Готовый перевод Его не звали, но он приперся / They never called, yet he is here: Глава 20

Chapter 20

A long time ago, when the sky was bluer and a visit to the Stone wasn't even planned yet, I wondered about an amusing question that sounded something like this: why are legendary creatures so dangerous? Aside from trivial answers like "high stats," "unreal level," "unique skills," and other nonsense, I came to a conclusion that scared the hell out of me. I'd always intuitively known that if I didn't keep control of myself and the powers of my classes, the resulting creature would be far more dangerous than the Skin Taker, or even the poor Spectre left to roost in an abandoned necropolis. It would come close, if not surpass, the creature from the Kraj. But why can some legends be so much stronger than others? What is it about me that makes me so special that I can bring about a not-so-local apocalypse? And the stronger I become, the less local the apocalypse will be, the more of a fucked-up global apocalypse it will be.

The conclusion was self-evident, unpleasantly chilling to the back of my mind: the reserve of available power, or, rather, the lack thereof. Humans and non-humans with the title of "endowed," as well as ordinary monsters like orcs, have a strictly measured reserve of available power and even access to system classes (not in all cases). Full-fledged monsters are monstrous because their stats and skills are amazing, despite the lack of a class as such, and the reserve corresponds to them. Allowing them to wear down the ones they can't get at the drop of a hat.

The thing that right now sought to sprout into me, to become me and replace myself, as I said, would have no reserve at all. Only capacity. The Shadow I'd summoned could use its skills for a very long time and recovered quickly through racial affixes and devoured souls, but even it was tired after it had slaughtered most of Ferer's retinue and almost reached the wizard himself.

That's why she died she was tired.

The thing I was to become had no such problem - human soul and body, fused with the will and essence of the Shadow realm itself, allowed it to draw as much power as it wished. Such a creature would not be drawn back into the Shadow, for its material component belonged to the real world, but it could not grow tired, always partially in the Shadow. The only limitation would be the sheer bandwidth - the amount of power that my body and soul could pass through in a single blow. Lately, I'd been able to let a lot of it pass through me.

My attack, which had blotted out the dozens of ritual barriers he'd prepared at the beginning of the fight, was very good, just awesome, but I could only do it once, at the cost of body pain, blood from my nose, ears, and eyes, and the risk of "killing myself against the wall" or going mad. Even after I regained my strength with the Breath of Magic, I didn't risk hitting with that much power again, for fear of not being able to keep control.

After the transformation, the resulting creature would be able to hit like that every second, without much fear of damaging its Shadow-soaked body or going cuckoo. How could I go any further if my body, fused with the realm concepts, had lost its materiality and was regenerating at a rate that would make even Ygra silently envious? How can you go further with your brain if you can already bang into the bottom of the universe from below, becoming the very nightmare that "could always be worse"?
* * *I thought I had hit rock bottom when suddenly there was a knock from below. © Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

After all, who better to make a mythic creature than a mythic class owner? It may not be the strongest, but it's a good match for its rank and has every chance to get even stronger. You should kill such a thing either by divine mercy or by a couple or three high-level Chosen Ones who are overdosed on stimulants and have the right mythical classes to counteract the Shadow, not by one local Hero who barely got his title.

In short, Ferer had no more chance than a sucker who had come from a remote village to beat a professional team of gamblers and return home a millionaire. There were very few chances, very few chances.

In theory.

In practice, there was one small detail, almost imperceptible as the decency of an official, that stood between me and an easy victory. Perhaps you have all forgotten, but my initial purpose, for which I came to visit in the first place, was not to kill the enemy, or even to win a colorful victory, but to capture him and extract information. A task extremely poorly combined with eating the soul of a future informant and then transforming into a beast of horror. And even if first to turn, and only then to kill-eat, nothing in our scenario of children's party will not change.

So I need to somehow keep myself from going over to the side of the cookies, to defeat the enemy without killing him. At the same time, pay attention, not to die first, like some idiot. At this point, I can't help but quote the classic quote, "What could possibly go wrong"?

Scooping up too much energy would be a mistake, probably the last one I'd ever make. So I decided to focus not on raw power, as the creature inside me wanted, but on my human advantages: high control and mobility, multiplied by the partial - almost complete, to be honest - fusion with The Shadow, and the speed of reaction and sorcery. Quite significant advantages, especially considering the low physical characteristics of Ferer, who was pumped almost entirely into a pure mage who despised the martial arts. Some might say that's silly, but the very fact that this guy got level fifty hints mildly that he knows a lot about proper and effective pumping.

I wasn't going to underestimate my opponent, especially since he was probably expecting the overwhelming power and fury of a madman who had merged with the realm. This was no idle speculation, but a fact, for when I sent more than five hundred shadow needles at the bastard instead of a powerful stream of shadows, or even a melee attack at all, he was indeed surprised for a moment, but unfortunately only for a very brief moment.

