* * *

The Main Theater was a large, stately building with a lot of stained glass and stucco, it also had thick walls, strong internal lintels, defensible architecture, and a huge amount of defensive magic, as for an ordinary theater. The theater, in fact, was a very convenient point of defense, and the nearby guard corps, several guild ranges, and even a training camp for Eye recruits could be near and then inside these walls in a matter of minutes, taking up a position and not letting anyone else in.

The traitors, recruited by the devils, had sent their representatives here, too, but as it happened, they had not succeeded here, thanks to a fortunate coincidence of circumstances and a respectable level of competence among the top and middle commanders of the guards. So, it turned out first, the cultists failed to confuse the ranks of the defenders. Then the devils sent here a too-weak detachment, which, thanks to the same competence multiplied by luck, they managed to kill with outstanding ease and, after that, more and more forces were drawn to this point, turning the theater into a very toothy and large hotbed of the struggle for the souls and essence of the endowed ones.

And it would all be useless.

And they'd all be corrupted.

And they would all be doomed.

But this place had something else besides competent commanders, desperate warriors, savvy mages, and willing civilians (all of which were plentiful in many places, but those defenses didn't benefit from such advantages). Or rather, someone every dog knew about, but it was only now that all those dogs, including Eyes, who was once again shitting themselves professionally, realized how little they knew about this person.

Maitre Tarak, who all his life demanded to be addressed strictly by his first name, not to mention in vain his poor and long-dead family, to which he was once the fourth son, earned his main title of Maestro a long time ago. The best maestro, with equal ease playing any role, changing roles with the same carelessness with which modern fashionistas change gloves, a superb director and producer, always playing roles in his creations. He became a legend in his lifetime.

But neither the relentless Eyes, nor the power-hungry guilds, nor the noble aristocrats even suspected he was a Legend, not only in terms of theatrical prowess. Sixty-fourth level, epic, and two legendary classes, several dozen developed skills, and many extremely unusual and even unique titles. And all this was obtained not in bloody battles, not in inhuman experiments, not in cannibalistic intrigues, but only by one single craft so beloved by him.

Hero of Any Role.

His level was guessed, but no one could even guess that with that level came the corresponding power. Or, they could, but they didn't want to make a fool of themselves without proof. A power that was pitted against a gleeful gaggle of cultists, corrupted captives, and ruthless creatures. They had come here intending to fight as they were accustomed to, expecting standard countermeasures, albeit strong countermeasures, albeit applied with prohibitive skill.

Instead, they were greeted by a stage.

And the shots from the sham battle staffs held by the deathly frightened actors turned to roaring flames and crashing lightning, streams of light and ice storms, waves of blackness and shining skies. And, suddenly, a low-level actor completely unfit for battle, wearing the costume of a royal guard, fought like a lion, battling with a fierce steel whirlwind, slaying one enemy after another. The multilayered shields of the devils turned into waves of sequins and confetti, and the attacking charms were replaced by harmless illusions, unable even to scratch the defenders because props are not supposed to be as deadly as the things with which these props are used.

The devils are very experienced opponents, ready for anything, if only because of the memory of the souls of their entire domain, who can be asked for advice at any moment, but even for them, it is too difficult to adapt tactics that only a few in the history of Alurei could use. The devils have adapted, flayed, used mental blows, warped minds, avoided damage, and changed tactics on the fly, managing to survive and not even lose where there seemed to be no chance. But they couldn't crush the Main Theater's defenses as long as its chief defender stood at the entrance.

He didn't need to move, jump like a mountain goat, change positions, or cover himself with barriers. He simply outlined other people's roles, and then the role itself became Reality, supported and pushed by an unassuming, short man who gave commands to the defensive. In a good play, of course, justice does not always triumph, otherwise, the genre of tragedy would not exist, but it is up to the director to decide for whom the outcome of the play will turn out to be a tragedy.

Wave after wave.

Assault after assault.

The devils depleted their sonms. They expended their strength and utilized unrealistically vast reserves of fleur, which remained one of the few things not completely subservient to their designated roles. The devils pressed on, fearlessly and without question, continuing the fight, seeking, if not to destroy, then to exhaust, to force a retreat and allow the devils to turn the battle back to the familiar.

It's not as if they were failing because, minute by minute, Maître was giving up, getting weaker. His techniques didn't require reserve, which the greatest living theatremaker still had a paltry amount of, as it was for his level. His classes did not draw power from other planes, allowing him to operate almost continuously without fear of contamination, but every power had its price. There was a price to pay for this power, but the maestro was more than willing to pay it.

Humans and non-humans died, dropped dead, went mad, or fell under the control of the enemy. The play did not always have time to give a role for everyone in distress. But, all the Gods be witnesses, let them be. With this balance of power, such losses don't even go by the bar of "low" but somewhere between "negligible" and "it doesn't happen that way." The defenders paid in blood but took the same toll on the stormers. In the depths of the theater halls, a headquarters formed. Reinforcements came from all sides, and even from the Imperial Palace a couple of teleport wormholes were conducted, managing to execute them despite the obstacles created by the dome.

But nothing lasts forever, even if the dynasty of rulers of the Empire of Ages has always tried to challenge that truth, sometimes even with some success. Maitre Tarak gave up slowly but steadily, reassigning roles more and more slowly, exhaling longer and longer after each act, having more and more difficulty convincing the world that he was a Theater. The actor and director were pressured by the same reality, its ordinariness, and blandness, which made him fixate on similar days. As if you had seen it all a hundred times, done it a thousand times, as if you had long ago grown tired of life, and of this play, which did not end and dragged on beyond all decency.

