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Avarice paused to regain his composure.
"But, I'll have to go back a bit to answer your questions. None of you most likely remember, but did you know there was once a being more powerful than any of us? I can still remember their presence when I was born. The being created us out of nothing and gave portions of their power to each of us. When I was young, I could only imagine how much power our creator must've held. It was awe-inspiring," he said, full of nostalgia.
"Wait, how can you remember your first life," Za'Fia interrupted.
Avarice smirked.
"Be patient; I'll get there," Avarice stated before continuing.
"Believe it or not, as a kid, I was nothing. Everything I did was outdone by everyone else. It was infuriating, watching each of them surpass me when, technically, I was the oldest. I should've been on top. I wanted nothing more than to surpass every one of them, to dwarf each in ability—especially Michael and Tymon, who shined more than any of us. I had no idea if there was a God listening, but I prayed night after night for a way to get stronger or to bring those above me down. Then came the day we were taught about our birth. After realizing the dream I always had about our creator wasn't a dream at all, I wanted nothing more than to experience that kind of power. It was to the point I'd even fantasize about obtaining it."
Avarice began slowly pacing in front of Za'Fia's container as he immersed himself in his story.
"After a while, I understood what I had to do to achieve that goal – I had to figure out a way to take the power of the other Primordials. If our creator split their power, it only made sense that recombining them would grant me the same power. My problem, however, was that I had the least amount of spirit energy, and mine didn't have any elemental properties like the others, so that put me at the weakest. One night, after sneaking out of the village – back then, we weren't allowed to leave before mastering our abilities – I encountered my first human who wasn't part of my village. It was a thief of all things who wanted to rob me. We were always told that our spirit energies could affect humans, but this was my first time witnessing it. From simply being near me, I could feel that human's greed be amplified. As his greed grew, a....hunger inside me grew as well. It swelled until I somehow began to take that greed away from the human. Although the sensation was indescribable, I still sensed there was more to take, so I reached out to absorb everything I could from the human."
Avarice paused and exhaled as if reliving the experience as he told the story.
"That was when I learned that I could amplify and feed on a human's greed. And I could take their spirit energy in the process. As that man lay dead before me, I could tell I was a bit more powerful. It was hardly noticeable, but it was enough for me to understand," he said.
"I kept this ability secret, and three times a week, I would sneak from the village at night to try it on other nearby villages. Of course, the deaths didn't go unnoticed since whole villages were wiped out, but no one knew we had this ability or so they didn't think we were responsible. The humans, ignorant as they are, thought it was a plague set upon them. By the time we were 18, I'd become just as powerful as Naomi, who'd been the second weakest, so it was motivating to see that the first part of my plan, which was to surpass them, could work given time. But at the rate it was going, how long would that take?"
Avarice picked up an apple from a nearby bowl of fruit as he continued.
"That same day, we were taught about only being able to procreate once. Ever. And only with another Primordial. We were also informed about our lifespans being a thousand years before eventually reincarnating after our marks sucked up all our energy. That information helped me know I had plenty of time to take the others' power. After that, I devised a plan I expected would take a century or two before I was ready. I'd master hiding my energy so I couldn't be detected as I continued to feed from humans to increase my power."
As Avarice held the apple, a gold coating spread around it until it became a crystalline gold statue.
"That plan was short-lived because we all fully matured and flourished later that year. And so did our powers. Most of us gained powers we didn't know we had as our abilities surfaced, and as we each pushed each other to our limits to learn how to control them, we discovered our hybrid forms. Had it not been for the large amounts of PRP they kept, the Watchers would've been wiped out multiple times."
He began to shake his head as if he was still dismayed about what happened next.
"Suffice it to say, now that everyone was many times more powerful and the path to the top was more dangerous, I was forced to give up on the plan and instead focused on honing my power to perfection. Over the following 700 years, the world recognized us as The Primordials. Each of the others' names was either feared or worshipped, but I was seen as a joke and wasn't taken seriously, even as a god to these humans. And since greed wasn't as prominent in humans as it is now, becoming more powerful by feeding from their greed was a prolonged process. Even after seven centuries, I still hadn't surpassed anyone else."
Avarice tapped his index finger on the golden apple. Each tap sent cracks through the apple's surface that would mend itself before more were created.
"The Watchers eventually gave each of us fitting names based on our personalities and hybrid form – names that the humans would later recognize us by. For example, Michael was worshipped as the Healing Phoenix, and Tymon was feared as the Reaping Wolf. You, Za'Fia, were often out of control and became known as the Tempered Dragon. Then, there was Damien the Sensuous Feline, Arne the Proud Lion, Naomi the Jubilant Fox, and Verin the Demon of Despair."
Avarice suddenly gripped the apple statue so tight that it broke into multiple chunks. A vein protruding on his forehead showed Za'Fia how livid he'd suddenly become.
"And then there was me – Avarice the Greedy Goblin. I hated them all for that name, seething every time I heard it, but as luck would have it, I'd noticed I wasn't aging like the others over time. The extra energy I constantly took from humans replaced the energy my mark sucked from me the older I got. It proved to me that we were only aging because of our marks, but so long as we fed from humans, we'd negate it and stop aging. Unfortunately for them, none of the others figured that out, so they all died after a thousand years. But, before they died, I noticed something special about Tymon and Michael's marks that piqued my interest. I knew I couldn't do anything that time, but I was sure never to forget."
Avarice extended his hand with his palm facing the floor. Za'Fia watched silently as the golden apple chunks began to lift from the floor and reconstruct themselves in his palm. All of the apple's cracks disappeared as it regained its smooth surface.
"Shortly afterward, everyone reincarnated and spent sixteen to eighteen years growing into their power before regaining their strength, but they had all forgotten me and their past life. I immediately saw this as an advantage and reinstated my plan to take their power for myself eventually. I spent nearly a thousand years after that moving around the planet, feeding from humans, until I came across Verin, who hadn't aged either. She'd learned about feeding from humans as well. We teamed together and erased all evidence of either of us ever existing. I even went as far as to ensure that no information about our creator or creation remained. That way, we were the only ones privy to that knowledge, and we could go unnoticed while we spent the next five or six millennia bolstering our strength and creating a force that would rival the Primordials."
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