Chapter 19

* * *

The only logical thing to do was to silently baptize the entire capital and wish it to rest in peace. Even if you were a non-believer or had never heard of Christianity - it would still be about as much use as any other action. Even the most optimistic attitude, multiplied by an iron will to win, could easily give way before the sight of the revealed asshole.

A huge, almost a dozen kilometers in diameter rift in the middle of the already abnormal sky was another portal. If individual beams manifested single devils or entire groups of them, there was no need for manifestation here. A pure rupture connecting two points of space, representing a textbook spatial gate, only of colossal size and incredible strength. Breaking such a structure, even if it is not protected, is a matter of a few minutes, at least. If there are appropriate specialists with high levels and powerful artifacts. Here there were not only minutes but even seconds. The opened breach was not just hanging but was fulfilling its main function - to let through.

Until then, it had been mostly cultists and their summoned masters or compact groups of invaders. The breach brought out a real crowd. I could distinguish tens of thousands of lights, each of which was the heart of a gradually manifesting creature, sometimes quite weak and sometimes not so weak. I'd say Eternal had been attacked by saboteurs and assault squads. And now regular units were on the move. I was tempted to think of this wave as the last reserves thrown in, when the slanted, the lame, and the sick are thrown into battle, but common sense and intuition said it was not the last resort of the devils but just another step of their plan. Something may have gone wrong, but they had little chance of taking the capital by sabotage alone... too much of a chance. Probably, there was a calculation for that, but it was one of those dreams that, if they happened to come true, would surprise most of all the dreamers who knew exactly how unrealistic they were.

Hell's "line infantry" attack could still be considered a negotiable force, even if it would take a lot of optimism to do so. The combined pressure of a collective fleur, massed techniques backed by tormented souls. All of which can be stopped with their own trump cards. And the average fiend is not so unimaginably strong, as it was said before. There are not enough souls for everyone. The collective fleur can be reflected or leveled by mass auras, enemy magic can be met with their own, and their own champions can be used against the elite. In addition, the horde of creatures falling directly on the Palace was bound to lose in numbers, not jokingly killing their foreheads on the stones of the indestructible, even now stronghold. Under the protection of walls imbued with so much magic that they already consisted of magic, people had every chance to become the rock that would break the seemingly unstoppable wave.

There were, pardon the bad pun, a hell of a lot of monsters falling from above, but only one object caught my attention. Its presence, it was causing my arsehole to shrink, the production of bricks by all the unfortunate people who were contemplating it, and probably some buttache in the palace defenders. The latter had every chance to turn from figurative to real, given the type of creatures opposing the endowed ones.

Even just looking at it made my eyes water and hurt. Not because of disgust or any combat effect but because this thing was emitting a power so powerful and intense that it was piercing even here, and my eyes couldn't stand the parade of energies that were flowing through the deceptively slow creature descending to the sinful earth.

A mythical creature.

I wouldn't have risked my board-stained brain to look more closely at this entity, but it was sticking out its very essence, using its image like another attack aura. Not the lord of the entire domain, not Lust incarnate, but rather a unique and incredibly complex robot powered by magical propulsion. Hundreds of thousands of souls, tens of thousands of individual devils, either captured or consigned to such a fate for some provinces - that's what it was. Without gender, without purpose, without form, without even the happiness familiar to every fiend. Only the will that bound it, only the armor molded of unknown material that became the basis of a cage for the deeply unhappy symbiosis of souls.

News Bringer.

One hundred and sixteenth level, and I could be wrong, as the heroic ability malfunctioned at that distance, blurring the system inscriptions every now and then. A willless tool used and awakened only for the worst slaughter, when even the fiends need not pleasure but victory and the death of those who get in the way. It was indeed the bringer of news, always the same news, the same message, and the same truth. And the truth was that a foreign will had come, and it had become the new law. There was no way to fight, no other outcome than to submit.

It was awakened for the war between domains when one abomination proved its truth to another when one Vice rebelled against another. From here, it seemed like a small black ball. As if it were made up of many hexagonal segments, but just compare the scales... It was already transforming. The segments were already moving, allowing not a toy ball to transform into a huge, forgive me physics, mecha the height of a five-story minimum and width not much inferior to the height. No special techniques, but only the impossible strength of black stone and iron that formed the basis of the monstrous armor and an intolerable fleur, even for the Summoned, reaching such a concentration that its Lust became almost material. The elements of this construct sitting and howling inside the armor were both a source of energy and a conductor in case armor and strength alone were not enough if they had to strike with magic as well. And that magic, I could say with absolute certainty, would be as large and thorough as the Bringer's construction itself.

Perhaps such a shell, falling from above on the palace ahead of the rest of the wave, covering it from the return fire of the defenders, really has all the chances of bluntly pushing any defense, not just breaking inside the Palace, but also breaking through the gap for the rest of the unholy army. After the fall of the Palace, the defense of the city will fall. It is there the keys to the magical defenses are concentrated, and it is there the defenders themselves are concentrated. Once the Palace falls, the people will not be able to gather into a united fist, even if there are still capable troops left.

The only thing left to do was to admit that the News had indeed been delivered, and those who saw the message had only to accept the doom broadcast by the creatures and prepare their asses for a horrifying gangbang as eternal as the blood of the rulers of the Empire of Ages. You can't fend it off, you can't overpower it, you can't break it - only accept the vice and enjoy it to the fullest whether you want to or not.

The Emperor and he had clearly survived the first stages of the battle, saw the spectacle, perceived it, realized it, and then expressed his truly imperial disagreement, backing it up with more than just imperial conceit. If his renewal buff was cool, then the new trick was not just cool, but as ass-breaking as the Devils imagined the Bringer to be. I was also glad I hadn't decided to kidnap the Emperor to get Yoke's secrets out of him.

From the palace, invisible from our location, an indistinguishable and colorless wave went upward, spreading out in a cone that covered both the invasion armada and the breach itself. This phenomenon could not be recognized by sensors or even clairvoyance, but it was easy to see the results of its application. The entire cone of the skill's activation zone simply froze, like a crappy-quality image frozen when a TV show was freezing. The Eternal Ruler asked Eternity for help, and his blood responded, boiled, took its toll, and then fulfilled the request. Time shuddered, creaked, and changed its course, changing the conditions of the immutable Law in one part of space for a certain period.

The army froze.

The portal, which had just transported the first batch and was about to work again, was blocked by the same army, which would smear new reinforcements against the surface of the timeless section if they tried to be transported. Even though the creatures inside the altered time stream could not attack, they could not be caught. However, this exchange is beneficial to humans in the first place because such a huge elephant can be eaten in pieces before the pieces are reassembled back into an elephant.

There was only one problem - the said News Bringer, who was slowed down by the Emperor's will and forced to move like a fly in a flowing syrup, but certainly not frozen together with the rest of the army. Those remained completely motionless, but the mythical spawn of the devils' sick fantasy not only continued to fall but also gradually accelerated again, threatening to break out of the freezing zone in a few seconds. Moreover, it did exactly that... only to be overtaken a moment later by a second attack of the tired Emperor, or maybe by one of his relatives, who took up the task instead of the representative of their family who had already done his share of work. I didn't even hope to be able to recognize the Bringer with clairvoyance under such interference from the Bringer's fleur, and I didn't even try, honestly.

The creature broke free and immediately froze again, securely. This time, they only had to work on one target, even if it was a very strong one. And the volume of space affected by the Eternal Dynasty's will was much smaller. Not a cone, locking the huge volumes of the real world in a box, but only a relatively modest octahedron (or another figure, which I took for an octahedron) with an edge of five hundred meters, in the center of which was a creature that had not yet had time to come to its senses after the breakthrough of the previous barrier. It even twisted, almost completing the transformation into a huge golem, not resembling the original spherical design, and from the area where the flattened helmet of the cursed armor had been, a long tentacle flew out, glowing with the sheer amount of power and souls that the Bringer had put into it.

He froze, his tongue almost reaching the inside of the octahedron with its tip as if trying to lick it. It would have been funny if my perception didn't allow me to notice an increasing glow just near the edge of the barrier. Something told me this trap would last far less than the Imperials had planned.

