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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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.