Mount Kailash, The Divine Realm of the Hindu Pantheon
Now that they had completed the experiments on the Holy Power and Divine Energy fusion on the Pure Angels, Yhwach proceeded to carry out the very same experiment also on the Fallen Angels, and the results were more than good.
He could now commence the fusion between the Holy Power and the Divine Energy in his body, because he had mapped every single eventuality and possibility of what could happen during the merger.
While it was clear that the process wasn't 100% safe, it was much safer than he initially predicted, and with the additional preparations, he could finally commence his ascension towards Godhood and become true God.
At Level 4, one had already become a Minor God, which wasn't anything phenomenal or fascinating, but even the Minor Gods were powerful foes. While they were not certainly the strongest ones around, especially if their Divine Authority wasn't related to anything destructive, it was still a pain in the ass to deal with them.
When Yhwach finally ascended towards Godhood, he would be able to obtain all passive advantages of being God, so technically speaking, his combat prowess would skyrocket tremendously.
Even though it was indirectly in this regard, it would be much harder to deal with him because sometimes even powerful Level 4 entities of the different Power Systems would struggle a bit to kill Level 4, Minor God.
Defeating them was easy, but killing them was hard, and capturing them was nigh impossible, even when the disparity between their strengths was huge. According to Godhood, it was much harder than it seemed because there were many requirements that the person had to fulfill.
The first is that one needs to have some sort of Divinity or, in other words, Divine Authority over something and understand the Divine Authority enough for him to ascend to the Godhood with it.
Then there was the process of litting up the Divine Flame and condensing the Divine Spark; the Divine Flame would purify and refine one's body and soul to elevate it to the Divine Body and create a Divine Spark in their bodies, which is basically the condensation of God's very own fundamental being.
God also needed a lot of Divine Energy to support his Ascension Ceremony, but that wasn't really a problem for Yhwach, who already had more than enough for his own devises.
Together with the perfected method of the energy merger, he was confident in the process, as he would be doing both things at the same time. The moment he was merging Divine Energy and Holy Power together, he would also be initiating his Ascendance to Godhood at the same time.
In that way, he would be able to obtain greater benefits from the entire thing. Right now, he was making the final changes to the formation that he would be using as the basis for his Apotheosis Ritual.
He wasn't alone in this because there were several other Gods from the Hindu Pantheon and some other people from his Pantheon who were observing him attentively because this was going to be a very important moment.
His father took every single precaution possible so nothing would go wrong, and they went through the process several times. To be extra sure that nothing would go wrong, Yhwach even asked his father, uncle Indra, and a few other High Gods and even some of the Greater Gods to be in charge of the Array and control the Apotheosis Ritual.
With such a setup present within his Apothesis Ritual, he was finally at peace and knew that nothing would go wrong. Especially with his father being in charge of the formation, and the Eye of the Formation being under his control.
Shiva was just one step away from ascending to Level 9 God and being on par with the 1st Generation Primordial Gods, which was, in this age, an extreme rarity, but his understanding of the Destruction Divine Authority was almost unparalleled in the modern Draconic Deus.
Yhwach, even though with enough time and rescues, his father would have a very solid chance of reaching the Level 10 Origin God, the very same level that was only reached by Yahweh in the recent past of the Draconic Deus.
It was only a matter of time.
With the number of worshippers that the Hindu Pantheon was getting these days, the amount of the Faith that the Pantheon was getting was tremendous. Obviously, the Council of Gods forbade the Gods of the Hindu Pantheon from using the Faith, because of it's corruptive nature, but instead, they were using the Faith to strengthen the Divine Realm of the Hindu Pantheon.
Apparently, there was a correlation between the strength of the Gods and their Divine Ranks and the quality of the Divine Realm in which the Gods were residing. From a certain viewpoint, it was logical because only the Divine Realm could properly sustain the Gods.
For example, if a powerful God like Indra, who was right now wandering around Level 8 and was on the same level as some weaker 2nd Generation Primordial Gods, entered Earth in his full power, then the planet itself wouldn't be able to sustain him.
That was the reason why all the Gods that were going to the Earth were sealing their forms and going in as some sort of Pseudo-Mortals.
"Are you prepared?"
Just as Yhwach was doing the last checks on the Magical Array that he had designed and controlling every inscription for the last time, he was visited by his father, who was present there with the other Gods.
Somewhere in the distance, he also saw his mother with Valiana, though the two of them were here as nothing more than observers.
