The Broken Halo

Simon was not merely telling Sonya and Akaza where to move.

He was controlling the rhythm of the battle.

The Prime Calamity Crag Hound revealed its intentions through the smallest movements. Its shoulders lowered before it lunged. The stone plates around its neck shifted before it twisted its head, while the furnace-red cracks across its body brightened whenever it gathered strength in one of its limbs.

Simon noticed all of it.

A short command sent Akaza toward the side the beast was about to expose. A gust of wind moved Sonya half a step before a claw reached her. Whenever one of them attacked too early, Simon delayed the beast with a strike of his own. Whenever they moved too late, he forced open another opportunity.

Sonya and Akaza did not need to understand everything.

They only needed to trust his voice.

"Right."

Akaza moved without hesitation.

The Crag Hound swung its injured foreleg toward him, but Akaza stepped inside the attack and drove his shoulder into the joint Sonya had already weakened.

Crack!

The beast staggered.

"Down."

Sonya dropped flat against the road.

A split jaw snapped through the space above her. Before the beast could raise its head, she pushed herself up with one palm and drove her knee beneath its throat.

BAM!

The Prime Calamity Beast choked on its roar.

A strange feeling entered both Sonya and Akaza.

Awe.

They had fought beside talented demons of the Shadowgrave Clan and even outside the Shadowgrave Clan before. Sonya had trained under Ormon, survived the Shadowgrave Clan, and seen Simon make decisions while death surrounded them.

But this was different.

Simon was reading a maddened Calamity Beast as though it were performing a technique he had studied for years. He was also reading them at the same time.

He knew the reach of Akaza’s fists.

He knew how quickly Sonya could change her stance despite being unable to see.

He knew when their bodies could endure another exchange and when they needed a breath.

The same thought appeared in both of their minds.

’Is Blackmoon truly a sixteen year old?’

Aside from the fact that Simon was not a sixteen year old but a reincarnated Demi-God, the maddened state of the Crag Hound was also making it easy for Simon, Sonya, and Akaza to overwhelm it.

It was making poor decisions and was just responding to its fury and pain, and this made it easier for them.

The Crag Hound slammed both front paws into the ground.

BOOM!

The fractured road rose like a wave. Stone plates and burning fragments flew in every direction.

Simon twisted in the air and kicked one fragment toward a rebel descending from the ridge. The jagged stone entered the demon’s chest and threw him backward.

Bang!

Akaza crossed both arms and endured the impact of the stone plates and burning fragments.

Sonya felt every fragment through the ground. She slipped between two of them, jumped onto the side of a broken wagon, and launched herself back toward the beast.

Several recruits nearby could not stop staring.

"They are fighting it with their bare hands and demonic energy," Pela said while her sensory strands trembled wildly around her head.

Joro blocked a Crag Hound with his plated forearm and looked toward Core Nineteen in disbelief.

"Those three are insane."

A Velmora soldier beside Wagon Seventeen laughed breathlessly.

"Forget insane. What kind of Archfiends move like-"

His words became a scream.

"AHHHHH!!!!"

A Dread Beast he had stopped watching crashed into him from the side. Its split jaws closed around his waist and lifted him from the ground.

The soldier clawed at the stone plates covering its snout.

"HELP ME!"

The beast bit down, and his armour folded with a horrible crunch, and blood poured from both sides of its mouth.

"Damn fool!" another soldier cursed.

"Stop staring and kill it!"

Three demons attacked at once. A spear pierced one of the beast’s eyes, a metal blade entered its throat, and a hammer shattered the plates across its skull.

The Crag Hound collapsed, but the soldier inside its jaws was already dead.

The sight snapped several distracted demons back to their own battles.

Meanwhile, the Prime Calamity Beast became even more violent.

The pain runes around its neck burned brighter. Black smoke rose from beneath the stone plates, and the red cracks along its body widened.

It threw its head back and roared.

The shockwave of the roar struck Simon, Sonya, and Akaza like a wall.

Akaza slid several steps across the road. Sonya dug her fingers into the stone to stop herself, while Simon wrapped wind around his body and remained in place.

The beast charged at Simon again.

This time, it did not lower its head.

It raised one paw and brought it down with enough force to crush Simon and the road beneath him.

Simon waited.

"Sonya."

She understood.

Her fist struck the ground.

Bam!

A narrow stone pillar erupted beneath the Crag Hound’s other foreleg. It did not injure the beast, but it lifted that side of its body at the worst possible moment.

The descending paw missed Simon by less ten inches.

He stepped onto the beast, and a second later, wind burst beneath his feet and carried him along the beast’s leg toward its shoulder.

"Akaza. Same place."

Akaza’s eyes flashed.

He jumped, twisted his body, and drove a gravity-filled heel into the cracked plate beneath the beast’s ear.

BANG!

The damaged stone sank inward, and Simon arrived a fraction of a second later.

His fist followed Akaza’s heel.

BOOM!

The plate shattered completely.

Dark blood and burning steam burst from the opening.

The Prime Calamity Crag Hound screamed. Its entire body twisted, throwing Simon and Akaza away, then its bloodshot eyes turned toward Sonya.

Sonya smiled when she felt its weight shift toward her.

"Come on."

The beast lunged.

She waited until the vibrations beneath her feet became overwhelming, then stepped aside and struck the wounded foreleg with both palms.

A concentrated seismic force entered the joint as it felt like the entire earth itself slammed into the beast’s body.

The leg collapsed.

The Crag Hound’s chest struck the road, and its enormous head slid through the floor, breaking it apart.

Simon was about to take a step forward, but he paused and frowned.

From the very beginning of the battle, part of his attention remained spread across the central section of the convoy through Shadow Sense.

He had been observing the surroundings of Wagon Eighteen especially, and right now, he perceived a strange movement around Wagon Seventeen.

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