The Broken Halo

Chapter 1006 - 1005: Before Simon Carter [GT Bonus - ]

Simon blinked, trying to bring the face above him into focus.

Black hair hung beside his cheek. A pair of golden eyes watched him, and a hand supported his shoulder.

”Lilith?”

His voice scraped against his throat.

He tried to sit up. Pain spread through his head, forcing him to stop halfway. Only then did he notice her other hand resting above his heart.

His demonic energy was moving steadily beneath her palm. Injured pathways were repairing themselves instead of straining under the uneven flow of demonic energy.

She had been keeping him alive.

”Thank you,” he said quietly.

”You’re welcome. Try to stay awake this time.”

Simon lowered his gaze to her hand. He remembered the sword descending, then the impact against his mental barrier. After that, there was nothing.

”What happened?” she asked.

He opened his mouth, but no explanation came.

How was he supposed to describe it? He had gone looking for the power protecting his mind and found someone who appeared to be himself, facing an army of beings he could barely comprehend.

”I tried something,” he said eventually. ”It didn’t work.”

Lilith looked at the blood beside him.

”I noticed.”

He had no answer to that.

”Be careful, Blackmoon. I can’t keep putting you back together every time you get curious. You greedy bastard, you’ve only just recovered from the last fight.”

”I know.”

His reply was distracted. He was already thinking about what he had seen.

Lilith waited until he could support himself, then withdrew her hands. Ignoring his collapse would have made him suspicious, so she had asked. There was no need to press him for an answer he clearly didn’t want to give.

She shook her head and dissolved into light, returning to his heart without another word.

Simon looked around.

He was on the floor beside the bed. Blood stained his clothes and had spread beneath the place where his head had rested.

He exhaled slowly, shifted away from the worst of it, and crossed his legs.

Before thinking about anything else, he needed to know how badly his mind had been damaged.

He closed his eyes.

The black sea was still unsettled, but the enormous waves were gone. Smaller swells moved beneath the beast Wills, which remained close together.

The demon dog stood instead of lying down. Several gnawers gathered beside its legs, and the abyssal grass cutter kept turning its head as though expecting another disturbance.

None had dispersed.

Simon checked the outer barrier next.

Fine cracks marked the area where he had struck it. They were shallow, and he could already see them beginning to close. The rest of the boundary held.

Overhead, the seven black stars remained where they belonged. The four occupied stars still carried their familiar runes.

He released a deep sigh of relief.

UnholyRegeneration was repairing the damage, and the ache in his head had begun easing. His body was recovering too. Now that his circulation was steady, he doubted it would take long to finish healing.

Provided he didn’t do something foolish again.

His attention lingered on the water beneath him before he withdrew to the room.

The man.

Simon opened his eyes and stared at his hands.

’That was me.’

He could still picture the face, the tied white hair, and the sword held loosely at his side.

A resemblance alone shouldn’t have convinced him. Yet looking at that man had felt nothing like seeing a stranger with similar features.

He had followed his memories beyond his human birth and found him there.

Another life.

One that had come before Simon Carter.

For a while, he simply sat with that thought.

He remembered growing up on Earth. His family, his school, the invasion, and the decades that followed. Until his reincarnation, he had believed those years contained everything there was to know about him.

Now there was an existence before all of it, and he couldn’t remember a single day.

’Did I even have the same name?’

Who had he been? A ruler? Someone people worshipped, or someone they fled from?

Had he lived among humans?

He thought about the family whose deaths he had just witnessed again. Before them, had there been other parents? Brothers, sisters, perhaps children of his own?

He pressed his fingers against his knees.

There was no answer. He couldn’t even guess when that life had taken place. Before Lilith’s era? Before the gods he knew had come into existence?

Nothing in the scene gave him a date or a place he recognised.

Only that army.

He remembered the humans among its ranks, the enormous beasts, and the living Heralds. Above them had been those other beings whose appearances vanished from his mind whenever he looked away.

All facing him.

’What the fuck did I do?’

It had looked as though the whole of existence had gathered to kill him.

Why had he been fighting them? What could have brought so many different races together against one man?

Or had he gone there to kill them?

His former expression offered little comfort. He had looked at that army as though its countless members weren’t worth his time.

Simon couldn’t imagine facing even a few of those creatures now.

Then there was the ring.

What was it doing inside him, and why were those memories behind a barrier? Had someone sealed them away?

Had he done it himself?

Simon’s attention began drifting inward again.

Perhaps another scene would answer something. He had only glimpsed one moment before being thrown out.

His eyes dropped to the blood on the floor.

He stopped.

The first glimpse had left him unconscious and bleeding. He had no reason to believe a second attempt would end any better. Even reaching the barrier again while his mind was recovering would be difficult.

He might not wake up next time.

He needed to be stronger before attempting to see more behind the barrier.

’How strong was I?’

The question made him go still.

He remembered the aura he had tried and failed to measure. Could Lilith have faced that man?

She had been weakened when she fought Sunless. Simon had never witnessed her full strength, so he couldn’t make a proper comparison.

Even so, he had a feeling she would have been weaker.

What about The One?

His fingers tightened.

He hadn’t seen The One’s true body either. A portion of His power had nearly killed him. He didn’t know how much more remained beyond what had reached the Demon Realm.

Yet the man in that memory had felt no less terrifying.

Equal to The One?

Perhaps even stronger?

Simon couldn’t prove either possibility. But merely considering them left him staring at the wall.

’Then what killed me?’

He hadn’t seen the end of that battle. He didn’t know whether the army had survived the sword’s descent, much less whether it had been responsible for his death.

But somehow, that life had ended.

That powerful existence had become a helpless child on Earth, grown into its Hero, and died again without remembering what he had once been.

What could have brought him so low?

A stronger enemy? An injury he couldn’t recover from? Something he hadn’t even known to guard against?

Simon rubbed the dried blood from his chin.

And if it happened again, would he return in yet another body?

He had no intention of dying to find out.

He wanted enough strength to keep others from deciding whether he lived or died.

But how much would be enough?

He could surpass every enemy he knew and still encounter one he had never heard of.

And he knew better than to think the stronger fighter always survived. He had killed demons above his rank by making sure they never got the fight they expected.

Why would such things stop mattering once he became a god?

The man in the memory might have defeated every creature before him individually. That didn’t mean he could survive them all together.

Simon’s gaze lowered.

Recovering his former power might only return him to a danger he had already failed to survive.

He would need to understand what had happened, not simply become that man again and assume everything would be fine.

Perhaps he would have to surpass him too.

The thought was almost absurd. He couldn’t even withstand watching one swing of that man’s sword.

Yet even that strength might not be enough for the life he wanted.

Simon drew a slow breath.

His heart was beating normally now. The pain behind his eyes had lessened, and his hands were steady.

That was something he could actually deal with.

The rest would take more than sitting in his own blood and asking questions he had no means to answer.

He settled his hands on his knees.

’Calm down. Recover first. Then take it one step at a time.’