Chapter 7

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"Tin, are you sure you can hold this abomination?" In the voice of the eternally pompous and refined child of House Asterium, there was a nervousness that could hardly be concealed.

My comrade asked a good and necessary question, especially given where his gaze was directed, now running and prickly, like a hedgehog fat on steroids. His eyes followed the more than two hundred vile and eternally hungry creatures summoned to reality by the will of a terrorist and murderer who had lost his mind. By me, in case you haven't figured it out yet.

"Yes, Losius," I answer calmly and indifferently, though not out of confidence or fearlessness, but out of fear of relinquishing control of my creation for even a second. "The tension is tolerable enough, even if it is above my recovery."

This thing, as it is now, and not in drafts that exist only in my sick imagination, was suggested by Hestia. For which her turbulent army background is to be thanked. Actually, a sacrificial planar citadel based on summoned immaterial entities should not be created alone, but by a whole star of mages of the right specialty and planar leanings, plus a couple or three stars of ordinary mages acting as amplifiers of the ritual. The resulting barrier, which looks more like a temporary enclosed field, usually covers a fairly large area and is static. I have no sacrifices, and even if I did, I wouldn't use such crap, nor would I have a shadow mage star, unless you count my own "star sickness" as a star. But I liked the idea from the first words.

"It seems to me that this one... and this one, and that one, and those things over there are looking at me strangely." The nobleman, whose connection to Heaven automatically made any interaction with such "dark" planes an extremely unpleasant experience, couldn't stop getting on my nerves. "And it doesn't seem to me at all."

A static citadel, obviously, did not satisfy my requirements, but where there was no clear description of the ritual and no verified contracts with the Elder Shadows, my class, and my Right came into play, allowing me to give the Shadows quite clear orders, which they could either execute, execute quickly, or die in agony. Oddly enough, they chose the first two.

"'Losius, I give you my word, they're all staring at you, and not weirdly, but greedily, with the goal of eating your soul. A slight irritation erupted in his voice but was immediately suppressed by an effort of will. "They're Shadows, not kittens! If they'd been quiet and didn't even try to get off the chain, then I'd be worried.

To be fair, only a small number of the more elite species of shadow creatures made any attempt to not even throw off my control, but simply to try it out. The main mass, the inferior or weak planar creatures, were figuratively afraid to fart without my will. Since my last summons, I've grown both in level and in overall coolness, especially in terms of summoning all manner of bad things for the purposes of the evil ones.

There was nothing for me to do at the camp, so I had to develop and practice my abilities in those areas I had wisely neglected before. Shadow Manifestation fell into that category, so I had a knack for it. And after I had succeeded in summoning and even subduing - intimidating, torturing, and nearly disembodied - the summoned shit, a full-fledged High Shadow, my authority with the creature had risen to a far higher level than I'd ever imagined possible. The feeling of toxic anger, mixed with the sticky fear the creatures felt toward me, did not add to my mood, but it did guarantee some sort of obedience.

"Look, if you don't hold them back, can you drive them out?" It looks like Losius's nerves are acting up... Or am I just underestimating the impact of having so many evil entities around and on the heaven-soaked Losius, too. "And what happens to control when we start fighting?"

I sighed and cursed in my head while I continued to calm the suddenly panicked Duelist. I understand him in many ways because even without the conflict of forces, such a crowd of abomination can not leave indifferent any sane person. More than two hundred and more creatures, against the thinning line between Shadow and Reality, would make even the bravest individual ponder the eternal.

The creation I created was unique in many ways, even if it didn't give me any class upgrades yet. I just hadn't done it before, but that didn't mean I couldn't do it - the strain on my head wasn't even too great. My fighting style doesn't involve standing still and hurling all sorts of evil spells at my opponent, and I've used summons on a residual basis.

Now we, that is, our whole group, were sheltered by a thing that could be compared to a miniature fortress and a mobile one at that. My "citadel" covers a relatively small area, and its longevity depends more on me than on the ritual circuit, but its power is such that we can sit in it for a few strategic siege attacks. Then, of course, we'll be wiped out, but we'll be able to withstand a couple of hits without a problem.

Two dozen full-fledged Shadows formed the core of the citadel, supervised by five Elders. All of their skills were sharpened into fairly rare branches of controlling small planar creatures, allowing them to increase the effectiveness of single weak (relatively) creatures to the level of a shoal of piranhas on steroids. The second branch of their skills was the creation of very peculiar barriers. Not the usual direct manipulation of shadow matter that such entities usually use, but something in between spatial disruption and a very clever twist on Creation and Manifestation.

When performed by a single Shadow, even an Elder Shadow, such protection would never be on par with a more familiar shadow barrier. But allowing the Shadows to work together, forcing them to weave their efforts into a coherent system... Let's just say that I could still do that on my own, without the aid of summonses, even if it wasn't easy. But it would be hard to keep that shit up in combat, distracted by the battle, not to mention the strain on the reserves, which would be much worse.

I now use only the most basic Manifestation, thinning the line between realm and reality, which wastes almost no personal energy. Keeping stable contracts with the Elder Shadows, despite my vision fading to monochrome and my heart aching with piercing cold, strains my mind, not my reserves. And the normal summonses, which are controlled by contracted Shadows, require nothing at all but my presence - all the perks of being an Overlord. Their sticky fear and hatred of that which is stronger than themselves presses on my brain with annoyance and headache but does not threaten to devour my humanity in the near future.

Outwardly, at first glance, no manifestation of our protection is visible - all the creatures, for the time being, are hidden in the native realm, even if they float on the very edge of incarnation in reality. Thanks to the thinning of the fringe, such incarnation requires neither time nor expense from them. Only reaction and Shadow's reaction are magnificent. If there were any sensors around us, it would sense something bad going on around us, like a dark cloud obscuring the sun and following us. Someone with a hundred and fifty Perception would have noticed how the shadows darken and sharpen with our every step, would have realized that the throwing shadows from the light of the alchemical lamps (just a long flask with a glowing liquid) was somewhat wrong that the movements of these shadows were not at all subject to the reflections of light and that the shadows themselves seemed almost alive. But, besides us, there was no one here but the distorted ones trapped in the labyrinth, and we would be forced to go out on them anyways.

