Chapter 6

* * *

What Tavimark had enough of was sources of information about the catacombs and what lived in their depths. It would have been strange if the city hadn't had detailed summaries on the subject. Even if you take the sealed essence itself out of the equation, there are still the usual monsters and untold miles of tangled passages, tunnels, and shafts that have been used by many enterprising people of varying degrees of dishonesty. If I so wished, I would have been able to gather all the necessary data long before I decided to go and play Hero by all the rules.

But I'm Kostenka. I don't know how to do it in a normal way. But seriously, I had to deliberately not know about everything related to this topic because I was naturally afraid that I would not be able to hold back and go to do good and inflict justice! These precautions did not help me much. I just wasted my time. And we have an obscenely short time - a couple of weeks for such an operation is not a period of preparation but laughter and tears. On the other hand, one legendary creature, weakened by the sealing, is not Stone, with all its protection and garrison.

Don't think I'm belittling the Legends' abilities, but all of them, despite being legendary, are far from being all-powerful. With the right approach, an average Legend can be brought down with proper teamwork, proper stimulants, and a well-prepared battlefield. It all depends, of course, on how intelligent the creature opposing you is and how much time it has spent preparing itself. One of the reasons I never went to see the old Spectre is because of that preparation - he'd turned his lair into a veritable death maze (or, rather, a Death Maze). He could have given me a shit in spite of the divine chains restraining him.

So, about preparation - even if my current target were as smart as Lobachevsky, it has been sealed up for a long, long time. And even though I'm almost a hundred percent sure that to destroy it, it would have to be released first. But no one would give it time to analyze the situation. Anyway, if it were another Specter, I wouldn't worry at all, and I might even go off on my own. What good is all your wit and evil imagination if you're being flooded with shadows and thrown into that Shadow to feed, pardon the pun, Shadows?

Alas, our task is not as easy as it seems at first glance. At the very least, no one would bother with an extremely tricky sealing that requires very specific conditions and sacrifices if the creature could just be killed. Sealing is a priori only used when it is more difficult or impossible to kill the target. Alternatively, in cases where the slain creature's demise could have unpleasant consequences for the surrounding victors. All sorts of postmortem curses and other talents sharpened in this branch of development. It's not that common, but it's far from unique. There are a lot of stories about the owners of such dishonorable tricks, a lot of it.

The arguments are strong enough to accept the need for proper preparation. Yes, and clairvoyance managed to involuntarily convey to me enough understanding so that the desire to shove with a gunz blazing under the onslaught of cold logic. A hasty decision could bring a lot of trouble, even if not to me, but to the surrounding residents of Tavimark.

This creature was not a realm creature in the usual sense. Unlike, say, the High Shadow, it didn't have a clear body or a vulnerable point that could hurt it by hitting it. She had nobody at all, no claws, no especially dangerous attacks capable of smearing impudent mortals on the walls. Even its mind was so alien that to understand the motives of this creature was an almost impossible task, even for such tough guys as I considered myself.

Ironically, but the most adapted to the battle with our target was not me, and not even Losius, but Hans. Because this target was revived - as far as this definition is generally applicable to this entity - the concept of the World Path, or Path of the World, I'm not sure about the accuracy of the translation of that old document. It's the explosion of the brain, but this did not reduce the danger, rather added and strengthened it.

The creature couldn't attack directly, that's true, but it didn't need such crude methods. The creature, disembodied and invisible, invulnerable to anything attempted against it, literally fused with the tunnels of the dungeons, with the aqueducts and alcoves, the arches and passages, the old mines and halls of the underground vaults. And, having finished merging, she became part of them just as they became part of it.

Roads leading nowhere. Space, distorting in agony, and even the almighty Time. Madness and mounting terror, gradually eroding even the strongest will, were what awaited those who ventured into the creature's domain and challenged it. They probably wouldn't have touched it at all, it was such an inconvenient and invulnerable foe, but it wasn't sitting still. The center of distortion shifted constantly, moving in every direction, sometimes even rising too close to the surface. After the seventh thousand victims, when the dungeon took not only the poor but also part of the urban elite, making them eternal prisoners of endless ways, it was decided to start a forceful confrontation. There were two options here - either to somehow pacify the abomination or to abandon a very conveniently located and already-built city for the amusement of the dungeon overlord.

It is in the nature of the creature the poor men of the Forty-third Armored Corps were actually sacrificed. They were as lost as anyone before them, but at the same time, their souls became anchors holding the creature in one place, in the heart of the underground catacombs, as far away from the surface as possible. The creature cannot move its presence to another part of reality, and the enchanted soldiers cannot leave the confines of the closed field created by the creature. Everyone is pulled in their direction, which makes it impossible to take even a small step. Such a system, for all its cannibalistic nature, was surprisingly reliable - it lasted almost a thousand years (or even more, since documents do not indicate the exact date, and clairvoyance fails too much when trying to analyze such an unnatural entity) and will last twice as long until the prisoners' souls finally burn out.

Even the rare seal breaks, changing the maps of the catacombs most radically and allowing the Call to enlist the occasional townsfolk to hear it, simply serves as another element of support. In this obnoxious way, the Seal, which has become part of the creature, replenishes the drain on its batteries. The astonishing efficiency of this creation of an unknown ritualist is so beautiful in its inhumanity and ruthlessness that I sincerely wanted to meet the creators and developers of this marvel to test their designs on them. For purely scientific purposes, of course.

"No wonder you have such a clear sense of our target, Hans." Hestia, in her moments of total focus, becomes so still that she could really be mistaken for a statue. "It, whatever it is, is essentially the quintessence of your class skills, having gained autonomy. I've only heard of such creatures, but I've never encountered even a relatively complete description. And I certainly had no idea that one such creature had been captured in the Empire."

"Don't be silly, Hestia." The pathfinder grumbles, nervously twirling his slim shiv in his hands, calming his nerves. "What kind of language is that?"

"You are incorrigible..." The creature of the mist in the most beautiful wrapping possible only shook its head, refusing to continue the pointless argument about the rules of polite address. "Somehow, it seems to me that our enemy is one of the legendary Trail users of the past who has not kept control of his powers."

"Nah, nah, pretty lady, you got the wrong idea." The man contradicted her immediately. "I'm no legendary fucking Hero, but I smell a mistake. If I don't hold my Trail, I'll either die or disappear somewhere. But I won't get fucked up in the kind of shit Tin found on our heads."

"Weren't you the first one of us to agree to give Evil a fight?" Losius listens intently to the dialogue, even though he's in the farthest corner of the room we rented, scribbling something on a map of the dungeons. "If my memory does not fail me, did your words say this creature disturbs your sleep?"

"I'm not arguing, but Tin found it anyway!" He answered and then laughed at my exaggeratedly offended face.

"Actually, Hestia's words are not so wrong." I intervene before the conflict escalates. "Hans is right in that a human being, like any endowed one, cannot turn into that thing. Except you're not counting the possibility that a Pathfinder, who's fallen forever into his Paths... Well, it's like a stone thrown against the ice - the ice is broken, the stone has dropped to the bottom, and ice water has flowed out of the breach, some of which has not gone back. Only this water is in no hurry to freeze itself, continuing to crap on its own to the world around it."

"I've never, I confess, heard of such a thing." Losius drawls thoughtfully, putting the map aside. "For a long time, I was not at all aware of the fact that Trailblazers have their own special Realm. That in itself is also an incredibly interesting question, which we can now..."

"Okay, attention, gang!" Taria, as usual, interjects with the grace of an armadillo of steel. "I brought some food, or you'll be starving to death at this rate without taking a break from your discussion!"

"Taria, you're a miracle!" Which of us all said this truth first I did not understand even with the help of clairvoyance.

* * *

Talmosh Htygydynski was an honorary citizen of the Empire of Ages who gained this citizenship through long and fruitful work for the Guild of Adventurers. Many times he was offered to work on the Intelligence or the Secret Guard, both imperial and foreign, but he firmly stay out of politics, trading the most valuable that he had - encyclopedic knowledge of several ancient civilizations, with the relics of which he worked at the level of a great master. Literally, a great master in the areas of Archaeology and Knowledge of history. It's a very rare set of skills and abilities that is incredibly difficult to pump.

For the sake of such a consultant, evil people turned a blind eye to a certain irreverence toward superiors and even to the three-quarters of the halfling blood that ran in his veins. Typical-looking hobbit with hairy heels lived not in a hole, but in a two-story manor, under the heavy guard of his loyal servants. And also under powerful magical protection, secured by many relics of rare or even epic grades, which he had managed to accumulate during his long life.

Uncharacteristic of the prolific and amorous halfling, the bachelor's existence had not given the old man any heirs or even any bastards. There was a sordid and bloody story of sincere love in his life, back in his youth, that turned out to be a hired rival Seductress (have you ever seen a hobbit Seductress?). The story ended with the death of Talmosh's already few relatives, the very bad death of the Seductress herself, and the extremely lousy death of her employers, but he could not regain his former trust and ability to love. Not to say that he cared all that much about it.

My interest in such an extraordinary person lay, oddly enough, in his collection of miscellaneous items, among which was the diary of one of the senior ritualist's assistants (apparently a type not inferior to the late Ferer in skill), who had never survived the procedure of sealing the creature under the city. Much later, one of the raids into that dungeon, which were occasionally conducted and even more rarely returned, managed to get hold of that diary and bring it to the enterprising Quatreon.

