That smile that etched itself on my lips was there for a reason. It was there because the part of me that keenly felt the power of the influence of domains and subdomains imagined the possibilities at my fingertips if I rose an army of evolved ants and used them to try and conquer the world.

There was something... charming about the idea of a world wherein humanoids were not top dog anymore. A world where humanoids were defeated by a swarm composed in equal parts of the living and the dead. As I thought of that, the image of a world where no living thing walked on the surface, and billions of ants lived and worked underground filled my head.

I keenly felt the subdomain of necromancy grow excited at that thought. I also felt the Hymenoptera subdomain grow excited at it as well. The idea of a faction of living insects teaming up with a faction of vicious undead creatures filled me, and unlike the time before this, it was all me, not just the part that liked the domains and subdomains.

I chuckled and realized that I ought to regain control before this idea got to be too much for me. I didn"t yet have the impulse control to be able to fully reject bad ideas, and if I wasn"t careful I could be too easily tempted into doing something potentially irreversible.

I took a second to make sure I was in control before I turned to begin to chat with my undead companions.

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"So why don"t we start with you. Tell me about yourself!" I said as I turned to face Mof, the undead satyr who initially had been one of the first creatures I set out to reanimate and ended up being one of the last.

The satyr looked at me, calmness visible in his gaze. He considered how to reply for a second, and then he began to speak.

"I am Mof. In life I liked wine and women. Now? I don"t know. I might still like wine, but if I like women it"s only in the context of eating them." He revealed, after a few moments of careful contemplation. I listened to that and then I was still for a second as I processed it. I wasn"t sure how to react to it. This was, in my defense, the first time that I was chatting with a ghoul.

After a few seconds, I chuckled, shook my head, and opted to move on. When I turned to face the others I noticed they had grins on their faces, as they agreed with their companion. This was the first time they had shown any emotion other than anger, which was interesting to me.

"What emotions do you all feel? Because before now I"ve only ever felt agitation and apathy come from you, but now you"re smiling." I asked and then explained. They looked at each other, their eyes focused on the question and also on seeing how it made others feel, before saying anything. And then Risa the medusa began to talk.

"Master... Althos, we feel... few things. You must understand that this is all new to us, aside from maybe to Nivar. Our minds still need time to cope. We feel loyalty and awe towards you, we feel... hunger, and we feel distinct anger towards the living. Am I missing anything?" She asked as she turned slightly to look at her companions. They all shook their heads, clearly agreeing with her.

After watching them I realized that I needed to confer with the subdomain of necromancy. In the wake of all of the events at the goblin encampment, I hadn"t had time to ask what were the other types of undead I now possessed control over. I ought to change that. And so I did.

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"So hey, can you tell me about the other kinds of undead creatures out there? Because I only know about hungry hands, reanimated plants, zombies, ghouls, and skeletons." I asked inwardly. My question was directed towards the relevant subdomain: the subdomain of necromancy.

"Hmm... Well, there are many thousands of types of undead. Most of them aren"t the regular, run-of-the-mill corpses that are just walking around." The subdomain began, which intrigued me.

"The undead are legion. And you can only control... a few different types of undead creatures. What you can control automatically are the very simplest of the creatures who fall under my subdomain." The thing teased, before launching into an explanation of what was outside of my control.

"Of the creatures you can currently control without any difficulty the vampires and the mummies are probably the two strongest. Vampires are blood-drinking humanoids and extraplanars who are physically immortal to the point that even defeating and decapitating them isn"t enough for them to die." The subdomain told me, causing my eyes to open wide in shock.

"Mummies are preserved corpses who most often are guardians of tombs or themselves royal individuals whose corpses were reanimated using powerful, ritualistic magic. They are capable of using magic, and their attacks have a chance of inflicting enemies with a dangerous disease." The creature told me, eagerly divulging this information.

"Wrights are undead that can arise naturally if their deaths were extremely violent, but otherwise can only be raised through magic. They can freeze their enemies and are perhaps the most violent of the undead under your control. They are effectively advanced zombies but with a pa.s.sion for violence, unlike ghouls who like to eat but can control their impulses." The voice said, whispering in my ears. I could see a use for all of these sorts of undead creatures.

"The other kinds of undead you don"t know about are the incorporeal, those that lack a body, kind. Ghosts are powerful spirits capable of using the magic they could in life but they have wills of their own. Nevertheless, they obey you, they just do so... willfully." Whispered the voice.

"Wraiths and shadows are less willful and less powerful but shadows can possess people which is when a creature enters the mind of another creature and overtakes it, granting them control of the body of someone else." One of my newer companions revealed, surprising me.