"Yes. If everything goes according to the plan, then not only would I be able to merge the Divine Energy and the Holy Power, but I would also undergo Apotheosis and reach the peak of the Level 4 Minor God at the Divine Rank 5 without any problems... who knows, I may even obtain some sort of new Divinity from this entire endeavor."
The Gods were divided into several Levels which were further separated by the Divine Rank, which served as some sort of quantification for the amount of the Divine Energy they possessed.
If he managed to reach the Divine Rank 5, he would be essential, standing at the peak of the Level 4 Minor Gods, at least in terms of raw power. Coupled with the Divinity he possessed, he would be able to fight and defeat even many Level 5 beings easily.
Yhwach calculated everything, and according to his prediction, everything should be barely enough for him to reach the peak of Level 4 Minor God at the Divine Rank 5.
"We can start at any moment."
With that being said, his father left him alone while he finished the control of the Array and went into the middle of the formation. The Magic Array was formed of several interviewed circles together, singing with a dark golden color.
He lay down on the Magic Array, at the length of the Runic Formation that was inscribed on the ground, lying exactly in the middle of it, as the runes suddenly lit up and the dark golden color turned into a bright golden color.
When he was already lying down, Yhwach started the process of the energy merger with the help of the Unique Skill Great Sage.
As Yhwach heard the robotic voice of the Great Sage in his head, suddenly, he felt stabbing pain through his entire body when the Divine Energy and the Holy Power started fusing together in a rather painful manner.
The process of the fusion was especially painful, but he could feel the Divine Energy and the Holy Power merging into something new and whole that took the form of a seed in his body.
As soon as the seed of the new energy was created, he started assimilating both the Divine Energy and the Holy Power in his body and using them as fuel for further replication at a rather fast speed.
Even Yhwach was surprised at how potent and aggressive the new form of energy was within his body, because it was attacking both the Divine Energy and the Holy Power with fervor, devouring it like nothing and spreading through the entire body.
It was the Celestial Force, the name he gave to the new results of merging the Divine Energy and the Holy Power. The Celestial Force was far more potent than even the Divine Energy, which was rather staggering because it was even much stronger than the Divine Energy.
Yhwach had a certain feeling that the Holy Power had commenced some sort of evolution to the Divine Energy and brought it to new heights. It was no wonder that Yahweh was so overpowered because if he had something similar to the Celestial Force, then it would be no wonder that he was so powerful.
Soon enough, the Great Sage notified him that approximately 50% of the energy in his body had been turned to the Celestial Force, and from there, the rate was only speeding up to become faster and faster.
He already had prepared a protocol for that; when the saturation of the Celestial Force reached approximately 80%, he would start the Apotheosis Rital and, lit up the Divine Fire, and ascend to the Godhood.
After he got used to the pain, he wasn't feeling it anymore as he focused on the feeling of getting stronger, because the feeling was really intoxicating like hell. The Celestial Force was spreading towards his body and devouring every single bit of the Divine Energy and the Holy Power to sustain its expanse.
When the Celestial Force was brimming in his body, the Apotheosis was something different, as he consciously controlled his newly created Celestial Force in his body and created the Divine Flame according to his father's instruction.
Litting up the Divine Flame was rather a dangerous thing to do because if one didn't have the utmost control over their Divine Energy and then the subsequent Divine Flame that would be created, one could extremely easily die by being burned to ashes by the very own Divine Flame that one has lit up.
He was already told several times that he needed to be extremely careful when he was litting up the Divine Flame, but fortunately, he had a trump card, which was the Unique Skill Great Sage, as that one would greatly help in this aspect.
He was controlling the Celestial Force in his body, while the Great Sage was controlling the Divine Flame; he predicted that everything should be alright as he felt that the Divine Flame was slowly refining his Body and Soul to the Divine Body and Divine Soul.
This was the start of the ascension to Godhood.
With the Divine Body, the Gods obtained a lot of unnatural resistance towards the Mortal Magic, and practically anything that wasn't of the Divine Origin or wasn't on the same level as the Divine Origin was greatly weakened.
The process of the creation of the Divine Body was a lengthy one, and Yhwach could feel in real-time how his Body and Soul were literally burned away by the Divine Flame and rebuilt anew in the image of the True God, a higher being than he was previously.
At the same time, he could feel that his [Divine Authority of Destruction] was reacting to the process, and he felt some of the [Divine Authority of Destruction] merge with the bits of the Celestial Force into a solidified form, which was then subsequently refined by the Divine Flames.
