Rise of the Cosmic_Emperor

Imperial City...

The invasion was mostly focused on the district of the city that contained the Imperial Palace and that was a very bold move but then again, one does not attempt to gain knowledge of the strength of a continent ruler without being bold... Bold to the point of being foolish and death-seeking.

The scene in the Imperial Palace district was very much like that of the Silva Duchy but here, the attacks seemed much more focused... Nowhere else was attacked...

Whatever other building was around the palace and got caught up in the attacks was resided in by only the Harons and no other families. This territory as well as the large majority of the Imperial City belonged to the Harons.

When the monsters were let out of the portal and all attacked the Imperial Palace, they were mostly distractions while the actual experts prepared powerful attacks to draw out the Haron Emperor.

Whatever the Silva Duchy capital had faced, the Imperial Palace faced much more... The Transcendent beasts sent here were generally much stronger and were in much larger numbers.

Even the monsters were more capable than the ones that were let loose on the Silva Duchy capital.

Every able Haron i.e all Harons who were a least at the late stage of the Semi-Saint realm dropped out to combat the threat and their numbers were immense.

The sheer number of experts the Harons had at the Semi-saint realm and higher was an eyebrow-raising moment that had the Devil chieftess taking a thoughtful breath as she sat within her throne watching things through the eyes of her subjects.

This invasion and the subsequent ones to come had two particular aims to be achieved and that was to first chip away as much as possible at the strength of the enemies through a mixture of surprise attacks and proper planning.

The second reason was reconnaissance.

Never had the two Continents known fully what the other was capable of and this resulted in a lot of cautiousness in attacks due to an ever-present fear that the enemy had more than they had revealed and the moment they step too much out of line, they could be at a disadvantage.

However, this invasion, if planned and executed properly could provide a good insight into the strength of the enemy.

The Imperial Palace was the Haron Continent's stronghold and while it held the knowledge they wanted, it also had the most defenses.

The Dystopian knew that this was nothing like attacking a run-of-the-mill Duchy... This was a whole different ballgame.

Tanya, who emerged to fight as a Haron against the monstrous threats, furrowed her brows while she looked to the sky and saw a portal out of which trooped Dystopian experts who immediately shielded themselves in a spell.

Tanya was not furrowing her brows at the Dystopians though but rather at the portal which she recognized as being the same type she had seen the masked man use.

She felt this was all tying into suspicions she already had and found that she was genuinely worried for the future of the Haron Empire going forward.

She was not the only one.

The question on the mind of every Haron as well as the large majority of those in the Imperial City was how the hell these Dystopians were here.

While the Dystopian experts in the sky had a shield around them, they were still able to send out combined attacks at the Harons who had emerged to battle the monsters as well as the Palace below.

There were defenses that reduced the impact of the attacks but even then, there was damage.

Soon, the Dystopians separated but all remained protected by spherical shields that shielded against attacks that were tossed at them from below.

Brushing aside even strong hits from weapons formed of cosmic energy.

It goes without saying that no Semi-saint should attempt to stand to the Dystopians and any that tried was struck down hard with enough force to cause them to lose their lives barring any emergency attempts to resuscitate them and save their lives.

Anyway, the group of Dystopians quickly found themselves outnumbered and thus outmatched by the sheer number of cosmic saints that the Haron family possessed.

The Saints who rose to fight the Dystopians were in the hundreds... Hundreds of Cosmic Saints and while they were not just average members of the Haron family, none of them seemed to be at the very top of the hierarchy of the family i.e none of them were Elders or Imperials with direct connections to the Emperor.

These were just the powerful experts the Haron family had... It was definitely a flex and there was confidence in them all as their numbers eclipsed that of their enemies.

The fact that the Dystopians had shields to take hard hits barely had any meaning now.

Those shields were destined to be broken once bombarded from all sides by multiple attacks.

Hal was in the Silva Duchy but was watching everything that was going on through his anchor who was in charge of opening the portal in the Imperial city.

This was all as much a fact-finding mission for him as it was for the Dystopians... Thing was, the large number of Saints was not what really had his eyes widening... The reason for his eye-widening was what this meant fur the Emperor's strength... What this meant for the strength of the Elders of the Haron family.

There was such a massive difference in quality between the Harons and the Duchy ruling families.

Take the Danes for example; The one who should be the head of the family should be Isabella Dane but she gave up the position to her eldest son who decided his twin brother was more suited for leadership.

Powerful as Melinda was, she would likely just be 'another one' if she were a member of the Haron family.

The one on her level was Clement Silva who, unlike her, was still keeping hold of his rulership of his family and his Duchy... A situation that was open to change. More on that later.

Seeing the Harons ready to attack should have been intimidating but then again, the Dystopians were still holding back a great deal of what they were capable of and how much talent they possessed.

A portal opened a good distance away from the palace and out of it flew a massive horde of Transcendent beasts, the majority of whom were members of the Devil Tribe, and the forces on the battlefield became imbalanced in favor of the Dystopians.

Only then did the battle start in full swing all with the intention of still drawing out the Emperor.

On account of the district being populated mainly by Harons, they were somewhat isolated and whatever backup they would and could get from other families and forces in the Imperial city was going to take a short while to arrive but they were not really needed.

As many Harons got struck down by overwhelming strength and numbers, a Saint appeared on the scene to turn things in the favor of the Harons.

The first detail that heralded the arrival were unanimous screams from twenty Dystopian Transcendent beasts all at once and they all grabbed their heads in pain.

"Arrrrrrrgghhhh... By the gods!!!!"

The yells were different variations of this and they were warranted.

The attack had bypassed whatever physical defense they had to attack what was most vulnerable; Their minds.

"It's so rare that I get to be involved in combat. I dare say you chose a good time to attack the palace... Had it been any other day and I might not be around" said the Empress of the Haron Empire in a tone that was a perfect mix of jest and seriousness.

She was clad in Imperial garments worthy of her position as an Empress as her hair was even styled and adorned with an elegant Imperial diadem complete with gems.

The Dystopians she had targetted with her mental attack were all attempting to fight against the attack while their fellows stepped in to defend them from those who would wish to take advantage of their prone states.

Feeling their fight against her with their feeble minds, the Empress chuckled but that jest was oozing a deathly and callous chill,

"Struggling is futile. Surrender to your fate!"

*Snap!*

The sounds of multiple minds snapping under the strain of a powerful mental attack could be heard as a majority of the twenty she had targetted froze in the air and fell from the sky like flies.

The eerie thing was that they were not dead... Their minds had just been broken beyond repair so they were now condemned to living the rest of their lives in a vegetative state.

At that point, death would be mercy to them.

"Oh, some of you survived" The Empress noted and that was indeed the case.

Out of the twenty she had targetted, there were a few who managed to break free of the mental hold before she could break their minds but the strain from their successful escape had so weakened them mentally, that they could hardly be considered at their best for the rest of the battle.

And yet, Harlyn Haron was not done...

She surveyed the enemies and just by being there, the Saints of the Haron family seemed to rally around her so that she led them into battle which she preceded by using the sheer force of her cultivation pressure to blast Dystopians aside before casting a spell that stabbed at a Dystopian.

The Dystopians put up shields but had been tricked into believing the manifestation of the spell was physical rather than mental... The spell phased through his defenses and in seconds, his mind was broken in an audible snap that was eerier than any explosive bang resulting from the attack of any Cosmic saint or Transcendent beast present at the scene.

Another fell to the Empress' mental proficiency and she was only getting started.