"Wraiths are more dangerous in one on one combat than shadows are. Shadows and wraiths can also be created from the corpses of creatures whose bodies are being used in other ways. Which effectively means that you can have two undead for the price of one." The thing told me, causing a smile to appear on my face.

"Perhaps the most iconic kind of undead monster isn"t the zombie. It"s the lich. Liches are very powerful undead magic-users who decided to transcend death in order to live and work forever as an undead creature. They are one of the kinds of creatures you"ll be able to force to serve you when you gain the next tier of influence over me." The subdomain teased, a smile audible in its voice.

This made my eyes go wide in shock. Undead wizards? I could sense that those sorts of creatures were dangerous. And potentially useful, if I ever wanted to inflict devastation on a wide scale.

"At the second tier of influence over me, you gain the power to control bones and to create all sorts of foul abominations from shaped bones however you wish. You can create ships made of bones if you wish, or catapults, or even foul and unthinking abominations." The ent.i.ty told me, causing my imagination to fill with macabre images.

I grinned as I envisioned ma.s.sive ent.i.ties made of bones roaming the land and finishing off any surviving, living creatures. The world I envisioned was a quiet one. One without any suffering or hunger. Death had a finality to it that laid those things to rest.

After a few seconds, I refused to allow myself to daydream any longer and snapped back to the present. I heard a chuckle emanate from the subdomain.

"I suppose I should tell you now that you have gained access to a few more treats. You can create and command undead swarms, particularly of vermin, and you can create and control one particularly powerful monster: a worm that walks. Well... that"s just what people call them, they don"t have real names." Whispered the sly subdomain.

"Worms that walk... insects that walk, are the eerie result of when an evil magician"s corpse is devoured by a swarm of insects. The insects and the magician merge, with the consciousness of the magician overtaking the wills of the insects they were eaten by. This ability is a synergistic one, and you should keep it mind if you fight any magicians." The subdomain informed me.

This caused me to smile once more, as the idea of gaining magical allies that couldn"t disobey me was an unusually tempting one, even among so many fun and tempting ideas. The subdomain had one more suggestion for me.

"It"d be a good idea for you to build a lair somewhere you know. There"s plenty of unoccupied s.p.a.ce underground... which is where your ants have begun building your empire anyway. Not to mention that that"s where the undead are the strongest, free from the awful effects of the sun." My ally told me, implanting a suggestion that"d stick in my mind. A really good suggestion.

"Heck if you really wanted to bring in living creatures you could. You"d just have to earn the first tier of influence over the subdomain of liquid, which grants water generation and control, and use your agriculture subdomain to feed them. It could be utopian if you wanted it to be." The subdomain suggested, trying to appeal to me by calling back to an earlier, simpler time before I could influence necromancy. A time that was just hours ago.

I could get behind the idea of an underground lair, maybe even an underground castle. A place populated and protected in equal parts by the undead and by a ma.s.sive army of ants. Lurking deep under the ground felt right to me, probably because of my influence over the earth subdomain.

I refocused on what was going on around me, and willed myself out of my head so that I could be present and paying attention to my servants.

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"So, what about you big guy?" I asked, turning to look at the gug. It was a truly gargantuan thing, standing several meters tall. It looked down at me and then considered how to best proceed. Its mouth gaped open and shut a few times, the thing splitting its head open down the middle, but the beast remained silent. Until it didn"t.

"I enjoy... dreaming." The thing said, its voice sounding off in my mind. I chuckled and looked at everyone else. Its voice was low, quiet, and felt positively sinister. I liked it.

"Did you all hear that?" I asked them. They shook their heads at me, and I spent a second tying our minds together via a web of mind-links. Establishing those was easy, all it took was for me to focus on who all I wanted to include in the web and then will it to be made into reality.

I was the first to test it out. "Well my friend, what sort of dreams do you like?" I asked it, not physically speaking but rather using our mental web. And as I did I had a fun thought.

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"I wonder if I could use this ability to create mind-webs of interconnected consciousnesses for some mischief..." I asked myself, safe in my own mind. I felt that I could, but I wasn"t entirely sure how.

"I could use this power to begin to build a psychic organization..." I realized, as my ability to use this mind-web power was unlimited. For a second I opted to recall the some of powers I had under my control through the mind domain.

[Mind domain pa.s.sive powers:

Mind domain pa.s.sive powers:

Mind-link: You gain the ability to tie minds together. These minds can communicate with each other over infinite distances and can ignore language barriers that would otherwise limit their ability to communicate. This includes your mind as well, which you can easily link to other creatures.

You can do this across vast distances, and don"t even need to have seen the creatures whose minds you are linking to do so successfully. Usage of this power doesn"t alert those whose minds are linked to the fact that their minds are now linked, though clearly you can tell them or you can be sneaky and only tell one of them.