But as soon as something tries to attack, that attack, whether physical or magical, collides with an instantly manifested segment of the shadow body, which will simply swallow it up. Not as an ultimatum as a rift, true, but much more stable and generally safer. Well, as far as shadow techniques can be safe for the user at all.

I have long noticed that truly powerful attacks and shields if I wish to create them quickly or even instantly, require either a great deal of concentration or the implantation of a few Shadows into the technique, which will take over the control and aiming. Even during a battle with the guardians of a forgotten megalith, I noticed when I was able to throw a huge block of stone stuffed with captive souls and ancient magic into a Shadow with a single blow.

It's a pretty simple tactic for me-I can easily command the Shadows with just a fraction of my reserve or for nothing at all. They will obey, even if they try to free themselves from the chains of my Call, especially if I use them as a kind of brander. Or rather, the pilot of said brander. A sort of kamikaze of planar spawn.

I wasn't too lazy to ask how other shadow mages dealt with this crap. The first thing I discovered was that, for the majority of those mages, such techniques are not available at all. And the rest considered them as analogs of strategic and tactical charms and ritual strikes, and with good reason. Those who came out both in level, reserve, and balls can be a bit tricky.

Someone ties the Shadow with ritual chains, preparing a quasi-life projectile for his cannon in advance; someone manages to trick the Shadow; someone, like me, can push the Shadow through with his bare will, albeit at a much higher cost. There are even those who make contracts with very special Shadows - ranked no lower than Elder - who possess the ability to create small Shadows from their flesh and the soul fragments of the sacrifice they've made. The dirtiest but also the most reliable method because such disposable Shadows are controlled directly by the "creator". That is, the mage performs the blow, infusing it with power and structuring it into the desired form, and the Shadow, sitting in the depths of the realm, controls his creations, directing the already prepared blow.

Such creatures are very rare, for very few of them have the stamina to work regularly with the humans that any Shadow wishes to devour. However, the victims are always plentiful - such contracts are rare, useful, profitable, and sometimes supported by entire guilds. The tactical charms of the Shadow School are very powerful compared to simpler ones in control realms.

I'm not even talking about such options as full-fledged cults serving Shadow creatures. Yes, such badasses are very rare, if only because the Shadows, unlike the Devils, rarely bother with such a cult. But those who do... I can tell you that, for the most part, these organizations do not serve the High Shadows but are much older and scarier members of that tribe. Ancient Shadow... I wouldn't risk summoning such a thing - exactly summoning it, not shoving it out to be eaten by another creature like that creep from Kraj. And I won't risk it for a long, long time. In a perfect case, I would never risk it at all, but when have I ever had perfection?

Going back to the current situation, under the protection of the citadel, we were protected from any normal threat, but we remember how abnormal the Spawn of the Trails is, don't we? That's why I went to all the trouble of active Manifestation: to create a section of reality that is more Shadow than reality. And when that damn anomaly tries to claim that piece of space, I will be able to contest those rights. At the very least, I'm sure we can all get away fast. The impact of the Labyrinth is very massive but not concentrated enough to push me through too quickly. Ideally, it wouldn't be able to push me through at all, but still, I wouldn't risk assuming that - a Legend, even if you think you're as cool as Chuck himself, is still a Legend, even if it's very unusual.

We walked quietly, even Losius, who managed to pull himself together. But even though I was sure we weren't making any noise, I couldn't shake the intrusive feeling that you were being watched from all sides at the same time. Even if it was the rock of the narrow gut of another tunnel. I had already read about this effect in the literature I had gathered before the raid, so I was not surprised at this turn. Neither was I happy, though - there was a shaky hope that the citadel would also protect me from detection.

Alas, we are now literally inside our enemy, even at the very edge of its existence zone, and therefore it cannot physically miss us. It doesn't sense human souls or sensory field signatures but any influence on the space under its control. Even with my control over the piece of reality, I'd enchanted... it's like ripping out a part of a living body and hoping that the owner of the body itself doesn't notice it. I hope that my creation, on the contrary, will not cause increased rejection and subsequent attacks. Though, that would be even better - the sooner we damage the living anchor holding the anomaly in place, the sooner we can begin the exorcism process.

If I wanted to sneak in here unnoticed, a much better option would be to try to crawl through the deeper layers of Shadow. Though, then I might not find the right spot in the mush that the catacomb space looks like because of the influence of the anomaly. I might as well walk while I had the chance. Through the Shadow, if necessary, I could escape, dragging the group with me when I decided that the task was beyond us.

It was our ladies, Taria and Hestia, that worried me the most. Losius could, like myself, burn his way out with a planar stream, and Hans looked pretty good in this feast of life, but the girls were much less secure. Taria clutched the dagger tightly in one hand and clutched at Valerium with the other. Her face was focused, without a trace of her usual slyness, and her eyes were searching around for a target to shoot in the head.

Hestia has taken a partly misty form, for her human form still makes her rather vulnerable. She now appears as a misty figure of a beautiful maiden, with a misty shawl falling from her shoulders. That shawl stretches along the ground following her, then rises and stretches upward toward the ceiling, covering the group with a kind of hood. Not even a shred of it touches us, but it easily suffocates someone else in its weightless embrace. The essence of her gifted talent, as well as some personally earned, allows her to work with space as well, but it is too limited. Moreover, her talent takes time to take root, and in this place, no one lets it take root.

According to Hestia herself, if it weren't for my dome, even being on the edge of the anomaly would cause her quite tangible damage - space here is constantly twitching, like an image on an old tube TV set, though not tearing the mist cloud, but peeling from it piece by piece. She could have prevented this by unleashing her full power and coming into contact with the Mist simply by removing the familiar constant of space from the equation. There is nothing in the Mist but the Mist itself, and Hestia could partially mimic the conditions of this realm. But in order to do so, she needs to stop moving and start rooting, stopping the progression. And it is too early to stop it.

