225 Temples & Sacrifices

The luckiest of the creatures were the ones who were in the air. They were able to watch the god at work, at least an incredibly small fraction of the work he was doing, without having to endure the shakiness of the earth that the few mosquitoes on the ground had to endure.

Beneath the feet of the mosquitoes the earth was shaking, quaking at the power of the god's control over the very stones that made up the canyon. Despite the potent power the god was displaying here, most of the power he was actively using at the moment he was using to do things that they weren't seeing. Not yet anyway.

Despite the tremendous display of power that the god was responsible for, perhaps the most impressive aspect of its powerful show of geokenetic might was that it was hardly paying any attention to the circumstances around it. The deity's eyes were closed and though he was present he was not talking or showing any specific interest in his immediate surroundings.

The god was facing a wall of stones that for the moment stood firm against him. His eyes were closed, causing his shadowy form to look like a thin wall of shadows. After a few moments the earth ceased to quake, and for a single second the creatures Althos had gathered wondered if he was done trying to modify the canyon. The truth was that he was about to open up the wall in front of them.

The deity stepped forward and placed an ethereal limb that was a cross between a tendril and a hand on the wall of stone that impeded passage towards the new base. And then he focused, still silent as he moved and acted but now doing so with far more intent than he had until now.

________________________________________________

I impatiently placed a single hand-tendril on the solid wall of stone that stood between myself and one of the caves that this canyon housed. The earth beneath me had just finished quaking and as I began to touch the wall I willed it out of existence, my divine power washing over it as I wished it for vanish. I was utilizing my powers over flames!

The stone that I was touching began to glow, becoming a darker shade of red than it had been previously. It began to radiate a faint aura of heat, distorting the air right around the wall. And then it began to sublimate from a solid state to a gaseous state due to my powers as a god of fire.

I burned a small entry into the greater cave that laid just beyond the solid wall of stone that made up one side of the canyon. The pathway I had created was raw and still red-hot, so I used my powers over temperature to cool it down immediately so that my servants could enter it. It was a tall passageway, extending several meters into the sky, but it was also a thin one that was only four meters wide.

The pathway led into the darkness of the cavern, a darkness which my servants were eager to enter and explore. I myself already knew what lurked in the darkness, as I had been modifying the cavern while I was walking over here. I was, after all, a deity of caverns already and this much was well within my capabilities.

I stepped into the entryway and began to walk through it into the looming and welcoming darkness. My servants followed me, and as they did I sensed their excitement beginning to grow. They were curious as to what sort of secrets this cavern could be hiding. I smiled, though they didn't see it from behind me. I knew exactly what sort of secrets this cavern was hiding.

________________________________________________

We stepped past the entryway and well and truly into the cavern. As we did I beheld one of the things I had created; a beautiful temple made of white marble that was visible in the distance once one made it into the cave.

The area before us was a vast courtyard almost a hundred meters long and about as wide. At the other end of it stood the temple I had made while seemingly distracted. Everything here was made by me, including the courtyard. The courtyard was filled with statues of various humanoid races, and each of the statues was one I had made using my powers while I led my minions here.

The statues were life-sized and depicted humans, elves, orcs, and even were-creatures. They were mere statues, though with my powers they could easily be brought to life. Each one was built by "hand" so-to-speak, and I had enjoyed creating them. Doing so was quite simple, I created them in my mind while I was exploring the canyon and then I willed them into existence after deciding their size and the material I'd used to create them. They were each made of marble, like the temple I had made.

Hundreds of them stood between myself and the temple, and even as I approached the temple more came into being. The newer ones depicted a more diverse range of life, including life-sized dragons and creatures infected by parasitic spores. My companions walked or flew more slowly than I did as I made my way towards the temple at the end of the courtyard. They were clearly awed by the statues and more than one of the creatures I had created stopped to admire the high-quality artwork that littered the courtyard.

That said, the longer they took to reach the end of the courtyard and thus the exterior of the temple, the more time I had to work on the temple. After a few minutes of leisurely walking I eventually found myself standing in front of the ornate, multistory temple I had built to myself. It was a beautiful sight.

