God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.

The scent of blood was intoxicating...

It was divine...

It was exhilarating...Nôv(el)B\\jnn

And it was the only thing Cain could sense at the moment.

No, that wasn't it.

He could still see what was around him with vivid clarity. However, everything was enveloped by a crimson haze.

The {Argent Amphithere} that was falling towards the ground, twisted its long body midair and lunged right back at him.

In response, Cain shot forward as well, with nothing but the void behind him as a foothold.

Right now, some might say that he was flying.

However, what he was doing was rather different from what could be considered conventional flight.

Because he wasn't manipulating the air around him to propel him forward or anything like that. It was something far more mysterious.

The crimson haze were like tiny tongues of flames that licked at him, but they brought him no discomfort. They instead, were warm and fuzzy.

Bringing his blad crashing down, the {Argent Amphithere} slithered to the side. In response, Cain's trajectory suddenly changed and his body spun.

'Control...'

The blood moving through his veins slowed down, and his body adjusted to the rapid motion he pulled on his blade, spun just right below the creature's nose and death an outstanding roundhouse kick to its chin.

BANG!

The force of the kick caused the surrounding air to cave in and a loud boom to ensue. Even more rocks fell from the ceiling as a result.

Down below, Susan watched, her eyes wide in disbelief.

"Cain..."

She unfortunately didn't have any more time to think about anything, as the beast was rapidly approaching them.

She began chanting under her breath.

Li sprinted forward and punched hard. The air before him caged in and blasted.

However, it did little to deviate the falling behemoth.

His eyes burned with something furious as he roared.

The air around him ignited as he threw blow after blow. They managed to slow the beast's fall just enough for Floki to create a strong enough shield.

Another earth shaking bang was created as the creature smashed into Floki's shield.

Sue was already done casting her spell and a torrent of sand swirled to life, manifesting I to the {Sand Devil}. The dusty abomination roared and slammed its hand against Floki's shield just before the collision.

Because of that, they only skidded a few meters back, successfully preventing the fall from doing swevre damage.

Ignis roared, "Attack!"

Without the slightest bit of hesitation, they all began pummeling the {Argent Amphithere}.

Blades of light, armored punches, swords, bullets, arrows, spells... It all came descending all at once on the beast.

Despite its formidable ability, there was no way it could come out unscathed.

It's previous near impervious scales had begun to shatter and break, revealing the unprotected flesh within.

In response to this frantic counter attack, a piercing howl escaped from the depths of the silver beast's throat and it reared its head up.

Blue flight washed over the entire cave as it began channeling its ability.

All their faces paled.

There was no time to retreat. They had gotten too close, and so then were going to be burned.

Just them, a silhouette none had seen strike down like a bolt of lightning.

Gritting his teeth, Cain slammed his gauntleted fist into the creature's head, completely shattering its jaw.

He couldn't use the flames of {Gihenai} to seriously burn the beast, but the fists he could make were hard enough.

As he swung his fist again, the silver Blooded Beast in all its rage, opened its mouth and chipped down.

Cain's eyes widened and he also let out a roar of pain.

With shocking speed, the creature turned into a silver streak and shot up towards the ceiling.

It smashed itself headfirst, smashing Cain into the rocks as well.

'Damn it...'

The taste of iron welling up in his mouth told Cain this wasn't a good sign...

As an intelligent beast, the {Argent Amphithere} was also vengeful.

It dragged Cain's body through the ceiling, his backside smashing through rocks and pillars of rocky material alive.

Gritting his teeth, Cain raised his other hand and slammed his gauntleted fist into the beast's head.

It lunged to the side, temporarily dizzy. Cain took that moment to grasp onto a broken scale. He clenched his hand that was being crushed by the jaws of the {Argent Amphithere} and heaved himself up, latching unto the side of the enraged beast.

The flight of the beast became erratic as it slammed itself into the walls sn ceiling while Cain tried to hold on for dear life.

Ignis gritted her teeth and Susan couldn't bear to watch any longer. They both turned to Steve,

"What do we do?"

