Inside of the private chamber that I had all to myself in my temple I was trying to resist the urge to make any sounds even as I felt my body undergoing a series of involuntary changes. I could feel my body trembling and it took me several moments of breathing deeply and purposefully keeping my movement to a minimum in order to keep those changes from overwhelming me. Several painful minutes passed before I could fully regain some modicum of control over my body.
When I glanced at my arms I saw that they were covered in midnight-colored fur and that my hands ended in canine-like claws. Ordinarily, I would have found this neat, but at the moment it was more than a little bit terrifying. Upon further inspection, I realized that my claws were strange and seemed to be made of silver, and when I moved them I could feel their sensitivity to the potent magic that filled this place.
"Gods... How weird." I muttered, shortly before my wings began to change. I felt one of the three pairs solidify and fully become made of white feathers, which marked it as the sole solid pair of wings jutting from my back. I then felt another become fully made of white light, which only intensified in brightness. The last pair of angelic wings jutting from my back began to change color, before becoming a strangely hypnotic, chaotic pair of rainbow-colored wings.
I was beginning to feel more stable, but only a little. I inhaled and then as I proceeded to exhale I took control of my form by focusing on my body. In my head, I clearly pictured my normal form, that of a muscular warrior with tanned skin and powerful muscles. I began to breathe a sigh of relief as I felt my form changing back to what I was used to.
The first change came with my height. I ceased being as tall as a mighty oberon and returned to my default but still considerable height. It was an easy change that I was happy to experience. A few moments later my hands shifted back to normal, rather than being fur-covered, clawed weapons. My legs came back almost immediately as well, and that was the change I was the most excited to see. Losing my legs was weird.
I was a bit surprised when my newest pairs of wings, marking me as a seraphim-level grigori, didn't vanish. In fact, even when I tried to will them to vanish they refused to do so. I wordlessly activated my "Shadowblank" power and felt myself vanish from view. I got up and immediately left my private chamber.
Upon leaving my most intimate chamber within the temple I found myself in a hallway, one not unlike the entryway I had spent some time in a few days ago. The hallway before me was vast and smelled quite good, like an elegant perfume. It was built to accommodate even vast creatures such as dragons and the true heights of various gods so the ceiling of the hallway was way up high and the width of the place was equally impressive. It was currently empty but I could hear the various inhabitants of the temple off in the distance.
The temple was the home of the various members of my newly expanded harem who did not consider Hasperburg, my seraglio, or even my personal divine realm home. The number of women who lived here at the moment was a bit staggering, and if I tried to think about it too much even I would blush which was a sign of how impressive that number was.
Over the course of the last few days, I had had countless conversations concerning myself. Even though I have been a deity for many weeks by now I was still not particularly used to having extended conversations about myself, which was something that I first consciously realized while I was conversing with the mother and father of Nixie, the goddess of invention and artifice who was now one of my wives.
While answering endless questions about myself I had had time to be introspective and think about my goals, my methods, and even my personality. One consequence of that, especially since I was an anael and a grand adonis, was that I had had time to think about my harem. A burning question numerous figures of various levels of influence and who had varied intentions asked me was if there were limits I intended to place on my harem. My answers were always quite shameless and thinking about that shamelessness was enough to bring a bashful smile to my face.
"Why would I place arbitrary limits on love? I don't know how many women I can come to care about, if I were to place a restriction on myself or on my harem then all I'd be doing is placing an unnecessary limit on myself." Was perhaps the most shameless answer I had given to some variations of the big harem questions I had been asked to date.
To be a bit fair to me, as a grand adonis the number of people I had had sexual encounters with was actually a minor way for me to grow in power. I wanted that number to be high, and I actually did have real and genuine feelings for the people in my harem to date. Being shameless suited me, so long as I was confident and secure in myself. Or appeared to be anyway.
In the distance, I could hear the soft voices of some of the elves who had come to the temple. They were mostly members of the same subrace, a rare kind of elf known as "Eromania elves", almost immortal elves who possessed intense lifeforce and an affinity for various kinds of sex magic. Dozens of their princesses had come to the temple, ready to give themselves to me for the sake of experiencing the most life-changing pleasure possible.
