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36.73% Playing with other Supernaturals / Chapter 498: Artemis’ Request

章節 498: Artemis’ Request

At some point, the group reached the innermost part of the ruin. There, they met a giant scorpion-like monster which was connected to the fleshy walls, absorbing the surrounding vitality in the middle of a room with a big hole in the ceiling, revealing the night sky.

"That's Antares?", muttered Asfi.

As the monster came into view, Artemis' couldn't take it anymore and fell to her knees. "Artemis!", shouted Hestia and ran towards her.

Kisuke and Yoruichi, however, only gave Antares a passing glance as they looked up to the hole in the ceiling. From there, they could see a second moon and both of them made a dignified expression. 'Now that looks dangerous...', Kisuke thought.

The second crescent moon, instead of a real moon, it was a densely drawn magic circle that created the shape of a moon high above the atmosphere. [Kisuke, I just received a message that Kuroka and Medusa already evacuated the three girls to the second base and deployed defensive barriers.], Kisuke was told by Yoruichi, when he received a telepathic message from her.

[Great. Please tell Kuroka to keep guarding the three, while Medusa should go watch the situation in Orario.], Kisuke replied to her. Since Kuroka and Medusa used long-distance telepathic magic, which should only be used in times of emergency, he figured that something big was happening in Orario right now, more specifically, the Dungeon, 'Since that moon is pure Divine power, the Dungeon should have reacted in some way.'

As for the second base, it was another underground base that Kisuke constructed under the place where they stayed before they went to Orario. Although they could activate defensive barriers on their base in Orario, it was too close to the Dungeon and there were too many Gods who could notice its activation. Hence, he thought that it would be better to evacuate to a farther place first since it would be more secure.

[Got it. There's also another thing. It seems that the Guild prohibited any Adventurer from leaving Orario since the moment we left for this quest. They already expected this to happen.], added Yoruichi.

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.

.

In Orario, even though the sun was still far from rising up, all of the Adventurers in the city were already woken up and were currently scrambling to put on their battle equipment.

This all started after a few people who were still awake or on night duty, noticed the peculiarity of the night sky. A second moon had appeared. This woke up the sleeping citizens of Orario. They viewed this bizarre scene and most of them, understandably, were scared of a new heavenly body forming out of nowhere.

While a few prominent Adventurers noticed that the moon wasn't a real moon, but a group of magic circles, they could do nothing about it.

An hour later, the Dungeon was suddenly shaking and monsters started to escape from it. In response, the Guild resounded the alarm throughout the city, calling all combatants to join the battle against the rampaging monsters.

Meanwhile, Loki stormed the Babel tower and went up to the top floor to get a better view of the moon, "What in the world is going on!?", Loki asked the owner of the top floor.

While sitting on her chair and calmly swirling her wine, Freya answered her, "Arcanum. And that's... Artemis' arrow. The strongest arrow of Heaven, fired by the Goddess of Innocence."

"I already know that!" Loki retorted, "We can't use that nonsensical power in this world. It's not even funny! If Artemis used her power, she'd be already sent back to Heaven!"

"Unless... Something is binding her here.", Freya replied.

Loki could only grit her teeth, "That old-geezer Ouranos... He knew exactly what was going to happen and locked us inside!" Loki then started running towards the exit.

Freya was able to guess what she was thinking and stopped her from leaving, "There's no point. Even if all the Deities in Orario were to unite, we wouldn't be able to stop that much power."

"I don't give a shit! Even so, we're the only ones who can end this!", shouted Loki and left the top floor.

Freya closed her eyes and a few seconds later, she muttered, "Ottar."

The bulky man, who had been standing beside her all this time answered, "Yes, ma'am."

"Go.", was Freya's simple command.

Ottar understood that Freya wanted him to assist the effort to stop the monsters from leaving the Dungeon. But, because he was her guard, he had to ask her, "Are you sure?"

