Chapter 599: Paying Lazarus A Visit

Linda slept peacefully on the bed, her breathing slow and steady as the dim light of the room settled over her. A few meters away, Damian sat cross legged on the floor, several fist sized God vein crystals arranged around him.

Their surfaces shimmered with a pale blue radiance, and streams of blue energy flowed from them into his body, seeping through his skin and circulating along his veins. The energy was dense enough to make the air around him tremble, but Damian remained perfectly still, carefully directing each stream toward the parts of his body.

Meanwhile, purple and golden energy streamed into the room through the open windows. The two pendants pulsed with their respective energies, absorbing the power and channeling it toward their master.

Damian’s body had become a gathering point for three distinct inheritances, and even while he cultivated, the power of Lust and Greed continued to strengthen him through the faith of their devotees. Yet his eyes remained firmly shut, and his consciousness had already descended far beyond the reach of the energies flowing into his physical body.

He continued downward through the darkness within his heart, passing through layers of shadow until he finally reached the bottom of the seemingly endless pit.

The familiar darkness began to dissolve, replaced by a brilliant golden light that spread across his vision. A new world gradually unfolded before him, its boundaries extending farther than he could immediately perceive. The sky was clear, and the sun hung overhead in a perpetual afternoon, bathing the entire landscape in warm golden radiance.

The roads beneath his feet were paved with polished gold, while the surrounding trees possessed golden trunks and branches laden with fruits that glittered like precious gemstones. Even the grass carried a metallic sheen, and the distant hills seemed to have been carved from mountains of treasure.

Damian glanced around the extravagant landscape before his attention settled on the enormous pyramid standing ahead of him. It rose several hundred meters into the sky, its golden walls reflecting the sunlight so brilliantly that looking directly at them was almost uncomfortable. A broad staircase had been carved into its face, ascending toward a summit that appeared to pierce the heavens.

Unlike the chaotic Abyssal wasteland or the shallow, crimson waters of his Lust inheritance, this world possessed an almost unnerving sense of order. Everything seemed carefully arranged, polished, and preserved, as though nothing unpleasant had ever been permitted to exist here. Damian could practically feel the obsession with wealth embedded in every inch of the landscape.

"This is quite interesting," he mumbled before approaching the staircase.

The climb took several minutes, partly because of the pyramid’s immense size and partly because Damian refused to rush through a place that belonged to one of his most recent acquisitions.

By the time he reached the summit, the golden sunlight had become almost blinding, but the view before him made the journey worthwhile. The ground was covered with thick, padded material that felt soft beneath his feet, a strange contrast to the hard gold that dominated the rest of the realm.

Ahead stood a long golden table laden with roasted meats, fresh fruits, elaborate pastries, and an assortment of alcoholic beverages.

Golden wine jugs floated above the table, while goblets and plates had been arranged with meticulous precision.

At the opposite end sat Lazarus, cross legged on a golden cushion, drinking from an ornate goblet as though he had been waiting for a guest to arrive.

The former Prince of Greed slowly lowered his cup when Damian approached. His appearance was remarkably composed, without the grotesque transformation or overwhelming golden aura that had accompanied their final battle. He looked like a man enjoying a quiet afternoon in his own home, and there was no immediate sign of the madness that had consumed him during the last three thousand years of his life.

"I was wondering when you would finally come," Lazarus said calmly, gesturing toward the golden cushion opposite him. "Take a seat."

Damian approached the table and settled onto the offered cushion, keeping his gaze fixed on Lazarus while a wine jug floated toward him. It tilted on its own, pouring a generous amount of wine into his goblet before returning to its place.

Damian accepted the drink without comment, then lifted his gaze toward the sun. From the summit of the pyramid, it appeared much closer than it should have been, its golden light washing over the entire world without producing the slightest hint of heat.

He could not tell whether the sun was an actual celestial body or merely another manifestation of Lazarus’s inheritance, but he had no intention of wasting the opportunity to explore the place.

"Motherfucker, you had a cheat from the very beginning. You are the luckiest amongst the princes." Lazarus’s words caught his attention.

Damian rolled his eyes and turned back toward him. "Are you talking about the same guy who was literally threatened into accepting three ex wives of his predecessor, got into a fight with the Sins of Greed, Wrath, Envy, and the Order of Moses all in his first year, while having to sell his soul fragment piece by piece to the Abyss to pay for almost every fucking fight he barely survived?"

He gestured toward himself with his free hand, his expression making it clear that he found the accusation ridiculous.

From his perspective, calling him lucky was an insult to the sheer amount of suffering he had endured to reach his current position. He had not been handed a peaceful kingdom and a collection of powerful inheritances. He had been thrown into one deadly situation after another, with every victory demanding a price he could scarcely afford.

Lazarus blinked in surprise, his lips parting slightly as he processed the information.

