Chapter 1016 Who Eats Who Scattered all across the battlefield were the shattered pieces of the bodies of the Ouroboros Serpents. The implosion that ripped them apart, had sucked almost ninety-five percent of their body mass away. If it were not for the constant influx of energy by the other two Ouroboros Serpents relentlessly feeding on the Calamity God below, then the fragile avatars of the Serpents would have been thoroughly destroyed. Despite this fact, the Ascendant could have been the one to win this battle, with the bodies of four of the serpents all but destroyed, they could have been easily contained, and with the dangerous nature of the present battlefield, they would have fled this place with their price, these serpents would be taken apart and understood, their powers suppressed, controlled and of possible, duplicated, but the scales once more tipped away from their favor, for a deluge of Purified Aura slammed into the earth, and sank deeply into the body of the Calamity God. The ends of the Ouroboros Serpents never left the flesh of the Calamity God, and despite the terrifying battle ongoing, the serpents had never revealed more than twenty percent of their entire length. They were just too massive, and unlike their normal bodies, these stone flesh could not accurately channel the impressive powers of their bodies, but that was all about to change. "These creatures are not dead." An Ascendant Explorer watched in fascination as the rocks on the ground began to vibrate, "Take what we can contain, and let's leave. This site deserves to be treated with utmost importance and priority." He pointed at the seemingly unending flood of Purified Aura entering the ground, "Look at all this Aura, our battle may have shattered nearby continents, but the amount reaching this place is almost as if ten thousand continents were destroyed. This is the final proof we need." Even as thy Ascendant Explorer was speaking, they were already making motions with their gaseous bodies, linking up with the ship and readying the containment unit that would ferry the pieces of the serpents they could gather." 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎 In a part of the battlefield that was not yet within the gaze of the Ascendant, a piece of rock which turned out to be a broken piece of an Ouroboros Serpent's eye saw what was transpiring, and its cold gaze was replaced by cunning. Scattered around the battlefield, four small pieces of rock in the shape of a heart began to glow. This caught the attention of the Ascendants. Gathering the parts of the serpents left was ultimately a result of them failing their mission and wanting to flee this place with something to show for it. As far as they could tell the entire bodies of the stone serpents were still deep inside the flesh of the Calamity God and without enough of it, they would never be able to duplicate the ability to purify Chaotic Aura that these serpents had shown. The presence that suddenly erupted from these glowing pieces drew their attention, and they did not even need to deliberate among themselves before they shot towards the pieces, all of them separating to claim them. This could be the central core of the serpents or if not, it was important enough that leaving with it could change the direction of this conflict, and they would not be leaving without tangible results after losing an Ascendant to this mission. The stone flesh that they discarded, chasing after the glowing hearts began to bleed. One golden drop at a time. The greatest volume of blood emerged from the eye, and this blood, apparently having a mind of its own, began to pool together, but all these changes were hidden. The Primordial Ouroboros Serpents finally had enough influence from the unknown purple Aura to begin the next stage of their Avatar transformation, and they began discarding the flesh made from stone. The Ascendants seized the glowing hearts and hurried back to their ship, and as if in further confirmation of the rightness of their actions, the pieces of stone flesh left behind by the serpents began to crumble to dust. Hurriedly beginning containment procedures, the Ascendants were sealing the glowing hearts while also ascending out of the crater when the situation unexpectedly changed once again. The figure of Noah Rithmast hanging over the battle and still mysteriously undamaged through all the devastation had been screaming all these while, and suddenly he stopped, and he began laughing, "hahaha… who eats who… who eats who… who eats who…" ? The Calamity God was nameless, it was not even aware that its name was called a Calamity God, and although it was ancient beyond reckoning, in the scale of time where the age of Calamity gods was measured, it was barely an infant. Like all infants, it mostly slept, and for most newborn Calamity God, their slumber was eternal, no matter how much they ate, the threshold for awakening to a higher state of being was so high, that few ever made it, and they would slumber to save every single iota of energy, for the eventual hope that they would evolve. In this world, everything struggles in their own way. Calamity Gods were born with near omnipotence, but their power kept them shackled to the depths of the Earth till perhaps the end of all things. A Calamity God could withstand a lot of punishment and choose to remain in slumber, due to the fact that regenerating its flesh was a simple thing, and no matter how much it was injured, it could heal from nearly any damage without using any of its stored energy, because it stole essence from the world itself. No, the right word was given. The world gave the Calamity God an infinite pool of essence to build their flesh, it was the reason their bodies could extend for miles, even at birth. However, today the damages this Calamity God was suffering were different, the Primordial Ouroboros Serpents were not just consuming its flesh, they were directly consuming its energy stores—Darkness. This world was steeped in darkness. It was a power that the Calamity God possessed that gave them the right to be some of the most powerful creatures in existence. The Ascendant Explorers rarely tried to destroy young Calamity God because destroying their flesh was useless, and although they were aware of the energy stores of these creatures, they rarely attacked those stores because a young Calamity God was protected by the Will of this world, and they were granted powers beyond their limit in order to protect them when they were yet vulnerable. For this reason, attempting to kill a young Calamity God was forbidden, due to the fallout from such a thing, and if they knew that there were two other Ouroboros Serpents inside the body of the Calamity God that were actively draining it of its energy stores in stupendous amounts, they would have fled in fear a long time ago. There was an unwritten rule; it was forbidden to awaken a young Calamity God. The last time it happened, it took the descent of several High Tier Ascendants that left their Ancient and Primordial Continents just to quell the chaos, because of something terrible that happens when a Calamity God is awakened… it does not rise alone.