The minions, aside from Gnarl, gazed at me, wide-eyed and awestruck as they studied my form. I gazed back at them, my own form visible to me in the reflection I could see when I stared at their eyes. 

Thanks to the knowledge stored away in Gnarl’s mind I was aware of various species, including the strange beings known as “Humans”. As I gazed at the reflections in the eyes of the creatures, I saw that my looks were closest to those of a human but distinctively otherworldly. I had jet black hair, equally dark eyes, and a face that possessed an inhuman beauty, one closer to that of an elf than of a human. 

“Minions…” I eventually uttered, causing the lot of them, aside from Gnarl to rise and stand at attention. Gnarl stared at me, rapturously, seemingly awed by my very presence, still on his knees. His gaze was focused on the eldritch gauntlet on my hand. 

“Gnarl… Stand.” I whispered, though to the head of the minions my words were more like a horrific tornado, impossibly loud and totally impossible to ignore. The minion did as I asked, quickly joining the rest of his allies, and standing at attention. It was in the wake of this that I began to get up, placing my other, unarmored hand on the other end of the sarcophagus and pulling myself out of the thing. I was lucky and happy to discover that my feet were strong, and more than able to support my weight. And as I stood up I saw my vision beginning to change. 

My body was changing before my very eyes, but the most direct changes I could sense were related to my senses. As I gazed at my allies I began to see numbers appear next to their heads, numbers which I somehow instinctually understood were related to their health, their endurance, their intelligence, their agility, and more. Meanwhile, at the corners of my mind’s eye, I began to see similar things as well. 

I could see things like my own “Health” which I knew wasn’t actually a holistic measure of my wellbeing, but rather a specific term used to describe my lifeforce, and other valuable numbers related to my own inner wellspring of stamina or the eldritch, arcane energies used when casting spells. The number for my wellspring of stamina was increasing but wasn’t full and I was subtly aware that when I copied the power possessed by the red minions and then used it the amount in the pool had gone down, alerting me to the fact that that ability used my own pool of stamina as fuel. 

“I… am already learning.” I whispered, powerfully as I gazed at the minions arrayed before me. This made the terrible little creatures, ugly, goblin-like things, smile wretchedly. And as I looked at them, I felt their minds throbbing and pulsing with knowledge, a knowledge that was only barely shielded from me by their skulls and by the tiny, weak minds they possessed. I knew, instinctively, that if I reached out psychically I’d be able to wrench secrets from them, to forcefully extract their darkest secrets and feed on the wisdom they possessed. For a moment, I was tempted to do so, but I resisted that urge. For now anyway.

“Minions… I ache for more.” I uttered, my voice beginning to grow in power. With every uttered word I was gaining increased vocal power, as my voice grew in strength. I could also feel my innate charisma beginning to skyrocket. I sensed my appearance changing, and as I glanced at myself I was surprised to see my gauntlet beginning to melt into my skin, seemingly becoming one with me. I could even hear the blasted thing.

“Master… To become one with you, pleases me.” The eerie artifact whispered into my mind, as it began to blur the lines between metal and flesh. I hissed, not in pain but in surprise, as I watched the gauntlet begin to take on the hue of my skin and become almost indistinguishable from the rest of me. 

“The gauntlet… Is it becoming one with you, my lord?” One of the minions asked, perceptively, as the gauntlet began to shine and then return to its normal visage. I turned to the creature and nodded, not seeing a reason to keep such a clearly beneficial bit of knowledge a secret. As I nodded I felt my mind’s eye continue to shift and change, and saw mental images of the four types of minions appear at the top portion of my mind’s eye, along with numbers next to each image. I instinctively knew what the pictures and numbers meant. 

Each of the four images represented a type of minion, and each of the numbers represented how many of each of them there were. I could see red minions, brown minions, green minions, and blue minions. Each of the numbers that followed the images were in the low hundreds, with none being higher than four hundred fifty and that number belonged to the brown minions, which, supposedly anyway, made sense since the brown minions were the most common. At least if Gnarl’s knowledge was accurate. 

“That is incredible news! How marvelous.” Gnarl uttered, enraptured by the gauntlet. I could sense the thing’s connection to him, a connection that now tethered the two of us together as well. 

“To take to the gauntlet so potently that it fuses with you… That is unheard of!” One of the blue minions uttered, amazed by that news. 

“I wonder if this means that this one is like the Third Overlord…” Another of the blue minions questioned. The “Third Overlord” was, according to Gnarl’s knowledge, not actually the third of the dark tyrants who had come to the world that this place had been tethered to, but was actually only the third of the tyrants to conquer an entire continent, aided and served by none other than the minions themselves. He was also supposedly still alive, just trapped in an eerie other-dimensional space.

The knowledge that filled the mind of Gnarl now filled my own mind. It empowered and infused me, providing me with a truly sage-like amount of wisdom specific to this dimension, the world this dimension was connected to, and a handful of other, relatively nearby dimensions. 

