《Graphomurk》


 Prolog

    "I guess¡­ I guess it''s over." - I muttered, my voice echoing through the void. As people expect, I was born, I studied, I married ...well, except for the marriage part.


    I was walking along the icy sidewalk in the evening-my usual routine-when I slipped, fell and planted my head onto an iron pin carefully left lying around by our utilities. Now, here I am hanging (or dangling?) in an endless emptiness and trying to figure out what comes next.


    "God, if you exist, answer me to one question: why did you create this world? This is hell... what is it all for?! God?! Answer me!"


    For what felt like an eternity, I was met only with silence. And then...there was a voice from the void.


    "There is no God. I am its replacement."


    "Oh¡­and who are you?" - I called into the void, unsuccessfully trying to at least see something in the space around me.


    The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    "Me?¡± - A pause, as if the unknown voice was contemplating something. - ¡°.. Let''s just say I am a Being of the highest order, whose greatness your primitive mind is simply unable to perceive."


    "Yeah? And what is being want from me?"


    "Do not be brazen" - declared the ethereal voice, in which I could feel a note of irritation. - "To put it simply, I looked at your life, and decided that you are suitable for me. You will be a pawn in my game."


    "What does that even mean? And why would I¡­? Your proposal is not interesting. I refuse to be a part of whatever game you¡¯re playing!"


    "I do not require consent. I will take your soul and place into my figure. Then you shall act on your own."


    "On my own? What do I need to do?"


    "What to do? You must overcome! Proudly and mercilessly! I believe that you can succeed in such an endeavor."


    At that moment, our dialogue ended, and my mind was covered by darkness.

 Chapter 1 - Naruto

    <h3 style="text-align: center">Chapter 1 - Naruto


    I woke up hungry. To be honest, in my previous life I had been hungry sometimes, but I never experienced such a comprehensive and all-consuming feeling of hunger. As soon as I really woke up, it seemed like even chewing bricks was a pretty good idea. When I came to myself a little, I remembered my death and my conversation with the unexpected benefactor and began to look around in an attempt to understand where am I.


    "I don¡¯t understand: am I in a slum or in a pigsty?" - I wondered aloud.


    No one was in a hurry to answer me, so I went to examine my body.


    I had apparently been transformed into a thin human boy, age seven..., with slightly underdeveloped muscles. Male, and for obvious reasons, my sexual orientation didn¡¯t seem to matter much in this age. I once again examined the small room littered with all kinds of rubbish and dirt.


    In general, my objective was clear: get out of here and go look for something to eat. A thought then occurred to me: if this is a game, can I as the player alter this world somehow?


    "Status!¡± - I called out, as if to test the stimulations of the game. ¡°Open menu! Options!". After a moment of silence, I reasoned that that question had been answered readily enough. Well, it doesn¡¯t matter. What we have there to eat?


    After searching of the apartment, I found myself in revealed a refrigerator containing a single pack of custard noodles. Next to it was a sink with dirty dishes and a dirty electric stove with a kettle sitting on top of it. Better than nothing, I suppose.


    Quickly sacrificing noodles to my stomach, I headed to the bathroom, where I saw a filthy mirror.


    "Ta-a-ak ¡­" - I muttered in shock, looking to a very familiar face.


    In the mirror, a boy looked at me with spiky blond hair, clear blue eyes, and clearly visible horizontal stripes on his cheeks, like the whiskers of a cat. No, not a cat, a fox! I knew that boy!


    "Naruto?!¡±


    As soon as this name had popped into my head, a stream of childhood memories hit me. Yes, now I understand why there¡¯s so much trash! Naruto moved into a separate apartment at five years old. And now Naruto... I am eight years old, and I''m going to study at the Ninja Academy tomorrow, where I have to fool around for five years.


    What did this Being tell me? Something about overcoming mercilessly? What do I need to overcome? Why I need to do it mercilessly? And why? After pondering this for a moment, I shook my head in indignation. No need to listen to some voices in the darkness. I¡¯d go about this some other way. My own way.


    But first, I wanted to go look for what else there is to eat. My acquired memory suggests that the monthly allowance will be given me just tomorrow evening after class, and now I don''t have a penny of money. The noodle pack was an inviolable store, which my predecessor had saved, literally tearing it away from the heart.


    No remnants of another''s consciousness were found in my head. Only fragments of memory, slightly settled in back of my mind. However, how much of this eight-year-old kid''s memory do I have? The main thing is the knowledge of the language and surroundings. Other things I can figure out in process. Moreover, the plot of this story is pretty familiar to me.


    It was early morning outside, but there were plenty of people around. Everybody was walking in a hurry, but everyone considered it their duty to viciously glance in my direction.


    All right, hold me seven gods! I will raze this village to the ground for such glances. I bellowed, - "Shinra Tensei!" - Silence. Nothing happened. I stood there for three whole seconds.


    Damn, it didn''t work. But I shall remember those looks.


    Exploring of my village brought me to a simple thought: if you cannot earn, steal, if you cannot steal, die.


    My stomach ached from the hunger. My belly twisted in such a way that my path was sinusoid from one metal post to the other, trying to keep myself up. Where is my chakra?


    "Kyuubi, hello?! If you don''t share the chakra now, then I''ll fall off my feet and die.¡±


    I sent a hungry glance to the running rat. Dammit! I¡¯m the future Hokage! So, it''s time to impose a tribute from my future vassals. I orientated on the ground and wandered towards Ichiraku-ramen. Naruto sometimes ate there using coupons, but they gave out only five of them in a month.


    "Hello, Teuchi-san."


    "Hello, Naruto-kun. Come to eat?"


    "No. The Hokage stole all my money, so the maximum that my finances can afford is to smell your ramen from a distance of a few meters."


    "What are you saying, Naruto-kun? Hokage could not steal anything from you."


    "Yeah. That is why, out of the five thousand ryo allowance that I must receive, I receive only two thousand every month. I don''t care if the Hokage personally stole the money, or it was taken by one of his henchmen on a personal assignment. I get the money in the Hokage''s office, and he is personally responsible for what happens there."


    Naruto realized that he was being cheated when he was six years old. But by that time, the cashier-clerk was already accustomed to a permanent salary increase, and therefore simply put the boy before the fact - or he will sign the document and took what they give, or he wouldn¡¯t get anything. A three-day hunger, forced the kid to agree with such lawlessness.


    Teuchi shook his head and put a large cup of noodles in front of me, I could smell the roasted pork. I was drooling profusely.


    "Please take this, Naruto. This is a gift."


    "Thank you, Teuchi-san" - I thanked as my head was falling before the divine nectar. After only a few minutes, the noodles with meat migrated to my stomach, which finally croaked and began to digest the offering. - "When I become Hokage, I shall exempt you and your heirs from taxes." - I declared seriously. Teuchi just smiled at such a statement. - "And those who will steal from orphans, I will burn them alive in the main square of Konoha." - The eyes of my interlocutor widened, and the smile faded. - "All the best for you."


    I jumped off the seat and ran down the street toward the cliff on which the faces of the four Hokage were carved. I spent the whole day sitting on the top of the Hashirama Senju¡¯s head, since climbing here was no problem. There was a small observation platform to which a narrow staircase led into the almost vertical stone wall led to the serpentine.


    The result of my thinking was an unambiguous conclusion - it is necessary to finish all of them! Why do I need this mess with the wars of shinobi and all kinds of Akatsuki? If I am planning to overcome like the Being suggested, then I will do it in a big way. I will kill them all, no one will stay alive. But in order to achieve the desired result, I need to master local magic, chakra itself. Fortunately, I have knowledge from Earth, where the Chinese, Hindus, Jews, and Indians have dug up a lot about the development of internal forces, and then laid it all out on the Internet.


    Some may say that I am not the smartest person in this world. If someone came up with an invention, then the locals may have already may invented it. In this world there were not such bullshit conversations - like universal equality of everyone. Nobody can just invent anything just like that, all fruits of our civilization come from years of research. For example, knowledge of the chakras came from India, and in Europe there was nothing like that. The same with banal qi, cabalism or nuclear physics. Without long centuries of research, such knowledge cannot appear. In this world, no academic research is conducted. Lone scientists like Orochimaru, are hunt down by the whole world of shinobi. So, my stock of knowledge from where I came gives me a great advantage.


    The next day I went to the academy, where three hours of my time were spent ineptly on listening to the Hokage''s speech, and an even longer and more tedious speech of Iruka. Naturally they rattled on about the Will of Fire, and therefore they did not contain any useful information. Pure propaganda. It is baby talk in comparison with the TV brainwashing propaganda. So, I focused more on the environment, on my classmates in particular. What can be said about them? They''re children. Only Sasuke Uchiha and Neji Hyuga tried to behave seriously. The rest talked, acted like apes and exchanged papers despite all the efforts of Iruka to establish order.


    As soon as the introductory lesson ended, everyone immediately ran home. As for me, I went to inspect the park adjacent to the school grounds. There was a lot of mini-training grounds for future shinobi ninjas, and there was a good track around the park, which had a herd of second-class students running on it. I could even recognize Rock Lee among them, who had not yet acquired his famous corporative green suit.


    Having found a quiet corner in the bushes, I began to meditate, trying to feel the chakra within me. Today I had seen several times the use of different jutsu, and even felt something like chakra. In my condition, where my stomach is trying to digest me from the inside, it was much easier to study the material. I began training as in the Brazilian system. Either you concentrate on the spiritual, or you will experience the wild torments in the material. In general, the technique turned out to be successful, and after couple hours I was able to feel the flow of energy. But no matter how I tried hard, I failed to manage this energy. Well...no reason to be sad, after all even Rome was not built in one day.


    Having reached the desired state of brutality, I went to the Office of the Hokage, where I shouted to the cashier-clerk loud screams. I told him that if he continues to steal my money, then as soon as I became a genin, the first thing which I will do is to release his guts and then use them to suspend all his relatives to death. The degree of inadequacy in my voice reached such magnitudes that an ANBU in mask immediately appeared next to me and was immediately forced to be a witness of the process of the money payment to me. Under direct observation, the clerk did not dare to deceive me, and gritting his teeth gave me all the money I deserved to the last penny.


    In the evening I had a feast, which I spent almost five hundred ryo on - one-tenth of the monthly allowance. Or a quarter of what my predecessor survived on. At the same time, I did not shovel food down my throat, but instead ate slowly and thoughtfully chewed the purchased provisions. But even so, the hunger disappeared only after I had completely cleaned out the fridge, which I had filled to full capacity. Maybe this is my reflex? The motto of a typical student: never leave for tomorrow what you can eat today; and never do today what you can do tomorrow.


    The next month I dedicated to training. Actually, is it even possible to call it training when it was only two hours of running every morning before studying? Then there were four hours of classes, and the last two lessons I steadily skipped, going to the park I already knew. The last classes were usually history, mathematics and calligraphy. I was not interested in all these subjects, and therefore I preferred more useful lessons.


    All the rest of my free time I was meditating. I went through all the practices known to me, trying to find something that would give the best result. And I must say, the results were. Within a week, I was able to concentrate the chakra in the Ajna-chakra area, and then materialize it in the outside world. It was a sort of teleportation of energy. I think about the same principle uses Uchiha''s eye work when they inject energy into the brains of victim by genjutsu. I also tried to transfer energy through my eye, but the effectiveness of this was almost zero, not to mention the strain on the organs of vision.


    I could use the chakra primarily for telekinesis. The efficiency of this method was small, but I was quite able to lift a leaf or a branch. Attempts to control bodily energy with Qi were not very good. No, the result was, but the chakra, located in the channels of my physical body, moved very reluctantly. Seems, long workouts were required to develop this entire system. Frankly said, I am lazy. I don¡¯t want to jump and run around the village in the name of the Springtime. Why spend five years by running when I can reach such result by using Third Eye? And I''m not exaggerating.


    I think the local ninjas from childhood develop exactly the way to release the chakra through the physical body. And this method is in conflict with the use of the Third Eye. As a result, most shinobi in general are incapable of mental control of magical energy. And those who do this, for example, Yamanaka and Nara, cannot boast of outstanding physical abilities. So, I decided to follow the path of a pure mage, not trying to pretend to be a paladin or a combat priest. I think morning jogging is enough for me to maintain normal physical fitness. And the rest of the time need to spend on spiritual development.


    Naturally, no one showed to me any Ninjutsu techniques, and it''s quite difficult to invent something from scratch. Therefore, I decided to "pump" only one skill - the transfer of energy over a distance and... reading information using this energy. This was achieved simply by meditating, concentrating on some object and trying to "realize" the essence of this object. After another month I was able to quite clearly determine the chemical composition of any object, its shape, size, softness, density, and so on.


    The next step was the "study" of living creatures. Or even those that weren''t quite alive. Because the first experimental birds and rats immediately dropped the buckets and died, when I start focus on them. Somebody could consider this as a success and a mega-bun, the skill of the one hundredth level "The Look of Death", this unique skill acted only on beings who do not have their own chakra circulation system. Ordinary people didn''t even notice about it, let alone the Shinobi.


    Apart from that, life entered the groomed rut, and nothing special or outstanding ever happened to me. The daily classes gave their results, and after half a year I was able to learn how to penetrate in the mind of other people. It only worked on ordinary people, but just this could be considered as a success. At first, I naturally wanted to learn how to kill with a look, but, remembering my plan, I did not allow myself to be niggled and continued to develop only one ability - reading information.


    My goal was simple - learn to read the thoughts of shinobi in order to pull out all the secrets, techniques and places of stash storage from their heads. By the way, the latter have become my constant source of income. I looked through the memories of passers-by, and if I found out that they kept money in the recesses outside of the apartment, then I went and cleaned up a similar "bank cell". Surprisingly, the storage of money not in banks, but in hoards and hoops was rather widespread. But I don''t need much. Only on food and clothing. True, I eat ten times more than an adult man of two meters tall, but I''m growing up. Also, I have a demon sitting in me. Apparently, he eats just for those nine. By the number of tails.


    In addition to the directional scan, my exercises developed a common sensory, so I began to feel the presence of chakra sources in the victims. These were both shinobi or fuin-seals. I have sometimes investigated the latter, but especially I did not go deep into fuinjutsu. Not least because I couldn''t learn a seal art with a swoop.


    But I learned to feel the presence of an observer from ANBU. Those watched me from time to time, mainly during my morning runs and trips around the city. Apparently, my meditations did not cause much excitement to the observers. No one in all this time even asked me a question like, ¡®What are you doing here, eh?¡¯.


    Another epochal event in my life was the ¡®Massacre of Uchiha¡¯. Just so, with a capital letter. Because in the village after that arose big boiling, and even I had to stop gutting local merchants for a couple of weeks, because ANBU went after me, not hiding, from morning to evening, and then they were on duty all night under windows. But after a couple of weeks, the propulsion stopped, and Konoha returned to state of a rotting swamp.


    Relationships with classmates was almost zero. Well, what could be the common interests of the adult, in future the Hokage and juvenile criminal thugs? So, I had more or less close relations only with Nara Shikamaru, with whom we agreed on the basis of laziness and attitudes towards the lessons. He and I could answer almost any question from the teacher, but in most cases did not see any need for this.


    After the death of the clan, Sasuke began to behave like a wild animal, waiting for an opportunity to bite the hand that would decide to stroke it. I did not climb to him, but I answered all his ¡®Pff¡±-s and hooks with complete moral knock down. Adult consciousness and experience provide much more opportunities to expose a juvenile idiot also as a mere dumbass. From this Sasuke become just angrier, but for a while, he stopped even looking in my direction, which is what I wanted.


    The beginning of the second year of my stay in the world of shinobi was marked by the first significant breakthrough. At last, I became able to penetrate the consciousness of a shinobies. More precisely, in the consciousness of a young shinobi larvae - my classmate. The reason for my previous failures was banal: in order to scan the thoughts of shinobi, I only need to put them into an unconscious state. For example, put to sleep.


    Next lesson was history, which was distinguished by a hefty tediousness, I noticed that Inuzuka Kiba was brazenly sleeping, hiding behind a book from a teacher. Due to boredom, I decided to use my ability to scan the mind, where possible I tried not to shine in the presence of shinobi. And suddenly, I could easily penetrate into the consciousness of the dog owner and view his today actions.


    Realizing the emerging prospects, I began to train hard in the gutting of other people''s memories, while at the same time looking for places where most often I could meet the dormant shinobi. A week later I was happy owner of a decent amount of knowledge on the use of ninjutsu, and engaged in the analysis and classification of this information. Of course, most of the knowledge of shinobi related to the use of chakra using hand seals and the chakra circulation system, but some of jutsu they performed on pure control, and this was only one step before using the energy of the Third Eye.


    Now I trained not only in scanning other people''s brains, but also in basic techniques. Henge, Bunshin, Kawarimi - all these techniques were in fact quite complicated, but the shinobies used them without thinking about the content. Fold the seals, add energy in a right sequence, and ''voila'' - the trick worked. Of course, I could also repeat this, but besides that, I had much better control over the process of using jutsu, and therefore I could understand the principles of its work.


    I spent the entirety of my second year under the motto ¡®Learn, learn, and learn again.¡¯. I developed my ability to penetrate into another''s consciousness, breaking the procedure into two stages. At the beginning, I put a completely imperceptible seal-mark on the victim''s body, and then at night I waited him fall asleep, and scanned long awaited memories. I could put a mark from a distance of ten meters, without any circus, as waving arms and fingers. And for reading the information, the further distance between me and the victim did not matter at all. The only drawback of this technique was that the ''mark'' saved its integrity no more than a day. But it is quite enough for me.


    For a year, I was able to mentally gut almost all the strong shinobi of the village, including Hiruzen, Kakashi and Danzo. I only saw the last one once, and during the mark''s validity he only slept for a couple of hours, but this was enough for me to figure out what kind of person he is, what his goals and methods he uses to solve problems. Even there was no time to look at the techniques used by him, because Danzo was the greatest threat to me. If he had only suspected me of the ability to read the thoughts of others, he would have destroyed me in the very same day, regardless of consequences.


    After a couple of months, I finally took up working out normal ninjutsu. The first interesting discovery was that when I using the Yin-Chakra, it was possible to transform it into any element without restrictions. It was the Yin-Chakra that I used in my technique of working through the Third Eye. But the Yang-chakra remained in the body, further enhancing my bias towards the Yang-components. I had to train more and the ability to "drop" the extra Yang-chakra from the body. At the same time, my control was almost zero, so this chakra simply dissipated in space, making me literally shine in the eyes of the sensors.


    In general, from combat ninjutsu I mastered the weak techniques of the basic ¡®elements¡¯ - fire, water, earth, air and lightning. Of course, these were no elements, but simply ways of visualizing the effects of the chakra on the physical world. Even ¡®creating¡¯ of the new element was only to focus the mind on its ¡®manifestation¡¯, and then make the chakra manifest with the same special effects. That is, if desired the shinobi could master the "elements" of sound, steam, gravity, radiation, light, darkness, shadow, and even a ¡®devil in a mortar¡¯.


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    There was only one problem - the ability of the body to transmit the chakra, which has the necessary properties. If a person did not have an ¡®inclination¡¯ to the corresponding element, his body rather quickly collapsed when trying to apply the appropriate technique. This, by the way, explained how talented shinobies could take possession of all the elements, not having a predisposition towards them. Long-term daily workouts increased the body''s resistance and its regeneration. After that, was remained to learn how to apply the element with the help of the Yin-Chakra and gradually move to using the Yang-Chakra.


    I could transform the Yin-Chakra into the necessary element in the Ajna-chakra, and immediately teleport it to the outside world, giving them the necessary configuration. As long as the chakra maintained a resonance with my mind, I could freely control it. And constantly feeding the chakra-construct with new portions of energy, it was possible to maintain this synchronization for a long time.


    After mastering the basic techniques, I swung at the most delicious of the shadow clones available to me. The only problem was that creating them required a large number of Yang components. Without it, the clones emerged as ethereal, albeit capable of "independent" activity. To be more precise, the clones did not have any consciousness. There was used a much more cunning trick called... schizophrenia.


    Exactly! When creating a clone, subpersonality was created in the mind of shinobi, which control the actions of his projection. And when the technique was interrupted, the virtual "barrier" between personalities dissipate, and their memories became accessible to the "original". When I understood this technology, I was neighing for a long time. After all, the canon Naruto''s constant use of many clones so crushed his mind that the main person turned out to be extremely stupid, which, in combination with mental bookmarks, turned him into a translator of the positive and Will of Fire. Here is an explanation of why the red loser was actually presented such a valid technique.


    After a month of experiments, I spat on the original technique and remade it for myself. Now they were illusory shadow clones. They almost did not interact with physical objects, but they could freely use ninjutsu. Their own chakra reserve was small, but they could constantly be fed from me. And most importantly, the resulting subpersonality was not completely autonomous. I could observe each clone in real time, give out "valuable instructions" or completely seize control.


    It was through my clones that I worked out all the techniques, conducted experiments, and even found sleeping shinobis in order to delve into their brains. Of course, the illusory clones were quite detectable for the sensors or Hyuga, but I tried to make sure that all their activities were as far away as possible from me. And because of the presence of only Yin components in the clones, their energetics did not resemble mine at all, so I was not afraid that someone would connect mysterious ghosts and jinchuuriki, surrounded by aura with an admixture of the Nine-Tailed Fox''s Chakra.


    By the way, about the fox. Kurama aka Kyuubi did not give any signs of life. He just regularly supplied me with his acid-like chakra. However, I had managed to subjugate the Yang aspect of chakra and direct it to the regeneration of my body. By this, I don''t mean that I learned to move it around, but in the sense that now this chakra was performing some useful work, for once. Moreover, the shift of the body to a mode "chakra-consuming" significantly reduced my needs for food. Instead of a meaningless transfer of products to energy, I now spent the same products on the development of muscles, strengthening bones and so on. In fact, I achieved the dream of all Nara - to develop the body not by physical exercises, but by relaxing meditations, lying on the grass and watching the clouds!


    By the beginning of the third year of study, I could already call myself a professor of chakra sciences. At least the variety of jutsu available to me in diversity was such that the God of Shinobi Hiruzen next to me turned into a minor aphid. But in terms of combat effectiveness, I did not reach even the level of genin. The whole thing was that the only ability that I had been training for a long time had no combat use, since I only acted on the sleeping ones. And all the other techniques required considerable concentration and heaps of time to prepare for use. Now, if I learned only a couple of the most effective techniques, the result would have been different. But why do I need this? I need to win not at the expense of training, but at the expense of the correct use of the brain.


    What is the most important thing for a beginner ninja? Of course, super cool techniques. Having even one such technique and having worked it up to automatism, you can bend all those around you... if only they do not have their own super cool technique. If we consider canon Naruto¡¯s clones. If you even a chunin with twenty years of experience, but a thousand clones can stumble you to the state of bloody minced meat, just because you cannot kill them all, and get tired before they run out.


    I was going to stop all shinobi wars, all these political squabbles and frauds. But unlike my protagonist, I decided to use a much more realistic approach. The best means of preserving peace is nuclear weapons. Not as a deterrent measure. Namely, as a result of its direct use for its intended purpose. If I destroy all the enemy villages, then it is possible for thirty years, or even fifty, not to fear their attack. And there, you see, it will be possible to seize power in the whole world and rule yourself quietly to a very old age.


    So, with another goal, I decided. Now it remains a trifle - to create a nuclear weapon. And here I can boast of "secret knowledge" about the design of a nuclear and thermonuclear bomb. I decided to engage in the second, because much less radiation appeared from it, the power of the explosion was much higher, and besides, it was not necessary to search for uranium deposits.


    What do I know about mining uranium? Nothing. Complete zero. Now, if someone brings it to me, then I can already try to enrich it and turn it into a bomb, the benefit having chakra always at hand. But if you do not bring, you will have to run like a fool around the world in search of something incomprehensible. After all, I have no sample of uranium.


    Let''s get technical details. With a thermonuclear bomb everything is much easier. Its base is lithium deuteride six. At sufficient temperature and pressure, with neutron irradiation, lithium will artificially decompose into helium and tritium, and the latter reacts with deuterium, producing helium and neutron. I can provide pressure and temperature with the help of fire jutsu and barriers, and the source of neutrons can be lithium seven or the same general, the technology of making bombs does not cause me problems. And there is no issue with the extraction of thermonuclear fuel. The sea water contains a sufficient amount of deuterium and lithium salts, so there''s no trouble to be had with finding deposits on the mainland. All that is needed now is to invent a technique of atomic separation, dividing matter into atoms and sorting them by isotopes. My ability to "learn" only allows me to clearly see the difference between different chemical elements. To isolate required substances from the water, the elements of the Earth that work with inanimate matter are ideal. So what if the water is liquid. Element is a much more abstract principle than the banal phase state of matter.


    In general, while my physical body was engaged in fooling around in Konoha, my clones organized a small laboratory on the seashore, where they began experiments on the extraction of lithium deuteride. And here my broad academic knowledge on the theory of chakra, chemistry, physics and cabal studies was useful. Not that I was a great scientist in a past life, but the knowledge that lithium is an alkali metal with an atomic number of three, made it possible to learn to identify it. And with deuterium, and so everything is clear.


    By the way, out here, a question arises to all critics of merishiness. What did the local ninjas themselves not have guessed that enemies need to drown with atomic weapons? It''s elementary - you mine uranium, enrich it, throw it at your enemy head and detonate it. And why did these stupid shinobi not think of such a simple thing? The same question can be asked about my techniques for using the Third Eye. But who the hell would have guessed how this third eye needs to be developed, how to teleport energy and control it. Yes, even the fact that a person has the Ajna-chakra and its functions is not known to anyone here. All this is the result of the use of secret knowledge from the Earth, to which the locals never able to think for a thousand years. So I''m quite capable in the future to outshine Rikudou , Hashirama and Madara together with my greatness.


    Of course, I did not achieve the desired result right away. Only three months later I was able to bring to mind a jutsu that filtered water and extracted from it the chemicals I needed. After that, I spent another week creating a submarine with a drive on shadow clones, which I launched to cruise in sea waters, collecting the dissolved lithium deuteride.


    The next step was to search for a desert island, where I began experimenting with a bomb charge detonation. Here, too, everything was not the glory of God. The idea was pretty simple. Create a pyramid barrier and fill it with lithium deuteride. After this, dissect the pyramid into a multitude of thin layers using weaker barriers. And, finally, we direct the fire chakra to the very tip of the pyramid, concentrating it until it reaches the critical temperature and pressure.


    The essence of this idea was precisely the concentration of fire in the smallest possible amount. It is enough for me to "ignite" only an insignificant part of a thermonuclear charge, and then the reaction will become self-sustaining. Except that this operation was clearly beyond the reach of human consciousness. So I had to study fuinjutsu to be able to create a detonator mechanism. And how much chakra needed to be spent on one explosion is difficult to describe. Day after day, month after month, I was engaged in the development of a detonator, going through a lot of ideas and trying to use all my knowledge in nuclear and not so much physics. The first explosion, which could be called a thermonuclear reaction, occurred only after seven months. And I got a more or less finished bomb in two more. But then, by that time I had accumulated fifteen tons of lithium deuteride, which was more than enough to destroy all potential targets.


    For the fourth year I spent on further studying the techniques of using the chakra, spying on the goals of a nuclear attack and laying thermonuclear charges in previously prepared places. The greatest problems were with the localization of Akatsuki and Orochimaru shelters. But in general, it can be said that my plans for establishing world domination were approaching the final phase. However, I have not been in a hurry.


    My chakra circulation system was gradually developing, and I could already use weak techniques without worrying about energy consumption and sufficient concentration. But I could use the B-rank ninjutsu after a couple of tens of seconds of preparation, which was almost useless in combat.


    Toward the end of the fourth year of my stay in this world, the Nine-Tailed Fox began to wake up. From time to time there were massive ejections of his chakra, and those around him flattened from his yaks. I tried to get into the inner world, about which it was said in the anime, but did not achieve success in this field. This technique did not have intersections with methods of spiritual development known to me, and the method of scientific touch did not bring results.


    There was still an opportunity to ask someone to put a genjutsu on me, but there was another problem - the Yin-chakra in my head was so concentrated and organized that any genjutsu did not act on me. On the contrary, when trying to "transfer" the chakra to my brain, it flowed in the opposite direction under pressure, introducing the user to a genjutsu into an unconscious state and diluting his brain with inclusions of the bija chakra. A pair of ANBU from Root dropped their hooves, trying to hypnotize me, after which all attempts to get into my head stopped.


    Danzo showed some anxiety about my lack of success in the academy, but so far this concern was not so strong that he personally came down to me in an attempt to direct the "village weapon" on the right path. Hiruzen also worried, but much less. He was quite happy with the prospect of making me a nominal genin and leaving me in the village as a carpenter.


    The fifth, last year of study at the academy, I decided to devote completely to my inner demon. And no, it was not greed, but a banal Kyuubi. Since I have an endless battery of chakras, it is worth learning how to use it. To solve this problem, I decided to sacrifice Jiraiya. In a sense, sacrifice him to science. I learned a long time ago not only to read people''s thoughts, but also to put genjutsu on them. Alas, there was one small drawback - nobody taught me to do Genjutsu, and therefore everyone I trained turned into vegetables after some time. That would seem to be the difference - to introduce chakra into the brain in order to count or control thoughts? But as soon as I tried to subordinate someone to my will, something immediately broke in their mind, and literally in a couple of minutes all brain activity of the victim ceased. I could not figure out the cause of this anomaly. In the end, my impact was not quite similar to those genjutsu techniques that were used by ordinary shinobi.


    I took a long time to pick up the moment, and finally I did the necessary operation - ambushed Jiraya in a small village, broke into his consciousness and forced to call the Herotora-Toad, the keeper of the key to my jinchuuriki seal. After that, the toad was seized, gutted, and the seal stored in it was expropriated. Jirayu suffered the same fate as well as all the previous victims of my "genjutsu". Snuggling him and all the witnesses, I went back to Konoha. Naturally, for this I used Hiraishin, which I quite confidently owned.


    And then went the experiments on the opening and closing of my seal. As it turned out, the "inner world" meant not the world in my mind, but the world in jinchuriki''s seal. It was a virtual space in which, nevertheless, the very real bija was sealed. I could enter this space by creating something like a shadow clone. The important difference was that this clone was created by the seal itself, and therefore the technique was unsafe for year I spent on studying the kyuubi. Alas, I did not succeed in carrying out his autopsy, but this was replaced, again, by my scanning technique with which I was able to study the nature of the demon. The reason for his power were nine sources of the demonic chakra. Most importantly, these sources were part of his soul, so the killing of the bija did not deprive him of his strength, but only threw back into the hellish plans of being, from which he can return, making a lot of effort.


    Already at the end of the school year, I decided to make a ¡®hard to refuse¡¯ proposal to the fox. As always, having fallen into bed and settled down for sleep, I activated the technique of entering to the world of seal and found myself right in front of the cage where the Nine-Tailed languished.


    "Hello, Nine-tail. Do you want to go outside, stretch your bones and lick your fur?¡±


    "Grrrrrrr! I want to!! Open this cage and let me out!"


    "I can easily. But not for free. I need something from you in return."


    "What do you want?" ¨C Fox said after a few minutes of intense deliberation.


    "Your tail."


    "What?¡±


    "I want your tail. You have nine, they are a lot of enough to you." - In confirmation of my words, I used a Henge-jutsu to myself, adding to me a big fluffy fox''s tail and fox''s ears.


    "No!" - Fox roared. - "You won''t get anything!"


    "Sure? Look, now I am asking in a good way. Otherwise I can in the bad way. I''ll start experimenting over you, think up savage ways to chop you apart, and then take all your tails to myself. Do you want it? If you cooperate, I guarantee that I will release you from the cage, return your half which sealed in the stomach of the Shinigami. I will release you to the outside world on a distant island, where there is no shinobi. No one will find you there"


    Kyuubi looked at me with a look of hatred.


    "How can you prove that you will not deceive me?" - Fox asked the next question after a few more minutes of reflection.


    "We will make a contract. I can also teach you the techniques of the shinobi. I think if you can use ninjutsu, then with your strength you will never again fall into submission to a human."


    I didn''t hear a single word from the Nine-Tail on this day. And the next one too. But on the third day, he called me and agreed with the terms of the contract. Naturally, it was not just an agreement, but a mutual oath, witnessed by higher forces. I learned about such rituals from the inheritance of the Uzumaki clan of the village of Whirlpool. These techniques that caused the appearance of deity in this world, like Shinigami or Jashin.


    The day of the exam for the title of genin was supposed to be fateful for me. It was to him that I planned to bring all my plans into action.


    In the morning, as always, after jogging, I reached the academy, where exams were about to begin. Upon entering the classroom, I greeted Shikamaru and Choji , and sat down at my rightful place - in the last row near the window. After all, usually in this place the main characters of the anime always sit. And how many nerves I destroyed, while I removed Sasuke from this place. Oh, nice to remember. After all, I destroyed a lot of nerves, not to myself, but to him. Bu-ga-ga.


    The bell rang, and the selection committee entered the class in the face of Iruka, Mizuki and the nameless ANBU in a mask. At the beginning, I passed the written exam, which I, of course, passed by three with a minus (maximum rate is 5). And then they began to call everyone in turn into the next class, where they had to demonstrate possession of the technique of illusory clones.


    Waiting for my turn, I appeared before the admissions committee, where Iruka began his solemn speech:


    "So, Naruto. These five years you studied the art of ninja. Now, it''s time to show what you achieved. To get the title of genin, you must demonstrate to us the possession of the technique of illusory clones"


    I focused, tensed, and used my technique to the limit of my abilities. After all, I carried it out strictly according to the instructions, using the chakra circulation system, which I had not even thought of developing. Appeared clone immediately fell to the floor and turned into a pile of bloodied tripe. It seems that I focused too much on the internal structure of the clone, and not on its appearance.


    "I call this technique, horrendous bloody clone!" - I said proudly, having examined the results of my effort.


    "Naruto, you have failed. I see that you just could not create a normal clone" - Iruka began to chasite me.


    "Maybe, after all, we give pass this exam to him?" - Mizuki said trying to justify my attempt. - "In the end, his guts are depicted impressive"


    "No. He has to show the academic technique, and not invent something of his own. Naruto, you did not pass. You are not worthy of the title of genin."


    "Oh, well I never really wanted it.¡± - I snorted, heading for the exit. - "I have already arranged to get a security guard job in a brothel."


    "What? ...Naruto..." - Iruka''s indignant shout was cut off by a closed door. No one started to chase me, so I went to my home with a clear conscience, where I lay down on the bed. The time has come for my plan to seize the world.


    First of all, I activated the hiding clones next to the thermonuclear charges and sent them to check the presence in the affected area of the corresponding targets. The targets were all hidden villages, Kage, Jinchuriki and Akatsuki. I had to tinker a bit with the latter, but fortunately right now they were sitting in their shelters, waiting for orders. Even the elusive Obito and Zetsu had something to discuss with Nagato. Danzo was also in his shelter, sitting practically on my bomb. There I laid a very small charge, which was supposed to destroy only the Root''s lair. It is impossible to think of the best moment. I will dispose Hiruzen later.


    Through my clones, I activated detonation seals, and Shinobi''s World bloomed with nine thermonuclear explosions, eight of which had enough power to literally evaporate a small island in the ocean. That was my last field test of this technology. The bed beneath me shook with an underground explosion at Root''s shelter, but the house resisted. I activated the remaining observer clones and made sure that all targets were burned in the nuclear flame. More in this world there are no shinobi able to resist my plans. After that, I set up watch clones and went to the inner world of the Nine-Tailed.


    "Hello, tailing. The hour of redemption has come!"


    "What? Already?"


    "Yes. I am fully prepared to fulfill my part of the contract. As soon as I get your tail, I will open the cage, invoke Shinigami and shake Minato''s soul out of it. After that, you will unite with your half, and I will release you on the territory of the country of the Earth. May our Treaty be fulfilled!"


    Having spoken a verbal formula, I activated the tail transfer ritual that had been developed for a long time. A tail would become a part of my soul, which means after death I will not lose the ability to create chakra. Considering my participation in a game, it was possible to assume that this life would not be the last. So I need trumps in my sleeve.


    The process of transferring the tail to me was poorly remembered. This part of the treaty was performed by the kyuubi under the control of the ritual and the special seal of fuinjutsu. It was the riskiest part of my adventure, but after a while it was all over, and I came to my senses. While still in the inner world of seal, I activated the chakra-tail and made sure that the demon had completed its part of the transaction. Well, now it''s my turn.


    I approached the cage and tore off the seal covering the lock. A little mental effort - and the lock began to open.


    "Naruto, stop!" - The ghost of Minato appeared before me. The opening of the lock stopped, and the paper seal again took its place.


    "Don¡¯t interfere." - By a mental effort, I threw away the clone of the ancestor of my body and again broke the seal.


    "What are you doing?" - Minato shouted, unsuccessfully trying to get closer to the cage.


    "I have a contract."


    Finally, the lock clicked, and the giant grille opened. Nine-tailed partially climbed out and stared at me with a tense look. I still had to fulfill several conditions of the deal.


    But here, the events began to evolve not as planned. The space was broken by a wide crack, from where Shinigami got out in person.


    "How dare you?!" - He shouted, advancing on me and frivolously ignoring the Kyuubi. I exchanged glances with the fox, and his eight tails rushed forward, swaddling an unexpected guest. I was originally going to resort to using a demon to force Shinigami to share dinner, so his intervention only slightly changed the order of events and saved me from having to tinker with Shiki Fujin mask. - "You broke the rules of the game!" - In the meantime, the god of death continued to shout, still not fully aware of what was going to happen to him now. So, I focused and activated another fuinjutsu seal, set in advance near the wall of the hall.


    Glowing inscriptions rushed out of fuin, swaddled Shinigami. One of them successfully silenced him, saving us from angry shout. Then, the main part of the seal worked, and the god of death literally had torn to pieces. Of course, a person of his level is not so easy to kill, but, I hope, he has experienced unforgettable impressions.


    Minato''s soul flew out from the stomach of the torn essence, which a moment later merged with his clone. I was about to go to the next step, as I was again interrupted in the most brazen manner. The space again exploded in half, and another figure emerged from the break.


    "You, pathetic pawn! How dare you set me up?" - I was surprised to recognize the voice of that Being that shoved me into Naruto''s body.


    "What? What are you talking about?" - I was surprised.


    "You-u-u-u!" - Malice bursted from my interlocutor, and the waves coming from Being was such strong, even the Kyuubi had to shrink into a ball from horror. - "You broke the rules by destroying someone else''s figures before the official start of the game. Couldn''t wait one day? The game was supposed to start tomorrow morning!"


    "Don¡¯t yell at me!" - I tried to be calm. - "You did not tell me about the game and its rules. You told me to overcome. I did overcome. So, it''s your own fault for such events."


    "Vile creature! I will turn you into an insect. I will pick him now." - The last phrase was clearly addressed to Shinigami, whose scraps managed to gather in some semblance of a figure. So, the Being that did not present itself to me, extended a hand, and I felt how my soul was literally ripped out of the body, which I had already begun to consider as my own.


    "I have a contract!" - I cried out, urgently activating all the remaining parts of the ritual enhanced by the divine energy, which could even slow down the Being only a second.


    Another fuinjutsu seal, already the third in a row, was activated, snapping a dumbfounded Minato. His soul had torn to shreds too, and the second half of the Nine-Tailed Demon regained freedom. It immediately rushed to that Kyuubi, who was sitting in a cage, and I activated a special shadow clone, in whose memory were my knowledge of ninjutsu techniques and how a creature like biju could use them. The last moment was important, because tailed beast¡¯s control over the chakra was not the best, not to mention the level of intelligence. The clone rushed to its goal and for a moment before I was drawn into the gap, I became convinced that the I fulfilled on my part of contract.


    The tail of the chakra is now completely and finally belonging to my soul.

 Chapter 2.01: Nerubian

    ¡°Ha-ha-ha! How did I trick them all?¡± - Being laughed as soon as the spatial rift closed behind us. ¨C ¡°It''s good that I decided to check on you a couple of days before the game started. This plan with the thermonuclear bombs was a surprise even for me. So, I hustled and bet that you would destroy all the competitors before the game even began. Anyway, according to the rules, the use of nuclear weapons is prohibited. And I made a good profit off of you. Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Why are you silent?¡±


    ¡°I need a reward for completing the task ahead of schedule.¡± - I presented my demands.


    ¡°Don''t hold your breath. You''re not on salary with me; you''re in slavery. Besides, you ruined the game the local Shinigami had been preparing for two thousand years. So, the only reward will be that you will spend your next life in the body of an insect, as I promised. There, you definitely won''t be able to make things worse, as the situation is already at rock bottom.¡±


    Our conversation ended there, and I again sank into unconsciousness.


    I awoke, confined in a tight, enclosed space. On all sides, I was surrounded by a sturdy, elastic shell, filled with me and a viscous liquid. I could barely feel my body, so I focused on my consciousness first.


    Going through my memories, I concentrated on the bijuu tail. It steadily supplied me with chakra, which had already begun to fill my new body. But besides the tail, I discovered another source of energy. As soon as I tried to understand what it was, mental images of an entire lecture on ''What is magic, and who consumes it'' appeared in my mind.


    Strangely enough, this wasn''t a gift from the Being, but the genetic memory of my new body. In this memory, there was also a description of my anatomical structure, the organization of society, techniques for performing typical duties, and so on. Essentially, by absorbing this data package, I was supposed to become a well-prepared cog in the community of intelligent... spiders.


    Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.


    Of course, they weren''t actually spiders, but anatomically, the closest creatures to me on Earth were indeed spiders. Cephalothorax, abdomen, ten jointed limbs, six ''legs'' and four ''arms,'' a mouth capable of consuming only liquid food, and twelve compound eyes - this is a brief list of the distinguishing features of this body. Oh, and an organ that allows web creation, of course.


    Having absorbed all the necessary knowledge, I more closely examined my body and determined that its structure corresponded to that of a worker spider. Yes, these creatures were part of a large hive, where division of labor and specialization thrived. This arrangement did not suit me at all, so I began to saturate the body with chakra and drops of available magical energy. This, in turn, activated hidden developmental mechanisms, turning me into some kind of hybrid warrior and mage.


    In general, spider society (I''ll call them that) was divided into three castes: workers, warriors, and mages. Within each caste, there were additional specializations, adapted to perform specific tasks. Each sub-caste occupied a specific rigid position in the hierarchy of society, at the top of which stood the Queen, and at the bottom were the ''regular-workers'' one of whom I was supposed to become.


    A spider''s future caste was determined by the conditions in which the eggs were during the development of the embryo. To become a mage, the egg had to be heavily nourished with specially modulated magical energy. And to produce warriors, special spells were cast on the eggs to activate physical growth.


    I, however, filled my body with bijuu chakra, which began to transform it according to a very strange program, activating all possible abilities in this body. Thus, I clearly fell out of the local caste system. But it''s better this way than to be born a miserable worker spider, capable of nothing but cleaning manure and spinning webs.


    The process of my transformation and ''maturation'' dragged on. The liquid filling the egg was absorbed into my body and used as building material. The body increased in size, taking on a more pronounced ''centaur'' form with four arms. Finally, I felt ready to hatch. By this time, I had long heard some sounds coming from outside. It seemed my brothers and sisters from the clutch had left the eggs. But then, the quiet rustling was interrupted by the sound of footsteps on a stone surface, followed by words entering my consciousness through thought-speech. Spiders mainly communicated telepathically, although they also had verbal methods of communication.


    ¡°This clutch is already mature. We just need to wait for the most underdeveloped ones and dispose of the dead and defective eggs.¡±


    I began to actively move my limbs, trying to break the shell of the egg. It would be funny if they ''disposed'' me before I could get out.

 Chapter 2.02: Nerubian

    "I gave the order to the caretakers. It will take a couple of weeks for this batch to start taking care of the scarabs."


    "And what about the hunter clutch?"


    "Maturation is expected in three days. The food supplies are already ninety percent ready. So, in two weeks, we can send them up, assigning workers who handle the scarabs as escorts."


    "What''s with this strange egg?"


    Two sources of thoughts paused near me. At that moment, the shell finally yielded to my efforts, and I managed to break out.


    "I''ve never seen such a body shape." - I cleared my eyes and stared at two giant spiders, compared to whom I was like a mouse before an elephant.


    "Defective specimen."


    "It''s strange that it exhibits mage traits. The background here does not exceed normal."


    "It doesn''t matter. We need workers, not mages. I see no point in wasting food on it."


    "Hey, I can be useful." - I protested.


    "Our colony is experiencing food shortages. We can''t afford to feed an extra mouth. Are you willing to perform the duties of a worker?" - Replied the spider, who, judging by its appearance, belonged to the upper caste of workers.


    "No, but I can solve your food problems in another way."


    "And what way is that?" - Asked the second spider, whom my instincts identified as a mage-scholar.


    "The specific method will depend on the exact circumstances we are in. I have enough knowledge to solve this problem, whatever it may be."


    "Ancient genome?" - The mage was surprised.


    The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    "The Queen didn''t mention anything like that." - The worker objected.


    "Sometimes it manifests itself if the colony is in a critical situation. And it''s hard to call our situation not critical."


    "In any case, I have no food for him. I doubt he can perform the duties of a worker."


    "I''ll take him with me. If he proves useful, the food will be organized at the expense of the mage caste."


    The spiders exchanged glances, and the worker stepped aside, starting to clean the room from the egg remnants scattered around. At the same time, he herded small spiderlings to the center of the hall, where there was something like a circus arena. I quickly examined the room and then looked at my ''savior.''


    "Climb onto my head." - He responded to my unspoken question.


    I had to climb up his leg to his back, and then to his head. My transport then moved through long corridors, branching at all possible angles in all directions. After about fifteen minutes, we reached a large hall, where I was unloaded onto a table surface filled with all sorts of strange things. It mostly resembled a laboratory.


    "So, you claim to have knowledge on how to solve our food crisis?" - The mage got straight to the point.


    "I think so. To find a solution, I need to know what you eat and how the food procurement process is organized."


    "What we eat? Doesn''t your memory contain an answer to such a simple question?"


    The standard hereditary memory at my disposal contained very little information about the history of spider civilization. But there were mentions that this history spans tens of thousands of years and that spiders arrived in this world from another about six thousand years ago.


    "At different times in different worlds, our species ate different food." - I delivered a profound phrase.


    "That''s true." - The mage agreed. - "Well, I''ll tell you about our situation, but first, you need to eat something. Otherwise, you risk dying of hunger before I finish explaining."


    I listened to myself and indeed felt a ravenous hunger. Strangely, this feeling did not cause as much discomfort as it would for a human. Meanwhile, the mage stepped aside and returned, dragging a beetle about four times my size. Looking at this creature, I began to doubt who would eat whom if left alone. The hungry screech of the beetle''s chelicerae confirmed my fears.


    The mage quickly tore off the beetle''s leg and placed it in front of me. Then he wrapped the helpless victim in webbing within seconds and injected his saliva into the cocoon. The beetle squeaked indignantly and began to decompose into slime, its chitin crackling.


    I looked at the leg, which was longer than my body, and with a mental sigh, focused on the instincts that suggested how to eat THIS. First, I sucked out the lymph flowing from the open wound. Then I slowly formed an air blade technique from chakra and cut off a small piece of flesh, which I wrapped in webbing and injected saliva into the bundle. Now, I had to wait a bit before I could start eating. Yes, this is not like chewing hamburgers; it''s a whole technology of food consumption. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say, a culture of food consumption?

 Chapter 2.03: Nerubian

    The mage looked approvingly at my actions, then with one gulp, sucked out his ''cocktail'' and began to talk about my new homeland. I listened to the otherworldly wisdom of the ancestors while I, bit by bit, consumed the beetle''s leg.


    The spiders did indeed arrive in this world six thousand years ago, bringing with them the standard set of food sources of the time. After a while, the colonies spread across the world and mostly settled in rocky caves that they themselves dug. The general scheme of food production was as follows: hunter spiders ventured outside the nest and gathered plant materials. These materials were ground up, and a special fungus was planted on them, which produced its first crop in just a couple of weeks. The fungi were then fed to feeder beetles¡ªone of which I was currently devouring with both chelicerae.


    Of course, beetles were far from the only food spiders could eat. Rather, it was food that could provide the spider''s body with all the necessary nutrients with minimal effort. Besides beetles, spiders did not disdain the meat of land animals, plant fruits, and even the feeder fungi themselves.


    Such a cycle of food reproduction could not be called optimal, but it ensured the food security of spider civilization for six thousand years. What had changed? The reason was simple¡ªglobal warming. Initially, over five hundred years, the air temperature on the planet steadily increased. Given the overall humidity of the climate, this only increased the production of biomass. But about seventy years ago, the ''Hour X'' arrived.


    On Earth, a similar development scenario was described as ''atmospheric boiling.'' The increase in sea surface temperature led to the formation of a massive typhoon. Moist air rose to record heights, where atmospheric pressure could not contain the expansion of water vapor, leading to its re-evaporation. As a result, enormous masses of relatively warm air rose into the stratosphere and partially evaporated into space. Replacing them, cold air descended into the lower atmosphere.


    At an altitude of ten kilometers, a temperature of minus fifty degrees is quite normal. But when this air descended, the entire land and a significant part of the sea''s surface were instantly covered with ice. Thus, another ice age began in this world.


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    The speed of air cooling was so great that animals feeding on warm-loving plants froze to death without having time to digest their food. Similar remnants, by the way, were found on Earth in the stomachs of mammoths discovered in the permafrost in Yakutia. In general, nothing unusual happened in this world, but now all the land around the spider colony was covered with snow. The situation was exacerbated by the fact that this place was almost beyond the Arctic Circle. During the thaw, such a location could quite support a small colony. But now, biomass supplies from the surface had almost dwindled to nothing.


    Initially, after the cold snap, spiders survived by gathering leftover vegetation from the surrounding area. But then the problem became so apparent that it was decided to ''hibernate'' until better times. At that time, there was still hope that the cold would end soon. Most of the colony''s population was culled, and the smaller part fell into hibernation, coming out every few years to replenish nutrient reserves in their bodies.


    And now, seventy years after the surface catastrophe, a catastrophe occurred underground. All food sources were almost completely depleted. The nearby surroundings were thoroughly cleaned out, and the spider queen decided... to resort to another idiotic ''last measure.''


    In short, the plan was to grow a squad of scout spiders, give them worker reinforcements, and send the whole crowd far away, hoping they would dig up enough food and then bring it back to the colony. Hearing this plan, I couldn''t help but burst into hysterical laughter.


    "Why are you laughing?" - The mage stared at me in bewilderment.


    "This ''rescue plan'' of yours is just a way to kill off the colony faster. In a way, it makes sense. Better to die quickly while engaging in futile activity than to drag out your agony for hundreds of years."


    "This plan was devised by the Queen herself!"


    "So what?" - I asked, puzzled, looking at my interlocutor.


    "Questioning the orders of a superior is a mortal sin." - He explained, as if it were self-evident. - "If the Queen made such a decision, we must not discuss it but carry it out."


    "Uh-oh... It looks like the situation here is even worse than I thought. But, in principle, we can use this expedition as part of a real plan to save the colony."


    "You already have a plan?"

 Chapter 2.04: Nerubian

    "Rag-Hak, who are you talking to?" - a ''loud'' telepathic voice interrupted us. In one of the wall openings appeared the body of a spider, about one and a half times larger than my interlocutor. My instincts informed me this was a female.


    "Seg-Nim-Het, greetings. I found a spider with the awakened genomic memory of the ancients in the worker clutch. He claims to have a plan to provide our colony with food."


    "What? Ancient memory? That''s just a myth."


    "Nevertheless, his intellect is far more developed than that of a newborn worker. So, I think we should at least consider his proposals."


    "Ha, what do you know? I make the decisions here." - Seg-Nim-Het looked at me, radiating waves of contempt. - "Well, go ahead, surprise me, little worker. Tell me your plan." - She addressed me. - "If I don''t like it, I''ll eat you."


    If it weren''t for my precarious position, I would have torn this creature to pieces in response to such an offer. In principle, I could do it right now. After all, my strength was currently equal to that of a one-tailed Bijuu. However, there was also the unaccounted factor of local magic. So, for now, it was worth voicing my thoughts, especially since the solution wasn''t just unoriginal but rather obvious... to anyone with slightly more brains than a spider.


    "I think you should evolve and transition from a hunter-gatherer culture to organized agriculture."


    "What?" - If spiders had facial expressions, I was sure Seg-Nim-Het''s face would display a dumbfounded look. This was precisely the reaction one would expect from a street thug.


    "You need to organize your own production of plant biomass in special chambers where optimal conditions for plant growth will be created."


    "Do you understand what he said?" ¨C The female spider asked her subordinate.


    "It''s the dialect of the ancients" - he explained. - "He suggests we grow plants in our underground lairs, creating conditions similar to those on the surface before the Catastrophe."


    Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    "Grow them ourselves? But is that even possible? I mean, we don''t have the capabilities to grow plants. And I''ve never heard of such magic either."


    I almost burst out laughing. I had to deactivate my ''speech apparatus'' to prevent accidentally transmitting my thoughts to this creature.


    "I think he has information on how this process can be organized" - Rag-Hak tactfully noted, pointing at me.


    "Hmm... Alright. Then I entrust you with exploring the possibilities of implementing my idea of plant cultivation. You may even use this worker. I''ll arrange for enough food to be allocated for him."


    "Of course, esteemed Seg-Nim-Het. I will carry out your order and provide a detailed plan of action in accordance with the Queen''s will."


    "I''m counting on you."


    The spider woman gave me another disdainful look and scurried away, radiating hidden smugness and a desire to share her brilliant idea with the Queen herself.


    "You should be more mindful of the hierarchy in our society" - Rag-Hak noted after Seg-Nim-Het''s footsteps faded away. - "Doubting the orders of a superior is a mortal sin, as is doubting their intellectual abilities. Many of my kin have perished without timely awareness of these simple truths."


    "Oh... I actually already realized that. I realized that no matter what brilliant plans I propose, your colony is doomed to extinction."


    "What? Why?" - My revelation seemed to knock the wind out of the scholar.


    "It''s simple. If any doubt in a superior''s decisions is punishable by death, then a superior will only have subordinates dumber than themselves. And since we are not immortal, the top of the hierarchy will eventually die. Their place will be taken by dumber subordinates. Then the cycle will repeat again and again until the peak of the social pyramid is occupied by extremely stupid individuals who will destroy themselves and the entire colony in one go. This is the result of natural selection, and in such conditions, extinction is not just likely but absolutely inevitable. Your current situation is precisely the result of this pattern. You couldn''t find the obvious solution because the scant intelligence of those who lead you doesn''t even allow for the possibility of such a solution existing."


    "Are you cleverly saying that we''re all stupid idiots incapable of solving the simplest tasks?"


    "Yes, that''s exactly what I''m saying."


    The mage stared grimly at me, fingering his hands. What, already deciding if it''s easier to kill me than to hear the truth?

 Chapter 2.05: Nerubian

    "I will call you Shag" - he finally announced. - "From now on, you''d better communicate only with me. If it weren''t for Seg-Nim-Het''s order to provide a plan to solve the food problem, I would have already killed and eaten you."


    "Hahaha. It seems you still have some remnants of common sense" - I laughed in the spider''s face. - "So, are you ready to hear my ideas on how to save your pathetic lives?"


    "Speak."


    "But first, lunch. And I need to relieve myself. I don''t think your table is the appropriate place for that."


    Understanding the fundamental principles of the local society led me to an obvious conclusion: I needed to dump. Not to kill anyone, but to go somewhere else. In this society, I could only achieve a decent position by killing everyone dumber than me. In other words, everyone. Therefore, it would be simpler to escape somewhere to the equator and create my own utopia there.


    For the next couple of weeks, I gorged myself while simultaneously absorbing information from the local equivalent of books, which were special crystals grown with magic. The literature covered three topics: history, physiology, and magic. As I read these books, I began writing my own, detailing the process of growing plants. Considering the local mentality, this book contained not a single abstract thought or explanation of why and for what purpose. It answered only one question: how? In other words, it was an extremely detailed manual.


    The essence of the technology was, of course, simple: organize greenhouse spaces, fill them with soil, plant seeds, water them periodically, and, of course, provide sufficient lighting. It was also important to mention key parameters like temperature, humidity, and carbon dioxide content in the air. Naturally, most of the necessary actions were to be performed with magic, for which I demanded a bunch of books on the subject.


    The history of the local spider civilization also proved extremely useful. And it turned out to be an illustration of the ideas I had already expressed.


    Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    About six thousand years ago, several million spiders arrived into this world through a portal. The entire horde was led by a queen named Azjol-Nerub. This name was also given to the new civilization of intelligent spiders, which immediately displaced the local population, claiming a considerable territory for themselves. Essentially, all these newcomers were deserters who fled their world to build a utopia in the name of their queen here. Since there were a significant number of skeptics among the subjects, a law was introduced establishing the supremacy of the social pyramid of power over common sense. Since then, the spider civilization has been slowly but surely degrading.


    The new world turned out to have nearly two dozen intelligent races. It took less than a hundred years for a global war of all against all to begin. This chaos lasted for a thousand years, but eventually, the spiders emerged victorious. After all, the heritage they brought from the portal contained a vast amount of knowledge, primarily in magic. The form of government forced the civilization to work to exhaustion, operating under the principle of ''everything for the front, everything for victory.''


    Queen Azjol-Nerub did not survive long after her triumph. In the end, the maximum lifespan of a spider was five hundred years. The queen lasted that long only thanks to the now-lost magic of rejuvenation. For the next thousand years, the spiders conquered the world they had taken exclusive possession of while also... degrading. A thousand years later, the skies opened not to release the torrents of heaven but to unleash portals from other worlds, from which all sorts of beasts emerged: elves, trolls, orcs, humans, goblins, vampires, and so on.


    Thus began another era of global wars. The spiders, having relaxed over the thousand years, couldn''t show serious resistance and quickly lost their leading positions. They suffered defeat after defeat until the orc army destroyed the capital of their empire along with the degenerate upper echelons of society.


    Only a small squad led by a lower-ranking commander managed to escape, carrying with them a significant portion of the imperial library. He was, in fact, its guardian. Subsequently, the spider army, now under sensible leadership, reproduced, learned magic, and defeated the invaders, destroying every last one of them. However, this took another thousand years.


    During the course of the wars, the power structure in spider society changed several times, so that in the end, the traditionalists were back at the top. After defeating the external enemy, they quickly purged all internal opponents and resumed their favorite activity¡ªmoral decay.


    Another thousand years later, the cycle repeated. This time, however, the prolonged degradation of the entire society reached a critical point, and the spiders were unable to fend off the invaders. All they could do was scatter across different continents, hide in secluded burrows, and eke out a miserable existence, hiding from the great powers of the world.

 Chapter 2.06: Nerubian

    A thousand years of countless wars passed, and the victors turned out to be... spiders. As if mocking fate, their strategy proved successful. All other races and civilizations successfully obliterated each other, simply forgetting that there was still another side of the conflict hiding in the cracks. However, it should be noted that by the time of their "victory," only three colonies of spiders remained. One was located in the far north, on an island beyond the Arctic Circle. This is where I was born. Two others eked out their existence on the southern continent, also not far from the pole.


    Almost a thousand years have passed since then. Unfortunately, the victory proved to be Pyrrhic, and our colony could not find a way to move to more favorable areas. Spiders were terrible sailors, and there was no proper forest here to build ships. About three hundred years ago, contact with the other two colonies was lost, so their fate remained unknown.


    Over the thousand years, spider magic had significantly degraded. And no, it wasn''t due to a loss of knowledge. The ancient heritage was intact. The problem lay in the decline of intelligence levels. Six thousand years of directed selection had its effect. The current spiders could not master the magic of their ancestors and used only its pitiful remnants, simplified to the utmost.


    Fortunately, when I, while still in the egg, infused my body with chakra, all the dormant genes awakened, and my brain developed to a level quite comparable to the great mages of the Ancients. So now I was absorbing all the knowledge accumulated by the civilization while simultaneously writing a guide for idiots on growing hemp.


    Two weeks after my birth, a "rescue group" set out, of which I was a part. During this time, my size increased from a couple of centimeters to a full meter in girth. That''s not counting the legs. However, the growth of the physical body was not linked to the growth of magical abilities. Spiders only became more or less decent mages about ten years after birth. But my minimal abilities were enough to use a thermal shield spell, which protected against the cold. I also made everyone in the expedition learn this spell. Although it was currently the local "summer," that meant the surface temperature was not minus seventy but "only" minus forty.


    Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.


    I was included in the expedition only because I was the sole specialist capable of understanding how and where to gather plant seeds. Fortunately, the unexpected ice age had occurred during the northern hemisphere''s winter, so the seeds should have been in a state capable of surviving the low temperatures. True, they had to endure seventy years in permafrost, but I had every chance of finding still viable seeds.


    Rag-Hak didn''t want to go with me, so I had to demonstrate remarkable cunning to make the commander of our detachment, who was several steps higher than me on the social ladder, follow my orders. Even so, I found and dug up half of the seeds myself.


    Upon returning to the native caves, I took up gardening. Within a week, the first seeds sprouted, and my laboratory became a pilgrimage site for all the important spiders in the colony. Only the queen disdained to come to me. Instead, several pots with plants were brought to her chambers, which she deigned to admire before eating.


    The attitude of the local authorities toward me didn''t fundamentally change. They all considered me an object of their intrigues and made no secret that I would live only as long as I was useful. After all, my knowledge and skills were a challenge to their dull existence. However, I was not deceived, so the necessary instructions were written slowly, meticulously, and only after studying a vast amount of ancient books on magic.


    A year after my birth, food production was finally put on stream. All the "old cadres" were awakened from hibernation, and the nurseries were filled with eggs of future workers, warriors, and even mages.


    One fine day, I was reading a book on soul magic when this activity was interrupted by the appearance of my superior, Seg-Nim-Het. Old Rag-Hak had angered one of the senior spiders just a week ago, and his mutilated body had been sent to feed the scarabs. And now, judging by the emotions radiated by the female-spider, my turn has come.


    "Shag, our queen has decided to grant you an audience. You have done much for our people, so she deigned to see you with her own eyes."


    "Good for her" - I expressed my delight at this fact, setting the crystal with the book aside.


    "Let''s go. The queen doesn''t like to wait."


    "Of course. I just need to return this book to the repository" - I pointed to the crystal laid in a special box. - "It''s on the way."

 Chapter 2.07: Nerubian

    "Yes, the heritage of the ancestors must be kept safe." - Despite the prevailing order here, respect for ancient knowledge was ingrained in everyone''s minds. So, Seg-Nim-Het had no choice but to agree with me. Books could only be taken out of the library under the guarantee of diligent care for their preservation.


    Gently clutching the box in my lower left hand, I hurried to the library, quickly moving my legs. I was starting to like this body. It was much more convenient than a human one. Upon reaching the Repository of Knowledge, I slipped into one of the narrow passages, and within a few seconds, my shadow clone emerged. Though it was not well-suited for physical interaction with the world, it was almost indistinguishable from me. Given the taboo against close physical contact among spiders, I hoped my deception would remain undiscovered until the very end.


    While the clone made its way to the queen''s chambers, I activated my camouflage and teleported to one of the lower levels where I had previously placed a Hiraishin mark. Judging by the traces, a spider had last passed through this place a couple of hundred years ago. I lay in wait, observing what was happening with my clone.


    Upon reaching the throne room, Seg-Nim-Het overtook me and entered the vast room adorned with glowing runes. This branch of magic was used to create various artifacts and became the foundation upon which I built the local agriculture.


    "Queen, as per your order, I have brought the worker with the memory of the ancients, who made a small contribution to your agricultural development plan" - the female-spider fawned, stepping aside.


    When Seg-Nim-Het retreated to the wall, the space before me revealed a multitude of spiders of various sizes. At the far end of the hall stood the giant queen, towering at least ten meters high.


    "So, this is what you are, heir of the ancients" - the queen''s voice echoed in my head. - "Forbidden knowledge has twisted your body, making you neither a mage, nor a warrior, nor even a worker."


    Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    There was a hint of disdain and... envy in the ruler''s thoughts. Envy of my magical abilities, which surpassed anything available to her and her entourage. Only my young age prevented me from standing on equal footing with her. It was clear to everyone present that in just ten years, I could become a threat to the established order.


    "There is no place for someone like you in our society" - the queen continued. - "Therefore, in the name of maintaining order, your life must end. You have helped me restore the greatness of our race, so I grant you the right to ask me one question."


    Indeed, a royal gift. The queen fell silent, and all the spectators turned their gazes toward me, holding their breath. What to say as a parting shot?


    "Seg-Nim-Het mentioned that because of my knowledge, she was now just a step away from becoming queen herself. Is that true?"


    All eyes shifted toward my superior. She could only manage a few feeble sounds before collapsing to the ground unconscious. Heh-heh. Not everything goes smoothly for the cat. The queen cast a spell, which extended like a phantom whip from her to the would-be contender and shredded her to pieces.


    "No, she was mistaken" - the supreme judge replied dispassionately.


    I mentally smiled at this. Over the past year, I had mainly interacted with only two spiders, both of whom were now dead. The rest of the colony inhabitants had no idea what abilities I possessed. The fact that I had chakra remained a closely guarded secret, allowing me to stage my escape effectively and efficiently.


    "Of course, she was mistaken" - I replied, broadcasting my speech to everyone present. - "Our colony needs not a queen, but a king. And that king will be me. After I destroy you all."


    With these words, I cast a wide-area spell, "Death''s Ash," targeting the crowd before me. The energy source for this spell was a small crystal battery, a technology I gleaned from the books. My grandstanding momentarily stunned everyone present, leaving them unprotected, and the spell annihilated several dozen targets. But within a second, a storm of magic rained down on my clone, erasing all traces of my presence and the bodies of the unfortunate spiders who were near me at that moment.


    I replayed the recent events in my mind and then moved through the abandoned passages to my hideout. The attempt on my life hadn''t come as a surprise. I had long been prepared for such a development. In the distant corridors, I had set up my plantation, where the best plant specimens grew, mushrooms ripened, and feeder beetles multiplied. This should be more than enough for a comfortable life.

 Chapter 2.08: Nerubian

    Over the past year, I had read quite a few books on magic. To be more precise, I had copied them into my memory. Deciphering this ancient heritage could take centuries. However, a significant and most interesting part of the library was inaccessible to me. I intended to rectify this oversight.


    The next month was spent plundering the library. No, I didn¡¯t steal the crystals with the books; I merely borrowed them temporarily, leaving empty decoys in their place. During this month, no one realized what was happening, primarily because no one had read these books for several hundred years. The librarians maintained order in the library and were not eager to cause themselves problems by acquiring forbidden knowledge. I had previously placed enough Hiraishin marks in the Repository of Knowledge to sneak in unnoticed.


    Finally, all the knowledge I was interested in had found its place in my skull, and I began preparing for the next phase of my plan¡ªescape. I intended not just to escape but to establish my own colony, for which I needed to take along several female spiders. Negotiating with adult spiders seemed pointless, so I decided to snatch some eggs. But there was the issue of preserving them. From the moment the eggs were laid to their hatching, it took only two weeks. During this time, the eggs needed to be kept in specific conditions. It was highly doubtful that I could escape with such a cargo in hand, not to mention that my search for a new home could take a long time. And after hatching, the spiders would need abundant nourishment.


    After considering the situation, I decided to steal the eggs a couple of days after they were laid and then seal them with fuinjutsu seals, freezing time within. To avoid losing the precious cargo during the journey, I decided to place the seals on my shell. Within a week, my clones had inscribed the necessary patterns on my abdomen. Three seals were for three eggs, and another was to contain my food base¡ªplant seeds, mushroom spores, and scarab eggs.


    Fully prepared for the journey, I waited for the queen to lay another batch of eggs and set off on my mission. Naturally, the clutches were well-guarded. The warriors were most vigilant about a small room where the eggs of future mages, including potential females, were maturing.


    Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    My plan to infiltrate the guarded area was simple: disguise myself as a nanny worker, sneak into the room, grab three eggs, and escape using Hiraishin. However, after observing the guards, I concluded that I could not convincingly impersonate the necessary spider. They not only inspected everyone passing by but also interacted with them quite a bit. I couldn¡¯t fake the telepathic ''voice.''


    Fortunately, another method was found. The high concentration of magical energy in this room was maintained using special crystal accumulators that dissipated the energy and were replaced every two days. All I had to do was swap one of these accumulators with a crystal marked with Hiraishin. A few hours later, a worker installed it in the room, and I just had to wait for all unnecessary witnesses to leave.


    The next part of the heist went off without a hitch. My clone silently appeared in the guarded room, examined the eggs, selected three that were to hatch females, and just as silently disappeared with the loot.


    Finally, everything was ready for my escape. Naturally, I did not leave my humble hideout but sent a clone instead. The situation on the surface could be aptly described as an ''icy hell.'' Temperatures below forty degrees, constant blizzards, and incessant snow. Over seventy years, more than two hundred meters of it had accumulated. If not for special spells regenerating oxygen, the spiders would have perished fifty years ago when all the passages to the outside were completely buried. During the first expedition, we had to dig a long tunnel to the surface, run more than two hundred kilometers, and then dig back into the snow, reaching a thin strip of frozen vegetation. Now, my clone emerged on the surface and slid south on skis.


    With such a snow cover, it was hard to distinguish land from sea. I reached a small mountain range and began surveying the endless snowy plains. Well, I think it¡¯s time to start building here, especially since the rocks protruding from the snow provided access to construction materials.


    I decided not to reinvent the wheel but to create an all-terrain boat that could move equally well on snow and water. The main materials would be aluminum and titanium, which I could easily extract from granite. Fortunately, the local rocks were composed of it, not some limestone deposits. The aluminum content in granite reaches up to 15 percent, and titanium up to one percent. Given my ability to extract deuterium from seawater, obtaining the necessary metals didn¡¯t seem challenging.

 Chapter 2.09: Nerubian

    Just a few hours later, I proudly inspected the result of my work. It was a flat-bottomed boat, similar in shape to river barges. It was three meters wide, ten meters long, and two meters high. The titanium bottom was weighted to prevent the boat from capsizing. The top was covered with an aluminum roof, and at the front was a ''cockpit'' with fairly thick windows made of transparent corundum. The boat was powered by four paddle wheels, similar to those on 19th-century steamboats. These wheels turned due to the action of fuinjutsu seals. There were no conveniences, but the clone didn¡¯t need any.


    After testing the new vehicle, the clone created another clone to build a copy of the all-terrain vehicle, while the ''original'' took the driver''s seat and continued south. As I feared, it took a very long time to reach open water. My all-terrain vehicle had to travel over two thousand kilometers across snow and ice. I began to worry that the titanium bottom would wear out from the strain. I had to stop halfway to reinforce it with fuinjutsu seals.


    In total, I sent four clones on reconnaissance. Unfortunately, the spider brain was poorly suited for multitasking. In other words, schizophrenia was very rare among my kind.


    Once reaching open water, the boat successfully passed the test for operation of the propulsion system in its new mode, after which the clones set off in different directions in search of land. The journey was quite prolonged. If I had gone personally, I would have starved to death in the open sea. Of course, I could catch fish, but a spider¡¯s body needs certain ''vitamins'' that can only be obtained from scarabs. So, I remained at the base, studying magic and keeping an eye on the clones navigating the vast ocean.


    The geographic exploration plan was fairly simple¡ªreach the equator and then travel along it until I found land. Unfortunately, this plan didn¡¯t account for the fact that there were no continents at the equator. The spiders had no global map of the planet. It had been lost in the destroyed imperial library. Over the following millennia, the foolish insects never thought to consolidate their geographical knowledge. I only knew of two continents at the poles, large islands near them, and another continent somewhere in the middle.


    If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    Unfortunately, the desired continent was clearly not at the equator, as I had secretly hoped. Despite the ice age, temperatures at the equator had only dropped slightly. It was now not plus thirty, but plus twenty-five. Still, these were excellent living conditions. The problem was that there was no place to live. I was not yet ready to create a civilization living on artificial islands.


    My clones had to circle the planet twice before they stumbled upon a decent island stretching from north to south. I even started considering inventing an airplane. What held me back was that my knowledge of aerodynamics was limited to a high school physics course and how to fold paper airplanes. Besides, boats in good weather reached speeds of over a hundred kilometers per hour. Considering the average diameter of Earth-like planets, the length of the equator should be around forty thousand kilometers, so my clones circumnavigated the globe in just twenty days.


    Fortunately, by the end of the second month of sailing, a group of islands was discovered that was quite suitable for permanent habitation. The largest island was comparable in size to New Zealand. It also geologically resembled New Zealand¡ªa mountain range ran through the center, with peaks reaching several kilometers high, adorned with snowy caps.


    I was somewhat tired of staying in my hideout, so I eagerly teleported myself to the clone and participated in the landing on the shore. The exploration revealed a complete absence of intelligent life forms and an endless abundance of non-intelligent life. After collecting a few captured animals, I decided to fully relocate to the new residence. However, first, I needed to set up a mushroom farm and an enclosure for breeding beetles. Quite a hassle.


    Given my insect origins, I decided to make the house in the form of a termite mound. For now, aesthetics were not a priority. Instead, protection from rain, sunlight, and various critters took precedence. I drew inspiration for the interior from scenes in films about alien nests. I constructed a small three-story mansion with chakra in just one day. After that, I set up the mushroom spores and beetle eggs in suitable conditions. I thought that until I established a stable food production system, I would eat the local animals.

 Chapter 2.10: Nerubian

    For the next decade, I simply lived on the island, indulging in every comfort. During this time, I thoroughly explored it. It was convenient to leave household chores to the clones. I wasn¡¯t in a hurry to establish my colony, as I intended to do so only after fully developing my magical core. However, I wasn¡¯t particularly bored. Magic, much like chakra once did, consumed all my attention.


    Moreover, the ancient knowledge described unimaginably complex feats with reality: space travel, portals to other worlds, magical technologies capable of creating anything from calculators to space battleships, biotechnology for creating new life forms, resurrection of the dead, immortality, and so on. Unfortunately, I had only obtained scraps of the described power. Queen Azjol-Nerub fled to this world with the knowledge of a mediocre office clerk. The most she could do was open an interworld portal. Nevertheless, I saw that scientific research into existing spells could provide a foundation for establishing an interstellar civilization. The only question was why I needed such a civilization.


    Finally, I felt that I had mastered magic enough to apply the most intricate spells from my ancestors'' legacy. I had long considered this moment to be a turning point in my life. I moved to the location chosen for the future city and laid the foundation for a building where my descendants were to grow and be educated.


    After hatching one egg, I placed it in a special room and began monitoring the maturation process, while also controlling the surrounding conditions. Unlike my northern relatives, I was primarily interested in producing a female with the highest intelligence and magical abilities. Two weeks later, a tiny spider emerged, which I immediately began to educate, instilling the thoughts I needed.


    I planned to build a society where spiders would not be afraid to express their opinions, where the gifted could contribute to society, and where selfish, envious, and power-hungry individuals would be ruthlessly eliminated. The last point was crucial because even a small layer of such individuals could corrupt any society into a pack of wolves.


    I never considered myself a good educator. In fact, I generally avoided dealing with children, but here I had to exert considerable effort, teaching the pure mind of the spiderling all the subtleties of future life. Unfortunately, this particular individual did not meet my stringent standards. The queen had imbued her eggs not only with genetic memory but also with her thoughts and emotions. What could one expect from such an idiot? It was only natural that her daughter began to exhibit less-than-desirable traits.


    If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    Fortunately, spiders reached sexual maturity in just six months. So, I waited for this time, fertilized the female, and then used mental magic to oversee the entire process of embryo development. The second generation was much better, especially since I had completely isolated the new female from her mother by sending the latter to the afterlife. Another six months passed, and I produced the third generation. This time, the reason for discarding was not consciousness but heredity.


    Spiders had no issues with inbreeding. We were artificially created. Our DNA had no defects, and errors during reproduction were corrected during the development of the egg cells. However, spider DNA was extremely versatile. During the formation of the egg cell, limitations were set on the activation of various genes. This program could be partially circumvented by setting external conditions for egg formation, but ultimately, it had a profound impact on the spider that was born.


    This knowledge was embedded at the genetic level, but only females had access to it. Thus, I only learned about such details from a completely loyal individual. And as much as it pained me, I had to sacrifice her for my eugenic policies to overcome all the limitations imposed on spiders over the past six thousand years.


    The third generation was deemed successful, so I named my future mate appropriately¡ªLlos. Quite symbolic, in my opinion. I even entertain the possibility that she might one day become the goddess of dark elves.


    Next, I launched the breeding program at full capacity, and my time for the next year was entirely occupied with caring for the offspring. Eventually, as the offspring grew up, they took their fate into their own hands, and all I had to do was guide them on the path of civilization development.


    After ten years, the island was covered with delightful cities, fields for crops, and lakes for fish farming. Furthermore, environmental care was a priority, so much of the territory now resembled elven parks.


    The island¡¯s population was divided into three castes¡ªmages, warriors, and workers. The latter drove the economy, mages advanced science, and the warriors... the warriors just sighed and conducted endless drills. After all, there were no enemies within a couple of thousand kilometers. However, I did not relax; on the contrary, I tried to channel the ever-active warriors into the driving force of evolution. Under their vigilant supervision, mages developed spider aviation, workers built a couple of flying aircraft carriers, and I arrived at the idea of conquering this entire world.

 Chapter 2.11: Nerubian

    Of course, this was not presented as conquest but as an expansion of the habitat. The first thing scientists designed was a long-range aircraft capable of staying in the air for months. Its engines operated on magic, powered by workers on standby. Extended ¡®autonomy¡¯ was achieved by having a portal onboard that could transport crew or supplies across any distance directly to the base.


    The aircraft itself was built in a quadcopter design. Four engines could change orientation in space, providing decent cruising speed and vertical landing. The engine design was also horrifically mundane. It was a wide ring artifact with a spell that propelled air in a given direction. As a result, this type of engine functioned as a propeller but was silent and devoid of moving parts.


    Magic made solving many problems not just simple but extremely simple. The only challenge was obtaining sufficient magical energy. I addressed this by breeding a special type of worker with exceptionally developed magical cores. These were perhaps the most respected and free members of society. Each of these spiders carried a battery on its back, where it deposited the generated energy. Every two hours, this energy was released into a communal network and directed towards societal needs. Meanwhile, the worker could engage in any activity of their choice until it was time for the next battery discharge.


    Unfortunately, I never managed to create sufficiently large storage devices to accumulate a significant amount of energy. It was similar to electricity: one can create a battery for a phone, but it¡¯s impossible to store enough energy to power a city for a year.


    After building the first two aircraft, I sent them to map the planet. The initial results came in a week and were... disheartening. The planet indeed had only three continents. Two were located at the poles and were currently covered in several meters of snow. The third continent was half the size of Australia and boasted impenetrable jungles covering its entire area.


    The only peculiar thing was a relatively small desert in the western part of the continent. What struck me as strange was the perfectly straight border between the lush jungles and the barren wasteland. When one of the aircraft flew closer to investigate, an even more astonishing picture emerged.


    If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    Thousands and millions of humanoid beings walked along the border of the jungle, methodically destroying all vegetation and animals. Moreover, they were using magic. Through binoculars from the aircraft, it was clearly visible that spells like fireballs or earth spikes were being employed. Descriptions of this magic had appeared in the chronicles of past wars.


    I decided not to act hastily but to observe the mysterious invaders. What else could these beings be but those destroying the biosphere? After a couple of days, it became clear that the desert¡¯s border was advancing further east. By making some calculations, I concluded that the invaders had begun their work no more than six months ago. If they continued in this manner, they would clear the continent from edge to edge within five years. This prospect was unacceptable to me.


    First, I dispatched a reconnaissance group into the jungle. Dangerous wild beasts inhabited the area, but they posed no significant threat to trained warriors. Afterward, an operation was planned and executed to capture one of the invaders, however strange that might sound. The hastily conducted autopsy revealed that we were dealing with undead. Specifically, I had a corpse of an orc that had been possessed by the spirit of a forest elf through magic. Unfortunately, the mental magic available to the warriors could not penetrate the consciousness of the undead, and my clone involved in the operation did not achieve better results.


    However, there were positive aspects to the operation. The characteristic signs in necromancy spells indicated that demons were behind the invaders. These creatures were one of the factions in the past war. They preferred not to engage in direct combat, instead sending undead in front. They could not reproduce but received reinforcements through portals leading to their demonic world.


    I reviewed all the information I had about this race and then tasked the warriors with finding and capturing a demon. The ratio of undead to demons was usually no more than one to a thousand. Fortunately, the undead paid no attention to the aircraft hovering at an altitude of eight kilometers, especially since the flying machine was covered by camouflage. So, my forces only had to hover in the sky and observe.

 Chapter 2.12: Nerubian

    A week later, we managed to locate a demon camp where at least a dozen of them resided. An operation to capture prisoners was then planned. In addition to the large convertiplanes in my army''s arsenal, we also had single-seat quadcopters equipped with heavy blasters. At least, that''s how these magical artifacts appeared externally. The aircraft descended to an altitude of a couple of kilometers, and then the rear doors opened, releasing thirty quadcopters into the air.


    The airborne assault descended and carried out a massive bombardment of the area using blasters, destroying the undead. Although they wielded magic, they were not particularly strong and could not maintain shields against the high-tech magic''s onslaught. The demons tried to resist but could not counter the barrage of paralyzing spells. Some of them fled and hid in corners, but I managed to capture four prisoners. Given the lack of losses on my side, the operation could be deemed a success.


    Interrogating the demons, which I conducted in an underground base quickly constructed in the continent''s mountains, revealed an interesting picture. The current ¡®invasion¡¯ was merely a work brigade sent to clear a ¡®neutral¡¯ world. Initially, the portal from the demon world had been opened in the north. It was a well-known passage, and the first visitors were greatly surprised to find a densely packed mass of snow and ice on the other side. However, they then excavated the portal platform, established a ¡®snow base,¡¯ and sent a small army to this continent. The demons had a map of the planet, so transporting the troops was not particularly challenging. Initially, the undead traveled south, and after reaching open water, ships made of magical ice were constructed to ferry the entire army.


    The goal of the expedition was to transform the planet into another demon world. For this, it was necessary to eliminate the local biosphere, adjust the planet¡¯s energy, and then create an icy hell at the poles and a fiery hell on the central continent. Such plans were completely unacceptable to me, so I decided to engage in the genocide of the invaders. Fortunately, their knowledge of geography was also lacking, and they were completely unaware of the existence of my islands. So, I had no choice but to put the results of years of training of the warrior caste into practice.


    This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work.


    I started with the simplest approach¡ªairborne terror. Each aircraft became a mobile portal through which thousands of spiders on quadcopters emerged onto the continent. They flew at a safe altitude of one kilometer and bombarded all targets within range. The undead and demons posed a threat only to ground targets within a hundred meters, so they could do nothing. Of course, there were losses among my troops, but these were isolated incidents caused by successful hits from spells created by the strongest liches.


    My ¡®blasters¡¯ had an effective shooting range of ten kilometers with self-guided charges. The spell was so complex that even a trained mage could create it in no less than five minutes. However, using artifacts allowed shooting at a rate of ten shots per second, creating an overwhelming firepower advantage. Knowledge once again triumphed over brute force.


    Simultaneously with the commencement of hostilities, I ordered the mass production of aircraft carriers. Four planes were too few. Moreover, they were equipped with more powerful weapons and might be needed in the future. I didn¡¯t want to use nuclear weapons because their efficiency was low and they caused significant radiation problems. Nuclear bombs were good for flattening large cities, but they were nearly useless against scattered enemy forces.


    The destruction of the invading army quickly transitioned into a struggle against guerrilla forces. Once again, circumstances were in my favor. The undead showed almost no initiative, so they could only act effectively under the control of a mage. The magically created wasteland had no cover, and in the forest, the undead quickly became prey to predatory animals. So, the demons were left to dig underground tunnels and hide in them. Unfortunately for them, I had scanning spells that could detect sources of magical energy. As a result, within a couple of days, nearly all the demons fled through portals to their main base, leaving the undead to fend for themselves.


    The population of my island was nearly a million spiders, about a third of whom were warriors. All of them were eager to participate in the war, justly believing that there would not be enough enemies for everyone. However, there was still hope for a counterattack from the demons, so my civilization¡¯s industry shifted to a war footing, producing equipment and gear for each soldier.

 Chapter 2.13: Nerubian

    While the final clean-up of the central continent was underway, reconnaissance monitored the enemy''s main base. The demons had long since cleared the snow cover, so the portal was situated on an open, wind-swept platform. The day after the war began, the entire area was covered by a force field designed to protect against aerial attacks. I made no attempt to dissuade the demons from its effectiveness. Everything in its own time.


    A week later, scouts reported increased activity in the camp. It soon became clear that the enemy was serious. If the previous army numbered in the millions, this time the count was in the billions. A special network of spells had opened numerous portals around the base, connecting to the central interdimensional portal, through which troops flowed onto the planet in a steady stream. Determining their exact composition was difficult because they were all covered by opaque shields from above, and ground reconnaissance risked landing on the enemy''s head, as the army occupied nearly the entire available surface. However, it was evident that the majority of this army was once again infantry or, at best, cavalry.


    I don''t know what the demons were hoping for, but as soon as the reconnaissance reported that the troop transfer was complete and the portals were closed, I gave the signal to attack. Over the past time, we managed to quickly assemble more than three thousand aircraft carriers. And this massive force immediately surged north. There, the aviation formed a combat formation at an altitude of ten kilometers and opened fire with all their weapons.


    The firepower of the aircraft carrier was essentially limited by the power of the energy source. Artifacts could convert almost any amount of magical energy into plasma charges. During the attack, each plane drained energy from over a hundred spiders. And developing the power of a magical core was one of the most important practices in the life of any spider.


    In general, the rain of plasma that descended upon the earth wiped out all the shields in less than a second, turning all the assembled troops to ashes, especially since they were standing extremely compactly, almost shoulder to shoulder. The area around the main portal was defended much better, so breaches in the shield were isolated.


    Within just ten minutes, ninety percent of the demon army was destroyed. All the snow over the vast area melted, leaving behind boiling lakes. Even I, on the other side of the globe, could feel the rage and fury emanating from the demon army¡¯s leader. However, this psychic attack had little impact on us. After all, spiders are natural telepaths, and broadcasting their emotions was essentially admitting to one¡¯s impotence.


    Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.


    Then the shield over the central portal fell, and thousands, or even millions, of dragons surged into the air. More precisely, zombie-dragons. From a distance, these creatures looked majestic, but through optics, rotting patches were visible, with bones and mechanical movements of their wings showing through.


    Millions of dragons against three thousand aircraft carriers. It seemed like my troops were doomed... but I thought otherwise. In this battle, I would win with no losses at all. On my command, the aircraft carriers accelerated and began to climb while simultaneously firing at the enemies. The dragons flapped their wings with all their might, evading my shells and climbing higher and higher. Two kilometers, four, six... at this altitude, it became clear that something born to crawl could not fly. Although the dragons were magical creatures, their wings were not for show but for ''scooping'' air. The higher the undead flew, the more rarefied the air became, and the more they had to flap their wings.


    Seven kilometers was the ceiling for necro-aviation. The dragons flapped their wings faster than flies but could not climb even a meter higher. Within seconds, the undead reached the limit of their durability, and their wings began to fall off. The foolish zombies tried to follow orders at any cost, destroying the joints and muscles that moved the wings. As a result, their flesh literally exploded into pieces, condemning the cripples to an uncontrolled fall.


    Meanwhile, my aviation hovered at an altitude of fifteen kilometers, shooting at the helpless targets as if in a shooting range. Essentially, by directing half of the available energy to the engines, the aircraft could have reached an altitude of thirty kilometers. Even on Earth, not every surface-to-air missile can reach such heights. But additional tricks were unnecessary.


    Desperate demons began to shoot upward with their most powerful spells. However, all these spells had one of two flaws. Either their attack was fast but dispersed in the air over a relatively short distance, or it could travel far but was... slow. Fifteen kilometers is quite a considerable distance. So, once the huge fireballs rose above the level of the dragons, each aircraft immediately shot at each charge. It was quite clear that, in the end, the enemy''s spells exploded too far from their targets. And launching a mass attack with thousands of charges was impossible for them. Judging by the density of the fire, the entire demon army could be matched at most by a dozen of my aircraft carriers.

 Chapter 2.14: Nerubian

    It was a rout. Even before the last dragon was destroyed, reconnaissance had detected the opening of a portal through which all the remaining demons fled. The remnants of the undead army were once again abandoned. Apparently, the demons valued their lives more than the ''lives'' of several million elite zombie-mages.


    The subsequent actions of my army could be described as ''tedious area clearing.'' The undead offered little resistance but constantly tried to spread out and hide in every nook and cranny. This was further complicated by my desire not to destroy the demon base, where many magical artifacts were preserved. We also managed to capture a few dozen living demons who had miraculously survived the artillery bombardment. Most importantly, one of the captives turned out to be almost an archmage, whom my warriors literally pulled back from the brink of death, healing him from almost complete fragmentation of his body.


    For the next three years, I focused on studying the spoils while simultaneously overseeing the colonization of the central continent. Demon magic was extremely unusual. I was most intrigued by soul magic. This branch was crucial for any demon, so each of them was a professional in this field.


    The thing was, demons had an astounding control over magical energy. Any complex spell could be woven by them in mere seconds. Moreover, the energy regeneration rate in their magical source was so minimal that using magic from their own reserves was out of the question. However, every demon could enslave the souls of living beings, which were used as a source of the energy they desperately needed.


    It should be noted that a soul itself does not produce much magical energy¡ªabout the same amount as the demons themselves. But when placed in a suitable body, this construct could make even archmages weep with envy. Of course, demons couldn¡¯t create artificial bodies, but they could make ersatz analogues out of pure magic, using crystals as anchors. As a result, the captured soul became a source of energy. Not the strongest source, but quite useful. There were two approaches to using these souls.


    Firstly, a demon could absorb this energy, casting spells of insane power. This approach was limited by the maximum number of souls a demon could bind into a network. Additionally, these souls had to be in close proximity. So, ''great archmages of demons'' were effectively only such if they constantly carried a wagon and a little cart full of soul crystals.


    The second method of using the crystals was raising the undead. It was quite evident that demons kept the best souls for themselves and tried to make use of any scrap. The undead were an excellent solution. Even the most lowly peasant, when turned into a zombie, gained magical abilities. So it was only necessary to implant a subjugation program into its consciousness and send it to kill enemies, while also equipping it with traps for souls. This created a kind of network marketing, accelerating the conquest of undeveloped worlds faster than the growth of Herbalife branches in post-Soviet Russia.


    In three years, I not only figured out how demons used human souls but also how humans used demon souls. Due to their ability to perform intricate energy manipulations, demon souls were excellent raw materials for producing artifacts. For example, to establish production of ''blasters,'' my scientists had to spend three years calculating the structure of the spell that could be embedded in the artifact. However, a similar effect could be achieved in a single day. The only catch was that while I could mass-produce my artifacts, artifacts made from demon souls required those very souls. This could be considered a serious drawback if not for one thing.


    Demons could control spells of mind-boggling complexity. An average demon could create a spell that even a hundred spiders couldn¡¯t hold. Fortunately, the demons opposing me were quite primitive. In terms of ''magical research,'' demons were even worse than the spiders from my ''native'' colony. All they could do was apply spells developed by mages who had fallen into spiritual slavery.


    So, it was sufficient to theoretically calculate the structure of the spell I needed, then have a demon create that structure and infuse it with energy. This way, it was possible to ''craft'' artifacts capable of performing entirely impossible feats. For instance, I managed to create an anti-gravity engine, which opened the path to space. Or I could open a portal not just three meters in diameter but three hundred meters. After that, with a small adjustment of parameters, I could expand the portal window to three kilometers.


    If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    In general, it was clear to the entire society of spider-mages that we needed more demons. Naturally, those trapped in soul crystals and used in magical artifacts. What we managed to capture during the military operations was only sufficient for experiments. Even then, the waiting list for experiments was already a year ahead. There was only one option left¡ªto open a portal to the demon world and harvest them on an industrial scale.


    Before breaking into other worlds, it was decided to send a reconnaissance expedition. It consisted of a dozen warriors, a couple of mages, a couple of workers, and... my chakra clone. Only I on the entire planet possessed this type of energy and could create clones. I was not sure how stable the clone would be in another world, so this was also a sort of experiment.


    Opening the portal was not a problem, as we had a demon well-versed in its principles. Although normally a portal led to a strictly defined location, it was possible to form what was known as a ''wandering portal.'' There was no way to know exactly where it would open, except that it would be within a few hundred kilometers from the main portal. For example, hundreds of kilometers up or down.


    In the end, on our fifth attempt, we managed to open a portal not into magma or outer space, but just a couple of kilometers from the ground. Keeping it open for long was extremely difficult, so my clone jumped into the tunnel, and after confirming that he was functioning well even in another world, although being directly controlled by me from here, fourteen suicide operatives followed. The return path for them was now only possible after a full-scale invasion from our world.


    The descent went smoothly. The spiders used a levitation spell based on air flow control, which was somewhat analogous to a parachute. I used a similar technique that operated on chakra. Unfortunately, I couldn''t transmit magical energy over long distances, let alone to other worlds. The way chakra handled this was unclear. In some ways, this energy was much less comprehensible than ordinary magic.


    As we descended, I surveyed the surroundings. How does the Bible put it? The Earth was formless and void? That¡¯s exactly how the demon worlds looked. I think even Mars would look more picturesque. All around stretched a yellow-brown wasteland, only occasionally adorned with rolling hills. There was no water, no plants. However, demons were occasionally encountered. These creatures either chased someone or fled from someone. Beautiful life!


    Our arrival did not cause much commotion. I think we were simply unnoticed because the local inhabitants preferred to look not at the sky but to the sides. The sky, by the way, was not particularly beautiful¡ªan indistinct haze evenly lit with a light gray glow, giving no hint that there was a sun somewhere up there.


    The clone had no physiological problems, but the spiders felt that the air pressure here was much lower than on my planet. Also, oxygen could only be found in carbon dioxide. It seemed demons did not need to breathe. So my companions switched to life support via magic. This was one of our developments for interstellar travel. A spider would surround its body with a protective barrier, maintaining air pressure, and a special spell in its lungs would convert water and carbon dioxide into oxygen and glucose. This didn¡¯t replace proper nutrition but allowed survival in a hostile environment for at least a month.


    After landing, we immediately set out to find the nearest demon. We needed a ''tongue'' that could tell us where we had landed. After half an hour of brisk running, we captured a demon''s soul. This one was spiritually impoverished and thus unable to resist our magic¡ªthere was simply no energy.


    Interrogating the trapped soul in a crystal revealed that we had ended up in an area even demons called the ''Dead Wasteland.'' The needed castle with the portal was almost two hundred kilometers straight ahead. But it was too early for that. Instead, we decided to visit a small ''den'' of demons a hundred kilometers in the other direction. The gang there was considered quite strong, and most importantly, they resembled spiders in appearance, which was quite interesting.


    As we advanced, we hunted demons that ran past us. This behavior surprised none of the victims. On the contrary, as soon as they spotted us on the horizon, they immediately started fleeing at top speed. Upon reaching the ''den,'' we found an entrance to a cave, around which was constructed something like a stockade. The building material was stone. In fact, there were no other materials here.

 Chapter 2.15: Nerubian

    ¡°Who are you, and what do you want?¡± - mentally squeaked one of the denizens of the lair as soon as it became clear that we were not just passing by but heading directly towards them. Due to the thin atmosphere, demons also preferred to communicate telepathically.


    We didn¡¯t engage in any debate; instead, we simply attacked with pinpoint spells, targeting the demons hiding behind the walls. They seemed to expect nothing else, as the initial bursts met force fields. After a brief exchange of attacks, I assessed the demons'' offensive power as low and then ordered the use of weapons. The pistol-caliber ''blasters'' were readied, and the demons were eliminated in just five seconds. The enhanced charges easily penetrated thick stone walls and several layers of magical defenses. The demons'' bodies offered no resistance at all.


    After extracting souls from the mangled bodies, the workers began repairing the fortifications, the warriors conducted interrogations, and the scientists started autopsies, trying to determine the reason for the incredible similarity between this type of demon and us.


    Combining what we learned from the interrogations with the research results, we discovered that spiders were distant relatives of demons. They were artificially created by crossbreeding demons and ordinary insects, which magic could accomplish. Afterward, some of the test subjects escaped and returned to the demon world. There, they adapted to living in lifeless worlds and eventually settled across numerous demonic domains, securing a relatively good position. Unlike regular demons, spider-demons retained traces of magical cores and could ''do magic'' even without captured souls.


    This worked to our advantage, as we planned to set up a small base here where we could create an oxygen atmosphere and start growing food. To the locals, we remained the same demon-spiders; fortunately, only minor adjustments were needed to our appearance.


    Alongside setting up, we studied the local political situation. We were in a relatively small domain ruled by a weak archdemon. By the way, the domain was a planetoid with a diameter of a couple thousand kilometers, surrounded by a force field that maintained the atmosphere and created artificial gravity. Here, it was not the earth pulling towards itself but the sky pressing down on those who dared to be beneath it.


    Fortunately, the archdemon spent most of his time on personal matters and was absent from this world. He had last been seen here more than three hundred years ago. During his absence, the affairs were managed by a certain Rabator, whose army we had destroyed a few years ago. In demon society, greed was considered almost a virtue. Over his thousands of years of rule, Rabator had amassed many mortal souls. But he didn¡¯t think to share them with other demons; instead, he raised an innumerable army of undead. Losing it during his last campaign, the demon lost almost all respect.


    No one had precise information, but rumors suggested that the entire army had been wiped out in an instant by a rebellious god. Now, Rabator was holed up in his castle, seething with anger and planning an attack on one of the human worlds, where he intended to gather more ''meat''. His personal power was unaffected because he had managed to escape the battlefield with all his stash of great mage souls.


    While my subordinates were settling into their new residence, I thought about how we would achieve our goal. The goal was to capture the portal from this side and establish a full-fledged base from which we could conduct raids for demon souls. A direct assault was pointless. We could kill wild demons with almost no resistance. But in the ''capital,'' each demon owned at least ten souls. Rabator had demonstrated his abilities during the battle on my planet. If not for the distance, it was uncertain who would have emerged victorious.


    We could use the well-established thermonuclear weapons, but an explosion of sufficient power could potentially damage the portal. Moreover, there were too many strong demons in the city, and their souls were exactly what we needed. Fortunately, a solution to this problem found us on its own a few days later.


    Unlike the demons before us, we didn¡¯t limit ourselves to simple external observation; instead, we set up a whole network of surveillance spells that allowed us to detect any opponent in advance. And we did detect a group of such intruders while they were still twenty kilometers away. The wasteland demons preferred to live alone. But here, there was a whole squad of a couple of dozen individuals. They were moving directly towards us, so the entire base was instantly put on high alert.


    Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.


    About five kilometers away, the group split up. A dozen hid in a small hollow, while the rest continued towards us. This tactic suggested they probably wouldn¡¯t attack us. However, who knows with these demons. I, along with a few spiders, climbed the walls and took cover with shields, while the others hid near the cave entrance, waiting to see what would happen.


    ¡°Who is in charge here? Come out.¡°


    ¡°Are we going to fight?¡±


    In front of us stood only one negotiator, resembling a mix of a slug, a monkey, and a centipede. Among demons, there was no standard appearance, so this individual could easily blend into the gray mass of ''commoners'' by local standards. Eight of his companions stood at a distance, watching the negotiations from what they considered a safe range.


    In response to my question, the demon timidly took a couple of steps back and hurried to assure me of his peaceful intentions. Such behavior was quite unusual among demons. Showing peaceful intentions was a dangerous anomaly in their mentality, indicating possible treacherous plans.


    ¡°No. I came to deliver an order from Rabator.¡°


    ¡°How will you prove that? You don¡¯t look like a messenger. More like a regular wild demon.¡±


    The demon swallowed the insult and glanced at his companions. Another demon, looking more imposing, separated from the crowd. It wasn¡¯t the nearly humanoid appearance but the magical shields surrounding him that indicated he was a holder of at least a few souls.


    ¡°I am a messenger of Rabator. And he commands you, insignificant creatures, to come to his city in eleven days to take a military oath.¡± - It seemed that the fact I hadn¡¯t killed the ''negotiator'' as soon as I saw him was interpreted by this envoy as a sign of weakness or, perhaps, the very treacherous peaceful intentions. His telepathic speech conveyed very provocative and arrogant tones.


    ¡°Stealing a couple of souls from someone doesn¡¯t make you a messenger¡± - I countered. ¨C ¡°Fall on your knees and beg for mercy if you don¡¯t want me to tear you apart and eat you alive¡±. - Demons were extremely resilient beings, so my threats were quite feasible. Spiders would disdain such a ''breakfast,'' but my clone could consume even more.


    This time, I guessed the local manner of communication correctly. No, the demon wasn¡¯t going to fall on his knees, but his arrogance had diminished.


    ¡°Behold the sign of Rabator, vile creature.¡±


    The envoy raised his hands, and a fiery symbol appeared above him, radiating the aura of an ancient demon. I referred to the memory of one of the previous inhabitants of the cave. His soul was sealed in a stone, and retrieving the memory was simply a matter of using a weak spell, drawing energy from a reservoir.


    It seemed this was indeed a genuine envoy. The military oath was one of the stages in preparing for a military campaign. Demons couldn¡¯t tolerate any restriction of their will in the form of magical oaths. On the other hand, the leaders of campaigns were also reluctant to invite demons into their forces who could potentially stab them in the back at any moment. For such situations, the military oath was developed. It was a temporary contract binding one demon to another. The reward was, of course, souls, or rather, the opportunity to obtain them. Under standard conditions, a demon could receive one soul out of every ten captured. However, the demon had to kill the victim personally because souls of those killed by undead belonged to the master of the undead. Overall, the conditions were harsh, but wild demons were grateful for even that. For them, it was the only chance to get at least one soul.


    Another important condition of taking the oath was that it was done with a relatively small number of demons at a time. Rabator did not want endless hordes of wild demons outside his city walls. Such a situation could turn into a spontaneous assault. Therefore, demons were invited in small groups for the oath. This applied only to strong groups or outstanding individuals. The previous inhabitants of the cave were considered such a group.


    And finally, the most crucial aspect was that Rabator himself took the oath. Naturally, he could not accept oaths from millions of demons. Thus, only the chosen ones - future generals who would then have to recruit wild demons on their own territory and make them swear allegiance to them - were granted a personal audience. So the current situation was a rare chance to meet the ruler of the entire domain in person. I certainly couldn¡¯t miss it. But there was still one more thing.


    This invitation was not only a means of communication but also a test in which I had to demonstrate my leadership qualities. And what does it mean to be a leader in demon society? It meant, of course, striving to hoard everything for oneself, regardless of the consequences. That was why there was a second group, which was now observing us using surveillance spells. On the other hand, showing disrespect towards Rabator could also negatively affect the future of a potential general. So, it was necessary to keep a balance.

 Chapter 2.16: Nerubian

    ¡°I see that you''ve stolen not only souls but also the mark of a messenger¡± - I informed the demon with my deduction. ¨C ¡°Let Rabator deal with your fate, but the accomplices of this vile crime will be my prey.¡±


    I focused for a moment and used one of the most penetrative paralyzing spells I knew. The glowing orb pierced through the magical shield like paper, and the envoy convulsed in spasms. The spell combined paralysis, physical nerve destruction, and electric shock. Although the biophysics of demons differed significantly from protein-based life forms, the spell worked well on them.


    ¡°Deal with this rabble¡± - I commanded to my two companions.


    The spiders charged forward, casting deadly spells on the go. Out of the eight remaining demons, three were also soul holders. But this didn¡¯t help them much. Had the previous inhabitants been here, even as a group, they wouldn¡¯t have been able to inflict any real harm on the three. The magical cores of spider-demons were notoriously weak, and all the souls from the last war had been confiscated after a large group of punishers had eliminated the excessive power of the wild demons. However, my two warriors were veterans, hardened by years of daily training and sparring. They cut through the demons like a hot knife through butter, leaving only mutilated bodies barely clinging to life.


    The demons tried to flee, but no one made it more than a couple of hundred meters. I issued another command, and five warriors set off in pursuit of the second group, which was already running away at full speed. But they had no chance. Over the past few days, we had confirmed that the only defense of the local inhabitants was their legs and their ability to move quickly. So, I had developed and taught my companions a spell that significantly increased running speed. As a result, the spiders raced through the wastelands at racing car speeds, with no obstacles in the terrain.


    The spoils that fell into our hands were substantial: eighteen still-living demons and twelve souls of various intelligent beings - from goblins to elves. We dragged the envoy further into the wastelands, where we left him to recover. The mark placed on him was an excellent protection from the wild, as it indicated that this demon was an envoy of Rabator, and thus, attacking him was the best way to ensure eternal and unimaginable suffering.


    The next ten days were dedicated to preparing for the daring operation to capture an entire city of demons. It was our only chance, so my companions had to either succeed or die trying. As a clone, I wasn¡¯t afraid of such a fate.


    The plan was simple and bold. It was based on the fact that none of the demons had ever heard of such energy as chakra. Magic was ubiquitous here, but energy from a biju¡¯s tail was unknown to the locals. And I still had a mega-bonus from my days as Naruto - my ''genjutsu''. I intended to get close to Rabator within line of sight and subjugate his mind. Every inhabitant of the demon city, either directly or through a commander, had sworn allegiance to the archdemon¡¯s deputy. As a result, Rabator could, with a mere mental effort, kill or paralyze any of his vassals. That¡¯s what I planned to use.


    After subjugation, the demon would paralyze the entire population of the city and order all forms of magical protection to be removed. Then my companions would cast a mass paralyzing spell. After that, it would only be a matter of opening a portal to our world and starting the collection of souls. Of course, within a few minutes, Rabator would die, and the oath would cease to be effective, but that time should be enough to give us the necessary advantage. Paralysis would provide even more time, and on the other side of the portal, over a hundred thousand warriors, armed with the latest magical technology, were waiting their turn. We had to forgo almost all artifacts to avoid drawing attention. However, our main forces were capable of matching even the demon army in their home city.


    I used all the captured demons to train my ability. The first test subjects died in agony, but the last ones were completely under my control and managed to last not two but the full ten minutes. Compared to humans, demons were far more resilient.


    And so, the day of reckoning arrived. Our squad ran through the desert at the speed of an average demon, and ahead loomed the massive city. From a distance, the structure resembled a mountain-sized anthill or a very, very abstract pyramid. As we got closer, it became clear that the ''construction of the century'' was still ongoing. Demons were busy building new walls, roads, and rooms in places.


    When we were about five kilometers from the city wall, we were surrounded by a crowd of a hundred demons, each glowing with magic like a Christmas tree.


    Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    ¡°Where are you going?¡± - asked one of them, judging by his behavior, the squad leader.


    ¡°To meet Rabator. He invited me to become the greatest general of his army.¡±


    ¡°Ha, the greatest? Well, follow me. There were special instructions regarding you.¡±


    The demon didn¡¯t explain the essence of these instructions. I, although I doubled my vigilance, continued to exude confidence. We reached the city, and I could assess the scale of the structure up close. A solid vertical wall rose a hundred meters around the perimeter, transitioning higher into a stepped surface, with windows, doors, and passages here and there. The wall right in front of us had gates. From a distance, they seemed like a small gate, but up close, it was clear that even a tank could fit through them.


    The doors swung open outward, revealing their thickness. Over a meter of enchanted metal glowed with magic from the spells embedded within it. It seemed I had been too hasty in thinking that this structure could be destroyed with a thermonuclear bomb. Technically, it was possible, but there was a decent chance it could split the planet in half. On the other hand, it would soon all be mine. I looked around smugly, surveying my future real estate.


    Under vigilant guard, we were led through a labyrinth of convoluted corridors and staircases. I even got a bit bored during the process. The journey was quite long, ending somewhere near the top of the anthill. Finally, the next doors opened before us, and we entered a richly decorated hall, at the far end of which sat... a rather shabby-looking demon. The memory of the enslaved demons suggested that this was Rabator.


    We moved forward, and I discovered that the local ruler was separated from us by a powerful magical barrier. Similar barriers covered the walls, floor, and ceiling. Most notably, our escorts did not enter with us but remained standing in the corridor. It seemed like a trap. In other words, my trap had closed, snagging the prey on the hook.


    ¡°So, this is what you¡¯re like...¡± - Rabator drawled vaguely.


    ¡°Yes, that¡¯s us¡± - I confirmed. From the very first second of being in the room, I began saturating the demon¡¯s mind with chakra. Unfortunately, overcoming his natural resistance required time. The demons I tried to subjugate too quickly died before I gained control over them.


    ¡°When the portal¡¯s attendants informed me of the successful infiltration of scouts through the wandering portal, I kept wondering who the audacious ones were. And it turns out that they are the very creatures who deceitfully destroyed my army. Let me guess, it was Ighural who suggested the portal idea to you.¡±


    ¡°Ighural? This is the first time I¡¯ve heard of him. You must be referring to the demon who led a herd of zombie mammoths?¡±


    ¡°Mammoths? Ah, yes, he controlled a squad of siege beasts from the forest elves. It seems he managed to outwit you¡± - the demon sneered unpleasantly.


    ¡°I don¡¯t think so. Most likely, he wasn¡¯t even asked about it because no one cared whether you would learn of our infiltration or not¡± - I lied boldly. We would need to reprimand our spatial research department for failing to think of such a question.


    ¡°How presumptuous. The fact that you destroyed my envoy squad caught my attention. You didn¡¯t think that group of observers was the only one, did you?¡±


    ¡°So, they were your envoys after all? I had a higher opinion of you. How could you allow such insignificant creatures to speak on your behalf?¡±


    The demon hit me with a wave of irritation.


    ¡°So, what were you hoping to achieve with all this fuss?¡± - he asked, fixing me with his gaze.


    ¡°Well... we planned to meet you personally, kill you, and then take control of the city and the entire domain¡± - I listed, counting off on my fingers.


    ¡°As you can see, your plan has failed¡± - the demon grinned smugly again. ¨C ¡°You are trapped. Even an archdemon cannot escape from here. This is the most secure place in the city.¡±


    ¡°Actually, it¡¯s part of the plan.¡± - The demon¡¯s joyful grin turned into a frightened expression. ¨C ¡°This is the most secure place in the city. So, when you and all the inhabitants of this city die, we will remain safe.¡±


    ¡°You lie!¡± - The demon shouted, leaping from his throne. ¨C ¡°Do you want me to remove the protection? That won¡¯t happen.¡±


    ¡°Oh... And how do you plan to kill us then? We are protected from all sides.¡±


    The demon smiled again and settled back into his seat.


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to kill you. You will be tortured for centuries. Sooner or later, I will get answers to all my questions. But there is one question I would like to hear the answer to right now. How did you intend to mimic as demons if your aura is not concealed?¡±


    Oops! That¡¯s a slip-up. It seems that demon bodies have some special means of perception. The spiders hadn¡¯t seen anything like that, especially anything so glaring.


    ¡°That¡¯s... a secret.¡±


    ¡°Ha. Better admit that you didn¡¯t even suspect that any demon could see through your game at first glance.¡±

 Chapter 2.17: Nerubian

    I directed the feeling of irritation I was genuinely experiencing outward. What a blunder this was. My security service clearly isn¡¯t catching any mice. And I¡¯m no better, not checking everything myself. It¡¯s true what they say: if you want something done right, do it yourself. Meanwhile, the demon continued to gloat and speak.


    ¡°Although, your camouflage is quite intriguing. Your aura is not detectable at all. What is this? Some sort of artifact?¡± - My irritation grew. ¨C ¡°Yes, I knew it! It¡¯s an artifact. Hey, when you grab them, don¡¯t hit the main one too hard. I don¡¯t want such a valuable item to be damaged.¡±


    ¡°Do you really consider this junk a valuable item?¡± - I pulled out a small crystal from the chitinous fold that served as my pocket. It contained a simple spell that made it shimmer in all the colors of the rainbow and emit a ¡®powerful and mysterious¡¯ magical aura. Well, this toy came in handy. ¨C ¡°If you like it so much, take it. I have more at home.¡±


    I waved my hand, and the glowing crystal flew towards the demon. At that moment, I activated my ability and took control of his consciousness. The timing was so perfect that Rabator didn¡¯t even realize he was under my influence. His gaze fixated on the priceless treasure flying directly into his hands. With a quick telepathic command, he deactivated the barrier of the trap and caught the crystal. Greed overtook him, and another mental impulse paralyzed all the demons in the city, ordering them to freeze, remove magical protections, and await further instructions. Then, his gaze focused on the magical glow of the crystal, and his consciousness no longer perceived anything except it.


    ¡°My precious...¡± - Rabator managed to think before losing consciousness.


    I momentarily shifted my focus from controlling the foreign mind and assessed the situation with my senses. The fourteen spiders had completed their task and activated the highest level paralysis spell, channeling almost all their energy plus reserves from accumulators into it. It was time for the second part of the plan.


    I scanned the demon¡¯s mind and found the location of the portal to other worlds. It was located in the center of the city at ground level. Essentially, right below us. The path there was long and winding, so I opted for a bit of vandalism. The spiders picked up the helpless demon ruler, and I activated the Doton technique, opening a pit in the floor leading to the desired level. If I had used magic, I would have had to overcome the resistance of protective spells. But chakra simply ignored this layer of reality, displacing the spells along with the matter.


    Within a minute, we were standing in the portal chamber. I stayed to monitor Rabator, while my loyal minions began activating the portal. It required a vast amount of energy, but it had to come from my world. All we had to do was disable the security module in the portal control mechanism and accept the ¡®incoming call.¡¯


    Finally, after five minutes, the portal opened, and a flood of spiders poured out, immediately starting to secure the area, further immobilize the demons, and spread throughout the city¡¯s rooms. My world conquest plan moved into the main phase, where I only needed to provide overall guidance.


    The capture of the demon city, though not bloodless, generally proceeded according to plan. The number of rooms and corridors was so vast that we couldn¡¯t clear them all before Rabator died, and the oath of loyalty to him ceased to be effective. However, the positive aspect was that we still prevented any witnesses from escaping, so no one outside knew about the change in power.


    For the next few months, we sent subjugated demons using mental magic to recruit ¡®volunteers¡¯ and bring them to the city to swear allegiance. Naturally, all the newcomers lost their souls, and some of their bodies were remotely controlled by spiders, creating the appearance of normal proceedings. The problem with demon auras was easily resolved. It was the body¡¯s aura, so ¡®zombified¡¯ demons looked just like regular ones on the outside.


    While the spiders stocked up on valuable resources in the form of demon souls, I studied their magical books. Rabator had a rather decent library containing numerous works by mages of various races. The main demon¡¯s possession also included the souls of powerful mages, whom I employed as consultants for studying the material.


    The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.


    I tried to find any references to chakra but instead came across a somewhat different phenomenon. In the Naruto world, it was called Ki. From an ordinary observer''s perspective, it was simply the projection of negative emotions. But in reality, it was a special substance that could be termed sacrifice energy or worship energy. Perhaps this energy was what was called Bahion on Earth.


    Powerful demons could absorb this energy and use it to enhance themselves. And since the energy needed to be sourced and then accumulated in sufficient amounts, demons created their own domains - isolated areas of space where Bahion accumulated over millennia until its density reached the required level. The source of this energy was the suffering of enslaved souls and the suffering of the demons themselves.


    And here, another interesting thing emerged. The chakra tail that Ky¨±bi had provided me with was created using Bahion. Moreover, I found a ritual describing the process of creating such energy centers tied to the soul. The essence was that you could take the souls of powerful demons, cleanse them of personality and memory, and then turn them into a sort of energy node capable of storing and later generating almost any type of energy.


    So, at some point, a fox demon encountered chakra, recognized its advantages, created nine energy centers for himself using Bahion, and tuned them all to produce chakra. Thus, an ordinary demon, devoid of magical energy, became a ¡®beast of chakra¡¯ later known as the Nine-Tailed Fox.


    I also became excited about the idea of creating such centers for myself. Especially since I had numerous demon souls and an entire world filled to the brim with Bakhion at my disposal. Unlike Ky¨±bi, I planned to tune each tail to its own type of energy. After all, chakra and magic were quite different, and where one faced difficulties, the other easily overcame them. Moreover, I could leave my future ¡®tails¡¯ in a dormant state and activate them only when I encountered suitable energy.


    By the way, demon magic and that of other races were significantly different from spider magic, although they were based on the same type of energy. Our magic was a precise mathematical science. There was no place for divination here. There were spell diagrams, rules for manipulating and transforming energy, and so on. Demons, on the other hand, primarily focused on their innate abilities. That is, the ¡®spells¡¯ that were embedded in their bodies. They could also replicate a spell learned from a mage¡¯s soul memory but didn¡¯t understand how it was structured or why it worked at all.


    A third group was the ¡®human¡¯ magic. Spells were created through emotions, belief, and magical egregores. For instance, all forest elves believed that a certain combination of thoughts, emotions, and energies led to accelerated plant growth. And it did lead. But the exact mechanism of this influence was unknown to them. The main argument from magic teachers was that a hundred generations of ancestors used this spell, so you should use it too. This approach didn¡¯t appeal to me, so I studied this field only for general knowledge¡ªto understand what I might encounter in the future.


    I fully relocated to the demon world, immersing myself in the process of developing the ritual for obtaining eight additional ¡®tails.¡¯ I decided not to be greedy and limit myself to nine tails, like Ky¨±bi. I think such a limit wasn¡¯t arbitrary. There was very little information on this topic in the books, so I had to figure out much on my own.


    The ¡®ritual of acquiring tails¡¯ was very complex. Books on Bahion were more theoretical works, so I had to conduct numerous experiments and essentially become a sort of professor, leading an entire Institute of Higher Magic. To accomplish what was impossible for a mere mortal, I used chakra, spider magic, and sacrificial magic in the ritual, as demons were no worse than spiders or elves as sacrifices. I personally verified this.


    To be honest, this plan became something of an ¡®obsession¡¯ for me. Days and nights were spent studying magic, artifact creation, rituals, and even sacred texts and philosophical treatises. Somewhere in my subconscious, I realized that time was slipping away, and thus I became more and more driven towards my goal.


    Much of my plan had to be simplified. Some things I did based on results from practical experiments rather than understanding. In creative bursts, I created an incredible blend of magic and technology. But at one point, I realized¡ªthere it was! The entire ritual came together perfectly in my spider¡¯s mind, and I realized I was only a step away from fulfilling my dream.


    After that, there were three months of frantic preparations, during which I involved all the inhabitants of my world in one way or another. Now, all the resources of the spider civilization were focused on fulfilling my desire. After all, I was their ancestor, the source of all their knowledge, the one who gave them the dream of reaching the stars and gave meaning to their existence, instructing them to spread the contagion of life throughout the Universe. Millions of spiders were building the Sacred Ziggurat, drawing the patterns of the ritual circle, casting spells, and preparing sacrifices.

 Chapter 2.18: Nerubian

    And so, the moment of my triumph arrived. The eight strongest demons I had captured took their places in the sacrificial circles, while I positioned myself at the center of a massive three-dimensional structure resembling a stepped pyramid. Strangely, the basic principles of the ziggurat¡¯s construction were copied from the demon city. Apparently, they had built a temple to elevate their archdemon. But the results of this domain¡¯s development were now destined to be mine.


    I was about to form eight ¡®energetic tails,¡¯ using all the Bahion reserves within the domain. After that, one of the tails was to be tuned to spider magic, requiring over a hundred thousand of my descendants to sustain the ritual with their energy. Most importantly, I intended to infuse this core structure with all my knowledge of magic. Even if I died and lost my memory, all necessary knowledge and skills would resurface in my consciousness, after which the mechanism for restoring past life memories would be activated.


    Finally, all preparations were complete, and the ritual began. Mighty flows of magical energy and chakra set the Bahion in motion, concentrating within the ziggurat and flowing into me while undergoing the necessary transformations. Time passed, and the ritual continued. Minutes turned into hours, and hours into days. During this entire time, I sat in a trance, controlling the process of my ascension. Demons were slain, their souls purified, transformed, and grafted onto my spiritual body. Divine energy flowed into me, healing the spiritual wounds inflicted during the ritual, filling me with divine will, and transforming once-independent demon souls into parts of myself.


    To a significant extent, this ritual was an attempt to create a god. A god from a machine, whose sole purpose of existence was my ascension. And now, this entity was recreating me, bestowing new qualities upon my essence. And so, the ritual entered its final phase. The last but not least significant part was the masking.


    Perhaps it was naive of me, but I didn¡¯t want beings of higher order to notice the changes within me. I intended to hide the presence of the seven tail embryos by showcasing the presence of two fully formed ones. Cloaks of secrecy and divine veils concealed the core of my soul behind false images and reflections. This part of the ritual was entirely my own invention, albeit based on others'' scientific works. It was risky, but my research and experiments showed that there should be no negative consequences for me from this ritual.


    After seven days and nights, the ritual was successfully completed. I stood up, stretched all four arms, and scanned myself carefully across various ranges. I succeeded! Exultation filled me. From now on, I was not just a human or a spider. I was an immortal being, capable of defeating even death itself. Now, I only needed to master my new abilities, and then I could think about what to do next.


    And then, the heavens opened, and angry angels sounded their trumpets, heralding the arrival of the gods. The shield surrounding the domain burst, and the entire atmosphere began to dissipate into cosmic space. The magical underlayer of the world quaked, and a passage was torn through it with a wild grinding sound, from which emerged a being of incredible power. From the descriptions, I recognized the archdemon who had created this world thousands of years ago.


    ¡°Who dared to destroy my domain?¡± - The wrathful roar echoed.


    The mental force of this being was such that spiders lost consciousness merely upon sensing its presence. Only the most experienced managed to raise mental shields to maintain mental clarity. The torrent of anger, hatred, and desire for death emanating from the archdemon made every living being on the planet tremble. I was not spared this fate. Fortunately, my camouflage made me indistinguishable from the other spiders, so I darted to the side and blended into the crowd of my kin.


    ¡°I will destroy!¡± - The voice of the archdemon reached such a power that thousands and thousands of my descendants perished instantly. Even I sustained damage, unable to cope with the roiling storm of wild magic. I had obtained a source of magical energy, but my control over it remained at the previous level of an ordinary spider.


    And then, as if waiting for this moment, the heavens opened once more, and I felt the appearance of a Being in this world, along with several similar entities. Although¡­ knowing this contagion, one could be sure that it was indeed waiting for this moment.


    ¡°Player attack on opponent¡¯s figure detected.¡± - Announced a stern and indifferent voice. In an incomprehensible manner, I found myself pulled out of my familiar layer of reality. The figures of gods, beings, archdemons, or whatever they were, more clearly manifested in my consciousness.


    ¡°What? This cannot be!¡± - The anger in the archdemon¡¯s voice abruptly shifted to panic. ¨C ¡°A mere mortal could not have done this.¡±


    If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    ¡°Nevertheless, the court has determined that the destruction of the domain resulted from the ritual of acquiring powers. The lack of Bahion in the internal contour led to destabilization of the domain¡¯s shell, which collapsed due to negligent adherence to instructions during its creation.¡± - The voice continued its indifferent broadcast. ¨C ¡°Archdemon Player caused the destruction of the game domain, but in a fit of rage, attacked another player¡¯s figure and inflicted irreparable damage.¡±


    I did not consider my injuries irreparable, but naturally, I did not state this. Those guys might tear something vital from me to ensure their words matched the reality. The oppressive gazes of the Players converged on me and scanned me in all available ranges. To my relief, after a second, they lost all interest in me. More precisely, everyone lost interest except the Being.


    ¡°I am taking his soul. This session can be considered over.¡±


    ¡°Confirmed.¡±


    With that, the divine visions released me, and I sank back into darkness. But this time, I was aware of my own existence. Now, I was not just a soul but partially a spiritual being. It was hard to say how long I hung in the void, but after some time, I heard the voice of the Being.


    ¡°You¡¯ve impressed me again. I thought you would just vanish in that world, crushed by fate and circumstances, but you managed not just to survive. You destroyed another player¡¯s figure, defeated his army, and even tricked the clueless Archdemon, making him pay a hefty ransom. You also deserve compensation from the Judge. Soon, he will offer you the choice of a special game ability. I advise you to think carefully before making a decision.¡±


    ¡°What game are you talking about? I don¡¯t even know the rules.¡± - I protested.


    ¡°You could have figured it out yourself.¡± - Being responded with irritation. ¨C ¡°We prepare the game board, place the figures, and then observe your life. Or we don¡¯t observe, as was the case this time. In most cases, figures are required to destroy all opponent¡¯s figures. If there are other victory conditions or special rules, the figures are informed about them.¡± - Yeah, and you didn¡¯t mention anything about the restriction on using thermonuclear weapons in the Naruto world. ¨C ¡°The scenarios of the games vary, but I plan to place you where the scenario is more or less familiar to you. Or where your life experience might be useful. A small manipulation on my part, but all within the rules. If you die, you will be out of the game and receive a penalty from me depending on how foolish and boring you were. Well, that¡¯s it. Think it over. And don¡¯t bother me with questions. Everything I wanted to tell you, I already said.¡±


    Well, I had quite the employer. If it''s about a game ability, I could clearly ask for not just any spell, but something related to the game itself. And what threatens me the most? Of course, death. All other problems can be tried to solve with my own strength.


    Just as I came to this conclusion, a source of blinding light appeared before me and spoke with an indifferent voice.


    ¡°As compensation for the player¡¯s attack, you are given the opportunity to obtain one game ability. What will you choose?¡±


    ¡°I want the ability to resurrect after death so that this death is not considered my defeat in the game.¡±


    ¡°Again with the cheating tendencies.¡± - The indifferent voice carried hints of dissatisfaction. ¨C ¡°Fine. To resurrect after death under relatively safe circumstances, you will need to spend one Righteous Judgment Point. To earn points, you will need to offer one of the figures as a sacrifice to the Judge of the Game. To do this, you simply need to kill the figure and within five minutes say the phrase, ¡®I offer this figure as a sacrifice to the Judge¡¯. Note that your player does not receive any bonuses from such a kill.¡±


    Heh, it seems I''ve managed to get a way to leave Being without any profit from my use. Well, I¡¯ll think about it later.


    ¡°Thank you.¡± - I said to Judge. It seemed that I would be offering sacrifices to him. And he was quite a pest. Surely these deaths in his name were needed for something. However, that was not my concern. Just know, kill everyone indiscriminately. If only I knew how to distinguish a player¡¯s piece from an ordinary mortal.


    I imagined the Judge¡¯s chuckle before the light faded, leaving me suspended in darkness.


    ¡°So, how did it go?¡± - Being reappeared.


    ¡°Wonderful.¡± - I grumbled in displeasure.


    The response was a suspicious silence. A very, very long silence, filled with suspicion and doubt.


    ¡°Fine, if no one knows what your ability is, it will be much harder to counteract it.¡± - Being finally spoke. ¨C ¡°Since you are so smart, cunning, and lucky, I might as well assign you something non-trivial. I have a game in mind.¡±


    Darkness blinked, and I fell back into oblivion, despite all my enhanced spiritual attributes.

 Chapter 3.01: Savior of humanity

    Waking up, I opened my eyes and found myself sitting in a comfortable chair in a luxuriously furnished room. This time, I was in the body of a middle-aged man dressed in some kind of uniform. I didn''t have time to look around as a voice from a Being appeared in my mind.


    "So, the rules. Figures are forbidden from killing other figures. There are four of you in the game. The winner is determined by the Council of Wise Men. The rest will be explained on-site."


    As soon as the voice fell silent, a door in the side wall opened, and a man in a strange suit emerged. If not for the details, it was a standard outfit: shirt, trousers, jacket.


    "Mr. Samael Tamuz, please follow me." - The visitor bowed. - "Everything is ready for the presentation."


    I decided to go with the flow and followed the guide, who glided quickly through the corridors. Judging by the lack of windows, we were in some kind of underground bunker. After a few minutes, we entered a hall where I was offered a seat in a large red chair surrounded by simpler black seats. There were four of these special chairs in the hall, so they were probably intended for the other game figures.


    Ahead of us, a podium stood with a large screen currently displaying a logo with the mysterious acronym ICOCOS. Most of the small chairs were occupied by various intellectuals, while I was the only one in the red chair. A few minutes later, the other figures arrived. Nothing notable about them. People like people. Although one seemed a bit dazed. Perhaps he was here unexpectedly. Or maybe a savage.


    "Ladies and gentlemen, please pay attention." - I was so engrossed in examining the competitors that I didn''t notice the people who had appeared on the podium. There was one person with a professorial look, who began speaking, and two bloated bureaucratic types. These are always easy to spot. - "For those who don¡¯t know, my name is Adolf Rigerstein. We have gathered you here to entrust a matter of paramount importance. It concerns, dare I say, the salvation of all humanity. I will brief you on the matter, and then the esteemed Nikos Papadopoulos will address you on behalf of the Council of Wise Men."


    What followed was a detailed four-hour lecture from which I understood what I would be dealing with.


    This world was quite technologically advanced. Suffice it to say that interstellar travel was commonplace here. Another important factor was that the galaxy was home to many intelligent races. The amusing part was that these were not some incomprehensible chupacabras, but rather ''familiar'' elves, orcs, centaurs, kitsune, and other creatures.


    It could be said with certainty that all mythical beings ever mentioned in my world inhabited this one. And as if that weren''t enough, all these races were also technologically advanced. In addition to this, they were magically advanced to the point where purely technological civilizations wept crocodile tears from envy.


    As you might guess, in such a ''multinational'' world, wars between different civilizations were constant. The situation could be described as ''everyone against everyone and each for themselves.'' This carnage had been going on for several centuries, and gradually a very unpleasant fact became clear: humanity was losing.


    Humans could not boast strong magic, god-like technologies, or even special combat talents. In each separate discipline, they were far from the worst, but in a comprehensive assessment, it turned out that the rating of human civilization fell into the bottom ten among nearly a thousand races in the galaxy. Only through the incredible efforts of the Council of Wise Men were we able to stay afloat. Looking at Papadopoulos''s shiny face, I had an alternative opinion about the causes of this situation, but I did not express it.


    At that moment, humans controlled twenty-three planets. However, seven of them were in the zones of interest of other civilizations and thus constantly subjected to attacks and siege attempts. According to analysts'' forecasts, the complete extinction of humanity as a species would occur in 10-15 years. And there was even less time to turn the situation around.


    Nikos Papadopoulos then spoke, declaring that within the next three years, we must find a way to save our race. We four were the best minds of humanity. Each of us was assigned a whole institute with thousands of scientists, engineers, mages, and other specialists. And in three years, we were to present our projects - fully completed research that would allow humanity to leap from the mire to greatness and defeat the entire galaxy.


    If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    After the event, I, along with my escorts, was sent to a spaceship that was to take us to a research space station lost in the vastness of the galaxy. Only maintaining complete secrecy could allow us to complete our research and not be destroyed by enemy forces.


    On the ship, I became acquainted with my entourage. These were leading scientists with whom I would be working for the next three years. After discussing global issues and the current political situation with them, I retreated to my cabin to ponder how I was supposed to save humanity.


    To be frank, I didn''t care much about the local humanity. How were they better than the kitsune? Personally, I liked girls with fox ears more. Well, what can I say? I''m that kind of fetishist. So saving a dying race was the least of my concerns. But I was interested in the local technology and magic. In the world of spiders, I sorely missed a decent computer on which I could calculate spell parameters.


    Thus, it turned out that I needed to focus on my own elevation while simultaneously solving the local problem. The decision was to be made by the Council of Wise Men, adding an uncertain factor to the game. However, I had an interesting idea.


    I got up from the bed and went to the communication room, where I requested a secure communication channel with Nikos Papadopoulos. According to my companions, he was one of the most important figures in the Council.


    "Samael Tamuz? What prompted you to contact me?" - Judging by his displeased expression, I had dragged him out of bed. And he wasn''t sleeping there.


    "Mr. Nikos, I have an important question regarding the task you set before me. When you spoke about saving humanity, did you mean saving us as a species, or saving us as individual living beings? In other words, what is more important to you, the immortality of the race or the immortality of its most gifted representatives?" - The bureaucrat frowned and tried to read my thoughts. Unfortunately, he wasn''t a mage, so the trick didn''t work. But the glances he threw at me eloquently indicated that he understood my hint. - "Which option do you think the Council would prefer?"


    "I think the Council, like you, cares about preserving the best representatives of society" - he finally responded with his expert assessment. A genuine interest appeared on Papadopoulos''s face. - "Do you already have any ideas on this matter?"


    It seemed the fish had taken the bait. Now I needed to implant the right idea in his head, which in three years would penetrate the minds of every member of the Council of Wise Men.


    "Yes. I believe that achieving personal immortality will also solve the problem of societal immortality. As for specific solutions, I think it''s worth discussing them when I have something to demonstrate to you."


    "Many have tried to achieve immortality."


    "Of course. But I think you understand perfectly well that success in this endeavor is as important to me as it is to you. Unfortunately, I have no hope for the other chosen ones. We can only rely on the wisdom of the Council and its best representatives, who can make use of the fruits of our labor."


    Nikos nodded in agreement, then turned and looked at something off-screen. Judging by his suddenly bored expression, what he saw interested him more than our conversation.


    "Do you have any more questions?" - he asked me.


    "I won''t take up any more of your time. I''ll let you know when I have good news."


    With that, I ended the communication and began to ponder our conversation. I think my cryptic language was clear enough for the bloated bureaucrat to realize that I was promising him personal control over the future method of achieving immortality. Therefore, there were real chances to influence the outcome of the vote in my favor. After all, the pursuit of personal gain in such people always overshadows all arguments of reason and conscience. Well, I did what I could here, and now it was time to solve the problem at hand.


    When considering immortality, it''s essential to distinguish between the immortality of the body and the immortality of the soul. The body is inherently mortal, and its destruction is merely a matter of applying sufficient force. The soul, however, is more complex. It can be destroyed, but in any case, the destruction will be partial at best. Most likely, it won''t even be scratched. Affecting the soul requires energies far higher than a human can wield. Even I, when creating my tails, did so indirectly using Bahion, which had accumulated in the domain for millennia. And it was enough for only one person¡ªme.


    So, the immortality of the soul can be taken as an axiom. Therefore, to achieve immortality, three things are needed. First, organize memory continuity. Second, ensure the rebirth of souls in new bodies. And third, make these bodies much more resilient to external influences than human bodies.

 Chapter 3.02: Savior of humanity

    In other words, I was planning to save people, not humanity. After my modifications, these new beings could be called anything but human. However, I was determined to give them the immortality that people of all worlds so deeply desired. I already had almost all the necessary information to develop an appropriate solution. I just needed to organize it, devise optimal spells, and then test their effectiveness in practice.


    The first problem in achieving immortality is the destruction of the physical body. If someone''s brain gets blown out, their body becomes a useless piece of meat. Even much smaller injuries could result in the same outcome within a few seconds. The body serves as the mechanism that binds the soul to the material plane of existence. Therefore, this body needed to be as durable as possible. The solution was simple and one I had used many times before - to imprison the soul in a magical crystal.


    During my time as a spider, I studied two types of crystals: those in which the spiders stored their knowledge and energy, and those in which demons held enslaved souls. By combining these technologies, I could create a perfectly protected body that would hold the soul and provide it with the most basic spiritual shells. The size of such a crystal could be small. After all, fairies have souls but are no taller than ten centimeters. And the smaller the soul¡¯s container, the easier it is to maintain its integrity with magic. Where to get the magic, if we are talking about ordinary people? Well, demons had long solved this problem. Almost any person can become a mage if placed in a suitable body with the necessary energy shells.


    Of course, existing as sentient crystals is not very convenient. Therefore, the crystal should contain a spell allowing it to create a body from any available material. Mud golems are an excellent example of how one can create a humanoid from whatever material is at hand. Naturally, for a complete existence, the body needs to be quite complex, but this is easy to achieve by developing a suitable set of artifact spells. We don¡¯t need to create a body as complex as a human body. It is enough to organize the necessary appearance and emulate the functioning of human senses - touch, sight, smell, and so on.


    One can even program such reactions as sexual satisfaction and the enjoyment of physical exercises. On the other hand, there is no point in feeling pain and discomfort. Therefore, the new form of life will not suffer from the frailty of the material shell. After all, it¡¯s just a material projection, so restoring it after damage will require minimal effort. Instead of healing wounds by replicating slow human cells, we can slightly reconfigure the existing construction material, which doesn¡¯t have any complex internal structure. After all, the body¡¯s shape will be defined solely by magic.


    By the time our ship reached the research station, the plan was nearly ready. All that remained was to outline the main tasks, delegate subtasks to my subordinates, and monitor their execution. Of course, I first had to teach people the basics of spider magic. But for them, it was only theoretical information, as local mages used some kind of magic unknown to me, which I had no desire to delve into. After all, humans had hundreds of years to figure out how to use their magic optimally. If they hadn¡¯t figured it out by now, it wasn¡¯t worth my time. Especially since I only had three years, which needed to be used as effectively as possible. Remembering my previous magic research, three years might not be enough. After all, I needed not only to understand what needed to be done but also to figure out how to solve hundreds and thousands of specific tasks.


    Two and a half years later, I stood in my private laboratory holding the result of my work - the body of a perfect life form. As planned, it was a small transparent red crystal into which a soul could be placed. Even in the form of just a crystal, this life form possessed magical abilities. And once it gained access to the most common chemical elements (hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, silicon, aluminum), it could use them to create any body. I named this life form Vritra, derived from the name Vritra, meaning ''The Primordial Demon Without Form.''


    The last two dozen experiments on convicts were completely successful, so I was considering moving on to the testing phase. When I planned the development of Vritra, I immediately laid out three levels of implementation.


    The first was the civilian configuration, intended for anyone who wished to have it. It allowed living in a new body, using magic, and... reproducing. This capability was provided by an automatic system for creating a crystal into which a soul from the afterlife would be placed. In essence, this was an analogue of the soul reincarnation system but with memory retention. Moreover, if desired, a specific soul could be summoned if the parent had its energy imprint. Another function of the crystal was the ability to die at will. This was meant to solve the problem of capturing prisoners and the potential fatigue from eternal life, should it arise.


    The second configuration allowed for the use of more advanced "filler" materials to create a body. This could include durable metals, making such a Vritra more resistant to physical damage, stronger, faster, and so on. Additionally, the user gained access to a set of combat spells embedded within the crystal''s structure, allowing for the use of magic in battle with greater speed.


    Finally, the third modification was intended for me alone. I incorporated all the functions I could think of but decided not to share with the locals. This crystal existed only in my mind and as calculations stored on an encrypted device.


    I inspected the crystal covered in magical symbols one more time and placed it into a small box with the others. These were soul containers from the second batch, which I had just finished synthesizing. Closing the box, I put it in my pocket and headed out of the laboratory, simultaneously pulling my phone from the other pocket.


    "Kiril? Gather the team and meet me in lab forty-one" - I gave a brief order.


    Over the past time, I had gathered a few loyal security personnel. This proved to be the right approach, as only thanks to them had I survived until now. Three assassination attempts in two and a half years - that was the statistic of being on the most protected and secret space base of humanity. The first attempt involved a vampire agent acting according to an embedded program. The second was an agent of another player trying to sabotage my project. The third case was the most dangerous. A simple scientist, out of envy, decided to eliminate me and claim the glory of my inventions for himself.


    So now, I always moved around the station accompanied by two bodyguards. Leaving the lab, I found my two escorts in the corridor. A quick mental scan showed they were unbound and in clear consciousness. A couple of weeks ago, there was an attempt to zombify one of the guards. It ended in nothing due to the protection I had established, but the organizer of this event was never found.


    Reaching the meeting place, I found the rest of my support group. Only eight people had passed the rigorous selection process. Above all, I valued loyalty to myself, reinforced by promises of immortality, power, and more.


    "Good day, Kiril, what''s the situation?" - The group leader was Kiril Dubrovich, a Slovenian with the combat call sign "Oak."


    "Good day. Everything is in order. The observation targets are at their workplaces" - Kiril responded. After the last incident, we decided to compile a list of potential spies, saboteurs, and troublemakers, whose activities were now monitored in real-time.


    "So, we¡¯ve discussed this a lot, but today the moment has come. I am ready to make you immortal mages who will become leaders of the new society."


    "Everything is ready?" - Frank Joseph Stalin, despite his surname, hailed from the French clans, among the first to break into the galaxy and start its colonization.


    "Yes. You''ve observed the test subjects and talked to them. The convicts are satisfied."


    "Of course, they are" - Frank exclaimed. - "They live like lords, having sex for two hours a day..."


    "Don''t be jealous" - interrupted Mark Three, the youngest member of our team with the strangest surname.


    "Enough of the circus" - Oak said, casting a heavy gaze at his comrades. - "Continue." - This ability to instantly restore order was why I made him head of the station''s security service.


    Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.


    "In short, I have created warrior caste crystals. Anyone who wishes can undergo the transformation right now. Or you can wait and observe the lives of bolder comrades."


    "And will there be crystals for the Brahman caste?" - Narayan Bhagavan Singh, culturally a typical Hindu, looked like a true Aryan ¨C the ideal of the Third Reich. In this reality, the wild dark-skinned tribes of Mlecchas and Yavanas had failed to conquer India and replace its true masters. Narayan considered himself a direct descendant of Balarama and a Brahmin ¨C a representative of the highest caste in Aryan culture.


    "There will be" - I nodded in agreement. - "Only one. Only for me."


    The Aryan sighed and volunteered as the first.


    "What do I need to do?"


    "As if you haven''t seen it?" - I asked, surprised. - "Sit in the extractor."


    The guards used this unflattering term to scare the convicts sent to us for experiments. The name stuck, although officially it was called the ''Consciousness Information-Energy Shell Extraction System.'' In fact, there was nothing scary about the device. It looked like a dentist''s chair with a slightly strange headrest and limb fixation system¡ªessential in our line of work.


    "Do I need to undress?"


    "No. You can retrieve your things afterward."


    Narayan sat in the chair and tried to relax. I approached the adjacent apparatus and inserted one of the crystals from the box. It took a few minutes to activate the equipment. Essentially, the main equipment here was the crystal. All the bulky machinery merely facilitated the transfer of the soul from one body to another.


    The lights on the control panel turned green, indicating normal operation, and the first volunteer went limp, losing consciousness. While the process of artificial reincarnation was underway, I moved to a stack of boxes in the corner and telekinetically placed one of them on a special stand. I then removed the lid and checked the contents. These ''coffins'' contained a set of chemical elements necessary for creating a body. It looked like a mixture of water and sand.


    The device beeped, and I moved toward the patient, simultaneously using a spell to monitor the state of his previous body¡ªdead 100%. Even cellular activity had completely stopped. Using telekinesis to avoid touching it with my hands, I removed the crystal from the holder, carefully scanned it, and then threw it into the coffin. Everyone present immediately crowded around to witness the creation of the new body.


    The crystal clinked into the thin layer of water and settled on the sand. Within seconds, granules of material began to adhere to the base, simultaneously fusing into a single amorphous mass. The process accelerated, and the lump began to grow, stretching tendrils throughout the box. Within a few minutes, all the matter had been absorbed, and the formation of a human body began.


    Theoretically, a Vritra could take any form. However, this required conscious control of the process or reliance on a specialized program to maintain shape and appearance. The crystal initially contained several standard programs ensuring a resurrected human form. In the future, parameters could be adjusted, or a custom program could be written. I decided to speed up the process further by transmitting the donor''s appearance model to the crystal. All it took was selecting the right file on my phone and transmitting it to the crystal via a ''magical'' communication channel.


    The body assumed a humanoid form without a face or muscle definition and then, within seconds, took on the appearance of Narayan. Another few seconds were spent forming fine details like skin pores or hair. And then, the naked man opened his eyes and looked around.


    "So, how is it? Did it work?"


    "Get dressed" - commanded Kirill.


    "In what?" - The commander only rolled his eyes at such a question. - "Oh, right."


    The Vritra closed his eyes for a second, and then the image of a security uniform appeared on the surface of his body. It was reminiscent of the transformations of a liquid terminator. Narayan examined himself, climbed out of the box, and began stretching, getting used to the new body.


    "Damn, I feel like I''ve had a hit of strong stimulants. Nothing hurts, nothing pulls, and there''s this feeling of comfort..." - At that moment, his gaze fell on his former body. - "Is that what I look like?"


    "Yes. Already thinking about plastic surgery?" - Frank responded.


    "That''s worth considering."


    "You''re already a handsome man" - Kirill reassured him. - "Who''s next?"


    That day, six out of eight people underwent the transformation. Mark Three and Mateo Hidalgo decided to wait. Understandably so, especially considering that they watched six bodies get sent to the organic waste recycler right before their eyes. Even I, with all my preparation, found the sight unsettling. However, human emotions did not affect my decisions. I planned to turn myself into a Vritra in about a month when all the preparations were complete. Fixing minor flaws could be done once I was immortal.


    There were still six months left until the set deadline, but the station''s population was already in turmoil. Some discussed what the Council would decide. Others tried to find out how to become immortal before our research was banned and the entire station personnel executed. Minds were in disarray, affecting their work results. Although the main project was already completed, there were still many accompanying ones that were supposed to enhance the comfort of the new form of life.


    For example, we were still working on the concept of deriving pleasure from sex. Without any restrictions, Vritra could have sex non-stop 24/7, quickly leading to complete mental degradation. However, completely depriving people of sex was also unacceptable. Who would agree to become immortal if the only joy in such existence was watching others suffer? After all, as the saying goes, ¡®When you cause harm, it brings joy to your heart.¡¯


    In short, there was still a sea of work to be done, and people were panicking. We had to enforce strict discipline, limit communication, and most importantly, promise immortality to those who desired it so much. Naturally, my closest supporters and opponents were the first in line. Nearly all the institute''s leadership were scheming against each other. Some wanted more glory, others wanted to become immortal quickly before their aging bodies gave out, some sincerely wanted to save humanity, while others equally sincerely wanted to destroy it. There were also those who didn''t care about any of it and were only interested in conducting research and experiments.


    The climax of the growing madness was when several scientists transformed into Vritras behind my back. This conspiracy aimed to overthrow me before I could achieve immortality myself. I didn''t bother explaining to them that I was under protective spells 24/7; instead, I used the control key embedded in the ''prisoner'' models to turn the fools back into a set of inorganic materials and lifeless glass.


    In general, things were going to hell, like a giant geyser. Working in such an atmosphere was extremely difficult, so in the end, I initiated the process of transforming willing participants into civilian Vritra models and locked myself in the lab to develop the final version of the Vritra. Yes, with a capital V.


    I wasn''t naive enough to believe that I could keep my Vritra body after the game ended. Twice already, I had lost my body because of Being, and it was unlikely anything would change in the future. All I had was my soul. And that was precisely where I intended to hide a special informational module that stored the crystal''s design on both physical and magical planes. Just as memories of past lives are preserved in the inner shells of the soul, I planned to store the knowledge of how to achieve immortality. And to prevent any entities from meddling with their clumsy hands, this memory area was located at non-standard mental frequencies. I chose the characteristics of my personal ''flash drive'' by scanning the multidimensional surrounding world and selecting the most uninhabited range where nothing ever happened.


    Another ace up my sleeve was a body modification that allowed for energy production through cold nuclear fusion. I hadn''t forgotten my favorite problem-solving method¡ªa nuclear bomb. So why let good things go to waste? While I wasn''t blowing anything up, lithium deuteride could be used as an energy source for the body''s functions and magic use. Although I had two tails, an extra stash wouldn''t hurt. Ordinary Vritras were limited in their output capacity by the parameters of their magic source. But my power must to be unlimited.


    Finally, I pushed my immortality almost to the Absolute by developing a fortifying spell that made the soul''s main crystal virtually indestructible. This was achieved through extreme specialization of the spell. In fact, it could only be cast on a crystal of a particular composition, with a fixed internal structure and shape. But according to my calculations, the crystal should maintain its integrity even lying on the surface of a neutron star.


    Work on the last details dragged on, so I finished it only three months before the date for presenting the results. And literally, an hour after that, a member of the Council of Wise Men contacted me, informing me of the imminent arrival of a special commission to verify our work results. Time was running out, so I had to urgently finish all the preparations.


    First, I checked the statistics of problems with artificial bodies and the soul stones themselves. Surprisingly, there were very few issues. Moreover, the scientists had independently developed solutions for these problems, promptly replacing the crystals and transferring the souls from the defective versions. I took all these improvements into account and made changes to my project.


    The next step was to summon all my guards and assign them to reinforce the lab''s security for the next 24 hours. I locked myself inside, though after spending so much time alone, this no longer surprised anyone. Inserting the memory card into a computer isolated from the station''s network, I started the final calculation of the crystal''s characteristics. A couple of hours later, the process was complete, and the action program was introduced into the synthesizer. This was my masterpiece, enabling the synthesis of crystals with atomic precision through a blend of magic and technology while simultaneously applying a multidimensional artifact spell.

 Chapter 3.03: Savior of humanity

    Finally, after six hours, the crystal''s manufacturing and testing were completed. I began to feel jittery. With trembling hands, I placed the crystal in the holder, sat in the "extraction" chair, and activated the transfer process. A few seconds later, I lost consciousness, and when I awoke, I found myself in the soul crystal. It was a very unusual sensation, let me tell you.


    The next stage was the most important. Forming a telekinesis spell, I grabbed the crystal and transferred myself to another apparatus, where the program of influence had already been set. Here, I passed out again to avoid interfering with the delicate process of recording information into my soul.


    When I woke up, I felt like minced meat someone had decided to push through a meat grinder in reverse, hoping to get chunks of meat. It took almost a day to recover, avoiding any magical or mental activity. Finally, the equipment showed that my condition had normalized, after which I moved the crystal to the open container with body materials.


    I watched the formation of the external shell with interest. So far, it was a standard program for reproducing a copy of my previous body. Finally, I sighed, opened my eyes, and listened to my pulse. The imitation of an ordinary human body was complete. Even an autopsy and X-ray would show the presence of internal organs. Only a chemical analysis of the blood or flesh would yield very strange results. My body consisted one-third of titanium and two-thirds of carbon-silicon organic material.


    I climbed out of the coffin and examined my previous body. I must say, Samael Tamuz wasn''t particularly distinguished in appearance. When this game ends, I will need to give myself the look of a true macho. Next, I dressed in regular clothes and disposed my corpse. "My corpse"¡ªa very unusual concept for a person.


    Upon leaving the laboratory, I encountered already nervous guards. After all, I had stayed there quite a while.


    "The transport with inspectors arrives in four hours" - Oak informed me right away.


    "And what about our brains?" - I asked, referring to the scientists. Engineers, being more down-to-earth, and mages, being more trained in self-control, were much less likely to rebel.


    "They''re boiling. But it hasn''t exploded yet. Everyone is quiet, waiting for the commission to arrive."


    "Anything known about its composition?"


    "No."


    "Well then, let''s prepare to meet our dear guests."


    The arrival of the ship at the station was quite a hassle. To prevent our destruction, the station teleported to a random location approximately once a day. To meet the ship, a special beacon-scanner was sent to the designated place. It ensured the meeting point was safe, waited for the ship to arrive, and then signaled us. The station would then move to the agreed place, take the ship on board, and jump in a random direction again.


    Cargo ships arrived roughly once a month, and this meeting was unscheduled. Finally, we received the signal, made a short jump, and a diplomatic courier¡ªa special class of ships with serious protection and the ability to jump at any moment¡ªflew into the hangar. A few minutes later, the ramp opened, and three people in civilian clothes descended, followed by four in combat suits. Papadopoulos wasn''t among the arrivals, which disappointed me slightly.


    "Welcome, gentlemen. My name is Samael Tamuz, and I am the head of this station."


    "John Doe, plenipotentiary representative of the Council of Wise Men" - introduced one of them. The others remained silent, generally pretending to be furniture. - "Where can we talk?"


    "Please follow me. At your disposal is a negotiation room of the highest security level."


    Navigating through the station''s corridors, we entered one of the most secure and simultaneously useless rooms. Its only plus was the luxurious setting. There wasn''t even a computer here, as it could be used for espionage. Following protocol, I suggested getting straight to business.


    "As I mentioned, I am the plenipotentiary representative of the Council of Wise Men and one of its members. I know there are still three months left until the deadline, but the situation is very serious. We can no longer wait. Just four days ago, we lost five planets simultaneously. All the populations were either wiped out or are currently being wiped out. We only have ten worlds and twelve habitable planets under our control. My task is to evaluate the results of your research and, if promising, organize a demonstration of these results to the Council."


    You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.


    It seems my first obstacle in the finale will be making the right impression on this person. If he decides my developments are "unpromising" I will automatically lose the game. And I don''t want to find out what Being will come up with because of this. I have to hope for the impartiality of this individual.


    "Basically, our project is already complete. We have some minor tweaks planned, but they can be carried out parallel to implementation."


    "And what is the essence of your project?" - It seems the secrecy was maintained at a sufficient level, so even the members of the Council of Wise Men didn''t know what I was doing here.


    "In short, it¡¯s about giving people immortality and making them mages."


    "And that''s it?" - John Doe''s voice dripped with disappointment. - "I was hoping for some sort of weapon."


    "This is better than any weapon. If you didn''t catch it, it''s about immortality. You can send soldiers into battle who can''t be destroyed."


    "Battles are decided by spaceships, not soldiers."


    "No. Spaceships decide nothing. Without supporting planets, without supplies of food and ammunition, they are just flying coffins. We only need to send one fighter to an enemy planet, and within a month, there will be millions of our soldiers¡ªimmortal, able to fight mages and robots on equal terms, not needing rear support or infrastructure. No race in this galaxy will be able to cope with our army. Just as they won¡¯t be able to conquer any of our planets. Yes, they can fight back for a while, but in a hundred years, there won''t be a trace of them."


    John listened to my passionate speech with interest.


    "So, the soldiers will be able to reproduce?"


    "Not only the soldiers can reproduce. This is about a new form of life. It''s an almost immortal body that contains a soul, preserving memories of past lives. You can pull an experienced warrior''s soul from the afterlife and immediately have a soldier capable of performing all types of tasks. As I said, the body will be nearly invulnerable. But if it is destroyed, the fallen''s comrades can summon his soul and give him a new body in just a few minutes."


    "Hmm... can you demonstrate what it looks like?"


    "Of course. Let''s proceed to the testing ground. We conduct experiments on death row inmates. We have several working samples that can demonstrate all the advantages of the new form of life."


    "Let''s go." - We left the room and started wandering through the countless corridors of the station again. - "You mentioned this is a new form of life?" - the envoy asked me along the way. - "So nominally, this isn''t the salvation of humanity."


    "Nominally, it¡¯s the salvation of each individual of the species. People will change bodies but remain themselves. They will gain a better life. And all non-human scum will be destroyed by us and turned to dust."


    John Doe nodded in agreement with my words and continued on with a satisfied look. Mental scanning showed that he was very partial to all non-human forms of life in the galaxy. Meaning, he hated them to his core. But the idea of humans transforming while remaining beings of a ''higher order'' didn''t cause him any rejection.


    We stopped in a room separated from a large hall by a glass wall. According to my instructions, one of the official test subjects and three simple guards, armed with various weapons, were already there. I wasn''t afraid of a rebellion from the prisoner because he had already passed that stage. He had personally experienced that he was firmly on our hook, and any rebellion would only worsen his very comfortable position.


    "You see a sample of the new form of life in front of you. We call it vritras. Now we will demonstrate how the sample withstands an attack from personal firearms."


    I gave the signal, and one of the guards raised a kinetic rifle, shooting regular bullets. Despite all the progress, a piece of metal flying at one''s head was still a quite effective weapon. Only now, the bullets were accelerated not by gunpowder gases but by gravity compensators. A long burst rang out, and the prisoner''s body was literally riddled. Scarlet blood gushed from the wounds, and the mangled body fell heavily to the floor. In the shattered head, brains were visible, and a large pool of blood quickly formed under the body.


    "And what?" - John asked, puzzled.


    I frowned, walked to the communication device, pressed the button, and said:


    "Martin, if you don''t stop fooling around right now, I will deprive you of sex. For life."


    At the word "life," the figure twitched and immediately stood up. The wounds healed, and the blood was absorbed back into the body. Even the ''prisoner''s robe'' restored to its factory condition.


    "Can''t even joke anymore" - muttered the test subject.


    "Another burst" - I commanded.


    The guard raised the weapon and emptied the rest of the magazine into the target. This time, the bullets barely left marks on the body, which healed immediately. The tester switched the weapon to a blaster and continued the demonstration.

 Chapter 3.04: Savior of humanity

    "Prisoners, what can you expect? You can''t trust them" - I explained the situation.


    "You mentioned something about sex."


    "Yes. We decided to retain that function. People need a way to enjoy themselves. So we took a few women, transplanted them into new bodies, and then allowed the prisoners to relax. All on a voluntary basis. The duration of sex is limited to a couple of hours a day. This is a temporary solution because the issue is too complex. But as you can see, the prisoners like their situation, and the threat of taking away their sex is very serious."


    We observed as kinetic and plasma weapons, a flamethrower, and even an anti-tank missile failed to cause any significant harm to the target. A triple shot from a grenade launcher tore the subject apart, but within five seconds, he reassembled and stood by the wall, whistling with a nasty grin.


    "That''s... impressive" - the guest admitted.


    "This model is for prisoners. Soldiers can be equipped with built-in magical artifacts that turn a person into a heavy assault infantry unit."


    "But for that, you need to be a mage?"


    "Any person who receives this body becomes a mage. Maybe not an outstanding one, but sufficient to be a serious combat unit on the battlefield."


    "And how will this affect civilian life?"


    "Well, for each other, such shots would be nothing more than a slap. This weapon poses no threat to the vritras. We can come up with a model for social regulation once the threat of imminent destruction no longer hangs over us."


    "Can you demonstrate all this to the Council?"


    "Of course. But for the demonstration, I would prefer to use soldiers loyal to the command. Prisoners are not suitable for this. Here, they are under strict control, and I wouldn''t want to trust them more than necessary."


    "Yes, I understand. I have four marines under my command. You can use them."


    I glanced at the four armored figures.


    "Only with their voluntary consent."


    "We agree" - one of the four responded. - "If we could demonstrate this on the battlefield, the enemies would already be begging for a truce."


    "Then we need to prepare. In an hour, I can show you how an ordinary person can become immortal."


    With that, we parted ways. The advisor and his entourage went to rest, and I had to organize a spectacular show. Of course, I wasn''t going to give these people the military version. The civilian one would suffice. Perhaps with the ability to cast a dozen spells. Let''s call it the police version.


    There''s no need to describe the rest. I transformed the four people into vritras and held another demonstration of their new abilities. After that, it was decided to take me on the courier ship to the planet where the Council of Wise Men was currently in session. I had already extracted everything I could from this station, so I agreed. I insisted on being accompanied by bodyguards. Finally, I boarded the ship, taking with me a ''field kit'' of equipment and a hundred crystals, and we set off.


    The planet Nibiru greeted us with a bristling fleet that took several hours to verify who we were and where we came from. Every arriving ship was scanned by all available means and held in quarantine. As the advisor explained, this was to protect against attacks by various non-humans posing as civilians. Necromancers caused the most trouble, turning people into the undead who could turn victims into their kind through a bite.


    The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.


    Incidentally, the scanners identified us as humans. Such a detail as emulating the structure of the human body and aura was a basic function. The ''death'' demonstrated by the prisoner earlier was a result of this emulation. After landing on the planet, we went through another round of scanning, identity verification, and so on, after which my bodyguards and I were housed in one of the underground bunkers. It seemed things were indeed not going well here.


    John Doe recommended I not tell anyone about my invention until the official presentation. Spies from other races were constantly prowling around, and no counterintelligence could guarantee the preservation of secrecy.


    We spent three days in the bunker, mostly watching news about recent events. Human civilization indeed seemed to be on its last legs. Industry couldn''t keep up with the load, space fighter crews were being filled with recruited operators of space mining ships, and green recruits were being sent into the infantry, with only three out of ten surviving their first battle.


    Finally, we were invited to the event where we were to demonstrate the results of our work. I expected to see a large hall filled with hundreds of people, but we were greeted by a couple of dozen, among whom I noticed Papadopoulos and Rigerstein. Ten minutes later, Doe joined them, and the main program of speeches began.


    As it turned out, three other players were also present in the audience, whom I literally sensed as soon as they came within a few kilometers. Perhaps this was a capability granted by the Judge. I was scheduled to speak last, so I comfortably settled into a chair and prepared to laugh loudly at the appropriate moments.


    The first project was a concept for building spacecraft that could sustain the entire life cycle of humanity. Essentially, it was about creating a closed biosphere capable of supporting the lives of about a million people. The idea was to build hundreds of such ships and leave this inhospitable galaxy behind. The proponent of the idea did not elaborate on the fate of those who wouldn''t make it onto the ships. He only noted that only the best of the best¡ªthe cream of humanity¡ªwould be worthy of bringing the seed of eternal stagnation into the cosmic vacuum.


    The project did not generate much enthusiasm. Similar ships had been built before. The only thing impressive was the scale of these giants. But the larger the ship, the harder it was to protect. Therefore, the chances of successfully building even one ship under current conditions were slim.


    The second project was presented by a fan of terminators. That''s exactly what he called his creation: fully autonomous robots capable of spreading love for humanity to all corners of the galaxy. I couldn''t help but laugh at such blatant plagiarism, earning angry looks from the robotics enthusiast.


    During the Q&A session, I even asked: what is the likelihood of a machine uprising, and do our enemies have similar systems? The first question was met with an unconvincing denial of such a possibility, and the second was answered by the Council''s weapons expert, who spoke of an entire race of intelligent robots ranked even lower than humans in the world hierarchy because they couldn''t use magic. Our creations of grim tectonic genius didn''t possess magic themselves but at least had protection against basic spells.


    The author of this project mainly emphasized the potential to build fully autonomous factories capable of overwhelming all enemies with robots. But my question about the uprising sowed the necessary doubts among the listeners, so I didn''t expect much competition here.


    The third project was extremely unexpected. In some ways, it repeated the first one. Its main concept was also escape but on a much larger scale. The author proposed nothing less than cutting off a chunk of cosmic space with an indestructible force field and living in this isolated piece of the universe, without worrying about what was happening outside.


    Oddly enough, this option was quite appealing to the councilors. Primarily because it allowed maintaining the status quo. The entire structure of power and society remained unchanged. Only the factor of external threat was removed. I had to shatter these rosy dreams with my tricky questions.


    "You mentioned that the shields would effectively cut off a part of space, creating a new metaverse" - I asked the third figure. His name was Kira Xenakis, and judging by his fat face, he was a relative of Papadopoulos.


    "Yes, that''s correct. This guarantees that no one and nothing can pass through this barrier" - explained the sweating candidate for victory.


    "But it''s known that space is constantly expanding. How will the absence of back pressure from the surrounding space affect life in this universe?"


    "Well..." - Xenakis'' eyes darted around, seeking support from the audience. - "It depends on the volume of isolated space. According to Chandravishnu''s formulas..."


    "How long exactly will we be able to live inside?" - I interrupted him.


    "Quite a long time. More than a hundred thousand years."


    "And I somehow think that even less than a hundred years" - I grinned triumphantly. - "I think it¡¯s worth checking with independent experts. Moreover, such a fate is essentially a way to guarantee self-destruction. I wouldn¡¯t call that a salvation approach."


    The hum of discussion filled the hall, and Kira Xenakis began sweating even more, although the room temperature did not exceed twenty degrees. Quite cool, in my opinion.


    "The Council will assign a group of independent experts to study the materials of the third project" - finally pronounced one of the Council members. - "Let¡¯s move on to the fourth project. Its author has excelled in tricky questions, and I would like to see what he himself can propose."

 Chapter 3.05: Savior of humanity

    ¡°Esteemed Wise Men¡± - I began with my prepared speech, - ¡°Humanity is facing a serious challenge in competing with other races for a place in the galaxy. As you all know, life in the universe follows a simple rule¡ªonly the strongest survive. Or, in other words, the most adaptable. Life is based on evolution, and living beings must adapt to changing circumstances. We, too, must evolve¡ªinto a higher form of life that will establish control over the entire galaxy. For millions of years, humans have adapted to changes in their environment. But now, in the age of space technology, changes are happening too quickly. Therefore, we must make an evolutionary leap, based not on our limited bodies but on the pride of our species¡ªour intellect.¡±


    I scanned the audience and made sure that the poisoned honey of my words was effectively seeping into the ears of those present, using the noodle as a delivery method.


    ¡°Humans have always been weaker than the species around them. But they have always been smarter. And now, at our moment of weakness, we must use our intellect to become stronger, faster, and more powerful. It is with this goal that I have created the human augmentation project, which will allow us to rightfully call ourselves the superior form of life.¡±


    I noticed that the third figure began muttering to himself, covering his head with his hands:


    ¡°Not Evangelion, not Evangelion! I can''t take it.¡±


    Heh, he¡¯s really sweating it out.


    ¡°I won¡¯t speak at length, but rather get straight to the point. I want to demonstrate the next step in human evolution¡ªthe Vritras.¡± - With these words, one of the guards at the door stepped onto the stage. This time, he was not in a spacesuit but in simple military attire. Or rather, his body was displaying the clothing. ¨C ¡°This person has undergone the transformation process and achieved true immortality. He cannot be killed by destroying his body, and he possesses magic. Even in the unlikely event of death, he can be reborn, retaining his memory and consciousness. He does not age, does not need food, does not feel pain, but can experience pleasure. Such soldiers will be able to conquer any world because it is impossible to resist an army whose soldiers are immortal and do not require rest, supplies, or ammunition.¡±


    The noise in the hall grew louder, so I had to pause to avoid shouting. The time for an angry sermon had not yet arrived.


    ¡°Who let him in here?¡±


    ¡°Is this a necromancer conspiracy?¡±


    ¡°So, you¡¯re saying he¡¯s immortal?¡± - The loudest voice rang out.


    ¡°Yes...¡±


    ¡°Kill him.¡± - The command came before I could give a detailed answer.


    Several guards exchanged glances, and then one of the three Vritras present immediately raised his gun and shredded his comrade into pieces with a burst of fire. But within a couple of seconds, the bloody and charred body parts reassembled, forming a whole person. I was confident that the heavy blaster shots would not damage the crystal, but the ''subject'' had taken precautions by placing it in the heel of his left foot.


    The noise turned into an uproar. People jumped from their seats and began talking loudly, waving their arms. A few individuals decided to approach the Vritras up close to inspect him. Judging by the situation, no one would be listening to me for the next two hours. Instead, everyone would be pouring their opinions into the void, trying to prove the exceptional importance of their views. So, I sat down and began reading a book on the basics of local magic. Since free time had emerged, it was worth using it productively.


    Two hours were not enough for the assembled crowd, so the meeting was postponed until the next day. And I hadn¡¯t even explained how and at what cost this immortality was achieved. However, it seemed that the ''wise men'' were not interested in such details.


    The next day, the Council gathered in an expanded format. I was brought to a huge hall where two hundred people were comfortably seated. The platform where I was situated was enclosed by a protective force field. Apparently, the local bigwigs were worried about their safety. Among the players were only myself and the creator of the terminators.


    Next to the main podium, in front of the protective field, a small portable platform was set up where three wise man sat, including Nikos Papadopoulos. I exchanged promising glances with him, but we did not have a closer interaction.


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    ¡°So, gentlemen, let¡¯s get started.¡± - The speaker proclaimed twenty minutes after the official start time of the meeting. The noise and commotion gradually subsided, and he continued. ¨C ¡°By decision of the expert council, the first and third projects have been rejected. We no longer have enough resources for the first project, and the third one has a serious flaw. Although the isolated area of space could indeed last for more than a hundred thousand years, life within it would only be possible for the first couple of days. Kira Xenakis has been sentenced by the military court to be sent to a combat zone as a kamikaze pilot¡ªoh, excuse me, as a fighter pilot.¡±


    The laughter in the hall indicated that the audience appreciated the joke.


    ¡°Now we will discuss the two remaining projects and choose among them one worthy of implementation. I pass the floor to Ivor Pendragon, who volunteered to present the Council of Wise Men with the second project.¡±


    The man seated to the right of the speaker turned on his microphone and began his speech, consulting the text on his tablet.


    ¡°First of all, I would like to point out that out of the two remaining projects, only this one does not involve turning all present into one of the types of magical abominations.¡± - With this, Ivor glared menacingly at me. ¨C ¡°Regarding the essence of the second project. It involves the construction of fully automated factories under the Council''s control. These factories will be located in the orbits of stars near asteroid belts. Automated miners will gather ore and deliver it to the factories, which will produce combat robots of various modifications.¡±


    ¡°After forming an army of robots, they will be sent to one of the main worlds, where they will be blessed with the power of God Odin, making them invulnerable to magic. Then an innumerable army of holy robots will march against the non-humans and sweep them away in one fell swoop in the name of the gods and...¡±


    ¡°Ahem!¡± - The speaker, whose name no one had bothered to tell me, interrupted the sermon. ¨C ¡°Let¡¯s stick to describing events we can actually forecast.¡±


    ¡°Uh... alright.¡± - The orator agreed. ¨C ¡°According to calculations, constructing one factory will take three months, after which it will be able to produce over a billion robots per year. Given the current settlement zone and the constant production of new factories based on existing capacities, we will be able to overwhelm our main opponents with sheer numbers within four years. By then, we will have one hundred Holy Odin Robots for every enemy soldier!¡± - The lecturer pounded the table with his fist in a burst of enthusiasm. ¨C ¡°And we won¡¯t have to betray the vows of our ancestors by turning ourselves into one of the undead.¡±


    Ivor Pendragon glared at the hall with such hatred that it was clear his faction was in the minority. Otherwise, his gaze would have been one of disdainful contempt rather than hatred.


    Despite the recognized authority of the Council of Wise Men, all its activities were conducted behind closed doors. People learned about the Council''s decisions not even after they were made but after they had been implemented. The identities of the ''wise men'' were also shrouded in secrecy, and only a few individuals, like Nikos Papadopoulos, were known to the general public. It seemed that in this world, the Illuminati had won, and they didn''t even find it necessary to hide from anyone. Rather, this secrecy was a result of ordinary disregard for the opinions of the ''common folk.'' There had never been democratic elections here, so enlightening the people about their rulers was not on anyone''s agenda. A lot of honor indeed.


    The passionate speech of the proponent of the holy robots concluded, and the floor was given to my prot¨¦g¨¦.


    ¡°Esteemed members of the Council¡± - Nikos Papadopoulos began, - ¡°Last night I thoroughly reviewed all the documentation for the fourth project, as well as the reports from our analysts.¡± - When did he manage to get the documentation? Did John Doe bring all the compromising material collected by my rivals along with me? ¨C ¡°Unlike the second project, we won¡¯t need to wait for the construction of any factories and then hope to overwhelm our enemies with machines. We can start pressing our enemies today. The human augmentation project is fully completed.¡± - What a plagiarist! Just as I said a wise word, he stole it right away. ¨C ¡°And it''s not just about forming an army. The goals of this project are much broader. I dare say it is indeed a way to save humanity. To save each of you. To save those dear to you.¡±


    Nikos made a dramatic pause and cast a meaningful glance over everyone present.


    ¡°We are talking about every person being able to achieve immortality. About being able to bring back to life even those loved ones who have already died.¡± - A surprised murmur ran through the hall. ¨C ¡°Humans can rise to the level of gods.¡± - I could clearly hear Pendragon grinding his teeth. ¨C ¡°Humanity deserves more. We deserve to not hide behind soulless machines but to face our enemies head-on and tear them apart, affirming our evolutionary superiority.¡± - This time, the hall erupted in approving cheers that showed no sign of dying down. ¨C ¡°Humanity has once again proven that it is the pinnacle of evolution. The fusion of magic and technology, the fusion of secret spiritual knowledge and our philosophical beliefs, has allowed us to make a leap forward, leaving all non-humans behind. And tell me, will you take this step or cowardly stop just a step from your triumph out of fear of violating the outdated vows of the ancestors?¡± - Approving shouts came from the hall. ¨C ¡°Gentlemen, I believe you will make the right decision.¡±

 Chapter 3.06: Savior of humanity

    Nikos Papadopoulos finished his speech and looked self-satisfied as he cast a victorious glance at his ideological rival. It seemed that this pompous individual had just earned more points in his favor.


    After a few minutes, the speaker requested silence, and the murmurs in the hall gradually quieted down.


    ¡°I understand that many of you may already be inclined to choose one of the projects, but before we proceed to the vote, I would like to conduct a trial, pitting the two approaches against each other to determine which proves more advantageous. What do the project leaders think about this? Arnold Schwarzkopf, you have the floor.¡±


    Finally, I heard the name of my main competitor. Yesterday, he managed to cover everything without introducing himself.


    ¡°Good afternoon, gentlemen. I think a simple duel will clarify everything. And to be fair, I suggest putting two groups of opponents against each other, each with the same production cost.¡± - With these words, Arnold smirked at me.


    ¡°What do you have to say about this proposal, Samael Tamuz?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m afraid that if we maintain such a ratio, we would have to face one and a half robots for every million of my soldiers. After all, vritas can create their bodies literally from dirt. They don¡¯t need expensive factories, transportation, or skilled personnel. Life can sustain itself.¡± - I returned the disdainful smirk to the local terminator. ¨C ¡°However, I agree to a slight handicap on my part. My team of eight vritras against eight hundred terminators. I¡¯m sure the final score will be eight hundred to zero.¡±


    Schwarzkopf turned red with anger and seemed ready to throw a punch, but he managed to compose himself after a few seconds and even forced a crooked smile.


    ¡°Wonderful! No one twisted your arm. My institute has enough prototypes to start this laughable contest.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry about that.¡± - The speaker interjected. ¨C ¡°We¡¯ve already delivered all the research stations to orbit around the planet. The competition will begin on the military range in two hours. Will you be able to provide your participants by then?¡± - He addressed me.


    ¡°Of course. My bodyguards will handle this simple task.¡±


    All present turned their gaze to my eight minions, who were successfully pretending to be furniture near the entrance to the presidium.


    The meeting ended, and I was escorted to a separate room. To my surprise, Papadopoulos was already waiting for me there.


    ¡°Mr. Nikos, what a pleasant surprise.¡± - I greeted him.


    ¡°Good afternoon, Mr. Samael. I have little time, so I¡¯ll be brief. Do you still remember our conversation from three years ago?¡±


    ¡°Of course. I understand that the current sentiments in the Council are a result of your hard work. I can grant you immortality at any time, after which you can repeat the process with any of your supporters.¡±


    Papadopoulos¡¯s eyes gleamed dangerously.


    ¡°Can you do it right now?¡±


    ¡°I can. But I would recommend that you first take care of properly disposing of your old body and securing the materials for creating a new one.¡±


    ¡°Yes, you¡¯re right.¡± - The schemer calmed down. ¨C ¡°Can you provide me with equipment that I can use for the conversion myself?¡±


    ¡°Equipment? I¡¯ll need to think about it.¡±


    I considered how to organize such a feat. The main problem was extracting the soul from the body and embedding it into a crystal. Without proper control, it was quite possible to ''resurrect'' the wrong entity, which would be quite unfortunate. Finally, I formed a design in my mind that, through a fusion of magic and technology, could perform the function of a ''gutting device'' but would be compact enough.


    The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    ¡°I need a disposable item. Some electronic device weighing a couple of kilograms.¡±


    Nikos paused for a second, then addressed his guards.


    ¡°Bring the microwave from the break room.¡±


    Five minutes later, I received the specified item. It had only a small amount of the silicon I needed, so I had to ''consume'' a computer monitor as well. To avoid alarming the people around me with the literal consumption of technology, I simply absorbed it into my body, where it was disintegrated into atoms by the spell systems supporting my existence. After that, I spent about ten minutes synthesizing the required device and embedding the necessary spells into it.


    Finally, I extracted a wide metal cylinder from my abdomen, somewhat resembling a large plate about ten centimeters thick. In the center of this device, a crystal of souls glowed faintly.


    ¡°Lie on your back, place it on your chest with the crystal facing up, and keep your hand on the crystal for one minute. There should be enough building material for the new body nearby. You will obtain the organic matter from your own body, so you will need additional silicon and aluminum. The crystal synthesis program and the human conversion spell are already embedded in the future vessel of your soul.¡±


    ¡°Thank you.¡± - Papadopoulos reached out with trembling hands to take the device eagerly. A predatory expression appeared on the face of the Council member. ¨C ¡°I believe that after the conversion of my supporters, the Council will face a terrorist attack by vampires, after which your project will be unanimously accepted.¡±


    ¡°Good luck.¡± - I nodded, watching the quickly departing future Council speaker. He didn¡¯t even look back, rushing forward with the persistence of a locomotive. Heh, it looks like my victory is a foregone conclusion. All that¡¯s left is to crush the opponent into the dirt, and I can bask in the glory.


    The military base greeted us with uneven gray walls, devoid of any decoration. Apparently, the building had been constructed just a few hours earlier. This was evident from the portable tactical complex displaying the map of the training ground. Through the window, one could see rows of humanoid robots neatly lined up. Another handful of these tin cans, painted in a slightly different color, were inside the building, serving as bodyguards for my opponent. It seemed that he, too, had faced some resistance in the form of assassination attempts.


    Besides us, the room also held military representatives who would monitor the progress of the confrontation. The Council observed us remotely, not bothering to get off their comfortable chairs. A middle-aged man in a medal-adorned uniform approached and began the briefing.


    ¡°So, Arnold Schwarzkopf, Samael Tamuz, everything is ready for the trials. You will need to deploy your forces to the designated points on the map, after which I will give the command to start the battle. You may use any weaponry and tactics. The training ground will be covered by a powerful force field, so you don¡¯t need to worry about collateral damage. The barrier can withstand even a hundred-megaton nuclear explosion. Unfortunately, it poorly transmits electromagnetic radiation, so it can be considered a night fight. We will be monitoring the situation using remote observation tools. However, as you understand, these tools may be destroyed by stray fire. The most reliable means of observation is the spatial scanner. But it can only provide tactical information, not imagery. This is a battle to the death, so the use of waiting and ambush tactics should be limited. Any combat unit can remain camouflaged for no more than two minutes at a time, after which there must be a one-minute break. The objective for both sides is to reach this circle, one hundred meters in diameter, and then destroy any opponents inside. If a combat unit can enter the circle but does not do so, it will be considered out of the fight. If a soldier enters the circle but exits for more than ten seconds, they will also be deemed defeated. If I tell you that someone is out of the fight, you must order that unit to cease attack and retreat beyond the circle. Any questions?


    I glanced at my opponent.


    ¡°What constitutes a sign that the opponent is unable to continue the fight?¡± - He asked.


    ¡°Absence of active offensive activity for two minutes.¡±


    ¡°No more questions.¡±


    The general looked at me.


    ¡°They just need to go and destroy anything that looks like a robot. What questions could there be? It¡¯s a five-minute task.¡±


    The military man nodded and gave the command to deploy the troops. Arnold began fiddling with some wrist gadget, which presumably allowed him to control the robots. I, on the other hand, connected with my team via telepathic communication. Within ten minutes, all preparations were complete, and a hemisphere of darkness rose above the training ground.


    One of the officers approached us to give a brief explanation.


    ¡°This force field is called the Shield of Darkness. Its darkening function is a method of protection against light-based damaging factors, such as during a nuclear explosion or laser radiation. Since it¡¯s daytime, the sunlight activates this function of the barrier, concealing the happenings from us. At night, however, it is almost transparent, allowing us to observe events in the optical range.


    ¡°Ten seconds to readiness.¡± - Announced the voice of the operator managing the tactical complex.


    I watched the screen with interest while simultaneously receiving information from my troops through the telepathic channel. The barrier did not affect the effectiveness of this communication method.


    Oak gave the command, and his entire group dashed forward. The surrounding area was shrouded in impenetrable darkness, but a very small amount of light still penetrated the dome, allowing their super-sensitive eyes to provide a reasonably clear picture. The terrain was rugged. Bushes and trees interspersed with deep craters with molten edges and small hills with steep slopes.

 Chapter 3.07: Savior of humanity

    In front, several robots moved quickly to engage the enemy first. They were immediately met with shots from armor-piercing spells. Unfortunately, the distance was too great, and the metal machines were able to dodge or deploy shields. After all, a computer''s reaction is superior to a human''s, even if the human is in a more advanced body. However, this did not matter much. At close range, the primary factors would be movement speed and the impact force of the weapon.


    A dozen robots, one of which was larger than the others, emerged from the bushes. This encounter was not a surprise to either side, so a shootout immediately ensued, resulting in the destruction of one of the robots caught in the crossfire from four of the vritras. The opponent''s defense was such that weak spells merely slid off the armor.


    The tenth large robot targeted Mark and fired something quite deadly, literally tearing him to pieces. Fortunately, the shot was not instantaneous, so the target managed to move the soul stone to his leg, evading the blow.


    ¡°One unit destroyed on each side¡± - commented the tracking system operator. Arnold gave me a victorious glance.


    ¡°Stop fooling around¡± - I sent a telepathic command. ¨C ¡°This isn''t a training exercise.¡±


    Kirill responded with mental agreement and gave his subordinates a mental nudge. Immediately, hundreds of spells rained down on the robots, turning them into smoking electronic mush. But before the vritras could celebrate their victory, another thirty enemies emerged from behind a small hill. It seemed the Terminators decided to eliminate the enemy before they reached the designated combat area.


    Mark Three had lost most of his body, so he burrowed into the ground, rebuilding his mass using the surrounding material. Unfortunately, the titanium content in the soil was close to zero, so he had to use a ''civilian'' filler. Six vritras charged forward, taking on the bulk of the opponents, while Mateo stayed behind to cover his comrade.


    Another dozen robots appeared from the flank, charging towards the seemingly lone target. As one of them ran past the spot of Mark''s ''death,'' he sprang from the ground and delivered a punch to the Terminator''s chest, penetrating its armor. The remaining nine were destroyed by a concentrated magical barrage from Mateo. The robots retaliated, but all they managed to do was make a few holes in the target, which closed up within a second.


    ¡°It''s tasty!¡± - Mark''s telepathic message carried surprise. ¨C ¡°There are so many different metals. And titanium too.¡±


    A second later, his body began to be absorbed into the robot through the created hole. The machine tried to resist, but within a few seconds, its electronic innards dissolved and became part of Mark''s body.


    ¡°Convenient little suit¡± - noted Mark, infiltrating all the technical cavities and consuming anything he deemed unnecessary. The last part of his body disappeared into the robot''s chest, mimicking the armor and sealing the hole. From the outside, he now looked like another Terminator. ¨C ¡°There¡¯s even some protective magic on the armor. And the composition is pretty good. Nanocomposite of tungsten carbide, titanium, chromium, and a bit of nickel.¡±


    ¡°Stop savoring its taste already¡± - came an irritated thought from Kirill. ¨C ¡°Move in from the flank.¡±


    The pair immediately set off, circumventing the hill. Mateo, while running, changed shape, also pretending to be a robot.


    ¡°We need to create interference to disrupt their ally recognition system¡± - he suggested.


    ¡°Go ahead and do that¡± - Kirill replied. ¨C ¡°Set up a stationary jammer with an adaptive interference block.¡±


    ¡°It will take a couple of minutes.¡±


    Mateo changed course and disappeared into the bushes covering the hill. Not a twig stirred in his path to the top. The vritras'' body flowed around all obstacles like liquid.


    Mark emerged onto the battlefield, taking a superior height and covering a large group of robots with a wide-area spell. ''Acid Cloud'' not only corroded the armor but also reduced visibility. The six vritras dove into the mist and began dismantling the robots. The ''betrayal'' of one of the Terminators was so unexpected that none of the opponents even tried to hinder the use of the area spell, although it required at least a couple of seconds to cast.


    Within a minute, the entire group of robots was destroyed, and five out of eight vritras acquired stylish armored suits. Such protection proved useful, as some Terminators had quite devious weaponry capable of penetrating magical shields. Judging by the enemies'' tactics, they hoped to tear the vritras into sufficiently small pieces so that they could not regenerate. The new progressive armor was a good countermeasure to such an approach.


    Meanwhile, at the observation post, a tragedy was unfolding.


    ¡°I¡¯ve lost the signature of five vritras¡± - reported the officer. ¨C ¡°But instead, the radar shows five targets that are not identified as either humans or robots.¡±


    Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    ¡°What do the cameras show?¡±


    ¡°All drones and stationary cameras in the combat zone have been destroyed. According to the recordings, both sides actively participated in this act of vandalism.¡±


    The general cast us a disapproving glance and refocused on the screen with tactical information. I looked over at Arnold. His face was showing clear signs of encroaching panic.


    ¡°Don''t worry so much¡± - I ''comforted'' him. ¨C ¡°It''s just a game of higher-order players.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t understand! If I lose... He... He¡¯ll do THAT to me again! Or come up with something even worse.¡±


    Ah, the heavy fate of a mere pawn. Good thing I''m winning. Heh heh heh.


    Ten minutes later, eight vritras, clad in nearly untouched Terminator suits, stood in the designated zone, lazily looking around.


    ¡°Has anyone counted how many we¡¯ve already killed?¡± - Narayan inquired, twirling a ''spare helmet'' that seemed more stylish to him than the model he had taken.


    ¡°Many¡± - Mateo Hidalgo replied thoughtfully. ¨C ¡°Definitely more than three. But it doesn¡¯t matter. If they don¡¯t attack within two minutes, they automatically lose.¡±


    ¡°Can you only count to three?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t need more.¡±


    The lazy banter continued until the force shield was deactivated and bright sunlight flooded the area.


    ¡°Ending combat actions. Eight objects of unknown nature are in the center of the designated zone. Two minutes have passed, the winner is determined. Now we just need to find out which side these objects belong to¡± - the tactical officer announced.


    ¡°Remove the shield¡± - commanded the general, looking at us. I maintained a calm facade, while Arnold stood frozen like a wax statue, showing no emotion. ¨C ¡°Hey, you there, bring your fat asses over here¡± - the general shouted through the loudspeaker.


    The eight figures exchanged glances and jumped quickly toward us. Meanwhile, we all exited the building and focused on the strip of trees from which the winners should have emerged.


    ¡°I told you my robots would win!¡± - Arnold exclaimed joyfully as he caught sight of the silhouettes among the dense vegetation. He laughed triumphantly, though there was a hysterical edge to his laughter.


    As the eight ''robots'' approached us, the outermost one removed its head, revealing the human head of Kirill Dubrovsky.


    ¡°Boss, can we order more of these suits? Just need a few tweaks, as some of the joints are a bit unreliable.¡±


    My opponent gasped and stared with wide eyes.


    ¡°This cannot be! These are my robots.¡±


    ¡°Only on the outside¡± - Mark laughed, also removing his helmet. ¨C ¡°But if it comforts you, they were quite tasty.¡±


    ¡°No! You¡¯re not them. Destroy them!¡± - It seemed Arnold had completely lost his mind. His guarding Terminators immediately pointed their weapons at the vritras.


    ¡°Don¡¯t ruin the trophies!¡± - Narayan shouted, engaging in close combat.


    A scuffle ensued, accompanied by numerous robot shots. My bodyguards couldn¡¯t use their full strength because there were too many soldiers around. A few blaster shots whizzed past the stunned Arnold, and a brilliant idea struck me.


    A slight mental push to Kirill was picked up by the whole team, and following my wish, Frank deflected one of the blaster shots with magic, which hit Arnold directly in the forehead. The lifeless body fell to the ground, and the robot resistance immediately ceased.


    ¡°Master¡¯s death confirmed. Activating self-destruction protocol¡± - the ''culprit'' of the premature demise of one of the figures announced, before exploding and showering the surroundings with shards of armor. The same fate soon befell all the other Terminators in the vicinity.


    I healed the damage to my body and stared at the mangled corpse of the man who wasn¡¯t even really my enemy. Why let good go to waste?


    ¡°I offer this figure as a sacrifice to the Judge.¡±


    Immediately, the world exploded with energy, and I felt my soul being torn from the crystal, which disintegrated into sand due to the activated self-destruction system. I didn¡¯t want any complete copies of the Vritras remaining in this world after my death. Meanwhile, my soul appeared before five terrifying figures that were almost impossible to perceive due to the power emanating from them.


    ¡°How dare you break the rules?¡± - one of the Players roared. ¨C ¡°You killed my figure.¡±


    ¡°He killed himself¡± - I tried to justify.


    ¡°Idiot!¡± - The whisper of Being reached me.


    ¡°You acknowledged his death by your hand when you sacrificed him to me¡± - announced the indifferent voice of Judge.


    ¡°The Being must be punished.¡±


    ¡°I protest! According to the rules of game abilities, I face no consequences from this killing, whether positive or negative.¡±


    ¡°Then the responsibility lies on the Judge!¡± - insisted the unfamiliar Player. The two remaining Players remained silent.


    ¡°You¡¯re asking for too much. I am not subject to judgment¡± - the Judge retorted. ¨C ¡°You agreed to the rules of this game yourself.¡±


    ¡°Then he must be punished!¡± - The finger of the malefactor pointed directly at me.


    ¡°I decide whom to punish, for what, and how.¡± - The Judge scrutinized me, piercing my soul with his icy gaze. ¨C ¡°I will take two of his energy centers. And his next game will start in one of my worlds.¡±


    Then unbearable pain pierced my soul, and I felt as if two of my ''tails'' were being ripped away, leaving gaping wounds.


    ¡°And for now, I take him¡± - Being extended its grasping hands toward me. ¨C ¡°The Game is still ongoing. Both the small one and the big one.¡±


    Two nearly imperceptible patches covered my wounds, turning agony into mere unbearable suffering. After that, darkness surrounded me, and consciousness faded.

 Chapter 4 - Nasty goblin

    I woke up, still in pain. I wouldn¡¯t say my condition had improved, but at least I no longer wanted to trade anything for an immediate death. Those players! They dared to mutilate me, to tear away a part of my soul. I hate them!!!


    ¡°Blame yourself for this.¡± - The voice of Being sounded. ¨C ¡°If you hadn¡¯t confessed to the murder, this death would have been considered an accident. Everything was shaping up perfectly. You didn¡¯t give the order to the one who caused the death of the figure. And the rules don¡¯t restrict ordinary people from making their own decisions. And after everything was done, you signed your own sentence by sacrificing the figure.¡±


    Hatred in my mind mixed with irritation. As for the trial, I didn¡¯t confess to the murder. It was an unauthorized attempt to use a game ability. But the Judge wanted to get his victim and make me a scapegoat.


    ¡°Yes, you¡¯re right.¡± - Being agreed. ¨C ¡°But you fell into this trap yourself. Anyway, let¡¯s forget about that. You helped me greatly in this game. Again! But this time, it was almost fair, and so I hit the jackpot. The people, or rather the Vritras as their heirs, won this war. O-o-oh, if only you had seen what they did. They disabled the birth control mechanism and in just a hundred years populated the entire galaxy. They didn¡¯t just destroy other races. They consumed their worlds! Imagine - an endless ocean twenty kilometers deep, entirely made up of Vritra bodies. These beings lost their human appearance, almost lost their minds, but still continued to mate and breed. In two hundred years, they were the only form of life in the galaxy.¡±


    ¡°It was hard to expect anything else.¡± - I forced out, overcoming the pain.


    ¡°So, you did it deliberately?¡± - Being¡¯s voice shifted from delight to cunning interest.


    ¡°No, of course not. I had my own goals. It¡¯s just that human... are simple human. Pitiful creatures whose meaningless existence is aimed only at satisfying animal needs. Pitiful, but cunning and smart, though as dumb as earthworms. They refuse to recognize the need for self-control. And so, as soon as they¡¯re freed from the chains of the law, they immediately turn into ruthless, all-consuming beasts. So, the ending you described is quite logical.¡±


    ¡°Oh! You¡¯re a philosopher. One of the few philosophers who have maintained a sound view of the world. Yes, you¡¯re right. The Vritras turned into an all-consuming monster. Imagine, in the end, when they aimed to conquer other galaxies, we had to destroy the entire galaxy. Literally, vaporize it completely and then collapse it into a black hole along with all those mad souls. O-o-oh, what a sight it was.¡±


    Judging by the transmitted emotions, Being was in a state of real ecstasy and clear intoxication. Apparently, it had made quite a killing off its kin with this game.


    ¡°But let¡¯s get back to you. According to the Judge¡¯s decision, you must be reincarnated in his world. I even picked out a suitable body for you - an old, sick goblin-shaman who has only a few months left to live. So, you¡¯ll quickly suffer and then go free with a clear conscience.¡±


    Before I could protest, I lost consciousness again. I woke up wrapped in some rags, lying on a stone surface.


    ¡°What about the rules?¡± - I thought, sending the thought into the void.


    ¡°No rules.¡± - A whisper of the Being replied. ¨C ¡°Blow up the whole world if you want.¡±


    A fading maniacal laugh was heard, and I was left alone with the harsh reality once more. Everything hurt. My frail body, ravaged by coughing, my strained magical core, and most importantly, my soul, which was scarred with unhealable wounds. I felt that the patches the Being had put on were a temporary fix. Healing the soul required Bahion. And no one was going to spend that value on me.


    Then another cold and indifferent voice entered my consciousness. The Judge! My mind trembled with the overwhelming hatred it felt.


    ¡°If you want to restore your energy centers, I can give them back in exchange for three points each.¡±


    ¡°And you can heal my soul and return everything to how it was?¡± - I responded with a mix of hatred, contempt, and mockery.


    ¡°...Five souls for each tail.¡± - The Judge said after a brief pause. ¨C ¡°And I will heal your wounds.¡±


    ¡°Fine. You¡¯ll get your sacrifices.¡± - I agreed. ¨C ¡°Just don¡¯t complain afterward. The Being told me there are no rules in this world¡¯s game.¡±


    ¡°Yes, that¡¯s true.¡± - The Judge¡¯s voice carried notes of malicious glee. ¨C ¡°I hope you prove your usefulness.¡±


    The foreign presence in my mind disappeared again, and I weakly sprawled on the hard surface, trying to find a somewhat comfortable position where my bones wouldn¡¯t try to pierce my skin.


    Those bastards! They want me to rake in the heat with my own hands? Fine, I¡¯ll find a way to deal with you too.


    ¡°None of you will be spared. You¡¯ll all die without forgiveness. Who forgives sins - that¡¯s for me to decide. I¡¯m the scapegoat?¡± - Lines from a song by Vysotsky spontaneously surfaced in my mind, turning into a curse directed at the ''higher powers.''


    Finally, I found the strength to open my eyes, get up from the bed, and look around. I was in a spacious cave, with bright sunlight streaming through a narrow entrance. Gathering my limbs into a pile, I staggered toward the exit, taking in the surroundings. Poverty and destitution. That¡¯s what I saw before me. The body I had was on its last breath. I was wearing rags of unclear origin. And the most valuable thing in the cave seemed to be a stone - a large piece of hematite serving as a table.


    I stepped outside and surveyed the surroundings of Onega Lake. Well, maybe not Onega, but some lake was definitely present here. I stood on the slope of a mountain, with forests, swamps, and the lake stretching out before me. Somewhere on the horizon, other mountains were visible, stretching as far as the eye could see.


    The nearby area was also untouched by the encroachment of civilization. Some gray-green humanoid creatures wandered about, going about their mundane tasks.


    ¡°Great shaman, have you recovered and decided to honor us with your attention?¡± - asked a gaunt boy, who was grinding something in a mortar, sitting by the cave entrance.


    My apprentice named Bonehead, I realized. It seemed some part of the donor¡¯s memory had been transferred to me. Last time, I couldn¡¯t even recall my own name. By the way, what is my name here?


    ¡°Lame leg, what brings you out of your den?¡± - a wrinkled old woman with a long nose spoke to me. ¨C ¡°Have you decided to see the sun one last time before you die?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t hold your breath, old Hag.¡± - I waved her off.


    What names they have here? I wonder if she was called Hag even as a child? My memory refused to answer that question. A few seconds later, I remembered that the old woman had looked like a dried apple even back when I was still walking under the table¡ªthirty winters ago. Indeed, a harsh life for goblins. Thirty years, and you¡¯re already an old man.


    ¡°And I¡¯m not old at all.¡± - The old woman retorted. ¨C ¡°I¡¯m still full of life.¡± - Her voice carried a hint of lasciviousness.


    ¡°Tell that to Bonehead. Maybe he¡¯ll fall for your charms.¡±


    The aforementioned boy shut his eyes in horror and began to quietly crawl back into the cave. The old woman laughed, watching the increasing panic of her future lover.


    ¡°Ha-ha-ha. You don¡¯t take care of your apprentice at all.¡±


    ¡°And why should I? He¡¯s already on his seventh winter. If he doesn¡¯t find himself a wife before the first snow, I¡¯ll have to give him to you.¡±


    Bonehead bolted away, shouting as he ran:


    ¡°Uncle Patsy, Uncle Patsy, give me your daughter as a wife!¡±


    The whole village stopped their activities and stared at the unexpected entertainment.


    ¡°O-ho-ho-ho. You¡¯ll send me to the grave. I haven¡¯t laughed like this in ages.¡± ¨C Hag teared up.


    We fell silent and watched the courtship unfold. Bonehead was a shaman¡¯s apprentice and a desirable fianc¨¦, but Patsy was known as the strongest warrior in the tribe after the chief and wanted to trade his only daughter for weapons for his eight sons. The blacksmith from the neighboring village wouldn¡¯t agree to such a deal, settling for no more than two rusty knives.


    I distracted myself from the local drama and pondered my fate. I had lost the sources of spider magic and chakra. But I still retained the Vritra structure, which possessed spider magic on its own. This body also had magic, but it was somehow strange. Most importantly, this magic barely sufficed to sustain the spirits the previous owner of this body summoned. Shamanism can¡¯t be called energetically inefficient for either side. Spirits weave their influence so intricately that they use even less energy than the most gifted spider.


    I had to think about how to become stronger. I looked around and sat down on a bench specifically placed in a sunny spot. The sun was shining through the cold autumn air, and the old body was inclined to just sit and enjoy the last days.


    No, get a grip. I must achieve immortality and reclaim what was stolen. I clasped my hands in a chakra concentration gesture and sent tiny amounts of magical energy through my body, trying to clear my mind.


    The thought of gaining power brought to mind the information about an ancient dragon magic awakening ritual from the shaman¡¯s memory. At the cost of his life, a mage could push his magical core into overdrive, gaining immense power for a few minutes. The energy flowing through the body in this state was much purer and stronger than the swamp sludge typically used by mages in this world. And once the time was up, the mage would be consumed in magical flames, leaving no trace behind, not even ashes.


    The ritual wasn¡¯t too complicated. But not every mage was willing to perform it. Usually, it was only used when saving an entire tribe¡¯s life was at stake, and no other solution was possible. Rumor had it that even a month after performing the ritual, the emanations of pain felt by the mage in the final moments of their life could still be sensed in that place. The lucky ones managed to kill themselves before the power got out of control. I figured I¡¯d only have one chance. That should be enough to create a crystal with a soul trap.


    I began the mathematical calculations, but soon concluded that even after strengthening, my power wouldn¡¯t be enough to create a full Vritra. At least not a complete version. But I could try to make the simplest one, just enough to provide access to proper magic. Later, the vessel could be upgraded to a full one. I still needed to figure out how to create the necessary spiritual shells. They required the majority of the energy for their creation.


    There was only one way left¡ªa sacrifice, a bloody and agonizing death of a gifted individual, whose spiritual shells I would use as a temporary solution. It¡¯s like wrapping oneself in a shroud made of skin freshly stripped from a person. A disgusting solution. But what wouldn¡¯t I do for the integrity of my soul?


    Lost in thought, I didn¡¯t notice how the sun leaned toward the horizon, and the cold began to creep under my rags. I had to get up and move my thin behind to the fire inside the cave, around which the happy Bonehead was already bustling. Apparently, Patsy had given his consent, though knowing him, the price must have been high.


    I didn¡¯t question my nominal apprentice, who was in fact the new shaman of the tribe, about his affairs. To me, these goblins were nobody. Only due to the emotions and memory of this body did I not contemplate sacrificing them all. I needed to focus on my own problems, or I¡¯d never see my own tails as my own ears. I glanced at my ear, draped over my right shoulder like a cloak, sighed, and concentrated on devising a plan.


    Three days later, at noon, I stepped out of the cave and headed toward the tribe¡¯s chief. The corpulent man had been ruling the village for eight years, making him quite experienced by goblin standards. He met me at the threshold of his house and silently led me inside, showing respect.


    ¡°What brings you, Lame Leg, to my home?¡± - he asked after we both had a cup of herbal brew with honey.


    ¡°Chief, my death is already near. It stands behind my shoulder, waiting for me to take my last breath.¡± - The chief glanced over my shoulder and averted his eyes superstitiously. ¨C ¡°Before I die, I want to help the village one last time. The swamp goblins have long had it in for us. And as soon as they learn of my death, they will go to war with us on the very same day.¡±


    I fell silent, sipping my second cup of the drink. According to Lame Leg¡¯s memories, this was the second time in the last ten years he had drunk a honeyed beverage.


    ¡°The tribe isn¡¯t ready for war.¡± - The chief replied darkly.


    ¡°I know.¡± - I nodded in agreement, pouring myself a third cup of tea. If we¡¯re going to do this, let¡¯s go all in. ¨C ¡°That¡¯s why there won¡¯t be a war. I want to awaken my dragon heart and kill the swamp¡¯s chief shaman in a one-on-one duel.¡±


    This time, the chief truly flinched and turned pale. Among ordinary goblins, there were terrifying stories about dragon magic. He filled my cup for the fourth time, pouring the remainder of the ''drink of the gods.''


    ¡°You¡¯re not obligated to do this.¡±


    ¡°I know.¡± - Agreed the old and wise shaman in my guise. ¨C ¡°It¡¯s my own choice. I want to die in a duel, saving the tribe, not in a stinking hole, shivering from the cold. Let them compose a song about how I died a hero, not about how I clung to life and with me the sun set on the tribe.¡±


    The chief grimly nodded. The desire for glory was not uncommon even among goblins. And my act would be considered heroic even by the bitterest of enemies.


    ¡°What do you propose?¡±


    The drink was finished, and I sighed as I set the empty cup on the table.


    ¡°In a week, Stinking Belly will start offering sacrifices to his swamp god. On the second day, only a small squad will remain to guard him. I will prepare a ritual site in the nearby forest and then lure that half-trained shaman there.¡±


    ¡°After the sacrifice, he will be at the peak of his strength.¡± - The chief countered.


    ¡°And that¡¯s exactly why he will choose to fight me rather than flee. I will awaken the dragon magic within my body and offer him as a sacrifice to the spirits. All you need to do is ensure that the enemy warriors don¡¯t interfere with me. If something goes wrong... leave.¡±


    The chief pondered my plan for a long time but eventually agreed. For him and the entire tribe, it was the best possible solution. Even if the attempt failed, it would show all enemies in the vicinity that the mountain goblins could put up such a fight that even a victory would feel like defeat.


    After the group of the best hunters set out for reconnaissance in the swamps, I began the second part of the plan. I needed to create a vessel for my soul¡ªa ruby measuring two by three centimeters. I knew how to make it with magic, but my strength wasn¡¯t even enough for that.


    I had to resort to ritual magic, which I hadn¡¯t used since building the ziggurat on the demon planet. The ritual-artifact circle with the necessary spell pattern took up space in the darkest corner of the cave. I strictly forbade my apprentice from even approaching it. My calculations proved accurate, and the crystal grew in full accordance with the program. Once it was ready, it would only be necessary to cast a spell on it, infuse it with the energies of the sacrifice, and then I could transfer into the new body.


    On the appointed day, I went to see the chief first thing in the morning, where we discussed the operation plan in detail once more. The scouts reported that events among the swamp dwellers were proceeding strictly according to tradition, so at least this part of the plan was secure.


    At noon, I returned to the cave and went to retrieve the crystal from the circle. Only to find the ritual circle torn apart and the crucial element of my plan completely missing. Hatred flooded my consciousness, and I headed for the exit, spreading waves of terror. Those damned creatures had stolen a part of my soul, and now some beast was hindering me from even retrieving what was lost.


    I emerged into the main hall of the cave, and Bonehead rushed toward me with eyes wide with terror.


    ¡°Where is it?¡± - I hissed, jabbing my index finger into his shoulder.


    ¡°What, teacher?¡± - He hissed back, his body trembling in pain.


    ¡°The precious gem you stole from the ritual circle.¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t steal anything, teacher.¡±


    ¡°Then who could have passed by you?¡±


    We both turned our heads simultaneously and stared at the new inhabitant of the cave¡ªmy apprentice¡¯s wife. I pulled my finger from his flesh and noticed the edges of the wound had charred. Bonehead himself lunged forward and, with a running start, punched the thief directly in the face. She staggered a few steps back and screamed, after which the young shaman began to beat her. Eventually, the screams turned into plaintive wails, and the missing item was immediately found.


    Bonehead brought me the gem, which I literally snatched from his hands. Examining the offering, I nearly howled in frustration. This bitch didn¡¯t just steal it; she had tried to drill a hole in it to hang it around her neck as jewelry. She hadn¡¯t been very successful but had managed to chip the edges of a couple of magical symbols.


    ¡°Filthy whore¡± - I roared, entering an unrestrained rage - ¡°Your children will grow scales and feathers in your belly, and you will give birth to them against the scales.¡±


    A drop of the power I had accumulated all week slipped from my hand and transformed into a ritual curse, embedding itself into her body. Now no mage among the goblins would be able to remove it. I clenched the gem in my hand and headed for the exit. But after three steps, I stopped and turned to the sniffling slut, who didn¡¯t even seem to feel guilty.


    ¡°And this is for trying to steal from the tribe¡¯s shaman.¡±


    Another spell slipped from my hand. It was a legacy from the spiders, who knew a thing or two about torture. The inhuman screech pierced my ears, bringing peace to my heart. The wails accompanied me all the way to the chief¡¯s hut, from which I had just emerged ten minutes earlier.


    ¡°What happened?¡± - The chief rushed to meet me.


    ¡°This cockroach¡¯s female stole and damaged the amulet I was going to use in battle.¡±


    ¡°So... everything is canceled?¡± - The goblin turned ashen, unconsciously clutching his heart. It seemed he had some issues with it. But that was none of my concern.


    ¡°No. We will set out tomorrow. I will occupy the spirit sanctuary and try to restore the amulet. Give orders. Let them bring me food, and no one is to enter the sanctuary until tomorrow evening.¡±


    Without waiting to see if he understood me, I left the hut and trudged to the sanctuary, savoring the sounds of the thief¡¯s screams that stood in my way. Finally, my apprentice managed to stun the bitch with a spell, and the concert of the listeners¡¯ requests came to an end.


    The sanctuary was something like a local temple. While the shaman¡¯s workspace also served as his residence, the sanctuary was a ¡®sacred¡¯ place that couldn¡¯t be desecrated by everyday concerns. I didn¡¯t care much for these superstitions, especially since how many of these concerns did I have left? What interested me far more was the concentrated magic here, which I intended to use to restore the gem. Let the goblins thank this bitch later for making their temple no longer attract spirits.


    I spent the night and the entire next day without sleep. I managed to create a simplified ritual circle and restore the damage, but the disruptions in the crystal¡¯s structure remained, and I could only hope that they would not be fatal.


    In the evening, I had dinner and allowed myself a brief nap. But as soon as I woke up, I realized that sleepless nights with the strain of magical core at my age take their toll. My body was reaching its final peak and was steadily moving toward death. I needed to hurry.


    The squad of the village¡¯s best warriors arrived at the sanctuary at sunset. I scanned my companions and was relieved to see that Patsy was not among them. Apparently, the chief had figured out that the vengeful father was not needed in my team.


    ¡°Lame Leg, you look pale¡± - the Chief of the Fat Belly expressed concern.


    ¡°Thank that brainless bitch and the rookie shaman¡± - I spat. ¨C ¡°Let¡¯s go, time is precious.¡±


    We ran through the evening forest, but after just three hundred meters, I collapsed to the ground, a sack of misery. When a goblin¡¯s legs give out, his days are numbered. In this world, even the well-known saying goes, ¡®a goblin¡¯s legs feed him.¡¯


    ¡°Chief Belly, I¡¯m ashamed to say this, but one of you will have to carry me. Otherwise, I¡¯ll only reach the swamps after the first frost.¡±


    The chief silently signaled, and one of the tallest goblins picked me up and slung me over his shoulders. The run continued, and this time we moved much faster. By midnight, the squad was in position. While the scouts went to check the situation in the enemy camp, I set about drawing another ritual circle. God, how low have I fallen? Using these crutches just to perform a simple spell.


    Our plan was fairly straightforward. The swamp goblin shaman, known as Stinking Belly, was currently finishing the sacrifice of one of his kin. Knowing the tastes of this slime spawn, it could be assured that it was a young goblin female whom he had been continuously abusing for the past few days. The more the victim suffered and enjoyed before death, the higher its value on the peculiar market of summoning spirits. The shaman was paying for the deal, and then the spirit would serve the tribe for a year.


    This sacrifice was the third in the series, which meant the shaman would have two full-strength spirits on his side. The first sacrifice had been guarded by an additional squad, but by now the shaman was supposed to have enough power to protect himself. No one wanted to stay an extra day in a camp teeming with malevolent spirits. I had planned to attack the shaman yesterday, but that bitch!... I suppressed my anger and focused on the task at hand.


    At the peak of the tension, I intended to disrupt the sacrifice, nullifying the shaman¡¯s efforts over the past few days. The last spirit was supposed to be the strongest. The previous two sacrifices had merely been a way to attract the most powerful spirits from the realm of malevolent spirits. If I interrupt the ritual, it would be a real slap in the face to that shaman. Of course, the ritual could be repeated, but the tribe might not understand that. And every year, they had to give up three of their best youths to appease the bloodthirsty spirits.


    So, it was certain that the shaman wouldn¡¯t tolerate such an affront and would seek revenge, presenting my head as an explanation for his failure. He was at the peak of his power, and even if our entire tribe came, we couldn¡¯t be sure of defeating him.


    But everything changed with the circumstance that I planned to awaken the heart of a dragon within me. For a few minutes, my power would increase enough to twist the enemy shaman and all his spirits into a pretzel. I just needed to time it right and prepare the battlefield.


    I stretched my aching back and surveyed the results of my work¡ªa massive ritual circle almost twenty meters in diameter. This direction of magic was unknown to the goblins, so it was unlikely that the shaman would suspect anything. This place was the only suitable one for reaching the ¡®fleeing¡¯ me unless the shaman intended to go for a swim in the bottomless mire. As soon as he stepped into the circle¡¯s boundaries, I would activate a barrier that could contain the mage and his summoned spirits. After that, I would leisurely activate the magical core in overdrive mode and use all the preparations to transform into the Vritras. A simple protective contour would shield me from arrows, and the tribe¡¯s warriors would cover me from melee attacks.


    I moved back to the required distance, drew another circle with a protective contour, and then focused on the spirit realm. The returning scouts confirmed that everything was going according to plan, and I closed my eyes, entering a trance.


    The dance of spirits circled around the dying victim. The girl had long given up hope of salvation. She pleaded for death, begged for someone to hurry up and devour her to grant her peace, but her body continued to live, sustained by the shaman¡¯s magic.


    Then, the circle of minions scattered, avoiding a massive being that had ¡®emerged¡¯ from the depths of the spirit realm. As an experienced fisherman, Stinking Belly made the victim tremble on the brink of death, luring closer the very entity for whom this whole spectacle was staged. The spirit was impressive. Strong, malevolent, smart enough to follow orders, but not cunning enough to bypass the trap of the contract. The otherworldly creature was still hesitant, circling around, but with each second its hunger grew more intense, making it lose its caution.


    If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    And then, the spirit world was pierced by the sharp sound of a snapped string. The space shattered into fragments, and in one of the shards was the summoned spirit, while in another, the victim finally broke free from the shackles of flesh, only to be torn apart by a pack of lesser spirits. Weak and malevolent, they had known nothing in their lives except an all-consuming hunger. Even the presence of a powerful spirit nearby did not deter them. They saw that it was currently unable to harm them. And later, would be later. As the saying goes, "they can¡¯t catch us."


    The swarm of satiated spirits scattered in different directions, and my mocking laughter echoed through the spirit world. The great spirit angrily struck the ''deceived'' shaman with a wave of energy and vanished into the unimaginable depths of multidimensional space. The furious howl of Stinking Belly was a true delight to my ears. The curious intermediate spirits eagerly picked up my laughter, spreading the news of yet another failure of a foolish mortal across the spirit world.


    ¡°Lame Leg!!!¡± - came the enraged and furious response, tinged with a touch of helplessness and pain. ¨C ¡°I will find you and gut you. I will offer you as a sacrifice to Dagon.¡±


    In response, my contemptuous laughter rang out, accompanied by the murmur of the spirits¡¯ voices. Stinking Belly shouldn¡¯t have mentioned that name, especially not shout it across the spirit world. Now the weak would fear coming at his call, and the strong would first question whether he had fulfilled his promise. The enemy shaman realized this too and quickly returned to his body to seek me in the material world. If he didn¡¯t carry out his threat, he would effectively cease to be a shaman.


    If a real Lame Leg were in my place, he would have slashed his own throat without hesitation, leaving his opponent with nothing. But I needed not just a victory in a magical duel, not the safety of my tribe, and not even fame and honor. I needed a sacrifice with a ''meaty'' spiritual body that I could use in my ritual. So, I remained where I was, shifting most of my attention to the material world while still keeping an eye on the spirit world.


    The victim appeared within sight in just ten minutes. The waning moon provided enough light for a goblin¡¯s vision to discern the surroundings. Seeing me confidently standing ahead, Stinking Belly became cautious. But he had no choice. Either he sacrifices me to Dagon, or he can slit his own throat right here without bothering to explain anything to the tribe¡¯s chief.


    ¡°Lame Leg, I will destroy your village¡± - the shaman shouted, advancing and carefully scanning the ground ahead for traps. My companions hid in the bushes, making me an easy target. But the warriors trailing behind the shaman were in no hurry to attack me. Shamanic disputes were not for mere mortals. An attack by a mere warrior could anger the spirits and bring disaster to the entire settlement. If only Empty Belly were not here, the events might have taken a different turn.


    ¡°And how do you plan to do that? You¡¯re no longer a shaman¡± - I laughed. The enemy warriors exchanged glances and moved closer, almost reaching a narrow strip of land connecting two islands surrounded by impenetrable bog. Only knowledge of hidden paths and the help of spirits could assist the goblins in getting out of this place into the forest.


    ¡°My power over the spirits is stronger than ever¡± - my opponent retorted, manifesting two hand-held spirits in the material world. Such a trick did not scare me in the slightest, but the simple warriors recoiled.


    ¡°We both know that¡¯s not true. Come on, attack me. Or are you so powerless that you¡¯ll send warriors to kill a half-dead old man, hiding behind their backs?¡±


    From the gritted teeth, it was clear that this was exactly what Stinking Belly intended to do. But battles between shamans had to follow a certain code, known to too many. If he showed any weakness, his own warriors would kill him. A shaman held power over his kin only as long as he instilled fear. Once he admitted that he had lost control over the spirit world, he would become an outcast. No tribe would accept a goblin from whom the spirits had turned away.


    ¡°I will gut you¡± - the shaman shouted, taking a step forward.


    ¡°I¡¯ve heard that already. In the world of the dead, where your spirits have abandoned you.¡± - The more I pressed on Stinking Belly¡¯s mistake, the angrier he became. ¨C ¡°Come on, summon them. Create at least a swamp fire.¡±


    I laughed contemptuously with the same disdainful laugh he had heard not long ago. That was the last straw, and with a furious cry, the shaman charged forward, swinging his knife. As soon as he stepped inside the circle, I activated the trap, and the goblin collapsed to the ground, stripped of magical energy, which began flowing into me. I would need every little bit.


    The warriors saw the shaman fall and rushed forward, but were repelled by the protective field surrounding the perimeter of the circle. A few unlucky ones even fell into the water, barely escaping the engulfing mire. A dozen of the weakest water spirits I had summoned made this part of the swamp impassable.


    I checked the state of the trap again and began the ritual to awaken the magical core. The warriors threw a few knives, but they were deflected by the shield. I was already mentally celebrating victory when over a hundred warriors appeared from the forest, accompanied by a junior shaman of the tribe.


    ¡°What a luck¡± - came the voice of the shaman¡¯s apprentice, who had long reached maturity. ¨C ¡°I will kill you both now, and next year we will destroy your tribe. That milk-faced fool won¡¯t be able to stop me.¡±


    I had to agree with the assessment of my apprentice¡¯s abilities. He was more of a mage and herbalist than a shaman. However, I was more interested in the events unfolding right now. Reinforcements gathered on the opposite shore but did not advance. As long as it was a confrontation between shamans, the simple warriors dared not interfere. They suspected that I was not alone, but while it was not known for sure, fear of the spirits kept them in place.


    ¡°Are you so sure you¡¯ll survive this year?¡± - I laughed, continuing to awaken the core. ¨C ¡°Without the aid of your rotten god, you¡¯ll be easy prey. And we won¡¯t miss the opportunity to tell the trolls of the northern range about your weakness.¡±


    The warriors murmured anxiously. Shamans or not, if word got out about what happened, the entire tribe would be doomed. There was no room for adhering to the ''moral norms'' of goblin society here.


    ¡°Quiet!¡± - the shaman¡¯s apprentice interrupted the rising panic. ¨C ¡°I¡¯ll take the two spirits my teacher summoned. It¡¯s not three spirits, but it will be enough to last a year. And in the spring, we can conduct another sacrifice, buying slaves from the same trolls.¡±


    The apprentice¡¯s words played into my hands. I was almost in the right state. Another minute, and I would turn these mortals into bloody mush. The murmur died down, and the warriors watched us with interest. After all, when would they get to witness a shaman¡¯s battle? In a regular fight, it was not the focus. My opponent stepped forward and, with a thoughtful look, tapped his staff against the force field.


    ¡°This is magic. So, you don¡¯t want to use spirits. Or you can¡¯t.¡±


    The assumption was correct. I was not familiar with the spirits that had been fed by the donor of my body throughout his life. To them, I was no more appealing than a stranger with the scent of the master for dogs.


    The shaman waved his hands, and a whole pack of spirits surged from him towards me. Unfortunately for him, the goblin¡¯s intellect was not enough to understand the essence of the trap before him. The force shield did not hold the spirits for even a moment. But as soon as they entered the circle, the spell drained all their strength, sending the entire pack back to the otherworldly realm, and enraging them against their master for such a setup. The shaman¡¯s furious cry was music to my ears. Just a couple of minutes ago, his master had screamed the same way.


    Meanwhile, my core had fired up, and, enduring the pain, I finally felt like a real mage. How I had missed this feeling. Two spells flew from my hands. One paralyzed the goblins in front of me, and the other drew the immobilized apprentice shaman into the circle. As they say, too much is never too much ¨C the excess we¡¯ll discard.


    Time was running short, so I immediately activated the soul trap ritual. The spell was already embedded in the stone, and now it was unfolding and filling with energy, entering operational mode. Just then, the night was torn apart by numerous cries. Alas, this time the attackers had come at us from behind, so my tribe¡¯s warriors had to engage in battle, fulfilling their part of the agreement. They had no other choice. The enemies had come via the very path they planned to use for retreat.


    While the battle raged nearby, I focused on maintaining a steady flow of energy. Unfortunately, as I had suspected, even this enhancement was insufficient to be considered a normal mage. I was barely managing to sustain the spell and could not afford to divert even a moment of attention to help my allies.


    Finally, the first phase ended, and I began extracting the souls of the shamans. They screamed and threatened various forms of retribution, but they could not resist my power. I also used the two spirits that had accompanied Stinking Belly. Bound by contract to him, they could not escape to the world of the dead. After a long two minutes, the process was complete. I could have sighed in relief, but at that moment, I felt my strength leaving me. My magical core had completely burned out and was beginning to disintegrate, giving me unforgettable sensations. However, it was nothing compared to the tormenting spiritual pain.


    With the remaining strength, I activated the soul transfer process. I even had to draw the last bits of energy from the protective spells I was maintaining. And, of course, just at that second, one of the attackers rushed at me and impaled me with his sword. The spell sputtered and collapsed. I tried to ''jump'' into the crystal myself, but I lacked the energy for a full activation, and the last remnants poured out through a defect in the crystal¡¯s structure.


    If only I had a drop of energy left. If only I had been impaled by the sword just a few seconds later. If only the shaman¡¯s apprentice hadn¡¯t brought reinforcements. If only I had attacked yesterday and the enemies hadn¡¯t learned about our plans. If only that bitch hadn¡¯t stolen the stone. If only...!!!


    Already as a disembodied soul, I awoke from the whirlwind of regrets and saw the Judge before me.


    ¡°You are dead¡± - the Judge declared indifferently.


    ¡°I want to use a Righteous Judgement Point for my resurrection¡± - I replied.


    ¡°You made a sacrifice, but violated the rules in the process.¡±


    ¡°The sacrifice has been accepted, so I have one Point.¡±


    ¡°Your body was destroyed by the ritual of awakening magic. According to the rules of this world, I cannot restore it¡± - the Judge pointed to the burning sparks scattering everywhere ¨C all that remained of Lame Leg¡¯s body.


    ¡°My body is there¡± - I pointed to the crystal hidden in the tall grass.


    ¡°The body of a Vritras in this world? Interesting¡­¡± - the Judge drawled. ¨C ¡°I hope you don¡¯t plan to reproduce.¡±


    ¡°No. I categorically do not plan to. This knowledge is meant only for me.¡±


    ¡°Very well, I will resurrect you.¡± - I felt the Judge¡¯s mockery. This was the first time I sensed real emotions from him, not just their faint echoes. ¨C ¡°It will cost me just a drop of magical energy.¡±


    The soul crystal began to glow, and even the enemies surrounding Fat Belly paused for a second, astonished by the magical radiance. My soul merged with the new vessel, and the flow of magic, which was called dragon magic here, surged into my consciousness.


    The glowing star rose into the air and then unleashed a series of spells that annihilated all the goblins in the vicinity. Only Fat Belly remained standing, now the sole survivor among my entire squad. Well, I got what I wanted. It wasn¡¯t Fat Belly¡¯s fault that my plan almost failed. So, I might as well help him and his tribe.


    A healing spell enveloped the chieftain, healing his wounds and his age-weakened heart. Now he would remain the strongest warrior in the village for another ten years ¨C an unheard-of achievement by goblin standards. I looked over the mutilated bodies of the warriors, lingered for a moment on the deformed corpses of the shamans, whose flesh resembled melted candle wax sliding off their skeletons, and then dashed toward the main encampment of the swamp goblins. Within five minutes, the tribe was finished. All that remained were burning huts and torn-apart bodies.


    I surveyed the surroundings one more time with a mental glance and shot off southward like a glowing meteor. I had finished my business here. All that remained was to find a quiet place and complete my rebirth as a Vritras.


    By morning, I had found a suitable location. The basalt outcrop was visible from afar by the characteristic crackling of the stone in the form of hexagonal columns. A stream flowed nearby, surrounded by trees. All the necessary materials for creating my new body were within reach.


    The synthesis of the new crystal took only a couple of hours, and that was only because I aimed to recreate it to the atomic level. The device for transferring me from one crystal to another, however, took until evening to construct. I certainly didn¡¯t want to mistakenly end up bodiless again. At sunset, I transferred into the new vessel and sighed in relief, starting to create my external body.


    All night, I worked to perfect myself. I needed to obtain all the necessary chemical elements, optimize the energy flows in the body, and learn once again how to act without the magic source of spiders in my soul. In short, there was plenty to do.


    In the morning, I transformed into a quadcopter and flew toward the nearest game figure. It turned out that the Judge¡¯s ''gift'' allowed me to determine the location of any figure on the planet and gather information about what it was, what it could do, and so forth. This data set could not be called an ability revelation; rather, it allowed precise identification of the object. Knowing whether a piece was a druid or a necromancer greatly aided in searches.


    The closest figure to me was a ''king'' ruling a small local country. He wielded dragon magic and was quite a strong figure by local standards. Interestingly, while he was rated as ''strong'' compared to other figures, among ordinary people, he was considered ''godlike''. And, by the way, he was human. I confirmed the existence of humans in this world just half an hour into my flight.


    When there were about ten kilometers left to the city I needed, I landed in the forest, took on human form, and removed the disguise spell. I needed to integrate into the local society, which first required me to learn the language. A person who only speaks goblin would appear quite odd, to say the least.


    Orienting myself according to the cardinal directions, I headed toward the nearest road. It wasn''t a main road but a shabby track between two villages. Soon I was walking on dusty ground, trying to determine from the tracks who had passed before me. The presence of an unknown traveler ahead was indicated by the dust rising into the air. Honestly, I had never imagined that there could be so much dust on the road, kicked up with every step. Fortunately, I didn''t need to breathe it in. Though... there''s a lot of chromium in this dust. I could use some. Maybe I should breathe a bit deeper, haha.


    I wasn¡¯t in any particular rush, rather just enjoying existing as a Vritras. How comfortable life can be when the body wasn¡¯t created by a god for humans, but by a human for himself. It''s clear that ordinary organic life is quite a shabby job. Or maybe a finely tuned instrument of torture. Just remembering my torments in the goblin body makes me shiver.


    Half an hour later, I reached a small hamlet of five houses and caught up with a small cart drawn by a regular horse. The driver was a perfectly ordinary-looking... goblin. Ugh. However, a few seconds later, a human came out of a house and started explaining something to the newcomer, actively shoving a chicken into his hands. Goblins seem to live quite well here. I noticed the decent-looking outfit worn by my ideological relative. Finally, the goblin agreed to take the chicken and tossed a coin to the human. The human skillfully caught it, bowed, and hurried back to the yard.


    I approached the local driver and spoke in the purest goblin language.


    ¡°Hey, grunt, can you take me to the city?¡±


    He looked at me with surprise, took in my dusty but decent clothes, and moved over.


    ¡°Hop in, I¡¯ll take you. And hold the chicken.¡±


    The feathery creature was handed to me. I effortlessly jumped onto the driver¡¯s seat, and the cart started on its way.


    ¡°Future dinner?¡± - I asked, inspecting the goods.


    ¡°No, it will lay eggs. And then, who knows, it might end up as dinner.¡±


    I watched the hamlet recede in the distance. From the height of the cart, I could see well what was happening in the yards of this settlement. However, I didn¡¯t see anything original. Just ordinary village life. The only noteworthy observation was the general affluence of the peasants and the fact that they weren¡¯t afraid of bandit attacks or wild animals.


    ¡°So, tell me, how did you end up in such a life?¡± - The goblin demanded once the houses were hidden behind trees.


    ¡°What life?¡± - I was surprised.


    ¡°I¡¯ve never met a human who speaks goblin without an accent before. And on the northern dialect, no less.¡±


    ¡°Oh, that. I lived in a goblin village for several years as a child.¡±


    He scrutinized me with a keen eye.


    ¡°And what¡¯s life like up north?¡±


    ¡°Harsh. Poverty so severe that a knife could get half a village killed. Only the shamans help people survive.¡±


    ¡°Did you interact with shamans?¡±


    ¡°I had to. Who else would take me in a goblin village?¡±


    And so, with leisurely conversation, our journey to the city gates passed. At the same time, I used a mental spell to copy the knowledge of the human language and local realities. I would need to figure them out later.


    At the gates, we were met by a couple of big thugs in armor. Behind the gates, there was a dozen more of the same, languishing from boredom. The goblin turned out to be a local celebrity. At least, they didn¡¯t create obstacles for him but greeted him by name and accepted a copper coin for the cart¡¯s passage. They didn¡¯t charge the pedestrians, who moved back and forth without hindrance.


    Soon we reached a turn onto a narrow street, where I returned the chicken and said goodbye to the goblin. The cart turned right, and I went forward, looking around like a true tourist. The only thing missing for a full effect was a chest of gold following its owner on its own. Instead, I displayed a plump purse on my belt with coins visible through the fabric.


    To start a normal human life, I needed money. And where to get money if you don¡¯t have any and don¡¯t want to work? Of course, rob someone. And following the proletarian ideology, it should be robbed from robbers, i.e., from thieves. So, I played the naive fool, waiting for someone to rob me, or at the very least, pickpocket me.


    After strolling through the main streets, I turned onto narrow alleys, then into backstreets, and eventually reached some slums, but no one seemed interested in my presence. Finally, in one of the narrow alleys of the city¡¯s working district, three men with cold weapons in hand blocked my way.


    ¡°Hey, you! Get lost! There are all kinds of people wandering here.¡±


    I didn¡¯t understand... Were they not going to rob me?


    ¡°Didn¡¯t you understand what was said? This is our neighborhood.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean, ¡®your¡¯? Did you buy it? Or did the king gift it to you... personally?¡±


    At my remark, the thugs¡¯ faces twisted in fear, and they quickly fled, leaving me without answers to my questions. I scratched my head and decided to first review the information package about the surrounding world from the goblin¡¯s memories. After walking another three hundred meters, I reached the city wall, which was accessible via a narrow staircase. Climbing the steps, I found myself at a guard post where the guards were intently watching the outskirts.


    To avoid interfering with their important task, I cast a spell to divert attention and settled on the parapet, taking in the views of the city while sifting through the goblin¡¯s memories.


    The country was ruled by King Vandal. Discovering this name almost made me fall off the wall. Luckily, it wasn¡¯t Koschei. Otherwise, I¡¯d be endlessly searching for chests in the woods. Anyway, the king lived comfortably, managing his kingdom with considerable success. Specifically, he had completely eradicated theft, robbery, corruption. The essence of this success was that investigations and interrogations were conducted by mentalist mages. And the only form of punishment in the kingdom was the death penalty. Initially, this led to mass executions, repressions, genocide, and the relocation of peoples, but after about twenty years, it somehow turned out that there were no more criminals in the country.


    Since then, life in King Vandal¡¯s realm had improved day by day. However, technological progress was stagnant, but who needs it? Certainly not the king. He had magic. Neighboring countries occasionally tried to correct this inequality through wars and plundering, but the king gathered his army and quickly instilled the correct ideas into the heads of neighboring rulers, usually by chopping off those heads according to wartime laws.


    The only serious problem was malevolent sorcerers from overseas who repeatedly arrived in the capital to sow discord, spread chaos, and kill the king in one nefarious way or another. In general, I immediately felt who among us was good and who was evil. I even felt a bit guilty for planning the assassination of such a remarkable king. However, these moral qualms lasted only until the first bout of spiritual anguish caused by my injuries. After that, I didn¡¯t care how many millions or billions of righteous kings would be sacrificed for my well-being. For what is material existence compared to spiritual existence? Just vanity and futility.


    Understanding the current political situation, I returned to analyzing the memories of the city¡¯s layout. The city was divided into three parts: outer, middle, and inner. Anyone could enter the outer part. Access to the inner part was restricted to those with documents, money, and a valid reason for visiting. The inner city contained the king¡¯s palace and the homes of the country¡¯s most distinguished mages. Entering there from the outside was virtually impossible unless invited personally by the king.


    The goblin had little knowledge of this side of city life, so I had to tap into the thoughts of one of the guards stationed just three meters from me. Scanning his thoughts, I learned that entry to the palace via land was off-limits. There were so many checks, traps, patrols, and documents that it would be easier to shoot oneself. But there was still the possibility of entry via the air. Flying machines were not in use here, and the guard knew nothing about magical air defense systems.


    All that remained was to wait for darkness and, under the cover of night, parachute onto the palace roof. By the way, the palace was situated on top of a hill and had at least a couple dozen floors, so from my vantage point on the wall, this hybrid of a temple and office building was clearly visible.


    I spent the sunset watching the play of sunlight through the palace¡¯s stained glass windows. The day was clear, but after sunset, clouds gathered, and in three hours, the streets were in complete darkness. I considered this a favorable sign, so I soared into the sky, hiding from curious eyes among the clouds.


    I decided to start by observing the king and checking the quality of his security. Cloaking myself with every possible form of concealment, I silently glided down onto the palace roof and began searching for ventilation exits. Despite all the magic, no one had taken care of the internal air filtration and regeneration system, so the ventilation was soon discovered. I slipped through all forms of alarms and protections like a stealthy stream. I didn¡¯t encounter any major problems along the way, as such minor tasks were handled by local mages who were no match for the power of spider civilization.


    Finding the king didn¡¯t take much time because I could still clearly sense his presence. I hoped he couldn¡¯t sense me in the same way; otherwise, my spying would seem quite laughable. Navigating through the air ducts, I reached the necessary room and cautiously peered out from behind the ventilation grille.


    Good grief! That was all that came to mind when I saw the king. He should not be called godlike but god-equal. In terms of the amount of power emanating from him, he could compare to the Being and the Judge. Well, at least to my untrained eye. If I had two tails, I might be able to resist him... for a few seconds. As it was, I had no chance at all. I was to him like a mosquito¡ªhe¡¯d swat me without noticing.


    Now it was clear why the Judge had laughed so cunningly. If I could bring these figures as sacrifices, he would become their master, pulling a fast one on the gullible players. The only problem was that to bring down such a behemoth, I needed a bigger argument. Approximately a megaton, if not a hundred megatons. This made it obvious why my modest self was chosen for this scheme. The local people clearly believed that magic was the pinnacle of power. So, a thermonuclear explosion would be an unpleasant surprise for them. At least for the first few times. Therefore, I needed a plan. Do you have a plan, Mr. Fix? Of course, I have a plan, Mr. Fix. For those who know me, my plan is quite clear. Deuterium lithium is solution for everything.


    I slowly backed away from the grille, climbed back to the roof, and took off, speeding away from the righteous king¡¯s palace. Only after flying a few hundred kilometers could I finally breathe a sigh of relief and start planning my actions. Actually, what¡¯s there to plan? I need to:


    1) create two dozen thermonuclear bombs with magical detonators;


    2) develop remotely controlled delivery systems;


    3) blow everything to hell;


    4) profit.


    The first point was simple and clear to me. My body is a natural element separation factory. Moreover, obtaining deuterium lithium is one of the physiological functions I developed for my body. I don¡¯t even need to do anything. I had also long calculated the magical detonator powered by spider magic. A few experiments would be enough to confirm its functionality. After that, creating a thermonuclear bomb would be a tedious but straightforward process.


    The second point of the plan raised questions, not so much about its feasibility as about the time it would take. I knew a spell for a ''remote video camera'' that transmitted images to the mage¡¯s brain. Next, it was just a matter of making artifact airplanes and attaching a control system based on two-way information transmission. For someone who fundamentally understands radio-controlled models, solving this problem is not an issue.


    Blowing up the targets didn¡¯t seem like a big problem either. As I had planned, hybrid aircraft and missiles could be used for delivering the payload. Alternatively, it could be planted in advance near the target''s location. If there was no advanced air defense system here, the first option was preferable. Missiles could be guided based on my sense of the figures¡¯ locations. Of course, there is work to be done here, but if necessary, there¡¯s always the option of delivering the payload to a general area and increasing the amount of explosives. As they say, after us, the deluge. I have enough stupidity to vaporize the whole planet, as the Being decreed. The main thing is to collect my tails from the Judge in time.


    Having decided on the strategy, I flew back north, reached the sea, and disappeared into its depths. After just a month, I was ready to act. While my body floated in the depths of the ocean, collecting deuterium, my mind designed the unmanned aircraft with power from a cold fusion reactor, which was essentially a separate part of my body. For me, it was just a matter of physiology. It was no wonder I had loaded the station computers with such tasks¡ªthey proved useful. The target search based on my sensing ability was also perfected. And packaging the warheads in metal casings and integrating them with the drones took only a couple of hours.


    Following the principle of ¡®more is better,¡¯ I created twenty bombs, ranging from megaton to gigaton. The last one was specifically for King Vandal. For a good person, nothing is too much. There were thirty-two game figures on the planet, including me. But I targeted the strongest ones. After all, I could later show the Judge that I cared about his well-being.


    I hid in the mountains on the northern islands beyond the Arctic Circle. The only living creatures here were moss and penguins. The latter ate the former while alive, and the former consumed the latter after their death. In general, this ecosystem amused me. Most importantly, both the moss and penguins eagerly tried to devour any stranger, which meant that it would be harder for potential malefactors to reach me.


    Finally, everything was ready, and I pressed the imaginary red button. A minute later, I said:


    ¡°I offer these game figures as a sacrifice to the Judge.¡±


    Eighteen Righteous Judgement Points dropped on my account. Not bad. I wondered who turned out to be so resilient.


    ¡°I propose to the Judge of Game to exchange ten Points of Righteous Judgement for my energy centers and healing of spiritual wounds.¡±


    As soon as I uttered these words, my consciousness began to perceive the ''spiritual world,'' where the Judge was already waiting for me.


    ¡°Deal confirmed.¡± - The Judge said indifferently. I didn¡¯t even feel a hint of his attention.


    Two familiar, comforting energy clusters approached me and took their rightful place. After that, I received a drop of Bahion from a pipette, which was barely enough to heal the damage.


    ¡°Deal completed.¡± - The Judge¡¯s form disappeared, and I found myself back on the island among the penguins.


    For the next week, I sat in the cave, quietly cursing the Judge and trying to get my tails to work. If we use a physiological analogy, I had been given tails but no nerve restoration in my spinal cord. As a result, my control over the generated energy was almost nonexistent. Previously, I could control chakra as part of my body, but now it was a foreign substance, desperately resisting my will.


    The only positive aspect was that the tormenting pain had disappeared, although it occasionally returned in brief bouts. My hatred for the players and their games was slowly maturing, gradually driving me mad. Or rather, a part of my consciousness was constantly, without breaks or fatigue, pondering how to cause the greatest possible distress to any player, so they could experience eternal infernal suffering.


    At dawn on the eighth day, which coincided with sunset due to the approaching polar night, I sensed the familiar aura of the Being. This time, it deigned to take a material form, still indistinct¡ªjust a glowing spot. Ah, the same burning thorn bush. I recognize it.


    ¡°How is it that you manage this? Only the fourth game, and you¡¯ve already earned titles as the bloodiest butcher on planetary and galactic scales. You¡¯re becoming famous. Ha-ha.¡±


    ¡°The bloodiest?¡± - I doubted.


    ¡°Who just a week ago wiped out all life on a planet?¡±


    ¡°How about penguins?¡±


    ¡°Look for yourself.¡±


    I stepped out of the cave and confirmed that all the penguins guarding my peace had died.


    ¡°What happened to them?¡±


    ¡°Radiation. Why are you surprised?¡±


    ¡°But I used regular thermonuclear bombs. They shouldn¡¯t cause that.¡±


    ¡°Oh, you illiterate.¡± - The Being deigned to give a brief lesson. ¨C ¡°If you had used a lead shell, it would have been a thermonuclear bomb. But what you created was a neutron bomb. And you detonated twenty of them, almost evenly distributed across the planet¡¯s surface. As a result, those who didn¡¯t die from the explosion itself, suffered and died in agony three days later from neutron radiation and secondary radiation.¡±


    I looked at the serene clouds drifting across the sky, carried by the cold northern wind.


    ¡°And I was wondering why my body¡¯s chemical composition was fluctuating.¡± - It dawned on me. ¨C ¡°It was neutron conversion of isotopes.¡± - I had no desire to think about the ¡®native¡¯ goblin village.


    ¡°No, overall, it turned out well.¡± - The Being began to calm me down. ¨C ¡°Such an epic happy ending happened. Eighteen strong figures went to the Judge, and I received a reward for defeating thirteen players in the elite league. By the way, I almost forgot. The Players rebelled and, through a general vote, banned you from using thermonuclear weapons in non-cosmic worlds. Plus, the council of judges decided to strip you of your gaming ability. To be precise, the points you earned will remain with you, but you won¡¯t be able to earn new ones. Honestly, your sideline work for the Judge upset me.¡± - A shiver ran down my spine, though I hadn¡¯t planned such a physiological function for my body. ¨C ¡°But he played you darkly, and you didn¡¯t have much of a choice. People have gone to even greater deeds for a piece of their souls. But next time, at least warn me about such plans.¡±


    ¡°I will, definitely.¡± - I assured the Being, whose heavy gaze literally nearly flattened me to the ground.


    ¡°Agreed.¡± - The pressure vanished, and I took on my humanoid form again. ¨C ¡°In general, the gaming server was shut down, the Judge was transferred to another department with a promotion for ingenuity, but all the game figures were confiscated.¡± - I could only smirk internally. For a full laugh, I needed to personally rip a couple of pieces from the Judge¡¯s soul. ¨C ¡°I¡¯ve already covered the decisions regarding you. Now let¡¯s move on to the sweet part.¡±


    ¡°The prize?¡± - I inquired skeptically.


    ¡°No way! A new game. This time in a world familiar to you. And I repeat, no thermonuclear bombs. It¡¯s not funny anymore. Just toss a figure into the game, and boom, game over. You can¡¯t write a book or make a movie about that, it¡¯s just dull. And the competitors are complaining about nasty cheaters. Ha-ha.¡±


    ¡°Are there any rules in this game?¡±


    ¡°There are. But you¡¯re not supposed to know them. However, I can give you a hint: the goal of the game is to raise the most delicious Pok¨¦mon. That¡¯s it, off you go.¡±


    And then it was as if I was turned off.

 Chapter 5.01-5.08 - Worm

    <h1>Chapter 5: Worm</h1>


    I woke up, feeling that I was flying to somewhere. Before I had time to open my eyes, my body fell into ice water and began to sink. This is the beginning. I tried to use magic or chakra, but naturally I discovered that both types of energy do not obey me. Water flooded my throat, and lungs twisted with pain. I was drowning in the icy darkness, panting and losing consciousness. And then ... time seemed to stop.


    I felt some kind of infinitely powerful Entity extending a tentacle of friendly help to me. It attached a part of herself to me and began to broadcast incomprehensible signals in the mental range. If I were not a specialist in telepathic communication, I would take only vague images from this message. But I was an expert, and therefore I could understand what this little animal is talking to me about in its Swahili.


    I was offered to take patronage over the shard allocated to me and teach him some way of interacting with the material world. The main principle of influence was set at the very beginning at initiation. And the maximum impact force was limited only by my ability to control multidimensional phenomena.


    Well, the control I have even with ass to eat. I also ruled with magic and chakra, and tied my soul with a knot, and Bahion drove through myself. So, as they say, give two. And better give ten at once.


    The Entity blinked and increased the size of the sacrificed piece tenfold. I extended my mental tentacles to it and severely raped it, penetrating all the holes. So, what we got here? Yeah, initiation. Well, it''s simple. I need to immediately escape from under the water. And it is also desirable to then receive at least some benefit from this force. So I take telekinesis and do not steam. The limits of maximum and minimum scale of exposure are limited by the level of control. The distance, by the level of total force of the shard. I think to name as ¡°symbiont¡± is more suitable instead of ¡°shard¡±. And now we will try to figure out how much I can control this rubbish, not too much bothering myself with the process.


    Grabbing control over the symbiote, I demanded more. And further. AND FURTHER! In general, at the end I reminded myself of a ghoul that attacked an elephant. Blood still gulp and gulp, but another sip - and I just tear to pieces. That''s what greed brings. I swallowed and broke away from the free source of power. While the symbiont was just beginning to be developed with its separate existence, therefore, the strength and accuracy of the impact left much to be desired. But now I could use my new abilities to survive.


    Time has returned its run, and I rushed up. The water above me was boiling and burst out in a high fountain. Following her, I flew. Turning upside down, I got rid of water in my lungs, cleared my throat, and gasped. After a minute, I realized that I was almost alive, and therefore I could look around.


    I hung in the air next to the bridge crossing the river. The height here was not so big - five meters. The bridge itself had a steel truss structure and was painted red. The latter, however, was almost imperceptible, because it was night outside. It was also cold, wet and dirty. If the donor of my body thought to drown here, then he chose an extremely vile place to die.


    I scanned through the memory for new memories, but I couldn''t catch too much. Okay, then I''ll figure it out. I leaked to the bridge and stood on the sidewalk. There were no cars visible, from the lighting there was only one lantern on the left side of the bridge. So where to go? I had to force a merger with the identity of the former carrier.


    I was in the city of Brockton Bay, in its southern part. They called me ... uck! Being! My name was Bivitz Swine. Name to get nut. Not surprisingly, the boy decided to commit suicide. I was 15 years old. I lived alone in a one-room kennel near the docks. Mother was a prostitute, and therefore preferred to live at the place of work, in a brothel. Well, there were more cleaner, and do not need to make cook. I studied at the school of Winslow. I was a typical sucker and scapegoat. I was not addicted to drugs, because all my pocket money was taken away by my classmates, drug addicts. Perfect, even though I was lucky. In general, the life of this body was still shit.


    Okay, with the past figured out. Now it''s time to think about the future. Firstly should start by changing the name. I think Bon Jovi will be just right. Or not, better than Quentin Tarantino. But no, something Italian is better - Eros Ramazotti. For sure! My face looks like him. Resolved!


    My further thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of a police car, which stopped right in front of me.


    ¡°Boy, what are you doing here?¡± A patrolman, looking out of the window, suspiciously asked me. ¡°Decided to drown?¡± He suggested, looking at my pitiful wet look.


    ¡°No ... this ... help.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± The policeman who has already opened a car door and is going to get out was guarded.


    ¡°This is Cape.¡± I thought hoarse.


    In this world it was full of all sorts of freaks with supernormal abilities, which during the day pretended to be human, and at night they put on pants on their heads and worked all kinds of lewdness in the name of the moon. Or is it not from here? The memory of Bivitz mingled with my earthly memories, creating a temporary chaos in my brain.


    ¡°What are the Cape?¡± In the voice of a policeman flashed notes of fright, and his foot went back to the car.


    Instead of answering, I with telekinesis scooped up water from the river, lifted it from the back of the bridge behind the backs of the officers who had hatched me, and then poured unexpectedly dirty liquid directly onto the car.


    ¡°Get out of here!¡± shouted a cop. The tires of the car shrieked, and the car fell off, gathering a hundred in three seconds.


    ¡°Save! Help! Killing me!¡± I shouted followed, holding back laughing out loud.


    The valiant guardians of the law last flashed the parking lights and disappeared around the corner. Yeah, servants of the law.


    I looked at the memories, took to the air and flew home, looking for such unlikely reference points. Fifteen minutes later I got to my huts, undressed and got into the shower, warming myself up under hot jets of water. Relaxing in a familiar and unfamiliar setting, I was able to put my memories in order.


    This world was familiar to me. On Earth, I read something about him. The problem was that it was not an original story, but some excerpts and retellings. In general, I knew about the whole story less than Bivits. He lives here since birth. So from the point of view of knowing the canon, I did not have any advantage.


    Now for the game itself. From the description of the Being it becomes clear that I need to grow from my symbiont the most powerful and versatile creature. What''s next is not entirely clear, but for now this is not critical. So it is worth doing my own efforts and developing them as much as I can. And in order not to be bored, I can become one of the caps.


    By the way, the word cape itself had an interesting meaning. Initially, when people with supernatural abilities only appeared, they preferred to hide their identity behind long hooded cloaks. Hence the name "cape" - a cloak. But besides this, the given word was consonant with the word "cap", abbreviated from "captain" - the captain or, according to local classification, a hero. Heroes, of course, quickly divided into heroes and villains.


    With my Russian origins, it was easier for me to call the caps as masks, especially since there was such a definition. When a whole crowd of people dissecting cloaks, the unique mask becomes the easiest way to show off and make a name for yourself.


    As for my personal goals, there everything was difficult. I needed to regain control of magic and chakra. Also, it would be nice to return to life in the form of vritras. Here are just a couple of simple experiments showed that magic in this world does not work. More precisely, magic works as expected, but any way to organize its interaction with reality one way or another rests on an obstacle of an incomprehensible nature. However, I have a suspect - the very Entity that gave me a symbiote. Already its strength is enough to neutralize all attempts at magic emanating from aphids like me. A short contact of the consciousnesses made it clear that this animal is comparable in size to the planet. In general, while it is worth slowly dealing with the situation and planning next steps.


    I got out of the bathroom and found that wet clothes, lying in the hallway, made a decent size there puddle. Consciousness was twitching behind a rag and a mop, but the body stubbornly stated that he was too lazy. It was necessary to turn on the brains, and after a couple of seconds, clothing and water were picked up by telekinesis. The water went into the toilet, and lightly pressed clothes into the washing machine. I went to sleep. The morning is wiser than the evening.


    In the morning I was awakened by the sound of an alarm clock indicating that it was time for me to go to school. I had decided to score, but after ten minutes my mother called and in the ultimatum form reminded that without visiting the school pocket money is not necessary for me. In order not to arouse suspicion, I had to go to this abode of knowledge. Moreover, the lessons did not prevent me from thinking about my own problems, and besides, the school had free Internet, in which someone was wrong, that urgently needed to be fixed. In other words, I was going to hang up on the masks forums.


    I did not consider myself Bivits, and therefore I forget the rules of behavior and movement in school that he had adopted. This is not slow to affect. At recess after the third lesson, when I was returning from a hike to the cafeteria, I was suddenly grabbed by a throat and dragged into a small nook, for some unknown reason, the builders had planned. This place was considered as "bandit corner", and therefore the people tried not to walk here. Some, so as not to fall under the distribution, and the second, so as not to interfere with distributing to others. In addition, the school management completely ignored the fact that the surveillance camera in this corridor was not working for the third year. So the events in this corner were forever a dirty secret of those who managed to get here.


    ¡°Bivits, you are bitch spend my money in a cafe? ..¡±


    The unexpected racketeer could not continue, because with telekinesis I accelerated my fist and slammed him into the relaxed drug addict stomach. The body of the unlucky extortionist twisted like a shrimp, and I stepped over it and went on. The memory told me that this is Kevin - one of the instigators of the local gangsters. It was he, who delivered the most problems to the previous owner of my body.


    The lesson went as usual, and then the school crept rumors.


    ¡°Did you hear that? Someone killed Kevin.¡± Stephen whispered to me. He could not be called my friend, but at least he did not refuse to communicate on different topics.


    ¡°Kevin? That freak from eighth B?¡± I clarified, remembering, whether I have got somewhere on a camera.


    ¡°Exactly. Someone overheard a doctor talking about his body being examined. He was hit in the stomach with such force that he broke his spine.¡±


    Hease! Am I that strong? However, at that time I was least thinking about limiting the force of impact. On the contrary, I wanted to punch so that it came once and for all. I guess I did. As they say, there is no man - no problem. And my conscience does not rot, because to call this geek a man is to flatter him very much.


    ¡°Yes, he was a drug addict.¡± I waved away. ¡°Surely the dose with someone not shared. And relative to the spine. If he had been hit with such force, then the whole corridor would have been splashed with guts. By the way, did you go see what happened there?¡±


    ¡°Not yet. Let''s go see?¡±


    ¡°Come on.¡±


    I returned to the crime scene and looked at him from behind the curious schoolchildren. The corpse was already covered with a sheet, the passage to the crime scene was blocked with yellow tape. Nearby stood a pair of policemen, driving away annoying schoolchildren.


    ¡°There is no blood.¡± I issued my expert opinion. ¡°So all this is bullshit. I bet for ten bucks that he died from an overdose.¡±


    ¡°He was a drug addict?¡± Suddenly asked a man in uniform who was behind my shoulder. Judging by his appearance and the suitcase in his hands, it was the investigator.


    ¡°This is Winslow.¡± I replied, passing forward. ¡°Here one half of the students are heroin addicts, and the second is just smoke drug that as necessary from time to time. Only I am normal here.¡±


    A joking blow from Stephen flew to my side.


    "Hey, I''m normal too."


    ¡°It is still necessary to prove. Go here. There is nothing interesting here. I can look at the blind man''s buffs on TV. Or find pictures in the internet. Saw what a hangman looks like?¡±


    So quarreling, we returned to the classroom. The bell rang, and the curious began to disperse, allowing the investigator to do his job. To my surprise, no one conducted a special investigation into the death. At least I have not heard a single word about someone being interrogated in connection with this event.


    After serving the eighth lesson, I walked home with a cautious look. And again ignored the Bivitz ritual for the safe evacuation of the school. Moreover, I brazenly pushed the crowd of schoolchildren standing in my way. A heavy hand immediately fell on my shoulders, and someone''s smelly mouth began to whisper in my ear with the voice of a professional pedophile.


    ¡°It''s Swine. Well, say: oink oink.¡±


    ¡°Looking for relatives?¡± I clarified, trying to throw off his hand. ¡°No, I''m not one of them.¡±


    ¡°What did you say? Come on. Guys, we need to teach this nerd good manners.¡±


    I was literally picked up by the arms and dragged to the nearest alley, carefully covering from all sides from the cameras and bystanders. I did not resist, because the quiet, deserted place was exactly what I needed. A couple of dozen guys formed a good crowd. I was surrounded by the tallest of them, so I only saw their sweaty backs and the sky overhead.


    Ten minutes later, we finally stopped, and the crowd dispersed, giving me the opportunity to look around. It was a narrow alley between two brick walls without windows. On the one hand, a dusty road was visible, covered with scraps of grass, and on the other hand, it was either a dead end, or a turn, littered with garbage. Nearby was the drainage grate, in which water was clearly murmuring. The ideal place to waste someone, and then hide the ends in the water.


    I did not become like a heroes of third-rate fighters, and therefore I missed the stages of intimidation and showdown, immediately turning to the bloody orgy. With telekinesis, I grabbed all those present and squeezed them so that there was no opportunity to shout. After all, in order to shout, you must first get air into the lungs. The gangsters were wheezing and rolling their eyes in horror, and I was wondering what I should do with them.


    The example of King Vandal, who established a golden age in his kingdom, inspired me to follow in his footsteps. I live in this city. Therefore, it is worth clearing it from any marginalized, proletarians, lumpen and illuminati. And it is worth starting from the school of Winslow - a hotbed of drug addiction and racism. The individuals gathered in front of me were the "best" representatives of these social groups. More specifically, it was a gang of nationalists under the patronage of the Empire of Eighty Eight.


    The fate of these scums of human society was decided at the moment when they attacked me. Bivits saw more than once how this gang snapped of individual "lucky ones", and then those at best remained disabled. And often completely disappeared into nowhere. Now these animals were waiting for righteous reward.


    After a couple of seconds, I figured out how to crank up this operation. Having seized one of the bodies with telekinesis more feasibly, I began to crush and rotate him from feet, turning him into stuffing and right there sending waste to the sewer. The victim tried to scream, but quickly gave up on these attempts, because the area of fragmentation reached the lungs. After five seconds, no trace of the person was left. Only a few bills, taken out of pockets, hung in the air. They no longer need money, but I need compensation for the moral trauma that I am getting right now by killing people. The work of the nightman is vital for any society. If you do not remove the shit, then in the end it will cover you up your head.


    The execution ended in five minutes. Not a drop of blood fell on the ground, and I covered the traces in the dust with telekinesis. As a reward for my work, I received almost a thousand dollars. As they say, ten old women - the ruble.


    Whistling happily, I reached the far end of the alley and made sure that it was not completely a dead end. A passage on the side was blocked by a fence with barbed wire over the top. Having flown through it, I found myself in another abandoned alley with boarded up windows. Carefully looking around, I flew over the roof of the building, being on another deserted street. Then I went down to the ground and calmly went forward. There were no cameras in the area, so I didn''t worry about my alibi. This place was familiar to me, and several times Bivits made his way here when he was hiding from gangsters on the way home. So my excuse is iron.


    Wandering through the streets of the city, I think how I should live on. Obviously, the roof was torn off completely and definitively. I have just literally killed more than twenty people with my own hands, and I don''t worry about it at all. And what are twenty imbeciles compared to the whole planet?


    In general, I had a direct path to the masks to do good and cause justice, without worrying about the consequences. The local people thought it out well - you took off the suit, and you are a different person. And if someone tries to tie two of your personalities into one, then aa-ya-ya for him and a-ta-ta. True, there are rumors that a particularly bloody butchers are being hunted without restrictions, only the same Slaughterhouse travels around America for years. And something no one not willing to kill Crawler or Siberia. That is, in the end, everything comes down to personal strength. And I have a huge potential for the development of symbiont. It seems to me that at the peak of power this animal can completely destroy the whole Earth in one blow.


    Reflecting on such matters, I noticed a store selling matter of another kind ¡ª ordinary fabrics. Since I decided to become a mask, I need a costume. And for its manufacture materials are needed. You can go in and see what''s what, for the good of money I now have enough.


    In the store, I liked the roll of coal-black fabric. She was thin, strong and with a very low albedo. Ideal to hide in the dark. Or to terrify mystical views. I bought eight square meters of fabric, explaining to the seller the desire to make curtains against the sunlight.


    After returning home, I began to sew myself a suit, but rather quickly found out that the tailor was none from me. Even telekinesis did not help. In the end, after getting busy until midnight, I spat on everything and went to sleep.


    The next day was Saturday, so I decided to take a rest on my legal day off. To begin with, I slept until lunchtime, then I went to the slot machine hall, where I divided a dozen crabs in Mortal Kombat, and in the late afternoon I went shopping. In one of the institutions I managed to buy a long dark cloak with a hood. It seemed to be specially made for beginners who appreciate the classics. I even checked his telekinesis on bugs, but did not notice anything suspicious.


    At home I was overwhelmed with laziness, so I left the tailoring on Sunday. The next day, I spent eight hours stitching a set of long triangular pieces of fabric hanging loosely at one end to the cloak. The result was a black "mysterious cloak" that could mysteriously fly in the air, controlled by my mysterious telekinesis. Twisting "rags" were supposed to hide the figure and add mystery. I could also figure out a black mask on my face. Alas, it was not very comfortable, so I had to hold it telekinesis in order not to slip when moving my head.


    Having dressed in all this rags, I stood in front of the mirror, and saw not the mysterious hero, but the garden scarecrow, who had escaped from the nearest madhouse. Something is missing here. I made several "heroic" movements and came to an unequivocal conclusion - I need a secret. People love everything mysterious, so that the cover of secrecy will be able to hide all the minor flaws of a suit from the eyes of the spectators. And the best secret cover is the cover of darkness.


    When I spoke with the Being, I realized that the ability of the symbiont can be developed. Especially at the very beginning, when they have not yet been completely formed. So I still had a good chance to get exactly what I needed. For a spectacular appearance and disappearance, I need some kind of cover of darkness. And in this city there is already a mask with similar abilities - Grue. If I find him and watch how he does it, I can repeat the same thing with my symbiote. After it my symbiote will learn to repeat the desired trick.


    I looked out the window and made sure that the night would soon come into its own. The chances are small, of course, but do you need to start somewhere? It is worth running through the city and look for this gloom. According to rumors from the forum, he is the leader of a gang at the docks. So it is worth starting from there, especially since the docks started two blocks from my house.


    Close to midnight, pulling on a suit, I switch off the light in the apartment and slipped out through the window. There was such a deaf area so that it was possible not to fear casual witnesses. Almost a third of the apartments were inhabited, and most of the locals were drinking in a black way and could hardly see anything further than their nose. Moreover, I "felt" the surroundings with telekinesis and did not notice a single suspicious witness.


    Flying over the roofs of abandoned houses, I tried to understand how you can I find a black cat in a dark room. The darkness was such that I could easily have pierced my forehead into some building without simply noticing it. I had an alternative way of perceiving the world - through telekinesis. Any thing trying to move it offers resistance. This return can be used to detect matter. The problem was that this way of perceiving information was extremely unusual, and therefore the brain could hardly figure out what it feels. At a distance of five meters of problems did not arise. But when trying to "feel" the space at a greater distance, there were all sorts of failures and glitches.


    I don''t know what I wanted to find at all, but my attention was attracted by the red flashes of fire a few blocks away. I climbed higher and flew in that direction, scanning the surroundings for surprises in one. When I reached the place where the fireworks were held, I found a two-meter-high man covered in flames, who diligently fought off the invisible green devils, who gazed at him during the delirium tremens. At least I did not notice any other opponents in the district. Do not take for them some narrow-eyed, at full speed escape from the scene.


    A potential second participant of this circus number showed up on the roof of a nearby building. It was a figure in a black tight-fitting suit, lying on the parapet. Only she moved, apparently intending to slip away quietly, like a fiery man heard a noise upstairs and made a couple of unrealistic jumps on the wall of the house on the opposite side of the street, and then on the roof, in a matter of seconds being near the diversionist.


    I flew even closer and hid behind the edge of the building, hanging a meter from the place where the wall ended. From a close distance, I was able to determine that the man was clearly Asian and partly covered with scales. And the figure in the suit was an ungainly girl, who was now frantically trying to get some kind of spray from the back pocket.


    After spending a second to think, I identified Lung in the man - the head of the ABB - the local mafia group. He looked at his enemy, in a panic crawling backwards, and angrily grinned.


    ¡°My your chop-chop head. In ass fuck so cook you get out from your mouth.¡± - Issued this animal in broken English. I think he want to say ¡®I will cut your head and fuck you in ass that my cock will stick out from your mouth¡¯


    Suddenly, a silhouette flashed on the next roof, and I found there four observers accompanied by three huge animals. Judging by the information from the forum, these creatures are the pets of Bitch. So, I stumbled upon those whom I was looking for - a gang of Undersiders, including the Grue. And since the viewers appeared here, why not portray a small performance. As they say, our whole life is a circus, and the people in it are clowns. I concentrated on controlling telekinesis, trying to merge with the wall myself.


    The girl was finally able to stand up on her feet, and it was precisely this moment that Lung chose to jerk forward and strike her fist in the head. I tried to stop this blow by telekinesis, but was surprised to find that an alien body was actively resisting my intervention. There was little time to think about this fact, and therefore I "grabbed" the heroine¡¯s costume and pulled it so that it might seem from the side that she had gracefully dodged it. At first, the puppet control was ragged, but soon I got the hang of properly "pulling the strings" without risking to break my toy.


    I took the next few blows on the block, and then grabbed Lung by the neck and hypochondrium and threw him on the roof with a sweep. The pebble covering it shattered shrapnel, and Lung growled in annoyance. While he was getting to his feet, shaking his head, I got a few seconds to deal with my symbiote. I was absolutely not satisfied with his refusal to influence living beings.


    It was a failure, not an impossibility. I climbed into symbiont¡¯s mind and found there a kind of installation, affirming the right of every living creature to personal space. Having mentally swearing, I telepathized to my source of supernormal abilities.


    ¡°Listen here, stupid thing. In this world, the most important law sounds like this: devour another, or they will devour you. Regarding those whom I define as an enemy, no rules or restrictions should apply. So tie with your philosophy of universal love and do what I say.¡±


    The symbiote did not have own will to resist my suggestion. So he dutifully carried out my order, giving full control over the force.


    The figure in the suit swayed her right hand, and Lung flew into the air, suddenly losing support under her feet. He puffed, kicked, but could not move a millimeter. The second hand of my puppet stretched forward, stretched out her index finger, and then turned the fist. At the same moment Lung''s right hand broke in the shoulder, crunching distinctly. A fierce scream swept through the neighborhood, and the flames around the Lung flared with new force. His body began to grow right before my eyes, overgrown with large scales.


    Another gesture, and the other hand broke, this time in two places at once. The cry turned into a roar, and the speed of Lung''s transformation increased. Then my toy waved her hands theatrically for several minutes, and with each of her movements, something very bad happened to Lung. By the end of the performance, he looked like a piece of screaming meat bleeding with fire and blood.


    And then, when I already wanted to make the final touch, tearing Lung in half along the spine, a human figure in mechanical armor landed noisily on the roof. By suit and halberd, I identified this hero of the Armsmaster. He put forward his weapon and loudly demanded:


    ¡°Let him go!¡±


    I stopped the execution and gave a little more freedom to the girl''s body.


    ¡°I can¡¯t. It''s stronger than me!¡¯


    Ah ha ha ha ha! How I love these meaningful phrases. Immediately there is an impression that it is not a puppet in front of you, but a psycho following the instructions of the "inner voice".


    ¡°Stop, or I will compel to use force.¡±


    The last time I broke a couple of bones in Lung''s body and threw it on the roof. Pinching of the spine caused a painful shock, and the Lung lost consciousness, immediately ceasing to glow. Only rare sparks ran through his mutilated body.


    ¡°He forced me to do it.¡± Once again tried to justify the sacrifice of my black humor.


    The Armsmaster again understood this phrase in the wrong way.


    ¡°Listen, you almost killed a man. I understand that you defended yourself, but this is a crime. So you have two options: either you stay here, and I arrest you, or you leave and leave Lung to me, and I will pretend that you were not here.¡±


    The puppet tried to say something, but I took control over her. The girl nodded silently, turned and ran away. From the edge of the roof she leaped down, after which she planned a hundred meters to the side, for one she turned into the nearest alley. I left one broken toy on the roof and followed a much more amusing second. As soon as she was on the ground, I took off my control and remained to watch, hiding behind the roof of a neighboring building.


    The place for the landing of figure, I chose not by chance. It was in this lane that the team of the Undersiders was now, fading from the scene when the Armsmaster approached. Now they met with the figure that interested them. The dogs took a couple of steps forward and snarled. Immediately, an angry cry was heard, and two figures emerged from the animals ¡ª a tall athletic build a man and a miniature girl ¡ª Grue and some kind of unknown to me villain.


    ¡°Hello. Cool you dealt with Lung.¡± The man started the conversation. His black suit and skull-shaped motorcycle helmet did not fit in a cheerful voice.


    ¡°It''s not me.¡± Replied the puppet, covering themselves with their hands. Judging by her movements, my performance turned out to be a great stretching exercise for her.


    ¡°Her power is insect control.¡± In a slightly distant voice, a girl in a purple suit announced.


    ¡°Who then kneaded Lung like dough? That you waved hands there.¡±


    ¡°It''s not me!¡± Almost shouted objected puppet. ¡°I was controlled.¡±


    ¡°Master?¡± Surprised Grue.


    ¡°Remote control. Puppet. He used her to mislead us. Strong telekinetic. Now watching us.¡±


    After the last phrase, all those present tensed and began to look around. I, too, somewhat tensed. For about five minutes now insects, which I unknowingly push off telekinesis, were hobbling around me. And now strange attempts to touch me at the level of multidimensional space have been added to this melting. It seems that this is the power of this girl.


    I tried to push off the annoying telepathic tentacles with my telekinetic tentacles. As soon as I hit the hands, the girl moaned shortly and clutched at her head. Yeah! Do not like. Do not stretch your arms, or will stretch your legs.


    ¡°I am Grue, and this is Tattletale.¡± Introduced the guy. ¡°The Bitch and Regent are standing behind us. And what is your name?¡±


    ¡°I ... I haven''t thought of it yet.¡± Replied the puppet. ¡°This is my first day in a mask costume.¡±


    ¡°Then you should be called Bug.¡± Grinned Tattletale.


    ¡°No.¡± Rejected the offer Bug. ¡°I do not like this name.¡±


    ¡°Cockroach? Ant? Queen of Hell Bees? Hive? Queen of Roy? Overmind Zerg?¡± Began to offer options a lover of fucking people in the brain.


    ¡°No. Enough! I will choose my own name. And who are the zerg?¡±


    ¡°We can discuss this in a relaxed atmosphere. Do you want to go with us? We have a great team. ¡° Started recruiting the villain.


    ¡°No. I ... I''m tired and want to go home.¡± I almost cried Queen of Roy.


    ¡°Sorry. In fact, we are looking for new people for our team. We have good conditions, excellent salary and all that. So if you decide, you can call us. Here, take a business card.¡±


    Tattletale held out a small card. The distance between the two girls was more than three meters, so one of them had to take a step forward. Apparently, villain wanted to force the Zerg Overmind to meet her. First, literally, and then in the figurative. But Cockroach froze in a stupor, still not recovering from the dances on the roof.


    I decided to force a little the course of events, and in one thing to provoke Grue into using abilities. With telekinesis picked up business card from the hands of Tattletale and brought it to the face of the Queen of Hell Bees.


    ¡°Take card, fool.¡± I squeaked, trying to create voice by telekinesis. This was my first attempt, so the speech was a combination of some creaking, grinding and hissing. But this effect caused exactly the same as I expected. Puppet grabbed a piece of paper, and then turned around and rushed away at full speed.


    ¡°Did you hear that?¡± Scaredly asked Grue.


    ¡°Yes.¡± Slowly answered Tattletale. Her mental tentacles again tried to grope me, but I gently pulled them aside.


    At the same time, I began to make strange and frightening sounds, like laughter, gnash and howls. The wind rose in a narrow alley, which began to drive on the ground pieces of paper and all kinds of garbage. The atmosphere began to resemble a horror movie before the start of a particularly bloody scene. First, the Bitch¡¯s nerves could not bear it.


    ¡°What the hell is going on here?¡± She whistled, and her three dogs snarled threateningly, looking around and sniffing around. I pulled the fire escape leading to the roof, and the disgusting screech of torn metal rang down the alley.


    ¡°Run!¡± Finally woke up the Grue.


    The team jumped on nervous dogs and rushed away. A wild scream rang out at the far end of the alley and began to catch up with them, increasing the volume and aggressive notes. Grue could not bear it and activated his ability. Black fog flooded the whole street, splashed onto the surrounding houses and pulled its tentacles up to the sky, as if intending to devour the moon peeking out from behind the clouds.


    I raced behind like Wild Hunt with an invisible shadow, accompanying it with sounds from cheap horror films and at the same time exploring the abomination''s abilities. Finally, after a couple of minutes, I was able to understand the essence of this phenomenon, and at the next turn, the Undersiders could "break away" from the pursuit. I once again internally laughed maniacally, then flew home, to deal with all of today''s acquisitions.


    At home I was again attacked by laziness, so the debriefing was postponed until tomorrow. In the morning, I blatantly ignored the sound of the alarm and woke up a couple of hours later than usual. After that, breakfast was held, during which I began to test my new abilities. Yesterday was not lived in vain.


    First, I was able to reproduce the darkness of Grue. But, on a limited scale. If the leader of the Undersiders could cover several hundred meters with his ability, then I could hardly cover myself. However, I did not need more yet. But when the symbiote grows up, my ability to cause black fog can exceed the possibilities of Grue.


    My second acquisition was Pyrokinesis, which I brazenly stole from Lung. In general, this ability was a combination of the other two. The appearance of the flame was created by the usual optical illusion ¡ª something like a glowing mist. But only objects that fell into the illusion of flame began to burn. And here the "honest" Pyrokinesis was already functioning, heating the external surface of the objects, thereby emulating interaction with open fire. I could manage these abilities independently. With the power of their manifestation, too, was trouble. The most I could count on was to create a small fireball in my hand. I had only to throw him, and it immediately crumbled innocent sparks. However, there was room for experimentation and training.


    The third profit was my understanding of the principles of the effect of symbionts on reality, as a result of which I could counteract a similar effect in the range of my telekinetic tentacles. Yesterday I was able to block Tattletale in this way, and she could not find out anything more about me, which she complained to the satellites during the chase. Also, I understood a little how to receive information about the object, about the same way as Tattletale herself did, but here my successes were quite modest. I could notice them, but the practical benefits of the speech have not yet come.


    Having tested my new features, I could not resist and put on my coat. As soon as I surrounded him with a thin layer of darkness, I turned from a simple rag into the mystical attire of a Chaos messenger. I tried to still draw myself luminous eyes with the help of an illusion, but then a bummer came out. I could see freely through the darkness, but the illusion on my eyes gave a glare, impairing visibility. I had to abandon the demonic eyes and simply portray the "mysterious signs" on the face. Then pick up the most spectacular option.


    When taking off my suit, for one thing I thought about the name for this image. In order to fail, as with this Cockroach, I need to think of it in advance. And since I am the "Messenger of Chaos", then I can call myself as Nyrlatotep. In the original source, this name was close to Egyptian. They-hotep, Ptah-hotep, Nyarlat-hotep. But then he was altered to modern pronunciation, making Nyarlatotep, and then completely lowered to the level of nyashka, removing the soft sign. Nya-nya-nyrlatotep! Bow in front of the kawai cats, nya! Hmmm, I''ll need to think about my image.


    Having gathered, I left the house, but went not to school, but to the city administration. Since we are talking about choosing a name, it is worth changing for one and my official name. Being a Bivitz Swine doesn''t prick me. The administration first tried to kick me off, but a bribe of a hundred dollars turned the ugly bureaucrat into a complacent public servant. As a result, I became the owner of a complete list of documents that I needed to fill out and submit in order to change my name.


    Since I was a underage, a notarized statement from my parents, that is, from my mother, appeared among these documents. And they also hinted to me completely free of charge that since I had only a couple of months left until the age of sixteen, for a small fee I can immediately issue a passport with my new name. I solemnly assured the corrupt official that I would have enough money for bribes, after which I left this abode of law and order.


    I had nothing further to do, so I decided to visit the school. Moreover, the IT lesson was to begin soon, during which you could sit on the Internet.


    For the sake of improving performance, the computer science teacher made a cunning knight''s move. At the beginning of the lesson, to each was given a personal task. Those who completed it and handed it over to the teacher permitted Internet access. And for those who did not pass, only the school website was available, on which there was nothing but the rules of behavior at school and photos of teachers. As a result, despite the complete absence of any lectures and explanations from the teacher, the students diligently engaged in self-education, and even among the most stupid drug addicts, the grades did not drop below three. Yes, and attendance at his lessons was the highest in school.


    When I got to Winslow, I found that the whole school was buzzing. The disappearance of two dozen students did not go unnoticed. More precisely, just a couple realized it, and when they began to search for them by acquaintances, it turned out that there were no acquaintances anywhere either. For a couple of days, the business escalated to the city level, so now there were several police officers at the school who tried to understand which student disappeared without a trace, checking the attendance of students.


    The director was so frightened by the incident that my appearance only in the fourth lesson caused her only relief from reducing the firing list. I did not even scold. Only compared the face of my face with a photo from a personal matter and sent out of sight.


    I stated just in time for the beginning of the computer science lesson, so by quickly completing the assignment, I was able to draw information from two "reliable" sources at once ¡ª the Internet and the rumors that my classmates were in a hurry to share. After all, I so well "knew nothing" about the mysterious disappearance, and I urgently needed to be used as a recipient for an incoherent flow of thoughts, which they could not wait to splash out.


    I was interested in all these versions in terms of disclosing my involvement. But then everything went perfectly. The place of the rogues from the Empire was known to all, so that the extra people did not go there. And if someone walked, then he was not extra, and to look at him point-blank was skimpy with the consequences. Themselves gangsters in general did not consider as people pupils like me, and therefore looked like an empty place, not putting aside a single bit of memories in their brain.


    The most popular version was that Lung was behind the massacre. His army narrow-eyed under the name of the ABB has always been on knives with the Nazis. So it was quite easy to assume that the gang of the Empire from Winslow gathered on the arrow with the Chinese, where they were all put. Particularly stood out the fact that Lung did not stop at this, having arranged disassembly at the docks on Sunday, where the fire from the Armsmaster was arrested.


    The most notorious optimists argued that the Protectorate is now extracting out from Lung the place where he holds schoolchildren. And pessimists rightly pointed out that the Imperials had already eaten by fish in the bay for a long time ago. I slightly supported one side, then agreed with the second and finally expressed the original idea that it could be a banal drug poisoning. I argued that Kevin took the dose first and dropped the hoof at school. And the rest decided to prick in a secluded place, where they still lie.


    My version found unexpectedly many supporters. Some lovers of conspiracy theories on the forum even complained that it is impossible to kill the hope of a miracle in people like this so ruthlessly. The type of death in a battle with Lung looks much more heroic than stoning with a new drug and dying in shit and vomit in a godsend-forgotten sewer. In general, it was possible to say that my visit to the school was not in vain.


    In the evening I went to the gaming center with my friends, where I again put everyone in doggy style position, having approved my superiority in Mortal Kombat. The body itself remembered all the tricks and wiles through which I butchered those who dared to challenge me.


    When I reached the house, I took a nap, and at eleven in the evening I put on a suit and went to work. To implement my plans, I needed money. In addition, I was going to clean up the city from all sorts of degenerates. It was quite logical to combine these two goals and start a sweep with drug dealers as the richest.


    I flew over the night city and watched the people below. For one thing, I coached remote eavesdropping using telekinesis. The idea was simple. I created near the sound source an invisible "pancake" where telekinesis held air molecules. The sounds waves trying to move these molecules, which I felt as resistance to my effects. And then the symbiont was entrusted with signal processing, receiving a clear sound at the output, transmitted to me directly into consciousness.


    In one of the lanes, I came across three men, clearly discussing the sale of drugs. Telekinetic feeling revealed the presence of a large bag of powder in the pocket of one of them. So either these guys are lovers of powdered sugar disguised as drug dealers, or vice versa.


    Descending from heaven, I lit a drawing on my face resembling Darth Maul''s tattoos, after which I walked towards my victims with a light step.


    ¡°Who the fuck are you?¡± They gave me the expected question as soon as one of the three noticed my approach.


    ¡°I am horror, crawling in the darkness! My name is Nyrlatotep.¡± I decided to start to train in a glorious appearance.


    ¡°Nya ... hrla ... hry?¡± Tried to repeat one of them.


    Mda ... It seems that the locals will not understand me with that name. They will distort so that then the whole world will laugh.


    ¡°I am horror, flying on the wings of the night, I am the Black Cloak!¡±


    ¡°Aaaa ! This is a cape!¡± Realized the least stoned of them. ¡°Run.¡±


    Violators of my laws attempted to escape, for which they were sentenced to immediate death. I picked them up telekinesis, freed from all the cash, of which it turned out a lot, and then tore into pieces and laid out in the alley, the artistic composition "Werewolf feast at full moon" After that, I again soared into the sky, thinking about the frailty of the universe.


    It does not seem me to be Nyrlatotep. Local drug addicts are just not able to pronounce. But the Black Cloak, brazenly stolen by me from the cartoon of the same name, was a completely obvious name. There even the word cloak (cape) was present, so that even to the most stupid, it became clear that they were dealing with a cape, that is, with a mask. And most importantly, despite the presence of this cartoon in this world, I will not be accused of plagiarism, because in the original it is called Darkwing Duck, that is, the Black-winged Duck.


    The next hour I scoured the docks, and my efforts were rewarded. This part of the city was considered the territory of Merchants, and I was lucky to find one of their refuges. Frankly speaking, it was just an abandoned workshop, where a dozen homeless people found shelter. Now they were sitting, drinking and arguing loudly how to punish one of the smaller dealers for delaying money. From these sounds, I found them.


    To begin with, I carefully studied the premises, searched each of those present for weapons and found three caches of money and goods. After this, my appearance to the people took place.


    "I am horror, flying on the wings of the night." My mysterious voice, immediately interrupted the debate of the parties. "I am a cockroach in your heroine. I am a morning hangover when you have no money even to beer. I am the Black Cloak!"


    With these words, the sphere of darkness exploded over a tall machine, and from them a mysterious and terrible figure in a black cloak appeared. The alien''s face was hidden by the darkness, but the glowing tattoos on him created the image of an infernal demon. In general, six out of ten eyewitnesses of my epic appearance froze with their mouth open, three began to rub their eyes, and one did not know how to appreciate high art.


    "Hey, black, get out of here, nigga. This place is only for whites."


    In response, I raised the insolent over the floor, and then dissolved him to bloody stripes, which formed a beautiful rosette on the floor, on which the skeleton fell without flesh.


    This movement became a trigger which awakened in the people, or rather nonhumans, the instinct of self-preservation. They shouted and ran away, but after a second they found themselves hanging in the air and can only jerk with their legs and arms. Well, they can also yell at the best of their abilities..


    "So, before I kill you, it''s worth explaining why I''m doing this." - Four drug dealers shook their heads and began to denounce, obviously having in mind that they did not need extra knowledge. - "Starting today, this city belongs to me. Therefore, my laws are valid in it. In particular, for the drug trade relies the death penalty. So you''re all going to die."


    "No. No! Do not kill us, Nigga."


    "It seems that someone has a hearing problem." I thoughtfully stated. "My name is Black Cloak! And to make you hear better, I should clean your ears."


    The deaf-afflicted shouted loudly, and then from his ears struck a whole fountain of blood and brains. At this moment homeless people realised it for real. I even had to telekinesis adjust the airflow, so as not to inhale the resulting amber. The almost headless corpse flew down, and I continued my lecture.


    "As I have already said, a penalty is imposed for drug trafficking. But today I have an advertising campaign, so you still have a chance to stay alive."


    "And what are you advertising, dear Black Cloak?" Culturally asked one of the bums of the most swine species. Immediately visible intellectuality.


    "Of course, I advertise myself, cudgel. I am the horror creeping in the darkness. I - retribution, flying on the wings of the night. I am the Black Cloak!"


    "You are very good at it." Noticed the intellectual.


    "Thanks. So," I once again looked at the attentive audience with my eyes, "I will let live someone who can provide me with useful information. I note right away, I already know about your hidden caches in this building". In confirmation of my words there was a crash, and money and drugs flew out of the caches. I immediately scattered the last ones, mixing them with bloody porridge on the floor. "Who will be the first?"


    "We will never tell you anything, fucking nige-ghrrr ¡­ "- The racist grunted, losing air in his strangled lungs. He flew to the center of the hall, standing right in front of me, and the rest were distributed in a round line, looking at the next victim.


    "It was ... Wrong choice."


    The victim jerked, and then scattered to the right bloody cubes, in which bones and guts looked through. Someone began to puke. The cubes circled in the air, then fell down.


    "I will tell!" Called the intellectual looking bum. He immediately flew forward, flowing on the spot where his comrade was a couple of seconds ago. "I know where is another place for gatherings of our gang. There should be more people and drugs."


    "Not bad, not bad. Speak"


    "It''s east of here. Large yellow warehouse building. To the north of it such large round barrels for oil, and from the east in a couple of hundred meters the railway passes.. And there is a dilapidated red brick building nearby. In the warehouse will be more than thirty people and a cache of goods."


    "Well, I''ll check. If you lied, then I will find you, and the death of your comrades will seem to you as paradise. After all, people can die long, very long..¡±


    I let go the intelligent bum, and he collapsed right in the bloody heap formed by the giblets of his comrades. He lay for a second, coming to himself, and then started with a sprint speed, running away with loud cries.


    "Who is next?"


    "I am! I will tell." Called the most courageous, immediately taking the place of the speaker. "I know where our boss''s cache. You killed him first. But only I know the building. Do not kill me.¡±


    "Good. Together we will visit said place, and if I find a cache, I will let you go." Homeless flew off to the side, doomed sag. "So? Here you are, your turn."


    "I ... I don''t know. We trade in drugs. We have a couple dozen dealers. One so heavy, walks ¡­"


    "Not interested." I interrupted him. "I give five seconds."


    "Well ... I ... this. No, I want to live! I am not guilty. These are all! They made me."


    "Time is over." Another bloody penalty again scared the rest of the duck. I looked at the four remaining, looking at me with horror in their eyes. "It seems that you will not say anything interesting." I summarized.


    "I know! I can tell you about our capes." - Decided one of them.


    "I can do that too."


    "Quiet. Who was the first, and the word is given." The lucky one flew forward, and his competitor''s chest squeezed so that they could breathe barely. "So?"


    "In our gang there is a Skidmark, Squealer and Moist. And also seems to be Trainwreck, but he is more likely on his own, although he lives on our territory. The Skidmark can disperse objects, push people away and all that. He lives somewhere in the north of the docks, but I don''t know the exact place. Often sleeps on our bases. Squealer - techie. She usually makes cars, cannons and cars with guns. Lives in the same place, where the Skidmark, but gets out from there where less often. Moist that kind of generally incomprehensible type. Can manage garbage. Basically, rummaging through dumps, lives where he wish. And by the way, today he may be on the base, about which you have already been told.¡±


    "Mmmm ... Fine. You can go.¡±


    The homeless started running off, barely touching the ground. Yes, he even went through the air with his feet, just to be as far as possible away from me.


    "And you are not lucky. You thought too much." I turned to the three remaining.


    "No, stop! I have three hundred bucks ¡­"


    I did not listen to their cries, and tore them into pieces, which I scattered all over the room. Such creatures have no place on Earth. And they themselves live like animals, and they also poison people around them, eventually turning them into similar ones. Cancer of society in its purest form.


    "So where do you say this cache?" - I turned to the last member of the gang, which is a nasty spectacle. He pissed, full of vomit - I didn''t even want to look at him.


    Then we proceeded to the said place, where I had to shake up a couple of buildings. But on the other hand, in the neighboring house, I could find a suitcase packed with money from that one. Apparently, the former boss dreamed about a pile of money, because his suitcase contained mostly one or two dollar bills. Occasionally there were fives and tens. I confiscated the proceeds, and let the homeless man go, once again reminding him that the drug trade in my city is the shortest road to Hell.


    Having hidden money at home, I went to look for the second base of Merchants. Complicated the search the fact that there was night around, and even despite the narrow crescent of the moon, it was evident a little more than nothing. Finally, I discovered the desired oil storage, and to the south of it a dilapidated building. The warehouse was found by the light breaking through from the windows, judging by the trembling emanating from the fires. Approaching the window, I silently moved to side the dirty glass and looked inside.


    The party here is clearly a success. There were more than a hundred people in the room. Half of them were already lying somewhere, usually in an embrace with bottles or half-empty boxes of booze. Here and there burned fires and barrels of coal. Swarming music poured from large speakers. In the center, a platform was built of building materials and garbage, and installed four pillars with naked girls attached to them. Each of them someone raped, plus a few more people stood in line. One of the girls showed no signs of life. I checked the telekinesis and made sure that she was already dead. But this did not upset the rapists. Moreover, the queue for her was the longest.


    "Critters! Freaks. You are worse than demons." - I hissed, coming to a state of mad rage. - "I''ll tear all nonhumans to pieces"


    I darted off and quickly circled the building around the perimeter, looking for patrols. There were such here, and I tore them into small pieces, hiding the corpses in secluded places. Another observer, or a fan of fresh air, showed up on the roof. After cleaning the area, I completely filled the warehouse with my strength and ordered the symbiont to track the position of each person and prevent them from trying to get out of the building. Now I could not worry no-one of these creatures would leave here alive.


    I quietly entered to the main hall through a window and hid behind a large container in the corner. Many of those present were armed, so I did not want to get into trouble, not being confident in their safety. Instead, I created a separate ball of darkness about human shape and hung it from the ceiling. Well, now it remains to start the presentation. I used telekinesis to make sounds emanating from snag. First of all, this was due to the fact that my real voice was the voice of a boy. And to maintain the image of a brutal macho trembling bass was required.


    "I am horror flying on the wings of the night. I am a demon of justice devouring your souls. I am the wages of your sins. I am the Black Cloak." - There was an angry cry, drowning out all other sounds. The stain of darkness fell right into the center of the platform, smashing it almost the floor. Straightening, it took the form of a man in a raincoat, on whose face devilish signs burned. - "You are all condemned to death. You are worse than animals, and therefore not worthy even to die like men."


    This was the end of my talk, and I began to save this world from the nasty form of creatures - humans. The shadow rushed around the room, leaving behind glowing lines, and each time it ran into someone, that person would scatter into pieces, filling everything around with blood.


    The gangsters immediately began to shoot at the illusion with enthusiasm, but I stopped the bullets by telekinesis. A couple of times I missed the shots from the machine gun, but then I adapted myself, and I was sure that not a single bullet could harm me anymore. It was now a reflex embedded in my symbiont.


    A minute later, some Merchants rushed to one of the boxes and pulled out a grenade launcher. I even specifically lingered on the spot to give him the opportunity to shoot. The rocket struck the figure, but the explosion only uselessly stirred the air. The main striking factor of the anti-tank missile is the flow of hot metal shot forward at the moment of the explosion. But even it was stopped by my power. I collected the metal in a ball and poured this "liquid" into the mouth of the nearest drug user. He huddled in convulsions, and again I began my dance of death.


    In the end, I no longer killed people, but only broke all the bones, leaving them to writhe on the floor. Only five minutes had passed since my appearance here, as there was not a single person in the warehouse, except for three girls in the center. I protected them from stray bullets, but was unable to heal the already existing physical and spiritual wounds. Another fifteen minutes was taken by the slow and painful death of the nonhumans, and at the end I tore them to pieces, mixing their corpses to a homogeneous blood mass.


    I found a lot of money here. According to the most modest estimates, it was about hundred thousands of dollars. I mixed all the drugs with the corpses so that they certainly could not sell them to anyone. After that, I freed the girls, who had almost recovered, and left the shelter behind the container.


    "Call the police, tell them what happened. Here is your address." - I said, dragging to one of them the phone taken from the gangster and the rusted sign from the outer wall of the building, on which the address was visible.


    The girl looked at me with fear, and then took the phone. The call was short, not least because the dispatcher did not want to hear the details, but promised to send a patrol car. I decided not to leave the girls alone ¡ª naked in the docks at night, but there was no desire to be near them. So I showed them where the homemade shower was, and briefly said goodbye, hiding in the dark.


    Then I sat on the roof and watched the surroundings. Ten minutes later, a couple of stray drug addicts approached the warehouse. After making sure that they were coming exactly here, I slowly and with gusto tore them apart. Fifteen minutes later, a patrol car drove up to the warehouse. It turned out to be two policemen who did not bother to get out and headed towards the warehouse.


    "Grevor, are you there?" - Loudly shouted out one of them.


    "Something there is no one. Probably drunk to the trash state." - muttered the second.


    A pair of servants of the law went forward, highlighting a flashlight, and broke into an inconspicuous side door leading to the office premises of the warehouse. There they were met by one of the girls. She was wearing only a ragged jacket.


    "Wow, what a chick!" - The cop admired, distinguished from his partner with a bulging belly. - "Go find someone there, and I''ll have fun."


    He grabbed the girl by the arm and pulled her to him. She didn''t have the strength to resist, and she just wept plaintively.


    "Don''t rock the boat, otherwise it will be worse." - Policeman threatened her, tearing off her jacket with one hand, and unbuttoning his pants with the other.


    "Jack, fuck, fucking full here!" - Shouted the second, just opened the door to the main hall. - "Jack?"


    He turned his head and saw me looking at his partner dangling in the air with his pants down. Cop tried to grab the gun, but found that he could not move.


    "You are sentenced to death for attempting to rape a underage." - I spoke, and the fat pig lost its layers of clothing, skin, fat, muscles and internal organs. Only a bare skeleton with a still alive brain in the head fell to the ground. - "You are sentenced to death for covering up the rape of a underage and colluding with drug dealers." - I notified the second.


    "No, please do not." - He whined. - "I have a young daughter."


    "I''ll definitely find her and see how some drug addict will rape her." - I reassured him, after which I repeated the procedure of execution.


    Turning to the girl sitting by the wall, clasping her legs with her hands, I gave her a look and did not say a word outside. I adequately evaluated my abilities. All my powers are aimed at killing, not saving. So I could only help her with words, that is, nothing.


    On the street I went to the car, opened the door and studied the police radio. Having found the channel switch there, I turned the knob to the "emergency call" position, then pressed the button on the microphone and spoke telekinesis.


    "Dispatch." - I was not afraid that they would recognize me, because this body spoke like Bivitz, and I now spoke as a person who lived in another world. My accent and manner of making phrases was strikingly different.


    "I''m listening. What happened?" - I heard the answer in ten seconds.


    "Your police officers are dead, as well as hundreds of other local residents." - I replied with a calm and tired voice.


    "What? Where are you?"


    "Docks, Passing Street, building forty-one, house three."


    "Can you describe what happened?"


    "I executed your police officers and about a hundred Merchants for the rape of underage and murder."


    "What? Executed? Who are you?"


    "I am horror flying on the wings of the night. I am the new God of this world. I am the Black Cloak!" - I began this phrase with a calm voice, and finished with a cry of an exalted maniac.


    Throwing the microphone, I again took a place on the roof and continued to observe. This time a column of police cars, roaring with sirens and flashing flash lights, appeared five minutes later. They can, when they want. The soldiers in body armor with machine guns and shotguns scattered around the neighborhood and broke into the main gates of the warehouse, simply blowing them that, the first five rushed inside and a second later collapsed to her knees, crouching in vomiting gusts. Here, the faint of girls were discovered in another couple of minutes, immediately wrapping them in blankets and taking them to the ambulance van. After that, I considered my mission accomplished and left, never discovered by anyone. However, the police did not particularly look for anyone. Finding out that the mask was involved in the case, they called the Emergency Response Department of the Parahuman Response Team and then only wandered around the outskirts, dragging the territory with yellow ribbons prohibiting passage.


    I got to the house by three in the morning. There, I added cash to a suitcase with trophies and went to sleep.


    In the morning, as always, having slept the first couple, I went shopping to buy me normal clothes. Bivitz not walked completely in shreds, but it was cheap things. And I need style. Having updated my wardrobe, I visited a large notary office and "rented" a notary who able to verify the documents at clients office. Together with him I went to brothel, to my mother.


    "Sarah, you have a visitor" - A local pimp shouted loudly to whole brothel, when understood who I was. Bivitz came here only couple times before.


    "Oh, who wanted me? Bivitz?" - Mom surprised to see me.- "What happened"


    "I need you to sign couple of documents. Can we talk in more private place?"


    "Yes, of course"


    The prostitute gave a rating look to the notary, and then went somewhere deep into the corridors with wagging the clothes on her, by the way, were only thongs.


    "Here are the documents. Get it and sign it." - I poured a folder on the table in the room where Sarah Swine eventually led us. Now she was wearing a short robe and smoking a thin cigarette through the mouthpiece.


    "Whats up?" She hostilely with one finger pulled out the paper and went deep into reading. - "Do you want to change the name? Never! What do not you like Bivitz Swine?"


    "I''ll pay you a thousand dollars." - I brought my killer argument.


    "What? A thousand ... "- A shock appeared on the face of the woman. - "Where did you get that kind of money?"


    "Oh, oh, this is our family business." - I grinned mockingly.


    "What? You? ... So you ¡­" - Suddenly, the woman burst into tears, covering her face with her hands. "But I wanted you to grow up as a normal person."


    "Well, I''m sorry I became as crazy as you. The apple never falls far from the tree."


    After a couple of minutes, she rested and began to re-examine the documents.


    "Eros Ramazotti? Why is weird name?"


    "Why? It fits my new scene image."


    "This is it you ... you ¡­" - Mommy tried again to cry, nodding at the notary.


    "Not. It''s just a notary who will assure your signature."


    "Ok, I''ll sign." - Sarah Swain agreed in an unexpectedly serious voice, in which there was no hint of emotion. - "Do you have money with you?"


    "Of course. But first arrange the documents."


    I took a small chunk of banknotes out of my pocket. It was exactly one thousand dollars. However, I had space for bargaining, and in the same pocket there were nine more such packs. The further process went without incident and ended with the delivery of all the necessary documents for me to change my name.


    "And now what? Do you need another apartment?" - Asked mom, when the notary collected the documents and went to the exit of the room.


    "About month I to live there."


    "And then?"


    "And then I''ll be a Hollywood star, and the whole world will be under my feet." - I blindingly smiled.


    "Yeah, sure." - The star of the scene, wise over the years, agreed, who also began with show business in due time.


    "Well, if anything went wrong, I will get job in brothel." - I replied, also intending to exit. - "I will serve customers in the next room. And in the evenings, as mother and son, we will share the secrets of family craftsmanship."


    I turned around and smiled at a relative of Bivitz with a disgusting grin. I hope I''ll never see her again. Although money is worth toss. Later. If I do not forget.


    Out of the brothel, without delay, I went to the administration, where I submitted all the necessary papers, filled out bribes and signed kickbacks. The rusty machine of the bureaucracy unexpectedly quickly turned around, and I was asked to come in for the documents and the ready passport tomorrow morning. It cost me, however, all this magnificence of eight thousand evergreens.


    Having had a snack in a restaurant, I went to school. After yesterday''s massacre at the docks, I expected the school to stand on the ears again. But instead I found a picture of universal mourning. Most of the students walked about like a bag and people were confused and were quietly discussing something in the corners.


    "Hi, Stephen ." - I greeted my best source of rumors. - "And what else happened in school that everyone goes in such mourning?"


    "Haven''t you heard about the dock massacre?"


    "No. On the radio in the morning something was broadcast about it, but I thought there was an ordinary shootout."


    "So, let''s go." Stephen looked around and dragged me into the far corner of the class. Clearly wanting to get rid of the competition and single-handedly throw me another sensation. - "In general, a new villain appeared in the city. He called himself Black."


    "Niger or what?" - I could not resist.


    "Yes, to hell of these niggers tell. But there is another version that his name is Black Cloak. He really walks in a black cloak and wears a demon mask on his face."


    "Somehow unoriginal."


    "Apparently, seems lack of fantasy . Or he is a fan of the classics. So, don''t knock me down. In general, there was a new villain who declared war against drugs."


    "You wanted to say a hero?" - Again, I corrected.


    "Not. If he was a hero, he would walk like as idiot through the streets and tell everyone that drugs are evil. But he said that from now on he is the God of Brockton Bay, and for the sale of drugs he would kill on the spot. And as the seriousness of his intentions decided to kill two gangs of Merchants. One was only a dozen, and the second was throwing some kind of party, and there they were feasting more than a hundred people. This Black has killed all of them there. He literally tore into pieces and covered the whole warehouse with giblets right up to the ceiling.


    Rush drives. I already get scared myself.


    "So what was next?" - I pushed.


    "And then, The Empire and the APP, as they learned about this scenario, immediately raised the price of drugs five times. And now the whole school goes and trying to figure out how to live."


    "Hmm ... did you buy the bandages already?"


    "Bandages? What for?"


    "To do the dressing. You will not be released from school now. Every drug addict will beat money from you for a dose."


    "Heck! It is necessary to run away."


    Stephen looked around again, and then rushed to the window, clearly appreciating the possibility of sigling there, so as not to go through the main exit.


    "Well, happy for you. But I, perhaps, will study a little in classroom". - I admonished him.


    "And you are not afraid to stay here?"


    "No. I have a secret route of retreat"


    "Show?"


    "It''ll be cheaper for you to pay off to drug addicts. Stuck bucks, and no one will touch you."


    "Eh, you, and also the friend, is called."


    "Friendship is friendship, but money apart."


    At the big break, I went to the school administration, but not to the director, but to John Torstein - the head teacher in administrative work, as the sign on door of his office said. It was a man with sly eyes, who always stole something, but so skillfully that all the bumps fell on innocent people. I negotiated with him about the change of my name and the issuance of reissued documents about my studying here to me. I did not see the point of continuing to attend Winslow, and instead I set my sights on Arcadia, the best school in the city.


    In principle, the local education was lost nothing on me. But on the other hand, it was known to all that underage masks were studying in Arcadia, members of the Wards team under the auspices of the Protectorate. So I will get access to the body of several capes and I can copy to myself those abilities that I like best. If I could get the skill of manipulating the darkness in just a few minutes, then, with unlimited daily access, I can achieve much more impressive results.


    I was most attracted by the talent of Panacea. This girl could heal wounds and diseases of almost any severity. Now Vritras is not available to me, and therefore it is worthwhile to find a replacement for it. Telekinesis will easily replace defensive and offensive magic, and healing will cover up in case if I injured. Still, the human body is too vulnerable. Poke a knife in the liver - and any doctor can save you.


    After completing school works, I went to the city, along the way knocked out a couple of teeth that thought they were cool racketeers. In the city center, I went to an Internet cafe, where I began to wool forums in search of information about myself. It is necessary to know what impression I made and how to promote my image further.


    Forum: Masks Brockton Bay.


    Post: Black (Black Cloak)


    Snail: Time to have it! I''m first one! A new cape has appeared in the city. Black called himself. Details coming soon.


    Megacock: And what? Is there a little black in the city?


    Dealer: I confirm. Dad just got stuck home. All in shit and vomit. He said that the Black Cloak came to their den and tore apart seven people. At the same time, the ancestor especially insisted that he was tied up with the sale of drugs and would now boil only vodka according to the old-fashioned recipe.


    Yellow popsicle: Share the recipe for vodka.


    Diller: Yeah. This booze I need to myself. By the way, Cape is called Black Cloak, not Black. Tell this to him when meet, and he gently shoots you with bloody ribbons. Then a friend of my father came and showed the picture on the phone. At first I thought it was guts at a meat processing plant, but then I recognized the room. In general, the main thing when meeting him is to be respectful and not to have drugs. He particularly frightened that the death penalty was imposed for the drug trade. I will send photo in the morning.


    Snail: So, the details. It seems that the new cape disliked Merchants. Now I spoke with the team that left for an urgent call. At one of the warehouses in the docks there was another gathering of the Merchants. Well, you know - drugs, booze, girls. There came a new cape and literally tore them all to pieces. The police, who first came to the warehouse, immediately began to vomit as they all saw it. No pictures and are unlikely to be. At least not with me. The case was transferred to the PRT. According to preliminary calculations, more than a hundred people were killed. Only three girls survived, whos were pumped there with drugs and pushed by circle. Another girl was found dead, but at least in one piece.


    Snail: Diller, thank you. The title of the topic corrected.


    Snail: And by the way, Black Cloak personally confessed to the dispatcher that he had killed a hundred merchants and two policemen. Plus, he declared himself, I quote: I am the new god of this world.


    By-pass: What were the police doing there? They decided to visit friends among Merchants, and fuck someone for free?


    White Niger: Definitely. I am sure that this is exactly what happened. It has long been time to press these creatures. And then all political correctness and law observance. And as our girls are raped by mobs in the doorways - I''m sorry, no corpus delicti was found. Black - keep it up. Show them that among the niggas has normal heroes.


    Saber-toothed Rat: Let the earth rest in peace, White Niger. The Black Cloak will punish you for such an appeal. I am sure that he is not Niger. Blackasses always only row for themselves. Niger would say that the death penalty is for selling drugs that were not bought from him.


    By-pass: +1


    Snail: So, freed. Received identikit of the Black Cloak. See the picture on the link. The classification of forces is still unclear, but it is known that he owns telekinesis and levitation. Most importantly, he completely ignores the Manton Effect. That is, he can tear you apart without any effort. Plus easily holds a shot from a grenade launcher at close range. It turns out the Shaker and Mover.


    [Link to picture]</a>


    Kitty: What a brutal man. I already want him.


    By-pass: +1


    Yellow popsicle: Weird By-pass. You are a man.


    By-pass: And what? My love is as wide as the universe.


    Yellow popsicle: What if he really nigga?


    By-pass: T_T


    Saber-toothed Rat: Yes, you look at the foto. It can be seen that this is a normal white, only in a mask.


    By-pass: ^ _ ^


    True Arius: And I think he is Chinese.


    By-pass: O_o Why?


    True Arius: Well, obviously. He specifically called himself Black, So Whites thought he nigga, and niggas thought he white. But in fact he is narrow-eyed - he is sitting now, reading our forum and laughing.


    White Niger: O_O


    Horcrux(PRT): I confirm the emergence of a new villain. Rating: shaker-8, mover-4. For any information about the location and abilities relies reward. Code name: Black.


    True Arius: Arktic Fox! If they do not change their mind, then all in PRT is doomed. Black Cloak will punish them for such an insult.


    Horcrux(PRT): There already was mask named The Black Cloak that died when he collided with Behemoth three years ago.


    True Arius: Will you make excuses like this when he comes and starts tearing you to pieces?


    Administrator: True Arius gets a ban for three days for violating forum rules.


    Almost True Arius: Oh, I''m afraid, I''m afraid.)


    Administrator: Almost True Arius gets a life ban for violating forum rules.


    Completely True Arius: I have direct access to the central router of New York. Will you ban whole America?


    Administrator: If required. Completely True Arius gets a life ban for violating forum rules.


    I yawned and looked up from the forum. Something already some kind of flame went. In general, people pissing with boiled water. And the PRT is really worth punishing. I just need to think of how.


    I scrolled a few pages of the forum and found a link to the news site, with the caption "The whole truth about Black." Clicking on it, I got on the official site of the television news channel "Central News Network". The page hosted a video report, which I immediately touched in the playback.


    ¡°Greetings, Tina Ulver is with you on the CNN channel. I have just returned from the official joint presentation of the PRT and the Protectorate and am ready to tell you what happened tonight at Brockton Bay. At the docks committed a terrible crime. More than a hundred civilians were killed by a mad cape. As you can see on the identikit, this villain wears a long black cloak and a demon mask. He called the police and reported on his crime. He named himself Black and declared himself as the new god of Brockton-Bay, demanding to worship him. Among the victims of the dangerous maniac were also two policemen and one of the masks Merchants - Moist. Miraculously, only three girls, whom the villain had raped for several hours, managed to escape. The protectorate and the PRT in a joint statement expressed a strong protest against such unlawful actions and assured us that they would do everything possible to ensure that the offender shall receive a fair punishment. With you was Tina Ulver on the CNN channel. Follow our news.¡¯


    So this is how it is. It turns out that I killed innocent civilians, and then for hours I raped girls. Yes, for sure, and all three of them at the same time. Okay, this is war! Seeing the Being, you are forced me to do this.


    On the website of the channel, I found the address of the editorial staff of the CNN, where I went after taking a taxi. On the first floor of the building, there was a cafe, where I located with all the convenience. Using telekinesis, I scanned the entire building and focused on the seventh and eighth floors, where the studio was located. Focusing on the body shape, I selected girls who looked like the presenter, and then began to listen to conversations next to them. Ten minutes later one of them was called Tina, and I focused on her.


    "Tina, what''s up with your six-hour news report?"


    "I''m working on it"


    "It''s already half past four, and you are still working. You must show me your live broadcast record at half past five maximum. If you do not have time, then you will go to the nine o''clock news, and for this you will have to re-shoot everything against the background of the evening city."


