A Solitary God In A Dark Multiverse 103 Worship And Freedom

This odd sensation was addicting and more than that it was unique, subtly different each time. This was true even now, even though I had billions of worshipers. Every single time I gained a worshiper I felt the sensation once more. It was even better when I gained more than one worshiper at a time.

The Ardor family, a clan of n.o.ble dark-elven slavers, were in the process of submitting to me. And each of them that did so, that devoted their hearts to me, I felt a great and potent surge of dark power seep into my soul.

This sinister feeling delighted me and made me feel the strange sensation of my sins crawling on my back. I liked it. I felt my own power growing thanks to these recent events.

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The living dark-elves knelt before me. In the moments since they saw their reanimated ancestors, they all dropped to their knees in front of me. I hadn't spoken since I told them to surrender themselves to me. And my words were effective.

I studied them and smiled. Their hearts were mine, gripped in a mixture of ambition and fear, and they recognized that I was basically the embodiment of power. They themselves were powerful creatures, but compared to me their power was nothing.

I then studied the newly reanimated dark-elves. They were three elves, all of whom were males. They were wickedly handsome, and the powers that reanimated them only accentuated their handsomeness.

They had muscular bodies and faces that looked to be chiseled from a.s.sorted dark metals by divine artisans. Their scarlet eyes were charming and I could sense the hypnotic power they possessed. I was also able to sense the thirst they radiated. I knew that if I unleashed these vampires freely, I'd be tacitly ordering a bloodbath. The knowledge of the weapon I had acquired in the form of the vampires made me chuckle.

"You all are to form a new order in my name. One that devotes itself first and foremost to me. And whose second devotion is to necromancy." I told the a.s.sembled elves, living and dead alike.

"In exchange for your loyal worship and service, I shall protect you from your enemies and I shall allow the remainder of your mortal lives to be filled with prosperity and decadence. And upon your deaths, I will return you to this world as mighty undead beings." I told the dark-elves. I looked at the vampiric dark-elves who were openly looking at me.

"I am a generous G.o.d. I can and will give your family a new avenue to wealth. I possess power over metals, and I would like to establish a mine below your familial crypt. I understand that such a wish might be seen as... disrespectful, but I have a reason for wanting this." I explained, looking at my newest minions.

The three of them gave me amused looks, and waited for me to explain. I chuckled at them.

"Establishing a mine below the familial crypt, though it may feel... disrespectful, is actually a really wise move. None of the family members who'd be buried in the crypt will ever need it moving forward, but also this means that stealing from it will be virtually impossible. Since any thieves would have to escape your beautiful home with whatever loot they could carry." I explained, a smug grin on my face.

This explanation caused my minions and worshipers to also cruelly smile. I sensed that they could keenly sense the wisdom in my words, however disrespectful they might have seemed.

"I can create skeletons to mine the metals in the mine and we can create a vault underneath another part of the estate. And since I can manipulate metals I can generate a literally unlimited amount of precious metals for you to use however you see fit." I explained.

I felt keen gratefulness to one of the most significant upgrades I had gotten when I first gained access to the quest to become a minor elemental overlord. By that day's end, I gained the ability to manipulate and generate metals. It was an altogether incredible power, one that I have yet to truly abuse despite its incredible potential for abuse.

[Alert: You've created your first secret cult! Secret cults are orders of followers of yours whose activities are not known to the public.

Typically secret cults are cults made up of followers that are opposed to the societies they live in. This means these cults might be made up of secretive spies from foreign nations, a.s.sa.s.sins who follow your orders and at your discretion might also work as freelancers or families whose influence is increased by their affiliation with your followers.

Secret cults are one of a number of types of cults that you can create and command. They are probably your most influential cults for sowing dissent or disorder in complex societies since they possess freedom not possessed by other types of cults.

Cults can change their type over time, and at your discretion. Each type of cult has its uses and as a G.o.d, if you wish to control a large territory it is necessary to balance the needs and uses of various cults of a number of different types.

Secret cults often struggle with retaining and recruiting members though... Your first secret cult is a familial one and it is one that incorporates both the living and the undead so you've effectively curtailed that problem right away. Good job!]

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In the privacy of my own mind, I couldn't contain my joy. This was a decisive moment. This marked the establishment of my first secret cult devoted to evil ends.

I had gained a community-wide evil cult in the form of the reptilefolk who worshiped me as a G.o.d of death, war, and angry justice. I had gained a publicly evil cult in the form of the Dragonstone family who worshiped me as a warrior's G.o.d and as a G.o.d of laws and hierarchies, but now I possessed something incredibly valuable: a secretive cult.

