Готовый перевод Настучать в бубен / Hit the tambourine: Эпилог 2

Epilogue
111

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Somewhere in the vastness of Nonfapiel – the world,

which is not so far away

from Beriadon, although not nearby.

Among all the mages of the Elven Conclave of Domains, no one would call Master Willirthal the strongest fighter, the most powerful barrier-maker, or the most skilful artifactor, but he was said to be the best portalist not only among elves, but in the whole world. Willirthal did not argue with this truth, seeing no reason to spoil any conversation with unnecessary and feigned modesty. He was confident in his strength and personal prowess, having proved it many times in practice in one situation or another. After the Inferno had come to the lands of his world, he had to prove it more often, which was frustrating. The strike of the cultists who had crawled out of their holes, which, like a desert snake, had been preparing for a decisive attack for centuries, followed by the arrival of the first armies of demonic worlds, and the full-fledged open gate. All of this happened so nightmarishly fast, so suddenly for the whole world, that had become unaccustomed to the constant threats.

The threat was missed, slept through, or other unflattering epithets, reduced to complete unpreparedness to meet the invasion. Everybody lost, everybody. The famous Secret Service of the elves, busy with the squabbling of individual units and enclaves among themselves. The human Сhancelleries, guards, and other silent masters. Everyone lost, even before the battle began, and after that, the demons and the cultists joining them in droves, most of whom had been forcibly processed and converted, were rolling unstoppably across the world. They went, taking city after city, settlement after settlement, country after country, giving to their Lust and admixture of other vices, and there was nothing that could stop them.

How many eternal lives have fallen, having learnt a fate worse than mere death? It is still difficult to calculate. The fate of several enclaves blocked on all levels and spectra is still unclear, and many still believe in a miracle, understanding that their loved ones will never come again, leaving them to live out their eternity without them. Or, even worse, they will come, but not by themselves. Amongst the demonically treated, warped minds and souls, there were too many of his brothers and sisters in eternity. They had all lost. Armies had been defeated before the battle had even begun, captured or drugged commanders had failed to give orders or given them completely wrongly, vaults of artefacts and last-ditch reserve stocks were falling into the hands of the cultists one by one.

The world was sinking into agony. The resistance was broken and disorganised. If the demons met a defence that had survived by some miracle, they simply bypassed it, blocked the surviving mortals, and went on their way. They knew that there was no one to unblock the besieged, that there was nothing to oppose the besiegers, no one to help. Calls on amulet communication went into the void, only rarely broke through the blockade of demons last messages of the fallen, the last cries or pleas. Much more often came false messages, deceiving even more shaken and collapsed defence forces of the mortal world. The messages lied that the fortresses still holding out had already fallen, that the fortresses that had fallen or had not even begun to fight were still holding out, the gates of which were opened from within.

The world was dying and its children were dying, dying all together, so accustomed to despising each other that they had not even had time to realize who was worth hating. Even his people, eternal children of the forests and stars, did not have time to organize a new Exodus, did not have time to gather together. Separately, the enclaves of elves could not power or even create a ritual of transition. And yet they were ready. Ready to flee even barefoot and without supplies, leaving everything they had gained over millennia of life in the bosom of Nonfapiel, but they could not; there was nowhere to run. And the cities fell - Rokons, Paralzar, Kirk-a-Buark, and hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of victims stained the altars of demonic Lords, burst into huge orgies, where the naked and rapidly mutating bodies could not see the ground. The strongholds - Eclipse, Harpoon's Limit, Black Stone - burned with their defenders, and the survivors of the assault envied the dead. One after another, the eternal hearths of the dwarven underground clans went out, the forests of the elves burned when the central Trees of the enclaves were desecrated, the underground cities of the dark branch of their people were devastated in a hopeless battle, if they had time to realize that they had to fight, to break free from the captivity of vice and remember where they were and who they were.

The world had already perished, they understood.

The world could no longer be helped, they knew.

But some didn't know it, some were simply not told that there was no way to win, that salvation was impossible, that the chance for it had been lost three years before the attack, when the cult had achieved its main goals. When Queen Suzanne's mind was defiled and enslaved. When they replaced Grobrush Ironhead with a demon double. When they quietly opened the seals on the Secret Treasury, taking out everything that could be taken out, replacing it with forgeries that oozed demonic foulness. This someone simply did not know all of this, and therefore began with the enthusiasm of deceptive youth to defeat, crush, purify, sanctify, and, as he would say, ‘for pwning’.

No one really remembered where he came from, not at first, and afterward even more so. It was just that a certain young man had appeared one day from the forests long ago, where the raiders of the cult and their masters were lazily fishing out the last groups of survivors who had not had time to take refuge behind the walls of Lorecald. He was short, overweight, with a head that had not been washed in a long time, and a face decorated with teenage pimples of such quality that the first thing you notice is the pimples. This young man would be homerically funny, as funny would be his words and grimaces, reminiscent of those of a boy waving a wooden stick in the yard of his parents' house, imagining himself a knight, defeating demons. Yes, he would have been funny, but no one was drawn to laugh after the first couple of minutes of conversation. It was not possible to laugh at the sword and dagga clutched ridiculously in chubby and clumsy fingers, glowing with divine grace. It wasn't funny at all when the young man stopped fooling around and pretending as if he couldn't take his eyes off the tits of the plump Taurus guard, replacing lustful words with a litany of battle prayers.

Oh, yes. All of them, those who had met him first, had been deceived into thinking that the young man was a cult spy with a washed-out mind, or just a victim of the filth that had come into the world of Lust, who had almost lost his mind in lustful visions. But the demons who met him were deceived much stronger and much more terrible. They were deceived in a way that only happens once for all eternity. The second chance, so far, among those who met Him creatures received a few. Mostly those who initially stood far away from the place of the meeting, or simply started to run away without looking back from the very first seconds. The latter, however, did not always work.

