Rise of the Cosmic_Emperor

"Yeah Yeah Yeah" Andrei said with a roll of his eyes.

He had protected himself with cosmic energy right before getting hit and had hardly suffered a bruise much less a fatal injury.

That said, the statue warrior head he had destroyed reassembled and so did the spikes above the statue's head.

It all happened in a matter of seconds.

"Did you enjoy yourself?" Emily asked in a calm tone of voice even as she charged a powerful cosmic Aurora that was imbued with the strength of her cultivation.

Hal eyed the spikes getting ever closer from behind as he addressed Andrei,

"You seemed pretty ready to leave us here"

Andrei sighed as he got back to his feet,

"I was setting an example. Showing you what needs to be done to get through them"

Emily rolled her eyes at him,

"There was no need for examples... It's clear what we are supposed to do..."

She said just as Hal slammed his onto the ground and instantly drew four Rune circles out of which burst out royal blue chains.

While Andrei had been a tad impulsive and had not bothered to consult with the rest of them when he moved to attack, he had still given them valuable information on what to expect from the statue warriors.

First, Hal had noticed that when Andrei focused on one of the warriors, the others made no attempts to join in.

Sure, they had chorused "YOU SHALL NOT PASS" but they had not made a move.

This caused Hal to hypothesize that the one that would attack would only be the one that had been interacted with directly.

Second, Emily had noticed speed.

The few seconds window to get through the created space had been more than enough for Andrei to go through but even then, the giant statue that should have been slower and had just lost its head swiped him away even faster than he could move.

That was something to be considered as well since Andrei was a semi-saint.

Of course, he was new to the realm and had not even yet comprehended an ordinance and was still far from being able to make use of illusionary wings that could only be used at the peak of the semi saint realm.

All that being said, Andrei's speed was certainly impressive but he still was caught by the statue giant's arm.

A giant that did not seem to care too much about destroyed body parts.

Third, Emily and Hal noticed strength that looked more than capable of contending with every single one of them.

*Whooshhhh*

*Bang!!!*

Faster than a blink, Emily shot her charged aurora with her precise target being the statue warrior's legs which she destroyed to satisfying crumbles...

(Crumbles they all knew would reform soon enough)

... Effectively cutting down the giant's height.

"Andrei..." Emily called to her brother who had an attack prepared and let it loose on the spikes above the giant's head.

"Come on" Emily called to her brother as she dashed for the opening and he followed after her.

The spikes behind them get uncomfortably close.

Hal followed as well but at a deliberately slower pace.

He was waiting for something...

... For the statue warrior to attempt another letdown swipe and it did.

This time, with both hands.

The one wielding a sword went towards Emily while the unarmed one, the same one that had hit Andrei before, went toward him for a follow-up.

"Gotcha" Hal smiled just as his chains charged at those hands to hold them back and away from Antonov siblings.

The chains were never going to hold long enough but the time was enough for the siblings to get through the created opening and for Hal to follow after them and over to the other side.

Once their feet were on solid ground, the spikes retracted back into the wall, and the giants, including the one with the newly reassembled legs, melted into the ground.

Hal felt this had been a considerably easy obstacle to overcome. He had a feeling, an irking thought that this had been more of a welcoming into bigger things to come within this tomb.

Looking towards Emily, he could tell from the looks on her face that she was having the same thoughts as him but actually welcomed the idea and the possibilities.

"Let's go," Andrei said after one last look behind them with the poise of being in charge.

Emily let him be...

They had not even walked ten steps that they heard the sounds of conflict coming from ahead of them...

"Damn cat woman... Stay in one place... Let me strike you down!" said an annoyed gruff male voice that Hal thought he recognized.

But the voice was not actually what had caught his attention but instead the term 'Cat woman!' and the taunting feminine laughter that followed...

'Could it be?' he thought.

...

Meanwhile in another part of the tomb...

Rita was getting tired of Jared...

The constant misogyny was really getting on her nerves... and they had not even been in the tomb a whole ten minutes.

Just like Hal, Emily and Andrei had faced their first obstacle, the group of Rita, Lillian were going through something similar but also different.

Their obstacle came in the form of three books bear-sized silver string spinning spiders.

The creatures were quick for their size and Lillian learned the hard way that their silver strings were not just for binding when they wound around her wrist and cut quite deeply when she attempted to pull them off.

