Chapter 918: 917: The Heart That Kept Beating

The first section of Simon's heart softened beneath the Chaos Flame.

It was smaller than his fingernail.

He held his Will around it while the rest of the organ continued beating. With every contraction, the softened patch tried to stretch beyond the shape he allowed.

Pain drove through his chest, and Simon let it.

The Earth engravings were deepest here. He guided Earth-aspected Chaos through them, compressing it until the lines began hardening into narrow black ribs.

The flesh between those ribs changed.

Its red colour deepened. Its surface grew smooth, then gleamed like wet stone.

One portion of his Daemon Heart was no longer flesh.

The next heartbeat nearly broke it.

The unfinished edges pulled against the surrounding muscle, and a thin fracture appeared where the two met.

Simon immediately reduced the pressure. He kept the edges warm while allowing the centre to support itself.

The fracture closed.

He released a careful breath.

"One section. One affinity."

The energy spent upon that tiny patch made his expression grow solemn.

Without the tribulation lightning, ordinary cultivation would never have supplied it quickly enough. He would have needed a considerable quantity of high-grade hell stones.

Perhaps peak-grade stones, and more than a few.

His bloodlines had given him an extraordinary body, and that body now demanded an extraordinary heart.

'And this is only the Forged Heart.'

Finding enough energy for future advancements would become a problem of its own.

He put the thought aside.

Worrying about what the next rank would cost was pointless if he died reaching this one.

A crimson strand twisted between his fingers.

He stripped away its hostile Will, absorbed the power, and let his Chaos Flame refine it. Devour remained inactive. The unfinished Seeds of Gluttony and Greed stayed exactly where he had left them.

Then he moved to the next section.

Fire ran through its matching engravings, helping the heated flesh yield without dragging the neighbouring tissue into the same change. Ice followed along the completed edges, checking the heat before they softened again.

Too much Ice would make the new material brittle.

Too much Fire would melt the support beneath it.

Simon adjusted both between heartbeats.

His fingers remained still upon his knees.

Inside him, nothing was still.

Shadow's engravings extended deeper into the chamber wall. He followed them beneath the newly forged surface, shaping the dark channels without closing the space through which blood still moved.

A bead of sweat slid down his forehead.

He could not simply pour all seven affinities into every opening.

Each part had an existing pattern. He had to forge along it, then connect it to the others without leaving any element stranded.

Earth gave one section support. It could not decide the shape of the entire organ.

Fire made another section yield. It could not burn everything that refused.

Then Simon reached the intertwined engravings carrying Wind, Space, and Lightning.

Crimson light flashed beneath the heart's surface.

The softened flesh split.

"Ngh."

Blood escaped his mouth.

A pulse of destructive Chaos had torn through an unfinished channel before he could harden its walls. The force turned inward, threatening the chamber beside it.

Simon cut that flow immediately.

His Will held the opening together while he reduced the flame and rebuilt the damaged framework.

Unholy Regeneration repaired a burst vessel beyond the heart.

It could keep the rest of his body alive, but it could not decide how to forge the organ inside it.

That was his work.

'The right amount. Not everything it can bear.'

He divided the crimson current.

Wind entered first in a thread too thin to tear the channel wider. Space followed through its own engraving, preserving the route instead of folding it shut.

Lightning came last.

He pressed its destructive edge against the old resistance, then withdrew it before it could attack what had just formed.

The section darkened into crystal.

Its crimson channels remained open.

Simon repeated the process.

Not faster because the first attempt had worked.

Just as carefully.

Pressure gathered behind his eyes. The pain in his chest became so constant that he had to judge the damage through his internal perception rather than how much it hurt.

Control and patience had never been what he lacked.

But even his talent could not make a stopped heart wait politely while he corrected a mistake.

Outside, Lilith watched the changing rhythm beneath his bare chest.

His six wings adjusted around the remaining lightning, admitting only what he was ready to purify. The cube distributed the power already converted into his own.

One by one, the sections joined.

A black crystalline band formed around the lower chambers. From it, narrow supports climbed through the walls, surrounding portions that remained visibly red.

Then the new sections held through an entire heartbeat without his Will carrying their weight.

Simon recognised the point he had reached.

He could stop here.

The forged structure was strong enough to support the remaining flesh. If he let everything cool and stabilise, he would survive with a heart neither wholly Infernal nor truly Forged.

