Chapter Thirty One: Violence
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The scene in the hallway, if viewed through human eyes, would have been a chaotic one. To those blessed with physiologies greater than those possessed by mundane beings, the human prisoners who were attempting to attack the assorted higher beings, and Imani, were moving incredibly slowly. 

Even though the prisoners possessed physiques that were beyond peak human, due to their nature as thralls, they were not even remotely fast enough to actually challenge the potent quartet in the hallway. All four of the non-human creatures were internally amused by the efforts of the thralls and found them to be kind of cute in their own way. Imani was so nonplussed by them that she didn't even bother watching Titania and Rebeza prepare to counter the first of their assailants' attacks. Instead of watching her allies, she focused on the fight her master was having.

Her master was a hurricane of violence, unleashing an array of attacks that were so fast that they approached the speed of sound. Each blow landed with truly titanic force, and the reason why the thrall was able to remain standing in the face of the barrage was due to his enhanced physiology and beyond-peak-human durability. Antonio, who was enjoying himself more than he had anticipated at this moment, was actually utilizing powers that he had granted himself using "Power Architect", rather than any of his greater powers. 

The young divinity, a beautiful blur as he continually hurled himself at the prisoner who had chosen to assault him, let out a hauntingly eerie laugh as he punished his attacker. Meanwhile, Rebeza allowed the dark wings she normally kept hidden away to come fully into view. Each of the wings was lined with metal, razor-sharp feathers that were only able to hold Rebeza aloft through divine, ascendant-level means. 

Her attackers were two small men, one of whom was a lithe tanned man and the other of whom was a broad-shouldered and powerful-looking bouncer who had worked for one of the criminal families who ran the city's criminal underbelly. She didn't laugh as her enemies hurled punches at her but she did smile wickedly, her grin only increasing the anger her enemies felt. 

Rebeza was not the same sort of psionic powerhouse that Antonio was, but she had millions of years of experience fighting. Even though she was not a particularly violent entity, many of her enemies had been and so to survive she had honed her combative abilities against enemies infinitely faster, stronger, and smarter than these newly ascended thralls.

Her wings flew out towards her enemies at speeds bordering the speed of sound, so as to avoid causing a sonic boom, even as they began to approach her. When her enemies hurled punches at the fallen archangel her extremities lashed out and intercepted the blows with ease, surrounding the men's fists and cutting into them with numerous blades. The men cried out in agony, even through their otherwise maddening rage, and their anger and pain flowed into Antonio, empowering him ever so slightly as he fed on the essence generated by their pain and on the sinfulness of their wrath. 

Titania, meanwhile, began to glow. She did not notice this strange fact, but even as she began to radiate a faint aura of resplendent light her enemies seemed to slow. They weren't actually slowing down, instead, she was just feeling the significant effects of Antonio activating "Empowerment" and boosting her physique. The mighty powers of the Grand Adonis were boosting her physique so mightily that she was actually becoming a being on par with none other than Rebeza, as far as physiology went! 

This extreme boost to her physiology was due to a number of factors but the biggest ones were the fact that when she lay with Antonio she was actually triggering a number of Grand Adonis related power sources, each of which exponentially increased the potency of "Empowerment's" effect on her. That, coupled with her natively beyond-peak-human physiology and the boost she had received from becoming a vampire meant that she was becoming a truly incredible being at the moment. 

The creatures before her, rage-filled thralls who were unknowingly doing the bidding of their shadowy master, were pathetically slow. She watched, stoically, and waited as they slowly inched towards her. She could perceive the passing of attoseconds and individually count them down due to her new physique. In her eyes the pathetic thralls before her were as dangerous as a shrimp was to a great white shark.


As my companions enjoyed the benefits of their new physiques I myself further cornered the brave boxer who had challenged me. Each of my blows hit with the force of a hurricane, and I chose my attacks with deliberation. 

I was not attacking the thrall randomly. I was hitting him in the legs and forcing him back over and over again, all while feeding on the essence he was providing me. Each of my techniques was backed with minor applications of superpowers I had greedily given myself earlier today, such as the potent force of an attack moving at nearly sonic speed, or attacks that deliberately hit the exact same spot over and over again due to my enhanced senses allowing me to aim blows that cruelly.