The problem with banality is characteristic of most actors if these actors are worth anything and have developed classes. A kind of specific problem, characteristic strictly for a certain group of classes. Some scholars have even drawn parallels between this condition and the crisis of faith burnout that often afflicts priests, clerics, and servants of gods, but such theories have not gained popularity. If only because the priests and their patrons did not like such attentive attempts to study the mechanisms of their weaknesses, because no shit.

It's all been done before.

Everything follows the same pattern.

You've seen this before and more than once.

Same faces.

Same events.

Centuries go by, repeating in circles.

The old actor is no longer on his feet, he almost collapsed, and only the possibility of leaning against the wall keeps him from losing sight of his scene and from losing control of the battle. A ring of defenders shrinks around him, ready to give their lives but not let the enemy through to the only reason everyone here has yet to give those very lives. The officers are yelling into intercom amulets, including those issued just an hour earlier, sent by teleportation, which has torn half of those amulets apart and rendered nearly all of the remaining ones simply unusable. They're asking for help, for support, for men, or at least one more Maitre Tarak, but they know in their hearts that no one will be able to send them reinforcements in time, that those reinforcements are desperately needed elsewhere.

But the headquarters, located in the Imperial Palace, has plenty of time to think hard about the problems to come up with an option where a smaller force with maximum efficiency can be used. Reality shudders when the Palace and Theater find themselves reconnected by a wormhole, and three people fall out of the portal, none of whom give the impression of being elite warriors. Two average Eyes workers with agent classes, only tired and intimidated, and one middle-aged man in an imposing cloak, glasses, and hat, smoking a pipe from a battle amulet.

"We were sent by Lord Campbell's orders." One of the Eyes speaks, while the other is silent, trying not to vomit after passing through the barely stable spatial fold. "They say you need help here, but I haven't quite figured out what our subject can do to help."

A tall and statuesque woman of broad bones, level twenty-six, and two classes of Singer and Prima, ran into the isolated hall, that had been set aside for the teleportation site and was therefore empty except for the arrivals and greeters. In case of trouble, the unstable space wouldn't tear up all the passersby.

The eyes of an experienced actress immediately find among the serious soldiers, warriors, and commanders the only soul mate. And with unbearable bitterness, she utters a phrase understandable only to her or someone from her circle of communication, which for ordinary people or mighty warriors makes no sense and seems ridiculous, absurd, and frivolous.

"Help, please, for God's sake!" Her voice is deep and mesmerizing, even without the use of active skills, as someone with her classes should be. "Maitr Tarak is banal!"

And while the others are trying to understand what is happening, not counting those of the warriors to whom the problem had been explained a little earlier, the pipe-smoker in a combat situation changes his face and takes on a serious look, without, however, taking the pipe out of his mouth. He's not a warrior, that's true, just as it's true that even the most pathetic cultist or devil could kill him. But he is not here to fight, only to fulfill a task that no one else can do.

"Relax, darling, I'm a Postmodernist." Seeing the eyes of the actress widen in surprise and sincere admiration, he smiles, gladly accepting the fact that at least someone realizes how amazing he is. "We'll play it out."

Its class, while having a very impressive epic grade, is even rarer than a fair share of legendary classes. And the reason for this is not a superpower, not prohibitive coolness or incredible power, for which you have to pay a terrible price. The problem is to get such a class. To get it at the tenth level in the options of choice, you need to lead a very specific leveling, which, more often than not, there is nothing to provide. Not because of the cost but because of the very specific conditions required.

In his normal state, his class was no greater than that of a typical Poet or Writer. He has improved memory like Librarians, the ability to visualize various pictures in front of him like Artists, and the ability to transfer thoughts to paper with great speed and without having to write by hand like all sorts of officials. Useful stuff, but it can all be done by rare classes, even uncommon ones without having to spend the effort to get an epic grade.

The main strength of his class, revealed in a truly qualitative development, was an extension of the role of his work, consisting of the ability to bear the backlash of overstretching provoked by the strongest theatrical skills. To bring novelty, if you will. A completely useless skill in most cases because there are surprisingly few artists who are developed enough to master such powerful techniques, and they rarely, if ever, need help. They're not warriors or magicians, so they don't have to beat themselves to a pulp time after time. That is, the work of the actors is not sugar, and in the early stages, you can sabotage nerves, bake brains, and bring yourself to a split personality (good, if they come out only two), but the higher you climb, the fewer challenges, the less often you need to give your best.

The need to play a role, to live it, is always present, but only at high levels with the acquisition of special skills, this need becomes truly dangerous. That's when you can call him, Sodan Arger, except that he is very rarely called, only a few times in his entire life, for which he earned a regular living as a typical writer. His novels, of course, were not the most popular. Although he always knew how to play with clichés, giving pleasure to all those who, on the contrary, already wanted to vomit from the typical love literature of poor quality. They say that about two hundred years ago, when books in the Empire were more expensive, and the manufactories of halflings and dwarves couldn't recover from the war with Alishan (no one wanted to share a piece of the pie, preferring not to give it to anyone but a competitor) to start producing paper in large quantities again, there was less crap among literature.

They're lying.

There was less literature then, but there was still plenty of crap. Sodan had read several monographs on the subject, and had even written one and defended it in one of Neitmak's small Magistatums!

And now he was on fire. It was only with someone like Maître Tarak that his stupid class, once chosen simply because it was the only epic class available to him, became truly irreplaceable. And Sodan stood behind the maestro's shoulder, putting all of himself into his class, ignoring all consequences, just to be as efficient as possible.

As he watched the cultists fall, as attack after attack was reflected, as defenses that had almost broken through were rebuilt, he finally forgave himself for the foolishness of choosing his class, seeking glory he had never received. Here was his glory, here was his battle, and here he would either die or know triumph.

Also, if they survive today, Maître Tarak may hire him as permanent staff and give him some money.

