God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.

Stan swam towards the surface for dear life...

Suddenly, he remembered something.

'Fuck! I forgot to check for a mana shard!' Disregarding his gradually decreasing oxygen reserves, Stan rushed to the sinking corpse of the {King Lobster}. Grabbing ahold of its still glittering pincher, Stan began searching its body...

At the center of its chest, lay a bedazzling mana shard. This mana shard gave off a beautiful turquoise color reminiscent of the beautiful ocean before the skies were covered in grey clouds...

The gem gave off a chilling aura, leading Stan to believe it must be a frost or water attribute mana shard...

'Guess I should keep it for now...' Stan said as he quickly placed it into his inventory. Just as he was about to swim back to the surface, he caught a glimpse of something from the corner of his eyes.

Laying in the area connecting the beach to the ocean, was an object that seemed to be giving off a very dull luminescent glow that wasn't noticeable. The only reason Stan was able to notice it was because he was very close to it, and his perception stat was high enough that he would be able to pick up such dim illumination.

It also helped that the ocean around him was darker than hell's pits...

Stan stared at it for a few seconds, weighing his options, before allowing his curiosity to get the better of him. He kicked hard against the water and swam closer to the weird object...

Upon getting closer, Stan was able to properly identify the object he was staring at.

'Coral?' Stan was not surprised to find out that coral was growing on the shoreline. The fact that this coral was giving off a strange glow was what made him so surprised and curious.

Once Stan got close enough, he stared at the coral long enough to pull out its details. Since he didn't know what it was, and whether it possessed poisonous characteristics, he decided to play it safe and check with the system first.

However, before he could even get its information, he received a prompt from the system that left him shocked and confused.

{Notice: The host has come in contact with the remnants of a god. It would do the host well to exercise caution...}

Stan blanked out for a while, as he couldn't quite understand what the system meant.

'I don't understand...'

{Replying to host: The item the host is currently staring at, is the remnant of a god, or in more appropriate terms, an object created from the power a celestial being leaves behind upon its death...}

'By celestial beings, you mean?' Stan suddenly had a strange feeling in his heart.

{Replying to host: "..." }

Stan instantly understood what the system meant...

'Damn! I thought those deities turn into god ash when they die or something?'

{Replying to host: Affirmative... However, within the god ash, lies a few indestructible parts of the essence of the dead deities that can condense into objects, inanimate or not... These objects are referred to as 'Remnants'.}

'Ha... Then what exactly are they used for?'

{Replying to host: The remnants of celestial beings have all sorts of purposes... Some can provide endless vitality, while some are so poisonous, they can wipe out a majority of the world's population. Some can grant incredible power, while some are completely useless}.

'I want to know more about this strange coral...' Stan said as he began to feel his chest beat with curiosity. He didn't know why, but he felt as though fate had brought him to this moment...

{Replying to host: Affirmative...}

A few seconds later, a holographic description was produced by the system above the coral for Stan to see...

***

{Sea God's Remnant}: Vitality Coral

Description: Created from a minuscule amount of the power and essence of the sea god, Levron, condensed into physical form. Possesses the power of vitality, just like the abundant life in an ocean, and can forcibly grant power to those seeking it, but at a cost...

Grants +50 to all physical stats...

Requirements: The creature consuming the {Vitality Coral} should be completely devoid of mana.

Note: Can only be consumed once.

***

Beads of sweat ran down Sue's brows as she fired fireball after fireball into the seemingly endless swarm of {Mutant Sandworms}. Although the sandworms were weak, they made up for their weakness in their endless numbers.

'Tch! I'm running low on mana!' Sue could feel her exhaustion begin to creep in when she realized that her mana pool had already gone down by more than half.

She was also severely drained of stamina, as not only did she have to kill the sandworms without stopping, but she also had to make sure that none of the people were harmed. However, since she lacked any sort of defensive skills or spells, the only thing she could do was multitask keeping the people safe, while she attacked the rabid mutant creatures.

"Sea of Flames!" Sue used her area of effect spell to clear off a large wave of the mutants once again, earning herself a chance to breathe.

"Are you okay, Sue?" Maya, who stood beside her couldn't help but ask with concern.

"I'm fine..." Sue said as she retrieved an MP potion from her inventory and chugged it down.

'Even if I wasn't, you wouldn't be able to do anything about it...' Sue thought to herself bitterly.

Although she tried not to blame them, she couldn't help but wonder if things would be easier if the people around her weren't such burdens.

A brief second later, another {Mutant Sandworm} reared its ugly head out of the sand and charged at Sue with its teeth spinning like fans.

Sue let out a deep sigh of fatigue as she pointed at the creature with a finger. A small {Fireball} appeared from her fingertip and blasted forward. As soon as the attack landed, the creature's body was blasted into bits, sand, and chunks of flesh and blood flying all over the place.

