God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.

The world rapidly changed around him.

A drastic shift in perspective.

In one moment, there was light, and the next there was none.

Or rather, the light had become obsolete.

Instead, he found himself in a black void.

And in this void, there were countless floating orbs of various sizes scattered everywhere.

Some were big, some were small, some exuded the scourging glow of poison, others radiated the breath of life.

Each and every one of these stars were in fact, spirits, and the void he found himself was not the night sky, but rather, it was a part of the spirit realm.

What part exactly, he had no idea...

In the form of a spirit, Cain could only control his movements with his will.

As usual, all the spirits exerted a pull on his spirit, as though inviting him closer. This was due to his special title, {Loved by the Spirits}.

Because of this, he could absorb a portion of mana, pure and dense, from most of the stars around.

However, right now, he couldn't just indiscriminately absorb mana from just any star.

No, he was on a mission to find a star that met the criteria he desired.

Not just any one would do.

And so, he began an aimless search.

Since this part of the spirit realm might as well have been as vast as the night sky, he had no idea where he was headed to.

And so, he decided not to think about it too much.

Instead, he would just drift until he found it.

Since there was a time dampening effect when he used the {Gate of Stars}, he wasn't really worried about spending too much time in here.

The wonderful glow of the spirits filled him, most of them giving off different feelings.

The red hot and burning yellow stars were vibrant and energetic like actual suns.

The bright green stars might as well have had leaves and twigs poking out of them as they seemed to radiate an intense aura of life.

However, that wasn't all. There were stars that were a glaring white, or a terrifying crimson that radiated the aura of life.

But their glow and corresponding feeling was much different from the vibrant green stars.

Then, there were silver stars, earthy brown stars, black stars, violet stars, strange undulating stars, strangely calm stars, stars that resembled enormous bodies of water.

These colorful stars formed thousands of complex arrays in the void, most of them arranging into strange constellations.

And while all these spirits didn't have 'life', in the sense that they were not creatures of flesh and blood, they did seem to have will.

If Cain had his brows, they would have been furrowed.

He has come through the {Gate of Stars} multiple times now, and yet, this was the first time he was noticing that the 'stars' weren't all stationary. Some of them moved, some even darted around, albeit most that did that were far too quick for him to make out.

But none of these seem to fit his criteria.

He encountered several that were close, but just weren't quite what he was looking for.

After all, no ordinary Ice Spirit would do.

He passed by another constellation.

He had no doubt that what he was looking for existed. The real question was how soon could he find it.

And so, he went on a pilgrimage through the realm of spirits in search of a collusus of frost.

And sure enough, after searching for a long time, lady luck finally decided to grace him with her fair complexion.

His 'eyes' widened as he exclaimed mentally,

'Damn.'

His reaction was rather tame.

For he had finally come across a giant amongst giants.

A colossal entity compared to every star he had encountered.

He was like a speck of dust in the face of its magnificence.

Not only was it enormous, but even though he was far away from it, Cain could already feel the terrible chill it radiated.

It seemed as though the very idea of heat was fearful of this spirit.

Its light was a crystalline light blue.

Several smaller spheres of ice hovered around it, orbiting it like moons did a planet.

Cain locked his lips,

'I've finally found you.'

He reached out his will, attempting to make contact with the beautiful giant.

Almost immediately, he felt a stinging pain spread through his spirit.

He shivered.

He gritted his teeth as he hurriedly expelled the terribly cold mana.

The giant Star seemed rather hostile towards him.

He frowned. This was definitely not something unusual. However, the stars that felt this way towards him were usually stars of elements he had no affinity towards.

But he had an affinity for the water and ice elements and paraelements. Rather high ones at that.

So this didn't make sense.

He raised a brow,

'Could it just be being stubborn?'

He paused for a moment, then he tried again.

This time, he was unable to control himself and ended up exclaiming in pain.

However, since he had no mouth or vocal cords in the form of a spirit, he could only suffer in silence.

After a few minutes of agony, he paused to glare at the enormous star of ice.

Just trying to make contact with it was so terrible.

He groaned to himself.

He couldn't quit now. It was already not an option.

The purity of the mana within the Star, after getting a taste of it, he could say, without a doubt, it was the purest form of the Frost paraelemental category he had ever encountered.

And not only was it incredibly pure, it was also highly concentrated.

Most importantly, there was a lot of it.

Cain frowned as he tried again.

This time, the frostburn was much more excruciating.

He gritted his teeth, eyes widened as he tried again.

He failed.

Then he tried again.

And again.

And again.

With every trial, the frost seemed to pervade deeper and deeper into his soul.

'Damn it!'

He went still, freezing to the spot.

His thoughts were cloudy and unfocused. Like someone being frozen to death.

He tried calming his breath.

'What do I do now? This thing is too stubborn.'

He paused for a moment,

'Maybe I could try coaxing it...'

But what did he have that could convince an entity such as this, or rather what it represented.

He was silent for some time.

In the outside world, the world was being drenched in blood and slaughter.

He couldn't afford to be complacent now.

Each second wasted might as well have been a human life put in jeopardy.

He sucked in a deep breath.

Then he decided to change his approach.

He stretched his hands out, hesitated then reached out again, this time, he controlled his will carefully, just until it almost made contact with the target spirit.

He paused again, then took in another deep breath.

He slowly approached with his mind.

At first, he faced a bit of push back.

In the physical realm, his body was already covered in a solid, but thin layer of frost, his fingers purple, horrifyingly close to falling off.

After some time, the pressure turned into a strange curiosity.

Cain's eyes widened.

'You want to see me prove my worth to touch you?'

Cain frowned. This was the first time he had ever communicated with one of these spirits. Although they didn't speak words, or anything remotely similar, through a transfer of wills, he could very well understand what it was saying to him.

It wanted him to prove his worth.

To show that he was capable of bearing the brunt of its magic.

Cain's face slowly paled.

He looked at the large star.

Its surface trembled.

The void trembled too.

It quaked violently for a moment.

Then Cain felt it before he saw it.

The biting chill.

And then, a moment later, an enormous deluge of churning ice surged at him.

He immediately knew what had to be done.

He took a deep breath in, completely filling his lungs and clearing his mind.

"Open."

He threw the gates of the {Mana Vault} within his spirit open.

The Frost circling around him was quickly sucked into the strange burning gem within the chest of the spirit body.

'Concentrate.'

The pull he exerted continued to grow. Despite that, he was unable to stop the brunt of it.

It quickly pushed over him, enveloped him in a frigid hell.

Any other person would have perished on the spot.

His very spirit on the verge of freezing up, Cain continued to push through gritted teeth.

The cyclone within the {Mana Vault} increased its intensity, gulping in mana like a thirsty dog.

His blood vessels popped out.

It was still not enough. It was not even close enough.

And so, with a vicious roar, the {Mana Furnace}, the small engine within his spirit rumbled violently.

The pull strengthened.

'More!'

Cain roared silently as he pulled in even more frost element.

The deluge of frost began shrinking considerably.

Unbeknownst to him, a strange rune in the shape of a frozen fractal was slowly being etched into his back.

He roared silently.

There was another immense increasein the rate of absorption.

The rest of the frozen deluge was swallowed.

Instantly, his spirit flew right back into his body and the {Gate of Stars} slammed shut.