Rise of the Cosmic_Emperor

In the Mental realm, she had been dragged into, Rita was out of her depth. Everything was against her and that was the whole point.

Harlyn would not actually engage in a duel, both mental or physical with any random person and she only did this to teach Rita a lesson in manners.

Lo and behold, Rita grinned in the mental realm before opening her mind to external influence. The external influence was, of course, Hal, and it only took a brush of his mental pressure flowing through Rita for her to strike against the Empress' control and eject herself from the mental realm.

Harlyn recognized that mental signature to be Hal's and she frowned before striving to feel more of it by striking at Rita's mind again but Rita was protected by Hal's mental signature and it would take increased effort hinting at battle intentions for the Empress to have a chance to break through.

Harlyn sighed and leaned back in her chair to lift her refilled cup to her lips for another sip of tea but she did not drink until she had said to Rita,

"Don't test me, Child"

The engagement between the two had been totally mental but the three other ladies in the hall had felt it happen and knew what had transpired.

Before Rita could say anything in response to the Empress' threat though, Melinda spoke to Svetlana,

"Contrary to how it might seem, I came here for peace."

"And why would I think otherwise? Because you brought an army to my Duchy perhaps?" Svetlana responded to which Melinda shrugged,

"No Doxon was meant to be a target for that attack though. I genuinely just wanted to meet my Mother-in-Law-"

*BOOOOM!!!*

Melinda had just stopped talking when Rita let out an attack that charged at the Empress who smacked it aside so that it hit the wall and caused it to crack, appearing to be ready to crack the moment the slimmest of touches hit it next.

"You'll be surprised what this 'child' can do," Rita said finally coming up with her best comeback to the Empress' warning.

Harlyn's eyes widened at the attack not because of how strong it was but because of Rita's audacity in attacking her.

"You have some nerve," she said and had just spoken that Rita vanished and reappeared an inch away from her with a punch.

The Empress blocked that blow at the same time that her teacup hit the ground and shattered and in that second right when the shattering sounded, Harlyn punched Rita in the stomach.

The blow was backed with the force of her peak Cosmic Saint cultivation and it caused Rita to rocket towards the lounge ceiling. The blow's power was much more than just physical though.

It packed Harlyn's mind targeting mental attacks.

As she was getting ever closer to the lounge ceiling, Rita felt her mind getting attacked with her defense, with Hal's help, at risk of being broken through.

Before she could hit the lounge ceiling though, Rita tapped into Ordinance sharing and used Isabella's Space Ordinance to warp space so that she was suddenly charging sideways right into Harlyn who was still on the ground.

The change due to Ordinance-use caught the Empress by surprise but she just stretched out her hand to slam Rita's forehead and stop her in place before striking the Lady's spine. Not to injure her too badly but to cause her to fall unconscious and put an end to this impromptu spar.

And that was when Rita used her Destiny Ordinance to avoid getting hit.

She had managed to stop moving because of the power of the one who had punched her in the first place and could properly balance herself with her flight just to change direction and retaliate with a cosmic attack of her own.

Harlyn attempted to smack the attack aside once again but before she could touch it, it fizzled out. She had barely a second to wonder where it had gone before she was smacked backward and into the room wall.

"Ack" the Empress groaned as she separated from the wall and fell to her knees.

The maids had all run out of the room immediately after the battle began. If they had been unable to resist just casual releases of pressure, how would they possibly be able to avoid becoming collateral damage in a battle between Cosmic Saints?

The lounge they were battling in could not even handle any more of their attacks. The shockwaves that were emanating from every contact Rita and the Empress made were causing cracks to form on the wall of an area of the Duchy Palace that had been very fortified.

As she returned to her feet, Harlyn could already realize what had happened with Rita's Ordinance use. Apart from the fact that it was the second Abstract Ordinance used so far.

That was a topic for another deep-thinking moment.

Anyway, the realization Harlyn had was that Rita had warped her destiny so that the attack she was attempting to smack aside had hit her just a few minutes before.

The delayed moment before she got slammed by an attack that had basically attacked her in the past from the present, was due to time rewriting itself to accommodate this rewriting of the last event that Rita had done.

