Harem Startup : The Demon Billionaire is on Vacation

Chapter 595 – Battle of Greed [Part 1]

His blood hit the floor like an unpaid invoice.

Sparks danced in the air from shattered code, and the entire sub-network glitched around them, walls flexing like lungs under pressure, data-rubble smoking from the last explosion. Somewhere above, a feedback coil crackled, dripping slow-burning ether fire. The void pulsed like a dying heart.

Zoltarin moved again, fast... too fast.

The blade of his greed forged pen came screaming down in a savage arc.

Lux twisted his torso, leaned away by a hair, and brought both daggers up in a cross guard. Metal sang. Sparks ignited like fireworks between them.

Zoltarin didn’t stop.

He pressed forward, weight behind every strike, fury behind every angle. He pivoted, slammed a knee into Lux’s ribs, and whipped the lance-pen across his collar.

Lux coughed, staggered, daggers ringing as they scraped together, intercepting the next blow by instinct.

Zoltarin was pristine here. Primed. No chains. No delay. No virus.

This was him at his peak.

And Lux?

Lux was bleeding from his side, his barrier cracked, his resource drain still active. But his eyes burned. Sharper. Wilder.

”Still not enough,” Zoltarin sneered, sliding back like liquid shadow. ”You’re all improvisation, Lux. You fight like an orphan trying to fake a bloodline.”

Lux spat blood. His lips curled.

”You were trained by Grandfather. I trained in the fucking dark,” he said. ”Self-taught. Trial and error. Mostly error. But I learned where it counted.”

He rolled forward mid sentence, flipped a dagger into a reverse grip, and stabbed low... just beneath Zoltarin’s guard.

Zoltarin caught his wrist.

Lux smiled.

”Got you,” he whispered.

A dark orb detonated between them.

Zoltarin’s barrier flared gold, barely absorbing the brunt, but it pushed him back a step.

Just one.

But that was enough.

Lux twisted, teleported behind him... and drove his other dagger into Zoltarin’s shoulder blade.

Zoltarin howled.

They both crashed to the floor, tumbling through falling debris and raw code sparks.

Dust. Blood. Breaths. Everything tasted like metal and data rot.

Lux scrambled to his feet, shoulder dislocated, ribs throbbing.

Zoltarin rose slower.

His face was no longer composed. It twitched. A smear of red data streamed from one eye. He looked older now, like the prime couldn’t quite hold against the damage.

But he still smiled. ”You bleed first.”

”Yeah,” Lux panted. ”But I bleed last.”

Zoltarin’s greed energy flared, sigils pulsing behind him like wings, ledger glyphs, balance sheets, compounding interest formulas all glowing in deadly gold.

”You’re lucky I wasn’t the one they chose,” Zoltarin said, stepping forward. ”I would’ve turned Hell into an empire. No flirting. No softness. No distractions.”

”That’s why you lost,” Lux said. ”You don’t get what Greed is.”

He summoned another wave of orbs.

The orbs hovered midair, twitching.

Zoltarin arched a brow. ”Trying the same trick?”

Lux didn’t answer.

He waved two fingers.

The orbs split.

Like a swarm of bees on cocaine, they exploded in multiple directions, ricocheting between walls, then reversing without warning.

[System: Bounce Logic Modified]

[Status: Inverted Return Vector Enabled]

Zoltarin barely had time to react. His shield spell activated, but three explosive orbs hit from the rear while bounce curses slammed his feet and shoulder.

His movement slowed. Sluggish. That was enough.

Lux lunged again.

Steel kissed steel. A dagger sliced open Zoltarin’s cheek. The other plunged into his side, but missed the core.

Zoltarin snarled, twisted, elbowed Lux in the jaw.

Lux reeled. Then headbutted him.

Hard.

Blood smeared down both their faces.

They stood for a second, arms locked, chests heaving, sweat and grime dripping.

”You never wanted to lead,” Zoltarin hissed.

”No,” Lux whispered. ”But I knew how to survive.”

Their weapons clashed again, fast and desperate. Daggers darted like snakes. The greed lance stabbed with furious precision. No more pretense. No more strategy. Just instinct and will and pain.

Zoltarin tackled him.

They went through a collapsed data node.

Lux’s barrier sparked wildly.

[Warning: Barrier Stability 12%]

”You’re done,” Zoltarin growled.

”Maybe,” Lux rasped.

Then he smiled.

”But you’re not leaving.”

Zoltarin froze.

”What?”

Lux exhaled slowly, pressing both palms to the ground.

”Barrier...”

[Modified Domain Type]

[Function: Area Seal – Activated]

Beneath their feet, the gold-black runes erupted again.

But this time they rose like vines, circling the air, the walls, the realm itself. A cage of Greed. A dome of sin wrought law.

Lux whispered, ”You can move all you want. But you’re not getting out of here unless I say so.”

Zoltarin’s face twisted.

He lunged, teleporting toward a high server exit gate.

[Error – Gate Access Denied]

[Barrier Type: CFO Lock – Exit Permission: Lux Only]

He hit the edge of the dome.

Hard.

Like glass refusing to break for a thief.

Zoltarin turned slowly.

”You trapped me?”

Lux stood in the center of the dome, daggers out, one arm broken, blood dripping down his leg.

”Welcome to my domain,” he said, licking blood from his lips. ”Now shut up and die broke.”

Zoltarin didn’t snarl. He didn’t flinch. He laughed. Slow and mean. His voice echoed like an overdraft notice through a thousand ruined vaults.

”You really think you can cage me here?” His lance lifted again, greed runes flaring across its length. ”I was born in the treasury. Molded by contracts. I walked through the fire of market collapse while you were still wet-dreaming in father’s shadow.”

Lux spat a mouthful of blood to the side, eyes sharp even under the haze of pain. ”And yet here we are. Same field. Same hell. Same blood.”

Then they moved.

Everything happened at once.

The air cracked with a sound like torn stock tickers.

Daggers met greed-forged metal.

Void energy erupted beneath their feet.

Lux twisted to the left, dragging his injured arm behind him while his good one parried a downward arc of Zoltarin’s greed-lance. Sparks flared as steel met sorcery.

He backflipped, but Zoltarin was already there, teleporting mid-swing, turning the battlefield into a storm of speed and betrayal.

Lux landed on one knee, barely in time to summon a triple-layer barrier in front of his chest.

[Barrier Active – Integrity: 24%]

Zoltarin’s lance shattered the first layer like cheap glass. The second bent, cracked, screamed.

The third held.

Barely.

But it gave Lux just enough time to hurl five demonic orbs point-blank.

They whirled around his attacker like hell-born hornets, exploding into spiraling curses that wrapped around Zoltarin’s legs and left arm.