Его не звали, но он приперся / They never called, yet he is here: Глава 10

Chapter 10

Camrad_RIP 09.06.23 в 14:27

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Camrad_RIP 09.06.23 в 14:27

As smart people say, if two people are fighting, the third one gets popcorn and enjoys the spectacle. I don't think I'm the smartest, but I'm still not so blithely stupid as to try to get my head into a freshly overturned vat of sewage. An attack on the Emperor's blood would be enough of an excuse to turn the whole capital upside down a few times and then do it again just to be sure. And if my incognito identity is compromised in the process, it's not even certain I'll be able to leave the city.

Camrad_RIP 09.06.23 в 16:06

So I sat under the table, watching the carnage unfold and nodding respectfully in response to the unknown assassins. They clearly knew their way around a square attack, so much so even I was uncomfortable looking into the mess. Maybe I could have hit just as hard. I would have been guaranteed to hit harder, but still, but still...

Camrad_RIP 09.06.23 в 16:10

The blades of fallen leaves played the first fiddle, and that fiddle completely cleared the area of anyone who didn't have a really powerful defense against the deadly rain. Each petal, even individually, was an armor-piercing attack, but together they somehow summed up, merging into a portable enclosed field, something remotely reminiscent of my own bastion. And it was really painful.

Camrad_RIP 09.06.23 в 16:11

I could repel such a powerful pitch, but I certainly wouldn't, trying to evade the attack. Even though the leaf vortex was a very flexible thing, closing the entire space in one fell swoop, they were too close to the physical world to catch up to me at the depths of the Shadow Realm. With that, a field of unknown nature had to help, cutting off, or at least impermissibly complicating, all spatial manipulation in the immediate area. Even a step through such interference would do some damage to me, even if I healed it faster than my blood would spill - it's the advantage of the Shadow Form.

Camrad_RIP 09.06.23 в 16:15

Except that, for me, it's a move to evade attacks through the deeper layers of an aggressive realm that is considered, if not a normal action, then an acceptable combat tactic. For bodyguards of the august blood, eternal blood, this move would be something analogous to "your ward won't get killed if you kill him first". And dragging the entire entourage somewhere out of reality wouldn't work quickly, even if you took away the risk of tearing their bodies apart by spatial interference.

Camrad_RIP 09.06.23 в 16:18

Instead of trying to flee, the bodyguards used a blind defense tactic, waiting for the moment when the heat of the attack subsides and the most important civilians can be led away from here. It would not be possible to block off the space for long or to quickly kill them all by walking over their corpses. Even though no one obviously expected this attack, for which someone will definitely have to answer with his head. But the bodyguards of the members of the imperial family are a priori prepared for battle. In general, they all reasonably believed that since the very first blow had not killed their target, they had a good chance of getting out of the mess alive.

Camrad_RIP 09.06.23 в 16:22

To be fair, I support their opinion. The first attack was powerful, cool, and really impressive, but it was very pointless. Personally, if I wanted to kill someone in that crowd, I would have preferred a point-by-point, maximum concentrated attack rather than a wide fan of weak single attacks, even if mutually reinforcing. Instantly stood in the way of yellow leaves and dark red barrier, clearly powered by an artifact, as quickly began to be supplemented by personal shields of mage guards, becoming an impregnable fortress. If the leaves had struck from one direction, they could have squeezed through the defense simply due to the amount, mass, and reserve of invested power, but the spells either did not have time to reconfigure or simply did not wish to do so. Logic and common sense dictated that the attack failed unless it was originally intended solely to intimidate.

Camrad_RIP 09.06.23 в 16:25

It's a shame no one bothered to tell the killers of this fact.

Camrad_RIP 09.06.23 в 16:26

I was saved by my intuition which worked well even when clairvoyance was disabled in some unknown way, pricking me in the back of the head not even with needles but with a bloody knight's spear. The Aegis sheltered me with a reflexive rush rather than intentional use. And a second later, it was clear why I was right to listen to my instincts.

Camrad_RIP 09.06.23 в 16:37

Those gathered beneath the barrier, a perfect sphere fifty meters in diameter, were clearly about to strike back at such an unusual magical structure when the dry, shriveled leaves crumbled into dust. All together and at once, and that was before they tried to attack. And then, I witnessed the high science of the Dark Magical Middle Ages. This dust turned out to be highly toxic, magically charged, and attention - flammable. A volumetric explosion mixing magical and physical components is no joke at all. Considering the number of dead leaves used in the attack (at least within sight, the park went bald at once), their mass, and the volume of the resulting dust cloud, it blew so bad that if I had been in the epicenter, and even under the Aegis, it would have been bad. If not from the attack itself, then from the kickback of the Aegis for sure.