It's perfect.

* * *

The girl struck quickly like a desert snake on the attack, acting from a blind spot, attacking a seemingly drunk and already quite demented from a week's drunkenness. Its strike did not stir up any premonitions. It did not raise a shiver throughout the body, as it does every time death comes too close to someone who has stepped high enough on the ladder of elevation. This vile attack could have killed someone, even if they were as strong, had advanced attributes, and were of a high level. A primitive-looking shiv, more suited to a bandit than an assassin, was not the weakest artifact, and the poison on it had a good chance of bringing down even a Hero with a scratch, like Iron Baron but not crippled and of normal combat orientation.

The snake was wrong, as were those who sent her after his life in only one way. The choice of target. It was not a matter of personal ability or military glory, even if it had faded over the past half-century, but of the very personality of the man she was trying to take his life. Baron, during his career, many times caught posthumous and not-so-posthumous curses of those whom he and his team crushed like cockroaches with wrought iron boots. Not all such gifts could be brushed aside. Not all injuries could be healed. Among the many little things that were dangerous only by their cumulative effect, there were a few of the strongest mental curses that caused constant, albeit mild, paranoia and anxiety. They had nothing to do with his premonitions, felt completely different, and did not help him in his life, but they provided one important detail by their existence.

Iron Baron, Bloody Commander, Killer of Cities - he could never relax, always ready for a fight, for an attempt to take his soul for the sins he had willingly or unwillingly taken for himself in his long, too long life. And so he didn't hesitate, wasn't surprised, wasn't confused by the lack of foreboding, and automatically, as if he hadn't been drinking all last week and the week before, as if he hadn't a second ago examined the treacherous peddler with a greasy eye, intercepted the woman's graceful and unexpectedly strong hand, breaking it at the elbow and thrusting the sharpened blade into the assassin's throat, which was open at the attack.

There was simply no switch between war and peace in the veteran's mind, no part of his personality that longed for peace and a warm home. He did not wonder, did not think, did not ask himself questions, was not horrified by the wave of evil and monstrously strong magic rising throughout the Eternal. He simply acted according to the pattern he had learned a thousand times. The crew had been ambushed on the march thanks to the treachery of their allies, and the actions for this and similar cases had been practiced long before his grandfather had been born.

The delivery girl, dying of poison, was still humping her legs; the second girl, attacking from behind from the blind spot, was blown away by a shot from a heavy hand-held lead shooter; the third girl, trying to break the distance and throw some kind of amulet at him, had her brains splattered. Flames of battle fervor spread across his body, and several vials of potions fly out of a spatial artifact in the form of a massive gold ring. Baron doesn't know if there is poison in his food, but he's not about to check, pouring the battle cocktail down his throat.

A faint, passionate whisper began to press on his mind, the result of Hell's magic and someone channeling that magic throughout the recreation center he'd spent the last few months in before being sent to the front, straight to the Alishan borders. A second revolver-type lead shooter, just as massive but loaded with an entirely different type of ammunition based on enchanted mithril, was already clutched in his free hand when Baron covered his eyes for a moment.

The commander uses the Chain of Command, putting his iron will into it, as well as a fair share of the reserve, sending all his subordinates a signal of alarm right into their heads. Not just a signal but also a kind of boon that cleanses the body, mind, soul, and brains of any outside influence. With his level, he could use the Transmission of Orders with a skill that would make a professional Benefic go bald with envy, not just reinforcing his subordinates but also selecting the type of reinforcement and class of purification techniques.

He'd encountered the abominable fleur of Hell more than once, even if it was more with the domains of Despondency, Laziness, or Agony, and the scale of these clashes was, judging by the waves of energy throughout the capital, much more modest. Nevertheless, the tactic had long since been ingrained in his subcortex, like any other. There was no opponent under Alurei's sky that Baron did not know how to break off horns, teeth, and other protruding organs.

The connection was activated, and with a deafening anger, he realized that some of the crew could not be saved - they were dead or dying. He was not poisoned, but poison was used against his subordinates, only in one case out of three trying to eliminate them physically. His anger was growing every second, but it was directed not at the enemy, who was just an enemy and not worthy of the Commander's feelings, but at the fools who had shit themselves and let themselves be killed, who had let their minds be deceived by the induced tenderness and lust. As the one who had trained them, prepared them, and molded them into real soldiers, he had every right to treat them that way.

However, there were fewer who dishonored his science than those who learned it, and his warning and timely reinforcement allowed nearly three-quarters of the crew to survive and strike out. A brief skirmish in the sidelines and banquet halls survived barely half, but that was still better than nothing. Especially if you added the rest of the fighters to his fledglings, of which there were plenty in the recreation complex specially designed for military corps.

Commander throws off another attempt to open his mind with some kind of spell, reinforcing his fighters again as the light pressure of the fleur is replaced by sophisticated control techniques, but there is no one to cover the rest of the "allies." Some of them start a merry orgy right where they stood, trying to drag Baron's men into it as well, but there are far more who have raised their weapons against those unaffected by the subjugation. It was a good thing he'd trained his glorious hundred not to part with their battle staffs or lead shooters even in the latrine, so they had something to fight off the subjugated, armed with whatever they had.

But all this was all well and good, of course, if it weren't for an invisible controller or several. Whoever was weaving a web of passion for the entire complex, but the level of that someone was not too inferior even to him, Baron, let alone to the common and not-so-common vacationers. His mind was still sharp, but if he understood anything about tactics (and he did!), the bastard who had sold out to the devils would have to...

Fall down on the floor.

Roll into a fighting stance.

