A Solitary God In A Dark Multiverse 36 What Was Rewarded

[Alert: Processing the awarded powers gifted to you by the subdomain of necromancy.

As a subdomain that you have earned influence over, on your own, while in the tutorial, these powers are unfettered by the limitations imposed on you by the system. That's why they are so powerful. Because of this, you could pretend to be a G.o.d of necromancy and it'd be difficult to disprove your claim given your new necromantic majesticness.

Your other powers will power up and reach their unfettered strength as soon as you are no longer confined by the limitations imposed on you by the system. The sensations you're feeling are what true power feels like.

Details about the necromancy subdomain:

The necromancy subdomain governs necromancy, undeath, and rot. It is an extremely powerful and eerie subdomain that gave G.o.ds who sought to influence it atrociously evil quests and immense power that allowed them to empower themselves and their wors.h.i.+pers.

The first tier of influence over the subdomain grants you the power to create all types of lesser undead, even the ones mortal necromancers feel are mighty monsters, like vampires and ghouls. This tier of influence is the easiest to acquire and its purpose is to familiarize G.o.ds with the potency of undeath.

In order to gain more tiers of influence over the subdomain of necromancy, it will no longer be enough to merely reanimate the deceased. First of all, cults of undead creatures and the living enemies of life who are depraved enough to ally themselves with the undead will have to be created in order to continue to gain greater power over necromancy.

Secondly, each task you will be tasked with completing to cement your control over the necromantic domain will be an atrocity you commit against the living. Wicked undertakings like transforming an entire city, or region into a land of the walking dead will be among the tamest tasks you complete as you gain greater and greater power over the undead and those who create them.

Necromancy subdomain pa.s.sive powers:

Lesser undead mastery:

As a G.o.d of the undead, you become the undisputed master of the lowest caste of undead beings. Lowly legions of ghouls, ghosts, skeletons, zombies, wraiths, shadows, vampires, wrights, and mummies, as well as lesser ent.i.ties like hungry hands and undead plants, begin to wors.h.i.+p you and obey you once they become aware of you.

This power grants you divine authority over all lesser undead, including those that were intelligently created by necromancers or those who transformed themselves into the undead which is often the case with vampires. It subsumes their wills and makes them yours.

This power is also felt by undead strong enough to resist your ability to subsume the wills of lesser undead. It makes you more persuasive to them and increases the likelihood that they'll obey or listen to you willingly even if they won't wors.h.i.+p you.

This power adds zombies, hungry hands, and shadows under your control to your swarm but gives you total control over them. When you issue commands to them, that doesn't cost you the daily usage of that power that it would when you use it on the insects under your control.

Unlife energy mastery:

This power grants you utter control over the deadly energy that enables the undead to be undead. You can manipulate this energy as surely as you can manipulate the earth, and you can use it to a wide number of ends.

You can infuse your blows with this energy, causing them to sap a living creature's lifeforce, you can weave this energy into items to create artifacts that cripple those bold enough to try and use them without your permission, and you can make living creatures immune to it, as well as countless other things that are up to you and rely on your creativity.

Miasmic aura:

The auric power granted to you by the first tier of influence over the subdomain of necromancy is one that strengthens undead allies and weakens living foes. This aura is unusual in that it also activates if you are near an undead creature strong enough to resist the compulsion to wors.h.i.+p and obey you, further pressuring their wills to be vigilant around you. The aura is one of unlife energy.

Sinister shadow:

This power creates a persistent bodyguard in the form of a shadowy wraith who lives in your shadow. It springs to life whenever you are attacked, and attempts to kill and reanimate your attacker. If it successfully kills its targets then the targeted creature will reanimate as a ghoul or vampire under your control.

Create Undead:

You can now create the undead as a simple matter of flexing your will. If you wish to transform a corpse into an undead ent.i.ty all it takes is for you to touch the thing with unlife energy and for you to will it to reanimate, allowing you to create undead in areas with anti-magic defenses.

