I had lived my whole life to date with influence over l.u.s.t. l.u.s.t, though often conceptualized as s.e.xual desire, was a bit more nuanced than that.

In truth, though I had used it as a way to weaponize s.e.xual desire, l.u.s.t was really just intense desire for someone or something. It was an incredibly handy thing to have control over, and I knew that I"d gain more power over it as a result of the second tier of influence over corruption I had just earned. That excited me.

The other six... Greed, pride, sloth, envy, wrath, and gluttony. I had learned a considerable amount about each of them during my time in my tower. All of them were incredibly handy things that a part of me really wanted to get my hands on. Especially now, in my conflict against Morehammer.

Greed. Greed was the overwhelming, obsessive desire for material wealth. It paired well with my powers over the earth, as I could now create things like gold and silver with but a thought. I could make someone infinitely wealthy if I felt like it, and pairing that with greed was an especially potent and devastating combination. With greed I could also have a lot of fun, getting people to serve me in exchange for both wealth beyond imagining and also by instilling greed in their hearts.

Pride. At it"s worst it is the false belief that one is superior to someone else. Even in a less destructive state, it is still the embodiment of selfishness. It is the placement of one"s own desires before the needs and welfare of others.

Pride can lead to all sorts of malicious behavior and it is a fantastic tool with which to corrupt people with good intentions. That in and of itself makes it worth considering. If I can become a master of pride... Who knows what sort of mischief I could create?

Sloth. The vice of apathy. This one is perhaps the most interesting one to me. Not only is it the opposite of diligence, Morehammer"s personal virtue, it is also perhaps the most powerful of the deadly sins to have in a war. With it, I can turn the dwarves Morehammer will turn into his servants into apathetic creatures which my worshippers can slaughter.

With power over sloth, I"d no doubt I would gain a number of incredibly powerful abilities. I could also mix it with powers I already had, ones like the power to grant immortality to people. I bet I could even mix it with powers over dreams, or synergize it with l.u.s.t in a number of ways. Sloth had a lot of potential.

Envy. It is not just generalized desire, but a desire for that that others possess. This is a truly powerful sin. In many cases, especially from what I"ve seen in the memories my worshippers have given me, wanting what others have is usually more than just taking something that belongs to someone else, but taking it from them. There"s an almost s.a.d.i.s.tic component to this.

Powers over envy would allow me to more easily cause wars, much like powers over wrath would. With envy, I could also more easily foment hatred and strife. Envy and sloth were probably the two of the sins with the most society-wide impact if used correctly and cleverly.

Wrath. A simple sin but not one to be underestimated. I have felt this one before and I know just how powerful it can be. Wrath is merely uncontrolled or uncontrollable anger but that simplicity is powerful. Even the most carefully laid scheme can be undone in a moment of rage.

Combining wrath with powers over chaos, evil, or war would be incredibly powerful. I could do a lot of damage if I used powers over wrath on a demon, dragon, or a tribe of giants.

Gluttony. Excessive consumption of things to the point of waste. This particular sin, mixed with my powers over agriculture and famine, could be incredibly devastating if there were any communities I wanted to cause to waste away. This one was especially interesting to me, but at the moment I didn"t really think it would be useful.

What should I pick? I wondered. I would continue to contemplate which of the remaining six deadly sins to pick, while I began to expand my mind once more and began to explore the world again using my powerful mind-domain abilities.

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The world wasn"t still just because I was in my tower. The volcanic eruptions continued to spew countless tons of ash and other harmful substances high into the sky. People continued to pray to me for protection. I continued to answer prayers, idly scanning through them and picking and choosing a fair number of creatures to aid. That said, some groups definitely fared better than others.

Subterranean civilizations only learned of the eruptions through my ma.s.s notification, and since I had excluded dwarves the dwarves who lived in the deepest depths of the planet were sparred knowledge of the environmental catastrophes I was causing. They hadn"t even been targeted by Morehammer yet, though I didn"t doubt that the dwarven G.o.d would soon be on the move again.

Puerto Rico itself was doing fine, or at least as fine as any place on the surface could be. There were no volcanoes on or near the island, and this led to the place only experiencing the indirect effects of the eruptions. The skies above San Gerardo and Comillas were darkening due to the intense amount of ash in the air, but right now people could even breathe without too much difficulty.

The inhabitants of the Rodan forest were doing just fine and this was one area that I shielded from some of the chaos by warding away the ash in the air. I was able to blow it away thanks to my power over ash, even remotely. I did so to protect some of my most loyal followers, the goblin Cosechians who obeyed their dryadic high-priestess, Raiz.