Since Hestia would not be able to participate in the battle in such a state, she assumed the duties of our grenadier. Most of the alchemical grenades were given to her, with orders to use them for their intended purpose. I left for myself only the most fierce compounds, which I feared to give into the other's hands.

The fourth level of the catacombs was passed, and we were descending into the realm of the anomaly, where no one goes, and those who go - do not return. There is no map, and there can be no map, no clear plan of action, no support, and no brains, it seems.

"I bet my sword that this place was originally not a catacomb, but a laboratory or even a research complex." Losius, assessing the surrounding scenery, was not shy about making his own assumptions.

Personally, I would have thought he'd lost his sword because there's still not much room here for the medieval equivalent of a research institute. Yes, the halls and aqueducts here are much larger than the minimum required for catacombs, but not enough to accommodate something so large. I personally bet on the industrial complex, especially since the archives mentioned that in the south the catacombs move into old and long-collapsed mines. Time has not spared them, unlike the catacombs. By the way, many speculated - and not unreasonably - that it was the collapse of the miners' drifts, which resulted in the partial destruction of half the commercial quarter and the complete destruction of the old market square, that caused the origin of the anomaly. The first disappearances beneath the city began just a couple of years later, and that's if you don't count those who went missing during the collapse.

And since there were mines here, there must also have been some kind of infrastructure for ore processing. According to the chronicles, and public knowledge, the former inhabitants of this territory were very advanced artisans, competing not only with humans but also with the Dwarven clans. The only question is how the ancient miners could have gotten their hands on that hole in the Trail. The mines had fallen and been covered over long ago, even before that cataclysm, and it was just then that they finally collapsed. And there was some reason why they left the city. Although the latter could easily have nothing to do with the anomaly at all - the whole civilization was in a severe decline back when the Empire of the Ages was just getting back on its feet.

"I'm not sure about the labs." Whispered Hestia, whose whitewashed tentacles probed every scrap of space. "The spaces are too narrow, and then there's the lack of auxiliary rooms... I used to work in the Stone, so I know exactly what laboratories look like. What was here before couldn't be, if only because normal research can't be done in such cramped conditions."

"I see." Taria intervenes, having managed to calm her wobbly nerves a little but still not putting the Valerium down. "Then I'll take your pickaxe since you've lost the bet."

"Let's not get bigoted." I interrupt the incipient scandal before the already nervous comrades-in-arms start shitting on a random topic. "It may well be that there was not a laboratory here but some semblance of one. Evaluation of ore quality, search for impurities, and other joys of miners' work. The premises are indeed large, suitable for the arrangement of, say, machine tools."

Not that I was that interested, but the light, non-stressful conversation was a great relief to the heated atmosphere. Everyone was so tense that they looked like tight guitar strings. If you yank them, they will tear you and knock your eye out! Of course, we're not a bunch of hysterical ladies, and we're all used to almost any spectrum of danger, but still, this place, its emptiness, and silence were quite nerve-wracking.

As luck would have it, even the unstoppable stomping of wrought iron boots went silent, too. We had entered the dungeon on a clear day, but they were marching at night. Logic dictates that they're taking a break... if logic and common sense can be applied to the Trail-distorted entities that once were human but have become something else entirely. Just like in a fairy tale - and Ivan-Tsarevich turned into a wonderful bird. The fairy tale, alas, is a terrible one, and the further it goes, the bigger it gets.

I hope I can end this tale on a major note.

Or at least at some note.

The sixth level of the catacombs. Now I'm not joking, laughing, or talking to the guys anymore. Hans has stopped poking fun at Taria, too. The shadow sphere is going crazy, giving me a headache. The data it transmits doesn't stand up to scrutiny and is constantly changing, completely unnoticed by me. It would seem that I should be able to keep control over the space that the shadows groped, but if I distracted myself for even a second when I returned to my surroundings, I would see an entirely new picture. Or the same one. Or it wouldn't open at all, giving me a lot of distractions and swirls in which there weren't even any shadows.

It can't be explained normally, but I was used to never letting anything out of my attention span, and now I couldn't do it. It wasn't even a lack of concentration with perception, though a hundred points in each stat would have been nice. It was the fact that the damn Spiral was literally chewing, stirring, smearing the pictures shown by the sphere, breaking the usual framework of understanding and replacing them with something of its own. No wonder the sensors in this place were rapidly going crazy. If it weren't for my habit of ignoring the far scarier abomination, I might have... not gone crazy, but I would have had a much worse headache.

What was also unpleasant was the fact that this anomaly was not as aggressive as the watching of Deep Shadow, for example. It was just there, not intentionally threatening, which made it harder for me to filter out what it showed me. The Price of Humanity didn't activate at all because the creep wasn't trying to take it away from me. Fun, though.

Hans and my clairvoyance helped us find our way, not wander in circles, unerringly pointing us straight down to the center of the Spiral, the heart of the Labyrinth, where the story began. And my clairvoyance sensed evil attention on us, gradually converging on our paths, which was bound to lead to conflict.

It was not the detached, indifferent presence of an anomaly but the reaction of its symbiotes. Those who had gone astray and who hated with the remnants of their souls those who had not yet shared their fate. How much of this was the very hatred of man, and how much of it was invested with distorted anger only they know, but hardly the lost want to share this mystery with us.

The first encounter came soon enough, giving us time to react and prepare. Here we were still walking, treading on more and more shaded stone, and the citadel around us was becoming more and more apparent, and here Hans was raising his hand in a warning gesture, signaling danger.

"Three... Or six." He gives me a lead-in, wrinkling his face in uncertainty. "Maybe more, but there's some kind of weird ringing or something. It's like they're pulling their own trail... or the trail is pulling them."

We don't answer. Just prepare for the fight in complete silence. The corridor here is wide, a real subterranean tunnel - you could build a highway, just two lanes will fit. Behind us is a sharply strengthened wall of fog, already almost Mist, created by Hestia, with Losius and Hans ahead of us and me standing in the center, covering Taria. Here I play the role not of the main sharpshooter but of stationary artillery covering those who will come under attack.