When you create the undead in this manner you'll be asked what sorts of undead you wish to create just like if you used the 'Create Undead' spell. You can create any of the undead you can command via "Lesser undead mastery". This power allows you to swiftly create undead armies.

Fleshcrafter:

So long as a creature hasn't been dead for over a century you can restore its flesh and bone, so long as you have a single fragment of bone or flesh to use. This greatly enhances the number of corpses you can use to create armies and grants you the ability to salvage destroyed undead.

Unlife energy infusion:

The same energy that infuses undead creatures now infuses you. As a deity, you can possess both life-energy and unlife energy. You can also possess infinite amounts of both.

Cla.s.s-Granting:

You can give someone the necromancer cla.s.s. When they receive it from you they receive a notification alerting them to the fact that you're the cause of them gaining the cla.s.s. The notification's exact text can be modified allowing you to create another persona if you wish too or otherwise hide that you're the cause of the target gaining a new cla.s.s.

Spell-Granting:

You can grant someone various medium-ranked necromantic spells. These spells include but aren't limited too 'Create undead'. Undead they create using these spells serve and wors.h.i.+p you, but they are automatically given instructions to obey the caster of the spell, which they follow unless you command them otherwise.

When spells like 'Create undead' are granted by you to other creatures and those creatures use the spells they are just aiming a spell that is, for intents and purposes, cast by you. This power can be used to create some amusing and potentially devastating schemes.

Undamaged material:

Non-deific necromancers can only reanimate the same body so many times. This limitation doesn't apply to you. Provided the corpse isn't damaged you can bestow sparks of unlife onto the same corpse as many times as you wish, allowing you to punish failure and reward loyalty in rather creative ways.

Send sensation:

This power allows you to transmit sensations to the undead who wors.h.i.+p you. If you want to transmit anger, jealously, l.u.s.t, happiness, peace, or any other emotion, you can with but a thought. You can also cause undead beings to experience sensations like the feeling of fullness after eating a full meal or cause them to experience lifelike sensations of discomfort or frustration.

Past necromantic deities used this to send their servants feelings as omens or as a reward. And plenty of G.o.ds used this as a punishment as well, punis.h.i.+ng undead who failed them by making them uncomfortable in various, often creative, ways.

Necromancy subdomain active powers:

Remotely create undead:

This is a rare active power that'll become a pa.s.sive one once you reach a higher tier of influence over its domain or subdomain. With this, you can reanimate a corpse you're aware of forty times a day. If you gain greater overall divine might before you attain the next tier of influence over necromancy you'll be able to do this more times and have a shorter cooldown time.

Miasmic burst:

This once a day active power is a direct and unholy offensive power. It creates an explosion of unlife energy wherever you aim it that decimates any living thing nearby. Anything caught in the attack that survives gains a permanent condition that only you can lift, which guarantees that they'll reanimate as undead creatures in your service once they die, whenever that might be.

Necromancy subdomain blessing and curse details:

Blessing a living creature with the necromancy subdomain causes them to be ignored by lesser undead, particularly truly weak ones like skeletons and zombies. If they are a necromancer or know necromantic spells it also strengthens the spells they create.

Blessing an undead being with the powers of the necromancy subdomain grants them sapience if they didn't possess any before, and makes them champions of yours. This is a unique property of the subdomain of necromancy.

Cursing a living creature with the subdomain sickens them. It inflicts incredible damage to them and is directly, physically painful for them to endure. This is also a rarity, as only a handful of other domains possess this property, domains, and subdomains like the domain of death, the domain of disease, and the subdomain of pain share this with the subdomain of necromancy.

Cursing an undead creature with this subdomain saps their will and intelligence, reducing lesser undead to the same state of mindlessness as an unawakened zombie. If the curse is lifted the undead in question will remember their time as a mindless being.

