The morning had come. Well, not in Undermoon. Or in Infernius for that matter. But for the surface of the mortal world, the sun was up and out, the minute I got, looked through, and willed away, the notification that alerted me to the reality that I had become a god of necromancy and trickery.
It was an odd feeling. And that wasn't even getting into how it literally felt to be able to exert influence over necromantic magic. And as Hagitha went to her room to go to bed, I found myself alone and was introspective for a second.
I have known necromancy for so long... I was days old when I first heard that eerie voice in my head. It was so odd, so... random, at the time. And now I can do this. I thought, before reaching out with my mind and touching the mind of one of the ghouls close to me. To prove a point to myself.
The ghoul was a simple creature. It was a dark-elf, but one with an atrophied mind and an atrophied body. Its once beautiful features were gone now, unlife energy had warped and molded them into something feral, predatory, and rabid. I looked at the thing and smiled. And then our minds touched.
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I didn't know what to expect when I touched the mind of the ghoul. Even though the ghoul in front of me was once a dark elf, ghouls were not known, even by the system, for their intelligence. At least not most of the time.
[Species Knowledge Notification: Ghouls
Ghouls are the most powerful of the bottom tier of undead beings. This bottom tier includes skeletons, zombies, lesser undead animals, and ghouls.
The majority of ghouls have one driving motivation: the urge to consume. They are driven by this potent desire, a desire so strong that it overwhelms their minds and prevents them from thinking of other things unless awakened.
Ghouls have the potential to be incredibly powerful beings. These undead creatures don't need to breathe, sleep, and technically they don't need to eat either, they just want too. They are smart enough to use weapons of their own volition but only rarely do so, though that changes if they are given skills related to weapon-usage that make them more proficient at it.
The truth about ghouls is that they are overwhelmed by the sparks of unlife that animate them. The sparks that animate the average ghouls are flawed, crude things that are not as potent as the sparks of unlife at your disposal.
A handful of worlds exist wherein ghouls are not the crude, simple things mortals in this world believe them to be. In these worlds ghouls thrive, or in some cases thrived, because they became protected by gods and other powerful beings who helped them cope with their hunger. This allowed them a chance to develop, and a chance to become something more.
One of the most real dangers posed by ghouls is that they spread by disease. A ghoul's bite has a real chance of infecting anyone unlucky enough to survive it with a sickness that turns them into ghouls. Ill-prepared communities can and have been destroyed by the arrivals of singular ghouls with stealthy abilities or uncommon luck.
Ghouls blessed by deities of disease can become horrendously powerful champions of death and pestilence. You can infect those you touch with this disease yourself since you have ghouls who worship you, in an unintelligent and vicious way but it still counts.
Ghouls, like most undead, cannot evolve. Though awakened ghouls can become so wise they are basically a different species.]
Because of that notification, I connected myself to the mind of the ghoul with both curiosity and trepidation. And what I first heard was something raw. Something carnivorous. And in its own way, something overwhelming.
[I... HUNGER.] The thing thought. The voice in its mind, simply sung this unholy refrain over and over again. I listened to it for nearly a minute. I chuckled at it. I looked the ghoul in the face, locked eyes with it even.
Its eyes were hollow holes in its head, but as I touched its mind I peered into them. At first, the things stayed tiny black holes in its head, colorless orbs that were as animate as precious gemstones but a lot less valuable. Perfectly still, almost serene things. Especially when you knew the violence that a ghoul was capable of. But after I kept starring at them for a second, something changed.
I was still for a few seconds and I kept watching the orbs. And then there was a flicker of movement. A sudden spark of something, something spry and that didn't belong there, in a still sea of void-like darkness. I chuckled. How... curious. I thought, before reentering its mind for a second, to see if something else had changed.
[I HUNGER. I... Hunger.] The voice in its mind told me. The first repetition of its favorite verse in some deadly song that repeated itself in its mind was strong and unyieldly. But that second one wasn't. It was slow. It was quiet. It was less certain. This must be the effect of it being awakened. Slowly but surely. I thought, remembering one of my powers. And so the third time I hoped into its mind I spoke.
[Hello little one.] I said, greeting the thing with kindness and warmth. The thing's head snapped in my direction, and its eyes stared back at me. I saw the same strange sprightly energy from before making itself clear to me once more. There was no hostility. Instead, I was met with endless patience. And cold curiosity. I chuckled at the energy and was assured that I had seen what I thought I had. Truly curious. I thought, amused by the situation.
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But not what I'm here for. Not today. I thought, aware that I'd likely come back soon and begin to explore this more thoroughly.
No. I need to focus. I need to gather my power and defeat Paimon. That's got to be my priority. I thought to myself. I wrapped myself in my teleportation power, and whisked myself away to a place not far from the harpy village. And as I was teleporting myself to that place my thoughts focused keenly on the face of my foe.
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Teleportation was a powerful ability to have at my disposal. It granted me nearly perfect freedom of movement and the ability to escape all sorts of sticky situations. And it also gave me the ability to enter such situations. That was what happened when I activated it this time.
