Chapter 5, SSS-Rank Mount, Divine Bull Nandi
"Ah? Ah!!!"
Daksha was stunned for a moment, then his eyes widened in shock.
"Who did this?! Who did this?!" Daksha roared in fury.
Although Brahma was forbidden from receiving offerings by Shiva, he was still his father god, the great god who created the entire world.
Destroying Brahma's body was an insult to Daksha, the lord of all beings!
"Um...besides that one, it seems no other god dares to attack your father." The sages didn't say it explicitly, but everyone knew what they meant.
Brahma, as the creator god with unparalleled divine power, how could an ordinary god possibly have the strength to smash his head? Vishnu, one of the three principal gods, was a protector god who advocated balance and wouldn't easily attack Brahma.
Therefore, there was only one answer left.
"Shiva! It must be Shiva!" Daksha shouted through gritted teeth.
He had endured so many years of asceticism, all to fulfill his father Brahma's mission: to unite Shiva with the goddess Shakti. His and his father's good intentions had been met with humiliation from Shiva in return; he could not tolerate this!
"Issue my decree: within my territory, the worship of Shiva is forbidden, nor are sacrifices performed for him. Those who disobey will be executed!"
"Lord Shiva, please reconsider. He is, after all, the god of destruction. If you forbid the worship of Shiva, what if he becomes enraged and unleashes his destructive fury…"
"What's there to be afraid of? My father is Brahma!"
...
At this moment, Shiva had no time to pay attention to Daksha; he had more important matters to attend to.
As a god of asceticism, Shiva also had his own mission: to continuously practice asceticism and bestow blessings upon those who practiced asceticism.
If he did not fulfill this mission, perhaps one day the invisible hand of the Supreme Brahma would descend and slap the universe back to its original state.
"Indian mythology is so ridiculous! I'm a Trinity, yet I still have to follow rules. If some scoundrel does some arduous ascetic practice, I have to grant their wishes. The god of destruction is made to sound like a genie!" Shiva couldn't help but complain.
Unexpectedly, this thought transformed into a resounding bell echoing for miles around, allowing countless powerful beings to hear Shiva's rules.
"So asceticism really works! I thought it was just some kind of pyramid scheme run by priests."
"I didn't expect even Shiva has to abide by the rules of asceticism."
"If I asceticize long enough, wouldn't Shiva be able to suck my bull's horns?"
"Dude, asceticism only grants one blessing. Aren't you afraid Shiva will grant your dream one minute and then destroy you the next?"
"That makes sense. I'll just have the goddess Sakti suck my horns then; she's part of Shiva anyway."
"Seriously, don't you have any lofty ideals? All you think about is this kind of sordid stuff?"
"Nonsense! I aspire to be the god of fertility. If I haven't even slept with the Trinity, how can I be worthy of being the god of fertility? Besides, sleeping with lizards on earth is a fine tradition in India."
Countless followers began to follow Shiva, all wanting to asceticize with him and receive blessings.
Shiva had become like a locomotive pulling monsters in a Warcraft movie; with each step forward, the sound of tens of thousands of feet stomping behind him could be heard.
Shiva had initially thought only Vishnu and Brahma, fellow Triads, could hear his thoughts. Now it seemed anyone with a modicum of spiritual attainment could hear his innermost thoughts.
If these tens of thousands of ascetics all clamored for blessings, who knew what bizarre wishes they would make?
"If I can't beat them, I can at least avoid them. Go ahead and follow me."
Shiva continued his journey towards the frigid far north, finally arriving at the snow-covered Mount Kailash.
Clad in a tiger-skin skirt and shirtless, Shiva, protected by divine power, felt no cold. But his ascetics weren't so lucky. Some froze solid on the ground.
Shiva sat on a snow-covered stone platform, legs crossed, watching his dwindling followers. He chuckled, "Don't you even know your own strength? Daring to use the same level of asceticism as me?"
Shiva named Mount Kailash "Kilasa," meaning Shiva's Heaven. It served as his meditation retreat, a place to gather wives who came to him.
