Chapter 297 A Pickup Hiccup



In Helios' throne room, he was going over the work of the three lords kneeling at his feet.

Seras, Lotan, and Tiamat were all submitting their quarterly reports from their section of Antares, and it seemed like they were all going smoothly. 

"I'm rather impressed with you, Seras. Catching up on so much work in no more than a month is no small feat."

"Thank you, my king..."

Helios noticed that Seras' eyes were a bit distant and empty as if she wasn't really all there. 

It was especially unlike her, since she was usually very sharp and always aware of her surroundings. 

'Focused on him I bet...' 

"How goes your husband's war?" Helios suddenly asked. 

A bit of the light returned to Seras' eyes, but one could not exactly say that she was happy. "I... do not have any details. I only know that he is still alive and well."

The golden dragon rubbed his chin thoughtfully as if he were contemplating the likelihood of Abaddon's victory. 

"Darius maybe a friend, but he will in no way roll over for Abaddon just because he is my biological grandson. How do you think-"

"My king."

Seras' eyes were the most alive they'd been in the entire time she was here, as if the contents of this conversation had awoken her fully. 

"I am absolutely certain that after absorbing all of the sins, there are only four individuals left in this world who are capable of endangering my beloved's life. And King Darius its not among them."

Helios, Samyaza, Audrina, and Seras herself. 

The first two were monsters not originating from this world, and their powers were beyond Abaddon's current range at this point in time. 

But Audrina and Seras were unnatural monsters in their own right, having gone through transmutation and demonification.

Only these four were capable of surpassing Abaddon's greatest strength in the sin of pride, and only two of them could be considered hostile.

To her, it was never a question of if her husband defeats Darius, but rather when.

*Whistles* "Pretty confident in your man there, Seras." Logan said jokingly. "But I wonder if you might be a little biased in his abilities."

"Indeed." Tiamat added. "Despite his successes so far, our world is a large place filled with many great powers."

It was clear that Seras was beginning to get irritated, as her claws came out on their own, and a small amount of her pressure started to leak from her body. 

"Either of you... Say those words again. I dare you."

Unfortunately, the two of them couldn't speak even if they wanted to. 

True dragon pressure is utterly unlike any other kind of pressure. 

It affects beings in a special kind of way that leaves them in near complete paralysis as they lose control of their body's functions. 

In more extreme cases, the mind can become overloaded with fear and even suffer permanent damage. 

The effect was even more pronounced on weaker dragons. 

Right now, neither Lotan or Tiamat could so much as burp in Seras' direction. 

Their faces gradually lost all color, and they dropped their heads to the ground out of a natural instinct to appear nonthreatening. 

On the throne, Helios merely smirked as he tried his best not to laugh. 

'As I thought, it is always amusing when they are together like this.'

Just as Helios opened his mouth to disperse this negative atmosphere, there was a change in the throne room. 

Suddenly, a swirling starry portal opened up right behind the kneeling lords. 

For a moment there was no activity, and then a young girl stepped into view. 

She wore a simple, clean white dress that exposed her soft feminine arms and gave her a gentle and delicate look. 

Her long and curly white hair traveled well past her back and nearly touched the floor. 

While her face was almost aloof and robotic, she was undeniably beautiful. 

So much so that it would be tremendously difficult to find her equal in this life or the next. 

Unless of course you glimpsed sight of her sisters or mothers. 

Her red eyes scanned the room for one particular person and once she found them, her eyes showed their first traces of warmth and her full lips curled into a smile. 

"Mo-"

Before Gabbrielle could finish calling out to her mother, a man she didn't recognize was directly in front of her face staring at her strangely. 

"What a captivating woman... I don't believe I've ever seen anything quite like you."

Lotan suddenly took Gabbrielle by the hand tenderly and tried his best to give a favorable impression. 

"I am-"

"Going to die." Gabbrielle finished. 

Lotan paused a moment as he didn't fully understand her meaning, but a single second was all it took for him to grasp the full picture. 

A man suddenly appeared from the portal beside the young girl.

Besides the king who stood at 7'0, he was easily the tallest man Lotan had ever seen. 

His skin was entirely black, save for the bold red tattoos that seemed to be written in some long dead demonic language. 

There didn't seem to be an ounce of fat or an underutilized muscle on his entire body, and his red and purple eyes were somehow both suffocating and bottomless. 

When Abaddon's eyes landed on Lotan's hands that were on his daughter's, he temporarily forgot where he was.

His body moved on pure instinct and hatred as he picked Lotan up by his neck and turned his free hand into a massive blade that easily carved up the floor. 

"Grandson. You aren't going to disrespect me in my own throne room by killing a subordinate in front of my face, are you?" Helios asked dangerously. 

Abaddon only barely retained enough of his sanity to respond, but his mood was just about as far from agreeable as it gets. 

"I want to ask you something, Helios. What would you do if some repulsive urchin lay hands on your daughter without her permission?"

Helios' eyes temporarily glazed over and he started to warm the room with the heat that was radiating off his body.  I think you should take a look at

Eventually, he calmed down and made a reasonable request. 

