GREED: ALL FOR WHAT?

The royal ant said smugly, "This is why the queen risked the danger to her life to create us. It is because we are reliable and can protect the colony. We have been able to do that successfully for so long because of our diamond carapace. There's nothing you can do against it."

It has regained confidence in itself and its existence has been justified.

Helios's eyes glinted sharply. "We'll see about that."

"Why don't you go ahead and do that? I have nowhere else I want to be at this moment. Take your best shot. There's no rush. We have all day."

He ignored the taunts and jeers to focus on creating another light construct. This time it is a spear of light instead of the hammer. The white runes on his body shone brighter as he concentrated. He grafted some of his runes onto the spear so some runes appeared on the spear as it grew larger. They are the same light resonance runes on his body.

His audience continued to throw barbs at him as he worked.

"Nice idea to try something pointy next. It is genius really. If the hammer doesn't work, then try the long pointy thing. You must be some kind of rare demigod."

He exhaled after finishing its construction partly due to exhaustion and partly due to his annoyance with Number 11. Then he admired his work before he looked at his complacent foe.

"Say your last prayers because death is coming."

The confident royal guard laughed in derision. "I am not so desperate to pray to your gods. My queen will become one soon and she will be all that I need."

Helios let his hand drop and the spear dropped with it. Then spear flashed and appeared above the royal guard. Number 11 couldn't dodge fast enough even if it tried. Not with its compromised limbs. The spear phased through the carapace and sank into its body. It discharged all of its energy into the royal guard.

"AHHHHHHHHHH!"

Number 11 began to burn from the inside out. It roared in pain because of the enormous heat building up within it. It lit up and began to glow brightly as the spear transformed into energy within its body. The energy couldn't leave its body because of the insulation of the carapace. Its internal organs heated up and turned to ashes leaving behind the sturdy and reliable carapace. The death was very quick but very painful. It was also very noisy due to Number 11 screaming throughout the process.

He nodded in contentment. "That is a job well done. Now I know how to kill them."

The translucent carapace sat on the ground like some sort of tortoiseshell except it is glittering and shiny. The shell, the head, and the limbs are the only things that Number 11 left behind.

He admired his work for a while before he turned into a streak of light. He didn't go through this entrance, he went the long way to another entrance. He did so because he is sure this entrance will be teeming with royal guards pretty soon while the entrance farther away is suspected to be free from royal guards.

Not long after he left, three royal guards arrived at the spot where number 11 died. They didn't have much time to mourn since the strike team also arrived. It is a good thing for the royal guards, they get to take out their anger on the invaders. The three royal guards clashed with the strike team with a thirst for vengeance. They swung their horns about and tried to shear off body parts with the mandibles. It made for a great show for those watching above.

The POV of Harkam The God of The Sky and Tempest. Before the strike team was deployed.

Harkam sat in his divine kingdom alone while he watched the heroic quest. His divine kingdom is filled with brown clouds and lightning dust storms. His believers come to his divine kingdom after their deaths to become wind and lightning spirits. His divine kingdom is not welcoming or hospitable. Dust storms are prevalent and the wind is too violent. The wind can shred a giant down to the bones. It isn't why no one is watching with him though. He just isn't a pleasant god to be around.

He is sitting on a cloud in his real form watching the battle on the front lines. Harkam looks like a hybrid of lightning and dust wind spirit. He doesn't have legs and his body is made from brown dust winds that are always releasing golden lightning bolts into his environment. His eyes and hair are made from similar golden lightning bolts. He doesn't have a mouth. He can form a mouth but he doesn't need it because he can't taste anything.

Bloodlines affect the lineage in a myriad of ways. It gives them an edge over others in terms of divine abilities or ancestral memories. They also come with weaknesses. Demigods and gods are also limited by their divine power. Those of the sky god lineage are fast and can wield lightning. They also get angry easily and become elemental beings when they become gods. Their elemental form has lost the ability to taste.

While the sun god and his faction are eating nice things as they watch the heroic quest, he can't eat anything. Even his humanoid form can't taste food. And people wonder why he is always so irritable. Imagine having eternal life but you can't distract yourself from the stress of living with some food.

His inability to taste things does not bear the full blame for his bad personality. His erratic mood is due to his volatile nature as a wind spirit. Still, he gets by. There are few things that he can distract himself with and they are the only two things he feels pleasure doing. One is sex and the other is destruction.

Giants of Order have low fertility. They find it difficult to bear offspring naturally. Their low fertility has become exacerbated because of the low concentration of ambient mana. Demigods are very rare because the union of divine and mortal is even more difficult to result in a child. People think the god of the sky is very fertile but that's only because he has sex a lot. When it is one of the only two things you can do for fun, you tend to do it a lot. When you do it a lot, the chances of you having a child become very high.

The other thing he enjoys apart from causing rampant destruction in the mortal realm is watching interesting things going on in the mortal realm. Things like heroic quests are always interesting.

"What a show-off." He muttered angrily when he saw Helios appear on his screen.

Unlike others that will marvel and inquire about the runes, he doesn't appreciate the power of Helios's runes. He considers it showy because he doesn't like Helios. He has nothing against Helios really. The one he hates the most is Stelios, the sun god. That hatred automatically extends to Helios because of who his father is. It is simply the natural cross-generational transfer of hatred.

The feud between the sky god and the sun god goes back to times before Harkam. Harkam's father also hated Stelios. But Harkam and Stelios's conflict is greater than most of the previous conflicts by any standard.

"It's all Stelios's fault. He is too full of himself." He said as he threw a bolt of lightning at the screen.

The bolt was reflected back and it shot off to somewhere in the divine kingdom. The thought of the chaos it could cause made Harkam feel better.

He doesn't like Helios and believes that the death of his son, Tyke, at Helios' hand is Stelios' fault. It is not the only thing he blames Stelios for. Whenever Harkam thinks back to how their conflict started, he would always blame the sun god.

He was a new grand god then, recently ascended. He had risen from the position of a divine lord to that of a grand god so he was proud and excited. He was especially excited when he attended his first divine meeting with other gods and the celestial supreme. He used to be outside the circle of gods, just on the edge but now he is within their midst, making decisions with them. It felt good to not be a tool for entertainment anymore.

He might have said something disrespectful to the sun god about his age in his excitement. Harkam didn't think it mattered how old Stelios is. They are both grand gods and of equal strength. That's what matters. So he should be allowed to make fun of the sun god. That train of thought sounds reasonable to Harkam.

The sun god didn't believe so and didn't take being called an "ancient almost obsolete tool" very well because of his pride. He even pushed being unreasonable to the next level by asking Harkam to apologize.