He could feel that the Divine Spark was being created in his body due to this and that he was already on his Apotheosis. The Apotheosis was something that took a rather long time, and it was a very painful process because his entire being was transformed into a higher form of life.
Or rather into something more advanced, as the Gods were the favorite species of the Draconic Deus Universe, together with the Dragons. He could see it, just based on the number of passive benefits that the Gods were receiving just for existing and nothing more.
The Divine Flame that was being controlled by the Great Sage was slowly, but steadily refining his Body towards the Divine Body and his Soul towards the Divine Soul. He had to admit that the process was extremely painful, but it wasn't actually that bad, though he needed to withstand it all.
After around one hour or so, Yhwach could feel that the Apotheosis was complete, when the last parts of his Divine Spark had been completed, and he even obtained a new Divinity from all of this.
As Yhwach was recovering from the side effects of the Apotheosis Ritual and assimialting the remnants of the Divine Energy and the Holy Power from the spell array that was laid down, he was flooded by the notifications from the Great Sage that was informing him about everything that had changed about his very own being.
Soon enough, when everything had subsided, he slowly opened his eyes while he felt that everything was different. Now that he was a full-fledged God and at the same time, he could feel why there was always a drastic gap between Level 3 and Level 4.
With the Divine Body and Divine Soul, he was entirely different being compared to his old self, and right now, even injuring him would take a lot of effort. Now he could feel it on his own, why it was so hard to kill Gods.
Just the Divine Magical Resistance and Divine Physical Resistance was something that made him a very hard foe to fight. The Divine Magic Resistance basically have him tremendous resistance towards all Magical Spells that were not on the same existential level as him.
In plain speech, it meant that if he was hit by a Spell cast by a Human using Human Magic, even if that Spell reached the standards of Level 4, it would lose around 80% of its potency at worst and around 90% at best.
Basically, turning it useless.
And the Divine Physical Resistance was something similar, albeit it was less overpowered compared to the Divine Magical Resistance.
He also got another [Divine Authority of the Golden Grace], which was rather mind-boggling to him a bit because he could feel that it was somehow related to the former Divine Energy and also his origin as an Angel.
It manifested in the form of a tiny golden aura around his finger when he tried to call it, and the feeling it gave off caused the people to look at him with reverence.
At the same time, he noticed that the [Divine Authority of the Golden Grace] seemed to feed on the Faith, because the moment he summoned the [Divine Authority of the Golden Grace], it immediately targetted the Faith that was stored in the specific crystals to be used during the Apotheosis, but in the end, it wasn't really needed.
Fortunately, he didn't really want to deal with the side effects of the Faith and its usage.
But now, it seemed like it went a bit out of his control when the [Divine Authority of the Golden Grace] started absorbing the Faith Crystals at tremendous speed and refining the Faith into pure golden-colored energy that could be easily absorbed by him without any side effects.
He could feel that he got a bit stronger after the [Divine Authority of the Golden Grace] assimilated all of the Faith that was prepared for him, though not by much, as he already reached the peak of Level 4 during the Apotheosis.
Right now, he is at the peak of Level 4 in terms of the Energy Reserves as his Divine Rank has reached Rank 5 and also in the aspect of the Physique because the Celestial Force tremendously strengthened his body during the Apotheosis Ritual.
In fact, he was only one step from reaching Level 5, the Lesser God Rank, once he raised his Divine Rank 6 and obtained a more advanced comprehension of his Divine Authorities.
However, this got a bit more complicated right now due to the presence of the new Divine Authority, the [Divine Authority of the Golden Grace], as he would need to balance out two Divine Authorities.
While he could only engage with a single Divine Authority throughout his entire journey, it was also rather dangerous because if one Divinity wasn't properly developed, it could be problematic in the future.
Especially when both Divinities that the God had were somewhat aggressive in nature.
He would need to comprehend both of the Divinities in the future, though something was telling him that the [Divine Authority of the Golden Grace] was something that would be very useful in the future.
Yhwach was very satisfied with this because, at this tempo, it would only take him only a few years to reach the Lesser God Rank as long as he comprehended his Divine Authorities a bit more thoroughly.
That would also be a rather unprecedented achievement because even now, he is just 15 years old, and he has reached a very high degree of power. This was normally considered impossible; for example, Pure-Blooded Devils required many centuries to reach the Ultimate-Class, though that was only in the times of the Demonic Energy.
Int he terms of combat skills, most of them sucked as hell.
One also needed to have appropriate combat skills for his power level, not just the power level itself; that alone was not sufficient.
"Congratulations on the successful Apotheosis Ritual, son."