Senior guardian of the Wall Hundred of all Lorecald, the only survivor of the attack of the cult's agents, was not a particularly experienced warrior, but she still had the power and skills to bring the remnants of the surviving forces to order. She, unimpressed by the boy's assurances of his exceptionalism, but seeing that he could do something, sent him after the heads of a group of succubi that had been harassing the walls and defenders of the city for the past couple of weeks. Sending passionate dreams, taking away the will and constantly turning the people behind the walls into their obedient puppets, they not only kept the whole city in tension, but also prevented groups of survivors from approaching it, prevented them from leaving it, locked up the supply of provisions and supplies, which they were still trying to carry out from the neighbouring to Lorecald and much better fortified Bakmalash.

Roughly speaking, she'd sent a kid who'd managed to learn a few prayers and found a demon hunter's blades somewhere to his death. It wasn't the best thing to do, but Guguna Steel Boot had a city full of people she'd sworn to take care of. And the boy's already a cook, she thought. He was drooling all over her in all seriousness and asking “mommy” to be sure to “step on his face” before being sent on a mission. If it weren't for the complete absence of foulness in his body, he'd have been killed right there, but as it was, Guguna thought, he might have been able to make some of the cultists laugh to death with his grimaces. And she wouldn't have chased him to his death. She was just waiting for him to realize he was wrong, stop staring at her chest, and apologize. The boy did not argue, did not apologize, and generally accepted the task with such a look as if he was sent to the neighboring village for fresh bread. More importantly, he came back, soaking wet, covered in all kinds of filth and glowing with grace, reporting that the sweet, sweet succubi were gone, and none of them wanted to sit on his face, which made the boy very sad!

But it was not funny to listen to these nonsense not out of pity for the defamed freak, but because he dumped in front of them a bag of demonic artefacts completely cleansed of filth, the debris of the altar, which had been cleansed and even become holy, as well as a piece of petrified from the resonance of filth and grace body of the supreme succubus, The horror-filled frozen face of which was easily recognisable to Guguna herself and a couple of the remaining mages in the city, as well as to Ser Broderick the Pious, to whom this creature had given the head of his son, describing in colourful detail how she had ‘ridden’ her ‘horse’ before tearing off the head. At this point, it became quite uncomfortable to mock the young idiot. Which, obviously, turned out not to be an idiot at all, and probably not a youngster at all.

The new assignment followed the previous one. Confrontation with a horde of altered at the Gabital Gorge, where a raid-teleport to the rear of the demon formation allowed to completely destroy the strike circles of infernal mages, and then hit the back of the battle creatures stuck in the attack. And who led that raid, whose teleporter transported a group of suicides in a beam of pure light and grace with such a jeweller's precision that it's even embarrassing, who covered each and every ‘suicide’ from the devil, allowing eight of nine raiders to survive? Yes, yes, the same kid who tearfully begged the supreme demoness and one of the most skilful generals of the infernal army not to run away, and let lick that heel! Alas, but the demoness in the aura of grace and shield litanies of her ‘admirer’ dissolved and burned together with a bunch of captured souls even before he touched her, and certainly did not hurry to give her heels in the glowing grace palms.

The siege of Zelenoslavsk taken by the creatures, the lifting of the siege of Svyatograd, the storming of the Dungeon near the clan stronghold of the Bronze Hammer, the elimination of Zharazda of the Rustling of a Thousand Faces, the destruction of Gruk'Shmrhams'K'Lab, a huge chthonic creature of myriad tentacles, whose stomach was continually mauling those who could not die, gifted with smaller tentacles. Some of these victims he even managed to save and cleanse from the filth, some of them were even his, Willirthal's, relatives and acquaintances! The battle on Devil's Isthmus, the destruction of the Gate of Zamkada, right in the middle of the fallen Seven Hills, where neither the living nor the dead remained, only a huge cloud of defiling fog, in which you would not notice how you would become another mutated creature. The cloud of absolutely invulnerable to magic demonic mutagen, which is the body of a great demon in a step from one of the Lord, turns out, still perfectly able to burn.

And scream.

It seemed that in any place where all hope was lost, the pimple-covered face of a fat young man grinning with the grin of a lustful degenerate moron appeared. And at once the situation ceased to be hopeless. The invincible creatures, considered invincible, died forever, not even having time to retreat to their Inferno. Innumerable armies melted away as snow in the sun and candle wax in the purifying fire. No one, no one at all, in the world that was gradually restoring battle orders and broken communications, believed in this clownery by that time. The versions of why the greatest of the Saints who had walked on this sinful earth was behaving like this, looking like this, pretending to be like this were countless.

Some believed it was a subtle play on the nerves of demons and allies who had forgotten what virtue and piety were. Some shouted that Stepauron the Greatest and Most Magnificent - at one point, the name he demanded of himself seemed no longer narcissistic stupidity or sincere mockery of others, but rather a modesty of a sort. He had made some vows before Heaven and Light that compelled him to behave in this way in exchange for the impossible and unattainable by any reasonable means, the power of his litanies. Others saw in his behaviour a profound wisdom, a knowledge of Lust, which he opposes at the level where it becomes a weapon against the traitors who have chosen Vice.

Willirthal personally thought that all of these things were a little bit of everything, knowing very well that behind the pretense, behind the ostentatious perversity of the boy suffering from the accumulated unspent seed in his loins, behind the contrived and incredible conceit, there was a sophisticated and deadly mind, hidden steel, no, mifril, adamantine will, and also a lot of modesty. Stepauron could not cry about the fact that in his “Team of Naughty Suicidal Fornicator”, he really made sure that they were recorded in historical and archival chronicles as such, only brutal men, warriors, paladins of the whole pantheon at once, trackers and killers, no. He could have entered Willirthal's house with his flykick and simply demanded his mother and sister diggy's pose right in the throne room. And no one would dare refuse him. Not even his sister. They would have fought, even his sisters in eternity would have fought, for the right to jump on the bed of the Saint who had saved their world and eternity time after time!

