A month or so later Kranor called for Kaden.

"Ah, there you are", Kranor said. "I hear you spend a lot of time learning."

"I have things I want to do", Kaden replied. "I cannot be weak. The sooner I grow in strength, the sooner my goals can be achieved."

Kranor nodded. "Indeed. Anyway, I called you since I was able to arrange a mission for you. There might be more soon and there might be more after this first one, if you want them."

"Just point me to the target", Kaden said. Finally he would have something to do that would be most efficient use of his time. That is killing people.

"It might still be a fight, but this one and likely the later ones are more like political targets", Kranor explained. "With the things changing, there are those who agree with our views and then those who don't. It is not glamorous work, but it benefits the clan."

"Are there any requirements on how I kill these targets?" Kaden asked. Sometimes political targets needed to die in certain ways. "What about collateral damage?"

"None. We just need to get rid of them", Kranor replied. "As long as you don't cause widespread destruction, anything is fine."

Kaden pondered it for a moment after Kranor handed him a crystal holding the required information. Cari were quite direct. Even if someone was obviously murdered, it would have less secondary effects. In most cases, if someone dies, someone else will be eager to take their place and push aside whatever baggage was left from their predecessor.

This first target that was given to Kaden appeared to be some of the Lightning Leopard clan. Perhaps one could call the mid grade clan with some influence and generally did not choose sides. It seemed they were at odds whether they should take part in a greater clan's efforts this time. The target was obviously one of those that opposed the idea of working with phoenixes.

Pretty usual stuff.

At any rate, Kaden now had an excuse to leave and be alone long enough to put the black fragments together. It was time to see, if something significant would happen. At the very least there had been no reaction to simply keeping them together, but not assembled.

"I half expected them to go crazy", Kaden thought to himself as he left Kranor's house. "Each time I gained more, their power and distance they detect something had grown, but I have yet to see them do anything now with all parts together."

Kaden felt very eager to try assembling the entire set.

Just as he was about to leave he stopped and frowned. Indeed, there was one problem to solve. His studies had produced some gains.

Kaden took some time to produce a clone formation. He had experimented with different ways and one of the discoveries had good use. He had found a way to make near perfect clones of himself, but they had basically no fighting power. Perhaps that would be solved eventually, but right now it was not required.

What was the problem? Ciner was still wandering outside of the phoenix clan. Apparently she was still trying to fly. Luckily with no success.

"I have no idea how she has been able to find me in the past, but this should distract her for a while", Kaden muttered to himself as he activated the formation. "It has a limited range, but the clone will merely start to disintegrate out of it. I can make Ciner follow it for a few hours at least before it breaks."

Kaden watched as a copy of himself formed. It had only a few commands. That was to move away from the real Kaden and try to waste as much Ciner's time as possible.

The clone flew away and it was going to pass by the area Ciner was trying to fly.

Through the formation Kaden was able to observe the clone and its surrounding. Ciner took the bait!

"Time to leave", Kaden thought as he flew away. The clone would have to be made even better, if he wanted it to work the next time. If he were to be able to make it fight, he might even consider trying to kill Ciner. Two against one seemed good. Unfortunately that wasn't the case ... yet.

There were more tests and experiments to do. Kaden felt there was very good potential in this specific formation type.

-----------------

The Lightning Leopard, Merrkin, was outside of his home, lounging in the sunlight. He liked these moments of rest. Specifically recently. The clan wanted to work with the phoenix clan, but they had spat at gods and released that accursed godless mana system. Why should they work with such a clan?!

Defying gods was not good. Cari were not supposed to use mana systems like humans did. Thats not how beast gods had made Cari to be! Clearly the phoenixes had become heretics.

Merrkin felt lucky he was in position to bring out opposing views. He didn't quite have the majority support for his opinions, but neither was he something the leaders could ignore outright.

Perhaps gods would reward him for his actions. Merrkin decided to pray today and request a blessing of strength.

*snap*

"Hmmm?" Merrkin roused from his rest. He turned his ears to direction the strange sound had come.

His mate and cub were in the house behind him. No one was supposed to intrude. He sniffed the air and listened as he walked further into the vegetation surrounding his home.

He wasn't quite sure what he was sensing. Someone was there.

He took a few more steps further. He would run down whoever dared to intrude and fry them with some current.

*snap*crunch*

There! Someone was walking over the foliage just to the left of him. He didn't quite see who it was, but it didn't matter. Merrkin prepared his lightning mana to his muscles to generate enormous burst of speed that his species was known for. He discharged his mana ... and nearly broke his legs as he didn't move anywhere.

"What?" Merrkin said to himself as he found himself unable to move.

It was as if his legs were stuck on the ground and a tingling feeling was spreading upwards from there. He could no longer even move his legs. The tingling spread all over his body in next few moments and he found himself unable to do anything. Not even call for help. It was difficult to even breathe, but mostly only his extrenal movements were sealed.

