Chapter 22 (Patreon)

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The situation, despite its murderous seriousness, reminded me unobtrusively of good old westerns, in particular of the now classic scene in which two cowboys stand opposite each other, waiting to see who will be the first to snatch the gun and feed his opponent with lead, ending a heated discussion. The holy man standing there, calmly and confidently, as if at a social gathering, despite his battered appearance, did not seem the weaker party. Yes, we were outnumbered, but we were all beaten, too, and, unlike Jerem, we did not have an invisible god standing behind us, healing and encouraging us. If the slaughter starts now, we probably still have a good chance of taking the bastard down, especially in the first few moments of the battle. A blow, a response, and another blow. That's the distance. Depending on how events turn out, the holy man could die unintentionally, and I'll be a namefag for the rest of my life. He can't unrealize that.

The boldness of the asshole is quite understandable. We can multiply him by zero, having managed to tear his soul before the incarnate Retribution pulls it to the Heavens. Another thing is that after, I'll only have to kill myself so that it wouldn't hurt so much because even at the best of times and with full preparation for elimination, I wouldn't be able to pull off such a massacre secretly. Right now, the only thing keeping us all off the Warrior's radar is his... competitor, perhaps. Being dependent on someone else's goodwill, the will of someone you don't want to shit on the same field with, was an entirely new experience in my new life, and it made me want to squeeze someone's throat. This someone had to choose his pride - not a man who worked in the office space, to learn to make a simpler and dumber face so as not to embarrass the bosses with reason. This skill had rusted a lot during the isekai time, but I hadn't forgotten it, so instead of a swift approach and activation of the Aegis's afterburner, coupled with a strong male embrace, I just tilted my head to the side, barely audibly, without any Shadow in my words, saying my line.

"Hello." The High Cleric's only normally visible eye squinted back at me as if waiting for me to continue, but he didn't flinch when I took a step toward him, but he tensed slightly.

I don't know if he expected me to continue, but I simply stepped toward him, covering the more vulnerable team with my slightly hunched back, pulling down my mask at the same time. In another situation, showing my face would have been foolish, but under the gaze of God, Grimmentray himself, who looks at me through the eyes of his servant, such trifles would hide nothing. But it would cause a palpable tension, a readiness to explode with ruthless action, the embodiment of violence over life and postmortem.

My eyes had once been dark brown, but now they were black. Too black, even with the full suppression of my powers already noticeably unnatural in their blackness. His eyes, I could have sworn, were not always so unbearably clear in the immensity of the sky's blue, but now there is so much power in them, so many wonders have passed through them. Even he may not remember their original color. The crossings of glances, so savored in earthly books, mostly love affairs, can say a great deal, more than words and actions even. In my past life, I often laughed at such maxims, saying that his gaze was insane or, say, piercingly honest, blatantly deceitful, and a hundred other epithets and comparisons. Having developed clairvoyance, I don't laugh anymore. To a normal person, the eyes of the interlocutor, most likely, will not say anything unless he is, of course, an Ophthalmologist or a Narcologist. For me, the facets of comparing eyes with mirrors of the soul had long ago opened up, long before this meeting.

I don't know what he saw in my power-damaged eyes, but the calm that had seemed unbreakable, barely perceptible even to my perception, sagged, replaced by a reflexive urge to strike, to break, to destroy, as if a poisonous or simply disgusting-looking insect had crawled onto my arm. A little more, and he would probably have struck, and I also instinctively wished to douse the heavenly spring, cutting my exposed nerves with its presence. Instead, I simply continued my sentence since the cleric was silent for now:

"Why are you here?" I didn't try to hide my fatigue or poor health, but he could see that without my acting skills, which, unlike Taria, I didn't have much of. "And why did you help?"

Now, he paused for ominous silence, either trying to shake my equilibrium or being knocked out of the rut by my actions, words, and chosen position in the negotiations. He makes me nervous, even frightens me. He is strong, dangerous, not less if not more than I am, but now I felt for a split second that I was making him mad in return, disrupting his prepared lines of behavior, breaking the plan of future negotiations, shifting the sense of internal balance, which he, for years of serving the Just, used to consider indestructible.

"For many reasons." There is no Heaven or Depth in his voice either, no echo of his God's words, just a confidence, a promise, and a declaration of his decisions that will happen regardless of my attempts to interfere or change his point of view. "From dissatisfaction with the actions of the Ascended One to your and those behind your back's involvement in what just happened."

A barely perceptible glance behind my back, right where Losius was standing in a half-martial stance, clutching his new sword, said more than words could. I've seen the echoes of that battle. I've seen what the duelist was up against. And that must be worth something, even to this vessel of someone else's will and the one who fills it. Not to mention a whole mythical artifact in the possession of the one who saved the skin of the priest and his entire temple. A helping hand is best extended to those who can put something of value in that hand, giving it in return for their salvation.

I smiled faintly, without anger or malice, but there was no joy in that smile, which didn't look good on my pale-white face. I knew that without a mirror, and after my lips had turned blacker than a pompous, stereotypical Goth from the nearest cemetery, it jumped into the ominous valley right off the bat. He didn't flinch, of course, but I could still sense he was letting out the slightest irritation, like the rippling of clear waters in the breeze, that my psychic senses were picking up at the very edge. Something wasn't going according to his plan, something I was doing differently than he'd originally expected, differently than he'd planned, differently than he'd wanted, which made me feel a little better. Not so invulnerable, not so unreadable as he wants to appear.

Another thing is that I am not very aware of what exactly in my behavior confuses him. Even the very fact of realization comes from the Soul of the Mocker property, grasping something ephemeral, unclear, seeing the effects but not the root cause, and that pisses me off too. Even more than the priest's presence.

"And what do you have to offer?" I basically guess but continue the conversation, even though I know he's realized my guess as well. "What will you take for your participation? What will you counterbalance it with?"

The last passage caused a dangerous squint in his healthy eye, and the other was already slowly healing, as was the whole half of his face, which someone had turned into a chop. It's not clear by what, but this hints at something I didn't realize. It hurt him, not so hard, but it still hurt. Eh, Konstantin Yurievich... we troll our interlocutors even one step away from the grave, as we always do. Life hasn't taught anyone anything, despite all the hints, clues, and just kicks in the ass.

"With chance." He throws off all complacency standing before me, showing, notifying, bringing his inevitability to my mind. "If not for you, Summoned One, then for the one who saved my life and my Lord's flock."

A laugh, pure, ringing, not at all like the shrill squeak of a door hinge and a hyena writhing in agony, the way I laugh. It was as if Heaven smiled, pure and forgiving everyone, from the scoundrel to the saint, accepting everyone, from the great to the insignificant. It was a gleeful, almost happy laugh, and in some respects, I confess, even more, frightening than the alternative hatred of the laughing Shadow.

"I don't need it, Holiness." If I didn't let the force in my voice, Losius didn't want to hold back, couldn't or didn't see fit to, pressing the planarian to his full height. "I made my choice a long time ago."

The priest smiled too, sad and understanding, and I'm sure it wasn't fake, though there was some theatricality in it. That's how an aged veteran smiles, looking at the trailing column of recruits, still believing in battle glory and great feats, not knowing how many of them will never come back. From his age, and the cleric, despite his relatively young appearance, is indeed old, he has the right to look and smile like that. And it was precisely these words of Losius that he had foreseen, swiftly returning to his favorite equilibrium, gaining the same confidence in the outcome he had predetermined.

"We all make choices, and they make us us." Taking his time, demonstratively showing a lack of evil intent, the priest removes a strange squiggle from his belt, as if two figure eights superimposed on each other, cast in a slightly bluish metal. "And there is a price to pay for each one. To you, to me, to all of us, Summoned One."

The Hero's Gaze malfunctioned, almost watering from trying to see the status of this undoubted artifact, and it would be hard to put into words how tense Tia and Giver, standing behind me, were. The jewelry doesn't even smell like danger. It's like a grave, a mountain avalanche that you can't stop but pray and wait it out, hoping it doesn't crush you. If it does come to a fight, the first thing to do is not to let him use the jewelry. Otherwise, it's over, it's all over, it's the finish line, the early end.

"I, too, have a knack for pushing philosophy with a smart look." Despite the ever-increasing tension, I, on the contrary, am more and more cheerful and calm every moment, even if it is the calm of a dead man, with which one used to march under tanks with a single grenade. "Sometimes, I even manage to pretend to be clever. I have another question: how did you find us? I mean, that you followed my companion, it's clear, but I didn't notice it."

Again, the pause. Again, the feeling that I was, without fully realizing it, treading on some weak point, finding a vulnerability, only I had to figure out which one. He was expecting an attack, despite the demonstration of peaceful intentions, simply because it was impossible to let him activate the concentration of power he had taken in his hands. It should have been done nicely, even before the meaningless dialog began, but it was because the old prick seemed to be leading me to that thought, playing on Shadow's instincts rather than man's, that I was in no hurry to make a last parade.

"If you'd noticed me, Foreigner, that would have been a sign that it was time for poor Jerem to retire." Like myself, he acts as nonchalant as if he were talking to a coworker on a smoke break, only he can't hide his tension completely, or perhaps he just doesn't want to. "The bond between his Blade and the One he freed is still too strong, despite the Winged Maiden being banished to the Heavens. It is through this bond I have traveled, with his help, as if by a guiding thread. In time, this trick will cease to work, and the axes of perception will shift, but for me, as I saw the moment of her fall into Heaven almost at close range, such a technique was not difficult."

The answer was honest and detailed, yet said absolutely nothing, but it was as streamlined as the hull of a space shuttle. I wondered if he was exaggerating or understating the difficulty of the trick. And after a couple of months of our time away from civilization, he won't be able to do it again, or is that what he wants me to think? So hard it is to play against someone out of your league, though. I used to be the strongest clairvoyant in the room, not even inferior to the whole circle of the Seers, but now I felt like a rookie going up against a pro and trying not to embarrass myself.

"You don't have much of a choice, I'll be honest." The same slightly sad smile on his gradually healing face, only underneath it was the cold grin of someone else's will and complete confidence in his rightness. "You realize it yourself, and I am only voicing it. Your deeds have been evaluated, weighed, and deemed worthy of this conversation, not death like cattle in a slaughterhouse under the steel of the manifested Blades. I can only give your men a chance, promising them a chance to leave, and give you your last battle, Hero."

However, how he beautifully determined who he would give a chance to and who he would fuck right off. Only humans, not behemoths, creatures, or elves. It makes sense because saving Tia is like shooting yourself in the foot, just like helping me. She killed a lot of important people for the Empire, even without taking into account the Second Prince, but her act of terrorism will not redeem her participation in the last battle. At most, they would allow her to take poison after a thorough interrogation, not to be put to death in the dungeons, and it was not a sure thing because there might be someone willing to practice the same slavemancy on her.

Hestia was already closer to the creature than to the behemoth, so much she fattened after the devoured cauldron that was the late Touch. For me, she is a companion, whom I chose and will consider mine even now, but for the priest, the former Raimel is just a dangerous thing harnessed by some subordination, which should be killed just out of a sense of self-preservation. I don't even want to talk about the devil's cutie, who now resides in the cultist's body, and I'd be glad to get rid of her myself.

Only Hans, Losius, and Taria remain the only ones worthy of salvation from the High Priest's point of view, but he doesn't count Taria and doesn't take her into account, obviously having found traces of subjugation or simply considering her unworthy of his recruitment efforts. I'm even willing to bet that he considers his act as nobility and readiness to repay for his contribution to the victory rather than a desire to snatch the bearer of a mythical artifact. He wants to help, but in his way, in the Alurean way, so to speak, sowing justice and giving what he deserves. At this moment, my head finally clicks, and the pieces of the puzzle come together, not all of them, not even half of them, but enough to judge what's going on, at least superficially.

Jerem, like the Patron behind him, could not miss the artifact Ring on my finger and its nature. He could not miss the changes in my body, the consequences of losing my human nature in every sense of expression. He considers me already a creature, only by the persistence of a Summoned Hero, whom he himself has not met but has read about the phenomenon, held within the confines of a former character. He thinks I am pretending even to myself, trying to cling to the remnants of the past! And he would have been right if he had met me after that first blow of the dead Sovereign when the poison of his Lust had forced me to kill my own self in order not to die with him.

From his point of view, he wants to save my companions from me, from an almost creature that will die and take everyone else with it. No one has told the priest the reasons why I chose the Mentalist Ring for my journey. He knows neither me nor them, judging everyone here on his own scale, on the principles of life in this cursed world. For him, I am sure. It is not even a problem, not a moral dilemma, but an ordinary situation when you have to give justice even to the one you are about to kill and whom you despised or even hated a moment before.

The rivalry with the Warrior, the desire to get mythic in his hands, the intention to properly dispose of the information I'd extracted from the Fall Executioner's head, the need to take back the Eternal Dynasty family blade I'd stolen. All of that was secondary, derived from the very certainty that I was right. He has already judged me, already weighed me, and set a price he deems fair. He has already pronounced a verdict of my guilt, only softening the sentence at the expense of the deed I did, paying for the consequences of that deed with that softness.

In a situation like this, I would have to bargain, maybe even get some more, if not run away from the battle. I could have rushed into battle, just confirming all his expectations, making myself look like exactly what he saw in me, rushing into battle and dying in it since he offered it himself and didn't even doubt the outcome of the battle. What I shouldn't have done in such circumstances was to lose control and let my shit temper out because my head was supposed to be cold.

The smile on my face changed from tired and sad to a completely different one, unexpected for me, my interlocutor, and his master, too. Not the grin of a cornered creature ready to sell its life for higher prices, trying to last longer. Not the grimace of horror at the inevitable verdict, the unwillingness to end my own fairy tale before its time, the fear of the end of my last adventure. I have enough anger on my face, as well as in the depths of my seething hatred, but far more, there is pure, unclouded, simply burning contempt. And that emotion, that feeling, now bursting from my very gut, struck the priest who was listening intently, making him recoil, clutching his bling tighter, losing his balance again, only now it was slower to regain it.

"Who the fuck are you to judge me?" I utter it without hissing or clawing at my throat, almost a whisper, barely perceptible. "Who gave you the right to do that, you fucking justice?"

Instead of the cleric, it was something hidden behind the blue of his eyes, as if it had pushed the servant deeper into his body, stepping forward, overwhelming him with a power that made me, even at full boost, seem offensively small and defenseless. I was looking at him, who had made sentencing everyone and everything part of his essence. Embodied it, and raised it on a pedestal of greatness.

