For next year Kaden was bounced from skirmish to skirmish within Madakar. As a constant annoyance, there was Ciner who persistently followed him everywhere and babbled something about how fun it was to be finally together or something. Kaden wasn't certain how the lunatic was able to convince those deciding all the movements to keep her with him when there was obvious trouble tied to it.

Despite the time and kills Kaden racked up, he was not yet able to advance to mid Lower Cari. His predictions of required amounts of mana had to be slightly off. He blamed his special body structure as the predictions had based on knowledge based on ordinary records. It wasn't all bad. Kaden knew he was extremely strong within his own range and could fight those stronger than him. If he needed more mana, it meant his body could hold more. More mana was good.

Kaden's group had taken part to take over a certain hills. There had been a remnant nearby that had recently closed. Afterwards enemies had less reason to keep too large force around it and had been weakened. It had been a good chance to take it. There had also been other groups with the few phoenixes that were around. It was likely the location was considered valuable at least tactically.

Kaden was eating his latest kill, some kind of multicolored cat, that had been very good at hiding in plain sight and delivering sudden stealth attacks. Its mistake was to not hide properly from a life sense. Kaden had torn it apart as it had tried to stealthily attack him.

Kaden observed the mana he had acquired from it to enter his body and core. It felt quite full, but there were no signs of getting to mid Lower Cari yet. As he had already pondered on the matter, he didn't worry. There would be more kills and more mana.

"I wonder what happens next", Kaden thought to himself.

He had been already at Madakar for a while. A year was about average it seemed most stayed. Then they would return to Frika, use their contributions, train and understand their gains and then often a few years later, they would return to battle. Whether it was Madakar or some other place didn't really matter. As it happens, reinforcements were supposed to come soon. Another group from the phoenix clan and whatever mercenaries that were with them.

It seemed the time to leave Madakar was soon. Likely once defenses were set up. Stronger groups had already left to attack. Kaden's location was basically a lower importance where changes to personel were easy to arrange. Those who were supposed to leave had to only defend and wait. After that Kaden would go get the black fragment.

While Kaden wasn't sure how valuable firefoxes would consider the black fragment, he felt he had pretty good chances of acquiring it by now. He wasn't sure whether it was some odd effect, but he personally felt he had taken part in several more curious events and had a good chance to gain contributions. If not, he would at least know its worth the next time. If human empires didn't choose to attack, Kaden knew he would likely be able to return to Madakar again, if nothing else.

Kaden noted a strange sound nearby and turned his head to see what it was. Ciner. It seems she had a few kills too and had picked up head from one of them. It had then seemingly separated all flesh from the bone and had started to carve something on it. Kaden was able to see from distance it was probably some kind of tribute to their supposed love. Ciner was actually pretty good at carving things. The imagery of him and her together slaying their enemies in questionable poses was rather agravating to Kaden. Ciner liked to craft objects. Kaden had seen all sorts of dolls and images before too.

"Why won't she just die", Kaden cursed. He had lost his appetite, but continued merely due to the fact he didn't want to wait or waste materials while he had them.

Some time later Kaden saw in the distance the new group. Among it were fresh phoenixes from the clan. Kaden, in fact, knew some of them. For a moment Kaden wondered if he would have to repeat this trip a few times. It had not been tedious, but not exactly interesting. Thats the way things usually went. Boring was also usually good.

"I arranged my contract to end at the same time", Ciner suddenly appeared and told Kaden. "We can leave this place together and go kill things. I'm sure I will learn to fly soon and we can get married."

Kaden glared at Ciner. He was going to hide inside the phoenix clan once he had acquired the black fragment. Take time to study it. All sorts of things could be done that would prevent Ciner from following. If it decided to camp outside, Kaden was sure he could grow inside the clan and eventually take over and ensure his ability to finish off the lunatic.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

To get away from Ciner, he went closer to the new group as they were discussing matters with his. He hoped that he could distract himself by helping them build defenses. Specifically formations. He had done that quite a bit.

As Kaden listened something started to happen. Apparently they received some message from communications. Not far away, the main group that was supposed to be attacking had suddenly been ambushed by a large group.

"Orders have not come yet to go reinforce", the phoenix leader from the fresh group said. "We can't leave this place undefended."

