The Broken Halo

Chapter 896 - 895: The Wrong Target

A demon fell beneath the crowd and did not get up.

Boots struck his back. Someone stepped on his reaching hand, and another stumbled over his head. Those behind kept pushing, fleeing the headless soldiers they saw advancing through the blood rain.

The archway ahead could not hold them all.

”Move!”

”I can’t!”

A spear thrust through the crowd from behind.

Its owner had meant to stab a human warrior. Instead, he found his weapon buried in another demon’s spine.

Across the street, a shopkeeper swung an axe at something crawling over his counter. The blade passed through the vision and entered his assistant’s chest.

The shopkeeper stared.

Then the dead human behind his assistant smiled, and he swung again.

Velmora was killing itself.

Some demons jumped from windows to escape the beasts appearing inside their rooms. Others charged through fires started when panicked guests overturned lamps. Guards struck at enemies only they could see, cutting down the citizens they were supposed to protect.

Hundreds had died before Simon moved his sword.

He watched a fleeing demon run directly into an iron fence. The body hung there while imaginary soldiers continued marching through it.

The rain was false.

The blood gathering beneath that body was not.

Beside him, Tarvak shook inside the rotating wind sphere. His eyes followed the streets, then returned to the mask covering Simon’s face.

The jagged crimson markings brightened.

For a moment, thin red branches spread across the black surface. They withdrew almost immediately, leaving the original pattern darker than before.

Simon felt the change against his skin.

Maintaining this much killing intent across an entire city demanded considerable mental energy. Feeding it through the mask added a steady drain upon his Sea of Consciousness.

He had not reduced either.

’This is more than I expected.’

His killing intent alone could have made weaker demons collapse, freeze, or flee. It would not have filled their streets with armies or made them mistake neighbours for enemies.

The mask had taken the violence he remembered and forced the city to experience it.

He looked down at the axe-wielding shopkeeper.

The demon was still striking the body behind his counter.

’What would it show if my killing intent became stronger?’

Could its visions eventually break a Demi-God’s mind?

A god’s?

Simon could not answer. Even now, he was discovering how little he understood the artifact resting against his face.

”Enough watching.”

He raised the Chaos Blade.

Then five presences rose through the visions.

Simon turned.

Three Supreme Greater Demons. Two Minor Demon Lords.

They approached from different parts of Velmora, gathering above the rooftops as they identified the source of the terror. None carried the authority Simon had expected from the unknown City Lord.

’Other hidden experts, then.’

Two of the Greater Demons had paired horns. The third had grey fur along his arms and a long barbed tail.

The Demon Lords were different again, a heavy-jawed male with four arms and a pale demoness carrying a spear.

Only two suitable hearts among five.

Simon sent Tarvak’s sphere drifting behind him, away from their approach.

’I don’t have time for another conversation.’

The God of War could arrive. Lord Enigma could finish his battle and decide to collect the demon he had saved.

Neither possibility allowed Simon to waste minutes listening to Velmora’s protectors introduce themselves.

He vanished.

The five stopped as he appeared among them.

At a distance, they had felt the pressure.

Here, they saw what wore it.

The mask’s crimson markings gleamed above the black sword. Behind Simon, the sky seemed filled with hanging bodies, every ruined face turning toward them.

One Greater Demon forgot to draw his weapon.

Another drew it and stopped halfway.

Their hesitation would last only seconds, but Simon needed less.

The Chaos Blade passed beneath the first Two-Horned Demon’s jaw. His head separated, and blood struck the demon beside him.

Simon was already turning.

The second tried to lean away, but the black steel of the Chaos Blade entered his throat from the side and tore free before his defence finished gathering.

Two Supreme Forged Hearts continued beating in bodies that were already falling.

Simon caught the corpses with wind and pulled them into his spatial ring.

Both hearts remained intact.

”BEHIND YOU!”

The four-armed Lord shook off the first paralysis. His gaze met Simon’s through the mask’s eye openings, then he swung.

Two blades crossed through Simon’s position. At the same instant, the pale demoness thrust from the opposite side, releasing a narrow torrent of red flame from her spear.

BOOM!

The masked figure was thrown between them.

Blood sprayed from his shoulder. His sword arm hung crookedly, and his body bent around the spear wound through his side.

The grey-furred Greater Demon released a trembling breath.

The Lords had hit him.

Simon caught himself above a rooftop, one hand pressed against his ribs.

”He’s only an Archfiend!” the four-armed Lord said sharply. ”It’s the mask and sword. Those are what we should fear, not-”

He stopped.

His chin dipped.

Then his head slid from his shoulders.

The grey-furred demon stared as a black point emerged through the Lord’s chest, destroying the Abyssal Heart beneath it.

Simon stood behind the collapsing body.

Through the mask’s eye openings, broken black rings rotated around his pupils, releasing an eerie glow.

Hollow Sky Eye

”What...?”

The pale demoness looked toward the roof.

The wounded Simon still hung above it.

Then his blood thinned into mist. His body followed, disappearing while the real Chaos Blade pulled free of her companion.

They had felt their attacks connect.

They had seen the wounds.

However, Hollow Sky Eye had supplied those answers while the mask made questioning them painfully difficult.

Simon had not needed to invent another battle. Only convince them that the recoil of their attacks came from hitting him, and that the movement behind them belonged to the blast.

Their minds had completed the rest.

Holding those false interpretations against two Demon Lords had cost him more than he liked, and he did not intend to prolong it.

”Don’t trust your eyes!” the demoness shouted.

The remaining Greater Demon turned to flee.

Simon pointed.

A compressed wind blade struck beneath the back of his skull. His flight faltered, and he fell headfirst between the rooftops without completing another movement.

The demoness screamed and drove her spear forward.

She did not choose a visible target. Fire spread around her in a widening ring, attacking everything close enough to touch her.

Simon retreated beyond its edge.

For an instant, she had room.

Then the mask’s killing intent pressed into that space.

She saw the four-armed Lord rise beside her, his severed head held in one hand.

She knew it was false, yet her spear still moved toward it.

That involuntary turn lasted less than a breath.

Simon crossed the remaining distance with wind, the Chaos Blade leading.

She forced her weapon back and raised a shield across her chest.

Hollow Sky Eye made the black edge appear higher than it was.

She lifted the shield, but the real sword entered beneath it.

Its point passed between her ribs and reached her Demon Heart.

Puchi!

Her eyes widened.

Simon twisted the blade and pulled it free.

The red flames guttered.

Five powerful presences had risen above Velmora, and all five were gone.

Simon exhaled slowly.

The strain behind his eyes had deepened. His body was healed, but deceiving Demon Lords while maintaining the mask’s terror across the city had not been effortless.

That did not matter to those watching below.

A guard lowered the sword he had finally found the courage to raise. A demoness standing at a window backed into the room behind her.

They had seen their protectors arrive.

Then they had seen them die before the city could finish hoping.

Simon ignored them.

He checked the wind sphere.

Tarvak remained alive, staring at him with an expression too empty to hold another question.

The blood rain continued. So did the fighting visions, the screams, and the real deaths beneath them.

Simon looked across Velmora once more.

Still no City Lord.

He let out another breath and sent the Chaos Blade into his spatial ring.

Then he closed his eyes.

Both hands rose before his chest. He interlaced his middle, ring, and little fingers, leaving the index fingers extended.

Those crossed into a narrow X.

Beneath them, he brought the tips of his thumbs together and held the sign still.