The demon was still seemingly arguing with the priest, but at the same time it was communicating with Kaden!

The voice echoed like it was coming up from some endless depths. “Yes! Rage. Such rage! Accept me and I will fullfill all your desires! Open your mind! With your rage we shall become unstoppable!”

Kaden remained still, but he was preparing to run away. Yet nothing had seemed to happen externally. The demon was still arguing with the priest.

“No”, Kaden thought in his mind as reply hoping it would reach the demon. “I have things to do and not be a demon’s slave.”

“Power! Vengeance! I can offer this to you!” The demon continued. “Your rage will feed us!”

“I refuse. I must accomplish all these things you speak of myself”, Kaden replied. “Fuck off.”

The demon hissed in Kaden’s mind. “Then trade? These fools do not provide me enough sustenance! They repeatedly bring me here and bind me with spells! I wish to be free in this realm of free emotions and desires! I wish to consume! Say your desire and I shall aid you in exchange for my freedom!”

“Hmph… making deals with demons”, Kaden thought to himself. “There is something on the altar that I want, but I cannot get it unnoticed.”

“Release me and none of them shall notice you!” The demon said to Kaden.

“Like the altar, I cannot approach the containment formation”, Kaden told the demon. “To begin with, there is no way I can trust you to not attack me once you are free. You already revealed you want my emotions.”

“Yes … yes, such tasty rage, I can smell it!” The demon continued chattering. “Yet, my freedom is more valuable. Once you release me, I shall not bring you harm! To break a deal is to stain my essence! Soon the priest will begin tearing me into fragments, leaving my main consciousness bound in this place! You can approach me among these minions as they take my fragments. You shall have a chance to release me! Fail and your prize will be out of your reach just as is my prize out of mine!”

Indeed, demon promises were something they don’t break. This was common knowledge and why people even bothered dealing with them. Kaden knew he had managed to make the demon promise him to not harm him. It would follow that promise to the letter, no loopholes.

“I will attempt to help you”, Kaden finally said. “Its not like I need your help, I could always reveal this place and come annihilate this place with some help and take what I want in the chaos. Yet, its probably fun to see what you do once free. Do not think your promises are necessary to me.”

Only reply was a echoing laughter in his mind.

If what the demon said was true and he could approach the containment, he could, with demon’s help, tamper with it. It would likely explode due to it. Then the demon would be free to cause whatever chaos it desired. Excluding harming Kaden, that is. It would not even speak, if he had to later betray it. There was no clause of not betraying it in their deal. Yet there was a clause that it would not harm Kaden and speaking about him would be causing harm. This was relatively one sided deal. It seemed the demon really desired freedom. The inquisition would eventually notice it and destroy it or send it back.

As for potentially failing. There would be two Formation stage priests right next to him, but his previous assessment still stood. He fully expected to be able to run, but the priests and anything relevant would likely disapear. They would not stay and wait. He would have to find the fragment again. He was certain it was imporant.

Kaden could examine the formation from distance and with his understanding he could notice a few weak spots that were relatively well accessible and quick to tamper with.

Just as the demon said, the priest soon was done. The body that the demon used as a vessel started to shudder and kept repeating that. Each time a dark fragment would be expelled from it and the priests collected it into special mana crystals.

Kaden wondered for a moment, if any of this was worth the time. The cultists had probably done something like this many times. Apparently once these fragments were left near some key people, the demon could influence them. Have nightmarers. Become aggressive. Paranoia. Friends would argue with each other and possibly even betray each other. Perhaps even cause madness. Still, no matter how useful that sounds, the cultists were still doing their rituals well hidden and seemed to have no actual power.

Maybe it wasn’t that. While the God of Lies was bound and unable to spread influence like the rest, these priests could easily take advantage and gain personal power from keeping up the worship.

At any rate, soon the cultists started to move towards the altar after being called by the priests to come forth. Kaden followed everyone and watched the crystals being handed out. Once his turn was coming, the demon started to act.

“Fools!” The demon shouted. “You would squander my power? You may have bound me to your service for now and I have to obey, but to be forced to take orders from you cretins is a great shame!”

The demon started trashing about inside the containment formation shouting all kinds of obscenities, speaking in strange language and other such things. The priests cocentrated holding it back just as Kaden was standing by the formation.

Luckily the large robe was so large that no one from behind could see as Kaden injected some mana on the edges of the formation, creating series of small seals. These seals would send in destabilizing resonance on each internal mana cycle of the main formation. It would build up and explode some time after.

The demon was truly putting up a show and the priests had to concentrate on it and try to bind it tighter to their will. Yet, they needed the formation to truly keep it in check. Once it was gone, there was no need to guess what the demon would do.

Kaden was not sure, if the demon would escape immediately or stop to pull out everyones spines or something. It was difficult to measure power of a demon. They would get more powerful, if they had negative emotions to consume and get weaker once that was used up.

That didn’t really matter to Kaden as long as the demon would succesfully draw all attention for long enough that he could approach the altar.

Around at this time the formation started to pulse and flicker. Kaden did some good acting and stepped away from it as if he just noticed something was wrong. Obviously he took steps towards the altar.