For me, despite the barely functioning third eye - no other way, it had shrunk to a point along with the ass that sensed something wrong - what happened reminded me of a short exchange of moves in a chess game. The portal seemed to open up, forcing the defenders to spend their trump cards, but then the Devils, clearly waiting for the Eternals to make such an obvious move, made their move. The Bringer was protected from manipulation of the Law on a very serious level, and it's not even elimination, but only a delay, an attempt to gain more time, required a very terrible strain of forces. And people seem to be winning, successfully dividing the enemy army, but the parts of the whole haven't gone anywhere, and it's hardly possible to keep them in these barriers for a week or two to gather forces for each enemy and quietly nail them immediately after leaving the timelessness.

The exchange of strategic charms between the warring parties, both of which are hostile to me personally, left behind a slight sensory overload, a twitching eye, and a wounded sense of grandeur, which, after watching the master class, crawled away to die in the darkest corner of my internet- and porn-site-corrupted mind. Because it hurts to realize that you are all so cool, killing legends and tearing elite creatures with bare paws, suddenly, not the coolest bastard in the foreseeable space. Far from it.

"Let's go the other way." I squeezed out of my parched throat about ten seconds after the riotous flurry of fleur now bound in the chains of Time had subsided. "I don't like it over there."

No one commented though I could sense that Taria wanted to. She always gets a kick out of being funny when she's nervous. Just like me, but not me.

We really did not go to the center, as we had planned a little earlier. We did not turn back, however, and began to make a wide circle, avoiding the central districts. First, we wanted to be far away from the mythic and the accompanying army, which had every chance to escape in the next couple of hours. Second, it was in these districts, equidistant from the outer walls and the center. There were most of the ritual's strongholds. The Imperials would not reach them soon because they were defending the Palace, and even if they understood (and they would understand, they were not stupid!) the necessity of attacking the ritual's strongholds, it would not be possible to gather forces quickly anyway.

But we're here now. The fact I am planning an attack on the third ritual focus point, having survived the first two while successfully accomplishing the mission, speaks for our effectiveness. If we survive, the Emperor will give orders and titles not to us but to the rest of the gang, who are barely able to save their skins now. I can feel by my guts things have not gone smoothly for the devils, much more difficult than they originally wished, but all these burdens are still within their capabilities. At the same time, the defenders of the capital, though they are fighting back, are still unable to seize the initiative, lacking the organization that was damaged by the treachery of high-ranking cultists and the swift attacks of the first assault groups.

Those corrupted by the cult often attacked with no hope of survival, with only a frantic desire to serve their masters, and that was what they did. Even if they were killed, their blows if not fatally damaging, could at least cause confusion and time, and there was nothing more valuable than time for endowed.

Another group of cultists, not attacking for the sake of variety but retreating back to regroup, was badly battered and thinned out. Even without intuitive flashes of understanding, it was easy to discern that the previously well-functioning groups of fighters were now rather dumbed down due to the absence of some of the companions that had previously taken on some roles in their ranks. These cultists mostly looked like simple dogs of war, and only a few of them had clear traces of Vice influence. Most likely, they were mercenaries who had been drawn too deep into the blackness to turn back.

We destroyed them on the fly, killing the strongest of the mages with a shot of Valerium, mixing up their orders with Trails, covering them with a throw of explosive potion, and crushing them with a dozen shadow blades that mangled the bodies of the survivors. We didn't even slow down, but the brief skirmish allowed me to come to my senses and come away from seeing the first mythical creature of my life. And not only in my life, to be honest. Everyone was affected and crushed morally, even Tia, though she could see other creatures of comparable class in her long life. Also, of course, from afar.

We stopped at the same cabin where the cultists had broken in, and I even continued the sleeping spell on the family living there, but it was based on Dream instead of Vice. The mood was far from combative, but I wouldn't call it defeatist. We were all visibly tired morally and did not want to fight in this madhouse, but not more than that.

"We need to knock out at least one more point." My own voice seems somehow strangled as if I were speaking from under a pillow. So thick the Hell-soaked air had become. "Then we can try breaking through the barrier, especially if we run right at the moment the point is broken."

"Risk." That's all Tia asserts, not even trying to change my mind or at least convey an image or two through the visions.

I even understand her and sympathize with her a little. My idea can't even be called risky, even against the backdrop of my usual antics. Trying to break through a crack provoked by the breaking of such a massive structure should be called only terminal retardation but not the miserable word "risk." It's even sadder when I realize Tia's silence and almost complete humility only means she has no comparable alternatives other than "lie down and die." If she had those alternatives, she wouldn't have limited herself to symbolic resistance by trying to drive some of my self-preservation instinct right into my skull. Probably deliver it through my ass.

"Why don't we try to make our way to some temple?" Losius doesn't have any work plans either, but that doesn't stop him from spouting ideas. "I hear the Heavens singing, and even if I've never heard such a thing before, I'm willing to bet that the Servants of God are being summoned there. They're probably capable of organizing a refugee corridor, after all."

"I don't believe the creatures didn't take care of that." Hans, as if he had to, lay down against the wall and seemed to doze off, waking only for a comment and to close his eyes again.

It's hard to say in detail, but in basic terms, the tracker's damn right. The devils have blocked all approaches, and they've been working on blocking the temples first and foremost. If there were some cool priest among us, we could try to help, join the clerics looking for a loophole out of the stalemate, and try to break through the wall with our heads. But there are no clerics among us, and using planar power alone won't help the cause, as we all know very well.

"Moving on, then." Hestia summarizes, turning her palm to mist for a second, pulling out another vial of explosive potion, the supply of which is not endless either.

On that note, our brief smoke-free smoke break was over.

* * *

It took me a while to realize why I was so attracted to this point. I suspected it was some kind of tricky decoy trap designed for sneaky visionaries, but the reality was simple. It wasn't until I got close enough to the once chic mansion for the shadow sphere to probe the inside of the building. Then I realized what kind of company was gathered there. The unobtrusive but insistent pressure pulling me here was the effect of the Soul of Mocker at work.

The manor had recently undergone a furious assault. Judging by the several decomposing carcasses of mold and lime honey, the attackers had washed with blood. In addition to the possessed, there were at least three dozen corpses under the windows, in the gateway, and in the places where the stone walls had been breached, with energy characteristic even after death, easily picked up through the sphere. The cult had won confidently and swiftly, but not bloodlessly, even if the defenders were not much more numerous than the attackers.

The bodies of the defenders belonged, for the most part, to beastfolk of the wolf subspecies, wearing armor made to the same patterns and by the same craftsman. The light leathers and chainmail of the archers and agility men, the clean leather of the lurker who had been torn in half, the heavy blackened metal of a pair of heavy fighters - the equipment spoke at least of the wealth of the defenders. However, in addition to the beastfolk, who were probably mercenaries, there were several humans among the dead (they had asked to go under the roof of a well-protected building, I guess) and halflings. There were few short people among the guard bodies, but they didn't like to choose combat classes, traditionally preferring to go into trade, farming, or administration. Completing the picture were the remains of a single man dressed in the easily recognizable uniform of the Eyes. Well, among the bodies visible outside, only one, and it was harder to tell how many.

The mansion clearly belonged to Halflings and not just ordinary ones but very high-ranking ones. And in this mansion, before the invasion, had gathered an interesting company of halflings hired guards, visiting Eyes, and representatives of the administrative apparatus of the... Eternal Library? The Eternal Library? Without even trying to peer into the stolen memory of an old Pypysh, locked away in isolated pieces of mirror, I had already guessed who the house belonged to, why the Eyes had come here, why the librarians were here, and, of course, what the fuck the cultists were doing here

I even knew, even before the sphere had finally broken through the interference produced by the remnants of the superior defenses, scanning the interior of the house and its guests, who I would meet among the attackers. It was enough to look at a dozen bodies of the defenders, literally torn by streams of aggressive essence and blows of the seven-tailed whip.

Well, even if the situation is far from cheerful, I can still give my old acquaintance ten minutes because I'm going to have a lot of fun now. I need to change my appearance a little bit. Otherwise, I will not be able to squeeze the maximum possible out of this clowning. It is not for nothing that all my childhood, youth, adolescence, and maturity, I was called a clown. I'd better live up to it.

