God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.

"My name is Ignis." The Cherufe Spawn said to Cain.

\'Oi, oi... What is this? Wasn\'t she just trying to punch me to death?\'

"Pleased to meet you, Ignis. Now that we have exchanged names, don\'t you think it\'s high time we had a conversation?"

\'If I can, I would much rather prefer to end this without any more violence...\' Cain thought to himself. After all, he couldn\'t see himself beating this violent creature anytime soon.

"Conversation? Ignis does not quite understand what you mean." Ignis tilted her head as she stared at Cain with her pure eyes. However, Cain was able to see that hidden beneath that purity, was a hint of mockery.

\'This... This bitch!\' Realizing what was going on, anger filled Cain\'s heart. However, that anger quickly disappeared and a sinister thought began to brew within it instead.

With a small smile on his face, Cain immediately jumped into action,

"Well, Ignis... I do not wish to fight you anymore. All I want to do is to retrieve that gem over there. Would you be so kind as to let me?" Cain said, pointing to the gem stuck in the statue.

"Hmmm... I\'m afraid I can\'t do that, Cain. That gem is quite precious to me, you see..." A sweet smile appeared on her face as she continued staring at him.

\'She isn\'t so simple after all... I keep forgetting that she might just be thousands of years old despite looking so young.

"In that case, would you like to make a trade?" Cain said gently, staring at her with snake-like eyes.

"A trade? I doubt you have anything that could be of interest to me, Cain." Ignis said.

Cain could tell from her mannerisms and attitude whilst speaking that this wasn\'t the first or second time she was dealing with a human.

"I have a lot of fire elemental mana shards. If you want, I can give them all to you." With the amount of system points he had, getting his hands on a large amount of mana shards was a piece of cake.

"Mana shards?" Blinking her fairy eyes, Ignis stared at Cain as though she was looking at an idiot.

"I\'m sorry to tell you this, but I have no interest in your mana shards as they will be useless to me right now. However, there is something that I will be far more interested in if you are willing." Ignis said with a smile.

"And what is that?" Cain could tell that whatever she was planning couldn\'t be good for him, but he was still a bit curious about what she wanted.

"I want to eat you..."

Silence...

A strange expression fell onto Cain\'s face as he tried to find the best response to her words...

"Eherm! While I do find this flattering, I do not think that will be a good idea, Ignis. I am not interested in you like that..." Cain said moving a few steps away from the \'hungry\' creature standing before him.

Rolling her eyes, Ignis put her hands on her waist,

"Do not misunderstand me, human. I have no interest in copulating with you. I mean exactly what I said. I want to devour your flesh..." Ignis said, her eyes filled with a dangerously red light.

"I see..." Cain said with his hand on his chin.

A relaxed expression appeared on his face, "However, Ignis. If you want to eat me, why not just kill me? You seem capable of that much, right?"

"Your defenses are quite formidable. It would take me quite a bit of power to break it open. However, if I do that, you will be burnt until your ashes become ashes."

"So you want me to willingly give myself up to you?" Cain asked.

"Yes... That is what I want. If you do, I\'ll give you the gem."

Completely baffled by her warped logic, Cain nearly had tears in his eyes, "But if you eat me, wouldn\'t that make me dead?"

This seemed to catch the {Cherufe Spawn} off guard as her eyes suddenly became shifty...

"Well... Erh... Not necessarily..."

\'Damn you! Why do you mean not necessarily?! You just want to eat me dammit! Seems like she isn\'t all that intelligent after all.\' Marveling at her stupidity, Cain began to concoct a brilliant plan.

"Okay, how about this... Can you tell me why you need to eat me? Can\'t you just eat any of the other creatures in this place?" Cain said.

"Hmmm..." Ignis put on a contemplative look before nodding her head.

"Okay then... As you might already know, I am a {Cherufe Spawn}. We are a fairly common race in the vast universe that resides in the volcanoes of worlds due to our peculiar nature."

"Normally, we can leave our homes and tread on land in search of food. However, I can\'t do that as my situation is a bit complicated. As for why I can\'t eat the {Magma Demons}, that is because they are beings born of the fires of the earth. I can\'t eat them as their birth is the same as mine."

"You, human, are the only thing that can satiate my hunger. I have eaten a fair deal of humans, so although it has been a long time, I can still remember the taste of your succulent human flesh." An expression of ecstasy filled her face and she stared up at the river of lava.

\'Ha... She\'s insane.\' Cain let out a sigh...

