Under Attack 2/2

Immediately, the attack dashed towards Artemis holding its large sword. He was fast, a naked eye could barely keep up but Artemis was no ordinary human. His advanced eyes tracked and predicted the attacker's movements and Artemis was able to counter him with a punch to the gut when the attacker appeared behind him as predicted and he slammed his right fist into his stomach after doing a spin.

"Gah!" The attacker was sent flying to the wall. His body slammed on the wall, causing to crack and for him to spew black blood from his mouth.

The commotion woke Alice up and she was horrified when she saw the attacker get on his feet, he was coughing up blood but still had the energy to fight. Artemis then walked towards him, all the while taking in the information that was going on outside. He did not need to worry about enemy reinforcements for the time-being since the rest were preoccupied with the Queen's Guard.

"!!!" The attacker shouted as he staggered forward with a black sword at hand.

"{Tier 7 Shadow magic: Moon Breaker}

{Enchant: Vibration}

{Enchant: Serpent Sting}

{Enchant: Double Damage}

{Enchant: Double Speed}"

Two black magic circles appeared above him and out came some shadow shards. They numbered by the thousands, the dark shards were long and were definitely fatal. But Artemis was keen that his Primelium armor that is hard as Adamantium would be able to take it. Like a machine gun, the shards struck Artemis at speed approximately mach 4, the attacker grinned for a moment before it was replaced by a jaw-dropped expression.

Artemis had tanked his attack, the shadow shards did no damage.

"Tsk! {Kinjutsu: Pinnacle Ninja}" He then dashed forward, this time he was 1000x faster and cast both numerous demonic spells and weapons from different directions simultaneously. Artemis saw every attack as if the world was in slow motion. Then, Artemis realized that he was distracting him and was actually headed towards Alice who was hiding behind the bed.

Artemis jumped at the direction where the attacker was supposed to appear next, and again his predictions were right.

"GAH!" The attacker was not able to react in time to block an upcoming attack by summoning his shadow blade. Artemis appeared in his way and subsequently slammed him to the ground with his bare hands. The impact of his fist was so strong that it knocked him out. He slammed the floor, causing it too to crack.

Artemis landed near Alice just as the attacker was defeated. His blood stained the wall and the floor. The frightened little girl ran towards Artemis and hugged his right leg.

"He's still alive," Alice said.

"I know," Artemis was surprised by Alice's comment.

The attacker was defeated but he was not dead. Artemis could still detect his pulse from afar, but surprisingly his heat sensors didn't detect any of his heat signatures, that is definitely a non-human, his body is extremely cold but still alive. He could already see his magic trying to repair his body to get him up and running again.

Artemis, thinking ahead, decided to end him once and for all.

Alice followed behind as Artemis walked towards the downed attacker.

The attacker was trembling as he lied face-first on the ground. He then noticed Artemis' steps and raised his head to see him. He was heavily bruised, he lost his mouth mask during the impact, his blood came out of his mouth. His nose was broken and his eyes were no longer the same.

He tried to raise his hand to cast a spell but Artemis crushed it with his right foot, ultimately causing him to scream in pain.

"Half your body is already broken, I guess you did not expect the tides to turn? Far too confident in your abilities." Artemis said as he crushed the attacker's other hand. The attacker let out another scream of agony. It was loud enough to be heard by those battling outside.

"Was that Kai?"

"Kai has been defeated?"

"Damn it, we need to save him!"

A total of five entities that were battling outside turned tail and were now headed towards him.

"You think I came alone?" The attacker smirked while he squinted in pain.

"They won't last long, you will last longer." Artemis replied. He raised his hand than seemingly transformed his right hand into a Rail Cannon.

"I-impossible." The attacker was in awe of the unknown weapon that transformed Artemis' right arm.

Few seconds has passed, ninja-like figures came phasing through the room from the windows, the ceiling, the floor, and the walls with their Intangibility magic, they immediately lunged at Artemis at insanely speed ready to take him down with their dark weapons. In 0.03 seconds, Artemis shot them all down. The attacker that lied on the ground could only watch as Artemis gunned down his allies with not even a single miss. The weapon that he wielded displayed tremendous power that could only be the works of the legendary Dwarven Smiths! The weapon breathed out a red fire and out came from it a red pillar of energy that he has never seen. The pillar struck his allies and they all disintegrated without leaving a single trace of them. The area of their bodies on which the pillars struck was nothing left of them.

