Seven Sins System Chapter 858. Infected

Seven Sins System Chapter 858. Infected

I appeared in front of her and grabbed her waist with one arm before she fell. My other leg moved on instinct.

I kicked the girl.

A real kick.

No hesitation.

Because whatever she was, she had stabbed Puriel’s core.

My boot hit her small body and sent her flying across the yard, crashing through the dirt and rolling hard before stopping near the school wall.

Luci moved at the same time.

He appeared beside Lumira, one arm wrapping around her shoulders as violet blades erupted around him in a circle. The children nearest to her froze mid-lunge, their transformed limbs stopped inches from her body by Pride pressure.

“Back,” Luci hissed.

His voice wasn’t playful.

It was command.

Mamon snapped his fingers.

Gold chains erupted from the ground, not binding the children’s bodies, but wrapping around their shadows. One by one, the kids jerked still as their corrupted limbs twitched and struggled against invisible ownership claims.

“Do not damage the hosts!” he shouted.

“Tell that to them!” I snarled.

Puriel sagged against me.

Her hand pressed against her chest, fingers glowing with white light. The wound on her body closed almost immediately. Blood vanished. Cloth repaired. Skin mended.

But her core…

I saw it.

A crack.

A dark line through the angelic light beneath her chest.

My grip tightened around her. “Your core…”

Puriel gritted her teeth.

Her face was pale. She forced her wings to steady. “I’m fine.”

“No.”

Her eyes snapped to mine. “I’m fine.”

She stood. Her hand remained over her chest, healing light pouring inward, sealing, mending, suppressing. But I could feel the instability. The tremor underneath her aura. The way her light flickered once before settling.

I wasn’t sure she was fine.

And that uncertainty did something very bad to my temper.

The children began laughing.

Not all.

Some.

Some had tears streaming down their faces while their bodies moved without permission. Some looked blank. Some looked confused. Some smiled with too many voices inside them.

One boy whispered, “Angel…”

Another girl tilted her head. “Devil…”

Then all of them spoke together. “Found you.”

The invisible giant aura slammed down.

The sky darkened over the schoolyard.

Windows shattered across the building.

Teachers screamed near the gate as Lumira’s veil flickered, struggling to keep panic contained. Puriel lifted one shaking hand and threw a barrier over the civilians outside, locking teachers and non-activated children away from the infected cluster.

I stared at the children.

My tentacles rose behind me slowly.

Luci’s aura flared so hard the ground cracked beneath his shoes.

Mamon’s jaw tightened, gold light sharpening into coin-shaped blades around his hands.

Puriel touched my wrist. “Azrael.”

I didn’t look at her. “Don’t say it.”

“You can’t kill them.”

I didn’t answer. I tched in annoyance.

If they had been monsters, I could erase them.

But these were kids.

Some trapped. Some maybe not even understanding why their hands had become weapons.

And the thing using them knew.

It knew exactly what cage it had placed around my throat.

The girl I kicked slowly stood.

Her body bent wrong for one second, then corrected itself. Blood? No. Not much. The entity had reinforced her. Protected her. Used her. Her pigtails swayed as she looked at me with eyes that were no longer hers.

“Wrath,” she whispered.

Several children echoed. “Wrath…”

My smile became something ugly. “You wanted my attention?”

The schoolyard trembled.

The children lifted their hands together.

Shadows rose from under their feet, connecting in black threads. Three circles formed across the yard, the same symbol from the mansion, from the clinic, from the residue market.

Mamon cursed. “That formation again.”

Luci pulled Lumira behind him. “Break it?”

“Not directly,” Mamon snapped. “The children are the nodes.”

Puriel inhaled slowly beside me, still healing her core. “I can reach them.”

“No.”

She looked at me.

I finally looked back. “No,” I repeated. “You just got stabbed.”

“If their wills are still inside—”

“They used you because you got close.”

“They are children.”

“They are weapons right now.”

Her eyes softened. “And that is why we need to save them.”

I hated her.

I loved her.

Both at once.

Very inconvenient.

Lumira straightened behind Luci, one hand still over her abdomen. Golden corruption hissed under her fingers, but she pressed kindness light into it until the blackened edge stopped spreading.

“I can calm the uninfected,” she said. “But the infected ones… something is speaking through them.”

Mamon’s tablet buzzed violently. “It is not a single entity.”

“What?” Luci snapped.

Mamon’s eyes moved fast across the screen. “The system is distributed, but there is still an administrator. A command layer.”

I snapped my head toward him. “Where?”

“I don’t know.”

The words came out too fast.

That alone told me how bad this was.

Mamon didn’t like saying ‘I don’t know’. Greed liked numbers. Ledgers. Routes. Ownership. Every coin had a trail. Every debt had a name. Every stolen thing had a scent.

But this?

His eyes flickered behind his mask as the tablet spat broken readings into the air. “I can’t find it.”

The children moved closer.

Not children anymore.

Their bodies were still small, but the shapes were wrong. Arms sharpened into blackened blades. Fingers stretched into hooked claws. Eyes glowed with residue-thread light. Their shadows moved separately from their feet, crawling across the ground like ink trying to form one giant body.

A few of them were crying.

Some were laughing.

Some did both at the same time.

I clenched my jaw. “Fine.”

Another child lunged at me.

I caught him by the back of his uniform before his spear-arm could punch through my ribs and tossed him sideways. He bounced, hissed, twisted, and crawled back up like pain was no longer included in his body settings.

“Okay. My question is…” I snarled, “what the hell are we supposed to do?”

Puriel raised a barrier just in time as three children slammed into it, their clawed hands scraping glowing lines across the surface.

“We can’t kill them,” I continued. “We can’t hurt them. So what? Let them do whatever they want?”