The shadow needle itself, as I play it, is comparable to a crossbow bolt, enchanted to deal extra damage to living creatures. That's why it's not a good idea to get hit by such an attack, even if you're high level and have artifact armor. If such a projectile is not alone, being only a drop in the wall of black rain of ominous energies, then without a powerful protective barrier or skill it is better not to get hit. The enemy had both.

The first few dozen shells hit some strange veil, literally clumping together into one lump of blackness, which then flew behind the enemy and stayed there. I stopped controlling that shadowy matter almost immediately. He was obviously expecting me to make a single, powerful attack that such a contraption would devour in its entirety, and it would be a good thing if it didn't bring it back. The result was not at all satisfactory to the old Hero, as evidenced by the slightly tighter tightening of his lips, and the sudden loss of the deliberately insulting relaxed expression on his face. Trying to provoke a great master provocateur is not a good idea.

The rest of the shadowy needles were simply brushed aside by the man, causing the flow of deadly magic to shift to the side, instantly absorbing into the stone walls and ceiling. My clairvoyance told me that this particular place had been my opponent's workshop for years and that his effects were seventy percent more effective here. The most disgusting thing was not the increase in efficiency, but the expansion of the available arsenal, even though I couldn't fully comprehend the problem.

Whatever his classes gave him, he depended far more heavily on preparation and reaction time than I did, but once prepared, he was three times as frightening as he had been. Add to that the level, the titles, the experience, and my woeful condition to understand the depth of the trouble I was in. A good option would have been to force the bastard to leave the "home" part of the fortress by transferring to the lower levels of the Stone. I could reconcile myself with the fortress' still-active defenses, especially since it, after a farewell greeting from an already dead Brether had gone to pieces and was becoming more unstable by the second.

Except that the enemy understood that, too, and would obviously not agree to follow me if I decided - and if I succeeded - in retreating from the current battlefield. He probably wouldn't be upset at all, just waiting for the rapid-response groups to finish me off, especially with the support of Ferer himself and the remnants of the garrison. It's fun, isn't it?

I couldn't delay, so I continued the attack, rearranging the plan as I went, making the shadows on the floor blacken and surge. It was as if someone had kicked out the dusty carpet, and now the wave was coming straight at the still-quiet Ferer. The attack seemed very strong, but it only pretended to be, for there was only enough power there to clog the background. The main damage was supposed to come from the extremely narrow and thin shadow spear that flew within the raised wave.

I would have made Ferer's own shadow wrap itself around its owner, but he was clearly aware of such skills in the Shadowuser's arsenal and had correctly hedged against similar mischief. He had done so before the duel began, for even the legendary creature couldn't pull a stunt like that on him or his retinue. The man's belt was ablaze with a dull gray light - just don't ask me how such a color scheme is even possible - a small amulet that looked like a light bulb, stripping away all control over shadows within a dozen yards of the epicenter. Or rather, not allowing them to create there, because already ready shells fly in there quietly, and new ones in that area, as if they do not exist. Even the sphere is jammed almost to zero, in spite of its mythicalness and awesomeness.

Apparently, the bastard had some sort of perceptual passive ability, like my Gaze, because my attack was not a surprise, on the contrary, it was a surprise to me. I was in the middle of a wave of shadowy matting right above him, ready to swoop down on the man and string him up with a splinter hidden in his depths, so he made his move.

A quick movement of his hand and he just caught my spear with his hand, again depriving me of control over its structure, and the carpet itself froze a gray veil of the same shape as my shadow at the moment of transformation into that veil. And the resulting shit was stronger than my creation by an order of magnitude, as two more spears penetrated it, but could not break it. The spear still clutched in the palm of his hand went behind his back, pouring into the black sphere that was already there, left behind by the caught needles, increasing it to the size of a soccer ball. The remains of the blackness from the pins that shattered on the barrier are sucked into it, increasing the incomprehensible thing to the size of a full-fledged watermelon. I felt a sudden reluctance to feed the thing with my power, for I suspected that if I accumulated enough of it, it would strike me back. I was thinking that I might try an indirect attack, throwing some kind of stone at the enemy.

Alas, my ideas remained ideas, for Ferer decided to stop playing the punching bag and start attacking himself. I couldn't say he was much weaker than the sweet and humble me. Less destructive, perhaps, but not weaker or less dangerous.

The gray mist that had previously been my attack changed color again and then flew at me in a heterogeneous blotch, growing some sort of limbs, disturbingly reminiscent of a tentacle. The shadow attack, which is a similar blob, was only partially effective, managing to stop the abomination, but that's all. Attempts to dissolve the hostile energy within myself, which had always worked before due to the shadow magic's unique aggressiveness, allowing me to dissolve even the power of death, were a complete failure. Slowly, but inexorably, bitch, the black blot began to turn green, becoming a continuation of the green blot. And, merging with it, it resumed its movement toward me!

