Готовый перевод Настучать в бубен / Hit the tambourine: Глава 20-7

Chapter 20-7
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Sylvia Malter was only a couple of minutes late, a little late with an urgent call. When a summons came from Lady de Fell, it was all right to be late or even not to accept it, but there had to be a justification for it, or, if you decided to confront her deliberately, a willingness to do so. So far, this toothy creature, who was not her sister in the scarlet drop, but only a human, though almost a master of magic, was confidently pressuring and in small steps subjugating the nest to her will, making Sylvia and her chicks her personal fighting units. She knew this, of course. She had planned to leave the city in five or six years. She had even prepared some escape routes, not to another full-fledged Free City, but to a smaller settlement, but that would be a start. Now that her submissive and most valuable toy had given Sylvia access to the ladder of full omnipotence, those plans could be reconsidered.

She was sure that her shaman, her Pann, her pet and slave, could easily turn de Fell into a dog, a pussycat, or a sleeping agent of the Northern Lords at her will. The realisation of such power, such might, that she could unleash on an enemy was intoxicating better than blood. Almost as much as the possibility of being guaranteed to be no weaker, capable of the same things, even better. At such moments, she was overwhelmed with an unbearable sense of triumph, of victory, of utter triumph that made her want to pop her big pale barrels and tug, tug, tug her only slightly less pale nipples to another orgasm. Alas, time and business prevented one from doing only what one wanted to do all the time. That is, the new steps on the Tablet's feet. She had to devote many hours to what had brought her to what seemed to be the most important heights - the nest and the position of the nest in the mortal world.

It was funny, to the grit of her fangs and the taste of blood coming out of her gums, but what used to be her strongest trump card, her support and beacon, her nest, was no longer helping at all, quite the opposite. She no longer needed reagents and treatises on alchemy for practice, no longer needed to perform tasks for the Northern Lords and mighty Ancients to gain their favour and crumbs of knowledge, no longer needed to maintain a network of puppets and mere informants. Everything she needs will be given to her by the Tablet. All the weak points will be covered by the power of obedient Pann, who would do anything for a chance to be under its spell, for one kiss on her second lips, for one look at her pale breasts. Except that you can't just take and change your habits as abruptly as possible, discarding everything you've built up over centuries, you just can't! It's questions, it's suspicion, it's trouble, it's the risk of being exposed. And an exposed vampire is always either a fugitive or ashes.

She had to keep up the façade, not to give away her increased strength, new knowledge, new power, new facets of her gift, and the degree of knowledge of the Scarlet Drop. It was not difficult. It was even pleasant, if only because it was necessary to hide strength, but not weakness. But how angry is the impossibility to rush at once into self-development, weeks and months honing her, now only her own, knowledge, hunting all sorts of evil or just old enemies, to take full advantage of having a loyal animal, which is still stronger than her and will be for a long time! Anger has long been her not advisor, but a prisoner of the cage of absolute self-control, a fuel for motivation and aspirations, but still, it was difficult to restrain the irritation breaking through here and there. The rudeness and superiority of those who were now just food for her, those who would fall at the mere sight of her, who would not stand a single minute in a fight against her, but still thought of her as a beautiful semeness. She had loved to pretend to be weaker than she really was before, but now, through this inordinately widened gap between what others saw and what she had become.... Oh, the scarlet drop, how it made her angry, how it pissed her off.

Also, Jaspera had fallen off the deck again. Now she must wait for her to properly work her beastie with her //big pale barrels while the toy dreamed of her //sweet juicy slippery lubricated savoury tits! Sylvia cautiously peeked into Panna's assigned room, but found Jaspera already fully immersed in her work, which was not to be interrupted for a moment. She was dressed in a ridiculous-looking country dress, and her gaze was as blank as Pann's, shaking her oiled breasts a few palms away from the boy's face. The boy just stared, not even trying to clench the pulsing rod in his fist, ready to discharge at any moment. Jasper knew what she was doing, and Pann would only be able to finish when he was authorised and ordered to do so.

All the boy could do now was sit in the chair, ignoring the twitching cock, and stare at the thing that had consumed his mind and would not soon let go. His hands rested relaxed on the armrests of the chair, his smile as stupid as it was empty, his eyes moving unerringly to follow the dancing nipples on Jaspera's //large, pale barrels. The rod pulsed in readiness to pour itself out, even his balls seemed poured with power and almost glowed with a vicious pinkish glow, and his lips whispered softly full of passion://++ ‘Laghan! Laghan! Laghan!’ something unintelligible. After watching the couple for a while, and feeling how pleasantly the seed she had drunk not so long ago was splashing inside, a lot of seed, no less than a couple of large goblets, seed full of power and some newly appeared //++unfamiliar berry-cherry sweetness, Sylvia left the couple and went to Jaspera's now empty office.

Yes, they were all well aware of the problem of their low numbers, just as well aware of the need to have each other's backs when needed. In times of need, Sylvia could also sit down and deal with the procurement of food for the servants, paper, household amulets, and ritual reagents she could. But she was resentful that the treasurer of her nest was now shaking her //juicy savoury sweet lubricated slippery tits and she had to work. And she did work for about three hours, successfully completing all the checks and even putting her seal on, happily leaving the desk, just closing the inkwells behind her. She always had enough coordination, so she had no trouble holding it up and not knocking over the contents even when the Tablet itself spoke to her, expressing the will of the one who had given this Tablet to her toy.

System assignment (medium): help the group leader and Tablet bearer free themselves from control by an unknown force; do it quickly and without giving the group leader a time to react.

Reward: three free transferable talents (only transferable to other members of the same group); one rank increase in all meta-skills; two rare tokens, one random artefact from the system shop's list of special items.

Note: The reward for the assignment has been increased by the will of the System Administrator.

Sylvia was conscious of these images for a while, trying to understand what she had received as a task, so atypical and with such an outstanding reward. In the past, she had only been given small tasks, which she had also valued and carefully completed, sometimes rewarding her not only with experience but also with more material rewards. For example, a protective necklace based on a blood ruby. The kind of artefact that only a master artificer very skilled blood mage, could create. Or vice versa, a master of the living and for the living created by the school of blood, which has famously developed the skills of an artefactor. But such a reward for such an assignment was perplexing and simply suspicious. Why would the Tablet even think that Pann, her completely submissive pet, was under the control of some other power than her own?

It was silly, delusional, and impossible, so delusional that Maler almost dropped the inkwell, forgetting to twist it all the way back on, just so he could tear the clothes off her pale tits and start pensively pinching and stroking those delicate and impossibly sensual nipples. Okay, the task itself didn't require her control to be removed, and she wouldn't. It was such a risk, such a danger, to bring such a powerful boy to consciousness. But we can check to see if he's under any other control, can't we? She didn't like anyone to play with her toys. She hadn't liked it since human and mortal life, and she didn't like it now in the eternal non-life. After all, no one will charge her with a bag of gold and gold sandals for a mere inspection, will they? But it's just nonsense even to think about such a thing is stupid, it's better to stroke the nipples on her tits a little more....

"...a-a-ah!" She was cumming and almost forgot, but then her leg failed her in an unexpected weakness as for so experienced undead. Her sense of balance, switched off by the orgasm, failed her once more, causing her to fall on the heavy wardrobe in which Jaspera kept her clothes, refusing on principle to move it from the study, where, apart from the only wardrobe with clothes, all the others were filled with papers, contracts and books, mostly counting books. "Ouch!"

An unexpected pain, and a heightened one. It's more sensitive than pleasure of fondled tits. It caused her to go into an inanimate phase, to jump up and get to her feet, releasing Bloody Claws. The pain has already passed, the small wound on her forehead is rapidly healing, and Sylvia looks perplexed at her tall, gold-colored open-toed boots, realizing with surprise that she was knocked by the heel of the boots that fell out of her treasurer's closet. The heel was also lined with a soft and impractical gold coin, in the style's color. The solar priests had obviously consecrated the coin itself, so it burned her, not severely or dangerously, but very tangibly, enough to put her in full combat mode. Sylvia stares at this boot in bewilderment, amazed that such a thing was even in Jaspera's closet. Although she likes to wear something screamingly impractical when she's in the mood, she did, or rather she did seventy years ago. She also felt that even without stroking her now completely desensitized nipples, which had become as dead as the rest of her body, she seemed to lose focus of consciousness and forget....

Sylvia Malter was a very skilled bloodsucker, despite her relatively peaceful nature and development towards Bloody Patronage and Bloody Resonance Control. With the acquisition of the Soul Tablet, she became even more dangerous. And here, on her traditional battlefield, in her inanimate phase and agitated by the holy heel that had burned her, she reacted to the fleeting feeling exactly as she had been accustomed to reacting since the days when she had been taught to resist imperceptible suggestion by her parents' older fledglings. It took her less than a moment to intensify and deepen the inanimate phase and focus on parts of her thin body, blocking some of the auric channels in her brain and blocking the auric node responsible for short-term memory. Realizing perfectly well that the impact of her renewed and intensified influence just has to be very strong and skillful, the bloodsucker makes her bet.

She looks at her own palm, hanging in front of her face and curled in the traditional gesture of the jungle tribes of the South, signifying something like “I am sick and contagious, stay away from me and my house,” and does not remember why she folded it that way. But she knows that she has trained herself to react to such a sign in her own performance, although the meaning of this sign for her personally is different: “working suggestion, dangerous to remember, threat of defocusing the mind and adjusting the thinking to a pattern”. She is used to believing herself, and therefore she reacts almost without delay and doubt, starting to remember what exactly she was going to do, without even thinking about for what reason and why she does it.

The toy, her favorite pet, Pann, so skillfully licking her flower... for some reason, she has to order him to check himself for outside control. She knows for a fact that he is under her power and it is that control that he will not reset in any way, not even willing to reset. Similarly, she knows that any variant in which he was subjugated or influenced by someone else is a priori so stupid that she should pull herself by the nipples and forget about this foolishness. Only Sylvia is used to trusting herself and therefore does not think about why she does what she does, does not think about the reasons, just mechanically making a decision in agreement with the pattern of actions and not remembering the reasons that made her apply this pattern. And she can't caress and stroke her nipples with her fingers anyway. In the inanimate phase, her sensitivity doesn't perceive pleasure, and she reacts to pain only with a dry and indifferent awareness of damage.

Sylvia doesn't button back her already torn clothes, nor does she put away the things that have been scattered in her overstuffed closet for forty years. She goes exactly where the loyal Jaspera is working on Pann. He is still sitting in the chair, silent. Only his cock is throbbing and his pupils are watching the shaking and oiled tits, not taking his eyes off the big and beautiful nipples. The first thing she does is go behind the boy's back and catch the blank stare of Jaspera, who is in a trance even deeper than her victim. She activates both the Gaze and the Scarlet Patronage at the same time. She overrides the strange control of someone else, which comes through several cups of the treasurer's swallowed Pann seed. There is nothing strange about that control. She shouldn't perceive it as strange, and she doesn't. She just acts according to a pattern. She has literally braided her mind, and therefore knows no doubts or limitations. Her mind claims that this control through the Pann seed should not be blocked and should not be noticed either, that it does not exist, but the algorithm embedded more than a century ago demands to disarm and put into trance everyone, in general, everyone who is near the main target.

A blow of patronage and an order to scorch the blood, or rather the semen, a blow of will from her eyes and the same order, an override of control over Jaspera's body and aura. She feels a similar type of patronage on herself too, also through many sips of delicious and useful shamanic semen, she knows that this control is correct and not dangerous, that she should obey it and not notice it, but she is in the inanimate phase and under the directive of self control, and therefore she does what the directive says, though she does not understand why to destroy such a pleasant and tasty control at all, why to burn such a sweet, nourishing and tender semen. It doesn't matter, a moment later the echo of not particularly strong control simply disappears, displaced by Sylvia's aura and scarlet droplet, burns away with the non-blood, giving a temporary boost of strength and burning out all impurities. A working method. It's always a working method. It's the reason why only a more powerful vampire can poison or control a vampire with blood, well, or seed. The unknown and not at all suspicious controller was not a vampire, and the control was still taking root. It was not crude and almost invisible. She was sorry for what had happened. She knew for a fact that it was not necessary to get rid of the seed and the controller, but the directive was leading her, leading her more than will and decisions.

Not even a moment passes, Pann is just beginning to move, for Jasper, who has stopped shaking her lubricated tits, and he, too, seems to be connected to the same source of control as she is, through the seed. Sylvia knows for a fact that this control must not be broken, but the directive says otherwise. She has spent years teaching it, hammering into herself the order to listen to the directive, not herself, in case of activation. Only Sylvia could activate her, only she could determine the depth of activation, and now it was at its maximum, only she could determine the importance of such an act. Yes, such a trick could be used against a vampire, or even a living one if it possessed an analog. Yes, it was an actual bookmark, a trigger-activator, which in skillful hands could be used by the enemy. But it would be much easier for the enemy to catch Sylvia and subdue her with long and thoughtful work than to unnoticeably open her defenses, sift through her mental shell, find a not at all obvious bookmark, and use it to subdue her. Against someone with the power to do so, Malter would have little chance anyway, regardless of the directive. It was with such thoughts that she had once taken the risk and undergone this training. That's why she doesn't hesitate, though her whole being cries out against it, that's why she acts before the strange control on Panna takes over even more.

In the young man's hands is a doll that exactly replicates Sylvia's appearance and aura, but that's the norm. She doesn't attack the doll, no, only Pann himself, only him. The eye-to-eye glance manages to still a little before the order goes out already to the puppet, piercing the will of the young man caught off guard, infusing his mind and spirit with Sylvia's will. Less than a fraction of an instant to let his will sink deep enough, gently and harmlessly cutting off any attempt at resistance, and then to give the orders aloud. It was out loud, there was no Blood Patronage on Panna, and he had to hear her will or it wouldn't take shape into something concrete.

