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Neron's gaze never left Jason as the faintest smile curved his lips, calm and certain, like a judge who already knew the verdict.
"Domain Expansion," he said quietly.
The air warped.
"Infernal Court of Binding Oaths."
In an instant, the arena vanished.
The roar of demons, the heat of Hell, the cracked stone beneath Jason's boots, all of it disappeared as if erased from existence itself. There was no transition, no distortion, just a clean cut, like reality had been severed with a blade.
Jason found himself standing somewhere else entirely.
A different plane. A different law.
He raised an eyebrow, scanning his surroundings with sharp eyes.
"A Domain…" he muttered.
Endless yellow fire rose in every direction, stretching into a horizon that did not exist. The flames burned bright and holy, almost beautiful, yet they gave off no heat. They did not scorch his skin or consume his clothes. They simply illuminated everything with an oppressive golden glow, like a divine courtroom rather than Hell.
Then the chains appeared.
They rose from the fire like serpents.
Thick iron links wrapped around his arms, his torso, his legs, coiling tight before he could even react. Jason flexed instinctively, cursed energy surging through his body, but the chains did not budge.
Not even a little.
It felt wrong.
They were not binding his muscles.
They were binding something deeper.
His soul.
Jason's eyes narrowed.
Then he looked forward and froze for a split second.
"…Huh?"
Neron stood several meters away.
Chained.
Just like him.
Same iron. Same restraints. Same immobility.
For a moment, the sight was so absurd Jason almost laughed.
Neron smiled instead.
"I have studied you since the day you arrived here," he said calmly.
His voice echoed unnaturally, as if the world itself carried it.
"All the way back when you killed a Demon Noble and Mazikeen dragged you out alive. I watched. I investigated. I traced your entire life."
Flames flickered higher around them.
"I learned everything. Your journey to another world. Your battles. Your encounter with the clown called Joker. Every step you took, every ability you revealed."
His eyes gleamed with frightening intelligence.
"And most importantly… that power of yours."
Jason's gaze sharpened.
"The one you call Domain Expansion."
The flames surged upward like pillars, then twisted, bending, reshaping. Words began to carve themselves into the sky in burning gold letters, enormous and unavoidable.
Neron's smile widened slightly.
"So I created one of my own."
"A Domain that allows me to implement my authority perfectly."
He spread his chained arms slightly, almost theatrically.
"Welcome to the Infernal Court of Binding Oaths."
The sky fully formed into blazing text.
The Rules.
[Inside the Domain, reality runs on contracts.]
[Any statement spoken with intent becomes a binding vow.]
[Any promise becomes law.]
[Any deal becomes enforced by the Domain itself.]
The words burned themselves into Jason's mind like commandments.
He clicked his tongue softly and exhaled.
"A contract type domain…" he muttered.
His eyes moved once, calculating.
"No guaranteed hit. No automatic kill condition. Which means a Simple Domain won't cancel it."
A faint smirk touched his lips.
"So I actually have to play the game, huh."
"Indeed...." spoke Neron "I have waited for this,"
His voice carried differently here. It did not echo so much as resonate, each syllable layering itself into the golden fire, becoming part of the Domain's fabric. When he spoke, the flames pulsed faintly, responding to their master even while he hung chained like every other occupant.
"You killed Satan....One known as Azrael" Neron's smile remained, calm and clinical. "The First of the Fallen. A being who has existed since the dawn of creation, who rebelled against the Presence itself, and you walked through him like he was nothing. I watched that fight. Do you know what I learned?"
Jason said nothing. His eyes continued their slow sweep of the Domain, cataloging, measuring, searching for the crack that always existed in every technique, every barrier, every so-called perfect prison.
"I learned that brute force is useless against you." Neron tilted his head slightly, chains clinking with the motion. "I learned that your Domain Expansion 'Malevolent Shrine' operates without a barrier, which means traditional Domain counters are meaningless. I learned that your Cleave adjusts to its target's toughness, that your Dismantle shreds anything without discrimination, and that you possess slashing abilities that operate on levels most beings cannot even perceive."
The flames rose higher.
"So I built a Domain where none of that matters."
Jason finally spoke. "You think?"
His voice was flat. Unimpressed. But behind his eyes, something moved—not fear, not uncertainty, but the rapid calculation of a mind that had survived impossible situations by treating every problem as a puzzle to be solved. He flexed against the chains again. Still no give. They bound something that couldn't be strengthened, couldn't be reinforced, couldn't be protected by cursed energy or physical power.