"Well, where?" Taria just can't go without comment, as if she has incontinence of speech.

The dungeons answered in place of one of us as two Errants emerged from around a bend that hadn't been there a dozen seconds ago. They looked like worn-out spouses dressed in rags. They were both in their forties, ugly and rustic-looking, but they were both nineteenth-level. They walk with their hands in each other's as if they were not looking at us. But with each step they took, the walls of the tunnel curved more and more, as if it were not them approaching us, but the tunnel turning, snaking, wriggling like a rain worm. The power of the bloody Spiral is at work.

"Do good people know the way?" The woman's voice was dry and cracked as if she had not drunk a drop of water for days, as if she had spent hours crying and wailing.

"Good people know the way." The man is no longer asking but affirming, even though his words are barely audible, for he is almost whispering them under his breath, afraid to lift his eyes from the ground.

Though there was no threat in what they said, it sounded very ominous. And why should it not sound ominous against the backdrop of the knotted passageway that closed with a deadlock behind the backs of our guests? And the guests themselves did not stand still, stepping forward... and in that one step, they had traveled at least twenty yards and were near our position.

Valerium's shot rumbled with thunder, but the dull gray projectile, fired by the great master's hand in Taria's person, flew past the woman without even twitching, crashing against the crumbling wall of ashes. The sword, infused with the power of Heaven, clang softly against the stone as Losius's blow missed its target as well. The Duelist's opponent didn't even touch my comrade-in-arms just took another step:

"Come with me, good man." The barely audible whisper sounds more frightening than hoarse threats, more dangerous than the roar of monsters.

In a single step, the man and Losius were near the wall that closed the passage, in which there was already a small passage, ready at any moment to close and take our duelist with them. He should never have gone outside the citadel, even if it prevented the use of heavenly techniques. Fortunately, even though these unfortunates were cool for level nineteen and level twenty-five as well, they were only able to surprise and scare a little. Even that was no small thing; even that could have brought victory to them and death - or worse - to some of us. But the moment of surprise had passed, and the fear had been replaced by distilled anger.

With a silent groan, not painful but rather astonishment, she stared at the stumps of her hands as Hans, whom she had tried to move in the same way that her hubby had moved Losius, moved behind her back and severed both her hands. He aimed at her head, only managing at the last moment to turn an almost impossible miss into a dangerous wound. There was no blood, though the cut was red and bleeding. The blood seemed to be pouring out of the wrong place, flowing the wrong way.

With a silent and terribly angry hiss, the Shadows counterattacked Losius, who had time to activate the Cloak of the Heavens before they stepped again. The man appeared beside his woman, grabbing her shoulder with a burnt palm. His scorched eyes did not seem to interfere with his vision at all. But they didn't have time to step again, because Taria and I had intervened. I was just enough to step forward, dragging the shadow structure behind me, which made the strays, who had lost some of their power over the place, hesitate. And the dancer's second shot hit right in the center of the torso of the armless townswoman, turning it to ashes. The huge hole, the size of her head, didn't kill her at once, but a few staggering steps, ordinary steps, did nothing for her.

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She fell to the ground, already dead, but there was no emotion on her face. No fear, no anger, no despair, no relief. All this she had long since forgotten. All her feelings were buried in endless screaming, in trying to shout at least to someone, in a longing if not to leave the labyrinth that lured her, at least just to die. She had died long ago, even if not in body, and today she simply went where her soul had gone: into oblivion. So there was no pain or fear, for she had long since outlived them, leaving only an empty hulk, as deadly as it was pathetic and miserable.

Her husband outlived her by a split second, disintegrating under the blows of a dozen shadow whips. And even so, six of the ten whips, directly controlled by me, swift and deadly, managed to miss at point-blank range. The severed body crumbled to the cold stones, but just the same, no blood spilled, not even dying. Only a pair of droplets, frozen on the shadowy blade, fell beside the bodies of those who might once have loved each other. Like two final tears shed over their fates.

Strangely, the shadow energy didn't dry out the blood, soaking it into itself. And the man's body was unharmed, though the strokes of my techniques, unless I intentionally remove the effect, always leave something between frostbite and mummification. Do the Trails protect them? Redirect the damage where it needs to go, similar to what I do with Stealing. Fuck if I know, but it's unpleasant - I'm too used to my strikes being a priori lethal, even to very well-armored targets.

Losius reached our way back, even if he did have to make a little conscious effort to keep the anomaly from dragging him away. I even had to scare the creatures, ready to rush to Heaven's source once more before he put out his light bulb. For several minutes we stood around the corpses of the dead couple. Even Hestia pulled her misty tangle closer. The silence was shattered by Taria's surprisingly indifferent and serious voice:

"Only now I understand why you were so eager to rip that shit to shreds." I was greeted with a calm stare from beneath my mask and a brief nod.

She really was able to see and understand, and this despite her rather low sensitivity to realms and the natural callousness of an urban bandit. Somehow, this moment seemed important enough, even if it was petty.

"The formation is the same," I command. "Losius, don't rush forward. It was dangerous."

The aristocrat, who had lost his relaxed and dashing look, gave me a short nod in response. And we began to walk again, more and more strongly revealing the cocoon of creatures that sheltered us with their bodies.

The raid was just beginning.

After that encounter, it was as if these places were bursting with strays, like hail in the middle of spring - as fast as they were dangerous. Add to that the necessity of occasionally forcing your way through rapidly overgrowing walls and floors, and you can see how exhausting it is. At times, the Spiral made some impossible escapades, like the corridor that spun instantly around its axis. You were going forward, and then boom! And you were going forward again, only this "forward" was backward!

And what about the floor, smoothly transitioning to the ceiling, which, by the way, is also spiraling? And gravity had clearly taken a vacation because the distorted ones that ran toward us along the ceiling behaved as if they were on the floor. Their average levels were lower, about the fifteenth, but that didn't make it any easier.

