God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.

\'Now, to deal with the aftermath.\'

Th he turned a, coincidtally catching a glance of Cain as he rushed to the sce.

He let out a heavy sigh.

"Took you long ough."

Upon seeing him, Cain walked over. Amidst the smoke, dust, and bloodstained sand, he could see that all the guards in this area were dead. The former laborers stood over the fall corpses, their weapons still stained with blood.

As he approached, they noticed him. Some tried to charge at him, but they were stopped wh Hunter raised a hand,

"Don\'t attack. He\'s with us."

Cain was absolutely shocked. But th again, he didn\'t expect them to be hopeless without him. He should have se this coming, especially wh he knew they wouldn\'t just sit there, expecting someone to come save them.

Still, he was curious.

He scratched his head,

"This... How\'d you do it?"

Hunter shrugged,

"Access to our invtories was restricted. However, said restrictions were only limited to the system invtory, not all spatial subspaces. I guess they wer\'t cautious ough, or it hadn\'t crossed their minds."

Cain nodded thoughtfully, "So you made them believe you were helpless, and wh they least expected it, you struck. I\'m impressed, Hunter."

Hunter shook his head, "We had to wait for the best time to act. Today just happed to be the day all the High Priests and most of the Vicars left. If that hadn\'t happed, I doubt this would have be successful."

Cain shrugged, "Either way, it\'s still impressive."

He wanted to dig deeper, but he let it go for now. Had Hunter known something like this would happ? But that just sounded implausible.

After all, who would foresee their own capture, th store bombs in a subspace just for that reason.

Perhaps it was just a play of fate and happstance.

Still...

Hunter sighed, "The battle isn\'t other yet. We still need a way to get out of the City in one piece. There\'s more than ough Vicars a to give us a hard time. And should any of the High Priests come back early, th we might as well be dead."

Cain nodded, "Th let\'s go. The City is in Chaos right now. The best time to move is now."

Hunter nodded.

Lukas walked up to them, a frown on his face,

"Nice to finally show up after getting us into this mess, Cain."

He jabbed his finger at his chest,

"You are lucky. Too lucky, in fact, I\'m in a good mood today."

Cain chuckled, "I\'ll make it up to you all later. For now, let\'s get out of here."

Lukas sneered, "You can go on your own. As you can see, we have plans of our own."

Luke walked up to them as well. His face was stoic as he said,

"Don\'t mind this fool. It\'s good to see you again, Cain."

Rollo walked up as well,

"Wh did you arrive at Valestorm?"

Cain smiled, "Just a few hours ago. I didn\'t expect you all would do something this crazy. If I did, I wouldn\'t have made the treacherous journey here."

Floki walked up but remained silt. He simply gave Cain a nod, which he returned.

Cain looked behind them to see all the ex-laborers gathering a them. He stared at Hunter,

"This..."

Hunter nodded, "They decided to follow us. They\'d rather be with \'Heretics\' like us, than remain here."

Cain nodded, "Okay. You all can get going. I\'ll meet you at the City gate. There\'s something I need to do first."

Hunter nodded, "Okay. Stay safe."

Cain laughed, "Don\'t worry about that."

With that, he turned a and dashed away.

Staring at Cain\'s swiftly departing figure, Hunter\'s eyes remained dark.

Lukas glanced at him, his eyes filled with mirth,

"What? Didn\'t say what you wanted to say, and now you regret it?"

Hunter remained silt.

Lukas chuckled, "Either way, it\'s of my business what you love birds do. All I\'m concerned about it getting myself and my m out of here alive. Ain\'t that right, boys?!"

"YEAHHH!" The m behind them let out excited roars.

Luke shook his head,

"What do we do now? What about the other sites?"

Hunter spoke, "I\'ve already spok with the leaders there. They\'ll rdezvous with us at the gate just as planned."

Rollo shook his head as he sheathed his sword and placed it in his invtory,

"You really have all bases covered, don\'t you..."

Saying nothing, Hunter dashed forward. The others followed suit. He swiftly turned a corner just in time to be greeted with a hail of bullets being st his way.

"Fire!" A Pilgrim holding two semi-automatic mana rifles yelled as he pulled the trigger, sding more bullets towards them.

Some of the bullets struck true, causing their victims to fall lifelessly to the g.

Hunter\'s daggers moved like vipers through the air, accurately striking those aimed at him down.

He jumped up,

"Floki!"

A heavy tower shield manifested in the Floki\'s huge hands. He jumped to the front of the group, blocking all the incoming bullets.