Camrad_RIP 09.06.23 в 16:53

The cafe, the table, the bodies of the occasional victims, and the upper layers of earth were swept away like an angry wolf blowing on a straw house. The blast wave crushed my temporarily invulnerable body into the ground, and I thanked my ingenuity for covering not only me but also the dessert I hadn't eaten enough with Aegis. There would be no way to order a second one, even if I agreed to pay extra. I doubt the same chefs survived. Also, there is a suspicion that the number of whole windows in the entire Eternal has decreased dramatically.

Camrad_RIP 09.06.23 в 16:55

Meanwhile, the survivors of the blast, whose barrier had collapsed but held most of the damage and whose personal enchantments deflected the rest, had a whole new set of problems. The explosion had simply vaporized - the magic was at work here for sure - the upper layers of the earth, exposing what was hidden beneath the ground. Needless to say, the bodyguards and the guards themselves did not like what they saw.

Camrad_RIP 09.06.23 в 16:57

The black, slimy, poisonous spiked roots covered the area in a living and constantly moving carpet, a dirty, disgusting, and fucking dangerous carpet. I was, to put it mildly, perplexed, bordering on incomprehensible. I'd never encountered a Druid in combat before, except for a couple of dead men in the Stone, but I knew their arsenal and tactics pretty well. There was the advice of Hestia, who had fought all kinds of battles and wandered through other people's dreams, where I could gain if not skills, then pure knowledge and life experience.

Camrad_RIP 09.06.23 в 16:59

Well, this was unlike anything I knew of in the arsenal of fans of Greenpeace and environmental protection. It wasn't even the power and scale of the enchantments that turned a huge chunk of the park into a death trap. A high level and rank of sorcerer would easily add power, volume, and sophistication, so it's all right here. It's just for me, and all my sources of information, Druids, Florists, Growth Masters, and Forest Masters are Life, purest and most distilled, unstoppable and ubiquitous, invincible in their evolutionary perfection.

Camrad_RIP 09.06.23 в 17:02

It cannot be said that there was no life here, for it was present... but what a life it was! This living, life-taking, and ceaselessly dying madness was the embodiment of a very different side of this facet of magical art. Life was entwined with its eternal rival and closest sister, Death. It was nothing like the cold and detached power that necromancers like Cassie Let's Be Friends called for and conquered.

Camrad_RIP 09.06.23 в 17:04

The reverse side of life, of living nature as such: death, which gives birth to new life. Which will have to die only to give birth again to that which will die a little later. The incessant decay of fallen forest giants covered with moss and fungus, the sprouting of beautiful flowers on the bones and bodies of forest animals, and the dance of predator and prey, which always has a natural outcome. Death fed Life, made it stronger, and life, in return, gave to death with that blazing and impassioned passion that is available only to the living who long to live and procreate.

Camrad_RIP 09.06.23 в 17:07

The two opposing forces fed their antipodes, extracting mass for growth and energy for the attack in a continuous stream. The sensor was simply drowning in the power released by this madness, and the power, once released into the world, was immediately used to create new units to replace those that had fallen. Even through all the interference to my fucking eye, I could see the majestic and beautiful forest as if I were alive, aware of what lay behind its façade. No one likes this side. No one wants to notice it, but it doesn't go anywhere. Nature is cruel, as her laws are cruel. For her, death will only be part of the endless cycle of life - the withering away of the unnecessary, the death of the weak, the oblivion of the unfit, to be replaced by another, better life, which will be obliged to give way to those who will be better than herself.

Camrad_RIP 09.06.23 в 17:10

Whoever had summoned this something here, whoever had raised it secretly from the seers and sensors, exactly beneath the walk of its victims, but it was strong, capable, and quite definitely nuttier than ever. But he didn't miss a beat. It was not for nothing that I said that all this had not grown in one day - all the plants in the area were obviously treated in advance because I'm afraid to imagine what costs to the reserve would be required to implement such a fucked up thing in one decisive stroke. And that's what's so powerful about natural magic-the ability to invest not so much power but to let one's spells feed on the universe by themselves, to be filled with power without the creator's direct involvement.

