A deity was the very embodiment of power. They began their lives with infinite spiritual energy, the "fuel" that creatures needed to be capable of using magic, and were born with innate mastery over at least one school of magic, as well as with influence over various domains and subdomains. And yet despite this innate power deities were capable of growing in strength over time.
This was what had happened with Althos. When he began his life he was not an especially powerful deity, but over the course of the last three and a half years, he had faced off against powerful beings, participated in wars, and grew in strength over time. And now, alone in the universe and thus not afraid of breaking rules that slowed the growth of individual deities in the past, Althos had reached a vast peak of power.
Althos had managed to climb a vast mountain and he was standing on top of it. By becoming a nascent overgod Althos reached the very highest point that most ancient gods could have ever hoped to reach. In all of history, there were just 13 overgods, with some like the Dark Saint being the only overgod of their particular alignment.
He had become so powerful and had done so, so fast that his body needed to take time to adjust to his newfound powers. It had taken the last five days, the days he explored his new territory in Infernius, for his body to fully acclimate to his new overall level of power and incredible influence over reality. As the sun began to creep over the horizon on the fifth day since Althos had begun his exploration of Infernius, which he had completed just hours ago, his body finally finished adjusting to the swelling powers dwelling within him.
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Notification:
Your body has finished adjusting to the incredible wave of power that you acquired when you committed deicide. Your powers over parasites and parasitism, combined with your knowledge, allowed you to locate and exterminate over 99% of the vestiges lurking in this universe, and in doing so take on their powers. That granted you an unthinkable boost to your power.
As it stands now, you are finally a true nascent overgod. That comes with a number of boosts to your overall powers, but due to your unusual status as an omni-higher-being, the greatest boost you've received will be to your powers over nature and you being awarded the status of an elemental prince, the second greatest kind of elemental overlord. When you master one of the alignment domains you will become an overgod of that alignment and of nature.
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I smiled as I read the notification. As I read it and willed it away I felt unprecedented levels of power flow through me, and I felt my very mind and body subtly change.
My body grew a bit thicker, more muscled, and my senses grew sharper. My mind's power grew immensely and I felt my psychic senses grow beyond what I had ever imagined they could. All at once, I heard hundreds of decillions of voices in my mind as my powers over the domains of stars, of the mind, and life exploded and expanded.
I was currently by myself in the temple I had built for myself along the coast of the Terran colony. It was early morning, so early in fact that very few people were up. Ravanthan was with Spartina helping the underground Terrans prepare to finish their move from their subterranean home to the colony, and Solaria was hovering in the air above the colony, guarding it and practicing flying. Leon was fast asleep, dreaming restful dreams.
I looked beyond the temple, using my ability to see through objects, and watched as light began to creep across the ground. The sun was visible, floating proudly above the mountains to the west. I could distantly feel Solaria's happiness growing as she watched her true body float in the skies above the planet.
I chuckled quietly to myself and I teleported out of the temple and into the area just outside of it. When I did I immediately felt Solaria's head turn towards me and I gazed upwards at her. She grinned and waved at me and I nodded politely at her. She was visibly overjoyed, and shortly after greeting me turned her face back towards the sun. She continued to gaze at it, in a way almost akin to how humanoids looked at mirrors after getting dressed, very self-appraisingly.
I turned my gaze to the sun and as I looked at it I saw the light that it radiated. I could see every type of energy it radiated, and the display was beautiful. To me, as someone whose ability to see wasn't dependent on light and whose eyes could "see" all forms of electromagnetic radiation it was a beautiful display of power and majesty. I could stare at it openly without fear of being blinded, and that made me feel quite happy.
I continued to study the sun and as I did I reached my hand towards it. I positioned my hand in such a way that I could move my fingers until they were "around" the sun and for a split second, I imagined messing with the object in a number of ways. I wondered what would have happened if I wiped out the sun, and when I did my new and improved mind immediately began to visualize a detailed scenario in which the sun in the distance abruptly vanished.
