Conquest Empire (2'387 words)

In a seemingly infinite space full of stars stands a giant white humanoid creature with a blackhole for a face.

The creature is currently crouching and stares down upon five mostly featureless white silhouettes.

They look humanoid, three of them are male and two female.

"Listen closely mortals…" The booming voice reverberating out of the black hole in the giant creature's face shakes the entire space around it.

"I will grant each of you a seed of divinity… "Moving its giant hand in front of the five much smaller silhouettes, five orbs, each looking like it contains an entire universe appear floating on top its palm.

"What you do with it is up to you… but be warned… if the concept you choose to embody… is not compatible with who you are…" The five orbs start to shake and hum as the stars inside of them begin to rapidly expand until the orbs shine in a bright light.

*BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!*

With a world-shaking roar the five orbs explode into supernovas that swallow up everyone present.

The five silhouettes feel how their bodies get torn to pieces before burning to ashes and evaporate into nothingness.

*Crack!*

Reality fractures and the world of white that has been swallowed up the explosions shatters and breaks away revealing the five silhouettes and the giant white being in the same position as before the explosion with the five orbs silently floating on top the being s palm.

"You will perish…" it continuous as if nothing happened.

Swallowing heavily the five silhouettes nod nervously.

After a short moment of silence when the giant sized each of them up for the last time the five orbs float off its palm and towards the five silhouettes.

They in turn look at the orbs in front of them with hesitation.

The danger of choosing a concept that doesn't fit to themselves and ceasing to exist lies heavy on their minds.

Ultimately one of the male silhouettes works up his courage and reaches out with a shaking hand and touches orb floating in front of him.

"AAAAAAHHHHH!!!" He immediately starts screaming and collapses onto his knees as veins of stars start to invade his body from the shrinking orb.

His white form starts taking on a greenish hue and the ground underneath him morphs into vibrant grass and sprouting vines that crawl up his kneeling and screaming form.

More and more plants grow out of the ground and entwined the screaming silhouette before they start to pull him downwards into the patch of greenery.

Horrified at the scene that just happened each of the remaining silhouettes had taken multiple steps away from their comrade and watched in a daze how he was swallowed into the ground.

Now even more hesitate than before the four look at each other not wanting to be the next to experience the pain their comrade had.

All the while the giant white being watched their reactions with mild amusement.

Finally working up their courage the four remaining silhouettes decide to touch the orbs at the same time.

Each of them places their hand only centimeters away from their respective orbs while one of the remaining two male silhouettes counts down with his fingers.

Once the last finger was lowered three screams of immense pain resound through the area.

The two male and one female silhouette fall to their knees screaming as the orbs invade their bodies.

A single female silhouette remined standing, having not touched the orb just yet.

She carefully observes the changes her comrades go through and takes note of its possible meanings.

The only other female silhouette starts turning golden while feathers and wings grow out of the ground underneath her and slowly envelope her.

One of the two screaming male silhouettes turns red with all kinds of weapons stabbing out of the ground building a cage of iron around him.

Lastly the other male silhouette turned black with the ground seemingly decaying and skeletal limbs reaching out of the ground grabbing hold of his limbs before pulling him down.

Starring at the spots where her fellow silhouettes have sunken into the ground for a while, the last female silhouette sighs and touches her own orb and falls screaming to her knees.

Slowly but surely her white form turns light blue and the ground underneath her morphs into polished black marble with gold and silver accents.

Silver chains rise from the edges of her small plateau and wrap around her before seven sabers fall from the sky, stabbing in a circular fashion around her into the ground.

Like the others before her she too was pulled into the ground until she disappeared completely.

"Hmm… Nature… Humanity… War… Death… and Empire?... "Muttering to itself the giant white being tilts its head at the last one.

"Hahahahaha… "A deep rumbling laugh escapes its blackhole.

"She thought it through… she didn't choose a concept fitting to herself… she has chosen a concept she's willing to give herself up for." Slowly rubbing its chin with one of its massive hands the creature gets lost in its thoughts.

Meanwhile in the midst of a land covered in ice and snow a multitude of light blue particles gather together and start forming a person.

A mere minute later the particles disperse, revealing a woman in a black, high collar, military uniform with silver and golden highlights and a skirt reaching down to her ankles.

Dark grey metal boots and gloves cover her feet up to her knees and hands up to her elbows.

She has long silver hair bound into a ponytail that reaches down to her lower back with bangs framing her delicate face.

Her eyes, light blue at the outer edges and red around her black pupils which have the form of square's, take in her new surroundings.

Resting one of her armored hands on the leather-bound hilt of a saber that rests on the right side of her waist, the woman uses the other hand to fix her black military hat on whose front is an emblem of two hands cradling a cathedral with seven sabers floating above it.

'Looks like everything went as planned.' She thinks as a wide grin splits her face which is half hidden by her high collar.

Without a word the woman lifts off the ground and floats into the sky with both her hand held behind her back.

'I need to find a place to make my base and start building the foundations for my plan. If my observations of the other owners of a divine seed are accurate then there is a god of nature or plants, light or holy, war or fighting and death or undeath. And then there is me, a goddess of empires and conquest.' Flying over the white stretches of the seemingly frozen lands the woman's eyes fixate onto a lone mountain in the far distance.