“The containment!” A priest shouted. “Something is wrong!”

It was too late.

*Crack* *Crunch* *KABOOM*. The formation began to shatter and then exploded!

“I am free!” The demon screamed in joy. Kaden watched it somehow expand out of the body that was its vessel. The cultists screamed and began holding their heads and then suddenly start attacking each other in some kind of craze. “Haahahaha! Such terror! FEED ME MORE!”

Kaden pretended to be almost in same kind of state as he moved towards the altar. The priests were occupied. Their cultivation stage allowed them to resist. Those at Channel Opening were incapacitated, but at least did not attack each other. They just seemed to be tied in some kind of nightmare, some vomiting, some on their knees.

Yet, Kaden’s attention was elsewhere. With quick movements he took the fragment and instantly the buzzing ended. He placed it in his pouch.

“Its time to leave the demon to its games”, Kaden thought as he dashed towards the exit.

Just as he exited something exploded in the room. Kaden guessed the priests had started to fight the demon, but that was not his concern anymore.

What a success!

Once Kaden exited the storage area, he screamed outside. “Run! All is doomed!”

With this the merchant that was managing the entrance turned to look inside rather than Kaden who was running away, as if his little life mattered on it.

“He he he”, Kaden snickered to himself as he hid and took off the robe and left the area, hearing some explosion behind him. He took out both of the pieces now that he was relatively safe. “I must now find out what these things are. Both of them were found at altars to God of Lies. It must have some meaning, if its held there. I wonder, if they are held in all of the altars? I have seen two and on each I found one of these. Still, it seems like these are just parts of something and in that case I believe it is unlikely that each altar has one. To begin with, the one piece led me to another. Why would they have objects in their possession that allows others to track their hiding places, if one was discovered?”

The fragments seemed to be indeed piece of some puzzle just like Kaden had originally thought. With some work he was able to press the new piece against his old piece and the hooks connected together. It was such seamless work that it now was almost like one single larger fragment.

Even with his power that had grown and new knowledge he had learned, he still could not see the internal structure nor be able to tell what it was made of. Kaden decided to push the matter aside for now. He would keep the fragments and find more of them, if he could. Should anyone discover he had these fragments, he could always say he used them to find those cultists worshipping God of Lies and kill them. Yet, it was best to kept secret! If they were valuable, someone might try to kill him again.

He had tarried enough. It was time to get back. Walden would ask more questions the longer he waited. The time he had spent in the cultist lair was relatively lengthy, but still in acceptable limits. At most they would think perhaps he used some excuse to go after some lead rather than come to safety. Still, he didn’t want to be tied to that destroyed cultist lair. Why was he there? How did he find it? Were the assassins tied to them? Why were they interested in him?

Too many questions would come up.

Still, it had just been some explosions by the time he left, but none had come outside so the external damage should be minimal and attract less attention.

The way back was uneventful and Kaden was happy about it. Too many things had happened and none of them were planned.

“So you finally came back?” Walden said to Kaden as soon as he stepped into the team’s residence.

Kaden didn’t say anything as he pulled out the weaker assassin’s corpse from the pouch.

“This loser tried to attack me”, Kaden said and gave the corpse a kick.

“Shit… why couldn’t you leave the corpse in the better condition?” Walden cursed as he examined the damage.

“He wouldn’t talk”, Kaden explained casually. “So I started devouring him. Guess he had some dicipline to not talk until death. I’m somewhat disapointed.”

Around at this time other members of Verdict started to appear. Some shock was apparent as they noticed the corpse, but they quickly pushed it aside. Its not the first time they had seen blood or mangled corpses.

“Lieutenant, do you think there is potential danger to rest of us?” Hem asked and glanced over the corpse again. “It is possible Kaden was attacked because he is a member of this team. Is it possible that Sacronan’s heretics are trying to kill us just like we hunt theirs?”

Walden was quiet for a moment. “That is unknown. Kaden isn’t exactly… subtle. He has made a lot of enemies, such as criminal organizations. All this before he joined the team.”

“Well, they can come after me”, Kaden said dismissively. “I get to butcher a few people who have no need to keep living anyway.”

Walden snorted. He had got used to Kaden’s boasting and behavior over time. He pulled out some tool and used it on Kaden.

“What is that?” Kaden asked.

“A medical tool”, Walden replied after looking at the results the tool gave. “But it seems useless on you. I wanted to check, if there are any signs of poison, but it seems this thing just doesn’t work for your freaky body.”

“I am fine”, Kaden assured Walden. “I stayed hiding and took safety measures. Time has passed and I have not felt anything odd nor find anything. The poison was not difficult to find to begin with and my mana was strong enough to isolate it and destroy it. Most of it I just burned away.” Kaden pulled up his shirt and showed the place where he had been stabbed. The wound was basically gone and had no signs of poisons in the area.

“If you do notice anything, you must immediately tell about it!” Walden said. He had enough assurance for now. “As for the rest of you, stay vigilant. We do not know what this is!”

Then Walden cast some spell on the corpse. A freezing spell. “We will be sending these remains to be examined.”

All this while Olren was staring at Kaden very intently.