In my mind's eye, I could see the countless lives that would feel the keen and brutal effects of the sun's abrupt disappearance. I instinctively knew the very instant they would die if I willed the sun to vanish, and I had an intuitive understanding of how the sun's disappearance would affect and ultimately end the various civilizations that dwelled on this planet and other, nearby planets also in the solar system.
I shook my head a split second after that knowledge filled my mind, shuddering slightly as I felt the combined effects of multiple domains surging into my mind all at once. The fate domain was a truly powerful new ally of mine and with it, I could easily see and alter the future of people, civilizations, and even worlds and solar systems, though that was only because of my synergistic powers and influence.
I quietly stopped focusing so much on the sun and turned to study Solaria. As I did I faintly began to see what looked like afterimages of her begin to emanate from her. They were transparent copies of her but when she began to move into where they had been a second ago I realized that they weren't afterimages of her they were future images of the spirit.
I watched as she flew exactly into where they were, and chuckled as more images began to appear. I was watching her future and could predict exactly where she was going to go.
"Chronal vision is really something..." I uttered, as I smiled, amazed at my own power. I felt more time and fate-based abilities lurking within me, and I even felt a portion of my mind automatically change and adjust as it began making use of those powers instinctively. I also knew that if I had wanted too I could have easily and subtly manipulated where Solaria went, using my own powers over luck, probability, and fate.
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The part of my mind that instinctively began to use my powers over time and fate caused the world as I saw it to swiftly change. Mere seconds after I first saw the transparent future images of Solaria began to split off from her and show me her future I began to see future images of other things as well. When I glanced at the sky I saw future images of clouds, of the sun, and of birds that had yet to begin to fly. It was an amusing sight.
I glanced at the part of the sky where my spaceship was hovering and mentally ordered the gigantic vessel to come down from outer space. As soon as I did I saw future images of it begin to come down from outer space and chuckled inwardly. It only took a minute before the actual vessel appeared in the distantly, slowly descending until it was a few hundred meters above the ocean behind the colony. It loomed ominously, and its dark metal exterior was a neat sight to see contrasting with the golden dawn of the early morning sun, and the crystal clear waters of the ocean beneath it.
The waters off the coast of the colony were the same waters where a powerful spirit dwelled. I knew that the time was fast approaching that I go in and introduce myself to the spirit, but I also knew that there were other things to do.
Originally, before I had committed deicide I had longer-term plans involving this colony. I was going to use this place as a launching board to unify the rest of this planet. Those plans were made when I was but an infant compared to my current level of power and overall knowledge.
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As I was now, I had the power to bend reality in ways that were not only beyond me before but were simply unimaginable to the me of a few days ago. As I was right now I could bring back even the greatest of non-deific higher-beings: angel lords, and use them to enact my will.
My mind surged with newfound knowledge regarding the long-extinct races of higher-beings. And I immediately began to scheme, using my newfound knowledge and powers over fate to accurately read the future.
Dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of futures, of timelines, played out in my mind instantaneously. I smiled as I watched them play out and learned of the minute differences between them that made each one of them diverge wildly from the others.
In some of them, I appear as a shining deity above the world and use my new powers over worship to make the planet aware of my presence and of my desire for them to join me. In others, I am a subtle schemer who uses my powers gingerly and weaves a grand tapestry of fate that leads to the unification of the planet under the leadership of Solaria, or of Spartina.
In a few of the futures I could see playing out in my mind's eye I envisioned myself as both a grand schemer and as the mysterious true enemy of all humanoids. In these futures, I unite this planet's humanoid population through force, by unleashing dark legions of the undead, of demons, of devils, and of other sorts of monsters, even higher-beings in some cases, to unify everyone against the encroaching darkness.
Those futures were so much fun! In them, I used my powers derived from the apocalypse quadrangle, and I used my newfound powers over things like monsters to corner and terrify the humanoids of this world from the shadows. If I wanted too I could even appear in the end, as a shining deity who defeats the creatures I myself summoned and thus be seen as a glorious symbol to rally around and praise by the humanoids who survive this apocalyptic scenario, and if I felt generous I could easily resurrect those who had perished in the chaos leading up to the moment I saved the world.