"I gave that Right." Every syllable is hammered into my head with a judge's hammer, every letter imprinted on my skull with a scorched symbol, and behind me are staggering companions who have had only a fraction of what has fallen upon me. "And who are you to dare challenge that right?"

A moment more, and I would have fallen to my knees, unable to withstand the pressure of pure power, concentrated into one clear ray-sentence, like a condemning executioner's blade. The shadows did not respond, the connection to the planes seemed to bubble up, lost, and reappeared, preventing me from tuning into the battle, and even the faithful Aegis did not want to respond to my orders. But instead of sprawling on the floor like an unhappy frog that met with a boot, I sharply threw forward my hand, grabbing... the very same amulet, snatching it from Jerem Steyr's unclenched palm.

He was probably expecting all sorts of things, especially an attack, but not what I just did. It's like trying to wrestle a flamethrower from an enemy's hands by grabbing the jet of flammable liquid it releases. Welcome to my world, asshole. We do not know the instinct of self-preservation as well as the laws of reality and God's will. Nevertheless, my actions took the symphony of the priest and his God, which was crushing me out of combat mode for a while, easing the pressure on the whole of me.

Aegis and Form activated in that brief window, turning the body into an inky-black silhouette, clutching an artifact glowing blue and reflecting the waves of the sea, which was burning the shadow body to a fleshy pulp right now, despite the Aegis that was almost in afterburner. The sensation of such touch was comparable to the agony of a Sovereign's blow taken directly on a naked body. It wasn't even pain, but something deeper, something completely different, something unimaginably crushing the nature of anyone, from beggars to kings.

The shadow gave me the strength not to fall but to straighten up, feeling the glimpses of the power that touched me vaporize pieces of instantly regenerating flesh, the gut hidden in the depths of blackness burning in agony. Even without a direct touch, just being within range of this thing, there was little chance of fighting back or surviving the attack. But once it was in his hands, taken voluntarily, against orders, and without Grimmentray's permission, even those ephemeral chances faded into the depths of the Abyss. But I don't even think of stopping, of tossing God's toy aside, of sheltering myself in the dome of Loneliness. It's not how I want this day to end.

Even if I die now, I'll be able to say what I think right in the bastards' faces, even if it's the last act of my too-long life.

Instead of shielding myself from the pain, from the guilt I bear, I only open myself to it, against all the logic of the world and even against the description of my class skills, burning the intangible shadow body into somehow quite living meat. I can't deflect the sentence, can't prevent it, don't even try, instead passing my judgment, even if it has no power of its own, even if I have no right to it.

It wasn't words, if only because I wouldn't have time to utter them, only a mute accusation, an indication of what should be pointed out. Almost forgotten images, like an old and frayed dream, a memory from a literal past life before I had even set foot on the land of Alurei. At that time, my mind, still untrained, completely human, and lacking the ability to see into the essence, took this thing for a regular file folder, like hundreds of hundreds I'd seen in the office, just floating in the air. The mind of the newcomer simply did not perceive the truth, hiding behind the illusions of habit, seeing only a stupid wrapper behind which hid the bloody, as hundreds of years of working slaughterhouse, the truth.

A list of obituaries, a few lines of description of other people's fates, the fates of those who were here before me, who finished their journey or will finish it without breathing the air of their own free will. I am sure. I just know that if I look at that folder now, I will see not files and plastic spines but a damp, oozing blood, a grave, a cenotaph, a tombstone, a memorial built right in the Hall of Choice for those who were not mourned at home or here, who were not needed either here or there. They are all there, on those pages, hidden in a few lines, in a couple of sentences, in a dozen words.

Is that what you call Justice?

The pain became unbearable at the very beginning, but each moment revealed new facets of it. Each moment must be the last, marking the finale in which I will be crushed like a cockroach with a slipper. I am standing, breathing, living, not because of my strength, not at the cost of unchanging stubbornness, not out of a desire not to die, but only and only for the sake of these names, which no one remembers anymore. They keep me on my feet. They stand behind me. They stand behind my back just as the Verdictor stands behind his Priest. They take a part of their anger. They share with me my loneliness, my pain, my hatred, my fear, my despair. They don't really exist. They are only in my imagination. Any support from them is just a figment of my wild imagination, but that doesn't change a thing.

I'm not standing because of them.

I'm standing for their sake.

Where's your Retribution?

The divine anger stung and burned, but even though it was stronger, I was relieved, as if something important that had been invisibly present had stopped working as it should in the crushing power of the disapproval heaped upon me. It still hurt terribly, to the point of agony, but now I was not dying, only getting angrier and angrier, just like the morally slapped god. It was unexpectedly exciting to troll a natural celestial, and this feeling of successful mockery infused me with another stream of strength that helped and kept me afloat.

The artifact's retaliatory strike was expectedly unstoppable, without any alternatives capable of not even smearing me, vaporizing me into a bloody pulp, yet unexpectedly... tolerable? The divine toy acted as a microscope lens and a crystal prism as if sifting me, evaluating my actions and myself. It evaluated me according to Grimmentray's criteria, but what a tragedy because where it should have disembodied me, the flow of divine power only managed to burn me. Painful, agonizing, enough to kill hundreds of hundreds of ordinary people, even a high-level warrior with a focus on damage absorption, but it was a drop in the ocean compared to the power that could not catch me, flowing harmlessly and powerlessly past.

Oh, from the point of view of this, well just very there should be sarcasm here, the fair deity in me had enough, let's say, if not sins, then faults, mistakes, and bad deeds. Slight hypocrisy, almost complete godlessness and by no means slight anti-theism, overly cruel jokes in some situations, overly permissive attitude towards the same monsters or even creatures in others, participation in the murder of subjects of the Empire or other states, helping those whom the Empire wished to kill. All this would have been enough for a hundred executions by the civil court, but Grimmentray, who wished to punish me for my insolence through his artifact, had to limit himself to the laws, not of the world but of God.

I did not see any feats in that, trying just to do what someone had to do, long before me, time after time getting into the next shit, getting out of it again and again to spite all the dangers. The Incarnate Justice watched. His power pressed and thrashed in the chains of his artifact's will. I only pressed back, punching images through the resulting channel of communication so tight that no other cleric, even a very strong one, could ever know in a lifetime. The dry lines about the forgotten and desecrated Heroes, from whom the very right to the Feat had been stolen, were joined by the heavy glances of the Undead bound to the Dolmens in the wild lands, tired of even hating the life that had betrayed them. Again sounded the measured step of the marching column of Heavy Infantry, day after day, century after century measuring their stamped step in the cage created from their bodies. The black abomination, which takes away people from themselves, devouring everything and everyone, seeking to take, to defile, to stain, to stain, to blacken even the Heavens themselves, swelled and hissed. And, of course, my last battle, the dance of Four against One, the final battle for the city, for ourselves, for the right to remain ourselves, for the right to tear, to torment the creature before me and in me, to continue another's battle just so that the fairy tale would continue not for us, but for everyone else.

Each of these decisions I made myself, expecting nothing from these deeds but another portion of problems, but that was why they sounded only weightier at this moment, crushing the flow of divine power with a counterstroke, causing no harm, no pain, no damage, but wounding the Retributor by the very fact of what had happened. For it was not he who had brought about the recompense and completion of these stories, though he should have, he had to. It was his duty!

The remnants of the torrent of punishment flowing through me should have been enough for most of the living and long-dead, but it was just remnants, crumbs, and drops of red-hot metal from the boiling cauldron into which I was about to be shoved. It was a terrible force, but no longer so unstoppable that it was pointless to fight against it. And I stood there, replenishing my body burning in the sky blue with my form, with Aegis super-compressed like a second skin, frozen a step away from the afterburner, extinguishing and devouring the sea drops, the salt falling on my wounds, the grayness of the manifestation closing my right to life.

And he relented, shocked by this fact far more than myself.

Because my tribunal, a rashly challenged trial, I had just completed and was acquitted.

It seemed like an eternity since Heaven had fallen on me, but when my mind let go of the clutches of the Verdict in my hands, not even a second had passed. Even Giver hadn't had time to unleash half the sonm in a desperate attack right into the shocked and childishly lost face of the First Priest, and the rest of the team was falling even further behind. In the depths of her nearly burned soul, there was a sweet feeling of a successful tussle, of winning a fight, even if it was only moral, not physical. And there was also a clear understanding that if the deviless had time to strike, Grimmentray would have to look for a new head of the clergy because the remnants of the current one, now deprived of protection, would be easier to paint over than to scrape off, not to mention the damage to Steyr's soul, carelessly put under the blow. And that's when we'll definitely get a rising star, possibly a morning star. We're being shut out from the attentions of the Warrior retinue raging over the city by Grimmentray through his priest, and it's going to get bad without him. Well, for about the few seconds it would take for God to condemn us to a hundred years of firing squad for killing the head of the flock, with no breaks for lunch or weekends.

I almost growl at the new outbreak of pain in my unhealed body, turning the grayness of the Manifestation behind me, stopping the team's unreleased attacks, and for the sake of Giver, I jump backward, turning around in flight to cover the palms of her current meat sack with my fleshy pale grasp. It came out and sounded so vanilla that I almost felt nauseous... but no, nausea was from the fleur and the effects of potion rollback and overexertion. And the ointment-oil-cream the cultist used to cover her naked body with for better protection against enemy magic really smells like vanilla.

"We're still talking." I wish I could say that sounded pathos and commanding, but in reality, I barely managed to wheeze it out, which after what I'd been through, was already a feat. "And if you, you insolent bastard, say anything more about your fucking trial, I swear on this very shit. I'll figure out a way to drag you both to the grave with me, even if I have to turn myself inside out to do it."

The still clenched religious relic that had burned the hand that held it into meat, despite Aegis and Form, was pierced by a new flash of heavenly light, only now painless, apparently registering my oath and the seriousness of my intentions. The latter made not only me but also Jerem, who had completely healed his wounds and the deity watching through his eyes, look at the artifact that had stopped burning flesh with wonder. I don't even know which of the three of us was more surprised, but the priest's face became even more bewildered and stupid, eliciting a reflexive laugh, hoarse but sincere.

"It can't be..." That's what they both said, I'm telling you. "You have been vindicated."

The relic shone again, and I realized, in no small shock, that right now, I could take from it healing wounds, pumping power, and almost any kind of help so I could blast at a level not too inferior to my own, only not wasting reserve, but pumping divine power through myself. There were a lot of thoughts, starting from the fact that through such a channel, one could easily monitor, influence, or harm the one who tied it to himself, but the first thought was quite different. I wondered, if I tried to kick the Avatar standing before me with the same power, even if not fully manifested, would it be considered that the god would kick himself like Tyler Durden?

"I'll just absorb back my own grace, summoned." I'm sure he couldn't read my thoughts, not that quickly. But my face must have been very telling, and there was a slight, almost slight uncertainty in the Avatar's tone, making me remember the grace might be his, but I had a very well-developed concentration that would allow me to twist a figure out of a ready-made force that would take a while to unwind. "Don't even think about it, morta..."

The projectile I fired, a classic spear, only wrapped in a prayer page, was thrown only for the sake of distraction. It was just a matter of fumbling for the prayer construct hanging in the artifact itself, easily discernible through the link and using the same link to materialize the finished Miracle. This is the power of prayers. It is not necessary to compose them yourself, as I do with shadow charms. They are already ready and, often, somewhat more effective than spells from a mage of a similar level, only know the right prayer and have the right to recite it.

My move wasn't even repelled or reflected but canceled, as if a wire had been pulled out of a socket and a new toy had been extinguished and turned into a piece of colored plastic, except that I hadn't counted on success. I used shadow steal on myself, reaching the connection with the relic. Then I looped it on myself and brought the Hammer of Conviction down on my head. It is another battle prayer, but much stronger, capable of taking out the gate to an average fortress along with the wall of the fortress itself and the opposite wall of the same stronghold, breaking through it.

I could swear to that, and on the same artifact I was holding in my hands, they were both swearing, not just the priest, even if they were inaudible and unspoken. The blow did me no good, especially with any defenses intentionally disabled, but the theft kept the weight of the Miracle off, sending it to the address of the ultimate recipient of this gift - to me. The only thing was that the transfer of the stolen item was clearly on the border of the (pseudo-)priestly connection created by the artifact, right into which the Miracle hammer dived, going through the artifact to the owner of the relic and the one with whom he shared his body. No, he didn't scream, didn't fall to the ground, and didn't shatter, but it jerked him as if he'd stuck his fingers in a socket, and his face was contorted with a furious grimace.

I didn't care about him, though; I had achieved what I wanted by forcing the channel to destabilize, nearly killing myself with a backlash but losing my connection to the stockpile of alien Wonders. The relic, whose name had floated into my head without my desire, still did not burn, still was ready to give strength to those who passed its test, but to give it up, to give up, in fact, the priestly rank of the highest order, was as easy as blowing my nose. I have enough temptations of my own, promising omnipotence, and I will carry Revenge in the name of the Moon or the Depths on my own terms. On the same terms, I define for myself my own Justice.

To my surprise, there were no terrible consequences and no attempts to take control of my brain, and the artifact itself broke its contact quite calmly, becoming a piece of iron again, not burning but not helping at all. I silently threw the priceless and iconic object in the direction of its owner, relieved to let go of the thing that had caused me so much pain and agony. I'll think about how to erase the likely marks of the divine, how to hide my images again and hide in the cloak of nothingness a little later if I somehow survive this day.

Jerem caught it reflexively, not immediately realizing that I'd just thrown it like a pebble, and when he did, he didn't even have the strength to be indignant. The presence of the deity in him was somewhat distant, making him more of a priest than an Avatar, and he seemed to be consulting with his patron, carrying on a dialog inaudible to me, reassessing my fate and the possible benefits of my survival. And I did not doubt in my mind that he would help me get away today, that he would lead me beyond the borders of the city that had returned to reality, that he would cover me from pursuit, and that he would not turn me over to the Imperials as soon as I stepped out of the door.

To be a deity is not only olo-lo-push-push-push omnipotence, almightiness, and unbelievable awesomeness. Every time they go against their nature, against what once made a deity a God, what gave them Ascension, elevated them to the top, they cripple themselves, giving up a part of themselves. Each time, they leave an unhealing wound that will never disappear. It is possible to regain the power. It is possible to make up for the loss of a part of grace and its maximum reserve and to gain back the lost percentages of the effectiveness of prayers. But you can never forget the moment of your shame when you had to bow your head to circumstances, whether it was someone else's power, evil will, or your own greed.