He could cringe at the fact that “demonic beauties” and “cute succubos” burned in his aura, not having time to “play with him in the dog”, but in the battle with demons, no matter what kind, the sex and beauty of his purity remained unshakable. Well, just that all the female demons pissed off and plunged into a complete stupor manner of St. Stepauron to lead a super-fast and multi-flow duel one against a dozen, not taking his eyes off the “tits, asses, pussy and legs”, almost drooling from the corner of the mouth, and sometimes really drooling. Those creatures that could actually believe in this tomfoolery had gone in the first months of Stepauron's triumphant march through the infernal world of Nonfapiel, bleeding from infernal wounds. As for the Formicators, they had long since stopped pretending to believe in their Saint's pretense, though the latter always played up his resentment and anger at being “misunderstood” with amusement.

Their squad... They were all gathered from different places, units, and armies, joining the path of the Saint in one way or another. They all shared his greatest Gift with him, taking upon themselves a portion of his power, granted by the Tablet inscribed in the souls of those who accepted it. The impossible power, the limitless gift that Stepauron gave freely, became the backbone of the force that broke and tore out the backbone of the demonic onslaught. Though even Willirthal smiled involuntarily at the way Stepauron had shouted something like “I could have asked for a harem of catgirls right away?” at the reception of the Blessed Magdalena, whom he had ‘accidentally’ called a “milfpriest”, this feigned indignation and resentment was so natural that he almost believed it for a moment. They came to the squad in different ways, but all of them were united by Purpose, all of them were bound by Loyalty, all of them followed the Holy One, defeating, purifying, and, of course, redeeming.

To atone for their own mistakes, their own weakness and cowardice, stubbornness and shortsightedness, which led to the fact that only the appearance of the Chosen One sent by the distant deities could save the world. St. Stepauron methodically and gratuitously, without asking for anything in return, solving other people's problems, correcting other people's mistakes.

Against this background, the need to be included in the historical chronicles as a “Fornicators” seemed not even a payment or a mockery, but an easy reason for pride. Because I would like to look into the eyes of the one who would dare to mock their team, the one who would dare to utter this mockery even away from their ears. Stepauron also had the ability to forgive, but his mercy was often very cruel or very, very harsh, requiring him to pay for it. And to repay not to him, Stepauron, but to the whole world at once, to repay not for profit, but out of the most sincere feelings and piety. Everyone who repented sincerely got a chance, and everyone who believed that he wanted to help got an opportunity to help. In fact, this ability to forgive was in other aspects even more effective as a means of warfare than the direct destruction of evil.

Even more!!!

St. Stepauron managed to enlighten even a demon! A demoness, to be precise, but still! When Urrrayash Malachran Arkal, Lady of Fantasy, plunged herself and the Saint into a specially prepared trap world, a compressed illusion of years and years of uninterrupted Vice, she thought to become the one who would kill the Enemy, defeat or even seduce the Holy Mocker, the Blessed Deceiver, the Cursed Benefactor. She believed and wished, but she saw something there, in that illusory world, and realized something. She realized and fell on her knees before Him, begging not for leniency and mercy, but for forgiveness, recognizing the right to rule over herself, ready to serve and submit. And then St. Stepauron, who even at that moment did not lose his usual deceptive appearance of a boy, completely consumed by lust, gave out something like “at last my first demonic mommy!”, and blessed her with a holy sign.

And the Lady of Fantasies burst into flames, her entire pseudo-body, her aura, and even that which replaces her soul, and many souls within her cluster found freedom. But did not go to rebirth, but voluntarily returned to the bunch, fusing that with the body, creating a new one to replace the old. And the demoness was reborn, swelling around her not with foulness but with grace. She covered her vicious body with a deafening cloak of pure light, knelt before the Holy One, saying that henceforth she bore not Vice but Repentance, that it was now her duty to give Forgiveness to those who would come to her for it, to forgive and help the fallen to soar as they had helped her. Willirthal was ready to swear that for a moment the armor of Stepauron's contrived primitiveness and blunt perversity gave a crack, and he couldn't help himself. A single, stingy tear fell from the corner of his eye as he ordered Sister Urraya on her way.

Now she, who had built her nest on the site of the small monastery she had ruined, tested and tested by all the gods at once, took upon herself what only the Saint himself could do before. She cleansed the filth and restored sanity to those who had not yet completely lost it. Any cultist. Anyone who had tainted themselves. Anyone could come to her and be let in. Anyone could repent, and only if their desires were sincere, their guilt and shame unconcealed, would they be forgiven. It would be painful to scorch the filth and gifts of demons, painful to be born again, where his past sins would remain - husband or maiden, ordinary cultist or leader - but forgiveness was possible. Yes, you will have to work hard, yes, you will have an indelible stigma, but is that not the essence of repentance itself?

For that alone, and for all the brethren of eternity who had traveled this path back from where they would never return, Willirthal was willing to forgive St. Stepauron anything, if he could find anything to forgive him for. This blow struck the invasion force even harder than the Saint's other victories on the battlefield. Until now, the bulk of the cultists had fought with the desperation of the doomed, realizing that they had only the victory of their masters or doom. St. Urraya and her monastery provided a third way, a way out of the battle, especially if one sincerely wishes to do so, rather than simply cowardly in the face of the inevitable. No, of course, the gods and their clergy had been able to purify the defiled before, but it was difficult, costly, and dangerous for the priesthood, and offered no guarantee. The Holy Sinner, like Stepauron himself, could perform such cleansing almost on a large scale, en masse, without misfires or fear of low-quality work.

And she, thanks to her nature, even if ascended, but a demon, had no limitations, was able to pass through the sins of other people's souls, to take on their guilt and pain without pause, allowing you to pass Repentance and not burn in the inevitable fire of holy grace, Forgiving everyone, as forgiven her, accepting the torment of others with tears of joy in her eyes. Needless to say, the Holy Sinner was being hunted by demonic killers so persistent that it was second only to the hunt that was going on for Stepauron's life and soul. Stepauron Merciless and Merciful, able to turn to ashes and stop the blade in a millimeter from the throat of the doomed, with his mercy managing to show not weakness, but strength, to achieve not hatred and contempt, but gratitude and loyalty. Perhaps one had to be a true Saint, for some reason stuffed into the ugly body of an obese young man, to be able to pull off such combinations without any preparation at all, on pure improvisation and experience.