"Tin, I don't like your smile." Taria was the first to notice something wrong, but nothing could stop me, for there is no cutoff for inadequacy. "Ah, whatever, though."

The rest of the company probably had something to say, too, especially Tia and Hestia, as the loudest voices of reason in the realm of idiocy, but I tyrannically and despotically prevented them from expressing their opinions, starting to give orders right away.

"I'm going in." At the same time as words, I'm trying to transmit bits of images, but I'm not getting it right. "I can't figure out why, but I feel it's the right thing to do. Call it intuition."

It would have sounded more convincing if it hadn't been for the wicked smile on my face, but I really felt that now I could not only get some lulz but also realize something, something hidden from me so far. So I closed my eyes and, guided by the data the sphere was transmitting, stepped through the Shadow and straight into the captured building.

* * *

The central dining hall for halflings is the main room of any house, where the whole family gathers for dinner, discussing news, sharing impressions, handing out praise, and writing out condemnation. In their usual habitat furry-footed ring bearers (among them there are a lot of real jewelers, by the way) live in large branched houses occupying a whole hill. A typical hill, inhabited by a whole clan of halflings, is a real fortress in miniature, where strangers cannot get through without bending down, and if they do, they will quickly die from the blades of the defenders.

The settlements of this race are very hard to rob because they quickly put their valuables in the farthest and hard-to-reach corners, and safes and treasuries are always built in such corners. A lot of tunnels, manholes, and secret passages connecting hobbit houses turn their cities into a labyrinth of death for stormers. Yes, they usually have a lot to loot, right down to furniture (even if underground, but their houses are far from being a peasant's dugout, quite corresponding in terms of comfort to a good hotel) and kitchen utensils. But if it is still possible to just throw battle magic on the hills, collapse all the passages, and flood them with fire from all ends, then it has always been a wild headache to rob halflings.

It is precisely because of this problem in terms of squeezing out valuable property that hobbits are famous as guys who very easily go for an alliance with a subordinate position within other nations. They make just too useful allies, who, more often than not, have no desire to rule the invaded territories themselves. But they are excellent Agronomists, excellent Traders, excellent Businessmen, and Artisans, from which a lot of use and a minimum of problems if in time to shorten them. But if you don't, you risk to find out one fine morning that they have bought up your people, tied up your vassals with debts, recruited an army of mercenaries for the gold earned, put their debtors or relatives in all posts, and there is nothing you can do about it. In fact, almost all the largest clans of Halflings, which have more autonomy than any other (including also a part of the vassals of the Empire of Ages, belonging to their tribe), appeared in such a simple way.

That's why they are obviously disliked by the rulers, who regularly trim their hair and shorten the heads of overzealous Inhumans. Not to say that all sides are always happy, but hobbits were and are the only race that has alliances with any other.

In the god-blessed Empire of Ages, there are entire provinces that produce huge amounts of unique food resources, like rare varieties of grain or carrots, which are too costly and unprofitable for humans to grow, while at the same time supplying Agronomists and Farmers with a fabulous average level for such a profession. Have you met many farmers who have their class and know how to develop it?

In desert Alishan, several of their clans have also taken root, albeit with great problems, helping to raise fields where it would seem impossible to raise them. They also provide the basis for smuggling routes between the two warring superpowers. In fact, it is from those guys come out almost become a proverbial parable of Thieves, Knaves, and Assasins of their tribe, who can give competition to many and many. And there is probably a smuggler or two in any of their families, given the size of their families, and it is good if only a couple of them.

The Dwarves hold tightly to their alliance with the Halflings, for it is their provisions that feed the mountain towns, even if the clever hill dwellers like to raise prices, organize an embargo, or even stop all trade with the proud dwarves if they are well paid for it by the enemies of the dwarves. They find their approach, even to the elves, snobbish in the most terminal of possible stages, even if the latter do not need hobbits as farmers but as trade representatives, networks of informants, and intermediaries.

In the case of the inhabitants of this mansion, they had long since gotten used to the living conditions typical of halflings, and even the ceilings in their house in the capital were quite normal in height. The mansion was not so much a dwelling as a permanent representation of the House of Prychodonotchev in the capital, and the interests of the entire clan of Trydygorodskys were also represented by them. Thanks to the influence of the now deceased grandfather, this family was allowed a lot, a lot, and they used it quite consciously, helping, for a small fee, to solve certain issues for distant relatives, which without blat were solved too slowly or not solved at all.

After "Pupysh" had made a beautiful jig before his death, at the same time making a fog about his nature and who exactly he was working for, the whole house was in not to say dark times, but quite a twilight. Many people were interrogated, including the very unpleasant procedure of mental suppression and subsequent questioning, but they all turned out to be as clean as it was possible for lovers of smuggling and mutually beneficial cashback. They would have been reminded of everything, not out of a thirst for justice but out of a petty desire to squeeze out existing businesses and shops, to divide property and real estate, to block bank vaults, and to seize debt receipts.

However, the owners of too many assets themselves were not willing to part with their wealth. Even if they were pressed very hard, with no hope of fighting back - with such a reason and no wonder - but they fought. And just at the moment when the fidgeting stopped, and high guests came to them to discuss what they would voluntarily give for someone else's good, the Invasion started. Isn't that fucked up?

Add to this the fact that the cult also wanted to ask a lot of questions to the relatives of the deceased because of the mentioned "Pypysh." They were almost a hundred percent likely to have moles in the Eyes, so they had access to the records of interrogations. Yeah, and it wasn't as if the cultists weren't right there in the interrogation, but they didn't come here for the kind of answers you could get just by asking. Sacrificial magic, among other things, allows you to boost clairvoyance, and if the sacrifice of the blood and souls of those who are related to the source of interest, then the chances of a clear and direct answer or obtaining the coordinates of the target's location increase multiplied.

Since, at this moment, your humble servant in my person is almost pawing with his sweaty hands the web of threads of other people's plans, intrigues, and investigations, there is much to learn. The plan for the current invasion was not thought up in a year or a century, and its scale exceeded all common sense. Needless to say, many of the devils tasked with a particular milestone in the plan were careful to try to out-serve and, if possible, to make sure that a competitor did not out-serve. Without the threat of disclosure or outright setups, the intrigue was still quite layered. And the cultists, though led by a single coterie, many cells cooperated with individual creatures a little more closely, trying to seek benefits for their masters and mistresses, again, without jeopardizing the common cause.

And those guys who were in charge of infiltrating the cheerful ranks of the Eternal Library staff were very upset when their almost accomplished plan, after all the dizzying successes and the accomplished deception of the entity sleeping in the stones of the altar hall, failed. And so it came to pass that a separate and very well-coordinated battle team of cultists, backed by pre-called and secured fiends, had a strong desire to ask questions, if not of Pypysh, then of his masters. Which meant the fate of his kin was sealed. The blood connection would allow a glimpse into the past of the deceased, even if he was a changeling. At least some of the answers they reasonably hoped to get, and they had every chance of getting them.

If we're talking about questions and sacrifices, at least some of Pypysh's closest blood relatives could have had their asses grabbed by guys not even affiliated with the cult and for the same purpose. It was just that the Eyes did not have time to deal with this issue in the austerity. Another thing is that they could do without outright blackness, limiting themselves to more gentle and not always lethal methods. There were some artifacts in the possession of the Imperials, which Tia told me about, tied to unraveling blood ties. And not all of them dried up the sample given to them, not all of them.

In general, this way of searching had all the chance to catch even me, who interacted too closely with Pypysh Popyatchev, having managed to squeeze out some answers from the universe. Too few to be seriously alarmed, but much more than I would like to leave behind. And I couldn't even tell which option was worse - the Eyes on the trail or the devils who wanted to meet face to face?

Fun, right?

The ritual took place in silence, with barely audible hissing and cursing as the wounded fists of the cult bandaged their wounds. The paralyzed and partially disabled victims lay in neat rows as they were dragged three at a time into a hastily created ritual circle, where one of the creatures that had taken over the real body methodically mauled them to death. Given the presence of six tentacle-like tentacles instead of arms and a double set of genitals, they did not have to separate. There were no moans of agonizing pleasure, for the polite devil had set up a barrier to cut off the sounds.

