Chapter 422: Two Moons

Within the crystal on Antares’s chest, a figure slept peacefully.

She possessed long hair as radiant as moonlight and wore a pure, holy white dress. Her face was absolutely identical to the Artemis currently kneeling on the ground.

That was… the true Goddess of the Moon, Artemis.

“That’?!”

Robin, Tifa, and the others felt their pupils contract, their faces etched with unconcealable shock. Even if they had harbored suspicions, seeing this cruel, bloody truth laid bare before their eyes still left their minds entirely blank.

Hermes squeezed his eyes shut, unable to bear the sight.

Furina abruptly turned her head away, profound sorrow welling in her eyes.

Antares let out another soul-piercing roar.

The thick pillar of purple energy connecting it to the moon suddenly flared, as if dyeing the entire night sky in an ominous purple halo.

The next moment, the bright moon hanging high above seemed to weep pure white tears.

Countless pillars of pristine white light tore through the sky, plunging straight down toward the hall like spears of judgment cast by the gods themselves, carrying an aura of cold, sacred annihilation.

“Watch out!”

Jeanne d’Arc sprang into action the instant the beams appeared. She slammed her Holy Flag into the ground, and a golden radiance abruptly bloomed outward with her at the center, forming a translucent, dome-like barrier.

Simultaneously, Aiden unleashed a slash. A crimson arc of energy surged upward, crashing violently against the vanguard of the falling light beams.

At the epicenter of the collision between the slash and the light, space itself seemed to annihilate. A moment later, a cataclysmic shockwave swept downward, kicking up a massive cloud of dust and debris.

However, there were simply too many white beams, falling like an endless meteor shower.

The beams that slipped past pierced through the smoke and smashed ruthlessly into every corner of the hall. The earth quaked and the mountains shook. The hardened stone floor was effortlessly perforated and melted by the holy light. Chain-reaction explosions sent shockwaves rippling outward, reducing the flesh-corrupted temple into absolute rubble.

This terrifying bombardment was not contained solely within the ruins.

Out in the forest, the Artemis Familia, the Hermes Familia, and all the adventurers who had been fighting bloody battles against the endless scorpion swarms found themselves caught in this apocalyptic rain of light.

They looked up in horror, only to see the sacred, lethal rain blanketing the entire forest indiscriminately.

For a time, the deafening roar of explosions, the agonized snapping of massive trees, and the pained wails of the earth echoed in all directions. The entire forest shook violently, the ground splitting open to reveal deep, crisscrossing chasms, as if a doomsday-level earthquake had struck.

When the dust finally settled, the great hall had completely collapsed.

Protected by Jeanne’s heavily cracked yet stubbornly persistent barrier, Aiden’s group remained unharmed. However, following the collapse of the floor, they had plummeted into an even deeper, previously undiscovered subterranean space beneath the ruins.

“Is this… Antares’s power? This isn’t right,” Daphne said, looking up at the falling debris with a pale, sickly expression.

She had never imagined that a single monster could possess such terrifying destructive force. Even Udaeus, the Monster Rex of the 37th Floor, was also absolutely incapable of launching a wide-area attack that could blanket an entire forest.

This was no longer just powerful; this was a blatant violation of the world’s rules.

“This is… divine power, isn’t it?”

Robin’s gaze swept over the three deities standing beside her.

If anyone was familiar with this kind of power, it would undoubtedly be them.

“Ah, exactly.” Hermes sighed and removed his hat, his tone dripping with powerlessness. “That is Artemis’s Arcanum.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me. A monster capable of using divine power…” Cassandra clutched her forehead, groaning in pain.

The abstract, prophetic dream she had experienced before they set out—those fragmented, incomprehensible images—finally stitched together perfectly in her mind. So dies was what the “tears of the moon” falling from the sky had meant.

“Antares is special,” Hermes’s voice was low and grave. “It is an ancient ‘assassin’ specifically created by the Dungeon to target gods. It is immune to divine power and is even capable of… devouring deities.”

He paused, delivering the cruelest truth of all. “Artemis was captured by it. Her divine power is now being wielded by the monster.”

“Then… who is the Lady Artemis standing right here?”

Robin voiced the question weighing on everyone’s minds. All eyes streamed toward Artemis, who was currently being supported by Aiden.

“I am merely a remnant thought,” Artemis’s voice remained cold and clear, though it now carried a heavy trace of exhaustion.

“Just a wisp of thought attached to the Arrow of Orion. I am a part of Artemis, yet I am not Artemis.”

She continued, “But none of that matters anymore. What matters is that Antares, having devoured my power, is now capable of… twisting any phenomenon.”

The realization hit everyone like a physical blow.

No wonder she had acted so strangely along the journey, never eating and displaying a personality vastly different from the Artemis they had first met. The goddess they had known and protected from the very beginning had never been the true Goddess of the Moon.

“Then how are we supposed to defeat a monster like that?”

Jeanne’s voice was laced with profound fatigue.

She leaned heavily on her Holy Flag, kneeling on one knee. The golden barrier that had shielded them from the endless rain of light had dissipated, leaving her pale-faced and gasping for breath. Maintaining that defensive line had nearly drained her magical and mental reserves dry.

“That kind of monster… it already controls divine power. Even the Captain couldn’t possibly defeat it, right?”

Daphne’s voice trembled.

“Even if we called in the Freya and Loki Familias… it would probably still be impossible to subjugate it. This is a nightmare we mortals were never meant to face.”

Her questioning was born less of anger and more of sheer, unadulterated terror.

“I’m sorry…” Hermes took off his hat. The face that usually wore an easy smile was now masked only in bitterness and helplessness. “Even the gods are out of options now.”

Meanwhile, in the Labyrinth City of Orario.

An anomaly had appeared in the night sky.

“Hey… look up there. What is that thing?”

“Two moons? Am I drunk?”

From the bustling commercial districts to the dilapidated slums, countless adventurers and ordinary citizens stopped in their tracks, looking up at the sky in shock.

Up there, alongside the original cold crescent moon, a second “moon” had inexplicably appeared.

“What is that? What exactly is going on?”

Yamato Mikoto, Kashima Ouka, and the others from the Takemikazuchi Familia stared in awe at the logic-defying spectacle in the night sky.

“No way… That thing is that, isn’t it, Takemikazuchi?”

Lord Miach stared dumbfounded at the God of Martial Arts standing beside him.

“Yeah. Your eyes aren’t deceiving you, Miach,” Takemikazuchi replied, his expression incredibly grave.

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