The darkness in my hand functioned, for me anyway, as a solid object would in the hands of any corporeal mortal. It had weight and solidity. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath as I began to activate "Darkness manipulation". As I did so, I opened my mouth to speak.

"Ava, what sort of weapon would you like to use to confront your sister?" I asked the young dwarf. With my powers the shadow-stuff I held onto would become a powerful weapon that Ava would use in her confrontation with her sister. Or at least the entity she believed to be her sister.

I held a sphere of shadow-stuff in my hand. It felt light yet solid in my grasp. I had routinely formed weapons out of both darkness and light for my legions before and I was intuitively familiar with the strange process of shaping things out of both light and darkness. The objects I formed were real and truly existed for as long as I desired for them, but they were strange things. They were powerful weapons capable of great destruction, and as my powers grew so did their versatility.

The weapons I formed from light and from darkness were capable of changing form mid-fight. This was an eerie phenomenon that I had witnessed while encouraging the war between abominations and mortals in Salifinos and it was one of the natural upgrades my powers had received during the last few weeks. I was still learning how to utilize it myself, which was a testament to how strange an upgrade it was. Indeed, some of the few undead who had fallen to my enemies were undead who had the misfortune of wielding a weapon in battle as it shifted from one form to the next.

It had taken me a bit of time to consciously learn to control this strange evolution, and longer still to realize the nature of this change. This was one consequence of the chaotic powers I wielded and a sort of hitherto unprecedented mutation of the nature of an ability. The truth was that I was actually delighted by this, even though I wish it hadn't happened mid-battle in the past. That said through hours of practice I had learned how to control this ability and now, thanks to "Tactile Teaching" so had my undead minions who had begun to use this to devastating effect against our foes.

Ava looked at me and her eyes began to glow with excitement. She almost began to tremble. I did a surface-level reading of her thoughts and found that the dwarf was incredibly excited because she was actually close to achieving her goals for the first time ever. I chuckled, appreciating her excitement.

"Can you make me a sword?" She asked, excitedly imagining stabbing her sister. I nodded at her and swiftly began to shape and shave the darkness in my hand in such a way that it took on the shape of a potent longsword. While doing that I turned my focus to her and began to speak.

"Ava, I want you to know that you have precisely one target you can kill. Aoife. I am willing to allow you to kill her, because I know why you hate her but do not mistake that as a license for you to go on a rampage to take her head. You have no such freedom." I told the dwarf. I glared at her while I spoke to cement my point.

"I am not a proponent of mindless violence. I will allow violence, or even enact it myself if that's what it takes to acquire greater power but your vengeance and indeed your very existence, are not worth enough to me for me to give you the freedom you'd need to rampage. Single-mindedly focus on your true enemy. If you act out of turn, I will step in. You don't want that." I warned her.

As I spoke I completed the blade, having shaped the shadow-stuff in my hand to the appropriate form. The blade looked simple, but it also looked incredibly sharp. And it was. I had seen ghouls and skeletons use this exact sort of blade on their enemies and I had seen the wounds it left behind. Victims of the swords were to be pitied, their last moments were invariably filled with suffering. That said, I wasn't done with the blade just yet. I was creating more than just a sword. I was creating an artifact.

I turned my focus to the sword and activated one of my lesser-used abilities: "Enhance". This was an alteration power that allowed me to add properties to an item, effectively ensorcelling it and creating a sort of "magical" item.

Hello, once again Althos! Welcome back to the enhancement table. The item you've selected, a "Shadow Sword" contains the following properties:

Chaotic: This blade was fashioned by a chaotic deity and thus is a mutable, alien, and semi-sentient weapon. It can, either in response to intense emotions or even at times purely randomly shift into a new form. This power can be controlled and even harnessed by the wielder, if the wielder is aware of the property.

Darkness: This blade is made from solidified darkness and thus is stronger in the dark.