Sounds finally came closer. Merrkin almost enraged when he realize what appeared next to him was a bird Cari with bright golden feathers, a phoenix!

"Hmmm, yes", the phoenix said. It was Kaden. "It was able to stop your charge. I doubt you can break free. I'm pretty sure it will hold even someone much stronger."

Merrkin wanted to rage, but he was unable to do anything.

"Lets test the formation functions", Kaden said calmly. Then he continued speaking his thoughts out loud. "It seems the formation can indeed produce enough force to hold a Cari. Strength isn't the issue. Its always the control. I should test the movements and how far they extend."

Merrkin suddenly found his limbs moving on their own. He already understood he was stuck in a trap. One that forcibly took control of his body. Yet it seemed unfinished. Merrkin started to try fighting against it. Perhaps something would break and give him chance to free himself and strike back at the heretic bird!

"Perhaps I can hijack the bodies", Kaden muttered to himself. "Anyway... its about time I finish my job. I'll test the true extent of this formation."

Merrkin suddenly found his limbs bend in ways they weren't supposed to. It was agony as his bones shattered and muscles twisted and joints broke. He was unable to scream. At most his breathing increased and heartbeat went skyhigh. He found himself floating in the air too.

"Good, good", Kaden mumbled to himself. "There is indeed enough strength, but I had to give it extra charge while building it. If I take personal control of it and feed it mana, its fine, but I can't always be there. Energy source is a problem too."

Merrkin watched as something below him glowed as Kaden manipulated the formation.

"Lets see what giving it even more power can do", Kaden said. The formation was now glowing brightly. "I believe it was enough to kill already before, but this makes it easier and requires less effort."

Merrkin felt himself begin to twist. Blood was pouring into his throat as his organs burst and veins split. He still could not even scream as his body twisted. It was pure agony. He was about to lose consciousness. How did this phoenix intrude his clan area? Reason was obvious! His last thoughts that could pass through his pain was the desire to kill this phoenix. Then the agony drowned all thoughts.

Soon his neck twisted and skull shattered and brain matter leaked out.

------------------

Kaden watched as the Lightning Leopard was twisted. Blood was pouring out of the mass of meat that was folding over itself.

It was like a wet towel. You take hold of both ends and twist to different directions and it squeezes out the water. The formation clearly could forcibly take control of a body. It wasn't anything clever like taking over nerves or something. It just grabbed hold of mana inside the body as if it was just mass of mana in shape of the being it was holding.

Kaden himself was able to make his clones by producing the mana he used to make his armor that was roughly in his shape. It was the same idea, but this formation intruded the body.

It was luckily very subtle process and once it was far enough, it would require for the victim more and more effort to break out of it as they lost control of more of their own mana. It was still unable to take control of internal organs. Cari cores could generate enough mana that disrupted the formation effect.

Due to such reasons actual control was only possible outside of the body and not too deep inside. It didn't matter since, while it was not able to control internal mana, it was able to wrest most of it out of control.

"Merrkin? Merrkin. Where are you?" Someone asked at the direction of the leopard's house.

This was likely the mate. Kaden could sense a child too inside the house.

"Its best to finish this", Kaden thought to himself. He didn't want to leave people alive in situations such as this. He himself was a product of 'unfair' actions. This woman and the child could become problems.

Kaden didn't really care as long as he finished everything. Killing was normal. He cared about his own targets and, to avoid becoming someone else's target, he would finish things.

He activated his core and stepped towards the house.

"Wha... who are... WHAT HAVE YOU DON...", the female Lightning Leopard said. It was all she had time to do despite being known to be a quick species.

She was only at initial Lower Cari. Kaden was above her even in stage. She took direct hit from Kaden's fire that had full intent to kill at close range. It was a quick kill.

Kaden sensed the child wake up inside the house. It wasn't even Lower Cari yet. Kaden shot a Fire Bomb at the house which exploded into bits.

"That should do it", Kaden mumbled to himself. He quickly removed whatever mana remained in the formation, collected Merrkins core from the mass of meat and also from his mate and then left. "This clan defensive layer is nowhere as good as the phoenix clan. Even so, it took some effort to break through without being noticed. I should quickly leave the same way before someone investigates."

A mid ranked power like the Lightning Leopards did have enough resources to arrange a defensive formation, but the quality wasn't top tier. A good formation master such as Kaden could find faults in it. In general it was good enough since finding someone to do same as Kaden did in Frika was difficult. Equivalent in human territories where formations were more common, it might have been a problem even to Kaden.

The formation that pierced a path through the barrier unnoticed was still active and Kaden was able to quietly leave. If he had not been able to do it, getting the target out of the 'safety' of their clan might have required some effort. Originally Kaden had planned to cause problems in some business the target had owned and see, if he would come out. He had decided otherwise after he examined the clan defenses.

Kaden had decided to complete his mission before putting together the black fragments. He didn't want to fail mission by accident. What if he was transported somewhere? What if he was injured? Anything could happen. Now was the time.