Is this... pain?

Strewn with stones, my body literally screamed from a strange stabbing feeling of weakness, as if I could not live without this poison. I was truly surprised by such an unexpected attack. It made me lose control, made me really angry and reflected it in the souls of my dolls. The pain, fear and anger I felt was something I hadn’t felt in a very long time.

Boris...

Thus was his name sung, the man who fed me with his fears and thereby lured me into a trap. What was he hoping for? Did he think that he could kill the legend of the world? Or maybe he knew that there was no way this would happen and decided to play with me in his own way? This made me angry that some person decided to change the rules of the game, my rules, which I established.

He disfigured me, killed not only my outer beauty, but also my inner beauty. What I raised and protected for so long should have become a gift to my master, my external beauty is my body, and my internal beauty is my soul. Anger and wounds have ruined my beauty, my elegance, and now I am ugly. This angered me many times more.

Boris, you brat! How dare you?!

I felt that I had lost control over my dolls and they, mindlessly succumbing to anger, rushed to kill everyone they saw. I can raise even more dolls from the dead, but I couldn't waste my strength, I need it now. I need Monrid to become king and do everything that I and my master need.

I threw off the stones and rose to my feet, I felt the unbearable heat from the blood flowing from the wounds. At the slightest movement, something inside crunched, something swelled, and something burst. These poisonous injections prevented me from thinking clearly and every time I did something I made unconscious and unnecessary movements. I was shaking and choking on the dust I had swallowed, and my head seemed to be flying, refusing to think clearly. At any moment I could simply fall off my feet and never wake up again. Luckily for me, magic protected me, allowing me to continue to live, but if the shell is not taken care of in time, it will die.

And in this state, I need to concentrate and return everything that I snatched from under my control. I couldn’t even properly see who was around me, my eyes saw only a blurry veil, my ears were blocked, barely catching anything, something was shaking me, and my skin could no longer feel anything except pain and blood.

"Reykuta!"

Someone shouted, running up to me and covering my body with his massive armor.

Suddenly I heard a short, but loud and disgusting ringing, as if something had crashed into the armor and bounced off. Alien touches relieved my pain a little and, raising my head, I saw Monrid’s frightened face, already stained with blood, behind the raised visor. I never thought that I would ever be glad to see this son of a bitch, my brother from the same mother. He shook my body in panic and shouted:

"What happened?! Answer me!"

I just grinned in response, barely able to stand on my feet from the weakness of my shell. The prince, seeing the state I was in, began to drag me back behind the houses while a fierce battle raged around me, if the angry and uncontrollable ocean of meat and their deaths can be called that.

I admit, Boris, you managed to gain time, but I assure you it won’t be for long.

"Water! Bring water!"

The prince shouted to someone and grabbed my hand tighter.

"Hold on sister, I won’t let you die. We will have more children, I promise you that.”

Children? From you?

I smiled, not wanting to listen to this anymore.

At such a moment in his life, this cannibal shows his most base feelings in the world: love, care and empathy. Those feelings that people consider the purest and noblest. Anything could be hidden behind them, but the fact that Monrid is so caring about me tells me one thing: he is dependent on me.

Caressing my cheeks and trying to cover my wounds, he carefully held my body while his armor took strange ringing blows. Now I need it, but then, when this is all over, it will simply get in the way.

"Brother."

I whispered quietly, raising my disfigured face and looking into his eyes.

"Get your vile paws off me."

"What?"

Monrid was surprised, and the next moment a weak bolt of lightning made his body shake in convulsions and fall down with a roar.

I rose above him, collecting magical spheres in my palms. It was disgusting to feel this primitive human care on myself, as if I needed it like some weak, insignificant insect.

"I don't need you to die, brother. I need you to remain yourself, and not follow the path of man. My master... will punish me... if you ruin everything. So sleep. When you wake up, you will sit on the throne and wreak havoc in the name of a new world."

Having said all this, I walked towards the walls, where mountains of corpses were already gathering. They ran en masse into the castle courtyard and died there at the hands of the royal soldiers. Draun Rudrin has prepared a good defense, but for the defenders it will all be over if suddenly a new gap appears in the wall where fresh waves of meat will pour in. When this happens they will be doomed.

