Chapter 134: The Price of an Anchor

Investment? What a absolute joke! Seth's mind raced, a cold sweat threatening to break beneath his blindfold. The situation had devolved into a nightmare the exact second that name left the demon's lips. He knew from the entity's grand, imposing entrance that this was nothing but pure, unadulterated trouble. There was no doubting it; Asmodeus fully intended to spin a web around him and turn him into a glorified pawn. Seth had zero interest in being under anyone’s thumb or influence, but the path forward was entirely dark.

This is bad, he thought grimly. If Agatha ever finds out about this disaster, she’ll never let me hear the end of it. She’ll probably look me and say, ‘I told you so.’

He needed a way out. He needed a way to chase this terrifying king back to hell. Primordial beings like him didn't care for mundane flesh, especially not in a crude, industrial layout like this. Seth briefly shifted his focus toward the dark corners of the chamber, tracking the exact layout of his accumulated stock before turning his attention back to Asmodeus. He had only 47 corpses in total. It was a drop in the bucket for a god of the underworld. But then, a sudden, dangerous realization hit him. He paused, his internal calculations halting mid-stride. Wait a minute. He’s a primordial. If he’s already standing in my domain, why am I trying to trade scraps?

 If he played this card right, he could request something far beyond the basic, low-grade materials he had originally set out to acquire. The 47 bodies sitting in the dark wouldn't suffice as a tribute anyway, that was a cold fact. Asmodeus wasn't interested in the meager harvest; he was going to take something far more valuable directly from Seth himself. If a loss was inevitable, Seth might as well make the bargain worth it.

Asmodeus subtly tilted his head, his dark, ancient eyes gleaming as he caught the sudden, sharp shift in Seth’s internal frequency. The heavy, suffocating scent of ozone and sulfur didn't change, but the micro-tremors in Seth’s stance completely vanished. The demon lord’s smile widened by a millimeter. He could feel the human's mind shifting from defensive calculations to a sudden, highly ambitious gambit. It was a rare, delicious friction; most mortals simply begged for their lives when faced with a primordial demon, but this one was preparing a counter-proposal.

Seth straightened his posture, turns directly toward the terrifying silhouette. "Let us change the terms," Seth declared, his voice carrying a newfound weight. "I have a project I've been working on lately, a demiplane I created myself, linked directly to a spatial sphere. Currently, I lack the rare materials and advanced equipment to properly stabilize it. Even worse, I am running dangerously low on the mana required to keep the spatial sphere from collapsing into nothingness. If it vanishes, months of my hard work go to waste."

He took a precise step forward, the confidence in his tone masking the underlying gamble. "I need you to grant me a way to hold that demiplane directly to my being, so that it rests permanently by my side, accessible wherever and whenever I want it. In exchange, I offer you that pile of forty-seven preserved corpses in the corner. But let me make one thing absolutely clear: I will never give you my soul!"

Asmodeus paused, a rich, genuine chuckle vibrating through the stone chamber. For a primordial king who had witnessed thousands of mortal achievements across millennia, this human's stubborn pride was thoroughly amusing. To build a functional demiplane in a fractured, magical era and then have the audacity to offer a meager pile of human meat to a god of hell to fix it, was an act of spectacular defiance. "A contract, then," Asmodeus murmured, stepping forward. He casually waved a gloved hand, indicating that for his own personal amusement, he would willingly deduct the astronomical price such a reality-bending request should demand. "I accept the flesh, and I shall provide you the anchor. However, a price must still be paid." The demon lord leaned in, his compelling, gothic elegance twisting into an aura of pure, psychological malice. "Before I state my exact demands, I would like to know something, Seth. If I had requested the lives of your siblings, you would have feigned ignorance. So, what if, in exchange, I ask for the one you love most dearly to your heart?"

Seth didn't skip a beat. His face remained an unreadable mask as he replied casually, "What if I said It's you?"

Asmodeus’s eyes narrowed, the temperature in the room dropping instantly. "You take me for a fool!"

"Do you not believe in love at first sight?" Seth countered smoothly, his tone perfectly matching the demon's wit. The primordial lord stared at him for a tense second before a dark, knowing smirk spread across his face. "Then I look forward to seeing if you can live up to those words or if they will ultimately be the death of you."

"Just forget I said anything," Seth muttered, brushing the exchange off quickly to get back to business.

"Well now, for my true demand of the bargain," Asmodeus said, his voice dropping into a resonant, binding cadence. "I, Asmodeus, request your firstborn seed as the term of our exchange. Not one of the present, but the lineage yet to come."

 Seth’s facial expression hardened. Diabolical... how is that a deduction?

