Готовый перевод Его не звали, но он приперся / They never called, yet he is here: Глава 28

Chapter 28

I wish I could say that after I learned how to deceive my opponent's precognition, things got fucked up and I literally kicked her while cosplaying Syutkin all the while. Alas, such a statement is not just an exaggeration, but a huge pile of lying crap. Simply because even my sudden leap in development was stupidly insufficient to confidently suppress my opponent. I mean, she finally stopped kicking me like a yard dog, but nothing more.
T.N.

She was still monstrously fast, incredibly strong, and nearly invulnerable to my shadows. And I'm not even mentioning the properties of the various seals on her body, because she didn't demonstrate all that she could. My clairvoyance, which worked to the bone, made me realize a simple truth. Her most ultimatum abilities were either very long cooldown, or they wore out her mutated body mercilessly, or they were simply disposable. And for some reason, she doesn't want to waste them on me.

I attacked incessantly, using only the shadow steps and my trusty daggers in shadow - anything else was useless. Theoretically, I could have thrown a potion at her, but I didn't have time to do it. To let up even for a second would mean losing the initiative, and I wasn't about to test another of her cleverly twisted "tattoo" attacks on myself.

There was no good time for me to trick the cultist's instincts again. She was a real pro, unlike the experienced dilettante as me - she instantly realized that I had managed to deceive her and just stopped using foresight, using only the most reliable basic intuition and her native combat skills. I could already confidently contain such an enemy, and even try to attack, but I still could not confidently break through her defenses.

A continuous succession of steps made me dizzy, but there was no pain, nor was there the approaching despair of imminent defeat. It was as if a second breath had opened, and then a third. We almost immediately disappeared from view, heading back to the ill-fated warehouse. I didn't want to shine my skills on the public, and she seemed to be trying to keep me away from any possible backup. That help, however, was no threat to my person, for the elite of adventurers who could participate in my fight had been beaten out by the maiden herself, and the others were too busy massacring cultists to interfere in our duel.

So there's only hope for yourself.

As always, though.

As always.

The battle with the use of clairvoyance is reminiscent of... It's not reminiscent of anything, to be honest! It's not a game of chess or trying to see your opponent's actions before he sees yours. You can't describe it at all like you can't describe a color palette to a blind person. It was as if I was trying to hear, to understand, to accept the truth that would have to become reality a second later. Which was a reality that had already happened, even if it was only moments before it happened.

To find out the truth, and then to implement it with the necessary movement. No pictures in front of my eyes, just pure intention and understanding of what is happening. That must have been how the famous enlightened sages felt. If my opponent had been an ordinary man, even a very fast and strong one, she would have died before the battle had even begun, but the universe had screwed me up pretty badly by choosing an opponent to match that of a humble Hero.

She was really a true master, impossible to defeat even with the superiority given by the gradual dueling of clairvoyants and the constant use of steps. From the outside, it must have seemed as if she were fighting several creatures at once, appearing in reality only for a fraction of a second, so fast was my dislocation.

Now I could really see her movements, even if it was subtle and fuzzy, but I could damn well see them! And still, I couldn't get her! As powerful as she was offensive, she made me look like a child when she was on the defensive. All I could get was a few quick healed cuts on her skinless body, which couldn't give me an advantage in combat. She was getting tired, too, and she had her limits, but there was no way I could see them.

Our fight was not the "beautiful dance" described in legends and songs; it was devoid of grace and beauty. We were both two killing machines, trying to find each other's weaknesses and exploit them as much as possible. Was it beautiful in its own way? I have no idea. I didn't care for it.

One of the advantages of my suppressing her clairvoyance by making her ability to foresee, figuratively speaking, "go on the defensive," was that she was too focused on me. I even understand her, to be honest. She needed to track my attacks on all planes, to constantly expect a shadow or potion strike, to keep a building plan in mind in hopes of catching me in the sphere of a paralyzing skill, to continually renew her pins with which she blocked the shadow-filled steel... Amid these tasks, the seemingly non-threatening mage she had broken my spine and thrown under the vault of this building just fell out of sight. And how much could he do in such a state?

As it turned out, quite a lot. The man wisely decided that paralyzed from the waist down, he posed no threat to the mutant, so he simply crawled to the farthest corner, where he watched us fight. He was able to see very little, for all his magical power was not very conducive to physical might, and then there was the total darkness and the distracting factor of the slaughter that was going on behind the walls. But he chose the moment to attack, even though he was aware of the possibility that he might fry me, too.

It was either his nervousness or his assumption that I could deflect, since I could teleport so deftly, but he put probably everything a mage of his level and class had in his desperate blow. I have a nasty relationship with electricity. They're always trying to kill me with it, or at least cripple me!

