The mortal world I was born in became a lot bigger during these past two months. Or rather, it became bigger to me. This was due to my knowledge of this world greatly growing through the experiences I had acquired during this period, experiences that I hadn't had until this era of growth and empire-plotting.

During the time that elapsed between the sacrifice of Qiloth and the moment I received the thousands of notifications that were me being notified about upgrades to my powers, domain and sub-domain updates and more, I spent an equal amount of time in my realm and in the world of my birth.

Currently, I was in the mortal world, and I stopped for a moment just to hear a pleasant sound. The sound of a pickaxe smashing into rock and beginning to inch closer and closer to valuable ore. I love that sound. I thought to myself, grinning.

The area I found myself in was a new one. It was an incredibly long tunnel I had made myself using magic, tireless fungal creatures, and other assistants that connected Golden-Gate to the city of Undermoon for the sake of trading, communication, and travel.

I frequently visited this place, and enjoyed spending time here. One thing I had learned about myself was that I was fond of underground places. I had also been spending a lot of time in my mountain lair in my realm, with Rebecca, Lisabeth, and their friends, creatures I had also made by hand.

At the moment I was in a monstrous form. I vaguely resembled an enormous drider, a creature that had the upper body of a powerful dark-elf and the lower body of a gigantic spider.

I was both several meters wide, and several meters tall. My spider-like lower half was made up of red carapace and the legs that propelled it forward were thick weapons in their own right. My upper-half was no longer a copy of Drow's upper body but a wholly original upper body and face with shimmering red eyes.

As I inched through the tunnel, walking slowly on my numerous, arachnoid legs, I reflected on the state of this world.

The mortal world is... large. I thought to myself as I walked forward at my own pace.

I had learned a great deal during these last two months. I had learned of the history of Sailos, thanks to both to my efforts to raise the dead who had inhabited Golden-Gate since before I came to life and the fact that I recovered a few of the books left behind in the wealthiest parts of the town.

I learned of neighboring countries, nations with names like Reconqistia, and Isander. I learned of the abandoned tower located a good distance away from Golden-Gate, and in doing so of the location of Modred's lair. The same Modred who commanded Salifinos at the start of my life.

I learned of the next foe I may have to face or corrupt further down the road: Baron Hightower, a lord who technically oversaw the administration of the frontier community of Golden-Gate. I even learned of a vampire woman living in a distant cave, a coven of hags, and a mysterious dragon attack that had decimated the city of Avalon, the capital of the kingdom.

I've gained so much mortal wisdom. I thought to myself as I continue to lazily inhabit this pleasant tunnel. A loud voice interrupted my thoughts by shouting at one of the humans who were responsible for the pleasant sounds of pickaxes on rocks earlier.

"Hey, you! Get to work!" Shouted a voice belonging to a female human. I could see her if I looked down the tunnel behind me. I chuckled at her display of outrage. She was shouting at a human who had been distracted by my appearance and who had been starring at me.

In fairness though, my current form was odd to humans and definitely odd to humans who hadn't met the small number of driders and drider-variants I had worshipping me.

One thing I had done a lot of while in the mortal world was establish assorted cults to myself. Driders and drider-variants were among my chief cultists in one particular cult.

While first experimenting with my mutative abilities I casually created driders and their variants and formed a cult specifically to worship me as a god of mutants and mutations that I based in Undermoon. It was actually the first of several cults I had built by hand during these past two months.

I suppose I ought to go to the surface. I thought grudgingly. It was, after all, starting to inch towards the early evening in the world above me. I willed myself out of my tunnel, out of my drider-form, and as my teleportation power surrounded me and prepared to whisk me away, I reflected on what I was about to go and do.

Each day over the past two months I had challenged myself to go out and do new things. I had successfully done this every day so far.

I had practiced new spells, created members of races I hadn't yet interacted with, brewed my first potions, and even forged simple weapons properly. Today I was about to go and do something dangerous, something unusual. Today I was going to go liberate captured monsters, specifically a captured goblin tribe.

The area I was teleporting too was an area not far from where the goblins who had been captured were being kept, just inside of a solitary cave. As I visualized the place in my mind and willed myself there, I took a deep breath and did my best to relax.