Tremorsense alert: Your tremorsense now finely hones in on undead creatures. This simplifies the process of targeting them and establis.h.i.+ng the mental links needed for them to gain an awareness of you.

Necromancer cla.s.s features:

Unlife infus.e.m.e.nt: If you wish you can infuse unlife energy into the harmful spells you cast, increasing their damage and giving them a chance to reanimate those they hit, should the spells kill them.

Soul Harvest: When acquired by mortals this is a legendary power that they acquire at the culmination of their lives as mortals but since you are a G.o.d of undeath the soul domain has opted to grant you this power early. It allows you to trap the souls of those you or your minions kill, souls with which you can create intermediate undead creatures, consume, or use in dark rituals.]

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The sensation of the subdomain's power was so mighty that because of it I was able to stay standing even as I was. .h.i.t with the awe-inspiring emotions of the numerous creatures who I had just reanimated. Their wors.h.i.+p poured into me, even as I felt a tiny fragment of the total power of the subdomain of necromancy infuse me.

"Whoa... that's good stuff right there." I muttered as I took a second to process the newfound powers at my disposal. The ogresses approached me, as if to check if I was alright, but stopped when I looked up at them. They gasped and muttered the same thing in unison. "Your eyes." They whispered.

In confusion, I looked to my skeletal stag and silently asked for an explanation. Our mental connection was stronger than ever and the stag replied to me with no hesitation.

"Your eyes are jet black spheres, master It's almost like they're empty." The creature told me. Its mental voice was nonjudgemental and accepting which made it easier for me to take the news that my eyes had just turned jet black. I wondered why this was, but almost as soon as I began to feel curious the system chimed in and told me what was going on.

[You are influenced by the domains and subdomains you have influence over. One of the ways that can manifest is that your body can undergo changes caused by the domains and subdomains you hold sway over. Necromancy will forever be an important subdomain of yours because it was the first one you gained a tier of influence over by yourself. That said, the eye color thing is easy to undo. Just will it undone.] The system told me, informing me as to what was happening to my body.

I closed my eyes and wished them back to normal. I felt a sudden and subtle change in my form and opened my eyes. I looked at my stag servant, and the creature nodded at me. "Your eyes are back to normal." It declared, with a chilly indifference to this whole thing.

All around me, my other servants, the undead creatures I had reanimated to acquire this influence over the necromancy subdomain began the slow process of rising up post reanimation. It was a strange sight, but one that excited me.

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Perhaps the most ordinary of the corpses that I had just reanimated was that of a silver-furred wolf. She was a sleek creature, with average-sized paws for her frame and width, and a bruise on her snout. She was also the first to rise up fully, and she quickly bounded over to my side. She glared at the ogresses but didn't bark.

The drider I reanimated was a gigantic fusion of a humanoid and a spider. She had the abdomen and lower body of a ma.s.sive red-carapaced arachnid, complete with a hungry-looking mouth and the upper body of a creature with delft-blue skin that looked almost human but was impossibly beautiful, possessing large eyes, full and dark lips, as well as pointed ears.

Some of her facial features were almost blindingly white when contrasted with the deep tone of her skin. Her hair was the same shade of white as cream. Her eyes were colorless...o...b.., a haunting contrast to her void-black skin.

When she was finished reanimating, a process that took her a few seconds but was over surprisingly quickly given the complexity of her body and its enormous size, she studied me but said nothing. She had a regal air to her and possessed an enticingly curvaceous body, some of which was hidden behind jewelry that was seemingly stuck to her skin. She was easily the most beautiful creature I had ever seen.

The first of the creatures to speak was the next one to reanimate. It was the female grave giant. As she began to reanimate she began to laugh. The sound of her laughter, a deep and fully throated laugh, filled the forest air.

She was a big one. Next to the Gug, she was the largest creature I had brought to the surface. She was just over six meters tall.

