God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.

The mana in the air was in turmoil as spells and skills of all kinds were activated and launched at opposing sides.

Despite their best efforts, the team of Cain and the others had only been able to kill ten of the Hulking Behemoths in an hour. Their stamina was running out, and it was only a matter of time before they began to fumble and make mistakes.

Costly mistakes...

The lightning elemental attribute devil leading the devils attacking with spells from a distance began to increase the tempo of its attacks, putting great pressure on Susan and Steve who acted as support, as well as David and Dan, who were the main defense of the team.

Since Cain was being held off and isolated by the {Phantasma} and a few other devils, he was unable to help the others in their fight.

"Attack the one with the shield..."

The majority of the spells came down upon David like hail stones. Very quickly, David began losing his stamina. He couldn't engage in the battle again and was forced to keep his shield up and maintain his spell damage negation barrier.

Blood flower from the sides of his lips like rivers as his face turned pale very quickly.

"I can't keep up with the spells anymore!" David yelled out in a hoarse voice.

"My healing and blessing spells are all on cooldown. This is the best I can do for now." Susan said with a grim expression as she cast another protection spell on David.

David pulled an HP potion from his inventory and swallowed it as his life depended on it as he bore the brunt of the spells.

"Crap!" All of a sudden, Vincent yelled out in dismay.

"What is it?!" Hunter yelled with a growl as he sunk his large claws into the chest of a {Hulking Behemoth} taking out a chunk of it but failing to kill it completely, as a healing spell flew from afar and healed its wounds.

"The big guy is moving!" Vincent let out a squeak as his small eyes widened beyond their limits. He sprayed a few rounds of bullets into the approaching devils, but was only able to cause a few injuries and push them back, but was unsuccessful in killing a single one.

"Tch!" Vincent clicked his tongue in annoyance when he saw this. The {Hulking Behemoths} were not on the same level as the other weaker spawn devils even before they absorbed the power of the deceased devils. They simply couldn't be defeated with simple basic attacks.

"Now that I think about it, how the hell are we going to fight that big guy?! We already have our hands full dealing with these small fries!" Jenny said with a cold face as she charged another shot and fired it at the lightning attribute devil who dodged out of the way with a chuckle.

From the start of the engagement between their party and the {Hulking Behemoths} of the devil army, Jenny had been trying to take him down but since it was too fast, she was unable to lock down and get a solid shot in...

The frustration of having all her efforts laughed at was causing Jenny to lose her cool. She specialized in very long-range magical attacks with her magic rifle. Her attack range was even longer than Vincent's, and the power of her attacks would be able to shave off more than half the life of a {Hulking Behemoth} within that range.

The only downside was that each attack consumed a lot of her mana and mental strength. Her attacks might be lethal, but they still needed to hit to be effective.

The speed at which the lightning attribute devil moved made it so that she was unable to actually hit the devil, causing the back lines of the devil army to be littered with the broken body parts of the devils she had managed to gun down.

Since her main target was jumping at the back lines of the army, she still managed to kill a few of the devils attacking with spells. As her attacks were extremely powerful, a single one of them could severely wound a {Hulking Behemoth} if it hit non-lethal areas like its limbs and torso, and instantly kill if it struck its head or heart.

Dan who was guarding the rear of the group wasn't fairing any better, as although he didn't possess the defensive capabilities of David, he was still dealing with the same amount of pressure.

The devils grew more aggressive as they smashed {Ice Wall} after {Ice Wall}, making their way closer to the rear of the group.

Dan had a defensive skill and a defensive spell...

{Frost Armor} was the skill that granted him the ability to transform into a huge ice giant with decent attack prowess but mostly defensive abilities, while {Ice Wall} manipulated the frost element to produce towering walls of ice that were very effective against physical attacks, but wasn't very good against magic attacks.

Because of this, he wasn't able to fend off the magic attacks like David, but he was able to stall the devils rushing in for close-range combat. However, just like everyone else, after battling for so long, he had reached the bottom of his mana and stamina pool and was practically running on fumes as he downed MP potion after MP potion with great speed.

