Chapter 998: You Flirt While Injured
Chapter 998 – You Flirt While Injured
Lux opened one eye.
The words were soft enough that, if the shrine had still been screaming, he might have missed them. But the roots were weakening now. The violence around them had dulled into heavy impacts, sharp cuts, and the distant cracking of oath-wood losing its final argument.
He looked at her.
The first elf lay beside him on his dark wing, hair spilled across the shadowed membrane, pale eyes staring upward like the sky had become unfamiliar. Her expression was strange. Not free in the easy way stories liked to pretend freedom worked.
She looked confused.
That was better than certain.
Lux’s mouth curved faintly. "You’re welcome."
She turned her head slightly toward him. "I said thank you once. Do not become proud."
"I’m Greed. Pride is Sira’s department."
From across the shrine, Sira shouted, "I heard that!"
Lux didn’t raise his voice. "You were meant to."
The first elf stared at him for a moment.
Then, very faintly, something touched her mouth again.
Almost a smile.
Lux decided not to point it out because ancient traumatized ancestors probably bit. "So..." he murmured.
She watched him.
"What’s your name?"
The question seemed to stop her more effectively than any barrier.
Her eyes widened slightly.
She was silent long enough that Lux wondered if she had forgotten it.
Then she said, "Aela."
The name felt like the first breath of wind through leaves after fire had passed.
Lux smiled. "Aela." He let the name settle properly before continuing. "Nice name."
She blinked once. "That is all?"
"What, you want me to write poetry? I’m injured."
"You flirt while injured."
"Different organs."
Aela looked at him in complete silence.
Lux coughed lightly and regretted it immediately. "Never mind. Bad joke. Abdomen hates comedy."
Her gaze dropped briefly to the wound beneath his ruined shirt. The Dark Healing had closed the worst of it, but the flesh beneath still trembled with slow regeneration. He was alive, yes. But not fine. Lux had many talents, and pretending fine was one of them. Unfortunately, women around him kept developing the annoying skill of seeing through him.
Aela looked back at his face. "You told me that you wanted to tell me a story."
Lux’s smirk dimmed. "Yeah."
His eyes shifted toward the shrine ceiling, where Sira and Yue were dismantling the last of the root defense. Gula and Lullaby covered Ely as she sent healing waves through the chamber. The battle was ending, but not fully over.
Still, this needed saying now.
Before doubt rebuilt itself.
"The volcano eruption..."
Aela’s gaze sharpened.
Lux’s voice became quieter. "It was made up. By the same demon who saved your kin."
Her pupils narrowed.
He could feel the air between them change.
A cliff edge.
"He created the calamity. Or amplified it. Triggered it. Whatever exact method your era used to define guilt. The fire that nearly killed your kin was not simply a disaster. It was arranged."
Aela’s lips parted. No sound came out.
Lux kept his voice gentle, which somehow made it worse.
"He made the crisis. Then answered it. Then accepted your promise. That isn’t salvation. That’s fraud with corpses as witnesses."
Aela stared at him. "Any proof?"
Lux gave a weak, tired laugh. "This one? Not really."
Her expression closed.
Lux lifted one finger slightly before she could retreat fully.
"Not enough for court. Not enough for a public accusation."
Aela’s gaze remained cold.
Lux didn’t flinch.
"This happened before my king’s throne. Before his cleaned history. Before modern records. And I’m just a young demon. Not even two hundred years old."
Aela stared at him like he had just announced he was a toddler with dangerous knives.
Lux sighed. "Yes, yes, I know. Ancient beings keep reacting like that. Very rude."
"You are a child."
"I have managed Hell’s finances for more than a century."
Aela’s eyes narrowed.
Lux gave her a faint smile.
"I don’t have perfect proof. Not yet. The event is too old, and Kaelmor erased too much. What I have is probability. Pattern. The sigil chain. The fake inheritance. The fact that your debt was reinforced to reject anyone telling you exactly this."
Aela said nothing.
Lux’s voice lowered.
"And the fact that the clause was designed not to preserve your promise, but to preserve his ownership."
That struck her.
He saw it.
A small crack through her face.
Lux turned his palm upward, weakly, as if offering nothing but the idea.
"It was a made-up calamity. He, or his kin, or the one who held that plan before he stole it, did that so you would owe him a debt."
His eyes stayed on hers.
"It’s fraud."
Aela’s breathing trembled.
Lux spoke softer. "You don’t owe anyone."
Aela looked away. Not because she disagreed.
Lux closed his eyes again. "Live for yourself."
Silence followed.
The kind of silence that happened when a prison door opened and the prisoner realized outside had weather.
Then the final root screamed.
Sira and Yue struck together.
Yue’s spear pinned the central oath-root to the floor, and Sira’s claws tore through its glowing script with a wide black-silver slash. Gula followed by hooking the remaining vine cluster with her fork-spear and dragging it into Lullaby’s range.
Lullaby lifted her pillow-hammer. "Good night."
The hammer fell.
The last defensive vine slowed, sagged, and collapsed into harmless root fiber. Ely’s healing light swept across the shrine, soothing what damage could be soothed and sealing the cracks that still leaked violent oath pressure.
The fight ended.
Not with a grand explosion.
With exhaustion.
The shrine breathed.
Lux’s Abyssal Grasp tendrils dissolved into shadow mist, one by one. The pressure holding the chamber faded. His body immediately felt heavier without the active skill keeping him anchored to purpose.
Sira came toward him first, fury still bright in her eyes. "You absolute reckless—"
Lux opened one eye. "Handsome?"
"Idiot."
"Close enough."
Gula leaned on her fork-spear, breathing hard. "Can we go before another sacred vegetable decides to have opinions?"
Yue looked toward the walls of the shrine, expression grave. "We cannot stay long."