Not a single animal or monster - they were all devoured by the Labyrinth - just those who had once been endowed. Those who were no longer. They shouted, asking to be led out of there, asking for directions, and offering to guide them. In some cases, especially if they were just children, they almost managed to convince me that they were really just lost. If it weren't for the gaze of the Hero, the Gaze, and the clairvoyance that kept me from mistaking another creature of the anomaly for a human being.

Their cries sounded like a recording of their cries, but from a time when the Labyrinth had just taken them, ripped them apart, hollowed out, and whitewashed their identities and souls. It was much more painful to listen to them than to fight them. The citadel's strong defenses could do without us, for any attempt to enter the man-made enclosed field controlled by the Shadows ended in a hearty meal for the lucky Shadows. Such a meal even reconciled them with their hateful work... or rather, it delayed the desire to devour our company a little further down the task list.

Hans and I took the most frags. I was taking down the errant ones with area strikes, just giving them no room to dodge and distort the path of my spell. The least amount of energy, the thinnest shroud of darkness in the starless night, but good control allowed me to turn that shroud into hundreds of razor-sharp blades, into a suffocating net grip, into the indestructible millstones of the shadow walls. My reserve was still going down, but it was going much slower now. The shadows, gobbling up the soul surrogates that the errant had switched to self-sufficiency and even replenished my lost reserve. Not so fast that the acquisitions would outweigh the waste, but still fast.

Losius suffered the most from such a spectacle. The contented laughter and, figuratively speaking, the satiated chuckling of the Shadows were almost physically painful to him. Hans did not react, concentrating too much on stopping and dislodging the errant ones as they swarmed and swarmed. They outnumbered him in many ways and were unable to catch the kickback from overuse of the Trails. The man shouldn't have tried to overpower them with a direct attack, to force his way in where they made theirs. They were already part of the Trail, so they could do all their tricks at an extremely low corporate rate, and there was no limit to how much energy they had to do it because the errant ones didn't get tired. At least within the dungeons of Tavimark.

Hans didn't even try to measure the length and thickness of their various organs but began to skillfully trip the fastest, leaving them to my blows or Taria's shots. More of the latter. I, thanks to my techniques, could get around on my own. Hans interrupted their steps, made them fall out of the rhythm of battle, thwarted attempts to divert our attacks in other ways, and did other nasty things, arguing that even small effects can be deadly if used correctly. He'd do the same with the more powerful monsters in the Frontier, just to put them under my or Losius's or Ygra's attack, not to interfere directly unless absolutely necessary.

Hestia played a supporting role. She attacked occasionally and almost always with a well-aimed throw of her potions. She threw them not at the lost ones but at the walls and the floor next to them. The one vial I'd miraculously caught was enough, and somehow it almost flew into Taria's forehead, even though it was thrown in a different direction. The alchemical grenades killed almost no one, but they controlled the battlefield pretty well. It was much harder for the lost ones to do their tricks where the potions were working.

I'm sure they've tried to return our hits more than once - it seems a classic trick for them, - but the Valerium projectiles were fired by a legendary artifact, I controlled my shadows perfectly (I took that title for a reason, oh for a reason!), Hans could make sure his attacks went where he wanted, and Losius just didn't attack remotely.

His face is extremely unhappy - he can resist attempts to drag himself into the depths of the catacombs very little, and without Heaven, there is no way at all. But if he begins to apply the Heaven, he cannot approach the citadel, and it is too dangerous to do so alone. On occasion, he does not lose a chance to go out for a walk, invoking the wrath of Heaven on his enemies. Streams of blue crush several opponents, and he quickly returns to the dome, rapidly extinguishing the halo around him. Then he regains his reserve and repeats it. However, he has only slightly more frags than Hestia.

There was only one attempt by my tame monster to attack with its misty body. She managed to smite two enemies in her embrace at once, and then the part of her body that crawled out from under the cocoon's cover was simply torn into three hundred little Hestia. She managed to pull some of it back in, but she didn't try to be heroic anymore.

She was a hundred and thirty out of a hundred for her control and cover role, though, so she wasn't too disappointed. Hestia was used to being a third-line fighter, not fighting ahead of the whole battle, so she was more than accustomed to such tactics. Both, to the essence of the monster and the memory of the human.

"I have a bad feeling about this," Taria showing off her prophetic talents. "Very, very fucking bad!"

It's hard to say who doesn't have those premonitions right now. We crawled into an enormous underground hall resembling a giant barbell weight. The ceiling is three meters high and about two hundred meters in diameter. And a whole bunch of passageways, arches, manholes, tunnels, and other openings leading in and out of it. Somehow this place reminded me of a nerve bundle, but my association was with a swollen wound where the body was trying to get rid of foreign bacteria.

I can't tell if the anomaly has a mind, but there are definitely some instincts, if not in the entity itself, then in its symbiotes. We were obviously brought here, and now they will try to leave us here forever. Even without an amplified hearing, you can hear the heavy march of a Corps of Armored Infantry, finding an enemy of their caliber for the first time in a long time. It remains to be seen whether Kostik and Co. will be able to grind this same corps while staying alive and relatively intact.

"Doesn't anyone have any?" Losius smiles more wryly than anyone, for the frantic Shadows beside him don't allow him to relax properly.

Actually, a corps far from the Empire's most elite infantry wouldn't be a problem even for me alone. I could just let go of the creatures that support the cocoon and watch the mess - that would be enough. Except we are confronted not by the same corps but altered, distorted, and modified. And also, we are right in the center of the concentration of their power - the hall expands or curls into a bagel, or the ceiling and the walls change places, or something else.

It makes sense to assume that a decisive battle will happen right now, after which we will either have to retreat or it will be easier from here. Five men against a couple or three hundred warped ones amid their greatest power. The only thing missing is the shouting of "THIS IS KOSTIK!!!" and throwing the parliamentarians off a cliff. This is undoubted because the lost have no parliamentarians, and falling off a cliff wouldn't hurt them even if there were cliffs. The main thing is that the anomaly didn't create them right under our feet.

