I started to panic, if I could cry I would. The beauty of space and watching the planet form ripped away from me to be replaced with an oppressive darkness. Black didn't do it justice as it was darker than even Vantablack. As I began to despair a small light wiggled into view in front of me. It was weak. So fragile it seemed as if the darkness would swallow it. A notification blinked in the corner of my vision.

[HALLELUJAH, PALE COLORED DOT HAS BEEN COMPLETED. AS THIS WAS A DIVINELY GIFTED QUEST THE REWARDS ARE AUGMENTED AND DO NOT REPRESENT NORMAL QUEST REWARDS. REWARD: CUSTOMIZED WORLD

[ALERT OMNISENSE HAS NOW BEEN REDUCED TO CONCEPTUAL. COMPLETE FROM SMALL BEGINNINGS TO GAIN NORMAL OMNISENSE.]

A small part of me is annoyed that we don't get a reward, I mean sure we didn't actually do anything other than the spiritual equivalent of clicking a few boxes. It was the principle of having a quest. The reward at the end is what drew people to complete a quest. With a huff I pushed away the notifications and focused more on the small thin light. “I guess this is my species' starting point.” I mused. “I doubt this is what it actually looks like as my omnisense did say it was conceptual. Why I see it as this small fragile light is beyond me.” I suppose it reminds me of a blueprint in a way, the first line on a fresh new design. My smile fades as the thought hits me. “Shit, I haven't even thought of what kind of species to make.” I bash on myself. Some baby god I am, didn't even think about it. I was so caught up in the voting and watching the planet form. “Okay, focus! First with the planet being a mix of life and death I should pick if I want them to be living or undead, I guess would be the term. How do I decide that though.” I feel a pull on my soul manipulation power. I focus on the light and see it shift. One moment the light is a pale gold and green color, the next it shifts to a deep dark blue with gray specs. “Okay so life and death, easy enough to see a difference.” What surprised me was how similar they felt…and…is that taste. Why does my soul power let me taste them too? I smacked my not real lips trying to not think too much on how I can have all these sensations when I no longer have the organs or body to experience them. I shook my body. I was getting distracted again. Refocusing on the power, life and death were exceedingly similar. The clear delimitation was obvious in my omnisense, but there, with a slight tug on the power the barrier between the two shifted. “What if I tried combining the two.” The thought hits quickly, my grin returns. Fumbling for a moment I try to take direct control of my soul manipulation. A part of me is amazed at how intuitive these powers are. The light isn't a soul I quickly realize. It's more of a proto soul. A spark to begin the direction of which the soul will follow. I use my power to stop the blue and gray of undeath from taking over the gold and green of life. I hold them equal to each other in the light. The light begins to pulse and flicker. Pain starts to travel around my orb self. The light becomes violently bright before it shatters and dissipates. The backlash of it shattering sends my mind reeling for several minutes. “Owww,” I groan, “note to self, shattering the light hurts. A lot.” A new light wiggles into the darkness, it begins oscillating between the colors again. “So can I not combine life and death or can I not combine them equally.” I suspect the latter is correct. A feeling from my soul control lets me know. I also suspect it will be hard to have them co-exist in the same soul in any amount. I could just go with one or the other, but I don't like the idea of just leaving an entire way of life out. If I am supposed to make a species that can dominate the planet why would I neglect a part of the planet and because it was voted on by at least one of my fellow Formless. Maybe we can come up with a way to let the other Formless live and try again on another world. Only one of us will win, but that doesn't mean I should seek to crush them all. Earth culture may have condemned the undead but there is no way to know in the wider cosmos if it is the norm for others as well. Unless one Formless used 8 of their votes to have that option then there should have been 2 or 3 that wanted a death aligned world. I shouldn't dismiss it due to past prejudice. I'm not even human anymore so why should their sensibilities hold me back. If they can't be equal then one has to dominate the other. I know more about living entities than I do undead ones, even with all this knowledge stuffed inside me. I refocus on the light. Slowly I inject death into life. Not a lot, barely any when compared to the whole of the light. Life eats the death I put inside and I feel more pain ripple through me. “Fuck, that hurts. Each failure comes back on me it seems. I need to stop and think for a moment. Chances are if I fail too many times I actually die. It wasn't stated but that pain doesn't just feel like a slap on the hand for messing up. It feels more like a threat of what will happen. Okay so what is a soul, I have all this new knowledge I should use it.” The light didn't shatter so it wasn't a complete failure. I begin shifting through my information. Everything living, or undead as well I suppose, has a soul. A soul isn't required to make life but naturally comes into being as the lifeforms grow in complexity. Most trees and plants don't have them, they have proto souls like the one on working with. Same with simple insects and micro lifeforms. They can't experience enough of reality for the proto soul to grow into a real soul. Babies when they are just formed only have proto souls as well. Their souls grow as they do in an egg or placenta. When they are born or hatch they have a fully formed soul. It's small and mostly undefined with only the species prominent traits having any influence on it. The soul will grow more defined and in the case of more advanced entities, more unique. Another thought