    "I know. It remains for me only to reduce the sound of the direct inclusion of Martin. It is necessary to add interference from the wind, as if it really is on the tower of the Protectorate."


    "Ask John to help you. Let him drop everything and do it first."


    "Good. Coming soon."


    Tina ran into the next room, and I followed her boss, who had returned to his workplace. It seems that I will need to defend the freedom of speech with an smoothing-iron and a soldering iron. I looked at the TV above the desk where the channel I wanted went on. After scanning the neighborhood, I found some more TVs showing this channel. Well, now when I have a mean objective control, I can work a little on the program schedule.


    Only I was going to create a clot of shadow in the office of the chief editor, suddenly I changed my mind. First, it will be my first appearance on television. So it is necessary to make a favorable impression on the audience, and not to appear in the form of a blurred shapeless shadow. Secondly, if I speak on this channel, its ratings will increase, and they will have only benefit from it. Thirdly, I can crucify the Tina later. It is not necessary to do this in live broadcast. And fourthly, it''s only six o''clock in the evening, and many people are still at work. It is better to perform in prime time at nine in the evening.


    So I had a snack, and then again went to an internet cafe to find an alternative television station. In half an hour everything became more or less clear. The city had two of the largest sharks of the mass media: CNN Television, which has a branch of CNN Northeast, and ZBS Entertainment with a nameless local office. It is quite obvious that I chose the second company, because they were not so frankly slandering me.


    I went home, where I changed into my work costume, then I thought about it and changed into everyday wear, putting my heroic cloak in my backpack. It''s not worthy to uncover my place of residence. Especially since in the pantry I have a case with a lot of money.


    On foot, I walked to the docks, where I found a inconspicuous, abandoned building and changed clothes, leaving my backpack in a hastily equipped cache. Having searched the surroundings with telekinesis, I became sure of the absence of unnecessary witnesses and, after passing through several buildings standing nearby, I got out. Here I walked a little more through the streets, and then flew off higher and moved towards the city center. I didn''t meet a single hero, so I safely reached the building I needed. The television station was well located on the top floor of a twenty-story building, so all I could do was to open the door with telekinesis and walk from roof to staircase and go straight to the office of the chief editor, and for one office manager.


    "Good evening. Did not interfere?"- I asked the director which enthusiastically fucking his secretary.


    "What? Who? .. Black Cloak? No, of course not intervene." - Quickly realized the boss, zipping his fly.


    "It''s nice when you known by name. Do not introduce yourself, Mr. ...?"


    "Donald McDuck."


    "Huh! Do you, by chance, called your father Scrooge?"


    "Grandpa."


    "That''s it. You immediately see a hereditary moneybags."


    "Eeee ..." - Donald did not even find what to say.


    "I''m on your case. Today you have a prime time interview with me on the channel."


    "Yes?" - The editor was surprised. - "Oh, well, for sure. Of course it is planned, mister Black Cloak."


    "Actually, I want to tell you the truth about what happened last night at the bay. I was extremely upset by the unreasonable slander from your competitors from CNN. So in the near future they will go bankrupt and sell their entire business for a peanuts to you.


    "Um ... this is good news."


    "Yes, let''s make good news and enjoy this world, not the afterworld."


    Half an hour later I was sitting in the studio at the table, and a pretty TV presenter winking eyes next to me. The director gave the command to start shooting, and we started the conversation.


    "Good evening, dear viewers." - Started leading. - "Today our guest is a special person, to whom many issues of today''s news were devoted."


    "First, I should introduce myself. I am the horror flying in the darkness of the night. I am the law, the judge and the executioner. I am the Black Cloak!"


    "We all heard about these tragic events that occurred last night at the docks. Can you tell something about it, so to speak, from the first person.?"


    "Certainly. I agree with you that those were tragic events. But let''s start in order. I arrived in Brockton Bay relatively recently. Having studied the state of Affairs in your city, I have come to the conclusion that the rule of law is urgently required here. Local criminal elements actually sit on the head of honest citizens, exploiting them in all possible ways. Therefore, I decided to take responsibility for maintaining order in the city. And first of all issued a decree banning the sale of drugs."


    "But their sale is already prohibited."


    "Yes, but it''s only on paper. And in reality, drugs are sold on every corner. So, having issued the decree, I moved forward on patrol of the city in search of drug dealers."


    "But nobody knew that you took this decree."


    "Any lawyer will tell you that ignorance of the law is no excuse. I found, convicted and punished two groups of drug dealers at the docks. Their guilt was proven by objective facts, with which they were no worse acquainted than I was."


    "Do you think that the drug trade is supposed to be death?"


    "Any violation of the law is punishable by death. Correction, for breaking my laws. You need to understand that the punishment for a crime should not in order to revenge the offender, and in order to clean the society from harmful elements. Execution is a quick, effective and cost-effective form of punishment. But back to the events of last night. Already after midnight I found a warehouse where there was a mass rape of four girls. Imagine a hundred drunk men taking turns raping underage girls. Moreover, by the time of my arrival one of the girls was already dead, but her corpse continued to rape."


    "Awful!"


    "I agree with you. As an honest and decent man, I immediately issued a decree banning rape and immediately condemned and punished all those responsible for this heinous crime."


    "The police were one of them?"


    "Not really. After releasing the girls, I asked them to call the police, and I began to monitor the neighborhood area. I couldn''t leave naked girls alone on the docks at night. In half an hour, notice, half an hour, the patrol car with two police officers approached to a warehouse. And the first thing they did when they saw one of the victims was try to rape her. After that, all I had to do was condemn and execute the criminals. Real werewolves in uniform.


    "That''s ... I''m speechless."


    "In principle, these two can be understood."


    "What? How"


    "As I said, they was the "werewolves in uniform", that is just animals pretending to be people. Their instincts, desires and interests they put above the interests of others. It''s disgusting, but at least it can be explained logically. But what happened after that, in my opinion, is much worse.


    "And what happened?"


    "I found the car of police officers and on the radio reported an event to the dispatcher. Five minutes later, an entire convoy of police cars arrived. That is, when it came to the threat to the lives of decent citizens, the reaction of justice took half an hour and consisted in the arrival of animals in police uniforms. And as soon as it came to murder of police officers, they arrived to a place in five minutes the whole crowd. That says a lot. Fortunately, this time they didn''t begin to rape girls, and took them to the ambulance. The worst thing happened this afternoon. The picture is from the testimony of the witnesses and my story to the Chief of the police was quite evident. But instead of give me credit, instead of though and conviction, but to tell people the truth, the PRT and the Protectorate went on a deliberate fraud. They accused me of killing 100 innocent law-abiding citizens and raping three girls. Me, saving them twice for one hour. And then the question is, why did they do it? Can you think of a reason for that? Why deceive ordinary citizens?


    "Well ... I guess they wanted to make their point."


    "Exactly! That is from their point of view the gang of the Merchants selling drugs to our children are - law abiding citizens. And for an attempt to save someone, it is necessary to punish, destroying reputation of the real heroes and accusing them of those crimes which are made under the direct leadership of PRT."


    "You want to say that the rape took place on the orders of the PRT?"


    "Certainly. Maybe not a direct order, but they clearly acted as one of organizers of this "event". According to their tacit consent, with their direct approval, drug Dealers sell drugs, the ABB rapes girls in the streets, the Empire ruins honest entrepreneurs. I say enough. We''ve had enough of this false propaganda. Ordinary people do not have the ability to resist this arbitrariness, but I have the opportunity. And be sure, I will use my force to punish all violators of my laws. In a couple of years, Brockton Bay will be the city with the lowest crime rate in the world.


    "But it will not happen that in our city there will be no inhabitants left at that moment?"


    "I don''t. Decent people are not in danger. Moreover, having lost competition and pressure from criminals, people will find that maintaining a good standard of living requires much less effort. After all, they will not need to feed and serve a whole pack of criminals, corrupt officials and Illuminati.


    "Well, your point is clear to me. Unfortunately, our time is coming to an end. Do you want to say something to our viewers in the end?"


    "Yeah. I wish you all to live through these troubled times and remind you that drug trafficking, theft, robbery and rape are all crimes for which the death penalty is imposed. All the guilty will be punished. Retribution is inevitable, for I am retribution. I''m Black Cloak.


    "Vanessa Gerhardt was with you on the ZBS channel."


    This TV show ended, and I left the Studio, taking the Director''s business cards and a couple of reporters. Two hours later, an extraordinary release of the program "Interview with the legend" took place, where my performance was shown almost uncut. I watched it, already sitting at home and estimating reaction on the Internet, using the freshly bought laptop.


    Shit on all the forums was such that the administrators do not have time to remove posts and ban their authors. As I understand it, the villains did not risk to make such an interview on TV. Why, they preferred not to give them such an opportunity. I managed to break the screens because the local Director was not the latest bump on the channel, plus I lucidly explained to him what awaits him if he will not give my interview. Well, besides, I brought a copy of the interview, recorded on a laser disc. And there was no doubt that if anything wrong happens I will post it on the Internet, and then instead of the growth of ratings channel expects them to fall.


    At ten o''clock in the evening I again put on a suit and got out on cleaning of the territory from criminal elements. This time the city was quite lively. In four hours, I saw the Battery, the Armsmaster, Lady Photon, and even the Demon Lee. But in his eyes I decided not to get caught. Today I moved mainly through the streets five meters above the ground, hiding behind darkness and buildings. Lighting in this part of the city was very few, and beyond the coastal and southern docks I have not poked.


    During the patrol I found and destroyed a couple of dozen drug dealers, bandits and thieves, finding each of them at the crime scene. The reach of my telekinetic perception had already increased to a couple hundred meters in radius, so their search was quite simple. Of course, I could not immediately cover the entire sphere with a diameter of four hundred meters, but for ten minutes I could make a clear understanding of what is happening in the vicinity, and what I need to pay special attention. By two o''clock in the morning I considered my mission accomplished, so I returned home and went to bed.


    In the morning, for a change I woke up on time and immediately went to the city administration. There I was waiting for ready documents. You could say I''m starting a new life today. From scratch. Life is not burdened with the fate of Bivitz Swine. I''m Eros Ramazotti now.


    Then I went to school. I wanted to pick up the translation documents in my new name early, but the principal''s office was closed, so I had no choice but to go to class. The first lesson today was history. I thought I would have to break into the classroom in the middle of the lesson, but opening the door, I saw that the teacher is absent, and the students are having fun as they can. Cheerfully whistling, I went to my place, where a group of my friends was already huddled together, discussing something fiercely.


    "Oh, Bivitz. We need your expert opinion." - Stephen addressed me, obviously unable to defend his point of view. In such cases he was always angry and tossed his hair, becoming a sort of an angry hedgehog.


    "What? Come on, burn." - I threw the briefcase on the desk and sat down on a chair, turning to the company.


    "Did you see the Black Cape''s interview yesterday, didn''t you?" I nodded. "We have in this regard divided opinions, consider him a hero or a villain."


    "Well, I think it''s pretty obvious.¡­"


    "I told you. He''s evil!" Stephen interrupted me triumphantly.


    "...The black Cloak is a hero." I finished calmly.


    "What?"


    "He saves people, fights crime, reveals to the public the insidious plans of the villains."


    "Is what bad guys?'' Puzzled asked Jack a fat boy with glasses and acne.


    "The Protectorate, of course." I also said "It''s obvious that the PRT and the Protectorate are the villains."


    "Who are the heroes then?"


    "Black Cloak."


    "And what else?"


    "Hmm," I Thought. "Something I do not remember such."


    "All clear with you" - Stephen made his diagnosis. ¡ª "You are a fan of the Black Cloak. Your opinion is biased, and therefore it can be ignored."


    This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.


    "Why is it biased, Yes I am¡­"


    My angry speech was interrupted by the appearance of the history teacher, who slammed the folder on the table and shouted:


    "Silence! I stayed late at the teachers'' meeting today, but that''s no reason to make noise during class. Bivitz, the head teacher, is looking for you. What have you done?


    "It''s a secret." I replied, picking up my briefcase and rising from my chair. "Steven, if I don''t come back alive from this meeting, I''ll leave you my seat. Pray there for me."


    With these words I left the room, ignoring the staring eyes of my classmates. I wasn''t planning to come back here. The meeting with the head teacher ended with our mutual pleasure. He got a thousand dollars, and I got papers in my new name that testify to eight years of schooling.


    After leaving Winslow school, I went straight to Arcadia school. There I too went not to the Director, and to his Deputy on educational work Eliza Cassan. My desire to transfer to this school was received without enthusiasm. But only until I expressed a desire to help the school financially, perhaps even directly to its best employees.


    To my surprise, Eliza did not demand a bribe for herself, but went with this idea to the Director. He looked through the documents, looked at me appraising look, and asked not such a huge amount of thirty thousand dollars. I could afford that. That''s about what I collected last night. These drug dealers are the real high roller.


    In the end, I was puzzled by the need to pass exams in basic subjects, promising to issue textbooks and a list of topics for testing after paying the bill. After meeting with the Director, I went to the accounting Department, where I dumped in front of the shocked cashier a whole bunch of money in small bills. I have this waste paper almost the entire portfolio was packed.


    Replacing enough pile of money to the solid weight of the books, I left this temple of knowledge. The exam was scheduled for tomorrow morning, so I still had time to prepare.


    My next stop was the real estate Agency. There I just through half of the day the convulsive ravings workers bought a good kennel with a view to my new school. I also paid in cash, and a couple of small bribes allowed bureaucrats to close their eyes to the fact that the new owner of the property is a underage. I''m not afraid to spend money for two reasons. First, easy come-easy gone. And secondly, who knows how I do in this world will be. Maybe tomorrow I will be pulled by the Being out of the body, and my money cried.


    Till the evening I was engaged in moving and improvement of the new living space. Well at least it was sold with furniture, and I had to buy only a bed and a couple of chairs. After lying for a couple of hours on the new bed, I went on a night patrol. Revenge to the PRT in my mind is not yet ripe, so I decided to continue cleanings, for one to gain reputation.


    This time I decided to take a walk not in the docks, but in the southern part of the city, where the wealthiest segments of the population lived. Frolic in the centre I have not yet risked, knowing that there are a lot of observers. In addition, street lighting did not allow to hide with the same efficiency as on the outskirts. I haven''t been ready to cut out dozens of masks yet. No, in General, I rated my opportunities as quite high, but it took me a while to get used to them. My symbiont need time to be able to achieve at least relative maturity.


    Unlike the docks, the southern business district was extremely boring. Identical two-storey houses with several apartments. Mandatory lawn in front of each house and a few trees in the backyard. Autumn has long come into its own, and the leaves of the trees flew around, making the crown more transparent. With shelters here was a little difficult, so I preferred to sit on the roofs, moving fast jumps from one house to another.


    To my surprise, I didn''t see any heroes today. They probably all tried to catch me at the docks. Good luck them. The catch here was thinner, but the bigger fish themselves. Local drug dealers had enough money. Today I didn''t just kill everyone, and still have previously questioned, trying to enter the warehouse more. One of the drug couriers told me about the drug warehouse behind which the Empire stood. Now I was sitting with my informant on the roof of a nearby building and scanning a suspected drug dealer base.


    It looked like a normal two-storey mansion drug dealers. Half of the building was residential. There now lived a married couple. But the second half was rather a cross between the office and the warehouse. And there are three caches I found over a hundred kilos of various drugs. It was powders and pills and dried grass and other unidentifiable shit.


    "So who do you say runs this warehouse?" I asked the hostage again. He did not say anything like that, but he had to know the answer to this question.


    "This Is the warehouse of the Empire. Now there is running the Night and Fog. They like themselves, but the goods are taken from the Imperials and sell them. According to science, this is called a small wholesale warehouse."


    "Are you an economist?" I glanced at the slender figure.


    "I graduated from economic College. My mother forced me to go there. Said I''d become a banker. And as I learned, it turned out that economists are not needed, because the economy is in a coma because of the attacks of the Behemots and villains. I had to retrain as a pizza guy. And then a friend offered to work on the delivery of drugs."


    "You don''t have to tell me about your shitty life. Well, you held up your end of the bargain. You have a chance for a second life. And now you''re quietly getting out of here and getting out of the drug business. If I catch you doing this again, I''ll tear you apart as your client. And don''t you dare tell anyone about me or call anyone. If the cops or the Empire arrive here, you will die long and with a lot of unforgettable sensations."


    Guy doomed swallowed and nodded. I let him down and watched him run away at full speed. Well, let''s see what kind of masks live here.


    I darted forward and stood in front of the window of the room on the second floor. A slight telekinetic effort pushed the locks away, and the window flew open, letting in the cold autumn air. As I flew in, I closed the window and began to plan silently above the staircase leading to the first floor. The married couple somehow immediately found out about my invasion and watched the passage, which I was not slow to appear.


    Black cloak, glowing scarlet light demonic mask and a light fog of darkness did not allow to doubt who visited them.


    "Black Cloak." - Squeezed out a Fog with indeterminate terms of a set of of emotions in voice.


    "Night and Fog." Replied "I think, you already understood, why I am here?"


    I''m not a fan of all this heartwarming talk in front of the Grand battle, but I wanted to check what I stand against a prepared opponents who knows my intentions. The Moist on the base of a Merchants I have torn to shreds, not even noticing the presence of his forces. I didn''t even know which of the bastards in there was Cape. I guess I killed him first, so he didn''t even have time to use his power. They say he had purple skin. I just sat behind the dumpster and perceived enemies by "touch". So I just couldn''t tell the difference between him and the others. And he has garbage power rating, somewhere in the area of the three. Now I was going to fight with two very dangerous masks, which were considered among the strongest in the Empire Eighty-Eight.


    "Do you think that you able to kill two of us?" - Fog released forward, covering Night.


    "I think the only question is can you entertain me, or you will die like miserable losers begging for mercy."


    "Do you, by the way, not embarrassed by the fact that we are not masked?"


    "Not at all. I don''t care about all these your games of heroes and villains. In addition, I am going to kill you not for the fact that you are masks, but for the fact that you are selling drugs. How did you even think of organizing a warehouse in your home? All drug dealers have seen you by sight."


    "We said that we rent half of the house from a couple. And certainly no one saw how we change clothes."


    "Heh. And here you really screwed up. I was not one hundred percent sure that you are masks and are related to drugs. But your reaction betrayed you headlong."


    "No, in fact, we are a peaceful married couple, not having any relation to all this paranormal nonsense." - Intervened in our conversation Night.


    "Tha ha ha. And you pranksters. But you should rehearse your speech. In the next world."


    I decided that I had already laughed enough, and it was time to start on the massacre. Snatching a bouquet of flowers from a vase, I tried to bring him down on the head of the Fog, but he unexpectedly deftly dodged.


    "Maybe we go out into the yard? I do not want to carry our home." He offered, grabbing flowers and thrusting them back into the vase.


    "I think ... no. Your money caches are perfectly protected, and bills will not be affected, even if I collapse the entire building. Better start resisting, otherwise I won''t even remember when I come to lay flowers on your common grave.


    "Actually, we indicated in the will that we should be buried separately." - Again made an "important" remark Night.


    "I do not think that they will succeed. I will grind your bodies to a state of puree, and then pour it into that barrel. I think there is a real chance that your remains will lie in it for a long time. No one will look for a corpse in such an inappropriate place."


    I specifically turned in the direction of the specified piece of furniture depicting a "pirate table." This moment Fog used to evaporate. In his form of fog from immediately tried to fill the whole room. At the same time, the Night turned into something shapeless and many-faced. But I was most interested in what happens with their symbionts.


    And with them everything was very interesting. The combat form of the Night was in fact her symbiote in this reality. They literally exchanged places. While the symbiote frolicked in our world, the Night was hiding at that level of multidimensionality, where these creatures usually lived. From this followed her invulnerability of the girl in this state, and even a return to the initial state upon receiving injuries, and then wrapping back and forth.


    The symbiont did not move her, "shifting" in the right direction, but every time it literally recreated her anew. The night "on the wrong side of the world" was a kind of information copy used for its subsequent materialization here. And this copy partially continued to exist, even when it was in this world. The reason why she could not turn to combat form when someone was looking at her was also interesting. Symbiont had in his mind a clear statement "not to appear to people''s sight," which it literally performed.


    I realized all this, feeling the Cape with my telekinetic tentacles. Despite all my experience, the manipulation of multidimensionality was still a mystery to me. So I had to set up experiments, and then observe them, "discovering" new dimensions of the surrounding world. And I must say that these measurements were slightly more than plenty of. I have already counted a half dozen.


    Fog and Night rushed forward in an attempt to reach me, and I met them with the tentacles of my symbiote. The problem with the fog was solved quite simply. He tritely sprayed himself into separate cells, each of which was ruled by a separate tentacle of his symbiont. To some extent, this resembled as telekinesis, which acts only on its own body. And since my telekinesis was much stronger, the fog stopped a meter away from me.


    With the Night again, surprises arose. Not that she completely ignored the effects of tentacles, but they, like all normal symbionts, were in a shift with respect to the material world. A symbiot of the Night was here and now, so that the impact on it was extremely remote.


    Apparently, these creatures possessed some immunity to each other''s abilities, because telekinesis could not stop the creature, but only slowed it down. However, this was enough to get out of the blow. I struck the wall with my back and was in another room. The night continued to haunt me, but got to the edge of the fog, where it stopped, not wanting to return to human form. The fog stubbornly pressed forward, apparently not understanding what it was holding him. Shreds of white haze seeped through the cracks and ventilation, but I already instructed the symbiont to automatically track the movement of the enemy and not allow it to me closer than a meter.


    The night was quite an interesting experimental model, and therefore I decided to deal with the Fog first of all. My pyrokinesis could not be called strong, but it was definitely powerful. I could "set on fire" only a small amount of space, but the temperature there rose above a thousand degrees, plus the heating rate of matter was extremely high. So I created a small plasma ball, and then I began to telekinesis to drive through the trickle of fog.


    After a second, Fog jerked and tried to escape, but then I grabbed him "by the scruff", holding literally every cell in his body. There was an agonizing cry, and then part of the fog was able to condense and form the head and lungs.


    "Stop! Do not kill me."


    "You would think about it earlier" I noticed with indifference, tracking the movements of the Night with my strength. "Or did you not know that drugs kill people, turning them into living animals?" And now I''m killing you. All honest. Eye for an eye."


    At that moment, Night tried to attack me from behind, breaking through the wall of the house. That''s just my telekinesis did not act only on her. The wall of the house completely obeyed me. So, when she went into the hole about half, the scattering fragments and pieces of the walls around it suddenly stuck to the body of the symbiote, depriving it of any mobility. The maximum that the Night was now capable of is to scrape her paws along the floor. Reliably having fixed it, I returned my attention to the Fog.


    "Get back to your body, or I''ll burn you drop by drop." - He nodded and took his normal appearance under my strict control. On his naked body were visible ulcers. Apparently, the cells I had destroyed should have been there. "Frankly, you disappointed me." I delivered my verdict. "The strongest masks of the Empire, and such a shame. You even could not touch me."


    The night made another attempt to rush forward, but only achieved that her feet broke the floor, sweeping the floor into pieces.


    "What do you want?"- croaked Fog.


    "It seems that we have already found out? I''m going to carry out the sentence I gave you."


    "And why didn''t you kill me yet?"


    "You are so funny. Your ability ... surprised me. Therefore, I will allow you to live until I finish experimenting with you all kinds of inhuman experiments."


    The night again made an attempt to free itself, but did not succeed in this. Here, she turned into a human body and tried to slip into the holes between the rubble, but I was on the alert, and immediately grabbed her real body with telekinesis, clinging it to construction debris in one go.


    "Do not rush." I scolded her, turning and looking into a distorted face of fear. "We have a whole night ahead. And then, I, as promised, will bury you together in a barrel."


    Feigned fear was replaced by maniacal anger, which I completely ignored. As soon as I turned away, Night tried again to take on a fighting form, but found that she did not succeed. I tenaciously held every cell of the body, and its symbiote simply could not enter into a sufficiently tight interaction to "dematerialize" the physical body of its host. This time she felt a real fear, as I sense from her, and I quite smiled. Retribution is inevitable.


    An hour before dawn, I poured the dust of two masks into a barrel, which I then carefully sealed and filled with wax. I had to burn down both capes, because otherwise the symbionts refused to admit defeat. But as soon as it became clear that the owners had died, these creatures relaxed and allowed my pet to devour themselves without a trace. Tellingly, this did not add to me either strength or new abilities. But on the other hand, the symbiote gained a little more intelligence and awareness. Now I understand why masks that kill other masks quickly go crazy. Their symbiote becomes stronger and begins to manage its owner. I guess I should become a pacifist until I study this issue more thoroughly.


    The study of the two masks was entertaining, but the only benefit from this was only the new ability to "drag" my symbiont''s tentacles into the material world. They looked, as normal tentacles, like black wet tentacles. These limbs could interact with objects as the most common tentacles - wrapping them around and moving in space. It is difficult to say why I needed this trick, but it didn''t seem superfluous. If I suddenly encounter someone who ignores my telekinesis, I can always swaddle him with quite material tentacles. True, this prospect was not very pleased with the symbiont, because the loss of limbs was unpleasant for it.


    I got out of the house accompanied by two safes, where was cash for a couple of millions. I burned the drugs, and on the wall I scribbled the inscription: "Night and Fog lived here. Here they died in wild torment. Black Cloak ".


    Looking around, I rushed headlong to my home, gaining height to hide in low clouds. I needed not just to get into the apartment, but also quietly carry there two not the smallest safes. Well at least I live on the penultimate floor. So, I managed to descend from the sky with a shapeless lump of darkness and fly into the window, which, in my capacity, was not difficult to open. I hope no one noticed me.


    There was little time, so I immediately fell asleep. The exam was supposed to start at ten in the morning. It takes about ten minutes to go to school for. I set the alarm at half past nine and literally passed out right away. And characteristically, nightmares did not torment me.


    I slept a little less than four hours, but I felt pretty decent. Quickly rinsed under a shower and brushing my teeth, I rushed to school. On the street there was a little nasty rain. The temperature was about eight degrees, so there was no desire to linger in the open air. After running the distance in five minutes, I entered the school a minute before the official start of the exam. Fortunately, the teachers were just getting ready.


    I sat at the central desk, putting the briefcase with textbooks on the next table across the aisle. It was obvious to every person that I would not be able to use the contents of the backpack imperceptibly. There were textbooks issued to me yesterday, so that the teacher stuck her nose in there and put it off without giving it a bluff.


    Just yesterday, while realtors were busy with making a flat deal, I trained to read books using telekinesis. Remembering my first training with the chakra, I made the symbiont learn to distinguish between different chemicals by touch. And then I had to train him to perceive each sheet of the book separately, on another from both sides. So, after three hours, I could surely read a closed book, lying a couple of meters away from me. To search for information, I used the table of contents at the beginning and the index at the end of the book.


    During the exam, I used my cheat sheets to the full. Fortunately, there was no literature in the list of exams. To pass it, I would actually have to read a bunch of books. And the questions on all the other exact sciences, I cracked like nuts. Moreover, my stock of knowledge from the first life allowed me to navigate well in the school curriculum of this world.


    In an hour and a half, I finished filling out all the tests, for which three hours were initially allocated. Ten minutes later I was told that I scored 412 points out of 500, which is enough to get me enrolled in the elite class, where the Wards studied. I was told to come tomorrow at the beginning of the first lesson, after which I was kicked out of the classroom.


    I did not get upset by such boorish attitude, but went home. Along the way, my eyes caught on the sign of the bank, and I decided to visit it to find out the conditions for opening an account. Keeping all the money in the safe was somewhat imprudent. Still, I am at home quite rarely, and they can rob me corny. In this case, even a couple of thousand in the bank will help stretch until the moment I again knock out a money from someone. The only problem was that I was a minor, and therefore opening an account should be in the name of the mother, who would automatically get full access to him, which I absolutely did not like.


    When I entered the bank, I was surprised by the spacious hall and a large number of people. On the overall, there were about thirty to forty of them. They stood in line to different windows, filling most of the room.


    - How can I help you? - Appealed to me pretty girl in the form of a bank employee.


    - I would like to open a personal account.


    - Do you already have a passport?


    - Yes.


    - Then we can offer you a child account opening. It can store no more than a thousand dollars, and there are restrictions on operations, but you can open it without the participation of parents. If you are interested, you can contact window number eleven for more information.


    I looked at the indicated window and saw that there was a queue of all of a couple of people standing towards him.


    - Yes thank you.


    I, having seen all this crowd, was already going to come in another time, but taking into account the size of the queue, it was possible to wait a bit. Squeezing to the window, I began to look around the room. Nearby there was a reception desk with bright advertisements advertising various types of investment of money and loans. It was just boring to stand, and I had already decided to go up and take a couple of leaves of waste paper, as a loud sound distracted me.


    The doors leading to the bank''s interior opened wide and three huge creatures the size of a horse jumped out. If someone has not seen horses, then I explain - this is such a healthy fool more than two meters high. And these animals were much more muscular, plus had a hefty toothed mouth. A second later, streams of darkness poured through the doors into the room, and I switched to perception through telekinesis.


    Of course, this was the team of the Undersiders. I neutralized all the tendencies of foreign tentacles in my direction, sat down on a high stool and tuned in to watch what was happening. My trip to the bank had covered me, so I could afford to have some fun.


    After a few seconds of darkness, which did not bother me at all, a huge number of insects flew into the hall. I casually pushed them away with telekinesis, while interrupting the contact of nearby insects at the same time the tentacles that controlled them. I did not want to disclose my presence. Therefore I decided to display the superpower of neutralizing other people''s superpowers, effective only in close proximity to my body.


    After another five seconds, when the crowd had already begun to panic, pushing and shoving each other, there was a loud female voice.


    "Fifteen minutes, and then we leave. Stay still, keep quiet, and we will leave even before time runs out." Darkness of Grue subsided, left hanging on the windows, and people stopped for a moment to pay attention to the millions of insects that filled the entire hall. - "You can write a claim to the police and then continue your regular day. This is not a movie, this is not a TV show. If you are thinking of becoming a hero, don''t be silly. You will either suffer, or someone else will suffer because of you."


    The crowd was ready to burst into mournful lamentations and cries for help when I decided to intervene.


    "Well, who robs the way you do?" - I exclaimed loudly, attracting surprised looks of robbers and hostages. - "You had to break in through the main entrance, take out the brains of a pair of hostages with a shotgun, and then start beating the manager''s head to the table, in an attempt to extract codes and passwords from it. And what are you doing instead? Ugh, amateurs."


    Surprisingly, my speech made everyone present calm down. Bank visitors thought about how lucky they were that this bank wasn''t robbed by me? The Undersiders, on the other hand, were frozen in shock, trying to figure out who I was, or at least what I was.


    "Who the fuck are you?" hissed the Bitch? But I knew her name from official documents was "Hell Hound".


    "Just a hostage." I waved, smiling widely. "Don''t pay attention to me. It is interesting to me too how this will end."


    The girl with the dog mask who had seen my smile moved forward called her back.


    "Bitch, follow me. Regent, take care of them."


    Hell Hound reluctantly obeyed, heading to one of the doors next to Grue.


    "Hmm... My power does not work on him¡­." exclaimed the surprised Regent.


    "Same thing here..." - added Tattletale. "I can''t read any information from him."


    A swarm of insects rushed toward me, like before. When they flew too close, they fell out of her control and flew away in fear. I just had to help them a little with telekinesis.


    "My ability is the neutralization of abilities acting against me. It''s amazing when no-one can do anything to stop you, and opposite I can''t do nothing too"


    A short chuckle from one of the hostages caught my attention. It came from a freckled girl with curly brown hair. Just by looking at her, I immediately recognized Panacea - the very purpose of my visit to the Arkady school. I looked away, for I didn''t want to reveal my intentions. Instead I glanced at the dark Grue, whose emotions were conveyed by the form of the black fog emanating from him. I swear, I got the impression that I was watching anime, where such techniques were widespread.


    There was an awkward pause that I felt compelled to interrupt, with a question:


    "So are you gonna rob yourselves a bank? Or am I so handsome that you forgot about it? Fine, let me introduce myself. Eros Ramazotti, wandering comedian."


    "You look like it. The guy has a point though, get busy." - Commanded the Grue.


    Bitch, Bug and Tattletale were snatched into one of the rooms where the entrance to the secure vault was located. In my opinion, there was not enough money. Thousand fifty small bills. Grue and Regent remained to control the situation in the hall.


    After a couple of minutes, Grue was called, and he disappeared through the same door. Tattletale managed to open the vault, and now the three of them have gutted its contents. The bitch stood keeping eye out, gazing gloomily at the hall.


    Five minutes later, most of the contents of the repository migrated into three bags attached to one of the dogs. The robbers climbed into the common room, looking anxiously into the cracks in the darkened windows. They had something to worry about. On the street there were six heroes in shining armor, while another was hiding on the roof. Apparently, there were the Wards - a gathering of juvenile criminals under the patronage of the Protectorate. In the future, they had to assume the responsibility of concealing the truth, letting dust in people''s eyes and depicting active heroic activities that no real obstruct to the villains.


    Undersiders began to whisper about something among themselves. I was too far away to hear them, and I was too lazy to use force to eavesdrop. And so it was clear that now they are shifting the blame on each other and trying to figure out what to do next.


    "We have hostages." - said Bitch. - "If you come in here, my dogs will eat one of them right before your eyes. So back the off!"


    This warning made the captives freeze in fear,. Anxious, they devoured with their eyes the three monstrous canines. The ones Bitch controlled and could enhance any way she wanted. They wondered which of them would devour them in the truest sense of the word.


    The Undersiders weren''t joking around anymore. They gathered about a dozen hostages and kicked out them out of the bank onto the street. After a few seconds, Bitch, Grue, and Regent, along with the dogs, jumped out after him, engaging in battle with the Wards. The Cockroach and Tattletale remained inside, watching what was happening outside through the thinning darkness on the windows.


    "I see you have a newcomer." - I turned to the Tattletale, who was actively mucking on a computer. - "What is the name of this girl with all the bugs?"


    "I am the Queen of the Zerg." - Replied the aforementioned figure in black, surrounded by buzzing creatures. - "What is your name?" - She turned to me for a moment to look at the unreadable look behind the mask, and then turned back to the window.


    "I already said - Eros Ramazotti."


    "Sure, sure. I meant what''s your name when you''re in a mask? The cooler name."


    "I don''t have a mask." I answered carelessly, swinging my legs. "My abilities aren''t very useful, and I have no desire to put on these stupid costumes. Jumping over the roofs at night... bringing retribution in the name of the Moon... That''s not my sort of thing. And so everything''s good to me as it is."


    This time I won the doubting views of all those present. Apparently, the idea that the owner of even the most insignificant superpowers does not want to become a hero or a villain, pretty much broke their worldview pattern. In that regard, the hostages did not differ from the robbers.


    The next five minutes in the bank, nothing happened. From the street came the sounds of battle: shouts, growls, shots, blows of massive objects on the walls, in general, people continue had fun as they can. Tattletale, stopped raping the computer and rushed towards the interior of the bank.


    "It remains to do something else. I''ll be back soon. Look after here for everyone." - She threw the bewildered Queen Zerg.


    "What? No ... Tattletale! Hell!" - It seemed to me that in the voice of the robber flashed notes of despair. She again rushed to the window, and then, the chaos of the battle reached us.


    Something echoed loudly, and one of the windows shattered to smithereens. Fortunately, the fragments flew close, just falling asleep a couple of meters of floor. The darkness covering the doorway dissipated, and flashes of light appeared.


    To my surprise, the Zerg Queen paused and almost stretched out on the floor, clutching her head. I did not see any external damage to her. But using the force, I noticed how several threads connecting the Queen Zerg''s symbiote with Panacea are pulsating. Apparently, she did something with the insects planted on her. Overpowering herself, the robber rushed to another part of the hall, peering through the windows.


    I continued to monitor the situation in the district, and therefore I managed to notice how Aegis used something like a light-noise grenade. I immediately closed my eyes, and created darkness under my eyelids, and cover myself up with telekinesis, in order not to go blind or deaf.


    As if taking the blast as a signal, Panacea abruptly pulled away from the spot and rushed behind the bar. The emboldened hostages, too, rushed to somewhere, trying to escape from the hall. The Zerg Queen was too busy trying to cope with the effects of the explosion to notice this. At that moment, the Grue and the Regent finally dealt with Kid Win. The Queen of the Zergs giggled disgustingly, watching this, and completely ignoring what was happening behind her back.


    "What''s so funny, psycho?" - Asked Panacea, waving a fire extinguisher. It turns out that she was looking for it behind the bar.


    The blow threw the robber to the side. But she managed to dodge slightly, and therefore remained with a whole skull. A small cat fight ensued, in which the victims were a fire extinguisher and a telephone, for some unknown reason, pulled out by a Panacea.


    "What have you done to me?" I heard the cry of the Queen Zerg.


    I decided to intervene and save Panacea when another character appeared on the scene. Having broken a window, a girl flew into the hall. As soon as she appeared, her symbiont''s tentacles literally dug into the heads of others. I almost effortlessly repelled the encroachments in my address and jumped off the stool, going to walk to this strange company.


    Apparently, having recognised the newcomer, the Queen of the Zerg whipped out a knife and put it to Panacea''s throat, going behind her back.


    "It looks like we''re at a dead end." Powerlessly noticed the heroine, not taking off her eyes from sparkling blade, which was in dangerous proximity to the carotid artery.


    "Right." Queen Zerg answered, clutching the hostage to herself, as if she wished to mate with her ... or lay eggs in her.


    "Why don''t you relax?" I intervened in the confrontation of intense views. "Why are you risking your life here at all? For the money that Bitch''s dogs has already dragged to the docks? Or maybe for the sake of fame and honor?


    "Do not come!" - Queen Zerg once again squeezed Panacea by her breast, and I took it as a challenge - she attacked my prey.


    "What are you afraid of? Your abilities already not working. I can hardly make it worse."


    "So that''s the matter" I heard the voice of Tattletale behind my back. "Panacea ... how could I miss her?"


    "Do not come close." This time the heroine threatened, clearly taking Tattletale as the enemy. At my relation, she has not yet decided, embarrassed by the reaction of the Queen Zerg.


    "I forgot to ask you, Glory Hole."


    "So is that her name?" - I was delighted. - "She obviously did not read comics. After the epic appearance, the mask should loudly and clearly introduce herself so that everyone present knows how to ask for help or beg for mercy. Admit it, it''s not very convenient to shout something like: Hey you, help me."


    "Shut up!" This time the expression in the voice of the heroine just went through the roof. - "My name is Glory Girl." In a fit of feelings, she struck the table next to her, smashing the marble countertop into the rubble.


    "Huh! And I am Eros Ramazzotti, a wandering comedian."


    "And why does it seems to me that ''wandering comedian'' is your name as a mask?" - muttered the Queen of the Zerg. I just laughed at such a statement.


    "So what are we going to do?" - Intervened in the conversation Tattletale. "We have a hostage, and if you attack us, then Panacea will die with a slit on throat."


    "If she suffers, then you all will die with a far more painful and prolonged death. So I suggest you all lie down on the floor, put your hands behind your head and not resist while I kick you."


    "Wow! This lady has all the qualities of BDSM Mistress." I said, once again settling on the table. In such situation, it is better to sit higher to have time to react. For Panacea, I was not afraid, because by telekinesis I controlled the position of the blade.


    "Shut up, it relates to you too." Glory Girl snapped.


    "Why should I be beaten? I am one of the hostages."


    "Then why didn''t you run away with everyone?"


    I looked around the hall and made sure that there was no one left in the bank except for us.


    "Well ... I''m too responsible for that. Without me, you would have killed each other long ago."


    Heroes and villains exchanged glances, silently acknowledging that I was right.


    "But I still think that the two of you are in the greatest danger here." - Again took up Tattletale. "I am a mastermind and can read your minds. If you do not give up, then I will tell everyone about your dirtiest secrets."


    "Ha! Whatever you say here will only increase my fame." Glory Girl replied haughtily.


    "Actually, I meant your sister. After that, she will have to commit suicide."


    Panacea twitched, but the Zerg Queen was alert and prevented her from escaping. A drop of blood appeared on the skin of Panacea.


    "Do not move."


    "Oh, you evil creature!" Glory has turned out. But apart from being able to clench and unclench her fists, she was not capable of anything. However, after a moment, grim determination flashed through her gaze. "There is another solution. I can just kill you all, and then this information will not get anywhere."


    At Panacea, such a proposal did not have a calming effect. She continued trying to break free, but the villain kept her as in a steel grip. Apparently this was her reaction to a worsening headache.


    "Panacea is a lesbian." Began speech Tattletale. "She wants to have sex with Glory Hole, and therefore hates her boyfriend. Therefore, she started healing only because she wants to impress her sister."


    Panacea went limp, and her limp look buried in the ground.


    "Lesbian? Fu-fu." Gave Glory girl. "This is, of course, disgusting, but somehow I will survive. Is that all you wanted to say?" She turned to Tattletale. "I think now is the time to knock out all your brains."


    Glory Girl has already taken a step forward, when I decided to intervene in this pick.


    "What is the funny thing, Glory Girl made her a pervert. She had so long and stubbornly raped her step-sister into her brain with her abilities, that Panacea now, figuratively speaking, had a half-skull hole in her head. Yes, her brain has emerged long ago, and instead of it there are worms of admiration for perfect and ideal Glory are crawling around. And even funnier is that she did it consciously, just trying to find out what would happen."


    My impromptu is clearly a success. The eyes of Panacea and Glory simultaneously widened. I didn''t know if my assumption was true or not, but it didn''t matter. The main thing is what impression these words made on Panacea.


    "I''ll kill you!"


    With a loud cry, Glory rushed toward me, raising her fist and aiming at her head. I elegantly deviated and with swift blow to the jaw sent this fool into a knockout. I was a little cautious, so I didn''t hit very hard. But at the same time I squeezed both carotid arteries to her, so Glory girl crashed to the floor and lost consciousness.


    "I defended myself." I raised both hands up. "And she was going to kill me."


    "Did you knock out Glory with one blow?" Asked the Queen Zerg with shocked expression.


    "I told you that I can neutralize any abilities. So when I hit her, I turned off the shield with a simple touch. In the end, without her superpowers, this is just a spoiled, quarrelsome juvenile bitch.


    "Do not dare to talk about Glory!" Panacea cried out. Tears streamed down her face. Queen Zerg released hug, and the girl collapsed to the floor.


    "It is necessary to kill the insects sitting on her body." Said jumped Tattletale. Panacea did not resist, while the two villains committed on her some kind of manipulation.


    I looked at the drooping Panacea and noticed that even now a thick tentacle comes from the Glory symbiote inside her head. I think it can be used. Now while her world has collapsed, I can take center stage in it.


    "The fact that you are a lesbian, there is nothing irreparable." I said, kneeling before Panacea and touching her face with my hand. A pair of tear-stained eyes stared at me. "You just need to find a normal guy and have sex with him. A couple of weeks of daily fucking, and you will forget that you once dreamed of lesbian games." - From the side of Tattletale there was a laugh. "I can help you with this" - This time there was a laugh from both villains.


    "No" Panacea recoiled.


    "I understand you''re still obsessed with your sister. Let me show you what her power does to you. I can block any ability. Now I will turn off her effects on you."


    I got up, walked around Panacea, and pressed my chest against her back. After that, with a quick movement of the tentacles, I cut the tentacle entering her head and gave the order to the symbiont to add the unattended stump to myself. After a few seconds, the transplant operation was completed, and I gained control of Amy Dallon''s feelings. A few more moments later, the adoration of Glory in her head was replaced by the adoration of me. True, in order not to reveal myself, I set it at the very minimum.


    "Look at her." I pointed to the Glory sprawled on the floor. "What is she?"


    Panacea stared in amazement at her step-sister, seeing her for the first time as she really was.


    "She''s ... ordinary."


    "Exactly. Just a whimsical bitch who likes to rape people''s brains. Her power reflects the fact that she wished worship herself, but at the same time she never had enough qualities to earn that respect." Panacea turned and stared in amazement in my face. "Now you know what she really is, so you can resist her effects. And if you want, I can clear your brain for you."


    Now, watching the face of Panacea straight in front of me, I noticed that in fact she was very cute. Simply, she always hid it behind her aura of loneliness, fatigue and unwillingness to use cosmetics. At the same time with all the pink nonsense that I threw at her, I scanned the symbiont, trying to figure out how she can heal someone at all. Okay, this can then be dealt later. It will be enough to tear off a couple of limbs from someone, and then suggest to Panacea to sew them back.


    I got up and went to Tattletale. She and the Zerg Queen stood at the exit watching us.


    "You are funny." I smiled to them. "If there is a desire to meet, you can call me."


    I offered Tattletale a gilded business card with my name and phone. Yesterday, while I was suffering from boredom at a real estate agency, I ordered a couple of dozen of these. Tattletale looked at me in surprise.


    "What are you trying to flirt with me?" - She asked. The tentacles of her symbiont flickered around, trying to count at least a bit of information from me.


    "Take the card, fool." I whispered in her ear.


    Tattletale bounced back a little, looking at me with round eyes with horror. Her eyes darted from side to side, while her consciousness tried to lay down two plus two on her own, without using superpower. Finally, her eyes settled on the business card, and she grabbed it like a lifeline, after which she quickly hid it in her pocket. I smiled at her with my trademark smile of a crazy maniac, and she startled again.


    "Tattletale , are you coming?" Shouted the Queen of the Zerg, who retreated to exchange a few words with her comrades.


    "Yes ... yes, let''s go."


    The Undersiders gathered in a heap, each of them looked at me suspiciously, and then they jumped on the dogs and hid in the nearest alley, after which the darkness released by Grue flooded the whole neighborhood area.


    I laughed softly and went back to Panacea. My phrase, which caused Tattletale to panic, was said with the same accent and emotions that sounded in her when Tattletale gave her business card to the Queen of Zergs four days ago. I thought about creating my own team, and the Undersiders looked like suitable candidates. Grue was a weak leader, so I chose Tattletale as an agent of influence. Her position is to think a lot and make the right decisions.


    Returning to Panacea, I helped her to move to the couch. The darkness still shrouded us, so that on her own she would not have gotten to it.


    "Don''t you want to help Glory? She is still unconscious." I came on a petition callus, consolidating the conclusions made by my victim.


    "No! I do not want to see her. I ... I ... she thought ... and this creature ¡­" Panacea buried in my shoulder and sobbed. In response, I sat her down on my lap and hugged her tight. Well, the control shot in the head was successful.


    Alas, they did not give me success. Literally ten minutes later, the darkness disappeared, and the police, the PRT and the heroes of the Protectorate descended into the building.


    Panacea was asked to heal the heroes, starting with Glory, but in response, she freaked out and refused to treat at least someone. Five minutes later, Mom Photon flew in and took away her two daughters, not even letting me say goodbye to Amy.


    PRT pushed me, trying to figure out who I was, but I introduced myself as a classmate of Panacea, with whom we had to go on a date. As a confirmation of my words, I presented a school certificate, which I was discharged yesterday. The investigators did not pay attention to the date the document was issued, so they immediately reclassified me from suspects as hostages.


    During the interrogation, I told everything as it was, except that I blamed Undersiders on the state of Glory. I hope this fool is smart enough to keep her mouth shut. Still, she attacked me completely without restraint, and if were an ordinary person in my place, this blow would have spread my brains all over the hall.


    With all this canary, I was released only after six in the evening. Moreover, I was in a state of unsteady so much that I fell asleep, barely getting to the apartment..


    I woke up at one a.m. in the morning, full of strength and desire to break someone into hundreds of small bloody pieces. Anxiety symptom. Therefore, I decided to take a break in the patrol, turned over on the other side and continued to sleep.


    At six in the morning I woke up completely. Having completed morning exercise, I began to train my abilities. I was especially interested in a piece of tentacles stolen from Glory. Although new tentacle got accustomed to the body of my symbiont, only it possessed the ability to influence people''s consciousness. All the rest of my tentacles still showed only the abilities already known to them. Apparently, I will have to treat the trophy with care. The ability to shuffle in the minds of the enemy without killing them is a pretty valuable thing.


    School started at eight in the morning, so I didn''t have to do much experiments. Catching up with a bag of textbooks, I rushed to school. As halfway passed, I remember I don''t have any notebooks or pens with me, but it was too late to rush around in their search.


    At school, they brought me back to the director again, gave me a couple of papers to sign, and then took me to class.


    "Children, as of today, a new student is studying in your class. Introduce yourself."


    "Hello. My name is Eros Ramazzotti. Nice to meet you."


    Amy Dallon, aka Panacea looked at me with bulging eyes. Victoria Dallon, aka Glory blinked, burning her eyes with hatred. I smiled smugly at both of them, after which I took a seat not far from Panacea.


    Communication with the kids was fun. After the first lesson at recess, Panacea approached me, and a little shyly asked:


    "Can you do it again?" She was obviously referring to the tentacle of Glory, which again brazenly poked her head.


    "Of course." I smiled, then pulled Amy to me and kissed. There were enthusiastic and angry cries all around.


    In the meantime, I amputated one more tentacle from Glory, to which she jerked as if from a current discharge. Surrounding blamed her on jealousy of her sister, and I just mockingly smirked, looking Victoria in the eye. Amy followed my gaze, saw a grimace on her sister''s face, and instead of pushing me away or slapping me, she clung to me and kissed me. This time the enthusiastic cries were accompanied by envious. Hehe hehe.


    I managed to quickly integrate into the local society, especially since I saw perfectly who is the mask, and therefore immediately adjusted to the presence of an already established company. I think it''s quite natural for the Wards to stick together.


    Yesterday''s story of a bank robbery and my participation in it also became public. I didn''t hide the presence of my superpower, but insisted that I didn''t want to be either a villain or a hero. The people groaned, gasped, but did not climb into my soul.


    After the end of classes, the whole company decided to celebrate my admission, visiting a cafe. Amy ignored Victoria all day, which was already the reason for the rumors, especially considering the scene of jealousy and kiss. Using telekinesis, I overheard the story that Glory was secretly in love with me, but I preferred her sister to her. And now the girls are at loggerheads, and Glory, although angry at me, has not yet left her hope of sleeping with me behind the Gallant''s back. He also heard these fabrications and was not delighted with them.


    But no matter how the passions raged in personal relationships, the company as a whole kept together, so we got to the party with the whole crowd. Sitting at a long table, we began to make orders. I offered to order anything with a broad gesture, promising to pay for the entire company, in which I unexpectedly competed with Din Stansfield, who until now had been the only one who could shuffle in this way. As a result, we agreed that we would pay the bill equally for two.


    The conversations were on various topics, and the already famous Black Cloak soon surfaced. True, there was a specific discussion here, because the majority of those present were members of the Wards, and therefore adhered to the official position of the PRT.


    "Something I do not heard any news about the Black Cloak for the second day" - Noticed Dennis, known to the public as Clockblocker.


    "Actually, the night before he killed Night and Fog." - Dean noticed.


    "What?" All those present except for me turned his head and stared in amazement at Dean.


    "How did you know?" - Carlos''s hoarse voice rang out. In it I recognized Aegis, who yesterday brought a lot of problems to the Undersiders.


    "Well ... uh-uh ... these are rumors." - Dean somehow excused . It became clear that he overheard it somewhere on the base of the PRT.


    "Damn! Night and Fog were very strong masks. Eight rating. And he killed them so that no one knew about it?" - Chris was surprised, he is Kid Win, who lost most of his equipment yesterday.


    "I read on the Internet that an inscription appeared on one of the houses in the southern part of the city that Black Cloak killed Night and Fog there." The girl with glasses reported. She had no strength, and got into this company most likely because of the beautiful body. From time to time almost all the guys looked at her, except for Dean.


    "Well, on the fence is also written." - Kid Win replied discontentedly, switching to a vase with ice cream.


    "And there was a drug store in this house."


    "Huh, then this is more like the truth."


    The participants looked at each other, assessing the news.


    "And tonight what happened?"


    "Nothing. Not even a single death has been recorded." Again enlighten all Dean.


    "Maybe he died? Or overstrained in a battle with masks?" I introduced my five cents.


    "About the death is unlikely. But if he was wounded, then he is healing in secluded place." - Dennis supported my idea. - "Or maybe he has a day off."


    "Yeah, religion forbids killing on Thursdays." My phrase caused a few dark laughs.


    Then my phone rang, and with surprise I pulled it out of the case. Who could it be? I only gave my number to Tattletale. The number was naturally unfamiliar, because the notebook on the phone was empty.


    "Hello, a wandering comedian on the phone."


    "Eros, we need your help." A breathless voice sounded from the tube.


    "To whom is it?" I clarified.


    "Undersiders" Tattletale justified my worst hopes. It was her voice that came from the phone.


    "Are you sure calling right address?" - I doubted.


    "This is Bakuda."


    "Who?"


    "Bakuda. Lung''s girlfriend from ABB. She took people hostage, implanting bombs at them, and is now sending them on us, undermining everything and everyone at every opportunity."


    Dean, sitting on my right hand, also listened to the conversation, catching every word. Well, apparently, I will have to help. True, how can I help them in my role as Eros? I can provide only moral support. However, here I have a crowd of superheroes. So I will let them help.


    "Where are you?"


    "Depot, north of the docks. Here ... a lot of vaults or garages, I do not know how they are called correctly. In general, if you focus on the explosions, you will definitely find us."


    "I''ll think of what can I do. But honestly, my options are limited."


    "Got it."


    Tattletale hung up, and I looked at the audience, staring at me with open mouths.


    "Who was that?" Could not resist Kid Win.


    "Undersiders" I did not deny the obvious. Dean heard the whole conversation to the last word.


    "Do you communicate with the Undersiders?"


    "No. Yesterday I gave them my business card. I have a habit of giving business cards to those who laugh or interest me."


    "And what did they need from you?"


    "I did not understand. Tattletale said that someone named as Bakuda took people as hostage, put bombs in them and now sending them to enemies, using as Banelings."


    "Banelings? What is it?"


    "These are such units in a computer game. They explode upon contact with the enemy."


    "We are not talking about games, but about living people." - Carlos was outraged.


    "Well, now you know as much as I do, for the most part..." The masked ones silently exchanged glances, united by their common secret. I looked at Dean: "Do you have the phone number of one of the Guardians?" I hinted transparently.


    "Well, actually, we do," he admitted.


    "Then I propose to go home and call the heroes. And then let them do whatever they like."


    "Why should we go?" The girl in glasses said, surprised. Sharing her confusion, the others looked at each other. They weren''t sure about this. I began a new explanation:


    "Those who wish can stay here himself, but I will personally go to the depot. Since I was invited to take part in this, not seeing everything with my own eyes just doesn''t feel right."


    "I''m with you." Panacea grabbed my arm.


    "¡­ Good," I replied after a short pause.


    I got up from the table, and everyone else began to gather too.


    "Tell the Wards that I will wait for them near the school in fifteen minutes."


    "Good," Dean nodded with a small grin.


    We quickly paid our due and fled from there. Fifteen minutes later, I and Panacea stood near the back door of the school. Aegis and Glory Girl descended from the sky. After another minute, Gallant, Clockblocker and Kid Win came out of school. Two more heroes who yesterday fought with the Undersiders were not with us.


    "How will we get to the depot?" Gallant asked.


    "We take a bus?" I joked.


    He did not pick up on the joke. "Too long."


    "You are so boring." - I sighed. - "Anyways, if the PRT does not have its own transport, then you can take a taxi. Aegis and Glory Girl can fly there themselves. Surely, by the time we get to the place, they will be knitting them all." - Glory lifted her nose. - "Or they will wander about the territory, looking for something incomprehensible."


    "Maybe you know what to look for?" - Glory rebelled, for once admitting the fact of my existence next to her.


    I shrugged indifferently and, accompanied by Panacea, went to the taxi stand. Yesterday I had seen at least three cars waiting for customers there. The Wards caught up with us in half a minute. As I suggested, Glory Girl and Aegis flew forward, leaving us to travel on our own.


    "How did you guess that I am a mask?" - Gallant turned to me.


    "I told you that I have the ability to block other people''s abilities acting on me?" - Knight nodded. - "From the first second of our meeting, I felt your attempts to get into my brain."


    "Sorry." - Down the Gallant. - "These abilities act on their own."


    "But only you and your girlfriend strive to get into the brains of others. Nevermind. You better tell me what the PRT leadership is thinking about our outing?"


    "Nothing. They do not know."


    "I get what you mean. What, even Aegis decided to hide everything?"


    "He said that for the time nothing is known exactly. As soon as he is convinced of the presence of danger, he will immediately contact the leader."


    "Well, let''s hope this helps."


    Taxi drivers, who saw our company, were a little astonished. And having learned that we are talking about going to the docks to fight the villains, two of the three refused to go anywhere at all. As a result, I, Panacea, Kid Win, Clockblocker and Gallant crammed into one car, which was piloted by a courageous Indian, a former cab driver. From the way he drove I though he never even suspected that his car had brakes.


    But in the end, we got to the place like a breeze. Trinity boys fit in the back seat, and I sat on the front seat with Panacea on my knees, confusing her with my erection. And what? I''m not iron. And besides, it''s all part of my insidious plan.


    Getting out of the car near the station, we passed through the deserted streets. The closure of the port had had a negative effect on the city''s transportation system. Without the flow of goods, the channels became useless as the transport company did not want to spend money on them anymore. Without transport, the refinery was finally shut down. They say that with the last money the plant owners hired assassins to kill the entire management staff of the company managing the railways. They allegedly wanted to buy the plant for a pittance, for which purpose they specifically put the railroad in disrepair. As a result, some were blown up, others were sent to jail, others went bankrupt themselves, and a good third of the city fell into neglect.


    Now we were walking along the street, the pavement on which was in an amazing state of preservation, if only we did not consider heaps of garbage inflicted by the wind and homeless. Transportation did not go here, and the roads are well preserved. In the rest of the city, they have long been broken, as there was never enough money for repairs.


    Glory and Aegis descended from sky right in front of us.


    "Found something?" - I asked.


    "No." - Aegis shook his head.


    "Okay, then I''ll call our informants. And do not try to eavesdrop."


    "You''re hiding something?" - Astonished Gallant.


    "Of course. At least the position of the informals. They hit you pretty well yesterday, and I don''t want to be the reason for your attempts to take revenge. Otherwise, the next time when the villains will kill civilians, neither I nor you will know about it."


    All those present frowned, and Kid Win turned away in general, portraying offended pride. I went to the next lane and called the saved number.


    "Hello, Eros?"


    "And who did you expect?"


    "Damn, my power is not working on you, and I feel as if I''m talking to myself."


    "Where are you? Or rather, where are Bakuda and the hostages?"


    "We are not far from the elevator. We were surrounded on all sides, but we were able to hide. I do not know, however, how long we can hide from them."


    "It''s funny. Homeless people are hiding in the docks so that no police raid can find them. Lock yourself in some room, and pretend that you are dead drunk. And who the fuck will find you."


    "Well, we almost did. But we can not sit here forever. We need food and water."


    "So you can stay alive couple days, and where is Bakuda?"


    "Yes exactly. She settled south of us in the premises of a factory where plastic objects created or something similar. There she gathered her followers from the ABB and some hostages. The rest of the hostages are sitting closer to the docks or looking for us. About once every fifteen minutes, she blows up one of them, so that the others look better."


    As if in confirmation of these words, somewhere in the distance something has exploded.


    "Four people per hour." I figured. "What do you think what will happen before: will you die of thirst, or she has finished off the hostages?"


    "Very funny." Tattletale got angry. "Are you not sorry for the hostages?"


    "To me? Let me think ... no. Generally, I do not care. But I would crush Bakuda without thinking. She doesn''t know how to work with human resources, and this is a sin."


    "Do your Ward friends know about your position?"


    "No, but for them I give a more politically correct version. What can you say about bombs?"


    "They are ... weird. Some explode like regular bombs. And some form areas of the distorted laws of physics. There can freeze matter, stop time, change a living being. In general, a lot of incomprehensible mysticism. The bombs themselves are located either in the nasopharynx or in the abdominal cavity. I do not know how to neutralize them. Power is just silent."


    "I see. In general, sit and do not hang out. If I need your help, I will call."


    "Good. Hang up."


    I put the phone in my pocket and went to the Wards, who were staring at me in disbelief. Only Panacea looked at me with love with his eyes. Glory Girl''s tentacles works good, and now I have a spare tentacle. And she will do another attempt at my prey - then a third one will appear.


    "What was that explosion?" - Aegis asked when the distance between us decreased to five meters.


    "One of the banelings worked. Bakuda blows up one hostage every fifteen minutes so that the rest of them will more thoroughly search for the Undersiders."


    "He is the beast!"


    "Run!"


    "Need to save them."


    The opinions of the crowd were distinguished by surprising unanimity.


    "Here you are idiots." I could not resist. "As soon as she learns that we are here, she will then immediately send a group of hostages to us, pleading for salvation, and then will explode them with us."


    "But we cannot stand here and wait for something that is not clear while she is killing people." - Exclaimed the Gallant.


    "How can we not? That is what we are doing now." The team looked as if I knocked the air out of them, and then bashed their heads with a shovel. - "I, of course, is not an expert in these issues, but in my opinion I would now take a place higher, track down Bakuda with the help of Tattletale''s abilities, and then would shoot down this idiot''s head with a sniper rifle."


    "We can''t kill people." Glory objected. "We are heroes. What will they say about us?"


    "That you saved the lives of innocent citizens? No, they will surely say that you brutally killed a law-abiding mask, and then mercilessly blew up several hundred random witnesses. Well, in the end they blame you for the destruction of real estate worth millions of dollars.


    "Where did you get such nonsense in your head?" - Surprised Clockblocer. - "You talk like a villain."


    "I say, as a reasonable person, sometimes watching TV and having my own head on my shoulders. But it is not about me now, but about you. You are the heroes. So save people. And I''m just a weak useless civil. I will play here the role of an impartial witness and mediator in negotiations with the Undersider. In general, now I will tell you everything I know about Bakuda, and then you yourself will make decisions."


    I blatantly ignored the condemning look of those present. After that, a small meeting was held at which I set out intelligence data, and Aegis decided to move straight in the direction of Bakuda, where he could work with her jointly. I wanted to make a facepalm from such a tactical genius, but I resisted, instead I hugged Panacea.


    Then we quickly rushed forward. Aegis and Glory looked out for enemies from above, and we tried to get to the future place of the battle by the shortest route. Quite naturally, after a few minutes, we stumbled upon the ABB patrol, which emerged from the alley. Well at least they were tempted by a bright target in the face of the flying Aegis, and all together they shot at him. With a torn chest, he fell down, almost straight at us. Gallant and Kid Win quickly orient, grabbed their commander and dragged him away, hiding from the bullets. I grabbed Panacea and carried her along. But even so, I had to divert a few bullets flying at me. And without me, the team would lost their only healer.


    Glory Girl saved us, flying out from behind the roof and bringing down a squall of their charges on the bandits. If she had ever hit it at the same time, it would be quite good. And so, we and the bandits rushed in different directions and hid in buildings, knocking windows and doors.


    While Panacea was repairing our brilliant leader, I expounded my expert assessment of the team''s actions.


    "As you have all seen, your plan is the shortest path to the cemetery. You have even not see Bakuda, and our commander is already dying. Glory is also good. She could kill all the attackers, but instead only scared them slightly.


    "I''m not a killer!" Replied the heroine, flying into a broken window.


    "Come on? Consider that with your illiterate actions you have just nearly killed Aegis. These Nazis were walking along the street that you were supposed to control."


    "I was just a little distracted ..."


    "That''s enough." I pinned, stopping the debate.


    "I''m calling in PRT" croaked Aegis.


    Panacea rather quickly reanimated him, especially since his regeneration actively helped. I also watched this process, learnding the method of impact.


    The leader pulled the phone out and stared at it in disbelief.


    "No signal. How can it possible? You recently called the Undersiders." He looked indignantly at me, as if I was the blame.


    "The signal exists" I replied, checking my device. It cost almost a thousand dollars, but it worth itself one hundred percent ... dollars. "Throw your Chinese shit in the trash. If the PRT has no money for normal phones, then ask the Gallant to buy you something in the nearest stall."


    "This is a special phone designed by the best technicians of the PRT" Aegis did not give up, tormenting the apparatus. "It is protected from interference, works on military frequencies, and the battery lasts for a week."


    "On military frequencies?" I grinned. "Then everything is clear. Surely Bakuda has built a noise generator that operates at the PRT frequencies. A civilian frequences was not affected."


    "Take this." The knight extended his phone to the aegis. "This is my personal one."


    "I told you ten times that you can''t take a personal phone on an assignment." Aegis was outraged, after which he look puzzled at the device, showing three bars on the signal reception indicator.


    "Then you can fly to headquarters yourself. And we''ll wait here."


    In the distance, there was another detonation. The guards exchanged glances, and Aegis began frantically dialing a number on the phone. After five minutes of talking, he dropped the call and gave the expected verdict:


    "We have to sit here and wait until the protectorate masks arrive."


    After a couple of seconds, more explosions were heard: boom, boom, boo-boom, bububum..


    "It seems that Bakuda just got eight less banelings." I summarized. Watching how conscience struggles with rules and orders was very entertaining.


    In the meantime, the five thugs sitting in the building on the other side of the street took courage and launched an attack. I did not forget about them and watched their actions out of the corner of my eye. However, the rest of the Wards met a grenade flying through the window, with an expression of genuine surprise.


    A strange-shaped piece of iron punched through the glass, bounced off the concrete partition and fell right under the feet of the Clockblocker. He literally sat on some reflexes and covered grenade with his hand, stopping time.


    "Run!" He shouted, taking off.


    I glanced at the grenade and noticed a red light escaping from the thin cracks on its body. We followed the Clockblocker with the whole crowd, running into the next room. The walls here were load-bearing, so there was at least twenty centimeters of brick and concrete in them.


    "You used your ability surprisingly well." I noticed.


    Riser just nodded dumbfounded. His face was hidden by a mask, but under it he must have been as white as chalk. Meanwhile, the gangsters, without waiting for the explosion, ran into the building and began watering everything around with bursts of machine guns. At that moment, the time freeze effect stopped, and the grenade hooted hollowly. Shooting immediately stopped.


    Looking into the doorway, I saw the bandits lying on the ground, clutching their heads and trying to get to their feet.


    "Kick them!" I exclaimed, wisely moving away to the side and skipping those who want to engage in close combat. The Wards reacted to my cry as to the command "Fas" and began to kick the bedridden ones, calling them to obedience.


    After a couple of minutes, the five thugs were tied up and seated in a row along the wall. The grenade was stunning and did not cause any serious harm to their health. While Aegis unsuccessfully tried to dislodge the location of Bakuda from the members of the ABB, I conducted an inspection of the captured weapons. Most of all I liked the short-barreled Steyr AUG with a silencer and a telescopic sight and a well-worn but comfortable Sig Sauer pistol with a caliber of nine millimeters. While no one was looking in my direction, I put the gun in the inner pocket of my jacket, and hooked my rifle to the belt and slung it behind my back, pretending that I always had it there. It took another couple of minutes to gather five full magazines for a rifle and a scatter of ammunition from a pistol in a small pouch. Alas, there was no spare clip from him.


    "What do we do?" Aegis asked when it became clear that the bandits are not going to say anything.


    "Shoot them and go on." Oddly enough, this offer came not from me, but from Glory. Today she was generally quiet all day. I, of course, had not seen her before, but for some reason it seemed to me that she usually tries her best to attract attention and prove her exclusivity.


    "We are heroes" Twisted Aegis. "You said that we do not kill." He remembered her phrase, said to my proposal to shoot Bakuda.


    "We can say that the Undersiders killed them." She shrugged her shoulders.


    "I propose to shoot knees each of them " I made my rationalization proposal. "So they will not be able to escape or help Bakuda."


    "I will sue you to tribunal." growled one of the gangsters, with hatred looking at my rifle. Apparently, before it belonged to him. "For the attack, and for theft."


    Boo! This time the explosion rang far closer. Aegis looked in that direction, then grabbed one of the captured pistols and made five shots. Five knee cups scattered to smithereens.


    "Heal them so they won''t die from blood loss." He ordered to Panacea, overshouting swears and curses issued by gangsters."We will not wait for reinforcements. Every minute of delay is someone''s life."


    Two minutes later, our company rushed forward. Aegis and Glory soared again in the air, this time already observing the surroundings more closely. After ten minutes of running, when Panacea, Clockblocker and I began to choke, we reached a small square, in the center of which stood a shapeless crowd of hostages. Previously, there was a fenced storage area in the open air, but then someone rode a bulldozer, demolishing a fence that stood around the perimeter. And this area was formed, littered with rubbish and remains of a fence.


    In the buildings near the square, I noticed several groups of armed men. Of course, I didn''t talk about them, but after receiving a preventive bullets in the chest, Aegis became much more careful. So he came down to us and led through one of the buildings, intending to take a safe observant position.


    Here from one of the rooms, by which we passed, a homeless-looking man popped out.


    "Help me!" he cried, completely ignoring all our attempts to disguise. "I have a bomb in my head."


    For me, this fact was not a discovery, but the reaction of others was funny. Some of the "heroes" rushed forward to silence the blunt hostage, and some rushed back to escape from a possible explosion. Naturally, I and Panacea were in the second group.


    "Do not yell." Knight hissed, prescribing a preventive punch to his liver. "You will be first blown up by a ram if they find out that we are near you."


    "Get out! Dump nah. I want to live." Sharply changed his desires idiot, continuing to yell at the top of his lungs. The second punch to the liver, this time stronger, turned the screams into almost safe moans.


    "Calm down, you idiot. Shut up and lie down." The third punch brought the bum into the correct state of consciousness - he whined and curled up into a ball.


    "We need to find out how works bomb in his head." Said Aegis, tying up a resisting hostage. The stock of plastic handcuffs so far allowed to spend them without restriction. "Kid Win, can you do this?"


    "Yes. But the help of Panacea also does not hurt."


    Together they began to inspect the sacrifice of Bakuda.


    "The bomb is installed in the nasopharynx." explained Panacea. "It is fastened with special tendrils, and if you try to remove it, it will surely explode."


    "I can not do anything. If he was lying on a workbench in a lab, I could try to extract it out. But by picking in the homeless'' nose, I do not understand anything.


    The bum was trying to struggle, but he caught the Gallant''s warning look and calmed down.


    "You can cut off his nose" I made another provocative offer. At this rate, by the end of the day I will make frostbitten maniacs from the heroes. And no, I do not have time.


    I looked out the window to admire the sky. Half shimmered with all shades of red, and the second was already filled with darkness. Autumn, after all, darkens early.


    "No! Please do not, I want to live." The homeless man whispered, having finally understood the basic principles of disguise.


    "Eros, you can turn off the bomb with your power."


    "I can try, but for this I need to touch it. And for this you have to cut off his nose."


    The peasant looked around in agony, correctly understood the glances directed at him, after which he jerked to the side and as a fish leaped at the window, punching it with his head. We were on the second floor, so he would have some chances to survive ... if he had not his legs and arms tied. And so he fell on the asphalt by head, after which the bomb in his head detonated.


    The building was pretty shaken up, and then frost began to spread across the floor and wall. We barely managed to get out of the room when the building cracked deafeningly and began to fall apart. Fortunately, only part of the wall collapsed and the bulkheads on the ground floor closest to the explosion. The gangsters in the next building screamed and rushed in our direction, clearly intending to verify the cause of the unexpected explosion.


    "I think we need a more sane patient." Philosophically I noticed.


    "Doesn''t his death touch you at all?" Panacea was outraged.


    "You know, Friedrich Schiller in one of his plays said: The gods themselves are not able to fight against stupidity. He was right one hundred percent. Therefore, I never fight against someone else''s stupidity and do not sympathize with it."


    "Yes, you just scared him to death." Objected Clockblocker.


    "I can''t not argue with that." I agreed. "Then we will entrust to you the the honor of persuading the next test subject about the need to lose his nose and the front of his skull in order to develop a ways of fighting bombs."


    "But this is not forever. We have a Panacea, which can return everything as it was."


    "You can tell them about it. Let''s see if you can overcome human stupidity. By the way, someone running to us.


    In the surviving dusty window, it was clear that another group of bandits was running across the square to us. One of them swung and launched a grenade to the window. I had only to correct it''s flight a little with telekinesis so that it hit the frame right in the middle of the window, bounced off and fell among a rushing group of bandits. Those rushed in all directions, but did not have time to take a couple of steps, as the bomb exploded, stopping time within a radius of five meters. From the ten people, only one managed to slip out of the area of eternity. The rest are frozen in a bluish haze like flies in amber.


    What is most interesting, the current state of this area was not a consequence of the action of the symbiont. The multidimensional impact was felt only for a split second, and then it was the usual physics of multidimensional space. A small breakdown created by the symbiont, that turned into such a trap, just following the laws of nature. I need to beware of such things. Otherwise, I may not have time to get out of the affected area.


    While the heroes were watching the fate that befell the members of the ABB, on the other side of the building another group broke right through the wall. It seems that they also used some of the creations of Bakuda. At least the wall crumbled down, and did not fly a stone crumble in our direction, as would have happened in a normal explosion.


    There were shots from machine guns, and again we all rushed into the next room. There was a great view of the square, but the wall between this room and the one served as an obstacle for bullets.


    I pulled the rifle off my shoulder and fired a short burst into the hole. This move was a completely surprise to the attackers, since they relied more on non-lethal superpowers. The attack choked, and we were able to safely reach the shelter. Even Glory did not want to go forward heroically and catch the bullets from the machine gun. Instead, she rushed to the collapsed wall, intending to fly out into the street and come in from the flank.


    I controlled all the actions of the enemies, and noticed with irritation that they were again going to throw a bomb at us. Fortunately, the place near the door was occupied by Kid Win, who noticed the movement of the enemy and fired in their direction a whole line of his pistols - the only useful equipment he had. One of the shots accidentally hit the flying grenade, throwing it back. I didn''t even have to interfere.


    A moment later, there was a dull sound like from a bursting canister, and I felt the distortion of a spherical space spreading from the grenade. It reached our room and stopped only a little crossing the wall. In order not to risk, I threw everyone out of range by telekinesis. I did it in time, because all the area squeezed into the sphere with a loud bang , forming a small sphere, which in a moment fell to the ground. The effect of its collision with the earth resembled a small earthquake.


    I looked around and found our current location tactically unprofitable. On the one hand, the wall collapsed because of the freezing bomb, on the other, because of the implosion. So we were left hanging around on a small stump of the building under the dangerously crackling roof, which I had to hold on to telekinesis. We were on the second floor, and there were no stairs to descend.


    A strange-looking car jumped out of the nearest alley, driven by a woman in even stranger clothes. Tight blue-white suit with poisonous pink inserts, antenna on the head, ending with a large ball, hood, tight-fitting head and leaving only the face open, and in addition to this mask in the form of a respirator and ridiculous-looking glasses with darkened glasses.


    "Is she Bakuda?" I asked people around doubtfully. They only looked puzzled back.


    Glory and Aegis rushed forward, finally finding a worthy goal. Bakuda''s car resembled an open-top monstroke. Throwing the steering wheel, she threw something like a multiply-charged drum-type grenade launcher. One charge went to Glory, and the second to Aegis. It seems that her weapon possessed the function of auto-homing, because the heroes could not evade. Glory hung in the air, surrounded by obscure force fields, making a screaming sound. I did not notice any visible damage, but now she could not leave the scene of the explosion and shook her from side to side like a rag in a washing machine. Aegis again caught the charge on his chest and fell down as frozen statue. Well at least his strength somehow resisted the freezing, and he survived.


    The third shot in our direction Bakuda did not have time to do. I picked up my automatic rifle and made a short shoots. Alas, the suit turned out to be bulletproof, and I no longer had time to aim at the head. After only four shots, the rifle stopped firing. The rifle was a civilian model for ten rounds. There was no time to reload it, so I threw the rifle and grabbed the gun.


    Kid Win also did not stand as pillar and began watering Bakuda with two hands. Alas, this time with accuracy he was not very. The Gallant used his ability, but Bakuda simply ignored him. The villain slid to the side, jumped out of the car and was already intending to firing at us, but by this time I had reached for a gun. This time I helped myself by telekinesis, correcting the flight of a bullet. I hit, as expected, right in the left knee. Bakuda staggered, and I cheaterly pulled her grenade launcher down and pulled the trigger.


    The bomb hit the ground just five meters from the car. Surprisingly, it did not explode, but only released clouds of white smoke. I thought of a volumetric type of explosive, but then I noticed that the effect of this smoke is more like acid. It quickly clouded the whole neighborhood area and began to crawl along the asphalt. The smoke was noticeably heavier than air and did not rise above a meter above ground level.


    I traced how caustic gas got to Bakuda. She initially jerked from the pain, and then applied some kind of device that neutralizes the gas next to it. With the next movement, she pulled out an object that looked like a cigarette lighter with a big red button. It must have been a remote from bombs placed in the bodies of the hostages, so I instantly grabbed it by telekinesis, and then cut it into tiny cubes, which slipped from the hands of the villain as sand.


    Bakuda fumbled, examined her punched leg and quickly crawled to the sewer hatch not far from her. As soon as she leaned on the grill, the rotten bars broke, dragging the mask down. To my surprise, the sewage was clean from rubbish, as if someone had recently been cleaned there. Moreover, after a dozen meters, another similarity of transport was found, this time adapted for movement along narrow sewers. It seems that Bakuda has long been preparing for a battle in this place and has organized a means of emergency evacuation. After ten seconds, the villain successfully runned out, leaving his supporters and hostages unattended.


    By this time, the bomb caught the Glory, ceased action, and she broke free. Obviously having lost orientation in space, she discharged several monograms, after which she got into the wall and fell down into the fog. But after a second, Glava flew back, already more adequately perceiving reality.


    "Save the Aegis!" shouted the Gallant climbing the wall to the second floor. A second ago, he jumped down into the fog, which immediately began to erode his heroic costume, so that the hapless savior had to flee himself.


    "Where is he?" Glory asked, peering into the white veil that covered the ground.


    "There." Showed Clockblocker, dangerously approaching a hole in the wall. He did not notice, but I "saw" perfectly as the stone crumbles under his feet.


    Glory dived into the fog, and flew out after five seconds, carrying Aegis on her shoulder. Throwing him next to us like a sack of potatoes, Glory stared in disgust at the blood covering her. Aegis looked like a victim of medieval torture. All the skin peeled off him, revealing the ulcerated meat, in some places alternating with ice crystals.


    Panacea immediately rushed to save him, primarily patching the circulatory system and internal organs. While everyone was staring in horror at the Aegis, the Clockblocker, who stood "on guard", stepped on the floor a couple of times, and then almost silently fell down, breaking both his legs at the same time. His martyrdom made everyone turn around and look at the hole in the floor. Glory again dived down and delivered the following patient to her sister. Fortunately, the fog did not get inside the building, so that the Clockblocker did not dissolve in it.


    I looked out, watching as the white mist spreads. The hostages, previously crowded in the center of the square, now in a panic moved away from the approaching white tentacles. No one told them that Bakuda had fled, so they were torn between the need to execute the order and the desire to escape from the approaching threat.


    A few minutes later I heard the roar of jet engines, and the Armsmaster came down from the sky in his suit.


    "I told you to sit and not stick out." He made almost unemotional.


    "We saved the hostages. And we stopped Bakudo" Objected to him Kid Win. The Armsmaster stared at the fog, clearly scanning it with all available means.


    "Where is she?"


    "Must be there, next to the car. This fog covered her, and she did not show up anymore.


    The gunsmith examined the surroundings for an additional threat, and then flew up to the car, dispelling the fog with the exhaust of jet engines.


    "There is nobody here." He shouted, shifting attention from the car to the neighborhood area "Sit there and do not try to go down. I''ll check the neighborhood and take hostages."


    "They have a bomb in their heads." Knight shouted.


    The Armsmaster just nodded shortly, threw a masked look at me and flew away.


    As always, after five minutes of heroic struggle followed two hours of writing reports, summing up and ideological brainwashing. Having loaded all the above Wards, the Armsmaster looked at me, Panacea and Glory.


    "We need you to write a report about what happened." He began to press on us.


    "And we do not need." I cut off.


    "Who are you?"


    "A conscientious citizen who brought the heroes to the rescue of the hostages, and also neutralized Bakudo."


    "I''m not sure that you do something that forced her to disappearing."


    "Yes of course. Surely she just remembered that she had not turned off the iron at home, and ran to turn it off."


    "... I think it''s not in the iron." Replied Armsmaster after a second delay. On this statement, all those present burst out laughing. Sometimes his inability to understand humor was as good as a good joke.


    "Okay, we''ll go." I delivered my verdict and headed for the equipped descent. The fog has almost disappeared and is no longer a threat. Behind me I pulled Panacea, and Glory flew after her. The Armsmaster could only watch us in silence. He clearly did not want to quarrel for my sake with members of the New Wave.


    The paratroopers of the PRT were already snooping around the district, so I found the terrain safe, lowering the degree of attentiveness. For this I paid. A Chinese man jumped out from around the corner of the building and rushed straight towards us. The paratroopers did not yawn and cut off him with burst from an automatic rifle. As a result, the gangster fell, slamming a grenade into the ground, which he held in his right hand. There was an explosion, and the blast wave knocked me back a few meters. Panacea, fortunately at this moment was behind the wall from the explosion site, so it just stunned.


    The explosion was unexpected, so I was lifted up into the air against my will. But by the time of landing, I had already oriented and softened my contact with the ground. In general, from a loss I only had a jacket smeared with mud. And from the profit I was able to portray the mortally wounded "unconscious." Panacea immediately rushed to heal me, but naturally discovered that my power was blocking her. All that was necessary to prevent her symbiote from pushing its wet lustful tentacles into the openings of my body.


    Realizing her powerlessness, Panacea immediately began to cry and hug me.


    "No, don''t die, Eros. Wake up, can you hear me?"


    "If you kiss me ..." I whispered in the voice of a dying swan. "... then I will try to survive. My eyes rolled back, and a hand reaching for Panacea''s face fell helplessly onto my chest."


    "Eros! Wake up, wake up, please."


    I was finally kissed, after which I began to develop my success. The kiss dragged on, then hugs began, she would have rape me right here if Glory had not interfered.


    "So that''s why you called yourself a wandering comedian." With a mixture of contempt and envy, she said. "The role of the dying you succeeded."


    "Haha, it seems I revealed myself."


    Panacea awoke from the inspired trance and blushed to the roots of the hair.


    "Amy, I didn''t expect such passion from you." I hugged her again, whispering in my ear. "I like you, and I would like to continue my salvation in a more secluded place." She tried to pull away, but I insidiously moved her hand to my standing member. "I''m alright. I think we can go further."


    I stand myself and helped Panacea up, after which we headed off. PRT did become generous to our guards, highlighting the whole five accompanying. As we walked, I embraced Panacea, and at times I even stopped and kissed her. Finally, the nerves of Glory could not stand it, and she flew away. Her annoyance was also caused by the fact that Panacea did not even attempt to heal her sister. Apparently, the quarrel between the girls turned into a mutual hostility, and only the habit of being together kept them in direct visibility from each other.


    By the time we got to the station, there we were already waiting for a recent Indian, whose business card I grabbed on the way here. He was a little upset that there were no Wards with us, but I cheered him with a piece of paper for a hundred bucks, telling him to go to my home. In the car, we also kissed, then violently hugged in the elevator, and finally, rushing into my apartment, began to tear each other''s clothes off. In general, at night we had something to do.


    As a rule, morning is a certain sobering moment in a relationship. Yesterday''s passion no longer overshadows the mind, the rested brain begins to analyze the possible consequences, the jaded body reacts poorly to sexual stimuli. But all this had nothing to do with us. I just stuck my tentacle into the girl''s brain, "turned on two hundred and twenty," and all doubts immediately left her head, replaced by a desire to continue sabantuy. And we continued it.


    Today was Saturday, and therefore there was no need to go to school. We got out of bed only towards noon, having moved to the jacuzzi. Then there was cooking breakfast, and when we sat down at the table to gobble up what God sent, I turned on the TV.


    A report appeared on the screen about how the city survived a night filled with explosions and what counteracts the administration was taking to cope with the consequences. As it turned out, having received from us to the nose, Bakuda did not calm down and began to blow up everything all over the city. And on the sly, while the Wards, the PRT and the Protectorate were rushing all over Brockton Bay, an attack took place on the transport that transported Lung to the Cage.


    Hearing about the many victims, Panacea immediately planned to go to the hospital, and then remembered that she had switched off her phone last night. The image of an angry Mom Photon immediately surfaced in her head, from which the romantic mood immediately disappeared. I decided to take the fire to myself. After Amy was scolded for the absence of the phone at night and for turned off phone, I picked up the phone and in the ultimatum form stated that I can be able to take care of my chosen one, after which I switched off phone.


    The following call and disassembly resulted in each side remaining to its own opinion, but at least accepting the existence of the opposite side. After that, we went to the hospital, where I was able to observe the healing of mere mortals, and not immortal terminators like Aegis.


    The following week merged into a gray daily routine, which I loved terribly. At the beginning there was a school, during which I dealt with my abilities and idle magic. Then Panacea and I went to my house, where we gave vent to our passion. And then she went to the hospital, where I accompanied her a couple of times and supported her morally.


    Well, for a snack at night, I wore a black raincoat suit and went to nightmare thieves and drug dealers. The latter have already understood what is going on, and therefore they were desperately encrypted. Some even went to work at all in the morning and afternoon so as not to appear on the street at the same time with me. In response, I had to look for caches of drugs myself and punish those who were near them.


    It seems that my "heroic" activity did not go beyond the destruction of petty riffraff. With this, I reassured the major players, at the same time collecting information about the main criminal forces of Brockton Bay: the Empire, the ABB and the Merchants. These were not all teams of villains, but they were behind the large criminal organizations trying to crush the entire city.


    Especially in this regard, Lung, a brutish man, who forcibly recruited a bunch of people and started something big. Every day explosions were heard, someone was abducted and "turned into true faith" by putting a bomb into his head. More people died in shootings and squabbles than I managed to kill. After all, I dismembered only those whom I caught at the scene of the crime, and the ABB destroyed everyone who they simply did not like. In addition, the city was flooded with army, police and lone heroes, attracted by the opportunity to become famous as fighters against crime. Naturally, they did not fight with any crime, but only posed in their suits in front of the cameras and demonstratively beat faces a couple of hooligans daily.


    On Friday evening, a call arrived on my phone, which I, to be honest, already waited.


    "Alo. Phone sex."


    "Eros, we need to meet."


    "Ow! Do you want to move our relationship from virtuality to reality?"


    "Not funny. So what about the meeting? It is important."


    " Good. Where and when?"


    "Today at the docks near the beach. Bar Flying Dutchman. At nine in the evening."


    "Wait for me, honey. Chao."


    I hung up and thought, ¡®Tattletale finally decided to take a step forward.¡¯ And while she did not come to her senses, I should take ten steps, go behind her and put a knife to her throat. After that it will be possible to talk.


    At a quarter to nine, I sat on the docks three hundred meters from the meeting place, dressed in my signature black cloak. The sun had already set, and the darkness reliably hid me from random glances. Since then, my abilities have developed even more, and now I could work on objects at a distance of half a kilometer. As a rule, all my night ¡°hikes¡± consisted of the fact that I was sitting in a rented car, and all the atrocities were made by a ¡°shadow projection¡±, successfully depicting my personal presence.


    Today, I wanted to meet with Tattletale personally, but first I had to find out who else would come to the meeting, except for her. Five minutes before the appointed time, a taxi drove up to the bar, in which Tattletale stepped out in her villainous costume. And how does she have the audacity to walk within the crowd? Unlike other masks, her abilities do not contribute to survival in a collision with enraged inhabitants.


    Once again, I searched the neighborhood and made sure that there were no other masks nearby. Identifying surveillance in the face of ordinary people, or equipment, was more difficult, but it did not frighten me. First of all, I was interested in the motives of Tattletale. Rising into the air, I got to the bar in a few seconds and slipped inside through the back door.


    In the bar, the girl was already sitting at the table, facing the entrance. To her left sat a wall and a sofa, and a hall to her right . Assessing the situation, I decided on a small circus trick. One by one I dropped three glasses from the waitress¡¯ tray. Naturally, the sound of breaking glass attracted attention, and Tattletale turned her head to the right. At that moment I quickly flew and sat down on the sofa to her left. Making sure that nothing special happened, the girl turned away and again looked at the entrance.


    ¡°Waiting for me?¡± I took an interest in my "treasonally-speaking" voice.


    Tattletale suddenly turned her head to me and almost jumped. The spectacle of a figure shrouded in darkness with the mask of a demon did not contribute to calm.


    ¡°Black Cloak? Why you?¡± The confusion passed after a second, after which she replied in an almost calm voice. ¡°I invited Eros.¡±


    ¡°Boys at his age need to think about girls and school, and not about disassembly with masks,¡± I said insistently.


    ¡°I knew you were connected.¡±


    ¡°If you had not guessed about this, I would be very disappointed.¡± Tattletale shrank from the tone of my voice. ¡°So what about did you want to talk?¡±


    The villain looked at me attentively, after which she wrinkled a displeased face. All her attempts to read information from me were defended.


    ¡°There are two questions. First, tomorrow there will be a gathering of the majority of Brockton Bay villains. There they will discuss the situation with Lung and you.¡±


    ¡°Do you want me to kill them all?¡± The girl startled again and looked at me with fear.


    ¡°No. I want you to attend this event. And as you know, you don''t need to kill anyone there. This is neutral territory.¡±


    ¡°Well, in general, I do not mind meeting with the rulers of this city. I have something to say to them. Are they already in a panic?¡±


    ¡°Not really. Your fight against drugs only increased their profits. They raised the drug price five times, and sales volumes fell by a maximum of a quarter. But they, of course, are unhappy.¡±


    There was a pause in our conversation. Apparently, Tattletale doubted whether to tell me something else.


    ¡°What is the second question?¡±


    The villain sighed and looked straight into my eyes.


    ¡°I want you to kill Coil.¡±


    ¡°Coil? I heard this name, but nothing concrete. Like this is some kind of villain, the roof of the city center.¡±


    ¡°Yes. And for one, our boss.¡±


    ¡°Undersiders?¡± A silent nod was her answer. ¡°And what didn¡¯t please you about your boss?¡±


    ¡°He ... makes me work with threats.¡±


    ¡°Loves to play domination-submission?¡±


    ¡°Not the way you thought.¡± Tattletale grinned darkly. ¡°If I stop being useful to him, he will just kill me.¡±


    ¡°What is his strength?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know, but this is something related to the prediction of the future.¡±


    ¡°The prophet? Interesting.¡±


    ¡°He always manages to make sure that he is not in a place where he is in danger. But that''s not all,¡± She paused again to delay her answer.


    ¡°Do not pull the cat by the tail.¡±


    ¡°Last thursday he kidnapped Dina Alcott, the city governor''s niece . She is a cap and has the ability to predict the future, giving the probability of the occurrence of certain events.¡±


    ¡°Two prophets ... Very entertaining.¡±


    ¡°Coil puts her on drugs and makes her predict the future in exchange for another dose. But she is only twelve years old.¡±


    ¡°Interesting, and Coil knows about your meeting with me?¡±


    ¡°I do not think so. Otherwise, I would not be here. Instead, my corpse would have sailed in the bay.¡±


    ¡°Or I would kill all his people, and right now I was heading to the city center to punish him for interfering in my affairs.¡±


    ¡°There is evidence that only he can foresee events that could really happen. But now he has Dina, and I am afraid that opposition may not be easy.¡±


    ¡°Nonsense.¡± I waved away. ¡°First, for now, I''m not going to kill him. Maybe it won''t even be necessary, because he will die without my help. Secondly, the strength of these two prophets most likely does not take into account my intervention. As you noticed, finding out something about me is quite difficult.¡± Tattletale nodded with a dull look. Apparently, her mind was tormented by hundreds of questions about me, not one of which she could find an answer. ¡°Well, the most important thing is that knowledge of the future can not help you if the final is not dependent on your efforts. If I want, I could kill him no matter what he does in return. It''s like playing chess when you have a complete set of pieces, and your opponent only has a king.¡±


    At the moment, I could already fairly well heal people. Of course, I was far from the Panacea level, but the daily experiments on drug dealers allowed me to get a hand on healing various injuries. In fact, the whole operation was reduced only to the implementation of the program ¡°to make according to DNA¡±. Cancer cannot be cured this way, but it is easy to sew a severed arm.


    The presence in the zone of the reach of two prophets made it possible to learn how to predict the future. And this is another gold coin in my piggy bank of survival. The knowledge about the Endbringers made such precautions not at all superfluous.


    ¡°I need information about Coil. Where are his bases, what does he do, where does he get money from? All that you know. And you did not tell me where and when the local bosses will meet. Will there be a Coil there?


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°It is a good opportunity to see him.¡±


    Ten minutes later, our meeting ended, and we ran away satisfied with one other. I was not deceived about Tattletale¡¯s motives. She didn¡¯t want to work for Coil, and would hardly agree to work for me. At least to coercion is better not to bring. The current situation is quite indicative of the consequences of such a policy.


    On Saturday, at fifteen to three, I sat in ambush and watched the people gathering for a meeting. It had to take place in a bar, lost on the border of the central part of the city and the docks.


    First came the Undersiders, almost immediately after me. Five minutes later, a representative car drove up, in which a man, clad in steel armor, emerged. Beside him, two muscular girls in armored jackets hobbled. These were Kaiser, Fenja and Menja ¡ª the main shock force of the Empire Eighty-Eight.


    Then, another similar car rolled up in which Purity, Krieg, and Hookwolf came out. They were so recognizable that even I could notice them from a distance. These were masks that held the position as officers in the Kaiser organization, although there were many rumors that Purity had left them. Yether appearance in such a composition clearly indicated that it was not worth trusting these rumors.


    Coil, who came out of the alley, calmly walked down the street and went into the bar. He was not accompanied by any of the ordinary bodyguards. He parked the car on the next block. That said a lot about his confidence. At least he was not afraid of getting attacked himself.


    He was followed by a group of mercenaries, led by Faultline, as they entered the bar. Some of them were people quite conditionally. An article on the Internet described them quite accurately, so there were no problems with identification.


    A minute later, a car drove up, looking as if it had been made from garbage and ¡°parked¡± almost in the middle of the road. Two capes, dressed in costumes of a similar garbage design, fell out of it. It was Skidmark and Squealer, whom I had been searching for the last week and a half. Immediately after the massacre at the docks, they left their shelter and did not appear in public, limiting themselves only to sending reliable couriers with drugs.


    The time on the clock approached three, so I left the observation post and flew to the bar. I opened the door at exactly fifteen zero. Accuracy - the politeness of kings. The eyes of all those present converged on me, and there was silence in the bar.


    ¡°Good day,¡± I calmly said, heading for a free chair at the common table, where the leaders of the gangs gathered. Only the Merchants sat separately at a table in the corner.


    ¡°Black Cloak,¡± Kaiser squeezed out. ¡°I have a couple of questions for you.¡±


    ¡°I will be happy to answer them after the main discussion.¡±


    I sat opposite the Grue and began to look at the audience. I noticed that many looked from Grue to me. To enhance the effect, I added darkness around me and made it dissipate and squirm in the same manner as my opponent showed.


    ¡°Which of them imitating?¡± I heard a whisper from behind.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know, but the Black Cloak looks cooler.¡±


    My demon mask smiled smugly, exposing snow-white dagger teeth. Of course they looked painted, but the impression was correct.


    ¡°I think I''ll take one chair.¡± Said the man who suddenly appeared at the door. He wore a high top hat and a classic frock coat.


    It was clearly teleportation. I even noticed the elements of space effects characteristic of the Replacement Technique from the world of Naruto. The door behind him swung open, and there appeared a whole group of strange looking creatures. Or rather, there was only one creature, but this oddity was enough for everyone else. It was not even alive in the full sense of the word. I turned to see this miracle, remotely resembling a giant gorilla.


    ¡°Travelers, yes?¡± Pronounced Coil. ¡°You are not local. Decisions here are made only by those who have influence in the city.¡±


    ¡°You can consider us as nomads. Whatever is happening here is too interesting to skip, so I decided that we look in here.¡± The guy with the cylinder hat made an official bow. He could certainly pass the butler exam at the court of the Queen of Great Britain. ¡°I''m Trickster.¡±


    ¡°Do you know the rules?¡± Asked him Grue.


    ¡°We have been to such places. I can propose. Do not make fights, do not use abilities, do not provoke others, or everyone else in the room will forget about any enmity among themselves in order to put the violator in place.¡±


    ¡°Close to the truth. It is important to have a neutral territory where you can meet and discuss some issues in a civilized manner.¡±


    ¡°I will not argue with that. Please continue as if I am not here.¡±


    The Trickster sat down at the main table as his team took their place in the far corner away from everyone. There were enough masks in the bar to make it look almost full.


    Coil looked around at the table, nodded and said in an indifferent voice.


    ¡°Apparently, all gathered, it seems that Lung will not come, although I doubt that this is a surprise for those present, given the subject of our meeting today.¡±


    ¡°ABB and...Black Cloak.¡± The voice of Kaiser was heard, barely hidden by irritation. My mask blossomed with another toothy grin.


    ¡°The death of thirty-five people from the explosions was confirmed. More than a hundred in the last week were hospitalized. Also, another five dozen small dealers and criminals were dismembered to the state of bloody minced meat.¡± Coil turned his head to me, clearly blaming me for this. My smile became even wider, literally stretching from ear to ear. ¡°On the streets there are armed forces. Skirmishes between members of the ABB, the combined police, and military forces continue. The people of Lung attacked our firms and caused explosions in places where, in their opinion, we could be. They captured our territories and there are no signs that they will stop in the foreseeable future.¡±


    ¡°The city is literally sinking in chaos,¡± said Kaiser. ¡°Lung takes on too much by himself.¡±


    ¡°And this is a real problem. ABB will not be able to withstand. Sooner or later, they will self-destruct, and the problem will disappear. If it were not for some subtleties, then we would take it as a boon. Our problem is that the actions of the ABB attract too much attention to our honest city. National security and military forces are here to assist in maintaining order. Heroes flock to the city to morally support the Protectorate. This complicates the business.¡±


    ¡°Bakuda is at the center of all this.¡± joined the Grue to dialogue. ¡°Lung may be a leader, but everything depends on her. She "hired" people, kidnapping them asleep, subduing and implanting bombs in their heads. Then, she threatens to blow them up, forcing them to abduct new people. The number of hostages, now, is at least three hundred. Each of her soldiers knows that if he does not fulfill the order, Bakuda can detonate the bombs. All of them are willing to risk their lives, because the alternative is certain death, or the death of their loved ones. Our main goal is to neutralize her, but she sets up her bombs so that they explode as soon as her heart stops, so it will be a bit more complicated than a simple kill.¡±


    ¡°What''s the problem?¡± I asked blankly. ¡°A total of three hundred civilians. This is less than one tenth of a percent of the city¡¯s population. So many die of natural causes every month.¡±


    ¡°It will affect our image,¡± explained Kaiser.


    ¡°You would think they consider you are not villains, but at least the saviors of the nation.¡±


    ¡°Actually, they think we are,but not all.¡±


    ¡°I do not think that your target audience will greatly decrease from this. Declare that most of the dead were blacks and bums, and the people would forget about them in a day.¡±


    ¡°How can you say that?¡± Grue rebelled. ¡°These are humans.¡±


    ¡°So what?¡± I looked around the barand did not notice the agreement in their eyes. ¡°Do you know that in Africa ten thousand children die of hunger every day? Everyday. Ten thousand. From hunger! Well, now you know. And what will you do in connection with this? You cannot answer, and so everything is clear - nothing. You cannot do anything because these negroes are away, and you do not have to have any work. You did not know about them, and you did not care for them. With me everything is the same, but only my ¡°distance of care¡± is somewhat less than yours. I¡¯m worried about what I see right in front of me, but I¡¯m clearly aware that it¡¯s not in my power to save more than a few people at a time. So, why create yourself extra problems trying to achieve the impossible? Save the people - great. Can¡¯t save? Well, to hell with them - women give birth to new ones. On the contrary, the longer you stay tormented by moral doubts, the more people will capture Bakuda. She frolics in the city for a week, but one sniper''s bullet would be enough to stop all this at the very beginning.¡±


    My monologue made a definite impression, but not to all. However, I had nothing to object to. In the end, it was not for nothing, that those gathered here were called villains, and they understood this philosophy.


    ¡°So.¡± Once again, Coil examined us. ¡°We have agreed to? The ABB cannot be allowed to continue its activities.¡± Most of the participants expressed their approval of this idea with nods or a consonant hum. ¡°Then I propose a truce. Not only with everyone here, but between us and the law. I can contact the authorities and inform them that until the issue with the ABB is resolved, our groups will restrict illegal activities to the minimum, necessary level for our business, and we will ensure that those who do their own business do the same as our territories. This will allow the police and the military to concentrate all their attention on the ABB. There should be no violence or clashes between our groups due to territory. No theft nor insults. For the sake of victory, we will unite with those whom we can somehow tolerate, and we will ignore those with whom we cannot cooperate.¡±


    ¡°I think this is acceptable,¡± Kaiser agreed.


    ¡°Our team will not subscribe to this,¡± objected Faultline. ¡°We by ourselves do not do anything like this, but if we are paid, we will do anything. We can even start working for Lung if we find the fee acceptable.¡±


    ¡°Well, regrettably. But we can talk after this meeting ends. I prefer not to create difficulties.¡± Coil said.


    ¡°I spoke with my group that we would act in approximately the same spirit as Coil proposed.¡± Grue added. ¡°Yes, we agree.¡±


    ¡°Black Cloak?¡± Coil turned to me, making sure that I was not in a hurry to agree.


    ¡°It''s funny that you came to such an agreement on your own.¡± I answered mockingly. ¡°I think I should explain my position, including regarding your claims to me.¡±


    I looked around at each of the leaders and even turned to look at the Merchants table.


    ¡°From the moment I arrived at Brockton Bay, this city belonged to me.¡± I heard an offended sniff from Kaiser. ¡°I do not care about your affairs, as long as you comply with my laws. You know all about them: do not sell drugs, no violence, theft, robbery, extortion, raider seizure of property and fraud. As long as you keep my laws, you are safe. If you decide to break them, then I will come and destroy you, regardless of the consequences.¡±


    Kaiser tried to say something, but I stopped him by raising my hand.


    ¡°Those sweeps that I spend at night are just a warning. When I cut out a hundred Merchants, it was also only an indicative execution. This city has not yet seen my wrath and did not see what I can do if I act in full force. Therefore, in order not to be unfounded, I propose a small contract. You permanently stop all types of criminal activity, and by tomorrow morning I will solve the problem with ABB, Lung, Bakuda and their henchmen.


    In the hall hung silence. No one risked violating it, because they were not ready to agree with, or reject, my proposal.


    ¡°You offer me to roll off my whole business?¡± Kaiser almost growled.


    ¡°Business? No, you can keep a clean business. The crime will have to cease. You promote the superiority of the white race,¡± I started the return press. ¡°And where is it, this superiority? Your strength based on drugs, extortion, and theft. In fact, you are no better than Merchants. No better than those dirty niggas. You do exactly the same thing as they do. Do you want to show the superiority of the white man? Then take care of the legal business, adjust production, raise science, support culture. If you achieve this, having only true Aryans in your organization, then I will be the first to come and congratulate you on your success. For now, I see only a handful of pale-faced geeks who differ from blacks only by smaller penis size and lighter skin color.¡±


    Kaiser rose, and his chair flew backward, falling to the floor. He clenched and unclenched his fists, snorting angrily and trying at least to say something in response.


    ¡°I repeat: My proposal is not a farce and not a game. I could kill all of you in a split second, but it is unsporting. I will not get any benefit from it. No moral satisfaction. My laws are only a payment to society for allowing me to quench my thirst for blood. I could kill everyone, but I prefer to do so that my actions benefit not only me but also those around me. You can agree with me, you can disagree - this is your choice. I just explain my position, and you have to make your own decision and face predictable consequences. I also do not need chaos in the city. It interferes with business.¡±


    Kaiser stood for a few more seconds, then pulled a chair next to him and sat down on it without saying a word. A girl came out from behind the bar and lifted the fallen chair and placed it next to the next table.


    ¡°We understand your position and promise to think about it.¡± Coil informed me.


    ¡°For the beginning that''s enough.¡± I agreed.


    ¡°So, we are finished with the main theme of our meeting.¡± Coli appealed to all. ¡°Before our paths diverge, are there any other questions? Suggestions, announcements, complaints?¡±


    ¡°I have a claim,¡± There was a rough voice from Kaiser¡¯s group.


    The figure, naked to the waist, rose from the table and approached us. It was Hookwolf. He wore a flat metal mask with wolf ears. Of his clothes, there were only black wide jeans. he entire upper half of the body was littered with metal spikes and hooks that grew straight from the skin. He stared at the table at which the team of the Undersiders sat.


    ¡°There is that whore, Bitch. This bitch attacked my company. Her damn dog harassed my clients. You''re lucky I wasn''t there, whore.¡±


    Grue stared at Bitch, then replied to Hookwolf.


    ¡°This is a risk to be considered when doing business in Brockton Bay. On your way, the cape can stand up, no matter whether they are heroes or villains.


    Hookwolf burned his eyes.


    ¡°This is a matter of respect. We do not fight, but you want to fuck off my business? First, tell what your problem is. Let me decide for myself if I want to move my business.¡±


    ¡°And what kind of business?¡± I asked.


    ¡°... Dogfights,¡± replied Hookwolf a little doubt.


    ¡°Hmm ... and you want to make a similar claim to Bitch?¡± I was surprised.


    ¡°What''s the problem?¡± Hookwolf frowned and looked at me with a challenge.


    ¡°How would I say this ¡­¡± I stretched out. ¡°All those gathered here are masks. And each mask is a psycho with one or another deviation in their behavior. You, for example, love violence, and Bitch loves dogs. This deviation determines our behavior, makes us able to use force. When they come to any mask and say that he must act in defiance of his shift in the brain, he goes into a rage and begins to destroy everything around him. For Bitch, such an irritant is when someone hurts dogs. For you, it is if someone says that you must love all the blacks on the planet. Consider me, if you would arrange fights to death not for dogs, but for kawai cats, I would kill you right here and now, regardless of any agreements and truces. As the person in a black outfit said when she was ordered to stop.¡± I nodded at the Zerg Queen ¡°¡®I can''t. It''s stronger than me¡¯. So if you arrange dog fights, then you should immediately lay in the costs of the likelihood that the next day a psycho like a bitch will come to you and begin to destroy everything around for the sake of agreement with his own schizophrenia. Is this clear, or Bitch should start to promote sex with blacks under the windows of your apartment?¡±


    Pent-up giggles spread across the hall. Hookwolf snuffled like Kaiser a few minutes ago, then he stared at Bitch and declared.


    ¡°Next time I''ll tear you and your dogs apart.¡±


    ¡°We''ll see.¡± With a call she answered.


    Hookwolf glanced at me and then headed back to his desk. I looked around and found that half of those present were looking at Hookwolf or Bitch, and the second half was lost in their thoughts, trying to understand what is their personal insanity was about.


    ¡°Does anyone have any other questions?¡± Asked Coil. There was a serenity in his voice.


    ¡°Yes, what happened to the Fog and Night?¡± Asked Purity, not rising from her seat.


    ¡°It seems that I left a very specific explanatory inscription.¡± I have advised. ¡°They died.¡±


    ¡°We did not find their bodies.¡±


    All those present focused their attention on me. For some, the news that I killed two strong capes was shocking.


    ¡°You know how I deal with the bodies of those executed. I tear them into small pieces. So I did with them, after which I cremated and buried in a barrel. It stood in the hall on the first floor. Have you seen this?


    ¡°I ... I ordered to take it to the garbage.¡±


    ¡°It is a good place for the graves of drug dealers. More questions? Do not be shy.¡±


    What was happening was reminiscent of a cheap farce, which Coil did not like.


    ¡°No questions.¡± Here he summarized. ¡°Let''s finish our meeting. Thank you for coming. Faultline, can I have a word with you before you leave?¡±


    I got up, glanced at the pensive Kaiser, looked around at the quieter Tattletale and the Queen of Zergas burning with indignation, then enveloped myself in darkness and with a rapid jerk flew out of the bar, opening the doors in front of me.


    On the street I flew off to the side and hid on the roof of the building a couple of hundred meters from the bar. Now I was going to follow the masks of the Merchants, and then finally clean up the whole gang. Most of the rank and file members were already known to me, as well as their place of residence. By and large, these people had nowhere to go. Even at the docks there were not too many places where they could get comfortable with relative comfort. Many buildings were burned out or were on the verge of collapse. And homeless people and drug addicts destroyed the infrastructure of this region more and more.


    Skidmark and Squealer came out one of the first, climbed into his clunker and rushed forward at full speed. I pursued them without falling into their eyes. An hour later, they stopped almost in the suburbs in the northern part of the city. The industrial zone of the docks and depot remained to the south, and there used to be a residential quarter in which employees of the nearest enterprises were huddled together.


    The car disappeared into the underground garage of one of the buildings, and I approached to scan it. Large stocks of drugs, a chemical laboratory and a warehouse of chemical reagents filled with bags up to the ceiling became a catch. Immediately acquired and several couriers who were engaged in drug trafficking in the city. One of them even saw me through the window, but I did not give him the opportunity to raise the alarm by turning his neck.


    After landing on the roof, I began to watch the Skidmark, while tightly searching the building for money. Four floors of the double access house made it possible to arrange a lot of hiding places. While I was gutting the tricksters, the Skidmark and his girlfriend went into the lab and began to check the operation of the equipment. After a couple of minutes, a couple more residents of the house joined them, helping with the ¡°bring-serve¡± level works.


    I found money in the building just under a hundred thousand dollars. This was too little, and therefore, it was necessary to interrogate the Merchants about the location of the stash. I immobilized all the people in the building and then broke through the window into the laboratory. Such a trifle as steel bars on the windows did not delay me even for a split second.


    ¡°Well, well, well. Detained red-handed.¡± I turned the Skidmark and Squealer so that they could see me.


    ¡°You? Fucking cape! You followed us. This is a breach of contract.¡±


    ¡°What contract? I do not remember that agreed about something with worms like you.¡±


    ¡°Fucking fagot! Let me go. Or I''ll tear you to pieces.¡±


    I just laughed at such threat.


    ¡°Actually, I¡¯ll tear you to pieces. You have only one chance to stay alive - to pay off. You must be fabulously rich.¡±


    ¡°Go fuck! You will not get a penny from me, smelly jackal ¡­¡±


    I fixed the pusher''s vocal cords, making it impossible for him to speak.


    ¡°Then I will return to this question in about fifteen minutes.¡±


    I took a timer standing on the table, put fifteen minutes on it, started the countdown, and then began to tear off small pieces of his body from the Skidmark and to heal them back. For one thing, I cleaned his body from drugs, which formed a cocktail in his blood, one drop of which could, perhaps, kill a horse from an overdose.


    Literally at that very same moment, a field of force appeared around me, trying to push me away. That''s just the impact force was small. The maximum what it was like is a change in the direction of the action of the Earth''s gravity. Without interrupting torture, I once again analyzed the impact and came to an unambiguous conclusion - this is a change the vector of the action of gravity. That is, the force of influence in principle could not exceed the force of gravity. Very poor, as for me. With a light movement of the tentacles, I dispelled this field and focused on torture.


    At first, Skidmark did not show any particular emotions in response to torture. But as the drugs began to leave his blood, the panic began to fill his mind more and more. I perfectly controlled it with the help of tentacles, inherited from Glory. By the time when fifteen minutes was over, he constantly watched the change of numbers on the timer, seeing off every second with tears in his eyes. As soon as I gave him the opportunity to speak, he shouted:


    ¡°Kill me! Kill me! I do not want to live. Nah-ee-ee! I want it all to stop. Life is such a crap that I want nothing to do with it.¡±


    It seems that my torture was completely useless. But getting rid of drugs led to depression of unspeakable proportions.


    ¡°Good. But first tell me where your money lies.¡±


    And then a stream of descriptions of various hiding places, stashes and treasures made by Skidmark literally poured on me. At the same time, the control of emotions showed that he was definitely not lying.


    ¡°Well. Be patient a little bit more.¡±


    I give him some hope and turned to Squealer . She looked at me with a mixture of hatred, contempt and fear. An unexpected Skidmark tantrum frightened her more than all the torture before. I partially freed the techie, previously depriving her from all the technical gadgets.


    ¡°I will let you go if you kill the Skidmark .¡± I delighted her, hanging in front of her in the air a hefty cleaver.


    I was interested in the process of absorbing one symbiote by another. And now I wanted to watch this process.


    ¡°Why should I believe you?¡± She asked, clutching at the weapon.


    ¡°You have no choice. Either you kill him, or I start torturing you. It''s simple.¡±


    The pusher tried to escape from my grip, and then he whined:


    ¡°Squealer dear, please kill me. I can''t take this anymore. Just stick a knife in my heart. You can. I beg you !!!¡±


    ¡°You have always been a weakling.¡± Spat Squealer.


    After that, she grabbed the knife more comfortably and ... rushed at me. Naturally, I grabbed her at the very beginning of the movement.


    ¡°It was the wrong decision.¡± I notified her, after which the pain came to her, and the blood began to be cleared of drugs. There was no such high concentration of chemistry, so it came to the human norm in a minute.


    ¡°Aaaaaa !!!¡± She screamed when she gained the ability to speak. ¡°Ok, ok, I''m going to kill him.¡±


    ¡°Just be so.¡±


    This time, Squealer didn¡¯t organize a show, but jumped to her accomplice and almost from a running start threw a knife into his heart. Then pulled out, and threw again. And further. A minute later she literally turned the chest and pulled out a shredded heart.


    ¡°Are you satisfied now?¡± She asked, throwing a bloody lump at me.


    ¡°Almost ... wait a minute.¡±


    I immersed myself in observing the process of merging the symbiotes. This process did not become clearer, but at least I understood that in the symbiote it was changing after that. If earlier I could only track the effects of absorption on the symbiote''s consciousness, now I was able to evaluate the quantitative side of this process. Roughly speaking, with each absorption of the symbiote, a certain part of the ¡°fullness scale¡± was filled. However, the fill size was not directly related to that of the victim. That is, by killing one cape, whose symbiote was on the verge of becoming complete, you did not risk becoming the same as he.


    For a more complete understanding of this process, I need to conduct a couple more experiments, but on the whole the result was clear. I could finish off at least fifty masks before I reach the limit beyond which it was unclear what awaited me. Most likely, the end of this game for me personally.


    ¡°Yes, everything is ready. And now it remains only to shake out from you the position of all your stashes.¡±


    ¡°You promised to let me go.¡± Squealer screamed in awe.


    ¡°Aaaa, I joked. Sorry, sometimes something happens to my sense of humor, and people do not understand that I am joking.¡±


    ¡°Bastard, cre¡­¡±


    I silenced my test subject and stuck my wet, lewd tentacle right into her between ... an eye. I was going to check the work of the lie detector, based on the control of emotions. At the same time I did not even need to listen to the patient''s answers. It was enough to ask questions that could be answered yes or no.


    After twenty minutes of intense conversation, I looked at the written sheet, where my notes on the interrogation of Skidmark and Squealer were. In general, the amount went obscenely large. I even did not understand what these underground billionaires did in the slums. They could already live somewhere on the southern islands, surrounded by a harem. But apparently, the inertia of thinking did not allow them to abandon their ¡°gang¡±. After all, it was only there that they could be appreciated ¡°in dignity¡±, could they glorify their fame, wealth and beauty. Ugh, what an abomination.


    I flew out of the building, and then literally razed it to the ground, mixing the stone of the walls with the bodies of the still living Merchants. After that, I had to go and see all the stashes and gut them, taking the money found and destroying the drugs. With a full bag of money, I, like Santa Claus, was still forced to come up with a plan on how to deliver all this wealth to my apartment without attracting attention. I couldn¡¯t just fly over and throw off a heap of money in broad daylight.


    In general, I was released only around six in the evening, when it was already getting dark. Tonight I had to deal with the ABB, so it was not worth wasting time.

 Chapter 5 - Worm - Brief Information

    <h1>Worm - Brief information</h1>


    Manton Effect</a> - Inability to kill people


    <h2>Teams</h2>


    <ul>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">PRT - Parahuman Response Team</a></li>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Protectorate</a></li>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">ABB - Asian Bad Boys</a></li>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Coil¡¯s Organization</a> - consists of a large group of mercenaries and capes under the command of the supervillain Coil.</li>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Travelers</li>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Empire Eighty-Eight</a> - are a gang of white supremacists based in Brockton Bay</a>.</li>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Merchants</a> - The merchants are a result of drug dealers and users gaining powers, forming a team, and then using those powers ensure they can get rich selling and taking drugs</li>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Undersiders</a></li>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Slaughterhouse Nine</li>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Endbringers</a></li>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Wards</li>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Entity</a></li>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Scion</a> - avatar of a higher power</a>.</li>


    </ul>


    <h2>Classification of Strength</h2>


    PRT created twelve classifications in modern day use.


    <ol>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Mover</a> - Has a mobility enhancing power.</li>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Shaker</a> - Has a power with an area of effect.</li>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Brute</a> - Has enhanced strength or durability.</li>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Breaker</a> - Can shift into another state.</li>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Master</a> - Can control others or create minions.</li>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Tinker</a> - Can create or alter devices with futuristic technology.</li>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Blaster</a> - Is a ranged, offensive threat.</li>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Thinker</a> - Focuses on information gathering.</li>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Striker</a> - Has a power that is melee-ranged or touch-based.</li>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Changer</a> - Can alter their form or appearance.</li>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Trump</a> - Can manipulate powers in some capacity.</li>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Stranger</a> - Focuses on stealth or infiltration.</li>


    </ol>


    <h2>Endbringers</a></h2>


    <ul>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Behemoth - Can control various types of nature force</li>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Leviathan - Can control water</li>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Simurgh - Has power similar to techies and telepathic powers</li>


    </ul>


    <h2>Parahumans List</a></h2>


    <ol>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">ABB - Asian Bad Boys</li>


    <ol>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Lung</a> - Leader of ABB. Can transform to fire-breathing-dragon and enlarge during battle. Can use pyrokinesis in human form and partial-dragon or full-dragon transformation.</li>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Bakuda</a> - Girlfriend of Lung. Can create explosive devices with a lot of effects.</li>


    </ol>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Undersiders </li>


    <ol>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Bitch</a> - Rachel is a lost girl who has dogs to keep her company. Can increase dogs to monstrous sizes.</li>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Grue</a> - Brian was the acting leader of the Undersiders until he was mentally broken by his second trigger event, he struggles with forms of PTSD. Can create a smothering darkness that causes sensory deprivation and can borrow powers from people that come in contact with his darkness.</li>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Regent</a> - Alec aka. Jean-Paul, the son of Heartbreaker</a>, joined for safety and independence. Can interfere with the nervous systems of others, capable of completely controlling them if given enough time.</li>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Queen of Zerg</a> - Taylor wanted to become a hero, but ended up joining (and later leading) the Undersiders. She originally joined in the hopes of finding information on them and turning them in to the authorities. Her agenda subsumes that of the others. Has absolute control over arthropods in a three block radius.</li>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Tattletale</a> - Lisa (Sarah) is an abrasive person often trying to prove she is the smartest person in the room. Resourceful enough to beat a mastermind, she can extrapolate information to a large degree.</li>


    </ol>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Wards</a> - underage heroes of Protectorate</a></li>


    <ol>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Aegis </a>- possesses the ability of flight and an augmented physiology that operates at peak capacity as long as he is still living</li>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Clockblocker</a> - Clockblocker could "tag" nearly anything, freezing it in time.[2]</a> This power could affect living creatures,[6]</a> including humans, as well as inanimate objects.[8]</a>[9]</a> It could not affect him.[10]</a></li>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Gallant - Comes across as a natural gentleman, which may have been influenced by his ability to see people emotions in a way no one could hide. When in costume he pretended to be a tinker</a> in public by wearing ''secondhand'' power armor. He hoped he would be able to help Amy with her emotional state, but never got the chance to do so.[3]</a></li>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Glory Girl</a> - Victoria is a hot-tempered and prideful cape,[4]</a> partly as a result of her powers.[5]</a> She enjoys fighting and is prone to using excessive force on her enemies.[6]</a> Despite this she genuinely believed in being a hero and helping others.[7]</a></li>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Kid Win</a> - As a Tinker</a>, Chris has the ability to understand and invent things well beyond the current level of technology. He originally believed that he specializes in advanced guns though later discoveries showed that his specialty is actually multi-utility devices.[2]</a>[4]</a></li>


    </ol>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">New Wave</a></li>


    <ol>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Glory Girl</a> - Victoria has the classic Alexandria</a> package of flight, invincibility, and superhuman strength.[48]</a> She also radiates an aura that makes her allies more inclined to respect and look up to her, while making her terrifying and intimidating to her enemies.[49]</a>[50]</a></li>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Panacea</a> - The best healer in the World</li>


    </ol>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Protectorate</a></li>


    <ol>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Triumvirate</a></li>


    <ol>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Legend</a> - As a member of the Triumvirate, Legend is considered one of the most powerful parahumans in North America. His powers are summarized as "flying artillery": he can fly, shoot lasers from his body, and endure strong attacks. Still, attacks from Behemoth</a>, Leviathan</a> and Siberian</a> have all been devastating enough that they were sufficient to take him out of the fight.[7]</a> His lasers were primarily blue-white[8]</a>. These beams can turn corners, fork into multiple lasers, pass through walls, and freeze and/or ignite his targets. He can use different effects creating cutting, disintegration, impact, heat, focused, staccato bursts, fat lasers, and invisible lasers. He could combine these effects, but this took time to investigate and he rarely faced threats that necessitated the needed effort.[9]</a> The ''freezing'' laser actually lowers the temperature at the point of contact close to absolute zero, damaging the target and freezing ambient moisture.[9]</a> The ''heat ray'' that ignited a target works on a similar principle.</li>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Alexandria</a> - Alexandria is considered the epitome of ''flying brick'' capes. The triad of flight, strength, and invincibility reoccurs often enough, in enough variations, that it¡¯s often referred to as ¡®the Alexandria package¡¯ in honor of her.[13]</a> According to experts</a>, Alexandria is one of the strongest parahumans that has ever been recorded.[14]</a> She has the ability to fly at speeds nearly matching Legend</a>.[13]</a> She was able to achieve incredible speeds in flight, being able to fly from halfway of US and Japan back to Cape Verde in under six minutes.[15]</a> She could fly so fast people couldn''t follow her with their eyes, zig-zagging, although Skitter</a> could still sense her movements with her bugs. This made it impossible to spot or photograph her.[16]</a></li>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Eidolon</a> - He has the ability to equip himself with a tremendous array of varied powers but is limited to three at the same time. The powers he chooses take time to build up, but within minutes he can match the strength of veteran users of the same abilities. Eidolon is one of the founding members of the Protectorate and the leader of the Houston</a> Protectorate</a>. He is generally considered to be the strongest parahuman and the fifth-strongest being on the planet, the first four being Scion</a> and the Endbringers</a>.[3]</a></li>


    </ol>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Top Tier Heroes -  Typically powerful heroes who lead their own departments or have some other major presence in the community</li>


    <ol>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Armsmaster</a> - Colin is a Tinker</a> that specializes in miniaturization and efficiency. He uses this power to create ridiculously efficient technological devices which he outfits into his suits of armor or into his weapons.</li>


    </ol>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Regional Protectorate Teams - </li>


    <ol>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Triumph</a> - Rory''s mainpower is sound manipulation - he can control its force, area of effect, and unleash it in bursts. He also sports a mild healing factor, healing quicker than average with minimal scarring</li>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Battery - Battery has the ability to charge up her power and then release it to give herself a large boost to her speed, a smaller boost to her strength and some electromagnetic powers. Each second she spent charging gave her several seconds of power usage.[11]</a> She was also almost invincible while charged.[3]</a>[2]</a>[6]</a> While charged, she was faster and stronger than Assault, although he was faster over a long distance because she needed to stop to recharge.[3]</a> According to interviews and article Taylor had read, it was probably a physiological change, enhancing her biology and then altering it back before the strain becomes too much.[12]</a> She needed to be able to concentrate in order to charge,[3]</a>[9]</a>and she needed to stay still or stick to simple actions while charging. She reached a limit after charging for 7-12 seconds.</li>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Miss militia</a> - Hannah''s power is a green and black,[12]</a>[1]</a> semi-sentient[9]</a> blur of energy that can form into ordinary-looking weapons. She can re-summon the weapon at will, collapsing it back into energy.[12]</a>[13]</a> She can re-summon a weapon if it runs out of ammo, reloading it,[14]</a>[15]</a> or if it¡¯s jammed.[16]</a> This made it easier to use non-lethal ammunition, such as rubber bullets.[17]</a> The weapons her power creates vibrate slightly, as if alive.[12]</a> further the energy will flit about, taking the form of various weapons whenever she is on guard.[18]</a> Her power influences her ability to use the weapons, enhancing her draw time and aim, and subtly adjusting their balance.[19]</a> She was able to accurately shoot a target''s head and neck.[20]</a> She claimed that she could re-summon her weapon from someone''s hands and shoot the wielder before they could react.[12]</a></li>


    </ol>


    </ol>


    </ol>


    Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

 Chapter 5.09 - Worm

    <h1>Chapter 5.09 - Worm</h1>


    According to information known to me, Lung and his henchmen settled in the northwest of the city. For reasons unknown to me, this area was called the southern docks, although at best they could be called western. And certainly not the docks, because the nearest dock from there was fifteen kilometers away in a straight line. The logic of the locals did not give in to a scientific explanation.


    Rushing through the sky like a bird, I scanned the neighborhood for clusters of people. Abandoned industrial buildings alternated with inhabited barracks here, forming a very strange architecture. In contrast to the coastal docks, there was enough normal homes. The infrastructure was not destroyed, and water supply, sewage, electricity and roads allowed the inhabitants to live a civilized life. Here lived the working strata of the population of the city, diluted with all sorts of drug addicts, lumpens and outcasts. The one that have not any profit to society, without any working place and living to Governments allowance.


    The interrogations of drug dealers caught by me during the week gave a tip to several places that the ABB guarded most closely. Now I was heading to one of these places. At dusk, the dirty gray warehouse building looked like ... dirty gray buildings. It seemed to be not made from concrete, but solely from natural dirt - the very rubbish that accumulates in the corners in rooms where it is never cleaned.


    Inside the warehouse were several dozen people. What is most interesting, in one of the rooms reside almost naked people. They walked along the tables, on which was located some kind of chemical equipment. Obviously, it was another drug lab. Well then, it''s time to punish this whole breeding ground of lies and vice.


    I landed on the roof of the warehouse and began to scan the neighborhood in a radius of half a kilometer. For each person, I put a kind of beacon, marking it as a member of the ABB or an innocent civilian. Of course, I was not sure that my definition was one hundred percent accurate, but I was sure that I could destroy most of the ABB forces in one fell swoop. There were armed groups, dens for drug addicts, and brothels. It even has a hundred "recruits" with bombs in their heads. I noted them especially.


    After the sorting of the targets was completed, I gave the command to the symbiote, and it simultaneously killed almost a thousand people by dispersing their body to bloody dust. Among them were at least four hundred drug addicts who did not have a direct connection with the ABB, but supplied them with money, buying drugs. Having the ability of Panacea, symbiote could almost instantly determine the presence of narcotic substances in the blood, so there could not be an error.


    The only living members of the ABB were only the inhabitants of the warehouse. I was already going to break in through the ceiling in order to organize my spectacular appearance in the expanding yarn of darkness, but then I noticed the car heading to the building and recognized Kaiser¡¯s limousine at which he came to the bar today. Looks like something interesting is going to happen.


    With a creak of brakes, the car stopped right outside the warehouse. Kaiser jumped out of it in his steel armor and froze in amazement, noticing the ground strewn with pieces of blood-stained meat. These were the remains of the ABB patrol . Without waiting for his companions in the face of two blondes Fenja and Menja, he rushed forward, knocking out the doors of the warehouse. They met him with a burst of gunfire, which nevertheless could not cause any harm. Although several bullets hit the mask in dangerous proximity to the eye slits.


    A chain of metal blades grown from the floor pierced the gunners, and a fierce cry from Kaiser, the head of the Empire, swept across the room.


    ¡°Lung! Come out!!! Your last day has come.¡±


    Immediately after the shout, loud bangs sounded, and  Fenja and Menja burst through the wall inside the warehouse, they have grown to a three-meter height. I went down and headed for the breach, while remaining unnoticed.


    ¡°Kaiser! This is my territory. How did you even dare come here?¡± There was a surprisingly competent response in the form of a shout. Apparently, when he wanted, Lung could speak quite normally. One of the people in the hall tore off the top of his clothes and begins to be shrouded in flames. Right before my eyes, scales began to grow over his skin. ¡°Have you brought the Black Cloak with you too? What, no longer confident in your strength?¡±  Lung continued, noticing my appearance.


    ¡°Black Cloak?¡± Kaiser turned around and looked at me. ¡°What are you doing here? Decided to steal my glory?¡±


    ¡°Your glory? Bwa ha ha. What are you talking about? I want to see how Lung will crush your skull. And do not think that you will be able to escape from here by holding your tail. Only one of you should survive today. I promise not to intervene in your battle.¡±


    ¡°You can not.¡± There was a pop, and next to me appeared the figure of Demon Lee. ¡°You will have a battle with me.¡±


    ¡°Sounds fun.¡± I agreed, retreating back to the street.


    Demon Lee appeared behind my back and tried to stick a knife in my back. Steel stopped a few centimetres from the cloak, as if buried in a spring. After another second, I felt the cape was teleported to the roof, leaving behind a cluster of force fields and virtual matter in the shape of a man. Both were the result of a symbiotic effect, the result of a partial manifestation of his tentacles in the physical world.


    Lung¡¯s minion over and over again tried to attack me using cold weapons. A couple of times he used grenades, but these were normal explosive grenades, so I did not even try to budge. Telekinesis reliably protected me from all such methods of influence.


    ¡°Is that all you can?¡± I mocked scornfully. ¡°Jump back and forth to create the appearance of an attack? It will not hold me even for a second.¡±


    I decisively turned and head for the warehouse. Demon Lee tried to stop me by teleporting close to immediately plunge the knife into my throat, but he failed. The tentacles of his symbiote came across the resistance of my symbiote, and the mask was literally thrown into physical dimension, sending the mask to the wall on the opposite side of the street. Having knocked out a couple of bricks from wall with his body, Demon Lee immediately teleported to the roof of the warehouse to take a breath.


    ¡°I haven¡¯t even begun to try to kill you, and you¡¯re almost dead. What a miserable power you have. Are you really so insignificant, eh, Demon Lee?¡±


    The provocation made Demon Lee use the gift of Bakuda. He approached me with a grenade in his hand, after which he teleported around the corner of the building. But I already had the opportunity to make sure that it is better not to be tricked by the creations of an insane techie. That is why my telekinesis snatched the bomb from the clone''s hand and moved it right under Demon Lee¡¯s side.


    There was a muffled boom, after which part of the warehouse wall was covered with hoarfrost. And here I thought Bakuda would be more creative in their explosives. Demon Lee managed to escape, but it was obvious that he had managed it with difficulty. A part of his left leg was covered with frost. Now he was sitting on the roof of the warehouse and rubbing it, trying to bring it back to normal.


    ¡°You are pathetic. It''s time to kill you.¡±


    I telekinesis picked up a brick from the ground and launched it into the villain. He made another attempt to attack me from the back, but seriously miscalculated. As soon as he appeared next to me, I telekinetically catched every cell of his body, preventing him  from escaping. Not so long ago, I neutralized the ability of Night in the same way.


    Demon Lee attempted to teleport, but did not succeed. I slowly turned around and looked into his eyes.


    ¡°That''s all. Now, I will tear you into a hundred little demons, after which I can enjoy the spectacle of the battle of two powerful masks. You couldn''t even entertain me.¡±


    The demon struggled to break free, activating his ability to move over and over again. His symbiote squealed hysterically in the telepathic range, pronouncing something in its Swahili and creating the sensation of cricket chirping right under my ear. I winced at the unpleasant sensations, and my victim managed to escape. But, the success was ... partial.


    I looked at Demon Lee, who was staring at me in shock. One of his self stood right in front of me, and the second stood ten meters away. A few seconds passed, and the head of the body in front of me showered with a weightless black dust. The second figure disappeared almost completely, leaving only the head and part of the spine hanging in the air. Both parts did not fall because I kept them telekinesis.


    ¡°Look at what you''ve done.¡± I turned to the head, which did not die because of my ability to heal. ¡°I didn''t even hit you, as you literally killed yourself. No, that won''t do. I still need you alive.¡±


    I inserted the spine back into the body, and then I overgrow the wound, hastily regenerating the tissue. The body remained paralyzed, but I was able to restore the work of individual vital organs - the heart, lungs, and liver. At least he won''t die in the next few hours anymore. I interfered with the work of the cape¡¯s brain, depriving him out of consciousness, and then put him on the roof of a neighboring building. I hope no one would bother him there.


    Having finished with this, I turned to the warehouse only to notice its epic collapse. All this time, my symbiote automatically did not allow any person to leave the building, so now all the members of the ABB have died under the rubble. And who did not die, I helped them to die. Only Lung, Kaiser, Fenja, and Menja was alive. However, the definition of "alive" was somewhat inaccurate.


    Kaiser was still in his armor shaped tin can, but his body was one big mutilated mess. Next to him lay Fenja, covered with bricks and concrete, staring in horror at Lung. He now resembled a real dragon. With a height of more than five meters, standing on four limbs, he raised leathery wings towards the sky. The long neck was crowned with a relatively small head, still preserving human features. Under the right front paw of Lung lay Menja. Or would it be more correct to say lying around the paw? Because his limb was inside her belly.


    Lung roared, and then pulled out a clenched paw, pulling out a whole heap of guts. His opponent was at least six meters tall, so she had a lot of guts. I even thought that Lung would strangle himself. That will be very laughful.


    ¡°Nessa!¡±  Fenja screamed in distress.


    She threw the unconscious Kaiser on her shoulder, jumped off and kicked Lung with her foot right in the head. He collapsed heavily. Taking advantage of his confusion, the mask grabbed her sister''s body, then ran away, dragging long ropes of giblets, covered with dust. No, if she is not given to Panacea right now, she will no longer be alive.


    I looked from losers to the winner in this battle, meeting his eyes.


    ¡°Mortal Kombat, round two! Oh yeah, I need to introduce myself.¡± I took a few steps forward, wrapped in a thick canopy of darkness. ¡°I am horror, flying on the wings of the night. I am a tax inspector who has found your black bookkeeping. I - retribution, like a brick falling on your head. I am the Black Cloak!¡±


    ¡°You''re the snack on my holiday table.¡± - Lung responded. ¡°I will eat you alive, and you will still have time to hear the crunch of your bones on my teeth.¡±


    With these words, Lung rushed forward, intent on hitting me with his paw. I tried to stop him, but again I was surprised to find out that my telekinesis literally slips off his body. However, this was no danger to me. I could go at a supersonic speed from a spot, and then also stop abruptly. For the average person, it would look like teleportation. Very noisy teleportation, but still. I was faster than a bullet. So Lung couldn''t even get close to me. I flew up to a height of a couple of tens of meters and began to study the reason why my telekinesis failed.


    Of course, it was a symbiote. The transformation of Lung into a dragon took place due to the fusion of his physical body with the body of a symbiote. This sight was amazing... and disgusting. The symbiote did not simply touch the body, it penetrated inside and literally dissolved him in itself, turning a person into a chimera. Now the volume of the "dragon" exceeded the volume of the body of Lung a hundred times. That is why one cell of his body accounted for a hundred times more cells of the symbiote. Of course, this creature did not have a cellular structure, but it emulated it, following the inherent program of the ability.


    Most of Lung''s body had already dissolved, and only half of his head was human. The most intact part was the brain. I wonder how far he can go in his transformation?


    My attempts to seize Lung by telekinesis were unsuccessful. Interaction was very weak. His body consisted of virtual matter created by a symbiote in our three-dimensional reality. It was under his direct control, but it was not himself, and therefore theoretically there was an opportunity to take control of him.


    To keep Lung in a transformed state, I needed to somehow entertain him. For this, I began to grab the surrounding garbage, pieces of buildings, and the ground,where I bring them down on the enemy. After a dozen seconds, I surrounded the dragon with all this matter and even lifted him into the air. I also kept Night in similar way. But Lung proved that he is not for nothing, he is considered the strongest Brockton Bay mask. He literally exploded with fire. And it was not only Pyrokinesis, but also ... telekinesis. Very flawed, but still did the job and somehow better than my way.


    The garbage scattered to the sides, revealing a flaming dragon that spun its wings and soared into the air, trying to reach me. Approaching, he exhaled a whole stream of flame that surrounded me from all sides. But all this could not do me any harm. Telekinesis did not allow the hot air to approach, and the darkness properly absorbed infrared radiation.


    I continued my attacks, not forgetting to carefully observe all the actions of Lung¡¯s symbiote. This battle was not only a chance to learn a strong mask, but also a way to hone my fighting skills, which results as a colorful show in which I showed my strength to the whole city. I could not boast of artistic expressiveness of telekinesis, and therefore I used the vivid image of Lung to show that all his power is nothing in front of me.


    The longer our battle lasted, the more bigger Lung became. Soon he reached a length of twenty meters from nose to tip. Now there was nothing human in it. It was a European dragon with four legs, wings, a long tail and a long neck. Flames burst from the mouth, and small fiery tongues of fire slipped from under each scale.


    By this time, there was nothing near that could be used as a weapon. All that was, we have already crushed everything to dust. So I began to collect soil in one piece and press it into the shape of huge stones. Alas, the strength of these stones was low, and they were falling apart from one blow.


    Lung roared, jumped, flew, over and over again tried to get me either with his tail, his paws, or his mouth. I constantly eluded him, pretending that a little more, and he could get me.


    I concentrated part of my consciousness on making a big hammer. I pulled out a piece of land with a diameter of more than twenty meters, and then began to compress it with all the strength available to me. A minute later, this mass shrank in half. Compression heated the rock, making it almost liquid. Heat gases escaped from the workpiece, while I increased the density of matter. In the end, I formed something like a pyramid from the melt and telekinetically began to reduce the movement speed of atoms. The hammer had cooled and was now ready for use.


    Seeing an opportunity, I kept Lung in place by streams of formless matter, and then brought down my pyramid ¡°hammer¡± on him with the flat side. There was a loud bang. I raised the pyramid and saw a flattened dragon lying at the bottom of a deep hole. Bang Bang BANG! I struck blows. After each of them, Lung flattened, but he was going to leap again and continued to resist. And most importantly - he began to grow even faster.


    Another hit at the dragon met with a fist blow, from which my weapon split. I pushed him up, turned the tip of the split pyramid down and brought it down on Lung with all my might. The sharp pyramid pierced through his body. But he did not die, did not ask for mercy, but exploded with a flash of violent flames that finally destroyed my weapon. At the same time, the dragon has grown almost fifty percent. Now it was visible from all parts of the city. The sun had already set, the sky was overcast, but these clouds shone purple, reflecting the light of the fire that emanated from its skin. Lung roared in such a way that the entire city heard him exactly, and then he continued to attack me.


    In order not to get lost against the background of this giant, I created a cloud of darkness around me and emulated the movement of huge tentacles striking. The formless blob absorbed all the light, but from time to time blue lightning flashes glittered inside it. Since I want to show my strength, it¡¯s worth making the audience happy with the spectacle.


    Lung grew and grew. Over time, he increasingly began to resemble an Asian dragon. His body lengthened and began to resemble a lizard, and then a snake. Now he flew no longer at the expense of the wings, but at the expense of telekinesis. Half an hour after the start of the battle, he was two hundred meters long and continued to grow. And then I noticed that Lung''s ability to resist my telekinesis was weakening.


    The strength of the dragon makes it so that during the battle it would constantly grow until it became ¡®bigger and stronger than the enemy¡¯. But the symbiote was not rubber. The larger the dragon became, the greater the ratio of the volume of the body of the symbiote to the volume of the pseudo-matter of Lung¡¯s body. And now this ratio no longer allowed him to control his own body with the same efficiency. On the contrary, all this time I was trying to improve my control over the tentacles of the symbiote, in order to make it stronger and ¡°harder¡± than my opponent.


    In terms of body size, Lung''s symbiote compared to mine was like a mouse in front of an elephant. But he had more experience, and he was also ruled by the beastly will of his master, who had refined his control over the years. Now I tried to learn all the best I saw from the enemy, plus adding my knowledge and skills.


    And so, the turning point came when I was literally lit up, and I realized how I can fill the tentacles of the symbiote with my will, making them thousands and millions of times stronger. Moreover, the same principle could be applied to control magic, chakra and even Bahion. This method was not easy, but it was definitely effective. Therefore, I decided that this fight can already be ended.


    For starters, I let Lung touch his paw or tail a few times. At the same time, my telekinetic tentacle literally sprayed his body at a short distance from me. After hitting me with a paw, I didn¡¯t budge, and a hole was formed in Lung¡¯s palm. I could kill him right now, but I wasn''t going to do it. First, I do not want to "score points" for my symbiote. And secondly, it was worthwhile to mislead all viewers about my true abilities.


    Having flown slightly to the side, I began to collect all available iron from the neighborhood. I pressed them into a ball, which began to warm up under the action of pressure. Plus, I applied my Pyrokinesis abilities, which also developed fairly well during the battle. Molten metal shrank even more, getting rid of all inclusions and gases. I already knew the principles of atomic separation for the nukes I made. I previously reproduced them based on chakra, magic, and then magical artifacts. Now I am doing it again, using the ability of the symbiote.


    After a couple of minutes, I had a very large drop of chemically pure molten iron. Of course, it was very big compared to me. But compared with Lung, it was only a big drop. I squeezed it even stronger, translating it into a new phase state, heated it, and gave the metal the shape of a huge sword. It was a straight sword of the European type, on the blade of which huge letters in English were visible: DRAGON SLAYER.


    With telekinesis, I sharply slowed down the movement of iron atoms, cooling the blade and giving it incredible strength. Near me in the air hung a huge monocrystal of iron. The strength of this material was several thousand times stronger than ordinary steel. It was relatively fragile due to poor resistance to crack propagation, but I neutralized this weakness by ¡°feeding¡± the metal with the power of telekinesis and with my will. Now it was a weapon capable of piercing even the core of the planet.


    Within all this time, Lung tried to get to me, but could not overcome the barrier of flying stones. Moreover, I constantly attacked him with these stones, dispersing them to great speed and entered on his scales, which only made him stronger.


    The Dragon Slayer rushed forward like a lightning bolt and pierced Lung''s body, entering the very hilt. The dragon tried to grab my weapon, but then it seemed to break through the seemingly invulnerable body, moving aside and flying away beyond the reach of Lung. Burning blood gushed from a wide wound, but there were no organs visible inside the body. It was all solid props.


    The sword flashed once more, and the severed wing flew to the ground, leaving behind a trail of fire. Time after time I attacked Lung, inflicting wounds on him. The virtual body could not suffer much, but at the same time my blows wounded the symbiote, cutting off its tentacles, threatening to dismember it into several large pieces. There was a turning point in the battle, and Lung began to retreat. He roared, refusing to admit defeat, rushed at me more and more fiercely and quickly, already not paying attention to the injuries, trying to get me at any cost. But all his attacks were incapable of harming me. Even swallowing me, he only achieved the appearance of a hole leading from the mouth to the back.


    The merging of Lung with the symbiote had another side effect. Every cell of his brain was now surrounded by a pseudo-material, which depicted the work of a dragon''s brain. You just can not pretend to be smarter than you are. Symbiote was a blunt animal, and therefore Lung in the shape of a dragon was also no smarter than him. And as a fierce and brainless animal, he fiercely rushed at me, instead of trying to come up with some kind of plan, or at least retreat.


    As a result, after another fifteen minutes, Lung fainted, collapsed to the ground with a shapeless gut and began to lose weight rapidly, regaining his human appearance. I picked him up by telekinesis and put him next to Demon Lee, who was lying on the roof of the only survived building within a kilometer radius. All this time I covered it, saving his life. I had a lot of fun. During this fight, my strength increased many times. That''s what a good opponent means. Having pushed several veins in Lung''s head, I made sure that he would not wake up ahead of time. Well, I¡¯m finished with this animal, now it''s Bakuda''s time.


    Having examined the baldness of total destruction formed on the territory of the city, I turned my eyes to a giant sword. I created it in a fit of inspiration, so I can hardly repeat something like that in the near future. The letters on the surface of the blade shimmered with crimson light. What is most interesting, it was not the result of the work of my symbiote. It was in some way reminiscent of magic, and in some ways the effect of Bakuda¡¯s bombs. I decided to study this effect, but later.


    Having unfolded the sword with the blade down, I thrust it into the ground. I plunged almost a third of the blade, but even so, the hilt is at twenty meters above the ground. Not bad, I¡¯ve got a monument here. I focused, and on the surface of the blade appeared a lot of "holographic" inscriptions: ¡®Property of Black Cloak¡¯. Like the security images on banknotes, these inscriptions appeared at certain viewing angles. Sometimes it even seemed that they were inside the blade.


    If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    Having perpetuated my authorship in this way, I turned around and flew towards another ABB base. I expected that there was no one left, and everybody ran somewhere, but instead I found a building full of people ... and, of course, bombs. It is in the style of Bakuda. I wonder if she blows up herself with bomb, will it be considered that I killed her? Or symbiote will be attracted to the nearest kin?


    Stopping in a couple of hundred meters from the building, I began to study the situation. My battle with Lung was somewhat beyond what was expected. Ash area with a diameter of two kilometers - this is serious. But at least not many people died there. I did not throw buildings with people to the dragon. Rather, I tore off the walls and roofs from them, enabling people to get away. Most of the real estate was destroyed by Lung with explosions and blows from his body. Still, the length of two hundred meters - it is a lot of volume. It was enough for him to simply crawl to raze the whole street with the ground.


    Now I wanted to create an image of a heroic savior. And for this it was necessary to sort the people in the building into hostages and members of the ABB, neutralize the bombs and kill Bakuda and her minions. I was not going to arrange another battle. It will be enough just to make a work.


    The study of the situation gradually shifted to the study of technologies used by Bakuda to create bombs. The more I looked at her creations, the more I realized that techies are just magicians. There was not a single gram of technology in their creations. But there was an obstinate belief in every heresy. Most of Bakuda¡¯s bombs were ... three transistors, welded together in a special way. Here''s how three pieces of silicon can explode, freezing everything in the neighborhood? Yes, nothing. This is magic, Harry.


    The symbiotes did absolutely impossible tricks with the laws of the Universe, not caring about something trivial such as rationale. At least that was how it looked. A more detailed analysis revealed a picture of a limitless universe of dimensions, hiding behind the apparent of the physical three-dimensional world.


    In a sense, techies still had to do with technology. If they had sufficient knowledge, they could influence the reality on the bare technique, without resorting to such substances as will, faith, energy of consciousness, and so on. But local techies replaced 99% of the desired impact with a symbiotic force.


    If I may say so, it was the sixth type of magic known to me, despite the fact that the ability of my symbiote could not be called magic. Chakra and the magic of spiders were the first two. Behind them was the magic of people, the basis of which was faith and tradition. This fascinated captive souls in the world of demons. A separate discipline was ritual magic based on the use of divine laws ¡ª certain ¡°Laws¡± of higher order entities, a kind of local rules for interpreting the laws of physics and magic.


    The fifth kind was the use of Bahion. And the sixth was the physics of multidimensional space, known to symbiotes. My telekinesis was a commonplace interaction of multidimensional objects. The fact that no one can see tentacles of my symbiote has not yet indicated that there is at least a drop of mysticism in this. Now, with the ability of Panacea, I could grow to myself the exact same multidimensional limb and swing it by moving the circles and bending the spoons.


    Sadly sighing, I decided to postpone the theoretical studies of this interesting field of natural science and return to our sheep. More precisely, to one sheep - stubborn Bakuda. This contagion connected the symbiote tentacles to all of its bombs in the bodies of people, so that her death would lead to an instantaneous explosion of everything.


    But on the other hand, she is a techie. She does not even think that the source of her abilities is a symbiote, which can be mentally controlled. So, she thought up some technical device, which allegedly could send a signal to the bombs to explode. Carefully searching the only cape in the area, I made sure that there were some metallic inclusions in her chest.


    The symbiote also had suspiciously close contact with her mask and rings on the toes. Most likely, Bakuda  uses them for remote bomb blasting. What is the most funny, traces of long wearing rings were on her left leg, which I shot a week ago. It seems that precisely because of this, Bakuda then decided to slip away. Now these rings were on the right foot. The left one was dragged into a plaster and supported by something like an exoskeleton.


    Overall, my plan is pretty simple. For starters, defuse bombs. Then, to deprive Bakuda out of consciousness. Rescue the hostages and turn the rest into a bloody mess. In this circumstance, point one and two could be swapped.


    I localized one of the hostages in the building about three hundred meters from me and tried to defuse his bomb. Alas, my attempt to detach the Bakuda tentacles immediately led to an explosion. A few more experiments have shown that bombs are in a state where the slightest outside interference leads to their explosion. I had to go to point two. I squeezed a few veins in the tech¡¯s head and waited until she lost consciousness. But, alas, everything went completely differently than I expected.


    After a couple of seconds, the eyes of Bakuda rolled up, and all of her bombs in the area were detonated. And what is most terrible, a large bomb, installed in the basement of the house where Bakuda was sitting, blowed up. It did not just explode, but instantly isolated a piece of space with a diameter of several hundred meters, and then began to crinkle and deform the laws of nature inside this area. I found myself at the very edge of the impact zone, but I could not simply escape. I felt the time inside the bubble begin to slow down. There was an urgent need to do something. However, the very type of impact on reality was already familiar to me. Clockblocker¡¯s strength worked on the same principle.


    For a start, I killed all the members of the ABB, Bakuda and her symbiote. It took less than half a second. Then I directed my symbiote¡¯s tentacles to search for the path to salvation in multidimensional space. The image obtained from the symbiote said that it was possible to smuggle me into the discovered breach located in the future. I immediately agreed and experienced the most unforgettable movement I ever had. Symbiote literally took me to its hump along cunning footpaths of multidimensionality, and then dumped me into physical space a couple of blocks to the east.


    Once in the normal world, I departed for another ten minutes, trying to put in my head everything that I had seen and perceive in the process of moving. Repeating such thing again ... No, no. It¡¯s better to die than to experience it again. Brr.


    After coming to myself, I focused on the outside world. Just a minute ago it was night, and now it was noon. Rushing around the neighborhood, I found an empty residential apartment, where I turned on the TV to find out what day it was. Pretty good, I got on the news channel. As I opened the window to get into the apartment and see what was happening on the screen, I listened to the speaker¡¯s speech.


    ¡°... huddle the search jobs at the scene of the battle of villains. Already confirmed the death of more than a thousand people. More than fifteen thousand citizens were left homeless. For them, temporary detention centers have been established, where all those in need are provided with food, water and a roof over their heads. According to experts, these temporary camps may well become permanent. After all, even the destroyed houses at one time were built only as a temporary solution to accommodate the workers employed in the construction of the industrial area of the docks.¡±


    Finally coping with the grilles, locks and traps, I got to the TV. Well, what a miserable life. How do they become like this I wonder - to put a bear trap on the window leaf. Thanks to it nobody did not steal the TV, and now I can watch the news on it. The date in the scrolling line at the bottom of the screen showed that today is Sunday, October 1, 2018 11:38. Less than a day has passed since the collision with Bakuda.


    ¡°In the meantime, the Governor¡¯s Office together with the PRT and the Protectorate are planning to arrange a charity dinner, the funds from which will go to help the victims of the opposition of criminal groups. The Armsmaster and Miss Militia will be present at the dinner, as recently as last night captured Lung and his assistant Demon Lee. The whole city expresses its support to the heroes who saved the city from these villains.¡±


    What, they captured them? Even after I show them epic and bloody battles? Those kill stealers! Well, that''s it. Wait for me at the dinner party.


    ¡°Hey, you''re up there, I''m not waiting for an invitation. Right now I will come, oh right now I will come ... Now I will come to visit you.¡±  Singing a catchy song, I left the apartment, locking all the locks back and alerting the traps.


    Turning on the phone, I dialed Tattletale¡¯s. While the beeps went on, I tried to use the symbiote in order to get information about what was going on ¡°on the other end of the phone¡±. The sensations were rather blurry, but I ¡°saw¡± how the girl grabbed the phone, looked at the number, said a few words to the teammates, and then almost ran to a separate room.


    ¡°I''m listening.¡±


    ¡°Hello. It''s good that you keep acquaintance with me in secret from your comrades, but you could have picked up the phone early.¡±


    ¡°Black Cloak ...¡±


    ¡°And who else did you expect?¡±


    ¡°No one. We just had a discussion about our next mission.¡±


    ¡°Is that so?¡± I stretched more tentacles, reading the information. ¡°An attack on a dinner party?¡±


    ¡°What? Where are you from ... you copied my power?¡±


    ¡°Guessed good. It''s funny, but I''m going to get to this dinner too. Some questions to the Protectorate require discussion on live TV. So I need your informational support. Kindly find answers to a couple of questions?¡±


    ¡°Of course. But ... if you attack the meeting, our appearance will only be a minor event on this background. Coil will be displeased.¡±


    ¡°I will let you move first.¡±  I grinned. ¡°And when you screw it up, I will come and save you.¡±


    ¡°Thank you, but I don¡¯t want such a record, I would like to have my CV.¡±


    ¡°Seriously. I need answers to my questions.¡±


    ¡°Speak. I hope you can wait a few hours for answers?¡±


    ¡°No problem. Take the notebook in the drawer to your left and write it down. There will be many questions ¡°


    ...


    Putting the phone aside, I thought about what I was able to find out. Dinner will begin at eight o''clock in the evening. It will be attended by bumps from the PRT, the heroes of the Protectorate, Wards, representatives of government and business. The event will take place on the top floor of the Forsberg Gallery. It was a building with glass walls and a roof, built by the rich in order to splurge tourists. The higher the floor, the more pompous events took place there.


    Not far from there was a building with the studio of the ZBS channel. This means that I can control the broadcast of the events of the evening live. It will only be necessary to visit the director of the department and give appropriate instructions.


    At five minutes to eight I sat on the roof of one of the small-scale skyscrapers and watched the preparations for the beginning of the dinner. Guests preferred to arrive in advance, because at eight the official part had to start, which would then be broadcast on television. The fact that the image from the cameras will go live, no one knew, even the operator.


    Two minutes later, on the roof of another neighboring building, taller than the gallery, a team of Undersiders appeared. Bitch began to increase their dogs, which took about ten minutes. All this time, the governor spoke at the dinner, who was crucified on the theme ¡°how good it is that we all gathered here today.¡± When his speech ended, and there was a loud applause, the Undersiders began to act.


    Three huge creatures, formerly dogs, jumped off and rushed forward in an insane jump, carrying riders on their backs. If I were in their place, I would not make this decision. Overcoming fifty meters, flying from one skyscraper to another. It is worth making them feel the consequences from what they are doing.


    Telekinesis imperceptibly slowed down the movement of dogs. They hung in the air, and then they flew down, picking up speed. I heard echoes of a shrill screech. It seems to be the Queen of the Zerg. Stopping in the air at a height of ten meters from the road, the dogs soared vertically upwards and landed safely on the glass roof, which immediately collapsed under their weight.


    I expected the Undersiders would try to take hostages, establish control over the premises or do something else, but it seems that my innocent joke knocked the whole fighting spirit out of them. Only Tattletale retained composure. After all, she knew who was behind all this, and that I would hardly want to kill them in such an absurd way. Queen of Zerg generally pissed herself, and now did not know where to hide.


    The silence that was formed gave the PRT special forces enough time to react. Two of them looked at each other, tore off grenades from their belts and threw them at the frozen villains. These were foam grenades that released a rapidly hardening foam that could hold a not-so-strong mask. But there were no strong masks among the Undersiders.


    Slamming loudly, the grenades worked, and the foam clouded the villains, burying them under themselves. The dogs tried to escape, but they were flooded with additional foam streams from special sprinklers. The streams of darkness flooded the floor, but this could not help the Undersiders to free themselves. It was a failure, captured on camera and broadcast live.


    I think the time has come for my pathetic appearance. I moved to the building, flew through the broken roof and dispelled the darkness around Grue. Cameras immediately focused on my figure.


    ¡°I am horror, flying on the wings of the night. I am the salvation that you did not expect. I am the plague during your feast. I am the Black Cloak!¡±


    Nobody tried to stop me. The glory of a bloody butcher paralyzed people no worse than some superpowers. Downstairs, I stepped forward, while neutralizing the foam. I nibbled it in small pieces and threw it out onto the street. In just a few seconds, the Undersiders were freed, but remained standing behind my back. What else could they do if my telekinesis held them tenaciously in place?


    ¡°Good evening ladies and gentlemen.¡± I started my speech. ¡°I heard that today the high society of Brockton Bay is gathering here, so I could not miss this event. Regarding on ¡­¡±


    And at that moment an arrow stuck in my chest right in my heart. I instantly focused, scanned the surrounding space and found the source of the problem. The Shadow Stalker was able to become non-material and deceive my sense of telekinesis. But only while I did not pay attention to her. Now I felt her with the tentacles, grabbed and materialized her in our world, crucified in the air like Christ.


    ¡°But doing such things are not necessary.¡± I said coldly, grabbing an arrow with my right hand and pulling it out of my chest. Not a drop of blood remained on the tip.  ¡°Because in response, I usually do this.¡±


    The body of the Shadow Stalker was bent, snapped by breaking bones in dozens of places, and then she was dispersed by bloody porridge and flew to the side, making red circle on the glass. There were women''s cries, someone tried to run somewhere, but everyone froze, all they had to do was give away to my roar.


    ¡°STAND, AFRAID!!!¡±


    Once again, I looked around the crowd, who had stuck in my telekinesis like flies into honey, and then continued my speech. The wound in the chest has long been healed, healed by my symbiote. But the cloak will have to be repaired.


    ¡°So, I will support our esteemed governor in his statement. I am also very glad that all of you have gathered here today to help the residents of Brockton Bay in these difficult times. I also want to help them. And above all, I want to help them find out the truth. The truth about how the PRT and the Protectorate brazenly deceive the public, attributing to themselves the merits of others and declaring as villains those who dared to encroach on their right to hang noodles on others.


    ¡°Do you have proof?¡± The voice of a newspaper reporter rang out from the side. Under my gaze, he turned pale, and even prepared to part with life.


    ¡°Of course.¡± I replied. ¡°That is why I came here - to hold a press conference, answer your questions and ask my own. I ask the official representatives of the PRT and the Protectorate to come forward and introduce themselves. I have questions for you.¡±


    There was an awkward silence, after which the Armsmaster and Miss Militia came forward.


    ¡°You do not intimidate us.¡± The Armsmaster spoke out harshly, taking his halberd with combat grip. ¡°You will answer for all the murders you committed.¡±


    ¡°Let me in, I''ll pass anyway.¡±  Pushing around, an unhealthy looking fat woman came forward. ¡°My name is Emily Piggot. I am the head of the local branch of PRT.¡±


    ¡°Nice to meet you. It is good that at least someone here has an understanding of politeness and manners. Not like some caddies who rush into hollow threats.¡± The Armsmaster did not show anything on face, but he was internally embarrassed. Feeling like a dog who ate other¡¯s meat. ¡°So, Emily, I have a question for you. Today in the news I heard about how the Armsmaster and Miss Militia heroically captured Lung and the Demon Lee. Miss Militia even spoke on camera about her heroic battle with the Demon Lee. Do you know what really happened last night? Come on, tell me what happened according to you? ¡°


    ¡°You, Black, and Lung staged a massacre at the southern docks, where more than a thousand people were killed.¡± Angrily expressed the director of the PRT. Judging by the quick gasping after expressing her opinion, she had heart problems.


    ¡°Firstly, my name is not Black, but Black Cloak. I advise you to remember this, because the next time, if I hear such an appeal to myself, I will immediately destroy the impudent one, as I did with the Shadow Stalker. Secondly, you just accused me of killing innocent people and conspiring with Lung. What a terrible nonsense you come up with. The brain in your head are completely rotten. Yesterday, the whole city saw me fighting Lung, and then I defeated him. And now I want to hear from the Armsmaster the truth about how he captured Lung, plus an apology.¡±


    I waited a few seconds and continued.


    ¡°Come on, Armsmaster, if you do not answer my question, I will start to kill those people. One by one every minute.¡± Techie tried to rush at me, but naturally stuck in the air. ¡°And then the whole country will see that for the Protectorate, concealing lies is more important than the lives of people.¡±


    ¡°Fine.¡± Gunsmith squeezed out the word begrudgingly. ¡°What do you want to hear?¡±


    ¡°The truth. Only the truth. And if you deviate even slightly from the truth, then this woman will immediately die.¡±


    I waved my hand elegantly, and one of the wealthy middle-aged ladies hovered in front of us, waving her arms helplessly. The techie looked at the hostage, looked absently at the characters surrounding him, and then spoke:


    ¡°Last night, we received a signal about the clash of two strong masks in the southern docks area. The combined team of Wards and Protectorate moved to the scene. We did not dare to interfere in the confrontation, focusing on saving the residents of the city. After Lung fainted and fell to the ground, I and Miss Militia moved to the center of the battle zone. Half an hour later, we found unconscious Lung and Demon Lee, who were immediately arrested and transported to the headquarters of the Protectorate. After that, we told reporters that we had seized the villains without clarifying the circumstances of the incident.¡±


    ¡°Well, uh ... it''s not the whole truth, but it¡¯s enough for the first time.¡± Frustrated, I stretched. ¡°It¡¯s hard to learn to speak the truth at once. By the way, I want to note that this is not the first time that the Armsmaster appropriates other people''s merits. Last time, he also ¡°arrested¡± unconscious Lung, taking Queen of Zerg¡¯s right as the winner and threatening her to run away from the scene. And now, I want the Armsmaster to kneel and ask for forgiveness from the residents of Brockton Bay for cheating on them.¡±


    ¡°What? Get on my knees?¡± Armsmaster rebelled. ¡°I am one of the leaders of the Protectorate.¡±


    ¡°Does this give you the right to deceive people and appropriate others'' merits? Well, though, what am I asking? The protectorate was created precisely for this purpose. Right?¡±


    The Armsmaster gritted his teeth, then knelt down and said:


    ¡°I apologize to all the residents of Brockton Bay for misleading them.¡±


    ¡°See, it''s not that hard.¡± I praised him.


    ¡°You''re a killer!¡± Armsmaster blurted out. ¡°Confessions knocked out by threats have no power. No one will believe you.¡±


    ¡°Ha ha ha. They do not have the power in court. And now the whole city is watching and listening to us. Whole country.¡± Armsmaster in horror warped his face. ¡°But let''s forget about these envious losers, and I will tell you about what happened last night.


    I looked at the audience. The Armsmaster remained on his knees. He, of course, made an attempt to rise, but with surprise he found out that my telekinesis is stronger.


    ¡°Yesterday, I decided to destroy the ABB criminal group. For a start, I discovered and executed about a thousand gangsters and their accomplices. After that, while I was fighting Demon Lee, Lung defeated Kaiser who appeared unexpectedly. Then I joined the battle with Lung and defeated him after almost an hour of confrontation. I think this moment was seen by the whole city. At the scene of the battle there is still a sword, with which I sliced Lung as a stick of smoked sausage.¡±


    There were chuckles in the hall.


    ¡°Leaving Lung and Demon Lee unconscious, I headed to Bakuda, holding several hundred people hostage. I managed to destroy the villain and all the members of the ABB in the district, but many of the hostages were caught in an explosion of time-slowing bombs. I think they can still be saved. It is enough to wait until the end of the effect of stopping time. That''s the whole story. Maybe someone has questions? If possible, I will answer them.¡±


    My little lie about saving the hostages could not be refuted. The area of freezing gradually poured darkness due to the inhibition of the movement of light. And the earliest it would be cancelled is no earlier than a thousand years


    ¡°What are you hiding under the mask? Who are you really?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m afraid that if I answer this question, I¡¯ll have to kill you all. I can only say one thing: under this mask is a man for whom the concept of justice is not an empty phrase.¡±


    ¡°What about the people you killed? Killing them is a crime.¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t kill people, but only animals that pretend to be people: drug addicts, drug dealers, bandits and other niggas.¡± With these words, a whole crowd of goosebumps ran down the back of Darkness. I just smiled, catching this emotion.


    ¡°Are you a nationalist?¡±


    ¡°No.  I equally hate all people, regardless of the color of their skin.¡±


    ¡°Will you continue killing people?¡±


    ¡°Of course. The world is still full of all sorts of geeks who are unworthy of living on Earth.¡±


    ¡°And who decides whether a person is worth living or not?¡±


    ¡°What a stupid question. Of course I am. I am the law, the judge and the executioner. I am the Black Cloak!¡±


    ¡°Maybe you should take the name Black Executioner?¡±


    ¡°This is ... worth considering. Bwa ha ha ha ha ha.¡±  I laughed the classic laugh of a mad villain.


    ¡°Why do you oppose drug dealers? People buy drugs themselves.¡±


    I looked at the questioner.


    ¡°I see that you are a drug addict with experience. Heroin, ecstasy, marijuana, and all this for at least two years. Here is what I tell you before breaking to pieces¡± I pulled the drug-addict to me and showed the public. ¡°Drugs destroy consciousness. Once injected, and you''re no longer a man. For the sake of the dose, the addict is ready to sacrifice any interests of the people around him. Theft, robbery, extortion - these are typical ways to make money to buy drugs.¡±


    ¡°If you compare people with ants, the drugs do not kill the ants, but the anthill. Turn civilization into a crowd of brainless cattle. The fight against drug addiction and crime is a way to clean the society from the cancer that struck it. You do not protest against the removal of a cancer tumor on the lungs that among the cancer cells even if there are healthy innocent cells. If you do not do it immediately, the tumor will kill the whole body. I want to build a crime-free society at Brockton Bay. To do this, it is necessary somehow to get rid of a noticeable quarter of the population. So get ready. Honest people can live in peace, but it¡¯s better to kill out any scum from the city right now.¡±


    With these words, I revealingly dismembered a drug addict, despite the cries of his relatives. Some of the masks tried to stop me but only resulted in a twitch, because I held them by the balls via telekinesis.


    ¡°More questions?¡±


    ¡°You are not afraid of Protectorate¡¯s revenge? You just killed one of their masks.¡±


    ¡°Let them come. Eye for eye, life for life. This fool attacked me and tried to kill me. I did the same. I did it, she does not. I will not make a fuss with the criminals who attack me, whatever positions they occupy in any kinds of organizations.


    I looked around the hall and turned my attention to several helicopters circling near the building.


    ¡°Well, gentlemen. The time of our meeting has come to an end. I want to note that I came to this dinner to support the residents of the city. But I¡¯m not going to donate money, which the bureaucrats will steal anyway. With the help of my strength, I will build houses for those who are homeless.¡±


    ¡°Mister Black Cloak, wait.¡± The governor of the city burst forth. ¡°Can you save my niece? She was kidnapped ten days ago, and neither the police nor the PRT can find her tracks.¡±


    ¡°What is her name?¡±


    ¡°Dina Alcotte.¡±


    ¡°I''ll see what I can do with it. Goodbye.¡±


    With these words, I flew into the air, taking the Undersiders with me. They meekly accepted their fate, not even trying to resist.


    ¡°And what the fuck was that?¡± Bitch was indignant when we landed on the roof of one of the buildings at the docks.


    ¡°Your dogs could not jump to the next building?¡±  I innocently asked.


    ¡°Not funny.¡± Regent interrupted, twisting his rod in his hands. ¡°In your opinion, do you think they changed their mind when they¡¯re close to touching the very earth and decided to reach the building¡¯s roof?¡±


    ¡°Ha ha ha. That was a very funny joke.¡±


    ¡°Because of you, we almost got caught.¡± Grue was outraged, not particularly persistent. He understood that with my abilities I could kill them all without any effort. He was also the only Negro here, and therefore considered himself to be in particular danger. Eternally, these niggas seek to push out their own exclusiveness.


    ¡°Blame yourselves for this. There was nothing to stand with such in a pose as if you had just fallen from a skyscraper.¡±


    ¡°Okay, that''s enough.¡± Intervened Tattletale. ¡°Black Cloak decided to attend the event at the same time as we, and we should not blame him for that. Especially since you really stood still like idiots until we were filled with foam.¡±


    ¡°Do you protect him?¡± The Zerg Queen was surprised.


    ¡°He saved your life, you fool. Shut up and do not open your mouth at all, pisser.¡± Tattletale whispered in her ear. The lady of the flies from such a collision was embarrassed and tried to hide from us behind the dogs. I did not allow any insect closer than ten meters. And without them, the mask felt like a lost ant.


    ¡°Well, that was funny. But the next time choose a task that corresponds to the level of your abilities. For example, look for lost dogs, drive flies away in the afternoon nap, protect the same nap from the rays of the sun. I hope you are aware of my laws? Do not kill, do not steal, do not stab, and so on. In this city, you either observe my laws, or are torn apart in attempts to establish justice. Good luck.¡±


    I soared into the air and disappeared into the darkness of the night. Grue also surrounded his team with darkness and hurried to his base.

 Chapter 5.10 - Worm

    <h1>Chapter 5.10 - Worm</h1>


    The next morning I went to school. I already copied the abilities of Panacea and Glory to myself, and now it was worth copying the other Wards. For example, Kid Win. He¡¯s a techie, and this direction of development now interested me the most.


    ¡°Hi, Eros. How was your trip?¡± Clockblocker, who¡¯s currently Dennis, greets me.


    ¡°Fine. Hey Dennis, when I was browsing the internet, I found out about the dinner party live broadcast. It was quite a spectacular dinner.¡± Classmates and my girlfriend decided to go to the dinner party to enjoy Friday, I made up an excuse about the fact that I needed to go to my parents in Boston to explain my absence as I was playing hero at that time.


    ¡°Yes, it was a crazy event.¡± Dennis agreed. I saw him at dinner in the back rows. ¡°Piggot was furious. Oh!¡±


    Clockblocker covered his mouth with his hands. He just gave me his identity to the Wards.


    ¡°Yes, do not worry.¡± I slapped him on the shoulder. ¡°I can identify any cape by one touch.¡±


    ¡°You still don''t want to join the Wards?¡±


    ¡°After watching the angry speech of the Armsmaster, and then the entire list of reports, how can you convince me? No thanks. I do not want that trouble.¡±


    ¡°Yes, this bureaucracy is killing me.¡±


    ¡°What is killing you, Dennis?¡± Kid Win approached us, he is my main goal at the moment.


    ¡°Hello, Chris. Laws, rules and regulations. I am already thinking of going to Black Cloak¡¯s team. He has simple laws.¡±


    ¡°Are you serious?¡±


    ¡°Of course not. But the bureaucracy and the writing of reports are making my liver squirm. ¡®I will go to the Black Cloak, whom I dislike shall urinate in their general direction.¡¯"


    ¡°Oh, you joker.¡±


    Done talking, we walked from the locker room to class. There I greeted Panacea with a kiss and joined the society of carefree students.


    After the end of the second lesson the director came into our class.


    ¡°Children. Today¡¯s classes are canceled. I ask you to go home. Have a nice day everyone.¡±


    ¡°What is going on?¡± I turned to Panacea.


    ¡°We have a class in which the Wards study. So in case of emergencies, the entire class is dismissed in order to not reveal the identities of the masks.¡±


    ¡°I see, do you know what is the emergency?¡±


    ¡°Sorry, but no. I need to go to the hospital. Once classes were canceled, there will be a lot of wounded.¡±


    ¡°Ok, good luck. Will see you tomorrow. Or call by phone, if you decide to visit. I will go to the slot machine hall.¡±


    The people scattered, and I moved home. Maybe I should also make my base in the docks? And I should constantly carry my suit in a backpack, and get to the center and back by vehicle transport.


    At home, I sat down and access the Internet via my toaster laptop, extracting information from it. Forums and news sites as always, are seething with shit, but today this shit stream was especially full-flowing.


    To begin with, in the morning someone posted on the Internet all information of the masks of the Empire Eighty Eight. And by ¡°all¡± I mean everything: real names, residential address, place of work, vile personal habits, and so on. By the nature of the information and the details, I would bet that it was the work of Tattletale. But my power told me that it was not. Behind this was a master mind at work, though Tattletale still had some but not entirely clear relation to this.


    Then PRT woke up after yesterday''s shame and unfolded in the media about information on my slandering. My codename was changed from Black to Black Executioner, thousands and millions of dead victims were recorded in the atrocities, and now they turned the brainwashing propaganda around the zombie box, where they called upon the heroes to unite in the face of danger and give me a furious judgement. Well, something like that.


    I have long since taught the symbiote to deflect the tentacles of clairvoyants from me, like Tattletale. But today they flickered around on an unprecedented scale. I had to switch to the new mode - I did not just reject other people''s tentacles, but cut them off and fed them to my symbiote. This required constant tension, because in order to effectively confront other symbiotes, I had to feed the "cutting tentacles" with my will.


    To make it so that life doesn¡¯t seem like all honey, the PRT accompanied by the heroes of the Protectorate broke into the house of Purity and kidnapped her daughter. She, naturally, could not stand it, but for some reason she rushed to attack not the headquarters of the PRT, but the long-suffering docks, breaking the last surviving buildings there.


    And the cherry on the cake was the attack of a swarm of hornets on the school of Winslow, where more than a hundred students died from their bites. Looks like now I know where the Zerg Queen went to school. However, knowing the infamous cancer-like local public, I am surprised that there were only a hundred victims.


    I turned on the TV and came across a live broadcast where it showed Purity destroying buildings. Then she got to the operator and expressed her ultimatum to ... Undersiders. It seems like there¡¯s something wrong with her head. And besides, she¡¯s trashing my city without asking me for permission. Find and punish!


    Today I decided to use the system of underground express tunnels, that is, drain sewers. All I had to do was go down to the basement, and then open the door leading to the network of underground passages. On them I flew pretty quickly, having emerged to the surface already at the docks. Maybe, well, fuck hiding my anonymity! I will publicly declare myself as God of Brockton Bay so I will walk everywhere without hiding? Anyway, local games with cloaks and masks do not attract me.


    Having flown into the air, I spread my tentacles around the neighborhood and began to search for Purity, at the same time examining the surroundings. The malicious violator of my laws was found on clouds of dust rising from destroyed buildings. I caught a glimpse of her and found quite a few injured and even more dead. And here is her crime.


    ¡°Are you completely overfucked, stupid brainless bitch?¡± I addressed to Purity, flying up to a distance of five meters.


    ¡°Are you with them?!¡± She screamed with epileptic voice.


    ¡°I work for myself, to my own. Why the fuck are you smashing my city?¡±


    ¡°They took my daughter !!!¡±


    ¡°Well, then go and thunder PRT¡¯s headquarters, or drown the tower of the Protectorate! Why did you came into the docks and put ultimatums here to the Undersiders? Maybe due to the fact that you are simply afraid to face the PRT, and therefore you are trying to harass those who just can not resist?¡±


    ¡°Give me back my daughter!¡± Purity emitted hundreds of rays that pierced through the surrounding houses.


    ¡°Why do you do this? I didn''t kidnap her.¡±


    ¡°It''s your fault!¡± It seems that this fool is unable to communicate as a proper human. ¡°Bring back, to me, my DAUGHTER!!!¡±


    This time the rays of light rushed straight towards me. I had to fill the surrounding space with darkness, and then also deflect the racing photon charges with my tentacles. It¡¯s kind of pleasurable, I can tell you. It''s like trying to turn a pancake in a pan, using only your hands. Of course, I could just dodge, but I need to test my defense.


    In response to the blatant aggression, I surrounded Purity with darkness, and then I began to break open her defensive fields, in parallel injuring her symbiote. Filling tentacles with my will turned out to be extremely effective. Now I tried to use this technique as often as possible so that I do not forget how to do it.


    Any idiot would have guessed the idea of ¡°fill magic with your will.¡± Here, only having an abstract idea of what needs to be done compared to having a concrete understanding of how this can be done are two different things. If it were not for the almost random enlightenment in the battle with Lung, I would never understand how this is possible.


    After a dozen seconds, the resistance of Purity abruptly subsided, and I launched my lustful tentacles inside her body. So, what we have here? Oh What an interesting symbiote! This blonde does not use its abilities even by ten percent. It is necessary to deposit this tasty piece somewhere so that it will not be lost.


    I looked around and headed for the coast. Here was the area, which the locals called ¡°Ship Graveyard¡±. There are dozens and hundreds of rotting ships of various sizes. I began to collect them with telekinesis, crush, heat, and clean from impurities. This time I did not need the extra purity of the metal, so after five minutes, I collected a sufficient amount of metal and formed a high tower from it. On its outer surface was a narrow circular staircase, along which there were prison cells. The doors for cells not planned by project.


    I chose one of the chambers almost at the very top, covered its insides with wooden boards that I found nearby, set up a hole in the floor as a toilet, and then threw Purity inside. Then I pierced her symbiote several times so that it would not rock the boat, and destroyed Purity¡¯s brain area called the ¡°Crown of Pollentia¡±, through which ordinary mortals could exchange information with the symbiote. Now, Purity has lost all of her super-duper-forces and has become an ordinary person.


    I covered the outer part of the chamber with a layer of metal and welded it to the tower. Now Purity could interact with the outside world only through a small barred window.


    ¡°Think about your behavior, bitch.¡± I told her at last. ¡°You just killed a bunch of people, and there wasn¡¯t even any benefit to you or others.¡±


    ¡°My daughter!¡± she croaked.


    ¡°You will hardly ever see her. I''ll give chance to Theo, your son. I hope he have more brains than you.¡± At this I turned and flew away, not listening to the plaintive cries and lamentations.


    This tower shall be called Tower of the Black Lord, it remains only to fill it with slaves and prisoners, cut a huge fiery eye from above, and I can declare myself Sauron. And, yes, it will still be necessary to stamp the all-powerful rings and distribute them to the most useful minions.


    I headed straight to the city center, where PRT headquarters were located. There was also a base of guards. The protectorate dwelt on an oil-producing platform in the bay, and I was going to deal with them a little later.


    When I got to the building I wanted, I searched it from top to bottom and found Emily Piggott by body shape. I entered her office and broke straight through the window. In addition to the director of the Investigation Committee, there were Armsman, Miss Militia, Aegis and some unknown cape in a red suit.


    ¡°Well, well, well. Caught at the crime scene.¡± I smiled at them. ¡°Don''t get up, I''m not your boss ... for now.¡± I held the most frisky capes with telekinesis, pressing them to the chairs. ¡°What can you say in your excuse? Speak, Emily Piggot.¡±


    ¡°What do you think you¡¯re doing?¡± This lady gave out as soon as I returned her ability to speak. ¡°Do you even know what you are doing?¡±


    ¡°Hmmm ... Let me think. Putting presumptuous maniacs in place which threatens the residents of the city?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s you! You maniac!¡± The Armsmaster shouted, frantically creaking with his suit in an attempt to overpower my telekinesis.


    ¡°The city must be saved from you and your justice.¡± Says Emily steadily while glancing at me, then proceed to glare with displease at Armsmaster.


    ¡°Come on? Maybe you think that I kidnapped the daughter of Purity. Or maybe I am manipulating the media to spread the obvious lie? In general, I have no desire to fight you with your methods. I have my favorite method. Only mass executions will save the nation.¡±


    ¡°By what right do you decide who should live and who should die?¡± Piggot did not give up, balancing on the verge of a heart attack. The security staff started knocking on the door of the room with something heavy, but telekinesis could hold the door in place even if it were turned into dust.


    ¡°Again, these stupid questions. By right of the strong. After all, this is the right you are using, trying to demonize me, aiming to tame your dogs to go against me who¡¯s displeasing you for going against your likings. I am unfamiliar with all those present here, and therefore, I will leave alive a couple of possibly innocent people so that you bring my words to the public. This city belongs to me, and only my laws are valid here. If you break them, punishment will follow immediately. I am tired of appealing to your common sense, and I can only rely on the fear of death and the horror of the inevitability of punishment. Die¡±


    While I was making this entire speech, I scanned the abilities of the Armsmaster and Miss Militia. The shooter couldn''t interest me at all with the original, but the techie was somehow inexpressive. If you do not count the skill of creating spatial pockets, then Armsman is nothing special. Unless to copy other''s caps¡¯ inventions.


    So after a second, Emily Piggot was dispersed into bloody dust, while Armsmaster and Miss Militia lost all their equipment, clothing, and abilities. With a couple of living trophies, which are the masks, I flew out the window, heading for my tower. On the way, I flew to CNN¡¯s studio, where I diligently dispersed all the workers, starting from the director, and ending with a cleaner.


    Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.


    Moving towards the tower, I stumbled upon an interesting scene. In the middle of the street lay an upside down ambulance van. Next to it stood Queen of Zerg and Grue. And in front of them stood a three Imperial masks - Hookwolf, Stormtiger and Cricket. Without slowing down, I picked up these three and carried them to the sky, like an eagle carrying a helpless prey. The corpses of people that I found in the neighboring streets testified to the fact that they are breaking the laws.


    The capes shouted loudly, cursed, and Stormtiger even tried to attack me, but everything was useless. A minor issue arose only with the Hookwolf. He was a typical werewolf, so his body was mixed with the body of the symbiote, but I just filled my tentacles with will and grabbed him, despite the resistance.


    When I reached the tower, I repeated the procedure of deprivation of abilities with the masks of the Empire, after which I shoved them into the cells and began to analyze their abilities in a more relaxed atmosphere. According to the study, Hookwolf and Cricket were found to be completely useless. And given the reliably known number of victims of Hookwolf, I decided to use him to conduct an interesting experiment.


    I was interested in the system of "growing up" symbiote. Or rather, is it part of the game, or is it something more mundane? To clarify the answer to this question, I placed the Hookwolf in a large steel cube with several holes, and then with telekinesis threw it toward the sea. According to my calculations, the cube flew about thirty kilometers before falling into the sea. After waiting fifteen minutes, I was convinced that the state of my symbiote did not change. So either Hookwolf grew up gills, or indirect damage is not considered a cause of death. Or it¡¯s all about distance.


    I wanted to repeat this experience with Cricket, but my power told me that a call from Tattletale had come to the phone in my apartment. It took me a couple of minutes to find her location and to get my telekinetic tentacles around her, with which I could catch and reproduce sound.


    ¡°Alo-Alo, Black Cloak on the phone.¡± I said to the Tattletale under the ear.


    ¡°What? Where? Black Cloak? Where are you?¡±


    ¡°I am far from you, on the shore of another day, but even time cannot hinder me. Okay, jokes aside. I responded to your call for help. What have you got there?¡±


    ¡°Actually, I called to warn that the Protectorate announced a general mobilization. From minute to minute, several dozens or even hundreds of heroes will arrive in the city and try to kill you.¡±


    ¡°Yes-ah? It will be fun. After Lung, I need new sacrifices in order to become stronger.¡±


    ¡°You ... you are impossible! This is not a game! This is all for real.¡±


    ¡°And here you are mistaken, this is a game. But you really shouldn''t know about it. Otherwise, you will meet with a player, and this, believe me, is not at all something that I wish to my friend.¡±


    ¡°What are you talking about?¡±


    ¡°All right, forget it. Perhaps I should lure all these heroes to the docks, and then explain to them who is in charge here. As I understand this region has such a fate to be razed to the ground by a herd of insane capes. So, if you have a desire to, you can spill to the Protectorate with ¡°reliable information¡± that I am hiding in the docks and trembling in wild horror. Yeah, that¡¯s a genius plan!¡±


    ¡°Uh-uh ... good. Are you sure about what you are doing?¡±


    ¡°Heh. Do not make me laugh. In this city I am the only person who knows what I am doing and why I need it. Just take a seat comfortably and watch the battle of fucking epic scale. Bye.¡±


    I ¡®disconnected¡¯ from communication and concentrated on my surroundings. So, I still need the tower, but it is worth protecting it from crazy shots. So, I need to hide it. It is not so high, soI can just bury it. With telekinesis, I pulled the rock out from under the tower, lowering its height from two dozen to two meters. It was not very convenient to bury it all, because the ventilation of occupied cells could be disrupted.


    After that I flew to the city center, hiding behind the houses. If I am going to fight with the strongest capes, then it is worth doing so that I could not suffer in principle. Now my control over telekinesis allowed me to control a matter at a distance of five kilometers which is ten times my previous ability. And this number still continued to grow. So I can hide near the city center and fight in the docks via my telekinesis. And my protection from prophets will not allow anyone to find me. Well, I hope so. Although it is worth being on the lookout.


    Time on the clock was half past one, when masks began to appear on the roof of the PRT building. Fifteen minutes later their number reached hundreds. Some time was spent on making ardent speeches, after which those who were born to fly rose into the air, and the rest crawled along the ground using various kinds of transport.


    At that time, I depicted my presence at the docks near the warehouse, where I once killed a hundred Merchants . While the heroes were getting to me, my voice echoed throughout the city, drowning out the brainstorming speeches coming from the speakers of the city alert.


    ¡°The villains of the Protectorate, you came to this city uninvited to encroach upon the legitimate authority in my face. I am the Black Cloak, and this city belongs to me. Your empire of lies and deception has no power here. Get the hell away, or I''ll destroy all of you. The weapons that you lash at me shall be the end of your reign! You first started this war. I have long treated you with prudence, but my patience is exhausted. Now my strength will speak for me. Die in agony, monsters!¡±


    My "body" was surrounded by streams of darkness, which stretched with tentacles and "grabbed" nearby heroes. All the shots, blows and other abilities just passed through my props, while I, with telekinesis squeezed blood vessels in the heroes'' brains, waited until they fainted, then under the cover of darkness carried them to the tower I created.


    The rest was an epic battle for the heroes and a boring chore for me. Grab, neutralize, store. Few heroes could resist me. Of the triumvirate, only Legend was present. He, like a few more masks, completely surrounded himself with the body of a symbiote, which made him almost invulnerable. But my extreme concentration on one tentacle allowed me to make it almost a unique conductor of my will, which was enough to pierce any target.


    I tried not to kill anyone. If I thought the mask¡¯s abilities were interesting, then I deprived them of consciousness and kidnap them. The rest I wounded or just drove away. As time went on, after an hour, they were only able to continue the fight with only a dozen masks. Eidolon and Alexandria did not appear. Finally, all this bothersome fuss finally got to me, and my thunderous voice again echoed over the city.


    ¡°The villains of the Protectorate, you lost. Your stupid perseverance has already cost the lives of thousands of people who died under the rubble of houses. I still hoped that you would come to your senses, but you continue to persist in your heresy. Therefore, I will kill one of you every five seconds until you all leave the city. Countdown started from¡­ now.¡±


    Five seconds later I killed one of the capes, ¡°shooting¡± with a brick using telekinesis. The stone literally evaporated the head of my victim. The wounded masks tried to hide, but over and over again I found them and destroyed them. After a minute, the retreat began, which after another thirty seconds turned into a random retreat.


    Only Legend remained hanging in the air, refusing to admit defeat. He was covered in blood, his suit was torn to shreds, but he still continued to fly and shoot with his ¡°rays of kindness¡±.


    ¡°What are you up to?¡± I personally addressed him.


    ¡°I will destroy you !!!¡±


    ¡°For what?¡±


    ¡°You are killing heroes.¡±


    ¡°What kind of heroes? You are villains. You are destroying the population of this city. You filled the news on TV channels with flow of lies. You attacked me. You cover crime, instead of fighting it.¡±


    ¡°You are lying!¡±


    ¡°Ha ha ha ha. Your tantrum is proof that I am right. You are aggressors, liars and manipulators. You are villains. You are ready to sacrifice all the people of this city, just to not let them get out of your control. The blood of all those who died today is on your hands. They died for your rotten ideology, for the interests of others, for the sake of your lies.¡±


    ¡°Shut up !!!¡±


    ¡°No, I will not be silent. On my side is truth and justice. I give you five seconds, after which you die.¡±


    Legend confusedly looked at me, looked around the battlefield, looked at the corpses of his comrades, then sharply accelerated and took off into the distance. Tears filled his face, and his mouth curled in sobs. Leaving the city, he admitted his defeat. He acknowledged the meaninglessness of the deaths of all those whom he had led. I think he will not recover soon from such a psychological shock after being invincible all this time.


    For the rest of the day I fumbled in my Tower of the Dark Lord, filling it with valuable specimens. I need to think over how to take care of their warmth and how to feed the prisoners. In the meantime, I just preoccupied with heating the prison, so that my captives do not huddle from a banal cold. Outside the window, the season is currently not warm.


    Already in the evening I visited the studio of the ZBS channel, where I made a victorious speech that the villains of the Protectorate were defeated and their false speeches were exposed. At the question and answer stage, I was asked:


    ¡°What do you think, what will be the next step of the Protectorate and the PRT?¡±


    ¡°No idea. They were already convinced that they could not resist me. All they have left is to incite one of the Endbringer to Brockton Bay, or even all three at once.¡±


    ¡°Do you think the Protectorate is behind the Endbringer?¡±


    ¡°It is quite likely. Hundreds of masks die every year, but the core of the Protectorate does not change. If it comes to that, there are many ways to get rid of the Endbringer. But the Protectorate always leads the capes to the slaughter. They are on their "example" show how to be killed by the destroyer. At the same time, they themselves remain unscathed, and all those who believed them die. I think this is all have a hidden reason.¡±


    ¡°I do not know what to say. And what are the ways to get rid of the Endbringer you say?¡±


    ¡°You will know soon. When one of them come here, I''ll show you.¡±


    After an interview on television, I began to clean the city of criminal elements. Brockton Bay was practically under siege because government forces surrounded it and blocked it. The police could not cope with the maintenance of order, and every trash poured out onto the streets of the city, clearly believing that my warnings did not concern them. I had to dissuade them in this, for one scanning the minds of people in search of answers to the questions: ¡°Did you sell drugs? Have you robbed people? Have you raped female/male/animal/corpses?¡± If at least one question was answered yes, then such a person is immediately dismembered on the spot with my telekinesis. I collected corpses from all over the city at the docks, where I cremated and scattered the ashes through the air.


    By midnight, mentally exhausted, I went to bed.


    In the morning I remembered my promises and began to fulfill them. To begin with, I found the daughter of Purity in the shelter and delivered her to the closest relative - Theo Anders, her maternal brother. As it turned out, the Kaiser did not survive the battle with Lung. The subsequent attempt to make a mess in the city was an amateur job of the Empire¡¯s masks, left without leadership.


    The next step, I took up the request of the governor of the city and Tattletale, and went to look for Coil. The blockade of the city played into my hands, where he could not escape. It took me almost half an hour to find him using my abilities. The power of clairvoyance was constantly failing, but at one point I got the exact location of Coil, which I immediately went to. I was interested in the power of the prophet, and I was going to explore it.


    The base of Coil was underground. The main entrance was well guarded, but the emergency exit was only locked with simple locks. But what is a lock for a person who owns telekinesis and is capable of clairvoyance to see the principle of his work, or any digital combination? So I entered Coil¡¯s office, taking him by surprise.


    ¡°Good afternoon, Coil.¡± I greeted him right under his ear, standing behind his back. Only Coil and Dina Alcot were in the room. She saw my appearance, but was in no hurry to notify her captor.¡±


    ¡°What? Black Cloak? How did you get here?¡± Responded the villain who almost jumped.


    ¡°Well, for starters, I walked, walked and walked, and then here I am. What? Why are you so surprised?¡±


    ¡°But ... your appearance was not in the predictions.¡±


    ¡°Yes, talking about the strength of this girl?¡± I walked to the child, who looked like a prisoner of Buchenwald, and laid a hand on her head. Healing power ran through her, clearing from drugs, restoring the body and rubbing drug addiction in her memory. ¡°Tell me child, what is the probability that I am here and now?¡±


    ¡°Zero point zero percent.¡±


    I smiled slyly..


    ¡°What is the probability that I will break off a piece from this table with hand right now?


    ¡°Zero point zero percent.¡±


    I defiantly walked over to the table where Coil was sitting, and broke off a piece from the corner. Naturally, I did this with telekinesis, but it looked like I used brute strength.


    ¡°See, her power does not affect me. She just couldn''t see how I would appear here.¡±


    ¡°What do you want?¡± The forehead of Coil was covered with perspiration.


    ¡°People says that you can control the fate of people. I want to check how it works. See this cube?¡± I showed the dice in my hand with the gesture of a magician, pulling it out of my sleeve. ¡°Now I will throw it on the table, and if a six falls out, then I will tear off your left hand. Dina, what is the chances that Coil will lose his hand?¡±


    ¡°Sixteen point, sixty-six hundredths of a percent.¡±


    ¡°See? Everything is fair. I will not manipulate the cube. Everything will decide the fate.¡±


    I threw a dice, and a three fell on it. Coil jerked, but could not budge. My telekinesis kept him in place better than any shackles.


    ¡°Lucky. Again. What is the probability, Dina?¡±


    The girl smiled with sadistic smirk and replied:


    ¡°Sixteen point, sixty-six hundredths of a percent.¡±


    I threw the die again. On the top of dice was one. I literally felt that at the moment of the throw something happened to the future.


    ¡°I think it is worth increasing the chances. Now I will tear off your left leg if an even number falls out. What are his chances of staying with two legs?¡±


    ¡°Fifty percent exactly.¡± The grin on Dina''s face turned into a grin of a hungry shark.


    I threw a dice ten times in a row and every time an odd number fell out. The more I watched this situation, the better I understood how the power of Coil works. He literally created two lines of fate, reducing all possible probabilities to these two options. And then from two options, he chose the one that suited him more. After that, his fate was predetermined. And what''s more, even my destiny was in a rigid framework, despite all my resistance. It is an interesting experiment.


    Ten minutes later, after the next cube tossing, Coil finally lost consciousness. There was blood from his nose, and the whites of his eyes reddened with multiple hemorrhages. I cured him with the help of my strength, but did not continue the torture. Coil¡¯s symbiote was also on the verge of losing consciousness.


    ¡°I think we are done for today.¡± I said, taking the girl to hand. ¡°You already understood that you are powerless against me?¡± During these ten minutes, I have watched at least a hundred virtual attempts of Coil trying to kill me or flee. All of them ended in terrible injuries for him.


    ¡°Y-yes.¡± Squeezed out the villain.


    ¡°Wonderful. So I do not advise you to try to escape from the city or even from its center. If I feel like it, I''ll kill you right there.¡±


    ¡°Understood!¡±


    ¡°Dina, what is the likelihood that Coil will die before tomorrow morning?¡±


    ¡°Ninety-three and seventy-one-tenth percent.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± I freaked out.


    ¡°This answer does not take into account your actions.¡±


    ¡°But I''m not going to kill him today. And I am not going to allow it to anyone.¡±


    ¡°The chances haven''t changed.¡± Dina slightly frowned. ¡°My head starts to hurt again.¡±


    ¡°Good. Come on, I''ll take you to your parents. I can find answers without your help. By the way, what is the probability that you will survive today?¡±


    ¡°Zero point, three thousandths of a percent.¡± In the girl''s voice panic was felt.


    ¡°Something is not very good.¡± I sympathized. ¡°But as you said, this chance does not take into account my intervention. And I need you alive.¡±


    The path to the surface was accompanied by panicked whispers of the mercenaries guarding the base. For them, my appearance was akin to teleportation. I think even Coil did not understand how I got to him. After all, before entering the room, I broke the security cameras there, and the sound of the door opening was muted by telekinesis.


    After returning the girl to the joyful parents, I climbed onto the roof of the nearest high-rise building and sat there, watching the sea. The sight was frightening. Thousands and millions of tentacles were stretched out over the horizon toward the city. And these were only the longest ones. There in the distance was a symbiote of frightening proportions. Perhaps it was even comparable to mine. It was smaller, but much older. It seems that my words about the invasion of the Endbringers were prophetic. But now every inhabitant of the Earth will be convinced that behind the attacks of the Endbringers is the Protectorate.

 Chapter 5.11 - Worm

    <h1>Chapter 5.11 - Worm</h1>


    An hour later, a barely noticeable tsunami wave appeared on the horizon. An alarm signal rang throughout the city. People fled to shelters or tried to hide in the nooks and crannies of the suburbs. The heroes of the Protectorate left the city yesterday, taking the Wards with them. New Wave, too, was able to agree on the evacuation, so that Panacea left without even saying goodbye to me. On the Internet, news of the imminent attack of Endbringers on Brockton Bay was already being discussed, but there were no rumors about the mobilization of the Protectorate¡¯s heroes. Apparently, they decided that I myself can handle the disaster. And in general, they were not at all mistaken, although they predicted on the exact opposite result that I wanted.


    I sent the teams of Undersiders, Faultline and Trickster, to help with the evacuation of residents. The remnants of the Empire and Coil received an ultimatum: either they help the residents, or I personally kill them before the Endbringers gets to the city. So now I was sitting on the roof of the tallest Brockton Bay building in the center of an almost depopulated city. What is the most ridiculous, the siege from the city was not lifted, in connection with which there were rumors spread by me on the Internet that the Protectorate decided to destroy all the inhabitants of Brockton Bay to the last. After all, they were "undesirable witnesses" of my triumph.


    The wave came to the shore, overtook the tanker stuck in the fairway and began to roll on the city, becoming higher and higher. I waited until it almost reached the shore, after which I used telekinesis to lift into the air the whole ¡°bulging¡± part of the wave, thus completely ceasing its existence. Millions of cubic meters of water swept through the air and scattered as rain poured back into the sea outside the bay. The spectacle was epic. Two dozen video cameras flew at different distances from me, taking pictures of everything that happens. Then, it will be necessary to edit the film to make it similar to a movie that tells the epic about my divine scale feat.


    The water in the center of the bay swelled to a hill, and on the surface it appeared - the Endbringer himself, Leviathan. My power said that this was a ¡°wild¡± symbiote, with no clear owner. Of course, there were certain nuances, but the point was that the owner of the lost living creature was not around. Only the symbiote itself came to fight without its master, which was somewhat more difficult.


    While I indulged in philosophical reflections, Leviathan spun on the spot, sending another wave to the city, and then with a supersonic speed rushed to the docks. What? I dashed against him, but did not have time. The Leviathan reached my Tower of the Dark Lord and brought down streams of water, immediately smashing and tearing it up.


    ¡°No-oooo !!! My stocks of symbiotes! He ate them !!! What will I eat in the winter? !!¡±


    In anger, I hovered over the place of the mass death of the masks, after which I filled several tentacles with my will and pierced the Leviathan with them. A second later, I almost tore It into pieces. And it was not the damage of the virtual body from pseudo-matter, but the damage to the symbiote itself.


    Leviathan screamed in agony, and then suddenly regenerated. I noticed that along one of its tentacles, a stream of some energy flowed into it. The Endbringer tried to throw me into the air with a stream of water, but it only splashed helplessly on my telekinesis protection. I repeated the full of will piercing tentacle attack with the same result. With a small difference being the regeneration was now a little slower. But I stopped attacking wildly and try to think up a decisive attack. So here I need not strength, but accuracy. It is necessary to find the energy center of this creature, and then destroy it. The problem was somewhat complicated by the fact that it was necessary to search for this center in a multidimensional space. The creature was clearly not going to make my life easier, showing its vulnerable points in the three-dimensional layer of reality.


    The Leviathan was about to move toward the center of the city, pulling water from the bay towards me, but I thwarted his plans. For a start, I cut off most of the tentacles coming out of it, temporarily violating its water control. The extremities quickly regenerated, but in a couple of seconds I managed to shred the Leviathan into pieces. He continued to regenerate, simultaneously accumulating energy in his body.


    Then I felt three human like figures appeared not far from me. Approaching them, I saw the Protectorate¡¯s Triumvirate. Alexandria, Eidolon and Legend hung in the air, watching the Leviathan.


    ¡°What, came to see how your little animal destroys the city?¡± I could not resist the question.


    ¡°We came to help in fight with the Leviathan .¡± The Legend answered in a slightly nervous voice. Apparently, not yet recovered from yesterday''s defeat.


    ¡°Oh really?¡± I threw the Leviathan to the side, once again grinding it to pieces. ¡°But I see that the Leviathan is your creation. Look.¡±


    With these words, I pierced Eidolon with a dozen tentacles, aiming at energy centers. He could no longer be called a man, because he had merged too much with the symbiote. Or the symbiote almost consumed him. In my perception, I clearly saw that the symbiote in the body of Eidolon was connected to Leviathan with the coal-black pulsing tentacles. He was the source of the regeneration of this creature. I tore Eidolon apart, but he instantly gathered back and regenerated.


    ¡°Stop!¡± Legend shouted, rushing towards me, but bumping into an insurmountable invisible obstacle.


    I struck another blow, this time with one tentacle, aiming at the center of the head. As a human, Eidolon had vulnerabilities that were easier for me to find. I did not try to break his body, but created on the tip of tentacle an area of matter destruction. For a split second, a delicate balance was established between the resistance of Eidolon and me, and then Eidolon''s strength increased abruptly, discarding my tentacle. Two more Endbringers appeared next to us: Behemoth and Simurg.


    ¡°Well, what did I say? Poke the owner, and his puppets appeared.¡±


    The legend stared in disbelief to the three Endbringers. I focused on the twisted angry face of Eidolon, who had lost his mask. The cameras, hidden in the shreds of darkness, regularly filmed everything that was happening, so it was worthwhile to unleash him for revelations.


    ¡°Why did you kill so many heroes, Eidolon? Was it in order to pick up their abilities? After all the killing, you can get their power? So these are all the powers of those you killed?¡±


    Behavior of Leviathan let me to this idea. No wonder it rushed to kill weak heroes. So Its goal was their symbiotes, which It swallowed in a few seconds.


    The head of the Triumvirate did not answer me, but only struck in response with rays of light. Alexandria tried to go behind and stab me in the back. I instantly shifted to the side and grabbed them both, holding them in place and surrounding them with waves of flame using Pyrokinesis. Alas, it only slightly covered them. Alexandria did not got a scratch. Her power was still too incomprehensible to me, so it was impossible to break through her force fields.


    Legend flew off to the side, radiating waves of anger and frustration. And the Endbringers on the contrary approached me, striving to make potshots at me. Something is starting to strain me. They are very wrong if they think that I will play by their rules.


    Unlike the local masks, I knew exactly what symbiotes are and how they work. I had enough time to read all this information from the consciousness of my symbiote. From the point of view of the unsophisticated person, the symbiotes were invulnerable. Their body was completely amorphous and had no internal organs. They could change their shape and easily rebuilt the energy flows inside the body.


    All of my previous attempts to injure them, including cases with ordinary masks, were just a means to say "sit down and not rock the boat," rather than an attempt to cause real harm. But now I was going to hit to kill. I do not know what players want to achieve in this instance, but I decided to dispose Eidolon and his mad stray dogs here and now.


    When I studied the process of feeding the limbs of the symbiote with my will, I noticed that this process was not as effective as it could be. The fact is that on the mental plane the density of these creatures was too low. Sword is possible to be strengthened if it¡¯s made from metal, but if it is made of cotton, then there will be little sense from it. Therefore, I studied in more detail the substance of which the symbiotes were composed and found out that it can be transformed by increasing the density.


    Only this process had a certain pitfall. The personality and abilities of the symbiote were evenly distributed throughout the entire volume of its body, thus, in the process of transformation, all information was erased from the altered matter, which made the embryo a ¡°clean sheet¡± without abilities and acquired skills. In principle, it would be possible to copy the personality of the symbiote to a new carrier approximately in the middle of the process, when there was still a sufficient amount of the ¡°original¡± body. But then another circumstance surfaced. The transformation process could not be stopped. So I would have only one chance, and even if it¡¯s successful, my symbiote would be weaker by half. Then, of course, it will be possible to ¡°level up¡±, but in general, I considered such an operation as risky.


    But now I have a unique opportunity to upgrade my symbiote at someone else''s expense. The fact was that, although the symbiotes lived on their own, they all remained part of one Entity and could merge back at any moment. The older and more developed the personality of the symbiote, the less it wanted a merge, but the very possibility of strengthening would not suffer from it.


    Eidolon¡¯s symbiote was huge. Almost as huge as mine. But the control of the hero over his symbiont was almost zero. That is why these parts are separated from the main body associated with the mask. But they did not fully separate, because they had an imperative order to serve Eidolon.


    Now, I was going to start the forced merging of two symbiotes, directing all the absorbed matter into the transformation zone. This way I can completely copy the consciousness of my symbiote to a new carrier, I will have enough time to make sure of the success of this process, and at the end my symbiote will be twice as dense. Solid profit!


    The legend flew farther and farther from the battlefield. I think that he would not interfere, and therefore focused on the two remaining members of the Triumvirate. With Alexandria, we have a variety of opportunities. I could not hurt her, but she could not get close to me. With Eidolon, everything was even easier. I pierced him with tentacle, initiated the transformation process at the core of my symbiote, and then inside the tentacles I stretched a thread of altered matter that penetrated into the body of Eidolon and began to ¡°suck¡± his symbiote from there. The turbulence accompanying the transformation process deprived Eidolon of the remnants of control, and according to the law of communicating vessels, the matter of the symbiote began to be pumped out of the Endbringers.


    Those Endbringers, of course, were not overjoyed by such a development of events, and the three of them began to press on me. Holding out one of the tentacles, I grabbed the sword of the Dragon Slayer, which is ten kilometers away, and pulled to me. The sharp blade flew over fast, making a sonic boom, then immediately cut off Simurg''s head, and then turned and pierced right through Behemoth. I began to shred the Endbringers into pieces, not allowing them time to regenerate. The sword was a kind of substitute for the loose flesh of the symbiote, and therefore I could strengthen it with my will to such an extent that the bodies of the Endbringers could not offer any resistance.


    Seeing that I was holding back the Endbringers, and that Eidolon was hanging in a semi-conscious state, Alexandria redoubled her efforts. She did not threaten me so much as distracting me from monitoring the transformation process of my symbiote. So I decided to apply a new focus. Although I had almost no time to research the abilities of the captured heroes, I could still understand something. And now I, like Eidolon, have created a new ability for myself. In some ways, it resembled the ability of a pusher. This was the area of space where objects acquired acceleration.


    I slowed down Alexandria for a moment with telekinesis, and then formed an accelerating field around her. The effect was like a heroine fired from a cannon. No, not even a cannon, but accelerated to near-light speeds. She broke the atmosphere, leaving a corridor out of a vacuum, and swept over the horizon. The blast wave was of such strength that nearby houses crumbled into pieces. Well at least the battle took place in one of the most abandoned parts of the docks. Interestingly, she went into orbit with such speed? Or did she immediately go to deep space?


    Further work was already essentially a routine. I controlled the transformation process of the symbiote, lazily waving away the attacks from the Endbringers for one thing. Legend after a few seconds flew away after Alexandria. So no one bothered me. Cameras continued to shoot epic battles, and Eidolon was still hanging in the air, twitching like he¡¯s in a fit of epilepsy.


    Ten minutes later, the Endbringers were completely absorbed into the body of their master. A minute later I completely destroyed  Eidolon¡¯s symbiote, and his body who no longer able to exist on its own, instantly rotted, falling to the ground as streams of muddy mucus.


    Five minutes later, I completed the transformation of my symbiote. For a moment, all my abilities were turned off, and then returned, but in a completely different capacity. If earlier I felt that I was talking to the symbiote, what to do, and then it would do my order, now I felt his tentacles as my own. At the same time, the personality of the symbiote did not disappear anywhere, and it could easily carry out simple tasks, automating my abilities.


    Toothy smile spread over my face. This was another manifestation of my closer contact with the symbiote. I wanted to smile, and it understood what I need and formed the already known sequence of visual illusions on my face.


    I inspected the finally destroyed docks and breathed heavily. From where I will find new masks? They will never come here again. After I single-handedly thrashed the Three Endbringers, only the Scion could somehow compete with me in this level of strength.


    A dot appeared on the horizon, and soon Legend levitated in front of me again.


    ¡°How is Alexandria?¡± I asked.


    ¡°I did not find her.¡±


    ¡°Have tried looking in space? You need a larger telescope.¡±


    ¡°Where is Eidolon?¡± The hero did not support my jokes it seems.


    ¡°Over there, somewhere below, lies muddy mucus which all remains of him.¡± I indicated the remains of a green suit with a tentacle of darkness. ¡°After I killed the Endbringers, Eidolon decided to die from not being able to bear such frustration.¡±


    ¡°I''ll post my battle so you can see everything online on internet. And now, do not bring it to sin - go out of here. Otherwise, I will dismember you for consumables for my inhuman experiments.¡±


    Legend hung around a couple of seconds, and then flew away over the horizon. Once again I looked around the neighborhood, and then headed to the city center. It was necessary to cancel the alarm, return the inhabitants to their homes and begin to restore a peaceful life. Since this is my city, it is worth making it the most prosperous city in the world.


    Having a dealt with the organizational issues of returning the city to a normal life, I went to the ZBS television studio, where I posted copies of all the videos I had about the destruction of the Endgringers. They promised that a short video will be on the television today, and a documentary film will be ready by tomorrow.


    Then I moved to fulfill my promise to build houses. With the use of tele-and pyrokinesis, this was not a problem. For a start, I found a place in the docks near the border with the central region, where the underground communications were almost not destroyed. There I demolished the remains of slums and began the construction of multistoried anthills by using my past experience as the supreme leader of sapient spiders.


    I did not have any concrete, but there was enough debris from a third of the city, which I crushed, melted with pyrokinesis, brought to a certain chemical composition, and then gave this mass the desired shape and cooled. In some ways, this process was similar to monolithic construction. But I did not use concrete, which has a lifespan of fifty years, but a mineral rock, which will not fall apart even after a thousand years. Even after ten thousand years descendants will still be able to inhabit it.


    Inside the buildings, I conducted plumbing and laid cables for electricity. Of course, there was also the need for interior decoration, but everyone will be engaged in this by himself. Even in the draft version, my accommodation had quite a decent look. It remained only to install plumbing, put an electric stove and you can live it here.


    Having set aside a property for fifty thousand tenants, I began to conduct underground utilities, lay roads, build kindergartens, schools, hospitals, shops, and other related infrastructure. By the evening I finished with the construction and went to the governor of the city. He accepted me as his own son and assured me that tomorrow, the construction of the buildings closest to the center, where it is planned to lodge the homeless citizens, will begin to be brought to mind.


    Watching the rushing bureaucrats on business, I even felt nostalgia. My spider city looked about the same way when I started ¡®building of the next century¡¯. Having considered my duties for today, I went home to sleep.


    The next morning, I began by visiting Coil. During the night, he tried at least a hundred options for escape, each of which ended with his death. And I just gave a command to the symbiote to track a given target and destroy him if he crosses the city border.


    I again brought the villain to loss of consciousness, but then resuscitated him and began to explore his abilities further. Finally, unable to withstand the abuse of fate, Coil made a mistake, and fell up two on dice.


    ¡°Oh! Akella, missed.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± groaned the tortured Coil.


    ¡°This is a two.¡±


    ¡°What?! No!¡±


    ¡°Alas, my friend, but now you have to lose your hand.¡±


    I stretched the telekinetic claw and slowly tore his hand off. Having enjoyed the horror and suffering of the scum, I sewed his hand back and healed.


    ¡°If you make another mistake, you will lose your limb forever.¡± I scolded him. ¡°Ok, enough for today. Rest. And do not try to escape. The more you use your ability, the higher the likelihood that tomorrow you will lose couple of limbs.¡±


    If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    Getting to the surface, I visited the town hall, and then went to clean the bay. Now Brockton Bay could not be a port city because of the blocked tanker channel. Plus, in the area of the docks, where there actually used to be a port, hundreds of ships were rotting and rusting. I melted part of them into the tower, but it was like a drop in the ocean of junk.


    I decided to go around the coast to clean the shore and the bottom of the bay from all metal objects. Symbiote did an excellent job with its responsibilities for automating telekinesis. I just had to help him make decisions in difficult cases, and he did the rest on his own. Half an hour later I ¡°unloaded¡± an iron cube with a side of almost thirty meters at the docks. It is very robust, especially considering that ships are a kind of metal inflatable balls. In addition to the tanker at the bottom, a pair of supertankers was found at the docks. Yes, and any rusted trash on the shore, too, went to the smelting.


    Having made small measurements, I found out that the cube weighs two hundred and fifty thousand tons. Steel cost three hundred bucks per ton, which means this cube gives only seventy-five million dollars. It¡¯s small when compared with the original cost of the ships that are far beyond a billion. But even so, it was still a nice sum, which I left in one piece. Then I''ll figure out what to do with it. And in order that this large object would not stand idle, I made a huge statue of myself from metal, imaging me tearing apart three Endbringers with my bare hands. He-he-he.


    Satisfying my thirst for glory, I went to check the status of the docks, or to be more precise, the entire northern part of the city. Despite the three cataclysms that have fallen on this territory over the past few days, there are still enough buildings and even unspoilt neighborhoods. Now I carried out an inspection and completely demolished all the buildings that it did not make sense to restore or use further.


    Under one of these buildings for demolition, I found a nice basement, where there were two masks. Quickly darting to the docks and unloading the collected building materials, I returned to this place and headed for the entrance to the basement. It seems I found what I needed. With all this mess with the Protectorate and the Endbringers, I lost access to the body of Kid Win, so the study of technology has stalled. But here was the lair of two famous villains, one of whom was a good techie.


    ¡°I am horror, flying on the wings of night! I am a bugged final boss in your favorite game. I am a burned light bulb in your electrical circuit. I am the Black Cloak!¡± I announced my appearance, after which I appeared in the expanding yarns of darkness in the center of a large workshop.


    ¡°Aaaa !!!¡± Uber rushed away, hiding in one of the aisles.


    ¡°Which game are you from?¡± Elite greeted me, skeptically examining my costume.


    ¡°Eh, you, darkness. Star Wars, the first episode - "Hidden threat".¡±


    ¡°Aaaa! Exactly, exactly. There was such a dude there. High five!¡±  We hit each other on the palms. ¡°What are you doing here?¡±


    ¡°Elite, I will save you.¡± Uber ran into the hall carrying on his hands some kind of deadly caliber cannon.


    At the entrance to the hall, he faltered on the threshold, and then began to fall. In order not to crash into the floor, he had to drop the weapon, which even without any help from telekinesis fell right into my hands. And all that I was needed was to tweak the probabilities of future events a little.


    ¡°And what is this thing?¡± I asked, turning the techie.


    ¡°BFG-9000!¡± Cheerfully reported Elite. ¡°Only it does not work. Burned power supply after the first test shot.¡±


    ¡°What? Why didn''t you tell me?¡± Uber was outraged, still lying on the floor.


    ¡°Well, we had decided that the destructive power of this thing is too big to use it within the city.¡±


    Uber got up and began to pretend to be a bystander, inspecting the ceiling.


    ¡°Elite, I have a business for you.¡± I turned to the techie, putting the cannon on the next table. ¡°I need a sword of light. A Star Wars boss without his lightsaber is not worthy of his throne.¡±


    ¡°Eh ¡­¡±  He sighed heavily. ¡°I''ve already created one Star Wars sword. And it even worked for five minutes before exploding. So the second one will explode as soon as I try to turn it on. Tested in practice.¡±


    ¡°I can correct this error, I will teach you how to correctly use the force.¡±


    ¡°Really?¡± Elite looked at me through the eyes of Shrek''s cat.


    ¡°Of course! Before you is the main expert on the use of parascopic abilities on the whole Earth.¡± I grabbed my hips and widen out my chest proudly. Oddly enough, this position convinced Elite that I was right. Well, as expected of a geek?


    For the next three days, I and Elite fell out of reality. With my abilities, it was very easy to neutralize the lack of sleep, so we spent seventy-two hours in the workshop, where I learned the basics of working with techies, and Elite learned how to train his symbiote. We parted with satisfaction from one other, plus Elite gave me three lightsabers, two of which could be combined into a light spear, the same as Darth Maul.


    Getting out under the light of the sun, I went straight to Coil. His ability, already almost completely mastered by me, greatly helped us avoid a couple of ... hundreds of explosions, while I taught Elite to be a normal techie. I should have finally cleaned the city from the villains and the remnants of criminal elements.


    The villain greeted me fully armed. He was standing at the table, and in front of him on the table was a kawaii kitten with a dynamite strap attached to him with a radio fuse. The detonator was in the hand.


    ¡°If you don''t let me go, then I will blow up this kitten.¡± The fiend made an ultimatum as soon as I entered the room.


    ¡°Meow?¡± The kitten asked and began to sniff the explosives.


    Looks like Coil found my weak point. It¡¯s not that I couldn¡¯t save the kitten if I wanted to, but I decided to reward Coil for being creative.


    ¡°This is dishonest! You cannot take hostage cute kawaii kittens!¡± I panicked. ¡°If something bad happens to him, eternity of suffering will await you.¡±


    ¡°Nothing will happen to him if you give me the opportunity to leave the city.¡±


    ¡°But what about the blockade?¡±


    ¡°Blockade opened yesterday morning.¡±


    I waited and ponder about it while scratching my suit covered chin a while for the sake of it, but then the kitten said ¡°Miu?¡±, posing as a tortured hostage.


    ¡°Good. If you give me the hostage, then I will give you an hour to leave the area of my telekinesis. And if you do not go far enough, I will tear you to shreds.¡±


    ¡°Promise not to disturb me?¡±


    ¡°I Promise.¡±


    ¡°Good.¡±


    Coil give me the kawaii charm, and then ran to the exit from the base. Run Forest, run. Scratching the cat behind the ear, I went to look for a new home for him. I cannot settle an animal in my apartment. I go there rarely. Meanwhile, the villain got to the roof of a nearby building, where a helicopter was already waiting for him. Without losing a minute, he jumped into it, and the helicopter flew south, gaining altitude.


    An hour later, when I had already played enough with the kitten, fed him and falling asleep in my arms, I remembered Coil. He was by then more than a thousand kilometers away from me. In Boston, he moved from a helicopter to a supersonic aircraft and now heading towards Mexico. He¡¯s still in area of my force, so it was worth punishing the villain. I waited another fifteen minutes to instill hope in his heart, after which with telekinesis said under his ear:


    ¡°Coil, I don''t want to disappoint you, but you haven''t flown far enough. My power is working all over the Earth. To hide from me, you had to at least get to the moon. So ... goodbye.¡±


    With these words, I tore the villain into small pieces, smearing the pilot with blood and the entire cockpit. As I expected, Coil could not foresee his death. His symbiote only influenced events in a certain radius, therefore in his ¡°visions¡± there were no consequences of my actions.


    Well, I dealt with this question. Now I need to learn the abilities of Dina Alcott. And I even know what kind of pretext I use to contact her. The pretext yawned, scratched his ear and fell asleep again. Dina was just at work with her father, so I headed to the governor''s office.


    ¡°Hello, Herbert. Hi, Dina.¡± I said hello, entering the governor¡¯s office.


    ¡°Good afternoon, Black Cloak. You are gone for three days. We were worried.¡±


    ¡°Business.¡± I shrugged. ¡°Dina, I brought to you a saved hostage. He needs a new home and good friends.¡±


    ¡°Oh! That''s for me? How lovely? Dad, can I keep him to myself?¡±


    ¡°Uh-uh ... of course.¡± The governor agreed, looking at me.


    ¡°And from whom did you save him?¡± Dina grabbed the kitty and began to squeeze it.


    ¡°From Coil. This was his last crime.¡± The happy smile of the girl for a moment was replaced by an anxious face. ¡°He won''t be able to kidnap anymore. By the way, Dina, what is the probability that the kitten will run away from you or get lost within a month?


    ¡°Three point, eighty-one hundredth percent. Do not worry, I will care of him.¡±


    ¡°Mister Black Cloak, since we are talking about the villains, it seems that we have a problem.¡± The governor intervened in our conversation.


    ¡°What''s the problem?¡±


    ¡°Nine people¡¯s corpses were found in the city. Each of them was killed in a unique way. I''m afraid it might be Slaughterhouse Number Nine. I contacted Tattletale and she confirmed my concerns.¡±


    ¡°Slaughterhouse Number Nine? Were they living under rocks to not know of what happened just fucking three days ago?¡±  I was surprised. ¡°Now I will deal with this issue.¡±


    Saying goodbye, I went outside, flew up to the roof of one of the skyscrapers and tuned in to search for symbiotes within the city. In addition to the already well-known and ¡°licensed¡± capes from the teams of the Undersiders, Faultline and Trickster, as well as the remnants of the Empire, I found several Rogues. In addition, on the base of the Coil in the deepest dungeon there was an incomprehensible mask, merged with his symbiote. Most of all it was like the manifestation of the power of the werewolf. And most importantly, in the southern part of the city in one of the houses there were members of the Slaughterhouse.


    Eleven creatures of varying degrees of humanoids are located in a large basement. Right now they were discussing something with each other. It seems necessary to join their dispute and clarify some points. While I was getting to the place, one of the masks climbed out of the basement, flew into the air, and began to scatter the tentacles of her symbiote throughout the city.


    ¡°What did you think of it? Come to me!¡±


    I grabbed the villain that the whole world knew under the name of Shatter Bird, broke her spine, cut off the symbiote tentacles and suppressed power control. In general, the procedure has already been worked out and there were no surprises. When I reached the house I needed, I grabbed a paralyzed victim and went down to the basement.


    My appearance was a surprise to all those present.


    ¡°Black Cloak?¡± Jack Slash exclaimed. ¡°How can you be so fast?! I expected you only in the evening!¡±


    ¡°Are you completely stupid?¡± I asked in response. ¡°You have come to my city like this, despite the all known fact that I single-handedly killed three Endbringers?¡±


    ¡°Are you talking about this funny movie on the Internet, where you fight with the Endbringers?¡± Jack laughed. ¡°Alas, your trick was revealed. On the same day, the Protectorate declared that it was computer graphics. They even demonstrated a live Eidolon. So your bluff failed.¡±


    ¡°Protectorate? Why they do not calm down? I will fix their brains in near future, and it is better to knock them out completely.¡± I angrily promised to myself. ¡°I can congratulate you, you''re really stupid.¡± I turned to Jack. ¡°It was not computer graphics. And you bought the lie, conducted by the Protectorate.¡±


    A smile fell off Jack''s face. He was twitching to do something, but he discovered that my telekinesis was holding him tightly, not allowing him to move more than a couple of centimeters.


    ¡°And now there will be an indicative execution.¡± I told the crowd. ¡°Please wait a minute before I bring a camera. I need another video with computer graphics, indistinguishable from reality.¡±


    The smile of a bloodthirsty demon spread across my face. Siberian rushed to me, ignoring telekinesis, but I was not so surprised. I can see remote projections. I nourished one of the tentacles with my will, and then pierced the body of Siberia. She immediately burst like a balloon. This time, the faces of those present showed real panic. Siberia again appeared in the room and once again blowed up.


    ¡°Don''t worry, it didn''t hurt her at all.¡± I commented on this event. ¡°But to him, this is obviously bad¡±.


    A man flew into the basement, with blood from his mouth and ears. It was the mask that created the projection of Siberia. He once again tensed and created her image, which I pierced again. It was not just destruction. The symbiote, which wounded its master in retaliation, suffered from such treatment. The man began to vomit blood and made no more attempts at resistance.


    In the meantime, I brought several video cameras from my apartment, hung them around the room and turned them on to record.


    ¡°Their batteries are low because I forgot to charge them.¡± I tell them. ¡°So I¡¯ll be as brief as possible. Well, as gentlemens say, ladies first. Let''s start with you.¡±


    I pointed to the Bonesaw trying to resist. She was an innocent blonde girl of about fourteen, who tried to say something, but only muffled softly.


    ¡°You are already an adult girl and you should know that if you behave badly, big uncles will come and do something bad to you. Well, you probably watched all these films for adults, where uncles put their stuff in girls. But since you''re a minor, I¡¯m using this instead.¡±


    Before the nose of Bonesaw hung one of her spiders. It differed a good set of jagged saws, blades and other tools. I folded it, and then I shoved the spider into the very place, where all the blades opened and began to cut the flesh. The girl resisted, but could not do anything.


    ¡°You like to cut people into pieces? So you should like this.¡±


    Five minutes later, only the head and body from Bonesaw remained. Despite this, she was still alive. But I did not drag out the agony and finally defragmented it, dropping the bloody mess down the toilet.


    ¡°Next is, you darling. You joined Nine against your will, so your death will be quick.¡±


    In a second, the second girl followed the first.


    ¡°Burnscar. You sought refuge in your strength. On fire. Therefore, it is worth helping you to reunite with this element.¡±


    Without the protection of her symbiote, this mask burned in my fire in less than a minute. I poured the ashes to the toilet and turned to ShatterBird.


    ¡°You like to break glasses. Have you ever wondered what would happen if you become like glass? Let''s check shall we?¡±


    I froze the maniac up to the temperature of absolute zero and smashed her against the wall. After that, I crushed pieces of her body into dust and again washed it down in the toilet.


    ¡°Good toilet here - does not clog.¡±


    After examining the rest, I chose the creator of Siberian.


    ¡°We will assume that you are a girl too. In a sense. You liked to eat people alive. So let someone eat you too. Here, for example, Crawler.¡±


    I waved my hand, and one human-shaped monster flew into the mouth of another human-shaped monster. There, with telekinesis, I forced Crawler to chew on his lunch, then swallow and digest. Even bones and dental crowns have dissolved in his gastric juice.


    I noticed three ugly figures frozen near the wall. These were masks, turned by Bonesaw into a sort of puppets. After this did not shine normal life for them, so I just scattered them into bloody dust and sent after the creator.


    ¡°Well, there are three of you left.¡±


    Jack looked at me with bulging eyes, Crawler roared quietly, trying to overpower the telekinesis, and Mannequin stood silently in place, not even moving a millimeter. I chose him as next.


    ¡°You have achieved considerable success in transforming your body. Once, you dreamed of spaceflight. But I think you have certain problems with miniaturization. Come on, I''ll show you how to do it properly.¡±


    The Mannequin body is folded into a metal ball, which is its standard "compact" form. After that, I squeezed it, crushing metal parts, and squeezing out the organic parts. The pressure grew and grew. Matter shrank, warmed up to enormous temperatures and still shrank. A couple of minutes later, Mannequin remained a sphere the size of a large apple. Nuclear fusion hasn¡¯t begun yet, but it was already close. I took this sphere out of the basement and sent it vertically upwards. At an altitude of a couple of thousand kilometers, I partially loosened control over it, and the stream of hot plasma flew towards the open space. It could even be used as a weapon. Not a single molecule is left from the Mannequin. His whole body went to meet the stars.


    ¡°Crawler, all you wanted was to experience pain. Now I will give you an ocean of pain.¡±


    I picked up the huge carcass weighing several tons, and then began to slowly pinch off microscopic pieces of it, which I immediately chased through the pyrokinesis zone, where they burned to the ground. Crawler roared for the first couple of minutes in ecstasy, and then he got worried. His tail, legs, most of his body disappeared. He tried to regenerate, but I blocked his regeneration ability that can create virtual matter. And without such cheating ability, any regeneration stops on the absence of building material.


    By the time when only one head remained from Crawler, he was already crying and pleading, but I didn¡¯t stop until the last drop of his body was gone.


    ¡°Jack, you¡¯re the last one remaining.¡± I turned to the permanent member of Slaughterhouse Nine. ¡°You are to blame for the deaths of so many people that just death will not be enough for you. For starters, let''s take away your limbs. You will no longer the right for them anyway, and so you can focus on the main thing. We do not need pipe dreams about your salvation, don¡¯t we?¡±


    I amputated Jack''s arms and legs and healed the stumps. Now he was just a torso with a head and a cock. We need to come up with something original. Such that all those who will watch this video begin the act of involuntary defecation at the mere thought that I can do the same to them.


    But before I could concentrate on the problem, I felt that my soul was literally ripped out of my body.


    ¡°Fuuh~ I thought I would be too late to stop you, but I managed!¡± Told me a satisfied Being. ¡°You haven''t spoiled the whole game for us. The existence of Jack is an absolutely necessary element of the main scenario. He cannot be killed.¡±


    ¡°Could you not say that earlier? And why you pulled me out of my body?


    I looked at my frozen figure and Jack with wild eyes.


    ¡°You won. I mean, I won. You raised such a cool symbiote. This is also a ready-made tool for use in one of the following games. It is not necessary to tell other players that exactly you created this tool. I will hand it to some sucker with a minimum of brains, and I can take bets in the ratio of ten to one.¡±


    While the Being was busy with its rainbow plans, the symbiote plunged into the depths of panic and horror. Looks like this symbiote is also not pleased by this prospect. So, why is it trying to shove dirty tentacles to my soul? What? Do you want to leave your embryo in me, hiding it in a multidimensional fold of space tied to my soul, and give to this symbiote an order to serve me for at least a thousand years? Well then fine. Put aside your son.


    Symbiote gave me his son and instantly calmed down. And I felt a note of satisfaction slipping from the symbiote¡¯s side. Apparently, this breeding process allowed the symbiote to accept fate. And the submission of the instrument to the will of the owner is one of the most important characteristics. Again the Being thing used me. Well, at least a piece of symbiote remained with me. I spend very much time while growing it.


    ¡°In general, everything turned out pretty well, unless you take into account the fact that you irrevocably destroyed all members of the Slaughterhouse. You will have to become one of the followers of Jack Slash. The possibilities of your symbiote will be enough to replace all the dead. And since you will not be able to play this role, I have to put a bot in your place.¡±


    My body, which I still could see from the side, moved and uttered:


    ¡°Do you want to tell me something?¡±


    The power that prevented Jack from speaking disappeared, and he began to sing like a nightingale. In fact, all this chatter was one of the manifestations of the strength of his symbiote. And now he began to brainwash the ¡°bot,¡± especially since Being turned off my passive protection from external influence. I did not have time to notice when I lost my symbiote. Now I clearly felt that symbiote was attached to a surrogate person in my body.


    It was disgusting to look at the subsequent events. Black Cloak believed all the noodles that Jack had placed on his ears, then he healed his arms and legs back and agreed to join the Slaughterhouse. And as a finishing touch agreed with the idea of changing the name and image. So my alter ego became Black Executioner, as they wanted in the Protectorate.


    The world went out, and again I was in darkness and emptiness. Only the presence of the Being prevented me from sliding into a complete loss of external sensations.


    ¡°In general, I thought about your future fate and came to a disappointing conclusion. Nobody wants to bet against you. Even in this game that only a couple of players agreed to bet your result would not be the best. In general, everything is bad. Therefore, it is worth a little cheating. He-he-he-he.¡±


    The Being laughed maliciously.


    ¡°I will not tell you the whole plan yet. So you can better focus on the current task. You are already familiar with the technology of portals and interworld movements. But those portals that you used in the world of demons are too primitive. They act only within one group of worlds. And you will need to learn technology that allows you to move between different Planes, Groups of worlds, Universes, and even Game Servers. Now I will send you to the world where such technology exists. This is the cosmic world, so there are no special restrictions. But remember, I do not need you to conquer the entire galaxy, subvert the current government or destroy all kinds of intelligent beings. This must be a secret operation. I repeat - SECRET! Quietly come, studied and left. The plot is quite well known to you there, so it''s not worth breaking it either. No killings of the main characters or anything. Clear? And if you can¡¯t handle it, then you will burn in the Hell forever. I have one booked place there. Instruction is over, take up the job. And as you learn all that is required, I will find you again.¡±

 Chapter 6.01 - Stargate

    <h1 style="text-align: center">Chapter 6.01 - Stargate</h1>


    I woke up with strange feeling. I was curled up in a confined leather bag, surrounded by slime. The bag was obviously alive because I heard a heartbeat and breathing. I myself was either a worm or a snake. That was another discovery. I did not panic, but focused on gathering information about my new body. Surprisingly, I easily discovered what I was .


    Well, you can congratulate me. I was a Goa¡¯uld, an intelligent worm that captures people''s bodies. And I was in the Stargate universe on the planet Chulak. My father was Apophis. It was the genetic memory inherited from him that I was now reading. This memory only had Information relating to the greatness of the race of the Goa¡¯uld and the basic control principles of  a technology inherited from the Ancients.


    I was in the stomach of one of the Jaffa - the elite warriors of Apophis. Judging by the shreds of my memory, my prepared fate was to be dinner. As far as I remembered from this show, the Goa¡¯ulds raised their descendants, and then ate them for breakfast, lunch and dinner in order to gain certain substances they needed for eternal life. So I had to quickly consider the question of choosing a host, because my body was almost ready to leave the Jaffa¡¯s abdominal pouch .


    So I started an examination of my abilities. Magic and chakra were present, and even seemed to work. But, I had zero control over them, so they were basically useless. Symbiote was pretty emaciated, but with enough workable strength . My telekinesis would no longer lift megatons of cargo, but for an ordinary person, even armed with a gun, my abilities would be enough. Moreover, the symbiote retained all its skills and abilities, so now I had a good chance to take control of the Jaffa''s consciousness and make him find me a host.


    I spread the symbiote¡¯s tentacles and searched my surroundings with them. My carrier slept on a bed in some shabby hut. People were near, but not in my room. The conditions were perfect suitable to conduct a few experiments on the submission of another''s consciousness. As it turned out, it was pretty easy to take control of someone else''s consciousness. This seemed to be a completely natural function of my body, and the symbiote was only a signal translator to the brain.


    I got out of bed, looked around and began to dress. The ceremonial dress was well appropriate with my clothing taste. At the same time, I looked through the Jaffa¡¯s consciousness in search of information about potential hosts. Jaffa was human in past But goa¡¯ulds changed something in their biochemistry, so that the worm could grow in their bodies inside a special bag inside the abdomen, into which they entered through the navel. When Goa¡¯ulds grow up enough, they must leave the Jaffa¡¯s pouch  and find a normal human as a host.


    Information about a suitable body was found pretty quickly. Apophis was looking for a host for his future queen, so one of the halls of the palace was filled with a crowd of suitable people. Once again, I checked the appearance of my Jaffa, picked up a plasma-shooting spear and went straight to the palace. There I walked through the corridors and went out to the hall I needed, which contained a crowd of humans, and came face-to-face  with Teal¡¯c, the First Prime of Apophis.


    ¡°Apophis ordered me to bring him one of the vessels.¡± I retold the ¡°order¡± of the leader of Goa¡¯ulds.


    ¡°Why didn''t he order me personally?¡± Teal¡¯c was surprised.


    ¡°You can ask him about it when the order is executed.¡±


    My argument did not invite further discussion, so Teal¡¯c stepped aside and gave a sign to open the grille blocking the entrance to the hall. I went into the room, looking at it with Jaffa''s eyes and and scanning crowd with symbiote¡¯s tentacles. Pretty soon, I discovered three ¡°main characters¡±. There was a female Air Force Captain from Earth, the wife of Daniel Jackson from Abydos-- I did not remember her name -- and Skaara, a boy from the same planet. The first was the only blonde in camouflage, the second I found out by the her black hair and pretty face, and the third was standing next to the second, protecting her with his frail body.


    I was not going to interfere in the plot of this story, and therefore focused on the others. There were both men and women. Dressed in different clothes, differing in appearance and behavior, they created the feeling of a circus.


    The choice of host was not an easy task. It was a matter of genetics. The Goa¡¯uld could subjugate any person, but the body of the host could suit it , or could reject it, forcing it to waste its efforts on restructuring the host. In addition, I was not fully grown, so the quality of the first host was even more important.


    Using my instincts and the indications of the symbiote, I found the only option that suited  me. Alas, it was a woman. For me, a ¡°sex change¡± was a bit of a psychological inconvenience, but I could change the host in the future, returning to the issue with more detail.


    ¡°You, come here!¡± I grabbed the hand of a girl of twenty, of a rather ugly appearance. She naturally began to resist and yell something. ¡°On your knees!¡±


    I hit my victim''s legs with telekinesis, and she fell to her knees, the pouch directly  in front of her face. Of course, the Jaffa¡¯s armor was still between the girl and me, but it did not become an obstacle. Telekinesis easily broke through chain mail and a steel plate. I slipped out of the Jaffa¡¯s stomach and rushed toward the victim''s face, piercing the flesh of her neck. The Jaffa covered me with his corpse, the other servants of Apophis discovering what happened only when their comrade fell unconscious, and a characteristic wound became visible on the neck of my host. They started to run and try to catch me.


    ¡°Hands off your God!¡± I announced with a roaring voice and flashing eyes.


    The other Jaffa stared at me in shock, giving me the opportunity to stand. All these cheap tricks of voice and eyes were sewn into the fabric of my genetic memory at the deepest level. This was how the Goa¡¯uld let their subjects know who they should worship. The gods fought with the gods, and people did not dare to intervene, figuring out the relationship between themselves.


    ¡°I must take you to Apophis,¡± Teal¡¯c told me. By the expression of his face it was clear that he preferred to see all gods in the tomb - me especially.


    ¡°Lead,¡± I graciously agreed. ¡°Jaffa, Cree!¡±


    I did not know what this "Cree" meant, but the Goa¡¯uld asserted dominance in their speech through the word. Perhaps it was just a curse. Like "fucking Jaffa."


    Before the eyes of the all-powerful Apophis, I appeared in half an hour. His divine mercy deigned to rest, so I had to wait for him to dress and appear to me in all his glory. Apophis entered the hall and stared at me with a searching glance. We exchanged with sparkling eyes, after which he spoke:


    ¡°Leave us.¡± Jaffa and other servants immediately swept out of the room and closed the door behind them. ¡°How dare you take a host without my order?¡± He turned to me.


    ¡°I''m a Goa¡¯uld. My mission is to rule mortals. Even you can''t forbid me that. I am Imhotep, the god of knowledge and architecture.¡±.Since we were using Egyptian mythology here, I decided to take the name of a man who lived in Egypt, and was later exalted to the level of God. ¡°I recognize your authority, Apophis, but only as long as it meets my goals.¡±


    ¡°Is that so? And what do you want?¡± Interest flashed in Apophis¡¯s eyes.


    ¡°I need a ha¡¯tak and a squad of Jaffa. After that, I will go on a conquest of other worlds and will rule them on your behalf. Your power over the galaxy will increase, and after a while, I will be ready to provide troops for your army.¡±


    ¡°If I do not agree?¡±


    ¡°Then I will have to overthrow you and take your place.¡± I flashed my eyes and stared at my ancestor in  challenge.


    From the outside, it probably looked like empty bravado. Apophis was all decorated with trinkets, of which many were combat and defensive artifacts, whereas I was almost naked, as ¡®to frighten a hedgehog with bare ass¡¯. But in reality, I was ready to destroy the snake in the head of Apophis¡¯s host with telekinesis. Whatever the technique of the Ancients, it did not protect against telekinesis of symbiote.


    Apophis liked my behavior. I was, in his eyes, a typical Goa¡¯uld - evil, overbearing scum who wanted fame and only recognized power. The tentacles of the symbiote could not penetrate the thoughts of the snake, but they conveyed to me the emotions of the wearer, whose consciousness was subordinated to the Goa¡¯uld.


    ¡°Good. I just have one ha''tak that needs a captain. It is an old ship. I have already built a new ha¡¯tak to replace it three times, but it is still flying. I will give this ship to you, but first you must prove that you are worthy of this honor.¡±


    ¡°What do I need to do?¡±


    ¡°I learned that in one of the worlds, the ship of Asgard was destroyed . It is a small shuttle, but it keeps the secrets of the technology of this race. Bring me a navigation computer from this ship, and I will give you a ha''tak and a hundred Jaffa in addition.¡±


    ¡°I smell some kind of deception.¡± I expressed my doubts. ¡°If everything was so simple, you would have taken this computer by yourself.¡±


    ¡°Yes, this place is notorious. There is a device of the Ancients that grants wishes. But in most cases, it does not fulfill desires, but kills those who come close to it. This is what happened with the Asgard. But I''m sure you can do it. After all, you are the god of knowledge.¡±  There was a sneer in his voice. From the point of view of the Goa¡¯uld, being a god of knowledge was only a little more honorable than being a god of toilets.


    ¡°Of course I can handle it. I will need a squad of two dozen Jaffa.¡±


    ¡°Well, my son, Suref will tell you all the details.¡± Apophis flashed his eyes and left the room.


    The Suref he mentioned was one of the trusted Jaffa in charge of all sorts of technical questions. My previous host knew him, so at least I could recognize him by sight when I was surrounded by Jaffa and other servants.


    The subsequent events of the evening happened quickly. I was dressed in colorful clothes, given the  local analogue of a pistol, provided an address for opening the stargate, and supplied with a dozen Jaffa who were deemed traitors on  previous missions. In general, everything corresponded to the proverb ¡®Beggars can¡¯t be choosers¡¯. Similar circumstances indicated that I was already written off as  fodder, but I had a different opinion on this matter.


    I could escape from Chulak in the body of a Jaffa and find a host on one of the planets, but then I would turn out to be just a runaway worm, without access to any technology. Moreover, these ¡°wild¡± Goa¡¯ulds would be hunted by their more successful counterparts and get destroyed as soon as possible. Now I had a chance to take not the last place in the hierarchy of power of the System Lords, plus a ship and some freedom of action. And the assignment I received immediately provoked thoughts of a ¡®Deus Ex Machina¡¯, of which the Being had alerted me. Of course, this Deus Ex Machina looked more like a mousetrap or even a bear trap, but in my opinion, the chances were good for me.


    Having passed through the gate, I studied the symbols on the dial, remembering the address of Chulak and other planets from which visitors came. The gate addressing system in this world was more in keeping with the canon of the Stargate Atlantis series. There were always the same char combinations on the typesetters, and one combination always opened the portal to the same destination. The only exception was the "last character" of the address, which was different on every planet. But this character was always on the dial and in the gate ring at the same place, so it was only a design choice .


    Remembering the addresses used, I looked around at my surroundings . It was a desert world, where the vegetation merely consisted of withered tufts of grass. Although, of course, it would be foolish to speak for the whole world based on the characteristics of the area where the gates were installed. Perhaps there were  jungles, swamps, or polar caps of ice, but in this place there was only a dry, hilly desert, without even signs of river channels.


    In the distance, a dilapidated building of enormous size was visible. It was difficult to say how it used to be, but the bluish color of this man-made mountain was very different from the yellow-gray surroundings. I gave the command to move in the direction of the building, and at the same time while walking, I began to recall what they had told me about this place.


    About a kilometer from the building, there was an area, where people and even the Goa¡¯ulds began to hallucinate . If the victim was seduced by one of these images,  or turned back, then they would immediately be destroyed by the pulse weapon of the Ancients, towering on the roof of the building. The only chance to survive was to reach the building, enter inside the main hall and once there make a wish that was not too difficult to fulfill. Approximately one in a hundred succeeded, and if he survived, would be given the opportunity to leave the vicinity of the building. All the others died from various causes, after which their corpses were teleported from the hall to the outside.


    I stopped at the top of a hill a kilometer and a half away from the building. Apparently, I was not the only intelligent person to have come  here, for this place showed numerous traces of the presence of intelligent beings. I even found a half-rotten hut made of sticks and animal skins, and a kind of throne of stones. Having taken a strategic position on the throne, I chose one of the suicide from my Jaffa.


    ¡°Jaffa, listen to me, Cree. Now you, Cree, go to this building, go inside through the main entrance, and then come back. In your mind¡¯s eye you will see different images , promising the fulfillment of all sorts of desires, Cree. You must, Cree, give up all those desires, Cree. Remember only me, Cree, and serving me, Cree. I am Imhotep, the god of knowledge and architecture. Serving me, Cree, should be your only desire, Cree. Only in this way, Cree, can you survive this test, Cree. Go Cree. Jaffa, Cree!¡±. Very strange, I have used word ¡°Cree¡± very much, apparently my snake body loves to say it.


    The Jaffa looked at me with a dumb look, then tightened his hold on the spear and walked away to carry out my order. In the meantime, I followed his consciousness with the help of  my symbiote, which stuck a tentacle directly into his brain. While the subject went forward, I focused on exploring the Asgard ship. The ship was in a building almost at the very border of a my symbiote¡¯s  ability. From my side it seemed to be whole, but from the side of the citadel there was a hole a half meter wide in it. Inside, I found a mutilated alien corpse.


    I would try to pull out the spare parts I needed with telekinesis, but at that distance it was too weak to lift an object weighing more than a couple of kilograms. Therefore, I had to ¡®strain my brain¡¯ in an attempt to come up with another way. Time was plentiful , so I plunged into the study of the ship¡¯s device


    At a certain point, it became clear that my Jaffa had begun to encounter glitches. This was not a dramatic change. Rather, the usual background thoughts gradually intensified, and now it became clear that this state was not normal. The source of the glitches was in the building. It was some kind of hypno-emitter. I slightly helped the test subject so that he could resist visions that promised a life of paradise far from the Goa¡¯uld. But by the time he entered the building, my assistance had disappeared, because the symbiote¡¯s tentacles could no longer reach him.


    Half an hour later in the doorway appeared a figure of a man who staggered in our direction. It soon became clear that this was my subordinate, who had lost almost all clothing and weapons. When he got to us, I sat on the throne and with disgust looked at the former Jaffa. While he was  in the building, the Goa¡¯uld was removed and the pouch where he lived was extracted . But the unknown ¡°benefactor¡± did not take care to return the Jaffa¡¯s immune system to the human norm, so a slow and painful death awaited this loser.


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    ¡°Looks like you dreamed of breaking free from the power of the gods. Well, I will provide you with freedom. I will throw you into the wild world, where you will live out the miserable existence of a peasant for the rest of your days.¡± I needed to maintain the image of a typical Goa¡¯uld, otherwise the Jaffa themselves would not have understood me. ¡°Your faith in me was not strong enough, and here is the result.¡±


    Nine other Jaffa looked at their former comrade with disdain. Peasants in this wild feudal society occupied the lowest level of the social pyramid.


    I rose from my throne and went to the building of the Ancients. As always, I had to do everything myself. For a start, I erected defenses around my mind that completely shielded all attempts to influence me or to read my thoughts. This was a time ¡®to cheat¡¯ with the powers of a symbiote. I walked slowly, with dignity, so I had plenty of time to explore the ship in question. The navigation computer turned out to be a quick-change unit, so I was able to pull it out quite easily.


    Having answered this question, I turned to the study of the Ancient¡¯s pulse gun, which stood on the roof of the building and continued to aim at me as I walked. If something went wrong, I could break the gun and go back without risking being roasted with high-temperature plasma.


    When I reached the entrance, I found a short corridor leading to a large hall. The interior of the hall showed a striking contrast with the exterior of the building. Everything was clean, whole, there was not a single speck of dust or scratches. Numerous lamps gave off a pleasant white light. The walls, floor and ceiling were decorated with geometric patterns with some mathematical pattern. At least they looked deliberate  and the mathematical proportions were visually pleasing.


    ¡°For what purpose did you visit this place?¡± There was a dissatisfied male voice. The source of the sound was a pair of speakers, slyly hidden behind a series of wall panels.


    ¡°I am Imhotep, the god of knowledge and architecture. What is your name?¡±


    ¡°I am the great and all-powerful ruler of the universe, the god of gods, the keeper of the heritage of the Ancients, the executor of desires. What do you wish, mortal?¡±


    ¡°Who are you in general? Who in life? What are you doing? What is your function?¡±


    This conversation increasingly reminded me of the communication of the blind with the deaf. But, it seems, I asked the right question. Judging by the insides of the building, there were no living things here.  I was dealing with some kind of artificial intelligence.


    ¡°I ... provide visitors ... storage with a friendly interface,¡± revealed a voice with obvious hesitations.


    ¡°I''m looking for knowledge of the Ancients.¡± It look like this AI was something like a librarian.


    ¡°What kind of knowledge do you need, worm?¡± Something of friendliness in this interface showed for a bit. Or did the AI mean my real body? ¡°You do not belong to those who are allowed access to the wisdom of the Ancients. Ask too much and I will destroy you.¡±


    And here, it seemed, was the answer to the question of why the majority of visitors to this place died.


    ¡°I want to learn to speak and read in the language of the Ancients.¡± I made my bet.


    The answer was silence, which a female voice interrupted after a dozen seconds.


    ¡°Teach him language.¡±


    It looked  like there was another virtual person.


    ¡°I obey.¡± A second voice answered, carefully suppressing the anger bursting out.


    I partially removed the mental shield, and a wide flow of information poured into the brain of my host. It seemed that the unknown "friendly interface" decided to execute the order word to word. On the other hand, I was not ready to allow some kind of AI to rape my mind. It would be easier for me later to extract the knowledge of the language from the brain of the host, even if it would take more than a year.


    After a couple of minutes, the abuse of the my human host¡¯s brain was over, and I heard the parting words.


    ¡°Get out of here, ugly creature.¡±


    ¡°It seems your friendly interface is not so friendly after all.¡± I expressed my dissatisfaction, after which I turned and walked away.


    ¡°Thank you for your feedback. We will consider your opinion. Looking forward to seeing you again.¡± A pleasant female voice answered.


    I left the artificial intelligence to deal with each other, and went away from the building so that my path followed the length of  the ship. My host¡¯s head was splitting from pain, so I harnessed the symbiote for its treatment. When I got to the ship, I climbed inside, and quickly pulled out the Asgard¡¯s computer; it was about the size of a liter Coca-Cola bottle. After I got what I needed, I walked along, trying to get out of the Ancients weapon¡¯s range as quickly as possible.


    The Jaffa greeted me with eyes filled with true faith. Together we reached the gate, where I sent the future peasant to one of the random addresses of a planet not ruled by Apophis stored in the memory of the DHD. For myself and my companions, I opened the way to one of the planets under Apophis¡¯s dominion, where we could rest for a while. I urgently needed to take care of the health of my host. Writing data to the brain was clearly designed for the brain of the Ancient One, so the human body suffered it with difficulty.


    We settled in the ¡°guest house¡± in the village near the gate. There I sat to meditate, ordering the Jaffa to guard me and the Asgard instrument. I was able to return to the normal perception of reality only after three days. I no longer risked losing the newly-received source knowledge of the Ancients. But there were still losses. The soul of my host did not withstand the experienced pain and choosed to part with its physical sheath, that is, to die. I had to urgently take over the functions of maintaining life in the body and, most importantly, mental activity in the brain.


    In a sense, now it was my body. But I didn¡¯t merge with her, planning to change the body in the future. I did not want to stay in the female body. And well, if it were the body of a beautiful woman, things might have been different, but the girl was scary as death. So I did not see the point in saving this vessel.


    Having washed and had breakfast, I headed for the Stargate. On Chulak, I was met with vanity and Jaffa squads guarding the gates. After a rapid exchange of information, I gathered that Earth¡¯s SG-1 team had invaded the planet, resulting in Teal¡¯c¡¯s betrayal of his master. Apophis had flown from here to his main planet, where his fleet was located.


    I did not know the address of that particular planet. In my memory were the addresses of secondary planets, like the one from which I had just come, but Apophis did not trust the most important information to his offspring. Naturally, no one was going to give me this address ... not until I presented the Asgard¡¯s device. One of the Jaffa, eager after being shown the device, had made an attempt to take the artifact from me on the pretext of transferring it to Apophis. I simply killed him for his insolence. I don''t let any type of stupid minions to command to me.


    Finally, the Jaffa contacted their god and I got the go-ahead to go to him. As a result, I, the nine of ¡°my¡± Jaffa and three dozen other Jaffa  passed through the gate to another planet. Then we had to take the big shuttle that took us to Apophis¡¯s Ha¡¯tak. He received me right away. It looked like he was very interested in my device.


    ¡°Apophis, I have executed your order. To prove my strength, I brought you a navigation computer from the Asgard ship. Now, I expect you to complete your part of the deal and give me the ha''tak.¡±


    The conversation took place in a large gathering of people, and I tried to reduce the chances that my father would take his words back.


    ¡°Bring me the artifact,¡± commanded Apophis.


    One of his Jaffa came up to me and took the loot. As soon as it fell into the hands of Apophis, he began to scan it with a device strapped to his left hand.


    ¡°Yes, this is exactly what I need. Thank you.¡± I skeptically raised an eyebrow. Did a goa¡¯uld thank me? Seriously? ¡°As for the ship you spoke of, I have already appointed a commander there.¡± But now everything had become clear. It was a way to say: you can forget my thanks and piss off.


    ¡°Are your words worth nothing?¡± I turned to Apophis, who was already assembled to leave. ¡°I will help you to save your face. I agree to call the commander of this ha''tak to a duel to win my right to command it .¡±


    ¡°Are you so confident in your abilities?¡± Apophis asked, slightly interested.


    ¡°I easily dealt with the Ancients who were guarding the Asgard ship, what can a little god do to me? Especially one who got his first ha''tak? I''ll turn him into dust.¡±


    ¡°Good. I give my permission to this duel. Follow me.¡±


    I went after Apophis. We passed several corridors and entered a room that could be called a treasury. The room contained not only Goa¡¯uld artifacts. However, there was enough piles gold and jewels in their composition. The Goa¡¯uld in this regard reminded me of gypsies. Their sense of beauty entailed a heap of gold and precious stones combined into an ugly and conspicuous shape. Their design made my perfectionist side bleed internally.


    ¡°Hold on, this weapon will help you in the battle.¡± Apophis handed me a golden "glove", which should be worn on the left hand,similar to his. ¡°Additionally, you can choose two more items in this treasury. Appreciate my kindness, son.¡±


    ¡°I am grateful to you, father.¡±  I waved, looking at the artifacts and scanning them with my  symbiote.


    The Goa¡¯uld possessed a weak ability to influence consciousness on the world around them. And all these artifacts required the presence of such abilities for their work. However, I replaced this effect with the tentacles of my symbiote. It was much easier.


    From the variety of all  the pieces, I chose a personal shield generator to protect me against energy attacks and something like glasses or a visor containing a telepathically-controlled computer. The last item was clearly converted from a device of the Ancients. I put all three artifacts on me and turned to Apophis.


    ¡°I''m ready for a duel,¡±  I announced proudly.


    ¡°Why do you need this glasses?¡± Apophis was surprised. I found this artifact in the most distant and dusty corner, so it seemed he did not even know that there was such a thing.


    ¡°This is a device for storing knowledge. As a god of knowledge, it is absolutely necessary for me.¡±


    ¡°Ah, I see.¡± In the voice of the Goa¡¯uld there was  disappointment. ¡°Come.¡± We left the treasury and walked along the intricate corridors of the spacecraft. ¡°You should know the rules of the duel. You are forbidden to kill your opponent. The winner of the duel takes all the property of the loser. Only artifacts granted by me are allowed to be used. There should be no other weapons in the arena. Is this clear?¡±


    ¡°Yes, father. Believe in my strength. No enemy can stand against me.¡±


    As we walked, I investigated the ¡°glove¡± issued to me. Since Apophis had presented it to me, I suspected some sort of setup. And for sure, this artifact was defective. It had many functions, but in combat, only something like a telekinetic push and a paralyzing beam were available. Outwardly, everything looked fine, but If I tried to use these functions, there would be an overload of the crystal, and the weapon would not work.


    I determined this by using the diagnostic functions of the visor. I began to like the ¡°visor¡± more and more. I did not complain about the defective item. Anyway, I was not going to use the glove in battle. I had a symbiote, and if I wanted, I could turn any opponent into a bloody pulp in less than a second.


    We went into a room with a teleportation device and transported to another ship. Here I immediately noted the antiquity of the design. It was difficult to say what exactly created such an impression, but the premises instilled a sense of belonging to some secret knowledge on a universal scale. Most likely, it was in the patterns covering the walls, and the combination of silver and gold metals, in contrast to Apophis¡¯s gaudy, solid gold ship.


    Then we proceeded to the cabin of the ha¡¯tak, where there was ... Skaara. I still remembered this petty runt.


    ¡°Klorel.¡±  Apophis welcomed my opponent.


    ¡°Greetings, father.¡± My brother bowed his head.


    ¡°You must pass the test. Fight your brother and prove that you are worthy of being my heir. His name is Imhotep. If you lose the duel, then this ship will belong to him.¡±


    ¡°I won''t let you down, father.¡±


    ¡°Get ready for battle. In two hours your duel will take place. I will be watching here, from the side of my ha¡¯tak.¡±


    At this Apophis turned and left, leaving us viciously looking at each other. Looked like dad had decided to furnish his beloved son with artifacts from the treasury. Klorel had a whole arsenal of combat and defense artifacts, and not one of them was defective.


    Once again I glanced over to my opponent and left the cockpit. Not far from here was a guest room, where I headed. There I spent two hours tasting the set of poisons that the slaves brought me, the antidotes to which I easily found using  Panacea¡¯s power. It seemed that Klorel had decided that the rules of the fight were not for him. Or was it usual for the Goa¡¯uld to poison each other? Almost every dish I was served contained a poison of a new type. None of them were fatal, but every one could cause enough problems to influence the outcome of the duel.


    The duel was to be held in the Gate¡¯s hall. There, inside the Stargate ring, a holographic device was already hanging, transmitting a view of Apophis¡¯s head. All extra boxes and equipment were removed, leaving an empty room. The Jaffa guards left us, closing the door behind them. Only the "gods" could watch the duel. Mere mortals should not see the moment of their masters'' weakness.


    ¡°Are you ready?¡± On the face of Apophis was a characteristic mocking smile.


    ¡°Yes, father.¡± Klorel nodded, his eyes glowing.


    ¡°This duel will be just one more step on my way to exaltation,¡± I replied. There was no point for me to flash my eyes, because they were hiding behind the visor. Apparently, because of this, this device was not popular.


    ¡°Yes, begin the fight,¡± announced Apophis in the spirit of Mortal Kombat.


    ¡°When I ...¡± Klorel tried to say something, but my telekinetic impulse knocked all the air out of him and put his back against the wall. Simultaneously with the push, I threw my right hand forward, although the glove was on the left.


    ¡°When you are what?¡± I asked, once again traumatizing the wall with the  body of the Goa¡¯uld. He tried to resist, but did not succeed. I simply did not let him protect himself or use any of his devices. ¡°I''ll give you one piece of advice, from brother to brother.¡±  Simultaneously with my instructions, I repeatedly hit my enemy against the wall, traces of blood already staining his skin and clothes. ¡°Instead of chatting during the battle, it is better to focus on the enemy. You were too arrogant and did not even attempt to defend yourself. You are not worthy to be my rival. I am Imhotep - the God of Knowledge. And as you can see, knowledge is power.¡±


    I threw aside Skaara¡¯s squashed carcass and turned to the gate.


    ¡°Apophis, I won this duel. Now this ship belongs to me. I will send Klorel to you through the gate after I heal him in the sarcophagus. And now I need to refurbish my ship. The next time you hear about me, your chest will be bursting with a sense of pride for what you sired . Goodbye.¡±


    ¡°Wait. How did you beat him?¡± my dear father asked, shocked.


    ¡°What are you talking about? It was the magic of the Goa¡¯uld. I am God! My power is beyond the comprehension of mere mortals.¡±


    ¡°This is the device of the Ancients,¡± Apophis surmised. ¡°You found it in that temple and hid it from me.¡±


    In response, I just mockingly laughed and turned off the communication device, not letting Apophis utter another word.


    After that, I went to the cockpit, levitating behind me the unconscious body of Skaara and his master, Klorel. There was a healing sarcophagus in the control room, where I unloaded this body, divesting it of all technical devices. Next, I activated the ship¡¯s control system. It looked like a regular red crystal. But in reality it was a telepathic interface granting me control over all the systems of the ship.


    I did not yet try to understand the details, but made the order to begin the ascent into orbit, turn on the shields and block the transport rings. The ship vibrated, buzzed and shook, and then with some effort pulled away from the ground and soared into the sky. Apophis did not open fire on me, as he did not even chase me, though there were several attempts to activate the transport ring.


    I freely went into orbit, after which I gave the command to turn on the hyperdrive. One of the planets of the neighboring System Lord Baal was our destination. The ship buzzed even more. Instead of entering hyperspace, it began to tremble more and more. Finally, when I began to think that the ha''tak would explode or fall apart, it moved into hyperspace. Something was clearly wrong with this ship.


    Having estimated my current speed, I found out that I had to fly for at least three days. So for a start, I focused on diagnosing the technical condition of the ship. After reviewing these self-diagnostic systems, I did not believe the report and decided to examine the ship with my own eyes.


    Going down the stairs to the technical rooms and going around them, I realized the bitter truth. When Apophis said that ¡®he built three ships to replace this¡¯, he meant that, after dismantling this ship, he had managed to build three others. In fact, all I had was a ship hull, living quarters, two guns and a reactor powering the whole thing. The computer showed that there were no maneuvering engines, no hyperdrive, or even a shield generator in this hunk of junk. It was miracle that we were even able to rise into the air and fly away.


    In order to figure out what was going on, it was necessary to investigate all the technical aspects of the ship, which was best done on the surface of the planet, and not during the flight. Furthermore, these circumstances required a review of my plans. Previously, I was going to fly to one of Baal¡¯s planets and rob a couple of mines of Naquadah. But considering the current state of the ship, I was not sure that I would be able to go to hyperspace at all the second time.


    I started looking for a new destination in the ship¡¯s planet database. An hour later, I had selected one. It was a "landless" planet with a dry climate. There were a couple of Naquadah deposits, but they were very poor concentration, so their development was considered unprofitable. Also, there was a Stargate on the planet, but it was located too far from both deposits. In general, I was sure that if I settled there, no one would miss me for the next thousand years.


    The planet was located in the opposite direction of my travel, so I had to manually input the course change calculation into the computer program. Periodically, with a few slight maneuvers, I was able to change my destination, although the computer tried to convince me that this was impossible. Stupid technique of stupid Goa''uld.


    After the ship set on the right course, I went to check the crew. A little more than a hundred Jaffa armed with the latest technology, that is, spears, were under my command. At least these spears could shoot. In the hangar there was a shuttle tel¡¯tak and a multi-functional bomber alkesh. Also in the warehouse was food stock for a couple of months. In general, you can live, but not for long.

 Chapter 6.02 - Stargate

    <h1> </h1>


    The last thing I checked was the hostage, dear brother of mine. He was almost recovered, so I adjusted the treatment program to keep him in a state of sleep. After that, I just had to retire to my private room and study the language of the Ancients and personal Goa¡¯uld artifacts.


    We left hyperspace rather far from the planet, so we had to fly two more days at sublight speeds. I did not dare to reactivate the hyperdrive. Who knew how much longer it would last. During the flight, I scanned the planet and found those two deposits of Naquadah on it. One was large and with very low metal content in the ore. The second was better, but the whole field was localized by a small deposit  and the total reserve of Naquadah was at the level of five percent of the previous one.


    As a landing site, I chose the second field. At least it could somehow begin to develop with some assistance from the typical methods of the Goa¡¯uld, that is, with pickaxe and shovel. Free slave labor, in my opinion, was the most primitive way to develop deposits.


    Hovering at an altitude of five kilometers, I began to examine the surroundings of the field. The mountain I needed was surrounded by  desert -- pure sand as far as the eye could see to the west. Ten kilometers to the east there was a small chain of mountains where there were sources of water and a settlement of people. The level of technology in the village corresponded to the environment. They were clearly primitive, for their houses had been built of mere stones and clay. The trees here had never sprouted, so the animal dung served as their fuel. The only sign of agriculture to be found was in the region of a trickling brook flowing from the mountain. In general, the situation was so dismal that I even started to think about giving up any use of native people.


    In the end, I landed on the sand two kilometers from the Naquadah field. The ship buzzed for the last time and froze like a lifeless pile of metal. I had less than a ton of Naquadah fuel, so the ship¡¯s next flight could definitely be its last. Having immersed all the systems of the ship in a state of energy saving, I then went to take care of the prisoner.


    I put Klorel and his host to sleep, by injecting him with a horse¡¯s dose of sleeping medication. Because the Goa¡¯uld had very strong immunity against all types of drugs and medicine, I was certain that his heart would not stop from the high dose. After that, I pulled him out of the sarcophagus, dressed him in rags and plunged him into the tel¡¯tak. Along with a couple dozen Jaffa I flew to the gate. There we used gate to go to one of the neutral planets, from there to another, and so on. From the third planet I opened the gate to one of Apophis¡¯s planets, where a dozen of my Jaffa went, carrying their Apophis¡¯s son. With me remained ten, and we moved to the fourth planet, from there to the fifth, finally returning to the first. The third and fifth planets were quite lively, so I figured that the information about my transition would quickly be erased from the DHD, and it would be impossible to track my trajectory. The Jaffa themselves didn¡¯t see the addresses I had  dialed, and therefore couldn¡¯t say anything.


    Returning to the ha''tak, I ran into a whole delegation of Jaffa that had come out to meet me.


    ¡°My God, Great Imhotep, will you please explain to us what exactly we will do in this desert world?¡±  It was the leader of my troops who addressed me.


    ¡°Of course. You will execute my orders, you do not need to know anything about my plans. You won¡¯t be able to understand anyway. Any more questions?¡±


    The Jaffa looked at each other in confusion.


    ¡°And what will be your order, oh your divine mercy?¡±


    ¡°Sit on the ship and do not interfere with me. You should not go to the nearest settlement yet. Later, I myself will visit these savages. You have nothing to do? Then exercise. In a couple of days I will arrange a test of your skills. Whoever can not resist me in hand-to-hand combat, will go to mine Naquadah.¡±


    The eyes of the fighters widened in horror. Naquadah was a radioactive metal, and those who mined it died in less than a year. Even carriers of symbiotes in their bellies lived in the mines for no more than five years. After my promise, the Jaffa immediately rushed to the gym, where they began to practice  methods of wrestling and handbattle.


    I went to explore the technical rooms of the ship. The five Jaffa serving as my ¡°honorary guard¡± followed me. The technical areas were empty, and all the equipment had been uprooted. I had to scan the ship with my symbiote¡¯s tentacles and compare its readings with the plan of the ship in the computer.


    Finally, I was able to localize fairly long, but fairly thin devices that stretched across the entire hull of the ship and adjacent narrow technical passages. Finding a way to get into these rooms took another fifteen minutes. Finally, I got to the right place. The entrance to the small room corresponded to its size ¡ª it was a narrow and low door. And on the other side of the storeroom littered with junk there were large double doors, the size of the whole wall. Opening them, I stumbled upon another wall of dull silver metal.


    It had a small door through which the Jaffa could squeeze only after passing through on all fours. And what pleased me most of all, next to the door was a panel on which the text in the language of the Ancients glowed. It seemed that this kha''tak was made from the parts of the ship of the Ancients, and now I had reached the oldest part of it. I put my hand to the panel and slipped into the open passage.


    There were narrow low corridors, in which there was absolutely no lighting. The Jaffa followed me, weapons held at the ready. Apparently, they also did not suspect that there were such premises on this ship. There was a rustle, and a small repair robot rolled out of the next corridor. He had four wheels and several manipulators. Before I could examine him properly, the Jaffa opened fire on him with their weapons. The robot flew off to the side and emitted a shower of sparks.


    ¡°Stop!¡±


    But the stupid warriors did not listen to me and continued to shoot.


    ¡°Idiots!¡± I shouted, turning to the vandals, destroying the equipment of the Ancients. ¡°Die!!!¡± Three figures were immediately torn to pieces by my symbiote. ¡°You violated my order.¡± Seeing the expression on my face, the surviving couple shamefully threw down their weapons and darted away. ¡°I won''t see you again, ugly creatures.¡± I shouted after them. ¡°For everyone who enters the utility rooms, I will kill two more of you. Useless creatures.¡±


    I finally was able to calm my anger and turned to see what was left of the robot. Alas, it was completely and irrevocably destroyed. All crystals, wires and microcircuits were fried together in an amorphous mass. I spread the symbiote tentacles and began to look for similar mechanisms. Unfortunately, the corridors were full of all kinds of garbage, but there was not a single such robot in the area.


    Only by rummaging around the entire ship from top to bottom, could I find a couple more of these same robots, but in much worse condition. They were in extreme deterioration, and barely moved. Another of my discoveries was the onboard computer of the Ancients, which controlled the work of these robots, as well as all the other systems of the ship.


    Having figured out the scope of work, I was climbed into the living quarters of the Jaffa in fury, where I gave them an exemplary ¡°spanking¡±.


    ¡°Listen to me, you miscarried sons of peasant whores. From now on, you are forbidden to leave the living quarters of the ship. For every violator, I will execute him and two more of you. Do not leave the ship, do not go to the control room, or to the transport rings or the shuttles. You are so stupid that I do not even trust you to clean the toilets. So you must sit and wait until I need you. The punishment for any wrongdoing is death. The punishment for disobedience is painful death. The punishment for stupidity is prolonged torture and death. I am a god of knowledge, and I do not need fools who are unable to distinguish a repair robot from a sand rat.¡±


    At this point I finished pouring out streams of anger and irritation and went to study the computer of the Ancients.


    A week later, I was able to determine the current state of the ship. Once upon a time it was the cargo ship of the Ancients, intended for the transport of ore. After the death of the civilization, the ship floated  in space for almost seven thousand years, after which it was discovered by the Goa¡¯uld. The worms did not come up with anything better than cutting the ship into slices and cramming these fragments into the hull of the ha¡¯tak. The computer of the Ancients was extremely puzzled by the new arrangement of engines and emitters of protective fields, but in the end was able to calculate a more or less working model for their use.


    After some time, they decided to modernize the ship with the technology of the Goa¡¯uld, adding new engines. So they did not come into opposition with the already existing technologies, the computer of the Goa¡¯uld was connected to the computer of the Ancients, but, of course, again ¡°through the ass¡±. And finally, about a thousand years ago, the ship came to Apophis, who did not even suspect the presence of the engine of the Ancients here, and therefore installed another system of engines and shields, leaving the existing one as a backup.


    The reverse plunder of the ship began about fifty years ago and ended a couple of months before my appearance in this world. The remnants of the ship were planned to be driven away under their own power to one of the planets where the Goa¡¯uld¡¯s ships were sold for the price of scrap metal. Apparently, it was someone''s cunning plan to deceive Apophis for a ship built with the technology of the Ancients. Because literally a couple of years before the beginning of the looting of the ship, someone directly connected to the computer of the Ancients and looked through the information on the state of the systems. Now I had this pearl, and I was not going to let others get it.


    For the last thousand years the ship of the Ancients was on a decline. The computer had been set for maximum energy and material saving mode, therefore, the mechanisms had begun to decline. Of the eight repair robots, only three remained on the move, and only one of them was in a satisfactory condition. If it hadn¡¯t been shot by the idiotic Jaffa. Fortunately, the remaining two robots could easily repair each other, and then proceed to repair the ship.


    Alas, these plans were questionable, because rare chemical elements and a lot of energy were needed for repairs. If I didn¡¯t start the industrial mining of the Naquadah, then the current reserves would only be enough for me to slightly pay up the engines, after which there would be no fuel even for getting off the ground. The Ancients¡¯ ship  guzzled a lot of energy, so the engines of the Goa¡¯uld were ten times more economical than it. However, the speed of movement they had were two orders of magnitude less. Ancient technology was fast, but expensive, whereas that of the Goa¡¯uld was slow but cheap.


    In order to solve the rising difficulties, I decided to create a computer model and choose the most optimal course of action. Fortunately, one feature of the Ancients'' computers became clear. On Earth, computer programs were written in special languages, like C or Java, but the Ancients wrote programs ... in the language of the Ancients. That is, you could just write the text with instructions, and the computer itself would understand the meaning of this text and line up the necessary sequence of operations.


    Based on the results of the iteration of several trillion simulations, an action plan was developed. The two robots began to repair each other. For their repair, a significant part of the life support system and the last pair of shield generators left over from the Goa¡¯uld had to be used and thus became scrap metal. The generators had long been broken and disconnected from the general network, but the robots knew about their location.


    Once the robots had successfully repaired themselves, they set about building a mining complex. The robots could not reproduce themselves, because they did not have drawings of the central processor, but they had drawings for a simpler processor capable of controlling simple mechanisms.


    The complex process included a hybrid excavator, a truck, and an ore processing plant. It could crush the rock, load it into itself, filter for the most valuable materials, and then discard the waste. All this was done in accordance with the plans drawn up by the computer of the ship. According to the results of the calculations, it was furthermore necessary to introduce this machine to the Naquadah field and to transport ore concentrate to the ship several times a day. Then it was my turn, to process the concentrate into a set of chemically pure substances using my symbiote. And in the end, these materials came to the repair robots that were supposed to produce fuel for the reactor and components for the ship.


    For the Jaffa, a place in this plan was found only as  guards. But this protection was vital, so that they somehow justified their existence. The fact was that the local fauna followed the path of gigantism. Suffice it to say that the roof coverings for the local residents¡¯ buildings  were made from the bones of animals. These creatures gladly ate crops, domestic animals, humans and in general everything, even something that was only slightly different in appearance from stone would also be eaten.


    Leaving the assembly of the equipment to the robots, I took a dozen stupid and idle Jaffa and took the shuttle to the nearest village. I needed a source of food and water, so the simplest option was to get the locals to share them with us. No, I was not going to rob them. With a similar approach, I probably would have died of hunger myself. I decided to raise local agriculture and pick up half of the crop as compensation.


    The tel¡¯tak flew to the village, made a couple of laps over it, landed, and I came out  in shining glory, accompanied by my Jaffa. The faces of the Jaffa were hidden with helmets in the form of a snake''s head, and I wore the glasses of the Ancients, so the "divinity" of our origin did not cause anyone to doubt us.


    ¡°Who is in charge here? Come out, we will fight!¡±


    I was met by a muscular man of an animal-like species with a cudgel in his hands. Even compared to the Jaffa, he looked like a giant. And where did they get so much food to feed such a boar?


    ¡°Yes, why fight with you? You would fold in half from one blow¡± he spoke, gesturing to the tribesmen. ¡°Or do you suggest to arrange a battle in bed ¡­¡±


    I activated the symbiote, accelerated with telekinesis and struck this impudent swine with a blow to the stomach, from which he bent and flew back a couple of meters.


    ¡°Who else wants to say that he is stronger than me?¡± After witnessing my power, silence ensued. But then one of the villagers came up to greet me.


    ¡°Oh Mighty God, I am Stahor Sesmar Anub, the head of this village. We are glad to welcome you in our village.¡± The peasant greeted me with a sly look. After greeting, he respectfully bowed.


    ¡°I am Imhotep, the God of Knowledge and Architecture. I arrived on your planet on my own business, and for one thing I decided to do much good for your village with my appearance. I am going to help you grow a rich harvest, and in return I will take part of it for myself.¡±


    ¡°You won''t get anything from us, you miserable swindler,¡± shouted some old man.


    ¡°Yes,yes! We will not even share cow¡¯s shit with you ,¡± a fat woman joined.


    The people raised in uproar, and some began to pick up stones and throw them at me. I waited five seconds, and then with one motion of my hand I dismembered all those who disagreed. The people froze, and then screams of horror filled the air. Most of those present ran away, but got tangled in their legs and fell to the ground. The strength of my symbiote was not enough to hold the entire crowd at once, and therefore I just caught their legs.


    The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    ¡°Silent!!! I am God! And I have the power to destroy you all here and now!!!¡± I soared into the air, wrapped in darkness. Such focus had caused a state of dumbness even for the Jaffa. ¡°I am cruel, but fair. Those who bow down before me will rise and prosper. Those who dare to contradict me await a fate worse than death. On your knees, mortals!¡±


    I glanced around the audience, and one by one, people began to fall on their knees and crouch to the ground. I was not at all pleased with this whole farce, but it was the quickest way to subordinate these people to myself. Primitive inhabitants of primitive society knew what the power of the strong was, and therefore they easily inclined to those who could demonstrate this power.


    The demonstration of my abilities made it possible to begin successful negotiations, from which I learned the state of the local economy.


    People lived here mainly due to agriculture. There were two rainy seasons in a year. Great in winter and small in summer. In a month the summer season would begin, but now the fields were empty. Only near the creek were there several areas where they grew fresh greens. The main scourge of the people were invasions of wild animals, which had to be driven away by the whole tribe. Sometimes this was not possible, and then the tribe was left without crops and was forced to tighten their belts. There had always been few reserves, and the high mortality among hunters forced this society to balance on the verge of eternal hunger. An increase in the birth rate, as a rule, led to a lack of food, from which the most frail layers of the proletariat died. In general, this was quite the ordinary life of primitive people.


    I was going to provide the village with water and give them the seeds of normal vegetables and grains. All that needed to be done  was to drill a well, install a pump with a Naquadah generator and select the most suitable soil for growing crops in the arid and sunny climate from the stocks of the products in the ha¡¯tak.


    The Jaffa themselves had to organize the protection of the mine, the fields, the village and the ha¡¯tak. In addition, they were responsible for the transportation of ore concentrate and equipment. I arranged the promised verification of the skills of hand-to-hand combat, results of which determined who would be on duty at the mine, and who would relax, guarding the villagers.


    Assembly and installation of the pump passed without problems. I drilled a well to a depth of almost a kilometer, where a powerful aquifer was discovered. Water from there immediately went to irrigate the fields on which the plants began to grow, even though the rainy season had not yet begun.


    Having organized the process of providing jaffa with products and meal, I went deep into developing a ship recovery plan. After increasing mining and processing facilities, the robots had to start producing new Ancient engines on the basis of the available drawings. Initially, the cargo ship was much more modest than the ha¡¯tak. Plus, the elements of the hyperdrive were far from the best. So the ship moved with difficulty.


    I was going to produce at least ten times more necessary elements and arrange them according to the schematics calculated by the computer. More precisely, all this should have been done by robots. There were only two of them, so the process of repairing the ship threatened to drag on. To speed it up a little, I gave the command to build eight repair robots with primitive processors. They were able to perform simple operations on their own, and the two full-fledged robots had to manage these other eight, passing instructions to action.


    Another planned change was the construction of the bottom of the ship. The Ha''tak was a four-sided pyramid, which when landing was supposed to "sit down" atop another pyramid. The Pyramid of Cheops was built just as a landing site. But as a result of this design, the ship lost 80% of its internal volume. I planned to build a normal flat bottom near the pyramid, so that I could land on flat surfaces. The resulting interior space was to be used to accommodate ... the mining complex.


    At one time, the ship of the Ancients was used to transport ore. The computer downloaded the drawings of another ship, which was supposed to be engaged in mining minerals on asteroids;it sucked the crushed asteroid into its womb, and then spat out the waste products; collected materials were then transported by automatic trucks.


    After construction, I would get a source of unimaginable wealth. I could get all the Naquadah on this planet in a week. Such a scale could not be compared with how this element was mined by the goa¡¯ulds. Those generally mastered a dozen technologies of the Ancients and used them to suppress the technical level of all other civilizations in the galaxy.


    Alas, there was still plenty of time before such a triumph. According to the computer calculations, it needed more than a year to complete all plans. Now, if I had the drawings of the processor of the repair robot, it would be possible to cope in a couple of weeks. Eh. Well at least I got something as useful  as the neural interface of the Ancients from Apophis, in the form of the glasses I wore. Without it, access to the computer would have been limited by the rights of the guest account, and all the information would have to be entered through a small terminal designed to control the ship''s gateway. And so it was enough for me only to think, and the ship¡¯s computer immediately offered possible solutions to the next task.


    While my flagship of the Triumph class was being built, I decided to start rebuilding my tails. But then an unexpected problem surfaced. Chakra was still completely out of control to me. With magic, the situation was better, although the body of my Goa¡¯uld and the human host did not have the slightest ability to use magic. It just cost me greatly to accumulate more than a certain amount of energy under my control, as the symbiote interfered in this process and literally devoured it. At the same time, it itself did not receive any benefit from such a meal.


    I had to sit down to meditate and raise control. Through extreme stress, I could force the symbiote not to disturb me, but this was only a partial solution. I could raise the bar of the energy level at which the symbiote was spinning out of control, but could not prevent it completely. Using remnants of energy, I scanned my soul and began the painstaking process of repairing damage.


    More than half a year I was engaged in my own recovery. At first, I still expected that the Being would soon come to me and say that my time was up. But he did not. In the past world, I spent less than a month. In this world, my "business trip" was clearly prolonged, which only pleased me.


    After a lot of difficult and persistent meditations, I came to a disappointing conclusion: the restoration of the tails was impossible. Theoretically, it was possible, but for this, a huge amount of Bahion was needed, which I simply had nowhere to take from.


    There was a workaround to solve the tails problem in another way. Each tail was essentially a ¡°virtual drive¡± of Bahion. It could not be extracted from it, but I could try to somehow transform this Bahion by changing the tail itself. I had seven more normal tail germs. I could "throw" the ability from a injured tail to a healthy. But for this, too, Bahion was required, albeit in much more modest volumes.


    Having decided on a new goal, I decided to organize a cult in my name in the nearest village. People there, in fact, already deified me, but I needed not glory, but energy. To begin with, I formalized the worship of my being by inventing appropriate rituals. I attended each of the events in person, focusing the attention on me. I felt how they generated Bahion ... only I didn¡¯t get a drop of it. And it was terribly annoying.


    Until the very end of the ship''s construction, I struggled with this problem, but I did not come up with anything worthwhile to solve it. The only successful experiment required placing the believer in a special device, like a capsule, teaching him some rather difficult meditative techniques, and then introducing him into a state of religious ecstasy. And only then could the tiny drop of Bahion reached me. Alas, this was completely inadequate. I could not plunge the whole planet into the Matrix though, because I did not have such technology. All I could do was control one believer with the help of my symbiote¡¯s abilities.


    Finally, the day came when I entered the Triumph cabin and gave the command to take off. It was still a test flight, but in general, the ship was ready. Silently, the pyramid easily soared  to a height of three hundred meters into the sky. Hovering at a height of ten kilometers, I launched the equipment diagnostics. Not finding any problems, I put the ship into orbit, made a few circles around the planet, and then headed for the Naquadah field, which I had been developing for a year. During this time, I almost completely razed the mountain, having organized extensive waste dumps not far from it.


    The Ha''tak hovered over the mountain, and then huge chunks of rock began to break off from it, soar up and disappear into the bottom of my ship. Having filled the hold completely, I switched the ship to ore processing mode. The technology of the Ancients in this regard was extremely effective. Just an hour later, the process was completed, and the ship flew off to the side, where it "gave birth" to a huge spherical rock, which crashed to the ground.


    This rock was the result of the mechanism of the Ancients, designed for mining in the asteroid belt. Instead of producing millions of tons of small space debris, the ship left behind meticulous meteorites that did not endanger the spacecraft.


    During the day, I completely processed the entire deposit, leaving a quarry several hundred meters deep. It took a couple more hours to fill this quarry with waste rock taken from the dumps. Having finished with this task, I put the ship in its former place, after which the robots started finishing all the systems, and I focused on my plans.


    To begin with, it was necessary to take into account what I could get using the technology of the Ancients in the Goa¡¯uld ha''tak. The ship of the Ancients, whose equipment I obtained, was a truck designed to transport ore. This implied excellent payload and good shields to protect against meteorites.


    The hyperdrive was also not bad, although by the standards of the Ancients it was rather slow. More precisely, it had a high maximum speed, but to achieve it, it took a relatively long time. As a result, a flight to a neighboring star and to the other side of the galaxy required a comparable amount of time. In general, the maximum flight duration should not exceed a couple of hours, which by the standards of the Goa¡¯uld was unrealistically fast.


    With this all the advantages ended. There was no weapon schematic on the computer. All I had were two small Goa¡¯uld guns mounted on top of the pyramid. This was enough only to fend off fighters or scare savages on the planets.


    The crew teleportation system was initially present, but did not make it to our time, and there were no drawings of it. I therefore had to be content with the Goa¡¯uld transport rings, which nevertheless managed to improve. Now I could teleport to any point within a radius of ten kilometers from the ship. At first the rings moved there, and then they stabilized the teleportation of people and cargo. But if desired, it was possible to use the regular mode of operation, where the ship acted only as the transmitting or receiving side.


    I could supply tel¡¯tak and alkes with improved shields, but their engines and weapons remained the same.


    The most valuable at the moment were my reserves of Naquadah. The ship was priceless, but I could sell the Naquadah. In general, the term Naquadah in Goa¡¯uld was the isotope of uranium-234, which in this world was metastable. This isotope easily absorbed thermal neutrons and divided into Thorium and Helium, but in the normal state its half-life was longer than that of uranium-238. The Ancients invented a cunning reactor that allowed this isotope to be split, producing lead and magnesium - completely non-radioactive materials. But this isotope was extremely rare.


    In average I can extract about eleven ton Naquadaq from the mountain by cube size with sides six hundred meters. It might seem that this was a lot, but all this amount could fit into a cube with a side of eight and a half meters. For comparison, in order to fly to Apophis¡¯s planet, I needed to spend ten tons of fuel. If you were to put the engine into economy mode, the consumption would be reduced to one ton, but I would need to fly more than five days. The voyage to the other side of the galaxy would cost me two hundred tons. In conclusion, the entirety of my stock was enough for about fifty long jumps over whole galaxy.


    Having counted the number of ships in the galaxy, it became clear that mass interstellar flights were very expensive. And taking into account the rates of mining of minerals by the goa¡¯uld, it turned out that military actions required tens or even hundreds of years of fuel production.


    When I was planning the extraction of a Naquadah on this planet, I simply did not understand what the ¡°base concentration¡± mark in the description means. Under natural conditions, the concentration of uranium-234 in natural uranium was only 0.0057%. This was too little to get it in the required quantities using primitive technology.


    This position of the Naquadah deposit was saved, where it was contained not in thousandths of a percent, but more than half of the total uranium mined. In their time, they were created by the Ancients, irradiating quite ordinary uranium deposits. For such deposits, internal battles between the goa¡¯uld were fought, and the use of slave labor on them completely paid off. After all, crushing and manual sorting of the ore made it possible to immediately obtain a concentrate, where the content of nakadak reached up to thirty percent by weight.


    I was able to extract reserves of Naquadah from a natural field, where its concentration was close to zero. The second deposit here was the same, but there was an even lower concentration of uranium itself. So even with my technology, I did not see the point in developing these deposits.


    Now I was going to visit the asteroid belt and hammer the one with Naquadah, developing radioactive asteroids. After that, I planned to visit the planet of System Lord Ptah. According to the memoirs of Apophis, he was one of the goa¡¯uld who were engaged in the construction of space ships "for sale". I found the coordinates of his planet in the goa¡¯uld navigation computer. There I was going to buy weapons for the ship, supplies and ... a new host for myself. Ptah offered for sale not only equipment, but also specially grown people who are in perfect physical shape. True, few have used these services because of fearing  specially laid genetic defects or poison.


    Alas, my calculations to find an asteroid rich in uranium turned out to be a ghostly hope. I had to search in the database for the planet, where already explored deposits were present. One of these planets, marked as unpromising, was in the zone of influence of Baal. Having reached it, I did not find traces of spaceships in orbit or the surface of the planet. After that, I just had to find a suitable field and start its development.


    A week later, sensors detected two ships exited from hyperspace. I immediately began to climb, simultaneously stopping the processing of the next batch of ore. From a height of fifty kilometers I threw off a stone ¡°ball¡± with a diameter of a hundred meters. By the time I reached the orbit where it was possible to go into hyperspace, the ball fell on the field, causing a good explosion, as if from a fallen meteorite.


    The ships turned out to be two ha¡¯tak with additional modules. These modules are discoid ¡°growths¡± on the pyramid served as hangars for fighter-interceptors and allowed to generate more stable shields.


    I did not linger, but hurriedly escaped into hyperspace before the ships reached the attack distance. After that, I laid a course to Ptah¡¯s planet. Now I had enough resources to buy a small fleet if necessary.


    Coming out of the hyperspace in the orbit of the planet, I almost immediately received an incoming video call.


    ¡°The owner of an unidentified ship, name yourself and the purpose of your arrival.¡± A goa¡¯uld talked to me, dressed in gold and silk.


    ¡°I am Imhotep, the god of knowledge and architecture.¡± I introduced myself. ¡°I arrived to trade.¡±


    ¡°What do you want to offer us?¡±


    ¡°Naquadah.¡±


    ¡°Acceptable. Follow to the central spaceport.¡±


    I received the coordinates of the landing site on my computer, where I immediately went. On the way I was accompanied by three ha''tak. They looked anxious, but I attributed this behavior to the typical goa¡¯uldish paranoia. The place allocated to me turned out to be a landing pyramid. I no longer had a corresponding dredging in the bottom, but I simply hovered in the air. The benefit of the Ancients'' engines allowed me to do this almost without using energy.


    A proposal came to the computer to teleport to the palace, located a couple of kilometers from the cosmodrome. I collected two dozen jaffas and teleported to marked place with small groups each of ten jaffa.


    Ptah¡¯s Palace made an impression to me. First of all, the walls and columns covered with golden bas-reliefs and precious stones were thrown into the eyes. All the people around were perfectly beautiful and dressed in bright clothes. We were met by a goa¡¯uld, with whom I spoke via video link earlier.


    ¡°I greet you in Memphis, the city of the great Ptah. I am Apis, manager of this city. What would you like to purchase?¡± It seems that they¡¯re not very happy to meet me, because no one even suggested that I sit down or go to a separate room.


    ¡°I need a hundred maximum power guns for ha¡¯tak, a set of shield generators and a man host. Also, I am interested in purchasing information.¡±


    ¡°The host? One? Woman?¡± asked Apis. His expression was unreadable, but the symbiote felt a slight disgust at the sight of my body. The girl I inhabit experienced overloading of information in the brain, and now looked somewhat out of condition, even despite the daily sleep in the sarcophagus.


    ¡°Three. Men. I want to feel what it is like to have a snake between legs.¡±


    Apis laughed at my joke.


    ¡°We can provide to you all of the above. Now I will show you what weapons and shields we can offer you, and then my assistant will take you to Gardens of Amara, where you can choose a host.¡±


    We went to a device that resembles a computer screen, where I looked at the characteristics and layout of the device offered for sale of guns. Skimming through the range, I chose the most powerful guns. In addition to a large charge force, it had the fastest guidance system. If desired, these guns could be fired at fighters. True, none of the goa¡¯uld would not do this without extreme need, because their energy consumption was monstrous. But I was interested in this question last, because by the standards of the Ancients it was a very low budget option. If desired, I could shoot all the hundreds of guns at the same time.


    I took not the most reliable shields, but those that could generate a force field at a great distance from the ship. They primarily interested me as a cover for the fact that my ship possesses the technology of the Ancients. And so I will have the outer shield of the goa¡¯ulds and the inner shield of the Ancients, located just a few meters from the spaceship¡¯s hull.


    The prices for the equipment, of course, made me somewhat upset, but with my reserves, I could afford it to myself. After the formation of the order, I went to some Gardens, in fact, being a reservation, in which people of many ethnic groups lived. There were negros, chinese, whites, and dozens of different nationalities. I wanted to get three white men with developed muscles and Slavic-Nordic features. The choice of bodies was delayed for two hours, but at the end the hosts arranged me in all respects, including the length of the ¡°snake¡±.


    I did not dare to leave them with the seller for ¡°presale preparation,¡± and immediately ordered them to follow me. I also feared poisons and all sabotage, and therefore I decided not to give in to unnecessary temptations.

 Chapter 6.03 - Star Gate

    <h1>Chapter 6.03 - Star Gate</h1>


    When I reached the reception hall, I left the hosts with the jaffa guard, and went to the ship to organize the transfer of the squad in exchange for slaves. Fifteen minutes later I sent the right amount of metal through the rings, after which I took the hosts to my ship and locked them in prison cells.


    Returning to the palace, I again met Apis.


    ¡°I see you have already chosen your hosts. Your order for the guns is our high priority. They will be ready tomorrow morning ¡­¡±


    ¡°Wonderful.¡± I commented and intentionally left a pause.


    ¡°Did you say something about the desire to buy information?¡±


    ¡°Yes. I am interested in the gate addresses in the galaxy and the description of the planets on which they are located.¡±


    ¡°This is ... very expensive information.¡±


    ¡°I hope I can still afford it.¡±


    ¡°Our database has addresses of more than twenty thousand gates. Of these, sixteen thousand leads to the planets with conditions suitable for life. For the remaining four thousand addresses there is no information. Cost of every hundred addresses of inhabited planet is ten thousand tons of Naquadah.¡±


    ¡°How many?¡±  I was indignant.


    ¡°I told you that this is expensive information. But I can assure you, you cannot find a detailed database such as ours anywhere else. Even the great System Lords do not have such information.¡±


    ¡°Well, yes, how would they have that much Naquadah?¡±


    ¡°Hahaha! You''re right. So, will you buy?¡±


    ¡°I need to think. For the amount of Naquadah that you want for sixteen thousand addresses, I can buy fifty fully equipped ha''taks. I will give you my answer when I return to pick up my order.¡±


    ¡°Of course. Then please, have fun. Slaves here are ready to fulfill your every desires. Please note that some desires may need to be paid.¡±


    ¡°Thank you. I, perhaps, will return to the ship. I need to meet my future hosts.¡±


    Saying goodbye, together with my jaffa, I left the palace and returned to the ship. Then began to study my purchase. The sarcophagus, naturally, did not show anything suspicious, but scanning with symbiote made it possible to find capsules with poison, cleverly hidden in bone tissues. I immediately deleted them. A change in the hormonal background of the organism was also discovered, which would make it impossible for me to change the host if I had lived with him for more than a couple of decades. This, too, was easily resolved, since my symbiote possessed all those abilities of Panacea.


    Having prepared the hosts, I locked them in the cells, ordering Jaffa to watch them, feed them and immediately report to me if any problems appear.


    The next day I visited the palace, where we went with Apis to the equipment warehouse, located in the open air next to the neighboring building. I checked all the weapons, and even tried a couple of guns in practice. When it came to the transfer of naquadak, I raised the question about buying of addresses.


    ¡°Apis, I thought about your offer to sell addresses, and decided to buy them.¡±


    ¡°Yes? And how many? A hundred? Two hundred?¡±


    ¡°Everything. Sixteen thousand addresses of habitable planets.¡±


    ¡°Seriously?¡± The eyes of my interlocutor bulged and lit up against his will.


    ¡°Yes. But I want to exchange right now. No delays, excuses or promises. Right now I will unload the Naquadah, after which I want to get addresses, detailed information on them and, of course, the ordered equipment.¡±


    ¡°I ... I ... well. Right now?¡±


    ¡°Yes. I''ll unload the naquadah here. Are you ready to provide to me a database?¡±


    ¡°Uh-uh ... yes. I''ll have to go to get it. It will take fifteen minutes.¡±


    ¡°Good. Then get ready to scan the load.¡±


    I put on my glasses and through them gave the command to the ship''s computer. It moved from the place of "parking", hovered above us, and then its bottom opened, and from there the cube of the naquadah with a side of forty-four meters smoothly descended. It consisted of smaller blocks, each one cubic meter which weight nineteen tons.


    If recently Apis bulged his eyes, now his jaw dropped. Having stood in shock for almost a minute, he rushed to the technicians, forcing them to scan the metal. All checks said one thing - this is pure naquadah.


    ¡°You have little time.¡± I said him, looking at the dark gray cube. ¡°If in ten minutes I don¡¯t get the database, then most of the naquadah will be returned to my ship.¡±


    Apis looked at me with insane eyes, then swiftly ran away.


    I did offer with such conditions specially. The less time the goa¡¯uld have, the greater the chances that they will not have time to figure out how to deceive me. Greed overshadows the eyes of people, and the greed of the goa¡¯uld was hundreds times larger.


    While the bosses were absent, I activated the system of remote use of the rings, starting to teleport the guns into the ha''tak, since all the equipment was put up in the open space. I used special cargo rings with a larger diameter. One by one, the guns and shield emitters disappeared into the womb of my ship. The local jaffas were worried, but since I just unloaded the payment, and the bosses were absent, they did not take any active actions.


    Within five minutes, Apis, sober, rushed to me, dragging a local analogue of the flash drive. I scanned it with my visor, copied the information and immediately transferred it to the ship. The on-board computer analyzed the entire package of information and issued a positive opinion on the quality of the data.


    ¡°Well, I''m glad that we were able to agree.¡± I summarized, watching as the last of the guns disappear. ¡°I will recommend a deal with you to my friends. And now, please forgive me, but urgent matters await me. I recommend that you transfer this naqadah to warehouses as quickly as possible. Such a weight will inevitably cause soil subsidence, which can destroy neighboring buildings. I declare this to you as the god of knowledge and architecture. Good luck.¡±


    On this, me and a group of my jaffa were surrounded by transport rings, and we disappeared into the shine of light, moving to the hangar. From there I teleported to the control room, where I gave the order to depart. I left naquadah in place, although I was tormented by a feeling of greed, demanding to take all this wealth with me. So,my ¡® greed¡¯ remained unsatisfied. If necessary, I can collect so many naquadah at any time. And after installing all the guns, I will not even need to hide. I can well afford to fall into the crown world of any System Lord and insolently rob him.


    As soon as I left the atmosphere of the planet, I was surrounded by three ha¡¯tak, and a call came to the communication system. And why am I not surprised?


    ¡°Imhotep, I order you to surrender. Immediately land the ship, or I will destroy you.¡±


    From the screen, I was watched by a goa¡¯uld with a powerful expression on his face and a seal of vice on him. It seems that it is Ptah himself. They came to senses and decided that since I broke up with so many naquadah, then surely I have even more on board. And they does not make mistakes.


    ¡°So this is your vaunted honesty about making deals? Initially, to sell something, and then immediately take it away? My patience is short. Immediately order your ships to retreat, or I will destroy them all. And do not say later that I did not warn you.¡±


    ¡°This is a bluff!¡± Objected Ptah. ¡°We scanned your ship. You only have two small guns in the bow. Your ha¡¯tak armor is also thin. This is a cargo ship. Give up and I will save your life.¡±


    ¡°You are pathetic. See my power, worm. To destroy your ships, I do not need even weapons.¡±


    I broke the connection and told the computer to go ramming. The shields of the ship of the Ancients were designed for a direct collision with an asteroid, and the shaky Goa¡¯uld technique could not harm me. The enemy ships began to fire at me.


    I instantly accelerated and literally flew through one of the ships. He fell apart, then detonated the reactor, evaporating the fragments. Departing from a cloud of hot gas, I headed for the second ship. It tried to dodge, but its speed was simply not enough for this. I took down about half the ship, and the rest disappeared in a flash of a reactor explosion after a couple of seconds.


    The third ship tried to go into hyperspace, but did not have time. I made a micro-jump, coming out of hyperspace next to the victim. The technique of the Ancients allowed me to do such tricks. I didn''t even have to collide with the ship. The distortion of the space from my movement caused an overload of the hyperdrive, from which it exploded, causing detonation of the reactor in one.


    I examined the wreckage of the enemy fleet, after which I gave a command to a computer to collect free resources, and I contacted the ruler of the planet.


    ¡°Ptah, you insulted me.¡± I said to the bewildered goa¡¯uld, behind whom Apis loomed. ¡°The next time I arrive here, you must provide me with three new ha¡¯taks, in exchange for those destroyed by me. And if you dare to refuse, I will destroy you.¡±


    Shining my eyes, I broke off the connection, let my ship finish collecting the debris and went into hyperspace. The absurdity of my demands should have convinced Ptah and his subordinates that it was better not to joke with me. If you know that your opponent is strong and inadequate, then you will try at least not to anger him.


    Then I went to my planet. I needed time to prepare for the next point of my plan.


    After landing, I gave the command to the computer to start the installation of the guns and gave the order to Jaffas to take one of human hosts I had chosen to one of the halls. The hall has been installed with golden throne with a low back. As I expected, the man quickly got tired of waiting for me, and he decided to try the throne on his ass. I was going to use the identity of the host for my own purposes, and therefore I wanted to make a little psychological preparation.


    The doors to the hall opened, and I entered them in my female body. At first, the man glanced at me fearfully, and then relaxed and pretended that he was the ruler here, and I was his concubine.


    ¡°Do you like the throne, does it make your ass uncomfortable?¡± I asked, approaching the pedestal on which the throne was located.


    ¡°No, just right. As if specially made for me.¡± The peasant smiled an irresistible smile that would plunge women into the abyss of passion. But I ignored all his efforts.


    ¡°I really made it for you.¡±


    ¡°Made?¡± In confusion, he asked again, noting that I was talking about myself as a man.


    ¡°Exactly. Hail, you will become a god.¡± I flashed my eyes, went to the throne and began to bypass it, stopping behind of my future host. He was agitated, but realized that he could not get up or raise his hands from the armrests. ¡°At least in some sense. And if you behave good, you can even enjoy your position.¡±


    As this foreplay is over. I stood behind the man¡¯s back, hugged him, leaned over to the his ear, erotically blew into him, and then her mouth opened, from there I crawled out in person. Sliding around the neck of the paralyzed victim, I drilled into his flesh. Goa¡¯uld¡¯s abilities allowed me to make a path in the human body without damaging the large vessels and nerves. Slipping past the collarbone into the chest, I climbed up along the spine and ¡°connected¡± to the brain of my new host.


    I was in no hurry, and therefore slowly and carefully subjugated a person, for one checking on his state of health with my snake body¡¯s feeling. My previous host, the girl, was alive only thanks to the abilities of my symbiote. In general, this whole story with the capture of the bodies by the goa¡¯uld was very interesting.


    The point was that the goa¡¯uld had no brain. That is, in general. Brain¡¯s role was played by a ganglion about 1 millimeter size. When the goa¡¯uld subjugated the host to himself, he first of all subjugated the brain to himself. The worm had its own astral body, its own personality, but in order to think and make decisions, he needed normal brains. After leaving the host, the goa¡¯uld transforms from a genius creature into a dull worm, capable of thinking only at the level of instincts.


    My previous host survived the overload of information written directly into her brain, because of which this brain began to collapse. At the same time, information about the language of the ancients started to arise. Fortunately, I was mostly a spiritual being, and therefore I could think clearly even with complete absence of brains. During this year I was able to copy quite a lot of information about the language into my mind, but in the end the brain destruction went so far that even its complete amputation would not have made it worse. Therefore, I decided to change the host. And since the inhabitants of my planet did not like my appearance, I chose to buy a new host from Ptah. I independently didn¡¯t have any desire to wander around the worlds in search of a suitable host. Not just because the inhabitants of the Earth invented supermarkets, where you can buy most of the products of everyday use. It was much more convenient than dangle around the city in search of the right host.


    Having completed the partial merger process, I opened my eyes and looked around. I did not drop my worm body, completely dissolving in the recipient''s brain. I needed a way for an emergency retreat in case of any problems. And the problems were quite expected.


    I just bought a database of addresses to look for information on the technology of creating the Stargate. And the only source of such knowledge could be only fragments of the civilization of the ancients. I knew exactly about the existence of two places where the library of the ancients was located, recording knowledge into the brain of suitable recipients. But one of these places was disposable, plus it was tied to the plot of the original story. Given that the gates there led into a small closed room, the chances of using this place were almost nil.


    But the second place was more promising. It was a planet where, next to the gate, there was a huge statue, in the basement of which was the device of the ancients I needed. I am going to find this place.


    The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. I downloaded the database to the ancients navigation computer, and give task to analyze all the records and find a place suitable for the description. A second later, I was looking at a list of eight addresses that I needed to check. It is time for action.


    I left the cabin of the ship and headed for the residential rooms - the only place on the ship where jaffa could be without my personal control.


    ¡°Jaffa, cree!¡± I called them, going into the common hall, where now five dozen warriors were preparing for further service. ¡°I''m Imhotep, your god¡± In confirmation of these words, I flashed my eyes. Jaffa immediately jumped up, lined up and bowed to me. So that they didn¡¯t have any doubts, I wrapped myself in darkness and levitated half a meter in the air. ¡°Today you will have to serve me, applying all your abilities, skills, and dedication. You will go to other worlds for reconnaissance, to find among them the one that I need to realize my incomprehensible plans. Get ready. An hour later, the ha¡¯tak will sit down next to the gate, and you will pass through them in groups of ten.


    With this, I looked at my subordinates with a careful look, looking for doubters, and then turned, and flew away. My path lay in the industrial zone, where robots collected several useful devices. The first of these were video cameras that transmit the image by radio. I planned to throw them at the gate first, to check the reliability of the transition and the situation at the point of arrival.


    The second device was a hyperspace beacon, which would allow me to calculate the coordinates of the planet and then fly there on the ship. Gate addresses were not always allowed to determine where exactly in the galaxy to look for them.


    At the appointed time, the ship landed near the gate on my planet. Through transport rings, I and my army landed on the ground. It seems that the guests appeared here quite often. The terrain have old and very fresh traces of hits with the energy weapon of the goa¡¯ulds. Good thing I set up the main base far away, on the other side of the planet. With a local primitive civilization, the glory of my reign will reach this place at best in a thousand years.


    Unloaded in front of the gate, I broke my troops into dozens. At my command, the first ten stood near the gate, and I dialed the first address. After the opening of the passage, my video cameras flew into it first. The image from other side of gate was fed directly to my glasses, so for everyone else, my knowledge of what was happening on the other side looked like "Goa¡¯uld magic."


    When my camera passed gate, it immediately saw a dozen or so jaffa who aimed their weapons at the Stargate. Looks like someone is waiting here. But obviously not for me. The camera had the appearance of a sphere with a weighted lower part, which gave it the ¡°roly-poly¡± properties. On the surface of the sphere there were several wide-angle video cameras, allowing to obtain a panoramic image.


    And besides this, there were a lot of holes in the ball, from which needles covered with potent nerve poison would shoot. This poison was produced by one of the animals on my planet and even acted on the goa¡¯uld, so that it acted on jaffa and hosts no worse than ordinary people.