The diary had no special secrets or great power, so it was gathering dust on a shelf in one of the far corners of the mansion, forgotten as soon as it was read. It might be useful to a good, but not too high-level ritualist, who wanted to grow from a simple master to a great master - there were enough very specific notes and schemes that only holders of similar classes could understand. I was only interested in the last ten pages of the book, where the calculations of the Seal Ritual were made.

There was much that mage did not know, much that he did not understand, for the legendary master was only a prop in the scheme of the ritual, but even what I had was enough. I am not a ritualist myself, that's true, and anyway: the only one with ritualistic skills in our company is Ygra, and she can't read. It's just that such a personal thing, imbued with experiences and aspirations, would be a pretty good clue to the events of those days for me. About the same as in the case of Grandpa Losius's diary, which gave me a lead on the Stone.

There were only two barriers around the house - not a problem for me - but it was more complicated inside. Talmosh had lived in his mansion for almost a century and a half, having paid for three rejuvenation procedures with healers in the capital, and had managed to build a very good segmental defense in that time. Usually, patchwork protections are bullshit. The trick is that too many protection and signaling charms are simply layered on top of each other, creating a lot of fake flares and interference.

But Talmosh did have a lot of free time, even more resources, and rare amulets, and the size of the entire mansion was not so large that he could not personally set up and debug his brainchild. While the exterior and living quarters, not counting the bedroom, were fairly easy to access, the artifact storage and library in Shadow Gaze resembled a mosaic, so much magic of all kinds was there. A major collector of Tavimark, and even in the capital quite famous, by the way. And he also managed to get his hands on part of the collection of rarities of the recently deceased old man Pervert. A very enterprising man... ...well, a quarter.

For me, stealing this diary wasn't difficult, but it was fucking boring - one by one to cheat fields and enchantments, gradually advancing to the right point and trying not to step on one of the traps, and not always magical. As said before, most of the signals and shields were created by rare-grade items, and a few epics didn't play much of a role. It didn't stop me, or at least it didn't exhaust me, but it pissed me off.

I could have dived deeper into the realm, walked through the deep Shadow to the desired point, and then surfaced and worked directly with the desired container, but I didn't want to risk even the smallest thing, and diving this deep into the Shadow was an a priori risk. In the case of Stone, such a risk was justified, but now I could handle the Steps, Theft, and Shadow Creation. There was no need to rush; I could make it through the night without a problem.

Actually, I did, even replacing the worn-out book with an identical-looking book (identity was assured through essentialism), only with blank pages. Well, almost blank because on the title page, there was an obscene image with a caption in a mixture of goblin and hobbit dialects of the common language. I even moved the signal threads with the nasty trap from the original to the fake, though it was a thousand times easier to turn it off unnoticed.

By the way, I plan to return the original, if possible, after I've worked with it. Or after I finish the story about the creature in the dungeons. I doubt he's even picked up that diary in the last couple of years.

Okay.

I already have a set of not-too-toxic clairvoyance-enhancing potions waiting for me in my room, and there's not much time for a deep dive into the past. Ideally, I want to avoid exhaustion and headaches and just find out everything I need to know quickly. Unlike in Stone's case, I have a lot more clues and knowledge, so the search won't be too hard. The creature itself, like any legend, is pretty hard to read, but then again, I have enough vectors to pump it through circumstantial events and the fates of those who encountered it. The task is difficult, but I'm not so simple myself.

I think so.

"I want to kill." My words are so sincere that no one even smiled at my "joke".

It seems I'm hiding my appearance, and I'm not letting any background into the surrounding reality, and I'm not even trying to turn to the planar power, but there was something about me that made even the unbreakable Taria shudder. And all I had to do was watch an interesting interactive movie about an old adventure that did not end.

"That bad?" Losius seemed to understand the background of my mood, sitting down at the table and holding out a bottle of wine to me without even offering a glass. "Or worse?"

"Worse is worse, my friend." I emptied the bottle at once, not feeling the taste or the intoxication. "If that freak were still alive, I wouldn't be too lazy to go visit him and personally feed him to the scariest fearbeast I could summon."

"What did the dead mage hurt you, anyway?" Taria came to her senses quickly, plopping down on my lap and taking the second bottle, already half-full. "You've got a face that if I met you in an alley, I'd give you my wallet.

"Not the mage who wrote the diary, no." I'm silent, choosing my words, and the others don't hurry to confuse me. "I'm talking about his teacher, that good grandfather who created and closed the Seal of the Wandering. He didn't die that long ago, by the way, just last century. Alishan's diversion on the grounds of some secret military unit and all that. Kind of embarrassing to approve of the Alishan action, but still glad the bitch is dead."

"Exhaustive characterization, I'll say." The aristocrat is also drinking wine, but with much less greed because he doesn't have my dryness after using clairvoyance. "Can you elaborate on that?"

"A ritualist, a sacrificial ritualist of the legendary class, to be exact," I answer, setting aside the bottle that never managed to overpower the taste of decayed blood on my lips. "The kind that dabbles not in dark planes but pure blackness. No, no, he wasn't flirting with Hells, but his rituals, for all their startling effectiveness, required very specific components and almost certainly living and preferably endowed. There, in those dungeons, are not only soldiers left. There is a whole hecatomb hidden and so reliable that it does not exist. Or rather, not here. I think I'll put this ritual in the top ten of the nastiest things I've ever seen. Well, in the second ten at most, but closer to the top."

"Did you understand the principle of the hecatomb?" Hestia doesn't let me savor my own disgust at being conscious, getting right to the point.

Once you understand the workings of the sacrificial figure, you can understand how the figure shackled the creature. And already from this, you will need to dance when creating a plan of counteraction. The classic school, thanks to Hestia for enlightening us in her time. The most disgusting thing is that there are no good ritualists among us, and direct attacks on our beast are unimpressive.

"What if you just drop a piece of the dungeon into The Shadow?" Taria makes a suggestion. "And there, let it flounder around for as long as it wants and as long as it can! Even if you're right that the shadow energy itself doesn't give a fuck about this thing, the realm itself, one way or another, will wreck any foreign object!"

"Amazing!" Hestia displays a very rare display of sarcasm and rich facial expressions on her usually impassive face. "You remembered something of my lessons, after all. Pity your idea is as clever as destroying bedbugs with strategic enchantments tied to the source of the same Stone level!

"Y?" In response, the dancer uses a killer argument of Ygra's name, which makes it impossible to even scold her because she looks so comical at that moment.

"Taria, darling, tell me, what would happen if there was a hole in the Shadow, about the size of a couple of blocks, under the city?" I ask affectionately and gently, which makes the girl begin to move away from me swiftly and briskly. "Do you have any ideas?"

"Will you close it?" Cautiously, already realizing that she'd made a mistake somewhere, Taria suggested.

"Well, yes, I will." I nod affirmatively. "Except this is a couple of meters wide rift I can close it almost instantly. It's the kind of hole I can't close in a heartbeat. If I close it at all. But even if it goes through with critical success. If I can keep the breach in check and not let it grow even bigger. If I don't let any abomination crawl out of there in the company of what I already have. If I have the strength and skill not to die in the process of such foolishness... That leaves at least two problems. Guess which ones?"

"Hmm?" Only a scrutinizing glance from the whole company in response to her attempt to jump off, so Tarya had to really think. "A flash of light on the sensors?"

"You can when you want to!" I grinned, developing the thought further. "That amount of power breaking through into the real world would summon not even the local guards but a couple of Divine Messengers on our heads at once. If not a couple of dozen, headed by a full-fledged incarnation! And if anything happens, only I have a chance to escape. And it's not the fact it's the messengers who come to the light and not something worse."

"And the second problem is that if you open a rift under the ground, the city will fuckin' fall in!" Hans supplements while trying to peel with his knife some extremely exotic-looking fruit from the basket of sweets he ordered. "And when he falls down, it's going to choke us all to the ground and shove us straight into the jaws of Shadows. And I'm still young! I don't even have a wife and kids! Well, no wife, that's for sure!"

"Didn't you say the world would collapse before you settled down?" Losius just couldn't resist a quip, and the tracker had a good shot at it.

"Well, if everything goes according to Taria's plan, then it will collapse!"

With a low slap, Hestia's palm met her face once more, and the former golem master could only sigh in sorrow. Yeah, yeah - it's not nice to be a monster and still feel like you're the only one with a brain in the group.

"All right, all right, got it! The dancer didn't want to quell the fountain of ideas. "What if we just flood all the hallways with magic? Shadow, Heaven, and throw in a bunch of potions, too. It would make a nice flash, but it might work. I'm sure we can escape or hide our gang's tracks. Well, when the rangers get here, let them look, and we'll sit tight. What's not a plan?"

"Stake hammering with gnome optics." Hestia and Losius chorus. "All the more reason not to let the creature get away with it. But the city is guaranteed to collapse, the catacombs and Tavimark with them. And it'll all fall on our heads."

"It won't work either," I confirm what they said. "Or rather, it will work, but I'm not at all sure. That thing was sealed for a reason; they weren't degenerates. It's not hard to contain it or just run away from it, but to destroy it... I confess I don't understand where it's supposed to go at all. And all those options, like opening a breach in Shadow, which can just remove not so much the creature itself, but the part of reality where it is... It's not staking it with gnome optics, no, it's already pouring the flames with explosive potion concentrate."

"What about Dreams?" Hestia continues to stay in work mode while the rest of the team is booted from my words. "From what I've seen, we can assume that this facet of your power is far better equipped to deal with a conceptual threat. Yes, and this realm works with space at a high level."

