God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.

Cain's eyes darted all over the place as he tried to hold the rapidly moving Devils down.

They fought like intelligently rabid animals.

Every part of their body was a weapon, including their treacherous minds. A Devil would not hesitate to lose its arm as long as it could get the job done.

Twisting his sword back, he stabbed through the chest of a Devil that had suddenly appeared behind him. Twisting his neck, he dodged a serated claws aimed at his throat.

However, he wasn't wholly successful, as the claws managed to make deep grooves in his neck.

Retreating a few steps backwards, Cain breathed heavily.

The sweet taste of coppery blood filled his mouth, nearly overwhelming him.

'Fuck.'

He was in a bad state...

He was currently without an arm, and his entire body was filled with all sorts of mild to terrible injuries, each one more life threatening than the other.

Cain stared at the arm he had lost not too long ago lying on the ground.

Inixth chuckled as he walked forward. Despite the brutality of their battle, this Devil didn't have a single scratch on its exoskeleton.

"See, human? This is the result of your disobedience."

Cain chuckled. He almost couldn't believe it...

While he had managed to fight off all these Devils, some how, he had killed only a few; about five or so... He had forgotten, somehow...

Each one had exceptionally stubborn vitality. Their wounds healed easily, and they fought like mad beasts regardless. Worse of all, their coordination was nothing short of disgusting.

Cain sneered at the grinning Devil,

"Isn't this cowardly? Imy just a weak human, and here you are, using numbers."

The {Speed Devil} guffawed,

"Make no mistake, human; your strength can be acknowledged despite your shortcomings. However, that is not what weakness is."

The Devil stared right into his eyes, a deep pool of darkness hidden within,

"What is weakness? It is a frame of mind. One only inferior beings hold. The prey when it sees the jaws of the Hunter freezes in fear. It does before it is even consumed. That is weakness..."

Cain's sneer became even deeper,

"Then you don't know what the hell you are talking about, bastard..."

Inixth chuckled, "But I do."

The Devil turned to stare,

"This world... Is just like countless others that fell before it."

"Creatures struggling in the mire, trying hard not to suffocate in pools of their own blood. And yet, every one of them was extinguished, like a candle in a storm."

Fighting through the pain, Cain activated {Blood Restitution}. While it would be difficult to heal his arm, it wasn't impossible. All he had to do was wait for the right moment.

The other Devils slowly closed in on him as Inixth continued to speak,

"For millennia, we have roamed this universe, visited countless world. So there is one thing I can say with certainty."

His face split into a grin, "You are weak. And because you are weak, you will be destroyed. Call it bullying with numbers, it is still the same. Eventually, we will become accustomed to your world. Then we wouldn't need the numbers. Just a single Devil would be enough to decimate your race.

Eventually..."

With a nod from Inixth, the rest of the Devils exploded into action...

Cain sucked in a deep breath. Steadying his blade with his only good hand, he was prepared to fight again.

Suddenly, the chilling sound of a bullet ripping through the air filled the space around him.

A Devil fell to the ground, its head a splattering of mush behind its kneeling corpse.

At the same time, a subtle light filled with endearing warmth fell upon him. Cain stifled a groan as the light seeped into his wounds, healing them.

Even the bleeding stump that was once his arm was slowly being regenerated.

Cain heard someone call out to him from behind,

"So this is where you ran off to..." Roselle said, the tips of her blade already stabbing into the back of a Devil.

The Devil snarled, "Damned human!"

Snapping backwards, its claws ready to tear her head from her body, Roselle calmly tilted her torso, dodging the wild attack.

Her swords vibrating at a Hugh frequency, she tore straight through its abdomen, turning its organs into mush in the process.

Inixth raised a brow, "More humans?"

Susan walked towards him, placing her hand on his shoulder,

"Don't move." She said, her brows bundled together in concentration.

Even more of the light poured out of her hands, healing him even faster. Even then, it would take some time to completely heal up.

