God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.

Chapter 332: Herald.

"Vault, Open..." Ashur's words shook the foundations of reality.

The {Elemental Vault} was opened...

These beings about to face off were formerly two of the most powerful creatures in the universe during their times. Now, both had been reduced to the weakest they could ever be.

One was a devil of origin, a being as old as the universe itself. However, it had been sealed by a tyrant for eons and had lost most of its power.

The fate of the other being was not much better. Once titled the strongest of warriors in the heavens, he was slain by the same tyrant. Forced to give up on his old glory, he decided to take alternative means to enact his own justice, even if it meant abandoning all he was.

Despite being creatures that had fallen from grace, their power was still grand enough to tear reality apart.

'Sorry, kid. I'll be using your body for a while. This isn't an opponent you can face.'

"Golden Body."

The streams of golden flames enveloped Cain's body even more. However, there was no horrid change this time. Instead, the pale golden flames that usually consumed him from the inside out during the activation of the spell behaved rather tame. They circulated, painting him with a glorious color, making him appear like the very personification of war.

The first falling at him contained enough power to split a mountain open like an egg. Despite this, Ashur stretched an arm out...

BOOM!

The humongous fist slammed down onto the smaller one. Both fists remained unmoving...

"Tch!"

"Tch!"

Ashur leaped up like a golden flash, the large {Scale of the Abyssal Flame} appearing in his hands. Unlike Cain, Ashur moved like the embodiment of a warrior. His body was as solid as a wall, yet his movements were as fluid as water.

Dodging out of the way of the second attack, he began chanting a spell...

Og-solath sneered, "Fool!"

One thing about most spells is that unless they had a very short casting time, they were hard to use in battle, especially in a heated melee. However, as long as the timing was right, they would become absolutely devastating.

Og-solath and Ashur were in the midst of a heated melee battle. There was no way activating a spell during the battle was a good idea.

However, this was subject to change...

For one, Og-solath had failed to land a successful hit on Ashur even though he was chanting. He was like a slippery eel, always evading the earth-crushing strikes by a hair's breadth.

Meanwhile, his blade was constantly moving, chasing after Og-solath like an angered viper.

'Who is this Celestial? Is he one of the younger ones? What domain does he rule over?' Og-solath's mood kept getting worse and worse when he realized this as well.

"Sacred Purgatory of Haunting Souls..."

If his experience in dealing with characters like this had taught him anything, it was that he needed to pin him down. Besides, Og-solath was not a brawler, neither was he someone who fought fair. Instead, his power was in his vast pool of magic spells, skills, and abilities...

"Earth Shift..."

The ground became like mud around the large devil's feet. Controlling it, Og-solath's body picked up a wind that displaced a few branches and leaves.

All this time, the numerous pale arms were now after Ashur. Without moving from the spot, Ashur took an odd stance. Rather it being a defensive one, it was an offensive one.

Instead of running away from the large net of grotesque arms, he ran towards it, not an ounce of fear in his eyes.

His blade turned into a blue as he skillfully cut all of them down. His blade was not only fast, but it was also unpredictable. Even as he continued his chant, he pressed forward.

Og-solath on the other hand was also casting a spell. Now that Ashur was busy, he could finally land the killer blow. He would rather not kill Cain, as extracting information from a deceased soul was way harder than a living one. It also required more energy. However, he couldn't care at this point.

To him, Cain had to die here. It was something that was non-negotiable...

A seemingly boundless ocean of Devil Essence flooded the forest. This spell was a killer spell. The wind blowing became even more frigid than it usually was.

It was also at this time that Ashur was done with his chanting.

The Vault had remained open, but no drastic changes had been made, which was very different from every other instance.

At this moment, there was a change. The air suddenly became hotter. The waves of hot and cold air clashed violently.

A huge, red star appeared above Ashur's head all of a sudden. The red star spun slowly, its size increasing and decreasing rather rapidly.

"Vampiric Star..." Ashur's cold voice announced.

Og-solath sneered, "You want to kill me with fire?!"

Ashur remained silent. Then he chanted another spell,

"Flame of Darkness."

Pointing his two arms forward, Ashur grasped at nothing. To fill the nothing, the red star shining traveled to his hands and he grasped it. The moment the red star moved, its color began to change. It was a gradual change, as the red hue vanished and was replaced with a crippling darkness.

