Готовый перевод Его не звали, но он приперся / They never called, yet he is here: Глава 21

Chapter 21

Have you ever had that moment when you went to the vegetable garden to dig potatoes, but you dug up not your usual vegetable, but a damn enriched uranium? I felt similar at that moment, just the same! I can't say that the "potato" I received was useless, but how much this information complicated my already complicated thought.

Frankly, I didn't count too much on my newfound ability to tear out bits of memory with essentialism working so well. I was going to try it, then cuss myself out for failure and use the Shadow Grip for its intended purpose. The mood was far from rosy - I had good reason to fear that once I went in that direction, I might not be able to go back. However, this particular situation did fit the description of "the most extreme case," for which I was saving my mythical perk. Eating souls is undoubtedly disgusting and scary (for me in the first place), but it was the only option I could think of.

I was so surprised when I was able to use the alchemical method, which was undoubtedly more gentle on my mental health. The fact was that the battle with me and the creatures that had come from Dream had exhausted Ferer to the point that he could not counteract me in any way. I should have let him rest for at least an hour, or take some potion, but I wasn't going to do anything stupid like that.

Let's get back to the potatoes and the radioactive ore I mentioned earlier. This is what I was hoping to get out of Ferer fucking Roche? The methodology for summoning Heroes, the methodology for summoning them, the coordinates and names of those who are involved in such activities, who are actively involved or at least simply aware of them. Somewhere in the back of my mind, there was even a hope that the old man would know a simple and reliable way to take and turn off Yoke without leaving home. So that all my problems would be solved the same day, or at least the next morning, and then I could gather the harem and start progression, as it should be for isekai.

No, I closed the first section almost completely - I got the information about the methods of summoning, as well as the names of those involved and interested. I did not understand the purely technical part, because my magical specialty is different. I had grasped the concepts, but about repeating them myself... simple and even complex rituals and the summons of a Hero, it's a comparison of a calculator and a hadron collider, no less. Especially since the pieces of the ripped-out essence quickly disintegrated and I could not cram them all into the Vessel, though I tried sincerely. Later I would have to sort out what I had managed to hide in the Vessel, but now I had enough of what came with the understanding.

The interesting thing was that Ferer knew, albeit in a very basic way, exactly how the Yoke worked. Even though most of his conclusions were guesses, supported only by circumstantial evidence, and even then, at best. And this information made me raise my eyes to the sky, hidden by the stone of the fortress, and ask the guys upstairs how much they had lost touch with reality. Because the task given to me by the celestial Admins had just moved from the category of hopeless missions to the category of "not even funny.

I would have been indignant for much longer, at least until I had run every curse I knew several times in a row, for every goddamn administrator and every one of their relatives down to the farthest tribe. Except I was running out of time, and after I realized the depths of the ass I was about to discover, there was no time left at all. It had even gone into the negative, forcing me to get my ass in my hands and get out of the burial ground that was slowly turning into a graveyard.

The graveyard was no joke, even though there was no smell of death energy. The Mist's attentive and expectant gaze squeezed harder and harder at the magic embedded in the stones of the formerly impregnable citadel. When Ferer and I first began the battle, it was simply a premonition of impending trouble, whereas now the sad end was evident visually. The walls, sparkling with multi-colored sparks of disintegrating magic, were almost completely extinguished. The walls and the ceiling were covered with condensation of some incomprehensible moisture, and the floor was covered by a dense blanket of milky white mist.

The background of the fog was low and somewhat muted, but the sheer amount of it and the strange sensation of the white haze made me want to scour my surroundings with shadows, to wipe the crap off me as quickly as possible. At least I was used to shadow energy, but here I had no idea what I was dealing with.

The clairvoyance was clearly "tired," ceasing to flood my head with a waterfall of facts, reducing it to a small stream of unstructured data. However, I had no complaints about the skill, because it worked at one hundred and forty-six percent, allowing me not only to survive the battle but also to win without any fatal losses. Fatigue and a few scratches were minor things that I could survive if I got out of the bind.

It would be hard to get out, but I wouldn't call it impossible. I poured into myself a few more of the flasks of battle-useful but unhealthy potions, swearing to myself that I would take the whole detox complex once the danger was over. The still-working hunch was enough to know how the rest of my companions were doing. Losius, Hans, Ygra, Taria - they were alive, capable, and in danger, not going to die anytime soon. No matter how their battle was going, at least they hadn't lost with a bang.

But my new unwilling ally was much worse. First of all, we had been in contact with her for less than six hours, so I was not able to get my "inner eye and third eye" on her properly, picking up only the most basic and unspecific things. Secondly, she was inside the Stone, just like myself, which was why my clairvoyance continued to malfunction. Even with the death of the Watchers and the fall of the closed fields, the remnants of the stationary barriers still clogged my perception, simultaneously preventing me from looking "through myself". As the pieces of the Mist appeared inside the rooms, the barriers broke down permanently, but the Mist itself also jammed clairvoyance even better than the protection working at full capacity. All I could understand was that Hestia was still fighting, that she was still alive, and that she didn't have long to live.

That's it.

I didn't know any other details, didn't know its location, didn't know the numbers of the enemy or any other operational data. All I could squeeze out of my tired mind was an approximate direction down and to the left, but that was all. It was all the more useless when I considered the fact that I could not penetrate the walls of special stone even in shadowy form. I had to go to her for help, though.

Don't think I'm any better than I am, gentlemen. If she had died before I was finished with Ferrer, I would have been a little upset, at most, but I certainly would not have torn the hair on my head. She was an enemy of mine whom I had subdued and overpowered, quite deliberately and with an understanding of the consequences. Just because I couldn't bring myself to be indifferent to her didn't mean that I didn't understand the situation. If the ring effect were removed from her, she wouldn't hesitate to stab me in the back, and she would be genuinely happy to do so. From her point of view, it would be a justifiable and fair decision, to put it impartially.