Besides Shiva, some followers with slightly more skill also settled in Kilassa. Shiva didn't forbid it; as a Triad God, having a few followers was perfectly reasonable.
Shiva closed his eyes, his mind wandering, observing everything happening in Daksha's territory.
Sati, the reincarnation of the goddess Sakti, grew extremely quickly, soon blossoming into a beautiful young woman. Daksha, on the other hand, shaved his head, leaving only a thick braid at the back of his head, his once handsome face now filled with sinister and fierce intent.
"What a pity," Shiva couldn't help but sigh. "A lord of all beings, now he looks like a villain." To be honest, Shiva didn't quite understand Daksha's thought process. "Your father didn't say anything after I stabbed him in the head, but you, as his son, are getting stubborn. Of all people to challenge, why choose to challenge a god of destruction whom you can't possibly defeat? Isn't that just courting death?"
Even villains in online novels are usually killed because the protagonist is playing dumb and misjudges the situation.
But Shiva himself had transmigrated into Shiva, clearly an invincible being, yet some dared to defy him.
However, Shiva had no intention of dealing with Daksha. His meager divine power was less than a finger of Shiva's.
Besides, Sati was his assigned wife, making Daksha his father-in-law. Killing his father-in-law before even marrying his wife seemed rather unreasonable.
As a young girl, Sati was already quite pretty, often playing in the forest in her golden silk robes, showing curiosity and a thirst for knowledge about everything.
One day, she found a lost sacred bull named Nandi in the forest. It had a snow-white hide, and its two horns were as beautiful as works of art.
Sati showed the bull the way, and it followed her guidance out of the forest and all the way to the cremation grounds. The cremation grounds were filled with burning bonfires, the intense heat scorching Nandi, but it did not stop its journey.
Far away in Girossa, Shiva, in his ascetic practice, twitched his nose, sensing something was amiss.
"In the snowy mountains, I can even smell braised beef noodles. Am I hallucinating from hunger?"
Shiva used his divine power to investigate the source of the braised beef smell and found the sacred bull Nandi. He immediately set off, arriving at the cremation grounds in an instant.
"Truly a divine bull, it knows to come to my door for food."
As a god of asceticism, Shiva cannot gather or cook food himself during his ascetic practices, and can only wear primitive attire like a tiger-skin skirt. But if this bull roasts itself and then offers itself to Shiva, it wouldn't violate the rules of asceticism.
"Great God, don't eat me, I'm here for you to ride."
A flash of white light appeared on the divine bull Nandi, instantly transforming him into a dark-skinned man with two soft bull ears.
"A dark-skinned minotaur?"
"Great God, I am the divine bull Nandi, not some minotaur. Your other half, Sati, guided me, allowing me to escape when I was lost. In return, I am willing to be your mount for life."
"You've got quite the smooth talker..." Shiva couldn't help but think to himself.
He's already become a Trinity, able to shatter the void with a single kick; why would he need a mount? Have you ever seen the Flash drive a car, or Superman need to fly?
"Just say you want to curry favor with the big shot, why beat around the bush and make excuses?"
"Ah, this..." Nandi was momentarily speechless.
Shiva's thoughts, though crude, were not without merit; it seemed to make perfect sense. To mortals, Nandi was a divine bull, but to Shiva, he was just an ordinary, utterly ordinary animal.
"Great God, you're right! I'll be blunt, this bull wants to follow the most powerful deity, to feel the worship of ascetics beneath you! Think about it, as the God of Destruction, if you always appear barefoot, it would absolutely damage the dignity of the Triad!"
"Hmm, that's quite honest. Then I'll reluctantly take you as my mount."
In Hindu mythology, bulls are comparable to dragons and phoenixes in the world of cultivation; riding a white-haired divine bull is truly befitting his noble status as the Triad.
Moreover, ascetics cannot even wear shoes. Every time Shiva walked in his ascetic practice, his feet were chafed by the sand and gravel; a mount would have solved this problem perfectly.
Shiva led Nandi back to Gilasa to continue his ascetic meditation.
The wheels of time rolled on, and finally, the day came when Sati grew into adulthood.