Rise of the Cosmic_Emperor

While Tanya had been facing the masked man when she spoke, her words were directed at her brother who was frowning at the masked man from behind her.

She was chastising Creten for his idiocy in engaging in a battle with someone whose skill set he knew nothing about and Creten could tell that that was what she meant.

Add that to the fact that Tanya just displayed the use of an Abstract Ordinance and you will see why Creten felt so embarrassed right now.

Hal eyed Tanya's stretched hand and was smiling lightly and had his brows furrowed as he stared at Tanya whose hand was still stretched out towards him.

The Princess had proven she was indeed a talent worth a tip of the hat and a gasp of respect.

She had proved herself a genius and almost undoubtedly the best of the Emperor's children.

That said, Hal was bit least not worried...

Insight into an Abstract Ordinance could not trouble him when it was accompanied by Semi-Saint Cultivation.

He had transcended...

However, just thinking and reasoning about his superiority was not enough and Hal changed the target of his experiment from Creten to Tanya.

"Makes no difference," he said with a chuckle and Tanya barely had any time to react before the space around him folded and resulted in a disappearance.

Tanya slammed her hand into Creten and not only pushed him back with her strength as a Semi-Saint but also warped Reality around him so that he was taken away from her immediate vicinity just as the masked man appeared and made to punch her in the face.

Tanya caught the masked man's punch with her Rose-red Sword cosmic Armament that she had summoned so fast, not even Creten who was watching the battle from a visible distance, saw her summon it.

*Bang!*

The moment Hal made contact with Tanya's sword, the space around them became shrouded in red light as reality was warped once again.

As Tanya used her Abstract Ordinance against an Opponent for the first time, she could not help but notice a sluggishness... As though her Ordinance was reluctant to react against this masked man.

Her plan had been to warp reality so that her opponent's fist was not solidly against her sword but was instead cut through while forcing him to his knees.

Now, the way Ordinances worked, the only ones who should've been able to resist the effect of her Ordinance were Cosmic-Saints who possessed an Elemental Ordinance at Harnessing comprehension level heading towards Incarnation or possessed an Abstract Ordinance that was at the very least at the Insight Comprehension level just like her.

The common requirement though was that the person was above her in terms of cultivation.

While this masked man had shown off abilities that put him at Semi-Saint level, he seemed to be fighting off the effects of her Ordinance almost passively and the reason she considered the resistance to be passive was that she had not sensed any use of Ordinance from him... Not even once.

She detected a powerful ruling Dao but not once did she detect an Ordinance.

Anyway, when she warped reality, the best result she got was her opponent on his knees but her sword never cut him.

That said, Tanya did not bat an eye and remained focused on the task at hand as she coated her sword in Semi-Saint energy and caused it to detonate in an explosion that had no damaging effect on her despite pushing her back.

*BOOOOMMMM!!!*

The dust of the explosion barely settled that the masked man was charging out and towards her but Tanya had known this would happen... She had seen his battle with her brother after all.

She let him get closer before falling to the ground on her back.

Before she hit the ground, she warped reality and swapped her presence with that of an Array circle that she had been getting prepared all along.

The Array trapped the masked man and by the time he was wrenching himself out of the array, as she had expected he would be able to do, Tanya unleashed an entire arsenal of attacking skills at him.

Tanya backed those skills up with not only her reality-warping but also her Ordinance of speed so that they all arrived at the masked in before he could take a step out of the Array once he had broken free of it.

Tanya was not holding back...

Any hesitation that might have been born of her considering that it might be Hal behind that mask was shut away and from every one of those skills, Hal could feel killing intent.

Sassy the serpent was still occupying the attention of the mob quite well and from the safe distance that he was at, Creten gritted his teeth but had already called for reinforcements.

He had Summoning Portable Teleportation circles laid down for the reinforcements to arrive faster.

There were forts not too far away from the border that contained loyal cultivators who would readily come to an Imperial Prince's aid.

Did he hesitate at first? Yes, he did...