________________________________________________

Upon reaching the exterior the temple I had created to my own glory as a multi-aspect god I rose a hand and cast a spell. Well... Saying I "cast a spell" is a bit inaccurate. I actually used my power over magic to create a custom-magical-effect which I then used to summon six faith-devils.

Faith-devils were the leaders and organizers of faiths devoted to lawful-evil deities. They were the fanatical priests, priestesses, nuns, monks, and other clergy of ancient, tyrannical faiths. And they were totally perfect for the branch of belief in me that I was intending to support in this place.

Upon casting the custom-magical-effect I had created the air around me began to change color. I heard a distinct "whooshing" sound, as an intense light winked into existence for a moment while the faith-devils were called from Infernius. The light was almost blinding to the mortals I had created and made my minions, but it didn't bother me thanks to my extreme senses. Within the light six silhouettes came into being abruptly, an instant before the light dulled and began to die down.

The six silhouttes belonged to the six faith-devils I had just summoned. They were all different sizes, with a few being wider than others, one having horns, and two having wings. They all fell to their knees as the light began to vanish and by the time they were plainly visible to my minions they were piously kneeling before me in a show of submission and deference. As the light finished vanishing one of them, the one with the horns began to speak.

"Greetings oh magnificent tyrant's tyrant and sultan of sultans! We humble and pious members of the Tyrant's Hand offer to serve you and your glorious empire." The creature said, speaking in a stunningly sycophantic tone. That said it was sincere, and it was exactly what I wanted for the moment.

The six faith devils I had summoned were all dressed in one of two ways. Three of them were dressed one way and three were dressed the other. Males wore ornate, white robes adorned with gold and red markings. These robes covered their whole bodies and hidden everything but their faces behind at least one layer of clothing.

The women all wore an outfit that I learned upon giving them a close look were called "nuns habits" and my ability to study clothing informed me that they were the clothes worn by the religion of some deity who once existed in an alternate universe. This bit of information intrigued me, and for one of the first times ever I sent a question to the system about something beyond the universe of my birth.

I retreated inward for a few moments to ask the system itself and the domain of knowledge a question. It was a simple, but open-ended question.

"So what are these alternative universes? I've heard about them before, but now it seems some devils are able to get fashion advice from them?" I asked, hoping to glean some knowledge out of this situation. The voice that had the quickest reply was the domain of knowledge.

"Well hello Althos! What an intriguing and wonderfully vague question!" The domain replied, sounding eager to teach me something.

"In order to understand what other universes are, you must begin by defining what a universe is. A universe is a bubble that contains one... instance of creation, of a totality of existence." The domain began, explaining.

"Some mortals foolishly believe that the universe represents everything that ever is or will ever be. They are incorrect. The universe you live in is one of many that exists. Each universe has different physical laws and histories with extremely few things connecting them. One of the things that connects them is that every universe felt the impact of the end of the Mythic age." The knowledge domain revealed.

As this was occurring I did something of considerable importance: I went ahead and ordered my robotic servants in the Heart of Darkness to go ahead and perform a mass sacrifice to me. The sacrifice of some of the captured demons. A sacrifice which would significantly bolster my power.

________________________________________________

Within the Charnel Plains, a layer of the dreaded dimension of the Heart of Darkness, a strange and mechanical city suddenly sprung into motion.

The city was a brand new part of the plains, perhaps a few hours old. It was filled with deadly and fanatically loyal machines who all served a single master: an eerie and inhuman deity named Althos. At once the assorted factories throughout the city, opened and released their terrifying inhabitants: silver machines of assorted builds. Some of those machines were responsible for the proliferation of factories throughout the city, having been programmed to create new factories.

Robots throughout the city began to turn on, in many cases for the first time. Circuitry fired on for the first time ever. Lights turned on, and metallic, robotic joints, limbs, and other body parts began to slowly move. Robots began to slowly walk out of their birthplaces, their eyes as it were were empty and filled with little more than a desire to serve their dark creator.

Without uttering a single word the creatures began to advance to the locations where demons had been captured. They were an eerie sight, an emotionless, silent, inhuman legion that spread out from the city and advanced with a shocking speed towards an unclear destination. They had been given knowledge by their dark god of the locations of the demons the god had stashed underground and as they advanced on their foes a small number of them grew... excited.

