God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.

The giant beastman snorted, "Do you have any proof? You really can\'t expect me to believe this kid lanky has that much power."

Cain\'s narrowed dangerously, \'Lanky?!\'

Although Cain was muscular, he had lean muscles. Compared to the huge and brawny Floki, he looked like a bundle of straws.

"Hmph! Why are you sniffing the kid\'s shit, Hunter? This isn\'t like you..." The reptilian beastman said with a devious grin on his face, inciting roars of laughter from a certain section of the crowd.

Cain glanced over and could tell that a majority of the beastmen there all had reptilian features like scales or webbed appendages.

Despite the insult, Hunter remained unshaken,

"I have nothing to say to a weakling..." Hunter said coldly.

Galip, the reptilian, growled, his yellow eyes flashing with sinister light. Two black and sinister short blades appeared in his hands,

"Then why don\'t we step outside for a bit?"

The avian beastman seated in the middle sighed,

"Galip, if you are going to keep behaving like this, then this conversation won\'t get anywhere."

"Stick your beak in the ground, Malcolm. No one asked for your opinion!" Galip retorted.

Sighing, Hunter turned to look at Cain,

\'As you can see, these three are idiots.\'

Although Hunter\'s lips didn\'t move, Cain could hear him perfectly...

Tapping his chin, Cain replied mentally,

\'Actually, I think these three are quite interesting devious bastards.\'

\'So you can tell as well?\'

Cain chuckled internally, \'How could I not?\'

Pausing for a bit, Cain spoke through the mental link,

\'How many of these men are loyal to you?\'

Hunter sighed through their mental link,

\'A bit more than a hundred. Some of them defected to Floki\'s after I lost my arms and legs.\'

Cain snorted, \'I see... That means less work on our hands.\'

Hunter frowned, \'What do you mean?\'

Cain grinned, \'You\'ll see in a moment.\'

Turning his attention back to the arguing beastmen, Cain tried to piece together what little information he could through the unintelligent rambling,

"So you want us to stand at the battlefront and die, while the lot of you sit back and relax at the back lines? Don\'t make me laugh."

In his powerful, booming voice, Floki announced his stance.

Galip let out a grating laugh, "Isn\'t that what your power is for? Don\'t tell me you just plan to abuse your god-given power without giving back or do you?"

"The only person I answer to is Lord Pluto. You can shove your scaly opinion down your scaly ass."

The entire cavern hall erupted in laughter as Galip and his people glared at Floki and his people.

Cain\'s brows shot up, \'Damn!\'

As one would expect, people were bound together by fate. The entire beastman army was divided into four groups headed by four people, Hunter, Floki, Galip, and Malcolm.

The separation of these groups wasn\'t based on how much confidence or leadership each possessed. It wasn\'t even their strength. Instead, it was their... appearances.

Hunter\'s groups consisted mostly of beaten that had similar appearances to wild dogs, cats, boars, monkeys, and even insects.

Floki\'s group on the other hand consisted of far stronger-looking beastmen who bore more resemblance to Wolves, Bears, Tigers, Lions... One of them looked so big, can couldn\'t even discern what he looked like. They were all quite huge and bulky in stature, making it easy to wonder why they would all camp under the banner of the biggest in the camp.

Galip\'s group consisted of all sorts of reptilian creatures. It didn\'t matter if they were big or small. All of them gathered under his webbed feet. However, they weren\'t as plentiful as Floki or Malcom\'s.

And finally, Malcolm\'s cohort bore a resemblance to the various birds of the sky. Their numbers were the greatest...

One look at them, and it was easy to understand what the power dynamics within the entire army would look like.

Galip\'s face darkened. However, for some reason, he didn\'t say anything else. Seeing Galip remain silent, Floki snorted,

"My point remains. My men and I aren\'t meat shields. If you do want us to hold the front lines we need to guarantee that the rest of you won\'t just run away."

\'Floki is strong. However, he only cares about himself and his men... probably. Don\'t be fooled by his words. If the opportunity arises, he will be the first to leave everyone behind\' Hunter said through the mental link.

Cain nodded, \'Noted.\'

Malcolm, the avian beastman sighed,

"Won\'t you give us a chance, Floki? We\'ve been in arms for quite some time, so I think we have earned your trust more than enough."

Floki turned to glare at him,

"I don\'t trust you because you are always the first to start shit, Malcolm."

\'This Malcolm is more of a snake than that bastard, Galip. He\'s always scheming and sabotaging at any chance he gets. Then if he gets confronted, he simply deflects. However, because of how dangerous he is, the other two can\'t really do anything about it.\'

\'I see... So they really are a bunch of conniving bastards. By the way, there is something I have to inform you of...\'

As he listened, Hunter\'s face paled more and more. He was silent for a while before he suddenly spoke up after a while,

"Can you lot just shut it?! We are all going to die soon, and all you are thinking about is how to save your own behinds!"

