This feels nostalgic. I thought as I zoomed through the air. Dozens of meters below me, the desert's many dunes and flatlands vanished as I pushed myself towards a distant destination: the ancient city of Bastille.

A long time ago I fled from the city of Bastille, flying on batlike wings of darkness. At that time I was weak. Now I am not. And so, I draw ever nearer to the first true city I ever dwelt in. And as I do, a vague sense of excitement fills me.

I know who I am. I know what I am. Or at least some of the things that I am. And soon, so will they.

After a few minutes of flying, I saw the modern metropolis in the distance. It sparkled and gleamed off alluringly, and the closer I got to it the more I felt a prideful, ambitious part of me begin to stir. I will conquer this place someday. Maybe even someday soon. I thought, grinning as I did so. And then in mid-air, as I sped towards the city, I began to change. I began to shift.

"If I am to tackle this city... I must do it fast, hard, and decisively." I told myself, less than a few kilometers away from the place. "Now... what kind of form would best allow me to establish myself as a new kind of archdevil?" I asked, before allowing my brain to cycle through all of the powers and domains at my disposal. It didn't take me long to come up with an appropriate form.

A grand barrier surrounded the city of Bastille. It was a gigantic thing, encircling the entire city. An incredibly primitive thing, nevertheless it was incredibly good at keeping things out. I could see it, something I couldn't do before, thanks to my potent vision.

It enshrouded the city in an opulent, purple veil of protective magic. And those who had set up that barrier had no doubt been proud of it. A part of me wondered how they'd feel when I snuck past it, which I was about to do.

My body shifted and transformed in mid-air, as I drew closer and closer to the strange arcane barrier that stood ready to deny me entrance to the city I hoped to enter. My form changed from that of the strange skeletal-elemental being I had made myself look like while dealing with Lugh, and it became something equally elemental but in another direction.

I'm sure the people who were located on the outskirts of the city of Bastille were or would be confused when they saw a gigantic mushroom monster lunging at their city from the sky, but I didn't doubt they'd be even more surprised when I did what I did next.

The city of Bastille was an incredibly wide city. It measured over ten thousand kilometers wide, filled with sprawling neighborhoods, multiple business districts, and all sorts of housing areas in and out of the main areas of the city.

The people of the city were long used to the place being shrouded in a nearly see-through but shimmering purple barrier that protected the city from outside attack and also served to keep anyone from leaving. This was why the first sign of Althos' invasion, at least to people in the inner portions of the city, and was met with grand applause and an excited uproar from the devil's, city-wide who were able to notice it.

A lot happened in the seconds before the young god took down the barrier. Firstly, from a distance, Althos peered at the city's strange barrier with disdain. He haughtily studied it and scowled at the thing. You won't stand in my way. He thought to himself, even as his body was continuing to undergo a series of changes.

The deity was often an accidentally creative sort. And what he did next exemplified that. The deity didn't look for a simple way to undo the magic temporarily, he decided to undo it on a fundamental level. While his monstrous body floated through the skies and towards the city he aimed at the barrier and unleashed the same ability which stripped Paimon of his mystical powers.

A ray of dark, divine energy exploded out of the deity's form, his annoyance at the barrier making his power's manifestation more erratic and noticeable than when he unleashed it against Paimon. The ray of dark, potent power exploded and surged forth like a dark lightning bolt until it struck the barrier.

People inside the barrier saw the dark energy zigzag towards them until it crashed against the barrier. They watched their barrier sparkle and heard it crack. And then as dramatically as it once came to life, it began to glow, revealing itself boldly to those who looked at it.

And then the vanished, abruptly and powerful. The symbol of their "protection" and one of the most potent obstacles to freedom for the people of Bastille. Gone, possibly temporarily, in an instant. And that was the moment when Althos, in a powerful new form, appeared in the distance. He was still aerial, but when he noticed the barrier was gone he chuckled and teleported to the roof of a nearby building, arriving for the second time in his life in the city of Bastille.

His new form was a strange one. Althos was currently an arboreal, fungal, monstrosity that was far wider than he was tall.

He was a powerfully built, five meters wide, and three meters tall, thing made up in equal parts of blooming flowers, creeping vines, and disgusting looking, open fungal pits filled with spores he could fire at anyone who dared to try and stop him from what he was going to do. The closest thing someone could say he resembled was an alien lovechild of a bipedal crocodile and a diseased mushroom.

