Whether someone loved or hated Raul, so long as they were honest they did have to acknowledge something positive about his new attitude towards rule: he was fast. Over the course of the days immediately after his empire actually gained its first real chunk of territory outside of Hasperburg he immediately set about helping them.
The deity immediately began to bless the newest places to be added to his empire. The galaxy that had once been ruled by the six houri and was now a part of Raul's empire was immediately blessed by its new "sultan". The worlds that were ruled by various other monarchs and deities who joined the expanding empire, were also immediately blessed by Raul.
The god's power over nature and peace made planets devastated by climate change, suffering from famine and drought, and even worlds where war plagued the people, habitable again. His blessings were immediate and utterly transformational, and septillions of beings watched their worlds be brought back from the brink of destruction and devastation by his intervention. And they knew who to thank, thanks to the system connecting them to him.
Temples to the "Grandest Adonis", as he was referred to by the women who had invited themselves into his life, began to appear on more worlds than could be counted. Many of them were believed to have been created by the wives of the emperor, and those temples were said to be holy places to their god. Priests, priestesses, paladins, and other members of a sweeping divine bureaucracy began to appear in said temples and offered to train natives in how to "properly worship Raul". They were received warmly by the locals, who were immensely curious about the strange savior-god who had appeared seemingly out of nowhere and given them their lives back.
Throughout the newly expanded empire, including Hasperburg, various people were more thoroughly inducted into the inner workings of the empire and taught about Raul's unique powers as a sanguinarch. Such individuals were fully informed of the potential that came with being a vampire who was turned by Raul himself and were asked if they'd like to become such creatures. Those who accepted were turned, including dragons, minor deities, and local rulers. They were tasked with spreading Raul's dominion and establishing volunteer essence farms to feed their sire.
Raul established extremely strict rules about volunteer essence farms and staffed them with vampires who were skilled in logistics and organization. Such farms were often extremely lavish areas where the essence producers were not only turned into immortal thralls by local vampires but also treated and cared for wonderfully and respectfully by the staff of their new homes. Raul's vampires, as powerful as they were, were not cruel or indifferent to their subjects and the thralls were often eager to be fed upon or lay with their vampiric rulers.
While these farms took days to establish, once they were established they were immediately and intensely productive. The vampires Raul had turned were able to feast upon the creatures in the farms, thus rapidly growing in power, and Raul himself felt an immense amount of essence flow into him. This also had the effect of allowing Raul's vampiric servants, and the vampires they themselves created, to steadily expand their master's dominion.
The newest parts of Raul's dominion were instantaneously connected to the older parts, and vampires who served Raul were taught this potent secret. Such individuals learned how to travel instantly from one part of the dominion to another, and this was the first pathway between disparate portions of the empire to be permanently established.
Raul even gave his vampiric spawn days off every week, instating the first loose attempt at any sort of labor law in his empire, so that they could freely explore the empire and freely interact with other subjects of the vampiric deity. In time Raul and a few of his more powerful and knowledgeable followers also planned to teach non-vampires how to utilize the pathways to more freely promote travel and intercultural exchanges but Raul didn't want to rush into anything just yet.
The ascendant didn't busy himself solely with mortal affairs. He also began to more fully embrace his nature as an archdemon, coming to terms with the fact that he was now becoming a god of passion in its entirety, both loving passion and violent passion. And an important part of that was finally interacting with those he conquered when he vanquished Gorgomuth.
Raul created a single body to exist in the Nine Circles, the mythic over-hell where archdemons resided. That body of his stormed into the diabolic lair of Gorgomuth and laid claim to it, exerting his rights as the slayer of the ancient Dark Prince to take that which belonged to him, citing ancient demonic law that Raul had learned from Riezel and Lilith and was using solely to ensure no successor of Gorgomuth could continue his senseless crusade against all life. None of Gorgomuth's servants tried to oppose him and switched their loyalties from their former master to the very demon who slew and absorbed him without much complaint thanks to the power the grand adonis freely showed them, cowing even demons, devils, and other fiends.
That body quietly turned demons into vampires and turned the vast and largely empty diabolic lair into part of his dominion as well, permanently laying claim to that which had once belonged to Gorgomuth in the depths of the dimension's seventh circle. He quickly and quietly created vast arenas, immense forges, and more war-based infrastructure to create, train, and arm entire armies, even while some of his followers began rallying demons, devils, and other fiends into the lair, calling on all those loyal to Gorgomuth to serve the demon strong enough to slay him.
He even established his own true diabolic lair in the dimension's second circle, that of the sin of lust. He quickly developed a fondness for turning demons into vampires, and his greater spawn also turned his lair into part of his vast dominion and established brothels, pleasure palaces, and more for the sake of indulging their own hedonism and also empowering their lord. Such brothels were much darker in tone than most of the ones found throughout his empire outside of the Nine Circles, fully embracing the darker side of both demonic and vampiric power.
