God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.

One of the more complicated things about using magical skills and spells, was controlling the way the skills and or spells were executed.

There existed and infinite number of possible ways under the sun for mana to be applied, so each individual was unique in their own right when it came to creating and using their respective skills and spells.

Cain's skill, {Divine Essence of Metallurgy} had evolved from two lesser skills; {Metal Manipulation} and {Metal Creation}.

Both skills, were in essence, mediums for him to exert his control over mana and mananrelated phenomena.

{Metal Creation} allowed him to create metallic material with mana, while {Metal Manipulation} gave him the ability to exert his will upon metallic objects, including those he created with {Metal Creation}.

Pulling these two together resulted in the creation of the {Divine Essence of Metallurgy}.

Although the skill's name was a mouthful, it was nothing short of a combination of its predecessors, as well as a special addition of extra control over the Metal Element.

Because of this, he had come to realize, that with the aid of his own blood as a conduit for the mana, he could also almost perfection control the form of the metal object he could create.

Before, he was limited to a few simple structures, as making it more complicated could lead to complications in the spell execution process.

Now, he had managed to craft a whole new spell altogether in a matof a few moments.

Cain bowed exaggeratedly,

"I present to you, the {Iron Flesh Puppet}."

The puppet also bowed awkwardly.

Lucia blinked, "You can't be serious..."

Cain grinned, "I'm deadly serious."

He cleared his throat, "I noticed a few things; the {Sentinel Drones} rely on a few things to detect us, but the thing they rely on the most, are their eyes, more precisely, their ability to differentiate what is living from what is not."

He fell silent for added tension.

Boulder sighed and waved his hand, signalling him to hurry up,

Cain continued with a grin,

"There are two ways to do that; I can make the puppets carry a mana charge that act as a way to confuse the senses of the Sentinels. That way, if it tires using mana to sense it, the feedback its eyes will give it, will be that of a thing that can use mana, its features will be human-like, which means it might as well trick them into believing it is human."

Khan stared at the steel, man-like structure with a frown, then turned to stare back at him,

"There's a possibility that might work out, and there's a possibility it might not. Depends on how the Devils react to it."

Cain tapped the steel ead of the dummy,

"Hold on. There's still the second way..."

Boulder raised a brow, "And that would be?"

Cain's smile turned a bit strange,

"What if I gave it life?"

Khan was the first to speak up,

"Have you gone mad?!"

Cain waved his hands, "Calm down, would you? I'm not talking about literally giving it life."

Everyone automatically let out a wide sigh of relief...

Cain cleared his throat,

"Replicating realm human parts would be too much of a hassle, plus, there's no guarantee that would work. So, instead of doing all that, I was thinking of a way to combine both Metal and Blood Elemental Mana together in a single spell to produce something truly otherworldly."

Lucia clicked her tongue, "More like blasphemous."

Cain shrugged, "There are no gods to witness it. Even if there were, most of them are dead. So what do you all say? You in?"

By using Blood Elemental Mana to recreate something that could mimic human vitality, perhaps they would be able to throw off the senses of the Sentinels and other Devils.

Boulder nodded, "How far does your range extend in terms of control."

Cain was silent for a few moments,

"About two kilometers or so."

Boulder closed his eyes, "That's not bad at all."

He opened his eyes to stare deeply at Cain's,

"How certain are you that this will work?"

Cain shook his head, "Not at all. But its worth a shot, right?"

Boulder chuckled, "Indeed it is. Alright, I'll trust you this time once again."

Cain nodded, "Give me a few minutes."

While using normal stealth spells and skills would have worked in this situation, Cain had already decided to put his most recent discoveries to the test.

The {Divine Essence of Metallurgy} skill wasn't just a skill meant to be used for taking lives. It was also a utility skill. Now that he had found a way to make use of it as such, he wouldn't skip out on the opportunity for even a second.

Creating the body of the Steel Puppet wasn't too difficult. All he had to do was model it referencing a human's external anatomy. It didn't have to be perfect, just good enough to get the job done.

As for creating the illusion of the puppet being human, he had already filled it to the brim with blood elemental mana. It now radiated the same amount of vitality as a normal human would.

As for a matter of controlling the puppet, this was by far the hardest of them all. Although he seemed relaxed before, in reality, controlling it was like trying to write with both hands at the same time.

The sense of dysphoria that came from controlling the puppet was very overwhelming.

So he had to come up with a solution for this.

'Normally, controlling this thing should work the same way I control the {Falling Stars of Orion}. But because this is more complex, I'll have to seek a finer method of control.'

In others words, he had to split his mind in two, basically turning himself into two beings.

A single entity in two bodies...

It looked and sounded impossible, but with magic, anything was possible. All he had to do was figure out how to do it.

Cain closed his eyes, 'It should be the same as when I control the {Astral Avatar}.'

Controlling the {Astra Avatar} required him to lose control of his real body in order to control the Avatar well. However, in this case, he wouldn't need to do that.

Reaching out to the human-like steel puppet, Cain gradually extended the fine threads of his control, careful not to overdo it.

He had to keep the lines firm, yet not too firm so they could be connected to him as well.

He chuckled to himself, 'It's just like trying to control your shadow...'

Although it took a while, he finally got a hold of it. One of his eyes immediately began to emit a metallic lustre as a strange rune appeared at the center, overlapping with his iris.

Summoning a few pieces of clothing from his inventory, he wrapped it around the body of the {Iron Flesh Puppet}.

Boulder stared at the with suspiciously,

"It does look very human this way. I truly can't tell the difference."

Thanks to the blood elemental mana Cain had stuffed into the puppet, the thing didn't give off the same air a hunk of metal would give. Instead, it gave of the family warmth and vitality a living being would give off. Only, it was a odd and off-putting in a way that was difficult to place down.

Cain nodded at him, "Let's go."

Cain and the {Iron Flesh Puppet} took a step simultaneously...

***

Although Devils were creatures of perpetual murder and violence, they were, at the end of the day, living beings and not machines.

They engaged in the acts one would expect of an organism with sentience.

Standing at the foot of a building was a {Blade Devil}. It was huge, but compared to its peers, it was of only average menace.

Compared to the initial days of their conquest, these times were more mellowed. Most of the Devils of that time were already dead, and these newer Devils hadn't seen much action as a result.

Because of that's they were restless...

The Devilish urge to destroy and devour things with life wasn't something they could control easily, almost like how a vampire couldn't contain its eternal thirst for blood.

As the Devils kept watch of the perimeter, a swift movement at the corner of its vision caught its attention.

The Devil narrowed its eyes. Calling the Devils brutish wouldn't be very accurate, as despite their strength, they were also very intelligent creatures.

Fooling them wouldn't be easy.

However, thanks to the restlessness of these Devils, it was not impossible for them to overlook a few details.

The swift shadow appeared again, this time, running down the road at a frightening speed.

Only, this time, the Devil was able to accurately see the creature that was running away from it.

A wicked grin spread across its lips as it gave chase...

Lately, there had been a few humans moving around the City, but they had somehow managed to evade detection.

Up until now at least...

'Perhaps it could be a miscalculation. However, it doesn't matter.'

Without any hesitation, the Devil sent a signal to the hive. While it believed it could handle the human by itself, it was still proper protocol to send a signal to be base so all nearby unit would be on the look out as well.

This signal was a mental one, and it contained a single message;

'I have found the humans!'

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