Rise of the Cosmic_Emperor

The female figure was Aliya and her fist made contact with Pietro and knocked him back despite his quick use of cosmic energy to defend himself.

Nozel remained calmly seated and watched as Tanya swallowed the dark red liquid in a vial and watched as the liquid sparked a change within her.

The whites of her eyes turned bloodshot and her green pupils turned darker due to dilation while beastly force began to exude from her being.

"Well, isn't this interesting" Nozel said, "Dystopian upgrade?"

Tanya said nothing...

The dark red liquid was of course that of Beldar the Dystopian and ever since she got it, she had been experimenting on how she could make use of it, and this last year, she had augmented it to be swallowed and give her the significant boost that Nozel could feel.

"Pitiful," Nozel said and his image shimmered into a mirage right at the same time that his fist connected with Tanya's chest and sent her smacking against the room wall.

Nozel closed in on his sister and with a hand on her neck, he delivered three quick hits to her face.

*Bam* *Bam* *Bam*

Tanya did nothing during the delivery of all three strikes to let the liquid she had swallowed really merge with her being and truly grant her a combative boost.

Once the third blow hit her, she retaliated with a punch of her own but Nozel just knocked her hand aside before summoning a sword to stab her with.

He thrust and suddenly reality warped... Tanya was gone and his sword sunk into the wall.

Nozel smirked at her ordinance use just as Tanya tried once again to hit him with a blow but unlike before when her brother had been able to smack her blow aside, Tanya backed her punch with her Elemental Ordinance of Speed that would forever grant her a speed advantage over an opponent not wielding an Ordinance.

*BAM!*

The blow was massive and caused the dispersion of strong wind but Nozel did not move an inch.

Tanya had directed her blow to her brother's forehead to knock the gem off but she found that, somehow, her blow's trajectory changed. It connected with Nozel's cheek instead.

"Impressive," he said and now afflicted her with energy from his gem and Tanya felt depowered. She felt a sluggishness with her Ordinance-use.

She remembered that she had felt something similar... The first time she ever faced Hal with his mask on, he had placed a hand on her shoulder and produced a similar effect.

Tanya did not have the time to think about the similarities though as Nozel stabbed her with a sword and then proceeded to kick her back.

The force behind that kick was the sort that had Tanya breaking through the wall of her lounge, a different one from the one Aliya had destroyed during her interfering charge, and before she(Tanya) could even hit the ground, Nozel caught up to her and kicked her again...

*BAM!!!*

... This kick sent Tanya upward where she groaned and spat out blood while her body released dark spores as though she was shedding.

But Tanya was not done, and with her arms crossed in front of her face, her change went from simply in aura to physical.

Her body got covered with grey scales that thickened by the second and when Nozel's next blow hit, she withstood it and released a blast of Astral energy in the form of a massive rune that she slammed her brother with.

Along with that, Tanya, who was held afloat by her peak Semi-Saint wings, also let out a massive strike with Cosmic energy and she backed that strike with faith that she harnessed with the Nexus Stone.

Nozel was able to smack her rune aside but that was not the same for the attack backed by faith... His negation, gained through the Monument of Ordinances, did not help against it.

It hit him and sent him to the ground but he controlled himself and stopped his downfall just as four Saints surrounded him.

The Saints had obviously been sent by the Emperor to stop the battle or more accurately, they had been sent to stop Nozel and support Tanya.

To their arrival, Nozel sneered,

"Nuisance," he said and a wave of energy spread from him to slam into all of them and send them in multiple directions where they struggled and failed to re-harness their abilities.

The moment they had been slammed aside, Tanya descended upon her brother with her sword out, and green chains formed of her bloodline energy swinging around her, all of it backed by the Faith she harnessed from the Nexus stone.

She had guessed that Nozel could not negate an attack she backed with harnessed Faith and she was right. As she came down on him, he met her as he would meet any other attack; with a counter.

The energy he was harnessing which he claimed to have gotten from the Monument of Ordinances was made up of multiple colors and an amalgamation of multiple Ordinant energies.