Camrad_RIP 09.06.23 в 17:11

As opposed to the attackers (or attacker), the Imperials had no time to prepare and were not at all prepared for such a brazen surprise attack, which came down on their heads in a hail of bricks. But they had an advantage in the number of spells used and the small area to defend.

Camrad_RIP 09.06.23 в 17:12

It didn't help very much.

Camrad_RIP 09.06.23 в 17:12

The poisonous roots attacked like one organism, preventing them from gathering into a new formation, but they were still just roots. The charms are dangerous but fairly straightforward. The first seconds after the detonation allowed for a bloody harvest, but as soon as the victims recovered, things didn't go so smoothly.

Camrad_RIP 09.06.23 в 17:15

There were only three individuals whose magic allowed them not only to fight back and stay alive but also to cover others and attack quite adequately. The one who stood out the most was a slightly hunched old man in a dark purple robe and an elaborately tailored suit underneath. The old man was on fire in an unspectacular way, pouring flames all over the place. He wield one of the simplest and easiest branches of magic to master, yet still so damn powerful that he could withstand almost any type of opponent.

Camrad_RIP 09.06.23 в 17:18

Normally, flame attacks are even too strong, making the notion of friendly fire a whole new color for flamethrowers. Now that was disproved before my eyes, as the forty-fourth level Fire Sculptor wasn't just hit with flames, but literally making flame flow around allies, attacking strictly the targets they were supposed to be attacking. Control comparable, if not surpassing my own, and this for the energy of that realm that just happens to be famous for precisely uncontrollable power that does not discriminate between enemies or allies! Streams of fire, streams of white-hot flame, could easily burn a man just by flying near him, but the sizzling heat refused to touch anything but the spawn of an unknown druid or druids.

Camrad_RIP 09.06.23 в 17:19

The second bastion of resistance turned out to be a huge knight in armor that looked completely impossible to wear. And I'm sure that before the attack, no one in the crowd wore such outstanding "clothes". Had he jumped to the rescue with a teleporter? Or took the protection out of a spatial pocket? The answer is not as important as his actions. Where the other guardians could barely manage to defend themselves, and even then, gradually decreasing in number, this guy made full-fledged attacks.

Camrad_RIP 09.06.23 в 17:24

The Juggernaut of the forty-fourth was also a Defender, literally taking away any attacks that were meant for someone else. Something reminiscent of my theft, but working at the expense of an artifact and personal, non-planar skills. Not only did the armor make him look like an escaped space marine from the 40k, but it also managed to accumulate the damage he was taking. When they piled up enough, he returned the damage, leaving only dust, slivers, and clouds of harmless poison from the deadly flora in a certain radius. The mass of that dust, by the way, was insufficient for another massive explosion, and the small explosions that did happen came back, so they were quickly discontinued. Or, more likely, they waited for more dust to accumulate.

Camrad_RIP 09.06.23 в 17:26

The third guard, who literally hugged her ward, hiding him under an individual protective dome, was the Summoned One. Or rather, Chained, unknown to my eyes class. Subconsciously I expected to see in this victim of other people's desires and goals typical slave girls, what they make Slavemancers and other bad people. You know, empty and stupid appearance, weak expression, or vice versa - lust and obedience, and it was just spilling out of all the crevices. All I saw was the tenacious and attentive gaze of a mage ready for battle, focused and dangerous in the same way that a mountain slump would be dangerous.

Camrad_RIP 09.06.23 в 17:27

I wasn't kidding about the landslide. Dressed in an elegant green dress, Chained was a Geomancer, the strongest I'd ever met. Her will bound the root-ripped earth together, turning it into a monolith, breaking, crushing, and dusting the angry and dying plants. What's more, somehow, it literally petrified them, turning them into another level of protection since these worm-like golems didn't lose their mobility, but they changed sides dramatically. I was a little too scared to see what was going on in my head.

Camrad_RIP 09.06.23 в 17:31

For a few seconds, it really seemed that the problem was solved. A trio of defenders methodically cut the creature of life and death to shreds without meeting any really serious resistance. And the still-not-dead entourage, combined with the guards running to the rescue, who were close enough to come to the rescue even with the teleporters not working, did their part.