Divine: This blade is a divine creation and thus surpasses resistances that may otherwise allow some of the damage it would inflict to be ignored.

What properties would you like to attach to the sword? Here are just some of the suggested ones that every weapon should have.

Absorption: This blade absorbs some of the blood of those it damages and transforms that blood into ethereal life-energy. That life-energy is then directed to the wielder, reinvigorating them in battle.

Anathema: This blade becomes stronger against those deemed by you to be enemies of the faiths dedicated to you.

Anarchist: Chaos further infuses the blade and increases the damage it does to lawful beings.

Armor-piercing: This blade can ignore the defensive capabilities of any armor that wasn't divinely constructed.

Elemental: The blade does elemental damage of some sort. The precise sort of elemental damage is determined by the blade's wielder the first time this is applied to the weapon.

Healing: This unusual property grants weapons it is attached to an alternate usage. With it, the blade begins to "store" the pain it inflicts, and once a day it can be turned into a restorative item. If willed to shift into a restorative item, anyone it "cuts" into is healed. It can only heal as much as it harmed, so effective usage of this property requires that the blade be regularly used in battle.

Heroic: This blade becomes infused with goodness and becomes a powerful weapon against evil. It does greater damage to evil-aligned beings.

Poisoned: The blade constantly secretes a potent poison that envenoms victims. This poison is horrifyingly deadly and ensures that anyone it stabs spends several moments in agony.

Sentience: This property is only accessible to you because of your acquisition of the second tier of influence over the domain of knowledge. If you attach it to something the thing you attach it too gains awareness and comes alive.

Sharpness: This blade is a more effective weapon in combat. It does increased damage to anyone or anything it cuts into.

Sinful: This blade becomes stained by evil and inflicts more damage and greater pain on those of any "good" alignment.

Soul-snatcher: This weapon gains a sort of spiritual hollowness. Killing a creature with it causes it to be filled with the soul of the creature it just played a role in slaying. This soul can be extracted via magic and used in a number of ways.

I chuckled and selected a handful of potent properties to attach to the sword. I appreciated the diversity of the properties at my disposal.

I had experimented considerably with alteration while in my tower and I had come to appreciate the potential of this domain. One of the things I had learned was that the properties I had access too were determined by the domains I had influence over. That was something I had come to realize while "enhancing" food and crops using my power. And it was something I occasionally used to create mischief and have fun on Torus and elsewhere.

Another thing I had learned was that non-divine items had a limit to the number of properties they could contain. Divine items did not. That included weapons, armor, and even potions, poisons, and food. I had the power to alter the properties of any item, and I could do this remotely.

I gave Ava's blade the "Soul-snatcher", "Sharpness", "Armor-Piercing", and "Elemental" properties. When I was done the blade was vibrating in my hands. I had other, more potent, and more devastating properties I could attach to it, but the truth was that this was going to be a minor artifact of mine.

I wasn't intending for it to be a super-weapon, just one that could make up for Ava's relative lack of combat experience. Aoife, and indeed her clone, had more combat experience than Ava did so the dark dwarf needed advantages that would make up the discrepancy. The sword was just one of those things. I studied it for a second, thoroughly examining it, before handing it to Ava.

"This blade is now yours. For the moment anyway. This blade is a powerful and chaotic one that can penetrate defenses and can shapeshift mid-battle. Use that to your advantage against your sister and make sure that the blade doesn't shapeshift mid-battle. They... do that sometimes." I told the dwarf. This news surprised her and her eyes widened in shock.

"Whoa, a shape-shifting sword..." She muttered, surprised at that news. I grinned at her.

"You can will the sword to shift, but if you aren't focused on fighting your sister the blade can take advantage of your lack of focus to move on its own. It's a chaotic weapon. Recently all of the weapons I've made like this are." I told her, speaking frankly. I sensed her nervousness and grinned. That said our preparations weren't done just yet.

