Chapter 505 – Long Dead Strategist
Lux was back in Nexus Pri.
The Greed Tower lood around him like a monunt to quiet pressure. No flas. No infernal statues drooling gold. Just sleek black-tinted glass, polished obsidian floors, vertical mana pipelines glowing with pulse-like light in the corners of the architecture. It was the kind of place that didn’t scream power. It whispered it. Constantly. Everywhere. In the air, in the walls, in the way every door opened with perfect timing before your hand touched it.
And still... he felt out of place.
The mont he stepped into the front lobby, several staff stopped mid-conversation. Half of them stiffened. The others bowed slightly. So just nodded with that sort of wide-eyed hush like they were trying to figure out if he was here to kill soone or review payroll discrepancies.
"My Lord," a finance daemon said, straightening his tie so hard it almost wrung itself off.
Lux just gave a little nod and kept walking.
The entire floor felt like it shifted in his wake. Especially when he arrived on the office pantry.
A few whispered when they thought he couldn’t hear.
"I thought he was on vacation..."
"Did sothing happen?"
"Why is he in the pantry...?"
Yeah. That part made it worse.
Because he wasn’t walking to an office.
He didn’t have one.
Not officially. Not really.
Since the beginning of his job as Hell’s CFO, Lux had worked from one place—the Lord of Greed’s office. The one that used to belong to his father.
It wasn’t even remodeled. The chairs still had Zavros’s energy signature burned into the cushioning. The curtains still slled like whatever myrrh-heavy cologne his father used to wear. The screen savers on the datapads still had that awful corporate abstract art his dad liked. The only thing he renovated was an extra room for himself to stay. A bed. A simple wardrobe. A table for eat and maybe watching sothing, mostly the news. Necessities.
Lux used it because his father was absent. Because soone had to sit there.
He didn’t belong there. He didn’t belong anywhere, technically. A placeholder with the highest authority rating on the floor.
So here he was, in the pantry. Sitting at a small, circular table in the corner, next to the massive full-glass wall that overlooked the Veins District.
He took a slow sip of black coffee. No sugar. No cream. Just bitter clarity.
The aroma curled into his nose, sharp and roasted, like mories that wouldn’t go away.
Soone in the back was awkwardly trying not to look at him while making toast.
He didn’t care.
He leaned back in the chair, one arm slung over the backrest, and let his gaze wander past the glass. Beyond the skyline. Beyond the infernal steel towers, the plasma-driven transport rails, the eternal dusk glow of the artificial hell-light that powered this quadrant.
He muttered, half to himself, "I need to reinforce the seals... and post guards."
That, at least, he could do.
It wouldn’t fix everything. But it would give him a mont’s peace. Or maybe just a better warning. At the very least, if Zoltarin slipped through the cracks, he’d know.
The problem was... that Zoltarin was Greed.
Sa as him.
And Greed didn’t announce their arrival like Pride did. Didn’t burst through walls like Wrath. Didn’t seduce entire cities in the open like Lust.
No. Greed whispered. Twisted from beneath. It slithered through desire and debt and whispers of power. It didn’t just stab you.
It made you stab yourself.
Zoltarin didn’t need to escape to make an impact. He could manipulate from the shadows. He could buy people, shape rumors, bend mortals into fanatics and demons into pawns. All without lifting a claw. Just like he did.
The thought made Lux’s jaw twitch.
He closed his eyes for a second. His fingers curled tighter around the ceramic mug.
What he did back in the old Greed tower was real. He had tried to kill Zoltarin.
He threw everything at him. Cut through the shadows. Poured every ounce of Abyssal Grasp into a strike ant to end things.
But that barrier...
He clicked his tongue. "Tch."
That fucking barrier.
It wasn’t Zoltarin’s. No. That wasn’t prince-level magic. Zoltarin, like Lux, wasn’t a Lord. And the weight of that thing, the depth of its defense, the layers of legacy entwined into every hexagonal shimr of its structure?
That was Seredor’s.
His grandfather.
The man who, according to Kaelmor, had promised to protect Zoltarin—so long as he didn’t threaten the throne.
That ant the mont Lux’s spell touched the edge of the barrier and fizzled into harmless shadow, it wasn’t because Zoltarin was stronger.
It was because Seredor’s hand still lingered over him. Even after he died.
"Shit..." Lux muttered under his breath, rubbing his temple.
So intern walked in and froze mid-step.
Lux didn’t even acknowledge him. Just sipped his coffee again, and stared back out the window like he was trying to see through ti.
It wasn’t just about strength anymore.
This wasn’t a fight he could win by outcasting or overpowering. Not when every advantage Zoltarin had was layered under contracts older than Lux’s birth. Not when the system still treated Zoltarin like a relic to preserve instead of a threat to delete.
And worst of all... he didn’t know if his father could kill him either.
Zavros had power. But Seredor’s barrier wasn’t just defense. It was authority. Law. Binding legacy. Which ant if Zavros tried the sa thing, he might not even get that far.
And if he failed... if Zoltarin moved...
There wouldn’t be a second chance.
Lux took another slow drink, eyes still fixed on the skyline.
Staff passed behind him, whispering again.
"Is he okay?"
"He looks pissed..."
"Why is he even here?"
"Maybe he got dumped?"
"By mortals? Really?"
"No, maybe by Lady Sira."
He didn’t bother correcting them.
It was easier this way. Easier if they thought he was brooding over so relationship drama. Not planning how to outmaneuver a long-dead strategist who used family ties as chess pieces.
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