His father came to congratulate him on the successful ascension to Godhood after the Apotheosis had been concluded. Yhwach knew that right now, he would need at least a few months to acclimate to his newfound power.
Yhwach's power has increased tremendously in a very short span of time, so he would need a lot of time to acclimate to his power properly and to use it effectively. Even right now, he was having a rather hard time controlling the Celestial Force in his body because the Celestial Force was several times more potent than the Divine Energy.
Somehow, this amalgamation of the Divine Energy and the Holy Power turned out to be pretty powerful and potent, and it was rather hard to control. Only with the help of the Great Sage, he was able to control the Celestial Force in his body.
According to his calculation, the Celestial Force in his body at the Divine Rank 5 was comparable to the capacity of around twenty Level 4 Minor Gods at the Dine Rank 5... so that was a very high number, and the amount of energy inside his body was tremendous.
"Thank you, father. I would still need a lot of time to acclimatize to the Celestial Force; it's a little bit more overbearing than I have predicted."
Yhwach stated as he was soon enough bearhugged by his mother, who was too worried about him because she saw this entire ritual as something pretty dangerous. And even Yhwach had to admit that the Apotheosis Ritual was a bit dangerous, but it was a necessary danger that he was undergoing.
"At least that you are alright..."
He had to admit that his mother was always worried, but he could at least partially understand her sentiment because Apotheosis Rituals for the people who wanted to become Gods were dangerous.
The majority of the Gods in the Draconic Deus were already born as Gods, and only a small fraction of the Gods became Gods through the Apotheosis. And during the Apotheosis Ritual itself, there was also a good chance that one may even die during the ritual if there was something that went wrong.
Fortunately enough, in Yhwach's case, everything went according to his plan, and he ascended to Godhood.
"It's different from Yahweh's one, that's for certain, yet it's not any weaker than that..."
Shiva could clearly see the power of the Celestial Force with his eyes, especially due to his Third Eye and the fact that he met Yahweh several times in his life when the God of the Bible was still alive.
He still vividly remembered the distinctive Divine Energy that the God of the Biblical Pantheon had; it was rather similar to the Celestial Force that his son created today, yet rather different and distinctive at the same time.
Yet he could see that both the Celestial Force and the peculiar energy used by the Yahweh were far more superior to the Divine Energy and practically to anything seen in the Draconic Deus.
Only the Gods with a very high degree of comprehension of their Divinities who managed to mutate their Divine Energy to reflect their Divinity would be able to compete with Yhwach in terms of energy.
"It is modeled after Yahweh's one, but it's impossible to mimic because apparently, Yawheh created it from scratch, while I just combined the Holy Power and the Divine Energy together in some form and caused spontaneous evolution on the combined result, which then led to the creation of the Celestial Force."
Yhwach stated that he was aware of the differences between his Celestial Force and Yahweh's brand of energy.
"Still, it is really fascinating that you managed to reach the peak of the Minor God Rank in one go, straight to the Divine Rank 5."
This was something that was beyond even Shiva's expectations because rarely did the Gods achieve the peak of the Minor God Rank at the Divine Rank 5 right during the Apotheosis Ritual.
"Only due to the preparations and sufficient comprehension of the Divine Authority of Destruction that I inherited. Not to mention, being the son of God on the same level as the 2nd Generation Primordials certainly has its benefits."
Yhwach chuckled as he said that because that was the perk of being born into a family like his.
The genetic advantages that he obtained were the ones that couldn't be replicated easily, and due to that, he inherited not only one of the strongest Divinities possible but also the excellent starting point in his power journey for strength.
"I may even take some ideas from your Apotheosis into my own right now I am on the verge of reaching the Divine Rank 26, but seeing you merging together the Divine Energy and the Holy Power gave me new ideas on how to further evolve my own Divine Energy to better connect with the Divine Realm."
Technically, his father was still a High God that reached the elve of the Primordial Gods; because the Primordial Gods were Primordial also due to the fact that they were here first and they were the oldest, the age played a huge role in terms of being the Primordial God.
His father was already close to reaching the standards of the 1st Generation Primordial Gods, which would be a staggering achievement, and if he achieved that, then the Hindu Pantheon would cement its position as the strongest faction in the Draconic Deus.
Though right now, it was a race between several Pantheon for power, Yhwach could see that the existence of the Evies and Etouldes from the ExE Planet had probably spooked a lot of them, and when his father, Shiva, foresaw the destruction of the Draconic Deus, it started the cycle.
