God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.

Enveloped by the Eternal Sunfire, Cain felt a sense of calm wash over him.

Despite having just lost an arm, he felt like he could do anything.

Raw power flowed through him.

Flowed through his soul, giving him strength and vigor.

Not only that, but his perception had been heightened as well.

And maybe it was because of that, but he was finally able to make out the identity of his attacker.

The thing he saw...

Was definitely no Mutant Beast.

Nor was it an Aether Beast, or a Devil for that matter.

It was otherworldly.

It was both beautiful and appalling to look at.

Truly, it was not from his world.

To say it resembled any creature he knew of would not be very accurate, but if he was to pick, it would be a bird and a lizard. Or rather, an eerie fusion of the two.

The creature has three heads, each one acltta he'd to longs necks that were atta he'd to an even bigger body. All together, from its crown to its tail, it was about the size of a small island.

It hovered just a few meters away from him, gently flapped its wings, producing absolutely no change in airflow despite that.

Each head of the beast was covered in a crown of horns, and its piercing blue eyes were deadly. Staring into them filled him with a chill that he couldn't shake off no matter what.

So he increased the intensity of the flames, fighting off the furious cold.

The body of the creature was covered in icy scales.

In the soft light that flowed down from the artificial heavens, they glowed softly, like a thousand jewels arranged in beautiful spirals.

This beast, was by no means ordinary.

Cain could feel it from the soft frigid breaths seeping out of its slightly ajar maws.

***

{Frost Sylph} Level 250. (Godly,Tier 2).

Strength: 300,000.

Agility: 700,000.

Defense: 25,000.

HP: 5,000,000/5,000,000.

MP: 3,000,000/,000,000.

Skills: Astral Blood, Soul Frost Manipulation, Soul State, Blizzard, Slash Resistance, Frost Resistance, Chaos Tempest Blitz, Winter Damnation, Regeneration Lvl. 4.

***

'It is resistant to cutting attacks and frost attacks. Not only does it possess ice related abilities, its stats are unreasonable.'

Cain smiled wryly.

All the strength, vigor and confidence he had gained ran away as fast as they could so they wouldn't die with him.

'I wonder what will happen if my soul is destroyed. It obviously can't be anything good.'

This creature was a rather terrifying opponent to him. His preferred method of battle was with a sword. Staring at the glimmering scales, Cain knew breaking through them would be more than a hassle.

'So swords won't work.'

And since the ice element was a paraelemental that belonged to the category of the water element, it was a decent counter to flame based abilities, spells, and skills.

Not only that, but this creature also had some form of ice related ability that could be used to attack the souls of others as well as defend its own soul, much like the eternal Sunflame. However, he had no idea how powerful this ability of its was.

All in all, all these things made this creature rather terrifying. But beyond all that, what truly blade this thing s nightmare, were its stats.

A true monstrosity, this thing was.

From above, Melech watched calmly, an annoyed expression on his face,

"How can a human be so stubborn? I've never someone as strong-headed. Although teaching him a lesson would be satisfying, I can't help but feel like pulling back a bit."

He paused. Then grinned,

"But then I can't help but be curious."

The eyes of the old Devil narrowed dangerously,

"Cain, show me. Do you have the ability to back up your ego? Show me why the goddess has chosen you."

The {Frost Sylph} stretched its long necks, its body towering and imposing.

It looked down at the much smaller creature before it, its icy eyes devoid of emotion.

It was a natural born killer. A beast of predation. Since it had just awoken from a deep slumber, it was rather hungry.

A {Frost Sylph} is primarily an Astral creature, although it can take on a physical form. Hence, for sustenance and growth, they required food like any other creature, but more specifically, food in the form of the souls of others creatures.

'So my arm was just a snack. Judging by how it's looking at me, it can't wait to have the full course.'

Cain sucked in a deep breath.

'Since I can't use swords against this thing, I'll have to make use of another weapon.'

He opened up the {Armament Armory}.

In there was a weapon he didn't make use of quite often.

***

{Angel of Fallen Grief, Gihenai}:

Attack Power: 500.

Attack Speed: 5.4.

