197 Categorizing

Floating in the air above the planet of Ryths, I closed my eyes and allowed the power I had just acquired to flow through me. My mind was firing on all cylinders as I floated in the skies high above the still-burning ruins of the civilization I had just toppled. In fairness to them, it had been perhaps a minute since I finished the quest.

Behind closed eyes, I could see, in a very literal sense, countless notifications speeding through my mind at a speed that made the speed of light seem slow. Now that I had drained mortals and extraplanars, and in doing so gained an unparalleled understanding of their minds, I strongly suspected that this sort of information overflow would drive lesser creatures insane or render them comatose. And it didn't bother me in the slightest.

I was receiving notifications from events taking place in other dimensions. I was alerted to the activity of turtles on the other end of the universe. Every little thing in the universe that incorporated nature, truly a mind-boggling amount of activities, was communicated to me by the system. And what's more, is that now as a "true deity of nature" I was vastly more in tune to nature than I was before.

I had long since grown used to the constant deluge of notifications that plagued a compartmentalized fragment of mind. I had been getting notifications for the domains I could influence for months. Now I was getting something new. Sensations.

It started off slowly at first. A small tingle in my arm when someone, somewhere planted a seed in fertile soil. A gentle sensation on my back when a fire reached its crescendo. But over the course of a minute, it grew stronger.

Each passing second I grew more and more attuned to the domain of nature and the elemental subdomains. In a distant world, on a galaxy near the center of the universe an earthquake that would help create the vibrations needed for a tsunami to arise naturally caused me to exhale a breathy sigh, one of enjoyment and relaxation as if I was receiving a massage.

Somewhere, in a rocky world which consisted of plains and deserts, a tornado lifted a house off of the ground, and I felt a pleasant numbness in my chest, compared to the weightlessness one feels when they first enter a place with zero gravity.

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[Alert: Gradual Acclimation

You are entering a state of gradual acclimation. Your statuses as a true elemental overlord as well as a lesser god are mixing in unusual ways and the system is intervening on your behalf to help you get used to the immense power now flowing through you.

You possessed the power to decimate planets, but only one at a time. Now... Now your power is capable of affecting entire solar systems at once. It is a considerable leap in power.]

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Before I could see for entire kilometers if I focused. Now I could see for hundreds of thousands of kilometers, and thanks to the power I had created during my time building up cults I could see through objects with ease. Before I could see color in ways comparable to a mantis shrimp, creatures whose eyes possessed up to 16 color receptors. But now the world exploded in color, showing perhaps millions of different colors, hues, and shades.

Colors, both indescribably beautiful and some that were quite terrible filled my vision. Combinations of color I never imagined, even when I gained power over the art subdomain, appeared and filled my vision. The entire world around me took on qualities both wonderful and alien. For a moment tears filled my eyes and began to stream down my face.

And that wasn't all either. I discovered, over the course of the next few minutes through trial and error that I could also "zoom in" on a spot using my vision and see it even more acutely than before I gained the third tier of influence over nature.

My other senses received comparable upgrades as well. My hearing was now capable of acutely detecting even faint noises from hundreds of kilometers away, and I could now hear parabolically, in the sense that I could "zoom in" on an area using only my hearing and filter out background noise.

I could smell distinct odors too, ones unimaginable to me before. And the distance through which I could smell things had exponentially increased. I was tens of thousands of meters high in the air, yet if I paused and took a whiff of the air I could effortlessly smell things below the surface of the planet beneath me and accurately identify them.

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I was floating high in the sky, suspended solely by my own power. At the moment I didn't have any wings and the truth was that I didn't need any. A long time ago, if I were being generous, I gained the power to fly under any circumstances. It was one of the powers granted to me by the air subdomain. One of the subdomains which I could be considered a "true god" of.

Below me was a thick sheet of clouds, which I knew I could command if I desired. Clouds were but one natural aerosol I held sway over. I studied the clouds beneath me, utilizing my potent physical senses so that I could glance at the clouds without turning. I studied the objects for a few moments, before beginning a quiet descent. As I descended, I considered instantaneously teleporting, but then I decided against it. I could have some fun here and be dramatic, for the heck of it. This was a planet I had already subdued. I was in no danger here, even before I had acquired more power.

I rapidly descended, and as I did I mentally commanded the clouds directly beneath me to part. The objects obeyed me and parted creating a clearing in the sky which I passed through a few moments later on my silent descent. The opening the parting created was perfectly circular and perfect for me, being a nice, wide space that allowed me to continue to bask in the sun's light.

I was rapidly descending, falling towards the planet's surface at a speed that was quite excessive but was, for me anyway, dreadfully slow. I was used to an instantaneous form of movement as I was fast enough and to teleporting even across entire planets or dimensions. The one advantage of this comparatively slow form of movement was that it gave me space to think.

