Since Kaden could easily connect to all his slaves, finding Nervin wasn't hard. It seemed he had managed to find a place the Corand sewer. It was in section that was out of use. Mostly vagrants and beggars visited that area. Not only that, it was far enough in a place that was mostly collapsed. The exception was a small entrance where a person could fit in. Nervin had stuffed himself in in desperation after buying an small illusion formation from temple of Stefinos. That had been basically his only option to buy perhaps slightly overpriced one, since the priests of the merchant god were completely neutral and wouldn't reveal that he bought one. Well... it would take quite high price.

Thats how Nervin had been spending his days recently. Slowly rotting away in the hole with injuries and basically nothing left on him. If he left his hiding place, there were people out looking for him. A bounty placed by the Shadow Pact.

"I will give him something", Kaden had decided. "Some funding and way to protect himself while he attempts to do my bidding. If he fails, then so be it."

No one was capable of seeing Kaden as he floated inside the sewers. He could easily slip through blockages. Kaden was able to easily do a short range teleportation. Trip between dimensions would also allow the same. If he wanted to get tricky, he could even reshape his body into mana and simply slip through small holes.

Only formations and other mana based defenses by other True Magi or higher could stop him and none such existed in the sewers. It was not an attack path for a hostile True Magus anyway.

Kaden eventually stopped by Nervin hiding hole.

"Come out, Nervin", Kaden commanded and indeed Nervin emerged from the said hole.

"...master", Nervin said quietly. Despite that he was at Condensation stage, he looked almost like the beggars along the way.

"I have work for you", Kaden told him and tossed out some crystals for funding. "Give me your weapon."

Nervin did as asked. Kaden quickly added some lower tier formations on the weapon, a sword. Lower tier in terms of what Kaden was capable of, but powerful in hands of someone at Condensation stage. The weapon would not be able to bear the power of True Magus level formations. It was still significantly more powerful than before and it would show.

"This will show that you have a backer", Kaden said. "You also now have some funds. Go out and see, if you can gather together people from the underworld to oppose the Shadow Pact."

"I will do so master", Nervin said. He was obviously not able to reject the demand, but some emotional distress did show. "I'm afraid I might not be capable, though."

"I don't care", Kaden coldly told Nervin. "Your worth has nearly ran out. This is your chance to increase that worth. I'm not sure, if you would prefer to die instead, but you don't have that luxury. Succeed and you will live and control large section of underworld in Corand and Saint Empire. Fail and you will die."

"I understand", Nervin said.

Kaden then repaired Nervin's slave formation similarly as he did to Fanin.

Now, if Nervin succeeded, Kaden would have major control over what happened in Saint Empire. Kaden had now more than one plan to destabilize Saint Empire. Northwinds dealing with the politics and arranging Kaden closer to the top. If he could add underworld there too, there would be great benefits and control in the empire. At least the part that church usually didn't care about too much. They would start to care, if Kaden ever got his way with these plans.

Which ones of these plans would actually reach fruition remained to be seen.

Kaden did prefer speed, if he could have his way. At worst he would have to be patient and wait for Cari to finally decide attacking. It would be a delay, if he could not speed it up.

"I also need to be stronger when it happens or I risk not being able to gain benefits that might come available", Kaden thought to himself as he quietly floated out. "Perhaps some experiments are finally in order?"

Kaden had time. It would take time for his plans to move forward. Since everything would be likely noticed by someone while he remained inside Corand, Kaden decided to go elsewhere. Somewhere with less eyes around.

"I need some people I can kill", Kaden decided.

He did not want to start butchering people inside the Saint Empire so the next place would be Sacronan. Since there was war going on, Kaden decided he would go find a few targets and then experiment on them with some ideas he had. He still had not truly upgraded his spells or other abilities on True Magus level. He obviously had a very good idea what to do, but he wanted to test things.

Once outside of the city, Kaden accelerated to supersonic speed in moments. It was interesting how short distances felt to Kaden now as he flew. He pondered whether he should have instead experimented with long distance teleportation instead, but decided it didn't matter. He had seen quite a bit of how space functioned now. He had other plans now.

