"CALL THEM ALL BACK!" Northwind's family, Fanin, head screamed in rage at his personal communicator. "RIGHT NOW!"

Nervin stood nearby and listened for Kaden. There was also another Condensation stage warrior nearby.

"SEND HALF HERE TO PROTECT US AND SEND THE REST TO PROTECT OUR PROPERTY!!!" Fanin continued screaming. "PULL THEM FROM OUTSIDE TO CORAND! THIS IS WHERE IT MATTERS RIGHT NOW! DO IT! DO IT NOW YOU FOOL!!!"

"Sir..", a servant appeared from a door.

"WHAT!" Fanin screamed at him.

"They... they looted our largest stores saying they are looking for evidence!" the servant babbled.

"Evidence? EVIDENCE?!" Fanin screamed. "THIS IS CLEARLY A SETUP. BY WHO? IT DOESNT MATTER! THEY HAVE LOST THEIR DAMN PRODUCTION LINES FOR WEAPONS, STORES AND WHATERVER. UNLESS THEY RETALIATE, THEY WILL HAVE TAKEN A MAJOR LOSS COMPARED TO US. THEY ALSO HAVE A PERFECT EXCUSE FOR IT, BUT SO DO WE YOU IDIOTS. WE WILL BE THE ONES TO LOSE AT THE END IF WE DONT FIGHT AND WE RIGHT NOW WE HAVE THE EXCUSE TO DO ANYTHING! JUST SEND THE GODDAMN WARRIORS TO PROTECT EVERYTHING. HOW? DOESNT MATTER!"

Door opened again and another servant came. This servant was one of the guards of the family.

"Lord Fanin, a large number of people are approaching the residence", the guard said.

"Here... already?" Fanin stopped screaming. "Could it be them after all? Bombing themselves. No... no that doesnt matter." Then he looked at the guard. "How many people we have recalled by now? Can we stop this attack?"

"We can at best hold them back for a short while, but not stop", the servant replied. "City guard is only looking for more terrorists and keeping order. They aren't protecting us nor the other nobles. They are directly told to not take sides. Our power is limited."

Fanin paced around nervously.

"Hold them back!" Fanin said. "If it comes to it we will escape." Fanin activated his communicator again, but this time it was to rest of the family to be careful as attack was coming.

If, say, Fanin himself was captured or worse, killed, that would result is a great loss.

Barriers around the Northwind's manor were raised. Nervin knew those would only give the Northwind's a bit more time.

"What is that accursed bird even doing", Nervin though to himself. The only place that was left for him after being enslaved by the phoenix, his mind. "It riled up the entire city and I still have no idea for what purpose."

Not that he could do anything about it, even if he did. Whatever the phoenix had done was perfect. When he needed to do something, he might not even realize he was already acting by the time he understood it wasn't even his own will. Orders were absolute.

"Get the family to safety!" Fanin screamed loudly. "We will take the emergency exit!"

Since Nervin had been told to be loyal, he was... at least externally. If he wasn't bound to the phoenix, he might have liked this chance to work for nobles. He had not even thought it as a chance before. Yet, a Cari, a phoenix had been able to do arrange what he did not even think about.

Yet, being loyal to the phoenix, Nervin hanged as close to the nobles at all times as possible. That was so that he might show other kind of loyalty, fake, to the nobles and it had worked. He as now following the leader of the noble family and rest of the said family with a few other servants as they rushed towards the cellar level.

"Every noble has an exit route", Nervin knew. "Its not that different from criminals I have worked with. Not that nobles and criminals are much different. Its just a matter of whose doings appear legal and whose dont."

Eventually they reached large room in the cellar. Nervin was told to pull off a large carpet covering the entire floor. Then some specific tiles on the floor were pressed and something slowly rose up from the floor.

Nervin expected to see a hidden entrance, but what he saw was instead a enormous and complex formation. Nervin was no good with formations... unlike the goddamn bird.

"That damn bird...", Nervin cursed once again in his mind.

-----------

Kaden was rushing as fast as he could past the territory that belong to Northwinds. He sensed very little life around. The humans he could find were weaklings and were not able to see or hear past his concealment even if they happened to look at his way.

There had been some guard towers near edge of the forest, but he had literally watched as their guards mostly left them and rushed towards seemingly random directions. They were too far from Corand to go there, but instead of random directions, they scattered elsewhere to fight back all the other nobles that were striking back in apparent retaliation. They were the strong ones. The weak ones were left to basically sound an alarm before they died, if any beasts or Cari come.

"Regardless what these nobles think of an actual culprit, these attacks were at a volatile moment", Kaden pondered his plan now as it was in action. "Soldiers are away. Church doesn't care. Nobles were only waiting for a moment to seize power. I wonder how long they will continue killing each other until they eventually announce a scapegoat."

Kaden almost laughed. It was so easy. Probably the only reason no one did it before was because it would eventually be tracked back and it would cause problems to the perpetrator too. Perhaps only some lunatic cultists might do something similar, but they had other problems with the godless mana system and church seeking and annihilating them all actively.

"I should see if I can...", Kaden thought as he noticed something odd from the formation that kept him in contact with his slaves. Nervin had ran into something that Kaden had not expected to see. "Is that a permanent teleportation formation?"

