God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.

"Kill you? Why would I want to do that? Save you then kill you? I'm not so wasteful of resources..." Azazel said with a roll of his eyes.

His eyes narrowed into slits as he stared at Cain...

"Quite the contrary, I want you to live for a long, long time..."

Starting at the creature before him, Cain could feel all his danger senses going off all at once.

All his energy sources had been completely blocked off, so he wasn't able to activate his skills. However, what he sensed was instinctual.

It was the same sort of feeling a small rabbit would feel when a wolf stared it down. Cain could feel that he was trapped in a corner with this wolf, with no escape routes and no hope of escape.

His claws were not sharp enough to pierce the creature that was floating slightly above the ground. Especially with how bad his current state was.

"So what do you want from me?" Ignoring the faint pain all over his body, Cain focused on the new pain coming from his legs.

Due to the irresistible force, Azazel had pressed down on him, his knees had been completely shattered, meaning he would be unable to walk.

To put it in more simple terms, he was beyond damned...

"I saved you so you can help me with a few things for a while. Although performing experiments on these lesser Wyrms is a lot of fun, they lack higher forms of intelligence. Luckily, I was able to come across you."

Cain stared at the being that called itself Azazel with horror. He finally understood the creature's intentions...

"I've met millions of humans in my life, but only a few of them can compare to how interesting you are. To think I'd find you so casually, what good luck! Hehe..."

For a creature to be so beautiful, yet frightening at the same time made Cain feel the urge to throw up. Shaking his head a bit, Cain could only stare at Azazel helplessly.

As a rabbit, he couldn't fight against this wolf. There was also nowhere to run or hide.

"Alright then... If I'm going down, might as well go down with a bang." Cain struggled to his feet. Blood dripped down his shaky knees and tears formed in his eyes as he fought the pain.

The {Sea Demon} bow appeared in his hands again. Like a serpent, his hands snapped back as he pulled the bowstring with all his might.

"Arghhh!" His eyes boiled with rage as he stared at the demon, Azazel. It wanted to reduce him to the lowest of the lowest. A lab rat...

His hands turned into springs that flew back and forth, letting arrows fly like bullets. In his mind, this was his final attempt, his last effort, his last burst of fuel toward life.

"Oi, oi, oi... What are you doing?"

SNAP!

Cain stared down at his {Sea Demon} bow with wide eyes. His once majestic bow had suddenly reduced been reduced to splinters. His wrists and fingers had also been broken. Standing a few centimeters before him, their noses nearly touching, was the self-proclaimed demon, Azazel.

Since the being was closer, he was able to get a closer look at its features. It had two regular eyes, as well as three smaller eyes on its cheeks and forehead. Its eyes were different from human eyes, as he didn't possess an iris. His eyes were just filled with thousands upon thousands of magic circles floating and bumping into one another.

"Little Mortal, let's begin shall, we? My curiosity has reached its peak, and I don't think I can endure it anymore. There are so many things I want to show you. So many things we can discover about your body and soul, together..."

With those words, Cain immediately saw black...

***

Waking up to the most intense pain he had felt in his life, Cain found himself strapped to a wooden structure. Eyes snapping open, he scanned his environment, partially disregarding the pain.

'It's attached to the ground.' The large wooden structure stood embedded into the ground without any other support. He could tell he was no longer in the same cavern he had been in where he had first met Azazel.

Speaking of the devil, Cain saw a figure standing before him with a faint smile. This person wore a bright smile, yet he was able to tell it was his captor, although there were a few minor differences. For one, he was no longer dressed in dirty blacksmith attire, nor was he in his demonic form.

Instead, he was now dressed in a set of clothing resembling that of a medical practitioner, equipped with gloves, a strange facemask, everything...

"You like the outfit?" Azazel said with a smile.

"Yeah... Suits you." Cain said. Tugging at his constraints, he was able to discern that he had close to no hopes of escaping them.

"Right? It's so comfortable too. Made from the silk of a Trajin Deep-Sea Demon, and the wool of a Silverback Evil Bear from the Holy Realms." Azazel said with excitement burning in his eyes.

Despite his horrible intentions, Azazel was so casual, one would think he was having a conversation with a friend about the weather...

"What do you want from me?"Cain said calmly.

Azazel fell silent for a while with a finger in his chin...

'Regardless of how powerful this being is, it seems like it is very unstable mentally.' Cain deducted reasonably.

His eyes continued to scan his surroundings even as he made small talk with the supposed demon. The cavern he was in was different from where he had been captured. The smithing furnace was gone, replaced with many pieces of equipment and appliances that made no sense to Cain. There were also many books around, signifying to him that he was most likely in some sort of laboratory or research room.

And from what he could deduce, he was the research subject...

"I'm going to research you. I noticed something when I first found you."

"Oh, yeah? What's that?" Cain asked suspiciously.

"You, you have the aura of an ancient Celestial being. You, a mere mortal human, actually have the aura of a Celestial being. Hahaha!"

Ba-dump!

Cain's heart skipped a beat...

He felt his heart pounding against his ribcage in that instant. He knew he couldn't play the bluffing card.

