楼上的上瘾女士

No one said a word about the hole in the wall and not even Svetlana batted an eye at her father\'s treatment but rather turned her eyes, just like everyone else, towards the one responsible for the said hole in the wall.

Hal was seated on a throne that they could all sense was temporary in state and were proven accurate in their thoughts when he stood up and the chair melted into nothing.

Neither the Empress nor Svetlana had sensed his arrival but that hardly mattered as much as the fact that he was in their presence.

Hal had plans for his takeover of the Nexus world or at least he had a general idea of what he wanted to do. Even now, he was only taken a break from his plans in the Dystopian Continent while the Pheonix Princess was supposedly in the Void and on her way to her clan.

In reality, Hal had been with her for as long as he had taken her on her bridal night. It had been constant intercourse all for Hal\'s selfish pleasure that the Princess undoubtedly enjoyed and was always left craving more.

Anyway, things with the Doxon family were not as planned as Hal\'s other many ongoing schemes and the reason was that there really was no need for a scheme.

The Doxon family, i.e every member of the family, had already been taken over by Hal. It was not made known to Svetlana or her father yet only because Hal had so far separated them from it all.

The rest of the Doxon Duchy was also basically Hal\'s as every single one of them had received and ingested Nirvana pills, especially throughout the One-year disappearance of Sapphire City.

All that remained was for Hal to activate the dormant effects of the pills and tie them all to his Devil seed and the reason that had yet to happen was that Hal wanted the activations to happen more dramatically.

Anyway, when Hal refers to dealing with the Doxons, he is only talking about Svetlana and her father Kirill and he had finally decided it was about time.

Hal walked over to the Empress,

"Harlyn" he called her with a smile.

The Empress returned the smile with evident caution while she stared into his new gold-flecked eyes,

"Just one year and you\'ve lost your manners?" she asked.

"I never had manners. If you ever thought I did, then it only speaks to how incredible my acting is" Hal said and held her chin between his index finger and thumb only to extend his thumb to Harlyn\'s lips to rub against it.

Harlyn reached up and grabbed his wrist and as she did, she strained against it with her strength. She said nothing to caution Hal\'s action but the sentiment was clear.

Hal didn\'t care though. He just chuckled and leaned in, completely unbothered by the force she was enacting on his wrist.

He gave her a peck on the cheek and then whispered,

"No need to be here. If you have questions, be patient, I will answer. If you want knowledge, I will deliver. You just need to be patient"

Hal was keeping his ears keen for Harlyn\'s heartbeat and he heard its skip before quickly regaining its rhythm which told Hal she was actively keeping herself under control.

Harlyn leaned in and placed her lips closer to his ear to whisper in return,

"You are crossing lines that should not be crossed."

"All lines are meant to be crossed" Hal retorted in yet another whisper.

"HOW DARE YOU?!!!" Kirill suddenly yelled and while to an observer, it might seem like his yell had affected the mood, in actuality, his voice was inconsequential.

A large fist formed of cosmic energy mixed in with flaming Phoenix feathers stretched out from Hal and slammed Kirill before he could enter back into the lounge. The blow sent him right back into the air where he once again tried and failed to regain balance.

The reason it had taken Kirill so long to return the first time was that he had been smacked so far away from the palace, that it took him almost reaching the edge of the capital before he regained his balance to return only to find his ability to harness his strength and fly to have become sluggish.

It was a testament to how tenacious the Ex-duke was that he got back down as fast as he did.

His arrival and subsequent smack away did not seem to have been noticed by Harlyn who said in response to Hal\'s words,

"True. Lines are meant to be crossed but the consequence of overstepping one\'s boundary will always be waiting at the other side of that line"

"Fair point. But the deliverer of those consequences has to have some form of authority and no one has authority over me" Hal said to her with a chuckle and then leaned back only to kiss her on the lips.

