Chapter 57: Aftermath
A Solitary God In A Dark Multiverse by Lucianowrites
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One day, a community named Libertad abruptly arose at the edge of the shore of Puerto Rico's most remote coast. This community arose over the course of a few minutes and was inhabited by a diverse collection of humanoids who had been rescued from slavery by a young god.

This community started off as a humble collection of buildings surrounded by a small stone wall. As days passed, that changed. And it changed in large part because of the strange god responsible for the community's creation.

On the first day after he built the community, the god dug a hole on the outskirts of town. And later that day things skittered out of the hole. When they did, the god reappeared and introduced the town's humanoid inhabitants to its non-humanoid neighbors.

The neighbors were an empire of myrmekes ants, oddly beautiful and handsome ant-humanoid hybrids who Althos revealed were also worshipers of his. Althos told the myrmekes ants that both communities were to be friends and that the humanoids were fellow Althonians.

Much to the surprise of the humanoids who inhabited the town Althos had created, the myrmekes ants were overjoyed at this news and volunteered to serve the town as guards. Ever since that day the towering ant-human hybrids were a common if off-putting sight in the town and later on even in the ocean just beyond the edge of town.

On the second day Althos appeared as the sun was setting and began to bestow blessings upon the town's people. He freely gave his people a number of potent blessings, so that they were more likely to survive if they found themselves in danger.

Some blessings he bestowed upon all of the town's people. Those blessings included the death-domain blessing, the poison domain blessing, and the blessing of the subdomain of air, as well as the "Aquatic freedom" ability. Others he had to be asked to bestow upon them, but if he could then he did.

On the third day, their god appeared and made general improvements to their community. He built a building specifically to tend to the injured, and he used his strange powers to make it into an area wherein pain is numbed and wounds can be overcome merely by sitting down and relaxing.

He also built a small park and filled it with flowers. He offered no compelling reason for this, he appeared to have done it solely because he wanted to.

The third day also happened to be the most significant day for the community. It was on the third day that Althos reminded everyone that he was a being whose mind was alien to their own because of what he did in the ocean.

Some hours after he finished his general medical building, Althos trotted off into the sea. He was silent as he did this, and he didn't walk far into the ocean but he did walk farther than even the most curious children had been brave enough to explore. Some of his followers followed him into the sea to behold whatever their god and savior was doing.

At a seemingly random point, the odd god stopped and set to work. The god immediately created and rose a temple to himself using his civilization based powers. The temple was made of the same stone as the seabed off of Puerto Rico's coast. It was a beautiful building to behold, made from greenish serpentine, a mineral named after a serpent's scales.

Althos then walked into the temple and began to use his magic to create rooms and even furniture, something his followers hadn't known he could do as he hadn't done it for them. The truth was that it was their worship of him that allowed him to do that, and he was merely testing the ability.

By the time night had fallen on the community, the mortals who had followed after Althos had returned home. And Althos himself decided to spend the night in the eerie temple, alone aside from the occasional fish that wandered into the submerged building.

That night he entered the dreams of various aquatic creatures, some of them were animals, some were humanoids, and some of them were things that were less easy to define, thanks to his boosted powers. He gave them dreams of his temple and of him as a strange aquatic god of the depths.

The fourth and fifth days following the community's creation, Althos engaged more directly with the people of the community. On both days he gave them weapons, tools, and armor he hand-crafted from light and darkness, and he even spoke to them directly.

On the fourth day, he told them it was important that they decide on a government and begin to organize fully. They did as he commanded, and began to rudimentarily organize themselves. After he gave them his commands and they set out to obey him he went into the ocean and began to use more of his new powers.

He fused his agricultural abilities, his life abilities, and his powers over water to gain the ability to create simple aquatic life. It was a simple power, but it was one that let him fill the water off of Puerto Rico's coast with many, many more fish than it had once had. Because of this the bay was exploding with life and it was a tempting place for Libertad's hunter-gatherers to go out and hunt.

He also went out deeper into the ocean and saw settlements of strange aquatic creatures, mermaids, sharkfolk, and other powerful and beautiful creatures. When he entered their dreams on the second night, some of them began to open themselves to the possibility that he was indeed what he claimed he was: an aquatic god.

On the fifth day, he gave his followers an important command. He commanded that they explore the ocean and that they chart the ocean floor. He also commanded that they treat strangers with kindness and hospitality.

He explained that the deeper parts of the ocean had strange and wonderful aquatic life, mermaids, sirens, evolved sharks and other creatures that could be engaged with meaningfully and kindly. He encouraged them to do so, as the creatures in the depths already knew about him as well.

In the middle of the afternoon, five days after Althos created Liberad, named for the Reconquista word for "freedom", his orders were being obeyed. The ocean-floor off of the coast of Libertad was indeed being explored and being mapped by Althonians.

Some parts of it were being explored by driders and myrmekes, unusual companions to be sure but ones who worked well together. Other parts of it were being explored by the humanoid inhabitants of Libertad.

Two humans and a single gnome silently and slowly walked along the bottom of Puerto Rico's epipelagic zone, better known as the sunlight zone. The three companions were close friends and were skilled collaborators. They were able to breathe underwater and move freely while submerged thanks to their powerful god.

They wore skin-tight armor fashioned from blue light. It was one of the many gifts their strange god had given them in the days since he rescued them from a lifetime of slavery. And the final gift he had given them that was relevant to their current situations were tridents fashioned from darkness.

