Life Domain Passive Powers*:

Non-Sapient Race Creation: This power is used to create species that are not sapient. Sapience is a measure of intelligence and by choosing to create a non-sapient race you would be choosing to create a simple species. Non-sapient races recognize you as their creator, even though they are not sapient and obey directives you engrain in them at the moment you create them and commands you give them through mental powers.

Sapient Race Creation: This power is used to create species that are sapient. This would allow you to create a race that is at least as intelligent as humans are, innately. Sapient races you create recognize you as their creator and obey you, obeying both commands you give them yourself and directives you engrain in them at the moment you create them. That said sapient races you create can turn against you, as these are full sapient beings.

*Newly bestowed powers you've acquired to complete the quest needed to acquire the second tier of influence over the life domain.

Reading through the descriptions for the two powers I had just earned was exciting. They were brief and to the point, and told me what I needed to know.

Behind me the kidnapped humans were shouting in anger and crying in despair. I had ignored them while I was reading through the descriptions for my two, new powers, but their continued outbursts were annoying so I did put them to sleep with a single wave of my hand. They tried to resist the power, but even the weakest gods had powers that easily overwhelmed mortals. A second after I waved my hand the mortals quieted down and slumped over, unconscious.

"Silence... Finally." I muttered, under my breath. I turned to face my minions, the man-mosquitoes I had created earlier. They all straightened their posture when they saw me turn to face them, out of respect and fear alike. It was a smart reaction but not one that was needed. I chuckled and studied them.

The man-mosquitoes were small in number, but thankfully so too were the leaders of the community I had decided to ruin in order to achieve my mission of acquiring the second tier of influence over the vermin subdomain. My shadow was still hard at work feasting on the shadows of the fallen, dire-mosquitoes. It was quite skilled at its work and thus it was more than capable of working silently, which it did.

The man-mosquitoes were next to the fallen, sleeping humans and I studied the scene before me silently before giving my minions a single, grim order.

"KIll the humans." I told them, speaking simply and directly.

I didn't smile as I commanded them to do what they had to do, but above all else I was devoted to myself and to acquiring more power. This was just a grim part of that. The man-mosquitoes nodded at me, and then they opened their mouths, while beginning to inch nearer and nearer their victims.

The man-mosquitoes had a disturbingly human mouth. They even had tongues! Their proboscises appeared from within their mouths in a way that was supernatural in origin, as if they were stored somewhere ethereally, in the same way that I could store things in a non-physical space or even use my shadow to hold items if I wanted.

Almost simultaneously the man-mosquitoes revealed their proboscises and the needle-like appendages shot forward and pierced the necks of the sleeping humans. The appendages were long and thin and I could watch as the blood drained out of the bodies of the humans who had the misfortune of being leaders. Blood began to be vigorously drained out of the humans, and for the briefest of moments I could see that the proboscices of my minions turn a sickly shade of red. It brought a smile to my face.

One by one the humans stopped breathing. Their hearts gave out, unable to replenish the blood they had lost at the hands of my minions, and they quietly perished. Their deaths weren't particularly painful, a consequence of the nature of their deaths coupled with the fact that they were sleeping.

I watched as the last of them stopped breathing. When they did, I felt and then saw the notification alerting me that I had completed the quest to gain greater power over the subdomain of vermin.

Alert:

Parasites have led to the ruin of a small town, Naples. Naples will collapse due to the assassination of its leaders, and as a result of that you have successfully acquired the second tier of influence over the subdomain of vermin and parasites. Congratulations!

Vermin Subdomain Passive Powers:

Greater Drain: Now you can more readily drain things from more than just mortals. So long as something is not a vestige, or, impossibly, another higher-being you can drain things from them.

Greater Possession: A direct upgrade to the "Possession" power that allows you to possess anyone who isn't a vestige or higher being.

Limited Magical Disease Manipulation: You can now inflict and manipulate diseases that open up the infected to possession, such as demonic infection. This is due to your potent powers over possession, as well as your existing influence over magic and diseases.

Parasitic Genesis: You can create a personal parasite that plagues anyone you choose in targeted, personalized ways. This could include tempting them to perform acts that run contrary to their alignment, or otherwise performing acts against their nature as well as gradually sapping their strength and urging them to make choices that would hurt them. This power does not currently work on vestiges.

Parasitic King: You can, at will, exude an aura that subjugates even the strongest parasites. This aura causes parasites in its radius to recognize you as the parasitic king and god of all parasites. This aura also affects vermin. This is more than literal, it can also affect those who leech off of others such as sycophants and yes-people.

Vermin Subdomain Active Power:

Empowerment: Once per day you can cause someone to become incredibly empowered if they willingly allow a parasite to exist within them.

I had received a potent, direct upgrade to my capabilities. I wasn't disappointed by the lack of variety, on the contrary the new powers were quite entertaining to me, especially "Parasitic Genesis". And so I decided to utilize that power almost immediately.

I closed my eyes as I willed away the notification and I targeted Agustino, annoyed by the foolishness of his choice to stand against me and cause me to be momentarily distracted from my larger goal of gaining greater power. I wanted to punish him, and so I targeted him with my newest quirky power. Almost as if he detects my efforts, I get a notification alerting me that the demon is talking about me. Or rather, blaspheming me. That got a slight chuckle out of me.

I was happy that the power wasn't limited by range, or by the ability to perceive a target's location. That lack of a restriction meant I could use it on any target, so long as the target wasn't a vestige. I activated the power, and a split second later I received a barrage of notifications alerting me that my efforts were successful. And that was positively delightful.

Deep in a bizarre and alien palace, sat a confident and angry demon. He looked deceptively mundane, almost mortal even, but there was a power he possessed that kept even the greater demons who sometimes visited him on-guard.

