GREED: ALL FOR WHAT?

His whip was black. It was made out of his own body, just like the golden whip lashing at him. But unlike the golden whip, it was burning with black flames.

The black flames left a trail in the air as they smashed against the golden whip. The golden whip split into four to evade the single black whip. The black whip hit one golden whip and slashed it in half. It missed the other three, and it was too late to stop them.

Aeternus made a split-second decision. He decided to give up on the three whips. He couldn't stop them all, even if he tried. So he made his whip continue forward towards PRIDE. Then he stretched forth his hand toward the three golden whips. His hand enlarged and morphed into a shield larger than his body to block the attack.

The three golden whips scattered and avoided the shield. They curved and attacked him from the sides and behind. Several more whips sprouted out of Aeternus's body. They are thicker, so they look more like tentacles. These tentacles lashed and destroyed the three golden whips.

On the other end, the first black whip was about to hit PRIDE. But PRIDE stopped it by creating more whips. The two of them got a draw in the second exchange. So the third exchange began. The two demon gods got close enough to touch each other. Then they began ripping each other apart.

This is how demon gods fight. Their energy, Supreme Law, and bodies are one, so a fight between them is simultaneously a physical, spiritual, and metaphysical fight. Because of this, it is also a fight in which both sides must lose something.

Imagine two mortals fighting with weapons. The mortals don't feel pain as the two weapons clash. Instead, they will continue to fight as long as the weapons don't hurt each other's bodies.

In the case of demon gods, they are the weapons, so they feel pain and are damaged as the weapons collide. The power of defense and offense is a matter of who is willing to sacrifice more energy.

A demon god's power is based on the strength of their Supreme Law and the amount of energy they have. The power of their Supreme Law determines the efficiency of the energy they use. So while the power of a Supreme Law is very important and will grant a certain advantage, the amount of energy they use in attacking or defending is more important.

The only case where Supreme Laws come ahead is if one Supreme Law outranks the other too much in efficiency or if a Supreme Law has a weakness to the other Supreme Law, so it becomes drastically less effective.

In general, the more energy or the more of their body they are willing to sacrifice in a fight, the more powerful their attacks will be. By this logic, PRIDE should win this fight.

PRIDE is an old demon god. It has had a lot of time to attack planes and spread the sin of pride, which has increased the power of its Supreme Law, its capacity for energy, and its energy usage efficiency. Their size difference is more than ten thousand times greater. It is clear who would win.

PRIDE has all the advantages on all counts. But the fight didn't go in PRIDE's favor at all. This is because, unlike what was expected, it was Aeternus who had the advantage on all counts.

Unlike other demon gods, Aeternus has an infinite supply of energy. He has always had that advantage. Other demon gods can't have infinite energy because their existence isn't and can't accommodate infinity. They have a fixed capacity, which they have to expand by spreading their sin.

Aeternus hasn't become one with his sin yet, so he is not limited by energy yet. Aeternus also has the advantage in Supreme Law because the sin of pride is weak to his.

So as the two of them tore at each other, PRIDE was losing body mass faster than Aeternus. Aeternus made sure to protect his main body because it was his main weakness. He can't replenish himself with the infinite energy he has because he is not one with his energy, so he won't be able to recover unless he eats something powerful.

Seeing as the thing he wants to eat currently has the power to kill him, it is prudent to avoid losing his body mass. He achieved this defense by sacrificing Chaos energy to create a spiked armor around him. The armor not only blocked attacks for him, it also damaged PRIDE in their scuffle.

He had to sacrifice a lot of it, which made PRIDE glad at first. But PRIDE's gladness began to reduce as it lost too much body mass. Its golden whips and golden claws were not ripping its opponent to shreds like it expected. Instead, it felt like it was trying to dig through the largest and toughest diamond ever.

PRIDE had to become anxious because AETERNUS was getting bigger instead of smaller. This shouldn't be happening. They should be losing energy and becoming smaller, not getting bigger.

PRIDE's anxiety turned into fear when it realized what kind of entity Aeternus was.

It said in disbelief, "You were a demon king of kings! You are a devourer!"

It realized that Aeternus was eating it during the fight. But things became worse than that. Not only was Aeternus's main body getting bigger, but their surroundings were getting drowned in a cloud of Chaos energy too.

Aeternus was wantonly pumping Chaos energy into the surroundings because PRIDE decided to copy him and wanted to swallow him whole. PRIDE wanted to use the advantage of its size to engulf Aeternus, but it couldn't do so because it got a mouthful of corrosive Chaos energy.

This continued until PRIDE became the one engulfed in Chaos energy. The Chaos energy was far more effective than whips and claws. It had more contact surface area with PRIDE and could shred it faster.

He is literally biting more than he could chew, but Aeternus was not daunted by the task ahead.