The Broken Halo

Simon did not remain in the underground shelter after he finished interrogating the vice-leader.

He searched the corpses one after another and collected their spatial rings. Most contained low-grade hell stones, ordinary weapons, medicine, food, spare clothing, and tools used to maintain the shelter.

The Half-Step Greater Demon possessed more than the others, but even his ring held nothing connected to Crownless Dawn or the wider Black Banner network.

There were no important letters.

No communication artifact.

And no hidden map leading toward the Chrysalis.

Simon felt no disappointment however. The shelter existed to receive returning operatives of Black Banner and keep them alive until they could move elsewhere. Demons guarding such a place were not supposed to possess valuable secrets.

He stored every ring.

None helped him now, but empty spatial rings still had value. The contents could be sold, used as disguises, planted on corpses, or used for something else in the future.

Before leaving, Simon wrote a short report on a folded piece of paper.

The missing talon lived.

He had not spoken to Black Horn.

He no longer breathed.

He then placed an imprint of the Third Warden’s command seal on the paper.

Nothing else was added after these three sentences and imprint.

Simon then chose one of the dead rebels who had a build that was not too far away from his to impersonate.

The demon’s name was Ravel according to his city ’ID’.

Simon placed the Sword Daemon’s mask over his face, and his appearance changed.

His white hair became grey and a shallow scar appeared beside his copied mouth. He changed into one of Ravel’s spare outfits, adjusted the way he held his shoulders, then walked around the shelter until he stopped walking like his usual self.

Once the disguise was complete, Simon stored the Chaos Blade and left.

A narrow tunnel beyond the reinforced door climbed toward the surface. It ended beneath a broken stone cover inside the dry basin of an abandoned reservoir.

The crimson moon hung above the ruined land, but its light was beginning to dim as the black moon was taking its place.

Dead thorn bushes grew between cracked channels, while pieces of collapsed aqueducts stretched across the basin like the bones of enormous beasts. Velmora’s dark walls stood several kilometres away, surrounded by scattered lamps and the faint movement of night traffic.

The hidden shelter had been built beneath an abandoned reservoir several kilometres east of Velmora’s walls, and Simon descended from the reservoir and took the road to the eastern gate.

Korran had not closed the city gates just as Korran ordered.

That decision saved Black Horn from announcing its humiliation, but it also allowed merchants, labourers, returning patrols, and several demons to continue entering Velmora without a complete search.

Simon passed through the eastern gate using Ravel’s face and city token.

The guards barely looked at him because they had not been informed of what happened at the Black Horn Office.

The city beyond the walls appeared normal at first, but it was not.

Simon changed his face twice as he moved through the streets. He became an elderly demon with a hunchback carrying a basket, then a broad-jawed orc wearing a travelling cloak. Each disguise came with a different gait, voice, scent, and amount of aura.

He listened as he walked.

Publicly, Black Horn claimed that a poisonous artifact recovered from the rebel nest had become unstable during an internal examination. The disturbance had been contained, and no citizen was in danger.

Most demons accepted the explanation.

The ones searching the streets told a different story.

A pair of ’drunken’ labourers outside a tavern never touched their cups. A fruit seller questioned three demons about where they had spent the last few hours, then scratched a small black symbol beneath his stall after each answer. Two cloaked figures stood at separate ends of a road leading toward Pipeline Inn and never once looked in its direction.

Black Horn was searching quietly for the rebels, the perpertrator, and Blackmoon himself.

From the opposite side of the street, Simon saw a smear of black ash beneath the cracked stone of a particular restaurant. It was one of the emergency signs the vice-leader had explained during the interrogation.

The route was closed, and Simon knew that Black Banner knew that chaos was on the horizon.

Black Horn and Black Banner were both moving, but neither had placed Simon’s current face among the demons they were hunting.

He continued toward the western district, then he heard the sound of a bell the closer he got to his target... The Old Bell Quarter.

The second bell sounded shortly before he reached the streets overlooking the Old Bell Quarter.

The abandoned quarter had once housed Velmora’s bell makers. Its foundries had gone cold decades ago, and most of the surrounding buildings had been left to collapse.

A cracked bell tower rose above the district. One enormous bronze bell still hung inside it by a single black chain, tilted toward the street below. Smaller bells lay broken among weeds, ash, and shattered roof tiles.

At the centre of the quarter was a wide courtyard.

A headless stone statue stood there, holding a long bell hammer across its chest. Its missing head rested nowhere nearby, while cracks covered the pedestal beneath its feet.

This was where the dead drop was meant to take place.

Simon observed it from the upper floor of a storehouse more than half a kilometre away.

With SkyEye, the distance meant little to him.

He saw a demon sleeping beneath the broken eastern arch, though the demon’s breathing was too controlled and his boots were too clean for a homeless drunk.

A scavenger searched the same pile of bronze fragments three times without taking anything.

On a roof overlooking the courtyard, a thin figure remained hidden behind a collapsed chimney.

Two other demons watched the roads outside the quarter.

There were other demons around, and Simon could not tell which belonged to Black Banner, which belonged to Black Horn, and which demons were uninvolved.

However, it did not matter.

Approaching the statue himself would tell all of them that the demon carrying the report was either Simon or someone close enough to be followed back to him. The Sword Daemon’s mask could hide his face, but it could not erase every road he took before and after the drop.

Simon left the storehouse and changed again.

This time, he copied the face of an old merchant with a single eye, then he covered his entire body with a loose black robe and gloves. He altered his voice until it sounded dry and impatient.

Several streets away, he found what he needed.

A thin Lesser Demon sat beside a closed gambling den, offering to carry parcels and messages for anyone willing to pay. His clothes were patched, and Simon could tell that this demon was hungry and willing to do almost anything, if not anything for money.

Simon stopped before him.

"I need a ring placed beneath the headless statue in the Old Bell Quarter."

The Lesser Demon stared at him, and though he had many questions in his mind, something about the old man and his appearance scared the Lesser Demon.

He swallowed.

"That place is watched."

"I know. Just place the ring under the headless statue for me."

Simon dropped a pouch containing twenty low-grade hell stones into his palm. The demon’s eyes widened and greed flashed in his eyes.

"What am I doing after?"

"Nothing. Just leave and get yourself some food and clothes. And mind you, if you try to run away with the ring or fail to do as I’ve asked you, you’ll die."

Simon threatened the demon while releasing a portion of his killing intent. The Lesser Demon quickly nodded in understanding with cold sweat on his face and palms.

Simon gave him one of the spatial rings taken from the shelter.

The Lesser Demon hid it inside his shirt, rose, and headed toward the abandoned quarter.

Simon did not follow the demon though. He returned to the distant storehouse using another face and watched through SkyEye as the courier entered the streets of the Old Bell Quarter.

The demons hidden around the courtyard noticed the courier almost immediately.

The courier continued toward the headless statue, unaware of how many eyes had settled on his back.

Simon watched calmly from more than half a kilometre away.

In his right hand was another spatial ring which he was slowly moving across his fingers. This spatial ring was not the Sword Daemon’s spatial ring.

No.

It was the spatial ring that contained the real report he had written.

The spatial ring he gave the Lesser Demon did not contain the report.

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