The Broken Halo

"Devour."

The blackness spread from Simon’s palm before the Daemon’s first breath.

Its silver chest sank beneath his fingers. Fine strands lifted from the dark ridges covering its ribs and disappeared into his hand.

Two eyes opened.

They stared at Simon, then at the place where his touch was pulling the ancestral body apart.

"What...?"

The six wings behind it snapped outward.

Pressure struck Simon hard enough to bend his knees. He nearly lost contact, but leaned forward instead, pressing his hand deeper against its chest.

"No. That power-"

Recognition twisted the Daemon’s face.

"A Devourer?"

Its disbelief gave Simon a moment to bare his teeth.

"Why does that blood still exist? What are you doing on this path? Your origin is not here!"

Simon chuckled with a grin.

"Why does a Devourer have to stick to only its path? It devours all!"

The answer came almost casually. The grin accompanying it did not.

The Daemon struck toward his head.

Simon caught the wrist with his free hand. The force bent his fingers backward, but Devour was already taking strength from the arm he restrained.

He could not have stopped it a moment earlier.

He would not let go now.

His bloodline manifestation seized the Daemon from behind. Six crimson eyes burned beside its neck as the former One-Horned Demon sank its teeth into the silver flesh.

"You filthy descendant!"

The Daemon staggered.

"Born with one miserable horn, and you dare put your teeth into me?!"

Its forehead split along the vertical eyelid.

Something behind it began looking out.

Simon felt the pressure change.

His companion’s fingers loosened. The road beneath them flattened into a smooth surface without a single footprint.

If that eye opened, he would lose his grip and maybe even his life.

"Pull him down!"

His companion dragged at the neck between its teeth.

Simon lunged upward and... he bit the eye!

He bit through the opening lid, caught the soft eye beneath it, and tore his head back.

Rip!

The scream struck the red sky.

Silver flesh ripped beneath his teeth. The torn eye blackened in his mouth and dissolved as Devour reached it.

Blood ran down his chin.

"Be quiet," he said with a much more demonic grin. "Your blood is all I need."

The Daemon’s wings slashed forward.

One cut across Simon’s back. Another struck his companion’s shoulder, nearly severing the arm holding it.

Neither released it.

Simon drove Devour harder.

The ivory horns bent toward his hand. The suspended ring buckled, dragging its six wings inward as the Daemon’s body collapsed between his grip and the teeth buried in its neck.

"Accursed-"

Its mouth stretched into black threads.

The last scream disappeared with them.

Simon stumbled through the empty space where it had stood.

Power struck him from within.

His companion fell beside him, its six wings folding against its back. His dark-bronze skin lightened, and black ridges rose along its ribs.

Four of its eyes closed and disappeared.

A vertical seam opened at the centre of its forehead.

In Velmora, Simon screamed for the first time since he began the ritual.

"AAAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!"

His physical wings were being pulled back into him.

Bone slid beneath the skin. The roots tore free from his spine while the wings themselves thinned into translucent vanes that remained suspended behind him.

A black ring formed between them.

The wings joined it instead.

Simon could still feel all six, although nothing connected them to his back.

Unholy Regeneration sealed the damage left by the withdrawing roots. His pain tolerance kept him conscious through the terrible sensation of his body separating from parts it still considered its own.

The eight-horned crown split.

Four ivory horns remained. The lower pair swept backward past his shoulders and the upper pair extended sideways before turning sharply upward.

His skin became dull silver.

The four additional eyes beneath his original pair sealed. A third formed vertically in his forehead and remained closed.

His Infernal Heart continued burning, but the blood within its chambers no longer carried the same presence.

Beyond the array, loose stones began trembling against the ground. Surviving demons bowed without understanding why. The air pressed against their backs even when they tried to crawl away.

The black channel surged.

Tarvak’s body lifted against every restraint at once.

The horns protruding from his stumps softened and forced themselves backward beneath his skin. His shoulders twisted as the growths sought room that did not exist.

Behind him, the malformed wings tried to detach.