If I were merely innocent but still summoned, still an evil terrorist to the world, it would be a slight scratch, a minor nuisance, and the benefit of my death or even the capture of our entire team would blot out that damage to nature with a broad stroke. But after I have passed the hardest possible test, the great sentence issued personally by Grimmentray himself and under his auspices carried out, it will not be possible to dismiss me. The price will be too high. There may be complications, additional demands, pressures, dialogue, and bargaining, but it is much better than the promised last duel in honor of the fallen me.

"I didn't expect that, I'll admit." Almost normal, but completely unreadable in his face and aura, the priest said, taking his time to close the distance after my leap to the almost-striking Giver, who was now back in a spring at my back. "I see the lore of the ancients did not lie when they spoke of your kind. Well, all the better to be fully prepared for the manifestation of the nature of the Deprived of Shackles..."

I didn't have time to answer because behind me, in addition to the grim readiness for battle, there was a soft but very audible laugh. And then it came again, a little louder, making me turn on my toes, glancing judgmentally at Taria.... who was looking away from me, trying to keep Jerem in Valerium's crosshairs. The laughter was not hers, but Tia's, whose eyes, only visible from beneath the cloth mask, were oozing with sincere mirth, which in her character meant Homeric laughter and hysteria. However, she was badly intoxicated and fleur-damaged if she could not control herself.

"I apologize. It's just that your words, holy Steyr, for me, who lived some time in the company of "his kind," are unbearably ridiculous in their naivety." The voice seems normal, but the fact of such interference in the conversation and breaking the fighting order is say more than enough. "I apologize again. The battle was not given to me for nothing, and I unwittingly allow myself too much."

A pause, after which we both pretended we didn't see or hear anything.

"I can let you go, and, Heaven knows, I will cover you and your people from the gaze of others." He seems uncomfortable with this conversation, not because I've screwed them both, despite the divinity of the other, but also because words of mine have struck a nerve, both of them as well. "But, if you wish to take out the Fall Executioner and the hand monster as well, you will have to repay justly."

This is the most pathos, majestic, pompous, and sublimely poetic demand for a bribe that I have ever met in both my lives. I admit not without admiration but with a share of indignation. Well, no one thought it would be easy, and I was counting on bargaining from the very beginning, to be honest. And to be quite frank, even the already offered "free of charge" was much more than I expected to bargain for the same mythical pickaxe wrapped in my cloak.

"Add to that the passage for the possessed, which, by the way, should be counted as one unit, and then name your price." It wasn't the priest who was most surprised by my outburst, but the subject of the argument, who was pretty fucked up, because she knew exactly how I felt about her. "And I'll choose the point you'll lead us to, making sure there are no ambushes, leads, markings, or other bad things."

In response, the priest's gaze flashed back to me, and for the first time ever, the priest let a quietly smoldering but very dangerous, like a bottomless maelstrom, anger enter his voice.

"Listen here, boy." Now, there was not even a trace of the former collected, deceptive calm and good-naturedness left. "You have allowed yourself much to be said, much to be done, rightly receiving the forgiveness granted to those above me and you. If He has pronounced judgment, then the judgment has been pronounced. You have said dangerous things, and you have thrown out accusations that should not have been moved by the morning wind, but you had the right to do so. You have no right to doubt His word or mine. And if you let yourself do that, I'll beat the shit out of you right here. Do you believe me?"

However, he was hurt by it. He switched to a simpler speech, in which the slang of some thug, judging by the clues of clairvoyance, the slang of the countryside, and also outdated for at least a century, was clearly visible. And now I realized exactly: I'll try to joke, I will definitely have to fight, and he didn't care about the violations of his own court because if the acquitted right in the hall sends the judge to hell, then God is his judge. That's the one, yeah. In general, I could only nod silently, holding back the poison of words and innuendo that was bursting from my tongue because it was not worth it to be impudent, and now I was dependent on this guy.

"That's fine." As if the outburst of anger hadn't even happened, he regained his carefree and impenetrable look. "Just let me give you some advice, almost friendly..."

"Even if she's a creature, a devil, and an abomination beyond description, even if I kill her myself a minute later, but she's my abomination who came here for me and with me." This is where keeping quiet and allowing myself to be lectured is definitely not something I'm going to allow because fuck you, that's why. "Which means it's up to me to send her into oblivion, not you or anyone else."

"Any loyalty instilled in a devil is as fragile as broken glass in the cold of the Coming Frost." Unlike his doubts about the honesty of Justice incarnate, the harsh answer did not offend, surprise, or shake his confidence. "You may think her bonds are secure, but in reality, they are as illusory as her humility and the trust it induces. It would be a shame for me to spend so much effort, personal time that I should spend not here and not with you, to give your soul to the Hell shard in her face..."

"Are you serious now?" It seems I overestimated his eyes, at least in terms of evaluating my Ring. Otherwise, he would have spoken very differently, but after all, he was also looking primarily at me, not the artifact, and the nature of it is not fully realized. "Trust? In her? I might take offense at that hint now."

"Your choice." Without reacting or trying to convince me further the High Cleric shrugged his shoulders. "Then here is my word. I pledge to..."

"Apchi!" What he obliged, I didn't hear because Taria inhaled some dust and sneezed audibly, barely keeping the Valerium pointed at Steyr. "What? It's really dusty in here!"

I think even Giver made a facepalm, almost attacking again at the sharp sound. And it would have to do something about her, too, probably kill her and forget about the problem. But if she deserved anything, it was to die at my hands, not to be hypocritically sold like a bargaining chip. We are responsible for those we tame, even if you tame a fucking radioactive radioactive cancer-spider-cyber-tiger-canibal, and now you don't know where to put it or who to sell it to.

"Ahem..." It looks like the man is getting annoyed and burdensome with our company. Such a pity and shame. "So, I undertake to take out every single one of your companions in this city, hiding you from any surveillance and leaving you already outside the tightly controlled area, allowing you to go wherever you wish, without pursuit, ordering pursuit, setting up surveillance or giving orders to do so. I undertake not to report voluntarily or upon request information about our meeting and about what I, thanks to this meeting, was able to learn about your nature...".

He listed his duties at length, in detail, and spoke as if he had written it down, making me involuntarily look for the cheat sheet he had used to read it all. I couldn't find it. Apparently, his own experience was enough for him to draw up a contract. Despite the many words, neither my brains of a twenty-first-century resident, who can buy appliances in retail stores without additional options and open accounts in banks without imposed services nor my full-fledged clairvoyance (since we are now covered by the highest bar, it is a sin not to use it) did not find lacunas and double interpretations. Either they are hidden very deeply, or we really are not going to be deceived by trifles.

Alas, there were other problems besides the transparency of the deal. Just as transparently, I was forbidden for the next eight years to try to reach a certain White Stone Altar. He even kindly explained to me what it was, as if I didn't know about the creepiness of the Library's altar room, at the same time forbidding the elimination of the First Trinity of Librarians. Jerem was obviously not going to let us all go for nothing but a reprieve, and when it came to favors on my part, it became triply clear to me exactly how and in what way they wanted to get back at me and fuck me within the rules. First, to tell a naive young man that his disclosure is already a matter of time, then to forbid him to touch the source of disclosure even with a three-meter stick, and only then to start offering to help with this source a little, to get a delay. And what a lot of horseplay there was on the subject of honesty and divine honor!

No, in my mind, I understand that this Sainty and his God pulled me out of the shit, but the fact that initially, he was going to kill me and get a lot of profit from it, only to calm his conscience by giving me a chance for dialog, getting rid of the inevitable otherwise inevitable wound on his essence... It did not dispose to understanding and peacefulness and made me dream of the moment when we would meet again but on my terms.

"The favor I need from you is quite simple, especially for a wielder of mirror magic," Jerem speaks calmly, like a teacher in a school or a superior issuing instructions to a subordinate, which only nurtures the urge to shove that attitude down his throat. "Recently, shortly before the creatures attacked, when you were still in hiding after the assassination attempt on the Nameless Prince, someone interfered in the overall plot. A very old and high-ranking agent of the highest grade was either exposed or had already exposed himself deliberately, aiming to interfere with the workings of the Lust Cult entrenched in the Empire's governing apparatus."

I felt a little uncomfortable at that moment, but the priest didn't notice it, preparing something like the water portal he'd come to this house with, only more complex, larger, and stealthier in energy, capable of transporting not just him but all of us together.

"I have with me a crystal with thought images, still empty, but with my prayer, I will transfer to it the information collected by the Temple about a certain Pypysh Popyatchev from the house of Prykhodonotchevs, the clan of the Trydygorodskys." Don't laugh, don't even smile, Konstantin Yurievich. Keep a brick face and pray to the holy imageboards that the team also keep a face. "A very illustrious person with a very interesting biography, which is probably very incomplete, and if the truth be told, it is completely false. The pure-blooded halfling turned out to be an agent of the Nightbird Cult, as well as a dreamer of absolutely frenzied power, able to use the Mirror in combat even where it shouldn't exist a priori, indicative of an advanced mythic class, not even an extremely powerful legend. You'll get a description of the incident, as well as the main versions, along with the data we collected in this crystal. From the looks of it, you're not a bad seer, Foreigner, and the Fall Executioner is behind your back too, if you trust her enough and don't fear betrayal... or are sure of its impossibility.... or you're sure it's impossible."

Is this his way of probing me to see if I've subjugated Tia with the Ring? And what the fuck is wrong with the only girl on my team who isn't brainwashed into loyalty to the Hero!

"Your task is to dig up something, preferably with all the names, causes, effects, main persons, and ultimate goals of the Nightbird Cult, as well as to find the names of the rest of their agents of the same kind." And even under the Sentence, all this story did not come out, not otherwise, because by the time the invisible judge at the base of the relic got to the massacre of the late hobbit's name. The creator of the artifact did not doubt that I would survive and therefore did not look closely, and then the property of the relic worked, which automatically seals the secret of the verdict-confession, which even Grimmentray himself will have to unlock back, albeit without much trouble, but not immediately and with some effort. "The guarantee to your success will be the sword you take from the battle..... to take your companion's sword, conscience or the Temple's creed will not allow me to take it. You have a term of two years, and if you are successful in that time, I pledge myself to slow down those who might ask the White Stone Altar direct questions about you and indirect ones too, but it's more complicated than that. Not everything is under my control. Not all of them I will follow and persuade. It is not completely clear what will be the situation in the Ages after today. But I will give you four years of peace because, by His will and your help, the position of the Temple must be strengthened by time. Four years in which you can hide yourself as best you can. That is all I can do for you, Summoned one..."

A short pause, after which something almost human appeared on the priest's face.

"Your fight and your choice..." He chewed his lip nervously as if hesitating whether to speak at all. "It is not for me or Him to judge you for it, even if it is not within our power to change the outcome ourselves. He learned his Ascension after the birth of the Shackles, after the creation of Yoke, taking his place, beginning his struggle for Justice, but always remembering, always knowing, always realizing that there was no one to bring this Retribution, no one who would seek and desire it. I wished to see you dead. I can't take that away, and I can't hide it, and I probably still do. For what you said. For answering. Because it hurt more than I ever wanted to feel. This deal is all I can give you. It would take two years to uncover a network barely inferior to the Cult of Devils, only never before seen by anyone, not even a few Eyelids of Imperial Eyes, even if they were at full strength. But... I will try my best to do what I promised even if there are no results."

The serious and painfully pale face, by which it was very much, even more so than when half of that face had been turned into a mass of blood and bone, evident how much this day, all his battles and losses, had exhausted Jerem Steyr, suddenly smiled with an almost boyish mischievousness.

"After all, I have to take your trophy away from you for nothing before you go to war with it against the Incarnate Frost, the Mushroom Garden, or the Weaver of Nightmares..." And then his face changed from mischievous to genuinely perplexed, and his surprise was so comical that words were not enough.

Tia, or rather Tialrianrelia of the House of the Misty Tree, the branch of the Blossom Blue, the inflorescence of the Eternal Beating, the infamous Fall Executioner, laughed self-consciously as if she had been bitten by the always cheerful and additionally tipsy Taria, who had heard Hans's joke. The unconcealed, not graceful, almost hysterical laughter, to the point of tears and sobs, lasted in silence for a few seconds before the elf got her emotions under control, but the rest of the crew smiled, too, albeit with concern for Tia's condition. The only one who was even more perplexed than Jerem was Giver of Caresses, who simply didn't know about the Library incident, or rather, she did know, but from the opposite direction, not about my involvement in that mess.

"I won't even think of asking for an apology." Tia wiped away the tears at the corners of her eyes. "The look on your face at that moment, the holy one, was a balm that soothed the shards of my pride and will remain with me for the rest of my eternity. Legends would neither diminish nor exaggerate; controlling the essence of an unshackled Hero is bound to be only slightly more difficult than that of a recognized native of Alurei, isn't it? Isn't it? Can anything go wrong, especially with you, honorable Steyr, oh mighty Judge? Isn't it many times easier than it was then, on the border with the Empire of Arms or the shores of Seinberg?

Perhaps it was only his concentration on his portal creation, as well as the wild fatigue, no less than my own, but now not held back by the Avatar's state, that prevented him from noticing something wrong earlier. It was only the need to maintain the portal that kept him from reacting with the ebullience of a berserker on a rampage. Whatever mess Tia was referring to now, she had pissed him off just enough to hurt his pride, if not his heart.

"What don't I know?" The priest asks, pressing his lips into a thin string, which seems to make him regret even more the impossibility of slaughtering the elf right here and not caring about all the deals he offered us, It can be repaid, especially to someone like him.

After one very intense description of the operation Misty, in which I tried to present the maximum of facts without giving any new information about my talents, it seemed to me that he was going to kill me. Or, at the very least, he'd punch me in my satisfied face, even though I'd hidden it under the mask again almost immediately after the trial. But he had to know how satisfied my face was with the result of the fastest extra-difficulty quest in the modern history of Alurei.

"Step into the portal," Steyr ordered dryly and without emotion, diving through the prepared door first, only to clarify at the last moment. "It leads to the suburbs, and from there, it'll be easier to bypass the net over the Eternal since I have the keys to it, and He'll keep our sinful souls safe."

It was about time he said it because I could see that the portal wasn't outside the city, and I was ready to tickle the vile deceiver in the back with superdense battle magic. Giver, characteristically, immediately sent me an image-proposal using one of the souls, suggesting that I eliminate the priest as soon as possible, leave her to cover the escape and flee through the Shadow. She thought about the markings, too, as well as the fact that we'd never get away from the interest and attention of a higher entity, whether the Verdict Court was there or not. It is, after all, an artifact created by Grimmintray, created primarily for him, so it's foolish to hope that he doesn't know a way around his condition, disregarding justice in all its forms.

I don't even know what's more disturbing - the fact that I'm actually listening to the devil's advice and thinking about it in all seriousness or the fact she may very well be right in her assumptions after all.

