The domains of knowledge, faiths, and spirits had once told me that angels were the creatures closest to the gods. Angels and the sort of higher beings they could become, the so-called "Angel kings" had been the most powerful beings in the multiverse aside from gods themselves in the mythic age. The angel in front of me had the sort of presence that a video-game's mid-boss would have had in real life which definitely suggested that there was truth to that idea.
I had learned about video games during my three-year stint building my empire. They were a popular pastime in worlds with sufficiently advanced technology. Htrae was one such world, as was Mercy. A number of other worlds with sufficiently advanced technology were also part of the Althonite empire, but only a handful.
I had even played some video games myself, though I didn't enjoy them quite as much as I enjoyed real-life, which was not always the case for mortals. I tended to enjoy the hardest video games more than the easiest ones.
Video games aside, the angel I was currently facing locked eyes with me and motioned slyly with its hands for me to approach. He was confident, that much was for sure. I couldn't blame him for his confidence, he was the first member of the gauntlet and one of the strongest. However, he was not nearly powerful enough to challenge me.
I began our confrontation with a demonstration of that, instantly activating my true speed and dashing towards the angel while he was still gesturing for me to come at him. He was mid-gesture when I flashed towards him and threw a single, straight, kick to his chest, where his armor was the thickest. I didn't want to kill him in one blow, though even that wouldn't be permanent if I didn't feel like letting it be permanent.
The angel was blown back by the force of the kick and flew to the edge of the arena before slamming into the wall which defined the boundaries of the arena with enough force to be forced into the wall, creating a him-shaped crater in the wall. I chuckled and slowed down enough to witness his reaction.
The angel pushed himself out of the wall and fell to his knees. He sighed, painfully, as blood began to ooze out of his mouth and pour onto the floor beneath him. As he did this another wing unfurled from behind him, this one dark green where his other one was a metallic shade of silver. He slowly tilted his head upward to glare at me as I began to move towards where he now crouched, unhappily. I grinned back at him and began to audibly laugh as I began to move once again, slowly approaching him.
The god slowly, hauntingly approached the heavily injured angel. His attack was a simple but devastatingly effective strike that would have slain young dragons and would have dealt real damage to absolute monsters such as Ygaynth and Agustino. Althos was not taking the fight seriously enough to even use abilities given to him by his mastery over the monk and brawler classes, two different classes that specialized in unarmed combat, and yet one simple strike was still enough to kill even dragons.
The angel glared at the god, anger, and fear mixing into an unpleasant cocktail of powerful emotions as he stared up at his foe. The angel had not expected his opponent to be a god and so he had not taken his enemy seriously. That was a mistake the ancient creature was now paying for in blood and pain. Althos, for his role in all of this, was having a fun time.
Althos began to radiate power as he slowly approached the angel. His form began to radiate white light and the smile on his face became a ghastly, vicious thing. The angel was not happy but as an ancient being who remembered the old gods, ancient, unimaginably powerful beings who could defy and rewrite reality, his will was not so easily crushed that a single blow could reduce him to a sniveling, whiny child.
He frowned at Althos and his wings both moved to be placed firmly between the god and the extraplanar entity. The god chuckled and his chuckles became peals of laughter when the angel's wings began to fire more of the attack that the god's robotic minions had fallen to. Althos was not bothered by this and when feathers began to close in on him he effortlessly plucked them out of the air, unbothered by their electricity.
The god's hands were an untraceable blur, moving impossibly quickly to pluck the weapons out of the air between himself and his opponent. He was utterly unphased by the attack and judging from the amusement on his face he was actually enjoying the time he spent nullifying the attack. This only further incensed the angel, whose anger lent his wings strength and impressively the angel managed to speed up his attacks. Equally impressively was the fact that this didn't change Althos' reaction to the attack. The god, almost cruelly, didn't even really speed up. His reaction to the angel's angered attack was as nonchalant as it had been earlier.
Eventually, the angel roared in anger and finally in fear. It was when fear was beginning to settle into his heart that Althos chuckled and finally decided to settle this one-sided "battle".
He walked up to the angel, punched him in the face, and then activated his "Soul destruction" power, which caused the angel to stiffen as death overtook him. The angel began to vanish, destroyed utterly by the destructive powers of Althos' mighty powers over souls. As the angel began to disappear, a portal appeared in the center of the arena.
Althos turned and gazed upon it.
For the first time in my life, I watched someone else create a portal. The portal that appeared in the center of the arena was a bright thing and what was on the other side of the portal was a big room filled with an array of creatures. Most of them were robots of different sorts but some were organic creatures.
The organic creatures on the other side of the portal were invariably angels, devils, or dragons. It was precisely at this point that I realized that Technos at least during his life had been a god of dragons strong enough to command and be worshiped by true dragons.
That was an achievement I hadn't merited, at least not in any real numbers. The vast majority of my draconic followers were lesser dragons, not true ones.
