Everyone looked around to see where the man they'd been praying for. But Asherah didn't even try.
She collapsed to her seat and sighed in deep relief. "You didn't disappear this time. I'm glad to be proven wrong."
"Life is on the risk of extinction." Varian's soft sigh rang. "I will enforce the defenses. Tell the people not to worry, the disasters will be over in days.
I'll leave the living in your care, All Mother Asherah."
Under the watchful gazes of the couple divine rankers, the billions of citizens and countless refugees, a soft divine light rained on Elysium.
"Ruler of Eden!"
"The gods have blessed us!"
"We are blessed to survive!"
The people cheered.
Invisible to them, Varian appeared far away from Eden and tried to sense the two monstrous beings.
Their locations were changing too rapidly for even a peak rank 2 like him to lock onto. But he could sense the aftermath of their battles. And just that sent a chill down his spine.
The invisible, all encompassing laws were collapsing wherever the traces of fighting remained. The universe was unravelling there.
This fight was beyond his level. Possessing such power, no wonder Architect looked down on him.
And figuring his way to reach that strength, God Emperor too saw him nothing more than a pawn.
"Both of you used me as a pawn for your agenda." Varian closed his eyes. "That pawn will now flip the board."
He pushed his divine paths to the limit, to hit the the bottleneck to rank 3. But to his surprise, it wasn't even there!
There were two possible reasons for this.
One, Architect was fully engaged with God Emperor, unable to spare any power on enforcing this ban. Perhaps the unravelling of the laws also caused this.
Two, since Varian generated the slivers of order and chaos internally, it somehow allowed him to bypass that ban.
He didn't know which of the two was the cause. But he did know his entry into rank 3 was no longer a problem.
The game was about to change!
"Status." Varian said out of habit.
Nothing came up.
"For just a while, I'll have to make do without Logos." He muttered and used his innate slivers.
[Life & Death Avenue: 1000/1000
Space & Time Avenue: 1000/1000
Order & Chaos Avenue: 1000/1000]
"Break!"
His paths blasted through a great boundary and the universe began to shake.
But due to the heavy fluctuations already present, it wasn't very noticeable. Varian deliberately suppressed things as much as he could.
A few moments later, all his aura vanished and he looked no different from a mortal.
He no longer needed to control aura. It listened to him.
When he wanted to make an attack through order, he just had to will the existing order of his surroundings and they'd attack. Aura would assist his commands unconditionally.
"Huh?" Varian sensed his powers and a smile appeared on his face. "Interesting."
In rank 2, a divine ranker would have mastered a single avenue.
In rank 3, they're supposed to master all the three avenues.
To break into this rank, they'd have to achieve that initial mastery of the other two avenues.
A low rank would look as
[Main Avenue: 1001/3000
New Avenue 1: 1/3000
New Avenue 2: 1/3000]
To progress further, they'd have raise their new avenues to close the gap with their main avenue.
A mid rank 3 would be
[Main Avenue: 1500/3000
New Avenue 1: 1000/3000
New Avenue 2: 1000/3000]
And finally, at high rank 3, there's equalization.
[Main Avenue: 2500/3000
New Avenue 1: 2500/3000
New Avenue 2: 2500/3000]
Naturally, the peak rank 3 was all avenues reaching 3000/3000.
But since Varian had all the avenues already, he was in a special position.
[You'll have an advantage others can't as you go higher.]
Logos used to stay. Her words came true. He really wished she witnessed this.
But no worries, he told himself. He's looking forward to truly meeting her once this was over. A sliver maid, as promised.
'Status'.
[Life & Death: 1500/3000
Space & Time: 1500/3000
Order & Chaos: 1500/3000]
Varian broke directly into mid rank 3.
His understanding of the avenues had long surpassed a rank 2, but he was held back by the bottleneck so far. So after he broke through, he naturally progressed in his paths and went from 1000 to 1500.
God Emperor schemed for billions of years, had countless children and performed a dangerous ritual to reach high rank 3.
Architect, being the freaking creator of the universe, was also only at a high rank 3.
Varian did nothing of that sort. Yet, he's at mid rank 3, just one step behind.
"To finish the unfinished." He turned to Hortus and the three forbidden regions.
The fusion failed last time. The Primordial gods were rank 3s and as a rank 2, he could not handle the fusion completely.
But now—
"Fuse!"
The cosmic forbidden regions began to fuse with their Hortus' counterparts.
Unlike last time, Varian didn't need to exert a lot of effort. It happened seamlessly, as if they were always meant to be fused.
Hortus leaped into a higher level of existence. And Varian deeply felt its changes.
He sank his consciousness into it and something wonderful happened.
The cosmic version was the law, of how things were. The local version was an experiment, of how things could be. During fusion, these secrets were spilled out.
This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Varian seized it to the fullest.
As the master of the region, he was given a luxury view, with Hortus even slowing the fusion so he could observe it more clearly.
A while later, he opened his eyes.
The universe shook violently and he did not stop the fluctuations this time.
[Life & Death: 2500/3000
Space & Time: 2500/3000
Order & Chaos: 2500/3000]
High rank 3! Just moments ago, he was a peak rank 2 and now he's high rank 3, the same rank as those two who considered him as a mere pawn.
The disasters striking the universe slowed down almost instantly. And the great fluctuations stopped.
The two beings fighting for the fate of the universe turned in his direction, utter shock on their faces.