"Since I've begun to extend my powers across entire solar systems I suppose it's time I begin to take a more organized approach to my grander ambition of becoming omnipotent." I muttered, mentally. I could see the surface of the planet, a surface I was quickly approaching, as I muttered in my mind.

"Maybe... Maybe I should begin to categorize planets by what I want to use them for? Since I can singlehandedly conquer or ruin planets on my own now, I can effortlessly add entire worlds to the unorganized empire I'm creating." I realized as I began to turn my mind towards order and structure, something which wasn't always easy for me as an innately chaotic entity.

For a few moments I was silent, internally, and externally. I was approaching the planet's surface now. In seconds I'd make my first contact with the surface of the world. I was considering how good my idea was but without words. More with feelings and intuition. It took me a moment to begin to nod, my head subtly bobbing up and down for a moment.

"Yes... I think that's a good approach, for now. By creating categories for me to place planets into I can focus on key worlds, perhaps ones with high populations and existing technologies or other things that I actively desired. In some worlds I and my more vicious servants could have fun. In others I could champion goodness and justice, allowing cults devoted to those things to flourish and prosper. In others I could have fun, creating miscellaneous cults of whatever domains I wish, or fulfilling the requirements for more bloodthirsty quests and domains." I thought, deep within myself.

It was while I was finishing that thought that I touched the surface of the planet for the first time. As I did so, my lordship abilities instantly took hold of the world. I acquired a number of new holy sites, and I quietly chuckled. I found myself in a city, or rather the ruins of one, and all around me I could see the consequences of my actions.

I stood on a street in the middle of the wreckage of a once-bustling city. The area directly around me was silent but it wasn't lifeless. Or rather the area underneath the surface wasn't lifeless.

Beneath the city a teeming ecosystem thrived. The subterranean ecosystem included all manner of creatures, some of which were animals I was fond of: worms, rats, snakes, and other such unsettling animals all lived within the depths of the city's sewers and otherwise underneath the city.

I began to take my first steps in a random direction, walking deeper into the ruined city, all while taking advantage of my new powers over animals and a few of my existing powers. I was going to help nature reclaim this area, one animal at a time.

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Deep beneath the city there existed sewers but that wasn't all that hid underneath the old streets of the city. Under the city's streets old patches of dirt could be found, dirt and long-dead plant material. And in that buried earth and plant material a number of hardy animals worked to survive, etching out an unenviable life far from prying eyes. Or rather, far from prying eyes that belonged to mortals. Gods were not so easy to hide from.

Althos' ability to detect life wasn't something simple lifeforms could hide from. He effortlessly detected the creatures that lurked even hundreds of meters below the city, far beneath even the deepest sewers. And if he could detect them, he could manipulate them.

The god had a number of interesting animals to chose from for the goal he had in mind. That said, he silently chose a number of animals he had long liked: worms. The simple-minded and disgusting creatures were despised by many humans, especially city-dwelling humans, and that was part of why he chose them for this task.

Upon selecting the worms the god quietly targeted them and began to transform them. Simple earthworms and other dirt-dwelling worms were abruptly inundated with potent divine power supplied to them by their new god, and they were immediately transformed.

The earthworms, previously centimeters in length, dramatically and dynamically grew in size in seconds, their widths, lengths, and heights, exponentially increasing as their minds were also changed and warped by a god of nature and destruction. The creatures, still deep underground, were too busy basking in their new intelligence and power to care as they crushed their fellow, lesser worms and other dirt-dwelling creatures. They were filled with a cruel awareness of their new and strikingly diverse powers, intense servility towards the one responsible for their transformation, and a mission: destroy the buildings that still stood.

As the creatures continued their transformation into wholly different kinds of worms, they universally opened their mouths and began to roar. The sounds didn't travel far before dirt muffled and eventually silenced them, but the gesture was understood by the destructive entity responsible for empowering them, who himself began to smile. In every case, he was utilizing his ability to elevate lesser lifeforms into mythic entities, but he didn't transform the worms into one kind of mythic entity.

The god had selected two distinct kinds of mythic animals to transform the worms into. One of them, the minhocao worm, was simply an unbelievably massive worm that was dozens of meters in length. Normally such creatures were solely potent entities of physical destruction, incredibly rare titans whose destructive rampages left entire towns destroyed, but those the dreadful god of nature created were elevated beyond that. They were each blessed with powers related to earth and air.

The other kind of creature that the simple earthworms were transformed into were death worms. Death worms were smaller than minhocaos, quicker, and remarkably poisonous worms who were still around eight meters in length and had the ability to spit both poison and acid. Althos further blessed the creatures by giving them the ability to exert some control over water and other liquids, as a means to give them additional tools with which to cause mayhem and inflict pain.