The soul.
And if Neron's Domain bound souls equally, then Neron's soul was also chained.
Which meant—
"You're trapped too," Jason said. It wasn't a question.
"I am." Neron spread his chained arms as much as the restraints allowed. "The Infernal Court binds all who enter. Judge, jury, defendant—we are equal before the law. That is the nature of true justice, is it not?"
"There's no justice in Hell."
"No." The smile widened slightly. "There isn't. But there is law."
The burning sky shifted. New text began to form beneath the first set of rules, words carving themselves into existence with the weight of divine proclamation. Jason watched them form, reading each line as it appeared, his expression never changing even as the full scope of Neron's game revealed itself.
[POINTS SYSTEM ESTABLISHED]
[Each binding vow made within the Domain generates points based on the vow's significance.]
[Points may be converted into attacks against one's opponent.]
[Attack power corresponds to point cost.]
[Failure to fulfill a vow transfers all wagered points to the opponent and inflicts damage equal to the vow's value.]
The flames flickered. Another line formed beneath, smaller but no less absolute.
[All transactions final. All judgments absolute. All debts collected.]
Jason read the entire system twice. Then, despite everything—despite the chains, despite the Domain, despite the fact that he was standing in the constructed reality of an opponent who had studied him like a specimen—he laughed.
Not a loud laugh. Not a mocking one. Just a short, sharp exhale through his nose, the barest curve of his lips, the reaction of a man who had just been handed exactly what he wanted.
"A currency system," he muttered. "You turned your Domain into a casino."
"I turned my Domain into a negotiation." Neron's voice remained smooth, untroubled by Jason's reaction. "You are the King of Curses, Jason. You have slaughtered your way across worlds. You possess attacks that can cut reality itself, that can sever souls, that can inflict True Death upon anything they touch. In a straight fight, I would lose. I am not arrogant enough to pretend otherwise."
The admission hung in the burning air.
"So I built a place where straight fights do not exist."
Jason tested the chains again. Still nothing. But his mind was already moving, already calculating, already searching for the angle that would let him turn this game back on its creator.
"How do points generate?"
"Any statement made with intent becomes a vow. Any promise, any claim, any declaration of future action. The more significant the claim, the more points it generates. If you say 'I will kill you with my next attack,' the Domain assigns a value based on the likelihood of success, the power required, the consequences of failure. That value becomes your wager."
"And if I win?"
"Your attack lands with full force. The points are consumed. Your opponent cannot defend in any conventional sense—the Domain ensures that attacks purchased with points bypass all normal resistance. Your Cleave, your Dismantle, your reality-cutting slashes—they will function exactly as intended, provided you have the points to spend."
Jason's eyes narrowed slightly. "And if I lose?"
Neron's smile became something almost gentle. Almost pitying.
"Then the points transfer to your opponent. And the vow's consequences manifest upon you instead."
Silence stretched between them, broken only by the silent burning of the golden flames. Jason stood motionless within his chains, processing, calculating, running scenarios through his mind with the speed of a supercomputer. This was worse than a straight fight. Worse than facing Satan's raw power or Blaze's infernal heritage. This was a battle of wit and will, and Neron had designed the entire arena.
"So," he said slowly, "the goal is to make vows you can keep, force your opponent into vows they can't, and use the points to land killing blows."
"That is one strategy."
"And I suppose I'll have to figure out the Other?"
Neron's eyes gleamed. "Correct...."
The chains shifted. Not loosening—nothing so generous—but adjusting, as if the Domain itself was settling into readiness. Above them, the burning text remained fixed, immutable, the laws of this tiny reality written in fire that would never fade.
Jason looked up at the rules one final time. Read them. Committed them to memory.
Then he looked back at Neron, and when he spoke, his voice carried the weight of absolute certainty.
"Then let's begin."
The flames surged.
Neron nodded slowly, respect flickering behind his demonic eyes. "I will start."
He drew a breath. The chains around him seemed to tighten imperceptibly, responding to the intent gathering behind his words. When he spoke, each syllable burned itself into the Domain's record, becoming law before it had even finished leaving his lips.
"I vow that within the next sixty seconds, you will speak a binding vow of your own."
The golden fire exploded upward.
[VOW REGISTERED]
[Speaker: Neron, Lord of Lies]
[Content: Jason will speak a binding vow within sixty seconds]
[Wager: 15 points]
[Time remaining: 60... 59... 58...]