He found calling for reinforcements to be quite embarrassing.

He would not only have failed to get a Dystopian trophy but would also have needed help defeating one.

Eventually, he let go of his pride...

After all, his sister had already taken over and he was no longer en involved in the battle that was proving to be an incredible exhibition of how insane Abstract Ordinances were.

The battle currently was clearly between two abstract Ordinance wielding Opponents. At least that was how it seemed to Creten.

Speaking of which,

Hal smirked while standing at the spot where he just broke free of Tanya's Array and then said in a low voice thick with Sovereign Authority,

"Stop"

*Ting*

The sound was tiny yet could be heard by everyone in the area just as every single attacking Cosmic Skill froze in the air before they could make contact with him- regardless of how fast they were.

Hal admitted that cosmic skills were impressive and while he hardly used them, he recognized them to be a valid addition to any skilled experts arsenal- and Tanya was definitely skilled.

Alas, they all still contained Cosmic energy.

Currently, with his cultivation at the peak of the Cosmic Pagoda realm, Cosmic energy in any form that was not backed by the energy of at least a Four-Star Saint was susceptible to the authority of his Sovereign Dao.

Actually, Hal was sure his influence on Cosmic energy was sure to pass that threshold and four Star saint was just him playing it easy.

With the skills stopped in place, Hal followed up with a brush of Infinity that showcased an Ability gleaned from Chaos... An ability to decimate all Ordinances and render them void.

"What the hell?" Creten exclaimed at such a display and while Tanya said nothing, and remained as stoic as she could be, she was thinking the same thing.

As Hal turned his face to stare at Tanya from behind his mask, the skills all dissolved into Cosmic energy that Hal refined right there on the spot and absolved into his body for quick assimilation.

With the Infinite Sovereign Scripture, Hal could refine any form of Cosmic energy that he could take control of - which meant he could quite literally use his enemies' attacks to strengthen himself.

Leaning back and spreading his arms, Hal took a deep breath before bursting into rumbling laughter...

Before the laughter stopped, the space around him folded in as he vanished and reappeared in front of Tanya who quickly let go of whatever fear she was feeling so that she could stop her masked opponent from gaining any ground.

She attempted another reality-warping but before she was even done, Hal placed a hand on her shoulder and negated it.

He negated anything she might have thought to try using... Her Ordinance, Her Cultivation- not even her Dao answered her call.

It was hard for her not to wonder if this was the end even as her brain worked overtime to think of a way out of the situation.

Everyone that was not her and Creten was battling the green serpent right now and Tanya did not even have the support of those who would usually be in her corner as they left before all this combat broke out.

'I can do this... I can get out of this...' she thought and prepared to make use of her trump card.

Added protection she had received from her mother and felt would do her good right now.

And then she heard the voice of the masked man, thick with Sovereign Authority, in her head,

"You did good... You'll be fine"

There was mirth in the voice that suggested it had been having fun all this while which was accurate.

Tanya felt buoyed by the familiarity she felt with the voice and it made it so that she was not mentally broken.

It was then that the Portable Teleportation circles that Creten had laid down finally shone and reinforcements arrived.

All members of the continent's battling force but Hal had had his experiment and was not interested in a battle with them.

"Knock me back," Hal told Tanya mentally while restoring her ability to use Cosmic energy.

Tanya obeyed the command immediately and unleashed quite an impressive explosive blast of Cosmic energy backed by Semi-Saint energy.

*BANG!*

*BOOOMMM!!!*

The explosion caused no damage to Hal but it did what he wanted it to do which was to present Tanya in a picture of pseudo-dominance... A picture where she had the last word against her opponent(him).

Hal called to Sassy and the familiar allowed herself to smack one last person with her gigantic tail before shrinking to her cobra size and arriving on Hal's shoulder with space-folding speed,

"Well, this has been fun..." Ha said with a chuckle.

"Absolutely" Sassy agreed in a vocal tone that all those present heard just before the Portal to the Harem space swallowed her and her master.