God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.

Munching down on it, his thoughts swam,

'Although mutant creature meat is of good quality, it's quite flavorless without any seasonings. It has a smoky taste thanks to the roasting, but aside from that, there's really nothing to it.'

Swallowing down a mouthful of cold meat, Cain pulled a canteen of water out. Taking it to his lips, he let the cold nectar flow down his throat.

'Although nature is cruel, it is also beautiful. Mankind's advancement has been one fraught with difficulties, and chief amongst those difficulties, is providing flavor to food.'

Thinking about it, Cain was even more certain,

'That forest... Contains what I need.'

Although he had never thought of himself as much of a gardener, Cain was quite captured by the idea.

'Yet another reason I need to connect these places together.'

While it would be incredibly difficult with the dampening effect of the dome barrier, it wasn't impossible.

He just had to make a few necessary adjustments.

'Still, a bit of salt would go a long way.'

Getting salt wouldn't be as difficult as getting other spices. He could just have Pudding dig him some from under the ground. Refining it wouldn't take too much with the help of magic as well.

'Why didn't I think of this sooner?'

Once he had felt his hunger subside, Cain stood up from the bed.

With his stomach full, it was time to exercise and burn some energy.

The best way to do that, was using the Magic Square. This device made use of magic to increase the weight acting in his body his body and the mass of any object within its area of influence.

Meaning both his mass and the weigh in his were increased, leading to an exponentially increase in the pressure acting on his core.

This kind of strain was perfect for him to exercise, as doing it normally wouldn't be any good. He was just too strong.

Setting things up, Cain became worried,

'Can the floors handle something like this?'

Usually, the concert ground he was standing on would have caved in, not to talk of the wooden panels he was standing on.

Putting the magic square back into his inventory, Cain chanted under his breath. The space around his shook and warped, and in a split second, he was gone, leaving nothing by a few displaced dust particles behind.

***

The place Cain had jumped to, was a rather secluded area. It was somewhat far away from where the humans had made their base. This was because there were very few buildings in this place.

With the expansion of the world, the entire cityscape had changed as well.

In some areas, many buildings were packed together, with some of them smashing against each other. I'm other areas, there were large stretches of bare land, with only cracked pavement and road, revealing the hard rock and sand beneath.

The humans tended to congregate around places that already had shelter.

Despite this, a generous amount of buildings were intact, so there was space for many to rest their heads. However, this only applied to those that were useful. The normal humans were still at the bottom of the barrel.

They barely had enough to eat, and the few buildings they had access to were already occupied. Most of then resorted to sleeping on the roadside even.

While they could sleep in these buildings located far away from the others, it was too dangerous.

The dome was created specifically to keep Devils out. Mutant Creatures were wild beasts, but they weren't Devils. As such, should a stray, mutant beast, say a {Blister Rat}, a very low grade, low leveled Mutant Creature, manage to escape the detection of the {Sentinel Drones} flying around the dome, it could make one of those buildings its nest.

An uninformed human might settle into it to rest their head for the night. Unbeknownst to them, that would be their final night, as the {Blister Rats} would consume all; hair, bones, cartilage, everything...

And these weren't the only sort of small critters that could sneak through the barrier. While most big mutants in the were dead, the smaller ones found many ways to thrive.

The reason the soldiers in the city, and the 'Hunters' didn't bother cleaning up the ones that had managed to sneak in, is mainly because of tow things.

One, they barely gave any exp, so there was no incentive to clean them up. Two, their flesh, for the most part, was inedible. The {Blister Rats} for example, had terrifying blister-lile growth covering their flesh.

No human in its right mind would eat something like that.

The good thing, was that smaller Mutant Creatures like these tended to avoid large gathering of humans, so as long as they stayed with the herd, for the most part, they were safe.

Staring at a huge, abandoned building, Cain realized he couldn't make out what it had been. It was tilted slightly to the side, and most of its outer features had been eroded by sand and time.

It was wider than most other buildings, but it was on the shorter side, only three stories tall.

Shaking his head, Cain walked into it.

Darkness enveloped him as he walked through the damaged front door.

It was silent, and a musty, stale smell permeated through the air; one of the telltale signs of abandonment.

'I can see them...'

One of the ways the smaller mutant creatures had gotten by, was through rapid reproduction.

If only one, or two of them could survive, even if the colony was wiped out, it would be resurrected only after a bit of time.

Cain frowned, 'Damned rats!'

The entire building was infested with them. Just a single look with {Eye of Clairvoyance} and he could already see them scuttling about.

The {Blister Rats} didn't have much going on, besides their sharp fangs and claws, they only had an inherent poison that caused terrible blisters to fester on the body of their prey until it was killed from the shear agony. This was another reason the regular humans avoided empty houses such as this like the plague.

With a sigh, Cain walked in...

Most Mutant Creatures had a bit of intelligence, these large rodents included. Mana had a mystical property of enhancing the intelligence of a creature. Normal rats were already incredibly smart, and could tell that a human was a big threat.

However...

Although mana boosted the intelligence of a beast, there were two thing it increased more than that.

One was the creature's bloodlust, the other was its ego. With the development of self, comws an ego.

These creatures, that once considered themselves prey, and could only scuttle away and hide in the dark corners began to nurse the idea of fighting back, especially if the target seemed alone and weak.

Cain made sure to dampen his presence, so the nasty creatures had no way of knowing his could blow the entire place up to smithereens if he wanted.

And so, like every Hunter, the rats waited patiently, until he was settled in...

'This place is not bad. As long as I clear it out and move most of the furniture away, I can use it. Well, most of the furniture has been eaten already, so there's not much to move...'

Whilst he was deep in his thoughts, the most hungry of the beasts began to move.

Their rabid, red eyes glowed in the darkness as they locked in on their prey, enticed by the sweet aroma of the human 's flesh.

And finally, when they couldn't wait anymore, they exploded in not action. At the same time, Cain acted as well.

Without moving from the spot, he waved his hand. Dozens of golden darts appeared in the air. They floated, kept away from the ground by some mystical force.

'Hmm... Slightly smaller than a house cat's kitten, most hide and bones, not much meat at all. No wonder no one wants to hunt them.'

Rats, for a long part of human history, were associated with disease and death. Abhorrent vermin that spread pestilence, destroyed produce, and were also very annoying to get rid of.

Even now, after the fall of human society, they still were the same. Nothing much had changed. Nothing but disease carrying vermin.

'Hopefully, at least a few of them might contain some mana shards...'

***

A few minutes later...

Cain sighed as he threw the last two corpses onto the pile.

"Not even a single one?!"

Of the over hundred rats he had just killed, not even a single one of them contained a mana shard.

Setting the pile ablaze would attract too much attention, but leaving it out here untouched would cause it to decompose. The awful smell would be noticed immediately.

'Burying them all would also take too long. Hmm...'

Cain suddenly thought of something.

He activated {Blood Restitution}. All the blood within the mound of corpses was siphoned away, leaving nothing but dried out bones, hide, and flesh.

Cain nodded in satisfaction, 'That ought to do it.'

The blood he had gathered using {Blood Restitution} was not a vibrant red. instead, it had a darker tint to it.

'Refining it will take some time.'

With a wave of his hand, he scattered the mind of dried corpses, burying them lightly in the sand. This way, no one would notice them.

Since these were the ones on the ground floor only, there were more on the upper floor and the basement floor. Meaning his work wasn't over yet.