'Although these things are insufferable, they give decent experience. They also drop a good amount of mana shards...'

The only good thing Sue could say came of the experience was the gain in experience points she received with each kill. Even though the {Mutant Sandworms} were weak, and gave less mana than stronger mutant beasts, their numbers made up for it...

Sue was killing thousands of them by the second, which meant that even though they all gave her only 10 exp points, she would still be raking in ten thousand experience points every minute.

She had even managed to level up a few times over the last hour, bringing her level closer and closer to level 40.

She was also raking in a lot of earth attribute mana shards. Just because they were weak didn't mean they couldn't have mana shards. Mana shards depended mainly on the future potential of the creature, and not its current power. Although all the mana shards were the low-ranked grade 9 mana shards, Sue didn't complain, as it was still something...

'If I have to complain, it will be because I can't even use these mana shards at all...' Sue murmured to herself.

Because of the limitations of nature, the number of elemental attributes a human could possess was about one or two on average. For Sue, the only element she had had an interest in so far was the fire element.

This was because of the high attack power and speed it provided to her. At the beginning of the apocalypse, just when they had been struggling to fend off the weakest of devils, the strong attack power of the flame element had come in handy, so she with it, and didn't try to see if she was compatible with any other elements.

Hence, it was only natural for her to believe she couldn't use the Earth attribute mana shards...

"How should I get rid of them? Should I convince that gorilla to get them off my hands and trade them for something better?" Sue thought out loud to herself as she contemplated all the various methods she could use to 'coerce' Stan into an agreement...

Even as she soliloquized, Sue never stopped throwing attacks at the {Mutant Sandworms}.

Suddenly, the seemingly endless attacks stopped. The corpses of thousands upon thousands of sandworms formed small piles all over the beach. Because of their small size, which was reduced even further when they were attacked by Sue's flames, the dead sandworms didn't occupy a lot of space on the beach, so there was still a lot of room for the now less than twenty people and Sue.

"Hm? Is it finally over?" Sue said as she put her sore arms that had been holding onto her staff for a very long time down.

"Are we finally safe?!" The pessimistic old man said in equal parts shock and relief.

"It seems like it..."

"I-I thought we were all going to die like Paul did..."

Even though they had just lost a comrade, they didn't seem to care too much as long as their own lives were no longer in jeopardy.

"Settle down... We don't know for sure if they are all gone." Sue quickly shut them up before walking slowly through the heaps of disgusting corpses to the area where the {Mutant Sandworms} had been burrowing their way out of.

It was a large area of regular-looking sand that didn't seem special at first Upon getting there, Sue realized it truly wasn't special.

'The sandworms have a skill that allows them to burrow through the sand, so they probably stay deeper than the sand level...' Sue reasoned out.

Squatting down to inspect the region of sand, Sue took a good look at every inch of sand surrounding the place. As soon as she did this, her senses instantly alerted her of approaching danger.

As someone who specialized in magic attacks, Sue's physical stats suffered badly. Hence, stats like her strength, agility, and perception were abysmal compared to that of Stan, Cain, or Hunter.

Because of this, she was a bit slow to react to the incoming danger. From the area of sand where the sandworms burrowed, a bigger and plumper-looking mutant sandworm burst through.

Its flesh was the same sandy color as the other sandworm, but it was not only bigger, and faster, it also had more rows of teeth, had black lines running across its back and head region, and had a row of spikey protrusions coming out of its sides and stomach.

***

{Sandworm Queen} level 35(Deadly).

Strength: 200.

Agility: 400.

Defense: 90.

HP: 9,000/9,000.

MP: 3,500/3,500.

Skills: Burrow, Sand Manipulation, Bone Shrapnel, Regeneration lvl 1, Fertility Boost.

***

Sue's face turned as cold as ice when she saw this...

'It waited all this time to ambush me?!' To say she was pissed would be an overstatement...

Not only had she been played by a mutant beast, but Sue was also now put in a life-or-death situation because of her overconfidence.

Provoking someone with a very strong link to the fire element was never a wise thing to do...

Since they were so close, it would only take a fraction of a second for the {Sandworm Queen} to reach Sue and sink its jagged razor-sharp teeth into her face. However, Sue wasn't a doll that would sit and wait for her death.

Instead, she retaliated with full force...

BOOM!

Sue let her flames loose, only this time, they had a black-tainted aura to them...

In less than a second, the terrifying flame consumed the charging {Sandworm Queen} alongside the sand and mutant sandworms around her feet and turned them into glass...

Since the moment was very brief, it went unnoticed by the people looking at her from a distance...

Taking a deep breath, Sue fought to calm her raging emotions and stood up from her squat. However, a system prompt she received made her pause midway...

{Congratulations to host... You have acquired the earth elemental summon skill, Dust Devil}.

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