I would have panicked about that, but I had to dodge a new attack that looked like a brown ball the size of a small tangerine, thrown at me with a bounce off the wall. The thing, I noticed, ignored my clairvoyance, and was moving in unpredictable trajectories across the room. In addition, the thing somehow looped my clairvoyant talents onto itself, forcing my clairvoyance to spend all its resources trying to overcome the sudden obstacle. A very pale and almost transparent beam of incomprehensible origin, shooting out of Ferer's solar plexus, I noticed at the very last moment, thanks to my heightened perception, my Gaze, and my still-working, despite the Shadow Form, inquisitive gaze. It wasn't the most useful perk in my deck, but it saved my life, or at least my health.

The standard tactic of "cover me with a barrier, leave a decoy, and attack," was only partially realized. No, I lifted the barrier, a powerful one, and I left the silhouette as a decoy, jumping to the ceiling and clawing at it at the same time. And then the beam pierced both the barrier and the silhouette, going into the wall, and all the shadows in its path at once returned to their normal two-dimensional state, as if all the energy had been drained out of them.

Somehow I don't like this kind of kung fu, gentlemen, and comrades.

The claws on my hand, or rather on what it had become, broke a piece of unusually hard stone from the ceiling, sending it into a ball that still flailed around in circles, though I was tempted to throw it at Ferer himself. This structure, clearly designed against clairvoyants - perhaps even the now deceased locals - could not resist physical damage, bursting like a ball stuffed with, say, chocolate. It was a good thing I didn't hit Ferer, though, for the missing distraction factor saved my ass from a very unpleasant encounter with some magical crap.

In a certain area of space that strangely coincided with my location, the shadows simply disappeared. They were gone as if someone had photoshopped them out. The center of the enchanted space was about where my shadowy silhouette had disintegrated into nothingness, which saved me - although my position on the ceiling was also under attack, it was immeasurably easier to jump out of there. The initiative was quickly returned to the hands of the Hero unwilling to stop. It seemed that he only accelerated more and more, unaware of the banal fatigue and the depletion of the reserve.

In his defense, the tricks used were undoubtedly very intricate, but not the most energy-intensive, and the man's reserve was not that high, indicating an obscenely high level of control - he had to put his stats in somewhere. My problem was that the brute wasn't repeating himself: so far all of his attacks were completely different and were very badly countered by shadow magic. No shit, they weren't countered!

This simple thought was confirmed by the enlarged green something, which completely devoured my spells and intensified at their expense. The cloud-globber became even more viciously green and then turned into a full-fledged network, covering most of the hall and crawling in my direction. And I wouldn't say that the distance between us remained so great. I would have considered destroying the enemy spell, but I was a little distracted by the new beams Ferer sent from his chest and eyes, forcing me to maneuver incessantly. They passed through the light green thing without the slightest problem, but the shadow barriers literally annihilated at the touch.

My prying eyes helped me again, noting that the shadow watermelon hanging behind my enemy's back was shrinking a little, just a little, with each ray. Quite an amusing technique - to create such attacks, he needed a pattern and time to prepare, to analyze even, the energy received. The clairvoyance indicated this quite clearly, preventing Ferer from attacking, as if deliberately creating short windows for my strike, with shadows. There was no "as if" here, only intent and cold calculation, multiplied by balls of steel and the certainty that any blow I could direct under Ferer's continuous attacks would be repelled by him. And he would give me no time to prepare something against which his defense would pass.

Then, however, the old man brought back the distraction ball clogging up the clairvoyance, making it, this time, invulnerable to physical damage, unlike the first version I had so successfully defragmented.

The result was a kind of gambit professionally and lovingly executed, allowing him to come to a victory in any possible way without giving me a chance to counter-combination.

I could keep dodging the rays hoping to exhaust the shadow pattern he'd accumulated, or catch me at an inadvertent mistake. Then he would simply wait for the moment when the green net would trap me and crush me slowly, methodically, and still quietly like a bug. Maybe even capture me.

I could try to attack with a single attack hoping that the power and force surging through me would be able to push through the enemy barriers, exhausting, overpowering, or ignoring Ferer's strange protective magic. But something told me that I could do so immediately, and now I was already too bogged down, not having a chance to concentrate properly.