By taking the Ardors and making them into a secretive, reclusive cult I could finally begin to make some serious progress among two specific subdomains that I had wanted to gain influence over for a while now: corruption and necromancy. Both subdomains were enemies of life and virtuous societies, and I knew that in making the choices I was making I would finally be able to gain needed progress for them.

It was actually while I was thinking about this that I received another notification. One that brought a smile to my face.

[Subdomain alert:

The subdomain of necromancy recognizes your labor. It is conscious of the work you've done as an unholy necromancer and the impact that your undead hordes have had on the world.

You are a most unusual necromancer. Your undead creations have unintentionally saved lives and protected people. That said, in order to do so they inflicted terror on the living and killed.

The subdomain of necromancy isn't just nihilistic, it is actively opposed to life. It has mixed feelings about the way that you've handled its powers so far, but it is still happy to offer you the quest to acquire the second-tier of influence over it. It senses how bloodl.u.s.t affects you and is eager to give you more tools to sate that bloodl.u.s.t, hoping that you'll more readily surrender to the dark temptations that it so readily offers.

In order to acquire the second tier of influence over the subdomain of necromancy, you must use an army of necromancers and an undead horde to totally destroy a settlement of over 5,000 individuals. All 5,000 individuals living in the settlement must die and if possible become undead. If they don't become undead then at the very least their souls need to be captured.

Once this is complete you'll acquire the second tier of influence over the subdomain of necromancy.]

"So that's all it takes huh?" I asked myself, a grin on my face. I didn't hate the image of a town on fire as my servants explored it, hunting down every last lifeform.

That said, I didn't want to go out and actively destroy just any old settlement in the name of the subdomain, so I would need some time to do some research and pick a target worth destroying, a place that should actually be wiped out.

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A few minutes later, I was actually sitting down for the first time in the last few minutes. I was accompanied by several dark-elves, handsome men who looked at me respectfully and demurely. I smiled at them, and knew they had something to say. It took them a few moments to gather the necessary courage to do so.

"Althos... We feel as though we should be the leaders of your new cult. Your order." One of them, a sibling of Milene's said. He spoke softly at first, but after a few moments wherein he spoke his voice grew stronger. I grinned at him and motioned for him to continue speaking. He gave me a smile, and grew bolder.

"Our sisters doubted you! They don't deserve to stand at the top of our family if they didn't believe in you from the start. We sensed your greatness. Your divinity." The dark-elf proclaimed, as his siblings and other relatives began to smile at me.

I chuckled. I sensed that this was going to take a bit of time. These sorts of negotiations always did.

A fragment of my mind, one even smaller than the fragment that carefully animated and controlled the projections of myself that were running around Puerto Rico focused its attention on the real reason why I had come to the Ardor family holdings.

I kept my eyes wide open even as that small part of my mind focused on ensuring that the guards who had been ordered by the senior family leadership to enact my will actually enacted it.

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A small contingent of elite dark-elven guards spent many years of their lives closely and carefully supervising the daily activities and labor of the hundreds of slaves owned by the Ardor family. It was boring and unchanging work. Or at least it had been, until a few minutes ago.

The dark-elven guards were now furiously working to gather all of the slaves, a challenging task given the sheer number of slaves who worked the gargantuan property owned by the Ardor family. This was a first for them, and they weren't sure what the night held for them.

The order they received from Modred, the unusual prime patriarch of the family solely instructed them to gather every single slave and keep them still near the edge of the familial property. It'd take them over an hour to finish that work.

Little did they know that they were about to undertake a thankfully uneventful trip into the depths of the subterranean region in which Aronms, the encampment, and Althos' eerie tower were all located. The main reason why the trip was uneventful was because of Althos' careful guidance, and his caution. He kept the dark elves and the slaves they were watching over safe from the start of the trip to its end hours later.

As Althos' 11th day alive began, hundreds of new individuals were safely able to reach the eerie and freed settlement of Oscuridad. Their first impression was that it was odd that an abandoned town existed next to an sorcerer's tower.

The town was, as far as they knew, utterly abandoned. And it would continue to look that way until after the dark-elves who had escorted them through the tunnels and other dark regions of the subterranean world were well on their way back home.

Once the guards were gone, the seemingly abandoned settlement began to come to life, as driders and other creatures stepped out of their empty-looking homes and revealed themselves. For the life-long slaves who had endured decades of torture and forced labor at the cruel whims of the Ardor family, it was a strange but exciting way to begin their new lives.

Althos, meanwhile, had been forced to help his newest cultists navigate intrafamily struggles and drama for far longer than he would have liked.

That night his other projections were able to explore a sinister brothel and meet more of the ogres he sought to one day rule over as only a G.o.d could. All in all, it was a productive night.