210 Technology And Darkness (1/2)

For his part in all of this, the god himself was still seated where he landed after defeating the demonic general and was busy adjusting to the memories of the demonic general he had just slain and absorbed. Among the creature's memories were recollections of exceptional moments such as encounters that the ancient demon had had with long-dead demon-lords and ancient battles between massive otherworldly armies that even the god of creativity doubted he could have dreamed them up prior to these last few minutes.

Althos found himself quietly grateful to Solomon. He wasn't grateful for the demonic general's lack of intelligence, at least as far as greater demons go, but he was grateful for the quality of the demon's memories. And for the knowledge, he was gleaming just by sitting down and fixating on the memories of a demon who had lived for well over three-quarters of a million years and remembered every second of it.

”These memories... What a treasure trove.” The god whispered, his eyes filling with excitement as he greedily gained more and more knowledge. He largely ignored Solomon's annoyingly low-quality thoughts but fixated on the actual memories the ancient demon locked away in his mind.

The Althonians who looked at him, especially those who approached while he was on his knees, saw him in an unusual state. He almost looked vulnerable while his youthful mind worked to accommodate the impossibly ancient memories he had just killed to acquire.

His current form was his oldest human form, that of a middle-aged man who had a rustic look. An almost stereotypical depiction of a druid. He wasn't radiating beauty, nor was he radiating an aura of insanity. Instead of looking superhuman or supernatural, he looked to be calmly meditating.

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To say my mind was running a kilometer a minute was an understatement. It was more like it was moving light-years per nanosecond.

I could feel my mind growing. It was odd, to say the least, to feel one's mind expand in a real almost physical sense. But that was the only possible way to describe what was happening to me in the wake of my decision to absorb Solomon's soul.

The Heart of Darkness was making me feel at ease. It was as if it was intentionally trying to make me want to stay. I didn't like it. That said I stayed on my knees for a while longer. I could do a lot from any position after all. I wasn't as weak as mortals were.

I closed my eyes, and from behind closed eyelids, I allowed countless memories to unfold in my mind's eye. Not all of the memories were mine, in fact, I'd say that most of them weren't. They belonged to many different creatures. Dwarves, humans, dark-elves, some demons, other, older creatures. Some of the memories originally belonged to friends, and others belonged to foes or at least those who had once been foes and were now allies, servants, worshipers, and members of my empire.

While I allowed the memories to unfold before me, as a sort of private film-screening, I did something else. I began to call out to my angelic host, the legion of angels I had recruited and ruled over.

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The charnel plains were a nondescript area, an almost totally featureless and impossibly large flatland of assortedly colored dirt. For eons, this particular layer of the Heart of Darkness housed extremely little and served primarily as either a neutral meeting ground for different demonic factions or as a small portion of a larger transit route that facilitated the transportation of demonic goods from one layer to another.

From time to time this layer served as a battlefield for different demonic factions that would clash and temporarily gain territory and experience in combat. But the forces that currently occupied the charnel plains soon revealed that they had other plans in mind. Or at least their overlord, their emperor, did.

The skies above the plains were equally plain and nondescript. No matter the time of day the skies were an unearthly orange color as if they were being corrupted by some potent pollutants. That said, someone could only see the orange tint of the sky if they could see the sky.

One moment the Althonian army could see the sky above them, the next it was blacked out by a large number of massive portals appearing directly overhead. Althos himself began to grin, even as the shadows cast by one of the portals directly swallowed him up and rendered the god invisible. At the moment that the god vanished from view none of his followers had their eyes on him personally, having all collectively turned to watch the portals after the first few appeared and began to black out the skies.

There was a second of silence as the very layer itself appeared to have held its breath. The second of silence was shattered when the first angel threw itself through the portal that had appeared in front of it in Althos' gleaming city and began to descend from the skies above the plains.

The angel in question was an odd fellow, a cube with two pairs of beautiful golden wings jutting from two pairs of edges the thing possessed. It was only possible for the assorted creatures who were looking at the skies to see the creature because it radiated a beautiful, sun-like light.

The angel of creation was not the only angel who was making an appearance, it was just the first to step through any of the many portals that had appeared in Althos' royal and divine city. Seconds after the god opened the portals throughout the city and ordered scores of his angels to come to his side, they began to appear in droves.

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I was invisible in the dark, at least whenever I wanted to be thanks to an invented synergistic power I had created during my few months building cults. And at the moment I didn't care to be seen. I studied the blackened skies and watched as scores of angels appeared in the skies above me. Their work would allow me to take stock of my situation.

I telepathically ordered my angels, particularly my angels of creation and civilization, to build a city fit for inhabitation by multi-species. The first of my servants to arrive, such as the odd, angelic cube who was especially eager to serve me, immediately set about their work. I watched as the multiple cube-angels appeared out of portals not far from the initial cube angel to appear, and moved into action.

The cube-angels ”aimed” by repositioning themselves so they were ”looking” straight down. A second later they began to shoot a potent ray of angelic energy into the plains, creating raw materials for an assortment of buildings.

I chuckled when I saw this, and then gasped when they stopped shooting the rays that created material and paused for a moment only to begin to fire a second beam a split second later. This second beam was interesting to me as they fired it at the raw materials they had just created and when the beams made contact with the raw materials they instantly transformed the raw materials into buildings or other structures that were useful in or for towns.

I watched bricks transform into houses. I watched mixtures of materials turn into wells, barns, and a number of other, more complex buildings. The display of angelic prowess was quite impressive.

Angels of civilization, some of whom looked like humans and others of whom did not, busied themselves as well. I watched as they aided in building buildings and in the creation of things such as furniture and walls. They also created complex structures such as mines.

One of the more important things I did here was go ahead and complete the quest given to me by the domain of technology by ordering my technological angels to create a factory that once active would create robots and androids. My technological angels, who themselves looked like the sort of technology I could see wandering around the surface of the world of Infernius, immediately threw themselves into their work.

I watched as they rounded up a number of blacksmithing angels and the two groups collaborated to map out a large area. Once they had selected a place the technological angels ordered their allies to create and mold metal walls for the rough exterior of the facility itself. From there the angels threw themselves into their work. I watched, peering through the walls that guarded the facility from the outside.