My problem is that her subjugation has not gone away, and so she is fighting somewhere down there, with my name on her lips, trying to obey my last order. That order was not original, of course, but I figured that few people would want to resist an order to "survive," so a few extra points of morality would not harm.

I quickly bend down and pick up the blade of the dead brether's bright little piece of Sky, shining brightly from the floor. I wouldn't have found the sword or its decapitated owner in the fog, but the glow of the blade's energy literally scatters the fog to shreds. I would use it myself, but the glow hurts me just as much. I wrestled the blade into its sheath, which was also an insulating container, then wrapped it in the fancy cloak I had taken off the Brether and fastened it to my back. I would be a kind of Geralt, especially since I wouldn't pull the pick from behind my back at the risk of cutting off my ear, because it was more dangerous for me than for the enemy.

That's it now - time to hit the road. Take your ass in your hands, Kostik, and go work as a rescuer of beautiful ladies while you still have strength.

I had to walk through the corridors with the slow and imposing rhythm of a staid British gentleman, looking down on the world around him. Not because of a desire to show off, and not even because of fatigue and an empty reserve. But only and solely for the sake of not getting lost in the stone corridors of the dead fortress.

The Mist didn't just fill the rooms, no! It did something to space and metrics that made it impossible for me to get my bearings in the corridors, which seemed to have been explored (even through other people's dreams). I! With my sphere of shadows, my perception overpumped, and a detailed map of most parts of the Stone! And since even I was lost, I'm afraid to imagine what it would be like for the guys who would come here to help the besieged. It makes me feel better!

The same clairvoyance that I used to pierce the corridors and the fog that hid them helped, as I reached the next reference point. So far, most of the corridors and rooms were waist-deep in fog, and a little higher near the walls. It was enough to make you lose your bearings, your strength, and your ability to think, as if the mist wanted to get under your clothes, under your skin, and into your bones, to crawl into your ears and devour your brains. The activated Aegis of Shadow repelled the tentacles of mist, and clairvoyance led me through the empty stone bowels.

In some places, Mist rose higher than my head, and I had to climb to the ceiling, clinging to the shadows and crawling like a cockroach, fearing every second that I might fall into the fog which, I don't imagine it, reaching out to me with its tentacles. My head began to ache, but I did not risk stopping for a second, knowing that the countdown to the moment when the mist would fill every corner of the Stone was long over and that I had not had much time before half an hour ago. Now was the perfect moment for panic-panic-panic mode.

The most frightening thing was the few moments when I had to pass through those sections of the path where the Mist covered the entire space. The few hundred meters that passed along the corridor, where the narrow slits of the loopholes, previously covered by the force fields, exited to the outside (to the territory of the fold), seemed like an eternity to me.

The fields were long gone, and so was the corridor - all consumed by a milky whiteness, thick and churning, as if it were trying to squeeze even deeper into the interior of the stronghold. As I entered it, I realized very clearly a simple truth: if I took even one wrong step, I would be lost in the fog forever, never having reached the opposite end of the corridor, frozen and hovering in the weightless, misty sea forever.

The clairvoyance stretched to its limit and a little higher, becoming for brief moments a steel cable that would lead me to salvation. Every step made the space shake, the sphere showed nothing at all, as if there were no shadows in the place, and never had been, and the Aegis trembled and threatened to disintegrate at any moment. All I had left was the cold stone of the floor, on which I took the next step blindly, trusting that I would keep from falling.

Once I was out of the danger zone, waist-deep in the misty haze, I almost cried with relief, like a little girl. The Mist might be far less frightening than The Shadow, but it was no less dangerous. Where The Shadow gives only hunger and chill, this abomination remains indifferent but unstoppable. I have no idea how the unfortunate ones who got the Mist classes connected with this realm, but I sympathize with them in advance - it takes a lot of nerve. These one hundred and forty-three steps through solid fog were the least bit easier than fighting a full-fledged Hero in the form of Ferer.

After a few more minutes, I found myself in front of the squeezed and fused gate that led to the steel golem-filled hangar of Stone.

I found what was left of her almost immediately, nearly hitting her with all the strength I had. The clairvoyance was a red-hot forceps into my temples, making me see and understand things I'd rather not witness. That blob of mist was still Hestia Raimel, or rather what was left of her. And I suddenly realized that I loved and adored my own Shadow Aegis, who had never let the mist touch me. At first it repelled the Mist at a distance of a meter and a half, then the distance decreased, and now the monochrome haze of the Aegis encircled my body like armor, stopping the hostile tentacles of mist a few centimeters from my flesh.

I wouldn't have known for a century exactly how the Mist takes its prey, but, alas, clairvoyance does not allow me that kind of mercy. The last moments of Hestia's desperate struggle against the blind element, when mere stubbornness forces you to keep sacrificing everything you have to keep your soul and mind intact, are forever imprinted on my memory, alongside a mountain of other things I'd rather forget.

I showed up just at the moment when there was nothing left to pay her, and the Mist decided to take the last of what she had left. It wasn't even the anger or hatred that had so often given me strength, but the purest disgust with which one crushes a poisonous spider with a slipper. The effort of will made the shadowy tentacles manifest in reality, their ends sprouting right out from under me. There are no shadows in the Mist, but it couldn't take away my own shadow.

The few black-soaked cloths that had become shields of sorts pushed back the whiteness reaching for its prey, which retreated with the same indifference with which it had previously devoured my ally. As always in critical situations, my tongue began to work ahead of my brain, dispelling the grave silence that lingered in the ruined and almost obscured hangar.

"Can't you even take a step without me?" My intuition convinced me that even in this state, Hestia heard me, and when she heard me, she wished to knock.