Some of the robots were smarter than others. These robots were the handful Althos had gone ahead and blessed with souls, and they were capable of independent thought. Out of the thousands of robots that had been created only five of them had souls. The five in question were all humanoid-model robots; robots with a bipedal and dual-limbed frame and a "head" that from a distance would have allowed them to fool a town of humans, especially if they were blessed by their god to be deceptive.

Althos' first robotic legion was made up of a number of different robot types. The most numerous were the humanoid-model ones, followed shortly by the vehicle-model robots.

Humanoid-model robots had gleaming bodies made of a variety of metals. They had the basic shapes of assorted humanoids, and held glittering weapons in their hands. Althos had decided that these particular robots would have blessed weaponry and as a consequence of that these creatures held powerful weaponry that was lawful in nature and would be too painful for their demonic victims to endure. The weapons also did supernatural harm to their foes, given the chaotic nature of demons.

Vehicle-model robots had the bodies of drones, tanks, motorcycles, cars, and other handy vehicles. The eerie and focused legion that existed to obey him walked, rolled, flew, and crawled, to where their unfeeling sensors told them their enemies would reveal themselves.

As the first of the robots arrived at where Althos had designated them to go, their unfortunate victims began to appear. The earth at the feet of the robotic legions began to quake slightly and in some cases melted away just enough for demonic heads, buried now for a few hours, to appear. Just the heads. The rest of the demonic army the Althonites had defeated remained underneath the surface of the plains.

Robots immediately sensed their foes and now that they were close they moved even more quickly towards them. The furthest demons were targeted by vehicle-model robots, ones who uttered quick prayers and who devoted their kills to their creator, before their long-distance weaponry unloaded on the demons. Powerful mini-guns and devastating laser-canons tore apart demons down to a cellular level.

Humanoid-model robots also muttered prayers of their own and rose their weapons in the name of their creator. They swiftly struck at the demons who once thought that they'd be the unholy hellions who'd capture a god. As the demons began to fall to the axes and blades of the humanoid-model robots their last thoughts were of their hatred of Althos.

The god himself began to receive a plethora of notifications alerting him to the successes of his robots, until he finally received the notification that he had long sought to receive: by the time the last demon was sacrificed to him by his robots he had become a god who was capable of exerting two tiers of influence over the soul domain.

________________________________________________

Building my base in the strange canyon I had decided to make my home was a fun but surprisingly involved process. The temple I had constructed was an easy place to construct, due in large part to my experience building temples.

The exterior of the temple was a courtyard and then the entryway into the temple. Nothing complex about it, aside from the statues I had mentally-made and then brought into existence through my powers over the art-domain.

The interior of the temple was a far more complex affair. The temple had two public areas, each of which was on its own side of the temple. Both sides of the temple, the side visible from where I stood and the side visible from deeper in the cave, had a courtyard and a public area which was filled with things that were parts of normal temples that hosted regular services to praise the gods, or rather; to praise me.

I was currently wandering about the interior of the temple, in its depths. Its depths housed a number of key features, namely archives designed to be where knowledge that my servants gathered, living quarters for the devils I had summoned to dwell within the temple, and a number of rooms for various rituals.

The rooms were interesting places. Each of them housed a statue of me but none of the statues looked alike. That was a consequence of being a formless being whose appearance was decided by however I felt like appearing.

The rooms were designed to accommodate various rituals my followers would perform. In one of the rooms there was a statue of a massive mushroom and at the base of the statue was a basin filled with parasitic spores. In another room was a statue of me as a primordial devil holding a cat o' nine tails, and at the base of that statue was a bowl single, altered cat o' nine tails, so that my followers could inflict pain on themselves.

The exterior of the other side of the temple housed a beautiful courtyard filled with statues of dark elves, dwarves, dark dwarves, machines, and devils. A perfect representation of the city I was going to build, a subterranean metropolis populated by subterranean terrors and builders who'd fanatically obey me. I was going to build my very own lawful evil society right here, and right now.