Things turned truly chaotic and it seemed Kaden was now ignored entirely.

Ardan wanted to get out. Sidon wanted to protect his arena. Guards and the soldiers wanted to fight Ardan. Arena audience was in panic and tried to get out.

To Kaden this seemed beautiful. He could just watch everything around him descend into chaos!

He sat down to recover. Right at that moment he was relatively safe and his wounds needed to be tended to. Despite using lot of Devour, he was still injured. Not to mention it hurt to breathe a bit. That fist strike from Ardan had been dangerous. At least there were lots of corpses to take flesh from.

While this, the guards and the soldiers jumped down onto the arena to suppress and defeat the gansters. Leader of the soldiers, an officer, clashed with Ardan. This was the man who had unleashed that mana polearm and seemed to like using large weapons. Ardan seemed to prefer fighting with his body using techniques to fight and it wasn’t necessarily even a disadvantage at least up to that point. Yet, he had fought against Sidon and was surprised by the sudden change of events and the officer leading the soldiers was not a weakling.

“Receive the judgement of Jorn!” Shouted the officer and unleashed yet another mana weapon, this time a huge glowing hammer that seemed to appear out of nowhere an slam towards Ardan. It seemed he was intending to finish him off as he shouted name of God of Laws. Ardan was a criminal who had long since been judged for death sentence.

Ardan desperately gathered mana to strike back against the hammer, but with no avail. The officer seemed to exceed his strength so Ardan was slammed against the arena floor. A shockwave errupted from the impact point.

Once the dust settled, the officer was standing right next the Ardan, who was bleeding on the ground, unable to move. Then in almost casual movement the officer took his weapon, a large two handed sword that he was using with single hand for some reason, and in a single movement impaled Ardan on the ground.

“A surprising gain”, the officer muttered and looked around after confirming Ardan’s death.

There were fewer soldiers than guards, but still his soldiers were already finishing off rest of the gangster with the help of the guards. Quite a few of the gangster were surrendering. They might have been working with Ardan, but they might get away with their lives, if they gave up. With luck they could avoid death sentence, but slow death in mines wasn’t probably much better option.

Kaden watched all of it unfold. The guards were people who he thought he might be able to deal with, but the soldiers were more precise and skilled. He decided it was probably due to greater amount of training and resources. Still, he wondered why they were there. He didn’t complain, though, since they did likely save his life.

The officer looked around.

“Why was this stain here?” He asked and removed the sword from Ardan. He easily flicked the enormous sword and removed blood from it.

Before he could receive an answer, Sidon leaped down and greeted him. “Thank for the help. I’m not sure what would have happened had you not showed up. They have injured quite a few of my fighters and prevented anyone from leaving.”

“Sidon, the arena master”, Said the officer. “I am Captain Nelsen. This was not what I came here for, but looks like it was a good moment.”

“We have rounded up rest of the gangster”, Said the person who Kaden recognized as the guard commander.

“Good, good”, nodded Nelsen. “This seems too much of a coincidence, Rilen.”

“I guess this should be part of the reason why we came here”, the guard commander, Rilen, replied and rubbed his forehead slightly. He still seemed to have a headache. “These are the gangster that the kid we came to look for riled up. I’m guessing they came here to kill him and did not expect us to come.”

“Right, the kid”, Nelsen said. “Sidon, I hear there is a young genius fighting here on your arena? Also that he goes heroing around at night and pisses off gangster he shouldn’t and they send killers after him.”

Sidon rolled his eyes. “Yes, that would be Kaden.”

“Where is he?” Nelsen questioned.

“He was fighting on the arena when the gansters came to kill him”, Sidon said and looked across the arena. “Where is ...”

Then he looked behind them and grimaced. Then he pointed at Kaden without saying anything.

Kaden was doing his best to devour Ardan. He was doing best to drag out his flesh and mana! It was difficult. Mana content in Ardan’s flesh, despite him being dead, was much higher than anything he had devoured so far. The little bits he could, were exquisite, if there was such thing as a taste when devouring. Ardan’s flesh was full of mana, high quality mana! It was like refreshing rush as the mana entered him. This was his chance to progress so he quietly took it!

“That would be Kaden”, Sidon finally.

“What are you doing!?” Nelsen said and frowned as he finally noticed Kaden.

Kaden stopped and stared quietly Nelsen for a moment. “You aren’t using the body, are you? Don’t worry, I’ll leave the head intact so you can collect the bounty. I’m not even burning it.” Then he continued.

The three were speechless.

“Kaden… eats people that way”, Sidon finally said. “Its not actual cannibalism, since with that spell he can technically get around that.”

“Thats why I informed you Nelsen!” Rilen the guard commander said and pointed. “Sure he cleans out criminals, but I don’t want someone like him on the streets. The kid is a psychopath. Possibly worse than the criminals! Take him away!”

“And also a genius”, Nelsen pointed out. “And follows rules. You said he hasn’t broken any laws. I can deal with that. He isn’t supposed to be here to begin with. Law says that people with no background or other relevant reason will have to take part in mandatory service.”