"Freeze." Her first command sounds quiet and indifferent-dead tone, and she, making sure the command is accepted by him, continues. "Don't fight. Don't defend yourself. Submit. Obey. Obey. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep."

A wave of foreign power passes through her beloved pet's aura and body, spreading from her groin and throughout the aura. Sylvia knows this force, knows that it is a good force and doesn't need to be resisted, but there is no use. She doesn't control herself to submit to someone else, even though she's pretty sure she should. Instead, she blocks the attempt to override her compulsion, suppressing it gently and harmlessly for Pann, ensuring that the boy's cock reflexively releases a very long and strong jet of semen, and in doing so absorbs some of the reserve, covering the wall and ceiling with a white mass. He would have covered Jasper, but she, obeying the patronage command, moved to the wall and stood motionless there.

"Go back to sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep." Says and says Sylvia, methodically, mechanically, time after time pushing through a little more of the young man's resistance, clearly increased since their last training session of resisting her eyes, finally achieving the desired result. "Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Asleep. Now begin the aura and spirit run in afterburner mode, burning out all control on your mind except for my influence."

Within the framework of her directive, there seems to be no doubt that it is her control that cannot be affected or removed in any way, only someone else's control, even if her consciousness considers it a mistake, demanding to caress her nipples and forgetting that this control exists at all, either on her or on him. It is good, probably, because she does not feel any control over the boy, but, as in the previous cases, the consciousness outlined by the directive does not react to this, continuing to help the boy to free himself from invisible fetters.

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Sylvia's attack was both swift and absolutely fucking sudden. After all, there had been no foreshadowing. He had created and tested all the reassurances himself, fine-tuned them regularly, and knew for a fact the strongest of his dolls could not physically come up with the idea of attacking him. But what he was counting obviously had nothing to do with what was actually happening. One moment he was still on the verge of orgasm, watching hypnotized Jaspera in her peasant gown shake her lubricated breasts, and the next moment his head was thrown back by strong fingers and the scarlet eyes of the High Vampire struck him with a subjugating gaze of maximum intensity. Had he been fully conscious, had he been ready, his newly enhanced consciousness and spiritual body would have managed to resist until the moment when he would either counteract or simply switch off Sylvia through her doll. History, practice, and Rodislav Gastoldovich Yanin critically disliked the phrase ‘if only’.

To be fair, he did manage to summon a doll of his subordinate from his spiritual pocket, and even began to reach for it with his will, seeking to simply and uncomplicatedly chop the toy off before it fell into catatonia. No mind, not even reflexes. He should not disarm her, but rather clutched the doll in his grip immediately and broke it along with the mirror of the main envolt. He would have lost Sylvia, but would have been saved from defeat. Alas, he still valued Malter too much. He'd gotten too used to her and also never managed to cultivate in himself a healthy cynicism and a willingness to be betrayed on either side. And also, just before, he was in a completely inadequate state, having been on the verge of an increasingly elusive release for several hours now. In such a situation, in such a time crunch, his exhausted consciousness was unable to react in time, not even his combat reflexes helped.

At one point, for a split second, he thought he was going to make it, when a sudden wave of power came from his loins that tried to wash away the effect of Sylvia's gaze with a wave of berry-honey sweetness, but it only came out in the changed configuration of the bloodsucker's influence, the way it suppressed resistance. And it also just poured out when he, already sinking into helplessness, suddenly cummed with such force that he nearly injured himself with some of his thin bodies. Fortunately, they were strong and elastic enough to survive both the infusion of another man's power and its outpouring with the orgasm. Orders pounded into his head like multi-ton stones falling on a lake surface, and in an instant he couldn't hold back another blow, completely broken and submissive.

His consciousness was completely empty and devoid of any thoughts. There was only Sylvia's gaze and her words, and that was why he obeyed those words and that will. He had nothing but the vampiress's orders, nor was there any support for resistance. There was no reason, desire, persistence, nothing, just orders. In such a situation, when the main resistance is already broken, it is extremely difficult to twist out of control. In the arsenal of the senior shaman and specialist in witchcraft and envolts, of course, some tricks could help now. But they were either complicated, or dangerous, or did not guarantee success, or they could become an additional lever of influence on the mind if the enemy became aware of such precautions.

His busy schedule and the strange laziness had been haunting him lately, preventing him from looking into such matters deeply enough. Though he had sincerely intended, for example, to make his own envolt doll and set up the transfer of any influences from himself to the doll. It was even possible not to keep it at his place, even in the same underground halls, but to give it to his favorite sister or to some unfamiliar and never seen pretty village bitch with sweet juicy lubricated slippery village tits, for storage, so that no one's hands could get to such a vulnerable thing. It didn't work out, he didn't have time, he couldn't, he didn't succeed, he failed, and a hundred other “don'ts”, which led to the fact that he looked at Sylvia with an indifferent gaze and was ready to do her bidding.

The order is received, the order is understood, the order is obeyed, and Stepan begins the standard run-through-cleanup, carefully skipping the impact of Sylvia's eye. He doesn't ask for reasons. He doesn't look for an excuse. He just performs, first the standard cleansing, which he already does regularly and used to do before he got bored, followed by the advanced versions. He doesn't find anything suspicious at first, unless you count Malter's stealthy control, but he doesn't stop, goes through the configurations, restores his meta-skill reserve, and continues with more diligent investment of that reserve. Again nothing, only the faintest traces of some residual fluctuations, but he does not allow himself to stop.

The strange pulse coming from the still tense dick seemed to be trying to create counter-pulses, not interfering with his search, but waves infused into the movements of his aura, shifting his perception slightly. If to him, a couple of minutes earlier, this would have seemed normal, now he simply mechanically perceived the interference as precisely an interference with his task, with Sylvia's words and her orders. Changing the configuration abruptly and already based on the received data, isolating the auric nodes located in the groin, in the scrotum itself, and then switching to active pulse scanning. And not stopping the work with the mind, looking for all kinds of lacunas in the parts of the subtle body responsible for memories. It turns out to be not so difficult if there are no distracting factors, if it is physically impossible to distract oneself and stop searching.

Blurred memories, vague shadows, fragments of thoughts. Nothing serious, but it was a clue to his knowledge, a reason to intensify the intensity of the reserve, a reason to strengthen the influence on these very areas. At first, only certain fragments, weak points, and places were distorted or wiped out insufficiently. In any case, even the most skillful suggestion will be such points, it is in the very nature of mental magic of any type, if we speak about deep bookmarks and activators. These samples are good, even beautiful, and strengthened by a certain general force, a viscous flow of tenderness and honey, berry sweetness and spicy tartness, which the willless mind interprets as quite obvious, though initially disguised, demonic foulness. The reason to start not even to panic, but literally to squeal a little bitch, but Stepan had no will, and so he only silently accepted the new information, acting with it in mind.

The dam burst already on the remnants of the reserve, which had to be renewed once again, now with a Token. He had already used up the charges of his meta-skills, constantly replenishing his seed after superstormy orgasms, when his vampires swallowed unnaturally abundant seed in liters. Blurred out memories, which never went anywhere, just weren't perceived as anything outside of the usual background of thoughts. Distorted memories, which weren't exactly as he remembered them. Scuffed pieces of memory that were completely lost in the daily grind. Compulsions, activators, mental ticking mantras of constant repetition, enhanced cravings or diminished brakes, reworked associative chains. Had he been in a normal state, he might have said his brain could have been used as an anatomical manual to study the textbook gradual-processing-subjugation of the subjugating type. But, alas, let his run and point distortions of the spiritual body hurt Sylvia's control, but she was constantly renewing it.

The shaman stares fixedly and uninterruptedly into the scarlet eyes and tries not to interfere with her control, mechanically noticing details, but not paying attention to them. The vampiress's face was now completely still, distorted, her cheekbones slightly changed, her jaw stretched, and she became the true embodiment of the ominous valley. Such a Sylvia did not arouse carnal desire or admiration for her appearance, did not fall under the archetype of the gothic lady vamp, no. Such a one she was, exactly a deadly and very old bloodsucker, a creature with no true life but who feared death, paying for her sojourn between two states with the blood of others. It was also a reason to be afraid, but just the same, Stepan didn't care now. He was completely immersed in the process of removing compulsions, uprooting bookmarks, suppressing activators, and, of course, restoring memories to normal.

Pirius's request for herbs, the cramped storeroom, the unstable staircase, on which the sales clerk, who introduced herself as Gelda, stood, barely holding herself up, chatting cheerfully in peasant speak. The absence of underwear on her and a good angle, that makes it easy to see the pussy, which are so inviting, attracting the eye. Continuing the conversation with Gelda already standing on the floor, losing the thread of the conversation, the memory of her pussy glistening from under her dress, which took up all the space in his head. Trying to overcome the excitement and the image of the wet and inviting petals of her flower, which made him stagger on his feet. Any attempt to summon an entourage or unleash spiritual claws only makes the image of pussy even more intense. The thought of attack - pussy. The thought of defense - pussy. The thought of wrongness - pussy, any thought at all - pussy, until there are no thoughts at all, just pussy, pussy, pussy, pussy pussy. The last moment before the loss of consciousness, the remnants of strength and mind, long ago switched to spiritual thinking, but a viral image-memetic germinates in the spiritual body, manages to burn out the attack for a moment before he turns into a submissive and obedient shaman-idiot.

A hitherto hidden infernal force, eyes watering from long immobility without blinking, dizziness overcome, Gelda standing in front of him, her dress down and her already greased breasts exposed. A long conversation, during which he still tries to object, not realizing that he is being mentally corrected, while the one who speaks through the mouth of the saleswoman instills in him an obsessive fetish for big-breasted peasants, their manner of speech, the cut of their clothes and, of course, the size of their tits. Forcing him to agree to forget something as long as the peasant tits are not removed from his face, forcing him to agree to remember something else as long as she lets him touch her nipples with his lips. Inducing a second fetish for the oil that covers the large breasts, an unnatural desire to fuck women between the breasts, necessarily large and soft, pre-lubricated and preferably peasant breasts.

Oblivion, return, meeting again after the epic with the Kingdom of Worms, new chains of suggestion and association, frank conversations, when he talks about himself, his real name, the system and other trivialities that cost much less than a touch of his tongue on Gelda's tits. The taste of cherry and honey, of vice and passion on his lips and hers, on her cunt, which he licks willingly, seeing the same tits in front of his eyes, licking to keep seeing. Gelda, sitting on his face, literally suffocating him to unconsciousness, putting new and new compulsions into his head, forcing him to ignore the obvious, forcing him to do what was put into those compulsions, to make himself as open and as dangerous as possible to the one who spoke through the mouth of the peasant.

Choose the most useless second class possible. Do as little business and pumping as possible. Spend as much time as possible in the company of vampiresses and their big, oiled breasts. Oils that Sylvia's servants, on her orders, bought from the same shop where Gelda works. Some of the compulsions don't work. The enemy's actions are as smooth and harmless as possible, unnoticeable and insidious, and therefore, at first, especially after choosing the anniversary property for thirty levels, they are weak enough for logic and common sense to prevail. He gets off the hook at some point, but makes life much more difficult for the creature, forcing it to act more brutally during the next encounter. The scene with Singha, who almost managed to help him, who almost got him off the hook, who just lacked determination, who needed not to shut up at his behest, but to continue to press, to torment his unstable mind with words and to force him to notice the distortions in his mind. “Almost” is almost like ”if only.” The attitude of history, practice, and Rodislav Gastoldovich Yanin to these terms is quite identical.

This time in that tavern is not only a short-haired bandit playing the role of an innkeeper, in company Gelda. Now the demoness herself is there, a sweet little sister who loves her brother very much. Harsher compulsions, an even stronger reinforced fetish for controlling those who think they are controllers. It is an unequivocal mockery, the very thoughts of him constantly repeating the verbal mantra, but laughing with Sylvia doing the same, a mockery of him, a game of minds and psychologies that he is hopelessly losing as he sinks into debauchery. A visit to his little sister becomes a turning point. Now she has a much stronger influence, spends much more time questioning him about all the details. Now she doesn't just force cum out the memory of her name out with the seed. She's erasing the demonic threat from his perception altogether. He stops even noticing the obvious traces of infernal energy, stops realizing that such a threat could even exist.

She also provokes him to tell him the full story of all the tricks he has been plotting against her, forces him to tell everything, forces him to endow her body with characteristics and two properties at once, to endow both her puppets, the bandit and the peasant. She asks to be accepted into the group, beckoning access to the peasant's oil-covered breasts, which for him has already become analogous to a dose for a heroin addict in withdrawal, but something in him rises, refuses to do something so intimate. She can make him do it, but for some reason she hesitates, preferring to look for a workaround, playing out the scene for him and misses at the smallest things, he hears the distorted name of the earth game, corrects her and wonders how it is possible not to know such an elementary thing. One thought pulls a cascade of new ones and the infuriated demoness turns him off anew, this time no longer demanding that he be included in the group. She could have done so, but even now her influences are very numerous but minimal, leaving no trace even with an extremely diligent search.

He is entangled in a web, a multitude of subtle and feeble compulsions, each one insignificant in its own right, and yet she is wary of making him overly her own, as if for some reason she can't do that. As if it were somehow critical that he come to her on his own, without being her slave and contractor. In all the processing, non at all any form of soul-selling contract or deal-making was brought up. None at all, though there was nothing stopping her from almost immediately buying the isekai's eternity for the right to kiss the demoness' heels. Technically he still had free will, he still considered her a sissy and could refuse her and Mummy and Auntie, rather than obediently doing his Mistress' bidding. At some point, when she went too far, the demoness would pull herself back, rubbing the back of her plain shirt as if afraid of something.