It's always an open option to turn completely into a creature, giving my ass to The Shadow to tear down. After that, finishing Ferer would have much better odds. Except for the small fact that at the moment of complete transformation I would be the most vulnerable, and I would no longer have the brains to figure out the enemy's plans. The enemy is probably even more aware of that than I am. In addition, my downfall will be his victory, because one way or another, the problem of the Ultimate Hero will become irrelevant. In his place, there will be a new creature, which, though dangerous, is not going to break the regime. Finally, there's one more detail... you know, Hero and monster are in the same room, the monster is stronger and more dangerous, but Hero has plot armor and everything. Anyway, it's not like what's replacing me is going to pull off this battle.

The last choice I had was to run away or retreat, which I could still do... to give the bastard time to consolidate his position, put on his defenses, and wait for me or backup. I can't summon Legend a second time, and I can't make him fight me head to head. Nor will he be satisfied with my escape, for the moment of surprise is already lost, and my person will be hunted down not only by the powers of Melareth but by any who can send their goons here. Even the Sorz will be tolerated, allowing them to participate in the corral of such valuable and dangerous prey.

Damned if one does and damned if one doesn't.

This was a chess game I couldn't win, no matter how I spun it. Which automatically led me to throw the board off the table, pulling a few stained decks out of my sleeves. Because that's the kind of asshole I am, not wanting to lose in a fair fight like some mediocre villain.

Barely discernible transparent gray rays beat strictly along the cooldown, and the light green netting nearly encased me in a dome as I landed on the floor, becoming human again. Gone was the Form, turning flesh and bone back into matter, melted the Aegis, taking away a good deal of the protection and stealth that didn't work in this environment and with such an opponent anyway.

That might have been considered an admission of defeat. For now, as I leaned my palms against the cold marble, breathing heavily and hoarsely under the mask, I remained completely vulnerable to my opponent's attacks. Yes, there was alchemy-treated armor, but it could hardly withstand such powerful and sharpened blows specifically against me. I might not have any shadow energy left in me, but a beam like that would knock me out, or at least take away my energy control, leaving me with my bare physical stats against a not-so-weary opponent.

In general, my behavior resembled an attempt to lie on the ground, curl up in a ball, and, with my hands over my head, beg the angry bully not to hit Kostya. Have you ever seen any jerks spare a surrendered man without at least kicking him one last time? Nor did Ferrer, I suppose, as he calmly aimed another beam, this time particularly powerful, literally buzzing with the power he'd put into it, straight at my smiling mask. Knock me out, restrain me, then wait for help, leaving me in the hands of the rescuers who had arrived, while he went to demand new bodyguards with bigger tits.

The only thing his plan didn't take into account was one fucking detail that proved to be no small thing - the marble of the floor, despite the battle, remained so smoothly polished that you could see my reflection in it. I thought my mask smiled even wider with a grin as my hand surged upward, taking in the open palm of the enemy's attack.

A colorless spell, as reliable and powerful as it should be for a mage of his level, class, and title, struck the barely discernible lilac haze of Dream that manifested around me.

And couldn't break through it.

If Ferrer had been calm and collected before, now there was something akin to surprise in his eyes. Not shock or anything resembling fear, but a kind of "when is this jerk going to calm down"? A sort of emotion more befitting a kindergarten nurse, or a nurse in a psycho ward, than a mighty warlock... However, he had in his subordinates a whole bunch of talented young people, which surely brought him many unpleasant surprises.

His expression did not change when I got to my feet fully, and from both of my palms stretched lilac ribbons of dream energy, gradually manifesting into reality, becoming thicker and more discernible, hiding, obscuring my figure in a bluish haze of unreality sprouting in Reality.

Two more beams, this time of black and orange, clearly sent to try it out, brought only a little pain, as if you had been hit by a mighty boxer, but through a thick pillow, and a partial dissipation of the Dream hovering around me. I paced leisurely, but each step was slightly longer and faster than it should have been as if space and time itself were failing within the lilac cloud.

The moment I approached the damn net, it was as if I had turned, spinning on my toes, causing the bright threads of unreal mist to wrap an even denser cocoon around me, woven into a cloak whose fabric reflected something that wasn't there in the real world. The net didn't even respond to me, though the spells tried to find the real me in the pile of shards that my figure was wrapped around itself. At that moment, Ferer was already annoyed, most of all by his mistakes and his underestimation of the enemy in me.

My attempt to turn the net around and reconfigure it on the fly was already shot down by me. I took a step backward, with my back to the front - though, in the cloud of Dream, I couldn't understand where my back was if I still had one - and then the haze-shrouded hand grasped the edge of the net, pulling it toward me. The impulse, directed by the gradually piercing armor clairvoyance, proved to be working, for in trying to transfer the green stuff's power from Shadow to Dream, Ferer had made a couple of miscalculations. As a result, the still distracting hopscotch went straight into the net, causing a reaction similar to what happens when you throw a stone into a thin sheet. The spell literally folded into itself, wrapping around the antiprecognitive device and giving me even more room to maneuver.