Thomas was weakening due to my assault, which made sense. He was also almost in position, and I could hear the warden in motion, dashing towards the door. He had easily heard the commotion of the three fights occurring in the hallway, and I could also hear the radio going off in his room alerting him to the strange reality of the attempted prison break. Behind me, closer to where my companions and Imani were engaged in battles all their own or gazing at me, I could hear the soft sounds of frantic footsteps echoing throughout the prison.

For the briefest of instants, while I listened to the distant footfalls, the thrall I was attacking had a chance to catch his breath. To his credit Thomas utilized this chance to fling himself at me, his fists clenched as he attempted to hit me with what would have been a punishing jab had he been able to hit me. Nevertheless, he was ultimately just beyond peak-human as far as power and physique went and thus stood exactly zero chance of actually hurting me. 

He closed the distance between us and hurled his punch at me which I allowed because I wanted him to look back at this and feel that he hadn't been utterly helpless against me. When his fist was less than five inches from my head I smiled at him and effortlessly moved out my head out of the way, doing so at a speed slow enough to cleanly dodge the punch while still allowing myself to be perceivable in the eyes of my unwitting servant.

It was at this exact moment that the door leading into the warden's office exploded open and the man himself appeared from behind it, his eyes glowing with bloodlust and rage. I smiled at the distant figure, and utilized telekinesis to catch the prisoner in front of me and hurl him back towards the vampiric warden.


Imani watched the conflict between Thomas and Antonio with rapt fascination. She studied her master's every move and eagerly used the gifts he had given her by allowing her to become greater and greater physiologically speaking to pay him further veneration. Her every sense was focused on him, even though she could effortlessly hear every detail of the fights occurring behind her. 

As she studied her master she quickly came to the conclusion that Antonio was a surprisingly scrappy and brutal fighter. Imani's sensitive ears and vision were able to pick up the subtlest clues as to the might of her master.

She could hear the soft sounds of Antonio's muscles twitching and tensing as he unleashed a devastating barrage of blows that damaged Thomas in ways that he was now able to sense due to his own enhanced physiology. Her sight was keen enough that she saw that Antonio was deliberately attacking the same spot over and over again. She could hear the soft sounds of Thomas's body bones withering under Antonio's assault. She could see the bloodlust in Antonio's body language and realized that this was far from the only time her master had ever been in a fight. 

She could also hear the distant sounds of the warden, someone she knew was a vampire, as he burst into action. And right as that door to his office opened, flung with surprisingly violent force, Imani's attention to her lord caused her to see something surprising. She watched and could actually sense the potent force of her god's mind as it grabbed Thomas and hurled him in the direction of the warden. 

The warden, a somewhat elderly-looking once-human man with scarlet eyes growled as he watched the prisoner being forcefully hurled at him. And then he began to smile, a smile that radiated an amount of menace beyond anything any purely natural human could radiate. He was smiling the sort of smile that a corrupted, vampiric servant of Antonio's could smile. 

When the prisoner was within reach, the man reached out and grabbed the back of the boxer's neck, before fully lifting the man off of the ground and into the air. As he did he let out a fierce roar of dark delight and proceeded to hurl the superhuman entity into the ground at his feet, unleashing a portion of the dark force he had been bestowed by the Living God he worshiped and served.

Everyone in the hallway heard and listened to the visceral sounds of flesh, bone, and muscle slamming hard against the floor of the prison. The warden was the same kind of potent ultra-vampire as Titania and Imani, and so possessed a physique that wasn't far from Titania's own original physique in his new and enhanced state. He was capable of brutally and effortlessly manhandling the prisoner even though the prisoner himself was beyond the capability of a human to fight. 

The vampiric warden, as if to punctuate his victory then grabbed the prisoner's head and cruelly lifted him up off the ground. Thomas was now unconscious, having been savagely hurt by the vampire's attack. Antonio himself watched this with a bright smile, before visibly shivering as he felt the immense flow of essence surge out of the crumpled, defeated, but still living form of the thrall and into himself. 

"Delicious." The vampiric deity whispered, unable to help himself. It was not his fault, nor was it by choice, that essence felt rather incredible. While no two sources of essence were exactly alike, they differed in nearly every possible way, in fact, one thing that was universal was that the sensations of receiving essence felt incredible to those who had the physiological means to receive and utilize them. Essence received by the act of drawing blood felt especially pleasant since that was the most primordial source of essence.


