Bab 71: Fight!
She stayed for a while. She watched as her bodyguard crashed against the hard stone. Blood smeared against her face. The man placed his feet on the fallen mage's head before turning his attention towards Aurora.
"Hm, you're that Demigod who summoned that anomaly," The man said. His voice gurgled slightly with a pinch of lowness.
They both stared at each other, not one of them was backing down. Aurora, with what was left of her strength, pushed herself up and she stood. She stood although her body shook, this was to show that even in such a weakened state, she was not going to back down just yet.
"Hm," The man then walked over the fallen mage and stood a few meters away against Aurora.
"You've been a torn in our side quite some time," The man pointed out. His face was devoid of expression or emotion. He gave off an aura of pure darkness, an aura which only Aurora could see at full-strength. His aura stretched towards the heavens above and to the sides on a mile, she doesn't know how long it was exactly but that man was an immensely powerful being.
She needed to be careful, and so she decided to talk first.
"Who are you?" She asked as she dusted off her robe. Artemis was not listening, rather, he was actually watching the dust get yeeted off her robe.
"Hm, strange," Artemis uttered.
Aurora looked at him in the eye.
"What is strange?"
Artemis stared back, his eyes gleamed with ferocity. But Aurora was not backing down.
"You did not answer my question, who are you?" Aurora repeated her question from a while ago.
"Like you, I have power, like you, I am a leader, but unlike you, I don't have magic," Artemis said.
"Well, that is easy to see," Aurora finished dusting her robe.
"Wait, let me rephrase that, I DON'T need magic, unlike you who completely rely on such a technique,"
Aurora was insulted. She frowned at the man who was called Artemis and magical energy manifested around her, calling upon a gust of wind.
"You have the ability to manipulate the wind and summon a wind knight, I thought I'd have trouble with you but seeing as you are now, your body is about to collapse, isn't it?"
Aurora looked at her body and felt weakness. The man in front of her was right, after seeing his aura, she came to the realization that she was no match against him.
But, she was resolute.
"You, what's your name?" Aurora asked again.
"Artemis,"
She stepped forward with assistance from her wind. The landscape was dark, death and destruction surrounded them. It was the idle fighting ground for both. As they stared at one another, the armies of the Machine Empire advance further into the capital of the theocracy with nothing in their way. The outer city had been completely occupied with the rest of the surviving population having been evacuated through the use of teleportation magic. But nobody wants to go to the evacuation Airships or else they will be slain by Gunship Drones who will decimate any flying wooden ships they seen.
Fery was the only mage left when the last batches were teleported out. The teleportations, however, now were severely hampered due to the missile strikes and the subsequent continuation of the Machine Empire's offensive. The garrison was completely overwhelmed the moment the Androids breached each wall. A short skirmish followed with the Androids emerging victorious and the entirety of the garrisons massacred.
After an hour of further bloodshed, it all boiled down to this.
Artemis and Aurora continued their staring competition. Even the Androids were eager to see who would blink first.
A few minutes passed. Both of them were yet to blink.
Another few minutes passed. The exact same result.
Artemis' two Elite Androids watched from the western walls. Dozens of archers and Knights were brutally scattered across the room with their blood smeared on the walls and few of their body parts scattered across the floor, some eye ball got impaled on a sharp broken glass.
"Bloody hell, why aren't they doing anything?" Michael complained.
"Let's wait," Johnathan assured. There was no need to rush, no, they had all the time they needed.
It should be worth mentioning, the council had not left the city.
Nobody knew where they were but when Aurora summoned the wind elemental, they were inspired and decided to unite one last time. If they were to meet their demise, they were going to meet it together. The council was once a united and powerful organization within the church that spearheaded advancements both in magic and society, the fact that it has degraded to such a level shows how weak the theocracy had become.
When the city finally fell, they hid themselves and waited for Aurora to wake after they saw her fall. They saw within her the image of the goddess, her hand saving her from the fall and thus saving her life. These rowdy and mostly incompetent old men and hags were about to put their minds to good use one last time.
"So, are we not going to finish this once and for all?" Artemis broke the silence between them.
Aurora's hair fluttered as the wind around her gained speed and momentum. After which a tornado formed around her with herself as the eye of the phenomenon.
"Huh," Artemis posed to fight.
"By the guidance of the gods, lest ye be worthy of thy name, thy kingdom shall burn!" Aurora shouted.
"Thy kingdom my ass," Artemis said nonchalantly as he immediately charged at her head-on.
Artemis had no weapon but his fists. He lunged into the tornado without getting affected by the 500 kph winds and managed to catch Aurora off-guard.
"Impossible!" She uttered before being punched in the face. She lost a bit of concentration and the tornado lost a bit of strength before returning to top speed.
She was cut-off guard because she uses more mana on the tornado to make it more stronger and harder to get in and to escape, even if he did made it inside, she literally uses her magic to get rid of the oxygen inside the tornado turning the inside into a vaccuum, fortunately for her she was protected by her magic to prevent killing her own stunt but it has limits, but Artemis however was now inside the tornado with her, shockingly unfazed by the vaccuum, as the tornado loose a bit of its strength, Aurora return the oxygen inside the tornado because her vaccuum protection spell reach its limit. Seeing Artemis is now inside the tornado with her, she had to resort to hand-to-hand combat.
FIGHT!