Hunter landed on top of the shield\'s rim, and in a split second, oushed himself off of it again.

His body seemed to transform mid air as his claws elongated and his fangs grew out, making him seem ev more sinister than he regularly looked.

His target was the gun wielding Pilgrim.

The Pilgrim tried to fight back, shooting off hanced bullets at Hunter.

However, Hunter manifested a clone. The bullets struck the clone, puncturing its body.

However, they were unable to get to him long ough for him to get close ough to the Pilgrim.

The clone dissipated into nothing, and before the Pilgrim could react, Hunter\'s claws were already wrapped a his throat.

The Pilgrim\'s brown mask was dyed red, and the last thing he saw before resting forever, was Hunter cold, impassive eyes.

The slaughter was quick and efficit. Once they were done, they made their way towards the gate.

***

Meanwhile, Cain was already on the move.

{Eye of Clairvoyance} was active, but it was difficult to locate who he was searching for thanks to the chaos suing all a.

So, he had to guess; where would they be?

\'Near the inn, perhaps? Or have they gott to the gate already...\'

Despite having looked all over the place, he found no sight of them.

Just wh he was about to give up, he caught sight of a familiar face.

\'Found you!\'

He moved quickly, appeared before Lucia like a ghost.

Almost immediately, a gun was pointed at his head. He gripped the nozzle of the gun firmly and spoke quickly,

"Relax. Don\'t shoot."

Lucia stared at him blankly for a momt,

"Cain?"

Cain let out a deep breath of air.

Just as he thought, Boulder, Khan, Gloria, and the others were also gathered here, in a less crowded spot that branches away from the main street leading out to the gate.

They seemed to have be discussing something.

Boulder stared at him blankly,

"You\'ve be missing for a while. We were just contemplating leaving you behind."

Cain laughed awkwardly, "Thank goodness you didn\'t. Anyways, we need to leave now."

Boulder nodded, "Now that you are here, I see no reason why we should still be here."

Khan shook his head, "The streets are still too crowded. The Pilgrims still here seem to be cracking down on those responsible for this mess."

Lucia sighed, "Damned bastards! Why did they chose to escape today of all days?!"

Cain cleared his throat,

"We can take a detour. It might take a bit longer, but we can get there evtually."

Boulder nodded, "Alright, everyone. Stay close. If you get lost in the crowd, meet us at the gate. If you don\'t see us, you can leave, but don\'t go too far..."

Once he had said what needed to be said, Boulder rushed off.

The others followed suit.

Khan suddly stopped,

"By the way. Where were you, Cain?"

Cain was silt for a momt before letting out a sigh,

"Well, I was at the temple."

Khan raised his brows, "Did you get what you came for?"

Cain smiled wryly, "Hard to say..." He said, clutching the hourglass pdant in his hand.

Khan smiled, "It seems so. I guess it was successful th."

With that, he turned a and followed Boulder and the overs who had already departed.

Lucia narrowed her eyes at him,

"Why do I feel like you know something?"

Cain shrugged, "What do you mean?"

Lucia frowned, "Are you responsible for this?"

Cain chuckled, "No, not necessary."

She still didn\'t seem convinced.

Cain sighed, "I\'ll explain later. For now, let\'s get going. If we stay longer, we might get dragged into a mess."

Lucia sighed, th nodded. The two of them chased after the rest, evtually meeting up just as they were about to leave the gates.

There was a crowd of people pushing against the blockades formed a the gates.

The fires caused by the explosions were being controlled, so what was really left was the panic and chaos those that wanted to escape had created.

The guards and the Pilgrims knew this, so they were trying everything in their power to keep everyone within the City.

Most of the people here had just gone with the flow, so they were quickly beginning to realize that something was wrong.

Cain was curious to see how Hunter planned on tackling this issue.

\'Will he try to reason his way out, or does he have something else planned?\'

Cain thought of Hunter as someone who didn\'t prefer using the brute force approach right off the bat.

That was why he was completely shocked to see a flaming arrow rise out of the crowd.

The arrow was almost unnoticeable at first, but th, it suddly swelled in size, until it turned into a massive fireball headed straight for the gate.

"He\'s gone mad!" Cain had no other words to say.

Still, it was quite effective.

Just the shockwaves were ough to completely destroy whatever form of blockage was put in place.

Most people retreated back into the City, while others, using this as an opportunity, stormed outside the gates.

"Now!" Boulder yelled.

They all sprinted out of the now burning gates, leaving Valestorm behind...