What was the situation with the intrigue of the Presiding Hierarch, who was known as the Queen of Elves in human parlance? When she and her secret service, wanting to save as many eternal lives as possible, to lure a real saint to her and force him to protect the elven enclaves in the first place, crossed the line.... He had fooled everyone with stunning ease. Back then, they still believed that his pretense might not be a pretense, for he played it too well. Then they had sent him two of the best ever-young seductresses with all their arsenal of love magic and a few drops of an ancient spell potion from worlds far beyond their own. A potion that should have broken through the defenses of the Saint's litanies, that should have allowed the whisper of passion to leave the right compulsion in a practically invulnerable mind.

It's nothing like that, it's just. It was just that it was the elves who should be helped first, because they needed it more, because their lives were more important! Willirthal, when he heard about it, for the first time felt such rage towards the representatives of his people, for the first time, he was not ready to admit whose side he would choose if it came to the blades taken out of their sheaths. An unthinkable sacrilege for an elf, but he understood all too well what was being played with by the puffed-up cunts who thought they were smarter than the smart ones. And he laughed heartily then, having locked himself up in an isolated room beforehand, or he would not be able to prove to the barbaric brute Kronan or Goodrin Ironbeard that he, too, could laugh uncontrollably, when he realized that St. Stepauron had managed to substitute the potion for plain water. All the time he was being “treated,” he was pretending to be that stupid human teenager dreaming of “elven aunties stepping on his face with stocking-clad feet”!

And then he calmly asked to meet with the Hierarch and her head of the Secret Service. They say, and those who would not lie, that they both fainted when they realized the depth of the pit they had driven themselves into. And he came in, smiling like a fool and not the least bit embarrassed, began to explain that, in principle would not mind even the first thing to lift the siege of Seroflower or even to repel captured elven children in one of the demonic fortresses. Very young blood, from which were prepared not sacrifices, but vessels, in which should be placed the essence of the highest of creatures. He had read such a story as the one that happened this night in a dirty picture book. There were also two hypnotic elven twins in stockings, who sat on the face of the protagonist, stupefied, subdued, and sent him to death, very surprised that he returned. And he would be happy to give that book to read to his “buddies”, but there is no book around. And in general, there is not much good literature available in this Nonfapiel of yours.

The hierarch, the honorable Birazel of the House of the Turquoise Branch, listened and nodded, listened and nodded, including the juicy and absolutely obscene descriptions of what the two elven seductresses were doing to the drugged and bewitched hero of that “book”, fooling around and enjoying their power. She only turned pale more and more and wanted to say that she had not planned anything like in that book, no, no, no, she only wanted to shift the accents a little. What humiliated her the most, as a politician, was that she had listened to the most shameful retelling of the shameful literature of the Passion Rose genre, interspersed with giggles and chuckles, with which Stepauron savored especially “tasty” moments of the classic dominance of the seductresses of the eternal people over the men of the short-lived races. But it came to her only at the end of the story, as if it had been deliberately designed that way, and when St. Stepauron asked her, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively, if she could arrange such a book for him, to enlighten the whole world with good literature, she got it.

Having calmed down and realized that he did not cut off her eternity, or, what was much worse, simply throw all the elves at the mercy of demons, refusing to help them, Birazel took the blow with dignity. In large part because she was ready to cry with relief, as she admitted. So she accepted the almost direct hinted demand without any resistance. A week later, the decree was signed and rejected; the Hierarchs, who were pushing the plan to correct the Saint's thinking, did not dare to object. It's hard to object. If you are simply sent with your objections to Stepauron, who just decided to stay in the elven enclaves, cleaning and sniffing out any filth, at the same time freeing the minds of a whole network of agents who did not even know that they had become unwilling and unaware of their slavery slaves of demons, regularly arranging vicious orgies with each other and do not remember that in the morning.

Another week later, all the secret halls of the Library of Exodus were opened. Including even those that could not be opened by mere mortal one-dayers. All this splendor was made public. Any magic, including the most advanced magic that human magisters could only dream of, any recipes and blueprints for artifacts, any knowledge! Everything previously only available to the most loyal and sworn Humans and other short-lived, that not even every elf could access became completely free. Any hopeful adept could read the highest grimoires of elemental magic, just by proving that they had the minimum qualifications to understand what was written. If you're not qualified, here's a comprehensive training program for elven gifted, don't be shy. We'll also give you tutors and the appropriate reagents for practice.

Yes, Stepauron knew how to forgive. He knew how to make Mercy very, very Cruel. Especially for a Guardian of Knowledge or Supreme Master over Coin, that's right. What was even more ironic was that he had managed to pull off, without Willirthal or anyone else realizing exactly how, exactly the same trick with the rest of the world. A completely open exchange of knowledge, interest-free loans, or even gift contracts for mages, where the payment for artifacts, textbooks, teachers, and alchemy was only a promise to continue the fight against demons! All over the world! As the Saint himself said, habitually pretending that he was terribly upset and didn't want any of this, and in general hinted at sending him again those two elven girls to “ implement the plot of the retold manga”: they got “a natural world flibusta on magic propulsion”. However, he never had time to explain what flibusta was, for they had to run to another cleanup of the demon lair, detected by Stepauron's network of sensory litanies.

And they went.

And they cleaned it up.

And again, and again, and again, time after time, doing the impossible, sometimes walking into the jaws of the enemy to the cries of the Saint that he would fall into such an obvious trap purely out of principle! They tried to catch them, and they threw themselves into the fight and won it. They were driven into a desperate situation, and the Saint found a way out and pinched the fingers of the Lord with the door. Sometimes also pinched their neck. Of the thirteen Lords that came into the world, only seven were frolicking on the Old Continent, and there were already five of them left. Very little was known about what was happening on the second of the continents; everything there was covered by demonic fields, and the last panic signals from the holding strongholds disappeared a month and a half after the day of the invasion. However, the invasion itself started from there, making us glad that, according to the ancient treaty, there were no elven enclaves on New Earth, discovered and conquered by Humans; there were only some diplomats, envoys, or agents there.... who were no longer there.

