Godslayer's Legend

Chapter 500: Questioning the Attackers [Monthly Bonus 2]

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The Tempest Avatar finished her off with a rapid series of lightning bolts, allowing Artemisia to redirect her focus to the last one—the bowman.

Although the bowman tried to coordinate his attacks with one of their remaining subordinates, sending arrows and bullets flying towards Artemisia, the goddess simply infused more energy into her elemental shield and tanked their attacks with it.

Using Thunderstorm Fury, Artemisia rained down multiple strikes of the Tier 5 Version of Lightning Magic: Arcane Bolt of Severance.

The poor gunman was struck dead in a single move, while the bowman turned around and tried to free.

However, Artemisia was not one to let her opponent run off so easily.

She dashed in close and used Energy Drain to sap his remaining magic before letting her Tempest Avatar pulverize his skull.

[Level Up]

[Level Up]

"Just two?"

The goddess spoke as she dispelled her Tempest Avatar, before opening up her status to see her current level.

"Well done, Artemisia!"

Arthur called out, clapping his hands as he walked over to her, while Evan grinned and spoke.

"That was quite the show. Especially the part where you made sure that one guy won’t have kids."

Brushing a few strands of wet hair from her face, Artemisia glanced at Beatrix with narrowed eyes and replied.

"I was a tad bit annoyed."

Feeling her Best Friend’s piercing gaze, Beatrix gulped and Evan laughed.

"Beatrix, if you know what’s good for you, don’t piss her off anymore."

"Evan...I’m not suicidal."

Beatrix was well aware that she was the root cause of Artemisia’s anger, and she was already cooking up a means to placate her friend.

"Evan, you’ve got pineapple wine in your inventory, right? I wanna borrow some."

"Ohh...but it’s not gonna be for free."

"Come on, bro. Can’t you help a friend?"

"Don’t worry, I’ll give you a discount."

Artemisia calmly turned her gaze away from the two who were discussing some sort of strange transaction, focusing on Arthur who was fishing out the bodies of the ones Artemisia had left alive.

Since they did not know what this Dimensional Realm was called, what kinds of races lived here and why they were attacked, Artemisia left some of the attackers alive for questioning.

"Before we talk about questioning, you need a change of clothes, Artemisia.

Any more and I’d be able to see your underwear. You too, Beatrix."

Arthur spoke up while pointing at Artemisia’s wet shirt which now had a few more bloodstains on it, and the goddess looked down with a sigh.

She turned towards the culprit responsible, and Beatrix flinched before running behind Evan to hide from her. As for Evan, the boy stuck his hand into his inventory and pulled out a foldable portable changing tent, something he apparently had because of a time he and his girlfriend had an impromptu swimming date.

Not bothering to question the specifics behind it, Artemisia set it up and entered to change her clothes, while Evan and Arthur focused on the remaining assailants.

Beatrix left the two boys and followed Artemisia into the tent, only for them to hear the sound of something being whacked and Beatrix’s scream.

Arthur and Evan didn’t pay it any mind, concluding that Beatrix messed with Artemisia and got punished.

They paid more mind to the unconscious assailants, their hands glowing with the light of destruction as they reached out to give them a rude awakening.

◇　◇　◇

"...what happened here?"

Artemisia couldn’t help but ask this as she emerged from the tent, dressed in a new set of khaki trousers and a black shirt, only to meet a sight of...red.

The ground was covered in blood, so much that the stream nearby had turned red and she could see the floating corpses of fish.

Kneeling on the floor at the feet of the two boys she had left outside were the attackers she had left alive, just that they were now shedding tears and mumbling something under their breaths.

When she strained her ears, she realised that they were begging Arthur and Evan...to be killed.

’What did they do?’

Arthur and Evan’s bodies were spotless, without a single blood stain and her eyes caught sight of Evan putting what looked like a crowbar back into his inventory.

’I’m very curious, but my instincts are telling me NOT to ask.’

The goddess reined in her curiosity, stepping around the bodies on the floor as she asked.

"So, what did you guys learn?"

"That Evan’s good at using crowbars to eviscerate internal organs whilst keeping the target alive?"

"..."

Artemisia glanced at Evan in silence and the boy only shrugged nonchalantly, saying that it wasn’t by choice.

"My predecessor was a man of many talents. Information extraction was one of them."

"..."

Again, the goddess had to rein in her curiosity, instead turning towards Arthur and speaking.

"I meant what you learnt about this place.

"Oh, that.

Honestly, not much."

Arthur waited for Beatrix to come out from changing, ignoring the noticeable bump on her forehead as he began explaining what information they managed to extract.

