There were still things to do before the time to burn down the temple came. It would go along with all the military targets.

Kaden had a very good idea for a hiding place while he had spoken with Peil. No one wanted to come to the mayors manor. That was perfect! Once Serin is dead, he will have a hiding place basically right in the open and in middle of the city with quick access everywhere due to short distance. Could there be a better place?

He would also bomb the manor after he was done. No one had to know exactly where he had been staying. Serin would likely be considered just one of the targets that were sabotaged. The things he was planning on doing to Serin would disapear along with all that.

“Hehe, I can initiate my plan and no one will know”, Kaden though to himself as he disapeared into the back alleys again unnoticed. “I’ll do my preparations and once sun goes down, I will sneak in and see what is in there.”

Whatever he knew of Serin was that he was, yet again, one of those nobles who had everything handed to them. This should be very common case with nobles at Formation stage. He should be at best mid Formation stage. To get advanced required some work. This is why Condensation stage experts were rare while Formation stages could be found often. Simply stuffing yourself with resources wasn’t going to get you there.

The only problem with Serin was that Kaden didn’t know what kind of abilities he had. The things he saw already a long time ago, when Serin took his mother and the other villagers, didn’t really say much. He still remembered how Cleff, Jon’s father, had just fallen to his knees and started to vomit. There were many things that could cause such effect. That was the only time Kaden hand seen Serin do anything.

“I’ll deal with it when I see it”, Kaden decided. “If there exists some instant defeat spell, it can’t be in someone like Serin’s hands. It would be a closely guarded spell. Perhaps it was some disorient spell? That could be dangerous. He was powerfull enough to simply crush weakling like Cleff with such spell. It won’t be as effective on me.”

Once Kaden was in his temporary hideout, he carefully examined everything he had. Some of his gear had suffered some wear over time since the events at the volcano. He had fought several Formation stage experts, even a high beast. Despite all this, his things were still in acceptable state. Even at the worst case, his own body was extremely good weapon by itself. His talons were good weapons and his body could easily take hits.

Kaden did not want to take any chances. He also examined and made sure he had all the things he needed for his plans.

Only thing he was slightly worried about was that, if Serin was able to escape or sounds from their fighting would be heard. Kaden had not heard anything, but perhaps occassional scream or something wouldn’t be unusual? He figured as long as he finished Serin in quick manner, there wouldn’t be any problems.

Eventually night came and Kaden left his hideout towards the mansion. From outside it still looked as abandoned as before, but if Peil’s information was correct, Serin should be there. A servant had been mentioned, but that shouldn’t be a problem. Even if there is more than one, it wouldn’t still be anything to be concerned about.

That is, if they were just servants. If Serin had bodyguards like Dorin had, it might be a problem. He would kill them too, if he found any. Kaden was more powerful now. It should be possible.

At the manor, there was nothing preventing Kaden from just jumping over the walls into the dilapidated yard.

“Why would someone like Serin not care about guards?” Kaden wondered. “He doesn’t seem someone who would fight his own fights.”

The lack of any kind of security concerned Kaden. Most often the most valuable thing to these nobles was their own life. They would have bodyguards and all other kinds of protections around them.

Kaden then reached the door. Everything still looked abandoned right at the manor. He quickly sensed around for traps, but found none. He then pulled the door open slightly, just enough that he could pass through. Once inside he closed it. There was no need to let anyone notice door open.

Inside Kaden saw something… strange. What he had originally in the darkness thought to be several statues surrounding the stairs going up were actually completely naked people posing as statues. Both men and women. All not even at Channel Opening.

They had these wide grins on their faces. They were even twitching to extend that grin a bit wider. Not only that, they seemed to have been in the positions for quite a long time. Those who were standing, were basically shaking their feet as they tried to keep standing. All of them were malnourished and were basically skeletons.

One of the men actually fell of the pedestal. That one didn’t even try to brace as they hit the floor and instead attempted to maintain their pose even then. Immediately afterwards, he clambered on his feet and climbed back and continue to be a statue.

There was stench. Kaden noticed in the corner, one of the pedestals was empty. Next to it on the floor there was a woman who had apparently hit her head as she had fallen down and died.

All of their bodies were covered in bruises and many seemed to even have broken bones from all the falling. Yet they seemed to ignore all of it and their greatest concern was to be on the pedestal posing in the pose.

It had to be painful.

“What the hell...”, Kaden could only think. “What is this?”

He looked at it for a moment, but then cast in series a few wind blades. The “statues” soon lost their heads and blood stained the pedestals and the floor. The mess was of little corcern. There was quite a bit of blood and other decayed matter around. What did concern Kaden was that these people were clearly under some spell. Mind control? What if they alerted Serin? If they could be made to torment themselves the way they had, what else could Serin make them do? Even if they were weaklings, they could pick up some bombs and become suicide bombers.

No, it was better off have them dead. Probably for them too, but that was secondary in Kaden’s mind.

Kaden walked up the stairs. If you disregarded the mess downstairs, the place still looked empty. Though, upstairs seemed to be cleaned from dust, but there were some items on the floor that had seemingly fallen down from somewhere.

