GREED: ALL FOR WHAT?

The Transcendence Boat couldn't be defeated by them. It was something that could resist the power of ANNIHILATION, so they were helpless against it.

Their best bet was to capture the god of the soul before she could use the Transcendence Boat. That wasn't easy to do because she was skittish.

She always ran at the quickest speed whenever she noticed danger. So it wasn't until the 16th cycle of the time loop that they managed to catch her.

They devoured her and began studying the Transcendence Boat. Then they used the knowledge she possessed and the knowledge analyzed from the Transcendence Boat to perfect their plan.

All the knowledge and experience they had gained from resisting ANNIHILATION finally became useful. They combined it with their evolution to mimic the Time Lock, the god of souls special state to become invisible and invulnerable, plus the power of Transcendence Boat using the power of Evolution. This led to a massive improvement in the power of the Aspect of Independence.

Unfortunately, it still wasn't enough. They failed to withstand the power of ANNIHILATION in the 17th cycle. An aspect simply cannot match the power of an ABSOLUTE no matter how special it is.

They tried again and again in the 18th, 19th, and 20th cycles. Each time they expanded their knowledge and increased their chances of success by devouring the god of the soul and studying the Transcendence Boat.

But all of their attempts failed. What's more, the power of ANNIHILATION had become so strong that the clones had run out of time to devour the void universe. ANNIHILATION was destroying them faster than they could use the void universe to expand their existence.

So they were back on square one. But this time, all they had was themselves. They had to find the solution within themselves, or they would die.

To kill two birds with one stone, they began to devour each other.

By the 20th cycle of the time loop, they only had 1.625 hours before they reached the dead end. They wouldn't be able to devour any meaningful portion of the void universe at that time. It was more efficient to devour the other clones who were nearby and readily available.

Besides, if they want to increase the power of the Aspect of Independence to match an Absolute. They had to fuse other aspects to it.

Since the aspects of a single clone weren't enough, they could only take the aspect of Independence in the Supreme laws of the other clones for themselves.

So they began to fight each other for survival. Unity had helped them as far as it could. What they need now is Independence, not unity.

Every clone is selfish and wants to survive. They are willing to sacrifice the other clones if they will survive. So they didn't show any mercy to each other.

Unfortunately, this strife weakened all of them. After all, without Unity, they became weaker on their own and couldn't resist ANNIHILATION as much as they could do in the past.

They had to come to terms with their situation. They were intelligent enough to understand that they stood no chance.

They knew this, but they still continued to fight for survival. They devoured themselves and tried every means they could until they couldn't anymore.

As they were dying, they said, "Let it be known that Legion fought to the end. We never gave up, but an ABSOLUTE was beyond us."

Then they died.

Back in the time stream, at the moment, the system devoured the will of the void universe. At that very moment, the Time Lock became ineffective, so the ban on the manipulation of time had become ineffective.

Legion began to change that very moment. Their existence began to expand into a previously locked dimension. They were finally able to reach out to their past and future selves.

All of these changes were fueled by their aspect of Time, aspect of Unity, and the changes they made to themselves through their use of the aspect of Evolution to become the Time Lock.

Without the Time Lock restricting them, these two aspects and the changes they made to themselves could finally show their true power.

But there was still a limit to which part of the time stream their existence could connect together.

Because of the Time Lock, they couldn't connect to the past where the Time Lock was still in effect. And because of certain circumstances, they couldn't connect to their future versions, where those versions were killed and don't exist.

Because of these two constraints, the part of the time stream they could connect together in a straight line was very small. However, it was still useful.

The first main effect of connecting to their future and past versions was that their limitless existence was not only expanding in space as seen by the size of their world but was also expanding in time.

So they became stronger instantly and were still growing stronger until they reached their limit in time.

The second major effect was that they could receive messages from their future selves or send messages to their past.

Right now, they are the ultimate past, as they are right on the part of the time stream where their connection ends. Their connection couldn't continue into the past because the Time Lock is blocking it.

Right now, the Time Lock just lost its effect because its power source, the white sphere, was stolen by the god of power and because its controller, the Will of the Void Universe, was taken by the worm that the god of power is carrying.

They were currently outside the golden sphere, and they were supposed to rage impotently. But they did none of that because they received a message from their future.

The message was from their ultimate future that existed moments before they ventured outside of the void universe. That ultimate future was the version of them chasing the god of power up to the point when it reached the barrier of the void universe.