My ear twitched as I picked up the crying of a child and I couldn't help but let out an angry snarl. These fools, although indoctrinated, still harbored doubts. Especially the children. To show them the glory of the kill, I even had the parents of all the disobedient children executed in front of them. Yet, even after this amazing display and bathing them in the blood of their life-givers, some of them just would not understand. They were weak, and I was just about fed up. I sent out a telepathic command, and the crying stopped soon after, accompanied by a satisfying crunch.

Good old Red, always reliable.

I let my gaze wander over the village from my spot next to the throne I had built. It was a glorious throne, adorned with the skulls of hundreds of monsters, towering even over the tallest building in the village. An effigy to the lord, to remind the residents of his glory. I would never dare seat myself upon it, so I spent my time close by, guarding it from a nearby roof. The asphons out on the street made it a point not to look in my direction as they went about their business, which was something I could not understand. The throne was right next to me and I could barely take my eyes off it, why did they not revere it like I did?

They may need a reminder.

My thoughts strayed and I remembered the day that we arrived on this layer, surprised to find intelligent monsters, capable of communicating. I held back my urge to kill in order to hear them out. It wouldn't do to kill without receiving their knowledge. What if they also followed the teachings of Trahnesh? It would be rude to slaughter a fellow believer before exchanging praises for the lord. They got really excited when I agreed to follow them to their village, citing that their small settlement had never had the pleasure of welcoming a traveler before.

They seemed excited enough, making me believe they were willing to learn. I couldn't have been further from the truth. After meeting their leader I learned about the intricacies of this layer and the requirements to descend. Most worryingly, I would need permission from the leader in order to descend. I was told in no uncertain terms that he would never give "a lunatic like me" permission, which was when I realized my mistake.

Of course, this was yet another test by the lord.

I had been blinded by the first intelligent contact in a long while, making me lose sight of the fact that this planet was a crucible to forge the perfect apostle. I was reminded of my time on earth. How I had to slink about in the shadows, avoiding the watchful eye of the law. How weakness had suffused the entire planet, and the true way of life was scorned. How I'd been an outcast from the very beginning, the only reliable thing being my own cunning.

It stood to reason that in this new reality, there would be a similar need to stay underground and this was a test to gauge my abilities. The problem was, that I'd already foolishly blown my cover. I despaired, before noticing that I hadn't been smote where I stood. I hadn't failed yet. The test must have changed from an undercover operation to a management test. Taking over this village and converting everyone, thus earning permission to descend, yes, that was the new test.

I feigned defeat and left the leader's office, immediately starting work on a new plan. What followed was a masterclass of information gathering, where I expertly commanded my pack to get into places where I shouldn't have. I learned everything there was to know, and when the time was right, I struck. We killed the asphons responsible for communication with the other settlements. I set up a perimeter to make sure nobody could leave, before publicly executing the useless leader.

I continued to kill until somebody stepped forward, willing to act as my puppet. From there on out it was smooth sailing. I slowly worked on converting the villagers to my cause by holding faith-empowered sermons multiple times a day. It warmed my heart to see the people slowly coming around to the truth. It was smooth sailing from there on, until I realized I couldn't complete any city-tier quests for my bonus objective.

Another test.

Slowly, and carefully, we invaded nearby settlements, strategically removing their leaders and replacing them with my puppets. It took time, but I eventually managed to get four villages and one city under my paw. That's when it happened.

Another traveler had descended to the seventh layer.

It was unmistakable, the whole layer being alerted to their descent. This had to be my final test. Even though it was forbidden, I had acquired the knowledge of what would happen on the eighth layer. It would take some time before this other traveler would be ready to descend, so I dedicated my time to improving myself as much as possible before the fated hour. I denied my follower's offers of information about the traveler, wanting our fight to be as natural as possible, simply instructing them to inform me when they decided to descend.

For now, I'd send out my pack to kill the monsters in our territory, participating myself on occasion to still the urge. After all, the system rewarded me for every one hundred kills. Truly a blessing of the lord. I'd continue to grow stronger, slaughtering thousands, and reaping the benefits.

Until that fated day.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

I awoke slowly, the memory of pain echoing throughout my body, even though I was perfectly healthy after my evolution. I shuddered, remembering the excruciating pain of evolution, once again not having managed to stay awake throughout the whole thing. One day. One day I'd do it, and the reward would be epic.

Hopefully.

The first thing I noticed was that my eyesight had drastically improved. I'd had a similar experience when I upgraded my eyes the first time, but it felt like I was truly seeing for the first time. Everything was so much sharper than before and I felt like I could see some more colors than before. It was a strange experience, a tad disorienting, but ultimately pretty nice. Once I got used to my new visual acuity, I took a good look at myself.