Then Kaden heard footsteps. Soon a person came from the dark corridors. This person was wearing a pink dress and seemingly nothing else. Yes, the person was a middle aged man. His face was dirty and beard unkempt. He too had that same grin the statues had. His cultivation was slightly higher at Channel Opening.

“A visitor!” The man in the dress said. It seemed as if he was simply reciting some lines. “Master wishes to meet all visitors immediately!”

“I see”, Kaden said. “Where is your master now?”

“Ah… master”, The man suddenly shuddered. “Master… master. Ah.” He seemed to enjoy repeating the word “master” over and over again. Something just below his waist, under the dress, seemed very excited due to it.

Kaden frowned. These people were entirely broken.

“Where is he?” Kaden asked using other words.

“Ma … ma ma.. master is training his new dog!” The man said after a few attempts. “Please follow me to meet master. Master wishes to meet all visitors immediately!”

Kaden shot another wind blade and the man’s head flew off.

Now that Kaden got better look at the head rolling on the floor, he happened to notice a painting on the wall. It read on bottom of it that it was painting of the mayor. The person in the painting looked very much like the man in the dress.

“I guess this is the mayor then”, Kaden muttered to himself and stopped over the pool of blood.

Kaden didn’t know the layout so he started to wander around. He had plenty of time to find Serin.

Still that wasn’t the end of the strangeness. Not long after Kaden walked into the dark pathways, he heard unusual noise. Like something knocking on the floor downstairs. Was Serin there then? Perhaps another “servant”? Then it ended, but before Kaden turned around to go check it, he heard similar noise from basically next to him. There was no one around. Kaden frowned.

Suddenly a small ball of light appeared and disapeared next to him. Kaden turned around to see what it was, but there was nothing. No spell was cast. That was not magic.

“What the hell is this?” Kaden thought to himself.

“I a.. ai .. here.. “, voice said in almost unintelligible manner. “Ba … ther.. dea..”

Kaden stood still and only observed with all his senses. Something was wrong. That voice had also seemingly come from nowhere.

Then item on the floor, a pencil, flew across the corridor. Around at that time a shadow passed by just on the edge of Kaden’s vision.

If he didn’t know better, he might have assumed he had stepped into a remnant. Still, by this time he finally realized what it was.

“This place is haunted”, Kaden muttered to himself.

He stood there for a while longer. The whispering and knocks were the most common things, but as he watched quite a few objects moved around by themselves. Several shadows appeared and disapeared. Some of the apparitions passed near Kaden, some of them at the end of the corridor passing at a T intercetion.

Kaden was very aware what ghosts were. Anuu had described them to him when he had been planning on staying around. Imprints in the local mana caused by strong emotions. But this was crazy. They were supposed to be rare!

The ghosts were everywhere! He could basically stand there and watch events happen one after another.

Why were there so many ghosts?

Then Kaden understood. All these people. Serin had tormented them to death in horrifying ways through a long period of suffering. It would make sense many of them would leave such restless imprints behind.

“This is probably what the priests were supposed to purify”, Kaden thought as he finally decided to continue.

He ignored the ghosts. Kaden wasn’t sure how to get rid of them, but he didn’t need to. At most they would throw around objects. They weren’t dangerous.

As he passed certain door that seemed to be the door to some lounge, Kaden smelled something terrible. He stopped by and opened the door.

Then he stood there quietly looking at the scene inside.

Then he closed the door and continued away.

“Degenerate”, Kaden muttered.

Kaden had a very good idea now just exactly what went on inside the manor. Indeed, no one would miss Serin the slightest bit. In fact, if bombing the city wasn’t part of his plans, Kaden wondered if the city would actually hold a celebration, including the military, if Serin was found dead in a horrifying way?

Truly, Kaden had assumed he knew the extent of cruelty and how people could torment each other, but Serin had taken it to next level.

Not long after Kaden finally heard a voice that was not the constant mutterings of the ghosts. He even recognized the voice! Finally! Serin!

Kaden walked towards the direction carefully and silently. A door with light coming from inside? Thats the place! Kaden stopped at the door that was slightly ajar and looked in.

There was naked man kneeling in front of Serin. He was wearing a dog collar and was licking each part of Serin’s boots with care.

“Hahaha”, Serin laughed. “Good dog! Lick my boots clean! Just like that!”

“Aaah, master likes! Likes!” Said the man.

Then Serin frowned immediately. “Do dogs talk?”

“AAAAAAAGHHH!” The man screamed. Kaden wasn’t sure what Serin did, but it was clear the man pretending to be a dog was suffering. Then as abruptly it started, it also ended soon after.

“Ah, its fine! Its fine!” Serin said and smiled at the man. “Good dogs need a lot of training! Perhaps some incentives are in order. Perhaps I’ll have you mate with the other dogs, if you are a good... hmmm. Oh, thats right. Which one are you again? A male or a female dog? I guess we’ll decide which way you go once the time comes.”

The man panted like a dog and seemed quite excited.

Kaden wasn’t interested in watching Serin’s degenerate hobbies. He created a little formation on the door that would make it hard to open once he was inside. Kaden didn’t want interruptions. Then he opened the door and immediately casted a wind blade to cut off the dog man’s head.

“Who are you!?” Serin screamed in rage. “How dare you kill my dog! HOW DARE YOU!”

As far as Kaden cared, Serin would have time to scream quite a bit later.