Kaden turned the entire fort into something that looked like it could have come from hell.

Whatever bodies were left, Kaden piled up. Some he strung up from the wooden walls, some he tore to pieces upon whatever remained of the altar. He scorched the entire fort.

Kaden even scribled unholy symbols everywhere. He had learned quite few taboo symbols while he had spent time with Nosran. They weren't exactly necromancy or anything. It was merely mark of something dark. Nosran had not used any, but his library had good enough descriptions of them. They were usually used in combination of spells to bring about specific darker mana.

They didn't point to any specific group such as cultists, necromancer or anything so they made for good general staining of 'holy' places, if the altar of Daminur, that Juren had built, could be called that. It would be enough to make church frown.

In addition to desecrating the fort, Kaden started to fill it with traps. It was good practice of how far he could take practical use of formations with his higher power and knowledge. Applying the knowledge of programming from the ancients, Kaden made the formations to trigger in various ways. Such as trigger as nearby other formations are triggered.

Such a thing would easily be possible with ordinary formation methods, but Kaden didn't want to go too far with his testing. Additionally, he was able to alter the direction of explosions in similar manner towards the first triggered one.

He had already used Devouring Flame while he was buthering Juren's troops. It had grown in strength. It lasted longer and yet seemed to burn even faster. He liked to tie that spell to formations. If you are going to make a trap, make one that is most difficult to deal with. Flame that can't be put out is a good option.

Kaden didn't know how many people church would send, if any. He wanted to be prepared. Also it wasn't absolutely certain whether or not Marwen would be among them. According to Peil, he was part of the church forces of the area and it was likely he would be sent, if situation demanded it.

Kaden felt some confidence based on his understanding of how churches worked. They liked to show their strength. Problem originated at a place where Juren, who was at peak Formation stage, was about to advance. Church would send someone stronger. Always. If not stronger, then in greater numbers. Kaden hoped that since Juren was not yet Condensation stage, church would only send one and that would be Marwen. Hopefully.

If there were two enforcers from Sacronan's church, it would be troublesome. This was one of the main reasons Kaden was filling the area with traps. Two full strength would be hard to beat, but two injured was entirely another matter. He also placed a disruption formation not far from the fort where it would be hard to discover. It would prevent communications. There would be no help. No one would even likely come check in days, if not weeks.

Final addition to the entire system of traps was a switch to turn them all on in one go. Whoever came, Kaden could let them walk in, wander about and then turn on the traps. With very little mana in them beforehand, it would be difficult to notice them, even if someone looked.

Surprise was always a good strategy.

Once Kaden felt he was done, it was time to wait some more and see who shows up. It wasn't a problem. He still had more than enough things to study and experiment and he expected it to stay that way far into future. Whether it was formations, physics from the ancients, improving mana system, spells, there was a lot of work to do.

It actually took almost a week for anything to happen. Was Sacronan busy somewhere? Kaden half expected Peil had not managed to make church interested, but Sacronan's military didn't send anyone to check either.

Kaden had been planning on leaving in a few days, if nothing had happened. Yet, finally he noticed a small group of people approaching. Just about ten or so. It was likely just a group put together to investigate the matter. Even better, there was indeed only one at Condensation stage among them.

"Let's see, if it is Marwen", Kaden muttered to himself as he took a better spot to have a good sight to the fort.

Not long after, Kaden watched the group of people, obviously from Sacronan's church, approached the destroyed fort. The leader, who was the Condensation stage member of the group, was hooded and Kaden couldn't immediately say who he was. Once they carefully entered the fort, he finally took off his hood.

It was Marwen! He still looked roughly same as before, a monk, specifically a warrior monk. Enforcer of the church and its will.

It was time to act.

----------

"This place...", one of the church's soldiers said. "Lord Marwen, what happened here? A failed dark ritual?"

"Hmmm", Marwen hummed as continued to look around. "This place is intact. All of these soldiers have been butchered without any effort. I don't see the commander either. Being a follower of Daminur, he should have put up a fight. Something is wrong." Marwen frowned. "Everyone! Be careful and prepare for a fight! This is probably a trap. I knew something was weird about that report about this."

Just as Marwen shouted out the orders, his prediction of the situation turned out to be right. The entire area glowed as Kaden's formations activated.

*KAFOOSH*

A few of the soldiers had been standing on the formations as they activated. The Devouring Flame was released with an explosion, killing the ones at the center and everyone else ignited nearby.

They tried to put out the fires, but it was no use. The flames spread very fast and the ignited soldiers were screaming flailing about, bumbing into others. Only a touch was required for the Devouring Flame to spread and ignite more.

The burning soldiers triggered several more formations.

One of the burning soldiers was flailing and moving towards Marwen. With a quick blast of light, the soldier was flung away.

"Do not touch anyone on fire!" Marwen shouted. "This is not normal flame. Those burning are already dead. Shoot them! Prevent them from triggering more of explosions. Sense your surroundings. There are formations hidden just under the dirt and ash. Spread once you are certain there are no traps!"

*SCREECH*

Marwen turned to look at the sky where golden, huge bird was flying towards the fort.

"A beast? Formations?" Marwen said with surprise. It wasn't impossible for higher beasts to use formations like humans did, it was just more rare. They became intelligent enough usually once they advanced to Lower Cari, but being able to gain access to knowledge required to learn the craft would usually take time. Formation masters among Cari were far more rare than among humans. "A Lower Cari. Call this in. Its strange to have one here and doing ... whatever this is."

One of the still living soldiers started to make a call, but he quickly frowned.

"I cannot get connection", the soldier replied. "Something is disrupting connection."