Not a lot had changed, seemingly. Most of my mutations had been internal, so that was to be expected. The evolution did make me get bigger, though. Unlike my past evolutions where I'd mostly just gotten bigger in general, this evolution seemed to focus on making me longer. I was still just about the same width and height, but I'd grown longer by at least fifty percent. I curiously extended my tentacles, noting that they had shifted positions slightly. A bit of experimenting proved that I could still use them to lift my body off the ground and walk around, but I needed to take extra care to not let my rear droop too low, or it would scrape along the ground.

Curious about my new abilities, I activated my new skill, adult form. And, before my very eyes, my body began to shrink. While it didn't hurt, it was still an odd feeling. It felt like my body was getting compressed to my old size. When it was complete, I still felt a bit of pressure, but all in all, it felt almost normal. I noticed that I didn't completely revert to the time my adult form was saved, but rather just, the size I was back then. Seeing my longer self at the size I was before was a bit odd, so I reverted back to my new normal. The change back felt freeing like a weight was lifted off my body.

For now, this skill mostly felt like a novelty, but I'm sure it would be a game-changer in the future.

After having my fun, I couldn't help but finally address the elephant in the room. My new and improved void feelers. They had become longer, alongside my body, and had become almost ethereal. I wasn't entirely sure if they'd just gotten more transparent, or if they actually started shifting out of reality, but it looked pretty cool. What was even crazier was the amount of information I was getting from them. Before, I could vaguely feel where things were, and other beings felt like a hole in reality that I could track through walls. Now? It felt like I'd gotten a second pair of eyes that could look into a different plane of existence.

I guess that was exactly what they were.

I couldn't help but smirk when I realized that Redax was in the room with me, hidden behind layers and layers of stealth skills. Looks like Redax had just permanently lost the little game we had going on. I'd spook him later, but for now, I needed to figure out my new body. Sifting through the input from both my new eyes and my void feelers was a bit much right now, so to experiment in peace, I retracted my eyes. For a second, everything went black, but when I properly focused on my new sense of sight, I felt like an omniscient god. Well, that was maybe a bit of an overstatement, but the way I could seemingly see… everything in a certain radius around myself was crazy.

An educated guess put the range of my feelers at about thirty meters, which wasn't crazy out in the field, but in a city like this? I would imagine there were rules against something like this. The manor I was staying at had a sizable garden, but I could still see into the houses of some of our neighbors, not to mention everything that was going on out in the street. Well, seeing was probably the wrong word. I could perfectly sense my surroundings. Gone were the odd holes in reality, and in their stead, I could feel the outlines of people all around me, feeling their movements in real-time. Nimma was currently in the kitchen cooking lunch for everybody, while Orbos and Andrius were sitting at the living room table, playing cards with each other. I could even tell that Orbos was winning.

This new sensation would definitely take the most getting used to. Hopefully, I would be able to reconcile what I saw and what I felt into a coherent unity, or else I'd constantly get distracted.

I extended my eyes again and took a real close look at my skin. With my upgrade, I had no issue seeing the little symbiotes skittering across my body, doing whatever the little buggers did. Some testing would be necessary to see just how much armor they provided me now, but I was happy that the little guys were along for the journey for some reason. I quite liked them. They were kinda cute.

My little after-evolution inspection concluded I decided that a bite to eat would hit the spot right about now, so I started making my way out of the room, casually ignoring Redax as he began to follow along. I knew firsthand how sneaky the guy was, and the fact that I could now see him so clearly even though he was practically non-existent for everyone else right now, was amusing me to no end. I stopped at the top of the stairs, looking down at the two asphons playing cards. Their movements were perfectly lined up with what my feelers were telling me, with no lag at all.

I remained at that spot for a moment longer until the opportunity to strike finally presented itself. Redax had apparently decided that standing right next to me was no longer necessary and started making his way down the stairs. Well, he wanted to anyway. As soon as he took his first step, my tentacle snapped out and yanked at his leg, making him stumble. To his credit, his training kicked in and he barely managed to avoid completely eating shit, but he still created some unwanted noise, dropping his stealth once he was at the bottom.

"You'll have to step up your game from now on," I said with a smile plastered over my face, wiggling my void feelers around a bit. "I'm not the same slug I used to be."

Andrius and Orbos had both observed the whole thing once they heard the commotion and immediately started teasing Redax for getting found, while the asphon in question was content with looking at me. His tail betrayed his emotions, twitching ever so slightly in a display of mirth. Something that I could easily pick out due to my new senses. Nimma poked her head out of the kitchen to see what was happening but went back to her work after shaking her head in amusement.

I laughed with my friends as I came down the stairs, before realizing that there was just one more quest before I would have to move on. Sure, I should be able to come back and visit, but still. In a few days, I would generate the very first country-tier quest the asphons had ever seen. Anything could happen, and the newly formed country would immediately face destruction, all so I could face off against a stronger enemy. I felt a little bad, but I'd been assured that it was the least they could do for me.

And I was looking forward to it.

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