The Broken Halo

Chapter 913 - 912: What Is This? (Spacecraft Bonus Chapter)

[A/N: This bonus Chapter is thanks to PettyEnigma!!! It’s been a while, but thanks so much man I really appreciate the super gift.]

The sky answered Simon’s roar.

Thunder struck from every direction. The clouds folded inward, and a tremor passed through the ruined city into the ground beyond it.

Far from Velmora, stones jumped along the roads. Fractures opened across slopes that had survived the previous strikes.

Simon’s heart answered the thunder.

Badum

Every part of him felt awake. His wing vents opened and closed without conscious instruction. Crimson sparks leapt between his fingers, and the cube’s nine currents turned so quickly that their separate paths blurred.

His injuries still hurt.

Yet the pause between strikes had begun feeling like an inconvenience.

Above him, the tribulation stopped preparing its attacks separately.

Five times, it had sent power to destroy the Daemon below. However, he had turned the intervals between attacks into opportunities to recover and steal.

There would be no more intervals.

Every strike still awaiting him gathered into one shape.

A head emerged from the clouds.

Crimson lightning curved into horns. White light burned between enormous jaws, and hundreds of branching bolts locked together along a descending neck.

The body followed.

It coiled across kilometres of sky, four clawed limbs drawing inward beneath scales made from overlapping flashes. Its tail remained inside the clouds, pulling the last reserves of lightning after it.

The tribulation was now a dragon.

It was not a living creature. Instead, it was the remainder of his punishment given jaws.

ROOOOOOOOOOAAAAARRRRR!

Simon’s pupils contracted.

The pressure stripped loose stone from the crater before the dragon moved. Its mouth opened wider, and every instinct in his rebuilt body gave him the same answer.

His bare flesh would not survive this.

”Shit.”

He bent forward, tucked his chin, and crossed his arms over his head.

All six wings folded around him.

Space hardened beyond them in overlapping layers. Between those layers, he stretched the distance leading to his body, forcing a few metres to contain a journey far longer than they appeared to permit.

The cube brightened.

An unfamiliar instinct spread through its nine currents.

Simon followed it.

Pale lines joined his horns, wing roots, ribs, and limbs. Whatever force or attack reached one part of his body could be shared through all nine routes rather than allowed to destroy a single point.

It would not remove the force, but it might keep him alive long enough to heal.

The dragon descended.

Its jaws entered the stretched distance.

For a heartbeat, its head seemed to recede while its body continued falling.

Then the space between its teeth broke.

CRAAAAACK!

The hardened layers shattered one after another. Fragments of distorted scenery spun around its muzzle before disappearing in the lightning.

The dragon struck Simon’s wings.

The outer pair tore open.

Ivory spars bent inward. The middle pair lasted long enough to turn the jaws slightly before crimson light punched through them too.

The nine circuits flared together.

Then all nine were overwhelmed.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

Both of Simon’s knees struck the ground.

”Ngh!”

His groan vanished beneath the impact.

The basin where Velmora had stood dropped.

Its floor fractured in enormous concentric rings, each rising beneath the force transmitted through the earth. Buried foundations, cellar walls, and the last recognisable pieces of the city disappeared inside a column of red-white light.

Beyond the basin, ridges split from summit to base.

The blast hurled their broken faces across the surrounding land. A river farther away leapt from its bed, its water becoming a white cloud before the falling stone reached it.

The thunder continued after everything visible had disappeared.

At the centre, the dragon’s body poured into the place where its head had struck.

Simon could no longer see his left shoulder.

Burned muscle hung from exposed bone. Lightning tore through his chest, revealing a glimpse of his beating Demon Heart before new flesh struggled across it.

Two wings hung by damaged roots.

He grunted again and forced demonic energy toward Unholy Regeneration.

Healing came first now.

If his heart stopped, there would be nothing left to strengthen.

Devour dragged power from the lightning grinding through him. Most of the first surge went straight into repairing the damage on his body.