That said, I wasn't the sort to not take advantage of opportunities shoved in my face. With a smile on my face, I rose a hand and willed a powerful and destructive force into being in the visible area beyond the portal. For one brief instant, my enemies watched a thick orb of darkness begin to appear in the middle of the room they were placed in. This time the black hole I was bringing into existence was not a small one.
The black hole I had just created hovered in the air behind a particularly large red dragon. The creatures in the room, dozens of beings, had just enough time to gaze at the orb with fear wracking their faces before the black hole's event horizon expanded to where they stood and violently began to suck them into its singularity. It took a split second, and when it was done I immediately destroyed the black hole, willing it out of existence as easily as I had willed it into existence. When it was gone the room was empty, and I felt the power of my slain enemies surge into me. It was at that moment that the blasted P.A. system that allowed Technos to communicate with me flared to life.
"You... What did you do!?" He asked, stunned at the sheer efficiency of one of my ultimate abilities as far as destructive potential went. I could hear the confusion in his voice, and I realized immediately that this was my chance to go ahead and complete the quests I had needed to complete to gain greater influence over the trickery domain and the truth subdomain. I looked up at the ceiling of the arena, way up in the air directly above me and spoke confidently and clearly.
"My name is Althos. I am an outer god of annihilation, darkness, and destiny. I have come to put down the echoes of the ancient, mythical past." I remarked, cryptically. There was an arrogant, prideful smirk on my face. I shivered as I felt my powers over the subdomain of truth increase, thanks to the truthful aspects of the revelation I had laid at the lap of my foe. Silence filled the air for a second as my enemy began to put two and two together regarding my identity. And then when he replied to me there was less considerably less arrogance in his tone, and a touch of concern in his voice.
"So someone did survive that apocalypse..." He uttered, confusion coloring his cadence. He was clearly thinking out loud, but it was convenient for me so I didn't question it for now.
"To think that one of us made it through that and actually lived... Though I suppose the outer gods were sealed away in the deepest, darkest pits that the survivors of that blasted war, it's not impossible that you were just locked away so deep that even that apocalypse wasn't able to put you down. But if that's the case... What's your real name?" The voice asked, over the P.A., attempting to come to some sort of conclusion on his own.
"'Althos'... What a dumb name. What are you, a god of insects? And you expect me to believe you are an 'Outer god' of 'Destiny, annihilation, and darkness'... Given your grandiose claims, I could see you being Hastur, but you're far more handsome than that old bastard was ever able to make himself, and during my life, he wasn't an outer god. You're also too normal looking, and you're bipedal, so you probably aren't the Black Goat..." The voice said, continuing his bad habit of thinking out loud.
"I suppose you could be Atlach-Nacha or Mordiggian... Though I suppose you'd probably not tell me even if I ascertained your true identity." The voice continued, finally arriving at something vaguely true. If I had been lying about my identity I wouldn't have told him the truth unless it benefited me to do so, somehow. He believed enough of my tale for me to gain greater power over truth, and that was the first of the things that I sought from him.
Technos was also weirdly knowledgeable about the assorted soldiers the eldritch domain had utilized in its war against reality. I had done my own fair share of research while I was building my empire and the names the vestige was hurling at me were not all well known outer gods or great old ones. The Black Goat and Hastur were well known but Atlach-Nacha and Mordiggian weren't. I wondered, momentarily, if this creature had fought in the mythic war but then realized that he'd probably have a more emotional reaction to my claim if he had.
I had been lucky that I had spent a fragment of my time in the Heart of Darkness, where I had learned that some of the vestiges of the Great Old Ones and a few of the Outer Gods could be located if one delved into the depths of that dimension. Because of my proximity to their ilk I had been able to do research and even gotten the eldritch domain itself to give me some vague hints as to the eerie nature of its dark goals and the mysterious fate of the soldiers and generals in its armies.
A small part of me began to excitedly hope that I could gain the knowledge Technos possessed and use it to discover more about the ancient, unknown past of the universe. I wanted whatever knowledge Technos possessed and with it I'd be able to begin to understand the strange apocalyptic event that annihilated my ancestors. It was at this point that I consciously noticed that my enemy had gone silent. I was about to speak up, but Technos broke the silence before I could.
"Well... I suppose, if you're gonna be some mysterious grim reaper, the least I could do is try to stop you as best as I can. If you really are an outer god of annihilation and other things this won't stop you, but if you some sort of other higher being this might just work." The vestige declared, before the roof on top of me opened up and revealed a large, ominously marked bomb.
"If you're determined to put me down as you said so eloquently before, then let's see if you can withstand this. If you aren't a god then it should be able to put you down." The creature declared. As I glanced at the bomb a notification filled my mind alerting me as to what the bomb was made of. It was an antimatter bomb. I had control over antimatter, and knowledge of that brought a smile to my face, even as I continued to inwardly, quietly admire the knowledge Technos had concerning the ancient foes of reality.