And they continued on their way, leaving behind only holiness and the corpses of those who did not survive that holiness. The attempts to destroy them all became more and more sophisticated. More and more often, Willirthal was confronted by demon portalists trying to redirect the passageway-portal to the wrong place where the magister of space was aiming. Kronan's favorite daughter was sent several demonic wolf-killers, whose fangs had a complex curse that would transfer the daughter's wounds and death to her father. However, the daughter of the strongest adept of the martial arts, even before the Tablet could pass through the city wall, leaving behind a hole in the shape of his body, was like her father and tore those wolves with her bare hands. As the father said, “She is my son!”, which caused Homeric laughter from Stepauron, who, however, once again refused to explain the context of the joke understood by him alone.

There were also some downright dangerous moments, like that curse using the desecrated altar of one of the strongest temples of Uramash, the Warrior God, who was also called the Fighting Cat, for he was the patron saint of beastmen, and was descended from them. If the saint's writings were to be believed. The artifact, activated by a demon who had broken through in a suicidal rush to the Saint, had even penetrated Stepauron's battle litanies to the desired effect. The world seemed to flash and in place of the obese saint with two blades in his hands, dressed in light but very dense armor made of pure mithril with even more expensive impurities, was almost undressed beautiful catgirl in only ringed panties, with huge breasts, plump lips, innocent and bewildered face, and armed with two vibrating dildos instead of blades.

It wasn't an illusion or even a full-fledged transformation. The world seemed to flash and for a moment they all, the entire group of Fornicators, remembered that instead of St. Stepauron there was always Slutty Peppa beside them, as if two sets of real and entirely true memories. Then, when Magister Willirthal the Revealer, Magister Biolir the Bastion, and Magister Rubert the Firestorm studied the remains of the artifact together, they nearly grayed in horror. The main trick of the tainted altar, which only had demonic power aside from the tainted grace, was like another of the Lord's, it wasn't even a transformation, no. The point was that the victim, too, remembered two sets of memories, real and induced. The victim remembered and realized what change had been imposed and what it had turned the victim into. And the next thing to do was to start resisting, to try to push away the false and bring back the real as the last layer of the trap was triggered, swapping the real and the false in place. The victim would finish transforming himself, and in the memory of the whole world would appear the version of reality in which Peppa the Slutty Peppa, who had been taken with them to relax and relieve tension, was tried to be transformed into some ugly young man whom they should have considered their leader.

Even the full power of St. Stepauron's litanies would not have been enough to throw off that influence, and it would not have ended with him alone, traveling further down the chain, absorbing his full power. And someone else would become someone new, trying to shed the false image, only solidifying it, turning the real image into a false one. And instead of their raid group, there would be a crowd of promiscuous sellswords of different looks and tastes, but all of the Catfolk tribe, who came here to earn more copper and silver from soldiers. No one would have recognized them, no one would have understood anything, and if someone had been near them, having seen the transformation process, he would have fallen victim to the cursed altar himself. Enraged by their success, frightened by how quickly the roles in this war, the demons wanted to desecrate and kill the very memory of them all, to erase them from the world and replace them with corrupted copies, still possessing the Tablet and therefore deadly after desecration and processing.

Even now, Willirthal shuddered in horror at how close he had come to this finale, and also filled with immense reverence for Saint Stepauron. Which didn't even think to resist, but quickly stuffed the two ladies' saviours into the special pouches on his belt, grasping his own chest and shouting loudly into the air a triumphant, ’That's the one!’ - Having done the only thing that could save him. Instead of resistance, there was only acceptance and exhilaration, and so the enclosed structure of the altar chewed itself up, bursting into a bubble, a rollback of the released grace, gifted with defilement, pulverising to dust three full large circles of demonic mages, almost entirely supreme, if not forthcoming to the Lords. And what of the Saint? He habitually pretended that he was terribly saddened and pissed off that he'd been turned from ‘beautiful titty catgirl’ back into himself, shouted a thunderous shout, and then began to smash the opponent with a fury unimaginable before with battle holy magic.

Apparently, even this fate, which was worse than death, did not frighten him, but it did make him quite angry.

After the battle had ended with the defeat of the enemy, having finished off the largest units of retreating creatures, the higher ones had already habitually scattered in different directions, knowing that Willirthal would get them all by teleport, having met the Saint personally, having healed and purified the wounded and chanted the souls of the slain, he truly understood how great a mind lurked beneath Stepauron's always greasy hair. In one second, to understood the mechanism of the cursed altar that his companions had all analysed together for nearly two days. In the same second, to be able to hold all reflexes and suppress the resistance of instincts and reason. To be able to instantly convince himself that he did not want to resist at all. And after dropping the distortion, immediately return the mind to normal and continue the fight, masterfully taking advantage of the death of most of the higher demons. The elf had lived for many centuries and was of a very advanced age even by the standards of his race, but he recognised that he would have failed at the first step.

Well, another debt of life and eternity to the Saint – one more, one less, it makes no difference. Only now he owes not only his life, soul, and dignity, but also his very essence, as an elf, as an eternal and immortal being. For if it were otherwise, Volka Poprygushka would now be serving the demons for a handful of copper coins. The image of a short, very curvaceous cat-woman, who was supposed to replace Willirtal in reality, he found in the ruins of a carefully consecrated altar, stripped of all traps and dangers. Yes, it would not have erased him completely; the memory of Willirtal the Opener would have remained, but it would have faded, and no one would have been able to remember when and where they had last seen him. They would probably have assumed that he had died at the beginning of the invasion, or a little later, or had disappeared without a trace that week.