Camrad_RIP 09.06.23 в 17:33

Alas, the goal of the whole construct was to buy time, not to kill everyone, because seconds later, a second wave of magic began, with the same unnatural direction, combining such unconnected forces. Something new began to grow directly from the still-moving but now rapidly decaying roots. The construct recycled itself into extremely useful fertilizer, allowing a new weapon to grow on its remains.

Camrad_RIP 09.06.23 в 17:34

Mosses and fungi spewed tons of poison into the air just as they died and let the first stalks rise on their remains. The stalks became bushes and then trees, trees initially decrepit, dying, terribly warped, and covered with the sores that devoured them. The trees grew with leaves that had already shriveled and dried up, that had fallen and turned into an active defense, knocking down (trying to knock down) any oncoming spells.

Camrad_RIP 09.06.23 в 17:52

And they attacked themselves.

Camrad_RIP 09.06.23 в 17:52

They attacked with instantly rotting flowers that shot poisonous needles. They hit with projectiles of cones, disgusting fruits, and fetuses that shot streams of woody debris out of hollows, acting like autonomous spells that looked for gaps in the barriers. And, of course, decomposing into fertilizer the corpses of those who had already died. And what grew on the bodies of high-level suites was far more dangerous than "simple" constructs.

Camrad_RIP 10.06.23 в 17:07

But that was not the purpose of the attack, no. The most terrible danger, the true purpose of this feast of natural selection, was the gradually entering force of a closed field that methodically stratified amulet and artifact defenses. Such shields are powerful, can be created instantly, and require little maintenance, but unlike personal magic, they cannot be adjusted on the fly. And if a particular closed field is used against a perfectly known attack, there's not much chance.

Camrad_RIP 10.06.23 в 17:09

It was the first time I'd ever seen someone who had the blood of one of the most powerful dynasties in the world. He looked ordinary, even though he was richly dressed and thoroughly aristocratic. Losius was a better-looking bastard, a smug bastard. This Heir of Eternity of level thirty-three was more like a gray mouse from the aristocratic world. There was nothing about him that could be considered unusual.

Camrad_RIP 10.06.23 в 17:11

The fallen barrier was spotted, and everyone knew exactly who was going to be hit next. The Summoned immediately forgot about the attack and almost instantly covered them both in a thick cocoon of earth. And the cocoon wasn't earth for long, becoming stone, almost black from its density and the magic put into it. That thing was much stronger than gun steel, I'll tell you! But, as anyone will tell you, "almost" is never enough. At least a hundred needles, flying at about bullet speed, and a couple dozen "rotten arrows," along the lines of all the "flaming arrows," managed to take off in their deadly flight.

Camrad_RIP 10.06.23 в 17:13

It was then I realized that the local emperors are called Eternal for a reason. It was either a class skill or a consequence of the gift of the perk, but for one brief moment, the moment was no longer short. The will of a guy who didn't even look at the attack - and the blows were coming from all directions - simply stopped them.

Camrad_RIP 10.06.23 в 17:14

It reminded me of a reversed Moment of Eternity, only much more skillful and expansive. My perk gave me the ability to stretch out a second, temporarily increasing my speed and becoming so damn fast. And it wasn't just the increased stats. It was something else, something I saw before me now, albeit in a different form. The Flow of Time had changed.

Camrad_RIP 10.06.23 в 17:15

The needles, based on the chaff and rot of the spell, darted forward the already familiar leaves and just froze. Without any perturbation in the energy plan, they froze! I mean, sensors in such a mess were not a very reliable source of information, but I still did not notice anything at all! A moment passed, summoned sheltered his master inside a stone egg, hardness incredible, and already harmless attacks only left on that Koschey Egg a pair of instantly tightened cracks.
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Camrad_RIP 10.06.23 в 17:16

Whatever was used to interfere with teleportation, it worked selectively - only on those who were tried to be banned from jumping. How did I understand this truth? Well, there are my high-caliber analytical talents, sharp mind, sharpened intuition, phenomenal observation, and even my admirable modesty... In all seriousness, one of the assassins proved my version with a practical method, falling out of some blink right in the middle of the remnants of the imperial formation. I had a feeling this teleport was also made by an artifact, but I dare not vouch for it.

