The General of the Empire of Greed ran from the battlefield as fast as he could, worried that Azekiel could catch up to him. There came a time when he even stopped caring for his fellow men, leaving the ones who couldn't keep up behind.
He didn't stop for anybody. Unfortunately, even that wasn't enough for him to get out safely. He stopped his horse, gazing into the distance. Azekiel was standing before him.
"H-how did he...?" With a blank face, he gazed back, only to find an empty field behind him. All his men were missing. There was not a single soldier behind him anymore.
"I think you've run enough. It's time to take some rest," Azekiel commented, advancing closer to the General, who felt his heart thumping.
The General tried turning his horse and leaving in a different direction; however, before he could even move, Azekiel appeared just inches away from him.
He grabbed the wrist of the General and pulled him off the horse, making him drop to his feet. As if not willing to stay here, the horse ran away on its own, leaving the General behind.
"I-i work for King Elijah! I didn't know you were one too. If I knew, I wouldn't have attacked. I thought you were an enemy. It was a misunderstanding!" The man dragged his body back on the sand, not even daring to stand up.
Azekiel smiled in response. "You appear to be scared. Don't worry; I'm not going to kill you. I need a messenger to go back and give my message to Elijah. Who better than you?"
"Y-yes. I'll deliver the message! I'll deliver all the messages!" The man eagerly stated. He was willing to do anything that saved his life. In fact, even if Azekiel had asked him to lick his feet to save his life, he would've done it right away.
"Tell him what happened here. And tell him that I'm going to create an Empire of Gluttony. I would appreciate it if he didn't interfere with my plans. Tell him I've already killed one. Don't make me kill a second one so soon."
"K-killed one what?" The General asked. He was sure Azekiel wasn't talking about the people on the battlefield since he had killed way more than one here.
"Tell him what I said. He will understand," Azekiel answered before he turned his back on the General and started leaving. "Now, leave before I change my mind."
The General started running, only to stop after a few steps as he remembered that he didn't even know the name of Azekiel. Who was he going to say the message was from?
He turned back, frowning. He wanted to ask that question. However, he also didn't want to interact more with Azekiel. After thinking for a brief moment, he gave up and started running. It didn't matter who this person was. It wasn't more important than his life!
*****
Azekiel returned to the battlefield, on the way using Soul Snatch on everyone he had killed along the way. His Gauntlets disappeared, leaving his bare hands that he used for soul Snatch.
The battlefield was filled with the bodies. Most of the soldiers were killed by other soldiers, while some were killed by him. He absorbed the soul energy of all as if he was a farmer who was on his field, taking his harvest.
After finishing with his feeding of soul energy, he returned to Raphael, slightly confused. His Soul Energy bar was full a long time ago; however, any excess Soul Energy didn't go to his bar. It wasn't like last time when extra energy went to overload his bar, which helped him summon another Familiar.
Through this experiment, he understood a few things. If his soul bar was filled, all excess energy was wasted unless the excess energy came from the same source which filled the bar. With Michael, it was his soul energy that filled the bar and then went on to overload the system with the energy. The bar couldn't stop accepting the energy into the system.
On the other hand, this time, after his bar was filled and he moved over to the next body, the soul energy wasn't taken. It went to waste, only giving him some stat boost which was almost negligible at the point he was at.
He opened his stats to check where he was at the moment.
[Stats:]
Name: Azekiel
Species: Human
Title: King of Gluttony
Level: 11
Experience needed for Level up: 50
Strength: 527
Speed: 527
Defense: 527
Hunger: 174
Magic Affinity: 65
Constitution: 90
[Skill:]
Summoning
Soul Snatch
Card of Judgment [5 Cards left]
Gluttony of Knowledge
[Weapons:]
Gauntlet of Gluttony
[Familiars:]
General of Gluttony Raphael
Witch of Famine Lia
"Hmm, Michael had around 800 strength. I'm still not close." Azekiel closed the screen and turned his attention to the Porters.
"Leave the food here and take all the treasures you can find. That's yours from now on," he commanded the porters. "Be fast. In twenty minutes, I want thirty of you to go back and get more food. The other twenty will stay with me."
He was the least bit interested in the treasures of soldiers, but it was really precious for the porters as they could use it for many things on Floor Zero. By giving them these treasures, he was effectively winning their loyalty.
*****
An hour had passed since Azekiel had commanded his men to bring more food, and they were already back, but not before showing off their newfound wealth to the people on the lower floors, making them jealous.
"So, the goal is to make an Empire without using Empires that are already in existence. How are we going to achieve it? Any ideas?" Lia was informed about the mission by Raphael, yet she couldn't understand how they were going to do it.
From what she was told, almost all the land was taken over by the Empires. They couldn't just go to a small random village and declare it an Empire to fight? They needed a more significant piece of land that had at least a few thousand soldiers, even though that wasn't enough either.
She didn't believe it was even possible since as soon as they made an Empire, Azekiel couldn't fight the wars. That meant only the soldiers of their Empire had to fight.
Even if they found land with a few hundred or thousands of soldiers, could they really defeat a full-fledged Empire? Even if they were trained for months, it was impossible, let alone doing it within two months like Azekiel planned.
"That's true. We can't use any existing Empires. But that doesn't mean we can't use the loopholes," Raphael responded.
Azekiel smiled, glancing back at Raphael. "So you also noticed what I noticed?"
"Yeah. That's a really big loophole for us to exploit. Especially in the current circumstances. If we are lucky, it won't even take two months."
"Exactly. I don't want to waste too much time on this Floor. I want to enter the third floor as soon as I can."
"Third Floor? What's there?" Lia tilted her head sideways in curiosity.
"The Third Floor... Also known as the Tomb of Gods. You'll know when we get there why it's called that," Azekiel answered. He raised his hand and pointed straight ahead. "But first, we need to go there."
