Seven Sins System Chapter 884. Terms and Conditions
Seven Sins System Chapter 884. Terms and Conditions
My core pulsed.
Dad’s eyes hardened. “You are not going anywhere until your contamination drops below five percent.”
I immediately glared. “Mph!”
“No.”
“Mphh!”
“No.”
“Mphhh!”
“Still no.”
This was tyranny.
Royal father tyranny.
The worst kind.
Dad leaned closer. “You can glare until the Abyss dries. It will not change the answer.”
I tried to move.
The chains tightened. Humiliating.
Dad looked down at me with absolutely no sympathy. “You will not help Puriel by arriving half-dead and collapsing over her core.”
I narrowed my eyes.
He continued dryly, “Though I admit it would be dramatic.”
I gave him a look.
He shrugged. “You are my son.”
Unfortunately accurate.
The pool surged again, harsher this time, maybe because my anger had stirred the remaining poison. A thick silver-black line ripped out from below my collarbone.
Pain slammed through me.
My back arched.
The chains held.
My throat locked around a sound I refused to make.
Dad stepped closer, one hand pressing down on my shoulder, not forcing, anchoring. His darkness pushed into the pool, strengthening the purge.
“Breathe,” he ordered.
Easy for him to say.
I breathed anyway.
The silver thread snapped and dissolved.
My body dropped back against the stone ledge, shaking despite everything.
Dad stayed there until the worst passed.
When my breathing evened, he lifted his hand.
The silence spell faded.
I immediately said, “Rude.”
Dad stared. “That is your first word?”
“Yes.”
“Not ‘thank you for saving my life, Father’?”
My eye twitched. “No.”
His brow rose slowly.
I sank a little deeper into the Abyss pool, partly because the water dragged me down, partly because I wanted to look less like a chained criminal being lectured by his father in our own royal healing chamber.
“I already thanked you,” I said flatly.
He folded his arms. “When?”
“By slaving away doing your job.”
His expression did not change. “Ah.”
“For hundreds of years.”
“Your exaggeration has improved.”
I clicked my tongue hard enough that the sound echoed off the black walls.
The ancient demonic letters above us pulsed red, as if even the chamber was amused. Traitorous architecture.
“It is not exaggeration. It is historical oppression,” I argued.
Dad only looked more pleased with himself. “That’s your responsibility,” he said.
“My responsibility apparently includes running Wrath, answering mortal summons, cleaning secret soul-market disasters, catching fake immortality experiments, fighting hybrid corpses, rescuing angels, and getting chained in a healing pool because a certain king left the office too long.”
“You are welcome.”
“I did not say thank you.”
The pool chose that exact moment to surge against my ribs again, and the smile died before it could damage my reputation. Another thin silver thread crawled from beneath my skin, wriggling like a divine parasite trying not to be evicted. The Abyss water swallowed it with a violent hiss.
My jaw locked.
Pain flashed from chest to spine, then down my burned hand.
I breathed through it.
Dad watched quietly until it passed.
Then he said, “Now rest. Think later.”
Despite his words, the chains around my shoulders and wrists tightened.
Not painfully.
Just enough to make the point.
I looked down at them.
Then back at him.
“Seriously?”
“Yes. This helps you rest.”
“This helps you imprison me.”
“Same result.”
I glared.
He stared back with the kind of calm only ancient fathers and professional tyrants possessed.
Yeah.
He didn’t trust me.
Not even a little.
He didn’t trust that I would stay in the pool. He didn’t trust that I wouldn’t claw my way out, half-healed, open a portal to some threshold chamber, and demand the queen bring Puriel immediately.
Which was unfair.
Also accurate.
Okay, fair.
I was kinda crazy somehow.
Between the holy poison, Wrath, the Ancient One whispering about consuming forbidden cores, and Puriel lying somewhere in the Light Realm with poison in her cracked core, my decision-making was not exactly clean right now.
Still.
Being understood by my father was deeply offensive.
Dad turned to leave.
His cloak shifted behind him like living shadow, dragging across the obsidian floor without sound. The war-healer sigils around the chamber dimmed slightly as his authority withdrew.
I watched him reach the door.
Then my mouth moved before my pride could stop it. “Dad.”
He stopped.
But he didn’t turn around.
That was how I knew he had been waiting.
Annoying old demon.
I stared at the black surface of the pool. It reflected my face in broken pieces. Pale skin. Damp hair. Red eyes. Silver poison still glowing faintly under my veins. Chains across my chest like some dramatic prisoner mural.
Very embarrassing.
“Tell them I agree,” I said.
Dad stayed still.
A beat passed.
Then another.
When he spoke, his voice was calm. “You agree that easily?”
I narrowed my eyes at his back. “Do not sound disappointed.”
“Without terms and conditions?”
There it was.
The king.
Not father.
The ancient negotiator who had survived wars, betrayals, contracts, divine councils, and seven different generations of idiots trying to outsmart him.
I leaned my head back against the pool edge. “No.”
Dad finally turned slightly.
Only enough for one crimson eye to meet mine over his shoulder.
“There will be terms and conditions.”
His mouth curved faintly. “Ho?”
I hated that tone.
He was interested now.
“And what are they?”
The Abyss pool bubbled lower around me, quieter, as if listening.
I looked at him.
Really looked.
The humor drained from my face.
My gaze darkened. “She is mine.”
The chamber seemed to still.
Even the screams beneath the floor sounded farther away.
Dad turned fully now.
Not amused anymore.
Not exactly.
His expression was unreadable in that terrible royal way, but his eyes sharpened.
“Puriel will belong to me,” I said.
The words came out calm.
Dad studied me for a long moment. “You will drag her into the Underworld?”
“No.”
His brow lifted slightly.
“She can’t live here,” I said. “She belongs to the Light.”
The words tasted strange.
Bitter.
True.
I hated the Light Realm. I hated its polished holiness, its councils, its smug order, its clean cruelty. I hated that it had taken so much from me before I even understood what loss meant.
But Puriel?
She was light.
Annoying. Pure. Stubborn. Warm in ways that made my Wrath restless and my logic useless.
She would wither here.
Maybe not physically at first. Maybe her power could survive for a while under protection. Maybe I could build chambers, stabilize her, make exceptions.
But that wasn’t the point.
The Light was in her bones.
In her wings.
In the way she looked at broken souls and wanted them whole again.
So no.
I would not drag her into my realm just because my hands wanted to close around what I feared losing.
“But,” I said, quieter, “she is mine.”