Instead of answering, I simply step into the vertical wall of water as number two, right behind its creator, prepared for some unpleasant sensations. Even if I wasn't betrayed, or if I wasn't betrayed now, using a hastily constructed portal with a dash of grace from a deity of light, as far as that term applied to Alurea, would hardly be pleasant. Characteristically, I was not mistaken. Unlike the passage I'd used when I'd escaped from the Stone, this time, there was no sensation of shards of broken glass cutting into my body, but that was the end of the good news. I felt as if I'd dived into an ice hole and a bath of boiling water at the same time, with a barrel of quicklime poured in just in case.

And not just all of the above. I had experienced much more unpleasant sensations, but the very structure of the charms did not allow me to protect myself from the pain. I could do it with ease, but then I would only have to shout: "Here I am," because the complex Miracle was hiding our journey, and if I hit it, closing myself off from the burning divinity, I would immediately break the fragile settings and be on the radar of all interested parties. The journey lasted less than a second, and I was more tired than I was when I worked as a longshoreman in my youth!

"Wait." I was just about to emerge from the passageway, bouncing aside to let the rest of the team get out and, at the same time, ready to fire at a likely opponent, which could easily have been the priest himself. He was already frozen in a tense statue, with a thick and irregularly deep Blue glowing at his fingertips. "There's someone here."

I let my gaze linger on the nearly released biplanar technique of divine nature before I began to feel the space around me with my sensory abilities. A picturesque and slightly marshy pond, obviously ornamental and abandoned back when this neighborhood was somewhat more prestigious, had neither fish nor beaches, serving as a treat for the eyes. It had served fifty years ago until it had been neglected and abandoned. Because of the scandal of the arrest of several local residents who turned out to be Alishan spies, as well as rumors of a square curse, which were partially true, the quarter quickly emptied, some houses were sold for nothing, as well as the land, which was settled by the townspeople who were ready to live even on such a dubious land, if only in the capital and closer to the inner ring of walls. They almost didn't care about the pond, and it turned out to be expensive and unnecessary to maintain.

I pushed the first wave of clairvoyant information to the back of my mind and continued to stare, keeping the gloomy priest in my field of control and, at the same time, controlling the arrival of my team. The humans and the elf had no problems with the transition. Hestia was burned a bit, but she took a misty form and came back, having received more cosmetic than really dangerous damage (such wounds are quite easy for Mist adepts to level), but Giver was now trying not to scatter dust after contact with the divine power. I would have spoken out against the priest not honoring his terms, but he did hold back and reconfigure the transition so that the Giver could use it. I'm sure he could have made it almost painless for the creature, but it was the one he feared, expecting to be stabbed in the back every second by the out-of-control deviless, so he preferred to leave her existing but kept her fully occupied with preserving her existence.

The battle had not been in vain for this section of the city. Some of the houses were destroyed, some damaged, a huge hole in the middle of the road hidden under layers of dirt, leading somewhere into the underground catacombs of Eternal, and a small alleyway a hundred meters away, as if some long-playing technique based on Trails, with a dash of classical spatial magic, had been rolled into a Klein bottle. The pond had been prepared by either a Priest or one of the divine Servants, who had fogged up the area a bit on his orders. It looked like no special protection, but the impregnation with the power and will of the Miracle that had not yet come true was such that Jerem, who had just arrived here, immediately turned this presence into a full-fledged disguise.

I even felt him gently and calmly sift through the sea surface, a few search beams reacting to the energy surge in passive mode, making our arrival look like a random fluctuation or a fleeting strike on a hidden creature. There are plenty of more interesting targets in the city, not to mention the need to clean up the fleur infestations on the ground and in the minds of ordinary citizens. Even those who weren't involved in the battle have had their dose, which won't do any good. Even with the cleansing blessings, the capital of the Eternal Empire would see an influx of Hell and Vice class-holders among those who had been overly affected by the day. There will be many fools who will choose the one that promises more power, even if it is forbidden, despite the propaganda and attempts to purge all forms of corruption.

I didn't realize what the cleric had noticed almost immediately due to my deteriorating health. I can only excuse the fact that due to the cloud of raw divine power imposed beforehand, this place became too his, allowing tracking the most different little things. For me, that same divine shit was getting in the way. But a dancer's testicles are also in the way, and I still unforgivably missed it.
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I could see the presence of something weird coming from the pond, which Jerem undoubtedly planned to turn into a full-fledged and long-range portal, but I couldn't understand the nature of it. Both because of the grace swirling around me and because I was mostly fit to be a piece of furniture and stand on the sidelines. The charge of invigorating hatred I'd thrown in the faces of the High Priest and his God was completely gone as soon as Verdict stopped burning me first and then pumping me full of his free power. I'm just beginning to focus my perception into a tighter, more compact circle, probing through the shadows, and the priest is already reporting his observations:

"In the pond." Judging by his reaction, he fears not what's hidden in the pond but a possible ambush by those with better hiding places. "Not a creature. Not a behemoth. A monster. A strong one. Swamp magic and witchcraft. I'll attack, you cover if it comes at me, or kill it if it tries to get away. There should be no witnesses who saw us here."

Before the witness elimination passage was finished, I was beginning to guess who was confronting us. I was experiencing conflicting emotions, dominated by the urge to slap my face again. However, the fastest to react was Taria, who, in one dance pirouette, zeroed her weight and jumped over Jerem, clapped me on the shoulder (so that I could charge Jerem's side with a shadow ram), sat down near the water surface and said sternly, with accusatory notes, as if she were reprimanding a child or a pet:

"What are you doing here, Green?" She did not remove the Valerium from its fighting stance. However, she only moved it slightly downward, under her feet, but with the ability to aim it directly from that position and fire it instantly.

By the way, if Taria and I had made a mistake, it would have been, if not a stupid death, then a cause for a lifetime of teasing. I'm not talking about Jerem, who almost hit the square at once, especially when from under the sharply darkened surface of the water, which turned from a slightly marshy pound into a full-fledged swamp, a three-meter-long pile of muscles and tits, covered with subtly glowing dark blue and black and purple patterns of ritual drawings, began to rise. By the way, these patterns are new, not the ones that were on Ygra's body at the moment of the last check of her condition before the attempt to leave Eternal, looking more fresh and hastily made, but also more powerful and complex in their primitive simplicity. Looks like we weren't the only ones having a rough day... or even not only a day - judging by some signs, it had been "a little" longer outside the dome than inside, thank the Emperor for that, damn him to Hell, the Ages.

Oh, yeah, he is already there.

"Y! Ygra search for big city!" The swamp sludge drained from her unnaturally fast, repelled by both the gift of body cleansing and ritual drawings, allowing her to appreciate the appearance altered by the ring and its gifts, to feel the pressure of the attractive body on her mind, and simply impressing her to the point of eye twitching at least by reaching the half hundredth level. "Cty fall, Ygra search. Trying find, failing. Then get on trail of another little dumb-ass with. He's coming here to get into trap. Ygra knock trap, knock hunter, take prey taken by trapper, but prey strong, almost take Ygra! Ygra is stronger! Ygra kill prey, make a big bang, look a small master, find another prey, knock log, knock stone, knock big iron stick, prey run away, but Ygra has a big miracle stick. Only stick is hot, but it hits hard, but it's hot, but it hits hard, but it's very hot, but it hits very hard! Here! Yugra is good, Yugra is smart! Y!"

While I was freaking out and stunned a bit, trying to decipher the longest and almost coherent speech that Ygra had ever made in his life, Jerem Steyr was next to me in a similar state. From his point of view, it was even more epic. He brought the evacuated to the exit point, and there, a legendary monster with legendarily big tits and a legendary club in her hands was waiting for them. It is possible to recognize the power contained in a huge two-handed war hammer, made to match the height and strength of Ygra or something comparable to her in scale, even with closed eyes. However, the artifact did not hurry to be given into the hands of the ogre, burning at the touch, trying to strike the flesh with some unnatural heat, and as if the vibration, which vibrates not matter, but space. Anyone else would have gotten their arms ripped off, but Ygra's regeneration, as well as the strength of her body, didn't care about the anti-theft system. In the future, I'll try to find out from whom she's privatized this beater, but for now, I'd better calm Steyr, who'll soon suspect anything.

But there was a suspicion in the back of my mind that I wouldn't be able to convince him of the randomness and unplannedness of the situation that had arisen at this moment, no matter what arguments I gave him. Well, at least, against the background of how this bastard outplayed me, it will be pleasant to realize that now he is sure that I, too, managed to calculate him and prepare a meeting with Ygra in case of some mischief on his part. He, he said, had put a miracle on the poor and unhappy Giver so she would only have the strength to try not to die and not for the stabs in the back. Well, I, in turn, was ready to hit him instead of Giver, forcing a distraction on me and opening a window of opportunity for the handheld Legend. He's ready for a fight with me and has every reason to believe he'll win even without Grimmintray's intervention and transition to Avatar state, but the sudden Legendary swamp ogre with a hammer to the back of his head gave him every chance to not let his divine help. The same first moments of the battle immediately determined the victory: my attack, his defense and counter-attack on me, and Ygra's blow in the back. The man saw how close he was to the edge and that he would have gone over the edge if he had decided to throw me or if I thought he had decided to throw me.

I'm not the only one suffering from an injured sense of self-importance!

I'd give Ygra a bonus for that, but unlike Taria or Hestia, she won't go shopping... I guess. And thanking her for what she wanted from me right now would be impossible, not in a city soaked in vicious flavor, which had just reflected a porno-apocalypse of the purest kind, like something out of a hentai horror manga. Shit, despite the seriousness of the situation, I'm a little cheered up right now from seeing someone else's shock, and honestly, Jerem's going to have to do a lot of work to bring my mood back down to the way it was.

"Okay." The priest breathed deeply and measuredly, then cursed under his breath and covered his head with a bubble of heavenly power, clearing the air. "I don't even want to know where you got that animal from or how you made it what it became. Anyway, I need the lake. I need it in its purest form, and I hope you control the ogre enough for it to clean up its own swamp."

You know, I dismissed holier-than-thou very early on!

"Okay, Ygra." Putting a confidence in my voice that I didn't really feel. "We need to remove the swamp."

"Y? Why remove swamp?" The ogre was truly indignant, jumping up and down, causing Jerem to step back and involuntarily follow the bouncing of parts of her green body with his gaze. "No need clean up swamp! Swamp good!"

This is going to be a little more difficult than I thought.

By the time I managed to convey to Ygra the necessity to destroy the magic she had created and to release the strange power that she had filled the area around the pond, making it clean again, the bastard-priest obviously considered himself to have paid for the shock, moral damage, and physical desire to kill me for my stupid jokes and cunning plans (of course, I would not tell him that I had not planned Ygra's actions). And it also came out really fast. It took less than three minutes to get my point across to the ogre when even three hours wasn't enough before. For obvious reasons, I wasn't going to use the triggers and behavioral programs embedded in the green-skinned one's head, not wanting to expose such an obvious vulnerability of a legendary monster in front of only a temporary and unwanted ally who had seen me in my grave.

It wasn't even the need to communicate in a primitive style. It was the passing of time, for which these minutes seemed like an eternity. The cover of Grimmentray and his High Priest is very good but not absolute. The fewer other points of interest were left in the city, the more the Servants and Heralds of the various deities turned their attention to each other. Sooner or later, they were bound to be interested in why the Reclaimer had covered this place with his power and yet disguised its presence at such a suggestive level. And if Jerem could get away with it easily enough, sending all interested parties away and invoking God's will, he could leak us with a guarantee. He promised only cover and a portal to the exit, not help in the battle, if we were to be found. He emphasized it several times. I could see why I was a little nervous, even without the chills and weakness that came with it.

The mess in the city had reached a new level, only now in the positive sense of the word. The remnants of the creatures were fleeing faster than they could shriek, and those who had not or could not escape, who had been too greedy to part with the lion's share of the sonm, were no longer biting their elbows, for they had been torn from their shoulders. The few pockets of resistance that had been hastily organized by the creatures, their accomplices among the surviving cultists, and the losers subordinate to Fleur were being methodically cleansed as if by a roller. As dangerous as the devils were in their nature, they did not hold their own against the roller of Вivine power and Celestial-backed mortals. They are called raiders for a reason, accustomed to long infiltration and super-fast forays into reality. A prepared Hell attack is frightening in its sophistication and overwhelming, but if they delay retreating, waste reserves, and fail to get what they want in time, the fuse quickly runs out, leaving them strong but not defenseless.

Steyr was preparing a portal crossing in the depths of the lake when the entire city was once again hit by a blast of warlike light that made everyone shudder reflexively, even the priest, who had nearly screwed up the portal. I thought they'd found us again and were about to flash the Sword between our eyes, but the beam of concentrated search truth went south, closer to the slum neighborhoods, outlining a patch of reality there. What I didn't expect was what that impulse would bring out!

It was as if a net soaked in the corrupted Mirror had burst through the sky, not at all like my tricks with Dream. The net was made of individual nightmares encased in mirror shackles, and it contained more sacrificial souls than the sonm of Giver! Well, the original sonm of Giver, because now she had taken from her defeated brethren, barely keeping what she had stolen inside her, throwing away much of the souls of her original collection to make room. This network was, in a way, another devil, only unintelligent, literally bred for a singular purpose. And I'll bet my daggers on it. This very thing, maybe only part of it, being then not a devil but only a billet for it, hung over Eternal at the moment of our arrival in the city, distorting perception and preventing us from noticing the disturbing portents.

Everything covered by the net seemed to be non-existent, absent, not counted in the calculations, out of sight. Even if that "something" was a damn hot airborne massacre in a magepunk setting! I'd seen the battle, caught a glimpse of it, and thought that if the Supreme Devil was distracted by the tainted temple, I'd be able to buy a moment for a better attack. But in a moment, both I and Sovereign himself seemed to have forgotten about the huge flying tank and the equally flying defiled temple, as well as all the other participants in this battle! I have no idea what the effect was, but it caught all sides equally and indiscriminately, creating the perfect conditions for an aerial firefight.

Iron Krieg is perceived, despite everything, as an intelligent and independent being rather than a mere fighting machine against a not particularly intelligent but no less dangerous flying rock even larger than a flying super-tank. Fucking All-Seeing Bitch, you fucking Alurei! A flying tank the size of a large mansion! A fucking tank! Flying tank! I'm used to the bloody fantasy around me. I'm not even surprised by the occasional glimpses of technology, like firearms, but here it comes, Kostik, with the realities of life on the head! Taaaaaaaank!!! A huge flying taaaaaaaaaaank! This is my dream vehicle!