Complicated Destiny warps hinting at the very next comprehension stage of the Ordinance.

The most annoying thing about this to the Empress was the fact that she had no real way to block such an attack without using her ordinance which she hardly ever used and would not allow herself to be forced to use against a Cosmic Saint at the Fifth star of the realm. She was at the peak of the realm with a Divine Mind after all!

*Bang!*

Rita suddenly had her hands holding the front of the Empress's impressive robes and for the first time, noted that they were not of the Imperial sort. Harlyn had not ever adorned her hair in accordance with her status in the Empire.

"Such mature beauty," Rita said with admiration and she pressed her beautiful face closer as though to breathe of the Empress' scent before she added,

"Sexually frustrated too... Mmm, Hal will have a field day with you"

When Rita took her face away and stared into the Empress' Haron green eyes, Harlyn noticed that Rita's eyes now had a very demonic purple glow to them.

Staring into that purple glow had Harlyn feeling just a tad bit hypnotized to the point where she forgot to deny that she was 'Sexually frustrated. Sex had never been as enjoyable an event for her. She preferred acquiring knowledge to any carnal pleasures.

Anyway, thanks to her mental fortitude and strength, the hypnotic effect did not last on Harlyn but they had lasted long enough for Rita to slam her hard against the wall.

Harlyn expected to feel the wall shatter behind her but she just kept moving through space without making contact with anything... Well at least not for a good while and when her back did hit something, it was the boundary of the warped space they were now in.

Rita looked as surprised as Harlyn about the change to their environment and the reason became clear as Svetlana spoke up,

"I would not think to interfere in this entertaining duel but I'd rather you not break any more of my stuff"

The Duchess had used a Pseudo-Artifact to coat the interior of the lounge in a warped space said to be strong enough to contain a battle between Cosmic Saints.

Guards had been approaching the lounge at the sounds of battle as well as the quick exit of the maids but Svetlana had turned them away.

Not only would they be useless if she were indeed under attack by Cosmic Saints but she was not even the one engaged in a battle.

She was in no danger... Or so she thought.

The moment the lounge interior became coated in protective warped space, Emily saw this as prime time to not only shove her recent success into Svetlana's face but also mete their strengths against each other for the answer of who was best.

When Emily attacked with a Cosmic skill, Svetlana was prepared, or at least that was how it seemed as her Orb-Housed Chrono-Spheres Artifact appeared immediately, and with a chime, the attack became frozen in time.

Seeing her attack get frozen, Emily just smiled as Reality was warped... The frozen attack became flakes that dispersed and was only held by the time freeze and a different attack struck at Svetlana from underneath while her reality became rooted and incapable of reacting to avoid getting hit.

*BANG!*

Svetlana was sent into the sky where she was quickly joined by Emily who cast multiple Cosmic skills and aimed them all at the prone Duchess.

While that was ongoing, The Empress freed herself from Rita's hold and went on to punch the black-eyed beauty in the face multiple times,

*BAM!* *BAM!* *BAM!*

Every blow the Empress delivered was backed by her mental attacks but with Hal's protection being passively active and constantly repelling the constant attacks, Rita could focus on the physical aspects of the battle.

Unfortunately, the physical aspects were not going in her favor.

Harlyn Haron, at the peak of the Ninth star of the Cosmic Saint realm, was much more powerful than Rita's Five stars in the same realm.

Yes, she had her Destiny warps to evade Harlyn's defenses but the Empress was so strong and focused that she could shrug off those attacks.

However, Rita still had a card to play and she wasted no time playing that card. It was signaled by the brightening of the purple glow in her eyes and the quick transformation into her demon form right in the Empress' powerful hold.

Meanwhile, while the two battles were ongoing, Melinda just sighed and retrieved a chair from her spatial ring, as all furniture was covered by the Pseudo-Artifact spatial coating.

As she sat in the chair, Melinda retrieved a vat of cultivational brew and served herself a goblet of the stuff.

She entertained the idea of intervening just a bit before she shook her head and decided it was far more entertaining to watch. Besides, none of the four ladies looked reluctant to fight.

"Cheers," she said and downed a full goblet before refilling it soon after.