Freya opened her eyes and answered him, "Yes. I can only leave the rest in their hands." Thanks to the eyes and ears, which she had on the Guild, she knew exactly what effort was currently taking place to stop Artemis. While narrowing her eyes, she thought, 'Nevertheless, I can now be sure that Kisuke Urahara, and probably those girls around him, are hiding their souls from my eyes. I thought that Bell would be chosen without any doubt, but this obscure man suddenly stole the spotlight. After all, Divine weapons, although just a fraction, can only be used by those with a pure and strong soul.'

An instant later, a small smile appeared on her face, 'I wonder what I should do next. I still haven't forgotten when he lied about attraction in front of me.'

The Loki Familia led the defense effort and directly went towards the 15th floor to meet the first wave of the rampaging monsters. "It'll be the worst-case scenario if monsters come to the surface.", shouted Finn, while watching the incoming wave of monsters, "Stand up now! This is the city for us, Adventurers! We cannot allow a single monster to enter! We have one goal! To protect the city!"

With his signal, all the top executives of the Loki Familia rushed towards the monsters.

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.

.

On the other side, while having some difficulties breathing, Artemis pleaded, "You must defeat it... Please, Orion."

At that moment, Antares' screech rang out as the carapace armor in its chest opened up and revealed a crystal.

The two people who weren't expecting the current situation shuddered. "Is that...?", asked Ryuu with widened eyes.

"Is that even possible?", wondered Asfi who, on the other hand, questioned reality.

In the middle of the crystal was a frozen woman, another Artemis.

Antares screeched one more time, but this time, instead of doing nothing, the crystal where the second Artemis was confined lit up and a purple beam rose up to the sky, hitting the second moon. A few seconds later, beams of white light started raining down from it.

It was the same attack that welcomed the group when they arrived in the vicinity, however, it was now more numerous and each light carried more destructive power. Yoruichi immediately grabbed Hestia, while Kisuke grabbed the unmoving Artemis and the rest started dodging the incoming destruction.

But it seemed that more attacks were aimed at Kisuke and Artemis than the rest so he had to separate from them, 'It's attracted by both the arrow and Artemis'.

Moments later, the floor finally collapsed under them and Kisuke, who was carrying Artemis, dropped down to the lower level, leaving Antares behind.

Ryuu and Asfi were successful in safeguarding Hermes as they were able to retreat towards the exit of the room, along with Yoruichi and Hestia.

After everything had settled down, Asfi finally had time to ask Hermes, "Please explain! Why does Antares, a monster, have the power of an Arcanum!?"

"Because Artemis was devoured.", answered Hermes.

Hestia could only look down in pain. Although she already expected this, it was still hard for her to see and hear it in person.

"T-then who's the Artemis-sama who was with us all this time?"

Hermes turned towards her and continued answering, "She's only a consciousness left in the spear. In other words, just a fragment of a Goddess. She's Artemis, but not all of her."

Looking toward the room where Antares was, Hermes added, "Antares consumed her Divine power, and with it can twist the world to fit it."

"Is that even possible? A monster taking over the power of a Deity?", asked Yoruichi this time.

"Even among the monsters, Antares is special and could be considered as strong as the monsters of the Three Great Quests, if not stronger."

"Although it's in a weakened state, it still has the powers of a Deity. We have no way of winning!", exclaimed Ryuu.

Hermes shook his head, "That's why we told you that only with the spear, we could defeat it. That's the only way we could defeat it."

"Just what is that spear?", asked Asfi.

But before Hermes could answer, Yoruichi urged everyone, "We'll listen to it while we run. We have to regroup with Kisuke and Artemis-sama as soon as possible. I can feel them on the lower floor. Let's go." She then started running in a certain direction.

Everyone looked at each other before nodding and following her lead.

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.

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Below the floor where Antares was resting, Kisuke gently set down the already very weak Artemis as he inspected his surroundings. The first thing he noticed was the corpse of several girls on the floor.

Artemis did her best to stand up and approached one of the girls. "They are?", asked Kisuke.

As she crouched down and gently touched the face of a red-haired girl, Artemis answered him, "My children. All I could do was watch. Watch the monster that had consumed me, murder my children... Murder them with my own hands..." Gently smiling, Artemis softly muttered, "I'm back."

She then stood up and looked towards Kisuke with a sad smile, "Are you not curious why and how I'm standing before you?"