His face was truly alien and terrifying. The thing had no eyes or nose but it did have a snout. The snout jutted forward from the rest of the nightmarish face and had rows of teethlike growths made up of rose-prickles that were tightly connected by vines, roots, and other fibers that made them look like brutal fangs.

His arms lacked any sort of skin like the rest of him did and was instead a tightly bound mass of vines, dense fungal plating, and thick tree-roots. His chest was similarly constructed but it was covered more liberally in beige colored fungal plating. His legs and feet were similarly built but his feet did end in blade-like roots that penetrated the ground of wherever he found himself, spreading infernal plant-life into wherever he walked.

His form was surrounded by an aura of spores so thick that the air around him had a hazy golden and purple sheen to it. Seconds after he entered the city's most distant outskirts he rose his arms into the air and roared, the sound filling the city with the eerie sound of a distant wolf's howl mixed with the sound of a breeze flowing through a dense forest.

And then the same version of himself responsible for getting his council on board with this plan winked into being next to him and pointed a finger at the sky above the city. The two wills barely acknowledged each other as the more humanoid looking Althos began to create a powerful projection in the skies above the city. A projection of his humanoid true-devil form.

I watched as one of the other "me's" winked into being next to me. He had opted to take on our true-devil form, that of a powerfully built, winged, black and white being. And then he immediately began to project something into the skies above the city. In an instant, a mirror image of our true-devil form was suddenly looking down on the city. And then the thing began to speak.

"People of Bastille, allow me to introduce myself." The thing said, speaking calmly and regally.

And then a dramatic sound filled the city air: that of alarms. The blaring alarms started off at the heart of the city, kilometers away from where we were but multiplied every instant until they were coming from the very building I and another me found ourselves on top of. None of this stopped or challenged the projection.

"I am Althos. I am the Fungal Lord, and the Second Dark Saint." The projection explained, politely introducing itself, ourselves, to the devils who lived in this city. At the end of its statement, the thing did a polite little nod, as if introducing itself to a woman of class and social stature.

"I will not mince words, my friends. I am here to liberate you from Paimon." The gigantic floating face and voice told the people it was addressing. And at this point, Paimon's military was loosely beginning to rally itself, off in the incredible distance.

"Paimon is not a devil anymore. Not internally anyway. He seeks to become a fear-monger and would decimate the city if that's what it took. He is not a true tyrant, he is a monster who seeks death and destruction." The talking head passionately told anyone who could hear it. And then the projection shifted, showing the face of Angelica, who immediately began to repeat what she told the secondary will when she was first liberated from the Onyx Obelisk.

While the more humanoid-looking me pursued its own plans, which I approved of and trusted it to be able to do, I decided to go and do something else. Something a bit more direct, that would help disrupt the city and prevent its military from rallying effectively and thus challenging myself or anyone who tried to flee the city. Let's be a distraction. I thought as I formed a plan in my mind to be a terrifying nuisance.

I studied my surroundings for a bit, looking in the direction where my radar informed me that devils were located. My eyes settled on the dimly lit interior of a building a far distance away. And then in the blink of an eye, I was there, inside of the building.

This space is... small. I thought, aware that it was useful for me that it was small, even if it was annoying. As I examined the place I found myself in, I was thankful for Salifinos' memories and my study of them. The imp's memories told me what this place was, and provided me with the vocabulary needed for me to make sense of what I was seeing.

I found myself inside a simple, sleek office filled with cubicles and the devils who worked within them. Numerous devils turned to investigate the sound that always came whenever I teleported, and they were universally at least vaguely humanoid-looking, but with extra features like a third arm, wings, or a tail. The devils that were turning in my direction were sharply dressed, in what Salifinos thought of as "Business Casual" clothing.

The devils wore simple suits in the cases of the men and professional dresses in the cases of the women. The genderless devils wore whichever of the two options better suited their particular body-types. Though they had individual differences, a quick check of my tremor-sense confirmed something about them to me: they were all members of the same type of devil.

I was on the far end of the office, away from the door which led out of this particular workspace, but that only remained true for a second longer. An instant later, with my back to a thin and darkly tinted window, I willed myself forward and towards the only exit out of this place, a door leading to a stairwell as well as an elevator, so as to prevent anyone from escaping.

When I was done teleporting most of the two dozen devils in the room were looking at where I had been, not where I willed myself too and so I had a second to more thoroughly study my surroundings before they panicked and either defended themselves or tried to flee.

