Chapter 863 - 862: Ashes

Darius’s nose had not failed him.

Against an illusion that only changed what he saw, it was an excellent defence. He could ignore the false figure before his eyes and follow the scent of the real demon.

However, Hollow Sky Eye did more than change the picture. Its Hollow Gaze layer could interfere with how a target understood what their senses reported.

Darius had smelled Simon behind him. The technique had supplied a convenient explanation... old traces carried by the wind. His nose had given a warning, and his mind had dismissed it.

Simon had not needed to invent an entirely different world. Darius’s early successes had convinced him to trust his nose completely. Simon built the false interpretations around that confidence, until the scent behind Darius became irrelevant and the empty ground ahead felt certain.

The human pinned beneath the spear completed the lie.

To Darius, the human he actually killed was Simon.

However, fooling Darius had not been effortless. Darius’s mental defences were strong, and each false interpretation met resistance. Maintaining the layered deception consumed a substantial amount of mental energy from Simon’s Sea of Consciousness.

The complexity of it all increased the cost. Making the lie fit something Darius already believed reduced the work, but did not remove it.

"You... changed what I believed?"

Darius’s voice shook. Blood slipped from his lips as he stared toward the body beneath his spear. Its outline was finally beginning to blur and transform into the unfortunate human that was killed.

Simon did not answer.

Above them, the phoenix screamed.

Its four wings spread, and a burning talon descended toward Simon. He lifted his left hand without withdrawing the Chaos Blade from Darius’s heart.

Black wrappings shot from his arm.

The phoenix opened its beak. A torrent of white fire swallowed the approaching strips, scorching the road beneath them. The Chaos Wraps passed through it without a single thread burning.

Within them, a deeper heat stirred.

The phoenix abruptly drew back. Its flames were nothing before the Chaos Flames dwelling inside those wrappings. If they caught it, losing its manifested body would be the least of its worries.

That fire could burn its existence beyond ashes.

The spirit folded its wings and twisted out of their path. Black strips swept past its breast as it climbed. The wrappings recoiled toward Simon, their loose ends still raised toward the bird.

Darius clenched his teeth.

He could feel the sword inside him with every failing beat of his heart. Aether gathered desperately around the wound, but the strength that had grown with his anger was slipping away.

’No. Not here. Not to a demon.’

His knees trembled, and he forced them straight. He had survived a Demon Lord. Elara was still fighting nearby. He could not die while staring at a lie and listening to this bastard explain how he had believed it.

He stretched his hand toward the embankment.

’Come.’

The spear tore free and shot toward his open hand, trailing white fire. Then it curved past his shoulder.

Its point was aimed at Simon’s head.

Simon glanced at it, released the Chaos Blade’s hilt, and stepped away from Darius. The sword remained buried through the human’s chest.

His right hand closed around the returning spear just below its head.

BANG!

The impact drove him backward. One boot dug into the stone and carved a long furrow. Simon reinforced his arm with demonic energy while the spearhead trembled inches beside his face.

The weapon twisted.

Not merely from momentum. It tried to roll its edge toward his throat, then jerked sideways when he tightened his grip.

"Interesting. You have a mind of your own. An weapon spirit? But one that has not matured yet?"

Simon’s retreat stopped, but the spear continued struggling. Fire licked along its shaft, gathered around his fingers, and vanished against the black wrappings covering them.

"My sword and wrappings get jealous when I fight with anything else," he said, his tone faintly amused. "Don’t take it personally."

Heat travelled along his wrapped arm and entered the weapon.

The spear jerked once. Its deep-red shaft turned grey beneath his fingers.

"No!"

Darius’s eyes widened, but the change reached the spearhead before he could move. Silver crumbled. The remaining fire guttered, and the entire weapon collapsed into ash.

Simon opened his hand and let the ashes fall to the ground.

Cough!

Cough!

Cough!

Darius bent forward and coughed blood across the road. Something deep within him had torn apart. His bond with the spear was far more intimate than ordinary ownership, and its destruction struck through that connection.

The Aether he had gathered around his ruined heart scattered.

"Solace..."

He had named it himself. Now its ashes were blowing between the fingers of the demon who had destroyed it.

"How did you destroy Solace?" Darius asked, his voice trembling with horror. "It was a divine weapon. It should have been indestructible."

Simon’s amusement disappeared.

’A divine weapon?’

The warning at the back of his mind sharpened. The strange scent ability, the growing strength, and now a weapon the human called divine.

He had already wasted enough time trying to understand it.

Darius opened his mouth again.

A blade of wind crossed his neck.

For an instant, his expression did not change. Then his head left his shoulders, the disbelief in his eyes turning to horror before it struck the ground. His lips were still trying to form a word.

The head rolled once and stopped beside a fragment of the barricade. His body collapsed a moment later, the Chaos Blade still lodged through it.

Simon watched for several seconds.

There was no breath, no heartbeat, and no attempt to gather Aether around either wound. The fire along Darius’s armour faded. Above the trench, the phoenix’s outline wavered before vanishing.

Darius was dead.

Simon stretched out his hand. The Chaos Blade pulled free of the body and returned to his grip.

He turned toward the section of the ridge where he had left Sonya and Akaza. His Sky Eye brought the distant clearing into focus.

A vast shell of earth occupied the place where Sonya had been fighting. More stone moved across its surface. A smaller shell stood nearby, while Elara sat upon a seat of ice with her staff across her knees.

Her four-winged phoenix hovered above her.

Simon’s gaze moved lower. The four sealed cases lay among bodies. Rathen’s axe rested beside its owner. The demon who he believed to be a rebel spy was motionless in the snow.

So was Rellis.

Simon’s fingers tightened around his sword.

Where stone blocked his sight, he used Shadow Sense. Three faint living presences remained within the smaller shell. The power gathering inside the larger one belonged to Sonya.

’She’s advancing? But Rellis... the Runemasters...’

His expression darkened. There was too much to assess from here. First, he needed to reach the survivors.

Simon took one step.

Suddenly, every instinct in his body screamed.

The hairs at the back of his neck stood upright. His foot stopped before completing the next movement, and the wind around him faltered beneath a presence that had not existed a heartbeat earlier.

It descended without a blaze of light or a proclamation. The battlefield still thundered in the distance, but Simon felt something immense settle directly behind him.

Unfamiliar, yet beneath that unfamiliarity was a trace that stirred recognition.

A sigh passed across the wind.

It came from where Darius’s corpse lay.

The sound carried such weight that the loose ash around Simon sank against the road. His grip tightened around the Chaos Blade.

’Just as I feared... A god has descended.’

The presence was behind him.

’Into Darius’s corpse.’