"I agree." I nod. "Alas, but an operation as massive as this would require countering our enemy would, first, draw too much attention and second, turn the local catacombs into something far worse than what they are now."

The team had known about my uneasy relationship with a certain Weaver for a long time, for there was no point in hiding it. I only limited the release of information so that clairvoyance would not catch on, but what I could report without provoking the threads of understanding was enough to understand the situation.

It's a strange nut - no biting, no gnawing, no throwing it out the window. I'm used to dealing with deadly, but, in general, quite destructible, with the right approach. And here, the creature is not so scary to me personally. I can always retreat through the realm, and the creature doesn't block the path. It does not have enough power. And I can't do anything to it. Unusual, I repeat, situation. That's why it pisses me off just a shiver. I even can not eat!

The next planning session was interrupted by the appearance of an outside expert, or, to be more precise, some dick from the adventurers' guild. I remembered his face a long time ago, but I did remember it - the same amateur gigolo who had tried to seduce Hestia at the guild registration. I personally expected a scandal or an attempt to play Karen, in an extreme case, even threats of physical violence, but no. He handed Hestia a huge bouquet of some exotic roses (not a bad alchemical reagent for love potions, by the way), then left behind the smell of expensive perfume and was off

Hestia was confused by his appearance and the pile of apologies mixed with compliments. She, remembering who had asked to change the man's sexual predilections, was expecting a fight, as was I. She was anticipating it with all the cruelty and schadenfreude a true monster could muster.

"Oh, fuck, that's it!" Taria laughs so hard she starts to choke, but she can't stop. "Cows and fucking sheep. Oh, I can't fucking stand this! Girl, you're a flame with pepper, I'll tell you that! I can't believe I never thought of that. I mean, come on!"

Well, yes. Who better to appreciate the beauty of the eternally phlegmatic Hestia's revenge than our teammate, the one who loves to mess with the mind and the worldview (my jokes are already lost on Taria's background, even though they're harder to do)? So she did, for several minutes now, just not rolling on the floor. Losius and Hans look at Hestia with mild apprehension, clearly not expecting such a stunt from her. She has always defiantly disliked mental influences, even though she reasonably believed that a gifted talent of mythical grades is not picked on by commas in the system description. If such a prank had been pulled by Taria and her supertits, then they would simply have given up on the amusement of the rambunctious dancer once again. But from Hestia, yes, they didn't expect that from her.

Hestia watched, with a peaceful smile, as the beautiful flowers crumbled to the floor in black dust after my touch drained them of all their essence. Not that I needed it, but my companion's hints were very eloquent. I think she's calculating the probable problems of the mysterious disappearance of the guild dog that's been bugging her. He's either got balls of steel, or he thinks he's got nothing more to lose.

A brief flash of knowledge showed that the venerable administrator had fairly quickly connected the irresistible attraction to sheep and cows, and sometimes to horses and even bulls, with his latest failed conquest. At first, of course, he tried to remove the imposed influence by his own means - he was cursed quite often, so much so that he learned to remove the impotence curses on his own, by sheer force of will.

But the potions and amulets he had saved did not help, nor did the numerous specialists he knew in such delicate matters. Among the latter, by the way, were some very high-level guys and ladies with interesting classes and skills. All in all, he was in for a real treat. That's when he felt bad. He valued his male pride and his "winning list" of seduced beauties even more than his own life. Now that's an interesting vocation for a man. I would not even say a vocation, but a Calling.

So he drank a little to get up his courage and had to go and apologize. By the way, if he had made any more noise in trying to remove the "curse," he would probably have stirred up my clairvoyance with a sense not even of danger but of foreign interest. The effects through the Dream are, you know, very difficult to detect, unlike curses or more straightforward mental influences. So, the slavery and mental classes, more often than not, operate through the Astral. It's easier to trace, easier to protect, and a lot less hassle to remove. If there is no trace of the influence by any means, the experts might wonder what an ordinary adventurer did to a simple clerk that no trace is left, and the influence is almost permanent and eternal.

I'd either have to fix his consciousness again so he'd give up his treatment and switch from people to cows, or just kill the woodpecker before he spill the bins. I told Hestia that and suggested that she should have an accident by falling down the stairs in front of a lot of witnesses so that no one would think of giving her any suspicions. She only hid her smile behind her cup of tea and asked me to wait.

My heroic intuition claims that her monstrosity frankly gets off on other people's mental tossings of a grim hue, and her human personality, for a change, doesn't even try to keep the cruel aspirations under control. No, I knew she didn't like slavemancers, especially "subtle" specialists who can rewire so much that the victim won't even notice the impact, but only now did I realize to the full extent how much she dislikes them.

We had almost complete and extremely detailed plans for the first two tiers of the catacombs. Thanks, both to the archives of the Guards and the Magistrate, and private collections and, no doubt, the Night Guilds as the most active users of these catacombs. The third and fourth tiers were filled in fragmentarily, with white spots in places. But all that is below is complete obscurity with very rare specks of explored territories. At the same time, those very specks are not reliable at all. As already mentioned, the closer to the sealed creature, the stronger the distortions, which constantly rearrange the structure of the stone labyrinth.

I was trying to figure out how to counteract the effect, poetically called the Traveling Spiral. According to the same archives, it was possible to get lost in the creature's field of action, even when standing still. Groups broke up, the laggards were lost, landmarks blurred, and even constantly holding hands, you could somehow manage to lose each other. And the creature itself tried diligently to divide the invader groups into parts. It wasn't even an attack, according to the ritualists' reports and my clairvoyance. It was more like an instinctive reflex, like blinking.

It is extremely difficult to counteract such an attack, primarily because it is not an attack at all. There is no point of concentration, which could be the lever to intercept it. After all, the influence did not affect the sorcerers themselves at all - only the reality surrounding them.

The way of blocking is obvious. Make reality your own. The trick of thinning the line between reality and the realm, followed by partial control of the seeping power, is undoubtedly dangerous and costly in terms of reserve, but not too difficult or demanding in terms of skill. I've been frightened by such a trick on Specter, though I only just closed the first rank at the time. The named technique is considered the most basic and simple, and therefore easy to push through and suppressed. You can cover your ass with something more complicated but also much more reliable. For example, to summon a bunch of small shadows, literally flooding the space with them and tying them into a single organism. Such a mixture of a living bastion and a closed field can hardly be unhooked, and if you unhook it, at least you'll be chewed up badly.

You can use a much more advanced and complex Shadow Manifestation, which will give almost guaranteed results, especially when combined with Aegis and the previous trick with the shadow bastion. You can do a lot of things, even in a way that doesn't make your appearance too obvious. Especially since even really powerful realm techniques will be barely perceptible on the surface.

I wanted to leave no trace at all, but who will fulfill my wishes? The most inconspicuous option would be the use of high-order alchemical essences, but this is not without its complications. Starting with the lack of a laboratory with the necessary reagents and ending with the simple fact that I have no idea which composition to brew for a satisfactory result. I had a few ideas, but only practice can show what the results will be, and it would be silly to go in without preparation.

I had stocked up on good, suitable negators and stasis potions, of which, fortunately, I had an epic supply. It was a shame that there wasn't enough to just flood the catacombs. No, it would have been really fun - especially for those who would then accidentally go down there - but what's not there is not there. Nevertheless, again, there were plans on this side as well, even if I was not sure of their reliability without prior verification.

The second most dangerous enemy, and this time one that could be knocked on the head, was the wayward. Either victims or guards or some symbiotic organism of an obscure creature, they were a tough nut to crack against any foe. Their long sojourn in the epicenter of an intelligent (?) spatial anomaly had endowed them with some very unpleasant abilities that could make even weak and low-level poor people a problem. Largely because the Spiral acts on them somehow, still not letting them out of its grip but directing their attacks and diverting them from retaliation.

The memoirs of one high-level bandit and brigadier, who had the dubious good fortune of encountering a few strays who had reached tier 4, claimed that fighting them was "diarrhea and hemorrhoids". That last sentence, if anything, is a direct quote. And yes, you read that right - this guy actually wrote a memoir near the end of his life. And they were even published, albeit in a small print run! And I was still laughing from the earthy chanson.

The planning went on, the patterns of movement and support for each other in the new conditions were memorized both in reality and in training daydreams, and the general mood was combative. What we have to thank our voyage through the wilderness territories for is that the team finally got used to fighting even a very dangerous enemy and having no fear or doubt. And even though the current enemy was unlike anything we had seen before, it didn't make much difference.

At the very least, I could just drag us all through the Shadow, using a non-combat use of the Grip. I may only have two arms, but why would I need the Shadow Form? I'll grow extra grippers and carry our company closer to the surface. Dangerous, but nothing I couldn't do if I had to.

The sheepfucker-man appeared again, without the bouquet, but with a cake as big as Ygra's ass and as green as said ass. He handed it to her, showered Hestia with compliments and hints that she could forgive him for being so awesome, and then he left, wisely not going to the door and using the window - a little more and Hestia would have eaten him there, having turned into her true form. She was very annoyed with this citizen, yeah.

"Look, I'd be wary of eating a cake given to you by a man turned cattle fucker." Taria said cautiously, poking at the cake (I would even say huge cake!) with the tip of her dagger. "Just in case you choke on it."

"There are no curses on it, and the only alchemy is the usual powder that prevents drying and chafing." I objected, chewing my second bite.

Hans, next to me, nods in agreement, and even Hestia allows herself a little bite of the sweetness. The cake is really delicious, I can't argue with that, and it also gives a slight, almost imperceptible buff that slows the appearance of fatigue. The man is seriously trying to get himself forgiven, and he has a good chance of pissing Hestia off to the point where she kills him. Well, or really forgive him, I'm not sure.

