God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.

Cain dove deep into the dark waters, his mind filled with complicated thoughts.

Since he had dove into the water headfirst, the {Frozen Paths} skill hadn't activated. Instead, he was able to swim freely, albeit a little faster than before. With terrifying arm and leg strength, he swam through the water like a torpedo.

The water was very cold, and served to absorb the heat emitted by his body. This didn't affect him, in the slightest as he focused on his goal...

With his stats, he would be able to hold his breath for a bit over three hours before he would need a fresh breath of air.

He could feel the presence of a few creatures not too far away from him. Hence, he swam through the water extremely quickly, arriving before the creatures in the blink of an eye.

As soon as Cain came in contact with the creatures, he became overwhelmed with a feeling to run away as quickly as he could.

'Fuck! Why does my luck have to be so bad?!'

***

Death-Leg Sea Phantom: Level 60 (Deadly).

Strength: 500.

Agility; 800.

Defense: 50.

Magic: 500.

Spirit: 100.

HP: 20,000/20,000.

MP: 8,000/8,000.

Skills: Death's touch, Poison blood, Toxic Sea, Regeneration lvl4.

***

Floating before him, was a school of extremely large and poisonous Jellyfish. Since they had sensed him immediately after he had arrived, there was no getting out of it.

'Might as well fight then. I have poison resistance, so this shouldn't be as bad as-' A giant stinger as long as a football field and thicker than a bowling ball swam through the water with terrifying speed at Cain.

Summoning his blades from his inventory, he swung them at the approaching stinger.

Like slicing through butter, the stinger was quick dissected, leaving behind floating pieces of translucent flesh and blue colored blood.

'Their defenses are weak. Sure enough this isn't as bad as I-' Cain wasn't able to complete his thoughts when he began to feel a stinging sensation crawling all over his body.

'Damn it! The poison!' Cain knew that jellyfish were poisonous, but he never expected these mutated jellyfish to be so poisonous, their blood corrupted the water around them with their poison.

Thanks to his high poison resistance, he was able to recover from the poison failrly quickly. However, before he could properly recover from the poison that had seeped into his body, more stingers began to attack him as the jellyfish floated through the water and attempted to surround him.

Cain felt an even greater headache coming up when he saw the first stinger that attacked him begin to regenerate.

'Shit!'

Cain performed a barrel roll, Cain dodged the first stinger again, then put some distance between him and the others. However, the stingers were abnormally strong as they homed in on him. It was almost as if they had sensors that allowed they to accurately determine his trajectory. Seeing that he had no other option but to fight, a steely expression appeared on his face.

'Since I can't engage in close combat, I'll kill you all from afar!'

Whilst running away, Cain immediately activated a few skills all at once.

Seven Golden magic circles appeared in an instant, surrounding him. They shattered to reveal seven very sharp blades of gold.

With a snap of his fingers, Cain directed the {7 Golden Stars} at the gradually approaching mutants. The blades turned into a meat grinder as they flashed around in the water, turning the flesh of the mutant beasts into pulp.

The water turned turbulent, immediately taking a blue tint. Cain broke out into a cold sweat when he saw this. The amount of poison in that region was enough to kill off a herd of elephants with ease.

'If I wasn't fast enough, my corpse would be twitching on the ocean floor right now! Damned Jellyfish!' Cain couldn't help his annoyance.

Drawing his blade, he calmed his mind as he prepared an attack that could kill all of them at once. He felt that keeping them alive for too long could prove to be fatal as not only were their numbers nearly overwhelming, their poison proved to be headache.

Whilst they were occupied with the {7 Golden Stars}, Cain gathered as much mana as he could. His eyes had a sharp glint in them. A huge pillar like blade appeared around his {Whit Claw}, making the surrounding water roll like as though they had consumed storms. His eyes widened as he let down the sycthe of death.

With a single swing, he cut through the school of mutant beasts. None of them were a match for the power of {Hollow Judgement} that was powered by the current Cain.

One by one, they all burst into a cloud of blue blood, completely destroyed by the power of the attack.

***

{Congratulations to Host... You have killed ×20 Death-Leg Sea Phantoms}

+60 Strength.

+60 Agility.

+80 Magic.

***

Due to the sheer amount of blood they released, the cloud of blue blood rapidly spread in all directions. Sensing the incoming doom, Cain hurriedly swam deeper.

