Chapter 996: (Not) Tragic
Chapter 996 – (Not) Tragic
Lux tilted his head slightly against her arm, still looking pale, injured, and tragically beautiful in the most irritating way possible. "You won’t change your mind just because I’m still alive, right?"
The first elf stared at him.
She wanted to complain.
She wanted to tell him that deception through dramatic near-death posture was still deception. She wanted to say demons were impossible creatures, and this entire group was proof that the world had become less dignified since her era.
But she couldn’t.
Because she had meant it.
She would search for the truth.
She would not pay a debt she did not owe.
And despite all his manipulation, all his robbery, all his theatrical suffering, she did not want Lux to die after what had happened.
So she exhaled. "I will not."
Lux’s pitiful expression softened into something real. "Thank you..."
The shrine trembled again as Sira cleaved through one of the final root bundles.
Lux’s eyes fluttered. "Now let me sleep."
The first elf blinked. "Here?"
"Preferably somewhere with less murder plant."
A vine snapped toward them.
One Abyssal Grasp tendril crushed it midair.
Lux sighed like this was merely inconvenient. "And welcome..."
He paused to breathe.
"To my..."
The first elf looked down at him.
His mouth curved faintly.
"...vacation."
Then Lux closed his eyes again.
Not the theatrical, ’oh no, I am tragically dying in the arms of an ancient elven ancestor, please revise your debt policy immediately’ kind of closing his eyes.
This one was practical.
He needed to rest.
Even if only for a few seconds.
His core felt awful.
Not merely injured. Not depleted in the usual way after combat, where demonic energy ran low and his muscles complained like unpaid workers. This was deeper. Stranger. He had shoved himself into a centuries-old oath structure, grabbed fraudulent Ash Ledger clauses with his bare soul, and rewritten them through his own authority like his body was the filing desk.
Which, in hindsight, was exactly the kind of thing he would yell at someone else for doing.
Rewriting old clauses with his own body as the vessel?
Brilliant. Terrible. Very him.
[Core Strain: Severe]
[Foreign Clause Residue: Processing]
[Energy Reserves: Depleted]
[Stamina: Critically Reduced]
[Recommendation: Rest]
Lux almost smiled.
The pain was not enough to kill him.
He knew that.
His regeneration had already started taking over, slow but steady, knitting the hole in his abdomen beneath the layer of Dark Healing. The worst bleeding had stopped. His bones were intact. His demonic core was strained, not shattered.
But everything hurt.
His core throbbed every time he breathed. His muscles trembled from depleted stamina. His wings felt heavy. His tail lay limp against the stone like even it had submitted resignation paperwork.
And he was still restraining the giant murder salad.
The Abyssal Grasp tendrils stretched from the floor and shadows around them, coiling around the remaining roots, vines, and oath-thorn branches that kept trying to reach him and the first elf. The defense mechanism had weakened after the fraudulent claim was removed, but weakened did not mean harmless.
It was still sovereign-level.
Just angry, confused, and losing.
The girls were handling the rest.
Lux could hear them.
Sira’s claws tearing through root bundles with elegant fury.
Yue’s spear cracking oath-wood with clean precision.
Gula yelling at a vine not to "bite the snack provider," which was apparently Lux’s new battlefield title.
Lullaby’s pillow-hammer landing with soft, terrifying booms that slowed whole clusters of moving roots.
Ely’s healing magic pulsing again and again, keeping everyone standing.
Usually, Lux handled everything himself.
He hated leaving danger in someone else’s hands.
If there was a critical enemy, a cursed seal, a politically inconvenient god, or an eldritch financial disaster, he personally walked toward it with a smile and a bad idea.
But now?
He trusted them.
That realization sat strangely in his chest.
He did not need to cut every vine. He did not need to stand in front of every strike. He did not need to finish the shrine defense alone.
What he needed to do was keep the biggest roots restrained.
Keep the first elf beside him.
And make sure she did not change her mind.
The first elf tilted her head, still holding him partly against her because he had fallen there and apparently decided ancient elven ancestor arms were now temporary medical furniture.
"Vacation?"
Lux opened one eye halfway. "Long short story..."
"That is not a proper phrase."
"I’m injured. Grammar can bleed elsewhere."
She stared at him.
Lux breathed carefully, then continued, voice faint but amused. "I came here... to this realm... to have some vacation."
A vine cracked somewhere behind them.
Sira shouted, "Stop multiplying, you botanical nuisance!"
Lux didn’t turn.
"Instead, I got complicated... problem."
The first elf looked at him closely.
Her expression had shifted from grief to suspicion to something almost thoughtful.
She studied Lux as if seeing him clearly for the first time. "Sounds like you."
Lux opened both eyes now. "That’s rude."
"You made a lot of trouble and sniffed around other people’s business."
"We just met." Lux’s mouth curved into a tired smirk. "That’s so judgmental of you."
The first elf blinked once.
Then, very faintly, the corner of her mouth shifted.
Not quite a smile.
More like her face had discovered the concept and was considering a trial period.
Lux saw it.
A previously emotion-limited ancient ancestor learning dry humor while lying beside him after a curse rescue?
That was absolutely going to become a problem.
His type of problem, unfortunately.
Lux opened his eyes properly this time.
The pity was gone.
Mostly.
He still looked pale enough to qualify as a haunted noble portrait, but the look in his eyes had sharpened again. Mischief returned first. Then Greed. Then that lazy, inappropriate charm.
"Anyway," he said, "come and lay down with me."
The first elf went completely still.
"I can tell you more story," Lux added. "Well, more fact, I mean. Not only stories."