They were scouts and hunters, though they tended to focus on the hunter-aspect of their work. At the moment though, their inventories were stuffed with fish thanks to the work they had done all day so they were doing as their god commanded and mapping the ocean floor.

The three of them were three of the volunteers who had set out into the ocean following the command they received from their god. They were far enough from Libertad that they could see the strange temple their town's founder had created. They watched elves swim into the temple, and looked at each other. Almost in unison all three of them had sighed.

"So we aren't going there right?" The gnome asked, looking at her companions exasperated. They looked at her, the disappointment in their eyes matching the disappointment in her tone and shook their heads.

"Alright, I guess we ought to just keep going huh?" She asked. They nodded. She sighed but didn't put up a fight. Of the three she was the most talkative.

Her reaction might have felt strange to someone who didn't know why they wouldn't just go where others had been. The three-person team had made a pact that they would go and chart unvisited territory. Since another group of people were charting the temple Althos had created, they lost their chance to map it. The three explorers readied themselves to go out into the oceanic wilderness.

Perhaps the strangest thing that had happened as a consequence of my escapades in Puerto Rico's underground region was that all of my powers were upgraded. I initially didn't even realize that they were upgraded too.

Days ago I learned that what I felt when I first met the freed slaves I had rescued was their awe giving me an overall boost to my power. It was incredibly useful and because of it I unlocked several new powers and was left far more powerful than before.

Dual domain details:

The alignment-domain of law is a critically powerful domain that governs governments, law, tradition, business, pacts, stability, obedience, authority, bargains, and honor. This is the third alignment domain you've acquired to date. Law as a domain grants you influence over devils, ancients, logicae, and a few other extraplanars.

The domain of time is a greater domain with a particularly unusual set of powers, related to history, and fate. With it, your other abilities related to time, such as your power to manipulate age and peer into the past are greatly improved. In time you gain powers that grant you powers that allow you to manipulate fate and edit the fate of those you target.

Each tier of influence over the time domain reduces the cooldown you have on your active powers by one increment. If a power can be used twice per half-an-hour you can now use it freely. If a power was twice per-twelve-hour-period you can now use it three times per six-hour period. If a power was usable once or twice per three and a half days then you can use it three times per day. So on and so forth.

To gain further influence over the law domain you need to create civilizations and cults that worship you as a provider of order and as a champion of stability. And to gain further influence over the domain of time you need to practice your powers and gain greater knowledge of history, and how time works.

Dual domain passive powers:

Autocratic authoritarian: You gain an auric ability which grants you the power to force lesser creatures to obey you. It doesn't dominate them but it can force them to cease any attacks. This is stronger than your "Patience palm" but "Patience palm" changes someone's attitude and this power doesn't.

Authority detection: You can detect who someone serves. This power is less reliable on chaotic and non-lawful beings, but if someone is some variant of lawful than you detect who is their source of law, be it a person or a cause, without fail.

Awaken: Synergistic power between the domains of nature, knowledge, mind, and law, but you can now awaken a creature at will. This power is related to law tangentially, as it is an authority related power. You can access it as a figure with authority over nature and minds. Creatures you awaken become some variant of lawful.

Awakening a creature allows it to speak a humanoid language and learn more, as well as granting it sapience.

Contract creation: You can create a contract and make a deal with a lawful or neutral being that confers power to them in exchange for their soul. You can grant them non-chaotic powers and upon their deaths their souls are yours. Unless you will it otherwise these souls automatically undergo a devilish transformation at the moment of their deaths.

Constitution command: You can use your authority as a lawful god to force a community to organize themselves more effectively. This power compels all lawful members of a community, no matter where else they fall alignment-wise, to come together and to try and organize their community into a more organized one.

Devil duke: As someone who can influence the evil domain you gain the power to interact more successfully with devils, creatures of law and tyranny. Devils are more likely to serve you or can be convinced to serve you more easily. This power is necessary to eventually become an archdevil.

Hierarchy establishment: You can establish hierarchies. This is a power that affects social structures and is an inherently lawful power meant to reorganize societies.

Historic touch: With a touch you can absorb the history of an object. Absorbing the history of an object allows you to learn the object's secrets, and this valuable power can be used to solve mysteries, perform thefts, or even alter objects.

Lawful soul: Lawful creatures see you as an inherently lawful creature. This doesn't mean that your alignment changes, just that lawful beings see themselves in you and are more likely to respect you and obey you.

Time theft: If you strike an enemy with a blow you can snatch away up to five years of their lifespan, as calculated by fate, and store those years to do with as you see fit.

You can only use this once per target unless you don't steal the maximum number of years, in which case you can use it again. You can give those years to someone else, use them to force an enemy to do as you say, or even just destroy them.

Dual domain active powers:

Authority: This law domain power grants you considerable power. With it you can declare an area your territory and gain nearly total power over it to the point that even instant death effects become a power you can use within it. You can use this power four times per three and a half days.

Gerascophobia entrapment: This is an age-manipulation power afforded to you by the synergy between the domains of death and time. With it, if you touch someone you can trap them in a vision wherein they are stuck in a body on the verge of dying of old-age. You can leave them stuck in this vision for up to an hour. This power can be used freely.

Devilish transformation: If you detect a mortal who is lawful evil and they are going to die you can cause them to transform into a devil the moment they perish. They become a type of devil that most fit their personalities and skills and become utterly loyal to you. You can only use this power once a day. Synergistic power fusing the domains of law, evil, death, and souls.