The answer to the ultimate question of the universe and life and all that... No, that's another question. The answer to the question of how to make our target wasn't found by the brilliant and magnificent me or even by the well-read and aristocratic Losius and Hestia. Hans found the answer, apparently because he was a pathfinder, working directly with the concept of the Path.

It was just that one day, as our group was discussing the advantages of the sword over Hans's favorite short swords, Taria politely remarked that any weapon in the wrong hands is a piece of shit. And Hans, choking on a prepared tirade, froze in place, and then pounded his fist on his forehead, raised his hands pathetically to the sky (to the ceiling, to be exact), and yelled in a tone that oozed a concentrated "how did I not understand before":

"Shit!"

"Excuse me, what?" Hestia generally didn't like profanity, and she never missed a chance to remind us of it.

"Shit!" Hans answered, immediately revealing the thought. "Let's pretend that the shit that's sitting in the dungeons is really shit. Tin said that shit was the offspring of some woodpecker who was playing with Trails until he fucked up, didn't he?"

"Well, that's one of the basic assumptions, even though I can't confirm it." I intervene, feeling mildly interested in what our tracker has managed to come up with.

"Now let's pretend the creature is like a pile of shit, piled on top of a guy like that... Well, or a woman, it's all the same." And the guy's really on fire. "They piled the pile, covered it with sod, and went the fuck away. And the pile is lying there stinking. And we're all thinking about how we can get rid of the stink. We should just throw the shit away. The smell is all the shit swirls, confusing those down there. And all those deluded, as it were, flies that flew to the shit. You don't need to fume everything. You need to find a pile and then throw it in the cesspit. Here."

"A colorful analogy, my friend." Responds Losius, who also was thinking hard. "But it wasn't idiots who worked with the problem before. All this needlepoint dancing and sealing was started precisely because they couldn't find the base of the creature.

"Well, we're all used to the fact that any hit is the attacker's will." The Pathfinder continues to make his point. "When Tin throws his shadows, you know he threw them. Shit do nothing. It just stinks. Fuck, I don't know how else to explain it!"

"You mean all these effects are just the effect of the creature's presence." Nods Hestia. "An effect not intentionally created or consciously controlled. Like the filth or the miasmas of Hells. Quite logical, I will not argue, but it does not lead us anywhere. We didn't know what to hit the creature with, and we still don't."

"Why are you so stupid?" Hans is almost crying. "The creature, it's like the shit left behind by the legendary walker. Or just crawled in from somewhere else. Whatever. But if it should be thrown out, it shouldn't be on another pile, but back in the latrine pit where it crawled in from."

At that moment, I confess, I felt like an imbecile. I couldn't say that the answer was obvious, no, but it was understandable to me, even without clairvoyance, and with clairvoyance, it was even more so.

"Roger that." I nod, leaning back in my chair and sinking into a trance, looking for confirmation of the hunch I had just made. An entity, or even a phenomenon, created by the Paths of Pathfinders, the Eternal Path, the Road without beginning or end, the Road that is eternal and even further, the road by which Eternity itself comes. This phenomenon cannot exist in the familiar world without changing it by its very existence.

It's funny, but Hans was right about a lot of things. All these distortions, all these trapped souls that can't come back out, they're all just a consequence of something that came into this world without being able to go back out. However, I would compare it not to crap but to a fish thrown on the ice, where the ice is the real world, and the water hidden underneath is where it tends to go.

Every distortion, the whole damn spiral, is a reflexive beating of the body on ice, an attempt to recreate native conditions in an unsuitable environment. A phenomenon, precisely a phenomenon, not a creature, and cannot be destroyed in any way simply because it is not alive, does not exist in the full measure of the word, and that which has never lived or died does not fear non-existence.

The understanding that has been revealed, penetrating to my very core, shows me the whole nature of what I have chosen as my enemy. If I had been the Kostya who had just come into this world, the Kostya who had not yet fought for life with a true Hero, this vision would have taken me away. The realization of what could not be realized was pouring into my mind like red-hot magma, like icy claws, seeking to tear, to sweep away, to destroy the soul of one who dared to seek answers to questions that could not even be asked.

It could have been stronger than me... It was stronger than me. But I remembered things far worse than that, remembered and knew. I was a thing myself, even more, terrifying than the knowledge that had been revealed to me. I could have said this was another hard battle for humanity or my tortured soul, but the truth was much simpler. I couldn't lose. Not after everything I'd already been through, not after everything that was already breaking me down and eating me up. It was just knowledge, just information, even though it was more dangerous than most monsters. Shadow and Dream were much more real and true.

After surviving their grip on me, to let all that maelstrom eat away at my brain and turn me into an empty shell, a burnt hulk of what I was and what I had become... it would be ridiculously frustrating.

Breath-in.

The taste of iron on the tongue.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Breath-out.

The pounding of the heart in my chest.

Breath-in.

The rustle of broken destinies, the reflection of endless nightmares that are always with me and will never leave me - I take them away, and they cover me with a carpet of unfulfilled hopes, denying any outcome that leads to my defeat.

Breath-out.

The whispers and laughter, the furious shrieks and hungry howls of innumerable Shadows, as eternal as they are terrible, come at my will, and all their fury, all their hatred for me and all things, submits to my will, refusing to give my soul to anything else.

Breath-in.

The whole world is before my eyes, broken and crumbling with black lacquer, shattered and ground with gold dust, reassembled brick by brick and remade according to my will and desire, and in this world, there is no room for my downfall.

Breath-out.

I am still there, I am still here, and I alone make my own story. I didn't start it, but I am the only one allowed to finish it. And I open my eyes, looking at the same old Alurei that has once again choked me.

Streams of dark, almost black blood dripped from my nose and ears, staining the fabric upholstery of the expensive furniture, and I only now realized how close I had been to something bad. And how deeply I'd been able to look beyond my allotted horizon. Wow, a full-fledged prophetic trance, just like in cheap romance novels. I was in a state where I could see even things that, in normal circumstances, would easily be hidden by a legendary skill.

The system was helpful, giving me another notification. It's been a long time since I've seen one of these. Confirm that, yes, I did manage to do something worthy of a full-fledged title.

Roomy Nostradamus (legendary; personal): your clairvoyance skill has evolved to such an extent that you have been able to create for yourself an individual and unique superstructure of your own essence, allowing you to strengthen your attempts to know. Often such a gift turns out to be a problem, interfering in everyday life and in battle, often becoming a true curse that brings only anguish and pain. Each prophet will have a gift of his own. And their own pain will be their own. So will you. Bonus: +5 to clairvoyance skill; when in prophetic trance your skill is greatly enhanced; the skill is controlled, but its use brings pain; you intuitively see and understand the nature of what you look at, understanding the weak points of planar and conceptual mechanisms and phenomena of almost any level of complexity, provided you can keep the kickback.

Obviously, the personality and individual fitting of such titles for each beholder, who has crossed some line, is also expressed by the individual name. If only the System had called the title something cool and pathological, like "Devourer of Destiny" or "Destroyer of Predestination. I'm a Roomy fucking Nostradamus now. Thank you, admins, that at least you're not Sofa Vanga, or I wouldn't have been the least bit surprised.

The title strengthened one of the most trumps skills at my disposal, as well as among all existing skills. And this is despite the fact that this skill I had developed to a very decent level even without amplification. Well, or indecent, whichever way you look at it. The cost of pain and blood from my ears was a small thing compared to what could have happened if I hadn't kept control of myself.

The funny thing is, I can't even say it was difficult. Not after the torment that haunted me every time I tried to wring a little more strength out of my native plans, trying to feed them as little of my own self as possible in return. That was the "skeleton in the closet" of the new title - learning those things, phenomena, or creatures that would be too foreign to me, I would learn too much. Only if the class perks protect me from Shadows and Dreams, the protection here is not so obvious.

It's just that after everything my precious classes have thrown at me, I instinctively reject other influences. Now, here I am, unwittingly looking into the concept of Trails, understanding a little more than is allowed to someone whose class doesn't work directly with them. Honestly, a funny thought arises in my mind, as if the bugs in my head do not tolerate new competitors.

"I'm fine." My voice was a little low, reminiscent of a painful moan. "I think I've discovered an additional third eye to the one I already have. I almost fell over in the process, though."

The opening of the third eye, by the way, is considered a classic idiom on Alurei, going back centuries. Either someone from among the summoned introduced it, or the Earth psychics knew something about it, but the analogy is indeed apt. Clairvoyance really resembles an additional organ of perception of the world. And sudden jumps in its development are also a very peculiar experience. It is not that the eye was "opened," but it is a good example.

Such a shit sometimes jumps in the head.

"Only you, Tin, could almost die just sitting on your ass." Taria doesn't even do a facepalm, just drops her face into the table. "Hold on. I'll make a compress."

She did make a compress, and Hans with Losius carefully dragged the sack of potatoes, as I felt my body, to the bed, poured me a whole cup of some surprisingly wicked and sickly chacha and told me to rest.

I was already lying under the blanket, and I realized another idea that had occurred to me. The new title allows me to be well-prepared for any battle. Even at the cost of being temporarily weakened, I could understand. Even the legendary creature - its strengths, weaknesses, talents, skills, character, and habits. Everything would allow me to create the most effective way to counteract a particular threat. And it doesn't have to be a creature (some Chosen One isn't any safer) or a (non)living creature at all. By analogy with the bloody anomaly under Tavimark, I can, for example, understand the principles of protection at the Eternal Library or the Emperor's palace or unearth some very well-hidden secret hidden on a conceptual level...

