For the first time since entering the training ground, Althos was no longer alone. Two figures crept out from behind him, as he began to wrap up his howling. They trotted out from behind him, each of the two them carried on four powerful, albino-furred legs.
The two creatures were over three meters long and covered in dense, albino fur. They were around three meters tall, and to the uneducated eye, they probably looked more like gigantic bears than canine creatures. They walked on powerful legs, ending in knifelike claws, and their maws contained countless razor-sharp fangs.
Their faces weren't defined by their intimidating snouts or razor-sharp teeth. Instead, they were defined by their eyes. Their eyes were not conventional lupine eyes but rather orbs of fire situated where eyes ought to have been.
Their eyes smoldered with intelligence, and at the moment they looked around their master, eager to be ordered by their creator.
And the other defining feature of the hellhounds was the lion-like mane of felfire that grew from their faces. The fire was a sickly green color and burned brightly. One of the effects of the heat was that it caused the air around them to shimmer and almost sparkle blindly.
Althos turned and looked at them, studying them closely, the instant he finished his howl. After a few moments, he began to be overtaken by a powerful sense of curiosity.
These are powerful things. Are they the strongest creatures I've created to date? They very well might be, even if I'm thinking about all of this place's inhabitants... I wonder how smart they can... Can they speak? Althos' last question lingered in his mind before he decided to find out.
And then he uttered a single word. "Speak." His voice flowed out of him, reverberating throughout the plains and compelling the already eager creatures to obey him.
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Althos' primary will, the same body that sprung to life deep within the forest in Sailos, appeared to be either sleeping or in deep, contemplative meditation, as it explored Qu'Ren's memories.
The thing was seated on the floor in the same room he happened to find Malefactor and Heryensis in the middle of some pleasant fucking. They were long gone from the room, having gone elsewhere after having a brief conversation with the strange rebellion leader. Now the god was alone and his eyes were closed.
His breathing was slowed, his countenance serene, and his mind was calm. The eerie creature gently radiated an aura of powerful calmness, one that would have infected anyone who tried to approach him, had anyone done such a thing. No one did, since the cathedral he was inside of was now closely guarded by fanatical soldiers and other infernal leaders.
The entrance to the obsidian building was closely guarded by two phalanx devils. They were silently obeying an order given to them by Tristan, who had ordered them to stand outside of the religious building once she learned that Althos was mediating inside of the room that often served as her bed-room and headquarters.
She herself was presently one of several people in the cathedral's nave. She, her father, the imps, and the pious devils were all scattered about the darkened focal point of the cathedral. Each of the groups were seated in or around a pew that was located away from the others.
The knight-devil, Sir Casis Outborn, was located right outside of the sacristy, idly protecting his master. He stood still, glowering intimidatingly at anyone who dared to look in the direction of the back office of the religious building.
So this is what having people here feels like... Tristan thought, grinning as she stared out at the creatures around her and maintaining a grin on her face even as she nearly attracted another annoyed stared from Althos' self-appointed protector.
She could hear snippets of conversations all around her. She heard the plotting of pious devils, Salifinos struggling to teach a gradually growing gaggle of imps, and even the occasional mutterings of her father as he quietly commented on whatever Salifinos was lecturing his young proteges about.
"I see." The moth-devil, a refined nobleman with the eyes of a powerful moth and clad in the torn livery of a nearly fallen order, muttered quietly. He was listening carefully to Salifinos as the imp told the younger imps about the history of the layer. The noble-devil was listening as intently and as passionately as the devils who had been created by Althos' potent devil-craft were.
The pious devils were muttering about the state of the cathedral. Their eyes zoomed from dark corners to dark corner and their words weren't always kind ones.
"Is this place a fit monument to our dark liege?" One of them, a nun clad in clothes not unlike Tristan's own, asked. Her tone was sincere, not scathing, which made it hard for Tristan to be annoyed by the casual meanness of her question. Hard, but not impossible.
Well... it's been maintained by one person for decades so, probably not. Tristian thought to herself, somewhat annoyed by how her peers quietly questioned the state of the place instead of being grateful that such a place still existed in a layer of Infernius lorded over by a devil hostile to prophesy.
There are ups and downs to there being a lot of people here. Tristan realized, sighing as she began to look around for something to do.
And she was given something to do, by an unexpected source: the second dark saint, Althos himself.
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"We serve... the alpha." One of them said, speaking in haunting Infernian.
The alpha huh? So these ones know me by my mercurial alpha title? Is that the title all beasts know me by? I wish I had a better one if I'm being honest... Althos thought, after hearing the thing speak.
