God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.-Chapter 1091: First Disaster (2).
Seeing Steve’s expression change so drastically, Cain frowned as well,
"What’s wrong?"
Steve’s neck twisted abruptly,
"That... I—"
Cain’s brows shot up. Steve being so put off by a something was definitely new territory.
"What are you seeing?"
Steve sucked in a deep breath and replied in a hoarse voice,
"Yeah. It does have mana shards."
Cain sighed, "I guess I was overthinking things."
Even though he couldn’t sense mana or see mana flow patterns anymore, it had felt like the corpse of the creature was completely devoid of mana, or any other energy for some reason. Even if it was dead, not giving off even the slightest traces of energy was rather alarming.
Luckily, he had been wrong.
He suddenly froze.
Turning back stifled to the pale-faced Steve he asked carefully,
"Mana shards? How many does it have exactly?"
Steve’s voice trembled lightly,
"Ten."
Cain’s eyes narrowed,
"Ten? That—"
A small knife apparently in Steve’s grip. Without hesitation, he stabbed into the flesh of the corpse.
Having been dead for a few hours, the corpse was rather cold and hard. Despite that, the knife cut through easily like a hot knife through butter.
Cain watched in trepidation as Steve fished out ten mana shards from the body of the creature.
About five of them had a dull fiery glow, while one was a dull grey with the last four being a sickly bike green.
And each one of them was a Tier 5 mana shard.
Cain frowned, "This... this doesn’t make sense."
Steve wiped the disgusting blood off his fingers and adjusted his goggles,
"Despite being so weak, they possess quite the outstanding reserves of power. Or could it be that the mana shards only take form after their death? No. That’s not possible. All beasts need mana shards to make use of magic."
"So what does this mean?"
Cain frowned.
’System...’
{Replying to Host: The host has come across a strange mutation that is as a result of the profane fusion of Devil and Beast}.
’What does this mean? Should I be worried?’
{Replying to Host: It depends. From what it looks like, these Devil Mutants are rather peculiar, with the ability to store energy in multiple mana shards within their bodies. However, these mana shards to not seem to be particularly filled with mana, making them quite weak individually}.
Cain grimaced, ’Then, what would it mean if these mana shards were actually saturated?’
{Replying to Host: With that kind of power, a Tierless creature would be able to face a Tier 2 creature head on. Of course, that would only be the case if their body and spirit could take the strain and they do not explode}.
Cain’s expression worsened,
’Damn it.’
He turned to Steve who had an equally terrible expression on his face,
"Let Hunter know of this. Have him increase the security tonight while we figure things out."
Steve nodded and placed the corpse back into his spatial storage,
"On it."
Cain sucked in a deep breath.
What exactly did this mean? He had no idea.
However, it didn’t look pretty at all.
The words of the system had done nothing to ease his worries either.
In the end, he let out a sigh,
’There’s no use thinking about it. For now, let’s just—’
A violent explosion ripped through the world, nearly knocking him off his feet.
The sound of deep bellows rumbled through and into the depths of the earth as the {Longhorn Mares} were riled from their rest, the explosion sending them into a panic.
Cain shot to his feet and began sprinting in the direction of the explosion.
The flaps of the tents he zipped past were flung open as more and more people began pouring out, armed to the teeth.
All of them were powerful warriors and hunters in their own rights, so they were very quick on the uptake as well.
Summoning {Eidwyrm}, Cain came to a stop the moment he spotted Steve, Hunter, and a few others gathered beneath one of the watch posts.
The watch posts were portable structures made of darkwood that could be quickly disassembled once the small army was ready to move again.
It was mostly a tall wooden stake attached to a moderately wide wooden platform that could hold at least ten people.
There were four watch posts around the campsite, with at least four sentries per post. Their job was to keep an eye out for any dangers and promptly signal to the rest of the camp.
Most of those that had been chosen as sentries were Beastmen with incredibly powerful eyes.
Cain stared at the scene of devastation before him with wide eyes.
One of the watchposts was completely in fire.
Just as he got there, something burning fell from it.
It hit the ground and splattered with a sickening crunch.
It was the burning corpse of one of the sentries.
Cain felt his blood run cold.
Hunter turned around. In his eyes, Cain could see pure murder. There was no need for him to speak.
Cain could see it in his eyes as clear as day.
He was absolutely pissed.
Before he could say anything, however, he sensed something headed their way.
His eyes cut through the darkness.
Then they widened,
"Shit!"
"Those sons of bitches never left." Lukas spoke as he trudged forward with Zue and Luke behind him.
Completely evading their perception, the horde of {One-eyed Rotworm} had followed behind them all this time.
’Why?’ Cain had absolutely no idea.
He turned to Hunter, "Do you know what happened?"
Hunter’s frown was especially dark as he shook his head,
"No. But I suspect it could have been an advance force."
Cain glanced around briefly,
"Where is it? Did it run away?"
Hunter sighed and shook his head,
"No."
He pointed at the watchpost that had continued to burn vigorously.
Cain suddenly noticed something strange. Although the blackwood was flammable, it wasn’t supposed to burn so terribly and vigorously.
It was almost like—
"It might have exploded."
Cain turned to Steve who seemed deep in thought with his crinkled brows giving him away.
Taking a moment to gather his thoughts, Cain turned to Lukas and Luke,
"Get your men... No— Get everyone ready. Look alive, men. This is the first of a long string of disasters we will be facing on this journey."
