God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.

With a grumpy expression, Cain quickly went through the first few papers.

His face immediately turned serious.

The contents of this paper were from Gilead and Hunter both and then contained detailed descriptions of the city closest to Zoan.

And that city would be...

Thalor lay right at the center of three cities; Zoan towards the coast, Vermonth that sat at the border of the plains, and Avalon, the city that led further inland.

While the other two still had some human life in them and had seemingly gotten rid of the Devilish invasion, Thalor on the other hand, had become a dead zone.

Not that there was no life in this once boisterous city brimming with intelligence and technological wonders.

Instead, it lacked only human life.

According to the detailed feedback from Hunter, the city was teeming with countless dens of Mutant Creatures.

Even the Devils seemed to have been forced out as well after destroying the human civilization that had once populated this great city.

Well, calling it a city was not really accurate in the first place.

While they were called cities, the cities of the continent of Aderra, and every other continent on Urbus were more like capital states than anything else. There were countless other smaller towns and smaller cities that had been under their rule in the past.

However, it was unfortunate that most of these smaller cities and towns had been torn apart by the devilish onslaught. Since they simply didn't have as many people as the larger cities would possess, the odds of survival in them were much lower as well.

And so, from the very edge of Zoan, all the way to Thalor, there were hundreds of smaller cities and towns littered with nothing but rotten remains and prowling bands of Devils with the occasional Mutant Beast den.

As he pieced through the information, Cain let out a sigh and got right into work mode.

'Resources, reach, and roads.'

Creating roads through these smaller cities would be much more ideal.

The spatial stability within the city was in shambles. It was also the same outside. However, surprisingly, the connection with the spatial anchors on Redscale Island remained the same.

In order for the roads to be functional, they would have to be a mix of both physical and spatial roads.

The physical roads would bridge the gap where the spatial ones couldn't cross.

"Just outside the city, there are three small towns. According to the energy readings, the most stable of them all is Marico. If the readings are right, then building an anchor here should be able to give us a free spatial route just right outside Thalor. However..."

His eyes narrowed.

According to Hunter, it was the town filled with the most Mutant Beasts. And even though he called it a town, the area it now covered was far larger than what City Z used to be in the past.

Since it was several times its original size, that meant there was more room for even more terrible creatures.

'That sounds like a lot of fun...'

He dropped his pen and folded his arms.

'The best course of action would be to lead a team to wipe out all the beasts and secure an anchor.'

He already had an idea for a good team composition. Since they couldn't spare much numbers, the team had to be one strong enough to come back with minimal losses at the very most.

He nodded to himself then flipped through the rest of the papers.

They all contained mostly boring details. But since every detail counted, he diligently went over them one by one until there was nothing left.

By the time he was almost done, at least two hours had gone by.

Feeling a subtle itch in his eyes, Cain let out a tired yawn and rubbed them gently,

In his hands were the last set of papers.

And in them, was a rather unique detail.

He had given both Hunter and Gilead the {Demon's Eye} with two separate tasks.

One was to read energy signatures and scope out the nature of the magically terraformed as well as seeking out survivors, while the other was to analyze the possible threats that could be our there as well as their nature as well as plotting out safe physical routes.

Although they were connected, the two reports were quite distinct.

For the most part at least.

Just before he could round up for the night, he had stumbled across the only similarity in both of the reports.

'Interesting...'

While Gilead had listed them as possible allies, Hunter had listed them as possible threats.

Both of them had coincidentally coined these groups of survivors;

The Lowland Barons.

It was true that the towns and cities lining the land between Thalor, Avalon, Zoan and Vermonth were mostly barren or filled with the dens of Devils, Mutant Beasts, and or Aether Beasts.

However, on the rare occasion...

There were a few that had managed to survive the terrible ordeal that was the apocalypse.

This in and of itself was very unlikely, given the much smaller population sizesof these cities and towns

However, they had gone ahead to survive despite such odds, possibly living through a second advent of damnation, and maybe even a third.

There very existence was nothing short of a miraculous play of human resilience.

From what he could understand, these towns and cities were rather well lit and gave off strong energy signatures. Despite that, they seemed to be under some sort of protection as rarely were they attacked by the Beasts from the surrounding cities.

However, they did suffer frequent Devil attacks.

These observations were the results of many months of delicate work.

Cain sucked in a breath.

It was very clear that these Lowland Barons could very well be the hidden key or extra hand they needed in expanding their reach and roads.

On the flip side, they could very well be another stumbling block.

The nature of humans was nothing new to him, after all. There was no way those that could survive through such fates and conditions would be weak willed or unwilling to put up a fight against an external power.

Even if it was one of humanity.

Eyes filled with a sharp glint, Cain folded his arms and began brooding in the silence.