The Broken Halo

[A/N: Once again, this bonus Chapter is thanks to Kollum. Please thank her in the comment section for me. She’s really awesome.]

——

For a moment, Simon simply stared with wide eyes.

He was running.

The God of War was actually running.

Leaving the Demon Realm had been a change of battlefield. But this was Earth. The god had replenished his Aether, unleashed an art called the Eight-Armed Calamity, and declared that Simon would learn what it meant to face him.

Now his back was turned.

”You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

Simon cut through the last weapon blocking his path.

All six wings spread.

Crimson lightning raced along their ivory spars. The vents opened, releasing violent jets as Wind gathered behind him.

BOOOOOOM!

The air burst.

Simon shot after the fleeing god, leaving a widening ring of dust over the valley.

Enigma watched the two streaks recede.

For all the humiliation Blackmoon had inflicted, he had still expected the god to find another way to fight.

However, he remembered the severed spectral arms.

The black flames.

The impossible authority.

The God of War choose to preserve his life suddenly seemed more sensible than defending his title.

Enigma cursed under his breath and followed.

Ahead, the God of War felt the pursuit closing.

Disgrace burned hotter than the wounds across Darius’s body.

A mortal was chasing him through the sky.

A Greater Demon.

But every warning within him demanded more distance.

The creature was wrong.

His physical strength, his control over his energies, the way he used the sword... none belonged to the youth he appeared to be.

He recovered from injuries without losing the rhythm of his attacks. Changed tactics before a weakness could be exploited twice. Wielded an unknown bloodline with the composure of someone who had survived countless wars.

At times, it had felt like facing a veteran god inside an impossible mortal body.

Yet two things mattered more than the rest.

The sword.

And its black flames.

The God of War glanced at the stump beneath his Aether replacement.

Merely gripping that cursed hilt had nearly cost him his precious Chosen. Severing Darius’s forearm had stopped the harm from spreading farther, including along his own descended connection.

And he still could not restore it.

Perhaps, with his true body present, he could repair what had been damaged.

Here, he could not.

The black fire was worse.

He had never encountered flames that filled him with such dread. They could follow what ordinary attacks could not reach, threatening the existence he had left elsewhere.

That sword with its crimson edge refused to break. It cut through defences that should have been sufficient.

Together, blade and flame had brought him too close to a loss he could not accept.

So he would retreat.

He had lost this battle.

Not the war.

Next time, he would know the weapon’s origin. The flames’ nature. The limits of that race and the authority that had answered his own.

He would prepare.

And then he would kill Blackmoon.

War did not reward someone for dying merely because withdrawal offended him.

Suddenly, a crimson bolt passed his shoulder.

The god swerved.

It struck the hillside ahead, throwing burning soil across his route.

BANG!

”Where are you going?” Simon called. ”I thought you said you would teach me what it means to fight a god?!”

The god formed a spear and hurled it backward.

Simon tipped sideways, folding two wings close while the others turned him around the shaft.

It exploded behind him.

The shockwave caught a group of human soldiers retreating along a broken road. Shields shattered. Men were thrown over a ditch, and several struck the rocks beyond without moving again.

Neither airborne figure stopped.

The God of War stepped against the air.

Godbreaker Step.

A circular blast marked his departure.

He gained distance.

Then the vents along Simon’s six wings flared, and the distance began shrinking again.

The god could not sustain this indefinitely. His goal was to reach one of his temples, but his nearest temple lay far beyond the battlefield. From here, even he could not teleport Darius to it.

He needed to get closer.

Close enough to reach the sanctuary in one movement rather than these short, desperate jumps.

There he could protect his Chosen, replenish his strength, and address the damage without a sword reaching for his neck.

Then his descended spirit could return to his original body.

The entire encounter would return with it. Every sensation, every failed defence, every detail of the black flames. Not the scattered impressions carried through the connection while he fought.

His true body would have time to understand what had happened.

A blade of wind cut across his route.

He dropped beneath it.

Simon followed the change without slowing.

The battlefield fell behind them.

Below, ruined earth gave way to farm roads and clustered houses.

People had been watching the distant flashes.

Now those flashes were overhead.

The god twisted and struck backward with a hammer of Aether.

Simon caught it on the Chaos Blade.

CLANG!

The collision drove both weapons aside.

Its shockwave struck a village street.

Windows burst together. Roofs lifted from their beams, and a row of houses folded beneath the pressure.