The insanely rapid emptying of the cylinders of both leadguns while simultaneously trying to avoid meeting the barely visible web of translucent cloth. He had no idea of the nature of this technique, and all premonitions were silent along with his intuition, but the same tactical understanding was asserted. Whatever this billet was, it was bound to ensnare even him, which could not be allowed to happen. To take advantage of his slavish loyalty and connection with his subordinates would not be good for the entire capital, not just those defending these walls.

Some strange irritation and even slight resentment flashes through his mind. His opponent is strong and no doubt a worthy adversary, but for someone with his potential, something stronger is simply necessary. To kill, or better yet, to subdue until the moment when he can unfold to his full power, to lean on his greatest precious, even if taken away, but still waiting for him! Just like that, without trying to play give-and-take! The realization that he had been underestimated, that he had not been perceived as dangerous enough, was no longer anger but real rage, boiling and spilling over the edge.

The spatial artifact flashes again, releasing a dozen amulets outward, forming a screen hanging in the air, blowing lines of illusory light between the parts of the mechanism, pointing to the point in the spatial convolution where his opponent hid. The amulets burn out but make her fall out into the real world - naked, covered in tattoos and a layer of semen, with crazy eyes and a beautiful face. Looking straight at him with two unloaded lead shotguns.

She is stuffed with power to the top-notch, enhanced by hundreds of sacrifices and frenzied orgies. She can command monstrous amounts of power, and her aura of Vice can easily turn an entire assault army hundred into a lapdog at the mere sight of her shining eyes. Her body and essence are tormented by a multitude of gifts, both one-time and permanent. Her power on this day, the day of her triumph, surpasses everything previously said by two heads. And she is opposed only by an aging and spiraling half-witted soldier whose iron teeth were long ago pulled by Imperial decree and divine injunctions. He can't even put his men between him and her now. He is in the most unfavorable position, having already wasted most of the arsenal preserved from the best days.

He has nothing to respond to her caresses, nothing to dance in response to her movements. He was already doomed despite his comparable level and many titles. That is why they sent her alone, for there was no need for more. Iron fangs, iron heart, iron mind... all of which had indeed been stripped from him, leaving only a shell that was hardly dangerous to Sovereign's plans.

With a rapturous laugh, she covers herself with a cocoon of tainted souls and translucent armor that consists of passionately copulating ghostly bodies. Then, with a swift lunge, she draws closer to her victim. Even exhausted and scrapped by his masters, he remains a trophy of great price, which she will conquer and take right now if only she touches his body and essence. For the sake of such pleasure, she could spare a moment, distracted from the battle her subordinates were inevitably winning.

Well, two minutes tops. If this chipper old man has the stamina to finish a second run.

Thirty seconds into their short fight, Baron spat a bloody clot onto the floor, gutted by a stray magical blow, and kicked his opponent's limbless and headless body one last time. His mouth tasted of potions and blood, his head was buzzing, and the constant pressure of Lust was getting on his nerves.

Deprived of the coordination of the main guiding unit, the cultists, no longer having on their side neither the effect of surprise nor even the support of the fools who had been fooled by the bitch he had killed, were inevitably coming to an end, so Baron could only wait for the right people to find him and pick him up. He could only walk with great difficulty and not very far, if not to say under himself. The cultist's last attack had not splattered his insides on the walls only because he had managed to blow half of her skull off a moment earlier, but even so, he had been hit by a barely formed shockwave, laying his long-suffering back against one of the chairs overturned by their battle.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

"Shit." His voice sounds muffled and dry, as if unaccustomed, for too deep he dived into the warlord's skills without using words at all. "Bullshit."

After heavy use of the same Сhain of Сommand, any attempt to have a normal conversation will be difficult. This is an occupational disease of all command classes. One gets so used to words being too long, cumbersome, and unnecessary that one does not immediately remember why they are needed and how to use them. Those who swam too deep into this river become strange parodies of the undead: alive and breathing, but with about as much emotion and humanity as a lich or wraith.

After a short and very long time, which he spent in restorative meditation, he was gently taken under his arms and led outside, where an impromptu council of war was already in progress. He would have taken much longer to recover if almost all of his injuries had not been healed by the return of Time itself, spoken and embodied by the Emperor himself, leaving only phantom pains and very severe mental fatigue. He had to exhaust himself to the point where even the power of Eternity could not heal completely.

The resting area was almost on the very edge of Eternal, near one of the walls of the cursed dome, and also took up a lot of space, while the number of vacationers and servants was much smaller. In general, the devils were in no hurry to finish them off because they believed, not unreasonably, that they were all already beaten and the devils needed fresh forces in the center of the capital. So they had a little time to talk and try to regain their senses, though even the most able-bodied and the least injured in the battle had time to go to the city for their purposes. Some of them wanted to join larger formations, where it was easier to survive, and some of them had loved ones and relatives in other neighborhoods...

"You don't understand!" Dressed in a priestly soutane, grinning madly and throwing intimidating glances in all directions, the man, whom Baron recognized as one of the local vacationers, was ready to snap into hysterics. He did not snap only because he feared getting kicked in the teeth like several previous unstable men who had been calmed down by his officers. "I can't hear Him! I can't reach Him! I can't get through! It's like I'm screaming into the void, pounding on a stone stronghold! This place. It's not here! We're halfway to Hell, and no god can help us! No god can help us! We're doomed! Do you hear me? Doomed!"

Boom!

Boom!

Boom!

Ammunition, especially such expensive ammunition, was a pity, but in his defense, Baron could say he was no less shocked than the priest who had lost the main support in his life. Even, perhaps, much more shocked, as his agitated companions no doubt noticed. They had not often seen emotions other than anger and irritation at the idiocy of others on his face, and they had probably never seen such sincere disbelief and shock.

With a trembling - and it is his trembling! - hand, he places the lead shooter beside him, turning carefully to face the priest so as not to disturb the wounds, to see the eyes of his interlocutor.

