Chapter 953 - 952: Questions Without Answers

Sonya and Akaza looked back.

Virella made it another three steps before stopping with both hands on her knees. Ammor halted beside her in much the same position, his shoulders rising and falling heavily.

Sweat dripped from their chins. It had soaked through the dust on their faces and left dark streaks down their necks.

For several breaths, neither spoke.

Then Virella lifted her head.

"How far... were you planning to go?"

Akaza glanced at the road behind them.

"You arrived."

"That isn’t the point!"

She tried to straighten, winced, and settled back onto her knees.

"You both left without a word. Not even a glance to see whether we could follow. How cruel can you be?"

"The road kept disappearing," Ammor added hoarsely. "Every time we reached a ridge, part of it had fallen into something else."

He swallowed and wiped his mouth.

"I thought I was going to reopen every wound before we found you."

Sonya tilted her head and her mouth curved into an evil grin.

"A man with a Low S-grade Earth affinity, defeated by a road."

Ammor went still.

"Were you using it to move, or waiting for the ground to carry you out of pity?"

His face tightened.

"This Honourable fought that woman, chased her here, and still had enough breath left to talk. Where did all your manliness go?"

Ammor had several answers.

Her breakthrough. Her absurd affinity. The fact that the ground now seemed eager to save her the effort of asking.

But she was also strong enough to demonstrate the difference by throwing him back along the route he had just survived.

He wisely kept his mouth closed.

Sonya smiled.

"Next time, try keeping up."

Virella drew a longer breath and turned away from the exchange.

Then her gaze settled properly upon Simon.

Her lips parted.

"Blackmoon?"

Simon looked at her with raised brows.

One of his six wings shifted behind him.

Virella followed its movement, then looked at the other five. Her gaze climbed to the four horns, descended over his exposed torso, and stopped briefly at the dark cube set into his solar plexus.

Then she looked back at his face.

"Is that really you?"

"Yes."

Ammor finally straightened.

For a moment, his exhaustion seemed less important.

He could recognise the features. The voice was familiar too.

But the body surrounding those familiar details was not.

Black skin crossed by ivory stripes. A larger frame. White hair falling far below the shoulders. Wings that looked capable of tearing through the shattered houses around them.

And the power...

Ammor instinctively steadied his own demonic energy.

Simon was not deliberately pressing upon him with his aura or demonic energy. Somehow, that made it worse.

"I wouldn’t have believed it," he said.

Simon raised a brow.

"If these two weren’t standing here talking to you normally, I would have thought something had taken your place."

Sonya snorted.

"Coward."

Simon shook his head softly and Ammor’s left eye twitched.

Virella barely heard them.

She remembered the Archfiend who had fought beside them before the group separated. He had already been powerful enough to make her revise her understanding of what an Archfiend could do.

Now he was a Greater Demon.

However, that advancement explained far too little. Their last encounter was far too recent for changes like these.

"What happened to you?"

"A few changes."

"A few?"

Her eyes widened again.

"How did you become like this?"

Simon smiled.

"It just happened."

Virella waited.

The smile remained.

That was the entire answer.

Simon watched her realise it without offering anything more.

He had decided that powerful followers would be useful, but that did not mean everyone who reached him was entitled to hear how he had become what he was.

Virella and Ammor had fought beside them. He had not forgotten that.

But they had not earned the place he had offered Sonya and Akaza, much less access to the same secrets.

Even if they followed him later, not every follower needed to know about Daemons or become Daemons... at least for now.

Virella’s mouth opened again.

Then she caught herself.

Ammor had already gone quiet.

Neither could mistake Simon’s pleasant expression for an invitation to keep pressing. He had chosen not to answer, and they possessed no means of making him.

Virella swallowed her next question.

Her gaze dropped.

Elara lay beside them.

The amusement left her face.

She looked at the broken ice-feather armour, then at the clean cut across the neck.

For a moment, she remembered Rellis standing between her and the ice.

Her fingers curled.

"What happened to her?"

Sonya’s smile faded slightly.

"Little kitty took this Honourable’s prey."

"I didn’t go looking for her," Simon replied.

Virella looked between them.

"You were fighting her. How did she end up under his sword?"

Simon shook his head with a wry smile.

"She took her brother’s place."

The words drew Ammor’s attention back to the corpse.

"What?"

"I was about to cut his head off. She exchanged positions with him."

"An ability?" Virella asked.

"Perhaps. Or an artifact. I haven’t confirmed that part."

Simon looked down at Elara.

"But she knew what she was doing. She sacrificed herself to save him."

Virella said nothing.

The woman who had killed Rellis had died protecting someone else.

It did not make Virella forgive her.

But it left her staring a little longer than she intended.

"I didn’t expect it," Simon continued. "Without her, Darius and the God of War wouldn’t have escaped."

An awkward smile pulled at Virella’s lips.

"You say that as though killing the God of War was only a matter of finishing your swing."

"It would have been a good start."

"But that wasn’t even his true body. He was inside his Chosen."

Simon shrugged.

"He still screamed when I hit him."

Ammor glanced at Akaza.

Akaza offered no explanation.

After a moment, Ammor looked back down.

"What happens to her now?"

"I’ll take her."

Simon raised his hand.

"Her corpse would be useful to me."

He did not explain how.

Pride answered his Will.

Elara’s body lifted from the rubble without dragging across it. Farther away, her severed head rose from the broken paving, white hair hanging beneath it.

Both drifted toward him.

Virella stepped aside instinctively.

There was no gust of wind.

No movement of the ground.

The remains simply travelled through the air as though someone carried them, stopping beside Simon’s outstretched hand.

Then his spatial ring took them.

A few grains of dust fell where the corpse had been.

Akaza’s eyes widened slightly.

Ammor was staring at Simon’s empty hand.

Virella looked from it to the patch of rubble, then back again.

"Was that telekinesis?"

Sonya turned toward her.

"Telekinesis?"

She had felt the body leave the ground and approach Simon. The movement was clear enough through the faint disturbances around it, but that alone did not tell her what had lifted it.

"Since when do you have telekinesis, little kitty?"

Simon chuckled.

"I have something like it."

"Something like it?" Virella repeated.

"Yes."

"You’ve answered every question without explaining anything."

Sonya nodded immediately.

"This Honourable agrees. He gets worse whenever he gets stronger."

Simon lowered his hand.

"You should be pleased I’m at least responding."

Virella rubbed her forehead.

"I am going to regret asking you anything."

"Probably."

Sonya made a disapproving sound.

But before she could add to it, Ammor’s attention shifted toward a ruined doorway.

His brows drew together.

"What about that kid?"

The conversation stopped.

He nodded toward the rubble.

"He’s been staring at the five of us ever since we arrived. He hasn’t looked away."

Among the fallen beams and broken masonry, a boy sat with a sword held tightly in his hands.

Simon turned.

Akaza and Virella followed Ammor’s gaze. Sonya angled her head toward the same place, her awareness settling upon the small figure.

All five directed their attention toward the boy.