Well, he had once again brought upon himself otherworldly horror, shuddering imperceptibly and shrugging his shoulders. To be fair, the rest of the Fornicators group did not look any better. They had visited a very gloomy place. Because the situation on all fronts of their native continent had stabilised. The enemy had either been repelled or had come up against monolithic lines of defence, losing the advantages of a surprise attack and most of the cult's intelligence networks. And so it was worth at least taking a look at the neighbouring continent to understand what was happening there, what the demons' plans were, and whether it was worth setting fire to their deep rear. And who better to undertake such a suicidal mission than the Fornicators, who repeatedly put their eternity on the line? Even the everlasting Willirtal realised with some shock that he had simply stopped fearing death. He had not stopped believing in it, but he realised he was ready to meet his end in the company of those walking beside him now. Paladins, barbarians, mages, assassins, knights, gnomes, halflings, lizardmen — all of them had become his brothers, no less than his kin who remained in the fortified enclaves of the forests. And with your brothers, you are ready to walk even into the mouth of a volcano, if you know that they will walk there with you.

That's what he thought and believed, and that's what he thinks and believes now, but he is still tormented by an underlying sense of fear. Because on that cursed continent, contrary to all expectations, something was happening that, to quote Kronan and Goodrin, was ‘absolutely fucking crazy. shit’

It is worth noting that there were no demons here. They anticipated an attack as soon as they exited the portal, but encountered only emptiness and traces of a recent battle. However, there was no trace of demonic energy in the energy background; nothing remained. It was as if the entire trace background had been drunk, erased, devoured by all the demons along with the demons themselves. They continued, delving deeper into the coast and returning, visiting ruined villages and small towns. Here and there, traces of small groups of mindless lower demons remained, but it was impossible to get any answers from these almost animal-like creatures, except that they were all terribly afraid, to the point of panic and loss of control, even more afraid than Saint Stepauron — which, in Willirtal's opinion, was downright insulting.

From the only partially intelligent demon beast, it was only possible to obtain an extremely vague description of what had destroyed all the creatures here. It was not a demon, but ‘something that does not exist, cannot exist, and should not exist.’ The cultist, who was on the verge of a personality breakdown and had hidden himself not even in a basement, but in a deep coal mine, at the very bottom of it, said even less, mostly sobbing and begging to be allowed to hide back in his lair. Because otherwise, He would find them. At this point, even Willirtal felt a slight hurt. The cultist, mutilated by demonic gifts, with three sets of wands and balls in his trousers, was not at all afraid of Stepauron and his aura, but was terrified of encountering once again that thing that had destroyed the outpost of creatures in Arbrom, a very large coastal city standing in the delta of a river flowing from the depths of the continent.

"This is the K-king." Said the trembling creature that had sold itself to evil, speaking and almost sobbing, choking back tears from its scarlet eyes, mutated by the disease. "The king, the K-king, but in rags, a beggar, but not a beggar, a vagrant, but not a vagrant! He came, he came, and took them all! He took everyone! He took all the Lords! And he didn't notice me! He didn't notice me! King, but in rags, king, but in rags... K-King-in-Rags, King-in-Rags! He came, he came to us, he came... And he, he... He doesn't wear a mask, he doesn't wear a mask, he doesn't wear a mask, he doesn't wear a mask, he doesn't wear a mask, he doesn't wear a mask, he doesn't wear a mask, he doesn't wear a mask, he doesn't wear a mask, he doesn't wear a mask, he doesn't wear a mask, he doesn't wear a mask, he doesn't wear a mask!!!"

And then this bastard howled in terror and cut himself open on the barrier that bound him, managing to overcome the paralysis imposed on him with pure terror and the disintegration of his mind with an aura. Saint Stepauron just scratched his head in puzzlement and uttered a brief and concise, but completely incomprehensible phrase, ‘Some kind of Cthulhuism is going on here,’ and then decisively ordered a reconnaissance. They did so, using not only their feet but also the portals of Willirtal, which carried them along the entire coast and even into the depths of the continent, encountering virtually no resistance. So far, the only resistance from demons was felt in the very depths of the continent, in its central and mountainous regions, and they all sensed the evil magic seething there. Well, Saint Stepauron definitely sensed it, as did the magicians, and among the warriors, thanks to the Tablets of Souls, many had a high Sensitivity.

"In this way, we won't get any EXP, my friends." Said the Saint in his inimitable manner, and then addressed Willirtal by the nickname he disliked so much, and he was sure that Stepauron addressed everyone in the way that would make them feel most uncomfortable. "Come on, Willy, let's go to Strottenburg and take a look there. And if nothing is clear, we'll have to look for the tongue on Clitor, yes."

"Kritorne, if I may point out, most honourable Saint." The elf corrected him, pretending, as usual, not to understand the intent behind such distortion and the blatantly vulgar wordplay worthy of a cheap roadside tavern. "This mountain is called Kritorn, like the city of the same name at its base. Similarly, my name is Willirtal, my leader."

"That's what I said, Willie, that's what I said." The Saint's equally traditional response instills a little confidence in the mage as he creates the basis for the portal transition, finishing just as the Saint gives a brief and clear command. "Door me."

Before acquiring the Tablets, Willirtal was renowned for his ability to create a supported group portal of increased secrecy on his own, without rituals or accumulators, using pure reserve and control, completing the task in approximately one and a half segments of time, which in the Tablets are called ‘hours,’ roughly corresponding to an elven long note. Now, three to five short notes, or two to four ‘minutes,’ are enough for him. The growth in power pleased the master of portals and space magic, who already has every right to call himself an archmagister, but out of habit does not change either his title or his address, because this transition involves a great deal of ceremony, and there is no time for ceremony. He is in no hurry, but still manages quickly, creating an extremely well-disguised and hidden puncture, transporting them all by volumetric transfer directly to an inconspicuous valley near Strottenburg, sometimes used previously by elven agents and additionally isolated. Yes, there may be an ambush there, but they are not afraid of ambushes. Such is the will of the Saint, who always rushes into battle regardless of the odds, and so such is their will as well.