And then my clairvoyance, which was no longer affected by the barriers of the fortress, nor by Ferer's charms, began to work on a new level, clearly apologizing for the previous screwups. It was as if I began to know what actions my adversary would take, to understand their essence and intent a few seconds before the spells were released from the chain. And this was getting through to my adversary.

Two more beams didn't even hit me, as the lilac cloud with me inside either deflected beforehand or swept around the enemy's spell at the last moment. The spells could be considered dangerous now, even though Ferer could not sharpen them strictly against Dream as he had done before with Shadow. He made up for the lack of time by infusing the attack with more energy, making them destructive to any "subtle" energies. The Astral user, against whom this preparation was created, would have been atomized by such rays along with all his shields, but Dream, despite her fragility, absorbed such blows perfectly, even if not without losses. Ironically, the most effective counterargument in this situation would have been the massive area attacks that burned out the foreign energy. And Ferer was even capable of that, but not instantly, and his reserve was no match for the skill and control of the enchantments he created.

He rayed a few more times as I got within striking distance of him, but I diverted myself from pain and injury every time the threat flared up. Once, I made the beam pass through the cloud of Dream, simply by pulling it apart, preventing the charged energy from touching the fragile emanations of unreality.

I take the next step...

And then I die, when space itself became a complete etheric void, in which there was simply no space for any manifestation of magical nature. A shadow would have been able to suppress the barrier, or at least hold out for those few short moments while it existed at all. And it's not easy to suppress such an aggressive essence as I was overwhelmed by shadow form. Such a creature clung to life, grasping at the throat of creation itself, not allowing itself to be crossed out of the book of existence. The dream was too soft and airy to survive under such conditions, and I had already managed to dive too deep.

With the quiet sound of shattered glass, the remains of the closed field, which covered the entire room, crumbled to the ground. And what was I crumbled to the cold marble, too deep into the Dream, not having time to react to the attack that Hero had shielded from my clairvoyance. It's foolish to rely on the fact that the enemy has only one way to confront the seers, foolish to hope that he won't have time to use something new.

I take the next step...

Falling on the mirror-polished surface of the floor, I press my palms, hidden in the fog of unreality, to the surface, as if trying to break through almost two meters of cold stone with my bare hands. But these hands do not break the stone, but the thin barrier that separates reality and dreams, truth and lies, that prevents us all from losing ourselves in the labyrinth of endless reflections.

With the quiet sound of shattered glass, the remnants of the enclosed field, covering the entire hall, crumbled to the ground. The hall in which I am no longer there, because this time I did not look in the mirrors, diving in completely, headfirst, to the end. I don't have a clear shape, and I don't have eyes, but I can easily make out the slightest shocked expression on the face of the heavily breathing Ferer, before the rift linking me to the real world slammed shut under the influence of powerful magic.

And I was in the shit again.

If even being in the Dream with only my consciousness I had some difficulty in navigating the terrain, then you can imagine what kind of fucked up situation I found myself in after I dived headfirst into the maelstrom. There was no top and bottom, no familiar directions either, and the most significant reference point was the awareness of my own self. If it hadn't been for the perks of the class, I would have dissolved into the place even faster than I could have thought, "Oh". Human is simply not capable of existing in a place like this, and cannot have the right to do so. And what remained of him, if by some miracle he were to survive his stay here, could no longer be called human.

Nice place.

Strangely enough, the anger that still bubbled inside me, keeping me from falling into Shadow before, held me now, even though the sweet whisper of Dream was undermining its monolithic nature faster than the cries of the hungry Shadows. I realized that I would not be able to stand here for long, so I preferred to start searching for a way back to the real world. And I found the answer almost immediately.

While I could rarely distinguish reflections in the real world when I traveled through sleep, and only those that I processed myself, like the memorable mirror from the farm, or its fragments, now it was much easier to distinguish the other chips of reality, as if an invisible veil fell from my eyes, opening up a new facet of the world.

Before Dream had seemed like an endless purple fog, where you could go in any direction, but now it looked like the same fuzzy fog, where some Escher or Picasso painting hung everywhere. The misty expanse was interspersed with pieces of the real world, turned inside out, distorted beyond recognition, and reshaped into something completely unimaginable.

There might have been a staircase leading to an outline of a barely drawn room, where the murky shadows of real objects and people were flitting about. There was a tunnel from which one could discern a slice of blue sky as if one were looking from beneath the surface of the water at the bottom of a well. Pieces of the real world and fragments of materialized dreams, landscapes disintegrating into nothingness, and cities growing out of nothingness-all of it mingled, woven together into something beautiful in its ugliness and ugly in its inhuman beauty. This place seemed to be a huge workshop in which existence itself was created, but it was also an immense garbage dump where everything created was thrown away without the slightest regret.