The heat began to swell until it reached unbearable levels. The leaves on the trees were immediately ignited. The white arms that wanted to tear him apart were turned to dust.

The new black star in the space between his two palms rotated with more speed.

Og-solath watched this. But his only concern was picking the most terrible way to treat Cain's corpse after the fact. Still, his focus remained unwavering.

'He is guarded against soul attacks.'

Stretching his right arm forward, he glared at Cain. Since Ashur's soul was very strong, it was also hard for all these low-level spells to work as efficiently. The soul of a mortal and the soul of a celestial, regardless of how weak he had become, were very different topics.

As such, he was forced to make a magical attack. Although they were not as useful as his soul spells, his elemental spells were objectively more powerful than them.

What he needed to do was deal maximum damage...

Ashur had called every single drop of the energy within the flame pool out of the vault.

Og-solath called upon all the Devil Essence he had gathered. The black light and heat of the Dark star, and the billowing fog of darkness clashed against one another.

Ashur chanted the name of a spell once again,

"Imploding Star."

Og-solath did so as well,

"Devil-bound Corrosion!"

Both spells clashed, and the world was enveloped in a series of bright flashes. Darkness eventually fell, the dark light tearing through the darkness and consuming it.

The destruction was absolute...

Although the seal that bound Og-solath to the forest was strong, it still rippled slightly when the heat and shockwaves of the explosion met it.

{Imploding Star} was a spell that was created when the energy within a {Flame Orb} was made to reach unstable levels, making it extremely volatile. The resulting explosion, or rather, the implosion of the {Flame Orb} was so powerful, that it disturbed the space around.

When {Flame of Darkness} was activated, it boosted the already terrifying destructive capabilities exponentially by imbibing the {Vampiric Star} with the darkness element.

However, the {Devil-bound Corrosion} was a spell that was just as destructive. It amplified the destructive and corrosive characteristics of Devil Essence to the maximum. It also made use of the poison and darkness elements to boost its effectiveness. This spell, despite being low-tiered, could be seen as a pinnacle spell in terms of execution, output, and effectiveness.

When these spells clashed, it was only natural to assume that the world around them would collapse.

The Garden of Self-Reflection was not very big, about thirty kilometers in diameter. The blast radius of the two spells colliding surpassed five kilometers, and a crater of about four kilometers was created.

Black flames licked the scorched earth and an indescribable stench filled the air. All the trees within this area were completely vaporized. A few places in the crater had black glass that was a result of the sand in the forest being heated to super-high temperatures.

Within the crater, Ashur stood, his body covered in burn marks. The vestiges of a metallic structure were melting away, revealing even more injuries on his body.

All orifices were leaking with blood as he let out a sigh,

"Ha... How exhausting..."

A few meters away, the large figure of Og-solath could no longer be seen. Instead, in his place was the burnt-up figure of what looked like Cain, the only difference being this Cain was more severely injured and was not healing.

Black flames licked at his wounds, making all attempts at healing and restoration useless.

Og-solath stood onto his feet. Both of his eyes had melted away, but he still stared directly at Ashur,

"The Sorcerer's Flame... This mortal can conjure the sorcerer's flame?"

Ashur shrugged, then winced,

"He might be a mortal, but he is a herald..."

"A herald?" Og-solath repeated.

"Yes. A herald to the downfall of the Celestials and Devils. You arrogant pricks have ruled this universe in tyranny and fear for too long. I might have failed, but he won't. I will make sure of it."

Hearing this, Og-solath burst out laughing...

"Hahaha! That might be true, but you are missing something..."

Ashur's eyes narrowed...

Regardless, Og-solath continued,

"I can feel it. Your soul does not exist in this plane. You aren't supposed to be hear. The longer you stay here, the greater the problem this mortal will have to face."

Raising his hands that had been reduced to carbonized bones, Og-solath yelled at the top of his lungs with madness on his endless face,

"And once you are forced to leave, I'll simply kill the boy! Regardless of how much you harm me, I cannot die! At the end of it all, I am still the victor! Hahaha!"

Ashur fell silent, a grim expression on his face. He knew that what Og-solath said was true. His being here was putting Cain's soul at a tremendous risk,

'Should I use it?' Ashur pondered seriously.

Just as he was forced to make a drastic decision, he heard a voice,

"You should be ashamed of yourself, old fool..."