Nothing remained in the abandoned and ruined Strottenburg. Only melted and twisted walls that were painful to look at, and a completely empty energy field, nothing and no one. No demons, no one, or anything they had fought against. There was, however, one difference. There were traces of several hundred refugees who had left the city by cart and on foot, and, if all the trackers were to be believed, they had passed through here after the battle in the city. The trackers were believable. Among them were the best ranger of the Varkan Mark and his two apprentices, the life-taker from the Brotherhood of the Blind with a grey blindfold, and the Lost Shadow of the highest initiation from the dynasty of hereditary assassins in the service of the Imperial House of Ti-Shaya. They had always been pros among pros, but after accepting the Tablets, they became truly terrifying in their mastery.

It was decided to pursue these fugitives a little later, but first to return to the starting point and, after fine-tuning the portal, jump to another large city. And that's when the strangeness began. When they moved back, they were already waiting for them. A figure, lonely and harmless in appearance, sat down on a sun-warmed stone right next to the mine from which they had pulled out a cultist who had been incinerated in the purifying fire. The figure was not sinister and did not give off a dangerous impression at all. Just a lonely man dressed in a raincoat worn to the point of extreme raggedness, with a hood pulled over his head. If it weren't for the fact that this figure did not disturb a single signal thread, a single screen, or field that covered the return point with a dense layer. If it weren't for the fact that he sitting there at all, despite the combat litanies set up to stop any stranger approaching this very mine. Stop them on the approach, but here, in the centre of defence, incinerate them instantly.

A figure with no aura whatsoever, not even a shadow of one or traces of camouflage, no matter how much the spectrum of perception of the magical gaze changed. A figure sitting silently on a rock, hands folded on its knees, turned sideways to the bristling shields and battle spells of the ‘Fornicators’. A figure that did not seem at all impressed by their combined power. A humanoid figure appeared to be dressed in real rags, but wore them with the dignity of a king. Suddenly, all the words of the self-murdered, defiled degenerate came back to mind, and they made the already serious fighters even more serious. Saint Stepauron merely smiled with that very smile that was seen on his ugly, frankly speaking, face only in the most tense moments preceding completely outrageous massacres.

"Good day." He says, stepping forward and shielding himself with new litanies, protective fields, and amplifying auras, preparing to be the first to take the possible and very likely blow. "What is it? How is it? Is there anything?"

"It would be extremely flattering this day to call it even remotely good, unless it was as a sophisticated mockery of my existence." A dry and calm male voice responds from under the hood, speaking in perfectly articulated High Alviorian, which they all understand quite well. "Otherwise, I can only be extremely disappointed not only with your level of intelligence, but also with the way you ask questions in direct speech, which at best should correspond to a Neanderthal who miraculously survived to the present day, if not an Australopithecus, which, as you should know, is recognised as a dead end in our evolution."

At that moment, Willirtal became truly frightened, to the point of horror and a heart pounding with panic. No, their opponent's aura had not appeared, nothing ominous emanated from him, and their defence stood as an impenetrable wall of closed fields and deadly barriers. It was just that Saint Stepauron, who heard this answer, a man who could not be called human, for he was above all limits of his own short-lived race, the one who looked into the eyes of two of the Lords and managed to beat them so badly that only one of them managed to escape in terror... It was this Saint Stepauron whose expression changed. And on that face was not the usual mask of a lustful degenerate, not the thoughtfulness of a sage, and not the fury of a warrior, but the purest, primal horror — a face turning pale, dilated pupils, a sweaty forehead, trembling lips, and a twitching eye.

Here, you can't help but feel the same way, because if this purifying light in human form didn't flinch in front of a couple of archdemons, but almost fainted from a simple insulting phrase from a mysterious stranger, then things are really not good. They are close to terrible, if not catastrophically nightmarish! Swallowing hard and taking a step back for the first time in Willirtal's memory, causing all the other ‘Fornicators’ to take the same synchronised step back, he raised his hands in a defensive gesture, like a simple man trying to shield himself from an attacking beast in a vain hope of protecting himself or pushing death away. And then, with a voice trembling and almost squeaking from the spasm in his throat, he uttered something completely unexpected for all his Companions at once:

"I... I've passed the test, Rodislav Gastoldovich!" The fact that the Saint knew their seemingly not-so-opponent was obvious from the moment Stepauron reacted, but Willirthal certainly hadn't expected that the stranger would turn out to be one of the Saint's mentors, and one whom he still respected and feared, if not feared to the point of trembling. "Right on the day of the test, I passed and passed on the first try! I passed with flying colours! I remember exactly what I passed, don't follow me!"

The figure tilted its head slightly to one side, as if surprised, but without mockery, looking out from under its hood with a gaze that everyone present felt, despite the figure's complete invisibility in the aural and spiritual sense. And then, after a moment's thought, their interlocutor pulled back the hood from his face, under which there was indeed no mask. Only the face of an elderly man approaching old age, a thin and elongated face with a sharp aquiline nose, thin lips, and faded features. Such a face could belong to a cook, a merchant, or even an aristocrat with equal probability. It was easy to imagine him as a teacher of some non-magical subject, literally just needing a pair of pince-nez to take his place at the lectern of the Athenaeum.

"I remember very well, Perdolenko, that you passed my exam." Judging by the structure of the sentence, the address was not an insult, but one of the forms of the name Stepauron the Magnificent and the Greatest, probably a family name, which Willirtal instantly memorised in order to immortalise it if the others forgot. "I also remember very well that you passed my exams and tests with admirable regularity, literally always on the first attempt. To be honest, in this respect, you were almost the only one in the group who did not cause me the deepest disappointment in the intellectual abilities of modern youth. And not just the youth. I even made a note of you in my journal so as not to confuse you with your namesake. There are two Stepan's in the group, one is normal, and the other, so far, has not passed my test. I am ashamed to say, but I have always found it difficult to distinguish between the faces of my students; you all blend into one continuous mass, faceless and very irritating.

