Chapter 499: Attacked without a Word
"You think?"
Evan questioned Arthur with a raised brow, a split second before something whooshed through the air and towards both boys’ heads.
However, these items never hit their marks since Arthur and Evan raised their hands and caught a bullet and an arrow respectively.
"They utilised a gun on me."
"And I got an arrow."
**PSSSsss!!!
Something green dripped from the tip of the arrow and melted a stone beside Evan, prompting him to continue his statement.
"A poisonous arrow."
Turning towards the forest, he shouted out at their hidden attackers.
"Hey! What gives?! You should have used a gun on me as well, I always wanted to catch a bullet!"
About 100 metres away from their position, Beatrix and Artemisia heard the boy’s loud voice, removing their gazes from the time-frozen arrows before them as they asked in unison.
""THAT’S WHAT YOU’RE CONCERNED ABOUT?!""
Normally, one would be annoyed at being attacked in the first place, but Evan was annoyed he wasn’t attacked with a gun.
As for the one who was attacked with a gun, Arthur looked over the .50 calibre bullet and tossed it across the stream, before releasing the time stop on it.
**BOOOMM!!!
A pitch-black explosion of death energy erupted and Arthur turned to Evan with a raised eyebrow.
"You sure you wanted to be attacked with a gun?"
"..."
Evan went silent as he certainly had not realised that the bullet Arthur was holding had its time—and by extension, its deadly detonation—frozen.
He didn’t have the time to reply to Arthur’s questions as a rain of projectiles descended from above, each one homing in on their vitals.
What’s more, bullets whizzed through the trees, cutting through the air with lethal precision, aiming for all four of them.
Before these projectiles could get far, they suddenly stopped mid-air, each one surrounded by spheres of silver light with rings of runic writings surrounding them.
All eyes immediately turned in Arthur’s direction and the boy who had his hand on his chin spoke.
"Guess I can’t maintain a Partial-Bounded Field for too long."
He disabled off his partially-activated ’Hall of Fractured Time’, switching to a normal Temporal Stop, all without saying a single command word.
"You can stop time without a word now?"
Evan questioned as he looked at the frozen bullets and arrow, while Arthur nodded and replied.
"I always could, it’s just that ’speaking’ let me focus my power and made the energy consumption more efficient.
But with my increase in comprehensions, I can achieve that level of efficiency without a word when it comes to inanimate objects.
With living beings, I need to be extra careful so I don’t accidentally halt someone’s time flow permanently, as that’d drain unnecessary amounts of power. Using my Faux True Voice allows me to achieve greater control."
Arthur raised his hand and pointed at the Ttrees the barrage of arrows and bullets were still flying out of and continued.
"Like these guys now. If I told them to Stop. ¬|
He switched to his Faux True Voice midway, and the barrage of arrows and bullets ceased immediately.
"Now, we use gravity to pull them over."
He clenched his fist and pulled it closer to his body, using gravity laws to drag them all out from their hiding places.
"Oh, there are four others I didn’t notice."
Evan commented, noticing that there were 24 assailants and that his original estimation of 20 was wrong.
Arthur resumed the time flow of their attackers, watching as most of them stumbled to the floor due to the abrupt change in footing.
The four Evan had not sensed earlier, were able to pull off backflips mid-air and landed with their two feet, drawing their weapons and pointing them at the four teenagers.
Looking at this, Artemisia snorted and raised two fingers in the air, before pointing them downwards and commanding.
"Devolve."
"?!!"
"Gah!"
That exclamation came from the one who suddenly lost strength in his body and fell backwards, his head landing on a spiked stone on the floor.
Evan appraised all the assailants and noted that every single one had their levels reduced by 100 in an instant, shaking his head with a pity-filled gaze.
The sudden loss of power came with a feeling of lethargy that kept them on the floor for far longer than they normally would, and in that time, Artemisia turned to Arthur and shouted.
"I’m gonna use them to vent."
"Feel free."
Arthur replied as he used Destruction energy to turn the arrows and bullets floating in the air to dust, before gesturing to Artemisa to let loose.
The goddess cracked her knuckles, tendrils of lightning snaking down her arms as she released the full power of her divinity.
Arthur and Evan sat on the side with a bucket of popcorn in their hands, while Beatrix questioned where they even found popcorn in this situation.
In the end, that thought only lasted a second as she joined them to watch the show.
Ignoring the actions of her three companions, Artemisia used lightning to shock some of the assailants back to their feet, before kicking off the ground and charging towards them.
The first to regain themselves had no time to ponder why their power had reduced as they had to deal with the wrath of the angry goddess charging at them.