Range expansion: Your powers, with a few exceptions like the power to raise the dead, now have a range of as far as your tremorsense can detect. This explosively increases the range of the vast majority of your mind-powers, allowing you to create mischief from dozens of kilometers away, as well as interfere in all sorts of situations using your mind.

Attraction manipulation: This synergistic and pa.s.sive power allows you to cause someone to feel an attraction to something or someone else. This is power fuses the deadly sin of l.u.s.t with your mental abilities and can be used freely as befits a master of l.u.s.t. That said, there"s a chance it can be resisted.

Multi-minded: This power allows you to enter dreams and also do other things at the same time. You can enter multiple dreams, currently, you can enter five dreams at once and also do anything in the waking world without even experiencing the slightest difficulties.

Hive-mind generation: This synergistic, pa.s.sive power is a result of intersecting the Hymenoptera subdomain, the mind domain, and the powers of the Sovereign of the Swarm. By using it, you can meld minds together and create a meshed, super consciousness.

For now, hive-mind generation doesn"t subsume the wills of those in the hive-mind. If you gain more power over the domain of minds, or the Sovereign of the Swarm undergoes another improvement, then that may change.

Conditional healing: This power fuses the mind-abilities of the mind domain and the restorative energy manipulation power of the subdomain of healing.

Sleep inducement: You can put creatures to sleep. Extraplanar creatures, as ent.i.ties that don"t need sleep, can resist this. Mortals can"t. This is synergistic with the domain of dreams.

Telekinesis: Telekinesis is the ability to manipulate objects and creatures with your mind. You can move objects and creatures without touching them by mentally willing them to move.

You have no limitations on your version of this power, and can bestow a lesser version of it upon mortals at will and you can also take it back as freely as you give it away.

The version of this power that mortals acquire allows them to only move one object or creature at a time, and it can only weigh half as much as they could lift with their limbs. As you gain more influence over the mind domain you"ll gain the ability to modify and eventually even remove these limitations altogether.

It"s worth noting that currently, no telekinetic mortals exist anywhere in this universe. When you grant someone this power, they"ll become the first mortal in this universe, to be able to do this since the end of the age of G.o.ds, the era in the ancient past wherein G.o.ds existed.

Mind-reading: You gain the ability to read minds. This is only surface level at the moment and you can"t dig up old thoughts for that is a power granted to you at a higher tier of influence over this domain but you can read someone"s loudest thoughts at will.

Patience manipulation: You can draw-out someone"s patience or you can bring it to an end. This power can allow you to alter someone"s mood quite easily.

Mind domain active power:

Hive-mind manipulation: This power allows you to direct hive-minds as you wish, for two hours, twice every twelve hours.]

As I read through the list of powers at my command I chuckled. I had a lot of things I could do with these powers. Things that could subtly alter lives, or overhaul them in big ways. I just needed to practice, subtly, with them first. That said, I had an entire island to use as my testing grounds.

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"I like dreams that... take me to the dreamlands." The ent.i.ty whispered in our minds. This caught me off guard and so I decided to ask about it.

"The dreamlands? Is that... a place?" I asked, honestly curious. The gug looked at me and blinked slowly while formulating a response.

"The dreamlands is the home... of my race. Or... it was... our home." The large creature said, speaking softly now. Its voice was still mental, rather than physical.

Inwardly, while the creature prepared to continue explaining about its home, I asked the domain of dreams a simple question. "Is that a real place?" I asked the odd ent.i.ty who I had yet to hear speak. The response was quick.

"The dreamlands are a place only the G.o.ds can walk in while conscious. It is a world of strange sights and stranger monsters, of ma.s.sive spiders that morph into goat-like men, of ma.s.sive monstrosities that walk on the moon, and it is home to gigantic giants with vertical mouths and ambitious dreams... yes, the dreamlands are real." The domain told me, but not before speaking cryptically.

"We do not yet wish for you to see the dreamlands. You would not gain the respect you deserve there, in your present state, gather more power over dreams, and then come." The domain commanded, probably as a justifying why I didn"t know about this place and why that I don"t yet have the power to enter it.

I sighed and recalled my list of dream domain powers. I was especially excited to revisit the new ones under my control.

[Pa.s.sive Powers:

He Sees You When You"re Sleeping: This pa.s.sive power affects your minimap and allows you to detect if a humanoid is sleeping.

Shared dreams: Creatures who are in a mind-web can all be pulled into one dream if all of them are sleeping at the same time.

Dream of desire: You can fill a dream with whatever the dreamer most wants. This may allow you to learn such information, as well as grant you the ability to cause the mortal in question to become addicted to their dreams.

