Chapter 159 – BOUNTY
Devorare spun once, twice—then struck the final blinking lens with a crack.
Glass fractured.
Electric sparks sizzled.
And the mont the cara shattered.
[WARNING: Dinsional anchor destabilizing.]
[Collapse of dark spatial fold imminent. Estimated ti: 00:00:09.]
[Please hold your breath.]
All around him, the spa began to ripple.
The tiles bent. The air pulsed. Shadows turned to smoke turned to static. Like the dream was ending, and reality was waking up with a hangover.
Lux took a step back when sothing caught his eye.
Just past the edge of the fractured jacuzzi.
Sothing... mundane.
A phone.
Small. Flat. Black case wrapped in infernal etching. It looked like obsidian that got bored and beca a touchscreen. There was no logo. No brand.
Demonic tech.
Not mortal.
Definitely Underworld-made.
Lux narrowed his eyes. It had been hidden—wedged between towels like an afterthought. Sloppy. And demons didn’t do sloppy unless they were rushing.
Could’ve been hers. Or his.
Lux crouched and picked it up, turning it in his hand.
It was ice cold to the touch.
The screen was blank. Not dead. Just off. Refusing him. Smart.
But Lux smiled.
Because he had a cheat code.
"TechnoGreed," he murmured.
A soft pulse of mana spilled from his palm—thin threads of golden code, like vines spun from encryption. They wrapped around the device. Crawled over its screen. Then pierced it.
The phone jolted.
Its screen flared to life—violent red, demonic glyphs flickering like glitching blood.
Then an image loaded.
Poster-style.
No music. No sound.
NA: Lux Vaelthorn
OCCUPATION: Chief Finance Overlord of Hell, The Greed Heir
STATUS: ACTIVE
DEAD or SOUL ONLY
BOUNTY: 88,800,000,000 SOUL CREDITS
NOTES: Extrely dangerous. Do not approach alone. Suspected of relic absorption.
LAST SEEN: Mortal Realm
Lux stared.
Silence.
Then.
"...What the f*ck."
He didn’t even blink.
The number wasn’t just high.
It was stupid.
Eight-eight billion soul credits? That was almost the GDP of lower Hell. Entire provinces didn’t move that much currency in a century. You couldn’t even launder that much without creating a new sub-economy.
No wonder they sent assassins.
They weren’t just hunting him. They were chasing a myth.
A walking payday.
Lux exhaled.
Long. Slow. Tight.
The screen kept flickering—showing variants. His face from different angles. Sketches. One grainy photo of him flipping soone off in what looked like a board eting.
"System."
[Did you enjoy your surprise fa?]
"Confirm bounty network origin."
[Running trace...]
[Source: Deep-Layered Market Grid. Infernal Darknet: "The Scorch Bazaar."]
[Public listing. Multi-syndicate approved.]
Lux hissed through his teeth. "So it’s real."
Corvus, from above, finally said sothing.
"You okay, boss?"
Lux turned slightly. Still staring at the demonic phone in his hand.
Then casually tossed it behind him.
"Catch."
Corvus squawked, flapping wildly. "HEY—!"
He dove, barely catching the device in his talons before it shattered on tile. His body blurred as he hit the ground—feathers rippling, bones reshaping, mass reconfiguring.
He didn’t stop at a bird.
He shifted.
Into humanoid form.
The feathers folded down into a hooded black jacket with blood-red threads stitched like circuit lines. His legs ford into combat joggers, his boots half-lted into cyberpunk soles. Black fingerless gloves blinked with rune-keys on the knuckles. He looked like a caffeine-addicted hacker had crawled out of a surveillance nightmare.
ssy dark hair. Sharp yellow eyes.
And a pissed-off energy that practically scread. ’Don’t hand cursed tech when I haven’t finished debugging the last cursed tech, you jackass boss.’
Corvus huffed. "Stop throwing demonware around like gum wrappers!"
Lux didn’t even blink. "Just sterilize it. And don’t bring it back until it stops trying to track my soul signature."
Corvus scowled and turned the phone over in his hand, muttering. "Ugh. You always get the sexy cursed tech. I got the malware."
Lux raised a brow. "That a complaint?"
"Observation," Corvus muttered. "Tsk. Okay, boss. I’ll trace the tadata, rip out the trackers, see if I can reverse-engineer who posted the bounty or just scream into a firewall. Either way, this thing’s dirtier than a Lust’s browser history."
"I don’t want its location services bleeding through," Lux said. "So of these high-level rc syndicates eat data pings."
"I know, I know," Corvus said, tapping the side of the phone. "Trust . I’ve been ghosting the damn market for years. I’ll scrub it like it owes rent."
Lux looked at him. "And Corvus."
"What?"
"No ransom sches. I’m not selling myself."
Corvus pouted. "A Not even, like, a fake auction to bait rival bidders?"
"Sterilize it."
"Fine, fine," he muttered, already pulling out a hex-screened terminal from literal shadow. "You’re no fun."
Both of them shimred, teleported.
The space cracked again.
[Spatial Collapse: 3... 2... 1...]
Light twisted inward like soone closing a curtain too fast.
And then— Lux was standing beside his bike and he had returned to his Human form.
The do was gone.
Like it had never been there.
The air slled real again—smoke, cheap perfu, city heat. The concrete was solid. Cars were honking four blocks away. A holess guy was yelling sothing about taxes and pigeons.
The real world.
Back.
He breathed in once. Sharp.
Alive.
The streetlight above him flickered. The sa one that had dimd when the shadow do dropped. It was back to its usual buzz. Harmless. Mortal.
Lux reached up and adjusted his gloves.
His fingers twitched slightly, residual heat still pulsing from his suit.
And sowhere, far off in the infernal echo chamber of Hell’s black-market economy— He was famous.
That bounty poster would spread. They always did. Soone would take a screenshot. Soone else would leak it to a collector. Forums would buzz.
CFO of Hell. The man who bankrupts kings.
Now open season.
Lux rolled his neck.
"System."
[Yes, boss? Feeling glamorous?]
"Add bounty notification to passive alerts. Flag any increase."
[Logged.]
He put on his helt and revved the engine once.
The streets ahead lit with citylight. Neon, sared by humidity. Perfect for riding through like a vengeful myth in designer boots.
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