The Broken Halo

Chapter 1002 - 1001: Diving Again

Simon closed his eyes and entered his sea of consciousness.

Black water stretched beneath his feet. A gnawer emerged nearby, shook itself, then scurried toward a large demon dog lying on the surface.

The dog lifted its head when it noticed Simon. Farther away, the abyssal grass cutter crouched with its bladed forelegs folded. Its head turned toward him, but the rest of its body remained still.

Other beast Wills moved through the darkness.

They were all black, their bodies formed from his mental energy. Despite that, they behaved much as they had when alive. The Mad Scientist’s instructions had described obedient puppets. Simon had somehow ended up with creatures that played, slept, and bothered one another.

He watched the gnawer climb over the dog’s foreleg.

”I need to find stronger beasts and take their Wills.”

These beasts had been useful when he was weaker. Against the enemies he faced now, he needed more than clever ways to use a few rats.

His attention moved upward.

Seven black stars hung overhead, casting a dim radiance across the water. Four carried the runes of his skills... Devour, Fearless, UnholyRegeneration, and ShadowEyes.

The remaining three were empty.

He examined them briefly, then looked across the sea.

It had expanded considerably.

He could feel the difference as he extended his perception. There was more mental energy beneath him, and it was denser than before. Even the barrier enclosing his sea of consciousness felt sturdier.

Becoming a Daemon and advancing to a Greater Demon had strengthened more than his flesh.

Simon walked past the beast Wills, searching.

He inspected the space above the water, then spread his senses across the surface. Nothing stood out. The familiar sinister presence of his mental energy was there, but he couldn’t find anything resembling the power that had resisted The One.

Eventually, he stopped and looked down.

’Is it underneath?’

His gaze returned to the seven stars.

They were the most obvious explanation. His Blessing had done things he couldn’t fully understand, especially since his reincarnation.

But he had used it for decades in his first life. He knew its presence and the feeling of drawing on its power.

What had stopped The One had felt different.

He wasn’t certain. There was still plenty he didn’t know about the Seven Stars Blessing. Nevertheless, he was about eighty percent sure the protection had come from something else.

Looking at the stars wouldn’t settle it.

Simon bent forward and dived.

The water closed over his head, and fragments of memories appeared around him.

In one, Sonya stood among broken stones. Another showed a corridor in the Shadowgrave Academy. Before he could examine either, several more passed through his awareness, bringing scraps of conversation and thoughts he had forgotten having or did not bother storing in his mind.

He steadied himself and continued down.

During Instructor Aphon’s class, this had quickly become dangerous. His brain had struggled to process so much information at once, and going deeper had only made it worse.

Now, although he felt the strain, it was manageable.

He could recognise the images without being overwhelmed by everything they carried.

The stars slowly disappeared above him.

Simon swam through memories of his years in the Demon Realm, then reached scenes from his first life. Human hands held a sword in front of him. Soldiers ran across a battlefield while a demon’s corpse fell through the view of another fragment.

The memories had no neat arrangement. Several overlapped, and some vanished before he could make sense of them. But they became older as he descended.

A strange feeling began troubling him.

He had done this before.

That was hardly surprising. Yet the familiarity went beyond remembering that he had once explored his own mind.

Something about the darkness below made him slow down.

’What am I forgetting?’

He recalled reaching his limit in the classroom. He had pushed too far, failed to find the bottom, then returned with blood running from his nose and eyes.

That was what he remembered.

But when he tried to recall the moment he turned back, he couldn’t picture it clearly.

Instructor Aphon’s face came easily. So did the blood dripping onto his hand.

The part just before that remained hazy.

Simon frowned and continued.

Soon, the fragments showed battles he had fought when he was around forty. He recognised a ruined position he had defended and the armour he had worn during those years.

This was roughly where he had struggled last time in the class.

He paused to check himself.

His thoughts were clear. There was a dull pressure behind his eyes, but nothing close to what had forced him to stop before.

He went farther.

A little later, light appeared below him.

Simon stopped so abruptly that the surrounding fragments drifted past his face.

His eyes widened.

’I’ve seen that before.’

A brief flash beneath the black water. Disbelief could be seen in his face as he tried to see it again.

Then he saw the outline of a ring.

The memory returned with enough clarity to make him stare.

’I did find something.’

He had left that class believing the entire attempt had been useless. He had bled and injured himself, then decided to wait until he was stronger.

How had he forgotten this?

He searched for more, but nothing followed. He could recall the light and the distant shape. What had happened afterward remained unclear.

Simon looked down again.

This time, the light didn’t vanish.

A small ring hung far beneath him. Its glow was ivory-white, and it was faintly warm against the surrounding blackness. He could distinguish the curve and the dark space within it, though little else.

’What are you?’

He swam toward it.

Memories continued passing, drawing him through the earlier years of his human life. The battles became smaller. He saw himself struggling with demons he would eventually learn to kill with a single strike.

In one fragment, his teenage hands shook around a sword. A demon advanced while he stumbled backward, too slow to bring the weapon up properly.

Simon watched the desperate movement for a moment.

Back then, surviving even one of those fights had left him exhausted and covered in wounds.

Then a different image caught his attention.

A familiar street filled with running people.

He slowed down.

The apocalypse.

Fragments gathered around him like pieces of broken mirrors, their uneven surfaces showing scenes that changed as they turned.

His father appeared in one.

Simon stopped swimming.

The man was alive for a moment, moving through the image. Then a demon reached him, and Simon watched him fall and be ripped to pieces by the demon.

Beside it, his mother was screaming.

He turned toward another fragment and saw his elder brother. His elder sister appeared a little farther away.

The demons killed them too.

His hands remained suspended in the water.

He knew what came next in those memories. He had carried their deaths through decades of fighting. Yet seeing their faces this clearly made him linger.

His sister’s mouth moved. The image shifted before the memory of her voice became complete.

Simon followed it with his eyes.

Back then, whenever he needed help, he had his parents and older siblings to turn to.

Now, he was older than any of them had ever been.

A melancholy sigh escaped him.

After a few moments, he lowered his gaze and resumed his descent.

The screams faded from his awareness.

A classroom appeared nearby.

Simon glanced at it, then looked again.

There were books on the desks. A teacher stood at the front, and sunlight entered through open windows. He recognised the room after a moment.

His old school.

’I’d forgotten about this.’

He passed a memory of walking home, then one of sitting at a table with his family. His brother reached across him for something while his mother spoke from the other side.

There were no demons.

His greatest concern in another fragment was a school assignment he hadn’t finished.

Simon watched these ordinary moments pass with an expression he couldn’t quite describe.

Some returned as soon as he saw them. Others felt unfamiliar until a face or a sound brought the rest back.

He looked toward the ring.

It seemed close enough that he should have reached it by now, but the ivory light remained below him.

Simon increased his speed.

The fragments grew older still.

His surroundings became those of a child. A table stood far above his line of sight. His sister held his hand as they walked. His father bent down to lift him.

Then there were smaller hands, a view through the bars of a cot, and faces leaning over him.

Simon began to slow down.

He didn’t remember any of this.

A fragment drifted before his face.

The image was blurred. Light pressed against eyes that could barely focus. Someone held him, and a cry filled his awareness before he understood that it was his own.

The scene shifted.

His human mother’s exhausted face appeared above him. She was younger than he had ever remembered her, her hair damp against her forehead.

He felt himself being placed in her arms.

Simon stared in disbelief.

These were his first moments alive.

He had reached his birth.

Slowly, he looked past the fragment.

The ring was still far below.

’What the hell is this?’