Rise of the Cosmic_Emperor

*Cough* *Cough* *Cough*

The final cough was the most aggressive yet for Nozel and caused him to spit out blood into his hand which he had placed over his mouth while coughing.

The Prince looked within himself and sure enough, the spores he had considered not worth note and expected his body to process as the impurities they were were rather getting attached to every drop of blood in his bloodstream.

He had been breathing the spores in since Tanya first started shedding them and his body had judged them as unharmful which was why he had been so careless around them.

His powers gained through the Monument strengthened him through the outside source but that power did not give him increased sensory abilities when in the case of his body.

It was a kind of power and ability-set gotten from an Artifact (the gem was an Artifact) that had nothing to do with the wielder's body. This was a situation that had its pros and cons;

Pros- the gem is not connected to its wielder's body and thus is not subject to whatever afflictions and incapability of its wielder which makes it sort of independent and capable of showcasing its power without worry of whether the wielder's constitution can handle it...

... i.e if the gem has power that can contend with an expert at the Ninth star of the Saint realm, for example, that power output will not be affected by the fact that the wielder (Nozel) was only still at the Cosmic Pagoda realm.

Cons- The disconnect of the gem from its wielder's body and internal constitution can be bad in the sense that it will not be alerting its wielder to any internal threat they might be facing...

... i.e Nozel had the responsibility of keeping an eye on what got into his body as the gem could honestly not care less.

Nozel knew this... It was the symbiosis he had formed with the gem and he had never really slacked with it and that was why this all was so horrifically strange.

His body was surely strong enough to know what was harmful and what was not and thus should have alerted him from the moment it even appeared around him.

"How...?" Nozel asked before coughing up blood and wheezing due to an increasing difficulty in his ability to breathe.

Tanya took advantage of the breather, and her brother's inability to take notice of her at the moment, to retrieve high-quality mending pills which she gobbled up in the dozen.

Her wounds began to heal and her broken bones began to mend while strength slowly returned to her body and she absorbed cosmic energy to replenish what she had lost.

"How did they get inside you? Why did your body not alert you? It's simple brother, your body did not alert you to danger because the spores are not harmful. They are either empowering or they are dormant but never really harmful" Tanya said and with a wave of her hand, she cleansed herself of the blood on her body.

"*Cough* What...?" Nozel was about to ask her what she meant and vocally express that she was making no sense when he suddenly began to feel empowered. His eyesight was getting tinged with red.

"The spores were not dislodged impurities because of how much your fist hammered against me... The spores were flecks of the liquid I swallowed released voluntarily in the smallest and most inconspicuous manner possible.

They act in a similar manner to the liquid but take much longer to be active.

Judging by your eyes, you must already be feeling empowered, your eyesight tainted with red... You must be feeling a savage rage brewing within.

I guess you might not be able to truly appreciate those empowering effects what with the coughing fits"

Tanya paused and let her brother cough out a few more. She watched him try a few times to speak and chuckle every time he failed.

She continued,

"Speaking about your coughing fits, that's just your body's reaction to a substance that should not be in it.

Yes, I know that sounds like a contradiction of when I said that it was not harmful but bear with me and what I am saying might make sense.

Are you listening? (Nozel coughs) I'll take that as a yes.

The spores are not harmful at first glance and whatever aura it gives off, your body will either perceive as empowering or dormant so you will either be excited at the sight of it or you will be nonchalant. That is at first glance and that is all that matters.

Your body is not some super sentient system that can calculate potential danger... It sees it as dormant or empowering and it does not alert you.

You, dear brother, focused on me and trusted your body so you didn't second guess yourself and focused on delivering a beatdown all to convince me to willingly give up the Nexus Stone and swear allegiance to you.

Anyway, the spores do nothing when they enter you and rather go through your bloodstream and start settling into areas where they can cause the most damage.

The moment enough of the spores are inside you, they begin to slowly show effect but you will feel pain before you feel benefits.

Still with me? (Nozel coughs even harder) I'll take that as another yes.

So you see, the spores are not harmful when they get into your but the side effect of the power they grant is pain and the coughing up blood is your Haron Bloodline rejecting something empowering that is not compatible with it."

Tanya flew closer to her brother and placed a hand on his shoulder and despite the strength of the spores coursing through him, Nozel could not bring himself to shake her off.

He resorted to the energy in his gem instead and it slammed into Tanya and sent her rocketing downward into a building below.

*BAM!*

*BANG!*

A second later and Tanya was back in the sky in front of her brother with a nice blend of Speed and Reality Ordinance.

"You were right brother! To harness external Power, one needs internal power" Tanya said with a chuckle.

The gem might be separate from Nozel's body and constitution but being physically ill affected how well the prince could harness the gem's power.

His ability had greatly lessened and he only got worse the longer it went on.

Nozel of course tried to expel the spores from his body but they were self-replicating at breakneck speed with almost every drop of his blood now surrounded by multiple clumps of spores.

His body rejecting the spores was what was causing him to feel I'll and spit out blood and while that was quickly making him incapable of moving his limbs, it was actually a good thing for the Prince.

His body was on overdrive to expel the spores and that was his best bet if he wished to get back into fighting capabilities soon.

The thing was, even if he did nothing, the spores would not last forever. They would vanish once the time limit is up but that time limit was more than enough for Tanya to take advantage which was what Nozel was trying to avoid.

Nozel stared into his sister's face. He believed that this was not a plan she was just coming up with on the fly. She knew exactly what she was doing from the start and it was all prepared.

He was right. Sort of.

Tanya knew she was incapable of contending with Nozel whose source of power outstripped anything she had.

Any chance she had at coming out on top against her brother, whose plans went against Tanya's cooperation with her father who she was ready to wait out before taking her place on the throne as Empress, would have to be stealthy.

She chose poison as her weapon of choice in this stealthy scheme. The idea was established but she had to improvise once Nozel revealed a desire for the Nexus stone.

The moment Nozel made it clear he still desired the Nexus stone despite the power he already had with the gem in his forehead, Tanya decided to take on an aggressive stance as a distraction.

A quick signal to Aliya who was already waiting to pounce and the plan began.

Tanya put up a good fight and rather than directly poison her brother, which would likely fail, she decided to make herself a carrier for the spores instead. That was the improvised part.

Tanya got closer to Nozel again and once again, he tried to knock her aside with the energy from his gem to give himself time to recover a fighting chance by expelling as much of the replicating spores as he could.

Tanya saw the energy coming which would have been impossible before and she sidestepped it before warping reality to bring her brother closer just so she could punch him in the face.

*BAM!*

The force sent Nozel to the ground at an incredibly fast rate but Tanya surpassed that speed and kneed him in the spine which resulted in the sickening sound of a *Crack!*.

"Arrrrgggghhhhhhh" Nozel screamed but even as he did, Tanya punched him in the forehead and pulled him back with a reality warp just to punch him in the forehead as she had previously been unable to do.

Her blow hit just at the side of the gem and before it could send Nozel flying back, Tanya grabbed the gem with cosmic energy mixed with her rose-red mental astral energy, and despite Nozel's struggle (mostly mental) as well as his attempt to harness the energy within the gem to do his bidding, the Prince was powerless to stop Tanya from ripping the gem out of his forehead.

The result was a devastating pull against Nozel's consciousness and a forceful break of the bond he had forged with the gem with a painful yell that was heard all about the massive Imperial Palace and even outside of it,

"AAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!"