God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.

Chapter 99: One Cut to kill...

The {Heavy Armor} didn't provide Cain a simple addition to his stats, as it wasn't as simple as that.

The {Heavy Armor}, just like its name, was just that.

Heavy...

The force behind an attack is the product acceleration of the individual or object, and the mass of said object. Attack power was the metric the system used to calculate this product.

Strength, combined with agility, combined with control would give rise to the difficult-to-calibrate metric called Attack power. The {Heavy Armor} simply boosted the value of this by a few times, making it very powerful and effective.

Its major drawback, however, was its immense weight, which greatly reduced its user's speed and agility. It also put more strain on the user, causing increased consumption of stamina.

Primarily consisting of three pieces, a shoulder and arm piece, a leg piece, and a chest piece, it was as close to innovation as Cain had ever gotten in his entire life...

Using the power of {Metal Manipulation}, he was able to create this crude but a useful construct that would help him crush the devil standing before him.

"Golden Blood." Without activating {Golden Blood}, Cain would be unable to take a single step in the {Heavy Armor}. The total weight of the armor equaled a whole ton. Physically, it would be impossible for Cain to bear the load, but Cain had skills that would turn the supposed cons of the armor into sharp edges...

With {Golden Blood} activated, his total strength points added up to 670 points.

'System, add 30 free attribute points into strength stat.'

Cain rarely used his free attribute points, but due to the situation, it was necessary. He was confident in his ability to kill all the devils here with enough time, but time was something he greatly lacked.

He had to make sure he was as fast as possible when killing the swarm devils so they wouldn't be able to send their magic signals out upon their deaths.

The only way he could do that was by killing all of them in a single strike.

{Replying to host: Request Affirmed...}

Cain felt a brief rush flow through him, indicating to him that his request had been granted.

Adding 30 points to his base strength boosted it up to 365, which in turn, would bring his stats under the influence of {Golden Blood} to 730 points. Although this was a lot, it still was a bit difficult for him to move comfortably in the armor. However, he didn't want comfort...

Even though he lacked sufficient strength, he made up for it in one area. Skills and spells...

Skills and spells involved the use of magic to maximize damage, be it physical or not. Over the last five days, since the beginning of the apocalypse, Cain had acquired a vast reserve of skills that he could conveniently call upon in cases like this.

The {Hulking Behemoth}, Gadon didn't just watch as Cain made his preparations. It also began making its preparations to attack.

Letting out a hoarse yell, it activated its skills...

Devils, just like humans and mutant beasts, could attain the powers of elemental control and use them for their purpose. Gaton was a devil with a metal attribute mana shard within its body, giving it the ability to control metal attribute mana to a certain degree.

All elements had the areas they enhanced respectively. The metal element was a balance between attack and defense, the fire and lightning elements were pure attack elements, while elements like wind enhanced movement and attack speed.

What made Gadon a fearsome foe, were the skills he held...

"Titanium Body."

Layers of golden-colored magic circles appeared above the devil's inky black skin. They rolled around until they came into contact with the flesh of the devil. A metallic sheen instantly came over the surface of the devil's skin.

"Body Strengthening: Second Form." The already huge muscles of the devil bulged up once again. The tight muscles pushed again its metal flesh, creating a body filled with destructively explosive power.

Gaton was without a doubt a very strong devil, however, its scariest aspect was in its combat skills. The skill, {Blade Mastery} was very scary for a devil to possess. Since devils were an intelligent race, nothing was stopping them from knowing how to use weapons.

A majority of devils used weapons, which was where the concept of using the devil energy within the devil cores to create weapons customized for users of the system began.

Gaton as a spawn devil, being able to use a weapon showed that it had a very high chance of evolving into a true devil someday.

The devils were a race engineered for the sole purpose of combat, so it was only natural that a devil that would be considered fodder was a very strong opponent to Cain.

The already huge mutant had grown even bigger thanks to the activation of its skills. Its powerful aura washed over Cain like a torrential downpour.

In its cold devilish voice, it spoke, "Prepare for death." It was obvious that the devil was very confident in its power.

However, at this point, Cain could care less...

A soft blue flame ignited...

These flames spread to every corner of his body until he was completely covered.

***

{Azure Burst}: Rapidly burn out internal mana in a single burst to produce enough heat and energy to burn the surrounding mana. These flames greatly increase the attack and movement speed of the host by 300%. Attack damage increases by 50%. Critical rate and damage increased by 10%.

Costs 500MP to activate and the skill lasts only for 10 seconds.