Its voice was low and each word was little more than a growl, but the mere visual power of the massive beast, coupled with it speaking at all was something that Althos felt would send a good message. Each time the thing's mouth opened some smoke leaked out of its maw, obscuring the sight of its teeth and its face.
Althos smiled after it spoke, patting the thing with one of his fur-covered paws and then began to speak himself.
"I can create as easily as I can destroy. Power, in my case anyway, isn't limited to acts of destruction, or shows of force. I am a god; a being of power. And my goals are simple." He said, his voice confident and self-assured.
"I seek knowledge. And I will gain it. I will gain all the knowledge that ever has been and ever will be. I will learn everything. One memory, one secret, one spell, and one ritual, at a time. Today, right now, I am committing to building an empire." He told his future listeners. He grinned as he said this.
"I will become an archdevil, a true one, and seize control of Infernius. And I will take the mortal dimension. Orcs and dark elves in one world already serve me. Others will come, in time. It may take a year. A decade. A century. An eon. But I will do it." He said, arrogance radiating out of him in a manner not unlike how he often emitted waves of power, even idly.
"There will be no tiny sliver of the multiverse where I am not known. No distant world where my name isn't uttered in praise." He said, imagining the scene himself, bolstered by memories of the moment when he gained his first worshipers and his servants.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
How much of this is a show, a lie to gain worshipers? And how much of it is my true, dark, pride? He wondered, in the safety of his mind.
And then he revealed a secondary, yet no less important, in the long run anyway, goal.
"I will master every domain and subdomain in existence. I will gain the power to reshape existence as I see fit. Whether I manifest this by resurrecting creatures, shattering silly curses petty gods subjected their servants too, I will gain the power to reshape everything as I wish." He said, feeling the potent pride of a god well up within him.
"I am power incarnate and I will not be limited. I will not be denied. Not forever anyway. But I am not without kindness." He said, beginning to attempt to assure those who wondered if he was pitiless.
"I will not harm those who come to me, those who recognize my power. I won't even go out of my way to harm those who cling to their pride, those who see me not as the embodiment of power but as a dangerous, possibly mad, entity unless they attempt to harm me or my servants." He said, confidence audible in his voice.
He looked straight ahead and began to call out to the mystical energy that flowed through him. He sung to it, drawing it to two specific parts of his body. And in moments he felt it well up in his hands, the concentrated eldritch energy electrifying the air around him.
And then he wordlessly flipped his hands so his palms faced the sky. And he cast one more spell. Dark energy began to radiate out of his hands, turning the air in front of him a miasmic shade of black. And that energy took hold nearly instantly, acting fast in accordance with his worshipers.
The ground in front of him exploded, dirt violently sailing upward as rows of zombies punched their ways through the illusionary surface. The moans of the dead filled the air, as shambling corpses began to pull themselves out of the ground and into the presence of their lord.
"I will master all that there is. Including death. Death will not provide anyone who opposes me with an escape, and it will not be an obstacle my servants need fear." He said as the first head of the fastest zombie began to peak out from the surface of the plain. The thing was bald, and its eyes were white orbs, as cold as death.
"Serve... me." Althos commanded, his voice not directed towards the undead he had just called forth from nothing, but rather at anyone who would witness this vision.
"You will worship me." He said, not asking, but demanding. At that moment the god was filled with arrogance and with power.
"And together, we shall create something new." He said as he willed assorted fungi into existence in front of him.
"I shall rule. And if you worship me, if you serve me, you will not need to fear death. Or pain. Or suffering. You will be the heralds of those things." He whispered as he loaded the vision with potent illusions, weaving together scenes of conquest, of domination, and of ambition into the mystical effect he was imparting on the vision.
I will speak the language of the ambitious. Of those who seek power. And I shall make them dependent on me. Make them feel powerful. He told himself, grinning internally all the while.
"If you serve me, whole worlds becoming yours isn't out of the question. After all, I can seek knowledge and you seek power. I care little for individual worlds. If you serve me well, convert people, animals, and all other living things to my service, you will be rewarded." He promised his most arrogant servants, those who saw themselves as grandiose and tyrannical. He loaded his words with arcane weight and eldritch oaths.
He began to end the vision, at least this sort of directly captured part of it anyway, by sweeping his arms in front of him and willing plants and other lifeforms into existence with little more than instinct. Humans were created next to trees, flowers sprung up beside dwarves, animals and trees sprung to life.
