A Reaper's Philosophy-Chapter 87: Greed’s Ambitions

"I am the Concept of Endings, and I have been quite stubborn." Grayson admitted. "If it weren’t for you, I would have never even known about Death." Grayson added as he pet Death above his head.

"This isn’t all your fault; I also had a hand to play in all this. If I had followed exousia’s will, as I was originally supposed to, none of this would have happened. The other concepts would have never clung to immortality like they did if I just did my job right from the beginning.

Death did his best as your familiar to spread your philosophy to all the realms, but in the end, we couldn’t enforce your philosophy into the other realms. Enforcing one’s philosophy onto others wasn’t what exousia wanted. So, if a concept refused your philosophy, there was nothing that Death could do about it.

Concepts cannot go within their realms without destroying them, their power is too great. However, their familiars can. A familiar is just a manifestation of a concept’s philosophy.

Concepts use their familiars to spread their philosophies within their realms. My familiar is Life. I was drawn to him here. Concepts and their familiars are drawn to each other. It was why you were drawn to Mission Z and why I kept wanting to go on a mission with you, apart from missing your company of course. I knew there was something I needed to find out here.

Unfortunately, we were forced to abandon our familiars in Evnoia long ago. When Greed tried to replace your world with his own! Once your realm began to prosper, Greed longed for it even more and planned to take it for himself. This was the first step he needed to take to, ultimately, take control of exousia. He needed to take hold of an infinite realm of his own. What he had planned to do with it? I still do not know.

Despite all his planning, he could never account for your realm collapsing upon his entry. As if by design, your realm, although infinite, could only withstand the presence of exactly 3 concepts. When he invaded your realm I, Nomos, and yourself were present. A crack appeared through the galaxy as he came through it. Evnoia was at the centre of it.

It was clear to see that Greed wasn’t meant to be there. Immediately after, a war broke out between the three of us and Greed. The longer Greed stayed, the wider the crack became. His presence was literally tearing your realm apart and to make things worse, Greed was not alone.

Behind Greed was an army of familiars whose concepts refused to accept your philosophy. Greed promised them a realm where they could be free of your concept and still do right by exousia. No concept wanted to go against exousia and with time, they probably would have accepted your philosophy and seen its benefits.

However, Greed used his philosophy to twist and manipulate their desires, making his offer more tempting.

’If it is exousia’s will, then it should be fine,’ they probably thought.

Greed became controlled by his ambitions. His desires were so great they clouded even exousia’s will. He could no longer tell the two apart. He genuinely believed he was doing exousia’s will by taking over your realm.

One-fourth of the concepts supported his plan and sent their familiars to aid him. Nomos suppressed the entry of his realm by using various laws whilst you and I fought against Greed and his army.

Greed used a strange machine, created by his people, to bring his realm into yours. Perhaps it was due to the intensity of the battle, but the machine became destabilized, causing a grave malfunction. It no longer just pulled in his realm; it brought in all of them.

Your realm was on the verge of collapsing, but Nomos was quick to act. He created a system that allowed all the realms to survive within yours. That is the universe you see today. All the planets we once went to were once another concept’s world. The helpers and reapers represent the concept’s beginning and end within that world.

Unfortunately, due to the malfunction, no one survived. Moving all the realms like that wiped out all life within them. To bring back that life, we transformed our state of existence into spiritual energy and split our philosophies across the different realms as reapers and helpers. This was the system that Nomos created, and thought would be best for this new universe. The helpers would create beginnings whilst the reapers would guide them back to exousia, once their time came.

Greed’s realm remained intact throughout the move as his people took advanced measures to protect themselves. Nomos was able to trap Greed and his people in a separate dimension. With all the laws now keeping the universe together, Nomos is the only one powerful enough to supress Greed...however, not completely," Lilith said.

"Of course, so what was wrong with this grand system Nomos created? He didn’t have a high enough throne for himself?" Grayson asked sarcastically.

"..." Lilith stared in silence.