I pulled myself across the universe, instantly traveling from a strange mausoleum-like place to the depths of the Infernian desert. And I also teleported myself from a calm, enemy-free place into a place that wasn't calm or free of any foes.
Of all the places to find me... I complained when I was fully in the desert, able to see the foe that no doubt went to great lengths to find out where I was going to go in the desert.
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Humans have plenty of weirdly specific expressions. That's something I quickly learned while picking up the memories of my handful of human worshipers, and the less rare other humans I've come across. One of their expressions, perhaps one of the more useful ones, is about devils. Well, technically it's about "the devil", a sort of mythical, archetype humans use to broadly discuss diabolical things.
"Speak of the devil and he doth appear". That was the expression. I learned of it a few days ago, while experiencing the memories of one of the knights who is now a member of the army I’m assembling in the world of the mortals. At the time I stored it away, thinking it was little more than a fanciful and pithy expression humans used to express both shock and amusement at the subject of their idle gossiping appearing before them at an inopportune time.
And despite my skepticism of it at the time I heard it, it was perfectly applicable to me right now, in the depths of the desert. Where I stood face to face with my one persistent enemy.
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The first thing I saw in the depths of the desert was a familiar face. But it wasn't a familiar face I was in any rush to be reunited with.
The figure before me was a powerful devil. He stood around four meters tall, and had withered red skin. He was a truly ancient being and his appearance suggested that. He looked just like how I remembered him, aside from the fact that since I had last seen him he had grown a small beard. A tiny, messy thing of silver hair that added scruffiness to the falsely kind-looking face that had opposed me throughout my life.
Paimon was standing before me, having somehow either happened to be here at the same time as I was arriving by coincidence, which wasn't likely at all, or somehow having known that I'd be here.
The devil wore artfully crafted robes that to my magically sensitive eyes radiated an almost nauseating rainbow of colors. A quick glance at it confirmed that every sort of magic I had encountered and was cognizant of was present and accounted for in every stitch and seam of the clothing that adorned the elderly devil's body.
His wizen face was far too confident for my liking. His cat-like eyes stared at me and studied me in much the same way that I observed and studied my foes. And I didn't doubt that the devil staring at me regarded my chances of a victory against him to be slim to none. I locked eyes with him and tried something I hadn't done during either of our last encounters: I reached out to his mind using my limitless magical energy and mind skills.
He broke out in a grin when he realized what I was doing. And I didn't when the system responded to me alerting me to the ineffectiveness of my attempt.
[Alert:
Paimon's own mental powers and defenses have successfully defended him against your attempt to tie your minds together.]
I hissed, both mentally and physically. And then I tried something else, something that I knew to suspect wouldn't work either. I mentally lunged at my enemy, forcefully aiming a mental blast at him in an attempt to render him vulnerable to my attacks. The devil let out an audible chuckle while easily taking the blow and deciding to stay still in front of me as if to proudly project that I couldn't hurt him.
"Enough Althos. I know we are enemies, but must you be so savage to me?" He asked, a glimmer of what he no doubt felt was wit and an attempt at humor coloring the delivery of his rhetoric.
"Paimon... Must I remind you that you were the one who attempted to claim me as a prize, not once but twice? You even interrupted an attempt at vengeance on an old and hated foe by of one of my servants. And that's not to mention the countless attacks on my servants and I." I told the devil, remembering very distinctly how he viewed me as a prize of sorts when we first met and then tried to defeat me and my servants while we cleared a dungeon in another part of the desert.
He chuckled, a dry and raspy sound escaping his throat before he began to cough. "Is... that... what... you and your rebels think?" He asked, between coughs, referencing the devils who had agreed to serve me.
"Althos... do you not wish to know the plans I have? For you? And for everything else?" The megalomaniacal devil asked. I glared at him and responded as proudly as he had to me.
"If I want to know your secrets, you should know that you can't hide them from me." I hissed, venom and pride mixing in my words. I threw myself at him mentally, intending to steal into his mind and make his memories my own, a talent I hadn't begun to master the last time he and I had met.
And for my unsubtle efforts I was thoroughly and immediately rebuffed. His mind was like a steel wall, and I was like a warrior with anger problems and delusions of grandeur who had been immediately knocked down a peg by the workmanship of whoever built the wall when I hurled myself at said wall. Paimon began to laugh, audibly and imperiously.
"Althos... we will have time to fight. For now, I recommend you listen to your elders and set aside your pride. I wish to converse with you. That is the lawful thing to do." He told me. He practically spat that word, "lawful", out of his mouth. He said it with the tone of an unrepentant criminal caught by a clever law-enforcer, not of a clever tyrant who wielded the law like a surgical scalpel.
"You? Lawful?" I asked, scornfully. And this angered him.
"Silence, rebel." He said, once again spitting out another word. Rebel. He delivered it with venom. I grinned at him, appreciative of the fact that I had gotten under his skin, and watched him through my own narrow, anger-filled eyes as I worked to stomach my disgust for the man while he and I stared at each other.