"Say, servant of the gods, is it, then, that we are no longer under the Heaven of our native Alurei?" He speaks very quietly, but no one interrupts him, and anyone who tries to is quickly shut up with a fist in his teeth, sometimes preventively.

"Yes, Honorable." The priest replies in a dead tone, not even noticing who he's replying to or that everyone around him is silent. "Not under Heaven."

"Is it so, then, that there is no all-seeing Eye of God over us?" The voice grows stronger, deeper, more sonorous, and more penetrating to the very bones, forcing everyone around him, except his crew, to move away involuntarily.

"Yes, honorable." The priest replies even more, hunched over and aging without any magical curses. "They are not here, nor is there a will embodied by them."

"Isn't it the case that even the Eternal Palace itself, along with the Emperor himself, are outside of Heaven and outside of the Gods?" All of Baron's will was spent trying to hold back his feelings.

"Y-yes?" The priest has noticed something, but he doesn't realize what it is yet.

Silence.

Howling creatures in the distance.

The sounds of distant battles.

The ringing of magical barriers.

A quiet shimmer of dome-distorted ethereal currents.

All present are silent. Only the sound of his beating heart can be heard.

"Ha. Ha ha. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!" Following his laughter, the rest of the team, the entire crew, who were still on their feet and conscious, began to laugh, ignoring the already frankly frightened looks of those around them. They, too, understood, realized what neither the devils nor the Eternal Emperor himself could know, simply because none of them were there when Baron's heart was taken from him as a result of the bargain, everything he valued was taken away, leaving only a scar, a gaping emptiness in his soul, and a tiny flame of hope that even you don't believe in anymore, because such miracles never happen.

It took decades of time spent trying to drink alcohol to wash away the grief, in constant business trips to various military conflicts, to wash away with blood the disgrace of the ruler and his weakness, his treachery, just to keep his wits about him. It took an invasion of devils, the biggest for the last millennium at least, kidnapping of the whole capital, and getting into such a mess even God's help would not get out of it!

...as long as you dare to live under the skies of Alurei.....

...while eyes of Ours watch over your deeds.....

...as long as your Empire stands and the blood of its ruler lives in Our World....

...until then, We are the guarantor of your punishment.....

Iron Baron laughs heartily, and beside him laugh all those who have shared their commander's fate, feeling for the first time in a long time the sprouts of hope that have sprouted. They don't care about devils and despair, don't care they have to get out of Hell somehow, don't care about anything. It doesn't matter if the devils knew this was likely. Nothing else matters!

Baron closes his eyes.

Baron calling.

He calls for something inanimate and never lived, something created by the hands of the endowed and given a grain of intelligence, a personality of its own. He calls for something that was his, all of them, taken away by politicians and diplomats, intriguers and traitors, taken away by the enemies of the state to which Baron had given all of himself, taken away by the ruler whom he had served faithfully. Because it was easier to pay the Empire, to offer too much just for them to give up on them, on his crew.

He was told that the Emperor had walled himself in defense of his life, specifically stating that he would not allow Baron to be killed as part of the treaty. That this defense was motivated not only by a desire to have a chance to reverse the deal but also by recognition of his services. He was persuaded that too much had to be sacrificed, that the Emperor had agreed to this outcome only to avoid an exhausting three-front war, managing to bargain away not only material but also political benefits from this decision, turning those who were willing to be enemies into allies and paying for future victories with their blood.

He listened.

But didn't hear.

He tried to distinguish behind the noise of words, the falsity of sympathetic smiles, and the cold glances of the capital's intriguers the rumbling cry of a heart torn from his chest, torn and sealed by the Will of five deities, by the Edict of seven states. And, for the first time in so many years, he heard it, heard the call, and went to meet it.

Ignoring all the barriers created by the dome above the city, space was torn to shreds, widening the passage that led nowhere, far beyond the Edge of Creation. Lightning bolts of unbelievable power thundered around them, buzzing with the power invested in them, which contained more divine will than a hundred clerics at once. The surviving members of the Iron Hundred laughed and laughed, and their indomitable Commander smiled for the first time in decades or even centuries, trying to hide the tears glistening in the corners of his eyes.

* * *

Several centuries ago, when the reign of the great Pavian the Fortifier was just beginning, a joint experiment was conducted in the research buildings of the Empire of Ages and the Kingdom of the Undermountain that ended in a crushing and completely unexpected success. Any research, of course, is done with the expectation of success, but not on such a scale as this. The Emerald Pavilion, the Eternal Library, and even the Elven Order of Red Ink - all of them, along with a dozen organizations and guilds of smaller caliber, put their efforts into completing the endeavor.[1]

The project resulted in the creation and launching of a combat vehicle of unprecedented power and superweaponry, which was many times ahead of any development, even if we talk about the dwarves, who are always ahead of all Alurei. An unprecedented number of legendary reagents, a whole set of artifacts of the same grade, and even a few mythical creations of ancient masters were spent to breathe life into the created something. And this something required a commander with many extremely specific features of the soul. Elves, dwarves, and even beastfolk offered their variants for this position, but only the Empire of Ages was lucky enough to find a suitable candidate who managed to pass the merger and survive it without crumbling into stone dust along with his soul.

There were enough conflicts at the time, and the joint, even if more human, crew, along with the machine itself, was sent to the region of the Endless Grasses, the savannahs that alternated with deserts and sparse tropical oases - the very border of the Great Desert, which was on the opposite side of the map to Alishan. That was where the combined brigade under the command of the then relatively young Baron was headed. To test the newly created and, at the same time, not to destroy the fragile balance of power on the continent early. At that time, the alliance between the Eternal Dynasty and the Lords of the Undermountain was stronger than ever before and since, which also caused justifiable anxiety among the neighbors and gossip among the aristocracy, who suspected the Empress of being unfaithful to her husband, and even in the arms of one of the dwarven elders.

