountered that white radiance.

For now, it could not pass.

Simon knew none of this.

Within his Prime Forged Heart, the two completed seeds thrummed.

He focused upon them.

The sound of stone breaking beside his ear grew distant. Lilith’s trembling figure blurred at the edge of his vision, and the violet light ceased to fill his awareness.

His blood continued spilling.

His broken wings remained pinned to the ground.

Yet as he observed the seeds, almost everything outside his heart slipped beyond his senses. He seemed to have entered a trance without deciding to do so.

Greed.

Gluttony.

’You’re the answer.’

His attention lingered upon the two presences.

’But will you be enough?’

He had barely formed the question when its implications struck him.

The One had sent his gaze because Simon had birthed two seeds of sin.

Two.

Not one that had somehow escaped his notice.

Whatever power those seeds possessed, the being above him had come prepared to deal with it.

Simon had not found a weapon his opponent knew nothing about. He was looking at the very reason that opponent had appeared.

And he had made the situation worse.

His demands for answers had allowed more of that distant being’s power into the demon realm. The pressure bearing down upon him now was far beyond what had initially entered.

The seeds had not changed with it.

They were the same two seeds he had possessed before Lilith spoke.

Even if he discovered how to use them this instant, why would their power be sufficient now?

His thoughts began moving faster, stumbling over one another.

Perhaps it depended on proficiency.

Possessing an ability and using it well were different things. He had spent enough time with weapons, runes, and demonic energy to understand that.

Perhaps there was a way to draw out more from the seeds. A way that would let him survive a gaze they could not withstand through a crude attempt.

But he knew almost nothing about them.

Almost nothing, and he was already wondering how to master them.

How many attempts could he make before his heart stopped?

How many mistakes could he survive?

He could not even ask what the first step was.

A dull ache spread through his chest.

For a moment, Simon lost track of one seed’s thrum. Panic struck him, and he grasped for the sensation until he found it again.

Both were there, but neither offered an answer.

’They aren’t enough.’

The certainty settled heavily within him.

Not as they were. Not with what he knew. Not against the power he had helped bring down upon himself.

Then what?

What was he supposed to do?

His awareness drifted outward.

Lilith came back into view, distorted by the space bending between them. Her hands were trembling, but he barely registered the movement.

His gaze was distant.

Lost.

Almost blank.

He stared past her for a moment, his mouth hanging slightly open.

Then his eyes shifted upward.

His neck strained. Torn muscles pulled against the weight pinning him down, and his cheek scraped through blood and powdered stone.

He could not lift his chest.

He could barely turn his face.

But he forced it far enough to look up.

The violet eyes filled his vision.

A small sound escaped him.

”Heh.”

Lilith looked sharply at him.

Simon’s lips twitched.

”Heh... hehe...”

The chuckle caught in his throat. He coughed, spilling blood over his lower lip, then dragged in a shallow breath.

Another laugh followed it out.

”Hahaha...”

His shoulders began to jerk against the ground. Each movement tore at the wounds where his arms had been, but he could not seem to stop.

The laughter grew louder.

Rougher.

It broke whenever he ran out of air, only to return before he had drawn enough for another breath.

”HAHAHAHAHA!”

There was nothing joyful about the sound.

Blood choked it. Pain twisted it. The terror in his eyes had not disappeared, yet he kept laughing beneath the gaze that was crushing him.

Lilith’s lips parted.

Simon looked up through the blood running into his eyes, and his mouth stretched into a wide, mad grin.

”How pathetic of me.”