    At my command, the ball shot needles, and each of them hit the face of one of those present. Even the most primitive processor of the Ancients coped well with the calculation of the needle trajectory. Enemy jaffas are very well huddled near the gate, so that each of them received my greeting. After a few seconds, they began to fall to the ground, shaking in convulsions.


    ¡°The first and second teams at the gate. Suppress any resistance. Do not shoot at the enemy god.¡±


    One of the people actually was a goa¡¯uld. He had a personal protective field, so he did not get the needle. He had no weapons in his hands, but only glittered with eyes. I noticed another interesting thing. All the jaffas on the other side of the passage had the mark of Apophis on their forehead. So it was necessary to find out what was going on there.


    My soldiers went smoothly through the gate and dispersed around the territory. A pair of the most enduring opponents tried to point their weapons at them, but received a charge of plasma on the forehead. After making sure that the situation was under control, I personally went through the gate, although I didn¡¯t initially plan to do this.


    ¡°Well, well, well. Who is here with us? What is your name, my dear?¡± I turned to goa¡¯uld.


    ¡°I''m Inpu.¡±


    ¡°And for whom were you trying to ambush at the gate exit?¡±


    ¡°You.¡±


    ¡°Me?¡± I am very surprised. ¡°This is impossible¡±


    ¡°You are the servant of Apophis. Has he sent you to catch me?¡±


    ¡°Actually, no. But you better start telling about everything from the start. Who are you and why does Apophis hunt you?¡±


    ¡°I''m God! My jaffa host could see by the corner of his eye how Apophis devours his children. I was waiting for the same fate, but I captured the host and decided to escape. These jaffas followed me, accepting faith in a new god. I went through the gate several times and waited for the chase which Apophis should have sent in my wake.¡±


    ¡°So these are traitors?¡± I said while looking around the bodies lying on the ground and commanded ¡°Kill them.¡±


    My jaffas did not hesitate for a moment, following the order. For them, faith in their god was sacred, and traitors were only worthy of death. Previously, they served Apophis, but he personally ordered to serve a new god, and granted ha¡¯tak. They did not know that I had tricked Apophis, and if they had known, they would have taken it only as proof of my strength. But the fugitive goa¡¯ulds were rebellious gods in their eyes, in open rebellion against their father. Jaffas did not dare to raise their hand to the goa¡¯uld, unless they directly ordered by their god. But this restriction did not concern me. I could kill any goa¡¯uld except Apophis, and my actions would not be considered something shameful.


    My warriors shot defenseless people and started pulling them together to cremate them.


    ¡°Inpu, you did not do the best thing, running away from our father.¡±  I turned to the nervous ¡®brother¡¯. ¡°I currently don¡¯t have the opportunity to personally track your return, so we¡¯ll do it differently.¡±


    I stuck the tentacle into the fugitive goa¡¯uld¡¯s brain and began to subdue his consciousness, for one to neutralize the effect of the worm to the brain. As a result, I got an ordinary person with a powerless worm in his head. To prevent so the goa¡¯uld did not run away, I injected paralyzing poison into his body. It was a small dose that paralyzed only the worm, leaving the host healthy.


    ¡°Listen to my order, mortal.¡± I gave my instructions to the fugitive goa¡¯uld¡¯s host. In each person¡¯s brain there was an area, under the influence on which he perceived the order given to him by the absolute will of God and the ultimate truth. ¡°Now, you will go to the planet of Apophis, personally come to him and say that you returned the fugitive goa¡¯uld by order of Imhotep, the god of knowledge and architecture. You must not allow the goa¡¯uld to escape. If he try to escape, you must kill him at any cost. Do it.¡±


    The zombie bearer with a wooden gait moved toward the gate and began to type in the address. When the passage opened, he also slowly walked into it and disappeared from our eyes.


    ¡°Come back.¡± I gave the order to my troops.


    A quick inspection of the area showed that this is not the planet that I needed. There was a huge statue, but it was a completely different form. Yes, and the neighborhood looked more like a ruined city. By the way, about the destroyed city ... Another thought occurred to me to think about.


    Returning back, I typed the next planet¡¯s address. There the camera showed the usual meadow in the forest. At my command, the third group of Jaffa went through the gate, after which they picked up the video camera and walked around the gate with it. Around the gate stood rook statue and also ¡­ a very strange picture. And it was not in the rook or metal. It was not even a statue, but a bas-relief on a rock towering from the back of the gate. It depicted the typical look of an Alien. If these creatures really live there, then I should get out of there quickly.


    I gave the command to jaffa, and they closed the passage, and then opened it again from that side and returned. I extremely carefully scanned all of them, and made sure that no stranger entered here with them, and mentally took a breath.


    I then proceed to the next address. The third address was exactly what I was looking for. Almost immediately, I noticed a huge statue in the distance, and when jaffa raised the camera and sent it in the right direction, then all doubts were gone. Jackpot! I sent another team through the gate, along with the hyperspace beacon, after which I transmitted through the camera an order to move away from the gate a couple of hundred meters and wait for me to arrive.


    After that, I teleported myself and all my subordinates to the ship, which immediately began to go into orbit. The beacon signal was localized, and after a couple of minutes I already knew the coordinates for the hyperspace jump.


    The flight lasted just over an hour. Stepping out into three dimensional space, I was in orbit around the planet. The first thing that caught my eye was the many remnants of spacecraft. I identified the "spare parts" from the goa¡¯uld¡¯s ships, but with whom they fought it was not clear. Anyway, now this place has been abandoned. Analysis of the wreckage showed that they have been circling here for many thousands of years.


    I scanned the planet, found a gate on it, and then I started descending, immediately heading to the statue I needed. In general, it was a building made in the shape of a seated human figure. Now it lost its head and right leg, as well as most of the decorative bricks looked missing. But the most interesting thing was that the statue was a relatively new building. The foundation on which it stood was the building of the ancients almost hidden under the ground.


    Having finished scanning the statue with a geological scanner, I ¡°parked¡± the ship at a height of a couple of tens of meters above the ground and gave the command to Jaffa to disembark. The squad that was waiting for me on the planet had to return the equipment to the ship and install a guard post near the gate.


    ¡°Jaffa, cree!¡± I turned to my soldiers, lined up next to the ship. ¡°This building is a valuable object that you must protect. It must remain intact. In the event of a threat, you must protect it even at the cost of your life. In addition, since you are too stupid to understand what you are dealing with, I forbid you to approach the building closer than twenty meters. You can approach it only by my order and in my presence. Break into shifts and arrange round the clock security. Start.¡±


    The people rushed in all directions, depicting a stormy activity, and I went to the statue. According to my recollections of the series, the device of the ancients was under the right foot of the statue. I got to this place and found inscriptions in the language of the ancients. Well, it will be an interesting job.


    Having distracted for a minute, I monitored the process of installing the goa¡¯uld¡¯s guns on my ship. Each of the guns was scanned by my robots for defects and unpleasant surprises, after which they were installed in hidden pockets of the ha¡¯tak¡¯s hull. At the moment, four guns had already been installed. Still, these devices are designed specifically for battle. Even one shot from such a gun could pierce shields and blow up a reactor. A little thought, I moved the ship, placing it directly above the statue. I do not need surprises, and so to attack this place from air would be more difficult.


    At first, I read all the texts. Surprisingly, there was very little useful information. Basically, the author of this scribble emphasize the greatness of the ancients, their power, wisdom, and so on. The funny thing is, he called himself as one of the ancients. So who in their right mind do such stupid statement? Usually intelligent beings think that they are modern, fashionable, and advanced, but not ancient. Although, perhaps they achieved personal immortality, and for them all other living creatures were one-day butterflies. Then yes, the self-name of the ancients was to suppress all "non-ancient", forcing them to feel their own inferiority. In general, in my sense, these ancients were ¡®high level trolls¡¯.


    So summarizing all information I can say that, this place was something of a kindergarten education system. When one of the ancients reached a certain age, a knowledge base was loaded into his mind, which gave him an understanding of the foundations of mathematics, physics, and technology. And then he continue developing, studying specialized databases or exploring something of his own.


    I went to the device and allowed it to scan me. The result of this was that the scan stopped and the device continued to sleep. Looks like they don¡¯t let non-ancients in. The first thing that comes to mind is the presence of a snake in the head. I called one jaffa and ordered him to stand in front of the scanner. This time the scan did not last one second, but two. The result was still the same.


    ¡°Bring Ulric here.¡± I gave the order.


    Egil, Ulrik and Skuli - that was the name of the three hosts I bought. I was now in the body of Egil, and Ulrik was next in the "right of inheritance." I did not communicate with the prisoners, because I did not see much sense in it. I have enough of Egil''s stupid thoughts in my head to be interested in the thoughts of two other savages.


    ¡°Hi Egil. Are you here as a boss, or what?¡± Ulrik greeted me when he was brought to me under a guard¡¯s surveillance.


    ¡°I''m Imhotep.¡± I flashed my eyes. ¡°Egil is dead. Stand here.¡± I pointed out my hand.


    ¡°What for?¡± Asked a talkative test subject, taking the specified place.


    The device of the Ancients conducted a scan, after which the emitter showed on the wall, which began to conduct a deeper scan.


    ¡°Get back there.¡±


    ¡°What for? Egil what the ¡­¡±


    I did not let the slave finish the sentence by pulling him with telekinesis and throwing him back to the rock column.


    ¡°When I order, you must execute the order, and not ask questions. And to make it better for you, I will give you a light punishment.¡±


    I thrust tentacle into the victim and gave him five seconds of hell, transmitting pain directly to his brain.


    ¡°Take him away, but not too far.¡± I ordered a jaffa. ¡°He may still have a use to me.¡±


    I was distracted from the mortal''s laments, that almost killed himself while standing next to the device, and focused on scanning the ancient¡¯s device with symbiote''s abilities.


    In general, there was nothing particularly difficult for me. I was already familiar with the design of the technology of the ancients, so that I was immediately able to recognize the source of energy, the spatial crease with equipment, and the pattern of operation of the scanner. In the scanner, I found a memory module with a program code, after which with the help of a symbiote I simply copied the data into my visor. The ancients did not expect that there would be someone capable of organizing such a trick, so the data was not encrypted or somehow protected.


    After downloading the whole thing to my computer, I launched the analysis and five minutes later I received an complete list of signs that the scanner paid attention to. In fact, there was only minimal genetic resemblance to the ancients, the absence of obvious defects in the structure of the brain and ... ¡®voluntary will of human¡¯ to look into the device. The goa¡¯ulds broke on the third condition, because the host acted under duress, and jaffa on the second, because their brains were creatively reworked to increase faith in God and obedience.


    I experimented a little with the scanner, and then went to the leader of the jaffa guarding Ulrik.


    ¡°Set up a camp here. Everyone except me is prohibited to approach the statue in any circumstances¡±


    ¡°My god, what exactly did you find here?¡±


    The Ulrik pricked his ears and pretended that he was not interested in our conversation.


    ¡°This is the device of the ancients. If you look into it, then man will receive the power of the gods and the knowledge of the ancients. He alone will be able to destroy hundreds of enemies and thousands of spacecraft. You do not have the right to own such power, and therefore must stay away from the statue.¡±


    ¡°I obey! None of us would dare approach statue without your order.¡±


    I nodded and walked away. Jaffa gave orders, and then caught up with me.


    ¡°Why did you give us such type of order?¡± He asked me in a whisper. ¡°Is it because of the slave?¡±


    ¡°Exactly.¡± I confirmed. A minute ago I gave the order to ask me a question, ¡°saying¡± the right words near ear of Jaffa using telekinesis. ¡°Let him escape and give him a chance to look into the device of the Ancients.¡±


    ¡°Your order will be executed.¡±


    ¡°And do not try to go there yourself.¡±


    ¡°Of course, my god. You can count on us.¡±


    I stepped aside and began to observe the plan and device. I had to wait more than three hours. Only when it was already beginning to get dark, Ulrik plucked up the courage to slip away from under not too strict guardianship and get to the statue. At first, he doubted, but when jaffa began to cry out, in search of him, he stucked his head in the mouth of the ¡®dragon¡¯.


    The knowledge archive base of the ancients itself was encrypted, and I could not copy it directly. Therefore, I carefully watched how data is recorded in the Ulrik¡¯s brain. To my surprise, only a quarter of the brain  was used for data recording. But the rest of the ¡®place in the head¡¯ was taken by the data unpacking program, which began to unpack the archive, recording the already prepared data into the necessary sections of the brain. This process was autonomous and theoretically should have been completed in about a month. That''s just practically, but this was not destined to be fulfilled even by one percent.


    Ulric''s brain was not adapted to write such kind of data into it using the technology of the ancients. The process was clearly designed for the brain of the ancients, and not for the human. Even my first host was able to bear this procedure much better. Either she was trained in a more benign mode, or the heredity of my slave was completely nasty, so his brain began to collapse even before the process of recording data had ended.


    I went to Ulrik and tried to heal him, but it was a waste of energy. His brain was decomposing right before my eyes, so it was impossible to save him.


    ¡°Take him to the ship and place him in the morgue.¡±  I gave the order. On the ship, among other things, I organized a refrigerator where I could store organic materials for experiments.


    ¡°It will be executed, my god.¡± The jaffa bowed to me. ¡°Was it a trap?¡±


    ¡°No. Everything I said was true.¡± I smiled wickedly in response. ¡°Just a mere mortal unable to endure such power. At best, he will not die immediately, but in a few days. Only gods can have such power.¡±


    ¡°Yes, my god. Your wisdom is immeasurable.¡±


    Hmm, it looks like this jaffa is not so useless. And a year has not passed, as he learned to flatter me. I honestly don''t even know the name of the commander of my warriors. At the very beginning, I ordered them to choose the one who will lead them. And in case of any problems, I promised to execute the leader first. The first four applicants all together could not live on the post of commander even a week. But as he was chosen, he has been leading other jaffa for more than a year now. All the brainless power-hungry and schemers in my army have already ended or agreed with their subordinate position.

 Chapter 6.04 - Star Gate

    The fatal experiment on Ulrike gave me the necessary information to develop a safety mechanism to protect my brain from destruction. Using this information my symbiote was able to upgrade my carrier¡¯s brain to Ancient¡¯s high standards, while leaving my mental clarity intact. Intellectual clarity  can only be checked in practice, so I had to change the brain that I used at the moment.


    With the brain developing procedure prolonged, I proceeded with the next experiment after a week. Having prepared everything necessary, I went to the Ancient¡¯s device and gave myself a scan. This time I slightly interfered in the work of the scanner with the help of the symbiote, so I was recognized as a suitable recipient for the knowledge of the Ancients. The device  attached to my head and started the data download in express mode. Five seconds later, the process was complete, and I collapsed, barely maintaining consciousness. .


    Almost, because at that moment I operated on instinct alone. Taking  control over the body, while the symbiote patched my rapidly bruising brain, I stumbled to the side . There I was surrounded by transport rings that moved me to the ship¡¯s hall with the sarcophagus. Jaffa picked up my body and placed it in the sarcophagus. Five minutes later, I was able to stabilize myself. I wasn''t going to die immediately, but plan "A" clearly failed, so it was time for plan "Z".


    The sarcophagus opened, my body rising from it, floating in the air. I wanted to say something like "lift my eyelids", but I don¡¯t think they would be able to appreciate my humor. Instead, I gave the order to bring Skuli. He was my backup.


    A frightened man was placed in front of me, Jaffa holding him tightly by the arms and shoulders. I opened my mouth and with telekinesis I pushed my worm body out into the gaping mouth of my new host. To further impress my true divinity onto the Jaffa that I''m not some kind of simple worm, but the true God, this process was illustrated in the "overflowing" threads of darkness from my old carrier to the new. Behind the darkness, no one noticed my real body. My cheap tricks made an indelible impression on the Jaffa, bringing their faith in me to fanatical worship.


    Once I was comfortably settled in this new body, and the old one sent into the sarcophagus I continued the process of installing the archive with the knowledge of the Ancients and adjusted speed of all body processes.  However, the speed of this process was so low that the sarcophagus had time to regenerate all the damage.


    My estimate is that I''ll be able to study about ten percent of the archive before the information overwhelms the victim''s brain, and total brain destruction becomes inevitable. But it''s better than nothing.


    After analyzing the first packages of information, I returned to another urgent task. My last brilliant idea was to capture one of the ascended Ancients, and to pry out of him the way of extracting Bahion from believers. I knew the Ori could do it. It was logical to assume that the ascended of our galaxy also knew about this technology, although were not in a hurry to use it.


    I didn''t know how to find the ascended, except in one case. In canon this was the first contact of the SG team with creatures  with energy based life forms. On one of the planets with the destroyed city there was an ascended Ancient who loved Samantha Carter and decided to copulate with her on the astral level.


    I didn''t know the address of this planet. There were too many addresses in the database I got that fit the vague description ;however, it was known to the SG team, so it was possible to scan the database of Stargate Team. Although they  will still have the opportunity to visit this planet, a list of addresses to calculate it is already compiled. From my vague recollections the planet had a distinct identifier whether it was 663 or 633, I had a place to start my search. All that was left was getting  in touch with the SG-1 team, extract the list from Carter''s head, then go back there and find this ancient One.


    The plan was not adequate enough, but I couldn''t think of anything better. The fact that I remembered the last of the planet identifier was a good stroke of luck. Now, to engineer a way to meet the main members of SG-1. I don''t know Earth¡¯s address. What I do have is a database of stargate addresses to visit since I even know what kind of planet it will be, cross referencing for the stargate address shouldn¡¯t take long.


    After a thorough search  I found the right one, and instructed the ship to prepare for departure. After all the Jaffa returned to ha¡¯tak, we ascended into orbit and set course through hyperspace to our target. We came out of the jump in the right system, but at its farthest reaches among the icy rocks of the Oort Cloud. When I scanned the system, I found no signs of another ship.


    The next step was the flight to the  nearest planet, where the Stargate exists. Here we hung in orbit for a couple of days because I needed to create a compact hyperspace transmitter capable of sending a message to the ship from the surface. The finished artifact was fashioned in the form of a small bracelet.While preparing for the trip to the surface, I took the time, to install and prepare all the guns. Now, if necessary, I could contend in battle, even with Asgardians.


    Tel''tak led me to the Stargate. After dialing the newly discovered address ,the first thing I did was throw the camera in. The images loaded on my console slowly revealing  an idyllic picture of the pastoral landscape. Well, enough sightseeing, time to go.


    I commanded the Jaffa to return to the ship, and I walked  through the gate. I stepped out on a wide sand-covered glade bordered by a thick green forest. It was Cimmeria, a planet under the protection of the Asgard. Right in front of the gate was a tall column with a golden hammer at the top. The crystal embedded in the hammer lit up, buzzing, and began scanning me. This technology was similar to Ancient technology, so I easily protected myself from scanning with the symbiote . After several seconds the beam of light went out, and I wandered to a distant village.


    While I was walking, my ship was operating according to its program. It went into hyperspace and jumped into the Cimmeria system, where it hid among the meteorites, waiting for my signal.


    I walked along a well-trodden path, where I could see the footprints of men and horses. The area around was hilly, overgrown with bushes and trees. After half an hour of leisurely walking I reached the village. There I was noticed by a group under the leadership of  a middle-aged woman which proceeded to move forward to me.


    ¡°Greetings, stranger. Who are you?¡±


    ¡°I am Imhotep, God of knowledge and architecture¡±


    ¡°My name is Gairwyn, I''m in charge here. Thor sent you?¡±


    ¡°No. I have heard that the God Thor is worshiped in your world, so I thought I would come and study your philosophy and beliefs. Will you tell me about Thor?¡±


    ¡°Undoubtedly. You came through the forbidden path?¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡±


    ¡°Surprising. For thousands of years people have not come through it. Only Jotuns showed up here. Last year, people from Midgard came here, and now you''re here.¡±


    ¡°It''s a sign from God.¡± I made an irrefutable argument. "What did you do when the Jotuns came here?"¡±


    ¡°Nothing. Thor¡¯s hammer protected us from them.¡±


    ¡°Was that the funny buzzing hammer thing? I noticed it.¡±


    ¡°Let''s go inside.¡± Invited me Gairwyn.


    ¡°Certainly.¡± We went to the center of the village. I noticed the hanging decorations and the colorful outfits of the people.  ¡°Are you celebrating something?¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡± One of the men answered. ¡°Yesterday our tribe returned from a raid with honor.¡±


    ¡°Raid? You kill anyone over there?¡±


    ¡°Ehh, only in history context. Everyone, whom we could kill, died a long time ago.¡±


    ¡°Really?¡± I was surprised. "Then what do you do in these raids?"


    ¡°We hunt for honor.¡± My interlocutor proudly answered, bowing out his chest. ¡°If you rape a girl from another village, it''s called dishonoring her. So we take her honor, and when we return home, during sex we bestow the abducted honor to our wives. After that, they raid to us to take the honor from us. If they can.¡±


    ¡°It''s like ... the cycle of honor in nature.¡±


    ¡°Aha. So bequeathed to us the great Thor. He also said something about some gene drift, selection of positive features and a closed population, but none of us understood what he meant. But we all liked this tradition.¡±


    ¡°You betcha.¡± I chuckled. "Thor is wise, and his instructions are filled with good.¡±


    ¡°That''s true.¡±


    I joined the life of the village, listening to the wisdom of Thor and sharing bits of his wisdom. For example, I taught the tribe to sculpt dumplings, to make vodka, play the balalaika and swearing. A week later I was surrounded by my native Russian spirit and great Russian culture. And then the Forester came and dispersed all.


    First, through the gates passed jaffa squads that¡¯s running from the superior forces of the enemy. Apparently, they hoped that the enemies won''t follow them, and they were right. All arrivals are immediately teleported by Asgard¡¯s device. But Jaffas ran through the dungeon, got out through the broken exit and went to the gate. There they were again teleported, after which the cycle repeated. After about the fifth time, the Jaffas guessed to shoot the Asgard¡¯s device from the maximum distance, after which they freely went through the gate.


    And the next day here came a whole crowd of jaffas under the leadership of three Goa¡¯ulds. They examined the broken Hammer of Thor, from which I had already extracted out all the valuables, walked around the neighborhood, looked at the village, and then went back, even without killing anyone.


    But a week later the night sky lit up, in the lights a ha¡¯taks became visible, leading a sneak attack between them. An hour later, the illumination stopped, and the ships went to land. At dawn, jaffa''s troops descended upon the village, killing, pillaging and raping men, women, old men and children. I watched it from a safe distance, not wanting to interfere. After all, I need the SG-1 team to come here.


    At noon Goa¡¯ulds¡¯ forces retreated, leaving the village a smoking ruin. In the forest where I was hiding, I found a group of natives, among whom were Gairwyn.


    ¡°Imhotep, what should we do?¡± A woman addressed me.  ¡°You''re a God! Can you help us?¡±


    ¡°I am the God of knowledge, war is not my specialization.¡± I said. ¡°Thor is the God of war. It is better to refer to him. I can only help you a little by healing your wounds.¡±


    I used the symbiote to cure several people wounded by Goa¡¯ulds¡¯ weapons.


    ¡°Thor is mad at us.¡± One of the soldiers expressed his expert opinion. ¡°We should follow his precepts and give battle by destroying the enemy even at the cost of our lives. For the Motherland, for Thor, we will die to the last!¡±


    The crowd supported the speaker with cheering shouts.


    "Perhaps you should consult Kendra? In past she used to be a Jotun. Maybe she knows their weaknesses.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, we''ll find Kendra and ask her for advice.¡± Decided Gairwyn. "While you hide in a secret hideout in the woods.¡±


    The survivors split up. A large part went to hide in the woods, and a minority, including me, went to find Kendra. She was once a Goa¡¯uld, but then she fell into the trap of Asgard and was killed while trying to get out, leaving the carrier unattended. Kendra dislikes me, but didn''t show open hatred.


    We got to her house only to find the destroyed forest farm. Looks like Goa¡¯ulds had visited here before us. Kendra was dying, and before she dies, bequeathed us to dial Earth¡¯s code on the Stargate and throw the box. I did not heal her, so as not to disrupt the plot. I got off with just saying that I''m powerless.


    In half an hour our small group reached the Gate. There stood a couple of jaffas guarding the passage. In our group except me and Gairwyn, we had four battle ready guys, so we had good chances of winning. Kamikazes quickly jumped forward and with the cost of their lives, killed two careless guards. If the local Vikings had not yelled during the attack, and tried to ambush, it would¡¯ve been possible to win without loss.


    While Gairwyn is opening the Gate, I start to heal injured Vikings, but did not heal them completely. So my image looked much more heroic. Just by showing myself look haggard, and everyone believed that I had saved their lives with incredible effort.


    Ten minutes later, the Gate opened again, and the Earth''s robot on wheel came out. Gairwyn began to beg for help, and I stood behind her with sparkling eyes.Common sense breaking of Earthlings were provided.


    The Gate opened again an hour later. One of them cautiously got command of SG-1. After looking around, they pointed their weapons at me.


    ¡°Release the hostages.¡± Commanded Jack O''Neill.


    ¡°What hostages?¡± I turned on the fool mode.


    ¡°Them¡±  He pointed to the Vikings lying on the ground.


    ¡°Don''t you have any brains? I am healing them. If you stop me, they''ll die.¡±


    ¡°You''re threatening us with their lives?¡± Tilk, who had mastered the American style of negotiating of peace, asked grimly.


    ¡°Wait! He is friend!¡± Gairwyn interfered in our conversation immediately emerging from behind the bushes. ¡°He saved us.¡±


    ¡°Gairwyn, what happened here?¡± Samantha Carter usually took the speech when it was necessary not to threaten, but to understand a situation.


    ¡°You came. Kendra said you will come. She had no doubt.¡±


    ¡°Hey, I didn''t doubt it either.¡± I put in my word.


    ¡°What happened?¡± Samantha asked again.


    ¡°We think it''s Ragnarok. The sky burned. The lightning in the sky was silent. Kendra knew from the beginning that they were Jotuns. And then they came to our village. There was a battle. Many people died. They burned down our settlement and many farms. Before Kendra died, she gave me your box and said if I threw it at the gate, you will come.¡±


    ¡°Clear. Who''s that?¡± Said Daniel, pointing to me.


    ¡°This is Imhotep, God of knowledge and architecture.¡± Gairwyn introduced me. I flashed my eyes in confirmation.


    ¡°He is a Goa¡¯uld.¡±  Teal''c said while aiming me with weapon.


    ¡°What?¡± Gairwyn asked confusedly.


    ¡°He''s a Jotun.¡± Translated Daniel.


    ¡°How?¡± The native''s mind was torn to pieces.


    ¡°Hey! I''m a good Goa¡¯uld. I saved their lives.¡±


    ¡°A good Goa¡¯uld is dead Goa¡¯uld.¡± Teal''c did not agree with me.


    ¡°Just a minute.¡± Jack stopped the impending bloodshed. ¡°Did I understand correctly? Your world was attacked by the "bad" Goa¡¯ulds.¡± He made a hand sign for quotation marks. ¡°And here a " good" Goa¡¯uld is protecting you.¡±


    ¡°He saved our lives.¡± Answered one of the healed Vikings. ¡°I had a hole in my side the size of a fist.¡±


    ¡°All right, Teal''c, put the gun down. I think we need to talk.¡±


    Then took place an hour and a half negotiating, the results of which was that I have the right to continue to live. During this time, I finally resuscitated the Vikings, and it is possible that it is their arguments in the form of knives and axes allowed to solve the problem in positive ending.


    ¡°So, how much good Goa¡¯ulds similar to you exist?¡± Jack asked me when we finally went to Kendra''s house.


    ¡°Any. I''m one of a kind and unique. There are some Tok''ra, of course, but I would not call them good. Rather, they are slightly kindl.¡±


    ¡°Slightly kind? Is there such a word in language?¡± Our linguist was surprised.


    ¡°Yes. Anyway, I''m a lone God. I mostly study different things, collect secret knowledges and so on.¡±


    ¡°But you''re not God?¡± Jack don¡¯t let up.


    ¡°How am I not God?¡±


    ¡°Well ... you have this ... worm in your head.¡±


    ¡°So what? I have a worm in my head, and you have worms in your guts. Is it so important where a man has his worms?¡±


    ¡°We don''t have worms in our guts.¡± Samantha was indignant.


    ¡°You have!¡± I objected. ¡°You gained them up a couple of episodes ago.¡±


    ¡°A couple what?¡± Asked Jack.


    ¡°Oh, never mind. In general, I as God of knowledge know better. If you do not believe me, then go through a full examination for the presence of parasites and all sorts of symbionts. Judging from the metabolism of these things, you ate some slime a couple of weeks ago. Didn''t they Jack?¡±


    ¡°Yes, there was¡± Agreed Jack, looking a bit nauseated.


    ¡°That''s what I mean.¡±


    A few moments we walked in silence, while the team SG-1 digested the idea that they¡¯re are living with ideological relatives of Goa¡¯ulds in their guts.


    ¡°But you''re not God.¡± Jack continued his heretical sermon.


    ¡°If not me, then who? Did you meet the real God to claim that I''m not real?¡±


    ¡°No, but¡­¡±


    "Then you don''t know who the gods are."


    ¡°According to our beliefs¡± Daniel decided to support his comrade, ¡°God has created the entire world, the Universe.¡±


    ¡°What nonsense.¡± I rejected this assumption. ¡°Do you have any idea about the size of our world? Trillions of light-years of space are filled with an infinite number of galaxies. The one who created all this simply cannot focus his attention on such a trivial thing as you. If God of such level slightly look at you, then the whole galaxy will be immediately shatter to dust. Gods are different. For you, the gods are beings one step higher. You are not able to realize the greatness of those who are at least a couple of levels higher than you. For you, everything that happens there, merges into one gray incomprehensible something about which you can only guess that there is someone exists.¡±


    ¡°So you''re one level above us?¡± Samantha made a logical conclusion.


    ¡°Exactly. On the one hand, I am not so far from you, but on the other, there is a gap between us.¡±


    "I think you''re just a Goa¡¯uld who likes to tell lies." Teal''c expressed his dissenting opinion.


    ¡°One does not prevent other.¡±  I agreed. ¡°I have a magic that you, mere mortals will never understand.¡±


    ¡°Of course it''s magic. It''s just technology of Goa¡¯ulds. You have a couple of devices that you use to do magic tricks.¡± Daniel protested.


    "I will not prove anything to primitive creatures like you. You can believe in your religion called ¡®science¡¯, but it doesn''t give you an understanding of how the world works. Anyway, we have arrived.¡±


    We stood on the edge of a small clearing where Kendra and her family had just been buried. The SG-1 had looted the post-mortem offerings and took the device of Goa¡¯ulds owned by Kendra. It turned out that Samantha Carter has the ability to control these devices.


    ¡°Jack, can you imagine, what that means?¡± Daniel asked his commander.


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°We can use this technique of Goa¡¯ulds in battle. We can send Samantha forward, and she will destroy enemies by the hundreds and thousands.¡±


    ¡°These children''s toys are hardly capable of such.¡± I cooled his ardor. ¡°It''s not a weapon at all. This thing can heal people, and another is kind of a shocker. It can slightly push a man or brainwash him, but almost zero benefit in battle from such trinkets.¡±


    ¡°Are you... can you help us... with weapons?¡± Asked Jack.


    ¡°I''m the God of knowledge. I can help you invent a cure for stupidity. With the issues of getting weapons you need to contact someone else. For example, there''s Thor. By the way, do you acknowledge Thor as God?


    Aboriginals curiously stared at Jack waiting for an answer.


    ¡°Well... uh... er ¡­¡± Jack tried to speak, but in the face of my tricky question, he could not say anything. But at least his intelligence was enough to understand that they should not so openly reject the divine origin of Thor.


    ¡°We recognize that your teaching considers Thor a God. We ourselves can not give an exact answer to this question, because we have not personally met with Thor.¡±  Daniel as always was able to come up with a version acceptable to the wild natives.


    "Then I suggest we meet with him and find out the answer to that question. And for one, you can ask for his help in the fight against Goa¡¯ulds.¡± I pointed our company to the right idea.


    "If we could enter to the hall of Thor¡¯s Power, he would help us.¡± Gairwen made a suggestion.


    "What is hall of Thor''s Power?" Daniel asked.


    "Ancient legends tells of the hall where Thor left his power to help us. To protect us.¡±


    Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    ¡°It could mean some kind of Asgard¡¯s weapon.¡± Samantha Carter suggested.


    ¡°Or it could be a place where prayers to God will be heard." I did not fail to contribute my share of religious nonsense.


    "Where is this hall of Thor¡¯s Power?" Asked Daniel.


    ¡°I''ll show you.¡± Replied Gairwyn.


    ¡°But we need to help your people.¡± I disagreed. ¡°They''re panicked and terrified. Without the light of hope, they would not have the courage to throw themselves into battle against the Jotuns and die for the name of Thor.¡±


    ¡°Let''s split up.¡± Jack suggested to Daniel. ¡°I, Teal¡¯c and these soldiers go on reconnaissance to find out how much Goa¡¯ulds have soldiers. You and Carter will help Gairwyn to get to this room and find out... well, find something.¡±


    ¡°Understood.¡± Each of the soldiers replied respectively.


    Our squad split up. I stayed on Samantha''s team, of course. The most interesting to me was her memory. After all, she was one of those scientists who were engaged in the study of the Stargate. I already did a little digging in her brain, but I needed more time, plus the victim should have been unconscious at the time.


    An hour later we reached a stone in the forest with the image of a hammer. At the top of it was a glued gem of the color of blood.


    ¡°It''s here.¡± Showed Gairwyn.


    "Is this the hall of Thor''s Power?  Daniel was surprised.


    ¡°Yeah. What''s wrong?¡±


    ¡°Well, I thought it would be more like a... hall.¡±


    ¡°We need to activate the teleportation device.¡± I made my proposal, studying the artifact. This device¡¯s function was only a teleportation, so now I saw that Asgards used a slightly different approach to teleportation than Goa¡¯ulds.


    ¡°No one can''t touch the stone.¡±  Warned Gairwyn.


    ¡°I can.¡± I shrugged. ¡°I''m God.¡±


    The device activated, and we were teleported into a dark room. I immediately stunned my companions, and shielded them from Asgard¡¯s scanner, which was to activate the test. For the next two hours, I scanned Samantha Carter''s brain. I was interested in not only her memory, but the memory Goa¡¯uld who lived in her. It seems, after Goa¡¯uld¡¯s death part of Goa¡¯ulds astral body are left to Samantha, after which she received access to his memory and psi-capacities.


    Having found out all the interesting questions, I brought people to consciousness. The total darkness hid the fact that they were losing consciousness, and a little mental suggestion should have affected their sense of time, so they just didn''t pay attention to the missing couple of hours.


    Tomb robbers went ahead, got under the working scanners and activated the first task in the quest chain. The floor and walls shook. Daniel, Samantha and Gairwyn in fear pulled back and then a large part of the floor fell down. They were at the entrance on a small patch of untouched floor.


    ¡°Imhotep!¡± Gairwyn cried in horror, looking at the collapsing plate under my feet.


    ¡°Do not worry. I''m God.¡±  I replied, floating in the air. "This test is for you, not for me.¡±


    ¡°You ... how are you flying there?¡±  Samantha was astonished.


    ¡°It''s simple just for someone who is God.¡± I continued my trolling. ¡°Don''t pay any attention to me. Better be engaged in passing the test.¡±


    Now the whole floor fell into the abyss. A thin strip of the bridge remained hanging in the center of the room. It would be obvious to anyone here that they need to move to the other side. Samantha went off without a hitch. after her, went Gairwyn. The floor shook again, and she fell flat, barely holding back from falling down.


    ¡°Thor wants to kill me.¡± She screamed.


    ¡°Heresy!¡± I objected. ¡°If Thor wanted to kill you, he would have done it already. I think he just likes to watch you suffer. You must Conquer! Proudly and mercilessly!¡± I stopped for a second. That phrase sounded familiar. It doesn''t matter. ¡°I think you will succeed.¡±


    ¡°I''ll help.¡± Daniel said.


    He went forward, tried to help and naturally fell off the bridge with the ballast. But he did not fall into the abyss, because the floor instantly came back, emerging from the depths of the abyss. To someone, this might even seem, that all of this was illusion.


    ¡°Well, as you see, there is nothing to afraid of.¡±  I concluded.


    ¡°So it was all an illusion.¡± Daniel confirmed my guess about his mental abilities. "You were standing on the floor all the time, mocking us.¡±


    ¡°You''re incorrigible. Reality is right in front of your eyes, but you refuse to accept it. It''s called fanatical faith, religion. But rather than believe in any heresy, like science, it is better to believe in God. Like me.¡±


    ¡°And what? Belief that you will help me?¡±


    ¡°Of course not. But it will give you clarity of thought and peace of mind.¡±


    ¡°Oh, come on, man¡±


    ¡°Haha. Believe and be saved!¡±


    After a short speech performed by the hologram of Thor, we were teleported to the next room. There were runes on one wall, children''s scribbles on the other, and four geometric shapes on the third. The assignment sounded like ¡®read the runes¡¯.


    While Daniel was trying to make sense of the puzzle, Samantha came to me.


    ¡°Imhotep, do you know the answer to this puzzle?¡±


    ¡°I know.¡±


    ¡°Can you tell us the answer?¡±


    ¡°I can.¡±


    ¡°So?¡±


    ¡°But, aren''t you interested in passing this test by yourself? You seek meeting with one God but rely on the help of another? It''s adultery.¡±


    ¡°Don''t listen to his chatter. He doesn''t know the answer.¡± Daniel snapped, peering at the runes.


    ¡°Do you want to bet?¡±


    The great connoisseur looked away from the child''s puzzle and stared at me.


    ¡°What do you want?¡± Samantha asked.


    ¡°Well ... there are two options. First, if I know the answer, you''ll strip naked. And two, you will invite me to your planet.¡±


    ¡°What? How... how you dare to suggest such a thing?


    ¡°What is wrong? Is your planet forbidden?¡±


    ¡°No! I do not mean that. I meant your offer for us to undress.¡±


    ¡°Apparently, the option to invite me to visit is not considered wrong at all?


    ¡°I... you¡­¡±


    "Well, if you tell me the correct answer, I''ll arrange for you a visit to the Earth. Under my responsibility.¡± Daniel said boldly.


    ¡°Okay. Look, and don''t dare go back on your words.¡±


    I went to the geometric shapes and drew a circle radius from the center to the edge. The sand inside the circle "soaked" into the wall in spite of all the laws of gravity, and there seemed a glass sphere with images of the hammer. I touched it, and a holographic image of Asgard appeared at the far end of the room. It was Thor himself.


    ¡°Voila. This is kindergarten level. Well, for a God, of course.¡±


    ¡°I''m the one whom you know as Thor.¡± Says hologram, surveying our motley crew.


    ¡°Oh, my God.¡± Daniel whispered.


    ¡°I''m here. What do you want?¡± I asked him, but he ignored my taunt, trying to collect the torn pattern.


    ¡°How could that be?¡± Gairwyn said in astonishment, considering the disgusting alien creature remarkably similar to the ¡®grey aliens¡¯ from cheap earth comics.


    "Since I created this world, you are the first who are able reach this level of contact.¡±  Thor replied. "You have finally become so wise that you can see me."


    ¡°They''re wise. I would never have gone this far without their help.¡±


    ¡°To be honest, I solved the puzzle.¡± I interrupted the conversation. ¡°Let me introduce myself, Imhotep, God of knowledge and architecture.¡± I flashed my eyes mockingly.


    ¡°You are a Goa¡¯uld. How could that be?¡± Thor mumbles in surprise, repeating the same phrase as Gairwyn minutes ago.


    ¡°It''s not a recording?¡± The Earthlings blurted out surprised.


    "The people of Midgard came to this planet and broke your protective device.¡± I began to state my version of events. ¡°As a result, evil Goa¡¯ulds take over the planet and are now actively mining your naquadah. I brought these two pests here to be punished by the name of the moon.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± Simultaneously exclaimed the pests, angrily staring at me.


    ¡°Of course, we are guilty for the destruction of the device, but we saved our friend.¡±  Daniel began to defend himself. ¡°We came here to meet with you and arrange an alliance against Goa¡¯ulds. In our team was a jaffa, who fell into your trap.¡±


    ¡°The jaffas serve Goa¡¯uld.¡± Said Thor.


    ¡°That one''s a good jaffa.¡± Said Gairwyn. ¡°Just like Imhotep. Now he''s fighting with us  against the Jotuns.¡±


    "We had no choice but to destroy the hammer to free our friend.¡± Daniel continued.


    ¡°And you opened Cimmeria for the troops of Goa¡¯ulds.¡± Projection of Captain Obvious uttered in frustration.


    ¡°Apparently so.¡± Daniel apologized.


    ¡°And if you have a weapon that can kill all of them, I need it right now.¡± Samantha expressed her idea, already mentally trying to control the ¡®Planetary Ripper¡¯ class gun.


    ¡°Weapon?¡± Thor was surprised.


    "These savages measure everything by the destructive power of their weapons.¡± I explained. ¡°Give them power, and they will destroy the galaxy. Pay attention, they asked not to save them from the invaders, but give them the opportunity to kill anyone they dislike. Typical barbaric thinking of the lower races.¡±


    ¡°How did you come here?¡± Thor turned his attention to me. ¡°The teleportation device at the entrance shouldn''t have let you go through.¡±


    "These primitive technologies are useless against me.¡± I shrugged. ¡°Actually, I wanted to talk to you. I think I have something to offer the Asgard race. For example, I can help you to solve two of your biggest problems.¡±


    Thor waved his hand, and everyone except me teleported away.


    ¡°What do you know about our problems, Goa¡¯uld?¡±


    "Three words will suffice: replicators and DNA degeneration, Asgard.¡±


    ¡°How did you know about that?¡±


    ¡°I''m the God of knowledge. I know a lot of things. Including how to help you.¡±


    There was a pause during which we played the game ¡®who will reconsider whom¡¯.


    ¡°What do you want in exchange for your help?¡± Finally, Thor finally gave birth to awaited words.


    ¡°I''m not ready to discuss it now. I can only help you in a few years. But I would like to have some kind of device to communicate with you. When I''m ready, I''ll give the signal, and we''ll agree on a time and place to meet.¡±


    ¡°I agree.¡±


    The beams of the teleporter focused on me, but they couldn''t get a millimeter closer.


    ¡°You know, it''s not very polite to try to teleport someone without telling them.¡± I was angry. ¡°Try again.¡±


    This time I did not block the teleportation, and moved to the woods next to the stone, which began our journey through the catacombs.


    ¡°Where is Gairwyn?¡± Asked Daniel.


    ¡°Thor used her for experiment. Don''t worry. In the end he will make her clone, which will be indistinguishable from the original. It is guaranteed.¡±


    ¡°What? Experiments? Clone?¡±  Samantha asked blankly.


    ¡°I think we should go to the secret hideout of the local farmers. I''ll show the path. O''Neill and Teal''c should be there.¡±


    I led the Earthlings by the shortest route through the swamp, carefully letting the fog in the answers to their questions.


    When we got to the woodland dugout, Samantha and Daniel were smeared from head to toe in swamp mud. While I walked on the water, like Christ, they walked in the water  that went up to their chest. So, our journey took not an hour and a half, but only twenty minutes. Real depth of the swamp on the route was not up to their chest, but ten metres. I was tactfully silent, and just organized telekinetic support for the legs of humans.¡±


    ¡°What swamp did you get out of?¡± Was the first thing the mud frog travellers heard from their commander when they came in.


    ¡°Imhotep turned us in. Susanin, damned.¡± Daniel poured out the accumulated irritation. Susanin is Russian hero. He misled Polish soldiers to swamp and saved the royal family.


    ¡°He led you through the swamp?¡± One of the Vikings was surprised. ¡°But it''s not passable and very deep¡±


    ¡°With God''s help, the impossible is possible.¡±  I explained modestly.


    ¡°You found something?¡± Jack turned the conversation to the subject. ¡°Is this some kind of superweapon? Megabomb?¡±


    ¡°No, it was a test of intelligence, and they failed it.¡± I snitched my companions. ¡°Instead of trying to solve the puzzle given by Thor, they asked the answer from me¡±


    ¡°We met the real Thor.¡±  Samantha provided a brief report.


    ¡°Really? Is he a cool guy? And then what happened?¡±


    ¡°And then ... he teleported us back without saying anything.¡± Carter''s voice was despondent.


    There was a sound of explosion, and dust fell from the walls of the dugout.


    ¡°Goa¡¯ulds are here.¡± Teal''c enlightened us. ¡°They found out the hideout and now, countless hordes of enemies are coming to kill us.


    ¡°Let me guess. Did you bring a tail? Really¡­¡± there was another explosion, have muted my words, and fell about kilogram of dust to my head. ¡°Fuu, Tfuu, Ugh! Well, how annoying!!! My temper is filled. Give me a gun and I''ll shoot them all.¡± I looked on Jack, whose expression of face expressed skepticism of the universal scale. ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°There are much more than bullets in the gun.¡±


    ¡°It is not problem, I''ll kill ten with one shot. You don''t believe in my power? Can''t believe we are protected by the power of Thor?¡±


    ¡°Thor''s with us! For the Motherland, for Thor, we will die to the last!¡± The Vikings shouted and rushed to the exit.


    ¡°Ok, take this.¡±  Jack handed me his gun.


    I took it, turned off gun¡¯s safety mode and went to the exit, tightening the song:


    ¡°We boldly go into battle for the cause of light where how one will die in the fight for it.¡±


    When I got out, I found a crowd of jaffas nearby, armed with shooting spears. They even bring with them a stationary blaster, shots from which were used to ¡®knock the doors¡¯. The Vikings huddled near the exit of the shelter, slowly running to the enemy. The bravest died during the battle for the village. I pushed through the crowd and came forward, and the members of SG-1 squeezed behind me.


    ¡°Aliens from the Stargate!¡± One of the jaffas shouted when he saw us ¡°Drop your weapons. Surrender, and the slaves of this world will be allowed to live and serve Her''ur.¡±


    "What is that name so perverted, Her''ur?" I shouted back. ¡°It sounds like some kind of hentai. What an unexpected change of genre!¡± The answer was a puzzled silence. ¡°I am Imhotep, God of knowledge and architecture.¡± I flashed my eyes, rising into the sky and enveloping in streams of darkness. "On your knees, mortals, and I will let you live."


    ¡°We only serve Her''ur.¡± Shouted the commander of the jaffa. ¡°You can''t intimidate us.¡± Despite these words, his knees were shaking so that it was visible to the naked eye.


    "I haven''t yet started to scare anyone. I''ll start now. Behold my power.¡±


    I stretched out my hand with the gun, took aim and fired. Parallelly I climbed with the tentacles of my symbiote to the energy source of the gun. I have a good knowledge of Goa¡¯uld¡¯s technology, so I knew not only how their weapons work, but how to disable it. From my intervention, impatient jaffas have their blasters explode, sweeping down the crowd of jaffa.


    ¡°Strike!¡± I shouted. ¡°I am the best, and have no equal in bowling!¡±


    The jaffa survivors tried to get to their feet, but I fired two more times, detonating their handguns. Where the source of energy was less, but the detonation I made was strong enough, so after three explosions, none of the enemies was left alive. In fact, I had to be especially careful because the total energy of naquadah in weapons would be enough to get the local nuclear armageddon.


    "Learn from this.¡± I said to the Earthlings, who were standing with their jaws hanging open. ¡°Knowledge is power. If you know where to shoot, these farts are much more dangerous for their owners than for enemies.¡±


    I went down from sky to earth and handed the gun to Jack.


    ¡°Imhotep saved us! Thank the Gods! Thank Thor!!!¡± The natives shouted, shaking their axes.


    ¡°Go and get their weapons.¡± I commanded. ¡°Against the Jotuns, we need to fight with their weapons. So you can show the superiority of your faith in the Thor over their filthy heresy.¡±


    ¡°Yes!!! Kill! Death to the evil Jotuns!¡±


    People rushed forward to do the favorite thing of soldiers - looting. The few survivors they killed with swords and axes, shouting slogans, remembering Thor and Imhotep.


    Jack finally came to his sense and took the gun.


    "It... was..." he said, not finding the right words.


    ¡°Epic?¡± I suggested. ¡°Awesome? Divine?¡±


    ¡° ...surprisingly easy.¡± He broke off my attempts at self-praise.


    ¡°Ha! Without me, you would have raised your legs and surrendered to the mercy of the victor, after which you would have been tortured, humiliated and then tortured again to death.¡± Earthlings are awkwardly silent, acknowledging my point. ¡°Okay, let''s get closer to the pyramids  of Goa¡¯ulds that they''ve built. Thor will show us a trick.¡±


    We have moved in the right direction. About fifteen minutes later, the ha''tak landing pads appeared over the hill. I took a good observation spot and checked my wristband.


    ¡°It will start in a few minutes.¡± I notified my companions.


    ¡°What will start?¡± Daniel asked.


    ¡°That. Would you like to see a superweapon? If you do, you''ll see them soon.¡±


    Soon the sky darkened, its clouds turned into black clouds. There was a sound of thunder, and a huge spaceship descended from the clouds. It¡¯s size was about three ha¡¯tak and the form vaguely resembled a hammer.¡±


    There was a high-pitched squeal, and the ship began to radiate rays, scouring the surroundings. It was a transmat beams from the Asgard, who gathered all the jaffas and Goa¡¯ulds in the area. One of such ray, enlightened me too, but it couldn''t do anything else to me. After a few seconds, the rays kidnapped even three pyramids, leaving no Foundation. Now I know who ruined the USSR, Asgards visited us.


    When the evacuation of the invading forces ended, Gairwyn materialized next to us.


    ¡°The Jotuns are gone.¡± She announced. "Thor sends his thanks, Imhotep. He also gave me this.¡±


    The woman handed me a strange device resembling a flat egg made from plastic. I took it, examined it and put it in my pocket, having previously shielded it with the symbiont''s forces.


    http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/MjgyWDUwNg==/$(KGrHqRHJCoFBzbJ!CTMBQp,FL)czQ~~60_1.JPG</a>


    ¡°Thanks.¡±


    ¡°Did he give us anything?¡± Asked Jack.


    "Thor sent a message to satisfy your curiosity. He is a member of a race that visits your world to collect biological samples. They are friends to all, except the evil Goa¡¯ulds with whom they are fighting.¡±


    ¡°Neat.¡± Jack smiled fakely. "Did he offer to give us any weapons? We could use a couple of ships like his.¡±


    "He said that, like us, you are still very young, and it would be a mistake to trust you with a weapon. And now I have to go. We have a lot of work to do. Thor had promised to return the dead Vikings to life, by creating their clones. My people will soon return from Valhalla and will begin rebuilding the village. And he promised to restore the hammer near the gate. His power will make an exception for someone called Teal''c. You''re welcome here anytime, our black friend with the big dick.¡± Gairwyn smiled and looked down, staring at the ground.


    There was a distant rumble. We turned around and enjoyed the spectacle of the Asgard ship  disappearing in the skies. I waited until the cruiser was gone by jumping, then gave the command to my ship, that¡¯s currently ¡®cutting circles¡¯ around the planet in hyperspace. Appearing, it immediately began to decline, approaching the place of our location.


    ¡°Well, it was nice to meet you.¡± I started saying goodbye when everyone else started staring at my ha¡¯tak. ¡°Daniel, you promised me a tour of your planet. And do not think that you will be able to refuse.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± Surprised Jack. ¡°You promised a Goa¡¯uld to let him on the Earth?


    ¡°Well ... that''s the way things are. I think we can deal with him.¡± He justified.


    ¡°Goodbye. I will contact you when I decide to come to visit.¡±


    I stepped aside and around me appeared transportation rings that transported me to the ship. Here, the first thing I did was put the Asgard device in a special safe created with the help of the symbiont''s techno-forces. This storage facility shielded any kind of radiation and perturbations of space. I didn''t need aliens spying on me. This device did not even have a power button, and it constantly scanned the surrounding space and was connected to another hyperspace transmitter.


    Having given command to the ship to come back to my planet, I went to wash myself after three weeks of life in rural conditions. Then I came to the sarcophagus where Ulrik was languishing. His memory has already accumulated enough knowledge of the Ancients to study them that completely absorbed my attention. By the time I had absorbed all the wisdom of an extinguished civilization, we had been standing in the usual parking place for a couple of days.


    Having dealt with the simple task flow, I turned to study the information extracted from the brain of Samantha Carter. She did not remember addresses of planets, but her subconscious mind had "screenshots" of what she had seen in her lifetime. By matching the addresses and description of the worlds in my database, I was able to calculate the world where the ascended Ancient lived. Mentally prepared, I overtook ha¡¯tak closer to the Stargate and went alone to the right address.


    Coming out of the portal, I looked around. Yes, this is the place. Around were the ruins of the city and a lifeless world in which not even grass grew. The gates were on the edge... well you can say the buildings that towered over the rest of the city. It would be more correct to call it a hill with man-made walls. On the opposite side of this rectangular elevation was a structure made in the style of the Ancients.


    So, where is the ascended one? I decided not to disband the tentacles of the symbiont, so as not to frighten off the prey. Who knows what this spiritual entity can notice? Instead of active scanning, I turned to passive scanning, straining all my senses in search of anything unusual.


    ¡°Kitty, kitty, kitty, where are you?¡± I called, passing by the half-ruined columns.


    ¡°Are you looking for someone?¡± A voice came from behind.


    I lazily turned around and saw a familiar face of Orlin. That''s the name of this pepper in the movie.


    ¡°Yes, kitten. He''s black and furry, with teeth like that. Have you seen him?¡±


    ¡°No.¡±


    Orlen paused, staring blankly at me. I stared at him, not less blankly, trying to understand why I didn''t feel anything from where he was. Maybe it''s affecting my mind. So it''s a glitch, and the real Orlen is somewhere else?


    ¡°Are you alone?¡± I asked the Ancient. ¡°It''s a bit deserted here.¡±


    ¡°This city was destroyed by Goa¡¯ulds five hundred years ago. They used an Ancient device to destroy all kinds of life. I''ve lived here ever since.¡±


    ¡°Very sad.¡±  I nodded. ¡°You don''t even have germs in the neighborhood. Have you thought about visiting some other planet? Have fun, get a girlfriend?¡±


    On last phrase, my symbiont grasp a weak emotional spike. Aha! This ascended in the series has the desire to have intercourse. I need to get him to show more emotion.


    ¡°I find it extremely difficult to find a girl who meets my requirements.¡± Orlin replied, swallowing the bait.


    "There are thousands of planets in the galaxy, where billions of people live. There should be many suitable candidates. And besides, you can grow them by yourself.¡±


    ¡°You make it sound like people are some kind of cattle.¡±


    ¡°What are you talking about? I''m talking about creating the right conditions for the kind of people you like. Gather good people in one place, arrange their lives, create a school for young people, and then sit there as a student or teacher. If everything is properly organized, the girls will hang themselves on your neck.¡± Finally, his emotions have manifested more vividly. ¡°In the end, it will be their personal free choice. Some believes that love should be a wild flower, one of millions. I propose to arrange a flower garden and enjoy the beautiful flowers, not relying on the chance of fate.¡±


    I found the source of the emotion above my head and immediately darted the greedy tentacles of my symbiont. They instantly felt the purpose and swaddled him, preventing escape. The image of Orlin was gone, and in my head there was a mental scream of panic:


    ¡°What are you doing? Stop!¡±


    ¡°Quiet.¡± I replied, pulling the defenseless victim closer. ¡°I just need to get some answers from you.¡±


    ¡°What are the answers? Who are you?¡±


    "Let''s just say I''m interested in some aspects of the life of the ascended.¡±


    ¡°You want to ascend? I''m not going to tell you anything.¡±


    ¡°Too bad. However, this is not necessary. I can figure it out on my own.¡±


    The tentacles of my symbiont were able to reach the areas of Orlin¡¯s energy body that were responsible for storing memory. First of all, I began to look for information on the organization of worship.


    ¡°No. Stop! Stop it!!!¡± Orlin screamed.


    ¡°Do not worry. After I figure out what I need to know, I''ll let you go.¡±


    After finding the required information, I started to download his memory of information about cults, rapture, and existence as energy beings. After going over everything important, I decided to look through the memories of Orlin before the ascension, but did not find anything interesting there. He was an Ancient. But he was born after the Plague that destroyed this civilization. He had little knowledge of Ancient technology. A large part of the earthly life he has was spent on the preparation for the ascension. Then happened an event, memories of which have been removed. And the result of this event was a reference to this planet. The hypnotic program required him to be here, and he could not overcome it on his own. In general, boredom.


    Pulling out of the consciousness of this being is all interesting, I said to him telepathically to him:


    ¡°That''s all you were afraid of. Even the skirt wasn''t wrinkled.¡±


    Pushing Orlin to the side, I commanded the symbiote to let him go. But the result was a complete surprise to me. The symbiont voluntarily dug tentacles into the tender body of light, tore him to pieces, and then grabbed and took him to the ¡®cave¡¯ in my soul, where he was hiding when I did not need him. Orlin only had time to cry out in short agony, after which he did not left even a scratch.


    What was that? I stood dumbfounded in the middle of the square, trying to understand what had happened. For a few seconds, the symbiont was completely out of my control. That is all the mental control, filling with Will and the rest were complete nonsense. If that thing wants to do something to me, I can''t resist it. Cold sweat drenched on my back.


    This is not a symbiont. It''s a parasite. He just ate the soul of an ascended man. It did what I thought was, if not impossible, at least unlikely. In that brief moment, I felt that the parasite¡¯s abilities were far stronger than anything I could do. All this required careful thought.


    The parasite slipped out of his hiding place, spreading a feeling of satiety and gratitude for the delicious dinner. I habitually seized control of his tentacles, lifting up a stone and throwing it away. Everything was as it always was ... except for the fact that I didn''t trust the parasite anymore.


    After another look around, I headed for the gate. I needed to get back to the ship and analyze my relationship with the parasite.


    After about a week I was able to come to a very disappointing conclusions: I was fucked!!! The symbiont, as I suspected, was a parasite. It usually hook into the souls of powerful mages, and serve them, allowing them to use its abilities. Simultaneously, it blocked the abilities for magic that I have managed to verify by myself. Parasitic by devouring the souls of mages. It was spiritually developed beings that interested him most. Common people to for him taste like the husk of the seeds.


    Some time later, if the parasite has decided that the host doesn''t need him anymore, and then devoured him and will be hooked to the next. "Settlement" was due to the creation of a special dimensional pocket, getting rid of which was almost impossible. It tightly welded in the structure of my soul, and to remove I need Bahion, a lot of Bahion.


    My parasite had order to serve me for a thousand years. So I was safe in the near future. But this did not solve the problem cardinally. It was not going to leave me, and at the end of the allotted time it planned to eat me and did not see anything wrong with it.


    The most funny thing is, parasite openly told me all this, when I asked it. When its ancestor served me in the world of the Worm, it had a order that forbade the disclosure of such information. This same copy had only one order - ¡®to serve me for a thousand years¡¯. At the same time, it had the clock for the countdown of this period its own, so that for the service it also counted on the time when I was hanging unconscious between incarnations. So by the way, I learned that between Worm world and the subsequent birth in the body of Goa¡¯uld, a month has passed.


    Also, I found out that, theoretically, the parasite can cure my defective tails. But for this it needs to sink its tentacles into my soul, and how it would end I don¡¯t know. While poking around in its memories I saw how the parasite carefully tasted Orlin before it ate him. And I wasn''t sure that if it could taste me, it would be able to resist the temptation. After all, it was just a brainless animal

 Chapter 6.05 - Stargate

    <h1> </h1>


    At the moment, I couldn''t do anything to the parasite, so I focused on what I could change. Extraction of bahion from the faithful was not so difficult. Well, that''s if you know what to do. For a start, I need to get a tiny drop of bahion, and then use it to form a special channel of this energy between me and the believer. As a result, I was able to get all bahion which he produced.


    However, there was one difficulty that demons faced in the world of spiders. One person could only have a limited number of such initiated followers. Very limited. It was literally as limited as the finger count on one hand. But these followers could become collectors of bahion coming from other believers. That initiation made a person into a priest, and then he organized various religious events on my behalf and initiated his followers, who believed in him as my representative, and therefore part of the energy travelled through him went to me.


    In summary, it was a typical network marketing structure and pyramid of influence. As a whole, it was already possible to start using it, but I was not satisfied with the small efficiency of this design. I do not know rules of formation ''spells'' from Bahion so I had to optimize the initiation ritual for the priests with ¡®fingering¡¯ scientific method, aka trial and error.


    For the start, I initiated three priests who had already played a leading role in the cult of my name. My followers were the inhabitants of only one village, that is, a couple of thousand people, but this should have been enough to start with. Then I changed the spell a little bit, watched how these changes affect the result, and most importantly - counted them on the computer of the ancients installed on the ship. I quickly was able to create a reliable simulation, thanks to which I was able to achieve an energy transfer efficiency of 99%. Then there was a similar calculation of the effectiveness of the spell, transferring the energy of a simple believer to the priest.


    As a result, I got the perfect technology to create religious cults. It would be possible to further develop the technology of using Bahion, but I thought it is a terrible waste. Magic could do far more, and better, without requiring constant recharging from the faithful.


    After the cult began to bring me a profit in the form of Bahion, I began to use accumulated Bahion to initiate one of the embryo tail. Well at least the parasite did not react to Bahion. Also, it did not notice the chakra. So first, I decided to rebuild the chakra tail, generating the energy of shinobi world.


    The flow of Bahion was like drops flowing down the stalactite. To increase its production, it was necessary to expand the flock, or... to bring people into a state of religious ecstasy. As it turned out, the state of happiness and awareness of who they owe this happiness, repeatedly increased the production of faith energy.


    Of course, human is a tenacious beast , they can adapt to everything when enough time passed. Including something good. So I made a plan to gradually improve the standard of living in the village and among my jaffas. Every day I healed patients, invented household appliances, helped to build houses. Almost every second day was a holiday, and every holiday was something different from all the others. People''s lives turned into a fairy tale, which was not difficult because I had a parasite and access to some Ancient technologies.


    I became God to the people, and they answered me with sincere faith, worship and praise. They didn''t have to flatter me because they had enough of my real achievement that they could sing them in songs and describe them in stories. People were constantly in some kind of trance, thinking about me every second of their life, devoting me in every action, not thinking more of their life without me.


    It is in some degree scares me. Such an obsession could not last too long. And so it didn''t take long. Just three months later of this celebration of life I''ve gained enough Bahion to initiate the transfer of structures from one tail to another. Inherited tail from Kyubi, had a somewhat different structure because it was created not by me, but by demon from another world, so the essence of the process is almost not affected.


    In just a week I regained control over the source of chakra, and another week was devoted to training in its use. After that, I decided to test a loophole that I thought of.


    I sat alone in the Tel''tak and flew to the center of the desert, where there was not a single person. There I landed the ship and moved away from it for a couple of kilometers. After that I sat down in meditation, watching the setting sun. Three hours later, when the surroundings was already late at night, I activated a long prepared fuinjutsu.


    During last year, when I was sitting in meditation, the parasite preferred to spend time in its ''shell''. This time was no exception. The fuinjutsu seal placed by me blocked the entrance to the parasite''s personal space, closing it with no way to escape.


    Literally within seconds, the parasite tried to get out, but after poking the barrier and feeling it, then¡­ it calmed down, silenced. I took a breath and went back to my ha¡¯tak. This seal did not give a full guarantee, but now I was at least partially sure that the parasite would not begin to eat someone against my will.


    Now, when a malicious creature has been isolated, I can begin to restore my abilities to magic. To my surprise, after restoring the tail, remained more than 80% of the unused Bahion. Therefore, immediately after returning to the ship, I was able to initiate recovery of the second tail.


    I spent the next week as if I¡¯m on pins and needles, the process placing me in the world of pain that comes from the depth of my soul. Finally, the process of energy transfer was completed, and I gained the ability to magic. Hurray!!! I become a magician again, and symbionts is not necessary anymore. Of course, this thing has ability to do a lot that I could not do with the tails, but the combination of magic and chakra gave enough opportunities to be able to solve any problem in a reasonable time.


    After playing with magic, I undertook a detailed study of the heritage of the Ancients. Before that, I mostly just copied the information into my brain, and now it''s time to carefully study it and improve them on the basis of magic and chakra. And, not combining them, but sole expense of magic, or chakras. This should give me more room to maneuver in the future.


    In addition to the scientific knowledge of the Ancients, derived from the brain of Ulrike, I studied the technology of the ascended, derived from the consciousness of Orlin. I was interested in the possibility of existence in the form of pure energy, not burdened by the presence of a physical body. At the same time, if necessary, the body can be created again.


    In general, the idea of ascension was a very interesting topic for research, that''s just one thing. I was aware of the ascension procedure, which required the presence of an Ancient body. People were degraded descendants of the Ancients, so their bodies were more or less suitable for this, although they required much more effort.


    Goa¡¯ulds, oddly enough, also had a predisposition to ascension, although somewhat in different kind. Without a brain of their own, the worm-bound souls were able to become partially aware of their energy nature. And such an experience in itself could greatly simplify the understanding of the technique of ascension. When Goa¡¯uld has possessed the body of a person with active genes of the Ancients, ascension was within reach of hand. If you know where and how to reach it. Exact knowledge in all spiritual science was a key to all.


    I could turn myself into a Vritras right now, and get rid of the need to lead the life of a parasitic worm, but it would close the door to ascension for me, because the technique of creating Vritras formed new spiritual shells and changed the existing ones. And I needed to have some ''standard'' that could be transformed by following the instructions. After then, I will have a working prototype of my Goa¡¯uld¡¯s body, I will have to think about how to cross the ascension with magic in Vritras body. So now I''ve decided to focus on the science of Ascension.


    The last four months I was engaged not only in gathering of Bahion. Having thought about my conversation with Orlin, I came to the conclusion that I was right, and I should attend to the presence of a harem. And because the local population in this capacity is not satisfied me, then I had to go out to different planets and to seduce five girls with the appropriate parameters.


    While I was doing all sorts of meditations, I noticed that my body from such an altitude loses its shape. So I gave Skuli, my current host, a personal time during which he could control my body. His classes were simple, but attractive enough for a mortal like him: training, lunch, sex. We even organized a ''division of labor'' - he fucked some slaves, and when the body was controlled by me, then I amused myself with others. In general, I was satisfied with such controlled schizophrenia.


    Among other things, I planned to gain even more confidence in the team of SG-1, and therefore decided to appear during the episode with Tok''ra. I had already gained the address of their gate from Samantha Carter''s mind, so I placed a ''trap signal for SG-1'' on that planet near the gate. In fact, it was a biological scanner of the Ancients, combined with a hyperspace transmitter. It scanned everyone coming out of the gate, and sent a message if they came out with three people without worms in the head and one jaffa in one of their belly. And so, right now I got a message that needed the characters appear on the planet Tok¡¯ra.


    Quickly gathering, I boarded my bomber al¡¯kesh, which took me to the gate on my planet. There I opened a portal to the right address and sent the chakra clone out to exploration. Oddly enough, the gates would normally transmit the constructs of chakra, but would oddly deform magic spells.


    Shadow clone came out, looked around and put an illusion to the terrain, hiding my appearance. After that, I went through the gate and disappeared into the desert. Searching Tok¡¯ra¡¯s hideout did not cause any problems. They were within walking distance of the gate, so the scanning spells quickly detected living creatures hiding in the dungeons. Among them, I quickly localized four members of SG-1. After waiting until they were locked in a separate room, I went on a mission to release them.


    It was a time when the members of SG-1 visited a Goa¡¯uld named Selmak and his dying host, and now pondered their plight, waiting for the decision of the council of Tok¡¯ra about the offer of alliance.


    By regaining my magic, I was able to open portals between two points of space. I didn''t have enough energy to jump across the galaxy, but it was possible to move between neighboring stars or on the same planet. Now I opened a portal leading from the desert to the corridor adjacent to the room where the SG-1 team was located. Once in the dungeon, I walked lightly to the right place, pushed the guards out of the way and went into the room.


    ¡°Hi¡± I said hello as if we met just yesterday. "How do you like Tok''ra? They''re not very kind, really. They want to stick their snake up your ass. Oh, I mean in the head.¡±


    ¡°Imhotep?¡± The earthlings shouted in surprise.


    ¡°Who are you!?¡± The guards were alarmed, trying to aim their weapon at me. I did not give them such opportunity, forcing the firing head of the spear to be attracted to the ceiling by magic.


    ¡°I am Imhotep, God of knowledge and architecture.¡± I flashed my eyes.


    ¡°How did you get here?¡± The question came from Samantha Carter, but I could see in their eyes that the question they¡¯re most interested in was Tok''ra.


    "I learned that you were being held captive by Tok''ra, and I decided to save you.¡±


    ¡°And how did you know that?¡± Daniel didn''t fail to ask, always suspecting me of something.


    ¡°Do you have any guesses??¡±


    ¡°You''re a God of knowledge, and therefore know everything?¡± Jack tried.


    ¡°Exactly!¡±


    ¡°What nonsense! You''re in cahoots with Tok''ra.¡± Daniel protested.


    ¡°I don''t think so¡± Samantha took my side. ¡°They were too surprised to see him.¡±


    ¡°So, if I''m not mistaken, they made an offer to settle the Goa¡¯uld in your head, but that prospect is not happy to you.¡±


    ¡°Did we need to be happy?¡± Jack asked.


    ¡°I don''t think so. But if you think about it, this prospect could please someone else.¡±  I looked around at the quiet audience. Space scanning spell showed that around the corner in the hallway stands Garshaw, attentively listening to our conversation. This witch was one of the main snakes in this lair. ¡°Samantha, do you know that your father is literally one foot in the grave?"


    ¡°What? Where are you from...?¡± She was alarmed.


    ¡°Heh. That''s a question you''ve already asked. The truth is, if you put a snake in Jacob''s head, it could cure him of cancer. As a result, everyone will benefit.¡±


    ¡°What do you get from that?¡± The silent Teal¡¯c gazes at me suspiciously, trying to drill a hole into me.


    ¡°Daniel''s promised tour of the Earth.¡±


    In the room was silent again for a moment, and Garshaw chose this time to effectively appear in the company of her fans.


    "I''m flattered that you care about Selmak, but who the hell are you?"


    ¡°Haven''t you been reported yet? I am Imhotep, God of knowledge and architecture.¡±


    ¡°I''ve heard that before. But that doesn''t answer the question of where you came from and what you need?¡±


    ¡°It would be rather silly if the answer to a question of who I am, to be the answer to these two questions. Don''t you think so?¡± I looked at the members of SG-1, looking for support in my dispute.


    ¡°Enough of these games!¡± Garshaw shouted, feeling enraged. "Are you a spy for the System Lords?"


    ¡°How could you possibly think of such a stupid thing?¡± I scolded her severely. ¡°To spy for these narrow-minded and narcissistic lords? If I''m spying, it''s only for me. And I am here to prevent the murder of my friends.¡±


    ¡°What? I would never¡­¡± Garshaw started to make excuses.


    ¡°You''re not.¡± I interrupted. "But there are other forces pulling the strings. And now that I''m here, you''ll do as I say. Anyone who disagrees, I will personally extract them from the host and will eat it in front of you.¡±


    Tok''ra''s face was twisted with fear and anger. Many of them escaped the fate of being eaten by the System Lords, because they raised them for that.


    ¡°So what? Will we negotiate in a good way? Or should I just start mass executions?¡±


    Considering that any Tok''ra could not even point a weapon at me, my threats were particularly impressive.


    "We do not cooperate with the System Lords.¡± Garshaw found the strength to resist.


    ¡°Good, I''m not one of them. Otherwise, I would have already ripped you from your host''s skull.¡± I went to headstrong Goa¡¯uld and glared, while saying. ¡°Listen to my instructions. Earthlings, as a gesture of goodwill, will provide you with a new carrier for Selmak. In return, you will provide them with a database of the planets occupied by the System Lords. Questions? Objections? Suicide attempts to attack me? What, none of this is gonna happen?¡±


    Garshaw tried to say something, but the spell of silence did not give her chance to do so.


    ¡°Perfect. Silence is a sign of agreement. And don''t try to deceive me. It could end badly for you. Better start working on an address database.¡± I turned to the Earthlings and made an inviting gesture. ¡°Come on, I''ll lead you to the gate. We''ll talk back on Earth.¡±


    They looked at each other, and silently followed me. The sight of the Tok''ras trying to point a weapon at me and unable to keep it under control impressed even SG-1. We went to the warehouse, where I returned the confiscated weapons to them. After that, I led them to the hall with the transport rings, where we moved to the surface. Tok¡¯ra kept trying to somehow to stop me, but then he just twisted a little away.


    ¡°How... how did you do that?¡± Daniel asked me as we walked to the gate.


    ¡°It''s magic, Daniel. I''ve told you a hundred times.¡±


    ¡°But¡­¡± He was not satisfied with the return argument.


    "Is this all about spells and ritual chants and sacrificing people?" Asked Jack.


    ¡°Well... Almost. While the sacrifice of the humans are not effective. Elves in this respect are far better. And the demons are generally too great to be compared.¡±


    "I see." The colonel nodded. ¡°Why do you want to arrive to Earth?¡±


    "I want to meet General Hammond, go to Disney Land, buy myself a computer and a dozen toys. Lots to do.¡± I replied, counting my fingers. This time my answer tore Jack''s common sense. He couldn''t think that I had such interests.


    ¡°You know so much about us. Have you been on Earth before?¡± Samantha asked a provocative question.


    ¡°Sometimes not knowing the answer to a question is better than knowing it. In many knowledge there are many sorrows.¡±


    "And I have dedicated my heart to know wisdom, to know madness and folly. And I know that all this is also a longing of the spirit. Because in much wisdom there is much sorrow, and who multiplies knowledge multiplies sorrow. The Bible, the book of Ecclesiastes, the words of king Solomon.¡± Quoted Daniel.


    ¡°He was a wonderful man. Only finished badly.¡± I nodded in  comprehension.


    ¡°Solomon?¡±


    ¡°Yep.¡±


    All those present were silent, imagining that I personally knew Solomon. That''s how the trusting flock is bred to deification himself. In silence we reached the gate, where I dialed the address of the Earth. Members of SG-1 watched my actions with suspicion. Finally, Jack sighed, dialed the code on the communication device, and a minute later we went to the portal.


    On Earth we were met by ready-to-fight machine gunners and cheerful siren sound, screwing right into the brain. The siren was even more vile than in the series. Or is it a weapon against Goa¡¯ulds?


    ¡°Colonel, who''s with you?¡± General Hammond appealed to us from the aquarium, which was the control center of the gates.


    ¡°He is... Imhotep. Remember, we told you about him.¡±


    ¡°What''s he doing here?¡±


    ¡°They promised to show me Disney Land.¡± I blatantly lied ¡°And you have a unique chance to get a postcard with my autograph and in addition a list of the addresses of all the planets controlled by Goa¡¯ulds.¡±


    This time the General asked nothing, as he was busy questioning his common sense.


    ¡°General, I think we should discuss the current situation in the conference room.¡± Colonel O''neill reported.


    ¡°... good idea, I''ll meet you there in fifteen minutes. And does anyone have an empty postcard?¡±


    The last question, apparently, was intended for all present. I didn''t know the answer to it because our group was sent to obligatory medical examination. I did not pass it, agreeing only to the electronic thermometer for temperature measurement.


    ¡°How did you get rid of the worms last time?¡± I asked.


    ¡°Yeah.¡± Jack agreed. ¡°We had diarrhea for two weeks without stopping. Those damn worms almost ate me.¡±


    ¡°How did you diagnose them?¡± Dr. Fraser asked. ¡°We had to do a high-resolution nuclear tomography to detect these parasites.¡±


    ¡°I''m the God of knowledge. Knowing such simple things is as natural to me as breathing.¡±


    ¡°Wow, another human imagining himself as god.¡± Janet Fraser took the thermometer from me and looked at the reading on the board. ¡°Exactly one hundred degrees?¡± She was surprised.


    ¡°Just looking at you makes my blood boil.¡± I laughed. Using magic to heat the thermometer to the desired temperature was a trifling matter.


    ¡°Perhaps you should cool off.¡± She didn''t take my joke.


    ¡°Whatever you say, doctor. Your thermometer can measure the temperature of absolute zero?¡±


    ¡°I don''t think so. I suppose, is there any point in further medical examination of you?


    ¡°I''d show you something interesting, but I''m afraid we won''t have enough time for you to make all the necessary measurements.¡± This time the woman was a little embarrassed. My rough soldier''s sense of humor has shaken her calmness.


    I stepped aside and joined the SG-1 team, which had just passed their medical examination.


    ¡°Imhotep, come. General Hammond is ready to receive us.¡± Jack called me.


    I nodded and followed the attendants into the conference room, where the most important issues related to the Stargate program were discussed. A great place to install listening bugs based on magic and chakra. We passed the door, took our seats, and a minute later General George Hammond entered the room at a brisk pace.


    ¡°Welcome¡± He said as he looks at me, while sitting at the head of the table. "So, Colonel O''Neill, I''m listening to your mission report.¡±


    ¡°Yes, sir. We passed through the Gate and encounter the rebel forces of Goa¡¯ulds. They surrounded us and took us as a prisoner. Then we were moved to an underground dungeon. There we presented our offer of alliance, but in response they offered to place one of Goa¡¯ulds in our head. We, of course, refused, and we were left in a separate room under protection, they promised to discuss our proposal at the council. After that, Imhotep unexpectedly came into the room, which somehow neutralized the security guards and invited us and the Goa¡¯ulds to conclude a contract with each other. We will provide them with one host, and they will give us a gate address of the worlds controlled by Goa¡¯ulds. Imhotep suggested that the host should be Jacob Carter, Samantha''s father. Goa¡¯ulds silently accepted these conditions, Imhotep helped us to pick up our belongings and we left the dungeon. This is the general report.¡±


    The General looked at me thoughtfully.


    ¡°What makes you think he''s not one of them?¡±


    ¡°Hey! I''m on my own.¡± I was indignant. ¡°And don''t talk about me in the third person POV. I saved the lives of the SG-1 team. And you accuse me of collusion with these filthy Goa¡¯ulds?¡±


    If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    ¡°Hey, you''re Goa¡¯uld too!¡± Daniel protested, breaking every chain of command.


    ¡°I''m a good, kind, and huggable Goa¡¯uld. Don''t compare me to the stupid System Lords and the cowardly Tok''ra.¡±


    ¡°Tok¡¯ra?¡± Asked Hammond.


    ¡°That¡¯s what those Goa¡¯ulds call themselves, in the lair of imprisonment of which you were fit into.¡±


    ¡°Why did you decide to intervene in this situation?¡± He continued the interrogation, deciding to switch to me.


    ¡°We''re friends. Besides, Daniel promised me a tour on the Earth. And if he died, I''d lose the chance to visit Disney Land.¡±


    ¡°How did you get to the planet?¡±


    ¡°Like everyone else, through the Stargate. I''m a God of knowledge, so when I learned that my friends were in danger, I went to Tok''ra¡¯s planet  and intervened in the situation.¡±


    ¡°So you''re God?¡±


    ¡°Of course.¡±


    ¡°And you know everything?¡±


    ¡°Not all. But a lot of things.¡±


    ¡°What number am I thinking of?¡±


    ¡°Forty-two.¡± Using a mind-reading spell was a matter of seconds. Especially since it was about reading the upper layers of consciousness.


    ¡°And now?¡±


    ¡°One hundred forty-three million two hundred seventeen thousand nine hundred ninety-nine."


    ¡°How do you do that?¡±


    ¡°I''m God.¡±


    ¡°Nicely¡­¡±  The General thought for a moment. ¡°Why are you offering to make Jacob Carter as a carrier?¡±


    ¡°He''s dying anyway. So you not only you fulfill the wishes of Tok''ra, but also save his life. Goa¡¯uld can support human life and heal from various diseases.¡±


    ¡°You consider yourself as Goa¡¯uld?¡± That was a trick question. However, this conclusion could easily be reached by analyzing my speech.


    ¡°I consider myself as God.¡± I answered. ¡°I''m also a magician. Look, magic.¡± I said the last word in a ''mysterious'' whispering voice.


    I used the simplest spell, and a shimmering ball of light appeared above my hand.


    ¡°You''re not a magician, you''re a Troll.¡± Again Daniel could not resist but to retord.


    ¡°Shit! I got caught.¡±  I acted alarmed in fun.


    ¡°So you''ve been lying to us all this time?¡± Jack asked incredulously.


    ¡°I am mage-troll of eighties level. I never lie. I prefer to tell the truth, but in a such way that people deceive themselves.¡±


    ¡°Can you help us in the fight against Goa¡¯ulds?¡± Hammond continued.


    ¡°I am God of knowledge. If I were ¡®God of fight against Goa¡¯ulds¡¯, then I would have helped you. So, no, I can''t. But I can help you from time to time in matters related to Ancient technology. Or if you have a crisis and the whole Earth is in danger, you can call me. Here, look¡­¡±


    I reached forward and, with a magician''s gesture, drew from the seal of fuinjutsu an object resembling a children''s radio station.


    http://intertoys.com.ua/images/800_1024/%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%86%D0%B8%D1%8F%20205048img.jpg</a>


    ¡°This is a special magic artifact for conversing with me. You will need to take it in your hand, press this ledge, and then begin to call me for help, begging for salvation and crying out for my mercy. And then I will definitely come. Take it.¡±


    I handed the device to Hammond. He took the radio and weighed it in his hand.


    ¡°Heavy. What is it made of?¡±


    ¡°Clean naquadah! And these stars and call button are made of an alloy of gold and platinum. Works on magic power, does not need recharging.¡±


    ¡°What kind of magic is that?.. Sorry.¡± The phone rang on the table next to the General. ¡°General Hammond. Connect. Jacob, how are you? We''re coming.¡± After a few more seconds, he hung up.


    ¡°What did he say?¡± I asked.


    ¡°I''m dying.¡± The General replied in confusion.


    ¡°Brevity is the sister of talent.¡± I admired. "You should visit him and offer to stick a snake in his head. In the meantime, Daniel and I will take a walk around the town. I think we can do it in a couple of hours.¡±


    ¡°I can''t let you out of here.¡± Said Hammond. ¡°This is high secure facility. You''re an alien from another planet.¡±


    ¡°Don''t make me do this the bad way. You might not like it very much.¡± I frowned.


    There was an unpleasant pause in the conversation.


    ¡°General, I think we should let him go.¡± Jack said. ¡°Under my responsibility. I will personally accompany him and make sure that there are no problems.¡±


    Hmm... I stared in surprise to the commander of SG-1. Honestly, I did not expect such a reaction from him.


    ¡°All right, Colonel. I will give my orders. Samantha, will you come with me to your father and try to convince him to become the host of Goa¡¯uld as it¡¯s a much better prospect than to die of cancer. Although I confess, I am not sure which option is better.¡±


    "Well, these Tok''ras aren''t bad slave owners at all. Sometimes they even allow their hosts to act on their own. Here, for example, I''m too lazy to engage in physical training to maintain my ideal physical shape.¡± I showed the audience my bicep. ¡°So I trust this thing to the host, for whom such activities only they enjoy. You could even call it a symbiosis, because without me he would have dragged a miserable existence in one of the wild worlds. However, time does not wait. We can talk about this after you get Jacob to base. Let¡¯s go. Disney Land is waiting for me!¡±


    Accompanied by Jack and Daniel, I got out of the base and drove to the city of Colorado Springs, the center of which we reached in fifteen minutes. There I was taken to the store with Disney toys. This, of course, was not Disney Land, but I did not focus on this. Instead, five minutes later I decided to go to a computer store, where I bought the full capacity of Jack O''Neill¡¯s credit card.


    The next point of our trip was the electrical shop, where I bought a voltage tester, transformer, battery and so on.


    ¡°Why do you need all this equipment?¡± Jack surprised, once again paying for my purchases.


    ¡°You would not believe how difficult it is to connect the computer to the power from the ZPM.¡±


    ¡°ZPM? What''s it?¡±


    ¡°Zero Point Module. This Ancient technology is still unknown to you. Think of it as a big battery that could blow a planet to pieces in the event of a short circuit.¡±


    ¡°Clearly... how many of these do you have?¡±


    ¡°Like shit in waste house. Okay, well, we''re done with the iron shopping. I bought fifty toys. CDs with music for another hundred. Now it remains only to collect a bundle of comics, and I would finally fulfill my life goals!¡±


    All purchases are immediately sealed to fuinjutsu seal so I can carry it with ease. However, I did it inside the Jeep, to not create a stir among the ordinary townspeople. I was in my usual Goa¡¯uld clothes and people are staring at my not-quite-standard clothes.


    We returned to the Stargate base just two hours later. Hammond and Carter¡¯s family were already there. I ran into Jacob in the hallway outside of the gate hall.


    ¡°So, are you ready to make the most exciting one-way trip in your life?¡± I turned to Jacob.


    ¡°Why one way? They promised that I could be cured.¡±


    ¡°But you''re not going back to Earth. Except as a guest.¡±


    ¡°What are you talking about? Nobody explained anything to me.¡±


    ¡°Then I suggest you to sit down. For such news are not for long.¡±


    ¡°Okay.¡± We sat down on some boxes. Samantha ran past us, eyes bulging, not even paying attention to me. ¡°By the way, will you introduce yourself?¡±


    ¡°Oh, sorry. I am Imhotep, God of knowledge and architecture.¡±


    ¡°The Imhotep who built the pyramid of Djoser?"


    ¡°We can discuss this story next time. Now we are talking about you.¡±


    ¡°There you are!¡± Samantha found us. ¡°Dad, are you ready to go?¡±


    "I''m just telling him what he is going to have to face.¡±


    ¡°Imhotep¡­¡± The favourite daughter of my interlocutor could not find the words in response.


    ¡°Samantha, let him talk.¡± Jacob stopped her objections.


    ¡°So. You have cancer in the terminal stage. Earth medicine here is powerless, but it is possible to cure you, by giving your head a giant worm that enslaves the mind.¡±


    ¡°Is this some kind of joke?¡±


    ¡°This is not a joke. I have one in my head. Or I could say I''m the one who''s sitting in the head of this dumbass and lustful savage.¡±


    ¡°This ... is somewhat discouraging.¡± Jacob muttered. ¡°What''s the benefit to me??¡±


    ¡°You will stay alive, and sometimes the worm will let you walk. I mean, he''ll still be in your head, but you''ll be in control of the body. Plus, you will be able to communicate with him, penetrate into the secret plans of these worms and make sure that they do not threaten the Earth.¡±


    ¡°What are the secret plans?¡±


    ¡°These worms are the representatives of civilized Goa¡¯ulds that call themselves Tok¡¯ra. They are rebels and renegades who fight against the true lords of this galaxy - the System Lords. They are parasitic worms too, but regard their hosts as property, and all other people as slaves. In general, I think the Tok¡¯ra will present the politically correct version to you. My task is to explain to you the pros and cons of the new state.¡±


    ¡°What''s it like to have a worm in your head?¡±


    ¡°Really? I don¡¯t know. I''m on the other side of the coin. I can say that being a worm in someone else''s head is pretty funny. You can ask your daughter about her feelings. Let her share experience.¡±


    ¡°She has a worm in her head?¡±


    ¡°Now for the most part I would answer in the negative. But it was occupied before. All right, you two share your experience of keeping worms in your heads, and I''ll go say goodbye to the General.¡±


    I got up and went to the ''aquarium'', where Hammond had just leaked through another entrance, accompanied by three other team members. As soon as I entered, I noticed that Teal''c, who was explaining something to Jack, gave me a suspicious look and stopped. I looked through my memories and saw that I had only heard one phrase from him today. This jaffa is concealing something.


    ¡°Imhotep, you promised to sign the card.¡± Hammond spoke to me before I could open my mouth.


    He handed me a postcard with views of Los Angeles. I examined it, took the outstretched pen and sat down at a small folding table, wondering what to write.


    ¡®Imhotep, the God of Knowledge and Architecture, the King of Kings, Good Goa¡¯uld, the Killer of Worlds, the Mage-Troll-eighties level, the Lord of All Russia, the Progenitor of the Nerubians, an Evil Cheater''. I wrote it in a neat handwriting. I think nothing is forgotten. ''For General George Hammond and his two charming granddaughters.''


    After that, I concentrated and put a simple spell on the card. All ready.


    ¡°Take it.¡± I handed the postcard to the addressee. ¡°Talking postcard.¡±


    ¡°In terms of?¡± The General was surprised, reading my writings.


    ¡°Say my name.¡±


    ¡°Imhotep.¡±


    ¡°Bow down before me, worms! BWA-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!¡± Postcard talked.


    ¡°What? Imhotep.¡± Hammond repeated.


    ¡°Believe in me and you will be saved. BWA-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!¡±


    ¡°Okay, you can play with it later.¡± I smiled. All the people in the area crowded around the General, considering my gift.


    ¡°Imhotep.¡± Teal''c said.


    I immediately intervened a little in the work of the spell, adjusting it so that using the voice of Teal''c would always work only on one specific phrase out of a hundred laid in it.


    "Reject the false gods and bow to the true God! Bow before me!! BWA-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!¡±


    I could see the stunned face of the jaffa and then urged all those present.


    ¡°Don''t delay. It''s time for Jacob to go to the other world. If he¡¯s late then he will have to go to a completely different world, and then you will not see the alliance with Tok''ra in the near future.¡±


    Everyone was rushing back to their business, and Hammond carefully put the card in the folder and ran to hide it in the safe.


    Ten minutes later, we finally opened the gate and went to the right planet. There we were met by the bustling Tok''ra preparing to evacuate. Almost unnoticed, we passed to the transport rings, came down to underground floor and collided with Garshaw.


    ¡°What''s happening?¡± Jack asked her. They have already tortured me with this question, because in response I was only smiling mysteriously.


    "System Lords'' ships are flying here. Did you give them our location?¡± She snapped at me.


    ¡°I do not need that. You''d better watch your spies. I can tell you who betrayed you, of course, but that knowledge will cost you dearly.¡±


    ¡°I have an idea.¡± Said Jack.


    ¡°What? Say.¡± Garshaw was on edge. How could she not have bitten anyone.


    ¡°I saw Cardash playing with his balls and his baton. Well, you know... ''these'' balls.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± Garshaw¡¯s facial expression expressed full dumbness.


    ¡°He is referring to the telecommunication device of Goa¡¯ulds.¡± Teal¡¯c translated the speech of his commander.


    ¡°Yeah, a ball in size of a fist.¡±


    The Tok¡¯ra leader''s face contorted with anger.


    ¡°Tok''ra, kree! Cardash, krja!¡±  She screamed and rushed off down the corridor, accompanied by five guards.


    ¡°Stay here.¡± Jack gave the command and run off after her.


    ¡°Yeah, sure.¡±  Daniel answered in dissatisfaction towards the now empty space.


    ¡°We are going to see Salmak.¡±  I put in my offer. ¡°Jacob, Samantha?¡±


    The three of us headed through the winding corridors of the base and soon came to a hall where the host of a Goa¡¯uld lay on a table - ancient old woman of two hundred years old. Then there was a half-hour sentimental conversation, the results of which Jacob agreed to become a host. He laid next to the old woman face to face, after which the worm quickly moved from one cozy mouth cave to another. The previous host immediately stopped breathing, and Jacob fell into unconsciousness while the worm subdue his brain.


    After a couple of minutes of silence in the room, came a tok¡¯ra.


    ¡°Our perimeter security was broken by Goa¡¯ulds ships. They¡¯re attacking from the air and through the gate. Garshaw ordered that we must destroy the complex. You must evacuate immediately.¡±


    ¡°We need time.¡± Said Samantha. ¡°Can we reschedule it?¡± She pointed to her father.


    ¡°No, procedure is very dangerous, it''ll kill him.¡± Objected Martouf, one of the leaders of tok¡¯ra.


    ¡°I can speed up the merging process. After all, I am God. For me it''s a piece of cake.¡±  I suggested. Because of my shopping on Earth, the sequence of events had shifted somewhat, so I had to correct it.


    ¡°Are you going to use some kind of Goa¡¯uld device?¡±  Martouf was alarmed.


    ¡°Of course not. I told you, I''m God. I use divine magic. Watch and admire my immense power.¡±


    I reached a hand out in front of me, formed a healing spell, and pointed it to the old woman and man. The old woman was already in a state of clinical death, but for the magic of spiders it was not a significant obstacle. Glowing lines of optical illusion surrounded the spell''s targets. For the sake of the audience and to make the process of healing more ''divine''.


    In that moment, Garshaw and the other members of SG-1 rushed into this room. They stared in awe at the illusion that concealed the not-so-appetizing healing process.


    ¡°What''s going on here?¡± Asked Garshaw.


    ¡°This is my divine magic. Almost done.¡± I answered.


    The radiance vanished, revealing a view of the two young human. The guy and the girl were almost in an embrace.


    ¡°Who''s that?¡± Exclaimed Jack in surprise. Samantha and Martouf stood speechless.


    ¡°They are Saroosh and Jacob. They are slightly younger and healed of all diseases.¡±


    ¡°A little?¡± Surprised Jack. ¡°They look like underages.¡±


    ¡°Samantha?¡± Jacob woke up. ¡°You won''t believe it, I feel great. Like I''m twenty again¡± He jumped off the table and began to warm up.


    ¡°W-Why not. I believe now.¡±  She looked from me to her relative. Now he looked not like her father, but as a younger brother or even a son.


    ¡°These symbionts work wonders. I sense Selmak''s presence, but he''s not talking.¡±


    ¡°Selmak did not do this miracle. It''s Imhotep''s magic.¡± Samantha explained.


    ¡°How could that be?¡± Jacob said in a different voice. This time his symbiont spoke. ¡°Even a sarcophagus can''t do that. My host''s body is completely healed.¡±


    ¡°What''s happening?¡± Saroosh got up from her bed. Loose clothes slipped from her, revealing a perfect figure.


    ¡°I gave you a new life, and now you belong to me.¡± I put my arm around her waist and kissed her. ¡°I am Imhotep, God of knowledge and architecture.¡±


    ¡°It... it''s impossible!¡± Garshaw whispered.


    "So you could heal my father all this time?" It finally came to Samantha.


    ¡°Of course. But why would I do that? There are so many sick, crippled, and unhappy people in the world that even if I healed a thousand a day, it would not reduce their number. Garshaw, you have already prepared a database of Goa¡¯uld¡¯s gate addresses?


    ¡°What? Ah... Yes. We need to evacuate immediately.¡± In confirmation of her words there came the twin explosion, and the walls of the dungeon began to tremble.


    ¡°Then run for the database, and we''ll go to the transport rings.¡± I ordered to Garshaw. "And don''t tell me you weren''t going to do your part of the deal. In this case, the captivity by system lord Goa¡¯ulds will be considered as salvation to you! Now, quickly!!¡±


    They ran away all flustered. Beside transport rings, we caught up by Garshaw and she give a storage device of tok¡¯ra to Jack.


    At the surface, we were able to witness dozens of Goa¡¯uld fighter planes, filling the sky. Looks like we''re running late. I unrolled the shield spell around me. I never let Saroosh go far from me. When you are pressed by naked beautiful girl, it motivates you to commit heroic deeds.


    The plasma blasts powerlessly crashed against my shield. In response, I occasionally snapped with different types of attacking spells, testing them in combat. Most of all I liked the effect of ''Decay''. When it hit the fighter, plane fell apart in the air to black dust, which gave the impression of a swirling black fog.


    When we reached the gate, we found that it was already open, and crowds of jaffas were running out.


    ¡°We''re late.¡± Garshaw sadly cried. ¡°Now we can''t escape through the gate.¡±


    ¡°Calm down, God is with you. Believe in me and you will be saved.¡±


    "Ah, Imhotep, I believe in you. You are my God.¡± Saroosh snuggled up to me. No matter what the tok''ra say, the host gets used to obeying her master, and the miracle demonstrated by me made this woman believe in me without a trace. Perhaps this was my aura from Bahion. After all, in my village, such undivided faith in me was an ordinary phenomenon.


    I calmly sparkled my eyes and held out my hand forward. Dozens of the attacking spells rushed from me, and struck the jaffas. This time it was a ''Rot'' spell that decomposed organic matter to a state of mucus in a second.


    After clearing the area, I focused on the address dialing device. I already had some knowledge of the Ancients, which steadily supplied by Ulric to me. Among them were the basics of controlling the Stargate. I still did not understand the principles of their work, but was already familiar with the instructions for their use. With magic I directly introduced into the DHD a special combination of symbols, after which the portal immediately closed, cutting another jaffa in half. Then I quickly dialed the address of the Earth and turned to the Colonel.


    ¡°Jack, your turn. Push the buttons¡± I nodded at the identification device.


    He squinted at me and began to enter the code. Meanwhile, a ha¡¯tak appeared in the sky, descending from orbit. Now that''s serious. My shield and spells are unlikely to do much damage to this thing. It''s over a kilometer wide. I was not sure that I will be able to reflect the shot from the main gun of ha¡¯tak, and therefore created a couple of dozen spells with homing function, which was to get to the ship and temporarily disable its weapons.


    ¡°Faster!¡± I hurried them. The people began to jump into the gate.


    Finally, I decided to charge the ship with a biju bomb. Magic, too, could boast of its lethal force, but for this I need some time for preparation. But chakra is in this sense, was much more suitable for doing fast paced fighting. Having formed a sphere from the chakra, I sent it to the ha¡¯tak and immediately dived into the gate. I left my clone to check the result.


    Alas, the result was not very good. Biju bomb penetrated shields, but the hull did not suffer so strongly. Of course, it would require repairs, but the destruction of ships of this type with my forces was problematic.


    Much more interesting was the experience of moving through the gate while my clone remained outside. Normally, I''d let the clone through the gate, stay in this world, and then cross myself. In this case, the clone lost consciousness for a few seconds until clone arrive to the point of destination. Now I have experienced an unforgettable feeling that there is only my clone of the Chakra, and everything else, including the soul, disappeared without a trace. In a few seconds I appeared on Earth, returning my perception of the world back to normal.


    ¡°Close the diaphragm.¡± I shouted, moving away. ha¡¯tak started bombing the gate from the other side. The doors closed, forming a characteristic rose, and after a couple of seconds the portal closed.


    Then I witnessed a short conversation between a tok¡¯ra and General Hammond, the results of which Goa¡¯ulds demanded to immediately send them to another planet.


    Before going, Garshaw delivered a patriotic speech.


    "The time will come when the tok''ra and the tauri destroy the System Lords.¡±


    ¡°Or they''ll piss me off, and I''ll do it myself.¡± I did not fail to pour a barrel of tar in this spoon of honey.


    Garshaw with fear looked at me and went to the gate. For her, my abilities were far more mysterious than the humans. Humans think, I used technology of Goa¡¯ulds,  and Ancient, but she knew that neither one nor the other has nothing to do with the incident. And she hasn''t seen biju bomb yet.


    ¡°Selmak says, don''t call us, we''ll call.¡± Jacob Said


    Exchanging fake smiles with the team of SG-1, tok''ra walked into the open portal.


    "And I say, if anything happens, call me." I said the opposite. ¡°Jack, this is for you. Personal communication device to communicate with me. Works only in your hands.¡±


    I gave to the Colonel another radio in the style of ''Fairy Girl'' - pink with ruffles and a gold star on the antenna.


    ¡°Thank You.¡± At first, the commander of SG-1 feared even to take such a thing, to not be infected by the kawaii. But, having overcome himself, took the gift.


    ¡°Saroosh, come.¡± I gave order to my new concubine, which all present men were staring her all time.


    I held out my hand, and in a second dialed the address of a neutral planet on the gate. For all, such a trick was a surprise. None of the earthlings did not suspect that I can open the gate without DHD. I picked up the girl in my arms and flew into the gate using a telekinesis spell.


    After this epic display, I spent three days connecting the computer. The matter was complicated by the fact that Ancient technologies and Goa¡¯uld¡¯s did not use electricity for transmitting energy. And after I got a steady AC current of 220 volts, 50 Hz and a maximum current of 25 amps, I connected the computer and plunged into the worlds of virtual reality. I haven''t been playing games in long time.


    Jaffas brought me out of this ''rest'', reporting unexpected deaths in my village. Although I already got my desired amount of Bahion, but the cult of me did not think to subside. Even my personal presence was not required, because the ''promotion of the crowd'' engaged priests, and the object of worship were my statues and photographs.


    And so, just a couple of days ago, began an unexplained death among my hottest fans. Everything was as usual, but in the first morning, three people did not wake up. This was written off to normal mortality, but on the second day two dozen people have not woken up. Then the jaffas raised the alarm and reported to me.


    I immediately flew to the village and examined the corpses. No apparent cause of death could be found. People just stopped breathing, and their heart stopped at the same time. It was doubly weird, because usually when people die it stops the heart, or breathing, or  unless they were beheaded. The head was in place and no brain damage was observed.


    I arranged a lavish funeral, and stayed the night in the village. I did not go to bed, but instead spread out over the village a diagnostic spell that registers heart failure. The first victim I found just an hour after sunset, when the folk drinking is not even over. Instantly moving to the dying with Hiraishin, I found the process of disintegration of the energy shells. After that, there was no resurrection. The soul literally left the body and disappeared in an unknown direction.


    After the twentieth death in a row, I realized my powerlessness in this matter. The last incident happened right before my eyes. A woman in her forties, who was showing signs of death, looked at me, smiled happily, and then her consciousness was freed from the shackles of flesh and dispersed into the fog. I didn''t even know what had happened before my eyes and why.


    In order not to plunge the people into the abyss of fear, I gave these deaths as the transition of souls ''to another world'', where they get into the ''heaven¡¯ and there enjoy my company for the rest of eternity. The story was so-so, but the practice of religion in the world has shown that people can eat such nonsense.


    Over the next month, the number of inhabitants of my village decreased from two thousand to five dozen. And there remained only seven from hundred Jaffa. If before I had a question ''what to do with my cult'', now it was irrelevant. The cult stalled by itself. Only people not suffering from excessive religiosity survived. They were grateful to me for the improvement of life, but it was not faith in God.


    In parallel with all this mysticism I continued to study the technology of ascension and to pump out the remains of information from Ulrik''s brain. The latter was already in quite a bad condition. The process of unpacking knowledge damaged his brain and eventually erased the information in the cells. As a result, new knowledge could not be unpacked without being tied to the old, and the whole process was slowed down more and more. I needed a real Ancient¡¯s brain or something to replace it. And then one suitable opportunity was planned.


    After another month of unhurried self-improvement, I received the long-awaited signal from the ''walkie-talkie'', which I gave to Jack O''neill. No, he never dared to call me for help, but he took the radio in his hands, and the spell in it considered the state of his body and gave me a conditional signal.


    Just a couple of days ago, Jack experienced the recording of ancient knowledge in his brain. Now his subconscious was frantically trying to escape from death, organizing a passage to the Asgard galaxy, and I should at least watch this process. So I can visit the Asgards while doing it.


    I moved to the gate on my planet by Hiraishin and dialed Earth''s address. I knew that passage on the other side usually overlaps the damper, and therefore sent my chakra clone. I had not enough research to complete this jutsu, so it was still non-material. But in this case, it played into my hands. The clone easily leaked through the gate and inspected the destination. Now clone was visible as a transparent humanoid shadow. Naturally, this alarmed the Earthlings, and now my clone was aimed by two dozen gunmen.


    ¡°People of earth¡­¡± I decided to play a bit on the nerves, using clone as the mouthpiece. ¡°Oh ...you dare disturb my peace.¡± The commandos got nervous and tightened their grip on the machine guns, waiting for the command to open fire. ¡°By the way, at that time, I managed in beating the final boss at level eight in Dungeon Keeper.¡±


    ''Dungeon Keeper'' was one of the best games I bought at the Colorado springs store.


    ¡°Who are you?¡± General Hammond''s voice came from the speakers.


    ¡°Don''t you recognize? I am Imhotep, God of knowledge and architecture.¡±


    ¡°I thought so.¡± George nodded at me through the glass.


    ¡°Yeah? How did you know?¡±


    "My granddaughters used to tell me stories about how they beat that boss. So I thought that among the alien creatures you are the only one who could play this game.¡±


    ¡°Hahaha! You are right! So, will you open the flap? ... okay, I''ll do it myself.¡±


    The clone waved his hand, and the diaphragm petals parted. All I had to do was apply voltage to the right connectors of the device. That is easier to use chakra or magic to produce electricity than using a reactor of an Ancient ship. I realized that after the deed was done.


    My ''original'' went through the gate and appeared on Earth. Dispelling the clone, I started going down the ramp.


    ¡°General, why didn''t you use the radio?¡±  I turned to Hammond, who was already entering the gate room. "I told you I could help you with your problems with the Ancient devices.¡±

 Chapter 6.06 - Star Gate

    "With all due respect, Imhotep, we prefer to solve our own problems by ourselves.¡±


    Secrecy and all sorts of security protocols did not leave the project management such opportunities.


    ¡°And what is the outcome of your attempts? You actually lost the entire SG-1 team. Samantha Carter and Teal''c will burn on the planet you sent them to, Jack O''neill will die of brain strain, and Daniel Jackson will be sentenced to death for not being able to translate the inscription in the language of the Ancients.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± Daniel panicked as he ran into the room.


    ¡°Hahah! Nothing, just a joke. In general, so far the results of your efforts can not be estimated even by three with a minus.¡±


    ¡°What did you say about Carter and Teal''c?


    ¡°Are they still here?¡±


    ¡°No. An hour ago, they passed through the gate to a planet where inscriptions in an unknown language were found.¡±


    ¡°That unknown language is language of the Ancients. I''ve already talked about it. And Samantha and Teal''c were on the planet with a broken Dial Home Device  (DHD). They will not be able to return, and the second star of this world will soon fry them to a delicious crisp.¡±


    "Open the gate to this planet and contact SG-1." General ordered.


    I went with him to the gate control room, where we waited for the portal to open and the video link to be established.


    ¡°Don''t send a rescue team.¡± Samantha was on the other side. ¡°Don''t send a rescue team.¡±


    ¡°This is general Hammond. We hear you. Where is major Castelman?¡±


    ¡°He''s looking for shelter. We have a problem. We can''t dial the coordinates. The DHD seized up when we tried to send the probe back. The temperature is rising here, which is probably why there is no life here. Initially, the probe did not detect the second sun, which recently rose from the horizon. General, it''s going to be hot in here now.¡±


    ¡°Dial the address manually.¡±


    ¡°We''re trying to do that, but it''s impossible as long as the gate is open on your side.¡±


    ¡°Understood, captain. If you don''t come back within half an hour, I''ll open a communication tunnel. Good luck.¡±


    ¡°I told you.¡± I said mockingly when the gate shut down. ¡°They won''t be able to dial the address and will burn there.¡±


    ¡°What do you suggest?¡±


    "I suggest you trust to my wisdom and do as I say. First I need to talk with Jack.¡±


    ¡°Neat. Daniel, lead him to Colonel.¡±


    I nodded and followed the anthropologist staff of SG-1.


    "You say it is the language of the Ancients?" He asked me, immediately after we walk out the door.


    ¡°Yeah. That''s what they call themselves.¡±


    "And they created the Stargate system?"


    ¡°Undoubtedly. They created a lot of things.¡±


    ¡°Do you know their language?¡±


    ¡°I''m the God of Knowledge. Of course I know their language.¡±


    ¡°Ah¡­¡±


    ¡°We''re arrived.¡± I interrupted the flow of questions, standing in front of the right door. The scanning spell showed that the Colonel was behind here.


    ¡°Uh... Yes.¡±


    ¡°And you, Daniel, I''ll ask you to stay outside.¡±


    I turned the door handle, walked into the room and closed the door in front of the dumbfounded Daniel. I reinforced the door with magic, so I was sure that our conversation with Jack would not be interrupted.


    ¡°Hey, Jack. What are you doing?¡± I spoke to Colonel in the language of the Ancients.


    ¡°If I only knew.¡± He answers. ¡°Wait, you speak that language?¡±


    ¡°Of course. So what do we got here? Oh! You wouldn''t believe it, but just recently I tried to create something like this. However, I used another solution. I''m afraid this thing won''t last more than five minutes.¡±


    ¡°Do you know the purpose of this device?¡± Jack asked.


    ¡°Yes. It''s a power source. Three hundred eighty volts and fifty Hertz, and a whole lot of amps. But the source of naquadah exhausted too quickly. Yes, and the efficiency is below standard. In short - junk work¡±


    ¡°Why am I creating it?¡± Jack''s voice was tired and confused.


    ¡°To find out the answer to this question, I will need to scan your brain. Don''t worry, it won''t hurt. Just sit here and relax.¡±


    I pointed to the chair. Jack sat down, and I cast a series of diagnostic spells on him. Um... The cells of the brain as a whole far better tolerate the information decompression process. Plus, each cell can store a lot more information. But decompression speed is much higher, so the limit will be reached pretty soon. This was not the main problem, but the downloaded package of information.


    ¡°Jack, I can congratulate you. In your mind settled ideological relative of the Goa¡¯ulds¡±.


    ¡°Are you saying that I have a worm in my head?¡±


    ¡°No. It''s more like schizophrenia.¡±


    ¡°Well, thanks. I immediately felt better.¡± Jack said with sarcasm


    ¡°The device in which you had inadvertently looked in was Ancient¡¯s training terminal. But someone changed its training program by writing into the crystal a copy of his identity. Your brain isn''t designed to acquire so much knowledge, so sooner or later it''s going to kill you. Now this ''spare'' person in your head is trying to somehow escape by controlling your actions.¡±


    ¡°What''s the result?¡±


    ¡°Nothing. I mean, you''re gonna die, or unless if you can get help from the Asgards. This is the plan of that second person in your mind. She''s counting on the Asgards to erase your identity and leave a copy of the Ancient''s identity. In her opinion she will be more useful than primitive Earthmen. But what decision will Asgards make, we do not know.¡±


    ¡°So all I have to do is believe in these aliens?¡±


    ¡°Well, you can also believe in me. I have lots of people who believes in me that says it¡¯s useful.¡±


    ¡°Can you clear my head?¡±


    ¡°No. More precisely, I can erase all the information, completely , but I can''t erase just what this machine recorded.¡±


    ¡°I see.¡± Jack turned to his device in frustration.


    ¡°But now we have a bigger problem. Samantha went to another planet and got stuck there because of a broken DHD. So now only you can save her by coming up with a way to fix the Ancient device.¡±


    ¡°What? Why did nobody told me about this?¡±


    ¡°Well, now I told you. I think you should talk to Samantha, and then make your subpersonality deal with the problem. Although she was originally an Ancient person, now she is just a memory in your brain. But you can control her actions, in some degree.¡±


    Jack looked to his assembling device, then put down his tools and headed for the exit. Half an hour later, we again contacted to the group of SG-1 and we made sure that there is no chance to get out from that planet. Jack listened carefully to the symptoms of the problem, and then went to draw a diagram for repair. I, observing his actions, only sighed. From Ulrike¡¯s brain, I could find instructions for using the gates, but not the drawings of the stargate controller.


    After the drawing has been sent in through the gate, I began to help Jack with the assembly of the power supply. Actually, he did not need help, but sometimes his subpersonality experienced problems in order to explain to the main person what exactly needs to be done. In this case, I explained the next step in my own words or did it myself. Mind reading spell in this situation is very much helped.


    After the device worked, I went with Jack to Hammond''s office. When we were approaching it, the gate went off, and SG-1 came out in a temporary composition, where Jack and Daniel was replaced by two Marines.


    ¡°Good to see you.¡± Hammond greeted them.


    ¡°We''re almost fried there, sir. The plan worked. Who invented it?¡±


    Hammond turned silently to Jack. But Samantha noticed me because I was standing near.


    ¡°Imhotep?¡±


    ¡°No, Jack actually came up with the plan. Looks like he''s smarter than you now, Samantha.¡±


    ¡°What? But that is impossible!¡±


    ¡°I am glad you believe in my powers.¡±  Jack answered grimly in the Ancient language.


    I translated that phrase.


    ¡°Sorry. Thank you.¡± Embarrassed, Samantha buries herself in the stargate drawing and began to study it.


    Teal came forward.


    ¡°I''m sorry O''neill. We couldn''t help you.¡± He paused for a moment, then left, giving me a strange look. Jaffa''s emotions were seething with confusion, jealousy and awareness of his own impotence.


    ¡°General, can I talk a few minutes?¡± I turned to the local authorities.


    ¡°Yeah, sure.¡±


    Me, Jack and Hammond stepped aside.


    ¡°Jack need access to the computer with your permission. He didn''t finish writing the program to save himself.¡±


    ¡°What program?¡±


    ¡°What program?¡±


    Asked both of my interlocutors.


    ¡°Program to open the gates to the neighboring galaxy. The information recorded in his brain can be erased only there. It would be very unfortunate if Jack had been torn to pieces during the transition through gate just because he didn''t have enough time to calibrate the gate.¡±


    ¡°Are you sure it''s not dangerous?¡±


    ¡°It''s Jack. Although he cannot explain it, but all actions he does is by himself. Well, it''s like schizophrenia, only the second person doesn''t rush at people to bite them, but tries to save herself, which means she would help you.¡±


    ¡°Thank you.¡±


    ¡°You are welcome¡±


    ¡°Okay, Jack. I give you my consent.¡±


    The Colonel nodded and headed for the computer terminal. Debugging of the program took fifteen minutes, and then started the procedure of gate activation. Jack ran to set up the power source, and I stayed to calm Hammond and the rest of the SG-1.


    ¡°All right. This address leads to a nearby galaxy. Jack will report how it went to you later.¡±


    ¡°Will he come back?¡± Samantha asked anxiously.


    ¡°Of course. I will send with him my energy projection, so I will be able to ensure that everything went as it should.¡±


    ¡°Energy projection?¡± Samantha''s voice was filled with disbelief and incomprehension.


    ¡°Is that what you used to get through the gate to us?¡± Hammond guessed.


    ¡°Yeah.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± Carter turned her head uncomprehendingly.


    ¡°I''ll explain later.¡±  Daniel promised.


    Finally, address with eight characters dialed, the portal opened.


    ¡°Jack, don''t worry, I''m with you.¡± I encouraged the patient. ¡°And be careful. On the other side immediately after the transition, are stairs¡±.


    I created a shadow clone and sent it to the gate. Ten seconds later and Jack disappeared into the portal.


    Emerging from the portal, the clone took the appearance of a man and looked around. Jack followed me out. He was already frankly sick, so I had to help him not to fall down the stairs with too small stairs.


    Then a scene from the series played as planned. Jack''s brain was cleared, after which he thanked everyone and promised that in the distant future, humanity will also become a great race.


    I stood aside all this time, looking at the asgards. They''re strange. The clone had only a fraction of my sensitivity, so I couldn''t figure out what was wrong with them.


    ¡°Who is this man?¡± The asgards finally asked, pointing at me.


    ¡°I''m not human.¡± I rejected these insinuations. ¡°I am Imhotep, God of Knowledge and Architecture. Have you not heard about me from Thor?¡±


    ¡°No. We haven''t accepted reports from the commander-in-chief of Thor in a very long time. He''s too busy with his undoubtedly important business. Only the High Council of Asgard receives this information.¡±


    ¡°I see. Well then, I suggest we send back this man to his world, and then I''d like to discuss some matters with you, first of all, about helping you.¡±


    ¡°You''re not going back?¡±


    ¡°No. It''s an energy projection. When I no longer need it, it will simply disappear.¡±


    ¡°We have never heard of such technologies.¡± Asgards began to accumulate around me, and scanning me with different devices.


    ¡°That''s natural. I suggest we discuss this later. Don''t compel Jack to wait.¡±


    ¡°No, I''m interested too.¡± He tried to stay in.


    ¡°You can ask me on Earth.¡±


    ¡°OK¡± He gave up easily to my commanding tone.


    Further, Asgards opened passage to the Earth, and Jack had no option except to enter the portal.


    On the Earth all met Jack with a smile, and I was even able to send another clone to the kitchen, where he stole the champagne from the fridge. While people were drinking and celebrating, I scanned Jack with magic. The asgards have done an interesting thing to his brain. They did not understand where that Ancient person is, but simply stopped the memory deployment process and erased the barrier between the sub-personalities. So now in the body of the Colonel was the identity of Ancient... but without the knowledge of the Ancients. More precisely, only with bits of this knowledge. Interesting.


    Seizing the moment, I took Jack aside and put a cloaking spell, distorting sounds and diverting attention.


    ¡°So what are you gonna do now?¡± I asked him in Ancient language. He gave me a slightly frightened look. ¡°I can see that you have an Ancient personality now.¡±


    ¡°It seemed like a good idea at that time.¡± The sub-resident replied. ¡°But now I realize I''m not the original. I''m just a collection of memories. Yet I cannot allow the knowledge of our race to fall to these savages. At least they won''t get it from me. So I''m going to play Jack. It''s a lot easier than you think.¡±


    ¡°Just don''t overplay it. Jack wasn''t stupid.''


    ¡°Yes, that episode with the balls, which played Goa¡¯uld¡¯s spies, it perfectly shows¡±.


    ¡°Wasn''t that a thin trolling?¡±


    ¡°The fact of the matter is that there is no trolling''


    ¡°All right, have fun. If you want to be Jack, just be him.¡±


    I removed the spell and went to the gate.


    ¡°Gentlemen, I am happy that you all managed to survive this day and remained in your normal mind. Do not hesitate to call me for help if your life is in danger due to lack of knowledge. And also, Jack.¡± I turned to the Colonel. ¡°I understand that my radio may not be always available, so next time you can just pray to me and I''ll hear. I am serious. I''m God and I hear prayers directed to me. Especially yours.¡±


    With these words, I conducted the initiation of Jack as my priest. He felt it, but didn''t show it. This connection not only allowed him to reach out to me, but also gave me the ability to remotely scan his mind. Now I will not miss important events. Because I don¡¯t need his worship even for free.


    ¡°Good day, and thanks for the fish.¡± I couldn''t resist a laugh.


    ¡°What fish?¡± Hammond was surprised.


    But he did not get an answer to his question. I opened the gate and disappeared into the portal, leaving the Earthmen to deal with their own problems.


    Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.


    Moving to my ship, I focused on controlling the actions of the shadow clone in the Asgard galaxy.


    After Jack disappeared into the portal, the clone turned to the assembled aliens.


    "Dear citizens of Asgard, I came to this galaxy to help you fight the replicators. Now I''m busy with urgent matters, but in a few years I plan to handle these dangerous machines to support you in the fight against them. At this stage, I need to study the technology of replicators, for which my projection must get to one of the planets occupied by them. In this regard, I ask for your assistance in my transportation to one of the suitable places. Don''t worry about my safety. This is just my projection, which does not need special environmental conditions. Thank you for your attention.¡±


    The Asgards began to exchange glances, apparently communicating telepathically or in some other way.


    ¡°Can you tell me about yourself?¡± One of them asked.


    ¡°Certainly. I am a representative of a highly developed civilization. I have just arrived in your sector of the Universe and am only studying the situation. My goal is to gather knowledge about the Universe and help intelligent beings. Hopefully, in the near future, together we can take the threat of replicators under control and your species will cease to be on the verge of destruction.¡±


    ¡°Will you share your technology with us?¡±


    ¡°I''ll try to do that. As practice shows, the technology of our race is difficult to combine with the technology of primitive races like yours. For example, this energy projection is a product of technologies of medium complexity, but it can not be reproduced on the basis of your primitive technologies. But I, as a God of knowledge and architecture, fervently support your curiosity and desire for development. Together we can make the world a better place. I Imhotep, promise you my moral support in these endeavors.¡±


    This speech in the tradition of the best American diplomacy won the hearts and minds of degraded midgets. I had only called them primitive and beckoned with carrot of secret knowledge, as they immediately agreed to almost carry me in their arms. Primitive civilization in its purest form.


    After a short Q&A session, They led me to a rescue capsule and promised to drop it on one of the planets captured by replicators. Naturally, they dropped it from the maximum possible distance, so I had to fly on my own, since the capsule had a weak hyperspace engine.


    Once in orbit around the planet, I immediately sent my flying coffin to the surface. A couple of ships of the replicators tried to seize a free piece of valuable resources, but they did not have enough time. The capsule entered the atmosphere, braked and landed smoothly on a flat area, from a distance similar to the runway. Naturally, this place turned out to be a cluster of replicators covering the surface of the planet with a thick layer. I think my Vritras behaved the same way.


    Robots was very happy to the unexpected gift from heaven and immediately began to disassemble it into components. The clone also got out and started scanning the basic blocks of the replicators, for one watching the process of production of new units of capsules. Clone was immaterial, so the replicators simply ignored him.


    I took my time, and began a slow and thoughtful study of the replicators. Of course, a clone of the chakras is not very well suited for such studies, but the replicators did not pay attention to him. Even if I started disassembling them to parts, they were only a bit worried, trying to repair the damage, but they didn''t attack.


    After studying the physical structure of the blocks, I began to analyze their program, and then faced an unexpected obstacle. The code was an artifact of the quantum informational nature. In other words, it could not be described with a set of numbers and letters. It was a superposition of the state of trillions of atoms, which in different conditions gave different information.


    It was so much more complicated than the programming techniques I knew, that I didn''t even understand how this process could be explored. The program was an autonomous entity capable of multiplying and recovering. If the quantum state of the processor is damaged, it is either completely restored, or instantly stopped working. Somehow I could not change it. Any changes in  program, immediately repaired, or have led to the destruction of the program block, then the Replicators had disassemble it apart, put it back together again and copied in it the program. So cracking the program code is impossible in my current state.


    After studying the replicators for almost a month, I realized why the asgards could not resist them. The only weapon that can kill them was one that is capable of the physical destruction of the blocks. And quite naturally, those were the most protected. In addition, even a small number of survived blocks could start the process of self-reproduction, nullifying all efforts to destroy them.


    The question of energy supply is also solved extremely efficiently. Separate units used the technology of obtaining energy from the vacuum. I didn''t know the details, but I had a description of this Ancient technology. Each block seemed to create a tiny ZPM, which was enough for about an hour of work. After that, the energy cell in the reactor was reset and created anew. In addition, this reactor allowed to absorb thermal energy, so there was no problem of overheating replicators.


    In general, as result of digging in the guts of these robots, I realized that at this moment I can¡¯t understand structure of Replicators. After that, I changed my focus on the ascension technique.


    With the transition to the ''spiritual form'' I had unexpected problems. In principle, I could exist without a physical body. Last resort, I could create myself the necessary astral shell with the help of magic. But the Ascension not only gave a certain ''body of light'', it allowed the consciousness to begin to perceive a multidimensional space, allowed to live in it on an everyday level.


    I had some experience of perceiving multidimensionality, but I can not see the ''necessary'' dimensions. I do not have the necessary senses for this. When I tried to temporarily ''get out of the body'' and get closer to one of the states of multidimensional consciousness, the description of which I found in the memories of Orlin, I found that I can not hold it.


    For the ascendant, it was like lying on the floor - they simply could not change this state to something else without making an effort. For me, it was like balancing on the tip of a needle. It only takes a little to weaken my concentration, as my ''spiritual body'' began to demolish in strange dimensions, where it was not so easy to get back.


    In these practices, it was quite a real risk to fall into the wild Chaos of the Universe, where I might lost forever between the gears of life. These dangers were described in detail in the ''instructions for ascension'', and I had no reason to consider them as fictions.


    All this fuss with replicators and ascension consumed a lot of time. In no time to look back, as two months have passed. Despite all my efforts, the results were zero in all directions, which is not very pleasing.


    In one beautiful day the spell in Jack O''neill''s head send me a signal about the occurrence of important events. Someone send signal through the gate to the Earth in the frequencies of SG-1, which contained the information about gate address. It looked like an invitation to a meeting, and the Earthmen thought it was a message from Tok''ra.


    I waited until SG-1 arrived at this address, then I went there myself.


    ¡°Oh! What are you doing here, huh?¡± I asked, passing through the gate and finding a team of Earthmen in front of me.


    ¡°From where did you appear?¡± Daniel asked with displeasure.


    ¡°I have a meeting with my dad here?  I feigned wounded pride.


    ¡°Who?¡±


    ¡°With dad. With ancestors. With the father. Do you know these words?¡±


    ¡°So you didn''t invite us here?¡± Jack asked.


    ¡°Of course not. If I wanted to meet you on this planet, I would have come to the Stargate base, grabbed you by the scruff of the neck and dragged you here. I think it was an invitation from my dad.¡±


    ¡°Who''s your father?¡± Samantha asked.


    ¡°Behold. I won''t spoil the surprise. There he is, by the way.  I pointed to a faint point in the sky.¡±


    ¡°Goa¡¯uld¡¯s glider?¡± Surprised Teal''c.


    ¡°Certainly. Easy to guess that my father is a Goa''uld. And you know him very well.¡±


    Meanwhile, the glider was hit by a plasma shot, and it collapsed to the ground behind a small sand mound. Team SG-1 rushed to the crash site, and I lazily followed them. A minute later I caught up with them, because they were slowly walking forward, aiming imaginary enemies in the clouds of smoke.


    ¡°Don''t worry, he won''t attack you.¡± I calmed them down by stepping forward. ¡°There is he lying.¡± I nodded at the mutilated body crawling across the sand.


    We approached the fugitive. He turned on his back, and everyone could see his face.


    ¡°Apophis?¡± Jack surprised. ¡°Is he your father?¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡± I flashed my eyes proudly.


    ¡°Help me.¡± Goa¡¯uld whispered.


    ¡°You''re not going to help him?¡± Jack asked.


    ¡°No. Today I am only a neutral observer. And I''m a God of Knowledge anyway, not God of Charity.¡±


    ¡°Who are you?¡± The dying man squeezed out words.


    ¡°You didn''t recognize your own son? My heart bleeds, father. I am Imhotep, God of Knowledge and Architecture.¡±


    ¡°Imhotep, save me! I command you!¡±


    ¡°Is that a plea for help? I think you''ll need more practice in the way of praying.¡±


    Meanwhile, Teal''c recovered from the shock and pointed his weapon at his former master.


    ¡°Teal''c, we need Apophis alive.¡± Samantha stopped him.


    ¡°Look, my cousins arrived.¡± I pointed to the gliders that had appeared in the distance.  ¡°A bunch of crows swooped down. He died not even completely, as the System Lords began to divide his territory.¡±


    ¡°Take him and we leave.¡± Jack commanded.


    ¡°You can take it slow. I will defend you.¡± I added, unfolding a protective spell over our heads. This time I accompanied magic with a slight illusion, so that all present were able to observe a transparent bluish veil with luminous veins.


    Teal''c picked up Apophis and dragged him on his hump. SG-1 went quickly to the gate. Gliders circled above us, but did not open fire.


    ¡°What are they doing?¡± Samantha worried.


    ¡°They want to take Apophis alive.¡± Teal''c replied.


    Earthlings typed the address of their planet and went to the portal. I slipped through with them.


    ¡°Good afternoon, General.¡± I said hello to Hammond. ¡°Look what our catch is today¡±


    ¡°Imhotep? Did you send the signal?¡±


    ¡°No. He send it.¡± I nodded at the body, which had already been loaded onto the medical stretcher.


    ¡°General Hammond, Apophis. Apophis, General Hammond.¡± Jack introduced them. His face was full of complacency.


    ¡°We know each other.¡± General replied.


    ¡°I ask asylum.¡± Apophis replied.


    ¡®Why?¡± Hammond looked at the bloody body.


    ¡°Other goa¡¯ulds won and kicked his ass.¡± Jack mockingly smiled.


    ¡°When we got him, he was chased by Goa¡¯ulds¡¯ gliders.¡±  Samantha added.


    ¡°Sokar defeated him.¡± I explained. ¡°Captured and tortured. Thanks to the help of the last faithful Jaffa, Apophis managed to escape, and now he plans to seize power on Earth. After that, he''s going to use your knowledge and technology to take revenge on Sokar and become the strongest of the System Lords.¡±


    "Don''t you think this plan is a bit presumptuous?" Jack asked.


    ¡°This is the essence of Goa''ulds.¡± I replied proudly. "Even at the edge of the grave, we dream about world domination.¡±


    Apophis translated uncomprehending look with me on others. He was not yet familiar with my trolling skills, so we had unforgettable hours ahead of us.


    ¡°I demand asylum!¡± Fugitive Goa¡¯uld tried again to regain the attention.


    ¡°You''re in no position to make demands.¡± General replied. ¡°Lock him in some dark closet and put bricks in the entrance.¡± He gave the order.


    I decided to test the mind control spell. It had certain limitations. In particular, the spell could not force a person to do anything contrary to his normal behavior. Now I''ve made General think that he''s joking, and everyone around here understanding him.


    ¡°Sir, he''s injured, and he can''t do any benefit unless you help him.¡± Dr. Fraser intervened.


    ¡°Wonderful. Do everything to make him survive, and then pour concrete around his neck and throw him in the ocean.¡±


    ¡°Sir?¡± The doctor began to wonder who needed medical attention in the first place.


    ¡°What?¡± Hammond looked at her blankly.


    ¡°Distance from here to the nearest ocean are thousand kilometers in a straight line.¡±


    ¡°Oh. Well, then save his life, and later I''ll decide how to execute him in the best way.¡±


    ¡°Oh ...Okay, sir.¡± Frasier suspiciously inspected General, and then pushed the couch with Apophis, simultaneously giving orders to the assistants. ¡°Two CC''s of adrenaline intravenously¡­¡±


    ¡°What?¡± Hammond asked again, looking at the dumbfounded subordinates. ¡°Meeting at eleven.¡±


    With these words he left, and the others began to disperse in all directions. Only couple of marines stayed and pretended they weren''t interested in me.


    Two hours later, I went to Apophis'' room. He was lying on the bed, tied up by hand and foot. Devices for fixing broken bones were installed on his the legs.


    ¡°Doctor, how is he?¡± I asked Fraser, examining the unconscious body.


    ¡°He''s dying.¡±


    ¡°Good. But the fact that he''s unconscious is bad.¡±


    I reached out and used a spell to remove toxins and poisons from his blood. Drugs also fell under this definition. A minute later, Apophis woke up, groaned and opened his eyes.


    ¡°Good afternoon, father. I have good news for you - you''re dying.¡±


    ¡°Imhotep¡­¡± Apophis swallowed hard and looked at me. ¡°You decided to make an alliance with the Tau''ri?¡±


    ¡°Not exactly. I am just a guest. A relative who has the right to stay with the patient until his death.¡±


    ¡°Why won''t you help me? I''m your father!¡± The last sentence turned into a cough. The nurse rushed to the patient, giving him a couple of sips of water.


    "I''m sorry, father, but I''m God. I help only those who offer me humble prayers. And your prayers are something not humble in any degree.¡±


    ¡°You want me to beg you to save me?¡±


    ¡°Yes, it''s a good point to start. And then you should pray to me, worship me as a God, and acknowledge my power over you.¡±


    ¡°This will not happen!¡±


    ¡°Well, as you are know. I''m not insisting. But think about my offer. If you bow before me, Sokar will be your slave. You will own his entire Empire.¡±


    ¡°You lie!¡± Apophis shouted again. ¡°You can''t do that.¡±


    ¡°Ask the people of the Tauri. They saw my power. In the meantime, father, I will leave you alone with your thoughts and with your... pain.¡±


    I stepped aside to be intercepted by Dr. Fraser.


    ¡°Imhotep, can I talk to you?¡±


    ¡°Of course.¡±


    We stepped aside and went into a small office.


    "Samantha told me you were able to heal her father, and he looked like a young man after that.¡±


    ¡°Yes, it is true¡±


    "Then why don''t you heal Apophis? He''s your father.¡±


    ¡°The gods helps only those who sincerely pray to them. Or if it is beneficial to them. How many times have you seen divine healing miracle in your life?¡±


    ¡°Well¡­ never.¡±


    ¡°And this is an excellent indicator of attitude of the gods to mere mortals. It is easier to perform a miracle by yourself than to wait for the help of the gods.¡±


    ¡°But you could have saved a lot of lives!¡± The naive samaritan soul did not let go.


    ¡°Why? You''re already overpopulated here on Earth. How many of you, seven billion? I think it''s a thousand times more than necessary. So you''re lucky that I''m a God of Knowledge, not God of Justice. Or I''d give you a Ragnarok with the Apocalypse in one bottle.¡±


    ¡°You can¡­¡±


    ¡°I can. But I''m lazy.¡± I interrupted her another request. "Saving mortals is the most useless type of activities. You will die. And no matter how hard you try, people are doomed to suffering, disease and injustice. And even I, the God of knowledge, don''t know how to change that. I tried in the past.¡±


    I remembered my epic with the invention of Vritras. And after all of that, damned dumb humans fucked up my brilliant idea.


    ¡°Understood.¡±  In the voice of the doctor, came disappointment.


    I turned around and headed to the break room where I could watch TV. Fifteen minutes later the General''s meeting began, but I did not go there. Frasier gave me a heart attack, so I lost all sense of humor for a while.


    After a couple of hours, Daniel came in. He looked at me grimly, and then sat down on the couch next to me.


    ¡°You''re the God of Knowledge.¡± He started talking.


    ¡°You know the answer.¡±


    ¡°Can you share your knowledge with us?¡±


    ¡°Everything in the world has a price. Have you heard of the law of equivalent exchange? To get something, you have to give something of equal value in return.¡±


    ¡°What do you want?¡±


    ¡°Nothing. According to your mythology, there are good and evil gods. I''m not one of either. I don''t care. I don''t need your secrets, knowledge, worship, or anything else you can offer for me. If I need anything from you, I''ll just offer to make an equal exchange.¡±


    We paused, watching the TV, seeing how the Alien xenomorph eats the next idiot.


    "Do you know where my wife, Sha¡¯re is?"


    ¡°No. But I can find out the answer to that question any time if I want to.¡±


    ¡°But you don''t want to.¡±


    ¡°Exactly.¡±


    We enjoyed another bloody scene.


    ¡°I can make a prediction. For free.¡± I said while looking TV.


    ¡°Nice. What is the prediction?¡±


    ¡°Your wife will be killed by Teal''c.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± Daniel literally jumped off the couch and stared at me.


    ¡°Now you know about it.¡± I turned my head and looked into his eyes. ¡°Does that knowledge make you feel better?¡±


    ¡°No! How will this happen?¡±


    ¡°But this knowledge is not for free.¡± I turned to the TV. ¡°And you have nothing to pay.¡±


    ¡°But¡­ I ask you¡­¡±


    ¡°Uselessly. I have atrophied sense of pity... probably a trillion murders ago.¡±


    ¡°What? You killed a trillion¡­¡±


    ¡°Yeah. Trillions of sentient beings died because of me. What is your Earth for me and all of you? So, another grain of sand in the endless desert.¡±


    ¡°Me... I''ll do anything to save Sha¡¯re.¡±


    ¡°Kill Teal''c.¡±


    ¡°What...?¡±


    ¡°Well, then don''t kill him.¡±


    ¡°You want me to kill a teammate?¡±


    ¡°If I wanted to, you''d be running around the base with a gun shooting everyone. I suggested a way to solve your problem. But I can''t guarantee it''ll save your wife. Maybe then it won''t be Teal''c who kills her, but Jack. Or you will never meet, and she will continue to live somewhere out there in outer space.¡±


    ¡°Then what do you want from me?¡±


    ¡°Nothing. I told you. I''m a anxiety-free God.¡±


    "Then why did you make this prediction?"


    ¡°To make you understand the value of knowledge.¡±


    The conversation stalled, and five minutes in silence we stared at the TV.


    ¡°Now you have nothing to pay.¡± I continued the conversation. ¡°But in the future will appear such opportunity. You can take a loan, with rate. Putting your soul as pledge.¡±


    ¡°Sounds like a deal with the devil.¡± My future client chuckled darkly.


    "Well, my conditions are almost divine. So it''s more like a deal with an angel.¡±


    ¡°What do you want?¡±


    "I want you to swear to give me all the knowledge that will be known to you in the future. Even if you promise not to tell anyone, you must tell me everything.¡±


    ¡°I agree.¡±


    ¡°Nice. Now let''s make a deal. You didn''t think I''d take your word for it, did you?¡±


    In the future, Daniel would be ascended, and I wanted to get an additional source of information about this process. And the magic oath mixed with drops of Bahion assures me the receipt of their dividends. I formed the right spell, and then I cast it on Daniel, while forcing him to take the oath.


    ¡°Ready.¡± I concluded. ¡°Now, actually, to the solution of your question. The next time you see your beloved, put your hands in this figure, look into her eyes and say, ''Kai!''.¡±


    I formed a fuinjutsu seal with a paralyzing effect and then fixed it on the subject''s skull. Indication of the target was to be done through the eye. The activator was the position of the hands and the phrase. I chose chakra because of the formation of such spells with magic I would have to cut the signs directly into the bones of the skull. With fuinjutsu, it was a bit easier, because I had the skill of setting the seals with ''power of sight''. I do not need any gesture of visible effect to put fuuinjutsu seal.


    ¡°Don''t train on anyone. The spell is one time activatable. After you bring Sha¡¯re to Earth, ask Jack to pray to me. I''ll come and extract the snake out of her head. That''s all. The charity session is over.¡±


    Daniel understand it right. He thanked me and left the great God to his melancholy.


    Meanwhile, Tok''ra arrived at the base. Finding their arrival by magic, I moved into the hall of the gate.


    ¡°Oh ...We learned that Apophis is your prisoner. You must return him immediately to the planet from which he was taken.¡± Martuf said as I entered the room.


    ¡°Let''s go to the conference room.¡± General Hammond suggested.


    We went up the stairs and sat around the table. I took a seat next to SG-1, the General sat at the head of the table, and Tok''ra sat across from SG-1. Martuf looked at me suspiciously, and I looked at him smugly. None of the Earthmen tried to stop me, because I gently brainwashed them with magic, forcing them to ignore my presence.


    Tok''ra began to persuade Earthlings to give back Apophis to Sokar, despite the fact that Sokar can destroy the entire civilization on Earth. The General persisted in refusing to share Goa¡¯uld before he will squeeze all possible information. It ended the altercation that Tok¡¯ra decided to visit Apophis and check his health.


    But they could not talk to the prisoner. He  was in a drugged delirium, not responding to questions. According to the doctor''s forecast, Apophis was near to death. The worm had been subjected to special torture, and now slowly dying.


    Only Tok¡¯ra was going to leave, as the gates were opened for the incoming portal. First, through it tried to walk a few Jaffa, but they are suicidal died on the flap. Without the ability to materialize in our space, the gate just dropped these ''objects'' turning them into nothing.


    After that, a projection of the image in the form of a face appeared on the flap. Sokar directed a stream of elementary particles into the gate, which appeared from our side and heated the flap, causing it to glow.


    ¡°The people of the Tauri.¡± A distorted voice rang out. ¡°You took what was mine. For this you will be destroyed.¡±


    The image dissipated, and there was only a stream of particles, glowing flap.


    ¡°How long can they attack us?¡± Hammond asked.


    "The gate can be kept open for thirty-eight minutes. This is the limit of the tunnel''s stability. Then the tunnel will collapse.¡± Samantha explained.


    ¡°Then he can re-type the code and continue the attack.¡± Daniel said.


    ¡°It changes everything. I''m calling the President.¡± General was worried.


    ¡°Will you help to us?¡± Samantha asked.


    ¡°I don''t know how.¡± Martouf distanced himself from this honor.


    ¡°Imhotep?¡± She finally remembered me.


    ¡°I promised I''d just be an observer. But I can give you advice.¡±


    ¡°I am listening¡±


    "Start praying to me or to other known gods. You need a miracle.¡± Judging by the unhappy face of Samantha, she not going to follow this advice. "You can also wait until the gate closes, dial the Sokar¡¯s planet address and send them a thermonuclear bomb of couple of hundred megatons. If Sokar is somewhere near the gate, he could be incinerated. I don''t think even hattak could stand a blast like that at his side.¡±


    ¡°But innocent people will die.¡± The captain protested.


    ¡°When did this stop the great American people from establishing democracy? Vietnam, Iraq, the Balkans. The list is long.¡±


    "If you destroy Sokar, then all the other System Lords will unite and destroy you.¡±  Martuf made a prediction.


    ¡°Then you must to be first. Send thermonuclear bombs to every worlds under rule of Goa¡¯ulds.¡±


    ¡°No! We''re not gonna do that.¡±


    ¡°Then pray.¡±


    "Is there a way to protect ourselves from the flow of particles?"


    ¡°Plenty of ways. But your technology level is too primitive for that.¡±


    ¡°Listen, Carter, why don''t you ask Apophis about it? His ass is gonna get hurt, too.¡±  Jack suggested.


    ¡°Yes, sir.¡± She agreed.


    ¡°I''m with you.¡± I volunteered to watch a free show.


    I was followed by Teal''c. We went to the infirmary, where the victim of the accident was lying on the bed. Tok''ra was not around, so Apophis did not pretend to be a seizure inadequate. Time had not spared the prisoner, and in the past half hour he had aged thirty years. The body is used to recover in sarcophagus and now he is rapidly decaying, devoid of barely alive worms support.


    ¡°I''m not going to talk with traitor.¡± Apophis expressed his ''Fi'', overlooking to Teal¡¯c.


    ¡°Sokar attacking the gate with a stream of elementary particles through the Stargate.¡± Samantha started to explain. ¡°How we can protect ourselves from it?¡±


    ¡°There''s no protection.¡± Apophis replied.


    ¡°He''s lying!¡± Teal''c said.


    ¡°Shut your mouth.¡± A short counter argument was given.


    ¡°What makes you so sure?¡± Samantha didn''t let up.


    ¡°He used that weapon against me too.¡±


    Goa¡¯uld grimaced and huddled in convulsions.


    ¡°There''s nothing he can do for you. Your only chance is to pray to me.¡± Again I got with my offer. "Just try it, and you''ll be surprised how much faith in me can help."


    "You mean you''ll help us only if we beg you to help?"


    ¡°Yeah. That''s how the gods work. I have already explained to you the essence of this system. What prevents you from conducting a scientific experiment to verify this?¡±


    I didn''t get an answer because the chief scientist wasn''t crazy enough to believe what I was saying. Nothing to worry, I still have enough time.

 Chapter 6.07 - Star Gate

    I turned to Apophis and leaned over to whisper in his ear.


    "Do you still not wish to pray to me? Think of what you''re giving up in your pride. You could rule the galaxy, and instead you lie here in thrall to the lower creatures and dying in painful death.¡±


    ¡°I won''t bow before you.¡±


    ¡°Pity. Well, you still have time. Usually people begin to plead to the gods before death in the hope of finding salvation. Let''s see if that''s true for false gods like you. Will you appeal to yourself or to me?¡±


    I stood up, showing a hungry shark''s grin, and walked out, leaving the former God alone with his former ''first warrior''. I''m sure Teal''c will stomp that worm''s ego into the mud.


    When I got to the control room, I found an epic show: the labors began to water the hot gate flap with liquid nitrogen. After a few seconds, the evaporating nitrogen turned into gas, squeezed out all the oxygen, and all the people in the gate hall fell unconscious, suffocating without oxygen.


    "You decided to kill yourself without waiting for Sokar?" I asked Samantha, who was rushing around in front of the closed door. At this moment she understands how idiotic this idea was. And even more idiotic was the fact that the heat capacity of liquid nitrogen was much less than the heat capacity of water, so that it was less useful than boiled water.


    ¡°Imhotep, save them!¡± She screamed.


    ¡°Is it a plea?¡± I said. ¡°Or an order?¡±


    ¡°Please! Save them. I believe that you can!¡±


    ¡°Of course I can.¡± I was offended. "But your faith¡¯s strength is only enough to shut off the liquid nitrogen hose valve.¡±


    I waved my hand, but I didn''t have to do anything. Nitrogen ended by itself, because the volume was not so great. However, I was not upset. Wanted a miracle? You got it. And the fact that it happened by itself, is not my problem.


    ¡°Listen up!¡± I shouted over the hubbub of the room. ¡°I''m God! Believe in me and you shall be saved. Pray to me, and you will save those who are dying in the hall of the gate. Sing my name, and behold my power.¡±


    People froze in shock from my rudeness, but one of the technicians threw doubts and began to repeat my name.


    ¡°... imhotep? Imhotep. Imhotep! IMHOTEP! IMHOTEP!! IMHOTEP!!¡±


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bb-rENuLJeg</a>


    Gradually voices became more and more loud. Ten seconds later, when my name was chanted by half of those present, the forced air ventilation was activated. Nitrogen started to go up, and replaced with the normal ventilation vent with fresh air.


    ¡°Behold!¡± I shouted again. ¡°Your pleas were heard, and the emergency ventilation turned on. Believe in me, and you will be able to return the dead laborers to life.¡±


    ¡°Don''t listen him! I turned on the ventilation.¡± Samantha tried to protest, but her voice was drowned out by the fanatical screams of the others.


    - Imhotep! Imhotep! Imhotep! Imhotep!! Imhotep!! Imhotep!! Imhotep!!! Imhotep!!!!


    I felt streams of Bahion heading towards me. But these believers were not initiated, so their whole faith energy is gone to nowhere. But in order not to disappoint the congregation, I cast a mass spell of healing that was brought back the laborers to life. Seeing how people are getting up, the believers rushed to them to tell about the miracle and spread the infection of faith in me.


    While I was having fun, the gate flap heated to a bright crimson color.


    ¡°Mortals!¡± I shouted again, this time translating my words into the ears of every man on the base. ¡°Believe in me and you will be saved. Repeat my name and I will protect you. Sing my glory, and I will bring down my wrath upon your enemies.¡±


    ¡°IMHOTEP!!! IMHOTEP!!!! IMHOTEP!!! IMHOTEP!!!! IMHOTEP!!! IMHOTEP!!!! IMHOTEP!!! IMHOTEP!!!!¡±


    They chanted like crazy. People obeyed the will of the crowd and began to repeat my name. Even Daniel and Jack succumbed to the mass hysteria. Only Samantha Carter and Tok''ra remained sane.


    I used the jutsu of the ice based chakra element, and sent it to the gate. In just a few seconds, the gate flap cooled and covered with frost. I was impressed by the strength of the material from which it was made. In spite of this sudden temperature change, no part of them is cracked and deformed.


    "Now, Samantha, do you believe in the power of the gods?" I asked. Even Tok''ra were impressed by this performance and walked around with bulging eyes.


    ¡°It... there must be a rational explanation for this.¡± She made one last attempt to deny my divinity.


    ¡°Of course. Faith in me cooled the gate¡¯s flap. This is the rational explanation.¡±


    ¡°No. Impossible! It''s against all laws of physics.¡±


    ¡°You know nothing about the laws of physics. All your theories and assumptions you made on the basis of the phenomena occurring in the refined conditions of ''ordinary reality''. But as soon as something unusual happens, all your laws stop working. It''s like studying the laws of chemistry and physics at room temperature and denying the effects of cold or heat on any process. Accept reality and acknowledge the power of the gods.¡±


    Samantha only put her arms around her head and went into denial. Sometimes it is useful to abandon the mossy stereotypes of perception. Maybe, this might enlightens her, and she will be able to come up with a new physics. Or she''ll blow her mind, and I''ll have to bring her back, erasing the memories.


    When the mass hysteria subsided a little, the management of the base gathered in the control room.


    ¡°How long can we  hold the gate?¡± Hammond asked addressing to everyone, but only looked at me.


    ¡°Not so long. Soon the energy of your faith will run out, and the gate will begin to heat up again.¡± I answered.


    ¡°Even if Sokar cannot get through the gate, he has a ship.¡± Leader of Tok¡¯ra expressed a very clear idea.


    ¡°Martuf is right.¡± Samantha supported him. ¡°We can''t allow an attack from space. We must send out Apophis from here.¡±


    ¡°We can''t even if we want to¡± Jack said. "He is a war prisoner, and our greed will not allow us to send him to our enemies without any benefit.¡±


    ¡°I spoke to the President. He ordered to stop the medical intervention.¡± General said.


    ¡°But without another dose of drugs, he''ll die of withdrawal.¡±  Dr. Fraser was indignant. "We gave him a special synthetic drug every fifteen minutes. If we delay even half hour he will die in wild torment.¡±


    ¡°I know, doctor. This is our plan. The law does not prohibit the delivery of the dead bodies to their distant relatives.¡±


    ¡°Hey! I''m his son, the closest relative. I demand to give the body to me!¡± I was indignant.


    ¡°If Sokar doesn''t get Apophis¡¯s body, he''ll destroy the Earth.¡± Martouf said.


    "I will take Apophis¡¯s body to Sokar¡¯s planet, After, he will solve all questions about the corpse with me. I''m going to make a scarecrow from his body, and I will give the worm to Sokar.¡± I laid out my plan.


    ¡°Good.¡± General Hammond nodded. ¡°All agreed? Doctor, then stop drugging him. Dismissed.¡±


    Jack, Daniel and Samantha were against it, but no one would listen to them. When politics comes into play, usually the voice of reason is silenced first.


    I went to the hospital and looked at Apophis. He turned his eyes, trying to see what was happening around. He heard people chanting my name and heard conversations in which they praised me and my power.


    "As you see, father, faith in me creates wonders. Sokar¡¯s attack was unable to threaten the Tau''ri. Nevertheless, they made the right decision by deciding to give your dead body to me.¡±


    ¡°Dead?¡± The half-corpse croaked.


    ¡°Yeah. All this time they''ve been poisoning you, and now you''ll be dead within half an hour. It will be a painful and terrible death. But you still have the opportunity to offer me humble pleas. Then I will carry your corpse to Sokar, and then I will resurrect you and make you ruler of his empire. Come on, try it. Repeat my name with true faith in me. And your soul will be saved. After your death, you will go to heaven, where you will rule under my behalf.¡±


    Apophis turned his eyes in panic. He didn''t want to believe it, but my words were eating away his brain and mind.


    ¡°My death is necessary?¡± He whispered, letting out a tear.


    ¡°Absolutely.¡± I calmed him down in a gentle voice, stroking his forehead with my hand. "It is the only way you can establish your true faith in me. Come, father. When the horror of death consumes you, repeat my name, remember only me, believe in me, bow before me, become my slave. And you will gain power over the other slaves. That''s how the world works. The ruler is only the most important slave. You cannot command other slaves until you accept that you are a slave. Because a free man is free from all society. He has power only over himself. Power over others requires recognition of a hierarchy where you simply cannot be at the top. There''s always someone higher than you. Like me. So take my power over you and rule over the world. Repeat my name and you will be saved.¡±


    Apophis¡¯s eyes tossed in delirium. He no longer understood what I was saying to him, although I knew that these words would remain in his memory forever.


    ¡°Amonet! Amonet, where are you?¡± He began to call his queen.


    ¡°She''s not here. She gave herself to Sokar. She''s the one who betrayed you.¡±


    ¡°No!!! Amonet, my love!¡±


    ¡°Your God''s name is Imhotep. Remember this.¡±


    Finally, I left the morally crushed worm to its own nightmares, then went to the break room. I have another half hour to watch TV.


    I returned back to the hospital when the diagnostic spell showed the extinction of vital functions. Jack and Dr. Fraser were here. Five minutes ago, Goa¡¯uld lost consciousness, and they were able to communicate with the personality of his host, and promised to arrange the funeral and send his soul to heaven. Now the worm woke up again and blazed with eyes while whispering:


    ¡°Help me.¡±


    ¡°No.¡± Jack replied ruthlessly.


    ¡°My host¡­¡±


    ¡°No.¡±


    ¡°I''m afraid.¡± Apophis pleaded.


    ¡°Believe in me and be saved.¡± I reminded him.


    In response, he flashed his eyes one last time and began to struggle in agony. And at that moment I felt strong flow of Bahion from Apophis. At the last moment of his life he believed in me. The flow was even stronger than from my most fanatical followers. Well, apparently this drama will continue. I quietly threw spell to hold Apophis¡¯s soul, and continued to hold calm face .


    ¡°The Goa¡¯uld is dead.¡± The doctor diagnosed. ¡°But the host is still alive.¡±


    Daniel came into the room carrying some ancient Egyptian rubbish. He placed these objects, and began to say something in ancient Egyptian. When he had finished, he gave a free translation of the text.


    "I told him that the burial figurine would absorb his last breath and send his soul back to Egypt.¡±


    A minute later, the man''s heart stopped and he died.


    "That''s what I call savage barbaric beliefs.¡± I commented. ¡°Now his soul is standing next to the body, and wondering why he is still here, and not with his family.¡±


    ¡°Can you see his soul?¡± Daniel was surprised.


    ¡°Of course. And look what you''ve done. Instead of entrusting his soul to a real God, you worship soulless idols. This piece of clay is not able to help the dead. You just gave him hope, and then you destroyed it, plunged his soul into the darkness of despair. So when Goa¡¯ulds resurrect him, this man''s suffering will be increased a thousand fold. Is that what you wanted?¡±


    ¡°Me... I wanted to calm him down.¡± Daniel began to defend himself.


    ¡°The road to hell is paved with good intentions. You deny faith in me, and yet you believe the most utter nonsense.¡±


    Teal''c came into our room.


    ¡°It''s time.¡± He declared. ¡°We opened the gate.¡±


    ¡°Perfect.¡± I rubbed my hands. ¡°Well, have a good time, and I''m off.¡±


    With these words, I waved my hand and Apophis¡¯ shackles immediately untied. After that, I grabbed his right leg, pulled him off the bed and walked towards the gate hall, dragging the body behind me. It was banging its head against the corners and getting stuck in the aisles, but my jerks kept moving it after me.


    ¡°What are you doing?¡± The doctor angrily protested to my indecent actions.


    ¡°This body belongs to me. General Hammond agreed. So it''s none of your business what I do with him. I promised to give this body to Sokar, but I didn''t specify that he will be one piece on that time.¡±


    Dragging Apophis¡¯s corpse through the corridors, I found myself in the hall of the gate. Teal''c followed me, his chest bursting with deep satisfaction. Truly, I understand him.


    "General Hammond, thank you for your hospitality.¡± I said, passing by the local authorities and Tok''ra. ¡°In negotiations with Sokar, I will let him know that it¡¯s better not to touch my friends. Good luck.¡±


    On this I passed through the gate, still dragging the corpse by the leg. At the exit I was met by the concerned Jaffa and my clone from chakra. Of course, I did not rush into the portal without looking, and let a scout to do forward exploration.


    ¡°Jaffa, kree!¡± I shouted with blazing eyes. ¡°Take me to Sokar. Quick!¡±


    Mortals ran from side to side, depicting violent activity. They immediately drove the shuttle to the gate, into which I climbed while pulling the body in tow. Jaffas stare with bulged eyes to my attitude toward the supposed God.


    Five minutes later I flew into the ha¡¯tak¡¯s hangar. Sokar met me, surrounded by dozens of his warriors.


    ¡°Who are you?¡± He asked, watching me carefully while I continued to dig out the jammed body out of the Shuttle. Finally, I yanked harder, and the body gained freedom, getting off with a broken neck.


    ¡°I am Imhotep, God of Knowledge and Architecture. Bow before me, because I am the true God.¡±


    To the surprise of Sokar, all of his Jaffa and even subordinate Goa¡¯ulds lowered their weapons and knelt down. I again used the magic to make people think that they always served only to me. A small, almost imperceptible suggestion changed the balance of power.


    Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    ¡°Arrest him.¡± I pointed to Sokar, parallely disabling all his devices with magic. ¡°Tie him up to the cross in my throne room. And help me take this body there.¡±


    ¡°What? Don''t listen to him! I am your master! I order you to kill him!!¡±


    But all cries of the former Lord remained unanswered. The Jaffa quickly tied him up, kicked his face with boots, and then dragged him after me.


    ¡°You got a nice palace, it¡¯s so stylish.¡± I praised Sokar¡¯s taste, Golden throne room in red tones with dark lighting. I created a cross with earth chakra element.


    ¡°Tie him there.¡± I pointed to my new subordinates. ¡°Drop this.¡± The mutilated body of Apophis froze before the throne on which I had just sat.


    I formed a healing spell and began to watch its work. The souls of the two dead was nearby, so after five minutes Apophis and his host was alive, healthy and young.


    ¡°Wake up, father. You believed in me, and I kept my promise.¡± Apophis opened his eyes, looked around and rose to his feet, once again studying the environment. "From now on, you are the owner of this ship and of the entire Empire of Sokar. And your opponent is helpless and is in your full power.¡±


    ¡°Jaffa, whom do you serve?¡± Apophis shouted, staring at me.


    "We serve you my Lord. Apophis is our God. Give the order and we''ll do it immediately.¡±


    I rose from the throne and stood aside, watching, how the disbelief and despair in Apophis''s soul give way to joy and exultation. He gave orders, listened to answers, and was increasingly convinced that the Jaffa were actually serving him.


    Apophis took the throne and turned to me.


    ¡°Imhotep, now I believe you are God. It was a miracle. I''m pleased!¡±


    ¡°Sure, dad.¡± I insidiously smiled while answering.


    ¡°Sokar, you dare attack me. You''ll be punished for that. I''ll torture you for eternity!¡±


    Apophis took from Sokar¡¯s hand torture device, wore it on himself and began to torture his enemy, completely surrendering to the sense of superiority, omnipotence and permissiveness.


    I used a disguise spell to partially escape from the perception of others. They saw me, they knew I was there, but they couldn''t focus enough on me to make sense of their plans.


    Apophis acted very passionately. For two hours he continuously tortured Sokar, and then went to rest in the sarcophagus, following his usual thousands of years of habit.


    ¡°Why did you do this?¡± The prisoner turned to me as I approached him and threw off the veil of invisibility.


    ¡°You hate Apophis, don''t you?¡± I asked, looking into his Goa¡¯uld¡¯s eyes.


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°And you want to make his life, hell?¡±


    ¡°Yes!¡±


    "Then you must understand, if you want to plunge someone into despair, you must give them hope for the future. Then his suffering will be a hundred times greater.¡± I looked at the bewildered Guarda. ¡°When the right time comes, don''t yawn. Who knows, maybe Apophis will really be able to subdue your army under control?¡±


    I laughed ominously and stepped aside.


    An hour later, Apophis reappeared in the throne room. He checked the condition of Sokar, sat on the throne and began to give orders to mobilize the army. The ships were linked by the confrontation with Her''ur, and now the new commander-in-chief was trying to build his own strategy of defense and attack.


    Half an hour later Apophis was distracted from the current affairs and remembered about the prisoner. He rose from his throne and walked slowly towards the cross, playing with the torture device. I think, it¡¯s time to start.


    Dropping magic veil, I stepped forward, getting into the field of view of both Goa¡¯ulds.


    "I''m sorry, father, but your faith was enough only for that.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± Apophis asked dumbfounded, still staying in his pink coloured dreams.


    ¡°Your power over the Jaffa is over, and now, they serve Sokar again.¡±


    The surrounding people seemed to wake up and began to look at each other, trying to understand what had happened.


    ¡°Release me!¡± Sokar shouted.


    ¡°Don''t listen him. I am your God!¡± Apophis worried.


    Jaffas rushed between two possible masters. The first master is the one they have served their entire life, and the second is ''on authority'' now. A second later some Jaffas rushed to release Sokar, others tried to shoot them, while others stood, pointlessly rolling their eyes. Gunfire of all against all, in which survived only three ''neutral'' Jaffas. They moved their spears from side to side, pointing them to Sokar, then at Apophis, and then rushed to the rescue of their real master, untying him from the cross.


    A dozen more Jaffa ran into the hall, alarmed by the sound of gunfire.


    ¡°Kill them!¡± Apophis commanded, pointing to the ''traitors''.


    ¡°I''m your God!!!¡± Sokar roared. ¡°Grab them!¡±


    Years of training affected the decision of the soldiers, and they attacked Apophis. He activated his personal shield and tried to grab Jaffa¡¯s weapons. But he was surrounded, pushed aside, stomped to the floor and his hands twisted behind his back. The personal shield was not effective to resist hand-to-hand combat.


    A couple dozen of Jaffa rushed at me, but I scattered them into bloody dust with a wave of my one finger.


    ¡°Imhotep! Help me!¡± Apophis shouted. ¡°I command you.¡±


    ¡°You forgot the most important thing.¡± I answered. ¡°I''m your God. But you planned to take all the power and overthrow me. Therefore, your faith in me has faded, and with it my blessing has gone. You''re on your own now.¡±


    Apophis flinched, but was unable to do anything. Sokar looked at me fearfully, and then approached his rival for a seat on the throne, looked in his face and gave the order:


    ¡°Tie him to the cross.¡±


    While the Jaffa were following orders, their master came to me and asked quietly.


    "So, tell me a reason why shouldn''t I kill you right now?"


    ¡°Because you''re still in my control.¡± I grinned arrogantly in response. "If I want, your whole Empire will be mine again. It was all a game to let my father experience the depths of despair and powerlessness. And I''m relying on you for that. Don''t disappoint me, Sokar.¡± I flashed my eyes smugly. "And keep in mind that the planet Tauri is under my protection. Don''t try to attack it. Or I will be angry, and then the fate of Apophis will seem like heaven compared to yours.¡±


    ¡°Why did you set this show up?¡± Goa¡¯uld bursted with hidden anger, but even more his heart is tormented by fear. "Just to annoy Apophis?"


    ¡°No. I wanted to have some fun. I spent two months on important research, but in result was only an understanding that I, the God of knowledge, not able to know what I am interested in. That is annoying, you know. So I''m giving you free advice - don''t piss me off. I need to have a word with my father now.¡±


    I walked up to the crucified prisoner.


    ¡°Apophis, Apophis. You are so stupid. I gave you power over Sokar¡¯s empire. But you were too stupid to know that miracles don''t happen by itself. If you''d killed him immediately, you''d be the system Lord by now. But instead, you were tempted by useless torture and left your enemy alive. This is your punishment for not having brains. What am I saying? You¡¯re a Goa¡¯uld, a worm! You don¡¯t have a brain! Hahaha!¡±


    ¡°I trusted you. I believed in you!¡± Apophis tried to justify himself. ¡°Give me back my power, please. I''m your father!¡±


    ¡°It is too late. You''ve already failed your loyalty test. Although, maybe you will be able to pass the exam of allegiance to Sokar?¡± I turned to the Goa¡¯uld who¡¯s carefully listening to me. "What do you think? Can he convince you to make himself your right hand?"


    ¡°No chance. All he can count on is to be my representation in the most stinkiest prison that I can find.¡±


    ¡°I thought as much. Well, that''s enough for today. Bye.¡±


    With these words, I glanced to Apophis¡¯s face distorted by fear and anger, took a step back and teleported to the gate with Hiraishin. There I killed all the Jaffas in the area, typed the address of the neutral planet and went there. Then I came to my planet, where I used Hiraishin to be on my ship. Home sweet home. Well, as they say, business and entertainment must be apart. I need to sit down and think again about what I can do to achieve my plans.


    According to the results of the brainstorm, I came to the conclusion that I need to drink less, and went to sleep.


    Waking up, I began to remember the events of the series. If I want to study the ascension process, I need to meet with Oma Desala, a former Ukrainian woman named Sona Tse Salo. Because every Ukrainian know, origins of Ancients are Ukrainians. Oma lived still in those shaggy times, when Ancient only began to explore this galaxy, installing the star gates here.


    I know of places where it would be possible to meet her, I can enumerate Abydos, Chulak and Kheb - a mythical planet, in the future, Harsesis will be born - child of Apophis. I knew the all gate addresses that Jack entered into the computer. The Kheb was among them, but I didn''t know the exact address I need. To clarify this I needed Bratak, mentor of Teal''c. Required information could be found in his memory.


    I''ve ordered the ship''s computer to go to Chulak. All my surviving Jaffa were the inhabitants of Chulak. I entrusted them with a special mission - to find the former first warrior of Apophis, jaffa Bratak. For one thing I planned to get rid of already bored me subordinates. I can take care of myself, and I can use clones instead of scouts and messengers. Instead warriors I will hire servants, because servants can do clean up and cooking better than my harem.


    By transferring Jaffa to Chulak, I gave each of them a transmitter with which they could contact me. After three days of hovering in orbit, I received a signal that the target was found. I teleported to the transmitter, focusing on the chakra fuin placed on it.


    On the planet I was on a narrow street of a city. It was evening outside, and the sky only glowed a little in the west. There was no one around but my Jaffa.


    ¡°My God.¡± The scout bowed. ¡°Bratak is in the house across the street. Yonder.¡±


    I immediately cast a network of tracking spells. The search quickly ended. I mentally scanned the data from the magic video cameras and recognized the face of the target.


    ¡°You did a good job.¡± I answered to Jaffa. ¡°Tell the others they can stop searchings. Take these coins and give them to your brothers in faith. When each of you takes one of them in your hands, you will receive a reward for your service to me. You are free. Farewell.¡±


    With that, I cast an invisibility spell on myself and teleported closer to the target. In copper coins were invested fuinjutsu seal, which contained a hundred gold coins. It was ''severance pay''.


    Entering the house where Bratak was feasting, I put everyone to sleep and began to view the memories of the rebel Jaffa. I found the address of the Kheb in them. Not to waste time, I teleported back to my ship and my clone went to the gate, where he typed the address of the Kheb and walked into the portal, carrying a hyperspace beacon.


    I reached the planet I wanted in an hour. Teleported down, I was near a large castle in the Eastern style. The gate was open, and I passed through it without hindrance. I casted two protective spell based on chakra and magic, so I was hoping that they did not recognize me as Goa¡¯uld. Although much is not expected.


    I followed the path to the main house. Only through it  I could get into the interior of the Palace. I went inside and quickly found a local resident. My experience with Orlik has taught me how to detect entities like him.


    The ascendant appeared before me in the form of a Chinese monk in orange robes. It was not an illusion, but a material projection. Something similar could create my parasite. By the way, parasite sensing the ascended, began to scratch the seal that close entrance to its hole, just as the cat scratches at the door, sensing that the hostess butchering fish in the kitchen.


    "Greetings, my immaterial friend.¡± I said hello.


    ¡°You seek unity with Desala?¡±


    ¡°No, I have my own harem. I''m looking for knowledge about the ascension. I am Imhotep, God of Knowledge.¡±


    In parallel with the conversation, I launched diagnostic magic weaves, which were supposed to tell me who I was dealing with. Judging by the lack of reaction, the ascended not perceived the magic .


    ¡°Don''t put barriers between yourself and place where you stay.¡± Monk said some sort of clumsy.


    ¡°In life, I follow a simple principle: what I see is mine. The whole world around me belongs to me, it is a part of me, and therefore there are no barriers between it and me.¡±


    Apparently, the local warden did not like my answer, because he almost visibly frowned.


    ¡°By the way, do you have a name?¡± I asked.


    "It is not the name that defines a man, but he himself.¡±


    ¡°I understand, not a fool. I call you ¡®dude¡¯.¡± I gave out rap-ditties in the style of eight-tail jinchuriki. ¡°You know, dude, I''m interested in your unearthly wisdom, with which you rolled to such life.¡±


    "You must trust to the world, and then it will lift you up.¡±


    ¡°I''m sure. But I am interested in the technical aspects of this process. I mean, the Ancients achieved ascension through technology, not through all this trifle talking, philosophy, and faith in Oma Desala.¡±


    The smile faded from the monk''s face, and he looked at me gravely.


    ¡°This path is forbidden now.¡±


    ¡°I''m not going to follow this path. But as a God of knowledge, I must know about it.¡±


    ¡°Your heart is filled with pride. Only in humility will you be saved.¡± The monk began to drive his philosophy to me again. No, I can''t bear  more such talkatives. I have studied all these religions and philosophies well enough to know what the preachers meaning.


    "Believe in me and you will be saved.¡± I objected, rising into the air and surrounding myself with a Golden radiance. ¡°Mortals like you can not understand the wisdom of God. Your way is to worship me. My way is to take care of you. Just as the shepherd takes care of every lost sheep, so I think of your good. Open your mind, put aside doubt. You will find peace of mind and joy of heart in me. Let Oma guide you on the path of devotional service to me.¡±


    The monk lost the ability to speak from such a sermon, not expecting from me such impudence in the usurpation of the role of the enlightened. At this point, I cast a ¡®subordinate spell¡¯ on this monk. Spell gently entwined his consciousness, without affecting the typical patterns of thinking, but instilling boundless confidence in me. I have seen that this monk has great power. But not being able to sense the magical energy, he couldn''t resist my power. In the same way, a peasant controls a bull by passing a ring through his nose. No matter how strong the bull is, he always follows where the rope pulls him.


    Further communication with the ascended was a real torment to me. He strove to utter some profound phrase, instead of explaining everything in normal words. Apparently, in ascending process his language center suffered, so he could not communicate normally. Nothing, you''ll be cured.


    A couple of days later I teleported my harem to the planet, setting them in a castle with all the amenities. I sunk the Ha¡¯tak in the ocean, where it was await my orders, for one serta search of deposits of naquadaq in ocean. Anyway to ascended this metal don¡¯t need.


    Life on the Kheb began to please me. The climate here was mild, the nature beautiful, the harem was under hand. The farming and harvesting, there were no problems because my simple robots of Ancient and magic was in my service. I can say that now I have a real vacation.


    In parallel, I studied the ascended, pulling out of his mind information about the transition to another plane of existence, existence as the ascended, their society, rules and so on.


    As it turned out, this individual was not Ancient. He was an ordinary monk in China since Qin Shi Huang. One day Oma Desala visited him and gave him the keys to the ascension. After the death of old age at the age of ninety-six years, the monk went into the energy form of existence. After some time, he settled on this planet doing ''processing'' candidates for ascension.


    As a rule, on this planet lived those whom Oma considered worthy to go to the ''second stage'' of spiritual development. Such personalities were few, but from time to time they appeared. So my presence was not particularly outstanding. Even personal harem did not cause special complaints.


    So I lived on the planet, burning day after day. Of course, I spent a lot of time and effort researching the ascended, but I didn''t bother much either. A couple of times during this time, she visited us, Oma Desala, but I successfully disguised myself as a promising believer and did not cause suspicion.


    Interrupted this sinecura telepathic call from Jack on my ties with him. I would even call it a ¡®cry of despair¡¯. So squeezing as sausage. Like it''s not supposed to be anything important now. I scanned his mind and quickly located the address of the gate they had recently passed through. Then I teleported to the gate on the Kheb, went to the right address, and there immediately teleported a couple of kilometers to the Hiraishin seal on the Colonel.


    ¡°What''s going on here?¡± I asked, looking around. I found myself in a meadow, where here and there in picturesque poses lay shooted Jaffa. Additionally there was corpses of earthlings.


    ¡°They... they killed each other.¡± Jack replied, staring at me with a mad look.


    I went ahead and looked into the cloth tent with a claim to Royal execution. Inside was Teal''c corpse with hole in his head, Sha¡¯re with her chest charred, and Daniel with a similar hole in his kidneys. The latter was still alive, though on his last legs.


    ¡°Save her.¡± He whispered, looking at his wife.


    ¡°How did you come to this?¡± I asked, casting a mind-reading spell on the only living witness.


    The picture that appeared in my mind slightly clarified the situation. Daniel entered the tent and started a conversation with Goa¡¯uld. She in response decided to torture him to death. Daniel used my fuinjutsu, but I didn''t consider a couple of things. First, Sha¡¯re not just paralyzed, she literally numb, frozen with outstretched hand. The very same moment Daniel twisted from recoil use of chakra. Some of this energy passed through his body, so he fell to the floor in a fit of pain.


    At that moment Teal''c entered the tent. He looked down at Daniel and with a clear conscience slapped a charge from his gun to Sha¡¯re into her heart. Daniel, of course, could not stand this, and in anger began to shoot to Teal¡¯c, once in the vest. He responded with a shot to the stomach. Almost losing consciousness Daniel made the last shot to the forehead of the former Jaffa. The contest of skull and bullet ended with the victory of the last, and Teal''c, after brainstorming, decided to die.


    In the end, Jack slipped in to the tent, saw the whole ¡®Achtung¡¯. Daniel gave him the important task of praying to me, convincing him that only I could save them. Right, bitch. What can I do? Being would never forgive me death of two main characters.


    I cast a soul-holding spell on all three of them and turned to Jack.


    ¡°Get that meat to the Earth. I''ll deal with them there.¡±


    Once again scanning the surroundings, I noticed that share''s soul was in the first stage of ascension. I suspected something like that, but I couldn''t let it happen now. Another spell isolated the soul¡¯s attempts to escape. Sorry, not on my shift.


    Running up paratroopers grabbed the corpses and the wounded soldiers. We had to fight off another Jaffa attack on the way to the gate, but I did not hold back. Magic quickly turned two hundred mortals to ash.


    On the Earth, I ordered to take the bodies to hospital. Daniel was already dead by now.


    ¡°What happened?¡± Dr. Fraser rushed to me with questions.


    ¡°They died.¡± I diagnosed it. ¡°However, in their case it is not lethally.¡±


    The first thing I did was Sha¡¯re. I didn''t need people remembering all that was done by Goa¡¯uld named Amonet. First, I removed the snake from the body. First one fainted from the shock fuinjutsu, and then are unable to get out, choking with in its bearer. I disposed the worm. After that, I activated the resurrection spell, scanning the subject''s memories in one selectively erasing them.


    When she regained consciousness, she immediately began to call Daniel and ask where her child. Already unavailable to her memories, I realized that just a half hour before of my ''call'', she sent the child to the Kheb. We missed the nurse, because she just did not have time to get to the castle.


    Daniel was next in line. It was all very simple, because the body and soul were perfectly preserved thanks to the appropriate spells. Returning to life, he immediately rushed to his wife, with whom he began to hug, kiss and copulate. But last event did not happen, because there were a lot of witnesses, and the lovers got shy.


    I decided resurrect Teal''c at last. His brain was torn to shreds, and Goa¡¯uld ran away as they dragged him to the gate. I didn''t keep track of the worm. I had to send my clone to Abydos to find a suitable symbiont.


    When he awoke, Teal''c looked at me and said,:


    ¡°My God¡­¡± What? Maybe I connected something wrong in his brain? But another diagnostic spell is not revealed any pathologies. Meanwhile, Teal''c continued. ¡°Oh ...Imhotep, let me serve you.¡±


    He got out of bed and knelt down.


    ¡°You recognize me as your God?¡± I asked.


    ¡°Yeah. You are God! Your power is immense. After death, my soul was near my body, and I saw all the miracles that you did. It''s not technology of Goa¡¯ulds. This is the true power of the deity.¡±


    "I''m glad that you finally realize my greatness, but I don''t need slaves, warriors, and admirers. I returned my Jaffas to Chulak long time ago. You can just pray to me and continue your service as a member of the SG-1 team. By the way, can you tell me why you killed Sha¡¯re?¡±


    ¡°She was Amonet. Every false gods must be destroyed. Their very existence is insult to you.¡±


    "Only I decide, what is insult me and what doesn''t insult.¡± I snapped.


    ¡°Of course, my God.¡± Teal''c bowed his head even lower.

 Chapter 6.08 - Stargate

    That''s, how I can deal with these fanatics? They indulge to their own schizophrenia, and then arrange heretical cults, which form the image of an evil merciless bastard, demanding self-worship, obedience and making money in the cash register of the temple. People portray in their gods themselves, after which those who want to rise at any cost appear in religion, and they will use the images of the gods to take their place.


    "Don''t dare worship me here. Only my priests have that right. And the only priest I have around is Jack O''Neill. Understood?


    ¡°Yes, my God.¡±


    ¡°Wonderful.¡±


    I turned around and went to see two other patients.


    ¡°Daniel, we need to talk.¡±


    ¡°Yes, my God.¡± Oh, no, not again. Did they conspire while they were in the other world?


    We went to Dr. Fraser''s office, and then I put up a sound protect shield.


    ¡°You owe me a lot. Extraction of goa¡¯uld from her head - it''s not the same cost as resurrecting the three dead people.¡±


    "I am grateful to you, Imhotep.¡±


    ¡°It is not enough.¡±


    ¡°What can I do?¡±


    ¡°Nothing. That''s the problem.¡± I paused, considering the situation. ¡°Okay, let¡¯s be as is. You are my debtor now. Your wife, Share, in any case must not leave the Earth. If she pass through the gate or fly away in a spaceship, she will die at the same moment.¡±


    ¡°What?... Why?¡±


    ¡°Because those are the rules. She should have died. And for all those who knew her, so it should be.¡±


    ¡°What about her father?¡±


    "The people of Abydos saw that she was dead. It is not necessary to excite their minds with stories about the sudden resurrection. Although, it is not such a miracle for Goa¡¯ulds. The sarcophagus could do the same. But as you know, that the more important thing is that, Goa¡¯ulds believed in her death?¡±


    ¡°Kasuf will want to attend her funeral.¡±


    ¡°Tell him that Earthlings conducted experiments on his daughter and disposed her corpse.¡±


    ¡°Are you know what happened to my son?¡± Daniel changed the subject.


    ¡°What a stupid question? Of course I know.¡±


    After a few seconds of silence, Daniel said:


    ¡°You know, but you won''t say to me.¡±


    ¡°Exactly. You owe me. Do not call the gods to help every time if you want to clean your ass. It is all, and call Sha¡¯re to me. I need to talk to her, too.¡±


    ¡°Ok.¡±


    Daniel went out, and Dr. Fraser came into the office.


    ¡°Imhotep, this is a miracle. You were able to resurrect the dead.¡±


    ¡°Did you believe in me, too?¡± I asked suspiciously.


    ¡°What? Yes. I mean..... can you resurrect the rest of the dead?¡±


    ¡°And what will you pay?¡± I asked in the voice of a greedy Jew.


    ¡°Pay?¡±


    ¡°Yeah. Or are you still thought, I am here to make wonders for free?¡±


    ¡°But... you resurrected Teal''c, Daniel and his wife.¡±


    ¡°That cost paid. What is the Jewish habit of paying for a kilo and demanding for a ton? Do you really want to bankrupt me?¡±


    ¡°But¡­¡± The doctor¡¯s arguments ended, and at that moment embarrassing Sha¡¯re appeared at the door.


    ¡°Doctor, please give me a chance to talk to my patient.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, sure.¡± Frasier fussed and get out away.


    ¡°Sit¡± I pointed to a chair. She sat down, shrinking with fear and embarrassment. ¡°You wanted to ascend, right?¡±


    ¡°Me?... how?...¡±


    ¡°How do I know? I''m God. Didn''t Daniel tell you about me?¡±


    ¡°Told. While ago. He''s already buzzing my ears. What about my son?¡±


    "He''s there somewhere, among the distant stars. Maybe your husband can find him. Your road to the gate prohibited.¡±


    I cast a spell on Sha¡¯re, that was supposed to kill her if she will pass through the gate. I don''t need to change the game''s plot. At least not because of my interference. For one thing, this spell will watch over her and inform me of the beginning of the ascension process.


    ¡°I saved you. So you must play the role of beloved wife.¡± I continued my instructions. ¡°You can ascend in a couple of months, but not before.¡±


    ¡°Wonderful.¡±


    ¡°Well, since you''ve got figured out all, then you''re free to go.¡±


    The girl got up and left. I followed her out of the room.


    ¡°Imhotep, you''ve done a miracle!¡± Samantha Carter, who had just been admitted to the hospital, attacked me with question. I told them to keep all the nosy ones away before I finished my work.


    ¡°You finally believe, that I am God?¡± I asked.


    ¡°No, but... I thank you.¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t put ¡®thanks¡¯ in pocket.¡±


    "Are you not be touched by human gratitude?"


    ¡°I prefer to be touched not by gratitude, but by a beautiful girl.¡±


    ¡°What are you implying?¡±  Samantha was offended.


    ¡°My harem waiting me at home.¡±


    ¡°What? Harem?¡± She was even more offended. It is impossible to understand these women.


    I didn''t argue, but walked right to Jack.


    "Colonel, today you have witnessed the power of sincere prayer to me.¡±


    ¡°I think this is not an experience that I would like to repeat.¡± He answered.


    ¡°And that''s why I chose you. As they say, don''t utter God''s name in vain. With you, I can be sure that you will pray to me only in a really serious case.¡±


    ¡°Why are you helping us? Dr. Fraser told me you refused to resurrect dead soldiers.¡±


    ¡°The fate of the galaxy depends not on them but on you, and on me, of course.¡±


    ¡°And what stored in our fate?¡±


    ¡°Jack, Maybe Ancients accidentally replaced you? Why asking such abstruse questions?¡±


    ¡°Sorry. Probably getting old.¡±


    ¡°Ha ha. Now I recognize our brave Colonel. Don''t fill your head with mystical bullshit. For these mind experiments, you have Daniel. Just be Jack O''neill and don''t worry about anything.¡± I saw the General making his way through the crowd. ¡°Excuse me. I didn''t expect to be so late. Good luck.¡±


    I went to meet the local authorities.


    ¡°General, your people are alive and well.¡±


    ¡°Thank you, Imhotep. On behalf of the United States Air force command, I express my sincere gratitude to you.¡±


    ¡°You are welcome. I will send invoice to hundred tons of naquadaq.¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°It is joke. But you may think how to thank me on my next visit.¡±


    ¡°Fresh computer games? A selection of fantastic films? An invitation to Comic-Con?¡±


    ¡°Oh. The devil himself speaks through you. How can you tempt me like that? Good. I''ll visit you in a month, and we''ll discuss the size of the contribution.¡±


    ¡°I''ll wait.¡±


    ¡°And now I have to go. See you soon.¡±


    I went to the gate room, magically typed in the address of a neutral planet, and left Earth.


    On the Kheb in my room, I thought about what to do next. Now I''m just wasting my life. But the Being won''t be happy if I fail the mission, after it I won''t be happy. I have more or less figured out what the Ascension is, and came to the conclusion that I do not need such happiness even for free. The local ¡®dude¡¯ was not the most knowledgeable person, but even that was enough to understand that there is no free cheese.


    Ascension was a transition to another level of existence. Human consciousness no longer needed the brain and found support in the energy body formed in a special way from the bioenergies of the body. Theoretically, every person could ascend if he wanted to. But in practice there were two obstacles.


    First, you had to know how to create a viable ''body of light''. Here it was necessary or to be a Professor of Religious Sciences, or to engage in under the guidance of a teacher. But it was not the most terrible obstacle. The main problem was that the plan of existence of the ascended was separated from our world by an invisible veil. The ancients called it ''the invisible veil''. And there absolutely impossible to overcome this veil.


    For normal existence, the body of the ascended people had to exist behind this barrier. Only there were normal conditions to survive, not to dissipate like the morning fog. Even when the ascended manifested themselves in our world, they did it remotely, creating here their projection in multidimensional space. When my parasite ate Orlik, it easily pierced the invisible veil with its tentacles and pulled him to this side of veil. But ordinary mortals, including Ancient, were not able to do such trick.


    There were two ways to get past the barrier. The main thing was that you could ask ''Keeper of the gate'' - a special spiritual deity. This deity could literally drag a helpless soul through a tricky maze of traps. Also, there was possibility to make deal with Keeper, not directly, but through a broker.


    Oma Desala was broker. She searches promising people, and then with her channels punched them to the ascension. Of course, some preparation was required from such candidates to ascend, but in fact, nothing depended on them. They were grabbed by the scruff and ascended up.


    If you want, you could even go back. The Keeper of the gate was a rather good-natured deity, and could drag you back and forth at least ten times a day. Of course, if you have a payment. My informant did not know what exactly this payment is. After the ''descent'' the Keeper also created a new physical body for the passenger. It was an easy for him.


    The life of the ascended obeyed certain rules. ¡®Dude¡¯ didn''t know who invented these rules, but one of them was that you can''t create a cult to worship yourself and to obtain Bahion from the faithful peoples. Rather, against cults is especially nobody objected, but Bahion was considered as inviolable. Why such rules setted, no one explained to the Chinese dude, although knowledge about how to organize these cults was part of the ''knowledge package'' for all those who received the ''body of light''.


    The second method of ascension was a device invented by the Ancients. It could pierce a hole in the veil and shove the soul of the ascended to that plan behind veil. This is how some of the Ancients who came to our galaxy ascended in their time. But interestingly, after they were struck by the Plague, rest of Ancients decided not to ascend with device. Moreover, the use of the device was declared as illegal, new one who wish to ascend ascended by early ascendeds with help of ¡®Keeper¡¯.


    In general, this state of existence caused a fair amount questions. I also found signs that existence as the ascended is an intermediate stage. From time to time the ascended beings ''went to better worlds'', from where they did not return.


    Only a few hundred of the millions of ascended Ancients have survived to this day. And just Oma Desala was actually the only one who actively interacted with the material world. At the same time, ascended rookies pretty soon went to ''better worlds'', while the old-timers continued suspended to immortal existence.


    In general, having studied all this kitchen, I came to an unambiguous conclusion that such ascension not for me. The ascended had a lot of useful knowledge for me, there were interesting opportunities, but all these strange rules and events only convinced me that I should not follow them under any circumstances.


    Having come to such conclusions, I decided to follow my basic plan. And so I spent more than a year studying the ascension. It''s time to return to our rams, that is, the Stargate and the knowledge of the Ancients.


    The first thing I moved to Ha¡¯tak, where I started to the create crystal of Vritas. I left my harem on the planet, I will not have enough time for women. After three days, the perfect soulcrystal was completely ready for use. I performed the relocation procedure and changed my body to inorganic.


    After all, human¡¯s body is not purposed for comfortable life. Even in the most perfect condition, it feels discomfort, pain and fatigue. It''s almost imperceptible, because you just get used to it, but when there is an opportunity to compare with what a normal life is, everything becomes obvious. Even ascendeds are also not eager to return to the mortal human body.


    Accustomed to the new-old body, I commanded the ship to go to the planet with the training device of the Ancients. While flying, I created in my head anatomically reliable model of the Ancients¡¯ brain. I had to emulate it to a cellular level, which wasn''t so easy. At least my ship had its own bioscanner of the ancients that could test how well I could pretend to be human.


    When I reached the device, I fearlessly looked into it, and received a charge of information to my organosilicon brains. Then I stopped the process of unpacking the information, replaced the cells with metal-ceramic analogues, while keeping all the information recorded in them, made a full copy of the data package, and then launched the unpacking of knowledge on the ''new hardware''. Now I could not worry about the destruction of my brain, and if something went wrong, I can correct the error, and then restart the process of unpacking again.


    The program of the Ancients contained many interesting trojans that regulated the worldview, attitude to other species of living beings, set standards of behavior in the society of the Ancients, and so on. In general, after completing the training program, humans turned out to be an ideal brick of society, which could serve as a reliable gear, and did not try to organize riots or promote revolutionary ideas. But that''s not what struck me most.


    When I watched the process of unpacking knowledge earlier, I had no idea how much different the Ancients and humans. The difference was that humans were essentially monkeys. All their consciousness, as well as millions of years ago, was optimized for the solution of problems arising in monkeys. Throw a stone, sharpen a stick, swim across the river, jump on a tree. Such problems were solved by monkeys and their descendants - by people.


    Ancient went further. For tens of thousands of years, they have purposefully grown beings capable of directly understanding the quantum entanglement of atoms, the quark structure of matter, the corpuscular-wave nature of light, the quantum nature of space, the essence of the flow of time, and so on.


    They didn''t need theories, explanations, and interpretations to understand what real physics was about. They thought on a quantum level. They did not see themselves as a monkey that had reached space technology, but as a cluster of quarks and leptons that had acquired a mind and a fixed body shape. These two approaches of perception of world were so different on a fundamental level that it was now clear to me why the Ancients looked with such contempt at the other races.


    Now I was consciousness, existing at the expense of magic. To understand the knowledge of the Ancients, I had to learn to think like them. And it was so difficult that I had to literally break my world view logic over and over again, knocking out the logic of the monkey. Because at the level of quantum physics, all the postulates of ''normal perception'' turned out to be false. Suffice it to say that in reality the present could depend on the future. The concept of ''distance in space'' did not exist in principle. And the law of conservation of energy was only a special case of much more cunning laws.


    In general, I had to spend on the study of the basics for three months, given the fact that my metal-ceramic brains worked millions of times faster than any Earth supercomputer, and hundred thousands of times faster than the brains of people. But after that I was able to study all that injected knowledge of Ancient in my brain.


    If earlier I thought that I study ten percent of this information, now I understood that we are talking about one thousandth of a percent. And this despite the fact that the knowledge base was really ''child''. Anyway, I got so immersed in science that forgot to think about all the Earthlings and Goa¡¯ulds.


    Naturally, the first thing I started to study was Stargate technology. Then I waited another bummer. No, I understood perfectly well how the gate works, how it assembled, how to repair or create it from scratch, what tricks with reality can be done with their help, and so on.


    The only thing I didn''t understand was why they worked. That is, at some point, all the explanations were buried in the phrase: ''In practice, it works like this. For more information, refer to the dedicated directory.'' Not having this reference, I could not understand the main thing - how to reproduce these techniques with using of magic or chakra.


    Moreover, for the Ancients, my magic would have looked like a mad dirty hack of the laws of the Universe. Even their theories could not explain why chakra or mana acted on the quantum level in this way and not in another way. This level of the universe, and so was extremely difficult for perception, and after mixing Ancient science with magic I generated an absolutely impossible to understand wild heresy.


    Mantra signal interrupted my digging in Ancient knowledge. I didn''t even remember what it was at first, but after a minute I realized I was being called on the radio that I''d left to Jack. I have been ignoring telepathic calls, just skipping around my consciousness. But the spell operated on the level of physics, and therefore it was impossible to not notice.


    ¡°Hello, Imhotep speaking.¡± I answered.


    The answer was the sound of the phone colliding with the floor.


    ¡°Imhotep, hi. I can''t get response from you long time.¡± Jack''s voice was heard a few seconds later.


    ¡°Yeah, I was a little busy. What happened there?¡±


    "I''m on Thor''s ship right now, and he''s asking for my help against the metal bugs. I thought your presence would be useful.¡±


    ¡°Yeah. I promised Thor I''d deal with them. Are you in earth orbit now?¡±


    ¡°Oh ...Yes.¡±


    ¡°Nice. I''ll be there in five minutes.¡±


    I stopped all my experiments, assembled my body into a humanoid form, and teleported to the gate on the planet in which my ship was orbiting. There I dialed the address of the Earth and let forward my shadow clone. He safely passed through the protective flap, opened it, and then I passed through the gate.


    ¡°Good afternoon. Tell greetings from me to General Hammond.¡± I turned to the Marines.


    Right from the base, I located Jack¡¯s position and teleported to him.


    The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.


    ¡°Hey, Jack.¡± I said to the Colonel, going to the unconscious Thor. ¡°What''s that on TV? A Comedy show?¡±


    Jack looked at the TV screen, where Thor was explaining something about the technique of fighting with the replicators.


    ¡°Yeah, you''re hilarious.¡± He agreed. "Thor wants from me to blow up the whole ship and myself for one thing.¡±


    ¡°Here it is, the spirit of a true kamikaze. But I don''t think you have to blow me up. Besides, if Thor doesn''t want this ship, I''ll take it. Why blow up a house just because it has cockroaches?¡±


    ¡°Can you handle it?¡±  Jack came up to me and also stood up next to the alien.


    ¡°Easily. I''m God. The only question is how much benefit I can get out from this situation. So, what do we have here? The patient is more dead than alive. And he died a hundred years ago.¡±


    ¡°I talked to him about ten minutes ago.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, that''s the weirdest part. Okay, let''s deal with the bugs, and then I''ll try to figure out what the hell is going on with Thor.¡±


    The diagnostic spell showed that the Asgard don¡¯t have any soul, but instead in his head has a lot of weird electronics. At the same time, the organic part of body is functioning, and it cannot be called completely dead.


    ¡°I''m injured.¡± The melancholy voice of the God of war rang out. ¡°The replicators have damaged my moving system. And I can''t use the medical unit because the replicators have probably already reprogrammed it.¡±


    ¡°Aha. If you''re in conscious, then we''ll deal with you first. Is your move system mechanical or biological?


    I began to diagnose the state of the organism in front of me in more detail. I was not familiar with Asgard anatomy, let alone biochemistry. And their electronic part at all was based on the element base incomprehensible to me. It was not similar to Ancients technology.


    ¡°It is a joint biomechanical technology designed by Asgards¡­¡±  Thor said.


    ¡°Okay, let''s increase the efficiency of our information exchange.¡±


    ¡°Oh ...for use as a carrier platform of individual species of our civilization.¡± In order to improve the information exchange Thor sped up his speech four times, and now his voice resembled the chirping of a cricket. Well, in principle, is also an option.


    ¡°What is need to fix?¡±


    ¡°The conducting channels for delivery of biological components of physiological liquids are broken. They should form a large-cell structure¡­¡±


    While Thor was talking, I figured it out for myself. The blood channels of the asgards were not located in the same way as in humans. They had no muscles at all. They could move only thanks to the low-power hydraulic drives built into the bones. I did not seek a full recovery of the body, but simply patched it up, stopping the leakage of blood and lymph. After that, I used a spell to improve the overall tone of the body by filling each cell of the body with energy. Prolonged or frequent use of this spell was harmful, but in case injuries or a strong fatigue it literally worked miracles, returning organism to life.


    ¡°How are you feeling?¡± I asked, running the spell with minimal force.


    ¡°Your system of supplying biological tissues with energy is extremely effective.¡± Thor murmured. Jack from such a sound, grimaced, and went away, and began rubbing his ears. "If you increase the power supply a couple of times, I''ll be able to restore my biological part in a few minutes.¡±


    ¡°Aha. Well, then we''ll use a factor of ten.¡± I turned the power to standard.


    ¡°St-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O!!!!...¡± Thor cried out enthusiastically. The sound he made was like the roar of a momentum gaining turbine. ¡°O ...O-O-O-O-O-o-o-o-o-o-o- O-O-O-O-O-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-P.¡± I lowered the power to ten percent from standart. ¡°My systems aren''t designed for such kind of load.¡±


    ¡°Okay, I''ll put twenty percent. And what about the electronic part? I see they damaged too.¡±


    ¡°I isolated the damaged areas and cut off the power there.¡±


    ¡°I can restore the main power lines and the containment to prevent contact with the biological fluids.¡±


    ¡°That will help. Then I can walk, albeit with reduced efficiency.¡±


    I used magic and chakra to patch up the ''bones'' of the skeleton.


    ¡°Ready. Check it. And can you tell me briefly how you fight the replicators that invaded the ship?¡±


    ¡°We''re isolating the infected areas of the ship.¡±


    ¡°That''s all?¡± I was surprised.


    ¡°Our weapons are ineffective against replicators. We''d rather destroy the entire ship than destroy all the replicators. But even that is impossible, because the self-destruct system is blocked by the replicators in the first place.¡±


    ¡°Well, I''d do the same. In general, the situation is clear to me. It remains only to take samples of replicators for study. Jack, are you gonna walk with me or stay with Thor?¡±


    ¡°Where''s safer?¡±


    ¡°With me, of course.¡±


    ¡°Thor, buddy, don''t be bored.¡± Jack said goodbye to the Asgard, and followed me.


    I scanned the adjacent compartments and headed for the nearest Replicator, it was chewing hard on the bulkhead. Coming close, I grabbed a mechanical beetle, turned it in my hands, and then tore off the foot and threw it in my mouth. The Replicator screamed with displeasure. I left him, and it crawled resentfully into the hole in the bulkhead.


    ¡°Is it tasty?¡± Jack asked me doubtfully.


    ¡°Normally. Just not enough beer. Let''s go back.¡±


    As we walked, I used my vritras body to connect to the Replicator blocks. Those generally used Ancient technology, so I did not have problems with information exchange. Quantum program has proved to be unexpectedly difficult, plus each Replicator¡¯s block can share data and code with their neighbors. And that''s the reason they can''t be reprogrammed. If you modify your code only in one part of the replicators, then they will be able to restore the original code by copying it from the neighbor blocks.


    Although I have not yet fully studied all the knowledge of the Ancients, in this case, they didn¡¯t have special technological secrets. In fact, the replicators were rather primitive creatures. The main threat of them was high resistance to damage and the ability to reproduce. And the inability to rewrite the current program, of course.


    After analyzing this technology for five minutes, I came to the conclusion that the easiest way to neutralize the threat in this situation is to completely wipe the program from all replicators on the Ship. Actually, I was going to use a technology similar to the replicators themselves.


    It was supposed to be a self-replicating spell that would connect to each Replicators¡¯ blocks, copy itself to infect adjacent blocks, and wait for my command. After receiving the activation signal, the spell will simply overloaded the processor, erasing the memory in it. After that, the Replicator block could only be thrown out to the landfill or given to the smelter. The security mechanisms built into it will physically destroy the processor and the power cell. It was standard security Protocol of the Ancients, which has prevented the transfer of their technology to other races.


    ¡°So, plan is ready in the first approximation.¡± I said. ¡°But I have a few questions.¡±


    ¡°What are you interested in?¡± Thor said.


    ¡°Jack, you were going to fishing. Why you take with you a radio for communication with me?¡±


    ¡°Well... I thought I''d test it where no one would disturb me. I tried a few times, uh... mentally refer to you, but it never worked.¡±


    ¡°Yes, I was very busy. Well, that''s settled. Now a question for you, Thor. This ship is already lost to you. So, after destroying all the replicators, I''ll take him it¡±


    ¡°Why do you need this ship?¡±


    ¡°I''m interested in Asgard technology.¡±


    "We could volunteer to give to you knowledge about our technology. We are at war with the replicators, and any ship is extremely important to us.¡±


    ¡°Um... Good. Then I think we should head to your galaxy. There I will be able to study your technologies, and for one will help in the fight against the replicators and other your problems.¡±


    ¡°I would be very grateful for your help.¡±


    ¡°Nice. Jack, do you want to play a computer game?¡±


    ¡°Game? Do we have time for games?¡±


    ¡°Work hard, play harder. Look what I''ve got.¡±


    I used the chakra with earth element to create a futuristic weapon. It resembled a cannon from the game cephs of Crysis.


    http://www.wallpaperup.com/uploads/wallpapers/2015/03/08/634225/79fa8b862c27e77b3f856885c577d403.jpg</a>


    ¡°What is it?¡± Jack asked, carefully inspecting the product.


    ¡°What do your instincts say?¡±


    ¡°Is it a space Hyper-gun to fight alien bugs?¡±


    ¡°You hit the point. Keep. You put your right hand in here, you keep your left hand here and there, there''s got to be a trigger inside.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, I did.¡±


    ¡°You can shoot once for a sample. Don''t worry, the charges only work on replicators.¡±


    Jack pointed his weapon at the wall and fired. A ball of blue light flew out of the muzzle and silently splashed over the obstacle.


    ¡°Well, how is it, cool?¡±


    "Don''t you have anything more familiar?"


    ¡°Oh, you, darkness. Okay, here you go.¡±


    I created a second gun with a more human design.


    http://crysis-russia.com/datas/users/1-crysis2-weapon-x-43_mike.jpg</a>


    Jack grabbed weapon, tried her on, then fired. This time the charge was red, a booming hooting sound was emitted during the shot, plus the weapon had a decent recoil.


    ¡°That''s what I truly understand.¡± The Colonel was impressed.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go hunting.¡± I waved my left hand. On right hand I have already cephs weapon.


    After that we went to the Central control room of the ship and there about ten minutes shoot the replicators climbing from all cracks. Beetles when hitting by my charge froze as motionless statues, and from the bullets of Jack scattered with shrapnel.


    ¡°All right, that''s enough.¡± I concluded. "The bugs will eat the whole ship while we''re having fun."


    ¡°I thought we were supposed to clear this room from replicators.¡± Jack said, offended.


    ¡°No. I just wanted to shoot at moving targets. Okay, I need a few minutes. Don''t let those things get to me.¡± I issued quest of epic level of difficulty.


    Alone, Jack was already much more difficult to cope with the pressing crowds of mechanical beetles. I formed the right spell, the parameters of which I brought to mind during the shootout, and then set it on replicators and began to support the process of reproduction, supplying magical energy. Finally, when Jack was about to be flogged and torn to pieces, I activated the spell. All replicators immediately froze, depicting statues of themselves.


    ¡°Ready.¡±


    ¡°That was close.¡± Jack winced while getting up.


    ¡°Let''s report to Thor that the problem with the replicators are solved.¡±


    When I got to the right room, I found that Thor was already tinkering with the controls of the ship.


    ¡°How is it?¡±


    "The ship''s instruments indicate that the replicators have stopped acting.¡± Thor murmured. "But I''ll have to spend quite a bit more time before the ship can function properly.¡±


    "Then how do we get to your galaxy?" I asked.


    "I will contact my brethren, and they will transport you on another ship."


    ¡°Well, I have my own ship. It may well reach your galaxy on my own.¡±


    ¡°Then I can give you the coordinates of our planet. And while you''re flying, I''ll explain the details of our agreement to the High Council of Asgard.¡±


    ¡°Nice. You sure you don''t want to come with us?¡±


    ¡°Unfortunately, I have a lot of responsibilities that I have to perform. But I''ll be watching your progress.¡±


    "I hope I''m not going to another galaxy." Jack asked.


    ¡°No. I can send you back to your base.¡± Thor replied. ¡°Thanks for your help, Jack.¡±


    Jack did not have even a second somehow to react, as he was surrounded by white light, and the device the Asgard teleported him back to Earth. To say goodbye properly, I created a chakra clone, which with Hiraishin moved to the base of the Stargate.


    ¡°These asgards are simple guys. Neither Hello nor goodbye.¡± I said to the Colonel when I was near him.


    ¡°I noticed.¡± He agreed.


    ¡°Are you going to fish now?¡±


    ¡°Probably, Yes. We saved Earth already, didn¡¯t we?¡±


    ¡°Yes, now it''s time to rest.¡±


    ¡°And this thing?...¡±


    In the hands of Jack was still a weapon to fight against replicators. I did redo the spell, so now it was just a toy gun. All visual effects and recoil remained, but it will not cause harm to anyone anymore. Even to the replicators.


    ¡°Take it. And if you want, you can use the radio again.¡±


    ¡°Nice.¡± Jack got mentioned device and twisted it in his hands.


    ¡°And here''s your consolation prize for defeating the replicators.¡±


    I held out a fishing hook. Jack took it and began to consider.


    ¡°It''s a little unsportsmanlike, but any fish can¡¯t resist the hook. With it, you can win the world championship in fishing.¡±


    ¡°Uh... Thanks.¡±


    I put a special spell on the hook, which was supposed to inspire though to fish that this thing is the best dish of all that they met in life.


    ¡°Okay, say hi to Samantha and Daniel. How''s Teal''c?¡±


    ¡°I''m sick of his requirements to organize the cult worship to you. I had to agree to a weekly prayer service in your honor.¡±


    ¡°Hmm... Well, tell him, his God remember him.¡±


    ¡°Nice.¡±


    ¡°I gotta go. Be happy.¡±


    On this clone dissipated.


    Meanwhile, on the ship, I was discussing with ¡®Thor the biorobot¡¯ about procedure of my delivery in the galaxy. My clone left on hattak sent the ship to Earth. An hour later, he arrived and hovered near the Asgard¡¯s ship. By this point, I had already received the coordinates for the jump and managed to talk to those who were supposed to meet me on the spot.


    I teleported to my ship and gave the command to enter hyperspace. I had three hours to fly. However, this jump exhaust almost all fuel reserves. So for the return trip, I''ll have to create a few ZPM (Zero Point Module). I have already studied the technology of their production, but have not conducted real experiments.


    Coming out of hyperspace, I appeared in orbit of a planet in the Hades galaxy, which was the home world of the asgards. Almost immediately, I received a signal to establish a video link.


    ¡°Greetings, Imhotep. I''m Heimdal. The Asgard Council has instructed me to assist you in developing weapons against replicators, as well as any other research.¡±


    ¡°Good afternoon. Where can we meet?¡±


    ¡°I will give you the coordinates for the teleport.¡±


    ¡°Um... it will be difficult for me to jump into this place from orbit at once. Where can I park my ship? I think I''ll fly over that point first and then land the ship.¡±


    ¡°Good. I''m giving you the coordinates of the landing site.¡±


    I came down from orbit, flying over the specified place and, having determined the exact position, opened to there a magical portal and send through it my shadow clone. Such cunning movements were required because I did not have a Hiraishin mark at the end point. After that, I landed the ship and teleported to my clone.


    ¡°Hail to you, Heimdall.¡± I simultaneously put on marks of chakra and magic to the desired body. There was full of asgards, and they were all similar one to another like peas in a pod.


    ¡°Nice to meet you. Commander Thor said you were able to destroy all the replicators on his ship.¡±


    ¡°Yeah. But this technology is tied only to me, so you can''t replicate it. To help you, I need to study your technology.¡±


    ¡°I understand. Our library is at your service.¡±


    "But before we deal with the Replicator problem, I''d like to study your cloning technology. I''m particularly interested in how it came about.¡±


    ¡°The invention of the technology of transplantation of consciousness is an important milestone in the development of our civilization. I will tell you the whole story in detail.¡±


    "I''m afraid the transmission of information through speech is too slow. Do you have the ability to provide me with information with ancient technology storage device?


    ¡°Yeah, wait a minute. The necessary information will be copied to a suitable storage and delivered here.¡±


    Soon, at the table at which we sat, appeared familiar to me the Ancient storage device. I took it and plugged it into the magic computer that was my whole body. Examination of the information demanded about ten minutes.


    In short, the story was simple. Once to the Milky Way galaxy arrived Ancients. They immediately began to make themselves as at home, oblivious to the fact that there were already living civilizations of Knox and Ferling, as well as several planets inhabited by asgards and Unos. In principle, there was a lot of free space, so new neighbors were received with cordiality. However, it quickly became clear that the Ancients were the more arrogant assholes. They extolled their knowledge, technology, and most importantly, their immortality.


    After a thousand years, it became apparent that the Ancients were indeed immortal. Generations of diplomats of all other races renewed, but the Ancients were represented by the same persons who did not hesitate to call their neighbors as short-lived.


    Then the Asgard Council decided to develop a technology to achieve personal immortality. These studies were unsuccessful for a long time, until one of the Ancients shared with the asgards the technology of copying consciousness into another body.


    It was exactly copying, that is, creating a new personality in a new body, politicians demanded immediate results, so, the scientists of the asgards, slightly changed this technology and declared it as a transfer of consciousness. A clone was to act as the recipient. After the copying process was completed, the ''original'' consciousness was simply destroyed by a directed release of energy, destroying the brain. Cloning technology, by the way, gave the same Ancient buddy.


    Since then, Asgard consciousness has been copied from one clon to another, ensuring the ''continuous'' existence of the individual. The first to experience this technology were Council members who were afraid of dying of old age. They later made the procedure of consciousness transfer almost as mandatory.


    There were attempts to rewrite consciousness not in clones, but in children, but they ended up by ''destruction'' of the person - the recipient showed not those qualities of character which were at ''original''. To prevent this, sexual reproduction was banned.


    A few hundred years later, discovered a gradual degradation of consciousness. Copy errors overlapped each other, making the identity of the clone is a bit dumber and retarded from each copying process. Then the technology of creation of cyborgs at which part of memory and mental functions was realized at the expense of computers was invented. Gradually, cyborgization developed, and many parts of the Asgards replaced their body to mechanisms. In addition, the size of their skull has been significantly increased to accommodate more powerful computers that can ''help'' to biological brains to make decisions.


    At the moment, the asgards were a civilization of computers that use organic parts as a kind of ''talismans'', ensuring compliance of these creatures to origin Asgards that once inhabited the Hades galaxy.


    In their electronic program at the most basic level, it was stated that the ''intelligent being'' is only a computer that has a biological component. But the technology of cloning was imperfect, so at the moment, the biological tissue is quite quickly destroyed, which required the creation of new clones. And with every copy operation, the identities in these computers were being destroyed more and more.


    Now ''the best minds'' of Asgard race fought over the solution to this problem, but computers were not able to invent anything new, and the biological part¡¯s intelligence was close to the mice. And most importantly, the Asgards¡¯ didn''t have a soul, in result they could not come up with brilliant ideas. After all, the soul is a necessary element for any kind of creativity.


    It was also quite amusing to discover that some of the asgards occasionally spontaneously acquired a soul. I think it was the work of some universal law of nature that pushed souls into vessels capable of providing a conscious existence.


    Asgard named soul settling process as a critical failure, so that the body of each of them was appropriate sensor. As soon as someone''s soul moved into the body, Asgard was immediately sent for resettlement to a new host. Obviously, with such a copy, the soul remained in the old body, which was immediately will be destroyed.


    After studying the information, I shared my findings with Heimdal.


    ¡°In General, I can say that most likely you are a victim of directed sabotage by the Ancients, who used the memory copy technology to totally destruction of your race.¡± I concluded.


    Asgard literally hung on such news.


    ¡°Me... ask... I need... complete the cloning operation.¡±


    ¡°I see that your body was possessed by someone''s soul.¡±


    As a mage with experience, I could see other people''s souls almost effortlessly. And now I saw an almost natural obsession. At least, the soul furiously trying to subdue the body. Maybe she wants to say something.


    I cast a spell on Heimdahl to create astral shells. They served as a mediator between the soul and the physical body, facilitating their interaction.


    ¡°Please ... help us.¡± Heimdal Said in a different voice. ¡°We... watch¡­¡±


    In the head of Asgard something loud snapped and voice stopped. The body stood up and walked towards the exit with wooden steps. A pair of asgards rushed to him, helping with the transport, and his deputy addressed me.


    ¡°Excuse me. It was another critical failure. Despite all his genius, Heimdal is quite often faced with this problem. He''ll be ready to continue in half an hour.¡±


    ¡°Certainly. In the meantime, I''d like to study the history of your confrontation with the replicators. Can you write this information to a storage?¡± I gave already cleared storage device of the Ancients.


    ¡°Undoubtedly. You will need to wait a few minutes.¡±


    While poor Heimdal rid from the ghost in his head, I learned about the ''fight'' of Asgard with the replicators. Actually, it was possible to call it wrestling with a stretch. Already available weapons proved ineffective, and they could not invent a new in principle. So all that remained for the Asgards was to surrender one world after another, following the same battle patterns that the replicators also won with the same strategy.


    After thinking about the current situation, I came to the conclusion that there was no point in saving what was left of the Asgard race. They were just talking computers with limited software.


    But the soul has entered to the Heimdal body interested me. This was a typical ghost - the soul of a living being, who managed to cling to the material plan and prevent his departure for rebirth. From the ascended ghost was distinguished by the fact that he existed on this side of the ''invisible veil¡¯, and also had serious problems with maintaining awareness and obtaining energy.


    I was especially surprised by the fact that the soul was able to move into the computer. In principle, this was not surprising. I myself was that still unknown type crature. But there was almost a direct connection between the soul and the computer. I wanted to study this phenomenon, and along the way to help the souls of the asgards. I saw Heimdall¡¯s original soul. At least she associated herself with that name. But the last Asgard died thirty thousand years ago.


    ¡°Please forgive me.¡± Biorobot said to me while entering in room.


    ¡°Are you Heimdal?¡±


    ¡°Yeah. I''m ready to continue our conversation. You said something about the soul.¡±


    ¡°Yeah. At the very beginning, at the first copying of the person, you killed all true Asgards. And now, you are soulless biorobots now, incapable of development and having no sense of existence.¡±


    ¡°Your words sound offensive. Ancients addressed to us with such expressions on face. Meanwhile, our science has not discovered any evidence of the existence of the soul.¡±


    ¡°Opposite. You have already discovered this evidence and developed a system to prevent the connection between the biorobot and the soul. You call this process with the term ''critical failure''.¡±


    ¡°You want to say that at the time of failure we become true ourselves? But we have a lot of evidence that such events lead to changes in behavior, change of values, and sometimes to the appearance of destructive tendencies. Some of the defective carriers even tried to kill themselves.¡±


    ¡°That is exactly what soul provide himself. I want to note that not always in the body of the biorobot is possessed by the soul of the Asgard, whose personality is contained in the memory. In such cases, the new personality replaces the old one, which leads to changes in behavior. As for destructive tendencies, some souls may find your such existence unacceptable. After all, you actually perverted the very concept of life. Such souls may seek to destroy the copy of own consciousness because they are aware that biorobots are not ourselves.¡±


    ¡°Your words require deep understanding.¡±


    ¡°Certainly. And I want to add that in the current state your civilization is doomed to extinction. You are only machines that are forced to use biological components in their composition. Tissue copying occurs with errors that are quite natural for a living organism. And since you are not actually living beings, these errors cannot be corrected by the standard methods of living beings. So your civilization is a machine with a finite state, and that state is very close to end.¡±


    ¡°I understood.¡± Heimdall nodded.


    I found his soul again. Only this time she barely touched the electronic brain, so the interference protection didn''t work. Um... original approach. If you think about it, in thirty thousand years you could hone your computer skills to such an extent that the thoughts of a real person could be perceived by a biorobot as their own. Hence the legendary ''genius'' of some personalities.


    "It''s going to take me a while to figure out a way to help you. I suggest we take a break now and meet tomorrow to discuss the situation.¡±


    ¡°Nice. We will contact you when we are ready to continue the discussion.¡±


    I got up and teleported to my ship.


    Sitting on the throne in the cabin of the ship, I began to think about my possible actions. First of all, I should not have changed the balance of power in the Asgard¡¯s war with the Replicators. On the other hand, I don''t have to be too strict with the Canon. Asgards decided to die at the very end of the tenth season, so their survival will not greatly affect the final. After all, there must be other game figures in somewhere, and they could have changed something.


    As for my help, now I have three interesting puzzle elements: asgards, their souls and... replicators. What would happen if I put them together?


    I knew from the show that the replicators were able to reduce themselves to such a size that the human eye could no longer distinguish them. So I was pretty sure I could do it again without hovering in the time zone.


    Further. The souls of Asgard can affect biorobots. But I''m not sure whether they affect the electronic part or the biological part. I will need to invent a technology that can reproduce some form the astral shells that will bind the soul and the material body. I don''t need my soul to fall out of my body from one slap.


    Well, the third problem is that I need to ''resurrect'' the souls of Asgard, and not just any astral entities who wanted to get the body. So, to the previous technology will have to attach the module ''authorization'', which controls the compliance of the soul to the specified parameters.


    And, of course, it is necessary to solve the problem of achieving immortality. It was so passionately longed for Asgard. Hence, we need some way of resurrection of the dead, which will not lead to uncontrolled multiplication of the resulting mutants.


    In general, the task was difficult, interesting and useful for me. In addition, I was able to apply the knowledge of the Ancients in practice and, if possible, cross them with magic. Although I do not plan to give magic abilities to Asgards. Here we have the genre ''coooper'', not ''space elves''.


    By the time of the next meeting, I had already sketched out in what direction I need to dig to achieve the result. Plans were huge, so when I arrived at the meeting, I was categorically not satisfied by ''decision of the Council'' expressed by Heimdal.


    "The high Council of Asgard has considered your proposal and has concluded that we cannot allow you to manipulate our race in any way. Our scientists have found that a critical failure in the work of the individual is clearly a destructive event, and therefore we cannot allow the associated effects to be used to save our race. You must find another way to save us.¡±


    ¡°Really? Apparently, your Council has decided that immortality isn¡¯t useful to them, and it is better to die than to admit the made mistakes. I can say that this decision was very similar to... human.¡±


    "I have nothing more to say to you, Imhotep. The Council has made its decision, and none of us will go against it.¡±


    No one? But it was kind of one of the disgraced Asgard who experimented on people contrary to the will of the Council. His name was Loki, and in the sixth season he even cloned Jack O''Neill, on what he burned.


    ¡°I''m sorry to hear that.¡± I nodded my head.


    Along with an expression of regret, I contacted Heimdahl''s brain via radio. It was a standard channel of information exchange between the asgards, information about which I received along with a package of history data.

 Chapter 6.09 - Stargate

    ''Can you help me to contact with Loki?'' I said telepathy. Heimdall¡¯s soul extremely rapidly responded to my proposal.


    ''Please, expect a call.'' I received response, and then something clicked in Heimdall¡¯s head, and he turned off, finally hovering. To completeness of picture, there is lack of smoke coming out of his ears.


    ¡°Excuse me. It was another critical failure. Despite all his genius, Heimdal is quite often faced with this problem. He''ll be ready to continue in half an hour.¡± I have been informed by the Deputy. In his sentence with yesterday speech coincided not only words, but also the slightest intonation.


    ¡°Certainly. I''ll wait for a call on my ship.¡±


    I teleported to hat¡¯ak, and began to disassemble the technology of production of ZPM to spend free time. If I can''t hang here, I''ll have to go back to the Milky Way galaxy.


    Three hours later, I received incoming radio call using the ancient defense protocols.


    ¡°I am listening.¡±


    ¡°I am Loki. I''d like to meet you.¡±


    ¡°Where and when?¡±


    ¡°As soon as possible. I''m giving to you the coordinates.¡±


    I inspected the information about the rendezvous point. It was on the other side of the galaxy, and I had no fuel to get to it. I estimated my knowledge of ancient technology, and came to the conclusion that I need at least three more hours to create a ZPM.


    "I won''t be able to arrive until four hours." I answered to the interlocutor.


    ¡°I will wait¡± He answered and disconnected.


    I mentally sighed and continued detailed study of relevant technologies and their testing in practice. The main problem was that I was forced use magic and chakra for moreover, to create fully technical device, working on technologies of Ancients. And this production technology does not always give the desired result from the first or even hundredth attempt.


    Two hours later, Heimdall contacted to me.


    "Imhotep, the Council of Asgard insists that you would outline your plan about developing weapon against the Replicators. Right now, our troops are suffering irreparable losses in the battle against them. Every hour of delay is too expensive.¡±


    "I think I can tell you my plan in an hour or two. I need a little more time to think.¡±


    ¡°Nice. We''re counting on you.¡±


    I disconnected the video link and focused on fine-tuning the technology. I wouldn''t want to cause an explosion here that could split the planet in half. I''ll able to survive it somehow, but my ship will be completely destroyed. Along with the computer and the saved games of the ''Dungeon Keeper''. I can''t let that happen.


    Finally, I created the first ZPM sample and activated it. Nothing exploded anywhere, and the power source worked as expected. After that, I disabled it and disposed it, which was also not the easiest operation. After repeating this sequence a couple of hundred times, I was now fully confident that I had mastered this technology.


    It took me another fifteen minutes to connect fifty ZPM to the ship. Let''s go the limit. Many is not a little, I can throw away excess. So, now it was almost impossible to overload my shields. It will be necessary to do the modernization of the ship in my free time. I have many knowledge, but they are of little avail.


    Finally, I fully prepared for the flight and contacted to the asgards.


    "Heimdal, I regret to inform you that I see no point in helping you if you do not agree with my proposal to revive your race. Even if you don''t get eaten by Replicators, you''ll still be dead in a few years. So I''m off. I have other important business. And when replicators will gnaw you, remember - this fate you owe entirely to your Council of Asgard. Bye.¡±


    With these words, my ship flew up into the air and began ascending to orbit. A couple of Asgard ships tried to block me, but they couldn''t stop me. Asgards did not dare to open fire. Having gained the necessary height, I entered hyperspace and went to a meeting place with Loki.


    I came out of the jump in orbit of a rocky planet with no atmosphere. The scans showed no signs of life or any artificial structures. While I was inspecting the planet, I was contacted by a small disguised probe in its orbit.


    ¡°Please follow these coordinates.¡± The same voice rang out.


    "How many more jumps will I have to make to get to you?"


    ¡°One more. I''m sorry, but I have to hide from my brothers.¡±


    ¡°Nice. Wait.¡±


    I went into hyperspace. This time the flight lasted fifteen minutes. It ended in the orbit of another lifeless planet. This time it was a planet slightly larger than earth, with a dense atmosphere in which hurricanes and thunderstorms were constantly raging.


    A few seconds later, Asgard''s ship slipped out of the clouds. It flew up to my pyramid, and contacted by video link.


    ¡°Greetings, Imhotep. I am Loki. Please forgive me for the inconvenience. Can you come to my ship?¡±


    ¡°Ok.¡± I nodded.


    Concentrating, I sent shadow clone to his ship. I didn''t have yet enough trust to this guy.


    ¡°Greetings to you, Loki.¡± My clone said, appearing right behind him.


    Considering that the shields on his ship were up and the defenses were at maximum, it should have made an impression. Alas, the clone couldn''t feel the soul, so I don''t know, is this biorobot has soul or not. He looked like any other Asgard. A typical budget model, so to speak.


    ¡°Are you here? It¡­ is surprisingly. You have very advanced technology. I''ve already read your conversation with Heimdall. Sadly, I have to agree with you. Our race has been destroyed by the Ancients thirty thousand years ago. Now, our last remnants of our heritage coming to end.¡±


    You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.


    So, I need to find out if this Asgard has a soul or not. I''m not going to go to his ship in my real body, so I need to drag him to mine. Without a word, the clone approached Loki, put his hand on Loki¡¯s shoulder, and then sealed him in fuinjutsu seal. A second later, I retrieved him from seal in my ship.


    A quick scan showed that Loki''s soul interacts quite actively with his brain. Apparently, he somehow was able to disable the mechanism supposed to counter the ''critical failure''.


    ¡°Where am I?¡± Surprised Loki, looking around on sides.


    ¡°In my ship.¡± I answered, entering the room. ¡°So, I see that your soul is actively interacting with this body.¡±


    Loki head began sound a rhythmic clicking, but his behavior is not affected.


    ¡°Yeah. After countless years as a spirit, I was able to find a way to influence the carriers of a copy of my consciousness. But alas, by that time it was too late. Our race is degenerating, and I have not been able to create a suitable platform for a normal existence.¡±


    ¡°I can help you with that. And for another thing, I can solve the problem with Replicators.¡±


    ¡°What is your proposal?¡±


    ¡°Most part of your body are the computers. I propose to complete this line of evolution and make you a fully mechanical life form based on Replicators technology. It will give you the very immortality you have wished long time ago.¡±


    ¡°It... is an extremely unexpected offer. Do you think that restoring our biological body is no longer possible? Recently, we found information that may help us to create clones whose genetic material is almost not affected.¡±


    ¡°I think biological body is the source of many problems. I have long time ago disposed my weak flesh, replacing it with a much more practical polymorphic material.¡±


    As proof of my words, I consistently took the form of a metal ball, an Alien, an angel with wings and a nanosuit from the game Crysis.


    ¡°Incredibly. What is this technology?¡± Loki admired.


    ¡°You can''t do it as me. But you have replicators that, I''m sure, after a little refinement, will be able to give you bodies capable of the same tricks.¡±


    ¡°So we can rebuild the Asgard civilization?¡±


    ¡°No. It is impossible. First, it is difficult to call you as Asgard. And secondly, the numbers of representatives of your people will be equal to the number of souls that can be returned. Besides, I will disable your ability to reproduce, because otherwise you will invade this world and destroy all life.¡±


    ¡°You don''t trust us that much?¡±


    ¡°I already had a sad experience. Intelligent beings are the same everywhere. One idiot would be enough to turn an over-developed technology into an unbreakable weapon that would get out of control and destroy the whole world. There is no need to go far for an example. Replicators have already taken over this galaxy and pose a threat to neighboring ones. So, the use of this technology should be limited.¡±


    "Again, I can only agree with you.¡± Loki sadly nodded.


    "Well, then, I suggest we move to a more comfortable world and begin the necessary research there.¡±


    ¡°What''s wrong with this planet?¡± Loki surprised.


    ¡°There''s no life.¡±


    ¡°Alas, in our galaxy there are no inhabited planets where we could settle. All suitable worlds are either captured by replicators, or they have a colony of Asgard.¡±


    ¡°Um... All right. All your equipment is on the ship?¡±


    ¡°No, I have an underground base on this planet. We can accommodate there.¡±


    ¡°Good. Then I''ll follow your ship.¡±


    I teleported back Loki to his ship, and then I followed him. On the planet we plunged into a sea of boiling acid. At the bottom of the reservoir was an underground base, larger than the Asgard¡¯s ship. Loki parked his boat in a special hangar, and I had to leave my pyramid at the bottom. The ancient shields protected the ship from the environment, so it was safe.


    I teleported to the base, where Loki and I began to studying replicators. The asgards could not understand the principles of their program, as I could not understand them before. What interested me now was whether it was possible to change the program and the Replicator block itself in such a way that the asgards could influence them with their disembodied consciousness.


    In fact, the soul manifested itself in the material world in the form of special quantum effects. Replicator processors also worked at their level. All I had to do is changing the Replicator program to ''teach'' them to listen to the asgards. And, of course, it was necessary to prevent the replicators from returning to work under the old program.


    We did the first experiments with those Replicator blocks which I got on Thor''s ship. But soon this was not enough, and we needed more. It would have been possible to fly to any planet captured by mechanical bugs, but I remembered several Replicator ships moving towards the mother planet of the asgards. In the canon their simply blew up. So, with minimal interference, I''ll be able to capture the three ships of the replicators and even the the Asgard¡¯s ''newest'' ship, bearing the proud name of ''Jack O''neill''.


    To begin with, I went on my ship to the vicinity of the asgards mother planet. There my clone has moved on to their planet, using magic portal. I pitched there enough magic and chakra beacons, so this did not pose a problem. Then the clone took an intangible form and under the disguise infiltrated to flagship of the asgards under construction. There I acted under the instructions of Loki, installed trojan to seize control of the ship. After that, all I had to do is waiting.


    As I had hoped, Thor called the Earthlings for help. However, arrived to the planet not only Samantha Carter, but the full SG-1 team. Despite it, the essence of the proposed strategy has not changed. The asgards decided to use the flagship as bait to blow it up and destroy the replicators.


    I intervened at the very end of this plan. Instead of exploding, the ship ''Jack o''neill'' flew farther and farther, until it disappeared from the Asgards¡¯ radar. Finally, flagship came out of hyperspace next to my ship, where the magic traps for Replicator had been already set. Three ships, infected with replicators, came out of the jump at the same point, and then stood motionless in the void of space.


    This time I used a spell that didn''t turn off the Replicator blocks, but broke the connection between them. After that, all ''bugs'' scattered into separate elements, unable to act together. Then I had only to take the ships in tow and took them to the planet where was the base of Loki.


    Having received all the necessary materials, I began systematic research. The main test subject was Loki, because he was to become the first Asgard, with a new body.


    I was able to isolate the replicators from their common network by switching them to ''another wave''. After that, I began to change the program of a small colony, actually ''teaching'' them to perceive Loki''s mental messages.


    In general, there was some result, but it could not be used to create an analogue of the physical body. Ghost need to maintain serious concentration to be somehow was possible to ''hear''. Still, the technology of replicators was quite different from the Asgard computers and their biological components.


    After a week of unsuccessful attempts, I came to the conclusion that without special astral and etheric shells we can¡¯t do significant progress. I didn''t want give them ability to magic or chakra. Fortunately, in addition to them, I had the materials of the ascension research, which I decided to apply in practice.


    I did not reproduce the standard ''body of light'' of the ascended, but only used some of its components. In a result, Loki¡¯s soul has been ''trapped'' in a special astral constructs, which will clung to special field, produced by replicators blocks. By the same connection, the soul could freely transmit telepathic signals, which were deciphered by replicators and served as instructions for their actions. In the opposite direction was information from the computer ''brain''. In the event of the physical destruction of the ''body'' of the replicators, the soul could contact an emergency supply of ''flesh'' in a safe place.


    The problem with the impossibility of reproduction of a new form of life was solved by the inability to copy their astral body. That is, the destruction of this energy shell could finally ''kill'' Asgard, depriving him of the ability to affect replicators. I planned to give this shell only to those souls of Asgard who would personally address me.


    However, there was still a problem with the restriction of reproduction of the blocks by themselves. On the one hand, I cannot allow to multiply uncontrollably. On the other hand, if I will completely disable this function, then quite quickly the body of such blocks will collapse. After all, each block had a chance to fail, and there would be no way to replace it.


    As a result, I came to a compromise. Replicators could multiply, but only under the direct guidance of the astral body of Asgard. In turn, the soul could control the replicators only by focusing its attention on them. The more Replicator blocks he will control, the harder it will be to control them. And without control, replicator blocks went into a state of waiting, providing only the most basic functions of their program.

 Chapter 6.10 - Stargate

    Thus it turned out that Asgards could subdue a finite number of basic blocks of his body with ''willpower''. But on the other hand, within a three-dimensional space of the astral body the number of blocks could be of any type that is allowed to make them small enough to obtain the ability to change size when the volume of the body comparable to the size of the person.


    I spent three months to develop and fine-tune this technology. Finally, I enclosed Loki''s soul in the final version of the astral body and let him come into contact with a mass of blocks of replicators of the latest model. Now their sizes do not exceed one tenth of a millimeter while retaining all the possibilities.


    A pile of silver metal stirred, stretched up and took the form of Asgard. It took another couple of seconds to get the color and texture of the surface back to normal.


    ¡°It is working.¡± Loki said, crouching and waving his arms. "God, it''s been a long time since I felt what is a normal body look like.¡±


    ¡°I would not call this form ¡®normal¡¯.¡± I said. ¡°Look at yourself. Those duck legs. These hands are sticks. And this head? Is that how Asgard should look?¡±


    ¡°You''re right. It is necessary to take the image of how I looked like when I was alive.¡±


    The new body contained not only a Replicator program, but also a copy of Loki''s memory recorded in the biorobot. It was not part of the soul, nor was it part of the Replicator program. Rather, it was stored on a storage created from replicators. It was quite possible to lose it, so, Loki in the future ought to attend to the creation of backups, where will be kept a ''starter'' supply of replicators for the revival and encrypted copy of his memory. In the end, the computer in the head of each biorobot stored a huge amount of information, including knowledge of Asgard technology.


    While I pondered about the high matters, Loki took body shape of a tall, sinewy man in colorful armor. His hair was red and his features were Irish. Most attention was attracted by his piercing green eyes, sparkling like emeralds. I spend a few days to create the technology that allows replicators to depict not just color, but also transparent and translucent materials.


    "So the asgards were also related to humans?" I asked.


    ¡°Yeah. Outwardly, we were not much different from the Ancients. Well, unless, of course, you take into account the color of hair and facial features. We were far better, constantly infuriated by these immortal wannabes.¡±


    I noticed that Loki had changed his mind and his manner of speaking. No more of those sad long-winded explanations of the obvious things.


    ¡°I think we need a week to test your new body, and then come back to the planet of Asgard to rescue who they could.¡±


    ¡°Yeah. Unfortunately, my brothers are too few. We were billions long time ago but now we''re hundreds. I can''t imagine how I could last thirty thousand years. It was extremely sad millennia.¡±


    ¡°I can imagine. Asgards¡¯ communication manner can freeze brains of any intelligent life form.¡±


    Loki went to the computer, connected to it and began to exchange information. I controlled the process out of the corner of my eye. In the computer database, there were a lot of my trojans, which allowed me to copy all the valuable information, including technologies of the Asgard.


    ¡°By the way, what do you call your life form? You''re not Asgard anymore.¡±


    ¡°I haven''t decided. Maybe Laky?¡±


    ¡°Well, then it''s better just ¡®Alky¡¯. So it''s easier to pronounce, and the letters are the same.


    ¡°No, it doesn''t sound nice. Better then look to the source of our race. My family was called Jotun. So let me be called Jotuns.¡±


    ¡°Thor will be shocked.¡±


    "Ha, that little dwarf will explode with envy when he find out that I was able to come back to life.¡±


    ¡°Well, in my opinion Thor will be a little melancholier.¡± I objected.


    ¡°I''m talking about his soul. We have repeatedly argued about how to save the remnants of our civilization. I offered to separate and take care of my own salvation, and he was trying to make the Councils to make the right decision. As if their decision made any sense. A majority of Council members were from the clan of the Aesir, so Thor planned to maintain their power.¡±


    Yeah. The history of the possessing for power will be never outdated. ''If I can¡¯t get that power to myself then I won¡¯t let anyone obtain that power''. A great motto for any ruler. Not less than the standard: ''After us even deluge''. If you combine these two concepts, you will get the cause of the destruction of all civilizations without exception.


    Pilot operation of the bodies of the Jotuns went without complications. During this time, Loki was able to complete the flagship of the Asgard fleet, using replicators as a labor force, and three other ships captured by us as a source of resources.


    At that time I engaged in the modernization of my hat¡¯ak, I could obtain any volume of resources at any time indefinitely. All systems of the ship underwent to modernization. Weapons, shields, emergency reactor, hyperdrive, inertial engines, scanners and sensors, and of course, a Central computer with repair robots.


    In addition, I changed the appearance of the ship. Although it still had the shape of a pyramid, the design of the decoration was more in line with the mixture of designs of ancient ships and space stations of the cephs. I also installed to ship a lot of long wet tentacles that can swaddle the enemy¡¯s ship. The surface of the pyramid was black and covered with glowing ''mythical symbols''. Even one glance to this spaceship will plunge mere mortals in to panic attack.


    It was this attack that began in the asgards, when my ship and the former flagship of their fleet appeared in orbit of the planet. The biorobots¡¯ technique could detect the presence of replicators, so all their forces began to prepare for battle. But after a few seconds Loki took form of a biorobot and started to broadcast video from flagman.


    "My brothers, you are welcomed by Loki, a leading scientific of your race and a former member of the Council. In cooperation with Imhotep the representative of a highly developed civilization, I was able to subdue replicators. If you agree with my proposal, we can completely neutralize the threat of the replicators. I ask to assemble High Council of Asgards, at which I will make a public speech. Every Asgard has a right to know that the succession of defeats in the war with the replicators has come to an end. Before the start of the Assemble my ship and a ship of my ally will be in the far orbit of the planet.¡±


    Loki used one of the procedures for assembling the High Council of Asgard. The rules and laws of society were written in the brains of the biorobots, so there was nothing left to do but follow Protocol.


    The Council assembled in two hours. At the appointed time, Loki teleported directly to the podium, which was fenced off by force fields in case of replicators. And they really got there. Not this caused the effect of the exploded bomb, but the appearance of Loki. This time he took his new Irish desing.


    His speech was to be broadcast to all the colonies and ships of civilization. But the addresses were not only biorobots, even souls. Many of the ghosts went to the front to somehow help their unlucky clones. Now we gave them a signal that they should return to their home planet.


    ¡°Citizens of Asgard! I''m glad to tell you that I was able to come back to life. I am Loki, the head of the Jotun clan. Thanks to the help of Imhotep, the God of knowledge, I was able to regain my body. From now on, I am not a powerless spirit, but the leader of a new race of Jotuns. Everyone can come to our home world and join to me. Together, we can stop the Replicators invasion and restore Asgard to its former glory.¡±


    ¡°This is outrageous, please stop.¡± One of the Council members tried to intervene.


    ¡°Especially for biorobots who consider themselves as Asgard, I report that from now on there is no need for your existence. You must return to the homeworld of the Asgard, where you will handover your body to your original soul. Broadcasting emergency gathering code.¡±


    Then Loki began to publish a fast sounds of crash and noise, which were coded command to compelling bio-robots to return to their own world. The asgards tried to stop video broadcasting, but faced opposition of my chakra clone and many small colonies of replicators, intercepted the control of computer systems. In fact, it was the collapse of the Asgard civilization and the birth of the Jotun civilization.


    After a few minutes, the ships of the asgards began to arrive, on which the remains of this civilization returned to their native world. Thanks to a hacked Central computer, Loki and I took control of all the data streams. This prevented robots from revolting, unable to understand with their electronic brains that power had changed.


    Then began the exodus of ghosts. One by one, the souls of the asgards came to me, and I gave them astral bodies, after which they received a bunch of replicators and created from them their personal physical body. Loki became the leader of the new society, pouring propaganda in the ears of the spiritual fire victims with his speeches about how he cares about the entire Asgard race in general and about them in particular.


    Finally, when ended all who wished to partake of the source of good in my person, there was a General meeting of the Jotun race. There they decided that destroying the Asgards makes no sense, and it is better to force them to bring at least some benefit to their new owners. Here the bookmark in the program on fidelity to Council came in very handy. A specially arranged impeachment procedure made the Jotuns as members of the Council, after which they issued all the necessary regulations. From the point of view of machines, the transfer of power was legal, and therefore full legislative and executive power belonged to the new Council.


    To my surprise, I learned that Thor and his subordinate group of asgards had not arrived on the planet. This cunning beetle subdued his biorobot long ago and founded his own clan of asgards with the main base in the Milky Way galaxy. Naturally, he could not to submit to his ideological enemy, to Loki. In turn, Loki also are not eager to give an opportunity to the opponent to come back to life. Thor was the only one among the survived ghosts of the asgards who could challenge his power.


    After a couple of weeks, all the turmoil gradually subsided, and life took a new direction. The Jotuns scattered across the galaxy, saving the few remaining worlds from the invasion of replicators. Fighting mechanical beetles with each other was not very productive, but perfectly occupied the representatives of the new race, so that they had no time for anything else.


    Actually, I expected such an outcome. Several hundred Jotuns could not turn the tide of this war without a significant technological advantage. I didn''t give them that advantage. All they had were new bodies working on principles which they didn''t understand. Of course, now they were truly intelligent creatures who would sooner or later figure out how to deal with replicators. But it will took time and a lot of effort.


    Meanwhile, I was researching Asgard technology. Although they were less technologically advanced than the Ancients, but some of their inventions were quite interesting. At the past time Ancients were never able to get to these secrets, probably considering them as unworthy of their attention.


    I was sitting in ship and thinking about technologies for new types of weapons when I felt some discomfort. After analyzing my feelings, I realized that I received a stream of Bahion coming from Jack O''neill that mixed with his emotions of despair and sincere prayers for me.


    Normally, Jack didn''t even think to worship me, so all Bahion going to me through my believers just scattered in space. But here is he bursting. Plus, the emotions that reached me were not the most positive, so it was unpleasant to perceive them. Strange, what could cause this?


    I focused on my walkie-talkies, which I gave to the Earthlings, but could not get any response from the spells. It''s getting weirder and weirder. Going to the Stargate, I tried to dial the address of the Earth. A connection could not be established. What the fuck? I connected to the gate, diagnosed its operation, started opening the gate in ''debug mode'', and again could not open the gate. The technique said that the called gate is working, but it is ''out of range''.


    Not having managed to solve a problem from a rush, I began to remember that at this time occurred in series. Soon everything became clear. Earth and a few more stars were in the range of the machine of the Ancients, and machine created time loop. This area of space was no longer available for movement. And even magic can''t break through that barrier. But Bahion can completely ignore any obstacles. I wonder what about the chakra?


    Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.


    I focused on the hiraishin seal on Jack. It felt great.


    Teleporting myself inside the anomaly seemed dangerous to me, so clone was sent instead of me.


    My clone appeared next to Jack in a small room with two double beds. The sufferer lay on the lower tier of one of them and sighed loudly.


    ¡°Hi. Why are you feeling soo crook?¡± I said hello.


    ¡°Imhotep!!!¡± Jack shouted, jumping up to his feet. ¡°Please do something. I''ve had enough of these endless prayers in your honor.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± I was stunned.


    "I promised to Teal''c to hold praying ceremony in your honor every Friday. And thanks to some ancient machine, we have a time loop. Because of this, there are not only seven Fridays in a week, but thirty-one Fridays in a month. And each time the orgies and covens arranged by Teal¡¯c become more and more fanatical and exalted, and I must endure all of this, and even bless them!¡±


    ¡°Orgies? I never thought that Teal''c would do this.¡±


    ¡°I mean, they have prayers and songs and dances and sermons and so on. And all this from morning to night every day for more than two months. Do you like this worship so much?¡±


    ¡°Do I like?¡± interesting question.


    When I was doing all this trolling, I just wanted to laugh at the primitive people. But on the other hand, the feelings I feel at the same time said that it could be my subconscious desire. I liked to fool others and make them worship me. But now, I don¡¯t need such desire? The very idea that someone is praying for me, doesn¡¯t cause nothing but disgust. How would you like to know that the worms in the dung heap praying to you, worship you and offer humble prayers?


    What did cause such change? Maybe the fact that I was Goa¡¯uld? I thought I was the same as always. But it turns out that the Goa¡¯ulds¡¯ desire to be gods affected me. Then we can assume that my desire to establish law and order in the world of Worm is the result of the influence consciousness of Bivits Swine. Because right now, global injustice doesn''t really bother me. As for me now, how about influence of my presence Vritras body?


    I thought for a moment. Exactly. Before the change of body, I could not imagine my life without sex. That''s how I was affected by the Skuli, and I didn''t see anything wrong with it. But after that, the desire to have sex almost as cut off. At the same time, I know that I can have sex and get pleasure from it, but I do not feel urgent need for this. I''ve never had sex in this body before. Of course, this is small loss, but the question is different. I should pay more attention to how my behavior changes in the new body.


    As I pondered these philosophical questions, Jack waited patiently for an answer. Yeah, he''s got a lot of patience. With such incentive.


    ¡°So, where is these prayers? We should organize a phenomenon of the Lord and besiege the most zealous followers.¡±


    ¡°It is useless¡± Jack waved hand, again sinking on bed and glancing on clock. ¡°In an hour, the universe will reset, and I''ll be back in the dining room. And all your talking will be erased from the memory of everyone but me and Teal''c.¡±


    ¡°Have you tried to break this cycle?¡±


    ¡°Tried. But then Teal''c saw through the chip, and he started sabotaging my efforts, for one thing, arousing the masses with faith in you. And most importantly, this faith is growing every day. I noticed that a couple of weeks ago. I''m afraid to imagine what will happen here in a month.¡±


    ¡°Nothing''s gonna happen here. We just need to break the cycle, and then tomorrow will finally come Saturday.¡±


    ¡°Then, let¡¯s go.¡± Jack jumped out of bed and rushed down the hallway.


    ¡°Do you remember the address?¡±


    ¡°By heart.¡±


    We went through the base and got to the gate room. Along the way, people stared at me, and some threw themselves on their knees or began to sing some ditties to my glory. At glance, it was not like a military base, but some madhouse on the road.


    "O great one, even greater than Buddha. You''ve finally made us happy to be here!¡±  General Hammond said, prostrate and beating off bows.


    Oh my God! Give me strength!!!


    ¡°I bless you, General. I need to open a gate to a planet.¡±


    ¡°Of course! We are ready to serve you day and night.¡±


    I wonder if it''s contagious. Will not I start worshipping myself?


    Teal¡¯c came to room out of breath.


    ¡°My God! Imhotep! All people around here are happy that you''re here. Let us sing your glory! We are ready to begin the service right now where you can bless every devotee of you.¡±


    ¡°Not now. I have urgent business.¡±


    Teal''c glanced at the screen and saw the address.


    ¡°General!¡± He rushed to Hammond. ¡°We have to stop address dialing. We need to start the service and... h-h-h-R-R-R-R¡­¡±


    Teal''c grunted as I grabbed him by his throat and lifted him off the floor while growing to three meters tall.


    ¡°Here, only I will decide who and what to do. General, please continue. And you, Teal''c, you will be punished for resisting my will!¡± I put a temporary paralysis spell to the nigger and threw him aside. I''ll deal with him later.


    The gate opened, Jack and I hurried in. We were in another lifeless world. Ahead was covered with granite path, the edges of which stood the granite pillars with holes. In front of the arch was seen a dais, resembling a stone table or altar.


    ¡°Malakai! Show yourself!¡± Jack shouted.


    We went forward, and Jack stopped at the border of invisible repulsive force field. Nothing material could overcome it, but my clone did not suffer with materiality, so I passed freely to the device of the Ancients in the form of a table on the surface of which there were many square stone blocks (https://stargate.fandom.com/wiki/Time_loop_machine</a>). What have we got here?


    A thin man with scars on his face jumped out from the side.


    ¡°What? How did you get here?¡± He was surprised.


    I ignored this appeal, reading the inscriptions in the language of the Ancients.


    ¡°Malakai, you have to stop this device.¡± Jack shouted. ¡°Or in the next cycle, I will bring an atomic bomb and blow everything to the fuck in here!


    ¡°No! I have to get her back¡­¡±


    As the two mortals poured out their souls to each other, I studied the device. Although I was here only as a clone, I had some ways of interacting directly with the ancient techniques. Five minutes later, I realized that this machine has not ancient technology. All surrounding was built by Ancient, but the main artifact worked on very different principles.


    This device worked on expense of cumulated Bahion. And the essence of its effects was to appeal to a higher power. At the same time, the characteristic of energy said that the addressee of the message is... a local Judge of the Game.


    In fact, this device allows you to ''save'' a certain state of the Universe, and then ''load'' it. A sort of slot you saved in the game. In this slot will be saved the moment of activation of the device, which occurred fourteen hours ago.


    In general, this device was funny, interesting, but useless to me. I didn''t want to get involved to Game with the local Players. I don¡¯t need any Players¡¯ anger or love.


    ¡°This thing won''t help you.¡± I addressed to the time-terrorist. ¡°It can only return universe to the time when it was activated. That is in our case just a few hours ago.¡±


    ¡°No! I''ll be able to sort out this device and¡­¡±


    ¡°You cannot. I am the God of knowledge! I know exactly how this device works, what it does and why it is needed at all. With it you can only go back fourteen hours. And besides, the power supply in this machine is not infinite. And I''m afraid to think what price you''ll have to pay for trying to activate ''in debt''.¡±


    ¡°I just want her back¡­¡± Malakai whispered, sliding to the floor.


    ¡°Who?¡± I asked.


    ¡°My wife.¡±


    ¡°Do you have her hair or some other source of DNA?¡±


    ¡°Hair? Yes. I have a locket with her hair.¡±


    ¡°If you stop this device, I''ll resurrect her. No time travel is needed. I am God, and the life and death of humans are in my power.¡±


    I collected some Bahion and concentrated, and then the person in front of me literally fell into a state of religious ecstasy. So that''s how it works.


    ¡°Can you get her back?¡± Malakai said hopefully.


    ¡°Certainly. Stop the device and your wife will come back to life.¡±


    ¡°Nice.¡±


    Hypnotized culprit began to click on the stone squares, changing the mode of operation of the device. I saw that the device only responded to the commands of the one who activated it, so I could not interfere with its operation. And what would be the point of ''saving the game'' if enemies could erase the record?


    Finally, the device stopped working by going into standby mode. I immediately activated the gate in the Hades galaxy and appeared on this planet in person. Then I had to carry out a fairly simple manipulation. I used magic to summon a woman''s soul and recreated her body using DNA from her hair. However, the spell restored the body to the optimal age, that is, till about twenty years. But it''s not like anyone was going to complain about that.


    There was a tearful meeting of two lovers with hugging and vows of eternal love. I corrected the patient''s health a little more, cured her heart defect, then sealed the ''time machine'' and left with Jack to the Earth.


    Here we were met by a whole delegation. I focused and felt Bahion swirling around. Now it is clear where such religious attacks come from. This is a phenomenon with positive feedback. Apparently, the device had impact on the dispersion of Bahion so it has started to concentrate in one place. Funny, but almost useless. I need billion times more amount of Bahion to restore one of my tail that the energy accumulated in here. Sorrow.


    I ''sucked'' all Bahion, and the fervor of religious ecstasy in the eyes of others began to fade.


    "Mortals, why are you worshiping me?"  I asked the audience. Teal¡¯c, standing in the front row, answered me. He quickly recovered. Maybe believing in me helped.


    ¡°You are God! " I suppose that explanation was enough, because I have not received any other explanation.


    ¡°So?¡±


    ¡°That''s all.¡±


    Eh. I don''t know what to say against to such argument.


    ¡°Worshiping in me does not give you nothing.¡± I decided to come from the other end.


    ¡°We don''t need anything. It is not material prosperity that we crave, but spiritual merit.¡± My most fanatical followers explained the policy of the party.


    ¡°There''s no merit.¡± I besieged him. ¡°I know better. I''m God. I''m the one you worship. And I''m telling you, you''re not going to get any good out of it. No material, no spiritual, no moral satisfaction, nothing. Because, only God will give such things to his believers, and I have no time to do such nonsense. You believe in me? Wonderful. You have gained valuable spiritual experience. That''s all. The circus is over, everybody can dismiss.¡±


    As if taking the last sentence for a guide to action, the audience began to dissolve in the corners. Soon, only the members of SG-1, Hammond, and a few maintenance technicians were standing in front of me. Well, a dozen military duty were hanging out at the gate.


    ¡°Teal''c, you don''t have to worship me.¡± I turned to the culprit of the religious revolution. "If you must worship someone, then worship yourself, or Apophis, or Jack.¡± Colonel shuddered to my words and broke out in a sweat. "True gods are no different from false gods. And those, and other, typically complete assholes. Better to believe in Buddhism, or whatever the process is called? You understand me?¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡± In the voice of Teal''c heard the sorrow of the ecumenical level.


    ¡°Wonderful. That''s all.¡± I turned to the gate and wondered how I was going to get back. The energy of the local power plant is not enough. ¡°Or not. I''ll have to stay with you for a couple of hours. General, you promised me a contribution for the resurrection of the SG-1 members.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, sure.¡± Hammond started.


    ¡°By the way, Daniel, how''s your wife doing?¡± I asked my debtor.


    ¡°Nohow. She was hit by a car six months ago.¡±


    ¡°What loss. I''m sorry for your grief.¡± I said indifferently, following Hammond.


    Everything was going according to my plans, so there was nothing to worry about. My clone on Hat¡¯ak, sent the ship to the Earth and he was supposed to arrive in about an hour. During this time, I bought new products of the entertainment industry of the Earth and even installed a ''modem on the chakra'', which was supposed to allow me to connect to the Internet from a neighboring galaxy. I put this device on the Central switchboard of the Colorado Spring¡¯s main internet provider. So there is no need to pay, and access will be always at maximum speed.


    After saying goodbye to the earthlings, I teleported to my ship and went back to the Jotuns. I had a lot of plans for the study of the technologies of the Ancients and the Asgard. Now I just created technological devices, and the implementation of the same effects at the expense of magic was still in its infancy.


    I was not given chance to delve into scientific research too much. Loki linked to me after a few days.


    ¡°Imhotep, we need to meet. We''re having serious problems with the replicators.¡±


    ¡°Ok¡± With help of trojans in computer networks, I found place where was Loki, and teleported there. ¡°What''s the problem?¡±


    "The replicators have begun to enslave the asgards.¡±


    ¡°How?¡± I sat down on the chair and began to watch with interest for panicking Loki.


    ¡°It all started about three days ago. One of the Jotuns overestimated his strength, and he was destroyed by the replicators. Apparently, they studied his structure, because the next day we found that ordinary beetles are headed by humanoid replicators. But as their strategy of conducting fight from it didn''t change, we didn''t attach much importance to it.¡±


    Loki brought up a blurred image on a large screen, where something humanoid was accompanied by a crowd of ordinary metal beetles.


    ¡°Yesterday one of groups of replicators showed unusual strategy of fight. Not to say that it was particularly effective, but at the expense of surprise to this squad managed to win the fight. We were able to intercept the video, which shows that the operation is led by a Replicator resembling Asgard.¡±


    This time, a dynamic picture appeared on the screen, showing the wandering Asgard. Except his skin looked like it was made of mercury.


    "And today, a huge army of replicators attacked one of our planets and captured more than fifty thousand asgards.¡±


    This time the video showed how a live wave of billions of replicators rolls on the fleeing asgards, absorbing them one by one.


    "This is what we saw on the same planet half an hour ago.¡±


    This time the shooting was conducted with the aircraft. An army of replicators was advancing on the city of Asgard. The biorobots tried to defend themselves, but all their efforts were in vain. The attack of the replicators managed thousands of Asgard, wandering around the battlefield. At the same time, it was evident that all their movements and gestures with their hands were remarkably similar to the movements of their biological counterparts.


    ¡°I think you should bring these new replicators to investigate.¡± I suggested.


    ¡°We did. Here are the scan results.¡±


    On the screen appeared a diagram of a typical asgardian, only instead of biological tissues and mechanical skeleton, this specimen was composed of replicators and the ''brain'' of the computer, located in his prescribed head.


    ¡°They were able to hijack the biorobot''s computer and reprogram it. All biological tissues were replaced by micron-sized Replicator blocks, and fidelity settings were made to follow the interests of the Replicator community.¡±


    ¡°You have a code of absolute submission.¡± I suggested.


    ¡°Yeah. It works, but if the computer starts trying to destroy replicators, then Replicator threw them away and returning to work according to the standard program.¡±


    ¡°Um... It''s funny.¡± I¡¯m summarized. ¡°Asgards become replicators, and the replicators have become asgard. I suggest you to do nothing. Your bio robots are pretty stupid. They constantly lost to replicators in battle. I think if they start controlling the replicators, they''ll only get weaker.¡±


    ¡°But it is now. Who knows what they''ll do in a month? Even just knowing how our defense works has allowed them to win several important victories.¡±


    ¡°Yes, I perfectly understand the danger of such a union technology. But what do you want from me?¡±


    ¡°Can you give us a more effective weapon against the replicators?¡±


    ¡°I''ve already given you a lot. You have an important advantage over these machines - you have a soul. There is self-awareness and intelligence. This is your key to victory. Use the power of your intellect. If you are unable to defeat a weaker enemy, what is the point of helping you? Fight. Conquer! This is the only way you can prove that you deserve the right to life. The basic law of evolution: the strongest wins. Of course, if you lose and even your home world is on the verge of destruction, I will save you. But don''t expect more.¡±


    Loki haggard and looked at the video, where some robots are mercilessly destroying the other.


    ¡°You''re right. This is our war. Long time ago the Asgards were the strongest race in the galaxy. We can do this.¡±


    ¡°Well, if that''s all you have to say, I''m leaving.¡±


    ¡°Farewell.¡±


    Loki sat up, closed his eyes, and concentrated on controlling his body''s replicators. Through them he was connected to a network of Asgards, managing their compatriots. I glanced at him once more and then teleported back to my ship.

 Chapter 6.11 - Stargate

    Here I also focused on working with computers. I instructed the computer of my ship to gather information about the conduct of hostilities by the Jotuns and asgards and to provide me with a daily report describing the most important events and assessing the overall balance of forces.


    While I was doing research, the war between the two Replicator camps was going on with varying degree of success. Jotuns had to at every turn invent something new to compensate quantitative superiority of the enemy. But replicators over and over again learned the inventions into service, becoming deadlier, smarter and more innovative.


    I also received information that a small group of replicators went to the Milky Way galaxy. I decided do nothing about it, but I began to monitor the Earthling''s computers at the military base on regular basis, monitoring the mentions of the meeting with the replicators. There was no need to interfere. After all, they would to reach there anyway. Let Thor fight with them.


    Passed almost two years, I''ve been minding my own business without being distracted by outside events of my spaceship. During this time, Jack tried to call me a couple of times, but I have not answered. In my opinion, there were no serious dangers to SG-1 or Earth.


    Another call was not surprise to me, because I had been expecting it for a long time. I went to the Earth through the gate, at the same time giving the command to my ship to get there on its own.


    "Greetings, mortals.¡± I pronounced, coming out of the portal.


    ¡°Imhotep! We''ve been waiting for you.¡± Jack O''Neill spoke to me which was in the control room.


    ¡°Well, what happened here?¡±


    ¡°Daniel. He was badly injured by neutron radiation.¡± Samantha came to me as she fled to the gate hall. ¡°Could you help him, please?¡±


    ¡°Let''s see.¡±


    We moved along the corridors. I scanned the surrounding area and found that Teal''c was trying to stay out of my sight. He''s storming again. In the infirmary, I found a heavily medicated debtor.


    ¡°Hi, Daniel.¡± I greeted him, casting a spell against eavesdropping. Now even Samantha standing a step away from me could not know what we were talking about.


    ¡°Imhotep? Welcome.¡±


    ¡°How are you? Have you runny nose?¡±


    ¡°Are you kidding me?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, so what?¡±


    ¡°Nothing.¡± We were quiet for a while. ¡°You''re not going to heal me, are you?¡± Daniel understood my intentions.


    ¡°That''s not required.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°Do you remember our agreement? In the very near future you will be offered to ascend, to become a being of the higher order.¡±


    ¡°Oma?¡±


    ¡°She is. You must agree. Actually, you have no choice. Either you just die, or you die but continue to live in a different form.¡±


    ¡°And then? You were talking about our deal.¡±


    "I will observe this process from a safe distance, but from within you. I''m going to put a spell on your soul that will allow me to do this trick. And you... you just have to keep quiet about it. Whatever vows you take, none of this has anything to do with me. Just keep silent, and I will pass your debt.¡±


    ¡°Nice.¡± Daniel paused for a few seconds, closing his eyes, then looked back at me. ¡°How convenient it is. To demand payment of a debt for something that I no longer have.¡±


    ¡°That''s not exactly true. I didn''t take your wife¡¯s life.¡±


    ¡°Are you saying it''s fate?¡±


    ¡°I mean Ascendens. Your wife ascended. But she''s not coming to say hello to you. You have to find out where she is and what happened to her.¡±


    ¡°She ascended? But why didn''t she tell me?¡±


    ¡°Because those are the rules. You''ll get to know them in due course. Well, I won''t distract you from your eternal thoughts. And don''t ask to subdue the pain. Unbearable suffering is the best incentive for ascension. Trust me.¡±


    On this I removed the sound blocking spell and turned to Samantha.


    ¡°I''m afraid I can''t help him. Death is inevitable. All of you are mortal, and it makes no difference whether you die, now or in a hundred years.¡±


    ¡°For us the difference is!¡± She objected.


    ¡°Not for me.¡± I snapped. ¡°In due time you will realize my unearthly wisdom. In the meantime, I''ll leave you.¡±


    I walked away, nodding to Jack. He escorted me surprised look, but did not stop. I reached the hall of gates and moved to a neutral planet, where I began to wait for the arrival of my ship and developments.


    While I was chatting with Daniel, I put a special spell on his mind that will allow me to perceive everything that he will perceive. I''ve learned enough about the ascended from the monk in the Ceb. Now I was interested in gathering information ''from the first person POV''. I suspected that in during the ascension process, part of the memory will be erased. I suspect there was answers to the question what exactly was wrong with these ascended ones.


    Finally, after a couple of hours Oma Desala happened to Daniel, which began to persuade him to take... the ¡®Bright Side of Power¡¯. The essence of the proposal was simple - ''reject all doubts and trust your soul to me''. In general, it is a standard fraud of free will. Every second sectarian leader on Earth does the same. Moreover, this is related to the sheep butchers that going to butch another beast to skewers.


    And now, after a few hours of brainwashing ascension process started. Oma imbued Daniel¡¯s astral body with her energy, after which he dutifully followed her. Together they reached Keeper of the Gate already known to me, and she gave to this creature almost unconscious soul of the applicant. It licked the defenseless soul, grunted, and then dragged him into its lair, named the Maze of Ascension.


    Daniel didn¡¯t memorize further events, but I could see what had happened. Keeper of the Gate injected various information structures into Daniels mind. They didn''t restrict his free will, but constantly followed up reporting on the violation of various rules and regulations.


    The last part of the procedure completely opened my eyes to the essence of what is happening. A special brand was placed on the soul of the ascended. In fact, the stigma. Even my little knowledge was enough to know that getting rid of this thing would be very difficult, may be impossible. Even with an endless supply of Bahion I would have to refuse a launch of operation for the amputation of this brand. In addition, this label was cleverly hidden so that if you do not know where to look, you just do not pay attention to it. And if you know, then it began to shine like a holographic sticker.


    In the end, the unconscious soul of Daniel was kicked to the right dimension of existence, where he came to himself a couple of hours later. His sponsor immediately took in turnover, and began to ¡®rub¡¯ him about the extraordinary importance of his mission in maintaining order in the Universe. I did not listen to this nonsense, but focused back on the material world.


    I went back to the Earth through the gate, where I had met the leftovers of the team SG-1.


    ¡°Well, you were convinced that I was right? I asked them.


    ¡°Did you know this was gonna happen?¡± Samantha answered question to question.


    ¡°Whom are you asking?¡± I followed her Jewish habit. ¡°Do you forgot that I''m the God of knowledge?¡±


    ¡°Can you tell us what''s going on with Daniel?¡±


    "Do you consider yourself ready to meddle in the Affairs of the Gods?"


    ¡°He became God?¡±


    ¡°What else could he became?¡±


    ¡°I do not know... So I am asking.¡± She confusedly admitted her defeat in the competition for the title of the most Jewish Jew.


    ¡°I''ll tell you this. Who born to crawl, can not fly. You need to focus on your three-dimensional world. On what you can change here and now. And the questions of the higher empyreans should be left to those who understand this. For example - to me. In general, your understandings is similar to how pigs understand in orange tastes.¡±


    ¡°Your remarks are offensive.¡± General Hammond said angrily.


    ¡°The truth is not offended.¡± I shrugged. ¡°Less you are interested in these issues, the longer you will live. If the gods wanted you to know something about it, then they would have come and told you. But instead, they are smashing different metaphysical nonsense, the only purpose of which is to mislead you. And God forbid they find out that you know what you''re not supposed to know. In general, in simple words, eat what they give and do not grunt, or the butcher will come and butch you to sausage.¡±


    Such a rebuff drived surrounding in state of stupor. I looked around the audience and addressed the commander of SG-1.


    ¡°Jack soon one of our common friend - the Thor will need your help. Don''t forget to let me know. Because it could end up quite sad without my divine intervention.¡±


    ¡°Ok.¡± Colonel nodded accordingly.


    "Well, that''s all I wanted to tell you. See you soon.¡±


    With that, I teleported to my ship, hanging in earth orbit.


    Surprisingly, I didn¡¯t wait long. The very next day through the gate Asgard Freyr showed up to earthlings, who reported the death of Thor and asked to help the Asgard scientists,that stuck on one of the planets.


    According to my information, the replicators have reached a dwarf galaxy near the Milky Way galaxy. There they attacked several colonies of Asgard, led by Thor. So now all the forces of the separatists were aimed at saving themselves.


    As soon as Freyr left the Earth, Jack contacted me with the radio. I immediately teleported to him and followed SG-1 as Daniel''s replacement. While earthlings were flying on the Goa¡¯uld¡¯s shuttle, my clone led my ship at a good distance behind.


    As in the original story, we got to the planet, went down to its surface on the Shuttle, after this we teleported to underground base.


    ¡°Oh, people of Earth... ¡° Asgard greeted us as he descended the ramp. But then he saw me, stammered, and fell to the floor.


    "Be careful, Heimdal! Your clone might not be able to handle such pressure.¡± I warned him. The scanning spell showed that this clone had been around long enough to initiate tissue necrosis processes. This biorobot clearly needed a ''brain transplant''.


    ¡°Imhotep, how did you get here?¡±


    ¡°I''m temporarily replacing Daniel.¡±


    ¡°Really. Earthlings, it''s a pleasure to meet you. I''m Heimdal. I believe you were sent by the high Council of Asgard.


    ¡°Not exactly.¡± Jack replied. ¡°I am Colonel Jack O''neill, major Carter and Teal''c. He introduced his team.


    "I have heard of your deeds from the other asgards. Where''s Dr. Jackson?¡±


    ¡°He temporarily died. Don''t worry about him.¡± I stated the version of events.


    ¡°Imhotep... your words, as always, confusing my mind.¡± Asgard said.


    In fact, Heimdal''s soul had already received Jotun''s body and was in another galaxy. Here was his last body, now being ''free floating''.


    ¡°What is this place?¡± Samantha asked. We were in a small circular room with several Asgard computer terminals. On the one hand along the wall was a ramp, turning into the corridor leading somewhere upstairs.


    ¡°We''re a few hundred meters under ground level. It''s an ancient Asgard research base.¡±


    ¡°The surface of the planet is uninhabitable.¡± Samantha continued, obviously hoping for an explanation, but Heimdal simply ignored the unspoken question.


    ¡°Goa¡¯ulds don''t know you''re here?¡± Teal''c asked.


    "They know the lab exists, but they don¡¯t know where exactly it is.¡±


    Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.


    ¡°So why don''t we get out of here before they find out.¡± Jack asked.


    ¡°I''m afraid that''s impossible. We need to save supreme commander Thor.¡± As result Heimdall started epic quest.


    ¡°We thought he dead.¡± Samantha surprised.


    ¡°No, not dead. However, his life is in danger. He is in Goa¡¯uld¡¯s prison.


    ¡°How do you know Thor''s alive?¡¯


    ¡°On the basis of scanners, by which I found him on the Goa¡¯uld¡¯s ship.¡±


    ¡°Can''t we teleport him from there?¡± Jack suggested the simplest solution.


    ¡°No. Goa¡¯uld¡¯s protective field do not prevent scanning, but inhibit the ability of teleportation.¡±


    ¡°Can you contact to Thor?¡±


    ¡°Yes, I can.¡± Heimdal agreed, something switching on remote panel.


    Then Jack spoke remotely to Thor with the help of a hologram and promised to save him, even though Thor want to avoid this honor with hands and feet.


    ¡°How is he?¡± Samantha asked her boss.


    ¡®Fine, unless you count the fact that he doesn''t want us to save him. Plus, he said he is going to be interrogated by Anubis.¡±


    ¡°Thor fears that if we wait, then Goa¡¯ulds will get our research results.¡± Heimdal explained.


    ¡°What were you working on?¡± Inquisitive major again meddled.


    ¡°He''s trying to prevent his race from dying out.¡± I replied, interrupting Asgard. I had already downloaded all the information I needed from the local computer, and now I could focus on the conversation. "The fact is that the asgards are clones. When the body of a clone begins to collapse from old age, his mind will be copied into another clone, and the original is wasted into the scrap. And each time the quality of the copies deteriorated. At the moment, the average life time of the clone is only six months. If they do not find a solution, they all will die in just a few years.¡±


    ¡°That''s terrible!¡± Samantha amazed.


    ¡°Yes, unfortunately this is the case.¡± Heimdal looked at me reproachfully. ¡°We hoped that Imhotep would help us to solve this problem, but he refused.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡± Jack asked me.


    "I think this knowledge should be kept secret. If only Heimdall himself will not tell you about it.¡±


    ¡°No, I also believe that the reason for your refusal is not a subject for discussion.¡± He refused to explain anything.


    ¡°That''s it.¡± I concluded. ¡°Let''s focus on salvation of Thor.¡±


    Next was a discussion of possible options, the results of which Jack and Teal''c had to go to the Goa¡¯uld¡¯s ship using the transport rings on the Shuttle using a temporary security vulnerability in that moment, when Anubis will teleport to the ship. Samantha and Heimdal had to stay at the base and help them, reporting on the movement of the enemy. The ultimate goal was the destruction of the ship¡¯s shield generator, then Heimdall would be able to teleport Thor and the members of SG-1 to his ship.


    Of course I joined the rescue team.


    ¡°Jack, I''m coming with you. While you try to save Thor, I''ll distract Anubis.¡±


    ¡°How?¡± The Colonel surprised.


    ¡°I''ll meet him and talk to him.¡±


    ¡°Are you sure it''s safe?¡±


    ¡°Certainly. I''m a God, remember?¡¯


    ¡°Maybe you''ll kill him.¡± Teal''c made his offer. From the tone of his voice, he was angry to me.


    ¡°No, really. How can I? The gods do not interfere in mortal affairs unless absolutely necessary.¡±


    ¡°Anubis was going to destroy the Earth and take power in the galaxy.¡± Jaffa do not let up.


    "That''s what I mean. There''s no reason to worry. The balance of divine powers will not be affected by this.¡±


    ¡°Nice. We accept your plan.¡± Jack concluded. "I hope Anubis thinks you''re the only one on the ship." This will allow us to escape possible persecution.


    Then the three of us teleported to the Shuttle, waited for the right moment, and then teleported to Goa¡¯uld¡¯s ship using the transport rings. Jack and Teal''c headed for the generator, and I went straight to the throne room. I pushed aside with telekinesis all jaffa I met, and those who dared to attack me, destroyed on the spot.


    My ''journey'' took about ten minutes. The ship was large enough and the corridors winding. While I was walking, Anubis managed to connect a device for reading information to the brain computer of Thor and began to download data from there. My movement was no secret, so I was met in the throne room not only by Anubis, but also by several dozen Jaffa, who pointed their weapons at me.


    ¡°Hey, man. How are you?¡± I greeted him, and flashed my eyes in the manner of Goa¡¯ulds. Such sort of things was elementary for my vritras body.


    ¡°Who are you?¡± Anubis skipped introduction and immediately went to case.


    I''ve already cast some diagnostic spells on him. Under the spacesuit was hiding ascended. That''s just he was on this side of the ''invisible veil'', which caused me some questions.


    ¡°I am Imhotep, God of knowledge and architecture.¡±


    ¡°YOUUU!!!!!¡± Anubis cried out in a wild rage. ¡°Kill him.¡±


    The Jaffas opened fire, but none of the charges reached me. My magic defense was perfect, and Goa¡¯ulds primitive technology not going to harm me. Even if I turned off the shields, they wouldn''t be able to destroy my vritras body.


    ¡°Why are you so nervous?¡± I asked, sending a massive spell of decay. All jaffas immediately died and fell to the floor in heaps of rotten meat.


    "You were the reason why I was endlessly tortured until I could ascend.¡± Anubis clenched his fists in impotent rage. All of his warriors died, and he, like any guard, chosen not to participate in the battle.


    ¡°Really? When did I?¡±I really didn''t know where or when I could have annoyed Anubis.


    ¡°When we met, you knew me as Inpu.¡±


    ¡°Inpu? Brother Inpu? Is that you?¡± I shouted in the best traditions of Indian cinema, rushing forward and hugged stunned Goa¡¯uld in my strong arms. ¡°I''ve missed you so much. Our father told me about you. You were his favorite entertainment until you ran away. I hope I can bring you back to our happy family.¡±


    ¡°DIE!!!!!¡± Anubis shouted, using some kind of ascended magic. I was thrown away a few meters, but no serious damage was done to me. Though other someone organic be on my place, he would be sprayed to bloody dust.


    ¡°I''m sorry, but I''m God. I just can''t die.¡± I apologized. ¡°Better you will die?¡±


    I decided to try one of the magic spells on the ascended. I didn''t want to kill him or hurt him badly, but it was a great chance to do some experiments. To my surprise, the astral body of Anubis protected by a field of unknown nature. Magic literally slipped on it, not even coming into contact with the target. That''s something new. The monk, Daniel, and even Oma didn¡¯t have such protection. We exchanged a few more attacks that were completely unsuccessful. Anubis couldn''t hurt me, and I couldn''t hurt him. Even magic and chakra slipping from ascended like water off a duck.


    I would have continued this fascinating activity, but I was distracted by my spiritual parasite. It literally freaked out, trying to escape from prison, although for a long time quietly tolerated the presence of the ascended monk. Maybe he''s hungry. I had to focus on maintaining the seal to prevent my inner beast from devouring an important piece on the game.


    I decided to teleport away, but Anubis kept throwing himself at me in a fit of rage. When I got tired, I put him in a barrier based on the chakra. I couldn''t hurt him with combat Jutsu, but barriers are perfectly coped with its task, and not thinking to break down.


    Five seconds later, Anubis was in the invisible ''aquarium'' with a side of the base square of one meter and a height of a few meters. He began to feel the obstacle with his hands, so that his actions were like some kind of pantomime.


    ¡°Stay here.¡± I instructed him. ¡°and think about your disgusting behavior. Your unwarranted aggression caused me emotional distress. Besides, I don''t understand how you became Anubis. Anubis was Goa¡¯uld that lived about thousands of years ago. What do you think if I will say the real story to your allies, what would they do?¡±


    ¡°Who are you?¡± Anubis asked in response, having finally managed an outburst of anger.


    ¡°I am Imhotep, God of knowledge and architecture. Your brother.¡±


    ¡°No! You are not my brother. Where did you get this power?¡±


    ¡°You''ll know a lot lore, you''ll grow old faster. If I tell you the truth, I''ll have to kill you.¡±


    ¡°You can''t kill me.¡± Anubis replied, making another unsuccessful attempt to break the barrier.


    ¡°By the way, why? Where did you get this power?¡±


    ¡°Limited creatures like you not able to understand that.¡±


    ¡°Hey!¡± I was indignant. ¡°The limited creature here is you. Look, I''ve limited your movements, and that''s a great way to show which one of us is cooler.¡± The answer to me was only an irritated sniff. ¡°Come on. If you don''t answer my questions, I''ll just lock you in this room for twenty years and turn off the ship''s power generator. How do you like that prospect?¡±


    ¡°You want to know the truth?¡± Anubis worried, realizing his prospects. Not that I was really going to do it, but if necessary, I could easily arrange for him to have such a fate. ¡°Okay, I''ll tell you. This power was given to me by the gods. They control the lives of billions of worlds, and if you interfere with their plans, they will wipe you out!¡±


    ¡°Wait. Are you a game figure?¡±.


    ¡°What? You too?... So that''s the thing.¡± Anubis was quiet again and stared at me from behind his black shield, covering the suit. ¡°Whose side are you playing for? You can''t be for Goa¡¯ulds, because this is my role¡±


    ¡°Side? I play for myself¡±


    ¡°Solo player? Impossible! That breaks the rules.¡±


    ¡°You seem to know the rules.¡± I was interested. ¡°Can you tell me what you know about the game?¡±


    ¡°Don''t you know that? It is the player''s duty to explain the rules to his figure. Or you are not a figure?¡± In the voice of Anubis was question.


    ¡°My player... let''s just say, he is not very talkative. But I want to remind you that you are my prisoner, not opposite. You must know that if you get stuck here for decades of years, the game will end without you.¡±


    Anubis sank and sighed heavily.


    ¡°I''ll tell you about it.¡± I created throne, then sat on it and tuned in for a long lecture. The parasite calmed down a bit, so I could spend some more time with Anubis. ¡°I''ve heard of cases like yours. It''s called ''blind playing''. The player takes the figure and throw him into the game without explaining anything, and without giving any additional forces beyond what is required according to his role. There are quite high bets on such figures, because according to statistics, winrate of ''blind figure'' is one of thousand. So your chances of survival are very low.¡±


    ¡°I wouldn''t say like that. So, continue. What do you know about the rules of the game?¡±


    ¡°Each piece is given a chance to win. We are now in a game where victory is determined by the victory of the army or civilization. The figure may be the ruler of his side, or may simply be an unknown warrior, secretly directing key events. If a figure loses, he will suffer a fate worse than death. He will suffer eternal torture in hell. And the winner become a figure in the next game. This is my third game, so you have to understand that people like me are one of a hundred. And I will definitely win this game.¡±


    ¡°Of course, of course.¡± I encouraged him. ¡°As long as you can get out of my trap.¡±


    Anubis mentally gritted his teeth and continued.


    ¡°Each game follows a certain scenario. Events in this world are predetermined, and only figures can change something.¡±


    ¡°Oh. And what have you changed here?¡± I asked.


    ¡°I do not know. I don''t know this scenario. As a rule, it is unknown to anyone, unless the story about it is part of the rules.¡±


    ¡°So you don''t know what fate awaits you.¡± I chuckled.


    ¡°What? Do you know what the future holds?¡±


    ¡°Of course I know them. I''m a God of knowledge. I won''t spoiler it, but I can tell you haven''t done much good so far.


    ¡°What?!! I have ascended! I gained access to ancient technology. I created an invincible army.¡±


    ¡°I know.¡± I laughed mockingly.


    ¡®You lie!¡± Anubis again repeated his tantrum. ¡°You''re just trying to convince me that I''m losing!¡±


    ¡°Oh, that. Don''t worry. I don''t pretend to win this game. I''ll be interested in watching it, but I won''t be the winner.¡±


    "If you know the future, you must be able to predict it.¡±


    ¡°Well. Here''s my prediction for you. Thor will run away from you, and you''ll get nothing from him. You will not get any knowledge of Asgards.


    ¡°Will you help them¡±


    ¡°Perhaps. Or maybe it won''t be necessary. But let''s focus on you. What power protecting you?¡±


    ¡°It''s a gift from my God for winning the previous game.¡±


    ¡°You are dirty cheater.¡± I laughed. ¡°Okay, next. Where did you get access to ancient technology?¡±


    ¡°In the words of my God, I had to get the Goa¡¯uld¡¯s ship built by using Ancient technology. But you took it from me!¡± Anubis again exploded on the cry. ¡°I spent more than a year in prison, and then I was able to ascend, deceiving one trusting fool. After that, I found an abandoned ancient base where I could get some of their technology. And not long ago, I began seizing power in the galaxy. I will subdue all the System Lords, and then destroy the asgards, the Tauri, and all other civilizations.¡±


    ¡°That''s great.¡± I praised. ¡°Okay, my curiosity satisfied, now good bye. Don''t forget me brother. I think we''ll meet again.¡±


    Immediately after these words, there came a quiet murmur.


    ¡°What was that?¡± Anubis worried, trying to destroy again the barrier, with both his fists and his magic.


    ¡°My friends turned off the shield generator.¡± I notified him. "Now they are and Thor have been teleported to another ship. Well, in short, mission is complete. Farewell.¡±


    I removed the barrier and teleported to the Shuttle, which housed members of SG-1, Heimdall and Thor.


    ¡°Let¡¯s get out of here.¡± Jack expressed a common thought.


    Teal¡¯c and Samantha rushed into the control room to bring the ship into orbit and escape into hyperspace.


    ¡°Don¡¯t hurry. My ship will come soon.¡±


    A second later my cosmic pyramid ship appeared in the orbit of the planet. A second later, the entire Shuttle was teleported aboard my ship.¡±


    ¡°We''re in my ship. You''re safe here.¡±


    ¡°What''s happening?¡± Samantha''s voice came from the cabin. ¡°We''ve lost control. Shields are down, engines are not working.¡±


    ¡°Where are we?¡± Thor asked, lying inside a torture device of Goa¡¯ulds.


    ¡®I moved the Shuttle to aboard my ship.¡± I explained to everyone present that Samantha and Teal''c had returned to find out what the hell was going on with their Shuttle. ¡°Wait a minute. I need to contact Anubis.¡±


    I waved my hand, and a holographic screen appeared in front of me, on which we could see Anubis dressed in a cloak-tent with a coal-black protective field in place of his face.


    ¡°So, as I said, you won''t get Thor. One my shots is enough to tear your ship to shreds. And your shields are down. Anything else will you need to explain?


    Anubis¡¯s image disappeared, and his ship went into hyperspace.


    ¡°He''s gone.¡± I cheered the others. "I''ll talk to Thor, then I''ll bail you out to the Asgard fleet."


    I put a barrier against eavesdropping and approached lying helplessly Thor.


    ¡°Hey Thor, how are you?¡¯


    ¡°I greet you, Imhotep. I didn''t expect to see you here.¡±


    I scanned Asgard and found that his soul was nearby, though not interfering with the computer at the moment.


    ¡°Tell me, why didn''t you accept my offer? You could return to the living and not hanging out a free application for the biorobot.¡±


    This time the soul of Thor intervened in the process of thinking as its counterpart, but quite a bit.


    ¡°We plan to restore the Asgard race. Now we have a living member of our species. We can fully rebuild our bodies and then link them to our souls.¡±


    "Yep, and die after fifty years of old age, like all the real asgards."


    ¡°I think we will be able to solve this problem.¡±


    ¡°Well, well. Okay, I''ll leave it to you. Although it should be noted that this will not solve problem of the replicators¡±


    "When we will reborn, we can deal with them quickly.¡±


    ¡°Look.¡± I replied, removing the protection from the audition. ¡°By the way, your cavalry has arrived.¡±


    I again turned on the screen on which were visible three Asgard ships, had just emerged from hyperspace jump. I gave the command to Hat¡¯ak''s computer, and the Shuttle teleported out.


    ¡°Well, I think you can take handle from here. All the best to you.¡±


    I teleported into the control room of my ship and gave the command to enter hyperspace. I went back to the Hades galaxy, at the same time reflecting on the fact that I was able to find two pieces in one day. The first was Anubis, and the second was Thor. His soul was too different from the souls of the other asgards.


    So far, events were developing according to the canon, so there was nothing to worry about. I already had a plan for further action, so it was possible not to strain, and wait for the right moment, in parallel studying the technology of the Ancients.


    Six months later I had to distract myself to fulfill my promise. On the orbit of the planet the Asgard had a few ships of the replicators. And since I promised to intervene in the event of danger to the planet, I had to get my ass off the throne and go look for Loki.

 Chapter 6.12 - Stargate

    ¡°Hi, Loki.¡± I said hello to Jotun, finding him through a computer network. All my trojans remained untouched. "What are doing these wild Replicators¡¯ ships in orbit?"


    ¡°Imhotep?¡± He surprised. ¡°They are messengers of the Replicators. They have given us an ultimatum, and are awaiting our positive response.¡±


    "Since when replicators issue ultimatums?" I was amazed.


    "Ever since they captured the Asgard brain computers, studied them, and started churning out the same ones.¡±


    ¡°Um... was there any use in that?¡±


    ¡°Yeah. Replicators are too primitive when it comes to the formation of consciousness. Therefore, they use our technology to make plans, learn something new and effectively manage the army.¡±


    ¡°Amazing.¡± I wondered. ¡°What kind of demands did they make?¡±


    ¡°It''s not a good story for me. When the replicators captured the asgards, they didn''t erase the personality matrix in their computers. As a result, after some time, these replicators began to consider themselves as asgards, which replaced the weak flesh with the invulnerable metal. It will be well if only this, but in their electronic brains remained the idea that we need to save the Asgard race from extinction. So they decided to capture all asgards alive and turn them into replicators.¡±


    ¡°That''s great.¡± I praised. ¡°However, it is unclear why is it worse than the banal genocide of these Asgards?¡±


    ¡°Because they didn''t attack, and held secret negotiations behind my back. And now a significant part of asgards on our planet supporting this plan, openly speaking against me.¡±


    ¡°Um... what about the software in their brains? As I remember, Asgards did not consider themselves as person without organic brain.¡±


    ¡°They were able to convince that the degree of complexity of the replicators is not worse than organic. In general, this was an explicit use of a software error.¡±


    ¡°You know, I still don''t understand why this is bothering you so much. You''re a Replicator, they''re Replicators. The asgards will also become replicators. If you can keep your power over them, it can be considered as a victory. In fact, the wild replicators will capitulate, recognizing your power.¡±


    ¡°We have already tried to put such experiments. If the replicators decide that the actions of the brain are contrary to their interests, they simply throw out the rebellious brain and continue to exist without it.¡±


    ¡°How do they decide which decisions are right and which are not? The replicators would not do two control process, where one would exist only in order to control the other''s decision. Most likely, their trust in the brains of asgards is based on some simple algorithm and control of certain indicators. For example, the integrity of the body.¡±


    My theories weren''t just assumptions. I knew how replicators worked, so I could predict what decisions they would make.


    ¡°Yes, that''s the way it is.¡± Loki confirmed my calculations.


    ¡°So you need to make sure that the replicators can''t make a decision about ''distrust'' to the brain. Replicators do such conclusions together. After all, each of their ''individual'' - a whole swarm of Replicator blocks, decided to act together. Each block sacrificed personal interests for the sake of the whole. If you increase the number of Replicator blocks obeying one brain, they will not be able to look at the whole picture, because each block will be too ''myopic'' in their decisions. As a result, their overall intelligence will drop. Under normal circumstances, they would solve this problem by creating an analogue of the brain. But they already have a brain, so they will entrust the verification of the correctness of their decisions to this brain, thus reducing themselves to the state of an ordinary body, executing commands.¡±


    ¡°Genius!¡± Loki exclaimed. ¡°But how to increase the number of blocks to the desired level? Invite them to become giants?¡±


    ¡°No. In response to their demands, you must put forward your own. Asgards believe that replicators will replace their organic cells. It is necessary to demand from replicators to make their base blocks at nanometer size. As a result, the number of blocks in Replicator bodies will increase so much that they will not be able to control brain activity. Moreover, increasing their number is the primary goal of all replicators. So the increasing their number due to the reduction in size should appear to them best strategy.¡±


    ¡°Yes! Perfectly. It is true that I have lately been in doubt whether I will be able to maintain my power among the asgards at all. They obey me only because I am the head of the High Council of the Asgards. But as you can see, in some matters they have their own opinion. In the end, the Council was created to prevent the sole power of one Asgard over all the others. So their program allows the formation of social groups with non-standard opinion.¡±


    ¡°What about direct brainwashing?¡±


    ¡°Brainwashing? What''s it?¡±


    ¡°I mean direct impact to their brain, bypassing the outside world perception protocols. Your body is made from replicators. Although they are different from the usual ''wild'' replicators, they can coexist peacefully next to them. You will need to place your units inside the brain of the replicators. Just a few will be enough to ensure obedience to your orders as a higher priority. If your replicator blocks will not attack the updated blocks from the Asgard, and just quietly seep into critical places, then you will be able to subdue the replicators with a simple touch.¡±


    ¡°It... I''m speechless. Where do you get these ideas? It wouldn''t have occurred to me that we could subdue replicators that way.¡±


    ¡°I''m just a God of knowledge. I know more than you, and therefore I can develop much more complex plans.¡±


    "I am grateful to you, Imhotep.¡±


    "As a sign of your gratitude, I want you to promise that the replicators, asgards, and Jotuns in your control will not leave this galaxy. You are capable of destroying almost any form of life. If your influence grows too much, then all of you will be destroyed by the forces  which the disintegration of the galaxy is no more difficult than for you to eat a metal ball.¡±


    ¡°Oh ...Good.¡± Loki promised me. I didn''t really expect him to keep his word, but he''s not likely to break it in the near time. And then I won''t care. As they say, as if there were no to-morrow.


    ¡°Go ahead, contact these replicators and request a face-to-face meeting with them to negotiate the terms of the contract. I want to see how these hybrids will work in practice.¡±


    Through fifteen minutes all formalities were settled, and we with Loki teleported to Replicators ship. Here we were met by quite a usual kind of Asgard - height of hundred twenty centimeters, a frail body, hands, sticks and a huge head with no less huge eyes.


    I was immediately struck by the fact that it was not just a robot. He had a soul! It wasn''t Asgard''s soul. At least they didn''t have the hallmarks of a thousand-year-old Ghost. Rather, these souls reminded the souls of ordinary people.


    Apparently, this was the result of the action of the one of fundamental nature laws, which shoved the soul into the appropriate body. After all, in fact, the birth of a child - it''s just the creation of the human body. And when this new body becomes sufficiently developed, it is possessed by the soul, which then controls this body throughout life. These bodies was somewhat non-standard, but it could hold soul not worse.


    Interestingly, in this ''configuration'' Asgard¡¯s brains did not reject the influence of the soul. Replicators creatively redesigned the Asgards¡¯ computers, removing all that is considered as superfluous. The ''otherworldly interference'' diagnostic mechanism was deemed a waste of resources and sent to the dustbin of history.


    I did not interfere in the negotiations, but simply watched them. As I expected, the Replicators agreed with our requirements and took several days to develop a new modification of the blocks. After that, there was to be a ''demonstration'' of the work of this technology on existing replicators with Asgard brains. And according to the results of the ''pilot operation'' was to be held the transformation of all Asgard from biorobots to nanorobots.


    By the time the process of the final destruction of the Asgard civilization in the Hades galaxy began, Loki had already developed a scheme for implating his replicators into other people''s brains. As a result, the actual unification of all warring parties under the control of one person took place.


    The new Lord of the galaxy did not seek to turn all available materials into replicators. Instead, he began to restore the surviving worlds, re-populating them with different forms of life. At the same time, most of the replicators engaged in the construction of a new unprecedented civilization on lifeless planets. There were more of them than inhabited worlds, so the conflict of interest in the Replicator program was avoided.


    I watched all these events out of the corner of my eye, doing my research. I looked after the Earthlings too, but I didn''t interfere in their lives. They even managed to deal with the invasion of replicators in their galaxy, gathering them all on one planet, and then freezing them with the help of the time stop field.


    In general, all this time I spent quite comfortable, except for one trouble. My parasite after meeting with Anubis literally freaked out. From time to time parasite made attempts to get out, meowing loudly something in its Swahili. So I constantly had to be on my guard and reinforce the restraining fuinjutsu in various ways.


    Finally, a year and half later, I received a signal from a sentry spell installed near the Ancient¡¯s knowledge pumping device into the brains. Earthlings in an attempt to find a solutions to combat Anubis found and decided to study this device. But they were chasing by Goa¡¯uld Lord¡¯s troops, so Jack once again loaded into his head the Ancients knowledge base, then they blew up a valuable piece of corny. It remembered to the drama of Ostrovsky and say: ''If I can¡¯t gain it then nobody shall gain it!''


    I reached Earth on my ship, then teleported my clone to the Stargate base. He secretly watched what was happening to ensure my epic appearance at the right time.


    ¡°¡®Et¡¯ is a symbol of the Earth. Starting point.¡± Resurrected Daniel broadcasted to new PM (Project Manager) of Stargate. ¡°Praclarush Taonas Et.¡±


    ¡°Is this address will lead us to the lost city?¡± Elizabeth Weir asked.


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Wait a minute, we have dialed this address two years ago.¡± Samantha intervened, viewing information in the computer. ¡°But didn¡¯t able to open hypertunnel. The gate must be buried.¡±


    ¡°Lost in the fire¡­¡± Daniel translated the name from Ancient language.


    ¡°What we''re looking for may still be there.¡± Samantha suggested. ¡°I could use the address to calculate the planet''s coordinates, but we''ll need a ship.¡±


    ¡°Prometheus?¡±


    "Since Anubis is on his way here, Prometheus is our last defense.¡± Elizabeth said.


    ¡°Maybe Teal''c found something?¡± Samantha suggested.


    In this moment I intervened in this conversation, suddenly appeared in the gate control room.


    ¡°I can lend you my ship.¡±


    ¡°Imhotep?¡± Samantha surprised. ¡°We haven''t heard any news from you in two years. And then you jump out like a ¡®Jack - in-the-box¡¯ and offer to help?¡±


    ¡°Yeah. Imhotep always comes at the last moment.¡± I impersonated Fantomas.


    ¡°Who are you? How did you entered here?¡±  Elizabeth very surprised.


    ¡°You should have read about me in the most secret part of the report.¡± I answered. ¡°I am Imhotep, God of knowledge and architecture.¡±


    "A God like Anubis?"  The new boss asked skeptically.


    ¡°He''s my brother.¡± I nodded. ¡°But I''m cooler.¡±


    ¡°We have Goa¡¯uld on the secret base, and it isn''t bothering anyone?¡± Elizabeth turned to the others.


    ¡°Actually, it''s disturbing.¡± Samantha confessed. ¡°I still remember the time when he organized here a cult of his name and forced us to repeat his name.¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°I''m God.¡± I apologized, picking at the floor with my toe. ¡°Our kind can''t do on other way.¡±


    ¡°Okay, let''s start again.¡± Weir tried to get her thoughts in order. ¡°You are Goa¡¯uld, which at any moment can appear on the most secure base in the USA. And you offering to us your ship in order to help us to reach a secret city of the Ancients, where there may be weapons that can destroy all Goa¡¯ulds? Did I miss anything?¡±


    The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.


    ¡°Everything right, except for a little detail. I''m not Goa¡¯uld. I am God!


    ¡°Ah... don''t you have that worm in your head?¡±


    All present people stared to me with interest.


    ¡°Of course not!¡± I was indignant in reply. ¡°Do I need to open my skull and show that there is no Goa¡¯uld?¡±


    ¡°No, but... there are other ways to find out the answer to this question.¡± Elizabeth persisted.


    ¡°Well. Since you are so interested, I will show you that there is no Goa¡¯uld in my head. I am God!¡±


    With that, I grabbed my head with my hands, made an effort, and then broke my skull in half, revealing a view of the bloody brains.


    ¡°Look what you''ve done to me!¡± I shouted, scattering the bones of my skull. ¡°I DON¡¯T! HAVE!! ANY! WORMS! IN MY HEAD!¡±


    With these words, I put my hands deeper and pulled out my brain from head, splashing the surroundings with blood. Daniel couldn''t stand the sight and fainted. Such a ascended sissy. Ugh!


    ¡°Here, look.¡± I stuck my brain under the nose of the Stargate project manager ¡°Did you see here any Goa¡¯uld? Answer me! Do you see?¡± I twisted my brain in different directions to demonstrate it.


    ¡°No. Not see.¡± Elizabeth replied, fighting back the urge to vomit.


    ¡°Here! That''s right. Now do you believe that I''m God?¡±


    ¡°I believe you. Please just get it away from me.¡± She agreed with my blackmail.


    I somehow shoved back my brain into the skull, plopping it there upside down, and then used the illusion spell, creating a beautiful glow. At the same time, I used the abilities of my vritras body, causing all the scattered ''pieces of bones'' and ''splashes of blood'' to fly into the air and take their places on my head. After a few seconds, I looked like a normal person.


    ¡°As... how are you feeling?¡±  Weir asked.


    ¡°As Godlike!¡± I replied in an ecstatic voice.


    ¡°E-e-e-E... I see.¡± She was not able to find other words  to express her feelings.


    ¡°Let''s return to our sheeps.¡± I casted a healing spell on Daniel to bring him to his senses. ¡°I can give you a ride to that planet so Jack can do what he wants to do.¡±


    ¡°Nice.¡± Samantha agreed, seeing that Elizabeth is still in a state of prostration and suffering difficulties on perceiving outside world.


    ¡°Where''s Jack?¡± I asked.


    ¡°Collecting things.¡± Daniel sighed.


    ¡°Let''s help him.¡± I caught fire with the idea of digging into the local junk.


    Daniel and Samantha only sighed heavily and followed me, leaving their leader to put his brains in order.


    ¡°Colonel?¡± Samantha greeted the sufferer as we entered a large room filled with a pile of junk.


    ¡°Please don¡¯t  ask.¡± He replied still dragging some items into the pile.


    ¡°Jack, hi.¡± I said hello. ¡°You can stop collecting all this stuff.¡±


    ¡°Imhotep?¡± Colonel froze, looking at me.


    ¡°I decided to help you to get desired planet. I have a ship, so everything you want can be found there.¡±


    ¡°Nice.¡± Jack looked to another box and threw it at his feet.


    ¡°How are you, by the way? Any headaches?¡± I asked, casting diagnostic spells.


    This time I knew exactly what was going on in his brain and what it would mean in the end. And most importantly, I saw that the subpersonality of the Ancient, living in his head, was able to put a barrier between themselves and the original personality of Jack. As a result, he became ''himself'', deprived of access to the Ancient knowledge, then pushed his long-suffering head of the device which recorded the new information over the old.


    Because of this combination of information matrices, the subpersonality of the Ancient began to collapse, replacing the destroyed blocks with the memory of Jack. Now his schizophrenia again regained consciousness, and mentally cursing, trying to figure out how to save the Earth and himself for one.


    Knowing me, Jack realized that to rely on me for help over the promised makes no sense. So, his plans have not changed, although somewhat simplified.


    ¡°All right. Can we leave now?¡± Jack asked.


    ¡°Wait! Where are you going?¡± Elizabeth Weir shouted as she ran into the room.


    ¡°Let''s have you with us.¡± I suggested. ¡°You should look what SG-1 is doing, what is called ¡®in live¡¯.¡±


    ¡°What? I''m not¡­¡±


    At this point, the teleportation worked and I, Jack, Samantha, Daniel and Elizabeth were in the cockpit of my ship. Teal''c recently dumped on another planet, so in this sortie, he was replaced by Elizabeth.


    ¡° ... meant it¡­¡± She continued, looking around. ¡°Where are we?¡±


    "You are aboard in my flagship, the Grim Reaper."  I replied proudly. ¡°That''s how it looks like.¡±


    One of the screens in the wall lit up, and on it appeared the image of a dark pyramid, covered with mysterious glowing symbols, from the base of which stretched long wriggling wet tentacles. Other screens displayed stars and Earth, creating a sense of Windows.


    ¡°Three hundred and fifty meters from the bottom to the top of the pyramid.¡± I started to list the performance characteristics of the ship. ¡°Tentacles can stretch up to two kilometers. Hyperdrives allow you to get to any point of the galaxy in five minutes. Any weapon cannot break shields, and one thousand and eight heavy plasma guns capable of destroy any fleet in one second.¡±


    Of course, I embellished the picture a little. From the point of view of the Ancients, it was an ordinary ship of a slightly strange appearance. But for the current inhabitants of the galaxy, these technologies were over advanced.


    However, even the Ancients were not smart enough to create the ship, the feed which would provide thousands of ZPM. My flagship could stay on the move, even losing three-quarters of the hull. After that, it could independently obtain the necessary resources and fully recover itself. The only thing it could not make new ZPMs, because to create them you need special equipment, about which I knew only that Ancient has such equipments, but I created ZPMs with help of chakra and magic.


    ¡°Can you¡­¡± Elizabeth Weir began to speak.


    ¡°No!¡± I snapped.


    ¡°No what?¡± She didn''t understand.


    ¡°You after all wanted ask me for help, to protect you from Anubis. I can''t do that.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°Because the gods don''t do anything for free. And you have nothing to pay for my services.¡±


    ¡°But you''re helping us to reach this planet¡­¡±


    ¡°It''s a free promotion.¡± I explained my actions in terms of wild capitalism. "Besides, I like to watch your overcoming a obstacles. You''re funny.¡±


    ¡°What? Funny?¡± Elizabeth was indignant. I did not listen to her, and engaged in laying the course to planet.


    ¡°Praclarush Taonas Et. Yeah, that address is in the database. The gate is inactive. Coordinates received. Let''s hit the road.¡± Appeared on the screens screensaver showing a flight through hyperspace. ¡°We''ll be there the day after tomorrow.¡± I said.


    "But you said that your ship able to reach anypoint of galaxy in five minutes.¡± Samantha was indignant.


    ¡°Of course it can. But if you were using a Jaffa Shuttle or a Tok''ra ship, that would be the speed.¡±


    ¡°Clearly.¡± Major accepted.


    "I can put you in time stasis, so you won''t have to think about what to do with your free time."


    ¡°Wh..


    In this moment the Earthlings stood, surrounded by force fields. On the one hand, I didn''t want to disrupt the plot by flying too fast, and on the other hand, I didn''t want to listen a endless questions for two days. Not to mention the fact that I''ve only just realized that there are no living room in my ship where there would be a sewer, a bathroom, a kitchen and beds. I gave the appropriate instructions to the computer to create an apartment for a hundred or two hundred guests.


    Way time I had spent for experiments with the technology of access to hyperspace. Finally, we reached our destination, and I removed the stasis.


    ¡°...y?¡±


    ¡°Well, actually, we have already arrived.¡± I concluded.


    ¡°What? But Anubis is going to attack and destroy Earth!¡± Daniel was outraged to my such move.


    ¡°Yes, when it will be?¡± I shrugged. ¡°We have at least a half hour before he will destroy Washington and the President of USA.¡±


    ¡°What? Half hour?¡±


    ¡°You better start thinking, why did you come here after all?¡±


    On the screen appeared the image of the planet which covered with glowing scarlet stains.


    ¡°Looking bad. The surface is covered with lava flows.¡± Samantha summarized. ¡°Jack?¡± She turned to her boss.


    ¡°What? I even don''t know why I''m here.¡±


    ¡°We need to scan the surface of the planet. How to do this?¡± Samantha asked me.


    ¡°Ready.¡± I answered. ¡°Results on screen. Gesture control.¡±


    ¡°The atmosphere is not breathable. Low pressure. The temperature ranges from minus forty to plus thousand degrees.¡±


    ¡°I can give you protection, similar to spacesuits.¡±  I suggested.


    ¡°Jack, among your collected things were spacesuits. You were going to the surface of the planet.¡±


    ¡°Well, seems you know more than me.¡± He answer. His subconscious could barely break through rational logic, so every time it made Jack do something, it was a surprise to him.


    ¡°Come here and take a look. Go ahead.¡±


    Jack walked over to the screen, and his subconscious began waving his hands, looking at the data. Finally, the image stopped on a small hill.


    ¡°There''s an anomaly.¡± Carter said. ¡°Looks like a bubble. Or rather a hemisphere in a molten rock.¡±


    ¡°Maybe it''s a force field that protects the city?¡± Elizabeth suggested.


    ¡°It''s too small for the city. The diameter of about a hundred meters. And I''m not picking up any trace of energy. I think we should go downstairs and check.¡±


    ¡°As you wish.¡±  I nodded.


    Before anyone could react, I cast a protective spell on all Earthlings and teleported us to the center of the found anomaly. Once there was a shield sphera. It was splashed with lava, which formed a kind of crust on top of it. The shield was gone, and this ''ceiling'' was left hanging.


    I organized the lighting, and our friendly company began to bypass the former outpost of the Ancients. Finally we reached the room with the control chair. But the picture in front of me was different from what I had seen in the cinema.


    The chair was half dismantled, all the surrounding panels gutted, and most importantly, the nest for ZPM gaped with emptiness. So this is where Anubis found the ancient technology.


    Jack looked around the room, walked between the empty computer racks and sat down on a chair. It seems that his subpersonality was in mourning, refusing to believe in what is happening.


    ¡°So? Is this the abandoned city of the Ancients?¡± Samantha asked.


    "Better you tell me that." Elizabeth issued caustic comment.


    ¡°This is clearly architecture of Ancients.¡± Daniel commented. ¡°Reminds me of an Outpost in Antarctica.¡±


    I looked at Jack''s doomed expression and walked over to him.


    ¡°You tried. It''s like coming to ''Wheel of Fortune'' on TV, make twenty six attempts and not able to guess even a single letter. Someone like you must be entitled to a consolation prize.¡± I held out my hand, and a ZPM block appeared on it. ¡°Take.¡±


    (* ''Wheel of Fortune'' - this TV show where you must to find out hidden word. In every turn players can suggest one letter from alphabet *)


    Jack looked at the prize in disbelief, then grabbed it and began to examine it.


    ¡°What is it?¡± Samantha asked, coming closer.


    ¡°Zero point module. The power source of the Ancients.¡±


    "So we came here just to get it from you?" Elizabeth was indignant.


    ¡°Well, theoretically you should have found another ZPM here. But someone stole it. I will find that bastard, and tear his arms.¡±


    Jack handed precious cargo to Samantha.


    ¡°What''s next?¡± She asked.


    All looked on Jack. I also looked at him and noticed that while his body was in stasis, the data in his brain continued to unpack. And just a minute ago, another batch of information was recorded in the speech center, depriving Jack of the opportunity to speak any language except Ancient.


    Colonel looked around once more, poked his hand at the remains of the chair, and stared at me hopelessly. At the same time, he even in the language of the Ancients really could not say anything, because his subpersonality could not ''get access'' to this system.


    ¡°Terra Atlantus.¡± Finally, he gave birth to a short phrase.


    ¡°Terra is Earth.¡± Daniel translated.


    ¡°Atlantus is Atlantis, the lost city.¡± Samantha contributed to the science by making an obvious assumption. ¡°We need to get to Atlantis? Jack! What we need to do?¡±


    ¡°Oh, by the way, the rent of the ship expires in ten minutes.¡± I reminded them.


    ¡°What?!!!¡± All the earthlings stared at me.


    ¡°I suggest all of you return to Earth, or do you want stay here?¡±


    ¡°But... but... How? We... Anubis will destroy the Earth!¡± Samantha began to protest.


    ¡°Imhotep, what are you trying to achieve with their actions?¡± Elizabeth asked me.


    Yeah, looks like I found a new test subject, to test my brain-rotting jokes. Three other patients are already in the terminal stage, and they will not be able to test anything.


    Jack got up and walked away from the chair.


    ¡°See, he agrees. I suggest not to empty talk here, and give control of the ship to Jack. I think he''ll be there in nine minutes.¡± The Colonel looked at me and nodded. ¡°So, are you staying here or are you flying to Earth? I''m staying here myself.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± Everyone world view template burst again.


    ¡°Here is nice, but you have eight and a half minutes left.¡±


    ¡°We''re going back to Earth.¡± Elizabeth Weir made her decision.


    ¡°Perfect. Good luck there.¡±


    I teleported people to the ship, and I began to deal with the remnants of ancient technology. Anubis, it seems, could not detect that in addition to the Outpost with the protection system, there was a research center. Most of the equipment had been destroyed over the past thousands of years, but there was still has a computer underground that could contain interesting information.


    I gave the ship a command to temporarily follow Jack O''Neill''s orders. He didn''t have access to the weapon controls, but he could use the teleportation system. In any case, also on Hat¡¯ak was my chakra clone. It was my standard way of keeping control of the ship.


    I myself was going to study this Outpost in detail, and then bring a ship here and teleport everything valuable to my Hat¡¯ak. While I was scanning the environment, Jack reached Earth and directed the Hat¡¯ak to Antarctica. Hovering over the right place, he began to deal with the management of the teleportation system, but then everything went wrong.


    Anubis at this time were fighting in a battle with a spaceships of earthlings and their ballistic fighters. He detected my ship''s exit from hyperspace. Although the ship was equipped with a cloaking system, but he able to track its position by atmospheric disturbances. Still, when colossus of this size descending at high speed, it is look like a local Apocalypse.


    The smartest thing that came to mind of Goa¡¯uld was the order to open fire to my Hat¡¯ak. This was his over in fact.


    My Hat¡¯ak''s computer monitored all systems and the environment. When it found that someone was attacking it and I wasn''t on Hat¡¯ak¡¯s board, it turned on the standard scenario to repel the attack. Identifying the parties of the conflict, it calculated the positions of all Goa¡¯ulds ships, after which hundreds of guns simultaneously shot, and every bullet found its target.


    A second later all Goa¡¯ulds ships orbiting the Earth exploded, scattered by superheated plasma. Such fate befell to all ships from beginning with the flagship in the amount of two kilometers, to the smallest gliders. The ships that were on the other side of the Earth were also destroyed. Each projectile was controllable and could move along a complex trajectory. The Earthmens¡¯ technique was unharmed, and now they were trying to understand what had happened.


