"You've been given a few gifts by your blushing bribe and Alphor." The, now often quiet, voice in my head whispered a few seconds after I asked the two of them for any omegatech they happened to possess. Hearing that brought a smile to my face even as I mentally inspected my inventory to glimpse at the gifts my followers had given me. 

With little more than a thought, I opened up a mental theater in my mind's eye that revealed the contents of my inventory. At the moment this consisted of very little, primarily food that I could give to myself or anyone else at will, which was funny to me since I didn't need to eat at all. Nevertheless, I quite liked the sensations of eating and planned to continue to do so at fairly regular intervals. The other thing in my inventory was what was relevant to the omega lords; omegatech. 

I had a number of replicators, which looked like intricately designed staves made out of various green metals and topped with a flashy crystal that, once pulled out of my inventory, would freely glow even in the darkest environments. The devices were incredibly handy devices with a function and purpose indicated by their names; they were used to reproduce things. 

The body of mine that was at my university, accompanied by one of my servitors, reached into the inventory while eating a small lunch and pulled one of the handy devices out of the nonexistent dimension in which all objects in my inventory were stored. As he did the staff began to materialize in his hand, allowing one of "me" to actually look at and study the thing.

I gazed at the staff curiously, while my servitor did the same thing. I was silent for a moment before beginning to speak, even while I used my powers to disguise the object as a mundane walking stick.

"This device is incredible. With it, I can replicate anything from a simple starfighter to crops with equal ease." I exclaimed, eager to get these bad boys out and in the hands of my minions. The nameless servitor, a creature I had created for the sole purpose of having accompaniment while I was at school, studied the object excitedly. Even as he gazed at it, I found myself drawn to one of the other "gifts" I had been given by two of my most devoted servants. 

One of the other new objects in my inventory was something stranger than any of the staves I now possessed. It was an odd key, made entirely of biomatter. I didn't bother pulling it out, as even the act of peering at it with the thing safely ensconced in my inventory was enough for me to learn about it thanks to psychometry. As I peered at the thing I could hear the faint voice of my unconscious mind whispering to me. 

"The key to the End of Time..." The voice whispered, reverentially. As it uttered that I felt my mind filling further, not with the usual whispered knowledge but rather with powerful imagery. 

In my mind's eye, I could see a single mental theater open up that show me a strange, ruined, and abandoned city. The city looked futuristic, at least relative to the humanity of Earth, and stretched as far as even my eyes could see. And now, with eternal ascension having had plenty of time to work on me, that was truly far indeed. The view of the empty city was thousands of miles of strange, empty cityscape, lifeless and eerie. And in one palace near the heart of this otherworldly necropolis floated a single being, an incorporeal entity who looked at a gigantic doorway in the distance. 

For a single moment, I was tempted to pull out the key and pay the strange city a visit. A part of me, the part where the omega sparks resided, wanted to and wanted to stake my claim in the city, but I knew better than to do that.  I knew of the strange alliance that came together and defeated the omega lords in the past. I was powerful, but for now, I still wanted to lay low. Importantly, however, was the reality that I was growing more and more comfortable exerting my powers and altering the world either subtly or overtly. 

That fact grew a touch more obvious when I made my next move. 

The potent deity living in North Carolina had a truly gigantic sphere of influence. He could do everything from mass converting an entire planet of people into his mighty vampiric spawn to destroying an entire country just as easily. The fact that he had not made many overt moves to date was nothing short of a miracle, even if some of his moves had farther-reaching consequences than others.

Nevertheless, with every passing second, he grew more and more comfortable using his own vast power. And the more comfortable he was with his powers, the more willing he was to actually use them.

While the god's bodies were busy in various places, his mind was active elsewhere. Utilizing the vast network of astral selves he had created earlier he sent another wave of such mental bodies across the planet to the continents of Australia, Asia, Africa, and Europe. 

This powerful decision granted him a limited sense of omnipresence, and also encouraged his next action; a powerful expansion of what constituted his "territory". He again targeted egregious evildoers and transformed them into either his vampiric spawn or his dominated thralls, to feed his growing hunger. As he transformed people into creatures greater than humans could ever be, he also did something he hadn't done before; creating even more vats in which his servitors would grow.

These strange vats appeared out of nowhere in custom-created chambers deep beneath the homes of the god's newest servants, and some of them appeared throughout the Americas as well. Every single vat immediately began to churn out servitors, some of whom were themselves transformed into vampires or thralls, thus further empowering the strange being whose machinations they would advance. 

Antonio was no fool either and he refused to neglect some of the ways he might grow in power through the possession of an entire species dedicated to advancing his will. In some cases the servitors would serve no other purpose than to empower their lord carnally, possessing beautiful bodies meant to entice people into sleeping with them to empower their master through devotion, domains, intimacy, and the act of lust.