It's fair to say that, judging by the fact that there were no whole golems left after her battle (judging by my visions, they were nightmares from the same pack that almost ate me and Ferer), the overpowering was truly epic to the extreme and pathos to the point of impossibility. There was even, like, someone alive inside that steel giant, only unconscious.

I didn't risk turning my Gaze off, because I can see through the Mist a little better than I can with a simple vision, so I had no trouble discerning the life spark of the unconscious mech pilot. While I had a cool battle, this victim had a real anime going on here, with mechs and hostile alien (can Dream be considered a different planet?) crap.

I look at the sapient cloud of white mist.

Cloudy is looking at me in some incomprehensible way.

It may even be able to distinguish the view of me, despite the absence of eyes or other organs that can be used as eyes. She has no ears, either, by the way, but that doesn't stop her from hearing. What am I supposed to do with her now? Well, of course, I have to save her, but how the hell am I supposed to do that? She's weightless, insubstantial, and in the Mist, she'd vanish without a trace. She can't cover herself with shadows - Hestia is now a pure soul and a pure consciousness, which the shadow energy would spill out with the same hundred-percent guarantee as the Mist.

Damn, it's always the normal isekai retrieves the wounded beauty in their arms. I've got a pretty girl that's turned into a miniature weather phenomenon, and there's no way to get her out of there, either. I can't stick it in my shoe, dragging it around like a knife. Like, all these useless guys carry key chains in their pockets, and I have a reasonable foggy tentacle there!

Stop.

Tentacle!

I mean, a pocket, not a tentacle, but still a stop. I won't put it in my pocket, of course. But the idea itself is not without a certain finesse and inventiveness. Is it possible to put this mist in some kind of container, like a flask? I'm not wearing one, but there must be one somewhere in this hangar. There must be, there must be. The only question that remains is...

"Don't take this as an insult or mockery, but can you get into a container, like a flask or a jar, in this condition?" I asked, knowing that she would not be able to answer, expecting to understand the answer by clairvoyance.

Amazingly, it really worked! She even had time to start worrying about not being able to answer, and I already knew that such a solution was really available to her. The funny thing is that she was surprised, apparently not used to the fact that she no longer has a solid material body.

"Yeah, I got it," I answer right away. "And yes, I can pick up on your intentions, albeit very vaguely. And don't worry, I'll definitely try to create or find you a new body. If I survive this mess, of course."

My words didn't just reassure or cheer her, but literally flooded he with a sense of relief, joy, and gratitude. Though she retained her character and mind, she was otherwise utterly useless - her levels and classes scattered into the mist along with her body, and without it all, she remained useless little more than completely. She couldn't even suck anymore. A cold pragmatism asserted to her that no one needed her like this, especially the mysterious me, who had already managed to accomplish the mission. This meant that any usefulness she might bring was already exhausted. All the same cold logic argued that I should just turn around and walk away, leaving her here. Well, at most, a mercy stroke so that the rest of her soul wouldn't be devoured by the same thing that took her body.

She is sincerely grateful to me for not leaving her all so unnecessary, even realizing that the very situation in which she lost her job, social status, levels, and the body was provoked by me. The number of pleasant wishes to the creator of the ring keeps growing and growing, and soon won't fit on the first hundred sheets anymore.

The search for the flask could take a long time, especially with the lack of perception through the sphere, and there was no time. Sensing resistance, the Mist began to accumulate in the hangar at a much faster rate. It was already climbing to a height and a half of my height, and, if it hadn't been for my barriers, it would have swept over our heads. The aggressive cold of the Shadow was reluctant to dissolve into the omnipresent fog, giving me time to react.

I rejected the idea of stuffing the rest of Hestia into a bottle at once: I don't have such large containers, and she couldn't fit into a small one, even with the deprivation of her body. My memory immediately tells me that there is a huge golem a dozen meters away from me, inside which there is a flask attached to the pilot's belt. The fog has already managed to hide the defeated magical construct from me, but I still remember where it should be.

I reinforce the barriers around the defenseless wisp of mist, the soul of Hestia, and then jump up with my bare physics, landing directly on the robot still towering above the level of the Mgla that filled the room. It's a powerful robot, though! And it's well protected, not letting any fog inside. For a few seconds I struggle with the thought of simply breaking the door down, nailing the man inside, and removing his flask, but then I decide that there are enough deaths for today, and an unconscious follower of Ikari Shinji cannot be a witness by definition.

I transform my arm up to my shoulder into the Shadow Form and slip it inside the cockpit. My hand immediately begins to burn, because there's more magic in this iron than I wanted. I diligently infuse my hand with power, doing something I don't fully understand myself. I don't squeeze through the magical defenses, rendering them unusable, but rather launch my hand into the Shadow that it has now become a part of. I dive into the other realm, but not with my whole body, but with one limb. I slip my hand even deeper into the Shadow, where the magic in the metal no longer glows, but barely glitters, unable to stop my limb. I clung to the flask with my grip, and then pulled my hand back out.

Mission accomplished.

Using a mythical third-rank class to steal a flask of alcohol is the pinnacle of my heroic career. There's no point in dreaming of more because that peak can never be surpassed.

Another leap on bare physics. I don't want to risk taking a step, for fear of not being able to get back into the reality that the Mist is eating away at me. I orient myself toward the tops of the Mist barrier, and then I find myself exactly opposite the slowly panicking blob of fog named Hestia Raimel.

Opened the flask, taking a sip of alcohol for courage, despite the possible side effects of all the potions spilling into me, pouring out the rest of the alcohol, silently setting the flask to the mist, inviting the woman into her new kennel without a word. A note of skepticism reaches me, but that's all, after which Hestia begins dutifully trying to fit her new form into the flask. Somehow it reminds me of a vacuum cleaner sucking in smoke, but I chase those associations away.

It's not the time for unfunny jokes.

"Now I'll try to fortify the flask so that the Mist won't eat it while I'm getting out." And then I add, once again, in a silly way. "Don't move there."