And this tank was so impressive that the sense of danger at its evaluation screamed even more than at the sight of the blade of Losius, though weaker than sovereign, the News Bringer, or the Golden Serpent. If I'm not mistaken, it won't be for long. The essence of the fighting machine, which had become an endowed automaton a long, long time ago, seemed to be gradually awakening, blossoming like a desert flower, which had not seen rain for years and centuries but now was caught in the downpour and greedily absorbed the life-giving forces. As if I could see the sequence of events in which the ritualist sacrificers of the highest caliber hidden in the soaring rock, among whom there were at least two who had passed the half-hundredth level, used the network to crush a tank of mythical grade that suddenly came out of the corner in the middle of the flat steppe, not allowing the rest of the capital to come to his aid. They cut off everything and everyone, leveling the battle for just the two of them, creating perfect conditions in which no one would even remember to support the iron bogeyman.

And he saw, like rewinding frames, fragments of a movie never seen, how the trap turned into a trap for those who thought it was their own. With each passing moment, the thrusters flared more and more, the metal of the hull regenerating and repairing faster and faster, healing the wounds in the iron body as soon as they appeared. Creatures and cultists, the elite of both, secured by the protection of their temple, also an ultimatum weapon, blood-fed and sacrifice-fed, this day able to stand against Myth as well, especially one so... weakened? Yes, weakened, exhausted by long imprisonment, deprived of sustenance, and with an incomplete crew.

The creatures and the cult are striking, taking down one defender after another, mopping up those the tank crew allowed to sit on their beast, gradually reaching the crew itself. And then they stop. They encounter fierce resistance, and the power hidden in the machine is getting stronger and stronger. It becomes unclear who is crushing whom. Who is winning and dominating? It is not clear why the crew is killed, but they do not become less. And now the cult retreats. The creatures are forced to cover their allies in order not to find themselves one-on-one with the machine's cannons, and the few devils who got inside through the holes or captured hatches begin to regret their hasty decision when the very space of the iron innards of the intelligent machine turns against them.

By the time the nonexistence was revealed, the outcome of the duel was already obvious to everyone, even the creatures. Come to think of it, the tearing and destruction of the essence of the network, which made it impossible for either side to even think of retreating, had worked in Hell's favor, giving it a ghostly chance to escape. By this point, all that was left of the powerful creatures was one very battered Legend with a half-empty sonm, a handful of elites, and the cultists lurking deep within the soaring cliff, trying to clog the passageways and drown the stormtroopers in blood. It wasn't working out so well. Right now, on top of the desecrated temple, which had been quite shattered by the firing of Iron Krieg's guns, a natural carnage was ending, in which several Warrior priests, one and a half star Adventurers of the highest rank, and two thugs with a touch of non-human blood were finishing tearing out the legs and arms of the remnants of the resistance, while prayers and battle magic were burning out the thinning fleur. At the same time as one of the half-breeds ripped off the head of the highest ranking cultist-fighter, who looked like a textbook barbarian, only naked, tattooed, and wearing a very well enchanted helmet-hat, the entire temple-rock shuddered and began to fall.

Whether it was the energy reserves that couldn't recover without the concentration of the fleur, the reserve of souls spent on the battle and freed by prayers, or the counter-boarders from the flying fucking tank damaged the rock sections responsible for flight, the enemy creatures barely managed to escape back to their hovering fucking tank, and even so some of them had to either jump with a blink or levitate. And some of them didn't manage to retreat, being killed by the enemies who sensed the inevitable end and didn't want to miss the chance to shit before they died.

The central weapon of Iron Krieg flashed with an unreadable mishmash of colors, activating some very fierce game, releasing the final chord of the confrontation. Before the Heralds, who were not expecting the previously hidden battle, could react, the rock of the desecrated temple was first covered with a network of purple pulsing cracks, and then they widened and shattered the rock into pieces. But only a thin layer of stone remained, under which there was only dust and ash, because all the insides of the flying cobblestone annihilated into zero, along with the Legend, who tried to hide in the depths of the defensive line. Iron is stronger than stone, as practice shows.

"And I'll have to talk to them, too." Jerem Steyr said, almost tearfully, wiping his sweating face with a handkerchief and throwing the handkerchief to the ground, almost spitting in its wake. "And I'll shave my head back and become a novice again if the first thing the Baron does when I come under his eye isn't a pistol shot in the face! It's a good thing he'll shoot me in the face with his lead shotgun and not order to discharge the main caliber! Because who, all of you, curse the names of Heaven, would go to talk to someone who had been cornered by his predecessor and forced to give up everything dear to him but the honorable Jerem? Аh? Not a diplomat from an outside agency? Not a negotiator from the Eyes? They'll never survive a shot in the face, for God's sake! I told them! And I suggested it!"

"And I say it to Pradij, may he rest in his River, and may Heaven be Just to him. I've said three times that it's time to do something about this! That Seinberg is longer not important and that forcing them to recognize the cancellation of the deal will be almost victimless! That after the Fall Executioner's antics, star-spangled stumps just put their asses on the line! That the cursed Underhill can be bought, just like Neitmak! That part of the Pact can be stolen from Alishan if they tie it to a material anchor instead of the blood of the dynasty! Told it! I told it, Zmergdyt Birborisku! Now let them tell their excuses to the Baron! To destroy them now to the Blade's army, the very Pact, which he was handcuffed to, will not allow them, and he, who has his hands in blood up to his shoulders, will not be bound by anything now! Abrgal his breathless might!"

We all listened in silence to such an uncharacteristic display of emotion, which would be more suitable for a plumber who dropped an iron pipe on his foot but with local color, high coherence of speech, and almost no profanity. Taria also nodded at the right moments. The priest did not immediately realize that he was being mocked. He obviously knew something about this flying - forgive me physics and logic, but this is ridiculous - tank. This knowledge gave him a clear realization that the commander of this mockery of common sense did not feel any special love for him and the whole Empire.

"'Kay." When he turned his attention back to us, he only grimaced as if he'd eaten half a bucket of lemons and had a toothache all at once. "Fuck off before I change my mind. Here's more. Recognize the image and destroy it. It contains knowledge of several maximally trusted and classified contacts. You will get in touch if you deem it necessary, through them, God forbid you to appear in person ... although you could try, you "accidentally" invented Owl and "for the sake of laughter" mentioned! For this joke alone, you should be locked in a cell for three times three months and stretch them for a millennium, you sick bastard!"

I snatched the clay tablet thrown at me with a shadow tentacle, quickly checking it with clairvoyance, fearing a trap or a tracing marker, but finding only the very password-reference for a couple of non-Justice Cleric personalities. And before I could even respond, he made the pound, which had become completely transparent and bottomless, glowing with heavenly radiance and yet remarkably stable, burst out of its banks in a single motion, surging, covering us all in a wave.

At the last moment, I realize that Jerem Steyr is really in mental turmoil, and he is only a little better than I am, which affects his thinking. The first time, he had "forgotten" about Giver and the threat to her existence from his connection with the Miracles on purpose, to protect himself from being stabbed in the back while still maintaining the exact dosage of grace to almost knock her out, but not to destroy her. He had forgotten about it now, and I was absolutely sure of it. When the teleportation wave began to hit us, and the deviless began frantically trying to put up a useless defense, his face became very eloquent, and he honestly tried to even out his own mistake, in the process saying something that a priest shouldn't say. As I covered the possessed woman with my own body and tried to throw my Aegis over her without killing myself or her with too much contact, I managed to tell him my thoughts. In fact, I was just repeating what he'd said at that moment.

The second transition was much more painful than the last, and having to hold the dual Aegis without bringing it to a level where it would break the cloaking net made the experience as unpleasant as it could be. In an instant, it was over, and I, feeling the pressure gone, breathed in a sigh of relief.... full lungs of water! The bastard had teleported us, using the principle of semblance, carrying us to some body of water, apparently running water, almost drowning us in the process. The whole time I was coughing up water, I was getting more and more pissed off, and by the time I came to my senses, I was ready to go back to Eternal right now and tell "holy Jerem" something about the stability of portals and the accuracy of their use.

"Tin." Taria was the voice of reason, and that was a very worrying sign if it was a dancer who had to play that role. "We need to get out of here. Right now. Can you figure out where we are?"

I pushed aside the bloodthirsty thoughts of massacring the high priest, at the same time only now letting go of Giver, who was still clinging to me, who sat quieter than a mouse, taking the opportunity to press her body against me. Running clairvoyance and trying to point to the nearest mirrors immediately established the coordinates. Three and a half crossings from Eternal toward the Wildlands. We could work with that, but first, we had to get ready for the rest of the possible interested parties to try to find us if not Grimmentray.

"Mirrors are needed." It was hard to gather myself, but while I'm still standing, while I'm not foaming at the mouth, I need to take care of a way to escape and beyond. "We'll have to make a dash for it, or we'll be lost."

"You'll be able to make it through the Mirror?" Losius clarifies, looking thoughtfully at my mask, under which bloody sweat is breaking out on my face. "Or will we still linger here?"

"I don't trust Steyr and his God, no matter how fair he is," I replied, shifting my gaze to a chin-up Hans, who already understood my plan. "Mirrors I can't handle, not with a kindly grandfather with a weaving business in mind, not with the need to cover us all. How easy do you think it will be, Hans, to point the Trail Generator at the place where it was born?"

The pathfinder, who was no longer a pathfinder, was braving, but, in fact, he was as tired as we were, and trying to teleport the whole team that far would have been suicidal. If it hadn't been for Tavimark, where the very artifact that would do the teleportation had been created, with Hans barely helping. It was also a risk, but a much smaller one, especially since we had discussed this possibility. We even tried to calculate something when we were planning to leave Eternal, even before this crazy day began. From the protection of the capital's internal fields, such an operation could be pulled off. If it works, it's almost guaranteed to be detected, but here, in the back corner, Jerem kicked us out. It's a workable plan especially if we give Hans a couple of potions from the remaining stocks. Short-term amplifiers, prepared just for this case.

"I'll try it without potions for now," Hans said firmly and clearly. "I can do it with the new class, but let the green one come close and do something with her hammer. It makes the trails shake, just like an amulet of a lonely lady."

The first thought was the possibility of wrapping the trophy artifact in his shadows, closing it with extra-existence, and then creating a storage container for it, as he had done with the already re-forged Golden Needle. The second thought was something else, which was immediately voiced by Taria, who was as if she had become a hound that had smelled blood for a moment.

"How do you know about such amulets?" And the look in her eyes was as piercing and piercing as a longtime interrogator's. "Even I only learned about them when I traveled with Tin and before I had to save myself with fingers and cucumbers or other oblong vegetables!"

"May I ask you to spare me such details?" Hestia, who was regaining her body, clarified again to the silent approval of Losius.

"You may certainly ask, friend." Taria graciously allowed. "But I'm waiting for an answer, Hans."

"What's there to answer? I thought I told you before." Either he's telling a believable lie or trying to play dumb. "We once detained a cargo of household amulets at the border, and our petty officer snatched one of the bags in a crowd. A full fucking bag of lady saviors, neither to sell nor to use. I was transferred to another station six months later, and those artifacts were just lying there, gathering dust. In that wilderness, the only women were bears."

We all gather in a tight circle for such conversations, and Giver has to be dragged along so she doesn't get distracted from trying to repair her energy structure. Ygra sulked very resentfully and constantly tried to be careful with her new club to the best of her ability. It would have been a good idea to throw it away because legendary battle artifacts are too conspicuous, but no one cares about it now, so there's an opportunity to hide it and pocket it. And Ygra took care of this stick, which, let me remind you, hurts her when touched, and carried it around like a blonde with a new iPhone so I wouldn't be able to take away her new toy.

The lake, which we were thrown into with a warning kick, turned out to be more like a small river dam. It flowed in on one side, out on the other, and in the middle was an oblong body of water with a barely recognizable current. While Taria was trying to get Tia, who was fainting from fatigue, to fish with druidic techniques, careful not to show how worried she really was about the elf, Hans finished his preparations, and we were all twisted into a tube, squeezed into a dot, then untwisted and manifested in a new position. I didn't remember much of the journey, and the journey itself, though much more sensitive, containing many miles in one step at a time, was hardly a threat to our existence.

Hans only silently and suspiciously looked at the glittering ball in his hands as if it had revealed itself to him from a new side. Two synergistic classes, a lot of reinforcements received for the fight in Eternal, and all the damage, except for mental fatigue, dragged by stealing the shadow from him to me, allowed me to use the toy very neatly. The aiming point, the strongest connection to the place where the artifact's essence was generated, only simplified the already simpler task even more.

"Ha!" That was all Hans said before he could even feel the strain of the transition. "I'm as good as the golden con, only better."

"There's a tracking net all around." Hestia, whose legs and lower torso had turned to mist flowing along the stones of Tavimark's dungeon, outlining and marking the spells installed on the site of the Spiral's former focus by those who had investigated the results of our fun in these catacombs. "Do I clean it up or leave it?"

"Leave it, of course!" I and Tia, who was looking a little better, and even Giver, who had recovered a little, all three of us looked at each other with strange looks, but it was the elf who continued. "I understand correctly, don't I, that the ultimate goal of our escape is directed not here, but to another place, from which it will be easier to move with reliance on this place as the source of the venerable Master of Trails' traveling source power?"

"You called me that, Tia, be careful, or I'll get kroud..... froud." Hestia interrupted Hans's linguistic torment, having already finished illuminating the other's charms, wrapping them in wisps of mist and thus making them visible to the naked eye.

"Proud." The way she calmly performs a very difficult trick that requires a fair amount of concentration and skill makes one both happy for the increase in her abilities and anxious for the state of her psyche. "That's right I'll be proud."

"That's what I said," Hans answered without blinking an eye, looking longingly at the vials of potions in his hands. "I'll have to drink them, though, damn. I can't get to Arenam, even with the emphasis on this place by myself. And I'll tell you, it's gonna be noisy like a wedding of the neighboring village chiefs' kids. I mean, the magic's gonna boil like fat in a cauldron."

Hestia, in response to my glance, began to wrap the charms more tightly in the Mist, making them still unable to notice anything, even if a breakthrough into the Shadow would open nearby. Tia immediately took out from her belt a wooden needle with a crystal tip, on the individual facets of which glittered various facet-dependent enchantments. She began to poke the needle gently at the central nodes of the signal charms as if to short-circuit them. They could still send a signal, and it was still possible to feel them working through the binding amulets, but they could not pick up the signals for which they were hanging here. It's a funny technique. It can also be adopted, but using a mirror, through the reflection, changing the basis of charms, doing the same thing, but in a different way.

