Chapter 892 - 891: The Ritual Ground

(Simon’s POV)

The demon closest to Pipeline Inn’s entrance drew his weapon halfway before recognising the figure on the paving stones.

"Blackmoon?"

Simon remained on one knee. Blood dripped from his chin, and the black wrappings around his arms held the Chaos Blade at an awkward angle.

Two demons stopped in the street. Another backed toward the inn’s doorway, staring at the patch of ground where there had been nobody a moment earlier.

"How did he appear here?"

"Wasn’t he sent with the invasion?"

The questions spread as more faces turned. Nobody approached him. They looked from his ruined clothing to the blood beneath his hand, trying to understand how someone who should have been at the rift had returned alone.

Simon pushed himself upright.

His right knee shook. He waited until it steadied, then walked past the demon standing beside the entrance.

The weapon disappeared back into its sheath.

Inside, conversations faltered.

"A room," Simon said.

The demon behind the counter stared at him.

"You’re injured."

"A room," Simon repeated, but this time with more coldness in his voice.

He placed the requested hell stones on the counter. The movement pulled painfully through his wrist, but he kept his expression unchanged while the payment was counted.

A room was assigned. Simon turned away before another question could follow.

"Go and tell the guards," someone whispered behind him.

"What?"

"Blackmoon is back. Tell them how he arrived."

Simon heard the hurried footsteps heading outside, but he did not look back.

’Call whoever you want.’

He needed a door between himself and their questions, and somewhere to sit without another mountain landing on him.

Reaching the room took longer than it should have. Once inside, he closed the door, checked his surroundings, then lowered himself onto the floor with his legs crossed.

The Chaos Wraps loosened enough for him to place the sword beside his knee.

His fingers remained bent around an absent hilt.

"Fuck."

He guided demonic energy through his shoulders, avoiding the sections that still tore beneath a stronger flow. UnholyRegeneration worked through the damaged muscle, reconnecting it slowly enough that he could feel each painful adjustment.

For once, he could let the repaired flesh settle without immediately tearing it apart again.

Simon closed his eyes.

The God of War’s hand returned to his thoughts. The effortless cut. Fingers around his ankle. The grip beneath his jaw that nothing he tried could loosen.

Then Enigma’s scales, his unhurried expression, and the power with which he had answered that same god.

A true Daemon.

Simon’s eyes opened.

’The ritual.’

He had spent too long gathering what he needed and hoping the next opportunity would be better. But there might not be another opportunity.

Evolving his One-Horned Demon bloodline would not necessarily make him equal to either of those monsters. However, he would have more strength and a body capable of enduring it.

And hopefully, perhaps, he would have enough power to escape without waiting for someone else to decide that keeping him alive was interesting.

He did not trust Enigma.

The Daemon had saved him, and Simon had no intention of pretending otherwise. But he knew almost nothing about him. Gratitude did not make that ignorance safe.

’The god wants my secrets. I don’t even know what Enigma will ask for.’

Varen had made the price of protection clear enough, and Simon had no desire to hear another version.

He considered the ingredients again.

The beating heart of an actual Daemon.

He already possessed Jorra’s heart.

That had been the requirement he once thought almost impossible to fulfil, especially after a vial of Daemon blood would no longer suffice now that he was an Archfiend.

The remaining hearts were a different matter.

Nine hundred and ninety-nine (999) Two-Horned Demon hearts. They did not need to remain beating, but they had to come from that race.

No One-Horned substitutes. No mixture of other species.

He would have to collect them without devouring what the ritual needed.

Then there was the living vessel.

A Two-Horned Demon, at least a Minor Greater Demon that was strong enough to absorb the impurities expelled from his bloodline. That one had to remain alive.

Velmora could provide an unfortunate candidate.

Simon’s attention shifted to his spatial ring.

The skull requirement was already within reach.

During Heavenfall Arsenal, one of the Seven Seats had fallen near him. A winged Two-Horned Demon whose Superior Abyssal Heart had been destroyed while his head remained intact.

Simon had severed it in the confusion and stored it before escaping.

The god had killed the owner. Leaving such valuable remains behind merely because Simon was also trying not to die would have been a waste.

The head still needed to be stripped of flesh. Lilith had required the skull and both horns, nothing else.

The skull of a Superior Demon Lord.

Simon recalled Lilith’s words.

The stronger the owner, the better the skull. Simon wondered how much such an ingredient would improve the ritual.

And what a Demon King’s skull might have done instead.

His lips twitched.

’One impossible problem at a time.’

He had no means of obtaining that now. The head already in his ring was more than he could have safely hunted for himself.

His own horn would also have to be cut off.

Simon glanced toward his reflection in the window. Pain was not the part that concerned him.

He still needed the arrays, the preparation, and a body healthy enough to survive what Lilith had warned him would follow.

Most importantly, he needed a land soaked in the blood of at least ten thousand demons.

Not a graveyard. Not somewhere that merely contained their remains.

Blood had to soak the ground.

His gaze settled beyond the glass.

Velmora.

The city held far more demons than the ritual required. Its streets were crowded, its buildings occupied, and somewhere among them were the Two-Horned Demons whose hearts he needed.

He had come here looking for shelter.

Now he found himself measuring it as a ritual ground.

His eyes flashed with a cold and ruthless light.

’I’ll do it here.’

He would soak Velmora in the blood of its citizens. Collect the hearts. Keep one suitable vessel alive. Prepare the skull, remove his horn, and complete the evolution.

Not after another campaign.

As soon as his body could withstand what he needed to do.

The decision settled without excitement.

His wrist gave a small, painful movement. One finger finally straightened, then he recalled something.

The City Lord remained a problem.

Simon did not know enough about that being, or how many other powerful demons remained hidden within Velmora. The campaign taking soldiers away did not mean the city had been emptied of everything dangerous.

He could not afford to begin and discover halfway through that he had exchanged one impossible enemy for another.

’Heal first.’

The more he considered the requirements, the more achievable they seemed. But achievable was not the same as safe, and the blood still drying on his clothes was enough of a reminder.

Sonya and Akaza would have made it easier.

Her earth could have turned whole streets against the demons standing upon them. Akaza would not have needed much encouragement to help him kill.

Simon’s gaze lowered.

Rellis’s frozen water returned to his mind. Then the stone shells around the others.

’I don’t even know if you’re alive.’

He let out a slow breath and returned his attention to his damaged demonic pathways.

A moment later, the wind carried footsteps toward his room.

Simon became still.

They continued along the passage without pausing at the other doors. Through ShadowSense, he caught the approaching presence and recognised it.

Guard Commander Tarvak.

’That didn’t take long.’

Simon adjusted the Chaos Blade beside his knee. His breathing remained even as the footsteps stopped outside.

A knock followed.

"Enter."