God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.

Pulling his bloodied sword out of the girl he had stabbed, Lukas was filled with an euphoric rush.

Eyes blazing with sunlight, he turned towards his next victim.

"Damn it!" Jenny yelled as she pulled on the trigger. A black bullet covered in a deep violet haze tore through the air and shot Lukas straight through the chest.

Staggering back, Lukas covered his chest with one hand, then dashed at Jenny the next second.

Caught off guard, Jenny watched at the sharp end of the blade closed in on her forehead.

Just as she was watching her life flash before her eyes, Jenny felt a cold sensation wrap around her.

And then...

She was pulled through the shadows.

Evangeline had acted just in time.

Staring at the sky, Lukas watched as the dome covering them unraveled to reveal the grey skies.

A grin split across his face, "Better."

Evangeline stepped through the shadows, holding Jenny and an unconscious Susan.

Her brows furrowed, "Help stop the bleeding."

Jenny's pretty face was just as grim and even paler as she pressed down on the narrow, yet deep gash in Susan's abdomen.

Without thinking too much, she pulled out a bottle of HP regen potion from her inventory and poured it on the wound. However, it did little to nothing to help.

Not only was the wound fatal, it also carried a trace of Light elemental energy that constantly spread and bubbled, burning the wound, yet keeping it bleeding at the same time.

Right now, Susan was completely unconscious.

Evangeline frowned as she stared up, "The trap has been destroyed."

Jenny looked up as well. This was a bad sign.

Evangeline had used {Shadow World} to transport them far away, but the dome trapping Lukas was gone.

"Stay here and help her heal. I'll take care of him."

Jenny sighed, "You can't fight him alone."

Evangeline shrugged, "That is of no consequence to you. Just make sure she doesn't die."

With that, Evangeline stepped through the shadows and disappeared...

Reappearing right before Lukas...

"Now that they are out of the way, can you drop the act?" Lukas said irritatedly the moment bhe noticed her presence.

Standing before Lukas with a sly smile on her face, Evangeline shrugged,

"What do you mean? My plan was to keep you in place, so I have no intention of doing any other things."

Lukas gritted his teeth, "Eva... We are on the same side. If you stand by me, we can rule the world together!"

Evans shook her head. A dark expression settled across her face,

"I thought I told you not to call me that."

A chilling bloodlust spread out from Evangeline, far stronger than anything Lukas has experienced before.

He smirked, "I knew you were holding back! Now that the distractions are gone, we can finally focus on each other!"

Evangeline paid him no mind. Her eyes glowed with an eerie light. The moment it did, the pitch black ocean responded...

Inky black tendrils as thick as a man's waisted rose from the surface of the water. Lukas quickly noticed that this portion of the ocean was a far deeper shade of black that the rest.

'I have to escape whatever trap this is.'

Lukas' body erupted with light. He was like the living personification of a star as he cut through the dark waters. However, the only black tendrils of water were like the tentacles of a deep sea abomination as they chased after him frantically.

Still, Lukas was too fast, fast enough to outrun the tendrils at least.

However, the tendrils weren't the only things chasing him.

The air before him rippled, and from the rapidly stretching shadows came Evangeline's dagger. Because he was moving so fast, he couldn't avoid it. And so Lukas decided to block.

Or at least, he tried to. Instead, the dagger phased through his own blade and dug into his chest.

Lukas was forced to stop as the dagger plunged even deeper into his chest, eliciting a loud yell from him.

"Be quiet." Evangeline's cold voice came a second later. An even colder stream of poison bled into his bloodstream through the dagger, causing him to feel numb and cold.

"W-what is this?!" Lukas cried out.

"A little something I prepared for you. My orders were not to kill you, but keep you tied down. This won't kill you, but you sure will wish you were dead soon enough."

Lukas felt himself slipping in and out of consciousness as the cold pain burrowed through his blood vessels with the spreading of the poison.