This place did not exist.

But it was.

Reflection of reality.

Dream of the Creator.

If it hadn't been for my newfound perception of Dream, I wouldn't have dodged the first blow, risking making it my last. It would have been a joke if I'd saved myself from one foe and let another devour me. No, I knew there was going to be trouble here - something that had destroyed my nightmare - but I still wasn't prepared for the scale of the ass looming over me, more like the mouth of a huge monster threatening to eat me whole.

The monsters were not big enough to swallow me whole, but they made up for that small disadvantage with numbers, speed, and anger, clearly wanting if not to devour then at least nibble on poor Kostya. Also, these f*ckers clearly knew a lot about pack hunting. Because the second and third blows followed immediately after the first, clearly throwing me out into the open-as far as that concept applied to this place-the space where they could pile up all at once.

It also helped that they were clearly not expecting me to show up in Dream, having had time to spread out over quite a bit of territory, so that the first blows came from just three of the creatures, and the others only came closer, rapidly surrounding their prey and victim. The prey, of course, was little opposed, but they were confident that their argument would prove stronger and more thorough. The creatures looked so grisly that it made me want to find their creator and shake his throat hard, rip out his soul and feed it to the Shadows, and piss on what was left of the corpse to make it fit.

They had once been people, and they were not old at all. When I was in Dream, I could easily distinguish the fragments of reflections of their past lives, in which they were still simple children, having fun, playing, and dreaming about something childish of their own. And then there was always a brother or sister who looked like them, like that same reflection... And I even felt the presence of these very twins, only somewhat distant, as if they were both here and somewhere else. Very far away, where they were in unbearable pain. That pain served as a whip and collar for the resulting creatures, holding their leash and guiding them in the right direction, not letting them off the chain.

A note.

If I survive, find out about the authors of this masterpiece of mental therapy, and then do a lot of bad things to the authors, preferably more than once.

Now it's time to stop dicking around and start hitting back before I get really eaten up like a meat casserole.

It's hard to fight without a body, but I already had some experience of fighting in this place, and my reserve was incomparably higher than that of an individual beast. I was wrong to say that, though, because right now my reserve meant practically nothing. It was the Will and the ability to change Dream to suit me, to manipulate it properly.

The anchor in reality, provided by my own body, not only allowed me to return safely to Reality, but it also restrained my powers, weakening them perceptibly. Now that those chains were gone, I could and did understand much more, and the Dream obeyed me as if it had become part of me. Activating the Soaring and I wrapped myself in another shield, thickening the cloud that had protected me before. The creatures' blows are stuck in that cloud, trying to bite through it, to drill themselves into it. Their attacks are powerful and perfectly structured as if someone had melted steel jaws into them to gnaw into my essence.

They might have reacted to my attack if they'd expected me to attack while on blind defense. I had the feeling that the creator put a certain set of combat algorithms into their heads, replacing the lack of instincts of the Dream creatures. It was quite a successful and even clever move, except that the creatures slowed down a bit, giving me a split second (again, I have no idea how time flows in this place) to react and strike back.

By my will, the protective cloud of dreams served as the material for my attacks. I simply wove several dark purple ribbons that immediately enveloped all three of the creatures clawing at me, tearing and dispersing their structure... Trying to do this, as the critters proved incredibly dense - apparently, the perks of partial materiality - and additional power immediately flowed into them through the binding leash. The torment level of the twins who served as relays spiked, but two of the three creatures were still able to retreat, leaving parts of their bodies in my arms. The third didn't make it, as I reinforced the ribbons, adding a few more, examining the captured prey up close.

It looked like a humanoid figure, covered in lilac mist as if a child had been skinned, and then its muscles and skeleton were fused with Dreams matter, creating a cadaver. It agonized and wept every moment of its life, and the only way to counteract its constant torment was to do the bidding of the one who created it. The desire to painfully kill the bastard was supplemented by the desire to learn how to resurrect it, and then kill it several dozen more times.

I made a mental effort, investing energy, and then I struck a powerful blow at the trapped creature, causing its body to disintegrate and its soul to attempt to travel to the company of the twin's soul, which was imprisoned in the middle of nowhere. I wouldn't be surprised if, after the destruction of the main body, the soul itself could be used again, letting it go to an easier creature. It would have been possible, if one isekai hadn't whipped at the binding chain with all his might, destroying both souls at once, even if it hadn't been easy.

It wasn't the most pleasant death, but it was better than what they'd been given. And I didn't break their core all the way down, just damaged it a lot. I hope so.

While I dealt with one creature, the others went into a real frenzy. They had seen me free their kinsman, maddened once more by my eagerness to share his fate. Their shepherd, whose vague and washed-out presence I could discern, also saw the death of both parts of the man-made monstrosity, coming into such an absolute frenzy that it reached even here, to me.