Resurrection: Once per every six months you can perform a true resurrection.

True resurrections are resurrections that cure curses, diseases, allow someone to live past their species' maximum old-age for up to a decade at this tier of influence, and otherwise come back to life fully healthy. They even rebuild bodies if the person on whom it is being used lacks a body for their soul to return too. This synergistic power is the result of the domains of life, death, and time and the subdomain of healing.

This power does not work on higher beings. It can resurrect any non-higher-being, but cannot resurrect a higher-being. It also doesn't work on someone whose soul has been destroyed or devoured.

Dual domain blessing and curse details:

By blessing someone with the lawful domain you improve their business success, their reputation in their communities, and their overall stats so long as they remain in lawful lands. By cursing someone with this domain you do the opposite.

You cannot bless someone using the time domain. At least not at your current level of influence over the domain.

During the last five days a lot in my personal life changed. One of the little things that changed was that I moved out of the Silver Xana. I did so only after converting all of Isadora's family, including her distant uncle, into my worshipers, but I still moved out and into my tower full time.

It turned out that Isadora's relatives were lawful and thus adjusted to worshipping me quite easily. I had a funny knack for engaging with lawful worshipers that I suppose I probably gained mostly by engaging with the swarm, something I did far more aggressively now than I did before.

Isadora's uncle, in particular, was an excellent convert. He was a monk who lived in Reconquista and I entered his dreams three days in a row and easily turned him into my worshiper. He was a curious fellow who especially liked asking me questions about godhood. In exchange, I freely asked him questions about the world.

Thanks to him I gained two big things: I got to start my own monastic order with an existing monk, and I got to gain more knowledge about the world.

I learned that the Reconquista empire was humanity's largest empire in this world, and was the most aggressive power in the world. I learned that there were four major landmasses in this world, only one of which was populated mostly by humans. I also learned about the three major empires in the world, one run by humans, one run by elves, and one run by a coalition of monstrous races.

Despite gaining an incredible amount of power over a wide variety of things, perhaps the area I had gained the most power in were the elements. Unsurprisingly, as someone on the cusp of becoming an elemental overlord, I possessed significant elemental powers, and the recent upgrade I received had only increased my powers over the elements further.

One of the upgrades I had earned allowed me to manipulate more things. In the case of the earth subdomain, I could now manipulate metal, in the case of the air subdomain I could now manipulate gases in general, in the case of the fire subdomain I could manipulate plasma, and in the case of the liquid subdomain, I could now manipulate something called "oil".

I had also begun to spend more time exploring my environmental menu. I used it to study the world's climate, with a special emphasis on Puerto Rico. It was eye-opening in a fun way as I occasionally messed with it but I kept my mischief to the minimum, opting to make warm days chilly ones and vice-versa.

Off the coast of Puerto Rico, I had created the largest temple I'd create to myself to date. To be fair I had only created three, but this one was the most impressive by far.

It was a large and imposing thing that'd surely catch the eyes of any sapient creature not just for its size and style but because it is underwater. It was also where I spent plenty of my time. And you'd think that eventually my worshipers would learn that, but so far they hadn't.

In front of me knelt three elven worshipers of mine. They were slender high-elves with a complexion that surely marked them as high-elves but they lacked the haughtiness of their fellow high-elves. Perhaps their trials and tribulations had caused them to lose the pride of their fellow high-elves, or perhaps they were just naturally humbler than their peers, but one way or another I quite liked them.

"Why do you kneel?" I asked the trio, all of whom were women. They had courageously approached me while I was here, and then immediately knelt before me. I was confused by this display, as I had never particularly demanded that one show obedience to me by kneeling in my presence.

I had visited the temple twice since I created it. I planned to make a habit of visiting this place every day at the same time so that my followers who explore the coast know that they can reliably see me if they venture into the temple below the waves.

The three elves wore the armor I had crafted for them, and when they looked up at me to speak I could detect their feelings of awe emanating from their gazes. They stood shoulder-to-shoulder as if to indicate that they were equals, and I was a bit surprised to see that they were lawful neutral and their sources of law were all the same when I appraised them.

Each member of the blonde trio held me as their source of law. That was deeply flattering. It meant that their sense of morality and ethics were all anchored in their religion and the god they worshiped: me.

"Althos, if you'd let us know... We merely wish to know what you plan to do with this temple?" One of them asked. She spoke softly, and there was a tremble in her voice. Another spoke as soon as her peer was done and provided an explanation.

"If our question oversteps please let us know, but if you have plans for this temple and they require aid we'd be happy to provide said aid. You are our god, and we wish to enact your will." She said, hoping to soothe things over with me in case I was annoyed by the question.

I looked at her and chuckled. To be fair to them I hadn't ever told them that I was going to build a temple to myself underwater. On the third day after I made Libertad I went into the sea and erected this odd temple for no explicitly stated reason.

I studied the elves for a second and mulled over how to reply to them in a way that suggested that I had some grand design. It didn't take me long to come up with a creative lie that might as well have been true.

"I have worshipers on the surface, and underground. I want to begin to gain worshipers under the sea. This temple will serve as a sanctuary for all of my worshipers who dwell under the waves or whose livelihoods are affected by the seas. I constructed this temple as a neutral place for aquatic creatures to come and rest, while praying and offering me the proper tribute." I explained, lying but speaking with confidence.

