NOVEL WEB Chapter 166: Too Holy for The Streets
Lux stood slowly, the white robe around him flowing as he rose.
His voice was soft now. Tired.
"Good night, Father."
The booth door creaked.
Light spilled across the floor.
Lux stepped into a full cathedral—dark, empty save for flickering candles, long wooden pews, and rows of sleeping holiness. The kind of silence that held breath in its throat.
He looked up.
Eyes fell on the statue.
Of course.
Of course…
It was her.
Celestaria.
Wings outstretched. Expression pure. Sculpted into polished stone like a love letter to serenity and judgment all at once.
Lux stared up at it.
A long, tired breath escaped his lips.
"…Yeah," he muttered, "now it makes sense why the elevator connected here."
He turned away from her gaze, steps soft on the marble floor.
His robe fluttered with one final flourish as he reached the cathedral doors. He slipped it off smoothly—revealing the tailored slacks and dark silk shirt beneath—and folded the garment with quiet reverence.
Back into the dimensional inventory it went.
Safe.
Too holy for the streets.
The doors opened.
Warm night air kissed his face. A soft city breeze, faint honks in the distance, and the flickering glow of streetlamps.
He stepped out.
The Sovereign Grand Hotel was still in view down the street, its elegant facade glittering like wealth-shaped temptation.
But Lux… didn't move toward it.
Not right away.
He stood there for a moment on the church steps, hands in his pockets, eyes wandering the city skyline.
Because somehow…
He didn't have the mood to go back.
Not yet.
Not with that 88.8 billion soul credits hanging over his head like a cosmic to-do list.
So he walked.
Nowhere in particular.
Just into the night.
Cool air wrapped around him. Quiet. Honest. The kind of quiet that didn't ask questions or give answers, just existed because it had nowhere better to be.
Lux walked with his hands in his trouser pockets, suit sharp, collar open, black hair tousled from the wind and emotional debris. His shoes clicked softly against the old stone pavement, each step echoing in the kind of empty that only churches and regrets left behind.
He stopped walking. Let out a long exhale and stared at the sky.
Yeah. The quiet made him think clearer.
Which was exactly the problem.
His thoughts drifted—slow, but sharp. He hadn't consumed those artifacts yet. Two. Divine-class.
He knew what they'd do. He would get more skills and power. He just can't consume them in open place like this.
Yeah, that was probably it.
The bounty.
The hunt.
The sudden spike in high-level demons sniffing around his shadow wards.
It wasn't personal. It never was.
It was business.
Because Lux's new ability—this quiet, world-breaking skill to consume divine and infernal artifacts and absorb their powers—wasn't just rare.
It was catastrophic.
Not in a flashy, burn-down-a-city kind of way. No. That would've been easier to counter.
But this?
This was slow. Subtle. Absolute.
He could rewrite laws.
Shift interest rates on soul bonds. Freeze entire vault chains. Collapse infernal currencies with a single whim. Not just as a disruptor. But as the anchor.
Because Lux wasn't just collecting power.
He was turning into the system.
He influenced the economy of sin and souls.
And worse?
He understood it.
Better than anyone. Better than the Hell King who inherited it. Better than the celestial accountants still using spreadsheets with halo seals.
Lux didn't just have the access codes to Hell's Primary Vaults.
He owned them.
One flick of his fingers and he could reroute tithe flows, seize backdated sin contracts, or even freeze the entire soul-debt ledger across multiple realms. He didn't just run one vault.
He had access to all of them.
Lust's love debts. Gluttony's hunger bonds. Sloth's inertia bonds. Envy's jealousy-backed investments.
Even Wrath's blood-equity war stocks.
And that was the real reason, wasn't it?
That's why someone dropped an 88.8 billion Soul Credit bounty on his head.
Because Lux Vaelthorn—coffee-obsessed, workaholic, emotionally unavailable—was no longer just a dangerous anomaly.
He was a system.
Even if the King of Hell died… the banks still ran. The ledgers still tallied. The Vault still held.
But if Lux Vaelthorn died?
The contracts, the soul flows, the debt cycles—everything went up in smoke.
He wasn't a player on the board anymore.
He was the board.
And someone—some manyones—wanted him off it before he realized just how deep his control went.
Lux let out a breath. Cold. Focused.
Yeah.
He knew what they were scared of.
He was scared of it too.
The weight of that made his chest feel heavy.
Not like guilt. He didn't do guilt. More like… a hollow.
A space where something should've been. Joy? Fear? Something.
But instead, he felt…
"Empty," he murmured.
He rolled his shoulders, cracking his neck.
He checked his system panel with a flick of his fingers.
Still hadn't rested.
Still hadn't… gone home.
Where was home?
Not the penthouse. That was a location.
Not Hell. That was a job.
Not the Upper Realm. That was paperwork.
So… he did what any sane, emotionally suppressed demon-hybrid would do.
He whispered, "System."
[Yes, sir?]
"Naomi's place. Now."
[Searching…]
He stood in the shadow of a quiet alley, bathed in pale moonlight, while the system loaded.
A soft ping followed.
[Delacour Estate located. ]
[Distance: 11.7 km.]
[Status: Fortified.]
[Security Grade: B+.]
[Magical Surveillance Grade: A-.]
[Emotional Hostility Index: Low-to-Mid.]
[Access: Restricted.]
"Give me a map," he said. "I want to go straight to her room."
[Confirm: Route will bypass main gates.]
"Fine. Also, hack the security cameras for me."
[Subprotocol Corvus initiated. Spoofing visual feed. Running microdrones for fallback.]
Lux let out a low breath. He wasn't nervous. Just… impatient.
He missed her.
Naomi Delacour. The runaway heiress who stumbled into his life and left traces of herself like perfume across his memory.
He could still hear her laughter, the way it cracked through her shield of sarcasm.
Still see the way her eyes softened when she thought he wasn't looking.
Still feel her fingers tracing his jaw, half in disbelief, half in ownership.