The two engaged in a furious battle of fists and feet. Aurora's martial arts training and more than a hundred years of experience proved life-saving in this situation of hers as her enemy launched punch after punch with immense force. As the fight inside went on, each punch by Artemis became stronger and faster.
Tsk! A monster!
Aurora thought. She would be defeated if she did not do anything to her enemy's monstrous speed. Seeing an opening, she directs a huge concentrated spear of wind at her enemy's face. The large spear of wind knocked him aside successfully but dealt little damage.
With this, Aurora directed more spears at Artemis and pushed him out of the tornado, this time he was caught by the 500kph winds and flung off. Artemis landed on his feet and skidded across the ground.
Artemis stood up, unscathed.
"Tsk!"
Artemis then stopped for a moment and tilted his head.
"Why is it that you people like saying 'tsk' or making that sound?" Artemis asked.
"Huh?" Aurora replied in confusion. She did not even notice that she was making the sound in the first place and thus did not get what her enemy was saying.
"Enough of your nonsense!" Aurora thought that Artemis was just confusing her, making her lose focus so that the battle would turn his way. In particular honesty, Artemis was actually curious and confused as to why they make that sound.
Artemis stood for a minute or two, his eyes glowed brighter than usual prompting Aurora to maintain a defensive posture. Aurora participated her enemy to attack after he finished powering up, still thinking that Artemis followed the basis of magic but used a different kind of magic instead. Although her deity had specifically told her before that their enemy required no magic, Aurora still thought they were using a more mystical and godly form of magic.
Her thought was further reinforced by the fact that Artemis excreted a powerful aura enough to crush her's. The fact also that Artemis' eyes glowed brighter meant that he was indeed accumulating a form of magic power.
Although in actuality, Artemis was just evaluating her and their surroundings. Artemis had upgraded himself exponentially through the use of modified prewar military enhancement technologies thanks to Caitlyn.
But still, the modified instruments that Artemis now possessed greatly enhanced his ability to compute his enemy and the variables around said enemy.
Through this rapid and careful computation, Artemis asked himself. Why did he resort to fighting alone? They had eliminated almost all opposition in the outer city city, the outer city was already theirs! Nobody was going to intervene, with his army alone, the mage would stand no chance of winning and they would invade Zennasir Island next.
But that brought him to another realization, he's been acting rather brashly. His focus had deteriorated significantly over the past months. Caitlyn noticed the abnormality in Artemis.
Little did he know, his humanity was slowly returning and was hampering most of his systems. But that's not to say that Artemis would lose all efficiency and ability as a machine, no, he will regain all that he has lost but his actions will be more human in nature if he so chooses to embrace the change.
Artemis, however, did not know of this and had no plans of embracing humanity although he wonders why his Androids are becoming more human-like than him.
"What's taking you so long?" Aurora asked mockingly.
Artemis then redirected his attention towards her after being lost in thought.
"I suggest we take a break maybe? I am willing to answer your questions with full honesty but I will ask some questions myself and expect the same honesty," Artemis suggested in a nonchalant voice.
"How am I supposed to trust the enemy? You expect me to be stupid?" Aurora refused to cooperate.
"Well, if that's the case, I will reveal my own secrets to you, if you still won't concede, well, suit yourself," Artemis broke a fake smile.
Seeing Artemis' smile made her back off a little. It was a nightmarish sight to behold, how can someone be so emotionless yet so terrifying?
It was very out-of-character for Artemis to show a smile.
"Alright, let me start," Artemis began.
Aurora was still on the alert, moving her head from left to right in anticipation of an ambush. She noticed that the metal demons around them have begun to increase in numbers, now they were arguably by the thousands around them. They formed a large circle that seemed to serve as the boundary of their 'arena' in which they will fight if they do decide to continue.
I'm surrounded,
Aurora thought.
"We don't use magic, I believe you already know that," Artemis said.
"A lie," Aurora immediately replied.
"How can you say for sure that it is a lie?" Artemis challenged her.
"Your aura," Aurora pointed out.
"O, child, there is no such thing as an aura around me, I prefer to call it as a physical manifestation of one's fear that surrounds a person,"
Hearing the word 'child' makes Aurora frowned.
"Child? You really think your older? Please, I'm look like in my mid 20s, but that doesn't mean I'm young, I'm over 379 years old," Unbeknownst to Aurora, she did not know that the human machine was older than her by a mile.
"Really? Of course I'm that older, child. I'm over 1256 years old. However, on the measurement on your world's time compare to my world, I might be over 1589 years old"
He's older than me!?
Aurora thought in despair. To think that her enemy called her a child, and he was thousand years older than her. Does her enemy predate even the great forgotten era? Both sides had no idea.
"Fear?" Aurora asked. "What fear?"
"The fear I propagate, the fear I make you all feel,"
Aurora was silent.
"Fear is a major factor in human development and character, without fear humanity would have gone extinct in the first place. The most important fear of all..."
"What?" Aurora asked after Artemis cut his sentence short.
"The fear of the unknown, I do not understand why you don't understand such a simple concept that reigns true? You are a human and you fear the unknown just as much as I do, likewise, I am unknown to you and the residents of this world. We are unknown, why? For we come from another world, a world that was once vibrant as yours but humanity reigned supreme. That past, I wish to return, and return it I will, even if I need to take the lives every single one of you pests,"
PERTIMBANGAN PENCIPTA 
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