Cain sighed, "I'm alright. This isn't the time for that."

Susan glared at him, "Just shut up."

Roselle glanced back at him, "Listen to her. We'll take over from here."

Cain raised a brow, a bit confused...

Through the mental link with Hunter, he had gotten to knlw tjat there was quite the number of Tier 1 Devils stuck with tjem inside the black dome.

This meant they were going to have to be dealing with a lot, perhaps too much for them to handle. Their only savings grace, was that at Tier 1, the Devils had yet to grow into the planet dominating race they were known to be. They recovered a decent amount of their power, but not enough that they could overpower them.

And so, the Devils made up for this during these periods, with numbers. With more numbers, the Devils would have a wider margin of error.

Regardless of how many Devils did die, the ones that survived would become more and more powerful. Such was the way of the Devils.

Of course, all this was subjective with respect to the grade of the Devil. Perhaps Cain would be able to handle Elite, Deadly, and maybe even Epic grade Devils like this.

But trying to fight Legendary and Half-god grade Devils alone was a dance with death.

God and Celestial grade Devils couldn't be fought alone. Especially as the Tiers increased. It was nothing short of suicide.

Even then, he was still struggling with these low grade Devils. Granted, they had greater numbers. But that didn't matter.

Cain frowned, 'I'm still not enough.'

Inixth sighed. Suddenly, a voice came from above.

Staring at the black sky, Cain frowned deeply. Floating, with pitch black wings attached to its back was a {Sky Devils}. However, one look at it, and its humanoid features was enough to tell Cain that this thing was a Tier 1 creature.

The creature sported a bow and in its hand and a full quiver of arrows across its back.

It spoke to Inixth derisively,

"Inixth. Why are you wasting time in this place? Kill the humans so we can break out of this thing!"

Inixth snorted, "Why would an overgrown bird tell me what to do? Fly back to your best, Obegrin, or I'll tear your wings off and cook them."

Inixth's eyes glowed strangely, causing Cain to be filled with an ominous feeling.

Obegrin, the {Sky Devils}, snorted,

"Now is not the time to.be throwing threats around."

He turned to the humans on the ground,

"The City is already under our control. Losing more soldiers pointlessly will make the {Broodmothers} furious. You might not know this, but they sense when their children die."

Inixth sighed, then waved his hand casually,

"Fine, fine... I just wanted to see what these humans had to offer. Its been a while since we had something exciting to do. Those turtles keep hiding in their shells. It pisses me off."

He then turned to Cain, his eyes burning with excitement,

"All of you. Deal with the women. Leave this one to me."

The rest of the ground Devils didn't say anything, but their poisonous stares transferred from Cain to Roselle, Susan, and Jenny, who seemed to.have appeared from nowhere.

Jenny frowned, "Looks like we have trouble on our hands."

Cain stared at his freshly regrown arm. Flexing his fingers, he breathed a sigh of relief and stared at Susan, who's skin had turned a bit pale.

'Lools like I'd better not drag this thing out longer than needed.'

He had gotten his fill. There was no longer any reason to draw the fight out. Besides, Evangeline and Lukas were most likely already done with their targets.

Meaning he had to finish what he started. Even if he couldn't, there was no way he was leaving empty handed.

Inixth stared at Cain before turning to Obegrin,

"Obegrin...Stay out of this."

The {Sky Devils} shook its head,

"If I see you are taking too long, I'll kill the humans. Th choice is yours to make."

Inixth clicked its tongue before turning to face Cain,

"I would have loved to make this more interesting, but as you can see, our circumstances will not allow it."

The menacing aura surrounding the Devil continued to climb until the stone beneath its feet melted.

Cain sighed, 'So that's it...'

He had found it odd that the system had not been able to ascertain the grade of this Devil in particular. In place of grade, there were only question marks.

Staring at this Devil, Cain knew immediately he had met a worthy foe.

After all, the grade of the Devil, Inixth, is Half-god.