The world that this dimension was tethered to was made up of a number of continents, each of which had known the wrath and fury of the overlords and their minions. Gnarl’s dream was to aid an overlord, a being of titanic and tyrannical or destructive evil who was served by minions, in conquering the entire planet. And he had never seen an overlord quite like myself. 

In Gnarl’s eyes, I radiated darkness and unholiness as if I were somehow a sort of divinity of evil, darkness, death, and despair. I radiated an aura not unlike that of a demon lord, a sort of pseudo-divine being of chaotic hatred and spite capable of controlling layers of the underworld and commanding other demons. His mind was open to me, receptive to the sort of unholy glory I possessed, and eager to serve. And so too were the minds of his fellow minions. 

For a moment I wondered if whoever created the first minions intentionally designed to them be tantamount to a servitor species, designed intentionally to be ruled over by a non-minion. That would certainly have explained the choice for even them to refer to themselves as “Minions”. Either way, they’d be quite useful for me. I still felt the same keen desire to gain greater powers that I had felt when I first saw the red minions.

I turned my attention to one of the red minions. As I did the creature visibly began to shake in both excitement and terror. I lashed out with my hand and the vicious object slammed into the red minion with ease, effortlessly annihilating bones and organs, nearly effortlessly and immediately killing the tiny thing. The minion’s body was sent flying backward, crashing to the floor and sliding to a slow stop a few feet away from the rest of us.  

This act of seemingly random violence caused the other minions around it to gaze at me in fear and also awe, astounded at my capacity for violence. I turned to a blue minion next to the thing and pointed at the corpse of the red minion. The minion immediately understood my intent and nodded at me. 

It ran over to the fallen, crumpled form of its fallen ally and placed a hand over the body of the thing. I then sensed the creature drawing on its own stores of magic and forcing the arcane energy within its soul to its tiny, webbed hands. The thing’s limbs began to glow and I watched as the energy it had pushed to its extremities surged out of it and into the red minion I had just slain. The energy it pushed into its peer was something that my mind somehow immediately understood and a mere nanosecond after I gazed at the display before me I knew that if I wanted too I could easily replicate that impressive feat. 

The fallen red minion, battered and destroyed by my attack was visibly recovering as the blue minion, the healers of the minion species, resurrected it. I saw bones heal, organs restart, and after a few seconds, the red minion actually opened its eyes! I smiled at the thing, and the minion, even after suffering from my attack, smiled back at me. 

“To think that I can do even that…” I muttered, not to the minion, but more absent-mindedly. I sensed, somehow instinctively understanding, that my ability to bring back the dead was greater than the version of the ability possessed by the blue minions. I knew that I could heal and resurrect even other beings such as humans, dragons, elves, and more. 

“Master… What are you saying?” Gnarl asked, as he gazed at me, or rather at the gauntlet on my hand. I chuckled quietly and turned to the elderly minion. 

“So far I’ve gained an awareness of supernatural abilities just by seeing them in action. And beyond that, I can replicate them. I can sense, intuitively, that I can now resurrect living beings.” I explained, opting to be honest. Gnarl, upon hearing this, chuckled at me.

“So you’re a magic-type overlord? It’s been a while since we’ve seen one like that. And to think that you can even perform miracles like that… Remarkable. Like one of those blasted white priests from Heaven’s Peak.” The creature replied, his wide amber eyes filling with delight as he pondered the possibilities. Gnarl got up and smiled at me as the minion continued to contemplate the possibilities posited by my unique powers.

The creature reached forward and placed his hand on my shoulder and when he did I froze, as my mind filled with an enormous amount of information.

Gnarl’s touch caused my mind to fill with information, but not about the minion himself. The information flooding my brain filled me with a keen awareness of myself down to the atomic, genetic, and subatomic levels. And with that knowledge came a much keener awareness of my own potential, including the seemingly endless parade of powers that I possessed. I was also now aware that I was something beyond human, something beyond even Gnarl’s own potent knowledge. I was akin to a sapient disease, able to spread my influence and dominate even other living beings if I infected them with myself, something I fully intended to do as soon as I could.

The powers that most intrigued me at the moment were the powers that related to my own physiology. I knew that I could shapeshift, able to take on the forms of any beings I had devoured, as well as freely and actively make use of their own natural talents and abilities, and even transform my limbs into potent weapons with but a thought.

Mere moments after Gnarl touched me, the minion smiled and began to walk, intently, towards the grand throne. I could keenly hear his thoughts, in the wake of his choice to touch me. I walked with him, aware that he intended to take to me to Spree, where the third overlord once began his reign, in order to show me the ropes of being an overlord. 

I smiled as we silently stalked towards the relatively recently rebuilt village, our hearts filled with malice. As I walked my mind filled with information about myself, the “disease” that I was a sapient embodiment of, and the potent powers I possessed. A virus with a rather ominous name; the “Blacklight” virus.

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