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

Chapter 21

Camrad_RIP 15.10.23 в 18:23

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Camrad_RIP 15.10.23 в 18:24

Has it ever happened in your life that you want to shout in your voice about how cool you are, that you have done something outstanding and in general you are the coolest guy in the neighborhood, in the region, and perhaps even on the entire continent? And then, at this very moment of realizing your own exceptionalism comes the head of the dormitory and kicks a little inadequate and a little drunk you out of sweet dreams, threatening eviction and subsequent expulsion, after which only the native army awaits? Agree, this is far from the sensations that you would like to experience twice in your life..... or once, for that matter.

Camrad_RIP 15.10.23 в 18:25

There was no moment of returning consciousness as such because you can lose your brains and fall into the mode of a furious hamster-kamikaze when trying to stand in line at the post office, but if you fight with a cursed creature of mythical grade and three-digit level, you'd better kill yourself right away. My reason was not pushed deeper into my subcortex, but on the contrary, it became concentrated to the maximum, stretched to razor sharpness, and only at the same time concentrated on a very narrow list of tasks. And if it wasn't for the high concentration, as for the one characteristic I didn't pump in, I would have been torn into a hundred small Konstantines without the devil's direct participation and even despite his active opposition.

Camrad_RIP 15.10.23 в 18:29

The trick I pulled, figuratively speaking, was taking all the techniques I knew for safe work with planar energy, wiping my horror-stricken ass with them, twisting them into a tube, and shoving them back into the same ass. No, I realize that I am a fan of throwing out a frankly idiotic act, taking a mortal risk even where it is not necessary, frankly useless, or even harmful. But even the show-off of Pypysh's name during the confusion in the Library seemed the height of adequacy against the backdrop of my latest clowning. I can't even count the number of times it could have been the last one because I'm going to lose count. It's a very familiar wording, and I lose count all the time. Either I count badly, or I take too many risks.

Camrad_RIP 15.10.23 в 18:38

Planar forces can't be mixed. It's a fucking axiom of "don't stick your fingers in sockets and your dick in a vat of molten metal" level, but when did Kostik ever think with his head, or think at all? We are isekai, summoned heroes, powerful 4chaners. We do not write the laws of not only the criminal code but even physics, logic, common sense, and common decency! This idea, which came into my head not spontaneously but finally formed from disparate pieces of the mosaic at that moment of final tension, was very interesting, requiring further research and experimentation. I would catch this idea by the tail and then develop something digestible out of it.

Camrad_RIP 15.10.23 в 18:41

In the end, it came out the way it did.

Camrad_RIP 15.10.23 в 18:41

One can't help but think, as a man picking his nose, "How about building a nuclear reactor at home so that my light bill would be lower?" And instead of long calculations, calculation of risks, preparation of precautions, and leveling of inevitably arising dangers, this man simply sent the girl to the cellar for a couple of kilos of good weapons-grade plutonium. Immediately, at once, without thought or doubt, as if it could not be otherwise. Probably, if it wasn't for this reinforced concrete confidence in my strength, reinforced with mifril studs and adamantium plating, I would have died in the first second. Or rather, it wasn't even confidence. It was just the absence of even a shadow of a thought, a single hint of the possibility that I might fail.

Camrad_RIP 15.10.23 в 18:46

Thus, I got one more reason to look for information about what the Hero phenomenon is and what its influence on the probability of certain events is, but it is definitely not today, not now, and not like that. I was killed neither by the devil, nor by my efforts, nor by the rollback from the use of an almost unfamiliar and hastily, without mercy to my essence, pumped class skill, but the delay now will kill guaranteed.

Camrad_RIP 15.10.23 в 18:51

Poets' Square had turned into something even more shattered than mere ruins, becoming a natural soup, a mush of stone crumbs, the honeyed rot of Hell's sprawling matter, and the Shadows coming and going through the established cuts. In the last moments of his existence, Sovereign, may the Shadow be his torture chamber, tried either to remake himself on the fly or to discard the affected areas like a lizard shedding its tail, but he was just textbook. The dying Touch swelled and turned inside out, dumping out its giblets hidden in multidimensionality, but the remains of the gentleman were the size of the entire area, even if you do not count its dying petals. I'm a hundred and forty-six out of a hundred sure that those guts were part of him, too, a separate organ, like a turtle's shell. Maybe a little alien to the main body, but still integral.