"Need a ritual support." Finished with the signals, the druid began to assess her future workplace, cautiously circling the meditating Hans, who was trying to get into resonance with the place that had spawned the Generator. "And we need to make sure she disappears without a trace after we leave."

"You can use some of my sparks." Giver, still unwell and unable to move another's body normally, was speaking, but her partial paralysis of the host did not prevent her from conjuring, which she demonstrated by releasing four multicolored sparks of other people's souls into her palm, making her eager to leave it there. "They will enter the molasses phase and activate the necessary blocks, and then the ritual will collapse, removing any remaining traces."

"No," I say almost immediately. "Just no. And not just because it makes me sick, but because traces of Hell's magic will be searched all over the Empire of the Ages, if not the entire continent. And you can't erase them reliably enough, which would draw more attention than if we'd left the traces of our activities undone."

"That's a shame." Apparently, she was trying to make a begrudging face, which, due to the partial loss of connection to her possessed body, looked like a grimace. "But foreshadowing your questions and eagerness to make sure I'm gone, my master. Please. Take a closer look at them. Look into them as you know how, my master, my lord, my precious."

I was tempted to shut the smiling creature up with a shadow spear in the face, but she wouldn't do it intentionally, so before I freak out and foam with rage, I really looked at the sparks she shuffled right in front of my eyes in an almost hypnotizing rhythm. And I admit that for the short time of our acquaintance, this infestation has managed to understand me quite well, to read, to calculate, and then to pick up the right arguments from her point of view. That's really worthy of at least some respect, yes. It's all about the sparks she has chosen, the flames of captive and Lust-soaked souls, given to Hell for slaughter and amusement.

A weak magician who first lusted after his fourteen-year-old apprentice from a richer and more noble family, for whom he was hired as a tutor, having paid his unloved and untalented brother for a good charm and brainwashing of the girl's parents. That's not counting the dozen slaves, vagrants, and just the townsfolk kidnapped while returning home, who became the rest of the payment. And he didn't stop, wanting the very young daughter of that very family as well, continuing to pay and pay, taking one gift of Lust after another. When his soul was taken for the debts he'd driven himself into with almost no help from the devils, he didn't even notice the difference, so lost in his fantasies.

A cheerful lady with Courtesan class who is addicted to very hard sex with young boys and afterward with anyone, as long as there is more blood and ecstasy. She was found by ready-made cultists, offering her service directly, and she accepted almost immediately, also without any additional treatment, except for the lightest hypnosis, which made her less cautious. As a gift, she received the ability to keep her lovers alive and sane, even if only scraps of them were left in wild agony. But the lady herself experienced proportional pleasure from such endurance exercises, transferring it back to her victims, driving pain and orgasm into a pendulum of continuous motion.

A mighty sorcerer, really mighty, who had learned Storm at a level worthy of the elite, who had passed the fortieth step, who was consciously willing to give up his soul in exchange for the fulfillment of his wishes and plans. Hell and the domain had done the deed almost fairly, just not letting him off the hook for the loophole in the contract. As it happened, he wanted, among other things, the soul and body of a longtime rival who had once prudently rejected his advances. He regularly drove her insane with Lust, forcing her to fuck her husband's dead and rotting body, cut out her nearly-born child, and chew its flesh, placing the fetus back in her womb. The devils had tied the memory of the treaty loophole to that fetus a dozen years into the lady's last month and came to collect the payment just after another meal when it had not yet recovered. The expression on the mage's face was very offended when he realized he could not remember how exactly he had planned to unilaterally break the deal. Although, he knew exactly and had repeatedly checked the efficiency of this trick. The bewilderment didn't last long until the induced orgasm released all of the mage's seed, blood, viscera, and finally, even his brains right onto the floor of his entertainment cellar, leaving only a skinned skeleton. The insides, by the way, had been eaten by a pregnant lady who had gone insane once again and had been reborn into a very amusing construct, but Giver didn't have her soul.

The old impotent man of very noble blood, who liked to look at all sorts of things that were very socially condemned, had set up a whole hobby club where one could watch various perversions, most often bloody. He generally acted clearly for profit, enlisting Hell's forces to prepare special scripts and process puppets for the right roles. Because summoning a devil of Lust or even Pride was far cheaper than hiring top-notch Mentalists, Slavemancers, Hypnotists, or even Preachers, even if you multiplied the conspiracy costs by ten. He was also very surprised when, during another séance with his friends, some unkind guards and churchmen burst into the clubhouse. And being surprised, he tried to use the artifact-teleporter he had bought from Hell, which, as he had stipulated, would lead him to a safe place where he would not be threatened and where the devils themselves would not pressure him. He was transported directly into a protective circle of the highest category, buried deep underground in a stone sack, in the company of a rag doll of the female gender, made according to human models. The toy, made by some talent, had a gradual effect on the raving old man, screaming of deceit and other trivialities of life. When the cult negotiator came to visit him four days later, the old man declared that he wanted to marry (no mistake) his favorite cutie and was ready to buy her back even for his own soul. And yes, the doll was then possessed by a middle-ranking deviless, and the old freak was given a sex change, making him an old woman, equally ugly but capable of marrying.

Lord and Intrigan, who simply and uncomplicatedly sold four large villages to the devils in exchange for two hundred years of youth, regained manhood and irresistibility with women without any of their influence. They were surprised when he came out to one of their cultists, revealing the cell and not leaking it to the guards. The fine print of the deal was that each orgasm took a year off that youth, and thanks to the slight tweaking of the altered body, it became very young, like a teenager in puberty, able to cum even at the sight of a naked body or a wet dream. And that was fair: in his youth, the clever lord had suffered from the same problem, so the age rollback was perfectly fair. What's more, the good creatures even transferred the blessing to all of his sons and daughters. One of them even survived and died of his own accord, taking a voluntary vow of abstinence and devoting his very long life to uprooting cults, not just Hell, but any cults at all.

A full-fledged Hero, real and worthy of his title, who had learned Madness and became a famous master of rituals, though dark and dangerous, but not too demanding of victims. But he wanted to take revenge on the whole city, where the guild of wizards lived and lived, who had once disgracefully and pompously expelled a non-hero for stealing other people's designs and a successful attempt to frame a fool who trusted him for his guilt. That one, by the way, was executed, but the hopeful neophyte with connections was simply banished. He did not forget, did not forgive, found a cursed artifact of a legendary grade, planned a way to open the Hell with it, even managed to warn them of his actions in advance, fulfilled his task, and then settled down on a hill away from the city, enjoying the beautiful view of the flaming massacre. There, on that hill, he was captured by another Legend, who had penetrated into reality and traced the thread of connection between the artifact and the one who had possessed it for a long time. The man was not given without a fight, but he was fucked by his opponent, turned into an analog of a riding horse, and later only gave his soul to the sonm. This Legend, by the way, was nailed by Giver in a recent battle.

A strong priest, very loyal and sincerely believing himself to be a paragon of righteousness, except that his god was one of those whose believers differ little from other cults. The elder of the two Cursed Brothers is very scrupulous in selecting for his servants only complete scum, who sincerely believes and believes that mankind (and any other races) must be regularly burned with a hot iron, so
they remember the pain, do not get used to living in idleness, always afraid of inexorable fate, aware of the vanity of existence, of the hopelessness of life. His priests gained a lot of power, but they also gave a lot. The avengers, careerists, and just complete sadists who like to kill but have no desire to become a creature were drawn to both brothers. By the way, this couple, Eater of Pain and Contemplator of Suffering, is very reverent about the creaturefication of their prayers, putting them under the order to kill at the first signs of filth. And the Eater, for a moment, postulates that everyone needs to suffer pain on a regular basis in order to not be afraid of that pain afterward, that by enduring the torment his older brother contemplated, you will become stronger, no longer fearing new pain. This priest, like his counterpart from the other brother's opposite camp, was taken in a daring raid, sacrificing a couple of major cultists to get both of them, making them a quality tandem. But their victims must have been very surprised when, instead of ritual torture on an altar, the god-men started a ritual orgy around that altar. The devils, however, did not forget to take the unlucky victims to join the priests, for it is sinful to throw away food!

A warrior of nearly fifty levels who had lost the ability to level up in the coming years because of the curse, a kind of stalemate. There was nothing to stop him from waiting a year or two before going into battle, but he was so tempted to become a Hero, so hungry for that title and all its benefits, that he decided to cheat. Rituals on the Dark could help, but they threatened to boil him in the process or ruin him on the victims, or rather both, so greed made him switch from practices of dubious legality to practices that were completely illegal, such as ties with Hell. And they only demanded that every month for the next eight years, which he was to spend without leveling up, he should rape and kill at the moment of peak pleasure one woman or man from the simplest class - townspeople, paisans, artisans - necessarily living in the region of the transaction. Each victim must be a year older than the previous one. In an instant, even though he had started small in every sense, he had failed to find the right victim, aided by the remaining cultists quietly killing or kidnapping the oldest commoner still living in the area. First, an extra deal was made for five victims and five weeks of peace, then a couple of favors, then a few more rituals, and then it was too late to make a move - welcome to Hell.

Three murderous triplets, plying their evil trade without too much shame. Two sisters and a brother. Three unscrupulous bastards, following their path to eminence without regard for anyone else and strictly on the heads of corpses. A perfect trio of a Poisoner, an Assassin, and a pretty good Seer, capable of developing almost any target within the range of their level and even up a notch or two. The company was so confident in their exceptionalism, born of sheer luck and sheer craziness, that the devils spent weeks looking for a catch when the three of them tried to grab a piece of Hell and Lust's power almost without caution. It turned out that there was no catch, just someone crying for the Goodness of Maosork, which is here instead of the Darwin Award for cleaning up the gene pool. Only the guys left beautifully, being immersed in an illusion, believing that they had just returned to childhood and were now playing a strange catch-up game, which made them feel very good, but it was unclear why. They had a bloodbath, and when they were slaughtered by the elite guards and a squad of liquidators, they exploded with a fleur bomb. Their souls were no longer in their bodies. They were already in Hell, controlling the puppets from their own bodies through the illusion.

The souls shuffled about, spinning in a sickening kaleidoscope, almost without the need for clairvoyance. They transmit whatever their mistress asks them to tell their master. It was so vile and painful at the same time that I might have patented a new method of torture. But I wasn't sure such a method had been patented by the local experts. Giver really did her best, throwing away in advance or spend in battle with maximum benefit all those souls belonging to the victims, innocent or not so guilty, whom Hell had deceived and cursed, taken forever and without looking back.

Each of the souls shown to me, every one of them, was one of those who went to their end, came to it on their own, and brought it to themselves. Cruel, cursed, hated, deserving the most terrible executions. They were caught by Hell, which makes no distinction between right and wrong and does not care about their holiness or baseness, for which every soul is just food, prey, material, another brick of vicious power. I saw them all, looked at them, and could not find any deception or flaw because the worst weapon of the devil, whether he be allied, which is nonsense in itself, or hostile, which is axiomatic.... their worst weapon is the truth, because only it is bitter and evil enough to make even the embrace of Vice seem the best way out.

Betrayers.

Murderers.

Sadists.

Torturers.

All the vices one could think of existed under Heaven without the direct influence of Hell, even before meeting its emissaries. The fact that some of the higher devil techniques require very specific souls, often innocent and undeserving of such an end, doesn't mean that there aren't higher techniques that require complete scum. And the sweet, clever, and so loyal Giver of Caresses has just offered me the perfect assuage for my conscience. Look at the select bastards I've found. How nasty they are. You can, my new Lord, soothe your conscience and let me keep at least part of the collection, but don't kill or take away the sonm because without the sonm, the devil doesn't live, only dies, and she is strong. She needs many souls for simple existence and active thinking. Otherwise, she will become dumb and useless, like a neural net that lost the ability to learn.

"I don't even want to say what treasures I was forced to just let go." Weepishly and even with a certain amount of sincerity in that feigned bitterness, utters the deviless, bowing her head obediently. "I'm willing to sacrifice everything just for the chance. I know what you see. I know what you feel when you think of me. I can be useful, I will be useful, but I need some chance, paid for by the sparks of those who, from your point of view, deserve this fate."

"From my point of view, no one deserves such a fate, not even them." With a stone face and emotions completely halted, frozen in my gut, I reply, looking straight into the eyes of the possessed body. "And you can't help but know I don't need your help."

"I see your power, my Lord, just as I see the weakness stemming from it." Without evasion, without attempting to lie, she shrugged the stranger's shoulders. "You will likely kill me, and it saddens me only that my ecstasy will be cut short, but even a second of prolonging it is already worth all my sacrifices. Still, I can't help but try to read you, to pick up the keys, to become someone you won't want to kill right away."

"That's not the best way to establish credibility." With a chuckle, somewhat nervous and very exhausted, I said right to her face. "Certainly not in your situation."

"And the others are even worse." Fun, carefree, like a small child laughing the devil who might even be older than Tia. "I'm trying to adjust, to pick up a clue to your essence, a personality map if you will. It's just in this case, I'm not pretending for covert seduction and subsequent capture. I will gladly change myself and become the one you wish to at least tolerate near you. Not with the intention of ingratiating, breaking, or subjugating, just to be there, savoring my ecstasy for as long as Eternity will give me."

"You could corrupt me?" I inquire quite calmly, apparently having burned out in terms of feeling horror at Hell and its inhabitants with revulsion. "And how quickly?"

"You answered the first question yourself, Sir." Even more smugly and a little sadly, the Giver of Caresses admits. "I could hardly do that in combat, despite the power of what your gift did to my Thread of Memories, but you're not talking about combat. Leave me by your side, and I could have you and your crew eating out of my hands in a couple of years, and in ten years, I could corrupt you into the path of Hell. If I wished. If I wanted to. If that was my goal."

"Go on," still unemotional, only mildly interested in letting her talk. "I'm listening, not attacking."

"That's the problem." She shook her head in an almost human gesture. "That is my nature, my essence. Just as the Shadow can devour anything, drink up even a bottomless spring, so the devil has the ability to find the keys to other people's souls. It doesn't matter how strong you are or how strong your mental defenses are. I may be wrong, for there is no way to account for the changes in what you and your nature are. You do not look like the one who gave me the ecstasy of his will, nor do you look like the one who went to battle with Sovereign of my domain, who died in joyless agony. But without that change, without constant growth, I will find my way to you even if I deliberately try not to, even if I regularly correct my nature by removing the details I have swept from my memory."

"And what do you suggest?" Without removing the armor of indifference, I let her continue. "What outcome do you see?"

