God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.

"What if the remnant is with the Ant Queen? What do you plan on doing then?"

Traveling through Evangeline’s {Shadow World} was always a new experience.

The first time, it had felt like he was standing in a realm of endless shadows.

This time on the other hand, from what his eyes could see, or rather, what his senses could make out, it was more like they were traveling through a river of darkness and swirling shadows.

The shadows themselves seemed to have some sort of physical presence about them in this strange realm.

Cain shrugged, "I don’t think it will be."

Evangeline raised a brow, "You don’t think so?"

Cain nodded, "Instinct."

Evangeline pursed her lips, but said nothing else.

In reality, it wasn’t all instinct.

He glanced down at his hands.

It was strange, but after having come into direct contact with divinity so many times, it was as though he had developed a metaphysical nose for it.

It was difficult to explain, but he was fairly certain he would be able to find this remnant of the Mother Goddess.

And if it did end up being with Anathe, which he didn’t think it would be, he would simply have to wrestle it off her.

Cain hesitated for a moment. Then he turned to Evangeline,

"I believe the remnant we are looking for can’t be on the Ant Queen for multiple reasons."

Evangeline blinked curiously,

"Do tell."

Cain’s brows furrowed,

"The first one should be the size."

Evangeline raised a brow,

"Size?"

Cain nodded, "With Balangol, the size of the remnants was in fact directed proportional to the content of divinity it could hold. The same was true for the Blood Moon and the Blood Moon Goddess."

Evangeline hummed, "So you are saying the size of the remnant plays a huge role in how much divinity is concentrated within it?"

Cain paused then nodded before shaking his head,

"It should be a bit more nuanced than that, but basically, yeah."

Evangeline raised a brow, "In that case, wouldn’t she be able to simply place it in a spatial ring?"

Cain nodded, "That brings me to my second point; items that contain relatively large amounts of Divinity make the space around them very unstable."

A light suddenly lit up in her eyes,

"That’s the reason for the creation of the Rifts."

Cain nodded, "It is also the reason why they can’t be kept in spatial storage devices."

"I see. Then..." Evangeline muttered.

"It should be somewhere in this place."

Cain looked up. Even then, all he could see was endless darkness.

It reminded him of the bowels of Eternity.

He shivered slightly, then turned to Evangeline,

"What we need to do is get to it before Anathe does. Luckily, we have the advantage of speed. I believe I can locate it fairly quickly if we get close enough."

Evangeline hummed as she let her fingers dance with the shadows.

An enormous arm of shadows suddenly appeared beneath them. Cain’s eyes widened in shock while Evangeline seemed absolutely unbothered as she sat on the arm. Once she got comfortable, she turned to Cain who was still more than a little put off by the whole ordeal.

"I already have a mental layout of the entire Colony."

Cain raised a brow, "You do?"

Because of his current lack of his magical utility abilities, he was unable to map out the terrain himself.

’It’s a good thing she decided to come along then.’

"The Colony is divided into two main sections— the Aboveground Spires and the Underground Burrows."

She snapped her fingers.

Cain watched, to his absolute amazement as the layers of shadows around them peeled away and swirled around to create complex shapes and structures.

Very quickly, he could tell what the shadows were creating.

’A miniature model of the Redscale Colony?’

Evangeline’s expression turned serious,

"The Underground Burrows are enormous and endlessly winding. They contain for the most part, the general population of this strange alliance of Mutant Creatures. The Spires on the other hand, house more complex and complicated details. Some of them are storage facilities, others are breeding rooms. Some of them even house strange weapons and even stranger mutant bioweapons."

"H-hold up a minute! How the hell do you know all this?!" It was Cain’s turn to be flabbergasted.

A look of guilt appeared on Evangeline’s face,

"If I’m connected to the shadows, I can always see through them. I’ve known all this for quite some time now."

Cain trembled and was suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to back up a few steps.

Seeing the strange look on his face, Evangeline’s face suddenly flushed,

"I’d never use this ability to do something weird or snoop. And by the way, don’t you also have a similar ability?!"

Seeing the obvious hypocrisy there, Cain sighed and eased up a bit,

"You may continue."

Evangeline let out a sigh then cleared her throat,

"As I was saying, the remnant can be in either one of the two places. However, during my search, I didn’t see or sense any chamber oozing with Divinity that would even suggest the presence of a remnant."

Cain frowned and fell silent. After a minute, he shook his head,

"No. It absolutely is here."

His eyes scanned the miniature model until his gaze froze.

"This place..." He said, pointing at a particular spot on the model made of shadows.

Evangeline followed his gaze.

Then she raised a brow,

"The foundations of the Spires extend deep underground too. However, most of the places down there are used as incubation chambers because of how mana dense the environment is down there."

Cain raised a brow, "Did you just say mana dense? Even compared to the general mana-rich atmosphere here?"

Evangeline paused for a moment. Then her eyes widened,

"Are you saying..."

Cain grinned, "I can’t be a hundred percent certain. However..."

If his guesses and assumptions turned out to be right, then,

"Our target might very well lie in the deepest depths of the Colony. No, the more I think about it, the more it makes sense."

Sucking in a deep breath, he spoke with absolute certainty;

"Eva. Get us down there."