At some point, I grew tired of walking towards my enemies and decided to teleport to them. One instant I am shambling towards my foes, my floral roots planting themselves in all sorts of spots throughout the street I was strolling through, and the next I am suddenly standing over their fallen, convulsing forms.
The devils were on their backs, all four of them in fact, and they were in the process of becoming pained spore-zombies. I knew with a glance that if I didn't act these odd devils would die, not long after their transformation into my minions was complete. I studied them, examining the nature of their injuries.
They had broken bones, which in a handful of cases were jutting out of their bodies. They had literally cut through flesh and were poking outward as if seeking moonlight. The broken bones were completely broken, not fractured or splintered but torn apart and gruesomely on display. I could feel the pain the devils were in, even as unconscious as they appeared to be.
I released a soft sound of my own, an annoyed one since I knew that the spore-zombies that were about to come into being would be weak. It's a good thing I got here when I did. I realized, as I immediately began to expel potent, restorative energy out of my palms and towards the fallen devils.
Their skin began to gently glow, and the damage itself began to become undone before me. My hands radiated with potent restorative energies, and the energy seeped from me into their forms but not before lighting up the air between us. Ugh, you stupid bastards. I thought, frustrated by the fact that I was doing this instead of readying myself for my foe, Gugrog, who drew ever nearer.
According to my Tremor-Sense power, my fierce foe was slowly approaching me, along with four other devils. I didn't doubt my ability to defend myself and defeat the things, but I wanted to fight them seriously and without distractions. So, as I was wont to do I began to scheme about how to ensure that we got to fight in a fun manner, and where they didn't get to destroy the uncoordinated distraction I had prepared for the city.
Healing the devils whose vehicle had crashed into my thin curtain of force from earlier took just a few seconds. Once it was done I turned around and began to teleport off into the distance. I simply and repetitively teleported as far as I could see.
Before I made it very far I ran into another humvee. It was slowly approaching my horde, and I chuckled at it as it began to get closer to my minions. Instead of dealing with the thing, I cast a single, simple spell.
[Spell Type: Conjuration
Spell Name: Banishing Cage
Spell Effect: This spell creates a cage of force and binding magic that traps the targets in an inescapable space. If the target is moving they continue moving, but they are immediately whisked away to demi-plane where they are trapped for as long as the caster feels like maintaining the spell.
Spell cost: 1,000 magical energy per minute spell is maintained.]
The spell's energy immediately manifested itself as a ray of silver energy at the end of my fingertip. It shot forth and ensnared the moving vehicle, lighting up the air around the thing before vanishing, taking the vehicle with it. I chuckled gently at the sight of it and moved to continue my journey forward.
I was intending to appear before my foe and take us away, temporarily, while he and I clashed. It didn't take me long to reach him.
----------------------------------------
A fair distance away from where the fungal-floral form of Althos had just healed the newly created spore-zombies, a small party of creatures was wandering the same dimly lit street as the army of highly affectionate mindless beings. They had no idea that he was approaching, nor that he was aware of them.
They weren't aware of him, only that somewhere in the city there was a god causing mischief. They were one of many squads of soldiers dispatched to try and locate and eliminate the source of the eerie magic visible in the skies above the city.
They were a small group, just five devils, but there was an air about them. They radiated confidence, professionalism, and discipline.
Four of them were intermediate-tier soldier devils, elite members of a species of devil whose entire existence revolved around combat and warfare. The four of them were wearing the uniforms of Bastille, standard-issue red bulletproof vests adorned with insignia from Bastille, and combat-adaptable pants that protected their legs from all sorts of injuries.
They had identical faces, as though they were mass-produced, and they moved in lockstep. They had knives at their sides, and guns in their hands.
The weapons they held tightly in their hands were rifles. They were thick things, carried in both arms by their wielders. They were made of infernal metal, a metal mined on this very layer. Each of the rifles was of the same make and model, and each was mystically tied to their wielders so that no other person may use them.
They had long barrels, ornately designed things intended to and effective at increasing the accuracy of the few bullets the warriors had fired over the course of their lives.
One of them, Gugrog, was not a lowly soldier devil. He was a hulking thing, one of the incredibly rare "Krieg-Devils", potent monstrosities that were the militaristic equivalent of a Vizier-devil, the strongest devils that weren't arch-devils or true-devils.