Boris, I heard your song. It sounds like a story about a hero, but as a person you are too weak to be one. I myself was once the same, a heroine who wanted to protect people and the world in which they lived, but these people, this world, they left me no choice. Everyone abandoned me, denigrated me, and only my master devoured my fears and returned me the sweetness of life. My master would like your brave song, Boris, but you are in his way and therefore you will die.

And indeed, from very few people have I heard such soulful singing, especially from a person who came here from another world completely alien to us. Whatever God moved an ordinary weak person here, it was clearly his mistake, and not the fulfillment of God’s whim. This heroic story will end here and now.

It's time to end the fun.

Having collected as much mana as possible in my hands, I transformed it into spherical clots of fire that sparkled with discharges of small lightning. Patterns of burns had already begun to run across my arm, I put so much effort into destroying this wall. When this happens, crowds of the walking dead will fill the palace and kill everyone they meet except her, Ilifreeta. I need her alive.

Monrid will be very upset if his hole for copulation dies during the assault on the city. He will desecrate her body and soul for the last time in his life, and I may even join in and feed both of them with caresses, draining their souls completely. It would be absolutely wonderful.

"Resistance is futile."

With a smile on my face, I fired a huge bolt of lightning, which burned quite a few of my dolls along the way and for a brief moment, blinded everyone and everything around me.

But when the lightning discharge passed, and its smell began to hover in the air, I felt something strange, unnatural, as if someone had somehow reflected my magic. At the moment when the discharge evaporated and its glow went out, I saw a completely unharmed wall in front of me.

"A?"

I was sincerely surprised to see on these very walls people holding iron spears wrapped in cloth in their hands.

These people themselves were wrapped in cloth and did not seem to pose a threat as fighters. They stood on the same wall in a row a meter from each other and held these staves in the same position. I didn’t feel any magical power from them, but I definitely remember that something affected my discharge.

I know what it is... people call it a lightning rod.

I clicked my tongue and decided to change the magic I was always used to using.

Now two spheres of fire began to form above my palms, shining brighter than the sun. Instead of chaotic and fast lightning discharges, everything around was filled with the solid and smooth heat of flame. Now the magic burned my palms, I mutilated myself even more in order to use the power that I had previously tried not to use.

And I was about to throw large clots of fire towards the wall, when suddenly I felt magic moving straight towards me. A moment later, I erected an invisible magical barrier and repelled the wind attack that cut all the dolls around me into pieces. It didn’t take long to think how everything fell into place.

Maggie.

I saw in front of me a trio of magicians, an old man and two girls. The last two may not be nearly a threat to me, but the old man...

"And how do you like humans, Swidok?"

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A magician in a gray robe said in a hoarse voice, holding in his hands a staff taller than him.

I couldn’t believe that I would see this boy here. I couldn’t contain my joy at meeting him again.

"Granid."

I heard a familiar voice that made me almost laugh throughout the whole city.

"Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha~! I didn't think I would see a boy here and now right in front of me."

"And the truth is... many years have passed since then, but I have changed, I am no longer that naive child who would run away, hiding from his parents. Now I am a different person.”

Another person, right?

It was just funny to hear this, knowing how cowardly he was born. People don’t change that easily, or rather, they don’t change at all.

"Don’t deceive yourself, boy. I can feel the fear coming from you. You are still as afraid of me as you were many years ago. You haven’t changed, you’ve just gotten older.”

Granid only frowned at my words, raising his staff up. His false confidence amused me more than ever. Playing with people's fears is so fun and yet I wonder what this stupid insect has in store for me this time.

"If I didn’t know your name, I would have thought that this was some kind of dark sorceress, but it turned out to be just you. And where did you get this body?”

"Do you think that I will answer you so simply?”

I said playfully.

"We still have time before Fellrick gets here, and you have almost no warriors left behind you.”

Indeed, my dolls have become many times smaller, but I have not yet put my most valuable asset, the cult, into battle. And yet I began to understand something, he, like Boris, began to gain time, but for what? What do they want to do?

That explosion...