"Whatever you're going to do, just make sure that he can go back to work tomorrow."

'W-What?!'

Lotan couldn't get a single wisp of air into his lungs, and no matter how hard he tried he could not break free of Abaddon's grip. 

If he could speak he would have apologized profusely for the misunderstanding, but it didn't look like he was going to get that luxury. 

Begrudgingly, Abaddon put away his bladed arm and instead unsheathed the claws on his fingertips. 

"If you're going to look at my daughter with those lecherous eyes you're better off not having them."

Realizing what was about to happen, Lotan began to struggle blindly in an attempt to avoid his gruesome fate. 

He threw a flurry of punches at Abaddon's face and body, but after ten blows, his own fists began to hurt. 

It was as if he were a human striking a brick wall without the faintest bit of protection. 

'W-What the fuck are you made of!?'

Unfortunately, his question would go unanswered as Abaddon plucked out both of his eyes with relative ease and crushed them within his palm. 

With no air coming into his lungs, Lotan couldn't even scream as his vision became dark and he was assailed with a terrible pain. 

"I told you he has shit to do tomorrow!"

"Then he should hire a good healing mage." Abaddon head butted Lotan with all of his might, shattering his frontal bone and sending him into a long nap. 

He threw him hard into the nearest wall, and then immediately checked on Gabbrielle to assure she was alright. 

"You're fine, right? He didn't say anything weird to you before I arrived, did he?"

"He said that I was a captivating woman." Gabbrielle said honestly.

Abaddon conjured a javelin made out of ice and hurled it at Lotan's unconscious body, impaling his leg to the floor. 

It looked like he was going to create another one and staple all four limbs when a beautiful pale skinned woman threw herself into his arms. 

The demon forgot all about his rage as Seras grabbed him by the face and kissed him desperately, her month's worth of longing contained in her tender greeting. 

Since Abaddon missed her every bit as much as she missed him, he did not fight her and instead pulled her in deeper, savoring the warmth of her body and taste of her lips after so long. 

Helios rolled his eyes and looked down at his last kneeling lord, Tiamat. 

When he saw the state of her, he gave her a very simple warning that would no doubt save her life. 

'Stop looking at him like that. Seras will kill you the second she notices.'

'!'

Tiamat quickly averted her eyes and stared at the floor while trying to control her inner thoughts and impulses. 

When her eyes landed on Abaddon... she could not describe the overwhelming feeling of attraction that threatened to make her lose all rationale. 

Had Seras not been so overwhelmed with the sight of her husband, they would already be mopping her up off the floor. 

And if it came down to it... Helios did not particularly want to fight Seras over something stupid like that. 

At the level she was at now... a fight between the two of them would reduce this entire continent to rubble in under two hours. 

Finally, Abaddon and Seras separated their lips from each other and stared lovingly into each others eyes. 

""I've missed you."" 

"Why did I bother to come if I was just going to be harassed and ignored?" Gabbrielle asked. 

Seras finally chuckled and tore herself away from her husband to pull in her daughter for a hug. "I have missed you too, my daughter. It warms my heart to see you like this."

Gabbrielle showed a small smile and returned her mother's hug with one of her own, further enhancing this already tender moment. 

"We came to take you back with us."

"That's right, you know we couldn't properly celebrate our reunification without you." Her husband added. 

Seras' eyes widened when she heard the double meaning behind Abaddon's words. 

The itch that she'd been ignoring with great difficulty during all of their time apart was finally back and it was absolutely demanding to be scratched. 

"T-Then what're we waiting for! Let's go home already!!"

Seras quickly hooked arms with her daughter and her husband and prepared to walk through the portal, seemingly forgetting about anything else. 

"Wait."

The group of three turned around and stared at Helios like they'd completely forgotten he was there. 

"You have yet to hold up your end of the bargain, Abaddon." Helios reminded. "Seras still has duties to attend to here."

"Compile it for her and I'll come pick it up within a few days." Abaddon said uncaringly. 

Helios growled in irritation and conjured a wall of white flame, cutting them off from the portal. 

"You cannot just take her at your leisure! Until Rhea is resurrected I still have need of her here!"

Abaddon was already in a bad mood from Lotan's earlier foolishness but Helios was about to make it significantly worse. 

"Old man... are you actually daring to tell me what I can and can't do with my wife...?"

Uncaring of his tone, Helios stood up at his full height and growled menacingly.

"Do not overstep, boy. You've let victory over a few feeble demigods go right to your head! I can assure you that the difference in power between us is more than-"

Before Helios could finish his threat, the wall of flames he'd created a mere moment ago started to flicker uncontrollably. 

"What...?"

The golden dragon watched with wide eyes as his own fire stopped obeying his commands, and became nothing more than a tiny ember. 

Slowly, that small ember floated into the outstretched palm of Gabbrielle who turned around to give Helios a disappointed look. 

"I am surprised at you, Bahamut. That you would use these flames against the one who gave them to you is laughable indeed."