"The first thing I can't deny myself is to offer to accept my caress." Almost laughing and crying at the same time, the creature issues, carefully monitoring my reactions. "I know you will refuse, but I would not forgive myself if I did not offer it. I can be the ideal of pleasure, not to harm your psyche or turn you into a slave or a toy, not to distort your mind with new perversions, but to quench the ones you already have, whatever they may be. In all seriousness, the best way for you not to worry about me would be for me to be disembodied or sealed in a suitable reliquary until the moment you need my talents."

"You're still willing to offer something else, aren't you?" I willingly follow her logic, the actual invitation to ask the question. "We don't have much time to play charades like that, do we?"

"Let me stay behind your backs, provide you with a secure rear." She exhaled almost with desperation, still unable to stand, showing from beneath the hundreds of superimposed feelings, the dozens of variants of the same personality changing each other at her will, all that tension, the reluctance to end her story at the very beginning of its happy ending. "Create a cult, whether it be in your name or with no service at all. I can sense it. I can see with my sonm how your mortal servants react to it. You have such a place where I will come in handy, where I will be useful! I am ready to give any souls, to release them all, even to heal the wounds inflicted by my vice, my Lust! Leave me only crumbs, just enough to realize myself, to remember and not forget what I have just learned, and the rest will be completed by talents and your gifts! And at any moment you can count on my help, and it's worth something. You've seen for yourself that I can kill even those named Legend. You have your artifact, you have your subordinates, and I will be but one of them, your gifts and my nature fused into the perfect tool for anything!"

A pause.

I'd say it was for breath, but her body wasn't breathing right now, her heart wasn't beating, and she'd almost completely switched to a magical metabolism, holding back the urges she felt. It's not death and oblivion that disappoints her the most, for she wasn't lying about how even a second in the subjugated state of that death was worth it in any form. No, what disappoints her is the realization that she can be useful, that she can contribute to my elevation as she sees it or as I see it myself. And the realization that I am now willing to get rid of such a useful tool out of mistrust, fear, and disgust literally gives her a fit. If she could pass the same strings to someone else, dying would be a thousandfold easier for her, even pleasant in some ways: feeling squeezed, used, voluntarily given up, and thrown away for lack of use is a very peculiar fuel for a final orgasm, but Giver likes the idea, almost gives herself over to the fantasy of such an ending, almost wishes for a slow, slow death, to see the contempt and disgust on my face at the moment of death.

"Accept me at least this way." She asks, and afterward, for the first time, she continues demanding, like a deviless who not once created cults and conducted nightmarish raids in real worlds, used to subjugate and seduce anyone. "Or finish the whole thing this very instant. I can't believe it, but the wait is so excruciatingly pleasant that I'm afraid I'll snap and start doing stupid things like reinscribing myself into the body of one of your servants. You have a way of destroying me in a way that leaves no trace, none at all."

"They're not my servants, you know that, and you're deliberately provoking me." I shiver, pulling off my mask again and trying to figure out what to do with this one. "How sincere were you, and how much of your tirade was fitting my, as you put it, personality map?"

"The ratio is four to three in favor of sincerity, I think." After a pause, during which she checked her memory and tested how much she had brainwashed herself for convincingness, the most troubled of the Ring's victims responded. "And I cannot refrain from a wounding word to those who will continue to be with you, whatever your decision regarding me may be. Even if there is only a crumb of venom in that word."

Shit.

"Holy shit!" I see no reason to hold back my thoughts. "Why is it so complicated, huh?"

Giver prudently remained silent.

"Devils are unstable." After a brief silence, when it was clear that the two of us were not going to continue the dialog, Tia spoke up. "That is their strength and weakness, and your submission must inherently have a stabilization aspect to it..."

"I really don't like where you're going with this speech, Starborn." In a tone that could make you cum on the spot or give you a heart attack of primal horror, Giver interrupted her, her indifference sharply lost, but she quickly regained her composure. "You have no idea what I experience, what I desire, or what I am. You are free to say whatever you want, to despise, fear, hate, dread, and wish to destroy, but one thing I will not allow you or anyone else to do, Maiden of the Stars, is to question my loyalty."

"That only makes me more convinced I'm right." Scaring Tia is definitely not worth it, only wasting energy, despite all her fatigue, from which the deviless's voice still had some effect for a brief moment. "The nature of interaction with Hell is such that any matter and essence that passes through it becomes like feces. It doesn't matter what it was in the beginning because the end is the same."

By Tia's standards, with her polite sophistication, it was horribly rude, unethical, and offensive. One could immediately see years of experience interacting with all sorts of dangers.

"We're in enough shit as it is." I sigh, feeling like I'm going to regret this some more, which I report. "I feel like I'm going to regret this. I will check your sonm again, and you will release all those I ordered released. There really is a job for you, especially while Tia and I can't do full psychic work."

"I will do my best not to disappoint you," Giver replies, and for some reason, I believe her.

Perhaps it was because her "not to disappoint" could also be perceived in terms of justifying the very expectation of "I'll regret it." The rest of the team chose to remain silent, though Losius, I was sure, wanted to say something barbed, like his blade, behaving even more unfriendly in the presence of Giver than it did to me. Maybe I wanted to say something, but everyone was nervous. Everyone wanted to finish and exhale, even me. I had time to notice the unkind look in her affectionate tenderness, which Giver had managed to send in Tia's direction, and I promised myself to keep a closer eye on what was happening and, ideally, to send Giver to the Green Tits tribe. If the latest reports are to be believed, they have a lot of problems with discipline and internal conflicts, even though they don't spill blood, so they need someone who can nail them down and control their desire for sex.

Giver fit here perfectly, even too perfectly, forcing me to check myself time after time for extraneous influence, realizing again and again that if she caught me, it was on bare (and without vulgar hussar puns) diplomacy, banally calculating. Once again, I remind myself the main problem with her is not the question of loyalty but what she will do for my attention. I'll have to poke around in her head, protecting myself from seduction, to see which way she's thinking. To calculate her the same way she tried to do it with me. I'd also have to be mindful of what she'd said. The usual mental defenses against her shrinking wouldn't fully work, only complicating and slowing the effect.

"Done." The elfess reports, having finished outlining a barely visible circle on the spot where the Spiral's concentration used to be, and now sits a tense-breathing Hans, clutching the artifact in one hand and holding the vials in the other.

"I'm ready." The tracker picks up, preparing to drink short-term, literally for half a minute, stimulants, their short-term nature paying off with explosive amplification and relatively gentle side effects as for such an explosion.

"I'm ready to," It is already Hestia, slowly removing her presence from the created misty net, deployed right above the ritual circle, leaving only pure enchantments that are not part of her body. When we disappear, they will dissolve the remaining energy traces, which will not be erased by the additional parts of the ritual.

"Then let's go," I commanded, pressing the back of my head into Ygra's tits, who had to twist so tightly that she could get a yoga skill while fixing the energy of her hammer and partially covering Giver to avoid the reappearance of barely healed damage.

Hans, in a single motion that felt like a long, long practice, drained all three vials as if he were drinking dwarven vodka, which was not so far from the truth. Two of the three potions had an alcohol base, making them scaldingly strong. Without throwing the vials away, which was obvious because they would be found, he put the glassware in his pocket and clutched the Generator with both hands, making the space pulsate as if in time with his heartbeat. The place where the artifact was created helped draw us here, but just as we were drawn to it, we also can push away from it, trying to jump to the nearest place to rest, Arenam.

I had to make a decision quickly, but I decided on this shithole quite confidently, having had time to go through the other options and throw them away one by one, especially since there were not many of them. I thought most of all about a rookery in the wild lands. There, everything is really covered in three layers with super-secure protection, which even a god wouldn't break through if he didn't know exactly where to look and who he was looking for. Two small problems prevented me from giving the order to jump in that direction, and I'm not talking about the distance. It doesn't matter much for the Generator to make a transfer of a kilometer or a thousand. First, Grimmentray will know who he is looking for, and I can't be sure he or his priest didn't leave any marks on me. The divine power surpasses my strength, and it would be foolish to compete with him in strength and ability to control these forces. It's like a battle between an amateur boxer who has been training in a good gym for six months and an acting master of sports in the heavyweight division. Chances, of course, remain, but more mathematical than real. As a result, it is decided not to shine the most reliable shelter in front of a possible enemy, who is only temporarily bound, not before me, but before his essence!

I haven't even figured out how the deal with the entity, for whom all contracts are a native aspect of power, has affected me yet. I have a suspicion Jerem told me about the Altar in the Library to give me an excuse to try to break the deal. He hadn't realized then that Pypysh Owlborn was my little impromptu act and not a third force that had brought the humans and devils together, confusing the creatures and opening the humans' eyes a little. He obviously wouldn't mind me finding out about the timer hanging above my neck and doing what a normal Anonymous should do. Try to hack the server and wipe the data. Now, even after scanning, I don't feel the shackles of the contract, but it doesn't mean anything yet. If I were Jerem, I wouldn't put the connection with the deal on my essence either because it can be ripped out if I'm crazy enough. But to create some conceptual mechanism for evaluating certain actions, which simply does not exist until one of the parties decides to violate the contract - that would be a smart and correct solution. And, most importantly, there is no way to test it, at least not yet. Later, I feel, I'll have to spend a lot of time and effort searching for possible traps, even if there aren't any.... but who am I kidding but myself?

The second reason the Trails are taking us to Arenam is the very defenses that shelter the Green Tits. Hestia's Mist has warped the metrics of space and made it wrong. There's no better tool against the Trails than boundless Mist. Considering the fact she put up the defense before we got the Generator, there are no corridors for it in those monoliths, and we couldn't even imagine that we'd need it so soon. Arenam isn't just a wilderness, but it's also under the heel of a bloodsucking creature, which will be able to cover us, take care of mirrors, and find me a normal laboratory for brewing potions and updating alarm kits. And, most importantly, even if I do spot this city as my base, it won't cost me anything to leave it quickly through the same mirror passage, having prepared a disguise from the Weaver and a whole bunch of deceptions to hide the true point of escape.

If only they hadn't found us a little early, but that's a problem that can't be solved by our efforts, and thinking about it will only add gray hairs and reduce nerve cells.

Again, the sensation of pulling movement, with complete immobility, the feeling of a dragging tunnel, a narrow Trail, along which you are led by the hand, or, rather, carried along as if you were a balloon caught up in the flow. All of us are brought here by the flow, and the main thing is that there are no nightmarish clowns on the way. However, knowing Alurei, I don't even doubt that such creatures are available in a wide assortment, a huge choice, and the possibility to acquire them legally to attack your enemy. When we fell out into normal space, I had already almost written down the project of creating a material nightmare based on a couple of corpses and a pile of mirror shards, having the appearance of a creepy clown and profile mirror enchantments, sharpened for the role of a bodyguard for small children. If I ever sort out the Avgiyah stables of the main quest, I'll be sure to patent the idea!

We were thrown out in the middle of the city, and only the evening time and the fact that we were in a dirty alley behind the inn, where some drunken carpenter was urinating, saved us from having to clean up the memories of witnesses or even witnesses themselves. He had had enough of the devil's gentle stroking on his cheek to concentrate on his work and not take our existence for granted. Giver, of course, would have liked to take him all to herself and to work on corrupting his spark before she took him, but she suppressed her desires perfectly well without my guiding kick.

"I'm making contact, don't distract me." Walking over to some puddle, the cleanest one available in this alleyway, I used it to create the lightest distraction field possible and proceeded to contact the creature left behind for the elder, guardian of peace and virtue. "Ack!"

"What is it?" It was Taria who was the first to sense my emotions, not Tia or even Giver, like a shark smelling blood, so she smelled an opportunity to taunt me. "Your eyebrow is twitching."

"Nothing dangerous." I was burning out any emotions and unnecessary reactions even more thoroughly now than I had during my dialog with Giver before coming here, which was symbolic. "Only checked out the bloodsucker before, didn't go into the background of her work. I was surprised to see how well she turned out here."

I didn't lie because, looking at the creature's actions up close, knowing where to look, and thus bypassing the protection it had set up against possible onlookers, I was really impressed and almost cried. If the mayor of my native Shithole had cared about my small homeland even a couple of percent of the way my mosquito took up the work to improve Arenam, I would live in the best city in the world, and all the Europeans would be jealous of me! However, this surprise, although it was pleasant (not for nothing left alive, not for nothing said to protect the city and its inhabitants), would not have knocked me out of the rut if not for the "gifts" left for me. Quite literally, I say, all they needed was a bow. Although, those over there have bows. Brainwashed townspeople from those who crossed the creature's path and prevented it from making Arenas great, not again, but for the first time, went into the mosquito's possession, and I didn't even mind much.

It was hard to be against another initiative, according to which the creature wishing to placate and cause at least some response in my soul chose the prettiest girls (all of those who stood in the way of the common good) and sat them in front of the mirror in its lair, naked or dressed so that naked is better, with a plate with the level and a brief characteristic in their hands... Well, I don't really approve of it. I don't need new slaves or victims of the ring, for now, for sure, and the degree of "worthiness" and "deservedness" of such a fate, I would prefer to choose and evaluate myself rather than entrust this matter to not quite adequate creature-bloodsucker. However, the very idea of her actions caused a smile. Even some of the girls I'll order her to let go, having previously cleaned the memory. They are worthy victims for her, not for me.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay, pale bitch!!!

**[ingenious swearing]** Why did she "offer" not only beautiful girls in front of the mirrors but also cute effeminate or simply elegant boys!!!? Not to mention a couple of "if Conan had used spas and depilatories" types, also tied up in a bow, who were also offered to me!

Who does she think I am?!?!

In short, to summarize my impressions, when I got in touch with the lady of pale and toothy appearance who was glad to meet me, I clearly realized several things. First of all, we would have to stay here for a while. It would not be possible to come to my senses soon, even if I had not drained myself to the most nightmarish state. This just means that for at least a month and a half, I will be lying spitting at the ceiling in a bed, not whimpering in pain or, say, in a traumatic coma, lying in a corner as a log of vegetable subtype. Second, these will be very fun and funny months because the bloodsucker's initiative scared me a lot, and if she gets into a tune with Giver or System and her admins forbid, with Taria, I won't be able to live at all. And the third, the most important thing, perhaps: I will do everything, everything, everything, absolutely everything so that not a single living soul will know about the mosquito's idea of cute boys and depilated thugs in front of a mirror with a sign, a bow, brainwashed brains and other parts of the body. Otherwise, I'd have to drop this whole town into the Shadow and start my quest all over again, only on another continent. Well, or Taria's jokes won't leave me even in postmortem, and I can guarantee and predict it better than a stockbroker.