Durability: 5,000/5,000.

Skills: Hellflame of Grief, Unparallel sharpness, Light as a feather, Soul Devourer.

{Hellflame of Grief}: Born from the tears of a god whose grief was so great, his soul refused reincarnation was Hellflame, a fire that scourges all things living.

{Unparallel Sharpness}: The feathers plucked from the wings of a divine being are sharp enough to cut through the world.

{Light as a Feather}: As light as a feather.

{Soul Devourer}: Grief forever consumes the souls of all things living. This blade grows stronger the more souls it vanquishes.

***

Because of the nature of the weapon, he didn't make use of it quite often. This was because when dealing with much larger creatures it was best to use a large weapon that could deal significant injuries or weapons or magic that could deal damage from afar.

The {Angel of Fallen Grief, Gihenai} however, were a pair of gauntlets. This meant they required he be up and personal with his opponent.

Most of the time they were effective in dealing with opponents of the same size of smaller. Unfortunately for him, most of the things he battled were huge terrifying monstrosities.

Even the beast before him was an enormous eldritch monstrosity.

But he had no choice, as these were the only weapons he had that could give him an edge.

For two reasons;

The first one being that gauntlets dealt bludgeoning and concussive damage. This meant the {Frost Sylph's} icy scales would not be able to protect it from the damage from weapons like hammers, maces, and gauntlets.

The second reason was the attached skills, {Hellflame of Grief} and {Soul Devoured}.

Cain stared down at the gauntlets. They were truly beautiful pieces. Forged from the feathers of a divine being, they were infused with celestial power.

Hellflame burst forth from the gauntlets, their sickly glare somehow blinding.

Cain looked at his left arm, or rather, the absence of a left arm.

With a thought, threads of golden metal began weaving together, each one infused with an insane amount of mana. They entwined themselves together until they formed an arm.

An arm of metal.

The metal arm attached itself to the stump left behind. Flexing the artificial fingers, Cain gave an approving node before placing the gauntlet into the prosthetic.

Then he put the other gauntlet on as well.

All this time, the {Frost Sylph} waited patiently, simply staring down at him, calmly flapping its wings.

Staring up at it, Cain didn't know which pair of eyes to stare into, so he single chose the center one.

"You have my gratitude for waiting. Now then, what do you say about resuming our battle?"

He wasn't going to run or evade this thing.

Sure, its stats were unreasonable and unfair.

Sure, it could launch soul attacks at him.

Of course, it was an enormous beast, with a physique that would shatter his.

But he wasn't going to run. Because of he did, he would be gouged out from behind.

He activated all the skills, spells and abilities he could.

Some significantly spiked his stats and the state of his physique, some increased his perception and sensitivity to energy changes.

But most importantly, he activated {Devil Wyrm: Asura}, his trump card, and a skill he tried his best not to make use of as often as possible.

Not only did the changes to his body and soul increase the more he used this skill, but he could even lose himself entirely if he wasn't cautious.

Cain felt the horns on his head grow out. His body changed.

It became malformed, but in a glorious way.

He ascended above the mundane.

His frame because larger and his gauntlets adjusted to fit.

His spine elongated as a long tail sprouted out from behind him. His arms grew longer and more muscular, and his hair grew even longer than before.

His claws sharpened.

His fangs sharpened.

With all the augmentations, Cain could feel the power surging within him about to burst out.

He needed an outlet immediately.

He growled ferociously, staring into the eyes of the titanic beast before him, the thought of backing down never even crossing his mind.

Right now, all he wanted to do was to cause destruction.

To tear the world apart with his bare hands.

A stream of frigid air escaped from the nostrils of the {Frost Sylph}.

Then the maws of all three heads widened.

Ripples spread, disrupting the waves down below from the clashing sound waves as both creatures, man and beast, sent out roars filled with boiling rage and an insidiously cold desire to kill.

The {Frost Sylph} charged forward, the air around it freezing and shattering into millions of frozen speckles as its speed increased.

Cain did the same, a trail of golden flames forming a glowing tail behind him, the trail growing brighter as his speed increased as well.

In a moment, they both clashed...