Kaden had cultivated and prepared himself for the entire night. He wanted to minimize any potential setbacks unlike the last time. Not that he knew much of Serin when he killed him. Erral was an entirely another thing. He knew quite a bit of him and thus could prepare.

All the events had weakened Erral a bit. His mental state wasn’t perfect and he lacked his military support and gear. If Erral had his combat gear and allies, Kaden was pretty sure he would not be able to do much.

“Its today or never, I guess”, Kaden though to himself as he prepared his usual cover.

To make his repeated trips seem normal, he had been selling his wares and getting new materials. On this trip he would simply happen to walk past the place where Erral was hiding at.

This time he took some other things with him such as the formations he had made instead of just his usual goods.

Kaden walked out of his home like normally and made his way towards the market area. While he did often craft things for questionable people, he required steady income so he sold normal things for normal people too. He did not use Stefinos’s temple. If he could avoid a god, he would. Even as useful as Stefinos was, the priests bought stuff too cheap and of the people who did visit the temply to buy something, they usually looked something better than Kaden could mass produce.

Despite all that, he could easily dump his product to merchants elsewhere. There were a lot of people trying to grow stronger, going out to kill beasts and other such things. They needed their cheap equipment for their adventures.

Once Kaden was done with that cover up, he wandered towards the slightly out of place area where Erral’s hideout was.

Kaden felt some excitement, but pushed it away. There was no need to show any emotions of that sort until Erral was bleeding to death at his feet.

As usual, he made sure no one was following him and then made his way through the streets at the door to the hideout.

There he knocked the door in the correct way as he always had. Soon after the door was unlocked and Kaden opened it himself. Erral would never show his face anywhere someone could see it or be noticed by a random passing monitor spell. The house itself was warded completely. The little place was a fortress that could even take a hit for a while until the formations inside would shatter.

Kaden had wondered, if there was an escape route somewhere too, but he had never seen it. Not that he would allow Erral the chance to use it, if there was one.

He stepped inside. Erral was already back looking through some mana crystals for information and try to piece together the puzzle behind everything.

“Well, I guess he will find the truth today, hehe”, Kaden thought to himself as he dropped the supplies next to Erral. Nelsen was providing information closer to inside. Kaden himself brought other information freely available if one was around to listen. Additionally there were basic stuff such as food and other things Erral requested.

“Things are getting worse, Erral”, Kaden suddenly said.

“Hmm?” Erral turned around to listen.

“The purges of cultists are over at least for the time being”, Kaden said. This was truth. “They are going to come after you directly now. They will eventually discover this location. Even before that, I might not be able to come here again, if they start to look at the correct places.”

“I see”, Erral merely answered and turned to look at his investigation again.

“Too calm”, Kaden thought after a moment. He decided to annoy Erral a bit. “I hear they found something that points to your guilt.”

“What?” Erral finally acted. He seemed angry. “More of lies to frame me!”

“I don’t know what it was”, Kaden continued calmly. “Apparently they now feel conviced the demon attacked as a form of revenge. It had grudges with the cultists.”

“What are you insinuating!?” Erral shouted angrily.

“I am merely saying what I hear”, Kaden continued calmly. Yes, Erral was at least a bit angrier now. “If I thought any of that was real, perhaps it would not be me coming here, but Nelsen.”

To obviously put down Erral, if he was truly found to be a cultist.

“Lies, all lies!” Erral said angrily and continued looking through his investigations.

Kaden wondered for a moment, if it was even necessary to disturb Erral’s mind. He was so concentrated on discovering some clues that Kaden knew would not exist. At least not where Erral was looking at.

“Well, its about time”, Kaden thought and prepared to seemingly walk past Erral. He was prepared to pull out Vengeance at a moments notice as he passed by.

Kaden felt joy. Killing Serin had been a good moment, but with Erral it was a fruit of a long wait and preparation. It would be over soon!

Erral’s back was open. Kaden grinned and Vengeance appeared into his hand and he stabbed forward.

With extreme speed, Erral somehow managed to notice and turn around and try to stop Kaden.

*Shunk*

He wasn’t able to, but had forced Kaden to stab him from the front instead of back. Unnatural pain surged forth into Erral. Despite this he was able to push Kaden away with Vengeance stuck in his gut.

“Just die!” Kaden shouted with a grin as he recovered from the mere push. He expected Erral to die soon to the effects of Vengeance. Yet he still attacked again to make sure.

“Why!” Erral shouted, trying to pull out Vengeance which proved impossible. The blade was seemingly stuck in him and Erral felt like it was entangled around his flesh. He noticed it to be mana type he recognized. Pushing aside the flooding pain he realized it. “Vengeance mana?! YOU!”

Kaden was disapointed that Erral wasn’t getting paralyzed from the pain. “No matter”, he thought and leaped at Erral with fully released core and even his plume.

“You were the one to work with cultists to frame me!” Erral screamed in rage, seemingly able to ignore the pain more. “I’ll bring you to the inquisitor and clear my name!”