"I want to begin to interact meaningfully with the denizens of the deep, and also with humanoids who dwell along the coasts. My intention is to build temples like this off of major coastal cities all over the world, and near major cities underneath the waves. This temple is just a prototype, though I must admit... I do love it here." I told the pious elves.

I was only lying to them about that plan being the origin of the temple. I actually really liked that idea and mentally stored it away in the list of ideas I had that I needed to better develop but were themselves good ideas. I had gotten quite a few of those over the last few days.

Dual subdomain details:

The subdomains of truth and lies are two polar opposite subdomains. It is interesting that you acquired both at more or less the same time.

The subdomain of truth governs things like honesty, secrets, peels past illusions and enchantments, and abhors lies. The subdomain of lies governs deceit, misinformation, and propaganda.

At the first tier of influence, these subdomains don't seem like much. Don't be fooled though, they possess many synergistic powers that make these subdomains far stronger than you may think right now.

Both of these subdomains require the usual things that subdomains ask you for in order to continue gaining influence over them.

Subdomain passive powers:

Lie manipulation/Truth corruption: As a god of lies, you can detect a lie the moment it is uttered. A lie is a deliberate falsehood, not merely an incorrect statement. If you wish you can force creatures in your presence to only lie. You can also target specific creatures and affect them with this condition.

Truth detection/Banishment of lies: As a god of the truth you can detect when a creature is being honest. Honesty doesn't mean accuracy, an honest statement could be incorrect but be sincerely believed by whoever uttered it. You can force creatures in your presence to only utter the truth.

Eyes of truth: No illusion or enchantment can affect you, and no technology can hide something from your view.

Cut the lies: At will you forcibly deactivate technology or dispel magic that puts up illusions or hides something from view.

Subdomain active powers:

Believe me: You can tell a lie once per day that is believed by anyone who hears it for at least twenty-four hours no matter how obviously wrong that lie is.

The truth hurts: You can tap up to twenty people per twelve-hour period and they automatically learn who last lied to them. They are filled with rage towards whoever they learn lied to them last and will attempt to destroy them or otherwise cause them pain. If you know of a specific lie told to a target you can instead cause them to be filled with anger towards the person who told them that specific lie.

Lies destroy: You can cause someone to experience excruciating pain for a minute for every lie they uttered in the last twenty-four hours. Synergistic power fusing the subdomains of truth and pain.

Secret detection: You can pick a creature and learn a secret about them. This power can only be used once a day on a target, but so long as the targets are different people it can be used up to twice per half-day.

Agony: By merely speaking to someone you can cause them to believe they are experiencing pain. The pain isn't real, but it lasts for an hour and nothing can convince the person suffering from it that isn't. This power can be used twice per twelve-hour period and is a synergistic power that touches the subdomains of pain and lies.

Naked truth: Synergistic power tying together the subdomains of truth, corruption, and the domains of evil and knowledge.

If a person is attracted to someone, especially someone they shouldn't be attracted too, they are overwhelmed by a wave of lust too strong for them to overcome. This evil power can be used to destroy relationships and cause pain. This can be used twice per twelve-hour-period.

Dual subdomain blessing and curse details:

Blessing someone with the truth subdomain causes them to gain strength when they tell the truth. Cursing someone with the truth subdomain weakens them whenever they lie.

Blessing someone with the subdomain of lies grants them temporary charisma each time they lie. Cursing someone with the subdomain of lies causes them to lose charisma, temporarily, each time they lie.

As I continued to converse with the elves, I did something I had turned into a daily ritual: I opened my religion menu and tapped on a relatively new section of it entitled "Families, sects, cults, and churches".

This section of my religion menu was one of my favorites. It allowed me to swiftly learn about the conditions of the assorted individuals, communities, and species that worshiped me.

Retrieving information on your followers and worshipers... Compiling information... Preparations complete.

Families:

Santiagos: The Santiagos are a family of humans and nephilims living in Puerto Rico and on the mainland of the Reconquista empire. There are over 150 members of this family, of which about a third of nephilim. The majority of the family live on the mainland of the Reconquista empire.

Your hard work has led to over 50 of them worshipping you. 10 of your worshipers from this family are nephilim.

The nephilim who've been brought to your side are especially reverential worshipers who entreat you for aid in your capacity as a deity of shapeshifting, trickery, and lies. Your 50 worshipers from this family are working to persuade the rest of their family to become your worshipers.

This family knows you by a unique title: the kind deceiver. Some of them worship you as a god of positive change, healing, and trickery. Others worship you as a god of progress, shapeshifting, and nature.

Mondragons: A human family that lives in Puerto Rico. Made up of the relatives of Alma, Gustavo, Marlena, and Sophia Mondrago, numbers about 25 total people. 12 of them worship you as your alter-ego the serene spirit of healing, agriculture, and prosperity named Cosecha.

Silverstones: The elder council of the Silverstone family have all become Althonians after witnessing the powers of their leader, Lilith, who herself has become one of your witches. Lilith herself, a power-hungry enchantress is your faithful servant for she recognizes the reality of your power and hopes to ascend to even higher lengths with it.

There are over 500 dark-elves who possess the Silverstone family name. Only twenty of them worship you.

Dragonspears: Drow Dragonspear is a templar in your service. He has seized command of his family, a militaristic family, and turned them to your worship.

Their worship of you is pretty rare because they worship you as a god of conquest and of war. Only they and the reptilefolk you conquered worship you in such a fashion.

