Настучать в бубен / Hit the tambourine: Глава 16_3

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Camrad_RIP 09.08.24 в 10:45

A scarlet haze floods part of the left wing of the lower level of the inn. It is alchemically altered blood, which has acquired the properties of poison, acid, and a bit of magical negator to weaken the shields of those hit. This is only the first swallow because the prepared something quickly begins to react and is preparing to detonate an aerosol bomb, right with Stepan in the center. Stepan, of course, is categorically against it, and so, hugging his own bag, he commands one of the already prepared spirits and it seems to be squeezed into a point, sucked into a translucent tube. It looks, rather ridiculous and cartoonish, but it effectively takes him outside the inn, to the main street of small Bzdy while a part of the building literally collapses, rapidly rotting and dissolving like a fizzy pill in water.

Camrad_RIP 09.08.24 в 19:48

The fizzing, at least, is very similar.

Camrad_RIP 09.08.24 в 19:49

"Well, rest in peace Baroshn, at the very least you've been cremated for good measure." It flashes through his mind as he releases his spiritual body, tossing aside his bag, and calls out to the precursor, guiding it now not just along his aura, but along the bubble of protection created by the mask, invisible from the outside. - "Your killers I will try to cremate as well."

Camrad_RIP 09.08.24 в 20:12

The young man hears the screams and panicked cries of the humans, realizing that seconds count, and if he doesn't want to fight the Bzdy inhabitants who will be taken under control, he must act quickly. A sonm of spirits manifests in reality, scouts, hounds, and paralyzers flying in circles, depriving of mobility all those they reach, the combat retinue gathers at the very edge of reality, preparing to break into battle, but not showing under the magical vision, the space literally shakes with the will and anger of the senior shaman, from which in a few moments flowed no longer supported shroud. They struck at the same time, but the opponent was still hitting the apprentice, even if it was a disguised adept, strengthened by amulets or artifacts, but Stepan, Stepan did not hold back at all, generously spent the reserve, not afraid to remain empty.

Camrad_RIP 09.08.24 в 20:15

Five bloody ribbons-spokes, absolutely straight, thin, almost invisible in the midday sun, but at the same time deadly and prepared against someone strong, sent strictly towards him without any pause or preparation. The charms, which were more properly called not ribbons and not spokes, but devil worms, were also directed at the main auric nodes of the chosen victim. The young man could have hidden himself again with a Shroud, but he did not, it would have required him to lose the tempo of the call, to interrupt his attack for the sake of a defense that did not work. Most likely, these charms, the very essence of the blood magic, could certainly use visual guidance or be directly controlled by the bloodsucker looking through them. All five worms, at the last moment no longer straight, curved, and struck at different angles enter the body of the not-resisting shaman, whose aura beats in a sinister and powerful pulse, calling, summoning, commanding, and indicating the target. All five can't miss, yet they miss, seemingly flowing around this figure and flying in completely different directions. Whether this disoriented the algorithm of the charms, or the bloodsucker himself, who controlled them, but on the second run only three, while one worm went somewhere in the sky, almost piercing the spirit-observer, and the second made its way somewhere deep into the trampled earth, disappearing there without a trace.

Camrad_RIP 09.08.24 в 20:19

These three are no longer trying for pinpoint shots. They try to wrap themselves around the shaman and detonate another cloud of rapidly settling toxic and explosive-magic-hazardous smoke. They succeeded in the first, but the cloud miraculously failed to hit the man as it splashed, striking outward, upward, downward, anywhere but its victim. There was no detonation at all; it was one of Stepan's bookmarks, an old summoning of the spirit of rotten blood, from the time after Fantrel, but before Lyadi. The scarlet haze suddenly darkened, turning first a dirty brown and then almost black, settling to the ground in hissing puddles. It was still impossible to breathe with this shit, but the young man activated the breathing support right at the beginning of the battle, cutting himself off from the air masses and delivering air directly into his lungs.

Camrad_RIP 10.08.24 в 20:22

The attack capable of killing another master in an instant, an attack worthy of a master, and a very strong one at that, an attack prepared in advance in case it was necessary to fight, did not work, wasting away. Stepan himself stepped forward, ignoring the puddles in front of him as if clutching the part of the second floor from which he had been struck in his fist. The spirit understood the order without images, but Stepan helped himself, divided into multiplicity and remaining united. The poor inn shook and jerked, and then the enemy's position began to rot rapidly, the boards started to deteriorate, to age, to crumble, the windows became skewed and began to let in the light again, and in general, it was a total disorder. Both sides of the conflict, for Stepan had hoped that an attack on the very foundation of the inn, by the spirits of abandoned houses, would cause all the ritual contours and defenses to collapse along with a piece of the inn.