Ideally, there should have been some kind of villainous speech, with which the whimpering and begging for mercy victims will be ridiculed. Or, on the contrary, not whimpering, but even under the threat of death remaining unruly, but it depends on personal sympathy for the victims. Apparently, the villains got tired of such scenes because none of the captives could speak - some tricky mental crap that made them forget any speech while serving as a damn strong sedative. Only two Eyes operatives, a beaten mercenary beastfolk, and three hobbits, as the highest level holders, managed to keep their brains intact.

It's a working atmosphere.

It was shattered by an incomprehensible rustling inside an ancient carved cupboard turned upside down on its back, which in the course of the assault had been knocked into the common dining room, where there should be no furniture except a table and chairs, according to the canons of Hobbit design. The rustling did not stop but grew louder, and then it was joined by barely audible swearing with a distinct "hill" accent.

The fighters and the possessed sitting under the walls, quite naturally thought they had managed to miss some hidden child whose parents had had the bright idea to make a small spatial pocket in the closet to hide their children in case of trouble. Despite the surprise, they were on their feet very quickly, preparing to get the next piece of meat out. The couple had hoped to have some fun with this kid - the service of Lust awakens very unhealthy desires, even in the minds of those who have never had such fantasies. Alas, but the dreams of the bloody [censored] turned out to be dreams because the closet door opened by itself, and a fully grown hobbit crawled out, even, rather, an old hobbit.

"Ho, what a misfortune." The visibly rejuvenated-looking Pypysh looked and spoke so authentically that any test would acknowledge him now. "And they said Narnia!"

The librarian looked dazed, his clothes disheveled, and his hair full of owl feathers that had fallen out of a stuffed animal in the closet. His clairvoyance immediately told him why it was there. Because of Eyes's unhealthy but entirely understandable interest in bird-related topics related to the Prychodonotchevs' House, all compromising stuffed animals or images had been carefully removed from sight. During the search, they were found, and everything connected with them was examined under the microscope of detective and clairvoyant classes, but they were not returned to their place so as not to bother the eyes.

In another situation, the adult and probably dangerous halfling would have been immediately attacked by ordinary soldiers who did not know him by sight, but the essence of what was happening was too absurd, so the experienced and seasoned thugs inexcusably delayed. And the barely audible clinking of glass, which even a hundred and fifty perception would not allow to distinguish, had nothing to do with it, yes. The fighters were confused, if only for a fraction of a second, but some of the others, higher up, were not.

"You're dead!" There was far less fierce anger than some otherworldly terror in the shriek of a cat-like beastgirl armed with a seven-tailed whip, now almost emptied of its supply of rare battle essences. "Dead! Dead! Dead! Dead! Dead!"

Her ears pressed to her head, her hands shaking, her heartbeat racing, her breath hitching-despite all her stamina, backed by the level and gifts of her masters, the sight of the seemingly harmless hobbit instilled in her such fear that even the Vice inside her couldn't quell the wave of horror coming from deep within her. Horror at something that had been with her long before her encounter with the cult, long before she had learned to dissolve all sorrows in Vice, replacing them with the pleasure and joy of a new challenge to her abilities. There was something about that fear of hers that gave away the chill of the night, the darkness of the starless sky, and the flapping wings of the night birds.

"I'm back. the same way as I'm die" Taking advantage of the blatant unprofessionalism of the enemy, who never attacked me, I get out of the closet, shaking off and fixing my clothes. "The owls are immortal."

T.N. As I've already mentioned, Owl is a slang name for a user who sits late at night on the board. There is no registry system on imageboards and you can't ban a user. That is, they are in a certain sense immortal.

After the last phrase, Shmielae finally broke the bar, and the Dream-based closed field that had been induced beforehand could not overcome the boiling raging hatred born of the soul-devouring horror and pain of loss. With a bestial howl so primal that it simply could not belong to a reasonable and civilized half-breed, the tails of the legendary lash rained down on me and the closet. Well, after that, the conversation automatically came to an end, and in the depths of my soul, there was a pleasant languor in the realization that I had brought her not even to a frenzy but to the brink of personality disintegration, which, no doubt, flattered the fat troll inside me.

I was wearing Shadow Theft, modified by Creation, copying Pypysh at the highest level possible under the circumstances and time frame. The mask was augmented by clairvoyance, allowing me to mimic even better, having had time to be inside (down with the vulgarities, Anons!) the halfling's soul. Disguise is undoubtedly very important in the delicate business of taking out the brain, but to fight under such concealment is very difficult, as I have repeatedly argued. A little twitch, a little too much effort, and some of the disguise can drain away, miss a bit of the real you. Of course, the audience here is not the most fastidious, but I don't want to work sleevelessly in front of them either.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

I bounce off the whip, letting it shatter the poor cabinet, and then the pieces of mirror pulled from my sleeves are in my hands like a set of throwing knives. As Shmiela swings for a second blow, the rank and file and all three possessed creatures, including the one in the ritual circle, begin to shake the lilac cobwebs off their brains, and I begin to beat the people around me painfully.

Funnily enough, Shadow Theft, if you make it as autonomous as possible and don't overly saturate it with pure planar power, is still one of the few techniques that can be used in conjunction with another plane. Difficult, and yes, there is a risk of washing away the disguise if you get too heavily invested in the technique, but still possible. Pretty logical, if you think about it, because I knew about it before, even from Stone, where I successfully pretended to be the head of security of the fortress, using some of his skills. That possibility is one of the main trumps of the Theft and Creation combo if you think about it.

While the head is swarming with such important - and, most importantly, timely! - thoughts, the hands are doing faster than the head. All three creatures receive two pieces of mirror intravenously, and quite literally, for the mirrors that had been embedded in the flesh tainted by vice were instantly dissolved inside their wounds with mirrored mercury, destroying the connection between the host and the devil itself, blurring its essence and depriving it of control over magic and the souls captured in the dream. Elite creatures would have been able to burn out such an attack, but these, though they were above the thirtieth level, were not the most powerful. All three died, even if the ritual-occupied abomination had to add another portion of planar power to their bodies, redirecting it directly at the beacon of mercury splashing through their bodies.

A clap of the hands and every reflective surface in the mansion, including the bloodstained and dusty polished wood floor, began to reflect something else, and many surfaces that were not reflective became reflective. Simple fighters were not killed, but they were covered with so many effects that they were no longer fighters. Dizziness, ringing in the ears, weakness in the body, hallucinations, aggravated mental disorders, confused memory, confused reflexes - under such pressure you can't fight. And, of course, the noise. The noise of flapping wings, drawn partly out of pure insight provoked by clairvoyance, partly out of the horror-soaked image of the fear that had so frightened the insolent feline.

The cat howled desperately, only due to the level and the suicidal amount of Hell's energy coursing through her body right now, managing not to die of fright right there. Reinforcing the nightmare being born right now while preventing the power of Hell from reaching the brains of defenseless victims, causing the fighters to rapidly turn into pumpkins, at least mentally. Brain and partially even soul burnout, from which even those who had not become vegetables were losing marbles fast, turning into whimpering ruins, wrecks of their former selves.

Shmielae, hearing what she thought was the rustle of wings, lost her lust for battle, and even the pressuring will of her masters, soaking her body, mind, and essence, did not bring back that resolve. She tried to escape, dashing to the nearest breach in the wall, dropping (really dropping a legendary weapon!) her artifact, but I, even in disguise, was faster than the half-breed, who was frightened out of her wits. Not by much, but enough for a swift kick.

Another piece of mirror, but no longer intravenously, but externally. The mirror turned to liquid, covering her clothes and skin with a thin layer, paralyzing, stiffening, breaking her will and giving her the same rustle of wings that I broadcast, behind which the ringing of the mirrors is indistinguishable. Her terror reaches the point beyond which she cannot even stand, cannot think, or stay conscious, falling to the bloody floor and falling into her nightmares. I need her alive, and it will be easy to interrogate her in that state, even without bringing her to consciousness. If she were sane and not desperate, she could have resisted for at least ten minutes before being turned inside out and stripped of any secrets I might be interested in, but my "subtle" teasing had crushed her ability to fight.

I spent a second contemplating whether to kick her in the kidneys or not to waste energy on a blow that would go unnoticed against the background of her personal hell. Then I turn my gaze to the shocked-looking captives, some of whom, some of the highest level ones, have had time to come to their senses a little and freak out.