The central region of the Endless Grass was simply swarming with primitive and barely clinging to the endowment of the tribes that the expedition was intended to subdue - a full-fledged army corps of the Empire, a small horde of the Undermountain Kingdom, and even some elven mages and rangers. And, of course, the notorious war machine and its crew - without which that campaign would have been doomed from the very beginning.

The savage tribes, self-named Zus'ooll, which translates to "People of the free wind and the glorious hunt," were, as stated, primitive but by no means weak. Incredibly high average level and extremely advanced shamanic, warrior, and hunter classes made them a real nightmare, especially if you had to fight in their territories. They had no homes or permanent locations, but they had plenty of trackers and scouts, only slightly inferior to the elven "leaves" in their jungles and savannahs.

And then there were the shamans and summoners, with all the things they could summon into the real world! The monsters that the imperial witch doctors had restrained with great effort were almost caressing the damned savages, agreeing to contracts with astonishing ease. The seemingly simple expedition was rapidly turning into a desperate attempt to survive in completely unsuitable conditions.

At the same time, the situation on the continent was getting more and more tense, escalating from tense to catastrophic. The unfriendly neighbor, which had grown extremely strong and had managed to accumulate a stock of artifacts, contracts, and, of course, Summoned ones, was not just holding the defense against the joint efforts of the Empire of Ages and the Undermountain Kingdom, but was also demonstratively advancing, pressing on all fronts. Combat slaves and the undead created from their corpses, legions of summoned abominations and blows of strategic charms based on planar energies, the full support of clerics of the dark and even part of the light and neutral pantheons, perfectly trained circles of seers and a series of successful sabotage against commanders and aristocracy. All this allowed Alishan not only to hold the blow but also to strike back.

And the situation between the allies continued to heat up, not least because of the same fighting machine, which came out alone, although everyone was working on its creation. The first to leave the fight with Alishan and his confederates were the elves of the Eternal Forest, who did not like to lose their brethren in another's war, strengthening the allies that afterward would start looking at the Eternal Forest and its unreasonably large and sparsely populated territories. The Zeinberg battle fleet, which finally took a side in the conflict, struck after them, cutting off the sea communication for the Imperials. This is probably why the elves withdrew from the battle, as they didn't want to get into trouble at sea. It doesn't matter what kind of decline Zeinberg has fallen into. It remained the owner of arguably the strongest fleet in the world at the time.

The highly selectively enforced trade embargo and the top-notch work of Neitmak's diplomats had sown discord between the clans of the Undermountain Kingdom, providing political capital for the isolationist party and destroying the already fraying alliance between the two states. The shipment of numerous caravans of alchemical raw materials and ready-made potions directly into the possession of the captains' alliances of Zeinberg drove wedges even stronger. The humans demanded that the dwarves stop selling weapons, armor, and rune artifacts to Neitmak, and the dwarves were not about to lose one of their best and most reliable customers.

The severe illness of Pavian the Fortifier, the death of Elder Garnuz-Khal at the hands of an Alishan assassin, and general nervousness had finally buried this alliance. Alishan, too, was losing power, inexorably running out of steam, but still had a chance to win a protracted war due to a much more careless attitude to human resources and the ability to replenish them at any moment at the expense of the slave trade and the world's best Slavemancers in the service of Khan.

In such a confusing situation, all parties simply forgot about the combat vehicle and the fighters assigned to it, which sought to at least survive in a completely unnecessary meat grinder with the savages who did not do anything to them. A considerable part of this "forgetfulness" was provided by the desire to get the result of the project in their own hands, in the sole possession of only one player.

No one had ever noticed, not in time to realize when the fusion of Iron Baron and his machine had reached such significance. They failed to prevent the Commander's bold and insane in equal measures decision to install right inside the war machine, the triumph of technomagic and the pinnacle of armorers' skill, one of the artifacts wrested from the savages, matching the mythical bar with insane ease. No one noticed the moment of transition, when simply very expensive and deadly effective, even if heavy in maintenance, the machine awakened, in fact becoming an analog of intelligent golems or homunculi, learning to restore the damage and repair its base on its own.

Dwarven engineering teams and elven restoration masters became unnecessary, transferring the mythical spawn into the personal property of Iron Baron in an instant. For security reasons, and if unofficially, in an attempt to prevent people from obtaining the fruit of their joint efforts, all those who knew about the existence of this project were destroyed or wiped memory sites in half with unbreakable contracts of silence. The strongest mystical storm that shook the etheric currents to the point of collapse of most attempts to keep in touch other than by courier correspondence - a consequence of some large-scale ritual of Alishan or another greeting from savage shamans - contributed greatly to this.

For a while, the machine and its crew were truly forgotten about.

Until the captain of that crew managed to guide his child (considering the fact that the sub-personality of the animated machine originated from the Baron's soul, a child indeed) to the very edge of the Great Desert, bringing it to the final battle between the lone remaining Empire of Ages and the Alishan Khanate. In the end, the crew remembered and were ready to do their duty.

In that battle, they proved themselves to be true heroes, and Baron and a couple of others present became Heroes by the end of the battle. The crazy efficiency, actually equal to the presence on the battlefield of an allied mythical behemoth, only fully controlled, broke the course of the battle, forcing Alishan to retreat and give up most of the captured territories.

And afterward, the machine began to be divided, despite the fact it was no longer possible to divide it. Not having even a shadow of a chance to get the main prize and realizing the Imperials would be very angry at their allies who had abandoned them, realizing that a permanently present in reality and not a short-term summoned entity of such power was simply too dangerous to be left to humans, the dwarves and elves began to press the Emperor, who was rapidly losing his health.