Instead of joining the group, she plays with the templates of his mind, that girls play with dolls. She gains access to his dolls, forcing him, under her supervision, to make a few specific changes. She does not control the dolls, unable to override that control, but scrutinises the control mechanisms, looking for a workaround, and he assists her in every way possible, immersed in a passionate scientific debate, cumming from the realisation of his superiority over her in terms of erudition regarding the work with envolts. A splatter of seed covers the underside of the table they're sitting at, and Sis orders the bandit to swallow what he lets out so as not to distract them all from the dialogue, which she seems genuinely interested in, despite her growing irritation that she still hasn't talked him into accepting her into the group.

The compulsions lay down on the dolls and so the bloodsuckers become more dominant, more authoritative, and his fetish-perversion for playing with those he controls, but which he considers himself to be in control of, is once more intensified and changed. Now he doesn't refuse Sylvia or the other vampiresses at all to do their intimate bidding. Where before he had only chuckled at Sylvia's fantasies of licking her feet, letting her speak and immediately changing her mind to a more acceptable form of sex, now he simply does her bidding, finding it a delightful mockery. A taunt truly worthy of the best trolls, because he finds himself in the mirror role, as if he himself has become Sylvia Malter. He licks, barks on command, kisses her feet, jerks off with her underwear on his face or wrapped around his cock, cum on command, obeys activator-triggers, and does many other things, believing himself to be fully aware of the whole situation and convinced that he's just playing the role of her slave. In some ways, he is right, because he never became her slave.

His sister's palms on his balls, warm and almost scalding, putting something into him, absorbing the magic that feeds the drawings her sister left on the bandit's body. He looks at Gelda shaking her breasts, ignoring everything around him, including the fact the nightmare creature, who looks like a schoolgirl, has built a full-fledged modification into his spirit, body, and aura. Now he has no a priori problems with potency, and his body is ready at any moment to spew litres of seed, impregnated with the demoness's will and magic, her personal foulness, almost insensible, even if one knows of its presence. And he had all these days since that visit diligently fed his dolls this stuff. The pre-made changes through the dolls did not let them realise the problem and forced them to voluntarily tune in to the demoness's control, not to perceive it as a threat, categorically not wanting to interrupt it. The embedded triggers, which could be influenced by anyone, not just Pann, the shifted thoughts, which made them less and less interested in the usual methods of careful paranoia, instead looking for new ways to play with their parents' subjugated shaman.

And so, at the moment of one of suchl games, when Jaspera, immersed in a trance, was plunging Stepan into an even deeper trance, who was repeating time after time, even now hidden behind layers of other, denser compulsions, his sister's name, Silvia came to him, switched off Jaspera, and then subdued him and ordered him to tear off all possible means of control. He did tear them off, finishing only when he had recovered a rough picture of the events. Although the same reason and logic understand the simple truth, if the sister-demon hid her name behind separate blocks of compulsions, then there, behind those separate and carefully hidden compulsions, may hide a lot of other things, including more narrowly sharpened bookmarks. The knowledge of a specialist in brainwashing other people's brains suggests many variants of such hidden-sleeping suggestion - switching off consciousness, evoking various emotions, increasing confidence, some behavioural algorithm, there are countless variants. Given the nature of the demoness and her chosen vice, those options will be from among those approved by the Autogoddess for sure.

"I'm done." Calmly and indifferently, as if a little aloofly, he informs the still-controlled bloodsucker, then involuntarily freezes and staggers on his feet because of the abrupt deactivation of control by the one who covered her eyes. "Oh, fuckyoufuckyoufuckyou!"

A rant in a language alien to this world could have summoned another demon right here, but Stepan was not in the mood for humor. The realization of the situation came so abruptly that even the fortitude prescribed in his system properties couldn't fully rid him of the wild mixture of shame, anger, rage, and panicked terror. He knew what demons were, and that knowledge only made him more terrified. Especially when the shroud of oblivion did not hide all the information about the infernal inhabitants. However, it was only thanks to this fear and panic that he did not burn on the spot, turning to ashes from pure shame, or fall into the deepest layers of the Dungeon. Not to mention his burning ass, which, in the language of his namesake, was not only comparable in brightness to the Astronomicon, but overshadowed it the way a supernova explosion overshadows a pocket flashlight.

Sylvia was wobbling on unsteady legs, looking around with a strange look, but it was her movements that brought the shaman back to his senses. His grasp and reflexes, including his combat ones, came into play. The situation was and remained deadly. That was the only reason he kept his composure as well. The first thing he did was to summon the Malter doll and shut it down, completely, put it on standby, so to speak. It was already obvious he had helped the demoness compromise his bloodsuckers, both by putting the compulsions she had indicated through the dolls and by injecting unnaturally copious streams of semen, converting the entire nest to an alternate diet. He couldn't be sure the demonic creature his mind wanted to call sister wouldn't be able to take control of his puppets. A second later, the same instructions passed into the minds of the remaining vampires, including Jaspera, slowly recovering from the attack through Bloody Patronage. By the way, the fact that all the bloodsuckers were under the roof of the mansion today could be considered a great fortune, otherwise, there would have been a risk of compromising or destroying the vampires under control.

Artemia turned off without a problem. She only put aside the amulet she was imbuing with her magic. Lemira and Rowena were already halfway to the room he occupied. They were also naked above the waist for some reason and had covered their breasts with some kind of oil. A deeper study of their consciousnesses showed that they had heard, not by ear but by their very essence, a distant and unnatural voice saying to them a seemingly meaningless phrase about tits and pussy, from which they concluded that it was necessary to smear their breasts with oils and to push Pann, their parent's toy, into those tits until he came and fell asleep. Stepan already remembered that he had installed this acoustic activator, but the fact that the women were able to hear it as if his ghost had whispered it in their ears was clearly a consequence of their diet. The words had come to them through the absorbed blood substitute. The two half-naked ladies went into the nearest room and fell asleep there. Stepan let himself exhale a little and began to think about more important problems.

His spiritual body stayed in full battle form, constantly reconfiguring and preparing to fend off an attack on his consciousness, as if during his most vigorous training with Sylvia. Only instead of bloody resonance, he now had demonic filth and vicious compulsions. Here is the difficulty spike. Here is the NIGHTMARE level. Given the demonic nature of the threat, the good old DOOM joke becomes not so funny anymore, more like scary. The shaman mentally holds his breath and, preparing for all the bad things to happen, turns simultaneously to his internal sensorics scanning the energy anomaly in his groin, as well as to the universal argument in the form of a Status window. He searches there for something new. He finds something new there, especially in the properties section, but he doesn't feel happy about it. It's not the kind of upgrade to be happy about.

Acquired Properties: ...demonic modification of aura, body, and spirit (unstable): Hidden Binding Stream of White Passion

The analysis of the help only confirms his suspicions, and also calms down a little the panic desire to rip this crap out of himself immediately, even if together with his dick, balls and corresponding pieces of aura and spirit. It's still necessary to rip it out, but at least now it's clear that it can be done without injury. Still, the property-modification turned out to be unstable, as the System help claimed, and therefore not strong enough, not yet fully rooted in a rather strong body and spirit with a relatively high resistance. If the rooting is already complete, it would be a task for several months of painstaking preparation to tear out the demonic gift without permanent trauma, especially if the modification itself and its giver were actively interfering. Fortunately, however, the worst has not happened yet, and he has every chance to rid himself of the foulness without traumatic amputations and subsequent tenor singing.

After that story with Shera, he had kept and constantly updated, supplemented with stronger versions, the invocations specialising in removing curses and other energy anomalies, especially in such an intimate area. Of course, to compare Gaia's essentially harmless expression of disapproval with demonic foulness was fraught with the fact that the disapproval would become many times more severe, for the degree of danger and, well, foulness are quite different. However, the principle of counteraction is quite similar there and there. He will cope, although not without difficulty, especially given all the same active resistance to the demoness, which clearly will smell his attempts and preparation, as well as no less active resistance to the demoness, because if the creature with its specialisation and strength does not want you to do something, then very quickly and you do not want to.

The modification, in fact, isn't even particularly harmful. He was sure she could have given him something far more dangerous and extreme, not to mention fully treating him with the vice and not risking him being freed by some fluke that still needed to be analysed in detail. The very distortion and mutation of the shells relied on the doubled gift of Her Milfeisance, which made him the perfect bull breeder, feeding off of it and distorting the original property somewhat. More semen, the ability to recycle magic into super-fast regeneration of the stock of that semen, so fast that it was already an actual materialisation, the ability to recycle the stored semen back into magic, and a sympathetic connection to the creator of the mutation. A sort of analogue to the ever-shifting but stable presence of an envolt, extremely similar to what Sylvia could do through blood resonance. If the modification were to take root, it would be even more difficult to contain the creature's effects than Sylvia's attacks, which drank several litres of his blood.

Fortunately, the principles of the bloody control and those sharpened by the modified semen were indeed similar in many ways, and Stepan mentally thanked himself that he had decided to train to counteract it using the erotic method. Demonic sister clearly tried to cautiously probe him, but ran into only a monolithic defense of “developed practices of spiritual and cognitive confrontation”. In Sylvia's case, he could also attack using the same envolt and the same resonance method to strike with a counter-pulse. Alas, but the demoness was much better at her craft than anyone else, and she was also perfectly protected from retaliatory strikes by the fact that the “leverage” was literally hidden in Stepan's groin. Every attempt to attack through resonance would be like trying to kick himself in the balls, not to mention the fact that she would have many times more experience in such a fight. And if he were in her place, he would be sure to clog the communication channel with additional traps in case he tried to strike back or simply find the creator of the mutation through her creation.

\\“No, only blocking until I extract it, and then, when only the energy frame remains from the mutation, and separated from myself. Then we'll see”. - Angry, but at the same time balanced and calmly thought the shaman, simultaneously analyzing the situation and summoning his dolls. - “Alrighty, it's fair to admit that this thing fucked me, almost took me whole, and also put me in a time crunch. I don't have time, but you can find it if you try hard enough. And I, bitch, will try very, very hard, with all my imagination, which is not too healthy.

The vampiresses move with jagged puppet-like movements, disappear into the dark yawn of the wardrobe, vanishing from the mansion and appearing in the underground vault. Following them, he went there himself, immediately realising why the creature's compulsions did not let him stop being lazy and demanded that he should not come here, but rather oil Jaspera's or Sylvia's breasts and fuck those hypnotically oscillating things. In the first few seconds, the sensory groups, which were hiding in totems or flying outside them, began to sound the alarm. The demonic modification was indeed perfectly concealed, and the shaman had every chance even to go to temples quietly or pass very serious checks, if they were not clearly directed at him. The foulness merged with his aura, hiding in his spirit and pushing beyond the perception of what sensory fields of the standard type that even divine prayers. The maximum he was threatened with after the prayer: temporary erectile dysfunction from the conflict of forces, literally for two or three days, no more.

Here, among those who knew his spirit and aura, who could see through his body and were in their peak spirit power? They noticed his condition at once, and while some of them noticed only traces of corruption, immediately signalling ‘be careful’ and hinting to the shaman to check himself, the part of those spirits more specialised in searching for curses or other harmful effects, at least four of them, all strong, also determined the type of influence, and one of the four localised it quite accurately. However, the spirit-beast in the form of a lizard folded from paper sheets, sincerely and with care, suggested cutting off and chewing off everything protruding so it grows back later, rather than bother with cleaning. For example, it grows back for him. He had more than once thrown off a part of himself, transferring harmful curses or energy traumas to his tail, and therefore he was sincerely surprised to learn that a shaman's tail does not grow back by itself. He was so surprised that he began to sympathise with him, and even lowered the price for his services, saying that you, poor guy, were having a hard time as it was.

Stepan's “pity” almost made his ass smoke, but there was already a supernova, so he suppressed his emotions, for everything that could burn was already burning. All of his dolls sat along the wall, as one immersed in a rough and peremptory catatonia, in which it would be unrealistic to take control over them or connect to their feelings. But he made them close their eyes, punch their eardrums, and turn their faces to the wall, just in case. Paranoia was the only way to go; his opponent was too obscure and dangerous, and so were all demons. Not to mention the fact that this scum was not any demon, but clearly selected and dangerous - trash, which managed to catch him, even if not ready for battle, so clearly and skillfully, the rank and file can not be. And that trash, which managed to find him after meeting in a dream, it seems, in the same dream questioned properly, is not unusual even against the background of already existing unusualities.

The shaman looked around and readied himself, turning to the list of meta-skills, about to activate selective temporal fixation, but noticed with considerable annoyance that both charges of it were now in rollback. The original one, and the one that was given to him due to ‘distributed enhancement of charges for meta-skills’. Yeah, right, she'd demanded he give them more time to play, and he couldn't find a fucking reason to say no to his sister. So she'd gained at least a full twenty-four hours on top to process him, if you didn't count the time he'd spent with her outside the temporal anomaly. And the charges renewed for a full six months each. He mentally pictured the cunt's cheeky giggle, or maybe he didn't, maybe she actually managed to peek at his thoughts and convey the image of her laughter. He suppressed the involuntary and unnatural erection with a spiritual distortion of himself, adjusting his defences again and realising that the creature had become more active, and increased the pressure.