Each one was armed with either a bow, gun, sword or dagger and though Artemisia did not arm herself, she was undaunted.
Just as the first wave charged at her, Artemisia raised her hand and activated Tidal Surge, sending a wave of stream water surging forward and sweeping several of them off their feet and slamming them into the trees behind.
"She actually slammed each one to a different tree. Nice one!"
With Evan’s voice as background noise, Artemisia effortlessly dodged the bullet shot by one of the gunmen and then retaliated with a lightning strike aimed at the gunman’s forehead.
Faster than the man could recover from the attack, Artemisia’s lightning-clad fist crashed into his stomach, causing him to convulse before collapsing.
In that time, three more assailants advanced, brandishing their weapons, but Artemisia double-tapped her feet on the floor, using Earthen Quake. The ground beneath them began shaking violently and caused them to lose their balance.
Artemisia then swung her hand casually and followed this up with Aero Slashes, lightning-fast blades of wind that sliced their limbs off their bodies, before relieving them of their heads.
Her gaze turned to the next set and this time Artemisia activated two skills in one go.
’Inferno Blast, Thunderstorm Fury.’
A wall of fire surged up in front of her, creating a barrier which turned all the arrows they fired to ashes. Thunderstorm Fury turned the clouds dark as bolts of lightning rained down, striking the archers mid-air and sending pieces of flesh, bone and brain matter spattering all over the floor.
"Quintuple Headshot!!"
Arthur cheered as he watched the Archers’ headless corpses collapse to the ground while still clutching their smoking bows.
One of the Sword wielders lunged at her, and Artemisa noted this one as one of the four strongest, so she decisively activated Limit Break, tripling her overall stats in an instant.
Faster than the man could react, Artemisia disarmed him with a swift strike to the back of his wrist bone, and then spun around, delivering a high kick to the side of his head which knocked his brain around in his skull, reaping his consciousness.
With more of the assailants closing in, Artemisia stopped holding back and activated a Unique Skill.
"Tempest Avatar."
A humanoid half-body avatar of lightning materialized behind her, cracking with energy. It floated about a metre above the ground and mirrored all her movements, even her action of retying her ponytail after an arrow had grazed it and cut her hair band.
She held out her finger and bolts of lightning were launched at everything before her, with the Avatar replicating her movements and unleashing powerful lightning blasts that could pulverize small mountains.
Explosions boomed out as a trio dropped dead in an instant, their blood flowing towards the stream while many more were wounded severely.
An arrow whizzed through the air and Artemisia just barely dodged it, her pupils darting in the direction of the attacker who sent five more flying in an instant.
From behind, bullets sprayed out, aiming to perforate her body with holes and she narrowed her eyes before choosing her target.
’Elemental Shield.’
A sphere of golden divinity surrounded her, blocking the death energy arrows that threatened to reap her life while she dashed in the direction of the gunslinger.
The woman tried to get distance, even having one of her companions block Artemisia with his sword.
However, Artemisia’s Tempest Avatar released a bright flash of light, momentarily blinding the Swordsman. Taking advantage of this, she dashed into range and delivered a swift uppercut, before spinning around and following up with a back kick.
His body slammed on the ground with force and Artemisia grabbed it up, holding it in front of her as a shield to block the bullets that sprayed out from the gunslinger woman.
The goddess then used Energy Drain on the man to absorb his power before delivering a powerful knockout blow.
The unlucky man found himself on the receiving end of a devastating kick to the groin, crumpling to the ground with a high-pitched scream, much to the amusement of the goddess’ friends.
"Watch out for your family jewels, boys!"
Beatrix called out playfully as Artemisa leapt over the body of the fallen man, zapping around like lightning and making it hard for the gunslinger woman to aim properly.
With her movements sluggish and her reactions dulled due to Artemisia’s ’Devolution’, there was no way she could react fast enough to Artemisia’s lightning-fast movements.
What’s more, amongst the strongest four, Artemisia had already knocked into the stream, whilst crushing the family jewels of the second, leaving along the ranged attackers who could NOT match her in close combat.
Some of the remaining assailants charged at her, one of which wielded a massive sword but Artemisia dodged the slow swing and released a blast of water directly into his face. The force knocked him to the ground and before he could even struggle to get up, the Tempest Avatar mirrored Artemisia’s movements, but with a Lightning Strike instead.
While that one was being shocked to oblivion by the Lightning and water combo, Artemisia was already on her way to the gunslinger who had swapped her gun for dual daggers.
The gunslinger woman’s speed was surprisingly fast, and Artemisia was momentarily surprised. However, that did not stop her from sending dozens of wind blades with Aero Slash, whilst also shattering the ground with Earthen Quake, destabilizing her movements.