Camrad_RIP 10.08.24 в 20:24

Alas, some of the spirits had been banished, some had been disembodied, and some had simply spent all their energy on overcoming the defenses, so there was no quick destruction of the protected point. This is the first rule of combat against a prepared opponent in his position, especially if he is an adept of high magic. Destroy the ritual circuit, or they will destroy you. Stepan sees the defense around the inn clearly visible, no longer hidden by mental magic and the canopy of energy trace suppression. He sees both the classical magic that plays off the drawn pattern, the bloody threads that have soaked the old wood, and the individual elements of amulet support that were brought with them rather than made on the spot. And the mental distraction, the basis for its unfolding, was clearly not made here either, it was too complex and demanding to deceive so many different spirits at first.

Camrad_RIP 10.08.24 в 20:30

Assessing what he saw, he didn't pause attacking again without a gesture causing the summoned strong spirit to concentrate the sun's rays into a large and wicked lens, planting directly into the windows opened from the previous strike. This entity gave a concentration of not only pure light and temperature but also the kind that harms bloodsuckers. No, it's not the classic black man with a katana trilogy here. A couple seconds of ultraviolet light won't kill even the lowest and freshest vampire, not to mention experienced and tough scum. But it's still not very pleasant. It weakens and blinds, and here it's a concentrated effect. While up there, they came to their senses after the sun bunny. The spirit was not a beastly sphere, but for some reason took the form of a rabbit woven of rays, a mystery, damn. Several sparks flew from the shaman's hand, which he also blew on, directing their flight. The sparks grow in size to full-sized balls, first tennis balls, then soccer balls, and then gymnastic balls, before falling to the roof of the inn one by one.

Camrad_RIP 14.08.24 в 16:21

The young man directed his strike - the strongest and largest of the available and paid for, designed specifically against the undead, consisting of the summoning of seven strong spirits bound in a pack - on a ballistic trajectory, to allow them to gain more size, to absorb more of the midday sun, because at noon this contract works stronger and more effective than any other time of day. The attack was not dangerous to humans, it would knock them down seven times at most, knocking them hard, but no more. But all sorts of crap afraid of the sun and light, or simply alien to the real world and the world of the spheres at the same time, fell into the bread oven. The impact gave neither impulse nor heat, each of the spark-balls simply splashed out a huge blot of glowing ghostly mass, like liquefied sunlight. The bloodsuckers, he was sure, would rather get hit in the face with a classic rain of fire than this.

Camrad_RIP 10.08.24 в 20:34

The enemy's defenses were decent, but they were still there, and that was a good thing. If the prepared contours were not aimed at scorching the sunny slurry and hit Stepan, he would be tired of maneuvering. Except that after such a greeting, the young man was taken very seriously, so seriously that even his pride crept in. First, the bloody scarlet light, like a wave of the sea, washed away all the sunny slurry, dissolving it in itself and demolishing the remains of the roof of the Quiet Ill. Then something ghostly scarlet struck the bunny rabbit, nearly disembodied it and forcing it to stop shining, retreating deeper into the spheres to heal its wounds. And after that another cloud went up, not bloody, but inky-black and with a grayish tinge, created through an artifact because of a completely different shade of power. It was static and canned, not created right there. The hot afternoon was immediately replaced by twilight as the village was covered by a strange dome, eating sunlight and its debilitating effects. In an instant, noon, the time of the bloodsucker's greatest weakness, changed to midnight, the time of their greatest strength. From above, the spirits saw this shroud as something very shaky, like a mirage in the air, covering Bzdy with a dome at a height of two hundred meters and within a radius of half a kilometer. And, importantly, from the outside, the spells did not look too noticeable, a couple of hours' journey away they would not be seen. You would think of it as a trick of hot air.

Camrad_RIP 10.08.24 в 20:43

Inside it was a very unpleasant time for Stepan, because it was one thing to beat Drak Grafula on a clear day, but in the middle of the night it was quite another. Even if the visibility had not fallen, it was only a dark evening. And even if it did, he wouldn't care with his sensitivity and a lot of options for other visions. But his opponent's increased abilities and lack of classic weaknesses worried him much more. The only thing that made him happy was that it was a one-time effect, and it was unlikely that he would be able to use such an artifact again. As it seemed to Stepan. If he had come across something capable of producing such charms in one fell swoop, he would have run away now, dropping bricks out of his pants and forgetting about his pathos words.

Camrad_RIP 10.08.24 в 20:47

But he'd hardly run away.

