Artemis…
Before Raum could move a single step forward, her blade had already passed through his neck. Even after her sword had cut off his head, the moonlight magic traveled down the rest of his body as it fractured his body like it was made of glass.
Even then, she didn’t feel satisfied as she kicked at the based of his spine and shattered his entire body.
I can’t allow him even a moment to use his magic or he could kill me without me even knowing what had happened. This fight needs to be over before it can even begin, she thought as she made sure there was no trace of Raum to try and heal from.
She watched as the shattered fragments of his body fell to the ground, but even as she felt certain he was dead, her nerves wouldn’t calm down.
She knew just how terrifying the Demon Princes could really be when they went all out.
The former Ophanim turned demons became far stronger than they were when they were still angelic. To add to that, angels had no soul selves, they merely used the light magic provided to them by God, save for the Seraphim that control the various aspects of God. Even now, the Demon Princes do not use magic in the same manner that gods and humans do, rather they manipulate the concepts that they represent.
Azazel, the Demon Prince of War, manipulates the concept of war to boost his physical prowess beyond what his own soul is capable of on top of manifesting powerful weapons. He and Ares are very similar in that regard, so much so that many of Azazel’s achievements in war were incorrectly attributed to Ares, much to her brother’s irritation.
Gomori, the Demon Prince of Lust, much like Azazel, manipulates lust. However, Artemis has never seen that power used in battle. It seems that she has chosen to never use that power again and prefers to behave with a higher sense of modesty.
Raum however…
Of the three Demon Princes, he is the most terrifying.
War is one thing you can prepare for, but murder can happen to anyone without warning, which makes it far worse.
If he was allowed even a single moment to strike-
Then, in that very instant, the fragments of Raum’s shattered body that were still falling to the ground, froze in midair. The wind went still and the clouds passing overhand stopped moving.
She then felt a chill travel up her spine as she spun around and swept her sword through the air just as Raum appeared and drove his sword into her chest.
Artemis tried raise her sword to fight back, but the Raum’s hollow eyes stared deep into her soul to the point she felt paralyzed with fear.
She struggled to resist the fear that came with Raum’s power as she tried to jump away but he reached out with his left hand and grabbed the back of her neck in a firm grip, pulling her towards him as he twisted his sword while it was embedded in her heart.
She coughed up blood as he continued to twist the blade until she screamed, “Full release!”
Moonlight magic erupted from her entire body, shattering Raum like a pane of glass hitting rocky ground as he died instantly. With his death, time resumed and went back to normal.
Everywhere she stepped, the ground cracked, but if it kept him from being able to sneak up on her like that then…
No, how did he even survive her initial attack?
“Going full release right from the start? That is a little surprising. I didn’t know my power warranted such a response from you,” Raum said as he reappeared to the right of her but did not attack.
“How are you alive? I cut off your head and shattered your entire body. No, even just a moment ago, I did it once again, yet you still stand?” she wondered.
Raum nodded and said, “I have devoted myself to serving the Goddess of Rebirth and I am the patron to all who serve her. With that role comes a certain amount of authority over her strength that I can manifest into reality. I am certain you’ve had the displeasure of fighting among such a warrior who has offered much of himself to the Goddess, yes? You fought Terrance North and were nearly killed because of such power.”
This is even worse than I thought…
Yet as the fear of this man threatened to overwhelm her, she grit her teeth and shouted back, “To Hell with your goddess! I will merely add her to the pile of soulless husks of gods I’ve slaughtered!”
Despite hearing his goddess insulted in such a way, he merely smiled at her bravado and said, “You may yet have an opportunity to try if I cannot defeat you here and now. Which is why I cannot fail her.”
As he raised his sword and gripped it tightly in both hands, he became cloaked in a darkness that was not like the emptiness of Erebus. Raum’s darkness held within it, a cold malice that felt eerily tangible.
He then took a step forward, and without warning, his presence disappeared entirely. As it did, time stopped once again, yet she could not sense him at all.
Raum’s movements were unexplainable and incomprehensible. There was no basis in science or any form of normal understanding to understand how he could move the way he does other than he ‘wills’ himself to move how he does.
The fact that Artemis can even react to him is something she finds impossible to herself as there is nothing to react to aside from feeling her life flash before her eyes every time he goes for the kill.
Then, in the corner of her eye, she saw a glint of light reflect off of Raum’s sword as he swung his sword at her neck only to clash with her own.
She tried to hold firm as she blocked his attack but the moment his power met her own, she was overwhelmed with a crushing fear that seeped into her soul and threatened to devour her.