The hit was good!

The twisting lightning was like a real pole, literally vaporizing the matter in its path. Lucky for me, my opponent, through my efforts, had almost lost her foresight, and its remnants were concentrated on me alone. I, of course, also weakened my tracking of the surrounding territory, fixating completely on the skinless abomination. Except that it's hard to miss the gradually (you can't prepare such a blow instantly) growing threat and the clear understanding that in a few seconds I would be left with nothing but greasy ash.

I did a really nice job of not only reacting and shadowing myself vertically upward to the ceiling but also framing the cultist, forcing her to be exactly in front of the spell that was coming at her. Even so, the unbearably bright lightning was quite painful to the shadow form, and I had to put a lot of effort into my stepping technique to keep myself from being thrown back to reality out of the Shadow's wake.

However, I was willing to forgive the man his blunder, just to see the damn bitch fried to a crisp... ...if it had been fried! Remember when I complained about the ineffectiveness of the shadows against her defense? Forget what I said! The shadows were amazingly effective, just a hundred and thirty-five percent effective! Whereas the shadow techniques she ripped through with almost no effort, the lightning, even as dangerous and powerful as it was, the bitch simply ignored it.

No, she turned sideways and covered her head with her hands, minimizing the impact area, but it was probably a simple reflex of an experienced fighter. The flow of magic bypassed her disfigured body as if the electrical discharges were unable to touch the vile symbols. She took some damage, but not enough to even slow her down, let alone hurt her.

Almost immediately, the cultist threw a trio of pins at the shocked, unharmed mage who was staring at her. Before I could even think about trying to save the loser, the bearded man I'd forgotten about intervened. Apparently, the minute and a half that had passed since the start of the second round (and it seemed like an eternity and a half!) were enough for him to clear his mind of the enemy's charms, orient himself on his surroundings, and even choose where to apply his considerable strength.

And the way turned out to be a delight: all three pins were knocked aside by a huge wooden cartwheel thrown at the most opportune moment... with a huge wooden cartwheel. Either he was a genius, or he was fucking nuts, but it worked. And it worked for me, too, because the short amount of time she'd had to shift her focus from the unkilled mage to the unkilled arm-wielding monk was enough for me to prepare my attack.

I stepped out of the Shadow and managed not to touch a single strand of her web of probability, striking the hardest blow I could, literally driving daggers as black as the night itself into her body... not in, fuck! She didn't have time to react and put a block in, but as it proved, she had no internal organs under the protective tattoos and layer of muscle. Instead, there were pins like the ones she'd been fighting with. A body made of fucking blades! Is that even legal?

I barely managed to get away from the snake-turned creature when it tried to use the inertia of its failed attack against me. And then I activated the second layer of my attack, unleashing the eager shadows on it. This time, for a change, the result was even as microscopic as the tax collector's conscience.

No, outwardly it was cool - the shadow cloth that covered the mutant seemed quite capable of slowing her down and wounding her, if not killing her. And then there was a flash of her nasty, empty magic, and all the shadows on her just vanished. I could see the oozing black marks on her body and the two rapidly healing wounds from my daggers.

Ooops...

I was expecting another round when the creature used my favorite karate move - it's not for nothing that she's such a badass hand-to-hand fighter - strangely blinking and disappearing from view. Suddenly, my clairvoyance, which had come into full activity, told me that she had teleported very far away. I wouldn't count her as defeated, though.

I must have exhausted her enough for her to think I was too much of a distraction. To be honest, I don't even want to know what our fight distracted her from. Because I am clearly convinced that she will be back for a rematch. And before this whole carnival of meat and guts is over.

"Gone." The bearded man, who must have a patent for the rank of captain, sounded in the background. "She's definitely gone."

Even if I didn't turn around to face him, he might see my masked face and try to kill me. I am tormented by the eternal question, the one of "what to do?" because there is no need to doubt who is to blame. I am also infuriated and disturbed by the lack of understanding of the situation. The point is that this attack by the cultists is doomed to fail from the start. Yes, they can stage a massacre extravaganza, bleeding the streets and catastrophically reducing the number of guards and adventurers, but that will not give them victory. The guards and new ones will be hired, the adventurers will never be outnumbered, but the number of cultists is limited. If they don't have a dozen ladies like the one I just fought, they won't win. Humans are easy to win over.

A question then.

What the fucking sense of this actions?

I don't believe that the creature in charge wanted anything more than to walk away beautifully. I don't believe it! Perhaps they want to perform some kind of amplifying ritual, or something that can distort all the inhabitants of the city together? That's more believable, it even seems logical to bet on zero when death is breathing down your neck. For lack of a better guess, let's assume this evil thing is going to do something like that.