Camrad_RIP 15.10.23 в 18:53

It was a natural mess, and being in the epicenter of it would be a ticket to death for anyone. I have good resistance, but I can't survive even a minute in such a background of fleur and energy storms without protection. The protection is there, working in the background, being a perfect sphere of monochrome with a radius of three and a half meters, a piece of the world on which someone has manifested the laws of Shadow. To some, such a capsule of salvation would not seem a powerful enough frontier, but I knew and understood how reliable this armor was. As long as I did not give back what I had torn from reality, no power in its raw form could penetrate this sphere. There are plenty of ways to counteract it, I was shown these ways time and time again by the late asshole, but there's no way to sell such a trick just by increasing the amount of energy invested.

Camrad_RIP 15.10.23 в 18:57

My head did not immediately remember how to think in its normal state. When the enemy was dead, I stared at the place where the devil's embodied vessel had recently sprawled into slices, turning its multidimensional receptacle outward in a surprisingly disgusting display. I would have sat like that for an hour, but my intuition kicked in, telling me more and more intrusively how unwise it was to sit and wait for nothing.

Camrad_RIP 15.10.23 в 18:59

A hint of a thought, a decision just beginning, but even that hesitation, the barely perceptible contraction of muscles in a body reeling from shock and overload, was enough to bend in a violent spasm. Coughing and not even vomiting, but a real seizure, as if you were about to vomit out your stomach, not to mention its contents. The first thing that came out was the undigested food, which, after so many changes of form and the transition from the energetic to the material state, was not left in the intestines. Streams of black and unhealthily hissing blood, bubbling with evil power, poured out of me like a fountain, as if I had drunk a cola and eaten menthol dragee, making my frozen body shudder with pain that cut to the very gut.

Camrad_RIP 15.10.23 в 19:01

Pieces of equally black glass, shards of devoured mirrors that have wasted all their reflections to the end and still above that limit, are almost invisible in this mess. The glass cuts my throat, scratches the sky, but mere wounds are complete bullshit against the consequences of my adventure. The use of the essential shell that coated the mirror blanks like a layer of caramel soft filling made it possible not to tear myself apart by planar displacement, but that's only half the battle. In the Shadow Form state, as well as simply by overuse of the planar saturation, alchemical skills, if not disabled, then weakened to the point of obscenity, forcing one not just to make caramels from the mirror shell but also to create caramels in advance in such a state that they could be manipulated even without access to alchemy or the essence vessel.

Camrad_RIP 15.10.23 в 19:03

For all its qualities, the Vessel is a structure tied to the human body, and in the form of an eternal hungry fear-beast it, of course, remains available and feels the same as before, but those parts of the essence that are responsible for working with the Vesse of Essence you no longer have. Or rather, I'm saying it wrong again. They are there, but they are completely different. Different every time. Different for every Form. With such inputs, it was very difficult to interact with caramel in any meaningful way, so only the simplest manipulations remained.

Camrad_RIP 15.10.23 в 19:06

The hardest thing was to activate the prepared mirrors, Dream embedded in them, without stopping the battle and being in the state of "more Shadow than Kostya". Without a layer of essences, any activation would immediately activate me, and I would become an activated isekai, similar to activated charcoal. The same kind that sizzles and disintegrates into dust right before your eyes. The use of higher alchemy as a cushioning layer between two planar techniques, of course, stretches to the analog of the local Nobel Prize, but I'm sure that even if they gave it to me, it would only be by hitting me over the head with it.
Пояснения за уголь

Camrad_RIP 22.10.23 в 11:42

The feeling of imminent blows began to change from a whisper to very loud cues or even to the cries of a guardsman, a concentration camp warden, or a kindergarten teacher building his charges, hinting to get away as soon as possible. I stare at the almost black petals, which now look so much like melting wax skyscrapers, gradually falling into the stone-igneous slurry that the square and the surrounding area have become. And above me, the stolen sky lights up purple, as if someone were pouring into it not the poisonous passion of purple and violet but the bloody rain of primal rage. And there is something wrong in this rain, something not as Hell should be!

