A Solitary God In A Dark Multiverse 153 Parasitism

Morehammer was once the chief deity of the dwarves. In the unspeakably ancient past, he created dwarves as his most treasured children. The creatures I was resurrecting at the moment were themselves dwarves and that gave me an unusual opportunity: a chance to plant the seeds for cults within dwarven society that would undermine and oppose the control Morehammer had over his children. So I needed to be cautious and thoughtful as I made this choice.

"I possess an array of powers and I can influence... A lot actually." Those thoughts weren't idle, self-congratulatory praises either. I was born a G.o.d of the earth, vermin, and agriculture, and yet I've risen to become much more.

"I was born... a G.o.d of vermin. Hmm..." Something about that spoke to me. And it had been a while since I had given my lords.h.i.+p over vermin serious thought. But at the moment I was in a precarious situation, facing a powerful and serious foe. So now, was the time for creative and innovative thinking.

"Vermin and parasites... What an idea." I mused, within the safety of my own mind. I began to feel a flicker of intrigue, the same sensation I felt whenever a scheme was beginning to slowly form at the outer edges of my mind.

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One peculiar quirk of my innate subdomains was that they were tricky things. I came to life possessing innate power over three subdomains, earth, vermin, and agriculture. Of those three, only earth was simple and even it wasn't actually simple. It was simply more straightforward than the other two.

The agriculture subdomain was once known as the subdomain of famine. It was a member of the three domains and one subdomain known as the "Apocalypse quadrangle", four fonts of divine power that allowed G.o.ds to wield considerable power and to devastate entire worlds. With my powers over both agriculture and famine, I could reward and protect my followers while starving and killing my foes.

The vermin subdomain wasn't limited to animals that humanoids disliked and found destructive but also possessed considerable power over parasites. And the more I considered that the more fascinated by it I became. Parasites... Hmm... I had never really thought all that much about parasites.

Before now I never had all that much of a reason to consider adding power over creatures that steal health and strength from others to my ever-expanding set of abilities, talents, and forces. But since I was facing a creature who was roughly my equal and appeared to exceed me in strength this was actually the perfect moment for me to do that. That said when I first looked at the powers that the vermin subdomain possessed I had been left thoroughly unimpressed.

"I suppose this is the moment to see what powers over vermin and parasites I've gained over the course of the last month." I quietly told myself. I swiftly went through the mental motions needed to check up on my newest vermin subdomain abilities.

When the abilities actually appeared in front of me I was stunned. They were... far stronger than I had antic.i.p.ated them being.

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[New primarily vermin subdomain pa.s.sive powers:

Drain: This is a cornerstone power of the vermin subdomain. It is an incredibly useful one that allows G.o.ds of parasites to grow in power incredibly fast. This upgradeable power allows you to take things from mortals, even immaterial things that shouldn't be able to be taken from them.

This power allows you to steal life-force, memories, stat points, spiritual energy, resistances, and even cla.s.s levels. This power takes whatever you drained from a victim of this ability and gives it to you. You can drain things remotely, but this lacks the power and speed of an up-close-and-personal drain. You can also cause this power to feel pleasurable, corruptive, and addictive to victims if you wish. If someone just died you can use this to absorb someone's soul.

As befits synergies with other things you have influence over you can drain some unusual things. You can drain sanity, knowledge of spells, someone's sense of duty, or even their ability to resist desires of all sorts. You can also return things you've drained if you so wish. Since you're a G.o.d you can return these things to those you took them from without losing them, effectively creating copies of whatever you've drained. Whenever someone with a cla.s.s loses all of their cla.s.s levels they effectively lose that cla.s.s but you don't actually cut them off from the cla.s.s they just need to gain experience in it again.

Possession: This is an incredibly potent and parasitic power that allows you to seize control of the body of a mortal and do a number of things with it. You can attempt to seize control of it and effectively pretend to be that person, though this can be resisted by a mortal with a strong enough will. Due to synergies between the vermin subdomain and the other subdomains you possess influence over the sensations your victims receive while they are possessed by you are addictive and maddening and when you leave the victims you're possessing they will crave sensations similar to being possessed.

You can steal stat points, health, and more from those you possess. You can also empower the individual you're possessing, similarly to when you bless them. Or you can merely ride along with the person, lurking within them, undetected by them or anyone else. Some of your followers, like praereptors and some undead have less potent versions of this ability.

Swarm genesis: You gain power over swarms of vermin and parasites. This means you can command large numbers of vermin and parasites at once. You can also command parasites and vermin, even ones of different types, to come together and form large swarms. These swarms can be any size from 30 creatures to even as large as 10,000.

Vermin awakening: You can awaken vermin at will. This power allows you to grant humanoid level intelligence to even the smallest and least dangerous-looking vermin and parasites such as mosquitoes and mice. You can also cause them to evolve into their second tiered evolutionary forms at will.