Camrad_RIP 10.08.24 в 20:47

The next stage was obvious and inevitable, but it still ignited in Stepan's heart some inhuman anger, first of all at his weakness. The bloodsuckers reached for their puppets, and every living soul, that paralyzed by his spirits, that had not yet fallen under their attacks, screamed wildly and sharply. At first, they were different voices - male, female, even a couple of children's voices, but as they went on they became louder and louder, more and more unnatural, more and more similar to each other. Acoustic blast and mental impact, sustaining itself and reinforcing itself through resonance. It was a preparation not against a lone individual, but against visiting large units. To scare, confuse, and if not disperse, then delay at least a little while the main target of the raid was taking off at a tango pace.

Camrad_RIP 10.08.24 в 20:51

Naturally, not only the howls will be suppressed and dispersed, but also what the howlers have turned into - primitive, short-lived, and maximally charged for a single battle ghouls. Oh yes, from a couple of basement cellars or just abandoned houses came out ghouls quite full-fledged, much older, dangerous, and not threatening to die in a couple of hours. These creatures, already devoid of most human features, completely hairless, covered with tattooing or protective patterns, consisting, it seemed, of only bundles of muscles, fangs, claws, and malice, were much more unpleasant, each standing five ordinary experienced fighters with good weapons, armor, and some amulets. The recently alive people had their faces contorted as if their skin had been stretched, blood flowing out of every orifice mixed with brains, and their mouths open unnaturally wide, giving off that annoying howl. Thirty-one walking corpses, some of them seemingly unable to rise, though all of the Bzd's inhabitants were dead, nine more full-fledged ghouls, three groups of three. And a vague number of enemies upstairs, which were about to descend.

Camrad_RIP 14.08.24 в 05:00

//"It seems if I survive today, I'm going to have to do a very good job of renegotiating contracts because I'll be spent to the bottom." - A lonely thought flashed through the shaman's mind as he allocated targets and prepared to fight for his life, avenging the lives of others. - "Why am I always getting into shit?".

Camrad_RIP 10.08.24 в 20:52

The small spirits struck at specific and marked targets, instantly halving the fresh opponents. It seemed ironic to Stepan, but the undead, especially the fresh and not yet adapted to being undead, had a great vulnerability to energy vampirism. His leeches had shown this in practice, knocking out at least a third of the screamers. Another part of them went down under more exotic blows, like burst bones, sour muscles, or simple classical exorcism, only it was not a priest who reposed them, but a spirit with special properties. The remnants survived the first wave by a couple of moments because the spirits took a little longer to kill them. There were the elements with lightning and air blades and blows directly on the energy, and even a spirit that had taken possession, which tore up the same ghoul from the inside.

Camrad_RIP 14.08.24 в 05:04

The first group of full-grown creatures is met by the Lizard. He immediately tried to blow one of them off its head, but the flashing patterns stopped the spiritual yatagan, weakening the blow to a simple scalping. The creatures, whose claws glowed with scarlet and blood magic, immediately tried to diversify their meals with the spiritual reptiles, but the Lizard was adamantly opposed. The second three were met and began dashing into the ground by the Three Piggies. They were busy knocking the enemy to the ground, trying to break the surprisingly strong bones and keeping the trio from bunching up in every way possible. The last trio of ghouls simply and uncomplicatedly fell into the ground to a depth of at least five meters, as the ground became very liquid and soft before immediately solidifying back to its former state. It didn't kill them, but the one-time contract with the strong spirit of the earth sphere paid for itself, taking this group out of the game for a couple of hours at least, and then it didn't matter. By then the winner would be determined and either kill the creatures or dig up his servants.

Camrad_RIP 14.08.24 в 05:10

Three bloodsuckers appeared in front of the shaman, jumping out of the windows and fuming a little. Oh, the sunbath did them no good, oh, no good! Dressed in tight and comfortable hunting clothes, equipped with amulets and wands, pale and beautiful, they look like Gothic and Byronic characters. On the right stands a large and slightly battered man, with a well-groomed beard, dark-haired, the very embodiment of a fiery Arab, if it were not for his pallor and some animal fury in his every movement. He shows some remnants of bandages, and beneath them are burns, not just the ones he had received right now, but older ones that clearly required treatment and regeneration, as well as plenty of nourishment. The aura gives out the average adept in brightness, full of borrowed power. In movements, one can see the experience of not centuries, so decades, and all this, aura and experience, can be easily multiplied by two at the expense of "night" time. Complementing this colorful image is his weapon - a rune-covered short cleaver in his right hand. The blade was clearly not made for his hand, the blade is too massive and the hilt is for a larger palm, which, when combined with the dwarven runes, suggests a lucky trophy. Of the three, however, he is the least of Stepan's problems.

