God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.

If he had to describe her personality with a single word, it would be Shadow. Always there, staring back with complete indifference. However, you have no idea what thoughts his beneath its mind.

After all, it was merely a shadow...

However, Cain knew for a fact she was much more than a shadow. That was why he was a bit surprised to see her still sitting on the ground of the cave. There were embers flowing within the fire pit, indicating that a fire had been burning there not too long ago.

Cain could see two wickedly curved daggers sitting in her hands. Both of them were suffused with a sharp silver glint that seemed as though the slightest bit of effort would enable its wielder to cut that through flesh and bones like butter.

Her signature hoarse voice greeted him immediately,

"Done already?"

Cain shrugged, "Took a bit longer than expected."

Evangeline turned to him with a deadpan expression,

"A whole month... You were gone for a whole month."

Cain couldn't help but become a bit embarrassed,

"Well, I didn't intend for it to take this long. However, it was all for the plan, so-"

"I'll forgive you only if you give me a few mana shards," Evangeline said with an extremely serious expression.

Cain's eyelids twitched as he spoke through gritted teeth,

"I gave you five hundred of them not even a month ago!"

He couldn't even begin to understand how shameless she could get. She had managed to swindle mana shards worth over two million system points from him, and she still had the nerve to ask for more.

Evangeline cleared her throat when she saw Cain was not having it,

"Tch! Stingy..."

Cain wanted to faint. However, she didn't give him the opportunity to as she continued immediately,

"I'm ready." She said, this time, completely serious.

Cain nodded back, his eyes filled with a sharp glint.

"Do you need any more time to prepare?" She asked.

Cain nearly said no, but after thinking about it for a while, he nodded his head,

"Actually, there is something I'd like to test out before we continue," Cain said with a nasty grin.

Then he retrieved one of the {Black Eggs} from his inventory and passed it to Evangeline.

"What is this?" She said curiously.

"For all intents and purposes, it is a bomb..."

Evangeline nearly dropped it when she heard that,

"Seriously?" She said dryly.

Cain shrugged, "That's the plan. Once you flush them into the cavern corridors, I'll blow up every single one of them and turn them into coffins for the little bastards."

Evangeline shook her head, "The {Chaos Trolls} are very strong. Some of them have the ability to shape the earth, so they will have little trouble with your plans."

Cain grinned at her, "While they can control the earth element a little, it is only to a small extent. It might be enough to lift regular loose dirt and ground, it will just do more damage in the situation they find themselves in. After the explosions, the walls will become weak.

Attempting anything with the walls in such conditions and their bad earth manipulation ability will lead to more than a few of them suffocating to death."

Cain had thought about his plan very thoroughly. He had checked the density of the rocks, and how easily the cavernous walls of the mountain would behave should numerous explosives go out simultaneously.

His plan was foolproof. The only unknown variable to consider was the Chief of the settlement of chaos creatures.

Hearing his explanation, Evangeline shrugged,

"As long as it works."

Cain then nodded. However, his face turned into a grimace soon after, as his stomach let out a terrifying rumble.

Evangeline looked at him with laughter in her eyes before pulling a whole roasted beast leg.

"Here..." Cain received the meat without much fanfare and dug in. Although it wasn't hot or fresh from the coals, it was still very filling. Due to his starved state, it didn't matter to him at all. His hunger was already past that point.

Soon, once he was done, he straightened up,

"In theory, these bombs are supposed to work. However, I'd like to test them out."

Evangeline nodded,

"In that case, let's go down."

***

The topography of this particular island was quite normal compared to the others. It was one of the only land masses that wasn't made of barren rocks and caves.

The land marshes were the first part of the island. Then it slowly transitioned into the Garden of Self-Reflection. The valley led from the other side of the forest and straight through the mountains and into the place filled with the boulders where the tree that sealed Lyx was located.

It was very big, one of the biggest in the entire world filled with floating land masses. However, it also contained a lot of secrets. Secrets that had been held there for far too long.

Since it had been a while since Cain launched an ambush against the chaotic creatures, they had grown quite complacent.

They had gone back to their usual routines, although each group was still headed by Two-headed {Chaos Trolls}. Enveloped by the shadows, Cain and Evangeline watched the goblins work together to take a rather large creature down.

Cain stared at them for a while, then looked at the object in his hand.

Evangeline glanced at him, "Are you sure that thing will be any good?"

It was perfectly normal for her to doubt him after all. It would have been strange if she didn't. Cain smiled,

"Only one way to find out..."

The goblins were very weak individually, but as a group, they could bring most giant creatures down. However, nothing could change the fact that they were weaklings.

To Cain, their strength lay primarily in their seriousness and insidiousness. But their primary weakness was their terrible defenses. While their defenses were stronger against magical attacks, they weren't completely immune to it. As such, Cain was about to find out just how strong his bombs were.

As soon as the words came out of his mouth, Cain chucked the {Black Egg} at the group of celebrating Chaos creatures that had just succeeded in bringing another creature down with few casualties...

Clink!

The object fell to the ground with a loud clink as it struck against some stones.

"Hng?"

A few chaos goblins were a bit startled as the black, shiny object appeared out of nowhere. Eventually, other goblins and even the {Chaos Trolls} that were with them moved closer to inspect the object.

Just as one of them was about to pick it up, the runic patterns on its surface lit up.

Then a bright explosion of white light filled the air.

BOOM!

Standing a few meters away, Cain and Evangeline braced themselves as a powerful shockwave pushed against their bodies.

"What the hell?!" Evangeline exclaimed in shock. Even Cain was rendered speechless.

'It is this powerful?' Cain couldn't believe his eyes.

Gone...

All the chaotic creatures that had gathered around the {Black Egg} had turned into a pool of broken flesh and blood. The ground was filled with little craters and scorch marks, but there was no crater.

Cain shook his head, "This doesn't make any sense. They weren't killed by the heat. System..."

{Replying to host: The mana shards within the body of a creature store more than 90% of their total energy. Despite the creature being a Normal grade creature, it is still a lot. A lot of energy compressed into a tiny space and released at once causes a terrible shockwave. The main cause of their deaths wasn't the magical flames produced, but the shock wave that came with it}.

Cain was speechless...

He had known that the mana in grade 9 mana shards had the worst purity. However, that didn't mean they were useless. They still contained a large amount of mana.

And this mana explosion was enough to wipe out a group of more than ten chaos creatures instantly.

Cain was filled with exhilaration. The remaining Chaos creatures, not so much. This was the first time they had ever witnessed something like this. Combined with the jump scare of the explosion, their morale immediately fell apart, and they turned on their heels, screaming for the hills.

Cain and Evanveline exchanged looks before they both summoned different weapons.

Cain summoned {Maelstrom}, while Evangeline summoned a short bow with an eagle's head with its worth open at the nook.

Drawing the bowstrings back, they let out volley after volley of arrows toward the group of escaping goblins. A single {Chaos Troll} had managed to survive the initial blast, but it was still wounded by the shockwaves.

Cain took in a deep breath as another cosmic water arrow materialized itself onto the bowstring.

Evangeline took a deep breath as a wind arrow materialized at the mouth of the eagle and placed itself into the bowstring.

Together, in one breath, they let their arrows fly. Both arrows traced a parabolic path through the air, chasing after the fleeing {Chaos Troll}.

However, the creature was not as fast as the arrows. In sync, the arrows buried themselves into the creature's eyes, robbing it of life in an instant.

The remaining {Chaos Goblins} soon followed. After a while, the only things left standing, were the two humans responsible for the slaughter...