Now let's think about where exactly the ritual for which we started this massacre will take place. I am not a ritualist, not even a member of that class, but it's hard not to note the presence of specialists among the cultists in this very direction. Conclusion? This massacre is one part of the ritual. Blood, death, torture, and lots and lots of black slop will have to yield some result.

But which one and, most importantly, where exactly?

There has to be a point of concentration, a place where all the power can be applied, otherwise, this situation makes no sense at all. It would have been easier to try to get out of the city than to stage a useless banzai attack here. I need to find that point of application, and preferably to thwart the creature's plans. I don't care about heroism, of course, but since I've started my own personal war with the cult, I should bring it to a logical conclusion, not just snap the mouth.

"I don't know whose side you're on, but on behalf of the guild, I offer you a full contract of gold rank with double payment for your help in the current battle.' At last, the monk gave birth to his offer. "Your word?"

Although, no, not "At last," because only a few seconds had passed. It's just my clairvoyant consciousness that's caused me to misread the time. And I'm not even going to think about the contract - I'm not going to go to the guild to collect my fee anyway. Or I'd rob the guild of the same amount they'd owe me if anything.

"This massacre is not pointless." Keeping with the image, I add a bit of power into my voice, almost shuddering at my own words. "The blood, the pain, the hatred... They need them for something."

The cold rustle of a thousand voices goes all the way to my heart. The man is tense! Like a wire is strung, ready to defend his life against another creature in my face. It seems to me, just a little bit, that I have just convinced him that I am not human myself by trying to "keep the image of a mysterious stranger".On the one hand, it is even good, because an ordinary alchemist will not be searched for guaranteed. But for some reason, I don't know why these arguments remind me of empty excuses. It's as if I screwed up, and now I'm trying to justify my idiocy with some cunning plan.

But it can't be, right?

Right?

My interlocutor got to me very quickly. A professional, I could tell! But I had never heard some turns of phrase in his speech, though I considered myself a good connoisseur of non-literary vocabulary. I did not wait for the end of the tirade, though.

So far I still don't know where the center of the ritual is, but I do know that there's a huge amount of free experience running right outside the wall. And also a lot of people who could have been saved from a terrible fate. Well, you get the idea, right? There's nothing cooler than racking up experience while everyone around you thinks you're doing it from the bottom of your heart and are willing to pay you extra. I don't think anyone's going to pay me, but I've got enough extra levels to go around.

I stepped out of the step, right in front of another twisted boogeyman with a throwing ax sticking out of his back. I don't know what happened to whoever threw it. But the big guy was pushing the three guards around just like that. And originally there seemed to be a dozen of them: the cultists very successfully attacked from the back and flanks, depriving the guards of their main advantage - a strong wall of shields and a forest of spears with halberds, which could stop (or at least slow down) even the most over-leveled creatures.

Smart, bitches.

The guards saw only the glimpse of my mask, and that was doubtful, for they were too focused on surviving and retaining an even number of limbs. The changeling saw nothing at all - I pulled the ax sharply from his body, infused it with shadow, chopped off his supporting leg while he was pacing, and then plunged the blade of my dagger into the back of his head. He had no neck, by the way, and his head grew straight from his shoulders.

I did not wait for the reaction of the guards and stepped back into the shadows, hurrying to honor the memory of an old acquaintance. The fat teenage boy, with a great emptiness in his soul and torso, had already let loose a swarm of his birds, which, however, were successfully burned by a wave of fire launched by some mage. She had nice tits, but her face was not. Maybe she's pretty, too, but I'd have to find her head first to be sure.

Incredibly dexterous for his size, the lad used his cavity and the lightness that came with it to leap between the walls of a cluster of houses and warehouses, bouncing off them like a helium-loaded ball. And he tossed down some bombs, no doubt taken from one of the fallen adventurers, for there was no blackness on the bombs.

I guessed his trajectory and appeared in midair, just above him. I snatched the whole bunch of bombs out of his hands, setting them on fire from the torch in his hand, and then flipped him over in the fall. The fool opened his other mouth, reminding me of a mimic chest, but instead of letting himself be chewed up, I disappeared back into The Shadow. But the bundle I'd left behind fell right into the reflexively slammed box.

A second later I stepped out of the Shadow, only to give it a guiding kick that sent the poor man straight to a trio of well-timed cult mages. Some sort of veil shut them out, deflecting the magic and causing the physical projectiles to rot in flight. And the fast-acting curses they sent out from behind the men shielding them caused the deaths of many of the men, whose moldy, rotten corpses did not add to my appetite or the morale of their comrades.

