I opened a gate to the end of the forest near the village wall and tossed the bodies of the goblins through it. The guards would find them eventually, and the story of the children would be further vindicated.

  I was interested to see how the children would go about explaining this situation to the adults of the village. What they would say about the drones now bound to them, and how the adults would react to introducing blasphemy against their god, Rel. Surely there would be no small amount of worry or outright denial of these 'gifts' amongst them.

  Perhaps they would surprise me and allow the existence of the drones to continue after it was made apparent they posed no threat.

  As the gate winked out, I looked into the moonlit sky, recalled my drone and then lifted off the ground.

  Passing through the branches and leaves, I allowed myself to drift into a state of semi-conscious reminiscing, thinking back to my time spent in the heart of my God with Ava.

  Though it had only been a day, I could feel the weight of loneliness settling onto my soul, and the thought of there being countless thousands of years before seeing her again hurt me.

  She had been introduced to me in order to prevent my soul from rebelling against my purpose. Sculpted by our God in order to soothe the transition from human to reforged Ingot. A simulacrum of humanity to give me something to latch onto and invest in, a source of familiarity and comfort.

  Long before my God had plucked my soul from the stream of life circulating through all of known time and space, I had been a simple construct of flesh and blood. Milling about on the surface of my planet, oblivious to the greater forces at work around us.

  For as much as Ava had told me I wasn't some special soul, chosen for my extreme aptitude in any number of fields, I couldn't help but hold on to the feeling that I was, in fact, special.

  After all, I had been chosen; it was me conducting my God's work. Despite my best efforts, and contrary to Ava's assertions, I wondered to myself about why it had been me.

  Prior to attaining my machine-body, I did not possess the ability to recall events with crystal clarity, and it appeared as though that did not retroactively carry over to memories after attaining my enhanced form. So, realistically, there was no way for me to know with certainty that there wasn't something special about myself that would have garnered my God's attention.

  I scraped through the knowledge I did have, searching for some hint as to my extraordinary nature, scanning through years—decades of memories as though flipping through the pages of a picture album.

  A happy-enough childhood, parents of middling success, close friends and acquaintances, standard education, a stable career in an uninteresting field, no long-term romantic relations, no dealings with law enforcement either good or bad.

  And that was it.

  By all accounts, I had been about as average as a human could get, smack-dab in the middle of the bell curve. I had been, likely, the finest example of how average a human could be.

  So... was that it? Was it that simple? Could this be an instance where the easiest answer was the correct one? Was I chosen because I had been at the apex of the aggregate? My God had wanted someone as 'Middle-of-the-road' as possible? Not some 240 IQ genius or trained-from-birth athlete, it wanted someone from the baseline?

  I racked my brain over what possible advantage that could be for my God, how would someone as uninteresting as me be a better choice than someone at the forefront of the human condition, breaking boundaries in science or mathematics, finely tuning their body into the height of mechanical perfection. I didn't understand, even with the incomparable power of the brain I'd been given.

  But every simulation I ran, every computation I tabulated, every single number I crunched led to the same conclusion. It boiled down to a 50/50 between dumb luck and targeted selection.

  If I chose to believe Ava, then I was the product of her so-called divine lightning strike, a cosmic coincidence, a soul randomly plucked from its body and thrust into divine duty. If I chose to disregard her words, then I would need to believe that my God had chosen me specifically for my lack of excellence.

  And if that were the case, then I would need to determine exactly how it was that my specific list of traits would be of benefit to my Lord God.

  I drifted lazily through the air, trailing slightly behind the minuscule black hole suspending my mass, thinking madly about my position. Every calculation my God produced was for a purpose, to solve some equation or problem. Assuming the infallible nature of my God, then selecting me was the result of one of these computations.

  It had calculated me into existence, through one factor or another, every aspect of humanity had already been accounted for and played a role in its solutions. So then, it would stand to reason that above all other factors, my mediocrity had to be something it was weighting the equation for.

  It then occurred to me the sheer amount of power I'd been given. Throughout all human history, power had been the single most effective thing to drive conflict. Those without power sought it, those with power sought more of it, and those who lost power sought to get it back.

  As I considered this, I began to suspect that the simple fact I'd only just come to think of the power as something I possessed may have been a factor in my God's selection. There was absolutely no desire for me to use this gift for my own self-satisfaction, only the desire to wield it for my God and my purpose.

  I knew dimly that I'd detected the dwelling of goblins below me, located just outside a fairly wide cave entrance on the side of a moderate foothill. I hadn't been actively keeping track of my surroundings while I travelled, relegating that task to my subconscious instead.

  The unbroken blanket of forest stretched to the horizon in all directions. Bright fires dotted the encampment as dozens of small creatures shuffled around makeshift tents and iron-barred cages.

