Aipaec

Yet another city was burning down. It was indeed a beautiful view.

Between sips of wine, from the top of my litter, I smiled. How couldn’t I?

[Cosmic Children:

Stored Levels: 2.122]

“Kuhuhu… KUAHAHAHA!”, I burst into loud laughs, spilling the wine on the heads of those who carried my litter. “Ah, sorry, sorry: here, someone, bring these servants some good wine, food and women once their shift is finished!”, I ordered to the delight of those carrying my litter. Like any of my citizens, their eyes shone whenever they looked at me.

Still, it was kinda hard to make myself to be listened over the scared screams filled with pain and terror coming from the attacked city.

As thousands of mortals were brought to my [Priests] and killed, so many that there was barely any ceremony, and the magical circles beneath were steaming hot, as it absorbed and transferred the sacrificial energy to me; the men of religion moved with precision, opening throats and removing hearts in seconds, just to throw away the bodies to not congest their “workplace”, and pull their next victim over the magical circle.

“PLEASE, STOP!”, a mortal screamed, as a group of soldiers took a teenage girl away from him. “PLEASE, I BEG YOU, SPARE MY DAUGHTER!”, he turned to me and fell on his knees, clasping his hands tight together, somehow even ignoring the whip of his captor opening wide and bright red gashes on his skin.

“My lord, please, allow me to interfere”, a masked man who didn’t leave a single centimeter of the body exposed, all covered in white cloths, someone who had been by my side all this time, bowed down to me.

“Oh? What, [High Priest], feeling especially merciful today?”, I asked, genuinely surprised; the begging prisoner and his daughter down there equally astonished, yet way happier.

The masked man tilted his head, before replying?

“Merciful?”, he looked back and at the two before my litter. “Oh, no, no. That’s not what I meant, my lord: I had an experiment idea!”, he said raising a finger. “After all, we have so many mortals here, that to try to sacrifice every single one of them will take too much time, time with which the other [Gods] are taking more and more of your territory, my lord! But, to waste so many good sacrifices is just heartbreaking… So, please, allow me to experiment with some, if my theories are correct, you can get even more power from each city you destroy!”

“KUAHAHAHA!”, I laughed once again, as the teenage girl was taken away by my women-hungry troops, and the crying begging man was continuously whipped for bothering me. As he deserved. “You said something quite interesting there: do you believe you can save some of our waste?”, of course, (almost) no one can sacrifice thousands of mortals so quickly; we didn’t stop for more than a day in each city, otherwise I’d lose too much territory to the other deities, and in the long run, the land would give me more sacrifices than if I took my time with those who I already had in hands. There were so many mortals, that I even allowed my troops to play with the excess. There just couldn’t be any survivors, otherwise, the other [Gods] would get more sacrificial power.

“I can’t say for sure just yet, but I definitely think it’s worth the experiment!”, the masked man eagerly said.

“Well, well, whatever, if we keep feeding our dogs so much, anyway, they’re gonna go fat! Take 300 captives for your experiments… And while you’re at it, bring me some women!”, I agreed to spoil my [High Priest] a little. That was the type of [God] I was, after all: kind, to my men, my priests, my followers.

I nodded, satisfied with myself, and made a servant fill me another glass of wine.

Then, a Lower [God] approached me, and knelt down before my litter.

“My Lord, I bring news from the deities that recently pledged loyalty towards you, the old servants of the Emerald [Goddess].”

“Oh, the disappeared ones, right? Bet they betrayed me as soon as another [God] offered them a slightly better deal…”, I frowned, remembering the dozens of Lower [Gods] that came running for me and begging to work in my name as soon as their old master died.

“…A- Actually, no, my Lord” the messenger gulped before concluding: “They were killed.”

I sighed.

Well, some level of conflict with the other invading Intermediary [Gods] was expected, this is why I came all that way to the front lines personally, otherwise, my peers could just vaporize my army in seconds; this was why I sent the newcomers to do the riskiest jobs.

It seemed, however, that the messenger hadn’t finished yet:

“Here”, he took a sheet of paper from inside his cape, and handed it to me.

In it, following all the proper Adventurer’s Guild procedures, a quest. To kill a [God].

“Whispered rumors tell stories about the Adventurer’s Guild taking these kinds of jobs now.”

Crumpling the sheet of paper in my hands, I got up.

“…Mortals”, I murmured, my vision turning red. “HOW DO THEY DARE TO DEFY US?!”, I roared, and my clothes all ripped apart as my muscles bulged, my fangs grew longer, and yellow fur passed to cover all my body. “Messenger, there shouldn’t be many adventurers capable of doing this. Do you know who is responsible for killing this Lower [Gods]?”

“Yes, my lord. Apparently, a pair of twins, my Lord. Following their trails, coincidentally, it seems that their destination is the Long Rock City. Our next target.”

“…Perfect”, I agreed. But my boiling hatred didn’t die down even a bit. Turning to my [High Priest], who was moving around a bunch of stakes and instruments, I added: “I’ll be in the city for a bit.”

Then, I jumped, right over the stone walls, and into the burning settlement, right in the middle of a bunch of civilians clustered in the center of the city by the last few standing guards, who died protecting them from my men.

Only death and sex could possibly calm me down, then.