The Broken Halo

Assault Core Seventeen surged through the path that led to the Ironcrest Watchtower before the humans gathering above could close the road.

"THEY’RE ADVANCING!"

"Hold the second trench!"

"GUNNERS, FIRE!"

The mountainside erupted.

Rifles flashed from behind fractured walls. Aether bullets poured downhill in blue-white streams, while two artifact cannons turned with a metallic groan and released beams broad enough to swallow the road.

Simon raised one hand.

Wind folded around the Runemasters and the four sealed cases. Bullets curved away, collided with one another, or buried themselves in the humans rushing down the slope.

"Stay inside the formation," he said.

Captain Veyran and the others needed no second warning.

Sonya laughed loudly in excitement.

"THIS IS FUN!"

The sound of her laugh carried through the screams as she stamped her foot and waved her hand up.

BAM!

The road rose before them.

The ground became a steep wall and caught the first cannon beam, then it exploded into burning fragments. Sonya walked through the falling rubble as though nothing had happened. The metal plates reinforcing the nearest trench screamed, tore free, then they spun around her.

A Level 38 D-rank Demon Slayer leapt over the wall she created, but before his toes could even touch the floor, one of the plates struck him across the waist.

Splash!

His upper body continued forward without his legs.

"MONSTER!"

"Nah," Sonya called cheerfully. "You haven’t seen anything yet."

Akaza passed her like a shadow.

He was still bleeding, but his injuries had done nothing to cool the excitement in his eyes at the battle around him. A dark-grey ripple spread from his foot.

Gravity slammed six soldiers into the road, and their armour folded against their bodies.

Their screams died within their armour and helmets.

Akaza stepped over them without looking down.

Virella and Rellis remained behind the pair. Roots burst through the broken trenches, then they seized rifles and ankles, and dragged screaming humans from their covers. Water followed through the channels the roots created, flooded the trenches, and rose around the trapped soldiers’ heads.

Rellis closed his fingers.

The screaming stopped.

Virella swallowed as she looked at the bodies.

Then another volley came, and her fear vanished beneath concentration.

"Right side!" she shouted.

Roots formed a roof over the Runemasters. Rellis coated it in water, hardening the wood before bullets struck.

At the summit, Commander Sorin Varga stared down from Ironcrest Watchtower.

Grey Pike had disappeared.

Not retreated.

Disappeared.

Now the same demons responsible were climbing toward him through gunfire as though Ironcrest’s defences were rain.

The short blind demoness walked at the front while stone and metal killed for her. The tattooed Martial Demon moved despite wounds that should have slowed him. The nervous demoness and the water-user fought like they had shared one mind for years.

And the one-horned demon in the centre barely seemed to fight at all. Yet every shot that was sent in his direction missed where it mattered.

Every defensive line opened at the worst possible moment.

Every soldier who approached the four cases died.

To the soldiers watching from Ironcrest, they no longer looked like demons.

They looked like something demons should fear.

"Commander?" an officer whispered.

Varga saw the terror in the man’s face and struck the table.

"Three C-ranks to the lower gate! Collapse the western path! Turn every cannon toward those group of demons!"

"But our soldiers are still-"

"THEN THEY DIE WITH THE DEMONS!"

The order passed through Ironcrest.

A formation pillar emitted a bright crimson glow, and the humans who saw it had their eyes wide open and they screamed.

"WAIT!!!"

"NOOOOO!!!"

"I DON’T WANT TO-!!!"

BOOOOM!!!

The western side of the road collapsed, taking humans and demons with it. A cloud of stone swallowed Assault Core Seventeen.

For one hopeful second, the defenders cheered.

Then wind tore the dust apart.

Simon emerged first.

A Level 58 C-rank descended toward him inside a shell of golden Aether. Behind the human, a humanoid with beads on his neck raised both fists and brought them down.

Simon did not stop.

The Chaos Blade appeared in his hand.

Black steel and golden Aether met once.

The Guardian’s arms split apart.

Simon turned the blade and struck the human with its flat side, launching him through three defenders and into a trench.

He had not killed him.

Sonya did.

A pillar of stone erupted from the collapsed road an instant later, revealing a stone sphere protecting every other person in the unit and the runemasters.

"Damn it. He really let this Honourable do all the heavy lifting," she grumbled.

"Don’t tell me that some small rocks are too heavy and too much for you to handle?"

Sonya glared at Akaza, and Akaza laughed before a Level 55 C-rank Elemental Blessing user surrounded him with lightning.

White bolts struck from four directions.

Akaza reduced his weight and shot upward. The lightning followed, but gravity suddenly returned around him. He dropped through the web of electricity, landed beside the human, and drove an elbow into his temple.

The world resisted his technique and tried to protect the C rank.

Blood ran from Akaza’s nose, but he grinned anyway and increased the gravity around his fist.

BAM!

The human vanished through Ironcrest’s lower gate.

The closer they came, the worse the defences became.

Silver chains rose from the ground. Barriers divided the road. Cannons fired without caring how many human soldiers remained in front of them.

Orders became screams.

Screams became prayers.

And through all of it, Assault Core Seventeen continued climbing.

They reached Ironcrest halfway through the slaughter.

The watchtower stood above them, built from dark stone and silver metal, its walls covered in weapon ports and observation windows. Four formation pillars surrounded it, projecting a curved silver barrier over the entire summit.

"Seal the barrier!" Varga roared. "Do not let them enter the tower!"

The silver light thickened.

Rellis struck it with water, but the water burst into steam.

Virella’s roots blackened the moment they touched its surface.

Sonya placed one palm against the barrier and frowned when the stone beneath it refused to answer her.

"What sort of barrier is this?""

Simon walked past her and said calmly.

"A low level barrier gotten from a god."

"What?"

Everybody was instantly stunned and baffled, but before they could ask any questions or say anything, Simon acted.

Chaos Flames crawled along the Chaos Blade.

Through the moving silver layers, he found the point where the power of two formation pillars overlapped. It was not a weakness under ordinary circumstances.

But the Chaos Blade did not care about ordinary circumstances.

Simon swung.

SHIIIINNNGGG!!!

Chi!

A black line appeared across the barrier.

For one breath, nothing happened... then Chaos Flames entered the cut.

The silver light screamed.

Cracks raced over the summit, crossing one another faster than the Runemasters inside could repair them.

"Again!" Varga shouted. "Reinforce it!"

Simon swung a second time, and the barrier...

SHATTER!

Silver fragments rained across Ironcrest like broken glass.

Humans fled from the walls.

Others raised their weapons with shaking hands.

"How did they destroy a divine shell?!"

"Don’t let them inside!"

"Where are the reinforcements?!"

Captain Veyran stared at Simon’s back, then tightened his grip on the case.

"As long as we can get to the four formation pillars, we’ll do the rest," he said.

"No problem," Simon replied.

Assault Core Seventeen entered Ironcrest, but to their slight surprise, a deep mechanical sound answered them.

Not a cannon blast.

Something larger.

Behind the watchtower, sections of the mountain opened. A long weapon rose from beneath the stone, carried by rotating metal arms. Its barrel was surrounded by six silver rings, each wider than a house.

The rings began turning.

Aether flooded out of Ironcrest’s formations and gathered between them. The light compressed from white to blue, then from blue into a colour so bright that the air around the barrel distorted.

Every hair on Simon’s body rose, and even the wind recoiled.

Sonya tilted her head toward the weapon.

For once, there was no laughter in her voice.

"That doesn’t look good, little kitty."