Camrad_RIP 22.10.23 в 11:44

In that bloody color were the clang of weapons striking shields, the crush of infantry, the mud, the screams, the shouts, the shrieks, and the rivers of blood that had been and would continue to be spilled for years to come. Somebody objectified their Miracle right within Hell, and all the vices retreated, unprepared for such a confrontation. I really don't want to wait until the one who's so eager to come here gets to the Eternal because my reputation isn't up to par, and I don't have the right alignment. The mental rigor had already dissipated, the new tasks and goals were being digested, and my brain was starting up again, but there were too many things I had to do before I could escape.

Camrad_RIP 22.10.23 в 11:47

The easiest thing was the summoned Armada, right now eating its most delicious buffet that could be set up and served. Even without really listening, I could feel what was left of the dead creature's domain trying if not to push back the affected areas, at least to keep the cuts from growing into the Shadow itself, which was exactly the number of petals of the deceased devil. Strangely enough, I wished the devil luck. I didn't want to wait for the bastards to finish eating the tidbits and move on to the easier food. I didn't want to wait for the bunches of defenseless and ready-to-eat souls to be the sweetest food for them, but they wouldn't refuse mortals they could get their hands on, either.

Camrad_RIP 22.10.23 в 11:51

The mechanism of the breach-call I created is such that I can know relatively clearly who exactly and in what quantity these breaches let through. Having estimated the quantity as well as the quality, I can say only a few angry swears, then some more swears, and a strangled squeak in which one can hardly recognize the phrase "pot don't boil." There were more than two dozen Highs alone, and something much stronger, more evil, and more Ancient was slowly being pushed into reality in three examples. If I had originally created a single mega-crack, even a mythic would have crawled into such a hole in one second, but thanks to the fact that the Armada rift was divided into several surgically precise cuts, the number of relatively weak creatures has grown avalanche-like, but the really powerful Shadows get through reluctantly, very reluctantly, which makes them even more furious than usual.

Camrad_RIP 22.10.23 в 11:58

Of course, the rift created by the active perk imposes on the Shadows the obligation to obey me in return for the wildest force of strengthening benefit, at the same time leveling the ejection effect of the real world, but the more powerful the creature, the angrier and hungrier, the weaker the effect of the contract. People in general, and the Eternal in particular, were saved by the exceptionally high nutritional value of the almost gutted Domain's coffers. Against the backdrop of this feast, it was simply stupid for them to search for and kill ordinary humans because they were already well-fed. But the real fun will begin the moment they finish eating the remains of the petals and their creator, and the remaining creatures in the Domain will cut off access to their guts.

Camrad_RIP 22.10.23 в 12:01

Oddly enough, I wish good luck to the devils and the Heralds arriving right here, or even the Incarnations, so they can kill my beast and die in the process while I munch on popcorn on the sidelines. Correction, I'd munch it if I wasn't right in the middle of the fucking carnage! And if I had popcorn.

Camrad_RIP 22.10.23 в 12:15

I stop my motionless sitting, sharply shrinking the monochrome sphere, merging it with the Aegis that never stopped working in the non-forced mode, turning it into a kind of dense armor around the body that has not yet recovered from throwing up the spent mirrors. I don't feel well, but my reserve is relatively full. My strength is enough, and on the border of my consciousness, there is a kind of rope, an iron anchor chain that binds me and the feasting Armada, allowing me, if I wish, to claim a part of my tribute simply by the right of the Overlord. This will not only restore the reserve but also add experience, devoured attributes, or something else "good," which I am not going to do and even categorically do not want to do.

Camrad_RIP 22.10.23 в 12:17

In general, the Armada connection is for the very last resort, and for now the situation is not that catastrophic.