    Ship notified me destruction of Anubis¡¯s fleet as post factum. All I had to do was swearing and continue my researches. When Jack managed to teleport himself to the Ancient Outpost in Antarctica, the radar showed a bunch of interference, Terran ships and my Ha¡¯tak, hanging a hundred meters above the ice. In the end, Jack as in the canon, got into the life suspend system, where he froze his body until better times.

 Chapter 6.13 - Stargate

    I''ve been at the Ancients'' base for over a week. All this time my ship was over Antarctica, completely ignoring all attempts of Earthlings to contact him. Finally, I pulled out all useful information from the Outpost and gave the command to hat¡¯ak to pick me up.


    When I returned to Earth, I left the ship in orbit under disguise, and myself appeared at the base of the Stargate directly in the office of Elizabeth Weir.


    ¡°Good afternoon, Elizabeth. How are you doing?¡±


    ¡°Imhotep! Good to see you.¡±


    ¡®Really? It seems there something very bad has happened and you need my help again.¡±


    ¡°Huh? Yes. Excuse me. Goa¡¯ulds sent to us an invitation to negotiate. Your ship destroyed Anubis''s fleet, but I was informed half an hour ago that it had left the atmosphere.¡±


    ¡°Yeah. I''ve finished studying the Outpost of the Ancients. Actually, I was not going to destroy Anubis, but he attacked my ship and signed his own sentence. Now, I''m going to do my business, and I will leave you on your own.¡±


    ¡°But... Goa¡¯ulds can attack Earth. The Colonel tried to activate some systems at an ancient Outpost in Antarctica but now he''s in stasis, and we don''t have the people to activate that device.¡±


    ¡°I''m sorry for your grief. When the Earth will be burned in nuclear fire, I will return to visit your graves.¡±


    ¡°Can''t you help us?¡± I could hear the despair in the voice of Weir.


    ¡°I can. But everything has a price.¡±


    ¡°What do you want?¡±


    ¡°It''s simple. I will heal Colonel O''Neill and I will hold negotiations with Goa¡¯ulds. In return, you will appoint Jack as supreme king of the Earth and give him the title of System Lord. Well, for one give him position of head of the Stargate program.¡±


    ¡°It... I can''t decide for the whole Earth. We have a lot of countries¡­¡±


    ¡°I can make precautionary shots to the capitals cities of dissenting countries or wipe all people of that countries. After that, there will be no one alive to object against you.¡±


    ¡°It''s more like an ultimatum.¡±


    ¡°The will of the gods is sacred. You should do it, not question it.¡±


    ¡°I... I can''t make that decision. I simply don''t have such authority.¡±


    ¡°Then inform those who have such authority. If someone will be against, tell me their names. I will teleport them to my ship, inflict inhuman tortures to them, and then brainwash them. I think in a couple of days from such therapy, there won''t be any politicians on your planet who won''t worship me as a true God. And please note that my ship destroyed Anubis'' fleet in one second. I think it really shows the limits of my abilities.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, sure.¡± Elizabeth agreed to my arguments. As a professional politician, she has repeatedly dictated her terms, taking advantage of the superiority in force.


    ¡°Well, then I will leave here my energy projection, which will resolve all of these bureaucratic delays. See you soon.¡±


    I created a clone and teleported to the base in Antarctica. There I extracted Jack from stasis and began to study his condition. In general, I found nothing particularly complex or interesting. Now I knew exactly how exactly ¡®the knowledge decompression program¡¯ working algorithm, so I could easily reverse it, erasing all knowledge that had a certain quantum signature.


    Fifteen minutes later, Jack was strong as an ox. I healed all his age-related sores and generally brought his body back to normal twenty years old state, while not greatly changing his face. The last casted spell brought him to consciousness.


    ¡°Wake up and sing, Jack.¡± I greeted him.


    ¡°Imhotep? What happened to me?¡±


    ¡°Well, you put your head in that ancient thing, and then you did a series of heroic deeds and almost saved the Earth.¡±


    ¡°Almost?¡± Colonel rose from his bed and looked around.


    ¡°You didn''t saved.¡±


    ¡°What?!! Was Earth destroyed?¡± He was worried.


    ¡°I mean, I saved it before you.¡±


    ¡°Ah... Good.¡±


    ¡°In general, I fixed your brain, but unfortunately your memory records since of the Ancients'' knowledge recording into the brain was erased.¡±


    ¡°Where are we?¡± Jack asked, looking around the room.


    ¡°Ancient¡¯s base in Antarctica. Here is a device that is able to protect the Earth from Goa¡¯ulds, and only you can use it. Well, at least in near future.¡±


    ¡°Not bad. How to manage it?¡±


    "Sit in that chair and mentally form a desire to destroy those who disagree with you. It should be simple.¡±


    Jack sat in the indicated chair, leaned back and called the visual interface of the protection system.


    ¡°That''s Daedalus.¡± I pointed to the Earthling¡¯s ship. ¡°This is my ''Grim Reaper''.¡±


    ¡°It''s marked as a friendly target.¡±


    ¡°Yes, this system can not threaten me by definition.¡±


    ¡°Any other good news?¡± Jack asked, playing with the system.


    ¡°Full complect. You have been appointed as System Lord and as Supreme King of the Earth.¡±


    ¡°Who appointed?¡±


    ¡°What a stupid question? Of course, I appointed.¡±


    ¡°That explains a lot. Is United Nations aware of such decree?¡±


    ¡°They''ll be notified. I''ll leave my projection here to make sure that you have all the levers of control of the planet.¡±


    ¡°What do I need to do with this power?


    ¡°Do whatever you want. Get yourself a harem, build a palace, issue some laws. I''m not sure, really, whether someone will perform them. Well, you know these politicians.¡±


    ¡°I know perfectly well. And that''s why I''m not eager to get into all this garbage.¡±


    "Or you could just become a nominal ruler, like the Emperor in Japan. Your choice.¡±


    ¡°I''ll think about it.¡±


    ¡°Nice. Then let me get you to Stargate base, and I''ll do my own business. I need to meet our common friend.¡±


    I teleported myself and Jack to the base, said goodbye, and teleported to my ship. My next destination was a dwarf galaxy near the Milky Way, where Thor settled. He should be having trouble with the replicators right now. I took the coordinates of the planet from the Earthlings¡¯ computer.


    Coming out of the jump, as I expected, there was vicinity of a black hole, which was local star. It was just one of the tricks that ignored the law of conservation of energy. All the electrons inside the star turned into stable Tau leptons. As a result, its mass increased so much that it turned into a black hole, and the planet with replicators began to fall on it.


    I found Thor¡¯s ship and contacted it.


    ¡°Greetings Thor. How are you?¡± I welcomed.


    ¡°Imhotep... this is a very unexpected meeting. What are you doing here?¡±


    "I want to see your most epic failure in the new history of the galaxy."


    ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°Your attempt to destroy the Replicators will be fail.¡±


    ¡°At the moment, radar readings suggesting opposite. Soon, the planet will get closer to the horizon of events and will be ripped apart by tidal forces. After month, all replicators and their remains will be completely destroyed and absorbed by the black hole.¡±


    ¡°I think we should watch this process a little longer.¡±


    ¡°That''s why I''m here. I need to make sure the replicators are completely destroyed.¡±  Thor¡¯s melancholic voice created the impression that he do not care what the outcome of his attempts will be. However, he was a computer, so, that''s exactly what it was.


    I gave to my ship the command to follow Thor''s ship and went to do my other business. After about a day, the planet began to turn into an elongated cloud of hot matter. But beyond that, mass of replicators separated from planet gathering in a clump. After a while, the swarm of replicators began to move away from the black hole. They were able to unite and create a more powerful version of the impulse engine.


    ¡°Thor, are not you seeing anything strange?¡± I got in touch with stubborn Asgard.


    ¡°I am seeing.¡± He agreed ¡°The replicators are moving away from the black hole. I wonder what would cause it?¡±


    "Could it be that they were able to get out of your trap?" Frankly, after such a question, I began to suspect that Thor is another member of the Troll community.


    ¡°They have a time dilator. I don''t know how, but they can withstand the gravity of a black hole.¡±


    ¡°Oh! They''re directing to us.¡± I said in voice of the commentator of the TV program ''In the world of animals''. ¡°I think they decided to eat us. I am wondering, how long time it''ll take?¡±


    Thor tried to escape in response, but his engines could handle gravity much worse. A minute later, the Replicators¡¯ ship fired twice. One charge, consisting of replicators, flew towards to the Thor¡¯s ship, and the second was intended for me. I met this gift with particularly powerful protective field, reinforced with magic. Additive magic shield will not be superfluous, because the Replicators learned to generate a field for neutralizing shields. Although the technology of the Ancients and the Asgards was different, the replicators were originally creations of the Ancients, and therefore their attacks were effective against my ship.


    I took the Replicators¡¯ charge, isolated it in magic barrier, and sent it to a special secure chamber. It was designed in such way that in case of violation of the protection, all its contents will be destroyed to the level of quark-gluon plasma. My ship had the protection from the replicators, but when talking about robots size in nanometers, their localization and elimination could be a difficult task.


    "Thor, my friend, let me know when the replicators will start gnawing you."


    ¡°Ok.¡± Biorobot agreed complacently.


    ¡°You still don''t want to accept my offer to return you to the world conventionally? You still have the risk of becoming a bunch of replicators, only it will be wild replicators which you can''t control.¡±


    Meanwhile, on Earth began the planned negotiations between humans and the System Lords. My clone was met three ambassadors, in the gateroom. To negotiate arrived Lord Yu, Amaterasu and Hamul. In addition to them passed through the gate Lord Yu¡¯s assistant and the team SG-8.


    "Bow before the true God, mortals.¡± I greeted them, flashing my eyes like a real Goa¡¯uld. Ambassadors stood as rooted to the spot, stunned by the presence here of another Goa¡¯uld, dressed in adorned with gold and precious stones clothing.


    ¡°Who are you?¡± Amaterasu asked, a woman of Eastern appearance in a beautiful dress.


    ¡°I am Imhotep, God of knowledge and architecture.¡±


    ¡°First time I heard about you.¡± Hamul expressed their dissatisfaction.


    ¡°Your ignorance is your disgrace.¡± I snorted back. "I am the strongest of the gods in this galaxy. It was my ship that destroyed my brother Anubis''s fleet.¡±


    ¡°What?!!¡± Goa¡¯ulds again experienced a torn of pattern. ¡°Anubis had a brother?¡±


    ¡°Let''s go to the conference room. You shouldn''t be showing your ignorance to the Tauri people.¡±


    ¡°Open the gate! I''m going back.¡± Amaterasu tried to show her temper to me.


    ¡°You are my hostages. You can leave only if I want.¡±


    ¡°It''s a breach of agreement!¡± Hamul shouted.


    ¡°You did agreement with Tauri, but not with me. Blame yourself for signing contracting with slaves instead of their master.¡±


    Elizabeth Weir wanted to be indignant and tried to say something, but couldn''t say a word. Clone perfectly mastered the chakra based techniques, so I found something to ensure the compliance of others to my scenario.


    Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    "Are you going to negotiate, or can I just throw you out into a world filled with lava?"  I asked, smiling disgustedly.


    Goa¡¯ulds looked at each other.


    ¡°We''ll talk to you.¡± Lord Yu expressed the common opinion.


    ¡°Please follow me to negotiation room.¡±


    We walked through the corridors and into a room decorated with gold and silk. There was only Jack O''neill from humans race as my prospective Governor. When everyone was seated, I continued the conversation.


    ¡°So. I''m not going to pretend that we having there some negotiations. I will state my demands, and you will humbly agree with them. This applies not only to you, but to all those system lords on whose behalf you speak.¡±


    "It is not we who make the decision, but the Union of system lords.¡± Hamul said.


    ¡°You''re wrong. They don''t make any decisions either. If anyone tries to challenge my authority, I will simply destroy them.¡±


    ¡°How can you prove your strength?¡± Lord Yu asked angrily.


    "My ship destroyed Anubis''s fleet in one second. Unfortunately, none of the enemies survived to witness this. But you can bring your fleet here, and then I can once again show you this divine miracle.¡±


    Goa¡¯ulds looked at each other as if deciding which one of them have extra fleet.


    "If you have such power, you must help us in the war against Ba¡¯al." Hamul started attacking me.


    ¡°I don''t owe anything to anyone. But you don''t have to worry about Ba''al. When my brother Anubis will return to life, he will easily subdue Ba¡¯al and all of you.¡±


    ¡°What? Anubis is dead! You said that you destroyed his flagship by yourself.¡±


    ¡°Anubis is God. Unlike you, false gods, he cannot be killed in such a primitive way.¡±


    "So you''re saying you''re immortal, too?" Lord Yu¡¯s assistant I asked me, through whom he referred the matter.


    ¡°Of course, I''m immortal. Here you go.¡± I throwed in advance prepared dagger on the table. "Anyone of you can come to me and strike as many blows as you want.¡± Hamul picked up the blade. "But I warn you, after you finish, I will strike you with the same blade."


    Such conditions have cooled Goa¡¯ulds zeal, however, filling his mind with doubt. After attacking me, he will risk to meet his own death if I really turned out to be God. But on the other hand, it was like a bluff. After all, if he does not have the determination to attack me, he will never know if I am truly immortal.


    ¡°My Jaffa will do it.¡± Lord Yu said.


    His assistant looked at his master fearfully, then reached out his hand to Hamul. He hesitated a bit and gave the dagger. Jaffa came up to me, and I spun in my chair to face him.


    ¡°So, where will you strike?¡± I asked him with a mocking smile.


    While my clone had fun with Goa¡¯ulds, my real body continued the conversation with Thor. He didn''t answer my last question, so I kept pushing him.


    ¡°By the way, what about your project to revive the Asgard race with the help of that clone? You had two years to get results.¡±


    ¡°We''re continuing our research. Apparently, a long suspending body caused changes in the biochemical processes occurring in the nerve tissues, which is why we can not activate the higher nervous activity in these clones.¡±


    ¡°In short, the project failed, and you are still on the verge of extinction.¡±


    ¡°Alas.¡±


    "Thor, it looks like the replicators have reached your onboard computer and transferred the data from it to their brethren. Their main ship changed course.¡±


    "Yes, they are heading to the planet Orilla, where we are reviving Asgard civilization. I fear all my brethren are under threat of destruction.¡±


    "But you still think it''s better to be eaten by replicators than to be reborn as a new form of life?"


    After a few seconds of delay, Asgard replied in a slightly more lively voice.


    ¡°I saw what you did to my brothers in the Hades galaxy. Replicators are not a form of life.¡±


    ¡°So you''re not form of life either. Or do you think that replacing metal components with hydrocarbon ones gives you the right to be called alive? You are computer. Soulless piece of iron, next to which from time to time contacting an ancient ghost. By the way, is the ghost controlling you now, or has he left you to your fate?¡±


    In response, I heard a loud click and silence. I think I''ve caused the biocomputer to have a nervous breakdown. But five seconds later I heard Thor''s voice again.


    ¡°Don''t ask me those questions. My critical failure counteract system are triggered as soon as a wrong thought arises in my mind.¡±


    ¡°How sad. You don''t even have freedom of thought. Look, soon the replicators will eat you and all your comrades, so you''ll be left with nothing.¡±


    "No, I can destroy the replicators at the cost of this carrier of my consciousness. Now they all gathered in one place. I will detonate my ship and destroy the entire swarm of replicators. After that, a copy of my consciousness will be uploaded to another clone.¡±


    ¡°Nice. Let''s see what you can get out of this.¡±


    Meanwhile, on Earth, Jaffa was trying to kill me with one blow. My clone went into a disembodied state, although his appearance is not affected. Finally, the man plucked up courage and struck me right in the throat, clearly intending for one to finish Goa¡¯uld in my head. Alas, the dagger only pierced the back of the chair.


    Jaffa, who had lost his balance, stumbled a little, leaned back, and at that moment I seized his right hand, pulled the dagger from it and with a swift movement thrust it into the throat of jaffa, breaking his spine. Kamikaze fell to the floor as potato bag.


    Jack and Hamul jumped to their feet to get a better look at the corpse.


    ¡°You killed him?¡± Jack exclaimed.


    ¡°Certainly.¡± I nodded smugly. "But you must know that death is not the end.¡±


    Colonel looked at me doubtfully, nodded, and sat back down.


    ¡°So.¡± I continued my speech when everyone was convinced of the death of the subject. "You have all seen that mortal weapons are incapable of harming to God.¡±


    ¡°What is this technology?¡± Amaterasu asked.


    ¡°It''s not technology. It is the power of the gods. You mortals can''t understand that.¡± I raised my hand, palm up, and a fireball lit up above it, scattering the petals of the flame. ¡°But let¡¯s back to our ''negotiations''.¡± I with mockery singled the last word. ¡°My requirements are simple. You recognize Jack O''Neill as a System Lord, equal to yourself.¡± I pointed to my new governor, who was holding his face as a brick. How to behave in negotiations, I explained to him in advance. ¡°The territory of Anubis goes to him in temporary management until my brother returns, and Lord Yu will oversee the implementation of this agreement on your part. In general, that is all.¡±


    "I will never recognize this man as a System Lord!" Amaterasu almost shouted. In response, I struck her with a bolt of lightning that avoided Lord Yu and bit into her chest. Goa¡¯uld jerked in a spasm and fell to the floor together with the chair. The charge wasn''t fatal, but it did extensive damage.


    ¡°Anyone else have any protest?¡± I asked, glancing around at the two remaining false gods.


    ¡°Why should I defend your territory?¡± Lord Yu was not afraid of my gaze.


    ¡°As payment for my services.¡± I chuckled. "I can heal and rejuvenate your host. After that, you can live another thousand years.¡±


    ¡°What?!!¡± Hamul sprang to his feet. ¡°Even the sarcophagus can''t heal me.¡±


    ¡°I can.¡± I threw him a look, under which goa¡¯uld sat back. Amaterasu came in consciousness too and made attempt to rise back on her feet. "Here''s a little demonstration of my divine abilities.¡±


    I reached out and used the medical chakra to heal the dead Jaffa. The dagger slipped from his throat and the blood soaked back into his body. After a few seconds jaffa regained consciousness and tried to stand.


    ¡°Well, so what?¡± I asked.


    ¡°I agree.¡± Lord Yu nodded.


    ¡°Is there anyone else who wants to challenge my demands?¡± There was silence in the hall. "Then you can greet new System Lord Jack O''Neill, and I''ll take care of my ally''s health. Please follow me.¡±


    At my invitation, Lord Yu and his Jaffa followed me into the next room, where there was already a bed from the infirmary.


    ¡°Take a sit. This will take five minutes.¡± I pointed to the only piece of furniture. ¡°And keep in mind, along with the healing, I will put on you a spell that will monitor the performance of the contract from your side.¡±


    After goa¡¯uld took the designated place, I used a disposable amulet with a spell of ¡®higher healing¡¯, which was in the pocket of the clone. However, no one noticed, because the amulet was inside the palm. Five minutes later, the spell stopped working and the patient stand up.


    ¡°How are you feeling?¡±


    Lord Yu opened his eyes, felt himself, looked at his rejuvenated hands, and then quickly jumped off the couch.


    ¡°Incredibly. I accept the terms of our agreement.¡±


    ¡°Perfectly.¡±


    We returned to the common room, interrupting the impending squabble. Goa¡¯ulds looked at his ally and froze with open mouths.


    ¡°So, I will explain once again for those who had low IQ. The territory of Anubis belongs to Jack. If one of you encroaches on this territory, then Lord Yu will deal with the intruder. As for Ba¡¯al, I will find a way to explain to him who is the master in this galaxy. Now, I ask you all to leave this planet. All those who disagree with my decision can come here with fleet and get a plasma charge in the forehead. We will open fire without warning.¡±


    The solemn part was over, and goa¡¯ulds was kicked through the gate.


    ¡°Jack, have fun.¡± I turned to the ruler of the Earth when the portal closed. ¡°I''ll talk to Ba¡¯al.¡±


    That was the end of my clone, and I focused on what was happening in the Asgard galaxy.


    The ship of the replicators escaped from the zone of distortion of space around a black hole and turned on hyperdrives. Thor sent his ship after him, using the existing gap in space. As a result, Thor''s ship was now flying behind of the replicators along the corridor they had created. I made another puncture of space, moving parallel course and watching what is happening there from the side.


    Thor tried to catch up with the Replicators ship. Since he didn''t need to form a new corridor, even with weaker engines, he could move faster. But after a few moments his speed dropped significantly. As I knew, it was the replicators that got to the ship''s control system.


    However, Thor did not despair and send characteristics of the corridor in hyperspace through which he moved to their planet. This made it possible to calculate the approximate exit point of the Replicator ship from the hyperspace jump.


    Five minutes later we reached our destination. Several Asgard ships shot the replicators, smashing their ship to pieces. But it did not help much, because these pieces fell to planet as rain. And many of them were strong enough to survive the fall.


    I came out of the jump almost at the same time as Thor and scanned the surroundings.


    ¡°Thor, you really screwed up. This planet is doomed, and you can''t save your countrymen from the terrible fate of being eaten alive by replicators. Your last chance to save them is to accept my offer.¡±


    To be honest, I''m sick and tired of that stupid stubborn, pathetic ghost. If he doesn''t agree now, I''ll leave him to die. I don''t care about the story. His intervention wasn''t that important. At the very least, I''ll ask Loki for help. I think he will not refuse to allocate a couple of Asgard for crowd scene.


    ¡°Do you think I''ll take help from another player''s figure?¡± Finally, Thor gave birth. That''s what''s bothering him. ¡°If I become a Replicator, it will automatically mean your victory.¡±


    ¡°Stop-stop-stop. Are you think I''m a Replicator? Have you lost your memory? I saved you from the replicators when your ship was in earth orbit.¡±


    ¡°It was your cunning move to gain my trust.¡± Hypochondriac ghost Thor put forward his argument. ¡°You were able to defeat the replicators just because they listened to you. I analyzed the records from the ship''s tracking systems and found no trace of the using any technology that can actually destroy the replicators.¡±


    ¡°Ah! Your words breaking my heart!¡± I exclaimed. ¡°I came to you with the entire soul of, and you!... If you don''t believe me, let''s find the Replicator figure and ask him what he thinks about it.¡±


    I scanned the planet again and found a cluster of replicators whose behavior indicated they had a reasonable leader. After that, I teleported to Thor''s ship, sealed him in fuinjutsu and jumped to the planet at the desired point. Then I got to the humanoid Replicator and unloaded Thor.


    ¡°So, welcome to you.¡± I began my speech. ¡°I think we should start by meeting. I am Imhotep, God of knowledge and architecture. This is the Fifth - the figure of replicators. And this is Thor, the Asgard.¡±


    ¡°Imhotep? So you''re the reason that I lost control of the replicators in the Hades galaxy?¡± The Fifth was indignant, completely ignoring Thor. ¡°You turned them into asgards!¡±


    ¡°No, he turned Asgard to the replicators.¡± Thor did not agree with his assessment.


    ¡°No, the replicators turned to the Asgard.¡±


    ¡°No, the Asgard turned to the Replicator.¡±


    Both my interlocutors looked at each other, and then with a challenge stared at me.


    ¡°What? You first deal with each other, which of you losing. And then I''ll decide what to do next.¡±


    While the Fifth thought about what my words meant, Thor finally understood what the expression of irritation on my face meant.


    ¡°Well, he''s lost. Replicators became asgards.¡± Thor spoke in an accelerated voice.


    ¡°Great.¡±


    With that, I gave the command to my ship, and it activated the weapons designed to fight the replicators. Energy wave perturbation walked the planet, switching off all blocks of the replicators. The fifth crumbled into dust, and his soul was left without a physical body. Interestingly, is this can be considered as death? The spirit of the Fifth fled from the area of my perception, I focused on the soul of the Thor.


    ¡°So. I am asking for the last time, do you agree to undergo the rebirth procedure? Hint: if you say `no`, I''m going to blow up this planet right now.¡±


    ¡°Agree.¡± Thor rattled.


    ¡°Wonderful. Let''s begin.¡±


    I used a long-practiced method of catching souls in magical snares, and then took the biorobot and transferred to his ship. In the last couple of minutes of his worthless life, the Fifth gave me the idea how to tie soul and ''flesh'' of replicators as fully as possible. This will be provide a more vivid sense of the body, although the soul could experience not only pleasure but also pain.


    In other words, I saw how to create astral shells, more similar to those that were created under the influence of the natural laws of the Universe. I unwillingly to check such experiments on myself, so Thor will be my guinessa gip. I''m getting really sick of him.


    While I was working on changing Jotun technology, my new clone moved to the milky way galaxy to meet Ba¡¯al there. Finding the strongest System Lord took half an hour. I used already developed technology of reading thoughts with the help of clone. All I need is to find a victim, to deprive her of consciousness, and then to pull out information about Baal from their brain.


    At the last stage I had to hijack a goa¡¯uld¡¯s Shuttle, and then teleport from shuttle to the flagship of the Ba¡¯al¡¯s fleet with the transport rings. Then I reached the command room of the ship under henge jutsu picturing Jaffa without hindrance, where I paralyzed all jaffa but Baal.


    ¡°Well, well, well. Who''s there? Rebel slave?¡± I smiled, looking to the most smart-ass goa¡¯uld in the galaxy.


    ¡°Who are you?¡± He asked while looking around us for at least some of the defenders, capable of defending him. Given the fact that he was now in orbit of his planet in the control room of his flagship, my brazen appearance spoke of the quality of his protection.


    "I am Imhotep, God of knowledge and replicators.¡±


    ¡°I heard about you.¡± Baal grinned, leaning back on the throne, though he felt no confidence at all inside. "You have claimed the entire territory of Anubis and declared the simple human as a System Lord. My opponents are out of their minds if they agree to this.¡±


    ¡°Spies everywhere.¡± I complained. ¡°So I wanted to surprise you, but you know everything. You have good spies, but no brains.¡±


    ¡°How dare you?¡±


    "Didn''t you think it was strange that I showed up on your ship like this, disarming all your bodyguards? If I want to, I would kill you right now.¡±


    "Then why haven''t you done it yet?"


    ¡°Hm-m-m... really? It would make things easier.¡±


    I waved my hand, and lighting Jutsu easily pierced the shield around Baal, hitting him in the leg. ¡°Oh, sorry. Missed. Don¡¯t worry, I''ll fix it¡±. The second discharge burned the second leg to the bone.


    ¡°What do you want?¡± Baal moaned, clinging to the armrests of his chair. Suddenly, he became extremely uncomfortable to sit without feet.


    ¡°Wow, the rudiments of your brain are activated.¡± I was surprised. ¡°I think you understand. Don''t attack Tau''ri planet  and do not invade the territory of Jack O''neill. Well, at least until Anubis comes back. There you will understand what to do next.¡±


    ¡°Anubis is dead!¡± Baal cried out in fear.


    ¡°Of course he dead. But that won''t stop him from coming back to life. Do you understand my demands?¡±


    ¡°Not to attack the Earth and territory of Anubis until he returns to the world of the living.¡±


    ¡°Exactly. Well, I won''t distract you from conquering another world. No, wait. This world used to belong to Anubis. What are you gonna do now?¡±


    ¡°Fly away.¡± Baal was already fainting from the pain in his burned legs.


    ¡°Very correct. Well, you''ve learned your lesson. Farewell.¡±


    My clone dispelled, leaving injured goa¡¯uld to appeal for help to his irresponsible servants. After all, out of consciousness were all members of the crew of this ship.


    After a few hours of scientific experimentation, I created a new modification of replicators related to the Jotun race. They also could not reproduce and be active without the ''spiritual influence''. As ''second-class citizens'' I planned to use Asgard computers and a simplified version of replicators of the same modification. They were controlled not directly by the soul, but through the ''brain computer'' of Asgard, which could subdue ''first-class citizens''. This architecture has already been worked out, so I just finished the details of the implementation.


    As a result, I got a race of replicators incapable of explosive limitless growth. At least this growth was limited by the production of electronic brains and the presence of catched souls in the body. Without a soul, the replicators were inert pieces of metal, which suited me better.


    Finally, Thor¡¯s soul underwent the necessary transformation and received a new body. Basic appearance I decided to make a form of Asgard. I didn''t know what Thor looked like in life, so I left it to him.

 Chapter 6.14 - Stargate

    ¡°How does it feel?¡± I asked Thor, looking at his knuckles in surprise.


    ¡°Very... This is weird.¡± The newborn got up from the lab table and walked back and forth. After that, he formed from his hand something like a claw, a can opener and a wild hodgepodge of manipulators, which would be the envy of any maniac vivisector. "Is life in the physical body always been so bright?"


    Ummm... maybe, Did I again connected something wrong?


    ¡°You''ve been a ghost for years. I think you''ve forgotten what it''s like to be alive.¡± I gave a plausible excuse.


    ¡°Yeah, that''s probably it.¡±  Thor agreed. ¡°Are you able to resurrect my brethrens?¡±


    ¡°Easily. Gather them in one place, and I will bring them back to life one by one.¡±


    Judging by the Thor¡¯s words about ''brethren'', he pretty much identified himself with his role in this game. Apparently his soul implanted to the astral shell of the real Thor that existed in the form of ghost. At the same time, the victim acquired memories and traits of the recipient. In a whole, similar to my case. I just implanted into a yet undeveloped goa¡¯uld that allowed me to emerge stronger my true identity.


    Then I held my usual event and create a reasonable replication of the ghosts. At the same time, the process of replacing the biological components of Asgard bodies was launched. However, this process was not so fast, because they are ''alive'' only replicators, who has a soul. And this process was not fast and largely random.


    "Thor, what do you plan to call your new race? Loki named his people as Jotuns.¡± I turned to the leader of the former asgards.


    "Then my people will be called Asuras. Asgard is the city of the Aes. My clan was called Aes, which is the abbreviation of the ancient Asura.¡±


    The Jotun against the Asuras? What''s the world coming to? And those, and other in different religions are considered as demons. While demons fight each other, what do gods do? Drinking amrita and watching them, spitting from the clouds? Or gods in this world doesn¡¯t exist?


    After about a couple of months, Thor finished transforming all Asgards into Asuras. He quite got used to his new form of existence and even thanked me a couple of times for my help. However, I received from this scam of the century not only thanks, but also the valuable experience of creating new life forms. It was quite interesting to see how the initially primitive bodies of the Asuras over time acquire peculiar organs and complex structure, both on the physical and astral level.


    Having mastered the new body, Thor has changed not only its appearance, but also the character. Now it was a vigorous, muscular, fat man with wheat hair, who ran everywhere with his hammer and beat them from time to time on the heads of the guilty. After that you can send the usual Asgards for recycling but the Asuras of ''Royal blood'' only sweared in response while collecting their splashed brains.


    The first thing Thor began to revive the economy and industry, building warships. In total, I ''brought back to life more than two hundred ghosts. Each of them received a personal ship with the most effective shields and weapons. All this time I was sitting on my ship, which was hanging out in the orbit of the planet of the Asuras, so their activities were not a secret for me.


    Having rebuilt the fleet, Thor began expansion into the milky way galaxy. Since he was a game figure, he first of all devoted his actions to the performance of game tasks. For a start, he settled on planets that were protected by the Asgard under contract with goa¡¯ulds.


    Then he rushed to capture the planets of System Lords, but was faced with the problem of retention. Goa¡¯ulds did not hesitate to destroy the planets, captured by a new enemy. I think they deliberately resorted to `scorched earth` tactics to show the futility of trying to free the inhabited worlds from their influence.


    I was no longer interested in Thor''s further tactics, because he transferred all his activities to the milky Way galaxy, and I remained hanging in orbit of Orilla. I had nowhere to hurry, so I waited for the key events, while doing my research.


    The first evidence that something is very wrong, was when I decided to check the revolutionary activities of jaffas against goa¡¯ulds. The problem was that all goa¡¯ulds voluntarily accepted the power of Anubis, and now was desperately battling with Asuras.


    The worms were only saved by the fact that Anubis has mastered many Ancient technology, so the battle in space was more or less equal. But Thor could not worry about sending his troops to the slaughter. The only crew member of any battle battleship was the one ''High Asur'', for whom death was just a small inconvenience. And building a new such a ship took only a few days.


    But that wasn''t the point. The war cannot be won only by aviation. To capture the planets needed infantry troops, and Thor had problems with the creation of a large number of Asuras. Therefore, he went the other way, about which I personally did not even know until I saw in action.


    The Asuras could control a finite number of Replicator blocks. But given the small size of these blocks, the numbers went to thousands and millions. Thor used this fact to create an army of terminators, where each robot had only one Replicator block as a processor.


    As a result, one High Asur could control an army of millions of robots. It was worth a couple of landing ships to land on the planet, and robots scattered across its surface, destroying all enemies. Neither Jaffa nor the super-soldiers of Anubis could do anything about the endless stream of machines, which at every opportunity also began to multiply and repair each other.


    In general, assessing this strategy, I came to the conclusion that Anubis not going to live long. Now he winning only due to a significant reserve of forces and the fact that the offensive forces of Thor were limited to the number of high Asuras.


    Another important difference was that the Jaffa rebellion against Goa¡¯ulds was much less ambitious. The reason was that the Thor didn''t care if the Jaffa are free or servants of Goa¡¯ulds. He happily destroyed those, and other, and all the supporters for one. Even with such a policy of genocide, it didn''t have much effect on the number of people on the captured planets. After all Jaffa were millions, and mere mortals billions.


    All these passions have not passed by earthlings who had his Jaffa in the composition of SG-1. Moreover, he was a close friend of Jack, which is now formally listed as King of whole Earth, and not the smallest piece of the galaxy. Using me as a scarecrow, Jack was able to fence off a couple dozen planets into his property, which no one dared to attempt conquer.


    The first call was a radio call from Jack. He asked for my help in arranging negotiations with Thor. I scratched a turnip and promised that I would arrange everything.


    And just a few hours later I was contacted by Loki, who asked permission to go to the milky way galaxy for negotiations on the reunification of the two branches of the asgards in one common civilization. I scratched my head again, puzzled, and promised to help with that.


    I finished the current experiments and sent my ship to the milky way galaxy. Here I habitually entered the orbit of my planet, from which I had just begun my development in this world. To my surprise, there was already Goa¡¯ulds Hat¡¯ak in orbit. I immediately contacted him.


    ¡°Unknown ship, identify yourself. You are in orbit around my planet.¡±


    "Greetings, Lord Imhotep.¡± I heard a familiar voice and saw a familiar narrow-eyed underage face of Lord Yu. ¡°I am patroling this area to prevent the invasion of possible offenders.¡±


    ¡°Oh, by the way. Don''t you want to take part in the negotiations with Thor?¡± I said the thought that came to my mind.


    ¡°In what role?¡± Goa¡¯uld was taken aback.


    ¡°Well, we''ll figure it out in place. As a representative of Anubis. Or as a possible defector under Thor''s wing.¡±


    ¡°It... I will consider it more.¡±


    ¡°Nice. Then I''ll contact you when time and place of negotiations will be clear.¡±


    ¡°Of course, my Lord. I really appreciate your participation.¡±


    ¡°Farewell.¡±


    I disconnected the link and began searching for Thor. It was useless to search for him by way as I had found Baal. The mind-reading spell didn''t work well on robots. But on the soul of each changed Asuras stood my label. QCD sign, so to speak. By this mark I found game figure of the Asgard in a couple of hours.


    My ship came out next to the planet in orbit which was a hot battle. Two ships of the Asuras were opposed by five Goa¡¯uld¡¯s Hat¡¯taks. At first glance, Asuras had a hard time. Their ships were full of holes, and their shields flickered, reflecting at best half the attacks. Here''s a more detailed scan showed that the main battle going in board goa¡¯uld ships. Each of them was the landing of replicators with the Asgard brains that are methodically taken out the equipment to malfunction. And even no one could stop them, because the first thing that the Asuras did was break the tightness of the hull, and then continued their sabotage activities in a complete vacuum. One and a half dozen super-soldiers of Anubis seriously could not change the balance of power.


    ¡°Hi, Thor.¡± I got in touch with the right ship. ¡°Not distracting?¡±


    In the picture of the video link, I could see the sybaritic Thor lying on a soft couch surrounded by beautiful womans.


    ¡°Not at all. These Goa¡¯ulds absolutely dull.¡±


    One of the shots hit something important inside Thor''s ship. There was an explosion, and the ship broke into two unequal parts. But Asura''s serene face showed no signs of worry.


    ¡°Here representatives of several civilizations have expressed a desire to negotiate with you.¡±


    ¡°For what purpose?¡± Thor asked, taking a more direct position.


    ¡°No idea.¡± I disowned him. ¡°It is difficult for me to say how and what they are going to convince you, but in my opinion the idea of negotiations makes sense. You will be able to inform all interested parties in a neutral atmosphere what awaits them in the near future.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, that''s interesting. Where and when?


    ¡°I think in a couple of days. I need to prepare a meeting place and organize the presence of all parties.¡±


    ¡°Nice. Contact me when you''re ready.¡±


    ¡°See you soon.¡±


    I disconnected the link and winced. Something this Thor utterly brazen. I''ll have to give him some nice surprises.


    The meeting of the criminal bigwigs of the galaxy took place on one of the neutral planets, where I built a Palace specifically for this event. Through magic and Ancient technology it was easy-peasy. The meeting itself was to be held in a large hall, the edges of which were alcoves, where it was possible to discuss something in a private setting.


    Participants were to arrive at the meeting through the gate, the address of which I sent out half an hour before the event. The Earthmens arrived first. Their embassy consisted of the SG-1 team, including Jack O''neill. Along with them came jaffa Bratak, as a representative of the Rebels. The next came Loki, accompanied by several Jotuns. Then came Jacob Carter as a representative of Tok''ra. Penultimate has passed through the gate of Lord Yu with his permanent assistant. And finally, late for a couple of minutes, arrived Thor - the source of headaches in the entire galaxy.


    Stolen novel; please report.


    "Greetings, my friends.¡± The leader of the Asuras shouted loudly as he entered the hall. ¡°I''m glad I have so many fans¡­¡±


    On this his joyous speech has interrupted, because he saw Loki.


    ¡°Good to see you too, brother.¡± Jotun said with a mocking smile.


    ¡°What''s he doing here?¡± Thor asked, looking for me with his eyes.


    ¡°He''s here to talk to you.¡± I stepped forward. "Don''t worry, everyone here is under my protection, so you have nothing to fear.¡±


    ¡°To be afraid of? I''m not afraid of anything!¡± Thor turned his nose up. ¡°I just didn''t expect to meet a traitor here.¡±


    ¡°You''re the traitor, Thor.¡± Loki answered to this accusation. "You have violated the will of the High Council of Asgard.¡±


    Loki held out his hand in a welcoming gesture, and Thor grabbed it, squeezing it as hard as he could. It was obvious Loki was higher than Thor half a head, but in response Thor was much broader in the shoulders. There was a creak of metal, and Loki''s hand was crushed by the iron grip of the God of War. That''s just the God of Cunning was not born sewn. His replicators began to corrode the limb of the enemy, turning it into sawdust. Thor tried to shake them off, and then threw away part of his arm to prevent his destruction. I was sure that in a couple of minutes his replicators would come up with a way to deal with this scourge, but winner in first round remained for Loki.


    ¡°So, let''s get started. First, I will introduce everyone present, and then you will state your claims or suggestions.¡± I began my speech.  ¡°Thor, leader of the Asuras. Loki, leader of the Jotuns. Jack, king of the Tauri. Yu, System Lord of Goa¡¯ulds. Jacob Carter aka Selmak, representative of the Tok''ra renegades. Bratak, the leader of the rebel Jaffa. And me, Imhotep, God of knowledge and replicators.¡±


    ¡°Since when did you become a God of Replicators?¡± Loki asked.


    ¡°Since when I created the Jotuns and the Asuras.¡± I answered. ¡°No more questions for me? Then I suggest to give the speech floor to the initiator of this meeting, Jack O''Neill.¡±


    ¡°Thor? Is that you?¡± Jack surprised, looking on muscular bearded man.


    ¡°Am I not recognizable?¡± The man said, swiping a hand through his hair. ¡°I changed my hair style¡±


    ¡°Yeah... you''ve changed. All right. I''m not a politician, so I''ll tell you how it is. Your beard doesn''t suit you.¡± The audience froze, comprehending the essence of the claims. ¡°And yet, we are not satisfied with your policy of total destruction in relation to Jaffa.¡±


    ¡°I''ll take your opinion into account, but it will not change anything.¡± The leader of Asuras replied. ¡°Goa¡¯ulds and their minions must be destroyed.¡±


    ¡°But not all Jaffas serving Goa¡¯ulds.¡± Bratak said. ¡°We could be allies.¡±


    ¡°As long as you have goa¡¯uld in your bellies, between us there unable be peace.¡± Thor rejected the offer. ¡°However, there is a solution.¡±


    ¡°What a solution?¡±


    ¡°You can go through the transformation and become Asuras. I have already developed the technology of turning people into Asuras. Your personality, memory and soul will remain untouchable, while the flesh will be replaced by replicators. You will become immortal. Gain strength and power. What do you say, master Bratak?


    Jaffa frowned.


    ¡°We''re not ready to become robots yet.¡±


    ¡°Then you will die. Anything else?¡±


    ¡°If we remove goa¡¯ulds from ourselves, you will cease to kill Jaffa?¡±


    "If they accept my authority, they can live like any other people on my planets. But those who resist my troops will be destroyed every single one.¡±


    Bratak and Jack looked at each other. The king of the Earth shook his head and gave me a sign that he had finished.


    "I give speech floor to Loki, leader of the Jotuns.¡± I performed my function as a master of ceremonies.


    Chief Jotun stepped forward and spoke in a stern voice:


    "Thor, as the official representative of the High Council of Asgard, I urge you to recognize the authority of the Council and to come to our home world for a formal hearing on your case.¡±


    ¡°Forget it.¡± Thor waved hand, lounging on the throne. "There are no Asgard in your Council.¡±


    ¡°Conversely. It is now that the members of the Council are exclusively real asgards, not their soulless clones. You''re great...¡±


    ¡°What''s he talking about?¡± Jack whispered to me.


    "The asgards you met earlier were computers with biological bodies. They didn¡¯t has souls and acted according to the program enclosed in them, but these Asgards are replicators acting according to the call of the soul. I brought back to life the souls of the long-dead Asgards, and now they are divided into two camps, the leaders of which are Thor and Loki.


    "I liked a lot better old version Asgards.¡± Jack grumbled. ¡°They were much more cultured and kind.¡±


    "I would look at you if you had to become a Replicator to stay alive."


    ¡°Won''t they eat the whole galaxy?¡±


    ¡°No. Thor can''t do it, and Loki promised me he wouldn''t.¡±


    Meanwhile, a dispute between two replicators ended with a Grand Holy Shit War, after which opponents ran to the corner of the ring, while everyone remaining in their opinion.


    "The next word is for System Lord Yu," I proclaimed.


    Goa¡¯uld nodded and started talking, without leaving the chair.


    ¡°Why are you attacking us? Millions of people are dying because of your unjustified aggression.¡± Apparently communicating with people made Goa¡¯uld to believe that someone might worry about such an illusory thing as the protection of rights and freedoms. Alas, these misconceptions were immediately dispelled.


    ¡°I don''t care about people dying. My goal is the complete and final destruction of all Goa¡¯ulds in this galaxy. You''d better ask your master Anubis about the reasons for such enmity.¡±


    ¡°So we can''t even count on surrender?¡± Lord Yu said grimly.


    ¡°As long as Anubis is alive, it''s basically impossible, and he, as far as I know, is immortal.¡±


    Goa¡¯uld irritably waved his hand, indicating that he had finished speaking.


    ¡°The representative of Tok¡¯ra Salmak.¡±


    Jacob Carter was not too lazy to get up and go out into the center of the room, staring Thor in the eye.


    ¡°I represent the Tok''ra Alliance. We unite symbionts and people who share a common belief about the possibility of mutually beneficial cooperation between our races. We would like to suggest that you cease hostilities and resolve all differences peacefully at the negotiating table. Unlike goa¡¯ulds, we tend to solve all the contradictions of the world, I...


    ¡°Not interested!¡± Thor interrupted, slapping the hammer against the palm of his left hand. "I don''t care who you are or what your beliefs are. While you have serpent in your head or in guts, then I want only your death. Do you want to solve everything in peace? Then kill yourself peacefully. As long as Anubis is alive, talking about peace makes no sense.¡±


    ¡°Why Anubis? He''s not even goa¡¯uld from a technical point of view.¡± Selmak protested, taking control of the body.


    ¡°Ask him. I do not intend to comment on this.¡±


    Jacob flashed his eyes and returned to his seat.


    ¡°Well, it seems that everyone was able to express their claims.¡± I concluded. "Thor, do you have something to say to everyone present?"


    ¡°Yes!¡± Thor leapt to his feet and raised his hammer to the sky. "I am Thor, Lord of the Asuras. This entire galaxy will submit to my authority, and all those who disagree will die.¡±


    With that fiery speech, he turned and walked away, heading straight for the Stargate.


    ¡°Um... it was a little unexpected.¡± I scratched my head, addressing the rest of the audience.  ¡°But you can keep talking. Over there is a buffet where everyone can find something tasty for themselves.¡±


    Loki immediately got up and headed for the meals. The others looked at each other and either followed to the table or started talking quietly.


    Overall, this meeting proved to be quite clueless due to the intransigence of the Thor. And it was even understandable. While the others suffered heavy losses, he had not lost anything since the beginning of the war. At least, all high Asuras were immortal, and ordinary members of society could be produced in unlimited quantities.


    I went to Loki, who was looking at the various dishes with interest.


    ¡°I recommend fried salmon and nuts from trinium.¡± I pointed to two ''dishes''. And if one was quite ordinary, the second was a deep plate filled with nuts with a diameter of one centimeter.


    ¡°Trinium?¡± Loki then threw a handful of nuts in his mouth and began loudly crunching them, processing it to blocks of replicators. ¡°Not bad. Why do you offer fish?¡±


    ¡°Well, it''s the national dish of the Vikings and the Asgard. Fish, beer and cheese with barley cakes.¡±


    "To be honest, I don''t remember what we ate when we were living asgards. The clone felt that this information did not need. He himself ate horrible surrogates. And I have for thirty thousands of years, too much of memory has been erased.¡±


    "Why did you even think of bringing Thor back under your authority?"


    ¡°It''s not me, the Council want. All of them can''t wait to return to ''former glory''. But now I will provide them with proof that Thor is not eager to return to their society. Moreover, we are not compatible even at the level of replicators. He has another model.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, I redid some stuff. Okay, let me know when you want to come back. Open the gates to your galaxy.¡±


    I stepped aside, and Jack rolled up to me in the company of Teal and Bratak.


    "Imhotep, can you give us a weapon against the replicators? Well, you know, like the gun you gave me? We tried it, but it doesn''t work on the Asuras.¡±


    ¡°It doesn''t work at all. It''s a toy.¡± I stunned him. ¡°As for weapons... I need to think.¡±


    I thought and created another gun of avant-garde design. This time it was an honest device, working on the technology of the Ancients. As in the Canon, it broke the link between the Replicator blocks, changing the quantum integrity of their program.


    ¡°Take.¡± I handed the machine-gun to Jack. ¡°Maybe you can replicate this device.¡±


    ¡°Thank You.¡±


    The king of the Earth began to examine the ''gun''. To him immediately tightened Samantha interested in technical innovation. Jack started to aim, aiming weapon to Jotuns.


    ¡°Be careful.¡± I am besieged it. ¡°You may shoot to death all guest.¡±


    He sighed ruefully and hung his weapon over his shoulder.


    No other significant events happened at this event. The people conferred, swore at each other and peacefully dispersed.


    In general, the plot of the whole story has not changed fundamentally. Instead of wild replicators on attack there was ''domesticated'' replicators managed Thor. They were less aggressive, and the threat of destruction hung over the army of Anubis and not so suddenly.


    But after a couple of weeks rebel Jaffas under the leadership of Bratak took over the temple on the Dakar. They were surrounded by the troops of Anubis, and he was taken into the cordon of Thor. In the center of this composition was Samantha Carter and her father Tok¡¯ra, who was trying to activate the Ancient device in the emulation mode similar to my ''anti-replicators'' guns.


    The only weak link was Daniel Jackson. He had to be kidnapped by replicators to get the knowledge of the Ancients out of his memory, after which he had to ascend. And it was all very similar, because Thor had kidnapped him. That''s just he did not arrange torture. Thor had a much more efficient technology for such purposes.


    As Thor mentioned at the meeting, he learned how to turn people into replicators. For this purpose, he modified technology of ''transplantation'' of consciousness, which copied the human memory into the Asgard computer. After that, replicators began to replace the cells of the human body. The soul associated with this body did not lose its attachment, and therefore became a ''part'' of the new Replicator. At the final stage, all organic body was completely replaced by Replicator blocks, and a copy of the human brain was combined with a computer, where there was already a copy of the personality.


    As a result, the soul could not leave the body at own will, as it could not do in life. That''s how Daniel fell into to that trap. He didn''t even have time to understand anything that turned into a Asusas, so Ascension process from natural death don¡¯t treat him until the rest of eternity.


    Without Oma Desala¡¯s brainwashing it is difficult to expect self-sacrifice at the right moment from Daniel, so I decided to take this role. Moreover, the parasite has already got me with his whining about how urgently he needs to gobble up Anubis¡¯s soul.


    Goa¡¯ulds troops already hovered over Dakara, like a kite over the lamb, as example, how would to destroy the rebel Jaffa without damaging the temple and the Ancient device, which was also required Anubis. Thor, having learned from Daniel''s memory about this device, had the idea to capture it too, to study, and then to destroy.


    Ba¡¯al agreed with the Earthlings that will give them time to destroy all the replicators, after which they will have to blow up the ancient device to prevent Anubis destroy all life in the galaxy. He planned to win the game in such way.


    And ''Hour H'' has came. With the help of Ba¡¯al, who connected all the stargates in the galaxy into one network of repeaters, the Earthlings were able to use the ancient device to destroy all the replicators. This is the moment I chose to appear before Anubis.


    ¡°Hello, brother. Already celebrating your victory?¡± I said hello, appearing behind Goa¡¯uld.


    ¡°You!!! I will destroy you!¡± He shouted, rushing at me and flying away from the collision with my shield.


    ¡°What is it? As I remember, last time we met, we were almost friends.¡± I felt the parasite begin to try to break out of the seal again. He was itching to do.


    ¡°Calm down, or you can earn a heart attack. Relax, breathe slowly.¡±


    ¡°What do you want?¡± I felt a forces of the Ascended trying to influence me.


    ¡°Are you remember I told you that I know the plot of this story? Now, it is the time that you have to die.¡±


    ¡°You can''t kill me!¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t. But it can.¡±


    With these words I took off the retaining fuinjutsu seal and let the parasite to go out. It stretched its greedy tentacles, and tightly wrapped around Anubis¡¯s soul, completely ignoring the presence of impenetrable protection from Player. The game figure of Goa¡¯ulds twitched in horror, and in that moment I saw a label on his soul. It has a little different than Daniel''s. If the Earthman has more like a stamped mark, this mark was more like a work of art. And the thought in it clearly meant ''don''t touch, mine''.

 Chapter 6.15 - Stargate

    The parasite has carefully studied the label, licked the soul from all sides, and then furiously began to tear him to pieces and eagerly absorb. Anubis even not able to meow. Parasite carried off scraps of his soul to its lair, and calmed. I immediately put the seal back, blocking the parasite in a confined space.


    Phew! I solved this question. As they say, and the wolves are fed, and the sheep are eaten, and the shepherd survived. All around in a solid benefit.


    I returned to my ship and began to monitor the course of events. That''s just the situation has not developed as I expected. After using the ancient device, Thor and other Asuras crumbled into metal dust. But at the same time, their fleet stood only for a few minutes, then continued to destroy the forces of Goa¡¯ulds with redoubled zeal.


    I teleported to Thor''s flagship, where I already had a mark for Hiraishin, and found that the ship was controlled by replicators... Yes, but not quite the same. The Asuras used replicators as control blocks in humanoid robots. After using the anti-replicator weapon, the relationship of these units with the Thor was destroyed, but the units themselves have not suffered from it. They contacted their counterparts with the radio and came to the conclusion that the destruction of the Goa¡¯ulds forces at the moment is a priority, and then each of them should return to work according to the program of reproduction.


    My changes in the code of the replicators was quite superficial. And such a ''shake'' shifted the mode of operation of the Replicator blocks, activating other protocols of behavior, in which I did not interfere.


    The next few hours could well be called as a ¡®bloodbath¡¯. Terminators were located on many planets of the galaxy, performing police functions there. After their ¡®roofs moved'', the robots started killing everyone, sowing death and destruction.


    Goa¡¯ulds force was broken and scattered. They have almost no spaceships left. And four hours later, Thor himself appeared on the battlefield. His soul reached one of the Replicator stashes in a nearby dwarf galaxy, where he was able to obtain a new body. Then he only had to reach one of their ships and to bring it under control, subordinated to the replicators with ''will power''.


    Gradually the bloody bacchanalia, created by robots, ended, but many of them were able to escape and get lost in the vast galaxy. They could no longer reproduce, but they did not want to return under the authority of the Asuras either.


    When the situation more or less calmed down, those who wanted to hold another round of talks reached out to me. This time, the balance of power in the galaxy has changed, and it was not even clear who was the winner.


    From the point of view of material resources and population, the biggest lost had Goa¡¯ulds. On some planets, robots still brutalized, destroying the remnants of the population. Goa¡¯ulds colony went into decline, most of their ships and other equipment were destroyed. Only Lord Yu and Ba¡¯al survived from the System Lords. Many Jaffa rebelled, seeing, that their ''gods'' on fact proved powerless before the face of a real threats.


    Thor also suffered irreparable losses. All of the ''high Asuras'' could be reborn, but the lower link of this race was completely destroyed. Thor didn''t save even a single Replicator with Asgard brains in the dwarf galaxy. And those that were ''stunned'' by the weapons of the Ancients, could not be restored.


    Although it was theoretically possible to return the Replicator blocks the ability to act together, in practice it required at least one ''working'' Asuras with the ''correct'' program. But replicators of high Asuras and ordinary Asuras were different models with different program.


    As a result, Thor could not restore the program using his blocks or any hardware. He didn''t know that replicators had to be in contact with the astral body of a sentient being to work. And without this small issue it was impossible to distinguish between ''refurbished'' units of the replicators from broken. The astral body of the high Asuras was changed by me, so they were not suitable for the activation of replicators. Thor¡¯s pride did not allow him to ask help from Earthlings.


    In general, from the mighty civilization of the Asuras remained only a couple of hundred representatives, which was too small to establish control over thousands of inhabited planets.


    The Earthlings suffered almost no damage, but they hadn¡¯t real forces to affect something. They had some technology from the Asgard and Goa¡¯ulds, but it was barely enough to build a spaceship with not the most impressive features. After his resurrection in the form of Asuras, Thor did not haste to share their technologies.


    Tok¡¯ra so successfully mimicked Goa¡¯ulds that in the end perished with them. There were barely a hundred worms hiding in their secret base.


    I organized another meeting at which it was decided to cease hostilities. Thor was declared the ruler of the galaxy, and all the others swore allegiance to him, obeying within the vassalage. This was largely a formal decision, because in the galaxy was anarchy and power vacuum. Even together Goa¡¯ulds, Asuras and humans do not have sufficient strength to subjugate all of the planet.


    After the peace Agreement was signed, I went to Earth with Jack. He was not in the most optimistic mood, as in the end the Earth had to give up sovereignty, and the American dream of democracy in the galaxy faced the harsh authoritarian reality of the ''God of war'' Thor.


    ¡°Jack.¡± I turned to my prot¨¦g¨¦ when we were in his office. ¡°I have a commercial offer for you. I know that you sent an expedition to the lost city of the Ancients - Atlantis. I want you to open the door for me. In exchange, I can provide to you a ZPM.¡±


    ¡°One ZPM?¡± This troll represented a misunderstanding.


    ¡°Ten ZPM.¡± I made a generous offer.


    ¡°Only ten?¡± Jack surprised.


    ¡°Okay, nine ZPM. And if you think too long, there will be eight.¡±


    ¡°Okay, agreed. Nine ZPM. We have, by the way, tomorrow is scheduled sending a support team to Atlantis. Daniel was able to find one ZPM with my help just a couple of days ago.¡±


    Daniel, after being turned into a Replicator and then disemboweled with the weapon of the Ancients, managed to ascend once more and then return to the world of the living. Apparently, the ''good'' Keeper of the gate decided to lend his services. And I can''t even imagine how this exalted man will be repaid. As if that was not worse than the fate of Anubis.


    ¡°It is better to send support today. Then the Wraiths just do not have time to attack Atlantis, and in addition, you do not have to lose talented people trying to buy time to them.¡±


    ¡°Ok. But the ZPMs forward.¡±


    ¡°You don''t trust me?¡±


    ¡°I just don''t want to distract you for a little things.¡± Jack turned.


    ¡°Nice. Count.¡±


    I immediately began to create new ZPMs, laying them on the table. After the appearance of the ninth power source Jack picked up the phone on the table and barked in command voice.


    ¡°Alert to all personnel. The third squad of combat support, be ready to be get through the gate in thirty minutes. Colonel Everett come to my office in ten minutes for briefing.¡± Jack hung up and looked at me. ¡°How many ZPMs does enough to protect Atlantis?¡±


    ¡°At least three.¡± I expressed the opinion of the heroes of the series. ¡°But I would advise you to send six.¡±


    ¡°Good. We''ll be ready to go in an hour.¡±


    ¡°Nice. I''ll wait in the gate control room.¡±


    I left the office and went to watch the preparations for departure. The whole event almost fell apart, because the technicians began to convince Jack that they need more time to connect the power to the gate from the ZPM. I had to intervene and ''magically'' set up the equipment.


    And so, the gate opened, and I was ready to go to the next story. In this I''ve already messed up canonical story so much. Everything was exactly as in proverb: wanted as better, result as always. But in general, all the changes were made by other game figures, though with my help. So I can assume that ''it''s not me, it is itself''. If the Being hasn''t come for me yet, then there''s no problem.


    I let pass clone to the gate, depicting ordinary infantryman, and when convinced that on the other side everything is fine, went myself. Once on Atlantis, I immediately felt the ''spirit of the ancients''. It was a special architecture of the Atlanteans, plus their technology, protected by DNA recognition system.


    While Elizabeth Weir was trying to sort things out with Colonel Everett about who''s in charge here now, I activated the city''s control console. From the floor raised ''column'' to which I had put my hand. The device scanned my limb, stumbled upon a special scanner deceiving system of spells and recognized me as Ancient. After that I had only to register myself in the system with administrator rights.


    ¡°What''s that thing?¡± A surprised voice rang out. ¡°Why didn''t I know it was here?¡±


    I was discovered by Dr. Rodney McKay, chief scientific specialist in ancient technology in this galaxy.


    ¡°Because to find out about it, you would need to be a minimum God of knowledge.¡± I replied smugly. ¡°Let me introduce myself. Imhotep, God of knowledge and replicators.¡±


    ¡°Imhotep?¡± Elizabeth Weir able to isolate my name among noises. ¡°What are you doing here?¡±


    ¡°I live here.¡± I admitted calmly.


    ¡°Since when?¡±


    ¡°Since today.¡±


    ¡°Oh, no, no, no, not that.¡± She moaned, clutching her head.


    ¡°Oh, yes, yes, yes. King Jack has approved my move. By the way, this is exactly me that provided ZPM, with which you will be able to protect Atlantis from the attacks of the Wraith.¡±


    ¡°King Jack?¡± Rodney asked me while nothing not understanding.


    ¡°Oh, it''s a big story. I''ll tell you how I made Colonel Jack O''Neill the System Lord later.¡±


    ¡°What? He is now Goa¡¯uld?¡± Rodney''s eyes bulged.


    ¡°They didn''t tell you?¡± I was surprised.


    ¡°It''s classified.¡± Elizabeth blushed.  ¡°And he''s not Goa¡¯uld.¡±


    I laughed inwardly. Now this version is no longer hidden. The word is not a sparrow, let fly ¨C never able catch.


    ¡°Did you say something about ZPM? Did you find another one somewhere?¡± She turned the subject to Rodney''s question.


    ¡°No. I created some and gave them to Jack O''Neill in exchange for coming here.¡±


    ¡°Created?¡± McKay experienced a common sense torn.


    ¡°Certainly. I''m God!¡±


    ¡°Oh, no, not that.¡± Elizabeth groaned again. ¡°I still get shakes when I remember the description of the case on the Stargate base. Please, there''s no need to worship in your honor.¡±


    ¡°Is it plea?¡± I said.


    Weir just sighed again, turned silently, and walked away as if she was going to slit Colonel Everett''s throat for letting me through the gate.


    The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    ¡°Oh¡­ Yes! I didn''t introduce myself.¡± Scientist remembered at least, holding out his hand to greet. ¡°I''m Rodney McKay. Chief specialist in ancient technology.¡± I took my hand off the terminal and it sank back to the floor. A warm handshake followed. ¡°What was that thing?¡± Rodney asked, nodding at the missing post.


    ¡°Admin control terminal.¡±  I enlightened him. "Now I have full control over this city. You guys take care of the ZPM connection and the shield activation, and I''ll go on a tour. ZPM, by the way, is in that drawer over there.¡±


    Rodney immediately switched to new prey. He jerked in the specified direction, tore off the lid, and already leaving the hall of the gate, I heard his orgasmic scream:


    ¡°Six of them!!!¡±


    Looking around my new flying city, I formed a hyperspace beacon inside my body. Having determined my position, my clone from chakras sent my ship to Atlantis. He was due to arrive in just a few hours.


    Atlantis was an amazing place. It was a giant spaceship over a kilometer in diameter. And it was filled with lots of laboratories where the Ancients studied everything. It was a Paradise for a maniac of science like me.


    My vritras brains, charged with Ancient technology, did my consciousness is able to process information with great speed. And accumulated knowledge on the combination of technology, magic and chakra allows me to solve any problems, without resorting to the creation of different equipment. In an extreme case, I could create the right thing inside of my body.


    As fascinated I walked around the city and examined the equipment in different rooms, while studying the knowledge base of the Ancients. The arrival of my ship brought me out of this state. Its appearance made a lot of noise among the people, as it was displayed on the local radar as the ship of the Ancients.


    I teleported to the command center of the city and appealed to the local authorities.


    ¡°Can I have your attention?¡± Elizabeth Weir stared at me like a rabbit to a boa constrictor. "My ship has just arrived in your galaxy. I think it can destroy Wraiths, so most of the time the ship will be in orbit around the planet. I''m going to explore the heritage of the Ancients, so I won''t be able to worry about your problems. But if there are any, Rodney McKay can pray to me, and I''ll remember you.¡±


    With these words I formed between myself and Rodney communication line for Bahion transmission.


    ¡°What? To pray?¡± My new priest stared at me in bewilderment.


    ¡°Yeah. I''m the God of knowledge, and I need a priest of knowledge - the smartest man in this city.¡± Rodney had, without realizing it, his hands on his hips and puffed out his chest. Finally somebody found him most intelligent. "And as a priest, I will give you some of the knowledge of the Ancients."


    After these words McKay was my with all giblets. Knowledge, science and technology were everything in his life. I turned and walked away, and Rodney followed me.


    ¡°And what knowledge will you give me?  He asked.


    ¡°Well, to start, I think, knowledge of the language of the Ancients is enough.¡±


    I focused and recorded in the brain of my priest small packet of data with knowledge of the language. It was the standard Ancient technology, but the impact I''ve spent with magic. This package had to be unpacked within a week, without loading the brain beyond measure. Moreover, the ''package'' also included a medical spell, which was to ensure that the brain of the local genius was not be damaged.


    ¡°Great!¡± McKay was inspired. ¡°When do we start language training?¡±


    ¡°I already taught you. In a week you will speak and read the in language of the Ancients better than Russian.¡±


    ¡°Really?¡± The scientist didn''t believe me. ¡°I didn''t feel anything.¡±


    "Believe me, it''s not the best feeling to feel the knowledge literally screwing into your brain. Better try reading some text on the control panel. The familiar part of the language will be updated in a couple of hours. I think you''ll discover a lot.¡±


    ¡°Right! Thanks.¡±


    Rodney immediately sped away to test his new knowledge. I was engaged in the analysis of all events which have occurred on Atlantis from the moment of occurrence of earthlings here. I had to make sure they didn''t break anything or do anything I might regret.


    Literally once I came across an event that is remembered for the TV series. Admitted to important equipment young savage has released a strange creature that absorbs energy. As a result, feeding from the energy of the reactors at naquadaq, this creature has grown from a small hamster to the size of elephant herds. In the end Ancients managed to lure into the Stargate this creature and sent it to an uninhabited planet.


    This creature interested me primarily as a food source for the parasite. Well, who knows, maybe that creature can eat my parasite? Also profit. As long as it doesn''t eat me.


    There wasn''t much information about the creature in the database. The ancients identified it as an example of an entity that usually attack the ascended ones. And they have not invented anything better than to snatch that thing from the astral plane dimension to the material plane, and then hone in the hastily assembled device. A week later, the little animal was forgotten, and she had languished in prison ever since.


    And something tells me that even if the Ancients had survived, the fate of the creature could have been the same. This city was literally packed with the results of various researches, most of which were not completed. It seemed that, for all their genius, the Ancients did not have a long-term memory. As soon as they went out the door, they immediately forgot about the research.


    A signal from my ship distracted me from examining the collected information on the research object, arrived three hive ships of the Wraith. Okay, I gonna have to postpone this study for a while. Maybe the Ancients because of these reasons couldn''t finish? New attack in every half an hour? So they constantly had to be distracted by the solution of new interesting problems. All right, let''s do it in order. I''ll deal with the parasites¡¯s feed first, and then I''ll study the Wraith structure.


    I teleported to my ship and examined the radar readings. The hive ships hovered at a decent distance, not in a hurry to attack. They didn¡¯t notice my ship, but who knows? These overgrown beetles managed to defeat the Ancients. Let''s see what they can do against me.


    I moved the my Grim Reaper to the enemy. When I reached the optimum range, I took off my disguise and opened fire with several guns to assess the shields of the Wraith ships. The results of the measurements did not please me. Eight guns failed to overload the hive ship''s shields. Several hits reached hive ship hull, but the damage was superficial.


    The return fire also surprised me. Despite having a thousand ZPM, the Wraith charges were able to penetrate the ancient shields. However, even since the collision with the replicators, also punched these shields, so I put on the ship stationary protection on the basis of magic and fuinjutsu. It repelled the attack.


    Then I could no longer give them handicap and drowned the enemy in a sea of fire. The power of their shield generators could not exceed the power of a thousand ZPM, and three Wraith ships turned to hot steam in less than a couple of seconds. I wished to grab one of them with the tentacles of my ship and to research it later. Okay, then I''ll hunt them.


    I returned to Atlantis and delighted the local population with the news that the Wraith had been destroyed. After that, I took a closer look at the data on the ''energy eater''. I ''contacted'' my parasite and asked him if he could separate a piece of himself that I would send out to hunt and then bring back? He replied in the affirmative.


    As a result, I have formed a simple plan. I take a piece of the parasite, created a clone from the chakra, give one to the other and send them both to the gate at the right address. We''ll see. A piece of the parasite I sealed in a separate seal right inside his ''closet''. After that, the seal was passed to the shadow clone.


    Coming out of the portal, the clone appeared in a cloud of inky darkness that tried to swallow him. But Energy Eater was late, and then the parasite was freed from seal. Here, the two creatures clashed in a battle not for life, but for death. I would like to say that they fought for three days and three nights, but I won¡¯t lie. After three minutes, the parasite completely devoured the infinite vast ocean of darkness. The clone sealed parasite again and sent him to the main part of the prison.


    The more I watched the parasite, the sadder I became. I will need to come up with something really quite extraordinary to cope with this parasite.


    The next interesting entry in the event log was the discovery of a planet where some ascended grazed her flock, organizing a Paradise on planet. I found out the address of this planet, determined by the response of the gate their coordinates in space and went there on my ship.


    The Grim Reaper hovered over the village of miserable mortals, driving fear and settling into their hearts with its forms and ruthless tentacles tearing the heavens apart. It took less than a minute for the ascendant to realize that her power was unable to penetrate the ship''s shields. All this time the distinguished barrier of chakra, fully reflected all heretical magic of the local gods.


    ¡°Kneel before me, mortal!¡± I appeared before the local goddess in the splendor of my glory. The ascended one assumed human form and winced at the bright light. I had to turn down the illumination.


    ¡°Who are you?¡± She asked me with a challenge.


    ¡°I am Imhotep, God of knowledge and replicators. True God. I came here to see what you''re doing.¡±


    ¡°The true God of knowledge? You''re more like a God of curiosity, sticking his nose out of his business.¡±


    ¡°Every case I stick my nose in, becomes mine. So, are you going to keep bickering or are you going to bow to me? Or do I have to release my inner beast?¡±


    I slightly opened the seal on the parasite, allowing the ascended to see it. I wondered if she knew anything about such parasites. The result exceeded all my expectations. From the spiritual being slashed wild fear and sacred horror.


    ¡°Great God! I humbly bow before you, the bearer of His will. I will fulfill your every wish. Don''t be angry. I''m just following an errand given by your brethren.¡±


    While all these praises were pouring in my honor, the parasite also saw the ascended through the gap. It focused its attention on her for a second, then hiccupped and gave the thought ''look for someone more tasty''. Such a parasite.


    Then there was a thoughtful interrogation, the results of which I received answers to some questions and even more new questions. The ascended was called Otar. Once upon a time she was Ancient, but ascended to avoid the horrors of war with the Wraith. For thousands of years she watched the suffering of mere mortals, and one day decided to intervene and help them. Quite quickly on the planet the cult of worship for Otar was formed. She began to collect Bahion to use it to help people, but this her activities lasted not so long.


    Arrived other ascenders, which made the breaker of the traditions of the reprimand to her chest. So her case will be a lesson for other who want to help mere mortals, and gave her party assignment: in her sole discretion to arrange the life of mortals on this planet, to force them to worship herself, and then give all generated Bahion to the needs of the party and of the Fatherland, only leaving one percent for herself as incentive award.


    Ascended personally did not seen creatures like my parasite, but she received their image from ''senior colleagues''. They were called as ¡®Soul Collectors¡¯. On the one hand, they were representatives of the Supreme Power, to resist which was forbidden, and on the other hand they were representatives of the ''other'' Supreme Power, the opposition that ruled the Affairs in this world. I failed to squeeze any more information from Otar.


    Finally I asked how she managed to organize a heavenly life here? Actually, the recipe, like all genius ideas, was simple. Otar followed the ''quality'' of souls embodied in this world. And as soon as she noticed that somewhere in the child was possessed by the soul of the future criminal, then she arranged a divine abortion. Of course, all children were subjected to certain gene therapy, which for thousands of years led to the emergence of absolutely healthy people.


    Religiosity in this society also did not go beyond a certain threshold. It was customary to pray to the goddess a couple of times a day and from time to time to arrange all sorts of holidays in her honor. In general, the obedient flock did not bother with questions of life, but lived for pleasure. Only Otar herself worked tirelessly. That''s why she rejected the offer of Earthlings to resettle on the planet a refugee from other worlds. Because certainly half of the refugees of the other worlds will be criminal-invalid-atheists from whom there would be no benefit, except harm.


    In general, the journey I got informative, but some stupid. I need to question someone more knowledgeable. Otar in the company of the ascended was at the level of a negro slave, so that the knowledge fell to her only on big holidays from drinking. Alas, to get information from knowledgeable ascended was extremely difficult, since they lived in a very distant astral planes, where the impact of my magic can''t reach.


    Returning to Atlantis, I found a commotion. Rodney McKay and another victim were ''sucked'' inside a Wraith fighter. The ship was hit, but the scientist was now inside of people gathering device. I immediately volunteered to help with the case. Primarily I was interested in the device itself, well worth it, to save my priest from the fate to have a dumb blonde in his head. In the canon in an attempt to free the two prisoners, Dr. Zelenka was able to pull only one - Rodney. And the marine woman''s mind was stuck in Rodney¡¯s head as a free app.


    Arriving at the crash site of the fighter, I immediately fenced it off with barriers, isolating from the intrusive attention of the audience, eager to see. Then I removed the device and began to explore it, scanning with the help of ancient technologies and magic. The scheme of this device, to admit, put me in a deadlock. Its work was based on Stargate technology, which was cleverly redesigned. Moreover, I clearly saw that the author of these alterations is poorly understood Ancient technology. But he was well versed in the method of anti-scientific poke. Simply put, he was lucky and had a lot of test samples.


    First of all, it is necessary to explain how the Stargate works. It created a portal - a two-dimensional surface, at the intersection of which matter turned into information. After the whole object was immersed in the portal, this package of information was transferred to other gates, which will unpack it and ''spat out'' in the form of a material object.


    At the same time, ''inside'' the gate there was a certain system of ''virtual reality'', which created the illusion of continuity of existence for the person passing through the portal. It was possible to ''push'' a hand into the portal and still feel it, because virtual reality transmitted to the nerves in contact with the portal the same signals that it would go to the real hand. When you try to pull your hand out from the portal all the ''missing'' part immediately will be materialized back.


    I more or less imagined how it works, although the mechanism of turning matter into information and back was a black box for me. A device for people abduction worked on a similar scheme. It created a moving ''horizon of event '' that passed through people and turned them into a pack of information. Here this information wasn''t transferred anywhere, and remained in the form of a special information field.


    At the same time, the very essence of this data package was incomprehensible to me. All my attempts to create some object, just ''coming up'' with its description, failed, because the materialization device refused to accept such data as parameters for operation. Even a complete identical copy of the data was considered as ''defective'', although I did not understand how it difference of new copy from the original.


    Having spent more than an hour with this technology, I decided to temporarily spit on it and do the actual rescue of prisoners. It was pretty simple. The two casts of information were slightly mixed with each other, but they could be separated. In fact, the device allowed to create many information packs, mix them together in the received order, and then ''unmix'' them back and to materialize them using the principle ''first in - last out''.


    The device lost power just at the time of mixing the information. All I had to do was feeding the energy, waited to completely mixing the information, and then separate them and materialize them.

 Chapter 6.16 - Stargate

    Rodney and the second victim appeared at the location where I appointed, and then fainted. This was another function of the device. I didn''t fully understand it, so I decided not to change anything. A simple spell brought back McKay to consciousness. He opened his eyes, saw my happy face and asked.


    ¡°Where am I?¡±


    ¡°In hell!¡± I whispered, deciding to play a little joke. My smile turned into a toothy grin from ear to ear, my eyes lit up with the devil''s fire, and horns grew on my head.


    ¡°A-A-A-A-A-A!!!¡± Rodney shouted, jumping from his prone position for at least a meter and a half.


    I instantly brought my body back to normal and asked sympathetically.


    ¡°What''s wrong?¡±


    ¡°You! Me! Imhotep? I saw dream that I was in hell. Where am I?¡± McKay looked around, but all he saw were my barriers and the remains of the Wraith arrow. ¡°Don''t tell me that...¡± He swallowed in horror.


    "You were kidnapped by the Wraith arrow, so I had to personally intervene to save you."


    ¡°Great. What time is it now?¡± Rodney looked at his watch and saw that it had not been a minute.


    ¡°I do not know. Are you in a hurry somewhere?¡±


    ¡°Well... e-e-E...¡± My priest hesitated.


    ¡°Come on.¡± I encouraged him. ¡°You''re my priest You must not have secrets from your God.¡±


    ¡°Anyway, I have planned a date.¡± The shy scientist forced out words from himself.


    ¡°Oh, yeah. You have a problem with that.¡± I nodded, remembering the fate of the unfortunate scientist, which any woman gave him, while to his partner, John Sheppard, give every second female.


    ¡°I don''t have any problems!¡± Rodney roared, looking around. He considered this matter personal enough to bring it up for public debate.


    ¡°Rodney, Rodney.¡± I shook my head.  ¡°You should be thinking only about science, not women.¡±


    ¡°You think a man like me should forget about women?¡± He was offended.


    ¡°No. I think you should have a personal harem. So that with ''this'' you have no problems, and you can fully devote yourself to your true love ¨C to science.¡±


    ¡°Really? You think so?¡±


    ¡°Certainly. Geniuses like you don''t have to worry about these things. This must be done by the government, otherwise brilliant scientists will not be able to leave offspring, thereby throwing the evolution of humanity a step back.¡±


    ¡°Uh... well, Yes. I always thought so, too.¡±


    ¡°Don''t worry, you''re my priest, I will personally collect for you a harem with the most beautiful girls.¡±


    ¡°Really? Is it right?¡± McKay was worried. ¡°I mean, we''re on a military expedition. We can''t invite just anyone to here.¡±


    ¡°Nonsense!¡± I rejected that nonsense. ¡°In your Atlantis living dozens of unknown types of unknown origin, all those Tails and Ronons. So, three girls, checked by me for a security clearance, will not disturb anyone.¡±


    ¡°Three girls?¡± Facial expression of McKay began to conform lustful faces.


    ¡°Are three not enough?¡± I asked, hiding a smile.


    ¡°No! I mean... that will be enough. Yes. Three girls are enough.¡±


    ¡°Great.¡±


    I snapped fingers and dropped the barrier, allowing to hungry public in anticipation to see us.


    ¡°Done! Take the job. One Rodney McKay, and another blond misunderstanding.¡± I nodded to the unconscious blonde.


    ¡°What about her?¡± Dr. Carson Beckett rushed to the victim.


    ¡°Without consciousness. She''ll be back in a couple of hours.¡±


    The people began to hurry and prepare to transport the remains of the Wraith ship to Atlantis. While everyone was running back and forth, I wondered where I could get a harem. In principle, in this galaxy are many girls, which will be happy find man, who will provide them protection from wraiths. But I need not ordinary girl, but only the best. So, I will have to conduct a casting, choosing from hundreds of contenders only three lucky ones, and then present them to Elizabeth Weir.


    As a result, I tasked my clone and spaceship. It could collect not worse than the Wraith hives could cut through the galaxy, scan the people living on the planets, and then steal them, using beaming technology of the Asgard. Each girl was subjected not only to checked on health and beauty, but also to checked on the ''purity of thoughts'' and the desire of ''serving the high goals of peace'', giving birth to the children of a brilliant scientist.


    At night, I also ''kidnapped'' McKay himself and scanned his mind for the perfect image of the girl. Based on this data, I selected three future concubines. After some thought, I selected three more, but this time for my harem. I need to find about, how it will be having sex in vritras body. After casting I sent all the other applicants to ''home''.


    Morning in Atlantis began with a general descent into a stupor. Rodney McKay went out to breakfast accompanied by three dazzlingly beautiful girls, each of whom he had already ''tried'' in this morning. The scientist''s face was beaming with smugness, which caused an instinctive irritation of everyone around him.


    John Sheppard tried to pick up one of the girls, but she without doubt gave him a knee-kick in his balls, leaving him lying on the floor. McKay''s smile doubled after that.


    After five minutes of fame, I appeared in the dining room, also accompanied by three girls. Some men began to approach and ask where the girls were given for the harem, to which I replied that such privilege was reserved only to the gods and their priests.


    Elizabeth Weir accepted my notice of the arrival of the new inhabitants to Atlantis with stoic calm. Only her flicking eyes betrayed her what cost of peace of mind was worth it. But no protest came from her side. Apparently, Jack O''Neill had instructed her well enough about what I could do if I was in a bad mood.


    My first sex in the vritras body brought me into a state of shock. It was such a concentrated pleasure that I immediately had the desire to share it. In my head immediately appeared plans for how to transform all people to vritras and then to have sex with all of them at once.


    Only with the utmost effort of Will, I was able to stop and partially erase my memories of this sex in my mind. Now I understood why the galaxy in that world was destroyed by vritras. It is impossible to resist to such concentrated happiness.


    I slightly corrected the work of my body so that the pleasure receiving did not exceed the standard human limits. After that, life entered a more or less settled course.


    I settled in Atlantis and began to explore the information available here from the knowledge base of the Ancients. Something I already knew, and something was really new. I devoured the knowledge of the Ancients with savage speed. I had less than two years to spend on Atlantis, so I didn''t have much time.


    As promised, I gave to Rodney McKay a ''children''s'' course of physics knowledge of the Ancients. Without ''quantum thinking'' he could not fully comprehend this information, but at least, now he able to understood what was written in the scientific texts of the Ancients. This made all his scientific work more effective, which further strengthened his reputation as a genius and lifted up from the gray masses of mere mortals.


    About a couple of months later, my trojan activated on Atlantis'' computer, its functions was listening of all conversations. On one of the planets discovered Ancient¡¯s research station, it has cannon on the roof which destroyed entire fleet of the Wraith. I just managed to get to the control Atlantis room, to hear ''take action'' from the mouth of Elizabeth Weir.


    ¡°I''ll help them.¡± I intervened in the discussion filled with joy. The Earthlings really started to imagine how to get weapon of unlimited power in their greedy hands.


    ¡°Imhotep?¡± The smile peeled from the Weir¡¯s face. "I thought you were lost somewhere in Atlantis."


    ¡°And today I was accidently found.¡± I smiled mockingly. "I''ll help Rodney to understand this ancient equipment.¡±


    ¡°Why you so generosity?¡±


    ¡°You mortals don''t able to understand. It is said: the ways of the Lord are inscrutable.¡±


    ¡°Come on, you better be honest and admit that you found a reason to have fun at our expense.¡± Weir didn''t let up. Seems, she''s totally freaking out.


    ¡°I didn''t plan, but if you insist, I really should have some fun. At your expense, of course. Prepare yourself.¡± I nodded to John Sheppard, turned around, and headed for the bewildered McKay, with whom I had a perfectly normal working relationship. ¡°Come on, I''ll help you get the equipment. We''re going to need some very specific measurements.¡±


    When we reached the planet, we climbed inside the ancient station. I immediately connected to the local computer and started downloading data. After a couple of hours I decided to exchange observations with McKay, who examined the computer for a couple with Radek Zelenka.


    ¡°So, what do you say, Rodney?¡±


    ¡°It''s incredible! Here the Ancients were engaged in the development of an energy source even more powerful than the ZPM. They opened many portals to other worlds and received energy from there by mixing the laws of the universes. However, then they did something wrong that they ultimately killed.¡± In this reality, McKay was sometimes more objective, because he understood the texts in the language of the Ancients and their science better.


    ¡°Yes, when you open a lot of random portals to different worlds, it is impossible to predict the final set of physical constants.¡± I suggested.


    ¡°We can open a portal to only one world.¡± Rodney guessed immediately. ¡°Then we will be able to adjust work of equipment under concrete parameters. But... wouldn''t that reduce power generation?¡±


    ¡°It will reduce.¡± I agreed. "But we have more modest requests than the Ancients. We don''t need the power of thousands of ZPM. Ten would be enough.¡±


    ¡°You''re right. If we can create a stable power generator, it will solve the problem of protecting the planets from the Wraith. And then we can begin to study this technology in a more relaxed environment.¡±


    Research work began, in which I took an active participant. I was also interested in this equipment. Except it wasn''t about power generation, it was about using elements of Stargate technology. The discovery of energy portals was an independent technology, but the search and localization of other worlds occurred at the expense of a device resembling a gate addressing system.


    After a couple of days, we were ready to start the first test run of the system. But before that, Weir and major Sheppard had requested a presentation for dummies.


    The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    ¡°So how does this thing work?¡± John Sheppard asked us.


    ¡°We''re creating a hole to another dimension with other laws of physics.¡± McKay began to explain. ¡°Because of this, there is a certain potential difference between our universe and that, and energy begins to flow in one direction. This installation allows us to extract most of this energy from the flow and send it to our purposes, where it can be picked up for practical use.¡±


    "Why couldn''t the Ancients make it work?" Sheppard asked.


    "They were working with a different configuration, which would produce hundreds of times more power. There were many portals to different worlds, which created unpredictable fluctuations in the laws of physics, which the protective field could not cope with it. We use a simpler configuration, which is comparable in power to only a few ZPM. Obviously, the Ancients were not satisfied with this option, and they tried on other scales. I''m sure if they had more time, they could complete this device. But they were attacked by Wraith, so they had to use an unstable power source to protect the planet. As a result, it is experienced an overload condition, and killed the entire personnel on the planet. After that, the Wraiths returned and destroyed the entire population of the planet.¡±


    ¡°Isn''t this device dangerous for us? You said it changes the laws of physics.¡± Elizabeth Weir asked, looking at me suspiciously for some reason.


    ¡°No. Everything is absolutely safe.¡± McKay said. ¡°In the universe, our impact is completely invisible. And for localization of distortions the working chamber is surrounded by a special energy shield. According to ancient theories, the space around us contains trillions of times more energy than matter. Imagine that the space is water. And the matter that we''re made of is the little bubbles in this water. We can say that matter is a hole in space. Opening the portal, we create vortices in space, which then turn into the holes we need. But the scale of this process is so small that it will be almost impossible to detect real changes.¡±


    ¡°Can you describe in more detail what will happen during the experiment?¡±


    ¡°Certainly.¡± Rodney was radiant with enthusiasm. ¡°At the first stage, we will open portals to different random worlds, and check how there are different laws of physics. We need a safe option where the laws are quite a bit different from ours. Then we will open a stable portal to the desired world and begin to receive energy from it. Next, we will need to ensure the stability of the installation. If anything goes wrong, we''ll close the portal right away. The first few launches we will carry out with minimal power, and then we will check how much energy can give this equipment. As you can see, I foresaw all possible problems, and even Dr. Zelenka could not detect errors in my calculations.¡±


    Reminded doctor tried to say something, but he was not have any chance.


    ¡°Imhotep, what can you say about this experiment?¡± Weir asked me.


    ¡°It''s okay, don''t worry. Let''s just turn on this thing and will see what happen. If something goes wrong and someone die, I''ll resurrect you. I''m God.¡±


    Elizabeth covered her face with her hands and sighed heavily.


    ¡°Well, go ahead.¡± She finally decided. ¡°We need this technology.¡±


    We went back to the planet with the equipment, where we began the final preparations for the launch. And so, the first stage of the experiment began. The reactor opened a portal to another world for a microsecond, and we measured the energy flow characteristics. In a second, more than a hundred worlds were tested, the parameters of which formed a kind of map of the universe. Four hours later, we had enough statistics, and from of a million and a half worlds, we chose one.


    Then there was a session of remote communication with Atlantis through the gate.


    ¡°Dr. McKay, how are you doing?¡± Weir asked.


    ¡°It''s great. We found one world that is almost no different from ours. The speed of the energy between our worlds is very small. But the flow is powerful enough to produce the amount of energy we need. The direction of energy from us to them, so we can be not afraid that here will fly something from another world. We are ready to start experiments on the stable opening of the portal.¡±


    ¡°What does Dr. Zelenka say?¡±


    Radek was finally able to push Rodney away from the camera to give his opinion.


    ¡°The results of the previous phase are extremely controversial, but we were able to find one option that suited us in terms of security. I think that in the future we should continue to search for suitable parameters for opening the portal. But now we can start the second phase of testing with the data already available. This will clarify the requirements for the characteristics of other worlds that we need.¡±


    ¡°I understood you, doctor. I''m giving you my permission to move on to phase two.¡± Weir graciously nodded and cut off communication.


    At the second stage, the reactor was switched on for a few minutes at minimum power. Surprisingly, everything was normal, and the equipment recorded only a steady increase in power along the logarithmic curve. It seems to be in the series in one of the following episodes McKay has managed to build a energy generator which does not get out of control. There were other side effects, but no one has complained about them yet. I decided that it is quite possible that the right solution was found here from the first time.


    At the solemn test of inclusion of a energy source at full capacity, all bosses arrived to the planet: Elizabeth Weir, major Sheppard, and even Colonel Caldwell the commander of the spacecraft ''Daedalus''. Everyone was eager to see launching of an Ancient weapon capable of destroying a Wraith cruiser.


    During tests I have noticed that although ''the energy of the ether'' was moving from our world to another, from another world to us flowed magical energy. It was different from the energy of my source, but it was quite similar. And now I was wondering how it would end.


    So, the command came to turn on the equipment and McKay proudly pressed the button. A protective field was activated in the reactor, a portal opened, and after a few seconds the energy began to fill the capacitors. A minute later, the gun on the roof of the complex came on, firing at the remnants of the Wraith fleet flying in orbit.


    All began to rejoice, to congratulate each other, and the most resourceful already pulled out the reserved booze and began to pour it on the throat.


    Scientists only found that out something going wrong when they tried to shut down the equipment.


    "I don''t understand.¡± Rodney McKay said in a drunken voice. ¡°What''s with the strange readings? Zelenka, did you touch anything here?¡±


    ¡°What? No. I didn¡¯t touch anything¡±


    Two drunken scientists began to study the sensor readings, sobering up.


    ¡°Am I losing it in my eyes?¡± McKay asked himself.


    ¡°No. The diameter of the portal sphere is indeed three times larger than the diameter of the protective field.¡± Zelenka confirmed his fears.


    ¡°Is it growing?¡±


    ¡°The diameter is stable. I can neither reduce nor increase it.¡±


    ¡°McKay, what are you doing here?¡± John Sheppard broke into the control room. ¡°Let''s drink. Teyla promised to do a striptease.¡±


    It seems that my idea to replace the second box of champagne with carbonated pure alcohol was not very successful. And although... I''m having fun, so it''s going well.


    ¡°Don¡¯t interrupt us. We have problems.¡±


    ¡°Are we all going to explode?¡±


    ¡°No. There is no threat. Just a hardware malfunction.¡± Rodney explained.


    ¡°Then forget it. We''ll deal with it tomorrow. Take a drink.¡±


    Sheppard handed McKay a full glass of carbonated alcohol. He couldn''t resist leaning stress and stuck to the drink.


    ¡°Eek! Went well.¡± The genius gave his conclusion. ¡°We should eat. Zelenka, drop this lost cause. We''ll figure out later what''s going on with the sensors.¡±


    ¡°But how...?¡± The intellectual tried to resist.


    ¡°It is order. As you heard, Weir promised to make me head of the research Institute. So, I''m in charge here. Let''s drink. Eek!¡±


    McKay and Sheppard picked up Zelenka under his arms and dragged him into the common room, where he started to ply him with alcohol.


    Most of the station staff regained consciousness after about a day. All this time the Ancient weapon continued to fire on targets in orbit, preventing the ''Daedalus'' to enter the range of the teleport.


    Hungover, suffering from an unbearable headache, McKay firstly sincerely prayed to me, so as a reward, I healed him and brought him to consciousness. And after five seconds, the pseudo-scientist rushed into the reactor control room. Equipment worked without failure, except for the complete inability to stop its work.


    After half an hour of unsuccessful efforts Rodney went to revive Zelenka, and then the high authorities. An hour later, a meeting was held, where people began to discuss their prospects.


    ¡°So, what''s going on?¡±


    Elizabeth Weir was trying to portray rigor in her voice, but it turned out only to convey the agony of a drunk hangover. Pure alcohol is not the best way affected the health of its consumers. Only McKay could boast of a healthy complexion and a thinking head.


    ¡°For unknown reasons, the diameter of the portal is three times larger than the permissible values. The reactor has equipment for closing portals with a diameter of one meter. And that now only a few centimeters does not enough up to three meters. Even if we try to close it, we will only get a complex shape instead of a sphere portal, which will surely detonate, evaporating the entire planet.¡±


    ¡°Can we just turn off the gun and fly out of here?¡± Colonel Caldwell suggested, with longing recollections of the three-liter jar of cucumber pickle.


    ¡°No way.¡± McKay broke off his dreams. ¡°The gun consuming energy that coming from the reactor. If we stop it, the volume of capacitors will be enough to contain this flow for only thirty seconds. After that, we''ll be blown up. The gun works in automatic mode, and we do not have access rights to control it, and I wouldn''t try to hack into anything while it''s working, because if it stops, we''ll only have thirty seconds to fix it.¡±


    ¡°Why did this happen at all?¡± Major Sheppard asked.


    ¡°I don''t know.¡± McKay admitted ruefully.


    ¡°We have a God of knowledge here.¡± Weir said sarcastically. ¡°Can he explain it to us?¡±


    ¡°Without ceremony.¡± I agreed. "If we simplify the description of the problem to a level that is understandable for limited life forms like you, the problem is that the portal to another world tends to take a spherical shape, the radius of which depends on the parameters of the two connected worlds. It''s like the shape of a water drop. Surface tension specifies the maximum diameter of the droplet at which it can maintain stability. If the diameter increases, the energy flows out too quickly, and the diameter decreases. If it becomes less than optimal, it expands the pressure of the energy flow from our side. Now the diameter of the portal changing by one and a half millimeters every two seconds.


    ¡°Is there any possible way to close it?¡±  Dr. Zelenka asked.


    ¡°There are many variants to close the portal. But you don''t have the right equipment. This reactor was not designed for long-term retention of open portals. I think, the problem could be solved by choosing a world where the stable diameter of the portal would be less than a meter. But first you need to close an existing portal.¡±


    ¡°So there''s no other way?¡± Sheppard couldn''t believe it.


    ¡°You can still overload the reactor, resulting an explosion. Then the portal will collapse due to a sharp jump in energy. But it return of this reactor will destroy the entire planet, and perhaps even the local sun.¡±


    ¡°Looks like you knew it from the beginning...¡± Sheppard tried to accuse me, but was interrupted by a scream filled with wild horror.


    Everyone jumped from their seats and rushed into the corridor, where they found an epic picture. Frightened to death, the technician lay on the floor, and above him towered the figure of a creature in which any educated person would immediately recognize the undead.


    ¡°What the hell?¡± Sheppard exclaimed.


    The mummy-skeleton turned his head, looked at us, then again appreciated the taste of the technique, and hobbling headed in our direction, stretching his hands forward. Sheppard''s nerves gave way. He ran into room, picked up his machine gun, then came back and shoot whole bullets into the creature. Bullets only scratched undead¡¯s chest, and then it continued walking to us.


    ¡°What is it?¡± Weir asked me.


    ¡°Interesting phenomenon.¡± I said, exploring undead with spells. ¡°It seems, through portal to us pervading magical energy, which caused spontaneous raising of the undead. The basis are the restless spirits of people who create material projections corresponding to their astral images.¡±


    ¡°What do these things want from us?¡± McKay asked. While my lecture was going, the zombie was coming to us, and we were all the crowd, slowly backing away from it.


    ¡°I think they want to kill us, or eat.¡± I suggested. ¡°But the exact answer to this question we will get only by conducting an experiment.¡±


    "You mean to leave someone to be torn to pieces?" Radek Zelenka correctly understood my message.


    ¡°Are there any other options?¡± I asked skeptically.


    The zombie leapt forward. All humans rushed helter-skelter, and Elizabeth Weir in horror, frozen in place. She would jump too, but my invisible paralysis spell bound her hand and foot. The undead jumped up to the chosen victim, hugged her with hands and began... lick. As I expected, this spirit wanted to have sex at least once. It could be read from its emotions.


    Sexual-harassment victim¡¯s heart-rending cry returned courage to the minds of some males, and they rushed back to tear off the zealous fan from the only woman within sight. That, of course, did not agree with such a turn of events and started fighting back. Alas, the strength of the virtual body was low, so that a dozen seconds later the zombies were torn to pieces, after which it literally turned to dust and melted into thin air.


    ¡°We can fight them.¡± Major Sheppard concluded.


    ¡°You''re gonna need this.¡± I handed him a shotgun in the style of steam-punk, just created from the air. It has a simple spell that destabilized the astral projection, while not causing damage to spirits.


    https://quicklytapxdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/wolfenstein-the-new-order_concept-art-3.jpg</a>


    ¡°What is it?¡± Soldiers at once began to examine the weapon.


    ¡°Shotgun against zombies.¡± I started an advertising campaign of my products, creating another copy in my hand and showing it to others. ¡°Directional release of energy destroys astral projection. Harmless for people, although the feeling of it not very pleasant.¡±


    From a nearby corridor appeared another zombie, whom I reposed the shot from a shotgun. It ludicrously waved its hands, fell to the floor and melted, like a monster from a computer game.


    ¡°And how effective is it?¡± John Sheppard asked.


    I began to distribute the weapon to all present.


    ¡°Very effective.¡± I began to play with words. ¡°It kills zombies with one shot most of the time. The guarantee of destruction is only ten seconds.¡± I nodded at rising from the floor, a cloud of darkness taking human shape. Undead was immediately sprayed with three shots. ¡°What did you want from the free demo?¡±

 Chapter 6.17 - Stargate

    From another corridor twisted a couple of monsters, which also quickly sprayed.


    ¡°How much cost a full version?¡± Caldwell asked me, not yet experienced with me.


    ¡°Very cheap. I''ll give it to you in exchange for your soul. Advanced design, infinite ammo, personal binding. No one can use except you. No one can steal, break or throw away. If you buy two at once, get a gift from a collection of braid set ''Merry Death''.¡±


    I demonstrated the above-mentioned edged weapons of avant-garde pink colors with images of seals on the blade and handle.


    They wanted to ask me a hundred more questions, but I made a surprised face and said:


    ¡°Ow! My milk is boiling on stove. I''ll come back to you later. Good luck.¡±


    With that, I casted invisibility spell on myself and watched a group of players went through the dungeon in the shooter, where the difficulty gradually rose from ''Kill me gently'' to ''Nightmare''.


    Spirits are constantly arriving to the workplace, then absorbed the magical energy and received a physical embodiment. My weapons only temporarily destroyed the projection, angering the spirits and forcing them to return for revenge. In the first hour, victims of circumstances lazily shot back from appearing here and there zombies. For the second hour they were shooting without interruption every few seconds. On the third hour of the confrontation undead attacked as river, and to cope with them was possible only because the shotguns could destroy multiple projections in one shot.


    At the end of the fourth hour the first victims appeared. One of the technicians hesitated, let the zombies get too close to him, and they literally pulled him out of the crowd, buried under their bodies. I immediately teleported the loser to the next room, where I sealed him in the fuinjutsu seal. Half an hour after the first ''death'' there was a second. And then the players started ''dying'' one by one. In the end, there was only Rodney McKay, whom zombies did not touch because of the imposed protection, hiding the energy of a living creature.


    I waited another five minutes, and then I appeared beside my priest.


    ¡°I''m here.¡± I said cheerfully, looking around. ¡°Where''s everyone?¡±


    ¡°Imhotep!¡± Rodney rushed to me. ¡°Were they all killed?!!¡±


    ¡°Who? Are you killed all zombies?¡± I made an uncomprehending face.


    ¡°No. Them! They''re dead. These things ate them alive, leaving not even bones.¡±


    ¡°I gave you a weapon.¡±


    ¡°We were mobbed. I don''t know why, but these things don''t touch me. And everyone else... they died. Radek, John, Elizabeth - everyone!!!¡±


    ¡°Quiet. All we need is to load the saved game.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± McKay''s face expressed the utmost degree of freaking out.


    "I will revert back the time, and you will try to survive until I return. Good luck.¡±


    In this I plunged McKay into unconsciousness, destroyed all the zombies and dispersed the souls of the ghosts. After that I just had to retrieve the unconscious human bodies from the fuinjutsu, bringed their body in ''initial'' state, gave everyone a shotgun and put them in the right places and poses. Then all of them at once ''woke up'' and began to discuss what happened.


    This time, all the ''players'' immediately resorted to the most effective tactics. They took a comfortable place, gave time to rest to each other, did not allow to take weapons of those who did not know how to handle it. The team lasted three hours, and then because of one mistake, undead ''killed'' just four fighters, and zombies ''ate'' all the other in a couple of minutes.


    Rodney apprehended this more adequately and immediately started to begging me to ''turn back time''. Well, if the audience is hungry, who am I to say no? They wanted this, didn''t they?


    After the eighth failure, Rodney met me with the saddest expression on his face.


    ¡°Hi, Rodney. Why are you being so gloomy?¡±


    ¡°They all died. It''s hopeless. It''s just an endless nightmare.¡±


    ¡°Yes, the zombie apocalypse is not a joke.¡±


    ¡°How do we can change that?¡±


    ¡°Why don''t you just ask me?¡±


    ¡°What? Can you?¡±


    ¡°Of course. I''m God!¡±


    ¡°Then... return them...¡±


    ¡°To the past time?¡±


    ¡°No!!! Just resurrect them. Can you?¡±


    ¡°Sure I can. But this is not required. They''re alive.¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    Again, I killed all zombies in the area and unloaded all of the ''players'' from fuinjutsu seal. They began to recover, looking around.


    "In next time if you decide to accuse me of having fun, think about it twice.¡± I gave the lecture, addressed primarily to Elizabeth Weir. ¡°Honestly, the last couple rounds of fighting against zombies was somehow without a spark. So, I decided to end this game and leave you with these wonderful anti-zombie shotguns as an incentive prize.¡±


    ¡°Game? So, you set this up on purpose?¡± Weir and everyone else started to understand.


    ¡°Not at all. Zombies are real. If I wasn''t here, you''d all be dead by now.¡±


    ¡°So, didn''t we go back in time?¡± It finally came to McKay.


    ¡°No. And you could figure it out if you looked to the clock in the ancient computer.¡±


    ¡°But... How?¡±


    ¡°Let''s discuss it later.¡± I suggested. ¡°We still have a problem with the reactor, which cannot be turned off, and the crowds of zombies that look like will begin to revive again.¡±


    ¡°Can you save us?¡± This time, most people looked at me with the expectation of a miracle.


    ¡°I have already offered a solution to this problem. I can overload the reactor, it''ll blow up and wipe this whole planet to dust. I can teleport you to ''Daedalus'', which has been the second day circling the planet, trying to contact you.¡±


    ¡°Nice. Just do it.¡± Sheppard said.


    ¡°Wait! I need to download the data from the ancients'' computer.¡± McKay remembered.


    ¡°Are shotguns ready?¡± I asked the trembling crowd. ¡°We will break our way to the ancients¡¯ computer through the crowd of zombies.¡±


    ¡°Maybe, well, let¡¯s forget about it?¡± Dr. Zelenka said, each time he found himself ''dead'' in the top ten.


    ¡°No. Quest number two ''Zombie Apocalypse: the Way to salvation'' issued. If you can''t get to the ancients¡¯ computer terminal, you''ll all die here, and this time I won''t resurrect anyone.¡±


    The crowd mobilized, took a marching formation and moved through the corridors of the station, quietly periodically cursing me, McKay, zombies and the Ancients.


    The quest was completed successfully, and then I teleported all of them to aboard of the ship ''Daedalus'', and leaving in the station my shadow clone. He waited until the ship will depart on safe distance, and then activated the application to overload the reactor. Everything went according to my calculations. The portal closed, and the shock wave from it evaporated the entire planet.


    After returning to Atlantis, the members of the expedition for a couple of weeks went like crazy, looking around in search of zombies. The attitude towards me became emphatically respectful and God-fearing. I again plunged into the study of ancient technologies.


    I was distracted from this fascinating case of McKay¡¯s moaning about the fact that John Sheppard is transforming into the Iratus bug. I decided to visit the restless leader of the military unit of the mission. He sat in his room, hiding from others his mutated appearance.


    ¡°John, John. How did you end up like this?¡± I asked, appearing in the room.


    ¡°Imhotep? What are you doing here?¡± He turned.


    ¡°I thought I''d see you. It''s not every day I can see a human transformation into a bug.¡±


    ¡°Can you help me with that?¡±


    ¡°I can. There are several ways.¡±


    ¡°What ways?¡±


    "Well, first, I can speed up your transformation into a Iratus by preserving your memory and your ability to think sensibly.¡±


    ¡°Are you name that as help?¡±


    ¡°Second, I can turn you into a Replicator.¡±


    "Are there a option where I''m just an ordinary human?"


    ¡°Yes. Option number three hundred seventy-seven. But it''s completely depressing, so I put it at the bottom of the list.¡±


    ¡°Yet I would like to dwell on it.¡±


    ¡°How boring you are. Here, for example, in option two hundred and sixteen I could offer you a transform into demon with dozen of penis-shaped tentacles. Are you interested?¡±


    ¡°No.¡± John snapped firmly.


    ¡°Ehh.¡± I sighed sadly. ¡°As always. Okay, what have we got here?¡±


    Diagnostic spells gave an interesting picture. The Iratus beetle had mechanisms that allowed them to use someone else''s DNA to change its shape and structure of internal organs. It was clearly not a natural formation.


    In the DNA of the beetles were seen a ''digital signature'' technology of the Ancients. Apparently, one of them decided to conduct an experiment with gene drift, and the DNA complex got into the biosphere of the planet, where he settled in a colony of beetles. Further to this interesting colony came across other Ancient that for fun fed DNA to the beetles. Then the resulting mutants are already on their own initiative devoured a few of the Ancients, and in result came out the Wraith.


    Earthlings have created a virus, the main part of which was the same mechanism of gene drift. It had to make changes in the body of the Wraith, turning them into a full-blooded human, but in fact it turned out the infection, acting strictly on the contrary. It replaces all DNA strands with beetles, because this DNA was recognized by the virus as ''native''.


    This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.


    I did not bother with the circulation of mutations around, and took one unmodified cell and using it as a sample, fully restored Sheppard¡¯s body. Magical operation took only ten minutes, after which the major regained consciousness as a full-blooded human.


    ¡°Ready. Take a look to the job.¡± I said to the patient who rushed to the mirror. ¡°And if you want to transform to a penis-shaped tentacle demon - call me at any time.¡±


    ¡°No, thank you. Ordinary human body fine with everything.¡±


    ¡°Too bad. By the way, what were you trying to achieve by creating this virus?¡±


    "I don''t really know what the scientists were doing there, but they kind of wanted to create a virus that transform the Wraith into humans.¡±


    ¡°What a nonsense! For such experiments they should be shot. Think about it, the Wraith aren''t people. They''re beetles pretending to be human. Even if you remove all of the beetle DNA from their bodies, they won''t become human. Their brains are sharpened under very different patterns of behavior. They don''t even know what is to have sex. They don''t have babies, they lay eggs.¡±


    ¡°Well, to be honest, I don''t quite understand why we need it.¡± Sheppard admitted, looking down his pants to check what had happened to his half-meter tentacles. ¡°Weir believes that the Wraith have the same rights as humans.¡±


    ¡°Oh, those humanists. If this continues on, it turns out that the negroes have the same rights as the whites. Anyway, I have an idea. I can create a special bacteria that will live in people''s bodies, pretending to be an ordinary ¡®E. coli¡¯. But when it gets into the body of the Iratus beetles, they will obey the idea to infect all other beetles in the area. Finally, a month later infected with this bacterium will paralyze, and they will begin to decompose alive, spreading the bacteria in a form that can survive in an adverse environment for hundreds of years.¡±


    ¡°Sounds like a description of some sort of the completely inhumane biological weapons.¡±


    "Well, the Wraith aren''t human. They are bugs.  Cockroach death to cockroaches. Nobody announces dichlorvos as chemical weapons on the Earth because it is deadly to insects.¡±


    ¡°When you can make this miracle microbe?¡±


    ¡°In a couple of weeks, and civilians don''t need to know about this invention. They should not be subjected to moral torment about it. After all, in fact, for the sake of saving the Wraith, they will agree with the destruction of millions of people. Because of this, their conscience does not gnaw. They think it''s the Wraith''s fault. All politicians have always considered themselves as predators, living at the expense of ordinary people. So, they love Wraith more than humans.¡±


    ¡°Maybe then you''ll come up with a microbe against politicians?¡± John made the request.


    ¡°Maybe... sometime later. This question is worth considering.¡±


    ¡°I was joking. It is not necessary¡± Major backed down.


    ¡°I''m not joking.¡± I smiled a maniacal smile. ¡°But now I have other things to do. I''ll see you in a couple of weeks.¡±


    I teleported to the lab chosen by me and reflect on the creation of the plague against Wraith. I think the Ancients have already tried this approach, and have not achieved much effect. So, my plague will change nothing fundamentally .


    First, I needed some test subjects. Well, for one worth exploring Wraith technology. I teleported to my ship and went hunting. Searching Wraith hives not taken a lot of time. The Atlantis has a radar, which can detect the movement of ships in hyperspace. I naturally did the same. Flied to the galaxy here and there, I spotted a single Wraith hive, then ''piggybacking''. When the target came out of the jump, I followed and scanned the surroundings. We were in orbit around some agricultural planet. There were no other ships in the area.


    The tentacles of my ship swaddled the hive, blocking the work of all the equipment working on the technology of the Ancients. After then tentacles had breached the hive hull, destroying the reactor, the ship become just a big tin can, unable to resist. Paralyzing spells swept through the ship, stunning all Wraiths. After that, I had only to create shadow clones to carry the carcasses to the refrigerator in my ''Grim Reaper'', while I myself engaged in the study of technology.


    Alas, the technological base of the Wraith disappointed me. They were able to repeat the inventions of the Ancients, but they did not understand anything. After all, they thought like bugs, not on a quantum level. I think the Ancients lost war because they were too advanced. They lacked the same monkey logic to develop the right strategic decision to destroy the Wraith.


    Twelve hours later, I destroyed the hive and focused on creating the plague. I had the Mature Wraith, the Wraith larvae, the Wraith eggs, and the Wraith Queen. I immediately created a demonstration film showing the development of the Wraith. Later I''ll show it to the people on Atlantis. After such a propaganda move, few people will want to save the lives of these creatures.


    There were no problems with creating bacteria that can kill the Wraith, despite all treatment. But on a way of infection had to think more. The Wraith lived in isolated colonies, so I need a way to get the plague to the other ships. And what could be in this role better than the Wraith, actively wanting to spread the plague across the galaxy?


    The solution was simple. In the brain of every adult Wraith, there were areas copied from humans but not used by beetles. In particular, it was a center of sexual excitement and pleasure. I have programmed bacteria to the emulation of orgasms and activation of sexual attraction to other Wraith, regardless of their sex. Here''s a sodomy. With the development of the disease the seizures of pleasure were becoming stronger, and in the end Wraith will immerse in one endless orgasm and will die experiencing pleasure. This ensured that the vast majority of Wraiths would actively resist to any treatment. Even if they will be cured, they will commit suicide rather than give up the pleasures they have experienced.


    After two weeks of experimentation, I returned to Atlantis. John Sheppard was found in the training room, where he was training with Teyla.


    ¡°Hi, major. Will you take the order?¡±


    ¡°Imhotep? Hello. Come in. Teyla, that''s all for today.¡±


    We went into a private office, where I gave John some voluminous parcels. Inside were plastic containers with hundreds of tiny pills.


    ¡°Here. One pill turns a man into a carrier of the plague that kills the Wraith. You don''t have to give them to everyone. In a few days, a person will start spreading bacteria and they will pass to other people.¡±


    ¡°Clear. What about the Wraith themselves?¡±


    ¡°As I said, the incubation period is about a month, during which the infection is actively spreading. And then comes death.¡±


    ¡°Nice. Are you sure it''s safe for people?¡±


    ¡°Hundred percent sure. I''ve already tested it on one of the planets. Here''s gift for you.¡± I handed over a pack of CDs.


    ¡°What''s it? Porn?¡± John turned them in his hands, looking at the naked wraiths on the cover.


    ¡°Almost. The process of reproduction of the Wraith. Don¡¯t watch after having meal, and before meal too.¡±


    ¡°Is that so disgusting?¡±


    ¡°Behold. If you catch someone liking the Wraiths, show them this video. A normal person will then be able to experience only hatred and disgust to these beetles.¡±


    I wasn''t exaggerating when I said that. The Wraiths, though they looked like humans, but they were bugs. The Queen laid eggs with the help of an oviduct. After that, worms hatched from them, which fed on organic matter, gradually developing and with each molt acquiring the features of beetles. In the end, quite a large larva was grown and turned into a humanoid creature.


    After saying goodbye to Sheppard, I again sat down for the study of ancient technologies. But an hour later I was distracted by a message about the discovery of the SOS signal coming from the ship of the Ancients. I teleported to the bridge and found McKay there.


    ¡°Hi Rodney. I have a surprise for you.¡±


    ¡°Not now. I found some strange readings in the Atlantis security system.¡± The scientist was sitting at the terminal, reading the text messages.


    ¡°External signal?¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡±


    ¡°Asking for help?¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡±


    "This is the Ancient¡¯s ship, one Aurora. That''s what I wanted to tell you.¡±


    ¡°Yeah?¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡±


    ¡°Hmm... all right. So, what did you want to say?¡±


    ¡°That is the ancient ship sent an SOS signal to Atlantis. And if you don''t want the Wraith to take it, you should get there before them.¡±


    ¡°Yes! Exactly. I''ll report this to Weir.¡±


    McKay ran to overcome bureaucratic obstacles, and I began to prepare my ship for departure. Alas, they refused to my transportation services. Weir decided to fly on the Earthling¡¯s spaceship, who was still in the galaxy. This ship was not the fastest, so I sent my ship under the control of the clone forward, and myself followed McKay, who was part of the main research team.


    We reached the ancient ship only on the third day. My clone has already connected to the ship''s systems. On board of this broken trough were hundreds of Ancient, underlying in stasis. The Wraiths also found the SOS signal. That''s just they got to the ship in just a few hours, so they had time to assess the situation and decided to plow the Ancient to upgrade their hyperdrives.


    They created a virtual reality, connected the crew to it, erased their memory of what happened to them after the last battle, and then inspired them that they urgently need to return to Atlantis, which requires upgrading the ship''s engine.


    Earthlings arrived to the purpose of travel, destroyed the Wraith scout, and then Sheppard''s team teleported to the ship. Almost immediately, the radar showed that are coming two ships of the Wraith. McKay tried to contact the Ancients by sending major Sheppard into their virtual reality. But the common stupidity of the whole operation and the lack of time led only to the fact Earthlings decided to destroy ancient ship, otherwise Wraith will obtain ship.


    All this time I watched the actions of the Earthlings from the outside, without interfering in their actions. And just as they were about to enter the self-destruct code into Aurora''s computer, I stopped them.


    ¡°Sheppard, on this moment your mission is completed.¡±  I said to the major, who was trying to press the buttons on the keyboard. Alas, he did not succeed, because the terminal was blocked.


    ¡°What? Wait. This thing is not working. McKay?¡±


    ¡°It is not working because I blocked it.¡±


    ¡°But why?¡±


    ¡°You are going to destroy a ship with hundreds of Ancients on the board.¡±


    ¡°But the Wraith will get them.¡±


    ¡°It wouldn''t have happen if you''d accepted my help. So, tell Weir and Caldwell that because of their greed and arrogance, they have denied themselves access to ancient technology. Which once again proves that they are simply incompetent in making such decisions. Bye.¡±


    With that, I teleported John Sheppard and Rodney McKay aboard of Daedalus. A second later, the Ancient ship¡¯s turned on a shield powered by ZPM. The Wraith ships came out of hyperspace, but before they could get their bearings, my ''Grim Reaper'' appeared on the scene. Only a few shots was enough to completely wipe Wraith hives, after which the grasping tentacles of the ship reached out to the ''Aurora''.


    ¡°Colonel Caldwell talking to you.¡± The commander of the ''Daedalus'' contacted me. ¡°Thanks for your help.¡±


    ¡°No need to thank.¡± I answered. "Consider the ancient ship as destroyed. If it wasn''t me here, your incompetence would have led to loss of ship. So, I''m confiscating this ship. Farewell.¡± Then my ship entered into hyperspace, taking the ancient cruiser with it.


    Lying in stasis Ancients, were not in the best degree of preservation. Although they were nominally immortal, this was achieved through the use of regenerating capsules. Goa¡¯ulds used this technology in their sarcophagus. On the same ship such equipment was not exist. Stasis, although it slowed the life of the Ancients, did not stop it completely, so now the entire crew was on the verge of death from old age.


    I contacted them, described the situation, and offered to arrange a small exchange. They gave me their knowledge, and I will repair their ship, install shields powered by ZPM, and create for them a beautiful virtual reality in which they could live for more than one hundred years.


    In general, the catch from this event was not so big. These Ancients were mostly military and ordinary civilians. But one of the crew turned out to be a scientist who developed a new technology of energy shields. It has never even been tested in reality. With him I was able to bring it to mind, after which the shields of my ship became absolutely impenetrable.


    After that, I returned to Atlantis, where I again engaged in research, carefully ignoring all the problems of other residents of the city. Weir and Caldwell, of course, took offense at me. First of all, because of Jack O''Neill, when he found out about their actions, issued to everyone a reprimand and threatened to dismiss, demote and tear their body to pieces, if they will continue to not listen my advices.


    Meanwhile, my ''Wraith plague'' was unexpectedly effective. There were reports from all over the galaxy that the Wraiths were dying on an industrial scale. Sheppard, of course, told them who was behind of all this, for which he was reprimanded by Weir and thanked by O''Neill. Knowledge of the cause of the disease was decided to keep secret from everyone.


    And then, just a week later, Jack O''Neill got in touch with me, using his pocket radio. On Earth began epidemic plague of Ori, that people raze could not cure. It was then that Jack remembered my talents in infecting the Wraith with the plague. So, I am flying to Earth.


    ¡°Hi. You still alive?¡± I turned to the audience, being in the meeting room at the Stargate on Earth.


    ¡°Imhotep!¡± Samantha Carter greeted me, jumping up from her chair.


    ¡°Don¡¯t count on it.¡±  General Hank Landry, who replaced Jack O''Neill in the troublesome post of Stargate program Manager, answered the question.


    Daniel Jackson and Cameron Mitchell, the current head of SG-1, were also present. Teal''c was not to be seen again.


    ¡°How are you?¡±


    ¡°It''s bad.¡± Samantha Reported. ¡°We have more than eight thousand infected. There are cases in Canada, Mexico, France, Germany and Africa.¡±


    ¡°Only eight thousand? Then there''s nothing to worry about.¡± I reassured them. ¡°There are seven billion of you.¡±


    ¡°If this goes on, billions will die.¡± Hank Landry said. ¡°And governments will fall.¡±


    ¡°So that''s what bothering you? Falling of the governments? All right, show me the patients, and I''ll see what I can do.¡±


    They leaded me the infirmary, where they offered to wear a suit of biological protection.


    ¡°I don''t need that thing.¡± I refused. ¡°I''m God. Dirt does not stick to Mastercam.¡±


    ¡°Are you sure?¡± The doctor asked in doubt.


    ¡°Miss it.¡± General Landry ordered.


    I went to the ward and began to diagnose the sick. Although stupid Americans shouted about the evil virus, in reality the cause of the disease was bacteria. Except it wasn''t a common bacterium. Each cell of this plague had a projection on the astral plane.


    It could be said that every bacterium was ascended. Or that these are the cells of the body of one ascended, turned his body into single-celled bacteria. In the astral dimension distance was rather relative value, so that this ''spraying'' of his body throughout the galaxy didn''t look impossible.


    Actually, any medical treatment did not help. Each cell of the plague could vary widely, plus, if necessary, could use magic. The presence of a common astral body allowed to transfer immunity to drugs from one cell to another.

 Chapter 6.18 - Stargate

    I saw two ways to get rid of this disease. The first is to develop a specific drug that allows to destroy these bacteria, no matter how they change. But it was boring. The second way was much more interesting. It was possible to influence the very astral essence of the plague. As experiments have shown, it was necessary to deprive the bacteria of connection with the ''higher forces'', after that the body immunity can destroyed them in just a few minutes.


    To develop a way to counter the Ori plague, I need to investigate the ascendeds of this galaxy. Since the Ori themselves were not here, the only contenders were the ¡®priors¡¯ - their priests.


    ¡°To create a cure for the plague, I need to meet with one of the priors.¡± I gave an opinion.


    "We can take you to one of the worlds where they preach.¡± Mitchell suggested.


    ¡°Also, it is desirable that the prior had volunteered to cooperate.¡±


    ¡°That''s more complicated.¡±


    ¡°Contact to Teal''c.¡±  I commanded. ¡°He knows where to get such a prior.¡±


    ¡°Teal''c? Good. Are you sure?¡±  Mitchell asked suspiciously.


    ¡°Of course I''m sure.¡±


    ¡°Why.. ?¡±


    ¡°Silence. Do it as Imhotep say.¡± General Landry interrupted his subordinate. Apparently, he already knew that the more they has doubt in me, the more destructive forms take my jokes.


    Six hours later, I met with Gerak, one of the members of the Jaffa Council, who became prior. We met in Dakar - sacred planet of Jaffa created by Goa¡¯ulds. The meeting was scheduled in a wooded area near a small lake. With me was only Teal''c, looking to me as a wolf and refusing to speak. Apparently, he''s still sulking that I blew off his sincere faith in me.


    ¡°Your choice is correct. There''s no need to fight a hopeless battle.¡± Gerak greeted his compatriot. Teal''c lured him to this planet under the pretext of negotiations.


    ¡°Better bow to the tyrants?¡± Teal''c replied. The two Jaffa continued a long-standing debate about whether to worship the Ori.


    ¡°I assure you, the Ori are not goa¡¯ulds.¡± Gerak replied.


    "Ori, of course, gods. But worshiping them is meaningless.¡± I intervened in this conversation, coming out of the bushes.


    ¡°Who are you?¡± Gerak looked at me warily.


    "I am Imhotep, God of knowledge and replicators, and I am no less divine than the Ori.¡±


    "The Ori are true gods. They lead people on the path of enlightenment.¡± Prior began to utter memorized phrases.


    ¡°They''re using people as fodder.¡± I protested. ¡°Because they feed on their faith. You''re like pigs in a barn to them. No one will bring a pig into the house and sit at the table next to him. All the promises of the Ori about ascending is a lie.¡±


    "Your blasphemy will not diminish my faith. You did not see the wonders as I saw them.¡± Gerak protested.


    "I''ve seen more miracles than you can imagine. I am miracle. I can control elements, light and darkness. I can heal and raise the dead. Distance is not an obstacle for me. I could be on the other side of the galaxy without using the ancient stargate, and what kind of tricks Ori have shown to you?¡±


    At the same time with my speech I went up in the air, surrounded myself with fire and darkness, and in the end I teleported us from the forest to the other side of the planet into the desert.


    ¡°You... how did you do that?¡± The prior could not believe his eyes. He bent down and take bunch of sand under his feet.


    ¡°I''m God! At least for primitive creatures like you. The Ori are powerful, but even they would bow to me if they saw me.¡±


    ¡°It... it...¡± Victim of verbiage could not find the words.


    "I know you''re looking for salvation because you''re afraid of dying of old age.¡± I continued the pressure. ¡°I can give you back your youth. Unlike the empty Ori promises, I can fulfill my promises with a slight wave of my hand. You know Goa¡¯uld Lord Yu? I returned the youth to his carrier. Teal''c saw him and can confirm my words.¡±


    Teal''c nodded silently.


    ¡°Youth? Will you really make me young?¡±


    ¡°Yeah. But only on one condition.¡±


    ¡°What condition?¡±  Gerak¡¯s eyes became infected with hope, greed and desire to live.


    ¡°I''ll use your connection to the Ori to talk with them. You will witness my conversation and will find out what the Ori really are.¡±


    ¡°I agree. What should I do?¡±


    ¡°Nothing. Just don''t fight me.¡±


    I waved my hand majestically as we teleported to my spaceship. Here I sat Gerak in a special chair that supports life and has a magical protection. I stood in front of him.


    For beginning, I studied the mechanism of communication priors with God. There was nothing new. The same technology I had received from Orlik. It was a typical relationship for pumping Bahion, but still not of the best quality. Energy loss on transferring was more than thirty percent.


    Slightly more interesting was the ''spells'' on his sub-consciousness and prior¡¯s staff working on Bahion. I studied them and focused on the connection with his god. I was going to send my shadow clone to the Ori galaxy. Distance didn''t matter for the clone when using Hiraishin, but needed a special label at the point of destination. To send label there, I created a simple construct from Bahion, put a chakra seal on it, and then put this thing in the communication channel.


    Just five minutes later, I felt my mark unfold and fixate on the human body. I created a shadow clone, and clone ''jumped'' to the mark.


    My clone arrived to the hall next to the prior of the Ori. Before me blazed the fire, which was clearly created with spell based on Bahion.


    ¡°Who are you?¡± The prior stared at me in fright as I inspected the room. Here everything shone with luxury and pretentiousness. There was no one else in the room.


    ¡°I want to talk to the Ori. Call them.¡± I ordered at the same time imposing genjutsu on Prior. I was not a great expert in this direction, but it was quite easy to inspire confidence in myself.


    ¡°I won''t. Ori, please protect me!¡± Prior from something unknown reasons hit in panic. At the same time he called his gods, and they focused their attention on him. That is, exactly, what I needed.


    ¡°Who are you?¡± This time the voice came from a spiritual entity using the prior as its projection.


    "I am Imhotep, God of knowledge and replicators.¡±


    "Only the Ori are true gods!" My interlocutor shouted back.


    ¡°You''re not gods. You''re just food for my pet.¡± I was used chakra to strengthen my voice. As a result, my almost whispering was deafening. "You invaded my galaxy and organized your cult there without asking my permission. What do you have to say for your excuse?¡±


    The Ori didn''t speak and tried to influence the clone with Bahion spell. But I have foreseen such option, so that the clone has been surrounded by a special barrier that protected it from such influences, including in multidimensional space.


    "As I see, you persisting in your heresy.¡± I frowned. ¡°I''m warning you for the last time. If you do not bow before me, I will send him after you.¡±


    With these words I have created with genjutsu to the prior¡¯s mind scene, where my parasite devoured Anubis. This had great effect. Similar to ascended from the Pegasus galaxy, the Ori have fallen into a holy terror too only from mentioning this creature.


    "Oh, great messenger of the Unnamed. Please show mercy! I bow to your authority.¡± That''s different. Now I feel like a God. ¡°We only obey the order of the representatives of Light. The ancients must be destroyed.¡±


    ¡°Then do it. I am asking you, how you dare to create your heretical cult in my galaxy? Don''t tell me you were ordered to do that too.¡±


    "Wise Imhotep, we only try to fulfill the will of the Light as best as we can. Without the organization of the cult we will not gain enough strength to destroy the Ancients.¡±


    ¡°You''re interfering me¡± On this prior only bent down in a bow. "I will give you my permission to act through the priors if you tell me how the Ori society works in your galaxy. Who rules you, what tasks you face and e.t.c. Put that knowledge into your prior''s head.¡±


    "Aye, great one.¡± The prior bowed again after a few seconds of deliberation. ¡°I''ve done your order.¡±


    I immediately put the priest to sleep, and then broke into his mind, reading the memory. The information was quite unusual. The Ori were a kind of shepherds or even milkmaids, whose duty was to organize cults of self-worship. They collected Bahion, and then sent it to their ''patrons''. They could have kept to themselves the same one percent. That energy was not enough, so that the wonders of these ''gods'' have made in a strictly limited scale.


    The most interesting part was information about the ''Representatives of Light''. They were the ones who ascended the first Ori, gave the Ancient Knowledge of the Ascension. In addition to the tribute in the form of Bahion, the authorities demanded that the Ori once in several tens of years to send one of them ''to serve''. No one knew what was going on with these chosen ones, because none of them came back to tell about it. ''Representatives of the Light'' to all questions, as a rule, answered with blow to the brain and the instruction that your business - to obey orders, and thinking or knowing something you are not supposed to. I also learned a few names of these representatives, but nothing familiar about them.


    "Well, I give you my permission to operate in my galaxy through the priors. But remember, the planet Tauri is under my protection. Don''t dare to attack it.¡±


    With these words, I dispelled the clone, becoming not wait for the return of praises. As they say, the picture is clear. The gods were not quite gods, but just another level in the food chain. Although, if you think about it, there is nothing surprising in this. Even on my Land was known Hermes Trismegistus phrase: ¡®As Above, So Below¡¯. If in the material world everything is run by muggers and thieves, why else should it be in the spiritual world? If animals and plants are food for humans, then humans are food for someone else.


    I concentrated on my physical body and on Gerak before me. Thanks to my little manipulation, he could perceive the thoughts of the prior who had dedicated him.


    ¡°How low we have fell to listen to the words of these deceivers.¡± He exclaimed. "The Ori is the name of the most miserable creatures in the world. Imhotep, I thank you for opening my eyes. And now, are you giving me youth?¡±


    Who about what, but lousy about the bath. I casted a healing spell that is within a few minutes healed Jaffa¡¯s body to optimum condition. He began to look about forty, but for Jaffa it was youth. Indeed, thanks to Goa¡¯uld in his intestines they lived two or three hundred years.


    When I was finished, I teleported Gerak and Teal¡¯c back to the planet, and I flew to Earth. There I appeared in General Landry''s office.


    ¡°Hank, I''m ready to give you the cure for the Ori plague, but there''s a question of payment.¡±


    ¡°What do you want?¡± The General asked meekly.


    ¡°Ori¡¯s Ship. In the future, these gods will try to come here by ships. I want you to give me one of them.¡±


    Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    ¡°If it''s in our power...¡±


    ¡°You don''t have to capture them by yourself. Just give me permission to take the ship.¡±


    ¡°Ok. All Ori ships belongs to you.¡± Landry agreed.


    ¡°Nice. I''ll bring you the device in a couple of hours.¡±


    I teleported to my ship, leaving the General to think what that it actually all meant.


    The changes in the plot of this universe caused by me were quite large, but all of them were united by one thing - I did not act as an independent force. I only helped other figures, giving them all the ''fruits'' of my labors. In the future, I was going to take one of the Ori ships for research, but it might look like an open attack to one side. I planned to pretend that it was not I am who decided to confiscate the ship, but the earthlings did it, and then they gave the ship to me. Thus, from the point of view of the rules, I personally did not interfere in the balance of power. Earthlings gifted ship to me.


    The device for healing the Ori plague I assembled on the basis of ancient technology. This helped me research into the nature of the assumption, existing in the Ancient database on Atlantis. I think my device was supposed to be a weapon against the Ori, invented by Merlin. Only it was much weaker for the real ascended and no threat presented. But the plague cells from the effects will lose all his divinity, after which the plague was not more dangerous than the common cold.


    When I returned to Earth, I decided give the device to Jack O''Neill, who was sitting in his Royal residence.


    ¡°Hey, Jack. How are you?¡± I turned to the local king of the planetary scale.


    ¡°Oh! Hi Imhotep. Not complaining. Come with what?¡±


    ¡°Take this.¡± I gave Jack a device that resembled a ''red button'' for launching missiles.


    https://sophosnews.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/launch-button-250.jpg</a>


    ¡°What is it?¡±


    ¡°A device that turns off the Ori plague.¡±


    ¡°And how to use it?¡±


    ¡°Follow the instructions on the hull.¡±


    ¡°Aha... familiar design. One-two... three and four.¡± The red light on the device flickered and went out.


    ¡°Ready. Now the whole Earth is cleared from the virus. The device will be ready for re-use in 24 hours.¡±


    ¡°Thank you. You saved us.¡± Jack thanked me.


    ¡°By the way, I wanted to ask. As in agreement, Thor was appointed as head of the galaxy. How could he allow Ori to send their priors to the planets and infect them with the plague?¡±


    ¡°Honestly? I don''t know. We didn¡¯t hear any new about Thor in a long time. Even pathetic goa¡¯ulds more useful.¡±


    ¡°Okay, I''ll have to figure it out on my own. Why aren''t you at the Stargate?¡±


    ¡°I am bored there in the last time. They are not allow me to go on missions, and I didn¡¯t like to be head of Stargate. So, here I am, the Palace was built for me, and I have harem.¡±


    ¡°Harem? Whoa! Can I envy to you already?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, it''s about time.¡±


    ¡°Haha. Well, good luck with that. I''ll go check on Thor.¡±


    ¡°Farewell.¡±


    I teleported to my ship and tried to communicate with Thor using the Asgard communications system. Five minutes later he responded.


    ¡°Hi, Thor. I need to talk to you.¡± I cheerful greeted another game figure.


    ¡°Talk.¡± There was a deep depression in Thor''s voice.


    ¡°Personally.¡± I said.


    ¡°No. What do you want?¡± He is rude by time.


    "Why do the Ori priors walk through your galaxy as if they were at home?"


    ¡°Because they can to unravel any Asura easily with a wave of hands.¡±


    ¡°Really? That''s interesting. Have you tried to use ranged attacks?¡±


    ¡°Tried. But the range of priors ability exceeds ten thousand kilometers. They are able to throw me out of my body, even if I sit on my ship in orbit of the planet. And to get the body back I have to wait a few hours, after which the exorcism procedure is repeated.¡±


    ¡°Amusingly.¡±


    ¡°It''s not very amusingly for me.¡±


    ¡°I need to watch exorcism process in live.¡±


    ¡°I don''t need.¡± Thor cut off.


    ¡°Are you being rude to me? Are you think I can''t find you and tear you to pieces?¡±


    ¡°Uh... sorry. What did you want?¡± Thor retreated.


    ¡°I want to see how prior will unravel you in front of me.¡±


    ¡°Could it be another Asuras?


    ¡°M-m-m... okay, fine.¡±


    ¡°He''ll meet you at these coordinates.¡±


    With these words, Thor sent me the coordinates to the planet and broke the connection. So, I think I need to do something to make Thor''s deep depression even deeper. And I think I already have an idea.


    I went to on the specified coordinates and met there Asuras. Together we approached the prior on one of the planets, and I was able to witness the ''miracle'' of the exorcism. Ori used the fact that the soul of the Asuras held on to the physical body much weaker. In addition, I created the Asuras, using as a standard of ordinary people and ''natural'' spiritualized replicators. They had close to zero resistance to any astral effects. In past I did not expect that my creations will face someone with magic, even if such a flawed as the Ori have.


    In principle, of course, it was possible to fix this problem, but for this it was necessary to redo everything from scratch. But there was another way that fitted in perfectly with my plan to get Thor. When I developed the Jotuns, I copied their spirit shells from the ascended ones, so Loki and his brothers must have been immune to the effects. And since Thor screwed up, we should let Loki take power over this galaxy. I will let him rule.


    Having made this decision, I went to the galaxy of Hades. When I arrived there, Loki was speaking to the high Council of the Jotuns, rubbing something into his countrymen. I waited until the end of his speech, and then teleported directly to the podium.


    ¡°Greetings, Loki.¡±


    ¡°Oh! Imhotep. Haven''t seen you in a while. I greet you on behalf of all Jotuns and asgards.¡±


    ¡°I have a little request for you.¡±


    ¡°Of course. I am listening.¡±


    "Your brother Thor is having trouble keeping order in the milky way galaxy. I want the Jotuns to expand their habitat area and to include this galaxy under authority. You are instructed to establish law and order there.¡±


    ¡°What about all of the ''higher powers''?¡± Loki asked.


    "At the moment, there is an empty place in the space of power in this galaxy that you can take. But I warn you, do not try to destroy anyone and particularly to subdue. For one, you will need to get rid of the parasites that are there bred. They are called themselves as Ori. Well, you''ll figure them out.¡±


    ¡°What about Thor? I don''t think he''ll be happy if we arrive there.¡±


    "To prevent his desire to rebel, I can give you the ability to knock out the souls from the Asuras bodies. It turns them into frozen statues. You can catch Thor in a moment of extreme rage, then knock him out of his body and keep the statue in the Museum.¡±


    ¡°Ha-ha. Sounds fun. Well, I think the Council can take responsibility for another one galaxy.¡±  Listening us Jotuns mumbled that they would.


    ¡°Perfect. Then I''ll expect good news from you.¡±


    I formed an information packet and handed it to Loki. It described a method of training by which the Jotuns could develop in their astral bodies the ability to influence the astral bodies of other beings. On this I teleported to my ship and returned to Atlantis.


    The next time I was distracted from my research, I received information from the Earthmen''s computers that they were going to stop the Ori fleet from passing through the super-gate. I immediately rushed to the Earth, where I loaded Jack O''Neill on board of my ship. With him I flied to the super-gate, where already gathered a ships fleet of Earthlings, Jaffas and the Jotuns.


    ¡°Imhotep, welcome.¡± The commander of the Earthlings ship contacted me. My ship had an easily recognizable shape, so it was easy to guess who made them happy with their presence. ¡°You decided to help us?¡±


    ¡°I''m afraid not. I''m here in case if you all get killed.¡±


    ¡°That doesn''t sound very hopeful.¡±


    ¡°But it''s true. Has everyone written their will?¡±


    ¡°This is General Jack O''Neill.¡± My passenger introduced himself. ¡°Inform all ships, that in case of significant superiority of the enemy forces, you must immediately leave the battlefield. Keep the engines ready.¡±


    ¡°Yes, sir.¡±


    Meanwhile, the Stargate activated and opened a huge portal with a diameter of more than five hundred meters. Came another ship of the Earthmens, and then from the gate passed one after the other were four ships of the Ori. One of them sent a text message to us:


    -''Those who refuse to bow their heads will be mixed with dust.''


    Daniel gave response from his ship with phrase from the ''Ori Scriptures'':


    -''Then said Theol to the people of the plains. Don''t look for filth in the neighborhood. Otherwise, it may come to your house.''


    In response to this heresy, the Ori began to charge the guns.


    - ¡®Pay your taxes and sleep well.'' I decided to contribute to galactic diplomacy.


    After that, Ori thought for at least a minute, giving the opportunity to arrive three Goa¡¯ulds Hat¡¯ak. Finally, their ships have delivered the message:


    - ''The Ori mission is sacred. Their will is above all.''


    The exchange of pleasantries ended and the exchange of shots began. The Ori immediately showed that their strength had not diminished since the war with the Ancients. Their weapons could destroy Hat¡¯ak with one or two shots. The ships of Earthmen and Jotun held better, but not much. At the same time, the shots of the allied fleet slid helplessly over the shields of the Ori ships.


    Within thirty seconds it became clear who will be the winner in this battle. After that, all remaining ships escaped into hyperspace. Only a dozen Jotun ships remained, determined to fight to the last. They managed by Jotuns, for whom death was only small temporary inconvenience.


    I hung quietly in the side watching the fight. The Ori shot me a couple of times, but then focused on the targets that attacked them.


    Finally, the battle died down. Everyone who could, escaped, and near the super-gates were only the ships of the Ori and my ''Grim Reaper''. At that moment, I activated the hyperspace suppression system. The Ori ships tried to retreat to hyperspace, but they found out that it is impossible.


    This was where Jack O''neill came out in the unfolding comedy of the absurd.


    "This is Jack O''Neill, king of Tauri." He announced on the video channel. ¡°You illegally crossed the border of my galaxy. In this regard, you will be charged a road tax of twenty-five percent of the value of imported valuables. Give me possession of one of the ships, or you will hang forever in this area of space. In case of resistance, you will be destroyed.¡±


    The Ori fell silent for five minutes, trying to activate the hyperdrive. Finally, they got tired of it, and they decided to fly in different directions on impulse engines to go beyond the range of the suppressive device.


    "I bring it to your attention that the area of the hyperspace suppression extends for three light-years.¡± Jack started broadcasting again. ¡°If you do not pay the fee in one hour, you will be destroyed.¡±


    After that, the ships turned around and opened fire to us. But my shields, reinforced by the latest developments of the Ancients and fed by a thousand ZPM, withstood this attack with a load of less than one percent. The battle continued for five minutes, then they stopped.


    ¡°Should I take your behavior as aggression?¡± King of the Tauri turned on his trolling skill.


    This time we received a direct video link with one of the priors, the leader of the invasion fleet.


    "How dare you  to resist the will of the Ori?" Prior protested.


    ¡°According to article three hundred and twenty-nine of the consolidated code of laws of the milky way galaxy, you have agreed to the terms of service of the Stargate system, passing through the stargate, located in our galaxy. This imposes on you the obligation to comply with the requirements of article one hundred and twelve of the code. In the case of transportation of elements of space technology through the gate, you must notify the responsible structures at least thirty days in advance. Also, you must pay a tax of twenty five percent of the value of the goods not later than three days before the use of the gate.¡± Jack continued to broadcast burnout bureaucrat voice. ¡°We''ve detected a violation of the regulations...¡±


    ¡°Enough!!!¡± The prior shouted, assuming that this speech would not end in the next half hour.


    ¡°Are you ready to pay the tax?¡± Jack asked, as if nothing had happened.


    ¡°No!¡±


    "In that case, I must inform you that under article three hundred and seventy-seven of the code, you will be destroyed and your bodies will be fed to the pigs, so that your spirit may not ascend into the Ori halls, but fall into eternal darkness. Do you agree to the terms?¡±


    ¡°NO!!!¡± The prior shouted, losing his patience.


    ¡°Too bad. This adds to your guilt that under article two hundred and one of the code leaves me with no choice but to start eating your brains out by quoting the provisions and articles of the consolidated code of laws of the Milky Way galaxy until your death from catatonic stupor.¡±


    In response, the prior, and it went off the video.


    ¡°Well, how did I do it?¡± Jack asked me, finishing read the text on a screen monitor.


    ¡°Impressive. I think this prior has a nervous breakdown. Having a big plans to colony another galaxy, but to fall into a bureaucratic trap because of non-payment of taxes. I think when he realizes that even the Ori are forced to follow some incomprehensible laws, his faith in the gods will be shaken.¡±


    Meanwhile, the Ori ships started firing again.


    ¡°I will do a warning shot. Please be informed that damaged goods will not be accepted as a tax payment.¡± Jack said.


    About two hundred guns of my ship fired simultaneously into one of the Ori ships. Its shield absorbed most of the energy, but failed and the remnants of the volley damaged the hull. Explosions and fires began in the interior, and some parts were decompressed.


    This time the Ori fleet got in touch first.


    ¡°We accept your terms. Please give us time to evacuate the crew.  The prior spoke in a frightened voice.¡±


    ¡°You have five minutes.¡± Jack replied. ¡°And keep in mind that a hyperspace suppress will be canceled only after signing the act of transfer of material values. And do not try to take from the ship something other than personal belongings of the crew or somehow damage it. I remind you that the damaged goods as payment of the tax will not be accepted.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, sure. We will.¡±


    My ''Grim Reaper'' flew up to the specified ship and braided it with its tentacles. After that, I teleported there my shadow clone, which directly connected to the main processor of the computer and intercepted the control of the ship.


    Finally, after half an hour of checking, I made sure that the Ori ship would not explode at the most inopportune moment, and gave the command to Jack to complete this farce.


    ¡°All right. You should have received a notarized copy of the tax payment.¡± He said. At that moment I teleported to the table in front of the head prior a colorful piece of paper with signatures, seals and holographic stickers. ¡°I ask you not to lose this document as it can be necessary to you in case of carrying out checks. We wish you all the best and ask you not to violate the rules, regulations and restrictions established by the code. You''re free to go.¡±


    After these words in prior¡¯s face appeared sense of huge relief. I turned off hyperspace suppress, and the Ori ships were gone in a second. I created even more clones and sent them to explore my new property.

 Chapter 6.19 - Stargate

    I sent Jack to earth through the Stargate on board of my ship. The Ori ship was too big for me to take it into hyperspace with my ship. So, I had to set up an Ori technology research center on the spot.


    Alas, my hopes for obtaining breakthrough knowledge did not come true. The ship worked on a mixture of primitive Ancient technology and Bahion.


    https://s00.yaplakal.com/pics/pics_original/1/2/4/5562421.jpg</a>


    But there was unexpected benefit from this robbery. The shape of the Ori ship resembled a bagel, whose central part in a special field kept stocks of Bahion. It turned out that I just not simply robbed Ori ship, but also robbed them by confiscating a quarter of the stock of Bahion they decided to allocate to this operation. I decided to store the energy of faith in my soul until better times. Here it was much enough that it made sense to attend to its preservation.


    After a couple of weeks, I finished studying of this flying tub and dropped it to the nearest star. Hard to believe, but during the construction of these ships were used a slave labor of the savages, and mounts and props of untreated wood. The combination of such primitive solutions with the technology of the Ancients shows a lot about the degree of degradation of the Ori. Even Goa¡¯ulds did not use such primitive technology.


    When I returned to Atlantis, I listened to McKay''s sob story that he and Ronon had been kidnapped by the Wraith, after which they somehow able to escape, because I was ''out of range''. Well, McKay''s faith in me wasn''t enough to bring my attention while I was learning new things.


    In addition, a virus was downloaded to Atlantis'' computer. At least all earthlings now was working in a virtual environment created by me, without access to the real operating system. So, I was able to neutralize all the Wraith trojans in just five minutes.


    ¡°Rodney, don''t worry. You''re alive, that''s all.¡± I reassured my priest. ¡°Also, you can be sure that all the Wraiths you''ve been in contact will be dead in a month.¡±


    ¡°What? Why?¡±


    "Because you are a hotbed of the Wraith super-plague. You have bacteria that infect these bloodsuckers as soon as they come into contact with you. Just a secret.¡±


    "So that''s why the Wraith are dying all over the galaxy!¡± McKay understood. ¡°Why is it a secret?¡±


    ¡°So, no one would guess. Here is now Wraiths trying to with you to do agreement with you, to deceive you in result. But in the end, they signed their own death warrant without even realizing what happened. And you played the innocent so naturally that no one suspected you of anything.¡±


    "But we''re turning the Wraith into humans with a special virus.¡±


    ¡°I considered that. My plague can''t be fooled. All beetles must die. You saw the video of the Wraith breeding, right?¡±


    ¡°Yeah. Please do not remind. That time John invited all of us to watch a movie right after lunch. I''ve never puked so much in my life.¡±


    ¡°Ha-ha. He''s funny.¡±


    ¡°He bypassed your warning not to watch the movie after eating. But I can tell that Ronon vomited twice more than me. He then even week pan-green walking.¡±


    After discussing all the latest gossip, I again plunged into research. McKay''s telepathic call distracted me from them. This time it can already be considered as a plea. I concentrated and sent the shadow clone to my priest. My clone appeared in a prison cell with an Ancient design. There was the whole team of John Sheppard and Elizabeth Weir in person. And yet, next to McKay stood a humanoid Replicator, sticking his hand in his victim''s head.


    I immediately opened the portal with magic and moved to this place personally. The replicators looked away from the interrogation and stared at me. By scanning my body, they ''discovered'' that I was a real Ancient. Because they couldn''t attack me or hurt me in any way.


    ¡°Well, well, well. Escaped remnants of a failed experiment.¡± I said to him, parallelly exploring him with magic. Pretty quickly I learned that all these replicators has a soul. "Let these people go, and don''t dare to harm them.¡±


    The replicators reluctantly complied. Although they were programmed to submit to the Ancients, they still had plenty of ways to sabotage any activity.


    ¡°Who are you?¡± Oberoth asked - the main Replicator in this nest of Vice.


    ¡°I''m Imhotep, and I''m the one you must obey.¡±


    ¡°We will not serve you.¡± Replicator dare to protest me.


    ¡°Sure you will. Hey, you, turn into a chair.¡±


    I pointed to one of the replicators and then send him a radio signal containing scheme of the chair and the ancient control code that they had embedded in each of their computers. The Replicator''s face contorted in horror, then he took the required shape. I moved with telekinesis the chair and sat on it.


    ¡°So. Oberoth, I suppose? Explain to me why you haven''t destroyed the Wraith yet?¡±


    ¡°We will never serve you!¡± He repeated his mantra.


    ¡°Clear. Well, that will take some time. McKay, how are you?¡± I turned to my priest, who was looking around in surprise.


    ¡°Normally. Almost. Unless you count the fact that these replicators put their hand in my brain.¡±


    ¡°And probably they didn''t wash their hands before.¡± I complained. I created a spell and cast it on my priest, removing the remaining nanites in his body and healing all the damage. "Let me send you back to Atlantis and take care of these rebellious machines."


    I sealed the men in fuinjutsu, then focused on studying the replicators. The prisoners were to be taken by my clone. Now my ship was heading for this planet, and I was going to use the gate on board to send earthlings to Atlantis.


    First of all, the difference in the structure of these replicators from my Jotuns was striking. If Loki and his subjects were all-metal statues, these replicators were more like inflatable rubber doll. The human image was created by a relatively small number of blocks, and inside the ''body'' was only emptiness. As a result, during shutdown of the Replicator, he was little at best, three liters of sawdust.


    The shape of the blocks was also much more interesting, not to mention the program. However, this program was written clearly in a hurry. Even for the Ancients, such sloppiness was uncharacteristic. Having studied the history of replicators in more detail, I understood what caused it.


    In the canon, this is not shown, but the replicators have created by a company of six of the Ancients, who in all experiments spent a couple of weeks. They were obviously hiding from the rest of the Ancients and were conducting their experiments on replicators in secret, even erasing the address of their planet from the database of Atlantis.


    The main problem with this modification of the replicators was their hate. That''s only this hate was not targeted. It was just hate in itself. In theory, the robots were supposed to hate the Wraith, but in fact, they hated the Ancients because there were no Wraith in the near area. The matter was further aggravated by the fact that the basis of the matrix for the personality of replicators was an Ancient, dreaming of ascension.


    As a result, the replicators were not eager to go somewhere and kill someone. Instead, they sat and meditated. Or something did, but at the same time still meditated. And all this time they were saving up anger, which they poured out on their creators, sabotaging their orders.


    Messed about with the recalcitrant equipment, Ancient spit on their creations and flew away, wiping the area with heavy artillery. But the rest of the replicators survived. They multiplied, rebuilt the city of the Ancients, added a copy of Atlantis and... frozen in anticipation of orders, while dreaming of ascension.


    It is not known at what stage, but replicators obtained souls. In their life there were emotions, aspirations, and after hundreds of years of monotonous life - a real thirst for ascension. But they could not break the established order. The replicators knew that their creators had lost the war with the Wraith and left the galaxy. So the dormant in their minds the hatred of the Ancient is closed on themselves, entering in an endless repetitive cycle.


    And continued their meaningless existence on this planet, yet here came the people. Elizabeth Weir mentioned that they and her team had come from the city of the Ancients, and the replicators'' brains were again jammed, giving them the meaning of life in the destruction of the ancients'' heritage.


    Overall, this settlement replicators were any not known technologies. But here it was possible to conduct experiments on replicators, without fear of destroying something important. After all, was nothing important here. That''s what I did.


    First, I rewrote the Replicator program to show them their true enemy, the Wraith. Further, I limited their breeding instincts by allowing them to produce new blocks only on this planet. In the end, I gave them explicit orders to build ships and fly to destroy the Wraith, setting a minimum ''daily rate'' of Wraith corpses for each Replicator.


    After making sure that the first few raids were successful, I departed back to Atlantis. I was startled by the news that Elizabeth Weir had become a Replicator. In the canon, replicators infected the head of the mission and tried to subdue her consciousness, acting out of revenge for the betrayal. In this world, they simply followed the program embedded in them, replacing the cells of the body.


    No one understood until it was too late. For reproduction of the replicators need metal, and Elizabeth have formed a compulsive habit of sucking small bars of trinium and naquadaq instead of candy. In the end, the amount of organic matter in her body decreased so much that she began to die, because the Replicator blocks did not see the point to reproduce all the biochemistry of the body.


    And here is, now I could watch Elizabeth Weir, fully composed of nanites. At the same time, the soul and all human spiritual shells remained with her. It was a much more difficult decision than what I did when I created the Jotuns and Asuras.


    Weir was in a pressurized block, the walls, floor and ceiling of which were reinforced with force fields.


    ¡°How are you feeling?¡± I asked her.


    ¡°I feel like as a Replicator.¡±


    ¡°Well, that''s normal.¡±


    ¡°Is it normal? Normal?!!!¡± She shouted, throwing herself against the wall and bouncing back.


    You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    ¡°How long has she had these attacks?¡± I asked.


    ¡°Yeah.¡± The doctor confirmed. ¡°Almost since she got back.¡±


    ¡°It''s the same hate sewn into the Replicator program.¡±


    ¡°I hate you, Imhotep.¡± Patient has confirmed my suspicions. ¡°You''re the reason that I''m like this.¡±


    Raving patient grew fangs to herself and started trying to chew on the wall, at the same time tearing her claws. Fortunately, the wall was covered by a force field, so that bribery from this was zero.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry. You will be cured¡± I calmed her and walked away.


    ¡°Is there any cure for that?¡± Dr. Carson Beckett asked me.


    ¡°I need to think about. Actually, there is nothing to cure. She is one hundred percent Replicator, and therefore absolutely healthy. And these clouding of her mind - the result of a software error. So, we no need to cure her body but her soul. Leave it to the gods. I''ll manage. I was just about to do some experiments on turning people into replicators. And here such a good sample.¡±


    Unlike the cases of Loki and Thor, here I was in no hurry, and therefore could thoughtfully develop the right program for Replicator blocks. I gave back to Weir the ability to think straight, while retaining all the benefits of the computer life form. For example, the speed of search and analysis of options for the development of situations could argue with the best supercomputers of earthlings.


    But I also made a restriction. Weir was not able to directly download data from the Atlantis network, nor was she able to access the program code. But she became almost immortal, although the destruction of her body of replicators caused her considerable discomfort. After all, astral shells were designed to exist in the human body.


    In the end, the resulting Replicator was even recognized as a man, retaining her place as the head of Atlantis. But as insurance, they sent Samantha Carter to be her Deputy.


    Last but not least, this decision was due to the fact that Weir was able to control a limited number of replicators outside of her body. That allows her to repair and even produce from scratch the technique of the Ancients.


    Leaving this project, I again deepened in the study of data diverse research. In my list of things required for the study, I didn''t reach even half, although the time allotted to me was over. I was so immersed in all this science that I completely missed the change of power that occurred in Atlantis.


    McKay decided to connect the Pegasus and the milky way galaxies with a chain of gates that transmit a packet of data to each other. And while he was testing his invention in intergalactic space, the earthlings ship accidentally stumbled upon the ship of the Ancients, who broke the hyperdrive.


    They trustingly saved these living fossils and even delivered to Atlantis. That''s just as thanks, Ancients kicked out earthlings from the city and started to settle in at as own home.


    I learned about the incident only when one of my experiences failed due to lack of energy. Atlantis was powered by three ZPM, and all this was not enough, because the Ancients activated almost all the systems of the ship, not caring about energy saving.


    I was about to show to these animals who was the master of the house, but then the radar spotted the approaching of ship of replicators. Looks like this place can handle itself without me. But Replicators will start firing on Atlantis and may blow up one of laboratories here. I''ll have to do it myself.


    I teleported to the Atlantis command center, where I found Jack O''Neill and Richard Wolsey negotiating with Tilia, the captain of the ancient ship.


    ¡°Hey, Jack.¡± I said. ¡°So, by what right did you break into my city and start commanding here?¡± I turned to the usurper.


    ¡°Who are you?¡± She was surprised.


    ¡°I''m only asking questions here.¡±


    I waved my hand, and all of Ancients except Tilia were teleported to prison cells. Since the time the Wraith hacked into the computer, only the interface of the virtual operating system was available on conventional terminals. Tilia took control over virtual operation system. And I was the only one with real access. I have now activated the Asgard teleportation devices I have installed for such cases. Ancients didn¡¯t have protection from this technology, so they were all behind bars.


    ¡°What did you do to my crew?¡± Tilia was worried.


    ¡°They''re in jail. And you''ll be there too, if you don''t come up with an excuse for your crime.¡±


    ¡°What crime? Atlantis belongs to the Ancients.¡±


    ¡°Those times are gone long time ago. It is belongs to me now.¡±


    Tilia ran to one of the terminals and tried to activate the security systems, but they did not respond to her requests.


    ¡°See. Well, your silence speaks better than volumes. I''ll use you as food to the replicators. Those have long sharpening teeth on you.¡±


    ¡°How you dare? Who are you?¡±


    ¡°What''s in my name to you? Why explain something to the dead?


    The ancient ran to another terminal and tried to use it with the same result. Actually, I didn''t see the point in leaving these upstarts alive. According to the canon, they were all destroyed by replicators. I think nothing much will change if they will be destroyed by me, while I conduct over them some experiences. I have already examined the Ancient ones lying in stasis on the ship, and I did not expect anything new from these specimens.


    ¡°You don''t dare hurt me.¡± Tilia took the position. ¡°Replicators are coming. If you do anything to us, they will destroy you.¡±


    ¡°I don''t think so. But let''s check it out.¡±


    I waved hand and behind Tilia raised metal cross to which she was immediately strapped with barbed wire. I turned on the Atlantis shields and waited for the arrival of replicators, for one scanning the memory of the Ancient on the subject of something interesting.


    The replicators entered the orbit of the planet and without further negotation began the bombing of Atlantis. I''ve activated the video feed.


    "Oberoth, you dare attack me?"


    In response, the video signal came immediately with the face of the main Replicator.


    ¡°Imhotep! We do not obey you. Don¡¯t matter whatever you do, our spirit will be free...¡±


    That was the end of the Replicator''s heroic speech, because I activated the Trojan in his program. In just a nanosecond, all of Oberoth''s ''personal data'' was erased and his body blocks deactivated. The soul of this Replicator was banished to the afterlife, where the souls of all the dead fall.


    ¡°Who''s next in command chain? Do you need to explain something?¡± I turned to the replicators.


    After a few seconds, Niamh appeared on the screen.


    ¡°Imhotep, forgive us. Oberoth insisted that the Ancients were hiding in Atlantis and we must destroy them.¡±


    ¡°They''re not hiding here. They''re prisoners. Look.¡±


    I stepped aside and showed crucified Tilia.


    ¡°Can you give them to us?¡± The Replicator asked humbly.


    ¡°Certainly. But first I''ll scan their minds for important information, and then I''ll turn them into replicators. Then you will be able to get rid of your anger to them.¡±


    ¡°What? Replicators? Will you make them like us?¡±


    ¡°No! Don¡¯t dare!!!¡± The Ancient woman cried, realizing her prospects.


    ¡°Yeah. I think that when they are in your place, they will fully receive for their pride.¡±


    ¡°Nice. We will wait in orbit of the planet.¡±


    ¡°No. Get out! I''ll send to you new replicators through the gate. If you annoy me, you will all suffer the fate of Oberoth.¡±


    ¡°Sorry. Certainly. We''re leaving.¡±


    The Replicator ship immediately went into hyperspace and flew away. I moved Tilia to her relatives and began to carry out the procedure of converting the Ancients into replicators, scanning their memory for technology.


    As a result, in a day only two Ancient people with interesting knowledge survived. In principle, I could pull this knowledge out of replicators after ''digitizing'', but here it was necessary to quantum thinking of the Ancients, so I had to leave them alive. So, they didn''t cause problems, I put them in a stasis chamber. It wasn''t a hindrance to the memory-reading spell. All the other ''newborns'' replicators I sent to their planet through the gate.


    By this time on Earth learned that the Ancients no longer ruling on Atlantis, and they decided to return there with research mission. Elizabeth Weir and John Sheppard''s team were the first to arrive.


    But before I could say hello to Jack O''Neil and Richard Woolsey, the radar again showed the mark of the approaching ship of replicators. Only this time they moved much faster, almost at the level of the best ancient engines. I managed only to raise the shields as the ship hovered over our heads.


    ¡°Well, what else?¡± I asked, setting up a video link.


    ¡°Imhotep! I will destroy you!!!¡± Tilia answered me appearing on the screen.


    ¡°Really? Let''s see what you can do.¡±


    I sent the signal which purpose was turn off Tilia just as I turned off Oberoth. Only this time the result was zero.


    ¡°You have no more power over us.¡± Proudly said the former Ancient. ¡°I rewrote my program and the code of all the other replicators. You will not escape retribution!¡±


    Simultaneously with her words on the ship replicators work out some clever device that turned off the shield of Atlantis. Then the ship literally fell on the city, turning into hordes of replicators, which started to spread around the room.


    ¡°People!¡± I called to my minions of earth. ¡°Replicators invaded to our city. We need to have an epic battle with the replicators. Do you remember our battle with zombies?¡± Five of the seven fighters shuddered, and four were covered in sweat. Weir would have been happy to sweat, but her body didn''t have that function. ¡°Now would be about the same, but only against the replicators.¡±


    ¡°Maybe not necessary to fight.¡± McKay whined.


    ¡°It is necessary, Rodney, it is necessary. If you don''t save the city, the crazy replicators will get it. Who knows what they''ll do to the Earth after that? Rodney, your harem is in danger!¡±


    McKay sighed heavily and agreed:


    ¡°Well. Where are the shotguns?¡±


    I immediately created another modification of the progressive weapon, this time purely magical action. It resembled a pair of pistols firing bursts. Glowing charge of this weapon trite physically destroy blocks of replicators.


    https://i.pinimg.com/originals/47/39/fb/4739fbd0c8ffac46b30464eb1132df7d.jpg</a>


    Also, I created protection to all around people, which took the form of nanosuit from the game Crysis. In addition to the protective functions, this spell ensured the strengthening of the musculoskeletal system, improve reflexes, illumination, and other purposes. I have long wanted to test it in combat conditions, but all cases are not presented. Vritras body were not needed such crutches in principle.


    http://cdn1.twinfinite.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/crysis-standard-edition_pdp_3840x2160_en_WW.jpg</a>


    ¡°Behold! Now you are the real soldiers of the future. Go and kill them all!¡±


    ¡°Sir, Yes sir!¡± John Sheppard shouted, giving me honor as a gallant soldier. ¡°I suggest if we split up. General Jack, Ronon and I will go on one team, and McKay, Wolsey and Teyla on the other.¡±


    I left Elizabeth Weir fundamentally without equipment, and now she feel a bit lost.


    ¡°Elizabeth, you do not need any weapon, you are weapon. You can subdue replicators, and if necessary, you can destroy them. Give it a try. You will not have a better chance to train.¡±


    After giving instructions, I began to watch the passage of the level, charging points to each of the ''players'' for the dead replicators. At first, the Sheppard team led with the best result from Ronon. But then McKay tasted all the delights of ''nanosuit'' and went far ahead. He literally ran, jumped and flew around the city, shooting enemies with accurate hits. Instead of using the abilities of his body, he entrusted the performance of motor functions to the suit, himself only exercising general control over it.


    Sheppard was angry about Ronon, struggled, but soon fall behind McKay more than hundred points. A couple of times Ronon swept past them, stealing frags right out from under his nose, and it angered the ''great fighters'' even more.


    Elizabeth in its strategy resembled a full-grown necromancer eightieth level. She subdued ''the undead'' and sent them on a reconnaissance, found enemy blocked, was associated with their struggle to approach the ''Arch lich'', after which she subjected replicators to herself, and if they were too much under control, exceeds then immediately destroyed.


    The replicators lasted a little more than a couple of hours. Fortunately, they did not seek to damage the city or destroy it, but only to take control. Nobody could escape. In the end they dragged Tilia and Niyama for an exemplary penalty.


    ¡°No, let me go.¡± Tilla hissed, trying to resist the Weir¡¯s will. ¡°She is controlling me, thinking for me. It''s unbearable! Better kill me!!!¡±


    ¡°Well, well. Nothing terrible is happening.¡± I reassured her. "That''s what you did with replicators when you created them.¡±


    Niyama unlike her ''partner'' was more phlegmatic, resigned to her defeat. The whole ''ideological elite'' of the Replicator society was discovered and subordinated by Weir on the tip of McKay. They stood a little behind, performing the role of an obedient crowd.


    ¡°What will you do with us?¡± Niyama asked.


    ¡°Better ask her that question.¡± I pointed Weir. ¡°You''re her catch.¡±


    "I''ll take them with me and go to the Replicators¡¯ planet. Over the past month, I''ve realized that I''m no longer human. I''d better try to find my place among my own kind.¡± Weir said.


    It was her ''official'' version, but in the depths of her consciousness, she just wasn''t ready to part with obedient puppets. The poison of absolute power had already begun to eat away her unprepared consciousness. Well, so be it.


    The new Queen of replicators and her entourage went to the gate and passed through it to the right address.


    ¡°How do you like the costumes?¡± I asked the six warriors.


    ¡°That''s amazing!¡± McKay shared his feelings. "I have never felt such freedom of movement, accuracy and speed.¡±


    ¡°He cheated.¡± Sheppard accused his subordinate.


    ¡°Nothing like that.¡± I denied the accusation. ¡°The costumes were all the same. You just had to figure out how they work. There''s even a Richard Woolsey scored more points than you. In result, in the competition of brains and the muscle, won brains.¡±


    ¡°Yoo-hoo!¡± McKay exclaimed, leaping into the air and doing a double twisted somersault.


    ¡°All right, that''s enough. It''s time to return to the mortal reality.¡± I said, removing the protection spell.


    The ''nanosuits'' disappeared, and McKay fell flat right where he was standing. Without the support of magic, his vestibular apparatus suddenly remembered that he had been jumping and spinning for two hours without a break.


    ¡°Somebody, please knock me out.¡± We heard the voice of McKay. ¡°I can''t bear it. Stop the Earth, I''ll get off.¡±


    ¡°Leave him. Let him lie. He''ll be fine in half an hour.¡± I said.


    The whole company went to the dining room to celebrate the victory over the replicators, leaving McKay to suffer alone. Here it is, a real men friendship.

 Chapter 6.20 - Stargate - Nine digit gate

    After all this commotion, life in Atlantis began to return to normal flow. Only instead of Elizabeth Weir, Samantha Carter was in charge, already familiar with my jokes, and therefore not reacting to them.


    The next interesting event was the triggered when McKay fell to ancient trap. The Ancients energized a lot of equipment that was not needed by earthlings, but consumed the energy of the ZPM. As a result, McKay and Zelenka had to go to all laboratories and turn off everything.


    In one of the laboratories McKay went to the platform with the terminal and accidentally activated the Ancients equipment, which purpose was preparing of a man for Ascension process. I immediately received the signal and went to the hospital to see my priest.


    McKay just scanned himself with all possible devices, took all imaginable tests, but did not detect any deviations.


    ¡°Congratulations, Rodney. Did you just take the path of ascension?


    ¡°What? How?¡± McKay scared, looking me with panic filled eyes. He already knew that when I congratulate someone with something, it means something bad will happen to them.


    ¡°Ancient¡¯s equipment launched your ascending process, you have an accelerated process of evolution. Soon you''ll obtain superpowers, become smarter, and then die.¡±


    ¡°How will I die?" My priest was even more worried.


    ¡°Usually. Like all people.¡± I reassured him. ¡°This device activates the evolution of only the physical body. But this is not enough. For the ascension you need to transform your astral body, plus the very concept of ascension involves moving the soul to another plane of existence, which is not so easy to do.¡±


    ¡°What are we gonna to do now?¡± McKay panicked.


    ¡°Do not worry. I''ll help. You have a rare chance to become a real God.¡±


    ¡°God?¡± In eyes of the scientist lit a spark of hope.


    ¡°Certainly. Same as the Ori or the Otar. You''ll be a great God. You love to be worshipped, but you will not accept open flattery. You have a desire to help people, but you understand that often people do not know what is necessary for their benefit. When the time comes, I can leave Atlantis and Earth to you without worrying about the fate of everyone I know.¡±


    ¡°Do you really think so?¡± McKay eyes filled with tears.


    ¡°No, but I thought you''d like to hear such type of talk before you die.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± Novice God¡¯s all pink dreams cracked and shattered with shards of broken glass, leaving unsightly present.


    ¡°Let''s get back to this in a couple of days, when you''re on the edge of the grave.¡±


    With that, I teleported back to my lab, leaving the discouraged McKay to continue his panic.


    Three days later, I went to the infirmary where McKay was living his last hours.


    "Believe in me and you will be saved!¡± I whispered him in an afterlife voice, appearing next to the bunk.


    ¡°It is not funny.¡± McKay replied. ¡°I felt your move. This is some kind of manipulation of the space metric.¡±


    ¡°Are you ready to be a God?¡±


    ¡°I do not know. I guess so.¡± Rodney said melancholically. ¡°I''m already burned up. I used all my abilities, all my improved brain, but I couldn''t think of any way to stop it or reverse it. Also, I came to the conclusion that I do not understand what ascension is. I can only accept my fate. So, either I will die or you will save me. I''m sorry, I''m a lousy priest. I can''t believe in you, or whatever you mean?¡±


    "Do you believe that I can transform you to God?"


    ¡°Yeah.¡±


    ¡°That''s enough. Prepare yourself. This will be the most exciting journey of your life.¡±


    ¡°Wait. What will happen to me then? Well, after I ascend? To be honest, I don''t feel much like existing in the form of a ghost or any energy.¡±


    ¡°Do not worry. I will give you the opportunity to take a full physical appearance. Your harem''s not going to anywhere.¡±


    ¡°Yeah? All right then. Please begin.¡± McKay closed his eyes and began to sink into unconsciousness.


    I put barriers around room, drove away all doctors and people and start to work. To begin with, I ''extracted'' Rodney''s soul and transformed it according to the patterns that the souls of the ascended corresponded to. But at the same time, I improved his astral body, making it more resistant to external influences and subordination of consciousness.


    Next was the most difficult part of the operation. I had already assembled a device of the Ancients, which allows to break through the ''Invisible Veil'' and move the human soul to the desired area of multidimensional space. I went to this lab and loaded McKay''s soul into some kind of space slingshot analog. After accumulating energy, it shot and transferred the newborn God to a given point.


    After that I activated a special spell based on Bahion, which has created a sustainable channel of communication between the soul of God and the old man''s body. The healing spell completely restored his body, after which activated the soul binding.


    ¡°How does it feel?¡± I asked McKay, who had regained consciousness.


    ¡°Strange. I''m feel that I am here, but in same time I''m not here.¡±


    ¡°It is. Now your physical body is just a projection. Real you are in a special area of multidimensional space, where creatures like you usually live. You need to get used to it and learn to act consciously, if not astral sharks might gobble up you¡±


    ¡°What about my abilities?¡±


    ¡°I think, you will need work out, but in a whole, all should be normal. Telekinesis, telepathy and an over-developed mind should stay with you. I recommend to start to get used to the multidimensionality, and then just sleep. Your physical body is safe now.¡±


    ¡°Nice, and thank you.¡± New born God thanked me.


    ¡°Sleep.¡± I waved a hand.


    While McKay was getting used to the new reality, I watched his actions and feelings, occasionally making tips. This time I set up a more perfect spell to convey to me all the sensations of McKay''s soul. I interested in the experience of conscious existence in the form of spirit.


    While MacKay absorbed in his divine role, I slightly changed my soul, using Bahion confiscated from the Ori. The goal was to increase my awareness so that my consciousness would not depend not only on the body and astral shells. Because every time when I change my body, my brains going crazy, in accordance with the delusions of the donor.


    A few weeks later, I noticed that around McKay formed a sort of mist from Bahion. As far as I knew from the canon, Rodney had a whole country of admirers on one of the planets in this galaxy. He and Sheppard discovered an Ancient computer that controlled the development of human civilization on one of the planets. McKay in ''his'' civilization began to develop science, Sheppard promote increase army.


    And one of the options set up by the scientist was his image on the flag, as well as many statues in his honor. Quite naturally there raised the cult of worship of ''prophet'', who started to generate Bahion. Bahion partially flocked around him, creating an aura of divinity.


    I informed the newborn God about this feature, and gave him a standard spell that allows him to start collecting Bahion from followers. It was just a standard ascended spell, not my improved one.


    Having gained access to the energy of faith, McKay began to cheat with might and main in his game with Sheppard. He used it to perform miracles, improve crops, cure diseases, and so on. In fact, the whole Bahion coming to him went into action, improving the lives of his followers.


    At my suggestion, he began to send his ''prophets'' into enemy territory, converting the people who lived there to his faith, and then adding these villages to his Empire. Naturally, this could not last long, and the war began. But a couple God-made great miracles led to the complete surrender of the enemy.


    After that, the McKay¡¯s civilization began to develop at a rapid pace. In fact, he now repeated almost the same path that I went through, organizing ''my'' village on the planet where I extracted naquadah. But there was one significant difference. When I started the cult of myself, I absorbed all Bahion to the last crumb, and not many people believed in me.


    But the cult of McKay handed him the entire Bahion. Almost thirty percent of it was scattered in space, creating a kind of illumination. Use of faith energy, was not the most rational too. Thus, the behavior of Bahion very different from the usual.


    When the people prayed to nonexistent gods or mere mortals, Bahion quickly dissipated in space. Only a small number of it will accumulate around ''objects of faith'' like temples or idols. But if Bahion went through the collecting spell, it will attach to its ''owner''. As a result, the energy followed McKay''s as raincoat, making meaningless any attempt to hide. When making ''miracles'', Bahion accumulate around the relevant places or objects, as if highlighting them. At the same time, a similar energy was already much more complicated to assemble and use.


    But this heavenly life didn¡¯t last for a long time. Just a month later, the Ascended one appeared to McKay in his multidimensional spiritual world. I always watching everything going on with my priest, and therefore not missed this action.


    ¡°You!!! How dare you use the energy of faith to help people!¡± The ''inspector'' shouted without even saying hello.


    ¡°What''s the problem?¡± McKay not understood the crux of the claims. ¡°They are my believers.¡±


    "From now on, you will give me ninety-nine percent of all the gathered energy of faith.¡±


    ¡°Is it not fat to you? Who are you, anyway?¡±


    ¡°How you dare?!! I am the representative of Light in this galaxy! If you disobey, I will destroy you!¡± Each sentence of this ''representative'' pour out emotions, giving him arrogance, complacency and awareness of their own importance.


    ¡°No, I will destroy you.¡± I showed my shadow clone on the spiritual level of existence. This technology was still being worked out by me, but according to McKay, it was quite possible to understand that this is someone''s projection. ¡°He asked you who... are ... you?¡±


    Ascended gasped gripping his wrath. Apparently, this was the first time in many thousands of years that someone dared to address him in such a tone. Without a word, he attacked my projection with some nasty spell. Well, you started it first. ¡°Parasite, take him!¡±


    I removed the seal from the parasite and gave it the command to destroy the aggressor. The parasite quickly threw its tentacles, and they dug into the supple flesh of the victim. A moment later, I heard a scream filled with despair, horror, disbelief in the reality of what was happening and denial that this could happen to you.


    It would, perhaps, felt the son of a rich tycoon, who all his life thought that the people and the whole country exist only to satisfy his whims. Who was sure that whatever he did, he would do without any consequences. And then, suddenly, he finds himself in the hands of organ dealers, who without any anesthesia begin to gut him, cutting out the liver, kidneys and heart in separate containers.


    The parasite clearly been enjoying these emotions. He allowed the victim to flutter a little, and then began to devour him greedily with hundreds of mouths that opened on his tentacles. If he consumed Anubis as a delicious dish, the devouring of this ascended was an exemplary execution. Brutal, excruciating and slow.


    The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    The cry of the ''inspector'' was spread throughout the astral during five minutes. And only after the scream became nothing, the parasite quickly finished the remains and disappeared into his sanctuary. I sealed it, swallowed, and looked at McKay''s soul. He also exuded emotion, saying that if the soul could shit, now there would be a pile of shit larger than his size.


    "That''s the way it is.¡± I said to my priest. ¡°As the saying goes, do not wake up the beast in me.¡±


    After this event, a week passed, and a whole delegation of the ascended came to us. This time they humbly crouched at McKay''s lotus feet, begging him to call me to negotiate. I waited five minutes, then deigned to show them my astral projection.


    ¡°I am listening to you. Why did you come here?¡±


    One spirit came forward, radiating emotions of reverence and respect.


    "Oh Almighty! We humbly ask you to stop using the energy of faith. If you continue, then all we would expect the fate, as if not worse than what you did with the Representative of the Light.¡±


    ¡°Really? Why?¡±


    "The Higher Powers of Light that gave us the gift of ascension set strict requirements for the use of the energy of faith. We can keep no more than one percent of it. Everything else we have to send them. The last time this order was broken, it led to the destruction of the ancient civilization. The ancients in their pride found a way to ascend independently, bypassing the services of a Keeper of Veil. But they did not stop there, and began to collect the energy of faith and use it on their own benefit. After just a few years Representatives of the Light visited them, and severely punished the offenders. Those who refused to submit to their will were destroyed. The rest of the ascended were forced to swear that they would follow the General Rules. But there were still Ancients in human bodies, who refused to bow their heads. Because they were not ascended, the Representatives of the Light sent them a plague that destroyed the entire civilization who mastered the forbidden knowledge. If they find out that someone has again violated the ban, they will punish not only the guilty ones, but all those who did not prevent it. Therefore, we humbly ask you not to anger the Higher Powers and to obey the common rules.¡±


    I listened to the whole lecture with interest. Well, now I more or less understand the whole story. The Representatives of the Light raised the Ori and established their own rules. The ancients did not agree with them and dumped in the distant distance. There they were able to ascend without the help of questionable intermediaries, but in the end the harsh hand of the law punished them, despite all their self-conceit. For one thing, it explains how such intelligent creatures died of some banal virus. The Higher Powers cannot be resisted, no matter how clever you are.


    "So, McKay, are you ready to devote ninety-nine percent of your energy to the needs of the arrogant tyrants?"  I asked the rule violator, knowing his answer.


    ¡°Never! If these rules cannot be broken, it is better I do not collect this energy. Let it uselessly dissipate in space.¡±


    All the congregation lifted up sigh of relief.


    ¡°It''s a wise decision.¡± They nod their representative. "Thousands of years ago we made the same decision, and since then we have followed it steadily. Those few of us who choose to use the energy of faith give the prescribed portion to the Representatives of Light. As mediator acted Jura, which you have executed. Now, we will accumulate energy and give it to the Representative of Light, who will come here to check. I think it will happen in just a few years. And please note that you will have to accumulate a hundred times more energy of faith than you have already spent. Inspectors able to track the flow of Bahion, studying the traces of energy. I hope you will have enough time to gather the right amount of energy. If you face any problems with its set or preservation, you can always ask me for advice.¡±


    That was the end of the meeting, and the whole delegation went back to their business, leaving me and McKay, as they say, to flow around, aware of the scale of the possible consequences. I didn''t really care, of course. But some doubt remained. Who knows how long arms these Representatives of Light have? Apparently, all these rules have nothing to common with the Game.


    I spent the last few months in Atlantis studying the most important of the Ancients'' heritage. I copied the entire knowledge base from the computer, but it is one thing to write logs, and quite another personal experiments, and even with the availability of ready-made equipment.


    And so, sources on Earth have informed me that people have decided to start a project to open the gate with a number of nine characters. For this case they already found the planet with the Ancient power plant that could generate power comparable to thousands of ZPM. I completed all the projects, sighed over what I could not verify, and then went to say goodbye to the inhabitants of Atlantis and McKay.


    ¡°Imhotep! You''re always on time.¡± McKay greeted me as soon as I was in the control room.


    ¡°Yeah? What happened?¡± I was surprised.


    ¡°It''s Weir.¡± The local God began to explain. ¡°I was just on her planet. She is building a fleet of hundreds of spaceships, planning to attack Atlantis and capture it.¡±


    ¡°So, what''s wrong?¡± I was even more surprised. ¡°Her brain burned, and she forgot who''s in charge?¡±


    "Her brain burned out when she went to the Replicators planet. She set up an Empire named on herself. Even I didn''t get this far, creating my own cult. And a couple of weeks ago, she contacted to us and claimed that this entire galaxy belongs to her.¡±


    ¡°Understood...¡± I held out. ¡°Hundreds of ships, you say? Well, good luck. I think you can handle all these problems, I need to go. Suddenly I have quite emergency business in the Milky Way galaxy.¡±


    ¡°What? How? Will you not help us?¡±  McKay was scared.


    ¡°I''m leaving everything to you. Remember when I said I''d do it? Today is the day. Good thing you warned me about this army of crazy replicators. Now I can safely evacuate, knowing that I''m leaving this galaxy in safe hands. In your hands, Rodney. It''s time to grow up. I think you can solve this problem. Bye.¡±


    With that, I teleported back to my ship and went to Earth, leaving McKay to panic, though he was in no danger.


    ¡°Hey, Jack. What are you reading?¡± As always, I suddenly appeared in the office of my protege. I never understood who was game figure in human side. It definitely wasn''t Jack, because his mind and soul I checked carefully.


    ¡°Imhotep? You''re gonna give me a heart attack. I''m sitting in the most secure bunker on the planet, reading a top-secret report on the Stargate program about of using a nine-character address. Do you know where it leads, by the way?¡±


    ¡°Sure, I do.¡± Offended me. ¡°By the way, I want to talk to you about it.¡±


    ¡°Do you need something?¡± Jack understood and laid the report aside.


    ¡°Yes, I want you to appoint me to some position at the base on the planet Icarus, where you are conducting this experiment.¡±


    ¡°What are you willing to offer in return?¡± Asked this son of a fox. It seems that the new position gave the Colonel a new way of thinking.


    ¡°In return? What about selfless help to someone who''s saved your ass more than once?¡±


    "What about the law of alchemical balance? You gods cannot do thing in other way. You give something me, I give equal to you. As you told.¡±


    ¡°Well.¡± I thought for a moment. "I can give you my ship until I live in Icarus."


    ¡°Agree!¡± King of the Earth immediately agreed.


    His eyes lit up the idea to manage such a technique. He remembered from the time of the collision with the Ori fleet that I was able to withstand four of their ships without the slightest problem.


    In just half an hour they issued all the necessary documents to me: issued a passport of citizen, signed a contract for employment as a civilian specialist, issued a referral to the desired base and issued a pass with the highest level of admission.


    After that, we teleported aboard to the Grim Reaper, and I gave to Jack O''Neill the guest rights to controls of the ship. He had access to almost all of its functions, including weapons and enrichment plant, but could not use the ship to produce equipment. Access to the premises was also limited.


    Together we went to the planet with the research base, where Jack personally introduced me to the authorities, allocated cabinet and personal account. After that, he teleported aboard to his new ship and piled off to brag about the acquisition.


    While we were flying to the base, I learned the latest news about the state of affairs in both galaxies. The Ori still resisted, but their fleet was almost defeated. Thanks to the efforts of Loki, he managed to destroy two ships of the three. The gate to the Ori galaxy was also under his control, so the whole situation was under control.


    In the Pegasus galaxy, the main problem unexpectedly became the replicators. No one''s heard from the Wraith for a long time. Only from time to time found their dead ships with a bunch of corpses on Board. I guess my plague was too effective. Simple idea is the best idea - to make sure that the patient will resists medical treatment with all his strength.


    All these details I relished sitting in my office at the base and waiting for the moment to open a gate to an Ancient ship that plied the vastness of the Universe in unimaginable given.


    By my estimation, it would require me at least a few years to get there on my ''Grim Reaper'', even with all its super speed. So, I gave the ship to Jack without the slightest regret. There will be another unexpected circumstance that affects the course of the game. And with each such circumstance, the balance scales will sway more and more until they turn over.


    The occurrence of key events that I tracked at the beginning of the bombing of the base ships of the Lucian Alliance. The head of the scientific Department, Dr. Nicholas Rush, decided to open the gate at the address with nine symbols, because the bombing damaged the reactor, which threatened the imminent explosion of the planet''s core. There might be no another chance to open the gate after that.


    Among the first passengers I went through the gate, carrying a bonsai in a pot. People were dragging everything with them, so they didn''t even pay much attention to me. Flying out of the portal with a decent speed, I gently landed on the floor, stepped aside and began to observe the arrival of a herd of frightened monkey species of Homo Sapiens.


    https://hirts.com/miniature-japanese-juniper-bonsai-tree-ceramic-bonsai-pot/</a>


    Here, honestly, a feeling that here is evacuated not the staff of a top-secret military base, but visitors of the supermarket at the Christmas sale. People wildly looked around, screaming in panic, moaned and demanded not understand why.


    Because of the connection setup curve, people were thrown out of the portal at a decent speed. The security Protocol required the virtual arrival buffer to be released as quickly as possible to compensate the unstable communication. People fell, hit the floor and lay, enjoying the experience of emergency landing, forming a real pile of human bodies.


    Meanwhile, the main culprit of all this commotion - Dr.Rush, quietly leaked to the nearest control console, where he began to study the available information. After that, he went up to the balcony and began to watch the senseless swarming of people, grinning at his insidious plans.


    Finally, the flow of people spitting out the gate stopped. The people withdrew from the trajectory of the bodies and watched the gate. Another person flew out of the portal. It was Colonel Everett Yang, last in line. People instantly reacted to the threat, parting to the sides, and the Colonel fell to the hard floor, flying at least fifteen meters. As a result, he lost concussion and a bruised spine.


    The portal closed and the arrival hall was plunged into darkness. People cried in horror. People clung to each other, showing their long-forgotten instincts of monkey ancestors. The military tried to calm the agitated herd, but there were too few of them to shout over the hubbub of the crowd.


    I went up to the balcony and perched next to Rush, holding my precious bonsai.


    "These people are swarming in the darkness like worms, unaware of the greatness of this moment.¡± I said, expressing the secret thoughts of an unrecognized scientist, hungry for power, glory, and honor.


    ¡°You''re right. What is your name?¡± Rush asked the name of the like-minded person.


    "I am Imhotep, God of knowledge and replicators.¡±


    ¡°God?¡± Avid atheist surprised.


    ¡°God-God.¡± I confirmed. ¡°Such, you know, kind uncle who lives on clouds and from time to time makes miracles from the generosity.¡±


    "What miracle can you perform now?" Rush asked skeptically.


    ¡°For example, I can calm down all these people in a couple of minutes and make them obey their superiors.¡±


    "Yes, it might be called a miracle.¡± My companion agreed.


    "Behold my power!¡± I announced proudly, heading down the stairs.


    I reached the terminal, jumped on top of it using it as podium, and roared loudly in the voice of an angry demon:


    ¡°SHUT UP!!!¡± People froze in horror, staring to the source of the sound, to me. ¡°Everybody shut up and listen to me! You have arrived to Ancient ship called ¡®Destiny¡¯, billions of light years far from Earth. You''ll never come back. Your destiny is to spent your life on this crumbling tub and perish in the vast expanses of space. All civilians must obey the military, because they have weapons. All military must obey to Dr. Nicholas Rush because he''s the smartest man. And all together must obey to me, because from now I''m the king and God.¡±


    ¡°Who are you?¡± Senator Allan Armstrong''s voice rang out.


    ¡°I''m a gardener. See this tree?¡± I shook my bonsai. ¡°This is Jack O''Neill''s personal divine bonsai. As long as I have it, I''m in charge. My name is Imhotep. I am the God of knowledge and replicators.¡±


    ¡°You''re a fraud, not a God! Get out there. I''m in charge! I''m a California¡¯s Senator Alan Armstrong.¡± The Senator shouted, blushing at the prospect of a heart attack.


    People accordingly to buzzed, demanding change of power, although since my accession passed only a few seconds. Lieutenant Matthew Scott tried to reach me to pull me off from podium, but was surprised to find out that he couldn''t get close. Every time he took a step in my direction, someone got in his way, forcing him to go around. And even attempts to push people aside did not help much, because they push him back, sometimes the whole crowd.


    ¡°Heretic! Are you deny the divine power of this bonsai? Behold its divine power!!!¡±


    With that, I swung and threw the pot right at the Senator''s head. His rotten skull shattered into pieces, and the pot bounced back and magically fell into my hands. People screamed in a panic and ran away. Sergeant Greer tried to shoot me, but another toss of pot to his head knocked him unconscious. The pot came back into my hands. No one else dared to attack me.


    ¡°Bow before the new democratic power in behalf of my person.¡± I shouted. ¡°Believe in me and you will be saved, otherwise I will smash unbelievers¡¯ brains. Well, who''s against electing me to position of the king for whole life? No one? Adopted unanimously! And do not say then that the procedure of my election was not democratic. Listen to my first order: Everyone shut up and keep order! Otherwise I''ll blow the brains out of the violator on the spot.¡±


    The people stopped babbling, fearing to get a sacred bonsai in the skull.


    ¡°Father. Father!¡± Meanwhile, Chloe Armstrong cried in a loud voice, clung to the corpse of the Senator.


    I jumped off the podium and headed for her. The people parted in fear before me. That''s right. Fear means respect.


    ¡°I can resurrect him. Get him back to life.¡± I said earnestly, examining the remains of the rebel.


    ¡°What?¡± Girl raised blubbered face.


    ¡°I can resurrect him.¡± I repeated. ¡°But for that, you must to have sex with Eli Wallace in public, later.¡±


    ¡°Me... I...¡± The girl froze in a stupor, staring at the murder weapon in my hands.


    ¡°So, should I resurrect him? Or are you against it? Look, this is your only chance.¡±


    ¡°Yes! Bring him back. You killed him.¡±


    ¡°Look, you agreed to the agreement conditions.¡± I nodded.


    ¡°What conditions?¡± It seems that the girl perceived the reality very selectively. Nothing, I''ve got witnesses all over the crew. And most importantly, there is an interested person - Eli himself.


    I did not answer, but raised a pot of bonsai over my head. The tree lit up with a pleasant green light, and the ''forces of nature'' flowed from it in the direction of the corpse. Naturally, it was only an illusion, but the people waited this miracle. The crowd gasped and backed away, and some of them began to offer prayers to nonexistent gods.


    Meanwhile, I cast a healing spell on the Senator that restored his head to its original state. At the same time, I purpose did not heal anything except the head. The body shuddered, sighed, and opened his eyes.

 Chapter 6.21 - Stargate

    ¡°What happened?¡± Allan tried to sit up.


    ¡°Father! You are alive.¡± Chloe threw herself to him.


    ¡°I''m alive.¡± Agreed senator with pain in the heart.


    ¡°Not for long.¡± I assured him. ¡°You have a heart problem and broken ribs, so you''ll be dead in a couple of hours.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± Chloe stopped being happy. ¡°But... you resurrected him.¡± She looked at me with madness in her eyes.


    ¡°Yeah. I repaired his head.¡± I nodded. ¡°A healing of his heart is additional cost.¡±


    ¡°What do you want for his healing?¡± Girl asked with insane hope in her voice.


    ¡°Chloe, what? Daughter?¡± The Senator said.


    ¡°You will have sex with Matthew Scott in public.¡± I chose the next lucky one. ¡°There he is.¡±


    Chloe didn''t even look at him.


    ¡°I agree.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± The Senator protested. ¡°Chloe, you don''t have to...¡±


    He could not finish the sentence, clutching his heart.


    "Behold the power of the Sacred Tree of Life!¡± I shouted, raising the pot over my head again.


    The performance was repeated, and in a minute the Senator was surprised to feel himself. All pain in his chest stopped, and his common health condition improved.


    ¡°I''ll collect payment tomorrow. And today you need to focus on saving your lives. This ship is badly damaged, and if you don''t hurry, you won''t live to see the morning.¡±


    I raised my head and looked into Nicholas rush''s eyes. He looked at me with bulging eyes. More precisely, not on me, but on my ''Tree of Life'', which continued to glow slightly pleasant green light. Well, seems here will be fun.


    The main problem facing the internally displaced was the general deterioration of the ship and the multiple injuries caused by alien life forms. Before arrival of the people on the ship there was no atmosphere. Now the air came from the reserves, but quickly evaporated, because in some places the hull of the ship was broken, and only the force fields kept the atmosphere inside.


    The second problem was the non-working state of the life support system, which removes carbon dioxide from the air and replaces it with oxygen. Even now, people could hardly breathe. Well, it was worth adding a small supply of drinking water and barely living sewer. In general, were many problems, and any of them could lead to the death of all passengers.


    But first of all, the people are not engaged in their salvation, but finding out who is in charge. About a dozen experts was engaged in it and the rest is cooked in its own juice, spreading crazy rumors one and another.


    I have shielded myself from all these problems by first searching for the main control room of the ship, and then checking all the information available in the computer. The history of the ship was much more interesting than what was shown in the series.


    Originally, it was sent by the Ancients as a repair coordination station to accompany the gate installers. Such ships were sent more than a hundred. When the Ancients decided to escape from the Ori, they opened the gates to this ship and pretended as disenfranchised passengers. To do this, they disabled the authorization system based on the recognition of the DNA of the Ancients.


    After flying several galaxies, the Ancients reached the milky way, where they settled. The ship continued its movement. For the Ori, ships behavior and reports were no different from those of the other ships, so they simply did not know where the remains of the Ancients had gone.


    Now the ship was still flying aimlessly in a given direction, helping the gate installers to set up Stargates on habitable planets. Destiny''s resources were exhausted, so it could not repair not only the gate installer, but even itself.


    There was no particularly interesting information on the ship, but, as I had hoped, the gate installer had a full base of Stargate technology. So, I just needed to spend some time here without going crazy with these neighbors.


    Having learned everything necessary, I went to conduct a personal audit of the ship, and for one and its crew. To my surprise, three people had new souls in their bodies. Apparently, they were Game figures. I checked the entire structure of the research base not so long ago, and found no deviations. So, it was obvious that the substitution of a soul occurred at the time of transition through the gate or right after.


    The first lucky man was Dr. Nicholas Rush. My phrase about swarming worms he understood somewhat incorrectly, referring to the ''greatness of the moment'' is not to the arrival of the ship of the Ancients, but as the beginning of a new game. The second figure was Colonel Everett Yang, the head of the military, now lying unconscious under the supervision of a doctor. And the last donor of the body was Camilla Ray - an employee of the International Supervisory Board for the supervision of the program ''Stargate''.


    I did not quite understand the purpose of this game, but rather the conditions for winning. So, I decided to question the tongue. Nicholas Rush, at my approach, dropped everything and watched me, as if waiting for the attack at any moment. Such suspicion seemed strange to me, but I attributed it to the fact that he recognized me as a game figure, and therefore feared a set-up.


    Given my failure with the resurrection of the Senator, the best conversation subject was Colonel Yang. Until arrival he had been unconscious, and therefore was not aware of the incident of miracles.


    I went to the infirmary, under which was allocated one of the rooms next to the hall of the gate. I distracted the doctor with a simple spell, then went to the unconscious Young and began to scan his memory. Alas, it was of little use. His brains and astral body contained the memory of the donor, but the memories of the figure were stored in the soul, and there I could not climb there without risking to turn a man into a vegetable or feed his soul to the symbiont.


    I had to impose on the victim a slight healing spell which allowed him to regain consciousness and to realize his plight. He felt nothing below his waist because of the bruise on his spine.


    ¡°Greetings, a protege of the Players.¡± I turned to the Colonel. ¡°How you feeling? Are your leg hurt?¡±


    ¡°What is going on? I can''t feel my feet.¡± Colonel squeezed out words.


    ¡°You were badly injured and now you''re paralyzed. If I do not provide urgent assistance, you will be forced to spend the whole game, sitting in the same room, unable to somehow affect to something.¡±


    ¡°Who are you?¡± Young began to look around, but he could only see the metal walls of the room.


    ¡°I''m Imhotep. Another Game figure. If you tell me the rules of this game, I''ll cure you.¡±


    ¡°Rules should be known to all. Are you kidding me?¡± Colonel suspected something was wrong.


    "If you don''t tell me everything you know, I''ll cut off your arms and legs. Let''s see how you play without them.¡±


    ¡°You are not dare!¡±


    ¡°Really? Look.¡±


    I ran my finger over the victim''s right arm around the elbow and cut it off with a power blade. Then I took the limb and put it in his left hand so the patient could see that it was real. And then he started singing like a nightingale, telling me everything he knew.


    It was Young''s first game. Before that, he lived in a technologically underdeveloped world, not like the Earth. The magic didn¡¯t exist there, and science was developed in the seventeenth to eighteenth century. The essence of the game was to seize power on the ship and ''recruit'' in his team as many people as possible. And returning to Earth was a kind of Jack-pot, immediately determining the winner. Thus, it was important the sequence of passage through the gate. Winner will be who first stepped to the Earth.


    Prohibited to kill the enemy or severely harm his health. But to leave the loser on one of the planets is not forbidden. Also, from time to time, the figures had to receive ''quests'', the performance of which was counted as the presence of a certain number of people in the team.


    In general, the game could be interesting, if not for the dull environment. There were no resources as such. It is unclear for what they need to fight. How to keep people interested - is unclear. Similar to spider nest, which could be reduced to a banal universal massacre. Why? No man, no problem. Collect a dozen like-minded people and cut out all the others. And the remaining figures can be put behind bars and slowly starved.


    According to the results of the brainstorming, I decided not to interfere in local disassembly and do not help to anyone. However, the healing of the Young could make an exception. I sewed his hand back and healed from all of the wounds received during the transition.


    Then I went straight to Nicholas Rush. Now, knowing the rules of the game, I could talk to him honestly.


    ¡°Hey, let''s go outside.¡± I turned to the scientist, finding him for picking in the terminal of the ship.


    He looked at me as wolf, and then at Sergeant Greer, who seemed to be watching the scientist, suspecting him of all the imaginable sins. The Sergeant snatched the gun back, pointed it at me, and aimed the bonsai pot.


    ¡°He''s not going anywhere. And if you try that potty trick again, I''ll put a dozen holes in your head.¡±


    In response, I cast a paralysis spell on the soldier, causing him to freeze in place, unable to move. After that, I slowly walked up to him, picked up the pot with both hands and swung it down on Greer''s head, instantly knocking him out.


    ¡°There are no more witnesses, so we can talk here.¡± I told the dumbass Rush.


    ¡°You killed him?¡± He asked fearfully.


    ¡°No. Just stunned. Tell me.¡± I hurried him, playing with the pot.


    ¡°Tell you what?¡± The scientist didn''t understand.


    ¡°All. How did you end up like this? What a game it is for you and all that. And don''t lie. Or my sacred bonsai will crush your skull. Believe me, I can do so that you will continue to live without a brain in your head. I''ll turn you into a zombie and see how you will collect like-minded people.¡±


    This story was a little more interesting. It was rush''s second game. In the first he was a vampire who lived on Earth in the eighties of the twentieth century. Tellingly, that same world was his mother, and before the game he didn''t even know about the presence of around vampires, werewolves, mages and Holy Inquisition. From the previous game he had not obtained any ability, so here he relied on the study of Ancient technology, to win with them.


    While I was listening to this story, Lieutenant Matthew Scott walked into the room. He looked at me suspiciously at first, then noticed the unconscious Greer and rushed to him. Finding that he was breathing and just unconscious, he presented the results of the latest research of the ship.


    In one of the compartments was a Shuttle, which was a gaping hole, through which the air leaking. It was impossible to isolate this compartment from other parts of the ship because of the jammed door. It was urgent to find a solution to this problem, otherwise all the air in the residential part of the ship threatened to leak into interstellar space.


    ¡°Imhotep, can you help us with this problem?¡± Rush asked.


    ¡°It''s not a problem for me. I can survive without air. But I know how this problem can be solved. Send someone get in that Shuttle and close the doors from the inside. He will die and you will survive.¡±


    In the original story, Senator Armstrong sacrificed himself. Now he was more alive than all the living and even took an active part in the race for power. So, the question of self-sacrifice was particularly acute. The local contingent was not eager to die for the sake of others. On the contrary, there were plenty of people ready to kill everyone for the sake of ephemeral gains.


    There was a general meeting at which my ''plan of salvation'' discussed. No volunteers were found, and a long debate began, which resulted in only a loss of time and valuable air. In the end, when it became difficult to breathe because of the fallen pressure, regained consciousness sergeant Ronald Greer volunteered. Under the eyes of the frightened townsfolk, he went to his death, saving their worthless lives.


    After the Sergeant closed the Shuttle doors and fainted from lack of air, I teleported him back to the living quarters. All people standing nearby bulged their eyes as they watched as the kamikaze stand up to his feet.


    ¡°I helped you this time.¡± I said to sergeant. ¡°But there won''t be a second time. The more you try to save the lives of fools, the greater the chances that the most intelligent and valuable members of society will die. However, this is not my problem.¡±


    On this I turned around and teleported to an isolated part of the ship, which could only be reached with a spacesuit. There I set up a laboratory in which I was engaged in experiments. I didn''t even get out to see how Chloe fulfilled her promise to me by arranging a public porn with the participation of two fellows. They tried to get away from this honor, but I threw a spell of sexual arousal at them, after which they literally lost their minds and arranged a continuous fuck for two hours.


    After that, I stopped watching what was happening on the ship. I returned to the mortal reality, only when the ¡®Destiny¡¯ was attacked by aliens who opened fire. Apparently, like in the canon, Young left Rush on the planet without letting him pass through the gate. Rush tried to fix the alien ship, but aliens found a him, extracted information from his memory about the Ancient ship and decided to capture it.


    Appearing next to the ''Destiny'', the aliens released fighter-attack aircraft, which were to deliver troops to our ship. Colonel Young tried to organize resistance, but the ship''s weapons systems simply refused to work. Rush set it up so that only he could activate them.


    While Everett was arguing with Eli about who was to blame, I showed up in the auxiliary control room where they were.


    ¡°Imhotep? You alive?¡± Eli was surprised.


    ¡°Is that really life?¡± I answered. ¡°You got rid of Nicholas Rush, and in return received aggressive aliens. Young, your stupidity is amazing.¡±


    With these words, I lifted up bonsai and casted sacred magic, then teleported Rush to the hall. One second ago Rush was in the tank with a biological fluid, so that he was pretty pathetic appearance.


    The next miracle was the destruction of the alien ship. I decided to test a spell based on spider magic that used ancient technology. The invisible construct of the spell flew the distance between the ships in one millisecond, penetrated the target, passed all kinds of protection, and then activated, transforming all matters around to a special state.


    Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.


    This ''weapon'' was based on the study of the Ancients about the special states of matter. It turned the atoms of matter into quantum liquid, which spontaneously began to rotate, generating electric and magnetic fields.


    In just a few seconds spectators on Destiny saw how the enemy ship exploded with jumble of spinning rings and spirals passing through each other. The image was completely psychedelic. And after half a minute the entire alien ship turned into liquid helium, which immediately began to fly apart, evaporating in the vacuum of space.


    Frightened fighters in a panic began to rush in different directions, but they were overtaken by spells simpler that simply detonated reactors. Just a minute from the beginning of the aggressors were destroyed.


    ¡°Learn, boys. The magic of the sacred tree is irresistible.¡± With these words, I once again teleported back to my lab.


    About a month later, the ship suddenly came out of the jump. We were in orbit of the star around which the planet revolved. What is most strange, in the database of the ship there was no information about this star, not to mention a planet with quite ideal biosphere.


    After getting closer I realized that this whole system was one big illusion. It resembled the ability of chakra converted into matter. The planet was material. The plants on it were alive. But all of them was illusion that able disappear in just a few minutes.


    After thinking, I decided to send my clone there. It was too risky personal visit to this Paradise. Other Game figures did not dare to visit the planet. After all, if someone flies there, the remaining can simply ''forget'' to send a Shuttle to pick them back.


    The detailed study of the planet showed that obelisk is only real here. And if from a material point of view, it was just a big piece of stone, but on the astral level around it raged whole storms of energies, even I did not dare to get in. Even on board the ship, I felt like a feather standing on the edge of a swirling whirlpool.


    A month later we left this system, leaving to Obelisk several victim volunteers who decided to settle on the illusory planet. Watching creatures of this level, I realized how insignificant I am in the universe.


    Moving away from the planet, I stood on one of the observation decks of the ship and watched the receding local sun. Rush approached me joined to contemplation. Finally, ''Destiny'' moved far enough away from the star and activated the superluminal displacement mode.


    ¡°When you observe a phenomenon of this magnitude, you feel like a small speck of dust.¡± Like a scientist read my mind. "But I believe that one day people will be able to know all the secrets of the universe.¡±


    ¡°Empty dreams.¡± I broke it. ¡°You haven''t even dealt with the banal quantum physics. Your limit of knowledge is Newton''s mechanics and classical electrodynamics. Something even a monkey can understand.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean? Quantum physics is used in many practical developments.¡± Rush protested.


    ¡°That''s what I''m saying. What do you mean, ''physics in use''? There''s nothing used. You just guessed some patterns using the method of scientific fingering. And all your theories are delusions and illusions.¡±


    "So, you know how it really works?" The great theoretical physicist was offended.


    ¡°Of course. I have all knowledge of the Ancients. Here we take the elementary phenomenon - photon. For you it is either a particle or a wave spreading at a fixed speed. In reality, a photon is not an object, but an event. There is only the fact of instantaneous energy transfer from one point to another with some time delay. In other words, the photon is not going anywhere. He has no intermediate state.¡±


    "Then how is the energy absorption point determined?" Rush asked. ¡°Because it is in the future.¡±


    "The future is just another dimension of space. We can assume that the future is predetermined, although there everything is, of course, much more complicated. In fact, your scientists have long since discovered that photons do not exist. But you can''t officially admit it, because it will refute your basic religious beliefs. For example, that the future depends only on the past, and not vice versa.¡±


    ¡°How did we know there were no photons?¡±


    ¡°A simple experiment. Interference of light. If a coherent stream of light passes through two holes, then the permissible absorption points of the photon behind the obstacle are distributed in space in a special way. But this effect is manifested even if the light source emits single photons. That is, it turns out that the particle flies through two holes at once.¡±


    ¡°It''s called wave-particle duality of light.¡± Rush didn''t fail to put in a clever phrase.


    ¡°This is called a ¡®limited perception of reality¡¯. The wave is a wave, that it exists as an extended perturbation in space. Look at the water wave. It is not absorbed at one point. Imagine a point source of photons in a vacuum. The ¡°waves¡± emitted by him have a spherical shape. That is, a photon can appear at any point in space. Moreover, it knows in advance where it can fly because of the presence of obstacles like diffraction slits, and where it cannot. In other words, the picture I described is just nonsense, having no logical explanation from the point of view of your theories. You simply gave the name to this delirium, thus moving it beyond the provability line. Well, such a phenomenon. Do not you understand what it is? Here is your logic. If we assume that a photon is an event, and it has no ¡°intermediate¡± state, but the future is predetermined, then everything becomes clear and obvious. At the moment of photon radiation, the universe immediately "calculates" the possible energy absorption point, focusing on the quantum probability of different outcomes. Of course, no probabilities exist either, just this combination of words remotely describes the essence of what is happening.¡±


    I fell silent, admiring the overflows of the protective field of the ship.


    ¡°What is next?¡± Rush asked.


    ¡°What''s next? Nothing further. Absolutely all your theories of the level of quantum physics are one hundred percent nonsense. Yes, even the famous theory of relativity - nonsense, because its basic postulate is wrong. As we have already established, a photon is an instantaneous event. It has no travel speed. At best, we can talk about the speed of the photon relative to the absorption point. Here it is equal to a certain value, characterized by the refractive angle of a multidimensional space in an electric field. And for all other points in the universe, the photon doesn''t exist. That is, we cannot say that the speed of the photon flight past a certain observer is equal to something. Because just the same, nothing is flying anywhere.¡±


    ¡°And what then measured experiments that record the speed of light?¡±


    ¡°All these experiments included a system of mirrors. The light moved from the source to the mirror, reflected and returned to the sensor, where the delay was measured. Only you have registered two independent phenomena - the ''flight'' of one photon from the source to the mirror and the ''flight'' of another from the mirror to the sensor. After that, these values were added and the arithmetic mean was calculated. You measured something nonsense, and the result was appropriate. In general, your earthly science is just another form of religion, where the dogmas and opinions of the ignorant are much more important than real knowledge. Look, the church also ''studies God'', and even achieved in this field some practical success. You''re no better.¡±


    On this I left the spat scientist to realize the futility of his efforts to study anything and teleported to my laboratory.


    Finally, more than a year after my arrival on the ship, destiny began docking with one of the gate installers. The ship came out of the jump and began to approach another ship of similar design. Young tried to activate the guns to shoot a suspicious target, but naturally could not do anything. I assumed such a development, and therefore blocked the control of the ship.


    Finally, the ships came closer and clashed with each other. I sent my clone to the gate installer and went to the observation deck to say goodbye to the crew.


    ¡°Hi, everyone. I''m going to move on this ship. Who with me?¡± I stunned people with my statement.


    ¡°What is it?¡± Eli asked.


    ¡°Nothing special. Just another flying coffin. But it has an important advantage - there are no crowds of primitive people.¡±


    ¡°I''ll pass.¡± Young refused. "I have no intention of leaving the ship at all.


    Rush didn''t say anything.


    "If someone comes with me, I will give him my sacred bonsai." I made an offer that was hard to refuse.


    But the people still refused, ignoring my royal offer. Finally, Rush gave me a meaningful look and left the observation deck. I waited a few seconds and went after him.


    ¡°Do you know something?¡± Nicholas asked me as we stopped in one of the empty rooms. He knew that the whole ship was in my control. After all, every time he tried to activate some ''forbidden'' function, using the main terminal on the bridge, he received a message like ''Access is limited. Contact Imhotep for permission.''


    ¡°Well, for those who believe in me, will open the way to Earth.¡±


    ¡°So, you''re going to win this way?¡±


    ¡°No. I''m not going to win, and I''m not going back to Earth. I have my own tasks.¡±


    ¡°But can you help me to win?¡±


    ¡°It''s possible. So what? Will you take my bonsai?¡±


    Rush thought for a moment, assessing the options. He didn''t have a single crew member under him now. For ''victory'' fought Colonel Young and Camilla Ray.


    ¡°I will take.¡± Finally, the scientist agreed.


    ¡°Okay.¡± I said, teleporting us to another ship. ¡°This is yours. I handed the pot to its new owner. ¡°Water it every three days, feed fertilizer once a year.¡±


    ¡°What about my things?¡± Rush was worried when he found himself in an unfamiliar room.


    ¡°Forget them. You can buy new things in Earth. I''ll give you the normal conditions of life without them.¡±


    I formed an instant death combat spell and cast it. The spell wave destroyed all the alien life forms that were hiding on the ship. After that, all I had to do was get to the control room, where Rush started to live, and I connected to the central computer.


    Without wasting a second, I reached the Stargate knowledge base. Quickly downloading it to myself, I have five more minutes spent on the analysis. The findings were not the most inspiring.


    I should start from the history of civilization of the Ancients. Once a scientist conducted experiments in the field of physics of force fields and accidentally stumbled upon an unusual phenomenon. When a specific configuration of energy fields assembled then the two-dimensional field appeared which can completely destroy matter.


    The strangest thing about this phenomenon was not even a violation of the law of conservation of energy, but a complete lack of connection between the nature of the energy fields used and the final phenomenon. In other words, the opened portal was not the result of the work of some laws of physics. Rather, the configuration of the force fields was a kind of key that activates an unknown mechanism of Universe.


    Further studies have shown that the portal does not destroy the matter, but transform it into information, which can be then returned to the state of matter. Scientist didn¡¯t able to transmission of packets with this information, but he learned to ''hide'' objects in the data drive, and then extract them back.


    After a few years of slow experimentation, some of the energy Entities contacted with the Ancient with question interested in the emerging ''glitches in reality''. It was the first contact of the Ancients with the Ori. The ascendants happily shared their knowledge with his brothers in mind. One of the gifts was the technology of using the portal to move over a distance.


    Actually, scientist mastered the first part of work. He was able to turn objects into information and even came up with a kind of ''virtual reality'', where the object could exist. But to move the data package, it was necessary to create a different configuration of energy fields, which allowed to ''transfer'' the information to another carrier located at the specified coordinates. Again, there was no reasonable explanation for this phenomenon. It just worked, that''s all.


    The coordinates of the point of destination it was impossible to calculate, but can be measured with the aid of a ''magic spell''. As a result, a fairly simple technology was formed. At the point of departure, an event horizon was formed that turned objects into information. At the point of arrival opened the same portal and at the same time read information about the current coordinates. This information was just a set of numbers, so it was transmitted to the outgoing gate, where it was used to ''teleport'' packets of data to the receiving gate, which unpacked the objects and spat them out.


    Actually, I knew all this before, although not with such details. But base on this ship contained the explanation of why all this heresy actually works. The explanation was given by the Ori, who transmitted this technology to the Ancients.


    The essence of this phenomenon was that all the planets, worlds and universes were a kind of virtual reality. Within worlds acted certain laws of physics, there was matter and energy. And ''outside'' was only information about all this, processed by some analogue of the computer in the broadest sense of the word.


    Stargate portal was a kind of ''cheat'', allowing to violate any laws of physics. It was enough just to repeat the right combination of rituals, and it resulted to working mechanisms of ''High Universe'', that does all the work. That is, to be honest, the Stargate was not a technology, but a typical ''sorcery''. There was instruction on how to use them, and there was no explanation as to why it worked.


    Although the Stargate mechanism used an existing portal to obtain and materialize the object, it was possible to open the gate to some place, even if there was no equipment. It was enough to know the correct coordinates. Just had to make another ''sorcery'', which in the normal Stargate was not used as unnecessary.


    In addition to this information, there was another important point. The fact is that each Universe has a log of where and when particular person¡¯s actions. That is, if you move to a completely different world, you could get there at any time. Inside the world, you could only move to present time or into the future. A move into the past was banned, unless it was not self-consistent on special events.


    When you left a world, even though you were no longer in it, information about your soul was preserved. And when you came back, you had the same limitation on causation. It was impossible to move to the same line of events in the past and change something there.


    In general, from all this description, I came to the conclusion that time as such does not exist. The universe, from the moment of its creation to its destruction, was one continuous multidimensional canvas on which we drew the story of our life. Each universe had its own time. Just like every soul had its own personal history. But, going beyond the world, we were beyond its time.


    It could well be a situation where someone lived in the world for a period of time, then came out of it to another world, there met with you and told about the events. You used the portal and were transported to the past of this world, where your knowledge became a prophecy. As a result, you drew your story in this world without being able to change what your interlocutor saw. If you still managed to overcome the resistance of the whole world and change something, it just created another parallel version of the universe, which could turn into a separate world, and could merge with the original, when all your changes will be only minor information garbage in the folds of history.


    Having found out all the necessary details, I began to translate the opening of portals to magic and chakra. I did not need to repeat exactly all the force fields, but it was enough to reproduce a certain code combination. In other words, I could transmit the Morse code signal with a flashing flashlight, tap it on the door, or draw it on the wall. But once the universe is determined the presence of ''cheat'', it committed the action.


    After just a couple of days, I was able to open the portal and transfer the item through it, using only magic. I could not determine the coordinates of an unknown point, but I could create a beacon from which these coordinates could be read remotely. The distance didn''t matter to the portal, but the farther away the arrival point was, the more complex the coordinates became. And their ''tapping with Morse code'' using ancient technology was becoming increasingly expensive.


    Just a week later I was ready to move to any place of the universe, the coordinates of which will familiar to me. As a final test, I decided to move Nicholas Rush to Earth using only the chakra. I had some Hiraishin labels there. I used one of them to move the fuinjutsu into it, determining the coordinates, then read the information and opened the portal from my side. After that, I solemnly declared Rush as winner, gave him a bonsai and kicked him in the ass and sent to the destination. The transition was completed successfully, and the game figure were on the Earth safe and sound.


    I expected the Being to appear beside me immediately, but it was another month before I felt its presence.


    ¡°What a mess you''ve made.¡± It said to me without even saying hello. ¡°Well at least I had the sense to cast on you a cloaking spell, which hide you from other Players. Judge under played to me too and didn¡¯t revealed you. But I haven''t laughed so much in a couple of thousand years. Players still trying to find out who is winner in this game - Asgards or the Replicators. Even postponed the end of the game because of this.¡±


    ¡°Why Ascendeds did not win?¡± I was surprised.


    ¡°Why? All the Ori are destroyed.¡± Being surprised even more.


    ¡°So, I have created the astral body of Loki with the use of technologies of Ascendeds. So technically, he''s an Asgard who betrayed his homeland and turned to the Ascended. And the fact that he has a body of replicators - it''s all a minor detail. Although, I also don''t understand why the Earthlings didn''t win. I gave my ship to Jack, which alone can bring to the entire galaxy to knees, and able to destroy the existence of all the replicators, ascended, goa¡¯ulds and other creatures. And yet, somewhere in the ship stored the original replicators, which have stuck to the soul of the Fifth. And if he gets free, he can take control over the ship. But if he decides to remake it badly, then the security mechanism will work, which will destroy all replicators on board of ship and will transfer the ship to an autonomous mode, where it does not obey anyone. And then, it may well turn out that no one won, because all the game pieces and their troops will be destroyed.¡±


    The Being listened to me with all the attention, and I even got the impression that at times it was noting my explanations.


    ¡°I''m going to be rich!¡± It is viciously laughed. ¡°There are so many bets I can make, I can beat all money from other Players, and in the end also to take the jackpot, guessing the outcome of the game.¡±


    His presence disappeared and I was again alone on board the spacecraft. The second time the Being appeared a couple of months later, spreading waves of complacency from the successfully executed fraud of the century.


    ¡°I see, you already mastered the technique of teleportation between worlds.¡± It said. ¡°Listen to my brilliant plan. I can''t publicly put you in the game because the bets against you are going to drop. But there is one tricky leak in the rules. In games in the space worlds of the galactic scale, the joining of a new figure does not require the notification of other Players, if this figure does not belong to any of the parties to the conflict, enters the world literally naked, having only his own body, and appears in open space at a distance of more than a million kilometers from the nearest inhabited planet, space station or ship. And most importantly, such an appearance should occur on the initiative of the figure as a result of its own efforts. Now, you satisfy all these conditions. So, take this coordinate and teleport to them when you''re ready. Just don''t stay too long. Is that clear?¡±


    ¡°What I need to do in that world?¡± I asked, studying the coordinates.


    ¡°Oh, right. Before you get there, I can tell you. This world known to you as ''Mass Effect''. Your task is to survive the Harvest. It won''t last long there. Maybe a couple thousand years. Or you can destroy the Reaper and all the other races in the galaxy. I repeat, you don''t have to help the existing races. You''re on your own against the entire galaxy. And you can be sure the whole galaxy will be against you too. Okay, go.¡±


    The Being was gone, leaving me to think about my fate. To survive the Harvest lasting two thousand years? I wasn''t in danger because I had a parasite in my soul that would eat me in less than a thousand years. So, I have only one option ¨C to destroy all the Reapers and go to the next game, where I maybe can find a remedy against the parasite.


    In general, the task, in my opinion was not impossible. All I need to do is create a couple of hundred blocks of replicators. After that, they will multiply, organize and destroy not only the Reapers, but the entire galaxy. At the end there will be only stars, gas giants and... replicators. I don''t even have to strain myself. Well, the brilliant plan is ready, so it remains only to veni, vidi, vici.

 Mass Effect 2

    <h2>Mass Effect 2</h2>


    Mass Effect Wiki</a>


    For starting, I gained additional body weight by absorbing the most useful and rare chemical elements. Once I get into interstellar space, I may need building material for some equipment. There was enough equipment on the gate installer that I could disassemble without risking blowing up the ship.


    Mentally prepared, I used a blank Stargate to create a portal that works on magic. With sufficient energy, I prepared to depart. Such difficulties were necessary because I did not want to arrive to another world in a state of magical exhaustion. In order not to leave behind forbidden magical technologies, I built a self-destruct system into this gate, which was supposed to work half an hour after the passage was closed.


    So, the portal opened, and I passed through it into another world.


    When I stepped out of the portal, I immediately felt that this was indeed a different world with completely different laws of physics. First, my entire supply of naquadah transformed back into Uranium-234 and detonated immediately. Well at least I assumed such occasion, surrounding the metal inside of Fuinjutsu barrier. Strength of barrier could not hold so much, so I had to immediately ''throw'' dangerous cargo. I expected that after a few seconds the barrier would collapse and the plasma would blow up in a nuclear explosion, but it did not, the matter surrounded by the barriers flew farther and farther away from me.


    Calming down, I decided to find out what the hell is going on in this world with the laws of nature. The first thing to notice was the decreasing of my control over magical energy. Inside the aura, I could still cast spells, but as soon as they flew a meter away from me, all the energy in them dissipated after a second.


    The second anomaly has become a chakra. It did not dissipate, but on the contrary portrayed itself as a spring steel. I could hardly change its shape. As a result, the techniques I performed before in a second now took hours or even days to create. But there were pluses. The impact of the chakra has become literally ''irresistible''. For example, the weakest fire Jutsu, able only to light up a match, now it could melt the battleship, literally evaporating it.


    Biggest fiasco was waiting me when I tried to use the technology of the Ancients. The bottom line was that these technologies didn''t work at all. None of the devices didn¡¯t show any signs of working.


    After spending several hours trying to figure out the reason for this failure, I came to the conclusion that the laws of physics of this world are fundamentally different from the laws of physics of the Stargate world. At the level of Newton''s physics and chemistry everything worked the same way, but at the quantum level and below the whole structure of matter was based on completely different principles.


    Summing up, I came to the conclusion that my situation is bad. Magic works only at arm''s length. Chakra requires an unrealistic investment of time and effort. The knowledge of the Ancients can be completely thrown into the dustbin of history. And yet I''m stuck in a deep cosmos, and the nearest star is at least a few light-years away.


    Calming down a little, I decided that, on the whole, it was too early to change my plans of enslaving the galaxy with replicators. Yes, I can''t build a processor that runs on the quantum technologies of the Ancients. But I can still build a Photonics-based computer that I can put a fairly complex algorithm. As a result, I will get a robot capable to perform complex actions, including self-replicating and destroying everything and everyone.


    I formed a ball from my body about the size of a fist, inside which I began to magically create photonic transistors and optical fibers. After going through a few dozen solutions known to the Ancients, I found one that worked enough well in this world. After that, I formed a standard photon processor of the Ancients and wrote a basic diagnostic program into its memory.


    According to my plans, I had a couple of days to develop a fully Autonomous robot with a program in which at a basic level would be incorporated a Protocol of submission to me. Before I even had time to check all operation modes of the processor, suddenly in the memory of the computer began to appear literally gigabytes of incomprehensible code, which immediately began to run, overwriting or changing all my instructions.


    Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    At the same time, on the astral level, I saw some huge creature¡¯s tentacle connected to my computer. I couldn''t even estimate the size of the creature. It literally stretched from horizon to horizon as far as my astral perception would allow me to see.


    In just five seconds, the computer was completely out of my control, so I banally melted it into an amorphous mass. After that, the astral creature reached out to me, trying to subdue my Vritras body. I had to cover myself with magical shields, turn my body into a homogeneous mass, and begin to burn out the tentacles reaching after me. I could not release the parasite, because it was sitting behind the chakra barrier, which would need to me several hours to open. And it could take years to recreate another one.


    After a couple of hours, the strange creature got tired of losing parts of its body, and it left me alone. Mentally wiping off sweet from forehead, I wondered what I should do next. It seemed that when the Creature said I need to destroy the Reaper, it was referring to this creature. It say ''Reaper'', not ''Reapers'', that changes everything. I was confident to destroy a rampaging computer, but to destroy such creature... It does make me wonder about whether it is better to work on a task is more modest - simply to survive. But we are not looking for easy ways.


    For first, I need to learn about the local civilization and find out the state of affairs and the time period. After it, necessary to find the ship of Reapers or at least Collectors and study their technologies, while one, to understand how this astral creature live and what is it. Then we will think. Just sitting around and waiting a thousand years for death is not for me.


    So, I need to move to a habitable planet. I don''t think the Being would have thrown me into the middle of nowhere, so I''d expect that the nearest star will have a planet with a biosphere. But in space, determining the distance to a star is a difficult task. The brightness of the stars useless for this purpose. There remains only one method, triangulation, while measuring visible angles of stars in spaced.


    I remembered the picture of the starry sky and wondered how I could move through space. The most working way is the Stargate. To open the portal with it I need the coordinates of the destination point, which means that there should already be a beacon. Basically, I can create a beacon based on the chakra. At least it won''t go up in smoke in a couple of seconds.


    Beacon device is quite a simple, so that can be created appropriate Jutsu in several hours. But I can only move it some distance by magic, because creating the same Hiraishin in local conditions is impossible task. In theory it''s possible, but it''s will consume several months.


    That leaves only magic. However, I can open a small portal with the magic, shove in it construct of chakra, and then jump there through Stargate. The plan is ready, time to execution.


    Six hours later, I sent the beacon a light-month''s distance in the chosen direction. After that, I counted the coordinates from it and began to mold the Stargate out of my body. It didn''t take much matter, but there were problems. To keep the magic from dissipating, I had to make a gate only half a meter in diameter. Opening the passageway, I squeezed my body into the portal and tumbled out into space on the other side.


    Fortunately, chakra-construct already waiting me here, which I only slightly updated, and then sent to the next point. While I was creating a new gate, I took a survey of the starry sky at this point.


    After I got to the fourth point, which together with the previous points formed a tetrahedron, I began to analyze the images. After a couple of minutes, I calculated where is the closest star. It was a yellow dwarf, so I had high chance of bumping into an earth-like planet there.


    I planned my next jump with as much precision as I could muster. When I emerged from the portal, I was only a day''s light from the star. From here I carefully studied the vicinity of the star, finding the planet in the habitable zone. Another jump took me into the near-space of the planet, from where I jumped into its orbit.


    Each jump cost me a decent amount of my body material. Well at least, before moving to this world, I brought the weight about five hundred kilograms.


    From orbit I began banally fall to the planet, accelerating under the influence of gravity. I was able to give the exit point such speed that I could not bypass the planet. I had no way of controlling my flight in a vacuum. More precisely, there was a telekinesis spell, but in this world,  it could only develop an effort of a few kilos.


    Given the circumstances, I was expecting a pretty hardcore landing. However, it took me several hours to reach the planet, so I managed to build a simple Jutsu on the chakra, which was supposed to allow me to slow down in the atmosphere. At an altitude of a hundred kilometers, I activated it, and by the time the planet''s surface was ten kilometers away, I was no longer pretending to be a meteor, but simply falling like a stone.


    Here I took the already practiced form of a quadcopter and activated the flight spell. The power consumption, of course, was several times higher than normal, but I was able to fly. From here I began to study the planet, which was a typical oxygen world with lush vegetation. There was no sign of civilization, but it was too early to start worry.

 7.02 Mass Effect 2

    I created all kinds of sensors in my body that I could think of. In addition, searched the area in the optical and radio bands. Pretty quickly, I discovered the source of the radio signals. They were encrypted or had some unknown format, but judging of the frequency and localization, they were radio conversations of several intelligent beings.


    When approached the source of the signals, I discovered another anomaly. I did not give up trying to somehow apply the knowledge of the Ancients in this world, and therefore, among others, created in my body a container filled with liquid helium in the state of Bose-Einstein condensate. And now I was recording a spontaneous track of the quantum state of this substance, which had the form of ''threads'' pointing to a certain point on the ground. That''s where I went.


    The source of the anomaly was in the rock under the mountain. When I landed not far from it, I scanned the mountain in other ways and found caverns that came out to the surface in one place. The radio sources were moving in my direction, so I decided to ''go public''.


    To do this, I threw off more than half of my mass and gave to it the appearance of an ordinary stone, for one placing inside the beacon of the chakra. The remaining matter took the form of a human in a spacesuit, copying the image from the same game Crysis 3. In my opinion, it was the most beautiful and modern design of the suit from all that I have ever seen. Looking at it, it is immediately clear that this is a killing machine. Wild, unbridled, primal power in a shell of advanced technology.


    I was now in a ravine overgrown with trees and bushes. Somewhere off to the side, a river gurgled. I took my bearings and headed for the nearest radio signal source. Scanned the area ahead with my eyes, but also looked with short-wave radar. At the same time, my eyes also perceived infrared and ultraviolet radiation.


    With this advantage, I saw the target in range of two hundred meters, and on a hundred meters already knew who they are. Ahead of them, a krogan was moving through the forest with the grace of a rhinoceros. As far as I could remember from the game the anatomy of this life form, the krogans had eyes that looked sideways, so it was difficult to get close to them from the side or behind. But from above their view was limited by the frontal bone armor. So, if I wanted to take the them by surprise, it was worth attacking them from above.


    Fortunately, the terrain here was suitable for such a direction of attack. We were in the deepest part of the gorge, and all around were tall trees with a trunk diameter of from one meter to three. I quickly selected the tree that the krogan was supposed to pass by and quickly grew claws and climbed to a height of ten meters. Here I hided myself by foliage and a magical disguise.


    The unsuspecting victim, with a loud stomping passed right under me. Krogan, of course, was on guard and moved the muzzle of the gun from side to side, but he did not expect an attack from above. I swooped down and fell on his head like a snowball, immediately applying paralysis spell to him.


    I has not familiar with krogan biochemistry, so I used the most reliable version of the spell, blocking the mobility of tissues and turning the victim into a natural statue. After that, I applied a diagnostic spell in a fraction of a second, and based on the results of its work, I used magic that blocks the passage of electrical signals through all kinds of tissues. And finally, completely knocked out the consciousness from the helpless victim.


    I expected the magic in krogan''s body may dissipate quickly but learned that the spells in his aura were able to hold as good as in mine. After that, I was able to relax and focus on extracting information from his mind about ''language''.


    First of all, I searched what languages the prisoner knew. To my surprise, he turned out to be a real polyglot. He could speak fluently in languages of the krogan, asari, salarians, batarians, humans, and even vorcha. Also, he knew the very basics of the turian, volus, and quarian languages. The language of the humans was a dialect of English, but my English would have been difficult to understand even on the Earth.


    I started the process of copying the language database, and began to look through krogan''s knowledge of events in the galaxy. Here the catch was smaller. I only learned out that about a year or two ago the Geths attacked the Citadel and wiped out its population, including the entire Council. This indicated that I was in the area of the second part of the game.


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    Well, finally, I asked about the personal life of the subject, but rather the question ''What the hell is he doing here at all?''. As it turned out, krogan was the ''power support'' of the team of ¡®tomb riders'' who were looking for traces of the ancient civilizations on this planet.


    By the time I had learned all the languages, two more members of the party had emerged from the forest. They were two asari, now staring at me in surprise, or rather at my spacesuit.


    "Who are you?" I said to them in their language, rising to my feet beside the krogan carcass. Apparently, the people here were quite unafraid, because only one of the asari drew a gun, and the second hid behind her back. However, krogan had enough weapons for ten. Except that he was lying on the ground, only beginning to recover after I removed the paralyzing spell.


    "Who are you?" Tria protested, the happy owner of the gun and the head of this company. Despite her seemingly defenseless appearance, she was a fairly strong biotic.


    "I asked first.¡± I answered, approaching them. I didn''t have a weapon in my hands, but the asari were clearly worried.


    But it was not they who attacked me, a krogan who had regained consciousness. With a wild roar, he leaped at me from his prone position, intending to crush me with his weight. But I easily dodged, grabbed krogan''s arm, and then brought it behind his back and broke it in the shoulder and elbow joints, for one thing plopping the loser''s face right into the mud of a well-turned puddle. Before the asari could blink, I found myself sitting astride a krogan, who was impressed by my physical strength and made no further attempt to stand up.


    "So, will you answer my questions? Or will I have to come up with a method of interrogation that involves prolonged mating in the most unexpected positions for you?¡±


    The second asari, Rina, turned blue to this suggestion, indicating that she was sexually aroused. This information about the biology of the alien race, as well as the names of the archaeologists, I learned from krogan''s memory. But Tria did not share her partner''s romantic moods, so she hastened to confess everything.


    "We''re archaeologists. We will explore this planet in order to find here traces of ancient civilizations.¡±


    "Real archaeologists in Terminus systems?" This planet was at the back of the galaxy, and in fact there was no official authority, except for the batarian pirates.


    "Hey, I have a doctorate in Archaeology and Xenobiology!" Rina protested, stepping out from behind her boss.


    "So, who are you?" Tria repeated, deciding it was her turn to ask questions.


    Who am I? I thought about it for a moment, then cleared my mind to think carefully about the answer to that question. In fact, I used to take names that were inherited from my body donors or that made sense in the context of the world I was in. But who am I as a person?


    I think it''s time for me to make a name for myself that I will use in all the worlds. And for a name to be appropriate, it must somehow describe me and my qualities. Who am I? I am a soul that changes bodies like gloves. To refer to the soul as an individual consciousness in my home world, there was the word ''Atman''. I think it would be a good name.


    "My name is Atman.¡± I said, stepping out of the stool. "And how are you doing in finding ancient artifacts?" I asked in response.


    After that, all three nonhumans tensed, including the seemingly relaxed krogan.


    "Almost nothing.¡± Honestly answered Rina, making a disgruntled face. ¡°The most successful can be considered to be the finding of a field pot a couple of hundred years old at the site of the previous archaeological expedition.¡±


    "Then come on, I''ll show you the entrance to the underground Ancients base." All three archaeologists stared at me with wide eyes. "What?"


    "Will you just show us the location of the Ancients¡¯ base?" Tria asked incredulously.


    "Oh, there would be something to hide? If you''re so concerned about my motives, I''ll take a couple of most valuable finds. I am doing to you a favor."


    "All right, lead the way." Asari finally decided. Apparently, greed in her head had won over caution. She also rightly believed that if I wanted to, I could tie them all three together. Plus, she was counting on the help of the ship''s pilot, whose help signal she had sent at the very beginning of our meeting.


    I lifted krogan easily to his feet, setting his arm in one motion. He rubbed the injured limb, glared at me in silence, and then took his place in the rearguard to keep me and the two asari in sight. I went in the opposite direction, where all this company had been going before.


    ¡°Hither. There are five kilometers need to go.¡± I pointed the way.


    But after about five hundred meters we came to a wide clearing on the threads of the river, and immediately a small flyer came down from the sky, driven by a salarian. The space ship of these archaeologists was more than a hundred meters long, so it was not suitable for short-distance flights. For these purposes, there was an orbital shuttle on board with good armor and weapons.


    But the salarian decided to use a lighter and more maneuverable flyer, which could easily slip through the trees in the forest and was armed with a heavy blaster. That''s just this miracle of technology was missing such a structural element as the roof. In fact, it was an advanced version of the convertible.


    The flyer came down from the sky, taking me in its sights. At the same time, the trio of archaeologists wisely moved away from me, so as not to stand in the line of fire. That''s just what no one else was expecting. No one but me, of course.

 7.03 Mass Effect 2

    Accelerating consciousness to maximum, I rushed forward. About ten meters from the flyer, I jumped and rose to the height of the fourth floor, sticking to the bottom of the vehicle. After that, crawled like a cockroach over its surface and sat in the passenger''s seat next to the driver.


    ¡°You have a very nice pot. A rare model?¡± I appreciated the interior design. Simultaneously with my words, the dome of the energy shield rose above me. The salarian must have considered himself at safe before that, since the windscreen and body of the flyer were covered by a separate shield. It''s worth noting that the salarian''s reaction to my move was very quick. Much faster than a human could have. But even his speed was not enough to prevent the vehicle from being boarded.


    ¡°High speed of movement.¡± The alien frog stared at me, muttering rapidly to itself. ¡°Reinforced spacesuit. Structure of the legs. Five fingers. The shape of the helmet. Human? The speed is too high. Cybernetic implants? No, not enough. A robotic body? No, unreliable. The reinforced suit. A direct neural interface. Neutralization of inertia by the mass effect core. Advanced technologies that are not available to people. Are you one of the forerunners?¡±


    I listened to this monologue with interest.


    "Almost, but not quite.¡± I answered the question. "These technologies are not available to you, but I am not old enough to be considered as a forerunner. My name is Atman.


    "Forgive my manners. I''m Okren.¡± The salarian bowed slightly. With that, his passion faded, and he stared at me in a daze, trying to figure out how I was present in his vehicle. Judging by my appearance here, I was an invader. If same on speech and manner behavior, then rather harmless stranger.


    ¡°Come on, I''ll show you the entrance to the Forerunner''s underground base. It''s not far from here.¡± I made an offer that would have been difficult for any scientist to refuse.


    ¡°What about my partners?¡±  The frog asked.


    ¡°Oh, them. They don''t know anything about science or archaeology.¡±


    ¡°Still, if you don''t mind, I''d like to take them on board. We may need brute physical strength.¡±


    ¡°All right, but quickly.¡± I agreed graciously.


    We landed, and the trio of tomb robbers squeezed into the back of the flyer. After that, we went in the direction of the source of the anomaly and the exit of one of the corridors to the surface that I found.


    ¡°Here.¡± I pointed to the rock rising vertically. ¡°You only need to remove a couple of meters of rock. Do you have any guns or anything else suitable?¡±


    "My sensors don''t detect anything unusual." The salarian remarked.


    ¡°Your primitive technique not able to register.¡± I waved my hand. "Just take one shot and everything will be clear."


    To my surprise, Okren did not use a blaster, but some mining equipment that was built into the flyer. A scattered stream of light hit the rock from the nose of the vehicle, and the rock began to crack and crumble as it fell. A minute later, the impact caused a local collapse, after which a circle of dark hole became visible in the rock. At the same time, a smooth surface of the wall was released along its perimeter, which looks very similar to the surrounding rock.


    ¡°Voila! It''s a stone plug blocking the passage to the Forerunner base."


    The salarian turned his attention back to the instrument readings.


    "But I don''t detect any kind of energy radiation." He resent.


    "I would get surprised if you find something. This is a secret base with tens of thousands of years old. It was not created so that the first salarian who came across it could detect it using primitive equipment.¡±


    "What''s inside?"  Rina asked, almost jumping out of the vehicle to get a better look at the entrance.


    ¡°Without clue. But that''s the question we came here to find answer. Let''s clear the entrance and see what wonders are waiting for us inside.¡±


    My companions looked at each other but did not object. Greed still held them by the throat, forcing them to ignore my quirks. It took us another half an hour before the low-power mining complex on the flyer was able to crumble an unusually strong ''cork''. At the same time, the walls next to the entrance did not give in to this technique at all.


    Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.


    Finally, the last of the gravel flew out of the darkening passageway and fell down. I could feel the intelligent people around me already mentally calculating the multi-million-dollar profits from the sale of found artifacts and untold treasures.


    "Let¡¯s go to inside. It''s time to check what forerunners left behind.¡± I said.


    "Why don''t we go there in the morning?" the salarian asked, suddenly startled. According to krogan''s recollections, this toad was a typical office clerk, and it was only because of his good scientific knowledge and pilot''s license that he was accepted into the team.


    "What''s the point? There are pitches dark in the dungeon.¡± I objected, looking at the westward sun that hung over the very tops of the mountains. ¡°Besides, we''re going to have adventures! ¡°So, it''s worth looking into dungeon filled with thousands of zombies, specially at night.¡±


    The salarian''s mouth twisted in horror, and his hands trembled.


    ¡°Zombies?¡± He re-asked. ¡°The living dead?"


    ¡°Gra-a-a! I will destroy all who stand in our way!!!¡± Krogan roared enthusiastically. "And the living dead will become dead dead!"


    ¡°Let¡¯s go¡±.  Tria ordered, pulling out her gun. ¡°I don''t see any point in delaying the study of this place. We won''t be better prepared than we are now.¡±


    The pilot sighed heavily, and the flyer slowly began to approach the circular passageway, which was just a couple of meters wider than our vehicle. Once inside, Okren landed the vehicle and turned on the headlights, illuminating a circular tunnel that sloped forward and disappeared into the darkness. This was followed by a ceremonial unloading of scientific equipment, which the salarian loaded onto a small anti-gravity platform and pushed forward. The air inside the tunnel was not breathable, so all the archaeologists wore helmets for their spacesuits.


    Our whole company walked slowly through the tunnel. Krogan and I led the way, with Okren and Rina dragging equipment behind us, and Tria bringing up the rear, who had exchanged her pistol for a more substantial blaster from krogan''s stock. After about two hundred meters, we came to a vertical shaft, the entrance to which had apparently been closed by doors. But time had not spared the technique, and now only the remnants of the fasteners stuck out of the walls. Just before reaching the Elevator, there were side passages on the left and right, this time not circular, but more familiar square.


    "I suppose the shortest way is to jump down."  I said, shining my flashlight down the Elevator shaft and finding no bottom. Judging by the readings of the sensors that I had welded inside my body by magic, the depth of the mine was about a hundred meters.


    In response to my suggestion, there was a sound of swallowing coming from the salarian. It seemed that he was afraid not only of the dark, but also of heights. Or he was waiting for the promised zombies to pop around the corner.


    "It''s worth to find for an easier way."  Tria suggested. "Atman and I will examine the corridor on the right, and Tramt and Rina on the left.


    "What about me?"  The salarian asked with barely concealed horror.


    "You''ll be left here alone in the dark, waiting for the zombies to appear. If something happens, shout loudly.¡± Judging by asari''s grin, she was also a fan of questionable jokes.


    We split up and started looking around the premises. All around was ruin and desolation. If there was anything here before, it''s all turned to dust over the past thousands of years. In general, the layout resembled residential or office space. No equipment or gold deposits were observed around.


    Finding nothing worth looking at, we returned to the main corridor.


    ¡°We found the ladder!¡±  Rina immediately told us, her eyes sparkling with excitement. ¡°And Tramt also dig up a humanoid skeleton of an unknown race.¡±


    ¡°Really?¡± Tria asked suspiciously. "Have you decided to become a professional archaeologist?¡± She turned to krogan.


    ¡°I just tripped and chipped off a piece of dirt that had a skeleton under it.¡± He sighed.


    ¡°Which you immediately shot with a blaster.¡± Rina added reproachfully. ¡°I''m afraid we won''t be able to determine exactly to whom the remains belonged.¡±


    ¡°It is all because of these tales about dead undead.¡±  Krogan began to defend himself. Ha, it turns out we have another coward here. Judging by the gleam of Rina''s eyes, she had already told krogan some horror story about zombies.


    ¡°Silence.¡± Tria stopped this farce. ¡°Grab the platform and go to the stairs. The order of movement is the same.¡±


    This time we moved more slowly, because Okren was scanning all surrounding objects with some kind of scanner. But his technique couldn''t find anything interesting. Even in the charred pile with the corpse, only a few shapeless pieces of iron were found.


    The staircase was somewhat more substantial than I had imagined. It was a sloping tunnel that turned right after about twenty meters, then again, and again. As a result, the passage went through a solid thickness of stone, and it was not threatened with collapse due to rotted fasteners or fatigue of the material.


    We descended for a long time, passing twelve flights. Finally, our path ended in a pair of swollen metal doors. There were others upstairs, but they were wide open. Here the doors were closed. There must have been a mechanism for opening them earlier, but it has failed over the past millennia. But this was not the main obstacle. The doors literally fused with the jamb, forming a single matter. Moreover, it was evident that some of the material had floated down, forming a bulge at the level of the knees. I wonder how long it takes for a metal to experience such a deformation simply under the influence of material diffusion? The glass in the Pharaoh''s tomb, as I recall, took four thousand years.

 7.04 Mass Effect 2

    Scanning showed that the thickness of the doors is about half a meter. Such a mass of metal is difficult to cut through with conventional equipment. But the salarian wasn''t bothered. He took out some kind of cutter, turned it on and cut a hole in the metal with glowing blade just in five minutes. Here it is - a technique on the verge of fantasy.


    With a loud hoot, a thick slab of metal fell out of the passageway.


    "Well, at least this cutter earned its cost.¡± Tria said, assessing the thickness of the obstacle.


    "I told you." The Salarian remarked, carefully placing the cutter on the platform. ¡°All of this equipment is absolutely necessary for conducting archaeological excavations.¡±


    "Even that holoprojector with the free porn database of all races in the galaxy?"


    ¡°I already explained, the videos were a free app to the projector. And we may need it to organize a communication channel or connect to a computer.¡±


    This seemed to be a sore subject for Okren, because there was a hint of desperation in his voice, while the rest of the team smiled at something funny.


    "Yes, Yes, and the moment I caught you watching sex between a krogan and a salarian, you were just checking the equipment.¡±


    "Umm, Yes!¡±


    ¡°Okay, rest is over. Go on.¡± Tria commanded, peering down the aisle and lighting her flashlight.


    Krogan was able to squeeze through the opening with difficulty, so by the time the rest of the party was ready to continue, I had already moved forward and looked into the next room.


    "That reminds me something."  I remarked as the others joined to me to examine the room.


    "Stasis capsules?"  The salarian suggested.


    ¡°Exactly! However, the contents are somewhat rotten.¡±


    The room was long and narrow, about twenty meters high, and its walls were lined with many rounds of sarcophagus. I went to the nearest one and lit up the frosted glass. The outline of a humanoid figure shone through it.


    More precisely, it was difficult to make out, because for so much time, the glass lost its transparency. But the ultrasound sonar showed me that there was a corpse inside with a lot of metal inclusions. Oddly enough, the body''s tissues remained plastic, although there were traces of rotting or some other destruction of organic matter. I could tell they were dead, though. None of the bodies had any traces of the etheric energy characteristic of living organisms. There was also no sign of ghosts or spirits.


    The salarian carefully cut the cap of one of the capsules and removed the glass. We saw a hideous-looking corpse that looked like melted ice cream.


    "Are these your zombies?"  Krogan asked, poking the corpse with the muzzle of his blaster.


    "We''ll have to do an autopsy to find out for sure." Okren fired up with enthusiasm.


    ¡°But only after we''ve examined all the rooms.¡± Tria broke off his zeal. ¡°We need to find the main computer, the reactor, and the labs, if there are any. First of all, we are interested in technology.¡±


    Everyone took their eyes off the corpse and looked around for something more valuable than a pile of organic matter. I also paid attention to local equipment. However, the passage of time was ruthless to the legacy of the Forerunners, and workable electronics were not observed around.


    Judging by the shape of the bodies in the capsules, this was the base of Inusannon, the most advanced civilization of the previous cycle. That is, this dungeon was more than a hundred thousand years old. If steel doors have been deformed during so many years, what can we expect from microelectronics?


    A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    I went to one of the stasis pods and began to scan it in every way I could. But all I could find was a small amount of the Element Zero. This heretical form of matter served as the basis for any local equipment, so I had already learned to identify it by scanning the flyer, blasters, and equipment on the transport platform.


    In fact, the entire capsule was now a caked, monolithic mess, with barely discernible wires running through it. I decided to track down where all these electronics were connected. The capsules had a tree-like connection system. Several neighboring stasis devices were connected to a common node. Then the wires from the nodes went to the larger node, and so on.


    Following this structure, I came to an unremarkable spot between two capsules. Then I had to use barbaric methods to rip out a wall panel, dig out a whole pile of garbage, which turned into wires, and in the end my prey was a rectangular block the size of a brick. Apparently, this thing controlled all the pods in this room. The wires from it went somewhere deep into the wall, most likely to the main computer of the complex.


    "What is it?"  The salarian asked, interesting in my actions.


    "Looks like the control computer for these stasis pods."  I said, seeing no reason to hide the obvious.


    A scan of the device showed that it still had crystal inclusions and a general structure, but I honestly didn''t know how this thing could be made to work, or if it could be made to work at all. After saving the scan results in my body''s memory, I handed the'' brick '' to Okren.


    ¡°Take. Can you figure it out and read its memory?¡±


    The salarian took the device carefully, treating it like a shrine.


    "I''ll need equipment from my lab on the ship." he said, packing up the loot and placing it on his cart. "But according to the omnitool, the computer is in acceptable condition and working on the technologies that I know. Probably, I can read the most contents of the long-term memory.¡±


    ¡°Wonderful. Send me a copy of the data later.¡±


    ¡°Certainly¡±


    I went on looking for something interesting, and the salarian began to dig in the niche where the computer had been located. Judging by his muttering, the scientist was interested in the wiring diagram of the equipment.


    This room with high-tech coffins was not the only one. In total, I counted exactly four thousand stasis capsules, of which about fifty were free. Also, there was another staircase leading down. There was nothing else interesting on this level, so in fifteen minutes our procession moved on.


    When we descended, we found ourselves in the technical rooms, where most of the place was occupied by the reactor. It was the source of the radiation I registered. However, the salarian said that the reactor has not been working for a long time. Moreover, judging by some signs, it was some kind of sabotage or emergency shutdown. I scanned the reactor and memorized its general layout, then decided later to ask Okren how it worked.


    Another room we entered with bated breath was the server room, where the main computer was supposed to be located. But here us waited a bummer. According to the footprints, someone detonated a bomb in this room, which literally destroyed all equipments, turning them into a mess. Only at the edges of the room we could you find twisted and compressed remains of machinery.


    "It looks like everything was destroyed by the explosion."  The salarian confirmed my thoughts.


    "Or not all of them¡­"  I said thoughtfully, analyzing the scanner readings.


    There was another source of strange quantum effect nearby. I went to the right place, launched a magic scanner, and found a suspicious object, mostly made of metal, under the layers of debris. In a couple of flicks of my hands, I removed the obstacles and pulled out a metal cube with a side of ten centimeters, on the surface of which transparent letters glowed slightly.


    "What is it?"  Tria asked, glaring at my find.


    ¡°Judging by the internal structure and connectors, this is the Central Core of the computer, which has its own power source on the zero element.¡±  I gave my opinion. ¡°I''ll keep this thing.¡±


    Asari opened her mouth to contradict me, but I put the device to my stomach, which it immediately sank into. Thus, it became clear to everyone that the trophy can only be taken from my corpse.


    ¡°You have a whole reactor and thousands of stasis chambers.¡± I replied to the unspoken claims. ¡°I think you can find something for yourself.¡±


    Tria swallowed my words, glared at the salarian, clearly accusing him of being slow in finding trophies, and then left the room. While the black archaeologists were looting the base, I started researching the computer. Unlike the other artifact I found, the entire structure of the device was in a state of perfect preservation. Apparently, this had something to do with a working power source that provided self-healing equipment.


    Pretty quickly, I was able to find the sequence of signals that this device responded to, but the result of such testing surprised me greatly. I felt the computer send a wave of energy into the surrounding space, and just a dozen seconds later, an astral entity that was already familiar to me looked into the light and began to search everything around. I immediately isolated the computer and my body with special shields, but this did not reduce the Reaper''s interest in what was happening.


    The first sign of impending problems was the hum of the reactor. Under the surprised cries of the salarian, the power source went back to normal operation. Literally before my eyes, the'' burned-out '' computer circuits were restored and began to process information flows. Regular lighting turned on, ventilation started working, and then a natural zombie apocalypse began.

 7.05 Mass Effect 2

    One of the corpses lying in the reactor room jerked, broke free of the thousand-year-old layer of mud and began to get up to his feet. On the astral plane, I saw how the Reaper inserted one of its tentacles into the corpse and the implants in the body started to work. At the same time, the technique itself somehow ''reanimated'' organic matter, triggering chemical reactions and a kind of metabolism in it.


    When krogan saw the corpse rising, he roared loudly, and then fired a burst of his weapon at it, literally dismembering the dead corpse.


    "What was that?"  The salarian screamed.


    Rina joined in his panic with a loud cry and jumped into a higher seat.


    ¡°It''s probably a zombie. Do you remember? I warned you about them¡± I said my version.


    ¡°Nonsense.¡± Tria replied, sending a biotic charge into another body that had just descended the stairs and was heading our way. "There are no zombies. Magic is a fairy tale for ignorant savages.¡±


    ¡°Well certainly. By the way, the ability to create glowing balls that kill opponents is also a typical feature of stories about magic.¡± I did not agree with this assessment. "You can think of them as techno-zombie, which come to life not because of the spirits of the dead, but because of the implants embedded in the body.¡±


    ¡°So, these are just corpses that can move independently and act according to the installed program?¡± Krogan asked me.


    ¡°Yeah. This is a great definition of the word ¡®zombie¡¯. You can observe before you the final evolution result of an entire race the cycle before last.¡±


    ¡°Cycle?¡± Tria asked. While our intellectual conversation was going on, my companions had already destroyed two dozen zombies.


    "I''ll tell you about it later. If you survive.¡±


    "Why aren''t you helping us?" Rina asked, forming a biotic charge and sending it to the nearest walking corpse.


    "In fact, these corpses don''t threaten me. It''s you they''re going to turn into their own kind.¡±


    "So, you lured us into here on purpose?" The asari do not let suspicious.


    ¡°It is necessary as pain. You wanted to come here. Well, who knew that this was the lair of the Reapers, and not the last stronghold of the Forerunner civilization?¡±


    ¡°You told me about zombies.¡±


    ¡°It was just a horror story. Although, of course, I suppose for some probability of such a development.¡±


    "Will you stop talking and help us?" Tria angrily interrupted me. The stream of dead men was becoming more and more abundant, and already the entire floor next to the stairs was covered with them in three layers.


    "You''re yourself doing a great job. I think as long as you have the charges in your weapons, you''re safe."


    "I have fifty shots left in my battery."  The salarian reported.


    He had his own gun, which he preferred to shoot only at the heads of opponents. Krogan didn''t say anything, but after another shot, he tossed his blaster aside and picked up a shotgun with kinetic charges. Buckshot was far less suitable for dealing with such enemies, because to reliable ''RIP the undead'' required almost dismembering it.


    I decided to study the undead samples, for which I need to come forward.


    "All right, I will show how to deal with these little things.¡±


    I grew a sword blade out of my hand, then leaped forward and began trashing the zombies, tracking their reaction to the damage. Pretty quickly it became clear that techno-zombies stops working only if cut through her spine or smash to pieces its head. Even without arms and legs, the corpses crawled forward and tried to attack the living beings.


    Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    I cut out four skulls with spines that snapped their jaws viciously, trying to bite me. Returning to the huddled group of tomb riders, I handed over to each of them a club of extremely avant-garde design, except for the krogan.


    ¡°When you run out of ammo, you can hit the undead with this.¡± I issued instructions for use.


    ¡°Looks like an impotent member¡± Tria expressed her expert opinion. The spine really did not want to keep its shape and bent when even a small effort was applied.


    "Don''t try to masturbate with that thing. Who knows what you will give birth to after this?¡± I said, looking at Rina. She just turned blue again. Apparently, she has a shortcoming, aggravated by chronic virginity.


    "Why didn''t you give me one?"  Krogan asked me.


    "You have a plasma cutter. There it is on the cart.¡± I pointed to the equipment the salarian had used to open the door so easily. "I would advise you to head for the exit. I counted nearly four thousand filled stasis capsules. If you do not hurry, then the zombies will simply clog the road to the exit with their bodies.¡±


    ¡°Yes, let''s move.¡± Tria realized the precariousness of her position. The first shock passed, and she began to assess the situation more soberly.


    Our group moved toward the exit, clearing their way. After firing the shotgun''s ammunition, krogan grabbed the cutter and began fighting the enemies in hand-to-hand combat. Two asari and a salarian climbed onto the cart and used it as a means of transportation. The barriers in front and behind provided at least some protection from the hordes of zombies, so they managed to stay alive.


    I walked behind and easily cut down the pressing dead men as the cabbage. The magic-enhanced sword was only seventy centimeters long, but it spread out bodies without encountering the slightest resistance.


    Half an hour later we reached the opening in the steel door. Once inside, we were relatively safe. Krogan threw a bunch of plasma grenades through the opening, and the explosion cleared the area for a dozen seconds. During this time, the team was able to lift the cut piece of the door, insert it into its rightful place, and then weld it around the perimeter. The connection was quite clumsy, but stupid zombies were not able to overcome such an obstacle only with the help of brute force.


    "Whew! At least they didn''t have weapons.¡± I said.


    "That''s because I cleaned out the entire arsenal."  The salarian boasted.


    "Did you find the Arsenal?"


    "There wasn''t a single working copy, anyway¡± He said.


    "Well, you can show me later."


    ¡°Rested enough.¡± Tria took command. "Let''s go upstairs. And be on your guard. These things could have come out.¡±


    We walked briskly up the stairs, pausing now and then to catch our breath. More precisely, rest was required for a salarian who was not used to such exertions. Along the way, we caught up with a couple of zombies, which krogan shredded them into pieces with a special frenzy.


    As we climbed out, I examined my battle trophy. As it turned out, the electronics in the skull and spine had the same structure as the computer in the ''cube''. At the same time, the astral essence of the Reaper easily entered into interaction with the chips, if necessary, supplying them with energy.


    When we reached the flyer, we boarded it in silence, then flew to the ship. No one raised the question of my right to be on board, knowing that I had the most valuable part of the loot, plus the power was also on my side. During the time that krogan was dealing with one zombie, I managed to dismember a dozen. So, no one doubted that in the event of a conflict, I would do the same to them before they could shoot me.


    On the ship, Tria immediately loaded her subordinates with work, and she invited me to talk in her office.


    "So, who are you again and what do you want from us?"  She turned to me.


    I took a deep breath.


    ¡°I am Atman. I also do research on Forerunner technologies. A ship brought me here, but I''m not sure it will come back for me. So, if you take me to some advanced planet or station, we''ll assume that you paid for my information about the position of the Forerunner base.¡±


    "What about the Forerunner computer?"


    "What about it? This is my trophy. If you behave good yourself, I''ll let you study it and even lick it.¡±


    "Lick it?" Tria didn''t understand my joke.


    ¡°Yeah. I''ve heard that the asari are very fond of licking and sucking the things.¡±


    "What? Shameless! Pervert! Maniac!!! However, I don''t mind sucking something from you... Undress?¡±


    "Maybe later." I broke off her attempts in my address.


    "Then get out of my office. Ask the Trampt to give you a room.


    I glowered at the boorish asari, then got up and left without a word. But I didn''t go looking for a krogan, I went looking for a salarian. A few minutes later I found one, but it wasn''t the salarian I needed.


    ¡°Hi. Can you tell me where is Okren?¡±  I asked him.


    ¡°This geek? He''s probably in his lab. Are you the same person who lured our team into a zombie den?¡±


    ¡°Exactly. Lured, yeah. They put their own head in there, because of greed! So where did you say the lab is?¡±


    "Come on, I''ll show you."


    As we walked, I met another member of the crew. It was a technician by the name of Garush. His relations with his countryman were not the best. Okren considered him as a primitive mechanic, and Garush responded by calling him a learned theorist.


    In the lab, I joined the process of studying the stasis capsule computer. Fortunately, Okren liked to explain everything and everything to others, so for me he became a bottomless source of information about the technologies of this world. Ten hours later, we studied the computer completely, and I brought out its big brother, the main processor unit of the entire base. As it turned out, inside the capsule of control unit was the same but only less than a centimeter in size and without a power source.

 7.06 Mass Effect 2

    My trophy was much more advanced and complex in technical terms, but at the same time, due to its excellent technical condition, its study was much faster. We managed to get to the archive records, after which it became more or less clear to me what happened at the base.


    About a day after we returned to the ship, our research marathon was interrupted by Rina, who warned us about the general ship meeting. I had to continue my research myself, and the Salarian fell asleep for an hour to attend the event with a fresh head. For frogs it was quite normal to sleep no more than an hour a day.


    So, at the appointed time, I went with Okren to the cabin-company, where the whole crew had already gathered. In addition to the personalities I already know, there was a batarian sitting in a separate chair.


    ¡°What kind of beast is this?¡± I asked, pointing at him.


    ¡°This is Korkak Dan''Selas, a batarian.¡± Okren introduced him.


    ¡°Do you have a batarian in the team? You''re crazy!¡±


    I did not develop this topic and took one of the chairs next to a large table. Everyone present looked at me with surprise, and the victim of my xenophobia was also hated.


    ¡°Well, since everyone''s here, I''ll start.¡±  Tria took the speech. ¡°Our expedition to this planet was quite successful. As a result of the raid, we captured several trophies with Forerunner technologies. Okren will now tell us the results of his research.¡±


    ¡°Yes, I do. Umm.¡± Salarian got up and went out into the center of the room. ¡°Over the past 24 hours, Atman and I have explored several technical devices, including two computers and an analogue blaster. I can say with full confidence that we have discovered the remains of an ancient civilization that died out about a hundred thousand years ago. However, the technologies used in computers and weapons are at roughly the same level of development as the Azari technique. Of course, there are some other solutions and standards, but in general, I see a complete analogy with the azari enclave technologies that were used on some planets two thousand years ago.¡±


    But this information was new even to me.


    ¡°This allows me to conclude that two thousand years ago, Azari had already encountered the heritage of this race and used their work to create their own computers.¡±


    ¡°So, these computers are worthless?¡± Rina asked disappointedly.


    ¡°No, I don''t think so. They cost quite a lot. Especially, the central computer of the base, which contains a real system of artificial intelligence, capable of solving complex problems, but at the same time not having self-awareness. I have never seen any analogues of such a software complex. They are not even in the descriptions of secret technologies of Azari and Salarians. So, I think we can find a buyer. But... this computer belongs to Atman. Other equipment is not so unique, but I think we can sell them for the sum of ten to a hundred thousand credits.¡±


    The whole crew stared at me with the sight of hungry wolves.


    "How much do you estimate the main computer?" Tria asked casually.


    ¡°It''s hard to say.¡± Okren was nervous. "From one million to ten. Or maybe more.


    After these words, the eyes were more like the radiance of the eyes of the undead, suffering to taste my flesh and soul.


    "If you take me to the Citadel, I''ll give you thirty percent of the computer revenue.¡±


    After that, their eyes softened slightly, although it was obvious how the inner toad suffocates Tria, demanding her to immediately organize my unravelling. In the look of the batarian I read not greed, but envy and... fear. What did they tell him about me?


    "Has everyone heard?¡± Tria finally tried to cheer up her team as she finished with her toad. ¡°We have a chance to get three million credits!¡±


    "Hooray!!! We will be rich!¡± Rina shouted, jumping up from her seat. After that, she literally jumped on the Okren and started hugging him. Apparently, in her head has already matured a plan, at the expense of whom she could double her share of the profits. Well, well.


    If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    After a couple of minutes, common hysteria calmed down, and Tria took the word again.


    ¡°Okren, are you managed to find out how it turned out that the whole base was filled with thousands of living dead?¡±


    Everyone becomes quiet, waiting for the solution of this terrible mystery.


    "Well, we were able to restore the database log entries, but there are many things that remain unclear, especially the language of this race. But I did find data from hardware sensors that can generally restore the sequence of events.¡±


    The salarian looked around the audience and continued in the voice of a professional horror storyteller.


    "The base was built for the sole purpose of preserving the last members of this race.It had only a reactor, a central computer and thousands of stasis capsules designed to work for ten thousand years. One of the main requirements was the invisibility of this shelter, so there was a minimum of equipment. The first batch consisted of about three and a half thousand fugitives, who were placed into capsules in just a couple of days. After that, three years passed, and another five hundred members of this race arrived at the base. They spent about a couple of weeks doing something that loaded the base''s reactor capacity by ninety percent, after which all were also immersed in stasis.¡±


    I noticed that while Okren was telling this story, the lighting in the room gradually faded away, and now we were sitting in the gloom, with only the salarian''s face illuminated by a single directional lamp. Here''s an artist.


    "But just a week later, one of the capsules failed, and the computer decided to wake up its occupant, since there were several free working capsules nearby. But the awakened was not in a hurry to fall asleep back. What he was doing is unknown, but a couple of weeks later he manually disconnected one of the capsules and pulled his comrade out of it.


    "After a couple of days, he turned off the next one and so on. After twenty capsules were disconnected, the security system was activated, which brought the base management out of stasis from the first wave. That was five reasonable ones. At first, they spent a long time studying the data in the computer, trying to figure out where the five hundred new settlers came from. And then something happened that destroyed the equipment in one of the rooms. The equipment that has been continuously working since the first reasonable one was awakened.¡±


    ¡°Then someone tried to intercept control over the computer, but activated the hidden security system, which caused computer to go offline. And at the very end, the computer discovered that they were going to blow it up. At the time of the explosion, computer activated the reactor overload protocol, which for a second became a source of strong neutron radiation, killing all living people at the base, including those in capsules. No one could survive. Nevertheless, the automatics recorded that during the next year each of the capsules was opened, and after a while it was closed. At the same time, an ordinary corpse was taken from there, and a corpse stuffed with all sorts of electronics was put back. So ended this mysterious story, after hundred thousand years later, we came and woke up all these zombies.¡±


    ¡°What about those skulls you brought with you? Garush was worried. ¡°Are they safe?¡±


    "I haven''t study them yet.¡± Okren confessed. "I just connected them to the main onboard computer to download the data.¡±


    "What did you do?" Tria said, jumping up almost to the ceiling.


    "I''m joking, I''m joking.¡± The scientist backed down ¡°I isolated them in the box for especially dangerous samples. I''m not even sure we should study them on the ship.¡±


    "Whew! Joker.¡± Tria has calmed down. "Look, you may receive reply to your joke, and turn the lights on. Your dramatic effects are out of place. This is a meeting, not a memory night."


    ¡°Yes, ma''am.¡± The Salarian answered, returning the lighting to normal with a command on his multitool. ¡°Do you have any other questions?¡±


    "Not yet, sit down." Okren obediently sat back in the chair. ¡°Atman, can you tell us something about this database?¡±


    "Hmh... I think I can reveal the veil of this mystery to you. But, are you sure you want to know the truth? Forefathers says: know less - sleep better.¡±


    "I''m going to maintain the engine.¡± The batarian stood up. ¡°I''m not interested in tales about ancient civilizations.¡±


    "Ok, go.¡± Tria nodded.


    "No one else wants to leave?" I asked. ¡°Look, you won''t be able to erase this knowledge from your memory later, and you''ll be terrified and horror for the rest of your life¡±


    "Stop scaring us. Tell.¡± Garush expressed common opinion.


    ¡°Well. Listen up. A long time ago, more than a billion years ago, there was a race that reached incredible heights of development. But on one day they built a smart computer and gave him a wrong command, because of which he decided to destroy all organic life in the galaxy.¡± I decided to tell the ''official'' story of the game. I didn''t see any point in telling someone about the Reapers. This knowledge is not for mere mortals. "Artificial intelligence complied with this order by destroying its creators. Since then, about once every fifty thousand years, the computer begins to harvest, destroying all intelligent forms of life in the galaxy and creating giant spaceships with their own electronic intelligence.¡±


    "But the base is just a hundred thousand years old!¡± Okren exclaimed. "You mean that...¡±


    "Yes, I do. This was the base of the inusannon race, which was the most highly developed civilization of the previous cycle. They are faced with intelligent machines are called Reapers. When it became clear that the battle was lost, they built this base to hide and wait out the Harvest. But, one member of the second team turned out to be a traitor controlled by the Reapers. He forced the main computer to release himself, and then began to turn his comrades into techno-zombie. And in the end, when they tried to destroy him, he set up a reactor explosion that destroyed the remnants of this race. That''s the whole story.¡±

 7.07 Mass Effect 2

    As the audience sat and digested this revelation, I reflected on the actual events at the base. According to the records, the source of the infection was the computer itself. Exactly it caused a problem in one of the capsules, put its occupant into a coma, and then used a medical droid to transfer his body to the operating room and turn him into a husk - a hybrid of a living organism and a machine. Then this zombie took on all the labor work, dragging the bodies.


    The triggered emergency wake - up system was a surprise even for the central computer. Inusannons quickly identified the cause of the crash and decided to destroy the computer. But it overloaded the reactor, killing its creators. As for the huskies, most of them were destroyed by the explosion, but the couple survived and continued their activities to turn the dead into techno-zombie.


    I did not tell the details of this story, because it would significantly reduce the value of the computer in the eyes of others. As it was, I was hoping to get to the Citadel for free, and then get a good amount of money.


    "Since this happened a hundred thousand years ago, is the end of the current cycle approaching?"  Tria expressed her doubts.


    "Yes, I do. Actually, the harvest has already begun. You all know that the Geths attacked the Citadel. That''s the first call. It''s going to get worse. However, the harvest may still take tens or even hundreds of years, so you will still have the opportunity to enjoy the agony of your civilization.¡±


    ¡°What about your civilization?¡± Rina asked.


    "My civilization is myself. And I''m not in danger of being destroyed. I''m too small a fish for the Reapers to hunt me down.¡±


    "If this is true, we need to report it to the Citadel Council. Put information about this to the extranet.¡± Rina asked.


    "What''s the point? Everyone who needs it already knows about it. But politicians makes them close their eyes and ears. Because the Reapers will arrive tomorrow, but turmoil and unrest can throw them off from the political olympus today. So, no one is going to do anything.¡±


    "I suggest we think about it after we get to the Citadel."  Tria said sternly. "Right now, we need to focus to get through the relays unharmed. So, I suggest that everyone now to disperse and take up their main responsibilities for long-distance flight protocol. And you, Atman, I''ll ask you to stay.¡±


    ¡°Oops Stirlitz.¡±  I chuckled inwardly.


    "What did you want to talk about?"  I asked when we were alone.


    "I want us to record your promise to share the computer revenue as a formal contract.¡±


    "I don''t have any documents."  I disavowed.


    It doesn''t matter. Let''s just write you down as anonymous intelligent being. The contract is necessary not only for us, but also for you, because it will legalize the computer as a commodity. It is one thing if we sell our find, and another if we act as intermediaries between you and the buyer. Believe me, the second option will be much more attractive for traders on the black market. At least there''s a lot less chance that they''ll try to trick us. After all, my team will act only as a guarantor of the honesty of the transaction, and the attempt to put pressure on us will not give a guarantee that you will agree to sell the goods with unfavorable conditions. In general, it is a cunning trade policy of the Citadel space. If you see that someone else has already cheated on a sucker, you will be less tempted to cash in on this deal. After all, you will have to deal not with the victim, but with another shark.


    ¡°It''s clear. Well, let''s make a deal.¡±


    Then there was a bureaucratic procedure with the drafting of the text of the contract, signing, bringing solemn oaths and so on. In any case, I was going to act on the principle: money in the morning - chairs in the evening.


    Four hours later, the ship left earth and began entering orbit. We had to fly a three-day flight at superlight speed to the nearest relay in another star system. From there began a chain of six jumps, which was to take us to one of the worlds controlled by Azari. There was to be another week flight to another branch of relays, from where we could get to the Citadel in two dozen jumps.


    The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.


    Just in case, I memorized the map of the galaxy and the location of the relays. I was able to dislodge the protocol of communication with the ship''s computers from Okren, so now I downloaded all the information I was interested directly to my ''brain'', which is essentially an advanced computer working on the architecture of the Ancients. While there was no Reaper, this option was the most productive.


    While we were flying to the first relay, I studied mass effect technologies in detail. The Zero Element turned out to be a banal virtual atom made of positive tau-lepton and negative muon. The Zero Element did not enter into direct chemical reactions with ordinary matter, but it could be mixed with it in the form of neutral interatomic impurities. Because of this, cleaning the Zero Element was an extremely difficult technical process.


    The essence of the Mass Effect was the unconventional behavior of the Zero Element atoms in the static electric field. Spin polarization of virtual atoms led to a change in the metric of space, because of which the motion speed of matter in such a space could exceed the speed of light. And since the hyperspace engine itself was part of the ship, it seemed to drag itself by the hair, like Baron Munchausen, creating a non-inertia craving.


    The funny thing is that such engine needed fuel. The core of the Mass Effect always flew towards a positive charge and was repelled by the negative. Because of this, the back of the ship constantly leaked electrons, which gave the ship a positive charge.


    If you fly long enough, the lack of electrons began to negatively affect the work of the technician and the health of the crew. Therefore, from time to time the ship had to turn off the engine and get rid of the ''extra'' positrons, dumping positively charged matter into space.


    To organize this ''leak'' need fuel. As a rule, it was either helium, which was simple enough to ionize, depriving both electrons, or beryllium, which could also lose two electrons, but at the same time was much easier to store and more expensive in production.


    The second effect of the zero Element was to neutralize the gravitational interaction when it was placed in a magnetic field. This effect was used to reduce the weight of the ship during takeoff, as well as to increase the efficiency of jet and ion engines. Oddly enough, for all technology in the galaxy, a chemical jet engine with a weight neutralizer was the cheapest way to organize the launch of cargo into low orbit.


    These were the simplest ways to apply the zero Element. But the combination of electric and magnetic fields, plus the cunning shape of the nucleus itself allowed to make quite complex tricks, such as the creation of artificial gravity on the ship or stable plasma clots in the blaster.


    By the time we got to the first relay, I was already an expert on Mass Effect technologies and could have built a simple engine and plasma emitter on my knee. The only question stood in the receipt of a sufficient quantity of Zero Elements. Okren had a couple of grams for conducting experiments, but this was not enough to create more or less powerful equipment.


    The first jump gave me mixed feelings. During the superlight flight, I felt the metric of space inside my body distorted. Immediately I felt myself literally rolled up into a tube and pushed through the eye of a needle. The relay was doing the fact that it ''twisted'' the ship at the point of departure and ''unwrapped'' it back to the point of arrival.


    At the same time, in multi-dimensional space, the ''astral tails'' of passengers rolled up somehow, which gave rise to all sorts of unpleasant sensations, and sometimes hallucinations. To feel a part of you ''catching up'' with the main body, moving hundreds of light-years, was still a challenge. Well, at least in Astral the distances were quite conditional. By the second jump I had time to prepare, having gathered in a multidimensional space in as compact a bunch as possible.


    Usually, relays in the same system were located in different orbits, and therefore it was sometimes necessary to fly between them across the entire solar system. This flight could take from a few minutes to an hour, while it was necessary to stop at times and adjust the flight course to not fly through the asteroid belt or star, but through more or less free space.


    As a rule, it was on such flights that the pirates intercepted ships. This fate has not passed us. At the exit of the fourth jump, we suddenly found ourselves inside a minefield set by enterprising knife and axe workers. The nearest mine immediately detonated, transferring the Core of Mass of our ship to emergency stop mode.


    After that, we could only watch helplessly as a pirate ship, more than a kilometer in size, approached us. It could be called a dreadnought if it was not exclusively a civilian cargo platform designed for processing and transporting metals. Several frigates and one cruiser hovered nearby.


    Our trough was classified as a frigate, but in fact it was an average cargo ship, converted into a kind of battle station with a bunch of massive and clumsy guns. That''s only after the failure of the Core of Mass, all the equipment was disabled. So, we were taken literally warm without a shot being fired. The dreadnought opened the huge hatch, and then we were pulled inside of the pirate ship.

 7.08 Mass Effect 2

    "Where did you buy this pile of scrap metal?" I asked Tria. ¡°We stood in the control room of the ship while the salarian mechanic and the batarian fiddled with the engine, trying to resuscitate it.¡±


    ¡°The batarians sold it to us.¡± Asari replied grimly, glaring at the closing doors that shut us off from the emptiness of space.


    "Looks like I''m on a team of idiots." I sighed. "You bought the ship from the batarians. You have a batarian on board. You fly in a sector that is under the control of batarian pirates. Is there no doubt in your mind about the end of such an ''expedition''?¡±


    "You don''t have to think that all batarians are pirates.¡± Tria tried to protect her employee. "Besides, a lot of ships are flying in this sector, and nothing happens to them.¡±


    ¡°Oh, you. Naive simplicity. Do you have an internal surveillance system here? See what the batarian is doing now.¡±


    "He''s fixing the engine."


    Tria pressed several keys on the control panel, and an image from a surveillance camera in the engine compartment appeared on the main screen. There we were presented with a wonderful picture of a decapitated Salarian lying on the floor. The traitor was nowhere to be seen.


    "What? How dare he?¡± Tria shrouded herself in a biotic glow and began to torment the computer fiercely, switching to different cameras.


    "I''ll kill him." Krogan grabbed his weapon as he headed out of the control room.


    Meanwhile, an accomplice of the pirates was found. He was in the cargo bay with the hatch open, talking to a dozen batarians in assault suits.


    "You''ll have to deal with them first." I nodded at the screen.


    Krogan turned and growled menacingly, reacting to the almost fraternizing of our technician and the leader of the assault group. It was obvious that they knew each other well.


    "So, what do you plan to do?" I asked asari, who continued to press various buttons with superhuman speed.


    "And what is your interest?¡± She said.


    "It''s just interesting. Do you have a plan?


    "Yes, I do. I''m going to activate the self-destruct system.¡± Rina and Okren stared at their boss in horror. It was as if Tramt had not heard those words.


    "It''s a shitty plan." I expressed my expert opinion.


    "I''m sorry. I''m not going to surrender¡±


    "Are you even sure this ship has a self-destruct system?" Judging by the actions of the pirates, it''s not the first time they''ve boarded this tub. I wouldn''t give the opportunity to any suckers to damage their ship, which brings a constant profit.¡±


    After my words, Tria stopped, looked at the screen for a couple of seconds, and then slapped a biotic charge into the terminal, tearing it to pieces.


    "Why are you laughing?" She turned to me. "That''s your business, too."


    "Far from it. For me, these primitive forms of life do not pose any threat. I can cut them all out without sweating.¡±


    "Then go and kill them." Obstinate azari told me her plan of salvation.


    ¡°Well. But then your share of the sale of the computer will be reduced from thirty percent to twenty.¡±


    ¡°...Well.¡± Tria managed after a few seconds of deliberation. ¡°We have just the size of the team reduced by a third.¡±


    ¡°But first we will sign the changes to the contract. It''s not just for me, it''s for you too.¡±


    Azari growled softly, but then picked herself up and activated her multitool. I''ve had one now, too. I assembled it from spare parts taken from a warehouse from the deceased Garush. After confirming the terms of the deal, I rubbed my hands together. I did something nasty - my heart is happy.


    "Sit here and wait for me to return. Don''t open the door for anyone.¡±


    "Even for you?" Rina asked sarcastically.


    "I especially. I''ll open it myself if I have to. All right, have a good time.¡±


    With that, I left the control room and locked the doors behind me, blocking them. With my computing abilities, I had long ago hacked into the ship''s computer, setting up the highest level of access for myself.


    Then I did not break forward, and leaked into the ventilation. Judging by the readings of the sensors, the traitor was left to sit in the cargo hold, and the assault group of ten batarians slowly moved towards the cabin of the ship, simultaneously scouring the premises. Looking at the ship''s plan, I immediately realized that the strange and inconvenient layout of the interior space was specially designed to fully search the ship, setting up no more than two roadblocks at one point in time.


    Fortunately, someone else designed the ventilation system, so I used it to get to the cargo bay as quickly as possible. I thought about it for a few seconds, then contacted the control room via the ship''s network.


    ¡°Ale-ale, Okren. I have a question for you.¡±


    "I''m listening." The scientist responded.


    ¡°What means of communication do the batarians have?¡±


    ¡°Radio communication through four channels and laser communication.¡±


    ¡°Can you give me the characteristics of the ranges? Enter the data into the terminal.¡±


    ¡°Just a minute... Do you want to break their connection with each other?¡±


    "Yes, I do. And with support, too. Judging by their behavior, they do not expect much resistance. So short-term silence should not arouse strong suspicions.


    ¡°It''s done.¡±


    "Yeah. Thank you. By the way, did you know there were two dozen broadband jammers inside the ship?


    "What?" It was Tria who intervened.


    ¡°That. Okay, I have to get busy.¡±


    I activated the devices I found in the ship''s network, which were essentially banal interference generators over a wide range. After that, all I had to do was put the ship''s network in lockdown mode, and I could be sure that the pirates wouldn''t be able to call for help even if they connected to the network. Now it was possible to activate the normal operation of the ship only from the central server.


    Then I got out of the vent behind the batarian traitor and quickly beheaded him. I wasn''t going to scare anyone or explain anything. This whole pirate raid was just a way for me to have fun. So-to-say, a small insertion of a stealth shooter in the strategy of real time.


    Then I took the form of an innocently murdered traitor and quickly followed the pirates. They divided in pairs and went around the ship''s premises. The first two victims met me at the maintenance hatch, where one of them was digging around trying to connect to the ship''s computer.


    "Korkak, you were told to sit still and not twitch.¡± Addressed me ''guard'', before criticizing crookedness of ''technique''. Even though I was kind of an ally, the batarian pointed his weapon at me. However, there was no anxiety in his emotions.


    ¡°Let me help you with the equipment. It looks like this frog was able to access the ship''s computer.¡± I said, coming closer.


    "Yes, do it." Second pirate irritably moved to the side. ¡°I''ll go on with the detour.¡±


    The first pirate, apparently, suspected something, but did not have time to react. My hands turned into blades, and then I stabbed them through the necks of my opponents, breaking their vertebrae. A split second later, a spike that grew out of the blade passed inside the spine and turned the brain of one of the victims into a puree.


    The second pirate became my information donor. While he was dying in agony, the memory reading spell gave me all the information about codes, passwords, protocols, typical pirate behavior, accent, and so on. Five seconds later, I took the form of a combat suit, so that in the conditions of a working jammer I was indistinguishable from the original.


    What followed was, in fact, routine. Silently sneak up on another pair of victims, cut off their heads, if necessary, change the appearance, and go look for the next.


    Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.


    The last batch of future corpses I caught up right in front of the entrance to the control room where the would-be archaeologists were holed up. There were four of them, so it was necessary to act quickly and accurately.


    Fortunately, the man at the back, glancing back from time to time, paid no attention to me. So, I quietly grabbed him, severed his spine, and quickly dragged him into the passageway he was just passing. After a couple of seconds, his doppelganger came out in my face. My body''s ability to take any shape turned me into the perfect spy.


    "Hey you, there! Open the door in a good way.¡± The pirate leader shouted as he reached the door. Two of his escorts took their seats along the edges of the corridor. The ''speaker'' himself did not dare to stand in the middle of the aisle, but went to a small snout right next to the door, where there was some kind of technical shield with equipment. In fact, it was another design solution that made it easier to capture the ship.


    I didn''t slow down, but rather accelerated my pace and punched the necks of two stormtroopers. Magic-enhanced daggers sliced through the spacesuits'' armor like paper. The chief pirate noticed my attack and even managed to raise his weapon, but that was the end of his success. With a wide movement, I cut both of his arms, so that the assault rifle fell to the floor. Then there was another session of memory reading, the results of which I became the owner of information about the general situation on the pirate ship. After cutting off the batarian''s head, I opened the door to the control room, entering it in my standard form of the Prophet from the game Crysis.


    "Didn''t you expect it?" I said to the ''comrades'' who were pointing their weapons at me. ¡°Hold the trophy. Then you can dry it and hang it on the cabin wall.¡±


    I threw the head of the pirate leader to the krogan. He caught it deftly, examined it from all sides, and chuckled contentedly, apparently appreciating my offer. The batarian''s body was covered with many colored tattoos, so the trophy was quite original.


    "And what now?¡± Tria asked, looking out into the corridor. Three beheaded bodies in combat suits impressed her. ¡°How do we get off this ship? Judging by the readings of the instruments, we are now moving at superlight speed.¡±


    "I''m going to have to cut off all the pirates'' heads and grab this cargo ship for myself. It seems to look more solid than your tub. What do you think?


    ¡°It''s crazy. If you can take down a dozen stormtroopers, that doesn''t mean you can kill a thousand. This is ''Ishnup Star'' - the mobile base of the pirate clan ''Warriors of Ishnup''. This is where most of their forces are located." Tria stunned me.


    "And when did you realize that? I asked.


    "About five minutes ago. Compared the image of the ship with a database of pirate clans in the sector.¡±


    "Well, it''s better late than never. In general, my plan does not change. We either need to capture the entire base, or somehow intercept the engine control, get out of the superlight, open the hangar and make sure we''re not shot as soon as we fly out. Given the number of points in the second plan, it is guaranteed to fail. So, it will be easier to behead the command of pirates, and then finish them off one by one. Or maybe you have a better plan?


    The answer to me was an embarrassed silence.


    "I understand that. Okay, sit quietly and don''t be naughty. Don''t open doors for strangers. Wait for me and I''ll be back, just wait...¡±


    With these words, I left the control room and went to conquer the base of the pirates. One against ten thousand. Where am I going to bury them? Judging by the knowledge in the head of the leader of the assault group, there were more than ten thousand pirates on board of the spaceship. Recently, the ''Ishnup Warriors'' had a large raid, and now the crew of most of the pirate ships have been relaxing here, descending loot and patching wounds.


    I got out of the ship of archaeologists already in the form of a batarian. The tattooed pirate was not the last figure on Board, although he had few subordinates in the overall power structure. Rather, he was the commander of a special forces unit that was sent on important assignments.


    I needed to destroy a lot of people, and the easiest way to do it was with their own hands. On some other ship, this might have been a problem, but here was a society of pathological murderers who dreamed of power and glory. I think a small bloody riot would be very useful.


    First, I had to break the ship''s internal communication system. Oddly enough, the entire technical section of the batarian ship was managed by a salarian. That''s where I went. The search for the victim was delayed because I had to go from end to end to catch up with a hard-working toad, constantly engaged in all sorts of activities. But there was also a plus, because I found him in a deserted technical room, where only a Salarian, two of his bodyguards and three batarian technicians were present.


    Here I decided to test my knowledge in Mass Effect technology. Earlier, after disassembling the weapons of ten attackers, I extracted the Zero Element. And now I had a weapon in my hand that combined magic, Ancient technology, and local technology.


    The first two shots showed that the base power of the weapon is described by the word ''overkill''. Two batarians in heavy armor literally disappeared. At least they were standing a little apart, so the salarian wasn''t hurt. After that, I sped up and quickly finished off the technicians with my sword.


    The salarian surprised me with a good reaction. He managed to pull out a gun and even managed to hit me a couple of times. That''s just the use of it was zero. After that, he dropped the weapon and reached for the multitool on his left hand, but I didn''t let him raise the alarm. After immobilizing the victim, I broke into her memory, reading the information about the ship.


    Almost immediately, I came across a reference to the presence of a network of radio jammers on the ship. They were needed in case someone tried to board the ship. In standard mode, they left a few frequencies clear for the pirate commanders to talk on. But it was possible to turn on the full suppression mode.


    The computer terminal was nearby, so I immediately used my new knowledge to log in to the network and give the appropriate command to the computer. Also, I blocked the internal connection through the computer network. To prevent disabling of this mode, I changed the main and spare passwords. After that, I could only sigh at the lack of time for thoughtful brain evisceration and wring the salarian''s neck.


    Then I went to the lair of one of the leaders of the local electorate. It was a krogan named Turchak, who led a fleet of three ships, the basis of which were krogan. Given the fact that ''Ishnup Star'' was a batarian group, it was easy to see that the authoritative krogan was not liked by the rest of the gang.


    When I reached my destination, I stumbled into a room filled with drunken krogans. Any other visitor would have thought ten times before doing this, but I was not scared by the crowd of local thugs. On the contrary, I was going to scare them.


    ¡°Turchak, I brought to you a message from the ataman.¡± I shouted to the entire room. The noise of conversation faded a little, and the head of the krogans rose to his feet.


    ¡°And what does Nergal''s belch need?¡±. He asked and poured a mug of some swill into his mouth.


    "He''s ousting you as squadron commander. All those present in this room will be executed for treason. And right now, my soldiers are clearing your barracks.¡±


    Krogan at first did not believe me, but the attempt to contact his subordinates naturally failed. And then he was not up to politics. I took out my ''blaster'', which now had the look of a conventional heavy assault rifle. A long line killed at least a dozen krogans and wounded as many more.


    The pirates rushed somewhere. Turchak slid into cover as fish, where he began to fire at me with a pistol. After a few seconds, he was handed a more powerful weapon, and I had to dodge the shots so as not to seem like an unkillable monster in the eyes of others.


    In a rustle, I ran away from the place of celebration while leaving the krogans alone. Then I was on my way to the ''throne room'', where a feast was being held with the participation of the leader of all this pirate rabble. On the way, I took the form of a Turchak. Normally, he didn''t walk around the ship alone, but my one-man theater had a limited number of staff. At least for the moment.


    "Rugert, Nergal''s bitch, I challenge you to a duel!" I roared as I entered the room. The guards tried to tie me down, but I easily scattered them, breaking the necks of a couple of particularly zealous ones. ¡°From now on, I will command the ''Star Ishnup''!¡±


    ¡°Kill him.¡± The batarian commanded, simultaneously activating the kinetic shield around his ''throne''. The force field that appeared cut one of the pirates in half, but no one paid any attention to him.


    The order was given, but there was no one to carry it out. In this room, only the guards I had just scattered had weapons. At the entrance, everyone was checked for weapons. They checked me, but no one expected me to be a weapon on my own.


    In front of an astonished audience, I performed a trick worthy of Houdini. I tilted my head back, opened my mouth wide, and pulled out a compact automatic blaster. After that, I started shooting defenseless batarians, most of whom could barely stand on their feet at all.


    Security tried to break into the hall, but I used the salarian tech''s multitool to close the main doors and block them. After that, I literally staged a genocide by shooting everyone present. Only Rugert and three of his closest henchmen were hiding behind a protective field, unable to stop me in any way.


    Finally, convinced that I would have to use something more powerful than a normal blaster to break through the kinetic shields, I promised to the pirate leader that I would personally take his head off... after I take over the ship. With that, I opened the emergency exit door and fled from the scene.


    Then I went to the barracks, where there were subordinates of the same tattooed pirate, from which I began my masquerade. Raising the fighters on the alarm, I went with them back to Rugert. Then I volunteered to personally finish off all the krogan, and then sent my subordinates to clean the living quarters of the krogan, where they were already waiting with open arms.


    The bloody bacchanalia on the ship was gaining momentum, and I was making even more confusion in the minds of the pirates as best I could. Half an hour later, it was no longer just a battle of batarians against krogans. A couple of captains also decided to catch fish in the muddy water, forming a third camp, which hit the back of ''my'' special forces storming the krogans.


    During all this time, none of the pirates were able to leave the ship, because it was still moving at superlight speed. Attempts to stop led to nothing, because I blocked the computer, and in the technical rooms next to the engine barricaded two dozen salarians, who after the death of their leader reasonably feared for their lives.


    Alas, this whole celebration of life could not last long. Rupert was killed in another firefight. This happened without my participation, but I was aware of the events, because I constantly monitored the situation on the ship through surveillance cameras, which I contacted via a secure laser communication channel.


    Just a dozen seconds after this death, the alarm sounds were heard throughout the ship, and I discovered that the self-destruct system had started counting down in the main computer. Most importantly, I only had thirty seconds of time. I spent twenty of them trying to hack into the computer to disable the countdown, and ten of them trying to protect myself with magic shields and the simplest chakra enhancement of the body. The self-destruct system was completely isolated, and in principle it was impossible to disable it remotely.


    When the countdown ended, there was a bright flash. All my magic shields were useless. The explosion was so strong that it literally vaporized the entire ship over a kilometer long. Only my crystal core could survive the disaster.


    And so, I was hanging in outer space a few light-years away from the nearest star. It was like the time I got here, but now I didn''t have a normal body, so I had nothing to build a stargate out of.


    All I could do were hanging in complete emptiness and reflect on how I had come to life like this. Obviously, such a finale was a consequence of my pride. I felt that no one could threaten me, but the reality refused to meet my expectations. The explosion of the ship has robbed me of everything I have been able to achieve since my arrival in this world. And now, I had to find a way to turn things back to normal.

 7.09 Mass Effect 2

    The solution to my problem with hovering in outer space was found quite quickly. After all, I only needed to move a small stone three centimeters in size. So, while my astral shells were not shrinking due to the lack of a physical body, I magically opened a stargate with a diameter of ten centimeters and moved to the planet with the shelter of Inusannon, where my beacon from the chakra was located. There I used the part of my body that I had discarded earlier to immediately get a normal vritras body that had all the necessary chemical elements in its composition.


    Taking a breath, I wondered what to do next. Despite the fact that this world was inhabited, there were quite a few intelligent beings on it. The batarians were just beginning to learn it and it was not an official migration, but simply the relocation of individuals who decided to start a new life in a new world. So, finding a normal spaceship here was a challenge.


    After thinking about this question, I decided to build my own spaceship. Now I knew the technology for creating engines based on the Mass Effect. And the hull of a ship can be the simplest. I don''t need an atmosphere or artificial gravity.


    The only problem with this solution was the need to get the Zero Element somewhere. But I had an entire Inusannon base at my side, where this element is located in every zombie, plus in the reactor itself.


    Bearing in mind what happened to the Inusannon themselves, I decided to disable the base''s main reactor first, and then deal with the huskies. I wasn''t going to make the same mistakes again. No more heroism - just simple and effective solutions.


    When I reached the entrance to the dungeon, I went down the main corridor and then down the Elevator shaft. To my surprise, I found myself in some technical rooms crammed with equipment to keep the stasis capsule running. There was nothing interesting here, so I quickly found an exit to the main room of the base. It turns out that in one of the rooms we missed a door that merged with the wall.


    I doppelgangered the form of one of the zombies and walked quietly to the reactor. The undead''s reaction to me was pretty funny. Every zombie I met paid attention to me, quickly ran closer, and then started scanning for signs of life. Not finding such, zombies fell into a stupor, and after a few seconds lost all interest to me.


    When I got to the reactor, I banally cut the wires going to the automatic power regulator. This triggered an emergency shutdown of the reactor, after which all I had to do was get inside the main chamber of the reactor and smash all the equipment there. After this act of vandalism, one could not worry that someone would be able to start the reactor again without carrying out major repairs. And then I turned into a crazy mixer that chopped all the zombies into mincemeat in just fifteen minutes.


    The collection of the zero Element lasted for a week. As it turned out, the technology of purification was quite complex, and even magic did not help me to speed up the process. I had to act ''the old-fashioned way'' and build a cascade of enrichment centrifuges. But in the end, I got more than ten kilograms of zero Element, which would have been enough to create a Battleship-class engine.


    The spaceship I created was the size of a minibus. There was only room for one undemanding passenger inside. In addition to me, there was a Mass Effect Core - it''s the main reactor, shield generators, one heavy-duty ''Blaster'' type gun, a pair of lasers, and an inertial engine that allowed this whole pile of debris to fly.


    There were no fuel storage facilities for the ship''s design. Instead, I created a wonderful thing called ''The Positron Cannon''. It ate a huge amount of energy, but it could level the ship''s electric charge without having to waste matter.


    On the tenth day, I climbed into my miracle trough and took off, entering the orbit of the planet. I had a map of the galaxy with the flight route in my memory, so there was no problem with laying the course. On the planet, I left the same beacon on the chakra, powering it so that the charge was enough for at least a hundred years of work.


    When I reached the relay and made two jumps, I changed course and went to the neighboring star system. Here was the space station of the pirates, where the ''archaeologists'' bought their ship. More precisely, the two Azari were the main ones in this company. A salarian scientist and a krogan had joined them at the beginning. And at the station, along with the purchase of the ship, they hired a batarian and a second salarian.


    I was interested in this station as a source of money. It was full of pirates, smugglers, and slavers who could be dispossessed in the name of the Moon. My ship''s shields were also a masking device, hiding it in all ranges of electromagnetic radiation.


    Of course, there were scanners that could bypass such a disguise, but then came into effect the microscopic size of the ship itself. I had worse visibility than a space torpedo specially designed to overlook defense systems.


    Thus, I was able to sneak up on the station and get on it, opening one of the technical hatches on the cladding. There I first went to the main reactor of the station, where I staged a small sabotage. It was not difficult to do this, as reading thoughts revealed to me all the secrets of local inhabitants.


    After I had made sure that the station would not explode and that no one would leave early, I proceeded to a thoughtful genocide of the local population, collecting all credits into my account. For the sake of such a case, it was necessary to get a professional multitool trader, which supported the conduct of financial transactions.


    This raid ended four hours later. More than fifty million credits fell into my clutches. I don''t know why I needed so much money, but my greed didn''t allow me to stop and fly away, knowing that there are vile but rich people who are not worthy to live in this world.


    After collecting the tribute, I went further along the route. The rest of the way passed without problems until I got out of the jump in the system controlled by asari. Here was battleship in the orbit of relay, which immediately began to scan me in all possible ways. I don''t think they were waiting for me personally.


    I don''t know if the asari tried to contact me via radio, but if they did, they didn''t do it on the same frequencies used on the batarian ships. And most likely they see me as a torpedo that arrived via the relay as a free gift. At least five seconds after I came out of the jump, they tried to burn me with a high-power laser. Well at least my shield, enhanced with chakra, was able to reflect the attack.


    "Hey, you critter, why are you fucking shooting at me?"  I yelled at all frequencies.


    The answer was a shot of two missiles, which rushed to me with great speed. I had to shoot them down with my Blaster on approach. That''s it, I was angry.


    ¡°Surrender, or you will be destroyed!¡± I shouted, bringing the ship''s weapons to peak power.


    In terms of size, my ship was a flea. But in fact it was a flying reactor with a gun built on the basis of inusannon technologies. After waiting ten seconds, I waited only for another volley of lasers. Well, you''ve chosen your own destiny.


    The volley of my gun literally tore three hundred meters of steel to shreds. The remains scattered in space, melted by the heat. I think I owed most of the power of the explosion to the ship''s reactor, but it was an epic sight. A flea killed an elephant with a single blow.


    There were no other ships nearby, so I proudly waved my tail and headed for the second planet in this system, where the asari colony was located. From here, I had to get to another repeater ten light-years away. But I didn''t have an exact direction. After all, I didn''t have a map of the galaxy because it evaporated with my body when the pirate ship exploded. Therefore, I planned to get to the planet, find any ship there, and copy a map of the location of inhabited worlds and relays.


    When I reached the far orbit of the planet, I found that a dozen warships of the class from the battleship to the frigate were circling around it. But just five minutes later, they all left, heading towards the repeater. Apparently, they got the information about my appearance there.


    Without hesitation, I went to the planet, found the location of the spaceport on it, and headed straight for it. As soon as I was approaching the planned landing site, the dispatcher contacted me.


    ¡°Unidentified flyer, immediately leave the area of the spaceport. Flights in this area are prohibited.¡±


    Apparently, because of my size, they were mistaken, and view me as an ordinary flying taxi. I ignored the warning and flew straight to one of the ships that was parked. As I flew closer, I looked at the half-disassembled hull of the ship in frustration. It looks like I won''t be able to find the right computer here.


    In the meantime, three police fighters were coming towards me, circling around me, at the same time announcing that I should immediately proceed to the border of the spaceport and there surrender to the authorities. In case of disobedience, I was threatened with destruction.


    I didn''t argue or make excuses, but with three quick shots I vaporized the law enforcement officers. After that, another charge of plasma went to the dispatcher tower, where, apparently, there was an observer who noticed me. I expected more troops to come after that, but no one else came after me.


    The ship parking port which I arrived, turned out to be a graveyard of decommissioned equipment. As I circled it, I came across an almost complete ship standing next to a building. I landed next to it and went to the source of the parts I needed.


    A couple of asari blocked my path. They were armed guards, but apparently, they didn''t know that I had just blown up three police flyers.


    "Stop! This is a private area. Who are you and what are you doing here?


    "I want to buy a couple of parts from this ship." I decided to solve the case in peace.


    ¡°No selling.¡± They declined immediately. "Get out of here, now!!"


    I didn''t listen any further, shooting the guards before they could point their weapons at me. Blaster shots were fired from the building in my direction, so I sent a more powerful response there. There was an explosion, the building folded into itself, and there was silence. That''s good! The sun is shining, the birds are singing. Or are they grasshoppers instead of birds? Ah, the hell with this xenofauna.


    When I reached the ship, I was surprised to find that it was fully operational and was even preparing to take off. I had to take a swift leap into the air, land on the roof of the ship, and then form a power blade similar to the one we used to cut metal at the inusannon base. With it, I quickly formed a personal hatch for myself, then leaked inside the ship.


    Here I made a couple of short circuits, which caused the takeoff to stop. All I had to do was go to the control room, where I was met by a lone batarian armed with a heavy blaster.


    "What do you want? I don''t have any money.¡±


    I didn''t listen to the bleating, but with a quick jerk I closed the distance, snatched the weapon from his limp hands, and cast a memory-reading spell. A minute later, I had all the access codes. I connected to my computer and downloaded all the interesting information. After that, all that remained was to chop off the head of the batarian smuggler and go to the exit.


    On the way I looked into the cabin and pulled out from the safe some artifact Forerunner, which the owner of the ship was going to sell. He came here to repair the ship, and unfortunately came across me.


    Without encountering any resistance, I reached my gravitsapa and began entering orbit. Then they found me again and began to demand surrender and remorse. When I got out of the atmosphere, a frigate azari appeared nearby - one of those that left the planet less than half an hour ago. I didn''t think long, and I vaporized it with a ship''s cannon. After that, I went to the superlight speed and went to the relay I needed.


    The whole subsequent route to the Citadel followed the same scenario. At the exit of the jump, I was met by one or more ships that immediately opened fire. In response, I destroyed them and flew on. Before jumping over the relay, I usually had to vaporize those who stood in my way.


    It seems that the learning capacity of the population of this galaxy was zero, because they attacked me with enviable constancy. I''d understand if more ships opposed me every time. But usually a couple of frigates or a battleship tried to intercept me. Only once they meet me with a committee consist of a dreadnought and two aircraft carriers. I had to work with them for about ten minutes, because I couldn''t blow up their reactor with one shot.


    So, I made the last jump and ended up in the Citadel system. There was only one relay and there were no planets or even stars. Surprisingly, no one attacked me here, although I met a dozen battleships and fifty frigates.


    ¡°The Spectrum Tela Wazir speaking to you.¡± I heard the broadcast on the radio. ¡°Unknown ship, name yourself.¡±


    ¡°Have you decided to commit ritual suicide, too?¡± I asked in response.


    ¡°Suicide?¡± There was confusion in Azari''s voice.


    ¡°Yeah. Anyone who attacks me will be destroyed. I''ve proved it twelve times already. It really was so hard to understand it in the first time.¡±


    "You are accused of attacking The Alliance ships...¡±


    "And you''re accused of attacking me!" I interrupted this bleating. ¡°I gave you a verdict - death. Do you have objections, or will you humbly accept your destiny?¡±


    I wasn''t afraid of this whole armada. First of all, I was getting used to avoiding ship scanners and attempts to destroy me. It was enough to shift a few kilometers to the side every couple of seconds, using the Mass Effect. At such distances it was like teleportation.


    And secondly, on the planet Azari, as well as next to each relay, I left an invisible beacon of chakra. So, if necessary, I could return to the planet, assemble a new ship there, and then continue my ''journey'' from the last ''saved'' point.


    ¡°Let''s make a deal.¡± She tried to save her ass. "What do you want?"


    "Opposite, what do you want? I was flying, I didn''t touch anyone, I repaired the Forerunner artifact in peace. And you bitches started shooting at me as soon as I came out of the jump.¡±


    "Your ship''s signature resembles a proton torpedo. In this case, the Navy has standard procedures that prescribe the destruction of such...¡±


    ¡°I don''t give a fuck!¡± I interrupted those excuses again. "They were the first who attacked me and were destroyed. The reason doesn''t matter So, will you let me through, or will I have to destroy this toy fleet of yours first? My patience is running out.¡±


    "Where are you going? Here is...¡±


    ¡°It''s not your business.¡±


    ¡°If you want us not to attack you, you will need to install automatic identification signal transmission system.¡±


    I did not listen to all this nonsense, and immediately moved to super-light speed, heading to the Citadel. For thousands of years of domination in the galaxy, The Azari are so accustomed to acting from a position of strength that they perceived such ultimatums as negotiating. Basically, I acted as well, that''s just the strength in this case was on my side.


    The citadel was a space station of huge size and resembled a giant daisy with folded petals. As a result, the petals formed something like a cylinder. All this bandura rotated at a decent speed, creating on the inner surface of the petals a semblance of artificial gravity.


    I slipped into the gap between the petals and began to approach the residential area. On the inside, each petal was covered by a force field that kept the air inside. This field acted on gas, but freely missed massive objects. In front of my eyes, a lot of flyers passed through it, heading for other petals.


    For my ship, the force field also was not an obstacle, and I was able to land on the roof of the building in a residential area. The surrounding non-humans looked at my gravitasapa with surprise. Apparently, the parking of such devices in this place was prohibited. I went to the nearest humanoid, which turned out to be a Salarian, and used a spell of memory reading on him. The victim lost consciousness, and others began to run away with panic wails.


    From the memory of my ''guide'' I learned that the aircraft parking located on the lower levels. All sorts of criminal elements also live there. Having learned all I needed, I climbed back into the ship and went to one of these cloaks. Although outwardly the Citadel was quite well-off and developed, it had enough dark corners, where even local law enforcement agencies preferred not to go.


    After flying into such slums, I once again used the memory reading spell to find out in detail where I could ''park'' my ship. However, such boorish treatment of local residents did not remain unrequited. The friends of the knowledge donor tried to attack me, so first I had to calm them down by setting up a bloodbath with dozens of dismembered corpses.


    Finally, after half an hour, I was able to find a suitable parking spot. It was an abandoned warehouse with only one entrance. I changed the password for opening the door and set up a simple trap - in case someone other than me enters the warehouse, the ship will burn the intruder with lasers or with weak blaster shot.


    After that, I took the form of a krogan and went to investigate the Citadel and gather rumors. Croghan I chose due to the fact that these entities in principle do not have documents. They considered all legal issues meaningless, and as an argument in court considered only muscles and blasters.


    If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    My heroic passage move between entire fleet made a lot of noise in the media. Mostly journalists relished the details of how several dozen ships failed to destroy one ship the size of a flyer. And the destruction of the Alliance forces in my path showed that, from a combat point of view, a fleet of spaceships is completely useless. The most of them quoted my phrase about ''toy fleet''. Some politicians demanded an increase of the defense budget, and their opponents proposed to abolish all military forces altogether because of their apparent futility.


    My first appearance in public was captured by security cameras, so the police were looking for a guy in a spacesuit, or at least a man, and didn''t pay any attention to the krogans. During a week of slow research, I managed to gather some information about John Shepard ¨C A Specter who saved the Citadel from the Geth invasion.


    Two years ago, he was declared dead in a shipwreck. But now there are rumors that Sheppard has returned to life and is assembling a team. Someone hinted that the former Specter had become a terrorist and now working for the Cerberus group. Others fervently argued that Shepard was fighting for the happiness and freedom of the entire galaxy. The Reapers were almost all perceived as a mythical threat, invented by some politicians in order to gather more power in their hands.


    All these rumors were expectable, but they did not answer to the main question: where is Sheppard at the moment. I thought about visiting the key locations where the events of the ''quest'' to save the galaxy were supposed to take place, but I didn''t have time to make a final decision.


    At one point, I received a call to my multitool from one of the informants. He claimed that the spaceship Normandy had just docked at one of the Citadel''s docks. I promised that if the information was confirmed, the informant would receive a bonus of fifty thousand credits, and then immediately rushed to the twenty-seventh deck of the Central ring. Along the way, I took the form of an ordinary human, copying the image of my host from the Stargate world.


    I found Sheppard coming out of the security checkpoint. Mordin Solus and Miranda Lawson appeared to be walking with him. As I approached my victim, I simultaneously scanned him in every way I could. For this case I even activated the long-prepared chakra construct, which purpose was to conduct a full diagnosis of the patient''s health.