And also, already on the verge of shutting down, a quote from the systematic description of the new title came to mind. The one about "understanding the weaknesses of supercomplex mechanisms and phenomena." I wonder how complex the concept of Yoke could be considered. And what pain would I have to pay to understand it, even by the very edges?

"Hans, don't be stupid, you're not that good after all," Losius speaks calmly, but with carefully concealed irritation turning to fury. "And you only have one life. I remind you that if you set yourself up, Tin might not have time to pull you out of harm's way."

The Pathfinder did not even lift a finger in response to this pressure, continuing to pursue his line. His words, and his idea, had not even a rational grain but a grove of rationality. Perhaps his plan, at this point, is the most reasonable and has the highest chance of success. The risk, however, is also much higher than desired.

"I know!" He gestures frantically. "You should know, too, that the Trails down there are kind of close. Or even thin. And if you jerk it well, you can get to the trails even if you sneeze badly. But it's hard to get back out. And if you push all that shit back to where it came from?"

"You can't do that. I'm sorry." Hestia, of course, objects, but her objection sounds like an offer to justify a point of view, not a complete denial. "Besides, I'm sure this idea has been stipulated before you. And apparently found it too unreliable and dangerous. And you also don't consider the possibility that an entity entrenched in reality would not want to leave and that others like it would want to check out the reality. I may not defend the local civilian population or the Empire of the Ages itself, but this city does not annoy me enough to erase it from the face of the universe.

In response, the man almost became furious, just from the realization that he was not understood. So much for the problem of a small vocabulary. Some ideas and descriptions require too many allegorical examples that the average soldier is simply not capable of. Even if he hasn't been a soldier for a long time, and he's certainly not an ordinary soldier. I sort of understood him, but only through clairvoyance and a new title that allowed me to apply to myself the thinking of those associated with the Trails.

"How could you not understand!" A little more, and he'll start beating us up. "How can a pile of shit want anything? It's the Trails, and the fuckin' thing is a piece of the Trails, stuck in reality. It doesn't fuckin' want to stay here, and it doesn't want to leave because it can't think. We need to break a bigger hole, and even I'm strong enough to just poke it! Like a pile of manure stuck to the wall of a latrine, you poke it with a stick, and it goes bang!"

Poetic comparisons are clearly not his strong suit, and there are no options here. This metaphor put me in a better mood, it was so comically serious.

"You will not be a bard, my friend." It was as if Losius had read my mind.

"It might work, in principle." I intervene when I realize that without me, the argument will simply go in a sixth circle. "I have a couple of potions in my supply that can be quickly reworked to create a cloud of suspended matter that will weaken the boundaries between the Trails and the Reality. And even if a second breakthrough happens, I can just block it with a breakthrough in Shadow, superimposed on top of the first. And I know how to close the breakthroughs into Shadow. Moreover, let's say, let's call it a gate itself... the gate itself doesn't have to be huge, compared to the ones that would have absorbed all the catacombs together, as we originally planned."

"I can feel it in my ass that you're going to say but." Taria took advantage of the pause I'd taken. "Don't play clever, or we'll all believe you.

I kick the woman under the knee, which is not visible under the table, and try to formulate my doubts so that they can be understood even without being soaked to the throat with realm stuff.

"Hans, if he gets drunk to the point of intoxication with boosters, might push this thing home." Cautiously I begin. "What's more, it won't fight back since it doesn't know how or wants to, and it will only have to protect its brains from the background presence of this fucking thing. But even this presence is enough to sinter the brains of even very tough guys in the past, and not pathfinders, but just pure travelers and space mages, having epic classes in this branch of development. Well, if you believe the archives and diaries. But it's all really solvable with potions. I don't argue. I've made so much stuff during our time at the stanchion, often tailoring the compositions to each of us individually, that the chances of Hans are high. No lower than those of the dead."

"Then what are you so worried about, Tin?" Losius is actually calm, but curiosity is no stranger to him, and I'm deliberately stalling. "And I can see that you don't like the idea!"

"You may have forgotten, but our enemy has been sealed," I explain, which spoils the mood even more. "And as nasty as that seal is, it does its job, and it does it well. As long as the seal is in place, the entity isn't going anywhere. Just imagine that we're dealing with a handful of water on the kitchen table. While the water was smearing everything there, it was disturbing the owners of the house, and they, with great difficulty, poured it into a bowl since they just couldn't wipe it off. It's very elusive water, you know. And even if we now puncture the surface of the table in such a way that the river from which the water was taken flows from below... the water won't leave the cup. It would have to be broken."

Now they were getting it, and Hans was clearly getting discouraged because his plan seemed so simple and straightforward, just go ahead and do it. And now it turns out that the Imperials are not "so stupid," so they tried all the easy ways and failed. Isn't that a reason to be sad about the imperfection of being? That's what I think it is.

"Based on what you say, Tin, what we have to do is this: go down to the bottom of an underground labyrinth that has no exact map and is constantly changing right before our eyes, overpower the altered prisoners of the labyrinth, overpower the seal guards, break the seal, prevent the entity from changing its location and only then attempt to exorcise it. Am I the only one who thinks this is a task fit for a few dozen elite specialists rather than a single fighting star in our execution?"

Hestia is the voice of sanity in the dark realm of dementia and the courage of the Ultimate Hero crew. Very accurately described. Such a job should be done by dozens of covering and overlapping specialists, each of whom is engaged in only one role. And the preparation of the operation should not take two weeks but many months: since the essence is sealed, the time allows you to take your time. Oh, yes! The cooperation of local and regional authorities at every possible level should also be mandatory. In general, it is not like ours: by five dumb-headed woodpeckers in a couple of weeks and secretly from everyone and everything.

"Well, it looks like we have to do the impossible again." Losius sighed wearily, foppishly fixing his disheveled hair. "Honestly, I'm slowly getting used to it."

Before the raid, I heroically decided to give us all a few days' rest-working out the operation while sparing the magic pool, but it required a tremendous amount of brainwork. Even your humble self was exhausted, with all my concentration, to say nothing of my companions. Though we were all far from being truly exhausted, even a slight loss of efficiency during the planned action could have been fatal. What was in it for me? So I decided I didn't think so.

Where the others had gone, I caught only the edge of my consciousness, not concentrating too much on their adventures. Taria, of course, offered a very specific way to spend the holidays, and Hestia tacitly supported her, but I had some unfinished business, too. I'd better get them done before we go downstairs, or I might not get another chance.

* * *

The first thing he did was contact Cassie the Best Friend, who had already settled in the Kraj and was even well pumped up on the surrounding goblins - the first levels, for a mage of his caliber, are taken quickly, despite the lack of class. And goblins aren't the sort of opponents that would make him back down. Though he had no class-given skills at first, he had skills unaffected by the rebirth. And a Great Master of rituals and, as I understood from his mumbling and silence, a Legendary Reanimator and an equally Legendary Energy Control allow a lot. Add to this mix the titles that have not disappeared, giving quite decent characteristics, and you understand how tough this "kid" was.

Now, with a level fifteen and a first-class, at once legendary, I note, he could break three such as fifteen-level me... If his new undead retinue counted as an extension of his class. By the way, his legendary class is the same as the last one. Only the last one, in his past life, he took the second one, on the twenty-fifth, and the first one was epic.

"There's nothing surprising about that." He answered me during our conversation in Dream while remembering to keep all possible defenses in place. "Before my first body change, I possessed a rare and very rare epic class. In my second life, at level ten, I did not take my base class, choosing the familiar epic class immediately, thereby strengthening myself relative to myself, but past. So there was no doubt in my mind that I would have access to the Converting Ashes among my first choice tier."

"That's a good start," I comment politely, observing the rare spectacle of emotion on the face of my current interlocutor, even if the only emotion there is smugness. "But as I understand it, this class isn't much of a scientist."

"All the complexities of second class." he sighed once he'd diminished the glow of his ego. "The Master of Necroconstruction is undoubtedly far more suited to my purposes in life, but in the initial stages, it is far less suited to direct combat. The Converting Ashes are also quite good for experimentation, but initially, this class should be considered either pure combat or combat with elements of mass support of the second vector type. If you use the Mayar-Tolkmentia classification."

Note to self - find information about this classification and memorize it well. I hadn't given much thought to the fact that there could be entire facets of science devoted to the parsing and synergy of classes, titles, and skills. I had never heard of any, and his knowledge of the subject was detailed but not very profound. Hestia, too, remained more of a practitioner than a theorist. Her training, though more in-depth, was focused on the auxiliary and technical classes that she had previously possessed. The Necromancer, on the other hand, clearly knew close to, if not beyond, the encyclopedic level. All in all, it was unpleasant to feel like a redneck.

"There's no problem with camouflage? Kraj is very anxious about all newcomers, and they won't stop being paranoid anytime soon. They've had a lot of fun and blood there lately." Not that I'm that worried about this grandfather in a teenage body, but I wouldn't want to lose any help in the fight against the Weaver. "And the Adventurer's Guild should be hitting on anything suspicious right now first, then dealing with it later."

Now I really got him, not intentionally, but accidentally, by hitting a sore spot. His face turned into a frozen mask, and the ashes of pure destruction surrounding our section of Dream stirred unpleasantly like a huge gray octopus that had spotted its prey. Was it the Soul of the Mocker or something?

