Chapter 983: Forward, My Unpaid Assets!
Chapter 983 – Forward, My Unpaid Assets!
Sira grinned. "I like him."
Lux gave her a look. "No."
"What? I didn’t say anything."
"You wanted one."
"I did."
"No."
Grivven’s ledger snapped shut with a loud clap.
Three dead crawlers twitched, then rose again under dark-gold strings.
[Temporary Units: Ashroot Carrion Crawler X3 ]
The reanimated crawlers turned on their own kind.
The tunnel devolved into disgusting administrative warfare.
Ely stared.
Gula stared.
Yue sighed quietly.
Sira laughed.
Lullaby hugged her pillow and murmured, "Work follows Greed."
Lux walked forward, eyes already on the deeper path. "Yes."
His mouth curved faintly.
"And now it works for me."
The words had barely left his mouth when another Hollow Vine Maw shrieked from the ceiling, its eyeless body peeling away from the black root canopy like a wet nightmare deciding gravity was optional.
Lux did not even look up.
"Grivven."
The Debt Collector Ghoul snapped his coin-sewn eyelids toward the ceiling. "Yes, boss?"
Lux pointed ahead with two fingers. "Clean the path for me."
Grivven Tollclaw’s grin stretched so wide it looked illegal. "With pleasure."
Then the tunnel became a financial massacre.
The ghoul lunged upward with all the elegance of a corpse thrown by a catapult. His hooked cane caught the Hollow Vine Maw by its tangled throat, and with one vicious yank, he dragged it down into the waiting jaws of the reanimated Ashroot Carrion Crawlers under his control.
"Payment overdue!" Grivven shrieked.
The crawlers tore into it.
Not with hunger.
With terrible, bureaucratic purpose.
The Vine Maw screamed as the reanimated monsters pinned its limbs, their dead bodies twitching under Greed strings while Grivven flipped open his rusted ledger.
"Item one! Trespassing! Item two! Breathing without revenue! Item three! Attempted assault on authorized personnel!"
Sira stared. "That third one is actually fair."
Gula nodded. "The first two are personal."
Lux kept walking.
Behind him, Ely hurried to keep pace, eyes flicking between the deeper tunnel and the horrible little tax apocalypse unfolding in front of them. Yue moved near the flank, spear lowered but ready. Lullaby shuffled along with her pillow hugged to her chest, somehow sleepy despite the fact that a ghoul was currently accusing a monster of fiscal irresponsibility while biting through its shoulder.
The reanimated monsters surged forward.
Three carrion crawlers first.
Then the Charcoal Thorn Wolf Grivven had taken control of, its body wrapped in dark-gold chains and debt marks. It snarled with a dead throat, no longer truly alive, but obedient enough to be useful. Grivven rode on its back, his ledger held high in one hand and hooked cane in the other.
"Forward, my unpaid assets!"
Sira rubbed the bridge of her nose.
Yue watched the spectacle for several seconds, then looked at Lux. "Are all Greed demons like that?"
Lux did not answer fast enough.
Which was answer enough.
Sira smirked. "Mostly."
Yue’s eyes narrowed with ancient curiosity.
Sira continued, "Even devils like Lux sometimes mutter something related to finance, assets, debts, investment, market correction, resource optimization, or hostile takeover."
Lux glanced back. "All valid terms."
"See?" Sira said, pointing at him with her claw. "Now you know why."
Ely looked between Lux and Grivven. "So... Lux is a bit better?"
Lullaby lifted one sleepy finger. "A bit."
Lux looked offended. "A bit?"
Lullaby nodded seriously. "But yeah, their template is the same."
Gula gasped softly, delighted. "Template."
Lullaby leaned against her pillow while walking. "Lux is Lust too. So yes, not really as crazy as them."
Lux opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Then decided there was no victory in arguing with a sleepy Sloth girl who could accidentally summarize his entire bloodline psychology in one sentence.
Yue nodded slowly. "I see."
Lux sighed. "I dislike that everyone is treating this as academic discovery."
Sira smiled. "Because it is."
Gula added, "Forbidden anthropology."
Ely murmured, "Demonic behavioral finance."
Lux stopped walking for half a second.
Then turned his head. "Ely."
She blinked. "Yes?"
"That was excellent. Never say it again."
Her lips twitched despite the tension.
Ahead, the path widened into a larger root tunnel where burned trees had grown sideways through stone, their trunks hollowed and twisted. The silver-green glow from the restored spring followed them in thin veins along the floor, but the deeper they went, the more the Hollow Mountain resisted.
Monsters came in waves now.
Not organized.
Just territorial.
Old things that had nested in the absence of sacred power. Creatures that had fed on ash, rot, abandoned mana, and the remnants of a broken guardian’s hunger.
Grivven loved them. "Oh, look!" he shrieked as a pack of Charcoal Thorn Wolves bounded down the tunnel ahead. "New clients!"
Lux lifted one hand lazily. "Proceed."
The debt soldiers surged.
The reanimated crawlers spread low across the ground, their many legs clicking against stone. The controlled Thorn Wolf rushed straight ahead, Grivven riding it with manic delight. The enemy wolves leaped to meet them, jaws wide, thorny backs bristling.
Impact.
The first collision sounded like wood snapping inside a furnace.
Grivven’s wolf slammed into the lead attacker, knocking it sideways. The ghoul leaped off mid-crash, flipping through the air with his ledger open. "Ledger Bite!"
Black-gold letters shot from the pages like hooks.
They branded one wolf across the face.
The marked wolf stumbled, and the controlled crawlers swarmed its legs. One bit into its knee. Another wrapped around its back. The third climbed its neck and drove splinter teeth into the glowing core hidden beneath bark plates.
Grivven landed on its head. "Your credit is terrible!"
He jammed his cane into the core and twisted.
The wolf exploded into charcoal fragments.
Gula clapped once. "That was kind of stylish."
Lux glanced back. "Do not compliment him too much."
"Why?"
Grivven’s head snapped around unnaturally. "Praise accepted! Interest waived for two minutes!"
Lux pointed forward. "Work."
"Yes, boss!"
The ghoul cackled and threw himself into the next wolf.
Sira walked beside Lux now, claws relaxed but still ready. "You know, this is more efficient than I expected."
"I don’t summon useless employees."
Yue’s mouth curved faintly, but she hid it quickly.
The path became easier after that.
Not because there were fewer monsters.
Because anything blocking them turned into Grivven’s problem.
A cluster of Hollow Vine Maws tried to ambush from above. The ghoul sent two reanimated crawlers up the wall, their dead bodies climbing with hideous determination. They latched onto the hanging monsters and dragged them down by their limbs while Grivven stood below, ledger open, reading charges.
"Unauthorized ceiling occupation!"
One Vine Maw tried to flee.
Grivven’s chain-hook shot out and caught it around the torso. "No bankruptcy escape!"