Camrad_RIP 15.10.23 в 19:20

As soon as I narrowed the sphere of Manifestation, I nearly fell into a vat of shit, souls, and Shadows because it was the sphere that kept me afloat. Reflexively using the Leaf on the Wind zeroes in on the weight, allows me to glide through the rippling doughy mass like a water viper on a water surface, only the surface is very shitty. A quick look around reveals only a few very important things I personally would like to bring with me before escaping.

Camrad_RIP 22.10.23 в 12:19

The only part of the environment that stands out above the general mess is the marvelous fountain, for which Poets' Square was beloved, which survived the whole massacre with nothing less than a real miracle. However, the fountain's construction has turned into hints that throwing coins into it is no longer about luck or a long-lasting buff but about a lethal dose of fleur. On the other hand, I told the team I wanted to throw a coin...

Camrad_RIP 15.10.23 в 19:19

Oh, who am I kidding?

Camrad_RIP 15.10.23 в 19:18

When has a sign that says "don't get in, it'll kill you" ever stopped me?

Camrad_RIP 15.10.23 в 19:17

The Shadow Theft on one of the already disintegrating souls, whose light was dissolving into the gradually blackening mush beneath his feet, was almost unopposed, even easier than on ordinary, possessing bodies of the reasonable. The abomination that ran through the connection literally tore the soul apart, killing it for about a minute and a half faster than it would have extinguished itself, a wide, as wide as the body of the fountain, a stream of rot and honey was rushing upward, and I was already rushing to the place where I had last seen the late faggot Eternal, whose name I never learned... If you think about it, I never learned any of them by name, and I don't know if there are any of them left. They don't take care of themselves at all, even though they're not students anymore.
Убойные каникулы

Camrad_RIP 22.10.23 в 12:24

I didn't need the prince's body, which was still alive, even if it had its soul removed, as well as his cheater armor, even if I wouldn't give it up. But the blade, that incomprehensible two-handed weapon that even the mythical devil feared, or even outright feared, and which, apparently, is capable of killing anything if you hit it more than once - that's the one I'd like to have. I have just here one mythical monster, which does not give me a break and brazenly seeks me with a bad purpose. It would be more useful to me than to a dead man or his family because they are also dead.

Camrad_RIP 22.10.23 в 12:26

I can't find the sword right away, and if I can't find it in ten seconds, I'll have to run. I can only retrieve the blade drowned in this filth if no one interferes with me for at least a couple of hours. There's so much background there now, so many multidirectional currents mixed, so many disintegrating souls and Shadows eating them, that my sensors resentfully tell me terrible things. Impulse by impulse, the shadow sphere, and clairvoyance work together, but they only fill my brain with nastiness and veneer, which I have to burn out separately.

Camrad_RIP 22.10.23 в 12:33

Dream might help, but I don't have time to find or create a mirror and turn it into a support and a disposable search altar. Not to mention that switching from Shadow to Dream would leave me without the protection of Manifestation and Aegis, which could be a frustrating experience under such circumstances. And I have enough experience today as it is as if I had a cat working in an experience factory, and I don't even have a cat! I've had enough of the risks I've been taking. Now, I need to run away and do it with all the skills I have.

Camrad_RIP 26.10.23 в 15:36

But the opportunity to get a mythical pickaxe, which I dreamed of from the very first day of my arrival on Alurei, which is really mythical in its awesomeness, I want to tears in my dry eyes. In my life, there are too many of those entities that only such a pick could kill. However, there are enough, and those against whom and pick will not help. I don't want to miss the opportunity to get this weapon because I won't be able to get a second one shortly.

Camrad_RIP 26.10.23 в 15:38

In one swoop, I put my reserve and will into the execution of the Call, slapping the chains of my power on the nearest Elder Shadow, which looked like a headless eel, eating another portion of the sparks that had almost disintegrated in the fleur-shadow bath, immediately throwing the second and third leashes. I can't intercept the whole horde. I can't change their vector of action. I can't even dream about it - there are too many of them, they are too close to the source of saturation, and the source itself is unrealistically tantalizing against any background. They will ignore my order at best, pretend not to notice it, and if I risk to press further, they will try that order for strength. And all of them will be able to crush my strength, forcing me either to retreat or to fight with my own Armada.