The creatures attacked with a sphere, striking from every direction in the real world and a few others that only existed in Dream. There was no dodging such an attack, and my armor wouldn't last long before it was torn to shreds. I'll follow the armor, and I'll be glad if they just eat me, because they might make me look like those guys. In short, I didn't like it at this resort, I didn't like it at all.

The armor on my mind is almost gone, but my sanity is still enough, as is my reserve of willpower, so I invest in another dream manipulation, turning my cloud of protection into a real battering ram, with which I rush forward, trying to knock the enemies with a single powerful blow.

Their maneuverability was indeed commendable, for not only were the creatures able to dodge my attack, but they also twisted in such a way as to claw at me, trying to slow me down and restrain me until the rest of them came. This time eight separate creatures tried to chew on me at once, quickly chewing their way deep into the cloud of energy I controlled. It was something I'd been waiting for, and I was ready for this trouble.

While I was busy maneuvering, destroying souls, and analyzing the data obtained through clairvoyance, I was doing something else. Actually, the creatures had no eyes, using a peculiar mixture of clairvoyance, a sense of souls, and, on top of that, guiding impulses from their creator. Nonexistence worked here more weakly than in the real world, but still enough that I could conceal another weaving, hiding this intention behind the creation of banal ribbon chains, hiding the true purpose of the attack behind another attack, flaunting the desire to destroy, covering with it the decision to retreat.

The cloud opened like a flower bud, spreading out in an enormous net, enveloping the monsters before they could react, and keeping them securely in place. I could have tried to kill the eight of them while they were incapable of fighting, but at least half a dozen of their comrades, approaching our unfriendly company quickly, had made up my mind.

Instead of attacking, I slipped out of the cocoon, leaving myself completely unprotected, heading for the nearest mirror, which the clairvoyant had deemed the most fortunate for me. I had to speed up sharply when the creatures behind me cried out loudly, the shepherd pumping their strength and pain with tripled force, clearly not going to let me go. The angry growls, the children's screams and cries, the maddening clang of the taut leashes - all of it merged into a cacophony that made me squeeze my way back to reality.

At the last moment, when I was already breaking through the mirror from the back, one of the creatures caught up with me, nearly tearing off my heels, into which my heart went. At the last moment I managed to grab the abomination by the throat with my hand, and then the ribbons woven from the dream began to flow from that hand, which firmly restrained the creature, preventing it from striking me.

And then we both fell out into the real world, right behind the back of Ferer, who had just begun to turn toward us.

I was only flaccidly surprised by my good fortune, but the asshole was pretty fucked up by my appearance. A few minutes ago I would have been glad that I could finally get the bastard mad, but now I had other things on my mind. And I wasn't talking about the monster still hanging beside me, saddled tightly with purple ribbons.

The problem was that this little beastie was now calling hard for help from the brothers so that it could put the mean and cowardly me to death in droves. And clairvoyance helped note that making creatures out of living children is not only villainously cool but also allows these beasts to be effective even in reality. The beasties were now breaking into Reality, which caused all the reflective surfaces in the great hall to deepen, and the reflections dancing in them showed something that was nothing like the real world.

Ferer sensed it, too, clearly intending to nail me down before the moment when what he thought I was summoning could arrive at the battlefield. What he was going to do there, and what he was going to hit with, I have no idea, for I simply hurled the still-clenched abomination at him, forcing him to interrupt the spells he was creating and try to fight off such an amusing blow. Somehow, though, I think I'm the only one who finds it amusing.

He clapped his hands so beautifully that between them was a weeping, snarling monster, who was quickly gone. The poor man was literally annihilated on every level, as was his twin, who received a kickback from his brother's death. The shepherd's rage, which grew stronger by the second, exceeded any limits humanly possible, and a nasty crunch echoed throughout the hall. The hostile militia began to break the makeshift mirrors on the other side.

Ferer swore softly but heartfeltly, then put his palms to the floor and began somehow transforming the polished stone into a plain polished stone, not a portal to the Dream. It worked quite well up close, but the far corners continued to fill with lilac clouds, losing all materiality. Even the most ordinary person could get through them to Dream now. He would have died almost immediately, but he would have made it, for sure.

I would have liked to take advantage of the advantage I'd gained by trying to break through Ferer's defenses while he was too much of a distraction, but I was a little too busy saving my brains. My whole body had changed somewhat after I'd been in Dream, and now it was in no hurry to return to the normal, remaining non-human. And, unlike Shadow Form, I couldn't instinctively regain my former appearance.

The new look was not pleasing: an incredibly thin and long body with impossibly thin fingers on the hands, completely white skin without a single spot, no mouth, nose, or eyes, on the face, although it was not visible under the mask, worn clothes, now hanging on the altered body in torn rags... an unpleasant look.

