Devils themselves were a species of pure and powerful Magic; Demonic Energy and Devil Magic were second nature to their entire race. Even those who had the worst affinities for the concept of Magic among the Devils had it many times easier than many humans with an average affinity for Magic.
Valiana herself, on top of that, was a descendant of the original Lucifer, so her lineage in this aspect was very potent. Helel and Lucifer was known for his very high mastery and proficiency in the Magic.
Something that the Lightbringer himself was said to inherit from the Yahweh himself.
Even though Yahweh was a God, he was the most accomplished Magician in the Draconic Deus ever, so some parts of his talent were inherited to his Angels, especially the 1st-Generation ones that inherited the most from the talent.
Obviously, having the soul of the White Dragon Emperor within her soul only boosted her affinity for Magic to the extremes. The most powerful Dragons like Albion came into existence from Magic itself; they were just enormous mas of Magic, congregated to the ridiculous proportions given physical form.
Valiana was someone who was host to the soul of the White Dragon Emperor, especially the powerful Heavenly Dragon that had even earned a spot at the Top Ten Strongest and was one of the most powerful Level 8 Beings in the entire Draconic Deus inherited ridiculous talent for Magic.
From a certain point of view, Valiana Lucifer could be the strongest holder of the Divine Dividing in the entire history and most probably the last holder of the Divine Dividing in history if she remained alive.
Rarely did the Sacred Gears, and especially the Longinus-Tier Sacred Gears, end in the hands of the hybrids. Yhwach knew that there were some kind of backup mechanisms in Heaven's System to reincarnate the Sacred Gears only in the hands of the pure-blooded humans.
But apparently, since the death of Yahweh, as everything else related to Heaven's System, even these back-ups started failing, and some things that were never meant to leave the hands of pure-blooded humans ended up in the hands of hybrids.
Even at the end of hybrids such as Valiana.
Even Yhwach was deeply surprised by the power of her spells because they were far more powerful than the spells of the Middle-Class Devil should be. The potency was much higher, something that was seen only in the individuals with the powerful lineages among the Devilkin.
Yhwach was very curious about the Devil species because they were a race that was created for one singular purpose.
The war against Heaven.
So, Lucifer created them with this in mind, using the long-forgotten methods of Genetic Alchemy.
Something that gave their species extraordinary power, where Devils of lower Classes could easily fight against the beings that were stronger in the aspect of raw power, was the existence of the Clan Traits.
That was the reason why the Pillar Devils and Extra Devil Houses stood far above the
masses of the common devils that were not related to the Devil Nobility.
However, with the addition of the Reincarnated Devils, the tables changed because many of the Reincarnated Devils had unique abilities that could be passed down through their Bloodline, eventually creating new Devil Lineages.
Something that the old members of the nobility were vehemently against.
The one area where Valiana held superiority over Yhwach was physique because she was physically stronger than he was. If he was standing right now at Level 2 (Low), then she was already at the peak of Level 2 in terms of physical aspects.
Mainly thanks to her partial Draconic Lineage lineage stemming from the Divine Dividing.
Their fight soon enough turned into a deadlock because neither could he defeat her without severely injuring her, because she was still highly vulnerable to the Holy Magic, while Valiana too couldn't really defeat him because he was smart enough not to let her touch him.
If she used Divide on him, her power would significantly increase, though she was already causing him enough headaches when she was Dividing all Magical attacks that he was sending at her.
Divine Diving was unparalleled at Dividing every single energy-based attack, no matter the source of the energy was used in the attack.
Though, when the holder of the Divine Dividing was weak in the close quarter's combat, then he would be finished, and this was also a proper method of fighting against the bearers of the Sacred Gears or any Soul-Bound Equipment like Divine Dividing.
Thus, the fight between the two of them continued for the next twenty minutes until General Shix the Machinist ended their spar. The elderly Asura had already grasped enough about Valiana Lucifer's combat capabilities, so they could now proceed with personalized teaching.
For that, he needed to gain a grasp on her fighting style, and what he saw didn't really please him because he came to the undeniable conclusion that she relied too much on the Sacred Gear Longinus Divine Dividing.
"From what I have seen, girl, you have every serious problem that is too heavy depending on the Divine Dividing... if the Sacred Gear is taken out of the equation, you would be dead faster than you can blink. Though if it makes you feel better this is typical for most of the Sacred Gear users."
This was why not many Sacred Gear users made a mess in the territories of the powerful Pantheons; the strongest Pantheons had the means to nullify any Soul-Bound equipment such as the Sacred Gears.
