Rise of the Cosmic_Emperor

Hal could hardly blame Ergo for paying attention to the Sarcophagus as it did look quite enticing and grand.

In fact, while the contents of the shelves and Bookcases were clear and enticed Emily and Lucile who were, at the moment, browsing through them, the possible contents of the sarcophagus were definitely intriguing enough to catch their attention.

However, the term to note was \'possible\'.

Nothing regarding the closed sarcophagus was clear and hence it was all still shrouded with mystery.

After all, it could very well just contain the body of the Cosmic saint it was meant to contain.

That said, as Ergo walked about it in a stalking kind of stance, Andrei had his eyes on him the entire time.

Emily would snatch any and all content she could get from the shelves so he was not needed in that regard. He was, however, needed in making sure the suspicious half-naked man did not get the treasures that could and should be in the hands of the Antonovs.

Andrei felt that he was, after all, the strongest individual here and should get the first crack at the contents of the golden coffin.

There were writings on the Sarcophagus but the boldest of them all was; \'Yaksher Iksor... The Greatest Cosmic Saint the World has ever seen\'.

Hal rolled his eyes at what he saw as clear bragging that had little truth in it.

Besides, why write such self-praise when he (Yaksher) never planned for anyone to see or read it.

Lucile looked away from the scroll she was reading through to look over at Hal and Sassy who had suddenly materialized in the room and we were looking around.

She walked slowly over to his side and whispered,

"About time you showed up" she told him.

"You seem to have been expectant. A bit anxious perhaps?" Hal told her with a smirk.

Lucile snorted but she did not deny his claims, rather, she said,

"You went into the Array first. You and the Antonov woman with an intense glare..."

"Intense glare?" Hal raised a brow at what he considers to have been a surprising detail for Lucile to note about Emily.

Especially since he had not considered Emily\'s looks to be the type to be considered intense. A bit serious at times but not to the extent of being intense.

At least not at the moment.

Lucile rolled her eyes and looked over at Emily standing in front of a bookcase and poring through a book,

"Of course, YOU won\'t see it but the intensity is there. Anyway, was it that difficult getting through the array?" She asked.

She had expected him to be the first one out of the array.

Her expectations were not based on some total/blind faith in his abilities (although she did believe him to be quite competent) but more on the fact that she did not expect him to enter the array without knowing he would make it out with ease.

After all, Hal had understood the Array\'s effects and it was through him, they had all known what to expect of the array and he would not go in first and with such confidence if he did not believe himself more than capable of breezing through the Array\'s ordered obstacles.

Surely, he could not have been planning to wing it... Right?

Alas, that was exactly what Hal had been planning.

Not winging it exactly but more about using the Array to force an Epiphany and it had worked.

Besides, the consequences of failure had been to be thrown out of the Array so he had not exactly been putting himself in danger.

At least not before the game he played with his inner demon which threatened the irreparable damage of his Dao heart.

"The intense Antonov lady..." Lucile began,

"Emily" Hal corrected her.

"Right. She got here before anyone else. Already swiped a lot of the good stuff" Lucile said with a bit of a disgruntled voice and returned to browsing through the shelves.

Hal chuckled to himself and walked with Lucile as she began browsing.

Sassy stood in place but had an attacking stance the whole time as though ready to strike at any enemy within the quite spacious room.

As Hal walked with Lucile, he eyed Cirk who was also looking at him out of the corner of his eyes, even though his attention was mostly on Ergo and the Sarcophagus.

"Surely, you can\'t see that as too much of a loss. You\'ve been scouring for treasures for months now and your two subordinates are outside this room taking as many blue gems and gold as they can fit in their spatial rings." Hal said into Lucile\'s ear.

The closeness, his sweet-smelling breath on the side of her face almost made her giddy with excitement but the amber-eyed lady was more than capable of keeping herself in check.

Sending the scroll she had been looking through into her spatial ring, she turned around to smile at Hal just as she lifted another scroll off the shelf,

"Is that bitterness I detect?" she asked with a small smile.

Hal shook his head slightly,

"Bitterness? From me? I highly doubt that"

Lucile rolled her eyes,

"Hal, I couldn\'t possibly stay in one place when I am now in charge of building the pavilion trade Union\'s possibly illustrious name. To achieve my means, I need resources. I need wealth.

The slow grind could have gotten me some of that eventually but it would be nothing compared to all I have amassed during my months of travel and pillaging.

You should be happy. This way, you get even more for your investment" she said.

Hal shrugged,

"I have nothing against you going out on your travels. Was it dangerous? Yes, but you clearly did a lot of dangerous things before we ever met. Going to Black Lagoon in search of an investor, for example.

That said, the months-long travels did make me wonder when we would finally get around to doing what we\'ve been putting off for so long." Hal said.

Lucile paused,

She knew very well what Hal was insinuating with his words and would have blushed had it not been for the look on his face.

It was so mockingly serious that it caused her growing embarrassment to transform into a hearty chuckle.

Around that time, Ergo stopped stalking the sarcophagus and made his first move towards it which was to strike the line where the lid of the Sarcophagus fit well with the base to seal off its contents.

Ergo struck the crack more than a few times with his Ax Artifact.

It did not take long for him to stop but there was no sign of frustration on his face.

It was as though those strikes had been to make sure of something.

"It has to be here" he said with a bright smile that almost looked grotesque on his large face just as he retrieved a disk from his spatial ring.

He fitted the disk on the lid of the sarcophagus before charging and activating it with Cosmic energy.

Runes appeared at the edges of the disk and then Ergo gestured at Cirk,

"Come now, kid. This is why you\'re here. Get to it" he said.

Cirk gulped and then took a deep breath before accessing his bloodline.

Hal identified the golden flames/glow that Cirk began to exude. All of which he concentrated on the disk.

\'Have they looked at anything else since they\'ve been here?\' Hal asked Emily telepathically.

\'Yes. They eyed the shelves and bookcases for a while but looked away from them quickly. Ergo mumbled that \'IT\' won\'t be so easily accessible.

I think it\'s safe to assume that whatever \'It\' is has been their target from the very start\'

Listening to Emily\'s reported reply, Hal nodded just as the runes on the disk began to glow a brilliant golden color.

The glow continued to intensify and as it did, Hal recognized the feeling it was giving off.

The feeling was similar to what he had felt from Melinda when she was possessed by the will of the Primeval Virtue Queen.

It was a divine feeling or more accurately, it was a feeling meant to mimic the divine.

Pseudo-Divine we can call it.

By nature, the Dane bloodline flames feel divine, especially to someone who has never felt anything Divine before.

Which meant the sarcophagus had been locked to only opened by Divine energy but as the one who owns the tomb himself was never divine, there was only so well he could calibrate his array to react exclusively to divine energy.

His attempts were good enough but a simple Rune disk combined with a Bloodline energy that naturally \'feels\' divine should more than do the trick.

It was now a matter of how long Cirk could keep pouring out energy.

Hal smiled to himself at the thought that he actually had a Divine Bloodline. Not an imitation but a genuinely Divine Bloodline.

Sure, the Sarcophagus lock might exclude all Devil or Demon-related divinity but Hal was sure the intensity of his Bloodline energy would be more than enough to bypass all that.

"Will you hurry up?" Ergo said with a snarl.

Cirk strained,

"I\'m trying as hard as..." he began but was quickly interrupted by the shaking of the room floor.

As well as an explosive sound that seemed to have originated outside of the room at a far corner of the tomb....