Rise of the Cosmic_Emperor

***

Tanya was already expecting Hal\'s arrival and in a manner that was quite reminiscent of her mother, she called for him to enter before he could announce his arrival.

When Hal entered the office, Tanya seemed to have not moved at all since he left her the day before.

She was still leaning against the desk in her office and still had the Orb in her hands.

However, she was not alone in the office as she had been when Hal left her the day before.

Aliya, her contact in the Arkene Duchy, was there as well sipping a cultivation beverage with her legs crossed while ignoring Hal\'s presence in the room.

It was no secret that Aliya did not care for him and Hal was willing to bet her presence was to protect Tanya from his insidious plans.

Anyway, back to Tanya...

She looked up from the Orb once Hal walked about two steps into the Office and she returned his smile before moving away from the desk.

"There\'s a reason no one had ever been able to find the First Emperor\'s Vault and why the tales of him leaving behind an Artifact that ascertained faith gathering and harnessing was even faster accepted as a fable.

For hundreds of thousands of years since the First Emperor died, there have surely been searches but no one has ever been successful because the Vault does not exist. Or more accurately, it does not exist in the Nexus World" Tanya said and activated the Orb that projected lights all about it\'s circumference.

Hal said nothing.

He might not have known before but Tanya\'s innuendoes as well as a peculiar spatial fissure that was now evident around the Orb made it clear.

"The Vault is a pocket dimension of the Emperor\'s own creation... Forever locked and forever inaccessible without the Orb.

The Orb does not contain a key to the vault... It IS the key to the vault."

As she spoke, Tanya joined her hands together and cast a spell with the energy of her Haron bloodline.

The Orb\'s activation was only possible for a Haron as made especially so by the First Emperor.

He seemed to really have a thing for ascertaining the superiority of his Bloodline.

Tanya\'s spell guided the activation of the Orb and the lines projecting from all about its circumference began to bend towards the surface while the spatial disturbance got even more intense.

Aliya finally uncrossed her legs and got up from the sofa to walk closer to Tanya and Hal who were now standing side by side while they watched the Orb open a gateway into the pocket dimension that was the First Emperor\'s vault.

Tanya activated an Array which she used to surround the part of the office the Orb as well as she, Hal and Aliya were at from any outside interruptions.

The Orb kept the portal open and while she explored the vault that was a pocket dimension, the orb could not be taken inside the Vault and would remain outside of the space keeping it open.

Should someone tamper with the Orb and cause the portal to close, she would be trapped until someone else decided to open the portal again with the Orb.

The trip into the Vault, while basically a sojourn into the unknown, was expected to be quick and Tanya had taken specific care to make use of an Array she could trust for protection.

Although what she was trusting the most was the relative anonymity of what she was doing.

If she had ever slacked with her secrecy in her plans or had been sloppy with her protection to the point where her movements were getting closely monitored, she felt the Orb had in that case been her biggest advantage.

Tanya could confidently boast of being the first to discover that the vault was a pocket dimension because it was a fact that required the completion of the Orb and the understanding of the lines it was projecting.

Those lines were mental triggers meant for a Haron and they transferred to her, the spell she required to activate the Orb.

It was at that moment, before she even contacted Hal, that Tanya had received a message from her Ancestor, the First Emperor who claimed to have selected her as worthy of being heir to his legacy.

That message had pumped Tanya full of self-importance and she considered it to be quite annoying that Hal and his ultimatum (Him or a quest for power) made her so conflicted, that she could not truly indulge in that self-importance... She could not indulge in embracing her Ancestor\'s legacy.

The hard part was done...

There was no secret in that vault.

Getting the Orb, finding all its pieces, and activating it with the energy of the Haron Bloodline was all the work that was needed to be done.

The portal, which was a dark green color and completely opaque and offering no window into the space it allowed access to, opened gradually and with all the grandeur of a self-important creation of the first to unify the Haron Continent under the banner of a single family.

Watching it open, Hal found it a bit funny how much claim the First Emperor had on an Artifact that he was basically just lucky to find.

There was something about the whole display that made it seem as though the Emperor was attempting to claim the creation of the Nexus Stone which Hal did not in any way consider to be a bad thing.

In fact, he found it to be smart and legacy securing but still found it to be comical.

Tanya stepped through the portal first and Aliya gestured that Hal go ahead so that she could keep an eye ok him from behind.

Hal chuckled but said nothing.

Did he have a funny feeling about all this? Absolutely.

But he was going to ignore all that for his first sight of the Nexus Stone which he was not entirely decided on what to do about just yet.

The space that was the First Emperor\'s Vault was free and completely lacking any actual building structure.

It was just a void that was somehow illuminated enough to not hinder sights in any way while also solid enough to support all those who stepped onto it.

The space was only a bit larger than Tanya\'s office and the Nexus stone was not hidden.

The space was empty besides the Nexus stone and the stone just floated in mid-air right at the very center of the space.

Hal half expected the emergence of security measures or enemies to be battled and defeated but all was silent.

The Nexus stone was a large irregularly shaped object that is better described as bleached of color rather than transparent.

Observing it from a small distance with Aliya entering the Space behind him, Hal could tell that the stone was in no way fragile.

On the contrary, it was a strong artifact that was capable of housing the faith of the the entire continent for its wielder\'s use but even then, Hal was sure he could destroy it.

He had a volatile fire crystal in his inventory that might just have the right charge to ensure the stone was reduced to fragments.

He could attack the stone now with Tanya with it or just let her have it and use it only to eventually realize that all the faith she wished to harness was already being taken slowly but surely by the one known as the Sapphirine Prince.

It would become a question of which was superior... The Nexus stone or his Devil seed.