"Thank you, I've already heard." He answers briefly, instantly taking control of himself. "And about the massacre that took place here with the Altered Ones, guided by the will of something very ancient, and about the love of dumb-headed fools and brainless dilettantes for conflicting ways of solving any situation."

Did he have time to show up and start messing with the guilders? No, of course, he's badass, even now, but he could get into trouble. Or he could just light up a familiar shade of power and get Weaver's attention. If they don't kill him before.

"Can I help with the evacuation?" I offer, but with a questioning intonation so as not to push too much. "If it's really serious, you shouldn't stay in the Kraj any longer than necessary. A Necromancer of the legendary class would be a real pain in the neck to many, especially while he's still weak, even if that weakness is only superficial."

"It's not that serious." He shakes his head negatively but clearly takes my words at face value. "I fooled the guards at the entrance to the city and then managed to perform a Ghostly Disguise Ritual, hiding my Status from any interrogators who might check on me. Of course, I won't argue that the disguise is weaker than the one I could create before, but it's still satisfactory. A mere scribe would be the last to be suspected of forbidden sorcery. My emotions are triggered by the fact that the guild sniffers found and destroyed two of the three groups of constructs I created, depriving me of most of my cover. It became more difficult to obtain experience and new bodies for the subsequent retrospective animation. Not only because of the reduced number of the strike force, but also because of the usual hysteria of those in power - the undead hiding in the area, almost under the walls of the city, caused a lot of gossip in the Magistrate."

Well, I'm not surprised. No one likes the undead, and if they're brought to the city secretly, and it's not even clear who created them, then only the most fearless wouldn't look for their puppeteer. Caspian's problems are quite obvious and, more importantly, logical. I think he expected and prepared for them, otherwise, he wouldn't have divided his force into three parts. Only the turmoil and paranoia of those around them forced them to act ahead of schedule - the necromancer was not yet ready for a drastic confrontation.

"If you need shelter, deep in the wilderness, I have a... a small, shall we say, outpost." I decide to give out this card, realizing that it's almost played out, and if it's declassified, Hestia can get a new tribe to process it, too. "Not badly fortified and securely camouflaged. If the situation becomes absolutely critical, it's at your service."

He still doesn't trust what I say, and I'm sure he'd rather kill himself than risk going into a place he might not get out of without my help, but he takes note of the offer, putting it on his "last resort" list. I wouldn't want to see such a murky type in an orc camp, either. At the very least, out of fear for the muddy type's brains, not to mention his muddiness. And nevertheless, I made the offer rather to ease my conscience.

"I will keep your offer in mind." the necromancer replies. For the rest, I think that's all for today. I have to go to work if I do not want to arouse suspicion."

So we said our goodbyes and set a date for our next meeting. I had warned him long before the Tavimark affair had even begun. It might be necessary to cut off the loose ends at any moment. It was more important for me to check discreetly to see if my ally had found trouble for himself.

Fortunately, Cassie the Uncommunicative was a seasoned person. His legend was almost monolithic, and the ritual he performed easily fooled the local interrogators of the lower and middle ranks. The higher ranks didn't give a damn about the kid, even if he was clever and promising.

Still, he was a very tough expert, and he stayed that way. Suffice it to know that he could easily control his own undead without leaving the city. Yes, he stuffed the green-skinned bodies with special rituals and enchanted amulets on the fly, allowing him to increase his range at the cost of reduced combat power (there could have been enhancing rituals instead of the listed ones), but the fact itself! However, his undead is now no farther from the walls of Kraj than a two-day walk, and in his old lodge, he said, he sent his minions away for weeks in either direction at least. And this despite the fact that the undead could walk those few weeks almost nonstop. Level forty-nine, my ass! Almost a Hero, if it weren't for the Weaver.

He only went outside the walls when he wished to raise new units, and he did it not too often so as not to arouse the suspicions of those around him. He even brewed a few cauldrons of the embalming potion of good quality and gave the potion to his dead men so they could preserve the most desirable bodies. Fresh ones would certainly rise better, and the undead from them would be stronger. But for the time being, he did not need particularly strong undead because he could not keep control over powerful creations around the clock. And he had no intention, yet, of attracting anyone's attention with sacrificial rises. For a moment, still living and breathing material makes the best undead.

I wish to pump like that.

I could summon Shadows, keep them under control, and even get some of the experience of those they kill just by right of Overlord, but I had a lot of trouble doing that. And keeping several squads under control at once, around the clock, and continuously... the experience wasn't worth the cost. They were also quite a handful of other undead, especially the ones they created with his own hands and wrapped in restraining seals, which made them a perfect medium for the purpose. Necromancers are often called puppeteers - or was it corpse masters? - Because their class is designed for that sort of thing. Sit in the Dark Citadel, gazing into the Palantir of Might, while your Dead Legions do your work. No wonder it's the class that so attracts all sorts of power-hungry sadists and butchers.

It's even strange that Cassie Kill Kin Kill Friends is so adequate.

I checked almost all my old acquaintances, starting with my former hired worker, who is a grandfather storyteller, and his grandchildren (level eight in both, and the alchemists guild prophesies great future for both), continuing drunken lover of spice (already became a monk as much as level seventeen), thanks to him too, and ending the victim of degeneration, which Sigismund whatever.

The latter was still completely blocked by Weaver's creatures, but Weaver himself was still not trying to devour him. I saw some incomprehensibility here, but I couldn't get a grip on it without attracting attention. I had the impression that the boy saw the directed attention perfectly but did not fear it. Or rather, he did, but it was as if... he knew he had something to respond to. And this despite the fact that compared to Weaver, he was not even a pig against an elephant, but an ant against an armored train. Note that the ant is now sitting on the tracks of this armored train, even along with all his anthill.

And not a single attempt to replace one of the servants or just civilians with his creature, not a hint of creating behavioral bombs or a direct attack. That's a bit atypical of him. I'll tell you that.

The search for the mysterious "patron" of Weaver, who covers up the ancient abomination in the real world, is still hampered by the need to hit the threads that would cause someone else's attention. I should somehow talk to the boy himself, or better yet, to his father, for it matures in me to believe that they have already learned who was working against them in the gold mine story. And I already suspect that this character is exactly the same person as the suicide I was looking for (who else would agree to work with such bullshit?).

A separate headache and heartache, I would even say butt ache, was some disgusting visionary working for the same suicide. It wasn't Weaver, I tell you! It was a presence I would have recognized, and the response of the seer was too unprofessional compared to Weaver's. And in general, the presence and awareness of this type were very strange. And this is coming from Kostik, who has seen all sorts of things and not from anyone!

To begin with, this one did not see through the usual network or chain of associations, as ninety-nine of the hundred visionaries I met did. His attention was like a negative that appeared on photographic film - there was none, and now it was there all at once. And such a contagion was able to penetrate almost any attempt to draw someone else's attention away from me, as all seers and myself were accustomed to doing. It was very helpful to use not advanced clairvoyance but unexistence, which allowed me not to manifest myself on this tape, pretending to be just another blind spot of a big and fat nothing.

Such peculiar breakthroughs of knowledge and understanding were rare, obviously difficult to control, but very dangerous for a standard visionary who was simply powerless before such an unusual attack, which is not an attack and does not feel like a premonition like an attack. Either a very pumped Legend or a lower bar of Mythic, no less.

It has only now (after receiving the title) come to my attention that this was the very use of prophetic trance when you are led not by your consciousness but by something else, suspiciously similar to the universe itself. Only where I got such a gift from the title and through the payment of pain, and yet in a relatively narrow field, this character worked from his class within a very broad framework. Definitely not a fighter, more like an anti-fighter, for I can't imagine someone whose mind is in such a peculiar state all the time being able to fight at all. Such a mind is not suited to a short-lived conflict. But if you give such a person time to prepare, there will be no fight at all because the attackers will not reach the door of the house.

I could trick him, I could find him, I could twist him, I could gut him, for sure. I'm no weaker at pure clairvoyance. I just use a different paradigm. And I'm a specialist in concealment and visionary warfare, come to think of it. The only thing is that all this man's connections to the gold mine and the House of Lanorsk are covered up by the very fact of his existence, Weaver. I can't concentrate on the search under these conditions, right?

But still, I was able to catch the quiet, barely perceptible imprint of someone else's image. The image that makes up the main portrait of a visionary as an expert and by which one can find that expert.

...the quiet rustle of paper and fabric...

...the smell of paint and incense...

...silent and inaudible singing of wool brushes...

...a web of threads of understanding and intricate chains of events...

I was, I'll be frank, lucky. I was lucky to take advantage of the tiny gap between the vectors of evil and concentrated attention. I was lucky to notice the tiniest second of a mistake made by a visionary so long ago that it had already dissolved into the streams of the past. But the reflection, the almost unreadable crooked mirror that showed the image from the image, I managed to find. So old and insignificant that even the attention of Weaver's creatures could not keep them under control yet.

But I had an imprint of it.

And now that I have it, I'm going to start looking for where else this visionary, and along with him, his master, who had the foolishness to contact Weaver, might have been lit up.

And I'll find him. I'm going to find the asshole from the other, unexpected side, so I can jam something sharp into his buttock. Or in the organ that replaces his buttocks.

I also visited the almost-forgotten Arenam, secretly hoping that my bloodsucker had been quickly and cruelly put to death in the meantime. But in my mind, I knew that such an outcome was unlikely. I had given her too much power, too much strength, to be killed unnoticed by the clairvoyance that was always ready to tell me. Even I would get in trouble for giving her a good fight before she died if I couldn't kill her immediately with the first blow. A standard squad of local Ivan Helsinki would just eat her up without even making a fuss.

