Rise of the Cosmic_Emperor

Hal's sclera went from simple black to nightmarish black of a Mid-World Devil that occasionally released fog of the same color and his sapphire blue iris turned the blood-red hue of the Blood Fiend Bloodline.

"Rise for the Blood of my Foes, Executioner"

With the arrival of the Fiendish armament came the fiendish fogs but that's as far as Hal went with his transformation. Mostly because right after the summoning of the Broadsword and eruption of a Fiendish/Devilish presence, the Bandit leader was already dashing towards him.

The flames that shrouded his whole body and bore testament of potential explosiveness to his nature gave him an adequate boost to enhance his already fast speed even more.

Hal frowned but did not move away from the spot he was at. He met Red Beard's heavy hammer with Executioner,

*BANG!*

And with that contact came the widening of Red bread's eyes as he sees Hal was no longer as easily moved as he was before.

"Just what are you? Shifting density on a whim" he asked with a snarl. His once calm demeanor was nowhere to be found.

Hal smirked but did not reply. Not because he was without response or because he wished to appear cool.

It was because he could finally feel what made an Ordinance an Ordinance.

What set it apart from simply being another technique in the arsenal of a cultivator.

After all, this was not the first time he would see Flame manipulation. Borus had been a Demon beast that was attuned with the fire element and even Hal could manipulate flames to an extent with the use of Runes.

But all that fell short before this ordinance. In fact, he was fairly certain that should he attempt a fire manipulation with a rune or even have Borus face the Bandit leader, all that would simply be adding more to Red Beard's arsenal.

Being shrouded by those flames gave Red Beard a sort of presence with which he seemed to command flames in all forms.

This was his Ordinance. This was his mandate... This was his law and his authority.

Hal could even feel an urge to surrender to that command. It was a small urge which he could easily resist but an urge all the same.

Also, being in mere proximity with the ordinance of fire was heating his body up and seemed to be turning his bones and muscles liquid.

It seemed to be melting him... Literally.

Without thinking of it more than a second, Hal leaped away from Red Beard to give himself a moment to collect himself.

He wanted this and now he got it.

He did not regret wanting to see this. He needed it for research purposes.

"Ahhhh" Red Beard yelled out a battle cry and dashed towards Hal to strike at him with his war hammer.

*BOOM!*

If Hal had any thoughts of attempting to evade the strike from the Bandit leader, the thought was scrapped from his mind after an explosive sound saw to a drastic increase of Red Beard's speed.

This surpassed the boost he had received before and Hal instead brought Executioner up to parry away Red Beard's hammer.

*Bang!*

He successfully parried the attack but could do nothing to avoid a blast of fire into his midsection.

*Boom!*

The blast knocked him back but before he could collect himself, Red Beard was already there and swinging the hammer at him...

*Crack!*

Hal attempted another parry or at least a block with Executioner which he was still gripping but the hammer hit his firearm instead and broke it.

Groaning in pain, Hal borrowed the force of the hammer hitting him to roll away from Red Beard and rise to one knee, and glare at the Bandit leader who was once again on him.

However, smelling victory close at hand, Red Beard no longer seemed to be in a hurry. There was no way Hal could resist his authority. His power.

And for the most part, Hal agreed with such an assessment. With his Ordinance powering him, everything he did was with that authority.

Every strike he landed on Hal caused the Devil to feel his muscles getting liquefied and losing strength rapidly.

However, he had been so successful thus far not because Hal could not resist his power but because...

"What if I told you I only let you beat me?" Hal said suddenly and the bandit leader paused in surprise...

"Hahahahahaha"

... And then he burst into boisterous laughter.

"What?" He asked once he took a break from laughing his ass out, "YOU let me beat you?"

Hal nodded,

"Yes, I did. I was curious about something.

I originally planned to come over here and kill you which would not have been hard for me even though I am one stage lower than you in cultivation.

But then, I heard you had an ordinance and I just had to see that. And then eventually you let it out and even though I can defeat you despite it, I decided I might as well see what all the fuss on Ordinances is about.

And believe me, I am quite impressed."

"You... You joke" Red Beard said. There was no longer any confidence in his voice as he worried Hal was in fact not joking.

Hal stood to his feet as briskly as though he had not been hurt at all. In fact, he was flexing the forearm that had been broken by Red Beard's hammer as though it was healed.

And it was.

His Regeneration factor was well up to the task of healing this. The only thing such an accelerated healing actually cost Hal was that it exhausted him much more than the regular Regeneration pace would have been.

However, he did it just so he could prove his point.

All this was all part of his plan.

Also, the widening of Red Beard's eyes even further was well worth it.

"Ordinances truly are impressive. I would love to comprehend one. Preferably before Four thousand years" he said and then his skin turned crimson as he took on the lesser Devil form.

Complete with wings and sharp claws.

The image caused Red Beard to shiver in fear but no monster or whatever the hell Hal was would stop him from achieving his goals so he backed up and powered up his Fire Ordinance even more.

Or at least he tried to.

"What the hell is going on?" He asked in confusion.

Once it was evident how difficult it would be to comprehend an Ordinance, Hal had long since wondered how he could hold his own against certain levels of Ordinance mastery and the most he could actually hope to battle successfully against was Ordinance Insight.

Against people of his generation, that was the most Hal expected any of them to reach and that was assuming that, through some fortuitous encounter, they managed to comprehend an Ordinance which was the rarest of all occurrences.

Anyway, he had gone through it all with Grimoire and the best measure they could come up with was him making use of the Primeval Devil Authority.

The Primeval Devil authority, while not containing an Ordinance contained something quite powerful in itself: Nihasa's Dao of Supremacy.

As long as the one wielding the Ordinance which has to be an Elemental ordinance (he was powerless against Abstract ordinances even of the lowest mastery level) was human, and not too above of him in terms of cultivation, he could 'command' their body to seize channeling their Ordinance insight.

It was why Red Beard could not channel his Ordinance anymore.

Hal stuck Executioner into the ground, cracked his knuckles, and flew towards his opponent to begin the delivery of a beat down before putting an end to the bandit leader's misery.

After all, plan or no plan, Red Beard's attacks really, really hurt...