Every second that passed more and more eldritch darkness poured out of me. And each passing second brought me closer and closer to my destination. Beside me, Sombra was silent as she felt the power of my bizarre, potent darkness seeping into her. She didn't mind it though.
I could sense her thoughts and feel her emotions. I had possessed the power to do that for a long time, as she had been mine almost as long as I had known her. The shadowy demoness was at home in the darkness that was radiating out of me and invading every nanometer of the palace. She was almost basking in it.
We were making our way up a stairwell and as we did I felt the power of my darkness overtaking more and more of the palace's inhabitants and guards. It felt good to feel them succumb to my influence and power, and it brought a smile to my face to know that more and more creatures were in effect becoming mine.
As Sombra and I silently made our way up the stairwell we could physically hear sounds from within the darkness. I could hear every sound made within the darkness and Sombra could hear the ones closest to us. The various sounds were amusing.
Laughter, the sound of claws on the marble floor of the palace, the sound of choking, and pained screams were all among the various sounds that I could hear. Sombra could hear the laughter and the choking, and it brought a cruel smile to her face. She was, after all, a demoness so it was unsurprising that she was enjoying this.
The palace was a labyrinthian building with all manner of hallways, stairwells, and rooms. The darkness flooding out of the eldritch god was comprehensive and aggressive, filling every available space with its sinister presence.
Those unlucky enough to be within the darkness were not sparred from the malignancy of the eldritch being responsible for the darkness. The truly endless amount of jet-black mold spores pouring out of the dark god filled the throats and bodies of anyone caught in the darkness for even a second.
If you weren't Althos it was impossible to not be affected by the quintillions of spores that Althos was releasing. Even Sombra, Althos's long-time pet demoness, felt the effects of the spores. They filled her lungs, her mind, and her stomach, and had a subtle yet immensely real effect on her.
Her mind was being quietly tethered to the fungal supermind that tied together an unbelievably large number of lifeforms and filled them with fanatical loyalty to Althos. For Sombra though, this would only serve to spread her influence. She was already a thoroughly insane, fanatical servant of Althos whose greatest dream was to serve him for either the rest of time, or until he killed her, so this only gave her like-minded friends.
Others in the vast swarm of mold spores were not so fortunate. Their minds rallied against the sudden inducement of insanity, and the pushback was the cause of the various sounds that filled the darkness. Bodies changed in physical, painful ways, minds recoiled, and wills were shattered in the endless flood of mold spores.
Their minds were weak before the reality-altering power of the divine, eldritch-entity who had invaded their home. They could not resist the powers of the divinely created mold. As it flooded their bodies it began to grow inside of them and alter them from the inside out, in some cases producing physical alterations that made them incredibly powerful by the standards of their world, a world that hadn't seen a major conflict in generations even prior to the emergence of Althos.
Sombra and I continued our exploration of the palace's inner and secretive stairwell. We rose higher and higher, out of the bowels of the place and eventually found ourselves in more modern additions to the surprisingly ancient palace. The air here felt different, to my more discerning lungs. Even though it was still flooded with mold spores, I could also taste other things here aside from the dust I tasted when I breathed in the other parts of the palace.
As we made our way closer and closer to the private chambers we were seeking I quietly blessed Sombra. My blessings had the function of restoring her senses to her, or rather enhancing her existing senses to the point that she was able to make sense of her surroundings even though jet black mold spores had effectively darkened this place.
The mold spores continued to surge out of me, and in so doing continued to be able to infest more and more of the palace. I was focused on my goal, but I had long ago acquired the mental capacity to do something along the lines of having multiple trains of thought, and because of that I was able to appreciate the fact that every lifeform in this palace was inhaling my spores and becoming tethered to my will.
I normally kept my more monstrous powers in check, but the decision to plot against me and my empire by the royals inhabiting this palace was one that gave me a reason to unleash my true, monstrous powers on the people here. A chance to test my new, true, cosmic, and reality-altering powers. This was why I began to smile when my spores reached the edge of the place I wanted them to reach: the private chambers of the empress and emperor of Ascendance, the single greatest civilization in the world of Retribution.
I grabbed Sombra's hand and teleported us to where the mold spores had reached and came to a sudden and impossible halt.
Empress Qivan had been silently gazing at her husband when the tidal-wave like surge of spores made their way into her private chambers. She would not have noticed them if not for the sudden darkening they caused of the area around the one entrance and exit into and out of her chambers.
She turned and saw the spores clinging to one of the walls that made up the dimensions of her immense chamber. Despite being mere microns in size, the truly vast number of mold spores allowed them to take up enough space to be visible clinging to the wall of her inner sanctum.
Empress Qivan, to her credit, did not cower at the sight of the strange barrier. Instead, she calmly gathered her magical energy and began to funnel it into her fingertips. She swiftly began making a number of gestures, her hands, and fingers flowing in and forming precise geometric shapes and symbols as she showcased her skill in one of the most ancient forms of spellcasting.