Gugrog was even larger than Althos was, standing an astounding 8 and a half meters tall. His arms were as thick as dwarves were tall, and his legs were comparable to the entire masses of bulls.
He wore golden armor that stood out and drew attention to himself, which suited the berserker just fine. He tightly held a war hammer made of celestial gold in two, gloved hands. The war hammer was huge as well, with the actual head of the thing being an entire meter thick.
Althos appeared before him right as the devil was blinking and immediately struck with a single potent usage of his teleportation powers, grabbing ahold of his shoulders for just a moment. The devil was instantly transported far away, moving from the interior of the city to an empty part of the desert not far from where Mahmud's corpse laid rotting, in the span of the moments it took the devil to finish blinking. Althos also marked the devil's mind so as to locate him in a second when the devil's allies were brutally dispatched.
And then Althos turned his attention to the four soldier devils, who were momentarily shocked that their sudden foe not only looked how he looked but also that he was able to effectively remove their leader from battle so easily. Althos' head turned to face them, and he sprung into violent action.
----------------------------------------
The scene around me was one of shocked fright. Four devils, some sort of warrior devils, looked at me and radiated fear and surprise. In fairness to them, I had just taken out the devilish equivalent of a general in an instant, before anyone here even knew I was nearby. So it made some sense for them to be afraid.
If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
I lunged through the air, throwing myself and all of my floral weight, at the closest devil to me. I reached out one of my hands towards the neck of the warrior and at first, I grinned, internally anyway. My hand made contact with the warrior's throat, vines quickly wrapping themselves around his Adam's apple and other parts of the sensitive area. But he wasn't a bad warrior.
The devil's hand flew to the knife at his side, and in a flash, he brought it to my hand made of vines. The knife was a handy thing, made of infernal obsidian, and had a cruelly sharp point perfect for stabbing.
He slashed at me, trying to free himself from my cruel grip, but the effort was ineffectual at best. His quick stabs couldn't penetrate or even truly damage my vine-formed fingers. I grimaced in annoyance at his effort and pride. I infused my floral appendage with unlife energy, something which caused my vines to darken and radiate darkness and proceeded to squeezed his neck, my prodigious strength demonstrating itself with my vines crushing his neck in an instant.
I'll go ahead and steal his soul. I told myself, as I quickly cast Harvest Soul on him as his body became a corpse in my hand. And then I let him go, his body slumping to the ground as his life faded from him. This'll cause him to come to life as an undead creature and help me out. I thought to myself, eager to see the synergy between my idle powers.
And it's time to take out the rest of the trash. I thought, as I speedily mutated my vine-appendages, covering them in razor-sharp prickles that would rend the rare bits of exposed flesh of my enemies. I turned my attention over to my other enemies, who had hopped away from me and were attempting to aim their guns at me. One down, three to go. I told myself, with a smirk on my mental face.
----------------------------------------
Nearly a minute later I felt the power of four infernal souls stirring within me, in a part of me similar to what mortals would think of as their stomachs. Two of the corpses were already beginning to shake as they were infused with idle unlife energy, and they began to exude a stench of brimstone as their bodies were strengthened by my power. And now for the real fight. I thought, before teleporting myself to the location of my foe.
----------------------------------------
I found myself in the depths of the desert, sand underneath me, and my foe in front of me, a distance of a dozen meters separating us. I grinned at the devil who was dashing speedily at me and had been dashing through the desert in an attempt to locate a settlement to ravage in rage before noticing me and adjusting himself slightly so as to tackle me when I popped into view.
"Gugrog." I said, my voice coming across as pained, due to the nature of my snout. The devil's eyes stared at me, rage and bloodlust filling them. I'll enjoy this. I thought as I prepared myself to deal with the devil's first blow. Each millisecond that passed allowed him to draw nearer and nearer to me. When the thing was within striking range he swung his massive hammer at me, lifting the thing up and hoping to strike me with a downward smash.
When the weapon was close enough for me to feel the air pressure and wind the force of his attack generated, I ducked down and the blow swung harmlessly overhead. The devil roared in frustration, and I dashed in close enough that I could counterstrike since my enemy had massive reach.
And now for the first blow. I said to myself, in my head. I was very close to the dashing devil and his imposing form hadn't stopped moving just yet, though he was now advancing unsteadily rather than aggressively, being pulled forward by his own momentum. In an attempt to take advantage of his confusion and frustration, I hopped up to get close enough to his head to strike and aimed at his chin.