Before she could divert his sword and try to launch an attack of her own, he kicked out at her leg and forced her onto one knee, bearing down on her even further.
Even as he stood so close to her, the moonlight seemed to vanish into the darkness that cloaked his body.
“Do you want to know what I find so interesting about the modern understanding of murder? The people of today glorify it so much that they write books and plays, even songs about it, yet the actual act of it is so horrible that most would never want to commit it themselves. So many worship murder with a sickening attraction to it while simultaneously being horrified of it. Such a contradiction doesn’t make any sense to me,” he said as he held her there.
Her lips quivered as she tried to asked, “W-Why are you t-taking this fight so seriously? What d-do you hope t-to gain by g-going so far?”
“I have a duty to uphold to lady Camilla,” he said as he pulled away and took several steps back, much to Artemis’s confusion.
“What are you doing?”
“Its not a murder if my prey isn’t giving chase,” he said with a flat tone as he lowered his body as if preparing to run after her.
Just before he was about to take off after her, he locked eyes with her once again and stared at her so intensely that her survival instincts took over and she ran away from him as fast as she possibly could with her magic.
Yet she only made it a quarter of the way across the surface of the planet before Raum trailed after her, lunging towards her, and swung his sword down at her.
Artemis spun her body around with her sword in hand as she parried away his strike before taking off once again.
The logical part of her told her that she needed to stand and fight instead of running away, but the fear that Raum instilled within her was so great that she could barely manage to hold her sword against him.
How can such a being put this much fear and terror in something like her just by the manipulation of a concept like murder?
She knew that unless she met his force with the very concept that she represented, she would not fare well against him in a drawn out fight.
She stopped suddenly as she focused on herself, manifesting the power for which she was once worshiped by humanity.
I am the Moon.
As she stood still, waiting for Raum to pounce on her, he appeared with his sword already in mid-swing, as it arced towards her.
She summoned her courage as she let out a war cry and smacked away his blade.
The weight of the moon followed with her sword and his body turned into a bloody mist, and the pressure that followed the swing of her sword flattened the hillside of where they were fighting.
When he reappeared, he chuckled and said, “Well now, you’re very serious about this fight, aren’t you?”
“I am just as serious about this as you.”
“You know, some of the best murder scenes describe a blood stained knife reflecting the gleaming light of the moon in the background. Perhaps our battle may be reminiscent of that,” he said with a hint of a playful tone in his voice.
Artemis narrowed her eyes as she lunged at him and swung where he stood but hit nothing but air.
In the very next moment, she felt his sword stab through her left side and pierce one of her lungs. If not for her godly vitality, she would already be dead from her heart being ripped apart.
Of course, her magic could repair the damage, but simply having the organs stabbed through would be instantly fatal for most humans.
Rather than try to get away, she grabbed him by the throat and squeezed until his his head exploded.
He then suddenly reappeared to her right and swung his sword upwards, but Artemis raised her sword just in time to deflect it. It went spinning far off into the air before she went low to the ground and cut off his legs without shattering the rest of his body.
His eyes widened in surprise as he fell to the ground, seemingly defenseless and at her mercy.
He struggled to turn himself over as he looked up at Artemis with an impressed expression and said, “Countering the power of rebirth with dismemberment instead of an instantly fatal attack. That’s very clever of you.”
She then sheathed her sword as she mounted Raum’s torso before pulling back her fist and said, “I don’t have to kill you and hope you stay dead. All I need to do is knock you out long enough for the announcer to call the match.”
“Were you not paying attention to Moyako’s match? There is more to the Goddess’s power than mere self resurrection,” he said as his eyes briefly looked at something behind her.
She couldn’t move fast enough to avoid someone’s arms moving under her armpits and wrapping tightly around her neck in a hold. Another person suddenly appeared to her right and grabbed her her and pulled her head back before slashing open her throat. One more appeared to her left with a spear and drove it into her heart once more.
Another one appeared, this time above Raum’s body carrying an ax, as he swung it down upon his neck.
While gurgling blood in her throat, she roared with all her strength and released a stream of moonlight magic from her body, killing everything around her.
With everything shattered around her, she fell to the ground as she struggled to cough up the blood in her throat and chest while repairing the damage.
She struggled to her feet as she gripped her sword only to become witness to a most unwelcome sight.
Surrounding her were hundreds of summoned warriors carrying various weapons and emanating various kinds of magic.
Raum however, now stood with a new weapon in hand that he raised high into the air.
It was a halberd with dozens of tags tied around the shaft with names written on each one.
He then pointed the tip of his halberd at her as he said, “I will give everything I have to defeat you Artemis. Can you say the same?”