Rise of the Cosmic_Emperor

Tanya watched Hal as she spoke and she studied his expression for any change but Hal\'s expression remained the same as he raised his drink to his lips for another sip.

She had this feeling that Hal had goals so grand and ambitious that they were bound to clash with hers and ultimately clash with the entire Haron bloodline as a whole but she never actually had proof and was not sure she wanted proof.

Yes, Hal was a great asset and if she wanted to find and get the Nexus stone, he\'d proved that he was a good asset to have at hand but she also felt that this meant he would be a terrible enemy to have.

He was so insidious... His plans were so sneaky and secretive...

When she had first started conversing with him and getting him to get things for her, she had done so while giving him as little information as she could and she was now unsettled at to thought that he was doing the dad to her.

This past year, she had done a bit of investigating and what she had discovered had not been exactly reassuring.

"I would welcome a seat in your court," Hao said with a smile that Tanya instantly pegged as insincere.

"Yoh would?" she found herself asking rather than accepting his falsehood and moving on.

Hal shrugged,

"Of course, I would. Why would I not?" Hal asked and he stared directly into her eyes and did not break eye contact or give off anything that might have shown his words as the big lies that they were.

Of course, he would not be welcoming a seat in her court!

She wasn\'t even going to have a court if he succeeded with his plans of taking over the Haron continent and then the Dystopian continent.

"Have you perhaps heard of this Sapphirine Cult?" Tanya asked.

"What\'s that?" Hal asked with an excellent show of cluelessness.

Tanya was silent for a while and just watched him.

She had investigated deeper into the Cult that had now infiltrated and taken over the entirety of the Kirsten Barony and no longer believed as she used to, that Hal was not connected to it.

Especially since his fiancee decided to name her Guild after the cult and that could not just simply be a coincidence.

"It\'s a religion I guess that originated from your previous home, Sapphire City, and is becoming more widespread. You seriously know nothing about it?" Tanya said.

"Nothing," Hal said with a shrug and a straight face while in his mind he was wondering when Tanya would move past this conversation or if he would have to risk everything and attempt to draw his first Haron under his banner.

He had not tried so far because he was considerably weaker than Tanya and felt he would have to work her down systematically but now he was wondering if he should toss all plans in the air and go for it right now.

"Hmm. Maybe it\'s all a coincidence then," Tanya eventually said.

"It probably is," Hal agreed with a nod.

Tanya eyed him for a second more and then decided to move past the topic to other things mostly because she saw no good coming from alienating him and so far he had been nothing but helpful.

Whatever his plans were, they did not seem to clash with hers... Yet.

She retrieved the orb from her spatial ring and Hal recognized the Orb to be the one he had gotten from the Silver moon sect and was apparently a container that would only open when it was complete with all the pieces that were missing.

Hal noticed that most of the indentations that had been around the orb were now filled with the pieces missing from them.

"I figured it out. It was complicated at first but once I understood where to get one of the pieces and added it to the Orb, it slowly became less complicated and more like a fun little puzzle. It remains a map to the pieces and there are only five pieces left.

The year you were away, I relied on Ehrlich mostly to get me the pieces and I have gotten ever closer to completing the Orb."

"Reliance on Ehrlich?... Damn that must have been tough" Hal commented and while Tanya said nothing, he could tell she was admitting to the difficulty she had undergone at the time.

She activated the Orb and the green lines and networks of dots once again appeared and watching it, Hal agreed that it was indeed much easier to read.

Although he was not trying to read it and mostly just looked at it in observation.

"The pieces were not so randomly strewn on the streets and usually became a part of a structure or a part of a dressing assemble.

These two dots that are so close together represent a case of the latter and are worn by the Duke of the Akene Duchy and his wife and are meant to serve as a symbol of their eternal bond with one another.

Ehrlich has done well in getting me some of the pieces but I am not sure he is the right man to try getting these pieces." Tanya said.

"And I am?" Hal asked with a raised brow not because he doubted himself but because he wanted to know just what exact skillset was needed to get the pieces and why he was more fitted to get it than Ehrlich.

Tanya bit her lower lip as though she were uncomfortable with what she was about to say next but said it nonetheless,

"The Duke and his wife never take their piece off their persons as that would apparently be a sign of a lack of devotion to the bond they share.

However, as in most relationships, there is a weak link in their long-lasting bond and in this case, the weak link is the wife of the Duke who likes having handsome young male attendants attending to her.

To get as close to her as you would need, which is normally difficult, you will have to be one of her attendants."

"That\'s not a problem," Hal said with a natural smile while knowing that the bad part was coming.

"I\'m glad your perverted kind is working fast and seeing advantages to this mission, however, I am not yet done.

The Duke, being a jealous man who loves his wife and would not allow any shenanigans would only allow her to have as many handsome male attendants as she wants under the condition that they all must have been castrated...

Every single one of his wife\'s male attendants is a Eunuch and must show that that is what they are indeed before they are allowed to attend to her."

There was a moment of silence where Tanya stared at Hal and Hal stared right back.

And then he spoke,

"You know, I think you were wrong. Ehrlich would be perfect for this. He doesn\'t use it anyway so why not chop it off.

Chop it off and send him to the lustful wife of the Duke and the job is done." he said.

"Well, getting close to her is only part of the job. The woman is a Saint so grabbing it from her without her knowledge is not exactly a feasible plan.

She needs to be cajoled... To be..."

"Seduced, yes I get that but I am not going to be losing my stuff just to get you some Orb piece," Hal said.

If he was still considering doing missions for Tanya, it was mostly because he wanted to see it all through and was still using it as inventive to travel to other Duchys and parts of her information gathering network to continue bits and bits of his takeover.

Also, he was using it to eventually get in-between the Princess\' legs which was going to happen sooner or later... Most likely sooner.

Yet another reason his stuff must remain attached to his person.

"Nobody is losing anything. That is extremely excessive and of course, I am not going to be doing that. But there is no getting past the strict protocols with a penis so even if it is not gone, it has to appear as though it is.

A glamour rune should work well enough as long as you are not touched. I can draw a particularly powerful one that is of my own creation.

My glamour rune works more as a mental illusion rather than a physical one in the sense that it will not actually change your appearance but affect the minds of all who see you and trick them into thinking they are seeing an image of something different from what is actually before them." Tanya said.

When Tanya explained as little as she needed to about the personally created glamour rune of hers which was actually the collection of other Runes and merging them to make a single powerful one, Hal understood what (in theory) made it stronger.

"That said, the Rune won\'t last, and even if I make it so that you can recharge its ability with Cosmic energy, their anti-Rune measures are likely to deactivate it anyway.

So I will need to be making use of an energy source that they will not be on the lookout for and will get past their measures."

"What energy is that?" Hal asked and Tanya stared into his face intently before retrieving something from her spatial ring and placing it on the small table between her and Hal.

It looked to be a vial filled with what looked to be blackened blood.