Camrad_RIP 14.08.24 в 05:18

To his left, he lowered himself in a graceful, weightless pirouette - lightening his weight to create a levitation effect, he did that regularly himself - a real, textbook fucking vampire loli. Well, not really. She looked about thirteen or fourteen, at most. A pretty face, doll-like beauty, charming scarlet eyes with long lashes, a slightly different style of hunting costume, with feminine and tight-fitting features, and a slim wand in one hand, almost a magic wand, and a thin but very long rapier in the other. A weapon the length of the gothic girl, she holds it with incredible ease as if it were a weightless cane. The small runes covering the weapon make his eyes itch from inside his skull. In active mode, there's hardly any way to keep track of this blade. It will be distracting and out of focus. It's still doing that now, without powering up the runes. This toy's armor-piercing and shield-breaking capabilities are amazing. The picture was complemented by a not-at-all-childish, extremely attentive gaze, evil, cruel, and filled with sadistic fun. The girl was older than the bearded beast, perhaps many times older. And her aura was stronger, giving away that she was no longer an average adept, but rather an advanced one, without taking into account the borrowed blood power.

Camrad_RIP 14.08.24 в 05:24

In the center stands a leader, a fighter, a fighter, a fighter, a good man, and a total fucking FUBAR. Tall and finely built, perfectly shaven, and possessing a refined aristocratic face, as well as a view of the world as shit, short-cropped and all completely calm, outwardly about forty years old at the time of his conversion. He might not have been considered handsome when he was human, but years and centuries of being a bloodsucker had honed his looks to the point where he could just take out and eat women's hearts without even literalizing the phrase. He was the only one of the three who was devoid of cold weapons, unless you counted the graceful and seemingly ritualistic dagger on his belt, not even removed from its sheath. The wand in his hands, however, was certainly not a common craft and was of fine workmanship and intricately woven charms. In terms of aura... Well, the system wouldn't call him a master, and neither would the locals, but the trouble with vampires was that they were vampires, no matter how captainly it sounded.

Camrad_RIP 14.08.24 в 05:27

They develop slowly and are almost completely deprived of ways to pump reserve and power by training. They get a boost to their development only and only from the blood they absorb. If a vampire has the aura of an adept, there is no doubt that in his field and not weakened by sunlight, he will cause problems even for a master, possibly even fatal ones. The essence of their auric shells is that they are shiftable. It swells when fed heavily, and weakens as they starve or simply fight very actively. When encountering a bloodsucker, the power of the aura should be evaluated not only on the basis of magic and years of practice of this magic, but not even on the monstrous affinity with blood and blood magic, which living users of the gift achieve very rarely, and not at all on survivability with regeneration and the ability to feed the usually not too powerful reserve at the expense of another's life. No, the first thing to keep in mind is speed. Because bloodsuckers are fucking fast, very, very, very, very, very, very, fast!

Camrad_RIP 14.08.24 в 05:32

From a prepared position, having surrounded their lair with prepared fighters, having taken potions, and having arranged a ritual fire position, it is not difficult to fight them. But in close quarters, like this, face to face. Welcome to the session of fluggeheiming, spread your ass. That's why Stepan, seeing the auras of these freaks, including one of them, which was, of course, not a full-fledged Ancient, against which only with a master to go out, but confidently pulled on the nowhere incipient larva of the highest, immediately realized that he would be beaten. Perhaps even with kicks, in all three pairs of legs. But the young man was going to make sure that those legs would be broken off, perhaps by tearing them off up to the neck.

Camrad_RIP 14.08.24 в 05:37

All three of them froze beside each other, looking at the shaman, who was equally frozen in a relaxed position, staring at the enemy with the empty and bottomless eyes of his mask. The pause would have done honor to Leone's films, took at least a second and a half, before the tense, though hiding that tension - but the spirits saw and sensed it, and Stepan sensed it with them - the leader, staring straight into the emptiness of the eyeholes, gave out one short sentence. The problem for the shaman was that sentence, one single word, he accompanied with a magical message, which was supported by the other two participants.

Camrad_RIP 14.08.24 в 05:40

"Die." Short, clear, to the point, and accompanied by a powerful mental blow, literally paralyzing the will, as well as a mixture of blood magic and curses, making the blood in the body literally boil at someone else's command.

Camrad_RIP 14.08.24 в 05:41

The result was good. The shaman's figure was torn to shreds, along with his clothes, mask, and auric shells. Well, the figure of a very dense illusion, which was supported by a specific spirit, which Stepan, as part of the experiment fed blood, developing a type of call tied to the offering of life force. That was why in this spirit, which remained under the illusion cocoon supported by another entity, the blood of the gifted man was quite active. No, really! As soon as the three of them began to pose in a pompous pose in front of the lone enemy, all the knowledge of the battle shaman, which the young man had, cried out that the enemy was preparing a strike, counting on the idiocy of the enemy, pretending as if they were ready for a dialog. Oh, and they flaunted their auras too much, too much of the flaunting was still and frozen, not even a boost of defense could be felt. Had it not been for this deceptive immobility, the young man might not have believed it, might have thought to believe it, might have lost a fraction of a second, but his opponent, alas for him, had outdone their acting.