Alas, the barrier passed one of its fellows. And then this fellow showed his explosive nature, sweeping all three warlocks aside, and in pieces. One seemed to survive the blast, but his head hit the stone wall. The wall would take a long time to clean if there was anyone to clean it.

The thugs blasted in the back and left without magical support, immediately lost their formation, giving several well-coordinated groups of adventurers a chance to get in behind them. The Cultists were not the only ones to take advantage of the tightness of the local alleys, were they? Maybe they would have been able to put a guaranteed end to the battle in this area, but a mobile rapid-response group was already rushing to the aid of the saddened mutants.

A trio of dexterous men, sharpened precisely to counteract the poorly armored but nimble adventurers. One resembled the screamers I was already familiar with, the second had bone blades instead of palms, and the third had a deformed chest that had been turned into a pneumatic machine gun for firing teeth. Their presence should have been enough to wipe out the emboldened humans, but I hadn't gone anywhere yet.

The easiest thing to deal with was the shooter, who I threw a bottle of sticky liquid, which had the property of foaming and hardening like cement, into its open mouth for air intake. The creature lost its balance and tumbled off the roof. Considering the fact that its lungs were one hundred percent filled with rock-hard foam, there was no reason to worry about it.

The screamer caught the throwing knife with the shadow infusion straight into his screamer, sending him flying down the path of the teeth shooter. It didn't kill him, but it damaged him enough that he posed no danger to the three adventurers who swooped down on him, one of whom was armed with a pompous hammer covered in little sparks of electricity. It was enough to spill black-soaked brains.

To the third, I simply chopped off one of his bladed arms. The mutant was skilled enough to parry the first three blows delivered just after leaving The Shadow, but one more step and a change of attack vector left him no chance. The whip ripped off his second pick, gave him a kick to the sternum (the crunch of his ribs was clearly audible), and sent him down, under the feet of the attacking crowd.

I'm done there.

It's time to change position.

This cultist didn't resemble a human at all, more like a barely anthropomorphic mountain of black slime, but he had even more power than the old pawnshop owner. Especially magical, as the mountain of dead guards, including several from the local secret service, who'd tried to stab him in the back, testified.

The space around the freak was dotted with black threads, perfectly visible in the Gaze, which apparently served as a sensory net and a defense at the same time. It was a powerful defense because a few lightning bolts and streams of fire didn't even make him stop his dull chanting, combined with the weaving of some kind of monstrous construct that made me want to break off the distance and end up in the next block.

It would have made more sense to run past the easier target, so it wasn't surprising that I instantly used the extraction trick directly under the net, covering myself with the shadow armor at the same time. I took a hit though but managed to shed the top layers of the shadowy garment before the fast-acting curse sprouted through them to my body. But all the remaining vessels of acid (it was a miracle they hadn't shattered or burned me, either!) had been spewed directly at the slime man. If you measure a weapon's effectiveness by the volume of the screams of those it kills, then the guys clearly have a weakness for acid attacks.

I managed to use the escape trick a second before the last curse of his life hit the place where I was staying. There was no visible effect on the outside, but my intuition firmly convinced me not to even set foot on that ground for another two or three years, just to be on the safe side.

I could help with the cultists who were left without magical support, but there are enough people here to handle it without Father's oversight. There are more disturbing situations here.

This mixed team of guards and adventurers was outnumbered. There were no guards left at all, and the three wounded adventurers could only watch the mutants (one screamer, two thugs, some incomprehensible dickhead, and what appeared to be a mage) slowly and leisurely walk toward them. The mage uses a blackout curse, and the two most seriously wounded (a man and a rather pretty girl) fall. No, the girl is still conscious, just paralyzed.

The cultists are eager to take them alive, for the mage has expended the powers bestowed by the black goo, and a good sacrifice will have to restore them, allowing them to continue to carry the will of their master. And the three adventurers are an excellent sacrifice.

The boy, who also realized something, desperately whispers another vanilla banal phrase, and then, as if deciding to do so, snatches the flask from his partner's belt and drinks it to the bottom under the somewhat wary and perplexed stares of the cultists. He then hiccups loudly and falls over. If we were in an anime, a huge question mark would be drawn over the heads of every mutated person. The girl, by the way, cannot see what is happening, for her desperate gaze is directed into the dense clouds of the night sky, but she can hear perfectly well what is happening.

And I recognize the kid, by the way.

It's hard not to recognize the man in whose name you've been kicking a lot of people. So he decided not to stay at home, but to become an adventurer. My clairvoyance immediately showed me Josef's conversation with his superiors, who, on pain of expulsion from the guild and sending him straight to the ranks of the bums, forbade him to touch alcohol. I could see that his actions were not an attempt to ensure a quick and painless death, but a desperate hope for an awakening of superpowers.