My surroundings changed in the blink of an eye. I went from being inside of a dimly lit and incredibly long tunnel to being in the middle of an abandoned farm's field as the sun dipped just below the horizon.

My senses took a second to adjust to the change in my surroundings, and I waited as the sensory information I was receiving to take my new scenery into account. In a matter of moments, my mind sorted through the changing scenery and I was able to grasp a more accurate understanding of where I was, without relying solely on my sight.

The ground at my feet was tilled soil, and it was soil that hadn't been tended too in a while. I could tell just by how it felt between my toes and underneath my feet. The air carried a certain rancid scent, a scent that seemed to originate from behind me. And behind me was a single, solitary house.

If I opened my mouth I'd have the sickly, rancid smell coat my tongue, so instead, I opted to ignore whatever grisly fate had befallen whoever dwelt within the house and move towards my target instead.

I set out across the farmland and towards the edge of what I could see, a distance more than a few kilometers away, where I could faintly see a dimly lit cave mouth that beckoned me forth.

While on my way there, I thought about the silly prayer that had compelled me out here in the first place. Goblins aren't exactly pious, and an attempt by one of them to mutter a prayer requesting salvation from a gang of human rangers, some of the survivors of Salinos' army, caught my eye.

Sometimes its fun to rescue creatures. I had thought to myself at the time that I accepted the quest, mere minutes before I heard the human woman shout at the miner in the tunnel. I had come to the conclusion that "rescue missions = fun" in the wake of saving Angelica from her prison back in Namira.

A few minutes of speedy walking led me nearly all the way to my destination. Once I was close enough that I could hear rough male voices shouting boisterously at each other, I stopped and readied myself for the upcoming confrontation.

Come to me, my servants. I thought, my mind reaching out across the cosmos and entering the mind's of my two demonic servants. It's time you stretch your muscles. And participate in some... exercise. I told them, teasingly.

Master... Both of them whispered, excitement audible in their mental voices. Give us a portal, a way to you, and we will eagerly devour your enemies. Raverangos told me.

Yes... Yes, a portal! Aggathas, the wrath demon servant I gained in the wake of the events at the former temple to Morthos, excitedly told me.

I chuckled and rose my hands in two different directions. Magic began to swirl around my hands and I examined it.

The energy that was swirling around my hands was the magical energy that would be used in a powerful conjuration spell, and when I willed the two different magical energies out into the world they shot forth from my hand and flew away from me a good distance. And then the two motes of energy exploded into kaleidoscopic, vertical pools of magical energy.

"Come." I told the creatures waiting beyond the portals. Both of my demonic servants stepped through the portals at the same time, crossing vast distances to arrive where I was. I took a look at Aggathas, the wrath demon and studied it.

Aggathas was a fiendish looking creature, even for a demon. The creature's body was more or less humanoid, loosely resembling a pale-skinned orc. The thing stood three meters tall, with incredibly broad shoulders, a thickly muscled chest, and a vulture-like, beaked face.

Its skin wasn't covered in feathers, but it had a set of huge wings that spread out from its shoulders. The wings were covered in black feathers, some of which were shed with every movement. Its hands and feet ended in sharp and cruel-looking talons.

It was nearly silent, aside from the soft and occasional fluttering of its wings. And its presence filled the air with the scent of sweat.

I wonder how it'll fight... Presumably with those fierce-looking talons. I thought, in reference to Aggathas. I recalled the new species knowledge notification I had received when I was first given the demon after the thing had been thoroughly thrashed by the dark-elves who lived in Undermoon.

[Species Knowledge Notification: Wrath Demon

Wrath demons are mobile, flying demons who embody the most vicious aspects of the sin of wrath. These prideful creatures never forget slights against them, and when they fly into a rage the results are legendary.

They are difficult demons to tame, but they recognize power and the only people who can snap them out of one of their legendary rages is someone they've recognized as greater in power than themselves. They use their wings to enhance their mobility and to quickly descend on those they've decided are their next victims.

Wrath demons can evolve into other, violent forms of demonkind. They are intermediate demons in terms of strength and a single one of them is stronger than several moderately trained human warriors.]

Rereading the notification brought a smile to my face. After reading it, I turned to one of my older companions, the sentinel demon named Raverangos and nodded. And then I looked straight ahead.