  The mouth of the cave had been crudely gated off, and there were a couple of sturdier-looking goblins standing guard.

  Diverting a small amount of my focus back to reality, I noted the cages had what looked to be other humanoids inside them, some of which had other, demi-human traits.

  Fluffy ears, bushy tails, scaled skin and stony protrusions—there seemed to be quite the cultural mixing pot of races being corralled by the goblins. Most individuals seemed to be female, but there was a smattering of male members among them as well.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  I speculated these captives were destined for lives of slavery or forced breeding, possibly an eventual food supply if the goblins had trouble hunting, or if they became bored enough.

  I began my descent, this time quite a bit less meteorically as my last encounter with the diminutive green creatures.

  These goblins were significantly better armed than the group I'd stopped in the forest. Likely, they had forgone the cumbersome armour and weapons being worn by the bunch stationed here in order to make for a swift trip.

  There were thick leathers, ring mail, barbute helms, pikes, clubs, short swords, daggers, bucklers, iron boots and gauntlets. Really, it looked to me like the Goblins had simply worn whatever they'd looted from corpses or stolen from prisoners; there was no organisation whatsoever in their group.

  ***

  As I dropped into the centre of their encampment, the goblins raised an alarm, furiously racing to intercept my progress. As all of this happened around me, I remained stuck within my thoughts, allowing a separate part of my mind to automate the dismantling of the goblin camp.

  Clearly my God had biassed its selection process to favour someone more likely to follow the will of another, someone who was less likely to 'rock the boat', as it were. It also needed someone who hadn't had any significant struggles with power, whether that had been having too much of it, or not enough.

  Someone who had always had 'just enough' so there wasn't a desire for more, or the understanding of what having too much was like.

  The first goblin approached me, lifting a cracked and dulled spear towards my head. It barked questions at me.

  "Who?! What want?! Big Boss will kill!"

  I shifted my eyes to the creature and barked back, still sunken into my thoughts.

  "Big Boss where? Deal make, take to Big Boss, no kill you!"

  I could see its head virtually implode as, likely for the first time in its life, something had spoken back at it in its own tongue that wasn't another goblin.

  It shook its head, discarding the last 2 seconds of its life in an attempt to return to a format it understood: threaten its target and then either fight or flee, so I decided to head it off at the pass. A concentrated beam of microwaves passed through its skull and boiled its brain.

  As the goblin hit the ground, I turned to the next goblin and repeated my statement. I would repeat this process until either there were no more goblins or there was one smart enough to accept my terms.

  Naturally, I could understand why my God would look for someone who wouldn't take the power and go rogue, but it put me at a significant disadvantage in terms of universal conquest. Though, I suspected it was likely the safest route to take when being forced to incorporate an unaltered human soul.

  The next goblin dropped to the ground, faint bubbling sounds emanating from its skull.

  I had no prior experience dominating other lifeforms, let alone any significant knowledge in how to develop a religion that would spread across all known universes.

  A goblin's sword bounced and skittered off of my back as I attempted to communicate with the next one in line, I grabbed my would-be attacker by the skull as it attempted to retreat and rally, then used it as a shield to block the incoming spear thrust of the goblin who'd listened to my request.

  Catching the spear with the goblin's lower intestines, I ripped it out of the wielder's hands before grabbing its skull with my other hand.

  As they dangled, helpless, in my hands, I slowly smashed their heads together until my hands met in the middle. I began my next round of requests.

  I had the feeling that the knowledge I'd been gifted was an attempt to make up for my lack of experience and to give me a fighting chance at completing the task laid out before me by my God.

  Essentially, I'd been set loose on this universe with literally infinite energy, and no oversight on how to best use it. I could realistically abandon my efforts and just do whatever I pleased. There were no lines of code in my brain directing me to obey and nothing in me that would self-destruct if I were to join another God against my own. So everything I did here was strictly at my own discretion.

  After the next goblin fell to the ground with a steaming head, I decided negotiations had fallen through and proceeded to make my way towards the gated cave entrance, slaughtering the remaining goblins where they stood.

  The humanoids within the cages hadn't made a sound after the first few attacks, likely still trying to determine if I was a threat to them or not. I turned to look at them and they simply stared back, uncomprehending about what they'd witnessed, I held up a hand in a placating gesture, trying to mime a 'Just hold on for a bit' motion, before resuming my trek towards the gate.

  One humanoid finally ran to the bars of their cage and shouted a warning to me; it was the same dialect Seta spoke, so piecing it together wasn't necessary.

  They mentioned a monster within the cave, a beast of unequalled power, a threat to the entire kingdom. I pondered this briefly before determining that if the creature in the cave truly was a threat to the kingdom, it wouldn't have holed up in some shitty cave on the side of a foothill with some weak goblins running its compound.