In response, I get an emotional image-sentence of "the joke is funny, but it's inappropriate," and I cringe in displeasure. Tactfulness is not my thing, no matter what you say. I somehow specialize in the opposite spectrum of human communication.

"Sorry, I'm nervous."

Understanding and another wave of joy, indicating that I was forgiven in advance and was very happy that it was not my intentional decision to sting. High society, where they regularly tried to pour dirt on her, which causes her a certain obliquity of thought. What a serpentarium they have there, however!

Simultaneously with my thoughts on high society, I processed the flask with essentialism, watching anxiously as the Mist around the shadow barriers I had set up became more and more dense and alive. I don't like this shit, I really don't. I boost my abilities and skills to the max, guaranteed to ruin the material of the flask (a very high-quality one, I note). Now, this craft will last a week at most, but for that time I've turned it into a full-fledged insulating container.

Time to run.

On the left side of my belt is a flask container with Hestia, who is quite comfortably nestled in it and seems to have fallen asleep, as much as possible in her condition. On the right is the holster with the unopened artifact. On the back is a roll with a swiped blade for Losius. The mask is back on my face, and the holey cloak is no longer smoking. I'd like to think of myself as cool-looking, but something tells me I look like a fool.

I jump up sharply, breaking out of the ring of almost dissolved shadow barriers, simultaneously throwing out my arm, from which the shadow ribbon comes off, hitting the ceiling and fixing itself on it, releasing dozens of little hooks. I sharply pull down the shadow, reducing its length, and thus find myself on the ceiling. Hello again, cockroach man.

I tear another potion from my belt, tossing it into the area of the front doors, which are the gates. No, I understand the need to let the golems out somehow, but this pompous arched structure looks extremely inappropriate. The gate and the accumulated pieces of golems and steel parts of the massive doors next to it are already hidden by a shaft of fog. Walking through which I am afraid. That's why I threw a potion there, which is an analogue of a very powerful light grenade. The mask saved my eyes from the flash, but the Mist, as I remembered, was hesitant to approach the blade enchanted by the Sky and the Flame.

The first potion didn't work - either it was discharged during my travel through the Shadow, or it had fallen into disrepair after the dive into the Dream, but it had simply sunk into the Mists. I checked the second potion beforehand, making sure that it was slightly less effective, but it was still working and very well made. But it also disappeared into the gradually rising fog, without the promised light showdown.

I called myself an idiot in my head, counted the remaining potions, and threw another incendiary one. This time I aim it at the stone of the wall, not yet covered by the haze of mist. A flash of flame trickles down, and the mist begins to reluctantly retreat to the side. Very reluctantly, so reluctantly that it resembles a lazy and patient predator that is forced to temporarily retreat from its fledgling prey. Nothing, it will wait until the victim has exhausted himself and come back.

I do not doubt that if I dared to dive into the mist and touch the floor on which the stream of flame and molten stone had fallen, the floor would be completely clean. All the flames were simply lost in the logically devoid metric of the Mist, where the very concept of space did not exist. But now, as the retreating fog opened the edge of the entrance archway to me, I abruptly grew shadow claws and hooks on my limbs. I temporarily turned my arms and legs into some kind of frightening grasp and crawled across the ceiling to the right side.

The flames are still burning, giving off heat and hurting my shadow body, but the Aegis dampens almost all of the damage, keeping me from burning, and I don't care much about the rest. A dozen seconds later I've already left the hangar, but I'm still moving on the ceiling. There's so much fog in the corridors that it almost overwhelms the ceiling, leaving at most half a meter of space above.

I didn't even try to go down to the floor anymore, moving diligently toward the highest point of the Stone, praying to all the demons and gods put together so that the knowledge I'd wrestled from Ferer would be confirmed. The crux of the problem is that there's no way out of this cavern. Even if you forget that when you're alarmed all the portal arches close, there's one little detail that's very hard to miss. I'm talking about the Mist if anything.

The fog has completely swallowed up the dimensional fold and is now chewing on the Stone. The mist has not turned it into the same lump of mist as everything else around it, only because this stone has been enchanted a lot, and for many years its protection has only grown stronger. The fortress may disintegrate into mist after a few minutes, or it may remain there for years to come. But once the mist fills all the rooms of this "ship" to the brim, I'll never be able to leave this place again.

The only hope is the central tower, where the basis for the spatial artifact and for the teleportation unit was located. This is where the elite defenders should arrive on alert, transported directly from the Capital. This was where the geometric center of the spatial fold was located, forming every transition arch. To use it to open an emergency exit, I had no chance. In theory, the essence of Ferer could serve as a key to access. Still, even if I succeed in this adventure, I would not be able to reconfigure a half-broken artifact complex on the fly and then successfully launch it. I'm an alchemist, a sleepwalker, and a shade-taker, not a brigade of portal-ritualists.

So I'm not going to run this thing. My "genius plan" was to kick it harder. Literally. Kostik, all clever as he was, approached the expensive and very delicate magical equipment, and then kicked it with shadows and physical blows. After this barbaric behavior, this delicate apparatus breaks into pieces, creating a spatial gap and grinding everything nearby into mincemeat. And this rampage of magic didn't give a damn about the materiality and immateriality of whatever fell into the zone of action.

It is into this spatial rupture, which will be obliged to catch at least a glimpse of the real world, where the buried anchor pillars lie, that I will jump. Anyone who tries to pass through such a rift will be atomized into tiny spiritual fragments - one of the few ways to destroy the soul without resorting to planar energies and monsters. At least, that's what Ferer believed, justifiably not referring to himself as "anyone" and believing that he could escape through such a breach. And I'm not "anyone," I'll allow myself to boast.