Ygra was moving out of Arenam with a lot of swearing on my part, but almost without any dangerous moments, being a joke about an inconspicuous stealth armored train in the steppes of Kazakhstan, sharply creeping out from around the corner. In the city, it is much more difficult to hide her than in the natural biome, not to mention the banal problem of placement. A bed the size of her suitable in this town will not find, even if I try very hard. Plus, in the native swamps, or those places that she wants to make a swamp, she will hide herself not much worse than me. The list of "tasks for the near future" already includes the need to dig into her Status. The list of "should have been done yesterday" is overflowing for the next weeks, months, and at least not years.

Hans was carried by me, but Losius had to carry Tia, which, again, caused me a vague burning in my lower back. Why did I, the main isekai in this kindergarten, have to carry a gray-haired man while Losius got a graceful elf and a lighter one? Tia shut herself off, falling into a meditative trance and beginning to squeeze the remnants of the fleur-de-lis out of her body, then falling into a normal sleep. She would have done this before, but now was the opportunity, and the last of the risks were gone. Normally, if she was to remain professional to the end, she would have waited until she arrived at the resting place, checked the defense circuits, which she would have participated in, had a short briefing, and only then switched off. She could easily do so, but there was an increased risk of still waiting for complications - the lack of serious injuries and defeats was offset by the number of minor influences she was overcoming, but which should still have been leveled as early as possible.

The command for treatment was given in an orderly tone, and it was only half a block to a small and inconspicuous house, which had an equally inconspicuous cellar with a hidden passageway to the bloodsucker's main base in one of its walls. There was the protection left by the dead patriarch and new ritual contours, which the creature invested in its anonymity and unrecoverability, and several quite useful artifacts, among which there were even a couple of epic ones, designed to hide everything and anything. Both epics, however, were concealers designed to encapsulate energy traces with specific closed fields rather than blocking them from clairvoyance. I even wondered where she'd gotten two epics because she hadn't gotten them from criminals, had she? They didn't have such toys, or I would have known about it and taken them before I left Arenam.

I don't know how completely I managed to convey my attitude, but by the time we got out of the basement of the estate occupied by the bloodsucker (at the same time an above-ground and underground complex, quite cozy, by the way), there was no trace of the Conans, or any gifts, only the bloodsucker bowed respectfully, dressed in an elegant and very tight hunting costume of a noble lady on the road, and behind her back her guards and mere servants ducked their faces into the floor. They don't see us now, don't hear us, don't even perceive the flow of time, which is right. I didn't mention it and didn't order it, but the creature itself had picked up a lot of new knowledge about conspiracy lately. The ability to get almost any kind of literature or even an instructor in exchange for a boot that had just been taken off - the burgomaster already has three of them, and I'd really like to forget about what he does with them once a week, without even thinking about it the rest of the time.

We settled in quickly, feverishly even, trying to get as much done as possible before the moment when it would be contraindicated for me to do any magic. Pleased at least that creating a mirrored network of defenses required not so much strength as control and a good command of Dream's mysteries. They've also sagged compared to their normal state, but that's just in comparison. There's enough for my work. Losius put his sword in an isolated ritual circle, already finished. Though Tia hadn't checked it, it had been ordered by the patriarch and by a normal specialist, who then agreed to clean the memory for an additional fee. In the second such circle lies my trophy sword, and in the smallest one, additionally reinforced with mirror chips and quartz crystals impregnated with celestial blue, which were poured into the circle and created the simplest and, therefore, very reliable circuit, lies the most dangerous cargo. It was forbidden to go there, including the bloodsucker and its most useless servants. There was a toxic isolation box for her demonic grandfather's legacy that made even Giver shiver, a shiver thickly mixed with anger, disgust, and a desire for a classic inquisitorial flame purification, which was ironic, given her nature as a champion of purity.

Take a shard, replace its reflection, create a line of image transmission, place a dozen deceptions, add simple garbage images, some of which actually have a second bottom to make you look for a catch and a thread that is not there, pour Dream, outline the boundary of the effect, build it into a general network, repeat. One thing takes a little time, less than five minutes, but you need at least a couple hundred of them to work reliably, and given what's going on in the psychic sphere right now, you need not hundreds but thousands of deceptions to create, to link them into several parallel networks, to tie them to different central mirrors, and to create a mechanism that's not too inferior in complexity to the bullshit I used to get into the Library.

People came up to me, trying to help me or distracting me with the conversation, but Hestia prescribed slaps to Taria, sending her to sleep. She took a misty form and began to dampen Dream's parasitic outbursts, allowing me to free some of my attention to level them out, which helped a lot. Next came the bloodsucker with a dozen ritual supplies and artifacts, half of which were rare, raising more and more questions about who she'd robbed and how. She began coating the mirrors with alchemical varnish and tapping them with some strange set of thin wands, making them more malleable to my labors. I had time to make my mirrors faster, but even one in three reinforced pieces of the overall network wasn't bad, even if that reinforcement was three percent on average. Giver also came, putting on her body, stolen from the cultist, the clothes provided by the servants, somehow making the shards not malleable, but, on the contrary, too inert. It didn't do any good for the various deceptions, but it was much easier to translate rollbacks and blackening into such things. They would last a bit longer. I could do all this myself, even better, but I can't split myself.

I mean.

I can. I did it already.

I'm just gonna over exhaust myself.

The only thing that saved me, more than a glass of cold water found next to my bed in the morning after a stormy celebration, was the fact that no one had been eager to conduct a large-scale sifting of images in my direction. The guys in Eternal had enough other things to do besides mopping up the remnants of creatures, searching for their cults, saving what and whoever else could be saved, and other good things. By the time the newborn network began to be seriously jerked around, forcing me to focus on fine-tuning it rather than creating new elements, the network itself was already in place, albeit not as complete as I would have liked. The creator of the network was sweating through it, looking like a patient with a fever and a hangover of the most severe form, and he was as wobbly as a sailor in an alcoholic storm.

I was literally carried to my bunk with the bloodsucker - what was her name? - under one arm and the deviless under the other. They looked at each other in such a way that Hestia decided to follow them, just in case. Perhaps the picture of an exhausted and obviously suffering man being dragged somewhere by such a couple looked as sinister as possible and a little over the top. The thought of the humor of the whole situation made me giggle, but I only got a muffled cough.

I was put in the same room as Tia, and I'd have to specify that it was a different bed. I didn't even try to think about why a room with two large double beds, each with its canopy and curtains, would be in a fantasy medieval setting. It was almost excruciatingly painful, like a stomachache, migraine, aching tooth, and pinched nerve all at the same time. It was disgusting, unprofessional, risky, and bad for me to waste my energy on such crap. I checked anyway, of course, finding the story amusing enough, in the spirit of the best construction stories on Earth, about an elevator door in the middle of a residential apartment.

I was already closing my eyes, but I got up, slid off the bed, almost falling to the floor, and then I did, cracking my elbow painfully because my body was numb from sitting so long. It was my elbow that hurt, with all the passives for body strength and invulnerability! The bed material was dented, and if I hadn't deployed noise suppression in time, I would have alarmed the team. I crawled over to Tia, checking her as well. The others had been checked earlier, but the elf in trance had been taken away at once, and then it wasn't her time. The trance had turned into a normal sleep, and most of the fleur intoxication had been removed from her body. There were no curse marks (I didn't see any, but I'll check them later after I've recovered), and the injuries and side effects of alchemy were unpleasant but not threatening something really serious. Though Tia's mildly stoned, laughing in the face of the Grimmentray High Priest, and not holding back her emotions stuck in my mind as one of the most pattern-breaking moments of that long day.

At the last moment, I decided to check her dreams as well. The flair, or rather the remnants of it, might make them too dangerous, even though the odds are slim. It's a little awkward because I know that her dreams must be colorful because of the same tiny fragments of Lust that her energy hasn't taken out yet, which makes me feel like a voyeur. After reassuring myself that Tia would have given me a moral kicking if I'd ignored the opportunity to mitigate the risks, I carefully checked the dream. I try not to peek at the plot, only to look for signs of unnaturalness, but I can still catch bits and pieces of the dream's plot, vulgar but ordinary and belonging to her fantasies, only brought out into the open and made absurd.

Catching on...

...are you okay now? Any headaches or back pain?

...I'll be leading your trance, so try not to lose yourself too much.....

...watch the pendant, don't get distracted, breathe deeply, slowly. The movements of the pendant are simple and predictable, but also random...

...because you're still asleep, and things are weird in dreams.....

...I tread on the ground, Tin, I tread on you, your hands, your face, your loins, your thoughts, your desires, up, down, up, down, up, down, Tin, don't get distracted...

... of her feet and her beauty, wondrous and faithful, always yours, at every moment yours, as you have become hers, as the earth, as the grass on which I tread, so your thoughts flow beneath me, and you remember ...

...just as you can't blame the rain for falling down instead of up, I'm not going to blame a person for loving elven legs, feet, and bodies for being weak in front of our beauty...

...now, I will remove my foot, and you, in gratitude for my caress, will forget this touch, but you will remember it in the depths of your memory, okay?

...I will let my feet be the focus of today's meditation.....

...I hope I don't need to specify that I wouldn't want to see you at another ritual all covered in seed stains.....

...by constructing the hypnotic induction in the right way, by persuading you in the right way, I was able to make you hold on to all my compulsions yourself...

Damn.

Elven.

Mother.

I go back to my bed, cover myself up briskly, and fall asleep in a few seconds, happy and carefree like a little kid. But before I fell asleep, in those few seconds, I managed to take my mental list of tasks from the "to do yesterday" category, almost tore it to shreds, and shoved two more items on it, placing them, of course, not on the first line, but as close to it as possible.

To agree with Tia's hints about getting a normal, even if accelerated to the limit and therefore fragmentary, magical education in the style of the classical school of elven leaf-liquidators.

And never.

Never fucking piss Tia off with the pranks.

And then I fell asleep.

* * *

Author's Note:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1w9hflVJlube65WViZQaa0jU13kguJ2ub/view?usp=sharing are the dreams of a pissed-off Giver, genuinely offended that anyone out there dares to suspect her loyalty while not being brainwashed.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rHPXL6kD79VPVLQ6bKjFmoZ06UKORf_V/view?usp=sharing is the logical finale to Giver's fantasies.

* * *

The thirty-three-page threshold had fallen after all, so all that was left to do was keep working. Thirty-six pages. On the one hand, it's not eight, which is sad, but it's not a hundred or even thirty-nine, as in the previous chapter. Let's consider it my little victory.

The dice in the chapter, as promised, went clearly along the diplomacy branch, and, as paradoxical as it may sound, the property that should have buried them - the Soul of the Mocker - helped to pull out the negotiations. I hinted more than once in the text that MC's words were getting in there somewhere, making the priest nervous. But what made him more nervous was that MC wasn't behaving the way Jerem had hoped.

What exactly his plan was originally, MC, in principle, guessed, and I left some hints. However, there will still be a chapter devoted to parsing the Statuses, treatment, and, of course, attempts to understand the situation. A few times, I had to turn to the forgotten treasury with bonuses dear to my heart. You can even guess when.

Oh, yeah, the trial.

This is a case where if Kostik had been exactly as I originally intended him to be in my unrestrained hentai original of this work, he would have been atomized into quarks with no alternatives. The current Tin, on the other hand, no matter how much of an asshole he is, got screwed by Verdict but didn't die. If he was even a little weaker, if he hadn't gotten a bunch of bonuses recently, he would have been killed too, but the corpse would still be intact. But MC is very resilient and able to tolerate pain in its many manifestations, endured the bastard.

The coolest crit, double I will note, and the second I have amplified with the bonus for epicness was the choice of a return quest in payment for the rescue. In the original plan, it was supposed to be a full-fledged task, from the category of either you do, or I'll give your ass to all comers. But two hundred and 77 is just no words for how lucky it is.

In the end, MC's quest was not to eliminate Ilkhan and his inner Retinue in a daring terrorist attack (which would have been a critical failure) but to find the Owls' network of influence... which caused Tia, weakened by the experience and having lost her cherished self-control, to laugh. The quickest completion of a quest of this level ever.

I'll say a little bit about the implications for the whole team as well.

The hardest was for MC, Hans, and Giver, but the latter cured herself by transferring damage to souls. Tia got a lucky 81 to resist Fleur side effects, 90+ to resist alchemy side effects, and an automatic crit on exhaustion side effects (she didn't overextend herself in this regard), so she was only getting hit by light effects, which she closed the opportunity to move to medium strength effects due to meditative healing trance.

I confess that there were seven light effects of Lust's fleur affliction to choose from, but I, almost without rolling the dice, pushed the rolled Buttocks Super-Sensitivity into the corner for the next week, taking the second closest option - Hot and Lewd Dreams. And here, it didn't take long to figure out what kind of dream she'd had and what Kostik had been surprised by when he'd unwittingly peeked at it.

Could it be a consequence of familiarity, fleeting and not strong enough, with that very manga? Our icy Tia? That's hardly possible. What are you talking about?

The presence of two epics (by the way, hardly the first epics that MC can feel with his hands, because legendaries with mythics he has already seen in the assortment and pocketed, but epics have not met a lot) is the result of a successful 98 with bonuses, brought by two points to a dirty crit, the action on the part of bloodsucker, and the backstory of these actions is well written in the dedicated omake of the honorable Brinar.

Most of the bonuses were spent on providing a pure crit to meet Ygra. Since there were no plus modifiers, a pure crit was needed. Otherwise, it was either go nowhere, leave Ygra to catch up with the rest of the team, or just break up the chapter even more. 68 rolls and 32 from the stash.

Conversation with Giver - she has consistently high, but, strange as it may seem, and no matter how offensive it may be to her, she does not yet have critical rolls for adjusting to the MC. Characteristically, I can tell by the author's word she is not planning to betray MC and that her submission is strictly according to the rules of maximum reliability. The problem is what prompts the critter's loyalty to her. Their conversation, despite the almost complete lack of сrits, not counting a couple of dirty ones, was the longest series of rolls in the chapter.

Creating a net is close to a crit, but that crit was unattainable from the beginning. There were a lot of disadvantages. If it wasn't for the low cost of individual elements and the help of the team, he might not have made it. Now, all this stuff is reliable enough to slowly finish it next week in a sparing mode, but not now. The final rolls looked like this: 71, 90, 93, 69 (a lewd crit, but since there was nowhere to take it, I limited myself to the fact that Giver cumming from the possibility of helping MC in his work almost continuously) and at the end 95. Success.

I can write a lot more, but I'm already sick, the temperature is rising again and I think I'll finish. I will edit the PB at another time.

Good luck.