The Broken Halo

Simon entered a world of black and white.

A mountain rose before him, and its peak was occupied by a colossal tiger. Sky-blue eyes burned above a muzzle drawn back to reveal white fangs.

Below the mountain lay an abyss.

Simon could not see the One-Horned Demon. Its presence remained far beneath him, so faint that he might have missed it without knowing where to look.

However, the Byakko had no difficulty finding it.

Its gaze never left the darkness.

Wind dragged across the mountainside. The tiger’s tail lashed once, and one enormous paw lifted toward the edge.

"Stay."

Simon’s Will descended upon it.

The paw stopped.

The Sky Tiger turned its head. Something was entering the place it had ruled without challenge, and it wanted that intrusion destroyed.

The bloodline buried below was becoming dangerous.

Not because it was stronger yet.

Because something had made change possible.

Simon could feel the same alarm moving through his own blood. Part of him wanted to close the path Lilith had opened and crush whatever tried to rise through it.

He held that instinct down.

"You do not get to decide which part of me survives."

The tiger’s claws scraped against the peak.

However, it stayed and obeyed Simon’s Will.

Then a colour appeared above the abyss.

A single red drop hung in the colourless air.

The blood from Jorra’s heart.

It had entered his body. Now its influence had reached the place where his bloodlines took shape.

The Byakko roared.

The mountain shook. Wind surged toward the drop, and Simon’s expression hardened as he forced the current of wind apart.

"Enough!"

Holding it back felt like restraining his own hand while every muscle insisted on closing.

The drop fell.

It drew a thin red line into the abyss, descending until even Simon could no longer see where it ended.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then a heartbeat answered from below.

Badum

In Velmora, Simon’s bare chest jerked.

Blood runes brightened across his skin. Beneath the nine surrounding circles, the array drove the dead hearts into another beat.

Lilith watched his hands.

His fingers had begun curling.

"Keep them open."

Her voice reached the mountain.

Simon forced his physical hands to relax without withdrawing from the manifestation.

Nine rings of red light appeared around the abyss.

From them, hundreds of fine strands of blood descended, finding the same faint presence the drop had reached. Nine hundred and ninety-nine points of support tightened beneath the darkness.

The borrowed bloodlines were doing what Lilith had promised.

Holding his own in place.

Then something rose.

At first, Simon saw only a bent horn.

Then a bowed head, narrow shoulders, and arms drawn tightly against a thin chest.

The One-Horned Demon emerged from the abyss.

It looked smaller than he remembered. Its outline was so pale that parts of the darkness remained visible through it.

Once, it had tried to climb the mountain.

Now it could barely lift its head.

Simon remembered standing between it and the tiger’s attack. He had told it to wait. Promised that he would find a way to transform it too.

"I’m here."

The demon looked toward him.

Red light spread beneath its chest.

Its outline opened.

Simon doubled over.

In the real world, a thin wound split the skin beneath his collarbone. Blood ran across an inscription before Lilith pressed two gloved fingers against its edge.

His ribs felt as though hooks had been fastened between them and were slowly being pulled apart.

’Don’t move.’

He kept his legs crossed.

He had endured torture, broken bones, and a god’s attack. The pain was terrible, but recognising it helped him remain conscious.

UnholyRegeneration closed the torn flesh, but it did not stop the sensation beneath it.

Simon instinctively directed more energy toward the wound.

"Preserve the flesh," Lilith reminded him. "But do not fight the change."

He reduced the flow before it could interfere.

Inside the manifestation, the demon’s chest separated into fine grey strands.

They did not fall away.

Each remained connected to the figure, pulled outward by the red supports. Its arms followed, then its throat, until Simon could see through what had seemed to be a solid body.

He understood why his own body hurt.

The ritual was unfolding something woven through him.

The Byakko lowered its head.

A growl travelled down the mountain. The opened strands trembled, trying to retreat beneath its pressure.

Simon turned sharply.

"Look at me."

The tiger resisted for a breath.

Then those immense sky-blue eyes met his.

He held their gaze until the pressure eased.

Behind him, the weaker manifestation stopped collapsing inward.

Jorra’s blood moved through the spaces between its strands. Wherever it passed, a dull red glimmer remained, illuminating divisions Simon had never noticed.

It did not draw another creature over his own.

No unfamiliar beast took shape.

His One-Horned Demon was still there, being held open while something within it became visible.

Far below, a straight line appeared in the darkness.

Simon narrowed his eyes.

The red light approached that line and stopped.

It spread sideways, tracing a vast rectangular shape behind the suspended demon.

Then the abyss cracked.

CRACK!

Simon’s jaw clenched. A fresh tear opened across his abdomen in Velmora, and the Chaos Wraps tightened around his trembling forearms.

He made no attempt to stand.

Lilith guided another flow of blood and demonic energy through the skull. Its horns shone dark red, but the bone held.

Across the array, Tarvak strained against his restraints.

The black connection between them remained empty. Nothing had been transferred into the vessel yet.

Inside the abyss, darkness peeled from an enormous door.

Two black slabs stood beneath an arch of pale, ribbed stone. The structure rose higher than the suspended bloodline manifestation, its upper edge disappearing behind the mountain’s lowest slopes.

There were no handles.

Across both slabs ran thousands of shallow grooves. Every groove bent inward and ended at the same small indentation.

The shape of a single horn.

A shining thread descended from above Simon.

He recognised its pull at the healed place on his forehead.

His severed horn.

The thread passed through the One-Horned Demon’s brow and entered the waiting indentation.

Something knocked from the other side.

Simon’s heart missed a beat.

The sound came again.

This time, his heart answered.

"Lilith."

His voice sounded thin inside the vast space.

"I see a door."

For several seconds, she said nothing.

Then her answer reached him.

"The Bloodline Origin Gate."

"What is behind it?"

"The part of the evolution that I cannot perform for you."

Simon stared at the slabs.

"I thought we had already started."

"We have. I have separated the bloodline from your Sky Tiger’s suppression and brought it to a point where it can change."

A pause.

"That does not mean it can survive the change."

The opened strands drew together.

The One-Horned Demon regained its shape, but thin red lines remained visible beneath its pale surface. It turned toward the gate.

"Your Will has to go with it," Lilith said. "The array can hold the passage. It cannot give you the strength to return through it."

Simon’s eyes narrowed.

"So this is why you said it depended on me."

"Yes."

The gate began opening.

Neither slab moved toward him.

They parted inward, and the darkness beyond unfolded into a distance his eyes refused to measure.

A narrow path extended from Simon’s feet to the threshold. Beneath it, the abyss remained bottomless.

He took one step.

His body in Velmora did not move. His palms remained upward, his chest rising painfully beneath the blood runes.

Only the part of him standing inside his bloodline followed the path.

The One-Horned Demon waited beside the opening.

Simon stopped before it.

Its face was still weak. Its shoulders still bent. Nothing about it yet resembled a creature worthy of standing beside the Byakko.

But it had survived.

He held out his hand with a light curl of his lips.

"I told you I’d find a way."

The pale fingers closed around his.

Above them, the Sky Tiger stopped growling.

Simon did not look back.

He crossed the threshold with the bloodline he had refused to abandon.

The mountain disappeared.

Cold ash crunched beneath his feet. Beyond the gate lay an endless black plain beneath a red sky with no sun.

The One-Horned Demon tightened its grip.

Somewhere in that unfamiliar world, something answered Simon’s heartbeat.