Kaden avoided any major military groups. Be it Saints or Sacronan, Kaden did not want to cause too much disruption. That would be counterproductive, if he didn't want people to look at his business.

He almost decided to stop by a random border village, but he chose to move on. There was too small variety of people in them. All weaklings. Kaden desired different levels and see differences.

Eventually Kaden spotted a small company of a bit over hundred soldiers. Kaden wasn't certain what they were doing, but they were a bit out of the way. Perhaps they were securing the area or something? Not that Kaden really cared. They were a good target. Their leader was even at Condensation stage so that meant there were good test subjects ranging from Channel Opening to Condensation stage.

Kaden appeared in the middle of the company quietly. At first no one even noticed someone had appeared among them. They did noticed once Kaden picked up a Formation stage officer and tried using Devour in a new way and the officer began screaming as he withered and died in Kaden's hands. The man would have turned to dust in an instant, if Kaden had wanted to, but he did it slowly so he could see everything.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

He had been thinking of space and consuming things. It had already been a while, but he had read about things such as gravitational wells back in the greater remnant in Murika and more at Zeruek's place.

"Perhaps I can use such a thing to attract life to me with manipulation of space and resulting in greater efficiency?" Kaden mumbled to himself as he tossed away the disintegrating body of his first subject.

Mana allowed him to make space affect only some things. More so with just using mana to affect mana. Otherwise he would have to personally tear out every bit himself. What if he just enveloped an area and allowed it to do the work for him?

The Condensation stage leader had already noticed and he was screaming everyone to run. He knew that Kaden was a True Magus and all of them were essentially already dead, if Kaden wanted that.

Kaden picked him next.

"Maybe I should see that connection about life and souls?" Kaden mumbled. "Life, soul, space. How interesting."

Kaden engulfed the Condensation stage officer into a spatial well that he had modified to affect the things he desired. It took far longer for the man to die, but Kaden as able to see his soul flicker inside the spell just before it was snuffed out.

There was only small delay as Kaden expanded another spatial well like a bubble over the entire camp. No one was strong enough to run as the started to fall back inside.

"Soul was difficult to affect, but it was affected", Kaden continued.

Several next victims screamed and died as Kaden wanted to discover the link between life and souls. It is said that souls were supposed to be the domain of gods and it was forbidden to mess with them. Kaden didn't care. There was surely something interesting about them. It was also notoriously difficult to do anything to souls. Even as a True Magus Kaden had difficulties doing so. Before Kaden had used vengeance mana. Why was it different?

Kaden pulled out Vengeance and observed it for a moment. It had been growing as it was connected to Kaden and his mana. Pieces of metal were flaking off, but somehow it had formed more and was even growing in size.

"What is vengeance?" Kaden pondered. "It is my desire to punish those that wronged me."

Soldiers around Kaden were trying to run. Some tried attacking him, but that did not even leave a scratch. Some had fallen into despair and commited a suicide instead.

"It comes from me?" Kaden finally decided. "Vengeance comes from me. My soul. It comes from my soul that has been twisted by my rage and hate and able to produce vengeance mana."

Soul can affect soul. You just needed some way to use your soul. A tool such as vengeance. That specifically required an altered soul.

"Soul requires life to remain in this mortal realm", Kaden continued his train of thought. "What if I take life and soul at the same time?"

Kaden used Vengeance as a conduit for vengeance mana. He drew a group of screaming soldiers closer and activated his new spell idea.

A bubble of spatial magic laced with vengeance mana spread out. Then he added in the devouring part.

Kaden watched in curiosity as the soldiers withered and died. It looked very similar as to what it had been before, but Kaden, now interested in souls, watched the soldiers souls being pulled out. At this point it mattered very little how far from Kaden's vengeance they were. Technically they were working for Sacronan's military so they were slightly at fault, but it was a pretty distant connection. Kaden assumed against his true targets the effect would be more difficult to defend against.

