God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.

His internal skills were {Divine Essence of Metallurgy}, {Abyssal Dragon Blade Technique}, {Golden Body}, {Burning Spirit}, and now, {Draconic Transfiguration}.

Cain lay on the ground, pondering over these details. He recalled the battle with the {Bog Serpent Wyrm}, thinking about all the things he had done wrong, and how he could have done them better.

'Was there no other way? I truly don't have enough limbs to lose every time I fight a creature like that.' Cain thought to himself as he sat up slowly.

At the same time, he could feel faint vibrations coming from the ground, causing him to raise his brows.

'Since when were my senses so vivid?'

Cain realized he could see the world very vividly even though there was an enormous dust cloud obscuring his vision. Activating {Eye of Clairvoyance} would make things even clearer

'Are these the benefits of the {Draconic Transfiguration?' Cain thought, a little bit surprised and excited.

It was then his stomach growled at him. He hadn't felt this hungry in a long time. The hunger was rapidly transforming from bearable to agonizing.

'D-damn... So hungry...' Cain stood to his feet and shuffled towards the flesh of the recently slain {Bog Serpent Wyrm}. The flesh of aether creatures was saturated with robust nutrients and high amounts of ki.

In his fit of maddening hunger, Cain was about to dig his face into the raw flesh of the aether beast when he noticed something that caught his attention.

Aether beasts possessed two energy cores much like devils. They had aether shards and Nexus of Ki within their bodies that collected the energy within their bodies upon death.

Most aether creatures could form aether shards, but close to none of them could form Nexus of Ki. Ki was a vital energy that all creatures possessed, but in most creatures, it would not be enough to fill their Nexus of Ki upon their death. Hence, the Ki within their body would be dispersed back into their flesh and the Nexus of Ki would disintegrate.

However, this would be the first time Cain would come into contact with a creature that possesses a Nexus of Ki.

Upon the {Bog Serpent Wyrm's} death, the Ki within its body surged violently to its Nexus of Ki. Right now, what Cain's body needed the most wasn't normal food, but potent Ki. The most important energy the {Draconic Transfiguration} ran on, was Ki.

Cain's Ki was accumulated by the {Dragon's Gate Ki Plundering Technique} and reinforced by the {Scales of Antiquity}. By exercising and putting his body through hardship, the Ki within his body was refined over and over again.

And finally, the final piece of the puzzle was found. The {Draconic Transfiguration} skill made use of this energy to transform his body, making it much more powerful and durable. His vitality would become much more potent, and his other stats, which included his agility, strength, and stamina would change as well without being increased by stat points.

However, with this newfound power, his body would need larger reserves of energy if he wanted to be sustained. Regenerating an arm back from nothing would require a tremendous amount of energy.

For him to regain it, he would need to devour the flesh of creatures, or preferably, their Nexus of Ki alongside their flesh as the flesh of any creature that could produce a Nexus of Ki would still contain a robust amount of Ki.

The Nexus of Ki took the shape of a pulsating heart. To Cain's surprise, he realized that it looked exactly like the heart he had found within the {Alabaster Leviathan}. It was delicate to the touch and looked like it would rupture if it was poked too hard. However, Cain knew this wasn't true at all.

It was located within the chest of the creature, just directly below its still heart. Cain shambled over to it using the body of the creature as a crutch. Upon reaching it, he violently tore it away from the creature's corpse and placed it in his mouth, devouring it in a second.

Soon, the bloody object disappeared down his esophagus. A wave of heat spread from his stomach...

***

{The Dragon's Gate Ki Plundering Technique has been activated...}

{+4,000 Ki}.

***

The warmth spread to every inch of his body and the hunger in his subsided.

'T-that was close!' Cain fell to his buttocks and let out a sigh of relief. At the same time, the girls broke through the cloud of dust and spotted him.

"You damned bastard!" Ignis gritted her teeth as she approached him, but there was a subtle hint of relief in her eyes.

Cain stared at her with a grin, "Ha! It was no big dea-"

Cain felt a shiver run down his spine when he saw Susan's ice-cold expression. He turned to Jenny who also had an icy look on her face.