He couldn't just use his camaraderie right now. He couldn't buy time, no way. Six months of waiting. But at the same time, the creature was wrong. It was pushing him too hard right now, trying to keep him from coming up with something important. This fact, which he had learnt through his agency's understanding of working with a victim of mental processing who was off the hook, had prevented him from despairing of the idea of using temporal fixation. He also realised that he had initially decided very quickly and without resistance to scrap the idea, literally to hell, ha-ha. Here we were already coming to unambiguous conclusions, and once again, the increased attempts to make a mess of the thoughts coming through the resonator-mutation only strengthened him in those conclusions. He sat down on the stone floor, almost falling on it, partially leaving his body and summoning a couple of spirits of rare specialisation with exotic aspects from the totems. These entities were adept at putting up magical interference.

Not just any kind of interference, like a barrier to communication amulets, or spatial distortions. Such specialists are also very rare, but not that exotic. They were both suggestors, but one was a snail-beast, slowing down the signal-response coupling through the aspect of slowness, and the other was shapeless and devoid of a clear image, acting through the principle of similarity and pretending to be a shaman who had summoned him, taking the signal intended for that shaman for himself. And they suppressed the work of the controlling resonances or envolts, being one of the very few things that could make even the signals-commands through the puppet fail, especially if the puppet is far from perfect. The creature's attempts to get into Stepan's head did not stop. The unnatural lust that hurt him even in spiritual form did not go away, but it became noticeably easier to counteract. It was as if the well-oiled attack, like the mechanism of a music box, began to work out of tune, so that the melody-algorithm of attacking suggestions, chosen specially for him, began to hit not the target, but only in the direction of that target, reducing its effectiveness and losing its inevitability.

In the meantime, the shaman, who had freed some of his concentration from resisting control, was glad that he had set out to find these spirits and bind them with a contract. Not without the demoness's efforts, his plans to continue his training in resisting brainwashing had been forgotten, but the original preparations remained. He had thought to test these spirits specifically in resisting control through blood, and now he was crushing the demonic bond with them. What a twist of fate, curious and terrifying in equal measure! Thoughts flowed lazily and calmly, just as calmly the shaman's mind plunged into new facets of his spirit, looking there for a missed impact, a faded memory, still working compulsion, which so excited the creature that had almost caught him, looking, finding, opening it little by little, for a moment barely keeping the abandoned body from reflexive discharge. At the last moment, the demoness, sensing trouble, poured so much excited lust into him that not even the interference had time to interfere with it, especially given the monotony and roughness of the attack, which was not particularly distorted in response. And yet he did, opened the part of his memory he'd forgotten about, and immediately returned to his body to rant and swearing at the cunning scum.

"The token, bitch! You made me forget about the token!" He feels the spirits begin to give up as the demoness stupidly adapts to their interference and creates a new algorithm, running through their opposition and almost becoming stronger because of it. "What a female dog. I'm almost fascinated, really. I will kill you with all due respect for your merits."

The first of the ten charges of the ‘significant meta-skill renewal’ token had been spent, but the shaman guessed when. At the same time, it became clear how the creature had managed to enhance not only itself, but also its toy-tools. That's how it had managed to embed all the compulsions so tightly into him and modify his spirit-auric body, while still allowing him to rest between sessions. Instead of ten charges, he has nine left. She has carefully made him forget about this particular token, carefully got him to agree to remember it only in her presence, so that he would always have time to play with his little sister. She is still trying to confuse and prevent him from using the cut-off, trying and even partially breaking through his defence, but only the first layers. With that, the shaman activates a new upgrade charge, and then immediately fixes the temporal anomaly and exhales in relief.

The pressure previously ever-present on the edge of consciousness, like sticking your head in a barrel of jam, subsides and ceases, fades away. Now the creature is already out of time stream, and all her skill is powerless against such an obstacle. For a few long seconds he allows himself to just lie there, breathing measuredly and calmly, calming down and making a plan for these twenty-four hours - two charges of meta-skill. And not just twenty-four, that's for sure. That's not enough time. He'll have to spend the tokens properly, maybe not at all, losing all his remaining charges, that's what the tokens' for. At the same time, it would be quite logical to drain all the gifs on his bloodsuckers, so that they wouldn't waste their charges for nothing, and to do not only his own, but also their cleaning from all sorts of crap. They had been treated more weakly than he had been because the treatment had been done through Stepan and had only begun after his last visit to the unfortunate tavern. It's barely a week old. It would have been enough for a lot of things, but the creature was too focused on the main goal, and would hardly dare to be distracted for a long time from that goal, which was almost achieved.

"Okay, it's time to fix my mistakes." So says the shaman, and then gets to his feet and starts to fix them.

Much could be said about Stepan, but in the matter of correcting mistakes he was, at the very least, not bad.

If only because he was just a great master at making those mistakes.

* * *

The ritual was a lot like the one he'd used to break Gaia's curse, and it wasn't much more complicated than that. The curses of the goddess of fertility and harvests, while much safer for health, were generally recognized as a real nightmare for the one who would break them. Yes, the curse he had gotten then was much weaker and harmless, but Stepan had become stronger and more erudite since then. So on so it turned out, somewhere better, somewhere worse, and therefore now that the demoness could not influence him from beyond the boundary of temporal fixation, the shaman was quite calm for his testicles. Yes, it would be hard, yes, the risk still did not disappear, but he knew what to do, knew how to do it, and also had the means to make it happen. Preparing for the ritual took all the available twelve hours of time, he had to call on his meta-skill again, using a second charge of fixation right before he started. Technically, there was still a little more than twelve minutes left, but in that time, you wouldn't have time to do anything important, at most to get started.

The circle of protection in which the shaman was reclining was a highly augmented and modified creation, noticeably different from the standard for working with curses. He had remodeled it into a demonic suppressor. It was not perfect, as he had no deeply specialized knowledge, but it was useful, for the shaman's general erudition was sufficient for many things. The circle temporarily increased the complexity of any task if the task was performed with the use of evil infernal practices. Likewise, the circle slowed the flow of demonic power, making its effects more malleable and yet unhurried, leaving more time to react. The second and third circles complemented the first, further cutting off demonic signatures and sifting out normal energy, preventing it from interacting normally with the victim's aura, simplifying the process of freeing the aura from demonic contamination.

There were also additional circles. It strengthened, neutralised, helped to subdue the spirit and prevented it from losing control. They were supplemented by totems with groups of tracking spirits, which were supposed to prevent the shaman from getting brainwashed and losing control, as well as to cover him in case of trouble. If there was any battle-attacking crap in his body, beneath the layer of habitual mutation, they could take the blow or redirect it to a prepared envolt. Yes, he'd moulded a couple of his puppets, primitive and honed specifically for dragging curses, even the very specific curse-property-mutation-modification imagis of which he inserted into the dolls' recognition units. All this was supported by incantations and incantations based on witchcraft, some of which could be called ‘counter-curses’, for they worked on the principles of counter-action: an attempt to induce lust and uncontrollable orgasms was blocked by the absolute deprivation of passion, the flow of pleasure by the inability to produce the appropriate hormones or to activate the parts of the spiritual bodies responsible for positive response. Long lying in the circle, under the influence of these spells, could provoke depression and guaranteed erectile dysfunction, but the shaman was not going to lie in them for a long time.

The last preparations are coming to an end. Deinstallation of the modifier enters its final phase. Spirits are summoned from totems, already prepared in advance, immediately piercing the empty body of the shaman, entering it and drilling into the flesh and the remnants of the aura, which did not pass into the spiritual body with the spirit of the shaman. He lets in a second group of spirits that look like shapeless clouds with a bunch of temporarily appearing smiling faces. Their task is not to remove the mutation, but to weaken its connection with the shaman's body, at the same time siphoning off all the free power from it. The first group leaves him, and the second group takes its place, while the shaman's numerous clawed hands morph into the likeness of surgical instruments, plunging into the spiritual and ordinary bodies, creating a cocoon of carrying and blocking around the mutated part of the subtle body. On the surface, it looks very much like he is sticking these very tentacles into his groin, but the external side of the initially abstract images is the last thing he cares about.

A new group of spirits re-inhabit the shaman's spiritual essence. They enter into symbiosis, and afterwards strengthen his arms-hooks, make his tools and cocoon noticeably denser and at the same time more reliable. A new note is played by witchcraft, with the help of which the shaman creates a double-mirror of his aura, from which the mutation begins to perceive the cocoon-prison as the same body of the shaman, the necessary part of it, which is in full norm. But in fact it has been moving slowly and leisurely for a minute now, taking away a piece of energy from someone else's body, not affecting its energy, not harming spiritual bodies, and cleaning those from contact with infernal evil. Another hour passed, followed by a second and a third, and now his hands were holding two purple balls, one taken from the material body, the other from the spiritual one, adjusting them to each other and creating in the abnormal part of the aura, which now showed some features of a primitive essence, as if it were not even a small demon, but a fetus for it, a complete feeling that this structure had not even left the victim's body.

The active demon-based state analysis system doesn't notice anything strange until the last. The shaman fuses the two purple orbs together and afterwards places the mutation of energy into the envolt doll and immediately orders the doll to burn. Its heat crept over to the neighbouring doll, getting lost in the process, and the shaman only slightly sweated from the heat, and solely by his discarded material body, while the spirit felt nothing at all. For a few long minutes, he was still waiting for a trick, but he didn't wait. All subtle and physical bodies were completely clean. It even managed to avoid the reflexive eruption with which the spiritual and fleshly bodies might try to rid themselves of the remnants of infernal magic. This pleased the shaman, but did not reassure him completely, and for another couple of hours he busied himself with checking every node of the aura, every section of the spiritual body. The third puppet, which had copied not the cursed distortion itself, but its imprint-image, remained silent and did not react to the checking aspects or sensory invocations that wandered in the shaman's subtle bodies, looking for some responses and not finding them. Only after the last series of checks, when the shaman didn't know what else to check, so that it would be effective and not just a useless indulgence of paranoia, the System confirmed his hopes with another message.

Property lost: “demonic modification of aura, body, and spirit (unstable): Hidden Binding Stream of White Passion”.

The lost talent has been removed from the overall Player status

Immersed in his protective formations and mentally overwhelmed by his witchcraft, the shaman felt no relief, no contentment, nothing at all, silently beginning to deactivate the parts of the protection that were dangerous to be under their influence for long. The emotions returned, but he doesn't let them take over, doesn't let them take over anything at all, only orders Sylvia to lie down on the same spot where he used to lie. Some of the small totems he removed, some he reconfigured, and some he replaced with new ones with different functionality. Then he began to invoke sensory-enhancing spells that made him more sensitive to demonic stuff, and with the imprint of the demoness, not just any kind. After some more time, he activated everything he had created and began to enlighten Sylvia Malter's body, spirit, aura, and mind with memory. Very quickly, he stopped it, stood up on his feet, and bowed his head with sincere gratitude (mentally reminding himself of the penguin from the famous meme), saying aloud with the same sincerity:

"Thank you, Your Milfness, you've saved my ass for the second time." After a little thought, he even added. "I really hope you can't hear me. And that I won't need a third rescue."

For some reason, a vague image of a teenage girl with elven appearance, who had her arms at her sides and was looking at him with a look of “yeah, yeah, fuck you” popped up in his head but the shaman didn't understand what the image was about, He thought it was just another fluctuation, a random vision without purpose or connection, the kind that regularly comes to any shaman at times when the aura and consciousness are in chaos and confusion, including Stepan too. A moment later, he was fully alert again and was already checking Sylvia more calmly, trying to understand how she had been able to help him. The basis was clear: the task he had received, but what had worked was that he had put not so absolute commands into Sylvia's head under the commands of the infernal, nasty woman. These commands were enough for the usual state, but as soon as Malter received the task, which also confirmed the fact that her “toy” was not quite hers, the bloodsucker managed to twist out, managed to overpower, even for a second, not too persistent compulsions.

The vampire's long-standing billet, which she had first used when she was one of her parents' fledglings, played a role as well, adding to it from time to time as her skills grew. She could, when necessary, realising her compromised state, give a certain command-directive, which she would follow even if her consciousness considered the situation as normal and the directive a mistake. Stepan saw this and a couple of her other preparations, of course, and did not let her use them, and afterwards he built them into the matrix of suggestion through the doll. But the suggestion of the demoness was not built into the matrix, because it was too much trouble, and the shaman under the hypnosis of his sister was as drunk as a drunken man, unable to manage the potential of the dolls. He knew the outcome and was very happy with it, though he still checked Malter's consciousness to see if it had been freed from the shaman's compulsions as well. No, she hadn't freed herself and even the compulsions themselves hadn't imploded, which was very pleasing.

The suspicion crept in that one could make such a billet-directive for oneself.... but it was only a suspicion when it was met with a whole bunch of other, more substantive contraindications. For any brainiac who has enough experience, such directives controlling you are a direct door to the heart and brain of the victim. Yes, had it not been for Sylvia's billet, he would clearly have stayed in the company of his favorite little sister. But if Stepan still had such a billet, he would lose even more guaranteed than without it, because the demoness would have found these levers. What could definitely be considered a fact, however, was the need to take into account experience, both positive and negative. Something as tough and mutually sharp, dangerous in the presence of a really skillful brainiac, he will not let in with a guarantee. But something weaker, more complex. Not so much a bookmark-trigger in himself, but a full-fledged network for monitoring of his own consciousness... something like that he would create. But at the same time a reliable structure that would not leave any weaknesses, that could not be intercepted for use against you, and at the same time not absolutely useless... he wasn't sure he could even create such a thing.