"Sorry, that was the Grayson in me talking. Nomos still kind of pisses me off," Grayson said.

"That’s normal, you guys never really got along. It’s kind of amazing that you still don’t like him despite not remembering anything," Lilith said. "Anyways, what was wrong was Thanatos!" Lilith added.

"He’s just another variant of myself, right? He can’t be that big of a problem," Grayson said.

"He is the biggest problem. Thanatos isn’t your variant; he is Greed’s familiar. Greed’s philosophy attacks the mind. It twists and amplifies desires. We were both too weak to fight back. Thanatos gained control of all the reapers and helpers. With our powers scattered all around the universe, he easily deceived them into following Greed’s philosophy.

Instead of bringing back the souls to exousia, you kept them for yourself. Nomos has been able to save a few with his familiars, but those aren’t enough to stop Greed’s growth. His laws don’t allow him to forcibly take the souls that don’t have exousia’s nature within them. Thanatos successfully corrupted the system.

Across all the worlds, you will find Greed’s philosophy being practiced. People wanting fame, wealth, strength, far more than they could ever need. Greed is the reason even the beasts in Evnoia now attack others and each other.

Thanatos keeps this philosophy alive, waiting for the day Greed becomes powerful enough to break free again. There’s no guarantee that stopping Thanatos would prevent this. Nonetheless, sooner or later, we will be in the midst of another war," Lilith explained.

"Where is Greed being trapped?" Grayson asked.

"At the end of the wide path." Lilith answered.

Grayson was not surprised by this. He had always felt something sinister coming from deep within the abyss at the end of the wide path.

"So, what do you plan to do?" Lilith added.

After a moment of thinking, he said, "We should still go to the North. We need to increase our strength and prepare for the war. Right now, our biggest obstacle is Thanatos. We can’t allow Greed to just take over my realm. Other than Dunamis, anyone else probably isn’t worth our time."

"I agree. We should still be careful though. Throughout the entire universe, Nomos has closely watched over two planets: Earth and Evnoia. Do you know why that is?" Lilith asked.

"Earth because that is where you and I went into hiding and Evnoia because that is where it all started..." Grayson guessed.

"You’re not wrong; both of those are true. However, Evnoia isn’t just the place it all began, it is a threat! There are existences here that made even Nomos feel weary. It is why he monitors and places even more restrictions here than even on Earth.

Because of the high concentration of exousia in Evnoia. The creatures here have grown to be extremely powerful. Powerful enough to rival even us concepts. If we are to meet a white grimme or a deity, we need to avoid fighting them. We aren’t in a position where we can fight them yet.

Even some Heavenly Hosts may be too much for us. I heard you managed to defeat one with Azrael and Death, but that beast had only just evolved to a Heavenly Beast. You simply got lucky. It won’t always be that way," Lilith said.

"Don’t worry, I’m not some maniac who will just attack anything in my way," Grayson assured.

"Anha..." Lilith said sarcastically.

After the marmot incident, Grayson and Lilith ran for over a day before finally reaching the North’s territory. A majority of Evnoia was underdeveloped, so seeing a fancy looking entrance and paved roads suddenly was quite surprising.

However, what was most surprising was the absence of any hosts or even guards. Normally, there would be someone stationed at the border to brief hosts for such special missions.

"Let’s go." Grayson said.

All they could do was keep moving, so they did. An hour had passed, and they had yet to see any signs of life. It was dead silent the entire way, not even beasts or insects could be heard. As soon as the city in the north came into view, they finally understood why. Far off into the distance, the great sect of the North was seen up in flames. The mountain at the centre was intact, but the surrounding city was up in smoke.

A once magnificent city was nearly in ruins. Grimmes could be seen flying around the city and patrolling the outskirts. A suffocating pressure came from deep within the city.

"The north has been taken over by the grimmes! For them to pull this off, they must have had at least a handful of white grimmes within their ranks. This isn’t something we can handle!" Lilith said, unbeknownst of the beings behind them.