Using demons to do their dirty work is very efficient. They will keep the people needful which is beneficial to the god of life and they will bear the brunt of their hatred. The tree father wouldn't mind hatred if he wanted to be an evil god but being a happy god is a better source of faith.
If there is to be a perfect good god, there has to be an opposite evil to compare with. The god of life will protect the giants of order from the evil demons. So he gets to control the evil and also be the target of all the good. It is eating their cake and having it.
If that is not enough to keep the giants of order faithful, then there are the fragrant flowers in the forest that release special pollens which make giants happy. This happy pollen will work on mana entities and below. It keeps negative emotions and reactions at bay while doing the opposite to positive emotions. It makes it difficult for those living in the forest to become sad and unhappy.
They are all optimistic about their future despite the bad situation of things that forced them to come and live in a forest. They used to have buildings, nice clothes, other luxuries but all of those burned down. Now they have nothing and have to build all over again. The pollen makes them smile through this period of hardship so they continue to put in their best effort in building the city day by day.
Most importantly, the pollen makes it very very difficult to leave the forest after getting used to the pollen. The outside world will become dull, unexciting, and scary. Going without this special pollen will make it difficult to relax. They will always be scared of something in the outside world because their fight or flight mode will be easy to rule up.
It is obvious that with all the preparations that the tree father has made, he will be in control for a very long time. With a little more time, the tree father will change from being a new god into becoming the cornerstone religion. All these smiling giants of Order in the city will become zealots ready to sacrifice themselves, their family, and their wealth for the church of life and its god.
"What a nice city." He commented on their efforts idly as he flew past the city and entered the divine forest.
The city is being built along the outer ring of the forest. The main forest is a no-go area. Only the plant spirits roam this area. It is called the divine forest. It used to be the small patch of life created when the tree father was growing. Now it is very large, spanning hundreds of kilometers.
Aeternus approached the towering tree at the center of the divine forest. The avatar of the tree father has already reached more than 10 kilometers tall with the increase of faith. He found Helios at the foot of the tree. He is working on Beelta's body. More like what's left of her body. More than half of it is missing and he knows how it got missing.
Aeternus shook his head when he saw the difference in size between the tree father and Helios. Helios looks like a child beside a tree and he is more than 100 meters tall. He must look like a bug wandering in the forest with a height of 1.7 meters.
"I lost what's left of Zernon's arms when they attacked you. That clash affected the last remaining arm and destroyed it just like it almost destroyed me because of Stelios. That GodSlayer has a weird way of destroying an entity's existence. I think it is the lock on properties."
Helios didn't welcome him. He started talking about what they are to do immediately.
"Anyway, I used up the other arm in my experiments. Now, I need life subjects. Get ready, Stelios should be waking up soon."
Aeternus nodded. He sat down and began to meditate. The tree father extended a vine to Aeternus. The green vine stopped in front of his face and poised itself at one of his eye sockets. The vine is coated with the Authority of life and will be able to pierce through his head if need be.
The tree father doesn't want to kill him for the fun of it or out of malice. It is just one of the precautions needed to be taken for the coming experiment. It doesn't change the fact that he might not survive the upcoming experiment.
They began waiting for Stelios to finish evolving. Celestials grow stronger by absorbing other Celestials but they can only have qualitative change when they absorb a Celestial with a compatible domain. Stelios absorbed Zernon and found a compatible domain. It is what is taking him so long to evolve. Stelios has to separate Justice from Order within the Celestial Authority and absorbed what's left of it because only Order is compatible with him.
If Zernon had absorbed Stelios then he would have gained nothing qualitative. He would have gained divinity and divine power but he wouldn't grow stronger because the sun domain is not compatible with both of his domains.
It wouldn't have done him any good to absorb Stelios when they were both in a near-death state. That's why he didn't turn on the sun god then. He is a level two Celestial while Stelios is a near-death level one Celestial. Absorbing the sun god would be like eating bones to fix hunger. It is an inefficient procedure that might even harm him. He would lose more of his power during the absorption and gain very little in return so he didn't bother.
The rules that determine the compatibility of domains are not set in stone. They vary from plane to plane and from god to god. The major thing that determines which domain is compatible is the divine image of the god. The image that Zernon has cultivated makes his domains incompatible with the domain of the sun.