Turn yourself into a totem by tying yourself to a place? Create your own puppet? Transplant your spirit to an external medium, controlling your body and taking on that body all the influences? All of these, alone and together, and a bunch of other unmentioned variants, are quite workable plans. Except that each of those modifications would change him too much, open up too many vulnerabilities, cut off too many paths. But it's also not enough to simply do nothing, you need to supplement your mental defences as fully as possible. Constantly monitoring spirits for every outing, signal witchcraft, protective amulet-domes with signalling entities, and a properly tuned spirit body. He can do all of that. All of this is either not reliable enough for a hundred per cent guarantee, or he can't be kept active all the time, or something else, but where one thing fails, synergy will be effective and he will achieve that effectiveness.

If he survives.

It didn't take too long to check Sylvia and cleanse her from the remnants of the influence that had come through his semen, as well as through the regularly used intimate oils and lubricants bought from Mommy Gelda, which increased resonance and vulnerability to control. Still, Sylvia had burned most of that control and semen according to the directive, and he was left with only the crumbs. She was almost unaffected outside of the doll's compulsions, as were the rest of his dolls, who also began to burn through their stores of drunken seed in a bloody rage, getting rid of everything alien and demonic. The effect of the oils was cosmetic and insignificant, more of an accumulative effect. But he still spent a lot of money on good and specific alchemy for vampires, so that they could get rid of the vulgar alchemy lodged in their bodies, and quench the thirst that had risen from the burning of their blood supply.

Before applying the meta-skill upgrade again, he gifted a full pack to Lemira. The strongest in direct combat after Sylvia, she was most useful to him in the case of a forceful confrontation. The bloodsucker did not react at all to the growth of her aura and the sprouting of two as-yet unknown properties, as she was in catatonia. Stepan sat her down by the wall and activated the token again, resumed the temporal fixation, which had almost ended, and then sat in meditation again, satisfying his hunger with a nutritious alchemical cocktail, which he was tempted to call a protein cocktail.

Now there was a more complex and multidimensional memory check, which was impossible not to do. There was not the slightest doubt, not even a shadow of it, that there was a lot of crap left in his head that the initial check had not shown. It was enough only to ‘remember’ the situation with the ‘forgotten’ token, when one small forgotten detail almost became more valuable to him than his life and what would follow after its, life, end. And then there was the demonic Name, which he was forced to forget. Because after the initial cleansing of his memory, Stepan did not doubt that he remembered that name. He even remembered that it was the name Sylvia had heard when he repeated it over and over while watching the naked Jaspera. But it just refused to stay in his memory.

Dynamic amnesia installation of a soft type but damaged because, in its completed form, it prevents remembering not only the fact or concept erased but also the possibility of suspecting its erasure or the abnormality of its failure in memory. Well, the damaged one was easier to remove, too. He didn't have to lock his thinking into a loop to remind himself of the forgotten thing every time it was forgotten. A simple meditation, a run, a search for the suppressed area, the pressure of the spiritual body on the affected fragment of that body, drinking its power and will, the help of a couple of specific spirits, one of which facilitates memory manipulation in general, and the second of which always sees if the shaman has forgotten something. And the result was achieved. Although, it should be recognised that if the installation had not been damaged, the second spirit would not have helped, oblivion germinated not only in the memory, but also in the aura with the spirit, a piece of noospheric matrix was simply erased there, even the specific clairvoyance of a strong spirit would not have helped.

Laghan.

Remembering the creature's name didn't add to the mood. It only made him angrier, because his worst suspicion was justified. Inside one setup lurked a second. As soon as he remembered the name, he was overcome by the excitement that had been suppressed by the distortion of his spirit, and the desire to declare smugly and proudly out loud, to address the demoness who was not here, saying something like, ‘I have remembered everything, Laghan, and now you are going to get exterminatus. Fortunately, the shaman suspected something like that. He did not see it, for the compulsion was hidden beneath the depths of the first, and could only be seen by summoning a very specialised and senior spirit without opening the top tab, which meant several days of training at the very least. His skill in working with a personal intangible body was not enough, and time was obviously in short supply. He had to improvise. He roughly understood how exactly the theoretically existing, but unprovable in its existence bookmark works, so he worked from his assumptions.

"I'm vhmnhamanhmpr!" It was hard to be pathetic about a creature who might well hear his name, especially in the same city as him, especially from someone whose aura and spirit he tasted, if his mouth was instantly filled with a sweet mass that tasted like a very viscous persimmon. "Vmhmstvprt!"

Spirit-joker. He called him to the contract only because the payment for his work was literally symbolic, and the shaman had no strength left for a more powerful summoning at that time. The small entity was related to the space and had aspects characteristic of a guardian of the place, a kind of housekeeper. The spirit kept one, then another, then a tenth confectionery for many centuries, stealing the remains of sweets, not spoiled, but lost. A drop here, a little here, a crumb there. Not dropped on the floor or rotted, but precisely forgotten, unused, and sweetly delicious. And, at the shaman's command, this essence could stuff the mouth of the speaker, but only if the speaker was not additionally protected, and if he was sure he would regret what he had said. It was hard for the shaman to imagine exactly how such an exotic ability had arisen, which was why he was not too lazy to dig deeper into the spirit's history. Shamans had such abilities as well. The essence was born from the spirit of a place, but the impetus for its evolution was given by some human or other creature of the humanoid type, which said something that he strongly regretted, and this regret, its emanations that tainted the world of the spheres of emotions, provoked the birth of an exotic trick.

The demoness's bookmark, which is now no longer a sister, but quite a named scum, burst and dissolved immediately. It was a one-time thing. That's why she managed to hide it in the affected area of the spiritual body. He checked anyway but found no problems or new bookmarks in that particular area. On this one, yes. On the others there was still a sea left, a real vast sea of work, almost like an ocean, vast and inexhaustible. Methodical sifting of one section of the mental field after another, appealing to spirit-seekers, summoning new entities of the Suggestive type, took several more hours, forcing him to use the meta-skill again, for the second time after activating the token. But the already visibly tired shaman did not suffer in vain and wasted reagents, sometimes buying them manually through the shop. There were finds, unpleasant by the fact of their existence, but pleasant by the fact of finding them in time.

The first of these findings was about the eyes of the cute Laghan, very strange and unusual eyes with cross-shaped pupils, which clearly looked at the world not in the usual spectrum. Stepan, who was accustomed to noticing everything, dropped the field of normalization of perception of these eyes and choked on the air with envy. Even at a very superficial glance, these eyes surpassed the typical types of magical and spiritual vision available to ordinary mages and shamans as much as some new-fangled AWACS would surpass the old Cesna and a video camera in the pilot's hands. Yes, Stepan, as practice showed, had ways to strengthen his vision with the same sub-settings, so his pupils were distorted in various ways, multiplying their number, changing their shape, then something else. But for each mode or set of modes he needed his own spirit with its own peculiarities: to summon, to bind, to subdue, to negotiate and, if necessary, to change. The creature had all the modes merged into one modification, and the young man drooled at the mere thought of what these eyes could see.

He didn't understand why the fuck she'd made him forget about those eyes and think of Jaspera's breasts instead. And it was her and not Gelda's? Yes, thanks to such a trick, the association check through the enslaved, or maybe even willingly servile, peasant missed the control attempt tied to Jaspera. But why had she bothered? Why had she erased a seemingly unimportant fact? Firstly, of course, because without that knowledge, he could have tried to sneak up on the demoness or send spies. Now it was obvious he would have to send at least senior-exots with all the aspects gone into secrecy and the fact that she would not notice them, expecting spirits. Secondly...

"Such a modification is very uncharacteristic, yes. As are the cross-eyes themselves." He stretched thoughtfully, chewing on a systemically purchased breadcrumb with the effect of improved satiety and relief from the effects of overstressed shells. "You could say it's literally a legendary, fucking Grade. And, since I'm not in a game, but in the real world, these eyes may well actually end up in local legends or records. I'd have to check, I'd have to ask the spirits, they'd be experts in the Spheres. And she knew it, bitch."

With that note in his system sclerosis notebook, the shaman continued to work on finding her compulsions and bookmarks, using the renewal token for the third time, getting two more charges of twelve hours of activity. With the renewed meta-skills of the gifting branch, he blessed Rowena this time as next to Lemira in terms of combat effectiveness, assigning Jaspera to the next session since he was gifting everyone anyway. And again the checks, the self-exploratory meditations, the sifting of his thoughts and filtering of his feelings, the searching and the findings, disturbing and dangerous.

One of the compulsions was tied to the phases of sleep, activated if Stepan was awakened in a special way: a savoury and salivating blowjob, during which a woman's hand would draw a spiral on his abdomen, starting from the navel. In such a state, having woken up, the shaman for some time had to stay very unwilling, ready to agree to everything that would be offered and at the same time very passive, not wishing to resist or take the initiative in sex, even up to the moment of orgasm, which would come only after the cessation of drawing the spiral. Another tab played on his fear for his arse, literally: if a demoness or someone else cunning enough, but of the female sex, began to threaten Stepan with prostrapony or prostate massage, the shaman would be wildly reluctant to play such games, agreeing to anything and everything as long as his backdoor was left in complete peace. For example, to be straponed four times a day for the rest of eternity, but not once now, and with a contract and agreement to seal the deal.

Stepan checked for loss of virginity, not in the way he would have liked, but found nothing, concluding that the demoness had clearly left that bookmark for the future. He would have been inflamed with the desire to bring that righteous retribution, but he was already going to carry it, and even more fear and strive to destroy this thing already did not turn out. He generally the further, the less angry, perceiving the problem of the demoness like a natural phenomenon or the settlement of a horde of cockroaches in the flat. It is not necessary to emanate emotions, but to solve the problem. Part of the solution, obviously, was the physical and energetic destruction of infernal crap.

Another module of suggestion was tied to the magic vision and was activated without words or gestures, only by the pulsation of the auric and spiritual body in a certain rhythm. It caused uncontrollable cum and the subsequent desire to fuck, fuck and roughly, extremely hard, to the breaking of bones and chewing off nipples literally rape the initiator of the bookmark. The sick fantasy of demons does not surprise anyone, nor did it surprise the shaman. He found a continuation of this bookmark already in his emotional sphere, responsible for anger, which is much easier to transfer into lust and thirst to quench that lust, if the object of anger was an attractive woman. Already knowing where to look, it was possible to find the next bookmark. It is also tied to the magical vision and special types of commands- flickers, transmitted through the aura. The method is truly amusing and unorthodox. He expected something like this from himself, with all his knowledge, not from someone else. Well, further proof that demons are great at messing with mortals' brains.

This bookmark caused stupor and confusion in the details, regardless of the conversation or call, without any lust at all, being purely a combat billet, which Laghan, most likely, was going to take him down in direct combat, if it happened to come to that battle, and preferably quickly and without making a fuss about the battle itself. Another of the same kind called for drowsiness, a longing to go to rest, and could be activated even without eye contact, just by sensory sense. His spirit-spy would transmit a strange signature-pulse, which he would pick up somewhere in the slums of the city, and Stepan would go to take a nap for six hundred minutes, maybe even longer. It was convenient and really good, and he would have used something like that himself if he'd used his Autodivine gifts in the way it's originally intended.

The next of the found compulsions activated the increase of gullibility at the sight of a certain pattern, no matter on a dress, on other clothes or painted on the villager's chest. He would very much want to believe the one who shows the sign. Not to the point of shutting down critical thinking, such an impact is easier to notice, but so that the shaman would be happy to be deceived, especially if no one will directly lie to him. That and a trio of other similar compulsions, a brooch of a particular shape and luster, the smell of cinnamon and vanilla, and the sound of a chair scraping on the wooden floor as it was moved to sit more comfortably, but the last tab worked only in synergy with at least two others, told that the creature was obviously going to recruit him in a full-fledged way, not just eat him or turn him into a textbook cultist. The question was, why recruit when a more crude treatment would have been far more likely to succeed and far less likely to fail? He'd definitely take her into the group, yes. She's not afraid of Milfness's wrath, is she? Or anyone else...

Hmm, if the world had been told about the Tablet - the creature itself was familiar with the term - then it was very interesting. One demoness knows, so the rest of the demons know, including the one this scum would call Master, Lord, Sir, Your Majesty, and so on. Could it be she was wary of treating him to the fullest, lest she have to share him with the entire domain and its Overlord combined? As an option, as an option quite a good guess, yes. It explains a lot. Explains the procrastination and caution, the desire to braid a lot of small compulsions, which do not directly subdue, so that she could not call him her slave at least formally. So he would belong to her, not to those behind her. Though, to be honest, it's a little scary to think about the essence that is the mastermind of this scum.

He managed to boost Jaspera with his gifts as well, when even his paranoia and knowledge began to suggest that further scans were pointless. Not in the sense that he had found all the bookmarks, but in the sense that it would be harder to find them further, and it would take more time than the upgrade tokens and the ability to slow down time would give him. Something he definitely missed, and among that something there will be dangerous activatable triggers, not just humiliating and harmless crap in comparison. Having evaluated the already tested and overcome compulsions, he had a rough idea of how he could suppress such even in combat or near-combat conditions. And that already opened up a far more important question - what should he do with all this shit now? Run out of town, hoping that the creature wouldn't catch up with him and couldn't target him with some kind of search ritual? Rush into battle, seeking to punish it and destroy it in every way possible? Try to raise a fuss and surrender her presence in the city to the local priests? Surrender to de Dantrel himself, apologizing for the parrots and the Inferno armada - irony, you heartless bitch - up his ass?