Camrad_RIP 14.08.24 в 05:44

The same spirit of the short teleport, codenamed "Drain Tank" in the contracts section of the system notebook, transported the young man for the second time in a short period, working out another part of the reserve donated to him and another part of his obligations. This time the transfer was even more hasty than last time, which made the young man fall out of the spirit world a little bit not where he expected, but the main thing is that he managed to save himself. Blood magic is an insidious thing, and this particular blow did not hit him directly, so the defense of the vestibule might not have worked, forcing him to defend himself. The method of defense was simple, at least the method of basic defense. Strengthen the subtle bodies with one's aura and spirit and prevent someone else's will from penetrating by overriding the blood control. Sounds simple, but against combined and not one-decade trained charms... Stepan didn't bother to test himself.

Camrad_RIP 14.08.24 в 07:55

But he managed, using the protective bubble of the mask, to pass through the spirit world without even weakening the anteroom, without destroying it, having to transfer his forces to the control of the spiritual space. That's a theoretically useless in direct combat artifact designed for relatively peaceful class development. There are no artifacts worthy of a very strong magister level, which could not be used in battle. At the very least, at least by hitting someone's head with it. The thoughts in the shaman's head flew in flocks of birds and swarmed as clouds of Japanese hornets stinging his burning ass as he prepared his response, taking advantage of a moment, even a fraction of a moment of enemy discouragement from his sudden teleport with the deception left behind.

Camrad_RIP 14.08.24 в 08:13

Alas, but, as his-not-his experience claimed, vampires are very fast and experienced bastards, whose speed extends, among other things, to mental activity. Stepan also accelerated himself, transferred his thoughts to the spiritual basis, accelerated the necessary parts of the aura, and also began to act in advance, only completing the pointer images to the prepared spirits, but the enemy still reacted with him, first leveling off, and then ahead of him for a short time. The air itself shook, thickening and trying to constrict, to slow down, to deprive him of maneuver. The first rule of fighting with a speedy opponent is to control the space and to impose your own battlefield as much as possible. The ground began to soak up moisture, turning muddy and threatening to become a miniature swamp. Lightning began to flash in the shimmering air from all sides. These were not direct strikes, which the enemy would have noticed in advance, at the stage of feeding the manifested spirits of their attacks, but a cover of static electricity amplified to the limit, so that each of their movements would cause new lightning striking directly at them, and literally next to them so speed would not help.

Camrad_RIP 14.08.24 в 08:18

The wind didn't stop the enemies covered in scarlet smoky armor. They simply broke through the blockade with their sheer power, burning their way out, and the spirits who flew too close simply didn't have time to move back, often disembodied rather than simply drifting away. On the ground, the enemy paid no attention at all, banally and boringly lightening their weight to a feather, treading on dirt as easily as on ordinary stone. The canopy of static electricity, it must be admitted, played quite well, neither damaging the enemy nor slowing them down, but forcing them to spend some of their strength on leveling the work of the storm spirits with such tricky aspects. And then the distance between Stepan and the enemy ended, and they began to kill him, well, or at least try to.

Camrad_RIP 14.08.24 в 08:29

The leader attacked with numerous small charms and classic magical arrows, only in different configurations mixing his own blood into them, increasing the killing power. He searched for the key to the defenses of the anteroom, not realizing, as yet, the lack of that key in the usual sense, trying to strip and overload the defenses. The beastly asshole Arab and the militant loli acted close, attacking at point-blank range, wanting to spit a blood arrow, whip a scarlet whip, or wrap a red cloud around his head, but they did most of their damage with their cold weapons. The cleaver was so strong that it could probably cut a stone wall into slices, the ominous rapier easily escaped his gaze, falling out of focus and stabbing at vulnerable points from the most unexpected places. From the outside, despite the danger of the situation, it looked very funny, and Stepan, who was watching the fight from many angles, was definitely struck with humor because it looked really absurd.