If the humans were not so exhausted by the war and the last battle, they would have sent all their grievances to the same place where Alishan's summoned creatures went under the fire of the engineered machine's guns. But they were exhausted, and the Emperor was faced with a choice - to give in, taking enough for the concession to restore the Empire from the consequences of the war on top of it, or to start a new conflict with much fresher opponents, who had enough allies of their own, and under the watchful eye of Alishan, who would not hesitate to make trouble in any way he could.

And the Edict was proclaimed.

Five Deities, seven superpowers, including even the Zeinberg, witnessed the deal. Baron, who had lost all faith and loyalty in a single day, had his heart taken from him, sealed in a full-fledged domain created by the deities present, and the domain thrown over the Edge, separated by an indestructible wall that would stand as long as the Iron Baron himself walked under the sky of his homeworld, as long as the palace where the bearer of the Eternal Blood ruled stood under that sky, and as long as all five Gods watched over the Edict.

To create a domain, a real domain of divine grade, not a spatial fold of any complexity, even for the gods is not easy. Even for them it requires sacrificing part of their power, as well as the subsequent consolidation of the Edict. But sacrifices were made, and the humans, dwarves, and elves got what they wished for. What Baron Heinrich von Schwalzkopf XII, who was left without the meaning of his life, thought and wished for was of no concern to anyone.

Not now, when securely sealed forever and ever, the result of the project that never had time to live normally in the annals of history remained under the name of Iron Krieg.

Iron Krieg had come to the real world again, even if this world was no longer real or even the same. The long imprisonment had not been in vain for the mythical creature. Many of the previously flawless systems were just warming up, regaining their former power, but no one ever doubted that at least half a day would be enough for a full recovery. And it would be a mistake to think that being in a half-asleep state, Iron Krieg was not dangerous!

Baron smiles.

He bares his teeth.

Everything is different now!

Now he won't let anyone separate them again!

Next to him, behind his back and a little to the left, stood his faithful assistant, First Officer and Master Gunner Hans Mulge, flanked by his loyal bodyguards, the half-ogres Zhrach and Buhach, not brilliant in intellect but unbreakably loyal and surprisingly good-natured, as for someone with their heavy and evil blood. Victims of breeding experiments, rescued by Henrich from the vivisectionist's table. They were both fully endowed, despite their appearance, and both were ready to die themselves, only to prevent the death of their benefactor.

Behind him stood all the crew members who had stayed with him, who had not abandoned him even after all these years, his crew. Mechanics, gunners, marksmen, riflemen, officers, repairmen, boarding parties, masters of lead-shooters, ritualists, beneficiaries, mages, and healers - all of them ready to fulfill their duty to the end. Not to the Emperor, not to the Empire, but only to themselves and to the child that once protected them all, Iron Krieg.

"Hans!" Thunderously and so habitually exclaimed Baron.

"Yes, Herr Baron!" He understands the commander without any words or intuition, just experience. "Start loading, check the systems! Rumple and Gruntz, you take the weapons bays. Frimori, you take your team and check the thrusters! Gretta, you take the sensor systems! Are we awake, lazybones, or have you forgotten everything?"

A resounding "No Way, Herr" was his answer, and the remnants of the crew that had survived the battle with the cultists were rapidly recalling long-forgotten tricks and skills. They were in place, every man for himself, and it was truly beautiful, truly magnificent, and utterly indescribably excellent!

He sent Zhrach and Buhach to help the others. With their mad strength, it was so easy to open hatches that were a little jammed from long immobility or to lift heavy crates that had stood all this time in the same places where the crew had left them when they left the corridors of Iron Krieg. Two dozen meters long, five meters high, eight and a half wide, with a bunch of cannons, large-caliber automatic lead guns, and battle staffs sticking out of every corner. The metal was a golden sandy color, stitched onto the frame in thick plates, the color of the metal not from the paint but from the composition. There was too little simple iron, unlike mithril, solar steel, cold iron, and other, even rarer alloys.

He admires his child, his heart, found again when not even a shadow of hope smoldered.

And that's why (or maybe just being near Iron Krieg alone has lifted some of his mental curses) he, always paranoidly attentive, never relaxing, misses a hit.

Iron Baron's late-arriving "instincts" howled, forcing his body into a decisive roll, but the space around him seemed to drown in a viscous swamp, slowing, stiffening, and depriving him of mobility. Two long bony needles, oozing black smoke and poison, sizzled into the heart of the body, and the assassin immediately disappeared in a halo of some strange teleport, as if a golden, rotten ray had fallen from the purple sky and taken him with it.

With his fading mind, the twelfth of the Schwalzkopf family realized that instead of a single assassin, a full-fledged force of cultists, brought closer by the same teleporters, had already attacked. A wave of spatial distortion hits his consciousness, but it's too late - the devil's bedfellows are already within the range of the fields of the awakened Iron Krieg. His precious treasure knows how to counteract the power of the Labyrinth pulled out of the crown prince's stash!

And then the poison finished dissolving his gut, and the evolved characteristics could no longer sustain life in Baron's body...

In the depths of the narrow and dark compartments of the Iron Krieg, right above the thrusters, there was a very special room whose interior did not fit in with the technological perfection of the surroundings. Strange signs, drawn in rough strokes directly on the steel walls, some feathers and pebbles, arranged in a chaotic and, at the same time, bearing some vague meaning, and the main detail - a small pool three by three meters, covered with snow-white cobblestones and bones, mostly human.

Inside the pool, a black slurry bubbled and gurgled softly as if it were a very thick oil or tar, like the kind that dwarves, humans, and even sometimes monsters like goblins and orcs extract. But anyone with enough sensitivity and experience, seeing this pool with its contents, would first turn gray and then run away with all possible speed.