His powerful mind flooded into their brains, and both as a result of being the one responsible for their impossible transformation and also being a god of nature and animals completely dominated them. Normally the god wasn't the sort to dominate living creatures, but he had quietly come to the conclusion that this ought to be a "test world" where he experimented with powers he normally wouldn't consider using. And these creatures were only a step above mindless before his intervention so he hadn't felt bad about giving them a purpose and new powers as his minions.

"Worms... Your king and your god are one and the same. Listen to me and in doing so fulfill your purpose." The god's sinister voice told them.

"Your purpose is simple: reclaim the surface world. Go forth and feast on the humans," The god told them, before transmitting an image of humans and commanding them to memorize the idea but without words.

"And destroy what remains of their piddling civilization. Break what they have built and allow this world to return to nature." The voice commanded them. Each of them, from the simplest to the most intelligent, was filled with a divine fervor upon hearing those words and began to race towards the surface. Their massive, impossible bulks effortlessly tunneled through the dirt that had once been all they knew, and their tough bodies effortlessly destroyed the artificial trappings of civilization that stood between them and the surface of the city, trappings such as sewer pipes, and eventually cobblestone roads and the booths of parking decks.

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All at once I felt a number of new vibrations, perhaps a few minutes after I forcibly transformed a number of simple earthworms into newer creatures, more destructive ones. Beneath me, throughout the city, the unlikely force I had created had reached the deepest parts of the city. I felt their enormous bulks crash into and then through a number of artificial obstacles that would have never stopped them. It brought a smile to my face.

I was still on the street. I had transformed the worms while wandering through empty streets, and admiring the remnants of the city. All around me shattered buildings, overturned cars, and destroyed objects abounded, and I had quietly touched such things and used my powers to absorb and learn history on them. Thanks to that I learned much about this world's particular variant of humans.

I knew for a fact that plenty of humans survived as well, but I had purposefully avoided areas with large numbers of them. It turned out that tornadoes, though great for destroying small things and even entire houses but weren't the most effective at decimating huge cities with sprawling buildings. Plenty of humans had died, but the city itself was actually fine compared to cities across the planet that had simply ceased to exist, though not a single window survived the destruction intact nor did any electricity continue to work.

The worm closest to me would eventually erupt from the sewers and then through the middle of a small street that was blocks away. I was still by and far by myself, though a few buildings around me housed humans who survived the carnage by hunkering down and working together.

"Should I greet them? Hmm... No. I'll let them be a delicious treat for my worms." I mused aloud, turning my mind towards the surviving groups of humans for a moment. My thoughts towards the humans whose civilization I had just destroyed weren't kind, and if I had "greeted" them it would have been a rare moment in which I indulged in violence.

Though I normally abstained from pointless violence, especially violence where I was the aggressor, this was a "test" world. "Test" worlds were ones where I willingly utilized my darker powers and allowed myself to behave in ways I might not normally.

As a demonstration of that I quietly walked over to a nearby car, weirdly enough it was one that wasn't unlike any car that I might find in Htrae and in a few worlds in the solar system of my birth, and touched the thing's hood-cover. I silently absorbed the item's history, learned about its owner, and then I began to utilize some of my eerier powers on the car.

I possessed a number of abilities that I didn't use very often. These included powers over discord, over entropy, over time itself, and even over metal, though the main reason I didn't use power over metal was that I had only recently acquired it. I utilized a combination of those powers on the car itself and before my eyes, the car began to experience the powerful effects of aging.

The car, before my touch, had been perfectly white and was well-maintained. The car, after my touch, began to visibly age, and over a unit of time that could be compared to human heartbeats due to how rapid it was the car's color began to fade and brownish-red rust began to appear on it. I kept touching the vehicle, until the entire thing was a mass of rust and even began to exude the powerful aroma of rust, the metallic almost-blood like smell invading my noise at such a close range.

It was at this point, that distantly, the first of my worms broke all the way through the city to the surface. Distantly, I could heard the guttural sound of triumph the death worm was making.

This outing had done wonders for me. With it I could begin to clear my mind and prepare for my next quest. As I did, I unleashed one global proclamation, utilizing my powers over the system, to explain to the surviving people what had just happened.

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[Alert: The God Of Nature Has Judged This Planet

Althos, the god of nature has come to this world. He has judged it and this is his judgment:

The civilization the humans who dominated this world created was wasteful and unworthy of continuation. I have brought that civilization to an end and I shall allow nature to rule this world in its place. Welcome to the new age, one of nature, balance, and might. Do your best to live lives that exemplify strength, admiration for nature, and balance and you might be blessed by me. This world shall never be the same. In time those of you who live may come to appreciate what I have done.]