Camrad_RIP 26.10.23 в 15:42

I could, of course, try to break the mechanism of my buff, which levels the back pressure of reality, allowing me to not fall back into the Shadow and weaken away from its deeper layers. But with the souls devoured, it wouldn't matter if I could close the breach or break the contractual blessing because, with that kind of feeding, they'd have a good chance of not feeling my actions, losing whatever vestiges of control they still had left. It would be very likely the Eternal would be destroyed by a different kind of creature if I didn't feel with my liver and failing clairvoyance that reality was cracking from the effort they were putting into it. Whatever was going on outside, the rescue forces were already rushing in and would be here soon. Whether they will rescue us, kill us, or loot derelict valuables (in the process, making derelict those that still have owners) I have no idea, and it will take too long to find out. I don't care because my angry face is not going to do me any good when I meet those rushing people.

Camrad_RIP 26.10.23 в 15:44

The late prince's armor doesn't entice me as much as the desire to seize the blade. I'm tired of hiding from the Weaver under a figurative bedchamber, and without a trump card of this grade, that veteran of labor and defense will eat me up without choking. With him, though, he'll eat me too, but that way, at least some chances will remain. One fight with, in fact, not the strongest myth was enough for me to realize my place in the food chain. Even with the support of the whole Chosen One, the fucking Prince of Ages, and another allied fearshit, who reeked of such concentrated misery that it made the Shadow Form's teeth whimper, we barely broke him. If this horny shit hadn't missed my trick of opening the Armada gate and not another flying shit, which inexplicably sees a clear connection with Losius, the devils would have celebrated the victory, not me.

Camrad_RIP 26.10.23 в 14:31

One of the Shadows I've been exploiting to keep me from enjoying my meal has managed to find the blade with its tentacles. I immediately take direct control of it, literally killing the beast and turning it into an extension of my body. My reserve is sagging, and I'm feeling worse, but I can't risk it. After all, any Shadow hates me a priori, working only on fear and fear of getting hit, and with such a tool in its "paws" it can try to scratch me with it. Not that it would think of it, not that the artifact would work in the "hands" of the creature, but I didn't want to check. I'd already experimented enough for today to make me sick.

Camrad_RIP 26.10.23 в 15:46

Shadow crawled out a little ways away, dragging the blade through its body, and I immediately intercepted it, wrapping it in my cloak and letting go of Shadow's control. The Shadow, for its part, died silently without a peep, but if I didn't know with absolute certainty that there was no consciousness or thought there anymore, I'd think it was looking at me a little judgmentally. I didn't dare to dive for the armor. The prince's body was sprawled with rot and honey foam, and the kit had disintegrated into its individual elements, sinking deeper and deeper. I was watching the blade with all my might because I needed it so much, but I couldn't keep track of every piece of armor in such a mess of energy. I needed a sensor much stronger than a tired and wobbly me.

Camrad_RIP 26.10.23 в 15:49

But the other trophy, on the contrary, I didn't need to look for the surface of the fleur literally pushing it out, preventing it from sinking to the bottom, but I wasn't very sure about the need to even pick it up. The remains of the old man-martyr caused an underlying desire to burn them in the alchemical flames. The only thing that stopped me was the realization that I couldn't create such a thing quickly, and my current resources wouldn't be enough. The single link of the chain seemed to be the most ordinary, only blackened and partially corroded. Even the Hero's gaze did not help much. The casket that had fallen to the ground after the dedugan's spraying appeared to be stored not in the pockets missing from his tatters but right inside the mangled body. A very, you know, strong argument for not messing with shit, an exemplary argument!

Camrad_RIP 26.10.23 в 15:51

But an old man helped us.

Camrad_RIP 22.10.23 в 12:34

He helped me at once, without a second thought, without counting on anything, only wishing to die, but he helped me, helped me to the very end, and if it hadn't been for his voluntary sacrifice, I wouldn't have had enough time. I can't say it was exactly a request. We had neither the strength nor the time nor the desire for such revelations of will, but until the last moment, there was a hope smoldering in him that I would do something about his legacy. It's obviously a trap for the curious, a cunning curse, which I don't even doubt. It doesn't even need intuition, just a pinch of knowledge.