When you intend to take the city of Aronms, they will fight alongside your forces. Drow has turned them fully to your worship, through displays of the power you have granted him, and thus they are your most fanatical dark-elven worshipers.

Sects, cults, and churches:

Cosechians: The term 'Cosechian' applies to a worshipper of Cosecha. Cosechians are typically either neutral or good and worship you without knowing that they worship you.

The majority of Cosechians are farmers. And the majority of them can be found within the Reconquista empire, especially but not exclusively within Puerto Rico.

Althonians: The term 'Althonian' applies to one of your worshipers who worships you as you.

Some of them believe you to be a god of goodness and freedom, such as the people of Libertad and the inhabitants of the Rodan forest. Some believe you to be a god of necromancers and necromancy like the reptilefolks of the encampment. And some believe you to be somewhere in the middle like the people of Oscuridad, the settlement next to your tower.

The two beefiest bodies of faithful that you possess are the swarm, whom number over several billion, and your undead horde. Your swarm, composed solely of ants and the simplest undead, is a gigantic, potentially world-changing force. It is more than large enough and more than dangerous enough to combat at least a minor country without your help.

Your swarm worships you as an omnipotent deity. They sense your influence in all things and believe you to be the decider of the fate of the world.

Your horde worships you as a patient enemy of life and awaits your next commands, eagerly hoping to feed on an entire community next time.

Other Althonians worship you in specific ways, such as a small cabal of women in the kingdom of Atlantis who worship you as a god of abundance, life, and healing.

I chuckled as I read through the entry. In total, I possessed a few billion worshipers, and I was about to go ahead and increase that number further thanks to a few new abilities I possessed.

I closed my eyes and allowed my familiar not-so-mini-map to consume my vision. The sight that greeted me when I did was my mini-map, and also more. I was greeted by a positively enormous map that showed me the area that surrounded me in real-time.

My not-so-mini-map had undergone one final upgrade when I gained access to the liquid subdomain. This caused the thing's range to dramatically, allow me to see life in water, and also see things in real-time.

My divine perception wasn't just limited to Puerto-Rico anymore. Now I could fully explore the sea around me, and even perceive entire kilometers of Iredale in real-time. And that opened up a world of possibilities for me.

I quickly and quietly selected every single ant, wasp, and bee in the area on the not-so-mini-map. Before I did anything else, I cast a single and very familiar spell: "Create food". I smiled as I felt an ocean of magical energy pour out of me and felt enough food to feed entire communities be created in other parts of Puerto Rico, and along the coast and plains of the edges of Iredale.

I twitched a mental muscle and turned the minds of the creatures I had targeted towards the food. They were surprised by the food's sudden appearance and for a moment were frozen.

And a heartbeat later I felt trillions of tiny feet dash towards the food at once, countless legs, wings, and other appendages move towards the food, and began to consume it. And for the first time in several days, I was pleasantly overwhelmed by notifications.

Though I didn't actually need to feed them, I was just doing it for fun.

Ten minutes passed by the time I had finished sorting through the tidal wave of notifications I had received. The information I had sorted through brought a smile to my face. As had how I passed the time in addition to reading.

My ever-constant mind began experimenting with the creatures who fell under my influence and in doing so dominated them. This was because I possessed a fun new toy to play with: the ability to awaken and dominate members of the Hymenoptera order outright the instant I make contact with them. That was one of the five new powers I had recently earned related to the Hymenoptera order.

The second ability I had earned was the power to cause unevolved members of the Hymenoptera order to evolve at will. I hadn't used that power yet, but I planned to change that today.

My third new power was the ability to take a hit and then cause my body to dissolve into swarms of flying ants, wasps, or bees that attack my attacker. My fourth new power was the ability to generate insectoid wings and vibrate them to confuse my enemies. And my fifth new power, an especially brutal one, allowed me to attack enemies and implant Hymenoptera eggs into them.

That said, I didn't intend to use those three powers today.

"What should I do with these new babies?" I asked myself, lovingly referring to the insects I had newly acquired and added to my swarm as "babies".

"Should I make them evolve?" I wondered, in the safety of my mind. I knew what sort of creatures ants, wasps, and bees evolved into.

Ants evolved into variations of bigger, beefier ants or myrmekes. Bees evolved into larger, fiercer bees or into Thriaes, which were enterprising bee-people who supposedly built city-sized colonies above and below ground. Wasps evolved into massive variants of their more youthful forms and if left to their own devices create sprawling hives that can be measured in kilometers.

Of course, all of the aforementioned insects can be evolved into other, more unique forms as well thanks to my unusual and alien mixture of powers, domains, and subdomains. And there was a part of me that wanted to experiment with that.

"If I make them evolve I inch closer to acquiring the next quest, I gain powerful new servants, and I expand my empire into the relatively uninhabited coast of Iredale." I muttered to myself.

The truth was that I was hesitating. I had a reason to hesitate, and I felt that the reason I had was a good one. My reason was that I didn't want to waste the potential of the swarm. The swarm was probably my most valuable force. It was a positively enormous force of slavishly loyal insects, and with it, I didn't doubt that I could change the world.

That said, so far I had kept them on the back-burner, despite them being my first minions. A part of me knew that needed to change. And that with the swarm I could practice active expansion of my territory into the largely uninhabited coastal territory of Iredale's coasts.

And so, I decided that that was precisely what I would do. I started off by giving my newest servants their first command.

Throughout Puerto Rico and the southern-most coast of Iredale alike countless ants, bees, and wasps were going about their business until a god intervened. Gods tended to do that.

