God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.

Chapter 290: Breaking the Seal (1).

"I agree..." Lyx said, before closing her eyes, allowing silence to reign.

Cain subconsciously let out the breath he had been holding.

The enormous devil lady had agreed...

All that was left, was to begin acting...

'How the hell do even begin? Where the hell do I even start?' Cain thought to himself.

He knew what he wanted to do wasn't going to be easy. There was no way it could be. After all, what he wanted to do was remove something that was placed there by an actual God. If that wasn't the very definition of impossible, then he didn't know what was.

"So that's one part down... Unto the second..." Ashur mumbled to himself.

In Cain's ears, it wasn't really a mumble, so he heard him.

"What do we do now?"

"Eh? What do you mean?" Ashur looked at Cain with amusement.

Cain was a bit flabbergasted, "You know... What do we do now? Surely, you don't plan on having me handle all this by myself, right?"

More than anything, the only thing that gave him true confidence, was the golden dragon floating in the void before him. What better way to contend with a god than with another god, right?

"Ha..." Cain could have sworn he saw the Golden Dragon sigh.

"While I would love to help you out, unfortunately, you'll have to do this one mostly on your own. For now, I can really interact with the world. If the stream of Karma and the strings of fate are tampered with, not even one of the Soulless ones can determine what will happen."

"Soulless ones?" Cain couldn't help but be confused.

"You will learn of them in due time. Well, only if we survive this predicament..." Ashur said with a chuckle.

Cain wanted to throw his head up and laugh at his terrible luck. To think the one person he thought he could rely on would be so undependable.

'Seriously...'

"So what do I do now? There has to be some way you can help me, right?" Cain said after a moment of silence.

Ashur fell silent for a while...

Suddenly, he murmured to himself again, this time, a strange light in his enormous eyes,

"Hmm... I guess that would be of help. However, it is too soon. If he gets it now, then..."

As he couldn't make sense of the murmurs, he simply stared at Ashur blankly,

"An eye..."

"An.. eye?" Cain repeated to make sure he heard him clearly.

"Yes. To be more specific, my eye. My left eye, in particular." Ashur said as he raised a claw to his pale white left eye that exuded a ghostly light.

With how small he was, Cain could see all the fine details of the eye, including the seemingly infinite number of runes and magic circles overlapping and swimming in the depths of the eye.

The white color of the eye was due to the sheer amount of fine runic lines intertwined with one another. To make a good contrast, each line had the width of a string, while Ashur's eye was bigger than a house. Cain was a bit shocked he wasn't scared of the magnificent behemoth of a beast before him.

Cain took a breath to calm his shaken mind,

"What... What should I do with your left eye?"

"I'll be lending it to you for a fraction of a second. Within that time, you'll need to figure it out by yourself. This is the best I can do for you. For us, right now..."

Cain didn't know what to say...

Before he could speak up, Ashur took a deep breath,

"Looks like my time is up. Honestly... So much energy wasted like this..." Slowly, the magnificent dragon began to disperse into millions of golden light motes that drifted into the depths of the void.

Cain's heart fell to his stomach. Now, he would be alone. He was left to figure it out by himself, but he didn't even know where to start...

Then he remembered, "The eye... How do I use it!" He yelled before Ashur disappeared completely.

A small, deep laugh echoed in his ears,

"If you want to see, you must look first..."

Cain was baffled, "What kind of shit explanation is that?!"

He wanted to feel engraved, but he couldn't...

"Shit!" Gritting his teeth, he fumed.

'What do I do now?' Surrounded by nothing but darkness, all he could see was a devil that was larger than the horizon of his world which wasn't a very comforting sight.

'If you want to see, you must look first...'

Cain repeated Ashur's words in his head, trying to make sense of it. He didn't need to worry about the energy that would be needed to break the seal. All he needed to do was find a way to break it.

'If you want to see, look...'

'See, look...'

Cain thought about it some more. Then it finally clicked.

'Intent, huh...' It was all about the intention. He had to try to see if he wanted to see. If his interpretation was correct, then he needed to try to see through Ashur's eyes.

'Hopefully, it is as simple as just looking.'

He took a breath, then slowly closed his eyes.