I have no idea how Ferer was going to get out of this hypothetical situation, but I'll just wrap myself in shadow, activate the Aegis, and hope that the armor doesn't squeeze through. With a high concentration of shadow energy, the Shadow itself presses through space as well as that artifact. I might not be able to duplicate the tricks of the high-class mages of this school (not even sure), but I should be able to protect myself from the consequences of the rift.

I hope.

The path was difficult and winding, for I kept changing direction, not risking to go into the mist with my head for fear of not getting back out. There was too little time, and I was getting pretty good at crawling through the ceilings myself. In some places I was in the full Shadow Form, turning my body into a sort of flat stingray (or flounder, more likely), crawling across the ceiling in a small gap of a dozen centimeters. About the time I shoved in front of me a bundle with an artifact blade, a holster with an unknown pistol-shaped artifact, and an isolated flask of Hestia Raimel's essence... I'd better not tell you about it, or I could write a whole book in my own words. It's full of swear words.

Eventually, I managed to sneak into this room. I wouldn't have been able to get in here before, because of the incredible complexity of the protective perimeter - it was impossible to get through unnoticed, and I didn't want to make any noise at the time. Now that the Mist had eaten away most of the magic in the door and walls, I could just grab the door by its condensation-covered and rapidly rusting handle and rip it out, along with the most complicated gnome lock. A mild electric shock didn't even make me flinch - the remnants of a once-powerful trap.

Inside, everything looked like some futuristic movie about space and aliens: twelve crystal columns, inscribed with runes and magical signs, were responsible for the stabilizer columns. In the center of the circle of crystals sparkled and smoked, once again a control artifact that looked like a model of the solar system, complicated tenfold. Incredible subtlety and advancement, allow this marvel of magical engineering to retain the remnants of performance even in such a situation. The pinnacle of magical art.

Kostik pulled an explosive potion from his pocket and, without even using shadow energy, tossed it between the frantically whirling rings of the artifact. Even now, I could feel the magic embedded in it. It was like thousands of shards of sharp glass, ready to latch onto your body at any moment. The rifts in space that I remembered from my last visit to the spatial fold.

Before the potion explodes and destroys the shaky balance of the artifact, which itself is ready to explode to hell, I sharply create a shadow lash and, spinning on my toes, in one movement cut through every single column crystal and at the same moment sound the explosion. It's a good thing I created the shadow armor and the Aegis on top of it beforehand, or it would have hurt.

It is difficult to describe what I am experiencing with ordinary words, but if I have to, I prefer the phrase "multidimensional mixer", which best conveys the whole range of feelings and emotions. The Aegis and Shadow Form allowed me to survive, while even protecting my artifact collection with my own body. Space curled into spirals, but I-Shadow was a spatial anomaly, forcing reality to work according to my rules.

I would have been fucked up there like the last noob that thought he was a gosu if I hadn't remembered a skill I'd forgotten I'd ever used. I reached out with my mind to the many shards of reality circling around me, trying to tear me apart with their sharp edges. Each shard is a blade, a blade that cuts not matter, but the position of matter in reality. The walls and fragments of artifacts are not just broken, they are grinded to dust and scattered into thousands of separate shards, each of which became for a short time an independent dimension with its own laws.

I reach out and put magic into my message, emptying my already far from the full reserve, and some of these shards begin to turn black, cease their chaotic movements, becoming monochromatic. My magic takes individual pieces of reality and stitches them into the Shadow, linking it to another realm. The piece pulls its neighbors with it, and another share of the reserve binds it, too.

At that moment, a system message flashes before my eyes - how many of them there have been before - and I have the opportunity to walk across the bridge that has been created. The bridge is narrow, and I might still be atomized, but it doesn't matter now that I've found my way out. All that remains is to walk these few steps, which shrink to a couple of millimeters, then stretch for a kilometer. One more effort and the monochrome pieces of the world become blacker than night, and I begin to climb out of the asshole I created with my own hands.

It was at that moment that the thirty-ninth-level Flame Warrior appeared before me, dressed in full armor, glowing with the power, and his blade was a wunderwaffe beside which even my trophy sword looked pale. He was an experienced foe, full of strength and deadly danger.

He was coming here to fight, to prepare to counter possible saboteurs or invaders, and he also knew that others would follow him. All he had to do was win a few seconds, though, to be frank, in my current state I'm no match for this guy. And he's got a very unpleasant class, too - the Shadows can't stand the Flames.

In general, when this elite warrior saw me and the state in which I was in, he only smiled under his closed visor, sincerely hoping that defeating me would be enough for a promotion or even a new title and a piece of land for his family. And a second later, he was torn into several hundred little pieces, guaranteed to destroy even a thin body, after which not even a necromancer could talk him out of it. I stabilized the path for myself alone, and even then, with reservations.

The boys teleported here using a royal artifact that acts as a kind of laser pointer, transporting them to wherever the laser points within Melareth and parts of neighboring countries. A relic of the royal family used extremely rare because the energy and the rarest reagents this installation gobbles up in nine mouths, and its resource is already coming to an end - specialists capable of at least a cosmetic repair of artifacts of such complexity were not born for two generations. No one has been born on Melareth territory, of course.

Since there was no way to contact the teleporter inside the Stone, the most extreme option was used. They are not fools at the top, they are well aware that when they storm the teleporter will try to put it out of play in the first place. It's much harder to take the Shoeless Eye out of the game because it's extremely, extremely hard to block this machine. Rumor has it that it's impossible, although that's probably an exaggeration. And the fact is that those who have risen in rebellion against the Crown have had no chance of escaping retribution - knowing the name and location of a hapless troublemaker, a squad of liquidators would be sent to his soul and appear in the middle of his bedroom. And there were search systems, not just teleportation systems, that could locate an individual within the kingdom.