The first thing I did when I was on the other side of the office and away from defensive stares and confused gazes was begin to coat the air in spores. I did this with a thought. Now is the time for me to mix necromancy, illusion, and spores... I thought as I rose a hand in the direction of the office workers closest to me, and generated an open fungal mouth, the sort of appendage I used to spray spores at creatures, on the palm of my hand.

In an instant I weaved a nasty spell effect into the spores nestled in the hand-mouth I was pointing at the closest office workers who sat to my life and were the first to react to the sound my second teleportation made. I mixed together the basic properties of zombie-creation, false imagery, impermanence, healing and spores into something new... I thought, proud of myself as I felt the spores within me change and mutate. They instantly become aggressive little things, filled with a desire to transform their victims, but didn't so permanently and instead wore off with time.

This'll be a neat little trick... I told myself, mixing together ideas from the domain of trickery in with my magic. After all, all I want is a distraction. And this'll be a horrifying one. I said to myself, chuckling while I did so.

As I did this some of the office workers were turning to investigate my disappearance and the same sound they heard me make when I appeared in their place of on the other end of the hall which had just come from behind them. I chuckled, quickly made copies of their memories, and watched as the first of them inhaled a stream of spores. The devil immediately collapsed and began to convulse, as the spores I had just created took hold within her nose and mouth. And soon she was joined on the floor by her neighbors, who began to foam and froth at the mouth.

This is going to be fun. I thought, watching curiously as my fungal children began to aggressively seize hold of the first of their newest victims and temporary hosts.

The first thing they did was implant themselves in their hosts. They attached themselves aggressively to the insides of the mouths, the insides of the noses, and the insides of the throats of their victims. And once there they immediately began to grow, their masses heading deeper into the heads of those infected by them. This process took seconds, as I had empowered the spores with magic which made them stronger and harder to overcome, especially if they were inside of someone.

The next thing was that the mycelium of the fungi that had infected my victims searched inside of them and eventually reached their brains. The fibers immediately penetrated the brains of the victims and overtook them, effectively possessing the infected bodies and hijacking them to be my servants.

In this case, this wasn't a permanent process. The spores themselves would rot away in a few hours' time, but it'd be enough. The brains of the victims would be left changed by my absence, by the absence of my spores, and would eventually wear down their resistance and any hate they may feel towards me after my spores no longer controlled them.

The final step of the process, in the short run anyway, was that the bodies would effectively regain some limited form of consciousness, but in my service. The fungi infecting the bodies would reinvigorate them and clumsily take them over. And they'd be filled with an urge to overtake nearby uninfected people, to spread the spores that had snuck into their bodies but not taken hold anywhere so to spread the eerie, disease-like, mechanism that made them my servants.

In seconds the overtaken devils began to clamber in rather uncoordinated ways to their feet, and they began to emit unsetting groans as they turned to face their comrades who hadn't yet fallen. It didn't take long for them to be on their feet, staring at their coworkers in a way that resembled hunger.

Attack. I told them, commanding the spores that had taken control of the first five of my temporary servants. And then the devils dashed forward, running and stumbling towards their fellows at a frenzied pace.

Most of the twenty-four devils hadn't turned to face Althos' repositioned form when their companions succumbed to the spore-spray he basically spat at them from his hand-mouth. But when their companions noisily collapsed, they did turn to see what was going on behind them. They turned in time to see Althos stand and point his snout in the direction of those who had fallen to his vile spores and were shocked to see the assorted fallen forms of their coworkers.

The shock of it was what proved to be their downfalls. None of them reacted in time to try anything to escape their attackers, because the scene was so shocking. They could see the faces of their colleagues, as tendrils of fungal matter spread out from inside of their mouths, ears, and noses, and covered portions of their faces.

The eyes of their fallen comrades were wide open in fear, as were their mouths, but no sounds escaped them. The only audible noises were the sounds of their convulsing forms colliding with the ground they were on top of and the sounds of sickening of the vile liquids escaping their bodies in the form of foam oozing onto the ground beneath them.

A few seconds passed, and then the spore-zombies began to clumsily climb to their feet, while blindly staring in the direction of their coworkers. When all five of the zombies were on their feet, they received an order from their master. An order they eagerly obeyed, dashing unsteadily towards the devils they had worked alongside for centuries, hoping to spread the strange spores that now controlled them.