God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.

Cain decided to test the bow out a bit more. Drawing the bowstring again, he set his sights on another creature.

This time, he missed terribly. The creature was startled and scurried off to regroup with the main herd...

Though his aim was not bad, he was far from calling himself a decent marksman. The only training he had ever received was in the form of a crash course from the system, and his deadly duels with the {Lythoran Wyrms} on Prometheus.

Unresigned, he drew the bowstring once again...

He shot arrows at lone aether beasts, trying to pick them off one by one, but most of his shots missed by a long shot. While Cain considered himself a fast learner, archery wasn't something that could be least in just a few hours.

After a while, he stopped...

Jumping down from the roof of the cave, he was suddenly face to face with a sleepy-eyed Jenny.

Despite her groggy expression, Cain had to admit she was one of the better-looking people he had ever encountered in his life. While Susan was also a beauty, she lacked the subtle seductive charm Jenny unconsciously gave off.

'See no evil, think no evil, be no evil...'

Reciting an internal chant to ward off the bad thoughts, Cain approached her,

"Morning... Err, I think." Cain said, not knowing what to say there was no way for them to track time in this strange land.

"Morning..." Jenny said with a small smile. Stretching her lean body, she summoned a small leather jacket from her inventory and put it on to ward off the chill of the wind.

"It's getting cold..."

Her face a little bleak, she turned back to Cain,

"What are we going to do now?"

Cain fell silent for a while,

"Honestly, I have no idea. We have no choice but to keep moving to the center. Maybe we will find some clues on the way." Cain said with a bit of uncertainty.

"But the herds..."

Indeed, the herds of creatures were getting more compact as they moved further inland. The gaps between the individual floating land masses also grew disproportionately. And for some reason, the fragmented land was slowly being enveloped by a dastardly chill that Cain could feel even with hundreds of points in his defense stats.

"I have a way to bypass most of them, but it will take us a while to move past individual herds if we want to avoid confrontation."

"I see..."

Seeing the worried look on her face, Cain felt an urge to convince her that everything was going to be fine.

However, for some reason, he couldn't...

At that moment, Susan walked out of the cave with a sleepy expression on her face.

'Damn! Is this really a time for naps?!'

Cain breathed in a lung full of cold air and puffed out a cloud of white. Frowning, he turned to the girls,

"Let's go inside. It's freezing out here."

***

"I still think we should wait a bit."

Inside the cave, Cain and the two girls were having an argument— discussion, about what to do in their current situation.

On one hand, they could wait for the herds of aether creatures to migrate further from the central area of the fragmented lands. On the other hand, Hunter, and possibly, a bunch of men who had become unwilling participants in a slaughter sacrifice were probably having a noose tied around their necks. If they delayed for too long, those men could probably end up dead.

Cain didn't want something like that to happen...

However, the two girls seemed to have other things in mind...

Staring at Susan and Jenny who both had stubborn expressions on their faces, he felt a headache coming on,

'So exhausting...'

"I'm telling you... With my help, We might be able to sneak past most of the herds unnoticed."

The {Dark Soul} could monitor the situation from afar and report to them so they could make necessary adjustments. Although it wasn't without its flaws, it was still better than sitting still.

"The risks are just too much. If we end up in a fight that we can't handle, what are you going to do?" Susan said with a strict expression on her face.

Cain had a pondering look on his face before he spoke confidently,

"I'll hold them off for as long as I can so you two can run away."

"Idiot!"

Rubbing his head slightly, Cain spoke seriously,

"I am serious though. I'm about 90% sure I can extract myself from any dangerous situation so it's alright."

"But that doesn't mean it's okay. What we need now is a plan that can get us across this place, rescue Hunter, and get back in one piece.

Staring at the two girls for a while, Cain cleared his throat,

"Are you two by chance worried about me?"

Silence...

Then a litany of curses...

"Of course we aren't, idiot! We just don't want to follow you on a suicide mission." Susan said, an angry expression with a hint of embarrassment on her face.