He also wondered that if his mother could undergo the same Apotheosis Ritual as him, though it would be harder for her, because she was still a Pure Angel that had evolved to the True Seraphim, but at the same time, her very own existence wasn't tied to the Yahweh and the Heaven's System.
Yhwach knew that the Angels that were created by the Biblical God had tons of contracts in their very own existence that ranged from the ones that were inscribed in their Souls to the Life Code.
Yahweh was very thorough when he was creating the Angels so nobody would become a threat to him, even if they "rebelled" like Helel, but even that, Yhwach suspected, was just a grand plan of the Biblical God to spread his influence and make the legend of him whole.
Because he was researching his own genome, he found out that only due to the fact that his other half came from Shiva, who was the ultimate God of Destruction in the Draconic Deus, the Destruction Divinity destroyed all the remaining constraints that were passed onto him when he was conceived.
For the normal Angels, it was impossible to grow stronger than the Biblical God, because he was really paranoid about someone becoming stronger than him, and breaking through the constraints was a hassle as hell.
In the end, that religion was the strongest one in the world for a very long time and caused the extinction of the entire Pantheon with its warmongering nature that destroyed everything that it didn't like.
If he had to bet, he would also say that Yahweh wasn't dead because someone as powerful and cautious as him wouldn't die so easily.
But those were just his own assumptions.
Right now, he pondered that if his mother could undergo the Apotheosis, she would be able to reach Level 8 rather easily.
Even right now, she was a very powerful Level 7 True Seraphim that could fight against even Level 8 Super-Devils for a short amount of time if she was supported by a high enough amount of Holy Power.
Yhwach suspected that if his mother could ascend to Godhood, she should become Greater God at the Divine Rank 21 to Divine Rank 23, essentially becoming Level 8, being at the same standing as the 2nd Generation Primordial Gods.
As the True Seraphim of Doom and Damnation, she was considered as one of the strongest Pure Angels and Fallen Angels that were ever created. She belonged to the same category as Azrael, the Angel of Death, or Michael, the Angel of Judgment, who were once in the past, Heaven's strongest shields and sharpest swords.
***
After several weeks, Yhwach already had a rather good grasp on his newfound capabilities and strength, even though it required a lot of training. Probably the most problematic thing that he had was the comprehension of the [Divine Authority of the Golden Grace] and the [Divine Authority of Destruction].
After ascending to Godhood, the power of the [Divine Authority of Destruction] increased tremendously, and his combat prowess was higher than before at many, many levels. He could understand why his father was considered as the God that was most dangerous to fight.
Even if he wasn't the most powerful around in the aspect of Energy, his [Divine Authority of Destruction] and the high degree of mastery and comprehension that he had achieved over the Divinity of Destruction that Shiva achieved, made him one of the most dangerous Gos around in the entire Draconic Deus.
For the time being, the one area in which Yhwach was focusing the most was control over his Celestial Force because the Celestial Force was especially aggressive in nature, and it was very hard to control.
It took him a few weeks just to get a rather solid control of the Celestial Force, which wasn't actually that bad, but it also wasn't anything significant because right now, his control over the Celestial Force was way below his standards, and the anticipation that he wanted to achieve.
Currently, he is in a state where he would really dare to go into life-and-death combat because his control over the Celestial Force isn't superb. Due to the volatility and the power of the Celestial Force, he could easily endanger himself during combat if he couldn't control the Celestial Force properly.
So, he trained and trained in the usage of the Celestial Force and especially in the control until he achieved a satisfactory level of control over the Celestial Force.
When he achieved the necessary control over the Celestial Force, he proceeded to the next phase of his training, which was the usage of the [Divine Authority of Destruction], as the [Divine Authority of Destruction] was the core of all his powers.
If he didn't count in the Divine Magic and Holy Magic, then obviously, the [Divine Authority of Destruction] took the first place in his power set.
As he had ascended to the Godhood, the power of the [Divine Authority of Destruction] grew tremendously, and how he was eligible of being able to receive personal guidance from his father on the [Divine Authority of Destruction].
Meanwhile, the [Divine Authority of the Golden Grace] remained a mystery to him because he couldn't wrap his head around it for a long time. Compared to the [Divine Authority of Destruction], the [Divine Authority of the Golden Grace] was more complicated and mysterious.
Right now, the maximum he could do with the [Divine Authority of the Golden Grace] was to assimilate and refine the Faith into the Celestial Force without any side effects, and also use the [Divine Authority of the Golden Grace] to bestow blessings onto the people.