They had been living simple, largely unambitious lives, and were quite successful at it. But that changed, as things often did, when a god got involved.

The god was kind to them. He started off by feeding them. It was an easy act for him to do after all. But then he spoke to them. And he asked that they change.

"Evolve. Serve. Build. Worship." He commanded them, whispering in their minds and commanding entire hives to transform not just overnight, but unbelievably he was asking them to evolve instantly. And what was even less believable than that was that they could and that they did.

Ants and wasps were teleported out of their colonies, bees were booted out of their hives, and members of all three species began to change. They all began to glow a radiant light and their bodies underwent dramatic changes.

Ants and bees in many but not all cases took on entirely new forms. Their new forms were eerie ones, ones resembling winged humanoids or in the case of the ants, centaur-like humanoids but with a bug's details rather than those of a horse.

Wasps, on the other hand, grew to horrifying proportions. They grew to be larger than horses, or even carriages in the cases of the queens.

Their transformation only took a few minutes, but by the end of it, there was a swarm of an unfathomable size that was ready to be unleashed on an unsuspecting countryside. And in obeying their new lord, members of all three species formed a quiet and united front and embarked on a massive quest to do as their lord commanded: serve, build, and worship.

Even minutes after joining the strange hive-mind that was the swarm the insects in it displayed a terrifying efficiency. The orders the insects received were not argued against or questioned, nor did they stir resentment or fear. Instead the orders were obeyed.

In Puerto Rico about a tenth of the ant population began to trek towards Iredale. The tenth of the Althonians who began to creep towards their new home did so silently. They trudged through the underground labyrinth of ant tunnels that led them to Libertad, and then out of the hole that allowed the ants to explore the town. And when the ants reached the ocean they dove into it.

The residents of Libertad watched this, curiously. The stream of insects were polite and non-aggressive even when they bumped into someone in Libertad or when a child began to cry at the sight of them. They walked in a single-file line and their formation was perfect and uninterrupted.

The ants that dove into the ocean immediately began to benefit from the powers of "Aquatic freedom", the ability their god possessed that let them breathe underwater and move freely even while submerged. The ants used it to begin a trek through the ocean-floor.

They walked past the Althonian temple their god had created for himself, and then into the open-ocean and were left alone. This was because their god charted a path for them that led them through uninhabited parts of the sea, and even the few animals that did try to attack them were prevented from doing so by Althos' intervention.

Ocean currents carried them across the sea at an incredible pace, contributing to their ability to cross the several hundred-kilometer distance that separated Puerto Rico and Iredale smoothly and over the course of a few hours.

On the other side of the sea, Althonian insects were hard at work building their first communities. Kilometers of shoreline and adjacent regions were taken over in an instant by the alien-dominated swarm. Ants, wasps, and bees weren't supposed to work together but since they did and they shared a consciousness they were terrifyingly good at it.

Althos played an active part in this early and aggressive success. He did so by issuing odd commands to some of the insects under his control.

To the ants, he ordered that they spray their stores of acid onto the floor at their feet. His ants obeyed him, not mindlessly but in full-faith that their god knew what he was doing. He didn't disappoint. When the ants sprayed their acid, Althos animated and awoke the puddles of the stuff, transforming them into oozes that immediately began to serve the ants who made them.

He ordered his massive wasps to conduct patrols. Perhaps the most direct thing he himself did was build nests for the creatures under his command, especially the wasps. He reached out with his mind and quietly terraformed areas suitable for his massive worshipers, rending the ground at their feet and creating tunnel complexes in an instant that were suitable for creatures of their size.

He was gentlest with the bees. There was no particular reason for this, he just was. Perhaps it was some sense of unconscious kinship he felt with them that he didn't feel with the others. After all, the bees were the ones with the most human-like transformation.

The bees had become Thriae. Thriae looked highly human but possessed multiple pairs of arms, two sets of eyes, one human and one compound, had insectile wings and possessed the enlarged abdomen and intimidating stingers bees were known for.

I felt a sense of gratitude towards my insectoid minions. They were efficient creatures, who took my orders without complaint and because of that I knew that I could leave Iredale's coast to them.

I knew that these creatures were efficient beings because of my interactions with the original members of the swarm, the ants who'd become myrmekes and would inhabit portions of Puerto Rico's subterranean region. They had worked hard, despite me not giving them any orders, and billions of them still kept portions of the underground safe, areas including my tower and the settlement I had built next to my tower.

I spent an hour working with the insects to get them prepared for colonizing the coast of Iredale. While doing so I began to devise ideas for how to best use their abilities. I intended for the Thriae to become the diplomats of the swarm, insofar as the swarm needed or used diplomats.

The Thriae looked human. I could use that to my advantage and I intended to do so. The wasps were just massive and thus terrifying-looking wasps, and the myrmekes could be compared to centaurs but with an ant's lower-half instead of a horse's. I could use the ants and the wasps to achieve other ends, while using the Thriae to establish communications with other species when possible.

For now my plans with the Iredale colonies were to let them develop naturally. I wasn't hugely focused on Iredale just yet. And I knew that wouldn't change anytime in the nearish future.

That said, I was grateful for all of the practice commanding large swarms of creatures. I figured, since I had already started commanding large swathes of creatures, I might as well keep that up.

I reopened my not-so-mini-map and began to fiddle with the filters. After a few moments, I had selected an entirely new group of creatures that I suspected would be incredibly useful in their own ways: vermin and parasites.

