God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.

"You guys are leaving again?!" One of the people, a woman, sitting on the ground said to Jenny as they walked towards the door of the room.

This room is an underground safe room that for some unknown reason, exists beneath the gymnasium. When the apocalypse happened, the people in the gymnasium were one of the first that were attacked by the devils that fell from the sky.

To avoid getting killed, Jenny, who for some reason or the other, was able to locate this hidden room, managed to rescue a majority of the people who were within the gymnasium at the time the chaos began alongside Li, Sue, and Stan.

Li and Sue were siblings who had been close family friends with Jenny since they were kids. Stan, on the other hand, had been Li's best friend since they were little, so they were all very familiar with each other.

"Yes, we are."

The woman let out a sigh, "You all should be careful out there. I'm sorry for having you kids go through all this to protect us." The woman lowered her head in gratitude.

"You don't need to thank us. We are doing this of our own will." Stan said firmly.

The woman was just like the rest of the people, with near-lifeless eyes, and a dirty appearance. Unlike Jenny and the others, who despite not having taken proper care of their hygiene still looked clean, except for their torn and bloodied clothes, the rest of the people were in terrible condition.

Li had a hard frown on his face, looking at the people around.

'System, is there any way for them to be able to receive power?'

The crisp monotone voice of the system replied promptly...

{Replying to host: As long they lack a system interface, the only way for them to acquire power is by relying on external means. Unfortunately, most of them might have inadequately powerful souls, or might lack the willpower to bear the power of that magnitude}.

Since everyone had a system, it was only natural that Li would be able to converse with him just like Cain. However, due to a certain magical code within the system created by the Nomad, the system will evolve itself based on the nature of its host's thoughts and inquiries...

'Hmmm... Guess there's truly nothing we can do now.'

"Alright! Everyone, pay attention!" Sue said in an authoritative tone to the people sitting all around the safe room.

The sixteen of them immediately answered, slowly dragging themselves to their feet.

"Are we going to get more food this time? We are starving." One of the people said, his voice dripping with tiredness and despair.

"Can we please go outside?! We've been locked in here for three days straight. I want to see my kids!" One of the women said, her voice cracking up at the end of her sentence.

Another woman just broke down in tears completely, "It's over! I saw them tear Charles apart! He was all I had! Now he's gone" she said as she buried her face in her hands sobbing.

Stan, Jenny, Li, and Sue all looked at one another with conflicted gloomy expressions.

"I can promise you all that as long as you remain inside here, you will be safe. Just endure for a few more days." Jenny said in a bid to try calming them down.

"Do you think the government will come to save us soon? What were those explosions that happened last night? There are so many things that are happening that we have no clue about!" Another one of the men said with uncertainty.

"Listen up!" Li yelled out allot a sudden, causing them all to fall silent.

Seeing this, he cleared his throat and continued, "Worrying isn't going to solve anything. As long as you do as we say, we can guarantee your lives and survival. Anything otherwise, you all will be torn apart by those creatures." his eyes narrowing dangerously towards the end of his sentence.

Hearing what he had to say, they all fell silent, their eyes filled with dread and fear.

"Li..." Stan said, a difficult expression on his face.

"Let's go... We are burning daylight." Li said as he walked towards the door.

The door was shaped like a normal door, but it was made from a very strong metal alloy. It also needed a special key to be unlocked. The most interesting part about it was that it blended in completely with the surrounding walls, so those who had no idea a door was there wouldn't notice it.

Somehow, Jenny had possession of the keys to the room and still could spot the door easily.

Jenny stepped forward and placed the key into the lock. Without wasting a breath, she twisted...

***

"There's nothing else down here. Let's go." David said as he walked back towards the main area of the gymnasium where the other were located.

"Sure..." Blaze responded.

Just as they both were about to leave, they heard a sound...

CLICK!

David and Blaze froze for a split second, before acting with blinding speed. Blaze retrieved his spear from his inventory with the speed of sound and got into a thrusting position the rest moment. A bright orange flame ignited and burned fiercely around his weapon and body as well.

David did the same and summoned his silver shield that had a red cross at its center. The cross glowed a bright crimson as a red barrier spread out from it to cover both himself and Blaze.

"What the hell was that?!" Blaze turned to David and exclaimed loudly.

