GREED: ALL FOR WHAT?

The posture of these beasts doesn't look pleasant. Their current posture restricts freedom of movement apart from the less obvious pain from the stretched limbs. When this observation is combined with the sight of chains that forced them into this unpleasant position, it is safe to say that the beasts are imprisoned. 

A voice said to him, "Don't be shocked. This is just a prison for Warrogs."

The speaker even chuckled at him. 

He turned to the source of the voice. He saw a large Warrog beast that dwarfed him. This beast has black and red fur. It also has two black horns, black claws, and black exposed canines. Its eyes are trained on him right now. 

All the prisoners are Warrog beasts. They have different shapes and sizes. They also have a different number of tails. The one that spoke to him just now is one of the smallest. But all of them have black horns and black claws.

"No." He said. "This is not a prison for mere Warrogs. This is a prison for ancient Warrog paragons."

His mind reeled with the implications. He couldn't help but ask. "How are you still alive?"

These beasts are all Emperors and Executioners. They are all transcendent too. And they are not ones without their complete divine ability. They are ancient paragons that have not been seen for several hundreds of origin cycles. That's tens of millions of years. 

It is normal at all that they are still alive. Transcendents don't live past a single origin cycle. There are exceptions to this norm. Dragons don't have a concept of lifespan so they don't have any limit on how long they live. 

In the early days of the realm, dragons thought they couldn't be killed too. They thought they were immortal. That belief has proven untrue. But those are dragons. These are Warrogs. These Warrogs have managed to live without origin energy for almost a hundred million years trapped under a frozen mountain. 

He doesn't think they are immortal so it should not be possible. But that is not the major reason why he is surprised that they are still alive.

"Welcome, young Executioner. I was an Executioner too. I was a great one. That's why I could live till today and still have the strength to speak. You will find that we paragons will continue to live as long as our people believe in us." The speaker replied.

He shook his head at the reply. "That's not what I am asking about. I can infer that from what I have seen. I meant how is it that the wood elves did not kill you?"

He is surprised that the wood elves didn't kill the paragons. The wood elves can surely kill the paragons if they are strong enough to imprison them. After all, subduing and capturing is more difficult than simple killing. So why did the wood elves not kill them?

"Who are the wood elves?" The Executioner asked him.

He replied. "The tree people." 

The Executioner chuckled. Then she said, "Let me show you."

Her divine sense interacted with his. Then she passed across a memory to him. He saw himself as a colossal beast of raw power. He trampled over the earth unmatched. He ate whatever he wanted to eat which were the tree people at that time. 

The tree people were full of energy if a little bitter to the taste. But energy is necessary to grow stronger so he will bear with the bitter taste and eat them. It helps that they are easily digestible because of the high content of life force and vitality within them. 

He was attacking one of their tree havens when something strange happened. An individual suddenly appeared above him. This individual had the green skin of wood elves. It even had green hair and eyes. It looked like a wood elf but it had wings. It is a weird sight. But he didn't laugh. He felt threatened by the weird flying wood elf.

The world came alive in the presence of this individual. Plants sprouted from the earth in every direction. These plants are as tall as mountains and as thick as boulders. They are certainly taller than him. He growled at the plants and activated his divine ability. 

His 7 tails became straight immediately. They spread out in the shape of a fan on his behind so he looked like a peacock. He opened his jaws wide and regurgitated a black ball. The world darkened with the appearance of the black ball floating a short distance from his mouth. Then the ball began to pull on the world. 

It was like gravity was warped. Space all around him bent into a curve. It created an expanding funnel that led to the black ball. Everything was sucked into this spatial tunnel and into the black ball. 

Stones levitated and flew into the tunnel. Sand and trees too. Mana wasn't spared either. The trees were sucked into the ball along with everything. Nothing was spared. He was devouring the world whole. 

But his situation didn't change. The flying wood elf could produce trees faster than he could swallow them. The tree branches and thick vines coiled around him and tightened their hold. They were like chains that bound him. His mouth was forcefully closed and he was completely sealed up within a giant ball of plants. He saw nothing but darkness for a long period of time. 

Light reappeared after a long time. It reappeared when he found himself chained within the cavern of a mountain. He has been here ever since. There were others like him here. Each one of them was a powerful Emperor and Executioner. There were more at that time and more joined over time. But their numbers dwindled as they died. The memory ended there.

He spent a few seconds to break down the memory and imbibe it. He did it to avoid an identity crisis. 

"So you're Gator." He said after reviewing the memory.