Nah, I'm supposed to be looking for the center of the ritual. Right?

This is no time for jokes.

There's just no time for pranks!

I'm not so irresponsible a dumbass that I'm really going to fuck around during a combat mission, am I? I'm here on a serious fucking mission, aren't I? So I could just blow off all the plans and start fooling around?

After one stolen shadow, which gave me the voice and appearance of a drunken novice adventurer, the drunken voice of a boy who would never get drunk in his home village, no matter how much money he offered for a drink, was heard in the middle of a dead-covered alley.

"What's up, bitches? It's time to test the tightness of your anuses! For spaisch masht floo!!! Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!"

The thirteenth-level swordswoman, who had finally shaken off the paralysis, would be back on her feet three minutes later. She would find the mangled and definitely dead cultists (the mage even had three standard guards' halberds shoved up its ass at once) lying around the drunken rookie she'd been forced upon by the will of Ingvar the most revered. She was still a little pounding from the horror she'd endured, the passing death she'd only managed to squeeze by a hair and the eerie drunken laughter of a useless ballast who she wouldn't give anything stronger than herbal tea for all the money in the world.

Barely a dozen minutes passed since the battle had begun, but the battle had moved from its most active phase, where blood was pouring out and bodies were not even counted, to the end phase. The cult's first success passed, after which the city's far more disciplined and numerous defenders began methodically mopping up the cursed creatures. They were scared, very scared, dying by the dozens, paying bloody tribute for every creature, but they somehow miraculously stood.

Perhaps they feared the commanders more than the creatures.

It may also be that their long service and their trained reflexes made them rush into battle, executing the necessary patterns by rote, even if it would have been wiser to run without a backward glance.

But there is also the possibility that somewhere deep down in the soul of the lazy, corrupt and unscrupulous bastards there was something left that demanded that the abomination be erased from the face of the universe. Just so it would not affect anyone else.

In any case, no one would know, for in the screams and wheezes of the dying fighters one could hardly hear the answer.

The Battle for the Edge was approaching its final phase when one isekai and a few elite warriors from among the city's inhabitants managed to discover an alleged center supposedly serving as the basis for a supposedly abominable ritual performed by the cultists.

It's hard not to notice whole rivers of black sludge flowing into the catacombs underground, especially when that blackness partially manifests itself in the real world, even without the help of the Gaze.

"Seriously, ****, Ingvar? The three of us? They'll eat us up and thank us for the hors d'oeuvres!" He was yelling at my bearded acquaintance, a blond man who was a colleague of his, dressed in lightweight and even glowing from the spells he'd put on his armor. "We must wait for backup!"

"Yes, ****, right now, Frederick! Right now! You know my gut, ****, and it's screaming that if we don't make it, we're dead!" The two-meter tall mountain of muscle yelled much more convincingly. "All the most powerful things aren't here right now! They've given up on everyone! We have to at least disrupt the ritual. Even if there's nothing else we can do. Because there isn't enough time to leave the city."

Toward the end, he was no longer yelling, but simply asserting grimly. And they believed him, you know! Now that's what I call combat brotherhood! The blond man in full armor, resembling a typical "pure-blooded Aryan" from the posters of World War II, only waved his hand.

"I always knew I'd die like a dog on this job. At least the little firebug wouldn't come with us - I promised his father I'd bring the bastard back alive and almost healthy." He was now completely free of any trace of his former aggression.

"He'll make it. He managed to burn off the crap that got on him." The monk murmured.

"But just the three of us? Shouldn't we at least wait for Ludwik? " Asked the last member of the trio, an elderly black man, unarmed except for a necklace of orc fangs clutched in his hands.

"Ludwick is busy on the front line, along with Maxworth." The swordsman shook his head negatively. "Strange that the Mayor would send his personal watchdog into battle. So it's just the three of us."

"Four." I'll throw in my five cents.

Kostya is an idiot! Because I was almost attacked by all three of them. And I understand them, to tell you the truth, because if I had heard such a comment, and in such a voice, I would have had to change my pants.

"Holy shit! I mean, fuck you! I mean, fuck it! I mean, thanks for your help!" It seemed to take a truly titanic effort for Ingvar not to send me to hell in a heartbeat, as well as to keep his companions from attacking me. The latter had not seen my fight with the magic-covered creature, and therefore had no reason to consider me an ally. "He was the one who pulled me and the other group out, I told you."

The others only gave my smiling face a long look, and then relaxed a little, apparently resigned to my presence.

And then there was a long and extremely disgusting rumbling sound from underground, and my gut began to hint badly that I needed to leave the place as soon as possible.