"If the big guy is moving now, doesn't that mean we are all as good as dead?" Dan said as his face changed colors rapidly from rosy red to sheet white.

"The plan was to make sure we finish these guys off before we face it together. Now, what do we do?"

Their plan initially was simple. Since they knew that they could not face the {Flame Devil} on their lonesome, they opted to finish the entire devil army off first before they faced the {Flame Devil}. They had this confidence because they knew the limitations the devils faced, and the power they currently possessed.

They believed that as long as they fought hard enough, they would be able to defeat the devil army on time.

By now, night had fallen a long time ago, and midnight was fast approaching. The darkness of night was illuminated faintly with the glowing and menacing eyes of both Cain's party and the devil army. Due to their extremely high perception, their eyes gave off some luminescence that lit the surroundings a bit.

However, the greatest amount of illumination in the dreary night came from the devil core and eyes of the gargantuan {Flame Devil}.

Its fiery eyes finally possessed the light of life within them as it began to move its stiff limbs slowly. The sounds of the huge devil created were akin to the rumblings of the hinder from the ninth heaven...

Suddenly, its previously dull red devil core was like a lighthouse in the night as a beam of light stretched out into the distance, illuminating as far as the dark abyss of an ocean that sat in the distance.

The dark maw of the {Flame Devil} that opened up in what seemed to be an eternal scream at the heavens in an outrage finally produced a sound.

Or to be more exact, a war cry...

"ROAR!"

Hearing this, the devils fought with even more frenzy as they pushed and hammered up against the barriers and defenses erected by the party.

"I-I can't h-hold it any m-" Blood gushed out of David's mouth as he collapsed toward the ground in a heap. A powerful {Hulking Behemoth} took this as a chance to land a sinister and devastating blow on David when he was going down.

This Devil was one of the more powerful devils that possessed the axe-shaped forelimb claw. With great force, it brought it onto David's axe-bearing arm.

SHLICK!

CRACK!

The sound of flesh being torn and bone being broken could be heard as David's right hand was completely severed from his body. David, as well as the others watched in disbelief as he fell to the ground, blood spurting out from the stub he once called his hand.

"Grab it!" Susan yelled at the top of her voice as she rushed to grab the falling arm.

One of the more beautiful things about mana, particularly healing-based elemental mana like light, nature, blood, and on rare occasions, water elemental attribute mana, was the ability to reattach severed body parts.

As long as the body part severed was kept completely intact, then healing was possible as long as the entity doing the healing was capable enough.

However, if the limb was damaged in any way...

"Chaotic Rot!" The devil had a sick grin on its face, as it points its hand at David's falling limb. A black aura of death and rot instantly enveloped the limb, causing it to rot down to its very bones in a matter of seconds.

THUD!

The next second, David fell to the ground on his knees, clutching at his handless stump with his shield-bearing hand, rage, and tears streaming across his face.

"Keep fighting! Don't worry about me!" David yelled as he grasped onto his shield again. The blood flowing from his hand already soaked his clothes and was creating a pool of blood below his feet.

"Crimson Healer." David steeled his eyes and cast a spell that completely sealed his fate. The blood flowing from his hand quickly came to a stop, but the wound didn't close up.

"What are you doing?! You... you...!" This time, it was Steve who had his eyes opened in shock and horror. Because of his abilities and understanding of mana, he was able to tell exactly what David had done.

"No use crying now..." David said as he wiped his tears and gripped his shield tighter, keeping it closer to his chest.

"To battle a devil, a truly vile creature, you must be prepared to lose anything and everything..." David murmured to himself as he activated his signature skill again.

"Crimson Dome!"

Cain watched on the side as he and J'orntz duked it out in primal combat. Sparks flew all over as their blades clashed over and over again.

Cain had a gloomy expression on his face as he pressed down harder on his blade. There was a sick smile on J'orntz's face as he let out a spine-crawling chuckle...

"Do you see it? Do you feel it?!" His eyes let out a bright green glow.

"This is what it means... To feel despair!"

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