Galip snorted, "Don\'t act all high and mighty, Hunter. I don\'t know how you got your limbs back, but they seem to have given you a confidence boost."

Hunter sneered, "Just so you know, we are already surrounded by the {Blood Abominations}. They are on the three islands surrounding this one, which means there is no escape."

The faces of all the beastmen in the room paled,

"What?! Surrounded already?! But how?!"

"I knew we shouldn\'t have spent so much time here!"

"We... we are really going to die, aren\'t we?"

"Enough. We are getting nowhere with all this talking!" Malcolm, who had been the calmest during the meeting suddenly spoke up.

Turning to Hunter, he spoke with a serious expression,

"Hunter, everyone in this room, regardless of any ill feelings, acknowledges your strength. If we want to escape the encirclement, we will need your full support."

Hunter stayed silent, staring at him blankly.

Floki sighed, "As long as you guarantee to fight alongside us, I have no qualms fighting beside you."

Galip shrugged, "Me and my men aren\'t backing down either."

At this point, Cain burst out laughing...

Everybody in the room turned to look at him, expressions of confusion on their faces,

Staring at the other beastmen in the room, Cain spoke with a grin on his face,

"If you lot think you can actually survive what is coming, then you\'ll die without knowing what killed you."

The look in his eyes turned dangerous,

"And I can assure you that your \'leaders\' are quite aware of this as well."

Murmurs rose above the crowd as many of them threw complex stares at the three leaders seated at the table.

Malcolm shrugged, "What do you mean by that..."

Cain grinned, "It\'s Cain."

"Cain... Can I ask that you explain yourself?"

Cain snorted, "There\'s no need for games, Birdman. If you plan on throwing their lives away, at least give it to them straight."

Malcolm\'s eyes twitched when he heard Cain\'s nickname for him. However, before could retort, Cain spoke up again,

Turning back to the crowd that now had anxious looks on their faces, he proclaimed loudly,

"Have you lot ever stopped to look at your weapons? Do you think these flimsy things will be enough to fight so many Aether beasts?"

Some of them glanced at the weapons hanging from their waists with dark expressions on their faces.

The grin on Cain\'s face widened,

"Indeed. To be honest, I wasn\'t quite sure about this. However, after sitting and observing these slimy bastards, I know for a fact what the plan is."

A dark, vicious look passed across Floki\'s face,

"And what is this plan, if I may ask?"

"I\'m glad you did," Cain said, merrily.

Pointing an accusatory finger at the three leaders, Cain spoke loud and clear,

"You three have no intentions of saving all these men."

The crowd immediately became unsettled, the murmurs growing louder.

Malcolm glanced through the crowd with cold eyes. Then with a raised brow he asked, "And what proof do you have to back up this claim?"

Cain shrugged, "Just looking at the weapons in their hands is enough proof. From what I know, these men do not have access to the system. That means all the weapons they currently have should either be provided by the system, or gotten from hunts. Am I right?"

Malcolm nodded, "Indeed. That is correct. However, system points are quite hard to earn, so this is the best we can do for them."

Cain shrugged, "That doesn\'t matter. If you really cared about their lives, you lot will not be so laid back. I\'ve fought the {Blood Abomonations} before, and I can tell that they won\'t be defeated with weapons like that, neither can these men be saved with these shitty pieces of armor."

Cain was almost a hundred percent sure that the three men seated before him all planned to ditch their men as soon as the battle started. They would use them to draw all the attention from the {Blood Abomination} army, then sneak away.

Despite the hostile front they showed, Cain had no doubts they were in cahoots I\'m this matter.

However, why did they have to go through all this?

Cain could only come up with a single conclusion...

Either way, that wasn\'t any of his business. All he wanted to do was make sure he got the most out of this encounter whilst rescuing Hunter and his men.

"Look at your weapons. How many times have they failed to penetrate the flesh of monsters, beasts, and devils? How many times have you been pierced through even though you had armor on?"

Cain was satisfied seeing the looks of fear and panic on the faces of the men around. The realization seemed to set in rather rapidly. The only group of people seemingly bothered were those standing behind Hunter. With just a single glance it was obvious that they were many times better outfitted than the other men.

Cain was glad to see that Hunter wasn\'t slacking. Truly, not everyone was favored by these \'gods\'. Some were blessed with powerful physiques and were given marvelous abilities. However, others had less than desireable traits forced upon them.

Despite this, Hunter had taken those that had been rejected. Cain didn\'t know why he did this, since he didn\'t know Hunter to be a philanthropist. Either way, he made sure they were all armed with decent weapons compared to the ones the others were holding.

They were all also decked in decent armor, some of them even holding onto rare weapons, and a few even had special equipment on them.

The systemless people couldn\'t comprehend the difference between these weapons and pieces of armor, so they paid it no mind at all.

But their leaders did...

If it was possible to give these men equipment to make them capable of weathering the storm, then what was stopping them?

Cain had known the moment he stepped inside the cavern hall...