"Nope. Not really. I already knew it, after all." Kisuke then went towards the corpses and started picking them up one by one, lining them up on the side of the wall.

"What are you doing?"

"They need a proper funeral. I'm also worried that their bodies would be damaged by the upcoming fight." Thanks to the large amount of Ki and Mana that Antares had gathered from the surroundings, the bodies of the girls had hardly decayed. Kisuke used magic to clean the blood and gore away from their bodies, making it look like they were only peacefully sleeping.

After Kisuke finished taking care of the bodies, Artemis said with a heartfelt smile, "Thank you very much."

"Don't worry about it. I couldn't sit still with them not being properly taken care of."

Artemis then suddenly changed the topic due to urgency, "Antares stopped moving for now, but it's only a matter of time. A monster with an Arcanum... Antares is a walking paradox of calamity. As you have expected, the upcoming fight is inevitable."

At this moment, Artemis's body already started to disintegrate, signifying that she had already reached her limit. But even then, she continued explaining without minding her situation, "The spear... No, the arrow on your back is a Divine weapon. Its name is 'Orion'... which means 'they who pierce' in the God's language. To end such being, we need to strike it with this arrow."

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Editors

Alexander: A 'Death Moon', a giant spider and Kisuke, who decided to go a little bit serious. I'm all in for it.

28th00: Well, Antares is obviously violating 'The Balance', time to fix that, eh? Magic moons with death beams, cool. Wait, is it a magic moon if the magic is divine, or is it a god moon? I don't know, but I do know it's gotta be stupidly big to be the same size as the actual moon… Man, Antares really is 'weak' currently if it can only use those tiny lasers from something that ridiculous.


章節 499: VS Antares

After hearing about the real identity of the spear from Hermes, Asfi stopped running, "Please wait."

Everyone stopped at her request and Asfi asked Hermes, "So what you're saying is, the future of this world is in Kisuke Urahara's hands alone?"

"We have no choice... He was chosen by the arrow.", replied Hermes.

Asfi grabbed Hermes' collar and yelled at his face, "But you're just giving him the sin of murdering a Goddess!"

In response, Hermes grabbed her shoulder and replied back, "This isn't about that! This was never about that! Don't get it wrong, Asfi."

Hermes gently separated Asfi's hands from his collar. As he did so, he took a peek at Hestia's reaction, thinking that she already gave up. However, contrary to his expectation, Hestia was making a hopeful face. "Hestia?", he called out to her in confusion.

"We don't have enough time for that. Let's go." Yoruichi urged them again and started running.

As Hermes followed them, something started to bug him, 'What are they planning?'

.

.

.

Kisuke looked straight into Artemis' eyes after she finished explaining what he needed to do before asking, "What's going to happen to you then?"

She shook her head with a wry smile, "That isn't important. What's important is the safety of the Lower World."

At this moment, Antares came crashing down in front of them. At the same time, Yoruichi and the rest arrived, "Artemis! Kisuke-kun!", Hestia shouted towards them.

Kisuke looked back and smiled, "Great timing~. Hold that thing back for me for a few minutes~." He then directly sat down on the ground, ignoring everything else to inspect Artemis' arrow.

"You just have to think about defeating Antares and throw the spear at it. It doesn't need any complicated skill to use.", said Artemis after thinking that Kisuke must be confused about how to use the arrow.

However, he just completely ignored her and continued what he was doing. "Orion?", Artemis tried to call out to him, but he was still absorbed in what he was doing.

Yoruichi figured that Kisuke would really need a few minutes to do something, so she jumped down and rushed towards Antares, "I'm going first~!"

After breaking the ground when she just kicked off, Yoruichi instantly appeared in front of Antares, "You're going to play with me for a while~." Doing a wide swing, Yoruichi blasted off its head with her fist, [GRAAAHHH!!!]

"With her bare fist!?", exclaimed Ryuu and Asfi.

"Asfi, Ryuu, go assist her.", instructed Hermes from behind.

The two of them nodded, before joining the brawl.

After they left, Hermes suddenly asked Hestia who was left alone with him, "What are you guys planning?"

"Saving Artemis.", Hestia answered simply.

