19 Secrets

At the same instant that the castle's invaders, or rather "reclaimers" brought down the castle's drawbridge, a strange phenomenon occurred in the depths of the castle. In the very same chamber where the multi-colored, swirling portal that led to the alien world of Mareth, the occupants of the castle had thrown away, unknowingly, another incredible treasure, one that began to come to life rather abruptly.

The chamber where the portal was located was one in the depths of the castle. Situated near the bottom of the strange and old structure, the chamber was a square, dimly lit room where the strange colonizers from Mareth had deposited many of the treasures they had found throughout the noble structure overlooking Spree but those weren't the only things that filled the room.

In the months since the portal to and from Mareth had first appeared, the room the portal existed in had become a storage place. And like in many storage places, the people who used it did not exactly differentiate between treasures and trash. One of the piles of items in the room was made up of trash, at least for the most part. Inside of this pile of trash was one item that was far from garbage, a strange and out-of-place remote control.

The bright blue remote control had remained inert for several months, even before it was brought into Mareth by the demon who slew the object's last owner.

Nevertheless, the mysterious object began to emanate a white light as it was suddenly revitalized by the nearby presence of someone from Earth, the criteria by which the object was capable of attuning to someone. And then the mighty remote control began to hum.

Distantly, the monsters who would have been patrolled the room a few minutes from now were called by their fellows. They were being tasked with confronting the mysterious invaders who had come to the castle. If they hadn't been, who knows if they would have noticed the remote control suddenly coming to life? Perhaps their fates would have been averted if only they had noticed the remote's strange behavior.

Regardless, this was not a story about them. This was a story about the figure who would come to own the remote, a figure mighty enough that even at this very moment he knew about the remote. And every second brought him closer to the mysterious Earth-artifact.

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I was not content to lead from the back when the time came for my minions and me to confront our foes. As we strode across the drawbridge I heard the distant sounds of the castle's guards preparing themselves to come and challenge us.

The area just beyond the castle's drawbridge consisted of a strangely preserved and well-kept courtyard.

The courtyard wasn't enormous but was easily big enough to contain my army, me, and had my pet wanted to come down even it could have joined us and we'd only occupy perhaps a quarter of the total space of the courtyard. The floor of the courtyard was made up of marble that had long ago lost its color and was now both broken and a stark white.

"Be ready." I uttered, opting to physically speak despite the fact that all of my allies were connected to each other and myself by the Blacklight virus and thus could transmit thoughts telepathically to each other. My followers nodded, and they picked up the pace as we strode across the bridge, and as we cross where it had once stood, barring entrance to us, we all began to grin maniacally.

Above where we stood we could distinctly hear the mayhem of my spider-pet. None of my minions were afraid of the strange creature as we all knew that it was one of my creations and it was as tethered to the collective hivemind of the Blacklight virus as any of us were.

Beyond that, even my minions were beginning to feel tethered to the orcs who had been bitten by my pet and as they did I could feel their excitement beginning to grow as readily as mine had when my pet first added the orcish minds to the portion of us that was made up of a singular consciousness.

The secrets that the orcs knew getting added to the collective hivemind that bound every single Blacklight infectee meant that we all knew the layout of the castle. It meant that we knew the names of most of the castle's inhabitants.

It even meant that we knew what to expect in Mareth, the world that the goblin named Tamani was from. And it meant that we knew about the assorted treasures laying in wait in the depths of the castle.

When the last of my minions had just made it into the castle's courtyard we were joined by the two orcs that my spider had only turned into Blacklight infectees who joined us by deftly leaping from atop the castle walls and landing with two loud crunches as they cracked the very floor of the courtyard around them.

I nodded at them and they quickly walked to us, their eyes now filled with a maniacal fanaticism towards myself and their fellow infectees.

The orcs were muscular warriors, though they were lither than one might have expected. Since I now knew them I was able to accurately say that this was due to their training focusing on speed more than on raw strength. This caused them to have more solid muscle definition than a human warrior would, but less than their fellow orcs typically did, including their peers who had been less lucky than they had been.

In front of us, the distant sounds of warriors approaching from inside of the castle began to become decidedly less distant and my warriors and servants activated some of the more potent Blacklight abilities; the power to turn their limbs into weapons.

Some of my minions, as in the species, began to turn their limbs into whips and guns, while the orcs transformed their limbs into brutal-looking swords. Curiously, all of my lesser warriors, as in everyone aside from the netherghul, covered themselves in thick, metal-like bio-armor.

The sight of hundreds of creatures aside from myself and my "generals" wearing the thick bi0-plating of the "Armor" power was an intimidating one. Seeing the legion I commanded shrouded in the natural and thick armor of our group made me eager to shed blood and to rather forcefully assimilate creatures as hardy as trolls into my army.