Camrad_RIP 14.08.24 в 08:33

The blows simply passed by the only living person left in the Bzdy, as if they were bending around him. In those moments when it was physically impossible to avoid the damage, he bent himself. Like a character in a cartoon. Like a Photoshop image. Like bringing a magnet to a tube TV. Even though his reserve shouldn't have been sagging, it was still dropping, because the frequency of enemy attacks was so active that he had to spend energy to support the barrier. The constant flickering of blades, bloody spells, and the glances of scarlet eyes trying to get deep into his brain were confusing and provoked mistakes. Stepan involuntarily moved a meter or two in random directions, when the anteroom itself led him away from the damage. And also continuously calls, controlling his spirits and trying to lead counterattacks. Catching the enemy with the bodies of spirits, whether leeches or whatever, was something he stopped doing almost immediately. Red-eyed suckers saw them and immediately destroyed them with scarlet claws or simply by hitting them with their armor or simply banishing them. Attacks with elemental effects, fire arrows, lightning, stone spikes, and air fists, also showed not-too-good results. The spirits were also not very good at targeting, the area attacks would hurt him more than the enemy, and the spirits themselves were constantly being set up. To attack, they would appear as close to reality as possible, ready to spit out a couple or three lower spells paid for in advance, but they would also become more vulnerable.

Camrad_RIP 14.08.24 в 08:39

The cleaver didn't hit very deep. The bearded man's bloody claws were even more dangerous to the spirits, but the loli's rapier quickly thinned out the retinue, knocking out the elementals and, even more frustratingly, preventing them from spending their strength to fulfill their contract. The exotics fared a bit better, their attacks were uncharacteristic, so they often had time to strike and get back. Sometimes they even hit and knocked some power out of the scarlet cocoons that protected the bloodsuckers. Stepan didn't hesitate to spend the already dangerously low reserve, calling and directing new spirits, giving the enemy a taste of victory, a taste that they were about to exhaust him. And yet it was one of the exotics that gave the first real chance for a full attack, rather than the annoying and tense jabs: the effect that broke through the bloody defense covered all three of them at once, the strong spirit attacking, changing the sensations of the right and left sides for a split second.

Camrad_RIP 14.08.24 в 08:46

The leader didn't even flinch, immediately breaking the impact and, without faltering in his stride, sent another series of bloody droplets and dots, once again slicing through his veins with his claw. The little brat, who could probably still call his great-grandmother a лkid, ignored the change at all, instantly regrouping and continuing to attack, simply not paying attention to the changed perception utilizing centuries of experience. But the youngest, the most tired, the most unrestrained, as well as the bearded man who had been wounded earlier, lost momentum, took a step in the wrong direction, into the wall of one of the houses, and for a few moments he was off the ground in an involuntary leap. He lost the ability to react and dodge at his usual speed. Stepan, thinking in passing about the reasons for this massacre, concluded that someone had burned their asses and forced them to flee, forcing them to hide in the middle of nowhere, so they were sitting here, nursing their wounds and thinking about further actions. Otherwise, there were no other options. Such a small village and almost abandoned road wouldn't feed three bloodsuckers, let alone nine angry ghouls.

Camrad_RIP 14.08.24 в 08:52

All these thoughts did not prevent Stepan from activating another of the stronger summons, the volcanic heat spirit, the same one he had not risked calling underwater during the battle with Eel, using a slower and weaker counterpart in the form of a fire rooster. The volcanic spirit had no animal form, or any form at all, but it flared almost instantly, heating the area around the bearded man to an obscenely high temperature. He, of course, stepped up his defenses, realizing that he was caught, and even survived the first second of baking. Only his beard melted, and he got more burns, but that was nothing because the wooden hut he had hit in the fall had dried and burst into flames in no time at all. Alas, he did not have to live through the second moment, the leader saved his ward by hitting him with a deep cloud of scarlet smoke, saving the poor man and forcing the volcanic essence to fall back in order not to die.

Camrad_RIP 14.08.24 в 08:54

Stepan didn't like what he saw, because it was a specially sharpened bloody effect against spirit entities. If this man could do that without being a moron, and he wasn't, he should have used something similar against the shaman long ago. So why had he been hitting all this time with just variously configured arrows, drops, and whips? It was a million questions, but it was only necessary to look closely, as Stepan easily noticed the scarlet drops that were hitherto hidden behind the fever of battle and light compulsion, which fell to the ground from the dissected veins of the main vampire. They were soaking into the ground, almost soaking it, and providing the perfect anchor for the attack on the anteroom from below.

Camrad_RIP 14.08.24 в 16:26

"Oh, fuck..." - Stepan thought, finishing his own combination right at that moment, realizing that he had missed someone else's. He still tried to finish it in spite of it, realizing that he wouldn't have time to defend himself, but bloodsuckers, as it was already said, are very fast and they think fast too. Fast enough to stop the show and use the preparation he'd made during the brief fight, which hadn't even taken twenty seconds. Squidward's summoning had not been completed, nor had he had time to summon a couple of sun and fire spirits that had not yet fired, nor had he had time to do much of anything. It was only out of a sense of contradiction and unwillingness to drain that he concentrated all his energies on killing the beastly man: a homing lightning bolt struck from the sky, ignoring the blood dupes that rushed in with the bloodsucker's aura. In that lightning, the unclothed maiden could even be seen imprinted on his retina, as if woven from that lightning, the pointing part of that lightning, its striking fist.

