God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.

The interior of the cove was dark and damp.

The efflorescent glow from the rocks, or whatever they were on the roof of the cove still remained, and the stifling darkness was as terrifying as ever.

Steve walked up to Cain, his eyes twinkling in amazement,

"Incredible. To think that an entire ecosystem would change this much..."

Cain nodded in agreement,

"It is indeed incredible. A change like this would have taken hundreds of thousands of years, perhaps even millions to happen. But because of mana's influence..."

Steve grinned, "It is a beautiful, bug terrifying reality. Truly makes me wonder what we might encounter in here."

Cain's calm expression turned bitter,

'You just had to say it, didn't you...'

As they followed the path made by the stream of water that snaked through the cove, the path on both sides of the stream became wider.

The black rock beneath their feet also began to change into munch more softer terrain.

Cain frowned, not sure if it was soil or not.

With no hesitation, he released the dark diver into the darkness.

With that, his field of vision further expanded.

Cain paused for a moment, then turned to Steve,

"There's a steep drop a few meters ahead."

Steve raised a brow, "Well, that is quite odd."

Ignis frowned and stared in ahead,

"The cove leads underground?"

Cain shrugged, "That, I am not quite sure of. We'll have to go further ahead to see."

He turned to Floki, then gave him a nod.

Silently complying, Floki moved to tej front of the ground, bearing his tower shield with his left arm before him. Any attacks from the front would certainly fail.to.go through.

Cain suddenly spoke,

"By the way, what other creatures besides the {Blood Skyrays) do you think are down there?"

Steve was silent for a moment, then answered,

"The existence of the Skyrays already tell us that whatever beings that can possibly be in here are a mix of terrestrials and aquatic, or maybe a blend of both into a grotesque abomination like the Skyrays themselves, so we can at least three solid options."

Cain nodded.

He thought so as well.

Lukas who had been listening to their conversation added in a lax tone,

"And if they are powerful enough to inhabit a place overrun by the Skyrays, they are possibly just as strong, or perhaps even stronger than the Skyrays themselves."

Cain frowned. While.tjeir individual strength wasn't much of a big deal to him, Cain believed what made the Beasts so dangerous was the terrifying toxin they could produce.

He imagined that most beasts subjected to the toxin would not be able to last a few minutes before their were turned into bloody mud cakes.

However, if there was a whole new biome down here, with other beasts that could cohabitate with the {Blood Skyrays}, then it was only natural to assume that they would be just as horrifying as the Skyrays.

Very quickly, they reached the edge of the drop Cain had seen.

Both paths on each side of the stream led down here, and Cain could hear the sound of the water hitting the bedrock,. meaning the drop was not too far down.

He glanced back at the others, then took a deep breath and jumped. Your journey continues on empire

As he let gravity do its thing, Cain kept his eyes open.

Despite that, he was unable to see a dark shadow flying towards him at a horrendous speed. Instead, it was the dark diver that picked it up, a split second before any of his other senses could react.

Stifling a curse, he only had time to summon his gauntlets. Punching at the shadow, sparks scattered through the air and fragments of the broken material spread around his falling body.

Before he could properly orient himself, more of the shadows, which he had not identified to be dark spikes, flew at him like bullets.

Because most of his weapons needed some type of energy, be it Ki, or mana, or even Demon Matter, to function, he couldn't really use them for much besides their passive abilities, and obviously, for battle.

However, any skill attached to the weapon or equipment that called for him to actively use energy was a no go.

So he was limited in the actions he could take here...

'Dodging is impossible. I can only take them.'

And so, that's as what he did. He folded his body and let the dark spikes strike him.

They struck his armor, creating sparks and loud noises. However, none managd to pierce through. He grinned.

He had complete faith in his armor after all.

This continued for a while, before he felt the ground approaching. The moment his feet hit the ground, he dropped his body into a roll and got into a combat stance.

He didn't have to look around as the {Dark Soul}, already one with the darkness at this point, had given him its sight.

Cain frowned.

Yells came from above as the others also came dropping down after him.

Cain was silent for a moment, the called out,

"Are you guys alright?"

Steve's voice came from within the darkness,

"In one piece, hopefully. However, I can only speak for myself."

Cain breathed out the air that had been in his lungs. Then he called out again,

"Susan, give us some light."

The darkness in this place was truly abnormal. Even with his godly perception, he still couldn't see even a meter in front of him.

The only way he could see further than that, was by linking his senses to the dark diver.

A sound of affirmation came from the darkness, and a moment later, a spark was ignited in the darkness.

From there, the spark grew into a splendid radiance that pushed the darkness away.

However, for some reason the light couldn't push the darkness too far away.

Cain could finally see the others. Lukas frowned then raised his sword. A blinding glow shot out of it, mixing into the radiance emanating from Susan's staff. However, that only seemed to blister the light's presence a bit. It didn't seem to do much at all.

However, it was better than nothing.

Cain did a quick headcount.

Relieved to see that no one was missing,Cain sighed and turned to face Steve.

"That was a close one. Do you know what those things that attacked us were?"

Silence...

Cain watched as Steve's expression turned into that of confusion,

"Attacked? What do you mean? When were we attacked?"

Cain raised a brow, "Don't screw with me. The black spikes... Do you know where they came from?"

This time, Lukas glared at him,

"What the hell are you talking about? What black spikes?"

Ignis walked over, concern in her face,

"Hey, are you okay?"

Cain suddenly felt cold...

This definitely was one of the most terrifying thing he had ever experienced.

For some reason, this situation felt scarier than facing a Celestial Deity.

His face paled, "But... I am sure of what happened. Was i the only one attacked? But that should be impossible. I was literally just a second ahead of you all. Then..."

He looked around.

Everyone seemed surprised, curious, confused, or worried.

He filled his lungs with air and quickly emptied them to calm himself down.

Then he asked,

"What the hell is going on?"