"You know that's already impossible! It might be if we can use our Arcanum, but you also know the risk of doing that!"

"I know! But it won't be me who's going to do something."

"What do you mean? Do you mean Kisuke-kun? How?"

Hestia shook her head, "I don't know... But I trust him."

Hermes could only sigh and thought, 'If only it would be that easy.'

While the three girls were grabbing Antares' attention as it wreaked havoc through the battlefield, Artemis continued to talk to Kisuke. But same as before, he only ignored her and even started mumbling to himself while turning the arrow around in his hands.

Artemis couldn't take it anymore so, with her weakened and disappearing arms, she shook him, "Orion! Please hurry! We can't let that thing run around freely anymore!"

And for the first time, Kisuke finally looked at her and smiled, "I told you last night, didn't I?"

"What?", Artemis asked in confusion.

"I told you to save that dance for the person you really like." Kisuke stood up and patted her shoulder, "Since I told you something like that, it'd be a shame if that couldn't happen." He then started walking towards the battlefield.

"What... do you mean?" As Kisuke left her alone, something warm came from her, 'Is this hope? But this is already impossible...' She couldn't understand what Kisuke meant, but it became clear to her that he was giving her hope. Artemis' residue disappeared with those questions in her mind, transferring them to her sleeping body inside of Antares.

Seeing this, Hermes clicked his tongue while being annoyed, "Tsk... You know what's more unbearable than despair? It's false hope."

Hestia didn't say anything back and just watched Kisuke's back, 'Please... Kisuke-kun... You have to save her.'

After dodging the destructive beam of light which was sent to her by Antares, Yoruichi asked the approaching Kisuke who carried the arrow in his right hand, "Are you going to do it?"

Kisuke nodded happily, "Yep~. But not before this!" He then suddenly took a stance and got ready to throw the arrow, but not towards Antares.

Out of everyone's expectations, Kisuke aimed at the second moon, which was now a bow and arrow of magic circles with a big grin.

"Kisuke-kun! What are you doing!?", shouted Hermes while having a bad feeling.

"Nothing too crazy~.", replied Kisuke, while the gray arrow in his hand suddenly turned golden with various inscriptions emerging on its surface.

Strong winds blasted off from the arrow. It didn't do anything to Yoruichi, Ryuu, Asfi or Antares, but it was enough to push back the weak avatars of God. 'How is he doing this!?', exclaimed Hermes in his mind. As of now, Kisuke was utilizing the power of the Divine Weapon which shouldn't be possible for anyone in the Lower World.

From the tip of the arrow, a crimson flame emerged and it slowly covered the shaft as it crawled down. The golden inscriptions also became crimson as the flame passed through them. Once the flame covered the whole arrow, Kisuke shouted, "Tamaya~!!!", before throwing the arrow.

Kisuke could have separated Artemis from the Antares earlier. It was a simple thing for him to cut off a parasite from her soul. However, if he was to do that, the magic in the sky might go out of control and just nuke everything where it was pointing at, since Antares would be losing control of it.

With that in mind, Kisuke spent a few minutes to add some magic that could track, change the orientation and apport the arrow, so that it wouldn't disappear somewhere once he used it. Kisuke also needed some time to figure out how to use his Reiatsu-Ki to boost or manifest some part of the power of the Divine Weapon. He could have used his own power to destroy the magic, but that would be too much effort and he would be showing too much of his abilities to Hermes. So he just opted to use the arrow. Because with that, he would have an excuse that he could use.

If someone were to confront him, saying that he was too strong, he'd just tell them that it's thanks to the arrow.

The arrow left a flash of red light and traveled through stones and bricks, blasting off a part of the ruin into pieces.

Like a beam of crimson light, the arrow instantly traveled through the air and reached the bow and arrow magic in the sky, disintegrating it and leaving behind an explosion of light.

Kisuke then snapped his finger and the beam of light instantly changed its orientation and was now coming down back to earth. A few seconds later, everyone heard a large explosion, far from the ruin.

"Well, that looks better than I expected.", commented Kisuke, while looking at the disappearing bow and arrow in the sky.