He forged that energy into an Ax and tossed it at Tanya who attempted to use her sword and chains to block but the Ax cut through them and went on to strike Tanya who initiated Reality warping as well as her speed Ordinance to avoid getting hit.

However, the closer the Ax got to her, the harder it was to avoid, and eventually, the most she could do was avoid getting hit in the chest. She was hacked in the shoulder instead.

"Ngghh"

Her scales had reduced the cut but it was still deep and before she could gather her bearings, Nozel struck her yet again and then began delivering strikes to her body. With each blow, Tanya shed scales as well as spores all of which were impurities that Nozel cared nothing about.

To him, they were evidence of his win and Tanya's innate disadvantage and he was right.

Aliya was not having much luck on her end either.

Her one-on-one battle against Pietro became two-on-one with the arrival of Ergo on the scene and the most annoying part of it all was that Ergo was not needed.

Pietro was a Semi-Saint at a relatively equal range of strength as her and he had also been imbued with energy from his master, Prince Nozel, which increased his strength to that of a three-star Saint so the multicolored-haired man already had the advantage.

Adding Ergo to the mix was just overkill.

Aliya's only successful attack was her first strike with a blow and that had no actual effect on Pietro who, from then on, had the upper hand and dealt her a great deal of pain.

If ever Aliya was able to think and come up with a strategy, she always needed to include the variable that was Ergo as she knew he would happily interfere if there was even a chance that she land a hit on Pietro.

The plan and reason for Aliya's interference had been to take Ergo's attention away from the battle between Tanya and Nozel but as it turned out, there was no need as Nozel had no use for outside help.

There was good news for Aliya though. Although it took the battle getting well underway as well as her getting toyed with by Pietro for it to arrive, support eventually came for her in the form of Ehrlich.

Lena, Tanya's closest maidservant and usually closest confidant was around but lacked the confidence to join the battle on account of her cultivation which was not even yet at the Cosmic Pagoda realm.

Anyway, Ehrlich had been alerted to the possibility of trouble beforehand and only just arrived. He went right for Ergo which finally let Aliya focus her attention on Pietro. That was the good news.

The bad news though was that it hardly made a difference. Even without Ergo, Pietro still had the upper hand and Ehrlich joining the fight only made it so that Aliya had a partner in pain.

Meanwhile, the battle in the sky had taken all the bad turns for Tanya.

The Princess had been brutalized... Her face was bloody, her nose broken... Multiple bones in her body had been fractured and/or shattered.

Her scales had been sliced through in multiple places and multiple times and even though her Semi-saint wings still kept her afloat, she was limp and appeared to be lacking any will to fight.

The savage rage and strength boost that she has gained by ingesting modified/enhanced Dystopian blood was pointless in the face of her brother's strength.

All around her or more accurately, all around her and Nozel, were the dark spores that had been knocked off and out of her body. There was more now and they formed a thick cloud.

Seeing them made Nozel happy and to the best of his knowledge, seeing them caused Tanya to despair.

"I told you dear sister; Whatever form of power you happen to possess is useless against me *Cough*"

The cough caught Nozel by surprise and he cleared his throat before he tried speaking again,

"There are many *Cough* eyes on us both seen and unseen. Father is surely ready to intervene but he won't intervene fast *Cough* fast *Cough* *Cough* fast enough to Save You!"

*Cough*

"Are you alright brother?" Tanya asked and her concern sounded false which made perfect sense all things considered.

Nozel ignored her,

"Surrender *Cough* the Nexus Stone to... *Cough* *Cough* *Cough*... To me and I shall spare you! *Cough* *Cough* *Cough* *Cough* *Cough* *Cough*"

At this point, the coughing fit was uncontrollable and Nozel backed away from Tanya confused and with an aching chest,

"What the hell...? *Cough* What is happening to me?" he asked.

Tanya raised her head and while she looked weak and tired, she was grinning with satisfaction as she revealed,

"Spores, dear brother... Spores"

Nozel's eyes widened in Horror.