GREED: ALL FOR WHAT?

The man shrugged as he answered, "The demorgorgs are not bad."

He doesn't like them but he can be objective enough about their power. It is the least he could do after killing them.

The shadow continued, "Bad or not, we need manpower for the era of conquest."

The man finally relented, "I have heard you. We are not going to kill the god-king, yet"

But his eyes continued gleaming dangerously. He was staring at the demon with those gleaming eyes. The poor demon shook in fear when he sensed the gaze and the evil intent that accompanied it. It tried to run. It dashed towards the nearest escape but it was too late. The lightning snake dashed towards it. 

The high-rank demon paled when it sensed the shadow of death. A black tentacle rose out of the demon's shadow and slapped the lightning snake aside. It saved the demon from dying. 

"Come on." The man cried out. "Let me kill it."

The darkness tutted. "We have to let it go. We can't let the single demon responsible for all these damages die here. What will the investigators think when you kill the demon? They will surely think a third party witnessed the event and took advantage of the fight to kill the injured demon. Then they will start looking for a third party. They will start looking for us."

"Kill joy." The man muttered.

The demon sighed in relief and continued to escape. But the black tentacle in its shadow tripped it. 

It fell to the ground pleading, "Please spare me. I have done everything you asked for. I'll do anything else you want. Spare me."

The shadow didn't listen. It made the black tentacle dig into the demon's head and straight into its mind. The high-rank demon screamed in agony as its mind was violated. Its mind was scrambled in a very painful and careless manner. Any type of tampering with the mind will be painful but this is mind-breaking and it is intentional. 

The mind of the demon actually broke. It was then that the black tentacle let it go. The demon had become quiet now. Its eyes were unfocused. It is walking in a shambling daze. It can't even move its left leg so its right leg is made to pull its whole body. The two of them watched the demon scramble away like a drunk.

The darkness said, "There. Now it won't remember us and no method to read its memories will work. It has become easy prey to the other demons. Any investigator will follow its trails and forget about us. We should leave now. We don't want to be here when another team comes to investigate. We wouldn't want you to have to eliminate them."

The man said, "I don't like you following me around. You are ruining my fun."

The darkness retorted. "I don't like following you around and keeping you in line either. But you are definitely not reasonable so you can't be left alone. The others wanted me to follow you to make sure that you don't create trouble for us."

The man sighed. "I am so powerful and immortal. Yet, I have a babysitter. What kind of fate is this?"

He is not foolish. He just can't take things seriously since he can't die. After all, what's the worst thing that could happen to him? His fear of the repercussions of his actions has been dulled by immortality.

The darkness chastised, "It is a fate that is required in order to achieve something greater than immortality. The era of conquest is our opportunity to take the next step. You will have to bear with the sacrifice of holding back."

"Fine. But I get to kill the god-king when we are done with him." It said that then it turned into a lightning snake itself. 

Its body broke apart into tiny lights. It is as if he put off his mortal shell. The energy within him became free. It formed the white snake and zipped out of the ruins leaving behind a thunderclap that shook the ruins down to its foundation. If not for the fact that the ruins are buried and supported by the earth on all sides, then the simple repercussion of leaving the building would have destroyed it. 

----

The ruins returned to peace and quiet for a short while until someone came to investigate. But nothing useful came of their investigation. So the death of an entire squad of demorgorgs was taken as an unfortunate accident. 

If not for the fact that everyone in the squad died then it wouldn't have been mentioned to the leader of the demorgorgs. If not that the only signs to the enemy that killed them turned out to be a high rank demon that died soon after then the Leader of the demorgorgs wouldn't have bothered to mention the event to the Godking at all during his daily meeting with the god king.

Hak was kneeling in front of his god. He has his head bowed and his hands joined together in prayer. He is praying to his god and his god is actually listening. It is not a delusion either. His god is a real being that he can see and others can also see. 

He doesn't need faith and delusions to sense the majesty or see the physical body of the king of gods. His god king stands before him in all his wonderous glory. All he has to do is look.

He comes here every day to the inner sanctuary to meet his god and to pray in its majestic presence. It is prayer but he is actually communicating with his god instead of it being a one-sided conversation.

He said to his god, "A squad of demorgorgs died in one of the ruins of the old cities. All 21 of them including their 4-star squad leader died."

This is just one of the numerous reports that he has brought to his god. He knows that the god-king probably knows about all of these but he says it anyway to prove that he is doing is job right and that he also knows the things he should know.