"I have enemies in that cave. They are humans, human rangers. We are going in there to save their captives, a small tribe of goblins who prayed for salvation." I told my pets.

I looked at the backs of my two pets, two ferocious-looking monsters and considered how to best have fun with this little excursion. I suppose I could let them go wild... That would be fun to watch. I thought, after a moment of quietly considering the idea.

You know what? Sure. Raverangos has spent months doing little more than patrolling. Same for Aggathas. They deserve this. I thought, deciding to throw them a bone and be kind to them.

"So long as you two don't harm the goblins we're seeking to save, you can go wild within the cave." I told them. They froze at my words and absorbed them for a second. And then the two hulking beings grinned cruelly, revealing rows of fangs in the case of Raverangos, and revealing less sharp but no less innumerable rows of blunt teeth in the cave of Aggathas. I smiled back.

And then I began my walk towards the cave, just a few hundred meters away from me.

When I was just outside of the cave my demons had had enough of my casual stroll towards the location of their next bloodbath. They stormed forward as one, in an oddly coordinated way. I chuckled at them, and they roared as if to announce to the humans who had been resting in the cave, unaware of our proximity, that they were here.

They stampeded into the cave and just out of sight of me. The cave before me had an entrance, lit a small number of torches. Beyond that entrance, small tunnels led deeper into the cave. Aggathas and Raverangos had entered and gone in separate directions, one going to a tunnel to the left and the other going to a tunnel to the right,

"What the fuck is that!?" One of the humans, the one closest to the pair, shouted.

I heard an avian screech and the same human was paralyzed. I couldn't see him, but I could hear his heart hammering in his chest, and I could hear his muscles straining to move as if commanded by his brain to do so, but unable to overcome the fear that rendered him immobile.

"We're under att-ahhh!" The same human said, managing to shout something out right before Aggathas' talons penetrated his body and cruelly cut him down. I heard a soft thud as the human's body hit the ground, bleeding, wounded, and still alive. I shook my head and proceeded into the tunnel that would lead me to where Aggathas was.

This cave system houses a dozen humans. A dozen that are still alive anyway. Six of them are approaching Aggathas and six are approaching Raverangos. I thought to myself after my powers updated as I began my trek through the tunnel that would lead me to where my avian companion was busy fighting.

I sped through the narrow thing, jogging for perhaps the third time in my life. The sounds of feet hammering into the floor was audible and actually echoed in the tunnel I was in, but it wasn't just the sound of my feet. It was the noises I was making combined with the sounds of humans edging closer and closer to their deaths, charging from the cave's interior into the area where my demon was waiting for them.

I emerged into a wider chamber just seconds before the other humans who were approaching would. I studied the scene before me and inwardly chuckled.

The chamber I had just jogged into was a wider and high-ceiled place. Torches adorned the wall and gave off dim light, light which revealed an abundance of stone around me, most of it plain granite.

Not far from where I was standing, studying the scene, a human body laid messily on the floor. Blood was still gently pouring out of a number of lacerations that scarred the body. The body itself belonged to a human man, a warrior dressed in fur-armor. Behind the body, I could see the muscled back of my winged servant.

The demon was breathing heavily, not out of exhaustion but out of desire, desire for more violence. Blood dripped down the things talons, and when I looked at the floor at its feet I noticed the trail of blood its hands had dripped. I grinned.

Not far from where it stood, eagerly anticipating bloodshed, was another entrance to this odd chamber. And I knew that was where they would emerge from. Aggathas and I were quiet for a moment, and I appreciated the sight of the creature's back.

I walked over to the creature and listened to the near silence that filled the chamber. The only noises that disrupted it was the sounds of the blood that dripped from the thing's claws hitting the floor, and the footfalls of the human's allies approaching their deaths and the body of their friend.

"And so they come... rushing to their deaths." I said softly, my voice quiet and low. My newest pet grinned, uncharacteristically quiet for a demon but as eager for blood as Raverangos.

I closed my fists and listened to the increasingly loud noise of their footfalls, knowing that I had less than ten seconds until they arrived. I glanced at my companion and watched as its breathing got heavier and heavier until each breath was practically an exercise in and of itself.

And then the first of the six that was heading our way stepped out of the tiny tunnel and into view.