The expectations were justified. The creature was alive, alive, and awake to the point of obscenity. The mutation Hestia had given her did not remove the need to suck blood entirely, but it did weaken it. She had to suck something else to compensate, though. I was ready for anything, but she had a strange and inhumanly pragmatic way of thinking.

If she wanted sustenance, blood or otherwise, she had a network of debtors left over from her dead patron, ready (with all the horror and despair that goes with it) to work off their debts. She chose two young boys from the tannery to pump the seed. These guys have simply exorbitant parameters of endurance for their level, and they are healthy, like moose. And for the fact that their little sister, who had received a terrible curse from a crazy old witch (she had been stoned to death for all the good she did without brothers' intervention, which they were very upset about), had recovered and continued to please her parents, they were even willing to donate.

However, the creature only used them for the first week and a half. She remembered to mess with their brains so the poor people would not remember the feeding process itself. They always did that to almost everyone, just out of natural conspiracy. Only, for a change, these particular sessions her victims would prefer to remember.

Even before the regular essence sucking began to have negative effects, she had found the perfect donor for the next six months at least. Well, the brothers were temporarily left alone, much to their delight. Although, if she hadn't distorted their memory, they might have been upset.

Serge "Red" Cmanstyr was one of the most notorious bosses of the local urban bottom. Having come to Arenam from somewhere in the south, he was clearly used, if not to the capital, then to much busier cities. At least they hadn't tried to kill him in Arenam for some of his old sins. He was a colorful-looking man, about six feet tall, with a shaved head and tattoos covering his entire body, which were not simple tattoos, but something more interesting.

It was his boss who decided that he was the first to know that the bloodsuckers had been thinned to near extinction. Thank goodness he was stupid enough not to report his findings (which would have led to a legitimate interest in those involved in reducing the bloodsucking population) but to decide as if he had caught luck by the tail. Isn't this the moment to mooch off the sweet and almost derelict antique market and the thousand times sweeter amulet market?

All in all, good old-fashioned racketeering and business churn in the style of the nineties of my homeland. Red and a dozen of the toughest thugs got together for the job. My influence on the brains and general mood of the city was still noticeable by then, so he had to make do with his own forces rather than call in allies or hire someone from the assassins' guild. The thugs were outfitted with silver concentrates and a medium-quality holy attribute. Was summoned a local priest to put a long and extremely tricky buff on them for a small fee, and Red was given a few quite good artifacts.

If the old creature had remained proudly alone, they could have killed it. The odds are about one to three against them, and only if they fight during the day and the creature doesn't retreat to avoid a fight, but they could. Father Konzo was counting on the creature retreating without a fight. The creature isn't stupid enough to fight to the death in a hopeless fight because there's no way it can sit still in its place. He knew a lot about pragmatism and the psychology of creatures, having calculated all the risks.

All in all, the bloodsucker has had enough blood for a couple of months, even if she has to make active use of her talents. And Red fell into captivity, pleasant and sweet, no doubt, but ruinous in the same measure. In the time that had passed, the healthy man had turned not so much into a vegetable but dumbed down very badly - a consequence of the threefold brainwashing and cascades of pleasure given to him by his captures. He does not even think about escape now, dreaming only of another visit from her to his cell (quite a comfortable room, in fact).

It's true that his characteristics got a lot of debuffs, some of which are permanent, and once level thirty-one rolled back to twenty-six. Well, they sucked all the extra stuff out of him. He'll live another three years if he doesn't try too hard, but I'd bet on a year and a half. For the force majeure my "fan" still has. I would resent such a fate for the endowed, for even a pleasant death in the clutches of a creature is a death in the clutches of a creature, no more and no less. Honestly, I would resent it! If Red weren't such a person I personally would wish to be fed not to a bloodsucker sucking his levels, but to some Shadow, and one that would manage to stretch out the "pleasure".

As for Father Konzo, he was very sad and, a week later, was quietly strangled by his deputy after receiving the heads of his men in the morning and losing the lion's share of his fighters and the best of the best. His deputy understood perfectly well that it was better to be a live underling of the new boss than to die with the old one. He betrayed him for nothing - he was not spared anyway. He had crossed too many people's paths while he was Konzo's, right-hand man.

His territory was divided, and Father Bachai, an old foe of Konzo's, who had taken almost all of it, was forced to give up some of what he had grabbed. For no one was going to allow him to strengthen too much. The old rascal came up with a funny idea on how to heat the competition. He seemed to give it away, but he didn't. He presented some of it to the one who had put the last boss up to it. Still had to throw a bone to the other Fathers, but he liked the trick he used.

So now my bloodsucker has two very low-ranking brothels under his control, one good opium smokehouse, and Father Bachai has a couple of commands in his brain and a vague memory of a very intimate dream. That motherfucker would rather kill himself than give up anything, especially to a bloodsucker. And don't give a fuck about her "help" in defeating an old foe. Especially since his "generous gesture," though it tempered the fervor of his rivals, still reduced his share.

The creature was technically within her rights to claim for the attempted attack, so the other Fathers grimaced but acknowledged her right to meddle in her new business project. A few overnight visits and the use of the gifted talents had nothing to do with it, gentlemen, I'm telling you, nothing at all! And so the bloodsucker managed to gain a little more power in the city without causing much unrest, except for her visits to a few more personalities, mostly from the guards' command staff or the magistrate's high ranks

That's how they live.

I stopped looking at my unwanted girlfriend's past and moved on to the present, only to be a little freaked out by the view that opened up. She was sitting in her room in the gloomy and well-protected mansion, not changing it and moving into the dead creator's quarters. The only new detail was a gorgeous rose mirror, a direct hint that she would welcome my company at any time.

The bloodsucker was completely naked, revealing all the unhuman and unnatural beauty, the sinister appeal of her new appearance. Without apparent tension, balancing on the two legs of a heavily carved chair, she was reading some documents, making notes in them with one hand. Her other hand held a rather long and thick phallus, made, as clairvoyance shows, of alchemically treated stone, which made the stone flexible and soft, the parameters so necessary for such a thing.

The phallus plunged into her mouth down her throat and beyond, making her roll her eyes, pulling back her cheeks and lips, massaging the inside of her mouth, or simply touching her dark maroon, almost black lips with its drooling tip, pulling them apart only for a moment before pulling back. There was little eroticism in these manipulations, replaced by practicality and concentration. Even her regular orgasms were taken for granted, even if they made her cramp her perfect body, interrupting her paperwork.

For her, it was not only a pleasure but also a kind of buff because after orgasm, she temporarily reduced the consumption of stored essence, and Hestia's mutation made her mouth and lips a solid erogenous zone. What followed was pure pragmatism, only very pleasing to the bloodsucker. For an ordinary human, even one of the ecstatic peaks she had experienced would have burned her brains out if not killed her. But for a creature accustomed to torrents of pleasure from the blood it consumed, it was the simple equivalent of a good fuck, nothing more.

Something was mesmerizing about her methodical and purposeful self-satisfaction. I must admit. Even though my physical body was absent from the vision, I was still hooked for a few minutes. Her occupation was not interrupted even by a maid who entered, bringing some important report. Surprised and embarrassed the girl a lot because the bloodsucker neither dressed nor hide the phallus pulled out only for a short conversation between the boss and her subordinate the creature was not going to. She took the papers and sent the servant away, red as a boiled crayfish. She again drove her toy down her throat and began to scribble something on the paper.

And her servant was not even brainwashed, just very loyal and deeply indebted to the bloodsucker herself. She did nothing more than renew the seals on her mind to prevent her from talking and ignoring the interrogation. The maid herself was tempted to ask why her mistress had changed and corrupted so much, but she was a good maid who didn't ask unnecessary questions. And she was also very vaguely aware of the work of all kinds of Slavemancer and Whoremancers (a fucked-up name for an equally fucked-up class in a very fucked-up world!), or she would have had some very unpleasant suspicions in her head. Although even in that case, she probably would have kept silent - because it's scary to imagine the level of that Whoremancer, who could so distort and corrupt a cold-blooded and always paranoid-cautious creature and unnoticed by the creature itself.

As I was leaving, I asked the clairvoyant where the bloodsuckers had gotten this toy. It turns out that it was one of the trophies taken from the dead Bonzo. At one time, he wanted to buy these for his brothels (the higher quality ones, not the ones the bloodsucker got as a result of the assassination attempt) and even ordered the first samples. The idea didn't take off, and the sample (a real quality product, by the way) was left lying in some corner, where it was picked up by the creature, who was tired of satisfying herself with an all-metal cudgel ordered from the blacksmith (through intermediaries). It was not proper for the stern and spiteful boss to ask her servants directly to bring her a dildo!

I left the observation point without giving any indication that I'd ever visited the abomination, and then I fell out into the real world. The world greeted me with a slight, almost insensible heaviness in my head and a tightness in my pants. Somehow, during my stay in the city, I almost never indulged in any kind of entertainment, and I was about to go into a very hard battle!

I step through Shadow into Taria's room, who had already returned from a not-so-strenuous shopping trip, and, in the nick of time, slap her on the buttock just out of mischief.

I dodge the daggers easily, ignore a dozen blurry images by simply stepping aside, and then she realizes that it wasn't an attack by a treacherous enemy but the retardation of a particular Kostenka. It was a simple townswoman and bandit who could be frightened by such pranks, but today's Taria can cut in the heat of the moment - she's mature now, high-level, and sharp as a dive bomber.