"You're a big guy, but who are you?" When I brought my disguise back to normal, but still without taking off my short, gray-haired form, I jumped with the illusion of my bare feet onto the miraculously surviving chair and, already standing on it, hovered over the still untied prisoners in the Eyes uniform.

It should be noted that they began to answer at once and seemed to be ready to tell almost everything, if not everything, judiciously assessing the chances of keeping their secret information within easy reach of the creepy halfling who had just burned the brains and souls of not so creepy devil-worshippers. I started the conversation only because I was digesting the knowledge I'd plucked from Shmielae's mind right now, filtering out the vice and fleur of Hell from the information I needed and putting it in its proper place. It is better not to hurry here, or a missed drop of poison, a shade of sense, can come out in the future with all sorts of troubles despite any resistance. And it's good if it's just a boner for catgirls, but there will be something worse. It's always like that with Hell, and I'm not a Shadow to ignore the risks of defamation, even if I sometimes get too close to it.

"Nah, I'm not asking you that." I interrupted their chief, who started singing first, before his subordinates started singing, devaluing the life of their chief. "I don't give a fuck about your ranks, authorizations, and all this. It's a good thing I've had time to see some of the secret stuff. What do you do for a living? Who you are?"

On the faces of all present, including the gradually regaining consciousness of Pypysh's relatives, who were looking at their resurrected patriarch with disbelief and quite contradictory emotions, there was bewilderment, combined with a concrete fear, even more noticeable than they had felt a second earlier. Because if the old man is mad, it is not the old man's problem but the problem of all those who were foolish enough to be near him.

"The Emperor's Eyes?" Somehow, the same chief suggested unhesitatingly, suppressing the underlying horror and even winning a drop of my respect, which does not play a role against the ocean of dislike.

I squint slyly, looking into the brown eyes of an unassuming man in his forties with light-blond hair and an absolutely average-looking face (obviously traces of some plastic surgery or application of a specific spy skill), nodding affirmatively. Yes, you're right, uncle. You are the Emperor's Eye, just like your subordinates who came today to squeeze the hapless halflings dry.

"Then tell me, dear..." I begin affectionately but involuntarily take a pause, revealing a particularly interesting stretch of stolen dreams. "Why on earth should I do your job?"

The ringing of mirrors in the shimmer of words is exactly strong enough to lead to hysterics but just as surely weak enough to pick up the edge for each listener, not allowing them to fall into hysterics. It's almost jewelry work thanks to The Fear Giver title, it passes without any special problems, literally in the background. The background is also the rest of the tirade, which I give out only in order not to distract from unpacking images, among which there were more and more funny, interesting, and, of course, nightmarish and disgusting.

"I've been working my work for almost a hundred years!" The dream was no longer in my voice, both out of a desire not to traumatize the listeners even more and out of fear of losing concentration. "It was a good position. Interesting things were being done, and geshefts were being made, especially on supplies! I was in a good position, so I was happy with everything! But why, your mighty man, was it me who had to give riches to the evil spawn who came to visit, whom all your Eyes didn't notice, as if everyone's eyes were blind? Who is to do your work by spearing you in your eye sockets? For the sake of which you were created, you pentads! What are you doing there, fucking into these very eye sockets for the last years instead of cleaning and checking?"

And that was about as much as I could say, interspersing my words with Hobbit swear words, kicks to the kidneys of Eye's trying to justify himself, and a terrible pressure on their souls that made their heart go not even into the heels, but straight into the boots, without ever untying any of the captive losers. In truth, some of them were quite capable of breaking the restraining charms or tearing the bonds, especially after killing or turning into vegetables all the cultists on whom those charms and seals held. Eyes were certainly capable of breaking the shackles at any moment, as they'd been taught the necessary skills in training. They didn't want to provoke the shouting motherfucker, because now he was just shouting, and it was hard to imagine what he would do when he was interrupted, but he could also interrupt.

The time went on like that, not less than five minutes, during which I was having fun and piecing together the already almost deciphered images until new personalities came to visit. I spotted them in advance. They were not hiding, and their approach was indicated by the approaching rumble of battle, chimes of planar energies, as well as the sound of shots, explosions of shells, and such a recognizable, though not heard for a long time, the roar of the engine. It would have been possible to finish it all as quickly as possible because I was already tired of the show named after the swearing Pypysh, and half of the audience was already passed out, but I decided to stay and watch it just out of nostalgia.

It was at that moment that nostalgia broke through the wall of the house, nearly bringing the roof down on me, crushing a couple of vegetables from the cultists and one unlucky mercenary from "ours," that is, from those hired by the kin of my stage persona. Such destruction to the structure of a very sturdy building, capable of withstanding sieges and assaults thanks to the alchemy- and enchantment-strengthened foundation stone, was done with a light tangential blow!

The heroic eye easily assessed the artifact complex before me, calling it the Undermountain Fighting Vehicle, but without the level, which was obvious. An artifact mechanism, as I remembered in the Stone, is only even more dangerous and rare. Whereas the large mecha that Hestia had once given me a lecture on, or rather a full-fledged training course, allowing the almost defenseless in direct combat riders and pilots to fight on an equal footing with a couple or three powerful epic creatures, this wunderwaffle was a head taller.

Leaving the cage of walls in one leap, taking advantage of the very breach left by the dwarven engineering strike, I eyed the creation of the short folks of the bearded subtype with an attentive eye, at the same time, trying to understand the thing as fully as possible. The size of a house, If not a house, then a very large barn, with just an illegal amount of steel and not badly enchanted armor, armed with a couple of massive battle wands, this thing could single-handedly pulverize a medium-sized town without taking serious damage. It was kept at the embassy of the Undermountain Kingdom for a reason, as one of the arguments for a quick escape if something happened to interfere with that escape. And it was just a status thing, and only a properly trained dwarf could operate it properly, so no one was afraid of stealing scientific concepts.

Alas, but despite its status, this iron-wheeled coffin was now in a state of utter deplorability, with several holes in its armor, a melted side, a missing wheel, the torn-out sockets for two twin magic wands, and an almost dead crew. It's a good thing this model, at least, didn't use flamethrowers or lead guns. Otherwise, an explosion would have been very likely. The last surviving crew member (I could feel how the second before the commander of this hearse, who never showed his face, had ceased to be affected by the fleur) left his vehicle not through a special hatch but through the molten hole. Meanwhile, I was looking at him shamelessly.

He was not tall, well-built, but by no means square, as he was not wearing the famous rune armor, which, being an analog of magical exoskeletons, created in the minds of most people the image of those square dwarves with axes. Rather, it was just a very stubby and short man, even without a beard, obviously burned in another magical blow. I was about to say hello to the twenty-fourth-level Gunner when he exploded from a clot of lilac glow, emitting a dreary fleur.

While I was staring at a fantasy tank, the enemy group that was following them calmly took the estate of the Prykhodonotchevs' House in a pincer, clearly determined to crush these guys as well. Apparently, they sensed the death of the possessed or even the almost complete destruction of Shmielae's essence, realizing the stormtroopers had screwed up.

"The Dwarven Embassy is three blocks away." As if by the way," said the chief of the Eyes, stepping cautiously beside me, wary of the creatures of Hell more than of a single uncovered renegade spy serving a Nightbird Cult neutral to the Empire. "The brat of iron has come a long way."

"That's because we managed to stop the other two units." A cultist commented, blinking (despite the spatial distortion, I note) at the dwarf's remains, coming into our field of vision and diverting our attention from the rest of the pack of bastards coming in the back. "Very interesting stuff they were trying to take out."

Through the theft-based cloaking constructs that were now hiding my team from other people's eyes and senses, I began to send out a kind of Morse code, directing them in the right direction and indicating targets to attack if I needed help in the coming carnage. I really don't like this cultist, even more than I don't like normal creatures or their servants. For one thing, I couldn't see his level due to some sort of clever disguise not too inferior to my own, and uncovering that deception through clairvoyance without too much ado... he attacks early, forcing me to fight without preparation. Second, aside from Lust's fleur, even through his cloaking canopy I could sense a power too strange to dismiss its presence. Not more dangerous than Hell, no, but there was something in that tinge, a barely perceptible rustle on the edge of my consciousness, something incomprehensible but familiar at the same time. It was as if I'd seen it before, only from a different angle and under different conditions.