Vermin subdomain active powers:

Blight: Once per day you can use this power to infest an area, home, or field with a condition that makes it appealing to vermin. This makes an area wildly popular for vermin and parasites.

Infestation: You can spontaneously sp.a.w.n up to thirty vermin and or parasites at once. This power also allows you to cause your newly created vermin and parasites to have a special enmity for a specific place you can choose at will. The creatures you create will always try to target this one location and will scour it of resources. Despite being an active power this is an at-will ability.]

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Whoa... I muttered to myself when I was finished reading through the new powers I had gained. As I read through them I recognized the incredible power of these abilities. Of all of them "drain" and "possession" were the most broadly usable and directly handy to me as a G.o.d who was facing another G.o.d's echo. And that was what inspired me to do what I did next.

I looked out in front of me and swiftly changed my environment in a subtle way. Even as I looked out at the dwarves nearest to me I quietly called on the subdomains of air and poison to form a mist that spread out from my corporeal form. This mist would have an unpleasant effect on those who inhaled it, something my victims might have learned if I had cared to release them from the illusion they were under. I wasn't nice enough to do that though.

The thin mist was green-tinted though in the relative darkness of the cave we were inside of that was hard for mortals, with their light-dependent vision, to tell. It spread out from me incredibly quickly and in seconds covered both the dwarves who survived to the end, as well as the ones who I had brought back to life. The purpose of the mist was simple. To put them to sleep. And I watched for a moment or two as it took effect nearly instantly.

The mist was made from fusing some of the subtler powers over the air subdomain and the poison subdomain together. The sleep effect was derived from my powers over sloth. I merely mixed and matched the effects together to create circ.u.mstances in which I could more favorably begin to utilize some of the powers I possessed that intrigued me.

I closed my eyes and kept them shut this time. I took a deep breath and then silently targeted the hundreds of dwarves in front of me. The dwarves, exhausted from the battle they had fought or from the strain of being brought back to life, all fell asleep instantly the second they were touched by the mist.

I rose a single hand straight up and began to use "Drain". As I did I targeted two things: their memories and their cla.s.s levels. I also knew what sort of a cult I would be creating here.

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The scene beyond the fire separating the dwarves from the orcs was an odd one. A single human-looking ent.i.ty had one hand stretched out above him and was facing an entire army of sleeping dwarves.

The dwarves began to s.h.i.+ft uncomfortably. They twisted and contorted in their sleep as they were suddenly and greedily drained of something immaterial and yet incredibly valuable.

The eerie G.o.d of parasites and vermin's power that had once put them to sleep was now actively stealing from them. It was within them, and taking things that lacked physical form from them. Targeting their experience, their muscles, and even their very minds and souls.

In that moment their true foe, Althos, was revealing an aspect of his true nature. He was embodying the sins of greed, gluttony, envy, and sloth.

He had wanted what was rightfully theirs and begun to greedily take what never belonged to him. He had taken a lazy approach to acquire power by embracing the parasitic nature of some of his more frightening abilities. And he was even overconsuming something that no one else would be able to consume, taking in more than twenty levels in the cla.s.ses of ranger, brawler, berserker, and warrior, all at once.

Seconds after he activated the parasitic power he had just learned he possessed he s.h.i.+vered as he began to feel... something, or rather somethings seep into him from hundreds of sources all at once. He was momentarily confused by this until his mind began to become overwhelmed by past sensations and he began to remember conversations he had never been a part of.

He was experiencing memories that weren't his, and learning secrets that predated his youthful life. Entire lifetimes of memories, often centuries worth of memories were rapidly absorbed into him. He was lucky his mind was a greedy sponge that relished chances to take in new information.

On an even more internal level than his mind, his soul was undergoing a change as well. The G.o.d had made a powerful choice. He had opted to steal the cla.s.s-levels of the dwarves, and in doing so gained hundreds of cla.s.s-levels all at once.

This caused his soul to swell with power, and had anyone been able to see him at that moment they would have seen his muscles undergo a temporary but physical change. He grew taller and his body swelled in width due to a sudden and unexpected acquisition of muscle ma.s.s.

This elicited a small chuckle from the G.o.d. After the chuckle, he willed himself back to his prior, slim but handsome appearance. That said the shock of this was enough for the G.o.d to open his eyes again. The G.o.d's mind and soul were being stretched and were expanding to accommodate the new information and the new powers he possessed but for a G.o.d this was easy. This was merely what happened whenever a G.o.d gained a new wors.h.i.+per but on a much grander and more rapid scale.