"Hm?!'

The only reply he got, was a short exclamation of confusion from David. He looked at David who looked shell-shocked.

"What's the matter? You look like you've seen a ghost." Blaze said with a raised brow.

"Boo?"

Blaze was nearly scared out of his skin when he heard an unfamiliar voice answer him.

In a panic, the flames surrounding him burned even brighter, as he swung his spear in the direction of the sound without even looking.

BANG!

Stan, who had been paying close attention immediately drew the wide saber that hung at his back and parried the blow instantly.

"What the hell?! Do you wanna kill us?!" Stan yelled out in indignation. However, Blaze was completely out of it when he noticed that the, or ones who had replied to him just now weren't ghosts, but living, breathing human beings...

'Since I'm not in a battle mode right now, I should probably be using this technique to absorb Ki right now.' With that thought in mind, Cain quickly got comfortable and activated the technique.

Since he didn't need to do anything special to use the technique apart from not being engaged in battle, he could still do other things as the technique was being used.

Strands of near-invincible Ki streamed into his body in small amounts once the skill was activated.

'Damn! This skill is something!

Although the skill enabled him to only absorb a small amount of Ki every hour, it was still almost as much as the total amount of Ki he had. The skill also absorbed some of his mana and stamina every minute, so it couldn't be sustained for too long.

At most, he could use it for about two hours before he would be forced to deactivate it and recover.

'Using the {Heavy Armor} with this technique would be even more exhausting.'

As Cain contemplated all these things whilst he continued to absorb Ki, he heard a loud noise, followed by a scream.

Without even giving himself time to process things, He stood up with a bang and rushed over to the origin of the noise. Thanks to his high perception stat, he was able to accurately pinpoint the location within seconds.

However, even Cain was unprepared for what he saw the next moment...

Cain blurted out in confusion, "What the hell?!"

Stan, Sue, Li, Jenny, Blaze, and David all broke out of their momentary confusion and stared at the newly arrived Cain.

There was a brief silence that lasted for about two seconds before Cain decided to break the ice.

"Can anyone explain to me what is going on?"

"I could ask you the same thing," Li said in response, subconsciously balling his fists whilst getting into an attacking position.

"Hey, relax... We mean no harm." David stretched his arm out as a means to portray their lack of ill will.

"What should we do now, Jenny?" Stan said, his weapon still drawn, as he faced Blaze with burning eyes. Blaze was no less intense as he refused to lower his weapon as well, the tip of his spear still pointing toward them.

"Blaze, lower your weapon," David whispered to Blaze.

"Yeah, you better do as you are told and lower your weapon," Stan said as the golden patterns on the surface began to glow brightly.

"And what if I don't?" Blaze had no intentions of backing down as he poured mana into his weapon, causing it to light up with flames.

Although Cain was confused, he was still able to grasp the situation with perfect clarity.

Moving forward, he attempted to diffuse the situation, "Hey, can you lower your weapons so we can talk about this?"

"Don't come any closer!" Jenny said all of a sudden. With super-fast speed, she pulled the gun hanging on her shoulders into her arms and aimed at Cain in one breath.

The purple engravings on the barrel and stock of the gun lit up with a deadly light almost at the same time as her eyes became illuminated with the same shade of purple

Cain felt all the hairs on his body stand as his senses began tingling. He stared at the pitch-black muzzle of a gun pointed at him.

Suddenly, everyone around felt the temperature of the surrounding air drop by a few degrees. Those who had just come out of the safe room all felt a shiver run down their spines.

What caused this was a terrifying aura being emanated from Cain.

"It would do you all a whole lot of good to lower your weapons right now," Cain said in an extremely dark voice.

To say he was pissed would be an understatement. One of the things he hated the most was being threatened, and this was most definitely a very clear threat.

However, despite all that, Jenny refused to lower her weapon. She stared right into the dark eyes of Cain, who looked so calm, yet emanated the aura of a volcano that was on the verge of eruption.

In a calm, almost provocative voice, she fired back, "And what if we don't?"

Almost as soon as she finished her sentence, the already dark environment became even darker.

In a split second, the {Devil's Broken Claw} appeared in his hands. The eye on its hilt opened up, as a menacingly dark aura poured out from its surface.

"Then you might end up dying."