"Step back ladies. This is clearly a man's job. Plus... it's clear who is the stronger one here here" he said before letting loose his Early-stage Cosmic Pagoda realm cultivation which indeed felt superior to Rita's peak Cosmic Phenomenon realm cultivation...

... As well as Lillian's late-stage cosmic Phenomenon realm cultivation.

Meant to be more of a backup and support to Andrei, neither Jared nor Harold had the strength to contend with the Antonov man.

And when he indeed burst out his moves, wielding a large scimitar with which he battled against the spiders, he was indeed quite impressive.

He would have surely held his own and won against one spider but against all three, he was truly pushing the limit of what he could handle.

Neither Lillian nor Rita said anything as Jared drew the attention of all three spiders to himself... However, they did stay when they could have maybe used the distraction to get away and leave the misogynistic guard to his devices...

... And destined-to-fail attempts.

The spiders worked seamlessly as a team... Cutting up parts of Jared's by wounding their wickedly deadly strings around him and while the guard's weapon could cut through the strings, he was still overwhelmed.

Eventually, both Lillian and Rita shared a look and sighed before they stepped forward and together, shot cosmic attacks at two of the spiders, drawing their many-eyed attention to them.

When the spiders scuttled closer, Rita retrieved a rune scroll from inside her spatial ring and charged it with cosmic energy before smacking it against the ground.

The array drawn on the scroll was for the creation of an opaque royal blue Array dome that declined access to snoopy senses.

How could they be the women of a powerful Runemaster such as Hal and not have been armed with numerous Arrays for different purposes?

Usually, they were with Hal and had no use for the scrolls but now they were In the exact situation the scrolls had been drawn for.

With the Array keeping them hidden and alone to face the spiders, Rita and Lillian were free to let loose the full might of their demonic bloodlines.

Rita's eyes turned a violent shade of violet and there was even a hint that her transformation would continue on to take a more demonic form but it stopped at just eyes and expression change.

Any more would probably be unnecessary and too much of an overkill.

She summoned Essence stealer and pulled the bow-string to form a violet flaming arrow she was ready to let loose on the spider staring her down with its large eight beady eyes.

"Rise for the blood of my foes, Executioner" Lillian said as her eyes turned a blood-red color and she began oozing red mist that would have struck the spiders with blood-curdling fear had they not been inanimate puppets powered most likely by blue gems.

Lillian was now a fully-fledged fiend just like the Boood knight commander, Karmen, and was thus capable of summoning that large blood-red powerful Fiendish Armament that was Executioner.

While there was no blood to reap, the weapon would still strike with the same ferocity as always.

The same thing went for Essence stealer that would do its wielder's bidding and burn the target to a crisp even if there was no essence to reap.

The spider attempted their quick string spinning but they found it impossible to overwhelm the two ladies both because they could not outnumber and because the ladies, as demons, were not on their level in any way.

Lillian had just moved out of the way of an oncoming string and then moved closer to the spider to strike but in another impressive display of impressive speed, the spider scuttled away.

Unfortunately, it had not scuttled far enough away and was still very much in the range of Lillian's tapered fog attack which she wasted no time bursting out.

Loud clanking sounds were being made by the spider's sharp pincers as it expressed displeasure for being stabbed... which showed that while the spiders were not totally organic, they could still feel some degree of pain.

*Boom!!!*

Rita landed a hit with her flaming arrow and set the spider she was battling aflame but it still scuttled closer to her looking very capable of causing damage but Rita imbued herself with lust flames to augment her strength so that when it got close enough, she hit it so hard, she bashed its head in.

The combination of her impressive, head caving hit and her lust flames had done the trick.

Losing its baring, the spider wandered unsteadily fit a little while before eventually rolling over on its back while the lust flames continued to burn it.

Almost at the same time, Lillian was lopping off the head of the second one with Executioner's powerful blade. When the Dome came down and a victorious Jared saw the spiders, one charred, one headless, he did a double-take.

Reevaluating the two ladies who had come out of their battle in much better shape than him.

It caused a lump to form in his throat...

Neither Rita nor Lillian felt his behavior would undergo a change only because of this and so they walked past him, heading deeper into the tomb.

Then Jared finally spoke,

"What was the need for the Dome? What were you hiding?"