NASM 2.05 based x86 Instruction Reference[ch078]
A.5.58 DEC: Decrement Integer DEC reg16 ; o16 48+r [8086] DEC reg32 ; o32 48+r [386] DEC r/m8 ; FE /1 [8086] DEC r/m16 ; o16 FF /1 [8086] DEC r/m32 ; o32 FF /1 [386] DEC subtracts 1 from its operand. It does _not_ affect the carry flag: to affect the carry flag, use SUB something,1 (see section A.5.305). DEC affects all the other flags according to the result. This instruction can be used with a LOCK prefix to allow atomic execution. See also INC (section A.5.120).