The Broken Halo

Simon had meant the gratitude.

Without The One, he doubted he would ever have encountered a presence capable of rendering Fearless this helpless.

The skill had resisted, and the terror had passed through anyway.

That failure had exposed something he had never properly examined. Beneath the composure he took for granted, his pride had been far weaker and more fickle than he liked to believe.

Now he understood it better.

He understood himself better.

And inside his Prime Forged Heart, a third seed was on the verge of forming.

Did that make Fearless useless?

Should he abandon it now that he had discovered what its protection had kept him from understanding?

Of course not.

Simon might be arrogant, but he was not eager to become an idiot.

Fearless had helped him on countless occasions. It had allowed him to think when pain, danger, and desperation should have ruined his judgment. There were battles he might not have survived without that clarity.

He could acknowledge its limitations without pretending those benefits had never existed.

Besides, he barely understood the seeds of sin.

Discarding a skill that had repeatedly saved him for a power he had possessed for only a few minutes would be foolish.

The problem was not that Fearless had helped him.

It was that he had stopped distinguishing its help from his own nature.

He would keep the skill.

And he would remember what he had learned when it failed.

His grin pulled at the blood drying around his mouth.

But the best part was something else.

If Lilith was right, he had felt a fraction of the peak.

For so long, the strongest being in existence had been an idea. Simon could aspire to that position without understanding anything about the power required to occupy it.

Now the ground was sinking beneath his cheek.

Now he could see two violet eyes, and feel a distant attention that treated his transformed body as though its strength meant nothing.

He still could not measure the full difference between them.

But the peak was no longer merely a word.

He had seen something of it.

Felt something of it.

And he wanted it for himself.

More than that, he wanted to surpass it.

”Hehe...”

The chuckle was quiet, broken by the effort of breathing.

Simon kept the same grin as he closed his eyes.

Inside his heart, the unfinished seed thrummed.

He followed that sensation without trying to force a shape upon it.

His pride was not the belief that he was already the strongest. Such a claim would have been absurd while his face was pressed against the ground.

Nor did it require him to deny what others had achieved.

He could recognise greatness. Learn from it. Accept help from it.

What he could not accept was being permanently beneath it.

Even a peaceful existence would not satisfy him if someone else remained forever beyond his reach. He had already admitted that.

Then he would stop dressing the desire in excuses.

It was not all for safety.

It was not all for freedom.

He wanted supremacy because he wanted it to be his.

The conviction did not become noble simply because he was willing to work for it. Effort might earn him power, but it did not make every greater being’s existence an offence against him.

Yet he could not look at the highest place without deciding that whoever occupied it would eventually have to be surpassed.

By him.

He was not merely hoping to become worthy of that position. Somewhere within himself, he had already decided it ought to be his, and judged every lesser outcome unacceptable.

He had no promise that this would happen.

No certainty that he would survive the next heartbeat.

Still, he refused to surrender the claim.

That was the arrogance he had been searching for.

He did not need to despise every weaker person to possess it. Nor did he need to shout about his superiority.

He could admit how small he was now.

He simply would not accept that smallness as the final truth about him.

’I can acknowledge where I stand.’

The unfinished presence drew inward.

’But I will not accept that anyone belongs above me forever.’

His heart contracted.

The seed’s outline tightened, gathering the faint, wavering presence into something distinct.

Simon held his attention steady.

He no longer searched for a more respectable reason.

Another heartbeat passed.

The third seed remained whole.

Pride.

A new thrum spread through his heart, reaching him with a quiet certainty that did not require the pressure above to weaken.

The terror lost its grip.

His wounds still hurt. His missing limbs had not returned. Each breath remained shallow, and his six ruined wings lay pinned against the stone.

But his thoughts stopped breaking apart.

Simon opened his eyes.

The violet gaze was still there.

He looked back at it calmly.

Lilith noticed at once.

Her lips parted as she looked from his expression to his chest.

”Pride...” she murmured. ”He actually formed it.”

Her trembling fingers loosened slightly.

”So easily... and a third seed of sin.”

She had watched the fear enter him. Watched it strip away the composure that had seemed inseparable from his nature.

Now it was gone.

But something was wrong.

Lilith raised her gaze.

The enormous pupils had not withdrawn. Their attention remained upon Simon, and the space surrounding his ruined body continued to bend.

’Why hasn’t he attacked yet?’

The pressure was already destroying him, but there had been no deliberate strike to end what he was doing.

Why allow a third seed to complete?

She could find no answer.

Beneath her, Simon’s chest gave a sudden, violent shudder.

The three seeds had rejected one another.

The pulse from Pride met Greed’s power and was driven back. Gluttony surged between them, only for both presences to turn against it.

Simon felt the collision gathering inside his heart.

He brought his Will down upon it.

The opposing forces strained against his restraint. Pressure spread toward the walls of his heart, threatening to tear through them.

He intercepted it before it could.

His jaw tightened.

’Not now.’

He forced the three powers apart, holding their hostility within boundaries that narrowed whenever his concentration faltered.

They had not accepted one another.

They were merely being prevented from doing more damage.

Simon knew he could not maintain this indefinitely. His mind was already injured, and every renewed clash demanded attention he needed elsewhere.

He had a solution.

But he would deal with their rejection after the fourth seed.

First, he needed to form it.

Quickly.

Above him, The One continued examining the obstruction.

The mortal had completed a third sin, but it changed nothing important.

The power already present in the realm was sufficient to kill him. There was no need to bring down more merely because something new had appeared within that broken heart.

The white radiance was another matter.

His perception pressed against the shell of Simon’s mind, then approached the protection surrounding his soul.

It was denied again.

The One’s curiosity deepened.

The mortal’s flesh had yielded its secrets so readily. Why did the same scrutiny fail here?

What was the source of this power?

What was it hiding?

The new seed received little of his attention.

Simon felt the renewed attempts.

Something pressed at the boundaries of his mind and soul, searching for a way through. He still did not know why it could not enter.

But the persistence told him something useful.

Three seeds had not changed the Supreme Being’s priorities.

Either The One did not consider them enough to threaten his hold over Simon’s life, or whatever remained concealed was far more important to him.

Perhaps both.

Simon watched the eyes without mistaking their distraction for mercy.

The curiosity keeping him alive could end at any moment.

Inside his heart, the three seeds strained against his Will again.

He steadied them.

One more.

He could not prove that a fourth would make the difference. He had no leisure to test the thought, and no safe way to ask.

Yet the feeling persisted.

If he succeeded, The One would no longer be able to leave his attention upon the hidden defence alone.

He would have to focus on Simon himself.

Simon closed his eyes again, keeping part of his Will upon the three conflicting seeds.

He already knew what came next.

The fourth seed of sin he intended to birth was...Wrath.