Skin stretched after them in long sheets. A jagged black rim pushed through the flesh around his spine but could not separate from the body holding it.

All the mouths beneath his skin opened.

Only a wet, broken wheeze emerged.

Once again, Lilith redirected the flow before it could crush his heart. Then both hands closed around the skull.

A piece of its brow came away.

Dark-golden light caught it.

Above her, the sky turned crimson.

The lightning no longer appeared as scattered branches. Broad sheets joined one bank of cloud to another, remaining bright while new bolts formed beneath them.

Thunder struck before the previous peal could fade.

BOOOOOOM!

The ground jumped.

Blood rose from the outer circles, pulled into trembling threads before the array dragged it back.

A vast bolt forked directly above Simon.

Its lowest branches stopped short of the ritual.

The next bolt reached lower.

For several breaths, the ruins had no shadows. Every broken street stood exposed beneath continuous red light.

Lilith’s expression hardened.

"Mortal! Return immediately! Unless you intend to die there!"

Simon heard her through the ringing inside his skull.

He looked down.

The Path of Origin was splitting beneath his feet.

Fine red threads stretched across the widening cracks. Each snapped strand took another piece of the road with it.

His companion stood again.

Dull-silver skin. Four horns. Three eyes. Six wings fanning from the suspended ring.

The transformation was a success.

Then something far ahead disturbed the silence.

Simon looked past it.

There was still one more.

He could not see a figure. The path extended into a distance that seemed to fold around whatever occupied it.

A few moments later, an aura reached him.

Nothing attacked, and nthing even acknowledged him.

Yet every part of his new bloodline recoiled.

His companion folded its wings.

Simon felt cold pass through him, deeper than the pain, deeper than the sensation of flesh being torn open.

For one brief instant, he almost knew terror.

Fearless remained active.

He could feel it holding his thoughts steady. But something had brushed close enough to fear that his breath stopped.

’Really? It almost made me feel fear despite Fearless being active?’

’What the fuck is waiting there?’

The thing they had just devoured had become helpless beneath his hands.

Whatever lay ahead did not even feel as though it belonged on the same path.

And still, he wanted it.

His newly restored fingers curled.

One more.

If he could reach it before it noticed-

"MORTAL!"

Lilith’s shout tore through the thought.

A section of road fell away beside him.

Simon watched it disappear into an emptiness that swallowed its outline before it had finished falling.

Not ash. Not darkness.

There was simply no path there anymore.

He felt the skull’s failure through the connection pulling at his forehead.

Even if Devour worked again, there might be nothing left to carry him home.

His jaw tightened.

"We’re going back."

The companion looked once toward the unseen presence.

"Now!"

They turned together.

Simon ran.

His steps hammered the ash, carrying him across distances he had crawled through earlier. The companion’s ring tilted, and all six wings drove it forward beside him.

The ground peeled away behind them.

A fracture opened across their route.

Simon jumped before its far edge vanished. His companion caught his hand and pulled him across the last stretch, their feet striking a narrow strip already breaking apart.

In Velmora, the skull separated along one cheek.

Lilith pressed the fragments together.

"Move, you greedy bastard!"

Dark-golden light filled the gap, and a broken section of the path held long enough for Simon to cross it.

A slab rose vertically ahead.

He ducked beneath its tilting edge. His companion turned sideways, the suspended wings passing through with barely enough room before the slab dissolved.

Neither slowed down.

The Bloodline Origin Gate appeared through the collapsing distance.

Its pale arch was fractured. One black slab hung crookedly within it, while the other was being dragged outward by the road tearing loose beneath its base.

Simon followed the shining thread leading toward the single-horn indentation.

The last stretch dropped.

His companion seized his arm.

They launched themselves from the remaining edge.

For an instant, there was nothing beneath them.

Simon reached the threshold, caught the side of the arch, and hauled them both through as the black slab swung past his shoulder.

They struck white stone.

The red sky vanished.

Behind them, the Bloodline Origin Gate closed with a sound that shook the familiar mountain.

Simon raised his head.

He had returned to the world of his bloodlines, but something began changing in this world.