First off, the place they were in was a Dimensional Realm called Iklaque, and despite its size, there was only one city in the centre.

It wasn’t very large either—with less than 10,000 inhabitants.

Apparently, the reason for their low population, was because it was in their ’Commandments’ that they were not to have children outside of the specified ’holy’ years.

Any children had outside of those specified years, were deemed ’Unholy Children’ and shunned along with their parents.

They were also rumoured to suffer the Wrath of their ’god’, so the population was low.

Another thing of note was that despite the average level of the City’s inhabitants being 100-200, they barely lived any longer than the average Level 50 Humans.

Even the Elves in the city did not have their race’s characteristic longevity and only lived about 100 years before death.

The oldest recorded age was 134.

Even Legendary Realm existences in this city only lived for 100 years, despite the fact that Legendries should have a base lifespan of 1000 years, regardless of how weak their race was.

"The talk about ’specified holy years’ for having children sounds a lot like one of the commandments we saw in that Temple outside this Realm..."

"Indeed. As such, I’m guessing that the people living here might be the survivors of whatever disaster had wreaked Havoc on the city outside the Dimensional Realm."

Evan gave his guess in response to Artemisia’s observation, with Arthur and Beatrix agreeing with these views.

"Anyway, they attacked us because we were headed in the direction of their ’Ritual Grounds’ where they offered prayers to their ’god’.

’Outsiders’, as they called us, would desecrate these Holy Grounds if we stepped foot into them so they straight up tried to kill us."

When Arthur said this, Beatrix frowned and called them unreasonable.

"I have no problem with whatever Religion a bunch of random people want to follow.

If they had simply spoken to us like civilized people, I’d have agreed not to go to their Ritual Grounds.

But they tried to kill us without even a word? NOW, I want to desecrate those Holy grounds."

The girl rolled her eyes as she mentioned the last two words, turning to Arthur and asking him what direction they were so she could go blow the place up.

"That may not be wise, Beatrix.

I understand your anger, but there’s something else you should know first."

Evan spoke up to deter the goddess from venting on the poor Holy grounds, and when she demanded to know his reasons, he mentioned something that quickly cooled her temper.

"I don’t know how true it is, but they said that there exists a ’Guardian’ of some sort here. This guardian is tasked with killing all Outsiders who enter their Holy Lands."

He walked up to one of the gunmen’s corpses and picked up their weapon, removing the magazine and tossing it towards her before continuing.

"You feel the thick death law energy in those bullets, right? Remember the explosion that happened when Arthur detonated one of them, and see the state of the guy who Artemisia used as a shield."

Evan pointed at the poor man’s corpse, and Beatrix’s eyes widened as she saw how withered it looked.

"This ’Guardian’ is the one who put this Death energy into these bullets. They are the ones who sensed us here and sent these guys to scout.

However, the decision to kill us was theirs—or so they said."

Noticing the way Evan phrased his words, Artemisia raised a brow in question.

"You don’t believe them, do you?"

"I do.

I highly doubt they’d lie to cover up for this ’Guardian’. The reason being, that this ’Guardian’ isn’t well-liked amongst them.

Even under torture, they still displayed clear disdain for the ’Guardian’. They hate the ’Guardian’, from the depths of their hearts."

Evan was 100% sure of this observation of his and when Artemisia glanced at Arthur who was fiddling with one of the Death energy bullets, the Progenitor nodded to show his agreement.

"Considering how fanatical they are that they tried to kill us simply because we headed in a certain direction, I’d like to guess that this ’Guardian’ may have broken one of their Commandments.

Don’t know which one, though."

Arthur continued his statement after a pause, adding that he almost mistook the death energy inside the bullets for the power of a Transcendent, if it wasn’t for the fact that he also played with Death laws and could tell the difference between the energy quality, allowing him to confirm it came from a being below Level 900.

"So, what say you, Arthur?

You want to keep on exploring this realm, knowing that this powerful Guardian exists somewhere and has already noticed us?"

Hearing Artemisia’s question, all eyes turned to the Progenitor.

Personally, Artemisia had no desire to explore this place if it meant they might potentially face a powerful Death Law manipulator, and on their home turf at that.

Beatrix was going to follow whatever Artemisia decided, and Evan was also leaning towards leaving after hearing that there were at least 4 more Level 700s in this City up ahead—besides the ’Guardian’.

However, all three of them could tell that Arthur still had the desire to explore further. Leaving aside the fact that he was the strongest of them and was invincible in the Legendary Realm, his constant fiddling with the Death energy bullet in his hand hinted that there was another reason he wanted to go further.