"Ooh..." he muttered, leaning back on his cushion.

"I grew this fast because you all forced me to grow this fast. Everyone was on my neck, trying to be the one to bag that free inheritance." Damian chuckled bitterly as he picked up his goblet. "Some were fighting for the wives Lin Qui imposed on me, others were fighting over grievances they had against Lin Qui, which I’m still not fully aware of, while there were a few who were in it just for the love of the game."

Lazarus ran a hand through his hair and released a tired sigh. For a brief moment, he seemed to consider arguing, but whatever response he had prepared died before reaching his lips.

"Don’t blame us. Blame our desires. We are all embodiments of our Sins, and even if we don’t want to admit it, we tend to be slaves to them. Just like you, who currently possesses nine women. You have clones out here sleeping with them to keep them satisfied, and from the looks of it, you will gather more along your journey. I can’t blame you for that. You are just acting in accordance with the power of your Sin," Lazarus said with an indifferent shrug.

Damian immediately opened his mouth to argue, but the words refused to come. His first instinct was to insist that his relationships were more complicated than Lazarus suggested. Several of his relationships had been shaped by political circumstances, and alliances that had become difficult to untangle.

Yet the argument fell apart before he could articulate it. Whatever the reasons behind their unions, he had lusted after every one of his women. He had wanted their bodies, desired their company, and taken pleasure in the thought of being with them.

Even now, he was using clones to maintain their intimacy while his main body cultivated, an arrangement that would have sounded absurd to the human he had once been.

He could dress his desires in political justifications, but that would not make them disappear.

Damia threw his hands up in surrender. "Okay... Okay... You got me there."

Lazarus laughed and raised his goblet. He twirled it slowly between his fingers, watching the golden wine circle inside before settling back into the cup. His smile gradually faded, replaced by an expression of quiet bitterness.

For a while, he said nothing, and Damian allowed the silence to continue. There was something different about Lazarus now. The arrogance and hostility that had defined their final battle were absent, leaving behind a man who appeared to have finally been relieved of a burden he had carried for thousands of years.

When Lazarus eventually raised his gaze, his eyes had become dead serious.

"With my inheritance, you will feel the urge to claim things that can’t be yours. At first, it is manageable. However, once you attempt to claim something and fail, that urge turns into an obsession. Never try to reach for something you are not certain you can hold, or you will end up miserable like me, abandoning the things that really matter only to die with nothing," he warned.

Damian blinked in surprise. He had not expected Lazarus to offer him advice, much less advice that sounded as though it came from genuine regret.

There was no obvious reason for the former Prince of Greed to care whether Damian ruined himself through the same mistakes. Yet the warning was too sincere to dismiss as a final attempt at manipulation.

Lazarus noticed his surprise and burst into laughter, waving a hand as though dismissing an unnecessary concern.

"Relax. Back then, I really didn’t want to die, but now I’m dead, the grip of my inheritance is gone, and my life has become quiet and very peaceful. That hunger that kept me up at nights and left me thirsting for more is no longer there. Now I’m just a man who once lived for six thousand years." He smiled bitterly and lowered his goblet.

The admission carried none of the grandiosity Damian had come to associate with the Prince of Greed.

Damian studied him suspiciously for a moment, waiting for some trace of resentment or hatred to surface. He found neither.

He released a defeated sigh and leaned back against his cushion.

"Your wife was trying to send me to Abode," he said, deciding to get straight to the matter that had brought him here.

"I heard. Don’t go. Her request is born out of selfish reasons," Lazarus replied without hesitation.

Damian blinked in surprise. "It seems you’re not surprised."

Lazarus shook his head. "She’s my wife, and we have been married for five thousand five hundred years. I know pretty much what she’s capable of."

He spoke without bitterness, as though acknowledging Elsa’s flaws required no effort after so many centuries together.

Damian nodded slowly. The explanation made sense. He had not lived nearly as long as Lazarus, yet he already understood the habits, weaknesses, and hidden desires of his own women. Time and intimacy made certain patterns impossible to ignore, even when affection encouraged someone to look the other way. If Lazarus believed Elsa was acting out of selfishness, Damian had reason to take the warning seriously. That did not necessarily mean she felt nothing for him, but it reinforced the need to distinguish genuine affection from the ambitions she might be trying to pursue through him.

After finishing his wine, Damian placed the goblet on the table and rose to his feet. He looked down at Lazarus, who remained seated on his golden cushion without making any attempt to stand. . Damian could not understand that feeling completely, but he respected it enough not to disturb the quiet Lazarus had finally found.

"I just came by to check on you. I’ll drop by if I need advice or anything," Damian said, his tone casual despite the strange circumstances surrounding their conversation.

Lazarus nodded calmly and reached for his goblet again. "Sure. I’ll be here if you ever want to talk."