Kaden was running away. He had already noticed his actions being found out and the alarm was sounded. Its not like it mattered. Having finished the connection with rest of the bombs Kaden was running towards the city walls.
Due to the alarm everyone was alert. Kaden wondered for a moment how to deal with that.
----
At that time inside the warehouse.
“Sir, someone seems to have broken in, but ran into our patrols”, soldier explained to his superior, a Formation Stage officer who was tasked with overseeing the guard patrols in the warehouse. “I don’t see any other damage. Whatever the intruder was planning, must have been disrupted.”
“No… something is off”, replied the Formation Stage officer. “The other one was killed by having his throat torn out and the other by… I can’t even tell. Stab wound, but more than that. They didn’t have time to alert anyone.”
He then quickly sensed the area and immediately noticed there was a formation hidden in a corner where Kaden put it.
“Shit!” The officer said and released some mana to make the formation visible. “This is a formation. It seems to be connected elsewhere. We need a formation master here to inspect this.”
Then the formation activated. *skweeeeEEEEN*
“RUN!” Shouted the officer as he rushed away.
----
Kaden was sitting behind a chimney on one of the rooftops near the wall.
*BOOOM**BOOOM**BOOOM**BOOOM**
The formations started to explode one after another. Pilars of dark red flame burst out in the key locations.
Kaden turned to look at it. Sparks and burning material exploded outwards. Since they were burning with the Devouring Flame, they easily spread the fire where ever they happened to fall. Kaden watched in glee as the fire spread extremely quickly, igniting more buildings and things. He could hear shouts and screams.
“This is wondrous”, Kaden muttered to himself as he watched. He knew he should be running, but he just had to watch.
The spreading fire was something he had imagined in his dreams many times. Celadon was nearly inconsequential city, but it was still a city. Kaden felt excitement as he imagined just far would the fire spread. He wanted it to burn more. Perhaps the entire city?
Originally Kaden had thought Devouring Flame relatively hard to use magic, but if nothing else, it was perfect for torching things.
As Kaden enjoyed the view, he also happened to notice the guards on the wall were moving around erratically. It seemed about half of them were being moved to fight the fire.
“Those losers aren’t going to be able to put the fire out”, Kaden nodded to himself. “It has too much things to burn. It can fuel itself. A few Channel Opening stage can’t suffocate the fire mana. It will take at least those at Formation stage. With how well the fire is spreading, they will have hard time stopping it even then. At least at beginning...”
These movements did give Kaden chance to get out, though. It seemed torching the city was a relatively good distraction. It became very easy to get across the walls. Kaden assumed Sacronan would quickly send people out to look for the culprit once they got some to start giving proper orders. He did not want to stick around.
It seemed like no one was really giving any coordinated orders. Some people were trying to put out the fires while others seemed to go about trying to find the culprit. Kaden guessed, many higher ups were dead with the city hall gone and no one was really sure whose orders they were supposed to follow.
It was a perfect time to escape.
Kaden rushed out once opening appeared. He looked behind as he escaped back the way he had originally come from. The glow of fire was well visible in the darkness. There was no sign of it being put out.
“Eh… I wonder, if there will be a pursuit like I expected?” Kaden thought to himself.
This went slightly against Kaden’s plans. He wasn’t entirely done yet and, if people did not come after him, they would stay in Celadon. While he hoped it would happen, he was pretty sure his fire would eventually stop.
While Devoring Flame consumed more fuel for itself, the right kind of mana would eventually spread out and turn into normal fire. He just hoped the fire would spread far enough until that happened. The city would still remain most likely.
This posed a problem, perhaps a minor one that didn’t matter much, but it was much safer location than there in the open.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
The area a bit further from Celadon, the parts where the forest started, that was part of Kaden’s territory he conquered. It was right at the edges with the weakest beasts. He assumed even the Sandstorm Hawk didn’t really order around that area, but technically it could since there were no other high beasts.
Kaden continued with great speed towards the inner areas. Due to the same lack of any other higher beasts, it was a relatively large territory. If something did come, it would be difficult to hold entirely. Not that Kaden would bother to fight for it. He didn’t intend to stay around. Yet, while he was there and was able to order around the beasts he would take advantage of it.
It was something Kaden wanted to try. To send beasts to act on his command. Would they obey him? He felt like they would surely. No, he didn’t just feel like it, he was certain of hit. He had known it the moment he defeated the Sandstorm Hawk.
“I want it to happen while the fires are still burning”, Kaden though to himself. “I’ll send out the order again later, perhaps even towards the front lines.”
Kaden still felt the beasts in the area near Dashire needed to be culled. There was no way for him to find if any of them were actually involved in anything, but he would send them to their deaths anyway. Along with them, they would wreak havoc on Sacronan’s side on Kaden’s orders.