'Hm, that should do.' Changing her course, she directly makes her way to the mountain.

'I was carful to define my powers clearly, and because I didn't bother resisting, I have gained pretty much exactly what I desired at the expenses of my former personality, morals and values.' Losing part of her grin the woman becomes a bit more somber.

'It doesn't matter now, the old me has already died once so it is time to try out something new and its not like I can change it anymore.' Getting rid of her negative thoughts she instead focuses on the quickly approaching mountain.

'There should be plenty of ores and materials present here for me to build my base and core of my empire.' Altering her course a bit, the silver haired woman starts to circle around the mountain.

'At the beginning until things start rolling, I will have to remain somewhat lowkey. Once I have the base covered and worked out the heavier flaws in my system things should start to take up a peace.' Landing in front of a nice cliff side at the base of the mountain the woman grabs her saber's hilt and unsheathes it slowly.

"Heed the call of thy god empress…" She chants in an authoritative tone that caused the surroundings to grow silent and heavy.

"I call upon my loyal servants forged by my will and power…" Raising the saber into the sky her words cause the blade to vibrate as it slowly starts glowing in a light blue light.

"Descend from my divine realm and appear before me to fulfill thy purpose of servitude to thy master." Blue particles explode out of her raised saber and disperse into the surroundings where they once again gather into seventy-seven clusters.

Lowering her saber who no longer glowed blue, the woman watches how the blue particles start to fade revealing seventy-seven kneeling figures.

'Their design may still need a bit of work but it's more than enough for now.' She thinks as she gazes at the small army of automatons.

They differ in size, number of limbs and tools or weapons, but each of them wears a military uniform similar in style to the woman only that they lack any golden accents.

Sheathing her saber, the woman turns away from her mechanical servants and stares at the snow-covered cliff side.

'I'm going with the Star Wars imperium style, yeah holding it black and grey… hm maybe a bit of silver here and there.' She continues to stare at the cliff until she had the basics of the design she wants for her empire down.

Turning to look at the silent and seemingly frozen army of automatons already covered in a thin layer of snow she smiles.

"Time to get working my minions." She commands the machines with a teasing tone and watches how the once silent army of metal begins to rise and stomp in the direction of the cliff side.

With swords, axes, spears, hammers and claws the machines start cutting into the stone while automatons with scepters and wands exude blue light that makes the lose stone float out of the way where it gets compressed into solid blocks of stone.

Within a mere hour, the machines have already dug out multiple tons of stone while a smooth throne of stone was built in front of the cliff side.

Taking a seat on the throne and crossing her legs while resting her left elbow on the armrest to hold her head, the woman closes her eyes.

'My servants should take care of the base, I on the other hand should start working on my divine realm. I need an afterlife where the souls of my citizens will go, and I'll be able to continue to profit from them.' Diving into her own mind the woman starts to manipulate the divinity from the seed granted to her by the giant white being.

Carefully weaving the divinity into the image of a giant moving city similar to the mirror dimension form the marvel universe.

She remains working on that ignores the little movement she felt when the automatons lift the stone throne off the ground and carry it into the giant hall they had dug out of the cliff and covered the walls in smoot black stone.

The automatons are practically avatars of the woman and are directly connected to her, so they dont really need any instructions to operate.

Days stretch into weeks and the base inside the mountain continues to expand as a multitude of hallways and rooms are dug out.

After a full month the bass in the cliff side has become a full-blown cathedral with a giant underground complex.

Many of the rooms are filed with ores the automatons have come across in their excavation process and a couple of automatons are busy at work to process them into nice bars that are stored in another room.

"Phew… That was a lot of work." Rubbing the bridge of her nose the woman finally opens her eyes after a full month of motionlessly sitting on the stone throne who has been upgraded multiple times over the course of the month.

Looking around and witnessing the glorious hall made up of lustrous black stone with silver and golden lines pulling through it, the woman couldn't help but stare at the amazing sight for a while.

'Before moving on onto the next thing on my list I should make a tour around the base and look at what my servants have been doing while I was out.' Rising from her throne she walks down the flight of stairs and towards the giant gate leading out of the throne hall.

Walking through the giant underground complex of her base the woman appreciates the architecture of the whole thing.

It took her more than two days to tour the entire thing, but it was totally worth it in her eyes.

The automaton's have built a forge of massive size to better process all the ore's they have been mining and started to make an assembly line for more automatons.

Sadly, right now the woman has now way to power more automatons.

She could activate them, but they would be nothing like the seventy-seven she summoned as they would lack the ability for independent thoughts and would need to be recharged every once in a while.

Commanding them through her summoned automatons also wouldn't work as they are working on subconscious commands from her and don't have the ability to command others.

But that isn't much of a problem as she already has a solution planed out for this.

Moving on, there are also multiple farms for mushrooms that the automatons found in the occasional caves they came across and will serve as basic food when organic vassal's join under her rule.

'If I want to make my empire self-sufficient I need to get out and collect different samples of plants to breed for my purposes. Luckily that aligns perfectly with my next step anyway, so this should be easy.' Walking down the snow covered steps of the cathedral built inside the cliff side of the lone mountain in this ice and snow covered wild lands, the woman takes a deep breath of the cold air.

'Time to get moving again.' With that she takes off the ground and flies into the sky.