I rose my hand and gathered a mixture of arcane and divine energy into it. As I did so I willed some of the darkness at my feet to rise into my hand so I could continue to craft the potent artifacts Ava would be supplied with prior to confronting her sister.

"I refuse to send you on your way without a few more things." I told the dwarf, surprising her. I sensed her hesitation, but I had a reason for this.

Aoife was an exceptionally powerful warrior. She was an individual with multiple classes, which was just one aspect of her strength. She was also just plain strong, even in terms of raw stats. The dwarf also used weapons and armor she had forged herself, and it turned out that she was an expert blacksmith. Weapons and armor she would be giving her almost-clone.

Ava, without aid, would be crushed if she fought Aoife. Even the powerful equipment I gave her wouldn't guarantee a victory against the Aoife-clone had created, once I gave the clone Aoife's memories. That said, Ava didn't have to fight fair.

With the mixture of divine and arcane power I had in one hand, I began a strange process. A thin portal opened in front of me, and from it came an unsettling droning noise, the sounds of ant wings beating and ant legs scuttling. The area beyond the portal was a floor covered in a number of white eggs, ones far larger than they should have been.

I had created a portal to one of the settlements created by the first true faction I had ever created: The Swarm. The Swarm was a fierce collective of awakened or evolved insects who worshiped and served me. This settlement was vibrant and alive, filled with thousands of evolved, sapient, and zealous insects.

The eggs belonged to a form of evolved ants, the myremekes. I sensed the potent life-force within them and knew that when the eggs hatched the creatures that emerged wouldn't be unevolved ants but rather be myremekes. Which was perfect.

I reached out and grabbed a handful of them, all while manipulating their sizes, and pulled them out of the portal. As I did so I was quietly grateful for the numerous upgrades my powers had received since I started acting truly godlike, as that allowed me to turn one of my synergistic abilities, "Size manipulation", from an active power with a cooldown to a passive power I could use freely.

I stopped taking eggs when I had about five of them. There were tens of thousands of eggs that I could detect through the portal so I didn't feel bad about taking a handful.

I casually closed the portal and began to coat the eggs with life-energy. This accelerated their growth and was something I had frequently done remotely, even before the nearly month-long break I had taken to practice my powers. Ava saw all of this and curiously approached one of the eggs. As she did so, the lifeform within it began to break it open.

Within a few minutes, Ava was standing in front of five fully grown and mature myremekes warriors. She was wearing enhanced clothing and had a grim smile on her face as she pointed her sword at one of the warriors.

The towering, chitinous monster was nearly three meters tall and had arms that were longer than she was tall. The creature was docile though. It recognized me as its god and master and was under orders to not engage in combat against Ava. I was about to witness a slaughter.

I had used my aging powers on the thing, as well as my Hymenoptera abilities on it to "raise" it to maturity, and to ensure that Ava would not be in any actual danger while she transformed it and its siblings into her servants. Ava's success in her confrontation against Aoife's almost-clone would hinge on the role these massive insectoid beasts played in the fighting.

The ants in front of me were sadomasochistic. I had ensured that this was the case by using five of my ten hourly usages of "Attitudes towards pain", a power I was granted as a result of my influence over the pain subdomain, and that had also undergone upgrades over the course of my life. I used the power and warped the attitudes the ants had towards suffering and pain to ensure that they were excited to fall to Ava's amateurish swordplay, rather than angered, and would eagerly submit to her sword.

I smiled as Ava roared and dashed towards the one she had designated as the first to fall. This was all part of my plan to both equip and train the dark dwarf. I didn't just want her to be equipped to take down her sister's almost-clone, I wanted her to be familiar with and confident in her strange new skills. And that ultimately required having her kill and reanimate things before the actual fight. I wanted her to grow familiar with the sword in her hand, while gaining new servants and this was a great way to kill two birds with one stone.

A part of me, the small part of me that was fond of violence, grew excited as Ava closed in on her chosen victim. I was eager to witness this one-sided slaughter.