Just as he was about to swim away, he caught sight of the mana shards produced by the {Death-Leg Sea Phantom} being carried toward the ocean floor by gravity.

With incredible speed, Cain swam deeper into the ocean. With his incredible speed, he was able to make it in time, before the precious treasures were lost in the inky darkness forever.

Staring up, Cain watched as the blue cloud spread further and further. If not for his speed, he would have been devoured by the poison and killed. Now, he was safter as shockingly, the poison cloud spread slower downward.

Turning his attention to the treasures floating before him, Cain realized that they weren't only mana shards. Instead, there were a few MP regen potions, a bottle of suspiciously familiar blue fluid, a rune he had never seen before, and a ring with a snake emblem on it in addition to the mana shards.

Cain stared at the items before him, but the ones that drew his attention the most were none other than the rune and the ring with the snake emblem.

He quickly put all the items into his inventory before diving deeper into the ocean to escape the death cloud above him.

Opening his inventory, Cain focused on the rune to draw up its description,

***

Rune of Poison Protection: The power of poison is corruption. Protection from this corruption can come in many forms. Increases Poison resistance by 10%.

***

Cain' stared at the rune with satisfaction. While the rune wasn't very powerful, it could serve to extend his life should he ever run into an opponent with the same level of poison as the {Death-Leg Sea Phantom}.

Moving his attention to the ring with the snake emblem, he focused his gaze onto it as well. It was a bit of a surprise seeing a physical object other than a weapon dropping after he had killed a mutant beast, causing his curiosity to fly sky high.

***

Sigil of the Water God: Legend has it, that deep within the oceans surface, even further than its depths, there lies a god long forgotten. This god has the power to consume all forms of matter and energy, and possess a poison that can kill even gods themselves.

+50 to Agility.

+50 to Strength.

+300 to Magic.

Provides the host with the skill, {Poison Arrows}...

{Poison Arrows}: The Poison god has long since desired to rise from the depths and and begin his quest to consume the oceans once again. Imbue projectiles with the power of god-killing poison. Increases attack power by +90% with an additional 10% damage per second for 10 seconds.

Note: This skill can only be activated with projectile-type weapons

***

Cain stared at the stats of the ring with wide eyes. He nearly couldn't believe his eyes as he stared at the details of the ring over and over again...

'Damn! Shouldn't it be illegal to have something this overpowered?'

The ring gave him so many additional stats that he wouldn't be able to gain even after leveling up ten times.

His eyes moved to the skill that was provided below. His excited expression quickly died away...

'While I won't be able to use the skill for now, the extra stats are more than enough compensation.'

Despite the slight letdown, Cain wasn't too bothered. Quickly putting his ring on, he admired its aesthetics before resuming his journey.

Travelling deeper into the ocean depths, he realized that light was quickly dispersing.

Activating {Eye of Clairvoyance}, he was able to see within the darkness.

He didn't have any firm goal in mind. All he wanted to do was to find mutants to kill so he could gain extra stat points. However, the creatures within the oceans proved to much more terrifying than he originally thought.

He didn't even need to swim for too long before a cold feeling even colder than the gradually decreasing temperature of the surrounding water washed over him.

Looking all around, he was unable to see much even though his {Eye of Clairvoyance} was activated.

Learning his lesson not to underestimate any potential danger within the ocean, Cain quickly drew {White Claw} and {Black Claw}.

He quickly used {Spirit Sense} which was a better choice when scanning for magic signals. His body froze up for a bit when he noticed that the danger he had been on guard against was so close.

'What?! Why didn't I sense it?!' Cain let out an internal scream.

As if triggered by his internal panic, the creature assumed it was the best time to strike. With speed that beat his, the mutant beast lurking in the darkness rushed forward with its maw wide open.

Despite the creature's superior speed, Cain was able to react as he knew where the creature was attacking from.

CLANG!

The sound of teeth against metal sent shockwaves passing through the water.

Cain's eyes narrowed as he got a closer looked at the creature that had attacked him.

'Of all things, why does it have to be a freaking shark?!'

Cain was unable to do anything but be blown away as the creatures strength was greater than his by a fair amount.

His internal organs were shaken as he stared into the inky darkness that was now dimly illuminated by a pair of glowing red orbs that radiated thick death within the abyss...