His flesh closed.

The dragon tore it open.

Inside his bloodline world, the Byakko roared.

Its chest split beneath the storm moving through its coat. Crimson lightning ripped into the wind around its mane and scattered the folded spaces surrounding its tails.

Simon ground his teeth together.

The lightning was still trying to dominate what he had refused to surrender.

Keeping it separate had bought time, but it would not solve the problem.

”I want it all...”

Blood thickened the words.

Wind pressed through his torn wings. Space trembled around his hands. He felt all three affinities struggling inside the same bloodline.

”Every last bit.”

His heart thundered.

”I’ll devour everything. I’ll reach the peak.”

He stopped trying to keep the destructive nature confined to lightning.

Instead, he drew a thin wind current around a crimson strand that Devour had made his own.

The lightning struck it.

Simon let the wind carry the impact rather than scatter before it, then the current of wind turned red along its edges.

However, it remained wind.

Pain tore through his back, but he held the connection.

Then he folded a thread of Space through both.

The first fold burst.

A wound opened below the exposed face of his cube.

Unholy Regeneration sealed it while he tried again, feeding another controlled portion of the immense power flooding him into the connection.

This time, the fold held.

Crimson light followed its edge without cutting through it.

Simon’s eyes widened.

He had been protecting Wind and Space from the very quality he wanted his lightning to possess.

Now he let all three inherit it.

Not by sacrificing their nature, but by giving their different forms the same destructive power.

His Will held that aggression within the pattern instead of allowing it to decide what to attack.

The cube’s nine currents divided into finer streams. Within each, lightning, wind, and folded space travelled together.

None had to drive the others out.

Simon pushed that pattern into the Byakko.

The tiger arched.

Nine tails lashed across the manifestation world. Its wings spread so violently that the silver terraces shook.

Crimson light ran from its chest into every limb.

Then the tearing stopped.

The thunder within its body became one continuous sound.

ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAARRRRRR!

The Nine-Tailed Byakko stood whole.

Its white fur remained, but crimson streaks swept through the mane. Black stripes crossed its enormous body, each bordered by a thin, burning red line.

Lightning travelled along the wings’ sharpened feathers.

At every tail-tip, wind coiled around a small fold in space. Crimson sparks passed through all three as though they belonged to the same storm.

The tiger’s eyes opened.

Red.

Its aura rolled across the mountain with a violence that made even the Uruqath’s suspended arches tremble.

But the wind kept moving.

The spatial folds remained intact.

In Velmora, Simon raised his head.

His irises had become crimson. His vertical pupils rounded into black circles, while the thin broken black rings remained farther out within the red, separate from the pupils themselves.

Hollow Sky Eye had not disappeared.

The third eye above them stayed closed.

Red borders followed the ivory stripes along his ribs. Beneath his wing membranes, crimson light travelled between the vents as their torn edges healed.

He tested a breath of wind.

It cut through the lightning surrounding his hand, carrying red sparks along its edge.

He folded the space beside it.

A crimson seam appeared, held steady, then closed at his command.

’Interesting.’

His lips parted in a breathless smile.

He had kept them. He had kept all his affinities without losing much or even anything at all.

The relief lasted until another wave of power drove through his chest.

The tribulation dragon had not finished emptying itself.

Lightning still surrounded him in enormous coils. More filled his wings and pathways, pressing against a body that could become no stronger at its current rank.

Unholy Regeneration repaired a torn vessel before the next heartbeat could rupture it completely.

Without it, he would have died over and over beneath this one attack.

Simon exhaled slowly.

”Now... the Forged Heart.”

He turned his attention toward the Infernal Heart burning inside his chest. His new body had reached its limit. Advancing into a Greater Demon was the next step.

Then he paused.

Something moved within his heart before he directed the gathered power toward it.

Not the cube.

Not another current of energy arriving from his wings.

Something inside his heart answered his heartbeat.

Simon’s smile disappeared.

”What is this?”