She wore strange clothing that covered her entire body. Her form was clad in a dark tunic, one which clung to her deceased yet once again mobile form. She had a complexion the color of wheat. Her tunic was riddled with rips and tears. As she laughed, she began to cough, before eventually coughing up some of the soil and rocks that I had used when I brought her to me.

I walked over to her and studied her face as she expelled what was in essence grave dirt from her lungs. She looked up at me sheepishly, displaying emotions that my other undead creatures didn't show. This was odd because I had raised them all as ghouls.

"You seem... different." I declared, looking into her eyes. They were colorless, pitch-black spheres. She smiled at up at me after I spoke to her and spent a second trying to gather her thoughts. And then she began to speak.

"I am different!" She declared, energetically. There was an audible enthusiasm in her voice, a chipperness that clashed vividly with the emotions exuded by my other servants. I silently studied her for a second longer before questioning her.

"Are you not a ghoul? Did... did my magic fail?" I asked, somewhat concernedly, but doing my best to hide it. She giggled at me, her eyes wide with delight before she replied to my query.

"I am a ghoul, master. But I am also something more than that. I am a grave giant. We were born infused with unlife energy, and it makes it so that we both retain our minds if we are reanimated, though you would have let me keep my memories anyway, and also makes us stronger creatures. Being a necromancer is a matter of pride for us. And to be reanimated by the G.o.d of undeath... What an honor!" She exclaimed, her eyes widening in awe as she finished her statement.

I was taken aback by her statement and made a mental note to come back to her later. It was while I was studying her, thinking about her statement, that the noise of a group of snakes began to fill the nearby air. I turned to look at the medusa, recognizing that the noises were probably coming from her.

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Sure enough when I turned around and laid my eyes on the snake-headed woman she was sitting upright and gazing back at me. Her snakes, which served as the medusa's hair, were glaring at the ogresses, but the actual humanoid head of the reptilian woman was indifferent to them and was focused on me.

She had skin the color of milk and a lovely smile on her face. She had incredibly stunning amethyst-colored eyes, eyes that drew you in. If I had a heart I had no doubt it'd be pounding in response to making eye contact with her. But when we did make eye contact the reanimated woman didn't look away. Instead she kept her gaze locked on mine and took a moment to relax.

At that moment, beside the medusa's corpse, a ma.s.sive paw lunged into the air. The paw was covered in thick, unkempt fur that was the color of a starless night. The paw was powerfully muscled, thicker than some humans I had laid my eyes on, but the most intimidating part of it was that it ended in two dangerously clawed hands.

It wasn't like a human's arm where it only possessed one extremity, it was doubly dangerous. Each hand ended in thin fingers that had razor-sharp looking nails and no doubt possessed remarkable strength. But the thing's double-handed arms weren't the most intimidating aspects of its form.

The thing had a form that looked loosely headless. After noting this I went over to the thing and investigated it.

It turned out that this wasn't because the creature lacked a head but that the head, or at least the facial features the monster did have were hidden. The creature wasn't headless but rather had a neck that jutted out over and between its shoulders and housed the being's facial features, but that neck wasn't attached to anything.

Instead of a traditional head, the thing's red, reptilian-slitted eyes, nose, and ears are all located on its neck. And its mouth, in a wicked parody of the mouths of all of the creatures I had met opened vertically, opening up and almost splitting up, its ma.s.sive form. When the thing's maw opened, I got to see a row of predatory, thick, yellowed fangs, and a ma.s.sive, sopping wet tongue situated inside of its mouth.

The creature pushed itself up off of its back with a single fluid motion, coming to a rest in an upright position and studied its surroundings. When its eyes reached me they came to a stop. And the beast looked at me calmly, as if awaiting instructions.

As I considered what to say to it, I heard the noise something small makes when it hits the ground. The noise came from behind me, suggesting that it was probably my final new servant: an undead member of the fungoid "Fungal Folk". When I turned around, facing the same direction I had been facing before I came face to face, eye to face of fungal plating, with a tiny mushroom man who was standing tall.

