The Broken Halo

Chapter 996 - 995: The Origin Of The Seeds Of Sins

A wry smile crossed Simon’s face hearing Lilith’s words.

Lilith truly disliked long conversations about knowledge and history. The more they talked, the easier it became to imagine her younger self leaving a book unopened because there was someone she would rather fight or somewhere to play.

Why bother reading about an enemy when she could simply beat them with her immense talent?

He doubted anyone had enjoyed teaching her.

Simon shook his head.

[You know I need to understand the seeds. I’ve been using them without knowing what they might do to me. How am I supposed to get stronger like that?]

[Even if I explain them, you’ll find something else to ask. We could spend an eternity having this conversation.]

[I’m only asking what I need to know now.]

[Your idea of what you need is rather generous.]

[Then start with the important parts.]

Lilith released a deep sigh.

[What do you want to know?]

[You called the Seeds of Sin our paths to true godhood. What did you mean? And how do I nurture them properly?]

[To explain that, I’ll have to tell you what I was taught about their origins.]

Simon settled against the headboard.

[My parents believed there were seven ancient entities behind the seven sins. Pride, Greed, Gluttony, Wrath, Envy, Lust, and Sloth. The oldest Daemons I knew believed it too.]

[Actual beings?]

[Yes. Though I can’t tell you whether they’re alive, dead, imprisoned, or in some condition we wouldn’t recognise because I don’t know their current status.]

Simon glanced toward the window.

He had just learned about the Primordial Daemon. Now there were seven more beings important enough that Lilith’s parents had spoken of them.

A thought came to his mind and he asked curiously.

[Were they ancestors of the Primordial Daemon?]

[Don’t confuse the two. The Primordial Daemon is the ancestor of our bloodlines. The Seven were believed to be the sources of our divinity.]

[Our ability to become gods came from them?]

[Yes. That’s what I was told.]

Her voice grew more deliberate.

[And remember that I wasn’t there. I’m repeating accounts older than my parents. They believed them, but belief doesn’t make every detail correct.]

[I understand.]

Simon leaned forward, his complaints about her reluctance forgotten.

[According to those accounts, the seven powers existed before the first Daemon. Before anyone gave them the names we use. They weren’t ordinary feelings that happened to become stronger.]

[Then what were they?]

[Powers capable of changing existence according to their nature. Over time, those powers developed wills of their own.]

Lilith paused.

[That was how my mother told it. My father thought the Wills had always been there, and that calling them powers before calling them beings was pointless.]

[They disagreed?]

[Frequently. They agreed there were seven. Where each began was another matter.]

Simon smiled faintly, then listened as she continued.

[One account described a place where Sloth had fallen asleep. Rain remained suspended above the ground. The creatures caught there neither aged nor escaped. Armies sent to retrieve them stopped beside the ones they had come to rescue like they were frozen in time.]

He pictured rows of warriors waiting beneath a storm that never reached them.

[My mother spoke of worlds claimed by Greed. They remained whole, with everything inside them, but nothing could leave. Even the dead were kept.]

[Kept how?]

[My mother didn’t explain that part. I wondered about that too.]

Simon looked at the floor with slightly furrowed brows.

[Gluttony’s stories were different,] Lilith continued. [There was one about a world it consumed. First the living things, then the bodies, the land and the oceans. The beings watching from outside believed it would stop when there was nothing left.]

[It didn’t?]

[It continued feeding upon the space where the world had been. They fled when the distance separating them from it began disappearing.]

Simon stopped shifting on the bed.

He knew what it felt like to draw something into Devour. He had never imagined an appetite that kept eating after the world containing its prey was gone.

[Those were stories meant to describe their nature,] Lilith said. [Some may have been exaggerated. But the elders and my parents who repeated them had seen worlds destroyed. They didn’t consider the Seven ordinary creatures with unusually large reserves of energy.]

[Did your parents worship them?]

[They acknowledged them. I never saw either of my parents kneel and pray to a sin.]

That was reassuring, although it answered only part of what troubled him.

[And the Primordial Daemon? Where does it enter into all of these stories?]

[That is where the stories become less consistent.]

Lilith sounded irritated with the stories she had heard rather than with him.

[Some said the Seven offered portions of their power to the first being capable of enduring them. Others said the Primordial Daemon took what it wanted. My mother warned me not to confuse a flattering history with a truthful one.]

[Which version did she believe?]

[She wouldn’t claim to know. But the important event was the same in both.]

Her voice lowered.

[The Primordial Daemon brought all seven powers into a single body and soul.]

Simon glanced down at his chest.

