The Broken Halo

The moment the seed of Wrath began taking shape, The One’s attention shifted.

The white radiance protecting Simon’s mind and soul was no longer his foremost concern.

He was looking at Simon himself.

Simon felt the change before the enormous pupils moved. The scrutiny that had been testing his inner defences settled upon his heart, following the fourth presence drawing together within it.

An emotion reached him.

Surprise.

Then something closer to bafflement.

The being above had not expected this.

Beside Simon, Lilith stared at the crimson light crawling over his body.

”Wrath?”

Her voice was barely audible.

”A fourth seed... and it’s Wrath?”

She had birthed that sin herself.

She knew its nature. She knew that being consumed by fury and giving Wrath a lasting existence were different things. The familiar sensation rising from Simon left her with no room to dismiss what she was witnessing.

That only made it harder to accept.

He had formed Pride moments ago.

Now this?

”Since when were seeds of sin this easy to birth?”

Her fingers curled against her palms.

They were not.

Yet Simon was making it look as though he only needed to choose the next one.

Was it his bloodlines? The experience of his previous life? Something she had failed to notice?

Lilith raised her eyes.

The questions stopped.

A violet point had appeared beneath the enormous pupils.

The One was about to attack.

Simon felt the gathering power.

Warning bells tore through his instincts, each sharper than the last. His soul recoiled, but his thoughts remained clear.

He tried to lift his upper body.

His shoulders shifted slightly before the weight forced them down again.

But it was still not enough.

But the pressure was no longer unbearable. He could endure it without every thought dissolving beneath the effort.

That did not mean he could endure what was forming above him.

He could not raise his head far enough to see it properly.

But Lilith could.

The violet point lengthened.

A straight shaft emerged behind it, gathering from streams of light that curved inward beneath the eyes. White stars moved through its depth. Dark spheres turned behind them, their pale rings bending along the growing weapon.

Two edges spread from the point and narrowed toward the shaft.

A spear.

Its head hung above the basin, broad enough to cover the remaining cliffs.

Yet Lilith’s perception told her something else.

Within it, the shaft was slender enough for her fingers to close around, its length scarcely greater than her height.

However, her eyes saw a colossal weapon.

Her spiritual perception recognised an ordinary-sized spear.

Neither impression displaced the other.

It was not shrinking. It was not growing.

Both measures existed together.

The last streams of violet light drew into the shaft.

Its point remained aimed at Simon.

Inside his heart, the Seed of Wrath contracted.

He focused upon it.

The destruction he had drawn from the tribulation lightning moved with his killing intent, gathering around the fury he had finally brought together.

The seed’s outline became clearer.

The other three reacted.

Greed’s power struck the forming presence. Pride pressed against both, and Gluttony surged through the space Simon had been struggling to preserve between them.

His restraint bent.

Pain stabbed through his chest.

’Stop.’

He tightened his Will.

The collision stopped short of his heart’s walls, but the strain spread through his injured sea of consciousness. For an instant, his awareness of his right side vanished.

He forced it back.

Four seeds were going to be far more difficult than three.

Even with all his attention devoted to suppressing them, his current Will would not hold them apart indefinitely.

And suppression was not the only thing demanding his attention.

At the torn remains of his left shoulder, blackness stirred.

Devour

Simon directed it into the power obstructing his recovery.

He could feel that power now.

It lingered within the wounds left by the gaze, breaking apart new tissue almost as soon as UnholyRegeneration produced it. His body had been trying to heal, only to lose the same progress again and again.

The pressure itself was not the only obstacle.

His earlier terror and confusion had kept him from identifying the interference clearly enough to do anything about it.

Now he could think.

And Gluttony had given him something to try.

Devour caught the foreign power and pulled.

The resistance was immense.

Simon brought the seed of Gluttony’s power into the same effort.

Something yielded.

It was only a thin strand at first.

Then another.

The blackness tightened around them, drawing them away from the wound.

Simon’s eyes narrowed.

The difference was greater than he had expected.

Devour had always been dangerous. With Gluttony supporting it, the skill tore into a resistance it had barely been able to disturb.

Even he found that appetite terrifying.

He kept its reach narrow.

There was no need to attempt swallowing the entire pressure descending upon him. He needed to remove what prevented his body from repairing itself.

UnholyRegeneration followed where Devour cleared a path.

Flesh gathered at his shoulder.

This time, it remained.

A short length of pale bone extended from the ruined joint. Blood vessels stretched around it, followed by strands of muscle.

Slowly.

It was far too slowly for his liking and the current situation, but his arm was growing back.

He repeated the process at the other wounds. The beginnings of his legs pushed outward, while cracks along the ivory spars of his six wings started closing.

The membranes remained torn. His limbs were nowhere near complete.

Still, each small section restored was something he had not possessed a heartbeat earlier.

Wrath pulsed again.

The conflict inside his heart worsened immediately.

Simon diverted more of his Will to it, and the growth at his shoulder faltered.

He adjusted the balance.

Not all of it.

Enough to keep both processes moving.

At the same time, he examined Greed and Pride, following the way each answered his intent. He tested only small amounts of their power, observing their responses before withdrawing his attention.

He needed to understand what he was working with.

Especially if he was going to carry out the solution he had already considered.

Knowing what he wanted to attempt was not the same as knowing how to begin without letting the seeds destroy him first.

Above him, the spear’s edges sharpened.

Lilith’s golden scarf lifted slightly toward its tip.

”Blackmoon!”

Simon heard her.

He could not afford to answer.

Devouring the power obstructing his healing. Restoring his body. Studying the seeds. Holding them apart.

And completing Wrath.

His thoughts moved between each task, returning before the last adjustment could fail.

Blood ran from his nose.

Four seeds of sin were truly a lot to handle.

BADUM!

The fourth presence drew together.

Its wavering outline settled.

The seed of Wrath was complete.

Four distinct powers answered the next contraction of his Prime Forged Heart.

Then all four strained against his restraint.

Simon caught the first collision.

The second nearly slipped past him.

His attention followed the movement, then flicked toward Gluttony and the power being pulled from his wounds.

Something occurred to him, and his eyes brightened.

’That’s it... the solution.’

At that same instant, the spear descended.

Lilith saw its point move slowly through the violet light. She could distinguish every part of the motion, every slight change in its angle.

Yet before she could finish drawing a single breath, it had crossed the sky.

It was slow and impossibly fast at the same time.

She could follow its descent, but unfortunately, she could not help Simon to deal with this tribulation.

The violet point reached the ground where Simon lay.

Every fracture beneath him flashed.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

The ground folded inward around the spearpoint, then burst apart. Cliffs vanished behind an expanding wall of pulverised stone, and violet light tore upward through the collapsing basin.