'I let my guard down.' This was the last thought that went through Lukas' head as he went down.

Pulling the bloodied dagger out of his chest, Evangeline let out a sigh.

The tendrils of darkness wrapped around his body and pulled him into the cold embrace of the underwater shadows.

Turning around, Evangeline stepped through the shadows once again, this time appearing before Jenny and Susan.

"How is she doing?"

Jenny frowned, "Not good. The bleeding isn't stopping."

Evangeline sighed. Just as she was about to say something, a torrent of wind blew her hair up.

Her eyes shot up in surprise, "Cain..."

Jenny also seemed taken aback. Cain had suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

Staring at Susan's unconscious self, Cain barely managed to think straight.

"Is she dead?" His voice came out far more composed than he thought.

Jenny took a second to recover herself,

"N-no... She's just badly injured."

Staring down at Susan again, he was able to see that although she looked terrible, and was barely breathing, she was still alive. Her eyelids trembled periodically, and her chest made slight up and down movements.

Still, it was obvious whoever had done her in had intended to kill her.

He quickly went to work...

"Blood Restitution."

{Blood Restitution} was quite a skill. It could recover both vitality and stamina rather quickly, but it had a very obvious prerequisite;

The blood elemental energy had to come from somewhere...

Most spells had certain elements that allowed their outputs to be boosted at a cost of a small amount of internal and environmental mana. It would be accurate to call them mana amplifiers.

However, {Blood Restitution} didn't have that in Its magic circle component. Instead, it required a large amount of Blood Elemental mana to recover what was lost.

It could seem wasteful, but when there was enough Blood Elemental mana, any wound could practically be healed given enough time.

But gathering this energy took time. And that was one thing Susan didn't have. She was right at death's door.

Cain didn't hesitate to use his own blood as a substitute. All living beings had blood in them. This blood was whatever carried their vitality through their entire body.

It was far more difficult for him to control another living beings blood if it was still in his body, but controlling his, at least, the energy contained within it, was not hard.

All he had to do was fight the lethargic feeling that would come with directly draining his own vitality.

Placing his hand on Susan's abdomen, he could feel the heat coming from her.

'At least she isn't cold.'

Even through the leather armor she wore, he could feel the softness of her skin and flesh. It was like holding water...

Cain felt something stir within him, but forced it down quickly. This was not the time to be having inappropriate thoughts.

Siphoning energy from his own body was a delicate endeavor, but he had plenty of experience with it.

To retrieve energy from the {Elemental Vault}, he had to feed it through his soul into reality. Otherwise, there would be no way to access something as ethereal as mana from a whole either dimension.

Feeling the vitality draining from his body, Cain grimaced. However, Susan's face slowly became less pale, filling him with relief.

When he was sure it was enough, he withdrew his hand. Feeling slightly regretful for having lost that wonderful sensation beneath his fingertips, he stood to his feet and turned around. That single action almost made him lose balance.

Luckily, he had brought Ruby along on this spatial jump, so she quickly supported his weak body. The connection between them surpassed merely physical, so she could very well understand his feelings, just as he could hers...

Cain turned to stare at Evangeline. Her skin was as pale as ever, and her lips still shone a bright red. However, there was no smile on her face as she stared back.

Cain was also not in the mood for smiles,

"Where is he?"

Evangeline understood what he meant. She shook her head,

"I can't tell you."

Cain frowned, "And why is that?"

Evangeline sighed, "Because you'll try to kill him."

"Your point?" Cain said, quickly growing impatient.

He had asked the three of them to handle Lukas, and seeing that Susan was injured, Jenny was still on guard, and Evangeline looked a bit guilty, he could tell that Lukas was still up and about.

He wanted to fix that as soon as possible...

"Calm down. You can't afford to be rash right now."

Cain shook his head, "I don't want to here it. I've thought about it already."

His eyes were as dark as night,

"I'm going to kill that bastard."