We're running out of time! Follow me! - I can't figure out where this brute's sense of duty ends and banal self-confidence begins, but I had to run after the idiots who rushed forward.

I've always been able to use the evacuation trick, after all. And I know how to get out of a trap that prevents me from controlling shadows because the summoning of shadows was developed when I jumped out from under the paralyzing skill.

Summoning the shadow: 2/7

Allows you to summon and impose your will on lower or weaker Shadows; to subdue and control a Shadow, the powers of the summoner are spent; a summoned Shadow cannot stay long in reality without a feed from the summoner; allows you to force Shadows to serve as material for shadow abilities.

I'm summoning several lesser entities. I feel that my call might reach someone stronger now, but right now I don't need stronger ones, I need exactly the spare anchors to use the runaway. I, like my unwitting companions, am certain that dealing with the guys gathered there will not work. At the very least, the tattooed girl must have gone this way.

But we really don't need to kill everyone there - just enough to disrupt their ritual. And then we can run away, thankfully, I have a way to do it. I don't doubt that they've prepared a trap for me there, and that's why I summoned three lower shadows at once, so I could guarantee my escape through the Shadow. I have been so doped up that my previous hangover will seem like nothing compared to what awaits me in the morning. At least I had a couple of vials of antitoxin at home, otherwise, it would have been very sad.

I was sure that nothing would stop my escape. I know it's stupid, but my powers had managed to imbue me with a lot of overconfidence. Excessive, but justified!

As practice showed, there was a bolt with a thread for my tricky ass, too.

There are times when clairvoyance becomes especially powerful, literally knocking into you the clear understanding that you are finished. You're just fucked, that's it. No alternatives, no chance, no salvation.

It's a strange feeling, comparable to the legendary "oops" you get when you drop a burning lighter into a tank of gasoline or the equally legendary "fuck" uttered by a nuclear physicist next to a working reactor. Here I had exactly the same understanding of the end that had come. If it weren't for my title of Hero, I would have squealed like a bitch, but instead of hysteria my mind instantly went into maximum focus mode, trying desperately to find a way out of the bottomless asshole.

She didn't look dangerous.

I mean, more dangerous than she used to be.

But one look at her was enough to realize that something else was looking through her eyes. Something that made me and the elite of the adventurer's guild look like little fish next to a toothy shark. One did not even need clairvoyance to understand this, for it revealed itself to our perception. Such a polite greeting from the creature acted as another weapon - it lowered morale just so.

"Words are empty, hopes are false, and my blade has left its sheath..." Suddenly, the blond man recited. And in response to the bewildered looks of his allies, who had even forgotten about the danger, he somehow embarrassedly replied. "What? There are times when you can't help but quote a classic!"

Alas, the creature wasn't going to give us time to discuss Alurej's classic poetry, attacking our entire group. There were no auxiliary forces here - just streams of black sludge flowing into an underground pool, apparently hand-crafted from some sewer, and a single guard. A guard whose body was rapidly degenerating under the weight of the creature that had come into her essence. She was specifically created for this purpose. The marks covering her, her monstrous regeneration, and her body's base of black pins allowed her to withstand as much of her Master's power as no other cult member could.

Still, at least in some ways she was late.

In a single moment, which she somehow lost, Ingvar managed to silently and swiftly toss a small cylinder into the edge of the pool, literally glowing in alchemical perception. There was no explosion, just a scattering of ash on the edge of the vault, from which tons of blackness immediately spilled out. And we were all squeezed into the cold stones.

Only if the three adventurers were instantly bound by the vile "oil" tentacles, I managed with a monstrous effort to slip out of their grip. I did not try to step into The Shadow-it was useless. I didn't try to use evacuation - an attempt that would be ridiculously stupid next to the creature. Not the slightest hint of moving the shadows - they wouldn't come to my aid in this dungeon.

Stupid overconfidence.

Stupid death.

A death I could not avoid, but which I could still accept on my terms. To die in such a way that it would be less hurtful to go to the other world, and the dry lines in the Book of Record of Heroic Souls would be as pathos as possible.

I put all the power I had into one desire, one technique. A technique that the enemy simply could not sense, just as I could not understand the essence of his strange magic. Leaving the tiniest bit of reserve, sucking me dry, which would be even more damaging to my health, I began to call out. It was only partly a skill - it formed the basis, the loop with which I pulled the small shadows into reality. But instead of searching for suitable prey, I was calling.

Calling out something that lived much deeper than I was allowed to see.

I called out to something that was there before rocks and mountains, before wind and thunder, before forests and grasses, before the sun itself and the eternal stars. It could not come to reality, for it was too heavy and clumsy. It could pass, but only if I opened a gate to it, as I had opened a gate to the one that had once taken with it the legendary beast summoned by green-skinned cannibals.