And when they lost their Soul-Bound equipment, they would often fall like flies when they were squashed. This was the greatest weakness of the people who were using the Sacred Gears and similar equipment; they were so dependent on that thing inside their soul, that they neglected everything else.
"You have to remember that the Sacred Gear, even if they are Longinus, are not really your own power; it's just a piece of equipment. Albeit, the one bound to your very own soul, there are many means in this world to cancel the connection or outright severe it."
When Valiana heard it, she was shaking a bit because she knew that her great-grandfather had the same ability as the ones that the elderly Asura was speaking about. Her own great-grandfather, whom she wished to kill one day by her very own hands, had the Soul Gear Canceller, which was a watered-down version of another Lucifer Clan Trait, Denial of the Divine.
The Sacred Gears were indeed a piece of work because, within the Draconic Deus, they were considered the pinnacle of the Soul-Bound Equipment created by the Biblical God Yahweh.
They were the pinnacle of the Magical Engineering of the Draconic Deus till this day, and nobody managed to reverse-engineer the process of the creation of the Sacred Gears because it was that complicated.
Though Yahwach didn't want to boast, he had already long ago hacked into the databases of the Sacred Gears and knew many things about the little toys that Yahweh created, especially since his death, there was no one to administer the system, and bugs were hoarding up.
Holding a Sacred Gear, especially the ones of the Longinus-Tier, because in their cases, one could rise from Level 1 to Level 4 in a few short years if they dedicated enough training of their Sacred Gear.
However, most of the Sacred Gear Holders forgot that their Sacred Gear was not truly their own power. It was something that they were forgetting since the power was so addictive and humans in the Draconic Deus were at the bottom of the food chain for many, many reasons altogether.
Thus, not many of them were pondering the matter of whether the Sacred Gears and other types of equipment were actually their own power but something that they were borrowing from the Sacred Gear.
If the Gear was taken out of the equation, then they would be as weak as they were previously.
[The Asuran God is speaking truth... even most of my previous hosts were solely depending on my power while forgetting their own. It often led them to their doom, though... but as pure humans, most of them were just ordinary people prior to awakening the Divine Dividing and the few who were not, rather focused on the Divine Dividing than mastering their own powers or using the Divine Dividing to increase their own power that wasn't part of the Longinus.]
Hearing what Albion said from the Divine Dividing made Valiana contemplate the words of the Heavenly Dragon.
Albion had been walking this world for long enough, not to mention that he had the best experiences when it came to this. He was sealed within the Divine Dividing for a good number of centuries and already had a good number of hosts, but the ones that actually used their own power instead of that of the Longinus...
Those could be counted on one hand.
He could understand it from a certain perspective because mastering the Longinus was the quickest and easiest path to strength, but the price was steep.
[And there is also another thing is that when the Sacred Gear Holders are too dependent on the power of their Gears, especially regarding the Sacred Gears that are holding some powerful creatures, you are essentially severing your potential because no matter how powerful, the User cannot be more powerful than the creature that was used to create the Sacred Gear.]
For example, the Longinuses Divine Dividing or Boosted Gear were prime examples because not a single host has become more powerful than Albion or Ddraig in their prime. And no matter how powerful the bearers of the Sacred Gears may grow, they would never be more powerful than the original creature.
It was the price of the Sacred Gear, something that Yhwach had already confirmed in his research. It was rather peculiar, but rather ironically, more one mastered the Sacred Gear and reached its limit, the price that was used to pay for it, was consumed potential.
There was nothing free in the world, and he couldn't understand how someone could think that using the power of the Sacred Gears was free and without side effects. It seemed that Yahweh left there some insurance against the Sacred Gear users, especially against the ones that bore the Longinus-Tier one.
Yhwach had to admit that the Biblical God was a really thorough one and precise person who already foresaw many of the potential troubles and sought to solve them before they could even happen.
Though, something like this was rather easily adjusted and repaired, but for that, one needed to access the Heaven's System, something that Yhwach has avoided for now. Without sufficient power and understanding, he didn't really want to meddle with the Heaven's System, one of Yahweh's most remarkable creations.
"The dragon is right; for now, you need to focus on developing your own power, and after that, or during that process, you could start making the abilities of the White Dragon Emperor your own."
When she heard what the Asuran Battle God said, her ears perked up as she looked at him with anticipation and surprise, while Albion remained silent for the time being within his Sacred Gear.
"Is such a thing really possible, Albion?"
Valiana immediately asked the White Dragon Emperor, who was staying silent within the Sacred Gear.
[Yes, it is... though the process is extremely arduous and painful, from all of my hosts, only one of them survived the second phase, while only three overcame the first phase. None managed to reach the final phase, though that is mainly due to the fact that all of them were either wrong in their approach or their origin couldn't bear it. Though if you really wish to make my abilities as your own and discard the Logninus, then this is the only way...]
