"Why?", The deity asked.
"Pardon?"
"Why do you want to serve me?", Azathoth added annoyed as he had to repeat himself.
"Oh!", Pestilence chuckled as he heard that only to be met with a death glare from his new master, "I-I chose to serve because I admire you. The way you look down on me, the way you kill those parasites called mortals, the way your aura makes every fiber of my body shiver in fear and the perfect way you behave and move, everything about you is absolute perfect! You are without a doubt the most beautiful creation."
Azathoth quickly grew embarrassed as he heard those words and cleared his throat as he spoke up, "Then I guess it's fine to have you as my first servant.", As he said those words his eyes wandered up and down, analyzing every fiber of the monster before him.
And what stood before the deity was indeed something unique even to him. It was a grotesquely fat humanoid monster, with sickly green skin festered with open sore wounds and oozing puss while his bloated face leers and is pulled back in an ironic smile filled with maggots and an immensely long tongue ending in a smaller twisted face inside his mouth craving for flesh. His two grand horns were, yellowed, chipped, and encrusted in blood while vile substances sprout from his head and kept spraying a yellow cloud out, infecting everything around him with all kinds of diseases.
Shivering by the sheer gaze of his lord's eyes that kept analyzing every inch of his body, Pestilence couldn't hold back anymore, "My-My lord, please order me around and use me to your hearts content, I wish for nothing more but serving your very words."
"Is that so? Then I want you to move this body of yours and kill this entire land. I want you to infect everything in this land and make it part of your army, you should have such a skill, right?"
"Yes, my lord.", With those words the monster raised his body up and walked away, starting his campaign of eternal torture and disease in the name of the Dark-Lord.
Happy about his successful summoning, Azathoth flew up and made himself on the way to the capital, ready to end the legacy of the thousand-year-old kingdom Iselone in a couple minutes. But on his way the deity noticed multiple destroyed fortresses and hideouts, making him remember the destroyed village he found earlier.
"Someone is stealing plates from my feast... Then let's make sure he becomes the main dish.", Saying that Azathoth smile grew, and he became massively faster, arriving at the capital in a matter of seconds, announcing his arrival by breaking the sound barrier.
"Hm... Strange... This isn't what I expected...", What laid before the deity was a destroyed city, purged down to the last soul, "Now I'm starting to get--", The deity suddenly stopped as he felt a slightly impressive amount of energy appear inside the destroyed castle, vanishing at the very same second.
"No! Not this time!!!", The deity stated as he shot towards the castle, flying through each and any wall that blocked his way until he appeared at the throne room.
"Ah... Shit... I've hoped to postpone our fight a little more."
"Finally.", The living chaos responded once the mist around him vanished, allowing him to see the one who robbed him of all the souls which he has already claimed as his.
It was a humanoid mix between a green octopus, a dragon and a human, gifted with two human-looking arms and legs, and a pair of dragon wings coming out of its back. Its head was an entire octopus looking directly at his target with an uncountable number of tentacles that punched the air beneath them, and yellow shining eyes that tried to look deep into the deities soul only for them to find nothing but black mist and red lighting.
"And here I though Pestilence was grotesque~"
"Don't you dare to say this name in my--", The octopus suddenly stopped mid-sentence as a sudden pain rushed to his head followed by a rush noise, forcing him to look down, "My Hand!!!", he screamed as he whimpered in pain.
"Oh! Sorry~ But you were wide open, and I couldn't miss such an opportunity~", Azathoth responded, holding up the missing hand.
"Bastard!!!", The octopus screamed as he gathered multiple different kinds of energies in his hand, creating an energy ball filled with so many colors one could think it was a galaxy. But without wasting a single second the octopus then also immediately threw his attack at Azathoth, not allowing him to stop him or attack him.
"Hm? What's that?", The deity asked delighted by the many colors, curious what this attack could do to him, forcing him to stay at his place and wait for it to hit him to see for himself.The moment the attack hit him he felt how the attack entered his body and destroyed him starting from the inside killing the deity on the spot, leaving only a hollow body behind.
