God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.

Compared to an entire building, a human would appear quite small.

Even with all his accumulated power, Cain found it hard to beat the constraints of architecture. If he ran through it, he would be done in seconds, but he wanted to take his time.

He was very sure no one would come looking for him, as they all probably believed he was still locked up in that room. However, their lack of understanding of his abilities made sneaking in and out very easy to do.

In reality, they had every right to be lax. The power of the dome was supposed to completely suppress his magical power. However, it was unable to do so.

Hunter's ability could still be used because his power was not accessed through mana and the spiritual plane, but rather the Aether realm.

Cain walked through the darkness, completely relaxed.

Occasionally, he would encounter a critter. Putting them out of their misery was a more humane thing to do.

Eventually, with so little food, and terrible living conditions, even for rat standards, the lives of these beasts would run their course, unless they could find something to eat.

'Perhaps they might devolve into cannibalism, or they might all just decide to kill one another until none is left, fighting for the last scrap of food.'

Either way, Cain believed it would be better to wipe them out.

Plus, if what he was planning worked out, he would need this entire building in good shape. Not just for his training, but also to set up a successful takeover.

Unfortunately, planning that, from what he could see, would take some time.

He also had to worry about getting the others out of custody.

'That bastard will probably come calling for me later. I'd better prepare something nice for him.'

Although he didn't hate General Arltzwalt, he could smell a man with ambition from three thousand miles away. It was just too obvious.

The gaze, the gait... even his beard seemed to leak a vicious aura. There was no doubting the man's ego in the slightest.

And he wasn't young and inexperienced like Lukas, or the deceased Guy. Instead, this was a man with perhaps decades of experience, granted the power to have the world for his taking.

The only thing holding him back, was the presence of a few tens of thousands of Devils.

If all went according to plan, just living through this would be quite impressive.

With a sigh, Cain threw the unnecessary thoughts out of his head.

The hallways of this building were lined with shattered tiles. There was obviously no electricity, but there still seemed to be a bit of a water moving through the pipes.

Because the building was a bit tilted to the side, walking wasn't a very pleasant experience.

Crawling between broken archways, and having to move over tones of debris was also quite stressful, but eventually, he managed to clear out a path leading to the upper floors.

No sooner hand he gotten there, Cain as met with an angry swarm.

The {Blister Rats} were huge, compared to rats unaffected by mana mutation. However, they were still malnutritioned. A rat with nothing to eat had no choice but to die. That and eat its own flesh, but those two choices weren't very different.

With a wave of his hand, seven golden blades hovered around him.

They shot into the first room, cutting down all the rats before they could even come close.

Tejir fetid, putrid blood slipped all over the ground, but fortunately, there wasn't a lot of ur in their bodies.

'These ones seem even weaker than the ones on the ground floor. If there is water here, why are all of them almost dying from thirst.'

Cain frowned. Something wasn't adding up here.

He carefully looked at the situation as he mowed down the rats by the dozen.

'Ideally, a place like this is large enough to support even larger numbers. These things don't technically eat only meat. They can eat a lot of things. Even then, they are so malnutritioned. And then, there's the water... I know they know what water is.

But they aren't doing that., Instead...'

Cain turned his attention to down below,

'If I'm correct, then hopefully, I can round all this up in one fell swoop.'

With no time to hesitate, Cain cleared through the rest of the vermin and piled their corpses up to be disposed of later.

Taking the stairs down and almost falling through them, he managed to make it down to the entrance to the final level.

Cain frowned, "Just what the hell was this building?"

Staring at the huge metal doors, Cain could only wonder what they were used to either keep in or out.

'Was it a bank? Or a prison?'

Then he shook his head, "But prisons don't have these kinds of doors. Perhaps this truly was a bank, or something."

Shaking his head, again, to get rid of the worthless thoughts, Cain tried getting the door open.

Luckily, that wasn't too difficult. It wasn't even locked. Upon opening the door, the exaggerated smell of stale air hot him hard.

It was like sniffing the insides of a very old boot. Most would have already been deterred, but Cain was already determined to see things through. And when he was determined...

There wasn't much he wasn't willing to do.

On the other side of the wall, a stretch of corridor was revealed. They weren't as dusty and in disrepair as the others in the building,

The ceiling was made with a strange type of reinforced metal. However, it was all bent out of shape and eaten in some areas, obviously the work of the {Blister Rats}. While the scurrying vermin were once a part of daily human life, now, they were overextending their welcome.

As he walked, he noticed something quite odd.

"The walls..."

The walls were wet. Cain immediately put two and two together.

'The walls are wet? Why? An internal leakage? Or something else...'

He activated {Eye of Clairvoyance}.

Almost immediately, he got to see what the issue was

Cain immediately frowned, "What the hell?"

From one look, he was able to tell that there was indeed a leakage. However, it wasn't what he thought it was.

Instead of just a single leakage, there were multiple. Numerous even...

And ever single one of them, was caused by a {Blister Rats}

'Aere they intentionally trying to set a few up? Or could there be some deeper meaning to this?'

With no evidence to back his claims up, Cain decided to explore further.

Water dropped from the walls and the ceiling. While Cain wallowing in his thoughts, the red-eyed creatures had already begun sneaking aound.

Their claws limbs stuck yo the softened walls like it was made of mud, their hairy hides slicked back thanks to all thw moisture.

'Come on. Take the baitm I don't want to have to attack you all here. This entire thing might come down on my head.,'

As such, he could only proceed with caution. That is, until they made the first strike.

The first, And fortunately, the most unfortunate of the rodents lunged at Cain, its fore teeth razor sharp, ready to draw blood. Not even a second later, the creature fell to the ground in two halves.

The other rats were not smart enough to see, or even notice it. Even if they did, the corpse was quickly trampled upon by so many others, turning into nothing but a stain on the ground.

Cain had drawn {Platinum Genesis}.

The sharp edge of his blade sheared through bone, flesh, hide and all, like it was butter. There was no resistance at all, as he cut down dozens upon dozens of leaping magically mutated rodents rushing at him.

A layer of blue light even enveloped him as he muttered under his breath,

"azure Burst."

While Cain's swordsmanship wasn't the prettiest, it was also quite impressive.

His ability to use a blade effectively truly shone in these types of situations, where flair and technique was a backwards thing to think about. As he mowed the rats down, their lives escaped from their bodies.

Until eventually...

They finally stopped coming.

"That's all, huh..." The chewing, squirming sound stopped as well.

Cain sheathed his blade,

"If this is all of them getting rid of the corpses might be a hassle, but not impossible."

Then, it came at a shock...

Cain was surprised to see a flash of black dashing straight at him through the corridors.

This thing was fast. So fast, Cain barely could see what it was.

Without wasting a breath, keeping his mind calm, Cain shifted into action. His body also blitzed about, as fast as a light beam.

Both Cain and the large shadow of darkness came to a stop.

Cain's eyes turned wide, "Well, would you look at that. So turns out it was you having everything to eat for yourself!

Staring at the giant rat glaring down at him menacingly, Cain knew he had found his culprit.