Suddenly I remembered the moment when I stepped on the trap, I felt the same force that came from the iron box in the sky. It was brief, as if it was some kind of signal for some object or artifact to do something, for example, explode. Do they really have a lot of these artifacts or maybe they...

Dark...

I can't believe that this is really true. I once had to fight with them, and I remember very well what they were capable of. These people are unlikely to have fallen under the spell of soulless creatures, no. They fight alongside someone else, someone who already knows the dark ones better than anyone else. And I have to find out who it is. The boy probably knows about them since he fights here side by side with mortals.

"How did your friends get into our world, Granid?"

I asked the old man, but instead of an answer, a clot of the brightest fireball flew at me.

"Well, okay, let's dance."

I instantly dodged the fiery attack, simultaneously healing my body from the wounds I received. An explosion occurred behind me, sending many fragments into the sky that crashed into my magical barrier. At the same moment, the two girls also began to act, using their magic. The white-haired one raised magical roots from under the ground, and the second one cut through the air with invisible blades. Their magic was so clear and mediocre that I could easily dissolve some of the spells, predict or simply evade them.

I took control of the roots and dried them out, and directed the air blades in different directions. Some of the attacks, of course, crashed into my magical barrier, but it held up, but one air attack still pricked me and left a deep cut on my left arm. Again this poison that clouds my thoughts. This feeling is not a pleasant one, and yet Verhein believes that you can also enjoy it, in your own way, of course, and I could not but agree with him. However, now is not the best time to feed on pain and enjoy it, now it only gets in the way.

"What's the matter, Granid? Why are you silent?"

I looked at the old man while dancing in the middle of the dead hills.

I intercepted a thin invisible thread of mana and cut it off, cutting off the power of the white-haired girl, forcing her to widen her eyes in fear, and the dark-haired girl continued to launch her air blades. Only Granid was accumulating a charge of mana for the next fireball, but I didn’t stand idle and soaked the ground under their feet with terrible cold. A few more moments and they will firmly stick to the ground, becoming just targets for my lightning.

Of all of them, only the dark-haired one gave it her all, using all her available magical power, while the white-haired one tried to envelop me with threads of mana from the rear, but every time I did this, I discovered her threads and cut them off. To defeat me in such a way is the height of stupidity, which is why I was already starting to get tired of all this.

"How boring you are."

I said and used ice magic.

"Hold still."

And I was thinking about finally freezing this trio, when suddenly at that moment something happened that surprised me. Behind me, I felt a signal, only for a brief moment. I turned around in time to notice how a huge piece of the gate, dented from the explosion, was flying towards me. I managed to jump to the side in time, but to be honest, at that moment I was on the verge of life and death.

Just a little more and my body would really be crushed by this huge piece of metal. Unfortunately, I had to interrupt my spell, which allowed Granid to use his fireball, which had already grown to such a size that it was blinding everyone around the eyes.

Granid launched a fireball and an explosion occurred next to me. Rubble was flying everywhere, my ears were blocked again, the ground shook, but I remained unharmed. I directed the energy of the explosion in time to bypass my body, simultaneously hiding from the volley of air blades of the dark-haired woman. For me, these girls did not yet pose a threat, but they were in my way, which is why I immediately decided to get rid of them.

Having accumulated mana in my palms, I formed two bolts of lightning, each for one. Without hesitating for a moment, I let them go towards the girls, but suddenly I again observe the same picture. My magic simply bypasses them, as if lightning simply refuses to touch them. It was definitely not magic, but something else.

You guessed it…

I looked at the white-haired one.

Her mana flows pulsate, she silently uses spells like I use lightning. However, I didn’t understand what kind of magic she was using now, and after a moment I understood.

Scoundrel!

I became angry, taking upon myself the blow of a powerful bolt of lightning that this creature fired at me.

Hellish pain swept through my entire body, through every bone, every drop of blood, draining my mind in agony. The last time I felt such pain was seven centuries ago, when I was struck down by Verhein. Since then I have obeyed only him. And now, after so many years, I again feel the same pain, which burns me from the inside and practically paralyzes me.