Camrad_RIP 26.10.23 в 18:13

And my dear Tia, tyrant ears, worse than the teachers in all subjects at once, quite an accessible language explained the nature of cute Demons, their strengths, and weaknesses, as well as the reasons why no one with a drop of brain in his head will not mess with them. Neither for enmity nor, even worse, for friendship. Another victim, another unfinished and not-ending terrible fairy tale in which the beautiful prince, his princess, and their white horse have already died, but some served the prince and princess.

Camrad_RIP 26.10.23 в 18:15

Dead Gods and dead Faith are scary not because they will betray you, deceive you, and devour you, as devils do. What is scary is that you can fall into their arms, even just by touching them, by sharing even a little of their indelible burden. I know, even though clairvoyance has far from heard everything in those moments when we all, four doomed lunatics against one myth, were bound together into one whole, what exactly is in that box saved. And I also realize that even knowing the danger, I dare not ignore this request.

Camrad_RIP 26.10.23 в 18:16

Someone has to finish the scary tales.

Camrad_RIP 22.10.23 в 12:34

Especially if this tale, a couple minutes earlier, prevented someone from finishing my tale.

Camrad_RIP 22.10.23 в 12:35

With a quiet, on the verge of hearing, hiss, from which all the Shadows in a considerable radius became nervous and began to eat faster and more greedily so as not to be taken away, I tear off from my belt the rest of the vials, from which all the magic and essences had already evaporated, leaving only pure glass-insulator. So many transitions to the Form and back, several almost complete destructions of the main body, and regular pumping of raw power to obscene values. All of this threatened the remnants of the compositions hanging on my belt, which could not be used against Sovereign anyway. The alchemy had to be used in another, much more suicidal way.

Camrad_RIP 26.10.23 в 16:34

But it is the insulating glass I need, which I crumble in my flesh-returned hands, covered in golden mist, using essence manipulation to glue them into truly closed containers. I take the chain and the box not with my hands but with the paws of the Form, throwing aside the pieces of flesh affected by other people's Sins. Until I have sealed both relics in separate hermetic capsules, and then I seal them again, already in a common box for both vessels. There was not enough glass for the last one, so I had to use pieces of stone and floral crumbs lying under my feet. No matter how paradoxically silly it might sound, the fleur, thickened by essentialism, being an abomination, did a good job of isolating the influence of the cursed objects. Yes, yes, Konstantin Yurievich invented to isolate radioactive materials in a container of pure dimethylmercury, sprayed with the famous "Novichok" for a pleasant smell. I recognize myself, damn.

Camrad_RIP 26.10.23 в 16:36

I hang the resulting bullshit on my cloak, which covers the family double-edged sword that I honestly stole in payment for saving the Eternal, remembering sharply the old proverb. I mean the one about the need to run away quickly after you've done another good deed. Kindness is the kind of thing that requires quick feet and the ability to avoid being caught on camera...

Camrad_RIP 26.10.23 в 18:12

I shook my whole body, which for a second took on a shadow appearance, like a cat after a sudden and unwanted bath, and sharply accelerated. The body strengthened by the Form allows me to push off from the area of space subordinated by the Manifestation, starting with the speed of a racing car and without much acceleration. As if waiting for my actions, there comes a feeling of... I don't know how to describe it. The closest analogy I have with that bouquet of experiences is when you are relaxing in the bathtub, diving into it with your head, and then someone throws a firecracker into the bathtub. Or, say, you climb into an iron barrel, close the lid, and a kind soul from the neighboring yard smashes the barrel with a stick!

Camrad_RIP 22.10.23 в 12:40

Someone not only knocked on the door of the stolen city, but someone almost kicked the door open with a decisive kick, being at least a local God, and well, if only one. As if the already existing problems were not enough, there followed a stirring of space, as if someone scraped a huge nail on the glass and chalk on the blackboard at the same time - a sound inaudible, felt rather by his magic and sensitivity to energy, but no less loud. It was the Ancient Shadows who were entering the party who realized that the very Gods could try to take away their food.

Camrad_RIP 22.10.23 в 12:42