Albion voiced his thoughts on the matter; he knew that Draconification Phases were a quick way of increasing the raw power of the person. After the entire process, she would be able to make Albion's abilities his own because, apparently, this was also one of Yahweh's hidden functions.
While the bearers of the Sacred Gears had tons of restrictions upon them, there was always a way of bypassing them through some means, and this one was the one for the Divine Dividing.
As Valiana was hosting the soul of the White Dragon Emperor within her very own soul, she actually had very good chances of learning Albion's abilities, but she was basically learning everything that the Divine Dividing could.
"What the White Dragon Emperor is speaking about is called Draconification Process; it is something akin to ascension to the Dragon, racial change or evolution or whatever... the process has a very high mortality rate, and in most cases, the person undergoing it dies in a very, very ugly manner. Mostly due to the lack of power to support the Draconification Process."
Shix the Machinist was old Asura; during several thousand years of his existence, he saw several people who were in the various stages of the Draconifications, but the number wouldn't exceed ten or so...
Most people died before they could achieve complete Draconification, though having the procedure executed by Heavenly Dragon himself was vastly different from the other cases because it was even more dangerous compared to the situation when it was performed by weaker Dragons.
Still, it was very dangerous, and the reason why most of the bearers of the Draconic Sacred Gears, including that of the Boosted Gear and Divine Dividing, died was rather simple. Most, if not all, of the hosts, were pure humans, and the Draconification Process was extremely taxing on the body, physique, and vitality.
If the person who was undergoing the Draconifciation was pure human without any mutations or special in-born physiques, then they would most likely die, as their body wouldn't be able to support the process and withstand it at all.
But Valiana was different as another half of her very own being was that of a devil. And not an ordinary one, but one directly descended from Lucifer the Morningstar. That was the main reason why Albion was so confident in her undergoing the Draconification successfully to the very end.
"I think if you can push your physique to the limits of Level 3 and properly awaken your Lucifer Lineage, you will have excellent chances of surviving the whole Draconification Process and becoming Devil Dragon Hybrid."
If she could achieve the Devil Dragon evolution, then she would have a guaranteed advance to Level 6 at least, becoming in the same standing as the Satan-Class Devils or very powerful Ultimate-Class Dragons.
This was just a bare minimum that she could reach after becoming the Devil Dragon Hybrid because, with some training, she would have a very good chance of reaching Level 7.
"Now, enough of this; we have a lot of things on the schedule. Aside from what was previously said, girl, you should choose some weapon of choice to train in; right now, you are severely limiting yourself without one because your Sacred Gear doesn't contain something offensive and destructive in the true sense."
Asuras were a battle race, that was more leaning towards the area of the close combat supplemented by Magic. Most of their people were weapon masters in one way or another, and there were even some that achieved the fabled Eternals Arms Mastership.
Though none of them could match the Queen of the Lands of Shadows, they were far more qualified to teach them how to fight.
Even though Yhwach had the ambition to travel to the Lands of Shadows to seek guidance from the Godslayers herself.
Queen Scáthach was considered the best martial arts master, weapon master, and fighter in the entire Draconic Deus. A mortal who managed to slay Gods through pure skills and techniques, even before she attained her special and unique status of the Queen of the Land Shadows.
She was the only person in the entire history of the Draconic Deus who managed to slay God as mortal. It was an enormous feat for several reasons, but mostly because killing Gods was very, very hard.
For example, even Level 7 Super Devil would have some trouble killing Level 6 Major Gods, due to all passive abilities and other cheat-like things the Gods had to icnreae their survivability.
They were like cockroaches from this aspect.
Defeating one wasn't that hard as long as one had sufficient power, but killing one was an entirely different matter. Not to mention, due to the various buff that the Gods had in their Physiology, fighting them was very hard.
Using Magic against them was rather problematic because their very own being contained a certain degree of Magic Resistance that grew together with the Gods. They were almost pretty immune to many Spells and Magic Types and had terrifyingly durable Physiques.
Especially most of the Magics and Spells that were of the mortal origin were almost entirely useless on the Gods due to their inherent Magic Resistance that was fairly powerful.
It was no wonder that the Gods were called drawings of the Draconic Deus together with the Dragons. Even the entire world was named after the two dominant species of the Dimensions, with Draconic standing for the Dragons and Deus standing for the Gods.
Yet Scáthach managed to do something that nobody before her or even after she managed to do. She slayed a good number of Gods, bathed in their Divine Blood and Divine Essence, effectively becoming Godslayer as she usurped their very own nature.
