God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.

The ship had a full-sized artificial training ground. The entire place was huge, almost the entire width and breadth of the ship, and about a single deck high. It was also covered in runes that helped dissipate force from powerful attacks.

In reality, calling it a training ground wasn't quite accurate. It could literally serve as anything. Most of the time, it served as Ruby's playground. However, since the beast had been sent on an errand by Cain, it remained deserted.

Until today...

Today, there was quite a a crowd gathered. While duels were not uncommon, they were mostly unofficial and were used to settle petty squabbles.

However, this was different. Rhodes stared at the man standing before him.

He frowned, 'No, not a man, boy...'

He grinned, "Boy, I'll teach you something today."

Now that Lukas had been MIA, the people of the Western island had lost their apostle. Meaning the heart of these lost souls was up for grabs for those who were brave enough to reach for it.

Grabbing the hearts of the people also meant grabbing power. This was a secret known only to a few.

The power of a Celestial, living or not, was not something humans such as themselves could grasp.

Amongst the faithful, those who proved themselves would always be rewarded with greater power for their exploits.

Take Rhodes for example...

At the battle a month, he had fought valiantly, killing more than a hundred mutant creatures. This had granted him another blessing apart from his original blessing. His physical stats had also skyrocketed.

'For this nameless boy, I'll be enough.'

This was the greatest difference between the Blessed and the Privileged, those who were granted access to the system, was that the fate of the Blessed lay in the hands of their patron Deity. The Privileged ones, those that had been chosen by fate, had to depend on themselves.

Both were reliable routes to chase power, but while it was possible for a Privileged to also be a Blessed, it was impossible for a normal Blessed human to awaken access to the system after the inception of god ash.

Li stared at this huge specimen of a human, his gaze calm.

In his hands, he held no weapons, only a pair of gloves. These gloves were a dull white color with streaks of green converging towards the fingertips.

Not only that, but on both the palm and underside of the gloves were a set of peculiar runes.

Seeing Li's unbothered expression, his glare became grim. He pulled the great sword on his back, revealing its sinister sheen.

"I'll try not to kill to kill you. This is for the glory of the god of Light, Hail Yanagi!"

Rhodes let out a growl, "Prime Agate!"

His body began to glow brightly like a precious gem exposed to light.

He grinned wildly, feeling power flow through him,

"This is the power bestowed onto me my the Celestial of Light! The power to overcome all!"

He launched forward like a bullet, dragging his giant sword behind. The air in front of him was violently displaced, and the sand on the training ground rose an inch above the ground.

Five gems shaped like droplets of water appeared around him. They moved as fast as he moved, circling around the static Li.

Rhode's burly form suddenly shimmered frome existence, reappearing where one of the gems was. A split second later, he appeared near another gem. Again, the same thing happened until he was disappearing and reappearing everything second.

Moving so fast, it was impossible for most of the crowd to catch a glimpse of him.

'Prime Agate. A blessing that allows me to shuttle between summoned masses of holy energy at extreme speeds. Not only does it confuse enemies, it allows me to change locations rapidly. I can also attack from any angle. With this, I can evade and attack while giving my enemies no room to breathe.'

Rhode's let out an excited roar as he slammed his sword forward.

"Brass Breaker!"

His Greatsword glowed with power as it smelled onto Li. His attack power was incredible. Most Mutant Creatures would be unable to do much against the combination of incredible evasive maneuvers and such devastating attacks.

However...

In the crowd, Sue had a bored expression.

She yawned, "How boring..."

Stan standing beside her nodded his head thoughtfully,

"Indeed. While his moves are definitely showy, he has barely basic knowledge of martial arts. Not only that, but he's merely wasting energy at this point. Besides, even with such attack power..."

The words had barely left Stan's mouth when something shocking happened.

Li sidestepped...

He didn't try to defend against the wild attack. He didn't shuffle backwards. No...

He simply sidestepped.

And the wildly swung blade struck nothing but air.

"Eh?" Rhode's had an awestruck look on his face as he felt the solid feedback. He had realized what had just happened.

Standing awfully close to him, Li had a wide smile on his face,

"Eh? Is this what you wanted to teach me? How to NOT hit your target?"

Rhode's eyes turned red with rage as he swung his blade again.