No blood spewed. There was no penetration. The pillar instantly killed its victims by simply touching them. Horrified, he ducked his head to the floor before the remaining particles of his allies disappeared out of this world from his eyes.

Even their intangibility that could phased through solid objects, the projectile of Artemis' laser cannon has a gravitational anomaly that could corrupt a molecule, shattering their atoms and completely destroying it, resulting their terrible fate and making their intangibility magic useless.

The Railgun had utilizes Anti-matter energy. An energy that could disintegrated anything in an atomic level, even it could disintegrated air itself. Any powerful defensive or high resistance magic is completely useless against that energy.

It took centuries of resources and robotpower to create such energy, that is why Artemis didn't used it for his army's common firearm on how extremely rare and hard to get the resources of it with their current technology.

After killing all of the Hanzo squad leader's men, only the sounds of battle that raged outside remained and it seemed like they had failed. The Queen's Guard had finally defeated the attackers on their end and burst through the doors of the room.

The lady warriors arrived and saw the aftermath.

Artemis and Alice were standing in the middle of the room. Beneath their legs was one of the attackers, his hands crushed, his body destroyed. Around them were damage walls and items scattering on the floor.

What made them confuse was that the other attackers that left them to help their own was nowhere to be seen.

What astounded them the most, was that neither Artemis nor Alice was damaged or injured, they did not even have a scratch.

The rest of the surviving attackers were captured and put an anti-magic collar so they won't use any magic while those who resisted or tried to flee were killed by the Queen's Guard or by Kein himself. Kein could not respond immediately when the attackers first came as he confronted by one of his own former students.

The former students he once teach but they were corrupted for more power and made a pact with the ancient demons from the past. He don't know who they were anymore, but he has no choice but to fight them. He was outnumbered but that doesn't mean it would be very hard because he was a Transcension Demigod, he could take them on.

Their battle shook the ground below them and ultimately, Kein emerged victorious but his opponent escaped. Then, he came down and assisted in the defeat of the attackers whose sole objective was to capture the little girl he promised to protect.

He was relieved when he came down the castle and saw Artemis and Alice standing in their room victorious. The attacker that Artemis had beneath his legs was actually said to be the second strongest of the attackers, a part of the 'Hanzo Groups' from the Dark realm.

"I never knew they would be back ever since the summoning hero defeat the Dark Lord, what were they doing now?"

Kein mutters as he went inside Artemis room and saw the aftermath.

To think that someone like Artemis easily defeated him further solidified his belief that he was indeed a divine bodyguard of one of the chosen ones.

The night then passed, it passed slower than usual for the people in the castle. It was normal since they were on their guard the entire night. The attack severely wounded most of the Queen's Guard, almost wiped out the central garrison and prompted chaos to temporarily ensue.

Several fires broke out around the city as several attackers who were trying to escape burned some houses to distract the warriors in hot pursuit.

It was an exciting and exhausting night. Alice slept on Artemis' arms as he stood on top of the castle. They were lead there by Kein so that they won't be easily found. Artemis had a good view of the entire city from the top of the castle. The moons shined their light and the stars twinkled in the sky.

Artemis had a blanket with him which he stole while they were walking upstairs. He wrapped Alice in this blanket and placed her on the floor to sleep in peace. Though, Artemis realized that the way he wrapped her look like an oversized burrito.

"Speaking of burritos," Artemis said. "I wonder how they taste like."

Burritos were a prewar delicacy that Caitlyn mentioned too. Something that had flat bread wrapped around something meaty and tasty.

Minutes passed and then hours, the fires were eventually extinguished and the night soon descended into silence once more. Footsteps echoed behind Artemis inside the stairwell that they used to get to where they were now. Kein stepped out of the stairwell, clutching in his arms the fingers of the captured attackers.

