142 Life And Darkness (1/2)
Ava stared at the two eerily beautiful spider-elf hybrids standing before her. Imbrosa was one of them, so I couldn't say I really blamed her. The other was Imbrosa's mate, himself a distractingly handsome drider with skin the color of a moonless night. The pair of creatures were malevolent undead, powerfully reanimated, and strengthened by my divine necromancy.
The sinister creatures were motionless before us, awaiting my commands. I allowed Ava to study them while I considered the history-shaping ramifications of the ideas brewing in my mind. I had summoned them here and not just to aid Ava.
I was about to do something more substantial than loan out two undead, ghoulish driders. Something infinitely more substantial than allow two personal creations of mine to be used as instruments of a creature's dreadful plot to exact revenge. I made eye contact with the driders and smiled.
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Weeks ago I had gained access to potent powers thanks to my acquisition of the first tier of influence over the domains and life and death. Both domains are greater domains, exceptionally powerful domains that are considered keys to the acquisition of greater overall divine power.
By gaining influence over them I had added them to the domains that I sensed through my distinct ”Domain-sense” power. They were the two most common notifications I received, through the perpetually active power. And thanks to them I was keenly aware of the legitimately astounding number of births, and deaths that occurred every moment in the universe. That allowed me to recognize the unconscious respect I had acquired for the powers I wielded over them.
I possessed a power unique to the gods, as a result of the considerable power I possessed over appropriate domains and subdomains. One granted to me by the intersections of a number of domains and subdomains. The power to defeat even death itself, and perform ”true resurrection” on deceased beings and even corporeal undead.
My powers over life were unsettling, but one of them was the power to perform what the system, as well as domains and subdomains, dubbed a ”true resurrection”. This was the sort of power that allowed me to restore life to any once-living-non-higher-being so long as their souls weren't destroyed.
One of the things I had learned over the course of the last few weeks related to the nature of certain processes that took place in this universe. One of them related to the deaths of mortals, and what happened to a mortal when they died.
Whenever a mortal dies their soul is supposed to go to the dimension that most closely matches their alignment. Once there, its fate is up to the rules of that dimension. In the Heart of Darkness souls either become demons or are consumed by demons before they can undergo an evil hypothesis.
In Infernius souls inevitably become soul-orbs, the lowest rank of devils, though in the mythic age it was supposedly possible for arch-devils to intervene and accelerate the rates at which souls proceeded along the devilish hierarchy, the social structure of devilish society. And there were seven other dimensions that received souls, each of which had their own rules for determining the fates of souls that found their ways there.
Additionally, it was certainly possible for other fates to befall the souls of mortals. One such fate was related to undeath. Certain types of undeath preserved the soul. Liches, one of the greatest kinds of originally mortal undead beings, intentionally retained possession of their souls. Other kinds of undead like death-kings and grim-reapers had their souls owned and controlled by someone else, almost invariably an individual who stole it from them post-mortem.
In the cases of the two driders before me I was already aware that the precise fates that befall their souls were not important, and I also knew that they weren't mysteries beyond my reach. I could sense that they were resurrectable and I innately knew that upon resurrecting the pair of creatures I'd be able to learn precisely what had happened to their souls.
I quietly targeted the creatures and grinned as I prepared myself for what was to come.
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The scene in the chamber was unusual. The abrupt appearance of the driders caused a strange silence to fall over the chamber. The lovely driders were distracting, not just to Ava, but also to the extraplanars who dwelled in the wide chamber.
Everyone's eyes were on the undead, arachnid monstrosities. The monsters themselves were cold towards the entities who stared at them, caring only for their master. And their master was cold towards them, not even speaking as he targeted them and quietly deanimated them.
The eyes of the monsters went wide as they stiffened and suddenly became true corpses, death once more overtaking them. Everyone watching sensed their sudden deaths, but they weren't sure of the purpose of Althos' actions. Althos didn't move to share his machinations with them, quietly opting to instead focus on acting.
The deity kept the pair of driders targeted. There had been a grin on his face throughout this whole process, that only widened at this moment. For the first time in his life, he quietly activated his ”Resurrection” ability, and both of the driders began to radiate an intense silvery light. This light was so bright that the creatures in the room swiftly turned away so as to avoid incurring any sort of damage to their vision.
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An incredible amount of divine power was radiating invisibly out of me. I felt it seep out of every pore in my body as it soaked the air in ambient and life-based power.
The driders themselves were glowing as life-based energy seeped into their corpses. It infused every centimeter of their flesh and I felt their bodies begin to change. I could see through the light they were radiating, thanks to my powers, and I watched as their hearts began to beat, and as blood began to flow through them for the first time in months.
Their skin began to lose the unsettling, inhuman, deathlike pallor they had once possessed as blood colored their skin. A few moments passed before the creatures breathed for the first time, ragged sighs filling the air with the noise of life, and they abruptly opened their eyes. It was when they opened their eyes that the light they radiated began to fade, but they stared at me just as I stared at them.
”Hello there. Welcome back to the world of the living.” I said, greeting them. There was an intense, radiant joy in my gaze as I studied them.
The two stunningly beautiful creatures studied me in considerable confusion. That said, their bodies recognized me as their master and I felt their minds struggle to combat the urges they felt to praise me. I chuckled and my smile widened. Their eyes lit up as an alert filled their vision.
It took a moment for one of them to speak, and unsurprisingly it was Imbrosa who spoke first. ”We're...alive... How?” Imbrosa asked, her voice even more fantastically beautiful than it had once been.