The Broken Halo

Chapter 1025 - 1024: Two Cursed Spirits

Grand Elder Golden Tyrant stared at the corpse in Severin’s hands.

”Did you all see that?”

Grand Elder Night Widow slowly lowered her hand from her cheek.

”I was about to ask the same thing.”

Grand Elder Red Calamity’s earlier amusement had disappeared.

”That resembles the ancient power of the Devourers.”

Ancestral Elder Bone Prophet looked toward him.

”It seems his fourth seed is Gluttony. Could this not be an ability of his Seed of Gluttony?”

Grand Elder Dread Crown watched Simon across the arena.

”It feels as though it came from his Seed of Gluttony. But there’s something else there.”

”What do you mean?” Ancestral Elder White Death asked.

Grand Elder Dread Crown shook his head.

”I can’t explain it properly. I’ve never seen the power used quite like that.”

He glanced at Joren’s empty remains.

”Whatever the connection, the boy seens to possess the Devourers’ power. And he shows no sign of their curse.”

”The hunger?” Ancestral Elder Bone Prophet asked.

Grand Elder Dread Crown nodded.

”He chose what to consume, stopped, and walked away. Look at him. Does he seem unable to control himself?”

The elders studied the young Daemon near the wall.

Their sound-blocking formation kept every word from the spectators below.

Grand Elder Night Widow’s eyes curved above her veil.

”Every time I think we’ve found his last secret, he gives us another. I’m becoming rather greedy for him.”

Grand Elder Golden Tyrant ignored the remark.

Four natural seeds. Two Royal bloodlines. The Devourers’ power.

How much more had he kept from them?

Below, Severin turned Joren’s body slightly.

The head rolled against his wrist.

He knew Blackmoon had done this. He had watched the corpse shrink while the boy’s aura grew.

But how?

There were methods that allowed someone to consume another creature’s remains. Severin knew of rituals that drew power from corpses, and daemons that gained strength by eating the dead.

Those methods took time. They needed preparation, digestion, or some way to separate useful power from the rest.

Blackmoon had simply held Joren by the neck and everything in Joren was gone.

Severin searched the remains again.

Even the cursed energy was gone.

That troubled him almost as much as the drained flesh.

Cursed energy couldn’t be treated like ordinary demonic energy. In the wrong body, it would eat through the pathways and mind meant to carry power and turn a valuable meal into poison.

Joren had possessed a considerable amount of cursed energy.

If Blackmoon had taken all of it, why wasn’t he convulsing on the ground?

The answer was hidden beneath Simon’s calm expression.

From the moment the cursed energy entered him, he had kept it apart from his circulation. It was gathered within a tight enclosure of his own power, separate from the current of demonic energy flowing through his heart.

Whenever a strand tried to escape, he caught it and folded it back into the rest.

It took precise control. Most demons would have let some of it spread while dealing with the other gains from the corpse.

Simon had spent decades learning to control power within his body. He could handle several flows at once without confusing them, even while watching Severin.

His peerless talent in controlling his internal energies also helped him to maintain the cursed energy.

But absorbing this energy hadn’t made it safe to use.

He felt it shift inside its confinement, responding when his mental energy brushed against it.

Something he noticed about the cursed energy interested him.

The contamination from Joren’s spirits had done little beyond trying to harm him. This felt more complex. There was something about its response he wanted to examine.

But he had to do it later.

First, he needed somewhere without a Supreme Demon King threatening him.

”What did you do?”

Severin’s voice reached him across the broken floor.

Simon tilted his head.

”I returned your nephew.”

Severin lifted the withered body.

”You call this returning him?”

”It’s his corpse. You have his arms too.”

”You drained him.”

”You asked for the body. I gave you the body. Bury him, burn him, mourn him. I’m not stopping you.”

The little face inside Severin’s left eye socket shut its mouth.

Simon noticed the change.

Severin’s right eye remained fixed on him.

”You think this is a game?”

”I won a duel and returned your nephew when you demanded it. What else am I supposed to do?”

Severin stored the remains.

”I’ve heard enough.”

Simon felt the danger before he saw the spirit.

A gigantic hand spread above the arena, broad enough to cover most of the fighting ground. Grey fingers bent over the walls. Rows of small mouths opened across its palm, whispering over one another.

Its wrist ended in a ragged stump suspended in empty air.

Then the whispering stopped.

The hand fell.

Simon tried to move.

