Harem Startup : The Demon Billionaire is on Vacation

Chapter 499 – Greed VS Greed [Part 2]

Lux walked forward this time. No teleport. Just steps. Measured. Each one echoing.

Zavros straightened. ”So what are you trying to figure out?”

Lux didn’t answer.

The tendrils rose again. Dozens this time. A full field.

Zavros blinked. ”Lux—seriously—”

”I saw something,” Lux said quietly. ”Something that I want to understand.”

Zavros flinched. ”...The circlet?”

”No.”

Lux raised a hand. Tendrils shot toward Zavros again—this time lined with crimson runes. Terror-infused.

Zavros roared, his wings flaring wide. Not physical wings, but the kind made of infernal heritage and unspent wrath. He slammed the ground with Ledgerfang.

”Chain Nova,” he hissed.

An explosion of light blew the shadows back. The tendrils recoiled. The orbs paused.

And for a second, it was just silence again.

Then Zavros, breathing hard, voice low. ”You’re scared.”

Lux didn’t move. ”I’m analyzing.”

”Bullshit,” Zavros said. ”You’re scared.”

Lux clenched his jaw.

”Whatever you saw—whatever’s waking up—it’s Zoltarin’s tricks! Don’t let him manipulate you.”

”I never fall into his manipulation. Not now, no ever.”

Lux stepped again. This time without magic. No tricks. Just... raw.

”I need to know,” he said, ”if I can still beat you. Just me. Just what I’ve built.”

Zavros’s expression hardened.

And he nodded once.

”Then let’s test it.”

They charged again.

Daggers vs chain.

Greed vs greed.

And the arena?

It screamed.

A ring of obsidian pillars rose in concentric waves around them, carved with infernal scripts and old celestial debt marks that shimmered faintly like dying embers. Somewhere high above, lightning crackled against a sunless sky, yet there was no weather. No wind. Only pressure. Like standing inside a heartbeat that thudded too loud, too slow, too heavy.

Lux moved first.

He vanished.

Zavros’s chain snapped sideways with a blur of light, almost catching his son mid-flicker. Almost. But Lux had already reappeared—three meters to the right, crouched low, twin daggers flashing dark violet under his fingertips.

His smile didn’t reach his eyes.

Too focused. Too surgical.

Zavros’s stance shifted. Weight balanced. Shoulders squared. That chain—the one wound around his arm like a serpent made of relic-grade gold and infernal guilt—slithered across the floor before coiling upward with a clink. A living thing. Hungry.

Lux didn’t wait.

’Agility.’

[Speed increased]

He darted forward like sin through a loophole.

Fast.

Faster.

Zavros’s eyes narrowed, chain whipping in a wide arc. The sonic crack that followed could’ve torn a mortal in half, but...

”Barrier!”

Lux raised a hand, and a shimmering black dome materialized just in time.

-CLANG—!!

The chain collided with the shield, grinding like a thousand gears against a diamond vault door. Sparks flew. The impact sent tremors through the barrier, but it held. Cracks formed. Then mended. Lux hissed through his teeth and let the strain bloom in his wrist.

He didn’t back up.

He stepped forward.

”Abyssal Grasp.”

The shadows answered him.

From the cracks in the arena tiles, from beneath his feet, from the dark spots that shouldn’t exist under artificial lighting—they came. Dozens of void tendrils surged like starving snakes, converging with a sickening wet snap toward Zavros.

Zavros reacted instantly. His barrier—gleaming with infernal gold runes and rigid mathematical precision—flared to life around him like a corporate firewall made physical.

The tendrils hit.

Hard.

[Calculating...]

Lux didn’t blink.

He watched.

He studied the impact zones. The way the tips of his tendrils twisted and flared when pressed against the barrier. The exact radius where the pressure flattened. It was like watching a finance spreadsheet get punched in the face by nightmare vines.

Zavros snarled and twisted his hand. The chain lashed again—not at Lux this time, but at the tendrils. It shattered three instantly. The others recoiled, hissing like boiling oil.

Lux grinned.

Yeah. That told him everything.

His tendrils couldn’t pierce it—but they could push. And in that push, they revealed the barrier’s weight class. Denomination. Layering.

Zavros moved again.

Chain whipped through the air like a banker swinging a guillotine.

Lux teleported.

The moment the chain passed through the afterimage of where his head had been, Lux appeared behind his father—barely a foot away.

Point blank.

His eyes gleamed.

’Demonic Orbs’

Fifty orbs burst into the air like party favors from Hell.

Each one pulsed. Some glowed red. Some hissed with cursed interest rates. Others jittered like angry children denied candy.

Then...

BOOM—!

The first wave exploded in random patterns, testing the barrier’s splash protection.

-Crack!

-BZZZT!

A blue spark flared along Zavros’s armor. Another orb bounced off his back and detonated, spraying cursed ash like gunpowder across the floor.

Lux didn’t flinch. He watched.

The orbs were too fast, too wild to dodge fully. But Zavros’s countermeasures were brutal. He unleashed a wide-area pulse—an anti-magic shudderfield. Ten orbs detonated midair. Fifteen were redirected by a sudden flick of his chain, guided by arcane math embedded into the links. The rest fizzled out on contact with his barrier, absorbed without consequence.

Not a dent.

Not a scratch.

Lux clicked his tongue. ”Shit.”

That was the difference.

Zoltarin’s runes had flickered under this kind of pressure. His seals, made by the Sin Lords and the Hell King himself, had cracked. Even a little.

But Zavros?

He batted everything down like he was swatting flies in a boardroom.

Which meant...

Yeah. Something was wrong.

Zoltarin’s seals shouldn’t have been weak.

Not unless something, or someone, tampered with them.

Lux’s gaze hardened.

All those earlier attacks?

The reckless moves? The chaotic orbs? The Abyssal Grasp?

Not random.

Assessments.

He wasn’t fighting Zavros. He was comparing him. Against Zoltarin. Against whatever old wound had festered inside that corpse vault deep in Hell.

Lux’s own magic wasn’t strong enough to break seals crafted by kings.

So why had they flickered?

Why had they felt... hollow?

Unless...

Unless the seals were never whole to begin with.

Zavros caught the twitch in his son’s eye. The realization. The calculation. He felt it.

And he exploded.

”STOP IT, LUX!”

His voice thundered across the arena like a hurricane made of fury and betrayal.

The chain slammed into the ground beside Lux with a blast of light, carving a trench ten meters long.

”You’ve crossed the boundaries!”