Afterward, she returned to the Shadow Lands and claimed the entire Dimension as her own, effectively becoming a Dimensional Lord, which was a position that was converted by many, as it was an effectively one-way ticket to the Cosmic Lifeform.
What made the entire thing even more impressive and even furhter added to her legend was that she achieved it as a mortal. Scáthach wasn't anything special; she didn't have any powerful language, ability, or skills.
She didn't have anything else aside from her own Martial Arts and Magic and her talents in these areas. With just this, she managed to achieve what others would consider impossible or what others would do with external help like Sacred Gears or borrowed power.
She was a master of Martial Arts and Runic Magic, something that only a few begins in the entire Draconic Deus could boast about. She was also one of two or three people in the world who mastered the Primordial Runes.
Another person who was publically known to master Primordial Runes was Odin the All-Father. But it was highly unlikely that Odin would teach anyone not directly related to the Royal Family of Asgard, as the old man was paranoid about that.
For a former warmonger who was hell-bent on the conquest of everything around him, he still retained a good amount of paranoia even after he became "Odin the Wise King" or whatever, but everyone around him knew that he was still the old Odin who started the great crusade on the Nine Realms of Yggdrasil after the death of his father Borr and even killed his brother Cull Borrson in a contest for a throne.
So that really put only Scáthach on the list to be able to master the Primordial Runes, as they were one of the most powerful forms of Magic that existed in the Draconic Deus. Some even speculated that if one was able to master the Primordial Runes to the levels of unknown, they would be able to cross the threshold and advance to Level 10 with ease.
It held a certain amount of logic because the Primordial Runes held the essence of the world itself; they were the fundamental building blocks of the universe. If one mastered the Primordial Runes, then, to a certain degree, it wouldn't be wrong to say that they were also enlightened about the universe itself.
***
Training under the strict drillmaster Shix the Machinist wasn't anything pleasant, but Yhwach couldn't deny the effect of the training. The old Asura God was a sadistic bastard who apparently enjoyed putting people through torture under the premise of training.
But he had to admit that it was indeed effective because the results were far more than just precise, and the increase in strength and skill was evident even with the naked eye.
For the past months, since he started training with Valiana, he noticed that he was advancing at an exponential rate.
His training in the close-quarter was progressing fast; his spearmanship was improving at a staggering rate, to the point where he already reached the limits of the Adept-ranked Mastery over the Basic Spearmanship.
He was already learning to learn some specific techniques, though with that, he would need to bugger his father to arrange him a teacher. Among the Asurans, there were not actually many famous spear users because the Asuras were either depending on martial arts or bladed weapons like swords.
The Asuras actually had the best weapon possible was: their very own body, as they mostly focused on the physical strength of their bodies and martial arts. On the battlefield, the Asuras were almost unstoppable killing machines that were able to tear through entire armies alone.
Three years have passed since Yhwach brought back Valiana Lucifer to the Divine Realm of the Hindu Pantheon. It was true that time passed very fast, as he had to say because, during these three days, he spent most of the training.
Right now, Yhwach was already thirteen years old, though he was rather tall for his age, and many would mistake him for at least fifteen or sixteen years old.
His figure started to be reminiscent of a true warrior; he even had several scars from the battles against powerful Magic Beasts or Demonic Beasts he fought against as part of his training.
Yhwach refused to remove them with Magic or any healing treasures, as they were constant reminders of his failure during the fight. Not to mention, he didn't really care about a few scars on his body and one over his face underneath his eye, which was left by a particularly nasty Magic Beast that got too close when he let his guard down.
The same could be said about Valiana, who officially reached the Level 3 High-Class Devil during the past year and something. It was rather a splendid achievement that she managed to achieve such a level of power at such a young age.
Valiana also progressed nicely in her mastery over the Longinus-Tier Sacred Gear Divine Dividing and started learning the basics of the Dragon Magic from Albion as part of the preparations for the Draconification Process in the future.
Because she was the host of the draconic-type Sacred Gear in her soul, she had rather a powerful predisposition towards the Dragon Magic, and she could learn it with ease even right now.
And Dragon Magic was something that even he couldn't learn easily, because for the Dragon Magic to function at its 100% capacity and power, one needed to be dragon. Anything else would be lowering the potency of the Dragon Magic to some degree.
Even Valianna's Dragon Magic Spells were far weaker than they should be, if they were cast by a pure-blooded dragon. And if someone who didn't have anything draconic in their entire being attempted to cast them, then the results would be minuscule and with tremendous effort.