I had come to life possessing the first tier of influence over a nebulous subdomain: the subdomain of vermin. At the time it was regarded as an ominous power. And I hadn't ever really used it to date. That said, it was upgraded as thoroughly as my other powers were.

Over the course of my life, I had earned two overall boosts to my power. The first one was when I finished the tutorial and the second one was when I rescued the enslaved creatures. In both cases, I had received boosts to my powers over vermin and parasites.

At the time I hadn't made use of those powers. I chuckled as I mentally reviewed those powers and found that many of them were very similar to the Hymenoptera powers. They included domination, awakening, and even forced-evolution powers, as well as a number of offensive powers.

One of the more intriguing passive powers did cause those bitten by parasites to fall under my influence, which was incredibly neat. Another empowered my parasites to learn a bit about those they bit or otherwise infested. That, coupled with my ability to awaken them, gave me an amazing tool: spies. And something that I could tell I would use in the future was a synergistic ability that let me target humanoids and force them to take on the shapes of parasites and vermin.

The active powers were a bit more interesting as those included a number of offensive and mind-related abilities. One of them included transforming those bitten by parasites into the form of parasite they got bitten by, and another was a powerful sound-based attack that caused parasites to focus on a specific target.

That said, my not-so-mini-map revealed something fascinating to me that I hadn't known ahead of time. The majority of the parasites and vermin I could detect, especially in Puerto Rico, were located in the city. Which was something that immediately made me feel stupid for not utilizing these powers earlier.

After pondering my silliness for a few moments, I entered the minds of the simplistic parasites and vermin that could be found throughout Puerto Rico, in the ocean, and along the coast of Iredale. This act permanently transformed these creatures and granted me eyes and ears in places I hadn't had them before.

Though parasites and vermin could naturally be found all over Puerto Rico, they were concentrated in one particular area: the city of San Gerardo. The city was a sprawling mess populated by tens of thousands of humans and their closest relatives.

Rats, cockroaches, hookworms, ticks, and more could be found in abundance throughout the city. And because of this, the number of eyes and ears Althos gained were immeasurable. He chuckled, underwater, as he gained these eyes and ears and all of the knowledge that came with them.

Althos quickly and quietly explored how he could evolve these creatures, and whether or not it was worth it. He skimmed over information alerting him to creatures like the Colo-Colo, a surprisingly handy evolution of rats that could eat energy and leave people lethargic, to cockroach humanoids who tended to become rogues, assassins, and stealthy classes, and was delighted.

This both further annoyed the god, who felt as though he ought to have been more fully and creatively using his powers, and also excited him. The god fell into an introspective state of mind while silently assessing which of the awakened animals he would transform. And he began to scheme.

"I should transform... Maybe a quarter of the mice, and a twentieth of the cockroaches. It's a shame none of the others here have any particularly interesting abilities though." I admitted, after a few moments of introspection.

"That said, if I am strategic and use the Colo-Colos to their maximum potential I could make either capturing the city or fomenting the right types of wicked cults there an easy task." I muttered. I was now alone in my undersea temple and free to scheme.

My mind was flooded with new messages, many of them newly awakened creatures thanking me for entering their minds, and others quiet prayers to my eerie and unholy glory. The part of me that was tasked with gathering information was amused by the awareness the parasites seemed to possess of themselves or of me. They either knew they were disliked, or they knew me as a dark god.

When I tore myself away from the messages, I refocused. My worshippers were swelling, but I wanted to be worshiped by more than just insects and animals. And I wanted to build renown in more than certain sections of underground cities, or in small settlements I myself made.

The truth was that I wanted to become known throughout the world. I always had. I was ambitious and it fueled my actions in various ways. But for now that ambition allowed me to carefully and clearly focus on my next target: the city of San Gerardo.

San Gerardo was the capital of Puerto Rico. At least for humans. It was a massive city by human standards, and very possibly the largest frontier community in the world. San Gerardo was the last bastion of human civilization in the furthest most eastern portion of the world.

I had learned from Isodora's uncle that it was led by a colonial governor who was directly appointed by the queen of the empire. I didn't particularly want to visit the city, but I did want to come to influence it, which put me in a fascinating position.

To date all of the areas I had taken over I had done so through direct action or by creating those areas in the first place. A part of me wanted to test my less direct capabilities and learn to trust my followers, even those I had never met.

I wanted to create cults that took over the city without me directly entering it. And that would test my subtly, my ability to corrupt, and my leadership. And it'd be fun.

I was never more thankful for the multitude of powers at a god's disposal as I was right now. Because thanks to those powers I could reach out and begin to learn about the city's many inhabitants.

I focused on the area of Puerto Rico I knew to be San Gerardo, and I smiled. I could detect thousands of lives there, all of which I wanted to reach out and touch. But I wasn't foolish or arrogant. I knew I needed to be methodical if I wanted to build something that would last.

I toggled filters and began to gather information on which people were which alignments. I took it in order, starting off with who all was lawful. I was a bit impressed when I saw that over half of the city's inhabitants were lawful individuals. I then applied an extra filter: I added that I was searching for lawful-evil people.

Lawful-evil people and creatures were people and creatures who wanted to take advantage of laws, customs, traditions, and other systems to advance their own selfish interests. Lawful-evil people were willing to back tyrants so long as the tyrants promised and gave them power, and they were orderly individuals who didn't want to buck the system.