I shot out my fist, aimed squarely at the underside of the devil's head. My floral fist collided hard with his unarmored chin, in the form of a carefully aimed and intensely powerful uppercut that was empowered by speed, muscle, and aiming. Think like a monk. I told myself, as my fist's force lifted the devil off the ground.
"Grah!" The devil hissed, the force of my blow rattling his head. He was now off the ground, unwillingly and by only a few centimeters, but as he was forced upward he refocused and his eyes shot downward to keep him locked on me. Not bad. I thought, admiring his focus.
Gugrog roared, the sound savage and offputting, no doubt honing in his rage and threw himself downwards so that he could return to the ground. But I wouldn't let him do what he wanted. I surged forward and planted a leg of mine where he would have been if he had moved faster, so as to keep his unsteady and unable to do as he pleased.
"You think that'll stop me!? You bug!" He roared, anger infusing his voice with power and he landed onto my plant-form leg, his full-weight severing the limb from my body in an explosion of fury. The limb was forcibly severed from my body, in a messy explosion of saplike blood. I felt a storm of pain wrack my consciousness, incomparable to anything I had ever experienced before.
For the first time in my life, I felt a serious amount of pain surge through me, so much so that for a second my vision went black and I let out a pain-filled howl of my own. As that happened I also received a notification. Two of them actually.
----------------------------------------
Althos's head reared back as pain assaulted him, and he began to radiate a sound that was so loud that at close range it brought the devil he was facing to its knees. Althos' howling preventing the devil from seizing this moment to get revenge on the god for defeating his master, and in turn, made the devil far angrier.
The noise that exploded out of the deity was a pain-filled screech. It was a shrill sound, one that rang out across the desert. The deity's snout was opened wide, and the sound he was emitting was so loud they produced a visible, wave-like effect that surrounded and in a sense protected him because it made it difficult to attack him.
The devil's attention and rage were focused on the deity. This caused him to be oblivious to the strange, saplike fluid that was Althos' blood. The god's blood soaked the ground around Gugrog and was seeping into the sand.
And at that moment, Althos' more focused consciousness was receiving a pair of notifications.
----------------------------------------
[Damage report:
Gugrog the Krieg-Devil's rage-filled stomp inflicted considerable damage to your floral form. One limb has been severed from your body. You have lost a quarter of your health.
Your regenerative abilities have kicked in for the first time. Your pain has caused you to emit a pain-filled screech, which due to your physical and magical capabilities has transformed into something like a banshee's wail that immobilizes nearby foes.]
[Alert:
As a deity of both undeath, through the subdomain of necromancy, and healing, you possess heightened regenerative powers. Your powers allow you to sustain even greater damage than this with little negative repercussions, aside from the pain you feel at the time of the blow. Even now you are regenerating.
The nature of the blow you received caused you to bleed. As a god, your blood causes forced evolutions and mutations to mortals and extraplanars who consume it, or otherwise absorb it. Creatures who can't evolve, such as ones who possess no evolutionary forms, instead undergo even stranger transformations than a simple evolution.
The circumstances of how the blood is shed affect the transformation too. The blood you shed willingly mutates and shreds the minds of the creatures who consume it, turning them into loyal thralls or increasing their loyalty to you. Any blood you lose in battle can be consumed by creatures without them losing their sense of selves.]
----------------------------------------
When I willed away the notifications I had gotten, I refocused. A terrible pain still wracked my brain, but I could push it aside for a moment.
"You!" I hissed, the word practically spat out of my snout in equal parts rage and disgust. The devil, on his knees, as he tried to recover enough to stand up, grinned at me.
I lunged at him, leaping on one foot, and slammed him in the face with a single heavy fist. The force of my heavy blow hurled him to the ground. He was thrown back and he landed face-first into a ton of sand that was covered in my blood. I immediately moved to prevent him from absorbing my blood, reaching towards his fallen form with my other hand.
I better not let him consume any of my blood. I thought, my mind still a bit hazy from the pain I felt. Unfortunately, I was too late. Before my eyes, Gugrog's mouth opened and some of the bloodsoaked sand found its way into his maw. He actually swallowed some of it unconsciously, just a few grains, but it was enough.
The war-devil's body immediately began to glow, his form radiating an eerie and infernal light.
"Damn it!" I shouted, angered and determined to put an end to the thing's life before he could finish evolving. I lunged at the thing, ready to reach out and wring its neck.