In many cases servitors came into existence, waited for the next servitor to be born, and immediately began to lay with them, since all servitors were adults and possessed innate knowledge regarding things like sex and sexuality. Some servitors came into existence, teleported into the homes of the servants of their lord and master above the vats that birthed them, and immediately seduced their fellow "Antonites", and thus began to sexually service their peers, all for the sake of slowly but surely empowering Antonio. 

That said, not every servitor was the same. Many specialty servitors came into existence in the first few minutes following Antonio's potent expansion to the other half of the world. These special servitors were often assassins or future cult leaders who were immediately targeted by two of Antonio's more powerful abilities; "Power Architect" and "Master". This was never random, and these individuals were always bestowed with special, potent powers that were created to help them be more charismatic, agile, or stealthy than they needed to be. 

Some areas were more thoroughly infiltrated than others in this first moment of expansion. California and New York were both more heavily filled with vats and with early Antonites than many other places were, as were capitals throughout Latin America and the Middle East. In Latin America in particular, unsurprisingly for Antonio, some entire cities housed hundreds of vats which churned out terrifying numbers of the mighty shapeshifters devoted to the otherworldly god responsible for their creation. 

Some might have argued that the world was lucky that Antonio was not a bloodthirsty sort. His servants, for all of their power, were not using violence to advance his machinations. Instead of simple violence and destruction, the young living god was a corruptive entity.

Nevertheless, he was one who moved with astounding speed when he felt ready to make moves. He did not destroy, but he did change. He didn't kill even the most heinous criminals, but as criminals within Redsville's prison were quickly discovering his refusal to kill was not out of benevolence. He simply had other uses for heinous criminals than to merely murder them. Indeed, given the astounding array of powers at his disposal, the mere murder of anyone who displeased him was a waste of resources and he wasn't about to be wasteful.

I possessed a number of other items in my inventory and as my mind spread out across the entire world I glanced at those items. Curiously, they were primarily weapons of various quality and quantities. Though the quantity of the weapons did not matter much, due to my potent nature as an architect. 

Thanks to my power as a living god revolving around creation I could easily create omegatech that I understood out of nothing. This was a powerful ability given the significant reputation of omegatech, and given just how powerful even one servitor could be if properly equipped. 

I glanced up at my companion and felt generous. The powerful technology I now understood and could create with a mental twitch was making me practically giddy with excitement, and so I decided to share a bit of my power with the very first servitor I had ever created. 

Within me lurked assorted powers, many of which were far greater than others as far as individual potency went. In the depths of my mind, I had endeavored to categorize the assorted powers I had given myself based on what they did, and I mentally rushed over to the powers I possessed that allowed me to manipulate life. This section was one of the more expansive sections since I was an eldritch entity, and many eldritch powers revolved around the transformation of life. Fortunately, I wasn't "here" for those powers. 

I activated "Power Architect" and "Master" and began to share potent powers with the nameless servitor. As I did I watched his eyes widen in awe, and smirked as he glanced at his hands and momentarily shifted them into monstrous claws. This was not a new ability of his, but it was greatly enhanced by the abrupt and significant boosts to his personal power that he had received thanks to my generosity. 

"I could see myself having plans for you in the future, so consider this... an investment." I explained, even as the creature began to explore its enhanced and mastered shapeshifting powers. Those were hardly the only powers I had just given the shadowy entity, but they were some of the most personally neat. I could understand why he liked them so much, and even as he practiced them I felt the subtle but noteworthy effects of some of my own mutations and powers that enhanced my own skill with my superpowers whenever those I bestowed them on utilized them.

That particular power encouraged me to be generous, though it was hardly the only reason why I did this. I planned to be generous to those who served me, even and in some ways especially servitors.

In time I planned to make my presence known to the eldritch entities who ruled over the various city-states in the depths of the ocean and when I did I would be recruiting their neo-shoggoths to my side. Being generous now would allow me to honestly show the neo-shoggoths what awaited them if they became my servants instead of serving the eldritch entities who refused to really utilize their vast potential. And empowering my servants like how I was empowering the servitor before me increased the odds of my machinations succeeding. 

That said, some of the powers I was sharing with my servants were fun abilities that I quite liked myself. With one of them, I could create plant life from nothing, and with another, I could transform my own skin into an exact replica of whatever I was touching at a time. If I was touching a diamond I could turn my skin into diamonds, or if I was touching lead I could easily become a humanoid made of lead. These powers were not as brutal, for the most part, as the sort of powers I was giving to my assassins, but they were better for what I was thinking about having this particular servitor do in the future. 

In a rare few cases, some of my servitors were being given dozens of powers all at once. Those particular servitors were remarkably special and I planned for them to become a lynchpin in my plans for a gentle conquest of Earth. These plans involved my most spectacular deception to date; that superheroes had come to Earth. But this deception would take further refining on my part, refining that I was even now doing, since for superheroes to be effective they also needed enemies who could stand on their level. 

Lucianowrites

Power Creator Xenon baby!