Rise of the Cosmic_Emperor

Sassy caught her dagger as it spun towards her.

Snatching it out of mid-air, Sassy had her two daggers at the ready as quite a number of the other puppets turned in her direction.

Hal gave her a directive which was to get out of the room and that was what Sassy planned to do without giving one thought to her accomplishment of bringing down one of the puppets.

However, while she was ready to ignore it, it was all these outside the room could focus on.

Whoever this beautiful and sultry lady was, she was no way on the level of the fodder raiders, quite a few of whom were still alive and looking to Sassy as a point to rally at.

Case in point, as Sassy made her way out of the room towards Hal with a puppet right on her tail while feeling a tad frustrated at her inability and lack of a proper grasp on her ability to shapeshift into her miniature serpent form to escape all senses, one of the raiders evaded a particularly fatal attack from a puppet and made a beeline for her.

Quite a number of the raiders had seen what Sassy had done and how much success she had with it and were mind-boggled.

You see, all through the battles with the puppets, while they had been able to curse damage, it had never been to the extent of being so definite.

Never once had it come to the mind of any of them to try the armpits and had been instead been about strike however hard as they could.

And that includes the use of their trump cards which included runes they had stored in their spatial treasures.

A few of them, at least the ones who could spare the time to actually think on the matter felt she had accomplished it through luck.

She attacked a spot 'presented' to her and was lucky to have hit the power source.

They felt that since they had been unable to recreate what she had done, there was no way she could do it again and be successful.

Hence a fluke.

They were partly right.

Sassy had been lucky.

She had not known for sure where the power source was and had only thought about getting her dagger through her opponent.

However, the main reason she had been successful in her aim of stabbing the puppet was that she surpassed a vast majority of the raiders in terms of capabilities.

That was already true as the demon beast that she was but was even further boosted by the fact that she was Hal's familiar and had evolved by feeding on his blood.

She was not in their league even at the mid-stage of the Aurora beast realm.

Also, she had mostly had the attention of one puppet and did not have to look behind herself in worry.

Anyway, Sassy being mostly oblivious to the actions of the raider who was making his way towards her, tossed her daggers behind herself and controlled them to attack at the parts of the puppet she was now looking at as major weaknesses; The armpits.

However before her daggers could make contact, the puppet moved to defend those parts of its body.

Showing that it could and did learn from the destroyed puppet's mistakes.

It did not merely defend those spots either but grabbed the daggers immediately after deflecting it to stop it from turning around and catching it(the puppet) off guard.

This only caused Sassy to furrow her brows though because even though the daggers were quickly becoming good weapons of choice, it was never needed for her to unleash what she was capable of due to her bloodline.

Sure, she could not use her large serpent form in front of this many witnesses and then go back to Hal's side as that could make him a possible accomplice to all things dystopian but she could still use her bloodline's toxicity.

She was about to begin charging a toxic attack when she noticed the raider who smiled charmingly at her despite the very bleak situation as he said,

"Need a hand?"

Everyone heard him and while those inside the room were too busy trying their best to survive, so busy in fact that not a single one of them could think of gathering the riches in the room, those outside the room knew what his statement actually meant.

It was not an offer of help but an application to come under her clearly capable umbrella.

Sassy smiled at him.

It was a cold reptilian smile that was devoid of all emotions other than a possible interest in swallowing the raider whole.

"You'll do just fine" she said, grabbed the front of his shirt, and stopped running suddenly to toss the raider at the puppet who reacted as it should and struck the man in mid-air.

*Crack!*

There was an unmistakable sound of bones breaking that was followed by an anguished yell that stopped the moment the young man was on the ground.

If anyone had thought that he was still alive, the thought vanished the moment a puppet began actively stomping on the man's head until it burst which took a considerably short time.

Sassy did not even spare the man another look as she felt he had accomplished his purpose. He had caused the puppet to expose its armpit which she once again targeted not with her daggers (they were in the puppet's possession. In a very tight grip too) but with an arrow of toxic mist she shot with a bow formed with the same mist.

Her target (The puppet) was in motion already and could not, despite how fast it was, defend its armpits, but it did not need to be too worried about its defense as one of the other puppets, that had been moving to band together against the familiar, moved to intercept the arrow before it could successfully make contact.

It actually managed to disturb the movement of the arrow but disturbing the movement was where the puppet's impact ended.

The arrow was made of poisonous mist and reformed soon enough still to hit the puppet's exposed armpit and instantly corrode it.

Tinging the point of contact in sickly green color that spread to the puppet's arm and rendered it impossible to use. Somehow cutting it off from the body as a whole.

Sassy was not sure if the energy within the puppet's power source could fight off her toxic infection and she did not bother to try to know.

Instead, she took advantage of the puppet's slacking grip due to her infectious attack to regain control of one of her daggers and attempt to pierce the puppet as she had done the other one.

The interfering puppet attempted another interference but a Rune circle that appeared beneath its feet froze it in place and rendered it incapable of movement.

A rune circle courtesy of Hal's subtle Rune drawing.

The dagger, which was further tapered with the toxic mist of Sassy's bloodline went in with no obstacle and struck through the armpit to cut across the inside of the puppet's chest and destroy the power source within.

As the puppet's eyes dimmed, the interfering puppet freed itself and charged at Sassy.

Sassy dodged its charge and did not try to go against it as she instead ran toward the room entrance, controlling her daggers towards herself as she went.

Her directive was to get out of the room and not to engage.

The whole reason Hal had given her the order was that he had no intention of letting his people do all the fighting and the destroying of the puppets just for Ergo to waltz in.

Either they all fought or no one did.

It was then that the doors that were to the right of the doorway that Hal was standing, opened.

Behind the doors were Karmen, Olivia, and Harold.

The first thing Karmen and Olivia saw was the puppets chasing Sassy and they wasted no time dashing in to offer their assistance.

Not even giving the wealth-littered floor a second look.

They did look over at Hal though and he smiled in approval of what he saw as clear evidence of their success against the obstacles the tomb must have put before them leading up to them coming through the silver double doors.

Lucile caught those looks,

"They are with you?" she asked. it was not much much of a question as it was a statement.

Hal looked at her by his side and nodded with a mild smile.

"The green-eyed lady too?" she added and Hal nodded subtly.

This caused Lucile to furrow her brows,

"And you're not going to join in?"

Hal shook his head,

"Not yet" he said while Andrei nodded proudly at the thought that Harold had survived the tomb's obstacles.

He was surprised though when Harold readily joined Karmen and Olivia to battle the puppets and take a bit of the heat off the capable green-eyed beauty.

Hal did not doubt that with Harold battling the puppets with his life on the line, Andrei would soon burst out that powerful Semi-saint cultivation of his. Especially if Emily decided to enter the room as well.

Maybe it was the sight of an all-woman (excluding Harold) fighting group taking on the puppets that roused his fighting spirit or maybe he was just tired of standing and spectating... Whatever the reason, Ergo looked ready to join in as he grabbed Cirk's shoulder

"Come on Dane trash" he said and steered Cirk so that together they went into the room of riches.

In there, Ergo swung his Ax Artifact with speed and strength none of the raiders could resist and he decapitated two of them (two who had been attempting escape) in a single swing.

As he did, the red gem on his ax blade glowed and absorbed what Hal could clearly sense was blood essence.

The ax blade then glowed red which Ergo unleashed in a swing that sent the harnessed blood energy within the gem against one of the puppets...

*BOOM!*

.... the puppet had attempted to use one of its sturdy arms to deflect the attack but I'm that proved useless as the attack utterly destroyed both its chest as well as its arm.