While I watched the warden easily handle the thrall I had manipulated into creating a scene, I heard the sounds of the battle behind me coming to an end. Rebeza lashed out with her long, sinuous limbs at her attackers and effortlessly sent them back into the wall to her left. Meanwhile, Titania was a blur of motion who moved much more gracefully than I had while I was fighting Thomas. 

Titania seemed to be a catlike fighter who excelled in graceful motions. She utilized her truly absurd speeds to flit and dart around her enemies. She fought like how a user of Capoeira would fight, albeit much more gracefully than any human user of the martial art ever could. Her blows also landed with far more force than any human being could ever generate, each sending her opponents flying away from her. 

The essence that each of the blows of the vampires generated by harming our enemies flowed into me. Neither of the two women were dealing as much damage as the warden had, but even the lesser amounts of essence flowing into me were still pleasant to feel, like an oiled massage relaxing my muscles.

With a subtle gesture I also wordlessly healed the thrall that the warden had just pummeled, though I didn't cause the creature to regain consciousness. He wasn't done paying for his crimes, and I was determined to use him as an essence generator, so I didn't want him to die a meaningless death here and now.

Titania quickly and skillfully disabled the prisoners who had come after her. She did this with a set of elegant kicks to their stomachs, kicks that occurred so swiftly that while they were happening she seemed to float in mid-air for a second, due to the raw potency of her speed. 

My followers had effortlessly rendered the prisoners that had gone after them unable to continue fighting with the sort of skill that had to be seen to be believed, though Titania seemed to be more entertaining to watch than Rebeza because Rebeza's methods were more brutal and efficient whereas Titania seemed to view violence almost as an art. 

As I watched the two of them relaxing in the wake of their battles I felt knowledge of their techniques being stored away inside of my mind. That was itself beneficial for me, since I was also an unstoppable mimic and could replicate powers, techniques, and anything else I saw performed in front of me with ease. Even seeing Thomas's attacks from earlier had helped me refine my own knowledge of how to throw a punch, even if the help offered by seeing a fairly mundane person whose only powers were an enhanced physique was incredibly tiny. 

Once I was done watching the two I turned to the warden and smiled. I stepped towards him, and extended my hand in a friendly gesture, even as I activated one of my potent "Pride" based powers; an aura of glory and dominance that would cause even the mightiest of humans to want to bow before me in meek supplication. 

I needed to figure out how to behave more... "Godly", in moments like this, and part of that may well involve me actually utilizing the mighty abilities I possessed.


As Antonio turned to face the warden he willingly activated one of his mightier powers. A nimbus of brilliant power and condensed pride abruptly came into existence surrounding the mighty god. As it did, he seemed to grow in majesty and power, and his features began to grow noticeably more radiant and almost... royal. 

The warden's eyes widened upon seeing this aura of divinity and he felt... a strange sort of serenity and joy that he had never felt while he stepped towards the man who had come to greet him. He took the man's hand and squeezed it, his feelings of serenity and joy turning into fervent devotion as the mighty being's powers took a firm hold of his mind. 

"I... Master... It is so good to meet you." The warden said, joyfully. There was a strange sort of meek joy in his deep, earthy voice that would have surprised someone who knew him less well than Antonio did.

The Living God remained silent and instead allowed the man to shake his hand almost thoughtlessly for several seconds. Eventually though, the man recovered his wits and stepped back into the office, while motioning for his master and the companions of his master to step forward into the office. All the while, he looked for a radio on which to communicate with the few members of the prison's security who remained conscious. 

Antonio and his companions stepped forward, and took a few seconds to step into the office. As they did, Antonio wordlessly linked the minds of the prison's security detail together and even used his mighty healing abilities to distantly heal the unconscious members of the security detail. While doing this he spoke into the mind of the warden. 

"There. That'll help." He whispered, mentally, and his mental voice was quite kind. There were inflections in his telepathic voice that helped illustrate how kind the eldritch entity could be, when he opted to be kind. The warden, fully enthralled by the mighty creature who had transformed him into an immortal, eternal creature, smiled graciously at his master. 

"And now... Master, to what do I owe the honor of your visit, and your presence?" He asked the Living God, eager to learn how he could earn the favor of this strange, possibly omnipotent being.

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