With that in mind, Kaden gathered his intent and desires. Then he unleashed it!
*SCREEEEECH*
Kaden’s orders? “Kill humans! Their city is on fire. They are weakened. Kill them all!”
To be honest, Kaden was pretty sure most of the beasts wouldn’t actually understand the words in his orders. They would likely understand that intent each in their own way.
Along with his screech, his orders spread across the area. There was a moment of silence and then howls and roars of beasts echoed from everywhere. At best they were weak Dire Beasts, but that didn’t really matter much to Kaden. They would kill and they would die. With them they would take humans that had their hands full with fire, if they even got past Celadon’s outter defenses.
Not many higher beasts would send weaker ones away like that. If too many lower beasts died, it would also diminish the overall strength of the territory. Kaden had no concern over such matters.
The pursuit Kaden had expected never came. The fire and loss of command probably prevented it. Perhaps even the beasts made it more difficult. The city was likely in chaos and beasts were attacking at the same time.
With everything done, Kaden did not wish to waste too much time. Once success of his mission reached the saints, whoever was working against him would try something again. It was best to get to relative safety before that happened.
Due to this, Kaden was speeding once again just like on his way to Celadon before. Nelsen had said the connection would be boosted towards the same place. Kaden hoped he would be able to get back this time with no extra detours.
Along the way Kaden arranged a few beast swarms. The area was too large and single command could not reach everywhere. He wanted all the beasts in the area to attack something. Yet, he did not yet have them attack Sacronan’s military at the front lines. Even if they were likely in some disarray. He wanted to know how he was going to get back to saints side before arranging any chaos along the way.
Eventually Kaden reached the sand pile. He hoped the connection would still work. Nelsen had said it would and he had no reason to lie unless someone forced him to. At least Nelsen qualified as Kaden’s superior so he could talk to him directly.
Kaden attempted a connection. For a moment there was a silence, but then there was an answer.
“Kaden?” Nelsen asked. “I hear from our long range scouts that something big happened in Celadon? I assume you were succesfull?”
“Yes, I bombed their supply stores, command headquarters, killed that stain Serin and also for a good measure I put one of the bomb formations at the heretic temple with altars to the gods of wrong path. I assume all this qualifies as success? I would prefer to return now.”
“You bombed a temple?” Nelsen questioned Kaden. “Should you be on Sacronan’s side another time, be careful.”
If saints managed to conquer an area, they would get rid of the wrong altars and such. But Kaden was a single person. Sacronan’s church would likely find out eventually who it was that destroyed the temple. They took that sort of thing seriously.
“What about Serin?” Nelsen asked. “We never knew much of him.”
“Trust me, you don’t want to”, Kaden answered. “I think even Sacronan kept him on the side. He was a psychopath. He made people his puppets with some emotion mana, I think. The manor he was staying at was seriously haunted. Its burned down now, though.”
“I see. One has to be quite detached from emotions to use such mana.”, Nelsen replied and the switched topic. “Front line is pretty active right now. I guess when they lost the command line and cannot coordinate well, we started to push in a bit. Sacronan’s line have a few holes right now. You should be able to take advantage of that.”
Nelsen then proceeded to describe the situation in detail. It was quite possible to rush through certain areas. Sacronan was getting mixed orders or none at all and some parts had weakened. They were not fools and were very well versed in matters of war so there was no total chaos.
“Oh and if you are going to crush Sacronan, be careful of beasts”, Kaden added at the end. “I think when Celadon was set on fire, the commotion got nearby beasts in frenzy and it seems to have spread along the way.”
“Well, its about time we cull some beasts anyway”, Nelsen replied. “Not only the volcano, but there were some problems at the Centralean Forest too. Now here too, it seems. Higher ranked beasts may be up to something.”
If that was the conclusion higher ups had got to, Kaden was not going to complain. One could say all those problems were probably partially or mostly his doing.
“What are my orders once I’m able to return?” Kaden asked.
“Something is up indeed”, Nelsen said. “I tried to have you join up Judgement since Verdict is basically gone. That was rejected. Right now, you are technically still under my command, but sort of alone. You are to return to Corand. As for future, I do not know. They can’t send you to a suicide mission again without good reason so I’d expect underhanded moves.”
“I’ll have to look into it myself too then”, Kaden said. While it was a problem, getting back to Corand was good too. Kaden was not unfamiliar with sudden attacks and assassins. He would deal with whatever came. “For now, I will attempt to get to the front line base and proceed from there.”
“Do that, I’ll be waiting for you at Corand”, Nelsen said and then ended the call.
Things weren’t exactly bad as far as Kaden cared. He had managed to survive. He had advanced. He had even managed to kill Serin and found more information about others. He also had the weapon he planned to use for his vengeance.
Honestly, Kaden had been quite succesfull.