As I snuck through the temple, unsure of what to make of my new wings, I listened to them idly gossip and occasionally perform chant-based spells. They were a gentle group, and when I spent one of the past few nights in their chamber I was surprised at the quality of pleasure I had experienced. They had blown my mind with how skilled and versatile they were in bed, so much so that even the thought of them was slightly distracting. I shook my head and cleared my mind of distractions so that I could make it to where I was heading; a place where I hoped to learn about my wings.
I continued my journey through my temple, hearing even more voices as I did. Most of us who lived here stayed here as we didn't really need anything from the outside. The garden outside of my temple supplied all the food we ate, which consisted exclusively of fruits harvested by a pair of immortal sisters with druidic powers who had a divinity-level affinity for nature and who I spent part of today with.
As I continued to make my way to the home of the angelic host led by Savannah, I heard Rayne loudly leading a sermon off in the distance. Her musical voice was powerful even from here, a vast distance away from her.
"Live life joyously! Treat others, not as you would be treated, but with a kind touch whenever possible! Care more for the collective joy of life than your own egos! These are the morals that Raul champions! He treats all life with dignity and respect. He is kind to the smallest orphan, as well as the mightiest king. Learn from him and aspire to mimic him." She preached, to a crowd of onlookers off in the distance.
"He is our mighty emperor, as royal to the gods as he is to mortals. He is the rightful emperor that all shall someday recognize and obey. By joining him now, you mark yourselves as wise and secure a place for yourselves in his mighty, all-encompassing dominion." She continued, her soft voice filled with pride and zealotry. There was a power, a weight to her voice that belied her soft appearance.
I would continue to listen to her sermon even as I made my way to the large door that when opened would allow me to interact with the host of angels Savannah had recruited and brought to me. I undid my "Shadowblank" and placed a hand on the heavy door that separated the angels from the rest of the inhabitants of the temple. I opened it with a soft push and smiled as I stepped into the paradisiacal miniaturized divine realm where the followers of Savannah dwelt.
The area just beyond the door was a small beach complete with a vast ocean that went as far as I could see. Countless angels, men, and women alike, were relaxedly luxuriating in the area just beyond the beach. The door existed in the middle of the beach, allowing angels to leave freely if they wished, but fairly few of them did. In fact the most active angels in the temple did not come from Savannah's faction, but rather came with Khloe, an angel from Earth who had fled to the Eternal City and was the person whose alliance with me was partly responsible for my newfound grigori powers and form.
How the angels relaxed differed from angel to angel. Some were lounging in the sand or even in the water, their flawless, naked bodies glistening with the light of an artificial sun that shone in the distance. Others were playing games of various sorts, such as simple to under sports, or were otherwise exercising. And a rare few angels, men and men, women and women, men and women, alike, were lazily making love on the beach, in the water, or in the sky.
As I entered the area, my radiant form fully on display, many angels gasped. It didn't matter what they were doing, even those who were inside of other angels or were the ones being penetrated, gasped as their eyes fell upon my form. I was a bit unsurprised by that, as none of the angels here were grigoris like I was. Not one of them had the awe-inspiring power and masculine ruggedness that I did. I gazed out at the relaxed angels and smirked, before beginning to speak.
"Good afternoon, oh beautiful and handsome ones! As you can see I am a grigori, a male sex angel. I am also Raul, the lord of your order's founder and mistress. It is quite nice to gaze upon you and be gazed upon in return." I said, my confident voice ringing out beautifully. For now I was surrounded by angels so the hallmark of my angelic powers wasn't quite as worrying. A handful of the angels before me had four wings, and no one I could see had six.
Eyes erupted all over my wings as I activated one of my newfound powers, "Windows to the Soul". Through them I could see in every direction as easily as I saw in front of me, and I could also read the emotional and mental state of the angels around me, just by looking at them and reading a small text box that appeared over their heads. It was with my additional eyes that I saw Savannah who was frozen in shock as she looked at my angelic form. It would take her nearly a minute before she recovered her composure. When she did she simply uttered something.
"A grigori?! Incredible..." She whispered, shock still quite visible on her face as she got up from lounging and slowly began to walk to me.