Marwen frowned. "A trap indeed", he muttered. "You, try to run out of the distruption area and report this", Marwen told the soldier trying to get a connection. "The rest of us will fight and preferably kill this beast. This land belongs to humans!"

Marwen pulled out something from his bag. A chain with glowing symbols covering it.

------

Kaden watched as the soldiers scurried about. They shot their burning companions. This was rather sensible action. Quicker than he had expected. Over half of the soldiers were dead and the rest were still surrounded by formations.

One of the soldiers was trying to run. Kaded shot a Fire Ball towards him, but soon after that he had to start dealing with attacks coming from below.

The Fire Ball was suddenly stopped by glowing chains that Marwen was holding.

Kaden wasn't about to let anyone escape so he decided to make it sure that no one would. He shot a Fire Beam towards the escaping soldier, if a Fire Ball wasn't going to be enough.

Marwen moved more of the chain to block the Fire Beam, but it was blasted aside once Kaden sent a explosion with the Fire Beam. The chains that Marwen controlled were blown away and rest of the Fire Beam continued its way. The unfortunate soldier burst in flames and was incinerated near instantly.

"You aren't going anywhere", Kaden shouted.

"Nor are you", Marwen shouted back and suddenly the chains flew towards Kaden.

Kaden quickly moved to avoid and was able to do so. He bombarded the ground and wanted to get rid of the weaker soldiers. While they weren't Condensation stage, they were on the higher levels of Formation stage, enough to be trouble with their numbers.

It was more difficult than expected to kill the weaker soldiers with Marwen controlling the chains. There was no way to do direct hits since Marwen protected his allies, but Kaden didn't need direct hits.

He started to toss around Fire Balls without aiming. He only needed to force the soldiers move and avoid the large number of Fire Balls that with the power difference were each dead. Movement would force them towards undiscovered traps.

Kaden was able to finally force one of the soldiers take a few steps aside or die. Marwen noted this and was about to shoot the soldier before he could move more, but it was too late.

*KAFOOSH*

Fire errupted. The soldier exploded to pieces, but with Kaden's formation adjustments, small bit of the flames were directed away from the explosion spot and ignited another soldier. Two of them left. Marwen seemed really annoyed about that, but before he was able to do anythin to stop any more explosions triggering, Kaden shot a Fire Beam at him.

Marwen moved quickly and jumped at the locations where there had been previous trap explosions. There wouldn't be another. Before Kaden was able to shoot again, he felt something wrap around his leg.

Marwen yanked hard and was able to drag Kaden from the sky. Even more so, Marwen flinged Kaden towards area where no one had yet been to, with likely traps.

This could have been very clever move, but Kaden was perfectly able to disable the traps before hitting them. Unlike the humans, Kaden was well able to sense his own mana inside the formations.

He wouldn't be able to reactivate them in quick manner, but deactivation would be fine. The chain had at least become loose. Now that he was on the ground, he decided to stay there. It would be much harder to drag him along if he had proper traction on the ground.

"What are you animals up to here?" Marwen demanded to know. "This is far from your territories."

Like with Juren, Kaden wanted Marwen to know why he was going to die and his soul destroyed. Kaden actually stood up to show his unusual body structure. He had played a bit more games with Juren, showing more humanlike behavior with clothing, but he didn't want to do any such extra moves with Marwen who already frowned enough when he watched Kaden stand up.

Kaden pulled out Vengeance and held it clearly visible to Marwen.

"Vengeance mana ...", Marwen immediately realized with a grimace. "Who are you? WHAT are you?"

Kaden didn't say anything, but instead tried a little trick he figured should be possible. Since he could look into Vengeance, he figure he could project that outside.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA", was suddenly sounded as Kaden projected image of Juren's soul outside, included with the sound of his screaming. The apparitions formed from whatever vengeance could be tied to Juren were also still tearing him apart.

The soldiers recoiled in horror and Marwen frowned.

"That is Juren", Kaden explained. "He will soul will be unmade. He will not get to go to afterlife. Though, I believe his destination would be hell." Then Kaden raised his sharp talon and pointed at Marwen. "You are next ... Marwen."

"Who are you!" Marwen demanded to know. "What connection do I have to something like you!"

"Perhaps you should have considered consequences in the past", Kaden continued explaining. "Last time I saw you, I was merely a foolish, weakling child. Due to some pathetic so called holy orders, you sacked my little home village with Juren. To my understanding you did it many times. You should know what you did. Yet, against all the odds, I survived."

Marwen frowned.

"Already I have set things in motion that may cause destruction of the churches", Kaden continued and revealed things. If he were to lose, he would die. If he were to win, no one would be left alive to spread the knowledge. Cultists would be enough to spread the godless mana system. If it was only them, it would be slow. It would eventually end in hands of beasts when humans die in their hands. "It is your fault. Even if you were to kill me here, once your time comes to die, your soul will be cursed in afterlife by the gods you worship. You will be tossed to burn in hell. It was your fault."

Kaden put away Vengeance for time being. Then he sent a charge of mana through the formations that were all linked together. Chains of explosions were triggered. Even if the soldiers were not standing on them, the enormous explosions were enough to annihilate most of what remained of the fort.

Marwen was able to shield himself from the fire, but his followers were not. They had been already basically dead by the time they stepped inside the fort. Kaden could have triggered it all right after activating the formations, but he wanted to fight Marwen. To be honest, Marwen would likely have been able to defend himself. There would have been some delay between activation and the explosions.

Kaden lowered himself back on four feet on the ground. It was best way for him to fight.

"Now we will fight and you will die in incomprehensible torment", Kaden told Marwen. "Your soul will be destroyed. There will be no afterlife for you."

Kaden activated his plume and released his core to maximum level. He was ready to fight Marwen.