"Everybody get together, check your pants, and drink for courage," I say while setting an example by pouring one vial after another into myself.

There was a flame flowing through my veins. My mind became comprehensive and incredibly agile, and my eyes seemed ready to pierce the heavens or fall out of their orbits. For a few seconds, I even honestly believed that I had messed up the dosage and was about to kick the bucket, but the feeling passed, replaced by warmth and the feeling of energy boiling in my veins. At such moments it is easy to believe that you can stop the planet, get off it, run for a beer, and start the planet back up again with one punch.

Taria would probably have said something in response, but it was at that moment that the stomping became almost unbearable, a palpable mental attack on my brain, and the battle horn blared deep inside the widest tunnel. There didn't seem to be any negotiation, and I'd hoped so much for the stampede to work.

The first move was made not by us, but by our opponents - an entire wave of distortions literally dented into our citadel, causing the Shadows to squeal painfully, and reality went almost black for a second, devoid of light altogether. For that brief moment, the Shadows, working off their contract, pulled the Manifested Piece of Reality back to its home realm, saving us all from unpleasant consequences.

I'm not sure this attack would have killed us. I'm sure it wouldn't kill us, but it would certainly divide us. And in such a situation, our song would change the tone from upbeat jazz to tearful opera. We would have to weep, if anything, and not our opponents.

The damned wave of distortion pushed the stable piece of reality under the nearest wall, squeezing the ceiling and the floor from above and below, and the front of the floor was ripped up in a wave, creating a barrier that prevented us from seeing the enemy but allowed them to attack us using the run-up. The barrier shattered even without our involvement - the Shadows took at least this opportunity to avenge their food for the pain they'd suffered.

The pieces of stone had not yet fallen, but the soldiers were already rushing into the hall, instantly creating a formation, turning from the crowd into a monolithic armored carcass of a giant beast. Their faces are hidden by their helmets, but even without seeing them, I know that all I can find there is the same indifference and complete absence of any feelings. These guys have been swimming here longer than most of the others. They have already managed to die out to the very last corner of their souls.

It would have been foolish to wait for an attack - and there might be mages lurking in the depths of the lines, and I don't even want to know what their magical abilities would become under the influence of the Labyrinth - so I attacked myself. For a brief moment, I left the citadel's defense and cover and began to form a huge sphere of shadow energy, inside which the contract I'd bound beforehand was already splashing.

We struck simultaneously - another wave of distortion, allowing the formation that had just begun to disperse to be next to us in one short step, and my idea, created precisely to counteract such clever, thanks to the information from the memoirs of those who have been in this dungeon. Both sides struck successfully, but both sides failed.

The wave of distortion had indeed crushed the Shadows into each other, shrinking the space they controlled, and the soldiers themselves were already standing right in front of us. So close that I could easily distinguish their faint breathing. I saw every speck of rust on the dilapidated armor. But my sphere didn't miss, either, hitting the third and fourth lines, thinning them out considerably.

The sphere, which resembled a large gymnastic balloon, burst, releasing black blobs of shadow matter, each carrying a piece of the "flesh" and "blood" of a very powerful Shadow. The powerful thing, standing at the very edge between a full-fledged Shadow and an Elder Shadow, possessed an impossible regeneration. All of her essences, all of her talents were devoted to the development of regeneration and survivability. And I killed her, the bad guy.

Torn into many fragments, it was still trying to recover, and the energy I fed it into the sphere allowed it to continue its agony. Each droplet of black rain sought to merge with its neighbor, completely ignoring any obstacles. And since the movements of these particles were as instinctive as breathing, there was no way to redirect them to the side. And the black rain began to tear the distorted bodies of the errand ones.

The blades and axes, silent, monotonous, and even clumsy, despite their military training, but always hitting the right spot most unexpectedly, could be a deadly danger. In another situation, each of their blows would have taken exactly one life, and our attempts at evasion would have been a certain failure. But between us and them stood a piece of reality that had become Shadow, filled with Shadows and controlled by them and, through them, by me. Each blow, inevitable and unstoppable, met the stone-hard flesh of the inferior and weak Shadows, and the retaliatory blows of the tentacles, manifesting only for a fraction of a second, gathered a bloody harvest themselves.

They tried to deflect the blows, but even the misguided's abilities had a limit: there were many blows, and their formation was excessively dense. And, as if the shadows that had become daggers weren't enough, Hestia attacked, throwing a dozen alchemical grenades at once, detonating in one extremely successful cascade.

Shadows don't like Light and Flame, Heaven and Sun, but there are planes and energies that are almost useless to hit them with. Hit Hestia with mixtures of fire, and there would be no more harm than good. It wouldn't have burned the Shadows, whose protection was already a concept, but the energy waste would have been no laughing matter. Instead of flames, the rusted iron-clad army men were poured into the purest Cold. It wasn't just physical cold, even though pure physics continued to have a limited effect on the bodies of the errant. Yes, the physical attacks just missed, but if they hit, they still did the damage. And my creation froze not only the sack of meat but even thin bodies, stopping and freezing even things that shouldn't be frozen.

The power of the Trails has no tangible or at least distinctive energy, so there's no way to freeze it. Certainly not with my ordinary potion. If I tried a little harder, there were options, yes. But it worked great on the bodies of the Trail Force's guides, which were the strays. The first two rows of fighters surrounding the wisp of our reality ceased to exist, and the third was badly affected, threatening to cease at any moment while Hestia threw new portions of the potion.

Valerium shots, extremely fast and large-scale shadow techniques covering the entire surface of the hall, black blood continuing to seek salvation, flowing through corpses and still alive - as far as they are alive at all - bodies of the errands. Everything was jumbled together, the sprawled fighters of the third line had not yet had time to recover, and some feverish attempts to distort the Labyrinth around us made the picture pure chaos altogether.