hits me. On earth there are many cultures that have ancestor worship or believe ancestors would help or guide their descendents. What if I took that concept and applied it to the soul. Treat undeath as the guide. I look at the light again, taking hold of my soul control. I put a tiny core of death inside of the majority life light. I hold back life from just eating it. Feeling a strain on my power as I do. I won't let this idea go though. I imagine the light living its life. The gold and green shine brighter and redoubles its efforts to consume death. I keep the pressure off of my tiny spark of death. It seems even more fragile than the light first did before I started to mess with it. I let life continue, I imagine the different stages of my life. I never got to grow old, but I saw plenty growing old. My grandparents, my grandmother on my mom's side dying of cancer, her husband crying as she slipped away and him not long after. My dad's parents were healthy till they weren't. My own parents, young adults when I was born. Then aging as I grew. My perfect recall lets me experience it all. The light of life dimmed on my proto soul. I no longer had to hold life back from death. Now I had to stop death from consuming the weakening life. Holding it in the center. The strain started to become painful and I knew it was close to collapsing again. I need to think quickly. This backlash wouldn't kill me I don't think, but it would hurt and I don't know if I could do it again. What if I made death protect life. I take a little more death, I use my soul control to twist the little death I broke off. I force it to ignore the nugget of life and cocoon the fragile light. Just a sliver, barely even a shell. Make it a veil around the life to live. The strain lessen and I watch as the proto soul morphs. Brilliant life with a nugget of death. As life dims, death seeps into the cracks and encircles life. As life brightens a new death recedes back into the core. The cycle begins again. Over and over I watch it play out, giving small nudges with my power as deviations pop up. I spent what felt like years watching the cycle play out. Even without seeing them I felt their lives, all the ups and downs that come with being alive. Emotions played across the proto soul showing even a lifeform this simple is truly living. Finally it clicks into place. I feel all the pressure from my soul manipulation vanish and I know I did it. I made my life and death soul. Death is never more than 33.3% of the soul, life even when in its weakened state always being the majority but I did it. My species will be able to take in all the planet has to offer. My proto soul grows. I feel it leaving an embryonic state. I'm not done with it yet. I want the core of my people to be more. The soul is in a delicate state at the moment. I strained it by forcing this duality. I need more from them though. I want my people to be naturally inquisitive, to be resourceful, revere nature, and to inherently be able to use magic. I want so much but I can't put it all in there. I feel a tug from a different power, my magic manipulation. That's right I don't have to do it all with just the natural power of the soul. I take hold of both powers and weave them together. My core lights up, the colors and patterns that represent the two powers swirl together. I stabilize with magic manipulation leaving openings for my soul manipulation to place my desired wants. I know by doing this I leave a glaring weakness in my people. They will never be able to be without magic. Low ambient magic will leave them weakened or sickly. While the complete lack of magic will kill them, destabilizing their very essence. I take the risk however. Maybe I can help alleviate it later and on this planet low magic should be rare. Right now though, I need this for them. I watch as my proto soul becomes an actual soul capable of supporting an advanced lifeform. It's beauty mesmerizing me. The gold and green of life mixing with a heavy copper color I take to be the resourcefulness. The rotating colors of nature. Deep emerald becomes a harsh yellow and orange, going into muddled brown then giving way to a blue and black almost resembling death in a way, back to the deep emerald. These colors seem to pass through the soul at random intervals and I swear I can smell fresh rain, cut grass, rotting leaves, or feel the bite of snow when the colors appear. A brilliant rich purple weaves itself throughout the entirety of the soul. Seeming to hold it together and enhance parts of it. The soul itself seems to vibrate with want. I know what it wants. It wants a form to express itself. The soul isn't content with just being. It wants to interact with reality. I almost see translucent tendrils wisping around as even now it seeks. If I still had a face I would be smiling like the Cheshire cat. In my old life I attempted to not let my pride cloud my vision, I failed at times as all humans do. This time though I let it fill me and shine. My biggest problem with other people, humans, was the lack of drive I saw in most others. Many humans, even the ones in college, were content with their life. They woke up, worked, played, and slept. Most never truly seek the mysteries of life and the wonder of the world around them. However my people won't be like that. They will never be content with just living. They will be more. Sure in the long run it might cause problems, never being content with what they know will make them restless. They are supposed to be a conquering race after all. What will be so bad about it? I chuckle knowing it will come back to bite me in my nonexistent ass someday, hopefully a long time away someday. For now though, I needed to help my people by making them a vessel for which they will discover reality from. I doubt I'll be able to make a perfect body. Even with all this knowledge inside me, but just like with my old company I'll come to as close to perfection as I can.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.