The Broken Halo

Chapter 860 - 859: No Holding Back

Several minutes earlier, shortly after separating from Sonya, Akaza, Elara, and the others, Simon and Darius reached another section of Frostveil’s road.

The humans had abandoned this stretch when the twins arrived. Broken barricades stood beside an empty trench, and frost covered the stone beneath their feet.

Darius stopped and turned his spear once in his hand.

”You’re very quiet,” he said with an amused grin. ”Your little friend did enough talking for all of you, but I expected something from you.”

Simon gave no response. His gaze moved over the human’s stance, the angle of his spear, and the Aether gathering beneath his armour.

Darius inhaled through his nose.

”Still the same. I can smell something dangerous, but I can’t tell where it ends.” His grin widened. ”Usually, demons try to hide more when I tell them that. You haven’t changed at all.”

Simon remained silent.

”Was that everything you could do at Ironcrest? Or were you holding back because the others were watching?”

Darius shifted his grip. The orange line along his spearhead brightened, and heat began melting the frost around his boots.

”I hope it wasn’t everything. It would be disappointing if that sword is the only reason you smell like-”

”You talk too much.”

The words came so indifferently that Darius stopped. His smile stiffened, and his fingers tightened around the spear.

”I was giving you a chance to-”

Simon suddenly disappeared.

The air snapped where he had stood. Darius’s pupils contracted, and before he could properly locate the demon, his Aether erupted outward and wrapped his body in a close veil of fire.

Simon appeared directly before him.

His right arm swept across.

BAM!

The back of his hand struck Darius’s face. Flame burst between them, Darius’s head snapped sideways, and his body followed before he could bring his spear around.

BANG!

He struck a barricade, tore through it, and crashed into a broken stone embankment more than a hundred metres away. The impact buried him beneath an avalanche of loose rock.

Simon lowered his hand.

He had not held back with his slap. His demonic energy had reinforced the full strength behind the blow, and an ordinary C-rank would not have survived it. Yet he could still sense Darius beneath the rubble.

Simon shifted the wrappings across his knuckles and glanced at the slight burn beneath them. The Chaos Wraps themselves were undamaged, but the heat had reached his skin in the instant of contact.

Darius had reacted as soon as Simon left his vision. He had not been fast enough to dodge, but the Aether around his body had gathered before the blow landed. That thin veil had absorbed enough of the impact to save him.

”Not bad,” Simon murmured.

He let the wrappings settle as the Chaos Blade appeared in his hand. The burn was already fading when he stepped forward and accelerated toward the collapsed embankment.

His confidence did not mean that he could be careless.

He intended to overpower Darius and kill him because something about the human had kept a faint warning alive at the back of his mind. His scent might have revealed something to Darius, but Simon’s instincts were telling him something too.

The rubble flashed red, and a fireball burst through it.

Simon changed direction. The sphere passed his shoulder and struck the abandoned trench, filling it with flame.

Three more followed.

One came at his chest. Another swept low across the road, while the third arced above him and descended toward the space behind his head.

Simon stopped and brought the Chaos Blade across the first.

Its compressed centre split, but the flames did not disappear. They burst outward in two violent masses, and Simon swept them aside with wind before they could close around him.

He jumped over the low fireball and twisted beneath the descending one.

BOOM!

Both exploded behind him. Heat struck his back as he landed, brought his sword across his body, and severed another sphere emerging from the smoke.

More red light gathered beneath the rocks.

Simon narrowed his eyes. Darius was not merely throwing attacks to injure him. Each fireball forced Simon away from the shortest approach, buying the human room to recover.

A column of flame erupted from the embankment, throwing stone in every direction.

Darius shot upward through the debris, his spear held in one hand. Blood covered his lower lip, and one side of his face had begun swelling.

Then a piercing cry echoed across the battlefield.

Humans in the nearest trenches looked up. Even demons fighting farther down the slope faltered as fire spread behind the airborne figure.

Two enormous wings unfolded.

Then another pair opened beneath them.

A phoenix rose behind Darius.

Its upper wings carried long black feathers split by incandescent red veins. Golden fire ran along their edges, while the smaller wings beneath them blazed white at their centres.

A hooked beak emerged above a long neck. Its swept-back crest streamed like burning banners, and six curling tongues of white flame turned within each golden eye.

The creature was not made out of flesh but fire.

Through gaps in its breast, Simon saw embers revolving around an empty centre. Feathers burned away as he watched, breaking into sparks that scattered through the air.

None reached the ground cold.

They curved back into the flames and gathered into new feathers, rebuilding what had just been consumed.

Long tails streamed behind the phoenix in red-gold ribbons. One dipped toward the burning trench. The flames within it rose, stretched into a twisting column, and joined the spirit’s body.

The phoenix grew clearer.

Simon tightened his grip on the Chaos Blade. This was not a construct formed from a few gathered flames. It was the Elemental Spirit behind Darius’s Blessing.

The heat reached the road.

Frost vanished from the broken barricades. Meltwater ran between the stones and boiled before reaching the trench. A discarded rifle blackened, and its sling turned into ash.

The pressure of Frostveil’s ice met the expanding heat, filling the space between them with hissing steam.

Darius hung beneath the phoenix’s breast.

Fire traced the copper-red lines of his armour. His spearhead glowed, and the Aether surrounding him grew dense enough to distort his outline.

Simon watched with slightly narrowed eyes.

The warning at the back of his mind had become slightly clearer.

Darius wiped the blood from his mouth with his thumb, looked at it, then gave a short laugh.

”That hurt.”

There was no easy amusement in his voice now. His eyes remained fixed on Simon, and his spear was no longer resting loosely against his shoulder.

”I already knew you were dangerous,” he continued. ”I wasn’t planning on taking things slowly.”

The phoenix lowered its head behind him. Its four wings spread wider, and the flames scattered across the road leaned toward it.

Darius pointed his spear at Simon.

A cold grin appeared on his bruised face.

”Shall we start the true battle?”