Just how much did Northwinds pay to get materials to have such a formation affixed in their home? On top of that, how much did they have to pay a True Magus good with formations to produce it. This was not a temporary one Kaden had seen before and even passed through. This was going to stay around.

Most of the details wouldn't even be possible to see through Kaden's own formation. What looked like a complex formation carved on the ground, there were higher dimension formation lines involved with teleportation. You needed a True Magus at least to twist the space and ridiculously rare materials to the correct arrangement and yet keep the entire area open the way it was rather than be a oddly complex piece of art.

If the formation could be seen in three dimensional space in its true form, no one could even get inside it. The formation lines would be too dense to allow that. Yet, what was visible was flat surface on the floor.

"It's probably relatively old", Kaden surmised. "They are using it as an escape route. The other nobles don't know at the very least where the counterpart is, if they dare to use it."

Indeed, there was another somewhere. Teleportation formation such as this were two ways so one might consider the price to be double, if you wanted to have functional one. Technically it could be possible to have one permanent and make one temporary one each time, but it would still lead always to same spot. You could not alter the permanent one unlike temporary one.

"...", Kaden stopped his rush towards the No Man's Land. He realized a pontential chance here. "Its a bit risky, but I can delay my plans. If this works, I will gain much and my access to No Man's Land will be just something that will result from this."

Kaden continued to observe Nervin who watched Northwind's toss into the formation large amount of mana crystals to fuel it. Expensive, but not prohibitively so. Once you had your exceedingly expensive formation done, the fuel was nothing in comparison. Even Kaden himself had enough mana crystals to fuel it.

Nervin was being told to accept some oath magic now that he had seen the formation and was going to follow the family to protect them. In fact, it seemed every servant were being told to take the oath.

It was somewhat unusual mana type that most didn't bother to use. First of all, you needed to be at least Condensation stage to sense it. Then there were the problems with it.

It opened many loop holes, if your oath got too long, coplex or widespread. You couldn't force soldiers to take oath's to force loyalty. Even if it was the same words, everyone had a little different idea what it meant, different ideas why they took the oath and so on. It would ceace working as all that oath magic mixed together and its range of 'this is allowed' starts to spread. It will easily spread too thin and break.

But little oaths such as 'tell no one of this teleportation formation'. Small number of people, simple oath, simple meaning. Suddenly it would work. It would be exceedingly difficult to go against the oath. Not that it mattered in Nervin's case.

His soul belonged to Kaden. Nervin could say and promise anything and it wouldn't mean anything. Nervin's body would do whatever Kaden wanted. The soul itself would feel it difficult to go against the oath, but its not like it was in control in any way. Kaden even doubted the oath magic would remain for too long since it had nothing to latch onto.

"Yes, they are taking Nervin with them", Kaden grinned. At this moment Kaden' decided to see where Nervin would pop up and go there.

"Few guardians, one of which belongs to me", Kaden said to himself. "If I were to enslave these leaders of Northwind family, the entire family will belong to me. I will have direct political power inside the Saint Empire. Everything they control will be mine. The family is rich. They can feed me resources directly. I can grow at an extreme speed."

The family would outwardly continue to be normal, but internally it would work for Kaden.

"The family head, Fanin, is barely at Condensation stage", Kaden observed the family members. "Likely mostly due to receiving large amount of expensive materials his whole life. The rest are at varying levels of Formation stage, but likely also due to similar reasons. Good, I don't have to arrange an excuse to explain disapearance of the potentially weaker members."

Around then Nervin passed through the teleport. The signal cut for just a moment and then it started coming from a different place. One that Kaden could immediately tell.

"A slight detour, it seems", Kaden pondered for a moment. "Its closer to their main home in their own territory."

Northwinds had a teleport system arranged between Corand and their territory.

Kaden deviated from his path. Despite the direction change, it was still likely just as safe.

He observed for a while longer what the Northwind family was going to do. Would they stay in the safe room beyond their formation or would they try to run back to their main home which was not that far.

"Good, they seem to be staying in the hidden location rather than trying to make a risky return directly to their home", Kaden watched the events unfold.

The end point of the teleport was well stocked and comfortable up to the noble standards. It was clearly a place where they intended to stay for long periods of time, if neccessary.

He wanted to move fast. They likely were able to keep eye what happened at Corand or their home. Even if they were staying for now, they might not, once the situation cooled down a bit.

"I better be quick about this, if I plan to succeed with this lucky turn of events", Kaden understood.

It wasn't more than a few hours away at best with his speed. Kaden knew he was right in middle of the Northwind territory. Exactly where they would build their secret hiding place.

Kaden had Nervin prepare discreetly for his coming. This included keeping eye on the things Northwinds used to observe what was happening. He still needed to know that the family guards were gone and out of his way and that none of them were coming to aid.

Also Nervin needed to be ready to let Kaden in. There was a slight locking system, but Northwinds trusted more in the concealment than the entrance. The doorway Kaden would be able to get through by force, but it would take some time. Perhaps enough to be a problem.

No... Kaden wanted to rush in quickly and disable all communications at least for a moment as he defeated bodyguards. Nervin could easily take one and Kaden the rest. The family head, Fanin, was likely not even a problem himself and the rest were weaklings.

There should not be problems as long as he got in. Worst possible end would be that he would kill everyone. No one would discover their fate anytime soon.