Steve grimaced, then frowned deeply, as though contemplating something.

Sue stared up, worry evident on her face as well,

"Do we shoot it down? We might end up hitting Cain..."

Steve raised his hand, "No, we have to shoot it down. If we don't, it might turn Cain into ground meat by the time we make up our minds on what to do."

He turned to Ignis, Lukas, and Li,

"When it comes down, I want you to hut it with everything you got. No half-assed nonsense any more."

Then he turned to Sue, Vincent and Zue,

"Prepare your most powerful single target spell. We are shooting that snake out of the sky."

They immediately got to work.

Meanwhile, Cain was frantically fighting for his own life.

'What a persistent bastard!'

The thing simply refused to let go of him, even with all the blows he smashed against its temple.

Infact, it bit down even, crushing the bones in his arm and pumping poison through his veins. The poison seeped into his body and pervaded it with rot.

However, his own blood was also poisonous, and the {Bloodflame} provided him with even more resistance to poisons and toxins, so the {Blue Rot Poison} was the least of his worries.

Gritting his teeth through the pain, Cain tried to hold on for as long as possible while trying not to lose his arm. Luckily for him,.the beast wasn't able to get a good enough bite so the arm was still safe from being chomped off for now.

Cain looked up and stared into the beast's eyes all four of them were filled with boundless rage, bloodlust, and fear.

Cain shuddered.

Yes, fear...

This beast truly did seem different from the usual bloodthirsty beast. It was an anomaly like Ruby and the Ant Queen and her people.

But in a slightly different way.

He stared into the beast's eyes and the beast stared into his.

For a moment, their thoughts were conveyed only by their souls hidden within their eyes.

Cain couldn't help but chuckle, 'So that's it...'

A mere second later, a terrifying explosion rocked the world around him, and everything was doused in flames, light, and smoke.

The beast let out a furious hiss, this time, one of agony as it finally couldn't hold up anymore.

It fell, and seconds later, smashed into the ground, its body contorting in Cain.

Cain yelped at the moment of impact, his vision flodded white with pain.

Not even a second later, he felt several shadows closing in on them.

"Get him away from it!" He heard Ignis' voice.

A thought appeared in Cain's mind. And the moment it appeared, he couldn't get it out.

He stared into the Silver blooded beast's eyes.

For a moment, he could see it, a shadow of soul. Not a mindless blood thirsty menace, but a living, breathing being like himself.

Cain sighed, then yelled at the top of his voice,

"Stop!"

Those rushing in paused in their tracks for a moment.

Li frowned and yelled back,

"Cain! What are you doing?! This is our change to kill the damned thing!"

By now, the beast had let his arm go, but it was barely attached. A surge of pain filled him and he had the urge to just curl up into a ball and writhe it out.

But he didn't.

Instead, he stood up and turned to face them.

He sucked in a deep breath of air,

"You can't kill it. Not now."

The creature hiswed painfully again.

The blow they had dealt it had done some serious damage.

Steve pushed past Li, his face contorted into an ugly grimace,

"Cut the bullshit out, Cain. This isn't the time for jokes."

His face turned dark as he continued,

"Get out of the way so we can kill the thing."

Vincent had already aimed his sights at the beast, ready to blast its brains away.

Seeing as he wouldn't be able to convince them anyhow, Cain decided to try something drastic.

He turned around.

His eyes met the eyes of the {Argent Amphithere}.

Their souls seemed to speak to one another.

The beast hissed again, as though resisting the thought. It was a mighty creature destined for great heights. It knew its potential.

It would grow big enough to consume the entire world one day.

Cain gritted his teeth. His eyes seemed to say;

'You stupid snake! If you die here, how will you grow big to devour the world?!'

After a few seconds of silent back and forth, the creature finally gave in and slumped down in exhaustion.

Cain heard the monotone voice of the system.

***

{Congratulations to the host... You have received the opportunity to create a [Body and Soul] contract}.