God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.

Chapter 438: Heretical Hideout.

"Let's start by revealing everything we know..."

They were all tired, exhausted, and drained of all energy.

Vincent cursed, "Here I am expecting to be forced to fight some vile monstrosity. Somehow, we end up in this shit hole."

Hunter stared back at Cain and revealed what he knew,

"When the trial began, we were already inside the prison walls. The guards already seemed to know our location as they began pouring out from everywhere. We tried running. We even managed to hide out for some time. However, we didn't know we were sitting inside of the frying pan."

Hunter's face was dark as he recounted the story. According to him, they had been baited into a part of the dungeon that was hard to escape from. There, they were ambushed. However, they didn't know Hunter and the others would possess something as destructive as the {Black Eggs}.

"If not for him... We all wouldn't be here." Hunter said with a sigh, his eyes filled with heavy darkness.

Cain could only guess how he felt.

"So early into this thing and we have already lost five percent of our fighting force. This isn't good." Blaze said, rubbing his temples.

Cain brooded for a while, "Did you manage to get any information? Anything at all?"

Hunter went silent for a few seconds before his eyes lit up,

"Yeah. I think I know where your pet- I mean, Ruby is... Locating the rest should be more difficult."

Cain was flabbergasted, "Where?"

Hunter scratched behind his now fluffy ears,

"Well, although I'm not a hundred percent sure, I still think it's here. While we were in hiding, I heard that another group of Heretics was captured on the south side of the city. They were being aided by a priestess from the Church of Light. There was another group on the east side that was captured as well. They were being aided by a priestess from the Church of the Blood Moon.

They said the group on the east side managed to smuggle a huge Devil Beast into the capital city, which is likely grounds for treason."

Cain's mind spun as he began to remember what he had heard from the two guards who were on patrol.

'Hmm... The Priestess of Light and the Priestess of the Blood Moon... Why do those two sound auspiciously familiar?' Cain couldn't help but let out a chuckle filled with mirth.

"What have you managed to learn so far?" Vincent asked him carefully.

Cain began spilling everything he knew about their situation. He also added a few hypotheses he had made himself.

Blaze raised a brow, a look of unbelief on his face,

"So you are saying we've all been forced to fill in the roles of people that do exist, and those people were in fact, heretics?"

Cain nodded, "How else do we explain the circumstances we all found ourselves in? What would a group of normal civilians be doing inside prison walls? Why would a regular civilian be attacked in broad daylight? This could only have played out this way if they were already chasing in the first place."

Floki who was now recovered chimed in,

"I think Cain is right. That's the only way we can explain the circumstances behind our attempted capture. It also explains why we were allowed to escape the first time. They don't plan on killing us, well, not all of us at least."

Everyone crammed in the small basement couldn't help but fall silent.

"In any case, we can't proceed forward without a plan. We need more information." Cain said as he stood up.

"Where to?" Blaze asked.

"To go investigate. Don't worry. If I want to sneak around, there are very few people that can notice me." Cain said confidently.

Hunter frowned, "Are you sure you want to go alone?"

Cain smiled, "Don't worry about me. You lot should be worried about yourselves. This place isn't the best place to hide out, you know..."

Hunter fell silent for a few seconds before coming up with a suggestion,

"In that case, how about we find somewhere safer to regroup? Take Little White with you so we can communicate with each other." Hunter said as he summoned a giant white wolf into the already cramped basement.

"Damn it, Hunter! There's nothing little about this thing." Vincent cursed silently as he fell onto his stomach.

Hunter ignored him and continued, "Once we've found another place, you'll be able to know through Little White."

"This..." Cain stared at the large creature with a strained smile. How the hell was he supposed to be sneaky with such a giant beast? It was almost as tall as Floki even when standing on all fours.

Hunter waved his hand, and the giant wolf with snow-white fur and curious eyes shrunk down until it was just palm-sized.

"Here."

Now that the living walkie-talkie was pocket-sized, Cain didn't have to worry too much.

There was not much else left to be said, so Cain didn't waste any time. He knew for a fact that the entire City must be after them. He had recovered some mana, but it wasn't going to be enough to sustain {Emblem of Darkness} for as long as he wanted.

There was also the spell's duration to be worried about. He needed a disguise. However, he wasn't good with that sort of magic.

Since they were in the civilian district, that meant that the commercial district was either in the same place or not too far away.

Under the shadow of the {Emblem of Darkness}, no eyes would be able to see him. Slipping through the crowds was no problem as well. All he had to do was limit the effective radius of the spell to just a few feet or so around him and avoid especially dense crowds.

If anyone saw him, they would see a small wolf pup with white fur hanging from his shoulder, looking around with sparkling black eyes.

'Such a strange creature.' Cain had very limited knowledge when it came to summons, so he had no information whatsoever on this creature or its origins. Then only made it more peculiar. He scratched its head, making it wag its tail in delight.

Walking through the crowd he focused on listening to as many people as possible. He quickly began to understand the general situation of what was going on.

Apparently, this kingdom was a constant victim of Devil Hordes. The Devil Hordes had existed for thousands upon thousands of years. Their true origins were shrouded in a lot of misinformation and lore.

However, one thing that was common in all the gossip and stories he heard, was how the Devil Hordes arrived in their world in the first place.

According to the locals, a portion of a broken star had fallen onto their world, bringing the plague of the Devils along with it.

'Very similar to how they appeared on Urbus.'

All that was what he had found just by listening in to a few random conversations. Usually, people wouldn't be too focused on engaging in talk about the Devil Hordes. However, now that an invasion could happen at any moment, all mouths were talking about it.

He also got to learn what the name of this kingdom was, and who was its ruler.

'The Silver King, Archius Melendio the First... What an interesting name.'

A King of such a large kingdom would obviously leave smaller matters to his subordinates, and the leader of said subordinates was a person named Lord Crimson.

Passing through the main market, Cain sneakily 'borrowed' a few articles of loose clothing and draped them over his armor. A hooded cloak, A pair of commoner trousers, and a plain white shirt.

Now, if you threw a stone, you could hit seven people dressed exactly like him. It was a good disguise. However, would it be enough?

Right now, he had to worry about other things. He had to rescue the others. They also had to figure out how to complete the trial.

The most important thing of all, however, was to find something to eat. Fast...

He was feeling extremely weak. After the fight with the three Guard Commanders, he had expended a huge amount of Ki and stamina.

With the way his body was changing, the best way for him to recover was to eat nutrient, Ki-dense meat. But where was he supposed to find that?

Luckily for him, he was in a market. Various sorts of traders came here to sell their wares which included Devil Beast meat. Devil Beasts were beasts that had arrived almost at the same time as the Devils, earning that moniker for themselves.

It was said that they were incredibly violent, and a single one had enough power to tear ten guards to ribbons.

As Cain walked through the market, he was filled with both awe and dread,

'That... That is meat from a Tier 1 Beast!' the succulent vitality coming from the meat was enough to make him start drooling.

This made him suspicious. There were characters in this Kingdom capable of hunting Tier 1 beasts, and then offering them to be sold as wares.

His back was suddenly filled with a cold sweat. This was not good news.

'Damn this...' This couldn't be good news no matter how he wanted to paint it.

Eventually, he sighed. He could deal with that later. For now, he had to find a way to eat.

Unfortunately for him, he had no money. And since he had just deactivated {Emblem of Darkness}, he couldn't take the low road and steal what he wanted.

"Damn it!" He cursed his own stupidity.

"Young man..."

Suddenly a voice called out to him from behind.