In the depths of my truest diabolic lair, I watched a pretty succubus saunter towards me. She had a ruby-encrusted goblet in her hands that was almost overflowing with saccharine blood, that of demons. There was a smile on her face, and a blush on her cheeks as she approached me. I was currently seated in one of my many thrones, as it was a newly established custom for each brothel in my lair to include one for me just in case I visited. I allowed myself to enjoy the show that members of her kind regularly showed me as entertainment.
When she was close enough to me that if I reached out I could grab her hand, she began to pour the contents of the fine goblet onto her exposed chest. She sighed in pleasure as the liquid began to drip down her body and kept walking until she reached me. When she did she leaped onto my lap and I had to suppress a sudden urge to bite her, as she was filled with one of my favorite meals as of late.
Fortunately for me, demonic blood was not only inside of her, it was also on her. I pulled her close and began to slowly lap at the dark red fluid her chest was covered in, including teasing her nipples with skillful flicks of my tongue.
She sighed in pleasure as I touched her, experiencing bliss thanks to my firm hands, and of course my tongue. They effortlessly caused her to feel drunk on pleasure even as I drank the fluids that had once been inside of her. When she next opened her eyes they were filled with lustful devotion, her mind now feeling the corruptive power I possessed but normally held back relating to sex, a sort of overwhelming, almost overwriting, presence that could corrode wills.
Moments like this were moments that I allowed myself to enjoy the luxuries that came with leadership. The privileges of being one of the powerful beings who called the shots.
Many of the members of Raul's inner circle back on Hasperburg were brought to the god's temple within the Eternal City, including the first of Raul's god-wives Zaria. Even the succubi in his harem were allowed into the city, so long as they either stayed in Raul's slowly increasing territory or were accompanied by one of the prime angels he had recruited.
Word of Raul, including a rumor that he was the "True Anael" began to slowly creep throughout the city, which caused him to limit his public appearances and name Rayne his high-priestess and thus the public face of his entire following in the city. But there was something to be said of the power of rumors and they continued to persist but even that brought with it unexpected rewards.
Raul was approached by gods, goddesses, angels, mortals, fey, and spirits who were among those who called the city home. They questioned him and asked either for him to publicly deny the claim that the rumor made or show them that he was who the rumors said he was. Raul, embracing the fullness of his identity, opted for honesty and showed them the proof they sought. He bathed them in the most intense and pure aura of joy and love that they had ever felt. Those who bathed in it felt their negative emotions washing away and were astounded to feel true and overwhelming happiness and love before Raul turned it off.
A strange consequence of this was that over the course of a few days Raul even began to be worshiped by gods and goddesses. His faithful were no longer solely lesser beings and Zaria, the sole deity who had worshiped him until this point. Instead, his temple was growing quite splendidly and even gods began to come to the services held by Rayne, enthralled by both Raul's powers and Rayne's immense charisma.
Beyond that, powerful beings came to the temple to signify their support and loyalty to the strange reality-reshaper. Foreigners who were welcome in the Eternal City made their way there, and on the fourteenth day that Raul resided within the city he found himself back in front of that same table where he had once muttered about the newest and most impressive acquisitions that he had acquired. Now he was seated there and was radiating power.
He was glowing brightly, a new nimbus of holy light illuminating the room, even as his body began to react to both the worship of other gods and the stranger, more potent gifts that he had been given by the foreigners who had come to pledge themselves to him. He gritted his teeth as his body underwent critical modifications.
The first sign that he was changing was the unsettling disappearance of his legs. Where his legs once were was a trail of genie smoke, that filled the room with an incredible, masculine scent. He enjoyed the sensation of the smoke that his legs had transformed into, even as his body grew in size and became that of a fairly large fey king. The amount of smoke wafting off of where his legs should have been intensified as he grew in height, proportional to his increase in height.
He had to bite his tongue to avoid yelling out in discomfort as his fur began to grow from his arms, reflecting the most primal of his new abilities. And when six white wings, each of which was enormous, jutted out from his back he did in fact begin to make noises which were intended to be of discomfort. By the time they left his throat two of the stranger new abilities he had acquired, "Sebalim symphony" and "Enchanting melody" transformed the noises into beautiful, musical sounds that would have charmed anyone who had heard them had there been anyone nearby.
Raul would spend the next few minutes suffering in near silence to avoid charming anyone who would have heard him had he been vocal. Sweat formed on his brow, and pain was visible in his eyes, as his powers increased in variety and the gifts he had been given altered him to make him an altogether stranger, and more powerful being. A strange, super being well and truly unlike any that the omniverse had ever seen. A hybrid that was somehow even stranger than the sort of being he had previously been.