Camrad_RIP 10.06.23 в 17:37

The figure of the eighth-level Gardener possessed such a cool disguise that she even ignored my heroic Gaze. It makes sense since there was a full-fledged Chained one in the delegation, which would have been enough to accidentally dab a glance at a suspicious individual to make the ambush failed before it even began. Let the class and level of the killer be hidden, but outwardly you could confuse him with a gardener only if one very much to drink, smoke, and use pills on the top.

Camrad_RIP 10.06.23 в 17:39

His clothes were the equivalent of a camouflage suit: moss hanging down on all sides, dead leaves, and dried twigs that had become anthropomorphic. If it hadn't been for the sphere and the Steady Gaze, I might have missed the barely discernible figure in the changing landscape. If it weren't for the nagging pain of the sense of danger, I would have simply mistaken this figure for one of the dozens of lookalikes that looked exactly the same but were really made up of moss, leaves, and wood.

Camrad_RIP 10.06.23 в 17:44

Summoned, hiding in a shell of almost absolute protection, she could not catch the real enemy, and the others simply did not have time to react. Every move this man made was absolutely correct, taking away random attacks and glances. The clairvoyance blocking, I suppose, didn't apply to the attacker either, as well as the countering of teleportation. The movements were light, fast, and slightly, slightly excessive - an obvious sign that someone had been drugged with potions before the fight. And how barely this excessiveness slips through indicates a habit of such amplification. There is also the option of not too strong potions, but I sincerely doubt that such a thing is done by limiting oneself to half measures. And there's no way a pure caster can have that kind of speed without amplification. And the fact that it was this figure who created the attacking construct, I have no doubts.

Camrad_RIP 10.06.23 в 17:46

Each step left behind a seed crumbling on the ground, immediately sprouting into sharp tentacles with some kind of coniferous coating. The conifers were a good shot, adding to the chaos of the surrounding reality. The two Brethers of the entourage, covered by the barrier keeper, were simply swept away without delay. And they were approaching the thirtieth level!

Camrad_RIP 10.06.23 в 17:48

With a wave of his hand, a handful of seeds turned into bullets that ripped into the barrier and sucked the magic into themselves, destabilizing the enchantments and rapidly increasing in size. Reaching the size of an average cone, they immediately exploded, finally shattering the weakened barrier. A sharp approach, a sweep of a long, crooked, and sharp as a dagger or a tree root, and the brether who tried to strike from the blink were cut open like a fish. And the assassin struck before he had time to move.

Camrad_RIP 10.06.23 в 17:55

The second man managed to block the stingy sweep of the strange weapon while simultaneously burning the roots that had almost reached him with his one-time amulet, but he, too, made a mistake. He clearly expected the blow to be strong, as terrifying as the previous one. Instead, the assassin barely touches his blade with his own, causing the brether to reflexively raise his weapon upward. The dagger in his other hand tries to deflect the attack and buy time, but the killer manages to lightly scratch his victim with its wooden claws. Poison and instant death of the second melee fighter.

Camrad_RIP 10.06.23 в 17:57

Equally carelessly bypassing the falling body, the strange druid tossed forward a particularly wicked seed that passed through the hastily placed barrier and immediately began to sprout in the body of the convulsing in agony mage. He couldn't shout because the seed was too quick to get to his throat, and he had no time, either, because the killer had been spotted and burned along with the corpses of his victims. The old Sculptor burned off a third of the reserve, no less, but even space itself was burned in that place, not to mention matter or magical shields.

Camrad_RIP 10.06.23 в 17:58

I, who was watching the scene, caught the strangeness, but I realized it even slower than the old man did. After all, it wasn't me the trick was aimed at, but my gut didn't warn me. The mossy twins were not only distractions but also beacons for the teleport-replacement. Bodyguards do something similar, and the same cheaters, with their shuffling of cards in a deck without shuffling, have the same roots in their skills. But how quickly and cleanly worked, even with clairvoyance!

Camrad_RIP 10.06.23 в 18:02

The killer could sense in advance, for his foresight was not dimmed, but he waited until the last moment. The moment when the old man had to open up, to loosen his concentration on defense, if he wanted to strike truly powerfully. Grandfather figured it out very quickly, unnaturally quickly, covering himself with a fiery flower. And every petal of that flower, closing in an incredibly beautiful motion, was combustion incarnate. This protection might not have lasted long. A couple of seconds, but in those seconds, not even a god would have pushed through that protection. A sort of equivalent of my Aegis, but far less reliable and not instantaneous.

Camrad_RIP 10.06.23 в 18:04