“Wait, wait”, Sidon suddenly started saying. “You want to take Kaden to military? That?”

“Yes, its not the first time we deal with someone like this”, Nelsen continued. “He is good at fighting and is about to reach advanced Channel Opening at his age. Somehow even stronger than that stage should be. Mana mutations too? Whats with that?”

“I’m guessing he has been experimented on”, Sidon replied to Nelsen’s question. “His body is extremely tough, like a beast. Someone has tried to mix humans and cores again and succeeded not to make them explode. Kaden has a, lets call it, pseudo core. Ball of channels.”

Kaden frowned. Sidon should shut up. He didn’t need his secrets being revealed. He even had to interrupt devouring Ardan as Nelsen wanted to inspect him. Not that he could take much more. With what he had, his last limit to reaching High Beast stage should be surely reached. His core had even began scintillating as he devoured Ardan. The high quality mana he had received was very good! Something was already happening, but he expected the upgrading process take time. Only time was needed now!

“Hmmm, hard to see. His body mana is extremely high”, Nelsen said. “I can see the ball of channels, but not much else. Not my specialty. Hey, kid, you are now joining the army!”

“What? Why should I?” Kaden replied.

“Law states so”, Nelsen started. “And I’m not wasting a genius like you, even if you were someone important.”

“Captain Nelsen”, Sidon started carefully as if considering what to say. “Kaden has probably cultivated by use of money. He probably gathered quite a bit from the gansters, yes?”

“He will at most reach the so called ‘money limit’ like most people with money. Even nobles rarely get much further. He looks what… fourteen? Just how long ago did he receive his blessings from the church and started cultivating? This speed is top tier in any case!” Nelsen continued. He really wanted to take Kaden with him. “As for problems with his behavior, military can deal with that and even use it, direct it. Mana often cause mental instabilities. This is nothing new.”

“Ah… listen, Kaden is a lunatic who cares about nothing else but his benefits”, Sidon continued. He felt truly concerned of letting Kaden go with Nelsen. “That army discipline you speak of. Kaden will only follow it as long as he feel he gains something. Once he feels he has everything he wants or feels he doesn’t need to care anymore, he will drop all pretenses. It might not end up well.”

“Both you and Rilen are making him seem like some monster”, Nelsen turned to look at them with surprise.

Rilen pointed at the pile of corpses, entrails and blood at the corner where Kaden fought the gangsters. “Thats his handiwork. I’m sure Sidon has his concerns too, but so do I. Get him out of my jurisdiction! Thats all I care about! It is why I informed you of him. I don’t need a uncontrollable lunatic vigilante! Useful or not!”

Nelsen looked at the sight and stayed silent, thinking exactly what was in Sidon’s and Rilen’s minds that they were acting so.

“Do I get to kill people?” Kaden suddenly asked with a smile, breaking the silence.

Nelsen turned to face Kaden. “Yes, thats what we often do. We fight the heretics of Sacronan. Sometimes beasts too. In your case, I think, you will be in an elite team. My team likely. Common soldiers will fight the battles, but the actual most valuable targets are experts with higher cultivation. Thats our target.”

“What a chance!” Kaden thought to himself. “I can get even deeper into Saint Empire with this! I might be sent to Sacronan and also get to kill people there! I was wondering, how to do that with the war going.”

While Kaden was thinking such matters, Nelsen assumed Kaden was hesitating.

“I’d rather have you come along willingly”, Nelsen continued convincing Kaden. “You wont be able to progress much further alone. Army grows true experts! We have resources you won’t get otherwise! With your ability you won’t be another foot soldier, but an expert of the empire! Spells and techniques? You get them. Weapons? You get them. We support personal paths of geniuses so that they can become true might of the Holy Saint Empire!”

Kaden wasn’t sure how all that truly worked, but he was willing to take this chance. He would grow stronger with help of the saints before using that power against them. A perfect plan!

“I agree!” Kaden said.

“Haha, wonderful!” Nelsen laughed. “So be it. You are now in the army, recruit! If you got things you want to take with you, gather them now. As soon as you are done. We will leave towards the third layer. I will have to get you in through the way everyone goes, but I’ll make the necessary arragements to get you to right direction so once everything is set up you should be joining my team. It should take a week or two at best. You also need to learn some basic military skills.”

“I got everything”, Kaden said. He had everything he wanted. The sooner he gets settled inside, the sooner he can start to unravel it.

“Being always prepared is good! Come with me then. This mess can be left for someone else to deal with.”

“Yeah, dont worry about it”, Sidon said as he shook his head to the entire matter about Kaden joining the army. “I have had to clean away corpses before.”

“Nelsen, keep the kid out of streets”, Rilen said and motioned his guards to take out the gansters and handle rest of the order keeping.

“Don’t worry!” Nelsen assured. “Haven’t seen anyone at his age with a cultivation like his in a while. He will be busy.”

Kaden merely grinned and laughed inside as things were going his way once again.