Kaden fell on his knees and he vomited blood.

"Poison?" Kaden muttered through his gritted teeth. His entire body felt like it was burning. His wounds seemed to be far worse than they should be. "No. This is still Nelsen's mana! Justice mana!"

Kaden continued to be wracked by extreme pain. He glanced at Nelsen's corpse. Then he cursed as he realized his mistake.

"That was no self destruction!" Kaden thought. In fact, he had seen this before. "As he was dying, he concentrated the mana into his body. Not explode it. Last time I saw this was with Angis."

Angis was the man from whose corpse Kaden gained his access to learning formations. Angis had been filled with restrictive mana that basically stopped his body functioning entirely. Nelsen just did that on purpose with justice mana! He had saturated himself with it as he was about to die.

"Nelsen knew how I operate", Kaden muttered through his pain. "He knew I would consume his body to restore myself and he basically made himself poison to me with justice mana. I used Devour and absobed large amount of it into myself and even distributed it across my body. During fight it was just external and I could push it away, but now its in me!"

There wasn't just burning anymore, it was like being cut and crushed within the burning too. Images of Kaden's old kills and enemies were flickering in his mind, cursing and attacking him. Blaming him for everything. Images of him being defeated and brought to justice. Even trying to make him feel he had done wrong.

Kaden roared in rage.

"Justice!?" Kaden raged and stood up ignoring the pain. He vomited a bit more blood, but still stood. "I spit on your justice!"

Kaden kicked Nelsen a few times, even if it did cause him to stumble. Then he cast Devouring Flame on Nelsen. His body was useless or would take too much effort to cleanse later.

"This delays my healing", Kaden muttered as he basically crawled away from the area. He even had to support himself agains trees. He hadn't been this weak in ages. The justice mana was disrupting everything. "I will have to slowly get it away. I could do it during the fight! I can do it again!"

Kaden cursed again.

"If Nelsen thinks this is going to stop me, he will be sorely disapointed!" Kaden cursed as he wandered away. "Curse him and his justice. Hopefully he will be disapointed in his damn hypocrite god in afterlife."

Kaden made a bit further before he stumbled again. Blood spilled out of his mouth a bit and he was covered in blood. He didn't get up again right away, but instead concentrated directing some mana around his wounds. The sort he had been using during the fight. He needed to close the wounds and to do so he had to get rid of the justice mana.

"I need to find a shelter", Kaden thought to himself as he started to push out justice mana from critical locations. That is all, push it away. He was not strong enough yet to do more than push it aside.

Kaden found himself a slightly out of sight hiding place around some boulders nearby. It wasn't much, but he didn't want to be easily visible. Not that it was very hard for potential followers to follow the blood trail he left behind. In fact, Kaden wondered, if he would actually be half dead, not that he wasn't far from it, if he didn't have powerful body. There was probably some trace of life mana somewhere due to the phoenix parts.

As for the hiding place, Kaden was happy that he was well within human territory. There wouldn't be any beast strong enough to come for weakened him anytime soon. What he worried more were humans, but if it was only mere weaklings from the nearby town, it wouldn't matter.

Kaden continued sitting still. The justice mana was wreaking havoc to his already battered body and it was time to put it in its place.

"I already told Nelsen how useless his justice is", Kaden thought. "I will not be defeated by it!"

Still, despite his thoughts, Kaden cursed Nelsen and his trickery. That he would devise such a plan at just mere moments before his death...

At any rate, Kaden concentrated keeping justice mana away from his wounds. Once his wounds had time to heal, he could concentrate on dealing with the mana instead of bleeding out. Problem was that he didn't really have much of 'materials' for healing quickly. Whatever he got from Nelsen was stained with justice mana.

There was still some remaining mana within his body that he had gained from consumed from Weils's flesh. More like whatever remained of it that wasn't used for cultivation and was not absorbed completely yet. That little bit was rich and high quality, but there wasn't much of it and most mana had been taken away already, but it was still some.

As for consuming more. He still had the leg that he had not used. Still, Kaden, in his condition, knew he would not be able to deal with Weils's flesh and the mana inside it. It required preparation even in perfect condition.

"The little bit I have has to be enough", Kaden decided. He had some secondary plans, if it wasn't enough. He would use his own mana to eat himself. By taking from places that weren't critical and putting it where he needed, would provide some help at the cost of self mutilation. Kaden wanted to avoid that, if possible.

Kaden still trusted his body. He wasn't completely reliant on Devour. Even without it, he would heal much faster than most humans at his level.

He wasn't sure how long he worked on dealing with the justice mana. There were times it showed its effects with visions or extra pain as some kind of punishment. In fact, Kaden was pretty sure he lost consciousness a few times along the way since he found randomly that his earlier work had been partially undone. Due to this he couldn't even tell how long he sat there.

Kaden knew he was in a pretty bad shape. This time was different than his escapade at Sacronan. That time he was 'just' injured.

Eventually Kaden did manage to deal with the greater injuries the way it would even stay that way. Soon after, despite the still burning pain and visions of his wrong doings, exhaustion reached Kaden and he lost consciousness and he knew it was coming, not merely short blackout.

...

...

...

It was raining when Kaden woke up again. It was perhaps a good thing. He had started a pretty large fire and being unconscious inside a forest fire would have been bad. Perhaps Kaden would have been able to survive it since at that point it would have been normal fire and not mana enhanced. Still, in his severely weakened state, Kaden was happy that it didn't come to test his limits.

