God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.-Chapter 1139: The Third Trial (1).

When the dust settled, Cain found himself standing right over the mangled corpse of the {Slaughter-beak Lightning Falcon}.

He turned to Ignis who was busy wiping the steaming blood off her body,

"Aren’t you going to get its mana core? Oh, and the beak as well..."

Ignis snorted then rolled her eyes,

"Sure, sure."

Cain grinned then turned to face Lyos who was busy licking his wounds.

He activated a healing spell and cast it on the Silver Serpent who let out a satisfied hiss.

Cain chuckled then turned his attention inwards.

He had already recovered most of the mana he had burned through.

’That’s not the limit.’

Indeed, the amount of destruction he was capable of was far beyond that.

He had a feeling that if he completely unleashed his destructive capabilities, there would be consequences the world would be unable to take.

By now, despite being in the second Tier, he could easily handle a Tier 3 creature. This told of his incredible progress far more than me realized it.

He sighed.

Then he turned to Ignis who was busy getting her hands dirty again fishing for the mana core and cutting out the creature’s beak.

"Looks like we are finally ready."

Ignis hummed, "Yeah."

A few minutes later, they were done.

Cain hesitated for a moment, then turned his palm towards the beast’s corpse.

A jet of flames burst forth, bathing the flesh in fire until it had been reduced to white ash that was slowly carried into the wind.

Cain nodded then turned around.

He glanced at Ruby who seemed rather exhausted, gently running his fingers through her soft coat,

"You seem tired, Ruby. Do you want to rest?"

The Mutant Beast softly rang into enormous tongue across the side of his face, leaving a trail of saliva.

Cain’s smile turned wey as he nodded,

"Alright. Go rest for a while."

Space trembled and folded as the Mutant Beast returned to the subspace for a while.

Cain turned to Lyos who despite the injuries it had sustained, still seemed rather ready for action again.

Cain sighed then walked forward.

The Silver Serpent put its head to the ground, allowing him to mount it much easier.

Ignis simply leapt off the ground and onto its giant, scaly back.

They were good to be headed back.

***

A few minutes later, the campsite of the Humans was in sight.

Cain guessed that the spatial anchor he had placed was already in proper use. The spatial energy in the air was extremely dense, which solidified that assumption.

But that wasn’t a bad thing. The spot they chose to make camp was relatively defensible compared to the rest of the wastelands.

With a spatial anchor established, humans and resources could ferry from Valestorm to the campsite and vice versa.

With more resources being channeled into the camp, the larger it would be able to expand, acting as a proper frontier for their crusades into the wild lowlands.

When Lyos landed on the ground, Cain quickly dismissed him back into the subspace.

In front of the camp, the others were already waiting.

The teams of Leah and Jenny.

Hunter and the Beastmen, Rollo. Luke, Lukas and his Lightslayers, Floki.

Even Gilead and his wards.

The Blackhearth Dwarves.

Susan, Vincent, Manny, Steve...

They were all gathered here.

Cain suddenly realized he had quite the number behind him.

Seeing the expectant looks in their eyes, he couldn’t help but be expectant as well.

The journey of a lone wolf on a mountain wasn’t his, it seemed. Perhaps he had rejected that fate, or maybe it was never his in the first place.

But being surrounded by people like this wasn’t so bad after all.

And even better, he could accomplish much more with this much within his hands.

Cain clenched his fists,

"Alright, you bastards. Let’s get this done."

Vincent guffawed,

"Aye! To the Third Tier!"

***

The activation of the totem of the third Order was the same as the last one.

First, Cain once again spent an absurd amount of system points to purchase it from the system.

Then after muttering a few silent curses, he activated the totem.

The strange item cracked open and a rift in existence tore open.

It was different from the normal spatial rifts.

This was a hole to a completely different dimension.

Cain turned around to face the crowd gatehrrf behind him,

"As you all know, this could go really bad or really good. The most important thing, is that we persevere to the end."

The mortality rate within the third trial was rather concerning. This was why there weren’t a lot of Tier 3 beings in the world. Most of those that underwent the trials usually died. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

Most chose to remain as Tier 2 entities until their foundations were more solidified before they took the trial.

On the other hand, Cain had known he would live getting such luxury.

But even then...

Everywhere turned silent...

Steve cleared his throat and spoke awkwardly,

"Cain... What was that?"

Cain frowned and raised a brow,

"Well, you know. I just thought I’d ought to act like a proper leader every once in a while. You know, giving out proper encouragement and the likes..."

Steve shook his head and let out a sigh as he walked forward and placed his hands on his shoulders,

"D—don’t do that ever again."

Cain grimaced.

Then his gaze traveled beyond Steve towards the others.

Seeing their expressions barely inches away from exploding in laughter, Cain sighed then turned around.

He cleared his throat furiously,

"Fine. You all can die for all I care! Let’s move!" He said with a flourish of his cape.

A small smile appeared on his face as he was the first to step into the vortex.

In the end, he had a lot of believe in those behind him. They each were very powerful in their own way— strong pillars that had stood tall all this time from the start of the apocalypse.

There was no way they would be falling to some trial.