Eventually, though I had to pick one future to enact. It actually didn't take me long to decide which future I was going to bring about, and inwardly I began to smile when I settled on the one I felt like making a reality. When I selected it, I swiftly began to enact it, by allowing a portion of my mind to depart from my body for a moment. I had to be in multiple places at once, and fortunately, I had the means to do so with some ease.
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On an incredibly distant mountain range from where the physical body of Althos was, there was a snowcapped peak. This snowcapped peak was a place that had been long abandoned by living humanoids, as it was the tallest mountain peak in the entire world.
At the tallest point of the snowcapped peak, it was over nine thousand meters above sea level. This was where the fragment of the mind of a god came to a stop shortly after departing from the god's body. The fragment studied the snowy peak and if it had a face it would have smiled. This was where its schemes would begin to come to life.
The fragment of the god's mind silently activated the terrifyingly powerful ability known as "Necroscience", and began to filter the results. As it did, it disregarded a notification informing it of the new enhancements to the frightening power known as "Necroscience". After all, the notification just informed it that it now had the power to resurrect higher beings, and that was something it already knew.
The fragment of a deific mind patiently filtered the list provided to it by neuroscience. It took only a few moments for the deific intelligence to have filtered the list so greatly that it could only see deceased archdevils and angel-lords, which were the two types of creatures that it wanted to resurrect. The creature had come here to resurrect the sorts of beings who could most effectively and efficiently bring the civilizations of humanoids to their knees after all.
Had anyone been on the peak they would not have sensed or suspected the schemes going on there. They would have just seen a dark, snowy peak, and a quiet, perpetual snowfall that was going on around them. Or at least they would have just seen that, until the instant that the fragment of Althos's mind sprang into action.
When the deific spark of intent and reason began to act, the once dark snowy peak was abruptly illuminated by a powerful explosion of light. That light made it impossible to see anything but silhouettes of the gentle snowfall on the mountain's peak, even as another silhouette began to take shape on the peak. The one slowly materializing silhouette that began to appear had the basic shape of a gigantic humanoid, and anyone with a higher being's eyes would have been able to see that the creature was covered in infernally forged armor.
The creature was materializing in the middle of the immense explosion of light. Its two, strangely human, eyes were closed as its mind was thoroughly investigated by Althos's own mind. The creature was unconscious, and its body was still incomplete. The resurrection that Althos had performed to bring the once deceased creature back to life was reforming its body from the top-down, rather than the bottom-up, which was often the case with these sorts of resurrections.
As Althos began to investigate the creature's mind, he also silently began to resurrect other devils to accompany and serve the archdevil he was resurrecting. Their bodies began to form silhouettes in the brightly illuminated snowstorm that perpetually covered the peak in fresh snow. Various devils began to come to life in the area right around the slowly reviving archdevil known as Orfeo.
The spark of intelligence and malicious will watched these events with great glee. Orfeo was the first in a wave of powerful higher beings that the spark had been "told" by the greater mind to go and resurrect. This moment marked the beginning of a vastly altered future for the world of Ta Hendo, and it was a future that Althos was going to enjoy.
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Other fragments of Althos' mind also began to move freely and act in other places. In many of those places, the fragments functioned as potent, unseen generals, rallying worshipers of the powerful god to move against the few creatures he considered his enemies by using powers over emotions and corruption to stoke hatred and wrath.
Throughout the universe, dwarven enclaves and civilizations existed that still worshiped Althos' one true remaining foe: Morehammer. Althos was not silent or still in his genocidal hatred of those dwarves, and some of the few fragments of his mind to depart from the world of Ta Hendo went to worlds where the presence of Morehammerians was still significant.
On those planets, his mind whipped up local powers into frenzies and subtly arrayed those powers so that they would target dwarves. Dragons, new-iterations of the Swarm, undead armies, and even technologically advanced fleets of space-faring warships moved against dwarven fortifications and civilizations at the same time as the archdevil Orfeo was beginning to regain his strength.
The archdevil's legs began to form as his resurrection neared completion, and as they did the creature's soul weapon, a powerful looking trident made of lightning began to form in his hands. Each second that passed brought Orfeo closer and closer to full strength.