His legs bent beneath the pressure before he could push off. He reached for Space, but the spatial fold he tried to open collapsed as the force around him tightened.

His eyes widened.

Demonic energy rushed across his skin.

Stone rose around him. He compressed it into a thick curved shield, then formed a second layer of ice outside it. Fire swept into the wind gathering around both, becoming a furious, spinning sphere.

Crimson lightning snapped through the flames.

The palm struck.

BOOOOM!

The fiery wind flattened against the ice. The ice shattered, driving fragments through the stone beneath it.

All three defences broke.

Simon crossed his forearms above his head.

The hand drove him down.

BANG!

His boots sank into the floor, and both knees struck the broken slabs. Pain burst through his arms and spread across his shoulders.

A mouthful of blood splashed onto his chest.

The pressure lifted.

Simon pulled in a breath and forced his legs beneath him. UnholyRegeneration began repairing the damage while he drew more power toward his limbs.

Severin lowered his hand.

The spirit struck again.

BOOM!

Simon dropped back onto his knees. The ground burst shattered around him, and a sharp crack sounded inside his chest.

He groaned through clenched teeth.

”You defeated my nephew,” Severin said. ”Did you think that made you strong enough to mock me?”

Simon couldn’t answer.

He was trying to breathe around a rib that had pierced his lung.

His regeneration pulled it free and began closing the wound. At the same time, he kept the cursed energy taken from Joren sealed away. Losing control of it now would make everything worse.

He tried to raise his head.

Above him, the enormous hand lifted once more.

The Seed of Pride stirred. Simon forced his Will against the power pinning him down, trying to create enough room to move.

However, the descending weight barely slowed down.

It hit before he could get one foot underneath him.

BOOM!

His arms folded. His chest struck the ground, followed by the side of his face.

The shattered floor sank beneath him.

Along the terraces, spectators scrambled backward as fragments struck the retaining wall.

”He’s going to kill him!”

Sonya was already on her feet. Akaza rose beside her, staring at the place where Simon had vanished beneath the dust.

Enigma took a step toward the fighting ground.

But the pressure surrounding the arena stopped him and the rest before they could even reach it.

Severin hadn’t needed to look in his direction.

”This is what the difference in our powers means,” Severin said coldly. ”All those clever answers, and you can’t even stand.”

Simon pressed his palms against the stone.

His left arm shook. His right elbow tried to straighten, then buckled when another pulse of pressure ran through him.

Blood filled his mouth.

He spat it out and kept his eyes open.

Fearless prevented panic, but it did nothing to mend the bones being broken faster than he could repair them.

The hand rose a short distance and remained there, holding him down with its pressure.

Something scraped beside his face.

Simon turned his head.

A squat, hairless beast crouched at the edge of the depression. Four legs bent at backward knees. Its head was a cage of long teeth, with a pale human hand moving inside where a tongue should have been.

He hadn’t felt it approach.

The fingers inside its mouth spread toward him.

Severin spoke from beyond the crater.

”You took both his arms.”

Simon dragged his left shoulder backward, but it was too late and he was too injured to move.

The jaws closed above his upper arm.

He drove demonic energy into the limb, but the teeth passed through it and locked around the joint. The spirit planted its feet and pulled.

CRACK!

Simon’s breath caught.

The beast jerked its head.

RIIIP!!!

His left arm tore free.

”Ngh!”

A low groan escaped him as blood spread beneath his chest.

The spirit dropped the arm several paces away. Black wraps covered the hand, its fingers curled toward the broken stone.

Simon tried to turn onto his side.

The huge palm’s pressure pressed him flat again.

His remaining hand clawed at the floor. New flesh began forming at the wound, only to tear as the hostile cursed energy left by the bite spread through it.

He forced his own energy against it.

The beast crawled around his head.

”One isn’t enough,” Severin said.

Its jaws opened toward Simon’s right shoulder.

He couldn’t get his arm beneath him. The pressure had trapped it against the stone.

The pale hand inside the creature’s mouth reached out, fingers brushing his torn sleeve.

”That’s enough.”

The word rolled across the colosseum.

The beast lunged, but its teeth struck an invisible wall.

A clear barrier closed around Simon, forcing the creature back before its jaws could reach his remaining arm.

Above him, the gigantic palm dropped.

BOOM!

It stopped against the same barrier and the barrier didn’t even bend.

Severin had a dark expression on his face as he looked in the direction of the council of elders.