God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.

"What's wrong?" Hunter said as he approached Steve who stared up at the grey skies, standing on the white ice bridge.

The connection between grey skies, dark seas and white ice created a beautiful contrast.

Blaze, Manny, Stan and Li followed quickly behind. Apparently, they had left the other people behind to fend for themselves temporarily. Since they were left with Sue, Vincent, Old Man Ling and Maya, they left without any worries.

"Well..." Steve said as he turned his gaze to Dn who lay on the ground. Although his wounds had been cleaned, his body was in terrible shape. However, he was finally conscious.

Hunter stared at Dan, his eyes slowly becoming dark and malicious...

"Who?" He spat out, his voice dripping with venom.

"Francis..." Dan responded with an equal amount of poison in his voice.

"I tried my best, but he got the best of me..."

"It's okay. You don't need to blame yourself. That fool will pay equal price in blood..." Hunter said coldly.

"Well, let's just say he's had enough paying to do for today..." Steve said with a mysterious chuckle.

Hunter raised a brow, prompting Steve to further elaborate,

"He left an arm behind."

"That's not enough, but I'll let it go for now." Hunter said with a grunt.

"What happened in your battle with the Leader of those red clothes? I thought you could handle him?" Manny asked Hunter who still had a wide wound on his mid section.

Hunter stared at his clenched fist, "I don't know what happened. The power of his left hand is similar to this..." Hunter said, activating his devil eye in the process.

"That is a devil eye ability. It is a unique skill that allows a human use devil essense without facing bodily corruption." Steve said, his eyes twinkling with mystery.

"Devil essense? You mean this?" Manny said as he swung his blades, producing two flames of darkness.

"Bahomet's nutsack! What the fuck do you think you are doing playing with that?!" Steve yelled as he stared at Manny handle a large amount of devil essense so casually.

"What? It's a special skill of mine." Manny said with a proud grin.

"Handling that thing without proper requirements can result in you entire being facing corruption!" Steve said, this time with more seriousness. Turning around in a panic to face Susan who was staring at an ancient looking tome without any interest in what was going on, he flapped his arms around.

"Aren't you seeing this? He's going to get himself killed!"

Susan slightly lifted her gaze from her book and slope softly, yet seriously, "Only those who have special constitutions can wield more than one forms of energy at once."

"But that doesn't mean-"

"And him wielding it now means he somehow has the ability to withstand the corruption. Besides, it's only a matter of time before we all begin to face thick devil miasma. This little bit of devil essence should be the last of your worries." She said before she waved her hand and dove straight to her book.

"Anyway... His use of devil essence allows him to attract things toward him, like a magnet."

"Not only that, but he is also a well trained fighter, just like I am. We are equally skilled with our weapons, and our arsenal of skills are just as wide. I sensed he was holding a trump card back, so I held mine as well. We fought to a stalemate, although I would have liked it if I took his head off." Hunter said regrettably.

"Regardless of what happened I only have one question..." Li said with a frown.

"Oh? What is it?" Steve gave him the go ahead.

"Where the hell is that guy?!"

Knowing who Li was referring to, Steve had an odd smile on his face. Just as he was about to answer, two other voices answered simultaneously.

"He jumped into the Sea..."

"He jumped into the Sea like an Idiot..."

The responders both threw each other a glance before falling silent again.

Clearing her throat, Jenny spoke the oddly quiet group of men who stared at her with understanding gazes...

"He said he would be back soon..."

"So what? We put this operation on hold? We just wait in the middle of the freezing ocean till he comes back?! I can't wait that long?!" Li said with a fed up expression.

"We wait... It's decided. If you don't want to, you can get going by yourself." Susan said coldly, before going back into her book.

"Tch!" Li threw a cold snort at Susan before walking away and sitting onto the cold ice. Stan quickly followed after to console his upset friend.

"The others are still moving forward, so we will wait for them here. If they arrive, and there is no sight of Cain, then I suggest we come up with a new plan." Blaze said before walking away to go and do his own thing.

"They are right, you know. These conditions might not be that bad to travel through, but sitting and waiting here a while will really do a number on us." Steve said, staring at Susan.

"We wait..." Susan said, still staring at her book...

"Phewww... It's gonna be a cold night, huh..." Steve rubned his hands and said to himself as he watched the sun quickly approach the end of its journey for the day.

***

Death...

Darkness...

Unbearable Heat...