"I am a god. This power and more are at my disposal. If you join me, if you dedicate yourselves to me, this is the power that you are serving. That you are joining." He said as the eyes of his newest creations, all soulless automatons, weak things that he created for show, opened at once.
Their eyes gave them a purposeful, intense stare. They look... confident. Self-assured. Althos realized, after staring at them for a moment. Why is that? He wondered.
All of the things looked at him, their stare fixated on him, and then they fell to their knees before him. They bowed their heads, respectfully, and fell further still until they were prostrating themselves.
Oh! They are... submitting to me? He realized, curiously. Why is that? Is it that they are automatons and recognize me as their master? He questioned.
"Hey... what's up with this?" He shouted, and spoke mentally, reaching out to the system and to his advisors. He also took a second to inform the system that he was done recording scenes for the dream and vision he wanted to create.
[You made constructs. And because I know you're going to ask, a construct is a created creature that exists to obey its maker. What you created were humans and other creatures, but they lack a soul. Because they lack a soul, they lack the same sort of free will that you and your other creations have. They are basically flesh-puppets. Use them for labor or something.] Samyaza responded, quickly informing Althos as to what he did.
[Oh! Cool. I didn't know I could do that.] He said. And then he teleported the things away, blinking all of the creatures to Infernius.
[It's basically the usage of your original reconstitution power but since you have a more powerful mind you can mimic its effects without the limitations that that particular power had. You weren't intending to make constructs which is probably by you didn't get a notification or anything for making them the weird things that they are.] Samyaza responded, at this point quite used to shocking growth spurts when it came to Althos' power, so the angel was fairly unfazed by this new development.
Althos, for his part in all of this, was preparing a message for one of his servants: the half-devil Tristan Devil-Kiss. It was a simple message, just to make sure she understood why a bunch of barely alive things showed up in their settlement.
[Hey, I can create... we'll call them flesh puppets. Use them for labor. I'll tell them to obey you.] Althos said, followed by immediately mentally linking himself and Tristan to all of the dozen or so odd, barely animate humanoids and animals he had created.
Althos finally felt satisfied with what materials he had gathered. And so the deity began the curious process of tapping a few menus. By the time he stopped he had informed the visions portion of the religion menu that he was, for now anyway, finished gathering scenes for the vision and dream he was going to put together.
And now I can reflect on the skills I practiced, the knowledge I gained, and even what I want. He told himself while doing his best to get into the necessary headspace for a successful period of introspection, the sort he had hoped to do more regularly after reflecting on the encounter he had had with Mahmud.
I should really think about how much that stuff I said, in the height of the moment, about building an empire. He thought, ready for some eye-opening introspection. And about how to do that. He realized, almost laughing as he figured that he didn't have the slightest clue about how to build an empire.
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The blue lotus field stretched on for a considerable distance. Althos suspected that it went on for over an entire kilometer.
Countless blue lotuses bloomed in the water, their buds open for a sun that would never come. It's weird that these things have open buds. This massive field is directly underneath the black tower. Shouldn't the buds only be open if there's nearby sunlight to feed off?
As he noticed this, Althos tilted his head upward. He could see the thing: the massive black tower that cast a deep, haunting shadow on the fields, directly overhead.
This close to it, his current closeness infinitely higher than when he was outside of the city, he could see that the tower was actually tilted. It looks... like its unbalanced. He realized. What even is it? He wondered, before deciding to take the initiative and investigate the thing himself. I'll just appraise it. He thought, deciding not to waste another second.
He broadcasted powerful thoughts to the system, centered around the tower, and asked for assistance via an appraisal. Seconds later he got a rather surprising one.
[New Knowledge Alert: Multi-Use Building: The Onyx Obelisk
This place is a dungeon, a prison, and a barrier maintenance facility all in one. This prison is maintained by the forces of the sinister, fraudulent overlord of the city of Bastille, the true-devil named Paimon.
It houses enemies that if left in Bastille would be dangerous, pro-chaos and pro-goodness creatures. Creatures like angels, demons, and potent humanoids are imprisoned here, trapped in a range of oddly constructed yet undeniably useful prison cells.
The obelisk has a dungeon heart. It is a living, breathing place that is currently controlled by someone who has hidden their name using the barrier that is the most important function of the city.
The city of Namira's fortune comes from a potent barrier that is kept up to date, healthy, and stable, through this dungeon. At the top of the obelisk, magical energy is woven and projected outward to ensure that the city's crops grow healthy and strong without a sun present to aid in photosynthesis.
Without the barrier, or a powerful alternative to it, the city of Namira would lose a major source of food and of wealth.]