Inside of her body, her magical energy began to be converted into the raw fuel needed for her to execute the spell she was mentally preparing. Qivan feared nothing and no one, and due to a combination of her pride, laziness, and ignorance, that included the god she had become a "worshiper" of.
Her hands began to radiate a vibrant yellow light and she began to sweat. She was proud, as anyone befitting a title such as "empress" would be, but she also took threats, and shows of force, seriously. After a few moments of intense symbol-making, she began to vibrate for a moment. Her body shook as it held in the potent power she had created and stored, momentarily, within herself.
"I... will not be intimidated." She swore, her quiet voice drawing the attention of her rather foolish and gentle trophy-husband. He turned, finally prying himself away from the mirror in their bathroom, and saw his wife quite literally exuding steam, even as she pointed at the spore-covered wall and unleashed a sun-like beam of heated energy at the wall.
"Qivan?" He gently whispered as he took a step forward, ready to rush to his wife's defense if he needed to. He was a foolish man, but not without his own redeeming qualities.
He gazed at his wife's heated body and with a simple flick of his wrist conjured his own bejeweled, artifact-like sword and his heavy metal armor. His sword materialized in his other hand, and his suit of armor immediately appeared on his skin, covering him from head to toe in a protective suit of potent, force-absorbing metal. He then began to step forward, towards his wife, and out of the bathroom. When he did and he looked at what she was aiming her destructive attack at, his mouth opened in shock and confusion.
The mold-covered wall began to glow as Qivan's power as a 19th level evoker slammed into it and began to incinerate the mold spores that had blanketed the wall. The fiery energy was so immense that it began to make a sound, hissing and almost screaming as much of the oxygen in the area around the wall was abruptly depleted due to the intense storm of fire that Qivan had created within herself and then unleashed at what she rightfully viewed as a strange threat to her wellbeing.
The fire continued to scream out of Qivan's fingertips, and she herself focused as she poured more and more of the confusing type of internal power that powered spells into her attack. At one point Qivan's mouth opened and though she couldn't hear it over the roaring of the fire pouring out of her fingertips she began to scream as well.
Despite her best efforts, and a truly impressive display of power on her end, the mold spores were endless. Every spore that was incinerated by her conflagration was replaced by ten thousand more spores, all fully intelligent and all fully willing to die to serve their creator, who was himself waiting behind the door that they had used the cracks of to slip into the room minutes ago.
Qivan watched as her power proved useless in the face of the mysterious threat that had managed to corner her in her chambers. She continued to scream, and continued to make use of her inner wellspring of spiritual power, but watched as it proved pointless. Almost ten minutes after she began her initial attack, her flames began to weaken.
She herself was a mess at this point. Her normally immaculate makeup was running down her face due to both her sweat and the heat of her spell. She was beginning to feel fatigued due to both her screaming and her spellcasting, and she wasn't even aware she had been doing the former. Even her vast wellspring of potent arcane power couldn't keep up with close to ten minutes of constant casting, and so as she began to tire her flames began to thin and lose their ferocity. Her flames were running out, which meant that soon whatever threat awaited her would have a chance to approach her.
This was unfortunate for her, but fortunate, in his mind anyway, for her husband who could now approach his wife whom he loved deeply and ready himself to face the bizarre threat posed by the tidal wave of spores. He interposed himself between her and the spores clinging to the wall and quietly clamoring for vengeance right as the last embers of her fire died down. That was precisely the moment that the true cause of the nightmarish mold spores threw open the door that separated him from his enemy.
Althos, now no longer radiating mold spores smashed the door and revealed himself and Sombra to the emperor and empress of Ascendance. As the door was forcibly moved out of his way, Althos peered into the room beyond it and his eyes began to glow a sickly shade of blue.
Althos activated a combination of different elemental abilities and he opened his void-like mouth. Qivan and her husband, Kovan, were able to peer into the deity's maw and for a split second, they saw the sheer emptiness, the void-like expanse within, the maw of the dread lord of gluttony. And that was before he unleashed his ability.
Althos exhaled and unleashed a heart-stopping burst of frigid air into the chamber. The room had previously been heated by Qivan's childish and useless, but visually impressive waste of her arcane energy. As impressive as her display would have been to a mortal all of the heat that had accumulated in the chamber was dispensed with instantly in the wake of the deific and elemental might of a true deity.
The chamber instantly went from being hot enough to nearly boil water, to a frigid and frostbite-causing place. This powerful display of true power, power simply not accessible to the vast majority of mortals, was enough to frighten the normally fearless Qivan.
Althos gazed coldly at the first ruler to dare to plot to undermine him after joining his empire. He gazed at her and she saw that his eyes were devoid of kindness, gentleness, or mercy. He looked at her and in many ways through her, and he immediately decided that he felt that she was a speck before him and before his power. And in that instant her fate was decided.
