GREED: ALL FOR WHAT?

The soul prowler's method of perception has all the problems of the spiritual echo method including the short range and many other disadvantages. The soul prowler essentially has a sight disability. If not for the fact that it felt Legion-7's probing with the divine echo, then it wouldn't even know that someone was approaching it. Even then, it couldn't sense Legion-7 because he was too far away from it much less tell his position.

His divine echo perception technique outclasses this shoddy perception technique in every way. But Legion-7 still complained. "The divine echo method is still lacking. Even the lowest soul prowler will be able to sense me when I sense them."

This is not the physical world where the bodies of living things and the world around them encapsulate their souls and make it difficult to sense the divine sense of others. In the world of manifestation, you can only sense a divine sense that is equal to the quality of yours or lesser. You can't sense the divine sense of beings that are more evolved than you.

That is not the situation here. Every riff-raff can sense every divine sense because their soul is directly exposed to the world. It has made it impossible for him to sneak up on them and assassinate them.

"I have to figure out how to make my soul force independent of my divine sense. I will be able to remain undetected by others that way."

He complained a little and promised himself to become better. Then he put aside the problem of the scattering of soul force when it is not accompanied by divine sense and prepared to fight this soul prowler wholeheartedly with all his might.

He chose to be cautious because no soul prowler can be underestimated. They are not the weak soul fragments of the great mother. They are weak versions of the great mother herself.

Each soul prowler is a fragment of someone who is sufficiently obsessed to remain aware after death and also talented or lucky enough to survive the constant and all-encompassing digestion of the nether water. Caution is a must if only for the fact that this soul prowler is at least 10 times bigger than him.

So he didn't get too close to the soul prowler. He stood at a distance while he formed tentacles of soul force fashioned with his divine sense into blades. He swung the blades like whips at the soul prowler from afar.

The soul prowler didn't even see the attack coming so it didn't dodge. The blade made contact and sliced through a portion of the spherical prowler. The defense cocoon around the prowler couldn't block the blade at all.

The prowler shrieked in agony. The cut was bad enough in itself but Nether water made it worse. Nether water rushed into the new opening in its defense and began expanding it. It was as if Legion-7 had cut the prowler open and let its guts spill into the world. Then he poured acid into the cavity evacuated of its guts. It is the epitome of cruelty.

Unfortunately for the soul prowler, things only got worse. Legion-7 has more than one tentacle and he knows how to use them to great effect. He created many cuts all over the soul prowler with his blades. The defense of the soul prowler couldn't stand against the power of soul force. So despite being smaller, Legion-7 was winning by a landslide.

The soul prowler tried to retaliate. It shot out arrows at Legion-7. It could tell Legion-7's position in the brief moment when the tentacles connect with it. So it used that information to make accurate attacks.

The attack was very fast since it was literally sacrificing itself to retaliate. Legion-7 was caught off guard by the first attack. It struck him head-on. Unfortunately, the attacks that it made with its soul essence failed to do any damage to Legion-7. They couldn't get past his armor of soul force.

Legion-7 learned his lesson and increased his speed so as to avoid the fast attacks. He circled around the soul prowler with his fastest speed so he wasn't hit by the subsequent attacks. Meanwhile, each attack from the soul prowler reduced its size because of the expenditure of soul essence.

"Stop wasting soul essence you ignorant buffoon." Legion-7 cried in anguish. "You are wasting my food."

Other soul prowlers aren't like him. They don't have soul force to use to attack and defend. They can only attack with physical contact or at range by expending their soul essence. Even physical contact will expend soul essence because any physical contact between souls is a kind of collision.

In a physical fight, the skilled ones will be able to minimize the damage they incur and maximize the damage they inflict, but they can't stop themselves from losing something. When combined with the enmity of the nether water, fighting is a life and death matter that must strengthen the victor or both of them will lose and die. There is no in-between or draw.

Legion-7 is not in danger of dying but he can't bear to watch the waste of his precious food. He expects to win so the soul essence is essentially his already. He hoped, like anyone would, that this soul prowler would just lie still so that he could kill it without wastage. But the soul prowler refused. It resisted with everything it had. So Legion-7 could only do the reasonable thing. He sought to grant his enemy a swift death.

Tens of tentacles lashed at the soul prowler and shredded it apart piece by piece. He made sure to use his tentacles to retrieve the small pieces so that the nether water wouldn't deprive him of his hard-earned food. It was at this moment that he realized that it might not be a good thing that the nether water will always participate in a fight.

He produced the maximum amount of tentacles that he could make so that he could digest the pieces as soon as possible. This is because not only is he fighting the soul prowler, he is also fighting the nether waters for the scraps of the soul prowler.