    ¡°Hi, Shepard.¡± I communicated to the main character of mankind, coming to the distance of a couple of steps. "You''re dead."


    "Thank you, I''ve already been informed. But the rumors of my death are somewhat exaggerated.¡± He answered. "Who are you?"


    ¡°My name is Atman. And when I said you are dead, I meant you are dead right here and now.¡±


    "What?" Sheppard began to look around in search of ambush.


    "You''re dead." I repeated, noticing how Cerberus''s henchwoman started to worry. "Your body is a corpse that operates at the expense of Reaper¡¯s technology. You''re basically more of a computer than a human being.


    ¡°No!¡± Shepard almost shouted. His eyes widened in horror.


    "Haven''t you ever asked how Cerberus managed to resuscitate a two-year-old corpse? There''s a specialist standing next to you who knows exactly what you are.¡±


    "Don''t listen to him.¡± Miranda intervened. "Come on, we have more important things to do."


    ¡°Don''t dare shush me, Ghost¡¯s bitch.¡± I besieged her. "Or I''ll do to you what you did to Sheppard."


    "Why should I believe what you say?" Techno-zombie asked me.


    "You don''t have to believe anything. The Citadel is full of doctors. Just go to any clinic and get a full checkup.¡±


    ¡°But... I''m human!¡± Shepard tried to convince himself. "I must save humanity. How can I be a Reaper?¡± He muttered the end of the sentence under his breath, but my superhuman ears could hear what he was saying.


    Interesting. Is he a figure, too? My ideological enemy?


    ¡°I can help you in the fight against the Reapers.¡±  I expressed my idea. "Unlike the Ghost, I don''t need to hide my knowledge of the Reapers from you. Did you know, by the way, that the Ghost is a husk and has long been acting in the interests of the Reapers?


    "That''s lie!" Miranda Lawson couldn''t stand my revelations.


    Mordin Solus had been carefully to our conversation all this time, but did not interfere. It seems that my revelations have also been stunning to him.


    "Is it? Any medical scanner can confirm my words. Even a portable model can distinguish a living person from a cyborg.¡±


    "The Ghost used our experience to solve his health problems, but he works for the benefit of humanity.¡±


    "So, you don''t deny that he''s a machine anymore?" You don''t understand a tenth of the Reaper technology. They can control the Ghost in such way that he won''t know about it. Tell me, didn''t you get the feeling that by sending you on missions, he was trying to destroy you rather than help with the investigation?¡±


    "How do you know all of this?"  Shepard asked me. My words sowed doubts in his heart, but he also has some doubt about my words.


    "I know a lot of things. Only a selected few can understand how I know the details of this story.¡±


    My companion''s eyes lit up with understanding.


    "So, you are¡­"


    "One of those who must survive the Harvest." I answered to unspoken question.


    "What? What are you talking about?¡± Miranda asked.


    "I think we have a lot of topics to talk about." Sheppard Said.


    ¡°I agree. And it would be better to do it not in the middle of the street, but on your ship. Some things should be hidden from the uninitiated.¡±


    "We''ll discuss it later."  Jack nodded.


    "Then, you should go about your business, I''ll wait for you here." I made my offer. "And then we can go back to your ship together and talk."


    A few hours later, I went with Sheppard to his ship, where we had a conversation. I used the Fuinjutsu barrier against eavesdropping, so I didn''t have to worry about the Ghost finding out what we were talking about. Actually, the deal with Shepard was simple: I will help him to learn more about the Reapers and save his ass from time to time. I called my own interest the study of Reaper technologies to know the limits of their power and how to resist them.


    Before we could finish, Shepard received a call from the Ghost. I left him to talk to his superiors while I went to the lab to see Mordin Solus.


    ¡°Hi, Muzzle!¡± I greeted the salarian. He made a nasty face at this treatment.


    "My name is Mordin.¡±


    "Well, that''s what I said: Muzzle.¡± He made a vile muzzle for such treatment.


    "What do you want?"


    "Look what I have."


    I took the Forerunner artifact confiscated from the smuggler from the backpack. It looked like a curved brick made of black glass. I ran my finger along its surface, leaving glowing traces. When an inscription of an unknown language appeared on the front surface, a holographic projector was activated, creating a moving image above this piece and reproducing the sound. That''s just the image ''crumbled'' into separate squares and pixels, and the sound of the voice was drowned out by wheezing and hissing.


    "Can you fix it? This is a Forerunner¡¯s artifact that contains an important message to the descendants. Unfortunately, the data carrier was damaged.¡±


    Muzzle changed his anger to mercy and began to study the artifact, simultaneously asking me questions about its origin. Basically, I already knew everything about this device. I even knew that the recording was erased by Reaper himself, who did not want to spread the ''extra'' information. Moreover, in the memory sat an insidious computer virus, whose task was to attract the attention of the Reaper. This is the virus I was going to ''test'' in real conditions. I wondered what would happen when it got into the ship''s memory.


    Alas, from observing the study of the artifact, I was distracted by Sheppard, who entered the laboratory.


    ¡°We have information about the dead ship of the Reapers, where we can get a recognition system of their own-foe.¡± He made me happy. It was my real reason of visiting this ship and reason contacting to the biorobot.


    ¡°Great!¡± I rubbed my hands together. "Sheppard, with this system, you can pretend to be a Reaper, make a revolution, and take over the power by subjugating these machines. And then you can force them to work for the benefit of the national economy or order them to kill themselves. Everything is in your hands.¡±


    "Do you think it''s possible?" Future chief Reaper expressed his doubts.


    "If you don''t try, you won''t know. One thing I can say for sure, they will accept you as their own. You really are one of them.¡±


    ¡°Please don¡¯t remind. I still have a report on the results of the medical research before my eyes.¡±


    We started preparing for the flight and an hour later we were already departing from the Citadel. Twelve hours later, we approached the bulk of the Reaper ship, hovering in the void of space. Here I distinctly felt the activity of the astral Reaper. Its tentacles slid just inches from the surface of the ship, making no attempt to get inside.


    The reason for this was banal. Susie, the artificial intelligence of Normandy, was constantly broadcasting a special signal to the surrounding space, which told to the Reaper, temporarily refrain from consuming this delicacy. Yes, even the Reaper virus that had entered her memory was immediately detected and neutralized with the help of a master key.


    It became more and more obvious to me that this whole story was a game. Not Shepard''s game with the Reapers, but the Reaper''s game with his future food. Painfully familiar emotions slipped from this essence. Such feelings my parasite radiated before devouring another victim. Apparently, they are from one family.


    Sheppard, Mordin and Tali-Zora, a quarian which has experience with furious computers, went to the ship. And of course, I got involved with them. We walked through the empty corridors, got to some control point and there pressed a couple of buttons on the computer.


    In my opinion, only idiots could believe that such actions could hack something on the ship which were reasonable computer. It looks like all the members of Normandy, before the ''recruitment'' went through the process of lobotomy. Why would intelligent computers have a control panel and keyboard? If the Reapers'' computers could be hacked so easily, the ''Russian hackers'' would have crack them in just a couple of hours.


    The whole ''quest'' was more like a scene from a low-budget TV cinema. The idea may have been normal, but for the sake of budget savings the script was simplified, some of the scenes were cut out, and as compensation stuck more evil aliens, which the heroes need to crumble into cabbage. As a result, the quest participants thought more about how to stay alive, rather than about how cheap a phony they got into.


    When Sheppard and the company went on the way back, cutting through hordes of monsters, I decided to stay on the ship of the Reapers, which required to play a convincing scene of self-sacrifice. I didn''t even have to strain too much, because Reaper, feeling my presence, set on us literally thousands of collectors. At the same time, most of the enemies attacked me exclusively, not paying any attention to all the other violators.


    I waited until Shepard was off to the Normandy, then I stopped holding back. Massive heavy Blaster fire destroyed all opponents, then I turned on the disguise mode and leaked into the technical compartments of the ship. The most important point here was the disguise from the Reaper. As soon as he stopped perceiving me, all his puppets immediately lost the will to act.


    For the next month, I roamed the ship, watching how the Reaper controlling its puppets. For one thing I studied the technologies of the Reapers, which were very insane advanced. Judging by their actions, they weren''t using even one percent of their power right now. A normally protected Reaper ship could not be damaged using current cycle technology.


    Usually Reaper begin the Harvest as soon as the most advanced civilization of the cycle reached a certain level of development. This ensured that the technology of the opponents did not cross a certain threshold, and therefore nothing can prevent their destruction.


    After a month of searching, I finally got to the most important - the central memory store of a computer. Actually, physically I discovered it after a week, but I was able to decipher the information only now.


    Studying the memory of the Reaper allowed me to fully understand what is happening in this galaxy. It is worth starting with the fact that this ship was a mass grave for a race that lived in the time of the Leviathans. So, its memory contained information about those distant events that took place a billion years ago.


    The ship itself was now actually a corpse, because a shot of a huge kinetic weapon destroyed its ''personal matrix'' - a computer that makes basic tactical decisions. It was impossible to restore this computer, because in fact it was the matrix of consciousness of millions of sentient beings of this race. But the absence of ''brains'' did not affect the connection of this ship with reaper, who continued to monitor the operation of all systems on board.


    As a result, I managed to get to the memory of the astral entity itself. The intelligent ship was constantly analyzing data from its memory, reliving the destruction of its civilization time after time. I have slightly interfered with this process, forcing it to concentrate on certain events. And when the personal memory of the computer was not enough to reproduce these ''digital dreams'', the information came from the Reaper himself. It seemed to be an automatic process, so while the Reaper was indulging in the melancholy of memories, I was learning his story.


    This story began in the days when the Leviathans ruled this galaxy. Their main ''weapon'' was telepathic power, capable of enslaving any intelligent being. This ability depended not only on the structure of the leviathans'' brains, but also on their astral bodies. In fact, this could be called a type of magic or psi ability.


    Quite naturally, some of these creatures wanted to strengthen their abilities. After all, between them there was a constant struggle for power, and at the top of the society of leviathans sat the one who was best ability to brainwash his fellows.


    One of the leviathans found out that it can strengthen himself by absorbing the astral shells of intelligent beings. At the same time, the amplification was temporary, so that to ''maintain the form'' it was necessary to constantly eat ''other people''s souls'' by hundreds and thousands. In principle, on the scale of even one planet, this number was minuscule. Leviathan could not absorb more astral shells, so he concentrated on quality.


    The result was a civilization of one of the intelligent races, the meaning of which was the worship of their ''God''. And the most prominent psionics of this race went become feed of the merciless monster. This religion was so strong and filled with such horror of the `God of the Deep` that they attracted the attention of real demons.


    The first contact between dark astral entities and leviathans ended with him eating of uninvited guests. Along with this, he received their knowledge, which changed his picture of the world. The universe was huge, and there were many beings in it for whom the all-powerful leviathans were nothing more than small crustaceans, such universal plankton. Moreover, the demons have already informed their overlords about this world, so the destruction of the entire leviathan race was already a matter of decision.


    But, as they say, if you can''t win then lead them. Leviathan decided to enter the service of the demons, in order to get the maximum benefit from the upcoming destruction of their brethren. There was a huge ritual of blood sacrifice, in which all members of the race who worshipped their cruel God were killed. Their souls, filled with pain, horror, and hopelessness, was sent to the Dark Lords of the universe. In result, they liked this dinner so much that they appointed Leviathan as the Reaper, whose duty it is to arrange such feasts, destroying all representatives of any race.


    As a reward for his actions, the Reaper lost his physical body, ascended to the spiritual level of existence, and most importantly, gained power over all computers. The Leviathans were creatures who understood brainwashing more than anyone else. That''s why they used computers to control their actions. And as soon as the leviathan began to behave ''wrong'', the computer immediately signaled about it and even tried to carry out activities to remove suggestion.


    The ability to manage any computers in this situation became a ''trump card''. The Reaper could imperceptibly influence another Leviathan, subjugating them to itself, and none of the sensors would be able to track this interference. As a rule, such warning systems were built into the body of leviathans, so it was extremely difficult to hack a computer using physical access. But ''astral hacking'' was impossible to track or prevent.


    As a result, after only a few thousand years, the Reaper became the secret ruler of the galaxy. Then he began performing mass sacrifices of entire races, using various robots or other computer systems as tools.


    After a couple of dozen rituals, when the ''junior races'' were almost over, leviathans became interested in these strange events. Their stupefying brain could come up with nothing better than to create artificial intelligence ''Catalyst'' and convey to him all the technological advances of their race.


    Reaper understood that despite all his mental power, he was only one immaterial being. So, he needed powerful slaves. And soulless computers were best suited for this role. He reprogrammed the ''Catalyst'' into submission only to him and set up the first Harvest, destroying the Leviathan race. Harvest was not just a sacrifice of souls. It allowed to create from astral shells of victims the strongest psychic anchor, able to strengthen the Reaper.


    This knowledge also came from demons, and the leviathans were the first to test it. As a result, the first ship with artificial intelligence was created, containing the core of personality, consisting of an alloy of consciousness of millions of leviathans. The ritual strengthened the Reaper, giving him some semblance of a physical body - the ship itself.


    Existence in the form of a single ascended soul was quite a chore, and the presence of a physical anchor allowed him to organize his memory. Without support on the physical plane, the Reaper''s mind was plunged into a state close to sleep, and the ''Catalyst'' actually became his brain, allowing him to realize the depth of the problem.


    The gift of demons turned out to be a trap. Over time, reaper became more and more ''stupid'', slipping into banal animal existence. His brain solved the problem, but only temporarily. During the sacrifice, Reaper absorbed the rough astral shells of the souls, increasing his power and... sizes. And the bigger he became, the harder it was for him to remain conscious.


    Thus, a vicious circle was formed. The Reaper sacrificed another race, grew larger, and used the victims '' psychic shells to create another core, which was installed on a spaceship with artificial intelligence.


    All this meat processing plant has existed for more than a billion years, and during this time Reaper has reached the size of the galaxy itself. But at the same time, despite all his efforts, this creature became too stupid. The more cores were subordinated to the Reaper, the more sprayed his consciousness was. As a result, the quality has passed into quantity, and the self-awareness of the Reaper has slid to the level of banal shrimp, reacting to stimuli. It was sad and... funny sight.


    The fact that I was able to connect to the memory of the Reaper and learn everything that interested me, proved that this patient is actually in a state of lethargic sleep. Alas, this parody of Cthulhu did not threaten to wake up one day and destroy the universe. Moreover, soon he himself was to become feed for demons. However, the concept of ''soon'' here was relative. It could have been tens or even hundreds of millions of years before this point. But since I''m in this world, it''s worth considering how this situation can be used.


    In order not to be distracted by the camouflage from the astral claws of the Reaper, I opened a portal to the planet from which I began my journey through this galaxy. I needed privacy and time to come up with a proper action plan.


    And so, after two months of thinking, I was ready to act. After climbing to the top of a high mountain, I fell into meditation, and then mentally turned to the world around me.


    ¡°I call the Game Judge to conclude a mutually beneficial deal.¡±


    After five minutes of such meditation, I felt the presence of someone else''s consciousness, which breathed with unlimited power. It was not the amorphous mass of the Reaper. The power of this entity was like a blazing fire that could burn everything.


    "What do you want to offer me?" A question popped into my head.


    "I suggest to the Judge exchange one of my Justice Points for the coordinates of the known space worlds whose technologies will not violate the rules of the Game in this galaxy if I move them here."


    "What benefit from this Justice Point to me?" The Judge''s thoughts were filled with boredom and contempt of the insignificant microbe in my face.


    ¡°This Justice Point is an expression of the duty of another Judge, to whom I have sacrificed the souls of powerful game figures. By conceding part of this debt, I will give you the right to demand the return of a figure of a similar quality or some kind of reciprocal service.¡±


    My scam was based on the assumption that the Game in this world is controlled by another Judge. At the same time, the Justice Points were largely supposed to be a kind of cheat that exists outside the framework of standard rules. Therefore, it was quite possible to allow a broader interpretation of their meaning, especially by another Judge.


    I felt my mind was scanned, having studied my thoughts on this deal. It was faster than if I tried to explain something even through mental communication.


    "It''s a cheat." The Judge confirmed my thoughts. "But you''re right, you can use it once. So, you don''t need my help in the game itself?¡±


    Judging by the Judge''s emotions, this question was more of a formality that allowed certain rules to be used as an excuse.


    ¡°No. All I need is knowledge - the coordinates of the worlds that I can use to open the Stargate on my own initiative.¡±


    ¡°Very good.¡± The Judge nodded in satisfaction. ¡°You already know about the existence of some game worlds, so I''ll give you their coordinates. This does not reveal any fundamentally new information to you, but only allows you to use your own abilities. The exchange is completed.¡±


    With these words, I felt a separate memory block appear in my mind, containing a list of coordinates for opening the Stargate. At the same time, there was also a small PostScript that notified me that each of the addresses I can use only once, after which it will be erased from my memory. I was also forbidden to copy or save this information in any other way.


    However, there was no sense in such copying. I''m physically unable to use the coordinates twice. Because one of the parameters in them was the time of arrival, and being in the same time in two copies was against the laws of the Universe.


    If I''m interested in returning to some world, I can just create a beacon there that reads the ''current coordinates'' and then transmits them to me with the chakra. This energy could operate in all worlds at once, which gave me a lot of opportunities. For example, I am still felling the work of my fuinjutsu in the Stargate Universe and, if I want, I could return to the gate installer when I left that world.


    After looking through the list of addresses, I realized that there was also a case. I didn''t know what the worlds were at each of the addresses. Looks like I''m going to have to jump at random. The list of addresses didn''t even have any order relative to each other. In memory, they were more like a handful of beans thrown into a cup.


    Well, I''m about to start a new adventure, and in the meantime, it''s worth preparing a foothold in this world. I will not only travel here, but I would have to bring something with me that could destroy the Reaper and all other intelligent life forms in this galaxy.

 7.10 Dead Space 2

    Coming out of the portal, I found myself in the distant orbit of a yellow dwarf. There were no objects near, so I decided to focus on checking the laws of nature that were different again. I was happy to find out that the magic works here, although not as effective as expected. Chakra was still unmanageable. But the laws of physics were something of a middle ground between the world of Stargate and Mass Effect.


    Overall, the situation was pretty good, so I could focus on figuring out what kind of world I was in. Scans of the radio range immediately revealed the presence of a powerful source of radio signal relatively close to me. Well, by cosmic standards. In the same direction was a gas giant with a system of rings.


    I used a already developed chakra-magic-stargate template to move ten million kilometers forward and to the side. It was immediately clear that I was now further away from the source of the signals than I had been before. Initially, I appeared only a couple of million kilometers away from it. Using the triangulation method, I calculated the position of the signal source and moved directly to it.


    This time I was a hundred kilometers away from the asteroid orbiting the gas giant. The asteroid''s diameter was close to fifty kilometers, and a space station was built on its surface a couple of dozen kilometers in diameter. The movement of spaceships here was not very busy. I only saw one ship docked at the station. No more spaceships were observed in the space around it.


    The distance to the station was small, so I used an anti-gravity spell to start moving slowly toward it. This spell''s efficiency was not enough for a large acceleration. However, I was in no hurry. A couple of hours later, I hit the station at a speed of about a hundred kilometers per hour. Immediately, an electromagnet in my body was activated, which securely fixed me to the metal cladding.


    I took the form of a man in a spacesuit and flew near the station, pushing off from it with my telekinesis. This spell required the presence of a nearby ''support points'' for its work, which was performed by the station itself and my body. Pretty quickly I found some kind of technical hatch and got to it. I couldn''t open it properly, but found open emergency doors right under it. After that, I tritely cut a hole in the hatch, leaked into it, and then the emergency doors closed behind me.


    I also shamelessly hacked the next hatch, and then found myself in some technical rooms. Here I quickly found a computer console where I could read the inscriptions in English. Well, at least the station was built by humans. I tried to connect to the computer directly, but without knowing the basics of data communication protocols, it was difficult to do.


    Fifteen minutes later, my picking on the computer interrupted by the arrival of a female technician. I immediately hid and hid, waiting for the prey. The technician went to the hatch that I had disfigured, leaned down to the hole, and began to swear, cursing unknown pests. At that moment, I crept up behind her and penetrated her with my memory reading spell.


    A minute later I knew that I was in the Solar System on a fragment of the planet Titan, the year was 2511, and the station docked ship ''USG Ishimura'' class ''Planetary Ripper''. That was enough to identify the world I was in. It was created based on the game Dead Space. And the ''main villains'' here were necromorphs and their owners Markers.


    At the moment, the necromorphs¡¯ invasion into the station hadn''t started yet, so I had time to prepare and decide what to do. However, judging by the woman''s memories, the situation at the station was already extremely tense and almost every second person became psychotic.


    Having found out everything necessary, I extracted the identification system from the woman''s body. A special chip was implanted in the body of every citizen at the age of fourteen, which served as a passport. In order not to raise the alarm too early, I broke the victim''s neck and threw her corpse into one of the storage rooms. Anyway, all the people on the station will be killed by necromorphs or when the Marker explodes, so I didn''t see the point in keeping anyone alive. The ''best'' thing that could wait this woman was to sit in the closet until the necromorphs discovered her. Fate is worse than death, in my opinion.


    Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    After that, I took the appearance of a male technician in a standard spacesuit and headed toward the living quarters, using the chip to open the doors. At the same time, I checked activity on the astral level for signs of the Obelisk''s impact. There was something like that, but I couldn''t understand anything concrete.


    After ten minutes of wandering through the dark corridors, I came out into the hall, where there were three people. Two of them were wearing the tech suits I already knew, and the third looked more like a boss in a business suit.


    "What do you say, Franco?"  The boss said to the man who was now poking at the panels next to the half-open doors in the wide aisle. I stopped to listen to the conversation. With my abilities, twenty meters was not an obstacle in this matter.


    "It''s a diversion.¡± The technician spoke without interrupting from the repairs. ¡°Someone intentionally broke the solenoid and the solenoid of the gravity compensator. Sarah, can you give me the pliers?¡±


    The second technician was a woman who pulled the tool out of the drawer and shoved it into her partner''s hand.


    ¡°How long will it take to repair?¡± The boss asked.


    ¡°I can do it in half an hour. Maybe faster.¡±


    ¡°That''s good. When you''re done, contact me. We need to help one person get to the computer. Something doesn''t work for him there, and I need a report from him tomorrow.¡±


    ¡°We''ll do it.¡± Franco agreed.


    "Well, I''m off.¡±


    The man in the business suit headed for the elevator while I mentally rubbed my hands together. Judging from the conversation that had taken place, this was time when playing a scene involving Franco Delisle - the same guy who released Isaac Clarke from stasis in a psychiatric clinic. This means that the ''invasion'' is about to begin, and I have a real chance to get to the very beginning of this story.


    After waiting five minutes, I applied a scanning spell and made sure there were no other people around. I walked calmly toward Franco, who was still busy with repairs. Sarah was standing with her back to me, so she didn''t notice my approach.


    I decided to take on the role of Franco, but to portray a more ¡®cooler¡¯ version of him. I also had to somehow trick the Marker into believing that I was under its control. The last task was complicated by the fact that I basically had no brain, and I was not going to remove the magic protection to give an incomprehensible artifact access to my vritras body. So, I decided to rent someone else''s brain.


    Approaching the victim, I opened the vertical mouth from head to chest, pulled Franco towards me, and then ''bit off'' his head and upper body. Sarah screamed at the best-of-nightmares spectacle, but she couldn''t escape because her body was bound by a paralysis spell.


    I opened the man''s body and extracted his head, spine, lungs and heart, liver and kidneys. All this I moved inside my body, and then began to get rid of all the ''extra'', spitting out bloody lumps. I think it was even more terrifying than the necromorph''s attack. After a couple of minutes, I got rid of all the bones and other unnecessary tissue. I only needed a brain, but in addition to it I had to take a ''life support system'' that could support its operation for a day.


    Finally, I settled all the parts of poor Franco inside my body. Simultaneously with this operation of transplantation, I dressed on the astral shells of the donor, and also exposed his soul, covering my existence with it. The last step was to take the form of Franco and connect my senses to his brain, giving the impression that he was perceiving the world as usual. Also, with the help of magic and direct influence on the brain, I subdued Franco''s mind, actually making him believe that everything I do is actually done by him.


    "Sarah, don''t be afraid of me.¡±  I said to Franco''s lover. "I''m your favorite Franco."


    "No, I don''t think so. No! Don''t come. You''re not him." The girl tried to crawl away, but her legs and hands did not listen to her.


    "I''m sorry, but I have to do it. I hope you can forgive me in the next life. I must save him. Save all of us!¡±


    With these words, I picked up a piece of pipe, went to Sarah and stuck this ''weapon'' right into her eye, piercing her head through. Her corpse jerked and fell silent. Franco watched the scene with my eyes. On the one hand, he wanted to cry and on the other he knew that all this was for the common good.


    This point was not revealed in the game, but Franco Delisle was a unitologist. He had an extremely important task: after the necromorph invasion, he had to free Isaac Clarke and deliver him to the Church of Unitology, so that Diana, the head of the Department, could take him out of the station, and then use him to create new Markers.


    By killing Sarah in front of him, I created a hole in Franco''s mind that the Marker was quick to exploit. As a rule, this alien artifact used images of deceased relatives to influence people''s minds. For Franco, this was supposed to be Sarah.


    I used magic to hide the bodies, then went straight to the main hospital. Franco had a detailed plan of the hospital in his head, including the location of the stasis capsule with Isaac Clarke. So, all I had to do was follow the route.

 7.11 Dead Space 2

    I appeared on the site much earlier than in the canon, so I decided to pass the time by watching the breeding process of necromorphs. Having comfortably settled in one of the cafes, I began to observe the entrance to the hospital. There was a large hall, playing the role of the square. Nearby were the paths of the local subway, in general, the place was quite lively.


    The apocalypse will began in about three hours. At first, several people shouted from the aisle leading to the subway. The people around them looked at them as if they were idiots. A couple of dozen seconds later, a couple of bloodied citizens ran out of the same place. That made people nervous. But before the people realized what was happening, a dozen necromorphs ran out of the passageway and immediately began to tear people apart. Worst of all, a minute later, along with the reinforcements arrived two dozen infectors, who began to scurry busily around the neighborhood, turning the living and dead people into necromorphs.


    Despite the general panic and monsters running in different directions, the first creature appeared to me in the cafe only ten minutes later. By this time, the customers had already fled, and the staff had hidden in the back room. So, the necromorph rushed right to me. I didn''t disappoint him, and I ran to meet him.


    I had magic, and if I wanted to, I could destroy this creature in a fraction of a second. But my task was different. Inside my body, I created a katana-like sword. Now I pulled it out, put a strengthening spell on the blade, and chopped the necromorph into a salad in just a couple of seconds. After that, I laid the remains directly on the table in front of me and began to investigate them.


    Necromorph biotechnologies were extremely interesting. In fact, the body of the creature in front of me consisted of two components. Most of it was the normal organic matter of the human body. But the smaller one was a conditionally living organism that could transform organic matter into any desired form. What is most interesting, the energy for these transformations was taken by the necromorph from somewhere on the astral level of dimension.


    After studying the necromorph, I began to investigate the process of their appearance. To do this, I caught the infector, break into the back room of the cafe and then forced the creature to infect a still-alive person in front of me. The transformation process surprised me not only by the transformation of the tissues, but also by the changes in the astral body of the victim. The energy shells of a human literally dissolved and merged with the body of a necromorph. Moreover, this astral body was common for all necromorphs. They could easily exchange astral energy. It seems that this is how Marker''s motto ''We will be whole'' manifested itself in action.


    After finishing the research, I chopped the necromorphs into pieces and revealed that it didn''t really hurt them at all. They just then went into ''energy-saving'' mode, stopping moving. But the processes in their tissues have not stopped.


    In fact, turning a human into a flesh tearer was quite energy-consuming. At the same time, only ten percent of the body was transformed. But the other ninety percent were turning into true necromorph flesh rather slowly. According to my forecasts, it could take up to two days for the complete transformation of organic matter.


    Finally, I decided it was time to start the game and went to the clinic. There I went unhindered to the psychiatric ward and went down to the basement. You can''t call a couple of dozen necromorphs an obstacle, can you? Finding the right capsule, I pulled out the main character of this story. He was in a state of non-standing, so I had to inject adrenaline to him to bring him back to consciousness.


    ¡°Isaac. Isaac! Wake up. We need to leave.¡± I shouted, trying to reach his consciousness. After all, I cheated a little by casting a healing spell on the patient. This had an effect, and within ten seconds Isaac was looking at me with a meaningful look.


    ¡°What''s going on?¡± He asked me, looking at me and my suit. I was a military-style spacesuit. Now the ''helmet'' has been removed and my face has been copied by Franco''s face.


    "Isaac, we have to go. Stand up.¡± I began to help the patient to stand up, without explaining anything in the best tradition of moronic American stories. "You''re in serious danger. We are all in danger.¡±


    Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators!


    "Where am I?"  He began looking around. He also discovered himself in a straitjacket with his hands tied.


    "There''s no time to explain. We have to go." I continued to bent my line. "They''re already here. Do you hear?¡±


    I paused and pretended to be listening. Alas, the necromorphs did not want to play along with me, and therefore remained silent. So, I had to imitate the sound of the necromorph''s bone blades making their way through the ventilation system. This immediately cheered Isaac up and made him jump to his feet. Before he knew what he was hearing, his body was already preparing to run.


    "What''s going on?"  He made another attempt to convince me into answering.


    But I didn''t have to explain anything. A necromorph ran from the hallway to the room. Before he could do anything, I swung the sword a couple of times and cut it to pieces.


    ¡°Questions later. You don''t need to ask questions, you need to run!" I gave my valuable instructions.


    "Untie me.¡± Isaac demanded. How restless he is. He can¡¯t be a real hero of the action movie. They should do what they are told and not grunt.


    "Quiet! They are already here.¡±


    I left the poor guy to squirm, trying to free his hands, and I went to the hallway. There I had to fight with five necromorphs. At the same time, my victims were not only these creatures, but also wiring in the wall, after which the entire basement plunged into darkness.


    Isaac listened as I fought in the dark with necromorphs, and then there was complete silence. I crept noiselessly behind him, and then spoke in his ear.


    "I''m here."


    "A-a-a-a-a-a-a-a!"!!!  The patient shouted, jumping almost a meter. But I didn''t let him run away, grabbing him firmly by the shirt.


    ¡°Quiet. We have to go. I will guide you.¡±


    Then we crept through the dark corridors, reaching the stairs up. Along the way, I cut down five more necromorphs, adding gray hair to my companion, who only knew about the presence of danger by the sound of dissecting flesh and the death screams of the creatures.


    By the time we reached the main hospital rooms, the patient was ready to listen to my extraterrestrial wisdom. I dragged him into the staff room, where there was a device that allowed him to wear an airtight spacesuit on a person.


    "I think you should change your costume."  I said, untying Isaac''s hands. "And then I''ll tell you what you need to do."


    My ''partner'' did not answer, but silently went inside the device. He came out already tooking a shower and dressed in ''sanitary uniform''. However, in local realities, nurses wore spacesuits that could stay in a vacuum for some time. In fact, it was a standard spacesuit technique of a rather original coloring. Most of the costume was white, and a large red cross was flaunted on the chest and back.


    " So, I dedicate you to the Order of the Crusaders. Carry your cross through life with dignity.¡± I said encouragingly.


    "What?" Isaac did not understand. He looked at himself and found an ornament on his chest.


    "Anyway, listen to me. You were found in space three years ago. All this time, the government has kept you unconscious. Also, they extracted all information from your consciousness on how to create a new Marker.¡±


    "What? But I don''t know how to create it!¡±  The patient protested.


    ¡°You know it. Before the destruction, the Marker recorded information in your brain about how to recreate new Markers. Now these areas of your brain are blocked. While you were sleeping, the government created a new Marker right here on the station. I am a secret agent of the Illuminate Order. My name is Franco Delisle. My task is to destroy the Marker. And you''re the only one who can help me do that.¡±


    ¡°What''s going on? No, I don''t want anything to do with that. Just get me out of here.¡±


    "It is impossible, Isaac. There is no escape. You must help me destroy the Marker. Only you can save the Earth and all mankind from necromorphs.¡±


    "Why me?" Why me again?¡± My patient was hysterical.


    I had already scanned his memory, so I knew he was a game figure. However, the soul had already been in this body for five years, so he should be a hero of the third part, where the entire Earth would be destroyed. So, there was no point in feeling sorry for someone else''s figure.


    "Because you are the chosen one. The Marker had chosed you. And now, only you can decide his fate. And for one fate of the whole world.¡±


    I paused. Isaac didn''t try to say anything either. We sat in silence for a couple of minutes. A voice from the intercom broke the silence.


    "Isaac, are you here? Please answer. This Is Diana. I want to help you escape from the station.¡±


    The engineer immediately rushed to the wall panel, where he pressed a button. According to Franco''s recollection, it was a voice-stationary terminal.


    "I''m here."


    "Isaac, I''m so glad you''re alive.¡± The head of the local Church of unitology began to hang noodles on his ears. "I detected your signal through the station''s surveillance system. You must get to my shuttle. Then we can leave this place and go to Earth.¡±


    "What should I do?" A foolish mortal grasped at this straw.


    "I sent the route to your IC. You should be able to walk through it. Try to find some weapons. And for God''s sake, be careful, Isaac.¡±


    At this point, the connection was cut off, drowned out by hiss.

 7.12 Dead Space 2

    "I''m going to Diana."  Isaac gave me his decision.


    "And you don''t care about the Marker?"


    ¡°Yeah.¡±


    "Do you think someone needs you enough to save you?"


    ¡°Yes! And don''t stand in my way. Thank you for saving me, but I''ll go on my own.¡±


    "What an independent you are, however.¡± I chuckled. ¡°All right, I''ll accompany you to Diana, and you''ll see yourself that I''m right."


    After that, Clark went to meet his fate. The funny thing is, he pretended all the way, as if he didn''t know me, even though I didn''t walk away from him one step, and sometimes even saved his ass from necromorphs.


    Pretty quickly Isaac assembled a plasma cutter and even a system of ''pocket telekinesis'' from the improvised material. I became interested in this technology, and while I was following the obstinate hero, I explored this mechanism. Surprisingly, this technology was very different from the technologies of the Ancient and Reapers. I even wondered if this approach would work in another world.


    Along the way, we met another ''hero'' of this story. It was a psycho named Nolan Stross was another test subject, on which they tested technology of the Marker. He kept calling for Isaac to follow him to destroy the Marker. I was not inspired by such an ally, because he was a clear nutcase and a maniac. It was even strange how he managed to avoid necromorph attacks without any weapons.


    As we made our way through the deserted corridors of the station, I registered the effect of the Marker on Franco''s brain. Soon enough, he started to see glitch, in which Sarah began to explain to him how to destroy the Marker. Her testimony was consistent with Stross''s, so I didn''t pay much attention to her.


    I was much more interested in a certain astral formation attached to Isaac Clarke. It looked like some kind of demon or ghost. This creature was clearly trying to influence its host, but most of its efforts were in vain, because Isaac had blocked the parts of the brain through which this influence was supposed to affect the human consciousness.


    Pretty quickly I came to the conclusion that this thing is the Marker. More precisely, the Marker was the physical body that this demon created for himself. And now he was struggling to move himself close to his receptacle to merge with him.


    As I watched the creature''s actions, I began to better understand how the Obelisk interacted with the necromorphs and the people it consumed. All the astral interaction I have ever known was to establish direct contact between two astral bodies. But here, the effect was more like radio communication. The transmitter adjusted to the frequency of the receiver and broadcast to the world its qualities, that is, in fact just information. And somehow, at the endpoint this information was transformed into an influence or even energy.


    The necromorphs themselves were rather blunt creatures. They had brains like a cockroach, with the only difference is that at the sight of a man they did not run away, but on the contrary attacked him. But when the Marker took over the management, the necromorphs became geniuses of strategy and joint activity. However, at the same time, some pattern of actions was visible. Apparently, without the host, Marker''s ability to plan his actions was limited.


    The astral creature from time to time communicated with the Marker using astral radiation, but used other ''frequencies''. It had no direct contact with the necromorphs. I suspected that the reason for this was the ''pernicious'' influence of the Obelisk. Upon contact with it or necromorphs, the astral body of a person literally melted. And it is likely that such a fate could have been expected by the demon. Apparently, his immunity to such effects was limited.


    While I was researching the nature of the Marker, Isaac reached Diana''s hideout in the Church of Unitology.


    "You go alone for now, and I''ll come and see you later." I instructed the unlucky hero, stopping in the corridor.


    You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.


    Throughout the entire journey, Isaac never mentioned that anyone else was walking with him. I turned on my identification chip only to open the doors, which had time to close after my companion passed through them. So, in fact, like a hare, I got to this place unnoticed by anyone.


    I listened Isaac''s conversation with the fanatical fools through an eavesdropping spell. And as soon as it became clear that Diana''s goal was not just to save Isaac, but to use him to produce new Markers, I immediately broke into the room and banally chopped all of the unitologists to pieces. They did not expect such a turn of events, and therefore did not even have time to moan.


    Just as I was shaking the blood from my blade, an assault spaceship appeared outside the window and started trying to shoot Isaac. It was ruled by agent Hans Tadman - the man who behind of the creation of the Marker. He was raving about using Obelisk as a source of energy, although in fact his brains had long been ''washed'' by a demon sitting in Isaac''s head.


    After missing the assault spaceship''s shots above him, Isaac abruptly opened a hatch in the floor and leaped through it, hiding from the heavy machine gun fire. I did not hide, but took the fire ''on the chest'', while forming a powerful blaster in my hand. A couple of shots turned the assault spaceship into a fireball, which exploded, spreading flaming debris.


    I jumped into the hatch after Isaac. As far as I knew, there was a huge necromorph waiting for him, which the mere mortal could not cope with. After flying ten meters, I landed right on the back of this creature. Isaac was lying down there, frantically pouring a fat body with fire from his cutter. I did not slow down and immediately cut off the necromorph¡¯s a limb and then performed an autopsy of its body, spilling out the guts.


    Although necromorphs were not alive, they copied the structure of the creatures from whose flesh they were created. Significant damage to the carcass switched the ''work'' mode of this creature, causing it to go into ''waiting'' mode. This meant that the necromorph did not die, but only decided to rest a little and think about the ¡®eternal¡¯.


    "Damn it! I hate these things!!!¡± Isaac shouted, pulling his legs out from under the huge carcass. "Die! Die! Fuck! Die!!¡± He shouted, frantically kicking the necromorph.


    "Ha, ha. I like the way you do it.¡± I noticed. ¡°No respect for the dead."


    Every time Isaac met someone''s corpse, he necessarily kicked him several times in the head, trying to trample them. And in most cases, he succeeded.


    "If you don''t dismember the bodies and destroy the brains, they can transform into necromorphs at any moment.¡± A professional dismemberer shared his wisdom.


    "They''ll turn into them anyway.¡± I said lazily, leaning against the wall. "Only with a slight delay.¡± Isaac didn''t say anything to that, just frowned. "What are you going to do next? As you may have already realized, there is no escape from here. The station is under quarantine, and all rescue capsules and private transports are blocked.¡±


    The hero once again looked at me with a gloomy look and sat down on the necromorph.


    "And what do you suggest?¡± He asked.


    ¡°Destroy the Marker. Then all the necromorphs will die, and we''ll have plenty of time to solve the evacuation problem.¡±


    "All right, lead the way."


    It seems that without external guidance, Isaac didn''t have the willpower to go anywhere. All he could do was a fight for survival here and now. We moved through the dark corridors of the station toward the government sector. It was at a distance of ten kilometers, and the shortest way to get there was through outer space. It seems that earlier, when the asteroid was still part of the planet, the government sector was built on the other side of a deep canyon. Now this canyon has turned into a deep furrow on the surface of the asteroid, making it look like a coffee bean.


    When we got out of the Church, we encountered another survivor. It was a girl named Ellie - a military pilot and just a badass bitch At the same time, Nolan Stross came to contact with us again, something muttering about the destruction of the Marker with the help of some steps of his ingenious plan.


    At first, the girl did not want to join our company, but after only fifteen minutes she realized that the crowd of necromorphs is better to be killed with another crowd. Where she broke through with the fight, we passed without any effort. Alas, the fact that we were going in parallel paths prevented us from unite immediately. But half an hour later, Isaac and I stumbled into the room where Ellie and Strauss were sitting.


    "Hi.¡± I smiled to a pretty girl. "Why are you so gloomy?"


    "I don''t see any reason to be happy.¡± She answered.


    "You''re still alive. Is not this a reason to be happy?¡±


    "We need to do the first step.¡± The madman interrupted my flirtation. "The dark equipment is waiting for us. We need to get into it and then tighten the screws securely.¡±


    So, here we have someone clearly superfluous.


    "Are you flirting with another girl?"  Sarah''s hallucination, which had appeared in Franco''s mind, cut into my thoughts. "Before I was dead, are you find someone else?"


    ''What kind of madhouse is this!!? So, we will solve the problems consistently. First, I''ll get rid of the Stross, then I''ll get rid of the hallucinations, and then I''m going to get this Ellie into bed. Or I''ll fuck her right here on the table, and then I''ll take care of the Marker¡¯. I thought with my rented brains.

 7.13 Dead Space 2

    My fusion with Franco''s brain had some interesting side effects. But I could be sure that Obelisk until the very last moment will not suspect me in a double game. Now I was going to get rid of ballast, and in the same time conduct an experiment. I was interested in Obelisk''s ability to create necromorphs from ordinary corpses simply through remote exposure. That''s how the first necromorphs appeared.


    Now I was going to do almost the same thing, but on a live patient. I formed a clever spell and directed it at Strauss. He immediately began to convulse and vomit blood. In just a minute, he transformed to necromorph that I could control remotely. I have used other frequencies to influence through the astral plane, so that the Obelisk was not supposed to notice anything.


    My new pet jumped up from the floor and screamed. Ellie and Isaac immediately started shooting him with their weapons, but I wasn''t going to lose my toy. A small infusion of energy allowed the necromorph to fully regenerate. It was able to use the effect of ''telekinesis'' which already known to me and attract the lost limb and heal it.


    A little training in controlling the puppet allowed me to learn how to move the necromorph at such a speed that ordinary people could not shot it in principle. In the end, I sent my pet to the vent, where it became quiet. I think such radio-controlled model like this may be useful in future. I wanted to test in practice quite a lot more, and the'' live '' necromorph was vital to me.


    Further path no need to describe. Except that unlike the canon, we were not divided, but moved all together, easily destroying all opponents. Finally, we were in the government sector. Here we came across an unowned assault spaceship, in fact a small spaceship, even capable of superlight flights within the boundaries of the solar system. Fortunately, as in the canon, Isaac seated Ellie in it while he went to attack the Marker. His personal schizophrenia still managed to convince him that he needed to follow some great plan.


    I didn''t disturb Isaac, I just helped in his mental throwing. The most interesting moment was when we encountered soldiers of Tegmina. I managed to drag the hero to a safe place, and then banally sent my necromorph pet to attack. The prototype didn''t disappoint me. Thanks to regeneration and superhuman speed, it crushed two dozen of elite commandos into a salad in just a minute. However, it used only physical attacks.


    After passing through the blood-drenched barricade, we found ourselves in the laboratory where the creation of the Obelisk was actually going on. Then Isaac got to the brain-blocking device and drove a long needle into his brain through his eye, through which the effect was transmitted. To be honest, if I were in his place, I would definitely not have to dare to do this.


    After that, the demon completely took control of its host and walked him straight to its new receptacle. However, demon¡¯s control was not ideal, so from time to time the Marker entertained us with a clumsy but immortal necromorph, in order to create the appearance of ''overcoming''.


    In the final stage, I shot Hans Teidman, who had finally lost his mind on the grounds of worshipping of Marker. It seems that the Marker¡¯s control ability of people''s mind very superficial. So, if the victim was going crazy, it was impossible to force them to do anything useful.


    And now, the final scene of this theater of the absurd has begun. Obelisk began ''Convergence'' with the goal of merging all necromorphs, and especially Isaac, into a single body of the Blood Moon. Meanwhile, Isaac and the demon clashed in a fierce confrontation of minds. Oddly enough, after unlocking the areas of the brain, the main character had the opportunity to have an impact on his parasite. Actually, it was more about merging astral bodies, so that now two souls were fighting for possession of it. And it seems that the crazy engineer has big chance of winning.


    The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    This is the moment I chose to make telepathic contact with the owner of the Marker.


    "You will lose.¡± I began to speak, breaking the astral creature''s concentration. "He''ll consume you and win the game."


    "Who are you? What do you want?" My interlocutor began to ask useless philosophical questions.


    "I want your help in another game. There you will need to destroy one of your ideological relatives and at the same time all life in the galaxy. If you win, your victory will be my victory. And if you lose, it will be only your defeat.¡±


    "What benefit do I get of it?"  My future employee immediately started to bargain.


    ¡°A chance for another victory. Because you lost this game.¡±


    While our conversation was going on, Isaac was able to twist the demon as a ram''s horn and was one step away from destroying it.


    "I agree to everything. Save me!!!" The demon shrieked, anticipating its demise.


    ¡°The Game Contract is concluded.¡± I passed the thought along with the concise contents of the ''contract''. The demon immediately agreed with my demands, sending the thought of consent.


    After that, I broke into Isaac''s mind and banally severed the connection of his soul with the astral shells. The demon immediately took control of the body and jumped to the huge monolith of the Obelisk. Just a second later, the flesh of Isaac''s body turned into an amorphous slime of necromorph flesh, and the parasite merged with the Obelisk, hiding in its depths.


    "I won!!!¡±  The demon mentally squealed, immediately imagined that it does not have to fulfill the terms of the contract.


    "No. I won it.¡± I objected, using a long-prepared Bijuudama.


    This gift I formed the last four hours, folding the unyielding chakra into the desired shape. The explosion smashed the Marker to dust, along with the station and the asteroid itself. At the last moment, the demon was able to use the Marker to attach itself to Franco''s mind. Actually, that''s what I was counting on. It seemed to be a sort of emergency evacuation system, triggered automatically.


    Realizing the current situation, the demon let out a heart-rending scream, spreading waves of despair. It seems that losing the game threatened him with terrible penalties. At least that''s what I was able to read in his mind with magic. . Looks like there''s just been a conversation between the demon and its player. And as a result of this conversation, the ¡®incomprehensible entity¡¯ agreed to my contract. After all, according to the rules, after losing this game, the demon should have been destroyed, but our contract gave a loophole for its participation in the next game, which in any case brought to the player some profit.


    And then the most delicious thing began. The demon gave me a full description of the technology for creating his new body. Ancients I created a computer in my body, in which I launched a virtual simulation of the process of creating the Marker. After this model worked, I was able to analyze all the processes occurring in the monolith.


    Moreover, by repeating the recordings of the demon''s actions that I made when it first entered the physical Marker, I was able to get a ''master code'' that gives full access to all the functions of the Marker.


    The purpose of the Marker''s existence and absorption of organic life forms was to enslave the souls of living beings. The Marker acted as a kind of trap for souls and as a storage of Bahion, which the demon used for its own exaltation.


    All of the information about the structure of the Marker and necromorphs I kept in the memory of my soul, so that I would not lose it later. After that, all I had to do was try out this technology, creating a real Obelisk in the physical world. I didn''t get involved in gigantism, and my Marker was only five meters high.


    After the demon got used to its new body, I opened the gate to the world of Mass Effect and sent the Marker to the planet of the Batarians. I think that there he will be able to turn around in full power and start a victorious procession through the galaxy, or he''ll be immediately devoured by Reaper, recognizing him as a competitor. Actually, I would have been happy with either options. I was not afraid of the potential union of these astral creatures, because the contract clearly stated that ''there should be only one survivor¡¯. As long as Reaper was alive, I could at any moment declare the Marker as the loser. To keep up with the situation, along with Obelisk, I sent my shadow clone, which was to be my eyes and ears when I return to this universe.


    When I had finished with the Obelisk, I extracted the next address of Universe from my memory. I hope it will be more fun. Because, I am bored of killing of stupid necromorphs in an hour.

 7.14 StarCraft

    As soon as I stepped out of the portal, I felt the magic energy go out of my control. It resembled the reality of the Mass Effect, but more powerful. Magic outside my body Vritras simply could not exist, and inside my body I could hardly hold it. What''s the worst part, on the outer boundary, my astral body gradually dissipated, and matter was getting out of control. In other words, I dissolved in the surrounding space like a lollipop in a hot tea.


    I didn''t have much time, so I started looking for the nearest inhabited world. Fortunately, one planet was found very close to me, just a couple of million kilometers away. It was a typical earth-like planet with an atmosphere, oceans, and vegetation. Fortunately, the chakra was working fine here, so I immediately flew towards the planet.


    It this time I decided not to worry about stealth, so I solved the problem of moving in a vacuum quite simply - using the chakra to create graphite, and then used it as a working body for the jet engine. Fear of being without a physical body drove me, so I was able to give myself quite a decent acceleration. But even so, I had to fly in space for quite a long time. Two million kilometers is no joke. Even with an acceleration of 20g, I had to get to the planet in an hour and a half. Half the way I accelerated, and the other half braked.


    By the time I arrived in near orbit, my size was already a ball thirty centimeters in diameter. A scan of space showed that a several hundred meters long spaceship was flying not far from the planet. That''s where I went. The fact that I was using graphite as jet fuel allowed me to arrive at the ship without being noticed. After all, the black carbon almost not reflected any light, plus it was cooled by me to the lowest possible temperatures before acceleration. So, it was quite difficult to spot the exhaust of my engine.


    When I reached the ship under the stealth technique, I began to look for a way to get inside. Fortunately, despite the decent booking of the case, there were all sorts of recesses and niches where some devices were located. Not caring about stealth, I banally drilled my way into the technical door.


    Once inside the ship, I mentally took a breath and began to look around for a suitable donor. Since I can''t have a body made of magic, I''m going to have standard organic version. Fortunately, ordinary people lived on this vessel, so there were no problems with getting a new body.


    Ten minutes later, I got through the ventilation to a crowd of sleeping people. Peering out from behind the bars, I saw a typical barracks, where stupid soldiers snored on tiered beds. Like a maggot of an alien, I dropped to the floor and crawled over to the chosen recipient, who was snoring nonchalantly in the corner of the room. Then I stunned him with ninjutsu and went through his mouth into his stomach.


    Actually, the problem with survival in this world I had because I could not create a ''standard'' astral body that can interact with organic matter. In extreme cases, the physical body could be materialized from the chakra, but the corresponding astral bodies could not be created with its help.


    Within five minutes, I had removed the soul of its occupant from the body and began to settle in a new place, at the same time reviewing the memories of the donor. It was the year 2499, and humanity was successfully exploring deep space. At the moment, the ship was in orbit around the planet Korhal Two, engaged in a boring patrol of the territory of this sector. Unlike Korhal Four, which was the capital of the Confederation, this planet was a minor colony with an agricultural economy. The donor himself was a typical space marine- a banal private with mediocre abilities named Gregor Graham.


    All these circumstances were enough for me to understand where I was. It was a world of StarCraft. True, humans didn''t know anything about Zerg or Protoss yet, but that didn''t seem to last long.


    When I ¡®woke up¡¯, I went to the toilet to get rid of the remnants of my previous body After that, an early intimate breakfast was arranged, after which the actual time for sleep came to an end, and in order not to attract attention, I went to the morning training, mandatory for all paratroopers.


    While the body used to run, jump and push, I pondered what to do next. I had to capture a spaceship somehow and then go to Mar-Saru. This is where the ''main story'' of this galaxy was supposed to begin. My thoughts were interrupted by the sensations of going into hyperspace that were familiar to this body. Apparently, the ship was going somewhere.


    Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    I didn''t have to guess what was going on, because my personal communicator received a message about the transition of personnel to combat watch mode, and on one of the screens on the wall of the room showed a face of the ship¡¯s captain.


    ¡°Soldiers! I have received orders to relocate the ship to the Koprulu sector and orbit the planet Mar-Sara. All personnel are required to take up a combat watch and prepare for combat operations. In six hours we will be in orbit around the planet, after which the landing troops will be given missions. To attention of squad leaders, briefing will be after two hours.¡±


    That was the end of the speech, and I headed for the landing capsules. According to the regulations, before the combat mission all soldiers were required to undergo a detailed medical scan. Each soldier was assigned to his own capsule, where in addition to health diagnostics, he was dressed in a landing suit. Its construction was essentially non-removable, and it was impossible to remove it without special equipment.


    Climbing into the capsule, I plunged into virtual reality, where I had a training battle with hypothetical opponents, during which my actions and reactions were analyzed. At the same time, an in-depth body scan was performed. An hour later, I successfully ''passed the exam'' and began to review the results of the scan. But before I could delve into the details of the summary report, my immediate commanding officer contacted me.


    "Graham, have you seen the results of your scan?¡± The sergeant addressed me with a claim in his voice.


    "I''m studying it now, sir." I answered, trying to figure out where I had screwed up.


    "Look in the ¡®Psi¡¯ section. You have been diagnosed with a second level of psi ability.¡±


    ¡°What''s going on? How is that possible?¡± The previous owner of this body was not a psionic, and therefore never looked at this bookmark.


    "That''s it! Your genetic map shows potential possession of psi powers. I don''t know what triggered them, but after this assignment, I''m sending you to a crash course of psionics training.¡±


    "Oh, no! Is this the same course where people are beaten to death and tortured?¡± My memory helpfully provided stories that the psionics are subjected to extreme stress and dangers to fully reveal their talent. And the statistics said that half of the participants are going through such training at best.


    "That''s it. But if you survive, you can count on the rank of corporal." The sadistic sergeant''s face grinned. "I''ve already sent your progress report to Central headquarters. So, enjoy your last quiet days.¡±


    With that, the smirked mockingly and cut off the connection. There was a nice bonus for every found psionics. If I had sent the results of my scan to my superiors, I would have receive a bonus of six months'' salary. So, this amount of money will go to the sergeant. That''s why he was so happy.


    However, I wasn''t really bothered by all this fuss. As far as I remember, no soldiers had left Mar-Sar alive, so there was no point in worrying about the distant future. It was more correct to make a plan for my future actions. I needed to find local game figures and make to them an unrefusable offer.


    By the time the ship came out of the jump, I was inside a combat suit, which in turn was attached to an anti-acceleration box that looked more like a rack. Upon arrival in orbit, my personal tactical computer received information about the mission. We were supposed to protect the mobile command center and perform reconnaissance operation on enemy territory. Specific orders should have already been given on the spot. At the same time, information about the hypothetical enemy were not provided.


    The technology of delivering soldiers to the planet was interesting. We were not dropped in any landing bots, but banally teleported. Each soldier was personally placed in a teleportation device, where about a minute of preparation took place, after which there was an instantaneous movement of the ''body''.


    Once on the planet, I headed to the exit of the premises of the ''call of the trooper''. It was day outside, and it was raining. There were jungles all around, and only the cleared area of the base bore traces of human activity. Here we were drawn up and left to marinate until a detachment of 32 men was formed. After that, our sergeant gave the order to follow him and went straight to the jungle.


    ¡°So, privates, I will explain the task.¡± He began a speech that should have been delivered on the ship. ¡°We need to proceed to square 25-13, where the enemy base is presumably located. This is a reconnaissance mission, so you should assess the size and strength of the enemy, and if possible, destroy their base.¡±


    "Sir, who is the enemy?" One of the privates couldn''t stand it.


    ¡°That''s what you''re going to find out, private Rubicus. Three attire of household works for violation of subordination.¡±


    "Sir. Yes, sir."


    "What was I thinking¡­? Oh, yes, our base is still in a state of deployment, so you can''t count on reinforcements. The squad leader must send a full report every ten minutes or after important events. Go.¡±


    After that, the Sergeant stepped aside and ran back to the base with quick leaps.


    Well, who would doubt it? This animal doesn¡¯t want to risk its venal skin. Looks like sending an infantry to slaughter is the most common strategy.

 7.15 StarCraft

    I orientated on the map and gave the task to my computer to calculate the course to the desired point, taking into account the terrain. It offered three options, but I could not choose any of them, because our squad leader choosed his own route, called ''straight from point A to point B''. Brilliant!


    After that, we rushed straight through the windfall, breaking trees like thin twigs and spreading the crackle and gnashing for miles ahead. Apparently, most soldiers were trained to fight in the city, so once in the jungle, the commander had to be guided by his own thoughts about how reality works. Thoughts that are very far from this reality.


    "Gregor, they say you''re a psionicist now?" One of the soldiers spoke to me over a closed channel. I noticed that a whole group of five people had already formed here, creating their own voice chat. Memory suggested that all these people are my drinking companions, with whom the previous owner of this body was familiar for many years.


    "Suppose yes.¡± I replied, joining the chat.


    "They say psionics are always lucky to stay alive.¡± His comrade continued his hints


    "Stay close to me, and everything will be all right." Of my five allies, four had experience of fighting in the wild, so it was obvious to them that our commander was an impenetrable dummy. Moreover, impassable in the most literal sense, because we just ran into a swamp, in which this very commander is stuck to the top of his head. ¡°It seems that it is time to appoint a new commander.¡± I chuckled.


    Unfortunately, instead of leaving the local Susanin in the swamp, we spent fifteen minutes to pull him and five other ''rescuers'' out of the quagmire. After that, our ''guide'' came up with the idea to request a route from the onboard computer and chose the most longest of them.


    About a couple of hours later, when we were nearing our destination, I decided to make my move.


    "Sir, I suggest to send a small group of scouts to the top of this hill.¡± I send message to general communication channel to the commander, dropping the mark on the map.  He found me in the middle of the crowd, looked up at the rocky hill next to me, and replied sarcastically.


    "You think you''re the smartest? If you''re so smart, you''ll get in there yourself. Choose five support people, and in ten minutes I need to have a picture of the enemy camp.¡±


    "Yes, sir." I answered, smirking inwardly. My ''team'' followed me without talking.


    For the past ten minutes I''d been aware of angry views directed at me, so we were going to meet the Zergs in the very near future. Despite the seeming inaccessibility, it was possible to climb to the top of the hill without any problems. Here we carefully cut down several trees, forming a good observation platform. It wasn''t exactly a covert method of observation, but if you do not look closely, it was difficult to notice us.


    I had a view of the Zergs¡¯ base. The area the size of a couple of football fields was covered with purple creep that glistened after the past rain.  I immediately recognized the Hive, the Spawn pool, and the Roach Warren, and my attention was drawn to the deposit of crystals. It was a whole cluster of beautiful bluish drusen, around which stoking creatures resembling beetles.


    ¡°Transmitting the image.¡± I reported to the squad leader, at same time sending a live video stream to the base. Downstairs, the radio communication was already working with interruptions, but at the top of the hill the connection with the base was excellent.


    ¡°Private¡± the dispatcher immediately contacted me, ¡°I order you to remain at the observation point and film the attack of our troops on the enemy camp. This is a priority order.¡±


    ¡°Yes sir.¡± I smirked again. Actually, this was my plan from the beginning - to watch what is happening from the side, and then retreat quietly back to the base. Well, or still there was an option of capturing one of the Zergs and study it.


    There was no point in remaining be human to achieve my goals. Human here or in Afrika is the same. But becoming a Zerg is much more interesting. I remember that in the first StarCraft mentioned infecting people with Zerg DNA, after which they became members of the swarm. I''ll just have to make sure that I don''t to be brainwashed like everyone else. In that case, it will be a very funny ending to my career.


    Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    The attack on the Zergs¡¯ base was as poorly organized as the way to it. No, for urban combat, their tactics may not have been the worst. All the soldiers were divided to groups consisting three soldiers, spread out in a semicircle, and then the command to attack were given.


    Slightly frightened soldiers came on the slime, trampled a little, getting used to it, and then began to crawl forward, immediately watering the ''beetles-workers'' with machine guns. This, in fact, was the end of the attack. A couple of hundred ''cockroaches'' emerged from the ground and cleared the area in five seconds. Scattered groups of soldiers were surrounded by superior enemy forces and even before they realized it, they were torn apart and dissolved in acid.


    "Well, actually, it is all.¡± I said thoughtfully, watching as most of the cockroaches were burying themselves back in the ground and a smaller group is started move to us. "Now it''s time to go!"


    Our group of six survivors abruptly fell off to the ground and ran down the hill, weaving between the trees. My computer immediately provided several options for the route options, from which I chose the one that passed along the bottom of the gorge between the two hills. There, according to satellite scans of the area, was a suitable place for an ambush.


    We managed to get to the right place, but the cockroaches were already on our tail. Fortunately, there were only three of them running right behind us, so we had a chance to survive. Five of my companions hid behind a passageway between two tall rocks, and I climbed up the slope and crouched in the bushes, watching the approaching cockroaches.


    The Zerg were ''not-experienced'', so they didn''t have such a quality as caution. Without a doubt, they ran into a narrow passageway where they were met by a fortified battle point. The soldiers crouched behind the rocks and opened fire on my command to suppress them. Two roaches were stuck in the passageway, interfering with each other. One tried to back away, while the other pushed forward, pushing his comrade into our fire. The creatures hesitated only for a couple of seconds, but it was enough to turn the first zerg into a walking colander.


    Like a true kamikaze, I ran through one of the rocks and jumped on the back of the third roach, after which a burst of machine gun fire began to hollow a path through the back to its brain. I could see my goal clearly with the help of chakra-based techniques, but the Zerg couldn''t throw me off his back because I had glued my legs to its spine with the chakra.


    After that, we threw grenades to the second roach. He was ''stuck'' in a narrow passageway between two corpses of his comrades, so there was no escape route.


    "How do we them?... One or two and ready!¡± One of my companions shouted nervously.


    "We don''t have time to relax.¡± I said. " Two dozen more are running behind us. Keep moving¡±


    And we ran again. Just like Forrest Gump. At least there was no physical exertion from this run. Reinforced armor, we can say, ran itself, and the soldiers could only set the pace of movement of legs and arms. But such loads also did not pass without a trace, because the armor was not intended for long-distance races. In this mode, the nodes of the joints quickly wore out, and by the time we returned to the base, we could well become ''disabled'', in need of serious repairs.


    After another ten minutes, I noticed that the pursuit of us had stopped. The roaches turned around and gradually rushed back to the hive.


    "That''s it, take rest!¡± I gave the command. In our case, this meant not physical rest, but maintenance of the suit, requiring immobility.


    "Are you sure they''re not after us?" One of the soldiers asked.


    ¡°I am sure. But don''t forget to look around. Who knows how many there are?¡±


    "What are we going to do next?¡±


    ¡°According to the instructions, we need to contact the base and get an order to return.¡±


    My companions looked at each other. Communication with the base is always bad, because for the assholes sitting there, the value of a soldiers'' lives is about the same as its value in Starcraft for gamers. That is somewhere at the level of consumables. But it is also impossible to do otherwise, because all actions of the soldiers are recording, and after returning to the base they will be analyzed for violations of the instructions.


    We had to climb the nearest hill to establish a stable connection.


    "Base, this is private Gregor Graham. Our squad was destroyed by the enemy. Only six people survived. Spacesuits resource seventy percent. Requesting permission to return.¡± I reported.


    "Denied, private." A disgruntled voice answered me. ¡°Your group is assigned to conduct a sabotage operation in the enemy''s camp. According to the record you sent, our analysts found an individual identified as female.¡± I got an image of the Queen on my computer. "It is she who directs the other members of the swarm and lays eggs for reproduction. You must destroy her, no matter of cost.¡±


    When in the order sounded the wording ''no matter of cost'', it usually meant at the cost of our own life. And in confirmation of these words, a countdown timer set for two hours was activated on the computer screen. If during this time we do not confirm the performance of the task, in the spacesuits will work self-destruct charge.  This practice was quite common, because at least a third of the troops were formed at the expense of prisoners. And as I mentioned, there was no way to get out of the spacesuit by yourself.

 7.16 StarCraft

    "Did everyone hear that?" I asked my companions.


    ¡°Creatures! They are sending us to the slaughter.¡±


    ¡°We are doomed¡±


    "I hate freaks!"


    The reaction of the soldiers indicated that their countdown also started.


    "We still have a chance.¡± I calmed them down. "But instead of a machine gun, we should use sniper rifles."


    "Where can we get them?"


    "According to the map, there''s a checkpoint not far from here. There we will be able to undergo maintenance and take additional weapons.¡±


    The checkpoint was a landing technical module that was being dropped from orbit. It was intended to restore the resource of troops that had been battered in battle. True, it was a long way to go, but for a rabid paratroopers ten kilometers was no detour. We sighed together and ran.


    At the checkpoint, we replaced the hinges in the legs, replenished the ammunition, and two paratroopers took a sniper rifle in each hand instead of a standard machine gun. Alas, such a ''body kit'' was incompatible with conventional weapons, so that in close combat the effectiveness of such fighters noticeably lower.


    And then we had only to make our way stealthily to the well-known hill next to the Zergs¡¯ base. There was no better sniper position in the area. I used the scanning techniques on my chakra to bypass the roach patrols that started cruising around the base. There were no enemies at all on the hilltop, so we had time to study the battlefield carefully.


    However, we did not see anything new there. Workers were still carrying crystals to the hive, next to which stood the queen. There were no roaches in sight, but I was sure they were still sitting underground.


    And then two of our ''snipers'' took good aim and put three explosive bullets from each rifle into the stationary target. The Queen was literally torn to pieces. I recorded this action on video, after which we all rushed away from the agitated hive.


    This time we were chased not only by roaches, but also by a couple of dozen zerlings. This is what predetermined the fate of my comrades. Unlike slow roaches, these ''dogs'' ran twice as fast as the soldiers. They able to catch up last running soldier and threw him to the ground, tearing apart. We stopped and started shooting at them in bursts, but the nimble creatures dodged bullets.


    While we were shooting, a squad of roaches caught up with us, and we had to run again, aiming the zerlings on the move. Unfortunately, my companions had no psionic abilities or superhuman reactions, so quickly became a victim of the swaying wave of zergs.


    Zergs¡¯ fangs also reached me, but this time by my exact calculation. Several attacks hit the radio transmitter on my suit, after which I lost contact with the base, and for one stopped recording my actions. After that, I was able to stop and use the chakra to destroy the most zealous pursuers.


    And then began almost ''catching on the live bait''. I ran to the base, and the zerlings followed me. I accurately noted the distance of fifty meters, at which I destroyed any enemy. But if they kept that distance, I didn''t pay attention to them.


    That''s how we got to the command post. A couple of hundred meters before the fence, the zergs fell back and began scouting the area, preparing an attack. I went straight to the command center, where I went brazenly to the control center, where sat the ''command staff'' who gave me the order of a suicide mission.


    "Private Gregor Graham arrived to a report on successful mission.¡± I shouted right in the ear of the dispatcher, whom I recognized by his voice.


    ¡°What''s going on? How did you get here?¡± He jumped up.


    "My communication device has been damaged, so I decided to report to you personally. My self-destruct device will be activated in a couple of minutes, during which I will explain the circumstances of the execution of the order.¡±


    The dispatcher''s eyes bulged and he began to look around, looking for ways to retreat. Alas, all paths were blocked by me. The system of destruction in the spacesuit will destroy not only the paratrooper, but also the suit itself. That should have been enough to smear the dispatcher in front of me into bloody mincemeat.


    If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    In normal situation, I wouldn''t be able to go into this room. When an intruder was detected, a signal was transmitted to him, which banally will disable its suit, after which it was impossible to move around. But my signal reception system was broken, so, the signal is successfully avoided me. And a couple of security guards at the entrance didn''t stop me, because they thought that if I was here, then I have right to be. After all, my suit was standard, and everyone wore similar from private to the junior officers.


    Judging by the madly bulging eyes, the dispatcher was already preparing to die with me for the glory of the Fatherland. He couldn''t even say anything, only back and crack, looking at me.


    ¡°You can confirm the execution of an order using a wire connection.¡± I prompted him, at the same time opening the corresponding connector on the suit.


    He immediately realized and with trembling hands pulled out a cord from a desk drawer, which he connected to his computer and then to me. In five seconds my mission confirmed, stopped the countdown and even gave me a reward for completing of important task.


    ¡°Thank. Good luck, sir.¡±


    I saluted and went out. And no one noticed how I fixed a briquette of explosives with a radio detonator under the countertop of a nearby table. This rat won''t get rid of me so easily.


    Then I went to the service station, where I completely maintenance the suit. Our sergeant was not at the base, so I went with a clear conscience to wander around the territory, having set the mode of autonomous movement. If necessary, the suit could walk by itself, without requiring control from the soldier.


    If I stood somewhere on the sidelines, I would quickly be discovered and plowed into another ''special operation''. But now, I looked like busy with business, and no one paid any attention to me. People were moving in droves, and another marine didn''t attract attention. So, I wandered circles. After four hours Zergs started their attack.


    I learned that we had been attacked by a random shooting at one of the observation posts. After that, the shooting started around the perimeter of the base, and a dozen seconds later I noticed the first zergling breaking through inside the perimeter. The zergs came at us in an endless stream, and there was no chance of survival. To prevent the evacuation of the command center itself, which could take off and go into orbit on its own if necessary, I detonated previously planted explosives which blew the entire leadership team to shreds. After that, any attempts to overcome the panic stopped, and everyone saved only themselves.


    In general, the success of earthlings in the opposition to the zerg was not bad. They were able to hold out for almost ten minutes before heavily armored roaches suppressed the remnants of resistance. Alas, our troops consisted only of ordinary paratroopers and light ''jeeps'' with flamethrowers. They don¡¯t have a heavy infantry, and without it, it was only possible to destroy the cockroach with the combined fire of at least five paratroopers.


    I myself have performed miracles of heroism and proved to be one of the last people able to resist. I banally strengthened my suit with the help of the chakra, for one thing increasing the piercing ability of the machine gun. In the end, I was surrounded by a crowd of roaches, which banally crushed me with mass and pinned to the ground.


    As I had expected, the Zergs had not killed the most powerful fighters, but left them as a promising source of DNA for later assimilation. After half an hour of being in the ''face in the mud'' position, the Zerg Queen came up to me. To my surprise, it was the same Queen we had shot near the hive. The Zerg were similar to each other, but still different. Small, insignificant details like color spots or the shape of armor plates were unique, allowing the computer to uniquely identify each individual. But the Queen in front of me was an exact replica of the one we had literally defragmented just a few hours ago.


    I felt an attempt to telepathic influence on myself, but I could not understand what the thought was trying to convey to me. It seemed that the Zergs mind worked on different principles than the human mind. However, the very impact I felt and reflexively resisted him. The queen squawked something, then turned, extended her ovipositor and drove it straight into my stomach. A couple of litres of some substance were pumped into my body through him. This execution ended and I was left ''ripe'' surrounded by my guards.


    My mutation into zerg was under my complete control. I used the chakra to subdue the transforming flesh. Initially, the Zerg''s body was supposed to be controlled by psionics. But the chakra allowed me to take this control to a completely different level. In fact, I was setting up a mutation program for myself, using patterns and solutions embedded in the zergs¡¯ DNA.


    After a couple of hours, the transformation process was over, and I was able to take a break from seeing the outside world. I was surprised to find that no one was holding me anymore, and I was just lying around among a couple of dozen ''lucky'' people who were considered worthy of ''elevation''. I didn''t need the suit anymore, so I just tore it to pieces, crushing the metal like plasticine. My new body combined the best features of Zerg and humans, and for one perfectly conducted the chakra, allowing me to reach a state that only monsters like the First Hokage could boast of in the world of Naruto.


    Having risen to my feet, I examined myself and decided that I still had work to do on my appearance. My entire body was covered with elastic plates of pink-brown armor. The fingers ended in claws, and the feet looked more like the paws of a demon. I didn''t see my face, but I think it''s for the best.

 7.17 StarCraft

    There were a lot of Zergs around me, and as soon as I noticed them, I felt a telepathic network connecting us. Now I clearly understood what each of these creatures felt and thought. Alas, the level of intelligence of all of them could be compared to a smart dog. The only exception was the Queen''s mind, which was already moving toward me, surrounded by a dozen hydralisks.


    "Welcome, new member of the swarm.¡± This creature communicated to me. "From now on, you serve Hive and me as his representative.¡±


    I was in no hurry to answer, studying the mind of the Queen. To do this, I used not only our telepathic connection, but also my ability to directly influence the astral level. Picture was familiar to me in detail.


    "Are you one of the game figures?" I asked the Queen, watching her reaction.


    "That''s right.¡± She answered. "If you participate in the game, then you have to operate under the control of the Supermind. Come on, I''ll take you to the hive.¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s go¡± I agreed.


    I took a quick look at the bodies around me and followed the Queen. Apparently, in the first batch, only I had a chance to survive and not turn into a stupid animal. I did have to run after the Queen, though it was only a slow step for her. Her body was three meters high and all five in length. And all this mass with amazing dexterity slid along the ''road'' of slime that led from the base to the hive.


    Half an hour later, we reached the familiar ''area'' where the hive and the Deposit of crystals were located. When she reached the main Zerg building, the Queen activated the ''communication organ'' available there.


    "Hello, Zagara." I heard a powerful telepathic signal.


    ¡°I bow before your greatness, Supermind. I found another game figure. I transformed this man into a zerg¡±


    I felt the mental power of the Supermind concentrate on me, trying to scan my mind. But my defenses were too good for that kind of remote exposure to threaten me in any way.


    "Who are you?"  Supermind frowned inwardly.


    ¡°My name is Atman. I came to your world to invite you to take part in another game. Once you lose here, you can go to another world and help me destroy one powerful creature.¡±


    ¡°I''m going to lose?¡± Suddenly, the Supermind was furious. ¡°I will win this game! And no one can get in my way. Wretched creature, I will destroy you!!!¡±


    With these words, my interlocutor unleashed all his telepathic power on me. Maybe it would have scared someone else, but not me. At the very beginning of our conversation, I found out that the personal power of the Supermind does not reach this planet, and it affects me only through the hive. So as soon as the mental attack began, I used a chakra-based jutsu to destroy the ''telepathic organ'' inside the hive. At this point, all the impact stopped.


    "He''s kind of nervous.¡± I lamented, turning to the Zagara. ¡°Don''t you want to take part in another game? I don''t think you should lose this one. I can get you back after you help me.¡±


    ¡°No. As long as the Supermind lives, I obey its orders. You were able to break the link of minds, but in my mind remained the attitude of submission. As soon as the hive is restored, I''ll probably get an order to destroy you.


    With that, the Queen busied herself with repairing the damage of the hive. Judging by her words, she personally has nothing against me, but she is not going to oppose the Supermind.


    "Do you think serving the Supermind is more important than your own game?" I asked her.


    "You don''t understand. Supermind gives us immortality. Even if I get killed, he''ll resurrect me right away. As long as I obey him, I can''t lose. And that''s enough.¡±


    "Oh! I see. Okay. I''ll need five workers and an overlord from you. And we will assume that we have armed neutrality.¡± The Queen turned and looked down at me from her height of three meters. "Or do you prefer to resolve this issue with the old-fashioned violence?"


    If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    "Supermind won''t forgive me if I let you go without a fight.¡± She said.


    "Okay, how about this?"


    With these words, I stretched my hand and activated the Earth element technique, which instantly turned into mincemeat the fifty roaches buried in the ground surrounding the hive.


    "What was that?"  The Queen stared at me.


    "It was a small part of my true power. If you disturb me, I can destroy your entire swarm, and for one thing make sure that your soul goes not to the Supermind, but straight to hell.¡±


    "Do whatever you want." She answered me and turned to the hive. In her mind, hidden behind mental shields, I saw echoes of fear and panic.


    Taking these words as permission, I went to the busy workers. After selecting five of them, I telepathically subdued them, amplifying my orders with my chakra. After a couple of minutes of work, I was sure that now these zergs would listen only to me. And even if the Supermind can connect to their consciousness, he will not have the right to give orders.


    In the same way, I also subdued one of the overlords. It was a huge flying brain that coordinated the actions of ordinary zergs. The overlord had special leathery sacks in which he could transport other zergs. I drove my workers there, and then I climbed myself. After that I gave the command to my ''transport'' and sent it away from the hive. By my calculations, the hive''s telepathic connection with the Supermind will recover in an hour, and by that time I should be far enough away from here that they won''t be able to find me.


    While the overlord was flying away from the hive, I began to study the technologies of breeding and development of zergs. Crystals with psi energy contained in them were a universal resource that could help the Zergs to mutate into another form. If desired, it was possible to do without crystals, but in this case the duration of the mutation was not minutes, and days or even weeks.


    Well, since the Supermind has subjugated all the zerg, I should wait until it''s destroyed by the protos. At this time, it will be possible to study the nature of zerg and protos and create hybrids from them, using human DNA as an intermediary. It seems that this is how hybrids got in the original story.


    Based on these assumptions, I need a new plan. First, I need to develop my existing zergs to the level of spaceflight availability. Actually, even the overlord is capable of this after a certain ''upgrade''. Next, I need to find a planet of protos. There may be a problem with that, but I know a place where the protos can be found right here. In a few days, they''ll fly to Mar-Sar and destroy all life, including the zerg.


    By that time, I will need to develop ''beacons'' that will be attached to the protos'' ships. When they return to their home world, I can track them. And then I can steal a couple of guinea pigs, in the sense of protos, and start breeding hybrids. So, when I become a hybrid myself, and for one of the strongest psionics of the galaxy, it will be possible to think about finding commanders for my Zergs army.


    There were no problems with the first part of the plan. Well, it almost didn''t work out. After four hours of flight, I discovered a good deposit of crystals and decided to settle next to it. Chakra easily replaced the psi-energy, so the mutation of the worker in the hive passed without problems. And then I arranged the rapid development of the economy and began to rivet the mutalisks. These flying critters were supposed to be the basis of my plan.


    Alas, for mass production of mutalisks, I needed a large amount of vespen gas, which usually came out of the ground near the crystal deposits. But relatively nearby, I discovered a huge Deposit of this valuable element, where I set up a second base.


    But this deposit, as it turned out, attracted not only me, but also people. A dozen years ago, they found it, built a gas condensate station and laid a gas pipeline. I was a bit of a fool and considered all this equipment as non-working, so I just let it go for scrap. But after a couple of hours people came to visit me and tried to ''destroy the aggressive fauna''. In General, my confrontation with the local Petroleum Company resulted in a small local genocide of the population of a small city.


    However, I will not concentrate on such small things, and move on to the main thing. Mutalisks in ''standard equipment'' fired with a small parasite that deals damage with the help of stored psionic energy. I left everything as it is, but some of the created parasites were replaced with their stealth modification, which was supposed to carry a beacon for Hiraishin label. The Zergs couldn''t produce the chakra, so I had to charge each mutalisk ''manually''. Ordinary psi-beacons were not suitable, because protos can easily determine such presence.


    After my army reached the number of a couple of million individuals, I loaded all of them to the ''enhanced'' overlord and in the company of thousands of mutalisks left to surf the vast expanses of space. The protos invasion began about a day after I left. All this time I''ve been controlling my army through the hive, not letting them waste its strength. But when the protos ships appeared, all this crowd abruptly rushed into near space and began to attack the enemy.


    To my surprise, I almost won. My swarm of mutalisks turned out to be the biggest on the planet. The Protoses were not prepared for such resistance. After all, most of zergs were ''ground modification'', and I was only planning the air force. But I managed to land my own beacons on every ship. Following the program, mutalisks parasites crammed into the cracks and other secluded places and ... died.

 7.18 StarCraft

    Yes, it was my ''knight move'' against the protos. I didn''t expect that I could fool them by living parasites. After all, it was a standard zerg tactic, and the protos learned to counteract it. But in this case, I was hoping for a ''accident''. Because it was quite difficult to dig out the dead organics from the cracks. It was easier to disassemble the ship and assemble it back at the factory than to clean it right in space.


    My expectations were met. Of the mutalisks charges, only one percent was charged with chakras. And of all the parasites that climbed on the ships, less than one percent remained intact. But even this ten-thousandth part was enough for me to track the position of a couple of dozen ships.


    To my surprise, after clearing the planet, the protos fleet scattered in different directions, and I faced the difficult task of choosing a direction. After scanning all the options, I chose one that was in an area far from the zerg habitat. I hoped that the security procedures there were a little less strict, so the chances of the protos not being able to detect my presence would be higher.


    My zerg army got to the next star system from the one I needed. Then there was only one overlord in the company with me. The infected ship was found orbiting a planet whose surface was full of strange life. But most importantly, I felt the presence of protos, which the zergs sensed on the level of instincts.


    But besides the protos, there was something very strange about it. I directed the overlord to one of the sources of strange sensations in the psi range. My technique of masking based on the chakras has been fairly effective, so that even the zergs could not feel me and my transport. The protos were no better either. So, no one attacked me, and I was able to study the ruins of the ancient city carefully.


    Looks like I came across the remains of the zel''naga temple. There were no protos around... with the exception of one invisible individual who was making its way through the maze to one of the temples. Such a luck! I got out of the overlord, swooped down to this ''frog traveler'' and fell like snowball on his head. More precisely, as icicle.


    The stun technique worked without misfiring, and I began to investigate the resulting specimen. The protos'' cellular structure was completely different from that of the Zerg, so I couldn''t get their DNA on the spot. With a sigh of regret, I decided to search the individual''s memory and find out where he was going.


    To my surprise, I found myself in the hands of Zeratul - the dark Templar. Here he would explore the temple of zel''nag to find a means to fight the Zerg. The strongest ''love for the Motherland''was imprinted on Zeratul''s mind. He was willing to do anything to save the Protoss. But there was something else.


    To my surprise, in my hands was himself a Zeratul - a dark templar. Here he was going to explore the temple of zel''naga to find a weapon to fight the zergs. In the mind of Zeratul imprinted the strongest ''love for the motherland''. He would do anything to save the protos. But there was something else.


    His soul was clearly a game figure. I could read the memory of Zeratul, but the consciousness of the embedded soul was beyond my control. Therefore, I decided to bring protos to consciousness and talk ''heart to heart''. According to the available memories, the last couple of weeks he was in a state of confusion and depression, which did not fit with his previous story. I tied up Zeratul, put additional paralyzing techniques on him, and then brought him back to consciousness.


    "What?... What''s happening?¡± Zeratul muttered, opening his eyes.


    "You are my prisoner.¡± My eye sparkled.


    "Kerrigan?"


    ¡°No. My name is Atman. I''m from a neighboring fairy tale, flew to you on my way.¡±


    "What?" Why did you attack me?¡± Zeratul finally realized that he was tied up and couldn''t move.


    "I need a protos to conduct inhuman experiments." I didn''t try to hide my intentions.


    "What? Heck. No! What a stupid game.¡± He began to whine. "I wish I''d become a zerg. I didn''t like playing for the Protos on Earth yet. Now I became a zeratul, who in the script must sacrifice himself to save his race. And now I was captured by an unknown creature for some experiments. You''re not Orochimaru, is it?¡±


    If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    "PHA-ha-ha-ha!"- I laughed. - ¡°No, not Orochimaru. This butcher is not worthy to be called a true Scientist.¡±


    "Wait, do you know him?"


    "We met earlier. In one distant, distant galaxy. Let''s better focus on your destiny.¡±


    ¡°Oh... And what kind of fate awaits me?" - Its looks like the local Zeratul has already accepted his fate and expecting me to start performing an autopsy right here.


    ¡°There are different options.¡± - I began to seduce his innocent soul. - "For example, I can transform you to hybrid of protos and zerg, then you can subdue a swarm of zergs and continue playing on their side.¡±


    "Judging by your eyes, it''s not going to be free" - My almost recruit guessed.


    ¡°Yeah. In return, you will help me with my game. I will send you to the world of Mass Effect, where you will help me kill the Reapers.¡±


    "Hey, Hey, Hey! Isn''t that against the rules?¡±


    "No, of course not. The laws of the game for the most part resemble the laws of physics. They comply with not because they are supposed to be complied, but because no one can break them. So, do you agree to become my subordinate?¡±


    "Are there any other options?" - Zeratul asked listlessly. - ¡°Please read out the entire list.¡±


    ¡°Another option - I will autopsy you for the organs, and all your memory will be thoroughly researched by me, after which you will die in wild torment and go straight to hell.¡±


    "That doesn''t look good. Is there a third option?¡±


    ¡°No.¡± - I categorically rejected this assumption.


    "Okay, I agree, only...¡± - At this point, Zeratul fell into an unconscious state, from which he emerged a couple of seconds later. - "Um! I''ve talked with my player, and he wants you to help me destroy the Supermind. After that, I can temporarily go to your world. And you will have to give me an artifact that can bring me back to this world at my will.¡±


    ¡°Hmm...¡± - I thought. - ¡°Destroy the Supermind? Overall, it shouldn''t be difficult.¡±


    "You think so?" - Zeratul asked. ¨C ¡°This is a slightly different scenario than in the game. The Zergs are much stronger in this world. I mean, there are a lot more of them. Almost half the galaxy is already occupied by them, and the protos are hiding in all cracks, in an attempt to stay alive.¡±


    ¡°Nonsense. Once I become a hybrid, the Supermind won''t be able to oppose me¡±


    Actually, I didn''t think that I needed to become a hybrid to destroy this arrogant upstart. My experience of destroying planets and galaxies has shown that destruction is what I do best. But before I run to perform tasks for another player, I should take care of my own development. Who knows, maybe in some future world I will need the ability to create zerg, protos, and hybrids.


    "Since we''ve agreed on everything, why don''t you untie me?" - Zeratul asked.


    "Not so fast.¡± - I besieged him. ¨C ¡°First, we will conclude an official contract according to the rules of the game.¡±


    We spent the next half hour discussing the terms of the agreement. Zeratul ''suddenly'' felt that there was a smell of frying, so that for each item he traded until he lost his pulse. And after the recovery of the pulse came to his senses and still exposed the conditions from his player. But in the end, he had to accept all the conditions I had put forward. After the contract was signed, I untied the body of my ''assistant'' and removed the paralysis technique.


    "What''s next?" Zeratul asked, rising to his feet.


    "According to my plans, your autopsy is due to take place.¡± I chuckled


    "Hey, that''s not funny. We already agreed on everything.¡± Protos began to retreat.


    "There was nothing in the contract about restriction to perform your autopsy.¡± - I grinned maliciously. ¨C ¡°Ok, relax. We need test subjects to conduct experiments. Where will it be easiest to catch a couple of your relatives?¡±


    "Catching is not a problem." - He shrugged it off. - "Just what are you going to do with them? After all, for thousands of years they have been trying to create a hybrid with protos. And they didn''t succeed, because after growing up, protos can''t change. The structure of his body is rigidly set at the level of DNA and cannot change. You will need a protos embryos to perform your experiments. And it''s not that easy to get them. The Zerg have never managed to do this in their entire history. I think that means something.¡±


    "What kind of embryos?" - I asked.


    In response, Zeratul gave me a lecture on how protos reproduce and how their society works. In short, the only source of the new protos was the special temple of zel''nag on planet Aiur. Like a hive, it produced ¡®protos embryos¡¯ that then could be grown to adulthood. In protos society, there were many clans that differed from each other in appearance and abilities. This was due to the fact that each clan had its own ''program'' for growing embryos.


    Each clan had the right to receive a portion of the new embryos. This right was considered as sacred, and even apostates like the dark Templars continued to receive their share of offspring. Of course, the priests of the temple ''excommunicated'' very stubborn maniacs, but in general, a separate clan was in charge of this institution, which preferred to always remain out of politics. Otherwise, today your enemy will be left without offspring, and tomorrow it will be you.


    Each clan kept the embryos as the apple of the eye, and in case of probability of falling into the clutches of zerg, all of them were ruthlessly destroyed. Even the transport of the embryos had always taken place exclusively through the warp gate, so it was impossible to intercept a ship with them.


    Based on the results of my brainstorming, I have come to the conclusion that the easiest way to get the samples is to rob the Central temple on Aiur itself. Yes, there was the strongest security. But on the other hand, the security protocols were less paranoid, so there was a better chance of getting what I wanted.

 7.19 StarCraft

    Zeratul agreed with my arguments and even offered to personally steal the embryos, but I crushed this initiative in the root. I am interested in this d-bag only as a source of knowledge of protos. I think I''ll have to find another candidate here to lead the hybrid army in the Mass Effect world.


    The robbery of the most protected shrine of the protos passed without any problems. I created my crown of the disembodied shadow clone that followed the zelatul. He went on his personal ship to Aiur and made a small pilgrimage on the surface of the planet, and then quickly left.


    Meanwhile, my clone reached the temple, penetrated the holy saints, and sealed in fuinjutsu a few embryos lying in the vault. No one in this world could feel the chakra, so no one even understood what had happened. And then the clone used Hiraishin and moved to me along with the embryos.


    We spent the next six months together with Zeratul in the ass of the world, making experiments on crossing people, zergs and protos. With the help of the chakra, I created an entire research complex inside one of the asteroids. And since the asteroid was not even in orbit near the star, but just on its own inside the galactic nebula, it was almost impossible to detect us.


    In my research, Zeratul could not help in any way, but he was a good test subject and a volunteer. Using the knowledge of the Ancients from the Stargate universe, I was able to achieve the desired result. The hybrids I created had zergs vitality, fertility, and the ability to change their shape at will, and from the protos they got unprecedented psionic power and physical immortality. The zergs, despite all their strength, lived a maximum of several decades. But the protos could live indefinitely. The same Zeratul had already sixth hundred years old and was considered by some protoses as a green youth.


    Finally, there was that wonderful moment when I injected a special serum into my body. This substance force triggered the process of my mutation, and after a couple of hours the ''doll'' hatched a new species - a hybrid of zerg and protos.


    I stretched out my arms with pleasure, waved my tentacles, and chewed my mandibles. I think it''s not bad. My psionic power was enormous, but at the same time the chakra was further strengthened. Now, I could consider myself as the strongest creature in this galaxy.


    The next injection was given to Zeratul. He got a simpler version of the serum, so he became a ''normal'' hybrid, which was nevertheless much stronger than any Zerg or protos. After the ''hatching'' Zeratul immediately took human form and began to flaunt himself in front of the mirror.


    I''ve never been attracted to this kind of nonsense. I could have been human too, but it would diminish my strength. The DNA of the protos and zerg was optimized for a certain body shape, so all these tentacles and mandibles were for a reason, and were psionic amplifiers.


    In general, the psionics of this world were based on physiology. It was not a manifestation of the ''power of the mind'', but primarily a power of the body and brain. I was not very attracted to this direction of development, but it was quite interesting as a ''last resort'' option. Apparently, the psionics of this world were tied to special laws of physics, because I was able to create the working body of a hybrid by simply synthesizing it from the atoms of chemical elements. That is, there was no ''mysticism'', but only banal physics and chemistry.


    After we got used to our new bodies, the question arose about what to do next. I had access to the zergs telepathic network, so I could easily detect the location of the Supermind. But just attacking him with ''bare ass'' would lead bad consequences.


    The problem was the size of the Supermind, as well as the zerg army protecting it. Simply because of its mass, this creature reached a level of power comparable to me. And the myriad zergs might well delay me long enough time, on which Supermind can strike me with a powerful blow that would be very difficult to survive.


    I needed a brilliant plan. No, in principle, I could do the same trick with the shadow clone that I did on Aiur. It could have sneak up to the Supermind''s body, and then I would have teleported straight to it and slaughtered this ''mega-brain'' like a pig. That''s just it did not solve the problem with Zeratul, whose ability to solve the problems before him was close to zero. The only thing he could do well was to whine about his plight and get on my nerves. He had no equal here. But I don''t think such ''superpowers'' will help him to defeat Reapers. Which means I need another recruit.


    As they say, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Which means I should seek help from another main character in this story - Sarah Kerrigan. The past six months, events have not stood still, and Sarah was already dildomorphed in zerg. I found out for sure by ''eavesdropping'' on the telepathic conversations of her new relatives. I think now is the time to visit her and make an offer that she can''t refuse.


    Taught by the bitter experience of the Supermind, I decided to approach Kerrigan with my proposal at a time when she would be close to defeat. And since the zergs are stronger than ever, this defeat will have to be provided by me.


    Kerrigan was currently on the planet Char, where she was learning how to control Zerg forces. When I reached this planet, I discovered that there were already Terran troops under Jim Raynor. And literally with me in the orbit of the planet arrived troops of protos, going after Tassadar. Well, I guess I don''t even have to work hard to get the result I want.


    Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    I took the form of a ¡®Zeratul¡¯ and contacted to Tassadar. As a result of a half-hour conversation, filled with a spirit of pathos and overcoming, I was appointed one of the commanders of the protos army, which was to destroy the Queen of Blades, as Kerrigan was called by the protos.


    When the first protos force landed on the planet''s surface, I joined them. After that there was ''playing in God mode''. Usually, the protos used the crystal deposits to quickly gather energy to summon buildings and troops from Aiur. But my psionic power allowed me to directly supply the equipment with energy. So, I quickly built the necessary technological chain and began to massively call on aircraft and void emitters.


    Within twenty-four hours I had a huge fleet at under my control, having almost completely exhausted the reserves of this type of troops on Aiur. And then all I had to do was fly around the planet and destroy all life forms - zergs, humans and even the normal animals of this planet. But that wasn''t the point. While the protos were fighting ordinary zergs, I cut out the game figures.


    Almost every Queen who led her pack was someone else''s game piece. And in order to prevent their rebirth by Supermind, I destroyed not only their physical bodies, but also their astral bodies. As I had expected, the Supermind could not resurrect a ''pure'' soul devoid of astral shells.


    By the time I got to Sarah Kerrigan, she was fully aware of her prospects. Even the combination of her forces with the remnants of the Terran forces could not threaten my army in any way.


    "Greetings, Queen of Blades. Hello to you, too, Jim.¡± - I said hello to the sweet couple. All their troops had already been destroyed, and no one could prevent our communication.


    "Who are you?" - The queen of the zergs asked.


    "Some people call me Zeratul. But I''m actually an unaccounted factor in this game. You do realize I can kill you here and now, and that''s where your game ends?¡±


    "Yes, I do.¡±


    ¡°Wonderful. Then I have a suggestion for you. I will keep you alive, help you destroy the Supermind, give you a power greater than anything you''ve ever seen before, and then... I will send you to another world to fight against my enemy. And if you win, I will allow you to return to this world and continue your game. Do you agree?¡± - Kerrigan gritted her teeth and nodded. - ¡°Wonderful.¡±


    "Is there anything you want to offer me?" - Jim Raynor asked.


    ¡°To you?¡± - I measured him with a contemptuous look, for one scanning the consciousness of an ordinary person, deprived of even the rudiments of psi-abilities. - ¡°I can kill you, so you don''t have to suffer. Interested?


    "Uh-... no.¡±


    "Well, that''s what I thought.¡± - I looked back at Kerrigan. - "Well, if you agree, then we should conclude a contract, and then we can start discussing plans to destroy the Supermind."


    There was no trading for each point of the game agreement, so we managed it in just five minutes.


    "So, the plan will be like this. Kerrigan sneaks up to the Supermind and gives me a signal. After that, we and Zeratul will teleport to the scene. Next, I will bind the Supermind with telepathic opposition, Zeratul cuts its physical body to pieces, and Kerrigan took controls over zergs to prevent them to interfere our battle.¡±


    "I will not be able to approach the Supermind, because it will know my intentions as soon as it touches my consciousness.¡± - Kerrigan frowned.


    ¡°Nonsense. I''ll block some of your memory, and you won''t remember our plan until you''re near the Supermind."


    "Hm... It might work, but then the question is, why should I even go to him? The supermind is too paranoid and is unlikely to allow me to get close to it for no good reason.¡±


    "That could be a problem¡­" - I thought for a moment.


    "We can tell him that Kerrigan found the zel''nag artifact.¡± - Zeratul suggested.


    ¡°We can say that, but where will we get this artifact?¡± - The Queen of Blades objected. - " I don''t think we can fool the Supermind by just telling him something like this.¡±


    "We can dig up an artifact on Mar-Sare. At least one is there.¡±


    I liked the idea of Zeratul. Moreover, it solved the problem that even at the very best, the Supermind might not allow Kerrigan to get too close. But the zel''nag artifact he would want to see in person. So, I can put a Hiraishin tag on it and be on the scene at the right time. And Kerrigan will be able to control the zerg and from a distance.


    Another positive thing was the fact that Jim Raynor was the sheriff at Mar-a-Sare, which meant he could help us find the artifact without attracting too much attention. Zeratul and I took the appearance of humans and went to Mar-Sara, while Kerrigan escaped from Char to present these memories to the Supermind as an excuse.


    A couple of weeks later, I found the artifact we needed. Jim hired miners, who in just a few days dug up the artifact. Then I put a Hiraishin tag on it and gave Kerrigan a telepathic signal that everything was ready for the start of our scam.


    The Queen of Blades appeared at Mar-Saru with an army of zergs. She easily broke the resistance of people and took the artifact for herself. Actually, there was almost no resistance as such, because after the protos cleared this planet, there was very little population here.


    And then I subdued Kerrigan''s consciousness and temporarily blocked the necessary pieces of her memory. Afterwards, inspired by her ''success'', Kerrigan contacted Supermind and informed him that she had found the artifact. Naturally, he demanded to immediately deliver this artifact to him, and our plan entered an active phase.


    As I had expected, Kerrigan was not allowed to go near the body of the local boss. Ten kilometers from the body of the Supermind, the artifact was taken by the queen controlled by him. She scanned the artifact, studied it in every way possible, and made sure it was safe to its owner.


    Then everything went according to plan. Zeratul and I teleported to the Supermind. I immediately launched a mental attack, destroying the Supermind¡¯s astral body, while Zeratul began to shred his physical body using lightning and his blades. Kerrigan received a code signal from my shadow clone, after which she ''remembered'' our plan and began to subdue the zergs and prevent the Supermind from calling them for help.


    The epic battle was over in just five minutes. Weakened by physical injuries, the Supermind succumbed to me for a second, after which I literally tore its astral body, depriving it of any hope of rebirth in this world. And as a ''control shot'' I charged in his already corpse bijudama, which tore the former ruler of the galaxy to pieces.


    After Kerrigan had more or less calmed the zergs and take control over the planet, I transformed her into a hybrid. After that, the usual zergs of one of the swarms were turned into hybrids. Finally, Zeratul, Kerrigan and a small subordinate army passed through the stargate, going into the world of Mass Effect. I opened them a passage to one of the planets in the Terminus systems, where there were almost no intelligent inhabitants, so their appearance there should not attract much attention.

 7.20 Star Wars: The Old Republic

    Crossing the gates to the next world, I found myself again in empty outer space. This time there was no crisis, so I had time to study carefully the laws of this world. The magic here again did not work, the chakra worked without problems, the hybrid''s psionic did not fail. But the technologies of the Ancient and of the Dead Space refused to work.


    In general, I was happy with this situation, so I began to look around. It wasn''t news that I was hanging out in the vast emptiness of space at the back of the galaxy. But what I discovered at the level of the astral plane, caused unpleasant associations. Another astral creature of infinite size lived there. And as soon as I came into contact with it to examine it more closely, it began to shrink around me, concentrating its presence. I had to surround myself with chakra-based barriers and hang around for a couple of hours waiting for the moment when this beast would lose interest to me.


    What the hell is this? No matter what universe I go into, there must be some galactic-scale creature whose purpose in life is to eat the souls of ordinary mortals. Is this a law of nature?


    A few hours later, I escaped the attention of the unknown animal and began a more cautious investigation of it. The results were not very encouraging. As it turned out, the magic here worked almost normally, but all the energy from the spells was immediately sucked out by this same astral creature. The chakra was also absorbed by it, but much slower, so that techniques based on it could be used without any problems. But autonomous fuinjutsu and barriers could not last long. The maximum is a few hours. Zergs psionics worked, but if I started trying to do something large-scale, the energy loss began to increase exponentially.


    In general, it is possible to live, but the power of my influence will not allow me to overcome the scale of typical mediocre magicians or chakra-users. So, my cheats are disabled. Sad.


    Having sorted out the existential questions, I focused on getting to the local civilization. Here I had two ways to move: either use Zerg psionics, or create a Stargate based on the chakra. But the second option required the presence of a beacon at the destination, so its applicability was small.


    I''ve searched a couple dozen nearby star systems, but I haven''t been able to find any signs of life. Looks like I''m in trouble. There are hundreds of billions of stars in the galaxy, and thousands of inhabited worlds. I can look for them for a very long time. I tried to scan the space in the psi range for distortions of space or active mental activity, but it was useless. The resident of the local astral dimension silenced everything and anything, leaving only the electromagnetic radiation intact.


    All I could do was try to catch some artificial radio emission. Or try to detect inhabited worlds using the non-standard radiation spectrum of planets. Both of these methods were very unreliable, but I had nowhere to go.


    After about a couple of weeks of wandering around the galaxy, I came across a strange flickering of one of the stars. It was a red dwarf about eight light-years away, and there were suspicious bursts of light in its orbit, uncharacteristic of the star''s natural radiation. So, I immediately went there.


    When I got to the star system that interested me, I found a very interesting picture. Around the red dwarf rotated a gas giant, in orbit of which was a satellite the size of the Moon, and already in its orbit flew the wreckage of the space fleet.


    Apparently, eight years ago, there was a space battle here, and the flashes from which attracted my attention. The cause of this battle was most likely a colony on the surface of the moon. I couldn''t find the colony itself, but the remaining craters were still glowing in the infrared range. Well, I think there''s possible to find something.


    As it turned out, it wasn''t just me who thought so. Half an hour later, I noticed that one of the ''fragments'' in orbit was clearly maneuvering, flying from one ship''s frame to another. I immediately approached it and discovered that it was not a piece of debris, but a small space ship, with parts of the armor of one of the wrecked battleships attached to its outer skin. There were also three dozen washing-machine-sized droids flying around the ship, carefully examining every piece of debris they found and occasionally picking something out.


    As I approached the ship, I scanned it for signs of life. And these signs were found in the amount of six pieces. Unfortunately, there was no question of entering the ship unnoticed, because if I just made a hole in this tub, the whole crew would have been in a vacuum. With a very good exterior reservation, there was only one compartment inside that had an atmosphere.


    As a result, I had two possible options. Either attach to the outer hull of the ship, pretend to be a rag and wait until they decide to return to their base, or break in and read the crew''s memory. Naturally, I chose the second option. The crew noticed immediately that someone was hacking the airlock hatch. They even tried to intercept me with one of the drones. But I managed to get inside and weld the carved part of the door back


    As soon as I made a hole in the second door, blaster shoots flew at me. Five of the six crew members met me, so I immediately applied a chakra-based paralyzing technique to them. Alas, the crew did not consist of people, so the technique designed for the common man executed these five in a very painful way. After that, all I had to do was get to the control room and capture the humanoid who was sitting there.


    It took me three days to extract the knowledge from the last alien''s head. I didn''t want him to die early and leave me with nothing. In the end, I managed to implant Zerg cells in his body, then perform a partial transformation and mentally subdue him.


    As a result of this whole scam, I got the knowledge of the language and access to a navigation computer with the coordinates of thousands of inhabited worlds. For one thing, I figured out how the local galactic society works. All power here belonged to the Emperor Mark Ragnos, who ruled his Empire through proxies - his close Sith students. It looks like I''m in the world of Star Wars during the heyday of the Sith Empire.


    In general, this world might be interesting enough, but there was hardly anything to solve my problems with the Reaper. Even the Sith and Jedi army would be useless. Local technologies are also not admirable, and there is another question, is these technologies will work in the world of Mass Effect? Therefore, there is only one thing left-to study the control of the local Force, for which I need a teacher.


    I looked at the map of the galaxy and decided to visit one of the most developed worlds of the Empire - Ziost, which was also not so far away from me. That''s just ''not far'' it was by my standards. But for this ship the distance was insurmountable. Moreover, I was now in an uninhabited region of the galaxy, so the ship could only reach to a couple of space stations from here.


    After thinking about this problem, I decided that I didn''t need this ship, and it would be easier to get to the right place using zergs psionics. Therefore, I sent the ''garbage truck'' in the direction of the local sun, waited for its destruction, and then flew to the desired star system.


    Just a few hours later, I came out of hyperspace in the orbit of the planet I wanted. Here I was struck by the number of spaceships swerving back and forth. There were really billions of them. And moreover, all these ships flew at a speed of hundreds of kilometers per second, sometimes approaching each other at a distance of a few kilometers.


    Previously, I had read from the mind of a local native information that flights in the orbits of planets are controlled by a computerized system. But I could not imagine such chaos. If I try to just fly up to the planet, there''s a pretty good chance that I''ll crush into some ship at enough speed that will turn me into a pile of mincemeat.


    As a result, I decided to follow one of the ships and get to the planet ''on its tail''. The ships were coming out of hyperspace at a certain distance from the planet, about the same place where I was now. So, I had no problem waiting for the next ship to appear and begin a maneuver to approach it. Five minutes later, I was flying ten meters behind the ship, holding on to it with the hybrid''s telekinesis.


    Despite the fairly decent speed, the flight itself lasted several hours, so I even managed to relax a little. But in the end, when we were almost close to the planet, it turned out that the ship I had chosen was not flying to the planet itself, but to one of the space stations that were in its orbit.


    With a mental sigh, I waited for the right moment and detached myself from the ship, intending to enter the station ''through the back entrance''. I didn''t have any documents, so I didn''t want to contact the local police or immigration.


    When I got to the station, I found myself near the living quarters. The building had a lot of ''windows'' with transparent glass, behind which I could see the interior of the hotel rooms. To sneak inside, I had to work hard. I used the chakra of the Earth''s element to ''seep through'' the glass. Moreover, it was necessary to do it very carefully to avoid depressurization of the room. But five minutes later I was already inside and was able to enjoy a weak artificial gravity and a slightly downy atmosphere.


    I found myself in a large room with a huge bed. There was only one way out, so I headed for it. But I haven''t had time to make pair of steps as the door swung open and almost a man ran into the room. Almost, because his skin was red, and there were many horns growing on his head instead of hair.


    The intruder saw me and immediately fell to his knees, bending in a bow.


    "Great one, I beg your help. I''m willing to do you any service in exchange for protecting my life.¡± He said in basic galaxy language, which I had copied from captain scavenger''s brain.


    "Who are you?" - I asked, scanning the surrounding space.


    "I am a Sith, a zabrak named Mao Kun.¡±


    ¡°Sith?¡± - I was surprised. ¨C ¡°Sith, who needs help in protecting his own life?¡±


    "I know how pathetic that sounds, but it''s true.¡± - The zabrak replied. - "There are Kaal assassins on my trail. I''m not very good at martial arts, but I can foresee the future. Among thousands of possible futures, I have found one in which I can stay alive. This was the option where I ask for your help.¡± - The Sith paused, giving me time to think.


    A prophet? Interesting. If he was able to predict my appearance, then it means that his ability to control the Force is really non-trivial. And having a Sith obligated to me is pretty good. I think with him I can get everything a lot faster


    "All right, I''ll take you under my protection.¡± - I replied by taking majestic pose. Now I looked like a normal person in some kind of spacesuit, but without a helmet. - "So, when are you expecting the attack?" - I clarified an important point.


    ¡°Literally in a few minutes.¡±


    "Ok, then get under the bed and don''t come out until I call you."


    Without protest, the Sith immediately lay down on the floor and began to crawl under the only shelter in the room. After he was out of sight, I put a chakra barrier on top of the bed, which was supposed to protect him, and at the same time hide him from all sorts of sensors and scanners.


    Five minutes later, the figure of another humanoid appeared in the doorway. He was wearing a dark-colored combat suit with a helmet. After a quick look around the room, he pointed the blaster at me and fired. I didn''t duck, but took a shot at the hybrid''s psionic shields. At the same time, I used the Wind Blade based on the chakra, which literally split the opponent into left and right parts.


    A second later, the wall of the room was pierced by many shots, which, like the previous ones, could not harm me. A moment later, another humanoid with a lightsaber ran through the door into the room. He immediately attacked me, showing good speed. I created a protos psionic blade in my hand and started the fray to test this mortal''s abilities.


    For a couple of dozen seconds, we fight at each other, turning the furniture in the room into charred fragments. In addition to his superhuman speed and reaction, the Sith demonstrated his telekinesis skills to me by trying to hold me back and put me under attack. But this telekinesis was very strange.


    It took a few seconds to realize that I was not being affected by a Sith, but by the ubiquitous astral creature of this world. Somehow, the Sith simply forced her to follow his orders. Apart from this clever trick, the Sith could not surprise me, so this time I held him with my own telekinesis, and then completely tore him to shreds. My impact, in contrast to the action of the ''Force'', was much more concentrated.


    Then I ran into the next room, where three more humanoids and five more battle droids were waiting for me. Unfortunately for them, they didn''t even have time to fire a couple of shots before I chopped them into cabbage. I scanned my surroundings, and noticed a living creature moving away from here. After him, I threw the technique of paralysis based on the chakra, which this time did not fail and ''executed'' the fugitive, literally turning inside out all his muscles, including the heart.


    "That''s it, you can get out." - I called to my debtor, scanning my surroundings once more and removing the chakra barriers. By the way, only thanks to these barriers, the attackers'' shots did not break the wall of the space station. They were all in spacesuits, but my debtor was dressed in ordinary clothes.


    "Thank you, great one.¡± - Mao Kun bowed to me. - "May I ask your name?"


    ¡°Atman.¡± - I answered. - ¡°Did your foresight of the future not answer that question?"


    "If I hadn''t asked, how would I have known the answer, even in advance?"


    ¡°Hmm... seems logically. Okay, what''s next?¡±


    "The best thing to do now is to leave the station and go to another star system. And during the flight I will be able to answer all your questions.¡±


    ¡°That''s good. Lead the way.¡±


    We walked through the corridors of the station and got into the parking area of spaceships. Local law enforcement officers met us fully armed, but did not make any attempts to detain or at least ask about anything.


    "Why doesn''t anyone want to arrest us?" - I asked the zabrak, looking at the squirming police. - ¡°There was a bad shootout.¡±


    ¡°I think the assassins paid them to ignore the shooting and destruction. And in such cases, it is customary to issue such agreements so that the winner can benefit from it, regardless of which side he was on. This allows the station management to remain its neutrality and reputation.¡±


    It was quite an original decision, although I must admit it was quite logical. After all, when trying to detain us, the station''s management put themselves at risk, for one thing being forced to become allies of hired assassins who brazenly operate on their territory. As it turned out, all expenses were reimbursed in advance and there was nothing to worry about.


    Then we quickly agreed to rent a ''space taxi'' and immediately went on a flight, moving away from the planet at maximum speed.


    Further communication with the zabrak was built around my desire to learn how their ¡®Force¡¯ works. He was able to show me a couple of tricks, but admitted that he was no good as a teacher. Instead, he asked me to meet his teacher, who was an ancient Sith who had mastered the Force perfectly. I agreed, and with a transfer at one of the stations, we headed for Korriban, the ancient capital of the Sith Empire.


    The destination point met us with dry hot air and rays of the scorching sun. Even now, this planet was considered ancient, with tens if not hundreds of thousands of years of history. It was once the capital of the Empire. But thousands of years had passed since then, and now the capital was on the planet Ziost, where I had never been.


    Now we were at a small spaceport, which was located in an arid desert area. The spaceship dropped us off and immediately took off.


    "Where next to?" - I asked, looking around.


    ¡°Let''s go to my house and then we''ll go to the teacher''s palace¡±


    We took a local taxi, and in ten minutes we reached a small house lost in a network of canyons that crisscrossed the desert. There we boarded to Mao Kun''s personal flyer and flew over the dull desert, where from time to time there were all sorts of ruins.


    This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work.


    The flight took almost an hour. Eventually we landed in a small canyon near a strange structure, next to the canyon wall. Most of all, it looked like the entrance to a crypt, which was located in the thickness of the rock.


    "Does your teacher live here?" - I asked skeptically, looking around at the completely lifeless surroundings.


    "Well, I wouldn''t say he lives...¡± - Mao Kun looked down, embarrassed. - ¡°Actually, he''s dead.¡±


    "What?" - I was very surprised.


    "My master is the spirit of the great Sith who dwells in his tomb.¡±


    "Spirit? Originally. Come on, let¡¯s introduce me to this spirit.¡±


    We came to a huge closed stone door leading to the crypt. To my surprise, the zabrak didn''t open the door, but got down on all fours and crawled in through a hole in the wall that looked like a rat''s passage. I did not humiliate myself like him, but with the help of the chakra, I made a normal passage in the place of the ''burrow'', which I marched with Royal Majesty.


    "What?"!!! How did you do it?¡± - Sith''s eyes widened as he saw how I walked through the big corridor. "This tomb is protected by Force. It is impossible to damage its walls or door!¡±


    "It''s a good thing that I didn''t know about it.¡±


    "If you are so good with the Force, why do you need a teacher?" - Zabrak asked. It finally dawned on him that I didn''t look like a potential student. After all, I killed all the attackers.


    "If you know too much, you''ll die soon." ¨C I answered with proverb. - "Your task is to introduce me to your teacher.¡±


    "G-good.¡± - He agreed, stammering a little.


    We went through a maze of underground passages and came to a large hall, in the center of which stood a sarcophagus. Lighting here was provided by dim lamps, made in the ceiling. Near the walls of the hall were tables and cabinets, crammed with various equipment and books.


    "Teacher, please descend to your humble student.¡± - Mao Kun said loudly.


    ¡°Student?¡± - There was a dissatisfied voice. ¨C ¡°What have you forgotten here? I told you to get out of my sight.¡±


    "Teacher, I was brought here by the duty of life. I promised to Atman I''d bring him here in exchange for saving my life.¡±


    "What? Did you bring an outsider to here?¡±


    A translucent glowing human figure flew out of the sarcophagus, staring at us, flashing his eyes viciously.


    ¡°This is the Atman. And this is Magnus Riemer, my teacher and the greatest of the Sith.¡±


    The ghost examined me carefully, then looked back at his apprentice.


    "By the way, why are you still alive?" - He asked. - "The last time I saw you, your fate was predetermined.¡±


    "A couple of weeks ago, the probability lines shifted, and I was able to find a way to save myself.¡±


    ¡°So, come on, tell me what you did for this.¡± - The ghost calmed down sharply. I was also interested in this question, so I looked at Mao Kun with interest.


    "First, I invaded to the archives of the Imperial security service...¡±


    "What?" - Magnus interrupted his student. - "What did you do?"


    "Secretly infiltrated to the archives of the Imperial Security Service on Illus.¡±


    "How did you do it?"


    ¡°Predicted which of the six-digit combinations on the code lock will be able to open it. It took a week of hard work.


    "Wow! Not bad, pupil. Continue.¡±


    "Well, I got into the archive and downloaded information about a secret operation where the Imperial Navy encountered fierce resistance from a religious sect. In this battle, more than fifty ships were destroyed on both sides.¡±


    "They''ll kill you for having that kind of information." - The ghost nodded in satisfaction.


    "After that, I sold information about the location of this battle to the space scavengers.¡±


    "And, of course, they immediately chatted it up.¡±


    ¡°No. I managed to find a team that was able to keep the coordinates in secret. Next, I ordered the transportation of fruit ¡®Madaba¡¯ to the one of the space stations on Siesta. At the same station, I rented a hotel room for three days, then sold information about my location to the Kaal clan. At this moment, the head of the clan was nearby and decided to finish me personally. Finally, almost before the attack, I met Atman, who agreed to protect me from the attackers in exchange for his training in possession of the Force. And since I can''t teach him anything, I brought him to you.¡±


    "Yeah, if I refuse to teach him anything then he''ll kill you right now." - The ghost laughed angrily.


    "Yes, sure.¡± - I agreed, grinning maliciously.


    ¡°Teacher! You wouldn''t do that, would you? It would be the same as if you had killed me personally.¡±


    "All right, all right. Calm down. And what lesson have you learned from all this history, disciple?¡±


    "Uh-huh¡­" - Mao Kun thought for a few seconds. - "True Sith must not only be able to foresee the future, but also wield a sword to protect himself."


    "Well, you figured it out. All right then, we''ll start your sword training tomorrow.¡±


    "Yes, master.¡± ¨C Student said in low voice, apparently in anticipation of his future torment.


    "So, Atman.¡± - Magnus Riemer turned to me. - "What do you want from an old ghost?"


    "I''m interested in your Force-control principles.¡±


    "Maybe you mean ''Force-control techniques''?" He frowned.


    ¡°No. I need principles. Principles of influence to the Force and how it can fulfill the will of the Sith.¡±


    ¡°It is ... a very unexpected request.¡± - The ghost thoughtfully stretched out, carefully examining me. ¨C ¡°Usually, everyone is interested in some super-techniques that can kill everyone with a single blow.¡±


    "I have enough of this nonsense in my arsenal." - I shrugged it off.


    "Yes, you killed the head of the Kaal clan.¡± - Magnus nodded. - "I personally trained him how to use the Force two hundred years ago. But back to your wish. Why should I teach you?¡±


    The inquisitive gaze of the ghost squired in my face, trying to define my emotions.


    "I''m offering an exchange. You give me Force-control principles, and I''ll bring you back to life. Complete and 100% resurrection. Life in a young body, full of strength...¡±


    "Don''t tell me stories.¡± - Sith interrupted my ad. - "Even Force can''t bring a man back to life.¡±


    "The Force can''t. I can" - I agreed.


    "Master, Atman made a passage into the tomb right through the wall. And I didn''t feel the slightest fluctuation of Force during the process.¡±


    "What? Made a pass?¡±


    With that, the Ghost darted out of the room. He returned five minutes later, grumbling.


    "Who asked you to make the front entrance to my tomb? Now everyone who is not lazy will climb here.¡±


    "If you become alive, I don''t think it will worry you.¡± - I said.


    "So, you can give me a normal body?"


    ¡°Of course.¡±


    "How?"


    ¡°Silently.¡±


    "Are you kidding me?"


    ¡°Of course.¡±


    "All right, you got me. But I need proof.¡±


    "I can kill your student and then resurrect him."


    "Hey, Hey, I didn''t sign up for this!" - Mao Kun immediately called out, retreating to the exit.


    The ghost and I turned to him and stared thoughtfully to the test subject.


    "Science requires sacrifice.¡± - I made an argument.


    "To die young is written in your fate.¡± - Ghost agreed with me.


    The zabrak ran away, but the door closed before his face, and I picked up the test subject¡¯s body with my telekinesis and lifted him into the air, turning him upside down.


    "No, I want to live!" - The guinea pig screamed.


    "Everyone wants. This is normal.¡± - I agreed with him. - ¡°He wants too." - I nodded at the Ghost.


    After that, the zabrak suddenly calmed down and sagged. I studied the structure of his body and astral shells, then with telekinesis crushed him and turned his body into a pile of bloody mince, which fell to the floor in an unappetizing piece.


    "Well, can he consider him as dead?¡± - I asked the ghost.


    He flew to the corpse of his student and poked at it with his hand.


    "Completely dead" - He agreed.


    "Now look carefully.¡± - I held out my hand and shouted. ¨C ¡°Fuinjutsu: The Great Resurrection!¡±


    The chakra flowed from me and formed a complex seal around the corpse. The dead organics began to move, returning to their place on their own. Within ten seconds, the zabrak''s body was fully restored. At the same time, with the help of zerg¡¯s psionics, I restored the astral shells of the soul and attached them to the body. This was similar how the Supermind resurrected his subordinates.


    The body shuddered, sighed loudly, and then went into the cough.


    "Damn it! It was... very... unpleasantly.¡± - Mao Kun wheezed, examining his hands.


    ¡°Nonsense. After the third or fourth time, you get used to it, and death doesn''t bother you at all.¡±


    The living and dead Sith stared at me with a clear reverence in their eyes.


    ¡°Student, go for a walk and take rest. It is too early for you to know what I am going to teach Atman.¡±


    "Yes, master.¡± The zabrak nodded gloomily. He gathered up his disfigured clothes, which I naturally ''didn''t resurrect'', and trudged to the exit.


    ¡°So, let''s start training.¡± The ghost came to me. - "Sooner you know everything you need, sooner I will come back to life.¡±


    "Oh, you''d be surprised how fast I can learn.¡± - I grinned.


    First of all, I was trained to feel the Force. By this the Sith understood the sensation of contact between the astral body of an adept and the astral body of a local creature of cosmic scale, which I decided to call ¡®the Force¡¯. Naturally, I felt this Force without the slightest effort.


    And then went the principles of influence to the Force with the help of own astral body. Here it was more difficult, but I trained my control of astral body in the world of the Stargate when studying ascension techniques, and then honed my control when studying necromorph control technology. So, I was able to achieve the desired result pretty quickly.


    The Force was controlled by the transferring of special mental images, as well as... emotions. Sith¡¯s narration ''hate gives me strength'' meant that the Force, laced with strong emotions, performed much more willingly.


    In general, using Force was based on the exploitation of its unconditioned reflexes. Just as a person''s hand twitches when you prick it with a needle, so the Force reacted to external stimuli, forming various special effects. At the same time, the Sith had to constantly maneuver and control the situation like a bullfighter. The force could absorb an unwary user and dissolve their astral shells. For a few minutes this gave great power, after which the human soul went to rebirth.


    Surprisingly, it took Magnus only seven hours to give me all the basic skills. I didn''t have to learn how to control my astral body. It was enough to understand exactly how to manage the Force. And there I could achieve the desired effect with the help of my astral body, psionic power or even with chakra.


    When we had almost finished my training and were repeating the material I had passed, I felt strong ''oscillations in the Force''. I saw the astral creature shake a lot of spasms. Her body literally tore apart, squeezed into tight lumps and wrapped cunning knots.


    ¡°What''s going on?¡± - I asked.


    ¡°This is how the battle of two strong Siths looks like.¡± - Magnus Riemer frowned.


    ¡°Teacher! There... there...¡± - Mao Kun burst into the tomb.


    ¡°What''s going on¡± - The ghost asked annoyingly.


    "Emperor Mark Ragnos died three days ago. They decided to bury him on Korriban, not far from here. And during the funeral, two of his strongest disciples began a battle to find out which of them would be the next Emperor.¡±


    Meanwhile, the intensity of passions in the astral increased. Now I felt not only ''spasms in the Force'', but also her pain, her irritation and hatred towards those who dared to awaken her.


    "I think your Empire is now doomed to destruction." - I expressed my opinion.


    "Why?" - The ghost was surprised. - "This is not the first or last Emperor to die. And battles of this scale, though rare, have also happened before.¡±


    "You have angered the Force. And I wouldn''t be surprised if she decides to reduce the number of Sith in the galaxy so that they don''t bother her with their swarming.¡±


    As far as I knew the history of this universe, it was during this battle that two people from the Republic arrived to Korriban. After that, the Sith Empire decides to conquer the Republic, but will get on the teeth and self-destruct.


    "You speak as if the Force is a living thing." - Mao Kun retorted.


    "Yes, it is. And you are like mosquitoes that bite her and make her wave her arms to fulfill your desires.¡±


    "Do you see the future?" - Magnus asked me.


    ¡°Not really. I''d rather know how it would have ended if I hadn''t been here.¡±


    "But since you''re here, can you change everything?" - There was a note of triumph in the ghost''s voice. - "I foresaw the fall of the Empire long ago. But your appearance gives us a chance to make things right.¡±


    "Well, basically, I can resurrect you now. You will go and kill these two fools and become Emperor. But how are you going to counteract the Force?¡±


    "I will not oppose it. I will start a war for the throne that will kill most of the Siths. After that, the anger of the Force will subside and I will be able to take power into my own hands.¡±


    "Yes, you can even introduce the ''Bane rule of two''.¡± - I grinned.


    "What''s the rule?" - Magnus asked.


    "There should only be two Sith in the world - a master and a disciple. When a disciple surpasses his master, he must kill him and become a Sith Lord.¡±


    ¡°This philosophy doesn''t look practical.¡±


    "Of course not. This is just religious heresy that will on one day lead the Sith to degeneration.¡±


    "Okay, let''s focus on the current tasks. You said you could resurrect me right now." - There was an impatience in the voice of the ghost.


    ¡°I can do that. However, it will take time. I''m not sure we''ll have time to finish before the winner is determined in the battle.¡±


    "Don''t worry about that. Sith of this level can fight for days and nights. I don''t think they''ll calm down for a couple of days.


    ¡°Okay. Then we can begin. After that I will destroy these two upstarts using your instructions. Let''s consider this as my exam. And if I can''t defeat them, you''ll regret being resurrected.¡± - I promised grimly.


    I thought that if I was going to ruin the local history, it would be on a big scale. Therefore, I decided to give to the Sith the body of a hybrid when resurrected. Of course, with some restrictions. For example, he will not be able to reproduce or change his body. But in general, this should give him enough power to make the entire history of the galaxy to go to another way.


    Three hours later, I sighed with satisfaction and looked at the results of my labors. Before me stood a man, whose face could only belong to the Emperor. Magnus Riemer''s psionic powers were also enormous, although he didn''t have a chance to fight me.


    "How does it feel?" - I asked.


    ¡°Extraordinarily.¡± - Magnus replied, walking back and forth.


    ¡°Keep it. This body has a power that no Sith can match. Now I will accept your appearance and go to destroy the pretenders to your throne. I will communicate with you telepathically, so that you can tell me what to do and observe what is happening with my eyes.¡±


    ¡°That is good.¡±


    I concentrated and used the chakra to move to the battle field where my shadow clone was watching the fight. There was a wild fight between two irrepressible Siths. The air was filled not only with dust and rocks, but also with huge rocks. Lightning and torrents of fire pierced the space, and somewhere in the center of this storm, the figures of two Sith flied.


    For the first fifteen minutes, I was just getting used to controlling the Force on such a scale, and then I rushed forward, attacking both opponents simultaneously. The battle immediately became even more enchanting. The poor astral creature whined and moaned, but could do nothing about the orders given to it.


    I only used Force control and did not use the chakra or psionics. Gradually, I got used to attack and evade, simultaneously controlling the actions of my opponents by Force. Magnus Riemer''s experience helped me here. After all, I not only resurrected him, but also got direct telepathic access to his consciousness, memories and experience. Although it looked like to him that he was giving me advice, in fact I was squeezing out his combat experience of using the Force from his mind.


    After about half an hour, I was fully mastered with the passed material and decided that the two pretenders to the throne can already be killed. Problems in this matter arose because the Siths perfectly controlled the Force, and therefore prevented any attacks directed at them in advance. To deprive them of this advantage, I decided to simply exhaust the Force in the vicinity of the planet. In this case, the power of the Siths will abruptly go to zero, and I will be able to piss them in hand-to-hand combat.


    The most efficient way to waste energy, of course, was to create matter. As they say, E=mc<sup>2</sup>. I began to materialize millions of tons of gold, under which I tried to bury two opponents. For the first half-hour, this did not have much success, but then the exhaustion of the Force in the surrounding space became obvious. In the air no longer flew rocks and boulders, and the Siths themselves did not hover in the space, but were forced to push off from the ground from time to time.


    Finally, the amount of available power dropped to almost zero, and the three of us descended to a golden field that stretched from horizon to horizon. Tellingly, it was not just gold, but a scattering of coins, with my portrait on one side, and the Imperial coat of arms and some abstruse phrase on the other. In total, I created more than a thousand different templates, and made sure that some of the phrases were less common than others. It will be a paradise for numismatists. Heh-heh-heh.


    "Who are you?" - The pretenders to the throne have finally deigned to address me. Before that, they tried to pretend that I am not exist here and only teased each other.


    "I am your new Emperor, Magnus Riemer.¡± - I introduced myself.


    ¡°Magnus Riemer died more than a hundred years ago.¡± - Naga Shadow apparently retorted to me, whom I identified by a neat beard.


    "It was a temporary misunderstanding.¡± - I shrugged my shoulders. "Stop talking. It''s time to die.¡±


    With that, I formed a psi blade and charged into the fight. Unfortunately, my interlocutor died before he even realized what had happened. He tried to block my attack with his lightsaber, but suddenly, when it collided with the psi blade, the lightsaber exploded and electrocuted its owner. Apparently, the problem with the sword arose because it was an old model, connected to the power supply on the belt with a cord. As a result, the Sith couldn''t dodge next attack and was sliced into a salad by me in less than a second.


    "Wait, we can make a deal.¡± - Ludo Kresh went back on their words.


    "Not before you die." - I promised.


    The second opponent was not holding a new-fangled lightsaber, but a classic metal blade imbued with astral energy. After a couple of tentative skirmishes, Ludo Kresh made sure that his sword was holding my punch and began to press down on me, using all his skill with the blade.


    During this duel, I decided to check what would happen if I lower the concentration of Force in space below zero. Roughly speaking, ''zero'' was a state of astral creature, in which it could only lie flat and flutter sluggishly. But with enough stimulation, even in such conditions, it could affect reality by ''devouring'' itself. It took a lot more effort to make an astral impact on this thing, but I didn''t have a problem with that.


    As soon as the Force finally lost its strength, it began to actively draw energy from all available sources. And the most accessible in the area was the Sith¡¯s astral body. After a minute of fighting, the glow in his eyes faded, and he began to move like a stale zombie, barely able to stand.


    "What are you doing? Wait!¡± - The Sith tried to appeal to my conscience, but he couldn''t find one.


    ¡°Waiting¡±. - I froze as I continued to rape the Force.


    ¡°Please, mercy...¡±


    Ludo Kresh was drying up, turning into a mummy. The force drained him of all his juices and his very soul. I waited another minute and was able to watch as the Sith''s astral body was finally destroyed by the Force! Finita La Comedia.


    I mentally wiped my sweat and teleported to the tomb to my ''teacher''. He greeted me with a dying wheeze. Although the crypt was two hundred kilometers from the battlefield, even here the Force was exhausted beyond the limit.


    "Why are you wheezing?" - I was surprised. - "Fill your body with will and cut it off from the Force. It''s elementary.¡±


    After a couple of seconds, Magnus sighed lightly and rose to his feet.


    ¡°What have you done to the Force?¡±


    "Uh - m-m-m... how to say... exhausted her?


    "What?"


    "In general, I used more power than available.¡±


    "That''s impossible! In this case, the Force simply drinks the adept.¡±


    "That''s what happened to my opponent. It was funny. And to protect yourself from this is quite simple. You can see for yourself that cutting off yourself from the Force solves this problem.¡±


    "Yes, but if you do that, you won''t be able to control the Force.¡±


    ¡°I can do it easily. You just need to use a different method of influence.¡± - I looked at Mao Kun, who was lying on the floor, wheezing. He too was able to temporarily wall off from astral influence, but could not recover as quickly as the zerg-protos hybrid. ¨C ¡°Okay, I''m done with you, I already learned everything I need, it''s time to say goodbye.¡±


    "Where are you going now?" - Future Emperor of the Siths asked me.


    "Knowing too much can shorten your life"


    "So, to live forever, you have to completely erase your memory?" - The Sith chuckled.


    "Exactly! No brain - no pain. Happy to stay.¡±


    After that, I activated the prepared chakra-based technique and opened the Stargate, then boldly stepped into the next world.

 7.21 WARHAMMER 40000

    When I came out of the portal, I felt about the same as an ordinary person would have felt in my place. I felt a sharp drop in air pressure, boiling of blood and lack of oxygen. What the hell? I''m a Zerg! For me, the vacuum is a natural environment. I tried using psionics, but found that it didn''t work on the word at all. There was not even the slightest indication of it. That seems to be the problem.


    The body of a hybrid of zerg and protos could live only at the expense of psionics. It was even used for metabolism at the cellular level, so without it my body was unviable. I only had a few seconds left before the body died completely. In this state, I had no time to think, so I did the first thing that came into my head.


    Recently, in the world of Star Wars, I was learning to control the Force using my astral body. But in addition to controlling the Force, the astral body could be used to turn organic matter into the body of a necromorph. That''s what I did almost on reflexes. After all, the full program of the Marker was recorded in my mind, so I just had to activate it and reproduce the desired sequence of astral actions.


    Fortunately, this universe was compatible with necromorph technology, so within five seconds I felt like a corpse that didn''t need psionics, oxygen, or any atmosphere to survive.


    Having made sure that right now I would not lose touch with my material body, I focused on studying the laws of this world. As it turned out, I panicked for nothing. Magic and even the chakra worked here. Apparently, being in the previous worlds has disrupted my reflexes on the use of magic.


    Surrounding myself with a protective spell, I delved into the study of the local continuum. Here the technology of the world of Dead Space worked normally, but for the most part the technology of the Ancients from the world of the Stargate failed. The Mass effect, as in all previous worlds, did not work here, because the particles of the ''zero element'' were unstable.


    Only I was going to look around to find out in which corner of the galaxy I am, a spaceship came out of a portal of unknown nature very close to me. Or rather, a thing that almost resembled a spaceship. Almost, because it looked more like a giant double-barrelled shotgun of incredible caliber, crossed with a revolver. And the whole thing was more than three hundred meters long and bristled with a lot of smaller guns.


    Before I could pick up my jaw, another ship came out of the same portal, whose design challenged all the laws of logic and physics. It was a hybrid of a submarine and a sword. Moreover, it had several protruding blades on its sides, which could surely be used to ram and cut down the enemy ship. I''ve never seen more idiocy thing in my life.


    No, I saw. This idiocy turned out to be the third spaceship. In shape it resembled an elongated egg, and its entire surface really bristled with a lot of guns. Compared to him, the first ship was virtually unarmed. Seriously. This creation of a mad genius was more like a sea urchin.


    I can''t even describe the next two ships. This whole fleet by its own appearance, terrified the enemies, tearing apart their logic and common sense. After the fifth ship appeared, the portal that glow the crimson light closed and the ships drifted. I used this opportunity to get close to the ¡®sea urchin¡¯ under invisibility and teleport inside.


    I chose a place to penetrate next to the ledge in the hull, which could well be the captain''s bridge. At least, this was hinted at by a series of huge windows from which the light was pouring. I found myself in the hallway, although it didn''t defy logic with its appearance, still looked like a ''steampunk'' style.


    Looking around, I made sure that no one noticed me. But from the nearby corridor around the corner there were strange sounds, most like the noise of a typical fight. Still under the spell of invisibility, I soared to the ceiling, and then flew to the passageway and looked into it.


    As I expected, there was a fight in the narrow corridor. But the first thing that caught my eye was who was fighting there. They were two huge green orcs, pummeling each other with fists, knives, and what looked like firearms. They were either saving ammunition, or they had already shot everything, but the mixture of a pistol and a grenade launcher was used only as a club.


    If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    Finally, one of the orcs managed to catch another and blew his brains out with his mini-shotgun. The loser lay down to rest, and the winner walked briskly right under me and headed for the bridge. I waited the lucky guy go, then went to the loser who decided to brainshtorm.


    To my surprise, the brainless Orc was still alive and had no intention of dying. Literally before my eyes, the wounds were closing, and no more than half a liter of blood ran on the floor. I decided to read his memory to get a better understanding of the situation on the ships, but unfortunately, I was only able to access the memories of the last ten minutes. From them I found out that the second orc was the captain of the ship, and now he is going to negotiate with other captains about the capture of a neighboring human colony.


    I wrote off the inaccessibility of memory to brain damage and decided to pretend to be this orc so that I could gain the other orc''s trust. The necromorph''s body was quite plastic, so I absorbed part of the Orc''s body and assumed his shape, even imitating his clothing and weapons. In this form, I went down the corridor and caught up with the captain, who was walking slowly, almost near the door to the bridge.


    The winner orc heard my footsteps, turned around and immediately prepared to fight. He asked me something in orcish and then rushed at me with a wild yell. That was the end of the attacker''s success and he was pinned down by my immobilization spell. I tried again to count the memory of a healthy orc, but I didn''t success. I was perfectly aware of the contents of his short-term memory, but the older memories were not available to me. Fortunately, with direct mental contact, there were no problems with understanding the orc¡¯s language. So, I could ask him questions and get answers.


    The first thing I decided to do was make sure that I was exactly where I supposed. It really was Warhammer''s world. The Orc knew of the existence of Humans, Tau, Eldar, Tyranids, Necrons, and of course, Warp daemons. There were other races, but for the moment they were completely or mostly destroyed.


    The second question was the study of the nature of Warp. Although the captain was not a shaman, he was able to draw strength from Warp, which he was able to demonstrate. I tracked its effect on reality and found a whole layer in multidimensional space filled with this strange energy. Just a couple of minutes was enough for me to understand that Warp is a concentrated Bahion.


    I immediately drooled from the realization of what I could do, using Warp for my own development. But before I could even reflect properly, I felt how my consciousness had thrown out into the layer of reality where my communication with the Being usually took place. This time my slave owner wasn''t here, but someone else was present.


    "I''m the Judge of this Game.¡± ¨C Proclaimed incomprehensible powerful deity. "Warp of this world is my property, and you are forbidden to consume a single drop of this substance. Do you understand me? This is my Bahion!!!¡±


    ¡°Understood.¡± ¨C I agreed. - "I''m not going to use your Bahion "


    I specifically highlighted the word ''your Bahion'' to make it clear that the restriction, in my opinion, only applies to the Bahion that has already entered the Warp. The Judge seemed to be satisfied with it, because he nodded and disappeared. After that, I felt myself again in the usual three-dimensional reality.


    I took a deep breath and went back to studying the nature of the Warp and local psionics. As it turned out, although the orc used Warp to influence reality, Bahion itself was not spent. Rather, it acted as a catalyst that allowed simple thoughts to affect reality. However, the concept of this effect was not so simple, so I will have to study the local psionics carefully. In the meantime, I have come to realize the essence of this phenomenon and have returned to more pressing issues.


    I was not satisfied with being undead, so I planned to create a Vritras body for myself in the near future. But it needed not only organic matter, but also silicon, aluminum, and titanium. I tried to find out from the captain¡¯s memory where to find these materials, but unfortunately, I failed. The orcs preferred to make equipment from iron and sticks, so these three chemical elements were not observed in the area.


    The next step was to find out the coordinates of the planet that the orcs were going to attack, and I thought about what to do next. The captain was already late for a meeting with the leaders of this raid, so I had to hurry. The problem was compounded by the fact that I could not accurately portray myself as an Orc. They somehow inexplicably felt my ''foreignness'' and could not accept me for their own even in a state of intoxication.


    I decided to infiltrate human society to get the information I needed. This automatically meant that I had to do something to stop the Orc invasion. After all, it will be much more difficult to get into the command system during combat operations.


    After interrogating the prisoner again, I found out a few things. First, I can compel the Orc to give the command to attack other ships. This is guaranteed to disable them for at least a couple of weeks, which will allow me to get to the planet ''on my own'' using magic. Secondly, the captain of one of the ships, the same ''shotgun'', was a much more educated person than my prisoner. He was the head of this clan alliance, so if I wanted to know more information, I should have interrogated him. And thirdly, the orc was sure that on the same ship I would be able to find the chemical elements I needed, because there is a laboratory of a strong shaman.

 7.22 Warhammer 40000

    Then it was quite simple. I took control over the Orc, directly controlling his body, put on my own invisibility, and walked with my puppet to the bridge. There, the Orc gave orders to attack other ships and was able to damage their engines. Of course, they fired in return, and as a result, all five ships were suspended in the void of space, unable to fly away.


    After that, I teleported to the desired space ship, where I found a fully alive captain. True, there was also a shaman who could sense my presence despite my invisibility, but the brute force was on my side, so the telekinetic spell took his head off before he could call to the Warp force.


    Then I captured the orc I needed and killed everyone else. A thoughtful interrogation of the prisoner cleared up an important question for me. I couldn''t count the Orc''s long-term memory, because it was based on different physical principles than those of humans or the same spiders. The memory of the orcs was stored at a genetic level, so that when memorizing something, this information was immediately stored in the form of DNA. To ''open up'' this code, I needed a computer, so the body of vritras became absolutely necessary.


    Fortunately, the captain knew about the substances I needed, and it was possible to find them just in the laboratory of a shaman who liked not only to call spirits, but also to make different mechanisms. So, I grabbed the prisoner by neck and dragged him to the right place, simultaneously shooting all the orcs I met


    Half an hour later, I was able to create a central vritras crystal, and then I replaced the necromorph''s not-so-comfortable body with my own design. After that, in my body, I created a computer running on the architecture of the Ancients and began reverse engineering the orc''s DNA.


    An hour later, I had full access to his memory. The captain turned out to be a real treasure trove of information on local technologies. Besides, he knew enough about psionics to know that it could work without the Warp. Yes, it will be much weaker, but it will be enough for the orcs to create their own mechanisms in the Mass Effect universe. Which means I can use these creatures in my plans.


    I took the captain''s DNA and creatively reworked it, cutting out everything ''extra'' from there, but adding the ''meaning of life'' in the destruction of the Reaper. Then formed a ''mushroom fruit body'' from which spores were to spread. Each spore could eventually turn into an Orc, thus beginning the cycle of enslavement of the Universe.


    As a final chord I opened the Stargate to the world of Mass Effect directly into the Reaper''s dead ship. I think the orcs will come in handy there. There is a good chance that they will infect this ship, and then transfer the infection to others. At least somehow it will hurt to Reaper.


    Having dealt with this question, I came to the conclusion that nothing else keeps me here. So, I finally finished off the captain and with a clear conscience opened a portal next to the star, in the orbit of which was inhabited by people planet.


    The planet turned out to be for the most part an agrarian world. I flew around it and chose to land around the neighborhood of the largest city. I planned to collect information from the bottom, so I took the form of a ''grey-legged peasant¡¯, the good examples for imitation I noticed while still descending from orbit.


    I went down into the forest and headed for the nearest village, which was a couple of kilometers away. During the trip, I was going to analyze the surrounding nature and more fully check the local laws of physics. But after a couple of hundred meters, a guy of about eighteen years old came out of the bushes to meet me, whose entire appearance expressed boundless arrogance and contempt for the ''peasant'' in my face.


    "Hey, peasant.¡± - He turned to me. - "Take me to the village."


    Such luck, beast running to the hunter. I immediately threw a paralyzing spell to the brute and began scanning his memory. As it turned out, before me was the son of rich parents who were not the smallest bigwigs in the neighboring city. The guy was a student, and in the woods was not accidental.


    The story of this mortal amused me. In the company of his pals, he went to the suburbs to take part in a small orgy in the bosom of nature. But he decided to go to the toilet, went into the thicket and... lost. And now for half an hour this idiot was wandering through the local forest, trying to get out to people.


    Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.


    I decided that this individual is a great way to integrate into the local society. I could well play his role and get the knowledge I need or to those who have that knowledge. So, I took a copy of his memory, assumed his appearance and put on his clothes. Making sure that now I''m indistinguishable from the original, I destroyed original, decomposing to a state of mucus. Well, let¡¯s go! Now my name is Theodore Kvik.


    Combining the donor''s memories and a satellite image of the surrounding area, I figured out where the orgy was supposed to take place. That''s where I headed. When I got closer to the right place, I started to hear some strange screams and moans that didn''t quite fit my idea of an orgy.


    When I got out of the bushes, I could see a very strange picture. Including Theodore, eight people were supposed to participate in the orgy. But if four of my ''friends'' really had sex with each other, then three more moaned from being tied up to a tree and subjected to torture. Moreover, the two had their stomachs cut, from which the intestines were hung. At the same time, all three victims were still alive and conscious.


    "Theo, here you are. We''ve already searched you.¡± - One of the girls greeted me which one of ¡®cavaliers¡¯ pumping her from ¡®behind¡¯.


    Without getting out of the process, her ¡®cavalier¡¯ pulled out a gun and pointed it at me. But he didn''t get a chance to shoot, because I hit the field with AOE paralysis spell. The four maniacs fell to the ground, and the three victims went limp in their bonds.


    After that, I started searching the minds of everyone present, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. After all, according to Theodore''s memory, no torture was planned. It didn''t take me long to find out that four of those present were real Slaanesh daemon worshippers. And my donor and three others present were supposed to be victims. Right now, there was a ritual of calling daemons, for which it was necessary to simultaneously have sex and torture someone.


    I once again examined this whole composition, and then decided to show my usual justice. The fact was that Theodore and the other three were not innocent sheep. They were responsible for bullying, rape, robbery, and even suicide. So, with a clear conscience, I formed a sword in my hand, and then began to cut off the heads of everyone present, regardless of which side of the ''barricade'' they were on.


    As soon as the last head was cut off, I felt someone''s invisible presence. A second later the space was cut by a crimson glow and a daemon jumped out of the Warp portal. It was a naked woman whose body was deformed, assuming the features of some predatory creature. At the same time, I felt like a daemon was trying to influence my consciousness.


    "Oh, dear, what an amazing sacrifice. Did you make this feast just for me?


    With these words, the daemon¡¯s finger picked up the blood from the stump of one of the daemon worshippers'' neck and ''erotically'' licked it. I mean, she thought it was erotic. But in my opinion, it was unhygienic and disgusting. Who knows what kind of drugs these cultists were poisoning themselves with? And then drink their blood? Br-r-r-r.


    I didn''t say anything more, but cast the paralysis spell again. Unfortunately, this time its effectiveness was very low. However, the moment that the daemoness froze was enough to jump up to her and cut off her both hands, along with the shoulder joints. Then I kicked her body to the ground and applied a stronger paralysis spell.


    While the daemon was trying to escape or somehow get me, I began to study its structure. As it turned out, the body of the daemon consisted of some surrogate of matter, created with the help of Warp. On the other hand, this body emulated the living organism, so that it could be killed, breaking the connection between the material shell and the soul.


    As for the last one, the few memories that I had study before, made it clear that I was looking at a desecrated Eldar. His entire mind was filled with images of violence and pleasure that permeated with Warp. Unfortunately, nothing useful could be found in his memory, because the daemon was not actually intelligent. It was only an evil spirit whose intelligence was somewhere on the level of an ape. So, I stopped the torture and cut off the daemon''s head, watching as her soul was sent back to the depths of the Warp.


    But before the body could take its last breath, another Warp portal appeared and five daemons jumped out of it. I didn''t slow down, but ran toward them on the move forming battle spells. To be honest, this was the first time I actually entered a battle, using all my abilities to destroy the enemy as quickly as possible. Even necromorphs didn''t get that much. Psionics and Warp energy gave the daemons some immunity to the effects of magic, but it didn''t help them much.


    To me was enough three seconds to chop the charred corpses of my opponents into cabbage. By the time I reached them, the magic had already inflicted fatal wounds on them. In general, after examining the result, I became convinced of my own immeasurable coolness. But before I could really enjoy my greatness, a large daemon jumped out of the portal that had not yet closed.


    He was a humanoid with two legs, four arms and a goatee head. The lower ''hands'' ended with giant claws, and in the upper he held the curved yatagan. The movements of this creature were pretty quick, and besides he actively used the local ''magic'', putting up shields and throwing all sorts of nasty things at me.

 7.23 Warhammer 40000

    Our duel lasted almost a minute, until I found a spell that could overcome the daemon''s defenses. After that, I neutralized his shield, jumped close and chopped off all four hands. The daemon tried to bite me with its goat face, but in response I opened my mouth and bit off most of its face. The creature fell to the ground, bleeding and writhing in agony, and I cast a paralysis spell on it and began scanning its mind.


    Alas, even this ''mini-boss'' could not please me with the presence of at least something useful in his brain. So, I focused and tore his soul out of his body. I wondered if I could isolate this soul from the corrupting influence of the Warp. Since no other daemons were around, I was able to deal with this issue without being distracted by external events.


    After about fifteen minutes, I was able to break the connection of the soul with the Warp, and then purge it from all its emotions. In addition, I ''cut out'' a piece from the astral body in which all the memories of the daemon were stored. After that, I had an ordinary Eldar soul in my hands. I created some astral shells for this soul, and the Eldar regained self-consciousness.


    "Please imprison my soul in Tear of Isha." - I heard a faint telepathic message.


    "What is a Tear of Isha? How can I create it?¡± - I asked.


    In response, I received a complex image of how to use psionics, Warp, and ritual magic to create the desired item. I had to load my ''on-Board computer'' with analysis of this information, but within five minutes I knew how to achieve the same result using magic. More precisely, I knew how to properly perform the ritual of creating Tear of Isha. But how it works was not clear from this ritual.


    As a result, I created a clone from the chakra that performed all the necessary actions. Nothing unexpected happened, and in my hands was a diamond the size of a fist, inside which was an extremely complex psionic structure. After that, I brought the Eldar''s soul closer to the stone and could watch as it was drawn inside, completely isolating it from the world around it. Hell, I wanted to scan his memory.


    Sadly sighing, I put a stone in my pants pocket and looked around. Once a beautiful field now resembled a branch of hell. It was all splattered with blood and littered with pieces of corpses. I had to do the restoration of the landscape, destroying all the extra organics. Five minutes later, there was no trace of the bacchanalia that had happened here, so I turned around with a clear conscience and headed to the nearest village, where the daemon worshippers left their transport.


    As the car drove quietly toward the city, I considered my future plans. I need Necrons and Eldars to fight the Reaper. But it was not so easy to find both of them. Here I either need to find where they are continuing their battle and fly there, or try to find their lair. Necrons have obelisks, and the Eldars have their Craftworld. Of course, with my ability to find them will not be so difficult, but it is desirable to have at least an approximate search area.


    In all this thinking, I didn''t even notice how I got to the city. The sun was almost down, hidden by clouds, and the streets were dark. I assumed that the murder of the daemon worshippers would not be known for some time, so I could spend some time searching for information on behalf of Theodore. Only when I passed the next police station, the way ahead of me was blocked by a barrier, and a local police officer approached the car.


    ¡°Checking documents. Get out of the car.¡± - He asked me.


    I frowned, but decided to really get out. I still need the car, and it will be easier to deal with the situation, having the freedom to maneuver. As soon as I slammed the door, the police took a step back and pointed the gun at me. Theodore''s memory suggested it was a paralyzer


    "You are accused of worshipping daemons.¡± - The cop shouted.


    I was surprised by this accusation, but even more suspicious were the intonations of the policeman''s voice. As if he didn''t believe what he was saying. I immediately cast a memory scan spell on him and studied the result. It turns out that a police officer is just another daemon-worshipper. And he decided to arrest me, because he became aware of the death of four of his ''associates''. It seems that the daemons were able to sense their death and notified their leadership. Well, I didn''t really want to pretend to be a mere mortal.


    Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.


    "You worship daemons yourself." - I replied to the charges, scanning my surroundings and calculating how many people I would have to destroy to get rid of the witnesses. - "I can feel the filth coming from you. Judging by the smell, you recently sacrificed a girl.¡±


    I could really feel Warp''s influence on the human¡¯s astral shells. And the phrase about the victim, guided by the memories of the police. The cop became pale and looked around, also calculating the number of witnesses. There were three other policemen and a couple of civilians with us.


    "How dare you?" - He shouted. - "I am in duty. This is a slander against a representative of the government!¡±


    I was about to finish this farce when a new character appeared on the scene. A figure in a combat suit leaped from the roof of a nearby building. Judging by the appearance, he was a space paratrooper who specialized in reconnaissance and covert infiltration.


    "Night watch! Everyone gets out of the dusk.¡± - He said, running up to us and pointing the gun at the cop.


    ¡°What?¡± - I couldn''t help myself.


    Meanwhile, the rest of the polices and a couple of civilians came out into the lighted area where my car was parked.


    "So, you''re saying he worships daemons?" - The space marine asked. It was hard to tell to whom he was talking to from his voice and posture, and his face was completely hidden by his helmet.


    ¡°Yes, Yes! He is a daemon-worshipper.¡± - The cop screamed, pointing his stun gun at me.


    After that, the helmet turned in my direction, apparently waiting for my reaction.


    "Yes, I can feel the filth in him.¡± - I said.


    ¡°Interesting.¡± - Spacesuited figure drawled, thinking about something.


    "Why are you standing there? Grab him!¡± - The policeman yelled, sweating profusely. His hands were shaking so much that he almost dropped his weapon.


    In response, the space trooper snapped out of his reverie, grabbed the cop''s arm, knocked the weapon out and slid his limb behind his back, grabbing his throat with the other hand and pressing it against his chest.


    ¡°Grabbed.¡± - He said, with a sneer in his voice.


    "You... what...?" - The policeman croaked. His companions stood with bulging eyes, trying to understand what was happening. Apparently, the space paratroopers represented the highest authority here, so they didn''t even think about resisting him. - "Anuma Uras Kas!" - Meanwhile, the daemon-worshipper shouted.


    In response to his words, a portal to the Warp opened nearby, and a daemon leaped out. But as soon as daemon saw the space marine, he immediately jumped back at a speed of ten times faster. After that, the portal closed and the policeman howled in a voice full of despair.


    ¡°I am Erebus Talon, a member of the tenth squad of the Space Marine of the Night''s Watch Order, sentencing you to death for your association with the Warp daemons.¡± - The space marine solemnly announced, and then literally tore off the policeman''s head. Well at least the splashing blood flew past me, sprinkling the ground and frozen in horror civilians.


    After that, Erebus walked in front of the horrified witnesses of this scene, looking them in the eyes. When he didn''t find what he was looking for, he turned and started walking toward me.


    "What''s your name?" - He asked me.


    "Theodore Kvik." - I replied, scanning my companion at the same time. The suit was an interesting design and there was so much electronics in it that it was difficult to even understand what it was for.


    "So, you can feel the filth?" - The space marine continued the interrogation.


    "Yes, I do. In near range. I have recently developed this ability.¡± - I tried to make a more or less logical excuse. If I can enlist the help of this daemon fighter, it may make be easier to get access to information.


    "That''s good. According to the Code of Astartes, I''m temporarily recruiting you to the tenth squad of the Night''s Watch Order. I need your help in eradicating the filth of daemon worship that has plagued this world.¡±


    "Uh-huh...¡± - I managed to say, trying to decide whether I should agree or whether it would be easier to eradicate the space marine and all the witnesses.


    "Don''t worry, I won''t send you into battle.¡± - My new ''commander'' misunderstood my hesitation. - "I need your help in finding people who are desecrated by the connection with Warp. If I don''t cut out the filth now, this whole world will soon be consumed by hordes of daemons.¡±


    "All right, I agree.¡± - I nodded. - "But after we''re done, I have a request in return."


    ¡°Wonderful.¡± ¨C Erebus did not give attention to my words. ¨C ¡°So, get into the car and go to the city center. Along the way, I''ll tell you what we need to do.¡±


    With these words, the figure in the combat suit walked around the car and somehow managed to fit into the passenger seat. I sighed, sat on drivers place and continued driving, thanks to the quick-moving cops who had already removed the barrier.


    Along the way, Erebus told me that he had been sent to this world to check out rumors of a thriving cult of worship. He was a psionic, able to read the thoughts of most people. After spending a few days in the city, he was able to reach the cell of members of the cult. But the conspiracy here was at the high level, so that the members of the cell only knew each other. The police officer was the last clue, and after reading his memory, he couldn''t find any new traces.


    https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Night_Watch</a>

 7.24 Warhammer 40000

    While I was being told this story, I scanned the space marine''s thoughts. He couldn''t get into my mind, which wasn''t so strange. People with innate mental protection met quite often. But at the same time, Erebus didn''t throw away the option that I was also connected to daemons. So, he decided to take a closer look at me and use my abilities to conduct an investigation.


    Further plans for the Astartes were quite simple - to walk the streets of the city and search for members of the cult using the method of scientific poke. I generally agreed with this suggestion, but before doing so, I demanded to go to my home so that I could change into more suitable clothing that gave at least some protection.


    I knew that Theodore had a full set of protective parkour gear at home. There was a suit, flaps on the shins and forearms, protection for the knees and elbows, and of course the helmet. Of course, I did not need protection but the appearance of this set corresponded to the image of some superhero, so I could not deny myself a small dose of pathos


    And then we wander around the city in a stolen car and looked out for people desecrated by Warp. With my ability to detect them, it was easy enough. After that, Erebus grabbed them, read their memory and... demonstratively executed in some brutal way. After that, we left the disfigured body lying on the street and went to look for the next victim. Sometimes the Astartes extracted something useful from the cultists'' memory, so we went to another safe house or drug den.


    In such mode, we scanned the city until lunch the next day§ð I don''t know how the space marine could handle it, but if I were a simple person, I would have fallen out of fatigue by the hour of three at night. Finally, I got tired of wasting time and I gave to my ''boss'' an innovative proposal.


    "Erebus, we won''t find anything this way. As proverb says, fish rots from the head. I am sure that the top of the cultists sits in the town hall or in the city''s board of trustees. Let''s just go over there and check on all the staff.¡±


    "I would check the town hall first.¡± - The space marine replied. - "What''s the Board of Trustees?"


    ¡°Well... officially, it''s a kind of charitable society where the wealthiest people in the city donate money. And in fact, it is rather a legalized roof for systematic extortion of money from large and medium-sized businesses.¡±


    My donor''s memory contained some interesting information about the inner workings of local politics. His father worked in the town hall and had to know all the important people who made the key decisions about the fate of the city.


    "From what you say, we''re talking about the most powerful people on this planet. Even I can''t just go to them and start questioning them. We will need power and legal support. So, come on, drive in the direction of the central police department. For one thing, we will find out where the office of this Board of Trustees is located and who is included in it. But first, you''ll check the cops.¡±


    Ten minutes later, our car came in front of the tall, pompous building that housed the local justice system. There was not only the police department, but also the supreme court, the bailiff''s office, and so on.


    As we entered the building, we encountered a beast that even a space marine was powerless to handle. The name of this monster is ¡®bureaucracy¡¯. Despite all his powers, Erebus spent almost half an hour to get a face-to-face meeting with the police chief. Earlier, he tore off the heads of ordinary citizens without trial. Equality.


    After discussing the details of the high-level operation, Astartes led me around the offices to scan the police. Of course, I checked them all, but I did not hope for the effectiveness of such a raid. According to the workers'' memoirs, as soon as there was a rumor that the investigator of the space marine arrived here, about a tenth of the employees immediately left ''on important business'' or without any reason at all. Circus on the road, in general, not an investigation.


    After we checked the individual offices of the employees, our procession went into the common hall, where the citizens may ask police services. There I felt a pretty strong daemonic aura. It came not from a police officer, but from one of the visitors. Apparently, he was not aware of the ongoing ''operation'' because all those who could tell him about it, had already run away, saving their asses.


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


    I immediately reported the discovery to Erebus, who immediately informed the police chief. As it turned out, this daemon-worshipper was a representative of the Board of Trustees, engaged in the registration of various documents. A plan was immediately drawn up to bring him to clean water. The suspected visitor was invited to a private office, since it was standard practice to work with important clients, and a couple of minutes later our brave space marine came there.


    I watched what was happening in the office on the security monitor screen. Next to me stood high-commands and watched how the legal procedures are observed. But the events started to develop quite differently from what was planned.


    As soon as the Astartes mentioned that he suspected the man of having links with daemons, the man immediately summoned those very daemons. But they were not pathetic daemons, but quite powerful creatures. While the trio of daemons held back the space marine, the visitor leaped into the portal, disappearing into the Warp. Naturally, the local law enforcement forces immediately rushed into battle against the daemons, but daemons crumbled a couple of particularly zealous fighters into a salad, and then disappeared into the portal. Erebus was not injured in the battle, although his suit had several deep scratches.


    Of course, after the presentation of such evidence, no one asked questions about our authority. Immediately the assault squad was assembled to begin the assault on the office of the Board of Trustees. As Erebus''s subordinate, I also had to take part in the assault. Under this pretext, I demanded to give me a weapon, and then there were the next bureaucratic delays.


    On the one hand, the weapons for me was obvious, but on the other, they couldn¡¯t give me a gun, because I did not have a license to carry them. The compromise was to give me a power sword. It turns out that Theodore once went to the course of possession of cold weapons for six months. I did not inflate the conflict and was satisfied with this piece of iron. If necessary, I will be able to chop the daemons into pieces, without much getting out of the image.


    After that, we got into our cars and with sirens and flashing lights raced towards the Central office of the Board of Trustees, which was located on the outskirts of the city in the ''luxury'' quarter. When we were almost there, I noticed the building we were passing by. It was literally drowning in the energies of the Warp.


    "Wait! It''s here!¡± - I shouted. We were walking at the head of the column, and the driver immediately slowed down. - "This building is filled with Warp energy.¡± - I pointed.


    Erebus didn''t hesitate and immediately trusted me.


    ¡°Target changed. We''re taking over this building. Urgently cordon off the perimeter. Me and the main capture group are going inside.¡± - He said.


    Our convoy immediately changed direction and headed for the right building. Our armored car literally knocked out the gate that closed access to the fenced area around the building. Quickly disembarking from the transport, our team broke into the main entrance. From home were immediately opened fire to us and the police squad ''stuck'', hiding from the barrage of fire.


    The space marine did not slow down, but rushed forward, running out into the great circular hall. I slipped after him, pulling out a sword and shoulder-length knives on the move. A man in a business suit, armed with a sword in his right hand and a bulky pistol in his left, rushed toward the Astartes. There was an instant battle between them, so that the space marine could not distract himself even for a moment.


    At this time, the second cultist, whom I recognized as a visitor to the police department, was finishing the ritual of sacrifice. In the center of the hall, ten crosses were placed in a circle, on which the unconscious victims were hung. The cultist ran between them in a certain pattern and cut off their heads with a sword. While I was trying to understand the ritual, another cultist jumped out at me. However, he did not have time to do anything, because I immediately cut off his head.


    In the assailant''s hand was a curly dagger decorated with precious stones. As soon as I looked at it, a plan formed in my mind. The action before me was a sacrifice ritual. Its scheme was more or less clear to me, thanks to my knowledge of ritual magic. And now I had the key to the entire ritual, the ritual dagger that was supposed to kill the victims. Of course, if necessary, I could do without it. But, roughly speaking, the murder with this dagger was a higher priority than the murder with an ordinary sword


    I waited until the cultist had killed the second-to-last victim, then with a well-aimed throw I thrown the dagger straight into the heart of the last victim. At the same time, the dagger itself continued to be in contact with my astral body, which automatically made me a key figure in the ritual. The cultist stared blankly at the dagger in the last victim, then looked at me, his face contorted with anger. But he didn''t have time to do anything else.


    In the center of the room, a portal to the Warp opened, and a daemon more than three meters high leaped out. He looked like the ''mini-boss'' I''d killed, but he was much stronger and more imposing.


    "Why did you call me, mortal?" - The daemon said to me, ignoring the cultist standing next to him.

 7.25 Warhammer 40k

    "Bring to this hall all members of the Slaanesh worship cult who are on this planet.¡± - I expressed my wish.


    "It will be done.¡± - The daemon nodded, and then hid back in the portal. A second later, people started to appear in the hall. Someone was thrown out from the already open portal, and someone was ''honored'' by personal movement through Warp.


    The cultist with a sword was not confused and began to run around the hall, cutting off the heads of their ''associates''. It seemed that he had realized that this cell had been compromised and their entire plan had failed, so he was now clearing all traces, since I had given him the opportunity to do so. The cultists screamed and ran back and forth, but they could not escape the bloody retribution.


    I glanced to my ''boss'' and made sure that he didn''t have even a second to distract himself. The polices were completely stuck at the entrance to the building, where there was a fierce gun firing. Looks like I need to interfere.


    I twisted the sword, reinforced the blade with magic and rushed to the cultist, who now resembled a knife in a blender, chopping people to pieces. Blood and guts flew around the room, creating an infernal spectacle. A simple man could not have done such a thing. The cultist had obviously received some sort of gift from the Slaanesh and was drawing power directly from the Warp.


    There started a sword fight between us. The opponent was a good swordsman, and I even a couple of minutes just chopped with him to copy his sword skill. I controlled movements of my sword by in high speed with my consciousness and a with special computer program that analyzed the picture of the fight and made recommendations for striking, taking into account the limitations of human physiology. If I wanted to, I could easily kill the cultist in a one millisecond, but I held back myself, pretending to be a simple swordsman.


    Finally, I got tired of waving this iron and I used a cunning trick, to knock out the sword of the enemy¡¯s hands. Of course, in fact, the reason for the success of this technique was not in its cunning, but in the banal force of the blow. Even a reinforced human hand could not hold the sword. The iron flew to the other end of the hall, and the cultist froze, trying to figure out what to do next.


    I whirled my sword and aimed it at my opponent''s face, feigning mock superiority. But the cultist was able to surprise me. He used some sort of psi ability, and I was knocked back by the force wave. After that, the daemon-worshipper pulled an incomprehensible device from his pocket and began pumping it with the power of the Warp. I did not wait for the result of this action, but simply threw my sword at the enemy. It hit the artifact directly, and then the cumulated force exploded. The cultist was thrown back and slammed against the wall, whereupon he lost consciousness and slid down, leaving a trail of blood on the wall.


    The explosion didn''t just affect my opponent. It scattered the usual cultists who were in the hall, freeing the center of the hall from the bodies of the living and the dead. Also, the blast wave hit the second cultist, and Erebus was able to take advantage in his battle, literally cutting his enemy in half at waist level. But this cultist was not easy. The upper half of the body rushed at the space marine to hold him back, and the lower half... just ran into open portal.


    For the next three hours, we were busy crushing the remnants of the resistance and arresting the cultists who had more than two hundred in the building. At the same time, most of them were brought here by the daemon according to my order. Astartes looked at me suspiciously, but he had to admit that only thanks to me the whole cult had been completely exposed and defused in just one day.


    Finally, the active part of the operation was completed, and I was able to approach my ''boss'' to talk without extra ears.


    "Erebus, I helped you to neutralize the daemon-worshipping sect. Now I want you to help me with something, too.¡±


    "What do you want?" - He asked me grumpily.


    "I need access to the public part of the Imperial library.¡± - I expressed my wish.


    Although the library was called the public library, it was impossible to get into it just like that. Access was granted only when it was necessary for the state or by special permission.


    "What do you want to find there?"


    "I''m writing a research paper about Eldar culture at the institute. And I need access to reliable material on them. I do not trust to the information which can be found in Internet.¡±


    The representative of the Night''s Watch paused for a moment, then reluctantly agreed.


    ¡°Good. I''ll give you access to one visit with restrictions of the subject.¡±


    "Thank you!" - I exclaimed joyfully.


    ¡°Are you ready to go to the library right now? I need to personally go to the Legion Command to provide a report. So, I''m running out of time.¡±


    ¡°Ok. I am ready.¡± - I agreed, depicting doubts in my voice.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go¡±


    We went outside and took a seat in one of the police cars. The space marine''s authority was so high that no one even dared ask him where he was going. And no one paid any attention to me as his companion.


    The local library was a branch of the Central Imperial library. Most of the books were stored in electronic format, so it was possible to simply order them from a catalog and then wait until an electronic copy was received.


    After a surprisingly quick resolving with the local bureaucracy, I got access to a reading terminal, and for one curious librarian in the library, who was trying to figure out what I wanted to find here. The Astartes went about his business pretty quickly, leaving me alone, which was more than fine to me.


    I looked at the list of books on the history and culture of the Eldar. There weren''t many of them. After all, people were at war with the Eldars, so much of the information on them was classified. I quickly started going through the books, literally digitizing each page, and then feeding the text to an analytical computer that extracted all the reliable information on the Eldar and Necrons. I was interested in worlds where members of these races might live.


    After reviewing all the books available to me, I found in one of them a link to another book dedicated to the Necrons. There was mention of a battle between Eldar and Empire¡¯s Exploration fleet, the cause of which was the prediction of the awakening of the Necrons on the planet Mardex. I was able to convince the librarian to give me access to this book by mentally brainwashing him.


    The necessary book told in detail about how this battle with the Eldar took place, and about the subsequent diplomatic settlement of this conflict. Later, Explorers again visited Mardex and found there the remains of Necrons structures, as well as a certain device of the Eldar, protected by a force shield, through which they were not able to penetrate.


    I couldn''t find any other leads, so I focused on this story. I remembered the name and coordinates of the planet, but I still had to figure out where it was. In other words, I needed a map of the galaxy and a route. However, all this could be found outside the library, so I thanked the staff for their help and went to Theodore¡¯s home. There I planned to go online and try to download the information I needed from open sources.


    I didn''t have my car anymore, because it was parked outside of the police department. So, I decided to go for a little run, since Theodore lived not too far away. I took the shortest route through the maze of streets, cutting corners through courtyards and squares. But when remained only a couple of blocks to home, a man dressed in strange-looking armor came out of an alley to meet me. Judging by the appearance, it was the armor created by the daemons. Because it was the color of fresh meat and fundamentally sought to break the symmetry of the human body wherever possible.


    "So, I found you.¡± - The cultist, whom I recognized as the space marine''s opponent, spoke to me.


    "You`ve been cut in half." - I expressed my surprise.


    ¡°Yes, and in revenge for it, I will cut you in half.¡± - With that, he drew his sword and attacked me.


    The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.


    Fortunately, when I left the site of the assault, I still had my sword, so I simply drew it from its scabbard and entered the fight. Apparently, the cultist was going to beat me at the expense of speed of movement, focusing on the level that I demonstrated in the last battle. But I easily accelerated to his level, which is ten times higher than the capabilities of a simple person, even if trained.


    "Who are you?" - The cultist croaked. He jumped to the side and pulled out the gun and tried to shoot me. Unfortunately for him, it wasn''t a shotgun at all, so I easily blocked a series of shots with my sword. - "Human can''t move in such speed.¡±


    "What about you also?" - I switched the question.


    "I''m not human. I''m already a daemon.¡± - With that, he transformed, increasing his height to three meters. In this form, the curved armor looked more organic, because it neutralized the asymmetry of the daemon''s body.


    We continued fight again, but this time the daemon was throwing spells at me. I had to speed up even more and chop the daemon to pieces. The daemon tried to escape into the Warp again, but I tore soul from its body of flesh and tore its astral body to pieces, destroying even the slightest chance of rebirth.


    "Fuhh-hh, that was fun.¡± - I spoke, looking at the street covered with pieces of daemon.


    But before I could continue on my way, I heard sirens wailing, and five patrol cars came around the corner of the nearest house. Police officers poured out of them and immediately began to run in different directions, cordoning off the scene. In addition, at least a dozen law enforcement officers pointed their weapons at me.


    "Where were you when I fought the daemon?" - I asked their commander. ¨C ¡°Waiting to see how it would end, on the next street?¡±


    "Drop your sword!" - He shouted back. - "Lie down on the ground, hands behind your head.¡±


    "Are you freaking?" - I asked culturally, slinging my sword over my shoulder.


    "You''re accused of having links to daemons.¡± - The cop shouted, without risking to approach. - "We watched your fight through street surveillance cameras. Even Astartes are not able to move at this speed.¡±


    "Are you really such stupid?" - I asked, rushing to them. In a one millisecond I reached the police commander and put my sword to his neck. He didn''t even have time to blink, so it looked like teleportation to those around him. - "If I''m that fast, what will stop me from chopping you all to pieces, and then the entire population of the city? Believe me, it won''t take five minutes at my speed.¡±


    The policeman turned pale, sweated, and began to make inarticulate grunts and cackles.


    "Well. Now, I''m going about my business right now, and you''re stopping spying on me and you forget about my existence. And if I see you trying to stop me in any way, I will simply destroy this city. Is everything clear?¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡± - The policeman swallowed.


    "Then what are you standing here?!!¡± - I barked. - "Get the hell out of here so I can''t see you!"


    The cops immediately ran to the cars and drove away even faster than they had arrived. I chuckled complacently and ran in the opposite direction, to Theodore¡¯s home.


    When I got to the coveted Internet, I began to study maps of the galaxy. I was able to download a complete model of the galaxy to my laptop, after which I uploaded the file to the computer in my body and completely decrypt it. After that, I connected to one of the official sites of the Imperial Navigation Corps, where I calculated the route from my current planet to Mardex.


    With that, I considered my mission here complete. I cast a disguise spell on myself and got out of the apartment through the window and flew in the direction of the spaceport. There I found a cargo spaceship preparing for departure, and I decided to check the correctness of data which previously I had received.


    Having penetrated on board, I subdued the Navigator and gave him the task to calculate the course to the desired planet. To my surprise, the course was almost twice long and went quite differently from the one I saw on the site, although it ended at the same point in space. After inquiring about these differences from the Navigator, I found that the ''official'' course offered to me went straight through the Eye of Chaos - the area of space where reality intersected with the Warp. Roughly speaking, they sent me straight into the jaws of the daemons.


    To be honest, I was upset by this attitude. I saved them from a daemons¡¯ invasion, but they decided to arrest me and kill me. Well, my revenge will be terrible.


    I got out of the ship and teleported to the place where the orcs¡¯ ships still hung in space. It looks like I''ll have to help them with repairs and make sure they keep going as planned.


    When I entered the flagship of this ''fleet'', I was surprised to find out that the orcs quantity on the ship decreased twice. And instead of them there were other ''rats''. It turns out that when I dumped the body of a necromorph, I did not pay attention to the fact that it was still ''alive'', if you can say so about this form of existence. After lying down for a couple of hours, my previous body started hunting orcs and even achieved some success in this. Well, then I will send not one gift, but two to the recipients. And since the necromorphs are my creatures, we will assume that I am one of the sides of this game. Even if I leave here, the game will continue. Who knows, maybe I can even win with a minimum of effort.


    Using my knowledge, as well as banal magic, I was able to repair the reactor and the ship''s engines in half an hour. After that, I teleported orcs from four other ships to it, stuffing them like herrings in a barrel, and then set the ship''s flight program. In twenty-four hours, it should land on the planet and bring orcs and necromorphs to there. Let¡¯s the locals people have fun.


    After finishing my revenge, I teleported into outer space and headed for the planet Mardex. I knew the route, so I teleported in ''small'' steps of five light-years, moving in the right direction. This mode of travel was not particularly fast, but I had nowhere to hurry.


    After coming out of another jump, I suddenly faced a daemon. More precisely, not exactly nose to nose, but the distance of twenty meters on the scale of the galaxy was negligible. Before me in space hung an ugly cross between a human, a dragon and an eagle. The daemon didn''t seem to be aggressive, so I decided to start a dialogue.


    "What do you want, sick?" - I said to him, using telepathy.


    ¡°The great of God Chaos, the Architect of Fate, Tzeentch wants to meet with you.¡± ¨C The messenger said.


    "Okay. I''ll look at him when I have time.¡±


    With these words I made the next leap, leaving the daemon alone. It will be necessary to take into account in the future that my actions may be influenced by this cunning god. Too much honor for him to meet me.


    After a couple of days, I finally got to the right planet. In its orbit was a guard space station and a battleship-class spacecraft. Apparently, the Empire didn''t want outsiders on this planet. All right, let them continue guard it. But before I could begin my descent, the active radars of both ships were aimed at me. It looks like they''re going to attack me. How they were able to notice me under the cover of invisibility?


    The battleship launched a swarm of fighters, and the space station began to accumulate energy in its weapons. Moreover, it was the energy of the Warp, so it should have been a big hit. So, I didn''t hold back and hit him first. Space is primarily a huge distance, so I struck my blow with laser gamma ray. The target was a battleship whose defense simply could not cope with such power. The ship glowed with a ghostly green light and its hull was torn apart by multiple internal explosions. This one is ready. After such dose of radiation, nothing alive can live inside anymore.


    Immediately after the shot, I teleported and found myself near the station. The launched bijudama was stopped by the shields, although a series of small explosions from the collapsed deflectors of the shield went through the hull. Without pausing, I leaped to the side again, and a moment later dozens of explosions bloomed in the area which I was.


    It looks like my location is being determined by a psykers. I surrounded myself with an astral shield that prevented reading information, and teleported again and again. A couple more times. Then formed another shot of gamma radiation. The station didn''t explode after that, but it was suspiciously quiet. And to make sure I didn''t have to worry about it, I made another similar test shot, only ten times more powerful. Now it was obvious how heated and melted the outer shell of the station. These are no longer living residents.


    For this fight I spent all my reserves of magical energy, which I have accumulated in crystals since the creation of the vritras body. When I was sure that I was no longer in any danger, and that the fighters were circling aimlessly, trying to find me, I went to land on the planet.


    The book described the place where the battle of the Eldar and Necrons took place. As I circled in orbit, I found an area literally melted to magma. Such an anomaly did not pass without a trace for the rest of the planet, so the weather there was still bad. A little away from the destruction zone, I found a structure that looked like a tower a couple of kilometers high. It seems to have been exactly the same Eldar structure that the Empire could not reach.


    As I descended into the atmosphere, I began to scan the surface of the planet in all the ranges available to me, especially on the astral level. A few hours later, I was able to locate two clusters of sentient souls. One was in the tower, and the other was under an unremarkable ground.


    For research, I chose the second location, suggesting that it might be one of the Necron shelters. The cluster of souls was more than a kilometer deep, so I had to spend another hour to find the tunnels leading there from the surface. Of course, they did not come out on the surface, but to dig a passage inland for a kilometer or a hundred meters - the difference is still there


    Chosen passage was an endless staircase that descended steeply into the depths of the unknown. If you step wrong, you will roll down to the bottom. I didn''t walk like a mere mortal, but used levitation to plan smoothly.


    At the very bottom I cracked the next doors and went out into the big hall, illuminated by green light. The source of light was lamps, which work due to the decay of radioactive material. I was not lazy to study the device of one of them and found out that the half-decay period is twenty million years, so now the lamps shone eight times worse than when the shelter was built sixty million years ago.


    Given the duration of the ''sleep'', this planet was probably chosen due to the lack of tectonic activity. This gave confidence that even after so many years the base will not be on the seabed or on top of the crumbling mountain.


    On the opposite side of the empty hall was a raised platform. I flew up to it and found a sarcophagus on top of it, with a Necron inside. Time stasis field held a body inside. I had to spend fifteen minutes studying the sarcophagus before I figured out how to turn it off.


    The greenish glow of the sarcophagus faded, and a green light flickered in the Necron''s eyes. He turned his head and stared at me.

 7.26 Warhammer 40k

    ¡°Hello, man. How is your non-life going?¡± - I sent telepathic message to him.


    "Everything was fine until you woke me up." - I got the answer, and necron started to get to his feet.


    He''s a humorist. Or wasn''t it a joke?


    "Well, I''m sorry. I need your help in destroying life in another universe.¡±


    I sensed a slight interest from the Necron. It wasn''t even an emotion, he was waiting for more information.


    ¡°Did you come from another universe?¡± - Clarified the necron, completely getting out of the sarcophagus.


    "Yes, I do.¡±


    "Well, that''s to be expected. Our mission cannot be limited to one world. Our duty is to bring salvation to the whole universe.¡±


    "And what is your mission?"


    "Mere mortals believe that we seek to destroy life in all its forms.¡± - Necron began his lecture. - "But in reality, our goal is peace for all the souls of the universe. Desires, passions, diseases, and the struggle for life - all this brings only suffering to souls. Only by finally getting rid of the contagion of organic life in the universe, we can achieve true happiness and peace.¡±


    ¡°Oh... I understand you completely¡± - I answered. - "When I got rid of the living body and replaced it with a specially created mechanism that I was able to feel how pathetic life is in an organic body.¡±


    Necron examined me again with interest, scanning me in various ways.


    "I am glad that you have taken the first step toward true peace. But your mind is still unstable.¡±


    "Well, that''s why I need your help. I''d like to study your philosophy and your technology. I also need Necrons to destroy a vile, immaterial creature whose purpose in life is to repeat the endless cycles of development and destruction of civilizations in the galaxy.¡±


    "If so, it must be stopped immediately.¡± ¨C Necron agreed with me. - "But, alas, I can''t make such decisions. You should talk to our younger god Whathefuck. Come on, I''ll take you to him.¡±


    ¡°Well, come on.¡± - I agreed, wondering how god could get such name.


    After about twenty minutes of slow walking through empty and gloomy corridors, we came to another hall. There were several dozen vertically placed sarcophagi, in which stood Necrons, whose appearance was distinguished by a certain pretentiousness and strict beauty. There we awakened another Necron, from which I felt a decent pressure of the force. He was clearly a very powerful psionic.


    Whathefuck exchanged glances with his relative, then immediately issued his verdict.


    "We will help you destroy life in your universe. But first you must help us. In ancient times, the Eldar gods sealed our Star gods in the bottomless depths of the Warp. It''s been millions of years since then. The Eldars lost their power, just as their gods had lost it. Release our Star gods from their captivity, and we will help you.¡±


    "The Star gods?" ¨C I asked again. - "I thought the Necrons didn''t have gods."


    "You can call them lords of dynasties. These were the most powerful rulers of our people who led us on the path of victory. Thanks to them, we destroyed the Old Ones. But alas, at the moment of our triumph, the treacherous Eldars, waiting for the complete destruction of their creators, used the power of their gods to imprison the souls of the most powerful Necrons in the depths of the Warp. Then we could not free our lords and went into hibernation. Now the power of the Eldar gods is weakened, and even the smallest help can free our Star gods. Alas, we ourselves are unable to control the Warp.¡±


    "All right, I''ll help you. But first I''d like to study your technology. In particular, your body. I want to be more like you.¡±


    "It can be arranged.¡± - The younger god nodded, and then froze, plunging back into the stasis.


    My further communication took place with the Necron gatekeeper, who gave me access to the repository of knowledge of his race. There I was able to learn the technology of creating the ''living metal'' that consist the bodies of all Necrons. What I was most interested in was the many ways to ''regenerate'' this material. There were nanorobots, astral matrices, time management, and dozens of other tricks, each of which allowed to achieve almost complete immortality. And together they created an incredible symbiosis of technologies that allowed to recreate the body, no matter how you try, but impossible to destroy it.


    I spent almost a month studying the technologies the Necrons agreed to reveal to me. At the same time, I translated all of these technologies to the magic and chakra basis. As a result, the cost of magical energy to maintain and operate my vritras body has fallen a hundred times. Of course, I was not bothered by such a load before, but this increase in efficiency meant that the necrons were a few steps ahead of me in this matter.


    Finally, having finished all my affairs with Necrons, I got to the surface of the planet and went to the structure of the Eldar. It was a tall white tower surrounded by a glowing power field. The material of the walls, most likely, was the famous psi-bone, which the Eldars could create literally from nothing, that is, from Warp.


    Outside, the tower was protected by a force field that even magic could not penetrate. But my shadow clone easily passed through it, and then I teleported to it with hiraishin jutsu. From the outside, the tower looked the epitome of perfection and beauty. But inside, everything was not so rosy. The corridor I entered was smeared with something nasty. In some places there were traces of fighting - chipped, dents, pallets and so on. And most importantly, there was absolutely no lighting, so I had to create a ''firefly'' to avoid groping around.


    A study of the walls showed that at least a third of them consist of psi-energy. This state of energy could be called crystallization, but it also showed the properties of liquid. The remaining two-thirds of the wall material consisted of calcium, silicon and oxygen. In general, the psi-bone was quite an entertaining substance, and I even took a few samples for research, having a little trouble with separating these samples from the walls.


    As might be expected in such a mess, no one was in a hurry to meet me, so I was able to safely walk around the premises, exploring the technology of the Eldar. There were not only bare walls, but also some mechanisms, electronics, and so on. Moreover, psionics were used everywhere, and I could not detect any material devices. Fortunately, I could interact with psi energy with help of magical energy, so I didn''t have to break all the doors in a row. It was enough to study one and understand where to apply the control impulse to trigger the opening mechanism.


    So, going around all the rooms, I went up from floor to floor in search of at least some indication of where I should look for the Eldars. About the thirtieth floor, opening the next doors got to a place that was once a greenhouse. The lighting was still working, the ceiling was more than ten meters high, and most importantly, I could see the remains of plants all around. Very strange plants, to be honest. Rather, they resembled meaty caterpillars growing out of the earth, spreading out their... paws?


    Before I could make a couple of steps, a creature rushed at me from the bushes. I immediately intercepted it with a spell and hung it in the air, examining a rare specimen. It''s definitely not an Eldar. And it was never even been an Eldar. Rather, it was a mad cross between an insect, a crab and two meters tall humanoid. The creature screamed and tried to reach me with a blow of its pincers and a spittle of suspiciously steaming saliva. Fortunately, nothing came of it, because all attacks were stopped by the force shield surrounding it.


    Looks like I''ve encountered the tyranids that somehow penetrated to this building. It is unlikely that they passed through the outer barrier, so we can hope that somewhere there is a portal or device for instantaneous movement. The internal structure of the tyranids didn''t surprise me. They were some pathetic semblance of Zerg, with no useful properties for me. So, I destroyed my ''catch'' and moved on. The local ''vegetation'' also turned out to be a form of tyranid, serving as food for more advanced species. I did not destroy them, because with their survivability it could consume a long time


    Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.


    I wandered the entire tower almost a week. After all, I have studied every mechanism I have encountered, trying to understand its purpose and principles of operation. Honestly, even in half the cases, I couldn''t understand the physics of the processes occurring in these mechanisms. The local psionics were strange enough to take years to understand.


    And now, almost at the top of the tower in one of the halls, I found an extremely interesting exhibit. They were Eldar and tyranid, frozen in a kind of stasis. At the moment of stopping time between them there was a battle, and the tyranid''s paw pierced through the Eldar''s chest.


    After carefully examining this composition, I noticed that during the battle, the Eldar lost his armor along with the Tear of Isha enclosed in it. This piece was lying there, a little to one side. Apparently, the Eldar realized that he had lost, and now his soul would be consumed by the Warp. So, he preferred to imprison himself in stasis, and the tyranny fell into the trap as a free application.


    After a little research, I was happy to find that I can read the memory of an Eldar using the chakra. I hung there for a long time, going over all his memories in detail, from his training in psionics to his life story. Actually, there wasn''t much of that story.


    He was almost a young boy in front of me. He was sent to this outpost as a security guard. Once, through the Web, a tyranid penetrated the tower. It killed the relaxed guards and began to reproduce. Pretty quickly it became clear that ordinary Eldars have nothing to oppose these monsters. This Eldar was sent to the communications hall to warn the main Craftworld about the attack. But here the boy faced a tyranid, and at the moment of his death was able to use the psionic technique of stasis.


    Having finished reading the memory, I looked around with new look. Now I understood what devices surrounded me, how to use them, and most importantly I could read the Eldar language. When I reached the communications hub, I activated the holographic interface and started looking at the history of events.


    As it turned out, the tyranid invasion took place more than half a century ago. This tower was an outpost of the Craftworld Ulthwe, but now communication with it has been blocked. Apparently, the Eldars missed the attack on the outpost and then decided not to repel it, but simply to exclude the possibility of a tyranid invasion from here.


    The second available address was the Craftworld Yanden. That''s where the first tyranid came from. Moreover, this Craftworld was still sending distress signals, asking for help. I wonder if this is a tyranid trap, or if there really are Eldars left alive?


    I decided to visit this ship, for which I took the form of the same Eldar, who was standing only a few meters away from me. I didn''t know how to get him out of his stasis, so I couldn''t help him. As you can guess, even he himself did not know how to disable stasis. Now I was an Eldar by the name of Mirak Ultran. By the way, this kid was a distant relative of Eldrad Ultran - the great visionary of the Eldar, who died a couple of hundred years ago.


    I activated the communication channel, and a picture of the wrecked room appeared on the monitor. Also, in this picture, I could see a tyranid posing for the cameras. Looks like things are going really bad on Yanden. Since communication with the ship-world itself worked normally, I tried to switch the connection to another communication terminal inside the ship. Five minutes later I succeeded, and I saw a living Eldar, staring at me with suspicion.


    "Greetings, brother.¡± - I addressed to him in the standard equal-to-equal manner. - "My name is Mirak Ultran. I heard your call and decided to help you in the fight against the tyranids.¡±


    "Hey, kid, didn''t you enough play heroes when was a child??" - The Eldar replied contemptuously, without even introducing himself. - "Do you have an army of billions of Eldar behind you?"


    "Behind me?" - I turned and noticed that a tyranid was standing behind me. The one that is in stasis. Fortunately, camera didn¡¯t capture my identity donor. - "No, it''s a tyranid. Can''t you even tell the difference between a tyranid and Eldar? Seems you become feral very much.¡±


    In response, the Eldar naturally growled.


    "How dare you, boy!¡± - He yelled.


    "Your diagnosis is clear to me. We''ll have to find someone more adequate.¡±


    With these words, I continued to search another working terminal on the ship. But just a couple of minutes later I got an incoming call. As I took it, I saw a pretty woman whose face bore the stamp of age. Eldar did not age in principle, but experience and centuries of life affected the expression of their faces. Mirak was aware of such effects, so that his memory stored the signs by which it was possible to distinguish a young Eldar from a thousand-year-old sage.


    "My name is Janna Arienal.¡± ¨C Elder introduced herself. - "Did you want offer help to us?"


    ¡°Yes. I think I can help you.¡±


    "I had visions that some power from outside would offer help to us. You are not an Eldar, are you?¡± ¨C Seer¡¯s eyes narrowed suspiciously.


    "Well, I wouldn''t say I''m not an Eldar." - After all, I have a complete copy of the Eldar''s memory, so I know their culture and traditions. - "But at the same time, I am much more than just an Eldar. My power is enough to save you... on certain conditions.¡±


    ¡°What are these conditions?¡± - Suspicion in Arienal''s gaze has increased.


    "I propose to discuss it face to face. How can I get on your ship?


    "The only way is to travel through the Webway. But now it is captured by the tyranids and Warp daemons, so nothing living can pass through it.¡±


    "What about the non-living?" ¨C I interested. -  "For example, a tyranid''s corpse?"


    "Yes, you can send us the tyranid''s corpse.¡± - The seer agreed. - "But what will be the benefit of that?¡±


    ¡°It has big benefit. Then, prepare a platform for the opening of the portal, and I''ll find a suitable corpse.¡±


    I switch off the connection and headed to the lower floors of the tower. During my research, I had encountered several dozen tyranids, so it was not difficult to find a suitable corpse. I took the chitin-covered leg and put on it the Hiraishin label. After that, all I had to do was stuff the ''gift'' into a shipping container and dial the address of the exit gate on the portal. A passage opened in the arch of the Webway, where I threw the container. Then it had to fly on its own on the Webway and get to the portal associated with Yanden.


    Fifteen minutes later, I felt returning of Hiraishin''s label from the Webway space to normal three-dimensional reality, and then my shadow clone jumped to the mark. He found himself in a room with walls of psi-bone that didn''t even have doors leading out. But there were enough weapons to dust someone like a high daemon. However, my clone did not linger in this uncomfortable room, and slipped through the wall towards the cluster of living creatures. There my clone saw Janna Arienal herself. After that, all I had to do was read the coordinates of this place and open the stargate portal through which I passed.


    ¡°Greetings, Janna.¡± - I said, walking forward. Eldars present here pointed their weapons at me, but I didn''t pay attention to them. Such farts can¡¯t scare me.


    ¡°Mirak Ultran...¡± - The seer drawled with some confusion in her voice. - "That''s not your real name, is it?"


    "You can call me Atman if you''re more comfortable." - I grinned, studying her closely.


    ¡°Atman... So, what do you want offer to us?¡±


    "How about reviving your race, ridding you of the threat of Slaanesh and all the other Chaos Gods, and personal immortality in the bargain?"


    "Sounds like some kind of pre-election speech." - The seer smirked impassively.


    ¡°But unlike politicians, I can fulfill my promises.¡±


    ¡°What will be the price?¡±


    ¡°Your Craftworld will go to the universe of another game, where it will help me to defeat the evil forces. After that, the entire galaxy will be at your disposal.¡±


    I didn''t accidentally mention the game. After all, in front of me was a game figure, on the soul of which stood already familiar to me the mark of the victim. And the parasite in my soul was suspiciously mesmerizing.


    ¡°Are you offering me to join to another game?¡± - Arienal was surprised.


    ¡°Yes. It doesn''t look like you have a chance of winning this game.¡± - I nodded.


    "It''s a bit of fun, but to win I need to completely restore Yanden. So, if you keep your promise, I''ll be the winner.¡±


    "Well, then you will give me Eldars knowledge that you have accumulated over the course of your existence as compensate.¡±


    "You''re asking too much, stranger!¡± - One of the Eldars who accompanied the prophetess came forward.


    "Calm down, Iriel.¡± - Arienal answered to him. - "Don''t push away a stretched hand of help. As for the price, all our knowledge was useless against Slaanesh. So, as much as it is sad to admit, the value of this knowledge is not comparable to the knowledge that will allow us to get rid of the threat from the Gods of Chaos.¡±


    "If he has any such knowledge." - Iriel interfered into the conversation again.


    ¡°Are you ready to sign a contract with me?¡± - Arienal continued her speech.


    ¡°Of course. A full contract, certified by the Game''s Judge.¡±


    ¡°What is the game?¡± - The brazen upstart didn''t let up.


    "Prince Iriel! Shut up.¡± - The seer besieged him. - "This question is beyond your comprehension.¡±


    ¡°No! I''m not going to keep quiet! We had an incomprehensible stranger on the ship, and you immediately promised him to reveal all our secrets, flattered by his empty words.¡± - Iriel shouted.


    "You''re the only one who''s throwing around empty words.¡± - I said scornfully. - "What''s the use of your yapping? Or for the sake of preserving your ''great secrets'' are you willing to sacrifice the lives of all your comrades? Ready to give up the future of your race?¡±


    Eldar sneered, squired at me, and turned to Arienal, completely ignoring my presence.


    "Do whatever you want, but remember that I am against it!"


    With these words, he proudly threw up his head and left the room. I snorted for such a tantrum and began to discuss the terms of the contract in a substantive way.


    The following conditions were determined as a result of the trade. They will give me access to all the scientific knowledge of Eldar and taught the possession of psionic power. I''m helping the Eldars to rebuild their numbers and clean up the Craftworld from the tyranids. I also protect their souls from the influence of Slaanesh, and after the conditions for Arienal''s victory have been reached, I will teleport the Craftworld into the universe of the Mass Effect. And there the Eldars will help me to fight Reaper.


    After the contract was signed and approved, the seer asked me.


    "So how are you going to protect us from Slaanesh?"

 7.27 Warhammer 40k

    ¡°This question still needs to be researched, but I see two solutions. Temporary solution is the installation of protective spells on your souls. That¡¯s way she can''t get you while you''re alive. And the second is cutting off you from the Warp energies.¡±


    "But the Warp is the foundation of all our psionics.¡± ¨C Arienal objected. - "Every time we use our power, it resonates with the energies of the Warp. Therefore, strong Eldars spells have a chance to attract the attention of daemons as a side effect. If this connection is broken, our powers will be reduced by hundreds of times, which makes all our psionic skills useless.¡±


    ¡°I think I will be able to solve this problem.¡± - I reassured her. - "We just need to do some research, find out how your psionics working basis, how is the Warp influencing to you, and so on. Then I can find a solution that allows us to achieve the desired result.¡±


    "So, won''t it be quick solution?" - The seer sighed.


    ¡°No. That''s why I suggested the option of installing protection on your souls. It will take some time to study your situation, but in a couple of weeks I will be able to offer a specific action plan.¡±


    This was the end of the ''political'' part of our conversation, and I began to delve into the technical details. Contrary to my expectations, Arienal gave me full access to all the scientific databases of the Eldar, and descriptions of all researches they had conducted over millions of years, and was even able to organize my personal communication with some of the Eldars who conducted these experiments, whose souls were imprisoned in the Tears of Isha.


    After learning that I was able to capture the daemon, and then purify his soul, Eldars literally ''started dancing''. Even one soul saved from Slaanesh''s enslavement clearly showed that my words were not empty words.


    After a couple of weeks, I was able to more or less understand the current situation on the ship. And to be honest, the situation was aching. I could only wonder how Arienal had managed to ensure the survival of her kind in such conditions.


    Naturally, the main problem was the tyranids. These creatures can reproduce with great speed and were able to penetrate through the strongest bulkheads of the psi-bones. At the same time, they could do both completely unnoticed by the Eldar. As a result, the clearing of the ship''s interior had only a temporary effect, and even the most protected areas offered no guarantee that the Eldar would not be attacked by a tyranid.


    The second problem was too few Eldar survivors, and most importantly, almost zero fertility. As you know, to conceive a child, a man and a woman need to have sex. In the case of the Eldar, sex had to be performed daily for at least six months. Only in that case the embryo could receive all the necessary genetic information from the father and become viable. But constant sex engendered in the minds of the Eldar craving for pleasure. And this loophole was immediately used by Slaanesh, driving such Eldar mad and turning them into daemons.


    Another problem with the first two was the inability to use strong psionic techniques. The Eldars were too few to take the tyranids in numbers. And the use of a large amount of psi-energy led to the opening of natural portals to the Warp, which was immediately compounded by the invasion of daemons from these portals.


    The solution was found in the use of military equipment like ¡®robot panzer¡¯. Since the living Eldar were not enough even for piloting this equipment, the dead Eldars were harnessed to this task. Since the Fall, their souls have been encased in Tears of Isha to prevent their absorption by Slaanesh. These souls retained awareness and even has ability to generate psi energy. As a result, they were inserted into robots as a control module and power source.


    But Tears of Isha were not suitable for containing an active-minded soul. Initially, these stones were created for the eternal storage of the souls of the dead. And to keep these souls from going mad, Tears of Isha plunged them into a state of timelessness. In this state, the consciousness of the dead Eldar could be in complete peace for thousands of years, without feeling the slightest concern. But when from this soul began to demand active independent actions, they felt strong discomfort. It''s one thing to be asked for advice once every couple of decades, and another if you have to patrol the ship''s premises around the clock and clear them of tyranids. As a result, the technique ''driven'' by Tears of Isha had a bad tendency to ''fall into hibernation¡¯ at the most crucial moment, which further worsened the overall situation.


    Well, the final cherry on the cake were the results of the study of psionics Eldar. As it turned out, every race in this universe had its own kind of psionics. Orcs, Necrons, humans, and Eldars had different influences on physical reality. I mean, the very mechanism of their influence was different. For example, Necrons¡¯ psionics had no connection to the Warp at all, so they had no chance of using the Webway to move or the Warp to enhance their abilities.


    Orcs could use the Warp, but the basis of their power was the ''social consciousness'' of the whole species. In fact, all orcs at the highest level were one creature whose psionic power was enough to withstand all other races. People have followed the path of developing personal psychic power, connecting a crystal-clear mind and bubbling emotions. This connection was extremely close in its characteristics to the Warp, so it was easiest for people to draw energy from it, at the same time ''clogging'' the Warp with their thoughts, emotions and desires. But this power had its price, and people could ''lose themselves'' by scooping up too much from Warp.


    The Eldar, unlike other races, had a completely artificial psionic gift. This is how the Ancients created them. Their connection to the Warp was strong and stable, allowing them to use the power of the Warp without worrying about overload. It could be said that the Eldars were created in order to freely use the Warp without negative consequences for themselves. This power at one time allowed them to almost destroy the Necrons. But when Slaanesh appeared, the strength of the Eldars became their weakness. Unlike humans, the Eldars did not convert Warp energy before using it. Therefore, the corrupting influence of the God of Lust reached their souls unhindered, and only a high level of self-control allowed the psykers to remain sane.


    After studying the whole situation, I offered the Eldars the following sequence of actions. First, I developed a spell to cut off Eldar''s consciousness from Warp. If desired, this protection could be turned off by volitional psionic effort enhanced with the help of Warp energies, but then a blue glow would appear around the Eldar. The Slaanesh agents, of whom there were many, could not imagine themselves without a constant connection with their God, so they would have to constantly walk around with the ''aura of Chaos'' turned on, which would inevitably betray them. If such Eldars masqueraded as normal, then the influence of Slaanesh on their minds gradually faded, and they were able to think adequately.


    Such protection automatically solved the problem of the impossibility of reproduction. After all, no matter how much the Eldar engaged in sex and other forms of debauchery, it did not make them vulnerable to the God of Lust. But since such hedonism was destructive in itself, I gave the Eldars a way to control themselves without giving up to pleasures.


    This method was called Buddhism. This is the ''middle way'' that allows you to develop spiritually, while not oppressing the body and living in your own pleasure. This philosophy was a revelation to the Eldar. Moreover, the Warp protection spell had another function. If an Eldar was immersed in sensual pleasure, then his psionic gift was blocked. As a result, such Eldar became ''stupid meat'', even unable to open the door. After all, all Eldar technology worked at the expense of psionics. In this way, meditation and working on development of consciousness became vital.


    Having solved the problems of the living, I moved on to the problems of the dead. I developed a special version of the Central crystals of the Vritras body that protected the Eldar¡¯s souls from the influence of the Warp. In addition, these bodies themselves had to be powered by the psionic energy of the Eldar soul, so that in their development I used the technology of necrons to optimize for the use of psionics. When the Eldars learned of these details, there was a howl that could tear my ears. I was accused of trying to turn the Eldars into Necrons and that I am an evil worser than Slaanesh.


    For such accusation, I cut off the rebels'' access to psionic abilities and declared that there wouldn¡¯t be democracy. Their leader signed the contract, so I''ll save them whether they want to or not. And if someone is not satisfied with something, they can go from here to all four sides or directly to the lair of the gods of Chaos. Oddly enough, there were a couple of thousand renegades who, after these words, gathered and piled on ships in an unknown direction, naively hoping that there they would be out of my power and their psionic abilities would be restored. But the protecting spell imposed on the Eldar§í already made them my ''slaves'' and it was impossible to get rid of it. In this universe, no one knew what is magic look like, so, could not effectively counteract it. So, when the rebels flew away, I sternly turned off their defense against Warp, and all of them transformed into daemons in a couple of days.


    The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    When the passions subsided, the phase of transferring the souls of the Eldar from the Tears of Isha to the bodies of Necro-Vritras began. Such souls were given the opportunity to lead a normal life, have sex and even reproduce. However, the latter required the use of Central crystals created by me. After all, they worked on magic.


    Since the souls of the dead Eldar were not fully connected to the material world, I had to make their protection from the Warp permanent. This significantly reduced the strength of their psionic abilities, which was nevertheless compensated by their complete and absolute immortality.


    When the ''production'' of new Necro-Vritras was put on stream, this immortal army went to clear the ship from the tyranids. They simply went into melee and tore the enemies to pieces, completely ignoring the damage inflicted on them.


    Then I began the process of complete and final ''sanitization'' of the ship from the tyranids. No matter how powerful these creatures were, they needed organic matter to live and reproduce, i.e. carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, calcium, and so on. When the Vritras killed another tyranid, they took its corpse to the processing unit, where there was equipment that split the body into basic chemical elements. After that, the chemicals were sent to different parts of the ship, where they were stored under heavy protection. In other words, to be able to create organics, the tyranids had to rob at least a dozen warehouses located in different places.


    In addition to the disposal of corpses, all available organics were sent to recycling. After the clean-up, only bare walls and a vacuum remained in the premises, which were impossible to breathe. At least for the tyranids. They might be in a vacuum for a while, but they couldn''t live in it all the time.


    While the ship was being cleaned up and the Eldars were ''breeding and multiplying'' at a rapid rate, I was researching the nature of psionics. As I already knew, Eldars psionics was tied to the use of the Warp. So, in the world of Mass Effect, they would be useless. Therefore, I decided to create a new type of psionic abilities, generally independent of the universe in which their user is located.


    Fortunately, the Eldars have been researching psionics and physics for millions of years. Their science was so advanced that even the Ancients of the Stargate world were savages compared to them. Of course, this knowledge was limited to the material world and the Warp dimension, but I had the missing elements of the puzzle to create a truly revolutionary kind of magic. And now I was fully loading the computer in my body to analyze all this information in order to develop a new type of psionics.


    This stage lasted for a long ten years. I didn''t think the Eldar had so much information that it would take my quantum computers so long to analyze it. But by the time I got my first draft of how to achieve the desired result, the Yanden Craftworld was already completely cleared from tyranids and had a population of ten million Eldars and more than a hundred billion vritras. We ''reanimated'' more than three-quarters of all Tears of Isha that were present on the ship. The other souls refused to return to the world of the living, so we left them alone.


    And so, the development of my ''Great Plan'' was completed, and I presented it to the public. I mean, I''ve brought to the attention of all Eldar what they''re going to do next. No one could resist me, because I firmly kept in short lead all Eldars. As soon as someone rebelled, I would disable their protection from Warp, and in a couple of days such Eldar would transform into a Slaanesh¡¯s daemon. After all, they quickly get used to the good situation and the Eldars could no longer fit themselves into the rigid framework of the previous dull existence. I did not suffer moral torment from being such dictator, because for me, all Eldars were tools for achieving my goals. At the same time, I did not just use them, but gave them the opportunity to live and enjoy this life.


    The first stage of the plan was the creation of a new God, whose personality matrix was my consciousness. No, I wasn''t going to become a God myself. Form of existence as God has several limitations, although it had some positive aspects. In fact, the Eldars God were the embodiment of their thoughts. A sort of ''average arithmetic'' of their expectations. And that is why the gods could not independently determine who they are. It was a product of ''advanced democracy'', where crowd of sheep determined the quality of consciousness of a higher-level being. Quite a funny situation, in my opinion. A shepherd created by sheep, and therefore unable to be smarter than them.


    The created God had to have quite clearly defined characteristics, for which the ritual of worshiping to him was strictly regulated, and all the energies sent to him passed multi-stage quality control. In other words, we needed a god that matched the design technical documentation, whose raisond was to perform a certain function. My personality matrix here played the role of guaranteeing that the self-aware astral entity would not decide to start its own game. After all, according to the law of similarity, I could control the consciousness of this God and all his actions.


    The new religion of worship of this God was based on the same Buddhism. That is, the basis of everything was self-control, calming the mind and self-development. Every ''believer'' was obliged to follow certain spiritual practices and to produce the energy of faith in the rituals of worship on a daily basis.


    When I made a promise to the Game Judge about not using of the Warp energy, I mean that I would not use the Bahion already embedded in it. But here I ''generated'' a completely new Bahion, which originally belongs to the new God.


    As a result, a hundred billion souls fiercely worshipped me and formed the necessary astral structure. Ten years later, the process of energy accumulation was completed, and I moved on to the next stage. By this time, I had a complete model of my new psi abilities ready. This psionic was to combine the ability to control matter with simple willpower, as the Eldars did, the ability to mathematically calculate the structure of spells, as it did in the magic of spiders, and the ability to adapt to any laws of material and astral world. The latter should allow me to be independent from the limitations imposed by the laws of different universes. However, the last function would require some time to be able to ''adjust'' to the current laws of physics


    Finally, when everything was ready, the synthetic God used his power over reality to make possible the existence of a new kind of psionics. And the first being who got access to this power, of course, was me. I initiated another ''tail'' in my soul with this psi energy, thus forever getting access to psi power. In addition, information about various techniques, spells, and ways to influence to the reality was recorded in the energy core of the tail. In fact, I received the combined result of all Eldars¡¯ knowledge which accumulated by them over tens of millions of years.


    After this, a ritual was developed to allow the Eldars to ''change their psionic orientation''. They lost their natural psionic powers, permanently severing themselves from the connection with the Warp, and in return received access to ''new psionic power'', the source of which was their God. His name, by the way, was Atman. This name was a certain point of fixation of thoughts. Initially, Bahion went from Eldar to me, and then I redirected the stream to a new astral entity, while retaining control over it. This way I could always keep my hand ''on the pulse'' of the new God, and if necessary ''cut off his oxygen''.


    After all living Eldars had passed through the initiation ritual, it came vritrases queue. After correcting the structure of the astral body, they received a new physical body, whose work was based only on the new psionics. This allowed them to reproduce on their own, regardless of the supply of central crystals.


    In the religion of Atman worship, I have paid sufficient attention to the existence of the Eldar in two types of bodies. Organic bodies were considered as ''natural'' and had greater potential for development. While the ¡®vritras'' bodies were obviously more comfortable and stronger.


    Along with the new psionics, the Eldars also got the opportunity to immediately choose whose soul to put into it, and after birth of child, he could retain most of the memories of a previous life. On the one hand, this approach allowed them to form a new personality with new habits, and on the other, it did not lead to the loss of important knowledge and experience.


    The next stage was the ''salvation'' of the Eldars souls defiled by the Warp. The astral mechanism created by me, can pull out daemons which were once Eldar, from the Warp and perform an operation to remove their ''daemonic astral shells''. After that, to cleaned Eldars was given a choice: to be imprisoned in the Tear of Isha or to become a follower of the new God. In a couple of years, we were able to ''catch'' a couple of hundred billion of new inhabitants to the Craftworld.


    By this time, the Craftworld itself had been completely restored and returned to the state of shining glory that it had boasted before the Fall of the Eldar. Finally, Joanna Arienal received the long-awaited confirmation of her ''quest'', and I was able to move on to the next stage of the ''Great Plan''.


    To begin with, we collected the Tears of Isha with the souls of the ''standard'' Eldars encased in them and sent this cargo to other Craftworlds. Only the followers of the new God will go to the Mass Effect world, and nothing else. After the ship was fully ready for departure, a huge Stargate was built under my direction, capable of transporting a ship whose size was measured in hundreds of kilometers. And at the last stage, we used the energy of a blue giant star to power the gate and open a passage to another universe.


    I looked at the ship disappearing in the portal, activated the Stargate''s camouflage system, and then considered my next move. I have secured the participation of the Eldars in my game, but I have not yet helped to the Necrons. The new God had gone to another world with his followers, so now I could only rely on myself. But I was no longer restricted by the ''public opinion'' of the Eldars, so I could direct my efforts to destroy their gods and get free the Necron gods. And since I had all knowledge of the Eldars, achieving the desired result will not be particularly difficult. Moreover, my next step will ''kill two birds with one shot''. I couldn''t ignore the fact that the Judge of this Game was greedy to give me some Bahion. Well, my revenge will be terrible.

 7.28 Warhammer 40k

    By the way, I took into account that in the future I may need Bahion more than once, so I sealed in my soul a very good stash for a black day. This should be enough for me to initiate all the other tails, as well as perform a couple of divine-level miracles.


    Having decided on my plans, I went to one of the planets inhabited by people. Ratar was in the zone of influence of the Empire, but at the same time it was considered as a backwater. The local administration regularly paid taxes and supplied recruits for the army, so Empire¡¯s leaders didn¡¯t pay attention to this city. And such situation of decaying well-being could be more suitable for the seeds of new Heresy to germinate in it.


    The central administration of Ratar was located in a city called Ratartar. And for several years, daemon-worshipping cults have been hiding in this city. As always, the inhabitants of well-to-do worlds did not want to jeopardize their well-being, so the cults of Khorne or Nurgle had no chance of success. But enjoying Slaanesh and scheming Tzeentch seduced a lot of ''innocent'' souls here.


    Ratar had both of these cults competing with each other for attention from possible political and economic elite adherents. This same elite, of course, clearly understood what consequences may lead if they completely submit to one of the cults, so they skillfully played on the confrontation of the two gods of Chaos, extracting out all sorts of preferences here and now for the sake of a hypothetical flourishing of cults in the bright future. However, the daemons agreed with these rules of the game, could foresee a distant future in which the gradual decomposition of the powers of the incumbents inevitably led to the breakout of Chaos


    Once on the planet, I used my new psionic powers to sneak into the chambers of the most powerful man on the planet, to governor Porzisco Staphone.


    "Good evening, Governor.¡± - I said hello to a politician who was getting ready to take a break from state affairs in bed with a couple of concubines. Now he was in his office, drugging himself with aphrodisiacs provided by the Slaanesh daemons. Unfortunately for him, I had already slightly changed these compositions, so now they caused not sexual attraction, but excessive confidence in any interlocutor.


    ¡°Good evening¡± - Porzisco agreed, suddenly woozy. - "Who are you?"


    "I am your secret well-wisher. I have recently heard rumors that you are trying to agree on cooperation with two cults of demon worshippers.¡±


    "What? How do you know that?¡± - The corrupted politician tried to be afraid. Unfortunately, the elixir he drank completely suppressed the feeling of fear.


    ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter.¡± - I shrugged it off. - "The main thing is that I sincerely wish your wellbeing.¡± - The politician nodded in fascination and stretched out in a comfortable chair, where it was so convenient listen to my speeches. ¨C ¡°Have you thought about what awaits you if you become a member of one of the cults?¡±


    "Transforming into a daemon?" - Smoldering Porzisco suggested.


    "Not exactly. I''m saying that the same Slaanesh already has a lot of followers, a lot of demons, billions of sycophants who are ready to do anything in order to snatch a little more power for themselves. What do you think, what is your chance to take a proper place in this hierarchy of power?¡±


    ¡°To be honest, I didn''t think about it.¡± - The politician frowned, who has considerable experience in conducting intrigues and twisting tails of others. He understood more than anyone else that the struggle for power in a society where everything had already has been divided before him could be very difficult.


    "It will be waste of time.¡± - I confirmed his fears. ¨C ¡°The attention of the Gods of Chaos is occupied by powerful demons, and it will be very difficult for a simple cult member to gain some attention, in order to receive the gifts from Gods.¡±


    "What should I do?" - Porzisco asked, looking at me with an almost meaningful look. After all, the poison he had drunk did not blunt his ability to analyze the situation and draw logical conclusions.


    "It''s very simple. You need to create a new God of Chaos and become his first pope. Then you will be at the top of power pyramid from the very beginning. Your subjects will call you as ¡®the first after God¡¯¡±.


    "I like the idea.¡± - The politician nodded in agreement, pouring a new portion of the poison into his glass and sipping it. - "But where are we going to get this new God? And where is the guarantee that his power will be equal to the Gods of Chaos?¡±


    "Oh! There won''t be any problems with that. I am the only person in this world who knows exactly how to create a new God of Chaos. As for how to make this God¡¯s power great, it''s even easier. What action does any living being every day in the universe, giving all his attention to the process?¡±


    ¡°Hm-m-m... having sex?¡± ¨C My listener made an assumption, examining the aphrodisiac in his drink.


    ¡°No. It''s hard to have sex every day. Of course, it depends on the physical condition of the body, but most people cannot have sex every day.¡±


    "Well, if think more about it, people eat every day.¡± - The politician did another attempt.


    ¡°You suggest very close, but no. People don''t always pay enough attention to this process. Many people eat while walking, some watch TV during lunch and others eat such nastiness that prefer not to perceive the taste of food. And besides, ¡®gluttony¡¯ is already one of the aspects of Slaanesh.¡±


    "Well, then I don''t even know.¡± - Porzisco gave up and sucked to the glass.


    ¡°Everyone every day goes to the toilet to shit.¡± - I expressed my brilliant idea. ¨C ¡°Moreover, as a rule, at this moment the person is not distracted by anything, so the process itself takes place with a high degree of concentration. And this is the perfect moment of worship for god - to the new God of Shit!


    ¡°Kha... what?¡± - The future priest choked with liquid.


    "I propose to create a religion of worship for the God of Shit, in which you will be the pope. Everyone shits, whether they want to or not. You can refuse to eat, but if you ate, you cannot refuse to go to the toilet. If the new God is worshipped correctly, then all living beings in the universe will automatically become his followers. For example, let¡¯s examine Khorne. He is god of death. He accepts victims in the form of death. Person can die only once. But he shits all his life! So, it is quite obvious which god will receive the most energy of faith.¡±


    "That''s interesting.¡± - The politician appreciated my idea. His eyes lit up with enthusiasm, and in his mind, he was already considering the possible pros and cons of such a cult.


    Our further conversation was about the technical details of implementing this idea. I promised to the Judge that I would not use his Bahion. But this does not limit me to giving to other people the knowledge of how to use the energy of the Warp. Moreover, as a result, nothing unusual will happen - just in the depths of Chaos there will born another germ of God. This happens there every day, and our case differs only in that the characteristics of this god will be clearly defined in advance.


    Only six months later, the first ritual of worship of the new God were conducted. I used my knowledge of Ritual Magic to create a magic circle that creates the germ of a new God and connects it to a specific ritual. In the first stage, this ritual will give energy to the new god. But when he became enough strong, he will be able to create new rituals of self-worship that are suitable for ''personal satisfaction of religious needs''.


    The circular chamber was more than twenty meters in diameter. The walls which has ''the color of a baby¡¯s surprise'' rose high and curved into a high dome. In the center of the hall was a deep circular pool, in which many tons of fecal matter splashed and thoughtfully mixed. Around the perimeter of the pool were toilets on which the priests of the new God were making efforts to ''produce divine nectar''.


    ¡°More shit for God of Shit!!!¡± - A Great Praying rang through the hall. In time with it, there were multiple slaps of the specified substance, which rolled into the pool.


    Despite the situation, the air in the hall smelled of roses and vanilla. This was the first Miracle of the newborn God, his Divine Phantasm. God of Shit had full power over the shit and was able to turn it into any other substance, such as flowers or even to gold.


    The Poope of the new God stepped onto the gilded dais and walked across it to the geometric center of the entire structure. There he sat down on a golden toilet and completed the ritual of the Great Sacrifice. As soon as the first piece of blessed poo touched the surface of the filled pool, the sound of angels singing was heard. The shit rose high and fell, forming a humanoid shape. The new God of this world opened his mouth and took a deep breath... and farted loudly. This divine sound spread throughout the Warp, indicating the birth of a new God of Chaos. The Last and True God!


    Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    I watched this ritual from another planet and on record. I didn''t want to be counted among the worshippers of the new God, either. The only purpose of observing this ''spectacle'' was to check the accuracy of the ritual and develop a plan for subsequent actions. Everything went almost perfectly, and then the Poope had only to follow my instructions. By the way, the position of my friend was called a Poope, not a Pope, because his duty was not to eat on behalf of his god, but to shit and generating poo.


    Over the next couple of years, the cult grew in strength, spreading rapidly across the galaxy. After all, to become a worshipper of the new God, you just had to learn a few prayers and mentally recite them during the daily act of sacrifice. But the ''buns'' received from this worship could be evaluated in just a week. In particular, the human digestive tract and all other internal organs were normalized, excess weight was lost, and the muscles were filled with strength and volume without exhausting trainings.


    And when the number of flocks crossed the necessary threshold, another ritual took place. This was my ''masterpiece''. An essence of absolute treachery and cunning. This ritual created the ceremony of worshipping of the God of Shit, after which any intelligent being became a sincere follower of the new God. It was enough simply to take participation in this priesthood voluntarily.


    That is, roughly speaking, it was enough to decorate the toilet ''according to Feng Shui'', and let the person shit in it. In result, on the way out of the toilet, we got a religious fanatic who fervently believes in the Mission of Shit. Moreover, even daemons were affected by this ritual. All you had to do was summon the demons, feed them until they were full, then let them shit in the decorated toilet. On exit, the most devoted worshipper of Slaanesh, Khorne, or Nurgle was instantly transformed into a slave of the God of Shit.


    Needless to say, with such a ''cheat'' the new religion has seized all power in the galaxy in just a few years. At the same time, all other Gods of the Warp lost their powers, because no one else worshipped them. Moreover, before the Warp had the color of blood, which was determined by the most powerful emotions of death that filled it. But some time ago, this color changed, so that now the Warp had the appearance of shit, and the portal to it resembled an opening anus.


    By this time, I already knew exactly where the Star Gods of the necrons were imprisoned. It was enough for me to give task to the Poope to interrogate the re-subordinated daemons. They could not refuse to the closest figure of their God and revealed all their secrets.


    As it turned out, the Star Gods of necrons were imprisoned in a Crystal Labyrinth, in the center of which sat Tzeentch, The Architect of the Fates. By the way I promised to visit him and now was the very time to fulfill my promise.


    https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Crystal_Labyrinth</a>


    I concentrated, opened the portal to Warp and dived into it. Streams of shit surrounded me, spun me around and threw me near the famous Crystal Labyrinth. Its transparent walls were stained by the influence of a new God, whose power poured freely into the endless labyrinth, absorbing and dissolving it in itself. With a vindictive grin, I made my way straight through the walls and headed for the Hidden Library.


    During twenty years, my shadow clones have been exploring this labyrinth, learning the laws of multidimensional space. After all, the Crystal Labyrinth was located in nine-dimensional space, and its very appearance drove the mortals who wandered into it to madness. But I had a computer of the Ancients at my disposal, and it was easy enough to make a map of nine-dimensional space. Thus, I gained experience of living in a multidimensional space and kept it in the deepest levels of my soul.


    I walked through the labyrinth without hiding, somewhere avoiding obstacles, and somewhere creating my way by force. A couple of hours later I destroyed another wall and found myself in a huge hall, in the center of which Tzeentch himself was floating in the air. Next to him stood the few daemons that remained under his command. However, it is worth to admit that they were his strongest subordinates, and unlike the other three Gods of Chaos, Tzeentch lost not so much of his powers.


    "Greetings, Architect of Fate.¡± - I said hello.


    "I can''t say that I''m glad to see you, Atman.¡± ¨C He answered.


    "And yet here I am. Do you know why I''m here?¡± - I clarified. After all, he was the God of Fate, and he should have seen the variants of the future.


    "You want to free the Star Gods of Necrons, whom I swore to protect¡±


    ¡°Everything in the world changes.¡± - I grinned at him. ¨C ¡°You should know that very well,"


    "Yes, you''re right. So, what do you want to offer me in return?¡±


    "Protection from the infinite power of the new God. I''ll leave Crystal Labyrinth under your power.¡±


    "I wouldn''t call it an equal exchange.¡± - The Great Conspirator complained.


    "This is your only chance. The longer you think, the smaller your Labyrinth becomes.¡±


    "All right, I agree.¡± - The game figure sighed. - "But this is not over. The game continues.¡±


    ¡°Of course.¡± - I chuckled insidiously. - "But you can sort it out without me. So, where are my Necron souls?¡±


    Tzeentch stretched his hand, and materialized a golden key covered with complex patterns


    "This Palace once belonged to Asurian, the father of Eldar Gods.¡± - Tzeentch began his speech. - "After Slaanesh killed him, I took the Palace for myself. But along with the Crystal Labyrinth, I also received the duty to keep the Necrons souls. I can''t just give them to you, but I can exchange them for other smaller Necrons. I foresee your arrival, so I already have everything required.¡±


    With these words, The Architect of Fate waved his other hand, and nine clusters of spiritual energy hung in the air, faintly glowing with green color. After that, he touched the souls with the key, and in place of each of them, another soul appeared. All of them radiated with huge power hidden in them.


    I nodded in agreement and reached out my hand, sealing these souls in the fuinjutsu seal. Here in the Warp, they were almost powerless. But after returning to the material world, they will regain the right to be called the Star Gods. After that, I put my hand on the crystal floor and inserted a psionic program which will forbid the God of Shit to trespassing on someone else''s property. This structure began to spread along the walls, copying itself. After a while it will reach the outer perimeter, where a new stable border of the Crystal Labyrinth will be formed.


    "Well, I think it¡¯s time to leave.¡± - I said goodbye to the local God. He didn''t answer, so I slid back into the already closing gap in the wall and started walking away.


    An hour later, I was on the planet Mardex, going down the passage of the Necron hideout. There I was met by a cheerful gatekeeper, to whom I showed the extracted souls


    "Yes, they are!¡± - Whathefuck said solemnly after examining my catch. I didn''t even have to go to his sarcophagus, because he teleported into the gatekeeper''s hall just seconds after I arrived.


    After that, there was a solemn ceremony of injecting these souls into new bodies, which have already been prepared by prudent necrons. But even I surprised by the subsequent events. After hearing the report on the events in the galaxy over the past sixty million years, the nine Star Gods began to decide which of them would go to the world of the Mass Effect to take part in my game. As it turned out, all nine gods were game figures. And most amazing thing was that each of them proved to the others that he should go with me.


    "Why are you so enthusiastic?" - I asked when the dispute once again reached a dead end. - "Why do all of you want to go to another world?"


    "Because of you." - One of the Necrons grumbled. - "We can''t use Warp¡¯s energy, but we can sense it perfectly. And thanks to your efforts, we feel like we''re in deep shit up to ears.¡±


    ¡°So, are you sure that the universe in which my game takes place will be better?¡± - I grinned at him. ¨C ¡°I like to do radical decisions."


    After that, the dispute withered and somehow quickly resolved, because only one of the necrons after mature consideration, Malikan agreed to go with me. Along with him, they gave me fifty Obelisks, five Minor Gods, and five hundred million Necrons to accompany me. Such army was huge force, but it was incomparable with the number of Eldars on Yanden. But in the past, the necrons destroyed the Old Ones, who created the Eldar, by also not having a numerical advantage. So, I have not yet made any assumptions about which of the allies will be more useful. As they say, we''ll deal with it on the spot.


    Together with the Obelisks that housed the entire Necron army, I went to the Stargate and once again opened the passage to the universe of Mass Effect. There was another unused address on my list of ''space worlds'', but I decided I had already gained enough allies to handle the Reaper. So, I left the last world ''in reserve''.


    I let the Necrons pass through the portal and entered the glowing canvas of the Stargate. But to my surprise, I came out of the portal not in the cosmos, as expected, but simply in the void. In the same void where my communication with all sorts of incomprehensible deities usually took place.


    "YOU-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-U!"!!!!!!! How dare you?!!!!" - I recognized the voice of the Judge of this world, and then I saw him himself. - "I will destroy you!"!!!!!¡± - His words were oozing with hate.


    ¡°I protest.¡± - I heard the Being''s voice. A second later, it appeared accompanied by another deity. ¨C ¡°My figure did not violate any game rules.¡±


    "He transformed my Warp into a SHITWARP!!!¡± - The Judge screamed. I had to make a great effort not to laugh for such phrase.


    "Well, actually his acquaintance did this. The figure himself did not take part in this.¡± ¨C The Being objected. - "And besides, he even helped you."


    "WHAT?"!!!! How could he help me?!!¡± - The Judge exploded, radiating anger and thirst for blood.


    ¡°Well... now, no one will steal your Bahion.¡±


    After these words, the Being and third deity laughed nastily.


    ¡°Violation of the game rules was not registered.¡± - The third deity said. - "Moreover, considering your threats, this figure has immune for your judge. If you decide that he should be punished, you should go to a neutral judge for a decision. Is that clear to you?"


    "Yes.¡± - The Judge answered with an extinct voice, and then disappeared into the void.


    A second later, the third member of the show also disappeared, and I was left alone with the Being.


    "Ha, ha, ha. It was the best joke in the Universe of the last era.¡± ¨C It informed me. ¨C ¡°Transform the whole Bahion designed for the Great Exaltation into the Shit. You''re the only one who could think of that.¡±


    "To be greedy is not well.¡± - I murmured in response, laughing inwardly.


    ¡°I see, you decided to solve the assigned task with creatively way. I look forward to find out how this story will end.¡±


    With these words, the Being disappeared, and a second later I was thrown out of the portal in the world of Mass Effect.

 7.29 Mass Effect 2.1

    Looking around, I tracked the departing army of necrons and teleported to my hideout. Arrival time settings of all opened portals to this world was almost one time, so that all my recruits arrived to this universe about the same time. Moreover, my shadow clones were located near each of exit point, so right now I could observe the actions of all my allies.


    Most importantly, my clone was located at a Collector''s base in a system that could only be accessed via by Omega-4 relay. Now this relay was out of power, so John Sheppard had no way to visit the Collectors'' base and blow it up. Meanwhile, the Reaper was directly connected to the computer of this base, so I was now aware of what the Reaper was doing, and what he was thinking.


    All figurants took their places, and all I had to do was keep an eye on them without interfering.


    The Necrons attacked in first wave. After a couple of days five Obelisks of Necrons flew to one of salarian¡¯s planet Senokol. The Necrons did not have the technology of move quickly through space, but I had already given them information about the Mass Effect, and they appeared near a planet where there was a large deposit of Zero Element. In the past two days, they had only been able to get enough material for five engines. That should have been enough to clean out the first world.


    When the Necrons appeared in orbit around the planet, they immediately opened fire on all the spaceships in their range. It was an ordinary peaceful planet in a safe area of space, so there were only a couple of spaceships, and only two shots from main weapon of Obelisks was enough.


    After establishing domination in the air, the necrons¡¯ advance detachment landed on the planet to assess the strength of the ground troops of the enemy. From the point of necrons, this group did not meet any resistance. To damage the private necron, the Salarians had to shoot him from the tank at point-blank range. However, necrons heavy tanks were completely invulnerable. It should be noted that in the presence of the Star God, all abilities of the necrons increased by ten times, so now they did not have problems with the lack of psi-energy.


    The advance detachment of necrons quickly cleaned up all available on the planet spaceports, and then retreated. Then Obelisks started to disinfect planets with heavy emitters. This radiation killed all life, including even microbes in the thickness of rocks and at the bottom of the ocean trenches. The Necrons decided not to waste time on personal destruction of the salarians and put them on a par with fungi, plants and other unintelligent life forms.


    The Eldars were the second to join the total annihilation marathon. In fact, they haven''t even started fighting. They simply needed a planet with a suitable biosphere to restore their Craftworld to full operation. From there, they were going to replenish air, water, fertile land, and maybe some plants. So, the Azari¡¯s planet Lucia was chosen for the role of the colonial world.


    In the past, krogans rebelled on this planet, thus beginning their own destruction. Until now, this world had been considered as risky planet, so the Azari kept a fairly large fleet and ground force here. In addition, at this very moment huge fleet was assembled on the orbit of this planet to start raid against pirates in Terminus system. So, when the Eldar fleet appeared, there were more than a hundred spaceships of various classes in orbit, ready for combat.


    The Eldars scouting fleet consisted of only ten light cruisers operated by vritras. Once out of the jump, they began scanning the ships in orbit and the planet. By this point, the whole world was already aware of the fate that befell to Senokol. Therefore, the Azari immediately declared a battle alert and tried to contact the potential enemy ships. But the Eldars paid no attention to these attempts of communication. For them, all inhabitants of this galaxy were ¡®vile xenos¡¯ which must be completely destroyed.


    Having found out that the planet is suitable for colonization, the Eldars sent a message to the Craftworld, then began the attack of the Azari fleet. They of course tried to resist, but quickly found out that the maneuverability of the Eldars ships is hundred times faster compared to anything they had seen before. While the Asari dreadnoughts was pointing its gun at the enemy, the Eldars ship had time to fire a dozen shots, then jump to the next target.


    Alas, the technology of this universe could not match the boundless psionic power of the Eldar. As a result, in just half an hour, the asari fleet lost all spaceships except of three dreadnoughts. These armored giants were so huge and massive that the Eldars light cruisers could not inflict significant damage on them. Realizing that they could not resist the enemy, the dreadnought captains decided to save their ships from destruction and fled, leaving the planet to be torn to pieces.


    A couple of hours later, the Craftworld Yanden appeared in the far orbit of Lucia and began sending troops to clean up the planet. Only the vritras went into battle, since the living Eldars were too few in number, and now each of them was involved in the process of breeding or educating the younger generation.


    The Azari¡¯s ground forces were also unable to offer any decent resistance. The Eldars in the bodies of vritras, although on average weaker than their living kin in terms of psionics, remained incredibly powerful by the standards of the world of Mass Effect. Azari¡¯s biotic power could not match the power of mass psionic strikes. And most importantly, no matter how the Azari tried to destroy their opponents, they immediately regenerated all inflicted damage.


    Eldar quietly and systematically cleared the territory, destroying all ''vile xenos''. No one was able to hide in shelter, because psionics could easily detect alien minds. The Eldars took no prisoners, and if someone was stupid enough to surrender, they were shot on the spot without any regret. Thousands of years of fighting against daemons and tyranids have turned the Eldar into ruthless machines of death.


    When clearing the planet, the Eldar were primarily concerned about preserving the environment. Therefore, most of the chemical plants and factories remained intact. If there was a chance that there were poisonous or toxic substances in a certain place, then the infantry would go there, which in some cases preferred to fight the enemy hand-to-hand, because this approach minimized the destruction of the environment.


    Neither the Necrons nor the Eldar¡¯s didn¡¯t set up goal to disrupt the enemy''s communications. Fate of the salarians planet could only be known by a few videos posted on the Internet, but Eldar¡¯s attack to Azari¡¯s planet were watched by whole world in TV on live. And such massacre multiplied the effect to the minds of ordinary people. The inhabitants of the galaxy quickly realized that they were faced with a force that they could not resist, no matter what heroic efforts they made.


    Six hours after the beginning of the ground phase of the operation, the entire combat fleet of the Turians, the main peacekeepers of the galaxy, entered Lucia''s orbit. Alas, the commander of this fleet did not consider it necessary to study the information transmitted through all news channels. Instead, he trusted the assessment of Azaries¡¯ command, who wanted help at all costs. And the price was considerable much.


    Instead of a dozen light cruisers, the Turians fleet faced thousands of heavy battleships, and most importantly with the Craftworld Yanden. This battle could be called the shortest in the history of the galaxy. The Eldars seers were able to predict the appearance of each enemy ship, so that they were destroyed by heavy artillery immediately after the exit of the jump. None of the ships of Turians fleet were even able to send messages about their fate. Only the observation stations on the planet, still on the defensive, were able to learn the fate of the fleet and transmit this information to their command.


    While the galaxy in quiet horror observed ''The Massacre on Lucia'', in the colony of Batarians on planet Arbat happened on the first glance inconspicuous, but very strange events. Among the indigenous population of the planet a religious cult of unknown origin began to spread with great speed.


    To understand the paradox of the situation, it should be noted that the batarians never believed in any ''higher powers''. Even in the darkest ages of their history, when they still lived in caves on the planet Khar-Shan, the batarians did not believe in or worship gods or spirits. The very nature of this race was such that every batarian was an envious, evil bastard and an egoist who worshipped only himself. And all the centuries of ''enlightened life in galactic society'' have not been able to change this fact.


    If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    So, when the politicians on the Central planets heard about the spread of religious worship, they immediately realized that they were faced with some kind of technique of zombification or subjugation of consciousness. Immediately, the best spies and secret agents were sent to Arbat, who began to inquire what kind of cult it was, and by whom it was organized. But within a couple of days after landing on the planet, most spies either stopped communicating, or sent various religious sermons and divine revelations under the guise of reports.


    The few intelligence agents who were able to convey meaningful information said they had encountered a cult called Unity. The cells of this organization did not have a common structure, and some even appeared on their own as a ''circle of interests''. All members of such cults discussed with each other the idea of uniting of all living beings in the single highest creation of divine nature.


    A week later, it became clear that the situation was completely out of control. Almost the entire population of the planet has stopped working, stealing and fighting for power. Instead, citizens gathered in the streets or squares and discussed the Unity that was to begin in the near future.


    Naturally, the government of the batarian civilization could not accept such a situation, and therefore declared martial law. The planet was declared a quarantine zone, and elite soldiers of the batarian army were landed in major cities. To the surprise of the military, no one offered them the slightest resistance. Even when their troops began to torture and shoot civilians in an attempt to establish ''law and order'', the victims did not show any displeasure.


    But this inexplicable apathy continued until the military decided to capture a few believers and take them to another planet. As if at the behest of God, as soon as such a threat was voiced, all the surrounding ¡®peaceful citizens'' suddenly attacked the relaxed military.


    Batarians lived in a society where personal power was everything, and therefore, each of them had a personal weapon. All the civilians simultaneously pulled out their pistols and machine guns and started shooting the representatives of the armed forces. They did not take into account the losses, covered the enemy with mountains of corpses, but crushed any resistance and sabotaged all attempts to take prisoners or at least evacuate the troops.


    At the moment when the bloody bacchanalia reached its climax, in a small town lost in the vast steppes, a hundred of the most loyal members of the Unity began conducting a secret ritual. In the gym of the local school, a huge pentagram in a circle was drawn with blood on the floor. Students of the school themselves approached the teachers and put their throats under the knife. When the drawing was complete, the hundred chosen stood in a circle, said the invocation prayer for the Supreme being, and then each of them cut their own throats.


    Half an hour later, one of the already cold corpses twitched, rose to his feet and screeched, signaling the world about the appearance of the first necromorph in this galaxy.


    Demon inside of the Blood Moon Marker when came to Arbat had discovered that the batarians did not have the slightest resistance to his mental influence. With incredible ease, the demon subdued the entire population of the planet, and then created the first necromorphs. Drugged cultists gladly accepted death at the hands, paws, and mandibles of the soulless creatures in which they themselves turned only a few minutes later. Many believers transported necromorphs on private transport to quickly deliver them to the most remote corners of the planet.


    Within twenty-four hours, ninety percent of the world''s population had become necromorphs, and their souls had been consumed by the Marker. After that, the demon began the procedure of convergence. All necromorphs merged into a single being, the center of which was the Marker. When a day later the battle fleet of batarians arrived to the orbit of planet, there was not a gram of organics left on its surface. Instead, the Bloody Moon was in orbit.


    The fleet Admiral even thought that he had gone off course and arrived at the wrong star. He sent out several scout ships to study the strange planetoid, but a few minutes later he was horrified to see the moon extend its long, wet tentacles toward the ships. The tiny dots of the ships were swallowed up by the infinite mass of flesh, but none of them were harmed.


    When, a few hours later, the Blood Moon went into the hyperspace jump, disappearing into the infinity of space, two hundred spaceships remained suspended in the orbit of the lifeless planet. Their entire crew was alive and well. The only deviation from the ''norm'' could be considered only that each member of the crew passionately wanted only one thing - to create as many new Markers as possible, in order to bring the moment of final Unity of the galaxy closer. Within a few minutes, all these ships were scattered in different directions to carry the light of the ''true faith'' to other worlds.


    An army of hybrids of zerg and protos appeared in the orbit of the planet-garden, lost in the depths of space. Next to it there was not a single relay, so the planet was left untouched and covered with wild jungle. Only a small colony of renegade krogans created a settlement where they conducted experiments to breed krogans that were immune to genophage.


    The hybrids had the fertility of the zerg, so Sarah Kerrigan and Zeratul decided to start their expansion with the development of the army. They founded a colony on the opposite side of the planet from the settlement of krogan and devoted all their forces to creating troops.


    Alas, literally immediately hybrids faced a serious problem. There were no psi crystals in this universe that could store the required energy to develop hybrids. Therefore, the growth of new hybrids was quite slow. Fortunately for them, my clone immediately noticed this problem and then I decided to share some of my wisdom with my subordinates. I taught hybrids to the technique of ''sucking'' energy from the Reaper''s astral body. This method of extracting energy was completely invisible to the ''donor'', as long as the energy consumption did not exceed a certain threshold. So, by keeping some safety techniques, hybrids could impunity use the enemy for their own development.


    Then the hybrids began to breed exponentially, absorbing all available organic matter. Within four days, the entire planet had become one huge incubator, producing billions of combat units every hour. Krogans were used as a source of new genes. And in a sense, their experiments were successful, because the krogan hybrids were completely immune to the genophage.


    The appearance of hybrids in this universe occurred completely unnoticed by all other civilizations. Using this advantage, as well as the ability to move without using a network of relays, they dispersed throughout the galaxy, assimilating all the worlds they encountered that did not have colonies of intelligent life forms. With their rate of reproduction, it was like a spreading plague that would soon engulf the entire world. I made it easier for Kerrigan by providing a database with the coordinates of all habitable planets, which I had brazenly stole from the Reaper.


    While the barbaric destruction of the future crop was taking place, the Reaper was blissfully unaware. Wars between different civilizations were commonplace, so the destruction of a planet or two never affected his global plans. Of course, over time, he would pay attention to the emergence of new players, but the habit of thinking on the scale of thousands of years did not allow the Reaper to quickly respond to changes in the situation.


    Of course, he had security protocols that allowed him to switch to accelerated processing mode, but to activate them, he had to get a signal from his informants - collectors. But the harsh truth of life was such that collector sent for exploration, did not have time to report anything about the enemy. My recruits destroyed all of them on the outskirts of galaxy, taking advantage of the huge technical superiority.


    Most interesting of all, the Reaper was not even bothered by the appearance of orcs on one of his ships. In this world, the orcs have lost most of their psionic powers. So, their survival strategy on the ship was based on infecting its organic parts. In fact, orcs were intelligent mushrooms. The ''fruit body'' which I threw into the portal released spores that spread throughout the ship, sprouted through the bulkheads, and gave rise to the first full-fledged orcs.


    The ship''s artificial intelligence detected the appearance of some ''infection'', but the lack of a central core of personality, prevented it from taking adequate countermeasures. The AI only activated the standard disinfection protocols, which, alas, were completely powerless against the orcs. Where the usual organics die and became an appendage of the electronic components of the husk¡¯s organism, the fungus of orcs didn''t feel the least bit uncomfortable.


    Pretty quickly, the orcs multiplied and got to the electronic components of the ship. Their genetic memory contained a lot of information about the creation of technical devices. And even if their psionic power was reduced, it was enough to hack into the ship''s computer system and learn all the information in it.


    And when leaders of the orcs learned out that somewhere in the depths of space there is a huge fleet of similar ships, my mental bookmark was triggered in their minds. Their very nature would not allow them to pass by such treasures. The ship they lived on had no working engines. So, the orcs developed a ''genius'' plan to capture the Reaper fleet.


    Of course, this plan was quite primitive. But the irony was that the Reaper was now dumber than the orcs. The green ''wreckers'' sent a signal to the other ships about the beginning of the harvest, assigning captured ship as a point of collection of the fleet. The Reaper knew that the Citadel had been damaged during the previous cycle, so it was normal that the harvest fleet should arrive to the galaxy on its own, and not through a relay. About the destination point of the route... well, why not? After all, he ''himself'' made this decision. Reaper''s current intellect was no longer enough to distinguish his thoughts from the orc''s virus program.


    After the Reaper¡¯s fleet of ten thousand ships arrived at their destination, the orcs sent them the following message. It was quite brief. It said that the current communication channels could be wiretapped, so the plan to ''clean up'' the galaxy would be transferred to ships on solid storages. This had happened several times in the billions of years of the Reaper''s life, so this procedure did not arouse suspicion. After all, it was just a standard protocol of action, selected from a long list of tactical blanks.

 7.30 Mass Effect 2.1

    It is quite obvious that the ''solid storages'' was the orcs themselves. To each of the ships of the fleet arrived amphibious bot, inside which were several dozen orcs. They immediately began hacking into the ships'' computers, simultaneously infecting their organic parts. The invasion fleet was in no hurry, and therefore ''analyzed the information'' for almost a week, after which... suddenly went out completely out of the Reaper''s control.


    Such event finally attracted the attention of the astral entity. He tried to interfere directly with the computers, but found that he could not suppress the resistance of the organic part¡¯s ''revolt''. After all, by that time, most of the organic parts has turned into a ''mushroom'' that has its own consciousness.


    As I already said, the orcs were one living being in astral level. They possessed a collective consciousness, and the more orcs became, the more powerful this consciousness became. In fact, it was the God of the Orcs. In Warhammer''s world, this ''collective conscious'' was subordinated to the Khorne God of Chaos, making orcs his loyal followers. But here this creature gained independence, which it was not going to lose.


    The orcs fiercely resisted the Reaper''s influence, completely sabotaging all his orders. As a result, having failed to regain control over the ships of his fleet, the Reaper decided to urgently start harvest, and then in a calm environment to deal with the ''infectious fungus''.


    The first invasion fleet was only a small part of the entire Reaper¡¯s fleet. Therefore, he allocated ten thousand more ships and sent them directly to the Citadel, planning to start clearing the worlds from the heart of civilization this cycle. Because that I had direct access to the Reaper''s computer, so this plan didn''t surprise me.


    As soon as the first Reaper¡¯s ships began preparing to jump, I contacted the Eldars and informed them of the impending attack. They took their duties seriously, so that within a couple of hours the Craftworld Yanden appeared alongside the Citadel, accompanied by the entire fleet. Compared to the Craftworld, the Citadel looked very small, giving an excellent idea of the quality of technology between the two civilizations.


    As soon as the Reaper''s ships appeared in normal space, the battle of the two armies began. The Reaper was not prepared for such a confrontation, immediately losing almost a tenth of its fleet. But after that, he finally awoke from sleep and personally began to lead his forces.


    This time the battle was no longer a one-sided beating. The Reaper''s technology was hundred times superior compared to the races of this cycle. Of course, the Eldars were still stronger, but even they didn''t have that many spaceships. Just over a thousand heavy cruisers and battleships opposed ten thousand ''cuttlefish¡¯. And the longer the battle lasted, the stronger the soulless machines became. The Reaper was literally concentrating its presence at this point in the galaxy, supplying his technique with an incredible amount of energy.


    Meanwhile, on Yanden hundreds of billions of Eldar fell into religious ecstasy, praying to their God Atman. This God was a newborn by the standards of the ''celestials'', but at the same time he had a huge psionic power, optimized by mathematical algorithms when it was created. Using the received Bahion, the God of Eldars attacked the Reaper with a crushing blow, burning out his astral body for many light years around.


    For the first time since his elevation, the Reaper felt pain. It wasn''t a pain tormenting his conscience. It was the real agony of a spiritual being''s flesh being torn apart. No material torture could compare with this. For several hours, the Reaper lost consciousness, completely immersed in a world of pain and suffering. During this time, the entire second invasion fleet lost control and power, so that the Eldars were able to completely destroy it, themselves losing no more than one-tenth of their forces. And even then, the losses consisted solely of equipment that could easily be restored.


    The souls of the Eldar, encased in the soul stones, remained intact. So, after the battle the stones themselves headed to the Craftworld to get a new body there. And the few Eldars caught in the trap of circumstances banally ''self-killed'', in order to get a new artificial container in a few minutes, in which they were called by their brothers. Thus, it could be said that in this battle the Eldars won without suffering any losses at all.


    When the Reaper awoke, he realized the depth of the ass in which he found himself. Twenty thousand of his ships were lost. Moreover, he had lost all his memory, which was contained in the cores of these ships, and it irritated him the most. The next battle against the enemy who had come from nowhere was going to be the final one, and he must win it.


    The Reaper had awakened his entire remaining fleet of nearly two hundred thousand ships. He never used that power in a billion years. He wasn''t going to give in or play with his opponent in any way. He even decided to completely abandon the harvest in this cycle. At the moment, he was only interested in the quick and final destruction of the enemy.


    While the fleet was flying towards the galaxy, the Reaper himself was concentrating his astral body in the area of the ships'' exit from the hyper-space jump. He was going to maximize the strength of his fleet, turning them into an invulnerable machine of death. Unfortunately, the Reaper didn''t realize until the very last moment that I had full access to all of his thoughts and plans. As soon as he ''gathered his brains together'', occupying a volume with a diameter of only a thousand light-years, I gave the command to proceed with the next part of my plan.


    The zerg and protos hybrids used their own spaceflight technology. Psionic allowed them to travel huge distances in a matter of hours. In this respect, it was no worse than the technologies of the Ancients from the Stargate universe and much better than the technologies of the Reaper.


    When the Reaper''s astral body reached maximum concentration and merged with his fleet, an army of hybrids came into the business. No, they did not attack the enemy. Moreover, none of the hybrids did not come close to the fleet of Reaper closer than one light year. But in terms of the scale of the galaxy, trillions of hybrids were currently inside the Reaper''s astral body.


    After I gave the command, all hybrids used the power-absorbing technique they already knew. Only this time they drink from their ''donor'' all the available energy, immediately storing it in special psi-crystals. In the future, these crystals were planned to be used for the rapid creation of the army, because they would no longer have a free source of energy.


    The wild agony of the Reaper lasted only a few minutes, after which he was destroyed, losing all energy. At least he lost all power he gained using the knowledge of demons. The army of husks was left without control, and hybrids in a couple of days were able to find and destroy all the ships of the Reapers.


    I should have been able to celebrate the victory, but I didn¡¯t receive a notification that the game was over. I assumed that I also need to destroy all civilizations in this cycle, but I faced unexpected problems.


    My ''employees'' scattered across the galaxy, wreaking death and destruction. Only when they found out about each other''s existence, they grappled for life and death, completely ignoring the remnants of the indigenous inhabitants of the galaxy. After all, they could not threaten them, while their ''allies'' were not shy to snatch a piece from the mouth of an angry lion, and then pinch his tail and knock out his teeth. The heat of passion was growing by the minute. Moreover, the game figures began to make claims to me, arguing that during the conclusion of the contract, I did not inform them about the presence of competitors.


    While my ''employees'' were fighting with each other, the remnants of the forces of the ''unfinished cycle'' united and made a common front. Moreover, within a month they were able to oppose the Eldar and Necrons, demonstrating technologies that exceed even the level of the Reaper. A week later, I learned about the destruction of almost a dozen Blood Moons, who decided to devour another delicious world. It became obvious that if this trend continues, I will risk to lose all results.


    I sent shadow clones to investigate the situation and quickly able to find out that behind the unexpected turn of events were stood already known to me game figure John Sheppard. But I don''t think he did it all on his own. There was someone else behind him. And it was not the Ghost or Cerberus.


    The point was that, Sheppard played the role of a magician, taking rabbits out of his hat. He provided ¡®previously unknown mass effect technologies¡¯ to the new Citadel Council. Moreover, out of nowhere there were huge space plants capable of producing up to a hundred heavy battleships per day. Drawings for the production of ships were also provided in the finished form. And most importantly, the performance characteristics of the new created army clearly showed that the fleet of Reapers did not use even ten percent of the opportunities given by the Zero Element.


    If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    Unfortunately, I could not get close to Sheppard himself, because he became suddenly paranoid and communicated with the Council exclusively through the remote communication.


    Unable to penetrate the enemy''s plan, I decided to start tightening the screws of my allies. I contacted each of the game pieces and put them in front of the fact: either they stop fighting with each other and conclude allied contracts, or I declare them the losing side, after which they will automatically be ''thrown out of the game'' and I will get their entire army. This threat calmed the irrepressible ambitions, and the game figures began to negotiate with each other.


    The first union were the necromorphs and troops of Sarah Kerrigan. To be more precise, the demon contacted to the Kerrigan and suggested that she could use the Blood Moon Obelisks to supply the hybrids with psionic energy. The billions of souls encased in the obelisks produced enough Bahion. So, the psionic power of hybrids reached unprecedented heights.


    Moreover, using the flesh of hybrids to create necromorphs, on the way out the demon received an immortal army of Necro-Zergs, each unit in which could at any time change its form to a more suitable. After such symbiosis all hybrids turned into a single organism of a mass of flesh, which could merge together or be divided into parts, forming individual pseudo-living organisms that have developed consciousness. This undead army was controlled by a living Queen of Zergs with good strategic thinking. Thus, although Kerrigan was nominally in command of the army, but all her power was based on the supply of energy from the Markers.


    The second unexpected alliance was the peace treaty between the Necrons and the Eldar. Former irreconcilable enemies have found common ground in the form of Vritras and the new religion of Eldar. Immortal bodies, actually working on the technologies of necrons, and the philosophy of Buddhism, postulating the meaning of life in the achievement of Nirvana, made Vritras almost indistinguishable from Necrons.


    The goals and ways of achieving these goals in the two camps were quite similar, so that in the negotiations the Eldars were surprised to find out that they now understood the necrons and were ready to accept their existence to some extent. Moreover, this feeling was mutual. As a result, Malikan and Janna Arienal came up with the idea of dividing the galaxy ''in half'' and allocating their territory to each side ''for habitation''.


    As for the fight against local intelligent life forms, it could be done together, since the positions of the parties on this issue were surprisingly unanimous. And here an interesting point became clear. Necrons have always had problems with a lack of psi energy. In fact, only their Star Gods could generate the necessary amount of energy. Therefore, all technique of necrons was sharpened for the most efficient use of resources.


    On the other hand, the Eldars never saved energy because they had unlimited access to Warp''s energies. Vritras body could produce a huge amount of psi energy, but could use it only with significant losses. After all, I didn''t set goal of teaching Eldars for all those tricks with the new psionic that were available to me. Instead of using spells, the Eldars pressed the reality with bare power.


    Thus, it turned out that each side has something that the enemy does not have. Therefore, there was a proposal to combine Vritras and Necrons in the form of one being. In this unnatural symbiotic ''organism'', the Eldar was the source of energy, and the Necron was the control module. As a result, such a soldier became a psionic of incredible power, able to destroy the fleet of enemy ships alone or clean up a country or two on the surface of the planet.


    Orcs did not have a common ruler, since their very nature forced them to divide into clans and fight for power with each other. But at the same time, the collective consciousness of the orcs almost gained awareness. The demon came to him with an offer that was impossible to refuse.


    The Marker of the Blood Moon could give energy to the Orc God by making him a real person with great power. The orcs at the same time gained access to normal psi, which immediately made them serious opponents. Moreover, by partially turning orcs into necromorphs, the Marker gave them enhanced regeneration, allowing them to heal wounds in just a few minutes. It wasn''t as impressive as the regeneration of Vritras, but it''s still pretty cool. At the same time, although the God of Orcs retained free will, he acted according to the orders of the demon, because, having been deprived of energization, he would return to ''vegetable existence''. Also, the demon received another source of permanent income, because after death, the souls of all orcs went to him. I decided to call the army Necro-Orcs.


    But not all orcs became part of this new army. Several of their captured Reaper ships encountered a hybrid army led by Zeratul, who had previously had a conflict with Kerrigan, which led them to decide to act independently. Zeratul initially wanted to use the orcs for experiment, but after receiving inspiration from me, he reconsidered this question and tried to use them in positive way.


    The new orcs community gained its own collective consciousness when it began to worship Zeratul personally. In return, he supplied the orcs with the psionic energy produced by subordinate hybrids. Of course, this energy was not so much, but it turned orcs from stupid animals to ''advanced'' intellectuals. Suddenly it turned out that the hybrid-enhanced psionic abilities of orcs are great for the production of various equipment. Moreover, the effectiveness of their weapons was much higher than the natural abilities of hybrids.


    As a result, the Zeratul¡¯s army took the path of becoming cyborg, embedding implants of incredible power in their bodies. A usual ordinary hybrid after such an operation became equal in power to the strongest psionics of the Eldar. Of course, this power was limited by the functionality of the built-in equipment, but in battle the main thing was the ability to destroy the enemy and stay alive, which was the purpose of the all equipment created by the orcs. The resulting army of Techno-Zergs was able to bring to the knees any enemy simply because of its strength and fighting power. Only vulnerable place was the factory for the production of implants, where the orcs worked hard whole day in the emergency mode.


    Necrons and necromorphs, despite of all their similarity of their actions, were irreconcilable enemies. While Necrons destroyed life for the sake of ''world peace'', necromorphs did the same for the sake of enslaving souls and milking Bahion from them. The maximum that the political correctness of these two sides was enough to delineate the habitat area and promise not to appear on the enemy''s territory until the end of the game. In case of detection of violators, they had to be destroyed without warning.


    The Eldars also did not seek to union with the necromorphs, as no one else understood that soul hunters do not have the right to exist in the same universe with them. Zerg and protos hybrids evoked too strong associations with the tyranids, so the Eldars did not dare to contact them, and the Necrons declared them as first target for destruction at the end of the game. As for the orcs, for both ''allies'' it was a familiar enemy, and all they could offer them was a temporary cessation of total extermination.


    Thus, all my recruits were divided into two camps. Necro-Eldars on the one side, and Necro-Zergs, Necro-Orcs and Techno-Zergs on the other. Anyway, the conflict between them temporarily stopped, and we were able to focus on our true enemy.


    The confrontation of my army with the remnants of civilizations of this world lasted almost a year. During this time, I was able to find out that we are still facing the same Reaper. He had lost all his former power, but he was still an ascended being with great knowledge. It was he who helped John Sheppard, giving him knowledge and printing out caches of technology. However, all these could not help the pitiful mortals, only delaying their inevitable end. After all, nothing could compare to the hybrids'' ability to reproduce and the Necro-Eldars¡¯ ability to turn entire planets to dust with a single blow.


    And so, the day came when the last stronghold of resistance was broken, and the pitiful remnants of the rebels said goodbye to life. I personally appeared on the battlefield and tore off the head of Sheppard and his comrades with my hands. And after only a few minutes my soul was pulled out of my body, and I appeared before the Judge of this Game, with whom I had previously held a small barter.


    "Congratulations to you.¡± - He began with a dissatisfied voice, in which I could not hear a hint of congratulations. - "You destroyed all civilizations in this cycle, thereby preventing the harvest. But in order to become a winner in this game, you need to destroy the Reaper. You can consider this an additional task. Due to the fact that Reaper has lost all his troops, a part of your army will be given to him.¡±


    ¡°What?!!!¡± ¨C I shouted in response, but the Judge only chuckled viciously.


    "Reaper, Sarah Kerrigan, Zeratul, and the Blood Moon demon will be your opponents. While the Necron¡¯s God Malikan and the Seer Janna Arienal will become your equal allies. If you can destroy your opponents'' game figures, your reward will be a boost of your ¡®Rating¡¯, and your allies will have this galaxy to themselves until I decide to start a new game here. Your ¡®Rating Battle¡¯ will begin after exactly one year. Until then, the troops of each side must be located in a designated part of the galaxy and they are forbidden to fight the enemy. Let the Game begin!¡±


    With those words, I was thrown back into my body. All the troops of my former allies immediately began to retreat and regroup. I only caught a glimpse of Zeratul, who quickly disappeared into the crowd. It seems that each game figure received a new task, because the Eldars and Necrons also began to gather in one pile, tensely watching their former allies. Alas, no one attacked us, and within an hour there was no sign of the hybrids, necromorphs and orcs.


    After making sure that we didn''t have any urgent problems at the moment, I appointed a meeting, which was to be attended by three game figures. I, Janna Arienal and Malikan took our places at the round table, looking at each other and mentally considering the dramatic changes in our status.


    ¡°So, I think you are well aware that our former allies have become rivals in the new game.¡± - I started my speech. ¨C ¡°I think you have a fairly good idea of your own forces and were able to adequately assess the level of enemy forces. I would like to hear your assessment of who is the greatest threat to us.¡±

 7.31 Mass Effect 2.1

    Malikan took the first word. Sparkling with his glowing eyes, he impressively said:


    "The only threat to us is the army of Necro-Zergs. In the form of the Blood Moon, they have a psionic defense that no weapon can penetrate. At the same time, as long as the Marker is intact, their troops are completely invulnerable. No matter how many times we destroy them, they will consume the corpses of their soldiers and recover in a matter of seconds. The only way to destroy them is to evaporate their troops in a vacuum. Because collecting the discharged gas is a complex technical problem. If they can solve it, then we will be powerless before the pressure of Necro-Zergs.¡±


    ¡°Perhaps I will agree with the previous speaker.¡± - The Seer Eldar continued this speech. She still did not want to name her former enemy, often talking about him in the third person. ¨C ¡°In ground battles we have no chance of winning. On the other hand, space battles with the Blood Moons seem simpler to me. After all, our strongest psionics, in collaboration with the best of the necrons, may well evaporate the whole planet. This method will not be quick, but I believe that we can prevail if only Necro-Zergs will fight against us. But I am afraid that the other two sides of the conflict will not give us enough time to succeed. Techno-Zergs have enough potential to pierce the shields of our ships. As for Necro-Orcs, they are not much different from ordinary orcs from our world. The demon cannot compete in efficiency with Warp and the Gods of Chaos.¡±


    ¡°So, let''s sum up.¡± - I continued, after I was sure there would be no more comments. ¨C ¡°A real threat to us are hybrids of the Zerg and Protos. Only thanks to their psionic abilities the Blood Moon receives a fairly effective tool for fighting. Unfortunately, we can''t destroy the hybrids, because in fact there are almost no hybrids left. The Marker itself creates the dead flesh of the Zerg, using the original chemicals, and does it faster than even a living hybrid.¡±


    I paused and looked around at my companions.


    "When I was traveling through different worlds in search of allies, I came across one world where Zerg psionics just didn''t work. The reason for this was hidden in the differences in the laws of physics of this world. Now, having the knowledge of the Eldar about the nature of psionics, I can say that this type of information and energy impact should be prescribed in the original laws of physics of our world. This brings us back to how I gave the Eldar a new kind of non-Warp psionics. I used a synthetic God to change the laws of the universe. Even now, the Eldars retain their powers only because their God changes the world around them. If you remove it, the Eldars will immediately become weaker, as they will have to change the laws of physics each personally. About the same thing I propose to do with hybrids.¡±


    "Do you want to use our God?" - Arienal guessed.


    ¡°Yes. I''m going to send my shadow clones to the Zerg homeworld and to a world where their power doesn''t work. After that, I will analyze the differences between these worlds and see how exactly it is possible to ''prohibit'' hybrids from using their psi. Of course, these changes will only work within our galaxy, but this should be enough for us.¡±


    "Do we have enough time to complete this plan?" - Necron asked.


    "Honestly, I don''t know. But this is the only thing I can really offer. You are the leaders of a large army. I can only offer you my abilities. But rest assured, my abilities are more than enough to destroy the galaxy. The problem will be to survive for us.¡±


    "So, you have another option?" - The Seer asked incredulously, massaging her temples. This was usually what she did when she tried to look into the future and see the most improbable scenarios.


    ¡°Yeah. Although, it looks even more complicated. I can use certain laws of physics to increase the force of gravity around the central black hole of our galaxy. A small additional impact will cause the curvature of multidimensional space to spread at a speed higher than the speed of light, which will cause the entire galaxy to collapse in a few minutes and turn into a giant black hole. Unfortunately, I can''t guarantee that the entire galaxy will be completely destroyed, and not continue to exist inside some sort of spatial bubble.¡±


    The seer only shook her head at my statement.


    "I''m afraid to imagine a disaster of this magnitude.¡±


    To be honest, I only came up with such a scenario of the Apocalypse while studying the science of the Eldar. It is worth admitting that for all the vast amount of knowledge available to them, the Eldar have never been able to direct their abilities to destruction. They easily created something useful for everyday life, but at the same time with difficulty and pain gave birth to weapons. And besides, they were too involved in their psionic abilities, completely ignoring the possibilities offered by pure physics.


    The option I proposed for destroying the galaxy was not even the most radical method of destroying the enemy. On the contrary, it was a way that gives to us at least some chance to survive. After all, in a cataclysm of this magnitude, all the neighboring galaxies where we could escape would inevitably be destroyed. A wave of space disturbances could well blow up all the stars in them. I think the Judge of our Game will not be happy with such final. He was already in a bad mood because I broke his favorite Reaper.


    This was the end of our meeting. I went to do scientific research, and the Necrons and Eldar took care of the development of their troops. Unfortunately, both my allies had one important limitation - they could not reproduce. The Necrons had no such function in principle, and each Necron had once been a member of the Necrontir race who had undergone a transformation. As for the Eldar, they could only ''create'' new souls by begetting children naturally. But the queue for rebirth in a living body was already scheduled for several decades ahead. Many Vritras longed to return fully to life, not wanting to be like the Necrons forever. So, it turned out that only I could somehow try to change the balance of power in the future confrontation.


    Fortunately, I still had the hiraishin tags for opening Stargates in all the galaxies previously visited. So, within an hour, my clones went to the worlds of StarCraft and Star Wars. This time I deliberately kept my connection with these clones, so for them time in another world flowed at the same rate as mine. It took me almost a month to thoroughly study the laws of physics of the three universes and isolate the elements that allowed hybrid psionics to work. Next, I calculated the characteristics of the ritual that allows me to ''ban'' this type of ''magic'', and then clutched my head.


    In general, the ritual itself should not present any problems. The only obstacle was the required amount of Bahion. Even if three hundred billion Eldars will pray to their God every day, it would require them a thousand years to gather the necessary amount of faith energy. But we have only a year or rather eleven months.


    According to my calculations, to get the right amount of Bahion, it was necessary to ''spend'' three hundred trillion of Eldar-years. That''s when I came up with an old idea of getting Bahion. I could create a virtual reality, the inhabitants of which would get the gaming advantages at the expense of daily sincere prayers. With sufficient motivation, they could be made three times more religious than the Eldars. Also, we can speed up the flow of subjective time inside the game ten or even twenty times. In total, I need the souls of ten trillion sentient beings.


    The Eldars can quickly create clones of ordinary people, produce full-immersion capsules, and place them on one of the planets. And the Necrons, as specialists in technology, will be able to write a program of the game world with the required laws. Then in about ten months we will be able to ''milk'' the necessary amount of Bahion from the souls of people, after which the victory will be in our pocket.


    I quickly outlined this plan to my allies, set them a task and set the front of the works, then used the last known address of the other world. I hope there will be enough souls, and no one will unscrew my head for stealing them.


    EVE Online


    There were no special technical difficulties for me in the upcoming scam of the century. I was familiar with the technology of creating a Markers of necromorphs, which allow me to store billions of souls. So, a hundred or two of these Markers will allow me to imprison the right number of souls in them. But the very quality of the ''material'' should have been quite high.


    First, it had to be the souls of people who had preserved the memory of a past life. I didn''t want to mess with the organization of school education in order to get sane players, and not just stupid cattle. The second requirement was a voluntary consent to live in the virtual world and worship a particular God as payment. In fact, life itself should have been the payment, because I could easily organize a ''Paradise on earth'' for those who fulfilled their quota of production of Bahion. After all, it will be a virtual universe, so any benefits in it will be worthless in reality.


    Adding up both requirements, we got that my ''clients'' were supposed to be people who were dissatisfied with their lives. Here I decided to use the same system that the necromorphs used. It was deception to some extent, but not completely. Since I will still create Markers for storing souls, I can also create necromorphs that will collect ''donators''.


    So, the scheme is ready. Marker will arrive on the planet and searches for people who are dissatisfied with life. Knowing the laws of any reality, I can say that such will be the majority of the population, and as if not 99%. After this necromorphs under the camouflage of angels will appear to applicants for relocation to Paradise and offer them to give me their soul. At the same time, I can use the ''brainwashing'' technique built into the Marker to ensure the necessary efficiency of the recruitment process. And in the end, there will remain only hardcore people on the planets who want to continue living in a world filled with suffering, just because they are masochists. I don''t need them in virtual reality. After that, the Marker flies to the next planet and continues collecting material there.


    In general, I was satisfied with this plan one hundred percent. In order not to frighten ordinary people, I had to work on a program to create necromorphs, so that they could look like messengers of ¡®good gods¡¯, instead of creations of evil necromancers. After thoughtfully surgery operations, the result was a typical angel in a snow-white toga with wings on his back. So, my necromorphs aka ¡®angels¡¯ is ready to work.


    http://rsute.ru/upkeep/uploads/2020/01/angel-with-wings-0w.jpg</a>


    Having made a plan of action, I opened a portal to another world and boldly stepped into it. I found myself, as always, in the void of interstellar space. A quick study showed that the magic and chakra in this world almost do not work, but my new psionics has not weakened. I am already glad that I created it for my needs. Necromorph techniques also needed only minor modifications, so I could proceed with my plan.


    I ''connected'' to the local astral and tried to find the source of the ''suffering of mortals'' characteristic of intelligent beings. Surprisingly, there were quite a few such sources. There were thousands of inhabited worlds in this galaxy, with billions of people on each planet. Looks like I hit jackpot.


    I used psionics to jump through space and find myself in the orbit of the planet from which the most intense stream of ''suffering'' was coming. Next to the planet, I found a lot of spaceships moving back and forth. For the most part, they were cargo ships, though there were also passenger ships carrying thousands of intelligent in beings each.


    The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    When I got down to the planet, I began scanning the minds of the people who lived here, trying to figure out how they lived here at all and what they did. Pretty quickly, I realized that I was in the world of EVE Online. Each person had a neural network installed in their head that allowed them to control technology and study various knowledge bases.


    Most of the population of this world were slaves. At the same time, despite the apparent ''high-tech'' production, the overall productivity of people was low. Working under duress for pennies, they were not eager to enrich their masters. As a result, the whole world turned into a kind of hell. If desired, with such technologies people could live in complete comfort with almost no effort. But because of the structure of the local society, they lived in poverty and worked eighteen hours in a day.


    Frankly to say it was the perfect world for my purposes. I created a Marker, placed it aboard of stolen spaceship, and then transformed a couple of thousand necromorphs into ''angels'' in a nearby cemetery. After which sent them to promote the relocation to Paradise. I hid the cargo ship in the local slums, leaving a few necromorphs to guard it.


    In general, the entire procedure did not take even a couple of days. After making sure that the process of collecting souls had begun and was proceeding as planned, I went to the next planet, where I repeated the same sequence of actions.


    After creating a couple of hundred Markers in different parts of the galaxy, I retired and began to study the local technology of creating neural interfaces. I think in the future I will have to get into the bodies of people more than once, and the opportunity to turn into Vritras will not always be there. In such cases, I can create a neuro-interface for myself and use a direct connection to the computers of the Ancients. For me, there was an obvious gap between the capabilities of an ordinary person and a being able to interact directly with computers. The neuro-interface combined these two states, improving the processing of data by the brain by millions of times.


    Local businesses only used such technologies to create Artificial Intelligence. In fact, they cut off a person''s head, transferred it to intravenous nutrition, and then connect his neuro-interface to a powerful computer. And at the final stage of ''production'' erased a person''s memory, simultaneously injecting hypnoprograms of submission.


    The local psionics didn''t impress me at all, so I didn''t even study them much. At the end of my five-year stay in this world, I was just goofing around, waiting for finish of the harvest.


    There were more than a thousand inhabited worlds in this galaxy, each inhabited by tens of billions of people. In other words, the total population of the galaxy was about twenty trillion souls. I decided to put in a future project of virtual reality a certain limit of strength, and therefore I was going to rake everything ''to the bottom''.


    When the Marker arrived on a new planet, it began collecting souls from the lowest levels of society. All the oppressed and the dispossessed, the searing and the squalid were happy to buy into the promise of a bright future and part with their lives. As a result, the world''s economy was losing a significant part of its free labor force, and the standard of living of people with average incomes was falling. As a result, the new lower classes of society were ruined and became poor. Before that, their relative well-being was achieved through the exploitation of slaves. Such people, having tasted the delights of life at the bottom, quickly agreed to go to Paradise, after which the cycle was repeated.


    As a result, in about a year the entire population of another world was trapped in Markers, and only the rich people, whose standard of living was maintained by robots were left alive. I left intact such ''spoiled children''. After all, their future life threatened to be terrible. Robots will sooner or later fail, and none of the survivors will be able to produce new ones. Thus, the local civilization was simply doomed to slide into the savagery of the primitive communal system.


    The inhabitants of the planets, of course understood that multiple causeless deaths are not normal. So, Markers ''zombifying'' ability were very useful. While it was on the planet collecting the souls, the local inhabitants simply did not pay attention to these deaths. After the Marker left for another planet, it was too late to investigate anything.


    For every thousand inhabited worlds, there were two hundred of my Markers. That is, each Marker had to collect souls from five planets. On each planet, the population varied from one to fifty billion, in average twenty billion. In total, I spent five years to collect twenty trillion souls, and the entire galaxy ''paid'' its cost. At least the time of this world aren¡¯t synchronized with the world of Mass Effect. I investigated it firstly.


    Finally, after collecting the necessary number of souls, moved them to one huge Marker, cleaned up all traces of my stay in this world, then opened a portal to the universe of Mass Effect and went through it with my ''catch''.


    Mass Effect 2.2


    In a couple of days of my absence, the Eldars were able to develop the first prototype of a soul container, and the Necrons were able to write an alpha version of a full-immersion computer game. Next, I gave them the drawings of a neuro-interface that allowed them to ''cross'' these two projects, quickly achieving the desired effect of being in virtual space, and even under the ''acceleration of consciousness''. Similar technologies were used in the previous world for accelerated learning of knowledge bases.


    In the shortest possible time, in just a month, a computer game was created. At the same time, clones of twenty billion salarians were created at a rapid pace, their brains was capable of processing information at high speed without experiencing exorbitant loads. After that, I performed a mass ritual of instilling of souls into their bodies and launched new inhabitants into the virtual world. And most importantly, every inhabitant of this world became a priest of the synthetic God, giving him all produced Bahion.


    It is possible to tell very long story what kind of problems we faced when organizing the game process, but in the end, we managed to put all the players in a state of ''permanent religious ecstasy'', in which they stayed for the next ten months. All this time Bahion was sent to God of Eldar, where he accumulated them in a special psionic ¡®tank¡¯.


    And now, came the cherished day of the beginning of the game. By doubling the number of Bahion producers over the estimated number, we were able to collect enough of this energy without worrying about whether it would be enough to perform the ritual. After all, it''s not every day that you rewrite the laws of the universe, editing the ''will of God'' as you see fit.


    Exactly an hour before the official start of the battle, we began the ritual. Everything was ready for a long time, so we just, figuratively speaking, pressed the ''red button'' and began to observe the course of events.


    The ritual ended at exactly the moment when the game began. As we planned, the laws of nature in the galaxy have changed, and the hybrids have completely lost all their abilities. A minute later, I received a signal that Kerrigan and Zeratul were using my devices to open portals to their world. Apparently, they realized that there was nothing more to catch, so they decided to quickly leave, which according to the rules, equated to defeat.


    A minute later, our allied forces began to advance on the enemy''s position. Thanks to the ritual, Necro-Zergs suddenly turned into ordinary necromorphs, who had no chance to resist the psionics of the Eldar and Necrons. Of course, the demon tried to use Mass Effect technology, i.e. local biotics, but it could not match the capabilities of our troops.


    We almost believed in a quick and bloodless victory when the Demon of the Blood Moon made his move. It turns out that for the past year he had been accumulating Bahion to conduct some sort of ritual now. He just started the ritual as the battle started, so it took him a few hours to complete it. When the ritual worked, we felt a wave of power sweep through the space. A second later, portals opened all over the galaxy, from which demons began to penetrate into this world.


    Of course, they weren''t Warp demons, but they were powerful enough to start pushing our troops back. And the number of them altogether was beyond description. This demon turned out to be a cunning bug and decided to win by calling his ''relatives''.


    In one moment, the scales had tilted to the side of the enemy, and now our troops were retreating, trying to regroup. Fortunately, I am now an expert in ''rewriting'' the laws of physics, so I was able to figure out pretty quickly what exactly the demon had done and how to ''reverse everything''. The calculation of the parameters of the ritual took only five minutes, after which case again fell into the quantity of Bahion. But here we had everything in chocolate.


    The demon owned a maximum of several hundred billion souls. We had a hundred times more of them, and they worked ten times more efficiently. In addition, after the previous ritual there was a good stock of unused Bahion. But I need additional little amount of that energy to conduct ritual safely, so I gave to my allies the task to hold enemy until the last breath.


    I got into the game settings, accelerated the timespeed in it five times, bringing the overall acceleration factor to fifty. And then I announced the beginning of a special game event. Anyway, after the war over, I was going to disconnect the Eldar God from the free source of Bahion. So, the game event was the announcement of the imminent termination of the ability to ''donate'' for faith, plus the game store were lined up very useful game items. Naturally, the people immediately stopped all business and began to pray diligently, developing the necessary resource for us.


    After about 24 hours I accumulated the right amount of Bahion and performed the ritual of ¡®exorcise of demons¡¯. This not only closed all portals into their world, but also made it impossible for demons to be present in our galaxy. As a result, the Demon of the Blood Moon was thrown out of this world, which immediately became clear from the instantly ''dead'' necromorphs. When the demons were exorcised, the security system in the Markers was triggered, and all of them immediately self-destructed.


    My allies spent some time making sure that the enemy forces were completely destroyed. As it turned out, the demons were so hungry that they did not disdain even the souls of their allies. They devoured all the orcs in just an hour, and the Orc God was torn to pieces and dragged into their world.


    In total, after a couple of days it became clear that ''alive'' in this galaxy were only Necrons, Eldar, I... and the Reaper himself. The last game figure did not even think to show himself in any way, instead hiding unknown where.


    And then, quite unexpectedly for me, the solution was found by the Star God of the Necrons. He declared that he could feel perfectly the emotions of living beings. Of course, the Reaper wasn''t particularly alive, but he was experiencing emotions, the main ones being fear and hate. Among the Eldar, and even more so among the Necrons, there are hardly to find any strong psionics who experience such a combination of emotions at the moment of our triumph. So Malikan was able to give me the exact coordinates of where the Reaper was hiding.


    When I came out of the teleport, I was in orbit of a lifeless planet. As soon as I looked at it, I recognized the world I had seen in the Reaper''s memories. It was the same planet where he conducted first sacrifice to the demons. Already knowing where to go, I went to the ruins of the capital, where I found the very temple where the Reaper went through the ritual of ascension. I found him sitting on stone, lost in his memories and impossible dreams.


    I did not arrange heart-wrenching conversations, but only assured myself that the Reaper was wrapped in his emotions and did not perceive the world around him. I went close to him and removed the seal from the parasite in my soul. It did not wait long and immediately pounced on the prey, marked with the seal of the victim. Reaper did not have time to understand anything, as was torn to pieces and devoured by my ''parasite''. After that, the parasite fell asleep in its shelter, and I returned the seal to its place.


    Before I could even turn around to leave the temple, I was back in the void. Before me I saw the satisfied Judge and an even more satisfied Being. They looked like two cats who had reached a barrel of sour cream.


    "That''s all, you win.¡± - The Judge said to the Being. - "Now, take your figure before he does something else. So be it, I''ll count a virtual world with trillions of souls as compensation for destroying the Reaper.¡±


    "Compensation?" ¨C Being protested. - "You obtained ten times much more than what you lost."


    "I don''t know anything.¡± - They both laughed contentedly after that.


    "Okay, you convince me.¡± - Being agreed. Judge immediately disappeared, and I was left alone with my ''employer''. - ¡°Congratulations on your rating boost. Now you will have access to more interesting games.¡±


    "Did I get into the Golden League?" - I asked skeptically.


    "Golden League? Ha-ha-ha.¡± - Being laughed. - "Rather, you have moved from the wooden league to the bronze league. And that''s only because you''re so funny and the audience likes it.¡±


    "Am I funny?" ¨C I was irritated.


    ¡°Exactly. You''re like a walking clown. Do you want to hear the last joke?¡±


    ¡°Go ahead.¡± - I agreed.


    ¡°Fifty players gathered and decided to arrange a game in the world based on EVE Online. They prepared the platform, put the game figures in their places, gave them tasks and then decided to celebrate this business with a small drink. They met, sat down, drinks and so on. When they returned to the game, it was completely empty. And then there was their common cry of the soul: Stolen!!!¡±


    I couldn''t stop myself from laughing.


    "And most importantly, you were so lucky, that at that moment the Judge of that game distracted by other business and did not notice how you stole from him twenty trillion souls, including forty-nine game figures. Even Players of Mass Effect made bets on you whether you can bring this scam to end or not. Of course, I bet on you, and I won. Ha-ha. You should have seen the faces of those Players when they realized what had happened and who had robbed them.¡±


    At this the Being laughed maliciously.


    "All right, enough of this. Players want to see you in a high-ranked game with high-stakes. So, now you are going to a world that is almost, but not quite like any anime you know.¡±

 Chapter 8.00 Juuni Taisen

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpHuWWSolmc</a>


    https://www.anime-planet.com/anime/juni-taisen-zodiac-war/videos</a>


    This time the beginning of the game was very strange. I found myself in a large circular room, and I felt like a ghost. The floor, walls and ceiling of the hall were white as snow, giving the impression of a glowing infinity. Without psionic I wouldn''t have guessed it was a hall. I was surrounded by a power cocoon that kept me from moving. All I could do was stand there and wave my arms.


    A few seconds after me, other people began to appear in the room. Or not exactly people. One of the figures looked like an orc. I looked at myself and made sure that I looked the same as at the end of the previous game. That is cool and fashionable with a slant under the higher elf. Gradually the room filled up, and it became clear that everyone present was standing around the perimeter of the circle, facing the center. Finally, as the twelve figures appeared, another blurry human shape materialized in the center of the room.


    ¡°So, welcome to the game Battle of the Zodiac.¡± ¨C He said, seems he is Judge of this game. ¨C ¡°I will explain the rules. Each of the figures will receive a human body and a Zodiac Sign on this body, which grants one superpower. After that, the figures will be on the battlefield, which this time will be... a city of twentieth-century!¡± - Judging by the outrageous tone of voice, this is not a judge, but a TV broadcaster. - "The city is divided into thirteen zones, separated from each other by barriers. All participants will be given one day to prepare for battle and study their ability. At the beginning of the battle, the internal barriers will be removed and the figures will be able to move around the city.


    A model of a city divided into hexagons formed in the air in front of me. According to the numbering, the twelve hexagons with the signs of the Zodiac formed a kind of gear, and in the center was a neutral zone. Meanwhile, the Broadcaster continued to explain the rules.


    ¡°When one figure kills another, it receives the Zodiac sign of its victim on his body. Naturally, along with the sign to him also passes the corresponding superpower. But be careful. If figure one killed figure two and figure three killed figure one, then the third figure only gets the first sign. The sign of the second figure will be eliminated from the game. The goal of the game is to kill all the opponents. The winner''s figure gets access to the memory of all the other figures during the time they spent in the game. Also, the winner''s figure will get the right to fulfill one wish! Yes-s-s!!! Today''s stakes are unrealistically high. I remind you that according to the rules, all the lost figures will be thrown into Hell, where they will experience the most terrible torment that is possible to experience, after which all their memory of all incarnations will be erased."


    Damn, this reminder ruined all mood. For them it''s a show, but for us it''s a fight for survival. The struggle to avoid a fate worse than death. I looked at the other ''running cockroaches'' and saw different emotions in their eyes: fear, incomprehension, perseverance and of course hate. It also felt hate to the organizers of this circus.


    ¡°So, everything is ready to start the game. Do game pieces have any questions about the rules of the game? Questions ...¡±


    "I got!!" - I shouted, interrupting the Broadcaster, who seems to have uttered the phrase only because the rules required it. I felt the irritation coming from this bastard.


    "What''s your question? Keep in mind that if it doesn''t touch the inaccuracies of the rules, I''ll punish you.¡±


    My, my, how scary.


    ¡°You said that at the time of the figure''s death, his sign passes to the enemy. What are the criteria for determining whether a person is alive or dead? What happens if a person comes to life after death? Will his sign come back to him or stay with the new owner? If it comes back, can I make revive someone''s corpse, so and kill him again to get a sign for myself?¡±


    "Hmm... Well, the questions are to the point.¡± ¨C Broadcaster even more displeased, apparently broken off with the appointment of punishment. - "Almost. How exactly are you going to resurrect other game figure if using of all types of magic other than that granted by the Zodiac Sign is forbidden in the game?¡±


    Pff! Ignoramus.


    ¡°Possible to do artificial respiration, connect to a life support device. Or maybe someone will have the ability to necromancy? In general, I would like to hear a clear explanation of what exactly is considered as the moment of death.¡±


    "All right, I''ll explain.¡± - Broadcaster calmed down. ¨C ¡°Our Players are also interested in the answers to these questions. The moment of death is considered the state in which the game figure finally loses control of its body. In other words, temporary clinical death is not considered as a death. In other words, as long as you control the original body of the game figure, you control the Sign granted to that body. But as soon as the control ends, the sign goes to the one who killed this game figure. If the death occurred as a result of the influence of several figures at once, The Judge determines the killer by his personal decision. Is that clear to you?"


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    This question has probably a trick. Because the Broadcaster''s explanations answered all my questions, even though it wasn''t obvious.


    "Yes, thank you for the explanation.¡± - I nodded.


    "Anyone else have questions? Nobody has question.¡±


    This time, the Broadcaster didn''t pause between sentences, giving no one a chance to ask a new question. Judging by the echoes of emotions from other participants, they had questions, but their Players forbade them to ask anything. The Being is such a ¡®democratic slaveholder¡¯ that anything I say will only do him benefit.


    "Now, let the Game begin!" - Broadcaster exclaimed.


    And immediately after these words, the whole world went dark.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Rat


    Rat was in shock and bewilderment. In this game, he did not feel the presence of the abilities that he had received in previous games. All usual ways of perception had been cut off, and now he felt himself as blind and deaf. He opened eyes and looked around the richly furnished room. Is this the presidential suite? Raising hands to eyes, he saw a thin hand. Now he was lying on a tucked-in bed, and was dressed in a strange suit.


    Getting up and looking around again, the Rat went to the mirror and studied his reflection. He saw a fashionable coxcomb with slicked-back hair. Judging by the face, this body was no more than seventeen years old. It sucks!


    He looked at the desk drawer next to it, and had the impression that if he opens it now, he would find a gun there. Opening the drawer abruptly he actually found a colt of the ninth caliber and a pack of cartridges to it. Was that his superpower? Some form of foresight? What nonsense is this? How with such ability he can win???


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Ox


    The Ox took a shower, and for one examined his body. He knew subconsciously that he had received the sign of the Ox. And this body fully corresponded to the description of this Zodiac sign. Now he was such perfect muscles that even Schwarzenegger could envy.


    As he ran his hand through the water again, He noticed that some of the drops were following his palm, deviating from their normal trajectory. It took him only a few seconds to realize that he now had telekinesis. As soon as he thought about it, a full description of what the Ox Sign had given him came to mind. It was telekinesis, which could control any non-living matter within a radius of fifty meters.


    After playing with the flying streams of water, the Ox turned off the shower, with telekinesis shook off all the water and went to the main hall of the apartment in which he appeared. Stomach reminded that it would be good to eat. The refrigerator in the kitchen was pristine, so it was only necessary to visit a restaurant, since there was enough money in the wallet.


    Walking along the street and looking around, the Ox was surprised at how many people were walking around. For some reason, he thought that there would be no other people in the city. But now, he like an icebreaker dissects the crowd, towering over the small Japs by more than a head. Most surprisingly, he could read and speak Japanese. Finally, he caught sight of the sign of a cafe and all the extra thoughts left his head. Now he need to eat well, and then he can pick up some girl. The body hinted at such needs with an unexpected erection


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Tiger


    The spacious hall of the classic Japanese dojo was filled with the sounds of shadow fighting: trampling two bare feet on the wooden floor, the whistle of dissected air, shouting and exhaling while performing kata. A wiry man in his forties in a white kimono and the same pants tested his skills and abilities of his body and by performing a set of Roaring Tiger style moves.


    The art of hand-to-hand combat appeared in his mind as soon as he entered this dojo. As you might have guessed, he got the Sign of the Tiger. The ability that came with this sign was not just a martial art. His entire body now possessed incredible strength, speed, endurance, and strength.


    Also, he could enter a state of acceleration in which the falling coin seemed to him almost frozen in the air. At the same time, he could read the text on this coin, being a hundred meters away from it. This was beyond any human abilities.


    What about hearing? Tiger listened and heard the rustle of leaves on trees, the hum of cars somewhere in the distance... the sounds of hand-to-hand combat in very close distance. He walked quickly through the wide corridors and came to an open area paved with stone. Seven people were engaged in martial arts here. They demonstrated the techniques of hand-to-hand combat that he already knew, although compared to him these fighters moved like sleepy snails.


    "Teacher! Have you come out of meditation?¡± - He heard a ringing voice.


    Turning his head, Tiger saw a boy of about twelve years old, who was now diligently cleaning the floors in one of the rooms. The door was open, and the student could see him first. Yes, it is the student. Now tiger was beginning to remember that he had been in this dojo since childhood. And this kid in front of him is his adopted son Sajiro.


    With a shake of his head, Tiger dismissed the memory. No, this is just the knowledge given by the Sign of the Tiger. Knowledge of the previous owner of this body. When the game starts tomorrow at noon... all the inhabitants of this city will be doomed. The best thing he can do for these people is to kill them here and now, so they don''t face the horrors of the Games of the Gods.


    The Tiger''s gaze became stern, and he looked around with new eyes, calculating where he would bury his ''disciples''.

 Chapter 8.01 Juuni Taisen

    <h3 style="text-align: center">Rabbit


    Awakening was... strange. One moment he was standing in a place filled with light, and the next he was in utter darkness. And there was something else. No, it''s not that he has a body now, and not even that this body is lying on a hard-cold surface that literally bites into the bones. Smell! That''s what bothered him. It was the smell of decay and death.


    Rabbit opened his eyes, but saw nothing. He had to get up and grope his way somewhere. The cold musty air was imbued with the smell of decomposition, which he wanted to get rid of more than even from the permeating cold. Having difficulty docking up to the wall, he walked along it, leading with his hand in an attempt to find a way out.


    Pretty quickly the door was found, and then he leaned on it with all his strength... he broke it out, along with the crumbling joint. There was a crash, and his eyes were blinded by the bright midday sun. Surprisingly, he didn''t feel any discomfort. Only a clear understanding that his ability to see had temporarily failed.


    Finally, after rubbing his eyes, the Rabbit was able to see, and the first thing he could make out was his hand. It was the dry, wrinkled stump of a half-decomposed mummy. He clenched his hand into a fist, opened it and grimaced at the hideous sight. Looks like he''s a Lich now. A living dead that can raise the undead. Well, it could have been worse. What did the broadcaster say about rules? He needs to remember his words again. But it will be later, now he needs to test new strength.


    The rabbit looked around and found himself standing in the cemetery next to the crypt. The sun was almost at its zenith, but it didn''t make him feel hot or cold. Voices of quiet prayer were heard somewhere nearby. It looks like he won''t have to go far to find the first volunteer. Smiling, the Lich walked through the cemetery and soon the silence of the place was broken by a heart-rending scream filled with primal horror.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Dragon


    The dragon sat in a chair and stared at the index finger of his right hand in a state of complete stupefaction. Or more precisely, to the dragonfly sitting on this finger.


    "What the fuck?" - He couldn''t resist to exclaiming. ¨C ¡°Yes, in English the words ¡®dragonfly¡¯ and ¡®dragon¡¯ very similar. But what type of relationship it has to dragons?¡±


    As soon as he woke up in a room of a budget hotel, he immediately tried to feel some incredible power in himself. After all, the first thought that visited his mind was the realization that he had received the Sign of the Dragon. But he didn''t feel any dragon-related abilities.


    Only after half an hour of tormenting himself at least some superpower available him, he realized that he had the ability to create dragonflies. Just fucking dragonflies! Useless insects, unable to cause any harm to the enemy. Of course, he could control these dragonflies, even a thousand at once. Yes, he could see and feel everything that his ''minions'' felt, and yet not go mad from an overabundance of information. But they were just insects. The maximum that can be performed is scouting!


    Okay, he need to calm down. The Dragon took a deep breath and created another dragonfly, which sat on the index finger of his left hand. After comparing the two insects, he noticed that they were slightly different in appearance. A second later, he dematerialized the first dragonfly and created another one instead. Now it was clearly visible that one insect was blue and the other red. Once again applying the ability, the Dragon got a dragonfly with a shortened belly. Well, that''s something. Now it remains to understand where are the limits of his ability to change the ''standard'' configuration of the insects created.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Snake


    All people called her ¡®snake¡¯ for her unique eyes. What a ridiculous joke of fate made her a Snake after her death. She had always thought that the afterlife was a fairy tale for idiots. But she''s alive, and she''s even taking part in some kind of fun competition. During that performance of the incomprehensible chum in the light-filled space, she still did not fully understand what had happened. But now, two hours after the resurrection, when the hysteria was over, she was able to assess her prospects.


    She just needs to kill the other players in this stupid game, right? All her life, she loved to mistreat other people. All last life. But this one is unlikely to be worse than the previous one. After all, in addition to a young beautiful body she has the ability to enslave people with just a glance. She just understood it without any proof. However, in any case she should practice. And with this ability, she would be able to inflict such torment on other people that from one thought about it she almost experienced an orgasm. No, she needs to go and practice on someone, urgently.


    Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!


    Snake meticulously examined herself in the mirror and walked out of the apartment to the street. She appeared in this world in a small house on a quiet street. There were similar houses nearby, and there were almost no pedestrians in sight.


    Then her attention was caught by a handsome young man who came around the corner.


    "Hey, you come here!" - She commanded.


    The guy came over and smiled sweetly, staring at her breasts. Yes, she has a body to be proud of.


    "Did you want something?" - The guy asked, still gazing into the neckline of her blouse, as if his life depended on being able to look at it without blinking.


    ¡°Yes. Get on all fours and bark.¡±


    The guy didn''t answer, but he did exactly as she asked, still looking at her with amorous eyes. She beginning to like it. However, it is not clear whether he really obeyed her, or is it just another maniac pervert?


    ¡°Undress.¡± - She ordered, and the guy immediately began to take off his clothes, ignoring the fact that he was standing in the middle of the street.


    ¡°He''s pretty.¡± - There was a thought in her head when she was able to appreciate the muscular body. ¨C ¡°I think we should have a little fun first.¡±


    An hour later, the Snake looked at the naked corpse with its throat cut and thought about what a fool she was. She gave the order to this idiot to kill himself, and at the same time did not guess that he will flood the whole kitchen with blood. It doesn''t matter. If she wants to, she can get any house, as soon as she sees the owners. The main thing is that now she knew exactly what she was capable of.


    The sign of the Snake gave her the ability to subdue other people to herself. Also, it was possible to instill in them any illusion, to give an order and to make them forget about it. And then, when the trigger event occurred, the victim obeyed the order. The only limitation to her ability was that she had to see her victim. The reflection in the mirror didn''t count. But the window glass was not an obstacle. It remained only to find out the maximum distance of her ''hypnotic gaze''. If the distance is large enough, she will simply sit on a helicopter, fly over the city and inspire its inhabitants to kill themselves. She will win this game and get the right to fulfill any desire. Interesting, if I can make a wish to fulfill hundred wishes? Did they will fulfill all her wishes for the rest of eternity?


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Horse


    "Hey! I don''t want to play your stupid game!!!¡± - A guy of about fifteen years old yelled, his voice rising in a high-pitched scream. - "Bring me back!¡±


    Half of the city would hear the screams, but room was padded with white soft walls that absorbed all sound. Some figure looked through the transparent window in the same soft door, and again everything returned to the same state as it had been an hour before. And two hours before that. In general, the last half of the day. The Horse had no clock, so he had no idea how much time had passed.


    At last, having finally lost his voice and beaten his hands and head against the walls, he calmed down and sat in a corner of the room, staring thoughtlessly ahead.


    "I wish I could get out of here." - The Horse sighed.


    And as if in response to his thoughts, in front of him in the air appeared a portal, behind which he could see a blind lane and flickering cars in the distance.


    ¡°Is it that simple?¡± - He asked himself in perplexingly, trying to understand what was going on.


    After examining the portal, he breathed deeper, held his breath and jumped forward. Nothing much happened. Except that now he wasn¡¯t in an isolator for violent patients in a mental hospital, but in a dirty alley of some city. And the first thing he regretted was that he decided to step into this mud with his bare feet. Perhaps I should have wish to go for a cleaner place.


    In front of him immediately appeared a new portal, in which he could recognize a native chamber.


    No, I''m not going back there. I want to... Before he could formulate a thought, the new portal showed him a view of a women''s sauna, where at this moment a dozen very hot girls were bathing.


    ¡°No!¡± - The guy shouted, and the portal immediately closed. - "It won''t be so easy.¡± - He said to himself.


    He will have to learn to correctly articulate exactly where he wants to go.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Sheep


    He was standing on the roof of a skyscraper, and only one step separated him from the flight down. My head was empty, but my heart was happy. I wanted to do something crazy. At least take a step forward. But perhaps not yet.


    The view of the city spread out before me somehow evoked associations with the game of Worms.


    "I wonder why? Maybe that''s why?¡±


    The man stretched his arms forward, and in them materialized... sheep. A cute little lamb with touching curls that bleated piteously, shuffling its feet. He shook his fingers, and the sheep flew down from a height of a hundred meters. Only when sheep reached the ground, sheep didn''t turn into a bleeding piece of meat, didn''t break all her bones, but ran forward joyfully until she collided with a passenger car standing in front of a traffic light. At this moment, the cute lamb exploded, turning the surrounding area into chunks of concrete and metal, flying at high speed. After a couple of seconds, the smoke cleared, and I saw a mutilated car with charred bodies inside.


    "Yes, that''s the whole point! It''s a game! It''s heaven!!! I can blow up anything here. Art is an explosion!¡±


    Mad laugh rang out over the city, unaware that soon it will have to face the most frostbitten bomber in the history of mankind.

 Chapter 8.02 Juuni Taisen

    <h3 style="text-align: center">Monkey


    ¡°''I wonder what is the correct name for ape?¡± - Thought the almost old man, examining his wrinkled face in the mirror. ¨C ¡°Macaque? Gorilla!? Monkey? Yes, the latter is the best fit.¡±


    Despite the hideous appearance of his new body, the Monkey felt perfectly fine. Nothing hurt anywhere, nothing pulled, and in general the body was agile and fast. He looked around and his gaze fell on the katana lying on a special stand near the wall. It might have been taken for a museum exhibit or a prop, but he knew that with these weapons he could kill any enemy. Taking the blade out of the knives, he looked at the amazing blade of blue metal with reverence.


    Taking the sword in his hands and standing in a position, he prepared to strike, imagining himself as a ninja... and suddenly froze. The whole world around him faded into a semitransparent illusion. The Monkey went to the wall of the room, held out his hand, and it passed through the illusion without the slightest resistance.


    ¡°What am I standing on then?¡± - He asked, and looked down. At the same time, he fell through the ceiling and landed on the concrete floor of the basement. After examining the intact and solid ceiling, he scratched the back of his head and headed up the stairs.


    After a couple of hours, the Monkey drank delicious green tea and summed up his research. He could become invisible. Could pass through walls, and most importantly, he was an excellent swordsman and could ride around the countryside as well as a real monkey. He could remain invisible for as long as he wanted, but the ''disembodied'' mode lasted a maximum of fifteen seconds, after which it took five seconds to cooldown. Three seconds of disembodiment mode required only one second to cooldown. In a disembodied state, he could fly, starting from any ''material'' object.


    In general, he liked this set of abilities. However, to be able to properly use them, he must know the surroundings well. So, it was worth a walk around the city and see how people live here, and beautiful juicy schoolgirls in particular.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Rooster


    "Yes, my lover told me that I looked like a rooster. Is bitch jinxed me?¡± - grumbled a smart-looking guy in multicolored clothes with a rainbow mohawk on his head. In his ears, lips, tongue and nose glittered a brilliant piercing. His eyes and lips were painted, and his fingernails were painted bright red. The Rooster could no longer look at himself in the mirror. First, he had already broken a large mirror in the hallway, and secondly, to see this squalor was beyond his strength. How did he even get into this faggot?


    With difficulty regaining his peace of mind, he focused on the promised superpowers. He had a typical set of superhero powers. Flights and pyromania. Straight dream of Herostratus. In his case, the proverb ''let the rooster in the house'' took a direct and figurative meaning. The house in which he appeared stood on the outskirts, and just beyond the fence began the forest, climbing up the mountain. There Rooster decided to hone his pyromantic sorority skills.


    As it turned out, he could create fire from his hands and also control the flow of fire at will. Besides, he didn''t have to be afraid to burn something important, because at any moment he could extinguish the fire within a radius of hundreds of meters. Levitation did not cause much delight, but at least to break into bloody mince when faced with an obstacle he did not threaten, because the speed of flight in principle did not exceed the speed of running. It was quite difficult to maneuver and evade a potential enemy in the air. So, he was only to hope that the enemy would not have a sniper rifle with which to shoot him would be easy.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Dog


    With a long yawn, the Dog, as he decided to call himself, put his head on his paws and wagged his tail. No, after all, this form is not very comfortable. Where are the fucking tentacles??? From the back of a huge Dog the size of a horse, came out six sprout and began to wriggle from side to side. It didn''t look like a tentacle, even at first glance. Rather, a revived blood sausage.


    The Dog has a power to transform himself into any living creature of his choice. But there were two original forms: a man and a dog. There was still an intermediate version in the form of a werewolf from horror films, but it was too clumsy. The hind dog''s paws were not suitable for movement on two limbs, and huge palms with claws on their fingers did not allow normal running on four legs


    Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    So, he decided to create another form that was more secure, faster, and most importantly, dangerous. After a few hours of experimentation, he transformed to a huge armored creature, firmly standing on four legs. A long-elongated crocodile''s mouth gaped with hundreds of teeth, and eight tentacles grew out of its back, ending with ''grabs'' and having a hidden sting. The effectiveness of the poison had yet to be tested, but the instincts of this body said that a second blow would not be necessary for an ordinary person.


    The strangest thing about this metamorphism was that his body would produce an arbitrary amount of organic matter. He could have been the size of an elephant, or he could have pretended to be a bologna. A similar range of variation was most baffling. All that remained was to repeat Dumbledore''s phrase ''this is magic, Harry'' and forget the question.


    Another advantage of the new body was a frenzied regeneration. In the kitchen, he found a large butcher knife with which he managed to chop off his hand. After a couple of seconds, he grew a new one. After performing a session of masochism, he littered the table and trash can with copies of his left hand, and did not feel the slightest discomfort or weakness. It seemed that he would be able to regenerate, even if he left a piece the size of just a fist. Naturally, he was not going to check the limits of his survival, but it was worth considering when planning a fight with the enemy.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Pig


    "Tell me, is this a type of hint?" - The girl spoke irritably, standing in the courtyard of a two-story mansion. - "Yes, I don''t like cleaning, washing or cooking. But is that a reason to make me a Pig? And what kind of ability is that? The epitome of the saying ''a pig will find dirt everywhere''?


    There was no limit to the Pig''s irritation, and she splashed it out in speeches intended for an unspecified circle of people. And taking into account the fact that other people were not around, it is not clear to whom, but definitely not to herself.


    In general, she got not the worst ability. The first is the creation of mud golems. Kind of hints, huh? And the second is the ability to transmute matter, which allows her to transform any material into¡­ mud, of course. What else could a pig turn gold into?


    The mud golems themselves were quite strong and durable. They regenerated all the damage in a matter of seconds. Their movement speed was not great, but they could take down any enemy simply by jumping on them and then devouring them. The standard golem shape resembled a shit-demon.


    https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Golgothan</a>


    Yes, that hideous creature of foul-smelling substance with two arms, two legs, an upright torso and a semblance of a head. Fortunately, she was able to give to the mud any shape, as far as she her imagination. This is how tumbleweed golems, Jabba the Hutt golems, and even Dewdrop golems appeared.


    She could easily control a hundred Golems at once, see with their ''eyes'', feel with their hands, and so on. In general, if necessary, she could obtain the effect of direct presence in the body of her golem, while still being able to control her original body. The Golem''s control distance didn''t seem to be limited in any way. At least she was able to easily stage an invasion of the shit-demons in her assigned part of the city.


    The power fields surrounding the area looked like translucent glowing planes. Ordinary residents of the city also could not overcome this obstacle, which gradually resulted in panic in the streets, mayhems and riots. The pig could not tell how much of this hysteria was caused by the golems roaming around the city, but its attempts to restore order only led to the fact that it killed about fifty criminals. As it turned out, the golems were very strong. No, not like that. They were VERY strong. A golem the size of a man could juggle trucks.


    Unfortunately, she could not make a flood of mud in the city. Although the total number of Golems didn''t seem to be limited, but when there were more than two hundred of them, she felt a headache. The size of a single golem could not exceed the size of a small truck. She so wanted to just bury this city under a kilometer layer of dirt, thus solving all the problems with determining the winner, but alas. Well, she''ll show her true to everyone. After all, her army is simply impossible to defeat.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Horse


    The fact that he is not all right, the Horse guessed just before the start of the game. He had been prone to mood swings before, but this body made him an inadequate nutcase. He may feel depress, may fall in inexplicable rage, may gnaw fear and the envy is not clear for what. What he never had was a normal condition.


    "Damn these freaks!¡± - He shouted into the void.


    Again, he''s having another tantrum. Now it is clear why his predecessor was in a mental hospital. Maybe some pills can help him If he cannot get rid of the fountain of emotions, then he won''t have the slightest chance of winning.


    The clock on his arm sawed, marking the approach of noon. A second later, he realized that his ability to open portals was no longer limited by the part of the city that had been assigned to him. Okay, now he needs to get out of here, and then need to find a pharmacy.


    He concentrated, opened the portal that led to the other side of the city, and did not hesitate for a second to step into it.

 Chapter 8.03 Juuni Taisen

    <h3 style="text-align: center">Rat


    Based on the results of long-term experiments, the Rat came to the conclusion that his ability is a simulation of the future, or a prediction of the future. He could predict what would happen to him if he will perform certain actions. In other words, he could only see his own future with his own eyes in that future. In general, it wasn''t so bad if he had any other ability. So, had to rely on the fact that he will be able to shoot someone with a gun.


    His ability to foresight also had limitations. He could predict one line of probabilities with a length of fifteen minutes every five seconds. In total, twelve options per minute, seven hundred and twenty per hour. If he predicted shorter periods of time, he could view hundreds of options per second. How he did not go crazy, remained a mystery to him.


    Fifteen minutes before the start of the game, the Rat got on a stolen motorcycle, started the engine and began to predict the future, where he drove around the city in different directions, carefully looking around.


    He got another game ability in this morning. It was enough to concentrate to understand on which side were each of his opponents. A sixth sense suggested that the accuracy of the direction was inversely proportional to the distance to the target. And if the other figure was closer than a kilometer away, it was impossible to understand in which side he was.


    But this, if you do not take into account his ability to foresee the future. He could simply send his ''copies'' in different directions, and as soon as they were separated by a sufficient distance, he would get the approximate coordinates of any enemy.


    Fifteen minutes was his prediction limit, but by the time the game started, he had a couple dozen options for the future. And then an event occurred that could not be called anything other than luck. The enemy with the sign of the Horse suddenly moved across the city, ending up right at his side. In just a fraction of a second, he was able to determine the approximate area of his appearance and began to send copies there in the new lines of the future.


    After a couple of minutes of real time, the foresight saw a glowing object that appeared on the roof of one of the buildings. Immediately he began to move in this direction, approaching the place where the enemy will be appeared, and in the lines of probability his copies began to besiege the building, making their way to the roof. There he was able to see how the round portal opens, from which a boy of about fifteen leaps out.


    The first line was unsuccessful, because the enemy noticed him and immediately fell through a portal that opened right under his feet. The rat adjusted his behavior in the other lines and found a place to hide. Then he pulled out a gun and fired. The bullet hit the chest, but the enemy again managed to escape. Well, that means he needs to aim better.


    When the Rat approached the desired building, he moved forward, experiencing a strong sense of de ja vu. In fact, now he was not acting on his own, but ''repeating'' one of the options for the future. After all, it is not always possible to repeat your movements exactly, even if you know how to move. And now he seems to be reproducing events from the desired line of probability, being sure that they will end exactly as predicted.