People who had reached their doors were buried there.

Others stumbled through the wreckage with broken arms and blood streaming from their ears.

Above them, Simon’s wings beat again.

Loose tiles and timber were dragged into his wake, tearing through what remained standing.

He did not lower his sword.

If the god escaped, this would not end with one pursuit.

The others would hear of him.

His race. His power. The gaze he had survived.

A meeting of gods was almost certain.

Perhaps even the beings above the gods he knew would begin discussing him.

No.

It was bound to happen.

And maybe it was happening right at this moment.

He didn’t know.

But what he did know was that killing the God of War with the Chaos Blade and Chaos Flames would buy him a little bit of time.

Time which he would need.

Simon’s eyes narrowed.

He had no intention of letting the god carry everything he had learned back to his true body without a fight.

The God of War vanished in an iron-grey flash.

Simon felt space ripple and he opened his own opening in space.

He reappeared behind the god almost immediately.

The escape had gained only a fraction of the distance intended.

The god looked back.

Simon’s grin was already there.

”Again?”

Another teleport.

Simon followed.

His own spatial teleportation required a fraction less time to complete. When he emerged, the god was still recovering his forward momentum.

The cube shifted power through Simon’s body, supplying Space energy without starving the wings that drove him forward afterward.

Greed claimed the Aether along his route. Gluttony drew it inward, feeding the refinement that kept his wings supplied.

His transitions were shorter.

His acceleration was greater.

And whenever the god spent attention gathering another escape, Simon attacked.

Lightning forced him down over a second settlement.

He raised a shield against the following slash. The deflected wind blade struck the houses below, cutting through chimneys and upper floors before opening a trench across the road.

A cart overturned into it.

The people beside it vanished beneath falling masonry.

Beyond the houses, survivors ran toward a small bridge.

The god’s next backward spear missed Simon and struck its supports.

BANG!

Stone burst from the river.

The bridge collapsed with the people still upon it.

Simon passed through the spray, a middle wing knocking fragments away from his face.

The gap narrowed.

But the god was not helpless.

He turned through a sharp bend in the valley and left a broad axe sweeping across the opening.

Simon could have broken it.

Instead, he braked with his lower wings and rolled above its edge.

The delay was brief.

Enough for the god to teleport past the next ridge.

”Keep following,” the god called. ”You will learn what waits for you.”

Simon emerged above him.

”Preferably something that doesn’t run.”

The Chaos Blade descended.

The god checked his flight and raised a shield, then recoiled when black flames appeared along the crimson edge.

He let the shield go.

Fire swallowed it as he dropped away.

Simon watched the movement.

He had done the same thing twice now.

Ordinary lightning received a block.

The black flames made him abandon the defence and move his body.

A third settlement passed beneath them.

Their flight alone ripped shingles from its roofs. A low storehouse collapsed as the god’s next acceleration drove a sheet of compressed air through it.

Cries rose through the dust.

Ahead, a tall mountain divided the valley.

The God of War angled toward its left shoulder.

Beyond that range, the distance to his temple would be shorter.

Not enough yet.

But closer.

Simon increased his speed until lightning trailed from all six wings.

He sent a broad wind blade across the god’s upper route.

The god dipped beneath it.

A crimson bolt followed from below.

He deflected it and continued around the mountain, protecting the route he had chosen.

Simon drew alongside him on the left.

The mountain rose on the god’s right.

The Chaos Blade swept toward Darius’s neck.

Black fire climbed its length.

The god raised a shield.

Then he saw the flames and twisted away instead, abandoning the barrier as he had before.

Away from Simon.

Toward the mountain.

He meant to fold space before reaching the rock.

But Simon had been waiting for that turn.

His lower wings opened against his own momentum. The sword cut through the discarded shield, but he did not reach farther for the retreating throat.

His middle wings swept forward instead.

Compressed wind struck the god’s turning body from the side.

His incomplete spatial fold broke.

Aether flared beneath his feet as he tried to correct his flight.

But Simon’s upper wings beat.

Crimson lightning struck through the gust, forcing the God’s muscles to seize for the instant in which the god needed them to move.

The mountain filled his vision.

”Fu-”

BOOOOOOOOOOM!

The God of War’s back struck the mountainside.

Rock burst around his shoulders. The impact drove him deep into the slope, sending cracks racing from the crater to the summit.

Then the upper face of the mountain broke loose and thundered down over him.