The octopus laughed, as he claimed victory walking past the remains of Azathoth to end what he has started and kill the king. But as he did, he felt a tight grab on his leg followed by a massive force that threw him against the wall, crushing him inside.
"Urgh... What was- Impossible!!"
"Not really...", Standing before the octopus was no other than Azathoth completely unharmed as if he was never hit in the first place, "...This body is indeed my real body but still just flesh and organs, nothing I can't regenerate. If you really want to kill me, you probably need to destroy my soul and body at once without leaving a single trace behind. But for someone like you that's impossible, after all that attack just now was your strongest, right?~"
The octopus' expression drastically changed as he realized that he never was considered as an enemy in Azathoth's eyes but just mere toy which was a bit more interesting than the Elves of this land. This realization left the octopus with only one plan left.
"Wait! You can't kill me!"
"And why?"
"I'm no ordinary being! I'm an Old-One, a priest of the Outer-gods and worshipper of Yog. If you kill me, you will make my lord your enemy and trust me you don't want that."
"Outer-God? So, there are more of me? No... Why did I thought I was the only one to begin with?", The deity suddenly became a prisoner of his own thoughts as he tried to find answers he alone would never get, "How many are there, anyways?", The deity then asked, once he escaped his thoughts.
"There are... Or rather will? Well... Eighteen..."
"Eighteen? Quite the handful... We could need a 'Cleansing' don't you think?"
"What do you mean?", the Old-One asked scared, fearing the future fate of his beloved master.
"Oh~ I think you exactly know what I mean~"
"Don't you even dare to!!!--", Before the Old-One could continue his tongue was already separated and fell to the ground beneath Azathoth, who slowly started to approach him.
"You harvested quite the souls, haven't you?"
"I Wumrg grugl yourg a singrugl wone."
"Oh. I wasn't asking you; I just stated a fact.", Azathoth then rammed his entire arm inside the Old-One's very throat and ripped him of all the souls he harvested inside, "Not bad! I'm sure your master would've been very proud if you hadn't meet me."
"Yourg baschtad!! I Womt--", With just a swing of his hand the deity cut off the Old-One's head and ended his fate right then and there.
"His voice was slowly starting to annoy me... Urgh... Now I have all this black ink on my hand... I guess octopus stays octopus..."
Once he consumed the souls he ripped out of the Old-One powering up once more, Azathoth was ready to claim this land as his and link it with his own, but before he could do so he felt a familiar infecting aura enter the room.
"My lord, I have returned."
"I know, I'm not blind. And? Did you finish the task I gave you?"
"Yes. With this body and powers, you gifted me I was able to create an army under me. An army of corrupted servants who betrayed their race and chose to be born anew and serve you for all eternity."
"Perfect. Then let us begin.", Azathoth's eyes started to glow as he began to break the laws of space-time itself and connect his realm with this, claiming it as his.
The first thing to fall to his realm was the sky which turned blood red, with a black sun that illuminated the land and burned down every kind of magic that couldn't resist. The second to fall was the earth that lost all life and turned into a dead wasteland of its former self, swallowing all life that fell on it. And the last one that fell was the holy water of Iselone that slowly turned into a black and thick substance, consuming any life that comes in contact with it.
"It's beautiful in its own way, isn't it?"
"Indeed, my lord."
"Now then, please take care of the defenses and of the remaining survivors in this city, you can do with them as you please I don't care."
"You're too kind, my lord."
Walking out Azathoth started to lean against a wall once out of sight and started to breath heavily as he grabbed his chest, "This was harder than I thought... A couple second longer and my soul would've been torn apart... But now I can finally feel it, a bit of my power is returning.
But that won't be enough... I must become far stronger... Stronger than I was in the void. If not... Then I stand no chance against the heavenly or the celestial forces... Ha! Even the forces of Hell will be a problem with only my original powers... Looks like I have to change the plan I had in mind."