The mighty and very dangerous elf's heart fluttered, and not only because he had learned so much about the only creature in the world to whom he was ready to entrust not only eternity and loyalty, but also his own death, but also from the realisation that there was a whole group of them, trained and prepared only slightly worse than Saint Stepauron del P' Erdolenko. It suddenly became clear who exactly was destroying demons here on a massive scale and why no reinforcements had yet arrived from the fallen continent to the continent still resisting. If Saint Stepauron was so powerful, what would be the capabilities of the one who taught him and, it seemed, still surpassed him in many ways, if not all? Willirtal did not respect his leader any less, but rather rejoiced that somewhere in the infinity of worlds there were those who were truly worthy of the title of the Chosen One and the Tablet of Souls entrusted to him, unlike the many counterexamples from the chronicles of the time before his people's exodus from the past world.

"Oh, yes, thank you, Rodislav Gastoldovich. I will definitely pass that on to him. He will appreciate it, yes." Somehow, even though it was not easy for him, the Saint gathered his strength and stopped trembling, looking as if he wanted to run away as quickly as possible. "And you here, on the continent, are you giving demons a hard time... I mean, are you failing them? Because we've seen all kinds of things here, but we've hardly found any survivors.

"Survivors, you know, prefer not to stay in any state in places where they could cease to be alive, otherwise, they would not have survived until now." With these words, the man took a small signal-type amulet key out of thin air and tossed it into his palm. "I must note that there are very few survivors left on New Earth, especially in the coastal regions. Most of the infernal army is now hiding in mountain caves and captured parts of the Underworld. To my shame, I admit that I am somewhat constrained in such conditions and simply cannot destroy them faster than they regroup to more advantageous defensive positions. Humans, like representatives of other intelligent species, are concentrated in Occupy-Dor-Vilay, as it is a very inaccessible fortress city in a valley that is extremely convenient for defence, where infrastructure and organised authority have been preserved. As best I can, I move new survivors there if they cannot get there themselves, but, much to my annoyance, the infernal invaders have not left many survivors. I believe that the complete extermination of the Inferno occupation forces will take at least another year and a half before my work is done and I can leave these lands and this world. I will not hide the fact that I am tired of it much more than I was of castor oil in my childhood."

With these words, the one called Rodislav threw the amulet towards the Saint, who caught it, although his personal bodyguard and protector, Sir Avelo, was eager to be the first to take the possible blow of the trap. Judging by the Saint's pensive face, there was no trap, but a key. Now, with the desire, resources, and magical ability, it was possible to communicate with the survivors of the New Earth even from the Old Earth. It seems that this is exactly what Stepauron thought, who clearly did not want to be here and now in the company of his former mentor, who could probably be considered his current mentor as well.

"Do you, Rodislav Gastoldovich, need any help with the clean-up?" He asks without averting his eyes, but Willirthal sees what this gesture costs their leader, what effort of will it takes not to look away. "I've here... accumulated ex... combat experience, yeah. You're a systems person too, I take it, huh?"

"You express your thoughts just as brilliantly and smoothly, shaming the art of rhetoric of Cicero, Demosthenes, and Lincoln all at once." For the first time in his life, and probably for the last time too, if such an encounter is not repeated, Willirthal sees how such an argument about the purity of Stepauron's speech has really shamed him. "That is correct, I too am a bearer of a similar power to you, Perdolenko, the only difference being that I chose a different original path. Forced, I admit, but equally forced, I admit that outside of that path, it would be extremely difficult for me to do as much damage to the invaders as I am doing now. As for assistance, I must regretfully decline it. My abilities make it exceedingly difficult to separate allies and foes, which is why I have to worry about getting all the captives, victims, and unaffected through the fabric of space before the battle begins. I will not hide, however, the regret of not being able to do battle shoulder to shoulder with you is, in my case, purely symbolic. Your face, as it is easy to guess, has bored me to tears since the first term."

Willirthal was willing to stake his eternity on the fact that Saint Stepauron was not the least bit upset, offended, or disappointed by this rejection, only impossibly relieved. With a smile that could have been the embodiment of the concept of strained insincerity, he waved a farewell gesture, stepping back a few steps. His companions, silent until now and ready to defend the Saint even at the cost of their own lives and souls, synchronously repeated the leader's manoeuvre.

"Well, then, that's it, good luck here, good hunting and all that." Stepauron's pace of steps backwards is increasing and increasing with every second, but he still doesn't break into outright running. "Write in the chat if you need anything, happiness, health, yeah..... Willy, quickly build a portal and let's get the fuck out of here!!!"

Saint Stepauron managed to shout the last phrase in a low whisper, panicked and almost pleading, and for some reason, Villirtal shared these emotions. Habitually not even attempting to correct his own name in a stranger's mouth, the elven mage wove the necessary enchantments. The intercontinental directional portal circle he had built, activated, and launched four times faster than his previous record in the speed of creating this type of enchantment. And he still wished he could have done it even faster because a moment before they were transported with a clap to the prearranged ritual ground in the middle of Old Earth, he caught a glimpse of the ragged figure shedding not the rags, but himself, his whole body, aura, and spirit, which were and were not at the same time.

Villirtal knew that Stepauron had seen exactly the same thing.

He knew that for many centuries, after the demonic armies were slaughtered and torn to pieces, he would see this moment in his nightmares.

He knew that the cultist hadn't lied, hadn't lied in his insane delirium, delirium that killed him long before he'd cut himself on the binding barrier - he really wasn't wearing a mask.

Author's Note:

A piece of the semi-canonical history of those characters, about whom we have heard a lot through the dreams of one shaman, but who were unfairly deprived of real airtime. You can consider this a parallel branch of events, during which two acquaintances of Stepan have their own tasks, exploits, victories, and triumphs, their own sorrows and griefs.

Внимание! Этот перевод, возможно, ещё не готов.
Его статус: идёт перевод

Переведено на Нотабеноиде
http://notabenoid.org/book/86785/587477

Переводчики: Camrad_RIP