It was this very impropriety that made me keep up a foolish masquerade, in no hurry at all to start a battle to the death, fearing some tricky trump card. Not surprisingly, the attack was made by the enemy and, characteristically, not at all by the one on whom my attention was focused. A particularly strong source of danger suddenly stood out among the still out-of-sight bastards, forcing me to do a dizzying somersault to avoid the bleeping spawn of the mixer and industrial crusher that had attacked me, while kicking aside both of the Eyes, who had no doubt considered me a temporary ally rather than an enemy.

Shapeshifter.

A very strong and old shapeshifter. One who had literally bonded with the spirit of his Beast long before he became a tainted brat. Its leap was perfectly calibrated, and the direct attack of its animal-shaped jaws and claws would have torn to shreds even a swamp ogre like Ygra at the time of our first encounter, with almost no resistance from the monster. A monstrously powerful racial class with almost no external techniques but with such boosts to survivability, regeneration, and physical characteristics that such masters don't even need it.

And he hated me, or rather, not me, but he hated Pypysh.

Where the image of the incomprehensible Owl, which I had created for fun, frightened Shmielae to death, I made this animal even more furious than he was in life by the mere fact of my existence. Clairvoyance, despite all the plugs literally sang, and the threads of intertwined destinies resembled the strings of an outlandish musical instrument. The shifter was an old enemy of the Nightbirds, who had brought them much evil and had himself been forced to hide from vengeance under the cult's skirt. I had no way to find out the details of these stories quickly and without risk, to understand what it was that connected him and Shmielae, why he had come here, and why he had gone out of his way to storm the place for my "person," going into debt to drag the rest of the group along with him. But I didn't want to know another bloody or tearful, or even tearful-bloody story of someone's life.

I'm just bored with it.

I had to start doing what I really enjoy - playing on the nerves and pissing off the people around me.

"I've never had a good thing to do with bears," I told the truth, only in hobbit fashion, looking straight into the eyes of the human-turned-Beorg, whose naked skin shone with unholy patterns of cult tattoos. "It's always your tribe that pisses me off! Don't you have anything else to do? I'll get you a job in no time!"

And then, without waiting for an answer, I threw up my hand, catching a small and unbearably hot needle in midair, fired in pursuit of the shapeshifter's attack. It scratched the operative in the line of fire with its edge, making him crumble to ash in an instant, and was quite dangerous, even for my shadow form, if the aegis defense was not applied. Alas, the nature of this disposable artifact was not so much planar as it was based on pumping massive amounts of Flame essence into subspace, anchored by the artifact. Even a simple scratch would cause a portion of the mobile pocket stored in the container to flow into the target's energy body, burning away everything that could be burned away. And on top of this needle was added a system of flight, acceleration, targeting, and allied recognition. The barrier penetration and elusiveness to premonitions were ensured by the exotic material of the needle itself.

Anyway, they tried to fuck me with a special tool sharpened for destroying Heroes, Summoned, or targets of comparable caliber, made in the same methodology, in the same style as the seven-tailed whip used by Shmiela. I'm proud, I'm telling you. I'm even a little offended that, thanks to my essentialism, a toy like this will be one of the few nearly useless methods against me... if I can react in time... of course. Behind the disguise and the hobbit's palm clenched tightly around the trophy, the barely discernible pollen of my essences, which I use to stabilize the hostile trinket, is not visible, so for others, I caught this legendary in every sense killing toy with my bare hands.

The talker, the shapeshifter, and even the cultist who'd launched a projectile at me out of direct line of sight were clearly freaking out. I, for my part, was getting tired of the prolonged and unnecessary clowning and decided to call it a day. The shapeshifter was level forty-six, his colleague was an unknown quantity, and the rest of the opponents were just background.

It was very difficult to use Dream, high-end essentialism, and shadow theft-based disguise at the same time, but after the recent insane artillery experiment, it seemed acceptable. I'd rather have it that way than have my brain come up with a new way to kill myself in a particularly sophisticated way.

The neighborhood of the manor, as well as the nearest part of the street, is covered by another mental influence, weakening, driving mad, burning out the will and thirst to live, ignoring, no, adapting to the powerful but very uniformly vicious defense of the fleur. The rustle of shards and the clinking of mirrors masquerading as the flapping of birds' wings, continuing the deception I had already created beforehand, generating more deception, itself becomes the worst of nightmares, for there is nothing more deceptive than the mirrors, nothing more adapted to pretense than the kaleidoscope of the unfulfilled.

The attack ignores the Pryhodonotchevs' mercenaries, the Eyes' fighters, and a few of the brave halflings, even though it scares the crap out of them. It doesn't hurt my companions, who follow the order to stay out of the way. But the rest of them got the full measure, and from the first seconds, there were casualties among the ambush regiment that "surrounded" us.

My expectations were indecently violated when the two high-level opponents, instead of instantly attacking the evil hobbit, which should have knocked me out of the created technique, on the contrary, retreated, covered with protection, and the shifter also hid under it. The second one, which I didn't understand, tossed aside an extremely unpleasant protective artifact that maintained an invisible barrier that cut off the flapping of wings and the pressure of Dream. The pyramid, shining with white light, just hovered over his left shoulder, and he got down on one knee and began to prepare something bad, which made my gut start to tingle with needles right in my brain, even though it was, as always, in my ass.

The shapeshifter jumped on the overturned mechanical fortress, still in human form, and with his whole appearance said that he was waiting for something, clearly provoking an attack. The barrier of the pyramid was not planar but, on the contrary - anti-planar, suppressing any deviation from the usual world order and leveling any active magic. It was a strong thing to be crushed by something like Shadow but not by Dream's scattered influence, disguised as either an astral attack or a trick from the arsenal of high shamanism. The picture was completed by the rare and not-too-accurate blows of the cultists, who were alive and protected enough not to die from the simultaneous pressure on their brains and essence. Their minds were a priori turned blind, while their souls were held tightly and thus protected from everything else by the influence of Vice.

Suddenly, I didn't have to dodge, nor did I need to use protection based on a pair of mirrors stashed in the pockets of my illusory clothes, because one of the Eyes, who possessed some powerful amulet and a perk or a title, and two mages from the beastfolk-mercenaries, supported by a halfling armed with another artifact, silently and without further ado, took over my cover. If I remembered those pieces of my memories correctly, this man was Pypysh's third grandnephew.

I smirked a wicked smile, increasing the pressure, making the flapping of the wings quite deafening, at the same time changing the polarity of the pressure. Instead of fear and terror, there is complete apathy, depression, the disintegration of any thoughts and desires into nothingness, and complete emptiness. And where Lust overcame Fear, it was too difficult for their defenses to counteract satiety. I could say that I exploited the natural vulnerability of such defenses. Though I confess if they had been better if they had been more saturated, and if they had known Lust more deeply, I would not have succeeded.

The number of attacks is decreasing, and even those who used to be beating in my direction with arrows, crossbow bolts, and simple (complex under the pressure can not be made) magic are now trying just not to die when the stopped mind forgets about the need to breathe and even live. Only the couple hidden under the barrier calmed down even more, and in the expression on the face of the remaining nameless kneeler, there was a kind of relieved sneer that could not be hidden behind the ecstasy. After all, having increased the power of my attack, I was no closer to breaking through the barrier, and, as they believed, I would not.

In some ways, they are right, of course.

But not in everything.

Even though shadow theft at my level allows me to use techniques of other planes, but only up to a certain limit. There's no way to use Dream and restore shadow techniques at the same time. Now, I am wearing something stolen and processed by Creation, but if I overdo it, the disguise will be washed away, so a moment later, the people around me will see a man of a human tribe instead of Pypysh Popyatchev, which is undesirable. In such a state, I will definitely not gather enough strength of Dream to break this barrier. But without disguise, and even with the use of mirrors, I can cope, although it will be more difficult than with Shadow.

The barrier was not even a weakness but a slight vulnerability that allowed me to deceive it without making too much effort to reveal myself and my nature. The still-maintained cage of essence, preventing the needle clutched in my hands from activating, was held by me for a good reason. In a different situation, the owner of the needle, the same bastard who had thrown it at me, could have activated it remotely, causing his artifact to open the vault and shower me with the essence of Flame. It wouldn't have been as effective as a direct injection, but it would have made me sad enough.