"You did it again, didn't you..." Susan shook her head in disappointment.

Jenny's brows shot up, "It just looks like you want to die with as much fanfare as possible, right?!"

'D-damn! I pissed them off!'

Cain looked at the {Dark Soul} who was standing in the shadow of the gigantic {Bog Serpent Corpse}. The eldritch creature pretended not to know who he was...

'Traitor!'

Cain cleared his throat in embarrassment, "That's not it. I needed to make sure its attention was focused on me and me alone if we wanted even a slim chance of killing it.'

Susan frowned slightly, "That still doesn't justify anything."

Cain could tell from her tone that she was still upset with him. Letting out a sigh, he could only relent.

"Alright, fine. You've made your point, I guess..."

Nodding her head in satisfaction, Susan continued, "From now onwards, till we get to the next floating island, you are not allowed to kill a single aether beast."

'Oi, oi, oi... Isn't that a bit unfair?!' Cain wanted to protest, but when he saw the serious look in the eyes of all three of them, he knew what he needed to do.

"Fine. But I request to have the corpses of the slain monsters."

Ignis looked at him suspiciously, "What do you need them for?"

Cain wanted to keep the {Draconic Transfiguration} skill a secret, so he decided to tell them a half-truth.

Seeing them buy it without a doubt, he felt a little bit relieved and guilty. Cleaning his throat, Cain turned back to face the huge corpse.

"Did you really do this on your own? Amazing!" Jenny said as she stared at the split creature in awe.

Cain simply shook his head, "No... The creature relied on using its vitality or HP to recover from its wounds. By attacking it, although we couldn't kill it, its HP fell fast. That's why it launched a desperate attack. I simply capitalized on the opportunity." Cain said with a shrug.

Jenny nodded with understanding. Turning to face Cain, a hint of suspicion burned in her eyes, but she remained quiet. However, her stare still put him a bit on edge.

'So scary...'

Cain shook his head and spoke with seriousness,

"We need to move fast. Although we are only at the edge of this Island, we have already encountered such a powerful foe. I have a feeling things are only going to get worse from here."

"I agree..." Susan said grimly.

Cain turned to her with a frown, "What's wrong?"

As someone with the ability to use light elemental magic, Susan was able to catch glimpses of future occurrences, despite how vague they were. Not every person attuned to the light element could do this. Only those with exceptionally high light elemental affinity could even see the smallest and most obscure of things.

However, even this was an immense boon. Although she didn't possess the highest offensive power in the group, in terms of utility, she was one of, if not the highest in the group.

"Something tells me fighting the Bog Serpent was the least of our troubles." She said with a worried expression.

Cain furrowed his brows, "Then we best get moving..."

He hesitated for a moment before walking up to the carcass of the {Bog Serpent Wyrm}. The {Hand of Stingè} appeared in his grasp. Two fluid motions later, a huge section of the right side of the beast was separated from the main carcass.

'This will fit. Maybe...'

Cain could sense that there was some Ki within the flesh of this dead beast. Even though he couldn't take the entire thing due to the limitations of his inventory, he wanted to take as much as he could.

He placed his hand on it and yanked out the aether shard within it. By now, Cain had accumulated a decent amount of aether shards. He planned on giving them to Ruby when he returned. He then placed his hand on the block of meat and transferred it to his inventory. Since his inventory mostly contained mana shards, there was still ample space.

Cain was pleased to see that the huge slab of flesh fit, and there was still room for more. He ran to the front part of the creature and began collecting some things he thought would be precious. He used the {Hand of Stingè} to remove the horn on the creature's head and its fangs.

Once he was satisfied, he turned back to the girls who simply stared at him in confusion. A grin spread across his face...

"There's nothing more to do here. Let's get going."

With that, not wanting to answer any questions, Cain spun on his heels and walked away. Staring at one another, the girls shrugged and walked after him. They realized he wanted to hide something and had no intention of prying into it. Yet...

Soon, their silhouettes disappeared, leaving the broken corpse behind...