God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.

The world around them changed.

The mana that pervaded the air became turbulent, and the mana flow patterns turned volatile and unstable.

Even the wind that had stagnated seems to pick up.

The {Stone Bloodknight} looked up.

The skies of this bleak world were covered in dreary grey clouds, hiding whatever was beyond.

Today, these bleak clouds were lit by a star on the sky.

The star was dazzling and a resplendent shade of crimson, bathing the world below and the skies about a shade of red.

Feeling his mana being sucked out of him by the thousands, Cain took it a step further and opened the gates of the {Elemental Vault}.

His knees nearly buckled as the crimson sun up above continued to grow bigger and brighter.

'Keep holding him down!' Cain yelled out through his mind.

Ruby tightened her jaws around its leg and the {Argent Amphithere} coiled around its neck while even more tendrils of darkness shot out of the Stone Knight's shadow, binding it even more.

Despite this, the Collosus continued to struggle valiantly. It trapped the {Argent Amphithere} by the neck and pulled, nearly ripping its head off its body.

At the same time, it continually struck Ruby with the pommel of its stone sword whilst cutting the tendrils of darkness.

Evangeline who had been swimming through the shadows leapt out all of a sudden and stabbed both her daggers into the breastplate of the Stone Knight.

Allowing gravity to do the work, her dagger drew two thin, bit deep gashes through the breastplates of the stone armor.

The Stone Knight stumbled a little. It had clearly suffered damage.

Dropping to the ground, Evangeline attempted to dive back into the shadows, but was stopped. The Stone Knight seemed intent on getting rid of her as fast as possible.

It completely disregarded Ruby and Cain's other contracted creatures and struck down with its sword..

Evangeline's face paled. The sword was moving too fast. She would never make it into the shadows in time.

She was left with no other choice but to brace for impact. Crossing both daggers in front of her, the shadows around her surged and enveloped her slender frame.

The air ignited and space ruptured for a moment before exploding.

Just that single sword swing carried enough power to instantly level a small city.

The shadows that covered her were blasted into oblivion, and Evangeline herself was thrown back, blood streaming from her mouth and hands.

Seeing all this happen, Cain remained immobile.

'Not yet...'

Struggling to get up, Evangeline fell to the ground again.

"That hurt."

Thanks to her split second decision of enveloping her body in shadows, she had been saved from further damage.

However, the damage she did suffer was rather terrifying. All the bones in her hands were broken.

As she stood to her feet, they wobbled helplessly at her sides. She couldn't take another step before falling down to her knees.

Although the shadows had dampened the force, she had still absorbed a lot of it. Her organs had ruptured, and she was currently on the verge of bleeding to death from the inside out.

Just then, a soft golden radiance filled the air. It sank into her body through her pores. The golden light swam into the depths of her, mending her organs at a frightening speed.

She turned her head slightly. Susan's face was pale as she struggled to heal all three of them at once, each with equally as terrible wounds.

Evangeline sighed and looked up into the sky.

The {Stone Bloodknight} finally succeeded in getting Ruby off by dealing a final devastating blow to her head. A stream of blood erupted from the mutant bear's head, and it fell to the ground, its fate unknown.

The {Argent Amphithere} was next. Its entire tail region was ripped right off its main body, and one of its wings was cut off clean by the stone sword before it was tossed to the ground.

The silver serpent let out a shrill cry and collapsed to the ground.

The {Dark Soul} tried sinking back into the shadow, but the Stone Knight was fast, stabbing into its body. Luckily, it managed to become immaterial just in time, escaping into the darkness of the shadows.

The air was heavy with the scent of blood.

The Stone Knight pulled its sword out of the ground.

Its mission was not over yet, as there were still two standing.

The wind continued to pick up.

Cain's helmet was torn right off his head, and his hair was battered by the wind violently.

His eyes were red with rage.

There was a burning, white hot fire in his chest.

As if responding to this rage, the enormous star of fire swelled in size.

Then the crimson light vanished.