Now I'm looking directly at the open window of the portal from which the fallen warrior had emerged. On the other side, about a dozen royal guardsmen, forty and above are also looking at me. All in expensive armor, with powerful enchanted weapons, with plumes on their helmets, and not simple classes - the pride of Melareth.

And me.

Wearing my favorite grinning mask and surrounded by bubbling spatial distortions, giving the situation a certain charm, one might even say, a touch of romance.

They really want to enter the portal, but it does not work, and not because of the anomaly, many of them can try to repeat my trick to stabilize space by controlling the planar energy. Yes, it will be worse for them, but they are full of strength and there are many of them, while I am alone and tired. Alas, even the Shoreless Eye has limits, and now it can't finish aiming to miss the next enemy - the very few seconds the late guardian needed.

I waved cheerfully to the faggots, then put almost everything I had left and, taking full Shadow Form, literally wrapped the trophies inside my amorphous body. In a second, I'm standing in the middle of the forest, ablaze with colorful flashes of magic, where my companions are having fun.

Less than three seconds had passed since I blew up the artifact complex, though even the concept of time failed in that crazy tangle of spatial cracks.

My clairvoyance and intuition tell me that right now, while the Eye is set on the Stone, there is no way they can send help here except from the Stone itself. Well, I'm willing to let them try to retake the fortress from the Mist. There is, first of all, no trace of my presence there, and secondly, I don't believe they will succeed. The funny thing is, their seers won't even be able to see Hestia: even if they could find out about her betrayal, which is unlikely, they'd still consider her dead - the Mist has taken too much from her.

At least it seems so to me, as not the weakest clairvoyant on Alurea.

And now it's time to stretch our bones and help my comrades to survive the carnage we caused before we're all killed. It would be a shame to die after surviving such an adventure. It would not be heroic, anti-heroic, or even villainous at all, but just stupid. Death, of course, is often like that, but it is better not to bring it.

I do not open the Status, but I catch a glimpse of the message that is already disappearing. I am not even surprised to see another skill rank increase - if this adventure with the artifact did not fit the definition of "testing at the limit and slightly above it", then I do not even know what can fit it.

Manifestation of Shadow: 2/9

Allows you to quickly regain strength in battle and after, drawing energy directly from the Shadow; at maximum concentration allows you to increase the influence of the Shadow on reality in a certain area; allows, at the limit of concentration, to link areas of reality with the Shadow, breaking the metric of space.

I put all the distractions aside, put it back on my belt, and checked on the Hestia, which hadn't woken up yet (it was either her strength or her nerves of steel). I take a step to make sure she's all right, and then I go straight to the battlefield. I'm on my turf now, without the frightening tentacles of the Mist. And the enemy is a lot easier than it used to be.

I'm proud of my team - the majority of their enemies were safely killed own, without my help. Now the battle continued with only two and a half dozen soldiers, who managed not to scatter and organize the defense, and they fought back more from the remnants of the Shadows, among which stands out right now dying Elder, whom I almost killed in anger earlier.

My comrades-in-arms kept their heads down, even Ygra, who was rather tired after the battle. She was also afraid of the great wall of flame that threatened the whole forest with the worst fire. Though I had shielded her from her usual weaknesses for fire and acid, she was too often beaten by magic and alchemy. The oil covering the swamp ogre's naked green body was still on her, but the protection had time to wear off, so she didn't venture into any complicated flames.

So the tired comrades-in-arms were walking around in circles, and the deathly frightened fighters were frantically firing their long-range skills almost blindly, hoping to hit someone or something... Or, more likely, hoping no one will hurt them and they can wait for backup. It was easy for them to know that they could not repel this attack - there were originally more than a hundred of them.

It's a shame, but I can't let them live - even if they didn't see the faces of my comrades-in-arms, they could see their classes and the techniques, tactics, and tricks they used. Intelligent people have enough to start searching, and if we take into account that the best possible cadres will be looking for them, then they can find them. Especially since we are not going to disappear without a trace. No, we will have to lie down (at least, to digest the information torn from Ferer), it is a fact, but we will not disappear for good, and they will remember us for a long, long time.

Personally, I have nothing against these soldiers - many of them were not the worst kind of people by Alurey's standards who had done nothing to me personally. The bitter truth of the rebellion is that the first to die should be the guys and gals who did their duty and protected what they were ordered to protect at all costs. The true culprits, who sit in their palaces, surrounded by their acolytes, will get away with a fit of anger or fright, but that is all. It would be a long time before I could get my hands on them.

If I'd had my full power or at least a quarter of my reserve, I could have covered them in a single blow - they were standing too close together. Yes, they have some sort of Light-based barrier there, keeping out the Shadows and their silhouettes but at my level, it's not much of a barrier. A slight inconvenience, nothing more.

I'm almost empty, despite all the potions I've drunk, and I don't have any support. I'm almost empty, despite all the potions I've drunk, and I don't have any support. Right now my "don't eat humans" order is still in effect, but a couple more wounds and she'll start crunching the corpses of her opponents. I could have trained her in dreams so that she wouldn't touch a human even when starving to death, but I didn't - situations are different, and a quick meal can save a marsh ogre's life by giving it material to regenerate. I am now torn between the right and logical option, and the silly, but... stupid.

Well.

If it doesn't work, I'll feed Yggra with the bodies of the highest-level foes, but first I'll try to do everything myself, as it should be done by Gosu. I'll also check what I got from the fallen guard. My hands gingerly - although I didn't feel any trap, that didn't mean there wasn't one-opened the case of the holster, pulling out what it concealed. I was pretty sure it wasn't a gun after all, but some kind of magical wand, just oddly shaped.

But no, it was a gun, and it was a cylinder revolver. The cold sheen of the steel, with some strange curls on it. It reeked of power, real power, not just magical charge. The sword wrapped in the cloak was something similar, but there was no angry, burning hostile energy, just cold steel and something fuzzy, fuzzy that looked like Shadow and Dream and Mist and who knows what else at the same time. The system immediately opened to me a description of the object I'd been given, which was clearly cooler than anything I'd ever held in my hands... except for the ring, of course.