This creature used my own magic against me, I could not leave this unanswered and immediately gathered clouds over me. Everything around got dark, it seemed like a thunderstorm was about to hit the city, and I was preparing my most modest blow to this bitch. In fact, the storm did not cover the entire city, but only this place where we fought, and yet it was enough to kill everyone and everything here. None of them will be able to evade such an attack, much less survive. No magical barrier will save them, no one will save them, no one and nothing. They are finished.

"What's happening?"

The dark-haired one said looking at the clouds.

"We need to kill her, now!"

The old man shouted.

I, in turn, burst out laughing wildly. It was so sweet to see the despair on their faces, which is why I simply could not restrain myself. How happy I was that I could show myself as I am, so that everyone could see who I had become and what would happen to everyone. And I thought that the storm was under my complete control, when suddenly the white-haired woman touched my soul, and I found myself...

~ Is this... hel?

I couldn't believe my eyes. In front of me was the same scarlet desert and black sky, but on it a giant golden eye shone like the moon. I felt so small and defenseless here that I felt sick and uncomfortable.

~ We must leave.

And I was about to dispel this boring illusion, when I found myself in a completely different place.

~ This is...

The flaming wreckage of a monumental and majestic city whose buildings rose to the very clouds. The screams of people could be heard all around, huge flying ships hovered in the sky above the clouds and emitted bright rays of fire onto the ground. I had no idea where I could be, but judging by how accurate this illusion is, I can say with confidence that it was created from someone’s memories.

~ Mine to be more precise.

I turned around and saw a strange man. A tall, thin girl in black, elegant armor, every part of which was sharp as rocks. Her face was very pretty, although she radiated a predatory grin with her appearance, as if she was ready to devour me. I’ve already seen something like this somewhere and quite quickly remembered where and, most importantly, who.

~ You are dark.

The stranger smiled at me.

~ You call us that, however, you are not mistaken. Our goal is quite simple.

~ Destroy life.

What a boring goal, just killing everyone and everything without any satisfaction. Death can only be a tool, but not the goal they have chosen for themselves. And yet now this is not the main thing, but the fact that I see her in front of me.

~What kind of place is this?

~Gatrey This is the first human world that we conquered. He fell within a day.

~ Human World? Lies. The gods never settled their birds in different worlds; there is only one world, all the rest are inventions or the personal treasury of this or that deity.

~ One hundred percent delusion. It was your planet that was isolated from the rest of the universe by some ancient creatures. We came to your world just for them, but we met a bunch of Gods desperately protecting this small world.

I couldn't believe this nonsense. Verhein made it clear to me that other worlds either do not exist, or they are the possessions of Gods alien to us, but she speaks as if these Gods are nothing to them. However, perhaps this is so, because the dark ones once fought with angels and even I had a hard time when I first encountered them. Their strength is colossal and that is why, a thousand years ago, they became the main threat to the whole world. Even demons had to fight side by side with humans to defeat them.

I didn't think I'd meet one of them right here. What also worries me is their souls, or rather their complete absence. What I see in front of me is just a talking shell and nothing more. They should have no consciousness, no intelligence, not even memories, but for some reason they live, talk, think and ultimately kill. This could not but frighten even the demons of the Hel wasteland, including my master Verhein.

~Time's up.

As if by the silk of a finger, I returned to the place in that war-torn city. I was lying on the ground and one of my people stood over my head and looked at my face with fear. It was a cultist who entered the city without my knowledge.

"What are you doing here?"

"I?"

The cultist swallowed his saliva while I rose to my feet and looked around.

"We saw the signal, your storm, and rushed to help you."

"Where are the magicians?"

"Mages? Oh yes, the magicians... they went to the castle."

There was not a drop of lies in his words, but he spoke so disgustingly and indistinctly that I wanted to incinerate him on the spot.

"Introduces a cult."

"But…"

"You'll be needed elsewhere."

I said, restoring connection with my dolls.

The dead bodies finally stirred and began to move, rose to their feet and gathered in heaps in order to continue the assault on the castle.

It seems they realized that they couldn’t defeat me with magic and retreated until I woke up.

I guessed it and immediately mentally ordered the dead to rush to a new assault on the castle.

"I thought I would have fun here, but it looks like everything here is much more serious than I thought. Dark, uninvited guests and magicians. This is simply unthinkable.”

This state of affairs was truly frightening.