Cooldown: 10 minutes.

***

The mixture of the golden hue from {Golden Blood} and the blue hue from {Azure Burst} created an odd but beautiful contrast of death.

"Hm?" Gadon let out an exclamation of surprise as it could feel the previously dangerous aura of Cain spike into levels the like of which it hadn't experienced before...

At the moment man and devil clashed, sparks flew...

Cain slashed out with his blade in quick succession, activating {Lightning Edge} as he did so, boosting his attack speed, but Gadon the {Hulking Behemoth} was prepared. With finesse and skill, it swung its heavy blade horizontally at the charging Cain.

Seeing this, Cain tilted to the side with his blade held vertically, its tip pointed at the grey sky. In doing so, he managed to dodge the attack and parry the blade.

Getting closer to Gadon, he struck out with the edge of his sword.

"Mana Blade."

A soft brilliance enveloped the edges of his blade the instant it was swung.

BANG!

The huge {Hulking Behemoth} was struck a bit backward, although it managed to stop itself right before falling over.

'What strength!' Gadon marveled at the force behind Cain's blade. Not only did Cain have over 800 points of strength when {Golden Blood} was in use, the combined effects of {Mana Blade} and the weight of the blade made a normal strike from him carry enough power to push the devil back.

A cruel smirk appeared on Cain's face as he spoke to the devil standing before him, "If this is all you are capable of, then I believe this fight is over."

Cain had been under the impression that the {Hulking Behemoth} would be a problem for him. What he failed to acknowledge, was how strong he had gotten, and how no ordinary devil could match him.

BANG!

A soft bang sound was created...

One moment, Cain was standing still, the next moment, he had disappeared from Gadon's sight...

'Wha-?!' The yellow eyes of the devil shone in disbelief as it stared at the spot where Cain had been standing.

Cain's feet came into contact with the ground once more. He swung his blade in an arc, flicking the remnant devil blood off of it.

Gadon turned around just in time to see the headless bodies of the devils that had been with him fall extremely slowly toward the ground.

"It seems it is high time I put you down."

Cain's only response to the arrogant creature was a calm look and a disdainful tone.

A golden brilliance erupted from his blade as he got into his stance.

His master had taught him, that the art of killing wasn't complex...

The slash or stab of a blade was more than enough. Nothing too complicated, nor too superficial. He had followed his master's instructions to the tee.

Nothing complicated...

Just a straightforward strike backed up with enough power to split mountains open.

***

{Golden Severance}: Condense an immense amount of metal attribute elemental mana into a concentrated beam of sword light, capable of splitting anything it comes in contact with only for a single attack, and increases attack power by 500%. The attack consumes 500MP upon usage.

Cooldown: 5 minutes.

***

BANG!

Cain struck out with the {Devil's Broken Claw}...

Regardless of how much defense, power, or skills the devil standing before he had, at this moment, under his absolute strength, it had been sliced apart...

The {Golden Severance} skill highlighted the very height of element utilization. It brought the attack potential of the metal element out to its fullest, creating a skill powerful enough to slice through the metal exterior of the {Hulking Behemoth}, Gadon.

Meanwhile, {Azure Burst} was his trump card in his situation. Under the influence of the skill, his movement and attack speeds were increased by 300%. His damage was also increased by 50%, making the skill very frightening when combined with the effects of {Golden Blood}.

What this led to, was Cain killing all the devils, as well as Gadon in a split second...

"Seal."

With that, Cain was able to stop the magic signals released upon their deaths to be spread...

***

{Congratulations to the host... You have killed Hulking Behemoth, Gadon...}

{You have killed ×9 {Devil Fighters}...}

{+20,000exp}

{+5,000exp}

{Level up!}

{+20 to Strength stat}.

{+20 to Agility stat}.

***

Split equally down the middle...

Gadon was very strong, but Cain was stronger. A white stream of steam escaped from Cain's mouth and body as the heat from his extremely fast movements was forcibly expelled.

"The {Sentinel Drones} are down," Jenny said as she appeared from nowhere directly opposite Cain.

"Good..." Cain said in a cold voice as he sheathed his blade as gazed down at the perfectly cut devil corpse laying on the ground before him.

Jenny had an odd expression on her face as she fought the urge to say something to Cain, but decided against it. However, her mind was in complete turmoil...

'What the hell was that?! Is this guy even human?! What the hell was with that speed?!' To say she was in utter shock was a huge understatement.

Meanwhile, Cain took a knee and looked over his spoils...