"Tin, damn!" In her voice, one can feel both a slight fright for my life (as if she really could have killed me!), a certain amount of shame for the awkward situation, and just an ocean of righteous rage for forcing her to experience the previous two emotions. "Why the fuck are you being so scary!!!?"

Instead of answering, I simply pulled her in for a kiss, and then I got that very kiss, which turned into an embrace and an attempt to climb onto me right on the floor before I even made it to the bed. And only after a couple of minutes, when we crawled up to the bed and even began to throw off her clothes, she pulled away and looked at me suspiciously.

"Are you sure you're Tin?" She seems to be joking, but her eyes are very serious, and her posture is such that you can fix me and expose my hypnotic breasts instantly. "Because this kind of passion from someone who can only be dragged to get laid under the threat of cruel and inexorable reprisal is a little surprising. How do you prove you're Tin, hmm?"

I was freaking out in indignation, not knowing what to do for such a move, and only when the woman once again twisted seductively, as if casually touching the neckline of the dress, I realized that she, in general, the hell is not a joke!

"Taria, are you crazy?" I asked as gently as possible because I wanted to say something more rude and sophisticated.

"Yeah, there's a little bit, sorry." She relaxes, whereupon, without even stirring my gut, she rips her bodice open and spills her bust right out in my face.

The wave of surprise washed over me like a wave of tranquility, and the dots of static appeared in my eyes as if they were barely visible. A strange relaxation of the body and a blissful emptiness in my head. It is strange. The last time I was under her influence, I did not notice anything at all, coming to my senses long afterward.

"Now, honey, tell me, who the fuck are you?" There's steel and nervousness in Taria's voice, and she's clearly thinking hard about something.

The answers were already beginning to slip from my tongue simply because, in this state, I couldn't see any reason not to do her will. What followed was more of a reflex, coming not from consciousness but from somewhere in the depths of myself. Instead of the familiar gaze, the monochrome grayness of the Gaze fills my eyes, burning away the cobwebs of talent that have fallen into them. A step into the Shadow pulls me out from under the pleasant weight of a woman's body. My arms are already wrapped up to my shoulders in black and clawed paws that are Shadow. Behind my back appear either wings or clumps of predatory tentacles of the same Shadow Form, and every shadow in the room becomes extremely sharp and ready to cut the fragile human figure into slices at any moment.

And at that moment, I realized that right now I was going to kill my comrade-in-arms, and somehow I didn't even think about holding back a blow. That, I understand, Kostya gets high.

I fell out into the real world in full human form, even with my normal disguise restored, looking at Taria, pale and still flashing her tits, whose instincts could not help but warn me of death on the brink. Yes, I hid behind unexistence, but when the blow is this close, it's almost impossible to block the sense of danger. Even though it's a basic skill that can't look far ahead and is very narrowly sharpened, the difficulty in blocking it is its main trick.

We just stared at each other for a few seconds while my friend gradually returned to her normal complexion, and I slowly realized the comicality of the situation. Well, how nearly "friendly fire" can be comical.

"Was my molestation so out of character?" All I could squeeze out of myself was turning off my Gaze and covering my eyes.

Even the fact that my resistance to mental influences seems to have long since been able to reset the subjugating skills of the near-legendary grades on its own doesn't make me too happy. Especially since it is because a relaxed and subdued mind cedes control to the instincts sent by the Shadow realm. It's a good thing it ended without blood and tragedy because Kostik just wanted to get laid...

"Tin, no offense, but until I got you into bed, I had a very strong suspicion that you were, well, into boys, anyway." In response to my eyes popping out of their sockets and the hissing of words stuck in my throat, she just waved her hand.

"Your own fault! And anyway, Losius was betting that you were what's-his-name, a gasexuval... in short, the one who doesn't fuck anyone at all."

Well, Losius! Well, you'll see!

"Asexual, you say?" I pull slowly and somewhat irritably, and then I move closer to Taria and simply throw the happy, squeaky woman onto the bed and slap her buttocks with a loud slap.

To her credit, she made up for it in every possible position. In which she was aided by the return of Hestia. The ex-military woman only hummed, raising her eyebrows, and then simply stepped out of her clothes, assuming a vague form for a second. I ignored Taria's naked breasts, covering my eyes in time, and on those occasions when I didn't, she simply didn't have time to command me anything. Hestia, on the other hand, was affected a couple of times, but even if she noticed the mishap, she didn't react in any way.

The evening ended with a gorgeous double blowjob for me. Hestia, despite her calm character and not-too-emotional face, was even better at it than Taria, and she was more relaxed than I was. Did she learn it from the orcs? I was too embarrassed to ask such a question - submission is the submission, but I wouldn't risk asking such questions of someone whose teeth were so close to my innermost self, even if I could regenerate. And she also managed to take the seed spewed on her face with such a look, reinforced by a slight smile, as if she were receiving an order right now at the Emperor's party.

We were met by Losius and Hans, sitting in the "common" room (it's like a separate living room for our group, rented for a pittance along with the regular rooms), half-dressed and so happy that Hans immediately threw some fruit in my face, next to which a lemon looks like chocolate. He'd thrown it at Taria, though, for all intents and purposes - she was shining as second sunshine. And Hestia, too, is radiant with contentment, even if I can only consider it after a long time with her - that's who needs to play cards in our company.

"Lucky bastard." Just commented the tracker, pulling up the veal pie he'd already started for dinner.

I was in such a good mood that I didn't even have to remind Losius of his insulting suggestion about my preferences. There was nothing wrong with my preferences! I was so peaceful, in fact, that if I'd had a molesting Ygra near me, I could have made her happy, too... I guess. Okay, maybe I went a little overboard here, but not too much.

"The luckiest asshole in observable space." I nodded accordingly, holding both beauties close to me. "The luckiest."

We decided to enter the catacombs from the side of the river port, since that was the easiest place to dive down, bypassing the upper levels. We're not the youth guard of the Night Fathers, or a new set of guards or adventurers, to pump up the initial levels in the ecosystem there. We don't need the upper tiers, we need to get to the bottom. There's a local Sponge Bob waiting for us.

"Who lives at the bottom of the ocean?" I grumbled quietly to myself, lamenting my own idiocy that has made me risk my isekai ass once again.

Some day I'm going to get my ass bitten, at best, if not fucked right in the spreading buns. Alurei is like that, just relax your asshole and it'll go to the audience. Nervous thoughts don't help at all, so I habitually push them away, starting to check the potion kits for the third time. The first one, the longest one, we've already drunk. It should make it easier to take the next ones, as well, and at the same time, increase the effect of the subsequent sets. And which one will be accepted depends on how the main stage of our dangerous work goes.

"I have no idea. Maybe some sea creatures, scary as an elderly regimental whore." Hans answers absent-mindedly, trying to wipe green stains off the sleeve of his alchemically fortified jacket. "Don't you have anything to remove the stains? The paint stinks so bad it'll make all the monsters go wild."

Instead of answering, I simply ran my hand along his sleeve, watching the stains crumble into black dust while handing over a small bottle of scent eliminator. It's not just Hans's jacket that needs to be sprayed anyway, but all of us, and he knows it.

"Thank you, Tin." Shaking himself off, the tracker quickly dripped the colorless liquid on his shoulders and his boots before handing the potion concentrate to Taria, standing next to him. "Why did you ask about the sea?"

"It's just an old poem that came to mind." My mind was already deep in the catacombs, and I needed to finish my preparations. "You better tell me, where did you manage to get soiled?"

"Some men left a bucket of paint on the stairs, and I was just fixing the ties on my sides and didn't notice." Grumbled the man, irritated by his clumsiness. "I went out on the trail from the spat trash, but it came out so unluckily that it got right on my sleeve."

"Are you going to be messing around in there much longer?" Losius interrupted him, polishing his trusty sword with a bored look (Anons, no need to comment). "For a little while longer, I'm going to get a job as a loader. Just about finished by the time you make up your mind."

"Oh, that's it!" Weighty objected with an irrefutable argument. "Ready in three minutes."

This tunnel was, first of all, old. Second, it was unattended, and, most importantly, easily accessible. The guards had put up a heavy oak door padded with iron plates, and they'd forgotten all about it. The door perfectly protected against anything that wanted to crawl out of the catacombs, and all kinds of criminal and not-so-criminal elements did not really need this passage. There were enough others, located in a convenient place, the doors of which had their own copies of the keys.

I could have crawled through one of those gaps that didn't close at all, but those were, for the most part, in the slum area and made for a long detour. It was easier to open the rusty lock with shadows and, after covering a section of space with a dome of silence in the hall, quietly go inside and close the door back. Any one of us could open it or knock it out if we went back the same way.

And if no one comes back, it'd better stay closed.

Underfoot, dusty and old stone, soaked with remnants of ancient sorcery belonging to a long forgotten people, ahead only the darkness of the catacombs, the fangs of the monsters living there, and the endless labyrinth generated by a strange and incomprehensible phenomenon, sealed by the price of the sacrifice, which one naive fool decided to consider excessive, and other fools chose to support him in this opinion.

There's only one more battle ahead and plenty of opportunities to die on the spot, ending my story in the most logical way possible. Only in adventure books do heroes always conquer any misfortune, with no problems and no losses, but am I, not the goddamn Hero to implement, in my life, the plots from these books.

So far, all I've gotten are horror stories, but there must be some use for my unwanted position and the title that painted a target the size of a suitcase on my ass, right? Well, other than a great chance to die a thousand ways without getting off the couch?

* * *