The omniverse was filled with various sorts of unbelievably powerful entities, even in the wake of the destruction of the Living Gods and their vast empires. One such class of beings was the tremendously powerful evolution of planetary-level and galactic-level divinities; a subspecies of gods known as the "Cosmic Gods". 

"Cosmic Gods" were themselves the ultimate kinds of gods that were not Living Gods and they were one of five kinds of beings known as "Ascendants", creatures who were innately either the children of ascendants or were mundane races with ties to one of the five kinds of ascendants who lived long lives, accrued power, and subsequently underwent an apotheosis to transcend mundanity. "Ascendants" at the height of their powers could utilize their vast powers to alter and affect entire universes and the luckiest and strongest ascendants even became "Multiversal Overdeities" creators, and sometimes even rulers of entire multiverses; collections of loosely connected universes.

The first of the five kinds of ascendants were "Transynths"; they were the most mysterious and rarest ascendants who arose from machines, androids, and other artificial lifeforms. The second of the five kinds of ascendants were "Dragon lords"; dragons and their kin who freed themselves from mortality and while doing so gained vast draconic power and hordes the sizes of planets.

The third kind of ascendants was the "Archdemon"; they were demons who had mastered sin and wickedness to the point that they acquired power greater than even mundane divinity could grant. The fourth kind of ascendants was the "Sanguinarch"; they were undead and undead-adjacent entities who mastered vampirism and necromancy. The final and second rarest kind of ascendants were; "Cosmic Gods", deities who had built such vast faiths and attained access to such potent power sources that they had transcended beyond the limitations of mundane divinity.

As the most directly powerful of the five kinds of ascendants "Cosmic Gods" operated a bit differently from any of the other kinds of ascendant entities that roamed the omniverse. Each Cosmic God was capable of gaining power from manifestations of their domains across an entire multiverse instead of being limited to drawing power from events involving their domains on their worlds, solar systems, or, in the cases of at the very apex of power available to a mundane divinity, galaxies. And somehow that was only the beginning of the differences between a Cosmic God and a mundane divinity! 

A Cosmic God, such as Antonio, was capable of everything that a mundane divinity was capable of but on scales virtually unimaginable to lesser divinities, as well as a litany of feats that were just impossible for lesser gods. And one of the most important differences between a lesser god and a Cosmic God was that Cosmic Gods, at least those with the right power sources and the right domains, were always increasing in power.

Even though I hadn't stopped to actually consider it, every second that passed caused me to vastly increase in power in a number of ways. As far as being a Living God went every passing second "Eternal Ascension" elevated my holistic level of might, as well as my individual powers to newer and newer heights. This was so much the case that even if I ever chose to do something like spending a million years submerged underneath a river, meditating on the nature of existence I'd continue to grow in power, undisrupted by my own laziness. It was impossible for my power to ever wane in any capacity! 

If I wanted to I could have embraced the sin of sloth and merely sat in a dark tomb for millions of years, unbothered by anyone and unchanged by anything, and waited for the other abilities that I knew I'd one day awaken within the very depths of my ever-growing soul. Remarkably, "Eternal Ascension" was not at all my sole source of strength and growth. 

As a "Cosmic God" and as an "Archdemon" I was able to grow in power passively in a number of ways. As it related to being an "Archdemon", especially a sevenfold Archdemon, I could simply sit back and bask in the passive power boosts I was receiving every second due to the uncountable number of sins being committed every second in the multiverse. Hell, if I ever opted to sit back and bask in the power of sin, that'd be itself a sin of both pride and sloth and that'd actually empower me! 

That said, the more impressive and more constant boost to my own power was actually due to my nature as a Supreme Celestial level Cosmic God. This was due to the way that Cosmic Gods, especially Supreme Celestial level ones, acquired power. Like Archdemons with sins, a Cosmic God had the potential to gain a little bit of power every single time something related to their domains occurred, though how much power they acquired from this depended on a range of factors. 

The first factor that was considered when a Cosmic God was drawing power from an event that involved one of their domains was whether or not they had maximized the "Domain" power source. I had, due to my nature as a maximally powerful Cosmic God, and thus drew exponentially more strength from domains than many other Cosmic Gods did. The second factor was how powerful the Cosmic God in question was with regards to the domain that was giving them power. They were numerous domains, such as war, life, death, knowledge, chaos, order, and light, and these were just some of them.

The total list of domains was surprisingly extensive. And, unsurprisingly, there were more factors to consider when determining how much total power a Cosmic God got from his, her, or their domains, but I had focused on the most important ones.

I had total mastery over all of them, which meant that in addition to vastly boosting my ability to influence them if I wanted to, I was constantly receiving a truly vast amount of power at any passing second, thanks to the sheer number of events occurring throughout the multiverse of my birth that involved my domains in some way or another. Having total mastery over the domains also granted me powers related to each domain, such as the ability to improve health as it related to life, or bolster the growth rate of plants as it related to nature.

For now, the range from which I could acquire passive boosts to my power due to events that involved my domains was limited to this multiverse, the one I was currently in. I knew that eventually, I'd break through this steep limitation, but it did minorly annoy me now that I was actually seriously considering my sources of power for the first time since I decided on them while empowering myself with "Power Architect". Fortunately, this wasn't the only passive way I accrued power, since I had actually maximized the "Innate" power source for Cosmic Gods as well! 