He had struggled to contain two bloodlines. His four seeds had hardly settled without trouble either.

[Their power, or the entities themselves?]

[Their power. The story doesn’t say it swallowed seven entire beings.]

Simon nodded for her to continue.

[In the version my mother told me, its body split under the strain. Each wound carried a different presence. The flesh would begin to mend, then be torn apart by the powers fighting inside it.]

He found himself examining his own hands.

[It kept surviving. Though, nothing in any of the stories explained how long that lasted. Only that, when the wounds finally closed, all seven powers remained within it.]

[And they stopped fighting?]

[They came under its control. The body no longer broke apart whenever they moved.]

Simon let out a quiet breath.

[It became the first Daemon capable of holding all seven sins together,] Lilith said. [Its descendants inherited different parts of its blood. Those inheritances became the beginnings of our many races.]

[And the seeds were passed down with them.]

[The possibility of forming them. A descendant wasn’t born carrying everything the Primordial Daemon possessed.]

Simon considered Veyra beneath the buildings outside. The Uruqath ancestor on the path. The Byakko that had refused to bow.

Their shapes differed enormously, yet each supposedly carried something from the same being.

The bloodline connection had seemed difficult enough to grasp. Now he was being told that the inheritance included access to seven older sources of power.

[Then when I formed my seeds, did something choose to give them to me?]

[I didn’t receive a visit from Pride when mine formed,] Lilith replied. [I didn’t pray for it either. I developed it myself.]

[But that doesn’t tell us whether one of these ancient entities gave us the seeds or noticed us.]

[No. It doesn’t.]

Simon disliked that answer, but he preferred it to reassurance she couldn’t support.

[What my parents taught me was that the Primordial Daemon made those powers something its descendants could develop within themselves. The seeds are the beginnings of that development.]

[The beginnings of divinity.]

[Yes. Your bloodline gives you the body and racial abilities you inherit. A Seed of Sin gives you the opportunity to develop divine authority.]

Simon remembered using the Seed of Pride against The One’s pressure. He had felt the difference between forcing his body to stand and making the power surrounding him yield.

[As you advance, that authority can become part of your existence,] Lilith continued. [Your body, soul and cultivation must support it. Having a seed doesn’t mean you can skip that work.]

[I wasn’t planning to.]

[You were certainly hoping to make it faster.]

He couldn’t deny that.

Outside, a line of fire passed behind the neighbouring buildings. Simon watched it disappear before returning his attention to the four seeds in his heart.

The story explained why they mattered. It didn’t give him a way to measure how far each could develop.

Something else didn’t seem right either.

[There were millions of Daemons in your time. If all of them had only seven paths to true godhood, wouldn’t they eventually become the same seven kinds of gods?]

[You’re treating a sin and a path of sin as the same thing.]

[Aren’t they?]

[No. Millions of Daemons can possess the Seed of Greed without wanting the same things or using it in the same way.]

Simon rubbed his chin.

[Imagine one who wants to collect every piece of knowledge,] she continued. [He spends centuries seeking lost records, questioning survivors and studying things nobody else can understand.]

[He sounds useful to have around.]

[Until he decides you know something you haven’t told him.]

Simon gave a small, acknowledging nod.

[Another wants every kingdom under his control. He couldn’t care less about the contents of a library unless possessing it helps him acquire a kingdom or a piece of it.]

[Both are greedy.]

[But their greed takes them through different lives. They struggle with different things, learn different lessons, and develop their seeds differently. Why would they arrive at the same abilities?]

Simon looked toward his own hand. Greed had answered his desire to take, but he had barely considered how much the nature of that desire might matter.

[Then copying how another Daemon uses a seed wouldn’t necessarily help mine grow.]

[It might teach you something. But following their life as though it were a cultivation manual would be another matter.]

[What should I do instead?]

[Understand what you want from each sin. Pay attention to how it responds when you use it. Energy is necessary, but pouring energy into a seed won’t teach you what you don’t understand.]

He nodded slowly. That gave him somewhere to begin, even if he had another method in mind.

[I’m making this simple for you,] Lilith added. [There is more to it than choosing something you want and pursuing it. I’m dumbing it down for you. Some differences only become clear after you’ve developed the power enough to experience them.]

[And until then?]

[Learn what your seeds can do for now. When you’re strong enough to cross the next bridge, you’ll have a better chance of understanding the answer and crossing it.]

Simon settled back, considering the distinction.

[These different ways a sin develops. Is there a name for them?]

[Yes,] Lilith said. [We call them Aspects of Sins.]