CHAPTER 449: GOLD IS BULLISH

Chapter 449 – Gold is Bullish

One sidestep. A twist. The pipe swung through air. The lunger tripped over the edge of a collapsed curb.

Lux’s foot accidentally guided him downward with a gentle push.

He hit the pavement hard, groaning.

The pipe-wielder stumbled into a scorched dumpster.

The third guy hesitated.

Lux straightened his tie. "Still waiting on that handshake."

The fourth—the leader, probably—scowled and stepped forward. "You’re gonna regret this, asshole."

Lux smiled. "No. You will."

Then he reached out.

Calm.

Confident.

And shook the man’s hand.

For exactly one second.

That was all it took.

’Midas Touch.’

A shimmer of gold sparked from Lux’s fingers. A strange warmth.

The man blinked. "What the hell—?"

He yanked his hand back—only to scream.

Because it was changing.

Not the whole arm. Just part of it. From the wrist to the knuckle, the skin shimmered, hardened, glinted.

Into gold.

Lustrous. Seamless. Heavy.

"Wh—what the fck?!" he screamed, shaking it like that would help. "What the hell did you do?!"

Lux’s smile never wavered.

"That," he said pleasantly, "is my payment."

The others froze.

One of them whispered, "...He turned him into gold..."

Lux turned slightly. "Correction. I turned part of him into gold. I could’ve done the whole body. But I figured I’d be generous."

The golden-hand man dropped to his knees, clutching his transformed arm, wide-eyed and hyperventilating.

"Get him—!" he choked.

But the others...

Didn’t move.

They were staring at the gold.

The real, solid, impossibly rare, unrefined perfection kind of gold.

Lux turned, voice smooth.

"Gold is bullish right now," he said. "That piece alone?"

He tapped the man’s golden hand with a knuckle. "Worth more than five hundred thousand, depending on which market you play."

Silence.

No one said anything.

Lux leaned slightly toward the others. "You split it right, you could each walk out of here with six figures."

The one who’d been smoking gulped. "W-we’d have to cut it off..."

The others stared at the man’s golden hand.

He stared back, pale.

Lux watched it happen.

The glint in their eyes.

The twitch in their fingers.

The shift.

The greed.

He smiled.

The deal always came with a choice.

And humans?

Humans always made it interesting.

He stepped back once.

"Don’t mind me," Lux said softly.

Raised voices.

A panicked yell.

Someone grabbing a knife.

Someone else saying, "It’s just the hand—he’ll live!"

And Lux?

He didn’t flinch.

He stood in the ash like it was a goddamn fashion runway. The half-burned wind brushed against his suit—char, soot, maybe a whisper of blood—but he didn’t so much as twitch. Just watched.

And that man?

The one with the golden hand?

Yeah, he cracked first.

"GET AWAY FROM ME!" he screamed, backing into a broken lamp post, wild-eyed, panting like a caged animal. "You saw what he did—he turned my hand into fucking—!"

Bang!

The first gunshot went off and everyone went silent for a beat. One of his friends—maybe best friend, maybe just another thug-for-hire—crumpled to the ground with a smoking hole in his chest.

The gold-handed man trembled. His jaw twitched. He looked at the others like they were threats. No—like they were competition.

Then?

All hell broke loose.

Bang-bang-bang.

Shouting.

Knives clattering.

Footsteps slamming against cracked pavement.

Another guy tried to run. Gold-hand shot him in the back.

Someone else tried to take cover behind an old dumpster. Mistake. He got a bullet straight through the ribs.

One guy—lean, fast, maybe smarter than the rest—pulled his own gun. Shot the golden bastard in the shoulder.

Golden-hand screamed, went feral, turned, fired back.

It was chaos. Screams and dust and muzzle flashes lighting up the night like camera flashes on a red carpet of corpses.

And Lux?

Lux fucking smiled.

Not wide. Not dramatic. Just a slow curl of his lips, cold and satisfied.

He watched the carnage unfold like a stock market crashing exactly as predicted.

He waited.

Like a CEO letting the market thin out the weak.

When the smoke settled—

When the dust calmed—

When the shouting gave way to groans and gurgling breaths and a few twitching corpses—

Only one man stood.

He limped over to a corpse, dropped to one knee, and without hesitation, pulled a knife from his belt and sawed through the gold hand’s friend’s wrist.

The flesh tore. The bone cracked. The hand came free.

He pocketed it with a grunt, panting, blood running down his chin, jacket soaked. His eyes snapped toward Lux, hostile, bloodshot, half-mad.

"What the fck do you want?" he snarled.

Lux didn’t blink.

"I mean no harm," he said softly, stepping forward. "I just want to know who told you to burn this block."

The man’s nostrils flared. "You think I’m that fucking stupid? What, you wanna clean it all up now? Bury the trail? Huh?!"

Lux’s smile returned. Pleasant. Deadly.

"I can offer you more gold," he said. "A leg, perhaps."

The man froze.

More gold.

He actually paused and looked at his friend’s corpse.

And in that pause... Lux saw it.

The hesitation.

The hunger.

The fucking greed.

"Who?" Lux asked again, voice like velvet. "Who gave the order?"

The man swallowed thickly. His lips trembled. He looked at the corpses around him, then back at Lux. "Some guy. Tall. Shades. Fancy fucking suit. Said we’d get extra if we torched the whole block, not just the orphanage. Said to make sure no one left records behind."

Lux’s smile grew sharp. "Name?"

"Didn’t give one," the man spat. "But he paid up front. Platinum chips. High-end shit. The kind only nobles or freaks from the Inner Circles carry. They called him Edron."

Lux nodded.

"Thank you," Lux said. "I shall fulfill my promise."

And then?

He stepped forward.

Gently.

Deliberately.

And touched the man’s leg.

[Skill Activated: Midas Touch]

The man screamed instantly. His leg—just below the knee—began to shimmer, harden, gleam.

Gold.

Glorious. Dense. Heavy.

Real gold.

The transformation crawled up like an infection. Bone to ore. Muscle to treasure.

"AAAGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"