Alas, I could not open the way for it, for the shadows no longer obeyed me.

Not in this place, not in the presence of this thing.

And it knew it perfectly well.

My body is pressed against the wall by a living wave of blackness that slowly and very sadly for me is eating away at my flesh. The unspeakable sensation, however, does not break my tranquility.

The creature comes a little closer, stopping right in front of my face. I'm the only one it's started chewing on, for the adventurers have yet to experience my torment. I was probably considered the most dangerous: a source of pride, to put it bluntly, though doubtful.

"Y0u iNterгupted the riTual, my time is лimited. Бut 1 Vill repay y0u 4 your insoлence."

And I suddenly realize that it's lying. We hadn't interrupted anything, for there was nothing to interrupt. Even the creature's procrastination at the beginning was understandable. It deliberately let the monk use its potion trick. All he had left to do was to play the part of an enraged monster in front of the audience. Some will be slowly and painfully devoured, and some "won't have time", for the backup will come, and the monster will rush into the "last fight" to inflict maximum damage on the enemy.

The real purpose of the ritual was simply to shed its tail, like a lizard. To slip like a serpent between the bars of the cage, leaving nothing behind for those looking for it but the shed skin. The ritual did nothing dangerous or destructive, for it merely hid. It hid the heart of the creature for years, if not centuries. It hid it from the sights and charms of adventurers looking for it, and from the attention of possible visitors from the capital.

It will wake up again, but only when the Kraj will be a dull province with no attentive adventurers and dangerous guards, where nothing and no one can stop it anymore.

And the funny thing is that, except for me, no one seems to have understood the essence of this creature. Everyone will consider it an ordinary monster, and any hint of a possible source will be erased by the death of the main villain (or villainess).

A perfect solution, especially for a creature who thinks centuries ahead.

Would be.

It seemed, hearing the soft and not at all painful laughter coming from my lips, to have something akin to surprise. If it knew how to be surprised at all. Perhaps it mistook the laughter for saving madness, but it asked nonetheless. All the more reason, it was the perfect opportunity to stall for more time, to add to the credibility of the script.

"Vaт аre y0u Нopiпg 4? WHaт are U up 2? What дo you нope to HurТ мe witн?" It babbled right in my face.

There's hardly any skin left on my arms and legs, but I can barely contain my laughter. It was wrong, very wrong, to play the villain who mocked the hero. Even if it does it for a very reasonable, considered, and logical reason, and not out of villainous stupidity, but still in vain. For it has forgotten how such speeches can end up for villains!

After all, the blond guy whose name I never learned was right. There are times when it would indeed be a crime not to quote a classic. My hand grabbed the creature's forearm with a sharp jerk.

It doesn't even try to dodge, because in its vision I'm devoid of all power, and the shadow energy just won't penetrate the place. All I can try to do is hit it purely physically, which is not even a tickle for such a creature. So it ignores the way I grab it with both hands, and then, tearing the muscles that had begun to dissolve and keeping consciousness only thanks to the blood-boiling potions, the Hero title, and sheer stubbornness, I pull my face up to the face of its avatar.

"The face under the mask, I'll show you now." By some miracle, I take control of the shadow in my mouth, drawing even more attention to the creature that continues to play the part.

It's waiting for me to spit a few shadow blades at it, knowing full well that it won't be enough for a serious attack, but I need the shadow in my mouth only as a distraction. And to change my voice, to give me some pathos, I'll be honest. Real isekai only leaves with proper pathos.

"And you will die like all those who came before you." I spit out the words, feeling my lungs begin to dissolve.
T. N.

The creature had only expected a desperate attack at the very limit of my strength and capabilities. It was too old, too experienced. It knew perfectly well the abilities of shadow mages and shadow-marked ones, but, to my infinite delight, it had never encountered the Shadowlord class. It had perfectly analyzed my capabilities, thoroughly interrogating the one that was now its avatar, constructing what it thought was the perfect strategy for countering a very strong user of shadow techniques.

It was completely unprepared for the possibility that all three of the Shadows I'd caught would dive under my feet and merge into one. It could never have imagined that the will of an ordinary human could force the Shadows to interrupt their existence, opening at such a cost a full-fledged breach leading directly to the Shadow Realm.

I suppose I could have simply run away now. There was even a microscopic chance I could have lived to get help and survive the terrible wounds, especially if I had managed to crawl to my lab, or spat on morality and started munching random people while in shadow form. But those odds were so low it wasn't even funny. Instead of the pathetic and almost impossible attempts to save my skin, I pulled us both down.

And then something tugged at the loop of my call, which I had turned into a real beacon. And I was dragged to the bottom, not letting go of the creature that had just begun to realize the madness that was happening.