It wasn't even the fact this slurry contained a colossal concentration of primordial Darkness power. Yes, this plane is dangerous, but if you know how to use it and keep your distance, as long as you are not considered a suitable victim. Stereotypes about witch doctors were not born out of thin air. But besides the Darkness, this slurry was filled with the forces of the Hardness in no less concentration, and behind the two planes, there was something else. Something much more difficult to detect with any sensors.

Any educated person knows that combining the energies of two planes is equal to a very strong cataclysm, orders of magnitude stronger than if two portions of planar power were spent separately. But this pool was in no hurry to explode, taking with it a third of the Eternal, continuing to bubble unhurriedly. Darkness, Hardness the highest ritualism, even in its primitive outward manifestation, and a completely warped essentialism - this combination allowed the structure to hold stability.

A mythical artifact complex, against all rules and protocols, installed once aboard the Iron Krieg. Many, many people wanted to own such a pool, and all these many people could not forgive the fact that Iron Baron dared to appropriate this thing without their permission. Well, to a greater extent, the grandchildren of those who had once been offended could not forgive, but that trivia.

The surface of the black slurry churned, releasing a lump of blackness that proved to be Heinrich's naked body, soiled by the slurry flowing back into the pool. As he crawled out of the pool, he gazed with dazed eyes at the chains of black footprints barely visible on the surface of the floor vibrating from the thrusters. So the other losers had already had a chance to swim when they got back in the line.

It was a route he knew perfectly well. Even after all these years, he hadn't forgotten it. Straight, turn, duck, duck, go up, turn again, and straight again, then burst into the central control room, slowly coming to life and triggering the illusory control panels, and shout in a frantic voice the familiar:

"Haaaaaaaaanz!" If there were things here made of ordinary glass rather than alchemically forged tempered and then enchanted glass, it would have some chance of shattering into shards from a shriek of such power.

"Right away, Herr Baron!" With a familiar movement, the assistant ran to an inconspicuous corner pantry, pulling out a luxurious and even for all these years of imprisonment in the divine prison not faded gallifet.

He and the others who had died during the assault needed a full set of clothes. The Font of Rebirth, despite all efforts, continues to bring back to life only bodies, and only in the same outfit in which you appeared before the eyes of God. The corpses levitated by the porters (some using their magic and some using amulets) are already flying past him, among which he recognizes his own. The resource of the Font, of course, is very serious, but long decades and many military conflicts without the possibility of feeding the pond with ordinary blood have sapped it a bit.

During the Grass Campaign, they'd given their soulless and dead bodies to the Font to offset almost all the cost of resurrection and added regular blood infusions on top to slowly build up the resources to create their bodies. But while resurrection had worked all these years, allowing crew members to crawl out alive again from the nearest pond or mud puddle, bypassing the sealing effect of the Edict, there was no way to replenish the supply.

The years had not depleted the resources of the mythical artifact too much, but it would still be necessary to restore it at some point later. And for some reason, Heinrich did not doubt that there would be a later. He would not cut his existence short now, not after all his experiences, not after all his hardships, not after he had found his heart again. Even if he had to run an iron roller all over Hell, he would do it without blinking an eye!

They'll do it!

Together, as we were then.

"Forgive me, my heart." Whispers his lips as his palm strokes the cold surface of the commander's pilot's seat. "I will not renounce you again."

"Herr Baron!" Hans, as always, had already prepared every report imaginable and even a little unimaginable. "The cult's attack has been repulsed without your presence by Zhrach and Buhach's forces, supported by some of the boarding party and the automatic systems of the Iron Krieg. Casualties are minor, and there are no unrecoverable losses yet."

Unrecoverable losses...

It is very difficult to kill them because the essence and souls of those bound to the Font can be pulled out almost instantly while the outer shells are still disintegrating. But, of course, there is no such thing as absolute protection, and so it is possible to overcome the defense of the crew of the Iron Krieg and the full power of the Font of Rebirth. They probably didn't want to kill them for good - the devils couldn't have been unaware of the fact that the Iron Hundred didn't die in the usual way. The whole crew had lost the ability to develop skills and level up, but they were too weak, especially without Iron Krieg, to be a real threat to real fighters, but they were unexpendable. And the ways to eliminate them for good have been known for a long time - barely a third of the original crew is left (now it will be necessary to get more crew).

They used to be a curiosity.

Yes, it's very hard to kill them, but what good is the same Gunner in a fight with a swordsman of equal level? They all fought by developing skills, the only thing they could develop away from the Font and Iron Krieg, to which they were no more weakly connected than the Commander. It was through his Chain of Command that they had managed then long ago to tap into the essence of the war machine, becoming as connected as Heinrich. But there was still not much use for them, and that was without even considering the expense of artifact ammunition and battle staff charges. Without his pistols and lead-shooters, even the Baron was almost defenseless, let alone his companions.

He was sure he'd only been allowed to fight to drain the Font. Then, when they were all dead, the greedy jackals were counting on the fact that Iron Krieg would go to sleep forever, once again becoming a mere piece of steel and a center of magic, and they could shake the Edict a little by agreeing to temporarily open the domain for the sake of taking the Font. Savages were savages, but no one had ever been able to replicate this miracle of Zus'ooll ritualism.

"You have ten minutes." He gargled, inhaling a full breath of the stale and dusty air, slowly filling with the notes of smoke and running thrusters. "Then I want to, if not use the levitator system, then at least direct the tracks into the center of the capital. I've always wanted to miss some enemy and take down some bigger temple."

His response was a friendly roar from the crew, who finally believed they weren't dreaming.

They had time to apologize, too.

And sought, too, to repay those who had forced them to do so.

* * *