It wasn't easy to cast a Dragon Magic, as it was regarded as one of the most complicated types of Magic in the entire Draconic Deus. Thus, Yhwach didn't really bother himself with the study of the Dragon Magic, aside from its theory.
Both of them were constantly training together for the past year and a half or something. Valiana became less gloomy and depressive, which was mainly attributed to the efforts of his mother, Tashamal, because she liked the half-Lucifer very, very much.
It was clear that for his mother, Valiana became something like her daughter, as she liked the girl very much, and she was like another child for the True Seraphim of Doom and Damnation who couldn't really have another child.
For people like Shiva and Tashamal, having even a single child in their lifetime was already a blessing. As one was stronger, it was harder and harder to procreate a child, and for some, it would take even centuries of waiting to have a descendant.
Especially if both parties were powerful on their own, like Yhwach's parents.
Valiana and Yhwach actually grew rather close because they had a lot of common interests, especially the common thrive for power, and both of them enjoyed a good fight, as they used to spar against each other relatively often.
For the past months, Yhwach has also been bothering his parents to let him out of Mount Kailash so he can have some real-life experiences. For example, he felt that he already reached the bottleneck in the arts of the spear and wanted to travel to Ireland to search for the Scáthah to teach him.
Not to mention, she was also famed for her Primordial Runes, the pinnacle of the Runic Magic in the Draocnic Deus, something that was known only to the King of Nordic Gods, Odin, who obtained them from the Yggdrassil itself by hanging himself on the tree.
Unfortunately, due to his status, none of his parents were keen on letting him out, though his father understood the need to temper himself in the real world and to have real life and death experiences, not fake ones, during the training.
He was promised that when he became fourteen years old, he would be allowed to travel to the Earth as he wished. Till then, he needed to prepare, while he doubted that there would be a lot of people who would dare to do something against the son of the God of Destruction and the Hindu Pantheon as a whole.
Mainly now, when the Hindu Pantheon was even much stronger than before, and on top of everything, when he ventured alone on the adventures, he would have Vritra on him.
Aside from the already mentioned, he wasn't really alone, as Valiana would for sure go with him. She was too in a similar position because she was rather impatient to go into the bigger world, though her position was far more dangerous than his own.
She had an especially big target on her back, just for her lineage, and the fact that she held the Divine Dividing didn't really help it. Not to mention, the need for vengeance against her grandfather didn't leave her anywhere, and Valiana trained a lot to achieve her goal.
To kill Rizevim Livan Lucifer with her own hands.
Vengence was a good motivator to train and get stronger, but it was not overall good because, in the end, it was still a negative emotion. If one wasn't careful, then being overwhelmed by negative emotions was the last concern one could have.
Many lost themselves on the path of hatred, so Yhwach was always careful about this when it came to Valiana because he genuinely came to like her, as she was pleasant to be around and contrary to the rest of the people living in the Divine Realm of the Hindu Pantheon she was rather open with him.
Even though the Asuras and Devas respected strength above everything else, he was still in the end son of Shiva and Tashamal, two extremely powerful people, his father was also on the 1st spot of the Top Ten Strongest List of the Draconic Deus.
So it was only natural that everyone was acting differently around him; for Yhwach finding some meaningful interaction with someone was hard, especially when it came to the younger generation.
It was even more challenging.
For the past several days, he has been researching the methods of how to fuse the Divine Energy and the Holy Power together and to create a new form of Energy that would encompass properties of both.
He had the Holy Power from his mother and the Divine Energy from his father; while it was good to have two sources of Energy within his body because, at the lower levels, it was a tremendous increase in power, his father repeatedly warned him that in the long run, it could be rather dangerous.
Yhwach, too, suspected in the long run, having two sources of power within his body would cause him problems, especially when it comes to reaching the higher levels and, more importantly, in crossing the boundary between the barrier between the Lower Dimensional Lifeform and Cosmic Lifeform.
His father told him that there was a very high possibility that he could reach even the Cosmic Lifeform even in his current circumstances because the two energy types that he had within his entire being were highly compatible.
Still, he would have preferred to fuse them together and create a specific form of energy that would accommodate the properties of both of them. Still, it seemed that the process would be rather lengthy, even with the help of the Unique Skill Great Sage.
Through the might of the entire Hindu Pantheon, he was gathering writings and research on the Holy Power of the Angels and the Divine Energy of the Gods. Unfortunately, there were not many of them, as most of them were in the hands of private personas, and not many would even be into negotiation.
Still, due to the influence of the Hindu Pantheon, they managed to get him some things, and many books and tomes on the topic were already in the vast repositories of the Hindu Pantheon, so fortunately in this, Yhwach already had enough materials to work with.