Camrad_RIP 14.08.24 в 16:31

The enemy was shattered, not helped neither by the spent defense of scarlet haze, nor by the attempt to put up the same scarlet barrier, nor by the protective amulets that worked, nor by the cleaver's blow towards a very old and powerful sylph who realized herself as a female wind spirit. Stepan was a little ashamed of it, but the reason for the ease of contracting six blows, but not more often than once every nine days, with this lady was that she was responding to the mark of passions by easing her call. On the other hand, there was nothing erotic, except the unclothed image of a body woven with lightning, in this there was nothing erotic about this entity, quite the opposite. It was a cruel and very playful essence, accustomed to making its games extremely traumatizing, like a small and naive child who enjoys tearing off the legs of insects. As it is now, so that one foot here, the other there, and the balls are carried away almost to Dantmark. Add to this the fact that the spirits of mobile elemental spheres, such as fire, wind, or water, were not too fond of the undead as such, often supplementing the attack not only in the account spent by the shaman for payment, but also from himself, and you get the effect of a high-explosive shell in the face.

Camrad_RIP 14.08.24 в 16:34

Yes, the young man had settled the score. Judging by the sudden rage and anger, the remaining pair valued their companion, even loved him, perhaps with a simple familial feeling. Bloodsucker nests are almost always like that within the same branch, for they are bound together by blood, and therefore bound together tightly. Not without exceptions, not without intrigue and murder within particularly large nests, and they treat the lower forms of their undead species as "lower," but still. And now, their old friend, comrade, and brother, ready to share the last breath of blood, the last slave to give for food, able for the sake of his kin, suddenly ended forever.

Camrad_RIP 14.08.24 в 16:33

The leader showed emotion on his face for the first time, baring his fangs and no longer resembling a mannered forty-year-old aristocrat of the Byronic-Gothic type, showing his nature. He grinned, staring straight into the hollow eyes of the mask's eye sockets, slamming his bloody palms into the ground so that in the same instant the anteroom just slithered the fuck away, leaving Stepan defenseless. The shaman understood the mechanics of the technique and even instantly understood how to rebuild defenses against it, albeit with an extra waste of reserve, but it was of little use. No, he tried to stop the sinister Lolita, far from Nabokov's work, with direct barriers. He intercepted her point-blank bloody arrows with a couple of spirits and his ghostly claw, condensed the air around her and himself. He barely managed to deflect the bloody explosion thrown by the leader, which blew the wall behind his back into a pile of splinters, barely managing to condense the air again before the splinters turned his back and ass into hedgehogs. He activated time acceleration, trying to break the distance with another spatial jump, clearly surprising his opponents when he suddenly began to keep up with them.

Camrad_RIP 10.08.24 в 20:57

But the enemy was too good, and Stepan made a wrong move. He forgot that the smallness of his opponent is not only lightweight but also maneuverability, the ability to get into small gaps. For example, jumping up, running up the wall of the barely standing inn that their attack had pinned him against, coming in from the side where the air mass seal supported by the spirits was weaker. One swing of her rapier, which, like every time before, had fallen out of focus, followed by a telekinesis-enhanced kick. He still reacted, playing not just a risky game but almost Russian roulette with a handgun, pushing himself up and saving himself from decapitation. Instead of blowing his not-too-clever, if one teacher's comments were to be believed, head off, or, given the shape of the blade and the little girl's fencing technique, sticking the blade in his eye, the girl, a couple hundred years old at least, easily and gracefully redirected the blow, cleaving his chest deeper than halfway through. She cut through the heart, the spinal column, the lungs, and a bunch of vessels. Then kicked the young man into flight.

Camrad_RIP 11.08.24 в 08:57

He instinctively used a spiritual grip on himself, keeping himself from bleeding out in a matter of moments, keeping himself alive for at least a couple more seconds. In a cloud of splinters that had not yet fallen from the reflection of the bloody rupture, he flew through the wall that had been knocked out by the rupture and into one of the first-floor rooms of the inn, hitting the edge of the breach and watching with uncomfortable surprise as his body, almost split in two, sliced in two, twisted bizarrely, giving him a glimpse of his inner world. The impact, first on the edge of the breach, then on the floor, and then, sliding across it, and against the far wall, knocked away any vestiges of concentration, and a fountain of scarlet blood spurted in all directions, flooding the old floorboards and shutting down his brain.