"How old are you?" Cain asked with a frown.

"Hmm? I have lived for about 20 years according to the cycles of my world."

\'Hmm...\'

\'While 20 years might not seem like a long time, it is according to her own world\'s rotational speed. Who knows how long it would take for her home planet to revolve around its axis.\'

"After my home world was destroyed, I was rescued by a group of space merchants who sold me off after a while. I was later rescued by Lord Azazel who told me that I was the reincarnation of a celestial or something like that. I was told to stay in this volcano, and not to leave without permission. He feeds me well, so I have no reason to leave."

Hearing this, Cain couldn\'t hold it anymore, "If he feeds you so well, why would you need to eat me?!"

Facing Cain\'s question, a look of genuine confusion appeared on Ignis\' face, "Aren\'t you my dinner?"

Realizing what was going on, Cain cursed at Azazel in his mind, "So not that you can\'t access your food, you want to reach an agreement without ruining it..."

"Yes. You seem very bright for a human." The {Cherufe Spawn} nodded in satisfaction.

"What if I give you something else to eat?"

"No! I want to eat human meat. You all are quite tasty..."

"Okay, what about-"

"No!"

"But..."

"No..."

"I can-"

"Nope..."

***

Although he looked a bit panicked outside, Cain was completely calm internally with a sinister smile on his face, \'Just a few minutes more...\'

What he was doing, was trying to stall for time. The cooldown for {Vampiric Star, } was almost over, and he had been cooking up a new spell in his head all this time just to find the golden moment he was looking for to take Ignis out and be done with the stupid challenge.

He had been listening to Ignis talk for some time and had come to realize that she wasn\'t so bad after all. She was just a bit stupid and liked to eat human flesh, so there was no way they could reconcile...

It\'s either you or me...\' Cain thought to himself

He had learned from her that she had come from another planet in the hell realms. She is also considered very young amongst her race, implying that she is a very rare child prodigy when considering the amount of power she possesses as a child.

She also revealed a lot of information to him regarding the many realms and the five different planes of existence.

"Well, it was fun talking to you, but now you have to decide. If I\'m correct, you\'ve been trying to stall for time. However, I have lost my patience." The beautiful smile on Ignis\' face instantly disappeared.

"Yeah, I guess you are right." By now, Cain knew he had run out of time. However, he wasn\'t too worried, as the cooldown for {Vampiric Star} was finally over.

However, now he realized that to have any chance of winning, he would need to do something he had never done before...

"This technique is called inlay magic. It allows one to cast multiple spells with contrasting elements at the same time by laying the specific magic circles and weaving them together to form a giant super-spell!"

\'She is immune to fire-based attacks, so by changing the fundamental principles of the attack spell, I should still be able to attach the {Vampiric Star} to it.\'

Cain\'s absolute plan was to combine two elements to form a spell that defied the fundamental laws.

An anomaly even amongst all anomalies...

In other words, inlay magic...

However, to do this, he still needed a little bit more time.

And the only way to buy it was to fight Ignis once again.

"I am going to be taking this seriously now, so prepare yourself..." As soon as those words escaped from her mouth, Ignis had disappeared from where she stood.

Cain\'s eyes widened as he controlled the chains around him to pull his body away from where he originally was.

BANG!

The impact created by Ignis\' first meeting with the ground instantly produced a crater, causing Cain to marvel at her raw strength.

\'Even with all my strength, a full blow from her will be enough to shatter all the bones in my body at full strength.\'

"Metal Creation!" A huge pillar of gold broke through the ground from the epicenter of the crater, slamming into Ignis. Two more butter out of the surrounding walls and slammed toward her as well.

BANG!

A single kick was enough to destroy two of them, while she kicked against the third one and launched at Cain.

A deep growl escaped from Cain\'s throat as he conjured up a rain of golden spikes that filled the space in front of him.

He dashed forward together with the metal spikes, jumping in between the gaps to close the distance between them.

"Burning Ocean." An ocean of flames spread out from her, turning all the metal spikes to dust, revealing only Cain.

With a roar, they both clashed, sparks raining to the ground like rainfall over a city.

A clash of metal and flames...

Their clash was so terrible, that the entire volcano shook violently. However, neither of them wanted to back down as they gazed into each other\'s eyes.

Cain felt his heart skip a beat as he stared. It was almost like he was looking into her soul.

Ignis stared into his eyes as well with a befuddled look on her face.

In this heated moment of battle, a connection seemed to form between the two...

A connection born from the flames of battle...