Harlyn\'s eyes widened and then she felt her mind getting flooded with knowledge picking off from where Hal had stopped the last time they met.

Despite the influx of knowledge, it was all secondary to the feeling of Hal\'s lips against hers and by the time her morals caught up with her and she attempted to summon resistance, Hal pulled away from her,

"Until next time," he said with a grin and pushed her through a rift in space.

The Empress gasped as she fell through the void for all of five seconds and when the rift reopened and she was let out, she found herself floating, by her own power, above the Imperial Palace in the Imperial City.

With the use of her cultivation-granted senses and her attunement to the natural order, Harlyn found that only a second or two had passed since she went through the rift in the Doxon Duchy.

The actual journey had actually been two or three seconds faster than the duration of her travel through the void.

The speed was insane and the realization of just how underestimated the abilities of the Sapphirine Cult (Or just Hal) was, really settled into her mind but it took second place to her rumination over the knowledge Hal had passed into her mind.

Meanwhile, back in Doxon Duchy Palace,

"Won\'t lie, that was disappointing" Rita said once the rift had closed over Harlyn.

"Yeah, with that much tension, I was expecting you to just take her right here and in front of us. She seemed very willing too" Emily said in agreement with Rita.

Hal appeared confused by such deviant expectations and he looked over at Melinda who shrugged,

"I would be lying if I said it won\'t be a good watch," she said and Hal just shook his head just as Svetlana spoke up for the first time since he arrived in the lounge,

"Hal-" she called out to him and then Hal was an inch away from her,

"It is time we have a little chat and not like the one we last had that was filled with so much secret-keeping," he said with a bright smile.

"But I told you everything you wanted to know," Svetlana said while her father got closer once again to the lounge but was too preoccupied with fighting off sentient demonic feathers. Or more accurately, Devilishly flaming feathers.

"Maybe you did, maybe you didn\'t, who knows. That\'s not what I\'m talking about though. I am referring to secret-keeping at my end.

Sit tight Duchess, dealing with your father will only take a moment"

Once he was done talking, Hal\'s body fizzled and he appeared immediately in the air in front of Kirill who finally got rid of the feathers with precise attacks with his cosmic energy.

Many dignified members of the Doxon family had their eyes and/or senses directed at the grandfather-grandson standoff in the sky.

"You know what you are? Controlling and stubborn. Good qualities I actually admire but not in someone I wish to subjugate which is everyone.

The only reason you will wholeheartedly support someone is if you are convinced they are beneath you and can be controlled by you" Hal said with a shake of his head.

"Only control guarantees loyalty," Kirill said.

"Maybe, but the problem arises with the fact that you can\'t gain control over me. It\'s the other way around. Isn\'t that right?" Hal asked and his voice was loud and boomed over the Doxon Duchy Palace.

Kirill wondered who Hal was talking to but he got his answer when every single member of the Doxon family raised their voices and cheered in submissive agreement. All were driven to do so by their connection to Hal through the Devil seed.

Kirill\'s eyes widened and he had his senses roaming in confusion.

"You already lost Kirill. There was never a chance" Hal said but the Ex-duke just sneered and summoned a Spear Cosmic Armament similar in design to his daughter\'s.

The Spear was mixed in with the power of Kirill\'s deathly Ordinance as the Doxon man let loose the pressure of his cultivation while a single halo appeared above his head.

Just the release of his pressure, which Kirill was trying to keep contained to his surroundings alone, was already threatening the destruction of structures below.

"A demigod," Hal said without surprise. Unlike many who were reacting with shock at this revelation, Hal knew this already.

Kirill\'s sickness, which had caused power over the Duchy to fall into the hands of his sons who then sold their sister Svetlana in marriage to those who wished to take over the Duchy, had been caused because the Doxon man used his Abstract Ordinance of Death to attempt a speedy breakthrough.

He had opened a doorway into the Nether realm to fuel his advancement with Nether Energy.

A ballsy and immensely dangerous move.