The reanimated fungoid creature was standing up, the only creature who had taken time to stand up beside the reanimated she-wolf. The thing's eyeless face was facing me, as I could see a strangely humanlike structure to its eyeless face. The thing had ears, nose slits in its face, and a mouth, but no eyes.

It possessed the rough shape of a humanoid, having two armlike appendages, two "legs" made of fungal matter, and a discernable head above a square slab of fungal matter that loosely resembled a flat but broad stomach with the basic features heads are supposed to have aside from eyes. The head was topped off by a big mushroom cap though so its imitation wasn't perfect.

The thing was impressively stoic, not laughing or studying me, or perhaps it just wasn't visibly studying me. I wasn't sure. I spent a few moments studying it, before I sent them all a mental command.

"Get in line." I ordered all of my undead creatures. I did this via our eerie mental link so as to demonstrate the power I possessed, and to practice using it. The creatures responded by getting up and quietly getting in a long, single-file line. After they finished I sighed and realized that I was wasn't communicating that correctly.

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A few minutes later the ogresses stood beside me, one on each side, and we studied the 10 creatures in front of us. The two of them were excitedly offering me their insights into the nature of my menagerie-like collection of undead monsters.

"The spider lady is beautiful." Iret exclaimed, her eyes lecherously studying the ma.s.sive hybrid. She wasn't wrong, the relaxed and composed drider was, as I noted earlier, a radiantly beautiful creature.

The woman looked at Iret and smiled n.o.bly. In response to that regal smile, I heard the ogress' heart begin to pound more quickly. I grinned unconsciously, at the drider, but she didn't see it since her attention was focused on Iret. I stopped grinning after I noticed what I was doing.

Okig studied the ma.s.sive grave giant. She looked up at the woman, who looked down at her in return. The two of them made hesitant eye contact with each other, and the ogress' grip on her club tightened.

I myself ran my eyes over all of the creatures I had reanimated to serve me. Seeing them, most of them with all of their flesh, filled me with a powerful sense of superiority. But I wasn't about to let that get in the way of ensuring that I took some care of my servants and made sure they knew what they needed to know.

I looked out at the creatures before me and asked them a simple question designed to make sure I hadn't messed up while creating them.

"Do you all remember your lives as mortals?" I asked, my voice filling the air in the forest. The creatures all looked at each other and slowly began to nod, sure that they did in fact recall their first lives. Once they all had nodded I moved on.

"Do you all know who I am?" I asked, curiously. I was certain the system had told them something, but I wasn't sure what.

They all looked over at each other, and then again began to nod. I relaxed and smiled, as I readied something to say next, in the safety of my mind.

"That's great! But allow me to introduce myself anyway. Just so you can hear me in my own words. I am Althos. I am a G.o.d. I guess I'm a G.o.d of undeath?" I told them, hesitating slightly with the last sentence. I refocused and got back on the track a second later.

"I am your G.o.d. Your creator. And you are the first of my servants and wors.h.i.+pers. I will use you as the beginning of a faith that grants me power over life, death, undeath, and everything else. And I will also learn about each of you in time. We have an eternity together after all." I declared, momentarily envisioning myself as an all mighty G.o.d who dispenses life, death, and everything else with but a brief thought. It was an addicting mental image to be sure.

But I wasn't done speaking to my servants. I had one more question. And it was a doozy, as well as genuinely important.

"I created you all to serve me. That doesn't mean I created you to fight. But I do wonder... how strong do you think you are? And how in actuality, how strong are you?" I asked the freshly reanimated creatures. With the sole exception being the zombie, all of the creatures began to look at each other and size each other up.

And then one of them, the ghoulish drider, spoke up for the very first time.

"I have an idea. Or rather, I have a suggestion." She said, her voice soft and lilting. She spoke while staring at Iret, a smug grin plastered on her face. I turned to face her, surprised that she spoke up but curious to hear her out.