"Yeah, so? What about it? On my home planet, there are many god remnants. It isn't unnatural for me to have the aura of a celestial." Cain said with a burning glare.

"Listen, Human. The aura you give off is incredibly pure. So pure, most higher beings would be able to sense you as soon as you step into their plane." The demon explained.

'Crap! It is the Dragon's Gate Ki Plundering Technique!' Cain realized that this would cause a lot of disaster for him in the future if he didn't do something about it.

"I sensed you the moment you stepped into my world. At first, it was weak, but the closer you got, the more I was able to sense it better. You should thank the heavens, boy. If not for the wards I set up to hide this world, you would have invited the wrath of the hell realms upon your head.

Trust me, you don't want to come across any of the creatures that call this realm home." Azazel said with a peculiar look on his face.

"Alright, enough words! Let's get to the fun part." Azazel said suddenly.

His fingers suddenly began to form strange hand signs. Closing all his eyes, his mouth began to speak in a strange language Cain couldn't even begin to comprehend,

"Alae nigrae meae aetheris vires et magicae excitant. Vermina lucis et tenebrae, In sanguinem penetrant, Et edunt ad corruptionem Meam diffundendam. Angelus Aura Cecidit..."

A soft light swam through the air and into his body from a magic circle that appeared right above his head.

At first, he didn't feel anything, but after a while, he could feel the light particles eating into his flesh and bones. What started as a slightly uncomfortable feeling quickly turned into a terrible searing pain.

He could feel the tiny motes of light swimming in his blood and entering all his orifices. No part of his body was safe from this torture. This level of torture was a new one for him.

As such, he let out a yell of pain and anguish,

"Stop! Make it stop!" Blood leaked out of his wide eye sockets as he started at Azazel with fear.

"No..." A small grin played at the corners of Azazel's lips as he watched Cain struggle and beg for help.

'Damn! He wants to kill me...' Cain could feel the intentions of the demon before him.

"I don't want to kill you," Azazel said to Cain, who had blood seeping from his skin and ears as well. His eyes were bloodshot and he was barely able to make out what the demon was saying.

"I want to break your mind... What I'm after are the secrets of your body. Your feeble human mind is of no interest to me." The wicked smile on Azazel's face grew wider with each passing second.

"Screw you!" Cain yelled out in anger and rage.

'If I don't do something, I'll be turned into a vegetable!' Cain could feel his mind slipping away from his grasp. If he couldn't hold on any longer, his soul would be done for, scattered into a billion pieces.

His mind was suddenly filled with images...

Images of the last few weeks. His mind went back to the first day of the apocalypse. He had encountered devils, and mutant beasts, and fought those beings together with those he could call his comrades...

His comrades...

For some reason, the moment the thought of those he had fought with raced through his mind, he felt time slow down...

'What am I doing? If I die here, what will they think? They are probably waiting for me, but here I am, giving this bastard the time of day.'

A rage he couldn't quite explain filled his body...

He wasn't just angry at Azazel now. He was angry at himself...

He had let himself fall, and now, he was about to meet his end.

'I am not strong enough, not fast enough, not good enough!' He accepted the truth...

But chose to fight against it!

"Like hell I'm going to go down without a fight! Break for Me!"

With a resounding roar, Cain called upon the power that lay dormant in his body.

'Hm?' Azazel, who had a smile on his face suddenly raised a brow in surprise. That expression quickly turned into shock the next moment.

Within his body, three distinct streams of energy lay dormant like three lakes that would never mix. The thick and viscous devil essence, the searing and dangerous Ki, and the volatile and bubbly mana.

These lakes of energy seemed to answer a primordial call the moment Cain's roar escaped his lungs. It was like time had begun to move again...

The lakes slowly began to flow into his body side by side...

They clashed against the streams of foreign energy that are at his body like maggots, flushing them away.

"Golden Body!"

BANG!

His body ignited with the red flames of his fury as he stared at Azazel with hatred in his molten eyes.

At this moment, all he wanted to do, was to vent his hatred and rage. His hands were bound, so he couldn't hold his weapons, but that didn't mean he couldn't attack.

For the first time, he poured a hundred percent of all his powers into a single attack. There was no thought behind it, only endless torrents of rage and a mad thirst for blood.

He instinctively poured it all into the most destructive spell in his inventory,

"Art of Fire: IMPLODING STAR!!!"

The surrounding space was instantly crushed as he launched the attack.

Light immediately disappeared from their surroundings. The ball was like a miniature celestial body as it careened toward the demon Azazel.

"Propugnaculum Veterum!"

A small hexagon immediately appeared before the demon, holding the ball of destructive energies together.

"This is incredible. Not even at the first tier, yet so strong." Azazel had stars in his eyes as more magical hexagons appeared in the blink of an eye and held the spinning ball in place. Just a second later, the ball of energy imploded upon itself. However, because of Azazel's spell, it did absolutely no damage to the room, not to talk of the demon.

Seeing the results of his last-ditch attack, Cain let a satisfied smile rest on his face as he awaited his final moments.

"Human..."

Lifting his face to stare at the demon who had a wide smile on his face, Cain was surprised by his next words.

"Would you like to learn magic?"