"Remember, you still keep your soul," Asmodeus reminded him, his tone dripping with smooth justification. "What you asked for is neither simple power nor mortals wealth, but permanent ownership of your own creation. The price must echo the magnitude of the gift."

"Isn't that just cruel?" Seth asked, his expression returning to a stoic, defensive calm.

"What you see as cruelty, I see as absolute fairness," Asmodeus replied seamlessly. "In fact, I find this to be the safest and best choice for a man of your unique talents."

Seth inhaled slowly, hardening his resolve. "You think your demand will rattle me. What if I accepted it immediately?"

"Then cease your hesitation and step forward," Asmodeus commanded, stretching out his pale right hand, palm upward. Seth hesitated for a fraction of a second, his mind plunging into deep, turbulent thoughts. From the shadows, Evelyn, who had been listening to the entire terrifying negotiation, finally found her footing. She frantically clung to the fabric of Seth's clothes, her body trembling. Seth turned slightly, gently patting her back to soothe her panic. "It's okay, Evelyn. You don't have to be scared. I have everything completely under control."

"But... Boss..." she stuttered, her eyes wide with fear.

"Leave it to me," Seth replied firmly. "Nothing is going to happen to you." Gently letting go of her, Seth turned back to the demon lord. He walked directly up to Asmodeus, closing the final distance between them. Internally, his thoughts were still spinning in a wild vortex. My lineage... my future seed?. I never once planned for a love life, let alone building a family. It never even settled into my mindset. He stood face-to-face with the ruler of hell. To ensure I never regret this decision, I'll just have to bind my emotions tightly to myself.....Wait a minute... could he have meant something else by that word specifically?

Before he could overthink the trickery of a demon’s vocabulary, Seth reached out and gripped Asmodeus’s extended hand. The moment their palms locked, Asmodeus’s grip tightened with bone-crushing force. An obsidian, ink-like liquid immediately bled from the demon’s palm, boring violently past the skin and sinking deep into Seth’s flesh. Seth felt a sudden, terrifying tug in the center of his chest. A blank Catalyst, the anchor was ready, but it was up to him to choose what force to chain to his flesh.

Asmodeus abruptly let go. Seth collapsed heavily onto one knee, his limbs radiating a searing, burning pain that overloaded his mental faculty.

"Now, I shall wait," Asmodeus said smoothly, looking down at the kneeling engineer. "The rest is entirely up to you, Seth. What you requested is now safely within you." With a sudden, violent roar, a column of infernal flame erupted in the corner of the chamber, completely engulfing and swallowing the forty-seven preserved corpses. Within a second, the bodies and the fire vanished into nothingness. "Until next time. We shall cross paths again," Asmodeus said with a final, lingering smile. The grand summoning circle beneath his feet bloomed with blinding, flaming light, coating his elegant form before he descended back to where he came from. The light violently flashed, then faded into total darkness.

I highly hope we don't! Seth thought, gasping heavily for air as the burning sensation slowly began to settle into a dull ache.

"Boss?" Evelyn called out, her voice small and trembling in the quiet room.

"It's alright, I'm okay," Seth managed to say, forcing himself to stand upright. He flexed his arms, trying to work out the lingering pain from the obsidian infusion, and turned his face toward her. Internally, his frustration was mounting. What exactly does he expect me to do now? He didn't leave a single specific instruction on how to make this work. I feel like I've been completely swindled. He walked out of the smoking ritual circle, stopping right in front of Evelyn.

"Are you alright? Wasn't that incredibly risky?" she asked, her eyes searching his face anxiously.

"You shouldn't bother yourself with that," Seth replied smoothly, keeping his voice level. "I'm quite alright, as you can see."

"That wasn't what I meant..." she said, her voice trailing off as she looked at his hands. Seth placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder, his tone dropping into a calm, gentle baritone. "Hey, let it go already. Can you do me a quick favor?"

"What is it?" she asked.

"I need you to keep everything that happened in this room strictly between us. I don't want Agatha finding out about any of this anytime soon, especially because of her current condition. Alright?"

Evelyn looked at him for a moment before nodding softly. "Alright. I'll try."

"Why don't you go finish packing up the rest of your gears?" Seth suggested, squeezing her shoulder gently. "I'll join you as soon as I'm finished cleaning up a few things here."

"Okay," Evelyn said. She slowly turned on her heel and exited the heavy doors of the summoning chamber, leaving him alone in the quiet dark.

Seth stood until her footsteps faded completely. He continued to flex his aching arms, feeling the strange, heavy spatial energy now humming beneath his skin. I have the power, huh? Who knows... I'm about to do something either incredibly crazy or incredibly stupid.