God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.

Khan sighed, "He isn't sure. It is headed this way, but we can't be sure why."

Cain was confused, "If that's the case then we can just find some place to hide till it passes over. I'm sure it isn't hunting us down."

Khan shook his head, "He said it's moving too fast. There's no other choice, we have to face it."

'Fuck!' Cain would rather not fight here if he had to. This meant Khan's blessing would wear off.

Cain walked to the back of the now stationary group to meet Boulder.

"How certain are you?"

Boulder had a light frown on his usually impassive face,

"I'm not a hundred percent certain. What o do know is that we can't avoid it, it's far too late for that."

Cain sighed, "We can't outrun it?"

Boulder shook its head, "It's moving too fast."

Cain fell silent, his thoughts moving quickly,

"In that face, how does one fight against a {Sand Wraith}?"

Cain had never fought this kinds of creatures before. That was one of the reasons why he was so cautious."

Boulder had a wry smile spread on his face,

"I have no idea."

Cain felt pain in his temple, "You... What do you mean you don't know how?!"

Boulder shrugged as the smile vanished from his face,

"Well, all the times I've gone on this journey, we've never had a face to face encounter with the {Sand Wraiths}. We always look at them from afar. Those who have, didn't survive to tell the tales."

Cain felt the urge to burn everything around him.

"Shit! So we have no information going, huh... How exciting!"

He turned around. Besides himself and the other three, there was a total of about twenty people here. Most of them could hold their own in a fight, but they weren't exceptional warriors.

Cain turned back to face Boulder,

"If that thing is coming over here, then we better give it a surprise."

Boulder raised a brow, "You want to attack first?"

Cain nodded, "Tell your men to help me set the trap up. How many minutes till the bastard gets here?"

"Ten minutes, give or take..."

Cain nodded, "We might be able to do this."

***

A few minutes later and the trap was all set. They had set numerous explosive charges beneath the sand.

'It might be a creature of souls, but it doesn't have a shell. As long as its Jody is still physical, perhaps we can harm it."

This was one of Cain's greatest concerns. He wasn't certain they would be able to harm the {Sand Wraiths} physically.

"Are you sure this is going to work?" Lucia said, her face contorted in an expression of displeasure as she adjusted the sights on her rifle.

Cain sighed, "It has to work. And if it doesn't, we'll just have to face it head on."

Lucia sighed, "Well let's pray for luck then."

Cain didn't believe much in luck, so he decided to seek help out from elsewhere.

{Replying to Host: The {Sand Wraiths} are an anomaly. Wraiths in general are strange as well. They, by definition, aren't Mutant or Aether Creatures. They aren't Devils, and they also aren't Humans as well. They do not fall under any of these classifications. So it is fairly accurate to call them Monsters}.

'How can I fight them?'

{Replying to Host: Wraiths are incorporeal beings, meaning physical and normal magical attacks will have little to no damage on them at all. To harm a creature that is primarily soul, the soul must be used at a direct medium}.

Cain muttered to himself, 'A direct medium, huh... Now what the hell does that mean?'

He was more than a bit confused.

But now, at least he had a bit of an understanding of these creatures.

Just when he thought it was over, he heard the system speak again,

{Replying to Host: It is important to note that these rules apply only to regular Wraiths. As has been mentioned, the {Sand Wraiths} are an anomaly thanks to their connection with the Celestial, Balangol. The rul s that apply to regular Wraiths might not apply to these creatures}.

With this added information, Cain fel lt a wave of tension wash over him. The probability of them coming out well from this situation was getting lower and lower.

He didn't think the creature would be very strong. But what was most dangerous about the creature was their lack of information on the thing. They had no way of knowing what it did and how it did that it because most of its victims never loved to tell the tales.

Cain could only assume the worst...

"Get ready! It's almost here..." Boulder suddenly said.

The world seemed to shift and become a bit darker and colder.

Almost immediately, Cain began hearing voices, voices that didn't belong to anyone he knew.

Some of these voices were whispering, some yelled angrily. Some wailed violently, and others sobbed silently. It was an eerie patchwork of human-like sounds.

And it all came from one place.

Now blessed with the unfortunate luck of having to witness the atrocious monster upfront, Cain came to a horrid realization.

'It is even worse up close!'

The {Sand Wraith} was horror made manifest in a shell of sand.

The sand itself was like an eldritch coat flowing across its form, the tiny particles rising the wind.

Its deep red eyes seemed to contain the fury of a hundred souls. It moved silently, gliding above the sand.