Erral also leaped forward.

Kaden realized a slight mistake in his actions. Perhaps Erral was able to resist the vegeance mana because he had his own rage.

“Huh, I guess thats possible”, Kaden thought as he clashed with Erral.

“Once I get you out, I can clear myself and then I will torture you to death slowly!” Erral shouted in rage. “Cursed cultist!”

“Don’t mix me with those lunatics!” Kaden replied as he tried to push aside Erral and grab Vengeance to twist it in more and perhaps attempt to pull out Erral’s soul. That should finish him. “God of Lies is just another damn god. The demon was very agreeable to my suggestions though. Hehehe. I made the formation to blew your bitch wife and kid to bits, though. The demon arranged the rest. Do you know how long I waited for a chance to kill you?”

Erral screamed in rage. “Monster! WHY!”

“Under your orders my father was killed!” Kaden shouted. “Perhaps that True Magus didn’t even get the chance to kill my mother and was killed before she was crushed. Then your soldiers wanted to make me mine slave, but that was later changed to beast bait. I wanted you to suffer a bit of loss like I did!”

Erral didn’t even seem to know what Kaden was talking about.

“Oh don’t worry!” Kaden sneered. “I’ll find those too who gave you the orders. Then everyone behind them. Let’s not forget Sacronan either. I’ll need to kill people in there too. Just die! You should be happy! Having sacrificed you, most of those freak cultists have been purged from the city!”

Erral roared in rage.

Erral and Kaden wrestled in the tiny hideout. Due to the formations protecting the place, nothing was detectable outside. Yet inside was getting trashed. The problem was that Kaden didn’t want to tear at Erral with his talons. Those leave rather distinctive marks and Kaden did not wish to be tied to everything, if he could avoid it.

Kaden used all his tricks he had prepared. He quickly noticed that Vengeance that was stuck in Erral was, despite his ability to resist it, still causing damage. Kaden knew he had the advantage and merely needed to play time until Erral weakened.

“Perhaps your woman and child have gone to afterlife”, Kaden laughed at one point. The wound on Erral around Vengeance had started to turn gray. It looked like Erral wasn’t going to last long. “I wonder if you will be going there. The last bastard’s soul screamed inside the blade for over a year until he was basically destroyed. You won’t be going anywhere, if I can help it!”

Erral knew his end was near. No matter how much he hated Kaden, there was nothing he could do. The blade would not budge. In fact, he could sense tendrils of mana extend from it increasing his pain and making the wound worse like some kind of poison. He would need to take Kaden with him.

Erral started to gather mana into himself.

“Self destruction?!” Kaden shouted. “I have seen this once before!”

This wasn’t good! Kaden wasn’t sure, if he would survive it at this close range, but neither did he want to give Erral quick end with him exploding. Erral was at his weakest now!

Instead of rushing out of the hideout, he rushed towards Erral instead. He wanted to disrupt Erral enough so that the mana would not explode. Erral tried to push Kaden aside when he came near. This time Kaden ignored Erral entirely. Instead he struggled to reach the blade still stuck in Erral chest.

“I’ll pull out his soul”, Kaden thought. “That should disrupt him enough, if not outright stop him!”

Erral fought back furiously, still gathering mana.

Then just as Erral was starting to make popping sounds as the mana was about to ignite, Kaden managed to grab the handle and pull.

Erral screamed. The pale green tendrils of vengeance mana did drag out something, but it wasn’t Erral’s entire soul.

Kaden did not have time to think of that much because right after then, Erral kind of exploded. Not like self destruction, but his body burst apart. It hadn’t been quite ready to go boom yet, but was enough that it caused several smaller explosions.

Kaden was knocked back and fell down. He was stained a bit by blood that had splattered around. He sat up in daze and looked around.

“Shit”, Kaden thought to himself after a while. “This mess wasn’t in my plans. I need to clean up a bit and make sure I don’t leave any evidence.”

Then again… the entire place was trashed. Blood had stained walls and floors. Everything was broken. Furnitures had shattered to pieces during the fight and the explosion.

Suddenly Kaden thought of something else. He inspected Vengeance. There was whatever was left of Serin, if it could be even called him anymore. It had even been just recently starting to break apart. Yet, now there was small mass of something next to it.

Kaden assumed it had to be what was torn out of Erral. It seemed to be just portion of Errals soul. Not enough to be one. Why didn’t all of it come along?

He spent perhaps a bit too much time thinking about it than he should have, but he was starting to feel that Erral wasn’t target on top of his list. There wasn’t enough true vengeance between Kaden and Erral.

“Vengeance mana is pretty strict”, Kaden thought to himself. “Even if I don’t realize it myself, the mana will only act as far as truth is.”

Despite everything, Kaden felt slight disapointment. He had been planning on listening Erral’s soul scream like Serin had, but now that was not possible.

“Fine… what is done is done!” Kaden decided.