And then, a darkness so deep, so vast, so hot, it seemed Divinity had descended, as if the hand of a god had plucked the star right from the sky and submerged it in the deepest, most malevolent depths of hell.

Cain's eyes widened and a guttural roar ripped right out of his throat as he threw with his all his might.

The {Supernova} pervaded with the {Flame of Darkness} fell from the sky like a burning meteor, breaking all limits on speed.

It was fast.

Far too fast for the Stone Knight to evade.

And so it didn't even try to.

Instead, it stood there, and raised its shield over its head.

As though beckoning the falling dark star to do its worst.

Making use of the last dregs of mana left in his to recall his three contracted creatures back into the {Beastmaster's Subspace} before the dark star fell.

Their forms turned into streaks of light that flew towards him and into a rip in space. There, they would be able to recover faster from their wounds.

Then, making use of the last of his mana, Cain ran with all him might.

He activated the Wind Enchantment of {Burning Spirit}, {Azure Burst}, and {Hell Step} simultaneously.

Doing something like this was very dangerous, as despite how powerful his body was, it still wasn't strong enough to ensure the drag and strain that came with moving at such speeds.

However, he didn't care.

Time came to a halt as all twenty thousand points of agility he possessed were multiplied exponentially.

He ran towards Evangeline, who was the closest to him and plucked her from the ground, hugging her close to her chest.

Then, he ran towards Jenny, Roselle and Susan.

Luckily, both Roselle and Jenny had fallen unconscious close to Susan, so it worked better for him in picking all three up at once.

Once he did that, he didn't turn around and kept running.

All this time, he dark star continued to fall.

Until it finally made contact with the Stone Knight.

The world was bathed in dark light.

The force of the explosion tore the world apart of in all directions. Cain felt the ground udulate like that wave on the ocean as it broke apart and was ripped to shreds.

The shockwaves slammed into him, rattling his organs, nearly turning them into minced meat.

Then came the flames.

It was scorching and vengeful.

Despite having a headstart, Cain found the dark flames biting at his heels in an instant. But he didn't stop running.

Even when it felt like the flames would scorch his feet off, he didn't stop.

He couldn't stop.

Eventually, he couldn't run anymore.

Then he collapsed to the ground, rolling and placing all the girls he had picked up in front of him and using his back to shield them from the remnants of the flames and shockwaves.

The pain was blinding white, and the world was a mesh of white sounds and darkness for a moment.

And then, there was silence.

***

Cain thought he had been knocked out several times in a moment.

However, he was now very much awake, made clearly aware of it by the burning pain assaulting him everywhere.

He stifled a curse and tried to roll over, but failed, instead gasping for air like a dying pig.

His lungs had nearly exploded from the blast, and had his throat was cracked from the extreme heat.

'Water... I need water.'

He summoned a water canteen from his inventory and brought it to his lips.

Feeling the cool stream of water flow into his mouth and down his bleeding throat, he couldn't help but violently hack and throw up vicious blood.

His eyes widened. His vision was still blurry.

He wiped the blood from his mouth and drank again. Your journey continues with My Virtual Library Empire

This time, he managed to get it all down. This was an advantage of his miraculous physique. He could already feel himself healing up rapidly.

His blurry sight was clearing up quite well.

He let out a deep sigh which came out as a hoarse wheeze.

'I'm tired.'

He looked around him, and realized that although they were injured, his efforts had not been in vain at all.

Susan had been knocked unconscious at some point, but didn't seem harmed, at least on the outside.

Evangeline, Roselle and Jenny had visible injuries, but they were the ones caused by the Stone Knight during the battle.

Letting out a stretch of heavy coughs, he wiped the blood off his hands and looked up.

There was a huge mushroom cloud in the distance.

The black flames still burned fervently, releasing even more smoke into the sky, which was odd, as there wasn't supposed to be anything flammable nearby.

He wheezed again and forced a smile that caused his burnt lips to crack and become bloody,

"I guess we wait."