GREED: ALL FOR WHAT?

"We'll help you if you can't hold on any longer."

They told him that they are there for him because what he is about to do is beyond him and he will need their help. Even so, most of the burden will be on him. He is the focal point that will bear the bulk of the stress. If he breaks, so will their plan.

It wasn't Helios's idea to do it but a plan that they hatched from the first moment that the tree father succeeded in decrypting the Stigmata on Helios's back over a hundred years ago. It is an insane plan that will benefit Legion so he has to do it.

The divine engine started to swell as it got more powerful. The void within the divine engine is disappearing at a fast rate as the star that represents the celestial power of the sun god began to expand. He has to absorb the star and take control of it or it will expand until it explodes. It is a crazy idea. That's before we add in the fact that he is still in the middle of becoming a transcendent.

The power of a celestial is equal to the power of a new origin god at best, but Helios's soul is not as powerful as a new Origin god. He is just a small portion of the soul of a new Origin god. It is not going to be easy to subjugate the celestial power and also break through to transcendence at the same time. If he succeeds, then he will have done something no one, has ever done in the history of giants of order.

Helios began the fusion of body and soul. The Stigmata on his body absorbed the celestial grade divine power and began to glow a golden light. Thankfully the Stigmata was created with impeccable workmanship from Helios and upgraded with the divine will of an entity on par with a celestial. So the Stigmata can handle the power. Then Helios's Origin soul began to fuse with the Stigmata and the Celestial power within it.

His breakthrough is very similar to how other demigods make the breakthrough. Except that, the divine power in their cores helps them to break through and doesn't constitute an impediment to the breakthrough. Apart from that, they don't have a small star growing on their back like a hump on a spine.

The divine engine struggled to go out of control as Helios tried to control it and break through. It enlarged slowly and surely until it became a ball of light about 10 centimeters in diameter on his back. Something that small might as well be a mole on the back of a giant of order. But the ball continued to grow and showed no signs of stopping.

The tiny mole grew until it became too heavy for Helios to handle while sitting down. He had to stand while supporting the weight of the ball on his back after it increased to a diameter of 10 meters. He became hunched as the ball burdened him with the weight.

The load he is bearing became a giant golden ball that remained roughly circular but its surface is constantly shifting as if it is the surface of a boiling liquid. There are even occasional ejections of power in the form of white high-pressure flames. The ball is also very heavy and it is growing heavier. Helios had to carry the weight, strife to control the engine, keep the celestial energy flowing into his stigmata, and successfully fuse his soul with his celestial-laden body. In short, he is suffering but he can handle it.

The same cannot be said about the living entities around him. The ball is also hot. In fact, it is too hot. The organisms living in the Zargoth plane have gotten used to the heat of the desert but the heat radiating out of that ball cannot be compared to anything they have ever experienced. At the rate at which the temperature is increasing, the Goliath ants will start to die, diamond carapace or not.

The ant queen pleaded with the tree father, "Please stop whatever is going on."

Helios is breaking through within the central room and she can't leave. She is not a transcendent yet.

The tree father replied, "I can't. It has already started."

"Then leave my ant mound. I have already delivered on my promise. You have acquired your target."

There are a lot of questions that she has concerning this so-called target and why the tree father that seems like the enemy of the target asked her to treat him like royalty. She expected a lot of things when they finally lay their hands on the target, but she did not expect that the two of them could be friends. All of that can wait for later. For now, she wants them gone from the ant mound before she dies.

"That's true. You have fulfilled your end of the bargain. I'll leave." The tree uprooted itself and turned to go but it wasn't enough for the ant queen for him to leave.

She screamed. "What about him? Take him with you?"

"I can't. It has already started."

She began to beg and plead but there is nothing the tree father can do. She watched the plant spirit leave while she can't leave. She is bonded to the ant mound. The ant mound used to be the safest place she could be but it is now the most dangerous place she can be.

The worker and the soldier ants piled on top of her to protect her from the heat. All their efforts are futile. They all turned to ashes including their queen. Some royal guards escaped when the queen died but their fate will not end well without the help of the queen to stunt the control of fungi in their bodies. No matter what, this colony has met its end today.