Numbers appeared in the sky, burning countdown timers that Jason could feel pressing against his consciousness like a deadline carved into his skull. Fifteen points. A small amount, by the Domain's scale—enough for a minor attack, nothing lethal. But that wasn't the point.
The point was forcing him to act.
Jason's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. Neron hadn't vowed to kill him. Hadn't vowed to wound him. Hadn't even vowed to attack. He had vowed to make Jason participate, to drag him into the game whether he wanted to play or not. And if Jason refused—if he simply stood here for sixty seconds without speaking—then Neron would gain fifteen points and Jason would suffer the consequences of a broken vow.
Brilliant. Infuriating. Brilliant.
The timer hit fifty-five seconds.
Jason's mind raced. He could speak now, make some meaningless vow, give Neron his fifteen points and move on. But that was what Neron expected. That was the obvious move, the safe move, the move that let Neron control the pace of the game. And Jason had not become the King of Curses by doing what his opponents expected.
Fifty seconds.
He could make a counter-vow. Something aggressive, something that forced Neron to react instead of dictating terms. But any vow he made would generate points, and those points would be added to the total—including, potentially, the fifteen Neron was about to win. If Jason made a vow now, before Neron's succeeded, the points would stack. Neron could use them immediately.
Forty-five seconds.
Or Jason could wait. Let the timer run down. Take the fifteen-point hit and whatever damage came with it, then respond from a position of weakness. That was suicide against an opponent like Neron. Fifteen points might not kill, but they would give Neron his first attack, his first chance to test the system, his first opportunity to land something Jason couldn't block.
Forty seconds.
Jason's eyes moved to Neron's face. The Soul Broker watched him with patient anticipation, the expression of a man who had already calculated every branch of every possible decision tree. He knew Jason was thinking. He knew Jason was calculating. He was waiting to see which path the King of Curses would choose.
Thirty-five seconds.
Jason made his choice.
"I vow," he said, his voice cutting through the burning silence like a blade, "that I will not speak another word for the remainder of this sixty-second period."
The Domain froze.
For a single, crystalline moment, even the flames seemed to halt their motion. Neron's expression shifted—not much, barely a flicker, but Jason caught it. Confusion. Then realization. Then something that might have been admiration.
Above them, the burning text scrambled to process.
[VOW REGISTERED]
[Speaker: Jason, King of Curses]
[Content: No further speech for the duration of Neron's vow]
[Wager: 10 points]
[Status: CONFLICT DETECTED]
The timer continued its countdown. Thirty seconds. Twenty-nine. Twenty-eight.
Neron's vow required Jason to speak. Jason's vow required him to remain silent. Two binding oaths, both active, both demanding opposite outcomes. The Domain could not satisfy both.
Which meant
Twenty-five seconds.
The golden flames began to churn. The burning text flickered, wavered, restructured itself as the Infernal Court attempted to resolve the contradiction. New words formed, calculations, attempts to assign priority. But there was no priority. Both vows were equal before the law. Both had been spoken with intent. Both were binding.
Twenty seconds.
Neron's eyes widened slightly. Not with fear—he was too old, too experienced, too controlled for fear—but with the recognition that Jason had just done something extraordinary. He had turned Neron's own game against him. He had refused to play by the expected rules. He had created a paradox that the Domain could not resolve.
Fifteen seconds.
The flames screamed.
Not audibly—there was no sound in this place beyond voices—but visually, the fire contorted, twisted, stretched into shapes that hurt to witness. The Domain was a system of absolute law. It could not tolerate contradiction. It had been built to enforce oaths, not to arbitrate between them.
Ten seconds.
Neron opened his mouth. Whether to speak another vow, to cancel his own, to do something—Jason never learned. Because at five seconds, the Domain made its decision.
[PARADOX DETECTED]
[Both vows cannot be fulfilled]
[Both vows cannot be broken]
[RULING: Both vows nullified]
[No points awarded]
[No damage inflicted]
[Both speakers: WARNING]
[Repeat violations will incur penalties]
The timer vanished.
The flames settled.
And Jason stood in his chains, looking at Neron with an expression that was almost almost amused....
'I get it now...The domain could have easily given Neron points and then continued the count down to give me points...But instead...It chose not too...It doesn't like to be toyed with...And it seemes to Always Prioritize the vows made above everything else....'
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If you Like this story! Check out my other story ! Shadow Monarch in Danmachi!
AND
If you wish to read more or simply support me just because ? than check out my patréon at
"https://www.patréon.com/Riadooo"
You can Get Access to 3 More Chapters OR 7 More Chapters if you want !