  I dismissed the concern with a wave over the shoulder as I continued my march toward the gated cave entrance.

  The two larger goblins readied their weapons and widened their stance, clearly unsure whether to fight or flee.

  They were slightly shorter than me, standing just shy of 2 metres tall, significantly taller than the other goblins, and looked to be more than 350 pounds of solid muscle each. Their helms were tusked, and the Iron Kite shields they held had to have weighed as much, if not more, than the goblins themselves.

  I suspected they might actually be orcs, not goblins.

  One hefted a great battle-axe over its head and then charged me, duty obviously overcoming its will to live. Rather than cook its brain, I engaged it on its own terms, raising my fists in a loose boxer's stance.

  I'd never fought something hand-to-hand like this before and thought the opportunity to put my body through its paces would be advantageous. As it charged, it released a savage war-cry, and immediately my sensors detected a spike in energy from its body.

  I cranked my processing time to its maximum and observed the waves of radiation flowing off its body. They looked to me to be radio waves, but as if they'd been shaped, twisted, and warped by some unseen force, almost as if they'd been bent and folded by the will of the orc.

  I ran them through my list of waves, and the closest match I could line them up to was theta brain waves. Upon further inspection, shifting through my spectrum of sight, I discovered a small, crystal-like structure located within the orcs abdomen omitting a small but constant pulse of radiation, rings floated away from its body with every pulse, forming a bright, and orc-shaped aura around it.

  The crystal was likely responsible both for the sudden discharge of energy and the subsequent shaping of the wave; it was directed so that the cone of effect would encompass my body. Rather than be blindly hit by it, I would need to determine its effect, or dodge it.

  The beam drifted lazily through the air towards me at the speed of light, which confused me slightly as, if the effects onset was immediate, then it would have hit me before the sound waves could reach me. Clearly there was some kind of buffer—or condition—that needed to be met before the pulse was emitted. Likely, the battle cry from the orc initiated the pulse.

  Thoroughly interested, I began referencing every combination of theta wave effect and the context of the situation in which it had been produced. I realized this wave was designed to interfere with a humanoid theta wave, which, in turn, was responsible for cognitive and behavioural conditions.

  So it was trying to change how I thought. Was it meant to have a fear effect? Perhaps it was meant to stun me or cause me to flee? Regardless, whatever effect this particular wave was meant to have on me wouldn't activate, since my brain no longer existed in a physical sense.

  My mind had been replaced with a miraculous ball of splitting and rejoining atoms; my thoughts existed in a quantum soup of quarks. There were no theta waves to interrupt or alter.

  I reduced the speed of my mind and let the wave pass harmlessly over me. I could feel the pressure of it pass over my sensors and then effortlessly side-stepped the orc's axe as it arced down past my face.

  Bringing my fist around, I landed a right hook across its cheek—at least, that's what I thought I did. Instead, my fist passed through the orc's skull, easily separating its skin, flesh, bone and teeth from one another.

  The face it once had, along with bits of the helmet that once covered it, sprayed across the camp's courtyard in a fine, bloody mist.

  Its momentum carried the corpse past me, crumpling into a heap a metre or so behind me on the ground. The second Orc dropped its axe and ran for the forest, seemingly having lost its will to protect whatever hid on the other side of the gate.

  I extended a hand and manipulated the gravity surrounding the fleeing orc, crushing it into virtual non-existence. The temporary interest of my brawl with the orc and whatever power it had generated against me faded as I resumed my existential contemplation, walking towards the gated cave.

  I'd finally settled on the reason my God had chosen me, or at the very least, why It'd chosen someone like me. I could accept this reason, and a part of me thought that accepting Ava's offered explanation would have been the simpler path.

  She would laugh at me for that, and probably was, given that she'd said they would be watching me. But I needed to work this out for myself, if not for the certainty, then for the sheer spiteful reason of having come to this answer myself.

  Now that I'd concluded that particular issue, I had to tackle why, exactly, it was that I felt obligated to serve my God. As I'd determined, there was nothing in me that forced my submission to it, nothing coded into my being that would motivate me to follow its will, so why choose this God over the others? What if there were another god that I preferred over it?

  I reached the wooden gate. It was 3 metres tall and made of roughly cut timber; it had obviously been thrown up in a rush and wasn't terribly sturdy looking. While this would have likely kept a normal human out, excluding significant damage from fire or axes, it might as well have been made of cardboard to me.

  I split off several whip-like appendages from my torso and wrapped them around the boards of the gate. Setting my feet, I hauled back on the boards and tore them from the structure, hurling them into the air and beyond the edge of the encampment over 30 metres away.

  I proceeded into the cave.