"Ahem... Just so you know, if you die, we most likely will follow soon after. It's just simple self-preservation." Jenny tried to say calmly.

'Ha! They do care after all!'

Shaking his head with a smile, Cain simply shrugged.

"Well, I'm confident in my ability to get us all across this place in one piece. Trust me..."

Cain said the last part with a bit more force to emphasize it.

Trust...

The backbone of every relationship. If they couldn't trust him, and trust his confidence in his abilities, then they shouldn't have come with him in the first place.

Susan suddenly let out a deep sigh,

"So, what's the plan? You can't just expect us to follow you without knowing the plan, right?"

A satisfied smile appeared on his face,

"I'm glad you asked," Cain said with a grin.

Cain pointed to a doodle etched onto the cavernous floor,

"We are here..." Cain pointed to a semi-large representation of a floating rock he had drawn on the ground.

"And this is the hell we have to cross to get over to the center," Cain said, pointing at a long stretch of huge and small landmass.

Cain had learned to separate the floating land masses into different tiers,

First off were the tiny land masses. They could really only be used for crossing over to the larger ones and were few and far in between, so were mostly irrelevant.

The second were the small ones. These were larger than the tiny land masses and played a very important role as they allowed the different species of aether creatures to move from one large island to another.

The next tier of islands was the medium-sized ones. Cain and the two girls were currently on a medium-sized landmass, and while they were not used much by the herds of aether beasts, he figured they would serve as important rest stations as they most likely wouldn't contain several creatures.

They probably would only need to fight a single creature like what had happened with the {Vile Centipede}.

Hopefully...

The medium-sized landmasses were also used by the creatures of the fragmented land to ferry across larger islands.

The next tier of floating land masses was the large ones. These were where the loose herds of aether creatures grouped together and either rested or hunted on.

Each island could take a little more than a thousand aether beasts of varying strengths from time to time, so stepping onto them would be nothing short of suicide.

The last group of these strange land masses was the super-large ones or Islands as Cain liked to call them.

While he didn't know too much about them, all he knew was that they were the closest to the center of the fragmented land, and they were very strange. They were the landmasses he had seen with their unique biomes as he was falling through the sky and into the aether.

While he didn't know much about them, he did know one thing...

These Islands were the homes of the creatures and their origins. However, whenever he stared at them, a deep bone-chilling fear would always sprout in his heart.

He didn't know what for, or why, but he knew that going onto those Islands wouldn't be as simple as just dying...

'They probably have some elder abomination resting there. Wouldn't want to go disturb his peaceful slumber now would we?'

Shaking his head, Cain laid the plan out,

"The herds are usually led by an aether creature that is usually the strongest there. Once we kill that one, the others lose their cohesiveness and become disorganized. We use this opportunity to either kill them all or slip past them unnoticed. Although I doubt we will be doing the former often."

"But what if the leader is too strong to be taken out with a single hit?" Jenny said with a frown.

"We either fight, or we run... We run as fast as we can." Cain said seriously, then shrugged,

"Although I don't think we will need to do that often.

"Oh? And why is that?" Susan asked curiously.

Cain turned to stare at Jenny with a wide grin,

"Because we have her..."

Jenny blinked a few times, "Me?"

Cain nodded, "A fully charged shot from you will be enough to blow the brains of most creatures here out. I guarantee that..."

Still a bit doubtful, Jennt shook her head,

"What if there is a creature that won't fall? What if you are wrong?"

Cain simply shook his head with a grim look,

"Let's just hope I'm not..."

The girls turned to face each other with different expressions. Then they let out a sigh simultaneously,

'He's crazy!'

'He is insane!'

As if he could read their thoughts, the grin on Cain's face became deeper...

'Ah... Feel good to finally have something to do. I think... Actually, it doesn't... I'm not sure... Probably?'

With that, the plan was set. They were about to brave the strange foreign hills of a strange world.

Unaware of the untold horrors that awaited them...