He was angry because the war effort was going... badly was an understatement. At the moment he was just getting word of the loss of even more demonic troops and allies than he had thought he had lost when his general was slain. That caused his handsome face to scowl in anger and resentment.

He curses the god he, in his proud insanity, has chosen to go to war against. This is not the first time that he has cursed the man he made an enemy of. As he curses the god, he suddenly winches, visibly, in pain. And then he begins to shout, to wail, in mind-bending agony.

The sounds of his pain would normally delight even his commanders, Agustino is after all an utterly insane dictator and unlike devils he isn't even skilled in management and governance, but something about this pain is different. It's frightening even.

Agustino wasn't speaking as he screamed. There were no words or coherent thoughts he was trying to communicate. He was howling, as if he were a wild-animal that had the misfortune of coming across an armed hunter and underestimating him.

Unbeknownst to anyone in the palace at the time that the hurt commander began to howl, their shared enemy had just acquired a significant power. This new power could target people even in other universes, so long as Althos knew about them. And this power had just torn across space and time to spawn a malicious Althonite parasite which existed to plague and doom Agustino, within the demon. Agustino himself was unaware of this, he was only aware of the perception-distorting pain he was in at the moment. And his suffering delighted Althos.

Shortly after launching my first attack directly on Agustino I refocused and quietly activated my power to create sapient races. As I did, I felt my body radiate tremondous power, more so ever had aside from the few moments I spent as a star when I was battling Agustino's forces.

When I activated my powers I felt the power of my abilities within me. Normally this was relatively unremarkable, but at the moment it was breathtaking. I felt more powerful in the second I was beginning to create a distinct species of my own making than I ever had throughout my entire life up until this point.

I felt a heat so warm that even I felt hot and I was a god of fire and plasma. It nestled itself deep in my chest, near where a heart would be if I were a mortal, or perhaps even had a stable, true, physical form. And I liked it. I enjoyed the warmth in my chest. It excited me, as the longest notification I had ever received placed itself in the center of my vision.

The notification was extensive. It asked me all sorts of questions, so many so that it took even me several minutes to finish filling it out. Some of the more amusing questions were related to reproduction and a chuckle-inducing questionnaire on how I wanted the creatures to react to a series of hypothetical situations. Until I was done answering questions, once I answered a question it vanished unless I deliberately wanted to go back to it and redo it.

When I was done I reviewed all of my answers, and by then a fair bit of time had passed. I chuckled as I read through the notification, reexamining my answers once more and then smiling in satisifaction at the creatures I was about to create. They were, in my eyes anyway, truly beautiful. And they fit my interests to a tee.

I released the power from deep within me, and targeted some space directly in front of me, even as I activated a cocktail of auras and other abilities that would ensure that my creation was thoroughly awed by me. A few seconds after I released the power, the ground began to shine explosively becoming close to blinding before a silhouette materialized within the illuminated space.

Deep within the shining area, the quiet god's power was assembling life from nothing. His divine power was on display even as he glanced at the area where his powers were hard at work.

Within the aforementioned illuminated place the god's energy was being spent creating life from nothing and also creating a sort of immaterial blueprint that would enter an ethereal datebase wherein it would stay safely ensconced forever, for future use by Althos and had there been any other deities would have been possible for them to use as well. The god's power slowly stitched together the creature Althos had described in the notification he received.

It started off by weaving together a central abdomen and also a cephalothorax. Both of these were large, fleshy spheres, but in the case of the equally nightmarish and beautiful creature Althos had created were covered in thick iron-like plated armor. Following the creation of these two thick spheres, the power set about creating the fierce legs of the spider-like creature the god was making.

The legs were muscular, thick limbs that were built powerfully enough to allow the creature to move despite the enormous size and weight of the monster's abdomen and cephalothorax, thanks to their natural armor. They ended in sharp barbs, which the creature could use to penetrate the ground if it needed too to resist knockback and efforts to push or pull it in a direction it didn't want to be pushed or pulled in. The legs were also covered in harsh thorn-like growths that would slash and stab anyone who the spider knocked down with its legs or even leaped at.

The creature was a spider, at its core, but it was also a creature far more fearsome than any ordinary spider could ever be. It was larger than a horse, with legs the size of some diminutive humans, and it had the natural defenses needed to withstand a small, somewhat slow-moving car ramming into it without it even being knocked back.

The creature had eyes all over its body, which was a somewhat maddening thing to see. It also had enormous fangs at the front of its face, where its two largest eyes were located, alongside a full maw and antennas with which to better sense the world around it. It was a truly monstrous anthropod, but also one that was innately filled with admiration and love for its creator, who was also in awe of it since he was a monstrous spider deity himself who often clad himself in deceptive forms.

The light slowly began to vanish, and as it did I got to lay my eyes on my first original creation. The creature who stood where the light had once been was an enormous creature that was taller than me in the body I was possessing. Its main eyes were starring at me, and there was nothing short of adoration within them. I smiled at the creature, and then I pointed it at the corpses the creature would devour as its first meal.

The creature turned in the direction of the corpses, and when it did it released a noise that was almost deafening. The sound was one of excitement, and hunger, and the creature dashed in the direction of the corpses, before leaping into the air as it closed in on the closest one. It was at this point that I received the notification alerting me to the reality that I had just earned the second tier of influence over the life domain, which was in all honesty the most exciting notification I had ever received up to this point in my life.

My eyes went wide as I read the notification and I began to laugh, the sound a triumphant one of delight and excitement. The creature began to speak in a language unique to its species as it tore into the food. Its words were zealous declarations of the might and greatness of its creator, which filled me with happiness and delight, bolstering my already jubilant mood even further.