Camrad_RIP 11.08.24 в 09:00

The brain, not the spirit, because the remnants of the reserve invested in thin bodies allowed him to buy another five to ten seconds of self-awareness, but he won't get even that. His perception, still overclocked by the system clock, sees his opponents rushing towards him, rushing to kill him or to prevent him from destroying his own body. Experienced infestations. They know that many hunters of their brethren prefer to spoil their guts, just to avoid becoming a ghoul, or to avoid feeding those ghouls themselves. Of course, no one told the young man about it directly, but in the knowledge base of the combat shaman were several types of reinsurance for such a case, so as not to get the enemy for dinner if you can not avoid death. It was a shame he didn't know what to prepare for and therefore didn't use a single call from that list. It was a common practice to kill wounded gifted, though. Mortally wounded mages, witches, spellcasters, shamans, or whatever else, liked to try to set off fireworks before they died, to say goodbye, so to speak.

Camrad_RIP 11.08.24 в 09:04

They say that at the moment of the greatest danger, in general, just before death, the whole life lived, its mistakes and achievements, flashes before the eyes, forcing one to look into the eyes of one's sins and virtues. Apparently, they lied, because nothing passed before Stepan's eyes, except the darkness of unconsciousness, which gradually rolled on. Nor did the angel behind his right shoulder and the demon behind his left shoulder come to him, nor did they tell him any terrible truths that would make the blood in his veins cold, if it had not already flowed out in great quantities. If there was something mystically incomprehensible, it was the flickering image of Rodislav Gastotoldovich Yanin, who probably decided to kick Satan off Stepan's shoulder by his trademark tone: "Retake the exam, you ignoramus!", which would have made his heart stop with horror if it hadn't been cut in two by a blow from a vampire's rapier. Instead of the angel, who had probably kicked him away too, he saw the image of his tipsy grandfather, smiling into his mustache and as if he was not going anywhere, squinting his eyes, asking: "Well, grandson, did your spirits help you?".

Camrad_RIP 11.08.24 в 09:06

//"Fuck you both, I'm not dead yet!" - Stepan, who had finally lost contact with his physical body, but still retained control over his spirituality and self-consciousness, said to them both in his mind.

Camrad_RIP 11.08.24 в 09:06

He mumbled, and then activated "reserve renewal" at the same time, returning up to a hundred percent of the almost spent strength, which was not enough even to walk without stumbling, as well as "life replenishment", instantly disappearing from his body all-all-all purely physical injuries, as well as weak damage to the aura and subtle bodies. And the murderous loli's rapier, despite its fierce piercing power and annoying mental effect, cut primarily through magical shields and physical barriers. If small spirits could be torn apart with it without any problems, then on the aura of a strong mage it left quite tolerable marks, but usually, a decapitated person or a person who received a blade in the brain with a relatively intact aura doesn't give a damn from his grave, unless he is a magister.

Camrad_RIP 11.08.24 в 09:12

The contracted spirits still observing the carnage were scrupulously transmitting all the images they saw to him, so he could almost live-stream the way the nearly cut body blinked as if reality itself had been distorted, abruptly becoming perfectly healthy and normal, even the injuries to the aura was fixed. The blood was restored to its full volume inside the body, but the outer parts of the blood remained. The vampiress, who ran in after him, was probably surprised to see Stepan bloody, stained in the blood as if he had washed his face with it, with a cut leather jacket and shirt at the place of the blow, but whole, healthy, angry and with full reserve.

Camrad_RIP 11.08.24 в 09:15

Surprised, yes. But when twenty-nine air-blade fists struck, literally all the available contracts among the already summoned and yet-to-be-fired members of the wind sphere, she still had time to react. She jumped back, took cover under the thickened scarlet armor, put up a frankly weak barrier of bloody screen, and also zeroed her weight so the push into the barrier would carry her away. The young man would have involuntarily respected her, if he hadn't realized that for so many decades even Stepan himself would have become a deadly fighter, without a System and only on his efficiency.

Camrad_RIP 11.08.24 в 09:20

The leader, behind which the little thing was hiding, hastily raised a bloody dome, and under it another one, but already purely magical and multisegmented, without blood additives. Not bad, especially considering that the lion's share of the magic potential of the bloodsucker's aura was due to corporeality and control, but not power with source. At least they survived another blow, now with fire erupting around the barrier, though the first barrier was shattered, in some places puncturing it all together. In the meantime, the earthman, who had hardly spent his new and full reserve, and who had simply given orders to the spirits already summoned before he was wounded, stepped forward out of the breach, unhurriedly outwardly and sweating profusely inside. He came out, having already covered himself with the barrier of the anteroom, only now with modifications, with fixing, so that it was impossible to transfer the power to a piece of the higher spheres, attacking from the inside due to the bloody connection with the piece of reality soaked in blood. Now, anyone wishing to repeat such a trick would be met with a tough and aggressive defense, a kind of barbed wire.

Camrad_RIP 11.08.24 в 09:35