GREED: ALL FOR WHAT?

The demon lords and demon kings saw that the black aura had become tangible energy that was oozing and popping. Then it enlarged and swallowed the golden crown.

They couldn't see anything anymore. They only felt the large fluctuations of spiritual power smashing against each other. The purple energy sea below was smashed by the shockwaves of these fluctuations. It became agitated as large waves formed on its peaceful surface.

The first layer of the abyss was shaking as the two demon gods clashed. But no one could see what was going on anymore because of the black cloud.

They didn't have to wait long for an outcome. A golden cloud was ejected out of the black cloud. It was vastly smaller than its previous size. It was also blotted with large black spots.

The golden cloud was trying to get rid of these black spots by dumping swarths of its body. This caused its size to decrease further. Unfortunately, the black spots continued to appear even after they were cut off repeatedly.

Meanwhile, the body parts that were discarded turned black completely and joined the already massive black cloud to make it bigger. All of this helped PRIDE make up its mind.

The golden cloud roared in defiance, "This isn't over!!!"

It roared, but it was running away. Some of the audiences were of the opinion that PRIDE might be afraid, as opposed to its angry roar, but not one of them dwelled too much on that thought for fear that PRIDE could read their minds.

The black cloud shrank into the new demon god, who then chased after the golden cloud. They noticed that the hidden entity within the cloud had increased in size by more than 10 times. The difference in the size of the combatants before and after their scuffle clued the audience into who had the upper hand in the fight.

The sight of PRIDE running and the new demon god chasing it made the demon lords and demon kings lament. "It is certain now. We are so dead."

They have committed so many sins worthy of their death. Not only have they heard slander against PRIDE, they have witnessed the defeat of PRIDE. It is exactly what they didn't want to witness.

In fact, it is unlikely that they will remain unscathed, regardless of the outcome of the fight. Not unless the two demon gods can kiss and make up. One of them is bound to be unhappy at the end of the fight. Whoever it is, they might take their anger out on them. So they were not dedicated enough to wait to see the end of the fight. All of them dispersed as soon as the two demon gods left their sight.

Meanwhile, Aeternus was chasing the golden cloud. Killing this clone will anger PRIDE more than it already is, but he doesn't plan to give up on this clone of the demon god.

He grinned in anticipation and thought to himself, "There is still so much to eat."

It is true. The golden cloud is still larger than him. In fact, it is still 100 times bigger than him. This is despite the fact that he has grown 10 times bigger than he was before the fight. So the current PRIDE is 1,000 times larger than what he was before.

PRIDE lost 10 times its size for him to grow 10 times. It is not really efficient since PRIDE was far larger than him. This conversion efficiency is because he lost a lot of PRIDE's body mass to Chaos energy during the eating process. So he wasn't the only one that grew during the eating frenzy.

He and his mark of sin are two separate entities, so they had to share what they are from PRIDE. What he gained was the power capacity that PRIDE had worked for all this time. What the mark of sin gained was the energy of pride.

He can convert that power capacity into real power with cosmic energy, which he is currently doing. It is making him grow stronger during the chase. So his output of Chaos energy has increased.

When combined with the fact that his mark of sin has also increased in power, he has experienced a quantitative and qualitative improvement from dining with PRIDE. This kind of improvement has made him unwilling to give up on more.

He jeered at the escaping demon god, "You can't escape from me, you retard. I already told you that you are the retarded demon god in the abyss. You didn't believe me, and now you think you can escape from me. Why don't you give up and let me eat you in peace? You might enjoy it if you don't resist."

PRIDE didn't retort. It knows that it won't be able to escape either. This is because Aeternus has corrupted a large portion of its existence. The corruption is like a tracer that will lead Aeternus to it even if it manages to get away. Spot can only run, it can't hide.

The only way out is to expunge the corruption completely. It knows that, and even though it doesn't want to do it, it is discarding the corrupted part of its existence right now.

It is its only chance of getting away at all, but it is also weakening and becoming slower. This means its chances of escaping are decreasing by the moment. Meanwhile, Aeternus is getting faster, so the distance between them is shortening rapidly.

Aeternus continued to make fun of the demon god, but he expected an interruption at any moment. He is winning, and he should be victorious in this engagement, but he hasn't let that get to his head.

He is not going to underestimate a demon god of all beings. They are entities that can take on a plane and many Supreme Origin gods on their own.

He gained an advantage over PRIDE because of his unusual existence, but the fight isn't over yet. Anything can still happen. So he was vigilant for any intervention or unexpected interruptions.

----

A/N: You can change the title of this chapter to Eating Efficiency. That works too.