The first warriors to dash out of the narrow entrance into the castle were two thin but speedy werewolves. The furry bipeds sprinted out of the castle's mouth and moved at us at a speed that would have surely overwhelmed a human but was negligible to someone like me who had the raw power and sensory capability of a Living God.

To me, and even to my minions, the twin werewolves were crawling towards us. I motioned to my allies to allow me to handle this one and glanced at the werewolves. Unfortunately for my enemies, for someone as vastly powerful as I was even the act of observing my foes was a powerful move.

As I studied my foes I felt their knowledge, wisdom, and memories seeping into me due to the raw and incredible might of something fairly new that was emerging within me; psychometric abilities.

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With every single usage of my powers, I was growing stronger and stronger. This was due to a number of things working in unison to bolster my personal power, namely powers such as "Power Matrix", "Eternal Ascension", and even alien powers such as "Skillful", working to uncap the otherwise limited amount of growth I could gain from each individual usage of any of my powers.

These learning and experience boosters were allowing me to feel each facet of the growth of my abilities, and more than that they were able to allow me to identify the names of the psychic abilities I was capable of utilizing.

I could feel my mind growing and expanding, especially now that I was actively extending my senses across two entire planets which was passively and significantly causing my psychic abilities to grow at an intense pace. Almost as quickly as I could think I could feel my psychic powers growing in every measurable way.

The power inside of me was growing rapidly and that only further fueled my ambitions. With every passing second, my influence and wisdom were tremendously expanding. It was time for my enemies to learn that.

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The scene in the castle courtyard was a strange one and anyone who lacked the sort of high-speed senses that the participants had would not have been able to fully appreciate it. The werewolves, immensely speedy beasts that by all accounts were orders of magnitude faster than mere minions sped out of the narrow doorway that led into the castle.

They were bipedal man-beasts who held silver rapiers in their furred hands. They were able to effortlessly overcome their race-wide weakness to silver, having long ago learned to ignore the burning pain the weapons caused them.

The pair were siblings, and they moved with the practiced ease of killer assassins on a mission. They were incredibly casual about what they were about to do and possessed a sort of confidence one could only find in true professionals.

The two warriors wore leather armor and they leaped as one at the leader of the castle's invaders. They sped through the air, rapiers drawn and pointed at their enemy. In their eyes, the figure hadn't moved once since they began their investigation.

This wasn't true, but it was due to their weakness that they couldn't detect him since they weren't fast enough to catch the creature's eyes flickering in their direction and greedily absorbing every scrap of information his psychometric powers fed him.

In the eyes of the immensely speedy Living God they had come here to assassinate this was taking an eternity.

He was patiently waiting for them to come close enough that he could lash out with his own weapon, his senses and speed at a level vastly beyond theirs due to his "Medaka Sue" power bolstering his physique and physiology to levels that allowed him to move at speeds trillions of times the speed of light if he were to move at his real maximum speed.

That particular power, which was already broken by its very nature, happened to intersect perfectly with his nature as a Living God.

Since his baseline physique as a member of a race that was so infinitely strong compared to humanity, his particular version of "Medaka Sue" was also unfathomably more powerful, touching quite perfectly the potent power known as "Eternal Ascension".

By the time the werewolves had drawn close enough for Fohio to lash out with his blade, he felt like an eternity had passed. Nevertheless, the warrior's blade lashed out at the rapiers of the werewolves.

The blade danced through the air as he wielded it against his enemies and revealed a level of swordsmanship innately at the level of an expert, even if no one was able to observe it other than himself. His mighty blade effortlessly cleaved through their own skinny swords, unable to handle the raw, oppressive might of the Living God standing before them.

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"I see you. Pathetic pups, assassins who have been inexpertly deployed to try and stop a fight from happening." I complained as the werewolves who had come to kill me watched their blades fall apart in their hands. They were still in mid-air and yelped in unison when their weapons abruptly fell apart in their hands.

"You believe yourselves experts because you can handle adventurers." I uttered, aware of every single memory, thought, and secret these siblings had ever had. I chuckled and began to do something I had never done before; activate a "style".

"You fools. How dare you step to me without testing my power first." I muttered, activating the fury-inducing might of "Provocations" a "Style" that allowed me to piss off people to whom my words were directed.

The power infused my words with pride and arrogance, making them extra infuriating even beyond how maddening they would have been to these pure werewolves. The two howled in response to my words and I saw their brown eyes fill with rage.

Their howls were quite loud, and the least of my servants; my minions, all leaped back in response to the sound. Not all of my servants were so weak-willed, however, and I chuckled when I heard the muscles of one such servant of mine tense in response to the howl, before the figure wordlessly hurled one of its twin axes at the werewolf closest to me.

Hakon, the dwarven member of the netherghul, watched his axe sail through the air and smiled smugly when the axe embedded itself deep in the shoulder of one of the assassins.

"That's it." I muttered, even as blood began to drip down the shoulder of the werewolf. It was time for battle!