If he did that, he would become a Half-Step Greater Demon.

Many demons chose exactly that.

Some ran out of demonic energy. Others discovered that their control could not reach the deeper engravings. Pain broke concentration. Fear of death made the next movement impossible.

These were some of the reasons some demons chose to become Half-Step Greater Demons instead of true Greater Demon.

Stopping was better than burning one's own heart to nothing.

But stopping had a price.

The first forged sections would settle, harden, and develop through later cultivation. When the remaining flesh was eventually transformed, the new portions would not match them perfectly.

One heart, forged at different times under different conditions.

Its pulse might appear steady while pressure caught at every uneven join.

Even demons who later completed the breakthrough could spend years struggling to advance from Minor to Prime or Superior or Supreme Greater Demon. Each increase would expose the same weaknesses again.

Without correcting that foundation, becoming a Demon Lord was almost impossible.

Simon looked at the red flesh enclosed by his new framework.

'I have the energy, and I can still control it.'

There was no reason to accept a flaw he could avoid.

He continued.

The inner sections were worse.

He had to work beside the passages keeping his body supplied with blood. Every contraction shifted their boundaries while the flame softened the flesh around them.

A small movement of Space narrowed one opening.

His vision darkened.

The next beat caught against trapped blood.

Simon pulled the spatial current back, warmed the new crystal before it settled, and forced the passage open.

Blood surged through, and he coughed it onto his knees.

Lilith's hand rose.

"Don't worry. I'm okay," Simon rasped.

Her fingers stopped.

His attention had not left the failing section. Another Will entering now would give him something else to account for.

He remade the narrow passage and held it through three complete beats.

Only then did he move on.

The remaining lightning hissed around his horns.

Inside his heart, the Chaos Flame had grown visibly shorter. Power was being spent faster than ordinary absorption could replenish it.

Simon stripped several crimson strands at once, keeping them separate until their foreign commands broke.

The flame recovered.

One chamber wall remained, then a narrow strip beside its outlet.

Then only the joins.

The heart looked complete, but the sections still flexed a fraction apart. An outer surface of crystal could hide a fatal weakness beneath it.

Simon brought all seven affinities through the finished engravings.

Earth, Fire, Ice, Shadow.

Wind, Space, Lightning.

Their different pressures reached each join together.

He held the heart at precisely the heat needed to keep those boundaries workable and compressed the elemental Chaos through them.

A seam disappeared.

Then another.

Pain climbed beneath his ribs until his back shook and all six wings drew taut.

He did not withdraw.

The final join surrounded a narrow passage directly above the Chaos Flame.

Too much pressure would seal it.

Too little would leave the whole heart beating around a fault.

Simon waited for the organ to expand.

Then pressed.

The seam closed.

The passage remained open.

For one dreadful instant, he could not feel which part would begin the next contraction.

Then the Chaos Flame pulsed.

BADUM!

The entire heart answered.

Not flesh pulling crystal.

Not his Will forcing separate sections to move.

One living organ contracted around the flame.

BADUM!

A heavy pressure rolled from Simon.

Dust lifted from the basin floor. His wings opened, and the vents released a low, even note as stronger demonic energy entered their roots.

Simon drew a breath that felt deeper than the one before it.

He examined his heart.

Black crystal formed its walls, polished enough to resemble metal. When it contracted, fine silver edges gleamed between its internal layers.

Beneath that dark surface lay seven interwoven patterns, rather than the single dominant elemental structure many demons developed.

Three carried thin crimson light. The others crossed between them, visible only when the heart moved.

There were no patches of flesh left between them.

Its chambers were intact.

Every pathway remained connected.

"The same size," he murmured. "But it holds so much more energy and power."

The Chaos Flame burned at its centre, less than half its former height.

It had not dwindled.

Its fire was denser, its movements more controlled. Each pulse filled the new heart with power that the old flesh could never have carried safely.

"Smaller flame, but stronger Chaos."

The Chaos Blade remained within it.

Nearby, the two unfinished seeds had not completed.

Simon withdrew the Will supporting his heart.

It beat again without him.

The limit upon his physical growth lifted, replaced by room his body had not yet filled.

He smiled through the blood on his lips.

A Minor Forged Heart.

A Minor Greater Demon.

At last, he could grow again.

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[A/N: Please read the author's note below.]