Anyway, I somehow realized abruptly that either we were going to fight them off now, or the only thing left was to run, and from the city, too-with every soldier who died, I heard the subtlest ringing of torn strings. A sound that was not, and could not be, in this dungeon, but it was there nonetheless. A sound that meant the Seal was rapidly weakening and thinning. And something tells me that after our intervention, this structure will either not recover at all or will begin to call its victims into the catacombs simply on an industrial scale. Both options are equally unsatisfactory to Kostya, so I will think about the retreat tomorrow.

Beneath the mask, my lips stretch into a wide smile that grows wider and wider with each passing second, beyond the capabilities of my material body. The flesh beneath my clothes rapidly turned to Shadow, shifting me into fighting form. The speed, the strength, the power of the sorcery grow as swiftly as the will that keeps me from falling into madness thins rapidly. My laugh joined the shrieks of the slaughtered Shadows.

A blade under my heart stabs the activated contracts, summoning the two remaining Elder Shadows, for whose summoning I had to temporarily leave the city walls. A huge shadow sheet that resembles a mixture of a mattress and giant jaws soars to the ceiling, and dozens of shadowy tentacles or spears begin beating from its body. And in such a cramped space, even such powerful protection as Spiral gives its children cannot repel all the blows.

To my left and right, two enormous shadows snakes-about ten meters long and as thick as mine leg-appear. Their hoods swelled, and lumps of black flew from their mouths, piercing flesh and stone. Each of these creatures is barely equal to the power of a full Shadow, but their power is something else entirely.

First of all, there weren't two, but three: just a third, the size of a small urchin, wrapped itself around my forearm, wanting, but not daring, to sink its fangs into me. Second, these triune creatures can only die together. All three bodies are destroyed at once, in one single short second. Until then, they will rise again and again, as long as there is even a little bit of reserve.

There is no blood flowing from the bodies of the errant, only sparse droplets that the Trails do not have time to take away, nor is there any falling out of guts or the smell of shit - where is the latter to come from if the warped have not eaten anything for years? But despite these details, this place resembles a real slaughterhouse. And in such an atmosphere, it is not difficult for the triune to find a source of replenishment, and they were happy to do so.

With the last of my strength, I resist the urge to rush out there, into the thick of the battle and tear and tear and tear and drink and take away - to do what the Shadow in me tells me, to do what will bring me power and strength. Even if I leave my squad unprotected, they will be protected by the Shadows that carry out my will, who already dare not cross me, and now that I have taken the form, they will not even dare touch what I have marked as my prey.

I stand in place more out of an unwillingness to further unsettle my psyche than out of fear for their lives. On the other hand, my standing still and good defense allows me to take my ranged attacks to a level where dodging no longer helps, no matter how unnatural it may be. It's not often that I get the opportunity to work on numerous moving and well-protected targets while being relatively safe as if I were in an expensive, high-quality shooting gallery.

Hestia's potions flick, some of which do come back, splashing across the surface of the citadel's fully manifested dome. Losius's sword gleams as Hans brings another lancer under the blow of his blade, and Valerium, who in such tight quarters simply has no chance to miss, strikes resoundingly on the cooldown. Enemy mages strike the dome, and their strikes, like those of melee fighters, are always deadly accurate, hitting only weak points. One by one the small Shadows disintegrate, shrieking, holding back their blows. All light almost fades, and the alchemical torches that should shine brighter than the sun barely disperse the darkness filled with flailing Shadows, while the flaming pools of fire potion simply go out one by one.

In an instant, dozens of small vials of the same Solar potion fly into the air. These shine even brighter than the torches, even if only briefly. But it's enough time for me - now, despite the thickening black colors, there are shadows dancing all around me. Regular, two-dimensional shadows. I will, but they don't stay regular for long, stretching quickly and decisively, becoming sharp, three-dimensional, angry, and cold. Dozens of shadow spears, blades, nets, blades, and other not-too-complicated and costly, but very fast and deadly tinsel are striking from every possible direction.

The Spiral gives its creations a lot, but even this power cannot accomplish the impossible. More and more severed limbs that do not give blood, more and more silent moans, barely distinguishable behind the clatter of steel and spells. Moans are not painful or even surprising - it is just that what has become loyal to their Empire and betrayed by Empire soldiers remember that wounds once meant pain to them. They do not know why they react to these wounds, following the remnants of still unweathered instincts that have not been eradicated from them even after centuries of their terrible in their infinite wanderings.

With an inaudible rustling sound, the passageway opened just behind the backs of my squad, which pressed against the wall, attacking the Warped Ones who had piled into the dome. This lunge of the Labyrinth couldn't be seen, couldn't be felt, but the sense of danger worked where even clairvoyance failed. All of us, at the same time. The mist gave Hestia her first moments of life, even if they cost her a painful groan, and even when she's wounded she doesn't speak. The second to react was Losius, who was tired of sparing the celestial blue. The lad drew his sword blade and wrist from beneath the dome, waited until Hestia could get the rest of her body under the citadel's protection, and then let it all out at once.

This blow was repulsed - the elite of the missing corps came out to our backs. Every single one of them with the tricky classes and high levels they possessed before they were changed. They deflected the blow, forcing it upward, disappearing into the tunnel that appeared on the ceiling, but that bought us a second, during which I had time to intervene.

They broke through the first shadow wall almost without looking, only to find three more, each one bristling with spikes and lashes that swung in a chaotic pattern. And once they too had fallen, battering rams and nets rushed forward, striking one after another, without interruption, to the exhaustion of the reserve. The first of them followed the same fate as the heavenly waves of Losius. The blows, otherwise capable of driving a forest giant into the ground, scattering him with mincemeat, were simply deflected, going nowhere under the indifferent gazes of officers in rusty armor.

But each successive one turned aside more slowly, managed to fly closer, and I wasn't going to stop. The wanderers can't tire, but their speed of reaction and creation of techniques is still limited by the body's capacity. And I had higher parameters. The tenth or fifteenth ram reached the unchallenged commander's body, crushing and tearing it, and the new blows came and went, striking and striking without remorse or retreat.

