Sinners' Kingdom #1: The Book of Lust (Complete)

38

It was probably... impossible.

What little I knew about demon summonings and contracts didn't include the art of willfully undermining them just to replace it with another. Elementary techniques of loophole navigation, sure — my grandmother made certain I knew at least the most basic of basics just like any little girl brought up in a witch community should. Emergencies happened, after all. Normal human children learned things like stop, drop, and roll, and stranger danger. Little witch children had their own crop of must-knows.

But none of that helped me now as I threatened to willfully sabotage an Infernal contract. Extend an overlapping, conflicting contract to Mammon, Prince of Greed? Sure. I could. Hypothetically, if his magic was overwhelmingly stronger than Lust's, he might really manage to free me. Maybe.

But it was most likely going to kill me before that could even happen. One didn't sabotage their contract deliberately, not even for noble reasons. Even double-crossing a weak little imp without proper insurance had its consequences. And me, a dead-magic daughter of a witch, no spells, no tricks, threatening to unilaterally terminate an agreement with a whole-ass Prince of Demons?

Yeah. I was definitely dead. The magic would stop my heart in the blink of an eye.

But I wouldn't want to live with myself anyway if I let Lust and Greed massacre these people. I wasn't a fucking monster.

So why not gamble my life for it? Why not see where it got me?

I was crazy anyway.

Bring it.

... And the gamble paid off.

I didn't know who attacked first, Asmodeus or Mammon. I only knew that one moment, everyone stood frozen. The next — both demons were locked in savage combat, bladed tail arcing and carving so fast it was just a fanning blur as it stabbed and sliced at the top, bottom, middle, top again — too fast! I couldn't see it anymore. And there was Mammon, too, the great black wolf with all the blood of his prey dripping from his muzzle so thickly that every time he swung his head to sink his teeth into another part of Lust, crimson rivulets streamed and sprayed onto the snow underneath both of them. The snow had already been dyed red with the blood of all the monks. Now streaks of glowing silvery-black splashed on top of it and bathed everything and everyone. Steam hissed as heat melted the snowy drifts at breakneck speed.

But that wasn't all. Malevolent power flooded me at the same time, fountaining from my wrist and lunging inward again to surge back into my body, burning every vein with an invisible fire so hot I thought I was dead. I had to be. No one could endure this and live. But then the pain doubled, and only the living could suffer like this. I wasn't dead yet.

I couldn't even scream through the pain. I rolled over and opened my mouth to let out the groan trapped in my throat, but it refused to come out. The unseen fire raged, bursting and flaring and scorching, until I realized: I wasn't cold anymore. And it wasn't just because I had become numb to it. The snow around me steamed gently and melted too, just like the snow surrounding the fighting Princes. Heat thawed my muscles and skin, and although it still hurt, now there was something else, something new under the pain.

Strength?

So much! I could even get up and move right now if I tried, no problem. I lifted my head to test how easy it was, then effortlessly jumped to my feet. Sarina was still on her knees as she swayed back and forth, and I caught her shoulder before she could flop over.

This power rushing through me was foreign, definitely not mine. The sensation came from the mark on my wrist, so it must be Lust doing this — remotely, somehow. But I had just threatened to betray him. Why help me? Keeping me alive was one thing. He could have just barely thawed me and sustained my life if that was what he wanted. But like this, I could do anything. Anything!