When the system was done applying that filter, the total population of the city that remained was about six percent. It wasn't a bad number, and I knew that if I needed too I could change it.

I reset and then applied a new set of conditions to the not-so-mini-map. I began searching for chaotic individuals. About two-thirds of the remaining population of the city were outed as chaotic individuals. I chuckled at this.

Chaotic individuals had no respect for authority or governments. They valued freedom and spontaneity, and they were useful. If I wanted to undermine the city, I'd need the help of both chaotic individuals and lawful ones.

I added the additional filter of searching for chaotic individuals who were also evil and found that only two percent of the city's inhabitants fit that bill. That was disappointing but unsurprising.

My final two inspections of the city for fun qualities I could manipulate were a bit different. The first of them was for a specific type of personal vice: lust. A city was the perfect place for me to build a cult of corruption, and I wanted to see who all would be susceptible to lust-based temptations.

I was delighted when I saw that almost nine percent of the city were extra vulnerable to lust. That meant that with the right preparations I could at least use the place to house a decent number of succubi and incubi.

Out of curiosity, my final inspection of the city was to investigate to see who all hated either the governor or the Reconquista empire itself. I didn't find many people at all who felt that way, which was a bit disappointing. It would have been fun to test the governor's capabilities to resist a rebellion against either his administration or the Reconquista empire itself.

That said, night had now fallen over Puerto Rico. I had spent the day scheming. And now that the night was falling, I had work to do. Foundations to build, people to meet, and worshipers to gain in the most conventionally godly of ways: through dreams.

Dual domain details:

The domain of trickery and the subdomain of enchantment are two handy areas and have similar interests.

Trickery is the domain that governs all deception. This includes lies, falsehoods, tricks, enchantments, and more. It is a neutral domain that cares not what end results are brought upon by dishonest means but only that dishonest means help produce them.

The subdomain of enchantment is a magical subdomain that governs illusions, enchantments, and other falsehoods created by magic. This powerful subdomain allows those who make use of it to trick others. Gods who influence it are masters of deception who use both magic and mundane means to trick others.

Dual domains passive powers:

Custom magical effects: You can use magic to create specific desired effects so long as you possess one tier of influence over the domain that governs the sort of effect you'd like to cause. This is a synergistic power that requires influence over several magical subdomains in order to be earned.

With this power you could disguise an army of the undead as an army of golden holy knights, or kill someone using evocation magic while pretending to heal them in the eyes of anyone who would be watching. This is a terrifying power for a trickster like you to possess.

Divine illusionist: Illusions you create are not magical in nature. This means that they are not dispelled by anti-magic fields, and greater illusions are even capable of limited interactions with the world around them.

Aura of normalcy: You can bend reality around you in such a way that people are not capable of sensing why you shouldn't be in a place at any time you opt to activate this power. People affected by this aura sense something is off, but they can't pinpoint it.

Divine invisibility: You can become fully incorporeal and truly undetectable. Normally outsiders and a few mortals, as well as various undead can detect incorporeal creatures, but this divine invisibility is the strongest invisibility, that can only be detected by another higher-being.

Divine enchanter: Your enchantments are buffed, and can even be contagious. Depending on the enchantment, so long as you've cast it if someone suffering from an enchantment of yours interacts with someone who isn't then the enchantment may also begin to affect them. Your enchantments also can't be dispelled unless you allow them to be.

Sense manipulation: You can directly assail the senses of mortals. This power doesn't work on the undead or extraplanars, yet.

Projection: You can project an illusionary version of yourself that can fully interact with the world around it. This is a projection with all of your powers that you control directly. Attempts to attack it reveal it as an illusion and if it is hit it vanishes or explodes, your choice.

Class acquisition and granting: You earn the rogue and assassin classes. These are classes that epitomize the tenants of trickery, stealth, and deception. And you can grant these classes as well.

Trap mastery: You gain the knowledge needed to make traps related to your domains and subdomains. You can also automatically detect and disarm traps.

Steal: You can steal things from those who oppose you. These things need not be physical. You can steal stat points and redistribute them, steal beauty, steal abilities, or even steal memories and personality traits. You cannot copy these things, you can only steal them.

Drug mastery: This power synergizes the trickery and deceptive domains and subdomains, the mind domain, and the alteration subdomain. With this power you can create drugs, and manipulate them. You can also now ambiently cause their effects to take hold in people you select.

Dual domains active powers:

Reasonable: You can persuade someone to take action once per day. This power only works on a single target, and the action cannot be something that would directly harm themselves.

Mesmerizing aura: This once a day power activates an hour-long aura that prevents creatures from being hostile towards you.

Enrichen the illusion: Once per week you can create an illusion of something inanimate and make it real. Or once per month you can turn an illusion of a living thing into a true lifeform.

Dual domain blessing and curse details:

You can bless someone with the trickery domain and make them more persuasive, easier to be comfortable around, and better at theft. If you curse someone with it then they become less glib, more unsettling, and worse at theft.

By blessing someone with the enchantment subdomain you boost their beauty and magical power. Your ambient control over magic has gotten strong enough that your blessings alone can allow someone to use magic, and that is the case with this subdomain and all magical subdomains moving forward. If you curse someone with this subdomain you make them uglier and drain their magical energy.

I smiled as I began to extend my divine, arcane, and eldritch tentacles and influence across Puerto Rico and towards the most remote bastion of humanity: San Gerardo. I knew they had no idea what was coming their way.

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