But the only options, to be honest, one is worse than the other and worse than the third! It's useless to run, it won't be able to drag his totems and cave behind him, and on his own, one on one, he won't bet on himself in a fight with such an old creature, which is just a spherical in a vacuum agent-infiltrator, because most of the lone demons are just that. She knows his name, appearance, aura, typification of the gift, strengths and weaknesses, a list of calls, tasted his energy and bodily fluids. If the creature fails to find him, catch up with him, and force a confrontation again, he would have Rodislav Gastoldovich Yanin's grade without an exam. Especially since he would then have to start the conflict on much worse terms, already initially being in a losing position.

Trying to target a legitimate target for any sane person, someone else, like priests and mages, half with the Duke's guards, is also very problematic. Yes, he'll be able to deliver the right message, yes, he'll probably be able to deliver it in a way that will be believed, but he'll only set himself up for failure, and success is no guarantee. The creature will leave. He can't help but try to leave, especially if he doesn't personally go knocking on doors, flashing the magical aura of a master and yelling about the demonic threat, glaring at the public, but tries to deliver messages without losing his anonymity. She is too good, too experienced, and now she is also strengthened by him, and he does not even know how and what she was strengthened with. What gifts did she receive from these reinforcements? And it was good if they were new gifts, but what if, as with Sylvia's eyes, something already existing was strengthened? Even the same eyes! She would become a natural imba, a machine of destruction and bending. Literally.

No, he didn't believe he could nail her that way, even if he tried to help covertly. The creature knew all his tricks, all the blueprints he'd used to destroy her, and it was only by some miracle that he'd been able to convince her to break those contracts. He held back not because of his will and certainly not because he was afraid of demons, at that moment he had already successfully flushed all the memory of why he had prepared these contracts in the first place onto Gelda's tits, but because of typical greed and munchkinism. What's she offering him? Throw away useful contracts and waste all the resources spent on their recruitment? That's not going to happen, not at all! But he's sure she's got tricks against every one of his trump cards, he's sure, and he's not wrong. But even if he manages to defeat her, even if he defeats her with the help of others with minimal help - there will be no quiet life in the city, he will be exposed, guaranteed to be exposed, and they will be looking for him, asking strange questions.

The option of going under Dantrell's arm... well, he would definitely interest the old man, and he would be guaranteed to apologize in such a way that the armada in the ass would be forgiven. But what's next? Getting into the cycle of local politics, where everyone will want to screw an inexperienced player in one way or another, that's what. And it's a good thing if Herbert is smart and realizes that the shaman will keep his side of the bargain as it is. And may not understand or understand wrongly, the young man already has a lot of experience of incorrect communication, mutual misunderstanding, and subsequent problems, and that experience is mostly negative. An attempt to pressure, an attempt to enslave, an attempt to pour poison or spell potion into a glass, an attempt to combine options, and he doesn't mention the options “to twist it tightly, tie it up with a ribbon and sell it to someone for a lot of money” or “put it on the laboratory table and let's try to forge the system that is the Tablet out of it”. No, it was too much of a risk, too much against his plans to reach out to the powers of this world on his own terms, an equal or partially equal partner, not a beggar who was one step away from being eaten by a demon.

Already, you might say, licked and sucked by that demon.

That left the most seemingly stupid option. He wanted to check himself a few more times for missed suggestions in this part of the cognitive process. But the longer Stepan thought about it, the more he realised that sometimes acting idiotically could be the only right option. Yes, if he had been in the same state as when the first temporal fixation was activated, he would have probably chosen between the second and the third option. But he had one trump card, which the demoness did not and could not take into account, which was deliberately given to him in his hands, obviously realising how the shaman would use this trump card.

It was about Sylvia, about the assignment she'd completed, the one that had given her not just a reward, but one that included three transferable talent points. It was a bit awkward to rob her of the talents she had earned by saving him, like a fucking alphonse, honestly, but there was nothing to be done about it, he could really do better with those talents, simply because he had more tasty and powerful options on his list. Oh, and the other rewards hinted at using Sylvia's gifts for himself, too.

She had gotten a silver sword-rapier as an artifact, only the silver was very special and didn't burn the hands of whoever held it, even if it was a vampire. The main strength of the blade was its insane effectiveness against any undead, foul creatures, monsters, servants of the dark gods, and of course against demons too, on common grounds with all other foul creatures. But most paradoxically, this blade is all the more powerful the more impure its bearer is. That is, in the hands of an ordinary man it is an artifact of the level of a master of magic, in the hands of a holy ascetic and paladin it is just a very strong and very sharp blade, in the hands of a brigand and a vicious murderer who desecrates the temple at his leisure - a tool of the level of a master with a plus. In the graceful hand of Sylvia Malter, what was in fact quite the undead bloodsucking creature feeding on other people's lives? It's a real pick worthy of a magister, revealing also its only active magical ability.

Yes, the ability to tear even very strong barriers like paper and hit even intangible or very intangible creatures, as well as the hilt, which covers the entire body with a strong magical protective field, is already a lot. A bone dragon or a massive living graveyard can be sliced with such a sword and not get tired in the process, but the super-strike of this thing.... In the super-strike mode, the blade lets through not only the user's energy, but also his spiritual imprint, the deepest layers of his spirit, not so far from the edge of the soul. This is what temple altars can do, for example, an ability that is rare and powerful, but not amazing. What is amazing is how the blade reacts to it. It creates an analog of a magical blade, which continues the blade and can envelope it, lengthen it, or send it flying with an energy blade. An energy blade of the level of extremely accurate, sharpened against a single target of a magister level spell, with a plus, unique in that it reflects the strongest sides of the dark soul. In Sylvia's case, that blade will be black and gray and scarlet, of darkness and malice in her heart, of blood in her veins, and of death that despises the vampire who pays her off with another's blood. As a bonus, he ignored the sunlight as his hand clutched the hilt of his blade, as if it were night and nothing was shining in his eyes.

In general, this sword, which Sylvia had already bound to herself, was the kind of toy that would allow her to successfully and with a chance of winning against even an ancient bloodsucker or another of the long-dead and undead Lords of the Dead North. Or Dead North Lords - there are different translations of this term, the original of which sounds in the now dead language of the equally dead kingdom. It was too soon to go out with this pick against the demoness who had already touched her, but it was still possible, especially since the protective field would cover her from demonic foulness. No worse than from the vampire's magic or the stuff that Ichthyander Ucking tried to bait them with. But against the Queen of Worms it was not a sure thing. The levels there were too different, but the wounds inflicted on her with the sword-rapier would be at least unpleasant.

Token number one, like all the others invisible through the group's interface, was quite useful for a vampire, ‘summoning a vial of exotic blood’ with a charge of a hundred uses. The activation was a properly enchanted glass vial, flask, bowl, or cucumber jar with blood inside, always unusual and valuable at the level of blood drawn from a strong master or a weak magister, but not necessarily from a gifted person. A monster, a dragon, a holy associate with a spirit beyond the second ten, a great king with an echo of his power and strength in the blood, something else comparable. Considering the fact that bloodsuckers gain strength from blood not quickly, but always, and from such rare blood is no longer particularly slow, a hundred rare and different vials is guaranteed to improve Sylvia. Slightly stronger resistance to flame from the blood of pyromagus, slightly faster replenishment of strength in the grave from the blood of geomancer, slightly less vulnerability to holiness from the blood of priest, a little easier with levitation itself from the blood of ancient wyvern, slightly higher resistance to magic from the blood of dragon and so on - fractions of a per cent, but those fractions will be a hundred, albeit in different ways. It's also delicious, and Sylvia would be genuinely happy if she weren't in catatonia.

The second token was useful not only for her, but also for the Earthman: ‘temporal accelerator of assimilation’, fifteen charges and an indispensable effect right now. With the activation of this token, the victim or target is transported into a time stream anomaly. He is frozen for a second, but for him, exactly twenty-four hours pass in absolute immobility and sensory deprivation. It is as if you are hanging in darkness and emptiness, no vision, no hearing, no magical perception and not even the urges of the body like hunger or thirst. For a non-gifted person, who does not possess self-control or meditation methods, it is a good torture, harmless physically, but very dangerous for the psyche. For a shaman of his level, busy with assimilation of knowledge, it is an ideal way to assimilate the gifts of the System as quickly as possible.

"It's decided." He says to himself, forcing Sylvia to give him the award talents, all three of them, and then adds as confidently as if he had Vanga, Nostradamus, and Miroslav Akakich in his ancestors, who always guessed the moment when vodka prices were going up. "I'll regret it."

A moment later, he relaxes his consciousness and accepts the system's gift for cleaning his and the chrysalis' minds and bodies, restoring his memory and cognitive algorithms. The system produces the appropriate images, rewarding the shaman with what he really needs, including the knowledge he most lacked for the conflict with the demoness.

Received: ‘methods of resistance to demonic influence’; ‘masterful resistance to demonic influence’; increased resistance to mental and sensual effects; increased resistance to suggestions; increased sensitivity to demonic energies; increased probability of acquiring knowledge and properties of the Executioner, Monk, and Demon Fighter branches.

Acquired talents are added to the Player's overall status.

Stepan only had time to think something unpleasant, because the system, obviously considering his desire to finish with all this quickly, gave out a double block of system gifts at once, instead of increasing them one by one, in order to reduce the total array of information. The old joke about how it would be better if he died a small baby, but the shaman chased such thoughts away from his mind. He had a good chance of dying as an adult. And also regret that the same methods of protecting his consciousness at the expense of agent training have not grown up.... but he didn't have the nerve to resent it. The system promotes knowledge for successful application, not the other way round. And he failed his mental and sensory defence almost completely.

The new knowledge was, as always with knowledge of this type, complex and had little to do with shamanism directly, and the name-image itself.... something like ‘’the tricks of the shaman-inquisitor‘’ would have been more appropriate, and that was not ironic, it was serious. Techniques to notice characteristic markers of the behaviour of others, distortions of the energy background, small details like a leaky temple or very large portions of poor quality food in taverns, strange pauses in the prayer of a dervish or a very proud and imperious look of an ordinary-looking man or even a beggar. Ability to read the special notes in the energy background or catch its by own spirit the smallest fluctuations of the background, which correspond not so much to the foulness, although these shades too, but the standard for demons of different types and vices ways to mask their presence. Ability to identify demons, affected by them, serving them voluntarily or not very, to distinguish one from another, to distinguish already hopeless from those who can be saved.

To purify those very rescued, most effectively block attempts to influence himself, depending on the types of demons, their abilities, and typification of vices. Ability to fight with demons, exactly as demons, and not on the general skills of an elite fighter. The best tactics for confronting demons with the methods of shamanism and witchcraft known to him. Ways to cover storming the cult's lair unrewarded and himself more effectively hide behind the priestly barriers. Grips interrogation of captive cultists or search for traces, search for means of wiping traces characteristic of demons, countering left traps or defamed baits, which should hit the reader of auras and spiritual imprints. Interruption of the rituals of invocation or their destabilisation. Calculating the points of these rituals on indirect signs, determining the types and direction of those calls.

And synergies, of course synergies! Spells for defence or attack against demons. Totems, that can store spirits, counteract the threat or pressurise reality itself, making it harder for demons to use their magic and very presence in that reality. Even such totems that can seal a demon, sealing it in a thick capsule made of an energy analogue of lead, so that the prisoner can be thrown to the bottom of the ocean for the next thousand years. Territorial fields of the same nature and intent. Arrays of defensive calls and protections, honed specifically against demons and those afflicted by them. Searching for and finding badly phonated targets at enormous distances. Targeting your own strikes at those distances or supporting those who fight in your place. Knowledge of how to break or destabilise demonic contracts that literally allowed you to fuck a demon into the bargain. As well as a bunch of knowledge about why even trying to play these games with them is not worth even starting, and the knowledge itself is used to save those unfortunate ones who are about to be played.

Mental influences and profanity, determining its influence and countering it, techniques to influence demons or even brainwash them, which is really nonsense, but the combination with suggestion and charms, both shamanic and witchcraft, just that and gave, that would cause any normal demon fighter cognitive dissonance. Seals of containment and absorption, enslaving contracts, again, also based on the same protections and totems, ways to put a demon not in a totem, but in a specialised jar as if a genie in a bottle. Or on the bottle, but better not. Methods of removing demonic curses or mutations, which he had already tested in practice, seeing at once a dozen places in which he risked unnecessarily and many more places where it was possible to do more easily, ways of treatment after injuries received from demons, no matter physical, mental, aural, spiritual or just psychological.

And, of course, an array of available summons of all forms and typifications associated with countering demoness: for attack, for searching, for analysing imprints, for defence, for mass or single barriers, for confronting a crowd or a single and powerful creature, tailored to each Vice, though Lust was the most common, but that was to blame on Her Divine Milfiness. Separate summons of elder spirits with far more appropriate specialisations than the elder he'd almost summoned and was still gritting his teeth at the thought of the pile of unrewarded expenditure. Shapeless or well-defined, combat or support, exotic and tricky, playing with the rules of reality at the expense of the fact that the demons of it are even more alien than the spirits, or extremely straightforward, sharpened only in combat level two-button bear, only with the class of the same Paladin from WoW.

The options were countless. The shaman, who drank a couple of vials of alchemy quickly and then ordered to activate the accelerator token on himself, assimilated this knowledge with the greed of a man dying of thirst in the desert, with the readiness of an anime fan who had waited for another season of his favourite tittle, with the enthusiasm of a gamer who still caught the third Half-Life. And he learnt this knowledge, then he looked at the status, evaluating the changes in the list of available to disclose small knowledge and just knowledge with properties, smiling with an anticipatory smile. And then it faded a bit when he realised that he would have to learn right now the whole branch of non-free knowledge, which consisted of five points in one option. This would perhaps not be one of the new options for spending talents, but one that had been present for a long time. Under other circumstances, he wouldn't have wasted on it, but right now it was the said option that was most useful to him.