And a dank fishy odor...

"Damn! Death isn't anything like I expected..." Cain said to himself as he scratched his head inside what he suspected to be his coffin, or burial ground in more accurate terms.

Right now, he was within the stomach of the {Alabaster Leviathan} that had defeated him in their deadly clash. Well, clash was calling it a lot as he had his ass handed to him very easily. And he could tell the creature wasn't even trying while he had to pull his best out just to last a few seconds, making him very depressed about his strength.

However, he was happy about one thing, and that was he was still alive...

Eaten, but alive...

"What the hell am I going to do now?" Cain pondered to himself aloud.

Within the belly of the whale, it was dark and spacious, so he was really able to hear himself think...

There were numerous carcasses he couldn't even make out surrounding him on all sides, causing him to believe that the creature had just eaten a full meal.

"Attacking this thing from the inside will be as useless as attacking it from outside, so that's a no..." Cain said to himself as he tried to make out the distant stomach walls of the creature.

He was seated on the corpse of the {White Sea Demon} that was floating within the very volatile stomach acid of the larger creature that was trying to injest them. As a mutant beast, the {Alabaster Leviathan} also had fast digestion, so Cain estimated he had a few hours at most before the shark was completely digested. Then he would follow suit, or come out... The other way....

That was something he wanted to avoid at all costs...

"There's really nothing I can do?" Cain said to himself as he opened his status screen up and began to search for something that could give him the salvation he needed.

Searching through his inventory, he saw a lot of random items, including things he had long forgotten about. However, all of them were useless on his current situation.

Closing his status screen, he stared at the darkness once again...

This time, the reality of his situation began to sink in...

'I might die this time...' A menacing thought drifted through his mind.

Just when his thoughts were about to get darker, a twinkle of light caught his eye...

As he had basic knowledge on the anatomy of animals, he knew that whatever the {Alabaster Leviathan} evolved from was most definitely a mammal. Mammals didn't have anything that produced light within their bodies...

Peering toward the light, he was able to see that the light was coming from under. Whatever was producing the light was within the corrosive stomach juices of the creature.

"Strange..."

He didn't know what it was, but he was willing to take any chance he could get.

Without thinking too much about it, he rolled his sleeves and jumped into the murky water beneath him.

***

The {Alabaster Leviathan} was big...

The biggest creature Cain had ever seen, and possibly the biggest creature in that part of the ocean. At a length of nearly three hundred feet, it could easily dwarf any previously recorded largest animal.

Since it was so big, it was only natural for it's interior to be massive. Diving into its stomach juices was like jumping into the ocean itself.

Apart from having a lot of dead floating fish, there wasn't much else, so he was able to locate the area the light was radiating from very easily.

Holding his breath, he quickly dove under. Despite being disgusted, he knew he had to do what he could to survive. After swimming for a while, he realized the object wasn't as close as he thought. Infact, the object wasn't in its stomach at all.

Instead, it was located a little further down...

The closer he got, the more Cain could get a closer feeling of what it was. Dense fire and metal elemental mana poured out of the pathway the light was coming from, causing Cain to be confused.

Still, he continued forward...

The pathway wasn't narrow at all, as it wouldn't be hard for a car to pass through the creature's veins. Swimming through the passage for a while, Cain eventually stumbled across the object of his curiosity.

There, pulsing within a sac with a slightly translucent crimson fluid enclosed within a light membrane, was a circular orb that shimmered with a golden light. Yet at its center, was a black hole. The hole was so dark, peering into it was like looking beyond the event horizon.

Cain was fascinated by the object before him. Without hesitating, he swam closer to it. Upon approaching the sac that trapped the glowing orb, Cain placed his hand on the membrane.

'Even if I cannot harm you a lot, I can do this much...' Cain thought. Materializing a blade of gold, he stabbed forward, tearing the sac open. The crimson fluid rushed to escape from the puncture, and the golden orb also followed the direction of the flow. Cain could feel a slight tremor, so he knew the {Alabaster Leviathan} must have felt something.

Urgency filling his heart, he quickly held onto the object in an attempt to place it into his inventory.

However, before he could do anything more, a great suction force coming from the black hole within the orb dragged him in.

In a split second, his body was stretched very thin and sucked into it, granting him his wish of not wanting to die within the belly of the Beast...

The sac that stored the orb quickly repaired itself, and trapped the orb, making it seem as though nobody had tampered with it...