This time, Li slightly tilted his body back. The sword glided just right above him.

Again, the sword came crashing down. However, this time, rather than dodge, Li held up his arms.

Rhode's eyes glinted with an excited light,

"You are mine! Brass Breaker!"

BOOM!

A shockwave spread from the point of impact. Up until this point, the crowd had been relatively tame. However, right now, everyone went wild.

"What?! He... he...!"

"He used his bare arms!"

From the crowd, Stan tried to suppress a smile,

"This guy..."

Sue snorted, "Show off..."

Meanwhile, Li had a barely suppressed grin on his face as he grasped the long blade of the Greatsword.

He sneered, "With this bot of meager powe, you want to teach me a lesson?! How about I teach you something!"

An explosive deluge of power poured off his palm. The runes on the glove began to glow with soft light. If translated, they could be interpreted to a single word;

'Condensation'

The name of this glove, was {Windjaw}. It was a special weapon that gave one the ability to condense any sort of energy in a split second and release it all at once.

In the hands of a regular person, it wouldn't be very deadly. But Li, and everyone in Cain's camp was not normal...

Rhode's sword exploded into shards of broken metal, some of which stabbed into Rhode's eye.

"Ah! My eyes! Help! I can't see! Oh my God!" He yelled in pain and horror, gripping the bleeding eye socket.

Shoving his hands in his pocket, Li glared down at the grovelling man.

"W...what are you doing?!" Rhode's said, tears flowing down from his only good eye.

It was one thing to stop a man's weapon barehanded, and it was another thing to completely destroy it in the same breath. It was complete morale slaughter...

"You remember the deal, right? I don't give a fuck if you lost your balls. I don't expect to see you on this ship in the next hour."

Fear boiled on his soul...

'How?! How have things given so wrong?!'

Suddenly, realization snapped at him,

"That's it! Guys! Help me! Kill this bastard!" He yelled at a certain section in the crowd.

"Oh? A sore loser? Well, I'm not surprised." Li said, shaking his head.

He ignored the man grovelling and yelling like a mad man and turned around. However, the moment he did, a sinister glint flashed in Rhode's eye.

"Die!"

Grabbing whatever remaining of his broken sword, he attempted to stab Li in the back.

"Look o-!" Stan had already begun to shout, however it was unnecessary.

Li's eyes were as cold as ice as he snapped back around. In his hand was a rotating ball of smoldering flames.

"I gave you a way out, but you didn't take it. You only have yourself to blame."

Grabbing Rhode's sword arm with one hand, he thrust his other into his solar plexus.

The rotating ball of flames floating in his hand smashed into the soft flesh...

And exploded...

Blood, torn organs and viscera exploded from Rhode's back, along with pieces of his ribs and spine.

Li let the already stiffening corpse fall to the ground. Taking another glance at Rhode's as the life and color drained out of his face, he let out a sigh.

Then he turned and left.

By now, th crowd had already turned silent. Most people had expressions of fear on their faces. Is this the level of power these gods amongst men had come to wield?

With this power, they protected them from this terrible world, but they could also use this power against them, the weak and powerless as well...

It was a scary thing to think about, and it filled their many hearts with uncertainty...

The duel was over, cemented by the cold corpse on the ground. Slowly, the crowd thinned out until just three people were left in the training ground.

Stan sighed, "This might be troublesome..."

Li shook his head, "It's okay. I already got the go ahead from Hunter."

Sue raised a brow, "Really? When?"

Li smirked, "Before the battle. Apparently, this is just the prologue. There are a lot of people that aren't satisfied with the way things are right now. So they want to make moves."

Sue smiled, "Unfortunately for them, we aren't pushovers."

Li shook his head, "Things are more complicated than beating up a few lackies. The ones we are going to be dealing with are far more insidious than mutant creatures."

His eyes still carried a trace of coldness,

"Whoever it is that is trying to start something is very smart. So we need to be careful and pick our fights smartly. That's what Hunter said..."

Stan nodded, "Well, this is meant as a message... A warning shot. We won't be holding back."

"By the way... Who's going to get rid of... all that?" Sue asked all of a sudden, pointing at Rhode's hollowd out corpse.

Li frowned, his brows scrunched up,

"I mean... can't we just leave it ther- Fine, fine! I'll get rid of it!"