Over the course of the past month, they had been eking out a simple and pious existence. They lived in balance with nature, as commanded by the dryad named Raiz who was the very first creature I had ever brought to life. Raiz herself was a powerful being who prayed to me multiple times a day and whose dreams I often visited. She was a worshipper I quite liked who had shown herself to be wise and to be patient to her followers.

Far from the Rodan forest though stood the settlement of Florida. This was a place that had once been home to the swarm. The swarm was a collective of intelligent insectoid creatures who worshipped and served me. They were led primarily by myremekes", evolved ants with fierce intelligence and a complex social structure. Florida was still inhabited by a number of members of the swarm. They had prayed to me, but I didn"t intend for them to die so I granted them protection even before they prayed.

Florida was in Iredale, a continent not far from Puerto Rico. I had commanded my followers to take it over and they had done so without much difficulty. That was last month though. Even though I had taken most of Torus" swarm population to my sanctuary I had left a small number in Florida to keep it occupied and to see if anyone would come for it. No one had. But I liked having followers there so I left it guarded.

The settlement was home to a grisly population of warriors. Mostly myremekes, but also some giant, powerful, and cruel parasitic wasps who possessed a number of especially potent talents that would make encountering them a horrifying experience. They were servants whose methods I quite admired, but I hadn"t gotten to know well just yet. I hoped to change that, and soon.

Florida was also where a specific servant of mine was currently located. One who had been practicing her skills and doing her best to serve me.

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Deep underground, beneath Florida, I observed a young creature studiously interrogate a human I had provided for her. She was dressed in dark robes that matched her features well. She had the exact same face as one of the few women I"ve thought was truly beautiful: Imbrosa, the newly resurrected drider. But this wasn"t the drider. This was the first demon I had ever interacted with, Sombra.

Sombra"s robes hid much of her body but they didn"t hide her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. The sizable mounds of dark flesh were revealed to her prisoner, who between hits would sometimes find his eyes drawn to them. And to the strange brand that was on them.

She was too proud of the mark to hide it. She refused to do so actually. Not unless I commanded her too. So she had cut holes in the robes to expose her b.r.e.a.s.t.s herself.

An odd, seven-sided star, a heptagram, was burned onto her flesh, just below the nipple on her left breast. But it was burned in such a way that it was visible even against the shadowy demon"s delft-blue skin.

Sombra"s brand marked her as a witch and also served as her arcane tether to me, her patron. Not only had I given her a real body, but I had also given her considerable mystical might.

I had stationed her in Florida days ago and have since encouraged her to practice and hone her magic. She was the strongest witch in my service to date and this was partially due to the ways she wielded her arcane a.r.s.enal and her regular service to me. She was perhaps my most faithful servant.

"Tell me your secrets." She commanded, her stunning, scarlet eyes focused on the human in front of her. The human I had given to her was a human who lived in Puerto Rico. He was a member of the administration of the governor of Puerto Rico, and I had used a succubus to get him into Florida.

The man she was interrogating was stripped naked and was partially embedded in a wall right in front of Sombra. His slender chest was exposed to the praereptor and so was his face, but his lower body was hidden from view, thanks to my powers. The parts of him that were visible were covered in wounds and burns. Sombra was quite fond of fire magic and made very liberal usage of it on the man.

The man groaned in pain and blood began to ooze out of his open mouth. The sight of this made me chuckle, and over the last few weeks, I would often spend time watching Sombra practice her magic on him. She would subject him to terrible pain, and I found his reactions fascinating.

He quickly told her everything he knew, but I simply never gave her the order to stop so she persisted in subjecting him to pain. She enjoyed inflicting pain on him. But she wasn"t good at taking care of the human. She didn"t feed him, or give him water. He only survived because I liked his pain and so I granted him immortality so he wouldn"t die of a lack of sleep, food, or water.

The man had stopped responding to her words days ago. Now only he hissed in pain at her attempts to coax more information out of him, and sometimes began to breathe loudly and audibly. His mind had long since left him. And now it was time that she leave him too. I reached out across the distance between us with my mind, and I spoke directly to Sombra.

"Sombra... Come home." I commanded as I created a pair of portals. I created one directly in front of me, right as I transformed back into my "normal" form. And the other portal appeared right in front of her. It actually appeared between her and the man she had been tormenting for several days. I watched as she began to elatedly smile and threw herself into the portal, and thus at me.

As Sombra threw herself at me, I quickly picked which of the sins I would next choose. In order to alert the system, I quietly transmitted my thoughts to it. I smiled when a second later I received a nice notification alerting me to my new abilities.