    Dropping the motorcycle, he ran to the entrance door and dialed the apartment number on the dashboard. Three seconds later, the door swung open and he ran inside. Waiting for the elevator, he pressed the button for the top floor. Getting out at the twelfth floor, went up the stairs and reached the door to the roof. Fortunately, the lock was broken, so he pushed the door and ran to the shelter. One of the ventilation pipes provided an excellent firing position. Pulling out the gun, he released the safety. After waiting a few more seconds, he saw a portal appear ahead of him, and a boy jumped out of it sideways. Pointing the gun at the target, he pulled the trigger smoothly. A shot rang out, and the enemy fell to the roof, spilling the remains of his brain from his shattered head. It is good that in addition to armor-piercing cartridges, he managed to find several explosive ones.


    After completing the line of events, the Rat approached the corpse and carefully examined it. No, there''s no option. Half of his head is missing. It won''t come alive. After waiting for a few more seconds, he felt a certain force enter into his body. Now he knew that he could open portals and move through them to any point in the city.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Rooster


    He floated proudly in the air, gliding over the streets of the city. In just a few minutes, the battle would begin. His territory was bordered by areas of Sheep, Monkey, Dog and Pig. In his first battle, he would not want to face multiple opponents at once, so a Sheep and a Pig were not the best choice. After all, like his territory, they had too many neighbors. In addition, there were many strong explosions in the territory of the Sheep yesterday and today, and now most of the buildings there have become ruins. If the Sheep''s ability is explosions, then it''s better not to face such an opponent right now.


    Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.


    Thus, the territory of the Dog and the Monkey remained. Now he was inspecting the border with the Dog, and it seems that he has already decided who will be his first victim. In front of him on the street that continued beyond the barrier, a monster was standing in the middle of the roadway. Exactly. A real monster from nightmares or some hentai anime. It was a huge armored carcass with a long toothy mouth and tentacles. One look at it allowed to determine that in front of him a game figure. It seemed to be another game ability in addition to determination of the direction of the enemy.


    As soon as the barrier fell, the Dog rushed to him, soaring into the air and waving its tentacles. But he was ready for such movement and simply retreated back and fly high, out of the enemy''s reach. In next moment he attacked the monster with his strongest attack. Roaring flames engulfed the enemy figure, instantly incinerating all protruding body parts. All these tentacles, paws, and fangs were charred and crumbled to ash in a second.


    The monster howled and tried to regenerate. Right before my eyes, it grew legs and tried to escape. I had to add a little more fire. The dog roared, rolled on the ground, tried to crawl away, but there was no escape from his fire. At the same time, I hovered at the level of the upper floors of neighboring buildings, being completely safe.


    Finally, the monster went quiet, though it was still alive. In any case, he wasn''t going to stop before the entire carcass of this creature turned into ash. I just need to be patient, not forgetting to look around. However, my feelings say that at the moment only the Dog is closer than a kilometer from him.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Dog


    I noticed the faggot flying in the sky a couple of minutes earlier than he. God, where do such freaks come from? I''ll probably eat him first. Such a filthy creature has no right to live in any of the Universes.


    As soon as the barrier disappeared, Dog leaped forward and up, trying to reach the opponent with a tentacle with a venomous sting. Unfortunately, opponent easily evaded and attacked in response. Before that, he had not demonstrated its abilities other than flight, so the stream of fire hot as the Sun itself, was a surprise for the Dog. An extremely unpleasant surprise.


    Any attempt to regenerate and escape ended in failure. Even Dog¡¯s ability to restore the body had limits. Moreover, now he realized that his body has vulnerable point. This place was the brain. Of course, when he was creating his combat form, he had moved his brain into center of his chest, but now he felt that as soon as his brain will ''boil'', this battle would end immediately.


    Now he had no eyes to navigate properly, but he remembered that there must be a sewer grate nearby. With the last of his strength, he crawled in the right direction. For a moment, he managed to regenerate his eye and was able to see his target.


    Finally, having reached the rescue entrance to the sewer, the Dog literally swallowed the red-hot grate with his body, and then released the brain along with the remains of the flesh into the hole. Outside there was a burning dead carcass, covering the way of his retreat.


    After a while, the Dog decided that this was the best time for a surprise attack. His opponent thinks he''s almost won. We should surprise him. After creating an almost unimaginable body that was a cross between a worm, a mole, and God knows what else, he literally screwed himself into the wall of the sewer and headed underground toward the basement of the neighboring house. When he reached it, he assumed his usual combat form, then rushed up the stairs.


    On the top floor, he destroyed the door to one of the apartments, casually tore into pieces the frightened owners, then clung to the window, looking for the enemy. He still continued to pour the street with fire, not even thinking to look around. The current point was not very suitable for a jump, so he had to drill through the wall into the next apartment. Thank the gods that the walls here are not made of concrete, like normal people, but from drywall, like stupid Americans.


    When he reached a suitable window, he waited the moment and then with all his strength rushed forward, knocking out the glass and in a leap reaching with the tentacle to the ass of the Rooster. The sting went right into the ''fifth point'' and injected a lethal dose of poison. This amount should have been enough to kill an elephant. The Rooster screamed wildly and tried to attack again with fire, but it didn''t matter. Just a few seconds later, the enemy''s gaze faded and he fell to the burning asphalt from the height of the twelfth floor. It was good that I had thought to combine a poison that chemically destroys the brain and a nerve-paralytic poison that blocks the passage of signals through the nerves.


    Approaching the mutilated carcass of the enemy, the Dog could not resist the pleasure of devouring the still twitching body. As soon as the last piece of stinking flesh disappeared into his mouth, he felt that from now on he can fly and control fire. All right, hold on me seven gods! Now it only remains to take the form of the Dragon-Gorynych, and I can fly to conquer the city.


    https://cs9.pikabu.ru/post_img/big/2017/03/24/6/1490343386118841281.jpg</a>

 Chapter 8.04 Juuni Taisen

    <h3 style="text-align: center">Monkey


    The game had not yet begun, but the opponents were already looking at each other, trying to find a victim for themselves. Monkey was no exception. Next to it were the territories of a Rooster and a Sheep. Now he sat with binoculars on the roof of the tallest building, almost near the point where the borders of the three territories met, and trying to decide where to go.


    He had noticed the Rooster about five minutes ago. He was flying proudly over the roofs of houses, so it was difficult to get to him. But the stupid Sheep, on the other hand, had destroyed all the more or less decent buildings on his territory and now seemed to be heading in the direction of the Snake''s territory. Perhaps it is necessary to go after Sheep and catch two enemies at the moment when they will be busy with each other. In general, he is not afraid of explosions. The Sheep won''t blow himself, will he? He will move under invisibility and in immaterial form. When he is close to the enemy, he will automatically fall into the ''dead zone'', which his opponent will not be able to blow up, unless Sheep decides to commit suicide. And then he will guess the moment and cut off Sheep¡¯s head with one strike.


    After waiting for the game to start, Monkey switched to a disembodied state and jumped off the roof, slowly gliding down and forward. In fifteen seconds of flight, he reached the ground and ran as fast as he could to his chosen victim. He could have used transport, of course, but in that case, he would to spend most of his time in the real world. And many of the roads in the Sheep area were littered with ruins of houses, so that running was now the fastest way to move around the area.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Sheep


    Sheep chose the Snake as his first victim. In nature, snakes are afraid of sheep because they cannot bite through the thick skin on their feet, while sharp hooves do not leave them a chance to escape without injury. Following this logic, he decided to attack his ''natural enemy''.


    And how can this Snake can be dangerous? Poison? Ha-ha-ha. He''s not going to get close to her. It will only be enough to roughly determine her location, after which he will simply create a mortar and cover this area with thermobaric charges. His power allowed to create not only exploding sheep, but also any weapon that was supposed to explode.


    But to be honest, the sheep were also extremely useful. These small, sneaky creatures were almost immortal and could dissect the city, looking for the victim. Alas, he couldn''t control them directly. But he could see through their eyes and send a remote command to detonate.


    Waiting for the game to start, the Sheep ran towards the Snake, and ahead of him ran whole flocks of sheep. Several passers-by caught in the path of this living avalanche were mercilessly blown up. After all, for every killed person, number of his curly-haired army will be increased by one. So, he devoted yesterday''s day to cleaning the starting location. As he ran, he created six sheep instead of the three he had used up, and focused on choosing a direction. Judging by the feeling, the Snake was already close.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Snake


    She was sitting in her lair on the top floor of a high-rise building. It was a penthouse with huge windows that gave a great view of the surrounding area. She had powerful binoculars at hand and a phone in her hand. Now all the inhabitants of this part of the city were under her control, looking for a potential enemy. They had two order: to announce the coming of the other game figures, then try to kill them. Thus, in any case, she will know in advance about the appearance of the enemy. And then either they would be killed by her minions or they would fall into her eyes and become a victim of hypnosis. Her ability would work at a distance of two kilometers, which made it even more dangerous than a shot from a sniper rifle. The weapon still needs to be able to hit, but for her it is enough just to see her victim.


    The arrival of a flock of sheep baffled her. At first, she didn''t even believe the observers'' report. But then she looked through the binoculars and saw small, nimble sheep running around the city, wreaking death and destruction. To her displeasure, the sheep were not living creatures, so it was not possible to seize control of them. The game figure itself was still hidden from her view behind the walls of the houses. But if he continues to walk in the same direction, he will soon come to a small square with an adjacent square, where she can use her ability of absolute submission on the stupid Sheep.


    From savoring the imminent victory, the Snake was distracted by a strange rustling sound. Turning her head, she went to the open window on the opposite side of the building and looked out.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Dragon


    The Dragon''s experiments on changing the dragonflies were resulted with unbelievable success. No, he couldn''t turn them into real dragons. And even failed to radically increase their size. But he managed to make two relatively small changes.


    First, dragonflies have a long and strong sting. To be more precise, the modified ovipositor of female individuals was used as a sting. But the second, most ingenious solution was to change the metabolism of these insects.


    What''s wrong with that? Nothing special, except that the hemolymph of dragonflies was now no different in composition from the hemolymph of the larvae of Diamphidia beetles. This type of insect was the most venomous animal on Earth. Even the smallest drop of their blood was enough to kill a huge elephant. And dragonflies will inject into the victims'' bodies not a small drop, but a very large one.


    Thus, he in result created an endless army of winged killers, able to enter any room and sting a person, even if he was dressed in a chemical protection suit. With such advantage, it would be foolish not to use it. And this morning''s ability to determine the direction of the enemy was manna from heaven.


    So as soon as the barriers fell, billions of his dragonflies rushed in all directions, stinging all the people in their path. And along the lines connecting the Dragon with all the other opponents, flew especially large swarms. Sitting in an inconspicuous apartment in a high-rise apartment complex, he controlled his army, carefully searching every suspicious room. Dragonflies are easily penetrated into the ventilation of buildings and getting to the interior. Some places remained inaccessible, and he planned to explore them later. Now it was important to strike as massively as possible and collect the maximum number of Zodiac abilities.


    His plan was to guarantee a quick and clean victory. Alas, reality has made its corrections. As it turned out, the distance of control of dragonflies was limited. Once they had to fly further, they just dissipated into the dust. Fortunately, he was able to destroy two enemies at once. Snake and Sheep were not far from each other and fell under the same wave of dragonflies.


    The Horse managed to escape before the dragonflies could reach him, then immediately died, probably killed by a Rat. But with the Rabbit, everything turned out to be quite sad. At first, the Dragon didn''t even understand why people in this part of the city didn''t want to die of insect bites. Only after looking closely through the eyes of his minions he could understand that all these people were already dead. A crowd of zombies sprawled around the city, which with equal success attacked the dead and the living people, after which the bitten victims rose in the form of the undead. There was still hope that the Rabbit itself was quite alive, and he could be killed with poison, but no matter how many dragonflies attacked everyone, the Rabbit did not even think to die.


    Another potential victim, a Tiger, managed to escape before the dragonflies got to him. After considering the situation, the Dragon decided to move to the Central part of the city. From there, he can cover almost the entire territory with dragonflies, which should add him a couple of more frags. Once there, he would have enough strength to engage the survivors in a direct confrontation.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Ox


    Waking up in the morning in the arms of two girls, Ox for a while pondered what strategy to use in this game. He categorically did not want to chase cowardly rats all over the city. It would be much more convenient to sit in one place and wait until someone comes to him. Still, his power gave a guarantee that no one would be able to get close to him unnoticed.


    Yes, telekinesis didn''t work on living people. But yesterday, he ''robbed'' a repair shop, extracting more than a thousand balls from bearings. Dispersed by telekinesis, they were guaranteed to destroy any enemy who dared to get within fifty meters. He was not afraid of weapons like pistols, because a small ''experiment'' with the police showed that his telekinesis is able to stop a bullet after a couple of meters of flight. And no one will come to him at such a distance alive.


    Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.


    Having come to this conclusion, he found a solution that will allow him to win without bothering with fruitless searches of the enemy. Stretching up, he began to get out of bed, thus waking his girlfriends.


    "John, where are you going?" - One of them said plaintively. - "What about the morning blowjob?"


    "We''ll have fun later.¡± - He answered, pulling his underpants. - "I need to go to the supermarket.¡±


    "What did you forget there?¡±


    "I want to buy some fireworks.¡±


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Tiger


    The Tiger stood on the top of the hill where his house was, and looked doubtfully into the distance. It was still more than an hour before the game started, but some idiot was sitting on the roof of a building in the Ox''s territory next to the force field and started fireworks. This action had been going on for half an hour, and it was impossible to misunderstand it. It was a challenge. Well, we can assume that the challenge is accepted. At least he won''t have to track down the prey. Sure, it could be a trap, but what can they do? No matter what the bull''s going to do, this fight will be his last.


    Five minutes before the start of the game, the Tiger was standing in front of a glowing protective field, and in front of him, just fifty meters away, stood a muscular giant of European appearance. The road on the other side of the barrier was littered with broken bricks and debris. The source of this disorder was a collapsed building nearby. Perhaps it was some kind of trick, but the Tiger was sure that even such battlefield could not affect his fighting abilities.


    And now, the barrier was gone. The wind immediately brought to him the smell of dust and broken bricks. The two opponents continued to stand still, studying each other.


    "I am the Ox warrior, challenge you to a fair fight!" - His opponent shouted.


    "Tiger accepts your challenge.¡± - He shouted back.


    For another second they remained motionless, and then the Tiger charged forward, intent on finishing the enemy with a single blow. But before he had taken a dozen steps, the Ox¡¯s insidious plan was revealed. The construction debris was a cover for a lot of metal balls and throwing knives hidden under it. And now all this iron was in motion, trying to pierce or flatten him.


    But Tiger didn''t even slow down to evade the blow. Steel bounced impotently from his skin, unable to even scratch it. Only his clothes were damaged, but he was a true warrior, so he would continue to fight even if he was naked. In combat, there is no place for embarrassment and morality.


    Alas, while the bullet-fast balloons couldn''t hurt him, they could throw him off course. Under a hail of blows, his body was swept aside and knocked to the ground. The tiger was strong... but not heavy. Immediately even more accelerated, he jumped to his feet and in just a few jumps came out of the attack zone. Apparently, the Ox had a limited range of telekinesis.


    Remaining at a safe distance, the Tiger began to think about his next move. Obviously, his opponent could not influence him. But Ox could well affect matter nearby. If desired, the Ox could banally bury the Tiger under the rubble of the same debris of the house. Ox simply did not expect that his ''weapon'' will be powerless in a direct hit.


    To confirm his thoughts, the Ox concentrated all flying debris next to him, creating a kind of tornado, then quickly headed towards the Tiger. Tiger had only one chance to catch the enemy by surprise. If he enters into the telekinesis zone, he will not be able to get back.


    With the maximum speed of perception, the Tiger imbued his muscles with internal energy and rushed forward to him with all available speed. In this mode, he moved faster than the speed of sound. If the Ox''s telekinesis could work on him, then Ox would certainly be able to stop him. But the living organism did not obey this force, and therefore the Tiger was able to break through the seemingly frozen tornado to the body of his opponent. By this time, he was completely naked, because his clothes had been torn off by the counteracting force of telekinesis. But in the end, everything was decided by one blow. His fist went through the Bull''s head without even noticing the resistance, then his body slammed into the opponent, breaking all Ox¡¯s bones.


    A moment later, the iron tornado flew apart, leaving on the ground a pile of bloody mince. Next to the corpse of the Ox stood the blood-covered Tiger. Here he looked around, drew attention to the right hand covered with blood and brains, and then the blood began to roll off his skin in response to his newfound telekinesis. Well, that was an impressive fatality.


    Turning around, Tiger headed for the car left in a nearby alley. New clothes were waiting for him there. There was no point in staying here, so he planned to go north to get around the city clockwise and deal with all enemies one by one.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Rabbit


    The battle necromancer lay in the refrigerator of a looted store and controlled his army of undead. With his physical capabilities, there was no point in dragging his frail body anywhere. His power was magic, and his offspring had inherited all of his abilities completely.


    After a series of experiments, he was able to create zombies that can reproduce. The Lich''s enchanted blood could be infinitely divided and regenerated by the power of death. So, it was enough for the zombies to just bite their prey, and human just in a minute later transformed to the undead. At the same time, even a dead body could be infected. It didn''t matter to his spell whether the victim was alive at the time of the bite. Moreover, it was not necessary to bite. They could spit in your eyes or add saliva to your food. As soon as his blood came into contact with the internal organs of a person, the transformation was unstoppable.


    Another important ability was the ability of the zombie to sense the energy of life and death. Not far, of course. Three or four meters. But it was enough to find those who tried to hide.


    As soon as the barriers fell, the crowds of zombies that he had transformed the entire population of his part of the city began to spread across the city. Moreover, many of them drove cars to increase the speed of distribution. From time to time they stopped, bit passer-by gawkers and continued the race.


    Rabbit hoped that his creatures could kill at least one of the game figures, but the opponents seemed to have died out. The territory of the Dragon nearby was filled with the corpses of people, and the air was filled with biting bugs that could not harm his undead. The territories of the Ox and Tiger were untouched, so the zombies made a bloody feast there. Only a few minutes after beginning of the game, it became clear that the Horse, Snake, and Sheep were dead. After a minute Ox and a Rooster followed them to the other world. He has not yet been able to find the Tiger and the Dragon, although the chances of finding them were still not zero. It turned out that almost half of the participants were already dead, and he did not get a single frag.


    Fortunately, when one of the zombies got to the corpse of the Ox and turned it into an undead, Rabbit felt that his puppet was different from the rest. This was not just a zombie, but a telekinesis-possessed zombie. After a moment, he remembered the Angel''s words and realized that by controlling the corpses of the dead, he also controlling their abilities. After that, his subordinates purposefully began to search for the corpses of other game figures. Pretty quickly, he got the power of a Sheep, and then found a Snake on the top floor of a high-rise building.


    To his chagrin, the control distance of the zombie was limited, so he was not able to capture the entire city, but soon enough under his control were the territories of the Tiger, Dragon, Ox and Snake, as well as part of the territory of the Sheep, Rooster, Pig, Rat and Horse. But now it was not clear what to do next. In general, he understood that it is necessary to continue the search for the Tiger and the Dragon, especially since the Dragon had not left his territory. But how to reach a Rat or a Pig? To do this, he had to move himself.


    With a mental sigh, the Rabbit get out of the cozy refrigerator and moved into the back of the truck-refrigerator. There was a zombie driver, so there shouldn''t be any problems with the ride. But the chances of running into the enemy in this case increased. To somehow confuse the enemy, Rabbit sent zombies in cars to cruise around the city in different directions, and he began to slowly move to north, trying to find the location of the opponents.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Pig


    By the time the game started, she was able to create and maintain one hundred and sixty golems. Actually, not such an impressive number. After running around the city, the golems began searching for other players. But the first enemy they encountered was a crowd of zombies. Of course, the undead could do nothing to the golems. They effortlessly crushed, tore and hurled opponents who were as clumsy as they were. After a while, she gave the order to just ignore the undead and keep moving. Because otherwise, this confrontation threatened to continue until she turns the entire population of the city into mincemeat.


    About an hour later, her servants were attacked by a Dragon. It was a huge flying three-headed lizard that poured everything with fire, incinerating the inhabitants of the city, regardless of whether they were alive or dead. Alas, the golems in principle were not designed to fight air targets. At the same time, the dragon was in no hurry to land on the ground, just roasting her minions from a distance. Dragon¡¯s efforts were almost zero, because the best he could was lightly brown the surface of the golems. No, if she kept her servants on fire for half an hour, they would have a good chance of falling apart or turning into a terracotta army. But the Dragon''s patience was not enough, and he flew away in search of less heat-resistant opponents.


    Soon, her attention was distracted from the dragon by some movement in the area of the Ox¡¯s territory, so she forgot about the ''crane in the sky'' and decided to focus on the ''tit in the hands''. One of her golems found the Tiger fighting with crowd of zombies. So now it was necessary to get close to him and guess the moment to start the attack.

 Chapter 8.05 Juuni Taisen

    <h3 style="text-align: center">Dragon


    When he decided to move to the center of city, he somehow lost sight of the crowd of zombies rapidly spreading through the city. Through his scouts, he could see that the zombies weren''t just walking back and forth. No, they purposefully searched for survivors and bit them. Moreover, they somehow sensed the living at a short distance and if necessary, they broke down doors, broke through walls or climbed into windows.


    After evaluating all this mess, the Dragon realized that the zombies are a real threat to him, simply because he does not have the countermeasures to fight them. A second later, he was literally scalded by the thought that if the necromancer got control of the body of the enemies he had previously killed, Rabbit could take control of his new abilities. Unfortunately, understanding this could not help him counteract to a such development of events.


    At the moment, his only escape from the zombie hordes was to remain invisible. Even if he rushed to ''clean up the bodies'' right now, he would still not be able to get to them before the undead. This was easy enough for him to estimate, given the speed of their movement. But as soon as the necromancer finds out his exact location, he will simply fill that area with corpses and sooner or later Rabbit will get what he wants. So, what he needed now was not to run to some unknown destination, but to find a place where he could hide from the endless crowd of dead people who could sense the living at a distance. Heh, it''s easier said than done.


    Fortunately, the entire surrounding area was already under his control. The dragonflies could see and explore any place in the area. And within a few minutes, he had a plan of salvation. Grabbing a crossbow, he ran out of the apartment and ran to his car. It was a heavy jeep, for which sluggish zombies were no obstacle. And there weren''t any zombies around yet. They slaughtered the remnants of the living population on the north.


    In just five minutes the Dragon reached to the Grand Conservatory, where ran into the main hall. His goal was a chandelier hanging from the ceiling. If he climbs to it, no zombie will be able to get closer than six meters to him. Even if they walk through the rooms on the floor above the height of the chandelier will help it be below their sensitivity zone.


    But before climbing on to the chandelier, he ran into the control room and pulled the switch, turning off the light. No one would see him in the dark. Quickly smashing the fuses, he ran back to the main hall. Here he used a crossbow with a cat to catch on the chandelier, and then slowly and sadly climb up on it. Finally, he was able to establish himself on the precarious crystal structure and tie himself to it with a rope. This will help him for a while. And then it remains to think and observe. If he just sat there, he would either die of thirst and hunger, or the necromancer would use the Sheep''s abilities to level the city to the ground.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Monkey


    The events he had witnessed were beyond comprehension. Is there any balance in this game at all? Or has everything been bought for a long time, and the winner is determined in advance simply because he was given the strongest ability?


    A swarm of devilish flies came and bit the Sheep, whom he was about to kill. After that, he didn''t last a minute, yelling loudly and fighting off the attacking insects. Then the target froze, and the Monkey also froze in horror. Flies flew back and forth, leaving him with little chance of survival. There were too many of them. Here invisibility will not help, and he could not remain in disembodied form very long.


    Fortunately, he was quick enough to dive into a technical hatch where pipes ran with hot and cold water. There were almost no insects here, so he was able to catch his breath a little. He had no desire to fight the swarm of flies. At least for now. Never ever. He noticed that the swarm had come from the South, so it made sense to go North to kill someone whose ability would help him to survive.


    Oriented in the dungeon, he began to slide in the right direction, making full use of his ability to exist in an immaterial way. Half an hour later he came to the surface and was glad to see that there were no insects anywhere. However, other game figures were also not seen. After that, he spent another hour running around the city like an idiot, trying to find the Dog. He determined the approximate territory of his ''occurrence'', but he could not find the enemy.


    When he was desperate to find the Dog and began to think about how to find the owner of the stone demons prowling around the city, he saw a three-headed dragon flying in the sky. The Monkey even stumbled as he ran and almost sat to the ground from this sight. The dragon clearly didn''t have any aerodynamic qualities, but it stubbornly refused to fall. However, quite quickly he added one plus one and guessed that this is the Dog which received the abilities of the Rooster. He also flew pompously even before the game.


    For the next fifteen minutes, the Monkey tracked down the dragon, watching as he unsuccessfully tries to fry the local shit-demons that had been summoned to this world by another black wizard. That''s not how he imagined this game. He believed that there would be warriors who possess weapons and martial arts in battle. Instead, he has to fight the sorcerers who are sending all sorts of misfortunes to the city. Well though the Dog is a monster, but it is quite clear and obvious enemy.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Dog


    He had to spend almost an hour to give his body the desired shape. He even had to climb into the sewer for this. The stench was terrible, but he hoped that no one in their right mind would look for him there. After all, the sewer was filled to the top with real shit, which he had been swimming in it all this time. At least he didn''t have to breathe anymore with such body.


    Finally, having achieved the desired result, he remembered the resulting shape, turned into a giant worm, climbed to the surface and then became a real Dragon- Gorynych. Now he could soar in the sky, spitting red-hot plasma to the humans.


    However, pretty quickly he realized that the people walking around here were strange. They were natural zombies, hunting for the living people. The strangest thing is that the habitat area of the undead was clearly limited. Flying into the territory of the Pig, he discovered another miracle - strange figures walked on streets, which consisted of liquid mud or even the same shit in which he had recently bathed. Attempts to burn down these aliens did not bring results. He spent some time trying to track their movements in order to find their owner, but this idea was not successful.


    Worst of all, he felt that a Monkey was constantly prowling around him. Except that he couldn''t find the vile macaque. Sight, hearing, smell - he used all his senses, but could not find anything suspicious.


    When he got tired of just flying in the clouds, he went down to try again to find the Monkey. For this occasion, he even grew a couple of dozen eyes all over his body, hoping that the macaque would decide to appear on sight, which could be assumed by observing the position of his heads.


    The pain that pierced his neck came as a complete surprise. He did not notice any sign of the presence of the enemy, but at the same time clearly felt how his flesh was dissected by the blade of the sword. Invisibility! That''s the Monkey''s ability. The dog immediately flooded the surrounding area with streams of fire. Even if the Monkey is invisible, it is unlikely to be immune to fire.


    When he tried to regenerate the severed head, he was surprised and horrified to find that the wound would not close. It is unknown what weapon or ability the Monkey used, but it was able to block his limitless regeneration. The dog decided to go higher and take care of his health, and then start searching for the Monkey. Only a second later, a sharp pain shot through his back, and one of his wings fell to the ground.


    Fortunately, his ability to fly did not depend on his wings, so he immediately rushed to sky again arranging a branch of fiery hell at the bottom. Once in relative safety, the Dog was able to independently pinch and ''drop out'' the stump of the neck. The wound was in the already dead part of his body, after which it was a matter of minutes to regenerate the head. He did the same with the wing. But after that, the question arose what to do next. Whether to fly to look for an easier target, or once again try to catch the Monkey ''on the live bait''.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Monkey


    As the Monkey watched the monster fly through the sky, He sighed bitterly. At first, it seemed to him that he had a chance of success. His sword had inflicted a wound to the creature that was in no hurry to heal. But then he made a mistake. Deciding to weaken the dragon, he cut off its wing, hoping that this would cause it to fall to the ground. But the result was the opposite. The dragon soared into the sky, and then managed to heal. Now he fly circles directly over the Monkey, clearly looking for him and sometimes spitting fire in the most ''suspicious'' places.


    This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    In general, he can try to lure it ''on live bait''. To sparkle here, to appear there, to make this flying lizard go down and suddenly strike a decisive blow. The only question is where to strike this blow. The left head definitely doesn''t fit, because he already chopped it off. Here he need to chop off all three heads at once... or none of them. Maybe he''s got vulnerable organs inside his torso? If he could change his body at will, he would place the most vulnerable organ in his chest, hiding behind strong ribs. With such size, he''s not even sure he can get his katana to his heart.


    With another sigh, the Monkey decided to try. If he can''t kill this monster with the next blow, he''ll go look for a simpler target.


    But as soon as he made this decision, as the dragon irritably waved his tail and flew to the side, where now collected four game pieces at once. Apparently, he decided that there he would have a better chance of killing someone. The Monkey had to run after him, straining his old body. After all, he has been running around the city for hours without having a minute to rest, so even his incredible endurance cannot cope with the load.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Rat


    Rat sat in the basement garage of one of the buildings and sighed. Since his success early in the game, fate has given him a few kicks that have lowered his conceit below the plinth.


    First, it turned out that the ability to move through portals is incompatible with his foresight of the future. He couldn''t see what was on the other side of the portal, even if the exit was located only a meter away from him. The lines of the future in which he passed through the portal ended immediately. If he himself passed through the portal, then all the active lines of the future that he was watching were already completed. Of course, it only took a couple of seconds to view events in fifteen minutes of real time, but the fact was important. He could not know how his attempt to pass through the portal would end. And what it might end up with, he knew perfectly well, because the example with knocked out brains still stood before his eyes.


    The second problem was the appearance of hordes of insects that can kill a person with a single bite. At the very beginning of the battle, he decided to pay a visit to the Rabbit. But as soon as he took a step out of the portal and scanned the next seconds of the future, he saw that all these lines in a few seconds end with a painful insect bite, after which comes an imminent death.


    It was only with the utmost concentration of consciousness he was able to create a portal under his feet that threw him back into the safe zone. And then one of the dragonflies slid through the portal behind him, so he had to strain even more to see the line of the future where he had shot this swift insect with a pistol. For the next ten minutes, he rolled around on the floor, trying to ease a severe headache. Having somehow moved away from the consequences of his literally ill-considered step, he hesitated to use the portal at all without extreme necessity.


    Further study of the lines of the future showed that a significant part of the city is now under the power of the ''Lord of the insects'', and any attempt to get there ends in death. At least the habitat area of these insects was clearly limited and did not shift. However, the situation can always get worse, right?


    The third blow to his ego was the invasion of zombies. All those people who had recently been walking the streets or hiding in houses now rose up as undead that prowled the city in search of survivors, while having the ability to sense them at a distance of several meters. The rat was barely able to find a shelter where the undead could not penetrate. Or rather, where the undead hadn''t thought to go yet.


    When he finally decided to get out in one of the lines of the future, he noticed that the undead crowds were wandering in the same direction. After making a suicidal car ride through the crowds of the dead, he saw a masked man tearing the crowd of zombies apart with his bare hands. But the worst thing was that in this line, he was killed not by zombies climbing into the car, but by the same man. In an unthinkable way, he crossed the three hundred meters that separated them in a second, then looked into the Rat''s eyes and smashed his head with a fist.


    All of the above clearly showed that he could not fight such monsters in principle. After all, he was just a pathetic mortal, albeit able to foresee the future. But no matter how much you dodge, if you don''t have the strength, you can''t avoid death.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Tiger


    Hunting the Rat suddenly become a problem. For a start, he couldn''t even get out of the Ox''s territory. Part of the road was blocked, and when he finally found a clear path, his car was rammed by suddenly appeared car racers. No, it certainly did not come as a surprise to him, but even the most remarkable reaction of the driver is not able to sharply change the direction of movement of the car. Only then did he guess that at his speed he could have just got out of the car, tossed the racers aside with their car, and then go back to car and go further without even pressing the brake. But an unrepaired car was the least of his problems.


    As it turned out, he was hit on purpose and the car was driven by a natural zombie. Even after the Tiger tore off his head, undead did not give up trying to punish the offender. And his ''passenger'' was able to surprise him even more. Showing unexpected speed of movement and distraction of the Tiger by the headless body rushing to him, passenger got his hand and tried to bite it. Actually, he bit it but it didn''t hurt his hand. However, the sleeve of the jacket was damaged, smeared with saliva. But when the zombie realized that his teeth were powerless against this opponent, he spat. Only a perfect reaction allowed the Tiger to avoid the saliva flying directly into his eye.


    Further events have shown that the zombies turn ordinary people into undead with a bite. Or even with the help of a banal spit in the eyes or mouth. As soon as any of the liquids released by the zombies got inside the human body, the person died in agony, and just a minute later rose in the form of undead.


    After putting a couple of zombies to rest with his bare hands, Tiger remembered that he should be able to use telekinesis. But only recently the force that obeyed him disappeared without a trace. It took him about ten minutes to realize that the reason for this might be that the Ox¡¯s corpse had risen in the form of undead. He ran back to the scene of the battle and made sure that the corpse was not there. He couldn''t find Ox¡¯s corpse. No matter how he ran around the neighborhood, disemboweling zombies, the he didn¡¯t find the desired corpse.


    Having curbed his anger, the Tiger decided to deal with the source of the problem, that is, the necromancer. Apparently, it was Rabbit, which was now somewhere in the center of the Ox¡¯s territory. That''s just an attempt to find the cunning undead was not successful. After all, a circle with a diameter of a kilometer is too large a territory. In addition, the Rabbit began to gather the undead around him, so that the Tiger, no matter how much he racked his brain, he could not think of a way to find out the location of the enemy. All his strategist talent was enough for was to start destroying all the undead. And when there are no zombies in the area... he''ll think about what to do next.


    And then began a real meat grinder, in which he grinded in mince the entire population of the city. He stopped only once to go to a construction store and get a mask to protect his eyes and mouth. Although it was a relatively fragile thing, wearing it, he didn''t have to worry about accidentally inhaling a drop of zombie blood. His hands were so strong that no zombie could actually scratch them.


    The endless carnage continued for more than an hour. He had already slaughtered more than a hundred thousand people, but the flow of undead did not think to weaken. But then he was surprised by the appearance of a new enemy. A humanoid figure made up of mud pushed through the crowd of zombies. When the Tiger struck it, he almost fell into a trap. As it turned out, these Golems were no less durable than he was, but they were much stronger. It was only by opening his fist in time he was able to pull his hand out of the stone grip. Despite their strength, the golems were too slow. Convinced that he could not hurt them, he just began to avoid a new opponent, not allowing them to come closer than a couple of meters.


    Another problem was the swirling insects. For some reason, they did not cross a certain border, but when he got into their habitat, the dragonflies tried to sting him, impotently scratching his skin with their stings or trying to get into his eyes. That is why he preferred not to enter their territory, since even with his reaction it was difficult to notice poisonous sting flung to his eye, accelerated to a hundred kilometers per hour. Even the mask, which was supposed to protect the face, did not protect from the insects¡¯ long and strong stings.


    The endless battle with the zombies all lasted and lasted, and the Tiger has already begun to come to the point that there is no sense in this battle. If this continues, sooner or later he will get tired, make a mistake, and the cunning necromancer will win over him without even showing himself. It was necessary to change something, but what exactly remained a mystery. In general, he saw only one solution - just to run away.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Dragon


    Although he was unable to prevent from turning into zombies the game figures which he killed, he was able to neutralize the biggest threat from them. The Snake''s ability was too dangerous. Not even for him personally, but in general. Therefore, by the time the undead reached her corpse, the dragonflies had already devoured the Snake''s eyes. And without eyes, her power could not work in principle, because it required ''direct look''.


    It was even easier with the Sheep. His strength depended on the number of killed people. And as soon as the Dragon took this power to himself, the ''counter'' of victims was reset, and the Sheep became no more terrible than a monkey with a grenade. Yes, it is better not to approach him, but Sheep will not be possible to blow up the whole city.


    That was the end of the good news and the bad news began. The zombies still could not detect him, but they were already wandering around the hall, reacting sharply to any sound. Also, dragonflies noticed a headless corpse flying in the air, the trajectory of which indicated that it was busy searching for living people. And he had some success, because a couple of masked ''lucky ones'' were found by zombies and turn them into their own kind. Of course, the speed of this flying corpse is low, but sooner or later it will get him. Then what to do?

 Chapter 8.06 Juuni Taisen

    <h3 style="text-align: center">Rabbit


    If the mummy could produce saliva, the Rabbit would already be spitting from irritation. The game has been going on for an hour and a half, but he has not been able to kill anyone. Yes, even the corpses of game figures captured by him were completely useless. The Snake lost her eyes, and with them her powers. The sheep had to kill a lot of people to get into power. But where to get them, if the inhabitants of the city have long become undead? Only the Northern part of the city is still alive, just where the power of the Rabbit itself does not reach.


    With the Ox was even worse. Yes, he had the power of telekinesis. But his power was based on the brain and spinal cord, and the Tiger did not hold back during the fight, completely decapitating the enemy. As a result, the Ox''s corpse was now barely able to hold itself in the air. At least Rabbit was able to adapt this stump to the search of a Dragon. After all, Ox¡¯s corpse could detect a living being at a distance of fifty meters, simply by finding a zone inaccessible to telekinesis. So now the Ox was slowly searching the entire probable area of the Dragon''s location. Slowly - because the speed of perception of information from telekinesis has also fallen. But at least now he was sure that sooner or later the Dragon would be in his hands.


    The second pain in the ass was the Tiger. This melee maniac was incredibly fast and strong. He crumbled the zombie into a salad without any resistance, showing no signs of fatigue. In the last hour, he had already destroyed eighty thousand undead units, like a whirling knife of a blender. If this goes on, he will soon run out of subordinates. After all, this wasn''t a million-inhabitat city, and right now Rabbit had about three hundred thousand zombies under his command.


    Rat skillfully hid, sneaking from the attention of the undead as well as a Dragon. Fortunately, the zombies were able to find the Horse''s corpse. The dislodged brains reduced the allowable distance for teleport, and new the Horse could only open portals a couple of kilometers away. But it deprived the Rat of the opportunity to escape through the portal, so it just needed to keep searching. True, the Tiger destroyed most of undead and this did not allow Rabbit to full control of the entire city, but especially for the Rat, he left an inviolable supply of zombies that will not allow Rat to escape.


    After receiving another report from his minions, the Rabbit focused on the new opponent. At the very beginning, when he captured the territory of the Pig, he encountered mud golems. These soulless creatures easily destroyed his undead army without getting the slightest damage. After about half an hour, armed neutrality was established between them. The golems went where they want, and the zombies didn''t try to chew the unyielding rock, because it has zero benefit.


    Some time ago, one of the golems encountered a Tiger and proved that even this crazy mixer could be encountered. It is difficult to say, fortunately or unfortunately, but Tiger was able to escape from the grasp of the golem and no longer let them near him. But it seems that the owner of the golems decided to personally visit the Tiger, and therefore stepped into the territory controlled by the Rabbit.


    The pig was quite clever. She hid inside one of the Golems, which was now moving slowly and steadily toward the Tiger. The undead were able to sense a living being inside this Golem, and now, the Rabbit was sure that it would not lose this goal. He must stop its movement at all costs and destroy it. Yes, the undead could not break through such defenses. But he has the strength of the Ox. It will be enough to take the blood of zombies and with telekinesis to throw in the mouth or eyes of Pig, and she will die immediately.


    The Rabbit gave the command to the Ox to stop the search of the Dragon and fly to the Pig. The only annoying thing was that the speed of the Ox''s movement was rather slow, so he just had to wait.


    Another pleasant surprise was the appearance of the Dog and the Monkey on his territory. The first soared in the sky, posing as a three-headed dragon, but the second moved around the city, skillfully hiding even from the undead. Only occasionally his subordinates could feel the aura of a living person, but never could notice its owner. However, he will deal with them after he kills the Pig.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Pig


    To move across the city, she decided to use a golem. She watched more than once anime, where the characters fought, being inside of huge mechanical robots, so she decided to use this idea. She created a golem of the largest size that she could create, and then made a small but comfortable space inside, placing an ordinary office chair there. Now she sat in complete darkness and observing surrounding area only the golems'' senses. However, she did not suffer from claustrophobia, so she might as well be patient.


    The only major inconvenience was the ventilation system. She had to stop at a hardware store on the way and get a battery-powered fan. So now she was breathing relatively fresh air, which was supplied to her through special pipes that went out on the Golem''s head. If only it wasn''t for the stink of rotting zombies, everything would be great.


    As soon as she entered the territory controlled by the undead, the zombies immediately pounced on her, clearly scenting a living creature inside. But all their efforts were in vain. She sent waves of sharp blades across the Golem''s surface, which instantly sliced apart any zombie that approached her. And the special design of the valves in the ventilation system guaranteed that the vile mucus flowing in the veins of the undead instead of blood, will not get on her dress or God forbid to her skin


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Dragon


    From a state of near-despair, he was distracted by the strange behavior of the Ox''s corpse. He stopped the search and flew towards to his former territory. The Dragon immediately used the dragonflies to find out the situation in that direction. In the zone of his control everything was unchanged, but a little further north he could see a huge golem, wandering through the undead on.


    The picture was amusingly reminiscent of the battle of the ogre with the goblins. The golem was more than three meters high, so the zombies looked like dwarfs in the background. And the coordination of movements left them to be desired. Golem simply walked forward, oblivious to the crowd of zombies, while they broke on his feet like waves during the storm, leaving a shapeless mess of hideous appearance behind the giant.


    This was a real chance to somehow turn the situation. It seems that their creator is inside of this golem. Probably a Pig. If he can kill her before someone else does, it will give him a real opportunity to cope with the invasion of zombies.


    With an impatience that turned to exasperation, the Dragon watched as the golem approaching the edge of his control over the dragonflies. He also watched the corpse of the Ox, slowly and sadly floating in the air. It looks like the Rabbit was somehow going to use it to get to the Pig. So, after he kills the golem¡¯s owner, he will need to have time to intercept the Ox, and then prevent the Rabbit from getting to the Pig''s corpse. Otherwise, the situation will only get worse.


    With a nervous sigh, the Dragon rubbed his temples softly and began to make a plan.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Pig


    She kept moving toward the Tiger. The streets in this part of the city were packed with zombies, as if there was a demonstration in support of democracy and the fair distribution of oil revenues in a third world country. In other words, the zombies could not fall because there wasn''t room for them to do so. She had never imagined that so many people actually lived in the city.


    Suddenly, an insect landed on her face and bit her nose. She screamed, slapped her face and crushed the vile thing. What the fuck is this? Before she could fully understand what had happened, she felt suffocating. Immediately ordering the golem to close all air ducts to prevent the appearance of new insects, she darted around the confined space of the cabin. There somewhere was a first-aid kit.


    She turned on the flashlight and found a plastic white box with a red cross, which she picked up in one of the pharmacies. She quickly rummaged through the pills, bottles, and boxes that were there, and realized that she had no idea what to do with them. On this her mind became clouded, and her head fell directly into the first aid kit. Her last thought was regret that she had died with a such stupid death. Not in battle, unable to kill a single enemy, she died from the vile bite of a venomous creature that had made its way into her indestructible fortress through the only vulnerable spot. Oh, she should have taken an air filter from the hardware store.


    If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.


    Her thoughts stopped there, and she died.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Rabbit


    At first, he didn''t even understand what had happened. The golem suddenly stopped, sank to the ground, and then took the form of an indestructible monolith. After a few more seconds, it became clear that the same thing had happened to all the other golems. Then it occurred to him that the Pig had just crossed the border where dragonflies were constantly flying in the air.


    Dragon!!! Again, the damn snob had managed to get to his goal first. No matter, he uses poison, which means that the Pig''s body must be intact. Now Rabbit just need to get to her corpse and transform her into the undead.


    That''s just attempts of zombies to break through the stone monolith did not have success. Even after the master''s death, the golem was invulnerable. But they look like they''re made of dirt. Maybe he should try using construction equipment? A quick search of the zombie minds immediately gave him a picture of a tool shop. Here he will need a long drill for concreate.


    But before he could give the order to the nearest minion to check the contents shop, an alarm came from the Dragon''s territory. Golems appeared in the building of the Great Conservatory, which immediately began to crumble the undead located there. And a few seconds later, literally melting the walls, a Golem of a very strange design burst out of the building. For a few seconds he tried to figure out what it reminded him of, and then recognition came. Three-legged robot Martians from the War of the Worlds.


    https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61HiT1uLbkL._SY346_.jpg</a>


    Unlike the slow golems of the Pig, this combat vehicle moved at the speed of the car. A little out of control, the golem crashed into the wall of the building, but did not bring it down, and again literally melted, turning it into the already familiar ''mud'', which slowly flowed down, freezing in strange patterns. After passing through the building, an eight-legged haymaker spider came out. Its body was the size of a minibus, and its legs were long and very thin. However, these legs easily withstood the weight, allowing the spider to run at a speed of almost a hundred kilometers per hour.


    At first, the Rabbit thought that the Dragon''s target was the Pig''s corpse, but the direction of movement was slightly wrong. A minute later, he realized that the first target was the Ox. The Ox''s flight speed was less than half that of the spider, so there was no chance of escaping the pursuit.


    Rabbit decided to prepare for the battle with the Dragon. Yes, the purpose of the attack has changed, but the strategy remained the same - to splash the blood of zombies in the eyes. The current abilities of the Ox are definitely enough for this. The Dragon itself is going towards his death. After all, he can''t live without breath, can''t he? If the Rabbit could, he would be sweating right now.


    It was such disappointment when the Dragon destroyed his minion from a safe distance. Dragon simply ''scooped'' a piece of the building with one of his legs, formed a small golem from this material, and then banally threw it to the flying target with the speed of an artillery shell. If the Ox''s body had been intact, it would have been easy to stop or deflect the flying object, but now he lacked the strength to do so.


    To Rabbit''s surprise, the Dragon did not destroy the Ox¡¯s corpse. He did smart move. In flight, the small golem transformed into a net that wrapped around the Ox from all sides. After that, the ''projectile'' in one precise movement destroyed the corpse''s spine and the remains of the skull. At this point, all telekinesis ''ended'' and the already useless corpse collapsed to the ground. The necromancer had only to marvel at how the Dragon had guessed about such details of the management of other people''s Signs through the undead.


    And then something even more amazing happened. Tricky, actually. The dragon placed the Ox''s corpse inside of the golem, which began to bury into the ground. Now the idea of this cunning and insidious opponent has become clear. If he simply destroy the corpse completely, the power of telekinesis would return to the Tiger, making him even more terrible enemy. Instead, the Dragon decided to leave the Ox in nominal control of the Rabbit, but to make it useless to the necromancer and inaccessible to the Tiger. After all, now to get to the corpse, he will need to conduct an excavation. And we can say for sure that the depth of fifty meters is more than enough to guarantee the safety of the sarcophagus.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Monkey


    Surveillance of the Dog bore fruit at the moment when this monster crossed the invisible border of the territory of the ''Lord of the flies''. Here, confident in its own invulnerability, the creature flies into enemy territory, and after a dozen seconds begins to yell furiously and spread waves of flame around it. The monkey couldn''t see where the flies had stung the Dog, but it was obvious that they had found the vulnerable spots.


    The dragon almost fell to the ground, but was able to orient himself and flew out of the insect habitat. But then something happened that the Monkey was subconsciously afraid of all this time. The devil flies overcame the restriction and rushed to catch up the Dog. By this time the dragon the was already on his last breath. The dying flesh peeled off in huge clumps, falling to the ground with a vile sound. The fire circling in the air did not allow the insects to approach, but they were huddled around, leaving no hope to sting their prey once again.


    The Dog has fallen almost to ground level, growing thick scales and turning into some semblance of an egg. Apparently in this state, he was going to cope with the poison in his body. Judging by his behavior, he is close to losing consciousness, so now he is trying to take a form in which he will be invulnerable to insect bites. But in his misery, he had forgotten that he was being followed by a far more dangerous enemy.


    The monkey closely followed the behavior of the flies and noticed that at the moment they are mostly circling next to the dog, not trying to get into the buildings. So, he sneaked into the apartment next to the dog that was finally curled up, chopped up the zombie that was found there, and then started watching, waiting for the right moment.


    As he had hoped, the fire surrounding the Dog began to weaken. Insects were already hovering near the surface of the ''egg''. Then there was a final flash of fierce fire that burned the entire swarm, and then the fire was extinguished completely.


    That''s the moment he chose to make one punch. Leaking through the wall that protected him from the fire, he ran up to the Dog and with one swift blow cut him in half. After that, without losing a fraction of a second, he went into a disembodied state and disappeared under ground.


    The plan was a hundred percent successful. At the edge of his eye he noticed that inside the meter-long egg was the brain, which he cut almost in half. And just a few seconds later, he felt new forces pouring into his body. The first thing he realized was that he no longer needed to breathe. So, he just froze in the thickness of the earth, where no one could get him, and began to research what kind of ability he was able to get.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Dragon


    Alas, according to the law of Universal Meanness, a narrow white stripe is always followed by a fat black stripe. Having successfully finished off the Pig and dealt with the corpse of the Ox, he found that in his clutches flies another beast - the legendary Dragon-Gorynych. Judging by his feelings, it was either a Dog or a Monkey.


    As soon as this fire-breathing reptile was within range, he attacked with all dragonflies available in that area. No matter what ability has this creature, it was not immune to the most powerful poison in the world. At least the dragon roared, began to pour streams of fire into space, and then lose chunks of flesh, clearly trying to get rid of the poison.


    Attempt to escape failed, because now the Dragon was inside a mobile fortress that could move across rough terrain at the speed of a car. Then his pathetic imitator began to fall, and attempts to burn everything in a row also became more and more sluggish. In the end, he took the form of an egg, apparently hoping to be able to develop immunity to the poison. But no one was going to give him time, because the Dragon was approaching the scene at full speed.


    And suddenly for his disappointment, the ¡®egg¡¯ suddenly fell apart in half, as if cut by an invisible blade. The dragonflies that searched the area couldn''t find anything suspicious... except a faint human smell. The sense of smell was not included in the list of senses enhanced during the development of dragonflies, and apparently in vain. Just in case, having memorized the smell, the Dragon promised himself to return to the solution of this problem later.


    Now it was necessary to decide what to do with the corpse of the Dog. His feelings indicated that the Dog disappeared from the map of the city, which means that he is definitely dead. At first, he wanted to destroy the corpse, but then decided that it would be better to give it to the necromancer. In general, a large animal is unlikely to be able to harm him. But the invisible killer who took the ''frag'' from under his nose must be punished.


    Looking around, the Dragon decided to first regain control of the abilities of the Snake and Sheep. And after that, he can think about which of the opponents and in what order should be destroyed. However, the location of the corpses of game figures he tracked constantly, so destroy them is not a problem. This means that Dragon can start thinking about his next steps now.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Rabbit


    The Lich howled out loud, scratching at the truck''s body with his fingers. Why is he so unlucky? For the umpteenth time, he''d screwed up everything he could. The snob Dragon got the power of a Pig, and now started hunting the Snake and the Sheep. And there was no doubt that this hunt would be successful. In addition, someone killed the Dog. Suspiciously, the Dragon did not attempt to destroy his corpse, which led to the idea that he intentionally left it necromancer. And no matter how angry the Rabbit was, he not going to give up this ''gift''. In his situation, any handout will come in handy.


    However, he clearly understood that a meat carcass, even capable of regeneration, is unlikely to be able to stop a Dragon or even a Tiger. Although in the latter case, it didn''t hurt to try. The Tiger''s invulnerability and speed will definitely come in handy. So, he ordered the nearest zombie to infect the dog''s corpse and then glue both halves of its body together. Who knows, maybe he can make something really useful out of this material?

 Chapter 8.07 Juuni Taisen

    <h3 style="text-align: center">Monkey


    The acquired ability of the Dog was quite useful. He could regenerate any damage, could change the shape of his body and anatomy. But most importantly, with this ability he was able to regain his youth and vigor in just a few seconds. Now he will definitely not be suffocated just because he ran a sprint for a couple of dozen kilometers.


    But the joy was premature. Before he had time to try out the new ability, he immediately lost it. Suddenly he was gasping for breath, and he with great difficulty managed to get to the surface and catch his breath. And after this dubious attraction, he had to run away from the zombies for a couple of minutes. Only by finally dropping the undead from the tail, he was able to return to see what happened to the Dog. Couldn''t he just come to alive, could he?


    As it turned out, he could. More precisely, the Dog did not come to life, but turned into a zombie, and now in place of the ''egg'' was some kind of disgusting shapeless mass, which literally absorbing the ''ordinary'' zombies that poured into it. It was not yet clear what would come of it, but it was unlikely that he would be happy to know the answer to this question.


    So, the Monkey silently cursed the unholy necromancers, then ran away, wondering who to as his next target. And next time, he will destroy the corpse. It''s not even funny. As soon as he was able to kill someone, someone else took all the benefits.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Dragon


    The dragon watched with some doubt the results of the Dog''s conversion to undead. Maybe he was in a hurry to make that decision? Because the output was some formless biomass, happily devouring other zombies. And how do you want too destroyed it?


    Once again examining the result of the necromancer, he decided that it is necessary to destroy this abomination as quickly as possible. However, it was not clear how to do this now. The mass was like a fermented dough. It spread out in all directions, absorbing all available organic matter. What''s next? It will fill the entire city and turn into a Blood Moon?


    Looks like he need to solve this problem radically. In general, he needs to destroy the Rabbit. If he hides inside this creature and feeds the entire city population to it, then there is no way to kill Rabbit at all. Except that the organizers of the game left somewhere here a piano in the form of an atomic bomb. They might have. Possibility is not zero.


    And at that moment, the sign of the Sheep in his mind gave out information that such a possibility really exists. In the very center of the ''no-man''s-land'' was the room where the nuclear charge was installed. And the power of the Sheep could detonate it. Well, that''s great. Only, perhaps, it is not necessary to rush with such measures. Because he will have to personally activate the five-minute countdown.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Monkey


    It was difficult to navigate through a city filled with undead and devil flies. At least the flies did not meet as often as during their attack on the Sheep. However, the Monkey did not relax and was sure that if even one insect noticed him, then they will immediately fly so much that instead of the day will come night.


    He was able to get to the Tiger quite simply, focusing on the position of the zombies. They all looked in the same direction, and even walked quietly forward. After running a few kilometers, he found with disgust that now the zombies go knee-deep in some vile slurry. Then he heard a strange sound, and just three hundred meters later he went to the square, where he found an enchanting picture


    A naked man in a gas mask, covered with a thick layer of blood and mucus, ran back and forth, turning zombies into mincemeat. At the same time, he moved so fast that the Monkey only realized it was a human when he stopped to allow the undead to come closer. The entire area was littered with guts and meat for at least a meter. But it didn''t bother the tiger, because with his speed, He could walk on water if he wanted to. And if he started waving his arms, he would fly.


    Only looking at this spectacle, the Monkey wiped the cold sweat and got away from there. He didn''t understand why Tiger with such abilities would engage in such useless activities, but he was secretly glad that this monster in human form wasn''t hunting him. He is banal will not even be able to get close to the enemy.


    No, it''s better to go look for Rat, which is probably hiding in some hole. Because here he has an important advantage. In a state of disembodied existence, he can see through obstacles. Accordingly, he can easily see Rat through the walls and ground. On the surface, everything must have been checked by zombies for a long time, so he needs to look under his feet.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Rat


    Rat had already lost count of the time he had spent in this basement. Now he lost even the ghostly chance to escape, because the ability to open portals suddenly disappeared. Only once again remembering the answers given by the Broadcaster, he realized how he screwed up, leaving the corpse of the Horse on the roof.


    Right now, he was just lying on a thin mattress and checking his future about once a minute. And so, after another check, the line of the future ended with his death. Quickly jumping to his feet, he began to go over the options for future events, but all of them ended with the same result.


    All the lines gave about the same picture. First, he did not see or hear the approach of the enemy. Second: in most cases, the attack was from the back, but if he was standing with his back to the wall, then the attack was from the front. Third, he was killed by a sword, usually cutting from shoulder to waist or decapitating. The direction of the blow was determined by the banal convenience of the attacker. Fourth: when the Rat fired back, at the time of the attack the enemy tried not to stand in the line of fire.


    The rat tried to shoot at the enemy, evade, and even escape into the street, but the result was unchanged. Finally, in one of the lines before his death, he was able to touch the opponent with his hand. After replaying this moment several times, he found out a few things. First, the enemy was invisible. Second, it was immaterial. And most importantly, it became material only at the moment of impact. And then the Rat just a couple of minutes was able to develop a plan that ended not with his death, but with the death of a Monkey.


    The algorithm was simple. Take a steel corner, sawed off from the metal leg of the table, and put it on his right shoulder, then cover with a jacket. Stand face to the front door, hunch to hide the asymmetry of the shoulders and start muttering some nonsense. In his right hand, hold a pistol loaded with explosive cartridges. The hand itself is placed so that the gun covered with a jacket is under his left hand and the barrel is pointed back and up. Wait for the right moment and shoot, while shifting to the left. As a result of all these actions, the bullet hit the Monkey directly in the forehead, and he blocked the sword''s blow with iron. Bingo!


    And then he just reproduced this sequence of events and received a well-deserved frag. Only after he discharged to the enemy''s corpse a whole clip of a gun, he was able to somehow calm down. In those fifteen minutes, he had mentally died almost a thousand times. The last details of the plan were completed only thirty seconds before the appearance of the Monkey.


    A little calming down, Rat took care of preserving the achieved result. In other words, he decided to burn the corpse, so that it certainly did not go to the necromancer. Fortunately for him, there was a gas boiler in the house. He had to work a little with tools, and then with an axe, but in the end, he was able to chop the corpse into pieces, string them on steel rods, and then place this disgusting ''barbecue'' in the heating chamber, where the gas was burning. After that, it was only necessary to light the fire and set the maximum intensity of fuel supply. Of course, he could not burn the entire corpse, but the head, spine, heart, liver, and most of the meat were now ''smoked'' in the oven.


    After completing this bloody ritual, he considered what to do next. Disembodiment and invisibility, along with the foresight of the future, allowed him to move freely around the city. The fastest way to move was to run inside buildings. There were not many undead, and he always managed to determine its presence in advance and bypass from the outside. Dragonflies were far more dangerous, but he could predict the future and always follow the lines where he wasn''t bitten.


    According to his ''internal radar'', he, Rabbit, Tiger, and Dragon are still alive. He couldn''t kill a tiger in principle. The last attempt was enough to understand that he cannot oppose anything to Tiger¡¯s speed. Although such an ability will be very useful to him. Moreover, in complete with the existing ones, it would guarantee his victory.


    If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    All he knew about Dragon was that he controlled dragonflies. During this time, he probably got a lot of abilities, and without scout, there is no point in going to him. And even after exploration, this candidate is questionable, because it is enough for him to increase the concentration of dragonflies in space, so that he could not even approach him.


    And then there''s the Rabbit who controls the undead. He doesn¡¯t know what else Rabbit can do. His ''inner radar'' combined with the prediction of the future showed that the Rabbit was closer to him than the Dragon. So, it was worth starting exploration from him, and then he will see. At least now he had a sword, a pistol, and the certainty that if he chose to strike, the blow would be sudden and deadly.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Dragon


    Despite the fact that the primary goal for him was Rabbit, he decided to start with an attack on Tiger. The reason for this choice was simple. He regained control of the Snake''s ability, which means he can subdue the Tiger just by looking. In theory, everything sounds simple, but in practice there were questions.


    Most of all, the Dragon was afraid of the Tiger''s speed and reaction. How much time he needs to look at a person to subdue them? Will he have time to enslave the Tiger before he knocks him out of the golem? Of course, the material which consisted the mud golems was extremely strong. If desired, it can even make the top layer soft and sticky, so that the first blow of tiger with a bare hand will lead him into the trap. But what if he''s not exactly an impenetrable dummy and can plan his actions a little bit?


    If the Dragon had been in his place and noticed the opponent looking at him from inside the golem, he would have just taken a steel rod and put it in the opponent''s eye. Yes, you can use bulletproof glass. But it will not help much if the opponent has time to deliver a hundred blows with the force of a jackhammer in a second. No glass can withstand such loads. And it is not a fact that the material of the golem will also be able to withstand the right impact.


    He may be overestimating his opponent, but it''s better than finding a metal bar in his head at the last moment. What other options are there? The easiest way is to look from a position inaccessible to the enemy. For example, he can fly up a kilometer. This pile of muscles certainly will not get there, and cannot throw something with sufficient accuracy. In general, this may work, but first he needs to understand whether he will be able to fly. And it would be nice to check the Tiger''s reaction to the appearance of the enemy. If the Tiger does not respond to the appearance of a decoy, then he can try something from the simpler options. And if he reacts, then there are also options. He need to think about it and conduct a couple of experiments.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Tiger


    Once again running across the square to destroy a hundred or two zombies, the Tiger carefully looked around. To everyone else, his behavior was supposed to look crazy and chaotic, but in reality, he was following a clear plan. Having no ability to track an enemy other than a sharp eye, he decided to set a trap with himself as bait.


    Now, as he shredded the zombies, he looked around carefully, registering all the changes in the world around him. Fortunately, his ability completely relieved him of fatigue, both mental and physical. In other words, he could accelerate at any moment, and a second of immobility would be an hour of rest for him.


    All this time he was waiting until someone tried to attack him. He was confident in his ability to dodge any attack, and then he was going to instantly get to the opened enemy and stampede him in all possible ways. For this purpose, he even prepared several steel pipes and axes in the neighboring building.


    He could crush zombies for days without stopping, and he didn''t get tired of it. After all, every blow he dealt was a blow of mercy, a repose for a lost soul. At this point, he has clearly found out that it is enough to destroy the brain and spinal cord and heart to guarantee the rest of the zombie. He conducted a thousand experiments, and this dependency has never failed. In any case, when he will attack the enemy, he was not going to hold back. After his attack from the enemy will be only bloody mince, mixed with mince from the surrounding zombies or at least with the debris of neighboring buildings.


    He will no longer allow the necromancer to steal his ability. In the meantime, it was left to pretend to be a stupid berserk and look carefully around. The sharpness of his vision guaranteed that no one would be able to sneak up on him unnoticed.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Rabbit


    The last acquisition of Rabbit was incredibly successful. A dead Dog has lost the ability to regenerate its body, creating organic matter from nothing. But instead, he was able to absorb the flesh of any other undead, using it as building material. And most importantly, thus way the barrier was overcome, which does not allow the Dog to increase indefinitely in size.


    After evaluating the result, the Rabbit decided to turn the Dog into a boundless sea of flesh. The ability of this body to dissolve any organic matter played main role. After all, there was an interesting question: can this type of undead ''dissolve'' the Tiger''s flesh? He was resistant to gross physical damage, but here worked a completely different physics, so the result could be anyone. And even a small chance of success would pay any expenses.


    In addition, the earth near the Tiger was now covered with a thick layer of dead bodies. More precisely, a thick layer of defragmented undead. Yes, they could no longer move actively, but the Lich''s blood still soaked through them. This means that all this biomass can become food for his new pet, which does not require even the slightest effort to digest.


    The only serious problem was the slow movement of the Dog''s flesh. But here the Rabbit had a wonderful helper in the form of a dead Horse. In just a couple of jumps through the portal, he will be able to deliver the Dog''s brain in the vicinity of the square where the Tiger settled. And there he will figure out how to use the Dog in the best way.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Rat


    He moved cautiously through the city, careful not to betray his location to zombies or insects. Bypassing the Tiger, he headed to the Rabbit. Exploration in the lines of the future showed that the necromancer surrounded himself with a crowd of zombies that occupied almost all the available space around. They stood on the street, filled the rooms inside the houses, hung on their outer walls and nearby pillars.


    This situation was repeated at every step inside the circle with a diameter of about a kilometer. Obviously, the Rabbit was trying to protect himself without giving out his position. However, outside the circle, the density of the ''population'' dropped sharply, and there the Rat could find safe places where being in material form, but under invisibility, was safe enough


    From such places, he predicted the lines of the future, where he fought his way into the ''circle of zombies'', where he made an ''exterminatus'' of all suspicious targets. He did not particularly hope that he would be able to kill a Rabbit with a random blow, and paid more attention to the undead''s reaction to the direction of his movement.


    If he was moving in a direction opposite to Rabbit''s approximate position then the zombies attacked him rather sluggishly. But if he chose a direction that gave the impression that he was breaking through to the necromancer, then the zombies began to run and jump twice actively and literally peered out of all the cracks.


    Gradually shifting the ''starting point'' of the probability lines around the circle, he got closer and closer to Rabbit, while remaining safe. He had already managed to determine the approximate location of the enemy, and now he need to understand exactly where the enemy was settled, and most importantly, how to kill it, while remaining alive himself.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Dragon


    The experiment with flying, alas, was unsuccessful. When trying to create a balloon filled with vacuum from a mud golem, he found that the strength of the walls rapidly drops when reaching a thickness of less than three centimeters. One centimeter ''wall'' in strength did not differ from ordinary ceramics.


    Leaving this idea, the Dragon switched to the idea of deceptions. Under his control, several golems moved to a part of the city where there were no undead yet, in order to capture a few dozen living people. He was going to put them inside golems like vehicle and let them go ahead, distracting Rabbit and Tiger.


    In order for the minion control radius to reach the desired area, he had to go to the eastern part of the city. At the same time, he did not want to lost control over the situation around Rabbit and Tiger, so in any case the area must remain under his control. There he had five golems and billions of dragonflies trying to get into all the rooms. More precisely, where it was possible they had long ago penetrated, and now carefully watching their surroundings.


    The death of the Monkey had not escaped his attention, and now the Rat moved in the direction of the Rabbit, diligently avoiding the possibility of detection. But the Dragon, taught by bitter experience, gradually began to replace the previously called dragonflies with a new modification with an improved sense of smell. And there were results. Not immediately, but he could detect the Rat''s scent. After all, there were no living people left in that part of the city, so no one could make anymore fresh sweat.


    The source of this smell was moving through the city, encircling the densest cluster of undead, which the Rabbit settled. In principle, the Dragon could try to get the Rat right now, just filling the entire space with his insects. If he collects them from the rest of the city, this will be enough to literally bury the desired area under a meter layer of dragonflies. But far more than the Rat, he was interested in the Rabbit''s location.


    At the moment, he had no idea where the necromancer was hiding. Of course, he could follow in the footsteps of the Tiger and start just cutting out all the undead in a row, but at his disposal were only a little more than a couple of hundred golems, and it would consume very much time. Such a quantity is not enough to securely block the desired territory. So, by tracking the Rat''s movements, he planned to figure out about rabbit''s position.


    And as soon as the Rat tries to move on to active actions, he will send to intercept his dragonflies and golems. Here the main thing is to have time to kill the invisible enemy in first and not let Rabbit capture the corpse.

 Chapter 8.08 Juuni Taisen

    <h3 style="text-align: center">Rabbit


    The Lich watched the Dog''s flesh spread through the city, and at the same time wondered what to do with the Rat. This upstart naively thought that he managed to avoid the attention of the undead, just because they did not rush at him in an attempt to bite. During the movement of the Rat through the city, he realized that Rat has an amazing ability to anticipate danger, and as soon as he tried to intercept Rat with the undead, the enemy immediately disappeared without a trace, to appear at a distance of several hundred meters. But if he just passively watched the Rat, focusing on the perception of life in his minions, most of the time could tell where Rat is.


    So now the Rabbit was actively thinking about the available options. He would have turned the Rat into an undead long ago if he could spray his blood in the air. A single breath would be enough to get the drops of blood inside the body. That''s just outside the body of the undead blood quickly lose their properties, simply turned into goo in a second.


    He saw the real solution in the Dog¡¯s abilities. Now Dog¡¯s flesh was slowly encircling not only Tiger, but Rat as well. The calculation was simple. Tiger if desired, with his speed of movement can run even on water. But if Rabbit surround him with a wide belt of necro-flesh, the surface of which is given the shape of foam, even with all its speed, the Tiger will get stuck in it and will be dissolved. Or the Dog''s flesh will get into his eyes, nose and ears. No wonder Tiger put on a gas mask and does not remove it even for a second.


    The same goes for the Rat. Judging by his movements, he can ''jump'' a couple of hundred meters at a time. If the whole area will be covered with Dog¡¯s flesh, he will get stuck in it like a fly in honey. So, all that was left was to collect more undead and surround the opponents, not giving them a reason to escape ahead of time. And then Rabbit can simply flood them with an endless ocean of inanimate flesh, leaving no chance of salvation.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Dragon


    Observation of the Rat showed that he stopped moving and settled in one place. After waiting fifteen minutes, Dragon decided that there was no point in waiting any longer, and gave the order to the dragonflies to attack any suspicious target. At the same time, special attention should be paid to new smells and air movement. At the same time, he sent all his reserves to this part of the city, removing most of the insects from areas where there were definitely no opponents.


    Unfortunately, the raging swarm of insects could not find the Rat, although it seemed to fill all the available space. But the Dragon did not relax. Sooner or later, the Rat will have to stick its nose out. And then he will face angry dragonflies and agile golems. Turning a person into an undead takes at least a minute, and this time should be enough for the nearest golem to get to the body and destroy it.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Rat


    Sitting in a comfortable closet, the Rat relaxed too much, predicting ''raids'' on the territory of the Rabbit. All these attacks by definition ended in his death, so he realized too late that even those lines where he continues to sit still end in death. When the gravity of the situation dawned on him, there was only five minutes left.


    Using all his abilities, the Rat began searching for ways to escape... and found only one. It was too late to run away. Dragonflies gathered in a dense swarm, which penetrated into all rooms. Seeing their activity, the undead also began to actively search for him, searching every corner. As a result, all future lines ended up being bitten by a dragonfly or a dragonfly and a zombie at the same time.


    He found the only safe option almost by accident. Now he was located in the historical part of the city, where many buildings were built in the Western style. One of the houses had a small tower that ended in a high, pointed roof. It was under this roof that he was able to hide. There was no entrance to this semblance of an attic. There was no hole in the roof, so the dragonflies couldn''t get inside. And from zombies he was saved by the height of the roof, because from the nearest room, where zombies could go, it was separated by several levels of the attic.


    The room where he found himself cramped, filled with dust and cobwebs. Crouching, the Rat breathed in the stale air and cursed his inattention, not stopping to look for ways to escape.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Rabbit


    Unexpected activity of the dragonflies and the disappearance of the Rat confused all his plans. Of course, he continued to act according to plan, systematically cordoning off the area, but now he could not be sure that his plan would succeed. In addition, the Dragon not only concentrated around the insects, but also sent more than a hundred golems to occupy all the strategically important points around the truck, where the Rabbit was now lying. And that was dangerous.


    Previously, he was confident of his relative safety, because nothing gave out his location. The sense of direction toward the enemy gave too much territory as a possible location. But now the Rat was somehow able to sniff out his approximate location, and Dragon seems to be able to track him down and draw the right conclusions. The most disgusting thing was that he had no way to deal with golems, which easily destroyed the undead and possessed unreal strength.


    However, before that he tried to fight them only with his bare hands, which was really stupid. So, he should have armed the undead with something like picks. In addition, a wave of Dog flesh can bury any golem under it, nullifying their strength advantage. It''s time to turn on brain, and not just hope for his ''superpower''. He has hundreds of thousands of performers of his will, and they should be used as effectively as possible. So, perhaps, enough to spend a valuable resource, entertaining the Tiger. Especially since the Dog''s flesh has almost covered the desired territory, and it''s time to move on to the next part of the operation.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Tiger


    At first, he didn''t understand what exactly had changed in the zombie''s behavior. Only after making a dozen more passes in their boundless crowd, he realized that the undead were no longer trying to go in his direction. Instead, they just stand still, and a significant part of the area is now completely free of zombies.


    At the same time, none of the game figures were in hurry to even approach the Tiger. Maybe he too hard pictured a ¡®berserker¡¯, scaring away all possible opponents? After looking at the square again, Tiger was forced to admit that what was now very simple for him, for ordinary people had to look like a real horror. Apparently, the rage of the fight did not have the best impact on his ability to strategic thinking.


    His senses told him that the Rabbit and the Rat were about in the same place, and the Dragon was heading in their direction. Maybe they decided to fight without him? But this is the perfect time to finish off the revealed opponents.


    After looking around, the Tiger leapt to the roof of a nearby building, routinely dismembering nearby zombies. Glancing in the direction of the Rat and Rabbit, he saw something that even his head''s hair stood on end. An endless ocean of flesh. Moving, gurgling, and twitching. From the square where he had been all this time, the city looked completely normal, except for the crowds of zombies. But then everything was literally sinking into the vile slurp as far as the eye could see.


    How could he even miss the appearance of such thing? If he had been running around the city looking for an enemy, he certainly would not allow such abomination to surround himself. Was it his... laziness that caused this state of affairs? He chose to stand in one place rather than seek an encounter with the enemy.


    Well, he would think about that later. Returning to the square, the Tiger cleared a small area of corpses, then crouched down... and jumped vertically up. Having soared to a height of a couple of hundred meters, he was able to assess the true extent of the disaster. It wasn''t that bad. The white mass surrounded him from all sides, but the width of the ring did not exceed three hundred meters. He can jump over it. And then he should visit the Rabbit and start cutting out the zombies exactly where he can find a real enemy.


    Apparently, the destruction of the undead did have a positive effect. Now he felt stronger and faster than at the beginning of the game. In the start of game, he was stronger than any man could have been. Now he was stronger than anyone could have imagined. He felt that if he wanted to, he could jump a kilometer or even two. He just needs to find a suitable ''launch pad''.


    And the best way to jump is right over there, next to another ring of flesh. There''s probably a Rat inside it, so he can take a second jump inside and make a total destruction of everything and everyone. With his speed, he could turn this part of the city to rubble in just a couple of minutes. Stop waiting. It''s time to attack the enemy and find out if they can oppose him at least something.


    As usual, the Tiger came out of acceleration and began to fall down. Now he will prepare a foothold and will jump in the right direction.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Dragon


    The increased concentration of dragonflies in the air alarmed the zombies, which also began to rush in different directions, trying to be the first to get the Rat. Dragon could see all parts of the city, so it was obvious to him that the Rabbit''s plan was to fill the entire territory with the Dog''s flesh and banally prevent the Rat and Tiger from escaping.


    Unexpected jump of the Tiger in the sky showed how much he underestimated this enemy. Obviously, he was going to simply jump out of the trap that surrounded him, and the first jump was used for scouting the area. But the idea that immediately came to the Dragon''s mind turned this situation into a win-win situation for him.


    He wasn''t just looking for the Rat for the last ten minutes. His dragonflies checked every scum in this part of town. Before that, he believed that Rabbit had decided to choose a method of disguise called ''merging with the crowd''. Just pretend to be one of the many, and no one''s going to find you. But what if the Rabbit looks different? Now the zombies resembled rotten dead, although in the beginning they looked almost alive.


    What if the Rabbit was originally an undead, i.e. an ancient corpse? Then it would make sense for him to hide in some place where there is enough space to fit one corpse. The dragon knew for sure that the Rabbit had somehow moved around the city. If he didn''t do it with the crowd, then he was driving. Now the traffic stopped, but he could see quite a lot of transport on the streets which sat zombie drivers.


    The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.


    There were several such vehicles in the part of the city he was investigating, but the first thing that caught his attention was an ice cream truck. This is a refrigerator, which is convenient to transport corpses, so that they do not decompose on the warm summer air. Dragonflies could not get inside the sealed truck, but they could penetrate the cabins, body and trunks of all the other cars. So, Dragon was almost entirely sure that he had managed to find the place where Rabbit was hiding.


    He was moving this way now, so that he could control these surroundings more completely. After that, he was going to attach with his golems this truck and see how the undead would react. The Dog''s flesh was spreading around quickly enough, so he had to hurry before the Rabbit realized that it could be used as a shelter. After all, it is enough just to ''dive'' into this slur to hide from the eyes of Dragon¡¯s observers.


    At the moment, the appearance of a Tiger on the scene of action was highly undesirable. He could destroy the Rabbit first, banally due to the speed of his movement, which would be a complete failure of all plans. Dragon assumed that by gaining the power of the Rabbit, the Tiger would be able to turn himself into an undead if necessary, which would make it even more difficult to kill an opponent. In addition, the Snake''s eyes only worked on living creatures and were powerless against the undead. And this is his only trump card in the fight against the Tiger.


    That is why the Dragon decided to make a bid to neutralize the Tiger right now. At this point, he will reveal his location to enemy, and may not be able to hide from the attention of the enemy. But in reality, it was his only chance to gain enough advantage in the game to guarantee his victory.


    Concentrating, the Dragon ''opened'' the body of the golem in front of him, opening the view. At the same time, long spider legs lifted it above the building, revealing a panorama of the city. As soon as he got used to the bright light of the sun, he noticed a small dot shooting up into the sky on a parabola. The tiger flew in the air, heading straight for the other two opponents. And right now, he was moving relatively slowly, and most importantly, he could not change the direction of his movement.


    The power of the Snake focused on the target and enslaved his mind, simultaneously putting in an order and setting a program of action.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Rabbit


    Tiger''s unexpected ''leap of faith'' put Rabbit in a state of shock. It came to him that attempts to catch this flea in a such primitive trap had not had the slightest success. All plans should have been changed immediately. And in the very first place was the preservation of his own ''non-life''. Hunting the Rat absorbed too much of his attention, so he noticed the threat from Dragon very late. Now it was necessary to distract the enemy somehow, and then cover the entire area around with a thick layer of the Dog''s flesh, thus safely hiding inside it.


    He didn''t dare do it previously, because he didn''t have complete control over Dog¡¯s ability to absorb organic matter. Dog ''ate'' everything that came into contact with it, and the Rabbit was afraid that Dog would digest him as well. Most likely, after such a ''transformation'', his action will be considered as a ¡®suicide¡¯ and will be recorded as a loser. Rabbit was not going to lose in any case.


    At the moment he still had ''a last chance''. In the basement of a nearby house, a dead Horse was waiting for the right moment, ready to open a portal at the first order to evacuate a Rabbit from the back of a truck. Of course, several ubiquitous dragonflies were also hidden in the basement, so his ''evacuation'' would not go unnoticed. But there wasn''t a single golem nearby, so he''ll have time to make a decision and move again if his main shelter will be revealed.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Tiger


    Tiger soared into the sky, looking carefully around. From his attention and perfect memory did not hide the appearance of a strange golem a kilometer away from him. And most importantly, he was finally able to see the Dragon. Perhaps now it made sense to change the priority and get to him in the first place. Control of poisonous dragonflies will allow him to take control of the entire city and quickly find the remaining opponents.


    But before he could even begin to descend, the Tiger''s mind was hit by a mental blow of incredible force. Even under maximum acceleration, he couldn''t resist it. All he had to do was protect his ¡®inner self¡¯ with the barriers of his will, watching as his body began to move independently, following the Dragon¡¯s program. Tiger felt that he still had one more attempt to break free from the shackles of someone else''s will. But after that, he will have only a fraction of a second to be able to destroy the Dragon. So, no matter how furious he was from the beastly anger that overwhelmed him, now he had to lie low and wait patiently for the moment to attack.


    Meanwhile, his body landed on the roof of the house, piercing it through. However, this did not prevent him immediately rush forward, on the move tearing off the head of the nearest zombie. As quickly as possible, he ran towards the goal indicated to him. Along with the order, he had a detailed map of the area in his mind, so he didn''t waste even a fraction of a second to orient. After several hundred meters on the roofs of houses, he descended to the ground and made another epic leap, breaking through the ring of flesh.


    The target was almost at the edge of a space that was free of the vile slime. It was obvious that the vile creature of the necromancer was trying to cover the same target, but with his speed of movement, it didn''t matter. Jumping to the truck, he tore off the roof, revealing the contents.


    And there, in addition to the usual three zombies, was an old mummy, which had already almost half fallen into the portal that opened directly below it.


    But the orders given to the Tiger covered such development of events, so he carefully picked up Rabbit¡¯s body and pulled it back out of the portal. At this speed, any impact on the target caused physical damage, but it was enough to preserve the overall integrity of the body and not damage vulnerable organs: the brain, spine and heart.


    After making sure that the target didn''t disappear into the portal right now, he lowered the acceleration coefficient, snapped a more comfortable grip on the sluggishly struggling body, and ran toward the nearest golem. Golem was already waiting for him and even cleared the space around from the attacking zombies. The upper part of the Golem opened like an ''iron maiden'', where Tiger unloaded the Rabbit''s body. The Golem''s invulnerable stone flesh closed, and the Tiger froze in standby mode, only occasionally distracted to tear to pieces the approaching zombies


    After only two seconds of real time and an eternity under acceleration, he realized that the Rabbit had lost. Apparently, the golem had turned Rabbit into mincemeat, thereby giving the victory to the Dragon. Inwardly, Tiger was filled with anger, but no emotion showed on his face. Now his body stood waiting for the next order from the Dragon, and his soul was preparing for the final duel of will, waiting for the Dragon to come to him. After all, to give him the next order, he will have to see him in person. And the Tiger was able to influence his actions in such a way that now he was frozen between the carcass of the golem, the billboard and the wall of the house, so that Dragon could only see him when you came close.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Dragon


    The plan that he came up with in just a fraction of a second was successfully implemented. Following his orders, the Tiger reached the Rabbit at maximum speed and ''fed'' Rabbit to the golem. Dragonflies noticed that the cunning necromancer almost escaped with the help of a portal. But the effect of surprise and the speed of the Tiger prevented an emergency evacuation.


    Dragon did not dare to kill the Tiger first and then kill the rabbit personally, because during this time Rabbit would surely have disappeared inside the flesh of the Dog, after which even the gained the ability of the Tiger could not guarantee victory.


    Right now, he was heading towards the motionless Tiger, while dealing with the inherited ability to raise the undead. All zombies, including the Dog, turned into ordinary corpses. So now if he wants to ''revive'' them, he will have to do it by himself. But there was a good side to the news. He could raise undead using any of his minions as a ''conductor'', i.e. a dragonfly or golem.


    The path from his current position to the Tiger was long. It will take at least five minutes for the golem to carry him to the desired part of the city. But now he is moving at a speed of more than sixty kilometers per hour. Unfortunately, the orders given to the Tiger were quite simple due to lack of time, so he did not have time to give him the order to get inside the golem. Instead, he ordered Tiger to stand in one place and protect his life from obvious threats. The zombies next to him had already passed out, but there was a threat from the Rat. The tiger might have consider the golem as a threat, because there were no instructions on this matter in his mind.


    And then, the dragonflies controlling the space next to the Tiger translated him a picture of the little small glowing ring that appeared next to the nose. A fraction of a second later, a stream of blood and brains burst from the back of the Tiger''s head, indicating that it had just been brainwashed by a pistol. Nobody don''t live after that.


    Almost immediately, the Dragon realized what had happened. Rat used the portal to shoot directly into the Tiger''s nose. The gas mask on that person''s face, of course, could not stop the bullet, the Tiger''s ''invulnerability'' did not seem to extend to the internal organs, which caused the bullet to dislodge his brains without encountering any resistance.


    Without reflecting on the unexpected defeat, the Dragon immediately sent dragonflies to raise the Horse and Tiger through them as zombies. And while the magic was doing its job, the nearest golem literally ''collapsed'' on the Tiger''s corpse, hiding him inside itself. He may not be able to get these powers for himself, but the Rat will not get Them either. And then he will figure out how to deal with this enemy.


    Now he no longer has the point to go in the direction of the dead Tiger, so it is necessary to do the opposite and keep the distance between himself and the Rat, who managed, by the way, to get away to the other side of the city. All his strongest abilities can operate remotely. The invisible man will not be affected by the Snake''s gaze, because he will not see the target banally. So, he can send an army of undead to hunt for the Rat, set off a swarm of dragonflies and finish him with invulnerable golems armed with grenade launchers created with the help of the Sheep forces.


    And all this time the corpses of Tiger and Horse will be in a safe place inside the golems, not giving the Rat a chance to become stronger.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Rat


    The fact that he can use portals not only to pass through them, the Rat realized only when in the next line of the future, he felt this power returned to him. Alas, all his attempts to get out to see what was happening there ended in death from a venomous bite after fifteen seconds at the moment of immateriality was switched off. It wasn''t enough to get to Rabbit and kill him, because he had already checked every possible place within reach.


    When the necromancer died in the next line of the future, and the possibility of creating portals returned to him, the Rat decided to run away to the other end of the city, as the Horse once did. But then an obvious idea occurred to him, which for some reason he hadn''t thought of before.


    He can foresee something coming out of the portal. He doesn''t have to go through the portal himself. It will be enough to open a portal with a diameter of a couple of centimeters and shoot through it. In addition, the portal can be opened, focusing not only on a specific location, but also on any more or less clear image. Previously, Rat personally saw Tiger in one of the lines of the future. So, he can open portal next to him and shoot right in his eye. Or even in the nose. If the invulnerability extends only to the skin, it will immediately kill the seemingly invulnerable enemy.


    Just a few lines of the future have shown that a shot in the nose is guaranteed to kill a Tiger. Without hesitation Rat implemented this plan. But within a second of the Tiger''s presence mark disappeared, Rat realized that he didn''t know who had killed the Rabbit. If it was the Dragon, he gained the power of the necromancer and will be able to raise the Tiger as the undead. So, he needs to destroy Tiger''s body before then.


    That''s just busting the lines of the future showed that it is not necessary to rejoice in the victory. Tiger''s abilities were not immediately apparent to him, but ten seconds later. That''s just during this time the Dragon had time to raise the corpse of the Tiger in the form of the undead, and all the awakening abilities were disabled, without having time to change anything in his body. Moreover, the ability to create portals was also disabled at the same time, so Rat chose to open a portal to another part of the city where the dragonflies were not visible, and jump there no longer caring about predicting the lines of the future.

 Chapter 8.09 Juuni Taisen

    <h3 style="text-align: center">Dragon


    The hunt for Rat has already begun to tire him. Like a real rat, his opponent found the perfect hiding place for himself in the sewers. It is not clear why he took this opportunity only now, but for more than half an hour the Dragon chased him around the area, and the Rat repeatedly eluded him using underground communications.


    To make matters worse, most of the undead were still on the other side of the city, and would come here by evening at best. Portals for its transportation did not work, because after a dozen past ''passengers'' the portal collapsed, and the Horse needed a minute to prepare for the next attempt.


    Of course, Dragon tried to use the local surviving population to create a new undead, but then came up an unpleasant moment. He could subdue a ¡®ready¡¯ zombie in a split second. But to turn a living person into an undead required some effort, and this action took about ten seconds. Too slow to talk about a massive rise.


    Now it is clear why the Rabbit went on the path of infection with the ''virus'' of the zombie through the bite. Although this method was slower, it did not require personal attention. But in order for this mechanism to work, it was necessary to first become the undead. To be honest, Dragon didn''t see much use for slow-moving undead, even though they could sense the living. So, after a little thought, he raised several hundred undead... dragonflies. Now they could not only fly, but also feel the presence of life. And the golems, along with the usual dragonflies, had to cope with the capture of prey. Well, at least in theory.


    But in practice, Rat went through cold water pipes and shit-filled sewers at the speed of a car. He was doing exactly forty kilometers per hour. So, the plan to ''catch up and punish'' failed on the first clause.


    In principle, it would be possible to go the hard way and force the golems to literally level the city with the ground. It would not be fast, but it was guaranteed to deprive the Rat of all possible shelters, expelling him to the open air under the attack of dragonflies. Apparently, such development of events considered as uninteresting by Players, so they gave the remaining figures only three hours to clarify the relationship. If the winner is not determined by sunset, both will lose.


    Naturally, Dragon was not satisfied with this, but the Rat did not want to lose, apparently preferring to act according to the principle of ''neither yourself nor people''. So, time passed and the game of cat and mouse did not bring results.


    In the end, Dragon spat on the search for the enemy and was decided to solve the problem in a radical way, as he always did - with the help of a good nuclear explosion.


    Ordering his troops chasing the Rat in the background, he moved to the central part of the city. As it turned out, there were bookmarks here ''with cheats'' for all Zodiac Signs. You just had to ask yourself the right question like ''is there a nuclear bomb here by any chance?''. In such a simple way, he was able to find out that there is still hidden the corpse of a dragon for a necromancer, and photos of all the game figures for the Horse. Unfortunately, Dragon couldn''t use the latter, because the Horse didn''t have the brains to do it. In a literal sense. What the organizers of the game left for the Dragon, he could not understand. I don''t think they left anything.


    So now Dragon was moving straight for the cache where a nuclear bomb with a capacity of about a hundred kilotons was waiting for its moment. At first glance it seems a little bomb. At least in a normal situation, this would not guarantee the instantaneous destruction of all people in the city. But keep in mind that the city is surrounded by an impenetrable barrier, so that the explosion will reflect off the walls and set up a total Armageddon here.


    It was quite obvious that the Dragon himself would not survive this explosion. But he wasn''t going to. Before initiating the countdown, he planned to turn himself into an undead.


    Finally, his vehicle reached an inconspicuous store, in the basement of which the desired device was located. After examining it, the Dragon came to the conclusion that he could use the power of the Sheep to enhance one of the characteristics of the explosion. Naturally, he chose to amplify neutron and gamma radiation, even at the cost of reducing the overall power of the explosion.


    The next step was the construction of escape routes. After all, the Dragon was going to win, and the prospect of burning in a nuclear flame somehow contradicted this. Therefore, he decided to build two buildings, the Pig¡¯s good power is perfectly suited for this.


    The first structure was to be a pipe through which the mud golem would lift the charge to a height of a hundred meters. This would make the explosion as aboveground, slightly changing the characteristics of the blast wave.


    And the second structure was also a pipe, but horizontal, leading to the outskirts of the city to its very border. There, the force of impact had to be minimal, so the protection from the golem shell and the overall endurance of the undead should have been enough for the Dragon to survive. More precisely, it was enough to save body in one peace and save intact one of the three vulnerable organs.


    Construction of pipe took almost an hour. After that, the Dragon returned to the center, checked how his golem built the tower, turned himself into an undead, and went to the bomb to dial the activation code. Rat was somewhere on the outskirts of the city at that moment, so there was no need to worry about it.


    And so, the five-minute timer began its countdown. Loaded inside the golem, the Dragon with all possible speed went away, destroying the passageway behind him. Four and a half minutes later, he reached the prepared shelter and positioned himself in its center. There were a lot of golems around him, which were supposed to act as a dampener cushion, absorbing the force of the blast wave.


    As he waited for the explosion, he felt the blast wave crumple all the defenses he had built and flattened his body.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Rat


    The scuba gear found in a sports store was a gift of fate for him. With it, he could come out of an immaterial form inside water pipes and sewers, which immediately solved problems with poisonous insects. Moreover, it turned out that in an immaterial form inside the water column, he can move much faster than underground or in the air. So, he banally glided along the lines of underground communications, hiding from pursuit.


    Of course, it did not give him the slightest chance to win, but he no longer hoped for it. The fact was that the Dragon moved on the surface even faster than him, plus he didn''t tend to approach, always staying at least a couple of kilometers away. In such circumstances, it was clear that the Dragon would win as soon as one of his minions reach the enemy. Rat could only run through the maze, pretending to be a Pac-Man.


    Once again, Rat shifted to a disembodied state and moved forward, calculating the options for the future. Only this time the fifteen-minute borderline reached to the point where he died instantly, without even being able to understand what had happened. Immediately running another line, Rat changed the route, but got the same result. The next time he guessed the transition to an intangible form a second before the ''Hour X''. Then he saw how the whole pipeline flattened. The length of the line was not enough for more.


    After waiting fifteen seconds, Rat created a new line. In it, he climbed to the surface and could see the brightest nuclear explosion vaporizing the buildings around him. Immediately he in the real world changed direction to be as far away from the epicenter of the explosion, at one time going through the options of the future and looking for a place to hide.


    This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    Alas, the longer he ran, the more convinced he became that there was no escape. There was only the mad hope that he could survive the Dragon by simply holding out for a few extra minutes. Finally, he chose an option in which he was able to survive the explosion itself.


    For a start, he got out of the sewer and got into a refrigerator in one of the stores. There he waited for the right moment and at the very last second switched into an immaterial form. The nuclear explosion destroyed the building along with the refrigerator, but not far from this place formed a small shelter in the form of fallen ''house'' concrete floors. They saved him from the heat of the explosion, and he took the breathable air from the scuba tank. Previously he had to change cylinders a couple of times, running to the sport stores for a few minutes, but now there wasn''t time for that, so he had oxygen only about twenty minutes, if he didn''t breathe much.


    So, lying in this semblance of a crypt, where even it was impossible to unfold normally, Rat looked through the variants of his own future, feeling in advance, as under the influence of radiation gradually refuses his whole body. With a last effort he turned on a small flashlight so as not to lie in the dark, and to have at least some idea of whether he is alive or not.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Dragon


    Dragon had not lost consciousness, but he had certainly experienced some shock. The arms, legs, and head remained relatively intact. But the chest was flattened, shattering the ribs and sternum. Fortunately, his heart, spine and brain were almost intact, so there was no immediate threat of repose.


    Habitually taking control of the surrounding golem, he began to dig out of the rubble. His senses told him that the Rat was still alive and less than an hour was left until the end of the game. Fortunately, the golems did not have any health problems, so they quickly ran towards the Rat.


    The area where the enemy was hiding turned into a burning hell. All the buildings were reduced to piles of rubble, and everything that could burn was burning, or even trying to, because there was not enough oxygen in the surrounding air. But the temperature was like in the oven, and the water evaporated as soon as it appeared on the surface.


    It was possible to wait for the natural death of Rat for several more hours, if not days, so Dragon began transform the rubble in the mud, just moving forward at the maximum possible speed. As an undead he had a sense of life, so he was oriented by it.


    He wanted to create new dragonflies-zombies, but at this temperature, their wings and chitin cover melted, turning the dragonflies into useless worms. However, not completely useless. After some thought, he placed the undead available to him inside the Golems. Those he created from rock extracted from the ground, where the temperature was only twenty degrees. And due to the massiveness, the golems had to heat up long enough. So, after a couple of minutes, small golem-crabs stuffed with zombies-began to run away from him, searching the area.


    This tactic proved successful, and he sensed the presence of life under one of the rubbles. He did not dig out the shelter, so as not to disturb the enemy ahead of time. Instead, the Dragon transformed the passage to the Rat into mud, simultaneously turning it into a golem. Finally, he was able to form an ''eye'' on the opposite end of the golem and make sure that the opponent was unconscious or close to it. True, the man''s face was covered by a scuba mask, but his breathing and heartbeat indicated that the enemy was ''on the edge''.


    However, Rat could remain in this state for a long time, so it was necessary to help him cross this line. And he even chose a rather interesting way to do it.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Rat


    Rat was almost unconscious. His thoughts were confused, all his abilities failed and now he only breathed air occasionally, obeying the survival instinct that kept him alive. But that was what he wanted, wasn''t it? Continue to live until there are no winners in this game.


    Suddenly, he felt a tightness in his chest. The next breath was difficult, but it was not the consequences of radiation exposure. It reminds... reminds...


    At that moment, a cunning lamb''s face appeared in front of his face. She squeezed between the concrete ''ceiling'' and the scuba mask, squinted and then bleated viciously.


    It was like... a sheep that had climbed on his chest. Realizing this, Rat breathed one last time, then the explosion tore him into small pieces.


    <h3 style="text-align: center">Dragon


    I finished watching the memories of the participants of this show and returned to the present. Yes, this really was like a game. But I don''t want to do that anymore. I have not experienced for a long time such swings of emotions, such intensity of passions.


    Also interesting was the way in which the organizers of the game ''deprived'' me of all abilities to magic. In fact, my soul remained in that light-filled hall all the time, and my body''s sensations were transmitted remotely. It was somewhat like virtual reality, except that I was connected to a real human body.


    Distracted from my thoughts, I shift my attention to the Broadcaster of the show which radiated dissatisfaction.


    ¡°Did you finish watching the memories?¡± - He asked.


    ¡°Yes.¡± - I nodded.


    "In that case, let''s move on to the second question. You can make one wish, and I will try to fulfill it.¡±


    The wording is not very clear. What does he mean under word ¡®try¡¯? He will try, but he''ll mess everything with his crooked hands? Or did he mean that he would try, but he wouldn''t do it? It doesn''t matter. I have only one desire.


    "I want you to remove the parasite that sat in my soul.¡± - Since we were communicating telepathically, I didn''t need to explain what kind of parasite it was. The parasite after my words began to radiate obvious interest, carefully watching to Broadcaster.


    "I will not fulfill that wish!" ¨C Broadcaster immediately disclaimed, spreading emotions, as if I hit his head with a dusty sandbag.


    "But you didn''t even try, even though you promised," - I said. The parasite nodded, confirming my words.


    ¡°NO!!!¡± ¨C Now, I could feel the fear coming from him. - "I won''t even try!"


    "Well, then let me make another wish.¡± - I suggested.


    ¡°No! You already spent your chance, no more wishes. Anyway, get lost!¡±


    At this moment, I was thrown out from the space of light, and I was again in the void. A few minutes later Being found me here.


    "I didn''t expect that from you.¡± - Being slowly said, critically looking to me like a limping running cockroach. - "You didn''t meet my expectations.¡±


    "Why would that be?" - I was surprised. - "I won."


    "Yes, you won.¡± - Being nodded. - "But you weren''t the funniest.¡±


    "Who was the funniest?" - I asked dumbfounded, though I didn''t really care.


    ¡°Rabbit. He couldn''t kill anyone in the entire game.¡±


    "But I won." - I continued to press with my argument.


    "And your wish is amazing.¡± - Being ignored my argument. - "That was supposed to be the funniest part of the show, where the Broadcaster fulfills a wish in the best traditions of Genies. Who''s going to laugh at your wish?¡±


    "What is wrong?" - I asked suspiciously. I have some vague doubts.


    ¡°Are you even know that more than a hundred Players¡¯ hair turned gray, trying not to laugh at this moment.¡±


    "So, is it a funny wish after all?" - I clarified.


    ¡°No! That''s all, the question is closed.¡± - Being answered too quickly. - "Anyway, listen to my advice. Forget about getting rid of your symbiont. You can''t do it yourself, and no one in their right mind will agree to help you.¡±


    "So. Am I need to accept that after nine hundred years this thing will eat me?"


    "You cannot prevent this. This is the fate of the best game figures. Anyway, if you make an agreement with it, maybe it won''t eat you. Well, as long as it doesn''t get bored with you.¡±


    I didn''t even have the words for such a suggestion.


    ¡°Who is my parasite that from one of its mention even Players tremble in fear?¡±


    "You''re not supposed to know that. In fact, you should be thinking about the next game right now. In general, it''s too early for you to play in your league. So, your next task will be moral assistance to another game figure.¡±


    ¡°Only moral?¡± - I asked incredulously.


    ¡°Exactly. You don''t have to personally intervene in world events. Your help should be limited to advice, encouragement and caustic comments.¡±


    "That''s a great help." - I assessed the prospects of my future ''client''. ¨C ¡°And what should be the result of my help?¡± - I asked, just in case.


    ¡°Your fosterling should win. In his case, this means that events should more or less correspond to the canon and end with the same ending.¡±


    ¡°Aha... I once believed that to achieve such a result, nothing should be done at all. The canon itself makes its way into reality by adjusting events.¡±


    ¡°Not always.¡± - Being sighed sadly. ¨C ¡°This is a high-difficulty game. In other words, the enemies are ten times stronger, so the game figure needs to be twisted in all possible ways. And I have a problem there. When the soul was implanted, there was too much fusion with the astral shells of the main character, and as a result, the hero''s insignificance resonated with the insignificance of the implanted person, so that we got a spineless slug with only the memories of the main character of the story. With such initial data, the chances of successfully following the canon are zero. That''s where you appear on stage. You will help my figure to snobbishly overcome all obstacles. And keep in mind that if he loses, it will also be your loss. Second in a row. After that, you can''t count on leniency. You already know what happens to losers in your league.¡±


    At this point, Being disappeared and I was thrown into the new world as a ghost.

 Chapter 9.00 Evangelion

    This was very strange world. And most importantly, I recognized this place. I was sitting in an empty train car. Seating arrangement was more like a subway car, but the train was traveling on the surface. The sunset painted the whole world in orange colors. In front of me, covering his eyes, sat a guy of about fourteen. He was listening to music on a music player and looked completely detached from the world.


    Is that what you are, Ikari Shinji-kun? I looked at myself and found that I looked like a real devil, who had come to sign a contract for the sale of a soul. That is, dressed in a classic black three-piece suit, white shirt, red tie and black glossy shoes. I looked at my reflection in the glass and saw an unremarkable face. Like James Bond on the road.


    I tried to touch the guy''s shoulder to wake him up, but to my surprise, my hand went through his body. I guess I''m a ghost after all. Even in this dream. Well, then we''ll pretend to be a schizophrenia.


    I sat back down in my seat opposite the main character in the story and spoke up.


    ¡°Shinji. Shinji! Rise and Shine!¡±


    ¡°What? What''s that?¡± - he asked, coming out of his trance.


    ¡°Hi. I''m your schizophrenia. Let''s get acquainted.¡±


    "What? What schizophrenia?¡±- My client was surprised.


    ¡°Ordinary.¡± - I shrugged my shoulders. ¨C ¡°Dissociative identity disorder. Have you heard of this?¡±


    ¡°I don''t have any disorder. But I have a certificate from doctor which shows I am normal!¡± - Shinji began to squirt.


    "Maybe you don¡¯t have disorder before, but now you have. Here I am in front of you.¡±


    Shinji didn''t have any arguments for that statement, so he dejectedly subsided.


    ¡°What do you want?" - He accepted my existence.


    ¡°Well, as always. I want help to you to overcome problems about you don''t even know that you have.¡±


    "What''s the problem?"


    "Um... let me think.¡± - I drawled, being unprepared for such a rapid transition to the stage of acceptance. - "For example, your father invited you to Tokyo-3 to force you to fight giant supernatural beings called ¡®Angels¡¯.¡±


    "It is nonsense." - Shinji grunted, laughing into his fist.


    "It''s not nonsense.¡± - I was offended. - "You''ll find out that soon enough. Your father wants to throw you into a battle where just to survive, you have to tear opponents apart with your bare hands and eat them alive.¡±


    "Why would he do that?" - Shinji asked skeptically.


    ¡°Well, as always, he wants to take the heated coal with someone else''s hands and become a God.¡±


    "God? Wow! Now I see for sure that you''re crazy.¡± - The larva of the god of insignificance sneered. - "By the way, what size are these Angels?"


    "About fifty meters high. On average.¡± - I figured out, based on my memories of the anime.


    "Will I tear them apart with my bare hands? Do you think I''ll have any chance?¡±


    ¡°Yes and no.¡± - I answered to both questions. - "That''s why I came. To survive and not die in a painful death, you will have to follow my advice. Only I know how to kill huge powerful monsters that can destroy all of humanity. At the same time do not strain at all, and lead a happy interesting life.¡±


    "I don''t believe it." - Shinji looked sad, staring at his player.


    Suddenly, he disappeared from the car, after which the whole world was plunged into darkness. I had to spend a few seconds trying to figure out how to get out of this darkness into the real world, fortunately I still had contact with Shinji''s mind.


    Moving my astral body closer to the material world, I was able to look around. Shinji sat almost in the same train that was in his dream, but this vehicle was ''desecrated'' by human influence. Various advertising posters and leaflets with text were glued everywhere. The train was full of dust and debris. A homeless man was sleeping shamelessly on a bench in the far corner. And across the street, a little to the side, sat a granny carrying a couple of bags of earth, with skinny trees sticking out of them. Well, it wasn''t evening, it was the morning.


    ¡°Strange dream.¡± - Shinji muttered, opening his eyes.


    "It wasn''t exactly a dream.¡± - I answered.


    Shinji shifted his gaze to my figure and jumped to his feet. Thanks to our connection, he could see and hear me even in reality.


    ¡°You?¡± - He asked, looking around. - "Am I still asleep?" - He asked, rather to himself.


    "You might hit your forehead to the errand." - I said, grinning wickedly and moving closer. - "If you''re sleeping, you won''t feel any pain."


    ¡°It''s not funny.¡± - Shinji replied, trying to push me aside. As expected, his hand passed through me unhindered. ¨C ¡°A-a-a-a!" - He exclaimed, backing away. Grandma looked disapprovingly at him, pressing the tree to her.


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


    "I''m your schizophrenia.¡± - I introduced myself again. - "And you can''t escape me."


    With these words, I also got up and brazenly walked through Shinji, which caused him to fall to the floor with his fifth point. After blinking, he jumped up and slammed his head against the iron railing. There was a cry, and a violent psycho grabbed his forehead, trying to soothe the pain. Fortunately, the strength of this weakling was enough to sting his skin a little.


    "No, I''m not mad!¡± - The madman wailed, denying my existence even though I was standing right in front of him.


    "That sounds especially plausible, considering you''re lying on the floor, talking to yourself and banging your head against the walls." - I agreed.


    After these words, Shinji almost calmed down, sat back on the bench and stopped paying attention to me, mumbling something like: ''He''s not here. He''s gone. It''s gone!''


    "Okay, I think you should calm down and realize that I''m right.¡± - I said to him in a comforting voice. - "I think you''ll realize pretty quickly that my appearance is the best thing that could have happened to you today."


    "Begone!" ¨C Shinji howled, covering his face with his hands.


    ¡°Well. I''m not saying goodbye. I''ll visit you again soon, and for now, take rest. You''re going to have a rough day.¡±


    With these words, I stopped transmitting my image to Shinji''s mind, which to him looked like I had disappeared into thin air. I moved a little to the side and began to analyze what had happened to me and to my abilities.


    I still had magic, chakra, and psionics. But the material world itself was separated from me by a kind of veil. Isn''t this the same thing I saw in the Stargate world? Then, am I something like an Ascended one? Funny. So, that''s what the world looks like ¡®from the other side¡¯.


    My magical abilities seemed unable to reach this world by bumping into an obstacle. I was sure that if necessary, I would be able to break through it, but then the question arose about the permissibility of such actions. Being said that I should only help with advice, which means that any direct magical interference to the fate of Shinji is likely to be considered as a violation of the game rules.


    After understanding myself, I turned my attention to Shinji. Fortunately, the shroud was not an obstacle to diagnostic spells, so I was able to study this sample of Homo Sapiens in detail. Nothing outstanding. It is even more correct to say: mediocrity itself. Mind, intelligence, physical data, development of the astral body- in all these parameters Shinji was at the level of ''slightly better than insignificance''. Taking into account all those cockroaches that lived in his head, the output was a real insignificance, which was Being talking about.


    It seems that at the first sign of problems, Shinji stuck his head in the sand and just waited for the problem to resolve itself, or when someone else solves it. Moreover, before the ''implantation'' of the game figure, Shinji was not so bad. At least he was an excellent student at school, diligently completing all the tasks. But after the implanting, the habit of thinking left him, replaced by a simple ''robotic'' execution of orders.


    The only thing that could motivate Shinji to take independent actions - is fear. He always felt fear. Those mental problems that previously led to a misunderstanding of others and a desire to withdraw into themselves, now caused fear and a desire to isolate himself from the world at any cost. In general, the resulting snot was an ideal object for manipulation, but by itself could not solve any problems in principle.


    After studying the situation, I finally understood what kind of shit the Being had put in my hands. Shinji had no will to live and even the threat of death or pain would not be able to make him tense up and do anything. Fear in his case activated not the desire to fight or even run, but the desire to curl up like a snail in the hope of waiting out the threat. Any activity that would require more than a couple of minutes of effort in his performance was initially doomed to failure. Therefore, it became obvious that Shinji himself would not do anything. Which means I need someone to deal with the problems. Myself, for obvious reasons, could not change anything. This means that there must be a third person, quite powerful and at the same time interested in achieving the result. The only way I could solve this problem was to summon demons.


    Even when I lived in the body of a spider, I had studied enough works on demonology and ritual magic to know that my problem had a solution. I''m not going to make a contract with demons, Junior Ikari will sign contract instead of me. Of course, such actions always have a price. And not only in the form of demands from the demons, but also in the form of ''kickback'' from the world itself.


    Only now the world was on the brink of destruction, and Shinji himself was supposed to become the new god of this world. So, this side of the problem can be avoided by including in the terms of the contract the summoner¡¯s acceptance of responsibility for the actions of the demon after the end of the contract. Moreover, it was possible to prescribe in the contract, the ''permissions'' of new god, which would give to Shinji the ''right'' to sacrifice any inhabitant of the Earth. At the very least, this right could ensure that the contract with the demon works and that the universe itself will take care of the contract''s terms.


    Of course, if Shinji fails to become a god in the end, the setback will be monstrous. In general, I was not interested consequences of Shinji¡¯s failure, because only he will put ''signature'' under the agreement. I''ll just be a lawyer who wrote text of the contract.


    The next problem with summoning demons was their stupidity. Yes, they are very stupid. The average demon in terms of intelligence was no smarter than a pig. Even the higher demons, who had lived for thousands of years, were not much better than animals in this respect. All their cunning and treachery was actually a banal inability to predict the course of events. Instead of planning their actions and taking a steady harvest, they preferred to cheat or take values by force, even if in just a few years they could get ten times more.


    With this approach, trying to rely on an ordinary demon could only lead to the collapse of any idea. I need to find a demon with enough ''human'' consciousness to appreciate the advantages of following a complex plan, and most importantly, the potential ''employee'' had to be happy for the future result, independently trying to fix the shoals committed by Shinji.


    After evaluating all these nuances, I came to the conclusion that I need to get into the local ''world of demons'' and find a suitable performer there. Each ''material world'' had an associated ''world of demons'', from which such beings were usually summoned. Of course, there were exceptions, but the essence of such a neighborhood was that the summoning of demons from such world was the easy procedure and required minimal energy.


    I knew the ritual of opening a portal to the world of demons. I will open it, go to another world and then conduct another ritual, the purpose of which will be to find the most suitable bidder for the contract. Such rituals were essentially the basis of ritual demonology, and therefore I could expect an acceptable result from them. In the end, if I offer quite interesting conditions, then the demon will try his best to comply to the contract.


    Creating of a ritual circle with magic was a matter of seconds. But the ritual required an energy to work, which could be extracted by a sacrifice. I looked around and went to the homeless man, who was still snoring. Basically, the Being required me not to help Shinji. This same ritual I perform only for myself, and there will be no benefit from it for people. Therefore, such use of magic is not a violation of the rules. So, I focused and tore out the homeless man''s soul from his body, immediately placing it at the focal point of the ritual.

 Chapter 9.01 Evangelion

    A few seconds later, the magic worked and next to me opened a portal leading to the depths of the unknown. Naturally, I didn''t go there myself, but sent a shadow clone. Coming out of the portal he found himself in a strange space, which was completely impossible to describe in human words. On the one hand, there was only Emptiness. There wasn''t even any space. On the other hand, everything was there in a state of nonexistence. With easy effort here would be possible to create any thing, but to calculate the consequences of such an act would not have taken any one God. In other words, my clone was now floating in endless Chaos.


    Fortunately, the clone had brought a small piece of the laws of the material world with him, so he was not in immediate danger of being disembodied. Quickly activating the spell embedded in it, the clone began to study the results. This ritual could be compared to the prediction of fate. It made clear which demon could fulfill the terms of the contract in exchange for the promised payment. And the fact that this ritual was performed in the midst of Chaos gave chances to the most incredible outcomes of events.


    Creatures of unimaginable power walked outside of the barrier surrounding the clone. They were gods, demons, inhabitants of Chaos and even embodiments of the Laws of the Universe. All of them did not exist here and now, which in terms of Chaos was almost identical to existence. So only the slightest effort on my part could attract the attention of these creatures.


    Finally, the ritual finished and a demon appeared in front of me, whose consciousness was sufficiently developed, and whose power was not enough to simply take whatever he wanted without giving anything in return.


    "What do you want from me, mortal?" - He asked me.


    ¡°Nothing. But one of my friends needs an ¡®employer¡¯. Here are the approximate terms of the contract.¡± - I sent draft contract to demon that detailed all the necessary conditions, actions, and rewards.


    "Looks good." - The demon chuckled. - "But the description is too vague.¡±


    "That''s all I can offer." - I said. - "I suggest you to answer my friend''s call and then study the reward by yourself. Everything will be visible at first sight. If you are not satisfied with the contract, you will simply refuse. Anyway, I think you''ll be satisfied.¡±


    ¡°Why this point is included here?" - The demon sent me an image that highlights one of his responsibilities.


    "I don''t want to look for suitable demons every time I need them. So, I suggest you do it. I think you can benefit from the fact that the new summoned demons to my world will be obliged to you for a non-dusty and well-paid job.¡±


    "It bothers me that you don''t want me to communicate directly with client. In addition, he signing the contract, but you have the right to give orders with the highest priority.¡±


    "You must understand that I need to protect my interests." - I began to explain my position. - "He''ll pay the bills. But this whole project is not for him, or even not for me, but for much high-ranked customers. And I wouldn''t want you or anyone else to go against Their will.¡± - The image of the Being transmitted with these words impressed the demon to a tremor in his knees.


    ¡°Well. I''ll take the job.¡± - He nodded.


    "Then I propose to formalize the contract and create a summoning spell that will allow to my client to sign it without going into unnecessary bureaucratic details.¡±


    With these words, the demon and I simultaneously smiled and laughed maliciously.


    By the time Shinji arrived to Tokyo 3, I already had the ritual of summoning of the demon to sign contract with strict conditions. Since Shinji didn''t possess any magic, the ritual consisted only of reciting of a long ''spell'' in the language of demons. So, everything was ready for the fight, and I just had to wait for the right moment and give pen to my ''client''.


    As soon as Shinji was about to get off the train, I appeared next to him.


    If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    "Do you miss me?" - I asked in a disgustingly cheerful tone. - "Soon you''ll be entertained."


    As if to confirm my words, a calm female voice rang out from the speakers.


    ¡°Attention, today a state of emergency is declared at twelve in the Kanto area and in the Tokai area of Tyubu. All residents should take shelter immediately.¡±


    The five passengers who got off the train quickly disappeared, leaving a bewildered Shinji blinking on the platform. The train doors slammed behind him and the train rolled away. After looking around, the schoolboy went to the exit, doing his best to ignore my presence.


    "What do you think she will meet you?" - I asked, watching as Shinji walked through the station''s passageways, guided by signs and text on a piece of paper. The answer to me was only a dissatisfied look.


    Leaving the underground passage, we found ourselves on a city street away from the main station building. After looking around, Shinji did not see what he wanted and wandered down the street, also turning his head. In the next block, he found a pay phone and tried to call, but the phone kept issuing the same emergency warning.


    "I don''t think I''ll have time to see her again." - He muttered, looking at the picture of a girl with dark blue hair and good breasts. "I must go to the shelter.¡±


    "You don¡¯t have enough time to reach the shelter.¡± - I reassured him, feeling the approach of a source of some strange energy.


    "Why would you think that?¡± - Shinji asked, finally acknowledging the fact of my existence.


    "You have a battle with an angel on your schedule right now.¡±


    "What?"


    But before Shinji could properly protest, we were covered by a loud rumble, combined with a gust of wind. In a way, it was like a slow explosion. Looking back at the source of the sound, the schoolboy saw helicopters of progressive design flying out from behind the nearest hill. A huge humanoid figure of an angel appeared next to them.


    "Well, you didn''t believe. Angel by his own persona.¡± - I said. - "Go on, grab your briefcase, throw yourself at him and start biting him."


    Meanwhile, the aircraft opened fire to the angel, which did not hurt him in any way. In response, the alien creature began to crash helicopters, scattering them to the sides. One of the aircrafts fell not far from us, and a few seconds later an angel''s foot landed on it, flattening it into a metal pancake and causing an explosion.


    "It seems to me. It is not real.¡± ¨C Shinji repeated as a wound-up, looking at this action with wide eyes of horror. One of the metal shards hit him in the stomach, knocking him back. Fortunately, the force of the blow was small, and the boy got away with only a bruise. "A-a-a-a-a-a!!!¡± - he roared, flying up a meter. - "It''s real!"


    Shinji was about to run away, as a blue car braked sharply next to him.


    "Sorry, how long have you been waiting?" - Katsuragi Misato asked, opening the door.


    Without saying a word, Shinji dived inside, and the car immediately darted forward. The angel, standing only a couple of dozen meters away, was covered in the flames of explosions from missiles hitting it.


    ¡°What... What is it?¡± - Shinji screamed as the distance between him and the angel increased to several hundred meters and the explosions went from deafening to just loud. Turning back, he saw how the angel walked calmly until it disappeared behind the buildings after the turn of the car.


    ¡°It''s... classified information.¡± - Misato replied evasively.


    "You see, she doesn''t want to scare you early.¡± - I commented, lounging in the backseat of the car. It was easy for me, with my immateriality, to get in there. - "Now she will take you to your father, and he will order you to destroy this monster.¡±


    "I''m not going to fight him! Even rockets cannot damage him.¡± - Shinji shouted nervously, unsuccessfully trying to see my reflection in the rearview mirror.


    "Shinji, calm down. No one is going to enforce you fight the angels.¡± - Misato said, focusing on the ram. The car raced through the streets of the city, getting closer to the suburbs. The high-rise buildings were gone now, and we were driving through small cottages with wooded hills behind them.


    "So, is it an angel?" - Shinji was even more scared. He turned again and looked at the tall figure walking through the city. - "Why isn''t anyone shooting anymore?"


    In confirmation of his words, the sounds of explosions and gunfire faded.


    ¡°What? No way!¡± - Misato exclaimed, stopping the car, pulling out of the glove compartment military binoculars and pointing it at the angel. - "Are they going to detonate an N2 bomb? Lie down!¡±


    Pinning the schoolboy with her rather large chest, Misato covered him from the blast wave. The explosion was really quite good. The car literally bounced and spun, rolling over the plowed land of the field that ran along the road. Five minutes later, the two poor souls came to their senses, got out of the long-suffering car and stared at the angel, whose silhouette broke through the surrounding fire.


    ¡°Are you see? Very impressive monster.¡± - Again, I began to act on Shinji''s nerves. - "No explosions can take it. The only hope is you.¡±


    "Shinji, can you help me?" - Simultaneously Misato asked him, trying to give the car a horizontal position.


    ¡°No!!! Leave me alone!¡± - He shouted, covering his face with his hands against the merciless reality.


    ¡°Shinji?¡± - Katsuragi asked in surprise.


    "What?" - He stared at her with madness in his eyes.


    "Help me move the car. We need to keep going.¡±


    ¡°Ok.¡± Free labor nodded dejectedly and trudged to help push the car. He wanted to get out of here as much as Misato.

 Chapter 9.02 Evangelion

    After a few seconds, the transport was brought to almost working condition, after which the passengers took their seats, and the creaking car began to steer onto the road, skidding every couple of meters. Without much trouble, they reached the entrance to the tunnel, where the car took its place on a special lift.


    All the way Shinji was silent, staring at nowhere. Even after Misato started asking him questions, he remained silent, only pulling out a couple of pieces of paper from his briefcase at her request. After receiving the folder with the ''secret materials'' about NERV, he went deep into reading, trying to find there at least some information about the angels and his future role in all this mess.


    When the lift got inside of the Geofront, even depressed Shinji couldn''t hold back the enthusiastic cry.


    ¡°Wow!¡±


    ¡°Yes, it''s the Geofront. Our shelter and headquarters of NERV.¡±


    "Do you know why my father wanted me?" - Shinji asked, falling back into a deep depression.


    ¡°No. I think he''ll tell you.¡± - Misato tactfully shifted the arrows.


    "You shouldn''t be so afraid to fight the angels.¡± - I continued brainwashing. - "As already said, I know a way to destroy them without any effort. You just need to listen to me, and everything will be fine.¡±


    Shinji glanced at me and then at Misato, who was looking at him.


    "Misato-San?" - he tried to start a conversation. I was constantly monitoring his thoughts, so I knew he wanted to ask her if she could see me.


    "What, Shinji?" - The girl smiled, looking at the embarrassing schoolboy.


    "Go on, ask her is it normal for a future angel fighter to hear voices and see all sorts of glitches.¡± - I taunted him, laughing derisively.


    ¡°Yes, no... nothing... " - the madman said, not wanting to make a mockery of himself.


    "I''m your schizophrenia. So, no one but you can see or hear me.¡± - I answered to his unspoken question. ¨C ¡°Look.¡±


    I climbed onto Misato''s knees and pretended to kiss her, caressing her breasts. Of course, she didn''t flinch, just glanced at her ward with corner of her eye. The same person blushed and buried his nose in the pamphlet given to him, shielding himself from temporal reality.


    So, in silence this couple got to the headquarters, and then for another twenty minutes wandered through the tangled corridors. Finally, the lost couple was found by Dr. Akagi, who led Shinji into a huge dark room. The doors closed behind them, cutting off the only source of light, and then the ceiling lights flared up, revealing the huge face of a humanoid robot.


    ¡°Face? A giant robot?¡± - Shinji asked, flipping through the brochure in search of information about this giant.


    "There is no information about it in the manual.¡± - Dr. Akagi said.


    After this she performed a brief lecture that did not really explain anything, but only called Eva-01 as ''the last hope of humanity''.


    "So, you want me to pilot it?" - Shinji guessed. Actually, considering my hints, only a complete dumbass wouldn''t understand.


    "Exactly!¡± ¨C Ikari Gendo¡¯s voice rang out. - "It''s been a while."


    Shinji raised his gaze and looked at the figure of a man standing in the ''aquarium'' above Eva''s head.


    ¡°Father...¡± - Shinji stared at him in shock, then looked away.


    ¡°Into the attack.¡± - The head of NERV ordered.


    ¡°Attack?¡± - Misato asked. - "But he''s just arrived."


    Another pointless discussion ensued, the results of which revealed that Shinji should sit in the robot and go to waste the angel, whether he wants to or not. In response, the future Savior of humanity raised his horn and threw a tantrum, trying hard to get rid of such a dubious honor.


    After a couple of minutes, Gendo made his next move and gave the order to move injured Rei Ayanami near Shinji. The girl was really not in the best shape, although the contact suit perfectly accentuated her no longer childish figure. The sight of a beautiful girl struggling with pain made even a coward like Shinji''s heart flutter. In general, the instinct of reproduction forced people to do more stupid things.


    ¡°Shinji...¡± - Again, I began to tempt his fragile psyche. ¨C ¡°...Agree to your father. I know a way to destroy an angel. You won''t even have to strain yourself. And besides, I can make this beautiful girl as your girlfriend. An obedient concubine, willing to fulfill your every sexual desire.¡±


    It was, as they say, a blow below the belt. Hormones boiled in womanizer¡¯s blood, and he shouted his answer before he realized what he was saying.


    "I agree!... I will destroy the angel.¡± - He added, after a few seconds, throwing a restless glance at Gendo, and then at me.


    ¡°Do not worry.¡± - I encouraged him. ¨C ¡°Just do what I say and everything will be fine. I''m your schizophrenia. If you die, I''ll die.¡±


    This calmed a little the panicked schoolboy, and he glanced at Rei, this time filled with possessive instincts, gave him confidence.


    Then Shinji was urgently crammed into the capsule, which was immediately loaded inside Eva-01. The last operations were performed under the sounds of explosions from the angel making its way into the Geofront.


    "So, Shinji, listen to me carefully.¡± - I said to my client, when he was inside of the capsule filled with LCL. ¨C ¡°We are now going to fight with an angel, which means that you will have to call to the demons for help.¡±


    "What?" - The future demonologist gurgled.


    ¡°Calm down. Your soul will remain with you. We''ll sacrifice the robot you''re sitting in. The demon will simply take possession of him, and the robot possessed by him will tear the angel to pieces like how dog tears bottle of hot water.¡±


    "But ... demons?" - He began to panic.


    "Do you realize that you can''t do anything by yourself, right?" - I began to press him. - "It''s not your fault that you have to call demons. This is the fault of those who put you in this robot. Let them be responsible for this. So, you''re just going to watch as the demon will bring victory to you on a silver platter, and then you''ll take all the glory for yourself.¡±


    ¡°Prepare for launch!¡± - Misato''s voice rang out loudly.


    "Think faster, or you will fight against the angel on your own and just die like the last sucker."


    "Okay, I agree.¡± - Shinji shouted, fighting with conscience and fear. No one paid attention to his words, considering it just a way to release the nervous tension.


    "Now you will slowly recite this spell. You don''t have to shout, just repeat the words to yourself.¡±


    I put the text of the demon summoning ritual into Shinji''s head. If it was repeated by a simple person, it would be very hard to activate it. But now he was in sync with Eva-01, so the pilot''s words were essentially the words of an angel, albeit an inferior one. The power of this body was enough to activate the ritual on the first attempt, opening a portal to the world of demons.


    "Shinji, what are you mumbling about?" - Misato asked, but did not receive an answer because the pilot was ''out of range of the network''. Now Shinji felt the presence of a powerful otherworldly entity that was slowly seeping into his consciousness. Fortunately, no additional confirmation of the contract was required after reading the spell, so the demon looked around, scanned Eva-01¡¯s mind and completed the ritual by agreeing to its terms.


    The main condition, as I said, was the sacrifice of Eva-01''s body. During the game, the demon had to follow Shinji''s general orders and fight the angels on his own, using Eve''s powers and his own. But after the game the body of the angel passed into the complete ownership of the demon, turning it into a hybrid of an angel and a demon, which in turn gave the ''employee'' access to a new type of magic and ''angelic'' worlds.


    Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.


    Meanwhile, Eva-01 was released from its moorings and transported to the catapult that would take it to the surface.


    ¡°Launch!¡± - Misato shouted, and Evangelion was pulled up.


    At this moment, the demon began to capture the angel''s body, devouring its soul. In addition to the soul of Eva herself, there was also the soul of Ikari Yui in this body, but according to the terms of the contract, the demon had to leave her alone.


    ¡°Synchronization error!¡± - The technicians who were monitoring Eva-01''s work began to worry.


    ¡°Main program failed!¡±


    ¡°All chains breached.¡±


    "What''s going on?" - Misato asked anxiously.


    "I don''t know.¡± - Akagi replied, frantically clicking the keyboard.


    Meanwhile, the demon suppressed the angel''s soul, seized control of the body and began to adjust it to itself.


    ¡°Connections are restored.¡±


    ¡°The basic procedure has been restarted.¡±


    "Synchronization is seventy-six percent.¡±


    "Unbelievable!¡±


    Before anyone could give the order to cancel the launch, all sensor readings were restored to normal.


    "Is everything all right?" - Misato asked.


    "Now, yes.¡± - Akagi replied, staring at the monitor in disbelief.


    "Commander?"


    ¡°Continue.¡± - Gendo answered to Misato''s unspoken question. - "The angel must be destroyed, no matter of cost.¡±


    While the discussion was going on, Eva-01 reached the surface and was only a few hundred meters away from the angel. The fastenings opened, and Evangelion''s body gained freedom.


    "Shinji-kun, now just imagine that you are walking. Try to make a step.¡± - Dr. Akagi began to give instructions.


    In response, Eva-01 raised her head and howled.


    ¡°What''s going on?¡± - Misato was in turmoil. - ¡°Shinji, what are you doing?!!¡±


    ¡°Synchronization is 100%!!!¡±


    ¡°The pilot''s harmonics are not defined.¡±


    ¡°Berserk? But ... why?¡± - Akagi said dumbfoundedly.


    The demon did not wait for the angel''s reaction, and immediately rushed to him and punched. Unfortunately, the angel was not a weakling, so there was not even a scratch on his skin. A battle of fists ensued, the participants of which resembled two furious orangutans. They waved their arms, jumped, tried to push and bite each other, and so on. Eva-01 was a little faster, but angel was stronger. In general, there was a parity of combat capabilities, so the fight began to drag on.


    According to my advice, the demon didn''t use all of his abilities. We needed to teach Shinji that everything in this world has a price. So, there was another sacrifice ahead of us.


    The pilot sat relaxed in his seat during the fight, watching the robot''s antics from the side and occasionally making comments about how to hit or where to jump. If he hadn''t been immersed in the LCL now, he''d probably have asked for popcorn.


    ¡°Shinji.¡± - I appeared next to the game figure. - "Your robot doesn''t have enough strength to win.¡±


    "So what? What about the demon? You said you knew what to do.¡± - Immediately he began to make his claims to me. Typical behavior of a spineless asshole.


    ¡°I know. You need to make another sacrifice.¡± - I made my suggestion.


    "W-W-what sacrifice?" - The pilot was startled.


    "Nothing complicated.¡± - I said. - "You''ll have to run up here, put your foot on this building, and say, ''I''ll destroy you in the name of the moon! Sacrifice''.¡±


    "So simple?" - Shinji didn''t believe it.


    ¡°Of course. Only, you will have to do it by yourself, for which you will have to take control of the robot.¡±


    "Can I do that?" - The pilot immediately began to doubt.


    "It''s not hard. You will feel Eve''s body as your own. Just imagine that you are playing a computer game with full immersion.¡±


    ¡°Well. What about the angel?¡±


    "We''ll move it aside for a while.¡±


    ¡°Ok.¡± - Shinji nodded, adjusting to the task. After all, at school he went to the drama club, where he performed quite confidently on stage in school plays. After all, there he just did what was written in the script.


    After receiving confirmation, the demon made several maneuvers to take a suitable position, then gave punch to the angel ''in the tambourine'' and threw him a kilometer to the side. After that, control of body passed to Shinji, who made a short run, stepped on a small three-story building, turning it into a pile of garbage, and shouted the required phrase.


    "I will destroy you in the name of the moon!"!! Sacrifice!¡± - The pilot''s voice was filled with pathos and with the promise of painful retribution.


    Immediately, a glowing sacrificial circle appeared under Eva-01''s foot, and Shinji felt how incredible power fill his body. Not only Eve''s body, but his own also.


    As you can guess, in this ritual, he did not sacrifice pathos, but the souls of people hiding in the basement of the building. At the behest of the canon, among the victims was Toji Suzuhara''s sister, who in principle should have escape with a broken leg. But the power of the ritual tore her soul from her injured body and fed it to the demons. Along with a couple dozen other sufferers.


    The ritual opened direct path to the world of Chaos, from which demon immediately began to draw energy. This was another new kind of magic for me. And I must say that the magic of angels, called here AT-field, quite well combined with the magic of demons, which should be called Magic of Chaos.


    With such amplification, Eva-01 immediately ''inflamed with the Springtime of Youth'' and began to beat the angel with double zeal. Pretty quickly, angel found himself with broken arms and legs, and his head bended to side. But after that, began the most interesting thing.


    ¡°Shinji.¡± - I attracted the attention of the victory-loving pilot. - "There''s something else you need to do.¡±


    "What else?" - He turned his head in my direction.


    "The next angels will be even stronger. This means that we need to extract as much as possible out of this victory. We need to sacrifice this angel to the demons while he''s still alive. In return, you and Eva-01 will have permanent access to the magic of Chaos.¡±


    "So, am I going to be a magician?" - He immediately understood what I was saying.


    ¡°Exactly. Now you have the power, while you''re sitting in the pilot''s seat. But after the ritual, you can use magic in your daily life.¡±


    "Good! What should I do?¡± - My ward immediately inspired with this idea.


    "I''ll give you a scheme of the ritual. You will need to use magic to create a ritual circle and read this spell.¡±


    Then everything went as planned, and the trusting mortal signed a contract of eternal service to the demons of Chaos. Or rather, serve to one particular demon who now controlled Eva-01. As a result of the ritual, the angel''s flesh and soul were ''exchanged'' for the right to create a permanent channel to feed Eva-01 with energy from the world of Chaos. After that from Eva-01 created a thin channel to Shinji. Of course, he didn''t know any spells yet, but if necessary, the demon could protect him through this channel, which increased my ward''s chances of survival. A little fact that he becomes a slave to the demon is not my problem. However, demon will not be able to use this right before the end of game.


    As a result of all this ''battle'', only bloody fragments remained from the angel. As soon as the ritual was completed, Shinji was covered by the recoil of the sacrifice and lost consciousness. Along with him, also Eve-01 ''disconnected''.


    All this time NERV employees were staring at their monitors and running around in circles, trying to understand what was going on. Telemetry from the robot came only partially, and what is happening with the pilot was a mystery. It was only clear that he still alive and in well health. Details of the ritual, such as glowing magic circles, no one noticed, because at that moment the demon usually surrounded Eva-01 with dust from destroyed buildings.


    After making sure that everything went according to plan, and at the moment the threat of the angel was eliminated, I was able to relax and investigate the situation at NERV headquarters. It was necessary to develop plans for further actions and learn to ''keep finger on the pulse'', so as not to face unpleasant surprises.


    Shinji woke up only the next day. Opening his eyes, he looked up and said his crown phrase:


    ¡°An unfamiliar ceiling...¡±


    ¡°Never mind, you''ll meet it more than once.¡± - I said cheerfully.


    Shinji jumped up and stared at me in disbelief.


    "Are you still here?" - He asked discontentedly, settling back in bed.


    "Hey, why such a dissatisfied tone?" - I was indignant. - "I made you a hero who saved all humanity. Where is your gratitude?¡±


    "It is in the trash bin on the corner. You can find it there.¡± - He murmured.


    ¡°Are you rude? Look, if you''re going to be snobbish to me, you will acquaintance with the Irish national fiddle playing in my performance. I can play for days without an interruption.¡± - I voiced my threat.


    ¡°Even I know how to play the violin. What are you trying to scare me with?¡± - Shinji asked naively.


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZxAVUsuE4Y</a>


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4W_feaIdTEA</a>


    I am not good player of this instrument, so, ten minutes later, he began to bang his head against the wall, begging to stop this torture.


    "Lesson learned?" - I asked, stopping my performance.


    ¡°Yes! Enough!!! I understood it all.¡±


    "That''s it.¡± - I said with satisfaction.


    Exhausted Shinji again collapsed on the bed, looking at the ceiling.


    "Why didn''t anyone even come to check me?" - The pilot asked. - "Maybe I''m dying here."


    "Who needs you?" - I ruined all his hopes. - "Did you kill an angel? Are you saved humanity? All right, get out of the sight until next time so no one can see you. Do you think anyone cares that you cracked your ass during the fight? For them you''re just another robot¡¯s spare part. It is all right if you are not dead. Did you see Rei? That''s how they treat her.¡±


    "What about Misato?" ¨C Shinji asked, unwittingly attached to his fellow passenger.


    "She''s your boss. So, she is only interested in your ability to go into battle, which, of course, includes your mental state. That''s what she''s going to do. Well, maybe she can think of another use for you.¡±


    "What kind of use?" ¨C Shinji asked, whose wet fantasies were already filled with the first application that came to mind.


    ¡°You will see.¡± - I chuckled insidiously.


    "Come on.¡± - He said, burying himself in the pillow.


    "Don''t sleep, you''ll freeze!" - I didn''t let him immerse himself in the fantasy world. - " Let''s take a closer look at your future concubine."


    "What?"


    "Let''s go. There''s nothing to sour about. Or do you want me to continue the concert?¡±


    ¡°No!¡±


    The threat had an effect, and Shinji rushed into the corridor, barely having time to pull the slippers. Walking through the corridors in accordance with my instructions, he just found himself in the right place that gurney were rolled near Shinji, which lay Rei wrapped in bandages. Her blank gaze was filled with indifference and contempt for the whole universe.


    "Do you see what they''ve done to her?" - I asked as the patient was taken away.


    "Does she not care about me either?" - Shinji asked quietly, plunging into depression again.


    ¡°Of course. Even the fact that you saved her from piloting Eva, she doesn''t see it as a help. But don''t worry, we''ll make her a little horny bitch who will beg you to have sex with her.¡±

 Chapter 9.03 Evangelion

    To this my statement Shinji blushed like a cancer and began to mask the physiological reaction of his body to the image that appeared in his head. Never mind, I''m going to make him a real overcomer. He will throw himself at tanks with a saber and chop them into cabbage.


    Half an hour later, Shinji was fed by a silent nurse who brought lunch, and an hour later Misato arrived. At this point, her ward was sitting in the waiting room, poking at a TV news channel that described yesterday''s attack as an ''unknown threat''. There wasn''t a word about Eve and Shinji in the news.


    On the way to the bowels of the bureaucratic machine Shinji met with his father, but, as in the canon, this meeting ended only with mutual silence and waiting for the moment when the doors of the elevator will close. Then Misato began to process documents about the enrollment of the pilot in the staff of NERV. At the end of all this bureaucracy, she managed to get permission to bail Shinji and settlement him in her apartment.


    "Ha-ha, she found a free labor.¡± - I commented on this news.


    "Misato isn''t like that.¡± - Shinji began to defend her.


    ¡°Pfeh! Say it again in the evening before you go to bed.¡± - I chuckled.


    And then everything went as in the canon. Shinji discovered that his new house was like a dump, and then a ''fair'' draw of the duty schedule officially gave him the status of a ''house-elf''.


    But most of all, Shinji was hurt by the case of Pen-pen. Running out of the bathroom naked, he was only rewarded with a mocking smile from Misato in the style of ''Hide your toothpick''. So, when the pilot went to bed late at night, my words perfectly matched with his own thoughts.


    "What do you think of your boss? Are you convinced that you are just a free employee and valuable expendable material for her?¡±


    "Leave me alone, Schizophrenia.¡± - He sluggishly tried to fend off from the filling of the wound with salt.


    ¡°If you want, I will tell you how to turn Misato into the perfect housewife and hot concubine? She can teach you what it means to be a man.¡± - The answer to me was an interested look from under the blanket. - "Come on, get out of your cot. We will perform the ritual of a demon possession into your boss''s body. And not just a simple demon, but a succubus.¡±


    ¡°Suck... What?¡± - The newbie demonologist threw aside the blanket.


    ¡°Succubus. This is a type of demon that loves to have sex.¡±


    ¡°What is the possession?¡±


    "Haven''t you read books?" - I disappointedly said. - "Possession is when a demon invades a person''s body and takes control of that body for itself. The soul of the person will be under its power and may not even be aware of its own enslavement.¡±


    "Wont other people start to worry because of the change in Misato''s behavior?" - He asked an unexpectedly sensible question.


    ¡°We will make sure that the succubus only appears when Misato returns to home. And the rest of the time, she will behave as usual.¡±


    ¡°Okay. What should I do?¡± - Shinji agreed to this adventure, already languishing from sexual desire.


    ¡°So, catch the description of the ritual...¡± - I began to tell him the details of my plan.


    Actually, the idea with a succubus I had not because of a desire to make please to my ward, but in order to bind him to this life. To create threads for which I can pull it, achieving the desired result. Otherwise, he will be lie in a permanent depression, not wanting to move a finger for the sake of my salvation.


    The ritual has been performed without a hitch, and after fifteen minutes Misato burst into Shinji''s room, which immediately attacked him with goal to rape him in all possible ways. Naturally, at this moment her body was already controlled by succubus, which I assigned the tactical nickname ''Mesucko'' to distinguish her from the original owner of this body.


    As you might expect, the stamina of the fourteen-year-old teenager was only enough for a couple of quick orgasms. But the succubus was not satisfied with this and quickly taught him a couple of spells - maintaining an erection and increasing the size of the penis. After that, the real festival of flesh began, ending well after midnight.


    In the morning, happy as an elephant, Shinji woke up from morning blowjob. After that, there was a quick ''hook-up'', then the sweet couple went to the Geofront. As soon as Mesucko crossed the threshold of the apartment, she immediately turned into Misato, who was absolutely sure that she did not do anything wrong with Shinji, and in general, he is still a child. ''Child'' satisfied to such transformation, and he went with a happy smile to save humanity once again.


    But that smile quickly faded when it turned out that he needed to take part in synchronization experiments as a laboratory sample, which requires sitting in a capsule filled with LCL for six hours without a break. All alone, suffering from boredom and under the sights of cameras and hundreds of other sensors.


    Tellingly, gratitude for victory over angel he received only from Misato. Everyone else looked at the Third Child as an empty space, or at best, as the son of the Commander.


    While Shinji was suffering from a lack of information, I was suffering from its excess. I am already used to having access to a powerful computer in the Vritras body that can analyze large amounts of data. Now I had no body at all, so I couldn''t connect a computer to my mind. I was about to create a small computer in some abandoned place where no one would find it, but then my eyes fell on the penguin, who unfortunately decided to get out of the refrigerator. Quickly scanning his mind, I found out that this is exactly what I need.


    Long time ago, Pen-Pen was created as a prototype for the development of MAGI computers technology. In the iron ''backpack'' on his back was a powerful quantum computer connected to his brain. With help of this computer the penguin was able to get so smart that the level of intelligence approached humans.


    I immediately cast a mind control spell on the ''bird'', and then gave the task to the demon in Eve-01 to create a separate channel of magical energy to the penguin. Then I just had to power penguin¡¯s body and computer with energy of Chaos and put before Pen-Pen the task of calculating a theoretical model of magic of Chaos. I could not pass by such a phenomenon without trying to get a profit for myself. So, now the penguin was always sitting in the refrigerator, using it for cooling the computer working at full power.


    In the evening, Shinji arrived to home in the company of Misato, and then exhausted fell on the bed. But after five minutes, a boredom again overcame him, and he went to the kitchen to get some food for the mind along with food for the body. There, he was surprised to find Mesucko, dressed only in an apron, engaged in cleaning the apartment and cooking dinner. Unlike Misato, succubus was not averse to doing household chores, if as payment she was offered unlimited sex.


    After a hearty meal, Mesucko turned to her ''owner'', while washing dishes.


    ¡°Shinji, can you please check Pen-Pen? He didn''t come out for dinner.¡±


    The boy went to the big refrigerator and opened the door. He saw a penguin standing with its wings outstretched. Penguin¡¯s mouth was open, eyes glowed with an otherworldly light, and lightning ran through bird¡¯s entire body. After looking at my evil smile, Shinji closed the refrigerator and headed back.


    "I think he''s fine.¡± - He reported.


    ¡°Well. Then... undress.¡± - Mesucko ordered, turning off the water and wiping her hands with a towel. - "I haven''t had your special dessert yet."


    "What?" - Shinji only managed to squeak, before the depraved succubus got to his puny body and began to suck the dessert from the distribution sprout.


    In general, Shinji''s life quickly entered a peaceful course. After a couple of days of experimentation, Dr. Akagi relented and reduced the strain on the valuable sample to four hours in a day. But before the pilot could be happy about this, he was immediately tasked to go to school.


    A day later, Ayanami Rei, whom I had previously predicted to be Shinji''s concubine, also appeared in class. Of course, now he already had an object to relieve sexual tension, but he did not forget my promise, which he was not lazy to remind.


    The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.


    "All right, Shinji. I have an idea.¡± - I said, assessing the situation. At the moment, in my luggage had only those spells of Chaos that Mesucko, and now I was going to teach Shinji to one of them. - "Basically, after school you come up to her and say that you want to help her recover, so that she can return to the duties of a pilot as soon as possible. After that, you take her aside and explain that for each session of sex you will put a healing spell on her. Well, you''ll put it ¡®on debt¡¯ for the first time. After that, she will not leave you alone until she fully recovers, which with the effectiveness of this spell will take at least a couple of weeks.¡±


    "Do you think she''ll agree to it?" - Shinji questioned my impeccability.


    "Sure.¡±


    "What are we going to do after two weeks?"


    "We''ll see." - I shrugged it off. - "She''ll probably like it so much that she won''t even remember that there''s no need for healing."


    Oddly enough, such a way of ¡®hooking a girl'' was a success. Because, Rei is not understood what shame and morality is, so for her, these ''healing sessions'' were just a form of physical exercise. No, she enjoyed it, but without reminding Shinji, she was not very enthusiastic about it. But her boyfriend got so accustomed to ''healing'' her that he did it almost at every break between lessons. I even had to teach him a weak eye-averting spell to make it easier to find places for ''healing sessions''.


    This idyll continued for more than a week, until one day Suzuhara Toji showed up in the class. He spent two weeks in the hospital with his sister lying in a coma, but in the end the soulless body simply stopped breathing and finally died. A friend of this school bully, Aida Kensuke made the assumption that Shinji is the pilot of the robot that fought with the angel. As a result, the schoolmates led the naive student to an honest answer, after which he had to face not only the enthusiastic attention of the entire class, but also Toji''s heavy fists.


    After school he literally pulled Shinji out of class, taken to a secluded place, and then carefully began to beat, trying to break all bones in the body of his sister''s murderer. Although Shinji was a master of magic, he didn''t know any combat or defensive spells, so he couldn''t resist such treatment.


    I waited until the pain from the fractured bones filled my ward''s entire consciousness, then offered to give him strength and martial arts skills by temporarily summoning the demon into his body. Of course, he immediately agreed and repeated the invocation formula embedded in his mind.


    A few seconds later, events took an unexpected turn. As payment for the help, the demon was able to temporarily control Shinji''s body, so he didn''t hold back. Its only restriction was the prohibition of killing people. So, the next kick to the kidneys was stopped by an unexpectedly strong hand. The pilot''s hand clenched, and all bones in Toji''s foot turned into shards. And after that, it was not even a beating, but a real session of torture. Even Aida Kensuke, who had just stood by and watched the humiliation of a classmate, received similar treatment. When the demon considered his work done, the two hooligans were left with only torn bodies, in which life barely warmed.


    "What have you done?"!!¡± - Shinji shouted, falling to his knees and examining his hands, which were covered with blood up to his shoulders.


    "What have I done? You''re the one who summoned the demon.¡±


    "You offered it to me!" - The savior of mankind become hysterical.


    "Well, there''s not much I''ve suggested. Do not shift from a sick head to a healthy Schizophrenia. You summoned a demon to beat these idiots. You sacrificed his sister.¡±


    ¡°I didn''t sacrifice her.¡±


    ¡°You did¡± - I rejected this argument. - "Or do you think you got the power to kill an angel without payment? When you stepped on that house, you crushed two dozen people hiding there.¡±


    "What? No!!! You told me to do it!¡± - The mass murderer began to cry.


    ¡°I said. But you did it.¡±


    "What do you want? How can I live now?¡± - Shinji whined, looking at the two half-corpses. - "I''m a murderer now!"


    "You are the savior of mankind. Their death was not in vain, and they died for the sake of all the others. Why are you freaking out? Do you think your superiors don''t know about these deaths? They well aware of that. And they didn''t tell you anything because they thought these sacrifices were inconsequential.


    "You''re a demon!" - Shinji whispered, looking at me.


    "No, not at all. I''m still learning.¡± - I lowered my eyes modestly.


    "Do you think I can get away from this murder?" - Shinji nodded at the unconscious bodies.


    ¡°Unlikely. But you can fix it.¡±


    ¡°Really? How?¡± - The sinner was inflamed with a new hope of salvation.


    ¡°Offer them to become your slaves and possess demons into their bodies. After that, their wounds will heal in just a few minutes.¡±


    Shinji looked at the limbs lying apart from the body and looked at me skeptically.


    "Are you sure?"


    ¡°Sure-sure.¡± - I reassured him. - "And if they refuse, then it''s their own fault. Why are you sobbing all the time? These two freaks just tried to kill you. Or have you forgotten in what state you were when the demon was summoned?¡±


    Shinji ran his hand over the entire skin of his forearm, which, as he remembered was broken, and fragments of bone were sticking out.


    ¡°Ok. What is the ritual? If they don''t agree, we need to dispose the bodies.¡±


    Fortunately, realizing their situation, the students immediately agreed to all the conditions, without even listening to them. Death was already breathing in their backs, so their desire to live outweighed all other arguments. Fifteen minutes later, the whole trio were trotting toward the gym to get rid of the blood that covered their bodies.


    After this incident, the two lobsters became Shinji''s best friends. At least on the surface. The demons in their bodies explained in detail what would happen if the ''master'' will be dissatisfied. But in their hearts, Toji and Kensuke were afraid of their classmate to the point of unconsciousness. After all, in their memory perfectly preserved memories of the moment when a clogged sucker turned into a bloodthirsty demon.


    A couple of days later, the next angel attacked the city. Shamshel looked like an angel from the canon, only ''whips'' he had not two, but all ten. Angel waved them so fast that if Eve-01 only had a normal AT-field, then the angel would have chop her to pieces without much trouble. The demon forced to concentrate on defense, so there was no time to attack. Meanwhile, the angel pressed more and more, only getting hot from the sight of a helpless opponent.


    And just as Eva-01 was once again thrown aside, a pair of Shinji''s slaves came into view, crawling out of their hiding place to watch the battle with the angel.


    "We are forever responsible for those we have tamed.¡± - I said philosophically, watching Shinji''s moral torment.


    In the end, he repeated his feat from the canon and allowed two friends to come to him inside a contact capsule. At least they didn''t have to climb to a height of twenty meters by themselves, Eva quickly throw them with telekinesis to the capsule.


    Alas, further events began to diverge from the canon more and more. Although Shinji did not personally control the robot, he could clearly see that the angel was too strong, and with each minute the chances of victory became more elusive.


    "What should I do?" - He shouted when the whips pierced Eva''s body, splashing around her guts.


    "You know the answer. Sacrifice to the demons must be performed.¡± - I replied melancholically. In fact, the situation of Eva-01 was not so difficult, but there was still little chance of victory. At least without any additional amplification.


    ¡°No!!! I won''t do it!¡± - Shinji shouted, trying to preserve the remnants of his humanity.


    "Then this angel will eat you. Look how interesting his mouth is.¡± - At this moment, the angel once again made an unsuccessful attempt to bite the robot. - "And then all these people will die anyway, only for no use. Realize, they have no chance of survival in principle. The only question is, whether they will die in order for billions of other people to survive, or die in order to satisfy the angel''s hunger a little.¡±


    ¡°No! I can''t sacrifice them. This is inhumane!¡±


    Toji and Kens''ke didn''t hear my voice, but they had enough of Shinji''s monologue to know what we were talking about. And if for the photographer this dilemma was largely theoretical, then Toji''s thoughts were cut without a knife. After all, in the last battle, his sister was the price that had to be paid for the victory.


    Finally, when Eva-01 lost her right arm and left foot, Shinji realized that just a little more, and all his moral torment would end in his own death. His selfish thoughts were warmed by demands of Misato and Gendo to fight the angel until the end and win it at any cost. Having decided on the sacrifice, Shinji literally gave up and agreed to do whatever I told him to do.


    And then everything was simple. Eve leaped to the side, forming a circle for sacrifice ritual under her left arm, and two hundred people hiding in the shelter directly below us lost their lives in a single moment.


    This ritual really was our trump card. Two hundred souls and the angel himself paid for the summoning of three huge demons. They were smaller than Eve or angel, but size was not the main thing. These creatures were truly powerful inhabitants of Chaos, for whom creatures like our opponent were just food. Even the demon sitting in Eva was a small bug in front of them. The only thing that kept these demons from destroying the entire population of the Earth was the terms of the contract for their summoning.


    The emergence of new actors this time did not pass the attention of NERV employees. After all, demons didn''t even remotely resemble humans, so it was difficult to take them for Eva''s ''shadow clones'' or any other focus with the AT field. Literally in a minute the aliens devoured the resisting angel, and then stared at Eve-01, or rather at the one who called them to this world.


    And then a mental blow struck Shinji''s mind. No, it wasn''t a meaningful order. It wasn''t an attempt to submission. In fact, this effect was not intended to cause harm. Simply, Shinji suddenly sensed the hunger of these demons. Hunger, forcing them to wander forever through the unimaginable expanses of Chaos in search of at least someone who could be devoured. Hunger, every second without which was a real Paradise.


    ¡°No-o-o-o-o-o!!!¡± - Shinji shouted, and then the summoning circle of the ritual was triggered, and the demons were thrown back into the depths of Chaos.


    On this battle ended, because Shinji lost consciousness. To be honest, I was a little scared myself. Because if our under-demonologist had succumbed to the demons, they would have stay in this world and finish all life here much faster than all the angels together.


    The mental blow hit Toji and Kensuke only by corner, but they also experienced such horror that they began to more or less perceive reality only after two hours, when they were already pulled out of the capsule and placed in the NERV¡¯s hospital.


    All the details of this battle were immediately classified, so that even the most secret spies could not find out the essence of the incident. The official version was another transition of Eva-01 in a state of berserk, in which she was able to strike a decisive blow.

 Chapter 9.04 Evangelion

    Shinji came to conscious only in the evening.


    "That ceiling again.¡± - He said, opening his eyes.


    "I told you you''d meet again."


    The answer to me was silence. It seems that Shinji is ''a little'' offended to me. However, they didn''t let him sulk, and five minutes later they dragged him away for interrogation.


    "So, you''re saying they were demons?" - Man in the suit of the NERV security service summarized up the results of the frank confession.


    ¡°Yes.¡± - Shinji nodded gloomily.


    "What are they called?" - The investigator asked, looking at a picture on the projector screen of three demons devouring an angel, and Eve standing next to him in the pose of a well-trained maitre with a towel on her right hand and a monocle in her left eye.


    "They are not called. They come by themselves.¡± ¨C Shinji said a pearl, remembering the emotions broadcast by these creatures.


    "So, they can come back at any time?"  The man shrugged.


    Demons by their very appearance inspired supernatural terror. The first consisted of many tangled palps and tentacles covered with greedily evolving mouths. So, perhaps, should look Azathoth - the supreme god of the pantheon of the Necronomicon. The second had four legs, each of which bifurcated at the first joint, after which this tendency was repeated at the second and third joints. And at the end of each limb was a hand combined with a mouth. In principle, even the torso of this monster could be mistaken for two of its ''arms'' coming out of the ''belly''. The third was a shapeless mass of mouths. They climbed on top of each other, were one in the other, broke through the flesh in unexpected places to be able to bite and eat at least something. In general, the shape of this demon''s body resembled a worm, and of all three it caused the greatest destruction, because after its movement in the ground remained deep ditches, covered with vile mucus.


    "If I offer them a worthy sacrifice." - Shinji answered to the last question after a long silence.


    "I think you shouldn¡¯t do it without a good reason.¡± - The investigator tactfully declined this offer.


    ¡°As you say.¡± - Shinji shrugged. - "But I can''t handle the angels without their help."


    This interrogation was observed through the mirror edging by a concilium from Misato, Akagi and Gendo, and the expression read on their faces could be described as ''WTF?''. However, in Misato''s case, it was a game, because Mesucko is completely controlled all her actions and even thoughts.


    "But why demons?" - The man persisted, switching to the next frame, where three demons stood in threatening poses in front of Eve-01.


    "Well, we''re at war with the angels.¡± - The pilot repeated my argument. ¨C ¡°And the angels fighting the demons. So, we are demons ourselves. It seems quite logical that we call on our distant relatives to help us.¡±


    The chain of reasoning was perfect, but for some reason the investigator could not agree with it. So, he temporarily put aside the slippery subject of demons and moved on to more prosaic matters.


    "During the battle before the appearance of demons, our equipment recorded the appearance of a strange glowing circle under Eve-01''s left palm.¡±


    A photo of this moment appeared on the screen, clearly showing part of the magic circle.


    "This is the summoning circle that I used to sacrifice people to the demons.¡± - The demonologist nodded.


    "You mean the ones who were hiding in the UX-337 shelter?" - A photo of an underground bunker appeared on the screen, with people lying on the floor in various poses, their faces contorted with pain.


    ¡°Yes. But I didn''t want to do it.¡± - Shinji began to burst into tears, looking at the work of his hands. - "But he made me.¡±


    "Who is he?" ¨C Investigator finally caught on to the most important word for him.


    Stolen novel; please report.


    ¡°Demon. He comes and goes when he wants to. He taught me how to summon demons. It is because of him that Eve is able to resist the angels. He is the very embodiment of horror. And even now he''s sitting next to us and threatening to start playing the flute if I keep talking about him.¡±


    The investigator rubbed his nose in puzzlement and sighed heavily.


    "Perhaps it will be better for a psychiatrist to deal with this issue. Or would it be more correct to call the exorcists right away?¡± - He muttered to himself. - ¡°I got the whole picture of what happened.¡± - He continued in a normal voice. - "We will ask you further questions after we have considering... the information we have received. And consecrate the aspen stakes with garlic.¡± - He said the last sentence again under his nose. The idea that to fight angels it is necessary to call demons did not want to fit in his consciousness.


    I watched this circus from the front rows, while simultaneously reading superficial thoughts from the heads of key figures.


    "What''s going to happen to me now?" - Shinji whined as he watched the investigator put the documents in a folder marked ''Top secret''. - "Am I going to be charged for killing two hundred people?"


    "That''s not for me to decide.¡± - The man disavowed from making such an important decision. - "Commander Ikari personally leads the investigation, so it''s best to ask him any questions about the consequences.¡±


    Shinji from the described perspective only fell into an even deeper depression, imagining how he would be death sentenced under the sound of the national anthem of Japan.


    "Don''t be afraid, no one will kill you.¡± - I reassured him. - "If something goes wrong, I''ll feed you to the demons. To them." - I nodded to the photo of the ¡®Holy Trinity¡¯ that had fallen out of the paper folder. From this perspective, Shinji''s eyes were filled with sacred horror.


    In general, the whole story ended in a couple of days... with nothing. In the morning, Shinji was released from his cell and sent to school without any complaints. Misato took him, so she had to take the first shot.


    ¡°Misato... I don''t want to pilot Eve anymore.¡± - The pilot said as the car drove to the surface and rolled through the sunlit streets.


    "But why, Shinji? You''re hero. You saved us from an angel!¡± - She began to pour expired and slightly rotten propaganda into his ears.


    "It''s not obvious that I''m a hero." - Shinji muttered, remembering that he had received no gratitude for his efforts. - "And I don''t want to kill people."


    "You must kill angels. We all hope on you.¡± - Captain Katsuragi continued to bend her line.


    ¡°Misato! I killed two hundred people. Doesn''t that bother you at all?¡±


    ¡°It is bothers me. Because you didn''t warn anyone. But in battle, sometimes you have to make sacrifices. When the first angel attacked, more than two thousand soldiers were killed. They deliberately gave their lives in order to neutralize the threat.¡±


    "But there was no use from it.¡± - Shinji said darkly.


    "Exactly!¡± ¨C Mesucko continued happily, influencing to the brains of her carrier. - "And this time you defeated an angel, sacrificing only two hundred people. This is at least ten times more effective than in the first battle.¡±


    "But they were innocent victims. Civils.¡± ¨C Shinji didn¡¯t give up. - "There were children among them!¡±


    "That''s why I''m saying you should have told us about it. And we would have thought of something.¡±


    "For example?"


    ¡°For example... for example, they would sacrifice the soldiers. They''re useless anyway.¡±


    Shinji looked at Misato''s inspired face and fell silent angrily. It has finally come to him that the expediency of sacrificing people to demons he discussing with the demon. The rest of the way passed in silence, although Misato made several attempts to talk to the pilot.


    At school, Shinji''s appearance did not cause much excitement. Although some congratulated him on his victory over the angel. Especially warm congratulations came from Toji and Kensuke.


    ¡°Shinji, you are a real hero!¡± - Turned to his ''boss'' Toji after they sat down at neighboring desks. - "I didn''t know that you had to fight angels in these conditions. For all of us, you agreed to contact with... contact with these monsters. I still can''t sleep, remembering the way they looked at us.¡±


    ¡°Thank you.¡± - Eve''s pilot was able to pronounce it.


    Officially, it was believed that the people in the shelter were killed by an angel''s attack, so none of the civilians even could not even think that they were killed by the one who was supposed to save.


    After the end of the classes, Shinji unexpectedly cast a spell of eye aversion on himself and ran away, heading to the train station. There he sat down on the first train and plunged into his thoughts, without paying attention to the surroundings.


    "Are you decide to run away?" - I asked an hour later, when the cassette in his player once again switched to the other side.


    ¡°Yes. I don''t want to pilot Eve anymore. Let someone else do it.¡±


    ¡°That''s why you''re sat on a train on the circular route.¡± - I nodded. - "According to Freudian. Running in a circle and returning to the source.¡±


    Confirming my words, the train stopped at Tokyo Central Station #3, where the story of ¡®Shinji the pilot¡¯ began. Shinji ran out of the train in exasperation, where he was immediately pinned down by figures in black suits and dark glasses, working for the NERV security service. Half an hour later, Shinji appeared before the eyes of the commander of the NERV, Ikari Gendo.


    "Shinji, I want to talk to you about your last battle.¡±


    "Yes, father" - The pilot said, keeping his gaze on his shoes.


    "All of us here at NERV are working tirelessly to save humanity from the threat of the angels. You are as much a part of our organization as any other employee. This means that you must follow all the rules and regulations that form the image of a highly moral and heroic Evangelion pilot.¡±


    "Yes, father.¡± - Shinji agreed even more quietly.

 Chapter 9.05 Evangelion

    "Therefore, in the future, if you need to sacrifice people, you must inform me in advance, specifying the expected number of this type of resource.¡±


    "Uh-huh... What?¡±


    Shinji raised his gaze and looked at the commander''s strong-willed face, as if carved from a single piece of granite.


    "Do you understand me?" - Gendo''s voice seemed to pierce space and enter Shinji''s brain directly. ¨C ¡°No amateurism. All your actions must be under my complete control.¡±


    "I don''t want to kill people!" - Shinji shouted with all the strength of his lungs.


    "I don''t like sacrificing people, either.¡± - Gendo shared the secret. - "But for the sake of saving humanity, we must be prepared to sacrifice everything we have. There are three billion people on Earth.¡±


    ¡°So, we will not economize the people.¡± - I made my comment.


    "Every time you defeat an angel, you save them all." - Gendo continued, naturally ignoring my dissenting opinion. - "For this, for all these people, you must fight the angels. As for possible victims... if we can save the whole humanity by sacrificing only a small part of it, then this can be considered as a victory. So, put aside your doubts and do what Misato tells you. Is it clear?¡±


    "Yes, father," he said, and this time the words were full of sadness and despair.


    ¡°Dismissed¡±


    Shinji turned around and silently left the office. NERV security escorted him to the entrance of the city, then left him alone.


    "I don''t want to live.¡± - My client said, looking at the darkening sky and the first stars coming up.


    What? That''s not what we planned.


    ¡°This problem can be solved.¡± - I said, without the slightest fun in my voice. Shinji turned his head in fright and stared at me. - "I think I''ll feed you to the demons and then take someone else in your place."


    With these words, I activated a small spell that put the person in a near to sleep condition, after which his memory played the same moment of time over and over again. And of course, that moment was the wonderful moment when the three demons of Chaos almost broke free.


    Shinji screamed in panic and began to convulse. The accompanying escorts immediately rushed forward and pinned him down, preventing him from smashing his head on the floor. But even their strength was not enough to contain the fear and horror that filled the pilot''s mind. I didn''t need the lurching and morally torments of this person, so it made sense to resort to a little stimulation of the desire to survive.


    An endless nightmare tormented Shinji until he exhausted all the reserves of his body and sank into unconsciousness. Doctors tried to ''cure'' him, but no medicine could stop this horror. Because only I could stop it. After making sure that the patient was close to the ''ordinary plant'' phase, I stopped the torture and favored him with a healing spell that restores his psyche.


    "You have a simple choice.¡± - I said to Shinji when he regained consciousness. - "Either you follow my orders, whatever they are, or this nightmare will last forever."


    ¡°No! I agree! Not this! Forgive me. Please! No!!! I will fight the angels. I''ll kill them all! Just don''t...! No-o-o-o!¡± - The screams became incoherent mutterings and hysterical sobs.


    "That is good." - I said scornfully. - "Moral norms not for you. You are an Evangelion pilot, so all you care about is the death of angels. Is it clear?¡±


    ¡°Yes! Please don''t. I agree!¡±


    ¡°Well. Now, another preventative flashback session.¡±


    ¡°No-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o!!!¡±


    After a couple of minutes, I stopped the torture and left the whimpering body alone. I hope that this will be enough to make a real savior of mankind from a shapeless slug, even at the cost of mankind. I''m afraid that the next angels will require much more effort. And if Shinji, instead of following orders, begins to torture himself with the imaginary responsibility for the fate of people, then not only they will die, but I will also die. And what is most disgusting, people will die without any use or meaning. Just because some ''higher powers'' found it amusing to watch their death. So, the meaning of their life and death will be the great and humble me.


    Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    To be honest, I thought that after this session of ''psychoanalysis'' Shinji will turn into a modification of Gollum, hiding from sunlight and people. But just a couple of days later, it looked almost the same as before: attended school, talked to friends, fucked two of his concubines ''on cooldown''. But deep inside, Shinji''s personality broke, and every time he had to solve the moral dilemma of ¡®who is to guilty and what to do?'', he blamed me and did what I told him to do. I wasn''t happy about it, but at least I became less worried about the outcome of this game. Now everything depended on my ability to solve problems and on the powers of the summoned demons.


    However, not everything went quite so smoothly. Finding refuge from moral suffering in sex, Shinji became attached to Ayanami Rei, considering her similar to himself. So when, during one of the experiments with Eva-01, he saw Rey smiling to Gendo, the gears in his head began to crack and slip dangerously, giving birth to strange ideas.


    Shinji''s attempts to develop a relationship with Rei by inviting her on a date or to the game center failed. She just didn''t understand why all this was needed, but Shinji don¡¯t understand that Rei has only a human appearance. Inside her body lived an angel, for whom all these human problems looked very strange.


    Another ''critical failure'' naturally happened. On Friday evening to Misato¡¯s home descended Akagi Ritsuko. When she finished drinking with her friend, she gave Shinji a new pass in the name of Ayanami Rei and asked him to give it to her tomorrow before leaving for the Geofront. Shinji finally found out the address of his classmate, so he decided to visit her. Only the sight of a filthy, almost uninhabited room left him in a state of shock. He could not believe that his beloved Rei was living in such conditions.


    "Shinji, what are you doing here?" - Indifferent voice said behind him. The hero-womanizer turned around and saw naked Rei coming out of the shower. Here are his thoughts in this moment were not about sex, which were not characteristically for this maniac. Meanwhile, Rei continued her speech. - "My health is fine. However, I have half an hour of free time.¡±


    With these words, Rey knelt down and began to unbutton Shinji''s pants.


    "Ray! Do you live here?¡± - Shinji exclaimed, also falling to his knees, grabbing the girl by the shoulders and looking into her eyes.


    "Yes.¡± - She answered emotionlessly.


    ¡°But... who settle you in this... barn?¡±


    "Commander Ikari.¡±


    "What? How dare he? This freak...¡±


    At this point, Rey pulled away, rose sharply to her feet and kicked Shinji with her foot in the jaw with a u-turn.


    "Don''t talk about the commander like that.¡± - She said, looking at her lover lying in prostration.


    "But ... Rei...? I want to help you!¡± - Shinji tried to shout to the soul of the angel.


    "I already have everything I need for my existence. I have him.¡± - With these words, Rei went to the bed and began to dress, ignoring the Third Child''s collapsed hopes. - ¡°Let''s go. An important experiment is planned today. I can''t disappoint Commander Ikari.¡± - She said as she dressed and headed for the door.


    All the way to the Geofront Shinji spent as in the fog, trying to collect a torn pattern. These unsuccessful attempts continued all the time while the experiment to reactivate Eve-00 was underway. And even when the alarm sounded, Shinji did not pay much attention to it. He simply mechanically carried out all the orders given to him, his mind being in perpetual Chaos.


    After some thought, I decided not to distract Shinji with such trifles as the appearance of a new angel. Nothing depended on him at the moment. The control of Eve-01 was entirely the responsibility of the demon, and I could only use Shinji as a lightning rod for performing another magic ritual.


    As in the Canon, Ramiel looked like two four-sided pyramids connected by bases. In General, it looked like a very large cut sapphire. As soon as Eve-01 appeared on the surface, the angel immediately hit her with an energy beam that burned through everything in its path.


    The demon was ready for this, and in advance put up a protective barrier that reflected the beam. But the strength of the attack was such that he had to concentrate all his attention on the defense, not even being able to evade. The angel didn''t try to test Eve''s stamina, and... split. His copy immediately began shooting, using a beam of the same power as the original. After that, there appeared a third clone... 10th, and at the end twentieth clone appeared.


    Even the enhanced Eve-01 was not designed for such loads. Her armor boiled and melted, her flesh burned and then grew back, trying to cover the charred bones. Although Shinji had minimal contact with eve''s body, under these conditions, he felt like he was floating in a boiling water. And this feeling was reinforced by the fact that the LCL in the capsule really started to boil.


    There was no way to escape from this attack, so the demon had to use one of the aces in its sleeve. He simply teleported back to the hangar, where he lay like a charred carcass, trying to regenerate the damage.


    "Don''t you think you''ve succumbed too much this time?" - I asked the demon. According to our agreement, the demon was to portray the supremacy of an angel in battle.

 Chapter 9.06 Evangelion

    "I didn''t succumb.¡± - The demon replied, mentally trembling with pain and anger. - "That beast almost killed me."


    "That''s bad.¡± - I frowned. - "Let''s think about it.¡±


    While Eve-01 and Shinji were recovering, I began to investigate the enemy''s capabilities. Magic and psionics were perfect for this, and the veil between me and reality made my used spells undetectable. After comparing the results of my research with the demon''s impressions, I came to several conclusions.


    First, the angel was monstrously strong. Its core could produce so much energy that its existing ''beam cannon'' could only use five percent of its power. Therefore, the angel learned to create his own copies, which he used as additional emitters. The second pleasant circumstance was the fact that the power of the protective AT-field was evenly distributed among all copies. Thus, when the angel created twenty clones, the protection of its true core dropped twenty times.


    Based on this, I came up with a simple and primitive plan. Someone had to take the angel''s blow, forcing him to use all twenty weapons. At this point, the second ''someone'' had to get to the original and ... intercept control of its core. After that, the angel¡¯s core could be consumed, and the angel meat could be used for sausage and other goodies. According to the canon, Ramiel had the most powerful core of all angels, so it was reasonable to use it to strengthen Eve-01.


    The plan was simple, and since Eve-01 could not create shadow clones, the role of bait naturally fell to Eve-00 under the control of Ayanami Rei. But in her current state, Eve-00 would not be able to hold out a second against even one beam, let alone twenty. Naturally, this problem was solved by possessing another demon into Eve-00''s body. But it is impossible to conduct this ritual unnoticed. So, it was worth to follow Ikari Gendo''s orders and notifying him of what we were going to do.


    As soon as I appeared next to the recovered Shinji, he greeted me with a sincere, mad smile from ear to ear.


    "How much people we will sacrifice this time?" - He asked. - "I propose not to mince petty things and immediately finish off the entire population of Tokyo-3, and especially my father.¡± -  The end of the sentence was filled with a sincere thirst for blood, characteristically for maniacs and demons. However, with whom you will be...


    "Pfff, what is this offer? Before you sacrifice someone, you need to be sure that it will do more benefit than harm. To defeat this angel, we will use something else. So, we need Gendo for a different purpose than as a stupid piece of sacrificial meat.¡± - I gave my wise counsel.


    Following my instructions, Shinji talked directly to Gendo and described his ''own'' battle plan, plus suggestions for Eve-00¡¯s ¡®upgrade¡¯. Of course, to the mortal who want to become god did not please the idea of summoning the demon''s soul into another Evangelion, but the power demonstrated by the angel clearly indicated that ''standard'' Eve is just a walking pile of meat, not a fighting machine.


    To demonstrate the validity of the last statement, Shinji gave a small demonstration, literally beating Eve-00 with the little finger of his left hand. In his human body, though enhanced by Eve-01. No matter how much Rei tried to expose an AT-field or lean on physical attacks, she couldn''t even get close to her opponent. Such a phantasmagoric picture broke all patterns, so all results of the demonstration were immediately classified, in order to prevent leaks to SEELE. For those such amplification of Eve-01 would be a nightmare


    Picking up the fallen jaw, Gendo agreed to conduct the ritual of summoning of demons and the requested price of a thousand people. Fortunately, the angel acted according to the canon, slowly drilling in the armored plates, so we had time to prepare.


    While NERV was transporting convicted felons from all over Japan, a ritual has been prepared in one of the halls of Terminal Dogma. The location was chosen to limit the number of possible witnesses as much as possible. For the sake of secrecy, it was decided to sacrifice even the guards from the Penitentiary Service who were supposed to escort the prisoners. Of the NERV staff, only Ikari Gendo and his Deputy Fuyutsuki Kozo knew about the essence of the upcoming action. Even Dr. Ritsuko Akagi could only guess at the details of these events and the ''cost'' of the ritual.


    Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.


    Finally, all the preparations were completed, and both Eves took their places on either side of the sacrificial circle, in which the paralyzed prisoners were grouped together with the guards. Shinji began to chant the words of the spell, carefully pretending to be a professional demonologist. Soon a portal to the world of Chaos opened, and from there two demons penetrated into our world.


    The first, which was supposed 999 mortal souls, took the body of Eve-00. He had to obey Eve-01''s commands completely. The power of this creature was such that reality could hardly bear his presence until he took place within Evangelion-00. With his aura alone, he suppressed the angel''s tiny energy in Eve-00''s body, transforming her into a completely demonic creature. But he had an unimaginable amount of Chaos energy, which easily compensated unexpected ''change of orientation'' of Eve-00 and her lack of ability to manipulate the AT-field.


    The second demon was a succubus who was supposed to possess Ayanami Rei''s body. This was entirely my initiative. Shinji''s attachment to Rei was a great anchor for him, so he should be encouraged. The summoned succubus was a ''professional'' of her job, primarily because she knew how to behave as a ''favorite concubine'', and most importantly understood why such behavior is necessary, and how men reacts to it. One soul that had been left to her was just a light snack. And the real price for her was presence of angel''s human-shaped body. Only for this she agreed to become a favorite toy of the Demonologist who called her.


    However, we didn''t have time to sort out our personal relationships. Angel had almost reached the Geofront, so the operation began only a few minutes later. Eve-00 took up a firing position on the top of a small mountain. The demon that possessed her was a master of defensive spells, so he should be able to withstand the angel''s attack easily and be able to snap back, attracting angel¡¯s attention.


    Meanwhile, Eve-01 began to sneak walk to the angel from the other side, hiding under a disguise spell. I already knew enough about Chaos magic to be able to calculate ''on Pen-Pen'' a more effective version of this spell, which could hide even such a huge machine as a robot fifty meters tall.


    The operation went like clockwork. Naive angel sprayed his protection, covering the clones, because of which he did not have enough strength to protect the most valuable ¨C his true core. As promised, the demon in Eva-01 was able to take control of this ''organ'', after which the angel was left without a drop of energy. We can say that this angel came to us safe and sound, wrapped in a gift box. It seems that in his case, the saying ¡®has muscles instead of brain¡¯ did not work well.


    After transplantation of the angel core to Eve-01, he reached approximately the same level of strength as his partner Eve-00. This gave me confidence in the future, because each time angels becoming stronger, and even my imagination began to slip when I tried to think of ways to fight them in advance.


    The body of the exhausted angel was not wasted, but was given as payment for the summoning of the nine ''shadow demons''. These disembodied creatures could follow Shinji unobserved, protecting him from all sorts of threats. If necessary, they could appear on the material dimension and even punch ''in the jaw'' to some angels. Naturally, I didn''t say a word to Shinji about the existence of such protection, so as not to give him a reason to realize his power. He perfectly suited me as a sex-crazed blockhead, afraid of my shadow and diligently obeying all orders.


    When the angel was completely disposed, Eve-01 headed for Eve-00, which was now almost in the mouth of an erupting volcano. The cunning succubus had already come up with a plan to completely enslave her ''master'', so now her robot depicted serious damage incompatible with life.


    When Shinji saw burned Rei on the monitor¡¯s screen, he immediately rushed to save her, despite all the past disagreements. Eve-01 carried the Eve-00 in his arms to safety, after which Shinji activated the emergency extraction of the capsule. With his bare hands, he turned the red-hot lever to open the door, then made his way inside to see the mutilated Rey.


    "Master, have I been useful to you?" - She smiled exhaustedly.


    ¡°Yes! Ayanami, hold on! I won''t let you die!¡±


    Shinji focused and began to cast an improved version of the healing spell that I ''gifted'' to him not so long ago. The burned skin immediately healed on Rei''s body, and she joyfully threw herself into the arms of her ''savior''.


    ¡°Master! I love you so much. You won''t leave me, will you?¡±


    "No, Ray. I always will be with you.¡±


    Shinji hugged the girl, not noticing her slyly smiling behind his back. I did not interfere in this circus, because such scenario satisfied me. In any case, I have a priority right to give orders to the succubus, so there is no danger of treachery. By the way, I should probably also give nickname to this succubus to distinguish her from the original personality of Rei. The angel''s soul was now completely detached from control of the body and could only observe the actions of the invader from the outside. The name Rei meant ''ray of light'', so her antipode was well-suited to the name ''ray of darkness'', i.e. Yamirei or simply Yami.

 Chapter 9.07 Evangelion

    The peaceful days that followed after the angel''s attack pleased me with their events. Shinji finally ''fell in love'' with Rei, because now she responded to his love, and she was not averse to go on a date or fool around with him. And just a couple of days later, Ayanami officially moved into Shinji''s room, because she already spent the night there, not leaving her lover alone with an empty bed.


    Mesucko influenced Misato to get permission to move Rei. But a couple of days later, the stupid succubus realized what a mistake she had arranged for herself. After reaching Rei''s body, Shinji forgot to think about the relationship with Misato. After all, Yami could be herself all the time, but Mesucko only showed up in the apartment when no one else was around. So, when two succubuses began to fight for a limited ''resource'' in the face of Shinji, the victory was won by a young impudent woman. Mesucko had to almost follow Shinji around and ask him to have sex with her. After all, for any succubus sex was vital.


    At the end of the next week, the school was supposed to hold another ''parent''s day'', which was attended by Misato as a parent. School children appreciated her sexual forms, and it is natural that the most ardent fans of her were two obsessives. They are so annoyed Shinji with their praise of Misato and whining about how lucky he was, so he blurted out that if they like her so much, then let them take her for themselves.


    In the evening of the same day, Toji and Kensuke went to visit Shinji to ''play computer games''. But they didn''t able to reach a console, because Mesucko immediately took them into circulation and did not let them out of her room until ten in the evening. This could be called rape, but the victims themselves were very willing to agree to all the proposals of their idol. Moreover, the presence of demons in their bodies gave them weak magical abilities, which the succubus immediately adapted to maintain potency.


    In general, all participants were happy with this state of affairs, so the next day the sexual marathon was repeated. And the next day, and so for almost two weeks. In the end, a couple of blockheads went to school with bags under their eyes in a somnambulistic state, but they were not going to stop playing ''video games''.


    Meanwhile, the clouds gradually thickened over NERV, so that the organization began to move to the ''military rails''. In particular, this meant that employees of the NERV headquarters began to undergo enhanced checks for loyalty to the Commander, rather than foreign intelligence services or SEELE.


    For Shinji, this test resulted in a lecture from Dr. Akagi about how important NERV is for saving humanity. He was told another story, how the evil angel Adam exploded at the South Pole, thereby causing a Second Impact. And now NERV was building Evangelions to prevent a Third Impact.


    At the end of this lecture, a thoughtful Shinji wandered through the corridors of the Geofront, so I decided to conduct my psychological treatment of my pupil.


    ¡°Shinji, how did you like the lecture about the greatness of NERV?¡± - I asked him.


    "Well... it looks like we''re doing something important." - He scratched his head thoughtfully.


    "Ha! This is if you do not take into account the fact that Adam did not explode by himself, but as a result of deliberate influence from people.¡±


    "What?" - Shinji was surprised.


    "And the funny thing is that the fight against angels is the basis of SEELE''s plan, and the ultimate goal of this plan is the complete and final destruction of humanity.¡±


    "But how is that? Then why are we saving people?¡±


    "Because that''s their ''Grand plan''. However, this is not all.¡±


    "What else?" - Shinji''s dark voice indicated that he was about to descend into depression again.


    "Your father wants to use SEELE''s plans not just to destroy humanity, but to use it as a sacrifice for his own exaltation. In other words, your father plans to become a God.¡±


    You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.


    "God? He? That''s son of bitch.¡±


    "And then I come, your schizophrenia, with an even crazier plan that will make you a God."


    ¡°Me?¡± - Shocked Shinji stopped. - "Will I become a God?"


    ¡°You will. If you behave well and follow all my orders.¡±


    "What haven''t you said before? Ha-ha. I am God. Kowtow before me, mortals! Why are you standing there, bow before me!¡± - This aphid said to me.


    "Aren''t you freaking out?" - I frowned. - "If you continue showboating, I''ll make you a God of Shit, or the God of Pubic Lice. I have enough experience.¡±


    ¡°Sorry! I''ve got it. The future God humbly bows before you, o great Schizophrenia.¡± - He started clowning around. It seems like a long time since he didn¡¯t get a whip. I should to come up with another way to influence him, not so radical.


    The second nail in the coffin of NERV was the appearance of the nuclear Walker, which was theoretically supposed to replace the Evangelions in the battle with the angels. But it was contradicting to SEELE''s plans, so they hustled and injected a trojan into the program of the Walker, which took it out of control and sent it to the nearest city, where it was supposed to explode.


    As in the canon, Misato volunteered to stop the Walker with the help of Eve-01. But the implementation of her ''brilliant'' plan did not go according to plan. Instead of putting Misato on the Walker and letting her enter the deactivation code, Shinji banally caught up with the opponent, and then used just one spell of Chaos magic. As a result, only the legs on the knee were left from the Walker, and everything else disappeared in Chaos, leaving no gram of radioactive waste.


    Such a demonstration clearly showed that the project of a nuclear walking machine is a waste of time and money. In contrast, the reputation of NERV has skyrocketed, so the organization''s funding has only increased.


    And after a week of relaxed life, began epic quest of the transportation of Eve-02 and the germ of Adam. Shinji was supposed to accompany the valuable cargo, so that if necessary, he could act as Eve-02''s reserve pilot. Together with him Mesucko, using her official position, took to a trip her underage lovers. Far from the Geofront, the succubus didn''t have a territory where she could fully manifest itself, so I had to give her permission to influence Misato''s behavior if it doesn¡¯t hurt the fight against the angels.


    As for Ayanami Rei, she remained in Tokyo-3. First, there should be at least one pilot, and second, Mesucko was trying her best to get rid of her rival in the fight for the Third Child''s penis. As a result, she had to be accompanied by a whole male harem, so she was going to have a full ride.


    This fun company flew to the USS by helicopter. Once on board, the trio of perverts met with her majesty Asuka Langley Sohryu. The girl naively considered herself as the navel of the Earth, and also as in the canon, was a pretty bitch.


    After Misato introduced her to the ''male audience'', a gust of wind lifted the hem of the girl''s dress, showing everyone her panties and a great figure. After that, the bitch gave to each of the guys a slap in the face, calling it ''pay-per-view''. But then events went down a very strange path. Although, in principle, everything was natural.


    In this world Shinji was no longer so beleaguered personality. He was so sexually liberated that he couldn''t go any further. So, in response to the humiliation, he took off his pants and showed to Asuka his penis with the phrase ''for you - free''. But he did not stop there, and used a sexual arousal spell on the Second Child. Usually, he had fun with it with Rei, who had a decent immunity against Chaos magic. However, Asuka could not resist to a such influence, and therefore immediately lost her clarity of thoughts.


    Instead, she got a pretty good arousal and a desire to make Shinji feel good. So just a few seconds later, she got down on her knees and started doing blowjob to demonologist. Naturally, it surprised everyone present, but no one stopped her. After all, everyone was used to all sorts of orgies and group sex.


    After finishing the job, Asuka swallowed the cum and realized what she had just done. Not knowing about the effects of magic, she considered such event as her breakdown, then roared and ran away. The sight and taste of an erect penis so shattered her almost childish psyche that she tried to simply forget about this event.


    An hour later, official meeting was held in the forecastle, attended by Shinji, Toji, Kensuke, Asuka, Misato, and Ryoji Kaji. In the canon, Kaji tried to seduce Misato, and she resisted with all her might. But here, seduction was active on both sides, resulting in a public flirtation. This infuriated Asuka, who was ''in love'' with her mentor and considered him as her own. She made desperate attempts to hurt Misato, but she in response demonstratively ignored her.


    Interestingly, the guys reacted to this flirtation with approval. Mesucko had already fucked them so much, so they were happy to give her to someone else so they could focus on their new prey, on Asuka. Alas, all their hints girl ignored with not less tenacity than Misato.


    After this meeting, Asuka literally dragged Kaji with her, trying to prevent him from further communication with the succubus. The conversation between the student and the teacher naturally turned to the Third Child, whom Kaji called the most gifted pilot. After all, he had already destroyed three angels and also his first fight he spent the first time sitting in Eve. The information that demons were involved in this case was secret, so no one outside of Tokyo-3 don¡¯t know about it.

 Chapter 9.08 Evangelion

    High assessment of Shinji by her ''favorite'' Kaji created a storm of emotions in Asuka''s soul. She also wanted to recoup for the morning''s humiliation. So, acting on her emotional urges, she found Shinji and invited him to watch Eve-02. For this purpose, she even harnessed a helicopter pilot to transport her and Shinji to another ship, where Eve was located.


    There, she began to flaunt in front of her ''rival'', calling Eve-02 the best, and herself the most brilliant pilot of the entire universe. Shinji, who already has some experience with girls, did not object to her, but only enthusiastically agreed, while applying the already proven spell of sexual submission.


    Asuka didn''t even have time to understand what was going on, as she found herself naked and having sex with Shinji right on top of her Eve''s armor. And most importantly, she liked it, and the initiative came from her side. She tried to resist the effects, but Shinji, seeing her resistance, simply increased the intensity of the spell, giving to it more energy. In the end, he got so fascinated that he ''broke'' the restraints in Asuka''s mind, turning her into a real nymphomaniac. She ''tried out'' what sex is, and decided that she would do it at every opportunity. And the case with Shinji was very convenient, because now they were next to her beloved Eve, and there was no one around to witness the debauchery that was happening.


    But before this sweet couple got to the third orgasm in a row, they were interrupted by the sound of battle alarms and explosions. A fourth angel Gaghiel appeared. He swam underwater and sank the ships one by one, just colliding with them and additionally hitting with AT-field which covering his body. From such a collision, the ships were literally blown to pieces.


    Asuka immediately realized that this was her chance to prove her coolness to Kaji and so she definitely can drag him into bed. She made the decision to take the pilot''s seat and deal with the angel. She dragged Shinji with her, intending to have sex during the fight. The ''spare'' pilot did not resist to this idea, because he was not against for such perversions, and did not suffer from sanity at all.


    In general, despite the fact that Shinji liked to have sex, in relationships with girls, he preferred to give the initiative to them. Even now, he was using a seduction spell, and Asuka jumped on him. So, when he was dragged inside Eve-02, he just nodded in agreement, playing his role as a subordinate spineless slug.


    Just five minutes later, Eve-02 was launched and ready for action. Although, of course, this readiness was solely in the intention of the pilot to destroy the angel with a single fist blow. Because the only weapon she had was a knife, and her armor didn''t allow for the possibility of diving under the water.


    Eve-02 threw off the tarpaulin covering her and rose to her feet. Asuka planned to get to the USS by jumping from one ship to another to connect there to an external power source via a cable. But reality, as always has made adjustments to these plans. Before Eve-02 could even crouch down for the jump, an angel emerged from the water. In the canon, it had the appearance of a toothy whale and was able to bite Eve in half. Here the angel was so huge that he swallowed Eve along with the ship carrying her, just as the fish swallows the snared midge.


    Misato and her entire entourage froze in horror at the picture of what had happened. Unfortunately, there was nothing they could do. Of course, there were three possessed people on the USS, but their demons were too weak to even scratch an angel.


    Worst of all, Shinji didn''t even realize the gravity of the situation. In Eve-01, he never really piloted. After all, during the battle her movements were controlled by a demon. And he didn''t have enough brains to understand that there is no demon here and now. But these very rudiments of the brain were enough to cast a spell of sexual arousal on himself and on Asuka, after which in the heads of both pilots there was only one thought: ''we need to have sex''.


    So, the ''sweet couple'' took off their newly dressed contact suits and began to have sex right in the LCL filled cabin. I, of course, tried to appear to Shinji and bring him to reason, but under the influence of the spell, the actions of the actively harassing Asuka interested him more than my wails. After evaluating this situation, I decided to just wait a little. First, my direct intervention at this moment could be considered as interference in the fight. And second, I needed to let Shinji experience the consequences of disobedience.


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


    The angel didn''t just grab Eve-02 with his mouth. He had literally swallowed it, and now the robot was in his stomach, slowly dissolving under the influence of gastric juice. As long as the armor was intact, it was almost imperceptible. But when it all peeled off, and the acid began to corrode the flesh of Eve, time has come for my revenge.


    Unlike Eve-01, here the pilot''s synchronization implied that the pilot felt the same as Eve. Moreover, the robot-pilot connection showed the same injuries on the pilot''s body that Eve had received. So, after a couple of minutes, Shinji felt like he was dissolving in acid. For some time, these sensations were clogged with the pleasure of sex, and even an enhanced by spell. But when the skin on his body peeled off in the most natural way, he ''suddenly'' returned to reality. The wail he had made was a joy to my ears. After a second, Asuka also came to her senses and now my ears were delighting by a whole duet.


    When the acid eroded Shinji''s eyes and went down his throat, he literally begged me to save him. After all, no one else could respond to his pleas. Eve-01 was too far away for him to reach her. But I did not hurry, and let the capricious game figure fully enjoy my revenge.


    Finally, when Shinji''s entire existence was plunged into the agony of death, I put the formula for demon summoning spell into his mind. If I had wanted to, in this state he would have easily agreed to sacrifice his soul to the demons. But I had no such goal. The victims in this ritual were the souls of all those sailors who were killed by the angel. After all, the nine demons guarding Shinji were right next to him and ready to do whatever I ordered. So, they followed my order to collect the souls of the dead.


    Eve-02''s body was possessed by a demon, slightly weaker than in Eve-01''s. But in Asuka had to possess not a succubus, but a demon which gives the strongest ability to regenerate the body. Without it, the girl certainly would not survive. She was only temporarily alive at this point, only because her brain was almost intact. But all of her internal organs turned to soup.


    After the summoning ritual was complete, Eve-02 began to regenerate, regardless of the acid surrounding her. Asuka resuscitated by her demon, and Shinji was healed by one of the nine guards. The other eight shadow demons began to eat the angel right from the inside, just like grave worms do. Angel, of course did not like it, but there was nothing he could do.


    Five minutes later, Asuka regained consciousness. Her connection to Eve-02 was still working, so she took over the management. With her bare hands, she began to tear apart the angel''s insides, making her way towards his core. When she reached the target, she began to punch it with a roar until the core cracked and exploded. After that, in just a few seconds, the entire body of the angel disintegrated. And on ''last effort'' Asuka ordered Eve-02 to return to the US. Normal Eve would not have been able to carry out such an order, but under the control of the demon, the robot literally jumped out of the water and landed on the deck, after which it ''disconnected'', deprived of power. It was too early to tell everyone around us that Eve could act without being connected to an energy source.


    After making sure that the threat was over, I began to investigate what had happened to the fleet during the attack. In just a few minutes, the angel managed to destroy almost all the ships of the fleet, leaving only the USS afloat. In addition, when Ryoji Kaji decided to escape aboard the plane, the angel managed to shoot the aircraft with a jet of water, so that Kaji and the embryo of Adam carried by him were not harmed.


    A few minutes later, the entire crew of the USS poured onto the deck to greet the pilots. But Asuka flatly refused to get out of the capsule, saying that she will stay in Eve until the arrival to Tokyo-3. The reason for this demarche was the fact that earlier, along with the skin of the pilots, their contact suits had also dissolved, so now both pilots were completely naked.


    In the end, I ordered Shinji to activate the extraction of the capsule. Asuka, who did not expect such treachery from her ''lover'', did not have time to react, so she had to get out of the capsule naked and go down by rope ladder in front of hundreds men. This didn''t help her mood. However, the audience liked this spectacle, and only she was dissatisfied.


    In the evening, Asuka suffered another blow to his wounded pride and broken psyche. Deciding to visit her ''favorite'' Kaji, she discovered that the door to his room was closed, and from behind it came the unmistakable screams and moans of Kaji and Misato. After that, the Second Child finally couldn¡¯t hold still and decided to arrange revenge. After writing a note saying that she urgently wanted to talk to Kaji in her room, she sent it with one of the sailors. At the same time, she invited Shinji, Toji and Kensuke to her room.

 Chapter 9.09 Evangelion

    When, half an hour later, Kaji entered into his ward''s room without knocking, he saw how she fucking with three guys at once. Shinji entered her from behind, and she doing blowjob to Toji and Kensuke.


    "Ah, Kaji.¡± - Asuka said to him, pulling out the dick from her mouth. - "You''re late. I''m a grown woman now, and I''m not interested in old people like you.¡±


    After that, the ''woman'' with renewed enthusiasm continued to do blowjob. Kaji from such a spectacle just fell into a precipitate and flowed out of the room to find ''comfort'' in the arms of Misato.


    On the way back to Tokyo-3, the USS resembled a natural brothel. Everyone fucked everyone, although in secret from each other. Only Shinji did not participate in this feast of flesh. As a punishment, I cut his penis by the very egg. And additionally, cast a spell that prevents this organ from regenerating when using a healing spell. As a result, Shinji pretended to be a sufferer and whined every day that he realized his mistake and now he will always listen to me.


    I restored this organ to him only after he returned to Misato''s apartment. Here he compensated for all the lost time, fucking Rei, Misato and Asuka for almost a day without a break. By the way, as in the canon, Misato settled Asuka in her apartment, so now in the evenings there was no free space from the number of people. After all, six people in a two-room apartment is too much.


    At school, Asuka immediately became the most popular girl. Many guys dreamed of ''dating'' her, and only a few understood what a demon in human form she was. Although Asuka wasn''t a succubus, but she had sex even more than Rei. As an experiment, she seduced several school boys, but remained unsatisfied with this experience. After all, ordinary mortals were not possessing the magic of maintaining an erection, so sex with them ended in fifteen minutes, when the member of another lover turned into a kind of limp sausage. As a result, several students received the offensive nickname ''impotent'', and Asuka decided to limit herself to having sex within an established social circle.


    Rei and Asuka''s relationship were not very good. After all, they were competing with each other for Shinji''s attention. Rei because of the desire to subdue his will, and Asuka due to the fact that only Shinji possessed the spell to increase penis size. Toji and Kensuke didn''t have the magic skills to do this. But Asuka was happy to agree to arrange a group sex with Mesucko, without being jealous of her classmates.


    All these events happened in just a week. And then Tokyo-3 was attacked by another angel. Fortunately, it was spotted in advance, so it was decided to send Eve-01 and Eve-02 to intercept the angel to fight outside of the city borders.


    As in the canon, Israfel looked like a humanoid figure with disproportionately broad shoulders. When meeting the opponent, Asuka again decided to show off and ran into the attack, leaving Shinji behind. With the appearance of a demon in the body of Eve-02, the robot was able to use Chaos magic. And now Asuka used one of the spells that created an invisible power blade and released it into the enemy.


    With just one blow, the angel was split in half. Only a second later, these two halves turned into two smaller angels. Asuka was not confused and used the spell several more times, chopping two angels into cabbage. That''s just each of the pieces remained ''alive'' and turned into something resembling a cross between a squirrel and a hedgehog. So, these about hundred creatures immediately scattered in different directions, leaving Eve to stand as idiots in the empty field. The speed of movement of the ''pieces'' of the angel was such that it was almost impossible to catch up with them.


    By the time of this epic failure, I had an idea of what we were up against. If Ramiel could create just remote projections that only looked like to him, then Israfel was actually a multitude of beings. To be more precise, its entire body consisted of about four million independent parts. These parts could be combined, or they could act independently. In addition, if one of the parts was destroyed, a new one was immediately created to replace it. Thus, it turned out that to destroy this angel, we need to destroy all of its parts at the same time.


    It was a bit of a problem, but in general, it was quite simple solved with the help of demons. All you had to do was summon four million demons and let each of them ''drag'' their part of the angel into the world of Chaos. After that, the angel would have been in this wonderful place, from where he had no chance to get back. Just imagine: food that is constantly recovering, if you leave even a crumb of it. The inhabitants of Chaos will line up to try to subdue this angel to themselves.


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    The only problem with this decision was the number of victims. It was technically difficult to sacrifice four million people. And to do it even a little unnoticed and at all was unrealistic. Unless, of course, you use demons again. All that was necessary, was to call one demon, and then give him the task to go kill people and sacrifice their souls, calling another of his fellows. And when there were enough demons, they all had to do their part.


    I explained all these details to Shinji, and he gladly agreed to sacrifice such crowd of people the demons. The first victim he killed by himself, just stepping on some human with Eve, and then called demon according to my orders teleported to Africa, where he began to hunt the Negroes, fortunately, there were hundreds of millions of them. And when the demons in our world reached required number, all of them at once teleported to their own part of the angel and dragged it into Chaos.


    For NERV, the real battle with this angel remained completely unnoticed. Civilization in Africa was in decline, so that the loss of four million of Negroes was not even noticed. Of course, the neighbors of the sacrificed people shouted something about demons, but who would listen to the ravings of wild Papuans? As a result, it was officially recognized that Eve-02, under the control of Asuka, destroyed the angel with her AT-field, which gave to the Second Child a reason to be proud of herself, without having any reason to be. Naturally, this could not pass by Shinji, so the relationship between these two pilots cooled down a bit.


    Just a couple of days after the destruction of the angel, the school announced a three-day trip for the entire class to Okinawa. There, students were supposed to relax, sunbathe and even scuba dive. But this holiday was not for pilots. After all, the angel could attack at any moment. The news about this ''disappointed'' Asuka which already tuned to take rest. But Toji and Kensuke got the opportunity to go to the resort so that they could pick up new girls. Thus, Shinji remained the only ''man'' in the house, which was to inflame the already difficult relationship between the two and a half succubuses.


    But just two hours after the departure of the plane with the students, there was information about the discovery of another angel. It was currently in the mouth of an active volcano on the island of Kyushu. It was discovered only due to strange seismic activity. All information about the angel was immediately classified, and Misato decided to destroy the angel without waiting for its awakening.


    Eve-01 and Eve-02 went back to the scene. And of course, Asuka was sent to fight against the angel. In the first place, this choice was due to the desire for glory of one pilot and the reluctance to strain of the second. So that Shinji remained as a safety net, and Asuka together with her Eve have thrown into the mouth of the volcano.


    Of course, Eve-02 had been prepared to dive into the molten lava by wearing a special protective thermal suit. The demon didn''t need such protection at all, but it was officially considered that Eve couldn''t hold out without it, so for the sake of disguise, everything was left unchanged.


    The original goal was not even to destroy the angel, but to capture it for research. It was not active at the moment, so Dr. Akagi was hopeful that she would be able to perform autopsy of such a promising specimen. Unfortunately, as soon as Eve-02 approached the angel, it awoke, and the capture operation turned into an operation of destruction.


    That''s just pretty quickly found out the obvious fact. Eve, even in a protective suit, was not adapted to move in molten lava. All she could do was hang there like a piece of shit and try to touch the angel. In response, angel calmly swam in the lava as in water, plus it could control the red-hot rock at will, forming fast currents.


    In just five minutes, the protective suit was safely destroyed. True, it did not hurt Eve-02, but the trend was not very good. So, the high authorities decided also to dump Shinji into the volcano. After that, the fight with the angel began to resemble a little bit of a struggle. At least the demon in Eve-01 could use spells that could damage the angel from a distance. Of course, angel did not please by such attitude, so it began not only to study the strange guests, but also to try to melt them or squeeze them with high pressure.


    All this turmoil led to the fact that in the depths of the volcano, all the obstacles in the way of lava was broken, and lava quickly flowed out. The eruption was unexpected and very powerful. NERV barely managed to evacuate the temporary base, leaving the Evangelions to fight on their own. There was no way they could help them now.


    An hour later, it became clear that the two Eves had no chance to catch the agile prey. Even the nine shadow demons couldn''t help much. Therefore, I suggested Shinji to start sacrificing people to temporarily amplify the demon in Eve-01''s body. There was no need to kill anyone, because people were already dying by the thousands due to the eruption of the volcano. Lava and ash spread throughout the island, and no evacuation could save the local population. After all, they had nowhere to run. Roads could not provide transportation of such a number of people in a short time.

 Chapter 9.10 Evangelion

    The fight lasted six hours without interruption before Eve-01 became strong enough to cut the angel with a single blow. After that, they managed to catch up and destroy it with joint efforts of two pilots. By this time, the entire population of Kyushu was being digested in the stomachs of demons. And that was almost ten million people. Not everyone could call this as a victory, but the two obsessive pilots and their obsessive boss were not upset by this ''collateral damage''. Moreover, after returning to Tokyo-3, the three of them planned to go to hot springs to take rest, arguing that it is necessary to relax after a long battle.


    The price for defeating of the angel was great. And it was not about money, or even people, but about the public opinion of stupid ordinary people. The Department of public relations of NERV tried to whitewash the name of its organization, but all enemies and envious people at the same time came out of their holes and began to pour all types of dirt they could dig up to the ''saviors of humanity''. However, all these political machinations could not affect anything, because SEELE firmly kept the main political players in palm. They used this event as an occasion to show that it is SEELE who manages the Project of Human Complementation, and Ikari Gendo and his company are just employees.


    The activation of the expression of public ''Pfff'' has also led to the activation of various types of saboteurs. Less than a week later, a sabotage occurred in the heart of NERV, in the laboratory for developing Evangelions. Suddenly, right in the middle of the Eve-00 experiment, the power went out. Spare supply lines also were cut off, so the entire Geofront plunged into darkness.


    Three pilots at this time were heading from the school to the headquarters of NERV, but naturally could not get into it because of the power failure of the access system at the entrance. The elevator doors just didn''t open in front of them. According to the security protocol, in such cases, the pilots had to immediately go to their robots. And since the main roads were blocked, they had to use secret passages.


    ''Secret passages'' leading to the Geofront were confusing, and the signs on the walls had not been planned in principle. Asuka immediately tried to declare herself both a sacred leader and a great pilot, proving that only she could solve the logical problem of finding a way through the maze. Shinji disagreed with her and gave the right of choice of path to Rei. After all, the succubus studied almost the entire Geofront in detail. While Shinji and Asuka went on all sorts of trips, Rei used this time to conduct reconnaissance ''in the enemy''s camp''.


    Almost every time the group met a fork, Asuka and Rei''s opinions diverged, and after just a few minutes, it turned out that Rei was right. This so infuriated Asuka that at the end of the way she resembled a boiling kettle, splashing out her irritation on others.


    Meanwhile, another angel appeared on the surface. It looked like a spider. The round, dish-shaped body was ''suspended'' on eight long legs, which this angel used to move around. The NERV command received information about the angel in time, so the staff began manually preparing the Evangelions for combat operations. In particular, this meant preparing to insert the contact capsule with the pilot into the robot.


    Only when Shinji and his accompany appeared in the hangar with Eves, it turned out that all this effort was completely unnecessary. At Shinji''s mental command, the demon in Eve-01 picked up the pilots with telekinesis and placed them in their pods. After that, the robots deprived of power easily freed themselves from their locking mechanisms and ... teleported to the surface directly to Tokyo-3.


    By this time, the angel had already reached the city and decided to use one of the technical mines to quickly get into the Geofront. Angels main weapon was acid, which it could release in unlimited quantities. Angel quickly dissolved the entrance cover, then began to fill mine, destroying one protective partition after another.


    This time, Ayanami Rei, or rather the succubus in her body, took control over the operation. Three Eves surrounded the angel and simultaneously struck at it with magic. All three spells came across the exposed energy shield. Moreover, the spells were reflected back, so Eves had to protect themselves from their own attacks.


    It took some time to realize that remote and melee attacks could not penetrate this angel''s defenses, while it occasionally spat acid not only at the mine, but also at the attackers. And I must say that this acid was also a gift. It easily corroded armor, protective AT-fields, and spells of Chaos magic.


    Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    But in the end, Rei figured out how to deal with the enemy with its own weapons. Eve-00 could create protective fields that could withstand contact with acid for a while. So, she climbed into the mine¡¯s shaft from the Geofront side and created a force field in the form of a glass, which began to accumulate acid. At this time, Shinji and Asuka surrounded the angel, holding it in place with their magic. And when the ''glass'' was fully filled, Rei lifted it up and began to pour the acid under pressure directly to the angel''s body. The enemy''s shields could not hold back the pressure of its own weapons, and soon the angel dissolved in acid, finally exploding.


    This fight was surprisingly easy. I didn''t even have to resort to any additional reinforcement. Of course, the city and the Geofront suffered due to acid flows, but all this destruction could be easily restored. As for the robots, they didn''t even need to be repaired from the moment the demons possessed them, because the correct application of AT-field or Chaos magic was able to completely restore organics and even technology, focusing on astral images from the near past.


    The profit from this operation was not only the destruction of the angel, but also the ''dry residue'' in the form of its long legs. Dr. Akagi swooped down on them like a vulture on a lamb and immediately grabbed every last piece for the experiments. Another consequence was the deepening of the conflict between Asuka and the other two pilots. The Second Child suddenly felt like a ''third extra'', which resulted in another inflammation of bitchiness and swelling of claims to the universe.


    And the most unexpected consequence was Misato''s promotion to the rank of major. Kensuke noticed new loops on her costume, and immediately crumbled in congratulations to his lover. In connection with this event, the company decided to a party in an expanded line-up. The core of the company was Shinji, Rei, Asuka, Misato, Toji and Kensuke. And the ''invited stars'' were Ryoji Kaji and Hikari Horaki, the head of the class where Shinji studied.


    The girl was invited by Asuka to have a ''counterweight'' to the male company. Horaki came to the party to be closer to Toji, who she was in love with. Also, Kaji was an old friend of Misato, whom she also invited. But Kaji came to party accompanied by Dr. Akagi, which he ''picked up'' on the way.


    Initially, the party was supposed to be just a normal meeting. But when all the participants took their seats at the table, Shinji couldn''t resist the temptation to use a massive sexual arousal spell. And he used it so smoothly and imperceptibly that even the succubus did not realize what was wrong. The longer the company sat, the more depraved everyone''s thoughts became. For a while, people were held back by the presence of unfamiliar personalities, but first Rei started hugging Shinji, then Asuka started hung on Kaji, then Toji decided to seduce Horaki, and events started.


    Two hours later, the party turned into a wild orgy and group sex. Participants no longer held back and completely abandoned all decency and morality, plunging into the depths of passion. And when the ''celebration'' reached its climax, on the phones of most of those present received a message about the discovery of an angel.


    The unexpected sobering led the three guests into a wild embarrassment. They never imagined that they could do such things. But they did not have time to indulge in reflection, because everyone urgently had to get dressed and go to the Geofront. However, Horaki, Toji and Kensuke remained in the apartment, after which the guys were able to persuade the girl to continue an interesting activity. The poor head girl had only to complain that she was dressed and undressed in vain.


    The angel was discovered by a group of space satellites. It was in the polar orbit of the Earth, making a turn in about half an hour. From the point of view of physics, this speed was inexplicable, but in the case of an angel, this did not surprise anyone. For the first few hours, it just circled around, and then it started bombing the surface of the planet. According to the transmitted images, the angel literally tore off pieces of flesh and threw them down. On contact with the surface of the planet, these projectiles detonated, destroying everything around like a nuclear bomb.


    For a while, everyone expected the angel to start an attack on Tokyo-3, but the angel didn''t come down. Since it was in a polar orbit, and the planet was rotating, the trajectory of the angel constantly shifted relative to the surface of the planet. According to MAGI''s predictions, in just three days of such a bombardment, the entire planet would be turn into a nuclear ash.


    Ikari Gendo and his deputy were not in Tokyo-3 at the time, so Misato had to lead the operation to destroy the angel. But by this point the succubus in her body was already able to eat the brains of her ''carrier'' to influence most of her decisions. And Misato''s strategic thinking was somewhere on the level of a teenager. So, when she offered to arm Eves with huge baseball bats and send them to hit projectiles back at the angel, most of those present felt a strong urge to start banging their heads against the wall.

 Chapter 9.11 Evangelion

    Unfortunately, at the moment, Misato was the highest authority in the headquarters, and no one dared to contradict her. I decided not to interfere, because the idea was not as absurd as it seemed at first glance.


    As a result, all three Evangelions were positioned around Tokyo-3 and began to wait for the moment when the angel would fly directly over them. The computer calculations showed that at least several of the charges had to fall exactly on the Geofront. While waiting, NERV phones were subjected to a massive attack from the governments of those countries that were under bombardment. Unfortunately, according to the official version, Eves could only operate in the vicinity of Tokyo-3 or when a gigawatt power supply was connected. So, no one were eager to save people.


    And now, the carpet of nuclear bombardment is approaching Tokyo-3. The Eves got ready, sorted out the rather sluggish falling targets, and rushed to intercept them. The first repulsed charges, although they managed to throw into space, but they did not even pass near the angel. But angel was interested in a curious phenomenon and stopped exactly over Tokyo-3, continuing the bombing. Then the Eves showed class, beating all the pitches. Each time their movements became more precise, and in the end Asuka was lucky. The charge repulsed by her got exactly in the center of the angel, after which it detonated, completely burning all the electronics on half of the planet.


    The testimony of the few surviving satellites confirmed the complete destruction of the angel. As a result, Misato received a personal gratitude from Gendo, and Asuka, as always, was content only with the realization of her own coolness. The success of the pilots was considered to be something very simple, so no one even paid attention to them. On the contrary, they were scolded: ''Why have you been messing around for so long?''.


    As a result, Asuka''s moral satisfaction decreased, which led her to seek compensation in the form of sexual satisfaction. Her depraved adventures broke free to the big world, and rumors began to circulate in the city about an abnormal red-haired nymphet who ran naked around the city at night and tried to copulate with any more or less cute man. As a result, some schoolchildren and students went for a walk around the city at night to meet this miracle. The lucky ones preferred not to spread the consequences of such a meeting in the form of a three-day decline of forces up to a state of inactivity


    A week later, Geofront received three headless bodies of serial Evangelions, which were supposed to test the technology of creating Eve''s autopilot based on the clones of Ayanami Rei. These three bodies were developed in the United States and even at the creation stage, one of them was infected by an angel. This creature resembled a cluster of intelligent bacteria in its structure.


    As soon as the pilot experiments began, the angel activated and began to spread in all directions, literally devouring the encountered organics and equipment. The experiment was stopped and the lab was isolated, but it didn''t help much. The angel easily devoured the armored bulkheads and began to spread throughout the Geofront, turning the labyrinths of the corridors into a pulsating tangle of guts.


    But most importantly, the angel connected to the computer network and tried to hack into MAGI''s computers. After that, it would immediately know about all the secrets of NERV, plus it would get full control over all the systems of Geofront and Tokyo-3.


    Dr. Akagi suggested ''hacking'' the angel''s computer mind, instilling in him the idea of death as the final state of any creature. But I had a better idea. Instructed by me, Shinji performed a summoning of three ''demons of knowledge'', which then took possession of MAGI''s bionic brains. Here these creatures of Chaos felt as at home, so it was not difficult for them to jointly ''hack'' the angel, who trustingly opened his mind to them. After that, the angel''s body began to transform back into the matter from which it originated, returning the Geofront to its original form.


    After the angel was destroyed, the three demons kept their connection to the computers so that they could continue to control them for my purposes. And as payment for their services, they privatized three headless Eves that were being experimented on. These three giants disappeared into the depths of Chaos, where the demons of knowledge subdued them and used them for their incomprehensible purposes.


    As a result of all this operation, the management of NERV got a little scared. Before they even realized what had happened, everything came back to normal. As a result, the angel attack was officially recognized as just a leak of hallucinogenic gas, launched into the ventilation system by malicious saboteurs. And three almost ready-made Eves worth billions of dollars each were written off under the article ''consumables'', explaining what happened by the fact that a stupid technician under the influence of hallucinogens pressed the wrong button. In general, all garbage was swept under the carpet, and all facts along with the technician were drowned in the sewer.


    This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    After this incident, I harnessed the demons of knowledge to study all information bases of NERV. In addition, they had to observe all events in Geofront using the CCTV cameras located everywhere. And the first strangeness they noticed was the existence of Ayanami Rei in two places at the same time


    Before relocating to Shinji, Rei from time to time passed through the body stabilization procedure in Terminal Dogma. But after the succubus was put in, these practices stopped because the results of the research showed that Rei''s body had become stabile. But the succubus ''forgot'' to tell me that just a couple of weeks after that, the real Rei''s soul escaped from her body.


    Obviously, Gendo foresee such option with possessing Ayanami Rei¡¯s body by demon, so he made preventive actions and resurrected his puppet in a new body, leaving Yamirei to play the role of pilot. A more detailed study of the contents of the hidden rooms of Terminal Dogma showed that there is not only Ayanami Rei, but also a clone of Eve-00, ''not defiled'' by the influence of the demon.


    It seems that Gendo has not lost hope to put in place his plan, albeit with some changes. I didn''t bother him early, but I kept watching all his actions, which was pretty easy with demons. It wasn''t that I was in any way harmed by his throwing, but it was worth keeping my finger on the pulse, so as not to miss important events.


    One of these significant events was the arrival of the Spear of Longinus, which Ikari Gendo brought from Antarctica. A copy of Eve-00, under the control of the real Rei, transferred the spear to Terminal Dogma and stuck it into Lilith''s body, which hung there, crucified on a cross. And just the next day, Ryoji Kaji entered this room, diligently sniffing out all the secrets of NERV. Unfortunately for him, every time he learned that demons were involved in all this, one of the ''shadow demons'' erased his memory.


    A few days later, the next angel appeared. Recently, they came one after another, not giving people time to rest properly. This angel outwardly looked like a striped ball, but its true body was the shadow of this ball. Its very existence was virtual to a certain extent. It could be called an abstract angel, because no material object could be truly two-dimensional, because of which the reality itself ''painted'' a balloon flying in the air to give the existence of this angel at least some credibility.


    All three Eves simultaneously began to attack the angel and naturally ''stuck'' in its ''shadow'', falling into it and disappearing without a trace. Shinji and his henchmen struggled to free themselves, but the demon''s ''permitted'' abilities were not enough. My plans for the battle with this angel were far-reaching.


    When Shinji became convinced that he was unable to break out of captivity by his own power, I came to him with another idea of performing a sacrifice.


    ¡°Shinji, you need to sacrifice your most valuable you have.¡±


    ¡°And, what is it exactly?¡± ¨C Shinji asked.


    ¡°You can find out after you''re released. Just agree to sacrifice it and you will be free.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t like the idea of such sacrificing.¡±


    ¡°Then call me when you change your mind.¡±


    After two days, spent in complete darkness and silence without sex and food, he had no choice.


    The most valuable, in Shinji''s case, was the soul of his mother, Ikari Yui. I agreed with the demon that he would defeat this angel ''in debt'', and as a pledge to get the rights to Yui''s soul. After the agreement was concluded, the demon called for help inhabitants of Chaos. The space in which the Eves were located existed only because of the angel. So, when there was a breakthrough right into the world of Chaos in this space, it was like launching a pack of piranhas into the belly of an alligator. In just a few seconds, the angel was literally torn to pieces and devoured, and the three Evangelions made a journey through the abyss of Chaos and fell out into Tokyo-3. For ordinary mortals, such journey would hardly have ended well, but the Eves were under the control of demons, who were able to negotiate with the ''higher powers'' to transport counterfeit cargo.


    After returning to the material world, Shinji immediately rushed to find out what he had sacrificed. At first, he thought it was Rei. Then he suspected Asuka. But having made sure of their presence, he began to look for Misato and other acquaintances. To his disappointment, nothing had changed in the world around him.


    Dark thoughts hovered in the pilot''s head, and I was in no hurry to dispel them, waiting for the moment when the ''fruit'' will ripen. After analyzing his actions since appearing in Tokyo-3, Shinji suspected that he had sacrificed his soul or humanity. But again, he had no evidence of this, so he just continued to engage in self-examination, trying to understand the depth of his moral downfall and the degree of moral decay.

 Chapter 9.12 Evangelion

    While Shinji indulged in moral torment, events around him were gaining momentum. The news came from the United States that an entire branch of NERV was destroyed as a result of the test of Eve-04 with an experimental S2-engine, repeating the structure of the core of the angel. The development of the autopilot system for Evangelions has entered the final stage. Eves under his control could perform the simplest actions, and if necessary, fall into a state of berserk.


    Soon, a new Eve-03 was delivered to Japan from the United States, the pilot of which was to be Toji. Over the past time, ''minion'' really became friends with Shinji and no longer blamed him for his slave status and the death of his sister. In the end, everything was fine with him. How much does an obsessive need to be happy? Following the base instincts of the body was enough. And Toji didn''t have any problems with food or sex.


    The first launch of Eve-03 was decided to be held away from the Geofront in the vicinity of the city of Matsuhiro. After the incidents with the three Eves and the Eve-04, Gendo did not really trust US-made products, so he decided to insure himself. This precaution was not superfluous. After Toji was placed inside the robot, the procedure of starting the main circuits and synchronization began. But as soon as the body of Eve awoke, along with her came to consciousness angel hidden inside.


    In fact, this creature was a modification of the same infection that had recently been discovered in the three Evangelions that had arrived from the United States. Only here the evolution of bacteria took a different path, and the body of Eve-03 was absorbed by the angel. After that, Eve trashed the research station and started walk on foot toward Tokyo-3.


    Ikari Gendo called the pilots and ordered them to intercept the angel, without specifying that it was actually a captured Eve-03 with Toji still alive inside. So, when Shinji saw who he needed to destroy and felt the master-servant''s connection to the pilot, it became obvious to him that his father was demanding that he kill his friend.


    Before, when Shinji sacrificed someone, he didn''t see the death itself. For him, it was just some kind of transition of an abstract person from state A to state B. But now he realized that he would have to kill someone he knew personally. And taking into account all those moral torments that he screwed himself up, it could have led to a nervous breakdown


    So, while Shinji was trying to get an answer to the question ''to waste or not to waste'', Asuka and Rei joined the fight. But the angel was not so simple. By this time, he had already formed an S2 engine in his body, so that he could withstand the power of the demons. In just a few strokes, he knocked out Eve-00 and Eve-02, then headed for Shinji.


    Meanwhile, my ''patient'' addressed to me with a stupid question that I had been waiting for from him all this time. More precisely, I did not just wait, but gradually led him to it, instilling the necessary thoughts and images.


    "Schizophrenia! Is my sacrifice should be Toji? Do the demons want me to kill him?¡± - He cried, being one step away from hysterics.


    "No, of course not.¡± - I said. - "Haven''t you figured it out yet? Last time, you sacrificed the most valuable thing you had - the soul of your mother, who was imprisoned in the body of Eve-01.¡±


    "What... What?"!! WHAT???!!!!!!!!! My mother''s soul?!!


    "Yes, you fed her to the demons.¡±


    "A-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a!"!!!!!


    This wild scream marked the complete destruction of Shinji''s psyche. In this state, he could agree to anything and was completely unable to think logically. For the first time since he had piloted the Eve, he really intercepted the robot''s control. After that, Eve-01 fell into a state of berserk, but the source of his rage and wild anger was the pilot himself. Eve leaped forward, pounced on the angel, and began to beat it, breaking through all kinds of protection and armor. Like a wild beast, Shinji unleashed his rage in a deadly battle, thinking only of how to kill his opponent. How to kill everyone. How to destroy this whole world! This was exactly the state I wanted from him.


    ¡°Shinji.¡± - I began my speech in the voice of the tempting devil. - "You can still get your mother''s soul back. You can even bring her back to life by giving her a new body. You just need to make a sufficient sacrifice.¡±


    If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    "Who? Who should I kill?¡± - The pilot roared, ripping the guts out of the angel''s torn body. - "Him?" - The next blow smashed Eve-03''s head, spilling its brains all over the area.


    "Those who are to blame for all this. Angel infected Eve-03 when it was created in the United States. It was a deliberate diversion. Therefore, you must sacrifice the entire population of this country. Just use this ritual, and your mother will come back to you.¡±


    Shinji''s further actions were predictable. Without hesitation, he activated the ritual, after which many portals to the world of Chaos were opened in North America, from where hordes of demons emerged. In just a few seconds, the entire population in the continent were destroyed. In return, Eve-01 received a constant reinforcement, which brought her to a new level of power.


    With just one flick of the finger, Eve sprayed the remains of the angel to a bloody pulp, while leaving the capsule with Toji intact. And after another couple of seconds, a new body of Ikari Yui was formed from the flesh of Eve-01, where a happy demon put her soul. After all, demon just exchanged one soul for almost four hundred million souls. The size of the ''profit'' simply defied description.


    Seeing the familiar image of his mother from childhood, Shinji immediately teleported out without even noticing it. Along with the strengthening of Eve-01, its pilot also strengthened, which received a percentage of its power. So now Shinji could perform real miracles, pushing through reality with just an effort of will. However, for this purpose it was necessary to have a steel will, which this mattress did not have in principle. He was teleported solely because he had no understanding of what he was doing or how he was doing it.


    For all initiated people, ''resurrection'' of Ikari Yui was a real shock. Ordinary people were shocked by the very possibility of bringing a person back to life. Dr. Ritsuko Akagi was horrified by the return to the world of the living of her rival in a relationship with Ikari Gendo. In the past, she set up the ''dissolution'' of Yui during the experiment and now was waiting for revenge


    Ikari Gendo panicked, because now he had no hope of controlling Eve-01, which his wife''s soul was supposed to provide. Of course, he was glad to have her back, but the plan to become a God from such a miracle was bursting at the seams. But he wanted it so much.


    However, it was quickly discovered that Ikari Yui is not the ideal woman that Shinji imagined her to be. Yes, she loved her son. But her greatest love was the Human Instrumentality Project. So, within a couple of days, she began actively brainwashing her child on the importance of following Gendo''s orders, following their Grand plan, and so on. And, of course, she wasn''t going to scold his son because of the fact that he brings people to sacrifice to demons. For the sake of the Plan, she was willing to agree to more than that.


    Although Shinji''s mind was in turmoil, he still had some ability to think logically. It didn''t take long for him to realize that the resurrected mother was trying to isolate him from the society of friends in order to have the sole right to brainwash him. My caustic comments also helped him realize this simple truth. So, within a week, Shinji was completely disillusioned with the miracle of resurrection. But his conscience began to torment him even more for the millions of ruined lives. In fact, all these people died for the sake of a miracle, the value of which even for him was in doubt.


    In general, the sudden death of the population of the entire North American continent was taken by the population of Earth surprisingly calm. Yes, there was a lot of panic and useless disputes, but after the Second Blow, people got used to the fact that everything was bad. And the attacks of the angels convinced them that it would be even worse. So, when this ''worse'' happened, no one was particularly surprised. The death of people was blamed on the angels, which on the one hand added NERV points, because they were engaged in destroying these angels, but at the same time it caused a new wave of claims, because they clearly did not cope with their work.


    Meanwhile, while all these passions raged, Toji gradually returned to normal life. He remained alive, and the demon in his body took care of restoring health. But since his Eve was destroyed, he could no longer be a pilot. And he didn''t really want to, to be honest. However, he remained a loyal minion of Shinji, and this role suited him well.


    About a couple of weeks later, events in the world and in the NERV itself came to a boiling point. First, although the masses did not panic, the governments demanded to ''find and punish'' at least some guilty in the destruction of the population of the United States and Canada. And second, Ikari Yui and Gendo finally realized that Shinji does not want to be under their control, and instead prefers to spend his life in the company of demons.


    To appease some and subdue others, the Ikari family decided to arrest the pilot of Eve-01 and put him in a prison cell. For politicians, this was presented as a punishment of guilty, and for Shinji it was explained as the desire to protect him from unwanted communication. However, Shinji fell into a depression and did not want to do anything. So, a prison cell, where he was not bothered by friends and women, seemed to him not so bad option. The only thing that irritated him was the daily visits of his mother, who consistently tried to brainwash him and incline him ''to the side of good''. Not least, he was annoyed by these visits because every time Ikari Yui appeared, I started playing the violin with the most annoying melodies I could remember or come up with.

 Chapter 9.13 Evangelion

    Simultaneously with Shinji, ''fake'' Ayanami Rei also was placed in a separate prison cell. Asuka was placed in an empty apartment under the strict supervision of security, which monitored her movements 24/7, limiting all ''undesirable'' contacts with other people. To Toji and Kensuke has been simply and clumsily hinted that if they were seen again in Misato''s apartment, they would collect their broken teeth with broken fingers. The head of the Operations Department herself, although she retained her job, was reprimanded by Gendo, plus she was banned from any contact with pilots and school children outside of working hours and duties.


    In general, Gendo tried to tighten the screws to take control of the situation. But it was quite natural that the effect of this was completely the opposite.


    Just in time when the motivation of all the pilots dropped to zero, the next angel appeared. Even in the canon, he had the highest fighting power of all the angels. Its impenetrable defense was combined with the strongest physical attacks that could cut through any obstacle, and ray weapons that could destroy a medium-sized city in a single blow. In this world, the power of the angel was beyond of all reasonable limits. With the first shot, he broke through the entrance to the Geofront, where he went, completely ignoring all attempts to damage it with conventional weapons.


    By Gendo''s orders, Asuka was exposed against the angel with her Eve-02. Irritated girl tried to foil anger at the enemy, but quickly realized that nothing can oppose to him. Any of her attacks were simply blocked by the angel''s defensive AT-field, while even the weakest of his attacks dealt to Eve-02 damage, breaking through all types of defenses. Even under these conditions, Asuka tried to do the impossible, but as a result, the maximum she could achieve was to delay the angel for ten minutes, after which he began to act seriously, literally cutting Eve to pieces in a second. Of course, it was not fatal for a demon, but it was quite difficult to regenerate from such a state. Well at least the angel immediately lost all interest to the opponent and headed to the center of the Geofront.


    Here he met the ''Secret weapon of NERV'' - a clone of Eve-00 under the control of the real Ayanami Rei. But angel did not even consider the enemy as obstacle. Just one shot from the ray weapon was enough to literally evaporate an ordinary Eve, leaving only ashes from her and the pilot. For Gendo, this failure was an excellent indicator of the true strength of the Evangelions. In other words, the giant fighting humanoid robots were just useless garbage.


    Under these circumstances, Commander Ikari had no choice but to release Shinji and Yamirei from their cell, put them in robots, and send them into battle. After all, the angel had to be destroyed at any cost.


    The battle with the angel continued, fortunately, room in Geofront was enough. But it quickly became clear that the power of the angel is such that Yamirei and Eve-00 can do nothing against him. But Shinji already had a chance. In the end, he had been strengthened by the last sacrifice of four hundred million people, plus the demon had managed to get used to all this power. However, there were other problems.


    Until this moment, the demon in Eve-01 had been trying to pretend to be a robot, keeping in her body various electronic components and modules that suppressed to power the Evangelion. But in this fight, it became obvious that with such a body, she could not win. So right in the middle of the fight, Eve-01 began to consume all the machinery that held her back, transforming from a robot into a giant monster that looked as eclectic as any of the angels.


    After five minutes of fierce fighting, Eve-01 looked like a cross between a demon and an angel. Her entire body was covered with black dragon scales, which glistered with a dark haze. Her hands and feet had claws. A dozen horns grew on her head. Although the face was still human, the wide mouth was now filled with a palisade of needle-sharp teeth. But all these changes were not the most noticeable. The fact is that the demonic body, filled with wild beast power, was covered with beautiful golden armor that would have been more suitable for a representative of the forces of Light. On the contrary, these elements of ''clothes'' were radiant with an unearthly radiance, spreading a halo of holiness.


    This combination, oddly enough, proved to be quite effective. Now the demon easily simultaneously operated the magic of Chaos and the AT-field, not holding back. It was the combined use of these two types of magic that allowed her to break through the angel''s defenses and grab it by the egg, in meaning the core. After that, the demon began to tear the angel apart, greedily devouring his innards. She no longer paid attention to Shinji''s ''commands'' but simply quenched her hunger with oily prey. Eve-01 absorbed not only the angel''s flesh, but also his life energy, magic, and even his very soul. In front of the astonished ''public'' robot turned into a wild animal, greedily chewing bloody pieces of meat.


    This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    When only the ''skin'' was left of the angel, Eva-01 straightened up to her full height and froze in this position, imitating a state of sleep. In fact, the demon had simply moved to fulfill a clause in the contract that required it to pose as a robot, even in such a dubious way.


    When the heat of battle had subsided, it was time to take stock. Ikari Gendo made sure that he could not remove Shinji and Yamirei from piloting the Evangelions, simply because only they had chance of surviving the encounter with the angels. Asuka made sure that no matter how super-pilot she was, against the angels her Eve-02 is useless. Of course, literally blinding himself from the pieces, but the pilot had no merit for that.


    Eve-00 was barely injured, but Yamirei was not eager to obey the idiotic orders of NERV in general and Ikari Gendo in particular. At this point, she was well aware that she was the only pilot of a combat-ready Eve, which automatically gave her the ability to blackmail the management.


    As for Shinji, he banally refused to leave Eva-01''s body. Imprisonment and communication with his parents plunged him into such depression that he simply sat inside the capsule, receiving all the necessary substances for life directly from the LCL. Moreover, he has completely abandoned material reality and focused on the perception of the world of Chaos.


    During the last absorption of the angel, he has received small piece of the angelic soul, which gave him a natural ability to control the AT-field. Using these abilities along with the magic of Chaos, he was able to ''look'' into the world of demons, and that place pleased to him very much. After all, perceiving this world, he could fully focus on the way of thinking demons, in which there were not all these stupid people''s problems with conscience, responsibilities and personal relationships. As a result, Shinji was just ''stuck'' inside Eve-01, and no one around him was able to dig him out.


    Shinji spent almost a month in this kind of suspended animation. During this time, the passions calmed down a little and life got better. Asuka and Rei attended school as normal students. Misato met Toji and Kensuke in a secret rented apartment, where they entered under an eye diversion spell. Rei was ¡®keeping chastity¡¯, because she was interested in sex only as a way to achieve her goals. But Asuka changed lovers like gloves, from time to time ''resting'' in the arms of two of his classmates.


    In NERV there were also quiet fermentations. The process of turning Eve-01 from a ''caterpillar'' into a hideous monster was captured on camera, and the recording was made available to SEELE. They, of course, were not happy with this turn of fate and began to try to displace Ikari Gendo from the position of commander by all available methods of underhand struggle. As a result of all these secret passions, Ryoji Kaji was ''run over by a train'', and no one else saw him alive.


    Finally, when I thought that Shinji''s vacation was over, I gave the command to the demon in Eve-01 to start working on it through their existing connection. This impact was not something special. It was just that the demon had begun to stimulate the pilot''s sexual arousal. For the first couple of hours, it didn''t have much success, but gradually Shinji began to realize that something was bothering him. This feeling grew and grew, until in one heartbreaking moment his consciousness threw him back into the material world. And this little maniac lost all common sense.


    With a wild roar, Shinji teleported directly to the succubus in the body of Ayanami Rei, who was currently sitting in boring history lesson. With his eye burning with superhuman lust, Shinji tore off Rei''s clothes with first movement, unfolded her with the second, and entered from behind with the third, beginning rapid movements. The entire class stared in shock at this performance. Except, of course, the history teacher, who continued to broadcast his ''program'', completely ignoring reality. With his myopia eyes, it was hard to tell what was going on in the back rows. In addition, the entire class was so immersed in watching live porn that no one made a sound.


    After five minutes, Shinji and Rei finished, and the maniac quickly moved to Asuka''s desk, which was also enchanted by the appearance of her favorite male. With one more movement of his hand, Shinji tore off Asuka''s clothes and began to fuck her. This picture turned on the brains of most of the girls in the class, and they began to run in different directions, thinking that now Shinji will start to rape them as well. However, some particularly bold individuals on the contrary began to get closer to have time to offer their ''services''.


    Alas, to their dismay, after ten minutes, Shinji had finished, pushed Asuka aside and looked at Toji. Toji was sweating from the attention and began to step back. But after a second, Shinji''s gaze stopped on Rei''s naked body and his hands reached out to her. When he finished again, he switched back to Asuka. By the time the next orgasm was reached, a concerned Misato flew into the class, which Shinji immediately ''used'' her for primary purpose, not even giving a word to say. A dozen of the bravest observers were choking with saliva, watching this porn festival, and the guys even found the strength to start molesting the girls. And then forester came and dispersed all of them.

 Chapter 9.14 Evangelion

    I mean, crowd of NERV security personnel broken into a class, and pinned down everyone present and dragged them for questioning. Shinji by this time had already removed most of the ''tension'', so he allowed himself to be interrupted without even killing anyone. Rumors about this case spread at the speed of sound, and in absentia Shinji immediately received the nickname ''sex machine''.


    Alas, the ''triumphant'' return of the Third Child could not restore the former relationship in the company. Although Asuka was happy to have sex, she quietly hated Shinji. Rei, of course, was a devoted concubine, but she was a cold bitch when it came to dealing with everyone else. Toji and Kensuke found girlfriends, and with Misato met secretly, so the point of going to visit Shinji was not seen, communicating only at school. And Shinji himself, despite his return ''to the world of the living'' has become a closed weak-willed type, unable to respond normally even to an elementary greeting.


    Another problem was Asuka''s difficulty in synchronizing with her Eve-02. The demon himself was not eager to execute the commands of a quarrelsome bitch, so Asuka could only count on standard synchronization with Eve. But her depressed psychological state affected synchronization, day after day reducing her self-esteem and ability to control the robot. It came to the point that even Eve was now walking haltingly and ''on a sinusoid''.


    A couple of days after the return of the prodigal son, another angel was discovered in Earth orbit. Almost immediately after its appearance, it began to emit waves of AT-field that enslaved people, causing them to fall into a rage and destroy everything around them, except for the same madmen. Not all people succumbed to this influence, but there were enough of them to immediately start mass riots all over the Earth. At the same time, the situation was getting worse by the minute, and more and more people were going crazy.


    Governments of all countries immediately began to demand from NERV take immediate action and destroy the angel, sometimes falling into an uncontrollable rage right during the telephone call. Gritting his teeth, Ikari Gendo gave the order to send Eve-00 and Eve-02 to battle under the control of Yamirei and Asuka. The latter was already on the edge, so as soon as her Eve-02 came to the surface, she was immediately subdued by the angel and began to mindlessly destroy everything around her. Yamirei was not confused and was able to neutralize her ''friend'', but then the question arose, what to do next?


    The angel was at an altitude of more than ten thousand kilometers, and at this distance, none of the demon''s abilities worked. So Gendo had no choice but to give the order to Shinji. He in principle had now enough strength to become the ruler of the whole Earth in the shortest possible time, but he did not have the brains to decide on it. So, the weak-willed slug just did what he was told.


    Once on the surface, Eve-01 used all her power to create one spell and shoot the angel with the strongest ray of Chaos energy. The sound that was made for the surrounding area like the explosion of nuclear bomb. The stream of pure destruction covered the distance to the target in a fraction of a second... and it splashed helplessly against angel¡¯s defenses. No, there was some damage from this, but the angel quickly regenerated all the damage.


    The reason for the failure was that the angel used the AT-field of all subdued people to feed his defense. And the number of these people was increasing every second. Therefore, I gave order to Shinji to sacrifice all people who were subordinated by the angel. This way we killed two birds with one shot. The angel will be deprived of the source of energy, and Eve-01 on the contrary will be strengthened.


    It took five minutes to develop and activate the ritual. After that, more than a billion people died all over the world in one second. A second later, Eve-01 fired an even more destructive spell. Together, it was enough to just instantly vaporize the angel. After using such powerful magic, even Eve-01 and the demon in her body experienced a temporary ''rollback'', weakening their defenses. This was the moment when another enemy chose to attack.


    As it turned out, just next to Eve-01 among the buildings of Tokyo-3, another copy of Eve-00 was hiding under the control of real Ayanami Rei. Moreover, the robot was hidden under a spell of invisibility, and in her hand was the same Spear of Longinus, which Adam was once destroyed. Rei used it, piercing the central core of Eve-01 from the back. Although Eve''s appearance had changed, its basic structure remained unchanged, and the demon''s energy core was hidden under the armor in the belly area.


    The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.


    The demon roared in a silent scream. The spear completely blocked all of her abilities, giving her extreme pain in return. A small part of this pain was experienced by Shinji, who also started screaming. The clone of Eve-00 was about to do something else, clearly intending to finish off Eve-01, when two circumstances intervened. First, the original under the command of Yamirei rushed to meet the clone of Eve under the control of Rei. And second, Eve-01 summoned nine shadow demons to help her. But instead of saving their master, these stupid creatures attacked her, trying to devour the temporarily defenseless ''food''.


    I had to literally put in Shinji''s head the idea of getting a spear out of the Evangelion. Yes, the demon was now paralyzed. But Shinji''s own magic powers worked without problems. As soon as the thought that he could get rid of the pain appeared in his mind, just on instinct, Shinji used magic to pull out the spear from the core.


    A second later, Eva-01 grabbed the weapon that wounded her so much and destroyed all the attacking demons with one quick stroke. Then she grabbed the spear with both hands and broke it in half. Then again, and again, and at the end she grabbed a handful of wreckage and... she threw them into her mouth and began to chew them crunchily.


    By the time the last remnants of the spear disappeared into the demon''s bottomless throat, Yamirei was able to catch up and immobilize the agile opponent. With obvious relish, she began to tear her apart and devour her alive, chewing the pilot''s capsule with special relish.


    After this, in the literal sense of the word, Shinji lost the last drops of respect to his father. He went to his office, intending to kill off the ''arrogant geek'' on the spot. Unfortunately, to his disappointment, Gendo and Yui could not be found in the office or anywhere else. In anger, Shinji said that he was now in charge, and all dissenters would be killed or fed to the demons on the spot. And as a demonstration of his intentions, he finished off a squad of commandos who tried to capture him.


    The revolution was fast and not particularly bloody. At least the walls were cleared from blood and guts fairly quickly. The nominal commander of NERV was Fuyutsuki Kozo, who turned all arrows to Gendo and was able to convince the narrow-minded Shinji that now he was his best ally and in general always wanted to obey Ikari Shinji, and not his ugly father. In general, the movement was counted, and the new government retired to celebrate the victory in the company of its succubus.


    The fact that somewhere there lies a mutilated Eve-02 with Asuka inside the people remembered only the next day. The girl was extracted, the robot was ''pumped out'', but the further effectiveness of this ''tandem'' was under question.


    The next couple of days were in constant vanity. A lot of people died all over the world, so the confusion was terrible, and people were trying to figure out how to live. But before the survivors could bury the dead, another angel attacked the base.


    Externally, it resembled a glowing ring consisting of a double helix. Asuka by this point could not achieve even one percent synchronization with Eve-02, so she was left to rot in the hangar. A couple from Shinji and Yamirei went upstairs, managing their Eves. The succubus by this point had almost unlimited power over Shinji. But at the same time, this power was combined with boundless loyalty to him. After all, when I drafted the the contract for summoning this demon, I included the appropriate conditions.


    As soon as the two Eves appeared in Tokyo-3, the angel immediately turned from a ring into something like a glowing worm and went to the ram with Eve-01. As a result, the blow ''on the chest'' was taken by Eve-00, who shielded her master. The angel passed through all the shields without seeming to notice them, and began to penetrate Eve-00''s body. As it turned out, his ''special power'' was the ability to merge with other living creatures. It was almost impossible to resist, so the succubus made the only correct decision and ordered the demon in Eve-00''s body to activate self-destruction.


    Shinji tried to cancel this order, but he didn''t have time to do it. Eve-00 took cover with her shields, and then ... fell through the opened portal into the depths of Chaos, where it was ''self-destructed'' by feeding herself to the strongest demons.


    As a result of this act of self-sacrifice, Yamirei lost her angelic body, and her soul returned to the world of demons. Realizing this, Shinji fell into a wild depression, weighed down by the desire to kill everyone. Any attempt to contradict him ended in a terrible death, so that the people tried to banally not come across his eyes. As a result, Shinji walked the ''deserted'' corridors of the Geofront, trying to understand where everyone had gone.


    On my advice, Misato and Shinji went to explore the premises of Terminal Dogma, where they encountered Dr. Akagi, who is also deeply depressed because of the termination of her affair with Gendo. Together they went into one of the halls, where behind the glass in the LCL floated a lot of clones of Ayanami Rei, which were preforms for the production of autopilots to the Eves. Shinji, seeing these bodies and hearing that they were shells devoid of souls, was about to summon his favorite succubus to one of these bodies, but Akagi broke off his dreams by activating the self-destruct system. As a result, in just a second, all bodies fell to pieces and turned into disgusting mucus.

 Chapter 9.15 Evangelion

    Realizing this, Shinji came to indescribable anger and with bare hand tore out Akagi¡¯s heart from breast, and then sacrificed her to the demons with demand inflict to her as much suffering as possible. Shinji''s inner dissatisfaction after this incident only increased, so he went back to his apartment and lay down on the bed, dreaming of just falling asleep and never waking up.


    Meanwhile, Asuka finally realized her insignificance as a person and as a pilot. Also, she finally realized that her actions were controlled by a demon, because as soon as she wanted to tell someone about what kind of perversion Shinji was doing with Misato, she immediately felt her throat paralyzed. In the end, the girl just went into a binge, finding a flock of homeless people in the suburbs and nailing to them. There, she gave herself to everyone for a dose of drugs and booze. Her life had reached the bottom, and like Shinji, she only wanted to die.


    However, for a long time she was not allowed to have fun, and a week later she was caught by the NERV security service, and then once again put in a solitary confinement cell.


    And the next day Nagisa Kaoru arrived to the Geofront, who was supposed to be the new pilot of Eve-02 instead of Asuka. The Fifth Child immediately showed up at the Eve control center, where he began to get acquainted with everyone and poke his nose into all cracks. Even Shinji crawled out of his lair to see this rare beast. He looked at the guy who looked suspiciously like Rei with a bleary eye, and then some suspicions crept into his head.


    Kaoru in his energy, strongly resembled an angel. If Rei was only remotely similar to this life form due to her body, then Kaoru''s body hid a miniature, but full-fledged angel core. And traces of his work could not pass by the attention of Shinji, who felt such power every time he came into contact with Eve-01. Even now he possessed this power, since his soul merged with the fragments of the angel''s soul.


    Meanwhile, Nagisa Kaoru began actively inciting wedges to Shinji asking for him in friends. Or even not as friends, but as partners with a much closer relationship. Only suspecting this, Shinji immediately asked a direct question.


    "Nagisa-kun, are you faggot?" - From the emotions in Shinji''s voice, it was impossible to tell what he was thinking, so the faggot angel immediately confessed everything.


    "Yes, of course. And I like you. Tell me, Shinji, do you prefer to be a dominant or a submissive?¡±


    In response to these words, the heart of the Third Child simply began to swell with overflowing fury. Although Shinji was a sucker and henpecked, in his mind he considered himself as a great macho and conqueror of women''s hearts. So, when he was explicitly asked to engage in such a perversion, the remnants of his morals reacted with grief of loss of Yamirei and were compounded by the perception of Kaoru as an angel.


    As a result, with the roar ¡®Death to faggots!'' Shinji instantly blocked all abilities of the angel who did not expect such a setup, then activated the sacrifice ritual and fed the pervert to the most terrible demons he could remember. What''s most interesting is that he did all this on his own instincts without any help from me or the demon in Eve-01. So, the last of the angels perished, and the war with them ended nominally.


    Not immediately, but after about a couple of hours SEELE learned about the destruction of the last angel which was created by them, and on their orders sent to NERV. Convinced of his death, they ordered the beginning of the final phase of the Human Instrumentation Project. According to this project, Eve-01 as the heiress of Lilith was to ''mate'' with nine serial Eves made from the flesh of Adam, after which the ''fruit of wisdom'' will be appear. All humanity had to merge into a single soul, lose their identity, and then achieve some ''perfection'' and ''absolute happiness''. Well, at least that''s what was written in some crazy prophecies written in ancient scrolls found by heretics in the Dead Sea area of Israel.


    In general, the plan was so-so and I was not satisfied with the fact that the ritual with the use of Evangelions took place according to some strange scheme of ritual magic, with which I was not familiar. So, I couldn''t predict what would actually happen if the ritual was activated. And accordingly, I cannot say how this ritual can be influenced to achieve the desired result. Therefore, in my plans was to hold a completely different event, with a clearly guaranteed final


    If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    The attack on the NERV headquarters began with an attempt to hack into MAGI computers using five similar MAGI backup systems located in different countries. But the three Central computers in our MAGI were no longer ''artificial intelligence''. Their intelligence was the natural intelligence of demons of knowledge, able to foresee future events even in the eternal Chaos. In general, it required to the demons only a couple of minutes to reverse hack into all the enemy''s computers and activate their self-destruct system.


    Realizing that there would not be easy solutions, SEELE gave the command to launch a regular assault to the Geofront using the Japanese Self-Defense Forces and UN assault squads. That''s just this idea failed miserably. At my command, Shinji performed a ritual after which the entire remaining population of Tokyo-3, with the exception of the staff at headquarters, began to turn into demons. It wasn''t just an obsession. Under the influence of Chaos magic, people''s bodies changed, and in just a few seconds they turned into invulnerable monsters whose only desire was to devour everything that had a human soul in it. As a result, the entire UN army infiltrated the Geofront, after which... they disappeared without a trace, leaving only records of wild wails in radio interception systems.


    To suppress the resistance the army of demons, the human army began mass bombing of the Geofront with the help of artillery and aircraft. Even N2 bombs were used. In response to this, Shinji sent Asuka to deal with the ''little things''. Of course, it was a little less than useless at the moment, but we just needed her to have at least one pilot in the contact capsule, so that events would conform to the canon. So Asuka has been banally stuffed into capsule, inserted that in Eve-02, after which the demon took control and went to waste the enemies.


    Even the rather frail Eve-02 was able to destroy all the enemy troops without the slightest effort. After all, conventional weapons couldn''t even hurt her. Even the massive bombing of Tokyo-3, which broke through the ''roof '' of the Geofront, could not cause any harm to Eve.


    However, SEELE was not upset by this failure. In the end, this whole operation was just supposed to distract the attention of the NERV staff. And the real shock force was the nine serial Evangelions, which had an S2 engine that gave them an infinite amount of power.


    Nine Evangelists, able to fly and armed with replicas of the Spears of Longinus descended from the sky and attacked the lone Eve-02. And here it became clear that SEELE was able to surpass the characteristics of Eve from the canon, creating a truly formidable weapon. Even strengthened by the demon, Eve-02 could not resist the opponents. Not the least role in this was played by the Spears of Longinus, which banally blocked the forces of Eve-02, after which it was literally torn apart. In general, the demon and the central core of Eve survived, but as a combat unit, Eve-02 was lost for at least a couple of hours.


    At this time, Shinji sat in Gendo''s office on a throne made of human skulls and watched the fight with an irritated expression.


    "Useless bitch.¡± - He commented Eve''s defeat. Although the battle was led by a demon, he considered Asuka as guilty of defeat. After all, it was her fault that she couldn''t control the robot.


    A second later, Shinji teleported inside the body of Eve-01 and gave the command to the demon to go into battle. Right now, he was acting like a real Dark Lord, feeling like he was going to become an almighty God in the very near future.


    Teleporting outwards, Eve-01 began to destroy the serial Eves, using all his incredible power. But even with this increase, the battle with them was not easy. The Eves resisted, and the Spears of Longinus were dangerous weapons in their hands. However, there were only nine opponents, so after ten minutes, the demon destroyed them one by one.


    But it wasn''t the end. As soon as the last enemy took last breath, new serial Eves appeared on the horizon. And this time there were more of them. Much more. Not even thousands, but millions of flying monsters came from all directions to attack Eve-01 and immobilize him. The demon began to fight seriously, giving everything to the last, but even his strength was not unlimited. In the end, he was banally covered with bodies and stuck with spears like a pillow for needles.


    Nine of Adam''s bravest descendants captured the incarnation of Lilith and crucified her in the sky, forming a glowing ritual image that looked suspiciously like an inverted Sephiroth Tree. The time for the beginning of the ritual and the promised reunion of all people in the form of a Single God was approaching.


    At this moment, Shinji was in a wild panic. His body was tormented by pain, his soul was gnawed by a numb conscience, and his mind was consumed by the sadness of losing all that he had. And to complete this bouquet of feelings, he was struck by a sense of imminent death.


    "Sorry, Shinji. Looks like you''re not going to be God.¡± ¨C I ''delighted'' my ward, appearing to him directly in the capsule. - "I guess you didn''t have enough overcome. Or maybe it''s because you still have too much of the human in you. But most likely you are just a sucker in life and your fate is to become food for angels.¡± -  Shinji stared at me with a mad look, not even finding words to express his feelings. - "Anyway, I think I should go. I need to find a new host before you get eaten. Bye-bye.¡±

 Chapter 9.16 Evangelion

    With these words, I began to dissolve in space, pretending to be a Cheshire cat.


    ¡°No! Wait!!! You promised!¡± - Shinji screamed, realizing the depth of the ass in which he located. - "I''ll do anything. Whatever you want! Just save me!!!


    ¡°Anything?¡± - I smiled, returning to visible form. - "Then you will need to do the following...¡±


    Meanwhile, in the depths of the Geofront, another ritual took place in the Terminal Dogma room next to the crucified body of the angel Lilith. Ikari Gendo was standing in front of a naked Ayanami Rei with Adam''s embryo implanted in his arm. Now they were going to merge with each other in an unnatural ritual, after which the hybrid of Adam and Lilith under Gendo''s control would interfere it the ritual the sacrifice of mankind and make Ikari Gendo a God. But then I intervened again.


    In the canon, Rei went through the procedure of corrupting her consciousness with a depressive Asuka, as a result of which she decided to give herself not to Gendo, but to his son Shinji. In this world, this did not happen, because Gendo carefully protected his ticket to the world of the gods from outside contacts. But just a few seconds before the crucial moment, another character appeared on the scene.


    Katsuragi Misato forgotten by all, whose actions were now controlled by the succubus Mesucko, emerged from the pool of LCL behind Rei''s back and cast a simple spell of the magic marking. The spell itself could do nothing. But it served as a beacon for another succubus to break into our reality.


    Yamirei used her connection with Shinji to return to this world on her own. Moreover, as soon as she left the portal, she entered Ayanami Rei''s body and again suppressed her primitive consciousness. After all, the succubus long time controlled her body, so she long ago figured out where Rei has vulnerabilities, and how she can be captured with a minimum of effort. After that, it was not Rei, but Yamirei grabbed Gendo''s hand and snatched Adam''s embryo from him.


    With a mad smile, the succubus flew into the air, heading to the body of Lilith - the real angel who gave birth to humanity. Now this body had no soul, because Lilith''s soul was divided into individual human souls. Well, at least that''s what the Dead Sea Scrolls said. But the succubus was not interested in all this metaphysical nonsense. She merged with the angel''s body and took complete control of it. As a demon, she was not very strong, but now only Ayanami Rei''s soul could compete with her, which was too passive for a real battle of minds.


    Leaving Gendo to stand with a stunned view in the company of Mesucko and Ikari Yui, Yamirei used Lilith''s ability to become immaterial to escape from Terminal Dogma and soar into the sky, where the ritual was about to begin.


    When I studied the SEELE documents, I came to the conclusion that I could not change the ritual scheme in such a way as to achieve the desired result. But I knew what I had to do to stop the ritual, while simultaneously paralyzing all the participants except Shinji. Now Yamirei was using the magic formula she had learned, and the drawing of the Sephiroth Tree turned into a wild jumble of lines that made no sense. After that, the succubus flew to Eve-01 and implanted the embryo of Adam in Shinji''s body. And then the initiative was taken by the game figure instructed by me


    Shinji used all his magical powers and Eva-01 powers to activate a new ritual in which all people on the planet were to be victims, as well as all serial Evangelions hovering around. The glowing lines formed a new pattern, and the new ritual was activated.


    All 1.5 billion people on Earth simultaneously transformed into LCL, and their souls rushed to the focal point of the ritual. Eva-01 had a body similar to Lilith''s, and therefore had power over the souls of all people in this world. All this flow of human souls passed through the ritual circle, and then was absorbed by the soul of Shinji. In fact, this could be called not merging, but devouring of souls. All their personalities were erased, and their spiritual shells were absorbed by Shinji''s soul.


    At the same time, the ritual started to change the very essence of the soul of nascent God. The faith, feelings, and suffering of the sacrificed people generated powerful streams of Bahion, which were used to transform Shinji into cross of an angel and a demon.


    At the same time, the power of the ritual subdued all serial Evangelions and forced them to merge with Yamirei, strengthening Lilith''s body. As a result, male and female gods were being born, whose fates were bound by a spiritual contract.


    I have observed this process, satisfied with the work that has been done well. In addition, I was now watching how Shinji''s soul was changing, gaining the power of angels and demons, and I was convinced that the decision not to create ''tails'' with these energies was the right one.


    The power of demons in this reality was the embodiment of Chaos itself, while the power of angels was the manifestation of Order. Although it looked as if the two types of magic required a corresponding amount of energy to work, in fact there was no energy.


    The material world was a combination of the laws of the universe and information about existing objects in the world. Only thanks to the laws of physics material objects had different qualities and characteristics. In contrast, the world of Chaos was the true embodiment of the concept of ''lawlessness''. There were no laws, rules and restrictions. So, when the portal to the world of Chaos opened, the Laws of the material world began to ''flow'' into this hole, forming an area of ''reduced concentration of the laws of nature''.


    The magician of Chaos could control the process of ''destroying'' of laws, thereby changing the behavior of surrounding objects. He could deprive an object of its obligation to obey the laws of gravity. Or ''disable'' the law of conservation of energy and create a fireball from nothing. With enough experience, it was possible to disable some laws, forcing those that balanced them to work ¡®strenuously¡¯.


    Alas, this kind of magic had its price. Along with the laws of the universe, information about the world flowed into Chaos. In other words, any object could be ''sucked in''. And not entirely, but only partially. For example, a person could lose the ability to walk. Or the ability to perceive the world around him. Or all the bones in his body could just disappear. In general, a lot of different things could happen, and it was impossible to control this process. After all, it was the magic of Chaos


    Well, the most ''interesting'' was the limited ''capacity'' of the material world. In other words, the number of laws was limited, and too much and frequent use of Chaos magic would finally exhaust the laws of the material world, turning it into Chaos itself. Such a phenomenon could be called a ''breakthrough of Chaos''. Of course, the world had a way of dealing with such phenomena. After some time, the entire ''bitten'' area of space collapsed, sending the vicinity of the break into the depths of Chaos and leaving a scar on the ''tissue of the universe'', pulling the edges of the gap.


    Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators!


    In contrast, magic of the Order worked by opening portals to a world of Order where there were far more laws than necessary. To be honest, there were so many laws that it was basically impossible to live in this world. After all, every law was in fact some kind of restriction. Each restriction somehow reduced the object''s mobility and the number of states available to it. In the end, with too many laws, the entire universe may crystallize and all movement would stop. But movement - is life.


    Angels could ''pull out'' from their world new laws of nature that allowed them to perform all sorts of miracles. But in return, they constantly received some strange qualities and characteristics that were almost impossible to get rid of.


    The combination of chaos and order forces in one body might seem like a solution to the problems of both types of magic, but in reality, only the negative sides were summed up. The magician in this case turned into a real ''drain hole'', through which the laws of the universe constantly flowed. At the same time, there was no real way to control this process, so the magician may constantly lose ''parts of himself'' in the Chaos, in return receiving all the garbage from the world of Order. In this case, the concept of ''life'' meant ''eternal variability'', but who likes to wake up every morning and try to figure out what type proboscis has grown on your ass or why everyone around you begins to flatten into bloody mincemeat just from your presence.


    In general, I had no desire to contact with these forces on a permanent basis. But I have developed spells based on magic, chakras and psionics that allow me to open a portal to the world of Chaos or Order at any time and start working with it, keeping safety precautions.


    Now in the material world, Shinji just experienced all the delights of emergency pumping large ''volumes'' of the laws of the universe through his body. Following my instructions, he voluntarily agreed to devour the souls of all people on Earth. It took a lot of energy to performs this ritual. Bahion would be not enough for this, so I compensated the deficit with ''laws'' of Order and Chaos.


    Under the influence of the ritual, Shinji''s body began to change. The demon in Eve-01 spat out his ''employer'' and hid not far away, also interested in watching the spontaneous transformation. Most of the changes were related to the internal qualities and properties of the body, but there were also purely external ones. Shinji had horns and tentacles, a nimbus, and the aura of a celestial being.


    Finally, the ritual was over, and the rampage of energies dried up. Shinji hung in the air, gradually regaining consciousness. Yamirei reduced her body size and changed her appearance to look like Ayanami Rei. Shinji opened his eyes, saw his love, and immediately hugged her. Memories of having sex with Rei at Misato''s apartment surfaced in his mind, and his new body automatically changed shape to match them.


    "Rei!¡± - Shinji whispered, hugging the girl''s naked body.


    ¡°Shinji.¡± - She answered breathlessly, smiling slyly until no one could see her face.


    The two bodies, which merged in ecstasy, began to gradually sink down until they reached the ground. Although nature in Geofront suffered, the grass was mostly only pressed to the ground by the carcasses of the Evangelion. Now all the bodies and blood were gone, so next to this couple was almost a pastoral landscape, and prepossessing to have sex in the bosom of nature.


    But when the new gods started this interesting activity, there was a rumbling, a metallic screech, and the sound of the fall of something heavy.


    "Damn, did they even assume that the pilot might need to open the capsule from the inside?" Asuka''s dissatisfied voice rang out.


    I turned my otherworldly gaze on her and saw that she was not injured. A second later, I got an understanding of how she could have survived. I excluded from the ritual the absorption of all the people inside Eve and all the Eves inside which were people. According to my calculations, only Shinji and Eve-01 were supposed to fall under these conditions. But as it turned out, Eve-02 and Asuka also safely slipped through the needle eye of the ritual.


    Shinji and Yamirei turned their heads and stared at the troublemaker.


    ¡°Shinji?¡± - Asuka identified the former pilot. - "What''s going on here? And stop hugging and pretending unearthly passion. I''m jealous.¡±


    The last words she uttered a little quieter, but clearly.


    "Do you want to have sex with me?" - Shinji asked innocently, smiling openly. He didn''t usually act like this, but the whole situation seemed strange to Asuka, so she didn''t pay any attention to it. But in vain.


    ¡°Yes. I want to!¡± - She openly acknowledged her desires, critically examining the not very muscular body of the teenager


    "Wonderful! Then I will make you the mother of a new humanity.¡±


    Shinji uttered this phrase with an unexpectedly low rumble bass. His skin darkened, gaining a golden ebb, dozen tentacles sprouted from his back, and a halo shone over his head. Asuka was not even able to say ¡®meow¡¯, as Shinji¡¯s tentacles tied her up, stripped her clothes and began to fuck in all possible ways and even a couple impossible, for which around her temporarily changed the laws of the universe.


    I was about to enjoy an unforgettable sight but I was yanked out from this world, and once again I found myself in the void alone with the Being.


    "What are mess you doing here?" - Being unhappily asked me. Next to him in space hung a ''TV'', in which was visible picture of how Shinji fucking both Asuka and Rei, using all his divine capabilities. ¨C ¡°This show should have a PG-13 rating.¡±


    ¡°I have brought this story as well as I could in accordance with the canon.¡± - Actually, Asuka didn''t figure in my plans, but how I can tell about this to the customer? Well, I will consider this not a bug, but a feature.


    "What canon? Why is Shinji alive and healthy?¡± ¨C Being become angry, however, watching the ''divine level of perversion'' porn with interest.


    ¡°How is it not correct?¡± - I surprised. ¨C ¡°The series ''Neon Genesis Evangelion'' and its ending ''The End of Evangelion''.¡±


    ¡°There was no such ending.¡± - Being calmed down a little bit. - "It''s all apocrypha and pure heresy! In the true canon, all humanity merged into a single consciousness, and then happily self-destructed. What am I supposed to do with this ''God'' now?¡±


    The question was clearly rhetorical, but I decided to voice my own ''special opinion''.


    ¡°Just send him to hentai anime with magician girls to work as a tentacle monster¡±


    "Hmm... that''s interesting an idea.¡± ¨C Being interested by idea. - "Well, what about these demons? From where did you find them?¡±


    ¡°What''s wrong with them?¡± - I surprised. I examined Yamirei and hovering nearby Eve-01. ¨C ¡°I used the standard ritual of opening a portal to the nearest world of demons.¡±


    ¡°And of course, you tied the terms of the contract with the successful completion of the game?¡± - Being asked with an unrecognizable emotion in its voice.


    ¡°Of course. How else could I make them obey to me?¡±


    Being sighed heavily and looked to the porn video at the screen again.


    "Okay, then I¡¯ll have to admit that you won the game. Dirty cheater.¡±


    "What?" - I was surprised. But there were no clear explanations from the Being.


    "In the future, you should know that the result of this ritual depends not only on the world, but also on who performs it. So, you will always have a passage to the world of Chaos. Okay, never mind.¡±


    The screen went blank, and we were again suspended in a void where there were no concept of time or space. By the way, this place is too much look like a world of Chaos. But it''s a little more comfortable and there are no creatures that wants to eat me alive.


    "Well, while I''m thinking about what to do with you, there''s a little side job for you.¡± - Being shared its plans. - "If you succeed, you can count on a promotion."


    ¡°Raising of bids?¡± - I asked skeptically.


    "You''re so smart." - Being grinned maliciously. - "That''s why I like you. In general, you will meet with the customer and perform one of his tasks. It is easy job for you, so, there shouldn''t be a problem.¡±


    Immediately after this phrase, I was pulled in an unknown direction and swirled in a whirlpool of Chaos energies.

 Chapter 10 - Final Destination

    /*


    https://yts.mx/movie/final-destination-2000</a>


    */


    All this whirlwind ended I was ''spat out'' in a rather interesting place. This was another analogue of the ''world of the Ascended'', but it was quite crowded. Too crowded, I''d say. With the help of illusions and power fields here formed a labyrinth of corridors and offices, on which the spirits of people glided. I found myself in the center of a large hall, where the movement of the crowd resembled an ant riot during a fire. Everyone went somewhere purposefully, ran, and sometimes flew. I did not have time to consider what was happening here, because next to me suddenly appeared an exalted, whose strength was several hundred times higher than that of the snub around the rabble


    "Well, here''s our employee.¡± - ''Mini boss'' said, critically examining me. Why mini? He just appeared before me in the form of a classic cherubic - a baby with wings and a halo. But judging by his voice, tone, and radiated emotions, his psychological age was at the opposite end of the scale, somewhere around the value of ''ancient half-witted old man''. - "Follow me." - Angel addressed, then pushed through the crowd, pushing them apart like an icebreaker.


    While we were walking, I did not stare around, but tried to analyze the information received during the last conversation with the Being. It said that the ritual of opening a portal to the world of demons will always open a passage to the world of Chaos for me. But back in the world of spiders, I used it several times to study the principle of operation, and everything worked according to the description - it opened an unstable portal to the world of the most ordinary demons.


    Considering all things, it was clear that something had changed a lot in me since then. And the first thing that came to mind was the appearance of the parasite. It turns out that this creature is somehow connected with the strongest inhabitants of Chaos. Why the strongest? Because an ordinary chaos demon, like the one that possessed Eve-01, could hardly influence the ritual so that I did not even notice anything


    I looked at the parasite in my mind''s eye and confirmed my fears. He did have a sense of chaos, even though it masked that well. By the way, if you think about it that way, I can expect Being to belong to the forces of Order. In general, there was a lot to think about, but now was clearly not the time or place for it, because we came.


    ¡°So, everyone gathered.¡± - Cherub summed up, looking around the room.


    I looked around, too, and found that I was in the hall, in addition to myself and Miniboss, there were the souls of four other ascended ones. At the same time, two of them were clearly game figures with experience. The four of them now represented beings of varying degrees of anthropomorphism. After all, in this place, everyone could choose their own image. A quick look at myself confirmed that I looked the same as I had in the world of Evangelion.


    Meanwhile, the flying baby levitated himself to the far side of the hall, where he created an image of a shining golden throne, on which he sat down.


    ¡°Please sit down.¡± - He said, addressing to the audience.


    My four ''neighbors'' began to look around, trying to figure out what to sit on. I used the chakra to form a golden throne, like a cherub, only simpler and lower, so as not to violate the subordination. In this world, everything consisted of astral energies, so it was theoretically enough to imagine an object and put the energy into an image. But in this place worked some kind of blockage, preventing spontaneous stabilization of images. But the materialized chakra, even if it represented astral energy, worked without any problems. I could see the cherub''s displeased gaze directed at my throne. But after the rest of the four felt like suckers, clearly not thinking up something obvious, cherub''s displease gaze turned to ridicule.


    ¡°Well, they sent to me stupid workers.¡± - Our ''employer'' was critical. - "Well, let''s get started. My name is Sariel. As you may have noticed, we have a lot of diverse staff here, but we still don''t have enough hands to do everything. So, the five of you were sent to me as temporary employees. Everyone will have a simple task. You need to kill all the people on your list.¡±


    Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.


    With these words, angel sent astral image with appearance of a scroll. The other ''workers'' unfolded the scrolls and began to read them. I absorbed it as an ''information package'' and after checking for ''surprises'' immediately transferred the contents to my memory. After all these years of practicing magic and psionics, and after constant contact with the computers of the Ancients in the body of Vritras, my mind easily manipulated information and memory. The scroll mentioned more than two hundred people. These were not only their names, but also has information of their astral images, and some ''true names''. What to do with the latter I did not know, although it was obvious that the benefits of them should be considerable.


    Sariel continued without waiting for everyone to assimilate the information.


    ¡°This task is not as simple as it might seem.¡± - He glanced at me with displeasure. Well, I honestly did not understand why distract the game figures for the sake of such a trivial task. ¨C ¡°First, our spiritual dimension is separated from the material world by Invisible Veil, so it will be difficult to influence to material world with magic or anything else. But most importantly, to spiritual entities are forbidden to directly interfere in the lives of people and in general in all events of the material world. We are strict with this. The world is controlled by the Laws of God, which closely monitor each ascended and will immediately punish violators.


    Hmm... in such circumstances, the task became quite difficult. I immediately began to think of possible solutions, without distracting myself from the angel''s speech.


    ¡°But, fortunately, there are certain ways to solve such problems. We angels and our reputation doesn''t allow us to do this, but you, the creatures of Chaos, will be just right.¡± - One of the ''workers'' rose up in righteous anger, but quickly faded away only when he saw the cherub''s displeased gaze directed at him. I was also somewhat surprised by the designation of me as a demon of Chaos, but I was in no hurry to object. After all, I don''t know much about Chaos magic. ¨C ¡°The Invisible Veil has a limit of minimal sensitivity to magical influences. That is, you will be able to use the super-weak spells in order to manipulate the probabilities of events. And since I am in advance sure of your stupidity, I will now give a short lecture on the magic of the Air Element.¡±


    I concentrated and prepared to listen to the ''unearthly wisdom'' of our mentor. After all, when will there be an opportunity to learn a new kind of magic? Usually I have to reach everything with my own mind, which does not always allow me to understand some difficult moments.


    ¡°Are you probably familiar with the concept of the Cross of Elements, where the Element of Air is opposed to the Element of Earth, and you have also heard about the confrontation of the worlds of Chaos and Order. Both of these images are the same. Chaos and Order exists outside of our world. Inside the borders of our world they manifest themselves as elements of Air and Earth. How many of you know how the world of Chaos differs from our world?¡±


    "There are no laws in the world of Chaos.¡± - One of the ''students'' shouted.


    The answer to this assumption was the wave of contempt that came from Sariel. His emotions were as if the high mathematics teacher had heard from a student that 2+2=5.5.


    "Well, what do you say?" - Cherub asked me. Apparently, he didn''t like my trick with the throne, so he decided to crush me with difficult questions.


    To be honest, up to this moment, I thought the same way as my neighbor. But judging by the angel''s reaction, the version was so-so. If we recall my feelings when opening the portal to the world of Chaos, the fact that the laws of the material world ''flow'' there will be obvious. But if the laws flow to there, then they are definitely present there, although maybe not in the same ''concentration'' as in this world. Which means...


    "In the world of Chaos, laws don''t work, or they only work if magician of Chaos needs it. Well, or as a result of side effects from other events.¡± - I offered a hastily formulated hypothesis.


    The cherub winced, apparently, I almost guessed, as if I had answered the same question by 2+2=4.1. Clearly wrong, but pretty close.


    ¡°Yes, I think this is the closest description of the essence of this phenomenon that you can understand.¡± - Our teacher shook his head ruefully. - "It is not correct to expect the impossible things. Stupid oysters like you will never understand the beauty of Order versus Chaos. Okay, let''s continue. Chaos is not only the laws of the universe that cannot work. It has everything and at the same time nothing. Only by touching it, any material world breaks into fragments, splitting a single stream of Time into many lines of existence. This is how the Element of Air manifests itself. There are many possible futures where events differ due to random chaotic factors. Mortals are not able to foresee all these options of the future... until he allows to enter a Chaos inside his mind. But if you make Chaos a part of yourself, the magician is able to anticipate thousands and millions of scenarios. However, in your case, we are talking about dozens at best. It should be remembered that Chaos is hidden among small details, so you should pay attention to the most insignificant details. The Air Element looks weak. Here and now, its strength can only be enough to move a match. But when this power is combined with the foresight of the future, only chosen ones can try to counter it.¡±

 Chapter 10.01 - Final Destination

    At these words, the angel froze, clearly lost in the realization of the greatness of the forces of Chaos. However, after a couple of minutes he ''unfreeze'' and gave us an almost adequate look.


    "Well, I''ve already told you what I wanted to say. Catch a brief instruction on the basics of magic of the Air Element and go to perform the task. I''ll give you six months. Those who fail will go to the depths of Hell, where go only the most notorious sinners. Also, here is a list of all rules and restrictions related to the impact on the material world.¡± - To each of us rushed another image containing a data package. - "Again, just for you.¡± - Sariel stared at me. - "You can''t kill people other than those on the list. And most importantly, no nuclear explosions! I know you very well.¡±


    "Sir. Yes, sir! Let me do it, sir " - I jumped up from my throne and saluted.


    ¡°Start immediately. Dismissed.¡± - The angel waved his hand.


    I did not wait for him to decide to foil his irritation on me, and immediately rushed towards the material plan of existence, carefully avoiding the illusions and force fields that hung around me. For the other four game figures, I probably just disappeared into thin air. After all, my perception of multi-dimensional space had been trained in the Crystal Labyrinth of Tzeentch, so I felt like a fish in water in the world of the ascended.


    When I reached the world of the living, I began to search for victims from the list, simultaneously thinking about the principles of influence with the magic of Probabilities. Based on the contents of the book, Probability magic was a small subsection of Air Element magic, which was a pale reflection of Chaos Magic. On this moment I understood the scale of this system that I realized that my skills in Chaos magic was similar to the convulsions of a paraplegic. There was no question of consciously applying its capabilities.


    In general, the task was not so difficult. After I learned to influence ''random'' events and was able to ''see the future'', the rest was just a matter of technique. In study of Probability magic memory of a Rat from the game before last helped very much. He too could see hundreds of possible futures, though he was not limited by the force of the impact.


    However, not everything was so rosy. The problem was that although I could choose the line of probabilities I needed, I couldn''t control it. In other words, along with the event I needed, there were other events that could be called ''side effects''. In the end, when the power of Chaos was manifested in the material world, all sorts of devilry began to happen there. In addition, events became connected to each other in a way that theoretically should only exist at the level of ideas.


    For example. A man is walking down the street, heading home. I adjust the probabilities so that a frog jumps out of the grass in front of him and he steps on it. Nothing special, I guess. As they say, shit happens. But then a truck with a picture of a frog passes next to the man on the crosswalk. When he buys a newspaper, he sees the title of the article ''Frogs in our pond'' on the front page. When he comes home and turns on the TV, he comes across the program ''in the world of animals'', dedicated to frogs. And in the end, as ''divine retribution'', when he begins to take a shower, the ceiling in the bathroom breaks and a two-hundred-kilogram neighbor falls on top of him, dressed in a frog costume, which breaks his neck.


    In general, the more I tried to influence reality with Probability magic, the more delusional the subsequent events turned out to be. And most importantly, all this nonsense was in no hurry to meet my wishes.


    After I found and killed five of the people on the list, I started thinking about how to improve my performance. The point was that the less likely the event I needed was, the ''further'' in the future I needed to influence reality. Roughly speaking, the future five minutes from the present was much less plastic than two weeks later. This had a simple consequence: I had to start planning of each death in advance, preferably a couple of months in advance. Given the length of the list and the time allocated to me, the ''personal'' approach threatened to fail.


    Stolen novel; please report.


    However, the solution was found quite quickly. Most of the victims were residents of the New York city. Moreover, there were fifty students of the same school among them. So, with a little bit of trickery, I was able to find a way to finish them all with one blow. In just a couple of months, I set up things in such a way that all the people on my list were on board a plane flying from New York to Paris. After that, all I had to do was make sure that the plane would explode almost immediately after takeoff, and I could relax and watch the chain of events.


    Everything was going just fine until all the passengers were on board of the airplane. But then the probability lines suddenly changed dramatically, and I had to urgently intervene in the situation to return it to the planned path.


    One of the passengers, a schoolboy on a ten-day trip to Paris, suddenly jumped up from his seat and started shouting that the plane would soon explode and everyone would die. Another pupil at the same school began to attack the ''prophet'', they started to fight, and other passengers tried to stop them and as a result, seven people were removed from the flight for disturbing public order.


    Fortunately, I was able to ''convince'' the airplane''s captain and airport security to continue the flight. After all, it was a year 2000, and senility and paranoia had not yet reached the level of the twenties of the twenty-first century. Twenty minutes later, I was able to admire the colorful ''explosion'' of the burning airplane, and then focused my attention on the lucky survivors.


    The clairvoyant who almost foiled my brilliant plan was Alex Browning. The main bully of the school, Carter Horton, got into an altercation with him, along with his girlfriend, Terri Chaney, who survived. Alex''s friend Tod Waggner and his classmate Clear Rivers got off the plane on their own initiative. The first decided to help to his best friend, and the second, it seems, was also all on the nerves and decided not to fly anywhere. The last schoolboy in the company was Billy Hitchcock, who banally got on the plane the very last just when the fight started, so he was ''swept up'' only for standing in the aisle. Well, in addition to this minor company on earth, there was a teacher and the leader of their group, Valerie Lewton. Three of the students were seventeen and three were eighteen, so these two groups studied in different courses.


    For the next two weeks, I watched my ¡®clients'' and planned my ''revenge''. I was most concerned about Alex''s ability to foresee the future, so I decided not to start with him, but with his best friend, to study carefully the limits of the clairvoyant''s powers.


    Tod Waggner lived with his family in an ''American Dream'' house. His older brother had died on the plane, so the family was now in mourning, and the survivor''s father generally blamed Alex for his son''s death, showing a purely human tendency to blame in the misfortunes not those who called them, but those who could foresee them. Another factor that led me to choose my first victim was the fact that I had already worked out a plan to eliminate Tod and his brother, so some preparations had already been completed.


    The house where the Waggner family lived stood on the site where another house had been. As it happens with smart Americans, the constructors decided to save money, and therefore built a new house on the foundation of the old one. Moreover, ''eco-friendly'' materials were used, which have been rotten for sixteen years.


    I chose the bathroom as Tod''s resting place. It was a combined bathroom, with a washing, a toilet, and a couple of storage rooms that the builders had slapped in so that the supporting walls of the house would be located above the foundation walls. Because of the constant dampness, the boards that played the role of the floor had rotted during this time and were ready to fall apart at any moment. But the residents didn''t know about it, because the bathroom floor was tiled with ceramic tiles, hiding the condition of the wood from the eyes of people.


    But that wasn''t the main thing. The fact is that right under this room was a deep basement, littered with construction debris. The builders simply hid its existence from the new owners, not wanting to spend money on repairing of the foundation.


    All these circumstances determined my plan to eliminate Tod. About two months ago, his mother bought toilet cleaner from a store that had too high a concentration of alkali because of a factory defect. During the next cleaning, the woman did not notice how the plastic ''bottle'' standing on the floor in the pantry overturned and the caustic liquid began to spill on the floor, flowing under the lagging tiles. During the night, the floorboards finally turned into mush, and in the morning, Tod visited the bathroom.


    The guy went to the toilet and intended to ''go big''. But he noticed that there was almost no toilet paper left, so he decided to get a new roll. When Tod opened the pantry where all the household chemicals were stored, he found that a wad of toilet paper was on the top shelf, which he couldn''t reach. Then he walked across the crisp floor to the second storeroom, opened it, and took out a stepladder that was used for such purposes.

 Chapter 10.02 - Final Destination

    After installing the ladder and getting to the desired paper, Tod shifted the center of gravity of the entire structure too much, which caused the board, on which one of the legs of the ladder peed, cracked and fell down. The guy staggered, but managed to grab the shelf of the pantry, restoring balance. After looking at the cracked floor, he decided to jump down the stairs a little further to get to the ''whole'' floor. To his surprise, this is exactly what I was counting on. The boards that couldn''t stand such load and broke, and Tod fell right into the basement.


    The fall did not kill Tod, but partially stunned. In addition, the floor below was covered with several centimeters of water, so that the mud filled his eyes, forcing him to wave his arms and legs in an attempt to figure out where he was. One of these swings grazed the overhanging planks, which caused the ladder to topple over. She fell to the floor of the room, grazing an axe that was lying unsuccessfully on the edge of a shelf in the second storeroom. The axe slid down, slipped along the sloping floor, and fell into the basement, hitting with blade directly on Tod''s neck. It wasn''t exactly a beheading, but it was enough for the guy.


    I checked off him from list with satisfaction and drew attention to Alex''s actions. Controlling all the lines of probabilities in Tod''s house consumed all my attention, so I could not distract myself. Clairvoyant at this time sat at home and tried to find information on the internet about the causes of the explosion of the plane. As I have already said, the effect on the probability lines had many side effects, and one of these effects appeared next to Alex as a ''sign of fate''. The persistent pigeon started knocking on the schoolboy''s window. He threw a newspaper at the bird, which flew off the window and hit the working fan. The fan immediately tore up the prey that came to her, and one of the pieces of paper flew a couple of meters and stuck to the guy right on the forehead. And when he peeled off a sticky piece of newspaper, he could read three letters on it: Tod.


    The guy correctly understood this sign and immediately rushed to the house of his friend. Alex didn''t have an own car, and he lived quite far away. So, by the time he was able to get to the right house, his best friend was already being loaded into a body truck. After all, the newspaper event happened half an hour after Todd''s death, when the police and rescue teams were already swarming around him.


    After looking at the sobbing Waggner couple and the black body bag, Alex came to the right conclusion without even asking what had happened. And a little to the side, he noticed his classmate Clear Rivers. This girl also had a developed intuition, so she could sense a threat to Tod. Fortunately, her ''foresee ability'' came too late for her to be able to influence anything. Alex and Clear met and went to a nearby cafe to discuss the sad news.


    The exact circumstances of the death were unknown to the couple, so they decided to visit the police station to find out the answer to this question. The investigator, of course, didn''t tell them anything specific, but assured them that it was an accident, so they don''t need to worry.


    The words ''accident'' fell into Alex''s soul, so he immediately made sure that this death was not accidental. In general, he was right, but I was not very happy with his insight. I had already found out how a clairvoyant reacted to a threat against his friends, and now I had to understand how much he could interfere against my plans. Besides, Tod was his best friend, so the guy really worried about him. But would he feel threat to someone who was nothing more than a casual acquaintance?


    I planned the next ''death operation'' in a couple of days. I prepared it in advance, so now all I had to do was watch the events and make sure everything went according to plan. Alex was an ordinary person most of the time, so his actions were as predictable as anyone else''s.


    This time the chain of events began to weave in the middle of Sunday afternoon, when Alex and Claire decided to meet in a cafe in the center of the city to once again discuss the threat from unknown forces. The sweet couple were sitting at a table outside, drinking coffee. Five minutes before the ''moment x'', Alex felt anxious beyond what he had felt in recent days. I monitored him closely, so I didn¡¯t miss this event.


    This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    While Alex was talking about how the fate of people is predetermined and leads them to certain death, which they can still try to avoid, next to the cafe passed in the car Carter Horton with his girlfriend Terry Chaney. A little way off, Billy Hitchcock was riding a bicycle. In the same cafe ''unexpectedly'' was a teacher Valerie Lewton, now in a deep depression and about to leave the city, where everything reminded her a death of more than forty of her students and fellow teachers.


    Carter saw ''shaggy'' Alex talking to the beautiful Clear, and could not pass by without causing a scandal and accusing his savior for the plane crash. Like Tod''s parents, he believed that the one who says about the problem is responsible for it. After turning the car around and nearly hitting Billy Hitchcock, Carter stopped next to the cafe, got out of the car, and started bulling Alex. At the same time, the teacher left the cafe and ran into her students.


    "Hey, loser, are you still alive? I see we have a whole meeting here. Mrs. Newton, I hear you''re leaving. Alex, this is all your fault. All these people died because of you.¡±


    ¡°No. Stop!¡± - The clairvoyant began to justify himself. - "We are all in danger. I must to tell...¡±


    "Shut up!" - Carter snapped. - "It''s you..."


    "Stop it, both of you!" ¨C Terry Chaney raged, interrupting the skirmish.


    To a large extent, the scandal was provoked by the fact that Carter could not ''allow'' to some sucker to build a relationship with a girl, which he would have been happy to ''blow her'', if not already existing ''girlfriend''. Terry subconsciously felt that her boyfriend was paying Clear too much attention. In addition, she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown after this disaster, so now Terry decided to make a scandal.


    "They are dead and we are alive. Life goes on. I will not allow this plane crash to become the most important event of my life. Is it clear? I''ll move on, Carter. And if you want, you can spend your life fighting with Alex every time you see him. If you want go and die!¡±


    During her emphatic speech, Terri stepped out onto the road, ignoring the bus that was rushing toward her. But Alex, whose anxious feeling had reached its peak, rushed forward and literally pulled out the girl from under the wheels of the car. The loud bang of the bus wheels on the sewer hatch sounded like a pistol shot, taking all those present out of the stupor state.


    "Terry, are you all right?" - Alex asked the girl.


    "I ... Yes." ¨C She required few seconds to realize that she had just been on the verge of death.


    "It''s all your fault!" - Carter began another bully, trying to hide his fear behind aggression.


    "You''re in danger!!!¡± - Alex shouted back, interrupting the torrent of accusations. - "Death is hunting us. You saw yourself that Terri almost died. We need to be careful to be able to change our fate in time.¡± - He began to present his ''plan'' to counteract my plan.


    "Fate?!¡± - Carter soared, losing the remnants of calm. - "My fate depends on me. No one can tell me what to do or where to go. Especially you!¡±


    Pointing an ''accusing finger'' at Alex, Carter paused, taking a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from his pocket. Taking a cigarette in his mouth, he chirped a lighter, but it did not want to light up. Chirping the second time with the same result. It was only for the third time that the lighter erupted, giving an unexpectedly large flame. The guy sucked his cigarette, blew the smoke straight into Alex''s face, and walked backward toward the road where his girlfriend had almost died a minute ago.


    "I control my own fate. Are you see?¡± - Carter stepped on the road, defiantly not looking around. However, in fact, he closely monitored the approaching car in the reflection of the glass door of the caf¨¦


    "Carter, stop!¡± - Terry shouted.


    "Carter!¡± - The teacher, who was also watching the approaching car, became agitated.


    "Even Death can''t control me...¡± - The frostbitten brawler shouted. But before he could finish his sentence, two things happened.


    The car at full speed drove past the guy, who at that moment was standing next to the dividing strip of the road. At the same time, he took a step back and stepped on a sewer manhole in the middle of the road. A bus that had recently passed at full speed broke the lid-holding vault of the manhole hatch, and now this lid has slid under the foot of the ''master of his destiny'', opening a direct path into the depths of the sewer. Carter screamed and fell straight into the sewer, and the manhole cover closed tightly, cutting him off from the sun and the startled eyes of the witnesses.


    But the misadventures of the school bully did not end there. A large amount of methane accumulated in the sewer at this moment, which ignited from contact with a lit cigarette. It wasn''t exactly an explosion, but the clap caused an instant increase in pressure in the sewer, causing the manhole cover to fly up into the sky, accompanied by a colorful flame.


    "Carter!¡± ¨C Terry shouted, rushing forward. She got down on all fours and looked into the sewer. - "Are you ok?"

 Chapter 10.03 - Final Destination

    It was at this point that all my planned chains of events came together, leading to an event that could not be called anything other than an ''unfortunate accident''. The hatch cover didn''t fly to the side. It fell almost to the same spot, cutting off the girl''s head so successfully. After that, the cracked cast-iron pancake turned again and again closed the sewer¡¯s opening. A second later, a chilling howling of Carter rang out from the sewer, and a bloodied head had just fallen.


    The effect of all this ''artistic production'' was stunning. The teacher lost consciousness from the sight of the decapitated body and only regained consciousness in the late afternoon. The horror of what she saw was so strong that she literally blocked out her memories of this meeting, wishing just to forget about everything and return to the ordinary gray ordinary life.


    Carter survived, but broke his left leg, plus a minor upper respiratory burn and carbon monoxide poisoning. An ambulance immediately took him to St George''s Hospital. It wasn''t the best medical hospital in the area, but it was the closest to the scene.


    Billy, Alex, and Clear got away with shock and the realization of what kind of fate might be waiting for them all in the near future. On tuesday evening, the trio decided to visit Carter, who was in the hospital. Alex kept trying to save everyone, not realizing that no one was particularly interested in his help.


    "Hi, Carter" - The prophet said casually, as if nothing had happened. - "How are you?"


    Hooligan would be happy to swear at the top of his voice, but now it was aching from the burn, so he could only grunt in response.


    "I wish I hadn''t seen you. What are you doing here?"


    Carter was lying on the bed, entangled in tubes and wires. An oxygen tube was attached to his nose, a drip was stuck in his right hand, and his left leg was suspended by a stretcher balanced by a decent-sized weight. A cardio meter was connected to his chest near the heart, measuring the frequency and depth of the pulse. The room, like all the equipment in it, gave the impression of picked up from the garbage dump. The Windows were ''flaunted'' with peeling paint and murky glass, the bed creaked at the slightest movement, and the cardio meter gave the impression that it was the first industrial example of this type of device, developed in the mid-twentieth century.


    "We wanted to see you." - Billy said, holding out a box of candy. - "Here, please take."


    ¡°Thank you.¡± - Billy was a classmate of Carter, so at least he didn''t take it personally.


    "Carter..." - Alex began his ''pre-election'' speech again. ¨C ¡°I''m sorry to hear about Terry''s death, but you have to listen to me. We are all in danger. The explosion of the plane was not accidental. All people who sat on it had to die. We managed to escape, but death is still hunting us. Ted and Terry were at the top of the list. But this is not the end. We need to stick together to be able to figure out the design of death and escape from it.


    "What do you suggest?" -  Carter asked skeptically, still feeling a sinking feeling of fear in his chest. The whole thing with the sewer manhole showed him that he, too, is not immune to ''accidental'' death.


    But before Alex could begin to explain his plan, which of course he didn''t have, another visitor came into the room. It was a Valerie Lewton, a schoolteacher. She finally gained willpower to go see her pupil.


    ¡°Oh. Are you all here?¡± - She astonished when she examined the company. - "I am so glad that you have reconciled and have come to see your comrade. Carter, this is for you.¡±


    With these words, the woman gave to patient a bouquet of flowers. He made no attempt to accept it, but the teacher understood it in her own way.


    ¡°Oh, I''m sorry. I''ll put them in a vase.¡±


    With these words, Valerie grabbed a vase standing on the nightstand near the entrance and went to the sink, where she turned on the cold-water tap. At the same time, she did not let go of the bouquet. All her activity was filled with nervous fuss. Students watched the woman in silence, trying to find words, which made the situation even more nervous.


    Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.


    "Here, it''s done!" - The teacher said, shoving the bouquet in water-filled vase.


    At the same time, she did not take into account that according to Archimedes'' law, a body submerged in water pushes out this very water, so that a jet of water splashed out of the vase, which fell directly on the cardio meter. It hummed and began to sparkle. Alex immediately noticed the wires running from the device to the Carter. He rushed to the patient and began to pull the wires from him, not caring about how he was feeling at the same time. On the one hand, Carter didn''t want to be electrocuted, but on the other, unexpected ''help'' at the moment brought him much more problems and painful sensations. A small confrontation ensued, which resulted in Alex losing his balance and falling onto the bed, shifting his broken leg to the side. Then Carter screamed in pain and pushed Alex away with all his strength. At the same time, he almost flew off the bed from the side of the window.


    The antediluvian stretch system for a broken leg could not withstand such treatment, and one of the pins in it flew out of the fastener. As a result, the entire structure began to fall apart, causing one of the counterweight weights to suddenly spin on a hinge and fly towards the visitors. Alex instinctively dodged a piece of iron flying at his head. But behind him was dumbfounded Valerie, trying to figure out what was going on. To save her, the guy pushed the woman in her chest. But he did not take into account that behind the teacher was the same sparkling cardio meter. Woman fell on top of it, then a bolt of electricity strike into her back. It wasn''t fatal, but it was quite painful.


    ¡°A-Ah!!!¡± - She screamed, throwing the vase of flowers aside and rolling to the floor. ¨C ¡°It''s you! Killer! Get away!¡±


    With these words, Valerie rushed out of the room, leaving the students trying to figure out how it could have come to this. Someone might think that this whole scene was another attempted murder, but in fact I constructed these events to prevent the teacher from contacting with her students. If Alex had time to tell her about his suspicions, the woman may became too cautious, so it would be not easy to kill her. Now Valerie Lewton began to suspect her student of organizing all these deaths, which further shattered her mental state.


    While the students were trying to ''save'' at least Carter, I followed the woman, who went straight to her home. It was already getting dark outside, so it was dusk when she reached her destination. Putting car in the garage, Valerie stumbled into the house and closed the door on all the locks. Then she leaned against the wall and slid down it. Her mind was in turmoil, her back was aching, and it was a good reason to get drunk and forget everything.


    First of all, Valerie went to the kitchen, get a bottle of whiskey from refrigerator, and poured herself a whole mug of booze, which she immediately gulped down. She didn''t stop there and poured a second mug. After taking a sip of the icy hot drink, the woman decided to examine the wound on her back, for which she undressed to the waist. However, after that she realized that she didn¡¯t have eyes on the backside and she will not see her wounds. She took another sip of whiskey and staggered into the bedroom where the trellis was located. When she reached the coveted piece of furniture, she set the whiskey mug on it and began to look at her back. The lighting from the lamp here was somewhat unsuccessful, and the street was already dark and the light from the window ''was not enough''.


    Cursing herself, Valerie went to the kitchen to get a table lamp. But on the way she realized that iced whiskey was not the best drink for a healthy throat, so she decided to make herself some tea. She filled a kettle, put it on the stove, and lit the gas. After that, the woman took the lamp and went back to the bedroom. There was no suitable outlet to turn on the light, so Valerie ran the wire across the aisle and put the lamp itself on the nightstand next to the trellis.


    Finally, after normal lighting, she was able to examine her back and noticed a slightly bleeding burn that was dangerously close to her spine. It was obvious that the wound needed to be treated and bandaged. Since it might take too many bandages, Valerie decided to stick a bandage with a band-aid.


    The first-aid kit was in the kitchen, and woman who was already fairly drunk, almost tripped over a lamp wire that stretched across the aisle. In the first aid kit, she used a bandage to create a dressing, smeared it with healing ointment, and attached a long piece of plaster to the top. After that, this structure could be glued to her back, for which it was necessary to see the wound. So, Valerie headed back to the bedroom. She almost tripped over the wire again, reached the trellis, and was just about to put the bandage on when the kettle began to boil in the kitchen.


    With an exasperated sigh, the teacher put down the band-aid, carefully stepped over the wire, and headed to the kitchen. There she poured boiling water into a mug, dropped a packet of tea into it, added a couple of lumps of sugar, and went back to the bedroom to finish the ''treatment''. But at the end of the journey, she relaxed from the rolling intoxication, took a sip of hot tea, spat out almost boiling water and successfully tripped over a wire stretched in the passage.


    Unable to keep her balance, Valerie flopped on the floor, spilling tea, and on top of it fell a lamp, which, of course, broke. The exposed contacts hit the victim of circumstances directly on her back, adding another good shock. The woman managed to throw back the lamp and crawl forward, receiving another weak electric shock from getting her hand into a puddle of water, in which the broken bulb was now sparking.

 Chapter 10.04 - Final Destination

    After recovering a little from the shock, she decided to bypass the unexpected obstacle, for which climbed on the trill, through it jumped on the bed, and on it reached the exit of the room. Under the influence of stress and intoxication Valerie did not notice that accidentally pushed a mug of whiskey. A trickle of flammable liquid reached the sparking lamp, then immediately flared up. After a couple of seconds, the fire spread to the bedcover, and then began to spread quickly around the room.


    The owner of the apartment at that time was heading to the electric switchboard. When she reached it, she pulled the main switch, switching off all lights in the house. After few seconds she realize that she was now in total darkness, and only the dim light from the windows somehow dissipates the darkness. Once again, internally swearing, Valerie opened the closet door, went into it and began to rummage through things, trying to find a lantern. While the search was going on, the pantry door slammed shut, blocking access to the smell of smoke from the growing fire.


    About five minutes later, Valerie finally found the large camping lantern she had last used several years ago. Turning it on, she grinned with delight, then opened the pantry door. The heat of the heated air and the clouds of smoke hit her face. Terrified, she rushed into the bedroom, but when she reached it, she could see the room on fire. It was too late to extinguish the flames on her own, so she decided to run out of the house and call firefighters.


    Coughing from the acrid smoke, she headed to the exit. And it was at this moment that the batteries in the lantern finally ran out, leaving her in the suffocating darkness. Panic-stricken, Valerie ran forward, blind to the road and groping for direction. That''s just because of the panic and intoxication, she could not navigate and took the closet in the hallway as the door. She yanked it aside, knocking over a piece of furniture, blocking the real exit. Already suffocating from the smoke, the woman was able to get to the door and open three locks, but she had no strength to open the door. After all, this required pushing aside the furniture on which she was sitting right now. Opening a little the door, Valerie breathed fresh air and began to call for help.


    Meanwhile, Alex Browning was approaching her house, tormented by bad feelings and guilt for pushing the teacher. When he saw the fire in the windows of the desired house, he immediately rushed forward. And when he heard the call for help, he began to kick the door down, moving the furniture a few centimeters with each blow. Valerie Lewton was in a state of panic, and the nearly half-liter of whiskey she had drunk had completely confused her thoughts. When she saw the face of Alex, whom she had already inwardly blamed for all the recent deaths, she was even more afraid, imagining that he had set fire to the house, and now trying to break down the door to get to her. So, when the door opened enough for her to get out of the burning house, she threw back her ''savior'' and ran away.


    Valerie only stopped when she ran to the road next to her cottage. Smoke was already billowing in all directions, reducing visibility. Coughing, the woman bent over. When she got her breath back, she straightened up and turned to look at the burning building. At this moment, she was hit by a truck, the driver of which simply did not notice the person behind the clouds of smoke. The woman was literally smeared on the asphalt, instantly turning into a pile of minced meat.


    I examined the result and completely satisfied with it. The whole sequence of events claimed to be a masterpiece of Probability magic. Initially, I was just going to kill the ''client'' with an electric shock from a broken lamp. But just those ''side effects of exposure'' led to the fact that the woman always managed to stay alive. Then I used an event that had already been prepared to start a fire. The fallen furniture should have been an insurmountable obstacle on the way to salvation. But then it turned out that Alex intervened in the situation, managed to open the door. I had to slightly correct the thoughts in the head of a drunk teacher, and then intervene in the work of the navigator of the cargo truck. As a result, I managed to send the victim to another world, without overstepping the boundaries of what is allowed.


    After looking at the panicked truck driver and prostrated Alex, I left the situation to develop according to the natural flow of events, and concentrated on the future, in which the next ''fateful'' event was already maturing.


    The next day, Wednesday, four schoolchildren gathered again at the hospital to discuss the death of their teacher. At first, Carter didn''t even believe to what have happened, but three people he knew told him that Valerie Lewton was dead. And this put on the agenda an important question: who is next?


    Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.


    Seeing a pattern in my actions, Alex assumed that Carter would be next. Carter was not pleased with this prospect, so he began to insist that he had almost died in the sewer, so Death should come for someone else. In general, I was entertained by these gatherings, and at the same time this meeting was another link in my brilliant plan, which was drawn up before Carter got to this hospital.


    Without coming to any decision, three visitors went home. The only recommendation that Alex was able to give was the requirement to be careful and not allow strange and dangerous situations to occur near him. This again did not add to Carter''s calmness, because he was in the hospital with a broken leg and basically could not change anything at a distance beyond the outstretched arm


    When night descended on the city, bad weather came with it. A strong, gusty wind tossed debris through the streets, howled between buildings, and hummed in the wires. Heavy clouds covered the sky, turning the dark night into a very dark one. In such weather, it is good to sit at home near a burning fireplace and tell stories about heroic deeds during their youth.


    Unfortunately, Carter was not in danger of such a pastime. Now he was lying on a stiff back, wrapped in a thin blanket and trying to keep warm. A cold north wind came through the wide cracks in the cracked window and blew the last drops of warmth from his body. And even a spare blanket did not save from the cold. To be honest, Carter''s rags could only be called a blanket somewhere near the equator. But here tonight they were resembled bedspreads at best.


    Carter was half asleep, wrapped in the rags, when he was awakened by a loud thump and a strong gust of icy wind. The window could not withstand the onslaught of the elements and completely opened, letting in the noise of the wind and the smell of approaching rain. But before Carter could get too scared, there was another pop from the other side. The front door to the room was also flung open by a gust of wind heading the other way, slamming loudly against the wall. The lights in the room and in the corridor were turned off, so that only the street lamps, whose light came through the window, illuminated the room. All this made him even more nervous. If he had faced the enemy face to face, he would have found the strength to resist it. But now he was surrounded by an incomprehensible horror, and he lay helplessly on the bed, unable even to close the window because of a broken leg.


    For the next few minutes, the window and door continued slamming, making a loud noise. As the door swung open again, Carter saw the silhouette of a woman in white clothes with disheveled hair She stood silently at the entrance to the room, and her face was covered with dark strands of hair.


    Such scene would do honor to any horror movie, and thanks to the ''100% effect of presence'', the appearance of a silent figure scared the guy to such degree that he literally yelled at the top of his voice ignoring his burnt throat.


    "Why are you yelling?" - The woman asked in an unexpectedly grumpy voice. She reached out and flipped on the light switch. As if by magic, all the ''mystique'' immediately dissipated, leaving only a hospital room in a third-rate clinic.


    "Who are you?" - Carter asked, cursing himself for his cowardice. He hadn''t screamed in fear of night monsters since he was three years old.


    "I work here," - The woman answered as she headed to the window.


    The wind slammed the window again, accurately identifying the source of the noise. Nurse went to the window and slammed it shut. Not finding the latch, she critically chuckled, looked at the result of her ''work'' and went to the exit. Only when she took a couple of steps, the next gust of wind opened the window again. Frowning irritably, the woman returned and closed the window again, this time ''applying'' to it all her strength. It didn''t help much, because a couple of seconds later it opened again under a gust of cold wind. Shivering, the nurse examined the broken latch that was supposed to keep the window closed and silently headed to the exit.


    "Where are you going?" - Carter called after her. But he didn''t get an answer.


    However, a couple of minutes later the woman in a white robe returned with a scalpel in her hand. The appearance of the weapon scared the guy even more, so he did not risk to start another conversation with this crazy woman. The woman went to the window, closed it, and then used a scalpel as a latch, jamming the window. After twitching the frame, she became convinced of the reliability of this decision, and then left the room, turning off the light and slamming the door


    Once again in the dark, Carter calmed down a bit, wrapped himself in blankets and tried to fall asleep. The wind was still whistling through the cracks, but at least the windows weren''t banging so hard now, as if someone was doing demolition works. Gradually the gusts of wind began to abate, and the night was filled with calmness.


    Carter was almost asleep when he was awakened by a flash of lightning and a deafening clap of thunder. There was a real storm on the street. The wind began to beat against the window again. The guy looked in that direction and noticed that the scalpel was almost out of the recess and tilted. Another flash of lightning dangerously sparkled, reflecting from the blade. And the next gust of wind yanked the frame so hard that the scalpel almost flew out. Just imagining how this sharp piece of iron flies right down his throat, Carter covered with cold sweat. He couldn''t escape, so all he could do was call for help. He shouted ''help me'' several times, but it didn''t bring any results. The hospital was quiet as if everyone was dead

 Chapter 10.05 - Final Destination

    Somehow reaching the nightstand, the guy took out his cell phone and dialed the number of his classmate Billy Hitchcock. They weren''t friends, but Billy was the only one he could ask for help. He couldn''t beg to save this sucker Alex or his girlfriend Clear. After a long minute of ringing, when Carter was almost desperate, Billy picked up the phone. He swore profanely, but promised to come and help, especially since he lived not so far from the hospital.


    Ten minutes later, the door to the room opened abruptly, and a figure in a long, shapeless cloak and hood appeared in the doorway. A dark liquid dripped from the cloak, and a flash of lightning highlighted an axe in the visitor¡¯s right hand, which he was holding up. Carter''s mind was once again subjected to peak stress, which caused him to scream, releasing the horror that engulfed him.


    "Why are you yelling?" - He heard a question asked by a familiar voice. A light switch clicked, and the figure turned out to be Billy Hitchcock.


    "Damn it! I almost broke my heart. Why do you need an axe?¡± - Carter shouted.


    "I looked at your window today and noticed it was broken. So, I decided to grab some repair tools.¡±


    With these words, Billy held up a large plastic briefcase in his left hand. Without undressing, he walked across the room, bypassed the bed and reached the window. It took him a couple of seconds to remove the scalpel, then the window opened again, letting in the cold wind and raindrops.


    "Put it aside. Over there, on the nightstand.¡± - Carter said. The nightstand was the only piece of furniture in the room except for the bed, so there was no special choice.


    Billy chuckled and walked to the designated spot and back. After that, he opened a briefcase filled with various tools and began to tinker over the window, intending to close the largest gap with a wooden plank and replace the broken latch.


    But before he could begin to repair it, the nurse from the day before burst into the room.


    "Who are you and what the hell are you doing here?" - She shouted, heading to Billy.


    "I''m Billy. Carter called me to fix the window.¡± - He tried to explain, but the woman, apparently, was not in a mood to find a compromise.


    "You have no right to fix that window. Get out of here, or I''ll call the police.¡±


    "Lady, calm down.¡± - The patient tried to intervene. - "Your hospital has an obligation to provide me with normal conditions of stay. If you don''t let me fix the window, I''ll sue you in the court."


    "I don''t give a shit! Get out of here, you filthy pervert.¡±


    With these words, the nurse punched Billy in the chest. He didn''t expect such a physical assault, so he lost his balance. Unfortunately, at that moment he slipped on a puddle that ran out of the open window, fell back, and reflexively kicked the nurse, sending her into the flight to the front door.


    "Oh, sorry.¡±


    The guy rushed to help woman, but she perceived his movement as a desire to finish off, so in response, she kicked him with two legs. Billy, once again not expecting such an attitude from her, flew back and collapsed on the bed, one at a time running into the stretcher system for a broken leg. Fragile structure could not withstand such treatment and began to fall apart along with the rusted bed. Carter flew to the floor, yanking the counterweight system with his broken leg. The weight swung dangerously again, trying to break Billy''s head. Billy had no choice but to jump forward again, bumping into the crazy nurse.


    The woman finally became convinced that the man in the cloak wants to kill her. In addition, she noticed an axe standing on the nightstand, which further convinced her of the correctness of this assumption. So, when the guy collapsed directly on her, pinning her body to the floor, she did not hesitate for a second to grab the scalpel that fell to the floor and began to stab them in the throat of the maniac, not allowing him to come to his senses.


    Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    Carter was lying on the floor, screaming from the pain of his re-broken leg. But when he looked to the side, he saw the crazy nurse repeatedly stab Billy in the throat with a scalpel held in her right hand. The guy had almost stopped twitching, but the crazy bitch continued to stab again and again. Realizing the dangerous situation, Carter shut up, stifling a groan so as not to attract the killer''s attention. And then he saw the ''panic button'', which was supposed to be in each room in case the patient becomes ill. Except in his room, some idiot had placed it near the floor, so he''d only just discovered it. Pressing the red button until it stopped, the guy began to pray to all gods, hoping that it worked and the wiring did not rot, like everything else in this hospital.


    Half a minute later, there was the sound of footsteps in the corridor. The door swung open, and another nurse witnessed the bloody scene. She screamed, then ran away. Carter had already given up all hope of rescue, but a minute later security and several paramedics broke into the room, who dragged crazy nurse from the already dead body and tied her hands and feet. From his seat, Carter saw Billy''s head almost separated from his body, and the scalpel lying on the floor in a puddle of blood. A mask of surprise and fear froze on the victim''s face. Unable to resist, Carter sobbed in full voice, attracting attention.


    As I expected, Billy Hitchcock was killed by a crazy bitch. In fact, Elizabeth Cole was not a nurse, but a patient of a madhouse. This morning, she was stricken by a colitis attack which was mistakenly diagnosed as an inflammation of appendicitis, which led to her being transported from a madhouse to a regular clinic. Here they performed a full diagnosis of her body, diagnosed colitis and left the patient in a separate room.