The moment it noticed them, it came to a halt. Before he was even able to feel the first wave of horrendous murderous intent, Cain let it loose, activating all {Dark Eggs} charges beneath the sand at once.

A massive eruption of shockwaves traveled through the earth furiously, followed by a torrent of flames that rose to the sky, stirring up a massive amount of sand and dust.

"Damn..." Boulder stared at the sky with wide eyes.

Everyone else seemed to be thinking the same thing as they stared at the sheer destruction that just happened before them.

They had witnessed the power of Cain's bombs before, but this... This was just insane. The bombs had a resonance effect, so the more that were used a single time, the greater the range and power of the explosion.

Even though it was so powerful, Cain's expression didn't become any better.

This was because the bloodlust he had felt lock onto him hadn't faded away as it should have with the death of the creature. Instead, it had gotten stronger!

"Don't let your guard down! That thing isn't dead yet!" Cain yelled out before drawing his sword.

He narrowed his eyes as he stared through the flames and dust.

His eyes suddenly widened as he dashed forward.

Still, he was unable to react fast enough. A dark shadow shot out of the sweltering flames up ahead, right towards an unsuspecting swordsman of their group.

Before he could react, before he could even tell out, his body had turned into a dried husk and was now almost devoid of life.

As the confusion on his eyes began to be replaced by realization and panic, it was already too late.

He was dead.

No, worse than dead, as his soul wouldn't be released back into the universe.

Cain stared at what was happening with wide eyes. Everyone else stared in in horror, but they were unable to see what he was seeing.

With {Soul Sense} and {Eye of Clairvoyance} activated, he could see that not only was the life drained from the man in seconds, but his soul was also absorbed into the {Sand Wraith}.

Staring right into the abhorrent creature, he finally realized its true nature;

It was a being created from the amalgamation of many souls. By consuming more souls, it would become stronger.

The {Sand Wraith} turned to stare at another human.

"No! Please save me! Someone help!"

But it was already too late.

The {Sand Wraith} stretched forth a withering finger of sand, and a beam of red light shot towards the man who was already running away.

However fast he was, he was unable to outrunnthe beam of light as it burrowed into his chest.

He had barely taken a few steps before he crumbled into dust as well.

Cain gritted his teeth,

'Shit!'

A torrent of arrows fell from the sky and pierced through the body of the creature.

Boulder drew backon his bowstring as he yelled out,

"All of you! Fall back!"

He sent the arrow flying, the arrowhead glowing with an absurd amount of mana. It punctured into the body of the {Sand Wraith} before exploding, sending sand flying everywhere.

But the creature was unfazed. The displaced sand was suddenly suspended in motion.

It was as though the time was reversed as all the sand was sucked back into its chest, reverting it back to normal.

"Damn it!" Boulder cursed. The {Sand Wraith} pointed a finger at him, but he was quick to kove out of the way. Still, he was only able to dodge by a hair's breadth. Had he even been a fraction of a second too late, he would be dead.

Lucia let out a yell as she let a torrent of bullets fly, all of them accurately striking the {Sand Wraith}.

The bullets were incredibly powerful, each one capable of instantly killing a Devil if it struck a vital region. The bullets struck the creature's chest, some even blowing through its head.

However, all that happened was the sand that made its body up flew all through the air before returning to its main body after a while.

The red beam of light was once again shot from its fingers and another of the men running away was struck.

Cain gritted his teeth as he tried activating {Blood Restitution} on the man, but it was futile. All his life force was already gone. There was nothing he could do.

'Damn it!'

Since he couldn'tsave them from dying, the only other thing he could do was buy them some time to make it farther away.

He swung his blade forward and a torrent of Ki came crashing towards the creature. This time, the creature stumbled back a bit as its Jody was cleaved at the shoulder.

However, there didn't seem to be much difference as the displaced sand suspended in the air returned back into its body and the wound was closed up.

'Just what kind of thing is this?!'

The moment he attacked, Cain felt it.

The pull of the world around him. At first, it seems subtle, but he quickly found out that feeling was quite deceptive.

The Vitality Drain of Sandsea was anything but subtle.

He steeled his eyes,

'Still, it will take far more that this to kill me.'

His vitality was incredibly robust. At the rather of drainage, it would take at least a few hours for all his vitality to be depleted.

But just because he would be face for now didn't mean the others would be.

He could already tell that they were beginning to become sluggish.

As such, he did the only thing he could do in this case,

'Blood Restitution.'

He would tie his life to theirs....