Valerium (legendary)

This weapon was created a long time ago and afterward belonged to a person who was not quite adequate, but still very powerful. At first, it was an ordinary revolver, albeit a very light one - many Dwarven Weaponmakers make such things - but later the creator put a bit of True Chaos into the material of the lead shooter, giving it many unique properties.

Properties:

Hard to Destroy: the item is very hard to break due to increased resistance to physical and magical damage.

Legend: it's a pretty cool artifact, be proud of it.

Abilities:

Lethal projectile (active): a standard artifact shot always damages the type of energy to which that target is most vulnerable. The strength of the shot depends on the strength of the artifact owner, but cannot be weaker than a certain limit. Each shot takes a portion of the magic reserve, depending on the amount of the reserve. Activation is instant, reloading takes one second.

Unexchangeable bullet (passive): there is always only one round in the cylinder of this weapon, but it will never run out, no matter how many shots are fired.

Weighty argument (active): when the skill is activated, the shot will always hit the marked target. Standard defensive barriers don't help; dodging doesn't help; trying to hide behind a physical barrier doesn't help. Takes a tenth of the reserve, the power of the shot is the same as standard. Requires a master level in the light one-handed lead shooter skill to activate. Activation by phrase: [Valera, your time has come], it takes one hour to reload.
https://youtu.be/bWRykAl-lTU

[undisclosed] Requires specialized skill 51;

[undisclosed] Requires specialized skill 71;

Hm.

I have an opinion that this toy used to belong to one of the Heroes summoned to this world, for it looks more like an earthly gun than local work. I haven't seen the guns that the local dwarves make, but judging by the few visions I've seen, their work really resembles hand cannons, not the firearms I'm used to.

And the activator phrase for the cheater skill makes me smash my face in a facepalm. System, fuck, are you serious? I thought that kind of toilet humor was left on my home planet Earth, along with YouTube and political shows every Friday. For such jokes one be bullied even on 4chan. Tthough it was a shithole - I'm telling you all as a 4chan veteran.

It's an interesting ability, by the way, but far from as cheat-able as you might think. Still, I can play with some of these near-conceptual effects myself: the same shadow stealing, redirecting any effects from one shadow bearer to another. I can defend myself, too. I'm sure of it, for example by simply diving into the deep layers of the Shadow. If such a spit would knock me out of my step, it would never knock me out of the depths. What energy harms the Shadow the most? Light, perhaps, or Heaven, maybe Flame, but hardly.

Well, a piece of pure Light will fly after me into the Shadow. How long will this force survive in a hostile environment? That's just it, and this is only the first option I thought of. I could pass the blow through shadow stealing, I could cover myself with an Aegis, which is not a standard shield right now, or I could just take the Shadow Form and try to regenerate the injury right away.

Yes, I don't deny that such a shot would kill almost everyone, but I was already at a level where I could kill simple opponents, and against those, I couldn't... such a trick wouldn't do much good. Maybe, of course, later new skills will reveal themselves, but that would require long training with noisy and loud weapons, and I've never been a fan of weaponry - my knives are nice. I'd rather give the shoota to Taria or Hans; they could use it more than I could. I've already found a suitable pickaxe gift for Losius. I should only check it for bugs and beacons, though logic and clairvoyance say that it is very difficult to place them on such a powerful artifact, and the first use of this artifact will instantly wash out all the trackers.

On the other hand, it is possible to build in a tracker during forging, but I just don't believe it is possible. It's a very unusual blade. Maybe even chosen by one of the Heroes when summoned.

While I was contemplating, the Elder Shadow had met her end, and she had been struck down purely by her stupidity and sheer luck. I can't say I'm sad. The last powerful contract crumbled into dust, allowing me to breathe in the air and clear the faded veil from my eyes. Oh, that feels good! Especially since the creature was already trying to break the contract, and I didn't have the strength to subdue it a second time.

I shook my head and slapped myself - too slow, too relaxed before my time. The fact that there is no threat right now does not mean anything - the arrival of the cavalry through the Shoreless Eye I also did not feel thanks to the professional concealment from my depleted intuition. We need to wrap it up, after which we can begin to flee into the fog... No, no, no, no fog, just run away. Someplace where there's no fog because I'm a little scared. Especially since there's already a speck of fog in the center of the area where the focus columns are located. Not a simple fog at all.

Whether it will be a minor anomaly or a full-blown realm breakthrough, I have no idea, but I hope for the best. I just wish I knew which option would be best for me.

The five last explosive potions, too weakened by the constant jumping between different realms (I'll have to process the vials in the same way I processed the flask with Hestia on the next mission), were quite effective, especially if you consider the full use of unexistence, which allowed to deceive other people's feelings and intuition. The explosion at the very center of the enemy formation not only killed and wounded many of them and scattered the barriers, but also threw quite a few fighters into the wall of flame they supported, knocking out a third, if not half, of the survivors at once.

The rest was easy, I didn't even have to call "Valera"-with the anti-shadow field gone, I subdued the shadows of each of them and began to attack directly from there. The rest of my reserve was showing the bottom, and there was a painful emptiness in my chest, but at my current level and characteristics, the waste was negligible. It wasn't so long ago that a dozen goblins would have caused me disproportionately more trouble than those little buggers.

Some tried to blink, or leave with a dash, but then my comrades stepped in, skillfully appreciating the sudden help. The loners were extinguished by Ygra, and Hans supported them from a distance. After a miserable few minutes, it was all over. Another mountain of corpses, another question of how soon other people's deaths would become a dull routine for me. Though I guess they already were.