I was in the deep.

It was a place deeper than the deepest bottom of the sea, colder than the cosmic void, darker than the darkest gloom, more bitter than the bitterest longing and madness. The creature that had followed me was raging. It tore at me with its claws, tried to devour me and my essence with its filth, but could not.

We were in the Shadow, and while we were here, my body itself was only a Shadow, and a Shadow cannot be grabbed, cannot be shackled, cannot be devoured. Even though its blows were painful, I wasn't dead yet; I could still grip and drag the scum hard into the abyss itself. And there was a whole train of other Shadows following us. From the pitiful and petty to the truly dangerous and terrifying, they were all following us, eager to tear apart the entity holding me, but still afraid of it. But there were more and more of them every second, even if the creature itself did not see the crowd gathering at its soul, trying simply to kill me to escape the captivity of an alien and hostile plan.

It was quite within creature power, even now.

Especially now.

But then they looked at my back.

This part of my memory was incomplete, which is undoubtedly for the best. Because I don't want to remember what happened then. I don't want to remember the shrieking and dying of the incalculable creature. I don't want to remember how my intangible wounds hurt, and how my consciousness faded when I realized that I had accomplished my goal.

Even more unwilling to remember the moment when those who came from the bottom looked at me, those whom I was able to call and who heard my call. Their mere presence healed my ghostly body, restored my strength, and filled my reserves, and then I was forgotten about for a few minutes. The healing was not gratitude, for Shadows are incapable of it; rather, it was payment. It was payment for bringing prey whose torment was a worthy amusement to them.

The same way it happened with the Skin Taker, they repaid me for what I had done. Simply because it was in my essence, the right to be paid. Just as then, my very essence, the essence of the Shadowborn, told me that if I did not withdraw back to the real world, or at least to the more familiar upper layer of the Shadow, the next meal would be me.

It gave me strength.

It gave me an insight into how to move toward the goal and how to define it. And I ran like I had never run before in my life, even though I could not run in this place. I had never wished for anything more than to find myself in such a familiar and understandable reality.

And I made it.

The slowly recovering adventurers had just had time to get to their feet and arm themselves when a figure in a white mask with a bloody smile appeared in the middle of the hall, wearing a ragged, torn, and nearly smoking cloak. The figure didn't say a word, disappearing instantly, transporting herself in her strange spatial ability, which, it must be said, pleased the adventurers, who had already said goodbye to their lives (second time).

A few seconds ago, the black sludge was no longer anything to be feared, but a nauseating, stinking substance, and every single mutant that the guards and guildmates had not yet killed had died instantly and without a sound.

Somewhere in the far corner of the Kraj, in the basement of an otherwise ordinary house, unconnected to the cult and bearing no trace of their strange magic, a strange casket crumbled to dust as if it were made of bones. If anyone had been there at that moment, he could have sworn he heard a low, barely audible wailing, full of doomed hatred and reluctance to disappear into nowhere.

He was in the opposite corner of the city, in a medium-sized alchemical laboratory, where its owner came out of nowhere, threw off his badly damaged clothes, said something suspiciously resembling "fuck it," covered himself with a blanket, and immediately fell asleep. His magical reserve was full, not a trace of alchemical intoxication left in his body, but his mental fatigue was much more reliable than his physical fatigue.

He had a lot to think about, but all these problems he firmly and voluntarily put off until tomorrow. Like, for example, one very incomprehensible and disturbing change in his Status.

Name: Konstantin

Race: human?

* * *

How he did it?

How I swore at Kostya when he risked going into the jaws of the enemy, only I know. The funny thing was that he really knew he was doing something stupid, but he was overconfident.

But now he will have bonuses for caution and good judgment.

But who am I lying to? I don't think he's going to be any more cautious.

I put thirty points into the plus side of getting the beautiful maiden thanks to the efforts of ulungar, who guessed the plan of the creature almost completely and on the first try.

As for the Dices, the critical success was thrown on the dying pathos Kostya - 100/73, and after that even a crit (though with bonuses) on the healing: 100.

The cult had not a single failure; everyone worked steadily. Even their units died strictly according to plan, not sparing themselves for their Master's main goal.

Josef did get in the shot, but he won't be very happy about it when he sobers up.

In general, this chapter perfectly portrayed Kostik's character, so he came out very authentic. The bonuses are in the next chapter, as well as the possible meeting with the girl.

But the crit failure is always possible.

Good for everyone.

Внимание! Этот перевод, возможно, ещё не готов.
Его статус: идёт перевод

Переведено на Нотабеноиде
http://notabenoid.org/book/80370/522645

Переводчики: Camrad_RIP