GREED: ALL FOR WHAT?

Legion-7 said to Legion-5, "See what I said. They took the bait. Was I right or was I right?"

Legion-5 was also excited. It showed in his vigor as he was beating the god of love. Everyone was excited apart from the god of love.

"Please spare me. Please."

The god of life was begging him but Legion-5 didn't listen. He had already done him the favor of not killing him too quickly. He could have killed the god of love easily but he dragged the fight on because he was hoping for the other gods to interfere. Even now, he has not killed the god of love because he is still waiting.

Legion-7 had already fulfilled the requirements to drag four gods to the main plane. But they didn't drag them down quickly and kill them one after the other. Instead, they dragged one down every month. This pressured the gods and gave them enough time to decide to interfere. So in a way, the gods they could drag down were used as bait.

The gods took that bait. They sent their vessels who were rendered useless by the cannons. Then Legion-7 infected them and incapacitated them. Now they have 12 more gods to kill.

In the following months, many gods died one after the other. The inhabitants of the plane became numb to it. The monthly howls of pain that resounded throughout the plane became a part of their life.

This continued until the other Supreme Beasts got bold after accumulating their armies. The inhabitants began to suffer then because the Supreme Beasts wreaked destruction on the plane. The plane was surrounded by the Supreme beasts so they were subjugated from every direction. There was nowhere for them to go.

The Supreme Beasts got powerful as they got more points. But no one resisted the Shadow of Despair when one year came around. It was the time that Legion-5 came to collect rent. The Supreme beasts could spare the 1 point that he was asking for to avoid fighting someone who is capable of killing grand gods so quickly.

The Shadow of Despair is not a scout but his damage output is outrageous. They can only imagine how powerful his defense will be since he is a warrior. It discouraged them from fighting him. No one wanted to be the scapegoat for the others to learn not to antagonize him.

Even the ones that are especially stubborn and hateful of the Shadow of Despair did not show any resistance to paying rent. The union they established to resist him did nothing when that year came. They promised themselves to do something the next time around. The shadow of Despair told them that he would return in 100 years for the next rent. They believed that was enough time to defeat him.

But several grand gods died over the course of 100 years. It enlightened them about the difference between them and the shadow of despair. So they didn't resist the third time for rent.

They handed over the ten points he demanded from them. However, they made sure to vow revenge when next he came around to collect rent. Legion-5 informed them that he would return in 1,000 years to collect the next rent.

Legion-5 gave them that much time because he was busy with something. At first, it was because he was too lazy to go around the bases every year to collect their rent. He was also busy fusing all the divine abilities together.

The ability of the giants of order was particularly difficult to fuse with the others. The law of order contained within refused any attempt to coerce it. But they are experienced with working with the law of order. Legion-7 used the divine life energy from the tree father to make the fusion possible.

That took a lot of time which distracted Legion-5 from collecting rent. Then the Unified Skill Index competition was held in the Virut plane for the first time. All of Legion paid attention to it because Soverick was walking on a tight edge and there was a lot to be gained from the competition.

Their concern was warranted because Soverick was killed and his title taken from him. The Unified Skill Index impacted Legion-5 the most because Legion-7 outdid himself and swallowed part of the supreme law of a world god. It caused Legion-5 to sink into a deep sleep.

Even Legion-7 slept. It caused their inner world to fall below the law matrix. It almost fell further than that into the waiting claws of the entity that had enslaved Legion-7.

Fortunately, they had Cosmic energy from Helios. Cosmic energy flowed into his inner world in large amounts to fuse with Legion-7. It helped him to speed up the evolution and not be consumed by the Supreme law instead.

Legion-7 recovered and rose out of the law matrix back to the inner world of Legion-5. Then he recreated another version of Soverick by using one of the vessels of a battle sage monkey that they had prepared in the Virut plane.

Soverick met with the first sage and acquired a world spark, a world engine, and a world fragment. The world Fragment wasn't part of the deal but the first sage gave it to them to monitor them. Legion-7 had to destroy Soverick's new body in order to transfer the world fragment into Legion-1's inner world but it was worth it.

They gained a lot of information from the first sage apart from the tangible benefits of the Unified Skill Index. They also gained the information that the era of conquest was coming soon. This is because Legion-1 had helped the realm lord to create the pillar that was used to transfer the participants of the competition to the world fragments where the competition was held.

Aeternus had asked the realm lord to save Legion-1 which the realm lord did. Then the realm lord had made another deal with Legion-1. Legion-1 helped the realm lord to build an artifact that could be used to transfer energy and matter. This was based on the soul sphere that Legion possessed.

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A/N: The Other title for this chapter that I wanted to use was Bait And Switch. Switch being the race of the god of love. It is something like Beauty And The Beast of the previous chapter. Legion being the beast here.