If only they'd had an extra second. If I'd taken a single heartbeat of respite, if my reserve hadn't been so full, if the potions in my blood had been weaker, they would have been gone. Each would have stepped on his trail, and one step would have taken them away from my wrath. But I didn't give them that time, turning them, one by one, into a bloodless slurry - even smeared into mush, they barely let out any blood.

The heart of the forty-third armored corps was gone, at peace. The commander had fallen, the chief warlock and standard-bearer had fallen - the best the Children of the Spiral could throw at us had indeed gone on the attack. And they met their end centuries after the moment they had prayed for, prayed for more than anything.

And, at some moment.

I feel it.

This breakdown.

The Seal, the curse, and the good of Tavimark, the pinnacle of dark ritualism, has fallen once and for all. Now there is no way back, nor can there be, and the fate of the city depends only on one complete Hero-Idiot and his team of idiots. Despite the savage pressure on my brain, despite the danger of the situation, I can't hold back a sigh of relief, even though my body now has no lungs.

It's too late to change my mind now. I just have to go ahead and do what I once swore to myself to do if no one but me is willing to take the job - finish the tales.

The Triune Snakes were released and even banished, just in case, or they might have gained a foothold in reality. The Shadow Sheet successfully died under the attacks of the mages, despite its amazing survivability. The Black Rain was never able to gather back into Shadow and died as well. The Citadel has weakened, but the fattened Elder Shadows are rapidly summoning new minutiae, taking them under their control. There aren't many of even the smallest of creatures in this patch of reality and the Shadows associated with it, but there's enough to partially restore the functionality of these new recruits. Of far greater concern aren't the Elder Ones, for they've done themselves no harm, but the full-fledged ones, who do the lion's share of the work of maintaining the dome. Without them, the strength, ductility, and elasticity of the dome would drop quite noticeably. On the other hand, I expect no other enemies but the anomaly itself. And it won't attack directly anyway, and it hasn't even had time to move away from the Seal yet.

Yes, there is no longer the cage for lost souls that held it in place, but the ritual is still working somewhere out there, deep in the catacombs. The rays of the complex ritual figure still shine with blood, gradually fading and blurring into space. The anomaly will still be tied to the site for some time, and we should hurry to get to it in that time. Well, so as not to catch it later all over the catacombs, or worse, upstairs.

"That was worthy of legends." All Losius could say was that he felt like a squeezed lemon, not just because of the Shadows but because he'd gone all out in the fight. "Maybe not the loudest, but legends."

"I agree with your opinion." Hestia assumed human form, lying carefully on her back and not moving, for the wound the dead mage had inflicted on her was very bad, though far from fatal. "I'm all right, Tin. I won't hide the fact that I can't hold a potion attack and cover from above anymore, but I'm just able to follow you, just like I can throw vials with my hands."

I nod silently, accepting her answer. Hestia wouldn't lie, lest she appears weak, which meant she was in relative normalcy. A few potions prepared especially for her helped. More accurately, some sort of aerosol mixed with the pure essence dissolved in the mist and gave her strength. Wasted the best quality available, so I'll have to deal with restocking later. It is not easy to create potions for monsters, even for me, especially for such unusual monsters as Hestia Raimel.

"They gave me the title." Taria, who in another situation would have shouted the subject out loud and poked everyone in the nose with the title, now spoke quietly and tiredly. "Increased my perception, concentration, and mastery of lead shooter, not just one-armed, but any kind at all."

I suppose it wasn't just our adversaries that hurt her, for as much as she was imbued with my feelings, to her everyone who wasn't her or her friends was still a mass of people at most. Yes, she was impressed by these errant ones, but not so much that directly at all. Rather, several factors coincided at once - fatigue, an unpleasant and pity-inducing opponent, anxiety for Hestia, with whom she, of course, at times scandalize, but still sincerely friends, or at least tries to be friends.

"Me, too, oh, damn!" Hans is now suffering from classic senile back pains, having received a powerful curse through his potion-exfoliated resilience.

This resistance would squeeze out the curse - in full effect, it should have turned the bones into something very brittle and fragile - in a few minutes, but for now, he'd be better off lying down. The compounds I gave him to make sure he avoided the consequences made him light-headed and nauseous.

"Well, me too, apparently, for the company." I let the audience know to keep up. "Yes, and so is Losius. He's just too gloomy to be happy."

"I am, with all due respect, totally amazed at the fact you can still be happy about anything, working with such trash. Forgive me for saying so." No anger, no hard feelings, just a little grumbling since Taria's in a bad mood for him right now.

"That's one of my major accomplishments!" I object, getting to my feet and shaking off my dusty clothes. "Where you all see chthonic terror, I see a reason to laugh. And the horror, when it hears my laughter, is itself frightened."

"Gee!" The dancer dies off, getting to her feet, too. "No offense, Tin, but when I hear you laugh, I get scared, too, you know!"

It was a dumb and flat joke, but everyone laughed, even the grunting Hans. About that, and while we were exchanging phrases, we got ready for the last dash. I took a moment to appreciate the new title and found it useful enough, even if it didn't suit my particular style of combat. However, free stuff, especially free stats, it's free stuff.

Self Star (legendary): You single-handedly fulfilled the role of an entire mage star for a long time. Tactical combat enchantments, a long series of attacks from a protected position, a covering barrier of the highest order - there are few who would repeat even one such thing. You have done them all and a little more, which proves your power and valor. Or recklessness and stupidity. Bonus: Energy, Concentration +10, creation and maintenance of tactical charms simplified, their effectiveness slightly increased.

As said before, this title is for someone who wants to be a walking firing point. I'd be better suited for something that speeds up my movement or enhances my senses, but I could use that, too. That's what a walking firing point is. If it can walk really fast. The time will come, and this title will help me. Or not, but then why even think about it?

"All right, gentlemen and ladies." The dome shelters us again with thinned Shadows, reducing our coverage from a place to lie down and rest to a place where we barely have enough room to stand in battle formation. "Come on. We don't have much time left. This story has gone on too long as it is."

* * *