"We will wait", the other replied.

At that time Kaden saw in the distance something. A quickly approaching large group of flying Cari. He wasn't the only one to notice it. They were not hiding. He wasn't yet sure, if they were enemies or allies.

There were some flashes near the said group on the ground level.

"Shit", Kaden cursed.

"TAKE COVER!" Someone shouted. "INCOMING BOMBARDMENT!"

Not that there was much to cover to. The area had been cleared already by the time the now disapeared remnant had been there. Now it was mostly open area.

Kaden rushed towards a nearby rock. Not that it was going to help much against the siege magic. There were some specific Cari that had extremely long range abilities, but were otherwise generally slow. Kaden wasn't sure which ones these were, but some examples were certain lizards that ate rocks, turned them into molten balls filled with mana and then ejected them with great force. There were also certain insect Cari that produced certain fluids inside their bodies that when mixed would turn into explosive globs of sludge.

Kaden quickly realised none of this should be happening. The point he was at was behind the front lines. How had their enemies managed to gather such a large group nearby and also with siege capability?

This wasn't just any attack. It was large scale and well planned. Were similar attacks happening elsewhere too? The attack front would get surrounded, if this position was suddenly lost?

Blasts surrounded Kaden. He had activated himself to full power to shrug off as much of the force the explosions around him released. A direct hit would be ... bad, but anything else was probably survivable.

Kaden suddenly realized the attackers had waited for the reinforcements to come. They were capable of fighting the two groups at the same time. They probably intended to kill everyone or at least cause as much damage as possible.

"They dare attack my hubby on my watch!" Ciner fumed near Kaden. She had suddenly appeared there and was defending both.

As much as Kaden disliked Ciner, he accepted the defense. Not even moments later several blasts rocked the surroundings. Ground shook as Kaden and Ciner weathered most of the force together.

"Kill the blashphemers and their servants!" Someone shouted far away, but loudly enough that everyone could hear it.

It seemed not everyone were happy to quietly wait for the godless mana system to spread. This attack was clearly directed towards phoenixes and their allies. They might have complied with it publicly, but they would plan pointless attacks like this behind backs. Technically an attack like this was perfectly fine, but Kaden was more annoyed about the motives.

"Fools", Kaden though to himself. "They merely need to wait and the entire Cari population will grow stronger and greater in number. Nothing they do can stop it. Why bother with all this? Some political and religious disagreements? Waste!"

Kaden wasn't able to tell who, whether there was one or more parties involved, but all this would accomplish would be extra conflicts among Cari when they would gain most from being unified.

"Humans and Cari might be different, but really they are so very similar", Kaden continued his thoughts. He remembere Anuu saying something about that too back when he met her.

Kaden wondered, if there were more problems regarding all this back on Frika. Phoenixes would annihilate everyone that truly would offend them, so probably not. At least not openly. For a moment Kaden pondered whether he would have to deal with some idiots again once he ventured out again.

The bombardment continued.

"Someone will have to get up and push through to get rid of whoever spews out these bombs", Kaden thought. To him it seemed like a suicide. Perhaps, if everyone got up and rushed forward, it might work.

*crack*

Kaden heard some weird sounds from the ground. It wasn't the bombs or debris landing. It seemed like it was from the ground itself.

Was someone attacking below ground?

"No, that doesn't seem likely", Kaden decided. "Tunnels would collapse under this bombardment."

Indeed, tunnels would collapse. Earth suddenly started to collapse under Kaden. As he tried to jump up from the ground to fly elsewhere, the ground below his feet started falling. He didn't quite get as high as he hoped and bombs were still falling and blasts made it near impossible to fly properly.

Still, Kaden had time to look far enough that the cracks and collapsing ground was spreading quite a bit further and others were getting affected by it too. Was this all part of the enemy plan?

In the distance Kaden could see the ground attack stop too. It wasn't likely due to the continuing bombardment. It seemed to be instead due to surprise. No, it wasn't planned.

A nearby blast forced Kaden on the falling ground and he fell down along with Ciner. As long as he wouldn't get crushed under too many rocks, he would be fine. Someone at Kaden's level would need pretty bad collapse to truly kill them.

There was only one way now and that was down.