Artemis turned to confront him.

"These are the fingers who dared to lay their wretched hands on you and your little girl," Kein said as he bowed.

"No need for the fingers, I have a few questions to ask and you are obligated to tell me." Artemis asserted his authority. Kein was overwhelmed but he could not challenge the authority of the divine, or so he was lead to believe.

Artemis knew that he thought he was a divine bodyguard and so wanted to exploit it.

"Who were they? Those who just attacked us." Artemid asked.

"They were the Hanzos squads. A dangerous and powerful stealth groups that was work for the leaders on the Dark realm, an ancient dimension that were being quiet for centuries, nobody really knows what were they plotting, but these days most people seen it as some myth an legends," Kein answered.

Like Kein said, the Hanzos squads were a dangerous and powerful group of demon ninjas that are specialize stealth and infiltrations. They could able to infiltrate through the defenses of Bulhin because of their abilities, however, the Queen's guards and Kein could caught a slight trace of their presence, thats why their covers were blown. But the most dangerous of this Hanzos Squads was that they have magic that could phase through solid objects, became invisible, camouflage, blend in the shadows, and not even the Machine Empire's advance technology could track them down easily.

"They were also support the Dark Mahon Organization," Kein continued.

"Dark Mahon Organization?" Artemis said.

"Yes, The Dark Mahon Organization was an organization that was secretly made a pact with the demons and was said to have been responsible for the summoning of the metal demons, a new type of demons that suddenly came from another world. And so, we and other mages and scholars have come to the conclusion that the rogues of the organization summoned the metal demons only for them to lose control of them and were subsequently killed. Leaving the metal demons to their own devices."

"Hm," Artemis nodded. What he was saying was anything but the truth. The Hanzos Squads were a major threat for him and his Empire. The Dark Mahon Organization however aren't, and it seems they have many names, Artemis remembered that they called themselves differently but maybe they were referring to a specific sect within the organization and not the organization itself?

They were the ones who opened the portal.

They were the ones that fired the first shots and instigated the war between the two worlds. That's how Artemis wanted it to be seen as. It was his justification for waging a war although almost none of this world's states knew of the organization's plot or that another world aside from them exists.

"This sect, they wanted to kidnap Alice?" Artemis asked.

"The little girl? Uhm, yes. We tortured some of these despicable demons but they were too hard of a nut to crack. None of them want to give us the information we need." Kein answered.

Interrogation?

Artemis specialized in it.

Or so he called it an interrogation.

"Then, hand me the survivors. I will deal with them myself. Tomorrow when we set out, I want them bound to a carriage or sealed with magic so I can safely transport them to where we are headed." Artemis said.

"You're bringing them to the academy?!" Kein asked in confusion.

"No, I and Alice will be heading towards somewhere but that place is not something mortals like you should know of, the name or its whereabouts." Artemis made sure he stared at Kein's eyes. It was a signal for him to back down any questions, he was to follow his will or he will anger a divine one.

Or so he was manipulated to believe.

"Then... It will be done, o divine one." Kein went on his knees.

Artemis smiled but made sure he concealed it. It was all going smoothly.

And as the two discussed. A small burrito girl was snoozing in the side, completely ignorant of the world around her.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Trisha, the master is being tricked! I just know it!"

"Slow down there, Bobby, we need to trust our master," Trisha combed her hair while Bobby, Kein's apprentice, walked back and forth.

They were inside their quarters, the two of them were lovers and thus, lived together. The both of them were Kein's students, both had the same master but had different opinions of their master.

"No, Trisha. Don't you even feel it? That little girl has IMMENSE magical power that even rivals the Apotheosis Demigods and the summoning hero himself but her supposed 'bodyguard' does not even have any magic! I know because I looked into him using my enhanced sense. He has no mana, he is inept! How can someone like that be a divine angel!?" Bobby sweated profusely.

"Then believe in your master as much as he believed in us, he knows what he is doing." Trisha retorted.

"So, we just wait here?!" Bobby was getting impatient, the tone of his voice getting higher after each sentence he spoke.

"Yes." Trisha replied.