It's a good thing that right at the moment of my attack on the square, the third highest-ranking officer in command, albeit the weakest of the trio, took a Valerium shot to the head, which spattered the artifactual protection covering him, and a light scratch with Crooked Root, which turned him to rot a few seconds later. This far-from-militant man was clearly being dragged to open some kind of stationary defense or perhaps a safe because a Barrier Mage and Ritualist had no business being on the front lines, cultist or not.

The needle, without orders from the deceased, continued to carry out the command - to move towards my heart, or rather, towards the image of Pypysh's heart created by the disguise, so it was not too problematic to hold it. Either the spell or the prayer of the comrade hidden behind the barrier turned into frankly obscene howls and groans when I finally found the idea I needed, looking directly into the eyes of the shifter still sitting on the armored vehicle.

The flapping of wings fell silent.

Gone is the maddening apathy.

A few surviving opponents who had not yet been killed by my "allies'" apt strikes began to come to their senses.

And I, looking directly at the slightly tense Beorg, pointed at him with my finger, rolling my eyes as if parodying some fortune-teller from a cheap show about true love, began, relying on the Soul of the Mocker and unformed visions about the fate of this maniac, to recite undying classics, because anyway it was necessary to occupy the freaks somehow, while I managed to realize another schizoplan.

"You walk through the woods, but you fly over the world." The dream is added to the voice not at all personally but at the expense of one of the pocket mirrors, a couple seconds earlier reworked into a simple amulet, but from the outside it might well seem as if I were using some analog of a very specific battle prophecy, as strange as the phrase sounds. "You see the Vehicle. You are a bear. You will burn!"

And the last words were so strong (the amulet cracked) that the shifter, who stood up sharply after the first line that had touched something in him, sat down on the cold iron of the Battle Vehicle.

He sat on it, and he burned to death.

I'd say I could be proud of myself, but I haven't been able to make myself proud with another crazy move in quite some time. In any case, I managed to not only keep the pair in place but also to neither retreat nor redesign the defense in a more acceptable way. Combining Essentialism, Creation, and the banal control of the little critter of my "favorite" plane, I siphoned off all the essence in the needle, thus destroying it, and enclosed this essence in a strong cage of neutral essence (while maintaining the highest "pressure" in the new vessel), attached the resulting bomb to the unfortunate beast, thus fatally crippling the beast, and kicked it out into the real world. He kicked it out inside the barrier, smearing the creature's essence on the barrier, thus releasing the imprisoned bomb.

The shadow lunged into reality and burst just inside the dead vehicle, scorching the shifter's ass all the way to his brain. With his regeneration and tattooed resistance, he had a good chance of surviving being burned to the bone more than once. But being hit with essences, and even with planar support, is considered one of the most disliked tricks by regenerators. This is where, for example, the vulnerability of swamp ogres to alchemical acids or even the undead's aversion to silver comes from. The poor cannibal bear - I'm sure he's eaten more people in his life than I have burgers - screamed for a second and a half, and then his lungs, throat, and the rest of his body were sizzling. By the time the screaming died down, the flames had engulfed the entire barrier, turning the safe haven into a crematorium, but I wasn't happy yet.

He stood still, right where his companion had been burned (probably in time to try to cover him up), with a bad glow in his eyes, his clothes intact and unburned, and the force radiating from him was still as unpleasant but now recognizable. In addition to Hell fleur in his eyes, in the colorless and conditionless lights that replaced his pupils, the same power that had been sealed in Taria's favorite weapon was bubbling with a poisonous brew.

He was a Hell-twisted chaoticist, and he'd asked for the most help he could from his patrons. Now, when my clairvoyance was no longer inhibited by his defenses, I could easily see his fifty-second level, his two classes of Chaos Conductor and Chaos Flame, and the state of distortion that had prevented him from gaining third class and Hero status at fifty. And I also knew that his sibling's soul was now swirling in torrents of morbid pleasure, taking all the negative damage of the Fire of Change, allowing the bastard to strike without fear of fatigue or intoxication.

A strong Chaotik, a natural born distorter, even if he does not possess pure Chaos at all, but only one of its isolated Manifestations. From this perspective, there is a much purer particle of Chaos hidden within Valerium, one that has no attachment to Manifestation, let alone contamination by Hell. Each shot from the Valerium changes its Manifestation to the one that fits best against a given target, and Chaos itself, in its purest form, cannot be realized or used at all except in exceptional cases.

And yet.

A flame that combines Chaos and Vice and is entrusted to the hands of a corrupted man who was created for this very task, sacrificing his endowment. A strong argument, even against a normal me who didn't need to disguise himself or play to the public. I should have nailed him in the beginning, but there's no one to blame now because I couldn't blame myself, right? I'm a fucking infallible isekai, I can't be dumb, right?

Although.

Stop.

A short man with a beard and mustache, summoning the flames of change and standing on top of an armored vehicle?

T.N. Well, it's a reference understandable to any native of the former Soviet Union. Vladimir Lenin. Made his famous speech standing on an armored vehicle.

Universe, are you fucking serious?

It was going to be a tough fight, and I couldn't make up my mind whether to fight with my disguise or not to take the risk, shifting into my Form and overwhelming the enemy with pure power. With all the danger of fire twice changed by two different plans, a fully pumped Aegis put on the Form would protect me from such a thing more than reliably, and up close this guy, whose whole power is based on turning himself into a volley fire system, would not be too scary for me.

I didn't have time to make a decision, as the surviving cultists, who had woken up a bit, began attacking me and the aides still protecting "Pypysh" from all sides, forcing my cover group to stop waiting for my commands and respond to the blows. The Chaotik approached in one sharp leap, apparently unable to use his blink at such a high level of energy, immediately launching several blood-red balls of chaotic flame.

I meet the balls with a mirror thrown to meet them, which sucks up these balls like a vacuum cleaner of spiders, although it was not easy for me and the rapidly fading artifact. This thing is very unpleasant, much more powerful than the usual planar attacks, requiring more energy to suppress the energy of the enemy. Where were you all going to go after drinking the dwarves? Why did you gather in one group a non-combat magic hacker, an antimagic shifter, and this prick, who is now using someone's billet against me, prepared not for this situation at all?

The powerful lightning from the left beastman is met by another flash of scarlet flame, which sprays the lightning, meets a frost arrow and a throwing dagger, but is shattered by the same wave, only reflected from a second mirror clutched in the hobbit's wrinkled and sweaty hands. And then he backs away as a huge, palm-sized gold coin flies past him, covered in ancient symbols and literally absorbing the surrounding energy. It took a chunk out of my defense, even though it was thrown so that it didn't hit me.

"Torbash, since you've opened the family vault, I have a question for you," I say indignantly, remembering where I could have seen this coin. "I hope you didn't damage my collection of Zainberg goblets."

"I ordered this filth to be sold for a third of the price in the same week that we began to be turned inside out for your adventures, Uncle!" Said the rapidly pale hobbit, not from fear but from the brief contact with the coin taken out of the container. "With all due respect!"

"What!!!?" Almost without acting, I put my hand to the place where my heart should be, even while turning away from the cultist who somehow didn't risk attacking. "I've been collecting it for half my life, you bastard! Do you know what it cost me, huh?"

Instead of attacking, the cultist simply jumped back, sending a few flaming spits in the direction of a couple of mercenaries who had carelessly peeked out of the ruins of the manor, turning them into less than ashes. Then he immediately jumped again, approaching us from the other side, where there was no coin. And now he was already preparing not a tentative but a real attack, literally glowing with the halo of his abominable fire.

The mirror turned black, bursting and crumbling into dust, but still, I managed to create a dome that distorted reality so badly that even that flame was sidetracked by the looking glass and its cunning. The great part of my success lies in a couple of barriers raised by the mages, which, although they did not slow down the blow that was clearly in another league, hid me from the gaze of the creator of this flame, allowing me to create deception with much greater authenticity.

"Go to the trolls' asses, you bastards!" I shouted indignantly, pretending that, all this time, I hadn't even paid attention to the enemy talking to my "nephew." "I'm not going to help you again! You take care of this shit, and I'll fly away!"

