God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.

Silence...

The Devil stared Cain down, its Devilish face twitching in anger.

Cain immediately backpedaled, "You want to attack me? If you do, there will be no going back."

The Devil grinned menacingly, "I\'m well aware of that. Although I can sense the blood of a Primordial in you, you could have very well stumbled upon the legacy of an ancestor. Although that seems impossible, one can\'t differentiate between insanity and reality these days. You have a lot of balls, human..."

Cain clicked his tongue, "That makes sense. But are you sure you want to take the risk?"

In a way, both Cain and the Devil were acting out of their asses. Cain was truly terrified of the fact that the Devil might see through his bullshit and turn him into a pile of meat paste, torn organs, and crushed bones.

On the other hand, the Devil in question was doubtful of the situation. His master had entrusted him with the important task of retrieving something important that the Celestials had kept hidden from millennia. He had been ordered to bring the girl back alive at all costs, eliminating all opposition along the way. However, he could sense the suppression on his bloodline coming from the human.

It was incredulous. Something like this should be impossible. Even the master didn\'t have such an effect. As such, he was a bit at a loss for what to do.

That gave Cain all the time he needed to prepare for what he needed to do. All this time, he had been secretly gathering as much mana and Ki as he could. Cain was under no illusions that he could stand against a terrible entity like the one standing before him. However, that didn\'t mean their situation was completely hopeless.

In fact, because of the obvious difference in their strengths, this terrible fiend would be lulled into a sense of superiority that Cain could take advantage of.

He could escape by himself, but something told him that his success or failure in the trial was heavily dependent on whether or not he could save the girl.

After a few seconds of silence, the Devil finally spoke,

"While your words might be truthful, the mission of my master comes first. I will spare your life, but your friends will be going to the othershore."

\'Shit!\' Cain cursed in his mind. He could tell that the Devil was done speaking. Nothing he said would change its mind.

Cain\'s expression twisted as he let out a roar. A huge magic circle appeared behind him as he manifested a spell. From the magic circle flew dozens of star tipped blades that shot towards the Devil with the speed of a bullet.

The Devil let out a snort. Although this display was very showy, it wouldn\'t do anything even if he stood still and allowed Cain to attack him for thirty days straight.

With a flick of its finger, all the star tipped blades flew back from whence they came. They struck the ground helplessly. However, each one landed suspiciously close to the people lying on the ground.

"Don\'t mistake my magnanimousness for weakness, human. I will spare your life, but you will live on without your limbs." The Devil declared coldly with a malevolent expression on its face.

Cain sighed, not out of acceptance, but out of relief. He really didn\'t thing the Devil would be this stupid. Had he tried something like this with a Devil with Steve\'s intelligence, he would become an afterthought in a split second.

Cain smiled at the Devil. Suddenly, one of the three mages behind the Devil cried out in panic. However, it was too late. Although his Devil was powerful, it was a muscle brain in every sense of the word. It also had no talents for magic. As such, it couldn\'t detect what Cain was up to.

Even the mages behind him had been unable to detect anything until it was too late. A bright light enveloped the throne room for a second, and when it was gone, a visible change had occurred. The first thing it noted was that the arm holding the girl was lighter. Also, all the weak humans were no longer in the throne room.

Ian\'s face was dark, \'This is not good...\'

It took the Devil some time to realize what had occurred, and when it did, the entire throne room crumpled into dust. The three mages were flung backwards as it turned around to face them, anger radiating from the large orbs of molten flames that had replaced its eyes on its face.

Ian spat out a mouthful of blood, before speaking as quickly as possible,

"Don\'t worry. They couldn\'t have gone too far. We will activate a tracking spell immediately."

The Devil turned away from them, its anger fading away, "This was my mistake, so i will not hold you three accountable. As long as they remain in this world, they cannot escape now that the connection to the Heaven Realms have been severed, so that\'s one good thing. Find them."

Ian said nothing, only nodding again. However, his heart was in turmoil. Just a second ago, the Devil looked like it was prepared to split the world apart. In just a second, not only had it calmed down, it didn\'t even seemed bothered anymore.

"Get up, you old bastards! I know you aren\'t dead!"

"Ha... That was the most frightening event I have ever born witness to in all my five hundred years of drawing breath."

"You old coon! You turn a hundred next month!"

"Really?!"

Ian sighed. However, a smiled tugged at the edge of his hairy lips.

\'The youth of today sure are interesting...\'

***

On a vast stretch of grassland outside the capital city of Duskmore...

Light shone in the air briefly as a magic circle appeared mid air, spitting out eleven individuals. The moment they hit the ground, all eleven let out various moans and groans.

Cain threw up and fainted the moment he hit the ground. He had exhausted all his mana during the battle with Lord Crimson. Although he had recovered some of it, he had cut it too close with the spell he had just activated. He had used {Spatial Jump} and {Falling Stars of Orion} at the same time. He used each blade as a conduit for the larger spell.

That had been the equivalent of activating {Spatial Jump} eleven times in a single go. If he had been at full mana pool capacity, it wouldn\'t have been too bad.

Even then, that hadn\'t been the thing that put the most strain on him. Instead, it had been trying to wrestle the body of the Silver King away from the Devil. Because of how powerful the creature was, there was a passive mana interference field around it that constantly disturbed his spell. Also, he had been unable to get a star tipped sword very close to the Silver King.

That had greatly affected the spells execution. It should have been impossible if he was only relying on his mana to activate the spell. Luckily, he had the {Elemental Vault} with him.

A mana core of extremely dense spatial mana had been stuck into the depths of his being by some mysterious principle he had encountered by accident. In the moment before he activated the dual-spell, he had attempted drawing spatial power from the Vault. For a moment, he didn\'t think it would work. Thankfully, it did.

Had in not been for that, he would have failed, and they would all either be dead right now, or close to death.

Cain hadn\'t been down for long when most the others started coming to.

Thankfully, no one had died. However, most of them, especially the Old Guard, had suffered serious injuries, and were in no shape to fight. That was why Vincent had a somewhat sinister expression on his face as he pointed the muzzle of his rifle at one of the Old Guard.

Just before he could squeeze the trigger, he heard someone clear their throat behind him,

"I wouldn\'t do that if I were you."

Vincent\'s eyes narrowed. With a snort, he lowered his gun,

"I wasn\'t gonna shoot, you know... I just wanted to scare him a bit." Vincent sniffled as he turned to stare at Steve.

Steve rolled his eyes, "Trust me. You would have died if you tried it."

Vincent seemed confused for a moment. However, a quick scan of his surroundings made him understanding of their current situation.

Although the Old Guard could no longer fight, that didn\'t mean the Silver King couldn\'t. In fact, she was the most uninjured amongst them. Her beautiful, pale face was emotionless as she approached Cain, who now lay unconscious beside a puddle of his own vomit.

"Forget it. We aren\'t a match for her." Steve saw Vincent tense up a bit, so he quickly brought him back to reality.

The both stared at her curiously as she stared down at Cain. She stretched out her hand, and a stream of mana poured onto Cain\'s head. Very soon, Cain\'s eyelids twitched and his eyes shot open. He let out a gasp as he sat up abruptly.

"Mana Overdraft. You almost killed yourself."

A voice as clear and crisp as a river running down a mountain. Cain turned his head to focus on the origin of this angelic voice. The owner was even more beautiful, especially her platinum blonde, almost silver hair.

Cain forced his heart to stop beating erratically, "T-thank you."

The face of the Silver King was still expressionless. However, her brows were currently slightly scrunched up,

"You... have we met before?"