Chapter 283 Gabbrielle's First Laugh



Lisa: "A-Aren't our son's hands dropping a bit too low?"

Eris: "W-Where did he learn to kiss like that? It looks like he and that poor girl are trying to eat each other!" 

Bekka: "Umm, probably from watching us?" 

"Oh, right..." 

Audrina: "Thea and her girlfriend are so sweet." 

Lailah: "Aww, now Nita's coming out! T-They're all hugging!!"

Seras: "I'm going to cry! I need a tissue!" 

Valerie used her powers and materialized a box of tissues out of thin air, and passed them around all of her sisters. 

The eight of them were peeking out the window into the backyard, clearly spying on their eldest children and their relationships. 

Behind them, Abaddon was standing with Gabbrielle in one arm while the other was holding hands with Mira, the three of them looking equally concerned.

"I do not understand. What is wrong with our mothers?" Gabbrielle asked. 

"They are very sick, and there is no cure but we will love them anyway." Abaddon answered. 

"But daddy, you were upset too when big sister Thea first got married." Mira added. "You were sitting in the corner and-"

"M-Mira, I think you may be remembering things poorly, my child."

"Nuh-uh!"

If Abaddon was honest, he was still getting used to the fact that his children were grown ups in every sense of the word, and when he thought about it for too long he often depressed himself.

Couldn't they just stay small and innocent all of their lives!?

Abaddon decided to turn the attention off of himself and instead focused on his nosy wives.

"A-Anyway, we have preparations to make, girls. How long are all of you planning on spying on our children?"

"Until they stop kissing!" Lillian declared.

"Afterwards we're going to go down and have a meeting with our new daughters in law!" Seras added.

"I-I don't think Thea and Jasmine are getting married yet, b-but we should still go congratulate them nonetheless!" confirmed Bekka.

Abaddon gave all of his wives a dry look before sighing in defeat and looking down at his two young daughters.

"Then do the two of you want to hang out with me while I handle some business?" He asked. 

Mira's answer was instantaneous and not at all unexpected. "Yea!"

"I do not mind, but there is probably something that father should know first."

"Is there now? What might that be, little one?"

Gabbrielle was still getting used to the gentle and tender way that her father treated her, and her cheeks showed signs of darkening from embarrassment. 

"It's about..."

-

Abaddon had always believed that most crime was largely caused by desperation and a lack of opportunity. 

It was a belief that would be considered delusional by most, and yet the proof was here in Luxuria's very own underground prison.

This massive prison could house upwards of three thousand prisoners at once, yet the total number of occupants inside was only a measly seventy eight. 

Because jobs were literally everywhere in Luxuria, no one was forced to steal or rob due to poverty. 

And with all of the ways in this city for demons to release their violent impulses, the murder rate was practically nonexistent as well. 

But the people inside of this prison were not those who could be rationed with. 

? ? ? ? ? ?

They were typically outsiders, who'd come into Luxuria looking to cause some kind of trouble and been apprehended by the guards. 

The prison was separated into seven levels, and the deeper one went the worse the conditions became, and the more terrible criminals were housed there as well. 

The first level contained nothing but a few men who committed petty theft or got into stupid fights in bars. 

They were served three square meals a day, and they were allotted an hour out of their cells everyday to stretch their legs. 

But on the lowest level, there was no such privilege. 

Down here, there were only the kinds of criminals that Abaddon had the most amount of disdain for, like rapists and traffickers. 

There was no light, they were only fed once every seven days, and there was not the slightest chance of escape, momentary or otherwise. 

As Abaddon delved down into the pitch black darkness with his two daughters, his red and purple eyes scanned the inside of the cells as if he were looking for a decent subject. 

'I feel like you, my love.' He thought as he humorously remembered his wife Lailah's frightening past time.

Stopping in front of a cell, he found a man inside who he recalled very clearly. 

He was arrested after drugging a few of the succubi from a brothel and trying to sneak them into his cart and back to Gilgamesh, the land of the humans. 

He could only imagine the amount of horrors that they would have suffered had Hakon not put a stop to his plan.

"This one will be fine to start with." Gabbrielle confirmed. "A human soul is very fragile so you'll need to-"

"I-Is someone there?"

"P-Please, let us out!"

"We'll apologize to the princess, w-we swear it!!"

Before Gabbrielle could continue her explanation, a group of men began clamoring to be released from their confines. 

This was rather strange because all of the prisoners who were down here should have already gone insane from their surroundings, and Abaddon wasn't familiar with any prisoners being admitted to the seventh level as of late. 

