GREED: ALL FOR WHAT?

This is why Soverick said their motives were complicated. They came to capture her, but they also planned to eat her. Either way, they couldn't go all out, or they would kill her by accident, or she would escape in fear.

To eat her, they had to let her body grow so that they would have more food to eat. But if they did that, she would become very strong. If she becomes too strong, then they won't be able to hold back in trying to capture her, and she might escape if they display too much of their power.

Finally, they had to corner her and leave her with no other options so that they could capture her. They had to do all of these while adhering to the information she had about them from the Stellaris plane and her estimation of what a new Origin god could do.

So yes, their motives and their plan were complicated. Soverick was only sure that their greediness wouldn't lead to their deaths. He wasn't sure if they would win or if she would escape. It was not until they met that he was able to fine tune their greedy plan and pull it off.

When they were done with her, only a flickering flame contained within a white spiritual crystal remained.

Legion-5 nodded and said, "Our prize. The spark of consciousness."

Legion-7 still wasn't satisfied. He said, "We got little soul essence from her. But I guess this will have to do."

"Yes, this is more than enough. Besides, we don't need soul essence. But we need this."

They could have kept her spiritual connections to the other clones so that they would be able to devour more of her. The spiritual connections would allow her to get support in terms of soul essence and spiritual energy. But it would have also allowed her to escape when this form collapsed. They weren't going to allow that in exchange for more soul essence.

While soul essence is very good and important to Origin gods, they can make more soul essence as long as they have divine life energy. But they can't make a spark of consciousness easily. That is something that they cannot acquire without giving up a clone and losing the divine abilities of that clone.

And seeing as the great mother might be the only other entity apart from realm trees with a spark of consciousness in the void universe, it is very important that they get it from her.

She pleaded with them, "Please, spare me. I will give you anything you want."

She is speaking from the spiritual crystal. The great mother is at her weakest right now, but that doesn't mean she has given up on living. She may have died once before, but she got here because she wasn't willing to let that stop her.

Soverick said, "The memories we gained from her soul fragments are interesting. Apparently, she worked with the first sage to trap us and has a deal with the realm lord concerning the era of conquest."

Legion-7 felt justified. He said, "It seems I was right to insist we eat her. I know soul prowlers. Their memories are oftentimes more valuable than their soul essence."

Soverick didn't mention that they didn't need to let her grow to acquire her memories. But Legion-7 was right, prioritizing eating her together with capturing her spark of consciousness might have been complicated, but it has given them more than they came for.

Instead, Soverick focused on the important information they just acquired. He said, "It seems the first sage has been moving against us. We don't know what else he has done, but I think we can be certain that he now knows what Legion-7 truly is."

He continued, "Knowing the first sage, knowledge is practically power to him. He would be able to plan better against us with the knowledge he gained from the great mother."

Legion-7 didn't care about that. He said in a dismissive tone, "What he got is old news. I am no longer a simple spiritual entity. Besides, there's nothing we can do against the first sage until the era of conquest comes. I think we should focus on this item that can make me evolve."

Legion-5 asked the great mother, "What other objects do you know that can cause evolution? I want to know the exact one that you wanted to use to trap me."

His question was like a liferaft to her. She grabbed onto it and replied, "It is a world spark. It is the ultimate item to evolve the spark of consciousness."

Legion-7 was skeptical. "Wouldn't that cause you to fuse with the law matrix forever?"

She replied in the affirmative, "It will. It is a good thing for me, though. Fusing with the law matrix means I won't be rejected by the void universe anymore. It means freedom. And if you use it, it means you will be trapped. So even if you come to the spiritual dimension, manage to take it from me, and escape with it, you will not have a good end."

Soverick chuckled and said, "I'm guessing this plan was made by the first sage. It feels like a scheme he would come up with."

Legion-5 asked her, and she replied, "Yes. The world god came up with it. We could have used a world seed as bait, but the outcome of using it is not certain. It might be good for you or bad. The world god didn't want to risk it. So we decided to use a world spark."

Soverick snickered, "It seems the first sage is bent on not giving us a world seed. He didn't let me have one after the Unified Skill Index either. I'm guessing the world seed must be good for us."

Legion-7 was also intrigued by the possibility of a safe evolution with world seeds. "We planned to use a world seed, but it was technically for Legion-5. Now I am not sure of the effects it will have on me."