God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.

He did indeed feel awesome.

But he also felt tired.

He turned his head to stare at the lake at the center of this place. It reflected the endless white overhead.

Looking at it filled him with a serenity he didn't know that existed.

Cain exhaled, feeling the weight of exhaustion on him ease up a little.

He closed his eyes a bit.

Then he fell asleep.

***

Seeing Cain's eyelids drop, Susan huffed lightly,

"He's asleep."

Then she placed her hands slightly above him. Soft radiance streamed down from her palm and into his skin, mending the bloody cracks.

Evangeline grimaced slightly,

"He could have died there."

Susan's expression was dark,

"You should have stopped him."

"Did you convince yourself I would have been able to?" Evangeline said half a breath later.

Jenny wanted so say something, but was stopped by Roselle who shook her head silently.

Evangeline sighed then turned around,

"Besides, he saved us, didn't he?"

Susan haired at her,

"I see. You don't care about him at all, do you?"

Evangeline fell silent.

Susan sneered,

"I knew it. You are just using him, right? For whatever twisted goals you have, right?"

"Susan, that's enough." Jenny said softly.

Evangeline shrugged,

"If he died, it wouldn't be anyone's fault but his. He was reckless, and he knew it."

Then she turned to glare at Susan,

"But he didn't die. So it was all justified in the end. If I had the means, I would have done the same. I know you would have as well."

Her brows furrowed as she frowned,

"Cain is strong. He doesn't need you looking down on him."

Susan trembled,

"I... I'm not looking down in him."

Evangeline snorted, "Then what is it? Are you trying to say that you are for him?"

Her eyes narrowed as she asked,

"Are you in love with him?"

Her cheeks flushed bright red,

"What are you even saying?! This is not the time to say pointless things!"

Evangeline chuckled lightly and waved,

"I apologize then." Then she fell silent.

Susan let out a tired sigh.

"Is he going to be okay?" Jenny asked after a moment of silence.

Susan nodded,

"Yeah, he'll be okay."

***

Cain stumbled in and out of consciousness.

Finally, he woke up.

He let out a groan then slowly sat up.

"You're up?"

He turned around to see Roselle sitting behind him, the reflection of the distant pool on her eyes.

He nodded, "Yeah."

Then he looked around in confusion. Susan and Jenny were no where to be seen. He also didn't sense Evangeline hiding out in his shadow.

"Where are the rest?"

Roselle shrugged, "Asteron wanted to discuss something. Since you were out of it, they decided to meet him in your stead."

Then she turned to him with a light smile,

"I was given the rather boring task of watching over you."

Cain let out a wry chuckle and said,

"Well thank you for that."

Then he closed his eyes,

'My spirit and body seemed to have healed up.'

According to the system, they had been in the Trial of Avarice for four days only while he had rested for about a day.

He frowned. That was rather odd. The rest given after the first trial was far shorter.

He turned to Roselle,

"That creepy thing, Viden, hasn't come already, has he?"

Roselle shook her head,

"No, not yet."

He nodded, then let out a sigh.

He opened his inventory then pulled out the item he had gotten as a reward for completing the second trial.

***

{Fang of Gluttony}:

Description: "Hunger existed before fire, before flesh, before light tore the void into pieces and called itself creation."

"In the darker parts of reality, there was a terrible hunger. A being was born from this very lust."

"It was called the Devourer of Worlds. The abhorrent thing drank rivers dry and swallowed mountains whole. A Dragon whose breath was not fire, not poison, not storm, but absence, a void."

"A void with teeth..."

"It did not hunger merely for sustenance."

"It hungered for entire worlds, for concepts. It even hungered for the flesh of gods."

"And so, it devoured."

"It ate the soil until the land was a corpse, a hollow shell where cities once stood."

"It drank the oceans until the seafloor cracked like shattered bone."

"It swallowed the sky until the sun gasped for air, strangled beneath the weight of an abyssal maw."

"The gods looked down and saw a cancerous wound feasting on their dominion."

"So they butchered it."

"Gods do not kill. They simply make not to be."

"They did not just slay Buldokak— they undid it."

"Ripped its body apart, shattered its soul into dust, stole its teeth and claws and ribcage and carved them into trinkets."

"But those gods were fools."

"They thought hunger could be destroyed."

"They thought that when they peeled the skin from its bones, when they scattered its flesh into the stars, that it would be gone."

"But true, primal hunger does not die. It is the source of everything and nothing all the same. If devours and brings all to naught, yet it also contains all of everything."

"It is life, and it is death."

"In the ruin of that dead, dying thing, a few things remained."

"Teeth..."

"An array of fangs, still slick with the blood of a thousand worlds."

"Still humming with a quiet, bottomless need."

"A fang was plucked from the skies by a Divine Forgemaster, a being that had served many a god."

"In the past, the Forgemaster had shaped weapons that tore planes asunder."

"His hands had carved the blade that slaughtered the Titan of Moore, the spear that pierced the heart of the Moon Serpent of the Easter Celestial Sea, and the hammer that broke the Dead Sun in the Hell Realms into fragments."

"And so, when he found the fang drifting through the cold corpse of the cosmos, he knew;

"A weapon made from this fang would inherit properties that could devour even the divine."

"The forging took a thousand years."

"A thousand years of blood. A thousand years of heat. A thousand years of whispering teeth gnawing at the edge of his mind."

"He melted stars to temper it."

"He carved its hilt from the bones of forgotten gods and devils."

"He bathed it in the screaming souls of the damned."

"And so, when the Forgermaster finallylifted the blade from the altar of his suffering and beheld his work, the edge of Avarice itself consumed him."

"Piece by piece. Thought by thought."

"A being capable of plucking stars out of the skies was unmade by his own creation."

"It is not a weapon, the Forgemaster said to the heavens as he was consumed."
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"It is Avarice"

"It is the echo of a being that would never know Satisfaction."

"It is the last remnant of something that even Divine might could not fully erase."

"It does not slay. It devours. It does not cut. It consumes."

"To wield this blade, one must first know hunger, and those who grasp its hilt offer their souls up to the ever-consuming hunger."

***

{Fang of Gluttony}(Godly Grade, Tier 2):

Attack Power: N/A.

Durability: N/A

Weight: N/A

Skills: Devour, Morph, Price of Gluttony, Soul of Avarice.

{Devour}(passive): The blade does not just kill, it feasts upon abilities, mana, strength, and even memories. The more the blade devours, the greater its strength will grow.

{Morph}(active): The fang shifts to match the wielder's desires. It can be a dagger, a sword, a spear, a scythe, or a maw of endless teeth. But each form brings a new hunger.

{The Price of Gluttony}(passive): The blade demands to be fed. Ignore its hunger too long, and it will consume you instead. Some wielders of the {Fang of Gluttony} have wasted away, their flesh consumed, swallowed whole by the blade they thought they controlled.

{Soul of Avarice}: Within this blade rests a portion of the Soul of the Land-Eating Dragon that was not destroyed by the gods. When it awakens, the {Fang of Gluttony} will undergo an evolution.