Glancing inside, he found four men huddled together inside of a cell who appeared to be phoenixes wearing some kind of dirty adventurers gear. 

One was lying flat on the ground, seemingly near death and pumped full of some nasty poison.

"What... did you do... to the princess?" Abaddon asked in a low voice.I think you should take a look at

Without even asking, he knew that these men must have been taking about Thea.

Gabbrielle did not go out into the streets on her own, and if Mira was insulted these men would not even still be breathing. 

Thea was the only one magnanimous enough to have them thrown into jail. 

But he had not heard anything about an incident with his daughter, and no doubt it had been that way for a good reason. 

When the men heard Abaddon's demonic voice that was filled with irritation, they shrank away from the bars and tried not to meet his glowing heterochromatic eyes. 

"W-We..."

"P-Please, don't hurt us.."

"W-We'll apologize, we were just concerned about the safety of Princess Jasmine!"

It took forever, but eventually these men were able to stammer out the truth.

But it wasn't exactly something he was glad to hear. 

"You drew your blades... on my daughter..."

The phoenixes finally realized that they were speaking with the ruler of this place and their hearts nearly stopped beating. 

"I should kill all of you, along with your mothers, wives, and children for such disrespect..."

The door to the cell was flung open with a loud creaking noise, and the nightmare of these men became significantly more real. 

"You are lucky... so very fucking lucky that I did not learn about this when it happened... my people would have to mop you up off the street."

As Abaddon spoke, a dark purple light was visible from the back of his throat, a clear sign his irritation was skyrocketing.

"But today is a special day... and I will not spill blood on the day when my eldest son has gotten engaged."

The men let out a simultaneous sigh of relief. 

But Abaddon never said that they weren't going to be punished. 

"Mira."

"Yes, daddy?"

"These men tried to harm your eldest sister. You know we don't let things like that go, don't you?"

Beside Abaddon, a small pair of bright red eyes became a chilling icy blue. "Yes... Can Mira kill them?"

Hearing such a cute girly voice talk about murder so casually was certainly jarring, but none of them were naive enough to dismiss her words as mere play. 

"No need for that since these men belong to your new sister-in-laws... But you do need to make sure that they can never hold a sword properly ever again."

"Hehehehe!"

Mira released her father's hand and stepped inside of the cell, and the sound of snapping bones and twisting flesh could be heard not long after. 

"AAAAAGHHHH!!!"

"M-Mercy, please I- GAAAAHHHHH!!"

"OH GODS PLEASE!!"

Horrible screams filled the underground prison, but to Abaddon it was like music to his very ears. 

Gabbrielle silently watched the torture unfold with an unknowing gaze of satisfaction. 

She wasn't happy that these men had tried to harm her big sister either, and seeing retribution come right before her eyes was incredibly satisfying. 

As Mira continued to ruin the careers of all four men, Abaddon tore his eyes away from the scene and returned his attention back to the prisoner who was nearly comatose.

"Father, do you understand what you must do?"

Abaddon nuzzled his cheek against his daughter's as if he found her question silly. "Worry not, daughter. I'm something of a quick learner."

Proving his point, a whispy dark aura left his body and took the form of two skeletal arms. 

Reaching inside of the man's chest, the phantom limbs pulled out a wispy green ball that lit up the dark cell.

'I see... this is rather difficult.' 

He was glad that he decided to practice on criminals with no chance for release instead of his own family.

Grasping onto a soul was like trying to pick up a super slippery and brittle bar of soap off the shower floor. 

If he relaxed his grip too much the soul would slip through his grasp, and if he applied just a bit more pressure he would crush it, deleting it from existence. 

The skeletal hand held out the disembodied soul in front of his face, allowing him to get a closer look. 

He could see strange characters that he felt like he hadn't seen in a very, very long time, and he could read them as clear as day. 

"Father has done it!" Gabbrielle said in an impressed tone. 

"Hahaha! Did you ever doubt-"

Poof!

Abaddon lost his concentration for a brief second, and applied too much pressure to the soul in his grasp, obliterating it from existence. 

"..."

"..." *Snicker.*

Gabbrielle covered her mouth as she giggled cutely into her hand, alleviating Abaddon's disappointment with ease.

To his knowledge Gabbrielle had never smiled before, and the sound of her laughter was as sweet as he had always imagined it to be. 

Making a mistake had never felt so good.

"It's okay father, you can keep practicing." Gabbrielle said as she patted his head in consolidation. 

Abaddon relished in his daughter's headpats before moving on to another cell. "Just be sure to pick me up whenever I make a mistake, yea?"

"Of course, that is what family is for."