At any rate, the souls that were pulled out were being torn to shreds among the pull of Kaden's spatial spell. The souls did not come along intact. They instead howled in pain as their existence was torn into pieces as consumed by Kaden. Only parts though. The rest went where souls go when you die.

This was still an interesting thing that Kaden noted. Vengeance was the conduit, but the shreds of those souls, pieces and energy, entered Kaden just like when he devoured life.

Kaden felt something when this occured. He had eaten souls. They were in pieces, but he had eaten souls. Before it had been Vengeance that seemed to take in everything. This different way gave him everything. Even so, Vengeance seemed to glow and it did not seem to suffer harm in not getting its fill. In fact, it seemed to be conducting Kaden's mana better now.

"It is not just a weapon", Kaden understood. "It is a focus made for my vengeance. MY vengeance. It is part of me. It doesn't matter whether it is me or it that consumes the souls. Perhaps before I was just incapable, but now as being of mana, I can do it."

Kaden still examined himself, but saw no changes or sensed any problems. Yet, he could not shake the feeling something had improved. Could it be just his understanding that he attained just now that seemed to grow his power just slightly?

"I want more", Kaden decided. He expanded the bubble to cover the entire area. He even felt he had reached some higher understanding. It wasn't quite complete yet, but it was worthy of being called a spell. "Life Well shall become... Life Singularity."

Kaden floated up a bit and released the spell.

There was a momentary pulse of mana and world seemed to quiet down just for a moment until it screamed. The spherical bubble seemed to darken with Kaden at its middle. Everything seemed to fall towards him. Yet, nothing physical actually moved. It was life and shreds of souls.

The darkening wasn't lack of light. It was simply every single thing losing its life force and then darkening and turning varying levels of gray. The soldiers screams ended very quickly as the withered and died in moments, but their souls screamed far longer as they entered a vortex around Kaden and were torn apart before being devoured by Kaden in the middle.

All life died in that area of about radius of hundred meters. Not even a single bacteria survived.

"Yes!" Kaden was certain now with the larger amount gained. There was something else with souls that he did not quite understand. The life gained was neglible to Kaden, but the souls had something! Each shred seemed to give Kaden 'something'. Yet, he could not say what that 'something' was. "I need more! I must examine it carefully! Is the church or gods hiding something about souls? It wouldn't be the first time I find something when I look more carefu...".

Kaden had just enough time turn and face an attack that struck him. He put out as much mana out to protect himself as he could, but his defenses were being shredded apart faster than he could repair it. It wasn't space attack, but more like some kind of violent flow of energy that was strong enough to drag space along with it in a turbulent manner.

Kaden could not even enter the space between dimensions. The space he was in was too chaotic and vibrated violently under the onslaught. Kaden had trouble holding his form togther and not being swept along with the energy as it continued coming. He as in pain.

"I will die, if this continues!" Kaden understood.

He expanded his will outside as much as he could and took hold of the space. It had to be stabilized or he would receive continuous damage. The flow of energy intensified as Kaden took hold of the space and he, in turn, expended more power to maintain it.

It had likely been only ten seconds or so when the flow of energy stopped, but it had felt much longer to Kaden.

"*gasp*!" Kaden gasped for air and floated up to see who had attacked him. He knew it was another True Magus.

The area was in complete devastation. The space seemed to have small tears everywhere except where Kaden had been at. Most of the dead gray area at Kaden's vicinity was gone entirely. There was on oddly shaped hole, an oval, going deep into the ground. It wasn't smoldering or anything. No, Kaden could see shredded matter, extremely fine, nearly atom sized dust floating about. This was what happened to ordinary matter being hit by the attack.

"Haha, you truly are a newbie", a voice said. "Still gasping for air, as if you need any. Though, I have to admit, you are a tough one. That should have been enough to kill a newbie. Your understanding of space is... facinating... oooh... and you still have strength left to fight! Wonderful!"

A True Magus floated up for Kaden to see. It was time to fight... or quite possibly flee.