The Broken Halo

(Three days passed)

Assault Core Nineteen spent most of these three days inside a large campaign ground behind Velmora’s northern military district.

The ground was wide enough for a real convoy to move through it, and Black Horn had placed twelve reinforced practice wagons inside, each pulled by armoured beasts and loaded with stones to give them the weight of military cargo.

A large terrain array covered the entire training ground.

When the instructors activated it, flat roads cracked apart, sections of earth tilted without warning, and shallow trenches filled with muddy water. Harmless green mist could also be released across parts of the field, forcing the recruits to wear simple breathing masks and continue moving while their vision was reduced.

The enemies were not always illusions.

Formation puppets attacked the wagons from the sides, while captured Dread Beasts wearing suppression collars were released during several drills. Their claws and fangs remained dangerous, but the collars prevented them from using their full strength or escaping the training ground.

For the Calamity Beast drill, Black Horn used a massive beast-shaped war puppet controlled by a Greater Demon. The pressure coming from it was close to that of a Minor Calamity Beast.

The recruits were not expected to defeat it.

They were expected to retreat without abandoning the convoy, trampling one another, or turning an orderly withdrawal into a slaughter.

Several cores failed because they tried to surround the puppet and fight.

Core Nineteen did not.

Simon, Sonya, and Akaza trained alongside the other assault cores, but the three of them remained their own unit.

They moved beside the practice convoy, responded whenever one wagon came under attack, and protected damaged wagons until the defence cores reached them. They were also forced to fight along narrow roads where one careless technique could block the other recruits or overturn the cargo they were meant to protect.

The instructors changed their orders repeatedly.

Sometimes, Core Nineteen had to cross collapsing ground to reach the front of the convoy. At other times, their War Tags suddenly marked a wagon at the rear, forcing them to turn around and move through several other cores without breaking formation.

By the end of the first day, Black Horn assigned them the role of a mobile response core.

They would not remain beside one wagon throughout the journey.

Their default position would be near the central wagon, but if another section of the convoy came under heavy pressure, their War Tags would direct them there.

The role suited them.

Sonya could stabilise broken ground, raise earth walls, and stop a damaged wagon from falling into a crack.

Akaza could force his way through enemies at close range and break apart groups blocking the road.

Simon’s wind allowed him to move quickly between different parts of the convoy, control the movement around his core, and assist either of them whenever the situation changed.

It also gave him more freedom during the field assignment, and he noticed that immediately.

’A mobile position gives me more freedom, but it also means my movements will be recorded whenever a section of the convoy is attacked.’

Their War Tags would record where the core was ordered to go and how long it took them to arrive.

The freedom was useful, but it did not make him to become careless.

Akaza adapted quickly to the drills, but he had one obvious problem.

Whenever the instructors introduced a powerful opponent, he instinctively moved toward it even when another part of the convoy needed him more. Twice, he abandoned the marked wagon to attack the strongest puppet on the field.

The instructors punished the entire core both times, but that did not reduce his desire to fight.

If anything, the battles at the Red Sand Hall and the convoy training had made it worse. Every strong opponent became another wall he wanted to break, and every defeat made him more eager to return.

His desire to grow stronger was slowly becoming an obsession.

Sonya’s problem was different.

She could control the strength and range of her seismic attacks.

She simply preferred not to.

During one drill, she stopped three puppets by raising a stone wave beneath them. The wave also lifted the practice wagon behind her and nearly threw it onto its side.

The instructor stared at the tilted wagon.

Sonya folded her arms.

"Why would they build wagons that cannot survive this Honourable’s attacks?"

Akaza looked at her strangely.

"Because the wagons are not your enemies."

Sonya stared at him as though he had said something foolish.

"That sounds like poor planning."

Even Simon had no response to that.

Despite her complaints, Sonya gradually reduced the size of her attacks and learned to shape the ground around the wagons without throwing them into the air.

After the official training ended each day, Simon rented a private cultivation chamber inside the city.

He circulated his demonic energy and continued strengthening his Infernal Heart. The chaos flame within it became denser, while the amount of demonic energy it could hold increased slightly.

He was moving closer to becoming a Prime Archfiend.

However, he had not yet reached the point where he could advance.

Simon did not force it.

He also practiced the first three Storm Crowns.

By the end of the third day, he could form the Gale, Rending, and Crushing Crowns much faster than before. During the final training drills, he maintained all six Silent Nodes while moving at high speed, receiving attacks, and suddenly stopping or changing direction.

The Crowns still required a great deal of attention, and he had not mastered them to perfection... yet.

He also did not attempt the Skywheel Crown.

There was no reason to introduce a fourth moving piece before the first three became reliable in battle.

Several other matters were settled during those three days.

The Voice sent the location of Simon’s payment through the Murmur Bone. A spatial ring containing fifty thousand low-grade hell stones had been left inside a cracked water trough in an animal yard.

Simon observed the location from a distance, collected the ring using another face when he was certain that none was watching, and examined it carefully.

There was no tracking formation, hidden poison, or connection leading back to the eastern faction.

The ShadowEye attached to the watcher from the Old Bell Quarter eventually reached its limit and dissolved. It gave Simon no further information beyond the warehouse in the eastern district.

The Lesser Demon courier also followed Simon’s instructions and disappeared from his former neighbourhood. Simon did not contact him again.

Korran’s operatives continued watching Blackmoon.

They saw him attend training, enter cultivation chambers, eat with Sonya and Akaza, and return to Pipeline Inn each night. His routine gave them nothing useful.

The Murmur Bone remained silent.

The Voice had already said she would send the final details only after the convoy left Velmora.

Near the end of the third day, the War Tags of the automatically selected recruits became warm.

Simon looked down as new words appeared beneath his core number.

[ASSAULT CORE 19]

[MOBILE RESPONSE — CENTRAL WAGON]

Sonya and Akaza received the same assignment.

That evening, the convoy entered Velmora through the southern gate.

Civilians crowded both sides of the road to watch.

More than thirty heavy wagons rolled through the entrance, pulled by large armoured beasts with iron plates covering their necks and shoulders. Military guards moved along both sides, while formation masters walked between the wagons and checked the runes beneath their frames.

Most of the cargo remained hidden beneath thick dark covers.

Simon saw long cases, sealed chests, and heavy containers whenever one of those covers was lifted. Several Greater Demon auras moved among the escort, and there were likely others concealing their strength.

The convoy did not travel directly to its resting ground.

Officials stopped groups of wagons at different points along the southern road. Covered cases were removed, inspected, and placed inside other wagons before the convoy continued.

Some wagons looked completely identical.

Black Horn was already making it difficult for anyone watching to know where the important cargo had been placed.

Simon, Sonya, and Akaza observed from the roof of a restaurant several streets away.

The convoy continued entering Velmora until the southern road was filled with wagons, beasts, and soldiers.

Somewhere among them were the three cases the Voice wanted.

Somewhere among them was most likely the trap Korran had prepared.

And Simon watched both enter the city together.

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