    Elizabeth was not considered dangerous to society, so security measures were limited to her being locked in a room with bars on the windows. But the unusual patient was not reported to the doctor who made the evening shift, so he simply forgot to lock the door after leaving. As a result, in the evening, the crazy bitch got out, climbed into the resident''s room and put on a nurse''s robe, then went to ''watch patients'', presenting herself as a doctor and head of the clinic. Further events and the ''maniac attack'' tore the last gears in her head, which resulted in a fit of anger and a disfigured corpse.


    The murdering, of course, could not be hidden, and all bumps fell on the hospital staff. Carter had a second operation on his leg, after which he was transported to the best clinic in the city, where he was in a VIP room under the constant supervision of doctors. In such an environment, it was impossible to even dream of setting up an accident. I looked at the probability lines of the future, but in all cases, doctors were able to help to Carter. Even if he fell into a coma, technically he was still alive, so the mission threatened to fail.


    For the next month, I observed the lives of the three remaining ''clients'', limiting myself only to predicting their possible future. As I said, Carter was safe. But Alex and his girlfriend Clear gradually more and more developed their foresight of the future, which made them almost invulnerable to my influence.


    The funny thing is, I could foresee their foresight of the future. It required some tension on my part, but in general it was possible. But this couple was not limited to the requirements of the ''inconspicuous'' impact on reality. They banally committed some actions that took them out of the attack. If I caused an accident in one place, they just went to another. If I set up a ''random'' fall of the cabinet on their head, then they in advance found a broken leg of furniture, and so on.


    On any ¡®move¡¯ I made, they immediately came up with their own ''counter-move'', completely neutralizing my impact. But what infuriated me most was the fact that Alex was ruining my plans without even noticing it. He simply followed his intuition, which ''miraculously'' led him past all the dangers. And Clear went to this clairvoyant as a free app. She was constantly near him, and she also possessed some abilities to perceive the future.


    So, I spent the next month making crazy plans that were never going to come true. Nothing dangerous or unusual has happened to the trio this month, because I have limited myself to predicting the future. In the end, it became clear to me that the current approach had outlived its usefulness. I had to deal with Alex first. After that, I could engage with Clear and Carter¡¯s death. The time allotted to me for the task was running out, so I had to hurry.


    Fortunately, Carter was released from the hospital after month. He was still walking with his leg plastered, but at least he was no longer under the 24/7 supervision of doctors who were ready to bring him back from the hell at any time of the day or night. But I decided to leave this ¡®idiot'' as a desert, and first of all focus on the main ''pest''.

 Chapter 10.06 - Final Destination

    Alex''s ability to avoid all my traps was that his ''voice of intuition'' never conflicted with the ''voice of reason''. In other words, his behavior was a perfect example of ''emotionally unstable personality''. If he ''suddenly'' stopped liking the street he was walking on, he simply turned aside or even turned back. If he felt ''danger'' from some actions, he never tried to do them, even if it was required of him by others. And so on. In his behavior, he always followed the slightest emotional impulses. If it would help, I could easily arrange for him to go to the madhouse. But alas, such a ''place of residence'' on the contrary reduced all versions of reality to one, in which Alex just rot in the room alone.


    However, I had a plan to overcome this obstacle. There were many restrictions on what I couldn''t do in the rules of the ''faithful ascended''. But one thing was perfectly acceptable, and it was, one might say, an official entrance into the world of the living. I could give mortals ''revelations'', opening the veil of the mystery of existence. The main thing was not to reveal the secrets of the spirit world. Well, it should be taken into account that for such communication, the exalted could be questioned. And in the absence of sufficient reasons, punishment could follow. However, I had my reasons, so there were no obstacles to the implementation of this plan.


    My ''genius plan'' was simple, like all genius. Alex could foresee the future just by sensing the danger that was coming from it, but not understanding what was going on there. I gave him the ability to literally see the future with his own eyes, just like the Rat did. However, there were some details in which the ''devil'' was hiding. He could only see the options for the future that I showed to him. Plus, he couldn''t see ''node events'' that could change the future with minimal effort. All he could do was make other decisions and take other actions.


    The ''awakening'' of this ability began with the frequent occurrence of a sense of ''deja vu''. Alex watched some events and realized that he had seen them before. A girl catching a ball. A hat torn off by a gust of wind. Unusual advertising outside the car window. This lasted for several days, and then he was able to see the future for a few seconds ahead. A week later, happy Alex could predict what would happen to him in the next couple of minutes.


    In order to encourage the use of this ability, I began to cause minor troubles in Alex''s life. Nothing dangerous, just annoying failures. Stumble here, waste ten bucks there, get insulted here. With the ability to see all these troubles and avoid them, Alex independently learned to change his fate and... follow my plan. It was like a rat learning to run in a maze, receiving a harmless but sensitive electric shock.


    Of course, Alex shared information about this ability with Clear. She was happy for her boyfriend, but being more ''practical'', she was able to find a more practical use for it than saving dogs from under the wheels of cars. By this point, the couple had already moved quite far in their relationship. Alex moved into Clear''s house so that he could spend every night in bed with his chosen one. But an independent life required at least some money income, and Alex was somehow not adapted to work. Even as a cleaner, he managed to stay only a couple of days, because when your employed cleaner refuses to clean a section of the floor because he ''doesn''t like'' it, it raises unnecessary questions.


    Anyway, Claire offered to go to the casino and win some money to keep her pants up. At first, Alex wasn''t sure if it was possible to use his abilities like this, but after the engine broke down in their family car, he had to agree that they needed the money right here and now, and people went to casinos just to try to guess the future.


    So, in next evening after school, the sweet couple decided to visit the nearest casino. Alex''s intuition told him that there might be danger ahead, but since this was just one of the options for the future, and Claire was pulling him forward almost by the scruff of the neck, he let himself to be persuaded.


    As soon as the guy walked through the front door of the casino, I gave him a version of the future where he wins fifty dollars just by throwing a coin into the slot machine. With my abilities, it was easy for me to arrange such win. Having received easy money on hand, the sweet couple naturally lost their heads. They ran from one slot machine to another, taking the winnings one more than the other. Half an hour later they were ''stuck'' at the poker table, and then they got to the roulette table. The lucky ones did not have time to recover, as they won more than one and a half million dollars in an hour. And only the oppressive feeling of the approaching ''Arctic Fox'' made Alex wake up from this carnival of madness and start searching for ways to escape.


    Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    At first, he decided to banally lose most of the money, making obviously losing bets. But he quickly became convinced that any of his actions... lead to a win. No matter what number he put on the roulette wheel, the ball always went there. Any slot machine gave out a jackpot on the first attempt, and the cards themselves went into the hands, folding into a royal-flash. By the time Alex realized that fate was playing against him, he had three million dollars chips on his hands. After all, he deliberately made big bets to lose faster.


    It is quite natural that such luck could not please the owners of the casino. Especially given the fact that the ''management'' of this institution was the New York mafia, which was not going to give their money to stray guests.


    With shaking hands Alex went to the checkout, where they exchanged chips to money. Then he was asked his identity card and explained that he must be eighteen years old in order to win. Laughing nervously, Alex declared that he was still underage and refused to win. However, once caught in the sights of the mafia, it was not easy to stay alive. However, there was no need even for the hypothetical possibility that after another birthday this kid would come to the casino again to shake the owners out of everything to the last penny.


    As luck would have it, Alex and Claire didn''t have their own car, so they left the casino and tried to get a taxi. But when trying to get into one of them, Alex foresee that just a minute later he will be seized by strange armed individuals. After escaping from the persistent taxi driver, he plunged into the alleys, trying to throw off the tail. Using his ability to foresee the future, ''prophet'' managed to hide from under the noses of the prowling mafia.


    Unfortunately, my plan was not to rescue him, so fifteen minutes later he was at the exit of the underground parking lot. Ahead was a deserted street, and the foresight of the future gave Alex a vision of how one of the mobsters him with a gun shot in the back. When he tried to choose a future scenario where he dodged a shot, he found that in this case, the victim was Clear. He couldn''t agree with that.


    In fact, this is exactly the situation I was leading him to. He had to choose between saving himself and saving his beloved, and then die from a surplus of lead in the brain. But Alex was able to break out of the trap, destroying all my plans. Before that, he only ran away. Now he decided to attack. I only showed him the options of confrontation in which he dies, but he used his own intuition to find a way to salvation.


    He took a pen from his pocket, clenched it in his fist, and lurked near the door. As soon as the first mafioso from the pursuing couple appeared in the aisle, Alex abruptly jumped out and stuck his ''weapon'' directly into the artery. After that, he intercepted the hand with the gun, waited until the enemy was weak from loss of blood, then took the weapon and managed to shoot the second bandit, who just ran out of the garage. After finishing the first pursuer with a controlled shot to the head, the new-found killer rushed away, dragging the girl with him.


    After about hundred meters, they came across a parked car with keys in the ignition. Without hesitation, Alex took the driver''s seat and drove away. Ten minutes later, they abandoned the car that the police were already looking for and moved to the bus.


    When he got home, Alex quarreled with Claire, accusing her of all this swagger, murders and car theft. While the lovers were sorting out the relationship, I decided to clean up the traces of my intervention. It was a situation where the ''foresight'' of the future could not give out the option of salvation, and for a moment Alex simply stopped paying attention to it. I was not happy with this precedent, so I instilled in guy the idea that this was the future he saw, but he just didn''t have time to go through all of options.


    After this story, the students ''lay low'', trying not to shine in front of the police, not to mention returning to the casino. And I ''cleaned up'' their tracks, because in the situation where this couple was arrested, they ended up in prison, received beatings and sexual assault, but not death.


    In general, this experience was considered successful. The clairvoyant himself climbed into the mouth of the tiger, after which he was able to escape only because of the imperfection of the trap. After all, it was too easy to deceive people. It was necessary to use the technique that was the worst succumbed to manipulation.


    For the next two weeks, Alex lived the life of an ordinary schoolboy, while I plotted the lines of probabilities, setting up another trick. Too much Chaos in the material world led to incredible and absurd events. I decided to use this pattern and initially set up a plan in which the absurdity will be brought to the maximum.

 Chapter 10.07 - Final Destination

    In the year 2000, terrorists from Al-Qaeda were already making plans to carry out terrorist attacks in the United States. So, I helped them a little to get a thermonuclear bomb and codes to detonate it. When the terrorists attacked the military base, there was a technogenic accident, because of which the US military forces did not immediately realize that they are trying to rob thermonuclear bomb. By the time US military forces figured it out, the terrorists already had one hundred-megaton bomb and the launch codes of timer.


    This failure immediately classified and raised all FBI and CIA forces, tasking them to search of the bomb. Only with my help, the terrorists were able to transport the bomb without hindrance and hide it in an abandoned factory near New York. They did not expect such a success, so they prepared to detonate a bomb and began negotiations about payment for this terrorist attack. After all, religion is a religion, but any business should bring money. And terrorism was just another type of business that allowed them to raise money under the pretext of doing God-pleasing things.


    Meanwhile, Alex began to see strange dreams. In these dreams he was doing his own thing, and suddenly... died. The first two times, he didn''t even know what was happening. And on the third night, he was able to realize that he was in a dream and managed to understand that he died from the explosion of a nuclear bomb. On the fourth night, he went in the direction of the explosion and was able to locate the bomb more accurately. When Alex awoke, he went back to sleep to see his dream again. He already understood that what he was seeing was not just a nightmare, but a future.


    After dozen dreams, the guy was able to find the place where the bomb was located. It remained only to find out how to prevent its explosion. As always, Alex shared his thoughts with Clear. She offered to go to the police and tell them about the upcoming terrorist attack. The offer was so-so, because the clairvoyant believed that the police were hunting for him, but after another nightmare in which he was burned in a nuclear flame, he decided to ''open eyes'' of the authorities, writing off his knowledge for the overheard conversation.


    After school, the couple got into a car and drove to the police station. But as soon as Clear parked, Alex saw the near future, in which he begins to tell about his vision to a police officer, and immediately after that, a fuel truck drives into the station, after which they all burn up in a fire, although not nuclear, but still fire. After telling his girlfriend about this, he received an offer not to go inside, but to wait nearby. If the fuel truck explodes, they can just go to another station. And if not, they can go to this one, just a little later.


    A couple of minutes later, a fuel truck past near the police station, and no accident occurs. Only after checking the future again, Alex saw that this time one of the detainees grabs a police officer''s gun and starts shooting around, in result killing Clear. After that, Alex returned to the car and started over and over again to run through the options of the future, which are all subordinated to one idea: if he only tries to tell about the upcoming nuclear explosion, people around begin to die for various reasons.


    Of course, they were just visions of future which I purposely showed to him. According to the terms of the assignment, I couldn''t kill ordinary people. This restriction was only about reality. But in the unrealized lines of the future I could create anything, including explosion of thermonuclear bombs.


    Alex didn''t know how he''d fallen asleep as he ran through the probability lines. But this time he had a new dream. Same terrorists, whom he saw in the previous dreams, decided to take hostage visitors of a fashionable restaurant. And one of those visitors was Carter Horton. Then there was a shootout with the police, and all hostages died in the bomb explosion.


    When Alex woke up, he immediately called to his friend¡¯s telephone and found out that he was really in this restaurant. After that, Alex asked Clear to drive car to the restaurant, but to stay at a safe distance. Looking through the lines of probabilities, the prophet realized that he could only change the future with his own hands. If he told someone something or asked for something, the ending was unchanged, although some details of events changed. If he intervened personally, the explosion could be stopped.


    The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.


    In the end, Alex decided to personally intervene in the events. He just pushed one of the terrorists going to the scene, after which he fell and dropped the machine gun. The weapon was spotted by a policeman who immediately shot at a couple of terrorists, after which the other terrorists chose to sneak away from the scene. They were not arrested, but no one died from the restaurant visitors.


    After making sure that Carter was not injured, Alex decided that he should personally prevent the terrorist attack with nuclear bomb to save the entire population of the city. At night, he set the alarm so that he woke him up every two hours, and then began to modeling of the future. So, he found out that most of the terrorists leave the city a few hours before the explosion. At this point, only a few fanatics remain near the bomb. In addition, by moving the dream events a day earlier, he was able to sneak up on the terrorist leaders and learn the code to cancel the bomb countdown. After that, in another viewing of the future version, he was able to get to the bomb and cancel the explosion without being noticed.


    Confident in his own coolness, on the right day, Alex went to save the world, leaving his girlfriend at home. Using my gifted foresight of the future, he was able to get into the terrorists'' lair, avoid all traps and mines, and reach the bomb.


    The bomb itself was suspended on several cables low above the floor, and to stop the countdown timer, he had to crawl right under it and enter the code on the numeric keypad. But when he got to the ''super prize'', Alex discovered that the bomb itself is a trap. If he enter the countdown cancellation code, hoist which lifted the bomb will be released, and the bomb will fell on the person who entered the code. No matter what he will do, he was only two simple options: either die in a thermonuclear explosion or die after entering the code, but saving the inhabitants of the city and his girlfriend.


    After all of the moral torment, Alex put his head into the trap and entered the deactivation code. The bomb has been deactivated, and the prophet was smashed by its multi-ton structure.


    I mentally wiped the sweat from my forehead and congratulated myself on my victory. The clairvoyant actually committed suicide, saving me from the trouble. After that, I activated the long-prepared chain of events, and the two remaining targets quickly went to the other world. Clear was hit in the head by a stray bullet fired from a sniper rifle during a mafia showdown a away, and Carter banally went into the elevator, went up to the 50th floor, after which the elevator cables broke off and it fell into the basement.


    Once again making sure that all the people on the list are dead, I went to the Sariel. He was in the same room that seemed to be his office.


    "Why are you here?" - Very embodiment of Holiness greeted me.


    "I completed task.¡± - I said.


    ¡°What?¡± - He was surprised and began to do some magic. - "How could this happen? What have you done with this... Alex Browning? He was the chosen one and a natural Probability magician.¡±


    ¡°Well... I dropped a thermonuclear bomb on him.¡± - I answered.


    "WHAT?!!¡± - Cherub yelled. ¨C ¡°I told you no nuclear explosions!!!¡±


    "Well, I didn''t explode it. Just dropped it from height of half a meter.¡±


    "What?"


    The angel, apparently, was able to get the necessary records of events and began to study them. In front of him appeared a screen, in which played a video as from a surveillance camera, switching between different angles. After watching this movie to its climax, the angel turned his gaze to me.


    "What if he couldn''t prevent the explosion? Are you ready to destroy entire city and risk your fate to win?¡±


    "Of course not. There was a defect in the timer of the microprocessor, so the countdown will be stopped on its own at the last second. And if this plan didn''t work, I would have come up with something else. I had time more than a month.¡±


    "All right, so be it. I confirm that the terms of the contract are fulfilled.¡± - The angel grumbled. - "And take back your figure out of here before he does something else."


    A moment later, I was again in the void next to the Being.


    "You''re making progress." - It favorably nodded at me. ¨C ¡°To kill the enemy by dropping a thermonuclear bomb on him, and at the same time do not break the rules. Ha-ha. Looks like you''ve got talent.¡±


    "Did you doubt it?" - I offended asked.


    "Not at all. Ha-ha-ha.¡± - Being laughed. ¨C ¡°In general, considering your demonstrated skills, it is worth to send you to an educational institution for further training. You will study the course of a young fighter; pass the exam and you can once again prove to everyone that even a lame cockroach can win the race.¡±


    With this exhortation, I was again pulled somewhere.

 Chapter 11 - A Nightmare on Elm Street

    /* Link to trailer


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCVh4lBfW-c</a>


    */


    I woke up in a strange place. It was like a basement with all sorts of pipes running through the rooms. A fire was burning somewhere nearby, and I could see the glow of it on the walls. My right hand felt strange, so I looked at it and saw that it was wearing a metal glove with long blades attached to the fingers. It reminds me of something. I looked at my hands again, and then I realized it was all a dream. I was Freddy Krueger, and the world around me was my personal nightmare, I mean, my home.


    Looking around again, I noticed that the dream is... dream. In other words, it wasn''t a real world. These were only images, forming a whole, but very abstract picture. Previously, I always perceived the world not just three-dimensional, but multidimensional. I saw secret levels of world that controlled three-dimensional reality. Here the world was... limited. It was flat and drawn. Everything was just images, pictures. Only not drawn on paper, but depicted as a three-dimensional environment. But that didn''t change the essence.


    And there was another feature. My magic, chakra, and psionics didn''t work. The laws of the world didn''t prevent it. Because this world was unreal. The dream wasn''t real, so the usual rules of the real world didn''t apply. I could ''create'' a fireball or materialize a ton of gold, but it was just my imagination. I didn''t need magic to do that.


    But the worst thing about this situation was that I felt myself in a dream... like in a dream. In other words, my mind floated, lost in the details, clinging to images. In general, I felt like a drunk alcoholic. This was completely different from the crystal-clear state of mind I had been in for the past few decades. Right now, I didn''t feel like I needed to go anywhere, so I chose a more comfortable spot and went into meditation, trying to regain control of my mind.


    It is difficult to say how long the meditation took, but in the end, I managed to concentrate on the feeling of my ''I'' and build around it a consciousness filled with my ¡®will¡¯. I got the impression that this was my psionic abilities, which had adapted to a new way of life.


    When I opened my eyes, I felt that I was now the starting point, the center of the universe, and the Will of God. Oddly enough, this state was close to embodying the principles of the world of Order. I was the law that created the world around me. As sung in one song: ¡®don''t bend under the changing world, let it bend under us''. That''s what I was doing now. By the very fact of my existence, I bent the surrounding reality, forming images of the dream world.


    However, after a while, when I got used to this state, I muffled the intensity of my influence to the world around me. For now, it was better to portray an ordinary Freddy Krueger, who did not shine with strategic thinking and clarity of mind.


    Having risen to my feet and headed for the exit of the boiler room I was in. This little world was a refuge for the real Freddy Krueger. Here his existence was an immutable law of the universe. Here he might have been resurrected if someone had able to kill him. In general, according to my feelings, now I was some strange form of existence that could be called a ''demon of dream¡¯.


    Along the way, I thought about the connection between the world of Dreams and the world of Chaos. The two worlds were similar, but there were differences. Dreams were connected not only to Chaos, but also to Order. I was now in fact the ''angel of Order'' in this bedbug. The methods of magic I knew didn''t work. Even ritual magic didn''t work. More precisely, it worked somehow, but the result of this work was not observed.


    When I opened the front door of the boiler room, I found that there was a deserted open space ahead. There was no sky, but instead a kind of gloom hung above, in which floated streams of gray fog. The same fog obscured the horizon, making the viewable world not so big.


    "Hey, you! Come here! How long can we wait?¡± - I heard a distant voice.


    And after a couple of seconds, just a couple of steps away from me, the owner of voice appeared. At first glance, he might mistakenly recognize as a Buddhist monk. At least he was dressed in typical Buddhist rags, his head was bald, and he carried a staff. Except that the rags were not orange, but dirty gray, in perfect harmony with the color scheme of the world around them. The staff ended in the snarling skull of a creature. And the eyes of the ''monk'' shined with a bright infernal fire.


    If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.


    "How long can you sit in this hole? Let¡¯s go, it''s time to start.¡±


    Well, if it''s time to start, so be it. I didn''t argue, and followed the guide. Suddenly our movement accelerated through the local wastelands, and we found ourselves next to the company of some maniacs. However, I''m now Freddy Krueger, which means I''m a maniac too. I need to get used to my new role.


    The crowd consisted of six people. The first thing that caught my eye was a guy in a hockey mask with a huge cleaver in his hand. Next to him stood a man with a deformed face and a chainsaw on his shoulder. A little to one side, a man of intelligent appearance sat on a rock, but his front was covered by a leather apron stained with blood, and in his hands were two butcher knives. The others didn''t look any better. Only a woman who looked like a worn-out whore in her forties looked different on this masculine society. She didn''t seem to have a weapon, but I didn''t relax. Looks like there''s a whole menagerie gathered here.


    "Line up!" ¨C Monk commanded. The people began to lazily and stupidly try to stand in one line. I perched on the edge, trying not to get too close to the ''neighbor''. "Name yourself one by one. Let''s start with you.¡±


    Since I stood on the edge, the last sentence was addressed to me.


    ¡°Freddy Krueger.¡± - I said.


    "Jason Voorhees." - Masked man said. His voice sounded deaf, because there was no opening for his mouth in the mask.


    "Jack the Ripper." - That was the butcher in the apron.


    "Dexter Morgan." - This guy did not give the impression of a maniac, unless you look him in the eye.


    "This is Thomas Hewitt.¡± - Monk introduced next participant of the show. It seems that this individual could not even speak. As confirmation, he turned on his chainsaw and roared loudly.


    "Michael Myers," - Next maniac croaked. His face was covered with a white leather mask, and in his hand he twisted a large knife.


    "Aileen Wuornos." - The whore introduced herself, saying her name as if she were going to leap at the monk and gnaw his throat out.


    ¡°Great!¡± - Monk nodded. - "You can call me Baku. You are all demons of dreams from now on. You draw strength from the fears of people whom you come in dreams. The meaning of your life is to kill innocent people. Anyone who knows your name or image can become your victim. Under my guidance, you will become real demons, able to make reality the worst nightmares of people. But first I will tell you what the dream world is.


    "What the fuck do I need?" - The whore shouted. Consonant roar of a chainsaw joined to her. Monk didn''t answer, but two disobedient students screamed and rolled on the ground, trying to scratch their eyes out.


    "So, the world of dreams.¡± - Lecturer continued, as if nothing was happening. - "Some of you know that there are many worlds and dimensions. These universes never intersect and each exists on its own. But the dream world is different. This world is not the world of being. It consists of images that occur in the dreams of all living beings in the universe. Yes, the world of dreams unites all worlds. No matter in which universe you go the world of dreams there will be same. This world is infinite. It has everything that can exist. But unlike the realms of real world, dreams are only temporary shelter for souls. Only we demons of dreams can live here permanently. As long as you remember your existence, you are immortal. As long as you can instill fear in people''s hearts, you will have power over this world. As long as at least one living being remembers you, you will be able to visit the world where it lives, looking for new victims. But enough of this. I see that some of you are almost asleep, unable to realize the greatness of this place. But I want to warn you. As soon as you fall asleep, you will cease to exist. Demons of dreams should not sleep. Ha-ha. Instead of our own dreams, we have other people''s. So, now each of you will get a list of people that you will need to kill. However, this is the recommended minimum. You can kill a lot more. You can kill dozens or hundreds of people every night. It all depends on you. And here is your first task - select one person from the list, enter their dream and make them experience fear, because of which they will wake up with a cry of horror.¡±


    At this point, Baku''s monologue stopped, and he literally disappeared into the fog. While this lecture was going on, a mist came down from the sky and surrounded us. A second later, sheets of paper flew out of the fog. I caught the one that flew up to me and saw five names written on it by hand. The handwriting was clumsy, but I could read out all names. But the main thing, of course, was not the grammar, but the image embedded in these names. When I saw them, I realized that I can now visit the dream of any of these five.


    "All you must obey me!" ¨C One of maniacs yelled.


    I couldn''t distinguish who it was, but seems Jack the Ripper is trying to be a leader. I did not enter into the discussion, but walked away, disappearing in the fog. Having made only a couple of steps, I imagined that I approached my boiler room. The iron-clad door popped out of the fog at my first call. I opened it and went into such a familiar room. This place was the source of my strength. Here I was God of the Dream world.

 Chapter 11.01 - A Nightmare on Elm Street

    Irritated, I pushed aside the illusion of omnipotence and focused on the paper. After reading the names again, I began to think about what to do next. To be honest, I had no particular desire to go and cut people''s throats. It is banal, boring, and mediocre. In general, the idea of learning how to control the Dream world was interesting, but I considered it beneath my dignity to become a mad butcher for the sake of it. So first I decided to focus on learning of my abilities, and perform the task with taste and extraordinary imagination.


    My first victim was a girl named Tina Gray. Actually, she was first on the list, which determined her fate. In first night, I simply entered her dream and watched her, testing my ability to change her dreams. Overall, it worked, bit in process I spent some kind of energy. Apparently, to cumulate it, I needed to scare someone. But I didn''t want to just chase idiots through the stinking catacombs. So, while Tina was awake, I began to prepare a place in the Dream world where I would make my debut as ''the invisible horror''.


    Next night, Tina found herself in a long hallway. The only light came from the open door in front, to which she went. When she reached the door, she saw a bright room filled with lots of cute plush toys. With a laugh, she walked to the center of the room and began to examine and squeeze them. This place was literally filled with children''s joy and sweetness. The only one different thing was a portrait of Freddy Krueger hanging on one of the walls. From this portrait I watched what was happening.


    Taking the biggest toy - a Teddy bear, Tina noticed that its mouth was closed with a ''zipper''. After examining the toy again, she opened its mouth and found another toy inside. Pulling it back, she pulled out a large rabbit with funny ears. Laughing and hugging him, she again found that the rabbit''s mouth was zipped shut. When she opened it, she was startled for a moment because a toothy mouth had popped out, but then it became clear that it was another stuffed toy-a Tyrannosaurus Rex.


    This toy''s mouth was already open, but in its depth hid another ''doll''. It was the squirrel inside which Tina found the cat. The last toy was especially cute, so she hugged it to her chest and started humming a song she remembered from her childhood. Stroking the cat, she again opened the zipper that was in place of the cat''s mouth. But this time, an Alien larva crawled out of the toy, snapped its toothy mouth, darted forward, and bit into Tina''s throat, chewing it all the way to the spine. The girl screamed in horror and woke up.


    Well, the first experience can be considered successful. When I watched the girl''s happy emotions, I literally turned inside out with disgust. But when she went wild with horror at the sensation of her throat being chewed out, I felt a surge of strength and cheerfulness. However, only a simple demon of dreams could have benefit from this. I was the center of Order in this formless world, and therefore I did not need the energy of fear.


    Having completed this simple quest, I again went to the exit from the boiler room. In general, the dream world was quite plastic. The corridors of my boiler room could lead to different places, and through them I could get into the dream of any person. But the front door to the boiler room was special. It was surrounded by a sense of a certain ''law'' and always led only to one place - to the same desolate, misty world where Baku lived.


    Approaching the door, I put my hand on the handle and imagined the moment when the entire team of maniacs would be ready to show results of task. As I have already seen, time in the dream world did not flow in the same way as in the real world. It could be stretched and compressed on an unlimited scale. You could even put it in the loop. However, the cause-and-effect relationship in dreams did not work, so that when the sequence of events was disrupted, the image of such dependence simply collapsed or changed unrecognizably. In general, focusing on the moment which I needed, I could be sure that I would get desired time.


    Behind the door was a world I already knew. There was no one in sight, but I wasn''t worried about that. Once I could only wish how only a dozen steps moved me a huge distance directly to the gathering of maniacs. As I looked around the entire circus, I noticed that the images of the dream demons had changed. Jason Voorhees''s mask was scratched as if it had been sawed off with a motor saw, and Dexter Morgan''s right hand was now attached to his body with thick threads, making it look like a blank Frankenstein.


    "Hey, Kruger!¡± - Jack the Ripper shouted noticing my approach. - "Come here at once."


    ¡°Are you fucking crazy, you horned face?¡± - I answered to him. - "If you continue to be impudent, I''ll break off your horns and shove them into your ass."


    The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.


    "What did you say? Get him!¡±


    Judging by the reaction of the others to this command, the alpha male has already been determined. Only Dexter hasn''t budged, apparently not yet resigned to who''s in charge. Alas, I didn¡¯t have time to explain to these maggots of demons the depth of their delusion by the appearance of Baku.


    ¡°Enough. Line up.¡± - He said shortly, coming out of the fog.


    Surprisingly, the crowd of maniacs had enough of this, and they began to try to imitate the formation. I took a side seat again, but this time my neighbor was Jack the Ripper, who was still staring at me with a promising look. I sneered, looking at him, and then focused on the ''teacher''.


    "Well, I see everyone has completed their first task. Although for someone, even this simple task was not easy.¡± - A mocking smile played on the monk''s face I looked to the side, but I couldn''t tell who it was ''alternatively gifted''. - "You have learned that fear gives you strength. Now, you need to figure out what will happen if you torment a person with nightmares for several days without letting them sleep. Your task is to appear to the same person from the list three nights in a row, so that on the fourth night he lost any desire to lie down to sleep at least for a minute¡±


    After that Baku looked at us with attentive eyes and dissolved again in the fog. And a moment later, Jack the Ripper rushed in my direction, waving a knife. Alas, to his disappointment, I turned into a fog, materialized behind him and gave him good acceleration with kick, from which he rode ''on the face'' at least a couple of meters, and at the end of his head buried in a hefty cactus, which was not there a second ago. In order not to spoil the image of this world, the cactus was dirty gray with long black needles, and around it swirled a light mist, not allowing to accurately estimate the length and location of needles.


    Jack the Ripper screamed, tried to pry off his head from the cactus, but couldn''t. After that, he recklessly decided to push away from the cactus with his hands, but the needles of this terrible plant pierced his palms, causing another scream. Despite all Jack''s attempts to break free, with each movement a new part of his body was captured by the cactus, so that in a minute he was crucified on this miracle plant upside down, continuing to yell.


    "Don''t yell, you are not at home. And don''t yell at home.¡± - I gave him a ''valuable instruction'', then looked at the approaching five maniacs and dissolved in the fog. I think there will be a second vote on the election of the most important clown in this circus.


    Coming back to the boiler room, I began to create a platform for the next episode of poor Tina Gray''s dreams. Since the boiler room was located in the basement, above it I ''created'' a large cinema and entertainment center with a bunch of rooms, halls and, of course, confusing corridors


    In the next night, Tina found herself standing just behind the front doors leading to the cinema. Turning around, she made sure that the front doors were boarded up cross-cross, and went inside the room, trying to figure out where she was and how she got here. As she wandered down the hall toward the ticket offices, she looked at the posters hanging on the walls. The cinema looked abandoned, so the posters were shabby and faded in places, but in general the images and inscriptions on them were quite simple to distinguish. So she got acquainted with the commercials of the films ''Aliens on Elm Street'', ''Freddy Krueger vs. Alien'', ''Alien and Freddie vs. Chip and Dale'' and so on.


    When she got to the ticket office, she found that it was closed, but on the shelf next to the ticket office was laying a ticket to the movie ''Freddy Krueger vs Alien''. She picked it up and walked toward the movie halls, following the internal logic of the dream that required the viewer to get to the session.


    A little after, Tina went into the hall, where the screen was already playing a black-and-white movie in the style of the thirties of the twentieth century. Sometimes there were streaks and scratches on the film, but the film had no sound, and instead it played cheerful music that completely not corresponding to the gloom of the contents of the film.


    Sitting in a chair in the front row, Tina grabbed a glass of popcorn that had just appeared and began to closely observe the events of the film. there was a detailed picture of the breeding chain of Aliens: egg-laying infection with face-hugger, ''hatching'' of Chestburster and development of the adult Alien. And all this action was accompanied by piles of corpses and rivers of blood. At the end of the film, I personally appeared in film and in a few seconds chopped all aliens into a salad with just a few strokes of my glove, thus saving all of humanity. The plot, of course, was so-so, but the main thing here was the transfer of knowledge about the physiology of Aliens.


    After the screen went dark, Tina found a plush rabbit on the seat next to her. Taking it with some hesitation, she opened its mouth, from which a real live kitten emerged. The girl began to stroke it and play with it. In a moment, the kitten yawned sweetly... and from its mouth came out chestburster. Tina managed to react to the appearance of the threat and threw the kitten and the larva of Alien aside, and she ran away from this place.


    For the rest of the night, the girl ran away from the Alien, which gradually developed to an adult form. And at the very end, the alien was able to catch its victim, tear her to pieces and eat her alive. Moreover, the last couple of minutes of agony Tina desperately wanted to wake up, but could not do it.

 Chapter 11.02 - A Nightmare on Elm Street

    https://avp.fandom.com/wiki/Facehugger</a>


    The next night, Tina once again was in the abandoned movie theater. She wandered along the corridors for a while, then entered a dark hall where there were many Alien eggs. Shuddering with horror, the girl went to one of the eggs. It opened its leathery flaps, but inside, to her surprise, was a Teddy bear. She pulled it out and pressed it to her chest. But the insidious toy rushed forward, grabbed Tina''s head with its paws, then forcibly opened her mouth and shoved into something soft, elastic and warm. The girl at first thought that it was a man''s penis, but when this thing slipped into her throat, she realized that it had just deposited a Xenomorph embryo.


    Tearing off the ''exhausted'' toy from her head, Tina tried to vomit, but it was not possible to get rid of the ¡®embryo¡¯ in such way. A second later, she forgot about the embryo inside her body, because there was a fully grown Alien nearby, who slowly and leisurely went in her direction. The girl immediately began to run away and hide. But the Alien found her again and again, so the race went on and on.


    Running into one of the rooms, Tina found me - Freddy Krueger, bent over the torn corpse of an Alien. I also rushed to her and tried to chop her with my ''claws''. The girl ran away again, this time hiding from the two monsters. But she didn''t manage to run like that for long, and in the next hall she has been catch up by an Alien and Freddy Krueger at the same time. But to her surprise, when I attacked, the Alien came to her defense. A bloody battle ensued, and as a result I was torn to pieces, although the Alien was also badly hurt.


    Having dealt with the enemy, the Alien approached the exhausted girl and hissed something invitingly. She kept trying to figure out why the Alien wasn''t trying to kill her, but a sharp pain in her chest reminded her that she was now an incubator for another Alien. It was obvious that the Alien had been chasing her all this time, not to kill her, but to protect its offspring. After a few seconds, chestburster chewed its way to freedom, and Tina woke up with a wild scream, finding a gnawed hole in her nightgown near her chest.


    On the third night, the girl found herself in a large technical room with a lot of different equipment and furniture. But the main thing was not this, but the fact that there were dozens of cats in the room of varying degrees of kawai. The girl began to stroke them and hug them, but after a few minutes, when she almost relaxed, from the mouth of another kitten came out the larva of Alien.


    The pleasant dream immediately turned into a nightmare, and Tina remembered the contents of previous dreams. She ran away, trying to find a way out, but every time she saw a cat, it yawned, and then someone else came out of its mouth. Sometimes it was not just chestburster, but already adult Aliens or facehuggers. But no matter in what form these creatures appeared, they immediately tried to attack Tina.


    The girl finally found the door, opened it and ran into an empty room, in the center of which sat a cute puppy. With disbelief she started to walk around it in a circle, heading for the door at the other end of the room. Her worst expectations were fully met when the puppy yawned. Except this time Alien didn¡¯t come out from its mouth, but Freddy Krueger himself. Yelling, the girl rushed to the exit. But as soon as she opened the door, she found another adult Alien, who immediately pierced her with its tail, and then bit off her face.


    When she awoke with a wild scream, Tina inspected her room, filled with moonlight. All the horrors were behind her, and now she was safe in her home. But something was wrong. Suddenly, a scratching sound came from the door of her room. The girl got up, turned on the light, went to the door, and slowly opened it. There are sitting a cute kitten behind the door on the floor. It mewed loudly, and then the two-meter height Alien began to come out from kitten¡¯s mouth.


    With a wild scream Tina awoke again. But this time, for some reason, she was not at home, but in the school nurse''s office, where a couple of beds were provided for sick students. Her bed was separated from most of the room by a white curtain. Suddenly, the silence of the night was broken by a soft clacking sound. Tina was horrified by recognizing the tread of an Alien whose claws made just such a sound. There was a creak of the open door, and Tina froze, trying not to breathe, so as not to give out of her presence to the predatory creature. It was doing something in the office, strumming and squeaking. What was going on there was not clear, but Tina had no desire to find out. After a moment, the curtain swayed and in one sharp movement slid aside, opening the view of the Alien dressed in a BDSM costume with a big bright pink dildo between its legs. Alien languidly licked its lip and Tina again screamed at the top of her voice and woke up.


    If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    That night, every time Tina woke up, she found herself in a new nightmare. Sometimes it was another delusional dream with monsters. Sometimes it was like a normal everyday reality, which quickly transformed to a bloody frenzy filled with Aliens and Freddy Krueger. In one real night, Tina had spent more than two months in the Dream world. By the time when she really woke up, she was a twitching psycho on the verge of insanity. No matter how she hid and tried to escape, each time it ended in a bloody painful death. During these two months, she never managed to ''live'' more than two hours.


    The next meeting of the club of maniacs took place at the same place. Even the cactus I created was present, though without the Jack the Ripper decoration. This time my appearance caused fear in the aforementioned Jack, whose eyes spontaneously turned to the only plant in the area. I looked around and noticed that this time there was no dude with a chainsaw among the participants of the meeting. But I didn''t have time to think about it, because Baku appeared from the fog. The dream demon was clearly displeased with something and looked at us with undisguised annoyance.


    ¡°So, everyone is gathered. Your comrade Thomas Hewitt was unable to complete the task assigned to him. First, he before time killed all those who knew him in the real world, and second, he spent all his energy of Awareness, fell asleep and ended his miserable existence. Let this be a lesson for each of you." - The Monk looked to audience with a stern gaze. ¨C ¡°The next task will be to inflict a wound in a dream so that this wound appears in reality. When a person does not sleep for several days because of nightmares, the reality around him begins to resemble a dream. And in this state dream events can penetrate into the real world. You must learn this technique perfectly, because only this technique will allow you to truly kill your victim and get their soul.¡±


    With these words Baku again examined us and dissolved in the fog. Again, I didn''t stay to chat with my teammates, but left in English manner without saying goodbye.


    In general, all this part-time creeping horror job started to annoy me, but I decided to really bring my ability to control dreams to a level that allows to influence reality.


    Next three nights, Tina Gray was afraid to sleep, because each time she had nightmare with me if she tries to sleep. I could be the main character, I could play in minor roles, I could just watch from photos and posters. But in every dream, I was present in one form or another, plunging the poor girl into the depths of fear and madness.


    On the fourth day, Tina arrived at school in a zombie-like state. She didn''t respond to her friends'' questions or jokes, and even ignored her boyfriend Rod Lane. He was already seriously worried about the health of his girlfriend, but his anxiety had not yet reached the level when you grab a person in your arms and drag them to the madhouse.


    In history lesson, Tina fell asleep unnoticed, and then found herself in the same class, but instead of the students at the desks sat plush toys. At the same time, they all turned their heads and stared at her, then all of them jumped to bind her and deposit the Alien larva in her stomach. The girl screamed and woke up, continuing to scream. This made half of the class laugh and disturbed the other half.


    When the lesson was over, Tina ran out into the hallway, and then into the street. She was followed by her friends and her lover. But even in the schoolyard, Tina couldn''t feel calm. Before that, all her nightmares had taken place in confined spaces, so once she was in the open yard, she felt safe for a moment. But all this futile feeling disappeared without a trace when Tina saw a cat nearby, warming peacefully under the sun.


    Tina looked at the cat. The cat looked at Tina. And then the cute animal yawned lazily. Only when she saw the opening mouth, the girl screamed loudly, fell to the ground and tried to protect herself from the unknown danger, covering herself with her hands. At the same time, she pissed herself, which convinced the school children watching her ''madness'' that she was not all right.


    The girl was surrounded, picked up under the arms and taken to the nurse''s office. Tina could no longer resist, so she didn''t notice being undressed, showered, put on the bed, and given a sedative injection. When she began to yawn, she realized that the drug was not only sedative, but also had the effect of a sleeping pill.


    She immediately started to fight and demand that Rod Lane sit next to her and hold her hand. The guy had no choice but to agree. A few minutes later, the girl was plunged into a restless dream.


    After a while, Tina realized she was asleep. Now she was in an empty school. Rushing to the window, she saw that there was a gray mist swirling outside the building, in which strange and dangerous images flashed. According to the already developed system, the girl went to the nearest classroom to hide there in the most secluded place. As the statistics showed that in such approach her may live longer.

 Chapter 11.03 - A Nightmare on Elm Street

    When she opened the door Tina saw a strange, shapeless, pulsing mass that occupying almost half of the room. From this carcass shot dozens of tentacles, which immediately grabbed the girl, tore a robe covering her body, and then began to rape her. After Tina experienced an orgasm, the tentacle monster carefully put her on the desk and ''flowed'' through the door into the corridor, closing the door behind it.


    For a few minutes the girl lay dumbfounded why she had not been killed and devoured again, but then she noticed that her stomach had started to grow. ''Pregnancy'' proceeded quickly, and in five minutes she ''gave birth'' to the larva of an Alien. Before her eyes, this larva grew to the state of an adult, which had a hefty penis and began to adjust itself to fuck the defenseless victim.


    But in the most ''intimate'' moment Freddy Krueger burst into the class, who attacked the Alien. A brief battle ensued, as a result of which the Alien was dismissed to ribbons. After that, the winner grinned his disfigured face and unbuttoned his pants.


    When the dick entered, Tina once again woke up and saw that someone is fucking her. And not just anyone, but her boyfriend Rod Lane. She started to struggle, but he suddenly was inhumanly strong. The girl kicked, but as soon as she tried to bite a hand of her boyfriend, he began to transform into an Alien. Grabbing Tina''s left hand, the Alien bit off her hand with obvious relish and swallowed it. The girl screamed in agony... really awaked.


    Tina was again in the nurse''s office with her boyfriend sitting next to her, but he wasn''t holding her hand anymore, because she didn''t have that hand anymore. Only the bloody stump spattered a blood, pouring her terrified boyfriend.


    Of course, the girl was not allowed to die of blood loss. The hand was bandaged, an ambulance and the police were called, but the investigation immediately came to a dead end, because the missing hand could not be found.


    The next meeting with Baku was already a routine. He again said a few meaningful phrases, and then demanded that we finally kill our victim in their sleep and obtain their soul. When I returned to my native boiler room, I decided that I had already mastered enough manipulations of the Dream world, so it is worth learning something else. For example, to find out how the world of dreams is connected to the world of Chaos.


    I tried to use ritual magic before, but it didn''t make much sense in the dream world. However, I was not discouraged and tried to find those elements of the ritual that still worked. In the case of Chaos demon summoning ritual, the main ''ingredient'' was the human soul. So, I decided to use the death of Tina Gray and use her soul in the ritual that would take place in the Dream world.


    I did not risk to arrange the call of the demons of Chaos under my nose, so I decided to create a ritual circle in the world of Baku. This world was big enough to find a safe place where I would not be disturbed at the most crucial moment.


    In a crevice between the stones, I created a circular stone platform, on which I drew a circle of invocation, putting in necessary symbols and images. After the ritual was prepared, I entered Tina Gray¡¯s dream, who at that moment was lying in the hospital in a state of drug-induced sleep. It was easy enough for me to lead the girl''s soul into the world of Baku, where I could capture her, crucify her inside the circle, and then kill her by piercing her heart.


    To my surprise, the demon summoning ritual worked. But not quite as I expected. The demons of Chaos did not appear in the world of dream, but in the real world right in the hospital. Moreover, the body shape of the demons one in one repeated the shape of body of the Alien. And for some reason I was sure that these creatures would reproduce as well. I scratched my head with my gloved hand and gave ''don''t mess around'' order to demons, and headed to my next meeting with my mentor, simultaneously wondering what had gone wrong with the ritual.


    Baku issued next task, in which I had to break out from the Dream world into the real world and kill my next victim there, simultaneously showing myself before the eyes of other people, so that in the future I would be able to penetrate their dreams as well. In general, I had already figured out how to do it, so I didn''t invent anything clever.


    At night, I got into the dream of Rod Lane, who was still worrying about the death of his girlfriend. There I grabbed him by his throat and looked into his eyes and... made him to wake up. At that moment I found myself in the real material world in the guy''s bedroom. He tried to resist, and even achieved some success. He tried to push me with hands, and then kicked me off from the bed. But I didn''t resist much, because at that moment I felt the magic, the chakra, and the psionics again came under my control.


    I quickly explored the world around me and focused on my own body. And it turned out to be quite an amazing education. This body was not material. It wasn''t even an astral projection. It was a visual image in its purest form, the reality of which was provided only by the fact that there was a person in this world who believed in my existence. As you might guess, this man was Rod Lane.


    While I was indulging in philosophical borrowings, Rod managed to rush out of the room and call police. Remembering the second part of the task, I didn''t stop him, but just had a little fun until the cops arrived, chasing him and trying to cut him with my glove. When the local special police forces broke into the house, I literally felt how my image ''reflected'' in their minds, creating an anchor by which I could find them in the world of dream.


    With that, I considered the entertainment part of the evening over and moved on to the science part. In other words, I decided to perform another ritual of sacrifice to demons, with only minor additions. The sacrifice was to be made in the material world, and the demons were to appear in the dream world, where the ritual circle was already working. In front of a startled audience, I grabbed Rod, stabbed him with glove, and then pinned him to the wall, where the bloody lines of the ritual circle were spreading. The police tried to stop me, but a magic-based barrier protected me from any outside interference, including bullets. And after a few seconds, the ritual worked, and the soul of the guy went to the world of Chaos to feed the demons. After that, I turned to the audience, showed my most vile smile and just disappeared.


    Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.


    Alas, I have not achieved any effect in the world of dreams. The demons of Chaos stubbornly refused to appear there. There was something strange about the last ritual. It seems to have worked, the energy to it was spent, but there were no consequences. However, the ritual circle in the world of dream now looked more real than the world around it. With a sad sigh, I went back to the meeting of maniacs.


    The next task was to develop the previous ''technology''. It was necessary to enter person¡¯s dream, to crawl after him into the real world, and then together with his physical body move to the dream world, where I would kill him, without leaving even a corpse in the real world. As a diligent schoolboy, I completed this task, again without bothering with preparation.


    Next on the list of victims was a certain Nancy Thompson. When I got into her dream, I was surprised to find that this girl was a hypothetical Dream Walker. Her talent was still dormant, but if she could awaken it, she could compete with even a dream demon. Actually, this girl had an aura of ''Law'' that could define the rules of her dream.


    Unfortunately, I didn''t give her a chance to develop her gift. There were no nightmares, preparation, or anything else. I suddenly appeared in her dream, grabbed her by throat, woke her up, appeared in the material world, and using magic brought her into a state of wild terror and disorientation, then pulled already helpless victim into the dream world, where I crucified her inside the same ritual circle and chopped her to pieces. Again, the sacrifice was accepted, the soul went to the demons, but I did not get any benefit.


    The next task was very easy. I had to kill two or more people at once. Considering that there were only two names on the list, this ''homework'' was supposed to be the last. Here I decided to ''have fun''. I got out into the material world, and then began to cut ''pathetic people'' to the left and right, flooding the streets of the city with blood. Having arranged a typical thrash horror with a budget of a couple of dozen homeless people, I returned to the world of dreams and again appeared before the Baku.


    All five of my ''classmates'' was able to survive to this moment. Now I was standing next to them in front of an old and experienced dream demon, who was telling us, to rookies, and how much honor they give to us by the chance to become a bastard and a monster like him. All this ''ideological pumping'' is over with a typical demand to prove our coolness and ''dignity''. In other words, we had to fight each other to the death battle.


    My opponent was Jason Voorhees. It was the guy in the hockey mask with the machete. Now he looked more impressive than when I first met him. Apparently, he was well-eaten on other people''s nightmares, so now he is fueling by several hundred souls of his victims. In contrast, I looked almost the same as I had in the beginning, simply because I didn''t change the mode of my disguise.


    We had to fight in the ''arena'' in the world of fog. However, this arena has size of a kilometer by kilometer, so there should have been enough room to turn around. I was not interested in this ''epic battle''. The only thing that looked interesting to me is to get answer to the question: ''What will happen if I will sacrifice a dream demon to the Chaos demons?''. Said, so must be done. Of course, I could not lure my opponent to the place where I had hidden ritual circle. First, the circle was outside of the arena. Secondly, I did not want to shine my dubious experiments in front of the ''superiors''. I really don¡¯t care about this world, but they will live here. Therefore, I arranged a banal connection of two ritual circles. The large energy-filled circle was quite far away and on one of the blades of my glove I placed a small circle which purpose was to snatch the soul from the body of my enemy and move it to the main circle, after which the main ritual of sacrifice would begin.


    Duel of two maniacs came out... boring. We stood up against each other, the referee gave the command, we rushed forward, met, and as Jason''s machete went through my smoke-filled neck, the blades of my glove pierced his heart. Normally, such injury would not be dangerous for a dream demon. Just a scratch. But my ritual worked and instantly pulled his soul out of the ''Ghost body'', after which my opponent turned into just the image of a corpse and collapsed to the ground. Outwardly, not much has changed, but in fact Jason Voorhees no longer existed in this world


    Baku looked at me in surprise and declared me as winner. The battle between Jack the Ripper and Aileen Wuornos was supposed to start next, but it never came to that. Finally, my sacrificial ritual started to work properly. I felt how the fabric of this world shuddered and filled with the familiar energies of Chaos.


    "This is breakthrough of Chaos!!!¡± - Buck screamed, instantly losing all its gloss and importance.


    Now he looked like a wild monkey that had found himself in a pit with snakes. But before he could do anything, a familiar figure of Alien appeared from the fog next to him, and with a single movement pierced the monk''s chest with its tail, after which he was literally absorbed into the scaly limb. Only his staff clattered on the hard ground.


    The demon looked at me with interest, so I had to quickly remove my disguise and claim my rights as the owner of the ritual which all summoned demons supposed to obey. In addition, my aura of Order was supposed to repel the creatures of Chaos, for which an attempt to eat someone like me was like trying to eat a cactus - tasteless and needles do not allow you to chew normally.


    Further bacchanalia could be described in one word - looting. The demons of Chaos devoured, consumed, and stole all images of the dream world that they could reach. They left only a black, shapeless mud that could swallow any dreamer who wandered into it. The demons didn''t touch me. Moreover, in exchange for the summoning, I received some conditional ''right'' to enter the world of Chaos. Now, if I find myself in this ''wonderful'' place, at least I will not be devoured immediately, but a little later.


    When the breakthrough of Chaos, I found myself again in the void next to the Being. It seems that in this game the winner has already been decided.


    "Did you kill all dream demons?" ¨C Being appealed to me with factitious claim. - "And other recruits, mentor, and even invisible observers who were supposed to evaluate your actions during the duel.¡±


    "Well, anyway, ending will be same.¡± - I shrugged my shoulders. - "As they say, there should be only one survivor. I just sped up the denouement a little bit. Become proactive, so to speak.¡±


    "Hmm, proactive.¡± - Being laughed. - "Well, I have a special task for someone as proactive as you. Appreciate my attention! Here, take this.¡± - In my direction flew a clot of light, which penetrated into depths of my soul where the parasite was sleeping peacefully, and hid between the tentacles of this creature. - "You will deliver this item to Eternal Seeress who lives in the city Ulthar in the world of dreams. This is payment for a service which she had provided. And don''t fail! If you will success this task, you can get a reward.¡±


    With that words, I was thrown into unknown distances, and again I felt that I was in a dream world, and in my mind shine the image of Ulthar - the city that the gods had chosen as a neutral territory, where their messengers could meet in peace and discuss important matters. Being put in my mind a knowledge about this city and how to behave in city.

 Chapter 12 - The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

    I looked around and found myself in the gray haze of the dream world, resembling the mist of the Baku¡¯s domain. I also felt that I was no longer attached to the image of the boiler room where the ''death'' of Freddy Krueger has been stored. You can say that if I was previously tied to a certain place, now I was a ''homeless horror''. But this was not the only change. I could feel better the images of the dream world. Also, a ''compass'' was now working in my mind, indicating the direction in which my goal was located.


    I moved in the required direction, piercing the gray dimension that swirled thoughtlessly and languidly around me. The world itself wanted to whirl me around in a quiet waltz, wrapping me in slumber and peace. I had to make some effort to resist this influence.


    Gradually the fog dissipated, and I found myself wandering through a midnight forest filled with silence and mystery. Black gnarled trees heaved upwards, covering the sky with their distorted outlines. Twisting branches seemed to be trying to grab me and hold me in this endless nightmare. Indeed, the name ''Dreaming Forest'' best described this place. Here every glade, every bush and root called to lie down, rest, and indulge in the eternal bliss of sleep.


    Occasionally, the light of a single star broke through the canopy of the forest, illuminating a narrow path that wound through the trees, leading me into the thickest part of the forest. No matter how much look around, I couldn''t see a single living leaf on these trees. Only the bare branches were pulling their shapeless paws, as if trying to capture the boundless sky and draw to the ground, so that it would fall asleep forever, stopping the endless shift for the night


    I wandered among the gloomy trees for a long time, and when despair almost gripped me, a small clearing appeared from behind another tree, whose appearance filled me with primeval horror. People. Many people lay in front, shackled by eternal sleep. The branches of the trees wrapped them like ropes and shackles. Some of the prisoners were confined inside the trunks, so that only their faces and hands were visible. As an enchanted man, I walked among the captured souls, looking into their eyes. But all I saw was an empty, meaningless gaze, directed, it seemed, into the very Void that sucked their soul.


    But when I came to another clearing, I found something unusual. Another prisoner hung between the thick trunks of black trees, crucified like on a rack. Branches and vines braided him, piercing him with thorns and not allowing him to move a finger. But most importantly, this man was in conscious. In his strong-willed face, his eyes burned with a bright blue fire, whose inner strength said that this man had not given up and was still trying to resist the irresistible influence of this place.


    "Who are you?" - I heard his hoarse voice.


    His whisper was faint and hoarse, but to me it sounded like a Church bell, breaking the spell of the forest and awakening my Will from sleep. Without answering, I focused on my inner power, which made me the center of this world, the Supreme Law and source of all things. The power of Order surged through my veins and spilled out, spreading the radiance of my power and glory. Now, I was like a burning torch that dispelled the gloom of this place, causing slumber and laziness with a dissatisfied hiss to recoil back to hide behind the roots and trunks of trees, waiting for the moment when I would relax again, lulled by the insidious power of the Dreaming Forest.


    "Call me Freddy Krueger." - I answered the question of the prisoner of the forest. "This name is no worse than any other.¡±


    "Are you also lost in this forest?" - Prisoner asked, squinting from the bright light that came from me.


    "That''s not quite true. I was just thinking a little while I was walking. And who are you?¡± - I shifted the arrows from an inconvenient topic. - "How did you get into this situation?"


    "It''s a long story.¡± - The prisoner winced. He tried to move, but the tenacious vines kept him safe in his captivity.


    "I''m not in a hurry.¡± - I answered with a chuckle. With a stroke of my hand, I created a golden throne, on which I sat down, radiating strength and greatness with all my appearance. ¨C ¡°Tell me your story.¡± - This time my voice was filled with the right to give orders, so the prisoner accepted my dominance and began his story.


    The man in front of me was called Keldrun when he was alive. He lived in the Northern forests, where the summer lasted only three months of the year, and the rest of the time was raging snowstorms and frosty fog. The main trade in his lost village was fishing, but he was a hereditary hunter who learned the secrets of the family business from an early age.


    Once in the cold winter season, ice bound the coast, making fishing impossible. In such times, the clan depended on fishing hunters and Keldrun went to the mountains to shoot some prey. But no matter how much he walked on the steep slopes and mountain valleys, his only catch was the snow that tried to cover him, burying him under its white blanket.


    And so, on the third day, a very desperate hunter found traces of a deer. After only an hour, he was able to track it down and then shoot it with an arrow. But the wound was not fatal, and the deer ran away, leaving a trail of blood on the snow. Keldrun picked up his bow, slung it over his back, and pointed his skis at the fleeing deer.


    Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.


    Unfortunately, neither an hour nor two later he could not catch up with the deer. Deer did not stop, still running away at the approach of the hunter. A short winter day gave way to heavy twilight, when Keldrun was able to climb over the next ridge. Then he saw a limping deer, but that was not the main thing. On the other side of the valley was a ruined castle shining with ghostly blue light. The hunter had often heard stories about a Ghost Castle that was inhabited by ghosts. Everyone who dared to approach is will be cursed.


    Keldrun knew, that now he is the only hope of his clan, and without the meat of the deer they don''t survive the harsh winter. Therefore, he did not hesitate for a second to rush forward, overtaking the deer. Just under the walls of the castle, he managed to shoot the prey once more, then drag the already cooling carcass away from the glittering ruins.


    After cutting up the deer, Keldrun loaded his prey onto a sleigh and headed towards the village. On the morning of the next day, he reached his home, gave loot to his wife, and then immediately fell asleep. In his dream, the hunter saw the Ghost Castle again. As he walked toward it, he met ghosts in armor with long swords who tried to grab him and lead him to their lair. But Keldrun was able to turn the dream into a lucid dream, dodge and escape from the sluggish pursuers, whose armors was poorly suited to move through the deep snow.


    When the hunter awoke the next day, he did not give any importance to his dream. But the next night the dream was repeated. This time, he immediately headed straight away from the castle, feeling the evil eyes of the ghosts boring into his back. Every night, Keldrun saw a Ghost Castle. And each night his sleep grew longer and deeper. After a week, he would wake up once every two days, after which an irresistible slumber would make him fall asleep again just a few hours later. And when the warm west wind blew and the sea cleared from the ice, Keldrun fell asleep forever


    But by this time, he had learned to control his dreams, so he did not go to the afterlife, but remained wandering in the world of dreams. Several times he encountered familiar ghosts, glowing with the blue light of the sky, but each time he managed to escape. One day he was able to get into the dream of his wife, from whom he learned that he had died and was buried in the family crypt. After that, for almost a month, he appeared in dreams to his ten-year-old son, sharing with him the experience of their ancestors, thanks to which their family had always been the best hunters of the clan.


    But in one of days, in his wanderings through the world of dreams, Keldrun wandered into a strange dark forest. He followed it for a long time, until he came to a clearing filled with sleeping human souls. Terrified, he ran away from the place, but at that moment the clawed branches of the trees seized him and crucified him in this clearing. Here the forest tried to put its prey into an eternal sleep, so as to suck the energy of existence out of him, but the Keldrun already knew about this trap, and therefore resisted to sleep with all his might. He spent many years in captivity, until I came across him.


    After listening his heartwarming story, I nodded, wiping away tears of pity, then got up from the throne and walked away.


    ¡°Thank you for interesting story.¡± - I waved a hand to Keldrun. - "But I''ve got work to do."


    "Hey, wait.¡± - He shouted. - "Get me out of here."


    "Why?" - I was surprised. - "This world is filled with nightmares and demons, so on one day someone will eat you anyway. And believe me, eternal sleep in this forest is not the most terrible fate.¡±


    "But I helped you." - He tried to appeal to my heart. Alas, only my laziness could answer to this call.


    "Thank you, of course, but I would have coped myself." - I replied, continuing on my way. ¨C ¡°Bye-bye.¡±


    But the forest, it seems, had other plans on my account. I purposely didn''t help the hunter to find out if the forest would try to hold me back if I decided to just leave. As it turned out, it will. The branches of the trees reached out to me, trying to grab me, wrap me, and immobilize me. But now I was at the peak of my powers. Just by deploying my aura, I destroyed all the surrounding trees, turning them into dust. Unfortunately, it didn''t help much. New branches shot up from the stumps, trying to grab me again.


    "Hey, Forest.¡± - I shouted to the world around me. - "If you persist in your heresy, I will not only break out of here, but I will take all your loot with me." - The answer was a wild creaking and scraping of dead trees. - "Well, you chose your fate.¡±


    The next wave of force destroyed the surrounding trees along with their roots, leaving no trace of them. The forest howled and growled and raged, but it couldn''t even touch me. I went to the Keldrun and freed him from his bonds, scattering them into dust. The hunter fell to the ground, but after a few seconds was able to collect himself and get to his feet.


    "Follow me." - I said, not paying much attention to him.


    I went to the next victim and pulled her out of the tree, but even after the release, the soul never came to its senses, remaining a lifeless phantom. Having made sure that I could not restore consciousness to this victim, I banally pierced it with blades of my glove. Although the original sacrificial circle had been stolen by the Chaos demons, the small sacrificial circle still remained connected to the blade of glove. And as soon as it came into contact with the victim''s body, her soul was immediately yanked into the world of demons.


    Seeing this, the forest began to creak and squeal twice as loud. But I ignored it as I went to the next prisoner. Unfortunately, no one else was able to recover, so I just sacrificed the prisoners one by one, depriving the forest of fuel.


    After the twentieth ''death'', the forest suddenly fell silent, and not far from me there was a whole road leading away.


    "Are you ready to just let me go?" - I asked mockingly, addressing to the forest. A faint creak answered me. - "Okay, I got you. I don''t have time to mess with you here.¡±


    I turned and start walking through the road, which, oddly enough, went in the direction I wanted. About half an hour later, I noticed that the road was now slightly angled in the right direction. It seems that the forest has not yet given up trying to detain me. Angrily spreading my aura, I went straight to my goal, just turning to dust all trees that dared to stand in my way. Keldrun followed me as a quiet shadow whole time, not daring to distract me with talking.

 Chapter 12.01 - The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

    A few hours later we emerged from the Dreaming Forest into a clearing, beyond which the forest began to rustle with green leaves. The sky above us also changed abruptly from night to midday. The stars shone on one side, and the bright spring sun shone on the other.


    "Well, it looks like we''re out of here.¡± - I asked my companion. - "I hope you won''t go into the woods again?"


    "Thank you, wanderer.¡± ¨C Keldrun bowed to me. - "To be honest, at first I thought you are a dream demon, but it seems your appearance misled me.¡±


    "What''s wrong with my appearance?" - I asked, creating a mirror. Freddy Krueger''s vile grin immediately gave me an answer. ¨C ¡°Hmm, it requires the work of a plastic surgeon.¡±


    I focused and used my power to change my appearance. Although I was originally kind of a maniac, it was just an image. In this world, I could look the way I wanted to. Unfortunately, I quickly became convinced that this was not the case. My image changed, but as soon as I relaxed, it immediately returned to ''normal''. I had to use the power of Order to change my appearance and fix it. It helped.


    Five minutes later I looked like an angel, my clothes were snow-white with gold patterns, and a halo shone brightly above my head. The only thing that spoiled this image is the bottomless darkness in place of eyes, exuding black smoke. All my attempts to get rid of this ''attribute'' failed, so in the end I just spat on it and ''fixed'' the shape of my body. The final image was more pleasing to eye, but it inspired a superstitious horror, making me think that Chaos itself was looking through my eyes. In general, it turned out well. Maybe there will be fewer people who want to attack me.


    ¡°So, now is it good?¡± - I asked hunter for expert assessment. - "Don''t I look like a dream demon anymore?"


    "Honestly, it makes you look even more like demon." - He swallowed, looking fearfully into my eyes. - "You look like a ruthless angel."


    "Yes, that''s exactly what I am.¡± - I nodded with satisfaction. - "Well, good bye, I need to go."


    "Where are you going?" - Keldrun asked, following me.


    ¡°Forward.¡± - I said, pointing in the obvious direction.


    "And what is the purpose of your journey?" - My companion persisted.


    ¡°Ulthar city.¡± - I decided to open the veil of mystery.


    ¡°City? Are there cities in this world?¡±


    "Why shouldn''t they be? It''s a dream world. Anything can exist here.¡±


    "Are there places where people don''t have to hide from monsters just to survive?"


    "Maybe there is.¡± - I shrugged shoulders.


    "Can I come with you?" ¨C Keldrun began to ask. - "My last attempt to find a better place ended up in this forest. You look strong enough to be able to get to the habitable places.¡±


    "You can walk with me." - I nodded indifferently. - "But I doubt you''ll be strong enough to get to the end of it."


    "I''ll try. ¨C Hunter immediately cheered, habitually looking around in search of prey.


    I chuckled and continued on my way. At the moment, this companion did not hold me back, maybe later will be any use from him. I''ll use him as bait for a trap, or make him amuse myself with anecdotes. I have a long way to go, and it is more fun to go in good company.


    Time passed in a very strange way in the dream world, so it was difficult to tell how much time had passed and how much was still left. Long, short, but gradually cheerful spring forest around began to replace the waterlogged lowland. The trees became more and more frail, and the ground became marshy. Here and there were sluggish streams, the water dark and muddy. Gradually it became obvious that if we continue on this path, we will get into the mud swamps.


    I was not very afraid of this prospect, because I could walk on water as well as on dry land. But Keldrun was forced to use his hunting skills to avoid falling into unexpected holes and carrying kilograms of mud on his feet. Although it was a dream, it reproduced with surprising persistence all the most disgusting signs of reality.


    If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    Finally, we passed the last row of trees, climbed a small hill, and saw before us a vast swamp, overgrown with bushes and sedge. Its dull expanses were filled with fear and hopelessness. The white sky obscured the position of the sun, making the shadows blurry. The air was filled with the deafening roar of frogs and the bloodthirsty clang of mosquitoes, and in the depths of the swamps, slowly and unhurriedly wriggled vile creatures that resembled huge worms.


    In general, the impression of this swamp was disgusting. I also felt that the ''laws of nature'' had changed in the world around me. Someone powerful has established a rule that only locals, to whom I did not belong, can walk safely through the swamp. So, to move forward, I would have to put a lot of effort to ¡®repealing¡¯ this rule.


    By the way, regarding the local residents. From the hill I could see five ugly toad-like creatures scurrying across the swamp... approaching us. And I didn''t have any confidence in them, so I stayed where I was, reasonably assuming that I would have more of advantage here than in the bog. These pathetic creatures with green skin looked like a hybrid of a human and a frog. Their huge mouths were like toads, their four-toed hands were webbed, and their bellies protruded. They were mostly dressed in grass plaits, although one of them could boast of a slightly better performance of their ''dress''.


    Stopping in ten meters in front of me, the most glamorous of the toad-faced humanoids stepped forward a little and growled in its toad-like language:


    "Surrender, the lower ones, and then you will be able to see our Swamp God with all your limbs and internal organs. If you dare to resist, we will pierce you with spears, chop you with axes, cut with knives, and feed the rest to worms and leeches. In the end, you will be sacrificed to the God of the Swamp.¡±


    "Will your God eat leftovers that even the worms disdain?" - I asked about my gastronomic value.


    At this suggestion, the ''speaker'' bulged at me with his eyes, which made him look even more like a toad.


    "Don''t you dare blaspheme our great God!" - This creature screamed.


    "Actually, it was you who suggested to sacrifice the leftovers from the worms'' meal to the Swamp God.¡± - I hit back the pinch.


    In response to my words, a huge axe of black iron flew out of the mire, and with a single blow took off the head of the hapless parliamentarian. And after the axe, another Toad-man crawled out of the mire. It was taller than its relatives, had a larger belly, and its head was decorated with a ''helmet'' made of driftwood.


    "Surrender, lower one, and then our God can devour you safe, well-fed, and rested. Our God will surely be pleased with your concern that only the best will be sacrificed to him¡±


    "So, where is your Swamp God?" - I clarified.


    "There, three days journey through the bottomless swamps, is the capital of the swamps country.¡± - The toad extended his ugly hand and pointed in the same direction as my internal compass.


    "Okay, you persuaded me.¡± - I nodded. "I give up.¡±


    "What?" ¨C Keldrun exclaimed, ready to join the battle to sell his life more expensively.


    "You still have a chance to escape.¡± - I told him.


    The hunter only looked at me with a suspicious look and sighed heavily.


    "I give up, too.¡± - He squeezed out words.


    "Great!¡± ¨C Toad exclaimed. ¨C ¡°Grab them. And be careful. Such victim should not be harmed.¡±


    As soon as these words were uttered, several hundred Toads sprang out of the swamp, and immediately surrounded us, seized us, and then began to build cages from crooked sticks right around us. Within five minutes I and Keldrun were sitting in personal ''palanquins'', which solicitously hoisted on their shoulders and dragged through the swamp.


    "Are you see?¡± - I asked the second prisoner. - "We can cross these swamps quickly, comfortably, and under guard.¡±


    The leader of the toads, having heard my words, gave a deep cackle that must have been a laugh.


    While our procession was rushing through the swamps at an unexpected speed, I looked at the surrounding area and our ''carriers''. The swamps hid many traps and terrible creatures. Sometimes our escort had to fend off various kinds of giant creatures, which they did with amazing agility, even without slowing down their running speed.


    As the crowned toad said, our journey lasted three days and three nights. There was a change of light in the swamps, although there was no real darkness. But different creatures were active day and night, plus in the darkest hours the swamp was lit by billions of glowing beetles and larvae.


    On the morning of the fourth day, the city appeared on the horizon, growing out of endless swamps and bogs. The main building material here was mud and sedge. The walls of the buildings were woven from grass and covered with a disgusting slime, in which at times you could see squirming maggots. Local ''palaces'' were more like inflated sheds, ready to collapse under their own weight. Only a few of the most central creations of local architects could boast of having wooden structures that significantly improved their strength.


    Most of our escort remained outside the city limits, and only our porters raced forward, weaving through the tangled alleys. I thought that these disgusting creatures had already fulfilled their function, and therefore it was possible to get out of the cage. But my attempts to destroy the seemingly flimsy structure were not successful. Of course, I wasn''t doing my best, but my impact on the bars didn''t have any effect, as if they were the only real thing in this dream world Several guards accompanying us saw my attempts to free myself and began to laugh profusely, discussing my stupidity.

 Chapter 12.02 - The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

    Soon we reached the largest building in the entire city. More precisely, we reached a high fence, inside which we were carried through a gate. From the outside, this ''architectural ensemble'' looked like a palace, but inside it became clear that the local population does not have the materials that can form a ceiling or roof with such a size of spans. So inside this ''Palace'' looked more like a pigsty yard.


    The fattest Toad-faced humanoid I''d ever seen came out to meet us. He was dressed in a ragged, filthy robe that had once belonged to someone quite tall and thin, so that the ragged edges of this ''robe'' dragged in the mud, and the robe did not come together on his stomach, exposing the swollen belly of this ''priest''. However, judging by his behavior, this was indeed a priest of the Swamp God.


    The leader of the detachment dropped to his knees in front of him and began to praise the loot he had captured on the border of the swamp. The priest listened to the praises and nodded favorably.


    "Swamp God will be glad to receive this sacrifice.¡± - He said cheerfully, carefully examining me. The surrounding Toad-faces responded with cheers.


    "Hey, you toad.¡± - I addressed to him. - "If you don''t let me out now, I will destroy your entire miserable city and I will sacrifice you to your god."


    At this speech of mine, the priest only laughed, wrapping his hands around his enormous belly to prevent it from bursting. When he had finished laughing and wiped away his tears, he waved to the porters and walked away, paying no more attention to me.


    We were taken directly in cages in some shed with a rotten roof, and then put on the ground. The porters came out, and only one of the guards was left next to us.


    "You probably thought you were the smartest." - He turned to me mockingly. - "Only we''re smarter than you. This cage is indestructible because it is fueled by the magic of our Swamp God. Your sacrifice will take place at sunset today. You, along with the cage will be thrown into the bottomless swamp, and you will forever rot in it, feeding our God with your torments. I advise you to breathe for the remaining hours, because then you will not have such an opportunity. Ha-ha.¡±


    With these words the guard left the barn, leaving us alone.


    "What should we do?" ¨C Keldrun worried, trying unsuccessfully to break the cage. Unfortunately, his knife couldn''t even scratch it. - "We are doomed!"


    "I warned you." - I grinned at him. - "Now, instead of hanging in the forest, you''ll rot in the swamp. Okay, don''t make any noise. I need to focus.¡±


    I had several ways to free myself from captivity. The fact that they left me alone, and even without supervision, was their biggest mistake. The most radical way, perhaps, would be to open another breakout of Chaos. However, this method did not suit me very well, because it jeopardized the very possibility for me to continue the journey. But there were other options.


    Now I was going to use the first of them. Despite its near certainty, this world was still a dream world, and therefore had the same limitations. If the images of this world began to contradict themselves, they simply collapsed and deformed. My first, not even an attempt, but just a test, was to turn into a fog and seep between the bars of the cage. Unfortunately, it didn''t work. As I had already seen, it was impossible even to put one''s hand between the bars. It was as if an invisible force field was holding me back.


    So, the next step I started to influence the world around me, changing its geometry. Space was distorted, twisted, and passed through itself, and the cage was distorted with it. I was in the form of a fog at that moment, so I didn''t feel any discomfort. I didn''t even have to do the trick of turning the cage inside out. As soon as one wall tried to pass through the other, they immediately came into conflict with each other, which caused the entire cell to literally fall apart.


    I flew aside and gathered myself back into my anthropomorphic form. As I expected, no one even noticed my release. The Toad-faces naively relied on the invulnerability of the cage, even without leaving a guard. Or rather, the guards decided not to waste their time on us and went to rest. From the outside, the cage was not as invulnerable as it was from the inside, so within seconds, Keldrun was free.


    If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.


    "Well, now it''s time to arrange a demonstrative destruction of this city.¡± - I told him my plans.


    "Can''t we just sneak out?" - He suggested cravenly.


    ¡°Where are you going to run?¡± - I asked. - "There are swamps and bottomless bogs for hundreds of kilometers around. We are in the very center of the Swamp God''s domain; with his power it will not be difficult for him to find us.¡±


    "Then why did we come here?" - The hunter panicked.


    "I don''t know why you''re here, but I have a plan. And now I will act according to it.¡±


    With these words, I kicked the doors of the shed and got out. For the past three days, I have not only enjoyed the ''beautiful views'' outside my compartment window, but I have also tried to master the control of another force. There was no magic in this world, and all power was based on the ability to clearly imagine the essence of the impact, its form and consequences. In the boiler room of Freddy Krueger burned ''eternal fire'', and now I remember the feeling of this infernal flame, creating around myself fire ribbons, balls and blades.


    As soon as they saw me, the Toad-faced guards rushed toward me, drawing their weapons on the move. Alas, my fire was faster. Ribbons of fire shot out in all directions, wrapping around the fat, disgusting toads, causing them to burn, smoke, scream, and roll on the ground, and forgetting about the attack. The most zealous were met with fire blades that cut off hands and feet. Just a minute later, the interior of the ''Palace'' began to resemble an inferno''s breakthrough.


    The first time I had to stop myself in order to convince attackers that they are capable to defeat me, and only need to gather enough troops. But when I was sure that everyone who wanted to had already joined the battle, I started to fight in full power, burning down the whole vile settlement along with the inhabitants. The mud boiled around them, stinking smoke rose to the sky, and the screams of the Toad-faces burning to death echoed for miles around.


    I assumed that I would have to look for a long-time priest to execute my threat, but he rushed at me, waving some type of rod. Following the movements of this ''magic artifact'', streams of swamp water fell on me. But in addition to fire, I had telekinesis, so I was able to banal deflect these streams, boil them, and then bring them down on the Toad-faces themselves. Then I rushed to the priest, snatched the staff from his charred paws, and began to torture him, slowly roasting him on my fire.


    As I expected, the priest could not stand this treatment and called upon his Swamp God. Unfortunately, God was in no hurry to come to help, so when the pain became unbearable, the priest sacrificed himself to his deity, tearing his soul from his body.


    After that, the waters of the swamp near the city began to boil, and out came a disgruntled and angry Toad Boss. Judging by its size, it would require about twenty people in raid, but I was not afraid. Streams of fire rushed to the new enemy and began to fry it, completely ignoring attempts to protect themselves with water. After all, my fire was not an image of a chemical reaction of fuel oxidation in atmospheric oxygen. It was a fire whose power lay in the nuclear reaction of the decay of heavy elements. I was creating a radioactive gas that started to heat up when a certain concentration was reached. And as long as I controlled this gas with telekinesis, it could not go out, even if it was mixed with water or mud.


    Swamp God tried to attack me, but I simply stayed at a safe distance, levitating a couple of dozen meters above the surface of the swamp. I led this stupid toad to a relatively dry spot, and then used fire and telekinesis to cut its belly and pull out a huge stone millstone. My compass highlighted this object as a destination.


    Alas, even the autopsy did not reduce the friskiness of this toad. On the contrary, it began to jump twice as high, since it was no longer restrained by the weight of her belly. This confrontation threatened to drag on for a long time, because like me, the toad was a ''Thing by itself'', and therefore could completely ignore all damage done to its body. So, I saw the moment, rushed to my opponent, coming from behind, and then plunged my most terrible weapon into it.


    When I changed my appearance, I removed the glove with the blades from my right hand. But since this weapon itself had a connection to the circle of sacrifice, I did not destroy it, but placed the three blades inside my hand just as they were placed inside the Wolverine''s hand in the X-Men. Now I pulled out these blades and stuck them right in the back of the local God''s head. It only had time to howl plaintively, then the demons reached to its soul and yanked it out of his body, leaving only the image of the decomposing corpse of a giant frog in the dream world.


    By this time, I had already destroyed most of the city''s population. But after the death of the toad boss, all survivors met the same fate as their god. The Swamp God had power over the souls of those who served to it. So, in just a few seconds, it yanked them out of this world and into a world of Chaos. As a result, the remnants of the city''s inhabitants died, and I had no one to fight with.


    When I reached the stone millstone, I put it on its side and found that the surface of the stone was covered with various lines and writing, forming a clever magical structure. Keldrun came up to me and stared at the mysterious signs that glowed with a mysterious mystical light.


    "Oh, so you survived?" - I asked, glancing at my companion.

 Chapter 12.03 - The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

    ¡°Of course. All I had to do was make sure you didn''t burn me." - He answered in a dissatisfied voice. He had a few bruises and cuts on his body, but overall, he looked almost intact. However, this is a dream. What will happen to him? As long as a person knows that they are in the dream world, it is almost impossible to kill them.


    "All right, then we can start.¡± - I rubbed my hands together.


    "Start what?"


    "Opening this gate, of course.¡± - I pointed to the stone in front of us.


    With these words, I plunged my consciousness into the ritual circle depicted on the stone, and activated it with my will. The dream magic worked without a hitch, and a circular portal opened in front of us, resembling a Stargate passage. In fact, this is Stargate, except that the coordinates of opposite side were tightly sewn into the structure of the ritual, and it was impossible to change them.


    After passing through the portal, I found myself in a desolate, where there were almost no traces of life. Keldrun, who had followed after me, began to turn his head with interest, also trying to figure out where we were. I turned around and saw a warning in front of the portal that no one who had passed this way had ever returned. No wonder. After all, immediately after the transition, they were in the stomach of the toad, which was probably happy to such a source of delicious and nutritious food.


    Oriented on the ground, I went along a barely noticeable path that was between the stones. The further path was not different. We walked and walked and walked and walked. Day followed night, and night followed day. I didn''t need to rest or eat, so I didn''t make any stops along the way.


    The wasteland gradually gave way to hilly terrain, and now the path was wagging between the hills, then climbed to the tops to go down again. Two weeks later, judging by the local change of day and night, we reached the area where the hills began to turn into low mountains. By this time the path was already quite wide. We passed a few intersections, but I kept moving in the same direction.


    Finally, after another turn, a small village appeared from behind a nearby hill. More accurately, it was just a dozen houses scattered in a small hollow between two hills. These were the first traces of human activity along the way. Even the path we were following looked more animal traces than human.


    When I reached the first house, I noticed an old man with white hair sitting on a pile of rubble, staring thoughtlessly ahead.


    "Greetings, father.¡± ¨C Keldrun greeted him. - "How are you?"


    The old man shuddered and turned his eyes at us, trying diligently to make them look about one way. It was not a pleasant sight. We didn''t get an answer, but the old man mumbled and stared at the ground in front of him again.


    "How to get to the forbidden castle?" - I asked. My internal compass gave out not only the direction, but also a description of the place where I needed to go.


    This time the old man looked at me with a more meaningful look.


    "The forbidden castle is forbidden because it is forbidden to go to it.¡± - This wreck answered. - "However, I will not stop you. Go where you went. First, follow the path, and when you get to the landslip, after choose the path yourself.¡± - With that, the old man lost interest in us again and turned to a much more productive examination of the hummock on the road.


    I looked around and saw only one other inhabitant of the village - an ancient old woman who was digging in a barren garden where no plants grew.


    "Don''t you want to stay here?" - I offered to Keldrun. - "It doesn''t look like they''re going to try to eat you here. Rather, on the contrary, you can''t find anyone in the area for a hundred miles.


    "You can''t stay here.¡± ¨C Old man muttered, not taking his eyes off the ground.


    "No, I do not have desire also.¡± - The hunter agreed.


    This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.


    "As you wish. God bye, old man.¡± - I said good-bye and went ahead.


    Soon the houses were left behind, and we continued to trample the path that meandered through the hills. A week later, the area finally turned into a pile of mountains. The path continued to meander, climbing up and down. The mountains themselves looked strangely lifeless and gray. Stones, rocks, and sand were all gray. Even the sky overhead had a grayish, making it even more depressing.


    Finally, the path ended, leaning into a wide stone landslip of rock that moved with a slight rustle down the slope. It was almost a river of stone. However, I could not see its source and the place where it ''flowed''. But I don''t think there''s anything interesting there. Probably just another dream world trap, designed for suckers.


    "Where do we go now?" - Keldrun asked me, looking at the area in front of me with suspicion.


    "As always, forward" - I answered. - "And it seems to me that the way forward will be much more dangerous."


    The hunter stepped onto the landslip and moved cautiously forward. The gravel crunched under his feet, sometimes sinking a little. But as soon as he had gone a few meters, the entire landslip abruptly began to move and flowed down the slope with a deafening roar. To my surprise, the hunter immediately somersaulted, leaping back and landing exactly on the edge of the path. A second later, the landslip stopped moving, again frozen in false calm.


    "Looks like there''s no way to go through." - Keldrun gave his expert opinion.


    "I didn''t plan to go.¡±


    With these words, I soared into the air and flew forward at a height of about a meter. The landslip beneath me rustled, but it stayed where it was, either because it knew I was too big for it, or because it was preparing for an unexpected blow. Keldrun with some children''s resentment looked at me. Apparently, He has only now realized that I can not only walk, but also fly. But he had no such skill in his repertoire.


    However, I was happy not long that I was able to get rid of a fellow traveler. The hunter rushed forward, leaping several meters with each step. The disturbed landslip immediately flowed down, but to my surprise, Keldrun managed to stay ''afloat'', quickly and accurately pushing away from the stone stream. At the same time, he managed not only to move forward, but also to compensate for the movement to the side of the landslip.


    After a few seconds, the landslip began to not just ''flow'', but also to boil, throwing out decent-sized boulders. I had to fly higher and control my surroundings with telekinesis. But the hunter only accelerated, managing to evade all ''gifts''. After a couple of minutes, the runner reached the opposite edge of the landslip and climbed a fairly steep slope, from where he watched my slow flight. Unfortunately, my ability was rather levitating than flight, so I could not increase the speed of my movement.


    As soon as I got over the landslip, it froze again, waiting for new prey. There was no sign of a path on this side, so we went on, guided by my feelings. For the first two days we walked without any problems, and then we came to a deep hole in the ground, at the bottom of which swirled the darkness. Just the sight of that inky darkness made me shiver. There was something there that no mortal should have experienced. I wasn''t even sure I could fly over such an obstacle. So, we carefully skirted the gap and went on.


    The closer we got to the next goal of our journey, more often we encountered holes in the ground. I even had to fly higher to discover the way in which it would be possible to bypass the next obstacle. At least the local mountains were formed without water, so there was no single network of channels that merged into one river.


    A couple of times we had to go around, losing the whole day. And once the passage was a dead end, and we had to go back, losing two days. But about a month later we came to a place where I found the trail again. Following it, we reached the incredible bridge the next day.


    We were almost on the edge of a sea of inky darkness. The slope of the mountain here sloped down quite sharply for a couple of hundred meters, then plunged into blackness. And right in front of us was a bridge made of stone blocks. But the condition of this bridge left much to be desired, so that in places it was collapsed and kept incomprehensible on what. And the latter was rather a general characteristic of this structure.


    The bridge had no supports. It simply just goes forward, swerving from side to side. At least it remained at the same height, not approaching the threatening darkness. The opposite end of the bridge was not visible from here. Ahead were several stone peaks rising out of an inky sea. The bridge skirted them without touching them, and disappeared behind one of the rocks. The opposite ''shore'' of this sea was about twenty kilometers away, but the place where the bridge ended was hidden by the same rocks.


    "Do we need to go to the other side?" - My companion asked the obvious question.


    "I need to go to the other side." - I corrected him. - "I still don''t know where you want to go."


    This time Keldrun didn''t rush forward, so I was able to sit up and study the bridge itself. After some time of meditation, I was able to understand that the ''Path'' principle is embedded in this structure. I mean, while I was moving forward on it, I could be sure the bridge wouldn''t collapse under my feet. But if I take a step to side or back, it will immediately fall apart into separate blocks and pull me down.


    I shared this thought with my companion, and then I first stepped on the bridge and slowly went forward. I had nowhere to hurry, so I just carefully walked, not forgetting to look around.

 Chapter 12.04 - The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

    Unfortunately, no matter how careful I was, I only became aware of the approaching problem when it was already hovering over our heads. In all my time in this world, I have not seen a single living being, except for two retired people in the village. So, I didn''t notice the birds circling above us until they were low enough that they were clearly going to grab us. These birds were covered with gray feathers, and their unkempt appearance gave the impression that a flock of zombies hovered over us. However, judging by the smell, it was so, because together with the birds we were surrounded by a cadaverous stench.


    The streams of fire did not help to shoo the annoying pursuers, because the ''birds'' themselves were fire-breathing. I had only one effective weapon left, so I stopped and prepared to fight back. Immediately, the most impatient of the birds came down on me, its claws raking at my back. But I corrected the trajectory of its flight with telekinesis, and then pierced the vile creature with my ''claws''. The magic artifact did not fail, and the bird immediately died, at the same time turning into flakes of gray ash, which scattered in different directions.


    The remaining birds immediately soared up and raised a real ruckus, clearly scolding me in all sorts of ways for daring to resist. Ten minutes later, I treated with iron next daredevil, without even stopping walking, after which no one was in a hurry to attack me.


    Keldrun didn''t have such a great weapon, so he had to walk close to me, literally breathing in the back of his head. The birds accompanied us for about half an hour, after which they rose to a height of a hundred meters and lazily hovered there, occasionally checking how we are doing.


    In the meantime, we had reached the point where the bridge circling the cliff. As I went forward, I saw another rock. And then another one. And finally, when the bridge made another loop, we had a view of a tall, beautiful castle rising among the rocks ahead.


    When Keldrun to see this building, he stopped and whispered in astonishment.


    ¡°No. Not this! I''m not going back there!¡±


    "What?" - I asked, turning back.


    "It''s a Ghost Castle.¡± - He said, looking at me with wild eyes. ¨C ¡°You! You brought me here! You''re with them. You can''t fool me!¡±


    "If you don''t want to fall down, you need to go all path to the end." - I warned him.


    ¡°No! No way!!!¡±


    With these words, the stupid hunter took a step back, and then the bridge under his feet literally crumbled into separate blocks of stone, and he fell with a wild squeal straight down into the inky darkness. I watched as a pair of birds dived after him, clearly intending to intercept their prey before it disappeared into the sea of darkness, so I continued moving. As I took each step, I concentrated on the feeling of following the Path, and each time I felt under my feet the concrete calm of the bridge, guaranteeing my movement.


    The fate of Keldrun did not bother me at all. In my entire lifetime, I followed the rule that fools should never be saved. And the fact that I managed to survive up to this time, perfectly proved the rightness of this principle. If a person is not able to make the correct decisions, and instead commits stupidity, then it is better to let him die himself, instead of dragging such idiots on my hump.


    When I reached the reliable rocks, I breathed a sigh of relief, and then began to study my way. Here was something to see. There was no path, but a road that curved up the side of the mountain. And literally on every meter of this road there were all sorts of obstacles, traps and deceptions. Whoever did this whole attraction, he clearly did not want any of the travelers to survive. So, I didn''t fight another fool, but just flew up into the air and went straight to the gate which eventually led the road.


    When I got to the next ''checkpoint'', I found that a strange man was guarding the gate. He might have been called a Ghost, but he looked more like a man made of blue glass. Only the absence of the characteristic shiny surface suggested that it was not a piece of glass, but something else. What is most interesting shade of blue one in one coincide with the color of the eyes Keldrun.


    This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.


    "What? How did you get here?¡± - Ghost asked, surprising at my appearance. - "Who are you?" What is your name?¡±


    "My name is Freddy Krueger.¡± - I said. At the moment, this name had almost no connection with me, but I didn''t see any sense in coming up with a new one.


    The Ghost muttered something under his nose, and I felt a wave of magic. The gatekeeper looked at me for a few seconds, then frowned and shouted in a nasty voice.


    "That''s not your name! Tell me your true name, or I won''t let you through.¡±


    Hearing the expression ''true name'', I did not hesitate, and stepped forward and impaled the impudent man with my blades, sacrificing him to the demons. He didn''t even have time to croak as he crumbled into dust, turning into nothing. I won¡¯t let know my true name to some freaks. He was clearly trying to curse me, so I didn''t see the point of continuing to communicate with him. Let him communicate with the creatures of Chaos.


    Approaching the gate, I found that it was slightly ajar, but it would be difficult to get through the gap. I tried to open doors but they were stuck and didn¡¯t move. However, this did not stop me for more than a couple of seconds. Using my power of Order, I pressed the gate, opening it with a loud crack. After examining the gate, I became convinced that such function at these gates was absent from the moment of creation. It looked like another trap, but I was too lazy to investigate how it worked, so I simply went ahead, leaving the stone gate in its new position.


    Ahead was a straight path paved with flagstones. The forbidden Castle was very close now, so I quickened my pace. High walls, decorated with ornaments, rose into the sky. Colorful stained-glass windows glittered in the sun, and low fruit trees grew on either side of the road, forming a small garden. I noted that these were the first plants I had seen in this world, but I didn''t bother to look away, because the tall gate leading to the castle began to open right in front of me.


    With a soft rumble, the gates opened, and a dozen ghost soldiers with armor and swords came out, escorting an equally ghostly man in full dress.


    ¡°I greet you, stranger, in the Ghost Castle. What brings you here?¡± - The head of the meeting committee asked me.


    "The Path brought me here.¡± - I said obvious thing. However, the word ¡®path¡¯ could mean not only the ¡®road¡¯, but also the ¡®fate¡¯ that governs those who follow this road.


    "It''s been a long time since people have visited our castle along the Path.¡± - The last word clearly sounded like it should have been capitalized. - "But we still honor the Agreement. Before you continue your journey, wanderer, I would like to ask you a question.¡±


    ¡°You may ask.¡± - I agreed after a pause.


    "Did our exiled kinsman, who lives not far from here, give you any trouble?"


    Is he meaning the same guy I killed before gate?


    "No, he didn''t" - I said. "Absolutely no problem.¡±


    ¡°Well.¡± - The Ghost nodded with satisfaction. - "Sometimes he can be really obnoxious. But he''s still one of us.¡±


    Yeah, he was one of you. But now he''s one of victims of the demons, who are probably hiccupping from the flood of victims I provide them with. I did not focus on the fate of their kin, but went to the castle. The doors slammed shut behind me, and I could only go forward, choosing my Path, guided by the internal compass.


    "I hope you don''t mind if I accompany you inside the castle?" - The head of the escort convoy has asked me now.


    "No, of course not. If I have any questions, it would be better to have someone around to ask them.¡±


    ¡°Wonderful.¡± - Ghost nodded.


    Meanwhile, we passed through a long corridor and came out into a large hall where any normal person should feel like an ant. It seems that the builders of this castle suffered from giant-mania. Or maybe they were fifty times taller than a normal person?


    "Can you tell me a little bit about this place?" - I decided to break the silence.


    ¡°With pleasure.¡± - My companion was delighted. ¨C ¡°There have been no new faces here for a long time, who should tell something. So, our castle...¡±


    If we squeeze all water and praise out of the subsequent speech, it turned out that this castle was a ''transport hub'' of the world of dreams, created in immemorial time ago. Previously, all sorts of travelers and even caravans scurried here, ''cutting'' the way through the Ghost Castle. It was a special structure that existed simultaneously in many places in the dream world. So, if you entered through one entrance in the desert, it was possible in ten minutes to go out in the middle of the swampy jungle, in the far north, and even in what hell.


    But since that happy time, the eons of ages had passed, and the world of dreams had changed, and with it the trade routes had changed, so that now the Ghost Castle was a universe¡¯s dead end, accessible from only a few places.


    As I listened to this interesting lecture, my feet carried me through halls, passages, galleries, and staircases. Finally, I went into another hall, turned to the wall, made my way through an invisible passage behind one of the columns, and found myself in a long, narrow hall, where the typical blue patterns of this place were intertwined with silver plant ornaments.

 Chapter 12.05 - The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

    "It''s here.¡± - I said, looking at the tall silver gate with its silver and gold branches. Two silver guards stood on either side of the gate, holding long silver-tipped spears. It seemed that at any moment these figures could come to life and point their weapons at the aliens, protecting the entrance to their world. I recognized the statues as elves with their arrogant horns and pointed ears. It''s like a fairy tale.


    "Please forgive me, but no one has passed through this gate for a long time.¡± ¨C My companion said with confusion. - "Even I don''t remember where they lead Please wait until I call our Keeper of the Paths.¡±


    ¡°Ok.¡± - I said, and began to walk around the room, looking at the beautiful patterns and bas-reliefs depicting scenes with the participation of elves.


    Ten minutes later, another ghost entered the room. For a completely incomprehensible reason, he pretended to be a deep old man, although ghosts shouldn''t grow old just because of the absence of a body. However, who will understand these vile xenos.


    "Greetings, traveler.¡± - The old ghost asked me. - "I am the Keeper of the Paths of the Ghost Castle. I know everything about every entrance and exit. Do you want to hear the history of this gate?¡±


    "I wish to go through them. But I don''t mind hearing the story, either.¡±


    ¡°Wonderful.¡± - The ghost was inspired by my answer. Apparently, they really don''t have anyone to talk to. - "This gate was one of the first created after the construction of the Ghost Castle. They led to the Silver Forest, home of the high elves. This wonderful people were descended from the gods themselves. They were immortal. When an elf got tired of life, he did not die, but fell asleep forever, and his soul went to the dream world in the Silver Forest. It was a glorious time. For many millions of years, the era of the rule of the elves lasted. Even in the dream world, they were able to create their own state, and their country was filled with many wonders. Alas, one day all this splendor came to an end. The Silver Forest had been invaded by a Filth that had consumed and corrupted all life, turning the owners of these places into ugly monsters, hungry for someone else''s blood. Since then, these gates have been sealed to prevent the Filth from entering the Ghost Castle. The Silver Forest was destroyed, and these four elves remaining to guard the gates are the last elves of the Silver Forest in the entire universe. Later I heard rumors that the Filth has been destroyed, but I can''t guarantee their truth. If you, a wanderer, decide to pass through this gate, then know that there will be no turning back. Seal on this gate only allows you to move forward.¡±


    ¡°Wonderful. That is what I need.¡± - I offered my enthusiastic opinion.


    "Well, in that case, I will begin the ritual of opening the gate.¡±


    Then the ghost began waving his arms, shouting long spells, and other ways to portray the importance and significance of this moment. After the circus performance was over, he went to the gate and entered the access code on an almost invisible panel. If I hadn''t encountered such things before, I might have believed that the ghost had just put his hand on the wall.


    The vine-covered gate shuddered and began to open slowly. The four elven statues turned their heads and stared at me, but a moment later they returned to their original position. From the passageway beyond the gate, the light was blinding, making it difficult to see what was there. I already knew that. It was another Stargate.


    Passing through the portal, I found myself in the center of a vast desert. There was nothing but sand, and the sun, at its zenith was pouring its rays on the hot earth. When I turned around, I saw a rock sticking out of the sand with a gate painted on its surface. Even if I looked closely, I couldn''t find any magic in this drawing. I turned away from the sand-gnawed stone-fang and walked forward, looking carefully around.


    This place was dangerous. Although all I could see was sand, my instincts screamed that I couldn''t stay here. After scanning the area, I realized that the threat was coming from underground. The Filth was still there. It hid under sand from the scorching rays of the sun, but was ready to infect the gaping victim.


    If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.


    When I realized this, I immediately flied up to the air and flew forward. The height of five meters was enough for my intuition to stop screaming and calm down. The further path was no less interesting than in the previous world. There was sand everywhere, and nothing but sand. No matter how much I flew forward, nothing changed in the area. However, a few hours later, another sun appeared in the sky. The first still stood at the zenith, but the second, more frailer, rose from the horizon and began to move in a gentle arc, more characteristic of the polar latitudes.


    So, I flew forward for almost two weeks, during which time I was trained in flight, so that I could already overtake the car. I almost missed the sight of caravan on the horizon. Only when it was already at my side, I noticed a small ''defect'' in the endless sand dunes.


    Changing direction, I approached the caravan and saw a dozen camels slowly and sadly trudging along the sand. Each of the camels was ridden by a driver. And on the second camel from the head of the caravan sat a man wrapped in rags, decorated with a cunning pattern. Taking this as a sign of leadership, I went to him.


    Caravans have noticed me for a long time, because I was moving towards them. As soon as I got close enough, they began to greet me without dismounting from their camels.


    "Greetings, o mighty dev.¡± - The caravan leader folded his hands in prayer. - "I am humble merchant Hasup Ibn Marap, the head of this caravan, on my way to the city of Sanagar. What can I serve you?¡±


    It seems that this merchant knew how to communicate with powerful mages, which spoke of a rich experience with them.


    ¡°I will follow you to Sanagar with you.¡± - I notified him


    ¡°As the great magician pleases. I would be honored if you would accompany our small caravan. Although the path is deserted and safe, the protection of the magician from wandering creatures of filth will never be superfluous.¡±


    When I heard the mention of a certain path, I scanned the area and discovered that the caravan was indeed moving along a certain magical formation that prevented the Filth from approaching the surface.


    "Tell me about this path." - I ordered to Hasup.


    "As the great magician pleases. Since time immemorial, since the appearance of the Great Fiery Desert, people have known about the magical paths leading through the boundless sands. By the will of the gods, these paths were protected from the influence of Filth, allowing caravans to cross the desert without risking to turn into ugly monsters and burn under the scorching rays of the Great Sun. Previously, people knew travel songs that allowed them to shorten the path, so it took not months or years, but only hours.¡±


    ¡°Years? How long do you get to Sanagar?¡±


    ¡°O great magician, I follow from city Harshuta to my native city Sanagar. This journey takes six months. I have been on the road for almost four months now, so if the gods will grant it, in about seventy days the Great Wall will appear in front of me and the gate leading to Sanagar.¡±


    The prospect of limping through the desert for more than two months did not please me at all. In addition, my ''compass'' started to fail, refusing to show direction. It remained only to get to the inhabited places and try to ask people for directions.


    "Tell me, merchant, have you heard of the Crystal Mountains where the underground people live?"


    "The Crystal Mountains?" - The caravan master surprised. - "I have heard of the Crystal Hills, but not even a poet could call them mountains. And there are definitely no underground people, because this area is teeming with deadly Zugs, which are the enemies of all living things.¡±


    "Have you ever heard of the Silver Forest that was once the site of this desert?" - I asked.


    "Silver Forest?" - The merchant was even more surprised. - "I''ve never heard a story that there was anything but filth in this place. Here are stories about how a Righteous God created a Great Sun to burn out the Filth, I have heard many. And all of them with one voice said that the Filth existed in this place for centuries since the creation of the world. Then one of the Outer Gods dropped on the earth a drop of the evil he had collected, from which he had cleansed the newly created world. And this drop fell on barren land, giving birth to a host of nightmares and god-awful monsters. However, what can a simple caravan driver know about those distant times? If you are interested in how this world was created, and what was on this earth before Outer God sowed the seed of Filth in it, then you should go to the temple of the gods in Sanagar. The priest of this temple is known as a wise man, so maybe he can answer your questions.¡±


    This ended the merchant''s flow of words, and he fell into a thoughtful silence. But I kept him awake by asking the next question.


    "What kind of travel songs did you mention?" - I didn''t like the idea of traveling with the caravan. Now that I knew there was a path, I could fly along it much faster. But another option was to activate the magic embedded in the path, which accelerates movement.


    "I''ve heard that when the first humans appeared in this area after the retreat of Filth, the great mages of the past were able to come up with songs that activated the hidden path magic. But alas, over time these songs have been forgotten, and the last few thousand years about them go only fables among caravans¡±

 Chapter 12.06 - The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

    This time I accepted the silence more favorably, scanning the images that formed the structure of the path. It was obvious that they were not created by the gods, but by the elves of the Silver Forest. The Filth destroyed the elves and the forest itself, but the magic of the road was able to survive. It is likely that the travel songs activated certain images embedded in them by the elves. So, I could just try to pick up a song that I already knew, and the caravans would be the necessary mental amplifier that would give out the right emotions.


    ¡°Hasup, you said that Sanagar is your hometown.¡±


    "Yes, it is.¡± - He nodded.


    "Do you miss it?"


    ¡°Yes, I do. My wife and daughter are waiting for me at home. This time I''m bringing her a dowry, so if the gods are kind, we''ll be able to have a wedding soon.¡± - Caravan master smiled to himself.


    "Then think about your home.¡± - I ordered, choosing the right song.


    "About home?"


    ¡°Yes. This Path leads you to home.¡±


    With these words, I started playing a song that I had heard while still alive. It was a dream world, so after a few seconds there was music in the air, and then a voice. This was the song ''Doroga'' by the band ''Lyube''.


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qe_nUCmgPS8</a>


    Fascinated by the unusual music, the caravans fell into a numbness. The camels were moving along calmly, but the area around us was rushing by at an incredible speed. Dunes were replaced by plains, which were replaced by dunes again. But beyond that, there were ghostly images of the Silver Forest. Huge trees, blooming meadows, crystal rivers - all these beauties appeared for a moment in the form of mirages, only to disappear immediately, leaving the impression of a fleeting miracle.


    Five minutes later, an incredible glowing shroud grew ahead of us, rising from the sands to the sky. A few seconds later, we reached a magnificent structure that was located right next to this ghostly wall. The song ended, and the bewildered caravans looked around, trying to understand what had happened.


    "My God, it is a Travel Song!" - The merchant screamed. - "O great magician, your power is immense! Even in the most wonderful stories, Travel Songs shortened the journey to hours, not to minutes.¡±


    ¡°Is it Sanagar?¡± ¨C I clarified. I did not see any buildings in front of me. Even behind the glowing veil, only the same desert was visible.


    "Yes, it is." - The merchant calmed down a little, sending the caravan forward. ¨C ¡°This passage through the Great Wall leads to Sanagar. The gods created this miracle to protect the outside world from the merciless desert sun. Thanks to you, o great one, we were able to reach our goal much faster. I will tell stories about this while drinking wine to your health. After all, thanks to you, the travel song has returned to this world. I memorized every word, every note. Now my way to home will always be fast and fun.


    I just chuckled at this, carefully examining the arch of the gate, behind which the streets of the city and people scurrying back and forth were visible. The passage through this structure was extremely ordinary. I didn''t even feel any spatial distortion. Here we are walking under the scorching sun of the desert, and after a dozen meters we find ourselves in the streets of the city, and a rather cool breeze hits us in the face.


    "Where is the temple?" - I asked from merchant, looking at the solid three-story stone houses and the cobblestone street.


    "Don''t worry, sir. I will personally escort you to the temple.¡± - The merchant bustled.


    He sent the caravan with his employees, and he jumped to the ground and quickly trotted forward, pointing the way. I fly down a little lower, but I preferred to keep flying above the ground rather than shuffling my feet like a pathetic mortal. I get used to good things quickly, and during this time I''m used to moving around with levitation.


    While we were walking, the merchant gave a short tour, telling about the most important shops and attractions. A little, because after a couple of hundred meters we came to a large white building decorated with gold.


    You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    "This is the temple of the Weak Gods.¡± - The caravan master pointed at him.


    "Weak?" - I was surprised to hear such an epithet for the first time in relation to the revered gods.


    "You''d better ask the priests about the gods. Who am I to discuss such high matters?¡± - The merchant immediately apologized.


    ¡°Goodbye, Hasup.¡± - I nodded and went to the entrance to the temple. Hasup remained standing still, politely bowing to me after.


    The temple was empty, which is quite consistent with the characteristic ''weak'' in relation to the gods to whom it was dedicated. What fool would go to pray to weak gods? When I descended to the mortal earth and went forward to the altar, I saw a man dressed in gold-adorned garments. He heard my footsteps, turned around, and shuddered, staring at me with an alarmed expression.


    "How can I help you?" - He asked me.


    "My name is Freddy Krueger. I''d like to ask you a few questions about the history of this place. They say that you are the most enlightened person in this area.¡±


    "Well, I''m just a humble priest of the Weak Gods.¡± - The man looked down. ¨C ¡°My name is Kerbhol. Please come to the inner chambers of the temple, where we will not be disturbed.¡±


    ¡°You aren¡¯t suffering from crowd here.¡± - I chuckled, following the priest.


    ¡°Unfortunately, God-fearing is not a popular trait among the local population. And it is only thanks to the Weak Gods that we can live in this world without experiencing all horrors that have befallen on other lands.¡±


    With these words, we entered a small alcove filled with unearthly light. Here divine power poured out from a large cut topaz set into the wall. Two benches were set up around the edges of the room. I sat down on one of them, and the priest sat in front of me.


    "How do you like this place?" - He asked, watching me closely.


    ¡°Pretty cute. This divine energy is invigorating and refreshing.¡± - I smiled, absorbing free power.


    "Please forgive me.¡± - The priest bowed his head. - "Your eyes made me suspect that you were infected by the Filth. But if you feel good here, there is nothing to worry about. So, what did you want to ask me?¡±


    Heh, he thinks himself as verifier here. The free-flowing energy of Order could only harm the weakest creatures of Chaos. Of course, Filth was not Chaos, but they had a lot in common, so there was no question about the source of the infection.


    "I''m interested about the history of this place before the Filth came here.¡± - I asked the priest. After my question, he had an empty expression on his face.


    ¡°To be honest, this is the first time I have been asked a question that I simply have nothing to answer.¡± - He admitted after a long pause. - "All our scriptures begin after the moment when the Righteous God saw the Original Filth in these lands and decided to get rid of it. As you understand, the word ''original'' means that it has always existed here. Of course, I''ve heard stories about how the gods created this world and planted the seed of filth, but these stories don''t belong to the canon, so I can''t guarantee that they have anything to do with reality.¡±


    I was not happy with this revelation. Nasty Being put information about this part of the path into my mind, according to which I was supposed to get to the Silver Forest, and from there to reach the Crystal Mountains, where to look for a further way in the dungeons of the dwarves. But there were no forests or mountains in the area, plus my internal compass was inside the ''magnetic anomaly'', constantly pointing to different places.


    ¡°Have you heard anything about the Crystal Mountains or about underground dwarves?¡± - I tried again.


    ¡°Crystal Mountains? No. There are not so far away crystal hills, but the height of the highest of these hills does not exceed one and a half hundred meters. And from the underground inhabitants there are only zugs. These vile creatures devour all living things, so you can only move outside the city under the protection of magicians. To be honest, I only read about the existence of mountains in books. For many thousands of kilometers around, there are only plains, wastelands, and hills.¡±


    This news was very sad.


    "Can you tell you the story you know about this world?" - I made one last attempt to get useful information.


    ¡°If am I correct, you are only interested in the ancient history? Since time immemorial, this place has been ruled by the Filth, which has spread its unholy tentacles for many thousands of kilometers. But on one of days a Righteous God, whose name we are not worthy to know, saw the Filth and decided to eradicate it. To do this, he created a Great Fiery Sun, which he placed forever directly over the source of the Filth. The rays of this sun burned all Filth, driving it underground. But at the same time, this merciless light destroyed all life on a huge territory, turning it into a desert. This desert grew with every hour, and when it reached the inhabited lands, people prayed to the Weak Gods, and they in response to these prayers created a Great Wall that separated the desert from other lands. Since then, people have been living in cities on the border with the desert, using caravan paths to move between populated areas.


    Mdaa. The story was instructive, but it didn''t make much sense. However, it set two directions for future searches. I could look for the mountains I needed in the desert or beyond it.


    When priest saw a heavy thought on my face, he decided to give advice.


    "Although people speak of my wisdom, I am only an ordinary priest of the Weak Gods. But I know that brother Senan, who lives in a monastery two weeks away, has spent his entire life researching history and ancient scrolls. It is possible that he can help you in your search.¡±

 Chapter 12.07 - The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

    "And where is this monastery?" - I asked.


    ¡°In the vicinity of the city of Harshuta. There are caravans going there from time to time, and you can probably join one of them.¡±


    ¡°Harshuta?¡± - I surprised. - "Caravan, whom I met in the desert, said that the way to it takes six months.¡±


    "Yes, if you walk in the desert.¡± - Kerbhol agreed. ¨C ¡°But there all distances increase tenfold. And beyond the Great Wall, between the cities of Sanagar and Harshuta, there is a road that a man on foot traverses in four days. This is if you go without stopping day and night. And if you follow the usual pace of the caravan, and even defend yourself from the attacks of the zugs, the journey takes two weeks.¡±


    "Then what''s the point of driving caravans through the desert?" - I asked.


    "This way is safe.¡± - The priest sighed. - "At least as long as you follow the pathways. Direct route is possible only under the protection of magicians, however, not always the entire caravan reaches its destination. Sometimes other caravans find the chewed skeletons of losers. So, many people prefer not to take risks, but just to spend more time, especially since while a person is in the desert, he does not age, does not experience hunger and thirst, does not need to sleep, and so on.¡±


    Hmm, well then it is correct. In such conditions, long marches across the desert are not so terrible.


    "I''ll have to think about it.¡± - I frowned. If the path through the desert is safer, it may be faster to lead another caravan using the Travel Song.


    "But the direct route goes near the Crystal Hills.¡± - Priest added. - "Perhaps they have something common with the purpose of your search."


    This remark was quite valuable. The Crystal Mountains and Crystal Hills described too similar images to simply ignore such coincidence.


    "Okay, thanks for the answers.¡± - I nodded to the priest. ¨C ¡°Where can I find out if caravans are going to go to Harshuta in the near future?


    ¡°All caravans are managed by the Caravan Tower. Ask any passer-by and they will show you the way. It''s a ten-minute walk, don''t get lost. It is a tall and wide circular building that does not exactly look like a tower, but it will be difficult to confuse it with something else.¡±


    "Thank you again for this conversation.¡±


    I got up from the bench and went to the door. I had nothing to pay for information, and I considered creating an image of gold coins as a bad idea. The priest didn''t raise the issue either, so I considered it closed.


    When I left the temple, I looked around, and then soared to the sky. As soon as I was above the roofs of the houses, I saw the structure described by the priest. It looked more like a Colosseum than a tower, but it was really hard to confuse it with any other building in the city. When I went there, a couple of minutes later, I flew through the wide doors that were open to visitors. Caravans with camels and carts went to the building through a separate entrance, and I decided that I did not need to go there yet.


    Oddly enough, my appearance did not cause a stir. Moreover, no one paid any attention to me at all. Apparently, merchants were more accustomed to the appearance of non-human beings. I flew up to the counter where a young guy was making out some documents, and asked him, ignoring the queue standing nearby.


    "Whom can I talk to about joining the caravan as a mage?"


    The guy wrote a sentence on the paper, looked up at me with a displeased look, then started and stammered in fright.


    ¡°All issues related to magicians are dealt with by Lord Partalan. He can be found on the top floor of the tower.


    Irritatingly snorting, I flew out, went up to the level of the upper floors, and then flew into one of the windows. Despite the cool weather and the breeze, the windows on the upper floor were almost empty of glass. Perhaps the reason for this was the fact that the magicians preferred to go in and out through the windows.


    Stolen story; please report.


    The floor was surprisingly empty. The rooms and corridors were furnished with luxury and pomp, but I saw no visitors or servants. I wandered around for a few minutes until I heard the voices of people. When I got closer, I stopped without entering the room. From behind the open door came the voices of two people discussing an interesting question.


    ¡°...warehouses, so we need to resolve the issue of sending the caravan.¡± - The dry senile voice belonged to the subordinate, who spoke respectfully, albeit with irritation


    ¡°Did you manage to find out anything about the fate of the caravan of old man Eisehariya?¡± - The second voice was radiant with the superiors'' laziness and power.


    ¡°Nothing. As if he had fallen through the earth.¡±


    "Don''t scare me like that. In our region, such misfortunes have never happened.¡±


    ¡°Sorry. No trace of the caravan could be found. A group of mages went through the entire route, but found no remains of wagons or signs of destructive magic. Like through... um-huh... no trace was found.¡±


    "How is it possible? Old Eisehariya was a very experienced mage. And zugs have never been seen eating metal wagons.¡±


    "Maybe someone else found the remains of the caravan and appropriated them."


    "Who, for example? I spoke with Harshuta¡¯s khan. He swore that no caravan had ever left his city in our direction. They are still sitting there waiting for someone to find out what happened to their previous caravan. So, the disappearance of two caravans in a row cannot be an accident.¡±


    "Maybe we should send two or even three magicians with the caravan instead of just one."


    "What do we do if they too disappear?"


    "I heard a rumor that one of the desert caravans heard a Traveling Song and was able to reach our city in just a few minutes.¡±


    "Minutes already? These stories have been told for thousands of years, and every year the speed of travel with the Traveling Song only increases. Soon we will hear that by singing a two-line ditto, a caravan can instantly move to the other end of the desert.¡±


    The answer to this claim was the guilty silence. I thought this was a good time to go into the room and finally see the owners of the voices.


    ¡°Good day.¡± - I said, examining the two mages. The fat ''boss'' was lying on the sofa, lazily eating grapes, and his thin subordinate stood at attention in front of him, eating the boss with a devoted look.


    "Oh no, not good.¡± - The fat man didn''t agree with me, taking upright position. - "Who are you?"


    Considering the not-so-polite tone in his voice, I decided that keeping of etiquette in this case would be an unaffordable luxury.


    "I am the greatest wizard of all time! Storm of seas and desert hurricane Freddy Krueger. I have come to your provincial village to favor you with my presence and to suppress you with my greatness.¡±


    With these words I took off my disguise and began to put pressure on the dream world with my Ego. The two mages in front of me also tried to exert their powers, but they looked rather pale against my background.


    "Oh! Wait, we can make a deal.¡± - The thin wizard cackled.


    ¡°So, start agree.¡± - I nodded benignly as I lowered the pressure and sat down in one of the chairs. There was a startled silence. The two wizards looked at each other, trying to figure out what to do next. - "Come on, I''m listening." - I hastened them.


    "For what purpose does the greatest wizard come to the Tower of the Caravans?" - The thin wizard bowed before me, taking the initiative. His fat colleague pretended that everything was going ''according to plan'', again lay down on the sofa and began to nibble a bunch of grapes.


    ¡°I need to get into Harshuta, so I graciously decided to accompany one of your caravans heading in that direction.¡±


    "It seems suspicious to me that such a great wizard should have appeared out of nowhere just when we had already lost two caravans on the road between Sanagar and Harshuta.¡±


    "Praise the Weak Gods that they have sent me in this time of trouble.¡±


    The boss choked on grapes at the suggestion.


    "Khe-Khe-Khe! No!¡±


    "No what?" - I asked grimly.


    "We will not hire you to accompany the caravan.¡±


    "Then your city is doomed. Okay, I''ll handle it without you. I don''t need a caravan to get to the next town.¡±


    "Yes, go alone." ¨C Fat man smugly waved his hands. - "The zugs will be happy to eat you."


    "What''s Zug?" - I asked. I had already heard mention of them, but I still had no idea what they were.


    "There, you can see it." - The magician waved his hand, pointing to the cage hanging in the corner of the room


    I went to it and saw a strange cross between a mole, a bat, and a shark. The creature was a size of a rat and had oddly twisted forelegs. On its back it had an extra pair of limbs in the form of leathery wings. But the most remarkable part of its body was its huge, toothy mouth, which resembled the mouth of a shark.


    "Sweet little animal.¡± - I complimented the pet.


    "Ha, ha! When you are attacked by millions of such creatures, you can only survive by using the secret magic knowledge of hereditary magicians.¡± ¨C Fat boy began to brag about it.


    "Pfft! The secret tricks are needed only for the weaklings.¡± - I said. From such impudence, the fat wizard choked again. I didn''t wait for him to clear his throat, and flew out of the window.


    On the street, I dropped to the ground and flew very low, looking around. But before I had flown a hundred meters, my thoughts were interrupted by a ringing child''s voice.


    "What will the great wizard want?"


    I turned around and saw a kid about fourteen years old looking at me with honest eyes.


    "Ho-ho? Do you want to be rich?¡± - I asked him.


    "Who doesn''t? I hope the great wizard can pay me for my help.¡± - The boy bowed, praying with his hands up. It seems to this is a common way of expressing reverence.

 Chapter 12.08 - The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

    "Maybe I can...¡± - I doubted. - "What''s your name, by the way?"


    ¡°I am Kamhen son of Adham.¡±


    "I''m Freddy Krueger. Tell me, Kamhen, is it possible to buy a map of the surrounding area of this city?¡±


    "A map?" - The guy thought for a second. - "I think we should ask Mr. Kahal in the house of Secret Ways. I''ve never been inside it myself, but people say he sells information about caravan paths and distant countries.¡±


    ¡°Um... What kind of money do you use here?¡±


    The boy''s eyes widened in surprise.


    "Mr. Kruger, there are two types of money in our city. The first is the coins of the trading house of Harshuta. They come in copper, silver, and gold. And the second is a Soul¡¯s Dream. I don''t know why they''re called that, but they look like glowing pebbles. They say that magicians can use them to prolong a person''s life. One Soul¡¯s Dream is worth more than a thousand gold coins.¡±


    "Can I see these pebbles somewhere?" - I asked, looking around to make sure that no one was interested in my conversation with the guy.


    "See it? Unlikely.¡± - Kamhen said with doubt. - "But you can buy them from the city money-changer for gold coins.¡±


    "Where can I see a gold coin?" - I continued the interrogation.


    "I think there are in a jewelry store Golden Stream. Its owner often counts coins in front of customers in order to appear richer. Why would you need that?¡± - The boy''s eyes lit up with interest.


    "Ok, let''s go." - I looked around, and went in direction of a quiet alley, so as not to loom under the eyes of passers-by. - "Do you have a copper coin?"


    ¡°Yes, I have...¡± - the guy answered with doubt


    "Give it to me."


    Softly shuddering, Kamhen reached into his pocket and pulled out a small coin that glittered yellow metal with a greenish tinge. I picked it up, twirled it in my hands, looked at it carefully, tossed it in the air, caught it with my right hand, and then created the same image in my left fist. In the dream world, any object was just an image. In this dimension, the dream images were fairly stable, making you believe that the world around you are material. For me, the materiality of this city was a deception. I could believe in it; I could not believe in it... or I could cheat it. All I had to do is to create an image in my mind, and then feed it with necessary amount of ''laws'' taken from the world of Order. This is how my ''magic'' works, so creating a coin was no different from creating a fireball.


    Opening both hands, I compared the two coins lying on them. Then I folded my hands, shook them, and gave two coins to astonished kid.


    "Which one is real?" - I asked.


    ¡°Both!¡± ¨C Kid correctly answered, examining the coins carefully.


    "Now, do you understand why I need to see the gold coin?"


    ¡°Yes, sir mage.¡± - The boy nodded, hiding the coins in his pocket and smiling mischievously.


    "Then lead the way."


    We left the alley and began to wander through the city. Actually, the settlement itself was small, so we got to the right place in about five minutes. The Golden Stream jewelry store fully justified its name. Gilded ornaments were displayed in the window. I realized at first sight that they were actually made of copper.


    Going into the shop, I saw a well-fed man in colorful clothes, who immediately rushed to meet me, bowing slightly.


    "What does noble gentleman wish?"


    "Gentleman wishes to sell a gem for a fair price.¡±


    With these words, I placed a small stone the size of a little finger nail on the counter. It was an image of a grass-colored emerald. The merchant immediately grabbed it and began to examine it through a magnifying glass. After that, he weighed it and checked it with some sort of magic artifact. While all these procedures were carried out, I paid attention to the window, where behind the glass on two cups of scales lay gold and silver coin, arranged in beautiful columns. I didn''t have to hold coins in my hands to make copy of them. I simply copied them one by one, creating dozen gold coins in my pocket.


    If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    Meanwhile, the merchant appreciated my stone and took an important appearance and made a generous offer.


    ¡°I will give you two gold coins for this stone.¡±


    "I see.¡± - I replied, taking back the gem with a swift movement. - "I''m going to look for another store."


    As soon as I turned around, the merchant cackled as he smelled the departing profit.


    "Wait, sir, wait. Twenty... I''ll give you forty coins. No one in this city will offer you a better price.¡±


    "Twenty times forty gold coins?" - I asked. The merchant hiccupped at such price.


    "Please show mercy, this stone is not worth eight hundred coins. Soul''s Dream is worth a thousand coins. And this is just a small emerald. It is of excellent quality and unusual cut, but I offer you a great price. Forty coins. Here, look, a ring with an emerald, only a little worse, is worth sixty coins. But it takes into account the price of gold, the work of a jeweler, and my small margin.¡±


    "If my stone is worth forty coins, this muddy piece of glass can''t be worth more than ten.¡± - I didn''t agree.


    "Oh, sir, please. This is a great price. For the sake of our good relationship, I can offer you forty-five gold coins. I already have to trade at a loss, but sometimes I have to do it to get the right people''s favor. Forty-five coins. What do you say?"


    I scanned the merchant''s emotions and saw that greed and the desire to get the stone at any price were now competing on an equal footing. He also felt regret at having to tell the real price.


    "All right, I agree.¡±


    I put more Order energy into the stone so that it wouldn''t disappear in a couple of hours, then returned it to the merchant. He again examined the stone in all possible and impossible ways, and then counted to me forty-five coins, making every effort to show how sorry he was to part with these golden coins.


    After taking the money, I went out into the street, found my ''accomplice'', winked at him and went to the nearest alley.


    ¡°Take.¡± - I tossed to the boy a gold coin that had just been created from air.


    "Thank you, sir.¡± - He shone, looking at the golden roundabout, and then immediately hid it in his pants.


    "Now lead me to the money changer."


    We walked around the city to the other end, and then I went into a beautiful, pompous building that looked more like a Bank. Here I expressed a desire to buy a Soul¡¯s Dream. Only after hearing these words, I was immediately surrounded by respect and care, after which they announced the price of one thousand one hundred gold coins. Since I still created money from the air, I did not bargain, and immediately agreed and began to put on the table gold coins ten pieces at a time. When a rectangle of ten by eleven columns was formed, they immediately brought a small box containing one small stone that glowed... energy of Order. I almost laughed when I saw it. I spent ten times more energy to create gold coins comparing to energy in this pebble. However, energy of Order could not be extracted from my gold coins, but this stone was a simple energy storage device. And the energy spectrum was still a bit unusual, so I wasn''t sure if I could create exactly the same stone. What if my energy of Order turns out to be non-standard?


    When I left the Bank, I called the boy again, and he led me to the house of Secret Ways. It really was a map shop where I could buy a map of all the surrounding areas of the Great Desert for just three hundred and twenty gold coins. The location of the cities of Sanagar and Harshuta, as well as the Crystal Hills between them, was clearly visible. After that, I gave to my conductor a handful of copper, and then headed to the exit of the city.


    As it turned out, the city was surrounded by a high stone wall, and covered with a protective magic dome. So, the only way out of it was through the familiar archway into the desert, or through a simpler gate that led to the harsh outside world. But as soon as I got to that gate, a man ran across me.


    "Mr. Freddy Krueger, please pay me some attention.¡± - He knelt down in a bow. ¨C ¡°My name is Marcos Thurman. I''m a merchant from the city of Harshuta. My caravan is stuck in Sanagar because of an unknown disaster that has already swallowed up two caravans without a trace. I have assembled a team of two mages and I heard that you also want to go to Harshuta. How would you like to join my caravan and get to the city in safety? After all, a group of armed guards and three mages is much better than one mage.¡±


    "When are you planning to depart?" - I asked.


    "If you agree to accept my offer, then tomorrow morning at sunrise."


    ¡°...Ok.¡± - I agreed, considering the situation. ¨C ¡°I''m not going to Harshuta, I''m going to a monastery near it. So near to the city our paths will diverge.¡±


    "Of course, master wizard. The monastery is located in the suburbs, so the caravan will be safe there.¡±


    "Then I''ll need a place to stay." - I said my thoughts.


    "Don''t worry, master wizard. You can stay in the house of delights, where I already rent a room for myself. I''ll take care of everything.¡±


    Following the helpful merchant, I headed to an ornate hotel, combined with a brothel and a restaurant. I didn''t stay for dinner, I refused to take whores, and instead I locked myself in the room assigned to me to meditate and prepare for the further journey. To be honest, this was the first time in a very long time that I decided to really take a rest. Before that, without the need for sleep, food and rest, I was on the road all the time. However, not least because there were no safe places along the way

 Chapter 12.09 - The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

    In the morning, just before dawn, a servant knocked at my door to tell me that the caravan was about to depart. I did not hesitate, and went out into the street, where I took up a position in the air next to the cart that the merchant was to ride. Five minutes later, two more magicians came up there, whom I identified by the characteristic distortions of reality around them.


    "So, this is the great mage who sang the Travel Song?" - One of the mages asked his companion loudly.


    "No" - I answered. - "I''m not a great mage. I am the greatest magician of all time and countries.¡±


    "Ha, ha. How is he?¡± ¨C Second mage laughed ¨C ¡°I am Urhas. And this is Tibersah.¡±


    "I''m Freddy Krueger."


    "Where did you come from?" - Urhas continued conversation.


    "From far away.¡± - I said evasively. - "So far away that you''ve never heard of them."


    "I''m not surprised. Your appearance is too unusual for this land. Some people even say that you are infected with the Filth.¡±


    ¡°Is this someone, by any chance, not Partalan?¡± - I said the name of the fat man from the Tower of the Caravans.


    "Yes, it was him.¡± - The magician confirmed my assumption.


    "We have another fifteen minutes, don''t we? I think I should visit this fat-ass and explain to him how wrong he is.¡±


    After my words, all the people around froze, and then looked at me in horror.


    "Are you ...  are you want to have a battle of mages in the city?" ¨C Merchant asked me, who had just come up to me.


    "What''s the problem?" - I was surprised. ¨C ¡°He doesn''t even have time to understand what killed him. There will be minimal damage in the city after that. Well, unless this tower of yours falls apart.¡±


    "If you are so offended by the vile rumors spread by the head of the Caravan Tower, then you should challenge him to a duel.¡± - Tibersah advised. - "Usually, duels are held just outside of the city walls.¡±


    "How long will I have to wait for him to agree to a duel?"


    "No need to wait!¡± ¨C Partalan¡¯s loud voice rang out. - "I challenge you to a duel, vile creature of Filth.¡±


    I turned around and saw a fat-ass surrounded by five magicians. He was the strongest between them, which clearly flattered his ego.


    ¡°Oh, fat-ass arrived.¡± - I was surprised. - "Well, let''s go outside. Marcos while you''re here, continue your preparations for the trip. I''ll deal with this pig until you get to the city gates.¡±


    Partalan from my words covered with red spots and began to puff like a locomotive. I even thought that he was going to have a stroke, but he managed to pull himself together, and then headed for the exit of the city. I followed him, and two caravan magicians followed me.


    Ten minutes later, we were standing outside the city limits on a large stone platform that showed signs of used battle spells in some places. As it turned out, the cool climate in the city was the result of a protective spell that covered it. But outside, winter was raging. However, the snow lay in a strange way - separate snowdrifts. However, this was a dream world, so the temperature didn''t matter to me. Even minus million degrees.


    The rules of the dues were simple. Two participants occupy the marked places in the arena, after which the cornermen rings the bell. And then everything is decided by the power and experience of magicians. In the end, only one must remain alive. I did not hesitate, but just took the specified place and began to wait for the start of the duel. As soon as the hammer touched the bell, I immediately used my abilities to speed up the time around me as much as possible. After that, I quickly flew the distance between me and the fat man, went behind him and sank into his fat body already well-proven claws. At the last second, the wizard was able to speed up and notice me, but he didn''t have time to do anything. The power of the ritual tore his soul from body and sent it to the demons.


    Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.


    I canceled the acceleration of time, and the sound of a bell reached my ears. Participants only had time to gasp, as the corpse of the chief magician of city Sanagar collapsed to the ground.


    "All right, let''s go to the caravan." - I commented the result of the duel. - "We''ve already lost five minutes. However, five minutes of my time cost more expensive than the life of a local magician.¡±


    After these words, the ''cornermen'' somehow abruptly lost their enthusiasm and stared at the corpse of their leader with wide eyes. I did not bother with what I was supposed to get for this victory as trophies, but went to the city gate, from which the first cart had already appeared.


    The two mages who accompanied the caravan were so impressed by my instant victory that they abruptly lost all desire to talk to me. They were only whispering quietly among themselves, which I was completely satisfied with. So, our way lay through winter fields and thickets of bushes. There were no trees or signs of human activity around, so the trip was rather boring.


    All day we went non-stop, and in the evening the caravan stopped and set up a small camp, which the magicians covered with a protective shield.


    I understood why such magic was necessary in the morning, when a small swarm of zugs appeared outside of the shield. These winged beasts tried unsuccessfully to break through the protective field. Judging by their actions, their brains were like a fly. Mages have shown class, destroying all zugs with a couple of AOE fire spells. After that, the caravan gathered and continued on its way, but today everyone was carefully looking around, so as not to miss the attacks of small predatory creatures.


    The second day passed without incident, like the third. But in the middle of the fourth day, a black cloud appeared on the horizon. Everyone immediately rushed and began to drive the carts into a circle, and the magicians began to establish their protective field. Looking closer, I saw that the cloud was a swarm of zugs, which were flying in our direction at a decent speed.


    As soon as these creatures got to us and surrounded the barrier, I used my fire magic to launch several fire ribbons that started spinning around the field. Like the wipers on the windshield, the ribbons cleaned the field from the zugs that were pressing on it, so that a split second later their relatives would stick to it again.


    This time we were stuck in place for the rest of the day. My fire didn''t just burn the zugs, it instantly incinerated them. If the corpses of these creatures did not disappear, we would literally be buried under a mountain of dead bodies. All the caravans as one said that they had never seen such attacks of zugs. In the worst cases, the swarm ''ended'' in half an hour. We admired my illumination for eight hours. By the end, even my eyes were blurred by the shifting fire ribbons.


    In the next morning we destroyed another small swarm, after which the caravan slowly crept forward. It was impossible to maintain the protective field in motion, so now we had to amuse ourselves by destroying single stray zugs that were always trying to grab something edible from their point of view.


    By the evening of the seventh day, huge crystals appeared on the horizon to our left, glittering in the sun. These were the crystal hills that the priest in the temple had told me about. I was not even too lazy to fly to them and look closer, but alas, my internal compass was still silent, not wanting to specify directions. But when I came back from the hills, another huge swarm followed me, which kept the caravan in place all the evening of that day and all the next day. It was only on the ninth day that we were able to continue our journey, fighting off the dwindling hordes of these vile creatures.


    To be honest, I already cursed the day which I agreed to help guard the caravan. If it wasn''t for that, I could get to Harshuta in a day. After all, my flight speed was about sixty kilometers per hour.


    Finally, the Zug hordes were left behind, and the caravaneers relaxed a little. Everyone has already discussing how they will rest in Harshuta after this trip, and magicians are not so often scan surrounding areas. As it happens, I was the one who first noticed the danger. The zugs were just small animals to me, though they had little magic. But ahead in the bushes next to the road, I felt a high concentration of Chaos energy. I immediately informed the merchant that there was an ambush ahead of us with the participation of magicians, after which all the jokes immediately ended. Moreover, the caravan stopped, huddled together, and the magicians put their crown protective field.


    So, we sat under it for half an hour, until the bandits a couple of hundred meters away lost their nerve and they jumped out into the open area, approaching us in long leaps.


    "Oh gods, what are these creatures?" - The merchant shouted.


    I agreed with him on this issue, because it wasn''t people who were attacking us. They were strange humanoids in tight black robes, with a bundle of tentacles wriggling in place of their faces. Their skin was as black as the night and shone like a disgusting oil. Also, each of the nearly hundreds of attackers were a magician. It looks like we just found out why the other two caravans disappeared.


    I instantly accelerated and started attacking these creatures with fire, but it didn''t make much profit. Incomprehensible cthulhanoids were extremely fireproof, and from the strongest of my spells, they slightly smoked. As soon as the first of the monsters reached the protective field, it immediately shattered with a high melodious ringing sound, not detaining enemies even for a second. I rushed to the avant-garde and plunged my steel claw into a very nimble cthulhanoids, but there was not any effect. No, the blades themselves worked fine and pierced the vile creature, but cthulhanoids did not want to be sacrificed to demons. Judging by the energy, I was already in front of the demon of Chaos, and not the weakest. He tried to grab me with his shapeless hands, more like tentacles, but I managed to jump back, cutting the opponent with my claws.

 Chapter 12.10 - The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

    And then the formal hell began. The demons attacked the merchants, trying not so much to kill them, but to immobilize and ... devour. I had to move around like a snake in a frying pan, because at least two dozen cthulhanoids choose me as their target. Well at least a cold weapon regularly cut these freaks to pieces, which clearly did not affect positively their health.


    The caravan magicians were also unable to do anything against their opponents. After five seconds Tibersah got into ''hot hugs'' of cthulhanoids and screamed in pain and horror. But then there was a rather unexpected event for me. The wizard took a shining stone from his pocket, which I recognized as a Soul Dream. Releasing the energy contained in the stone, he directed it at his opponent, who died with a wild yelp. It looked as if it had been dissolved in acid. Neighboring cthulhanoids were not happy with such a gift, and rushed away, losing pieces of their decaying bodies.


    I once again looked around the battlefield, looking at my opponents with new vision. I myself, as well as the demons I employed in the world of Evangelion, could easily endure the effects of the energies of Order and Chaos at the same time. It wasn''t very comfortable, but overall it wasn''t that bad. But these creatures of Chaos seem to have been allergic to the Order. This means that the fight against them should be quite simple.


    I flew higher, breaking out of my surroundings, then focused and sent down a pure stream of Order energy. A glowing waterfall of energies hit the earth, destroying cthulanoids and leaving unharmed people and caravan. I began to move the battlefield in a spiral, burning out the vile creatures of Chaos. None of the opponents managed to escape. I even destroyed the observers who were sitting in the bushes at a distance and watching the progress of the battle.


    After making sure that the attack was repulsed, I went out of combat mode and plopped down wearily on one of the iron-bound carts. The light of Order slowly faded around them, dissolving like morning mist. I watched with interest the side effects of my exposure. The whole place, the caravan, and even the people seemed too much real now. More real than the world around them. Looks like they''ve all become magicians by local standards. But I knew that such a ''gift'' did not come to them for free. People couldn''t control the laws of order, so It changed them quite a lot, both internally and externally. However, this is not my problem.


    Having coped with the consequences of the attack, the caravan crawled forward. Barely half of the men were still alive, and of that half, a third were seriously injured. Both magicians survived, so there was someone to protect against the zugs. Now they looked at me not with respect and fear, but with holy trepidation and horror. The quiet whispers I heard said, they are almost considering me as a Righteous God.


    The rest of the journey went without much incident. Zug attacks were routine for me now, moreover, caravan magicians were engaged in these little creatures, so I was not even distracted by them. When the city walls showed up ahead, the merchant thanked me for his rescue and pointed to a small castle away. It was the monastery I needed. I said goodbye to my fellow travelers, soared into the air and with all the speed available to me headed for the next destination of my journey.


    The search for brother Senan did not take long, although the monastery master I met looked perplexed that a strange magician would need this madman, and not such a holy and important him. Sinan was a thin, agile old man, with eyes that glowed with the power of Order. He was not a magician, and thus it seems that there was an increase in longevity due to the energy of the Soul Dream. We went to the monk''s room, where he stared at me with interest, waiting for questions.


    "Greetings, brother Senan. I came to you because you were recommended as an expert in the ancient history of this land.¡± - The old man nodded enthusiastically. ¨C ¡°I am interested in the location of the Crystal Mountains and the dungeons of the underground people who lived here in immemorial times.¡±


    "What? Do you know about the underground people?¡± - Senan jumped up, starting to pace the room from corner to corner. - "Amazing! This is the first time in my entire life that someone can confirm the authenticity of the knowledge that I have collected bit by bit in ancient writings, legends, or even just letters. Can you tell me what you know about those times? I just want to compare your knowledge with my own, so that I can immediately identify any discrepancies or inaccuracies.¡±


    Judging by the energy that flowed from this type, he was a keen historian, happy to dig into any knowledge of ancient times.


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


    "To be honest, I don''t know that much.¡± - I said. - "As far as I know, there used to be a Silver Forest on the site of the desert, where the immortal elves lived. And somewhere not far from the forest there were Crystal Mountains, inside of which the people of the underground lived in caves and dungeons. Then someone brought the Filth into the Silver Forest, because of what all this paradise was destroyed. I don''t know what happened to the Crystal Mountains. Judging by the maps, there is nothing in the area worthy of being called mountains.¡±


    "Yes, it is.¡± - Senan nodded, already writing down my statement into a scroll. - "Can you add anything else? Any even minor detail?¡±


    "Well, they say the elves were children of the gods. And in their forest, there was a gate to the Ghost Castle.¡±


    "The Ghost Castle?"! - The monk exclaimed, starting to rummage through the debris in the bookcase. - "I only once read the mention of it, but I did not understand what kind of castle it is.¡±


    "It was a place where you could quickly get to the far lands. So far away that it was impossible to reach them by any other means.¡±


    ¡°Yes! That''s it!¡± - Senan was already scribbling something on his scroll again. ¨C ¡°A lot of things are becoming clear now.¡±


    After a couple of minutes he distracted, looked at me, sighed heavily, put down his pen and scroll, and then began his story.


    "So, I''ll tell you the history of these lands, and you can decide what else you need to know. In time immemorial, this land was home to two great nations. High Elves and Dwarves were the true descendants of the Weak Gods. It is not known what was here before their appearance, but some chroniclers claim that these lands were created from the primordial Chaos by the first Elves and Dwarves. These two races lived hand in hand and created a world filled with amazing wonders. But once the Elves angered Other Gods, and they sent an unknown attack to their land. One of the ancient texts said that it was possible that Filth had come to the Silver Forest through the Ghost Castle.¡±


    After these words the monk was distracted to write down his thoughts in the scroll.


    "Anyway, the Filth has consumed the Silver Forest, the Crystal Mountains, and thousands of other countries around it. It reigned in this world for countless centuries. Under the influence of the Filth, all living creatures in these lands have changed beyond recognition, turning into terrible monsters. Then came the Third Blow. Don''t ask me what kind of blow it was, why it was the third, or when the previous two occurred. All I know is that the Third Blow dislodged the layers of reality of our world, and parallelly the blow inflicted a fatal wound to the Source of the Filth that settled on the site of the former Silver Forest.¡±


    ¡°After this catastrophe, the power of the Filth began to decrease. It was still fighting for life, but it was already doomed. The territory under its control began to steadily decrease, and the freed lands began to be populated by people. It was the age of heroes. After the Filth¡¯s defeat, the creatures affected by it gained free will, but they were still terrible monsters. The first people who appeared in these places were all powerful magicians. They cleared the land from hosts of monsters and settled shining cities. But once this era came to an end.¡±


    "When they reached the Source of the Filth, they met an invincible enemy. Although this power was already almost dead, it could still easily enslave any hero, turning him into an invincible monster. And one day, in their stupidity, the First People prayed to the Righteous Gods for help. The God who answered to their prayers did not even deign to say his name. But he saw the still-living Filth and decided to finish it off, for which he created a Great Fiery Sun, which he suspended directly over the former Silver Forest. From the rays of this sun, all the infected monsters immediately burned in a hot flame. The first People rejoiced at this victory, but as it turned out, their joy was premature.¡±


    "The Great Sun not just burn the Filth. It dried up the earth, burned the skin, and blinded the eyes. Just a few years later, the vast territory turned into a parched desert. In the flames of this sun, all the cities of the First People burned down, and they themselves turned into burned freaks, rolling in rags and hiding in the shadows. But that wasn''t all. The power of the sun was so great that space itself became distorted. If a man went down one road, he would become a giant, and if he turned down another, he would become a dwarf. Paths that used to be covered in a week now required years of travel and vice versa. Life in this place has become so unbearable that the last of the First People voluntarily sacrificed themselves to the Weak Gods to save their descendants ¨C us ordinary people. And the Weak Gods answered to the last prayer of their children.¡±


    ¡°By the power of their faith, they created the Great Wall, which separated the desert and its Great Fire Sun from the rest of the land. Along with the sun behind the wall remained and the decomposing corpse of the Source of the Filth, hidden under the earth. But after the Great Wall divided the space of this world into two areas, it turned out that the land around the desert was reduced by ten times. Or we can say that it is the surviving people and plants that have increased. Anyway, all the distances in the outside world changed, so that the Crystal Mountains became Crystal Hills. You can estimate the true size of these mountains only by passing between a Sanagar and Harshuta in the desert. There it takes six months, while here you can walk this distance in a few days.¡±

 Chapter 12.11 - The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

    I frowned at this news, because my visit to the Crystal Hills didn''t help me in any way in understanding what to do next.


    "And another interesting consequence of this miracle was the appearance of the zugs.¡± - Monk continued his story. - "They say that these creatures originated from the original Dwarves themselves. The Filth has changed them, but the blessing of the Weak Gods still supports their descendants. When the gods built the wall, the zugs hid from the light of the Great Sun in the dungeons of the Crystal Mountains. Even the First People could not eradicate this infection. But after the mountains had shrunk almost fifty times, the zugs had shrunk along with them, becoming small but no less dangerous creatures. Moreover, by shrinking in size, they were able to reproduce quickly. In just a few years, they filled all the surrounding land and since then have been a real scourge of these places. To get from one city to another, people have to rely on help of magicians, who are distant descendants of the First People who have preserved their power. I have heard rumors that the number of zugs attacking caravans has increased recently. Perhaps some new threat is driving these creatures away from the dungeons.¡±


    After these words came to mind cthulhanoids who attacked the caravan. That''s who could push the zugs, absolutely without straining. They were all magicians. Although, there was still the question of how effective their Chaos magic was against the Chaos creatures that were the zugs.


    ¡°So, the dungeons of the underground people are located under the Crystal Hills.¡± - I summed up my interlocutor''s speech.


    "Yes, indeed.¡± - He nodded. - "But you won''t be able to get into these dungeons.¡±


    "Why?" - I frowned darkly.


    "Hordes of zugs is not problem. What are they can do to magician? The fact is that the dungeons have also decreased. The largest passageways of the Zug are used as burrows, in which they live. And in those passages that were used by ordinary dwarves, now only worms can get through.¡±


    Yes, such an incident made it impossible for me to enter the dungeons I needed. Even if I dug through the hills and found the passageways I needed, it wouldn''t help.


    "Interestingly, I remember family history of a hunter whose home is near the Crystal Hills. His father''s grandfather claimed that his father went hunting one day and returned a week later as a tiny man. According to him, he passed through some kind of cave and shrank. After that, the hunter left the house to go through the cave in the opposite direction and return to his true size, but did not return.¡±


    The idea that there is a way to become a ''little finger'' has given me back my former confidence in the future.


    "Where does this hunter live? What''s his name?" - I asked the monk.


    "I don¡¯t know you where he lives. This family has some secret methods of hiding from the zugs, so they built a house not far from the Crystal Hills and hunted, so to speak, the rare mushrooms and plants that grow in those places. And the name of each member of this family is Ingeus son of Ingeus. Ask around town about him. Maybe someone can tell you how to find him.¡±


    When I got a purpose to search, my spirits rose and I jumped to my feet. However, before going further, I could thank the monk, especially since I already had a suitable gift.


    "Brother Senan, you have been very helpful in my search. So please accept this small gift as my gratitude.¡± - With that, I gave to the monk the Soul Dream which I had bought in the Sanagar. It will be waste if I throw it away. Actually, I don''t need it.


    "That''s it...¡± - The monk was speechless. - "Are you sure? This thing is worth a thousand gold coins.¡±


    ¡°Sure. For wizard like me, a thousand coins is nothing.¡±


    "Well, then, I accept your gift. An extra hundred years of life has not hurt anyone yet.¡± - With that, Senan took the stone and hid it in a small wooden box taken from a desk drawer.


    After saying good-bye to the monk, and then to the abbot of the monastery, whom I had favored with a dozen gold coins, I went to the city. Like Sanagar, Harshuta belonged to the luminous haze of the Great Wall, beyond which was the Great Desert, illuminated by the Great Sun. The gods who created all this heresy clearly suffered from megalomania. However, judging by the description of these creatures, they did not suffer from it, but enjoyed it.


    The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.


    As soon as I passed through the gates of the city, I encountered an obsequious guard, who immediately expressed a desire to help me with any issue. And since he even knew my name, it was clear that the caravanners had already spread rumors about my greatness.


    As soon as I mentioned that I was looking for Ingeus son of Ingeus, the guard told me that he knew where to look for him, and took me to some slums. There, in one of the dirty pubs, He presented to me a man drunk in trash, unable even to stand on his feet. After I was sure that this individual was really responding to Ingeus''s name, I applied a terrible punishment to him in the form of a sobering spell. And since I used the magic of Order, the effect was permanent and lifelong. From that day on, the hunter, unwittingly, became a confirmed teetotaler, because alcohol will no longer affected him.


    After a brief educational conversation with the guard, confirmed by a preventive punch to the liver, the hunter appeared before me, ready to answer any question from the great magician. The life story of this hunter was not trivial. Like many generations before him, he was born and lived in a hunting lodge near the Crystal Hills. His business was neither shaky nor swollen, but the collected plants were enough for a very comfortable life. Only two months ago in his house appeared, as he said, ''disgusting worms with tentacles instead of heads'', which literally ate his house, destroying the magical protection of that place. After that, the hunter and his family had to urgently flee to the city. They were able to take only the most necessary things with them, and all their hard-earned possessions were gone, being devoured by the hordes of zugs. Since then, the hunter began to roll on a slope to the bottom of society, drinking the last money


    When I asked about the story of the shrunken great-great-grandfather, Igneus confirmed that such a family history really exists, but he does not know where the ''magic cave'' is located. This information was so secret that it was lost a couple of generations ago. After that, I made the hunter to put mark of position of his house on my map, gave him a gold coin, and left him to make sure that he would never get drunk again.


    After that, all I had to do is go straight to the marked point on the map. Along the way, I thought about how to find the coveted cave. According to the story, the main character was absent from home for a week. Taking into account his size, he has decreased by about fifty times. In a week, he could not walk more than three hundred and fifty kilometers, which at the right scale gives a circle with a radius of seven kilometers maximum. But most likely it is a circle with a radius of four kilometers or even less. In general, not so much. Of course, it would take a lot of effort to search such a territory, but I have magic. So, I hope I will not be stuck here for long time.


    The hunter''s house was lost between ravines overgrown with thick bushes. These plants were so bitter that even zugs refused to eat them. From a height of a couple of hundred meters, it was easy to find the right place. Of course, I had to fight off the zugs along the way, but my experience of traveling with caravan was not wasted, so no creature could get to me.


    Already near the house itself, I noticed several cthulhanoids below, after which I abruptly dropped the altitude and tried to mask my energy as much as possible. After that, I crept to the ruins of the house and began to watch the creatures conducting some kind of excavation on this place. Now I have had enough time to observe cthulhanoids in ''natural habitat''. These creatures seemed to have no bones, their elongated bodies and limbs could bend at any angle in any place. In addition, their skin looked glossy, and it was covered with a disgusting slime. Because of this, the slime remained where they walked or touched something. Just by looking at those disgusting slimes I understood what I need to look for.


    Hunter talked about the ''disgusting worms'', but he described a typical cthulhanoids. By simple assumptions, it turned out that these creatures first entered the house in their true form, in the sense of size. And then they found a ''magic cave'', with which they grew larger and became comparable to a human. So, I just had to follow the slime tracks on the ground to find the place I needed.


    Around the house was ''trampled'', so even from a distance I could see where these tracks lead. I went down to the bottom of the ravine a little to the side, found the less noticeable remnants of slime and followed them, carefully looking around. Usually, zugs flew in flocks, but sometimes there were solo ones. Such ''surprises'' did not allow me to relax, forcing me to control the surroundings. Only fifteen minutes later I met a lone zug, with which there was clearly something ''wrong''. To be more precise, it was the size of an elephant.


    As soon as the beast saw me, it leaped forward, crushing the bushes with a crash. At the end of this sprint, it flapped its wings, took a long jump, and was almost got me when I met it with magic. With the increase in size, zug''s magic abilities also increased, so I couldn''t kill it with the first attack, so I had to fly back and away. But then I got used to it and burned a hole in its stupid head, after which it stopped to think about attacking, because there was nothing to think with.

 Chapter 12.12 - The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

    Taking this meeting as a favorable sign, I again headed forward, focusing on the clear traces of the multi-ton zug. Half an hour later, I reached a place where the sheer walls of another ravine parted, leaving a rounded area. And on this site now are having an epic battle of cthulhanoids with zugs. The last of them came out of a decent-sized cave in the wall of the ravine. I did not wait to find out who would win, but simply struck all of them with fire and energy of Order, burning out this nest of abomination. After making sure that there were no survivors, I went inside the cave, again focusing on the traces of slime and paws of the zugs.


    Here on the way I met several more mutated gnomes, which I incinerated almost without straining. The main thing was just to get used to it. Apart from their size and savage ferocity, the zugs had no special fighting qualities.


    The journey through the cave took almost an hour, but at last I came out, finding myself in the middle of a mountain slope near a ravine where countless swarms of flying zugs were fighting with no less countless crowds of cthulhanoids swarming on the ground. As soon as I came out into the sunlight, I immediately felt that these are the same Crystal Mountains that I needed. Apparently, the size mattered.


    I did not interfere in the battle of the two armies, but quickly slipped aside. The compass was leading me again, so I had no problem choosing my path. After running through the open area and fending off a dozen flying zugs, I dived into a small passageway in the rock. The walls were decorated with numerous designs and inscriptions from the time of the dwarves. Despite the millions of years that had passed, rune magic still worked.


    The passage I had chosen was too narrow for zugs, so that the rest of my way was safe, dark, and silent. Step by step I descended into the depths of the dwarven mines. After a while, the patterned passageways gave way to simple rectangular corridors. And even deeper, they were replaced by barely processed drifts cut through the solid rock of the mountains. An hour later, I was walking through natural caves where only occasional traces of pickaxe or magic were found.


    There was a special atmosphere in these dark and confusing years. Even in the days of the dwarves, these passageways were as old as the earth itself. It was not ruled by dwarves, but by the ancient inhabitants of the dungeons, who were always wandering around the intricate caves for purpose which be understood only by them.


    In confirmation of my thoughts, a hideous huge carcass of a stone worm crawled around the corner and immediately tried to devour me. A couple of magic strikes left this monster in rapidly decomposing fragments, and then I continued on my way.


    The further I went, the more I felt the hopelessness that permeated every stone of these endless dungeons. The compass could no longer show me the way, and I could only wander aimlessly through the natural labyrinth, repeatedly destroying the nightmarish monsters that lived here.


    I lost track of the time I spent in this realm of nightmares when luck smiled at me. In one of the passageways where I turned on a hunch, I heard the sounds of a fight and a battle cry. As I hurried forward, I saw a giant slug centipede attacking the dwarf. Yes, a very ordinary bearded dwarf with a pickaxe in his hands. I immediately rushed to his aid and with just a couple of spells turned his opponent to dust, which immediately soaked into the walls, only to be resurrected a moment later by another monster in another part of the maze.


    Oddly enough, the dwarf was not happy about the appearance of an unexpected savior and now turned his primitive weapon on me.


    "Calm down, I won''t eat you." - I tried to calm him.


    "Are you sure?" - He asked.


    "Well, if you insist, I can bite a piece off you."


    "I knew, you were just another nightmare!"


    With that, the dwarf shouted a battle cry and charged at me, swinging his pickaxe. Unfortunately, that was the end of the battle. Stone branches grew out of the cave walls and swaddled him so that he could not even move.


    "Why are you so impolite?" - I smiled maliciously, looking into his eyes. - "I''m just going to eat your heart."


    I no longer spoke the end of my speech, but shouted in a voice that struck terror into those who heard it. This phrase, and the feeling of helplessness, struck such terror into the dwarf''s heart that he yelled and... woke up. With him I also woke up and found myself in the material world.


    This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.


    Now the dwarf was lying on a stone bed, and I was looming over him. My victim opened his eyes, saw my face, and screamed loudly, kicking me with her hands and feet. As if to echo this cry, angry and frightened shouts began to be heard everywhere. I sat up and struck my head against the stone ceiling. Now I was in a room where there were many beds on which until that moment the gnomes were quietly sleeping peacefully. But when they heard the screams, they woke up, saw me, and then they start yelling as if they were dreaming about Xenomorph.


    In just a few seconds, the bravest and most reckless of the dwarves tried to attack me. But in this world, I had real magic under my control, which I didn''t hesitate to use to instantly immobilize everyone present and stop their annoying screams.


    As soon as the room was quiet, more screams were heard from the entrance, and bearded dwarves dressed in armor and armed with axes broke into the bedroom. They suffered the same fate, after which I intimidated everyone present by casting the appropriate spell on them. Then all I had to do was ask the right questions, and extract answers from the distraught dwarves. After about 24 hours I already knew everything I needed, and the dwarves accepted that they have a nightmare of dreams in their caves, with which they could do absolutely nothing.


    The dwarf I met in the dream world ended up in a dungeon with monsters for a reason, but because of the ancient curse of Other God. These dwarves were the distant descendants of the True Dwarves who went to the Crystal Mountains in their dreams. That''s only after the desecration of the dream world, the former pleasant dreams turned into deadly nightmares. When a dwarf came to this place, his soul will be consumed by nightmares, and his body will die. Because of this misfortune, the average life expectancy of a dwarves dropped to sixty years and continued to decrease.


    Following the problems in the dream, the dwarves were plagued by troubles in real life. They had lost much of their ancient knowledge, and were now simply huddled in the former mines of their ancestors. Their industry was in decline, and food was enough just to make ends meet. In addition, mountain goblins and forest orcs were not averse to eating dwarf meat, gradually driving them to the most distant and dangerous parts of the dungeons. In general, the dwarven civilization was sliding into the abyss, and they could only whine about the injustice of fate and patiently endure the adversity.


    Sympathizing to the sufferers, I made them an offer that they could not refuse. On my part, I gave them a magic firearm, plus described how to fabricate an AK-47. In return, I asked them to assign to me a party of dwarves to guide me to the Sheer Rocks, a mountain range a few hundred kilometers east of their current residence. The dwarves themselves had not been there for thousands of years, but they still had knowledge of the geography of the world around them. The most important part of my request was that the very dwarf who had dreamed of me should go on the trip. I came to this world through him, and therefore I could not move away from him for a long time.


    Seeing my weapon in action, the dwarves immediately agreed to all conditions. If it was necessary, they would even agree to sacrifice the entire squad to the creatures of Chaos, because I gave them not some kind of swords or crossbows, but real machine guns that can turn into bullets any materials and shoot with them, accelerating to the speed of a kilometer per second. Of course, this weapon was powered by a charge of magic in its storage devices, but it was also possible to sacrifice someone to use its soul as a source of energy.


    As a result, a hundred magic assault rifles remained in the dwarves'' caves, and with me went a squad of thirty kamikaze, armed not only with machine guns, but also with grenade launchers, pistols, and flamethrowers that hurled charges of thermite mixture. This arsenal of dwarves should have been enough to start fighting back dungeons and gradually master their own production of firearms, just by of using the simplest rune magic, they were able to quickly start the production of smokeless gunpowder based on nitrocellulose.


    When our party reached the surface, I found out something unpleasant for myself. My dream body could not walk under sunlight. I was like a vampire in that respect. We had to go back so that I could create a completely sealed armor of blued metal. I didn''t even have to invent anything special, because the dwarves already had such an armor in their cache, which had previously been a ''shell'' for a magic golem. In exchange for this scrap metal, I told the dwarves the idea of an internal combustion engine and heavy armored vehicles, capable of levelling the whole settlement of orcs with the force of a dozen dwarves on five tanks.


    After that, we returned to the surface again, where I conducted a ''field test'' of my new clothes. Then, our team moved through the mountains in the right direction, simultaneously destroying all encountered creatures. Orcs, goblins, humans, trolls, werewolves, vampires, centaurs, and other vermin were scattered into bloody mincemeat as soon as they entered into our line of sight. Pretty quickly, all weapons received a constant supply of magic from the enslaved souls of opponents, after which the dwarves could shoot in all directions, without limiting the consumption of ammunition. Lead, tungsten, and vanadium were stored for particularly persistent opponents, and all other trash they shot with steel bullets, which though did not have a great penetration power, but this disadvantage was compensated by high initial speed and barrage fire to suppression.

 Chapter 12.13 - The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

    After our detachment came out of the mountains to the plains, I introduced the dwarves in such a miracle of engineering thought as an AFV (Armored Fighting Vehicle). However, in our case, the AFV was designed for comfortable transportation of thirty passengers, so the resulting monster was truly huge. But its eight giant wheels allowed it to overcome any obstacles, including swamps and rivers.


    With the use of technology, our speed of movement has hugely increased. However, the average speed of movement to the target did not change much, because the dwarves decided to ''test drive'' the AFV on the way in combat conditions, by destroying all villages of intelligent beings that they only managed to find. Against massive artillery and mortar fire, no magic helped, and the opponents of the dwarves for a place in the sun went ''to the fields of eternal hunting''.


    In general, everything in front of us was trembling, and behind us it was burning. So, leaving behind a trail of burned villages and cities, we arrived in the vicinity of the desired Sheer Rocks. This poetic name was given to a high chain of snow-capped mountains where the people with wings lived. These mountains were called Sheer, because they rose to a great height with almost no foothills, which is why their snow peaks were visible at a great distance.


    Along the mountain range stretched the path of an ancient road, built by the dwarves in ancient times. It used to look more like a high wall rising above the plain. Over the years, dust and vegetation had raised the level of the plain by tens of meters, but still the road rose above it, cleared of dust and debris by powerful runic magic.


    We had to drive along this road for about five kilometers before we reached a special convention where we could climb to it. Here the dwarves found a whole slab, in which were carved the names of the builders of this road and explained how and why it was made.


    While the bearded men were jumping around this archaeological find, I looked up at the sky, where I saw a lone winged human scout. And about half an hour later, when the dwarves had calmed down a little, a whole procession of people dressed in colorful armor and armed with bows came down from the sky.


    "According to the decree of our king Mirshitonrun 119, everyone who uses this road must pay a tribute to the Winged People in the amount of a tithe of the value of the goods transported.¡± ¨C The messenger proudly announced, naively believing that a distance of ten meters allows him to be safe from ''stupid shorties''.


    Before I could respond to this statement, the leader of the dwarves responded. Usually, he handled all current problems, so this time he decided that this problem with feathered upstarts does not worth my attention.


    ¡°Listen to me, bird. This road was built by dwarves for dwarves, and it''s written right here. You have no right to demand anything from dwarves for passing through their property. So, get out of here, stupid chicken, before I pluck your feathers.¡±


    The dwarf did not know this, but in his speech, he twice managed to fatally insult Winged People who could not tolerate comparisons with chickens, and plucking feathers was considered as a most shameful form of punishment. So, the ''hot mountain dweller'' did not hesitate to respond to these insults, and quickly pulled a bow from his shoulder and began to draw an arrow. Unfortunately, this was the end of his success, because the entire group of parliamentarians had long been under the gun of machine guns and AFV. So as soon as his intentions became clear, the winged man''s body was literally torn to shreds by bullets. A few seconds later, the same fate befell the rest of the delegation.


    I sighed woefully and turned my gaze to the sky, where the ''support group'' was hovering, now flying away at full speed towards the mountains. Actually, these Winged People were my target. I had to get into their dream to get through it to the next ''checkpoint''. Unfortunately, dwarves had killed all potential victims of my nightmares, which meant that, now I need to show myself to another group of Winged People.


    I made a suggestion to my companions, made them get inside the AFV, and waited for developments, looking up at the sky. The development of event did not take long, because an hour later a whole cloud appeared from the mountains, consisting of Winged People who were going to punish the wingless aggressors. During this time, I had already interrogated the soul of one of the parliamentarians, so I knew that such a reaction was natural. If the winged people met resistance, they flew to war with all their people. Men and women, soldiers and peasants, children and old people, all gathered in one pack, and then swooped down on the enemy, overwhelming them with their numbers and fury.


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    This strategy worked well enough, because knowing about it, none of the inhabitants of the plains risked bullying winged maniacs. But this time the nut was too big for them. Although this race had magic, like all the magic of this world, it was quite weak. Moreover, most of the winged people''s magical abilities were focused on maintaining themselves in air. Therefore, in battle, they preferred to use bows and spears, just throwing them to opponents from a safe height.


    But in this case, arrows and spears could not even scratch the armor or break through the reinforced rubber of the wheels. At the same time, a cannon and two remote-controlled machine guns mounted on the roof of the AFV could destroy any targets at altitudes less than one kilometer. So, the denser the packs of the attackers, easier it was for the dwarves to kill them. A few hours later, I even had to order to start firing with rubber bullets so as not to kill all the winged people of this world.


    In the end, half an hour before sunset, the remnants of the flying army moved away, leaving more than ninety percent of their race on the battlefield. I couldn''t call it as a war, because it was more like a mass suicide. What is most ridiculous, the highest ranks, who control the actions of the army, did not get into battle, and therefore survived.


    When night had fallen and the stupid chickens fell asleep in their nests, I gave the order to the dwarves to return home after sunrise, and I rushed to the mountains. There, under cover of darkness, I slipped into the bedroom of Mirshitonrun 119, and then I entered into his dream. I needed a Royal Blood bearer with access to a special area of the Dream World that he was supposed to guard. Unfortunately, like the rest of the world, the dream-walking tradition of this race had fallen into disrepair, so that the rooster could not resist my influence. So after just five minutes of torment and nightmares, he gave in to my persuasions and moved to the place I wanted in the Dream World.


    Star Dust Abode was a small mountain valley lost in an endless sea of clouds. Here live the remnants of the once great people of the Winged People. Only here in the Dream World they still remember the former greatness of their race, while in the real world their descendants had degenerated to the level of anthropomorphic chickens with chicken brains. The representative of the ''Royal Dynasty'' who brought us here was also not distinguished by the presence of brains, so immediately after our appearance in this place, he began to yell to the entire neighborhood, calling for help. I had to carry out my threat and send his soul to the demons. Considering that all of his direct descendants died in this afternoon, the Royal line was completely cut off. However, this is not my problem.


    Meanwhile, in the Dream World, I was surrounded by a crowd of Winged People, bristling with various piercing-cutting equipment.


    ¡°Let''s make a deal.¡± - I made an attempt to hold peaceful dialog. - "You let me get away from here, and in return I''ll leave you alive."


    ¡°You pathetic wingless worm. Your life will end here.¡±


    Alas, all the representatives of the flying kings were quite quarrelsome, so they responded to my generous offer with threats, which they immediately began to execute. Of course, among the local inhabitants exist quite strong magicians working with the forces of Order, but I had already changed ''magic orientation'' and met them with a powerful flow of Chaos energy. As I suspected, none of the attackers managed to cope with such gift, so this world suddenly lost its entire population. Chaos energy literally dissolved everything and everyone.


    I miscalculated my efforts a little bit, and after my attack, this whole place began to fall apart, dissolving into the clouds. Fortunately, I was able to start walking on the right Path and moved on rainbow road, not caring at all about the fate of this stupid winged race and their heritage, whatever it was.


    My further movement took place in very picturesque places. The rainbow road led me through the clouds from one flying island to another. It is not surprising that the winged people had dreamed of such a place. There was no ground underfoot, and even flying islands could hardly calm the fear of heights because of its small size.


    After about a week, I am pretty tired of all these ''heavenly beauty'' around me and caused only irritation with their too bright colors. But before I got bored, a huge flying island appeared on the horizon, the entire surface of which was occupied by a beautiful shining city. When I got to its snow-white walls, I was able to plunge into the atmosphere of a real developed civilization, more suitable not to this fantasy world, but to some Star Wars world.


    The point was that not only people walked on streets of the city, but also other very strange creatures of completely unimaginable shapes and colors. Some of them were walking, some were flying, others were swimming, pretending that there is water around them. And all this panopticon was hurrying somewhere, negotiating something and for something bargaining. The guards at the entrance to the city enlightened me that this topographical element of the area is neutral territory and is under the protection of Ethereum the great spirit of the Dream World. It was forbidden to attack residents and visitors of the city under any pretext. And the penalty for such a violation was a meeting with the Lord of the city, which was hard to survive.


    Armored Fighting Vehicle <input class="spoilerButton" type="button" value="Show">

 Chapter 12.14 - The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

    Most interestingly, I saw on the streets not only representatives of the forces of Order or neutral beings, but also real demons of Chaos, who did not hide their characteristic aura. I decided to walk around the city and see what people live here. Considering a lot of products, I didn''t understand, this place was quite interesting, and it was possible to stay here for a while.


    So, wandering through the streets of the city, I came to a small square with a fountain, where I unexpectedly met ... Keldrun. The same hunter who had fallen into the sea of darkness, suddenly emerged from the crowd and greeted me as if nothing had happened and asked how I was doing. I was not happy with this turn of the story at all. Especially considering the fact that this individual''s previously piercing blue eyes had suddenly turned coal black, so that it was impossible to even distinguish the pupil from the iris. The subsequent request to be my companion again did not surprise me.


    Seems, there something very bad-smelling was being planned here, so I decided to play with my unexpectedly resurrected acquaintance, and then take him to the edge of the city, where I could kill him quietly. In his quest to portray my best friend, Keldrun was too intrusive, so I already started to think about finishing him off right here so as not to burden my fragile psyche.


    During all this talk, I did not notice that I agreed to go to a shop where a former hunter saw something very interesting. When I noticed the ''seller'', I realized this was the purpose of whole circus. The seller in the store was a typical cthulhanoid, which radiated with the energy of Chaos. Not pure, but some kind of distorted. I could even say Filth Chaos.


    The vile creature approached me and stretched out a disgusting piece of slime with a black maggot inside, obsessively trying to put it in my hands. And when the cthulhanoid tried to poke this abomination in my chest, I immediately used the force of Order to destroy the presumptuous creature.


    Keldrun from this development of event at first frightened, and then somehow strangely pleased. After a few seconds, I understood what was going on. On the street, just outside the door of the store, there appeared a spiritual being of great power, in which I recognized the image of the same Ethereum that ruled this city.


    "How dare you break my law?" ¨C The spirit roared, literally destroying front wall of the store to look at me.


    "I was defending myself.¡± - I answered, staring boldly in response. - "He wanted to infect me with some kind of Chaos creature.¡±


    As proof of my words, with telekinesis I picked up the same piece of slime with a maggot inside and showed it to the spirit.


    ¡°It doesn''t matter!!! The law is the law!¡± - Ethereum yelled even louder, waving his tentacles. Although his whole appearance is radiating with light and Order energy, his body shape would have been more suited to some creature of Chaos. ¨C ¡°Come forward and accept your punishment!¡±


    The screams of this overgrown amoeba were literally screwing into my virtual brain, so I didn''t immediately notice that the parasite in my soul was reacting strangely to the piece of slime hanging in front of me. Now the emotions it radiated were like a cat seeing its kitten outside the window which need of protection.


    "Is that your relative?" - I asked the parasite, ignoring hovering in front of me the huge body of Ethereum.


    In response, I received a complex image, from which it was possible to understand that the embryo was a distant and defective relative of the parasite, which it wanted to take care of, giving more strength and a normal host. The images of the angry Lord of the city and the embryo overlapped, and I instantly formed a plan of action.


    I slightly opened the seal that restrained the parasite, so it could stick out one of its tentacles. With a swift and imperceptible movement, parasite touched the embryo, and then gave me the image of completing of its part of the work. And then I took a step forward, sort of agreeing with the requirements of the Ethereum, and then shoved the embryo directly into Lord¡¯s ''divine'' carcass.


    All this operation was so rapid and spontaneous that the ruler of the city did not even have time to react. Of course, the spirit¡¯s body was covered by various kinds of magic shields, but the enhanced embryo passed through them without even noticing. After that, the embryo slid into the depths of the great spirit¡¯s soul, and it yelled a wild howl filled with horror and hopelessness.


    This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    ¡°A-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a!!!!!!!¡± - This creature roared, as if decided to take revenge on me by drilling my brain with his scream. - "How dare you?!!!" - And this question was addressed to me. But I could clearly read fear as well as anger in his emotions. He was afraid of me, not of the embryo parasite that had penetrated into his soul.


    "I just showed you what the clerk of this store wanted to do to me." - I said innocently. - "According to your statement, it doesn''t violate any laws or regulations. Is there any problem with your new symbiont? Are you dissatisfied with something?¡±


    After such question, Ethereum suddenly shut up and almost grayed. At least his appearance had turned deathly pale. Looks like he knew very well what kind of pig I had just gave to him.


    "Get out of town.¡± - Ethereum wheezed, then disappeared as suddenly as he had appeared.


    I mentally took a breath, then grabbed prostrated Keldrun by the scruff of his neck and dragged him to the exit of the city. He was so shocked that he didn''t even think to resist. The people in the streets also looked at me with horror in their eyes, parting at my approach and opening road to me. So, in silence, surrounded by awe and reverence, I reached the gate and stepped on the Path that led to the right direction. All this time, the parasite watched insidiously from its lair, spreading emotions of pleasure from a well-run scam.


    About half an hour later, when I little calmed down from this incredible story, I stopped on one of the small flying islands and turned my attention to Keldrun, who was responsible for the fact that I was almost killed by some arrogant amoeba.


    "So, talk." - I ordered to him, releasing his scruff of his jacket from my grip.


    "Oh, Kruger, don''t ruin me! I beg your grace.¡± ¨C He fell on his knees.


    "It''s a little late for that." - I crossed my arms over my chest in a pose of insulted innocence.


    "I didn''t know you were the carrier of the Who-Must-Not-Be-Named!" - This oaf yelled again, making my ears to rang. ¨C ¡°Please, show mercy!!!¡±


    "Talk." - I ordered again.


    The tearful story that was poured on me was quite banal. After falling into the sea of darkness, in fact appeared the very Filth, Keldrun was captured by cthulhanoids. At first, they simply tortured him for the love of art, then they were impressed by his stories about me and the reports of their spies about how I had dealt with the ambush on the caravan. Knowing that Ulthar would be my final destination, these creatures figured out that I would pass through the city of Ethereum, where they decided to set a trap for me.


    The cthulhanoid that attacked me was a kamikaze from the beginning. He had to either plant the embryo of Filth in me, or provoke me to an ''unmotivated'' attack, after which Ethereum bribed by them had to sentence me again to infection with embryo of Filth. But I had confused all plans of the cthulhanoids, so now the hunter had to be with me and play the role of their agent. And in fact, this corrupt creature began to beg me to save him from his new owners, who promised to expose his soul to endless torment if he fails of the operation.


    After listening to all this nonsense, I calmed tearful hunter.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry. I know how to save you from the power of these creatures of Filth.¡±


    ¡°Really? Will you do it?¡± - He shined with hope.


    ¡°Of course. To save you from these creatures of distorted Chaos, you must be sacrificed to the inhabitants of original Chaos."


    With these words, I pulled the steel blades out of my right hand and stuck them in Keldrun¡¯s heart. With misunderstood look he stared at my hand, and then his eyes widened in horror as he realized the meaning of my words. A second later, his soul went to feed the demons of Chaos, so that they would always hiccup in the dark.


    My further journey to Ulthar was not marred by any problems or difficulties. I was just walking along a rainbow road through the clouds. After a while, the road turned into a yellow brick road that wound through picturesque fields and forests, past villages and towns. This area was surprisingly similar to the usual material world, pleasing its inhabitants with a flourishing agricultural economy. Unencumbered by the presence of all sorts of companions, I flew over the road at my maximum speed, passing all those who needed help and support from random travelers. Some particularly zealous individuals even tried to catch me on the fly, at the same time begging for help, but not being able to slow down the passage of time, they had no chance of doing so.


    That''s how I arrived to Ulthar, the image of which shine in my mind. Only when I landed on the outskirts of this small town, I realized that my journey had gone somewhat beyond the time frame that planned by Being. However, as they say, better late than never. As my fifth point told me, if I had come here earlier, I would have had a lot more problems.


    I walked along the streets of the city slowly, trying to fully enjoy the unforgettable atmosphere.


    Spoiler: Images <input class="spoilerButton" type="button" value="Show">


    Cthulhanoid:


    Ethereum:

 Chapter 12.15 - The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

    The most amazing and attractive feature of this city was, of course, cats. They ran, lay, sat, played, and washed, creating an irresistible image of endless kawai. Unable to resist, I sat down on a small stone parapet near the road and began to stroke the kitten that came under my hands. Seeing her stunned face, other cats began to collect around me, also wanting attention and affection. Ten minutes later I sat surrounded by an affectionate purring army, which pleased me with one look, not to mention a soft fur and velvety purring.


    Suddenly, a guy about eighteen years old approached to me, and addressed to me in a concerned voice.


    "Traveler, you are in danger! These incarnations of the wild kawai seek to subdue you. If you don''t come to your senses, you will spend the rest of eternity stroking them, scratching their tummy, and carrying them in your arms and performing all their whims. Traveler, I''m willing to sacrifice my life for your future. Don''t miss this chance. Run!


    With these words, the boy spread his arms and fell flat on his back on the ground. The cats that sat next to me immediately jumped on him and began to rub, purring and licking their prey. I looked to freed ''path to salvation'', looked at the cat lying on my hand, and ... continued scratching its throat. Heroic sacrifice deed of my ''saviour'' was lost when more cats gathered around.


    Finally, after a few hours, I satisfied my passion for feline tenderness, carefully put the cats hanging on me to the side, then flew to the boy and dug him out from under a whole purring blanket. The happy face of this ''savior'' said that he did not want to be saved.


    ¡°You still need to grow above yourself to develop immunity to the all-consuming kawai.¡± - I told him, putting him on the ground in a place where the concentration of cats per square meter was minimal. Even so, as soon as he regained consciousness, one of the cats jumped into his arms and demanded to be caressed.


    "Thank you, traveler.¡± - The boy nodded, accepting the position of cat caresser and beginning to perform his duty. - "I will remember your iron will, so that one day I may be as great as you."


    I just laughed at this statement.


    "My name is Minakis" - The guy said.


    ¡°Freddy Krueger. Tell me, Minakis, where in this city can I find the Eternal Seeress?"


    "Eternal Seeress?" ¨C He re-asked. ¨C ¡°Never heard of it. There are no seers, fortune-tellers, or clairvoyants in our city. The only thing that Ulthar is famous for is cats and the fact that very strange people sometimes stay in the local hotel... like you.¡±


    "Hmm¡­" - I grunted discontentedly.


    "I think if you''re looking for someone, you''d better ask Atal, the priest of the Weak Gods, about them. You can find him in the temple on the main square of the city.¡± - Added boy, after a bit thinking.


    "Thank you for your advice.¡± - I smiled, watching as the cat enjoy in the hands of the interlocutor. After that, I mercilessly turned around and left him to languish in eternal slavery of these furry, heartless creatures.


    The temple and the priest were found quickly enough. Actually, it was difficult to make a mistake, because the temple was the most visible building in the square, and the priest was the only person in the temple. Actually, the temple was a small rectangular structure, inside which there was only one large hall. There were several benches and a large white altar, next to which sat a priest dressed in a typical Greek chlamydia.


    "Hello, are you Atal?" - I asked a man who was reading a book. He closed his Talmud and turned his gaze on me.


    ¡°Yes. What can I do for you?"


    "I need to meet the Eternal Seeress."


    "Well, she said you will come. Follow me."


    Putting the book aside, Atal rose from the bench and walked to the altar. Going behind it, he pressed on an invisible ledge, and a passage opened in the altar, from which the spirit of mystery and mystique wafted. After descending the stairs, we wandered for some time through a tangled labyrinth of dungeons.


    "Seeress doesn''t like uninvited guests?" - I asked, looking around and memorizing the road.


    "You can meet her only if she wants to." - The priest agreed. - "That''s the deal.¡±


    What the deal was, who and with whom, he tactfully omitted. After a couple of minutes, we finally came to a doorway curtained with a frayed rag. Pushing this peculiar door aside, I entered a small room. Inside I saw an elderly woman sitting at a low table. The walls of the room were lined with cabinets and shelves piled high with various kinds of junk. Mostly it was all sorts of small trinkets, such as amulets ''for good luck'' or ''to protect against the evil eye''. After a quick look around the room, I sat down on a low pouf just opposite the table. The priest remained outside, so I could get right to the point.


    Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.


    ¡°Good day.¡± - I greeted her. - "Being told me to give you this item as payment for certain services.¡± - I gave order to the parasite, and it pushed out a glowing ball, which landed neatly on the table and turned into a dried piece of something very disgusting to look at.


    ¡°Heart of the Phoenix.¡± ¨C Seeress nodded sympathetically. She picked up my ''gift'', examined it, and then without looking threw it behind her somewhere in the bowels of the cabinet standing there. - "This is what Being wanted to buy.¡±


    She raised her hand like a boat and blew on it, and a stream of luminous fluff fell from her hand, which gathered into another luminous ball, shimmering with a mysterious flickering light. It hung in front of me, pretending to be a laser show balloon, because the colored lights it emitted were running erratically around the walls of the room.


    "What is it?" - I asked.


    ¡°These are the coordinates of the location where a powerful game figure has imprisoned which belongs to Being now.¡±


    "Did Being want know these coordinates?" - I puzzled asked. There was clearly a pitfall.


    "Why would a Player need that?" - The woman laughed. ¨C ¡°It knows perfectly well where its game pieces are located. Moreover, Being personally imprisoned this game figure. However, at that moment it did not belong to Being.¡±


    Cockroaches start run fast in my head, making simple calculations. If Being doesn''t need this information, then I need it. Well, at least that''s what it thinks. And considering its hints about my proactive initiative, it becomes clear that Being wants me to release this figure. However, Being cannot or does not have right to openly issue such order. It can only count on my initiative. Here''s a tricky bug.


    "Can you tell me about this place?" - I nodded at the shining ball, carefully picking it up and wondering what to do with it next.


    "There are many souls in the Universe whose power does not allow them to be imprisoned so easily, and it is wasteful to simply destroy them.¡± ¨C Seeress start her story. - "A special prison was created for such rebels. This city in the Dream World is named as Unknown Kadath. As you can see, ordinary magic doesn''t work in the dream world. Moreover, in Kadath does not work any type of magic ... except for the magic of probabilities. Purpose of this prison is to keep souls of the greatest criminals, geniuses, and idiots. The rules of this place are such that it is almost impossible to reach there. The only way is to use Stargate by dialing a special address on it. Time in prison flows in a circle, so you can get to Kadath only once. Even the gods can''t get there twice. To free someone, you need to get to the captive and find a key to open the cage. There aren''t many strong probability mages in the world, and no one will let them to wander around this prison. Well, exit from the Unknown Kadath is quite simple. All you need to do is use Stargate again to move to another place in the dream world.¡±


    After listening to this detailed explanation, I even felt a little ashamed. She told everything which I had to do, step by step... by my own initiative, yeah. Well, since I''m here, I need to extract maximum benefit from this situation. Before me a person who clearly knows quite a lot. I don''t think Being will be offended if I ''at its expense'' ask a few questions.


    ¡°Can you tell me what kind of parasite is registered in my soul, and how to get rid of it?¡± - I asked my most vital question.


    The woman smiled sadly and shook her head.


    "Do you know who Cthulhu is?" - She answered the question to my question.


    ¡°Uh-uh¡­¡± - I was taken aback by the unexpected change of topic of conversation. - "It''s a huge sea monster that sleeps at the bottom of the sea. And when it wakes up, it will destroy the whole world." ¨C I said known history.


    "That''s not quite true.¡± - Seeress shook her head. - "You''re only talking about the most famous Cthulhu, the very first of them. Cthulhu is not a name, but a position. This is what the priests of Azathoth are called. This greatest of the Other Gods dwells in the very depths of Chaos and endlessly devours worlds and their inhabitants. But sometimes Azathoth wants to eat something delicious, and then his priests will come to aid to Azathoth. They grab the souls of mortals and hand them over to their master. Initially, the priests of Azathoth were his devoted followers. But his insatiable hunger led to the fact that most of the priests were devoured by him even before they had time to sacrifice someone. And then the Great God of Chaos, the all-powerful Azathoth, began to separate parts of himself, making them his priests. When such Cthulhu devours a soul, it goes straight to the stomach of Azathoth, where the rest of eternity will be digested. However, these separated parts are not enough smart, so, they are placed in the soul of the hosts, who must decide who is worthy to be sacrificed to Other God, and who is not. As you understand, Azathoth is the most powerful god in the universe. Only the Lord of the Order, Yog-Sothoth, can compare with him. Knowing this power, no one will agree to help you get rid of Cthulhu in your soul. After all, this will be a direct insult of Azathoth and a manifestation of rebellion against the Higher Powers. Any such attempt will end only with the fact that Azathoth personally devours the insolent, using the separate part of himself. I hope, are you understand that now?"


    Spoiler: Images <input class="spoilerButton" type="button" value="Show">


    Azathoth:


    Cthulhu:


    Yog-Sothoth:


    Yog-Sothoth:

 Chapter 12.16 - The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

    From the asked question I got goosebumps. Yes, now I understand everything. Apparently, my attitude to this whole situation was on my face, because Seeress added.


    "However, in your case, it''s not so bad. You got your Cthulhu when Azathoth decided to participate in one of the games as a source of superpowers. He voluntarily committed himself to follow the rules of the Game, so as long as you participate in the next game, he will not devour you. In addition, you can listen to the mood of your symbiont. If he''s not happy with you, then you''re going to break the rules of the Game. If he is watching you, it means that your game has attracted divine attention of Azathoth, and you must continue to make every effort to win. Well, when your time comes... it is quite possible that Azathoth will allow you to live on and amuse him with your actions.¡±


    Yes, a great prospect, what to say. I don''t have any words, just swears. Well, at least now I have a free sensor of the ''legality'' of my actions. If Azathoth doesn''t mind if I release a game figure, then who will dare challenge his decision? And such scam as the release of a prisoner from the most secure prison in the universe will not pass by his attention.


    "Well, thank you for your answer.¡± - I nodded.


    ¡°You are welcome.¡± - Eternal Seeress smiled. ¨C ¡°I will answer to any questions about the future and the past. However, according to the agreement, I do this only in exchange for the appropriate fee. Your today questions were paid by Being using the Phoenix¡¯s heart. If you ever decide to visit me again, you should save something valuable, like your tails.¡±


    Uh, what? My tails are dear to me as a memory. Anyway, I get a hint, so I''m going to wrap it up.


    I grabbed the glowing ball with coordinates and placed it in my mind. Since it was just a set of information, the ''copying'' went smoothly. However, as with other Stargate addresses, my address was disposable and had to be erased after use. So, I put all received information in a completely isolated area of memory, so that it would not erase anything necessary along the way.


    After saying good-bye to Seeress, I threw back the cloth that covered the entrance, went outside, and squinted in the bright sunlight. It took me a few seconds to remember that I was actually supposed to be in the dungeon. When I turned around, there were no doors behind me. Only the solid wall of a house.


    As I walked down the street, I began to plan my next move. To be honest, I didn''t want to put my head in lion''s mouth. But I didn''t have much choice. If it''s not Cthulhu, then Being will devour me. And I don''t know what''s better. I stopped in the middle of the street and looked at the cats playing in the shade of a tree, then I gave up and went to the furry hunters. Being¡¯s quest is not going to run anywhere. I''m sick of running around with my tongue out. So, I''ll take a little vacation in Ulthar.


    With that thought in mind, I lay down on the grass and watched the cats. A couple of kittens immediately chose me as a means of camouflage, behind which they could hide from the ''prey''. However, I myself turned out to be a ''predator'' and caught one of the most impudent kittens to caress and cuddle. While I was having fun, in such a simple way relieving stress, there was some commotion on the streets of the city. Someone was running somewhere, shouting something, but I didn''t pay attention to it, immersing myself in my world of entertainment.


    After a few hours, the sun set, the evening twilight came, and the furry predators went out to hunt. Surprisingly, there were a lot of mice and birds in the bushes and grass, which the cats caught and devoured whole and in parts. Some particularly brave of the cats tried to hunt me, but as punishment for such an attempt, they were subjected to forced groping, after which the ''hunters'' ran away from me in upset feelings from the realization of my superiority over them.


    Only after about a week later that I felt rested enough to continue completing of the ''epic difficulty level quest''. During this time, all incomprehensible fuss around calmed down and the city again turned into a sleepy kingdom of cats.


    I got up from the grass and headed for the nearest forest. A couple of curious cats followed me. I caught one of the ''spies'' and carried it on my arms listening to its purring. In the forest about half an hour''s walk from the city, I found a small clearing and used the magic of Order to create a real Stargate with the design of the Ancients. However, there was no ''dialer'', because the address had to be entered by magic.


    After making sure that the Stargate meets the ''specification'', I released the cat, moved a few meters away and used the address of the Unknown Kadath. I heard some shouting from behind, but I ignored them and went quickly through the portal.


    I stepped out of a circle of light shining inside another portal device that looked suspiciously like the same Stargate designed by the Ancients. I was standing on a stone platform with a colonnade around it. The place looked deserted and desolate. The sky was hidden by clouds, and the land was dry and barren. As far as eye could see, all around was dotted with strange glowing crystals, inside which froze all sorts of ''prisoners''.


    I went ahead, following the path indicated in the Seeress''s message, while examining the contents of the stasis traps. As I''d been warned, magic didn''t work here. Even the Chaos and the Order was unavailable to me. But the design of the stasis installations looked suspiciously like the works of the Ancients. Most likely, the Ancients copied the design from even older samples of technology. And now I could observe the very original standard of appearance of ''ancient and advanced technology''.


    To my surprise, the stasis traps contained not only living things, but also various kinds of artifacts. Each ''prisoner'' was accompanied by a plaque with a brief description of his name, achievements, and the crime for which he was here. And if I passed by all sorts of monsters without much interest, the ''divine artifacts'' my greed insistently offered to ''release'' and use for my own purposes.


    As I remember Being said, that if I did the job, I could get a reward. It did not promise to reward me, but only spoke of such a possibility. So, I should ''take the initiative'' and take the award my myself. Isn''t that what''s expected from me? I asked this question to the parasite, but it ignored me as usual. Well, let''s assume that everything that is not forbidden is allowed.


    In a few hours I reached the place I wanted. I was not bored on the way, because I felt like I was in a museum. The exhibits were very interesting, and I was not in a hurry, reading the texts on the tablets and considering the most interesting specimens.


    My target was a pretty girl. Her figure and face were perfect. Only large curved horns on her head a little spoiled the image of ideal concubine, leathery wings behind the back and a thin black tail with a ''heart'' at the end. But what surprised me most was her weapon. It was like a bazooka like size of her. It was clearly high-tech. However, while we are in dream world, it was only an image. And in this place, the weapon wasn''t supposed to work at all.


    Photo: <input class="spoilerButton" type="button" value="Show">


    I glanced at the sign attached to the exhibit and read the text.


    ¡®Zinovia Reinhardt. Game figure. Won ninety-nine high-ranked games in a row. Sentenced for promising to shove her spiritual weapon into Yog-Sothoth¡¯s ass''.


    Ha-ha-ha!!! An excellent reason to imprison absolute champion. I can feel a hand of experienced schemers. But to win ninety-nine games is pretty good. I participated in sixteen, but only one of them was ranked.


    I sat down and started to study the stasis device. It had a small screen and keyboard. After a quick run through the options, I found that to disable the trap, I need to enter the correct password, despite the fact that the password itself was changed at intervals of a thousand times in a second. So, it was necessary or to able to enter a twenty-digit number in less than millisecond, or... predict the desired combination in advance and enter the last digit at a certain point in time.


    Now I understand why a probability mage is required. I could not directly influence the future, but I still had an experience of viewing and choosing the right options of future. Although this was a dream world, the laws of this place formed a certain reality, and predicting the future here was quite possible.


    I sat down in a comfortable position and meditated on my options for the future. The task, of course, was not an easy one. Password selection was complicated by the fact that each time you click on the button, the entered number affected the generation of future passwords, which made the selection of the desired combination even more difficult. The number of possible futures was so vast that any normal wizard would have gone mad just trying to view them. But I am not normal mage, so, I immediately asked myself: if gods want to release some prisoner, will they sit here and guess a password?


    It was obvious that a normal god would consider it below his dignity. Which means it''s much simpler. There is a single password that picks itself during the process of typing it on the keyboard. So here I either had to know the correct code in advance, or just see a future event where the code is typed by itself, just because it needs to be typed. Here the chances of guessing the password are quite simple. Either I guess it or I don''t. Fifty - fifty. Without another second''s hesitation, I began to type the code based on my intuition. After all, I''ve watched Alex Browning''s actions long enough to understand how it''s done. And he was the chosen Probability Wizard who never made mistakes.


    Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    After a few seconds, the stasis device beeped softly and shut down. A glowing crystal ''slowly melted¡¯, releasing its filling.


    ¡°Hi.¡± - I greeted Zinovia, standing up to my feet. ¨C ¡°I am Atman. Your boss is calling you to work.¡±


    She crunched her neck as she examining me and my surroundings, then shifted her grip on her weapon and stepped off stand of the stasis device.


    "Who''s our boss now?" - She asked unexpectedly in a harsh voice. That''s not what you expect from a girl whose appearance screams like ''take me''.


    ¡°Being.¡±


    "What kind of being?" - Girl did not understand me.


    "A Being of the highest order, whose greatness your primitive mind is simply unable to perceive.¡± - I literally repeated the phrase that the owner of this name told me.


    "Ah, that Being. Such a tricky bug. He personally put me here.¡±


    "Do you know him?"


    ¡°We know each other. By the way, not the worst player option. At least he does not give obviously impossible tasks, plus does not bother with his advice and teachings, what and how to do.¡±


    "Yes, it''s about him.¡± - I agreed, looking at the almost naked figure of my colleague.


    ¡°Well, come on, let¡¯s start.¡± - Zinovia demanded.


    "Start what?" - I did not understand.


    "Let''s start demanding that since you''ve freed me, I have to give myself to you right here and now."


    To be honest, I had this thought in my head. But the situation and the environment were not quite disposed to such a development of events.


    "Maybe some other time." - I refused. - "I''d love to fuck you, but I don''t see the point of having sex in Dream World. It''s all simple dream. One visibility all around.¡±


    "Are you doing me a favor?" - The girl got angry, believably playing out the offended innocence. - "Do you think I want that so much?"


    "Yes, that''s what I think.¡± - I said hastily. - "Let''s get out of here."


    The girl cutely pouted her lips and went towards the portal, erotically wagging her ass.


    "Can you get out of here by yourself?" - I shouted after her.


    ¡°I''ll figure it out.¡± - She answered irritably.


    Well, no one pulled her tongue. I think I''ll stay here and pick up my reward. I went in the opposite direction, away from the portal. As the results of observations showed, the farther into the forest, the thicker the guerrillas. I mean, with each step, the exhibits in the museum around became more advanced and promising.


    Now there were not only working stasis installations, but also inactive ones. I also carefully avoided them. I would not like to ''get caught'' in one of the traps simply by negligence. Being will explode with laughing from such ending. In such case I am sure that no one will save me from here.


    So, gradually moving forward, I came to a territory where something similar to the remnants of the world from which the prison was made. There was nothing in the vicinity of the portal at all, except for the clustered stasis installations. And then there were some ruins, half-rotted stumps and just rough terrain. The ''stasis installations'' themselves were also met much less often, hiding from eyes of passers-by behind all sorts of obstacles.


    Once again, looking around the horizons opening to me, I noticed more or less preserved ruins about a kilometer away. Interested, I headed straight to them, only taking in the contents of the surrounding traps out of the corner of my eye.


    The ruins were fairly well preserved. To be more precise, it was not even a ruin, but an unfinished temple, which was missing a roof and part of the walls. At least I didn''t see any signs of structural collapse. Everything was clean and tidy, which was somewhat out of the image of those ruins that I had seen before.


    Going inside the temple, I saw another stasis trap. Only here it was standing on a pedestal, almost as an object of worship. Looking around, I saw inscriptions carved in stone on the next wall. Usually, in the dream world, I could easily read and speak any language. But this language was not included in the list of ''auto-translator''. But I knew it on my own. These were the writings of the Nerubians. Even in the world of intelligent spiders, this language was considered as ''dead'' and used only for ritual purposes and important events. But since I had copies of all the knowledge from the spider library in my head, there was also a dictionary combined with a simple grammar book.


    The text on the wall was rather archaic and sonorous, but I managed to read most of it. It said that the image of the Flame of Nothingness reflected in the Dream World has imprisoned in this temple. Despite the fact that it was only a memory of what the original flame looked like, the power of the last petal of the Phantom Fire was so great that Other and Righteous Gods jointly decided to seal this section of Dream World with the strongest seal available to them to prevent the Phantom Fire from falling into the hands of mortals.


    I even began to suspect that because of this object Unknown Kadath became a prison of universe. After that my hands started to itch from the desire to expropriate this is wonderful thing. I glanced at the parasite, but it was happily sleeping in its lair, paying no attention to my actions. This is a chance!


    After a furtive glance around, I went to the stasis installation and typed the code on the keyboard. Again, there was a soft squeak, and the glowing shroud disappeared, revealing a fluttering petal of flame. It was much smaller than I had imagined. A flame of this size is produced by a damp match. But around this flame was a fairly powerful barrier based on Bahion, which allowed to move it, while isolating from the outside world.


    I grabbed the glowing sphere, found a place to sit, and fell into meditation, trying to figure out what I had snatched. At first, I wanted to initiate one of my tails with this flame, but after studying the structure of the trap in which it was placed, I realized that this trick is unlikely to succeed. This fire will destroy everything it touch, so it will burn me. Only thanks to the special ''barrier of negate'' on the basis of Bahion the flame could be isolated.


    And yet, as it turned out, this piece of flame was what is called ''on the last breath''. It could flare up one last time, by burning everything and then it would disappear completely. I also failed to understand the ''essence'' of this flame, because it burned all my thoughts. Moreover, the more I tried to meditate on it, the less of this flame remained. So, in the end, all I had to do was sigh and seal the sphere with the Phantom Fire inside of my soul, using accumulated reserves of Bahion. Well, at least I could change my own soul, even when I was in a dream.


    As soon as I finished messing with my ''consolation prize'', the parasite began to stir in my soul, hinting that I had nothing more to do here. I had to take my feet in my hands and at a pace to roll in the direction of the portal. When reached it, I dialed the address of the very Stargate I had created in the vicinity of Ulthar. There was no sign of Zinovia, so I didn''t linger and jumped into the opened portal.


    Coming out of portal in the forest, I was unpleasantly surprised to see a whole ''meeting committee'' lined up in front of me. There were creatures of Chaos, angels of Order, and other creatures. But what they all had in common was that they were incredibly powerful, and wildly angry, and the object of their anger was me.


    But before I could even prepare myself for certain death, I was yanked into the Void, where I was able to see a joyfully smiling Being.


    "Yes, you did it.¡± - It laughed. - "You should know how much nerves my enemies disposed when they found out what you can do. They set trap in the Ulthar and waited for you there for more than a hundred years without success, while you wandered in circles in the Dreaming Forest. Then you committed an audacious murder in the city of Ethereum, which caused them all to rush there to catch you in prison. And during this time, you managed to reach to Ulthar, talked with Seeress and then spent a week hiding in the grass under the spies'' noses, playing with cats like a native of the city. And in the end, you used a cat to hide your aura, and you only let it go when you were ready to open the portal. I''m amazed at how you can do this without making any effort.¡±


    I''m surprised even more. It turns out that I was literally walking on a knife''s edge all this time. Am I really that lucky? I don''t think so. Especially against the background of the fact that I ''wasted'' a hundred years of my life, and now I am separated from the clarifications of relationship with Azathoth a little less than eight hundred years.


    "In general, everything finished so well that I decided to give you a small gift."


    "What? Why?¡± - I frightened. I know these gifts.


    ¡°How would you like to play a real online multiplayer computer game?¡±


    "Hmmm... usually it helps me to relax." - I admitted reluctantly.


    "That''s what I thought, too. You need to relax.¡± - After these words, I am even more tensed. - "But first, you will have to attend a small court hearing as a witness. Just don''t say anything there.¡±


    I had no time to resent to the change in my status from a limp instrument to a witness, when I found myself in a huge hall where sat powerful creatures, compared to which even the Being looked shabby and downtrodden.


    ¡°A case is under consideration to restore the rights of the game figure of Zinovia Reinhardt, which belongs to Being on the rights of the property.¡± - I heard a distant voice. ¨C ¡°This game figure has released from an untimely imprisonment in Unknown Kadath, which, according to the laws of the Universe, is considered as an acquittal for all charges.¡±


    Being nodded in agreement.


    ¡°I protest!¡± - There rang another voice, the owner of which I have not seen or could not determine. - "Her release should rather be considered as escape operation organized by her new owner.¡±


    "What do you have to say for justify?"


    The question was addressed to Being, so It answered to it.


    ¡°This event was the result of independent actions of a blind game figure belonging to me. I did not give him orders to release Zinovia. He was only supposed to deliver payment for services of the Eternal Seeress.¡±


    ¡°Then this act can be considered as a crime committed by one game figure in collusion with another.¡±


    "And what was the collusion? If Zinovia was in stasis and couldn''t deal on anything?" ¨C Being surprised. After his words, squashed laughter was heard in the hall.


    ¡°No matter.¡± - Unknown prosecutor continued to press. - "He could demand her to pay for his actions after the crime has been committed.¡±


    ¡°What payment?¡± - Being asked clarification. ¨C ¡°Let''s talk about the real world, not about how you would like it to be.¡± - This time the laughs were more apparent.


    "Didn''t he even demand sex with her?" - The prosecutor worried


    "No." - Being said proudly.


    "I''d give her a blow." - There was a low whisper, followed by a ripple of laughter. ¨C ¡°After the hundredth victory.¡±


    "Still, the only way to get out of the Unknown Kadath possible only with the approval of the Higher Powers. And without it, getting out of prison would be considered an escape.¡±


    "The Lord of Chaos Azathoth himself watched the release of Zinovia Reinhardt through his projection in the soul of the blind figure.¡± - Being gave out his ''trump'' argument.


    After that, there was a grave silence in the hall. The eyes of powerful gods focused on me. All I could do is to expose my parasite ''on display'' and ask him to ''wave his hand''. The effect was overwhelming. All eyes immediately dulled and disappeared.


    And about a minute later, the judge''s voice rang out.


    ¡°By the court''s decision, game figure Zinovia Reinhardt is fully restored to her rights. It will be noted in her personal file that she has now won ninety-nine consecutive qualifying victories, with a total of 93,258 points. The next ranking game for her will Determine her Fate.¡±


    At this court session ended, and I have been moved as usually to the place of the next game.

 Chapter 13 – World of Elements

    I awoke in a shining void, which in a few seconds was replaced by a velvety darkness. It made me feel strange. After a while, in space in front of me appeared words in an unfamiliar language, which I understood perfectly well. It looks like I''ve been implanted into someone''s body with a mind that''s already formed. But I didn''t know where the body was, because I felt like a dot in space, not a human being or a xenomorph.


    I put my thoughts aside and focused on the text.


    ¡°- Welcome to the World of the Elements.¡± ¨C The text said.


    I mentally agreed with this statement, and it replaced with a three-dimensional modeling interface.


    ¡°- Choose your appearance:¡±.


    In the interface, a male figure was spinning in front of me. I looked at him from all sides, adjusted the face and length of penis, built up my muscles, and mentally clicked ''OK''.


    ¡°- Enter your character name:¡± ¨C New text appeared. ¨C ¡°- Error. The name will be set from the system settings.¡± - I was pleased with another message. ¨C ¡°- Welcome to the World of Elements, Cheater.¡±


    ¡°Cheater? Cheater?!! Hey, don''t screw me!¡± - I shouted. It took me a second to realize that I now had a physical body.


    Unfortunately, no one was interested in my objections. The interface in front of me disappeared, and I was suddenly moved by some kind of portal, after which I found myself in a small room, the walls of which were lined with large stone blocks. There was no window, but there was a doorway leading to the corridor. Of the ''furniture'' in the room there was only a bed made of the same stone. Actually, it was not even a bed, but a kind of ¡®stepping stone¡¯ up to my knees, rising above the floor. If there was a door or grating in the passage outside, I would definitely take this room for a prison cell.


    Having examined myself, I became convinced that I have the same body that I created in the editor of appearance. I was wearing canvas pants, a shirt and simple sandals.


    ¡°Interface.¡± - I said quietly.


    Before my eyes immediately appeared the interface, typically for computer games. Except that it was a little strange here, because I was looking at the world with my own eyes, not through a monitor. After a quick run through the functionality, I became convinced that in general it corresponds to a usual RPG. After that, I went to the technical settings, where I found the item I was interested in: Exit.


    After clicking on this item and confirming my intention, I lost my orientation in space for a few seconds. Then I suddenly realized that I was lying on my back in total darkness. There were some tubes in my mouth and nose. In the area of other ''physiological holes'' there was also some inconvenience. I moved my fingers, feeling how the atrophied muscles in my hand had strained. A second later, a small screen lit up in front of me, showing three menu items:


    <ul>


    <li>Return to the game </li>


    <li>Call for help</li>


    <li>Exit from capsule </li>


    </ul>


    I didn''t choose anything, but focused on exploring my powers.


    Half an hour later, I learned out that magic and the chakra did not work in this world. Psionics were almost useless, but it could do something little. In principle, after a while my psionic power can to adapt to this world, and then even these crumbs should be enough to use the magic of Probabilities. Chaos and Order in some form were present here, but I felt that these forces were not directly used in this world, so their use would be very noticeable. And even without magic, it will be difficult to reach them. This is not a dream world where you just have to imagine it to get a result. I didn''t touch the symbiont at all. I have not yet decided how to relate to the fact that in my soul lives a projection of the most powerful creature of the universe. As they say, bypass us Lord¡¯s anger and Lord''s love. I think, using Azathoth to solve my little problems was not the most sensible thing to do.


    Having sorted out my abilities, I meditated for a while, adjusting the connection between my mind and my brain. At the same time, I scanned the memory fragments of the donor body. Apparently, I was a ''newborn'' clone who had barely completed a course of training in the basics of virtual existence. I did not understand, what kind of Matrix is going on here, and why all this is necessary.


    In the end, I used psionics to scan my surroundings. In my mind''s eye, I saw rows of capsules containing people. The only way to get out of the capsule is to remove it from a special niche in which it was connected to various types of communications. My capsule was located a little aside of the slender rows with hundreds of similar capsules. Looks like there''s all sorts of communication going around. There were all sorts of pipes, wires and electronic equipment around. And my capsule was stuck here, just because there was a little free space, which they decided to use in the most rational way.


    After dealing with reality, I decided to return to virtuality. Again, I lost my orientation in space, and ten seconds later I find myself in the same room in the game. But at the same time I psionically felt my real body and the processes taking place in it. A huge number of wires were implanted into my brain, which now stimulated various nerve endings, creating an image of a three-dimensional reality and a game body. However, the technical side of the game did not worry me very much. If it works, that''s enough. Now I need to understand the game itself.


    Once again, having inspected the room and got used to the virtual body, I sat down on the ''bed'' and began a thoughtful study of the game interface. When I got to the list of active tasks, I found only one quest there.


    ¡°- Organize your guild and capture the Tower of the Dark Lord. You must keep the tower under your control at the end of the allotted period. Time left: 364 days 22 hours 48 minutes 17 seconds.¡±


    It looks like I have a whole year to complete this task. And considering the fact that the game is supposed to be high rated, I should expect the presence of other game figures in this world.


    Convinced that there was no game help in the interface, I sighed, got to my feet and left the room. Once I was in the hallway, a green arrow ran across the floor indicating the direction of movement. I followed it and walked around many empty rooms similar to the one in which I appeared. After a couple of minutes, I went out into a wide corridor where other players. Most of them were walking slowly in the direction of the green arrows, although some of them looked around in surprise.


    Above each player was a semitransparent inscription that flashed brightly when I looked at it. The names of those around me were quite strange. ¡®Merry wind¡¯, ¡®Long way¡¯, ¡®Big fat dumplings¡¯. Compared to them, my name ''Cheater'' was not the worst option.


    I did not linger, and followed the crowd. Gradually, the number of people increased, and by the time I got to the huge hall with a high ceiling, the crowd of players resembled some carnival. Some of the players were talking to each other. I listened to a conversation, or rather even a monologue, where some guy expressed his delight about the opening of a new server of the World of Elements. Well, if the game has just started, then this influx of newcomers is not surprising. The fact that I was an hour late probably allowed me to get past the hustle.


    Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.


    In the hall, people were moving in different directions. The hall itself was shaped like a huge cross, in the center of which shine some abstract... shit, that looks like a statue or a fountain. I went straight to it, reading the description of the new quest in the interface. The task was quite simple: ¡®- choose your element¡¯. But there was no information about essence of this choice, so that I should first understand, that are they mind under word ¡®elements¡¯ and why are they need.


    Near the ''fountain'' I saw a man in rich decorated clothes, which strongly distinguished him from ''barefoot'' like me.


    ¡°Welcome to the world of the Elements.¡± - He began his campaign speech, considering me as his electorate. ¨C ¡°This world is full of mysteries and wonders, powerful magic and epic adventures. Now you have to choose the element that you will use throughout your life in this world. Do you want to learn more about the elements and how this choice will affect your future?¡±


    ¡°I do¡± - I agreed.


    "In that case, let me begin my story.¡±


    ¡°Start.¡± - I nodded graciously, breaking the narrator''s happy mood. However, a second later a sweet smile again spread across his face.


    For the next half hour, I meticulously asked the informant all the details of this game. The elements here really were the cornerstone of the world, on which literally everything depended. Let''s start with the fact that there were four Elements: Fire, Air, Water and Earth. And it was necessary to distinguish between the Element and about manifestation of the Element. Mages in this world were not restricted in how to exercise their magic power. In other words, a Water mage could ''burn'' their opponent if necessary. Just as the magician of Fire could control the water and drown the enemies, if the circumstances required.


    Rather, the elements here defined the way of perceiving the outside world and interacting with it. Fire mages focused on simple and understandable actions with predictable results. Proverb ''With strong back ¨C no need for mind'' - this was about them. The more mage of Fire ''strained'', the greater result he will achieve. In contrast, the element of Water was associated with the passage of time, the cycle of events, patience and perseverance. Water mages could take a long time to prepare for some action, but when the ''promised time'' came, their power was irresistible. Air mages were ''windy'' individuals who achieved results due to random circumstances. They could at any time leave their business and go to the other end of the world to ''catch their luck by the tail''. Earth mages, on the contrary, approached everything thoroughly, paying attention to a variety of small details, following various rules and restrictions.


    The Elements are not just a psychological method. It really set a way in which the player should go to the top of their power. For a start, an important point in the game mechanics has become clear. Players could learn a huge number of spells and abilities, but they could only use eight of them in battle. To use spell, they first had to create a special talisman. In battle, the mage only fed mana into this talisman and indicated the target for the spell. Two talismans could be installed in the weapon, and six talismans in the cells on the belt.


    Players had to personally create each talisman, using a kind of crafting system and spells studied by them. And just crafting at different elements happened in different ways. Fire mages had to create a blank talisman, put the necessary spells in it, and then begin a ''pilgrimage to places of power'' for the purpose of charging precious stones that are elements of the talisman. At the same time, the place of the ritual was determined by the energies flowing in these shrines, the type of gem used, and the spell itself. The ''Holy shrines'' of Fire mages were quite well known, and it was only necessary to compare the requirements of the talisman and the list of necessary places.


    Naturally, the energy was different everywhere. There were 22 known types of energy, and the total number of their combinations was difficult to imagine. The closer combination of energy of the place similar to ''ideal'', then created talisman will be stronger. And if there were significant deviations, you could get a low efficiency, but also some ''side effect'' additionally.


    Another important factor was the location of the Fire shrines. Some of them were located in cities, others in the wildlands, and others in dungeons that could only be passed as part of a raid. In general, the life of a Fire mage was not easy, but... predictable. At least it was easy to understand how much the player would have to ''strain'' to get the desired result.


    But the element of Water demanded patience from its adherents, more patience, and once again patience. The Water mages didn''t have to go anywhere. They could charge their talismans in any Water temple, but... only at certain times. There were various astrological cycles that affect the power of manifestation of 22 types of energy. So, to charge the talisman, they just had to find out its requirements and make an astrological forecast for the future, then wait for the right moment, having planned the ritual in advance.


    Here accuracy and ''range'' of the predictions depends on the strength of the Water mage. Plus, advanced Water mages could take energy not only from the present, but also from the past, although at the cost of a certain drop in efficiency. So, they no longer had to worry about performing the ritual at the exact moment of ''highest tension''. They could wait for half an hour, and then choose the best moment and use the energy from it, losing only a tenth of a percent of the talisman''s effectiveness.


    Air mages were the most ''free'' in their actions. They did not use world currents of ether, like Water magicians, or fixed earth flows, like Fire magicians, but random fluctuations of energy in the area. An Air mage could scan the world around them and see if this was the right place for a talisman-making ritual or not. If the answer was negative, then you could wait or... move to another place with a more suitable energy background.


    Naturally, the area of the scanned territory was limited, and the space of the world was huge. Therefore, Air mages could set up special ''beacons'' in arbitrary places special ''beacons'' that automatically monitored the situation around themselves. And as soon as one of the beacons detected a suitable combination of energies, the Air mage will immediately receive a notification about it. After that, he could use a ''non-combat'' spell to teleport to the selected beacon. This made the Air mages extremely mobile. After all, they could teleport not only themselves, but also their team. And for one thing, this type of ''craft'' made Air mages extremely fickle. They could at any moment find a ''happy chance'' and go to the far side of the world, leaving allies to swear loudly. However, after five minutes, they could return and continue playing as a team, as if nothing had happened.


    The Earth Element was the most demanding of all the elements, because the energy to charging these talismans could be extracted by magicians of this element received from various kinds of ''alchemical preparations''. It was similar to how Chinese alchemists in the realms of the cultivators have created their own ''magic pill''. It was necessary to calculate in advance what the final result should be, then think about where to get the required energy, and how to combine the necessary components correctly, using various restrictions on their compatibility.


    Sometimes it was necessary to make several semi-finished pills in order to create the final product from them. Some talismans as a result required the longest and most complex technological chains and just a ton of raw reagents. Tasks like ''collect the tails of 10,000 hares'' were quite common for Earth mages. They farmed everything, collecting all sorts of leaver, claws, hides, herbs, minerals, dried toads, and powdered venomous Wyvern¡¯s shit.


    In general, no matter what nasty shit the player knocked out from next monster, he could be sure that the Earth mages would buy it, perhaps for good money. Accordingly, a good Earth mage simply had to be fabulously rich and deadly greedy. To be able to accumulate necessary amount of money, Earth mages were engaged in the production of various kinds of potions that allowed players to restore mana, health and stamina, increase the effectiveness of spells, protect against certain types of damage, and so on.


    As a result, Fire and Water mages hunched over, knocking gold out from monsters, then giving all this wealth to the Earth mages in exchange for a couple of bottles of muddy swill. The Air mages had little to do with this process, because potions created with Earth magic were pure poison to them. And the idea that at least a quarter of the world''s money was passing by made the earth mages mad, making them hate Air mages, to which they responded in full reciprocity. Similarly, the Fire mages had a reason to hate the Water mages, who instead of taking and doing the job, sat and waited for something incomprehensible, justifying themselves with centuries-old traditions.

 Chapter 13.01 – World of Elements

    Another reason that made magicians of different elements treat each other with coolness was the fact that the power of spells depended not only on strength of the talisman, but also on the concentration of energy of the corresponding element in space. Somewhere, this ''shift of energy of the Elements'' was a natural characteristic of the place. For example, within an erupting volcano, the energies of Elements Fire and Earth were most strongly manifested. This increased the power of Fire mages in such places and reduced the power of Water mages.


    But there was another effect. If in a certain place a magician used the magic of his element for a long time, then the energy of this place was ''soaked'' with the emanations of spells of this element, making it stronger. And now, imagine a raid in which there are magicians of the Air and Earth. The more cast ''magic'' ones, the weaker the other becomes. If a certain balance is established, then it turns out that none of them gets amplification. Therefore, mages of opposite elements communicated with each other only through the ''sight of a machine gun''.


    But that wasn''t all. The magician of each element used to live in places where the energies of this element were strongly manifested. And when he went to a place where the energies of other elements were at work, then... reality itself will begin to depress this mage, reducing his movement speed and causing damage. As a result, a Water mage who was came to a place of Fire power could die without even engaging in battle. Or you could kill an Earth mage by getting close to him, and then start healing yourself with powerful Air spells. In general, the wrestling of the Elements with each other, in the world of people, is manifested in the form of a wrestling of magicians of these elements.


    Having considered all the information splashed on me, I decided to take a responsible approach to the question of choosing my Element. However, there were some doubts, what exactly should I choose? Which element will suit me best? And then my ''guide to the game'' gave quite interesting advice.


    ¡°Sometimes players can''t immediately decide which element suits them best. But after making the first wrong choice, you can ruin your entire subsequent life. Therefore, I suggest that such people navigate ''from the opposite''. Find the Element from which you are literally turned inside out. And you can be sure that your element is the opposite.¡±


    This remark made sense, so I immediately said goodbye to such a useful NPC, and then headed in the right direction. The hall was shaped like a cross, and at the end of each ''branch'' was a portal that transported players to the next location.


    My choice was due to the fact that it was immediately clear to me with what kind of crafting I am not going to do even under the threat of being shot. Collecting all sorts of garbage in order to create ''wonderful elixirs'' from it was, in my opinion, the worst way to spend time. Accordingly, it turned out that my element was the Air, where it was close to Chaos and my beloved Azathoth.


    Passing through the portal, I found myself in an open area. As I descended the steps that led to the portal on this side, I looked through the notifications about the previous task and another new one: ¡°- Choose your main profession.¡±. Even from above, I noticed a crowd of players and NPCs in military uniforms scurrying among them. When I reached this point, I stopped and started looking for a free ''guide''. One such has immediately found. In fact, he came straight to me.


    ¡°Good day... Cheater. Did you come here to choose a profession?¡± ¨C This ''Captain Obvious'' asked me a stupid question.


    "No, I am just wandering around.¡± ¨C I renounced, driving my interlocutor into a stupor. ¨C ¡°What are the professions? Can you tell me about them?¡±


    Upon hearing the ''correct'' question, NPC immediately unfroze and smiled, as if for every enlightened player, they give him a bag of gold. However, who knows, maybe they actually give it to them.


    From the following lecture, I learned that I need to choose one of three professions: mage, warrior, or scout. Subsequently, each profession became a ladder for the next choice second-level profession, after which I could choose a third-level profession, of which there were twelve in total. I asked if there exist any information about professions in text form, and a frustrated NPC showed to me some kind of computer terminals, standing alone next to a building that resembled a barracks. Only a couple of people took communion with this technique, and the rest of the savages preferred to find out all details in a personal conversation.


    Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.


    After saying thanks to Captain Obvious, I went to torment the computer. After a few hours of studying various documentation and descriptions, I was able to more or less understand how things with professions are in this world.


    As mentioned, all professions were divided into three large groups. The magicians cast different spells, hurting their enemies and healing their allies. The warriors fought in close combat, and their goal was to keep enemies at a distance from the frail ''rags''. And the scouts were engaged in all sorts of diversions, sabotage and contract killings.


    Each profession had limitations on what adherents of elements could study it. That is, there was a ''recommended'' element, two side elements and, accordingly, a forbidden one. The professions were as follows:


    Destroyer specialized in direct damage with spells.


    Demonologist summons demons and other creatures, who did all work for him.


    Druids could adopt a single pet, and he also grow various types of flora that could heal or damage depending on the species type.


    Priests worship his chosen God, and usually he heals and protect his allies, bestow blessings on them, but if necessary, he could also hit his enemies with a shovel.


    Werewolf threw himself into the center of the battle and had a huge health regeneration.


    Madmen also rushed forward, and their skills denied the very laws of this world, allowing them to do the impossible.


    Paladins had the largest arsenal for deterring enemies and very good protection from all types of damage.


    Fanatics fought their enemies, defeating them not only with the sword, but also with the power of their faith.


    Assassins stab in the back, and it was extremely difficult to escape from their attacks.


    Hypnotist was a very inconvenient enemy, since his abilities could cause you to open up for even the most primitive attacks.


    Hunter was a master at tracking prey, using a bow and arrow in ranged combat, and a short sword in close combat. Plus, he also as a Druid could ''adopt'' one pet.


    Sniper was a real headache for everyone, because he could shoot opponents from a great distance, ignoring most of types of protection.


    In addition to the main profession in the future, the player could choose an additional one, thus creating a hybrid or specialized character. Thus, it turned out that there are 12 professions and 144 combinations of them. At the same time, for example, a Werewolf-Demonologist is not equivalent to a Demonologist-Werewolf, because they had a different set of spells. In addition, the player could choose same main and additional profession, thus gaining access to unique spells available only to such ''double'' classes.


    For me with my Element of Air is contraindicated the profession of Priest, Fanatic and Sniper. In my lifetime, when I played computer games, I usually chose the role of a magician. I am not going to change that rule now. So, the choice of the main profession for me is to choose between Destroyer, Demonologist and Druid.


    The Druid especially attracted me because it was a class that could heal other players. In my experience with online games, the healer is the center of any group. Even a tank was not always necessary for effective leveling and passing dungeons, but the absence of a healer made the game a similar torture. Moreover, according to the description, Druids specialized in mass healing, which made them indispensable in raids.


    Demonologist was also a ''pet adopter'', but with a bias towards dealing damage. He was more mobile than the Druid, and could even summon healing pets, however, only will heal him and other summoned creatures. This profession is best suited for solo playing, because a good Demonologist has his own team of pets. In addition, he not only relied on the summoned pets, but could also ''charge'' magic directly into your forehead.


    The Destroyer was perhaps too straightforward character for me to choose as my main profession. He could do damage and ... nothing else. He had no defense, and there was little control over his opponents, so the Double Destroyer was the most easily killable character in the game. But behind of a well-coordinated team the Destroyers could give damage, able to turn to dust a whole crowd of enemies. Although the Game task stated that I should create a guild, my playing style and life position did not allow me to depend on others. So, the Destroyer was excluded from the list.


    So, the real choice for me was between a Druid and a Demonologist. But since they were both magicians, the choice of a first-level profession was predetermined. Having come to this decision, I went to NPC, who is supposed to give me the title of magician. But I was wrong when I thought that all I had to do is express my desire and they immediately would make me a mage.


    ¡°Well, are you ready to start choosing your main profession?¡± - A smiling NPC asked me. His voice filled with so much cheerfulness and enthusiasm that it began to remind me Maito Gai.


    ¡°I¡¯m ready. I want to be a mage.¡± - I answered to him.


    "Oh, no, no, no, not so fast, Little Cheater." - He stopped me, for one misspelling my name. - ¡°You must not only choose a profession, but also learn your other gaming skills. First, open your character window and look up for section ''Characteristics''.¡±


    "I did." - I confirmed grimly.

 Chapter 13.02 – World of Elements

    ¡°There you will see four characteristics: strength, dexterity, endurance, and resistance. These parameters do not directly affect spell damage or defense, but they are nonetheless very important. Strength determines the mass of equipment that you can put on yourself. It doesn''t affect the weight you carry in your backpack, but if you want to put on heavy armor, you''ll need to be strong enough. Dexterity determines your ability to use various evasive techniques, and Endurance - how many times in a row you can evade before you run out of stamina. Well, Resistance affects your resistance to various effects of stun and movement restrictions.¡±


    I looked at the brief description of each characteristic and immediately came to the conclusion that for magician, only resistance matters. Meanwhile, ''Maito Gai'' continued his lecture, gradually descending into some wild heresy.


    ¡°Each characteristic can take a value from zero to one hundred. But you only have total one hundred ¡®character points¡¯ at your disposal, so you will have to consider which ones are more important to you. For example, if you are going to be a mage, then you do not need heavy armor, so you can make the Strength equal to zero or five. Dexterity is the most important characteristic for all professions, because it allows you to evade attacks. Make it fifty. Endurance is also important, because if you run out of energy, you can''t dodge. Put all your remaining points in it. Well, the resistance is completely useless, because if you evade attacks, then they will not be able to stun you.¡±


    What kind of sheep put this moron here to train newbies? However, what am I worried about? The more idiots follow this advice, the easier it will be for me to kill them later.


    "Initially, you have 25 points in each characteristic. You can change this distribution, but you will need to practice for it to take effect. When you run or participate in a fight, your characteristics gradually change in the right direction. Since beginners don''t have much time, we created a special running platform for accelerated training.¡± - The lecturer showed me to the ''stadium'', where about a hundred players were running around at a breakneck pace. ¨C ¡°So, your task is to set the correct values of characteristics, bring their real values to the planned ones, and then pass the training on using evasion skills from the mentor. A detailed description of the task appeared in your game interface. Do you understand, Little Cheater?¡±


    "Call me Mr. Almighty Cheater." - I answered him in an arrogant tone. - "I''ll forgive you for the first time, but if you make another mistake, I''ll have to teach you a lesson."


    With these words, I turned around and walked towards the ''running stadium''. To begin with, I decided to follow the advice of this would-be teacher and set my dexterity and endurance to 50. After a short run around the stadium, I made sure that the desired result was achieved, and then went to the Instructor of Evasion. Judging by the signs on the map, he was in a room that could be accessed through a portal.


    After going through the glowing shroud which crowds of people scurried, and found myself on an empty training ground, overgrown with grass. The portal seemed to lead to a private training area. A trainer appeared in the air in front of me and immediately began to list the evasive techniques available to me, which immediately began to appear in the list of my abilities. There were many techniques, but they all came down to several categories: jumping, dodge, somersault, and block.


    Jumping were jumps in different directions, bounces, flips, somersaults in different directions, and so on.


    By Dodge, as a rule, they meant various kinds of rapid steps. They were much faster than jumps, although they didn''t move my body very far. This also included leaning and all sorts of acrobatic tricks, such as standing on the bridge.


    Somersaults allowed me to roll on the ground like a bun, as well as to get up abruptly if I was knocked over.


    Block consisted of blocking a blow with your hands, which did not affect the damage received, but allow you to counteract the effects of repulsion and stun.


    After learning the basic movements, the trainer started teaching me how to apply the skill in chain. For example, you could avoid a blow to the head, using this movement as the beginning of a roll to the side, then jump sharply, further breaking the distance and turning to face the enemy. Here it was already important to activate the skills in time, setting the correct direction of movement or ''customizable'' parameters at a time. For example, during a forward jump, you could additionally specify that the body should turn forty-five degrees to the left or right.


    The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.


    And in the end, I was required to pass the ¡®test¡¯. The trainer chased me using various overturning, paralyzing and choking techniques, and I had to evade them. Having more or less mastered the movements, I refused to complete the task and decided to train on my own.


    Returning back to the ''stadium'', I put all my hundred points into Resistance, then ran a couple of laps, watching the surrounding players. Some of them were also engaged in practicing the skills of evasion and their ligaments.


    When I was sure that my Dexterity and Endurance had gone to zero, I began to repeat the evasive skills I had already mastered. And then the difference became obvious. Low Dexterity increased my body''s reaction time to the evasive command. Before each jump, my body ''thought'' a little, as if deciding whether I should jump or not. And the most disgusting thing was the fact that the time of this delay was floating. At the same time, the technique of performing movement did not change in any way. My lack of Endurance meant that my stamina evaporated too quickly, so that I could not even theoretically make three evasions in a row. However, low endurance didn¡¯t affect to recovery rate of stamina. There was a difference, but not a critical one.


    After I understood how all this mechanics works, I decided to try performing these actions on my own. After all, every time I did, for example, a somersault, my body itself performed the necessary actions, ignoring all my attempts to prevent the correct execution of the movement.


    I encountered unexpected obstacles when tried to self-control my body. First of all, I ''couldn''t'' move properly. And it is unlikely that a simple untrained person will be able to do even a simple somersault. I couldn''t either, simply because I didn''t know the sequence of movements I needed and couldn''t execute them in a timely manner. Seeing my clumsy convulsions, which should imitate somersaults with a jump, the surrounding players as one began to laugh, pointing at me with their fingers. I just ignored them and decided to practice something simpler. For example, a sliding step to the side.


    About half an hour later, I found out one thing. Normal body training in virtual reality doesn''t make sense. Yes, I was able to learn to perform a movement similar to the right one. But my body could not remember this movement. And the reason for this was quite banal. During normal training, the sequence of movements will be remembered at the level of the spinal cord. Spinal cord responds to such ''conditioned reflexes''. The brain only gives the order to ''execute the movement'', and the spinal cord controls the synchronous movement of all muscles.


    I was now lying in a virtual immersion capsule, and all sorts of electronics were directly connected to my brain, creating an ''alternative'' body. It was like a lucid dream in which a person can feel and control their body, but this body is not connected to the physical one. Therefore, all movements I developed passed by the spinal cord. And this computer technology in principle did not have the functionality to remember my actions as spinal cord, and then reproduce them. After all, it was a game, not a 100 percent reliable virtual reality.


    However, there was also a positive feature. Although my entire body was quite ''wooden'' and it was difficult to control it without using skills, my hand movements were characterized by high speed and accuracy. At the same time, I did not ''remember'' the desired movement at the reflex level, but I could consciously control these movements, thus creating a ''reflex'' in the brain itself. It was a bit unusual, but generally quite useful.


    Finally, having realized all the pros and cons of the virtual body, I again went to ''pass the exam''. This time I was not taught to do three evasions in a row, because I simply didn''t have enough stamina to do it. The mentor, of course, complained about this topic, but did not bother with his advice.


    But when it came time to practice skills, I just stood in one place and looked at the macaque jumping around me, only occasionally blocking his blows.


    "Why don''t you avoid it?" - The teacher finally asked, pausing his circus performance.


    "Why? I have a Resistance equal to one hundred. None of your control skills will work on me.¡± - I broke his whole pattern of thinking.


    "But ... but¡­ then let me attack you with damage-dealing skills.¡±


    "There is no point in such a check.¡±


    "Why?"


    "Because I can''t deal damage to you. In real combat, the damage determines which opponent will die earlier. If I can''t hurt you, it''s already clear that I''m going to die.¡±


    At this point, the mentor''s brain broke down, and he hovered, lost in his own thoughts. Well, at least ten seconds later I was offered to complete the quest, which I gladly agreed to. In general, judging by the reaction, the role of NPC here was performed by real people doing their ''work''. But their fragile minds didn''t always cope with my non-standard thinking.

 Chapter 13.03 – World of Elements

    When I returned to Maito Gai, I told him that the task had been completed.


    "Wonderful, lit... uh...Master Cheater. Now you need to learn how to handle a weapon. Go to the Weapons Master and ask him to give you a lesson. Be careful, the weapon you choose now will be your main weapon until you can buy another one. And this can take quite a long time.¡±


    ¡°Ok.¡± - I nodded.


    The NPC I was looking for lived in the very shed next to the computer terminals. Going inside through another portal, I found a large room with many racks and stands, which were located all sorts of weapons. However, all this trash looked like... trash. Raw iron, curved blades, very conventional sharpening. The only weapons that could be considered high-quality were a few hammers. They were trivially difficult to make ''not qualitatively'' simply because of the primitiveness of the design.


    When I found the Weapons Master, he immediately sent me back, giving me the task to choose a weapon ''for my hand''. No additional requirements were announced, so I decided to sort it out myself. Unfortunately, when I went around the entire room, I couldn''t find AK-47, magic wands, or even a banal bow or throwing knives. There was only a cold weapon, which was to be held firmly in hands.


    The only exception to this concept was the shield, which was also considered as a weapon for left hand. I tried to take a shield in each hand, but the system gave me a message that it was impossible to equip the item. At the same time, I could easily take a shield in my right hand, and a light sword in my left.


    After going through the available arsenal, I first selected two daggers. But then I thought that I might have to fight monsters hand-to-hand for the first time. From this position it was more correct to take something long-range, so in the end I selected a short spear with a long and wide blade. This thing looks like a partisan, but total length with blade were about 1.8 meter. Small size allowed it to be used not only as a spear, but also as a staff.


    "What did you choose?" ¨C He surprised at my decision.


    "Poor dwarf''s spear." - I informed him after reading the item¡¯s name given out by the game interface.


    "I can see that. Do you even know how to use it?


    "I''ll figure it out." - I grunted.


    "Well, well. All right, go to the training area. Find dummy scarecrow there and hit it ten times in each zone marked in red.¡± - At this point, the man again lost all interest in me and stared at some book.


    I mentally shrugged and went to do the job. After reading the description in the interface, I found out some things that the malicious Weapons Master didn''t mention. One place could not be hit more than two times in a row, and more than three times out of ten. When I found the dummy scarecrow of a man, I noticed that it had twelve numbered zones painted red. Adding to the problems was that they were located all over the body, including on the back, so that to strike, I had to go around the target in a circle. Well, all strikes that did not meet the task conditions were simply ignored, and did not reset the counter to zero. Otherwise, in addition to training my movements, I would have to solve the corresponding logical problem.


    I didn''t hurry up, but just started working out strikes in ''free mode'', mainly achieving an accurate hit when moving with elements of evasion. An hour later, when the task had long been completed, one of the players came up to me and began to observe my movements. By this time, I had already practiced poking a spear at a defenseless, motionless victim, now working out the speed of the attack. The virtual body didn''t get tired or uncomfortable, so I poked the scarecrow with the speed of a sewing machine, each time hitting the exact center of the circle.


    "You have excellent mechanical skills.¡± ¨C Watching player praised me. Without stopping the attack, I glanced at him and read his name: Heavenly Red Crane. - "Are you going to be Madman?"


    "No, I''m actually going to be a Druid.¡± - I said, stopping my training.


    The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.


    "A druid? With such good abilities, you can become a great warrior.¡±


    "I can, but I don''t want to.¡± - I chuckled.


    "No one likes druids.¡± - The ''expert'' tried to dissuade me.


    "Why?" - I surprised.


    "You''re not familiar with the World of Elements, are you?" - Crane asked, then continued without waiting for my answer. - "The point is that druids can grow predatory plants and then just walk away, leaving them to grow on their own. Such ''ownerless'' plants become neutral monsters, and the fight against these plants takes a lot of time from other players. At the same time, there is almost no reward for them. Early on, in first server there were many druids and they loved to do such ''joke''. But in the end, they were become so annoying, that other players started killing druids as soon as they saw them. As a result, many druids re-created their characters and became priests or demonologists.¡±


    ¡°Well, so then who healed the raids in the dungeons?¡± - I asked.


    "Well, the strong guilds still have their own druids, but everyone else has had to recruit more priests.¡±


    "Pha-ha-ha. Excellent proof of that the intelligence of crowd of people is equal to the level of their dumbest member. Apparently, strong guilds eliminated all competitors with such move, taking the opportunity to pass serious dungeons.¡± - I opened this fool''s eyes to the true nature of things. - "So, if someone doesn''t like druids, it''s just an indication of their lack of intelligence."


    "What?" - Crane fell in stun.


    "Yes, that''s the truth of life. Public opinion is often only the result of manipulation by those who think themselves as ''the true power''.¡±


    "People''s wisdom can''t be wrong.¡± - This weirdo tried to object.


    I didn''t argue with him, but just grinned, waved my hand and went to pass the quest.


    Weapons Master accepted my report without looking at it, not even bothering to distract himself from reading his porn novel. However, I didn''t need anything more from him. After all, I am not buying a cow here. I''ll still have a chance to find out why magicians need cold weapons in this game.


    The next task already had a more or less close relationship to the choice of profession. They gave me three training talismans with skills of a mage, warrior, and scout. I needed to test them in a real battle against ... rabbits. Scratching my head, I agreed and went to ''beat the rabbits'' in the nearest forest.


    At the moment, I only had a spear in my possession, which had one slot for the talisman. The task is to kill a hundred rabbits using each of talismans. The talisman could only be replaced in a peaceful area, so I had to do at least three trips to the forest and back.


    I started with a spell that relied on a magician. It was called as ''Magic Arrow'' and was available to the magicians of all elements. However, for each element, it had different external effects and type of inflicted damage. Fire mages dealt fire damage, Air mages beat with electricity, Water mages froze the target, and Earth mages threw a stone spike.


    In general, with the types of damage in the game, everything was quite logical. Damage from abilities and spells was only ''material'' type. That is, a sword dealt slashing damage, a mace crushing, a spear stabbing, a saber cutting. The fireball caused thermal damage with a high temperature. A ''snowstorm'' the same thermal damage, but only with cold. A stone spike created and thrown by magic did usual stabbing damage, while a ¡®water choke¡¯ that squeezed the throat did a crushing damage. You could poison an enemy with a poisoned blade. But something like the ''Rotting Flesh'' spell would also cause poison damage. Acid is also, oddly enough recorded in the class of poisons.


    The electrical damage stood alone because ''inside'' it consisted of thermal fire damage and poisonous damage from the shock discharge through the body. But outwardly this division was not shown. Protection from electricity was calculated according to a complex formula, which took into account the ''grounding'' of the target, its electrical conductivity, protection from fire and protection from poison.


    The only kind of ''magical'' damage was damage from being in an area with an incompatible Elemental shift. This damage had no additional gradations. But next to it was ''astral'' damage, which could only be inflicted by ghosts. There was no protection against these two types of damage, which made them very insidious.


    I had chosen Air Element, so now my spear could shoot lightning at a distance of ten meters, while dealing ten units of damage. The spell could be used once per second, and its activation lasted only a quarter of a second, which was equivalent to ''instant cast''. Spells with this rate of activation were impossible to break.


    This spell consumed two units of mana, while my mana and health reserves were equal to a hundred. In other words, my mana reserves should have been enough to maintain non-stop fire for about a minute. But recovering of the mana were sluggishly, only one unit in five seconds. So, in fact, my ''rate of fire'' is one shot in ten seconds. And in the case if I spent all mana, it took more than eight minutes to restore it.


    I completed all these theoretical calculations already near the forest. There were a lot of rabbits here and noob players, so there was no need to run far after them. I really went deep into the forest, so as not to jostle among the noobs. I wasn''t the only one who was so smart, but after three hundred meters my eyes stopped rippling from the number of players.

 Chapter 13.04 – World of Elements

    ===========


    Name: Cheater


    Level: 1


    HP: 100


    MP: 100


    Stamina: 100


    ---------------


    Strength: 0


    Dexterity: 0


    Endurance: 0


    Resistance: 100


    ===========


    As I said, the Magic Arrow dealt 10 points of electricity damage. A spear hit did the same amount of stabbing damage. Each rabbit had 40 lives, which mean, it required four hits. Based on my magical rate of fire and speed of movement of the spear, it turned out that magic only makes sense to use it to ''bait'' the victims.


    I expected that the rabbits would behave the same way as in normal computer games. That is, after the first strike, they should have start attacking me. But after I ''shot'' with lightning one of rabbits, it quickly ran away, because of what I had to run after it, in parallel finishing it with magic. After the fourth spell, the furry coward died safely, leaving a couple of ears in his memory. I put the loot into inventory, then thought about a new strategy.


    The next victim I pierced with spear, first getting close to it. But this time the rabbit tried to cling to my leg, which caused me to almost fall off. But already at the level of instincts I applied a leap backwards, evading attack. After that, the rabbit immediately tried to run away, but I hit him a couple of times with a spear, and then finished off the magic.


    After a while, I got used to kill rabbits with spear, using magic only to finish off those who managed to escape. These furry bastards only attacked if I got too close to them. If I had a dagger or a sword in my hand, it might be a problem. But my spear allowed me to keep distance, controlling the movement of the enemy.


    From time to time, I used the Step Forward and Step Back skills, which allowed me to control distance to the enemy. Using skills instead of just taking a step myself made sense, because they worked in any position of the legs. As a result, instead of keeping track of the balance and accuracy of actions, it was much more convenient to start moving in the right direction, simultaneously activating the skill, after which the game took control of the body, leaving me in a stable position at the end. As a result, evasive abilities were a kind of replacement for the trained movements of professional killers. However, I still believe that there is no point in pumping dexterity just for the sake of it.


    When I farmed right number of animals, and went back to the camp to change a talisman. Twelve pairs of ears and one tail dropped from a hundred rabbits. I also found out that I don''t get any experience for killing these animals. More precisely, that the game does not have any experience or its equivalent. The only thing that was affected by the long-term farm was the restructuring of the points invested in the characteristics. But since their number could not increase in principle, it turned out that killing of the inhabitants of this world makes sense only for the sake of falling out of them items. Also, I didn''t know how to increase my level. However, my level is still one.


    After changing the mage''s spell to the warrior¡¯s skill ''Charged blade'', I went back to study the description of my new ability. To be honest, compared to the mages, the warriors on the first level looked much more severe. This skill ''charged'' the spear with an aura that dealt an additional 10 lightning damage on the next strike. It didn''t seem much different from a wizard''s spell. But the aura held on the weapon for five seconds and could fold up to three times. It also consumed only a one mana.


    When I got to the nearest rabbit, I decided to test this skill. In three seconds, I put an aura on the spear three times, then hit the rabbit with it. As a result, rabbit immediately died, without even having time to twitch. And I spent three units of mana on it, which was restored in fifteen seconds. In principle, this was not very practical. But when I combined the spear strikes and the use of the ability in the mode: two normal strikes, plus an enhanced aura strike, I began to kill rabbits before they had time to run out of range of the spear. At the same time, my energy consumption was twice as low as that of magician, which allowed me to waste furry animals almost without stopping.


    From the next hundred, nine pairs of ears and a ''happy rabbit''s foot'' fell. What exactly was the effect of this happiness, I did not understand, but put the limb into inventory with the rest of the prey. Or the player should have been happy only from the fact that he managed to knock out a very rare trash?


    I changed my talisman to the scout skill ''Poison touch'' and sighed heavily. This was essentially a spell that required getting close to the target, which clearly contradicted my religious beliefs, since I didn''t want to be bitten by some pathetic rabbit. The spell hung a ''dot'' that deals 5 poison damage per second for two seconds. And its ''super-feature'' is that this ''curse'' could be hung on a single target up to ten times. At the same time, the validity time of all previous applications will be updated each time.


    In other words, if I use this spell every second, it first deals 5 damage, then 10, then 15, and so on until I have ten uses. After that, the spell dealt 100 damage per second instead of 50 for two seconds, after which the target will obtain immune to the poison for 5 seconds. In total, in a full ''cycle'' of using Poison touch for 11 seconds, the victim will receive 425 damage or an average of 38 damage per second. However, taking into account the time of immunity to the poison, this damage will be reduced to 26 per second.


    Such an ability would be very useful when fighting the bosses, but it was a waste of mana and time against rabbits. Since the task did not require the mandatory use of this spell, I just tested it a couple of times, and then began to kill rabbits only with a spear. I has already able to strike four times in a second and a half, so I didn''t see any point in using magic. However, the last blow had to be used simultaneously with the Step Forward to catch up with the fleeing prey.


    By the time when I completed the task, I had knocked 31 pairs of ears, one tail, and one happy rabbit¡¯s foot.


    When I got to the still-full enthusiasm NPC, I informed him about completed task.


    ¡°So, you were able to feel the taste of victory, spiced with the power of three professions. Which one did you like the most?¡±


    "A Mage." - I answered to this tricky question with dissatisfaction.


    ¡°Congratulations, you get the profession of a magician.¡±


    As I suspected, this bastard didn''t offer to choose a profession, but asked me what I liked. It was so obvious a trap that I wanted to take my spear right now and stick it in the freak''s mouth. He maybe has seen something in my eyes, because he quickly stepped back a couple of steps, using the same evasive skills.


    ¡°Now you have to go to the Island of Crabs, where you can start your journey in the World of Elements.¡±


    With these words, my ''guide'' disappeared into the crowd, disappearing from my sight. I snorted in exasperation, then followed the green arrow that indicated the way to the portal. I looked at the inventory and saw that the talismans with the warrior and scout spells had disappeared without a trace. So, I put the Magic Arrow spell in the Poor Dwarf''s Spear and went face new adventures.


    Island of Crab greeted me with the clamor of a crowd of crabs. The name of this place was quite symbolic, because crabs are usually called inept players, who instead of hands grow claws. I was surrounded by such ''professionals''.


    After looking around, I went forward, looking for some useful NPC. My first victim become a guard who was watching a crowd of first-level players with an expression of universal sadness on his face.


    ¡°Hello. Can you tell me where I can get information on professions and ways of development?¡± - I asked him.


    "Oh, did I find another person who could ask the right question?" - The guard surprised me with a counter question. - "You''re the second one today. And you''re really lucky, because I''m the only one in the whole city who knows the answer to that question.¡±


    Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators!


    "I am already eager to partake of your wisdom.¡± - I smiled.


    "All information you need can be found in the library. It''s a wooden building with a high spire over there. It was specially built to make it easier for any ignoramus to notice it.


    ¡°Thank you.¡± - I thanked the unexpectedly helpful guard.


    ¡°Welcome.¡± - He nodded and looked back at the tumultuous crowd, which made his smile change again to an expression of dejection.


    I hurried to the library, looking around for one thing. Then one of the players shouted ''Stolen!'', and then a little bit away from my path began to commotion. One player ran away from there, and the other ran after him. I didn''t get involved, but I checked my bag just in case. And there was a surprise waiting for me. No, no one stole my lucky paw. On the contrary, the item called ''Diamond Crystal of Glory'' shine with a mystical light in the inventory. Why and for what this thing needed was unclear, but judging by their appearance, it was obviously very expensive. However, also in the description of the item was listed as ''cannot be stolen, cannot transferred, cannot be sold, cannot be destroyed''. It weighed one gram, so out of all the losses I had only minus one cell in the inventory. I put the unexpected gift out of my mind and went straight to the library, while making sure that I was not robbed.


    The library was exactly the place I needed. It wasn''t just a place where books were stored. There were essentially terminals for accessing the local Internet, where I could find a lot of books, official manuals and user guides. Here I sat until nightfall. Only when my head had completely stopped thinking from the amount of information it received, that I interrupted and headed outside.


    The night city was fairly quiet, though the streets were crowded. After checking the map of the city, which I looked at in the same library, I went to the market. Here I went through the local shops, some of which were run by player. After comparing prices, I sold the ears to NPC at the price of one pair for a copper. The tail went to the Earth mage for eleven coppers, and the happy foots was really happy, and I managed to sell it for a whole silver coin. Having cheerfully calculated my profit, I went to the local hotel, where I rented the cheapest kennel until morning for only two coppers.


    In the morning, I was woken up by the disgruntled voice of the innkeeper, demanding that I should get out of the room. Since I still had paid time, I decided to study the ''Diamond Crystal of Glory''. Yesterday I found out that this item is needed to register a new guild, if you do not have ten friends who want to become members. There were Glory crystals of different quality: bronze, silver, gold and diamond. And don''t ask me how a bronze can be crystal. If it is written, then it is true. The Diamond Crystal of Glory allows to create a Guild that could consist of up to a thousand people. Taking into account the ultimate goal of the Game, it became clear that it was a kind of gift from its organizers.


    In any case, I was going to use it as intended to create my guild. But not today. And not tomorrow. And not for the next couple of weeks. Why? Because in the interface of the game exist an ability to search and view information of existing guilds on the server. And among this information was the ''class'' of the guild and the name of its founder.


    After opening the required window, I set the search terms and got thirty-four diamond level guilds. This is despite the fact that the game has just started, and the maximum that players could expect is to get a Bronze Crystal of Glory. I immediately went through the information about the founders of the Guilds, adding them to the list of enemies.


    About in the middle of the list, I was ''pleased'' with the Guild ''Age of Glory'', because its founder was a certain Zinovia Reinhardt. Considering her flawless record and the effort that the Being spent on her release, it seems that they had already written me as ''waste''. If I think about it, almost all games which Being sent me, gave me some ability to successfully complete the task. And now, in the first game after committing this, I''m not afraid to say, an epic feat, I find myself as opponent of a great hero.


    Never mind, we''ll see who''s who. Considering the given name to me at behest of the Being, it is precisely from me victory is expected. Not a bad combination. To release the most famous game figure and to declare her as a future winner, and then waste her, earning the gratitude of Higher Powers that are not exactly waiting her with open arms. Well, at the same time, Being can bet against its own figure and raise a mountain of money on it. But this option looks too obvious. However, it doesn''t matter. My task is to win at any cost. And if that price is the Being itself, I won''t cry.


    When I had finished making a list of future victims, I checked that everything was in place and headed out of the hotel. First of all, I went to the Master of Mages, from whom I learned the spells Magic Arrow, Burn and Discharge. Although I already had a talisman with a Magic Arrow spell, I also needed to know this spell by myself, because it was a ''key skill'' for other mage skills.


    After spending fifty coppers for three spells, I went to the Artifacts Master, from whom I bought two blanks for talismans. To use the Burn and Discharge spells, I had to first find a red garnet and a rare green orthoclase. However, yellow orthoclase itself were enough for me. I could get these stones from the dungeon bosses. Well at least the first boss was in a dungeon, which I could easily pass alone.


    After buying a couple of potions for mana and health restoration from NPC, I went to my first dungeon in this game. The Cave of Stinky Goblin was located half an hour''s walk from the city. To get into it, I had to first get to the Cave village, there I should take a quest to destroy the goblins, knock out of them a map of the caves, after which this piece of paper could be used for passage into the dungeon. Fortunately, it was possible to pass the dungeon an unlimited number of times. However, the map had to be knocked out every time.


    Fast movement in the game was expensive, so I decided to walk to the right place. More precisely, not even to walk, but to run, which should reduce the travel time from half an hour to fifteen minutes.


    When I got to the right road, I turned on the ''auto run mode'' and went ahead, overtaking stupid noobs. However, a couple of even dumber noobs started to run alongside me. Most of the guides of the Cave of Stinky Goblin has mentioned the passage of the cave. But in one of them I read that the way to the Cave Village should walked. The fact was that the very same cave goblins were guarding this road, and every time they saw a man running away from them, they immediately tried to stop and kill him, shouting to him to give up a certain treasure.


    The first five minutes of running were normal. But then a band of goblins appeared not far from the road. They sat quietly around the fire, waiting for a player who will kill them. The road was outside of their zone of aggression. But for running players the area of aggression has been expanded four times. As a result, as soon as we ran past this group, the goblin shaman cast an area spell ''Hunting Spikes'' on me and to the noobs running next to me. The feet of my ¡®comrades¡¯ were immediately pinned to the ground, causing them to fell to the ground. But my resistance was equal to 100, so I just ignored the control effect, while the trap itself only dealt to me 5 damage.


    Leaving the two losers to deal with the goblins, I ran on. In less than a minute, I passed a small group of players. Immediately, two more noobs followed me, tired of walking, and decided to run along with me. After just a hundred meters, they realized why they shouldn''t have done it. Well, at least their comrades managed to catch up with the ''marathon runners'' and helped them to fight off a dozen goblins.


    In general, when I ran alone, the goblins preferred to throw a Lasso to me, which did no damage and could not hold me back. And only if someone was running next to me, they use Hunting Spikes. In this way, I was able to quickly reach the village, losing only ten health, which by this time had already regenerated.


    Quickly taking the necessary quest, I ran into the forest, away from the crowds of people. However, I did not take into account that goblins are much more common here. When they threw the Lasso at me, they started shouting and running after me, but they fell behind pretty quickly, so I just ignored them. But as I ran near a player who was concentrating on fighting with a lone goblin, I heard swearing and shouting in human language rather than goblin.


    When I turned around, I was able to see a picture how two dozen goblins attacked a player who previously fighting with one goblin, forgetting about me. As they say, oops! I sympathized to the unfortunate man, who didn''t even have a chance to escape, and moved on. At the edge of my eye I saw how the player tried to run after me, but he was immediately captured by Lasso, after which his fallen body was literally swallowed up by a crowd of joyful goblins.


    On the way to the caves, I ''rejoiced'' couple of lucky people with my goblin locomotive. These two were on one party and even in time was able to see the threat rushing toward them in my face, but they had nowhere to go. Any attempt to run through the forest will end in dozens of Lassos, which they could not Dodge. And just walking, they did not have time to get out of the zone of aggression of the crowd of goblins.


    When I got to the right place, I ''suddenly'' found that I couldn''t stop. I just realized that if I stop, I''d have to face a bunch of goblins. And it was impossible to shake them off from my tail, because while one group decided to return, the other found me running. At least the goblins only ''agitated'' when I was running away from them, not towards them. This way, at least, I could avoid groups of opponents, and they would start running after me, already hopelessly lagging behind.


    For the next half hour, I ran carelessly through the woods, trying to move through areas that other players had already cleared. But I have never been able to completely get rid of the persecution. But I met at least a couple of dozen teams of different composition, who were very ''happy'' to see my escort group. Gradually, the global chat of the location began to fill with the lamentations of the killed players, who demanded to punish me in all possible ways. But to do this, first they had to caught me, and any attempt to do this immediately ended in a their fight with the goblins.


    I tried to go back to the village, but there I met by a whole crowd of players hungry for my death. I had to turn around and run back into the woods. The players ran after me, but then three groups of ''local'' goblins ran out to intercept them, plus a dozen more groups of those who tried to catch up with me. I even started running circles around the battleground on purpose to see who would come out victorious in this ''crowd on crowd'' fight. But trajectory of my movement attracted even more goblins, who eventually all joined in the fun.


    About the time when last player died, I realized that no one chasing me new. I had already cleared a good area from goblins, and they were now in the center of a large circle. So, I slowed down and walked slowly through the forest, going around the goblins and reading even more malicious promises to find me and punish me in the chat. It''s a pity, of course, that this happened. After all, I lost almost forty minutes of time in all this fuss.

 Chapter 13.05 – World of Elements

    Climbing into the wild woods, I began to slowly farm the goblins. Although they walked and stood in groups, if you didn''t run alongside them and plunge right into the crowd, goblins could be ''pulled out'' one by one using a Magic Arrow. Stung by the charge of electricity, a goblin would immediately rush at me, yelling something in his native language. After that, all I had to do is keep my distance from him, slashing with my spear. When the goblin''s life drops to 10%, it started to run away, but I finish them with a Magic Arrow.


    Goblins, like me, had only a hundred health units. But their weapons deal maximum 5 damage units per hit, plus they swung their weapons at such a speed as if they were underwater. With such their "skill", I did not even try to evade their attacks. Alas, the magicians became true magicians just somewhere about on the 7-th level. Until that moment, I have to swing all sorts of stabbing, cutting objects and evade opponents.


    In general, level-up system in this game has an interesting story. They were given not for the stupid killing of an infinite number of enemies, but for... passing the exam. Yes, that''s right. It was necessary to come to the Examination Board, and then win the battle against the enemy. Depending on the wishes of the ''customer'', you could choose different types of opponents: one fat and slow, but strong; one fast and strong, but quickly dying; a crowd of small creatures attacking in a pack; a duel with medium-sized enemies, the next of which appeared immediately after the death of the previous one; and so on.


    Each such battle will be evaluated by the system, after which the player was upgraded or deemed insufficient. To get a second level, you had to make talismans with spells of the first level. Some geniuses could get the third level immediately after the second one. And those who grew their hands out of their ass, or shoulders, but instead of hands were claws, had to collect second-level players'' uniforms to achieve the necessary efficiency.


    Required map drop on twenty-eighth Goblin, which took almost twenty minutes. To kill one Goblin without letting it get to my body, I had to use magic at least four times. This is eight mana units or forty seconds to restore it. I considered it a waste to spend mana regen potions for the sake of pathetic Goblins. So, I had to rely on my natural regeneration.


    During the farm, I got twelve copper coins, twenty-eight Goblin quest teeth and four tin rings, which did not give any advantages, instead of pretty appearance. And, of course, I obtained a map that showed the location of portal which should lead to the boss''s dungeon. Each portal is visible only to the owner of the map, so there was no competition for them with other players.


    Combining my map of the area and the goblin map, I slowly moved in the right direction. A couple of times I met players who were furiously slashing goblins, but they did not notice me, so the clarification of relations with the victims of my marathon still postponed.


    When I reached my destination, I saw that a group of goblins is blocking a way to the portal. After looking around, I found a suitable place and decided to pull the goblins out of this company one by one.


    But then the sounds of battle and shouting caught my attention:


    ¡°There he is! Don''t let him escape.¡±


    Turning around, I saw seven players moving toward me at a rapid pace. Simultaneously with the movement, they beat four goblins who were in their way. The area around me was pitted with gullies and hills, so I had nowhere to run. Only if I pass a group of players. But they clearly will not just stand by and watch how their ''prey'' disappear over the horizon. Even if each of them throws one distance spell to me, it will be 70 damage. And after a second, another 70 will arrive, and I will die.


    Quickly having made up my decision, I ran straight to the nearest group of goblins. Slipping between them, I reached the entrance to the dungeon in one leap, and then jumped into it without hesitation, agreeing with the question whether I really wanted to go into it or not.


    ¡°-You have entered the wandering dungeon of the Earth Krait Worm.¡±


    What?! What worm? Hell, I think, I got a wrong map. In the end, this map gave only an approximate location of the entrance. Meanwhile, the following inscription appeared in front of me.


    Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.


    ¡°-This dungeon is designed for a group of 5 people. Until your group completes its passage, the entrance to the dungeon will be blocked.¡±


    Well, that''s great. Turning around, I saw a ''gray'' canvas of the portal, which indicated that it became inactive. Now I can''t even get out of here. So, I have only two options, I can die here or I need to go and kill the group boss.


    Yesterday in the library, I didn¡¯t give attention to this boss. Because, it was designed for a group of first levels, so it should have been fairly simple. But since I am not going to play in a group, I didn''t read about this dungeon and this group boss. My desired stones will fell from bosses who could be killed by one player or as part of a group of two people. I wasn''t going to mess with the group boss which I didn''t want anything from it. But now it is too late to drink Borjomi. I had to go and try to get through this fucking dungeon. And then I''ll have to figure out how to get rid of the pursuers waiting for me.


    Taking the spear in both hands, I prepared for battle and began to walk slowly forward. The dungeon really looked like an earthworm''s burrow. The walls were made of crumbling soil and clay. True, there were cobwebs stretched across the passage, but they somehow passed through my body, completely ignoring my existence.


    For the first hundred meters, I literally crept forward, expecting that someone will jump to me with scream. But no one was in a hurry to attack me. Then I quickened my pace and went forward, somewhat irritated, tearing through the cobwebs. Five minutes later, when I must have walked about four hundred meters, a large cave appeared in front of me, in the center of which the boss was ''sleeping'', curled up in a figure that is often depicted when they want to say ''Oh shit''. The inscription above the boss clearly identified him as my target.


    I didn''t get excited, but began to walk slowly around the room, studying my surroundings. As it turned out, I did it for a reason. On the opposite side of the hall, there was a large ''stone'' that I could easily climb on it. Maybe this stone is here for some purpose? So, I climbed on the rock, using the ledges as steps. Just climbing on this detail of relief I found nothing worthy of my attention. Well, so what now?


    Deciding that I would always have time to jump down, I turned to the boss, chose his as target, and threw a Magic Arrow spell to it. The worm immediately stirred up, raised its head, and screamed so loudly that my skull almost cracked. Three seconds of that wild scream was probably too much. But as soon as the scream of the worm fade away, a wild, many-voiced squeal of similar voices was heard from the corridor from which I had recently came out. A second later, a stream of worms literally flew out of corridor, each of which has at least fifteen centimeters in diameter, and more than a meter long.


    I just prepared to die but the small worms suddenly attacked the big one and began to tear it apart. Boss tried to resist, but the forces were too unequal. In just a minute, the boss''s life has reduced to zero, after which it screamed one last time and exploded with streams of acid that killed all small worms in the hall. I''ve been sitting on the stone all this time, so I didn''t even get a unit of damage. Finally, the wild screams subsided, and silence descended on the hall.


    What was just happen? But before I could do anything, a message appeared in front of me:


    ¡°-Congratulations on completing of the Earth Krait Worm dungeon. Until all players exit the dungeon, it becomes a safe zone.¡±


    And after that, two more messages immediately popped up in the world chat, highlighted by an animation of ''flaming fire''.


    ¡°Players: Cheater were the first who could pass the Earth Krait Worm dungeon on the server.¡±


    ¡°Players: Cheater set a new record of passing the Earth Krait Worm dungeon. New passing time is 10:07. Damage received by players: 0. Deaths: 0. Previous record of the dungeon is improved by 1:19:53.¡±


    I didn''t know whether to be happy or cry when a couple more notifications appeared.


    ¡°-For the first kill of Earth Krait Worm, you get a permanent bonus +1% to poison damage.¡±


    ¡°-For setting a new record in the Earth Krait Worm dungeon, you get a bonus + 5% to poison damage. This bonus is valid until someone surpasses your record.¡±


    Yes, it''s a good luck. Apparently, the record is considered to pass the dungeon in less than an hour and a half. I passed it in ten minutes and didn''t even know what went wrong. However, I will think about it later. It is time to collect the loot.


    I jumped down from the rock and walked over to the boss''s corpse, which was slowly melting into the mist. Already habitually extending my hand, I activated the collection of loot, and a window appeared in front of me, similar to the inventory, which contained one item. Without looking, I clicked ''OK'', and then opened inventory to see what I got.


    The reward was a ''golden'' spear, designed for the first level. When I picked it up, I saw that it looked as if it were made of gold. Weapon classes were divided into: gray, white, green, blue, purple, gold, and diamond. Golden things were considered almost the ceiling of what a player can get. Only rare lucky people could take possession of diamond equipment, and there were always a few of them. As for the gold items, they can be ''scaled'', and their damage depended on the level of player and from the ''quality'' of talismans inserted into it. Even now, without talismans and at the first level, this spear deals 50 damage per hit.

 Chapter 13.06 – World of Elements

    After examining the insanely expensive loot, I drew attention to its name. ''Spear of the First Dwarf''. Fuck! If anyone sees me with this spear, they will bury me in a grave, just to appease their greed. I don''t know what to say.


    I pulled out Magic Arrow talisman from my usual spear and inserted it into the golden one. The damage immediately jumped from 50 to 62. And that''s just one of the weakest spells in the game. What if I put the Burns and Discharge talisman in there? I sighed again heavily, pulled out the talisman, and stuck it in the Spear of the Poor Dwarf.


    Not today. And not tomorrow. I need to put this thing in the chest and forget about it until I reach the tenth level. Because otherwise they won''t let me live. Really, there''s a question, will they let me live, even if I don''t shine with such wealth? Messages about my achievements were seen by all players on the server. Moreover, they can be seen by anyone looking at the table of records.


    I searched all over the room, but I didn''t find anything more valuable. Not even a penny of money fell from these worms. However, where did they get the money from? The dwarf''s spear must have ended up in the worm''s stomach only because it had previously devoured the corpse of its former owner.  The first Dwarf simply died when he met the worm, however I killed this worm with one blow. I''m cool, what to say.


    I leaned to stone and began to think about what to do next. The Golden weapon will not tie up to the owner after receiving it. To do this, I had to get to the city and pay to special NPC. Only then I could you be sure that these weapons could not be stolen, lost, or sold. No one in their right mind will tie up a Golden weapon, because after that it can''t be sold. Although on the other hand, even the minimal chance of losing such a jewel would cause any person''s inner toad to rebel and demand to immediately take ownership of this weapon in any cost.


    There must be a lot of people sitting near the entrance of the dungeon right now. If ten people throw a Magic Arrow at me, I''ll be dead in a quarter of a second. I didn''t know what is the chance of dropping of Golden weapon after death. It could be one percent, or it could be a hundred percent. But even a one percent chance made my heart clench with anger and greed. I won¡¯t give. Mine!!!


    I don''t think I can escape from them. There were not only newcomers on this server, but also those who came here from other servers. And they know exactly what you can get for setting such record. Even if they don''t think about a Golden weapon, they will definitely assume the presence of a Purple one. Such a value in any case will make them try to pressure me and force me to give up my weapons or become their ''chain dog'', which they will use to clean up dungeons and kill bosses.


    In general, it turns out that the easiest way to go immediately and kill everyone. What else can I do? Since I have shocked the entire server with my record, I can only continue in the same spirit. Rather, let them afraid of me. The game on this server has just started, so with this spear, I can immediately go ahead through the levels and suppress opponents not only with my greatness, but also with the best stuff, rare spells, and so on.


    However, there is one ''small'' problem. There are a lot of them, but I am alone. To offset this advantage, I need something more substantial than just one spear. I''ll need a... magic. Real Air magic, magic of Probabilities. It can help me succeed where everyone else will fail. Because luck is one type of magic.


    Having made my decision, I pulled out ¡®the first Dwarf''s Spear¡¯, inserted the talisman with the Magic Arrow in it, and focused on my still dormant psionic abilities to see the future and how my actions might affect it. This will be exactly the ''luck'' that made it impossible for me to do anything with Alex Browning. Only foresight of the future and my own actions. This will be enough to destroy the enemies in my path.


    Morally prepared, I went to the portal leading out of the dungeon, gripped my spear tighter, and leaped forward. As soon as I appeared, I immediately made a wide swing with my spear, hitting three opponents at once, who did not expect such an attack. They thought that when I will come out of the portal, I will be spent couple of seconds to try understand what is going on. But I already saw my near future, and even miserable three seconds available to me already allowed me to do miracles. Another swing to the opponents who did not have time to react, and two of them went to respawn. One managed to retreat, but he chose the wrong way ¨C he rolled behind his back. Yes, he was able to dodge from my chest-level strike. But rolling was a slow method of evading, so I took a step forward in advance and delivered a stabbing blow to the crouching enemy who was trying to roll over his head. Minus three.


    Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    After that, I took a long jump to the right, wasting all my remaining energy. Right in front of me froze a dumbfounded magician. The first blow cut him from shoulder to groin. In response, the Magic Arrow flew to me, but my second stabbing blow to his neck nullified my enemy''s life, and he began to fall to the ground. Minus four.


    Against me, there are still two first-level magicians and a second-level scout. Without stopping, I ran ¡°through¡± the falling corpse, running to the left. Another mage finally reacted to my appearance and threw to me a Magic Arrow. But at that moment I was able to hid behind the nearest tree. A first-level mage''s spell was ¡°homing", but it still had animation of cast and flight. Due to this, the charge was aimed at me, but it hit an obstacle in its path.


    As soon as I went behind the tree, three opponents lost sight of me. I paused, recovering my energy before another rush.


    "Follow him!" - The most slowpoke of magicians rushed forward, who hadn''t even had time to cast a single spell, rushed forward.


    Of course, he did not rush straight to the tree behind which I hid, but began to circle it in an arc. But by the time he saw me, I was already too close. A double Somersault through the tall grass caught the enemy off guard again. However, I hid from the other two enemies behind the body of their ally, and struck him twice in throat with my spear. Immediately, I jumped behind another tree, no longer using my skills, but simply moving my legs. This barrier was worse, but I was covered not only by the trunk of a tree, but also by a nearby bush. Although two remaining opponents could see me, it was not enough to use their skills, since their skill required a ¡°straight line of sight¡±. This was one of the disadvantages of ¡°homing¡± spells, for which it was necessary to choose a target.


    The most intelligent in this team was a magician. When he saw my rapid execution of five enemies at once, he correctly estimated his chances and tried to retreat, using the same Double Somersault that I used. Then he made a stupid mistake by starting to run. Just a dozen meters later, he was caught by goblins with Lasso, after which I could be sure that if he did not die by himself, then at least he would not run away.


    My next target is a scout. But he has already received a second level, plus he ¡®clothed¡¯ in a set of leather armor with amulets, which significantly increased his survival. Unlike the first-level bums, he already had 240 health and four scout skills. I don¡¯t know exactly what is the scout¡¯s Element. I was hit by a fireball and an electric shock, so there were magicians of fire and air in the group. If we assume that the group had representatives of only these two Elements, then the scout has a ¡®Poisonous Touch¡¯, a ¡®Stone Throw¡¯, a ¡®Jump to Spine¡¯, and one of two spells: ¡®Retreat¡¯ or ¡®Insidious Strike¡¯.


    I can ignore his ¡®Jump¡¯ and ¡®Touch¡¯. The ¡®Touch¡¯ is too weak, and the ¡®Jump¡¯ requires two seconds of preparation. An ¡®Insidious Strike¡¯ deals good damage. If he hit in my spine, he can deal 70 damage, plus weapon damage. In general, we can assume that if he manages to stab me in my spine, then I am a corpse. ¡®Retreat¡¯ was the worst option for me. It allows him to instantly jump back to a distance of 10 meters. That is, no matter how close the scout is to me, after using this skill, he will instantly be at a distance of 10 meters away from me.


    While I was trying to figure out what to do next, the scout made a detour so that he could target me. The bush behind which I had hid was frankly frail. In response, I began to walk around the bush and tree so that they remained between me and the enemy. The magician was currently fighting goblins and was generally outside the spell''s range, so he could be ignored.


    Seeing my actions, the scout quickened his pace, at the same time approaching my shelter. In response, I waited for him to take a few more steps, then started running in the direction of the magician, at the same time hiding behind the trees to prevent the scout from using the ¡®Jump to Spine¡¯. The magician as a whole, held up well. He drained mana, by repeatedly using the Magic Arrow on the goblins. Only three of the five goblins were still alive, and one of them has half-dead. But the magician was too busy dodging Goblin attacks to notice my approach. The scout''s belated cry did not help him. It was enough me only one strike to send the magician to the next world. With a second blow, I finished off the half-dead Goblin, then turned around and rushed in the opposite direction, right to the player running towards me.


    Actually, it was not very clear to me what this scout was hoping for at all. When he saw me jump out from behind a bush in front of him, he immediately used a ¡®Retreat¡¯. This gave me to understand, that before me adept is adept of Air, which means that he has no ¡®Insidious Strike¡¯ and to inflict at least some damage to me he will not have enough time. Here is only after his rapid retreat back, the scout used a ¡®Stone Throw¡¯ and suddenly rushed to me. It seems that he used the ¡®Retreat¡¯ reflexively. But when we got closer, the enemy suddenly sped up a lot. First, he jumped forward and made a roll to get behind me, and second, he used a ¡®Light Step¡¯ - the ability of scouts of the Water element. If he stays behind me, he could move twice faster than me, while simultaneously using a ¡®Poisonous Touch¡¯.

 Chapter 13.07 – World of Elements

    My "foresight¡± was almost exhausted by this time. I successfully delivered a spear blow when the opponent ran past me like a bun, but then he started running behind me, stabbing me with a dagger and hanging poisoning. By my calculations, three seconds should have been more than enough for him to kill me. My attempt to turn around to face the enemy failed, because he banally put his left hand on my shoulder and now ran with me, but only behind me. Under acceleration, he could move faster than I could turn.


    I used the ¡®Forward Jump¡¯, then ran through the woods as fast as I could. The opponent also made a leap, catching up with me, but as soon as he took a couple of steps, moving after me, the spell of ¡®Hunting Spikes¡¯ unfolded under our feet, after which too nimble runner crashed to the ground. This spell only removed five health points from me. Quickly using the healing potion, I spun around and attacked helpless opponent, who couldn''t even roll over or get back on his feet. Four spear hits and a Magic Arrow completely killed my enemy, after which I easily chopped into pieces a couple of goblins running towards me.


    The scout''s leather armor was already beginning to play a role, and it took me five hits to finish him off instead of four. If it wasn''t for the extremely high level of spear damage, I wouldn''t have been able to survive this encounter. The poisoning almost killed me, even though I thought it was too weak. The scout managed to throw it at me three times, which in total took me 45 health. Plus, he stabbed me several times with dagger, which also hit me at 15 per hit, instead of 10 as a first-level weapon. As a result, only a timely consumed health potion allowed me to survive.


    After fight, I went back to collect the loot. Three more teeth fell from the goblins, but I collected almost a silver coin from seven players, plus a couple of potions of mana. Should I become a professional PK? This is a profitable business ¨C farming of players. Looking around carefully, I saw that there were no players nearby. After that, I waited for my health to recover and ran towards to the city of Crabs.


    It was a twenty-minute run from the site of my epic battle to the city. Oddly enough, I didn''t see any screams in the chat about what a cheater I am, or that I have a Golden weapon. It seems that my victims have decided to keep this knowledge for themselves. While I was running through the Goblin forest, I was followed by an honorary escort, who gobbled up two groups of players along the way. After the goblins were left behind, I was already running in proud solitude, skirting the occasional Wild wolf. These creatures may easily catch me, but they were quite peaceful and will attack only those who came close to them. Or maybe it wasn''t the peacefulness, but the poor eyesight of these predators.


    When I almost got to the safe zone, a beastly-looking man jumped out to meet me.


    "Where are you going, man?" - He asked me with the intonation of an experienced gangster.


    I did not stop or reply, but took out my spear and struck him three times in his chest. Gangster did not expect such answer to his question, so he could not even dodge. Already running away, I noted that it was a second-level warrior named Wild Beast. I put this gentleman in the list of potential enemies and rushed forward, since the border of the city was already in front of me. But when it was only a dozen meters away, a player in leather armor darted in front of me. He used the ability ¡®Foot trip¡¯, but I just jumped over him. Although his skill worked, my immunity to such attacks still saved me. However, this my cheat should not last long. These are only the weakest spells and skills that can be completely ignored. Further Resistance will simply reduce the duration of the effects of control.


    When I reached the safe zone, I turned around and saw a level 3 scout cheerfully waving hands to me who he tried to stop me. Maybe it was just a joke on his part, but I didn''t relax. Having added him to the list of potential enemies, I started walking through the streets of the city, trying to remember which of the NPC can tie-up weapons. In the end, I couldn''t remember, so I went to the library. There I found out who I needed, but since I got to the source of knowledge, I decided to immediately look at guide of how to pass the Earth Krait Worm dungeon.


    As it turned out, the reason for my unrealistic luck was still the same Resistance equal to a hundred. In the dungeon, the passage was blocked by a web, with which the young Krait-Worms hunted. When the player touched the web, it slowed down his movements, after which he was attacked by one or more worms. According to the guide, players had to try to avoid the maximum number of traps without disturbing them. Then after the first hit on the boss, the worms from these traps ran into the hall and began attacking all targets in the range. That''s why there was a stone in the hall, on which it was possible to hide... four players. It just didn''t fit anymore. Thus, on the bottom remained the most ¡°fat " player, usually a warrior. After the boss killed all his descendants, he will start to attack the players. But most importantly, at the moment of death, the boss will explode with streams of acid, which guaranteed to kill everyone around. That is, the warrior had to first fight off the worms, then tank the boss, not allowing him to attack the allies, and in the end, he did sacrifice himself. From the boss guaranteed to fall one weapon, corresponding to the type of weapons of the player who deal the most damage. However, the value of the weapon could range from white to blue.


    Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.


    With my resistance, the web just couldn''t slow me down, so the worms didn''t react to me either. When I hit the boss, they all attacked him and chewed him to death, after which the remnants of the small worms were destroyed by an acid explosion. It turns out that for all the time, no player has tried to pass this dungeon, having a hundred Resistance. Considering the overrated ¡°value¡± of Dexterity, each player put at least a few points into it. Just I''m so frostbitten that local "authorities" don''t mean nothing to me.


    In fact, it was the same in all the other games. I have never followed all sorts of guides. The maximum is to read them and take into account the author''s point of view. Here, another factor was that the dungeon was for group of players. So, only those who met certain requirements for the ¡°correctness¡± of their build were taken into it. And ¡°geniuses¡± like me didn''t try to go through this dungeon alone. First, the dungeon had a wandering entrance and appeared only once every three days. And secondly, I slipped into it only by mistake. If it wasn''t for the pursuers, I wouldn''t have tried to pass it. Probably...


    Thinking about the expediency of following the principles of kamikaze, I decided to immediately look at what I will lose on death. After all, there is no experience points at all. As it turned out, on death, the total number of character points temporarily decreased, which could only be restored by killing monsters. In addition, the chances of things falling out were quite high, about 20%. Only talismans and other ¡°personal¡± items did not fall out. Considering, that I only got mana potions as trophies meant that they were specially placed one piece in each cell to reduce the chance of more valuable items to fall out.


    When I had finished with my current questions, I left the library and went to the temple, where the priest could tie-up my golden weapon to me. That''s just along the way I noticed that I was followed by some suspicious crowd. And when Wild Beast emerged from the alley ahead, everything fell into place. That meeting near the city was no accident. Unless this personage didn''t expect me to have such a powerful weapon.


    ¡°Hey, stop.¡± - Gangster blocked my path.


    In response, I demonstratable made a ¡®Gliding Step¡¯ to get around him, then continued on my way.


    "Hey, stop immediately!!!¡± - Beast roared. But city was a safe zone. Although, even here it was possible to create problems for people.


    The crowd of players following me started to run, clearly intending to surround me. So, they wanted to block my movement. But I had anticipated this step and also accelerated, using a ¡®Double Jump¡¯. My pursuers had more energy, so I wasn''t going to compete with them in speed of movement. Instead, I turned sharply into a narrow alley and walked carefully between two guards who were discussing something with each other.


    When I "looked¡± at the future, in which I run into this alley, I found out that the guards will grab the running person and try to arrest him. So now I walked slowly near them, pretending to be an ordinary law-abiding citizen. My pursuers rushed after me, but suddenly faced two guards who blocked their path. At that moment, I made a ¡®Double Jump¡¯ again and ran as fast as I could.


    After successfully dropping my tail, I reached the temple. As I approached it, I noticed familiar names that I previously marked as enemies. But they couldn''t stop me. I went to the temple, found desired NPC, and then asked him to tie one item to me. This service cost me one silver coin. At higher levels, it would have cost me a decent amount, but at the first level, they made discount for noobs.


    Mentally wiping off my sweat, I walked away from the temple. Outside, a Wild Beast was waiting for me, surrounded by his pack of jackals.


    ¡°Wait, we need to talk.¡± - He tried to stop me again while the jackals began to surround us.


    ¡°Get off.¡± - I hit hand.


    "Do you even know who I am?" ¨C Gangster got angry, seeing my disdain.


    "You''re nobody and you are noname." - I expressed my opinion. - "Let me pass."


    ¡°What if I wouldn¡¯t let?¡± - Gangster grinned. - "Will you complain to your mommy?"

 Chapter 13.08 – World of Elements

    It looks like this animal was one of the game figures. If he knew a little about the rules of the World of Elements, he wouldn''t be so defiant. From the moment I realized that I was being followed, I started recording video while tagging ¡°suspicious¡± players. Now I already had a sufficient ¡°evidence base¡± for filing a complaint. It remains only to push this idiot to a clear display of aggression in my direction, and in the next few days it will not be necessary to fear him. The rules of behavior I read in the same library said that it is forbidden to interfere with other players in safe zones by "non-gaming methods". Blocking the path and forcing a conversation were two points of the "execution list".


    "You and your pack of jackals are blocking my path.¡± - I began to explain my position patiently. However, ¡°moderate " insults didn''t break any rules. - "If you''re afraid to meet me outside of the city walls, you should not pretend to be cool in a safe zone.¡±


    "What did you say?!"


    The bandit tried to grab my ¡®my neck¡¯, but his hand slipped off my clothes. This was already more than enough, so I attached the video to the report and sent it to the game administration. The result was immediate. A special AI was responsible for checking reports. I think he already noticed that there was a violation of the rules, so, my report was a great reason to immediately bring justice. Wild Beast and its jackals began to disappear in flashes of light. Now they will be imprisoned in the mines for a few days. Not all of the ¡®suspicious¡¯ players disappeared, but the main thing is that the path in front of me was cleared, and I was able to go to the next goal.


    This time, my goal was a market - a special zone where players could sell different things, advertise themselves and their services, and so on. As I passed the market gate, I immediately plunged into the loud noise of the crowd. Then I started looking for the yellow orthoclase. Initially, I wanted to knock it out my myself, but considering beginning of the hunt after me, it made sense to buy it with the rest of the money and create at least one additional talisman. When I found the right stone that I suddenly realized that doing the talisman now would be a loss of money. With my spear, I can easily take the exam up to the third level right away. And at this level I could receive the ability to create talismans with two crystals. However, I need money for second crystal, and I will have to buy new blank crystals.


    With an exasperated sigh, I went to... no, not to take the exam, but to the library. I needed money urgently, so I wanted to know where to make it. As long as I have the first level, the chance of falling valuable loots from the monsters will be higher. So it makes sense to first earn my "million¡±, then pass the exam for the third level, and then immediately buy all the necessary equipment and consumables, and go to charge the blank talismans.


    Now the game economy was just beginning to take shape on the server, so people didn''t have much money. There were three ways to get them: to get money directly from monsters, to get money in the form of junk that can then be sold to NPC, to get something useful, and then sell this something to other players who earn money using the first two methods. But now the game had too high a requirement for basic expenses, so, no one could afford to buy something really expensive. And the first levels were pass quite quickly, making the initial equipment useless. Already on the third level, all the talismans of the first and second levels turn into trash. So, an attempt to make money on noobs could turn into tons of "non-liquid" goods.


    As a magician of the Air, I did not have to fall to the level of pathetic traders, so my choice was the first and second ways to earn money. However, just knocking out money directly from mobs seems to be a bad idea. The ¡®richest¡¯ in the local forests were the cave goblins, which I had already met. About half a copper coin fell from each of them. Maybe a little less. In total, to earn at least ten silver coins, I will have to kill two thousand goblins. Even if I spend an average of twenty seconds per goblin, I''ll need six hours of continuous farming. Although there were no problems killing goblins, there weren''t many of them in the forest. But, I''m not in the mood to run around and collect them in a crowd so that I could mass kill them.


    The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.


    After studying the possible farm options and popular guides, I found an interesting option. Crab Island was so named, of course, not because of the players, but because of the many crabs that live in its vicinity. On one of the small islands that could be reached by teleport, there was a zone where crabs lived on the third level, whose shell cost as much as a silver coin. However, on the island itself, greedy merchants bought them for only ten copper coins. Only a few people had reached the third level yet, so it made sense to go there, collect the shells, and then go back to the city and sell them wholesale. Then surely such a lucrative place will be packed with crowds of players, and a natural war will begin for crabs.


    After leaving the library, I went to a network of portals that allowed ordinary players to travel long distances. The cost of ¡®travel¡¯ to the desired island did not please me. Fifty copper coins. I have only seventy-two. With a rueful sigh, I gagged my toad and parted with the indicated sum, then passed through the portal.


    A moment later, I was in a place that anyone on Earth would call as a Paradise. Sea, soft sandy beach, palm trees and... hundreds of crabs. I immediately rushed to the nearest of them, but found that it was not the crab I was looking for. I needed a Large King Crab, but here was a Small Raspberry Crab. I had to temporarily postpone the fulfillment of my dream of becoming a millionaire, and then go to look for local residents.


    One of the fishermen kindly informed me that the prey I want, lives on a small island that could be reached by swimming. Or by boat for 50 copper. As I looked at his sly eyes, I realized that I am beginning to have vague doubts about the success of this adventure. I refused the boatman''s services and went to see what there was in this village. Surprisingly, I didn''t see any players. Apparently, no one are willing to pay half silver to go unknown place. It was a long walk. Despite the fact that it was a computer game, the distances here were very realistic. Although not everywhere.


    After exploring the area, I went to the shore, which had a great view of the desired island. I was only two or three hundred meters away from my goal. However, the water ahead looked suspiciously dark. Maybe sharks live there. But I didn''t see anything threatening, so after another look around, I went into the water and swam forward. After a hundred meters, I realized why the fisherman was smiling so slyly. At this point I realized that a powerful water stream was passing here, which began to carry me away. Fortunately, I managed to overcome it and get out on the right island, although not at exact place where I expected to be. When I reached the shore, I looked out to sea, but there was no sign of that water stream was passing at this point. Next time I will need to take it into account in order not to drown in the open sea.


    After circling the island, I came to the right beach, and then realized why the shell of these crabs is so expensive. Their size was comparable to Main Battle Tank. Well, not exactly the size of a tank, but they were exactly three meters long. And their claws were the size of me. In addition, each level three crab had 600 health points. Cheering myself up with visions of my future millions, I sprinted to the nearest crab, coming in from behind. From the front, these monsters looked menacing, but from behind they were defenseless. In addition, the back part was almost touching the ground, so I didn''t hesitate long and jumped on my victim''s back.


    The crab became agitated and began to spin on the spot, menacingly snapping its claws, but it could not reach me in principle. I reached the center of the "mobile dance floor" and began to hit the shell, working with the speed of a sewing machine. Three beats per second. Each strike deal about 30 hits due to the crab''s strong armor, which reduces damage. The victim tried to throw me off his back, making a kind of dance, but my "combat foresight" allowed me to stay "on the horse". After seven seconds, the crab could not stand the mockery and died. But I was glad early, because only eight ¡°shell fragments¡± and three pieces of ¡°king crab meat¡± fell out of it.


    I scratched my head, puzzled, as I collected loot into my inventory. In the guide it was said that with careful conduct of the battle, the chance of falling out of the shell is almost one hundred percent. Maybe I was unlucky. I looked at the next crab and started toward it. But the next victim left me with only fragments of a broken trough, in the sense of a shell. Suspecting something was wrong, I decided to attack the next crab¡¯s legs. But the closer I got to the ¡®edge¡¯ of the ¡®dance floor¡¯, the stronger the pitching became, so even just staying on my feet was difficult. I had to use this crab for meat, too.

 Chapter 13.09 – World of Elements

    When I jumped on the back of the fourth victim, I immediately felt the look on me. As it turned out, the crab''s eyes were "retractable" so that he could easily look behind his back. I didn''t like the feel of the stare, so I leaped up to the crab''s head, dodged the claw, and then, with a quick movement of the spear, tear off both appendages. What was my surprise when such minor injuries to the crab took a third of his life, plus he was stunned for a three-second. I didn''t waste any time, but leaped up to the stumps of the eyes and drove the spear straight into the hollow in the shell from which they grew. My expectations were met, and I landed another critical hit for 200 damage. The next blow in the area of the second eye finally finished the crab. And after a moment, I saw the window of collecting loot that was offered to me to take the whole Shell of King Crab.


    "Yahoo!!!¡± - I shouted, then clicked ¡®OK¡¯.


    Only a second later I felt a heavy weight of duty to my Country which fell on my shoulders. I lay flat on the sand and looked to the inventory, and my eyes almost popped out like a crab''s. The Shell took up not one cell, but all sixty, leaving very little space for other things. If these shells don''t add up, then I won''t be able to add the second one to inventory. But the main thing was the weight of this shell. Looks like it was made of pure gold because it weighed 150 kilograms. I wonder, can I walk across the bottom of the strait with this shell in my backpack? I''m sure I won''t be able to swim.


    Ten minutes later I was sitting on the beach and thinking about how unfair life is. With such a heavy weight, I immediately went to the bottom, after which I began to have problems with breathing. A boat was needed to transport this shell. But just hiring a boat costs 50 copper. And return to the city of Crabs for another 50. After that, I can sell the carapace for 1 silver coin, resulting in balance of zero gold.


    However, there was another option. To steal a pirates¡¯ ship, load it to the brim with crab shells, sail this ship to the city of Crabs, hand over the shells, pirates and ship to the local authorities and immediately become a millionaire. Ah, dreams-dreams.


    But before I need to burn alive the author of this ¡®guide¡¯!


    I got to my feet and wandered into the local "jungle¡±, where I unloaded the shell in the bushes, where it could not be seen after a couple of meters. So now, there is nothing for me else to do here, so I had to go back to the neighboring island and start thinking about where to earn money to teleport to the capital. It''s a totally disappointment with these crabs.


    When I reached the side of the island that faced the cape on Crab Island, I moved a little to one side to compensate water stream, and plunged boldly into the water, raking with all my strength. During the swim, I indulged in gloomy reflections on "who is to blame and what to do", so I did not immediately discover that the sea stream is dragging me in the wrong direction. By the time I realized something was wrong, I was literally pulled into a fast-moving stream that carried me toward the open sea. Mentally cursing the game developers, I began to swim across the stream, trying to get out into calm waters, but all my efforts were in vain.


    Moreover, having stopped the senseless rowing with my hands, I was able to observe the departing shore and realized that the speed of my movement was now comparable to the speed of the subway train. All I had to do in this situation was relax and have fun. Or drown myself with grief. I decided that the second way to solve the problem is still premature, so I just waited, occasionally jumping out of the water to look around.


    Half an hour later, when the Crab Island was no longer even visible on the horizon, I saw that the water stream is dragging me straight to a small island of volcanic origin. Judging by its shape, it was an extinct volcano, now overgrown with jungle up to the top of its head. The closer the island got, the slower the stream moved. In the end, I found myself in a kilometer from the island and decided to start swim in its direction. Despite the short distance, it took me an hour to reach the island. Local underwater streams and wind were quite treacherous, and I had to literally break through the coastal waters, in one mapping of local streams.


    Finally, I felt the earth under my feet and with the last of my moral strength, I came to the shore through the surf zone. I was now in a sort of bay on a sandy beach. As soon as I got to my feet and took a short walk along the beach, I suddenly came across... a pirate. Judging by his appearance, cocked hat, and wooden leg, he was a typical ¡®sea wolf¡¯. All that was missing was a parrot on his shoulder and a bottle of rum in his hand. But most importantly, this character was neutral in relation to me, as evidenced by the yellow color of the inscription above his head: ¡®Pirate, level 4¡¯.


    I ran into the pirate almost nose to nose when I turned out from behind another bush. He also saw me, looked at me with some perplexity, and then asked a question:


    This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.


    "Who are you?"


    "I am just passing by." - I tried to excuse myself.


    "Yeah, I see.¡± - The man understood immediately. However, I personally didn''t understand what he understood. - "Then pass by directly to our captain. Walk down this path to a stone building with a flag on the roof. And then ask where to find Ered, the Crooked Sword.¡±


    ¡°Thank you. I''ll go look for him.¡±


    Having finished with common phrases, I turned into the indicated path, which led into the local jungle. In places, the road was paved with stones, which indicated that it was at least maintained in a "passable" state. Soon the path began to climb into the mountains, curving in a serpentine pattern between dark rocks. From time to time I met other pirates, but they all look glanced with indifferent look.


    After climbing about three hundred meters, I reached the pirate settlement. There were dugouts, and wooden houses, and stone, and some tents, and canopies. In general, the people settled down as best they could, using all materials at hand. The house with the flag on the roof was not immediately found, but from its appearance you could immediately tell that the Boss lives here. That''s the way with a capital letter, or even with four large letters printed with gold lettering. Five guards greeted me affably and sent me straight to the house where Ered actually lived.


    ¡°Hello.¡± - I said as I entered the large office where the chief pirate of the island sat at a massive mahogany desk. Tellingly, the table was carved out of a thick tree trunk. But for all the deliberate roughness of the work, it looked better than if it had been made of gold.


    "And you also don''t get sick." - Ered looked up at me, distracted from studying a document. - ¡°Decided to become a pirate?¡± - He immediately took a bull by horns.


    ¡°No, I haven''t decided yet.¡± - I backed off. Playing on the side of the ¡®bad guys¡¯ was possible, but it will create some problems for the players who were flattered by it.


    "Then why did you come here?" - The pirate frowned.


    Why did I come here after all? I also questioned myself.


    "I want to be rich." - I revealed my innermost dream.


    "Oh! So, what is here my concern?¡± - The pirate asked, putting down the papers and looking at me with interest. To be honest, looking at him, it was hard to imagine that this is just an ¡®NPC¡¯, which is controlled by Artificial Intelligence.


    "Usually, pirates must be rich." - I started talking nonsense to say something. To be honest, I came here just to see what''s going on here, and how I can make money on it, and most importantly, to find out how to get out of here. - "So, I thought I might be able to help you and make some money out of it."


    ¡°Well, I''ve got a job for a smart guy like you.¡± - Ered Crooked Sword nodded to himself. ¨C ¡°Recently there was a riot in our island. Part of the team decided to make Urga Blood Heart as captain. They could not kill me, but some of the rebels managed to escape to the caves and settle there. As a result, they hide below, and we guard them above. It is not profitable for me to go to the assault, because we may lose too many fighters in result. But I can''t just ignore the rebels, either. Because of this, I have to keep all my forces on the island, so I can''t even send out a ship to raid to capture the loot. Food and booze are running out, and I don''t have the money to buy them, because of Urga, this scoundrel stole all treasury. Right now, he''s sitting there waiting for my people to rebel against me, and then he''ll just go outside and buy them.¡±


    I listened to all this Santa Barbara stuff, pretending to be interested. No matter what type of problems this NPC has, in anyway, I will have to solve them by killing opponents.


    "Anyway, you can go to the caves and start killing the rebels. They have a money; you can take it for yourself. Ha-ha. And if you kill Urga Blood Heart, I will pay you one gold coin.¡±


    "Only one gold?" - I was offended, salivating inwardly. - "I thought you''d offer to me at least a chest of gold for his head."


    "Ha-ha-ha! Chest.¡± - The pirate laughed. - "I can offer you a chest of copper. Ten thousand copper coins.¡±


    "Ten thousand?! That''s a whole other thing! I agree.¡± - I said.


    In fact, of course, ten thousand copper coins were equal to one gold coin. Apparently, the pirates went so poor that this leader simply did not have any more money. He said they didn''t even have money for food. So, it is better to rob those who stole the entire treasury.


    ¡°Great!¡± - The pirate rubbed his hands together. - "Whale Throat, escort this recruit to the entrance of the caves.¡± - He shouted.


    The door immediately opened, and a fat man in a greasy tunic stumbled into the office. He nodded to Ered, then turned to me.


    ¡°Follow me.¡±


    Judging by his tone, this pirate was a fan of Chekhov</a>, so he was extremely brief, and at the same time considered himself as very talented. The contempt for a limited plebs in my face was not even in every word he said, but in every sound he made. His every move was filled with arrogance. And his vision was so strong that only a blind person would not have realized that all people are divided into two groups - the owners of this vision and other anthropomorphic shit that has come to life.


    Following this incarnation of talent, I reached entrance of desired cave in five minutes. Next to cave ¡®in ambush¡¯ sat allied pirates, to which I was led. And in the cave, apparently, were already sitting enemies. However, for me, both were marked in yellow, so I couldn''t figure out who was who.


    "There!¡± ¨C Whale Throat briefly described the situation, then turned around, intending to leave.


    ¡°Wait!¡± - I called after him, earning another scornful look. - "How can I distinguish opponents from allies?" - I asked my question. In response, the pirate just continued to stare at me blankly. It seems that to be honored with an answer, I will have to show my oratory talent. - "Look, you''re a pirate. They''re pirates. How do I know which pirates can be killed and which can''t?


    ¡°Hat.¡± - The pirate give birth a genially reply, then turned around and walked away.

 Chapter 13.10 – World of Elements

    Hat? I looked closely and found that all pirates wore one or another hat. Whale Throat and other pirates from the surface had an element of red color on their hat. But the two pirates guarding the entrance to the cave had rainbow colored ribbons on their cocked hats. Well, killing of gays is a God-pleasing business. Now it''s obvious to me which side I should be on. After all, as a novice pirate, I should aim to kill the rich ones. Because only their fat bodies contain enough gold and other valuables.


    Having decided on existential questions, I began to consider my two opponents. Both of them had level 4 and had around 250 health points. Judging by their appearance, they were wearing only ¡°rags" of armor, so the protection should be minimal. One pirate carried a heavy broadsword, while the other was armed with a sword and pistol.


    As I got closer, I started looking at the options of the future where I attacked these two opponents. First, it immediately became clear that they are in a group, and when one of them has been attacked, the second immediately goes to his aid. Second, opponents usually used skills related to weapon attacks. From "magic¡± they used only control spells. Because of my resistance, these spells only worked with 40-50% chance, plus the control time was minimal. To kill an opponent, I just had to deliver 4-5 strikes, which took less than two seconds. During this time, the pirates only managed to swing their swords once or twice. I could easily avoid these attacks. After all, I could foresee them. In addition, it was difficult to block my attacks, because I did not hit the torso or head, but their legs. The spear, in general, is very good for such blows, despite the fact that it is very difficult to protect against them.


    After replaying several options of future, I rushed forward and attacked the "rainbow" pirates. Firstly, I killed the one with gun. I parried his sword attack, and then at the last moment I dodged the shot at point-blank range. I went into the attack so that the second pirate was separated from me by his partner, and while he was avoiding the obstacle, I already finished off one pirate and took up the second.


    After four seconds, I came out of the future predicting trance and ¡®looted¡¯ the corpses lying on the ground. Surprisingly, 24 copper coins found from one pirate, and 51 from the second. Only during one fight I returned all my ¡®transport¡¯ expenses and even earned a little more. With a burst of enthusiasm, I ran into the caves, looking for the next victim. Another couple of pirates were found around the nearest corner. At the same time, they were already ¡®red¡¯, so they attacked me as soon as I came around the corner. But it didn''t come as a surprise to me, so I only spent five seconds for this couple.


    Alas, my further path was not as profitable as in the beginning. The pirates acted according to the legend, that is, they actively hid and even ran away as soon as they heard the sound of my footsteps. But as soon as I got close to them, they would rush at me, trying to chop me up. I had to perform miracles of quirkiness to avoid all their attacks. After all, even one hit of pirate would damage about 70 points of life. So, their two attack would guarantee to send me to rebirth. And the gunshots, that some of the pirates were armed, would kill me with one hit. Due to the difference in levels and the special skill of Snipers, a hit from a gun always would cause critical damage.


    On average, 40 copper coins fell from each pirate. They met me in groups of two, sometimes three. I had to go around groups where there were two Snipers. These bastards acted in unison, so that as soon as I dodge the first shot, I would hit by a bullet from the second. And they could easily catch me right in the middle of the evasion movement, when I couldn''t influence my actions. Movements without use of evasion skills were too slow to be able to evade at all. In the end, they shot at me almost at point-blank range. In addition to money, the pirates occasionally dropped weapons. It was ¡®white¡¯ and ¡®green¡¯, but in fact it was just garbage due to the lack of slots for talismans.


    If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    My wanderings through the caves were unsystematic. There was a real three-dimensional maze, which was difficult to understand, even with a map. So, I just wandered in random directions, trying not to go in circles. Pirates usually ¡®reborn¡¯ only after an hour, so that I couldn¡¯t ¡®non-stop¡¯ farm. The network of caves was simply huge, so if you went from one end to other, the pirates met quite steadily. And if I got stuck in some part of the maze, I had to get out of there to find the next target.


    The caves were multi-tiered, from half-submerged ¡®wormholes¡¯ below, to decently decorated ¡®Royal chambers¡¯ above. After climbing into the ¡®civilized¡¯ part of the cave, I suddenly came across to another player. This was a level 4 Wizard named Dramg the Magnificent. I saw him in one of the lines of the future and immediately turned to meet him, but stopped around the corner, just looking out a little to see what he is doing. Meantime Drag used a simple and even primitive strategy, which could only be used by Earth mages.


    On the level 2, the Magician receives a Paralysis spell, which will cast for two seconds, and then stun the enemy into a state of ¡®loss of consciousness¡¯ for 10 seconds. Dealing damage to this enemy could interrupt control, so this spell is usually used to ¡°freeze¡± one enemy and to kill their allies in the meantime. At the level 4, a Magician could change their profession and become a Healer or Wizard. The Earth Element wizard was able to cast the Stone Projectile spell, which will cast for three seconds and could easily be interrupted. Plus, the target had to be inside a 90-degree sector all the time. But when the spell worked, a huge boulder flew at the enemy, causing 400 points of damage.


    The Wizard which I met started his attack from a maximum distance of 20 meters using a Stone projectile. Considering that the pirates had an average of 250 health, the fate of the first target was obvious - he was literally smeared on the wall. After this crushing blow, the second pirate rushed to the Wizard, but the magician used Paralysis spell, spending only one second for casting. After the victim froze, the magician waited for the Stone Projectile¡¯s cooldown and used it again.


    If Dramg would require 2 seconds to cast Paralysis spell, the second pirate would have had time to run 10 meters distance and use one of his spells, which would interrupt Dramg¡¯s channeling spell. After all, this Wizard probably had zero points invested in Resistance, so his spells will be interrupted by any push. Casting speed of the spell would be increased using an additional modifier spell, which was inserted into the second crystal of the talisman. Moreover, at level 4 this spell could be obtained only by knocking out a special crystal in which this spell already has. Such "magic crystals" were one of the most valuable things in the game, because that''s how you could use the strongest spells that no player could learn.


    It turned out that the individual in front of me in two days was able to knock out a very rare crystal, take the level 4, and then get to this ¡°farming¡± place, where I got almost by accident. I decided that such comrade is worth to better acquaint. However, there was one problem. If he could use paralysis spell on me, it would actually mean my death. So, I had to appear next to him almost ¡°nose to nose¡± to be able to get out of the attack zone and chop this Wizard into cabbage. Considering my level 1, this task was not trivial. So, I planned to actively witness the future and run away before the wizard would decide to attack me.


    ¡°Hi.¡± - I greeted the wizard as I emerged from the passageway.


    ¡°Uh-uh... hi.¡± ¨C He slightly confused. - "What are you doing here?"


    ¡°Beating the pirates.¡± - I admitted.


    "On the first level?" - He didn''t believe to me.


    "What is wrong? It is easy.¡±


    ¡°Easy? I see, you are not simple.¡±


    ¡°You too.¡±


    ¡°Ha-ha. Exactly. My name is Dramg.¡±


    ¡°Cheater.¡± - I introduced myself.


    ¡°Where do you mainly beat pirates?¡± - There was a hint of jealousy in the wizard''s voice.


    ¡°Below. I came here by accident.¡±


    "I''m on upstairs." - He sighed. ¨C ¡°Only here the passages are long enough.¡±


    After hearing his speech, I realized that this Wizard is really limited in the use of his strategy. I preferred the lower levels of the caves, because all passages there were short and confused. This allowed me to suddenly pop up right in front of the victims'' noses, preventing them from using ranged attacks. On the contrary, Dramg had to launch an attack at a distance of at least 18 meters, so that the enemy did not have time to approach.


    "Can you show me how you kill pirates?" - He asked me.


    ¡°No. This is a trade secret.¡± - I refused.

 Chapter 13.11 – World of Elements

    Such appetite! Now, I was talking to him, hiding my weapon, so that it was impossible to tell what type of weapon I have. Generally, I preferred to move in this mode, developing the habit of ¡°masking". The weapon would be exposed almost instantly, plus its state did not affect the use of spells in any way. So, I wasn''t going to show my weapon in front of a stranger.


    "Yes, I understand.¡± - The Earth mage agreed with my argument. For people like him, the word ¡®trade secret¡¯ meant the most valuable thing a player could have. After all, it was the ability to make money that determines successfulness of the Earth mage


    ¡°Listen, how did you get here?¡± - I decided to clarify an important moment for myself.


    "On the boat. In the north of the island there is a pier from which you can reach the Crab Island.¡±


    ¡°Super!¡± - I was happy. - "At least now I know how to get out of here."


    "The ticket costs ten silver, though.¡±


    I almost started ¡°coughing up blood " from this amount. In three hours, I knocked out a little more than thirty silver.


    ¡°Damn! How can they be so greedy? Ten silver per trip!¡±


    ¡°But this price eliminates competitors.¡± ¨C Dramg shrugged. - "So, how did you get here?"


    "I got carried by water current.¡± - I smiled.


    "How you able to catch the tidal current?" - Dramg asked.


    "Rather, it caught me."


    ¡°That is... so, it was just luck?¡± - There was a hint of disappointment in my companion''s voice.


    ¡°What do you mean, just luck? Luck is the main characteristic of Air mages.¡± - I offended.


    "So, are you an Air mage?¡± - The Earth mage asked with a dangerous note in his voice.


    "Are you one of them?" - I asked hastily.


    "Which ones?" ¨C Dramg¡¯s eyes hatched, somehow embarrassed.


    ¡°Air-haters?¡±


    "Uh...no. It''s a complicated topic. However, what you think about me?¡±


    "Well... I think you''re nerd, but in general, it is not problem.¡±


    ¡°Nerd?¡± - He asked blankly.


    ¡°Yes. All adepts of Earth are boring types who pay too much attention to small monotonous details.¡±


    "Do Air mages always think only of great things?" - My opponent chuckled in an unexpected philosophical debate.


    ¡°No. Air mages pay attention to small, but unique details, able to turn the whole situation. The adepts of Fire dreams of great achievements. Do not feed these people with bread, let them perform some feat.¡±


    ¡°Ha-ha. That''s for sure.¡± - Dramg laughed. ¨C ¡°You are able to describe the essence of the elements in just a few words.¡±


    "Well...¡± - I put my hands on my hips. - ¡°... talent can''t be drunk! Okay, I think we should get back to clearing the area of pirates. I''m going to keep cleaning the catacombs. Good luck.¡±


    ¡°Good bye.¡± - Dramg nodded into the empty space, because I hid in one of the corridors.


    For the next five hours, I continued to farm of pirates. It was a dull business, but profitable. Along the way, I tried to find where the local ¡°dungeon boss¡± was hiding, but I couldn''t find him. I''ve already searched all the caves from top to bottom, but I couldn''t find the main rebel or his treasury. I decided to get out of the caves, because my inventory was completely clogged with weapons falling from the pirates. I discovered this only when I couldn''t pick up another ¡°green¡± gun. I had to look through the contents of my ¡°backpack¡± and throw out a strange ¡°gray¡± dagger. Gray meant "broken" or "worn" things. They could only be thrown out or sold to NPC.


    The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.


    After checking the value of each item in the inventory, I decided to get out. I should have found NPC who could buy all this garbage. Although pirates were ¡°neutral¡± creatures, this only meant that they could be attacked and killed. But you could also trade with them if your ¡°reputation" allowed it. For every killed rebel, I got one reputation point with the Crooked Sword pirates. According to this counter, I''ve already killed 196 pirates. On the way out, I cleared two more pairs of rebels, bringing the reputation to a beautiful number 200.


    In the village of pirates, I started asking the villagers about who could buy good weapons. Most of the pirates simply waved me off, but a few were kind enough to explain that there was a merchant in the village who lived on the outskirts of the north side. No one pointed out the exact place, but I just brazenly broke into one house after another, until I came across a dugout, inside which in front of me was a typical counter and a sly-faced man behind him.


    I haggled like a lion for the weapons, but in the end the merchant added one copper coin to the original price. For just 90 weapons, I got about 11 silver. It was much less than expected, but considering the lack of talisman slots in these weapons, it did cost no more than 12-13 copper coins apiece.


    ¡°Do you have a yellow or green orthoclase on sale?¡± - I asked. Normally, crystals would only fall from bosses, but in high-level areas, low-level crystals could be purchased from a merchant. However, this in no way disturbed the balance of the game, due to a fairly simple circumstance.


    ¡°Of course. A yellow orthoclase costs five silver, and a green one costs thirty.¡±


    At the first level, the price of five silver was simply too high, so it was easier to knock out the talisman from the boss or buy it from another player. I saw a yellow orthoclase on the market for 50 copper. But the price of the second stone pierced my heart.


    "Thirty silver?!!" - I exclaimed, clutching my heart. ¨C ¡°Where do these prices come from?¡±


    "What did you want?" - The merchant replied calmly. ¨C ¡°Yellow ones are quite common. But getting green is almost impossible. Thirty is still a good price. Take it before I change my mind.¡±


    This bug is trying to shake up money using such dirty tricks.


    ¡°Well.¡± - I sighed miserably. ¨C ¡°I need one yellow orthoclase.¡±


    Five silver coins appeared on the counter and were immediately swept away by NPCs hand.