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Back in Orario, the large number of monsters, which were coming out, were putting a large strain on the Loki Familia. It wouldn't be a problem if they were just the monsters of the upper floors, but even some of the monsters which were living in the deepest known levels of the Dungeon were coming out. Only the top Adventurers or mage squads could deal with them.

"An Ill Wyvern from the deep floors!" Tiona shouted to warn everyone.

But before anyone from the Adventurer group could deal with it, a figure flashed towards it and bisected the wyvern. The person who just arrived and killed the wyvern is the strongest Adventurer of Orario, Ottar.

Finn smiled at his presence, "Seems that we got the best backup we could ask for."

"I can't embarrass my Goddess." Ottar looked towards Finn, "I'll cooperate."

But even then, the number of monsters only continued to increase and Ottar only brought a few members of the Freya Familia with him, because the rest had to safeguard their revered Goddess.

"More Ill Wyverns incoming!!!", shouted Tione to everyone.

"Fomoire and Deformis Spiders are also on-site!", warned Bete.

But just as they were about to meet the additional monsters, a large scythe, connected to a chain, flew above everyone's head and started to reap the monster heads.

The scythe returned to where it came from after killing a bunch of monsters and everyone followed it with their eyesight. There, they saw a blindfolded mature woman with beautiful, glistening long purple hair, which danced in the wind.

"S-she appeared!!!", shouted Tiona.

"Why is she here!?", questioned Tione.

Finn looked towards the strange woman and asked Tiona, "Who is she?"

Instead of Tiona, however, Riveria answered him, "The one who stopped the Minotaur stampede."

With just that answer, Finn instantly understood that it was the same woman who used inconceivable magic to turn the Minotaurs into stone.

Without saying a word, Medusa in her adult form, gathered magic power under her feet and blasted off towards the incoming monsters while rotating with her scythe. Within just a few seconds, she instantly killed more than 50 monsters before going to the deeper parts of the Dungeon.

"Don't get left behind! Onwards!", commanded Finn to everyone. They didn't know why, but it seemed that she was here to assist them. However, they didn't have the intention of letting the limelight off them and followed Medusa's trail of magic stones.

On the top of the Babel Tower, Freya dropped her glass of wine as she stood up and approached the balcony of her floor.

"W-what is this!?" For the first time in a long while, Freya showed a shocked expression as she watched a crimson light piercing through Artemis' Arcanum, before descending back to earth.

Sure, the scene was surprising and even the other Deities in the city were questioning what that was, however, within Freya's eyes, the crimson light wasn't a simple visual effect, but a compressed, unbridled and very pure soul power.

This amount of soul power should only be possible if someone gathered 1000 or more people and extracted their souls for energy. If even one person could perform such atrocities, he or she would incur a heavy punishment from Heaven. But even if it was successful, the souls that would be smashed together, would be the most disgusting thing for Freya and she would be the first one to destroy such a thing.

However, the one in front of her didn't have that kind of aura. It was as if it came from only a single person. Even if there were ten of that man, whom she was currently infatuated with, such a scene would be impossible. Even if all ten souls of Bell's level were to be extracted for energy.

After hearing the sound of breaking glass, Allen came through the door and asked, "What happened, Freya-sama?"

But instead of answering his question, Freya suddenly said, "I'm going to the Ruin Of Elsus. Now."

If it was a normal day, Allen would immediately go against her decision as it would be a very dangerous thing to do. But today, when he heard Freya's voice, he shivered and could only answer her in one way, "Yes!"

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Editors:

Alexander: I have a very important lesson for everyone. Controlling and editing hypothetical speech is a pain in the ass.

As for Hermes, chill down mate. Kisuke got this. Last but not least, I missed the adult Medusa, she's just so badass. I love it.

28th00: I fixed some parts, gotta love our font, huh? Ill, just three lines that look the exact same…Medusa is stupid OP, it's just she's never really operated at 100%, since she's been cursed and abused by SO MANY THINGS, mostly Athena though, so now she can sorta 'let loose'. As for Freya, that's what happens when you train your soul to divine levels (advanced captain class) and have the ability to control it almost perfectly. Centuries of practice and training does help a lot though.


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