[I'd be going somewhere now, I'd contact you when I'm done with the Tower of Trials. Till then, I doubt you'd hear from me.]
As soon as Artemisia was done speaking, she disappeared in a flash of light, leaving behind the trio who were wondering what to say if they were asked by the priests outside where the bishop was since Artemisia left with the bishop's body.
◇ ◇ ◇
Nameless Island
Divider Ocean.
December 10th
Year 1051 of the 51st General Calendar
On a random rock on this nameless island, a woman yawned as she stared at the circular portal in front of her.
She was a fairly tall and stunningly beautiful woman with a large bust size. silky, long black hair and red reptilian golden eyes with vertical slit pupils.
On the sides of her head, two horns, curved upwards could be seen from the gaps in her hair and a long reptilian tail emerging from her lower abdomen could be seen wrapped around her waist.
She was dressed in an almond green t-shirt and black jeans, with black leather boots on her feet and similarly coloured gloves on her hands
"A weird portal suddenly appearing on one of these uninhabited islands at these times is suspicious as hell."
A man who was standing beside her spoke as he narrowed his golden eyes in the direction of this circular portal.
He was wearing a brown long-sleeved shirt and similarly coloured trousers. He had fair skin and long hair that sparkled with the lights of more colours than there were on a rainbow tied up in a ponytail.
Turning his gaze to the woman beside him, he asked.
"Altrishia, is it possible that this is a result of the rift on the Dark continent re-opening?"
The woman beside him, one of 'The Five', the strongest beings on Aidos, 'Dragon Lord' Altrishia, shook her head as she replied.
"Nahh, I don't think it i-!"
She suddenly stopped talking as her gaze turned sharp, the lazy attitude she showed earlier disappearing as she turned in a certain direction.
"What's wrong?"
Sensing the change in her mood, the golden-eyed man turned in the same direction as she did and asked out loud.
"The 'thing' I picked up recently is of the space attribute, one of the passive perks of it is that it allows me to sense any spatial movements within a 5-kilometre radius from my location.
I just sensed some spatial activity, and it is getting closer even as I speak."
The man's eyes widened in surprise but he quickly regained his calm and asked.
"What if it's another member of 'The Five' like you?"
"Negative, none of them are proficient enough to perform cross-continent teleportation. I'm a hundred percent sure of it."
She flexed her fingers as her nails slowly turned into claws and black scales began appearing on the sides of her face.
The main realised she was perceiving whoever was coming over as a threat and instantly increased his guard.
Six orbs of condensed elemental energy appeared behind him as he spread out his senses to see if he could detect this potentially hostile entity.
The two remained in a state of alert for another ten seconds before Altrishia's eyes widened as she instantly spun her body at a speed that made sound seem as slow as a snail and coated her claws in black-colored magic power before slashing with enough force to split a mountain in two.
**BOOM!
**SHING!!
***BOOOOOMMMMMMMMM!!!!
There was a loud sonic boom, then her claws collided with something that appeared the moment she spun around, the magic power around them igniting, resulting in an explosion of untold magnitude.
A small mushroom cloud of dust dirt and smoke soared into the sky with the sounds of flickering flames being heard all around.
A piece of the nameless island was obliterated with another piece sinking to the bottom of the ocean as the cloud of smoke finally cleared out.
The golden-eyed man waved his hand and summoned winds to blow away the dust, his mind not even considering the possibility of whoever or whatever Altrishia had attacked surviving.
His eyes widened in shock the moment the smoke cloud was blown away as the sight before his eyes was not something he could comprehend.
[Hmm? I was wondering who it was, to think it was you.]
A calm and collected voice rang out as the speaker held up a palm in front of their chest. It was a fairly young golden-eyed woman who had long black hair tied up into a braid. She was wearing priestly robes which were decorated with the church of Artemisia's symbol, the 'Golden Rose'.
She looked down to see Altrishia's claws threatening to tear her body to pieces and heaved a sigh of relief as she spoke to the Dragon Lord who was glaring at her.
[I know you hate me and all, but this is a mortal's body. I can't have it get damaged.]
She then proceeded to push Altrishia's hands back and use magic to clean off the dust on the priestly robes while ignoring the reactions of the two beings in front of her.
"That voice... it's you, isn't it? Goddess Artemisia..."
Altrishia retracted her claws as she spoke up through gritted teeth, her every word laced with unconcealed hatred as she clenched her fists tightly.
Her words made the golden-eyed man beside her snap out of his shock as he finally realised the reason why Altrishia's claws did not shred her body to pieces and turn those pieces to ashes.
[Umu.]
Artemisia nodded in affirmation before snapping her fingers as magic power flowed out from her body and covered the whole island.
Right before Altrishia's eyes, the destruction caused by her attack that had sent more than half the island to the bottom of the ocean was reversed in real time as the layers of earth that made up the island reformed, followed by the sands and then the grasses.
The trees regrew back to exactly how they were before with the hill in the distance rising back to its previous height.
[That's better.]
Artemisia confirmed everything was back to normal before turning to face the two in front of her.
[Oh, Sinclair, you're here too. Perfect, saves me the stress of going over to your forest.]
She spoke to the man, Sinclair as she walked towards the circular portal floating a few feet above the ground that survived the earlier destruction.
[What the heck is with you?
A new great lighting spirit was born and you sat back and did nothing, even letting her and her guardian spirit to get hurt and lose part of their life forces.
If the guardian spirit had lost any more life force, he might have died. Even worse for the new lightning spirit who nearly lost her life to demonic energy corruption.
What kind of spirit king are you if you can't care for the great spirits you rule?]
Her words revealed the identity of the man she called Sinclair, the current Spirit King and one of the most powerful Existences on Aidos.
Sinclair frowned upon hearing her words, not having expected a busy goddess like Artemisia to personally descend in a mortal's body just to tell him that he did not do a good job of taking care of the new great spirit.
Hearing that the great spirit was corrupted by demonic energy was a shock to him as he couldn't think of what the spirit could have possibly done to come in contact with demonic energy.
'Was she fighting the 'Demonic Hand'?'
[What?
Cat got your tongue?
Did you think you could sit back and play chess with Gnome just because Undine said she was going to search for the new lightning spirit herself?]
Artemisia questioned him further, even going as far as to reveal an event that happened a few months ago when the great water spirit, Undine, came to inform him that she was going to search for the new lightning spirit, moments after he sensed her Pseudo Authority as a great spirit being activated.
'How did she know? Was she watching all this while?'
[My poor little sister suffered a lot because the person who was supposed to guide her along the ropes of being a great spirit was neglecting his duties, huh?
p Maybe I should consider removing you from that position as Spirit King?
You don't seem to be doing a good job seeing as you haven't found Ifrit who has been missing for nearly seven hundred years, nor have you made any attempts to locate her.]
Artemisia didn't even give the Spirit King a chance to defend himself, as she placed a hand on her chin and thought about her decision for less than a second before taking action.
Her hand glowed golden as she stretched it out towards Sinclair, causing a multicoloured crown to manifest a few centimetres above his head.
She reached out to grab the crown; his symbol of authority as the Spirit King as Sinclair found himself unable to even move his body.
Right before she touched it, another hand grabbed hers as a voice laced with rage rang out.
"You ignore this world for centuries and then randomly pop up whenever you feel like just to change things how you feel like?!"