All around him, there was darkness, so there was really no difference between opening his eyes and keeping them closed, except there was no gigantic she-devil in the distance when they were closed.

'To see, you must look first...'

Cain allowed those words to repeat in his mind until he truly understood...

Then, for some reason, he activated {Eye of Clairvoyance}. This skill allowed him to peer into the truth of all things, albeit on a very small scale.

He could feel his left eye begin to tingle slightly as the skill was activated...

Then his eyes snapped open...

And his mind broke into a million pieces...

***

A mortal trying to look into the mind of a divine being can be compared to a tree trying to survive in a vacuum. Completely and utterly impossible.

Yet, for some strange reason, Cain's fragmented mind held fast. By the time he came to, he realized he was still floating within the dark void.

The only difference now is that Lyx, the great Primordial Devil of Death, was now looking at him strangely...

He tried getting his vision to remain focused but failed tremendously.

"A mortal as weak as you are trying to tap into divine powers has to be one of the most stupid things I have ever seen in all my millennia of existence..."

Despite hearing her words, Cain chose not to answer. Instead, he tried to make sense of the thoughts and images in his mind.

Like the painting of a madman on a pristine canvas, the most complex magic circle he had ever seen lay somewhere in his head.

Calling it a magic circle, was even an understatement. A more accurate description would be an amalgamation of sigils, runes, and smaller magic circles to create a large, complex, and organized, mess...

"Wonderful... So, so wonderful." Cain whispered to himself.

Seemingly intrigued, the Primordial devil watched on as Cain squirmed in his misery.

Once the migraine he got from looking at what he wasn't supposed to quelled a bit, he took another look at the complicated runic image in his mind.

Just looking at it put tremendous strain on his mind, but he had to persevere.

'Sure enough, they are a bit similar...'

The central part of the magic circle, which was the part of the magic circle that contained the most important aspect of it was very similar to the magic circle of {Seal}.

A skill he had created all by himself by studying and manipulating mana flow patterns.

However, it was many times more complex. But the similarity was still there. As such, he was able to remove his focus from every other part of the magic circle and focus on only this part.

'This Seal, in essence, restricts its prisoner completely, for an infinite time by relying on its auxiliary runes and sigils. It can also siphon energy from its prisoner and its environment. This is the energy that keeps the Seal active. Once the energy of the prisoner is finished, then it will be destroyed, potentially killing its prisoner as well. What a terrible and beautifully crafted thing...'

Cain did not doubt in his mind that this magic circle he was going to name the {Almighty Seal}, was the most beautiful and complex thing he had ever seen. And Ashur had said Tian wasn't even the best runemaster in the universe.

His own {Seal} could only last for a single second, while this one could last for as long as its prisoner was still alive.

'This thing is perfect. However...'

Like almost everything in existence, this {Almighty Seal} had a weakness. Cain...

Cain had a set of skills that could not only peer into the foundations of this seemingly impossible skill, but also the knowledge that could decipher a portion of it. And he could interact with it as well.

'The Abhorrent Devil Enchanted Gloves...'

Cain never imagined that the gloves given to him by Og-Solath would be so useful.

'There is simply no way to unravel this thing. However, what we can do, is set up a little trick.' Cain's mind spun and his eyes seemed to be on fire.

He forgot all about his pain and terrible predicament. All he could think of was his objective. He dismantled the rune, trying to figure out a way to initiate the plan in his mind.

Finally, after a very long time...

"Your Grace..."

As there was only one other person he could have been referring to, Lyx, opened her eyes that seemed to be larger than life and looked at him.

Cain took a breath as he blinked his tired eyes. He had no idea how much time had passed, only that a significant amount of it had.

"I... I think I have figured it out."

"Oh..."

Although she was doubtful and had next to no faith in the puny mortal standing befire her, she realized she had nothing to lose. After all, although she was the devil of death, she didn't find one wanton slaughter.

As a creature with dominion over death, she bore the soul of the devils that had passed on, as well as their sins. Hence, unlike most devils, her nature had strayed from the true nature of the devils, as strange as it sounded.

Cain took another breath, "Well... Regardless of how strange it might sound, the only way I see for you to break through the seal is by dying..."