Dream/Nightmare manipulation: You gain total control over what people in a dream experience so long as you are in the dream. This is true even if the individual is a lucid dreamer, allowing you to usurp their control over their dreams.

Dreamwalker: You gain the ability to enter the dreams of sleeping humanoids. In order to enter the dreams of other types of creatures, you need to gain higher tiers of influence over the domain of dreams.

Petrification manipulation: You can twist the minds of petrified creatures so that they are effectively dreaming while petrified, allowing you to further twist their minds to your dark purposes. Synergistic.

Healing dream: Synergistic power crossing over the subdomain of healing and the domain of dreams. Using this power on someone grants them a condition that is uniquely beneficial which allows them to heal from conditions that would normally persist overnight so long as they have a full night"s rest. Works even if that rest is divinely granted.

Active Powers:

Restless Or Restful Sleep: This power doesn"t affect dreams, it affects sleep. By using it you can affect how restorative a mortal"s sleep is.

When you use it on a mortal you are given a choice. If you choose for your target to experience restless sleep then for the next twenty-four hours their sleep will not positively affect them no matter how much they sleep. On the other hand, restful sleep is twice as restorative as it would otherwise be for the next twenty-four hours.

You can use this power on six creatures per twelve hours. If you decide to target the same creature two days in a row the second time you use the power on them it will cost you an extra usage of this power.

As you gain more tiers of influence over the domain of dreams, or as you become a more generally powerful deity, you"ll be able to target more creatures with it and customize how effective it is as well as how long it lasts.

This power can be used to weigh down enemies or to uplift and refresh allies and worshipers.

Dancing Dreams: This power is a vicious one. It can only be used on creatures who are already asleep but if used, and if not successfully resisted by its victims, it will cause them to be forced into a state of slumber for twenty-four hours. It can stack with "Restless or Restful Sleep" which can be an especially empowering or devastating combination if used cleverly.

That said this power can only be used twice every twelve hours as a deity who can only exert one tier of influence over the domain of dreams and who is at the second-lowest rank of deific might.]

Reading through those powers once again sharpened my awareness that I was an ent.i.ty with a whole slew of new and potent abilities. It reinforced the reality that I was an ent.i.ty above and beyond the constraints placed on other creatures.

I opted to test out my new dream abilities at precisely the same time that my myrmekes servants finally burst through the ground close to me.

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The ground near my leg exploded outward, plumes of dust, dirt, and rock being sent skyward near me. Dust swirled momentarily where the first subjects of my empire broke through the surface, and when it began to settle a trio of gigantic ant-humanoid hybrids were looking out at my allies and myself.

The three myrmekes were members of their warrior caste. They were powerfully built creatures with broad chests protected by dense chitin. Their bodies had the same basic shape as Imbrosa"s, but they didn"t have quite as many legs, or as bulbous an abdomen as she did. Their arms and legs were both intimidatingly thick though, and I could tell that getting hit by them would hurt a normal mortal. The chitin that covered their bodies was red.

They scanned the area just outside of the hole they had created with their huge compound eyes, enormous...o...b.. that took up the majority of their faces, aside from their mandibles and antennae. The orbs were made up of thousands of tiny eyes that flinted in every direction, every second.

Eventually the three ants were satisfied and stepped out from the hole that they had made. When they stepped out of the hole their full height was revealed. They towered above me, standing well over two and a half meters tall. And they weren"t the only creatures in the hole either.

An ocean of ants, regular ones, swarmed out behind them, stepping through the hole and onto the gra.s.s just beyond it. The number of ants that swarmed out of the hole was easily over a thousand, and they didn"t represent one percent of the ants I had control over. I smiled as I watched them come flooding out of the hole their superiors had created. And they just kept coming.

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In time the flood stopped, and I moved forward to examine the hole. As I did so the ants, regular and myrmekes alike moved out of the way even without me commanding them too. When I peered into the hole I noticed a few things.

First, I noticed that the hole was a winding tunnel several meters wide and tall. More than tall enough for even my gug-ghoul. That was convenient and saved me time since I would have had to widen it otherwise. The tunnel was entirely dark on the inside. That made sense to me since the tunnel was deep underground and ants could see in the dark unaided.

The last thing I saw wasn"t something I noticed since I had been aware of it for a bit now. A single myrmekes queen was slowly drifting up the tunnel towards me, her wings beating quickly and slowly sending her upward as she moved closer and closer to me.

When she noticed me, she began to push her wings even harder than before. I could smell excitement coming off of her, wafting towards me thanks to a breeze in the tunnel that wanted to escape it and blew towards me from behind her.