Rain had also washed away whatever blood trails he'd left.

The justice mana was still there, but Kaden's greater wounds were in healing state. Smaller ones were still trickling blood.

While externally Kaden might have seemed like his wounds were not problem to him. This was not the case.

"Curse you Nelsen!" Kaden cursed again as he continued to ignore the pain and other effects as he stood up and planned to continue on his earlier direction. "Even if I did right at this time purge myself of this accursed mana, its already done damage!"

Kaden could sense internal damage. Nothing that couldn't be repaired, the amount of justice mana he absorbed wasn't large enough to do that. The problem was that it had damaged his internal formation. Nothing was completely broken, but he would have to regrow most of what he had just recently cultivated. It had been fresh and now it was damaged and to continued building upon it, he would have to repair it. That is to mention internal damage all over his body that was still going on. At least he had stopped vomiting blood.

Basically only place completely intact was his core. Perhaps whatever justice mana had gone there was directly consumed in and within core it wouldn't be able to do anything as it mixed in with the rest.

It would take extremely long time until Kaden would be able to cultivate again. That and he was quite a bit weakened. Kaden wasn't sure about how much weaker he was, but if possible he wouldn't even want to test it.

"Nelsen truly did leave me with last spiteful gift before he perished", Kaden muttered.

That is to mention he would have to get used to the constant pain and visions until he purged the justice mana. That at least would be something he could do soon. If he couldn't eject the mana from his body, at least his core should be able to absorb it all.

"I need to do that on the way", Kaden decided. "I don't want to be found anywhere near here. Someone would ask questions I don't need anyone asking."

With a bit less exhausted than before, Kaden walked forward. He was somewhat more used to the justice mana effects so he could continue dealing with it and his wounds. Kaden cursed Nelsen a few more times as he continued on his path.

Kaden wanted to find a safe place to deal with his problem. He didn't want to go back to the town after all the commotion and there probably wasn't another anywhere nearby. Nor did Kaden know the area for potential caves or other such places. He still expected it should be easy to drive away at worst a dire beast. Using spells might be tough with his damaged internal formation, but his body was good enough.

As time passed, Kaden continued slowly towards his original direction. His speed wasn't nowhere near what it was normally, but it was fine to Kaden considering what he had to get used to. Ignoring the pain and annoying visions became something he learned quickly.

As for getting rid of the offending mana, he had some success in it, but it would take some time. That was not going to be a problem.

Things were generally past the point where Kaden worried over things, but he was seriously annoyed that he had been duped in such a way. Best thing would be, if he could somehow permanently deal with the possibility entirely. That is to prevent himself ever from absorbing harmful mana.

"Do I need to start modifying Devour?" Kaden thought to himself. "Add some kind of purification part on it?"

That was an idea at least, but it would yet again take some time to do. Yet, if Devour was a spell Kaden planned on continuing using, it would be worth it.

"I also seem to have some time available", Kaden thought and cursed yet again that such annoying mana like justice mana existed. "Its mocking me! How dare some pathetic justice tell me what is right and wrong?! Vengeance is my justice! Nothing else!"

Kaden stopped for a while. He frowned for a moment.

"Perhaps there is a faster and better way to get rid of this problem", Kaden muttered.

What was some weak justice against his vengeance? Instead of trying to toss it away like garbage, why not use it. It was from Nelsen and probably gained through some beliefs he held, but Jorn was a god and they wouldn't care. It should be mostly from Nelsen.

"What if I can usurp that so called justice and make it my justice... dominate it and make it personal... mine", Kaden continued his thoughts. "I'll make it real justice."

Kaden started to experiment. The justice mana obviously wouldn't just obey him, but vengeance mana did.

After a while Kaden found a way to slowly almost like herd it together and then bit by bit surround it with vengeance. Then push more vengeance upon it. Beat it down and get rid of whatever Nelsen's remainders were left in it. Eventually the mana started to darken and turn into that pallid green color instead of the pure bright blue as it was corrupted by Kaden's own sense of justice.

"I can feed this to Vengeance", Kaden thought as he observed the results of his first success. "Nelsen wasn't a target, but he 'kindly' offered me some mana that I can convert."

It wasn't something Kaden could have done in combat, but it did work once he got to sit down and properly concenrate on it.

As he gained more vengeance mana, it also became easier to corrupt the remaining justice mana. That is to say most of it. There were some more pure motes that defied everything Kaden attempted to do. Kaden assumed that was the part that Nelsen got from his worship rather than his own sense of justice.

"My strength is too similar to Nelsen's", Kaden decided after thinking it for a while. "To convert blessed mana such as this, is beyond me currently. There is a reason why priests and a lot of people work hard to get even a bit of mana like this from their worship. This is as far as gods will go. Just a few crumbs for likely entire life of servitude."

While Kaden couldn't conver the mana, it was possible to toss it out like he had been doing previously.

Finally he was able to deal with the harmful mana. Yet, the damage was done and it was such damage that would take some time to heal.

"I can deal with this", Kaden thought as he stood up and planned to continue his journey. "I'll take my time and heal."

It was much easier to travel when every part of Kaden's body didn't feel like burning and no annoying visions to disturb his thoughts. Only pain that was left was the damage. External wounds were starting to already heal quickly, but as he had already determined the internal wounds were going to take much longer.