As a Cosmic God, I possessed an inner, intrinsic font of power that I could utilize in any way that I wished, similar to how I had an inner wellspring of essence within me due to my nature as a supremely powerful Sanguinarch that I could use freely, which was amplified by the regular but small amounts of essence that I received from my devoted, dominated, cultists. This natural font of power was a result of my "Innate" power source and it grew with every passing second and swelled further due to my steadily and perpetually increasing power as a Cosmic God!

I had also maximized this source of power, for the express purpose of creating a potent feedback loop that ensured that my personal power was always waxing. Nevertheless, if I wanted to truly increase my power and I wasn't willing to just wait for my power to naturally swell, I needed to be proactive.

The nunnery near the outskirts of Redsville was a quaint place. It was situated far enough away from the hustle and bustle of the rest of the city, while still being able to afford many of the theoretical benefits of being in a city, such as close access to businesses and other communities, while still providing its inhabitants, an order of sisters who sought to commune with their god. 

The order of nuns who lived in the nunnery was known as "The Sisters of the Sun" and they were a local group of Felmocists, devotees of a monotheistic faith known as Felmocism. Felmocism was the most popular faith in America and had over a billion devotees across the planet. The religion worshiped what Antonio now knew was a lesser divinity of a moderate amount of power named Felmoco. 

On the second day of what some historians would later come to call "The Outsider's First Steps", the nuns in the nunnery awoke unaware that anything important in the world had changed compared to the day before. Sure, a few of the Hispanic nuns had heard of the strange news out of Puerto Rico, but no one thought much of it due to the hard work done by government agents to protect the city in the wake of an "odd, localized natural disaster". None of the sisters knew of the strange and curious young god who walked among them, in the very city where the nunnery was located.

The nunnery had come to life in the wee hours of the morning, at around the very same time that Antonio himself had been partway through conducting research online into how to become empowered by human creativity. The earliest risers among the nuns had awoken and begun to awaken their sisters for the earliest morning rituals they conducted daily, such as the reading of the pre-dawn scriptures their head-sister had decided they'd read together earlier this very week at the same time that Antonio was ascending to cosmic divinity. It was a curious coincidence that both Antonio and the sisters were learning from human creativity, albeit in very different ways. 

Following the reading of the pre-dawn scriptures, the sisters conducted a half-hour of prayer, an act which provided their divine lord, the deity Felmoco, with three small amounts of power. It was because such actions (when done sincerely at least) created diminutive amounts of power that were transmitted to the gods that so many deities encouraged some form of invocation, ritual, and worship. The sisters beseeching their deity in prayer, no matter what for, was an act of invocation, ritual, and worship that supplied Felmoco with a little bit of divine power in the same way that prayers to Antonio would empower him, prayers such as those offered by members of his cult. 

If one had to compare Felmoco to Antonio, the only real area where Felmoco exceeded Antonio that the mundane god could have been proud of was that he was actively worshiped by many, many more people than Antonio was. The earthly divinity was an incredibly popular divinity among the gods of Earth and his divine power swelled because of the ranks of his faithful, especially with how many of his faithful were inside of temples or standing outside of shrines. 

Another quirk about godhood, be it cosmic godhood or the sort of godhood that was a good deal lower on the social and might-based hierarchical ladder of gods, was that they tended to want their followers to build temples or at least shrines of some sort to them. And despite what lesser beings might think, gods had reasons, good ones at that, to order their followers to build temples and shrines to them!

The reasoning was actually quite simple, and it wasn't simply vanity. Antonio, having just learned the reason from his innermost self, reflected on it as he began to invisibly watch the nunnery.

"Temples and shrines expand and multiply the power created by any divine power source and transmitted to any deity, so long as the god in question is a good-standing member of the pantheon to which the temple is erected. If this is not the case, then only some of the energy goes through to the god to whom it ought to go." I heard my inner voice repeat to me as I used my mind's eye to observe the nunnery. 

My mind's eye was now "on the ground" as it were, inside of the nunnery, even if I was not physically there. As it surveyed the nunnery I allowed my mind to focus on a specific room within the building; the abbey, the part of the nunnery that was a church. In this room sat numerous nuns,  all of whom wore the formal habits that were iconic parts of being a nun. 

Over the course of the last few minutes, I had watched the sisters with my mind's eye and learned their secrets. And now I had a plan to steal this place of worship from right under Felmoco's nose. 

I activated "Subtle", my potent cloaking device Living God superpower, and hid myself from the view of my competition for the piety of Earth's humans. He wasn't aware i existed, yet, but one could never be careful enough when it came to this sort of thing.

I felt the incredible power wash over me and knew that whatever I wanted to do with this quasi-invisibility was an option for me, since I could effortlessly hide from the vision of anyone at any time who wanted to see me. It was like I had never existed.

My undetectability, aside from those who I wanted or allowed to see me, would allow me to have some insidious fun in this nunnery. The fun I was planning would, of course, come at the expense of Felmoco and had the added bonus of gaining more worshipers and friendly territory for me. I smiled and readied myself to truly initiate my plan. The smirk on my face as I entered the nunnery was positively massive.