God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.

The forest was dark, gloomy, and as silent as a graveyard...

In reality, it truly was a graveyard. In the span of a few hours, the corpses of thousands of mutant beasts had become one with the forest floor. Only their brittle bones which had been drained of all nutrients were left to form fossils.

Crawling above the carpet of bones, were devils of all shapes and sizes. Cain dashed through the dense foliage with an agility that could put cats to shame while staying out of the sight of the devils.

His feet barely touched the ground, and thanks to his high control stat, he was able to expend the least amount of stamina for the most effective actions, so his stamina consumption was kept at the bare minimum.

Beside him, covered in the same blanket of darkness as he was in, was Ruby. {Dark Cloak} allowed Cain to spread the effects of the skills to allies. Hence, the effects of {Dark Cloak} weren't limited to just him, but Evangeline, Jenny, and Ruby as well...

He moved through the dark forest like a shadow. Looking to the side, he realized that he had completely lost sight of Jenny he couldn't even sense her or Evangeline's presence at all.

'So scary...'

They had raced through the forest for a while before stopping below a group of trees. Evangelize walked out of the shadows, while Jenny faded back into existence.

"So what do you have in mind?" Jenny said as skin as they came to a halt.

"We can't cover the entire forest alone, so I suggest we move together. We should be able to source out a relatively safe path that has fewer devils. That way, we will expend less energy, and we will be able to protect those who can't without fearing casualties too much."

Seeing the two beautiful women standing before him paying close attention, Cain continued, "We also need to get closer to that giant devil. If we have no idea what we might face, then the danger we could face will be multiplied many times over..."

"We may also need to fight if the need arises, so get ready..." Cain spent about five more minutes explaining the details of his plan to them.

To simplify it, he planned to get as much information about the devils in the forest, what they did, what their goal was, how they fed, what the giant devil was, whether they had abasement, etc.

"Any questions?" Cain said once he was done.

"I do..." Cain had expected Jenny to talk, but as fate would have it, Evangeline was the first to speak to him.

Starting him down with her red gem-like eyes, she parted her lips and spoke in a cold voice,

"If you think that will work, then you are probably a bigger fool than I imagined."

Silence...

Cain and Jenny were stunned for a while before Cain spoke with a complicated expression on his face,

"And why is that?"

"It's simple. How much exactly do you know about these devils?" Evangeline asked with a serious expression spread on her porcelain face.

Cain went silent when he realized that apart from the basic information he had learned about devils from the system and the records of Akasha, he had little to no personally gathered knowledge about the devils.

Seeing Cain fall silent, Evangeline narrowed her eyes as she continued,

"The devils have a way of communicating with one another when they are within a certain range. If we kill even a single devil when there are so many devils within the forest, we run the risk of having the wrath of over ten thousand devils crash on our heads. I'm surprised you... bear could attack all those devils and find a way to survive."

'Master, that's not true! I didn't attack those devils, they attacked me first, but when I tried to defend myself, I killed a few of them. Suddenly, three turned into five, then twelve. It was then I realized they were trying to gather enough numbers to take me down, so I ran... Pretty impressive, right?" Ruby communicated with Cain through their shared telepathic connection.

'Yeah, Good job.' Cain praised the bear sincerely.

'Hehehe...'

Turning to the girls who stared at him with questioning gazes, he spoke in a soft tone, "She didn't attack any devils. On the contrary, it was the other way around. It seems you are right. If we kill even a single devil, we will have only two options. One, we give up on the mission and run back to safety, or we get swarmed to death. Even I doubt I can handi ten thousand devils in one go..."

"It's good you know." Evangeline said with an expression that seemed to scream 'I told you so'. She stared at Cain with cold eyes, almost as though she was waiting for him to come up with another plan...

This time, Jenny spoke up, "I don't think they can communicate with one another fully. What they do isn't the same as communication. Apart from the higher-rank devils, the other low ranks can only sense the death of other devils when they are within a certain radius from one another. They can communicate, but only when in very close proximity."

"So you mean we can't kill any devils?" Cain voiced his main concern.

"Correct... We can't take the risk." Jenny said with a nod.

"So what do you plan to do now?" Evangeline said, her ruby-red eyes glowing in the darkness.

Cain dispelled {Dark Cloak}, plopped down to the ground, and rested his back against the furry hide of Ruby who sat behind him.

'System, how exactly do the devils communicate with one another over such distance?'

{Replying to host: The devils can relay magic signals with one another on death through their devil cores. All devils above the Normal tier possess devil cores. Even the normal tier devils have their unique way of sending and receiving magic signals, although that is not as effective as using devil cores.

Once the devil dies, this signal is automatically sent out to devils nearby, who will respond immediately}.