With my will, I don't even cling to my own image, but the memory of it, to how it used to be. And it works, slowly bringing me back to my usual state. The sensations I was experiencing were like trying to play the lambada, using my veins for strings, but I managed to stay on the edge, becoming my old me-Kostik again. Even my clothes survived, becoming normal again, even if they were a little holey and melted and worn. The potions on my belt, which had survived first the journey through the Shadow, and then the journey through the Dream, were a particular delight. Most of them, to be exact.

A good proportion of those vials have either been discharged, broken, or lost somewhere in the vastness of another realm. It's one thing to keep them on your belt, sneaking slowly through Shadow, but it's quite another to fight vigorously with Form, Aegis, and other delights. But even so, there were still a certain amount of useful compounds that could be used now.

The Shadow has proven ineffective. I'm not going to stick my nose in Dream right now. But the alchemy and the bare characteristics would come in handy, as long as the circus was going on. I'm as tired as a dog, but Ferer's physical characteristics are weaker than mine, and he might fall over from fatigue. Besides, I had some competition in terms of our battle now, for it was unlikely that the creatures who had come to reality were going to figure out which of us was the prey they were chasing.

Illogical, really, because such a "defense system" can do more harm than good, but I suspect that these monsters are not part of the protective perimeters at all. It would be funny if they also decided to try to kill someone in Stone, coming here the same day I did. Funny, but very much in the mood for my crazy life.

We came to our senses at the same time, and then we attacked at the same time. He attacked with a beam of an unknown nature, and I attacked with two shadow arrows and a thrown vial of acid. The beam went past me just as I ducked in his path, and both arrows were withdrawn by my hand, forming a new sphere at his shoulder. But the vial that followed was enough of a surprise that Ferer had to use up his reserve to create some sort of pink barrier, which the acid splashed against, and then went down to the floor.

The floor hissed as it dissolved, and an unpleasant color of steam began to rise from it, which even vampires were not supposed to inhale, and the old man, deprived of my energy, cursed again. I had no doubt now that he needed the images of my spells and my power to create the most effective attacks possible, and without them, things were much more difficult for the poor mage.

Two more vials and a fan of steel needles laced with all sorts of crap, including even the black rose venom, which had miraculously survived the trip through Dream but had lost some of its properties, went on another flight, knocking down another anti-prophecy ball at the same time. If it hadn't been for the weakening from being on another plane, the strongest of the poisons I'd created would have killed Ferer. Even the one scratch the old mage got would have been enough.

The raised barrier, which somehow malfunctioned with gravity, reversed the flight vectors of my projectiles. He would have sent them back as well, but the magical negator had triggered, crashing a little away from Ferer. It couldn't destroy his charms, but it made him lose stability, causing several of the colliding needles to send a nasty ricochet that scratched the mage's right palm.

The hand rapidly began to turn black, but the affected area didn't even reach the end of the wrist before the man, without a second's hesitation, snatched the limb up to his elbow. It had already fallen to the ground in a single black crystal, from which crystal roses began to grow. Less than a second passed, but even that was a lot compared to full-blown poison. Death is instantaneous there, and crystallization did not occur until hours later, turning the corpse into a beautiful statue, a real work of art.

Ferer struck with a bevy of beams, clearly not too strong, but frequent and fast, to buy time. And then six monsters burst into reality at once, and those of them that had missed the hall began to appear all over the fortress.

It seemed to me that the howl of the siren became quite hysterical.

Also, it didn't seem to me at all that Ferer's face was beginning to express anything resembling fear for the first time. And it wasn't because of the nightmares that had manifested themselves, nor was it because of the severed hand. The reason for the fear of the old and experienced sorcerer was that Stone was looked at. That attack by the late Brether clearly damaged something in Stone's structure, which is not surprising given the grade of the artifact the bastard was using on me. And after the damage, the fortress went wild loud enough to be heard.

Because the gaze was not directed from the side of the real world.

The Mist looked at us.

Authors note:

12 pages.

Next are two interludes.

Kostya was badly beaten, but only his pride was seriously hurt. Kostyan himself only managed to hit seriously at the end, when he almost crystallized Ferer.

The rest of the time his attacks did not go above 65 - too many minuses.

One time Ferer got a crit to create a closed field and instantly kill the MC, but I didn't even have to save Kostya with bonuses - clairvoyance worked, giving him time to save his skin.

A crit to escape from the Dream rolled out - very lucky: 100 and 57.

There have been several crits for the Stone, so the predictors in the comments may be very close to the truth: the probability that the entire fortress will die in the Mist isn't zero.

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

Переведено на Нотабеноиде
http://notabenoid.org/book/80370/536219

Переводчики: Camrad_RIP