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The aftermath of my usage of "drain" left me feeling... different. I felt stronger than ever before, on a physical level, even though I already possessed infinite strength. Something about the cla.s.s levels I had taken into myself from the fooled dwarves had made me feel more physically powerful and aware than I ever had before now. The combined strength of the martial cla.s.ses, warrior, brawler, berserker, and ranger put together left me feeling quite dangerous.

After opening my eyes, all while I was still adjusting to the things that I had taken from the dwarves, I glanced at my hand. It was indeed small again, but there was something... different about it. There was something threatening about my hand. As if on a purely instinctual level I recognized that my hand contained new power and was more dangerous now than it had been minutes ago. I wasn't sure if this was due to the new abilities I possessed, thanks to the cla.s.ses I had just gotten to level 20, or to the thousands of years of collective memories I had just taken from the dwarves.

A part of my mind was preoccupied with adjusting to the new memories I possessed. In every case, I had absorbed every memory of the dwarf in question, and so I must have taken in close to twenty thousand years of memories total since even a single dwarf can live for centuries before peris.h.i.+ng. The oldest dwarf in my presence was over eight centuries old, and my power hungrily fed on each of his memories, from the moment he was birthed to the moment he fell in battle to an orc's machete.

"Heh." I uttered, audibly chuckling as I learned an entire community's secrets seeped into my mind and became things that I knew as readily as I knew my own name. That said, I wasn't here to steal needlessly.

I closed my eyes and activated another handy power of mine: "Projection". With it, I called an army of myself into existence, and felt me begin to appear all over the part of the cave I found myself in. Each projected copy of myself had a simple task to do: give the memories of the dwarves back to them. And they sprang to action surprisingly quickly, each leaping at the dwarf closest to them and activating the "Tactile teaching" power so that their memories could be returned to them.

All in all this process took roughly fifteen minutes. During this time Sombra appeared at my side and stood next to me while I waited for this to task be completed.

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When the shadowy witch was back by my side and I had completed my task I turned to her and watched as she reacted. She stiffened unexpectedly, caught off guard by my abrupt action. I stifled a chuckle and began to speak.

"I found a new source of strength. One that may allow me to properly take my revenge on Morehammer." I informed her, speaking and thinking aloud. She relaxed when she heard this, though the smile on her face was an excited one.

"Master, do you care to share what this new source of power is?" She asked, knowing that at times I spoke to think aloud and not to inform those who could hear me. I smiled at the young demon and replied to her jovially.

"It relates to what I've always been. A parasite of incredible power. And parasitism." I told her, speaking cryptically. Over the course of the time that I was returning the memories I had taken from the dwarves I came to an important conclusion.

I was a G.o.d of parasites. Innately. Not long ago I might have looked down on this, or on a being who claimed to be a parasite, but now I knew better. Tasting defeat, even a relatively minor one, had humbled me.

Just as important as being humbled, the act of gaining power through parasitism had excited me. Taking from others felt good. And in my case it was rewarding. With powers like "Drain" at my disposal, I may eventually have an ability suitable to steal what remains of Morehammer's power from his vestige. Realizing this was deeply inspiring in its own, twisted way.

I was born a G.o.d of parasites and if I had learned and embraced that sooner I may have been able to defeat Morehammer the first time I encountered him. But I knew better than to fixate on that. This power I possessed needed to be cultivated. It needed to be honed.

Frankly, under different circ.u.mstances, I may have needed to train and hone the new abilities I had gained thanks to the cla.s.s levels I stole, but I had memories that engrained in me new instincts. Including instinctual understandings of my new powers. I momentarily considered returning the cla.s.s levels, since I was able to do so without losing them thanks to my G.o.dhood.

"Should I return them? After all the dwarves are weaker without them..." I mused, a cruel grin on my face as I thought about what to do with my new abilities.

"But at the same time... The dwarves were losing this battle. If they weren't strong enough to win, do they really deserve these abilities?" I thought, my grin growing in cruelty as I considered that aspect of all of this. The battle would have been even more costly for both sides by its end, but the dwarves would have lost.

"Hmm... Nah, I think they'll just have to re-earn their levels on their own." I eventually decided. I quite enjoyed this decision of mine. I took Sombra's hand in my mine and suddenly teleported us to the other side of the fire, where the orcs were watching and waiting. As I did so I informed the system of the choice I had made regarding the sort of cult I wanted the resurrected dwarves to make.

I wanted them to make a chaotic cult of evil and parasitism, which masqueraded as a cult of community and health. A cult that hid its true ends and even the means by which it sought to accomplish those ends.

It was at the same time as this was occurring that the dwarves began to awaken, only to immediately fall under an illusion that the fire was gone, that I was gone, and that the orcs were gone. An illusion that falsely promised that I had fulfilled my promise.

It was while the dwarves were under this illusion that I turned my attention to the orcs and readied to make at least part of my promise a reality.