Cain narrowed his eyes as he thought, 'If they use magic to send these signals out, then all I need to do is stop them from sending them out, correct?'

{Replying to host: Affirmative... If the host can stop the magic signals from being sent the moment the devils lose their lives, then it is entirely possible to stop the signal from being sent out...}

'I see...'

"Change of plans... Try to avoid killing any devils, but if necessary, then leave it to me. I have a way of stopping them from communicating with one another." Cain said with absolute confidence.

"Oh? Care to enlighten us?" Evangeline said with a raised eyebrow.

"That's all I can say for now. We'll continue with the original plan in an hour, gather as much info as we can, then regroup with the rest before we attack." Cain said with a drawl in his voice, a dangerous light flashing in his eyes.

"Is that so..." Evangeline said, her gem-like eyes turning into slits.

In response, Cain simply closed his eyes and began absorbing Ki.

'Hmmm... Something I going on between these two.' Jenny concluded, a suspicious look on her face.

Oblivious to Jenny's scandalous thoughts, Evangeline faded back into the shadows, while Cain kept his eyes closed and ignored his environment.

'These people are truly insane.' Jenny shook her head, before plopping down to the ground next to Cain, and going about her business.

***

Cain activated the {Dragon's Gate} ki plundering technique, passively increasing his ki reserves. This was the best method he had available to activate Ki in their present conditions. Using the {Heavy Armor} for a stealthy mission would be the epitome of stupidity, especially since what he required the most was speed and agility, stats the {Heavy Armor} greatly reduced.

***

{+20 points to Ki stat}.

{Dragon's Gate Ki plundering technique}:

Rank: Celestial

Tier: 0. (165/10,000) Ki points to the next Tier.

***

Although the gain was slow, he was still satisfied with the progress he was making. He could feel the energy drawn into his body every time he took a breath under the influence of the technique.

The violent and overbearing nature of Ki was a contrast to the flowing and mild, yet strong nature of mana. Cain felt they both had the same origins, yet had developed different natures somewhere down the line. Mana had a spiritual or mental effect, and Ki had a physical effect.

'If this is the case, then Ki should be more suited for skills that involve physical action and brute force. Skills like {Mana Blade} and {Lightning Edge} would be more effective with Ki than mana.' Cain thought to himself.

'To increase my mana, all I need to do is to level up and absorb god ash. As for Ki, I need to push my body to its limits, and endure immeasurable pain.'

'Besides, I haven't been able to figure out how exactly to use Ki. According to the system, it is also called life essence and can be used to create runes. However, I doubt creating runes would be possible right now. This means I'll need to find other ways to use it.'

Cain activated his devil eyes and watched as the strands of Ki bleed into his body from the environment.

'Should I treat it the same way I do with mana?'

Cain concentrated a bit, trying to control the extremely violent energy crashing within his body like waves against a cliff.

However, he quickly realized his error...

BLEGH!

He immediately coughed up a mouthful of blood. As soon as his soul made contact with the Ki, he felt pain, like he had never experienced his entire life course through his body and soul.

'Damn! It's too unstable!' Cain couldn't help but curse. Although it was for only a brief moment, he could tell that if he had gone for even a bit longer, he might have lost his life.

Fear blossomed in his heart when he thought back to the intense pain that nearly plunged him to the bottom of the abyss.

'So I definitely can't treat it like mana. The system, what is the best way to deal with Ki?'

{Replying to host: The host currently doesn't possess the ability to handle such violent energy. The only way the host will be able to use this energy currently is by using a skill or spell that is powerful enough to contain it, and at the same time, is also capable of keeping the host's body and mind intact...}

'A skill, huh...'

{Replying to host: Affirmative...}

'Well, do I have any skills that are capable of doing this?'

{Replying to host: The host currently lacks enough system points to purchase this piece of information...}

Cain rolled his eyes in their sockets, 'Guessed this would happen sooner than later.'

He once again fell into deep thought, 'A skill that can contain violent energy...'

Cain was very intelligent, so it didn't take him too long to figure it out. His pupils shrunk when he came to the realization...

Cain had concluded that if he could describe Ki with words, he would call it physical energy.

This was because it involved intense stress to his body accompanied by borderline torture to increase the strength of his physical body, thereby increasing the rate of Ki plundering.

Not only that, but it also had a very odd similarity to the energy he felt coursing with him when he activated {Golden Blood}. Whenever he activated {Golden Blood}, he would feel a tyrannical energy course through his body that caused him tremendous pain and discomfort.

He would feel the hot energy coursing through his veins, striking his muscles and bones, turning them tougher whenever he activated the ki plundering technique, producing a similar effect to when he activated {Golden Blood}.