Then came the three talents passed on to him: these had to be invested entirely in small knowledge. Two summons and one very specific witchcraft. The first summoner was an elder spirit, not quite on the borderline of a high spirit, but definitely above the average elder.

The second spirit was also a senior, but not a fighter or even a demon specialist. The shaman didn't forget that he might still have a few bookmarks in his head, and allowed for the fact that some of them might be the kind that could break through even his readiness to fight. So the second of the spirits was intended for just such a case, to get him out of the trap if he did fall into it without being able to see it or wanting to get out himself. And witchcraft, yes, massive, cunning, exotic, and requiring preparation, but he has time for that, doesn't he? The token was still far from being exhausted, and the shaman was not going to be a moron, saving system resources even under the threat of worse than just death.

A moment later, after he had made the necessary choices, drinking another portion of already more gentle alchemy, Sylvia mechanically activated her token once more. And the shaman is overwhelmed by waves of knowledge, to the point of nausea and sickness, not a migraine, no, but a heaviness in his head that requires rest. He accepts this heaviness and nausea with joy, welcomes them like old friends, embraces them, and takes them into himself. Was it for the sake of his own survival and the unillusory salvation of his soul, or for revenge and the opportunity to get even for the humiliation, for losing on a battlefield in which he would like to consider himself a very competent individual, for losing at all, in fact, without a fight? He couldn't answer that question, but to be honest, he wasn't going to answer it. Just to unscrew one horned head.

One token to learn four of the five knowledge points was not enough. He had to shut down for another twenty-four hours. There wasn't enough renewal token time to prepare, and another eight hours of sleep. He couldn't go into battle unrested. He didn't sleep well, though, pressed by the weight of the events to come and the need to once again forgo the opportunity to buy a special system item once there, spending all his reserves of system currency for a plethora of needed blanks and reagents. But as the shaman left his cave, he had already had time to bestow the full amount on Artemia. He was packed, ready, full of evil and active fun and damn tired of eating only the temple breads soaked in grace. For the full effect he had to eat the whole tray, at least three and a half kilos of them, drinking water alone. For that, he would have killed the creature forty more times, but in his kindness, he was ready to limit himself to a single kill. He had to show kindness and mercy in contrast to the infernal abomination.

* * *

The rain drips on the sidewalk, on the rooftops, on the few passers-by who are hurrying about their business and do not suspect the horrors that live with them in the same city. The shaman treads the sidewalk, a lonely and gloomy figure in a heavy rain cloak, not really hiding, only putting on a slight barrier of distraction so as not to disturb the passers-by with his presence. With the help of his new knowledge and the doll in which the image of his involuntary property-mutation was imprinted, the search ritual showed the approximate place of the creature trying to hide and the main concentration of its forces, putting a decent and ready-made mark on it, depriving her of the opportunity to start a game of hide-and-seek. He went straight there, leaving all the vampires inside the cave, except for Sylvia, armed with a new sword. Even enhanced and gifted, they wouldn't do him much good, but they were much more likely to raise a lot of questions. At the very least, it would take seconds to summon them from some dark alleyway, and they were already on alert and in combat gear.

The shaman had to run into the mansion to grab that outfit, or rather, Sylvia had grabbed it, and he was opening the path for her. Vampires had an assortment of alarming sets in case of “quickly put them on and immediately go into battle or flee from the city”. At the same time, he destroyed all traces of his seed and other fluids that could be an anchor with a pre-prepared summons. Due to temporal anomalies, only a little over an hour and a half had passed during his absence and the time he had been pumping in reality. Just as long as he “remembered” the token, he needed and a little more on top of that. The mansion greeted them both with silence, the servants quietly going about their business, and one of the maids, the most lushly-breasted, though not with much of a face, six out of ten at most. The lady met them naked from the waist up, with oiled breasts, large brown nipples and a tantalizing, predatory smile that could hardly belong to a lady who had always been modest, even a little shy about her tits, and who had been sent to Gelda's store for the oils.

" Greeti...kh...ssss..." What she, or rather, the one speaking her lips, wanted to say, they never found out, the shaman hit with a very weakened and specifically modified version of path locking, shutting down her higher nervous activity and putting her in a medical coma, with some healing incantations on top to keep her from falling off.

"Not under the seal of soul transference, just under the mental channel, and I'll clean it later, if I survive." He said to Sylvia, who nodded silently and, showing her clothes, stepped silently into the dark recess of the passage.

The bloodsuckers dressed quickly. Stepan changed out of the pants he had soiled with his outpourings and into a fresh set, burning the compromising part along with the energy trace and spiritual imprint. In another five minutes, he was already out of another passage half a block from the tavern, listening to the beacon doll hidden under his raincoat. Apparently, the creature had decided not to run, but to wait for him, probably counting on her preparation, the bookmarks in his head, and her knowledge of his, Stepan's, strengths and weaknesses. Hardly realizing how much stronger he had become in the hour and a half he had escaped from the mansion. Suspecting, calculating, but not knowing for sure. If everything went smoothly, not knowing at all, until the very end.

//“I wish.” - He thinks as his feet carry him to a camouflaged and closed tavern, and it was closed because of the healers guild's seal of tainted and diseased food, which perfectly repelled possible guests without the demonic morass. - “But hardly. That bastard's not going to die that easily, I don't believe it.”

The demonic stuff for his new senses and the spirits swarming at the edge of reality literally stinks from there. Even without new senses, a passing priest, listening to himself, could notice something suspicious. The shaman, however, notices more, understands more, and realizes that initially no demonic fleur was felt there. It appeared and gradually intensified just in the last hour, when the creature realized that it would have to speak from a position of strength, not from the position of a mistress-sister. He stopped fifteen paces away from the wax seal, looking thoughtfully at the door, and then the door opened without any creaks or special effects, revealing its dark yawn, in which the flickering candlelight was visible.

The frequent staccato drumming of the intensifying rain threatened to turn again into an opening of the heavens and a prolonged downpour.

The evening was coming.

It was getting dark.

He stepped beneath the vaults of those walls, and was hit by a blast of warm air, from which even the special spell-filters and a trio of air-filtering spirits could not remove the slight tinge of cherry and flower scent. He found himself in a room lit only by candlelight, leisurely throwing off the hood of his cloak. The high sensitivity allowed, even without active magic, a literal glimpse through the inner walls of the tavern. They, unlike the outer ones, were not camouflaged in any way, almost deliberately see-through. All the magic that permeated the place, demonic and corrupted, all the unholy marks on various surfaces, including furniture, all the hidden power of the tavern that had become one big billet for defence or attack - it was not hidden from him, even flaunted. Look around you, Isekai, come to your senses and refuse to fight, for it will be very difficult for you.

She was sitting almost in the centre, a little further from the entrance to the great hall, at the only one of the tables covered with a tablecloth, set with candles and served with not the worst dishes. She was rolling a burning candle in her hands, the wax dripping from it now and then onto her soft and naked skin, which was lightly tanned. Her posture is completely relaxed, her bare feet are thrown on the table, and the look on her face as she stares at him through her squinted lashes is smug. And dangerous, too, because in that moment she hides neither her strength, nature, nor the power hidden in her deceptively cute body. Yes, and her eyes, those very crosses pupils, barely flicker in spiritual and magical vision. She looks into him too, searching for weaknesses and delving into the deepest layers of his aura, analysing protective fields and summoned retinue, just as he does. For a few seconds, they are simply silent before breaking the silence. Stepan didn't bother to break it. She was the first to speak.

"Hello, Stepan, my dear friend, I am very glad that you and I will finally talk and come to an agreement." She licked her lips, a seemingly banal gesture, but there was so much sensuality in it that it involuntarily took her by surprise, and her thoughts were just trying to get confused. "To our mutual pleasure."

"Are you serious?" He asked, not moving toward the table or the chairs, only letting a certain amount of very venomous sarcasm slip into his voice. "Seriously?"

In response, she laughs lightly, cold, playful, but not mocking, full of confidence in her abilities, in her position. She tilts her head slightly to the side, still twirling the burning candle in her fingers, and looks him in the eye with her eyes. It's staring, not attacking or trying to charm him. It's being watched by several spirits at once. He knows how to resist hypnotic gazes. He learnt with Sylvia's help. But this thing doesn't rush into battle or use any sneaky trick, instead attacking with words and, admittedly, the poison in its speeches is no less dangerous than in some master-level combat spell. At least you know exactly what to do with that one, but with words it's much more complicated.

"You don't have a choice, and neither do I, little brother." She emphasized the last word with cynical pleasure, baring her white teeth in an unpleasant smile, looking for a moment no longer lustful and desirable, but predatory and deadly, old and fearsome and ancient. "I've spent too much energy in this tavern. I can't hide my tracks. I'll have to either flee the city or find a safe haven. And you, Stepan, are only in a slightly less desperate situation. You don't get it, do you? You see the titty peasant mama here with us, hmm? You see her massive milky soft babies?"

Stepan effortlessly drops one of her verbal triggers. Recognising another one, one sharpened for auric perception, increasing gullibility. He almost attacks, but the certainty in her words is too weighty. She is either deftly lying, which is like breathing to a demon. Or she truly believes what she has at his throat. This causes him to hesitate, and afterwards to shift his focus of attention around a bit, trying to enlighten the tavern with perception, which he is unequivocally allowed to do, deliberately opening up just to his gaze. Signatures and casts of the aura of the earthling demonic seducer definitely had time to count and analyse, it is not difficult to supplement their designs with a special key to the existing cast. And he really doesn't find Gelda here. He doesn't sense her presence. Here, on the first floor, sits in a ritual circle, lazily pleasuring herself, a nameless short-haired bandit. Here, too, the local gangsters or just random vagrants have set up in all the corners, storerooms, and rooms. All men, all dirty, unwashed, clearly not fragrant, yet jerking off, often to each other. Stepan felt and saw clearly that there was something unpleasantly wrong with all of them, as if they were not people at all, but living mines, jugs of power, which could be emptied at any moment and used as a reserve.

"She's not here, and neither are a couple of my other toys." Sad and slightly guilty, so sincere you believe it against your will, even knowing it's a lie, she says to his face. "And they are busy delivering messages. To old Herbert and even older Grandpa Rictus, to sweet Miller, to the Druids, to the Temples, to the Trading Houses. Everywhere. Messages about you, Stepan. About your Tablet, about your powers, about your hiding place beneath the city, and the easiest way to get around its disguise. They will pass on your appearance, casts of your aura and spirit, samples of your seed and blood. Everything, everything I've learned about you. And then you'll be hunted, just like your acquaintance. I'd never have thought he was overweight and had pimples on his skin, so if we met again, it would be worth teasing him, especially with those hurtful nicknames he was called in your homeworld."

The Shaman struggled to keep his face... well okay, let's be honest. He didn't keep his face. The whole gamut of emotions was imprinted on it. The demoness's blow was far more insidious than love magic. There was nothing to respond to. It was too ultimatum. He expected her to try to control him directly and not so directly, suggestion, deception, mind games, that somehow missed the most trivial blackmail. But the blackmail was effective. He had nothing to answer, nothing to say. Such an information bomb was even more dangerous for him than for the demoness. Yes, they would look for her and try to kill her, but she had been living like this for all eternity, she was used to running and hiding, and she was also, well, a common threat in this world. Very dangerous and powerful, but at the same time does not stand out against the background of other infernal creatures that have broken through to reality. The extent of the hunt for it is also known to her. The shaman-systembearer will be chased many times more actively, because the locals want him very much.

"He didn't suffer from them, he enjoyed them." Stepan snapped back, trying to find some kind of support and realizing that he seemed to be really caught in a zugzwang because whichever option you choose they all sucked equally. "What do you want, bitch?"

"Oh, brother, why are you being so rude?" She laughs with such smugness that you want to fix her smile with a baseball bat, even though you'd rather break the bat than give her a bruise. "I told you what I want, I told you from the beginning. A deal, Stepan, a contract, and not the kind that is usually implied when talking to me. The opportunity to share the Tablet with you is worth more than your soul, more than even the soul of the Apostate himself. No seals, no slave contracts, just honest cooperation. And you will get all of me, all my power, my knowledge, my secrets, my help. I'm not vulgar enough to offer you a collar without honeybread, Stepan. Believe me, the deal will be good for both of us, good for both of us."

He believed, really believed, realizing that such an ally was indeed worth a great deal, only the problem was that she was a shitty ally, and an alliance with her was cheaper than the paper they'd write the terms of cooperation on. She's a demon, a Higher Demon, a demon of the Vice of Lust, for whom seduction and brainwashing are about as natural as breathing. And no matter how much he tried to protect himself with various contracts or deal terms, she would find a way around them, find a way to cheat within them. Slowly, gradually, drop by drop, but he won't notice how everything will be reduced to the role of a brother for a little sister, from which he barely got out and will hardly get out again. Even Her Milfness must have standards, and her scripts-programs will not rescue her Chosen one from the same trap again.

"I'm out. I've already had experience with you, I'm not going to make the same mistake." Categorically and, as it seems to him, calmly states he, involuntarily watching the candle wax dripping directly on the nipple of the naked demonic breast. "You know what's the best way to beat a professional cheat without being one?"