I step out of my step right in front of my friends, friends, not subordinates, and then raise my hands in a defensive gesture, preventing the noisy hug from starting. Everyone stops, even Ygra, though it's almost impossible to dissuade her from hugging. The combat environment has its advantages.

I glanced at them, assessing their health and overall appearance, finding it unsatisfactory. The only ones who remained fully functional were Hans and Ygra - the first had not received a single scratch, while the second had regenerated them long ago, coming close to the limit, beyond which the body will begin to eat itself, but never crossed it. And even beyond that limit she could fight for a very long time!

Losius is barely on his feet, staggering from fatigue and a few shallow wounds. Taria is no better, even if she hasn't felt the most savory effects yet. I can see that when the effects of the potions wear off, she'll need full care, and she'll be feeling sicker any minute now.

"Successfully," I say, and I see the tense muscles relaxing, the cramped breath coming out. "We made it, guys, and we're all as fucking awesome as all the gods put together."

"Even me?" Taria's voice, now in shadow form thanks to the potions, was quite sonorous and frightening, even if it wasn't on my level.

"Not you, girl." Then Hans intervenes. "What were your mistakes, eh? I had to save you twice when you stuck to the blow, like a little child! You teach her, you teach her, and it's no use!"

"What's up with you?" I'm with you on that one. "Even Hans, he's fucking awesome!"

I immediately smack myself - there seem to be no witnesses, but even just saying the name out loud could be a clue to some talented post-cognitive. I frantically scan my surroundings through the orb, and, interestingly enough, I find the jaeger lurking. The brute was using some sort of class skill, blending almost completely into the forest background. Somewhat similar to Ygra with its swamps, but much more subtle, albeit weaker in terms of stealth. Searching is easy to find, but without looking closely you will not notice anything - the skill is not bad counter intuition and clairvoyance.

Another burst of pain, but the reserve has already begun to recover, thanks to a lot of perks honed for it. The shadowy stakes pierce the lurking enemy, and my comrades, not noticing anything, hold back laughter at my display of flat humor. Though Ygra shook her head strangely, obviously hearing something. Damn, we're wasting time again, all of us, not just me.

"Now, we'll talk later. Now you, Hans, take our blade master in your arms, and I'll drag the damsel in distress." Instead of the names of the rest of the team, I use a sort of substitute, making it clear that I shouldn't use the names. "Pretty girl, don't argue! You'll be long and fast and far away, and they'll be looking for you, guaranteed. We've got a couple of hours at most before the searchers get here, so only those who can hide will walk on their own feet."

"I might not be able to hold on the boot if I dragged someone piggybacks," Hans says guiltily.

Holding the boot means walking so as not to leave traces. Hans's skill is very good, but it's not top-notch yet, so there might be a problem. I could easily carry Losius, but not two at once - I'm exhausted too.

"I'll ride in the arms of the Green Tits!" Immediately she proposes, to which I am not surprised.

"You'll get intoxicated." A brief warning.

"Fuck it, I'm passing out, according to you." I'm sure she's grinning under her mask right now. "And wet dreams are not the worst problem in my life."

The pheromones of Ygra, added to the overall cocktail of toxins in a girl's body, can increase the harm, but only minimally, so this option is tolerable for all of us.

"Good." And then, briefly, I give out the last praise for today. "We have won, and our mission is complete."

The system is chirping, and not just for me, which causes everyone to freeze at once and all at once. I personally don't read new posts, but others have apparently read at least a cursory glance.

"Did you all get it?" Taria asks in a hushed voice, and I just silently pick up Losius and yell at everyone with a terrifying yell.

"Hurry the fuck up! You'll check your Status later! Let's go quickly!"

A short command to Ygra, and the mighty green arms of the ogres pressed the quietly squeaking girl to the green tits she had recently mentioned. We pick up speed very quickly, but I still manage to toss a few vials of special potions into the air just before we leave, which in theory should make it harder for clairvoyants and magical versions of trackers to find. Of course, there were drops of blood from the wounds that Ygra and Losius had received, but I had also considered this problem - before the operation we had drunk the compositions used by the local special forces (they may not be exactly the same in formulation, but they are similar in effect), which made blood and other body parts unusable in magical rituals.

It would take a long time to run, and I think I got faster.

I even wonder how much and what the System will give me for my deeds... I'm not lying now, though - I'm not interested at all, because more than anything I want to fall to the ground and sleep for a couple of days without a break.

Only first we're going to have to run those two days.

Authors note:

I hasten to say that I deliberately kept silent about what exactly Kostik learned from Ferer's essence. For if I start telling the story, it will take at least five more pages.

All of this will come later, but in the coming chapters, along with a review of the goodies.

And yes.

On the merit side, the System's final gift for a successful operation was regal. It wasn't a pure crit, for there was no roll, just the sum of the bonuses from other rolls, but it was generous nonetheless.

Plus, two legendary artifacts (and four not taken).

The one described in the chapter was actually added by me more for fun, but it is what it is. Basically, gags aside, the gun is good for a quick duel - at high levels, a second equals a couple of eternities.

Also, Kostik almost crited when he worked with teleportation artifacts, but there is just a high success, not a crit.

It was bad luck for the warrior, who had all the chances to take Kostya down and certainly could have held him until the others arrived, but they chose a VERY bad time. VERY BAD TIMING.

Had some luck finding a jaeger, but not right away. Unlucky and dumbed down, calling Hans by his name - high fatigue, several times throws failed. And not only MC.

Tarya is severely poisoned by toxins, and if she is not helped in time, she will, at the very least very sick. Maximum, a funeral. Another reason not to overindulge with potions.

The rest of the throws are a spoiler, but the most critical part they all passed.

Good luck to you.

Tough week, but the chapters were a little more than normal, too.

Внимание! Этот перевод, возможно, ещё не готов.
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Переведено на Нотабеноиде
http://notabenoid.org/book/80370/536555

Переводчики: Camrad_RIP