The mortal realm was an incredibly, incomprehensibly vast place. It teamed with life. The aforementioned life could be found in a plethora of galaxies, of solar systems, and of planets. And for the last few months, one creature had been going from solar system to solar system within a single galaxy, gathering knowledge through the usage of a potent power that allowed him to learn even long lost secrets just by visiting a solar system's star.

The creature traveled at speeds unthinkable to mortals from non-technological worlds. He effortlessly visited countless solar systems in a "day" relative to the world of the creature's birth. Each twenty-four period that passed the god gained a significant amount of knowledge about the galaxy of his birth, but his galaxy of origin housed close to a hundred billion solar systems. Even for him, this process of gathering knowledge would take an incredibly long time.

That said, the god had time. He had an unlimited amount of time, as much of it as he could ever want. And what's worse is that every single second that passed he gained greater and greater power. For the last few hours, his power had been focused in two dimensions that were far from the realm of mortals. He had begun conquests of Infernius, the birthplace, and home of devil-kind, and the Heart of Darkness, the birthplace and home of demon-kind. But now he was ready to return, in a manner speaking, to the realm of mortals.

The god's focus shifted from Duvessa, the city he had just become the overlord of, to one of the several worlds he had dubbed a "test" world. These worlds had the misfortune of being ones that the god had opted to serve as testing grounds, where he could freely unleash his abilities that he was normally more hesitant to use. The first of these worlds was the newly created naturalistic hellscape named Ryths, a planet once dominated by humans that was now dominated by nature and by victims of Althos' spores.

The god's mind, which was simultaneously both a physical thing capable of interacting with the world and an immaterial thing that was incapable of being truly interacted with aside from ways that it consented to, reentered the mortal realm with ease. The deity's parasitic mind for the moment didn't feel like truly materializing and so instead it chose a random home in a Htrae-sized world in the galaxy of its birth.

I found myself invisibly and incorporeally within a tiny home in the middle of a world that my system informed me was named "Oxenos". This world was the only planet in this specific solar system that had sapient life, and only two other planets in the system had any sort of life at all.

I found myself in the bedroom of a young green-skinned, tusk-mouthed orc. He was fast asleep and he was breathing easily and steadily. He slept atop a small but well-built bed as the morning quickly and quietly approached. The orc himself was muscular and took care of his body. I watched the sleeping creature, grinning internally as I did. He was a handsome member of his race, and as I assessed him I learned a lot about him.

He was a construction worker who was an employee of a small family-owned business in this community. He was also well-trusted and well-liked by his peers, particularly his fellow orcs. And for my intentions here, he was a perfect host. It was time I begin to experiment with my powers, and time that I experienced how it felt to possess someone.

As the night began to draw to a close, I closed my eyes and hurled myself into the orc, "physically" entering him as an ethereal, incorporeal shade and effortlessly began my attempts to overtake his mind.

The unfortunate orc who had the horrifying misfortune of being the test subject for the dreadful god's powers wasn't going to just give up and allow the god to take over his mind, his body, and corrupt his soul. Even while unconscious the quiet orc railed against the god, his sleeping mind doing its very best to expel the parasitic, and corrosive influence of the god's mental and spiritual tendrils.

The god of parasites had violently latched onto the orc's body, mind, and soul and was not going to be dissuaded from his prize. The god, an eldritch nightmare without any true form, chuckled as his prey attempted to free himself. Althos was not going to let the orc retake his body.

The god began to silently drain the intelligence from the orc, metaphorically stabbing into the orc's brain with his powers and eating away at it. He greedily feasted on the orc's thoughts, memories, secrets, and feelings, all while muttering to himself that the orc's body would be his. Blood began to steadily leak from the orc's nose, staining his green skin and increasing in intensity as the orc began to frown and feel fear wrack his unconscious form. Even as Althos feasted on his intelligence, the unconscious orc's sleeping mind felt fear.

The orc's body eventually stilled and his unconscious resistance began to falter. As the orc's resistance began to crawl to an end, the god responsible for this began to chuckle. He himself was happily learning all about the orc, absorbing every memory and learning every detail about the orc's relationships with his coworkers, his neighbors, his community, and his family. The orc's body and soul continued to resist the attempt to possess the orc, but Althos wasn't dissuaded.

Althos' efforts to put an end to the body's resistance were easy. He inflicted the orc with a cruel disease that would afflict him with considerable pain for every movement, and for a few moments the body continued to try and resist the god's will. It continued to move and to shudder, which was impressive since the man's mind had already been defeated by the god's ability and willingness to steal that which made a person a distinct individual. The quiet god watched as the man's shudders slowed and then came to a complete stop. When they did he smiled.

The disease he utilized was one he had acquired during the months he wasn't extremely active. One of the minor things he had done was heal people with diseases he hadn't acquired, and in doing so he gained more toys he could utilize on his foes and those he sought to subjugate. The disease had already proven its worth to him, just by causing the orc he wanted to use as a vessel to stop resisting him.

After the orc's body stopped resisting and pushing back against the alien invasion, the god quietly settled into the body he had successfully overtaken. As he did that he received a notification, one that intrigued him greatly.

Alert: Pushing This Body To The Limit

You have a number of abilities, some of which you haven't truly utilized, that are physical in nature. These abilities include the ability to move at the speed of light, and infinite strength. Would you like to utilize these abilities while you are possessing this orc? If you choose to use your powers while possessing a creature, you can do all you can do in your own body, aside from shape-shift. That too may change, in time, with the right tier of influence over the right domain or subdomain.

The choice wasn't hard. I informed the system that I didn't want to be limited, and upon informing it of that I felt everything around me slow to a screeching halt, quite abruptly. It was... odd, to say the least. For the first time ever, I detected no nearby motion and no changes in the environment around me. The world was slow. Not quite stopped, not entirely, but slower than I had ever perceived it to be.

"What is going on?" I asked, the orc's mouth opening and uttering the words even as I telepathically directed them at the domains and subdomains that had seen fit to occupy a portion of my mind. I heard them begin to mutter to themselves, and for a few moments, none of the domains dared to answer me. Then I heard one speak in a small voice.

"You are capable of moving at the speed of light, regularly, and chose not to. If you did, as your avatar does, you'd experience time at a much, much, much slower pace than you normally do. What is going on is that this new body is adjusting to your physical powers and is unconsciously entering what could be dubbed a 'Speed-of-Light' mode." Explained the domain of light, its voice airy and soft, and its words rapid and revealing.

The explanation I received made enough sense for me to understand the gist of what was happening. And it was quite intriguing to me. I knew that if I wanted too I could mix this with my other powers to a truly devastating effect. I could utilize this to be the ultimate assassin, or to kill entire armies by myself even more easily than I currently could. There was something quite exciting about this, and I intended to more properly experiment with it in the hours to come.

I closed "my" eyes and focused, slowing myself or at least the orc down enough to feel the world return to a more easily perceivable speed. I had to focus for a few moments, though I suppose my perception of time skewed what I saw as "moments". I grinned as I felt my surroundings begin to come to life again.

"What fun..." I muttered, as I rose up out of bed, in the body I had hijacked. I was going to get up to some mischief.