In response, he laughed and smiled a guilty smile, for which he wanted to forgive all the sins, if it was possible to suspect the creature smiling like that of any sins at all. She clearly feels on top, but he, who has lost his footing and confidence in his position, is a step away from stumbling. Despite the protection of spirits and witchcraft, the hot and too warm air of the tavern, after the cold of the rainy street, presses on the whole body at once, the annoying floral-cherry aroma does not allow to concentrate and deep down Stepan already regrets that he came under this roof at all, and not hit immediately and without talking. The only option in which he could somehow work with this thing as much as possible to subdue her, using all his skills and knowledge, but even this option he would still reject. Brainwashing a demon with love magic is even dumber than putting out a fire with gasoline. Passion and feelings fuel them, power over the mind is in their essence, subjugation and distortion of the spirit is their nature. Even now, he wouldn't have the strength to reliably subdue this thing, no matter how hard he tried.

"Of course I know not to play with him at all. But you don't have a choice. You're already up to your ears in the game, and leaving the table would be too expensive. However, I am very kind, helpful and understanding, and have a flexible pricing policy. We can agree that you take me “in the group”, and then we'll go our separate ways, my dear." She offers as if she knew from the beginning that he would refuse and deliberately let him win back some positions, take almost everything, and then return part of it, achieving exactly what she originally intended. "But then I need assurances too. An oath already from you, Stepan, that you will not exclude me from your Tablet once you have moved to a new hideout and managed to hide it securely enough. And, again, even in this state, we will be able to communicate. Safely. From a distance. With every precaution you can imagine. I can really be useful, I want to be. If you have problems with girls or anything else, you can always come to me, I'll help you, free of charge, out of the kindness of my heart, Stepan."

"I don't have a problem with girls unless you." He shrieked, suppressing the urge to kick the chair, realizing with more than a little panic that he really didn't have any options that would suit him in any way. "And I certainly don't need your help."

She only laughed, loudly and gleefully, offensive to his already shattered pride, though it seemed a long way off. She put out the candle on his wax-covered nipple in a single movement, threw the smoky burner aside and pointed accusingly at him with her finger, looking into his eyes again and activating another trigger, also auric, tied to magical vision, trying to induce a slight drowsiness, but Stepan kept silent, not letting her realize the ineffectiveness of her tricks, wanting to keep at least some trump card in their unexpected only for him negotiations.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, no problem, but you have to fuck with your cold, bloodthirsty dolls instead of the normal beauties." The extent to which the creature knows his life story, probably from the moment he was born, gives him a mix of migraine and toothache, metaphorically speaking. "When was the last time you got laid with a normal girl, bro? Do you even remember where to point the rod? Can you find a sheath for your saber?"

Stepan began to feel that he was boiling, despite his attempts at self-control and all remnants of will. The demoness really pissed him off, playing on his nerves, feeling impunity, and he, realizing the same impunity of her, realizing the justification for such impunity, pissed off even more. A vein was already beating in his forehead, blood was pounding in his ears, bloody dots were dancing in his eyes, his anger would be enough for a medium-sized volcano, if it were translated into temperature equivalent. He inhaled the sickly sweet air slowly, exhaled just as slowly, and responded to her lunge with relative calm, words through gritted teeth.

"I remember everything perfectly well, and I'll figure it out without you." He managed to keep his tone even, but he met her smile again, appreciated the relaxed pose, the lazy play of his fingers on her waxed skin. He couldn't hold back the angry, snarling outcry. "And you shut up!"

"Yee-hee hee hee hee! You're really inexperienced, Stepan! Now I believe that you really can't use the wand." With soft and predatory notes she says, continuing to sit in her chair, wiggling her legs on the table and waving her thin and flexible tail with a thickening at the end. "That's so sweet! I may say I seduced you myself, I taught my unkissed brother to love girls, oh, what a lecherous girl I am!"

The shaman realized that diplomacy was over, as well as his patience, because it was impossible to talk normally with this bitch. With a jerk, he threw off his cloak and belt with the dolls hanging from it, walked to the table, jerked off the wine and covered dishes, pulled the tablecloth off, grabbed the creature by both legs, just above the feet, and yanked it toward him, pulling the demoness, who shrieked in outrage, onto the table. In one motion, sharp and sure, he overpowered her token resistance, spreading her legs and exposing her tender and already moist pussy. The unbearable sweetness of the cherry smell didn't embarrass him in the slightest, and he almost instantly overcame a bout of nausea, pulling down his pants, already aroused and hard, which was not surprising with the concentration of lust in the air and this piece of reality in general.

"I don't know how to fuck, do you, you fucking bitch?" He asks her with triumph and anger, hissing in her face, which no longer laughs, but shows a feigned and mocking apprehension, uncertainty even. "I'll show you your unkissed brother, I'll fuck you, bitch, until you squeal!"

In response, only playful laughter and the heat of her body, supple and ready for anything, just to show her willingness to take control, just to show how wrong she was, and how she miscalculated. He shifted her hips, clamping his cock between them, touching her moist and scalding-hot lower lips, moving slowly at first and faster afterward, rubbing against her body, her heat, her heat, feeling the orgasm coming unpleasantly fast. Feeling and moving to meet him, eager to show, to prove, to humiliate her by the way he would cum without even thinking about her pleasure, just for himself, just to quickly wet her thighs, her belly, her pubes, all of her, to wet and subjugate her, to bind and chain her, to own her, to possess her, to rule her!

"Hah, little brother, you're so rude and so stupid!" She doesn't calm down and just doesn't seem to understand the very concept of humility, demanding more and more harsh punishment from him. "You fuck my thighs so hard. You can't even put it in my slit! Or, hee-hee, you can't? Yeah, you sure don't! What? You're used to dolls doing everything for you. You can't even insert yourself, but you're always ready to cum, huh?"

"Shut up! Shut up, bitch! Shut the fuck up!" He literally growls in her face, cum out even faster than he expected, only managing to squeeze himself tighter against her, feeling like a punctured balloon or a leaky pipe from which all the determination and will is pouring out. "I remember everything! I remember! I know everything! I fucking know how to fuck girls, you evil bitch!"

"So prove it, brother!" She replies with mocking superiority, pissing him off even more. "Fuck your sister harder, come on, if you can if you know how!"

He growled again, flipping her onto her stomach. She slapped his face with her tail. He inhaling the scent of cherries and honey, herbs and woman's body more intoxicating with each breath, settling in behind her, bent over the table, allowing, or rather not preventing, her tail to wrap around his legs. Tense and throbbing with blood, his cock trails along her pussy, until it slips into the hollow between her firm thighs. He knows, he knows, he knows, he knows, he knows! He knows how to fuck a girl, he just has to enter her, stick it in, but where? Where the fuck do he put this infernal fucking thing?! With a loud groan he strokes his cock on her butt, on her buttocks, on her back, and again he cum, spilling out onto the soft skin and moaning shamefully, trying to remember, knowing exactly what he remembered, remembered, knew how to fuck!

At that moment she rolled over onto her back, clasping him between her thighs again, thrusting both feet into his face, covering his mouth with a toe, forcing him to moan in surprise and orgasm again, even faster than before, pouring white lines out of his cock, feeling a strange longing, pleasure even, beginning to move between her thighs even more vigorously, even more often, eager to repeat this strange and unfamiliar sensation, to spurt some more, right on top of her, to spurt and prove to her that he could and knew . ... something, it didn't matter what, the main thing was to prove it, to wipe that patronising sneer off her face, to flood her white, to experience the strange sensation, to explode with heat once more and flood, flood, splash, manage to cover her all over!

"Well, there you go, little brother, we're almost agreed, as I said, to mutual pleasure." He definitely wants to make her stop talking in that mocking tone, but at that moment, the white stuff is pouring out of him again, and it feels so good that he forgets what he originally wanted, instead moaning into the feet that cover his face. "Now we're going to finish up, and then we're going to do what you're really good at, little brother. You know what we're gonna do, hmm? That's right, good brother, we're gonna negotiate and make deals, my good brother. Will you make a deal with me, Stepan?"

She lowered her feet a little, now covering his lips with her toes, but not blocking his gaze, and he stared into her sparkling, clockwise circling pupil-crosses, trying to figure out why he'd agreed to her proposal, because not long ago he'd wanted to prove something to her, something important. But apparently not important enough to stop moving his pelvis while the hard, hot part of him slid so pleasantly along her skin. The demoness, though she wanted to be called sister for some reason, ran her hand affectionately over his face, ruffling his sweat-soaked hair, stroking him as she would a kitten.

"Shamans like you, my dear, are best at this – contracts and deals. This is where your strength lies, and believe me, I will become your strength too, and you, silly boy, will become my strength..." She wanted to continue, but stared at her palm with surprise, disbelief, and shock, the tips of her fingers crumbling into a weightless whitish dust, like flour or powdered sugar. "What the fuck? What have you done..."

Stepan himself looks with great surprise. He looks at his hands, crumbling with white dust, at the demoness's legs, already bare to the bone, at the walls of the tavern, at the floor and chairs, which are quietly and without any special effects crumbling into dust. There was no pain, not even panic, only boundless surprise and incomprehension of what was happening to them. His hands turned to dust, the table crumbled under his sister, and she was almost a bare bones, just like him. The last to disappear are the eyes, crumbling into the same dust, and now nothing is visible at all, only an endless whirl of snowy whiteness, indifferent and endless. The shaman has no eyes, but he closes them in a strange calmness.....

dissolving

amidst

white

infinity

To open them intact again, again wholesome, again with his brains in their proper places, and still standing fifteen paces from the invitingly open door that led to the tavern. From that door came a shriek, muffled by the cloaking field, but so sweet to his ears, irritated and full of rage, that he thought it was something profane. That, he thought, was really sweet, far from the infernal flavor of honey and berries that came from the energy of the creature! Behind his back, the familiar white dust of the spirit that had incarnated into reality and disappeared in its incarnation, which by midnight would be reborn from the white dust like the Phoenix that is reborn from the ashes. Two streams of thought, absolutely independent and indistinguishable from each other, drawn into the illusion of the future in the form of a clear and extremely correct clairvoyant vision, fell into place, and both of them, imprisoned in this illusion, realized what they saw in the illusion. But there was also a difference, caused by the fact that one of the two was the summoner and contractor of Silent Whiteness, playing by slightly different rules than the other of the enfolded sentient entities.

While the illusion was playing in their minds, damn Laghan, just froze with a lost expression on her face, looking at the future she would have found herself in if it hadn't been for Stepan's summoned entity. Because Stepan, his will and mind, supported by the plurality of awareness, was divided into two. One part of him was absolutely authentically hit by a group of missed bookmarks, when the creature threw all the remaining trumps on the table, breaking the resistance of its toy, which could not uproot all traces of its activity. But the second was simultaneously watching this scene, rules and burning, blocking and loosening the bookmarks flashed by activators, and also calling the spirits, leisurely and confidently preparing exactly the combination that would be able to play most powerfully against this enemy, against these rituals and billets.

The bookmarks were the easiest. The creature, sensing the success that had almost eluded it earlier, seemed to be using everything that was still in its arsenal, everything that could help in a conflict with a ready-to-fight individual who knew that a demon was in his head. It all started with the very image of the door opening in the invitation, behind which candles were burning, reinforced by images of a barely discernible but clear demonic stench, awakening interest and at the same time making the option of “go there, if invited, otherwise it would be rude to refuse” the most logical. It also played its part, the candle and the wax dripping on his body, causing anger and unconscious arousal, the desire to show superiority, to convince that he was better than she thought he was, and the light extinguished on the nipple closed that trigger even stronger. Everything ended with an image of rage from him and mockery from her, as if a little brother was angry with his older sister. This bookmark acted in a complex way, gradually erasing separate concepts from the memory, making you forget about how to have sex and where to poke the girl who gave herself to you.

All together, comprehensively, these compulsions had literally overwhelmed him. He had been doomed the moment he had missed the ‘inviting’ trigger, agreeing to play by its rules. If it hadn't been for the separation of consciousness, the detailed illusion he was watching in real time, and thereby burning out or temporarily destabilising the bookmarks right along the way. It was also calling, yes, you can't forget the calling. Now, when he'd just opened his closed eyes, when not even a second had passed since the illusion had disintegrated, when the infernal creature raging behind the dark yawn of the open door was trying to figure out what exactly had happened in the first place.... Now he's literally five seconds short of striking, so he allows himself a little theatricality. The first thing he does is to fill the pause, to let the creature think that he's still ready to talk, and not about to get into a fight.

"You said it right, Laghan. The smartest thing to do would be to negotiate, the most logical thing to do would be to concede you a little so that you don't lose a lot more." He barely opens his lips, but the spirits speak instead, not with the rustle of the wind, as they usually deliver messages directly to the ears, but with the murmur of stones and the hum of ancient caves, which makes his voice sound creaky, heavy and old, belonging to an ancient old man. "It's true - shamans are good at deals and contracts, we're better at that than anyone else. But there is something else in which we are not inferior to anyone and surpass everyone..."

Stepan pauses for a second, completing the summoning. He's willing to bet she still hasn't noticed the summoning itself. He was trying very hard to be stealthy, and also unwittingly scanned the rituals inside the tavern, hiding the fluctuations in the blind spots raised by her own nasty sorcery, fooling even the imba cross eyes that hadn't had time to go full power. The faintest shadow of a smile appears on his face, hidden beneath the hood, but that is all the emotion he lets out, the rest of it given to his voice, angry and hard-pounding words, spewed not from his throat but, it seemed, from the very bowels of the earth.

"We're infernally good when it comes to hitting the tambourine!"
T.N. As I mentioned at the beginning. Tambourine is the replacement word for face. So to hit the tambourine means to hit the face.

* * *

Внимание! Этот перевод, возможно, ещё не готов.
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Переведено на Нотабеноиде
http://notabenoid.org/book/86785/581532

Переводчики: Camrad_RIP