Creation

Damon awoke to an intense vibration reverberating within the tree.

'What an awful alarm.' He remarked as he yawned.

Suddenly, the memories of the past day set in.

Images of Varian's blood splattered onto the grass, the Earth being molded like clay, and the anguish of billions being ignored by a Divine Emissary flashed through his mind.

With his former shock gone, Damon was once again filled with anger.

"That bastard! I will kill him!" Damon screamed.

Golden flames began manifesting and started completely torching the tree. They quickly spread from his branch to the trunk of the tree itself.

As the flames began tearing away at his still active golden shield, Damon heard an annoying voice speak in his head.

'Control yourself you fool! Do you think some angry weakling can kill a God of the highest order?'

Damon snapped back to reality and saw the entire tree burning down around him.

The golden flames ate away at the tree like a devouring beast. All that was left in their wake was a void, for not even ash could survive.

'Rein in your emotions! As a God, your mere thoughts and feelings can effect reality.' The voice once again instructed.

"Who are you?" Damon frowned.

'I am the Artifact sent by the Company to help all of it's new employees survive and thrive.' It exclaimed proudly.

"How can I trust that you aren't some agent of that bastard?" Damon questioned with dark intent.

'If this thing is from him, I'll rip it out of me, even if it kills me.' Damon thought.

'There's no need to do that. I'm designed to be solely loyal to the being I bond with. Plus, our futures are intertwined. I'm connected to your divine spark. If you die, I die.'

"What do you mean by divine spark?" Damon asked.

'The divine spark is the core of any divine being. It connects the mind, body, and soul and allows them to work in tandem. This function is what allows Gods to control the tenets of Creation, Destruction, and Balance.'

"That is great and all, but how do I know if you're lying to me or not?" Damon asked.

The voice sighed. 'Look. I understand that you are untrusting because of what the "Almighty One" did to you and your friends, but I'm here to help you. The "Almighty One" is just another employee of ours and you can certainly get your revenge in the future. Your focus now, however, should be how to survive and conquer this world.'

"Fine." Damon said as he put away his thoughts of revenge for now.

"What should I do first?" Damon asked.

'I'm not going to tell you the answer to just anything. My main purpose is to educate you about your powers and help train you to become a powerful employee of the company, not to be your personal servant.'

'If my goal is to conquer this planet then I should first build a base. Somewhere I can be safe from all the various monstrosities I saw earlier.' Damon planned.

"Can I use the power of Creation to create anything?" Damon asked hopefully.

'Of course not you fool. To put it simply, what you create is limited by the power of your mind and soul. The stronger your soul, the more grand things you can imagine and create. The stronger your mind is, the less expensive the things you create are. This leads to your final limiter. You need to have enough knowledge about the general process of creating that thing. This knowledge helps reduce the energy cost of the object's creation as well as the strain it will cause to your mind.'

"Can I lessen the strain by doing the process slowly?"

'Yes. You will be filling in more details and thus your mind will be under less strain and you will need to use less energy.'

"Let me test it." Damon said as he began creating the blue fire he had used previously.

This time, he focused on the details that created this blue fire.

'The energy that I provide it will create the massive force and heat needed for me to fly while the flames themselves will suck in nearby oxygen in order to stay ablaze.'

With his detailing complete, Damon used the energy from his divine spark in order to create the blue flame. This time, however, it cost much less energy.

Damon decided to test this new means of travel and fully understand just how far he could push it.

After a few hours of testing, the sun fell past the horizon and Damon had made some findings.

There were three levels of energy output he could reasonably use.

A booster speed meant for rapid escape or travel. This speed, however, cost far too much energy for him to use it normally.

A cruising speed which could be used in normal travel and possibly during battle depending on the speed of the fighting.

And the maneuvering speed meant for dodging and low speed maneuvering either in battle or difficult terrain.

Upon discovering this, Damon activated booster speed and flew upwards. His plan was to build a base in one of the least accessible areas of the planet. The upper atmosphere, bordering space.

'Since most environmental effects seem to only minorly affect me, it should be safe to live up there. After all, even the crash during my planetfall didn't hurt me.' He concluded as he further neared the starry canvas above.

Feeling the oxygen thin considerably, Damon stopped and decided to build his base here. From above, he could only barely see the outline of the previously gargantuan forest and towering mountains.

Imagining a small stone manor, Damon directed half of his energy out of his core.

Over the next few hours, Damon would be forced to manually think out and create each room. This included the chairs, tables, and even the walls themselves.

Eventually, he sat in a green courtyard surrounded by stone walls. These walls enclosed a small stone manor that looked straight out of medieval Europe.

'I should complete the look. Some defenses could keep me safe while I rest.' Damon thought.

He used some earthly templates mixed with fantasy attacks in order to make his defenses. The first turret would be a hwacha, chock full of lightning arrows. These arrows would both be very fast and could spread their lightning if the opponents were within a few feet of each other. This would be a deadly force against a swarm.

Applauding himself for his creativity, Damon placed one of these at each corner of the manor. He also cleverly disguised them as some sort of stone decoration that had a gargoyle on it.

He continued with the theme of ancient weaponry as he added three ballistas on the peak of the manor. These ballistas would shoot one bolt each. Imbued within these bolts was a searing flame that could instantly cause third degree burns. The idea was that the fire would be able to cut through any armor or other defenses relying just upon the heat and kinetic energy built up. This would take care of any beast with armor too strong or a body too large for the Hwachas to handle.

As for the control of these weapons, Damon decided to input a small core within the base of each weapon. This core would store the divine essence needed to operate the weapon and would control the weapon to shoot at any creature that approached.

'Does this work, mystical being?'

'Yes. The principle behind it is quite simple. You input a part of your soul into the core and it develops an artifact consciousness that will be able to control the weapon to your desire. Also, you can refer to me as James.'

'I didn't need an explanation, James. I just needed to know that it worked.' Damon sighed.

With his defenses in place, Damon floated down and pushed open two large wooden gates. A rather plain stone manor, adorned with gargoyles and ancient weaponry, awaited him. Surrounding the stone manor was a high stone wall that left some space for a small walkway and garden.