And with those words, I... no, not flying away, but finishing pouring a few streams from the melted mirror - the first one I threw toward the fiery bolls - into the mindless and almost soulless body of the cat cultist. My opponent recognized Shmielae, even though she had changed her appearance in the style of a wax figure that had been in a sauna, but he didn't immediately realize I wasn't directing this puppet into direct combat. It was just that its body and the remnants of its shells allowed this piece of meat to be used not only as a support unit (a very strong one, I should note) but also to survive a few seconds of contact with the very coin that had managed to scare our opponent.

The doll clutches at the ancient artifact, rapidly beginning to decompose into melted wax, but there is still too much real flesh in it to disintegrate on the spot. Simultaneously with the exit of the already definitely dead cat without nine lives on the stage, I raised the flapping of wings again, imitating the apparent effects of some clearly recognizable technique to everyone around me. It was the kind of thing where you had no idea what you were pretending to be, but the others had such a good idea that you could fool those very experts by relying on their understanding alone.

I'm sure that everyone, except perhaps the cultist who had realized the false nature of this attack, would consider Pypysh not only an adept of the Mirror but also a very cool mix of Cleric and Shaman, able to draw power directly from his "inner Owl." The Chaotik, especially after pumping himself with so much power, could see that I was attacking with Dream alone, even if he felt bad for a moment. The shield, carefully calibrated and prepared against subtle planes, covered him with a scarlet film, burning any attempts to influence his mind.

He was ready to pulverize Schmielae and then all of us. In fact, he sincerely believed that the mirror-man, tired after the square attacks and the deadly prophecy, was no match for him. He hit us so lazily only because he was afraid of overstressing the soul of his sacrificed brother. The souls of his mother and sister, who also had a tendency to Chaos, had already been destroyed by earlier adventures. And he had a task he still held out hope of accomplishing, and he needed all the strength he could muster to accomplish it. That powerful attack of his barely dodged by me was not the pinnacle of his power, but even that he used only to melt... no, not all of us, but that coin.

The cat's body literally turned inside out, sprouting a dozen mirrored peaks that burst from its insides, and all of its flesh began to wrap itself into a fleshy, waxy roll. The nasty, no-kidding nasty sight, which made a couple of defenders vomit despite my attempts not to drive them mad with the rustle of nightmares, ended when the peaks burst with a clinking rattle, sending the roll covered once more in liquefied mirror toward the enemy.

An outer shell to overcome the attempt to burn this attack in a fire of bloody chaos.

Meat casing, so the coin doesn't destroy the entire structure with its impact.

Needless to say, from such a straightforward attack, the enemy simply stepped aside, only to be calmed down even more by the fact that the coin, which frankly frightened him, was carried away without his direct participation by the victims themselves, which is fucking amazing? My understanding was enough to unravel the nature of this coin. Even if Pypysh and his kin had not managed to understand this thing, even if I also understood it far from the end. But I had the basis.

What was hidden in an unassuming piece of gold was the basis to which any energy, influence, or even concept simply clung, attracted like iron shavings to a magnet, and brought to a common state - to zero. And if the Dream could destroy the very structure of the artifact, if not overload it, in the case of Chaos, which initially had not even an energy manifestation, it was enough just to "poke and watch the result."

If he had wanted to strike without regard for his condition, I would have been the only one left alive, but he had relaxed too much. He thought my game, our game, was lost after we had lost the only weapon that could overpower him. And he genuinely, through all the agony of a body overflowing with pain and pleasure, through the soul-devouring Vice, managed to be childishly surprised. He was surprised when his leap, which should have broken the distance, was outrageously short. He was doubly surprised when a mirror-glazed cat roll flying by changed its vector of motion, attacking the point where the Chaotik had been forced to land. Tenfold was surprised when a quick, overpowered dash that might have allowed him to avoid the blow by a couple of steps made him step on the spot without moving an inch. But when the roll opened like a flower and released a golden round right into the cultist's stunned face, he didn't have time to be surprised.

Perched atop some huge and slightly magical tree sprouting in the garden of someone's estate half a block away from my battle, Hans, at this moment, must have gotten a level and some tricky title.

And the chaotik burst out, no other way than from envy.

There was no explosion, nor was there a powerful planar impact. It was just the cultist who had received the coin in his insolent face was like butter with a hot knife stuck in it. The coin plunged somewhere in the region of the upper jaw. The victim twitched several times, swelling rapidly, and reddened from the power of the scarlet fire flowing through his veins, which fought with the artifact and burst, annihilating the victim's entire body, along with a small - a couple of meters - area of the surrounding space and the artifact itself.

At the same moment that the deadly amulet touched its target, I struck the square again, this time without discounting the need to hold the essence needle, covering the heavens and earth with flapping wings and owl hooting. For a moment, the concentration of the dream-created nightmare became so dense that it managed to break through into reality, and every surviving defender of the manor, including the remaining Dreams, was able to make out the silhouettes of circling birds, invisible and unreal but deadly.

And everything fell silent as every single attacker fell silent.

"That's it," I said in a somewhat tired tone, looking accusingly in the direction of Pypysh's nephew, who had already realized that his daring of a hangman, who was going to die anyway, to his terrible uncle might lead to a foolish death even after a miraculous rescue, for Pypysh valued his goblets very much. "So I'm going to go and get my goblets back."

I was certainly eager to be stopped and by all present. For the guys from Eyes, the sinister Pypysh was considered a spy who had picked up secrets that spies just couldn't live with, as a matter of course. For his relatives, on the contrary, he was one of the few chances to get out of the mess with the squeezing of their assets because it's one thing to squeeze money and even lives from the relatives of a dead spy and quite another if this spy, who can transfigure a crowd of enemies into zucchini at one time, can at any moment, if not come to the rescue, then negotiate the protection of his family through those in power in exchange for some of his secrets, silence or just personal favors. And everyone around him, everyone in general, was deathly afraid to stay in a city plunged into a figurative hell without a fighter of his level behind him.

Alas, the shadow's steps took me away before the people around me dared to voice their requests.

With the same steps, I moved to the very house where my companions were sitting. All of them have decided to climb the tree mentioned earlier. To watch, so to speak, my outstanding actions and to get away from the active defense of the house, where there were no owners but some servants and guards were hiding. Some not the weakest curser turned the garden of this mansion into a minefield, which, during the attack on the capital, was put on full alert by those very guards. The owners were out of town anyway, and we were here to protect the house and ourselves.

"I give you my praise, Tin." Even before I had spoken a word, Tia spoke up. "Your theater of masks, which made those around you seriously believe in the existence of a previously worn disguise, will allow your strings to play many melodies for many and many ears in the far and near future. It was an excellent plan. I, and anyone who has the gift of reading into the intrigues of others, am ready to admit."

I was even a little confused by such blatant praise, especially since I had originally gone there just for the knowledge in Shmielae's head, not for clowning around. Something just came up, and I decided to tone it down a bit without getting too out of hand. It was only towards the end that I had to take a risk and spend a bit more time than necessary. On the other hand, it was because I had covered the prisoners and helped them survive that I was able to deal outrageously easily with a corrupt of this level and with such piercing power in the vessel of his body. Without the Сoin, I would have had to take much greater risks, and I would have expended much more energy than I wanted.

"I'm glad to hear that, Tia." I start cautiously, sensing behind my back that Losius is putting his palm over Taria's mouth, wanting to say something. "But alas, in this situation, I acted simply out of..."

With a sharp jerk at the limit of her potion-enhanced speed, the elfess drew closer to me, standing so close to my face that you'd think she was about to kiss me or was already kissing me.

"It was a well thought out and brilliantly executed diversion plan." Calmly and confidently, her lips uttered. "In the finest traditions of Weaving of Strings and Webs. By all canons, it should be recognized by the masters as a development of the highest class. And that's exactly what you had planned to do from the beginning. You planned it. Wisely. Not make a buffoonery of it for your amusement."

"Um..." Not even knowing what to say to that, I was just confused.

"I'm right, aren't I, Tin?" Something tells me that if I try to object, she'll do something anti-moral and wrongful, perhaps even painful, to me. "Absolutely right?"