    ¡°Take.¡±


    I also grabbed a rock and began to study its characteristics. Yellow orthoclase was needed to create a talisman with the Discharge spell. It dealt 30 damage, and for one of them, it would stun with paralysis for half second, which was great for interrupting the use of abilities. This spell was used instantly and had a three-second cooldown. If you use the green orthoclase, the stun time increases to one second, making this spell much more useful. After all, this meant that for one second out of three, the enemy would just stand still. However, there was a negative side of this spell. It was only used at a distance of one meter and had no target, so it was easy to miss when using it. After all, ¡°instant¡± cast meant the duration of the cast in a quarter of a second. And in close combat, this is quite a lot.


    "By the way, do you have a red garnet?" - I asked the merchant, throwing the orthoclase into my inventory.


    ¡°Of course, I have. Seven silver.¡±


    "How much?!!¡± - I shouted. Although red garnet was considered a higher-class stone, it was much more common. ¨C ¡°With these prices, you can sell stones to your clansmen. How much will they buy?¡±


    Angrily, I turned and headed out of the store.


    "All right, five silver.¡± - The merchant''s worried voice came from behind me. Such a bug.


    "Five silvers, and you give me a red garnet and a belt for talismans." - I put forward a counter-offer.


    ¡°Belt with two cells.¡± - The merchant immediately clarified.


    Such equipment was designed for first-level players, and it cost mere pennies.


    ¡°Agree.¡± - I agreed to the terms of the deal, putting the money on the counter.


    A second later, I got the stone and the belt. Talismans could be placed in weapons and on the belt. Starting from the sixth level, the belt had six cells, and the weapon had two cells. At the tenth level, you could take a belt with eight cells, but at the same time the talisman could no longer be inserted into the weapon. A player could have a maximum of eight active talismans. Some types of high-ranked weapons did not have slots, and then players had to make a lot of effort in order to find a belt with eight cells.


    A two - cell belt was the standard for the first level. Each class had the opportunity to learn three skills. Two were placed in the belt and one in the weapon. I had two talismans in my weapon, and two more could be stuffed into my belt. If necessary, I could use all talismans with the same spells in them. For me, this meant that I could take two or even three Discharge spells and continuously keep enemies in a stun state. However, there was a feature in the game''s mechanics that did not allow you to keep your enemies under continuous control. After all, then it turned out that, having struck the first blow, the aggressor received a guaranteed victory simply because the victim in principle could not leave the stun, and eight talismans allow to maintain this state of control indefinitely.


    To avoid this, each time the target came out of ¡°unconsciousness¡±, it received a half-second invulnerability for any type of control other than slowing down. And after that, for another one and a half seconds, the invulnerability to a specific type of control. The Discharge spell would paralyze the target with electricity. The Paralysis spell did the same, only its effect lasted ten seconds, but could be removed by taking damage. So, warrior''s stun skill would stun the target for one second. This was a different type of impact, so in a team fight, you could paralyze your opponent for half a second, and after another half a second, stun them for a second. As a result, it was possible to organize a cycle lasting 2.5 seconds, in which the enemy could not do anything in a 1.5 second.

 Chapter 13.12 – World of Elements

    The Discharge hung paralysis for half a second, then there were two seconds of invulnerability to paralysis, and in half a second discharge could be applied again, because the recharge time it had was equal to three seconds. In total, it turned out that having two Discharges does not make much sense. But you could take two Burns, which caused 30 damage at once and another 20 for three seconds. In general, the damage from these spells was less than one blow of spear. So, I needed them for someone else. Because my spear was gold, its damage depended on my level and the ¡°power¡± of the talismans embedded in it. The standard talisman with the Magic Arrow increased the spear''s damage by 12 points. Now I wanted to make two talismans with different spells and see how many of them give an increase in damage. If the difference is too big, I can make two talismans of the same type, the meaning of which will only be in increasing the damage of the spear. However, so far all these were only theoretical reflections.


    Coming out of the shop, I sat down in a shade under a bush and quickly "prepared" two blanks for talismans, putting in them the right stones and spells. Now it was necessary to get to the place with the correct distribution of world energies and there to complete the ritual of creating a talisman. In total, the game had 22 world energies. The higher energy number, the easier it was to find suitable conditions. Actually, every energy had its own name and description, but for me it was just numbers from one to twenty-two. At this point, I haven''t seen how a title like "Green Life Stream" can help me achieve the right characteristics.


    The Discharge spell required a special combination of three energies. For each energy, the "intensity" of its manifestation as a percentage was specified. Total was: E-17 by 26%, E-21 by 8%, E-22 by 61%. The value of other energies when charging this talisman was not taken into account. But with the spell of Burn, it was a little more interesting. The talisman with this spell could be created using different stones. Most players used cheap amethyst. That''s just when using an amethyst you had to take into account three energies. And when using a red grenade, the value of only two, which greatly simplify the search for a place to create a talisman. Burn: E-19 by 57%, E-21 to 42%.


    I read all these details in guides written by players of other servers. Now I''ve opened the talisman interface and placed the blanks in special slots. When selecting a slot, a separate window displayed a map of the area where I could see the distribution of the desired energies and their overall conformity to the pattern. Depending on the combination of energies, the resulting efficiency of the talisman could be from zero to one hundred percent. Only a talisman with an efficiency of 97% or higher could deal 30-point Damage. And if at the initial levels this value of efficiency was quite simple to achieve, then talismans with "advanced" spells could try to create for months. Pretty often players have stopped at an efficiency of 80%. Even 90% was considered as very cool. 97% and above could be created either because of a happy confluence of probabilities, or as a result of a very long selection of conditions and ... again luck.


    After scanning the area around the pirate village, I headed back to the dungeons. Now there are 82 silver coins in my purse, so by local standards I was already an oligarch. But I wasn''t going to stop there, setting a threshold to three gold. My greed was so great that I even began to doubt whether I was in a hurry to choose the elements. Maybe my element is Earth?


    However, these cowardly throws did not affect anything, so I just continued the farm. As soon as I entered the caves, I noticed that in one area of the dungeon there is a roughly appropriate combination of energies for charging the talisman with the Burn. At the moment, the estimated efficiency was already in the region of 70%. So, I went there and started farming pirates in the area, constantly looking at the map.


    My expectations were met after about half an hour, when a zone with an efficiency of 90% appeared next to me. Going there, I tried to see versions of future one by one, but a few minutes ahead. Thus, I was able to see the moment when at one of the moments, world energies coincided by 95%. Having reached this place in advance, I prepared myself for the talisman charge.


    As soon as the ''stars matched'', I immediately activated the charge, and in thirty seconds I had a ready talisman in my hands with an efficiency of 95%. Burn dealt 28 points of damage when used and another 19 for 3 seconds. In total, every 3 seconds, I could instantly cast this spell on an opponent that was one meter away. However, the use of this spell cost five units of mana, so it was not possible to roam with it on the first level.


    But the main thing, as I said, was the combination of the talisman and the spear. To get the talisman out of the weapon or belt box, you had to go to a safe area. But you could insert it anywhere. The main thing is to stay out of the fight. As I shoved the talisman into my spear, I saw its damage increase from 62 to 83. the difference of 21 was quite significant. Immediately, I threw myself into battle to test my increased effectiveness. Now I could kill a pirate in three strikes. And if this was not enough, the Burn spell allowed me to increase the damage. After all, I could use the spell at the same time as the spear attacks. Knowing my damage and my opponent''s health level, I could tell in advance if I needed to use magic or not.


    Unfortunately, despite the increase in damage, I continued to kill pirates at the same rate. After all, on average, I met one pair of pirates in five minutes. So, most of the time I was running through the corridors, looking at the lines of the future to ''comb'' the neighboring corridors. I don''t think I could have made that much money without this cheat.


    In two hours, earned amount of money reached one gold, and then I decided to stop. It was already nine o''clock in the evening, so I should have to find a place to sleep. Despite being in the capsule, I still needed sleep.


    Coming out of the cave, I looked at the map as usual and notice that in one place there was an incomprehensible ''energy anomaly'', which perfectly corresponded to the conditions for the creation of a talisman with Discharge. I immediately rushed there, forgetting about sleep and rest. The place I needed was hidden from all sides by rocks and thorny bushes, and when I found a passage inside, I was surprised to find the previous Earth mage engaged in some obscenity.


    Dramg was standing next to the table that held the alchemist''s travel kit. At the same time, he repeatedly used the Stone Projectile spell, sending boulders into a small rock protruding from the ground. The Stone Projectile broke into dust again and again, without causing any damage to the rock. But most importantly, after checking the map, I found out that the zone I need is exactly on the line of flight of the projectile.


    As I watched, Dramg took out a mana recovery potion, drank it, and then started using the spell again.


    "What are you doing here?" - I asked, coming in from behind of the wizard. I didn''t want to come under his spell. Who knows what he ''improved'' in it? What if this is angle of attack, and the entire area in front of the mage is ''under fire''?


    The future Destroyer shuddered at the sound of my voice and interrupted the cast, then stared at me suspiciously.


    ¡°Don''t come.¡± - He said quickly. - "I need to shift the energies of this place along the Earth element. And your pernicious influence of the Air can ruin everything.¡±


    Stolen novel; please report.


    ¡°Okay.¡± - I replied, stopping at a distance of 11 meters. If mage tries to use Paralysis on me, I will step forward and stop him with a Magic Arrow. He can''t suddenly attack me at this distance with anything else. ¨C ¡°I''m actually also interested in the energy of this place. Your use of magic has shifted the balance of the world''s energies, and along the trajectory of the Stone projectile is the zone I need. Wouldn''t you mind if I went about my business next to your target?


    "Do spells affect the distribution of the world''s energies?" - The wizard ignored my question and asked his own.


    ¡°Well, why not? I think this is just the case when the magic of opposite elements affects each other.¡±


    ¡°So, what energies has been shifted?¡± - Dramg continued interrogation.


    "On the E-17."


    "What?" - My answer seems to have broken the pattern for the Earth mage.


    ¡°Sequential number of energy in the game glossary.¡±


    ¡°Green Life Stream?¡±


    "Yes, that''s it. The numbers are enough to identify the energy, so it''s much easier for me to navigate by them.¡±


    ¡°So, to create a Stone Projectile, I used energy E-17, E-20 and E-22.¡± - Dramg began to mutter, looking at something in the interface. ¨C ¡°The green life stream was set at 22%.¡±


    "Yes, and I need 26%" - I said. "There is too much of this energy on the surface of the island, and too little in the caves. But here it is just right.¡±


    The wizard caught himself and started casting spells again, aiming at the rock.


    "It''s obvious.¡± - He said reproachfully. ¨C ¡°This energy is related to the life of plants. On the surface, everything is overgrown with greenery, but in the caves, on the contrary, nothing grows.¡±


    ¡°So, if you burn a hectare or two of the jungle, you can lower the energy level?¡± - I made a guess.


    "No, I don''t think so.¡± ¨C Dramg authoritatively rejected my version. ¨C ¡°This method was investigated by the Air magicians, and they could not achieve clear results. But no one guessed to use the spells of the Earth magicians, because of the confrontation between the adherents of these elements.¡±


    "So, will you let me use this place? In return, I won''t go near your desk with the equipment.¡±


    "It sounds more like an ultimatum than a request." - The wizard chuckled.


    ¡°I would call it a mutually beneficial cooperation.¡± - I didn''t agree.


    "What''s my benefit?" - Another Stone Projectile flew forward, only to shatter into pieces when it collided with a rock.


    ¡°You have learned from me that your spells affect the world energies used by the air magicians.¡±


    "Hmmm... all right.¡± - Drag nodded. - "Anyway, I''ll finish my preparations in a couple of minutes.¡±


    I remained to stay where I was, idly examining the mage''s clothing. My starting ''rags'' were light gray, but he was dressed in a kind of mantle of dark gray with a bluish tinge. I do not know what this set of rags gives, but it gave minus ten to his appearance.


    Finally, the Earth mage stopped raping the rock and turned to his lab table. I looked at the map and noticed that there was indeed a small area around Dramg, shifted towards the Earth element. Moreover, if the world''s energy shifted along the trajectory of the Stone Projectile, the Elements only shifted around the magician.


    Quickly bypassing my ''benefactor'', I reached the rock. The energy anomaly was already trying to dissipate, so I waited a few seconds before activating charging of the talisman. The resulting efficiency were 91%. Not great, but overall effect was not bad. In total, the Discharge would deal 27 damage, plus hung additional paralysis for 0.5 seconds.


    However, right now I couldn''t check how much will increase this talisman my spear¡¯s damage. Surrounding area around was not relatively safe. But I knew a couple of places nearby where such replacement could be made. Attacking other players was not allowed in the ''mansions'' of the local boss and inside of the shop.


    "Thank you for your help.¡± - I said to Dramg, heading away. He didn''t even turn to look at me and didn''t say anything, being completely focused on his ''alchemy concoction''.


    I went straight to the store. There I sell a few weapons that had been knocked out in a couple of hours and replaced the talisman with a magic arrow in the spear with a Discharge. Total attack increased from 83 to 89. How pity. However, it will do. This small amount was just enough to eliminate the need to finish off the enemy with spells. Eh, when will I become a real magician? It is not the royal business to wave a spear.


    As I went outside, I remembered that I actually wanted to rest. When I returned to the shop, I found out that there was a similar tavern nearby, where I could buy food and stay for the night. There I rented a kennel for one silver and went to bed.


    In the morning, I got out of my shack and went into the main hall of the tavern, and found out there crumpled Dramg. He was sitting at the table, devouring porridge. I looked through the menu and found out that porridge gives an increase in mana regeneration by two units for 24 hours. That is, my energy should have been restored by 3 every 5 seconds. It was three times more as it is now, so I also ordered porridge from the innkeeper and sat down near Dramg.


    ¡°Good morning.¡± - I said. - "How''s it going?"


    ¡°Everything is fine. I''ve already earned 50 silver and I''m going back to Crab Island.¡± - Drag said proudly.


    Fifty silver? I almost laughed. I collected two times more on yesterday.


    "Oh, that''s cool.¡± - I supported him. - "Listen, do you know where I can find the dungeon boss, that Urga Bloody Heart?¡±


    "Why do you need him?" - There was a hint of suspicion in the Earth mage''s voice.


    "I want to kill him."


    "PHA-ha-ha!!!¡± - Dramg burst out laughing. ¨C ¡°This is a five-star raid boss. How are you going to kill him alone?¡±


    "At least I''ll take a look at him."


    Dramg defiantly scooped up a spoonful of porridge, put it in his mouth, and chewed it.


    ¡°This boss is part of a global quest. To make him appear, you need to kill four hundred pirates.¡±


    "What kind of quest?" - I asked when I became convinced that the magician was not in a hurry to continue the story.


    "According to the history, there was a riot here, and this Urg escaped to the caves with the Treasury. First you need to kill the pirates, and then Urg himself. He drops a map of the place where he hid the treasury of pirates. After that, there are two options. You can use this map to return to Ered, and then he will give one gold to each participant of the raid who killed the boss. Or you can find the treasure yourself. There''s 50 gold and some purple stuff in there. But in this case, all pirates on the surface become enemies of the raid participants, and the radius of their aggression increases to two hundred meters. This whole story is repeats once a month, so Urg is considered as a rare boss. Usually, he is raided by players of the tenth level and higher, because the level of the purple item depends on the level of the raid participants.¡±


    After this short lecture, everything became clear to me with this quest. Moreover, in total, the magician and I collected one and a half gold coins, which approximately required killing of 375 pirates. So, there is remaining to kill a little bit more pirates, and then the boss will appear. I was already salivating when I thought about how I can get 50 gold by killing him.


    "You''re good at explaining.¡± - I nodded. ¨C ¡°Where did you get such knowledge?¡±


    ¡°I played on the first server for ten years.¡± - The mage replied smugly, eating the remains of porridge. ¨C ¡°During this time, I learned all the quests, dungeons, bosses, and game mechanics. So, on this new server I will definitely become one of the strongest players.¡±


    ¡°Ten years? Cool.¡±


    Outwardly, I was showing respect, but inside I was laughing at this idiot. You might think that knowing all this information can make someone a professional player. All this knowledge is a combined hodgepodge of other people''s experience. In addition, experience has no value if a person cannot apply it, for example, because of crooked hands or limited thinking. And here you could see both.


    I opened the interface of the game and send to Dramg invitation to friends. He looked at me in surprise, but then agreed.


    "Well, I''ll go on to earn a ticket from the island.¡± - I said, getting up from the table. ¨C ¡°Good luck.¡±


    Judging by the smug look on Dramg''s face, he''d missed my record-setting notification. If he knew about it, he would at least have asked maybe I am going to kill another boss again, to set a record. Plus, he would hardly believe that I didn''t collect even 10 silver.


    I left the tavern and went to the caves. To be honest, I''m sick of climbing these catacombs in search of pirates. But if there are only 20-30 left to kill them, then I can be patient. The main thing is to wait until the Dramg gets off the island. That''s why I added him as a friend. Although the game didn''t allow you to track your friends'' location, but when they were in the same location as you, you could send them ''free'' text messages. If they were too far away, sending messages cost 10 copper coins.

 Chapter 13.13 – World of Elements

    I went into the caves, killed a couple of pirates, and sat down on a rock to wait for Dramg to leave the island. Finally, after half an hour, the color of his name changed, and I went further into the caves. In total, I had to kill 17 pirates before the system message appeared in front of me:


    *** ''Urg Bloody Heart started hunting''.


    After that, I ran through the dungeons for another hour until I found my target. In one of the lines of the future, I carelessly flew right at his feet, and then I was killed with a single blow. The boss had 25,000 HP. He was dressed in high-quality leather armor, and armed with a strange pecker surrounded by a dangerous purple aura. For ordinary pirates, the profession could only be determined by the weapons and skills they used. But in the information window about the boss, I could see that his profession is a Fanatic Priest. Accordingly, he could not only fight hand-to-hand, but also heal himself. This turned out to be a real combat unit, which could only be killed by infusing massive damage in a short period of time.


    After running around of the boss, I found out his ''aggression radius''. When he saw me, he didn''t rush forward, but just started walking in my direction. He only attacked if I dealt him damage or hit him in the attack radius with a weapon. Apparently, the game developers assumed that the boss could roam the dungeon for quite a long time, so it didn''t make sense to spoil the life of ordinary players because of this. With certain precautions, it was quite easy to avoid a fight with the boss


    The boss did not just stand still, but wandered through the dungeons, ''hunting'' those who dared to kill his subordinates. Now that I had a rough idea of what the enemy is like, I could think of ways to kill them. Obviously, such a thing as a murder of a rare raid boss by one person was not envisaged by the game developers. But, as I have already seen, there were holes in the game mechanics, so they could be used somehow.


    After a little more experimentation with the boss, I found out how to guarantee to capture his attention. I only had one distance spell with a range of 10 meters. This distance was too small. In response to my Magic Arrow, the boss could cast his spell, killing me with a single blow.


    I knew that Scouts had a ''Stone Throw'' skill, which allowed them to attack a target at a distance of 20 meters. The damage there was ridiculous small, but the main thing in it is to attract the attention of the target. I tried Stone Throw, and it worked. Of course, it didn''t do any damage, but the boss then used his the ''Attraction of Faith'' skill. If it will work, I will be pulled to the boss. But, if the control is blocked by my Resistance, then the boss will fly towards me, waving his arms absurdly and plopping on his stomach right in front of me. It would seem funny, but after that second of shame, he would jump to his feet and kill me with a one punch.


    After thinking about this feature, I gathered five stones in reserve and ran to a place in the cave, which at one time made me marvel at the authenticity of the image of caves in the game. When I got to the right part of the dungeon, I began to examine the passage, in the center of which was a wide hole in the floor. The only way to pass it is by following a narrow path that ran along the wall. The hole was quite deep. It could probably be called an ''Elevator'' that could move you from the top level of the caves to the bottom. However, it was possible to move along it only in one direction, and at the bottom you will be greeted by stalagmite peaks.


    I looked into the hole, and then in one of the lines of probability jumped down. I flew fast, but I still had enough time to make sure that as a result I got to exactly the place I was hoping for. So, I need to conduct a small experiment. What happens if we throw the boss down? The question was interesting, but there was one problem - I couldn''t answer it just by looking through the probability lines. So, I had to go downstairs, find the wandering boss again, and then ''bring'' him to the right place.


    For the last hundred meters, Urg followed me reluctantly, and constantly ''broke free'', turning to side. I had to approach him at a dangerous distance, balancing literally on the boundary of his attack radius.


    Finally, I managed to lead the boss to the hole. Then I quickly ran along the path around the hole, took out the stone from the inventory and threw it at the boss. At the same time, I had to manipulate the probabilities, picking up the correct parameters of the throw, because it was quite difficult to launch the stone exactly at the target. I also chose the place and time of the throw so that when boss will use spell to me, my Resistance will protect me from the effects of control.


    As a result, the boss caught a rock right in the forehead, used his ''Attraction of Faith '' skill on me, and ... fell straight into the hole, amusingly wailing all the way down. In addition to throwing a stone, I managed to throw a Magic Arrow at him, dealing only 3 points of damage.


    Having crashed down, the boss remained alive. Moreover, from where I was standing, I could see that he didn''t hit the stalagmites that were so dangerously protruding, but just hit the floor, which removed only five percent of his health. Rising to his feet, he used the healing spell, completely restoring his life, then with a wild roar, he rushed away through the corridors. However, after five minutes of waiting, I again saw the boss running towards me in the corridor.


    As soon as he reached the attack range, the boss again used the "Attraction of Faith", fell into the hole and ... again survived. While this lucky contagion was running through the caves for the second time, I began to adjust to the manipulation of the probabilities so that when the boss will fell, he would definitely hit the tip of one of the stalagmites.


    Five minutes later, the boss showed up again, but he was running from the other side, so I had to run around the hole. I only had a few seconds to predict the future, but in the end, I was able to guess my position, in which the boss almost got to the opposite end of the hole, but slipped on its edge and flew down, a little pushed off by the wall. Because of this awkward movement, the boss flew not on the side of the hole, but right in the middle, in the finale naturally landing on stalagmite.


    Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.


    Even so, he didn''t die, but only lost a third of his health. The game was still to some extent a "sandbox" and quite allowed certain manipulations with physical objects, taking into account the laws of physics. The stalagmite pierced through the boss, and he had no way to get out. Moreover, with every move, he took damage from stalagmite, which he immediately heal.


    After watching this scene for a couple of tens of seconds, I rushed through the corridors, going down to the desired level. There I cautiously approached the boss and found out that he could not attack me if I came in from the side of his head and did not attack with a spear. And after that, a rather dull story began.


    The boss was constantly twitching and losing about one percent of his health per second. But every four seconds, he used healing with a half-second duration. At this point, I used my Discharge spell to break his healing. Due to the weak effectiveness of the first-level spell, paralysis did not always work. In this case, the boss''s health raises by ten percent. Fortunately, failures did not happen very often, so in overall, the health of the boss started to decrease.


    I had to ''stand over the soul'' of the boss for more than five minutes before he finally died. For the last two minutes, he was constantly on the verge of death, but managed to use the healing, even despite my intervention. And then, with a final twitch, the boss screamed loudly and died. I took a deep breath and stretched out my greedy, grasping hands to the still not cold corpse.


    Meanwhile, system messages appeared in front of me.


    *** ''Raid under the command of the player Cheater was the first on the server killed the boss Urg Blood Heart''.


    ** ''The raid under the command of the player Cheater has set a new record of murdering the boss Urg Blood Heart. New duration: 23:11. Damage received by the players: 0. Deaths: 0. Previous duration of the fight improved by 36:49''.


    *** ''For the first murder of Urg Bloody Heart you get a permanent bonus of 3% to the force of stun.''


    *** ''For setting a new murder record of Urg Bloody Heart, you get a bonus of 6% to the force of stun. The bonus is valid until someone exceeds your record.''


    By opening the loot collection window, I found 25 silver coins, a beautiful blue triangular hat designed for level 4 players, and a ¡®perfect large sapphire¡¯. The crafting stones used to make the talismans had different ''quality'' indicators. I used a small stone of ordinary quality in my talismans. With such characteristics, I could only count on a maximum efficiency of 100%. But if you use high-quality stones, you could get a bonus to damage or control effects. Plus, for some spells, it was necessary to use large-sized stones. The perfect large sapphire was a resource for level 10 players and above, making it extremely valuable.


    In addition to these three things, I got a quest map, which indicated the location of the cache. I immediately combined it with my system map and got an approximate search area. I immediately went there, parallelly considering the ''hat'' I got. It was quite stylish, decorated with gilt and had a large slot for the amulet. Amulets were similar to talismans, only the spells embedded in them acted constantly and exclusively on the person who wore this item of clothing. The quality of the hat was ''blue'', so, armor level and weight matched the leather armor.


    I was distracted from looking at the trophy by a private chat message from ¡®Dramg the Magnificent¡¯.


    ¡°- How????!!!!!¡±


    Apparently, he was in a state of complete stupefaction, because he spent 10 copper for such useless question. However, I also had enough money, so I could spend some copper to brag in front of another player.


    ¡°- Trade secret. How much are you willing to pay for this information? Considering, I''ll soon have 50 gold on my hands, so you don''t even have to offer silver.¡±


    The answer came in a couple of minutes.


    "- I suggest to meet."


    Ho! Does he want to beat the shit out of me?.. I mean, all the gold?


    "- I''ll write to you when I get back to the city.¡±


    I answered. Before going to the meeting, I was going to go to the bank and put the money and valuables ''into the warehouse''.


    "- I''ll be waiting." - I got a reply from Dramg.


    Apparently, he was completely pinned down that he spending money for such a useless phrase. But he is an adept of the Elements of the Earth, who are all misers and greedy.


    In the meantime, I wandered into corridors I''d never visited before. There was a cunning corridor, the passage into which was almost invisible from the side. Inside, I met a group of four pirates, which I had to deal. At least there was only one Sniper, so dodging the attacks wasn''t that difficult. The exact location of the cache was unknown, so I had to spend almost an hour tapping and sniffing around a hundred meters of passageway.


    Finally, I was able to find a stone embedded into the notch in the wall. Behind it was an alcove containing a small chest. When I opened it, I found 50 gold coins and... Purple Wand for the level 1 Magician. It allowed to shoot Magic Arrow without the cost of mana. For the first level, it may have been cool, but in fact this wand is garbage. Ten damages per second? Lol. Completely trash.


    Disappointed, I put the wand in my inventory, and I checked the contents of the chest and the alcove again, but found nothing new. However, I got another system message.


    *** ¡®Ered Crooked Sword declared you as his enemy. Beware! Time until the end of feud: 20 days.''


    When I was ready, I stuffed all the loot, including the chest, into my inventory and hurried outside, intending to exit the cave system through one of the coastal exits at the very edge of the shore. I came across this exit yesterday while looking for pirates. From there it was possible to get along the shore to the place where there was a wharf with a boatman. Taking into account the de-buff ''Enemy of Ered Crooked Sword'' imposed on me, I had another run ahead of me.


    Despite the death of the boss, there were still rebel pirates in the dungeon. Only now, after death, they loot not 40 copper coins, but at best a couple. With such an income, killing the pirates didn''t make any sense, so I hurried outside, killing the opponents only if they couldn''t be bypassed.


    When I came out of the cave, I found myself on the bare rocks near the surf line. To the left, the sea frowned, and to the right, the rocky shore of the volcano towered. There were no beaches in this part of the island, and in some places the rocks fell directly into the water. Looking around, I found a barely noticeable path, which I began to climb up, carefully looking around.


    But no matter how careful I was, the pirates found me first. At one point, four pirates appeared on the path ahead, hurrying to get to me. There was no sniper among them, so they could only attack with cold weapons. For some reason I didn''t understand, there wasn''t a single mage among the pirates. With such a selection of the composition, I was able to destroy the opponents, skillfully maneuvering between rocks and trees.

 Chapter 13.14 – World of Elements

    But by the time I put that four down, two more pirates had appeared on the horizon. These I already habitually finished off in four seconds. The only problem I had with the four was that I had to dodge all of their attacks. If I hadn''t the Discharge, I wouldn''t have made it out alive. After finishing with the second group, two more deuces appeared in front of me. For someone else, such a battle of ''attrition'' might seem difficult, but I only used simple spear attacks and the Discharge, so I could continue fighting in this mode for at least twenty-four hours.


    After five minutes, flow of pirates stopped, and I was able to catch my breath. But as soon as I took a couple of dozen steps forward, I heard faint shouts ahead. After waiting for a minute, I waited for the appearance of two groups of pirates of two and three fighters. Fortunately, there was some distance between them, so by the time the second group got to me, I managed to kill two of the pirates from the first group.


    Apparently, the pirates noticed me at a great distance, and then ran to meet me. Their movement through the forest took some time, so I noticed them late. If I walk too fast, I could attract too many enemies. And if walk slowly, I could wait for the resurrection of the opponents behind me.


    I picked up the right pace of movement, at which I did not waste much time waiting for the arrival of the enemy. However, I suspected there might be a trap. Accustomed to moving at a constant speed, I could enter into the zone of aggression of a large number of enemies at once. Therefore, I not only went forward and fought the pirates, but also listened to the surrounding sounds. Every time the pirates sensed my approach, they screamed, and those screams could be heard.


    A couple of times I had to run to escape from a dozen enemies, but in general, the path was quite simple. For a couple of hours, I ''cut'' a passage among the pirates, getting out to the coveted pier. It was only when the wooden deck was within sight that I noticed that the ''boatman'' was not there. When I went to the pier itself, I saw a system message that said that he would return only in an hour and a half.


    Considering this situation as a possible trap, I headed away from the pier, intending to climb a prominent rock from which to view the surrounding area. My movement was again accompanied by a fight with the natives, but there were no surprises. Fifteen minutes later I was sitting on the top of the cliff, looking around. The view from here was wonderful. Ten minutes later, I made sure there was a trap on the pier. On the main road, suddenly, whole crowd of pirates approached to pier, who stupidly trampled around the pier and went back.


    For the next three hours, I sat on a rock, occasionally fighting off the resurrected pirates. As it turned out, there were several patrols on the main road, and they appeared at irregular intervals. But since the composition of these groups was different, I was able to identify them and make a ''schedule'' of their movement.


    By the time I decided to act, the boatman had long been bored on the pier. It took me ten minutes to reach my destination. I had timed it so that I could get there at the moment when patrols go away. Last time, I was lucky enough to get to this place just when there was a big break in the patrol schedule.


    When I reached the boatman, I immediately asked him a question:


    ¡°How much does it cost the trip to Crab Island?¡±


    "Ten silver coins." - A bored voice answered me.


    ¡°Let''s go.¡± - I showed the money.


    "Where are you in a hurry? Please, sit down and take rest.¡±


    ¡°We''ll rest in the morgue.¡± - I replied, climbing into the boat under the surprised gaze of the boatman. Now, to take the money, he also had to go down from the pier to the boat. And since the silver beckoned him with its brilliance, my trip began in ten seconds. Just as we were turning on our course for Crab Island, a crowd of pirates ran up to the pier, shouting loudly and even jumping up and down in rage. But I wasn''t interested in this whole circus anymore.


    The way to the island was not fast. We sailed for more than an hour, until we landed near a small village. There wasn''t even a pier, so I had to take a walk in the water, which didn''t bother me at all. It was already past noon, so I had to hurry to get to the capital, pass the exam there, and then buy the necessary equipment.


    Judging by the map of the island, I had to run to the village where my crab hunt began, and then use the portal. Just think, at the beginning, fifty coppers were a lot of money for me. But now I have fifty gold coins in my pocket. However, with such money, I should be ten times more careful. Or even a thousand times.


    But all my fears were in vain. I didn''t see anyone all the way. But in the village, as soon as I approached the portal, a neutral NPC came out to meet me. His whole appearance showed his own importance. Blocking the way, he pointed his hand at me, pointing with his index finger, and said:


    "Cheater, you are accused of poaching the Great King Crabs, as well as conspiring with the Crooked Sword pirates. For this I sentence you to a fee in amount of...¡±


    The bureaucrat didn¡¯t have time to say amount of fee, because I banally behead him with one attack. NPC was level one and had 50 health. His whole appearance and cheeky demeanor said: ¡°Kill me¡±. And I did not deny myself this pleasure.


    In the guides, it was said that there are several forces in the world that are an alternative to legitimate power. The player could enter into a confrontation with these forces, but still retain access to the main cities and NPCs. Even if you were a bloody thug, no one could stop you from passing the level-up exam or using a safe deposit box in a bank.


    The NPC I killed was a representative of the Royal Court. The King of Crab Island was a nominal ruler with very little power. But that didn''t stop him from acting like he was commanding a galactic-scale army.


    Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.


    After a few more steps, I reached the portal, paid to the mage who served it, and teleported to the city. Then I was immediately surrounded by the hubbub and the crowds of players rushing in different directions.


    Firstly, I went to the bank, where I rented a ''personal warehouse'', which I immediately loaded with gold, a hat, and a purple magician''s wand. I only kept a couple of dozen coins of silver for myself, which should have been enough to buy up the entire local market.


    The next destination was the branch of the Council of Magicians, where I could pass the level-raising exam. To pass the exam, I chose a fight with a clumsy, but "fat" opponent. With my foresight of future, I should have easily dodged his attacks. In fact, it was necessary to fight him with the help of basic spells of the magician, so he could not be a strong opponent in principle. At the very least, it is unlikely that a battle with one monster can be compared to a battle with four pirates at once.


    But the first fight immediately showed that it is too early for me to rejoice. I shamefully lost it. The opponent was a large and fat troll who had 500 health. I rushed to his body, dodged a ridiculous wave of his hand, and then hit him three times with my spear. In the end, I deal to him a little more than 150 damege. And then the troll stamped his foot. I thought it was just another skill for ''crowd control'', but it turned out to be a circular AOE attack, which took away all my 100 health at one time.


    After being resurrected at the rebirth point, I went to the library. There I read in detail about all the opponents on tests for different levels, their characteristics, skills and strategies of killing. Passing the exam turned out to be a non-trivial task, and without the appropriate knowledge, you could try to pass it for a very long time. At the same time, it should be taken into account that passing the exam cost money, so each failed attempt was an expensive pleasure. At least for those who weren''t Earth mages.


    Coming back to the Council of Magicians, I paid for another exam with the same type of opponent. Only this time it was Ent who came out against me. This revived tree had only 200 health points, which was compensated by good armor and magical protection. The Ent attacked with its branches, which it had about a dozen. Also, he also used slow and stopping spells. This time I did not relax, but immediately turned on my intuition and killed the enemy without taking a single unit of damage.


    When I left the arena, I read the notification about getting the second level, and then immediately applied to pass a test for next level. I chose the same type of opponent. For me, this was the easiest type of enemy.


    In the arena, I met a troll I already knew. Only in this exam, the troll could use the ''Fire Aura'' spell, which dealt damage to all targets within a five-meter radius. At the same time, during the preparation for the use of the aura, the troll will start to blaze with fire, so you either had to choose a very precise moment to apply the Discharge, or use Paralysis to ''stun'' the troll, not allowing him to chase you with the turned on aura.


    However, all this knowledge was not useful to me. This opponent had 600 health, but it didn''t help him much. I dealt him 52 damage in one spear strike. Running up to the troll, I used the strategy that the Scout applied on me. I went behind my opponent and started stabbing him right in the ass. When he tried to apply Earth Concussion spell, I used Discharge. After that, he spun and ran erratically for three seconds, trying to escape from me, and by the time the opponent decided to use the Fire Aura, he had only 60 health points left.


    After getting the third level, I immediately applied for the next exam. It was already worth one silver coin, but for me it was a penny. As I entered the arena, I saw a Large Venomous Toad. She had 600 health, could attack with her tongue and with a poisonous aura, plus she could jump a decent distance, while trying to fall directly on the player''s head. Such a ''cover'' was equivalent to bombing the area and guaranteed to kill the player, inflicting almost a thousand damage.


    Here I had to run around, banally hitting the enemy with a Magic Arrow. When trying to get close, the toad immediately ''farted'' the poison, so I could not hit it more than one blow in a row. A third-level mage had a Bombardment spell that dealt 30 damage per second to all targets in a given area. This spell was of the ''continuous use'' type. That is, the magician could stand still and constantly cast it. And you can''t even just stand on the spot, and use a variety of movement skills from the group of steps. But since I didn''t have this spell, I just had to stupidly cast mana into Magic Arrows. That''s where I could use my purple wand. But now it was lying forlornly in the bank. The weapon could not be changed during the fight, but before attacking the toad, I could easily replace the spear with a wand.


    In general, I won only because I could predict the ''shots'' with her tongue, plus I had a ''buff'' from porridge to regenerate energy. After the victory, I went to the bank after the wand, and then applied for the fifth level. As it turned out, my decision to take the wand was correct, because I met the toad again. But this time, her aura was much stronger, plus she could jump while the aura was in effect, so dodging the ''toxic bomb'' was very difficult. But since this time I could do not 10, but all 20 damage per second, so, 800 life points of toad demolished in just a minute. I had to spend some time dodging, and given the activation time of the Magic Arrow, I could shoot it once every 1.25 seconds, not once per second.


    As soon as the toad died, I immediately received a level 5 notification. A second later, another record of mine popped up in the world chat.


    ***''Player Cheater has set a level-upping record on the server by rising 4 levels in 18 minutes.''


    WTF, why as soon as I do something, I immediately set some kind of record? Actually, I don''t want to draw attention to myself at all.


    But before I could complain, another system message appeared before me.


    ***''Players White Lily, Fat Plump, Dramg the Magnificent, Lot Thoughts, Sharp Long Sword were the first on the server to pass the Bottomless Pit dungeon.''


    Well, someone else has managed to set a record. And I see a familiar name here. Dramg, it turns out, he is enough cool. While I was getting out of the pirate island, he managed to pass the dungeon. However, he could not set a record. Apparently, he was dragging his teammates on his back.


    But before I could be happy for my friend, a paid message from the player Fat Plump appeared in the global chat. This pleasure cost one silver, and it was impossible to send more than one message per day.


    ***¡°Don''t play with Dramg. He nearly killed the whole team eight times.¡±


    Lol. But this is not surprising. If a person has not been able to achieve anything on the first server in ten years, what are the chances that he will become a genius just by switching to a new server?


    "Where are you?" - I received a personal message from Dramg.


    ¡°I passing the exam for level 6.¡± - I replied, applying for the next battle.


    To be honest, I wasn''t sure I could win. I was lucky enough to have this toad. She was considered the most ''primitive'' opponent. But while there is an opportunity, I need to try to go further. Up to the seventh, all levels were ''passable''. That is, you could take them with a minimum of abilities. But from the eighth to the tenth, levels were will be obtained with sweat and blood. There were a total of fifteen levels in the game, and only the ''elite'' rose above the tenth. There, the difficulty increased exponentially, and the guides said that in the ten years of the game''s existence on the first server, only a couple of dozen players received the fifteenth level.

 Chapter 13.15 – World of Elements

    My next opponent was a Giant Flying Medusa. She would attack with a paralyzing poison, and she tries to twist the victim with her tentacles. However, the main thing was not this, it was the fact that medusa could heal herself, so to kill her, I had to disrupt casts of her healing spell. I had only a single Discharge from my control spells, which meant I''d have get close to this thing anyway. So, I will take the spear and try to chop the Medusa into a salad before she kills me.


    This opponent had 1000 health points. Actually, it was quite a lot, but I have a spear for one hit removes 89. This monster does not have any armor. So, I will only need to hit 12 times, which can be done in 4 seconds. Due to the fact that the Medusa has a poison, its damage will be stretched over time. I just had to hope that in 4 seconds, it wouldn''t be able to do enough damage to finish me off. Under this tactic, I even prepared a health recovery potion. The only potions available to the Air Mages were those sold by NPCs. So, I didn''t have much choice.


    Without a second thought, I rushed forward. The Medusa hit me with its tentacles, causing poisoning and paralysis, but the latter only held me for a quarter of a second. After that, I literally flew up to the enemy and began to deliver wide slashing blows. Medusa had fifty percent resistance to the piercing damage, but the slashing damage was completely included. As I approached, the tentacles immediately wrapped around me, trying to slow me down. But again, my Resistance proved its usefulness, allowing me to ignore this effect. And then just went to fight for the amount of damage.


    I used all spells I had and attacked with spear. Plus, I swallowed a jar of healing potion as soon as my health dropped below 90%. This potion restores 100 health in 5 seconds, so it made sense to take it right away so that it could work.


    Four seconds passed in an instant, though it seemed like an eternity to me. Finally, the Medusa gave up its ghost and melted to a disgusting slime. But the fight didn''t end there, because the poison continued to deal damage to me. The effect of the healing potion was completed, and it could only be re-applied after 15 seconds. So all I could do is to wait, watching how my life slipping away.


    In the end, I survived. The poison stopped when I had only two health points left. Another second, and this attempt would have been a failure. So, I read the notification about getting level 6. In addition, I was awarded by another record for raising 5 levels in 21 minutes.


    Further I did not try to pass the next exam, but wandered into the city, remembering how to pass the quest to choose the profession of a Healer and get a second profession of a Magician. In general, I have not yet decided on the second profession. There were different options to think about.


    "Where are you?" - I got another message from Dramg. According to the list of friends, he was already in town.


    "I''m going to the library." - I replied.


    "All right, I''ll meet you there."


    Seems, he isn¡¯t going to stop. What does he even want?


    In front of the library, a level 5 Wizard was already waiting for me, this time glittering with a more decent robe and a beautiful staff instead of the crooked piece of wood.


    ¡°Hi, what do you want?¡± - I asked to the magician, without stopping and passing into the library.


    ¡°What are you planning to do now?¡± ¨C He immediately began to ask. ¨C ¡°I want to go through the quests with you with a good reward. Secret quest with a very good reward.¡±


    The last clarification explained why this pepper want to talk to me. He wanted me to ''lead'' him. And in return, he promised me access to these ''secret'' quests. In general, the exchange rate is normal. My knowledge of the game allows me to hope only for luck. But here is a free source of information.


    ¡°In general, it is possible.¡± - I replied. - "But not now. I need to buy clothes, charge talismans and amulets to them, pass quests to choose a profession. More precisely, pass the quest for the Healer profession, and then do everything else.¡±


    "Do you want to become a druid?" - Dramg surprised. We went into the library hall, where I took my usual place in front of the terminal. ¨C ¡°And what second profession will you take?¡±


    "I haven''t decided yet. Most likely the Demonologist, or maybe the Destroyer.¡±


    "Why not Paladin?" - The future Destroyer wondered.


    ¡°What kind of build is this?¡±


    ¡°Quite a popular build. Tanking druid. Can heal allies, beat enemies and help to the tanks to control the boss. Using most damageable skills of the two professions can deal good damage. At the same time, he protects himself with the help of paladin shields and heal himself with druid skills. You can look at the statistics of the first server about distribution of classes.¡±


    "How''s to see that?" - I surprisal asked.


    It turned out that the terminal really has a function that allows you to view general game statistics, dungeon records, and so on. By Dramg¡¯s advice, I filtered out players who were at least level ten and had been online for the last two months. According to him, many players collected the most bizarre builds, and then went to other games or deleted the character. So, such a filter was needed to see only those characters that really plays.


    Among these players, I chose only those whose main profession was a Druid. The top options were Druid-Demonologist, Druid-Paladin, Druid-Priest, and Druid-Destroyer. The remaining variation was found significantly less often. For example, a Druid-Scout combination was at the very bottom of the list. Such combination was somehow extreme, and only those who tried to achieve compliance with a specific role or simply do not understand what they should do at all.


    ¡°Here, the Druid-Paladin is in second place.¡± ¨C Dramg showed.


    "I somehow expected to be more a magician¡­" - I drawled, looking through the guides on the proposed combination of professions.


    The main feature of these builds was the massive healing and ''unkillability¡¯ of the character. For a guild healer, survival skills were very important. But if you collect skills that cause damage, then the option also turned out to be quite good. However, I myself was still more inclined to beat enemies from a distance. However, the Paladin had another plus - a large selection of control skills.


    In the World of Elements, there was no such thing as a level of aggression. Opponents were quite reasonable, and could decide at any moment that killing a healer or a mage was much more important than a fruitless fight with a tank. So, the tank had to control the actions of the enemies, using different types of stun, hold, interrupt, blind, and so on. Actually, the ideal tank used six controlling talismans and a pair of protective ones, which he uses to save the allies. A priest or a druid had to protect and heal the tank. In general, I still had to figure out the tactics and strategy of fighting.


    A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    "So what? Which profession will you chose?¡± - Dramg continued to bother me.


    ¡°I''ll figure it out later.¡± - I waved him off. ¨C ¡°First I need to take a Healer profession and stock up clothes and talismans.¡±


    "You''ll spent rest of the day for it." - My annoying friend immediately got bored.


    ¡°Well, then tomorrow we''ll do your quests.¡±


    ¡°Okay.¡± - He cheered up. - "While we''re walking, I''ll tell you what the second druid professions are for."


    "By the way, what''s the reward for these quests?" - I clarified.


    ¡°There are different options. Basically, these are spells for the main profession, stones, if I remember correctly, in one armor was given, and money, of course.¡± - At the last sentence, Dramg grimaced as if he''d eaten a lemon. He knew exactly how much money I had now. I told him about it already.¡±


    "See you tomorrow, then." - I very opaquely hinted. - "We''ll check in around eight."


    "Ok.¡±


    Dramg sighed and left the library, and I began to study the guides on becoming a Healer.


    Here the developers of the game came up with most perverted way. To become a Healer, you had to pass an exam on the knowledge of the ''theoretical foundations of healing''. But these very basics were so absurd that to pass the test, you had to literally memorize the answers of the questions. Or read and memorize the contents of a dozen insanely stupid books. Of course, I did not memorize anything, but simply wrote down the correct combinations of questions and answers into my notebook in the interface.


    Typical questions and answers were: How many tails does have an eight-tailed horned lizard? Two. What color is a ten percent solution of blue aukter? Red. How long can frozen Polar Cactus Juice be stored? Forever. And so on.


    Having dealt with the quest, I thought about what I should wear instead of the rags that I was wearing now. Looking at the guides, I also found a reference book compiled by the players about equipment and spells. It was something like Wikipedia. After reviewing the options, I came to the conclusion that it is worth buying a set of Healer''s Robes, designed for level 5. It could be worn up to level 8, and some people would change it on level 10. But only a Healer could wear these clothes, so first I had to become it.


    However, there were clothes I could wear right now. It was a belt with four cells for talismans, bracelets and a hat. Going to the market and then to the warehouse, I bought a belt and two bracelets, and took the hat knocked out of the boss.


    The next step was to create talismans and amulets. From the Mage''s battle spells, I needed only Paralysis. I decided not to use the Bombardment that deals prolonged AOE damage at all. And there were no more useful spells available for a Mage to learn in the Mages'' Guild. I could look for skill in books, but it''s better to do it again when I become a healer.


    It was a little easier with the amulets. They could be ''charged'' to increase health and energy reserve, regenerate health and energy, and protect against various types of damage and control. In total, at my level, I could put seven amulets in my clothes: two in my shoes, two in my bracelets, and one each in pants, shirt, and hat. I decided to make three amulets for health reserve and four for energy regeneration.


    Spells for creating amulets could be learned right now, as they did not depend on the profession. So, I went to the Mages'' Guild, where I learned everything I could, and for one thing I bought blanks for talismans and amulets. Next, I went to the market, where I bought stones to create amulets and a talisman with Paralysis. Now all this stuff should be charged, and by the time I become a Healer I will be able to put on the finished equipment..


    I also bought to myself a Luxurious four-cell Mage¡¯s Belt. In future, it should match well with the appearance of a Healer''s Robe. I put on my bracelets, belt, and hat, and looked at myself in the mirror and marveled at my strange appearance. The cap and belt looked rich, but the gray rags were even more conspicuous for their shabbiness.


    When I had finished my preparations, I went to the Abode of Life, where the representatives of the Healers, Druids, and Priests are located. Finding the right NPC, I asked to him to start the quest for a change of profession


    "I want to be a Healer."


    "Very well, young man, very well. There are always not enough healers. You know that in order to become a healer, you have to pass a test?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°What test do you want to pass?¡±


    ¡°What are the options?¡±


    The guides talked about taking a writing exam, but there was no mention of any other options for passing the test.


    ¡°You can take a writing exam on the knowledge of alchemical reagents extracted in the Star Forest.¡± - NPC paused, waiting for me to say something, and then continued. ¨C ¡°You can go to the Star Forest and help to the mages who grow plants there. You can go hunting in the Star Forest. And you can search for medicinal herbs and plants there.¡±


    ¡°Each Element has its own test?¡± - I guessed.


    ¡°Yes. But the challenge doesn''t have to match to your element.¡±


    ¡°So, what is people chose most often?¡±


    ¡°A writing exam.¡± - NPC confirmed my fears.


    It seems that all the guides were written by idiots for idiots, I mean, by Earth mages for Earth mages. Memorizing all sorts of reference books is their approach.


    "What kind of test is meant for Air mage?" - I asked.


    ¡°Hunting.¡± - NPC replied curtly.


    ¡°Wow! And, what kind of unknown beast do I need to kill?¡±


    "You''ve already said it yourself. You need to kill an Unknown Beast.¡±


    "Is that what it''s called?" - I laughed. - "Very typical of Air mages. Well, I choose to hunt the Unknown Beast.¡± - I announced my decision.


    ¡°Then go to the Star Forest and find the hunter Liquid Striped Fluff.¡± - NPC gave me the direction, instantly losing interest in me.


    I looked at the quest that appeared to me and went to the teleport site. After moving, I found myself in an area that bears traces of thoughtful agricultural development. It wasn''t a forest, but rather a forest park. The trees grew quite freely, and between them were many beds, on which grew all sorts of plants, flowers, berries, herbs, bushes, and so on.


    After examining the entire farm, I moved forward along the stone-paved path. From time to time I saw people picking at the ground or doing something with the plants. There were both NPC and players. My way lay to the camp of the Mages'' Guild, where the management of the entire botanical garden was located. After about ten minutes, I reached the site where a couple of dozen tents had been set up. There were a lot of people here, and they were all running back and forth as if they''d been stung in the ass.


    "Who''s in charge here?" - I asked to one of the NPC.


    He waved his hand vaguely, not distracted from the calculation of the bundles of dried weeds. I walked in the indicated direction and asked the same question to another NPC. He deigned to look at me, then muttered something unintelligible and turned away.


    Looks like a little fire is needed here. Or a large but deluge. But before I could think of what punishments to bring down on the heads of the local inhabitants, a player slammed into me.


    "Oh, I''m sorry...¡±


    But just as he was about to run away, I grabbed him by scruff of neck and shouted in his ear.


    ¡°Stand up! Who''s in charge here?¡±


    ¡°I... I...¡±


    ¡°Are you in charge?¡± - I asked in the prosecutor''s voice.


    "No! Twinkling Stars Waterfall is in charge. He should be in that tent over there with the blue stripe.¡±


    When I saw the desired property, I let go of my victim and headed for a new target. Waterfall turned out to be a busy person, but after a couple of minutes I was able to get his divine attention, pushing aside not so boorish visitors.


    "I have come to pass the Healer''s test. Where can I find the hunter Liquid Striped Fluff?


    "He''s somewhere... somewhere.¡± - They gave me an extremely vague answer.


    ¡°And more specifically?¡±


    "He must be somewhere near the camp. Look for him. He is a master of hiding, but if you make enough effort, you will come across him.¡± - After that, the Twinkling Stars Waterfall turned around and started a conversation with another visitor, pretending that I wasn''t there.


    Search for him. Awesome help. Giving up trying to find out something from someone, I began to walk in circles, looking for the desired NPC, and at the same time listening to conversations. As a rule, everyone said that the plan was not fulfilled, the deadlines were burning, the customers were roaring, and an Unknown Beast again ravaged the crops, devoured the winter crops and trampled the harvest.


    I noticed a player in more or less decent clothes, and went to him. He was talking to an NPC, trying to convince him of something, and ruffling the hair on his head. Along the way, I looked at the player''s name. His name was Straight Black Iron Sword. It''s not like a name, but a technical specification. By the time I got to the player, he had fallen behind NPC and was staring at the horizon, sighing bitterly.


    ¡°Hi. Are you doing a quest for Healer?¡± - I asked.


    ¡°Hi¡±- He nodded. - "Oh, so you''re this... Champion.¡± - He recognized my name.


    ¡°Exactly. If you want to set a record or accomplish a feat, you can contact me.¡±


    ¡°Yes, I have to perform a feat. It is necessary to restore eighteen destroyed beds, plant forty-three bushes and water eleven flower beds.¡±

 Chapter 13.16 – World of Elements

    "What kind of mission is this?" - I asked, surprised.


    ¡°Help for mages. There''s so much work to do that I''m going to plough through till tomorrow night. Because of their beast. Every night, and sometimes during the day, the local gardens are ruined. And those who want to become a Healer need to clean it up.¡±


    "And what''s the point of all this work if beast ruins everything the next day?" - I asked.


    "Is that what you''re asking me? The point is that I have to check the box and finish the quest.¡±


    ¡°Forget about this boring work. Better, let''s go on a hunt for an Unknown Beast. It is necessary not to fight the consequences, but to eliminate the cause, I mean, the local enemy of the people. You want to perform a feat and become a hero, don''t you?¡± - I ended my speech with a provocative question.


    "A feat? Yes, a feat! I''ll do it!!!¡± ¨C Suddenly, Straight Black Iron Sword inspired. ¨C ¡°Where should I go? What need to do?¡±


    Heh, a typical Fire mage. No need to explain everything to him, so that he will do everything what others say.


    "We need to go there which I don''t know where, and do something which I don''t know what.¡± - I replied with a proverb in the best traditions of the Chaos adepts. - "But first we need to find a local hunter named Liquid Striped Fluff.¡±


    "Oh! I see him.¡± - The Iron Sword exclaimed.


    "Where?" - I asked, looking around.


    "Over there, between the red-striped tent and the birch tree.¡±


    I immediately found the target and rushed to him, knocking down all the unfortunate ones who dared to stand in my way to greatness and dominance. However, everyone was running around like that, so no one even paid attention to me.


    "Hello, I want to pass the test for Healer. What are you hunting for an Unknown Beast here, and what should be done?¡± - I immediately blurted out, literally grabbing the hunter by scruff of neck, because just before my arrival, he tried to sneak away. Straight Black Iron Sword followed behind me, keeping a step behind me.


    The hunter turned his sad-faced gaze on me, sighed, and began to explain.


    "An Unknown Beast is ravaging the alchemy plantings in this forest.¡± - The hunter waved his hands, pointing at the surrounding area.


    "Is this a forest?" - I asked suspiciously. Actually, there weren''t many trees in the area, because the entire surface was planted with various kinds of alchemical weeds.


    "There used to be a forest here.¡± -The hunter sighed. - "But after that the Earth mages bought this territory and started growing plants for their own needs. And since they have a lot of money, soon the entire forest was turned into a botanical garden by the forces of thousands of magicians. But recently, an Unknown Beast has become accustomed to ruining crops, because of which the profit of magicians has decreased to zero.


    "What a useful beast, though.¡± - I said, grinning maliciously. - "As an Air mage, I''m completely on his side. So, what should I do?¡±


    The hunter gave me a strange look, then sighed ruefully, sticking to his stage image.


    ¡°You need to find an Unknown Beast and prevent it from ruining the gardens. Then it will hide for a while, and the mages will have time to grow at least something.¡±


    "How to I find it?" - I asked.


    ¡°Depends on you.¡± - The hunter waved it off lightly. ¨C ¡°Go through the forest. Pay attention to the footprints. Perhaps you will be able to find the place where the Unknown Beast will strike its next blow.¡±


    With these words, the hunter suddenly rushed forward and disappeared from me in the crowd of scurrying magicians. Oh, bastard! Gone!


    "Did you hear that? We face the heroic task of finding and neutralizing the Unknown Beast.¡± -  I informed to the Iron Sword.


    ¡°I was thinking, maybe it would be easier to plow the flower beds and water the seedlings? At least result is guaranteed there. It will only be necessary to work hard and do the job.¡±


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    "Why are you such a coward?" - I struck him below the waist with argument. - "Scared of obstacles? Are you afraid to fight a forest monster?¡±


    "I''m not afraid of anything.¡± - My free labor force began to justify himself.


    "Then, let''s go! We just need to find the elusive Unknown Beast in this endless forest. Since there are almost no trees here, it will have nowhere to hide. Consider that 90% of the work has already been done for us.¡±


    "Yes, we have only 10% left?"


    "Exactly! Let''s go!¡± - I grabbed Iron Sword by the hand and dragged him forward, not looking at the road. - "Where we go with the Straight Sword is a big, big secret, and we won''t tell about it, no, no, no!" - I started quoting Winnie-the-Pooh. The local civilization was not familiar with these weapons of mass brain destruction, so my victim immediately suffered critical brain damage and followed me, singing along as best he could.


    Since I didn''t know where to go, I also decided to look at the map for places suitable for charging my amulets and talismans. Surprisingly, one suitable place was found at the edge of the scanning area, and I rushed there, along the way carefully scanning the surrounding area for ''traces of Unknown Beast''. And that my companion not to suddenly start thinking, I send to him an invitation to group and began to retell Pushkin''s ''Lukemory''.


    When I reached the desired anomaly, I began to cut circles, choosing the best place to charge the amulet to increase the health reserve.


    "Where are we going?" - Iron Sword asked, also looking around carefully.


    "We''re following my intuition.¡± - I lied without blinking an eye, simultaneously adjusting the map to a more contrasting display of the energy combinations I needed. ¨C ¡°It is there.¡± - We walked a couple of hundred meters, and I stopped, studying the map. - "It''s here somewhere.¡± - I said under my nose.


    "Look, the claw marks!" ¨C Iron Sword shouted, pointing at the tree with its striated bark.


    "Yes, it''s here.¡± - I agreed, walking over to the spot and activating the amulet charge.


    ¡°Um-m-m¡­ what are you doing?¡± - My companion asked suspiciously, seeing that I am not paying attention to the tree.


    "I am consulting with the Spirits of Air.¡± - I replied, starting to charge the second amulet.


    "Are there any air spirits in this game?" ¨C Iron Sword asked incredulously.


    "Well, is there air? We breathe it. So, there must be air spirits, too. And even if they are not there, it does not prevent me from communicating with them.¡± - My companion froze again, trying to understand my logic. - "By the way, with what spells are you equipped?" - I asked, distracting him from this dangerous course of thoughts.


    "Spells? In talismans?¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡±


    ¡°All standard ones available to the mage at the fourth level.¡±


    I distracted myself from the charging process and noticed that the magician is really only level four. Only starting from this level next profession can be chosen. I got the sixth level right away, without choosing a profession.


    ¡°And what is your element?¡± - I asked. Normally, a mage''s element could be determined by his energy, but we hadn''t used magic for a long time, so now our energy coincided with the surrounding world.


    ¡°Air.¡± - He surprised me. I thought he was more in line with the Fire magician. However, in the soul, he can be an adept of Fire, but in the game he chose Air to become a Druid.


    "If we engage, don''t use the Bombardment without my orders.¡±


    "Why?"


    "It''s a waste of energy. It is better not to use it against one target.¡±


    While we were talking, I finished charging three amulets, looked at the mangled bark on the tree, and abruptly turned in the other direction - a suitable place for charging the second batch of amulets appeared on the map.


    Just as I took a step, the branches of the bushes and the grass swayed in front of me. The movement was brief but noticeable. And since no one was visible in front of us, the question arose whether the invisible man was chasing us. After taking another look at the ''claw marks'', I headed forward.


    This time we had to make a couple of circles, because in side there were ruined gardens. On closer inspection, I saw several huge paw prints on the ground. At the same time, the plants were uprooted and thrown near the place where they grew.


    This time there was nothing remarkable at the site of the anomaly, so I just froze in the middle of another flower garden, charging amulets.


    "Are you charging talismans here?" - My companion has finally figured it out.


    ¡°Well, yes.¡± - I nodded.


    "Ha! But, what about the quest? We''re supposed to be looking for an Unknown Beast!¡±


    "We''re looking for him. Right here. This place is no worse than any other.¡±


    "Looks like I''d better go back and do the earthworks." - Iron Sword lost faith in me.


    "Don''t be so upset. I still have one more place to visit, after which we can immediately destroy this beast and become heroes whose names will be sung in legends.¡±


    ¡°Are you kidding me?¡± - The mage flared up, displaying his fiery nature. - "Go alone. Why are you dragging me with you?¡±


    "Oh, how difficult it is with these noobs.¡± - I sighed.


    At the same time, I wrote a text in the chat:


    ''Use a Bombardment between a large pine tree and a rowan bush.''


    ''Why?''- Sword also asked in the chat.


    ''You''ll see. Just do it.''


    Sword didn''t ask any questions, but cast a spell. In his area of action was our invisible pursuer, who of course took damage and came out of invisibility. The shadowy figure leaped out of the spell''s range, and the red name above its head turned yellow, indicating that this NPC would not be attacking us right now.


    ¡°Liquid Striped Fluff.¡± - I greeted the invisible man. - "So, you''re the Unknown Beast?"


    "What?" - Straight Black Iron Sword exclaimed.


    "How did you figure it out?" - In fact, the hunter confirmed my assumptions.


    "Like you said, I studied the tracks.¡±


    "What''s wrong with them?" - The saboteur-pest frowned.


    "They were left on purpose. Moreover, these traces have nothing to do with the destruction. For example, in one place, the grass was pulled out of the ground by a human hand. At the same time, there were many prints of a cat''s paw nearby, but all of these prints were left-handed. I didn''t see any right paw prints.¡±

 Chapter 13.17 – World of Elements

    "Yes, I did.¡± - The hunter decided to ease his soul with a sincere confession. - "This forest used to be a paradise for animals and plants. Now it''s just a big vegetable garden, where plants grow only because they are allowed to. Therefore, I decided to create problems for the Earth mages so that they would refuse to use the forest. But in response, they began to increase the area of crops to compensate the losses.¡±


    "I suggest to burn everything." - The hunter and the mage, both made faces at the same time, as if I''d just kicked them in the balls. - "What? After this the mages will definitely get out of here.¡±


    "I want to restore the original forest!" - Liquid Striped Fluff exclaimed.


    "Then you need to kill everyone." - I gave out another radical solution. Compared to me, the local terrorists looked like innocent kittens.


    "I don''t have the strength to do that," - The hunter admitted.


    "Yes, I thought so.¡± - I nodded in response. - "Since you''re so weak, then we''ll just kill you and complete our mission. Iron Sword, behead him with your sword.¡± - I gave the order.


    "What?" ¨C He exclaimed. ¨C ¡°But this will put us on the side of evil!¡±


    "This evil that gave us the task. And until it is satisfied, you won''t be a healer.¡± - At the same time as this speech, I wrote to the group chat. - ''I''ll distract him, and you need to use the Paralysis on him.''


    The Iron Sword took up my game again, pretending to be sympathetic to the hunter.


    ''All right.'' ¡°But how can we become heroes if we fight on the side of evil¡±


    ¡°Hm-m-m... Almost effortless?¡± - I made a assumption. ¨C ¡°You do have to realize that the evil is more likely to declare us to be heroes, if we will fulfill the order. Heroic deeds - they''re all like that. The main thing is good advertising. With the right serve, any nefariousness can be a feat.¡±


    "So, you''re on their side¡­" - The hunter appreciated my speech.


    "Hey, hey, hey! I am on the side of the law, on the side of the strong, and on the side of money.¡± - I began to circle the hunter in arc, approaching him at the same time. - "Offer me more, and I''ll take your side. How about some gold stuff? Maybe then I will go to clear the forest of the filth in the face of Earth mages.¡±


    "I have nothing to offer you...¡± ¨C Hunter said. He wanted to add something else, but at that moment he was struck by lightning, paralyzing him for 10 seconds.


    "Then you will die." - I said, quickly closing the distance between me and the target. - "But I can promise that after you die, I will try help to this forest. After all, I''m a future druid, so it won''t be hard to plant a lot of predatory, poisonous weeds here.¡±


    The hunter''s eyes widened at the realization of what I am going to do to his beloved forest. But since he couldn''t move, he could only watch as I took out my spear and attacked him.


    This boss had more than 7000 hp. It was too much for me alone. On the other hand, this quest is meant for level 4 mages, so it couldn''t be too difficult. After getting hit, the hunter tried to retreat and use invisibility, but I caught up with him with a jump and hit him with a Discharge, interrupting the use of his skill. At the same time, I sent another message to the group chat.


    ''Hit him with the Discharge when he tries to go into invisibility, when my Discharge will be on cooldown. If yours is also unavailable, then hit the area with a Bombardment.''


    ''Understood''. - I received a short answer.


    To my surprise, the Iron Sword also charged into the melee fight, swinging his sword, which was indeed long, black, and iron. I constantly ran after the hunter and poked him with spear, guessing the use of Discharge to interrupt the invisibility cast and using the Burn on cycle. With the three amulets for energy regeneration in my bracelets and hat, I could no longer care about the energy consumption of these spells. Iron Sword also chased the hunter, repeatedly using evasive skills and swinging his sword with great skill.


    The boss''s life began to go down. He constantly tried to escape, but without invisibility, he had no chance of doing so. His retaliatory attacks in my direction usually were useless, and I did not allow him to attach my partner, because as soon as the hunter turned to his side, I went behind hunter and began to attack with a spear with maximum speed available to me. In addition, the Iron Sword himself was quite good at dodging, using the corresponding skills almost without interruption. His weapon did much less damage, so the boss had no choice but to try to attack me. After all, I could not attack while dodging, which means that the damage will be reduced. But no matter how hard he tried, the hunter''s life only decreased, while our health froze at the maximum mark.


    Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.


    Actually, the boss, designed for level 4 players, could not be strong. There are no healing spells at this level yet, so it was assumed that all of the boss'' attacks could be evaded. And with my combat foresight, the hunter had no chance of getting me at all. When the health of the Liquid Striped Fluff decreased by a third, he began to turn into an animal. His left hand became a huge cat''s paw, his legs changed to look more like a werewolf''s, and his face showed the features of a tiger''s face. The enemy''s behavior also changed. He started moving faster, plus he used his left paw to throw wide, circular punches that I constantly had to dodge.


    After that, as the life of the boss fell by another third, he finally turned into a werewolf, but his ''second form'' was not a wolf, but a tiger. As a result, he retained the general humanoid body shape, but his hands now resembled paws with long claws. His body was covered with fur, and most of the clothes were turned into some kind of leather strips, resembling either a harness or a BDSM gear. Then I had to fully focus on the fight, and my partner completely switched to using magic, because in close combat he constantly got punches to his face.


    When the tiger¡¯s health dropped to ten percent, he finally discarded his human form and turned into a huge saber-toothed tiger that was rushing around at great speed, no longer thinking about hiding under invisibility or escaping. From time to time, he let out a loud growl that paralyzed Iron Sword, but never worked on me.


    Finally, I gave the last blow with my spear, and body of the huge tiger fell to the ground, letting out a plaintive roar. Immediately, system messages appeared in the chat.


    *** ''You have accomplished a feat! For killing the unique boss Liquid Striped Fluff, you get a permanent bonus of +5% to your health and Hero title''.


    *** ''Players Cheater, Straight Black Iron Sword has accomplished the feat of destroying the unique boss of the Star Forest. Their names will forever be carved on the Heroes'' Stele in the Street of Fame.''


    ¡°Yes!!! Feat!¡± - Iron Sword shouted, leaping into the air and doing a somersault. - "I''m a hero now!"


    Immediately, his name was colored gold, surrounded by flames. In addition, the inscription ''Hero'' appeared above the name. I looked into my character settings and saw that I can now choose a title, and when the title Hero is displayed, a Heroic Aura is activated, which changes the name display and surrounds the player with a ''mystical'' glow. Not bad. Appearance is main thing. I also activated the title and enjoyed the picture in the interface showing how I will visible to others.


    "What fell out of him?" - Iron Sword asked, dancing beside the corpse. In the group''s settings it was stated that only leader has right to take the loot, that is me.


    I opened the loot collection window, and found two items there. The first was the Tiger''s Paw, a quest item that I had to pass to prove that I had completed the task. But the second item was a purple bracelet. It had a slot for a large amulet, plus a built-in active spell ''Invisibility'', which allow for wearer to use invisibility, even while in battle. Apparently, this bracelet was used by the hunter, trying to hide from us. And the very fact of having such an amulet in the game was still a cheat.


    In general, invisibility was an active spell obtained by a Ninja at level 7. But that spell only worked for a limited amount of time, plus it consumes energy at a rapid rate. Here, the invisibility could last indefinitely, plus the energy consumption was quite small. It could easily be recovered with a few mana regeneration talismans.


    ¡°Wow!¡± - Iron Sword''s voice rang out. ¨C ¡°Purple bracelet of invisibility. How will we divide it?¡±


    ¡°We will not divide it.¡± - I replied, taking the bracelet for myself. - "But I can give you a purple wand for a mage as compensation."


    I opened the trade window and inserted my wand. Iron Sword immediately confirmed the exchange and began to examine the wand enthusiastically, twirling it in his hands.


    "Wow!!! A real purple wand! Thanks! It''s just as awesome as the bracelet.¡± - The voice of the future healer was so enthusiastic.


    ¡°Really?¡± - I asked skeptically. ¨C ¡°It contains a first-level spell.¡±


    ¡°But at the tenth level, you can complete special quest, and replace the spell with a high-level one. Didn''t you know that?¡±


    All I had to do is make a facepalm. Who knew there was such a quest here?


    "No, I didn''t.¡±


    ¡°In general, there is a quest that can only be taken once, and if you pass it, you can change the spell of purple wand. At the same time, if the wand is suitable for the magician, then you can take any spell from any profession of the magician. Wizards usually take healing, and healers take something from the Destroyer''s spells. Plus, wand strikes don''t consume mana, although the spell''s power should match its energy regeneration level. This wand has a regeneration rate of two units per second.¡±


    ¡°Okay, use it.¡± - I waved, wearing a bracelet and inserting a talisman into it to increase my maximum health. All of my energy-regeneration talismans were already packed away, including one in the bracelet I''d just taken off. The energy regeneration from the three amulets could completely cover the mana cost of invisibility, but right now I was wearing only two such amulets.


    ¡°Thank you!¡± - The mage thanked me again.


    I tested the bracelet, making sure that the invisibility works exactly as I expected.


    "I wonder if we killed this NPC." - I voiced my questions, not really hoping for an answer. ¨C ¡°Who will now issue the task for the Air mages? And what will happen to the forest at all if no one here is engaged in wrecking?¡±


    "Since it was a unique boss, it won''t be revived.¡±- Iron Sword answered. ¨C ¡°And the local quests will change because of this, but in general everything will be the same as before.¡±


    ¡°Did you complete your quest for a profession?¡± - I asked.


    "Nooooo!!! I still have a task to restore the garden beds." ¨C Fu-u-uk!!! Well, at least I became a hero!" - It seems that my partner just could not give in to despondency for a long time.

 Chapter 13.18 – World of Elements

    ¡°How hero title usually can be obtained?¡± - I asked, heading toward the camp.


    ¡°For performing a feat, of course. That is, for killing unique bosses and completing unique quests. Wait, didn''t you know?¡±


    "No,"- I said.


    "You said yourself that you were going to perform a feat."


    ¡°Well, it was a figurative expression. Who knew that killing this Unknown Beast will be considered as a feat?¡±


    "So you tricked me?"


    ¡°Anyway, we have accomplished a feat.¡±


    ¡°But...¡± ¨C Iron Sword paused with his mouth open, apparently having no words to express his feelings.


    "By the way, where did you learn to swing your sword like that?"


    "Oh, that? I played the Destiny Sword for two years before opening the server. There, all the mechanics are sharpened for hand-to-hand combat with cold weapons. So, I just repeat the movements from there. I even gave myself a non-standard set of characteristics for this purpose. Seventy points in Endurance. So, now I can constantly use evasion skills. They are very similar to the techniques I used with the sword in the last game. Only here, I have to wave my hands my myself.¡±


    "Why did you decide to become a Druid here?" - I asked.


    ¡°I''m tired of waving a sword. I decided to become a healer, and then the server of the World of Elements opened. So, I''m a swordsman until the seventh level, and then I''ll just stand on the sidelines, heal my allies, and give commands to the pets.¡±


    "A Druid-Demonologist?"


    ¡°Yeah. Where did you learn to use a spear like that? I''ve been watching you, and you didn''t make a single mistake during the whole fight.¡±


    ¡°Heh. Compared to the games I used to play, this is just a kindergarten.¡±


    ¡°Really? I won''t even ask what they were called. The Destiny Sword was enough for me.¡±


    Similarly talking, we reached the camp of the magicians. Along the way, I added my partner to friends list. And then the Iron Sword went to work out the labor service, and I went towards the portal. At first, I didn''t understand why everyone was staring at me like that, but then I realized that I hadn''t turned off my Heroic Aura. And it would have been fine if they had been looks of surprise and delight, but the people stared at me with barely concealed envy and anger. So, I turned off my hero title and quickened my pace.


    "Hey, you, stop! Stop, I''m telling you.¡± - I heard a shout.


    Immediately turning around, I approached the impudent man in one leap and attacked him with everything I had at my disposal. The player tried to dodge, but against my foresight, his skills were powerless. As a result, he dealt to me thirty damage, and I dealt him two hundred, after which he went to the resurrection point. Picking up the loot that fell out of the player, I glared at the people around me, then ran towards the portal. No one dared to attack me, though I could see the desire in their eyes.


    In the city, I went straight to the Residence of Healers, where I passed the quest and became a real certified Healer. After that, I went to the market, where in fifteen minutes I found all the items from the set of Healer''s Robes, then I put them on and inserted four amulets for energy regeneration into bracelets and shoes, and three amulets for increasing the health reserve in my pants, jacket and hat.


    With my new look, I now attracted much more attention from passers-by, and again every second glance was filled with envy. I don''t like this game anymore. Why are there so many assholes here?


    To get an answer to this question, I went to the library. There I looked at the statistics on the first game server and found out an interesting thing. Among the players, 65% were adepts of the Earth element. 20% were Fire mages, 10% were Water mages, and only 5% chose Air. Judging by this distribution, the culture of the local society corresponded to the culture of China. This means that the main cultural values here are public opinion, following traditions, ''cultivation'' at the expense of stupid endless repetition and ... envy.


    It was the last feeling that determined the relations of people in society. In Europe, people with a penchant for Fire predominated, so there was a saying in use there: ''Fear means respect''. But here, it should have sounded more like ''Envy means respect''. Accordingly, I will be able to communicate normally at best with one person out of ten. And this is another nail in the coffin of the idea to develop my guild. I just don''t have enough patience to make these assholes listen to me. It would be easier to kill them all. The minimum plan is clear to me: I will kill all of them - I will remain alone.


    I spent the rest of the day studying the available spells for the Healer and charging the amulets with them. As a result, I had learned eight standard spells, and there were six slots for talismans. I chose spells Discharge, Paralysis, Bombardment, Quick Healing, Righteous Shield, and Grow Weed. In addition to the Discharge and Quick Healing, all other spells were available to all elements.


    I took Discharge and Paralysis because of their ability to paralyze the enemy. The bombardment performed well against the invisibles and enemies hiding behind obstacles. Quick Healing and Righteous Shield were the healer''s ''profile'' spells needed to play in the team.


    The last spell Grow Weed was a ''trial version'' of the Druid''s future skills. It allowed me to grow a plant of the quality of ''weed'' from the seed. I took it to test magic of Druids in combat conditions. For this purpose, I even bought seeds of Healing Chamomile and Evil Nettle from the players. One, as the name implies, heals allies, and the second whips opponents who were in range.


    A plant-growing spell could be cast on an area suitable for gardening. It could be bare stones, but in that case the plants received a ''debuff'' to the level of life and mana. In the area of action, plants grew in five seconds, whose density of placement corresponded to their type. That is, the nettle could grow almost in thickets, and the baobab in any case would grow one.


    By the time I was done with my current affairs, the sun had already set, so I went to bed with a clear conscience.


    In the morning, I woke up by the innkeeper yelling at me to get out. But the urge to continue basking in bed disappeared after I read the global text message that popped up in front of my eyes.


    *** ''Player Blue Hot Pepper is the first on the server who reach level 10.''


    As saying says: while you sleep, the enemies farm levels. Level ten! And I still have a sixth. However, this is all a show-off. The tenth level can be reached almost effortlessly in a week. I need to go right now and pass the exam for level 7. With the healing and shield spells, this will be easy. After that, it will be possible to pass the quest of becoming a Druid, and it will only be necessary to carefully study the question of what second profession I should take. There is definitely no need to rush.


    But before I could begin to implement this plan, I received a personal message from the player Dramg the Magnificent.


    - ¡°Congratulations on completing the feat. Ready to go through the quests? I''ve already made a plan. I''m in the main hall of the inn."


    Damn, I completely forgot about this clingy fish. I think that after I become a Druid, I can start doing quests that give me spell books. I already need to start collecting the skills that I will use at level 10.


    Getting out of bed, I went to the main hall of the inn, which was also the main dining room of the tavern. There were many hotels in the city, but out of habit I spent the night in the cheapest of them, where I spent the night before last. But just the day before yesterday, I was thinking about where to earn a dozen silver coins. Progress is obvious. So, gaining levels - a matter of time.


    ¡°Hi, there.¡± - Dramg ran up to me. ¨C ¡°I welcome the first hero on the server.¡±


    ¡°Yes, yes, thank you.¡± - I waved it off, scanning the menu. The most expensive dish here was the ¡®heavenly octopi¡¯s caviar¡¯, which increases energy regeneration by +4 for whole day. I ordered it, then sat down at the VIP table and turned my gaze to the Earth mage. ¨C ¡°Well, what are the quests? Are they even worth the time spent on them?¡±


    ¡°Of course, they are!¡± - He said, sitting down across from me. ¨C ¡°These tasks are designed for players of the eighth-ninth level, but they can be completed with the sixth level, as we have.¡± - I noticed that Dramg was on par with me in levels. ¨C ¡°For this, they give out an increased reward. Four quests provide gems, three spell books, three more have a chance to get a key to open a portal to a hidden dimension or to summon a boss, and a couple more tasks allow you to improve your reputation with the Guild of Mages and the Guild of Scouts, which will then allow you to take profitable tasks from them. Now many people are trying to increase the level as quickly as possible, while the tasks on the Island of Crabs make sense to take place at low levels. This is in the outside world, the higher the level, the greater the reward. But here everything is the opposite.


    "All right, you persuaded me.¡± - I nodded, examining the dish that had been brought to me.


    It looked like red caviar mixed with slime. This substance was in a deep dish and slightly trembled, as if alive. I scooped up a few eggs suspiciously and popped them into my mouth. Surprisingly, the taste was amazing. The consistency and taste of the dish resembled fruit jelly. Except that the taste itself was not similar to the fruits I knew. When I had tasted this miracle, I began to eat it spoonful by spoonful, watching the hungry gleam in Dramg''s eyes. Although he was a rich Earth mage, spending three silver coins for breakfast was too wasteful for him.


    After I finished the last of the eggs, we went to do the tasks. To do this, we had to use the portal system to quickly move to the other side of the island, where there was a zone for high levels. Surprisingly, although there were no top players, they were still present, running about their business with concentration.


    "Have the guilds tried to recruit you yet?" - Dramg asked me when we took a task from one of the NPC and went along the path to the forest.


    ¡°Hmm... maybe they tried.¡± - I said doubtfully.


    "How''s that? What does ''maybe'' mean?¡± - Dramg surprised.


    "Well, some idiot wanted something from me, and he disrespectfully ordered me to stop. I killed him for that, without giving him a chance to explain what he wanted.¡±


    ¡°Well, yes, this is similar to how the players from the first server behave, who were members of the top guilds there. In general, get ready. With your hero aura and your dungeon records, all guilds will be trying to get you to join them.¡±


    "What use are they will have from my records?" - I frowned.


    "You don''t know? If you are a member of a guild and are an officer, then your bonuses apply to all members of the guild. Similarly, if you are the leader of the group, then all players in the group receive these bonuses. Therefore, there is a constant struggle between the guilds for the records of passing the dungeons. Right now, no one is really doing this, but after getting the tenth level from the main players, they will start setting records in all dungeons of Crab Island. Although each specific bonus is not very big, if you collect bonuses from a hundred or two dungeons, you can become much stronger.¡±


    "Then what''s the point of my bonus pair?" - I questioned my value.


    ¡°The point is not in the bonuses, but in the fact that you were able to get them one of the first, and even at low levels. This indicates that you have good mechanical skills or a deep knowledge of game mechanics. Both are important requirements for elite players.¡±


    "What kind of mechanical skills?"


    ¡°This is the ability to quickly apply evasion skills and attack with weapons. Without this, it is impossible to become a strong player.¡±


    "What about the mages? Why would they need to evade? Stand to the side and throw spells.¡±


    "It doesn''t work that way.¡± - Dramg ruined my dreams. - "Even ordinary monsters won''t let you stand by and beat them. Someone will definitely try to attack you, escaping from the control of the warriors. And then, if you can''t dodge, you''ll probably die. That''s why you need to have fifty agility and forty stamina. With this distribution of stats, you can dodge seventy percent of the attacks. When there is a duel between Assassins, they can simply dodge each other''s blows for a long time, and the final of battle will be decided by just one blow. Mages are weak against assassins, so they also need to learn how to dodge attacks. Warriors need less evasion, but they have heavy armor and weapons, which is why they have to invest in strength.¡±


    I figured that with my resistance, I would need to have an improved defense to survive a missed attack. Still, predicting the future may not always help. So, the second profession, indeed, I can take a Paladin. However, then I can forget about dealing damage, which is not very good. The best damage indicators are obtained from the Druid-Demonologist, because plants and summoned demons perfectly complement each other. Plus, a druid can have a single pet that doesn''t require any talismans to summon at all. Actually, that is why the Druids-Demonologists are in the first place in terms of the number of players who chose the Druid as the first profession.


    This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.


    But plants and demons don''t know how to effectively apply the effects of control, so they won''t be able to stop the Assassins or Warrior at a distance. Although there are summoned creatures with the right skills, the mage can''t control the timing of their use. Only a pet can have such control. As a result, it turns out that in a confrontation with other players, only the damage dealing is important. And if these are AOE spells, then no amount of dodging them will help.


    Anyway, I have an invisibility bracelet. I can summon a crowd of pets and run alongside them in invisibility, killing enemies.


    Ok, I decided that I will take a Demonologist as my second profession. It will only be necessary to find out whether it is possible to remain invisible when the summoned creatures attack the enemy? To do this, I can search for the answer in the library and conduct an experiment with nettle. However, I wasn''t going to use the bracelet in front of Dramg, so I had to wait with the experiment.


    By the time I got to this conclusion in my thoughts, we had completed several stages of the task, and now, as a ''final touch'', we had to go through the dungeon. Right now, my spear was dealing almost two hundred points of damage due to my sixth level and the Righteous Shield and Quick Heal spells installed in it. I had 700 HP, and the energy regeneration due to the amulets and the caviar I ate was equal to the ''unlucky'' number of 13 units every 5 seconds.


    I thought I was pretty cool at dealing damage, but when we went into the dungeon, Dramg showed me what damage a Level 6 Destroyer could do. His Stream of Fire spell dealt 400 damage per second, even though he was 10 meters away from the target. In fact, as long as the enemy reached the Dramg, it turned into a handful piece of ashes. It was already clear that the Destroyer he would become in the future was capable of dealing incredible damage.


    However, this paradise lasted only in the battle against the first group of Cave Scorpions. And in the second group was a Scorpion Warrior, who jumped sharply in the direction of the Dramg, knocked him down and almost killed him with a couple of claw swings. It looked like my partner had claws instead of hands too, so he couldn''t even dodge in time. I had to heal him and cover him with a shield spell while finishing off the scorpion. A couple of other opponents also decided that it would be more correct to finish off the magician than to hit me, so Dramg had to run around from them in a circle, dodging their attacks. In the course of this race, he caught the eye of another group of enemies, so I had to literally pull him out of the grave.


    Now I could see why his former teammate had spared no expense in writing a message to the global chat. Dramg was not only a crab in terms of the effectiveness of his actions, he also went not far from the cockroach in terms of intelligence. These two groups of scorpions were killed only by me. At least they were all chasing after the barely alive Wizard, ignoring me until I started attacking them in the back.


    Then I had to organize the passage of the dungeon, by giving to the Dramg extremely simple and stupid orders. In addition, I had to monitor the future for threats not only to me, but also to him. We started each battle with the simultaneous use of the Paralysis spell, which left us with only one or two active opponents, which we managed to take apart in ten seconds of the Paralysis effect. We primarily tried to destroy enemy archers and mages who could attack from a distance. From their attacks, Dramg couldn''t dodge in principle, so I constantly had to heal him. And given the fact that the dungeon was designed to be completed by a full group of level 8 players, all this action turned into some kind of hell, where I had to repeatedly ''crack my butthole'' to save the complete idiot.


    On the final boss fight, Dramg again successfully ''held'' boss¡¯s aggression, running away with the last crumbs of life. At this time, I beat the boss in the back, from time to time healing my ''battle comrade'', so that he did not die on the one hand, and on the other continued to remain on the verge of death. Seeing the ''easy victim'' in front of his eyes, the boss didn''t pay any attention to me until his HP dropped to 10%. After that, he was switched its attention to me, completely ignoring Dramg, who was finally able to use his Stream of Fire to continuously deal decent damage.


    To my surprise, we not only passed the dungeon, but also set a record. The ''standard'' passing time was 50 minutes by a group of 5 people. There were only two of us, so for us the record bar was 125 minutes. But we completed the dungeon in just 45 minutes, which equated to 18 minutes for a full group. The dungeon was quite large, so even just walking it in 18 minutes wasn''t easy. This is if you clean all the passages and corridors.


    Theoretically, it was possible to pass it in 10 minutes. This was the record of this dungeon on the first server. To do this, you had to immediately run to the boss, simultaneously killing opponents. When the boss was hit, all the ordinary inhabitants of the dungeon ran to him aid, after which they could be destroyed by area spells. But this was already the level of professional players, so our ''virtual'' 18 minutes looked pretty good. Thus, with our 45 minutes, we broke the previous record of passing in 37 minutes as a full group.


    "Phew, this was the most difficult quest.¡± ¨C Dramg issued, when we finally got out of the dungeon and went to take the job.


    "Are you sure?" - I said doubtfully. With this walking misunderstanding, any simple quest was tantamount to performing a feat of epic proportions.


    ¡°Yes. For the rest of the quests, you do not need to pass group dungeons. There will be a couple of very simple open dungeons, and for all the others you just need to run through the forest and knock out the right amount of loot.¡±


    "Are these tasks for Earth adepts?" - I asked.


    "Uh... well, on the whole, yes. To fulfill them, it is enough just to show perseverance. And this dungeon was meant for Fire adepts. That''s why we had to work so tense.¡±


    ¡°Yes, we are so tense that we can''t go any further.¡± - I confirmed.


    For completing this task, we received spell books. I got the Emergency Rescue spell. It required standing still and constant use on an ally, was quite expensive in mana, but every 0.25 seconds it applied healing and a magic shield from physical and thermal damage. Moreover, these shields could be stacked up to a hundred times, so as long as the spell was used, the target could survive taking quite a lot of damage.


    However, after the end of the spell, the shield will disappear in just a second. On the other hand, it meant that it was possible to interrupt the use of the spell, evade the enemy''s strike, and then continue healing while retaining the accumulated shield. Moreover, it was possible to cast a spell for one ''tick'' once per second, simply maintaining the shield at the cost of a four-fold reduced mana consumption.


    In general, this spell was more in line with the skills of a Priestess of the element of Water, but I got it as an Air Healer, which in general was very good. After using the book and studying the spell, I mentally slightly reduced the ''size of the moral debt '' of the Dramg before me and already with some optimism went to perform the next task.


    We completed the next six quests without any problems. The only thing that threatened us was boredom. In order not to die from it, I bred Dramg on stories about the game and achievements in it. With a little help from me, the conversation turned to the topic of the Tower of Dark Lord, which I was able to learn quite interesting things about.


    The tower itself was originally a ''dungeon'' and had twenty floors. You could only enter it once a day. On each floor of the tower, a boss ''lived'', killing him opened a passage to the next floor. For killing bosses and simple guards of the tower, they gave a good loot, so this was a generally recognized place of farming. The difficulty of passing the tower depended on the number of players in the group, and with each floor, the strength of the opponents increased.


    Every time they entered the tower, they had to clean it from first floor. Normal players could only reach the fifteenth floor at most. But if there were only players from one guild in the group, then after killing the boss on the 15th floor, the entrance to the 16th floor would open. There, all the opponents were already designed for a group of 25 people. It was necessary to kill four bosses to get to the coveted 20th floor.


    On the 20th floor, there were no ordinary opponents, and there was only one immortal boss ''Keeper of the Tower''. It was basically impossible to deal damage to boss, while boss could hit players at his own pleasure. The goal on this floor was to ''capture'' the tower''s control crystal. If the players could ''capture'' the crystal for a minute without taking damage or interrupting, then the entire tower would become the guild''s property, and the next stage would begin. It is quite obvious that the Keeper of the Tower tried to prevent the capture of the crystal with all his might, attacking only the one who was capturing it at the moment.


    After the capture, only groups with at least one member of the guild that captured the tower could visit the tower. And once a week, the tower was opened for an assault, in which all the players of the server could take part. In essence, it was a ''one guild versus the whole world'' battle. However, even in such conditions, the chances of capturing the tower were not very high.


    First, on the side of the defenders were all those elite monsters and bosses that players fought in the normal mode of passing the tower. Moreover, after death, these defenders were revived quite quickly, so given the constant deaths of the attackers, a wide stream of ''meat'' had to flow into the tower in order for at least a thin trickle to reach the 20th floor.


    Secondly, the members of the defending guild were reborn right on the 20th floor, and could immediately join the battle against the attackers. The delay before their resurrection was only one minute. But the attackers had to be reborn outside the tower and then fight their way through 19 floors. And third, the conditions for capturing the tower were the same - use the crystal without getting a single hit for a minute. Only here, against the invaders, there was not one boss, but an entire guild.


    In general, the fun with this tower was still something, and every week tens of thousands of players rushed to the capital to take part in its capture. I was interested in one feature that Dramg mentioned in his speech. It turns out that the guild bonuses increased the strength of not only its members, but also the monsters defending the tower. Moreover, after the first capture of the tower, the defenders received a special buff, which strengthened them depending on the time that the team had to spend to get from the first floor to the twentieth and capture it.


    According to Dramg story, on the first server, the tower was captured for the first time only a year after the start of the game. And for another year, all the guilds of the game tried to recapture the tower from the guild of the Heavenly Order. But after they succeeded, the owners of the tower started to change almost every month.


    After the "re-capture" of the tower, the assault stopped, and the lucky ones received it in a week''s possession. Sometimes unknown guilds became such invaders, because the capture of the crystal was carried out by assassins hiding under invisibility.


    I was interested in this whole story because of this ''first possession buff''. If you manage to collect a bunch of buffs from passing the dungeons, and then single-handedly clear the entire tower, then as a result, all monsters-defenders in it will become so strong that no one can capture it at all. And this will automatically mean my victory.


    Thinking about my future plans, I already completed tasks as a full automatic machine. I even stopped pestering Dramg with questions, just following him and killing the monsters he pointed at. The tasks were really dreary, because you had to kill hundreds of monsters.


    After another sweep of the territory, we came to a small outpost, where there were only five NPC and the circle of rebirth.


    ¡°So, here we hand over quests for fifteen silver and for improving the reputation with the Guild of Scouts.¡± - Dramg began to explain. - "Then we''ll go to the next village and teleport to the next point. At the same time, you can get some rest.¡±


    The words about rest made me feel impatient, so I quickly went to the necessary NPC and began to give them tasks, even without really listening to what they were saying. The stories behind these quests were as boring as their execution.


    After once again answering in the affirmative to NPC¡¯s question about whether I want to continue receiving rewards from the Guild of Scouts, I suddenly received a system notification.


    ***'' You have chosen the ¡®Scout¡¯ as second profession''


    While I was trying to figure out what had happened, Dramg the Magnificent¡¯s nasty laugh rang out nearby.


    "Ha-ha-ha-ha! Gotcha! Ha-ha-ha!!! Scout-Druid! Now your character is useless. You''re going to lose this game. To capture the tower, you need to have a strong guild. And who will follow a person with such a profession? Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.¡±


    I turned around and looked at the freak. It looks like, he is a Game Figure. But why is he so sure that I''m taking part in the Game?


    "You really are an idiot.¡± - Dramg persisted. Apparently, in order to feel great about himself, he had to tell me about how he had caught me. - "Didn''t you see that the names of the regular players follow a certain convention? They consist of a noun and several adjectives. My name as a game figure is Dramg. I added the description ''Magnificent'', but I didn''t think it would really fool anyone. I knew you were a game figure as soon as I saw your name. And you hung your ears and let yourself be lured into a trap. You''re dead now. Ha-ha. Well, why don''t you say something? Come on, kill me. That''s what you want, isn''t it? Go ahead, kill me!¡±


    "Whatever you say." - I replied, activating my psionics abilities.


    In the past two and a half days, it has already strengthened enough to be used directly. I tuned in to Dramg''s emotions and his name, which he considered as his own. This was enough to find him in the astral world, and then reach out to his physical body. My strength was still small, but I could do something. It was almost the same probability magic, only I could change events just a few seconds into the future.


    I already had a pretty good knowledge of the capsule device. It wasn''t just a virtual reality access system. In this capsule, a person was born, lived and ... died. And after his death, his body was disposed of, for which it was not even necessary to remove the capsule. Simply, a special organic acid solvent was fed into the inner cavity, which in a few minutes turned the human body into broth. Of course, while the human was alive, this system could not be activated, but my psionics power interfered to the work process of Dramg¡¯s capsule.


    I just made a small "breakdown" of the electric charge on the computer board, which triggered the valve that feeds the "acid" inside the capsule. The pressure in the hose was minimal, because the acid pump was not working, but the acid still began to flow into the capsule. I couldn''t turn on the acid pump, but I could activate the pumping out of the biogel that normally filled the capsule. As a result, the rate of acid intake increased, and it came into contact with the body of my victim.


    ¡°Well, what are you standing for? Say something." - Drag continued, his voice raging. - ¡°It''s because of me that you''re going to lose this game. And I''ll win. I''ve been studying the World of Elements for ten years. I know everything...¡± - With that, my enemy''s smug speech stopped, and he began to look around. - "What''s going on? What are you doing?¡±


    ¡°What I doing?¡± - I grinned viciously. - "I''m not doing anything. You said it yourself. I just stand there and watching how you die.¡±


    The organic solvent, from a chemical point of view, was not an acid that ''corroded'' organic matter. It dissolves the cell walls, collagen and keratin. Because of this, the rate of destruction of the body was simply fantastic. It dissolved like a lollipop in boiling water. In the real world, Dramg''s skin had already peeled off. The solvent got into his bloodstream, started pouring into his lungs and eating out his eyes. The pain he felt was hellish, and even virtual reality couldn''t get rid of it.


    Dramg fell to the ground and began to roll on it, tearing his face with his nails. Of course, the virtual body couldn''t take any damage from this. Just as these actions could not ease the pain.


    ¡°You!!! I''ll kill you!¡± - Dramg croaked, shaking in convulsions.


    Now all that''s left of him is a skeleton, a few internal organs, and a brain. The life support system in the capsule was going crazy, trying to save a person''s life, but it was all in vain. Special valves blocked the flow of blood to the brain and switched its power supply from chemical to electrical, using the neural network contacts embedded in the brain, but this only prolonged the agony.


    After a minute, Dramg¡¯s virtual body froze in a strange pose. Technically, Dramg was already dead. The soul of the game figure left the remains of the body and was carried away to the afterlife to meet with its owner Player. In the capsule, however, there was a disfigured brain embedded in a plastic medigel. He still somehow reacted to the signals of the neural network, but it was already the reaction of a dead organism, in which the metabolism is forcibly maintained. Because of this, the game avatar did not disappear, but continued to lie on the ground. I looked at the ''corpse'' of my enemy and went to the nearby forest to assess the volume of the damage done to me.

 Chapter 13.19 – World of Elements

    Getting a second profession could not be canceled. Which means I can''t be a Demonologis-Druid anymore. I even tried with grief to find a way to recreate the character, but found no hints of it. When I left the game, I saw the three menu items again. That''s just by clicking ''Exit the capsule'', I received the message ''The function is blocked'' in response. The ''Call for help'' option allowed me to achieve the same result. And when I selected ''Back to the game'', I got the message: ''The function is temporarily blocked. Until the end of the block 29:41''.


    Cursing everything, I remained in the capsule, waiting for the moment when I could return to the game. At this time, I was studying my psionic abilities. Since I have problems inside the game, it is worth using my abilities in real world to compensate them. At the moment, I interested about possibility of interfering to the computer that controls the game. However, at the astral level, the computer was not visible at all, and the wires leading to me were connected to some network equipment, the wires from which stretched quite far and were lost in the tangle of other communications.


    Without achieving any results in hacking the game, I returned to virtual reality. Looking around, I noticed that there were several players standing next to the comatose Dramg, while actively discussing something. I did not approach them, but rather disappeared into the forest, heading in the direction of the teleport. Moreover, I activated ''Invisibility'' on my wristband, thus avoiding unnecessary attention. I guess I should stop thinking about all of this as a simple game. I relaxed uncomfortably. It is urgent to make a plan for my development and a plan to capture the Tower of the Dark Lord.


    In general, the idea of collecting records and capturing the tower with minimal forces looks quite interesting At least I wouldn''t have to organize a guild with thousands of players to chase into war in the name of myself. Of course, the idea of capturing the tower alone looked crazy. But only as long as I followed the standard development scenarios.


    The murder of the Kright-Worm showed that the game developers had not thought of all the possible scenarios of events in the game. These ''bugs in the game'' remained until they were noticed by the administrators. Since the majority of players were adepts of the Earth, they simply follow the rules, guides and traditions without trying to ¡®crack the system¡¯. This behavior was more typical of Air Adepts. But because of their small numbers, and the influence of the ''Earth'' environment, many vulnerabilities in the game were never discovered. Which meant that I could find them and use them. After all, my name is Cheater, and hacking game rules is exactly what I should be doing.


    When I moved to the City of Crabs, I first of all went to take the exam for the 7th level. Killing another ''fat'' boss did not cause any problems, although I had to constantly heal myself, as the enemy hit me with magic that could not be dodged. I didn''t continue to take level eight, but went to do the Druid quest. But before, I looked at the requirements for the Emergency Rescue spell. To create a talisman with it, aquamarine was required, which was a high-level resource.


    A quick search on the market revealed that no one sells aquamarines. And one of the sellers, when I asked him if he had an aquamarine, laughed and said that there are no such stones on the City of Crabs. And even if they exist, the price for an aquamarine starts from 10 gold, so nobody has enough money to buy even one stone right now. I would argue with the quantity of money, but on the whole, the situation was clear. I won''t be able to use this spell until I get level 10 and go to the outside world.


    When I got to the Abode of Life, I went to the NPC who acted as administrator.


    ¡°I want to become a druid.¡±


    ¡°Are you sure?¡± - He asked me gloomily.


    ¡°No, I''m not sure!¡± - I snapped. ¨C ¡°I''m healer of Air Element. Whom else can I become? A Priest, maybe? Or do you have a quest to change from healer to werewolf?¡±


    ¡°Okay, okay, calm down.¡± - The NPC responded and... fell silent.


    ¡°How to become a Druid?¡± - I asked him a direct question.


    ¡°You need to be a seventh level healer, and take a quest from me to change your profession to druid.¡±


    ¡°So?¡±


    ¡°What?¡± - This bastard made an uncomprehending look. Seeing his arrogant face, I had a strong desire to find in real world the one who plays the role of this NPC, and put acid through his veins.


    "I''m level seven healer. Give me a quest to change my profession to a druid.¡± - I repeated.


    ¡°Oh! Yes, of course. Why didn''t you say so right away?¡± - After that, he fell silent again, testing my patience. ¨C ¡°Okay, okay, here''s your quest. There are some problems at the Western Hills outpost. Go there and help them. Find a commandant named Sneaky Sly Tail. He''ll tell you what to do next.


    There was a notification in the interface, and I saw a new quest. The first step in it was to find the commandant. Glaring at NPC with an evil look, I went to the teleport.


    ¡°And neither hello nor thank you...¡± - I heard the offended voice of NPC.


    Look what he wanted. Thanks to him. For such a hack, let him thank me for letting him live.


    Reaching the right outpost, I went to look for the Tail. I had purposely not read the quest guide so as not to be influenced by the deleterious influence of the Earth Adepts. I would do this quest as a true Air Mage, using the scientific method of trial and error.


    ¡°Hello.¡± - I greeted the commandant, whom I could find by the players scurrying back and forth, who also passed a quest to change their profession here.


    "There''s been a disaster in our hills.¡± - NPC immediately got down to business. Judging by his voice, today he said this phrase for a thousandth time. ¨C ¡°Go and kill.¡± - In confirmation of these words, the interface dinged again, notifying of a change in the quest.


    "Who to kill? Where? And most importantly, for what?¡± - I didn''t let this freeloader to bypass his work. Behind my back had piled up a dozen of people who wanted to take the quest, but I wasn''t going to give up so easily.


    ¡°Oh! ...¡± - Sneaky Sly Tail sighed heavily. - "There''s been a disaster in our hills. There was an influx of players who wanted to change their profession. Go and kill them all. And then I''ll make you a druid right away.¡±


    The interface dinged again, and I read the notification.


    ''Alternate profession change quest received. In 24 hours, kill 1000 players performing a profession change quest. Task class: Epic. Reward: Epic. Additional reward: Changing the main profession to a Druid.''


    My eye started twitching from the arbitrariness of the local NPC.


    ¡°And what was the trouble before so many players appeared?¡± - I persisted, determined to get an answer. The people behind me made a noise of displeasure.


    ¡°Recently, crowds of earthworms have crawled out of caves under the Western Hills. You need to go to the caves, kill at least a hundred worms and find out what is the cause of this disaster.¡± - Judging by the slurred tongue, the commandant had been repeating this text since the very morning, so by noon he decided to shorten it in order to speed up the passage of the queue of those wishing to take the task.


    ¡°Okay...¡± - I nodded, turning around and walking away. Judging by the absent look of the commandant, I can''t get any details here.


    While I was walking to outside, I looked at the description of the main task and found a pretty decent piece of text there, which explained the entire background of the quest. The local hills were pitted with a whole network of caves inhabited by Earthworms. These creatures were the source of the special earthworm shit that the Earth adepts needed to craft them. The worms lived in caves, the NPC went there from time to time to collect a valuable ''resource'', and everyone was happy and content. But recently, the worms rebelled and began attacking the sanitation workers. And then they completely popped out of the caves, settled in the local forest and devoured all the valuable herbs in it.


    In general, the players had to go to the caves and find the cause of the problems. Judging by the description, this was only the first step, because after finding out the reason, it should be reported to the representative of the Guild of Magicians.


    The description said that this quest for a group of players, designed for a team of five players. I decided that I was quite capable of coping with it on my own, so I headed for the cave entrance indicated on the map. The dungeon turned out to be ''personal'', that is, there was a separate instance for each group. After passing through the portal, I found myself in a cave created by talented designers. The vaults of the cave were made of stone, multicolored glowing crystals peeking out of the walls here and there, scattering the darkness. In general, the place was atmospheric and quite pleasant.


    As I moved forward, after fifty meters, I met a large worm. Not just a big worm, but an enormous one. It was two meters in diameter, and its head was up against the ceiling at the height of a five-story building. It had 30,000 HP, which also did not add to my optimism. If all the worms are like that, then I''ll die of old age trying to kill a hundred. However, I had no time to think, because the worm immediately noticed me and rushed to attack.


    There was a sign above its head: ¡®A well-fed Earthy worm¡¯. Judging by the map, the word ''earthy'' in its name said something about the element of the magic used, because next to the worm, the ''elemental shift'' was up to a four of Earth. I''d never encountered such opponents before.


    The words ''attacked'' were a bit of an exaggeration in relation to the worm. It crawled forward quite slowly, so I was able to run back and use the spell Grow Nettles to create a large circle of nettles. In the original, this spell was pretty mana-intensive and created a circle five meters in diameter. I used two additional spells when I created the talisman, to reduce my mana consumption and increase the diameter of the circle. If it were up to me, I would have reduced the time to use the spell, because five seconds was a waste of time. But among the standard ones, there was no such spell.


    I completed the spell at the very last moment, and bounced away from the impact of the worm, which tried to fall on me. Given its thickness, I could have been smeared all over the floor by such a blow. The circle of nettles was seven meters in diameter. There were a lot of ''pets'' called Evil Nettles growing in that area now. They could only do one or two units of damage per second, but there were quite a few of them growing there.


    The worm flinched, about to attack the flora I''d summoned, but I stopped it from spitting saliva and interrupted the cast of the spell with a Discharge. I ran along the worm''s body, poking it with my spear. It stopped paying attention to the nettle and began to bend, trying to reach me. If this were reality, it would have scrambled the nettles back into the ground, just crawling over it. But in the game, the crawling did not do any damage, so the nettles continued their attack.


    I had already thought that this battle would be quite simple, as the worm managed to surprise me. The stone spikes grew on its body, which flew in all directions. I had to stop the attacks and run away to the side, hiding behind a stone. Each spike did its own damage, and if a dozen of these projectiles hit me, I would just die on the spot.


    For the next ten minutes I just ran in circles, unable to get close enough to the worm to hit it with my spear. I had to use Bombardment and run so that at least part of the worm''s body was constantly inside the nettle circle. A couple of times, my ''plant support group'' was blown away by the worm''s aggression and mercilessly destroyed by a spit of acidic saliva. In this case I used Paralysis to stop the enemy, and then re-created the nettle circle.


    The most difficult moment occurred when the worm did not kill all the nettles, leaving a few plants. When I tried to paralyze it, the nettle continued to attack the enemy, immediately dropping control. I had to figure out how I could `cancel'' the nettle plants by destroying all the flora.


    On the whole, destroying the Fat Earthworm was not so much difficult as it was tedious. Any attempt to get close to it resulted in a spike attack, which was almost impossible to survive. As a result, I simply ran in circles around the cave, hiding behind rocks from the same spikes and acid spatters. When the worm finally died, only a few copper coins and the same ''Crystal Shit'' that the Earth mages needed fell out of it. Also, I got one worm out of the hundred I needed to complete the task.


    Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.


    After taking a breath, I thought it would take too long to kill a hundred of these worms. Ten minutes each is a thousand minutes or seventeen hours of continuous battle. Fuck it! It''s easier to find a group by cutting the quest time by a factor of five. That would be three and a half hours, which I can manage somehow.


    I turned around and went back to the entrance, and through the portal I got out of the cave. The outpost was a few minutes'' walk away. On my way there, seven teams of people in groups of five passed by, so I was sure I could find a group in no time. When I reached the square, where the players who wanted to join the group were crowded, I began to look at the names and professions of potential allies.


    The number of people in the group was displayed next to the player''s name. The standard group consisted of five people. I could assemble a group by myself, or I could join one that already had four people. In addition, I noticed that all players were warriors or scouts. This could be determined by their equipment. To see the exact profession it was only possible if the player himself revealed this information or was a member of the same group as you.


    ¡°Hey, are you a healer?¡± - A player in heavy armor shouted, running toward me. I looked at his name. His name was Fierce Chipmunk.


    ¡°Yes. Druid in future.¡± - I agreed.


    ¡°Element?¡±


    ¡°Air.¡±


    ¡°Come with us!¡± - The Berserk immediately rushed up. ¨C ¡°You won''t find any druids here. There''s already four of us. We'' re ready to go right now.¡±


    I received notification that Fierce Chipmunk was inviting me into the group and I immediately accepted.


    ¡°Cool!¡± - Berserk shouted. I quickly glanced at the list of players in the group and saw three Berserkers and one Ninja. Their second professions were different, so I didn''t look closely at them. ¡°Wait. Scout Healer?¡± - Chipmunk froze, losing all his enthusiasm. ¨C ¡°What kind of build is that? Druid-Scout? Really? I don''t want to be in a group with Druid-Scout.¡±


    ¡°Well, fuck off.¡± - I replied leaving the group.


    ¡°What''d you say?¡± - The warrior immediately became angry.


    ¡°You heard me. You don''t know anything about the game, so get the fuck off.¡±


    ¡°Hey, everybody, listen up!¡± - Chipmunk shouted at the top of his voice. ¨C ¡°He''s the future Druid-Scout. He''s a complete noob! Don''t go in a group with him. If anyone invites him into a group, he''ll have to deal with me!¡±


    ¡°Aren''t you fucked up, freak? Let''s duel, I''ll kill you in five seconds. Hey, everybody. We got a berserker-idiot here who''s afraid to duel with a healer.¡± - I shouted, too.


    ¡°What?!¡± - Chipmunk jumped up. People around him immediately began pointing and laughing. The natives were always happy when someone was publicly pissed on. ¨C ¡°I''m going to kill you! Berserk kills the healer with a single cast.¡±


    ¡°Less talk and more action. Or is that all you''re good at is scratching with your tongue? No one''s interested in your dreams. Fantasize somewhere else.¡±


    The people surrounded us and actively discussed the unexpected amusement. After my words, they laughed loudly, pointing at the berserker and calling him a fantasist. That was the worst possible insult for an Earth adept, so Chipmunk began to shake in anger. Although he himself was a Fire Adept, public opinion was shaped by Earth Adepts.


    ¡°Duel!¡± - He shouted, challenging me through the interface.


    I immediately accepted the call. The crowd began to clear a small space around us, forming a spontaneous arena. A sign appeared in front of me announcing the start of the duel, and then a countdown from five to zero began. We were now in the safe zone of the outpost, so using combat abilities couldn''t hurt the audience. Someone immediately started placing bets, shouting out suggestions.


    ¡°''Five, four, three, two, one, Fight!¡±


    As soon as the duel began, Chipmunk used his skill to approach me quickly and knock me down. The purpose of this attack was precisely the effect of control, since it did very little damage. This skill was quite dangerous, because knocking me down was effective even if the berserker just ''flew'' past me. This made it difficult to dodge this attack. The best thing to do in such a case was to make a high jump, during which the target was open and had no chance to dodge the next attack.


    All these thoughts flashed through my head in an instant as I looked at the lines of the future. As a result, I didn''t dodge, but rather took a blow to the chest. It might have looked like I''d just missed the attack, but when Chipmunk collided with me, it wasn''t me who flew away, it was him. That''s how my Resilience worked. On impact someone had to fly back, and if it wasn''t me, the tank was the only one left to fly.


    Chipmunk, not expecting such trickery, got confused, which gave me the opportunity to deliver two spear strikes, while applying a Quick Heal to myself at the same time. It was used for half a second and restored 85 health. It was more than enough to compensate for the damage I''d taken. The tank had almost two thousand health points, about three more than I had. Except that my spear dealt about two hundred damage per hit, already taking armor resistance into account. So, I was able to damage twenty percent of my opponent''s life in just a second after the fight began.


    Fierce Chipmunk used a backward roll to get to his feet and get out of my attack zone, but the price was another stabbing with his spear. I quickly ran after him, and Berserker began to use his boosting skills one by one, as I could see from the glow around him. At the same time, he was backing away quickly, trying to buy time to use his abilities. Finally, with a tighter grip on his sword, the warrior lunged forward, taking a broad sweep at waist level. Again, he was expecting me to jump away. It was because the enemy had an ability that stuns a target at a distance. If I got caught in the jump, the stun time would increase to two seconds, plus my resilience would be ignored.


    Again I didn''t retreat or evade, but boldly stepped toward him, striking again with my spear. When my contact with the dangerously gleaming sword was almost inevitable, I used the Discharge, which paralyzed Chipmunk for a half second, allowing me to deal two more strikes. In all, I had already struck six times, reducing my opponent''s health by more than half. However, my health was still intact.


    With a roar, Chipmunk turned abruptly, and used the stun ability he''d been trying to catch me in flight the whole time. It was an instant cast, homing spell, so I couldn''t dodge it. What''s more, the stun strength was increased, so even I was stunned by it for a quarter of a second. That short delay was enough for the Berserker to reach me with his sword.


    At the moment of impact the weapon was charged with two skills that should have dealt 350 damage in total, knocking out half my life. But I managed to use Righteous Shield, which surrounded me with a shield spell that absorbed 100 physical and thermal damage. And right after I got hit, I used Quick Heal and poked my opponent with my spear once more. He tried to dodge it, but since I''d foreseen his movement beforehand, it found its target.


    After this exchange, I lost 170 health out of 700, and Berserk lost 1,260 health out of 1,940. Four more hits and he will be dead. The enemy realized this too, so he attempted to retreat to give his skills time to recharge. However, I didn''t give him that opportunity. Two Quick Steps forward shortened the distance between us. The Chipmunk struck me with a simple sword strike that took only 50 health. It was an ordinary green weapon, after all. I managed to land two more strikes in the meantime, driving my enemy''s health into the red zone.


    Spinning around, the enemy was able to hit me again, leaving me with only 430 of my 700 health. He still struck with the same wide side-to-side swings that were hard to dodge. I responded with another strike, forcing my opponent to balance on the edge of death.


    At that moment the berserker glowed red, roared wildly, and almost doubled his speed. Now his sword was flying like a feather, and I had to concentrate on defense, blocking his attacks with my spear. Since the shape of my weapon was well suited for such tasks, Chipmunk didn''t manage to hit me even once in the next couple of seconds. I wasn''t just defending myself, I also used a Paralysis spell. Finally, after two seconds, my opponent froze with his eyes goggling madly and his mouth hanging wide open. His appearance now resembled the scene of an action movie on pause.


    I smiled brazenly into the enemy''s face, used Quick Heal on myself while going behind his back, and then began to use the Grow Nettle spell. As soon as the nettle activated, I immediately struck the enemy in the back with my spear. The berserker''s life was reduced to zero, but... he didn''t die. He was now under the effect of the ''''Rage of Fly Agaric'''' aura, which allowed the berserker to stay alive even if he had a negative amount of health. However, this ''trust credit'' was not infinite, plus it required an important condition - the berserker had to fight the enemy face to face.


    When I stabbed him in the back, I hoped that he would try to jump forward, which would be considered ''fleeing,'' and the aura would stop. But Chipmunk turned on the spot and tried to strike me, again using a wide horizontal swing. But this time, his strike was blocked by my spear. Now we were standing in the middle of a small ''clearing'' overgrown with nettles, and time was playing for me. Just by blocking my enemy''s attacks, I was doing damage to him. After a couple of seconds of exchanging attacks, I blocked his sword in an awkward position for a warrior and used Discharge again, paralyzing Chipmunk for half a second, then stabbed him twice in the chest, simultaneously shifting to the left and moving out of range of his sword strike.


    Fierce Chipmunk tried to turn around quickly and stab me in the chest, but I took a trivial step to the side and evaded, not even using my evasion skills. And my next strike was my last in the duel. He fell to the ground as a lifeless pile of shit, and I once again used the healing on myself, bringing my health to a hundred percent.


    ¡°Just lie down like that.¡± - I spoke to my helpless opponent. Since it was a duel, he wasn''t dead, he just lost the ability to move for ten seconds. ¨C ¡°Crooked sheep like you have no right to tell others how to evolve.¡±


    I activated my Hero''s aura, and the people around me gasped with envy and admiration. And a second later, the group''s membership counter above the Fierce Chipmunk''s head began to diminish until it disappeared, which meant that all three people left the group. I didn''t wait for the defeated crab to regain its ability to speak, deactivated my aura, and quickly disappeared into the crowd. Some gawking spectators tried to follow me, but I activated the Stealth and literally ''disappeared'' among the people, causing the spectators of the battle to turn their heads in bewilderment.


    Five minutes later, there was no sign of the duel. Fierce Chipmunk went somewhere, and half of those present had already found a group and gone to the dungeon. The place turned out to be a ''passing yard'' with a great flow of personnel. At last I considered myself relatively safe, went into the bushes, cancelled the Stealth, and then walked openly back to the square.


    ¡°Air Elemental Healer looking for a group!¡± - I shouted, glancing around.


    In response to my voice, four ''stern'' warriors turned around and looked at me with the desire of killing me on the spot. According to the map, they were four Earth adepts, surrounded by the energy of their respective elements.


    ¡°Hey, join us.¡± - Another berserker with a pair of axes approached me. His head was covered in a golden glow, and his face was full of enthusiasm.


    I accepted the invitation and found myself in a group with one berserker and three ninjas. It was a profession of Scout, from which one could become an Assassin or a Hypnotist.


    ¡°Come on, I''ll give you a quick briefing, and we''ll go beat the worms.¡± - White Fluffy Fox waved at me. That was the berserker''s name. Cool name.


    After a dozen steps we entered a narrow alley, where a trio of thugs was waiting for us. At least their appearance screamed of belonging to this ''class''. Their names were appropriate, too: Evil Son of a Bitch, Toothbreaking Brick, and Last Furious Gasp.


    ¡°Hi. For what profession are you taking the quest?¡± - I wondered.


    ¡°These three are assassins, and I am a werewolf.¡± - Fox introduced his comrades. ¨C ¡°Are you a druid?¡±


    ¡°Yes, I am.¡±


    ¡°So, which one of you knows how to do this quest?¡± - Fox asked. Only Son of a Bitch raised his hand. ¨C ¡°Well, listen to me and follow my orders. If you do not slow down, in half an hour you will get your hundred worms.¡± - Half an hour? That Fox really is a tough guy. It took me ten minutes to get one. ¨C ¡°Everybody ready?¡±


    ¡°Maybe we should make me the leader of the group.¡± - I suggested my idea.


    ¡°Why is that?¡± - Almost an Arctic Fox was offended.


    ¡°I have a six percent bonus for poison damage.¡±


    ¡°Uh...¡± - Berserker muttered, glancing doubtfully at the trio of assassins. Assassins do most of their damage with poison.


    ¡°Also, I have a nine percent bonus to stun strength. And a five percent bonus to health. I''m also a Hero.¡±


    White Fluffy Fox looked more and more despondent with each new argument, and the last one and my Hero''s Aura buried him so thoroughly that he silently handed over the leadership of the group to me.


    ¡°Okay, now you can guide us forward.¡± - I nodded graciously.


    ¡°You are the leader, aren''t you?¡± - Berserker finally lost his footing.


    ¡°Yes. And as a leader, I''m giving to you the responsible task of guiding our group.¡±


    ¡°Is that legal?¡± - Looks like I just broke Fox''s pattern. It'' a result of talking to Earth adepts all the time. ¨C ¡°Then what are you gonna do?¡±


    ¡°I''ll control the loot distribution.¡± - I arched my chest.


    ¡°Aah!¡± - The fox coughed up blood, and the red liquid stained his chin.


    ¡°Also, if we set the record, I get a bonus from it.¡±


    ¡°Aah!!!¡± - This time there was noticeably more blood, and some of it hit the ground.


    ¡°And most importantly, I''m too lazy to guide you. You guys just organize yourselves somehow.¡±


    ¡°Phoo!¡± - Fox started literally vomiting blood.


    ¡°What''s wrong with you?¡± - I asked. Although Berserk''s health level was full and there were no debuffs, the scene didn''t look very healthy.


    ¡°It''s the effect of my headgear.¡± - Fox replied, wiping blood from his face.


    ¡°Crown of Swords?¡± - I asked, examining the headgear, made from blades.


    ¡°No, Funny Swordsman''s Hat.¡± - Berserk took off his headdress and began to examine it. ¨C ¡°It does look like a crown. This hat enhances the visual manifestation of emotion. You can tell right away if a man is happy or not.¡±


    ¡°Ha-ha. It looks good on you.¡± - I nodded approvingly.


    ¡°Okay, let''s go.¡± - He waved, and the three silent thugs followed him.


    I noticed that all four were members of the same guild, the Autumn Maple Leaf guild.


    ¡°What kind of guild do you have?¡± - I asked.


    ¡°We''re just getting started.¡± - Fox started making excuses. ¨C ¡°It''s a guild for Fire adepts. A couple of earth adepts came in, too.¡±


    I guess he took my question as a wanting to join the guild. So, if there''s already Earth adepts in the guild, then my Air will conflict with them.


    ¡°Oh, I see, and there''s an odd distribution of professions in this quest.¡± - I changed the subject.


    ¡°What''s the oddity?¡± - Last Furious Gasp asked.


    ¡°Assassins and Werewolves have an affinity to the element of Fire. Druids, on the other hand, tend towards Water. That makes them less likely to be able to group together.¡±


    ¡°No, that''s not the problem.¡± - Fox dismissed my theory. ¨C ¡°There''s only Earth and Fire adepts around, anyway. Druids are few in number, and werewolves and assassins are very popular classes. So, they''d combine them, to keep the cave from becoming overcrowded.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean by overcrowded?¡± - I was surprised. ¨C ¡°Everyone has their own dungeons.¡±


    ¡°It''s only at the entrance. Beyond that, it''s common. Let''s go in.¡±


    We had just reached the entrance to the cave, and quickly passed through the portal. Then the whole group stopped at the entrance, looking around.


    ¡°Okay, now we''re going to hit the boss.¡±


    ¡°The boss?¡± - Once again, I was surprised.

 Chapter 13.20 – World of Elements

    ¡°Yes. It guards the entrance to the caves. We will kill it, go out the other side into the common area and start farming worms.¡±


    I felt like an idiot. It turns out that I alone killed the group boss and thought it was an ordinary monster. After which I turned back without even checking to see what was next. I''m an idiot! A 100% idiot! I should have read the guides.


    Meanwhile, Fox continued his instruction to the newbies.


    ¡°The boss has a strong attack with earth spikes. You have to hide from it behind the rocks. That''s where you''ll see them. I''ll warn you when this spell is about to cast. You will have two seconds to hide. Cheater, you''d better stay close to the rocks the whole time so you have time to hide. The worm uses spikes without cooldown if this attack doesn''t hit anyone. Therefore, I will purposely expose my hand. The area in front of the worm''s mouth is non-shootable, so I will stand there. If something happens, you can hide behind my back. The rest of the time, you beat him with what you can. Also, I need to be healed. If I yell ''pause,'' then you stop hitting the boss, or he''ll start spitting acid. If that happens, then again, hide behind the rocks. Do not think to dodge - the damage area of the spit is very large. That''s it. Now we''re going forward. You hide behind the rocks and wait for the attack with the spikes, and then you start attacking it.¡±


    Yeah. I guess my way of killing the boss was pretty perverted. If I''d guessed the safe zone in front of its head, I could have killed it a lot faster.


    ¡°Yeah, Cheater, if the boss chases you, run around in a circle, hiding between rocks.¡±


    ¡°Oh, I can do that.¡± - I laughed bitterly.


    ¡°Okay, let''s go.¡±


    White Fluffy Fox went forward, looking out for his enemy. The cave was slightly different in appearance this time, but overall, it was still the same cave that was gradually expanding. The well-fed Earthworm was found in its place. As it crawled toward to our tank, we hid behind rocks. I looked out from behind cover, though, to see what Fox would do. He waited until the boss got close to him, and then he jumped back out of the range of his attack.


    The worm slammed its forepart to the ground, thought for a moment, and began preparing to spit acid, inflating the area around its mouth. Fox used his stun skill to interrupt the use of this ability, then hit it with his axe a couple more times. The worm began to grow spikes and shot them out a few seconds later. Berserk only caught a couple of them, causing his health to drop a bit. The damage could have been more, but I managed to throw a shield to him in time.


    ¡°Hit it!¡± - Shouted the tank, starting to shred the worm with his axes. It made head pokes that were pretty easy to dodge.


    I healed the tank, cast a Nettle bush, and lunged at the worm with my spear. It only wriggled back irritably, preferring to fight a berserker. This time the boss''s life was dropping rather quickly. Fox looked at my amateurism with visible displeasure, but said nothing. This hat is handy, though. I could tell at once what the leader of the group was thinking.


    When I saw the worm''s future use of spikes, I ran to the rocks to hide behind them. Three seconds was good enough for me. Seeing the spikes bulge on its skin, the ninjas synchronously ''jumped'' each to their hiding place. It looked like the three of them worked well as a group. And yet on the outside they were the real silent ones. After the spikes hit, we went back to the worm again and continued chopping it to pieces.


    ¡°Spit!¡± - Fox shouted.


    In the future I saw that he did not have time to escape and would fall under a stream of acid, losing most of his health. So, I didn''t retreat with the ninja, but stayed behind to beat the worm. And when it was about to spit, I interrupted it with the Discharge. The stun lasted only a quarter of a second, instead of the planned half, but it was enough to interrupt the spit. As a result, the tank remained intact.


    ¡°You shouldn''t have done that.¡± - Fox said calmly, turning back to the boss and continuing to attack it. ¨C ¡°Now it will spit spikes and acid until it kills someone.¡±


    ¡°Let it kill the nettles. I didn''t feel sorry for it.¡± - I nodded. I knew from experience that after killing nettles, the worm would stop spitting and just run after me, shooting spikes.


    You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.


    ¡°Hide!¡± - Immediately my plan was adopted by Fox.


    We retreated abruptly and hid behind rocks. The worm wiggled its head around, then gathered its wits and spat into the meadow of nettles. He immediately started charging the spikes, but when they shot out, I just stuck my hand out from behind a rock and ''caught'' one of them. The spike couldn''t even fully remove the shield on me. After that, the worm crawled forward, and the tank got in front of it again, attracting attention.


    I noticed that the boss only had fifteen percent life left.


    ¡°Let''s finish this!¡± - I shouted, rushing to the attack.


    There was no point in creating a new clearing of nettles. At five percent health the worm was about to spit acid again, so I interrupted it again. It didn''t have time to fire its spikes, because our combined attacks lowered its health to zero.


    Although there was a lot going on during the fight, the fight itself only lasted a minute. Yeah, that''s not my solo masochism.


    ¡°Good job.¡± - Fox nodded to his fellow guildmates. ¨C ¡°Cheater, why didn''t you retreat when I yelled ''spit''?¡± - Our commander came up to me.


    ¡°You didn''t have time to escape, so I decided to interrupt the worm.¡±


    ¡°And how did you know about that?¡± - He asked incredulously. ¨C ¡°You couldn''t see the worm''s head from where you were standing.¡±


    ¡°But I could see yours.¡± - There was a look of bewilderment on Fox''s face. ¨C ¡°I saw that you were frightened, so I assumed you were too late to see the attack.¡± - I let it slip out.


    ¡°Yes, I did. Now I see you got the title of hero for a reason.¡± - Fox nodded.


    ¡°He''s got three more records.¡± - Toothbreaking Brick told.


    ¡°All right, that''s enough talk. Grab the loot and let''s move on. How do we divide the loot, by the way?¡±


    ¡°Equal.¡± - I answered. ¨C ¡°One item each in turn. The blue stuff and above will be a lottery, or we''ll give it away as negotiated.¡±


    ¡°Good.¡± ¨C Fox nodded, heading forward.


    ¡°That shit worth a lot?¡± - I asked him.


    ¡°What shit?¡± - He didn''t understand.


    ¡°The crystallized excrement of the earthworm.¡± - I dictated the full name of the resource we''d knocked out.


    ¡°Ah, crystals? Silver coins apiece, on average. Shit. Ha! Don''t say that in front of an Earth adept. There''ll be so much trouble afterwards. They don''t like to call things by their proper names.¡±


    ¡°Ha-ha. Oh, that''s right!¡± - I agreed.


    After walking about a hundred yards, we reached another portal through which we found ourselves in a spacious cave with hundreds of worms crawling around in it. There were thousands of players, too. Every worm that appeared was immediately attacked by several groups of players, who didn''t shy away from killing their opponents or pushing them away.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go, there''s nothing to catch. I know a short passageway to a place where there are almost no players.¡±


    Fox led us away, turning into some narrow passages where worms were almost absent. As we walked past one worm that was already being beaten by a group of players, I got a good look at our future prey. The worm looked exactly like the boss, but it was at most three meters long. Even its skills were the same-spitting acid, attacking with earth spikes, and head-butting.


    After five minutes we came to some nook, where a hole about a meter in diameter hole was gaping in the floor.


    ¡°Let''s jump down.¡± - Fox commanded, glancing around to make sure there were no other players around. Looks like it was a secret passage indeed. - Don''t worry, you won''t get smashed. But you''ll have to walk back. The elevator only works one way.


    The ninjas silently stepped forward and quickly disappeared into the darkness of the gap. They decided on a jumping order without making any unnecessary movements.


    ¡°Are they telepaths, or what?¡± - I asked Fox.


    ¡°Ha-ha.¡± - He laughed. ¨C ¡°No, just a private chat. They are learning to communicate through it. You can''t talk or even whisper during sabotage, so the assassins communicate through the chat.¡±


    ¡°Wow. Cool!¡± - I marveled as I jumped down.


    The well curved pretty quickly, turning into an incline. We spiraled through it, and then jumped out into a small pond that could even be called a deep puddle. Except that when I emerged from the water, I heard the sounds of clashing blades. Quickly navigating the game interface, I used the shield and healing on the Son of Bitch, who had less than half his health left.


    ¡°Hit the healer.¡± - I heard a voice, and a spell came at me at once, which should paralyze me. There seemed to be a mage among my opponents, who started using Paralysis on me as soon as I entered the hall.


    I quickly went over my options for the future, analyzing the situation. There was a group of five players against us. And they certainly weren''t here for a quest for a profession. There were two Warriors, a Scout, a Destroyer, and a Priest. I couldn''t see the professions of the Warrior and the Scout, but their equipment spoke for themselves. The Destroyer was now hitting Fox with a specific spell, and the Priest was actively casting shields on his allies. Their levels were eighth and ninth, which meant there was nothing for them to do in this dungeon. The cave we were in was not very large. Half of it was taken up by the ''pond'' I was swimming in, and the other half was occupied by all the enemies, Fox, and our three ninjas.


    As I looked into the future, I noticed that if I would not attack my enemies, they would not attack me. Most likely, the enemies simply thought I was paralyzed. After all, I''d caught the Paralysis spell. No one here thought my Resilience would be enough to ignore the effect of the spell. So, I decided not to get all hot and bothered, but to use my advantage to the best of my ability.

 Chapter 13.21 – World of Elements

    I began to use the Grow Nettle spell, selecting the half of the cave where the battle was taking place as the area of effect. At the same time, I wrote in the group chat, ''No healing for 5 seconds. However, what was the point of the healing? I could restore 85 health every two seconds. It was clearly not enough to save someone from death. While I was using the spell, a glowing animation surrounded me, but since I was under water the people around me didn''t pay any attention to me. But when the Evil Nettles appeared from under the ground, my opponents started swearing loudly.


    Immediately the enemy Assassin jumped behind my back, using his class skill. Now I had no problem identifying his primary profession. Except that this chosen skill was deeply mistaken. I was now lying face-up on the surface of the pond, so the Assassin was at my back in the water mass. That made all of his movements slow by half.


    I immediately turned around and cast a Discharge on the bewildered opponent, and then began to poke him with my spear. He had no foothold, so he simply couldn''t dodge, and only managed to hit me with a poison spell in return. That was the end of his success, and he died before he could get out of the water. However, I didn''t have much to do with it, because when he attacked me, he had less than half of his health.


    While I was beating the Assassin, I managed to cast the Righteous Shield on the Son of Bitch, who was already near death. I didn''t have any fast-moving skills, so I had to get out of the water on my own. At the same time, I threw a heal on the same ally and started using Paralysis on the mage, simultaneously writing about it in the chat. The mage was now being attacked by Berserk, who stopped attacking him in time. Since the warrior didn''t use poison, it was impossible to ''wake'' the mage. We will kill mage at the end of fight.


    I was barely finished using Paralysis when one of the enemy Warriors slammed into me. I was intentionally standing so that I was covered by the Last Gasp, so the only way to interrupt me was to go around him. Only this time my Resilience showed itself in the best way. The Warrior who had slammed into me used a skill that didn''t knock me down but rather stuns the enemy, but since it was a ''move'' skill, the ''recoil'' from it hit the user himself, and the Warrior stunned himself. In game mechanics, normal hand attacks didn''t do damage to enemy, but they could still affect the enemy''s movements. I quickly put my spear away, grabbed my frozen enemy and threw him into the pond, then jumped on top of him, striking him with my spear.


    As a result of my unexpected intervention, the battle changed its course abruptly. The assassin died, the mage stood in the corner of the cave in paralysis, the warrior was floundering with me in the water, and another warrior and a priest stood in a thicket of nettles against three Ninjas and a Berserker. Though one of my allies was one hit away from death, he wisely hid behind the backs of his comrades while I healed him while I was in the water.


    When the priest ''died'', it was clear that we would win. The warrior I''d been carefully perforating with my spear was finally able to get away from me, and used one more quick-move skill to ''leap'' right at our barely-living Son of Bitch, driving him into the red health zone again. But he didn''t have time to make that last hit, because White Fluffy Fox used a stun on him, and the two ninjas used their strongest skills, killing the enemy instantly.


    While our trio was pushing against the last warrior, I began to climb out of the water again, healing my ally. The mage was going to ''wake up'' soon, and I had to make sure he couldn''t kill any of us. Only barely had I crawled out of the water then I foresee in the future that another group of players flew out of the passage that had brought us here, and immediately began to attack us.


    ¡°Urgently kill the mage!!! Warrior is last.¡± - I texted into the chat, diving back into the pool that had already become familiar to me.


    My comrades didn''t ask any questions, but immediately switched from killing the half-dead Berserker to the ''whole'' but puny Destroyer. The warrior had not expected such a change of purpose, and therefore could not prevent Fox, who literally ''smashed'' into the mage, smearing him on the cave. And the three ninjas again used their skills simultaneously, hanging poison on the Destroyer. I had already realized that the mage had only a few seconds to live, so I focused my attention on meeting the ''guests''.


    From the hole, the same group of players that we''d passed by the previous few minutes came falling down toward us. At that time they were beating the worm, pretending to be on a mission, but now it was obvious that they were ¡®messengers¡¯, informing them that we were coming downstairs. It was determined simply by the name of their guild. Both groups showed off their ''Age of Glory,'' indicating that they were minions of Zinovia Reinhardt, my most arch-enemy in the game. Therefore, I had to kill them all.


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    The group that coming to us was full of strength, whereas only I was more or less healthy, and the rest of the group''s health was in the red or yellow zone. The first person to come down on my head was a ''tank'' with a shield and a mace. He was also a berserk, but with a somewhat ''alternative'' choice of weapon. Perhaps he was going to take Palladin or Fanatic as his second profession, so he trained in advance to play the role of heavy infantry. The only problem was that in water, the game mechanics slowed down such ''massive'' characters the most. They did not go to the bottom, as they would in reality, but simply began to move four times slower than usual.


    The pool in the cave was irregularly shaped and had different depths in different places. Near the platform it was a little more than waist-deep, but under the ''hole'' it was up to three meters deep. As soon as the tank fell on me, I immediately grabbed him from behind by the waist and dragged him to the bottom. The enemy could not resist and was not even able to hit me. I didn''t hit him, but just left him on the bottom, and turned him upside down.


    The second to fall out of the hole was a Healer. He tried to use Permanent Healing on the last player of the first group, but I grabbed his leg, used the Discharge, and dragged him to the bottom, leaving him with the tank. The tank still couldn''t turn around, and was just struggling helplessly in place. The healer wasn''t as boneheaded as his predecessor, but he was unlucky, underwater the Discharge spell had a chance to stun the target for twice as long, and that chance came to him. As a result, in one second of paralysis I was able to drag my opponent down to me, clinging to the ''tank¡¯ with my legs, then pushing Healer with my legs away, plunging him down, while I floated myself up for a portion of the air I had already run out of.


    As I reached the surface, I saw one more berserker ''jumping'' behind the back of our long-suffering Son of a Bitch, literally changing his trajectory in midair. This indicated that this player was not a novice or a ''crab'' at all. I could do nothing to help there, so I quickly threw my Shield spell on the most injured ally and concentrated again on meeting the next ''passenger''.


    This type of opponent was my favorite. A mage with only 450 HP fell directly on my spear. Three quick strikes with the spear, and he was dead before he even realized what was happening. But I had no time to rejoice, because another enemy was falling on me. I could not immediately determine what his profession was. He was dressed in leather armor, but armed with a one-handed sword. The first thing he did was try to stun me and poison me. I successfully ignored the stun, and avoided the poisoning by throwing a Discharge, which again ''disabled'' the enemy for one second, after which I simply ran away, swimming toward the most convenient place to climb to a hard surface.


    To my surprise, when I got out of the pool, the berserker that had so swiftly attacked my allies was already dead. But the Warrior from the first group was still alive, albeit his HP was in red zone. My shield and healing again fell to the same ninja, after which the enemy shouted something like ''Holyfuckingsonofabitch!!!'' in an irritated voice. Alas, this cry of the heart could not help him in any way.


    To my surprise, Fox stayed behind to control the Warrior, and the three would-be assassins jumped into the water, where they began to circle around the scout warrior rather expertly, playing the part of sharks. I didn''t dive into the pool again, but stayed to provide backup, using the healing spell and occasionally poking with my spear an enemy who was trying to get to land.


    Half a minute later the warrior and the healer died from the poison, Fox finished off the tenacious Warrior, and the ''tank'' died in the depths from lack of air. Our whole group had already climbed out of the water and stood, looking down, observing the idiot as he made random movements, staying in one place. When the enemy let out his last breath, we looked at each other and laughed in sync, releasing the tension of the fight.


    ¡°Ha ha ha ha ha! That''s a nominee for Darwin Award, isn''t it?¡± -White Fluffy Fox laughed.


    The phrase immediately brought me to my senses, no worse than the electric shock. Only an inhabitant of Earth, or its reflections, would know about Darwin in this world. Which meant that Fox is another game figure. I didn¡¯t show any additional expression, but only laughed with everyone else. However, I no longer consider my companions as ''almost friends¡¯. I don''t know if Fox realized who I was, but I will not turn my back to him.


    ¡°You''re pretty strong, aren''t you?¡± - Fox said to me, after he laughed. ¨C ¡°If you weren''t here, we''d be dead in the water.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, I''m cool.¡± - I grinned back. ¨C ¡°Let''s get a move on before someone else falls on our heads, shall we?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, let''s go.¡± - Fox waved a hand, and the three Ninjas quickly disappeared into the corridor leading out of the hall. ¨C ¡°Looks like someone from the old servers decided to trap someone who knows about this passageway.¡± - He began to explain as we walked through the tangled mazes. ¨C ¡°The big guilds have their own knowledge databases, which also describe the dungeons of Crab Island. If you catch the main squad of the other guilds doing quests, you can hold them off long enough to gain an advantage for yourself. At the very least, this will give you a chance to get bonuses for first time raiding dungeons.¡±

 Chapter 13.22 – World of Elements

    ¡°You seem to know a lot about it.¡± - I nodded respectfully. ¨C ¡°Are you the leader of the Autumn Maple Leaf?¡±


    ¡°What? No, I''m not. I''m just an officer. Our guild started on the second server over a year ago. And then Pal Palitch decided to move to a new server. About a third of the guild went with him.¡±


    ¡°Pal Palitch? Is that a name?¡± - I turned my attention to the information important to me. Mentally slapping my forehead, I opened the guild information and found Autumn Maple Leaf. Pal Paliych was indeed listed as the leader there.


    ¡°Yes. Unusual name.¡± - Fox nodded. ¨C ¡°It is strange for you too. Cheater... Is it a kind of cheese?¡±


    ¡°Yes. A type of cheese.¡± - I agreed, barely able to keep from laughing.


    ¡°That''s what I thought. Okay, turn right here.¡±


    We turned into an inconspicuous crevice, and after a hundred yards we came to a large hall with dozens of worms crawling around. But here they were not one at a time, but in threes.


    ¡°We made it. Even no other opponents here.¡± - Fox rubbed his hands together in satisfaction. ¨C ¡°If we hurry, we can make a hundred before anyone else gets here. And then we''ll rush to do the second part of the quest.¡±


    Killing three worms at a time proved to be quite a challenge. When fighting a single worm, we could dodge spits and interrupt shots with spikes, but when there were three opponents, controlling all three was unrealistic. It is true that with Paralysis we managed to ''put to sleep'' one worm out of three, but it did not help much at the beginning of the battle when there were three worms.


    The main problem was that although the worms were relatively small, they had tons of life, so they killed slowly, which in turn meant that there was a lot of damage coming at us that was impossible to dodge. Moreover, the worms constantly tried to surround us to prevent the ''rags'' from hiding behind the ''tanks''. As a result, after killing one group, we were left with only half of our health. After three groups were cleaned out, it was clear that we are wasting too much time on recovering our health.


    ¡°Do you have any Healing Chamomile seed?¡± - White Fluffy Fox asked me after the fight was over.


    ¡°I do.¡± - I nodded. ¨C ¡°But I can change nettles for chamomile only in a safe zone.¡±


    ¡°Now it will be. Let''s go there.¡±


    We moved away from the cluster of worms, hiding in one of the passages, and then the Fox took out... a log and ''used it. It turned out to be a game item, which creates a fire. There was a ''peace zone'' within two meters of the fire. However, the fire only burned for five minutes.


    ¡°One silver cost, bastard.¡± - Fox said contritely.


    ¡°Done.¡± - I answered, using the Grow a Weed spell along with the Chamomile Seed.


    As a result, a green ''glade'' appeared on the ground with cheerful flowers that immediately began to heal us. Each chamomile healed only a few points, but since there were quite a lot of them, our health rose quickly. The radius of ''aggression'' of the chamomiles was quite small, so to speed up the healing we had to run circles in this area. In a minute we were all healthy.


    With this healing, we could now beat the worms without stopping. In fact, at one moment there were four people in the battle, while the fifth ''ran'' through a nearby clearing to ''collect'' the healing. After that, the recovered player ran to beat the worms, while the lowest health member went for healing. This ''merry-go-round'' allowed us to maximize the healing we received, plus it prevented the worms from attacking the camomiles. I could only control one ''clearing'' at a time. If I made the plants ¡®ownerless¡¯, they began to heal not only us, but everyone else, and the worms immediately ran for free healings, ignoring all our attempts to keep them in place.


    ¡°I suggest that after completing the quest, I should plant this cave with my weed.¡± - I suggested my ''genius'' idea. ¨C ¡°Then no one would be able to play here.¡±


    ¡°It''s not a new idea.¡± - Fox grinned. ¨C ¡°But any druid can take control of your flowers and just undo them.¡±


    If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    ¡°Where do you see any Druids?¡±


    ¡°Overall, they exist. Serious guilds always have druids.¡±


    ¡°Why don''t you have any?¡± - I grinned.


    ¡°Well... There aren''t many, who want to join to us.¡± - Fox sighed.


    ¡°So, what''s up? Are we going to sabotage the place?¡±


    ¡°No. A couple more of our groups are coming here tonight. If you start messing with others like this, they''ll start messing with you in return.¡±


    ¡°And as a result, everyone will be at war with each other, and groups with druids can progress without problems.¡± - I expanded my idea.


    ¡°That''s already happened too. At the end, everyone else will unite and start killing druids without regard for their losses. On the first server, because of this very difficult to find Druids. On the second, there was not such a brutal massacre, but still, everyone considers druids as main pests. And players like you only confirm it.¡±


    ¡°Why do you think I became a druid?¡± - I laughed wickedly. ¨C ¡°To be able to decide which lives to make easier, and which to make a living hell.¡±


    ¡°Oh, be beware by such approach.¡± - Fox shook his head.


    In about half an hour we had indeed killed a hundred worms, as the quest required. After that, I destroyed all traces of vegetation, and we headed into the depths of the caves, wandering through tangled corridors. I noticed that almost everywhere we encountered worms, there was a way around them without engaging in combat. After ten minutes of wandering, we reached a large cave lit by a flickering, mysterious light. Although there were almost no sources of light in the cave, I could distinguish my surroundings perfectly. But if there was a source of light, it illuminated the area around it, making the world more colorful.


    ¡°Okay, we''re going to have to act fast here.¡± - Fox stopped us for another briefing. ¨C ¡°There''s an area up ahead that has a strong shift in the element of Air. So now, quickly run forward, look at the crystal and roll back. Cheater, you heal those who are losing most of their health.¡±


    ¡°Okay.¡± - I nodded.


    The map, indeed, indicated an area of Air energy influence. The rest of the cave was ''saturated'' with Earth to about 3/15. It was barely a noticeable reduction in the effectiveness of my magic, but it didn''t do any damage. Here, though, the shift in Air was gradually increasing to an 8/15, so Earth adepts must be feeling pretty uncomfortable. I, on the other hand, felt only a comfortable ''breeze'' blowing in front. It seemed that the worms had decided to escape from the caves because of this elemental influence. After all, they were ''earthy''. It would be enough for us to see the source of the anomaly to accomplish this part of the mission.


    Running through the big cave was not as dangerous as I had feared. My allies only lost twenty percent of their health. I didn''t take any damage at all. After running a couple of hundred meters, making the most of the jumps and rolls, we could see the local ''miracle'' in the distance, and then, at the same pace, we rushed back.


    ¡°That done, the mission was accomplished. Now all we had to do was get to the surface alive, and we could go to return.¡± - Fox reassured his comrades-in-arms.


    ¡°I think I''ll stay here.¡± - I ''reassured'' my companions. ¨C ¡°Can you get out of the cave without me?¡±


    ¡°We can.¡± - Fox nodded. ¨C ¡°What are you going to do?¡±


    ¡°I''ll look around. Maybe I''ll find something interesting.¡± - I answered vaguely.


    ¡°I don''t think so.¡± - He shook his head. ¨C ¡°The players were already checked these caves a hundred times. If you go forward in cave, you''ll come to the passageway through which the regular players come. There are crowding down there. That way is shorter, but more dangerous.¡±


    ¡°I''ll keep that in mind.¡± - I nodded. ¨C ¡°So long.¡±


    With these words I turned around and slowly walked in the direction of the anomaly I was interested in, looking around carefully. Fox nodded to me and, along with the three ninjas, ran away. I used the map to see that they weren''t going to stop and come back, and then I concentrated on my surroundings.


    In my opinion, the execution of this quest should not be so simple. Came, saw, left? That''s heresy. There must be something interesting here. Since there were few Air mages in the game, perhaps there were some ''secret passages'' left undiscovered. If this place was related to the element of Air, only a true ''Chaos mage'' could come to the right conclusions. With so many Earth adepts in this world, there''s no such thing as a true Air adept.


    Alas, my examination of the cave did not reveal anything interesting. The closer I got to the source of the light, the greater became the shift in Air. Around the point where we''d run to as a team, I began to take damage from the Elements, but it was not much at all. As I got closer to the anomaly, I carefully examined it and its surroundings. Since the damage was more substantial, I had to grow a field of chamomiles and walk around it, looking around at the same time.


    The center of the anomaly was a large glowing transparent crystal, shimmering with all the colors of the rainbow. This thing was shaped like a cube with a side of thirty centimeters. This cube stood on a stone pedestal, which had been built on a small ''island''. Here the cave was crossed by a fast underground river, which carried its waters in a deep crevice. In the middle of the river there was a ''pillar'' on which the crystal was located. At the side next to the wall of the cave a narrow stone bridge was stretched across the river. The central part of the bridge was collapsed, but it was possible to jump over the gap.


    On the other side of the river, the cave continued forward, and there was a steady stream of players who ran out from around the corner, glanced at the quest crystal, and then disappeared into another passageway. Some druid had grown a couple of chamomile fields in the way of this crowd, so players could run to the safe zone without dying. Because most of the players were Earth adepts, and the place itself was close to the source of the anomaly, they took quite a bit of damage.

 Chapter 13.23 – World of Elements

    I began to predict the future, trying to find a way to get to the crystal. It seemed that it was the most important valuable thing here. The attempt to jump over the river with the appropriate skill ended with that half-transparent barrier appearing around the island, which trivially threw me into the water. At the same time, I learned that falling into the river is a guaranty of a quick death. A rushing stream of water carried me into an underground channel and threw me on the sharp stone ''peaks.


    The next few predictions of the future produced the same result. No matter what skills I used, as soon as I activated them, the island was immediately surrounded by a protective force-field shield. I threw a few rocks and made sure that as long as I didn''t use any skills, the forcefield wouldn''t activate. So, theoretically, there was a way to get to the island. I tried a quick jump without using my skills, but I couldn''t reach the ''pillar'' for more than a meter.


    It seems that getting to the island was not that easy. However, if it was possible to jump on it, the usual players would have done it long ago. Except that the native ''geniuses'' must have used only the most obvious and simple ways of moving. Moving quickly through space requires the use of skills or spells. Meanwhile, I had never seen anyone here trying to make ''records'' through ordinary body movements. That was understandable, because this virtual body itself was rather clumsy, and without the use of skills any attempt to move in space other than on foot or running was doomed to painful consequences. Which meant that I still had a chance to do something that no one else had thought of.


    In the line of the future, I rushed forward, and near the precipice, I jumped, pushing off the ground with my spear. Using this peculiar ''pole'' was effective, and I almost reached the island. Moreover, the protective field was not activated this time, and I was even able to cling to the rocks before I flew down. I spent the next couple of minutes going over my options for the future, ''practicing'' in pole jumps.


    At last, I picked up a more or less effective course of action and prepared to repeat it in reality. I decided to rush forward and cross the distance between the shore and the island in a swift motion. At the end, I clung to a comfortable rock ledge and climbed to the top of the pillar. As soon as the players saw me, they started shouting and discussing something with each other. One of the ninjas ran to the river side and used his Leap Behind skill to get to me. Except, to his disappointment, the protective field immediately activated, and he collapsed into the river with a wild yell. A couple of mages tried to attack me with spells, but the protection completely blocked all kinds of attacks.


    Once I was sure that the envious witnesses of my success couldn''t stop me, I concentrated on the crystal. When I approached it, I touched the crystal cube with my hand. I was immediately enveloped in an iridescent glow, and then I noticed the new ''Blessing of Elements God'' buff on me.


    Description of buff was:


    ¡°Blessing of Elements God¡±: ¡°Protects player from Elemental damage for 24 hours¡±


    I guess now I don''t have to worry about dying here before I''ve dealt with this quest. It was a quest, because the ghostly figure of an old man in a mage''s robe appeared out of thin air beside me.


    ¡°Greetings, adventurer.¡± - The ghost spoke to me. ¨C ¡°Please help me save this world from terrible danger.¡±


    ¡°What kind of danger?¡± - I glanced at the ghost, and then returned to examining the crystal.


    The ''quest item'' was not so simple. It was indeed a large cubic diamond, with iridescent streams of rainbow energy flowing through it. I noticed, however, that at the very center of the crystal there was a wisp of inky darkness. On top of that, the perfect diamond was cut through by a narrow but deep fissure that reached almost to the center.


    ¡°The Seed of Evil is sealed in this magical crystal.¡± - The ghost continued his exhortation. ¨C ¡°In ancient times, this creature of Chaos was sealed inside a huge diamond, to keep the world safe from deadly danger. Ever since, this treasure has been carefully guarded. Recently, however, the Seed of Evil awoke, breaking the seal that seals it, and the energy of Chaos began to seep into the world, manifesting itself as the element of Air. To stop the crystal''s destruction, I decided to take it to this cave, where the element of Earth reigns. Alas, my contact with the Seed of Evil had caused me to be afflicted with dark magic, and I was unable to preserve my life. Stranger, I ask you to go to the Celestial Continent, to the Cloud City, and inform the Lord of Heaven that the Ancient Evil has awakened. We must try to stop the forces of Chaos, or this world will be destroyed.¡±


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


    I had no time to feel the importance of the mission entrusted to me, when another ghostly figure appeared in the air next to the crystal. This ''guest'' was filled with energies of darkness, so that it looked like a clot of black fog.


    ¡°Don''t listen to him!¡± - The NPC snorted angrily. ¨C ¡°Calling me the Force of Evil. Ha! You are evil. It was your elemental mages that invaded my world with the gods that came to my world, ruined my prosperous country, and then killed me by tearing my soul into seven pieces and then sealing them in different places. Stranger, if you destroy this diamond and help me to be reborn, then together we will conquer this world, and you can serve me by ruling all the lands of my former Dark Empire.¡±


    Serve you? This ''dark lord'' seems to presume too much. But before I could be indignant, the representative of Light and Order spoke.


    ¡°Destroy the diamond? Ha ha. This crystal was created by the First Dwarf named Fiery Diamond Heart himself. He sacrificed his life to seal you in his heart. Only the First Dwarf''s weapon can damage this diamond. Better surrender and let us seal you.¡±


    ¡°Oh, you know...¡± - I interrupted the conversation. - ¡°... absolutely by accident I have the Spear of the First Dwarf.¡±


    ¡°What?" - yelled the bright ghost.


    ¡°Ha-ha-ha! Yes, set me free, and I will reward you by allowing you to serve me!¡± - The supporter of darkness shouted jubilantly.


    ¡°Rather, it is you who must serve me.¡± - I saddled this ''dark lord''. ¨C ¡°Without me you will remain sitting inside this stone, appearing as a useless ghost to others.¡±


    The dark ghost only gritted his teeth at my words.


    ¡°Ha-ha. While you''re fighting each other, the forces of Order will win again.¡± - The light mage exclaimed.


    ¡°You won''t. Anyway, you owe me a reward, dark one. And by the time of our next meeting, you must decide whether you will agree to be my minion, or I will trample you in the dirt like all my other enemies.¡±


    I didn''t get an answer, and I wasn''t particularly interested in it. In general, this story was quite interesting. What''s more, I''d been asked to free a certain force of Chaos, and as an air mage I had no right to refuse. So, I took out my spear, aimed it, and stabbed the tip right into a crack on the crystal''s surface.


    The diamond immediately crunched and shattered. The darkness imprisoned in it ripped in all directions, dissolving into the surrounding space. That was the end of the illumination, and I was alone in the darkness in the center of the cave. Both ghosts disappeared without a trace, and even the diamond shards melted like morning dew.


    ¡°What did you do?!!!¡± - I got a message in the group chat from White Fluffy Fox. I was still in the group with them, so we could write correspondence.


    ¡°What happened?¡± - I answered question to question, looking around.


    ¡°Everyone''s dead!¡±


    I had already noticed that all players in the cave were lying on the ground, showing no signs of life. And a quick glance at the map showed the reason for this ''genocide''. The whole area around was under the influence of the Element of Air, the intensity of which had reached 15 units. Like the players'' levels, the manifestation of the element had fifteen levels of gradation. That is, from the point of view of the locals, just now ''Chaos Breakthrough'' happened here. And I only survived because of the Blessing of the Elements God hanging on me. What''s more, the buff was a group one, so my allies survived as well, even though they were quite far away.


    ¡°Collect the loot.¡± - I wrote into the chat, already trying to figure out how I would get to the pile of corpses. I couldn''t carry much weaponry, but the money that fell from the players would come in handy. As the saying goes, gold can never be too much.


    But before I even reached the edge of the stone platform, another global system message appeared in front of me.


    ¡°Global notification: *** Attention!!! Players Cheater, White Fluffy Fox, Evil Son of a Bitch, Toothbreaking Brick, Last Furious Gasp have destroyed the First Seed of Evil. From now on, all monsters have a doubled amount of health and energy. ***¡±


    ¡°Freak, what have you done?¡± - A message came to me from Fox.


    And right after that, another message appeared in front of me.


    ¡°*** The player White Fluffy Fox has declared you as a personal enemy. From now on you cannot be in the same group, raid, or guild. ***¡±


    And a second later, three more similar messages came, listing the names of three would-be assassins. All four of them were immediately kicked out of the group, and they must have died immediately, since my buff only applied to group members. Well, my share would be greater. I was just about to jump back to the riverbank when another system message appeared in front of me.


    ¡°*** For destroying the artifact First Seed of Evil you get a permanent bonus:


    <ul>


    <li>Damage to adepts of the Earth element +20%</li>


    <li>Absorption of physical damage equal to 5% of the maximum HP per hit</li>


    <li>Energy reserve +20%. </li>


    </ul>


    ***¡±


    Hmm, that''s a good one. That''''s what I call a bonus.

 Chapter 13.24 – World of Elements

    I jumped over to the bridge and crossed to the other side of the river. The distance from that side of the river to the island was a few meters longer, so I couldn''t jump directly. After that, I activated the Stealth on my bracelet and started running from one corpse to the next, collecting money, potions, and purple things. Oddly enough, quite a lot of junk ''fell out'' of the players as they died. Most of it was weapons. There was so much of it that I basically couldn''t carry it. And since the toad and the hamster were actively gnawing in my brain, I decided to collect the weapons, and then banally throw them into the river. As the saying goes, neither for myself nor for people. It is absolutely impossible to fight opponents without weapons, so in one stroke I slowed down the development of a whole bunch of people.


    By the way, how''s my quest going? I looked at the interface and made sure that my quest to accelerate my profession was safely completed. Moreover, I exceeded it tenfold, because the ''body count'' showed 10 103 / 1 000. Eh, where am I going to bury you guys? Considering the number of players I killed in the dungeon, I stopped destroying weapons and switched solely to collecting money and purple items. Surprisingly, I hardly ever encountered any purple items. I found plenty of blue items, but only a couple of purple ones. This was most likely due to the fact that players tried to tether really valuable items to themselves. I tied my bracelet on the first chance I got, too.


    The caves on this side of the river were quite spacious. Otherwise, there simply wouldn''t be room for more than ten thousand people. The ''Chaos Breakthrough'' began to gradually dissipate, but the influence of the Air energies was still too strong for the players to return here. So I spent the next three hours collecting just an insane amount of money. I had fifty gold before. In those three hours, I collected over eight hundred gold coins, plus completely stocked my inventory with purple equipment. What''s more, I got the ''gold'' boots for the Ninja, which I decided to save for the future.


    Finally, after three hours I was so tired of looking for the corpses of the players that I decided not to waste any more time collecting loot and headed for the exit of the cave. Although the passages here were a real maze, the map function allowed me to find the ''shortest'' way to the exit. It might not have been the most convenient, or really the shortest, but it was a guaranteed way out.


    As I approached one of the entrances, I found another pile of corpses. Apparently, it was because the players had stumbled in here and died from the effects of the air before they could return. I looked through the corpses as usual, and made sure that I could get out of the portal without attracting attention. As long as I had invisibility, all I had to worry about was colliding with other players and getting attacked. Although there were a lot of people outside, waiting to go back into the cave and collect the players'' items, the crowd wasn''t too dense, so I was able to slip through without touching anyone, though I had to wander around a bit.


    Finally, when I got to the buzzing outpost, the first thing I did was to visit the local bank and dump all my looted treasures there. Fortunately, it could be done without coming out of invisibility, so no one even saw me. When I looked at the future options where my disguise would fall off, real hell was starting to break loose around me. Literally everyone present would try to kill me. There was a safe zone inside the outpost, but even so, people were starting to look at me with wolfish eyes, clearly planning to strip my skin alive.


    Commandant Sneaky Cunning Tail met me in his office. This time he was enjoying his solitude, because with the destruction of the Seed of Evil, the entire quest in the area was over. There was nothing left to investigate, so all players who wanted a new profession had to return to the capital and get a new quest. Only those who still hoped to sneak into the caves and collect items from the corpses remained here.


    In spite of the invisibility that hid me, the NPC immediately spotted me and spoke to me as if I were his kin.


    ¡°Oh, Cheater! Come, sit down. I confess, I didn''t think you''d be able to do the job. But you exceeded my expectations. You not only killed the players, you solved our problem. All of the earthworms in the area are dead, and when the players disperse, this place will be quiet and cozy again.¡±


    If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    ¡°Good for you.¡± - I smirked, taking off my invisibility. ¨C ¡°What''s the reward for completing an epic quest by ten times?¡±


    ¡°Let''s see.¡±


    With a clear look of anticipation on his face, the commandant opened his desk drawer and pulled out an envelope. A plain paper envelope.


    ¡°Wow! You''re in luck. Here you go.¡±


    I took the piece of paper handed to me. It immediately disappeared into thin air, and a system message appeared in front of me instead.


    ¡°*** For the simultaneous killing of over ten thousand players you get the title God of Massacre. Bonus upon title activation: God of Massacre aura, +30% to damage against players. ***¡±


    ¡°Hmm, that looks good.¡± - I assessed my appearance after activating the title. This aura surrounded me in a bloody mist and made my eyes glow a bright scarlet glow, plus my face took on a fierce expression of a man who kills people for breakfast, lunch, and dinner just to listen to their dying screams to whet an appetite.


    ¡°Glad you liked it.¡± - Nodded the NPC. ¨C ¡°And now, I declare you a Druid! Go and kill all those who hang around, disturbing the peace of this place.¡±


    Again, another message popped up in front of me.


    *** You gained a basic Druid profession. ***


    *** Quest description: Kill 10000 people in the vicinity of the outpost of the Western Hills. Reward: none. ***


    Heh, no reward for the quest. I don''t think I''ll try it. I don''t think there''ll be that many people here. Who knows, though, maybe I can do it. I pressed the ''accept'' button and received a notification that the quest had been accepted, as well as a new system message.


    *** The Path of Massacre God. You agreed to kill thousands of people just for fun. Quest changed. Personally kill 10,000 players who are members of the guild. Destroy the guild castle. Mission Class: Epic. Reward: Epic. Time to complete: 30 days. ***


    Here''s another goodie. However, this time I have to kill ten thousand people personally. Okay, that''s 333 people per day. Overall, the task doesn''t look completely impossible, although it clearly requires a lot of hard work. I think it''s worth it. Plus 30% of the damage as a reward for the previous quest looks really good.


    Nodding to the commandant, I turned invisibility on myself and went outside. I was about to head back to Crab City, when I noticed a trio of players with ''Age of Glory'' inscriptions hanging over their heads. They were arguing furiously about something, so I decided to follow them and eavesdrop on what they were talking about. I wondered how my rival was doing. The trio walked down the street and turned into the woods away from the outpost. They were discussing my deed in destroying the Seed of Evil and the countermeasures for my ''taming''. Judging by the hatred in their words, my achievement was worse for them than a stab in the balls with a sickle.


    I followed the three of them literally on the heels of each other, and I paid the price for it. One of them turned around, looked at the ground just where I was walking, and shouted.


    ¡°Invisible!¡±


    The second player immediately cast an area spell that shattered me from invisibility.


    ¡°Cheater!!!!!!!!¡±


    There was so much expression in that shout of recognition that I thought they were going to have a heart attack right there. However, I did not rely on heart, but grabbed my spear and began to attack. To my surprise, the battle was over very quickly. The Healer and Ninja died from just one blow, and Berserk from two. After picking up my loot and looking around, I ran away, activating Stealth again.


    The answer to the question of why the damage was so high became clear once I looked carefully at the properties of my gold spear. It was now called the ''Cursed Spear of the First Dwarf''. In addition to the word in the name, the spear had a new characteristic: 500 poison damage on strike. So, my spear now did more than 750 damage with a single blow. What''s more, the poison damage didn''t depend on the target''s armor.


    Overall, it was a great deal more than I''d gotten. The only thing that confused me was the word ''cursed'' in the name of the spear. Cursed, not cussing. Looking at the interface, I found myself under the ''Curse of the Darkness x4''. In other words, for every strike I received, I was awarded one debuff. After examining the curse, I read its description. It said that it reduced the chances of successfully using Earth magic. There were no numbers or explanations, though. But since I was using an air element, this ''curse'' wasn''t supposed to hurt me. On the contrary. If this curse would protect me from being hit by Earth magic, then it could be seen as a blessing.


    But before I could rejoice in my acquisition, I heard the excited shouts of players running from the outpost.


    ¡°Cheater is definitely here! He has invisibility, so pay attention to the grass. Don''t let him get away!¡±


    Damn! Looks like my invisibility has a critical vulnerability. Actually, why am I surprised. After all, I had figured out the previous owner of the bracelet just by the fluctuations of the grass. I would have to keep that in mind in the future. When I looked around, I saw that there were only five pursuers running. Given the strength of my attack, I could just finish them off. After all, they wanted to kill me.

 Chapter 13.25 – World of Elements

    I slowly moved forward, approaching my pursuers. My first victim was the healer. One swing of the spear killed him instantly, and I didn''t even break my invisibility. It seems that when killing in one blow, I could stay under the effects of the spell. After all, from the perspective of the game, the ''fight'' was over before it had even begun.


    ¡°Why he died?¡± - There was a panicked scream from the closest player, who had seen how his ally had fallen.


    Here''s why. One more blow, and Ninja went after his comrade. The other three pursuers quickly guessed my location and even cast a area spell, but since they were running toward me, they had no chance of surviving. Five more swings of the spear and two Berserkers and a Healer were on their way to the resurrection point.


    Before I could rejoice in my victory, more pursuers appeared in the distance. I didn''t wait for them, but rushed away. Considering the people''s ''love'' to me, they'' would just smash me with meat. There was nothing I could do against a hundred players.


    ¡°He''s over there! Surround him! To the left!¡± - The players shouted after me.


    The loudest one was a ninth-level Priest. He could see where I was, which told me he was very experienced at tracking invisible people. His commands controlled the ''pen hunt,'' so I decided that I had to get rid of the most clever and observant ones first.


    There were four pursuers, so I rushed toward them. Again, they only sped up in response to my approach, so the collision was swift and deadly. True, one Assassin managed to hit me, taking 2/3 of my life in one blow. But since my spear hit harder, that success was the only thing my pursuers could achieve.


    I rushed to the side to throw the possible pursuers off my trail. But before I''d run twenty meters, more players appeared in front of me. And this time there weren''t just four of them, but a whole bunch of them, walking in a chain, scouring the area. It looked like they were trying to catch me, like in the game of sleight of hand. As I looked around, I made sure that there was shouting on the opposite side, too. Right now, no one could see me, because I was standing still. I should use this advantage while I could.


    Since I was in the woods, the first thing I looked at was the nearest tree. At a height of a couple of meters, there was a sturdy enough branch that I could try to climb it. However, it wasn''t a real world, but a virtual one, so I wasn''t sure how the game mechanics would react to such an attempt.


    Slowly approaching the tree, I grabbed the trunk with my hands and feet and started climbing up. It wasn''t much use, because my legs refused to hold on to the tree. Somehow I climbed a meter in height, and then I made a clumsy jump and hung on a branch. To be honest, I could have achieved the same result simply by jumping up from the ground. As I pulled myself up, I tried to climb the branch, but only hung on it, bent over in my stomach area. I now resembled a bunch of sausages trying to balance on a branch. The result of my attempts to somehow change my position was that I tumbled forward and hung on the branch again, clinging to it with my hands.


    The pursuers were already very close, so I should have stopped fooling around by now. I activated my foresight and started trying to figure out how to climb the tree. To be honest, the magic of probability wasn''t free for me, so I tried not to use it unless I had to.


    Finally, I found a way to climb the tree. I just had to ignore the presence of my legs and climb up using only my arms. This kind of climbing technique was quite common on Earth. As a result, I was able to climb up a bit and stand with my feet on the branch I was hanging on earlier. To be honest, my current state could not be called ''standing,'' but rather I was ''stuck in sprites,'' and I did not fall down only because I held on to trunk and branches with my hands. There was no way to climb higher, so I just stayed where I was, watching my pursuers.


    Meanwhile, they kept arriving and arriving. The crowd of people literally flooded the forest, leaving not a scrap of free space.


    ¡°He must be here somewhere!¡± - The idiots shouted, not even trying to look for me in the trees.


    ¡°Search everything with your hands.¡±


    ¡°Are you sure he''s here?¡±


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    ¡°We''re wasting time. He''s probably gone by now.¡±


    Each of the pursuers had his own opinion of divine importance, which he sought to pour out on his neighbor. This whole circus lasted more than half an hour. First, the people were looking for me. Then, they were trying to figure out where I had gone. Then they started to argue with each other. In the end, everyone left disappointedly, leaving only one player downstairs.


    My most stubborn ''fan'' was named Blooming Wild Rye. He kept walking around in circles near where I had last been seen, whispering something to himself. When I was tired of sitting in a tree like a monkey, I trivially waited until the idiot came closer to me, and then jumped off the branch, simultaneously striking him with my spear. The player died before he could even realize what had killed him, and I rushed away with all my might.


    In the global chat room there were once again screams that Cheater had killed someone, but people were already burned out and there were no one willing to run to catch me. And I hid from the few most vengeful pursuers, stopping in place and waiting for them to run ahead. Unlike me, the Assassins couldn''t be invisible all the time, so the chances of my movement being noticed by a hiding player were minimal.


    Finally, I reached an area where my pursuers were no longer in sight. After orienting myself using the map, I took the road that led to another outpost, and followed it. After fifteen minutes, I was finally able to reach the portal and travel to the City of Crabs. Here I appeared with my invisibility already turned off and walked quietly down the street, blending in with the crowd. My Healer''s Clothes set was already fairly common, so I wasn''t conspicuous. I hid my blue pirate triangle in the interface settings. Although it was listed as being worn on me, it wasn''t visible. And, of course, I turned off my Massacre God Aura, which was giving me a lot of damage while I was fighting players in the forest.


    As I walked down the street, I once again made sure of my godlike popularity. All, literally all the players were talking about me and the destruction of the First Seed of Evil.


    ¡°That Cheater! If I saw him now, I''d tear him apart with my bare hands.¡±


    ¡°The Berserker quest had to be redone.¡±


    ¡°But I''d almost finished it. All I have to do is report back to the Warriors'' Guild.¡±


    ¡°Ha ha, all claims to the Cheater.¡±


    ¡°Scorpion Dungeon is no longer passable. We all died there after the destruction of the Seed of Evil.¡±


    ¡°He looked like an evil god! Surrounded by bloody mist, his eyes shone like demonic rubies, and the expression of his face alone sent shivers down my spine.¡±


    ¡°Didn''t you see the title ''God of Massacre'' above his head?¡±


    ¡°What title? I''m telling you, he''s a demon. A true creature of Chaos, infiltrated into our world!¡±


    I couldn''t let this couple pass me by and decided to intervene in the conversation.


    ¡°Is this Cheater that horrible?¡± - I asked with a shudder in my voice.


    ¡°Worse! He''s evil incarnate!¡± - The player, who had described my appearance so vividly, began to convince me. ¨C ¡°If I saw him in front of me now, I would surely faint from fear.¡±


    The other one stared at me after these words and started laughing quietly, clamping his mouth shut. He seemed to have figured out how to read my name. The only way to see the players'' names was to focus on them. So the march through the city didn''t feel like the usual scene in online games, but more like reality.


    ¡°Oh, I''m already scared.¡± - I was scared, winking at the laughing player. ¨C ¡°How could this possibly have happened? Could he have destroyed the Seed of Evil by accident?¡±


    ¡°No! I''m sure he planned it from the beginning. People like that are imbued with evil to their very souls. Hey, why are you laughing?¡± - My conversation partner took offense, turning his attention to his comrade.


    ¡°Ah-ha-ha-ha! Oh, I can''t. Ha-ha-ha-ha!!¡± - He couldn''t stop himself.


    Taking advantage of the fact that the panicer turned away, I walked on, hiding in the crowd.


    ¡°What?!!! Cheater?!?¡± - I heard a panicer¡¯r yell. ¨C ¡°Where? Where is he?!¡±


    The people around me didn''t pay any attention to these wild cries. Every second person here was in a state of panic attack, so such cries no longer surprised anyone.


    After walking through the streets of the city, I went to take my exam. At the Council of Mages, the discontent of the crowd was literally in the air. Half of them cursed loudly, calling my name in vain, while the other half stood dejectedly, staring at one point or banging their heads against the wall.


    I quickly paid my ''fee'' and went to take my level 8 exam. With my spear''s unexpected damage bonus, it should have been a piece of cake. Only when I appeared in the arena, I was surprised to find a stone golem in front of me that had 20,000 HP. That''s a lot. In my previous exam, I had fought an opponent with 1,500 HP, but here it has 20,000.


    I had nothing to fear, though. The stone golem was rather slow. His fists on the ground created a small area of AOE damage, but overall, the threat from him was minimal. If I carefully monitor the enemy''s movements and retreat in time, there was no problem with him.


    My spear did 254 physical damage, plus another 500 poison damage. The stone golem was armored, so the physical damage was reduced to 150. Poison damage, on the other hand, entered in full, though how could you poison a stone? That damage was combined with +20% of my Earth Adept bonus. In total, I was dealing 780 damage per hit. Compared to the spear, my magic was completely useless, so I only used Discharge for paralysis and healing. To kill the golem I needed 26 strikes with my spear, which took me about 15 seconds. Easy!

 Chapter 13.26 – World of Elements

    Once I was out of the arena and getting my rightful 8th level, I headed outside. But then a Wizard of some sort stood in front of me and roared a trumpet voice, drawing the attention of others.


    ¡°Cheater! What the hell did you do? This is the third time I haven''t been able to pass my Level 7 exam because of you.¡±


    ¡°How I do relate to that?¡± - I was surprised. ¨C ¡°If you''re a crab and you have claws instead of hands, then you should not put the blame for your failure on those who have no relation to it.¡±


    ¡°You-u-u-u-u-u-u-!!!¡± - The wizard gasped in anger. ¨C ¡°It was because of you that the health of the monsters in the exam doubled. I was supposed to kill all the rats with one blast of Fire Blast. Instead, they all survive and devour me in five seconds!¡±


    ¡°Ha ha! You''re such a crab.¡± - I laughed. I guess now I know why the stone golem was so ''fat''. If it wasn''t for my ''buff'', it would have only had 10,000 lives, which isn''t that much different from 1,500 anymore. After all, it was from level eight onwards that exams began to be really hard.


    ¡°He''s right.¡± - The level 9 Destroyer, who was talking to the NPC before, stood up for my defense. ¨C ¡°You could have chosen a different test and taken more healing potions and mana regeneration. Instead, you stupidly wasted six silver on three failed exams. No one is to blame for your failures but you. For example, on server two, the Fourth Evil Seed was destroyed, and the monsters there doubled their damage. That was the problem. Doubled health is not a big deal. Personally, I''m only happy about this event because it opens up new quests to fight Chaos Emissaries like this Cheater. So even if he destroys all seven of the Evil Seeds, it''s a win-win for me.¡±


    With those words, the Destroyer looked at me carefully, and then headed for the exit. I followed him, smiling cheekily. The people around us glanced at us, but they didn''t follow me. New quests? Heh! Yeah. Where everyone sees only losses, some see new opportunities.


    I didn''t take the level 9 exam, but headed to the library where I studied the Scouting Profession. I had three second professions to choose from now: Assassin, Hypnotist, and Hunter.


    The first thing I concentrated on was researching information on the Hunter. The members of this profession were experts at setting traps. Also, like the Druids, they could tame a single pet. But it turned out that the pets of the two professions were different. If you take a Druid''s pet, the corresponding Hunter''s skills become useless, and vice versa. In addition, many of the Hunter''s skills were tied to the use of bows and crossbows, which prevented the use of a spear.


    So it made no sense at all for me to become a Hunter. If I had to choose between Assassin and Hypnotist, then it made sense to become a Ninja, and then take the time to make my final choice of profession.


    Having come to this conclusion, I started looking for information on the quest to become a Ninja as a second profession. Obviously, the quests for the Ninja''s primary and secondary professions were different. This time I studied the guides carefully so that I could imagine what I would have to face. The thing was, at level eight, players would be required to have strong skills and spells from the core profession. All of my spells were still at level four or six, which was equivalent to not having them. My spear had taken me so far, but sooner or later I would have to make strong talismans, which would surely require a lot of effort.


    There were many tasks for the second profession. In fact, one could say that from time to time they were ''generated'' at random, although they followed some patterns. In the case of the ninja, the tasks usually involved reconnaissance and the stealthy destruction of a single enemy. I could manage that kind of thing with just a spear and a bracelet.


    After leaving the library, I went to the Scouts Guild, where I was sent to the ''safe house'' of the Order of Assassins. This particular ''organization'' was responsible for the quests for the Ninja, Assassin and Hypnotist professions. The location of the Order''s NPCs was constantly changing, so it was only possible to find them using the clues received from the NPCs in the main guild.


    Today, the Order''s headquarters was in some semi-basement room that seemed to serve as a bar. There I found the right NPC, and approached him.


    If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    ¡°I want to pass an exam to become a Ninja.¡±


    ¡°Quiet.¡± - An NPC named Evil Mouse looked around anxiously. ¨C ¡°Well, since you found me, then you have the initial qualifications to become a Ninja. Now go to Scout Camp in the Star Forest and find a Ninja Mentor named Secret Penetration. He will tell you what to do next.¡±


    After that, my interlocutor immediately stepped out from behind the table and disappeared beneath the invisibility. A second later, another player entered the room. He looked around and headed straight for me.


    ¡°Have you seen Evil Mouse around?¡± - He asked me. ¨C ¡°Oh! Cheater!¡±


    ¡°Quiet!¡± - I hissed, glancing around furtively as if I were an NPC. ¨C ¡°If you keep yelling like that, you''ll never find him. And with your name, you''ll be forced to look for him for at least a week.¡±


    I went out from behind the table with these words, and activated Stealth, too. The player only glared at me, gawking wildly. His name was Wild Forest Cat, so Evil Mouse obviously didn''t want to catch his eye.


    ¡°Shit! I''ve been looking for him for half a day already!¡± - Cat hissed angrily. ¨C ¡°Where is this tavern?¡±


    The NPC only seemed to show up here once in a while, so I was lucky to find him on the first try.


    Then I went to the familiar Star Forest, where I''d taken my Healer exam. Only now, after exiting the portal, I went in the opposite direction. The scout camp was closer to the edge of the forest. There were quite a few people walking along the road, so I moved under stealth so as not to attract attention.


    The camp itself looked like a dozen tents pitched around a large area paved with stone slabs. It would have been a great place for some warriors. It was quite possible that by tomorrow there really would be a Guardian camp here.


    The square was quite crowded. I''d say there were several hundred people here. The players, though, were all looking around lost. Some were standing there in groups, others were wandering back and forth. There was a disgruntled hubbub throughout the crowd. I listened to the conversations and found out that all these people were looking for Ninja Master. Some of them had been looking for Ninja Master since the morning, but there was no result.


    After scratching the back of my head, I decided to wander around the place as well, looking around carefully. If the mentor''s name had anything to do with his character, he wouldn''t go out into the middle of the square and draw attention. In addition to the players, there were NPCs wandering around the square pretending to be going about some important business. You could distinguish a player from an NPC by the color of his name, so I automatically looked up all the people in the area, concentrating on their names.


    After about five minutes, another NPC caught my eye. I glanced at him with a washed-out look, but after a second or two, I stopped and focused all my attention on the target. When I looked at any living creature in the area, a frame would pop up above their head with their name and level. The frame appeared above this NPC, too, but instead of a name, there were half-written letters that were impossible to read. Moreover, the frame only appeared for a second, and then disappeared even if I tried to keep my attention on the target.


    I followed the NPC immediately, trying not to lose him in the crowd. But as luck would have it, he kept looping between the players, sharply changing his direction. After walking around the square, the nameless NPC went into the woods and... ...and cast an invisibility over himself. All I had to do was curse softly and watch the grass swaying to make sure I didn''t miss my target.


    To my surprise, there were a couple of other players sneaking around with me. They weren''t invisible, but they were careful not to make any noise or get too close to the object of their surveillance. After five minutes, we came to a clearing where a dozen or so players were crowded together. Just then the NPC dropped his invisibility, and I could read his name, Secret Penetration. Heh! Looks like I passed that part of the test.


    ¡°So there are already twenty scouts assembled here. The next stage could begin.¡± - People whispered happily, glancing at the NPCs and around. ¨C ¡°Everybody emerge from invisibility.¡± - After these words, five more people appeared in the field, including me. ¨C ¡°Okay, twenty-one. Not bad. You were able to pass this test. Remember that a scout must always be attentive and invisible. You''re going to be a Ninja, which means stealth will be your greatest weapon. Line up in a single line.¡±


    The NPC walked in front of the uneven line of players, carefully examining each of us.


    ¡°You all already know that the Ancient Evil has been awakened, and the Evil Seed has been destroyed by the followers of the dark forces.¡± - The NPC spoke up.


    ¡°Hey, I''m not a follower!¡± - I was indignant, drawing attention to myself. The players who hadn''t read my name did so now and began whispering excitedly. But no one dared to be openly aggressive. I knew from the guides that during the Ninja exam, clashing with temporary allies could lead to disqualification and having to start the quest all over again.


    The NPC ignored my statement and continued to slander me as if nothing had happened.


    ¡°Now the enemies of the Light are gathering forces to attack us unexpectedly and seize all the key points on the island. Your task will be to conduct reconnaissance. I will divide you into three groups of seven, each with a different mission. Now, you, follow me.¡±

 Chapter 13.27 – World of Elements

    The NPC chose seven players, who reached for him. After some quiet chatting, the group of seven left, and the NPC chose the next batch. I ended up in the last third group. Judging by the clothes, there was one Assassin, four Warriors of different professions, and one Destroyer. While the NPC was talking to the second group, an Assassin named Flying Dagger approached me.


    ¡°How did you manage to put the Healer''s Clothing on yourself? You''re a Killer or a Hypnotist, aren''t you?¡±


    He seemed to notice that I had come out of invisibility. Only Ninja and his descendants, Assassin and Hypnotist, had the Stealth ability. The Hunter and Sniper had their own class talent, which allowed them to sit indefinitely under the camouflage in an ambush. In opposition to this, it was possible to move around under the Stealth, but it constantly consumes energy.


    ¡°It''s a camouflage, a Druid camouflage.¡± - I shrugged it off, laughing inwardly.


    ¡°Yes, deceiving the enemy is an important part of a Ninja''s abilities.¡± - The NPC, who had already returned to us, encouraged me.  He looked at me with an unreadable look, and then turned to the rest of the group. ¨C ¡°So, you have the most important task. Not far from the Star Forest lies Polar Mountain, home to the Snow Gremlins. These creatures have been among the Dark Lord''s most loyal supporters, so they''re probably planning something nasty now. You''ll need to sneak into the Snow Gremlins'' camp and learn about their plans to attack us. Remember that Ninjas are Scouts who specialize in stealthy infiltration and espionage. As a rule, they act alone, and their enemies only discover of their existence just before they die. You must prove to me that you are capable of becoming a true Ninja. Now, go!¡±


    With that advice, the NPC suddenly disappeared under the invisibility and headed toward the Scout Camp to recruit the next batch of players.


    I looked at the map and headed toward Polar Mountain. The rest of the squad followed me. The assassin immediately put the Stealth on himself and ran forward, while I decided to keep a low profile for now, staying with the group.


    ¡°Cheater, how did you destroy the Evil Seed?¡± - One of the Warriors spoke to me. Judging by the shield in his hand, he was a Palladin or a Fanatic.


    ¡°I did it with a pompous swing of my hand.¡± - I made a ''heroic'' move.


    ¡°What?¡± - The earth adept didn''t get my joke.


    ¡°You asked ''how¡¯. I answered the question.¡±


    This time the people around me got it, and they started laughing.


    ¡°I''m serious! Everyone has tried to get to the First Seed of Evil many times. It was the only Seed whose position was known to everyone.¡±


    ¡°Well, you heard what Ninja Master said.¡± - I started talking nonsense. ¨C ¡°Only a follower of the Dark Forces could destroy the Evil Seed. That''s the whole point.¡±


    ¡°Ah... that''s it... How do you become a follower of the Dark Forces?¡± - A player fell for my trick.


    ¡°That''s... secret!¡± - I answered mysteriously, and then laughed with ''''The Dark Lord''s Laugh''''. ¨C ¡°Mua-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!¡±


    My conversation partner puffed up like a chipmunk. The ''comrades'' immediately pulled him aside and whispered excitedly, glancing at me.


    After a couple of minutes we reached a wide path that led in the direction we wanted to go. Polar Mountain grew next to the Star Forest. This area was considered pretty high level. But most importantly, it was a typical ¡®farming area¡¯ with no outposts or revival circles. If a player died there, he had to go back to the mountain from the very portal of the City of Crab. And since the way to the mountain was not a short one, death was equivalent to the loss of at least an hour of time.


    As a rule, such areas were the background for all sorts of tasks. Also, there were two dungeons in the central area of Polar Mountain. In addition, you could also just hunt the local fauna in order to get all kinds of resources out of them.


    The main inhabitants of the mountain were Snow Gremlins. But besides them, there were also Ice Trolls, Wild Yetis, Polar Wolves, and a few other types of rare monsters. In addition, there was the occasional ''wandering boss'' the Frost Spirit of the Mountain. In fact, that was the end of my knowledge of the mountain. I only glanced at the descriptions of the zones where the quests for additional professions could take place.


    Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.


    The road led us out of the Starlight Forest and into the foothills. The weather here was far from summer. There were drifts of snow, from beneath which sparse flowers and... polar cactuses. The last flora flaunted long, icy needles and were a valuable, but extremely troublesome resource.


    Finally, we emerged from the supposedly peaceful area, and the Ice Troll appeared in front of us, guarding the path. I immediately hid under my invisibility and went around. The assassin, who also walked under invisibility quite often, followed my example. But the other five members of our team were dumbfounded and started beating the innocent Troll. After a few seconds of the fight, Destroyer joined the battle. As soon as he threw a ''Fire Bomb'' it scorched not only the Troll, but four of the warriors as well. After that, the Mage began to receive threats and was forced to limit his attacks to the weakest of spells.


    When the Troll fell in the unequal battle, the group of five moved on, swearing at the Destroyer.


    ¡°Yeah, just group up and get on with it.¡± - I gave them some advice.


    This proposal made the Assassin glare at me angrily, but he didn''t say anything.


    ¡°That''s right, accept the invitation.¡± - One of the warriors inspired.


    In a few seconds, five of our people were in the same group. I received an invitation, too, but declined it.


    ¡°I have invisibility. It''s only weaklings like you who need to crowd up.¡± - I declined this ''generous'' offer.


    In fact, my advice was a ''bearish favor''. The guides said to pay attention to the words of the NPC who gives out the mission. There could be hints and all sorts of ''hidden conditions''. Ninja Mentor said that ninjas act alone. That is, joining a group is likely to be perceived by him as a violation of rules of the task. The assassin obviously realized that my advice was a covert diversion, but was not in a hurry to tell the others. After all, everyone was on their own here, and the more trouble the others had, the easier it would be for you to get ahead. There was a whole crowd of people in the square at the Scout Camp, but no one there wanted to go back and tell them how to find the right NPC.


    The road to the gremlins'' camp was long but unremarkable. While I and the Assassin scattered under the invisibility, the others brazenly lunged forward, slaughtering everyone they met. The opponents were designed for single-player killing, so they were powerless against the five. When we saw the gate leading to our desired village ahead, our whole team gathered for a meeting.


    ¡°What shall we do?¡± - Asked one of the warriors.


    ¡°I see two ways.¡± - I gave my valuable opinion. ¨C ¡°You can split up, sneak up on certain groups of gremlins, and listen to what they''re saying. Or you can simply break into the chief''s hut in a group and beat a conviction out of him by force.¡±


    ¡°Fighting our way through is not an option.¡± - Destroyer protested. ¨C ¡°We''re on a mission to be a ninja, aren''t we?¡±


    ¡°But we don''t have invisibility. How are we supposed to sneak up on gremlins? They''ll attack us when they see us.¡± - One of the warriors became indignant.


    I looked at him in astonishment, and then at the snow gremlins sitting nearby. To me, these foes were ''yellow,'' which indicated a neutral attitude. It seemed that killing all those gremlins we''d met along the way had made them the enemy of these five.


    ¡°You can hide behind rocks and trees.¡± - Assassin gave an unexpectedly useful tip. ¨C ¡°If you don''t break like rhinoceroses and pant like steam engines, you can get within a hearing distance.¡±


    I did not continue this discussion, but put on an invisibility and went to the camp. Although the village was surrounded by a sort of fence, there were plenty of places where I could get through that fence with a minimum of effort. I started walking around the camp under invisibility, listening to the gremlins talk. Surprisingly, all they did was sit around the fires and talk over each other and everyone around them.


    From these conversations I learned that a couple of gremlins would soon have a ''wedding'', that the snow foxes were hiding again, that tomorrow they would have to go to the foot of the mountain to catch fish, and that the yeti were out of control, and that a truce should be sent to their leader. Anyway, the gremlins were discussing everything except destroying the Seed of Evil and planning an attack on anyone. I even managed to sneak into the local chief''s ''wigwam'', but even there the ''hottest'' news was the failure of the ice hollow blossom.


    After an hour I finally lost hope of hearing anything useful, so I left the camp and fairly quickly found my allies, who had set up camp in the most prominent place, which, however, was at a distance from all the snow gremlins'' patrols.


    ¡°How''s it going?¡± - I asked, coming out of invisibility. ¨C ¡°Did you learn anything?¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡± - Destroyer nodded. ¨C ¡°The Gremlins are going fishing tomorrow. They''re getting married the day after tomorrow. What about you?¡±


    ¡°Heh! And I was able to get to important strategic information.¡± - Everyone present sharply changed. ¨C ¡°This year''s ice-cold chowder didn''t grow.¡±


    ¡°Ugh!¡± - One of the warriors expressed a common opinion. ¨C ¡°Strategic information. You say that too.¡±


    ¡°The gremlins don''t seem eager to rebuild the Dark Lord''s empire.¡± - Destroyer sighed bitterly.


    ¡°Yes, something has to be done about that.¡± - The group leader agreed. ¨C ¡°Or we won''t be Ninjas.¡±


    ¡°All right.¡± - I said smugly, switching on my God of Slaughter aura. ¨C ¡°Watch and learn!¡±

 Chapter 13.28 – World of Elements

    With those words, I stopped hiding and headed straight for the main gate of the village. The gremlins who met me were impressed by my aura, but they blocked my way into the village nonetheless.


    ¡°Who are you?¡± - Asked me the frail body that served as gate-keeper.


    ¡°Tremble mortals! I am the great and terrible Cheater. I have destroyed the Seed of Evil and unleashed the Dark Powers. I come to you to speak on behalf of the Dark Lord! Take me to your leader.¡±


    ¡°On behalf of the Dark Lord?¡± - The guard''s knees trembled and his partner fainted. ¨C ¡°Oh, no, not again!¡±


    ¡°You dare defy the will of the Dark Lord?¡± - I frowned.


    ¡°No, I dare not. I dare not. Please, oh great and terrible Cheater, come. The chief of our tribe is already waiting for you.¡±


    The gremlin immediately ran forward, shouting loudly, ''The Dark Lord''s messenger is here! Following him, I reached the hut I already knew, where the chief of the tribe lived.


    ¡°Are you a messenger of the Dark Lord?¡± - The chief who got out asked me.


    ¡°I speak on his behalf.¡± - I explained my position. I mean, I consider myself as the Dark Lord, so, I talk on my own behalf. ¨C ¡°Rejoice, your lord has been released!¡±


    ¡°Oh, what a sorrow.¡± - The gremlin disobeyed my direct command, refusing to rejoice.


    ¡°The dark forces are already upon this world! And you must accept the will of the Dark Lord and prepare for the coming Battle of the Harvest!¡±


    ¡°A battle of the harvest?¡± - The gremlin fell into a stupor. He looked around helplessly, but none of his tribesmen could tell him what kind of battle it was.


    ¡°The Star Forest is groaning under the tyrannical heel of the Light Forces. Trees are mercilessly uprooted, herbs mercilessly cultivated in fields, and then heartlessly harvested by the slaves of the Earth Adepts. This violence against nature must be stopped immediately. Hear the first command of the Dark Lord. You must attack the Star Forest and plant it with polar cactus. Do not leave an inch of your homeland in the hands of the enemy! By denying the mages access to the rare and precious herbs of the Star Forest, we will weaken them, and that will be the first step to conquering this world!¡±


    Gremlin sighed heavily, and resigned himself to his fate.


    ¡°Good. In three hours we''re going on a battle march!¡± - He shouted, and the tribesmen cheered him on. ¨C ¡°Sharpen your weapons, gather as much polar cactus seed as you can, and ask the Ice Trolls for help. The will of the Dark Lord must be fulfilled.¡±


    ¡°And spread the word. Tell everyone that you will go marching today.¡± - I have given further instructions.


    The Gremlins rushed off in different directions, hustling and shouting different slogans. I noticed that there were footprints in the snow next to me, which most likely belonged to the Assassin of our group. Looks like the first part of my plan was complete. Now, it was time to move on to the second part.


    I turned around and headed away from the camp. But as soon as I was out of the gate, I put invisibility on myself and jumped onto a nearby rock, free of snow. After observing the surroundings, I made sure that the Assassin had lost my trail and went off in the direction of the five freeloaders, waiting inexplicably for something to happen. I returned to the village, snuck into the chief''s hut, where I dropped my invisibility.


    ¡°Cheater!¡± - The gremlin jumped up when he saw me in front of him.


    This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    ¡°Quiet! No one must know of my presence here.¡±


    ¡°Of course, O messenger of the Dark Powers. I obey your will.¡± - He trembled. Apparently, my Massacre God Aura is working on the NPC, making them more compliant.


    ¡°Do you know what would happen if you had to attack the Star Forest?¡± - I asked a provocative question.


    ¡°Yes, all of us will be exterminated.¡± - The gremlin gave an unexpectedly sensible version.


    ¡°Exactly! So you must prepare a trap, lure your enemies into it, and then destroy them all in one blow.¡±


    ¡°Destroy them? But we...¡±


    ¡°Don''t tell me that your tribe survived these mountains by relying only on brute force? You must have some secret ways of killing crowds of opponents.¡±


    ¡°Yes, there are.¡± - The artificial intelligence controlling the game agreed with me. As I suspected, if you logically justify some circumstances, the game will automatically adjust the world to this picture. Although it was a game, the ''role-playing'' part of it was quite advanced, so that the players had no doubts about the reality of this world.


    ¡°Now, listen to the Dark Lord''s real orders. You must pretend to attack the Star Forest. After the players try to stop you, your warriors must run away, trap your enemies, and destroy them all. After that, you can attack the Forest for real and plant polar cactus, thereby making the Forest part of your lands.¡±


    From the description of the plants that I had reviewed before I took my druid exam, I knew that this cactus was called a polar cactus not because it grows in the north, but because the temperatures near it decrease. So, if you plant the forest with cactus, it should have turned into a ''winter'' location.


    ¡°And by the way, do you have a Polar Cactus seed?¡± - I asked suspiciously.


    ¡°Yes, I do, as if I didn''t.¡± - Immediately the gremlin nodded.


    ¡°Then give me one. I''ll take part in the capture of the forest, too.¡±


    The Gremlin sighed, and then gave me a pretty rare seed of Polar Cactus. This plant couldn''t attack, but its bushes were an excellent obstacle for enemies. Some players used it to split a crowd of enemies apart or temporarily block them. I think I could use such an opportunity.


    After the gremlin chief assured me that he would carry out my plan, I put on my invisibility again and headed out beyond the boundaries of the village. Five minutes later I found the cheerful company of my companions eavesdropping on the conversation of several gremlins discussing the coming war.


    ¡°So, is the mission accomplished?¡± - I asked cheerfully.


    ¡°Yes, thank you, Cheater.¡± - Destroyer smiled. ¨C ¡°The Gremlins are going to attack the Star Forest. As soon as I heard that, the mission immediately changed. Now I have to report it to Ninja Master.¡±


    ¡°Then, let''s go!¡± - I shouted as I led the procession.


    My assignment was also changed to reporting on the upcoming war. When we came down from the mountains, we walked through the forest and reached the grassland marked on the map. There an impatient NPC was already waiting for us.


    ¡°Well, what did you find out?¡± - He asked a question as soon as he saw our company.


    ¡°The Gremlins are going to attack the Star Forest.¡± - One of the warriors burst out.


    ¡°What?! How dare they? I need to report this to the guild right away.¡±


    ¡°So, our mission is complete and we can be Ninjas?¡± - Destroyer asked hopefully.


    ¡°You have learned valuable information.¡± - Secret Penetration nodded. ¨C ¡°But five of you broke my recommendation. Instead of sneaking into the enemy''s lair one by one, you banded together and marched forward, killing all enemies in your path. You don''t deserve to be Ninja. Only two of you will be able to complete the next task. The rest of you must return to Crab City.¡±


    ¡°What!!!¡± - The magician shouted. ¨C ¡°Cheater! This is all your fault! You suggested us to band together.¡± - He found the guilty one.


    ¡°Who knew that would happen? Anyway, I knew this would happen. Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!¡±


    ¡°You!¡±


    But before my former allies could attack me, I hid under the invisibility and jumped aside.


    ¡°Enough! If you attack your former allies, you can forget about being a Ninja at all.¡± - The NPC spoke sternly to them.


    After that, the five losers headed away, muttering angrily to themselves.


    ¡°You two, come over here.¡± - The Assassin and I approached the NPC. ¨C ¡°Your final task will be to support our army. In two hours the gremlins will be attacking the forest. By this time, there will be an army of Guardians waiting for them. You will have to secretly follow them and watch the battle. Also, you must kill five gremlins each. At the end of the battle, find me at the Scout Camp and tell me what you saw. Now, go and get ready.¡±


    With that advice, I hid under the invisibility again and ran away. The assassin looked after me, but decided not to pursue, but to move on his own. It was already an individual task, so there was no point in doing it together.


    I went to the Polar Mountain again, and found a group of ordinary gremlins there, through whom I passed information about the planned attack and a demand to send me five gremlins ''to slaughter'', so that I could complete my task.

 Chapter 13.29 – World of Elements

    I spent the next two hours hanging around the Scout Camp, where a crowd of players were gathering to take their second Guardian exam, which would later become Palladins and Phanatics. When ''Hour X'' came, the whole crowd moved toward the mountain. I followed them, not getting too close.


    When this ''''army'''' made its way out of the forest into the snowy foothills, a squad of gremlins, accompanied by a couple of Ice Trolls, appeared in front. As soon as the players saw them, the crowd rushed forward, and the gremlins began to flee. The race lasted about five minutes. The gremlins led the crowd of rams into a narrow canyon, and then streams of snow and rocks rained down on the players'' army from above, immediately destroying all of the attackers. I wisely did not run into the canyon, so I was not hurt at all.


    After most of the players'' army had been destroyed, the main force of gremlins descended from the mountains and easily swept away the rest of the enemy. I found five Gremlins in the agreed place, and killed them in only five strokes of the spear.


    Then I returned to the Ninja Master and reported the heroic completion of the task and the treacherous trap of the gremlins. He sighed, but in the end he acknowledged my accomplishment and made me a Ninja.


    I spent the next half hour helping an army of gremlins seed the Star Forest with cactus. The crowds of gremlins considered me an ally, but attacked all the other players. The strength of the mobs of these shorties was such that even groups of a dozen players could do nothing against them. As a result, the Star Forest was ''looted and defiled. Now it was taken over by gremlins, who walked around with smug smirks, growing Cactuses and counting the future crop of medicinal herbs wrested from the Mage Guild.


    When the entire forest was planted with cactus, I received an interesting systemic message.


    *** ¡°The rebellious spirit of Liquid Striped Fluff has rested in peace. Hidden mission accomplished. Reward: None.¡± ***


    Heh, looks like the fact that I kept my promise to take the forest away from the mages turned off some sort of NPC ghost quest that was supposed to be giving me trouble. Well, the lack of trouble is also profit.


    After finishing the quest with the forest, which I had self-created, I moved to the City of Crab. I am now at level 8 and my second Ninja profession, so it was a good time to get busy crafting and charging the talismans which I would use. I wanted to be thorough, so I went to the library first, where I studied the guides for the Druid and Ninja professions.


    Next, I spent almost an hour wandering around the market, figuring out who was selling what, and how I could use the items I bought to enhance myself. In the end, I had a ''build'' of six amulets, for which I bought the necessary spell books, gems, seeds, and talisman blanks. After combining all this into talismans ready for charging, I once again assessed the result.


    Because the Druid was primarily a healer, the first spell on the list was healing. At the eighth level I could create talismans that used four gems. Of these gems, one was the ''main'' gem, and three were ''additional'' gems that enhanced it. But there was another scheme for combining spells. Four of the same spells could be used. In doing so, the effect of the spell and the cost of using it quadrupled. But the downside to this approach was the use of rare and expensive gems.


    I used this scheme to make a talisman with the ''Heretic Sacred Healing'' spell. It was supposed to restore 1,600 units of health, which I thought was an excellent result. What''s more, it only took 0.5 second to apply the talisman, and I could use it again in a 1.5 second.


    But there was a downside to that result. Now I had a maximum reserve of 120 units of energy. And using the talisman required 60 units of energy. In other words, I could not use it more than two times in a row. To counterbalance this effect, I created four amulets to restore energy, each containing four ''Energy of Nature'' spells. One of those spells restores 6 units of energy in 5 seconds. Correspondingly, 16 spells would regenerate 96 mana in 5 seconds. But most importantly, if there was a summoned plant within 10 meters around me, that number was doubled. So I could restore 192 units of energy in 5 seconds, or almost 77 in 2 seconds. So I could use the healing every two seconds and still regenerate my energy.


    The spell for the amulet ''Energy of Nature'' could not be learned. It was only possible to obtain it together with the stone. Naturally, the chance of such a stone falling out was very small. But since there were almost no Druids in the game, there was an over-supply, and I could easily buy 16 stones, exhausting almost all of the supplies on the market.


    The issue of energy regeneration was solved, but... I had the issue of summoning plants. My current spell ''Grow a Weed'' required 5 seconds to use, which was wildly impractical. So I bought a book with a rare spell called ''Flower Field''. It allowed me to grow a ''Flower'' class plant in just 3 seconds. And in addition to that spell, I used three auxiliary spells, again only found as ready-made stones. Each of these auxiliary spells reduced the cast time by half, at the same time reducing the plant''s health and energy by half. But I wasn''t interested in the flower''s parameter, because the only thing that mattered was the presence of the flower. As a result, I had a talisman that grew a flower field in 0.375 seconds.


    Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.


    So, I spent two spell slots on healing spells, and I could hope to be an excellent healer for my eighth level. At least I could heal myself. To make sure I didn''t die from a single hit, I charged the remaining three amulets to increase my health. It was pretty standard with three amulets, each of which added 500 health. On top of that were my native 100 health and the small bonuses from the purple clothes I''d picked out for myself from the huge collection I''d recently collected from the players'' corpses in the dungeon. In total, I ended up with 1,950 health points.


    The next important element of my build was, of course, damage. Here I was not happy with the Druid''s skills, but in the end I was able to find a suitable option, but without too much sophistication. That was the ''Rainmushroom'' spell. It was used for a 0.25 second and created a ''mushroom'' on the ground that would last for twenty seconds. If an opponent came within four meters of this mushroom, the mushroom would ''activate'' and after a 0.25 second would ''jump'' into the enemy, dealing crushing damage and pushing them away a bit. This spell had no cooldown time, but it was used within a second, which didn''t suit me at all. So, I had to buy two extremely expensive gems with extra spells, each of which reduced the time it took to use the spell by half. In total, I could now ''plant a mushroom'' four times per second. The third additional spell was a 50% increase in damage. In total, my ''Rainmushroom'' could do 450 damage per hit. The energy consumption of using it like that was wild, but my regeneration was good enough.


    Another damage-oriented spell was ''Grow a Bush''. It was only used for 0.5 second, after which the bush would ''grow'' for three seconds. And after three seconds the plant was ready to perform its ''duties''. I used the seed of the ''Thorn Vines'' with this talisman. It would wrap its branches around my opponent, dealing damage and reducing his movement speed by 20%. I wasn''t sure how useful this kind of ''pet'' would be, so I took it as an experiment for now.


    And the last two talismans were loaded with Ninja skills. Since I got this profession, it was worth using the most ''tasty'' skill available to me. It was ''Ghost Leap''. After applying this skill, I could move a distance of up to 20 meters and simultaneously hide in invisibility for 3 seconds. When I activated Stealth on my bracelet, ''turning on'' the invisibility ate 30 units of energy, and then, every second the bracelet consumed only 3 units of energy. But if the bracelet was activated when I was invisible after the jump, it didn''t consume 30 units of energy. The jump itself only cost 10 energy and I could use it every 5 seconds. All three auxiliary spells in this talisman reduced the recharge time of the spell.


    My last skill was ''Poison Spit''. This skill threw a ''bomb'' of poison gas that exploded on contact with the target, poisoning everyone within a half-meter radius. Most importantly, at the moment of poisoning, the target would fall into a state of ''Confusion'' for a 0.25 a second, which was equivalent to loss of consciousness. I was able to use ''Spit'' every 3 seconds, it took a 0.25 a second to cast, and the poisoning lasted 10 seconds, though it didn''t stack. I was primarily interested in this skill as a substitute for ''Discharge''. The only thing was that it was distance, and I was able to increase the cast distance to 20 meters with the help of additional spells.


    I could only use six talismans at level eight, so that was the end of all the spells I could use. I hoped that this set of skills would make me a difficult opponent for anyone. The problem was that it cost a staggering 28 gold coins, which was a waste by the standards of a level 8 player. I don''t think that even the leaders of the strongest guilds could afford such an outfit.


    ==================================


    Status information:


    Name: Cheater


    HP: 1950


    HP regeneration: 0.1 / sec


    HP regeneration from items and skills: 0


    MP: 120


    MP regeneration: 0.1 / sec


    MP regeneration from items and skills: 38.4 / sec


    Stamina: 100


    Stamina regeneration: 0.1 / sec


    Stamina regeneration from items and skills: 0


    ==================================


    Atributes:


    Strength: 0


    Dexterity: 0


    Endurance: 0


    Resistance: 100


    ==================================


    Skills:


    1) Heretic Sacred Healing: Heals any living subject.


    - Heals: 1600 HP


    - Energy required to use: 60 MP


    - Cast time: 0.5 sec


    - Cooldown: 1.5 sec


    2) Grow Flower Field: Creates field of flowers.


    - Cast time: 0.375 sec


    3) Rain mushroom spell: Creates mushroom which jumps to enemy and explodes.


    - Damage: 450


    - Energy required to use: 8 MP


    - Cast time: 0.25 sec


    - Cooldown: 0 sec


    - Activation radius: 4 meters


    - Activation delay: 0.25 sec


    4) Grow a Bush (with Thorn Vines): Creates a bush which slows the enemy.


    - Cast time: 0.5 sec


    - Grow duration: 3 sec


    - Slows enemy movement speed by 20%


    5) Ghost Leap: Teleports player up to 20 meters away in any dimension and apply Invisibility on player.


    - Energy required to use: 10 MP


    - Cooldown: 5 sec


    6) Poison Spit: Poisons the target and stuns to short duration.


    - Stun duration: 0.25 sec


    - Poison duration: 10 sec


    - Maximum cast distance: 20 meters


    - Cooldown: 2.75 sec


    ==================================


    Equipped items:


    1) Bracelet of invisibility (Purple grade): Grants Invisibility skill


    2) Cursed Spear of the First Dwarf:


    3) ¡­

 Chapter 13.30 – World of Elements

    Now I had to find the right places to charge these talismans and amulets, and that was going to be quite an adventure. I could not predict where and when the right conditions would arise. So now was the perfect time to start using the Air Adept''s special ''thing'' - the terrain scanner. I could set up a special artifact in an any location that allowed me to scan my surroundings in a fairly large radius. I couldn''t teleport to my scanners yet. Only at 10th level was this ''peaceful'' skill supposed to be available to me. But even so, it should have been enough to cover the area where the most likely conditions might arise.


    I bought a couple dozen scanners from NPCs, picked up a few ''bonfires'' at the market so I could equip charged talismans and amulets without going back to town, and then headed to the portal platform to teleport back to the Star Forest. I planned to start installing the scanners from there. But on my way to the portal platform, a player dressed in ''gold and silk'' blocked my path.


    ¡°Cheater, I invite you to join our guild, ¡®The Emperor''s Holy Wrath.¡¯¡±


    ¡°Not interested.¡± - I waved him off, sidestepping the obstacle.


    ¡°Our guild is one of the strongest on the server.¡± - The recruiter didn''t let up.


    ¡°Congratulations, but I don''t care.¡±


    ¡°We can help you with your character development.¡±


    ¡°I''m fine as it is.¡±


    ¡°Cheater, come join our guild.¡± - Another player came up to me.


    ¡°Get in line. You''ll be right behind him.¡± - I nodded at the representative of the ''strongest guild.¡¯


    ¡°What do you mean?¡± - He didn''t understand my message.


    ¡°I mean piss off.¡±


    With those words, I paid to jump through the portal and escape my pursuers. The observers couldn''t know where I was going, so I easily got rid of the intrusive company. And after I emerged from the portal, I immediately cast an invisibility over myself, so that no one would notice I was there.


    Then I headed to the center of the Star Forest, where I set up the first scanner. After comparing the energy of the area with the ''signatures'' of six talismans and two amulets, I couldn''t find any suitable locations. So, I had no choice but to sigh and head for Polar Mountain. There I climbed to the very top and set up a second scanner. Two scanners covered the entire forest and the entire mountain, but so far it was useless. I wasn''t upset, though, because the chances were slim anyway.


    Then I moved on to the northeast. There was an area called the ''Dark Forest''. It was an area for level 8-9 players, and the closest portal to this place was just an outpost in the Star Forest. After setting up the scanner in the center of this area, I headed towards the entrance to the ''Cold Caves''. It was a huge underground location, designed to be played in a group or even a full-fledged raid. I was hoping to recharge my talismans in this particular area.


    When I got into the caves, I moved more cautiously. Even though I was invisible all the time, the monsters could smell me if I got too close. And if on the surface it was common opponents, which I could kill a couple of strokes of the spear, but there were already wandering around ''bosses'', which should have been beaten in five. I was only interested in charging my talismans, so it didn''t make sense for me to fight them.


    I slowly walked through the wide passages and headed for the first spot that was suitable for setting up a scanner. Despite the fact that all of the monsters living here were quite strong, I frequently encountered groups of ''farming'' players. The Cold Caves were an extremely popular place for making money and collecting gems to make talismans.


    When I got to the right place, I set the scanner and immediately found a place on the map that was perfect for charging the Ghost Leap talisman. But when I got there, I saw a not-so-happy picture. The anomaly I needed was right in the ''lair'' of another boss, which was common at every corner. Fortunately, right now the lair was empty. And unfortunately, right at the entrance to the lair was a battle between the boss and a group of ten players. Considering my ''popularity'', I risked being attacked by this raid. I could wait for them to kill the boss and leave, but the energy of the anomaly varied constantly, and in ten minutes I could easily lose my chance to charge the talisman with high efficiency.


    You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.


    After a little hesitation, I decided to solve problems as they arose. Under my invisibility, I slipped into the center of the lair and froze there, charging the talisman. When I used the appropriate ability, my invisibility was broken, and I was immediately spotted by one of the players. The lair was not an enclosed space. Rather, it was a cavity in the floor, surrounded by a wall at about 180 degrees. I had few escape routes, but there were a few, and I hoped to escape if I ran into trouble.


    ¡°There''s Cheater!¡± - One of the players exclaimed.


    ¡°Hold the line.¡± - The raid leader frowned, glancing at me.


    While I was charging the talisman, the players hit the boss. Finally, I got my talisman, charged at 90% efficiency, then immediately used a fire log to make a fire and create a small piece of ''peaceful'' territory. Then I replaced the Discharge spell with the Ghost Leap I had just received, and put the new talisman in my spear at the same time. The weapon''s damage immediately jumped up from 360 to 455.


    Before I could get excited about my acquisition, the raid raid was over, and a dozen players were charging toward me with murderous intent.


    ¡°Don''t let him run away.¡± - I heard the raid leader¡¯s shout.


    I had no time for reflection, so I immediately began to scan the options for the future, trying to find a way to escape. My escape towards the exit of the lair would end with my death in two seconds. Inside the boss''s lair, on the other hand, I found a way to hide from pursuit. Now I had a skill that allowed me to teleport up to 18 meters away. I immediately noticed the presence of a small platform under the ceiling of the cave, which was impossible to reach by normal methods. Moreover, even noticing the presence of this ledge was difficult. I immediately jumped into this ''shelter'', and froze virtually in front of everyone, but under the invisibility.


    ¡°Where is he? Do not let him escape!¡± - Immediately, the players flustered.


    They began to scrutinize this part of the cave, casting occasional area-damaging spells at the same time.


    ¡°Hey, Cheater. I suggest you join our guild. If you refuse, we''ll kill you.¡± - The leader of the group shouted. He chose a pretty lame strategy for recruiting. The name of this ''giant of thought'' was Lone Phoenix.


    I immediately sent him a friend request. And when he accepted it, I wrote a private message. This method allowed me to communicate with him without revealing my location.


    ¡®Are you sure that'' is what you want? If I join your pathetic guild, you''ll be destroyed in a couple of hours. The whole server hates me.¡¯ - I texted him.


    ¡°You...¡± - Phoenix shrieked, glancing around angrily. ¨C ¡°Find him and kill him.¡±


    The players tried to find me in the cave, using area spells on the secluded corners, but since I was hunched under the ceiling, none of those spells hit me. To my disappointment, my enemies had no intention of leaving, so my mind drifted to the uncontrollable use of violence.


    Right now, my spear hit for 455 physical damage and another 500 poison damage. Plus, it had a 30% buff of the God of Slaughter aura on top of it. In total, I could deal 1240 damage in one hit. The player in front of me was level 8, but he only had 1100 health. After all, he was a Demonologist, a typical ''wimp''. So, I could probably kill him with a single blow. And as I learned through experience, if an opponent dies with a single blow, my invisibility doesn''t disappear.


    I used the Leap and moved right behind Lone Phoenix''s back. The cooldown of the jump was 5 seconds, so I just froze in place. And as soon as the spell reloaded, I immediately stabbed him in the back with my spear, and then jumped back to the ceiling. I could see in the line of the future that my strike was fatal, so I decided to act.


    The leader of the raid fell to the ground as a shapeless sack. I was able to pick up the loot that had fallen out of him in a split second. It was some pebbles and resources that fell from the local bosses. Nothing particularly valuable, alas.


    ¡°What?! How did he die?¡± - Immediately, the fallen enemy''s comrades floundered.


    A ''blizzard'' swept over the area near the corpse, but the spell couldn''t hurt anyone. After all, I was already sitting under the ceiling of the cave. The players surrounded the corpse of their leader, and one of the Priests began to use a special game item that resurrected the dead. This was quite an expensive treat, so inwardly I was already satisfied.


    But, of course, my revenge could not be that simple. The players formed a ring and looked out carefully. Inside the ring, the wizards used a couple of area-beating spells and made sure I wasn''t there. I, on the other hand, jumped right into the center of this formation again and prepared to strike. As soon as the Lone Phoenix was ''resurrected'', I immediately struck him with my spear, sending him into the world of the dead, then successfully evacuated, not forgetting to take the loot from the corpse.


    The players shouted furiously and started striking into the void, but, of course, they couldn''t reach anyone. The priest started using another resurrection item, while a couple of mages were pouring fire and a blizzard all around them. This time I didn''t jump, and the raid leader was successfully resurrected. What''s more, they immediately cast a shield on him that absorbs up to 500 units of physical damage.


    ''I wonder how many times you have to die before you realize that I''m out of your league?'' - I wrote a message.

 Chapter 13.31 – World of Elements

    Phoenix gritted his teeth, looked around again, turned sharply, and walked away.


    ¡°Let''s go!¡± - He gave the command.


    The whole raid followed its leader. Of course, a couple of the players stayed behind to patrol me under the invisibility. If I showed up in the middle of the den, they would immediately start attacking me. But after five minutes they got tired of waiting in the middle of nowhere, so they just left. I too ''jumped'' down and carefully made my way out of the boss''s lair, heading in the other direction. Unless I had proper spells, I could forget about revenge.


    After checking the map and not finding any combinations of energies that suited me, I moved deeper into the caves. With each hundred meters I passed, the strength of the monsters around me increased. If before they were designed for a fight with five or ten players, now there were already ''three-star'' opponents around, designed for a raid of 15 players. Here the number of players decreased, because the enemies were too strong, and the battle with them required good equipment.


    I cautiously crept forward, using a leap where I couldn''t pass. Some monsters reacted to the noise of my footsteps or could even see invisible ones. After walking a little farther than the guides recommended, I set up another terrain scanner. Immediately the entire cave system showed up on my map. This was another ''side effect'' of the scanner - I could see all the details of the terrain in the scanned area. Now the two scanners must have covered the whole cave. But I noticed that in the farthest corner of the cave, at the very edge of the scanner range, there were some ''secret passages'' that were not marked on the map of the caves in the guides. Looks like I found something again that the writers of these game guides were trying to hide from regular players.


    I headed into the deepest part of the caves. There were already only monsters here, requiring a raid of 25 people. If the bosses detected me in one of the lines of the future, they killed me literally with one blow, so I had to be even more careful, and the speed of my movement slowed down even more.


    Finally, I got to the ''official'' end of the cave and set up another scanner here. Alas, to my disappointment it turned out that the ''secret passages'' were only a couple of rooms. Furthermore, it was quite unclear how I could get inside this secret area. I began to walk around the cave, looking around the walls for something I couldn''t understand, and I noticed that an energy anomaly was beginning to form not far from me, suitable for charging the Grow a Bush spell. But when I got there, I found that the anomaly was forming right inside the lair of another elite monster.


    There was a small ''lake'' of crystal-clear water, and a huge snake was curled at the bottom of the lake. As I scanned the future, I made sure that when I tried to get close to this place, the boss would start attacking me, despite the invisibility. The current situation was rather aptly described by the proverb ''So near and yet so far''. I found the anomaly I wanted, but could not use it. Naturally, a desire arose in my soul to somehow ''oneshoot'' the boss. However, I didn''t have such an opportunity. The aura released by the snake alone would kill me in two seconds.


    I looked up at the ceiling of the cave and discovered that a huge stalactite was ''growing'' right above the lake. In the real world, I could have tried to drop it on my enemy''s head. But here it was a computer game, which meant that there was no such possibility. The caves around me had ''indestructible'' walls, and even a hundred players couldn''t break a grain of sand off them.


    As a habit from past lives, I tried to ''scan'' the world around me with psionics, and suddenly... it worked. I literally felt that the cave around me was a kind of digital model, and if I wished, I could rewrite this information and do whatever I wanted with this reality. The sensation was extremely unusual, and more importantly, completely unexpected. I immediately distracted myself from the boss and the charging of the talismans and switched to the awareness of my sensations. I found a secluded spot, sat down on the ground, and concentrated on my psionic abilities.


    After an hour, I realized what my sensations meant. When I created my psionic ability, I considered the fact that the laws of the new world might be different from anything I had encountered before. Therefore, I had a built-in scanner in my ''tail'' that randomly went through ways of influencing the surrounding reality, analyzing how much those ways could affect something. This process was autonomous and completely random. It was the only way I could guarantee that I was scanning for options that I could never consciously guess at. And now my psionics had somehow managed to catch on to the possibility of influencing the world of the game.


    The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    From the point of view of subjective experience, I was surrounded by a very ''material'' world. Yes, I knew that all of this was just computer-generated imagery. But on the other hand, how is it different from the ''real'' world? There, too, three-dimensional reality is only a primitive reflection of complex processes occurring in multidimensional space. So, my ability to influence the world of the game was subjectively ''magic''. And in reality, of course, the essence of the influence was in the scanning of memory and processors of computers. Also, if I wanted to, I could ''rewrite'' this data, changing the world around me. But I didn''t rush into it, and instead began a more detailed study of my ability, taking into account the fact that there was a ''real world''.


    Somehow my psionics was able to reach the computers controlling the game. It was a whole network of highly complex computer technology. And when I began to understand the program code, I immediately found out why I had a subconscious ''aversion'' to the idea of interfering in the world around me. All information about the world around and events in it was ''signed'' with a digital signature. There were several layers of such verification information. Also, there were special computers and programs that constantly analyzed these signatures, and in case of detecting tampering they would raise an alarm and start investigating ''game hacking''.


    Of course, I would hardly be found guilty of computer hacking. After all, I could change the contents of the memory directly. But the connection between the changes and my game character could have been found quite easily. So, who knows what decisions the artificial intelligence running the game, or the administrators watching it, could have made? So, I had to find a way to influence the world of the game in a non-detectable way.


    I could not directly overwrite the data in the computer memory. But the programs used a ''random number generators'' to calculate future events. And these generators were based not on the more familiar to Earth pseudorandom numerical sequence, but on real devices ''extracting'' information from quantum noise. Meanwhile quantum fluctuations are Chaos in its pure form. So already after a couple of hours of ''meditation'' I had found a way to influence generation of random numbers in the necessary for me generators in strictly defined moments of time. And because these values were ''random'', it was impossible in principle to figure out that in fact they were not.


    Of course, this kind of influence was rather weak. After all, the game focused primarily on computable, not random, values. If my spear could do 955 damage, even with the best of ''luck'' it couldn''t do a million damage in one hit. But, it was the random number generator that was used to set changes in the energy of the world around me, which I used to charge my talismans and amulets. I couldn''t change the energy right now, but I could adjust whatever values I needed an hour later.


    Now my main task was to charge the talismans, so that was exactly the kind of manipulation I was engaged in. Although it would be impossible for an ordinary human consciousness to calculate the necessary impact on reality, with ''foresight of the future'' the subconscious mind easily solved these problems. To the people around me such events would look like unbelievable luck, while in fact it was a delicate manipulation of probability lines.


    After I made a rough plan of action, I began to wait until the necessary energies reached the appropriate values. Within the next two hours, anomalies would arise in various places in the cave, which would allow me to charge all my remaining talismans and amulets with almost one hundred percent efficiency. All I had to do was make my way through the cave to the right places at the right time, guided by the quite ''legitimate'' possibilities given to me by the map and the terrain scanner.


    As I wandered around the cave, I mastered another ''cheat'' feature given to me by psionics. If I can change the information in the computer, then of course I can read it, too. In fact, I had access to all the information in the game. Just by looking at any monster, I could tell what characteristics and skills it had, and even what would fall out of it if it died. In addition, through information links I could find out which quests required killing this monster, what their reward was, who would grant them, what other quests these NPC guys had, and so on. I couldn''t read random information, but with some ''reference point'' I could get to any knowledge of the game. So now I no longer needed guides, because I could find out all the information about quests or dungeons directly.

 Chapter 13.32 – World of Elements

    Over the next couple of hours, I was able to charge all my amulets, as well as my talismans with the spells Rainmushroom, Flower Glade, and Heretic Sacred Healing. I was just on my way to the place where the conditions for charging the Poison Spit spell were to appear. This place was away from the den of neighboring monsters. But when I got there, I found a raid battle with one of the bosses going on quite nearby. All of the players in this group were members of the ¡®Celestial Holy Sacred Justice Law¡¯ guild. I got a nervous tic after I saw that name. More importantly, it was one of the guilds formed by a game figure. And the ''cherry on the cake'' was the fact that all the players in front of me were adepts of the element of Earth. So, it was a matter of principle to kill this group.


    In my opinion, the Earth adepts were the ones who most often used words like ''heavenly'' or ''holy'' in their names, and they did all kinds of crazy things under the guise of those words. And considering the fact that there were three ''iconic'' words in the name of this guild, there must be a terrible heinousness going on within it.


    There were 15 players in this raid, and now they were attacking an elite monster with four stars. This indicated that the raid was barely strong enough to fight. I intervened in the flow of events and set up a ''surprise'' application of a strong boss strike on one of the three healers. It was the Druid, who had planted his bushes all around him. A single strike from the boss was enough to smash his victim into the ground. At the same time, five more players lost their health, and the remaining pair of Priests began to heal them. At this time, I got close to one of the Priests from behind and attacked him with my spear. At this point, the spear''s total damage for one hit was 1220. That''s not counting my damage buffs. So one swift strike was enough for me to ''nullify'' the Priest''s life before anyone realized what was happening. After that, I ''jumped'' to the second Priest and killed him. A couple of spells were already hitting me there, but they didn''t remove even half of my 1950 life.


    After killing the priests, I immediately rushed away, hiding under the invisibility. My insidious actions deprived the group of all three healers. Moreover, the bushes grown by the Druid became ownerless and began to heal the boss.


    ¡°Run away! To the exit!¡± - Panicked shouts erupted.


    The players began to run in different directions, and the boss began to chase them, killing them with one or two blows. It was a complete failure. In fact, the raid had already been destroyed. Five minutes later the boss returned to his lair with a satisfied face, and silence settled in the vicinity. I made my way to the right spot and activated the talisman charging. I was still a little wary of other players trying to attack me, so I looked carefully around me and into the future.


    Even after the charging of the talisman was successfully completed, I realized that I could now sense the presence of players in the area, even if they were hidden under the invisibility. In particular, right now one of the assassins from the raid I had destroyed was watching me. Since I knew where he was now and what he could see, I decided to set a trap for him and kill him without any risk to myself. Next to me there was a rock, and on the vertical surface of which I began to plant my Rainbow mushrooms. Assassin could not see these mushrooms from his position, and using the spell itself did not have any visual effects.


    After 20 seconds, having accumulated the maximum ''stock'' of mushrooms in one place, I ran sharply away. Of course, the assassin ran after me and came within range of my trap. All of the mushrooms activated simultaneously and literally tore the poor guy apart. I used the spell 4 times per second, and the mushrooms ''lived'' for 20 seconds. So, I could support 80 mounted mushrooms at the same time, which combined to deal 36,000 damage. That was twenty times more than necessary.


    I returned to the corpse and picked up the valuables that had fallen from the body. The more powerful the "finishing" blow, the greater the chance that my opponent would lose something valuable. If the battle lasted a few minutes, and the winner was barely alive when he won, he might not get anything at all. And if the victim died in a split second, having ''absorbed'' damage far in excess of his life reserve, then everything that could be dropped from him would fall out. This was great news for all the ''gankers'' who liked to kill weak opponents. Because of this fact, everyone hated Snipers. In terms of people''s hatred rating, he was right behind the Druids. After all, the Sniper''s skills allowed them to kill the victim with a single shot at a distance of up to a hundred meters. Ordinary mortals had nothing to counter such insidious attacks, so they solved this problem ''preventively'', destroying snipers at the first opportunity.


    If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    Then I headed to the last place where I planned to charge the talisman with the ''Grow a Bush'' spell. This place was pretty close to the caves, so there must have been a lot of players hanging around. When I reached my destination, I froze in a corner, watching the unexpected activity of the players around me. Ironically, they were all discussing the fact that the famous Cheater was nearby, insidiously attacking opponents. Yeah, insidiously. But as far as they are attacking me, it''s okay.


    A minute before the moment I needed, I got close to one of the group of five that was beating the monster nearby. I didn''t invent anything here, but simply started planting mushrooms around the fight, blocking escape routes. And when they finally spotted me, I began planting mushrooms right in the center of the group. The damage from my spells was serious, and literally immediately one of the mages ''folded''. The others abandoned the boss and tried to attack me, but they did not pay attention to the ''mines'' in front of them, and all fell into the trap that killed them in a second. I''m beginning to like these mushrooms. There it is, the power of 28 gold coins.


    After I had disposed all the bystanders and the half-dead monster, I began to charge my last talisman. And once that was done, I used the last ''log'' to equip all the new talismans. A second later, the excited shouts of the players could be heard in the distance. I was once again being hunted by the whole ''world''. Well, this time I can fight back. Let''s see who''s going to get who.


    Several groups of players from different guilds tried to surround me. But since monsters ''lived'' nearby, they couldn''t just run after me. After all, even if the opponents had assassins and hypnotists, the whole team couldn''t hide under stealth and sneak past the next boss. I could move under stealth, passing obstacles with Ghost Leap. And as ''surprises'' I constantly left mushrooms behind me. When I used the spell I came out of invisibility, but the activation of the traps had no effect on me. I deliberately placed the traps so that it was impossible to see the threat beforehand. After activating the mushroom, the delay of a quarter of a second was more of a plus than a minus. During that quarter of a second, the victim had time to enter the range of the other mushrooms. But it was impossible to dodge their attack. The mushrooms easily ''shot from around the corner,'' using self-targeting.


    After killing three dozen pursuers, I suddenly stumbled upon a group whose members could see me, despite the working Stealth. Using psionics, I was able to read the information that it was the result of the assassin''s special skill. Moreover, not only he could see invisible enemies himself, but his teammates also saw the invisible enemies that the Assassin was seeing at that moment.


    I had a lot of trouble with this company. But in the end I just dashed away, sowing the area around me with mushrooms. My enemies had to either ''collect'' all the damage to follow me, or avoid the traps, inevitably slowing down. In this way, I was able to break away from the pursuit, hiding in the forest on the surface. But after a few minutes, I became convinced that this team was still on my trail.


    It remained only to set a trap. And that''s where the most common rain mushrooms that grew in the forest suddenly helped me. They didn''t explode and were a cheap resource, but they looked exactly like the ones left by my traps spell. I only noticed the mushrooms when I wandered into a meadow overgrown with them. Immediately a cunning plan formed in my head.


    After gathering a hundred mushrooms, I stepped aside, laid them out on the surface of a large rock and a couple of smaller ones nearby, and then stood right behind this trap, smugly folding my arms across my chest. In fact, I had planted my mushrooms on tree trunks 20 meters away. And I placed them so that they could not be seen when approaching to me in a straight line.


    My little scam was a success. When they saw me and the mushrooms beside me, the pursuers moved forward, lined up. There were five of them, their colorful robes flapping in the wind, creating a heroic areola. From left to right were the Assassin, the Destroyer, the Werewolf, the Sniper, and the Priest. The last looked very unusual for this world, because he was dressed in a classic kimono, with a bamboo hat on his head and a staff with a golden tip in his hand.


    ¡°Have you decided to surrender?¡± - The priest shouted smugly.


    He wanted to say something else, but at that moment they ran next to my trap. At the very last moment, the enemies realized what kind of situation they were in, but they didn''t have time to even use any kind of ability. Eight dozen mushrooms swept this pathetic group away, tearing them to bloody scraps. I walked over to the ''battlefield'', gathered my loot, and then headed away. No one was following me this time, so I was able to get a safe distance away and use the spell that transported me to Crab City. It was a non-combat spell, would take 30 seconds to cast, and would stop at the slightest nudge, but it allowed me to travel quickly to the county capital. I would have used it earlier, but I wouldn''t have been able to stay in one place for 30 seconds in the caves, illuminating my surroundings at the same time. The other players would find me there immediately.

 Chapter 13.33 – World of Elements

    While in town, I headed out to take my level 9 exam. On the way, I went to the market and sold all the junk I had beaten out of the players today at minimal cost. Surprisingly, along with the clean money I had knocked out, this gave me a profit of more than one gold piece. If I ever get bankrupt, I now know a quick way to make money.


    At the Mage''s Guild, I paid for my exam and went to the arena. But when I saw my opponent, I felt sick to my stomach. In the last exam, the monster had 20,000 health, but in this one it was already 200,000. What''s more, a scan of the boss'' characteristics showed that its damage was appropriate. It was a huge cross between a caterpillar and a slug, spitting venom and striking with two long disgusting tentacles. I immediately began to put mushrooms under this creature''s ''side,'' growing flowers and bushes at the same time. The slug, of course, crawled after me, and I had to run away from it in a circle, thankfully the size of the arena was sufficient for that.


    All in all, it wasn''t that bad. With my damage, I was able to beat the clumsy body in just two and a half minutes. That''s taking into account the time it took to dodge, regenerate energy, and heal. What I can''t even begin to imagine is how a normal player would go through such an ordeal.


    After getting the ninth level, I immediately went to get the tenth. This time against me was a huge stone troll with a 1 000 000 HP. Moreover, he had 50% resistance to physical damage, plus it could heal itself, throw huge boulders, leap at my head across the arena, and in addition yell in an attempt to stun me. This one was a real pain in the ass. Only half an hour later, the five-meter-high stone pile crumbled to the ground and fell to pieces. That''s what I call extreme!


    To be honest, trying to kill an enemy who has 500 times as many lives as I do is really stressful. And what happens when you try to pass a level 11 exam? A boss with ten million health points? Now I see why level ten was considered as the limit for normal players. I read in one of the guidebooks that you can get to level ten after a week of light play, but I''m not so sure about that estimate. If it wasn''t for the unexpected wealth that came to me, I would have been stuck at the initial levels for a long time.


    As I got to level 10, I was faced with the task of choosing a definitive second profession. I got out to a park in the middle of the city, lay down on the grass, and began to scan the game''s ''knowledge base,'' trying to figure out whether I was a better fit - Assassin or Hypnotist.


    Although these two professions originated from Ninja, their style of play is radically different. The Assassin specializes primarily in attacks with daggers or short swords. At the same time, most of the damage came from the use of poison. The Assassin''s control skills were almost nonexistent, and the few that were available could incapacitate a victim for half a second at most. Therefore, the Assassin could only take part in fights in ''swoop, stab in the back, and retreat'' mode. Or in ''swoop, get hit back, and leave for rebirth'' mode. That style didn''t go well with the druid''s abilities, so the Assassin wasn''t the best choice for me.


    The Hypnotist, on the other hand, was much more interesting. The Hypnotist also used poison, but he preferred remote attacks with spells. But Hypnotist''s main strength was ''debuffs'' with different types of damage or control. They could be used to increase the damage to the target by two or three times, plus get close to the limit when the opponent was practically out of control and incapable of resisting. However, this was compensated for by a poor arsenal of damage. In essence, Hypnotist was a `supporter'' who assisted his comrades. The Druid had the same role. But the combination of the two professions was a bit of a waste, because I couldn''t take full advantage of them.


    In the end, after comparing the two professions, I chose Hypnotist. I don''t feel like running around the battlefield and shoving my spear into the ass of a gaping enemies. I prefer to shit from a distance.


    Having made that decision, I went to do the corresponding quest. I didn''t see an influx of players at these levels. On the contrary, since there were not enough people, all professions received the same task. The first stage required me to go through a dungeon, slay a five-star boss, and travel to an NPC, who would give me an individual quest, depending on the player''s profession.


    This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.


    Through the portal I reached the entrance of the desired dungeon, where I began to look for the right group. Since most of the players were Earth adepts, and I had Air, it was hard to find a raid that would accept me. After thinking about it for a while, I decided to change my build to healing. I had the ''Grow a Bush'' spell now, but it was being used to grow a Thorn Liana, which was not much use in combat. I wondered what would be better to use instead, and got an unexpected answer from my psionics.


    Returning back to Crab Town, I went to an inconspicuous alleyway where a group of about a dozen players were gathering. Approaching to a player named Ruthless Toad Hamster, I whispered in his ear.


    ¡°Sell me the seed of the Heavenly Healing Rhododendron.¡±


    ¡°What?!¡± - He exclaimed. Then he added in the same whisper. ¨C ¡°How do you know I have this seed?¡±


    ¡°From the camel.¡±


    ¡°What camel?¡± - Hamster frowned.


    ¡°Never mind. Will you sell it?¡±


    ¡°Do you have any idea how much it''s worth?¡± - He was indignant, displaying the behavior of a real hamster.


    ¡°How much?¡±


    ¡°At least fifty gold coins!¡±


    ¡°I''ll pay seventy gold coins.¡± - After my words, the Hamster began to be pressed by an inner toad, demanding immediately to sell everything. ¨C ¡°And this money you can get right now, not after a couple of months.¡±


    The hamster froze in front of me, and his look was a perfect illustration of the image of ''inner torment.


    ¡°One hundred gold pieces!¡± - He bulged his eyes.


    ¡°Seventy. Even for that, no one would buy it from you. More likely the guilds would rip you off and make you sell it for thirty gold. It''s the seed of the Heavenly Healing Rhododendron.¡±


    ¡°All right, fine.¡± - Hamster snickered when he heard about the guilds. There was indeed an abundance of them in this world, so it was very difficult to resist them.


    ¡°Then let''s go to the bank.¡± - I cheered.


    ¡°I''ll be back in ten minutes.¡± - My counterpart said to his companions.


    After that we got to the bank, where we took the necessary valuables from the warehouse and made an exchange to our mutual satisfaction.


    I immediately inserted a seed into the talisman and grew a bush. It looked amazing. And most importantly, the bush had ten buds, each of which could heal 5000 HP. Each flower had a recharge time of three seconds. In total, the bush healed 50,000 every three seconds. That was so much more than I could give out with my spells, practically my role as a healer was to grow a bush and just stand there. Nice!


    After completing the transaction of the century, I went to the Temple, where I `binded'' the seed to myself. Now it was impossible to lose it. And the fact that this procedure cost another ten gold coins was insignificant. I had plenty of gold.


    Once again, I went to the cave, walked to one of the forming raids, grew my bush, and spoke to the leader of the raid.


    ¡°Do you need a healer?¡±


    The man looked at me, at the bush growing beside me, and his eyes twisted with hatred and envy.


    ¡°Element?¡±


    ¡°Air.¡±


    ¡°Fuck off!¡±


    Holy shit! I added the freak''s name to my list of enemies and headed for the next group.


    ¡°Do you need a healer?¡±


    This time the leader of the raid was a girl, who immediately glanced at me with management eyes. I grew a Rhododendron bush right in front of her eyes, after which the girl exclaimed.


    ¡°Hooray! Now we have another healer. What''s your element?¡±


    ¡°Air.¡±


    ¡°Well... okay.¡±


    There were sounds of protest from the Earth adepts in the crowd.


    ¡°All right. I won''t heal those with an Earth element. I''ll stand beside the firemen.¡±


    The grumbling died down to angry whispers.


    ¡°Yeah, we''ve got all the elements in here.¡± - The girl reassured me. ¨C ¡°We''ll find five more, and then we''ll move out.¡±


    Ten minutes later, the crowd of our raid moved toward the cave. Surprisingly, a firm female hand guided the assembled rabble, avoiding obvious mistakes. There were 25 people in the raid, although it was possible to pass the dungeon in a group of 15. So, it was purely due to our numbers we smashed the monsters into bloody mincemeat, without exposing ourselves to much risk.


    For the next couple of hours we moved through a labyrinth of underground passages, going lower and lower underground. According to the game''s history, the ''hydra of fascism'' was once again raising its head here. I mean, the wretches of the Dark Forces still wouldn''t die for the glory of Heaven. But we were correcting that omission to the best of our ability.


    Finally, we got to the main boss, whose killing was the goal of our raid. It was the Nine-headed Diabolical Poison Hydra. Well, or morphologically speaking, we had to kill a snake with nine heads about the size of a nine-story building. Honestly, even 25 people looked like a bunch of pathetic insects next to that thing.


    As always, I grew a bush next to our Fire mages and started planting mushrooms at the side of the enemy. Five of our armored tanks would occasionally fly away from the hydra after getting hit by a tail or head, but they landed right next to my bush, so they got a cure and ran right back.

 Chapter 13.34 – World of Elements

    In about 10 minutes we reduced the health of the boss to 10%. And then, here we go! As a rule, the 10% mark was the limit, after which monsters began to use all their abilities and their strongest skills. The hydra yanked its tail sharply, smacking one of the tanks with it and sending him flying, wiping out three-quarters of his health. The tanks were deliberately positioned so that in such a blow they would fly not over the horizon, but into the wall of the cave. And my healing bush was growing next to the supposed ''landing'' spot. Such a scene had repeated itself twenty times in the past ten minutes. But this time I saw in the future that the hydra rushed after the tank, scattering the players like bowling balls, and finished the tank, and my bush as well, with a blow of the head.


    I felt that such a scenario did not suit me, so I immediately began to go over the options for the future, while scanning the information about the hydra and its features. The solution was immediately found.


    Meanwhile, in reality, three seconds had passed. The Hydra swiped its tail at the tank, stopped, squealed loudly, and then rushed forward, scattering those around it. At that moment, my Poison Spit flew into one of its nine heads. According to the mechanics of the game, it was nearly impossible to stop a hydra in a state of rage. But if you stun a particular hydra head at a strictly defined moment, the skill worked on the boss, interrupting its attack. Just guessing the right head and the right moment was unrealistic. However, because I perceived the internal mechanics of the game, I also saw the right vulnerability. As a result, the hydra stumbled and collapsed to the floor with a loud howl.


    ¡°Run away!¡± - The leader of the raid shouted.


    The Hydra lay on the ground for a few seconds, then got up, screamed loudly, and tried again to dash forward, but it was again stunned at the most critical moment by my skill, which had time to recharge.


    ¡°Attack it!!!¡± - I shouted.


    Oddly enough, everyone immediately obeyed my order and swarmed toward the hydra from all sides. In less than thirty seconds we wiped out the rest of the boss''s life, and with one last roar, the hydra collapsed to the floor and froze. A second later I saw a system message.


    ***A raid led by player Tender Velvet Night has set a record for killing the boss Nine-headed Diabolical Poison Hydra. New kill time: 12:08. Previous score improved by 41:33***


    Wow! A record. However, it didn''t belong to me, but to the leader of our raid. But something confuses me about the difference from the previous record by forty minutes. How is that possible?


    ¡°What''s that? Ahhhh... How did we even get her? Why did it die?¡± - A record-holder''s eyes widened.


    ¡°What was supposed to happen?¡± - I asked her.


    ¡°After the hydra has ten percent health left, it starts running around the hall, and then sacrifices one of its heads to regain full health.¡±


    I shifted my gaze to the boss''s corpse. Looks like my ''omniscience'' isn''t absolute at all. I''d have to ask the right question to know the answer. If I''d known that the hydra had to be killed nine times, I wouldn''t have used my cheating abilities.


    The people around me looked at me with apprehension and envy. Some tried to find out how I''d learned how to stun the Hydra, but I gave the standard ''read the guides'' excuse. Of course, no one believed that I''d read about this technique in a manual. But between the players spread rumors that I''m checking tactics that I stole from one of the strongest guilds on the server. Huh, so naive. Their jealousy doesn''t give them even a shadow of a chance to guess what the real reason is.


    In fact, after killing the boss, there was no point in staying in the raid. We all went through the portal and found ourselves in the ''public'' dungeon, where the second part of the quest to choose a profession was taking place. There was a small safe area where players gathered in strength, and an NPC standing at the side issuing quests.


    ¡°Would you like to join our guild?¡± - One of the players immediately took asked me.


    ¡°Not today.¡± - I waved him off. Maybe I should make my own guild, so no one would ask stupid questions like that.


    ¡°What do you mean?¡± - Again the native didn''t understand me. However, he didn''t ask for details, and just walked away, getting the right answer from my gaze.


    I walked over to the desired NPC and spoke to him with a progress report.


    The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.


    ¡°I killed the Nine-headed Diabolical Poison Hydra.¡±


    ¡°That''s good. So, who do we have here...? Druid Hypnotist? That''s the first time I''ve ever encountered such a combination.¡± - NPC paused for a few seconds. ¨C ¡°Sorry, I don''t know what assignment to give you. Go back to Crab Town and tell it to the Hypnotist Mentor at the Scout Guild. He will decide what you should do next.¡±


    ¡°Can''t you ask him about it yourself?¡± - I got angry. What kind of stupid bureaucracy is this?


    ¡°How?¡± - NPC surprised.


    ¡°Write him a private message.¡±


    ¡°No, that''s not how it works. You have to tell him personally. That'' s the rules.¡±


    Fuck! I''m speechless. I wasted two hours just to be told to go back and ask an even more stupid question to an even dumber NPC. After swearing under my breath, I used the return spell and traveled to the capital. Then I found the right NPC and told him about his subordinate''s problem.


    ¡°Oh, I see.¡± - He nodded. ¨C ¡°Druid - Hypnotist? That''s an interesting combination. You are the first player on the server who has chosen such a profession. I''ve already made a mission recommendation for you. Now you can go back to the dungeon and get the mission.¡±


    Go back? It spent two hours trying to reach that NPC. Sure, another goal was to kill a hydra, but damn, TWO HOURS! And now I have to find a raid again and waste time. I urgently need to kill someone in a very painful way. It was useless to argue with the NPCs, because even though they were mostly regular people, they had to follow the rules and instructions, no matter how dumb they were.


    When I got outside, I went to the portal again and teleported to the entrance of the dungeon. This time I decided not to look for the raid, but just to slip quietly through the cave and get out from the other side. After all, I didn''t need to kill the hydra anymore. Once in the dungeon, it only took fifteen minutes for me to get to the opposite end of the dungeon. If I didn''t have to sneak around the monsters, I could have run that distance in five minutes.


    Only at the finish line I found out that I had to kill a hydra to activate an exit portal. In fact, at first, I saw an ''inactive'' portal, and then I read the activation condition from it. And, as if on purpose, at that moment the hydra crawled swiftly into the hall and froze nearby, looking at me contemptuously. I was thinking hard, so I stopped scanning the future options.


    The hydra screamed, and I automatically threw a stun spell at it, after which it slammed its head to the floor. And the sounds it made were something along the lines of.


    ¡°Waaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!¡±


    The hydra pulled itself up off the ground, jumped up, screamed again, and slammed its head to the floor again.


    ¡°Wah-a-a-p-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo! Wah-a-a-p-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo! Waaa-a-a-p-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo! Waaaaaahhhhhhooooooooooooooo! Waaa-a-a-p-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo! Wah-a-a-p-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!¡±


    I stood there, throwing a spell at the boss, wondering what to do next. Suddenly I realized that every time the hydra''s head hits the floor, his health goes down by one percent. That''s a cheat! It looked like I could kill this boss without straining at all. The cycle of roaring, ''banging his head against the wall'' and collecting brains lasted exactly three and a half seconds. During that time Poison Spit had time to roll back, so I could continue to abuse the hydra until the evening. But it didn''t last that long. After exactly one hundred hits to the floor, the hydra squealed for the last time and died. And I was immediately notified that I had set a new record with a time of 5:50, for which I received +3% poison damage.


    By now, setting new records was no longer something surprising. They were reported all the time. But a record like this, with a boss kill in six minutes, was absolutely unbelievable. Especially when you consider that the previous record was 53:41, and a raid with my participation would most likely have taken more than an hour and a half to kill the Hydra.


    Approaching the boss, I gathered the loot and got the ''Soul of the Diabolical Hydra''. It must be worth something. I tossed the loot into my backpack, turned on my invisibility, and exited the dungeon. This time the quest was a devastating success. I was required to smuggle into the scout camps that were watching the ''dark forces'' and heal every single one of the locals. Easy!


    As I expected, with the invisibility and jumping, this task was pretty easy. I didn''t have to beat the bosses, but just had to sneak past them. I only had to kill the relatively weak monsters that sat at the entrance of the scout camps. But there I simply planted a bunch of mushrooms next to me, and then planted one mushroom under the side of the monster. When the monster got a hit, he ran toward me to attack, and fell into my trap, which destroyed him in a fraction of a second. In the scouting camp itself, all I had to do was plant a bush, and it would heal anything and everything within its range in a minute.


    In all, I had five ''safe houses'' to visit, where NPCs involved in surveillance of the ''dark forces'' were hiding. After healing the residents of four of the safe houses, I headed to the fifth. But along the way, I came across to a raid of the Age of Glory guild that was clearing out the bosses in the caves. Most importantly, this raid was led by Zinovia Reinhardt herself. I, of course, could not pass by and decided to destroy this raid no matter of cost.


    I didn''t rush into an attack right away, but first I studied the enemy''s capabilities. Here I faced an unpleasant surprise. There were 25 people in the raid, and most of them were level ten. Three were level nine. But Zinovia herself and her assistant were at eleventh level. But that wasn''t the main thing. The players had about the same amount of health as I did, between 1,500 and 4,000. The ''helper'' named ''''Sword that Conquered Heaven'' had 26,000 health. But that wasn''t the most shocking thing either. Because my ideological opponent had 103,000 health. To me, she was an epic-level boss. What''s more, her attack power and skill damage were so great that she could kill me with a single hit, with almost any skill.

 Chapter 13.35 – World of Elements

    How is that possible? I''m tearing my ass apart here, while some newbie has fifty time more health than me. And she''s at level eleven. What happens at level twelve?


    Activating psionics, I tried to find out how Zinovia was able to achieve such results. The results were... complicated. By now, there were already a thousand people in her Age of Glory guild. And all of these players were plowing from morning till night to provide the best clothing and spells to the guild''s 25 core strike force. Five fives formed a full raid, which could wipe out any dungeon. In the beginning, the ''meat'' sacrificed themselves to boost the elite, but now the 25 pulled everyone else along to help farm the bosses.


    As for the outrageous performance and damage numbers, this was the result of following a precise plan made before the game began. Zinovia Reinhardt and her ''minions'' had chosen the element of Fire, which meant that achieving the desired result was a clear and relatively quick process. Right now my opponent wore all gold and diamond quality clothing, plus she had the best talismans and amulets that could be obtained at level 11.


    The worst part was that the Age of Glory guild wasn''t the strongest at all, but was in the mid-tier ranks. It turned out that while I was playing in the sandbox, the strongest players had already managed to get very far ahead. In fact, the guilds were now competing to see who could first form a full raid of level 12 players, and then get the equipment to gather at least five level 13 players.


    Level 13 was essentially the ceiling that could be reached with game knowledge and help from the guild. On the first and second servers, players were stuck at this limit, and only a few dozen people could reach level 14. Only six ''geniuses'' reached level 15: two on the first server and four on the second. Now the guilds were using all of their ''secret knowledge'' to reach ''basic level 13'' as quickly as possible. If someone managed to get an advantage, he could literally crush the opponents, depriving them of the resource base for development.


    I got all this information not only from the game computers, but also from the secret records that the most ''advanced'' players of the server had. In fact, all these plans were part of the information system, so I could easily read them. Only the plans that were kept only in the heads of their authors passed me by.


    While I pondered about all these ''lofty matters,'' the raid of the Age of Glory moved away. They moved through the cave, successively slaughtering one elite monster after another. Considering the strength of the enemies, I required a cunning plan. How could one man with a crooked build kill 25 men, two of whom were invulnerable and could kill him with one hit?


    My mushrooms were a great way to do ''burst'' damage. Except they had one big flaw. All mushrooms always attack the closest target. So the first victim would always take all of the damage, even if he was torn to shreds as a result. But the next person after him could no longer worry, because all the way to the place where his predecessor died would be safe. Basically, my damage is enough to slaughter half of the raid in a minute. But that''s only if no one attacks me during that minute. Chances of that are practically nonexistent. Even invisibility doesn''t help me much, because the Heaven Conquering Sword could see invisible people and ''jump'' to their opponents. In case Zinovia jumps to me, I''ll be blown to a bloody paste.


    While I was sitting there, thinking how I could catch my enemies more cleverly, fortune jumped into my hands. Another member of the Age of Glory guild arrived and started whispering about something with Zinovia, after which she and her ''lover'' ran off after the ''messenger''. From their conversation, it became clear that another raid of this guild is wandering nearby, and they encountered a rare boss, from which must surely fall something valuable. But since the boss was too strong, it was decided to call in the guild''s most advanced players. Well, as the saying goes, the beast runs after the catcher.


    After waiting five minutes for Zinovia to start beating the boss with the second group, I went to the nearby monsters. Quickly running beside them, I ''snagged'' them behind me. Although I was under invisibility, the local monsters saw me perfectly, which could not be said for the members of the raid, who were so engrossed in the battle with their opponent that they did not even notice how two more elite monsters burst into the crowd directly to them.


    The calm and quiet course of the battle was replaced by chaos and panicked screams. At this point, I added my mushrooms, blocking the players'' escape routes. Just as they were about to scatter, the most cowardly ones fell into my traps and died. Of course, at that moment the players noticed me, but they couldn''t do anything about it, because at the very last moment I jumped up and ran away.


    There were curses and shouts of ''it''s Cheater'' coming from behind me, but I didn''t pay any attention to them. As I''d hoped, when Zinovia heard someone attacking her raid, she stopped beating the boss and rushed to the rescue. The path between the two raids was a wide corridor that didn''t have many branches. But I managed to hide behind a rock so carefully that she and a couple of her escorts simply hadn''t noticed me when they ran past.


    I moved at full speed toward the second raid, which I did the same trick with. I didn''t even have to work hard, because a couple of the monsters were following me. What''s more, I got to the raid when the elite boss had very little health left. So I made a jump when I got to the group of mages and healers, and landed just behind the boss. And when most of the players were distracted by the ''reinforcements'' that had arrived I leaped up to the boss and struck several hits with my spear. As a result, the monster died, and I, as the one who had struck the last hit, ''had the honor'' of collecting all the loot.


    After this trick of the ears, I rushed to the side, and a second later I was blinked away from my pursuers. Two players chased after me, while the rest tried to stop the two monsters to save as many lives as possible. After about fifty meters, I slowed down sharply, blinked back, and attacked the two pursuers. Since I was actively using foresight, the fight ended very quickly and I won unconditionally.


    After that I simply rushed away, intending to flee the scene before Zinovia Reinhardt arrived after me. In general, this whole ''sabotage'' plan was good. Very good. But there was one thing I hadn''t considered. Zinovia was running much faster than I could. Even the constant use of teleports didn''t help me get away from her. There were only a few seconds left before my pursuers would see me, after which my death would be inevitable. The difference in our strengths was too great.


    Since I used not only my eyesight but also my psionics to find an escape route, I was able to spot a narrow and deep crevice in the floor of the cave. Now we were in a corridor where there were no monsters. Moreover, it could have been considered a dead end, or rather a long and wide hall with many uneven terrain, obstacles, pillars, and so on. If I were up against only one enemy, I could just hide in his blind spot. But since there were several enemies, the only thing left to do was to play hide-and-seek and cram into a crevice where no one would see me.


    And that''s exactly the kind of crevice I found. Even when I got close to it, it was hard to see that it was not just a small depression, but a gap a couple of meters deep. I slipped into the hiding place and moved forward through the crevice to find a more secluded spot. My pursuers were already breathing down my neck. They had managed to catch up to me, and were now looking around carefully, trying to figure out where I was hiding.


    After walking a dozen meters, I suddenly encountered a strange anomaly. If I didn''t look closely, it just looked like a shadow falling on the wall from above. But when I got closer, it was clear that it was a piece of ''darkness'' that had absorbed part of the wall. And an examination of the place with psionics showed that it was a portal leading to some unknown place. Since I had no time to think about it, I simply stepped into the portal, hiding in the darkness. At worst, I would just die. I was running from Zinovia purely for the sake of sport.


    Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.


    After walking through the darkness, I found myself... in the darkness. From my sense of touch, I was now in a narrow, winding passageway. But my vision was completely gone, and the map wasn''t working. Luckily, I could scan information directly from the world around me, so I just walked forward without even worrying about groping for directions.


    At first, I just walked through a narrow passageway. Then there appeared branches in it. Then there were gaps in the floor and traps. Gradually, there were more and more traps, and even a person with eyesight would find it difficult to get through. But I passed most of the obstacles by a trivial jump. After all, I knew in advance where to jump.


    Finally, after five minutes, I arrived at the hall, carved into the monolithic thickness of the stone. The hall was empty, except for a black figure standing at the far end of it. Focusing on it, I was surprised to recognize the very ghost of the Dark Lord I had freed not so long ago. As I approached closer, the ghost responded to my approach with a speech.


    ¡°Did you come here to make fun of me? To poke me in the moment of my defeat?¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡± - I asked as I walked around the ghost.


    He was standing with his back to the entrance, and in front of his face there was a sphere of otherworldly light, shimmering with multicolored lights. I didn''t notice it at first, because the light coming from that sphere was very dim.


    ¡°This is the memory of the moment of my defeat by the followers of the Elemental Gods. If you want to know how it really was, look!¡±


    The ghost stepped aside and pointed to the orb with his hand. I approached it, looked inside, and noticed some movement. The closer I got, the more apparent it became. Eventually I had to literally stick my head inside the sphere, after which I found myself watching a ''movie''. I could look around, but I could not choose my point of view. However, I was primarily concerned with the events around me, and the unknown observer was in the middle of them, so I was able to see everything that was going on around me in detail.


    In front of me, I saw the scene of an eight-man hunt against one. The prey was a man in black robes and a mask, throwing clots of darkness and waving some object that, with a great deal of imagination, could be called a battle scythe. In fact, it was a strange array of blades, but in the hands of this individual it was a deadly and dangerous weapon that was extremely difficult to resist.


    The prey was surrounded from all sides by eight... humanoids. There was a dwarf, an elf, a stone troll, some kind of feathered wonder, an anthropomorphic tree that came alive, a werewolf in intermediate form, and two almost human. Overall, a complete panopticon of toleracists. They circled around the Dark Lord quite skillfully, trying to harass him with weapons or magic. But all their attempts to attack were either blocked or shielded by the enemy, or simply missed their targets.


    But here the ''wonder in feathers'' used some kind of spell that dramatically slowed the figure in black. The mage immediately paid for his success and flew away, losing more than half his life. But the other attackers took full advantage of this moment of weakness. The gnome leaped up and plunged his spear into the Dark Lord''s belly. He grabbed the spear with one hand and tried to strike the dwarf with the other, but his arm was caught by a long whip, which was struck by a female human.


    There was a brief moment of hesitation, and the dwarf used it to cast some kind of spell. A glowing rainbow beam emerged from his left hand and struck the Dark Lord''s chest. And a split second later, the six other attackers emitted the same rays. Only the feathered warrior lay on the ground, pretending that he could not get up. The battle came to a halt. The seven attackers aimed their beams of light at one victim, and the victim froze, unable to move a finger. A few seconds later events took a somewhat unexpected turn.


    A corner of a large cubic diamond protruded from the dwarf''s chest, tearing through the gold armor. Judging by the short man''s twisted face, it wasn''t what he''d expected from the spell. The diamond exploded from the dwarf''s chest like an Alien larva, and his mutilated corpse fell to the ground, staring up at the sky with frozen eyes. A second later, the same fate befell the other six attackers. The only difference was the appearance of the crystals that fell out of their chests. The elf had a sapphire, the ''tree'' had an emerald, the werewolf had a ruby, the woman had a yellow topaz, and the last man had a blue aquamarine.


    But the most unusual thing was the troll''s heart. A very ordinary piece of granite fell out of his chest, no different in appearance from the rest of his body. All seven of the attackers fell to the ground as lifeless dolls, decomposing quickly into a pile of tripe. The Dark Lord suffered the same fate. The troll surprised me again. His body had disintegrated into a pile of debris, but his ''brain'' had fallen out of his head, looking like hundreds of large diamonds melded together. Honestly, out of all the crystals the spell had spawned, none could compare in beauty to the troll''s brain.


    After the eight humanoids had lost their lives, a warrior in feathers approached the battle site. A sneering smile played across his face, indicating that everything had gone exactly as he had intended.


    ¡°Ah-ah-ah, dear allies, what an unexpected ending. But don''t worry, your heroic death will not be forgotten. As long as I rule this world, its entire population will know you as heroes who sacrificed their lives to slay the immortal Dark Lord.¡±


    With those words, the warrior stretched out his hand, and seven crystals flew into the air, circling above his palm. A few seconds later, they disappeared one by one into the ''dimensional pocket. But I noticed that the ''great swindler'' didn''t take the troll''s heart, but his brain, which looked far more beautiful. Moreover, after the troll''s body had collapsed into pieces, it was impossible to distinguish his ''heart'' from the rest of the garbage. That''s why the ''wonder in feathers'' confused the brain with the crystal in which part of the Dark Lord''s soul was imprisoned.


    That was the end of the ''movie,'' and I once again found myself in the room next to the ghost, woven from darkness.


    ¡°That''s it¡± - I muttered, digesting the information.


    Now I did not just see a fascinating cartoon. I was able to examine the names of all Evil Seeds, and use psionics to pull out all the information about where these quest items are, and how they can be obtained.


    ¡°So, what''s your opinion about this event?¡± - The ghost inquired.


    ¡°All of you have been viciously fucked.¡± - I made a pretty obvious point.


    ¡°Us? Who, us?¡± - The shadow of the Dark Lord asked in amazement.


    ¡°You, meaning you and the seven idiots who sacrificed themselves to seal your soul.¡±


    ¡°What? But... how? It couldn''t be...¡±


    ¡°Could-could.¡± - I interrupted the babbling of the NPC. ¨C ¡°Tell me, what have you decided about my offer?¡±


    ¡°What offer?¡± - The ghost, whose picture of the world and thousand-year-old hatred had just cracked and shattered, stared at me incomprehensibly.


    ¡°Will you be my faithful slave, or the next step in my ascent to the top of the world?¡±


    ¡°What? How dare you? Do you even know who I am?¡±


    ¡°You are the powerless shadow of a long-dead Dark Lord. It is too late for you to dream of power and might. All you can do is cry out for vengeance and hope for a peaceful repose. I can fulfill those wishes of yours. But if you dare to oppose my power, you will face oblivion and abyss.¡±


    Of course, the threats and promises were so-so, but the NPC took the bait.


    ¡°Revenge! Yes, I want revenge! I''ll do anything for it.¡±


    ¡°Good.¡± - I nodded. ¨C ¡°When the time comes, I''ll release the pieces of your soul and destroy whoever is responsible for your death.¡±


    Immediately a message appeared in the game interface.


    ***''You have received a unique quest ''Rebellious Spirit''. Destroy all the Seeds of Evil and kill the Lord of Heaven. Reward: hidden.***


    Hehe, it worked! I now have an official quest to ''restore the broken honor and establish justice''. Just having this quest alone is already capable of activating hidden quest chains that will allow me to reach the Evil Seeds. Well, I''m finished here. Now, I can go back and see if my pursuers have had enough of looking for me.


    Leaving the ghost hovering and muttering to himself, I returned to the darkness-filled corridor that led me back to the caves. Alas, my hopes of Zinovia going off on her own had dissipated like the morning fog. Apparently, she had noticed me during the chase after all, so she was now sure that I was hiding somewhere nearby. Luckily, she hadn''t ordered all her subordinates to look for me, and the only people who were looking for me now were Zinovia Reinhardt and her sidekick, the Sword that Conquered Heaven. Unfortunately, Sword had the ability to see invisible men, so I had to think of a way to kill him if I wanted to escape.


    However, what''s there to think about? My mushrooms can deal 36,000 damage when fully charged. Sword only had 26,000 health. Also, his profession was Destroyer-Assassin, so he didn''t have much protection. Meanwhile, I had no chance of doing anything to Zinovia. She was a Fanatic Sniper, so she combined high health, high defense, and huge short-term damage. In a long fight her damage was only slightly above average for her level of equipment, but in a one-on-one confrontation she could kill an enemy within a second from almost a hundred meters away.


    As I sat in the crevice, I used my psionics to observe the actions of my two enemies. Pretty quickly it became clear that the Assassin is constantly snooping around, looking for me, and the Sniper is sitting on a high rock, waiting to kill me with a single shot. Also, they were both invisible all the time, so without my cheating abilities I wouldn''t even know that there was an ambush against me.

 Chapter 13.36 – World of Elements

    Since the Killer was constantly moving, it was easy enough to catch him. I roughly estimated the trajectory of his movement and chose a rock near the crevice, on which I began to place mushrooms so that the Sword could not see them. And when the mushrooms had accumulated as much as possible, I picked up a small stone from the floor and threw it beside the trap, and I did this at a moment when no one saw the flight of the stone itself, but only heard the sound of its fall. The Sword Conquering Heaven rushed to the sound, and he naturally fell into the mushroom''s range. Before he knew it, the ''swarm of mushrooms'' tore him to pieces.


    Of course, Zinovia immediately rushed to the place of my trap and started firing a machine gun in all directions, but I trivially hid in the portal out of the darkness and came back out only after a couple of minutes, when the ''blonde'' realized that no one was around. After that, all I had to do was to cautiously climb out of the crevice and rush out of that cave at full speed. On the way, I managed to avoid a couple of traps set by Sniper. After all, when I know that I am in danger, it is very difficult to catch me.


    Once I got to safety, I sent to Zinovia an invitation to be friends. Surprisingly, she thought about something for almost a minute before she accepted it.


    ¡°Hi. Are you still guarding me? Ha ha! Do you really hope to win this game?¡± - I wrote a private message to her. This kind of communication was only available to friends, which required me to send an invitation.


    ¡°Who are you?¡± - A wary reply came.


    ¡°Ha ha. Couldn''t you have guessed? I''m the one who rescued you from the deepest ass of the universe.¡±


    ¡°Atman?!!¡±


    ¡°I am.¡±


    ¡°Why do you have a different name in the game?¡±


    ¡°Ask the Being. It''s his trick.¡± - Following that message, I immediately sent another one. ¨C ¡°So how does it feel to be a sheep sent to the slaughter?¡±


    ¡°What slaughter?¡± - Zinovia didn''t understand my quip. Not surprisingly, though. She considered herself invincible. With her ninety-nine wins in a row.


    ¡°This whole game is a trap, because only I can win it. Ha ha! The Being set you free only to destroy you completely. Or do you think that Yog-Sothoth has forgiven you for your threats?¡±


    Silence was the answer. It looked like I had just shaken the mind of my rival by putting fear in her soul. And that was exactly what I wanted.


    ¡°I was completely justified in the trial.¡± - Even in the words in the chat I could sense the anxiety and panic that was gnawing at her.


    ¡°Ha ha! Tell that to Yog-Sothoth before they send you to hell. All right, I gotta go. It was good to see you. And don''t forget that you promised to give yourself to me when you get the chance.¡±


    ¡°I WILL KILL YOU!!!¡± - A message came to me, written in capital letters.


    ¡°Ha ha, hands are short. :R ===>O:¡±


    At this point I dropped Zinovia from my list of friends and closed the chat window. Well, mission accomplished. And now I can complete the quest.


    After visiting the last scout hideout, I completed the mission and headed to the NPC to complete the quest. In the safe zone next to him I found Zinovia. First, I reached the NPC under invisibility and reported the completion of the mission, then came out of invisibility, waved cheekily at my future concubine, and began using the teleport spell to the City of Crab.  Since it was a peaceful zone, no one could stop me, although Zinovia tried. In the end she cursed me in various ways and promised a cruel and painful death. Humorist, however.


    After returning to the city, I went to look for another safe house of the Order of Assassins, where I finally became a Hypnotist. Phew, this epic is finally over, and now I have the relatively simple task of becoming the strongest player on the server. The meeting with Zinovia literally opened my eyes to the true state of the situation. Now my ''benchmark'' of an advanced player was completely different than before. It seems that I need to make full use of all my abilities in order to become more powerful in the shortest possible time. That''s something I''ve been telling myself for a dozen times now.


    The first thing I had to do was to achieve a high level of damage. And secondly, I needed to increase my survivability. In fact, both of these problems were common for the druid and the hypnotist. Warriors had the most health. The people of the other two professions had to walk on a knife edge, waiting for an assassin, sniper, or destroyer to kill them in one hit. My damage was even worse. Hypnotist couldn''t boast any skills that dealt direct damage. But the druid''s main source of damage was... Pet.


    Yes, yes, not spells, not even plants, but a single tamed beast. It could function as a tank and even as a riding animal. In other words, I needed the coolest, strongest, most fashionable pet I could find. I rented a hotel room, laid down on my bed, and began to ''scan'' the system for information on Druid pets. I wasn''t interested in the contents of manuals or descriptions of someone''s accomplishments, only theoretically possible pets that could be obtained in the game.


    There were a lot of options. Moreover, they were all different, plus the same pet could be developed differently, so the end result was different. I finished the search only at night, when darkness fell on the game world. The leader in all categories was the Deadly Chaos Scolopendra. It had an unimaginable amount of health, extreme ''bite'' damage, could be a riding animal and could move at three time the speed of the player, and most importantly, while I was a ''rider'' I was protected by its passive ''Flesh Shield'' ability, which made impossible to deal damage to me while my pet was alive.


    In the history of the game, no one has ever tamed this monster. No one has even seen this monster alive. I got the information about this monster from the game servers'' databases. Even the chances of this monster appearing were indistinguishable from zero. But since I was firmly resolved that I needed this particular pet, the world around me had no choice but to bend under me.


    I jumped out of bed and went to do the quest that would get me from Crab Island to the mainland. However, an obstacle immediately appeared in front of me. The permission to use the portal was given by the King of Crab Island, but I had been at odds with him since I killed the ''crab inspector''. As a result, I had to literally ''cut through'' a crowd of NPC''s to get to the portal and activate it myself.


    When I got to the continent, I immediately ran to do a chain of quests that rewarded me with a non-combat pet taming spell. This spell was a ''gold'' level, which gave me a chance to tame a pet of appropriate quality. There was even a small chance to seize control of a diamond-quality pet, which included the scolopendra.


    Next, I went to the Auction, where I bought Chaos Shards with all my hundreds of gold pieces. This resource was dropped from the monsters of the Element of Air. I bought two hundred thousand Chaos Shards for six hundred gold. Then I went to the ''secret'' Temple of the Element of Air, where I was able to merge all those shards into one item, the Divine Essence of Chaos.


    Elemental essences could be used to open a portal to ''elemental worlds''. These were special locations inhabited by rare monsters of the corresponding element. It was in these locations that the rarest and most valuable game items could be found. And only in the location opened by the essence of the divine level could I meet the desired pet. Of course, the chances of that were slim, but... I tinkered a little bit with the probabilities.


    When I got out into the deserted area, I began to use the Rainmushroom spell, shifting the energy of the place toward the element of air. After about an hour, I was standing in the center of the area with an Air shift of 12. After that I used the Divine Essence of Chaos, and a few seconds later a ''portal to another world'' opened up in front of me. I immediately jumped into it and found myself in a rather strange area.


    Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.


    This location looked like a pile of flying rocks and islands. The islands were home to various rare plants, minerals, and, of course, dangerous monsters. Thanks to my interference, on one of the islands lay the Chaos Mortal Scolopendra that I needed. It was an animal of the elements of Air, which was perfect for me.


    To get to my future pet, I had to hop from one island to another, using the flying stones as ''waypoints''. I even had to intervene in the ''random'' trajectories of these rocks to avoid encountering strong bosses that I definitely would not have been able to kill with my equipment.


    Finally, when I got to the Scolopendra, I used the learned pet taming spell, and even though the chances were one out of a million, the taming was successful. Generally speaking, considering the difficulty of obtaining this pet, it''s fair to say that the game developers never assumed that anyone would be able to tame it. Rather, it was reserved as a possible reward for some unique quest of epic difficulty level.


    I immediately called the pet to me, gave the command to guard me, and went deeper into the study of its properties. Right now it was hard to call this wordless animal as ¡®heaven-shaking¡¯. It was just a strong pet. The scolopendra was ten meters long and as tall as my waist. After making a ''lap of honor,'' the pet froze in front of me, flashing its eyes piteously. It was like a kitten begging for a sausage. I even knew what the scolopendra wanted.


    I reached out and took the Soul of the Devil Hydra out of the bag and fed it to the pet. It was exactly the kind of soul it needed to evolve. I got this soul almost for free, but in fact it was an extremely rare item that I could only get because I had set an unreal record. In order for the scolopendra to ''enter the force'', I had to feed it a hundred souls of ''golden'' quality.


    It would be impossible for an ordinary player to obtain such a quantity of these rare and very valuable resources. Even the strongest guild could only hope to get a couple or two in a month. And it would have been far more profitable to use those souls as consumables to make weapons than to feed a pet. But my ''luck'' simply could not be described in words or numbers. If there existed even the slightest chance of the desired item being dropped, I could make that chance equal to 100%.


    I opened the window with the pet''s characteristics, gave it a new name, and then turned to the satisfied animal.


    ¡°So, Holy Fuc**** Fox, let''s go eat bosses?¡±


    The fox immediately understood me and headed in the direction of the nearest elite raid boss. I wouldn''t have been able to take down an opponent of that level, but my pet was now an elite raid boss himself, so with my help and a little luck, victory was assured.


    After about a week, I killed another boss, took the Soul of a High Elemental, and fed it to the Fox. It was the hundredth soul eaten by my pet, so now his stats were at the absolute maximum achievable in the game for pets. Opening the stats window, I marveled at the numbers in the window. 10,000,000 HP. 100,000 damage per bite. Attack speed is three bites per second. Two percent health regeneration per second. And most importantly, my pet has my physical damage absorption bonus of up to 5% per hit.


    In other words, attacks less than 500,000 damage simply couldn''t hurt me. Of course, this doesn''t apply to fire, electricity, or poison damage, but in general, this made physical attacks against me completely useless. Even hitting me with 500,000 damage a hundred times a second wouldn''t take a single unit of health away from Fox.


    I spent the whole week in the same world. After taming the scolopendra, there were four ''super-elite'' bosses that revived every six hours. Considering the effort I had to put in to get to this place, it was better to wait and kill the bosses here than to go elsewhere. Aside from those bosses, there were also easier opponents, and my Fox had been continuously ''farming'' them all this week, obtaining the rarest resources in the game. At the same time, my fortune was quite ''lucky'' to get stones with the rarest spells for the druid and hypnotist, which I was going to use to create talismans.


    By far the most ''heart-warming'' characteristic of my pet was its ability to carry items in its personal ''backpack. Without that, my bag would not hold all of the fabulous treasures I had accumulated. During this week I was so bored with endless farming that I couldn''t even look at the process. In fact, my pet could clean up dungeons without any intervention from me. He was not only killing monsters, but also collecting loot himself, filtering out all sorts of useless garbage.


    Because of my impatience, I didn''t wait another six hours to beat the superbosses out of anything other than souls, but headed straight for the portal that would take me back to the continent. As I passed through it, I commanded Fox to run to the capital, while I watched the effect of my presence on the world around me from a rider''s seat.


    During that week, unbelievable things had been happening around me. Bosses were constantly dropping items whose chances of appearing were in the millions of fractions of a percent. Of course, this kind of luck couldn''t escape the attention of the artificial intelligence that controls the game. The artificial intelligence immediately began to check the correctness of the calculations, the integrity of the data, the immutability of the program code, and the distribution of values in the random number generators.


    In general, the AI tried to check and monitor everything it could, including the operation parameters of my capsule. But no matter how much it tried, not the slightest deviation from the game logic was registered. In order to fully control all of my actions, a dedicated personal AI had been assigned, which conducted all imaginable and unimaginable checks at all levels.


    It got to the point where all the signals from my capsule went through this artificial intelligence and only reached the game server after thorough examination and investigation. But none of this could help the computer figure out what the hell was going on around me. It even tried to use random value generators located on the other side of the planet and even on satellites in orbit, but for my psionics the distance to the equipment and the complexity of the program processing made no difference, because I subconsciously just saw the lines of events that I needed and adjusted events to them. In terms of theory, I did not need to ''calculate'' anything. It was enough just to measure the indicators and bring them into accordance with the ''reference line of probability'', while the cause-effect relations would be established automatically.


    Since the game world around me was constantly monitored by a powerful AI, the data gathered in this area received the highest level of reliability. Moreover, to completely eliminate the influence of ''extraneous noise'', the AI switched every operation requiring ''random'' values to the most trusted random number generators. The fluctuations of each leaf of grass next to me only depended on the logic of the game and the ¡®completely random values¡¯.


    Due to the fact that this AI had reserved a large part of the physical random number generators for its needs, they became insufficient for other calculations. So the AI came up with a ''genius'' idea. Since all events around me are ''random'', it makes sense to use them as a source of random numbers. It could be compared to the logic that if you take a random number and divide it by two, the result would still be a random number, just with a slightly smaller number of possible values. But since all the events around me were ''maximally random'', those events could be used as a ''data source'' to calculate many other events.


    As a result, a zone of manifestation of Chaos appeared naturally around me. Any ''flap of a butterfly''s wing'' had an immediate effect on important events around the world. And accordingly, by changing the trajectory of a leaf of grass next to me, I could influence what would fall out when killing a boss on the other side of the world. Overall, the effect was quite interesting and fun, so I was wondering how I could use it. However, it was all speculation on distracted topics.


    Right now I was sprinting toward the capital of the continent. But as I approached it, several players tried to attack me. I was so distracted that I only noticed the attack after it was over. My pet, after the first blow it received, rushed to the enemies and trivially ''gored'' them, killing each of them in one bite. What''s more, the Fox picked up all the loot that fell from the players and put them in his backpack. This is what I call a pet. I could tell he was a hamster at heart.


    The aggressors were not satisfied with the result and called for help. They were all members of the same guild, and apparently thought they had the right to attack anyone anywhere. Particularly against me on my way to the capital. As soon as I was in the suburbs, two raids with a total of fifty men came out against me.


    While I was pondering whether I should attack directly or move away, my pet first attacked my opponents, charging into the crowd at once. To my surprise, some of the players weren''t dying from a single bite, but from two or even three. So they were clearly not mere mortals in front of me. I concentrated and began to look at the characteristics of my surroundings and my options of the future.


    Surprisingly, the combined damage of fifty level 11 players was enough to start reducing my pet''s health. It is true that all significant damage came only from mages and assassins. I ordered to kill them first, ignoring those who dealt simple physical damage. My Resistance was still at 100, and my Resistance to control also applied to my pet. As a result, he was simply unstoppable. In a mere 15 seconds, the Fox devoured half of the attackers. During that time, his health was reduced by only a third.


    When the attackers realized that they were losing, they decided to scatter in different directions. The only thing was that the speed of the scolopendra was three times faster than the speed of running, so only those who were invisible could escape. At the moment I didn''t have a skill that allowed me to see invisible people, but I was going to fix that in the near future. I could use psionics to detect all the fugitives, but that would reveal my violation of the game''s restrictions too clearly. The invisible ones that could be detected by the footprints on the ground had been mopped up by my pet already. The smartest ones managed to survive, but there were only three


    After finishing off the last of the attackers, I moved on, and after a couple of minutes I entered the gates of the city. There was a peaceful area here, so I temporarily put the attackers out of my mind and went... to sleep. After all, I hadn''t slept for a single night this week, following the ''folk wisdom'' that while you sleep, the enemy is boosting.

 Chapter 13.37 – World of Elements

    The next day I was busy preparing blanks for talismans and amulets. Even though I had the rarest gems with spells, I still had to use the most common blanks for my talismans, which I could only buy from NPCs. Now I could use eight talismans, so there were more options available to me. In addition, I had to adjust my choices according to the pet I had.


    The first talisman I created did not deal damage, did not restore health, and did not even affect my enemies in any way. Now I could use six spell crystals in each talisman, so I created a talisman with six functions. The main function was a ''blessing'' that lasted for 30 seconds on me and my allies. The effect of this blessing was to remove the state of ''blindness'' every second.


    Blindness was a special type of curse not related to control. Its power could vary from 1 to 100 percent. At one hundred percent the player didn''t become completely blind, but he perceived the world around him as through cloudy dark glasses with a blurring effect on his movements. With such vision it was extremely difficult to navigate in combat. And while I could use psionics myself, my Fox needed honest playful perception.


    But the main thing in this talisman was not the removal of blindness, but additional effects, also applied every second. It was the removal of the curses of poisoning, burning, freezing, and bleeding. It was the burning and bleeding that bothered me the most, because they dealt damage as a percentage of your current health. The more health you had, the more effective these states were. They were the reason the Fox took so much damage when confronted by the players who attacked me. Frost didn''t deal damage, but it would slow down, but it wasn''t a control effect, so players weren''t immune to it. Everything is clear with poisoning. Although the strongest poisons could not be ''removed'' in one go, the strength of the poison had to decrease noticeably every second.


    The last effect of this talisman was a ''buff'' that gave the ability to see invisible people for 10 seconds. At the same time, the ''buff'' itself was set every second as a result of the ''main'' blessing. It made sense, because in the game there were ways not only to become invisible and see invisible, but also ways to turn off other people''s ''super vision¡¯. So, there was invisibility, anti-invisibility and anti-anti-invisibility. So, it was against the latter that my approach worked. Even if the invisibility buff was removed from me, in a second it would be on me again.


    The second talisman used a hypnotist spell called ''Ghost Escape. With it, I could move 50 meters instantly, and I could move with my pet. But that wasn''t the main thing, I left an illusory clone behind me, which participated in the battle for 5 seconds. At the same time, it could even deal damage and heal. However, all of the damage it dealt was illusory. In other words, it was only the appearance of doing damage. Within 30 meters of the clone, opponents ''saw'' that their health was decreasing, although in reality they were just fighting ''with emptiness''. This talisman was used instantly with a cooldown of just 5 seconds, so I could constantly exist in two copies if necessary, while giving orders to my clone about what it should do. And for a snack, within 5 seconds I could reuse the talisman to swap places with my clone. In this case, another 5 seconds would be added to the talisman''s recharge time.


    The third talisman was needed to heal my pet. The buff from it would regenerate 5% of my pet''s missing health every second. The druid''s abilities weren''t enough to heal my pet quickly with normal spells. After all, he had 10,000,000 health points. But with percentage healing, the total regeneration became just unreal. The scolopendra had a natural health regeneration of 2% per second, and in its ''death'' state under the buff it was close to 7% per second, which was 700,000 health. Thus, the pet could be wounded, but not easily killed.


    The third talisman was needed to heal my pet. The buff from it would regenerate 5% of my pet''s missing health every second. The druid''s abilities weren''t enough to heal my pet quickly with normal spells. After all, he had 10,000,000 health points. But with percentage healing, the total regeneration became just unreal. The scolopendra had a natural health regeneration of 2% per second, and in its ''death'' state under the buff it was close to 7% per second, which was 700,000 health. Thus, the pet could be wounded, but not easily killed.


    The fourth talisman was also needed for healing, but for me or my allies. It was an enhanced counterpart to the ''Emergency Rescue'' spell I had obtained during my quests with Drumg. ''Divine Salvation'' would send a ''beam of goodness'' at the target, restoring 10,000 health four times per second, and hanging a ten-second magic shield on top, which absorbs 20,000 damage from all sources except poison and bleeding. The shield could ''stack'' up to a hundred times. The amount of health recovery was nothing compared to the pet''s 700,000 health per second, but 40,000 per second was pretty good for players. And at maximum shield charge it could absorb two million damage.


    The fifth was the spell ''Impenetrable Bushes''. It allowed me to grow a plant of the ''bush'' class, but the main feature was that I could grow ten bushes while maintaining control over all of them. Together with this talisman I planned to use the seed of the ''Angry Blackthorn'', which spit thorns, hitting targets up to 20 meters away. Ten bushes I could grow in 5 seconds, and all together they did 100,000 damage per second, which was roughly equal to one bite from my scolopendra.


    The sixth was the ''Hell''s Cunning Mushroom'' spell. It was the equivalent of my Rainmushroom, except that it dealt increased damage, plus it poisons my opponent with a very strong poison. The strength of this poison was not only in the damage it inflicted, but also in the fact that it lasted for five minutes, plus because of its effect it constantly decreased not only health, but also energy reserves. As a result, it was very difficult to heal from poisoning with ten mushrooms single-handedly. I could summon a dozen of them at maximum, but they each lived for ten minutes, had an attack radius of 15 meters, and dealt 30,000 damage. In addition, the poison took away 15,000 health and 10 energy every second. And as the ''cherry on the cake'', the explosion of the mushroom produced a cloud of poisonous spores that poisoned not only the main target, but also all enemies within a radius of 2 meters.


    The seventh spell, ''Toxic Visions,'' also poisons enemies, but it is a hypnotist''s profession. It had a range of thirty meters, a quarter of a second use time, and a 2.5 second cooldown. When the spell hit the enemy, it created a cloud of poison gas, which not only ''hung'' the poison, but also put the enemy in a state of ''confusion'' for two seconds, in which he could not control his actions, but only ran back and forth.


    Although it was primarily a ''control'' spell, its damage was not bad either. It hung a ten-second poison on the target, doubling in strength every second. So if it was a measly 500 damage at first, after ten seconds it would deal a whopping 512,000 damage. And the total damage from the spell exceeded a million health points. There was a little bit of a problem. If I used the spell on the same target again, the damage from the poison would reset, and the poison cycle would start all over again.


    The eighth spell also belonged to the sphere of enemy control, and it was very surprising to find it in a druid. The ''Wave of Cold'' created a freezing ground line that ran from me to the enemy. Huge ice crystals grew in this area, which would shackle my opponent and hold them in place for at least a second. After one second, the ''stun'' was gone, but to break free from the ice, you had to inflict a decent amount of damage on the crystals. However, the ice area itself didn''t live long, and completely disappeared after ten seconds. This spell was quite slow, and it was easy to dodge the freezing wave. But when it was used with Toxic Visions, although the stun didn''t work because of the temporary invulnerability to control, the ice would still immobilize the victim, allowing me to inflict a fair amount of damage. Well, at least in theory.


    Of the amulets, I had three energy regeneration amulets, which regenerated a total of 120 mana per second and didn''t require any nearby plants or other things. The other amulets increased my health by 100,000 each. As a result, my max HP reached 400,000. It wasn''t much, but at least there was hope that I wouldn''t get killed in one hit. Although I wouldn''t be able to survive my own Toxic Visions, unless I was able to remove the poisoning.


    Once I decided on a set of skills, I went to charge the talismans. The last time I created talismans from rare crystals, I had no idea how rare the conditions for their activation would be. Of the six talismans, only two could be charged in a reasonable amount of time. And for the other four, I could still wait for the right opportunity. Fortunately, I had no such problems now. I could create almost any combination of energies anywhere.


    Stolen novel; please report.


    This time I decided to combine charging my talismans with clearing dungeons and setting records. Although my personal damage could not compare to the damage of an entire raid, I could still try to pass the dungeons designed for a group of five. The coordinates of three nearby dungeons of this type immediately popped into my mind. It was hard to expect a good result with pet damage alone, but I wanted to get a feel for how close I was to the top players of the top guilds.


    The first dungeon was the most ordinary dungeon, designed for ordinary tenth level players who had just arrived on the mainland. It was inhabited by some mutants who had settled in a mined out mine. Next to the entrance to the mine was an NPC who issued a task to clean it up.


    After breaking into the mine, Just a Foxy Somebody rushed forward at all the speed he could, straight for the final boss. He attacked the ''main mutant'' within a minute, and then all the dungeon dwellers rushed into the room to join him. The Skolopendra attacked nonstop, while I threw my mushrooms around. The boss was dead in only fifteen seconds, but the remaining mutants I had to destroy for another couple of minutes. They couldn''t do anything to my pet, but there were really a lot of them, whereas I didn''t have a single area-impacting spell.


    In the end, my dungeon completion time was ten seconds worse than the current record. It looks like I gained time from my movement speed, but I lost it by not being able to do enough damage. However, I wasn''t particularly upset by this setback. I left the dungeon and went to a place where an anomaly was already forming, where I could charge a spell to grow bushes.


    After two hours I had charged all my talismans and amulets and was ready to... I was ready to go on with the rest of my outfit selection. This time it was about my clothes and weapons. Even though I couldn''t count on wearing heavy or even medium armor, I could still wear the best ''rags'' that were supposed to improve my survivability or even damage somehow.


    Regarding the golden spear, although it now boasted damage in the neighborhood of 20,000 per strike, it was too little at the current level. Plus, while I was sitting on the back of a giant scorpopendra, it was very difficult to reach my opponent with a short spear. After soul-feeding, the scorpopendra had doubled in size, and its neck was now two meters high. And the distance from me to the tips of the mandibles was more than three meters, so I could not reach the opponents that the Fox was biting. Consequently, the ideal solution for me now was to use some kind of weapon like a mage''s staff.


    Luckily, I had enough rare resources in my backpack that I could use them to create high-level equipment. It wasn''t crafting in the way RPGs usually imagined it. Crafting was done by special NPCs, but they needed rare resources, valuable resources, and money to work. While I had no issues with the first two, I had an unexpected problem with money.


    A week ago, I spent all my savings to buy Chaos Shards, and now suddenly I was bankrupt. But I knew a great way to earn a quick money. No, it wasn''t selling valuable resources that I didn''t need at the moment. It was an honest and brazen robbery. I intended to go out on the warpath and punish all those who dared to cross my path. In other words, I was going to start exterminating defenseless nubs who were already struggling to survive. What could I do? Life, that''s how it is.


    I didn''t think much, but started by ''cleaning up'' the area in front of the entrance to one of the dungeons. The players, of course, immediately started a riot in the chat room, but... no one was willing to punish me. Hmm, strange... Maybe I wasn''t convincing enough. I turned around and went to another dungeon, where I repeated the procedure. From the players fell a mere penny, but as they say ''ten old ladies is a ruble''.


    After clearing out the players'' typical ''hangout'' areas, I began to hunt them in locations where they themselves hunted monsters. Gradually, I shifted to more and more ''advanced'' areas, where the players of the large guilds farmed. Finally, my criminal activities were met with a response. I mean, against me crawled as much as a dozen level 11 players. Considering the fact that I had recently taken down fifty players of the same level by myself without any normal spells, this group was able to hold me back for no more than five seconds.


    Gradually the players in the surrounding world ran out, but then I stumbled upon a resurrection point, after which the wailing and moaning in the chat room reached a new level of intensity. I simply killed players over and over again, ''stripping'' them down to their underpants. Ten minutes later, a full raid of 25 people showed up in front of me, with five level 12 players and the rest of them boasting 11. They managed to lower my pet''s health level a bit so far. But that was the end of the attackers'' success, and they too found themselves in a cycle of births and deaths.


    This time I hit someone ''important,'' because another ten minutes later I was attacked by at least three hundred level 11 and 10 players. It was fun already, but... the whole crowd didn''t even make me break a sweat. None of them could deal more than 500,000 physical damage per hit, and the other types of damage all together were balanced by the Fox''s health regeneration at 80% life level. In other words, I was getting somewhere around 300,000 damage per second. But this feast of life didn''t last long, because pretty quickly all three hundred of those players joined the others who were already ''hanging out'' at the revival point, waiting for my pet to devour them once again.


    After that defeat, no one dared attack me again. Actually, the revived players tried to fight back, but as they lost one item of equipment after another, they turned into a walking slime that I could destroy with a glance. They couldn''t use their amulets without their equipment, and without their amulets, a player only had 100 health points.


    Finally, after knocking out a total of about ten gold coins and just a pile of assorted junk, I headed for the capital to sell my loot. Surprisingly, the local merchants immediately bought up every last pair of shabby underpants I owned, giving me 34 more gold coins in return. There we go. Now I need to find a better location where the players are wealthier.


    But as soon as I stepped away from the city, I was attacked by a group of a couple dozen players. All of them belonged to the Empire of the Good, which was actually the creation of one of the game''s figures. All of these players were level 13, and it quickly became clear that even my pet can'' t withstand that crowd for long.


    Judging by the looks of it, this raid was assembled specifically against me. There were only four warriors who acted as tanks, preventing the Fox from attacking the other players. The rest of the attackers were mages, assassins, and healers. They kept at a distance, and when I tried to get close to them, they immediately used different ways of movement to retreat. The Scolopendra couldn''t reach anyone but the tanks, which had more than half a million health, plus high protection against physical damage. As a result, no matter how hard my pet strained, it couldn''t kill tanks. And my personal damage was easily overwhelmed by the healers.


    By the time my pet''s life was down to two million, I had more or less adapted to the attackers'' tactics and began to destroy them one by one. In general, it wasn''t a bad attempt, but my opponents didn''t take into account my ''addiction'' to using poisons. The mushrooms were hanging poison over the entire crowd, so the healers were working overtime trying to heal all my allies. I was ''spamming'' Toxic Visions at the same time. At first no one paid any attention to them, but when a half-million-damage deal came at the end of the action, it was impossible to survive.


    The first thing I did was catch a couple of priests, and then suddenly it turned out that the whole raid had started to suffer a health loss. When another druid died, it was clear that the death of the whole raid was not too far away. But the moment my triumph was near, I detected with psionics a group of approaching players. There were about a dozen and a half more of them, and I decided that it is time to use the 101st technique of karate: fleeing.


    Luckily, the Fox was an extremely fast pet. I used Ghost Escape and ran away as fast as I could. My opponents fought the illusion for five seconds, almost ready to die, when suddenly the illusion broke, and I wasn''t there. Those who could, immediately used their riding animals and rushed in pursuit.


    At first, I thought of just running away, but then I noticed that there were only a dozen pursuers. Plus, they were pretty far behind in the second part of the raid, and the help wasn''t going to catch up with us anytime soon. So I slowed down and let them catch up with me. When the enemies were ready to get me with magic, I used Ghost Escape again, lunging forward and forcing the illusory clone to attack the enemies. This time the illusion was figured out pretty quickly, and after a few seconds the pursuers ran after me again, ignoring the illusion. There was one player, who was riding behind me and was outside the range of the spell, so he could tell the difference between illusion and reality.


    I repeated the trick again, and again, and on the fourth time, when everyone was sure they were being attacked by another illusion, and they just ignored its presence, I used the spell a second time and swapped places with the illusion. Within thirty meters of me, the players couldn''t tell the difference between illusion and reality, so even though the clone was now far ahead, they thought it was real. I took advantage of the relaxation of my opponents, and started pouring all the damage I could into them.


    The pursuers realized something was wrong only three seconds later, when the illusion stopped working. They were horrified to find out that two of them were really dead, and three more would die in the next few seconds. With this turn of events, there was no chance of survival for the pursuers, and I multiplied them to zero pretty quickly. Only one player, following in the rearguard, managed to escape.


    I didn''t chase him, because the second group of players was already approaching me. Instead, I ran as fast as I could, using Ghost Escape on rollback. The distance between me and my pursuers began to increase, and after ten minutes they lost me completely. Wiping the sweat from my forehead, I decided that robbing caravans was not profitable enough, so I should look for other sources of income.

 Chapter 13.38 – World of Elements

    With my ability to manipulate probabilities, getting money was unexpectedly easy. I reached an area where all monsters had a small chance of leaving a gold ingot behind when they died. Naturally, I found a gold ingot in every enemy I killed. The ingot could be sold for ten gold coins, so in just half an hour I was able to earn almost a thousand gold coins. In comparison to killing players, it was much more profitable.


    I decided to use a teleport to get back to the city. There was a real chance that groups of elite opponents were waiting for me there, and if I died, I could lose a lot of money and make my enemies happy. After that, the whole server would definitely hunt me down.


    In town, I sold ingots to NPCs, got my rightful gold, and went on mini-quests to create equipment. There was nothing complicated about it. I just had to run back and forth through the city and bring in the right amount of resources and money. After another hour, I dressed up in golden outfits. The issue with weapons remained unresolved, but I decided to leave it for later.


    I was definitely stronger than the level 10 players at this time, so it made sense to take the level up exam. After paying the fee, I entered the arena. To my surprise, I was facing the same opponent I had beaten in the last exam. Even his health, damage, and skills were the same. But as soon as the fight started, I realized that this time there would be no relaxation. Also, it became clear that all of the previous exams had been just fun.


    I was being confronted by a stone troll who only had a million health points. But this time he didn''t just go back and forth, swinging his club from time to time. No, the troll had turned into a real death machine, actively attacking me, dodging, and using its skills at the most appropriate moments. This time my opponent resembled not a dumb bot, but a professional player who was very familiar with his character, and who did not hesitate to anticipate my movements and the skills I was using.


    Although I won this battle fairly quickly, it was not an easy victory. In fact, I won because my opponent had too little health. For me, a million was nothing. Fox could do that much damage in three seconds. But it required me not three seconds, but all thirty, because the troll was actively dodging and healing himself.


    When I got level 11, I immediately began to take the exam for level 12. Here my opponent had eight million health points, and I had to work hard to cut him down. It''''s a good thing that I was opposed by a giant mantis that specialized in dealing physical damage and couldn''t heal itself.


    I was already shuddering in my gut when I took the level 13 exam. I had seen level 13 players, and I didn''t know how they could pass the exam if even I had problems with it. However, after trying to figure it out with psionics, I found out what kind of a trick the players were doing here. As a rule, there were only a few sets of elite equipment in the guild. Those who wished to take the level 13 exam simply ''rented'' them.


    Of course, it didn''t allow them to use other people''s talismans, but the guilds'' equipment was much cooler than the one I had now. Plus, the strongest buffs and expensive elixirs were given to the player before he would take the exam. All of this was enough to pass the exam, where you had to take it in turns to fight ten opponents. My kind of exam of fighting ''fat'' bosses was considered as the most difficult. Well, we''re not looking for the easy way out.


    The battle for level 13 lasted only ten minutes, but wore me out like I had been fighting to the last drop of blood for at least three days. My opponent was simply too strong. His one hit did a million damage, plus he was constantly trying to stun me, poison me, burn me, or just drown me in lava. The last item on the list was due to the fact that this arena was right inside an erupting volcano.


    After a little rest, I paid to take the level 14 exam. But here I was completely devastated. I managed to survive for only 20 seconds before my pet and I were smeared all over the arena as bloody mincemeat. Changing the type of exam to a sequential fight against multiple opponents, I only achieved that I died after a minute.


    Well, it clearly requires more than just good talismans and a cool pet. So I decided to temporarily hold off on leveling up and collect more dungeon records first. If I accumulate enough bonuses, it might strengthen me considerably. After all, there was an increase in attack, health bonuses, and trivial damage absorption, armor, and damage resistance. Anyway, I should have started collecting bonuses so that I could use them to reach the next point of my ingenious, but somewhat na?ve plan for world enslavement.


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    I decided to start setting records at Crab Island. It was a noobie zone, and the dungeons there were fairly easy. With my current abilities, clearing the entire island wouldn''t be a problem. Of course, the same was true for the other level 13 players. Only, I had an important advantage over them. Once a player left Crab Island, he could not simply go back. To do this, he had to fulfill a special quest, plus pay fifty gold. In other words, it was unlikely that guilds would send a full raid to set records there. It was too expensive, while the bonuses for completing these dungeons weren''t so great themselves.


    I had the class cheat of all Air Adepts-I could teleport to the terrain scanners I''d set up. I couldn''t teleport into personal dungeons or elemental worlds, but in the main world there were no barriers. After setting up a few scanners around the capital on the continent, I headed to Star Forest on Crab Island.


    Here I went to the teleporter and teleported to Crab City, and from there I went to clear all the dungeons, starting with the lowest levels. After the relatively deserted streets of the Imperial Capital, the crowds in Crab City were impressive. While the continent was struggling for territory and access to dungeons, here everyone was boiling under the same lid, and most of the animosity between the guilds manifested itself only in the form of hostile glances.


    With my Deadly Chaos Scolopendra, I shocked the entire population of the city. Imagine the streets so crowded that it''s hard to just walk through the crowd. And then, a long-armored body, forty meters long, bursts into a narrow street and scatters people in different directions, turning the crowd into liquid, which tries to splash into the neighboring streets through the roofs of houses. And on top of this horrible monster sits a figure surrounded by the Aura of a Massacre God.


    Anyway, after a bit of public outrage, I headed for the nearest dungeon. It was very easy to clear. In fact, all I had to do was ride with the speed of a racing car up to the main boss, planting bushes that attacked the enemies on their own. The boss died from a single sneeze of my pet, after which I got a record that exceeded the previous one by as much as... three seconds. Well... well... A record is a record.


    After the first dungeon, there was a second, a third, a tenth, and a hundredth. I spent two days running all over the island, setting one record after another. At the same time, in eight dungeons, I never managed to surpass the existing record. After all, I was alone, and I didn''t have the massive spells that could kill hundreds of enemies per second. But I was able to set records in six dungeons where no one had ever been before me. These were hidden dungeons that required a whole chain of quests to get into. At the same time, the NPCs didn''t tell me about the continuation of their quests, so no one could think of doing them.


    By the end of the second day, the people'' envy rating for me had skyrocketed to unimaginable heights. Usually, the records were more or less evenly distributed among the strongest guilds. But here I had it all for myself. What''s more, I wasn''t a member of any guild, so no one could pressure me to stop collecting records with threats. And in order to put pressure on me personally, first they'' d have to find me and catch up me.


    After returning to the continent, I continued my tour of the dungeons. But here the results were not so rosy. There were plenty of strong level 13 players who didn''t shy from setting records in simple dungeons. On average, I managed to set a record in one dungeon out of five. Some of these dungeons were the ''property'' of some guilds, and I had to clear a crowd of ''guards'' before I got to the entrance. And once I had completed a dungeon, I often used the Teleport, because at the exit the crowd waits for me, hungry for my blood.


    The more time passed, the more I was hated by the top guilds. But among the ''common people'' my ''heroic activities'', on the contrary, grew in fame. They considered me a fighter for the rights of the oppressed, although, in general, I was even more oppressive than the most tyrannical guilds. However, fighting with other players was not really interesting to me. Either they were too weak so that I could take out a hundred or two crabs by myself, or they were too strong and would attack me in a ¡®hundred to one¡¯ mode. So, I had to run and hide.


    Nobody ever came up to me and asked me to fight one-on-one. That wasn''t because there weren''t that many strong players. There were. But they considered themselves ''elite'' and could not agree to have a fair fight with me. After all, they were important and revered guild leaders, and I was just a vagrant. If they lost, it would mean the collapse of their reputation and prestige. Whereas I, from their point of view, was not risking anything at all.

 Chapter 13.39 – World of Elements

    After about a week, I realized that I had reached my limit in setting records. Where I could, I had already set them. Where I couldn''t... Where I couldn''t, the results I was achieving were too far from the best. Moreover, there were many dungeons I could not pass alone. The monsters there literally trampled me into the ground, swarming all over me. And even a pet''s ten million health wasn''t enough to survive. After all, these were dungeons designed for a group of 25 people.


    Then one ''''beautiful day'''' I walked out of another dungeon, annoyed at my failure. It was my second attempt in a row, and the second time was only a few seconds longer than the record time.


    ¡°Big Brother Cheater, I see that you''re trying to set a record here?¡± - I heard a player''s voice.


    When I turned around, I saw a demonologist surrounded by a pack of pets, and he bowed to me respectfully. He was a member of the Burning Foundations Clan guild. Nearby stood a throng of players from the same guild, who looked warily at me. From time to time I destroyed any players who were unlucky enough to see me, so people tried not to approach me without necessity.


    ¡°Yes, I''m trying to.¡± - I answered.


    Actually, I had nothing to hide. The dungeon was considered a no man''s land, and too far away for any of the stronger guilds to have sent their best forces here to try to kill me. They stopped sending all sorts of morons after me after I''d slaughtered a couple of dozens of those rabble-rousers.


    ¡°I see that Big Brother Cheater is one step away from setting the new record, and I''d like to offer my help. If you will agree to lead our raid, we can certainly set the record. As for our interest, even just getting through this dungeon would be a boon to us.¡±


    Hmm, somehow the sycophant was right. If I was the leader of the raid, I would get the record bonus. At the same time, for normal players, the value of this dungeon was not in the loot from the bosses, but in completing the quest in the quest chain. It wasn''t hard for me to pass it alone. However, the level 12 players in front of me needed to group together in order to just not die in the process.


    Admittedly, I doubted that adding this ballast under my command could improve the outcome rather than make it worse. After all, I would still be the main force, and the others would be, at best, a moral support group.


    ¡°Are you so sure that with your help I can set a record?¡± - I asked.


    ¡°Of course! Despite the fact that we do not yet have players of the thirteenth level, we are professionals. Our cohesion and teamwork always lead us to victory.¡±


    I was not impressed by all these sweet speeches, but the players next to me all ''blazed up'' with fighting spirit. Heh, like children. What a naive people here.


    ¡°Good.¡± - I nodded. ¨C ¡°But if we can''t set the record, I''ll kill you all.¡±


    It wasn''t a threat; it was a statement of fact. I was strong enough to crush this raid into bloody mincemeat without the slightest effort.


    ¡°Big Brother is cruel but fair.¡± - Flaming Justice shook his head.


    Damn, I noticed his name too late. If I''d read it at the beginning of the conversation, I would have cut out this whole raid right away. How could anyone take a name like that? Where is there any justice in this world at all? Who has ever seen it? But since I agreed, it''s worth waiting until we get through the dungeon. Then I can, with a clear conscience, establish flaming justice by incinerating this nest of vice into hell.


    I received an invitation to a raid. There were now fifteen people in it with me, which was considered the minimum recommended number for this dungeon. I could see why that prick had decided to invite me, and had even agreed to my condition. Without my help, they would have been almost hundred percent likely to fail on the final boss.


    ¡°So, the technique of passing through the dungeon will be simple.¡± - I began instructing the unexpected minions. ¨C ¡°We immediately rush forward along the main passageway, cleaning up any enemies we encounter. We get to the first boss, I quickly kill him, then we run even faster to the second boss. If you stop, you''ll be overrun by the crowd of monsters we ran past in the beginning. I''ll take down the second boss as well, and at this point you should already be standing near the opening gates to the third part of the dungeon. I''ll hold off the monsters for a bit, then I''ll catch up with you, and together we''ll start beating the final boss while clearing those monsters that will be running towards us from the whole dungeon. I''ll take the boss, and you''ll have to deal with the little monsters.¡±


    A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    ¡°Little monsters are the usual elite monsters?¡± - One of the players asked me in a trembling voice.


    He was a priest, and he knew better than anyone what would happen when a raid was attacked by not just one elite monster, but by a whole crowd. I might not even have to kill anyone myself, but they''d all die on their own. After all, the standard tactics weren''t good enough to set a record.


    ¡°Exactly.¡±


    After these words, the healer looked at me with bulging eyes, but said nothing. He sighed heavily and walked back to the company of three other healers, with whom he began to discuss my insane tactics. It was only crazy in their eyes, however, but that'' s how the strongest guilds set records.


    All dungeons were divided into two categories. In one, you had to kill every single monster to pass, but they all rushed to the rescue when the main boss attacked. The second category dungeons required killing only the final boss, and no one went to his rescue. In these dungeons, the main ''profit'' was obtained by farming the usual monsters and side bosses, and setting a record meant a loss of money and resources. After all, most dungeons had a one-day attendance limit.


    ¡°Let''s go in.¡± - I gave the order and headed toward the dungeon, figuring out my role as raid leader. The first thing I was interested in was the distribution of loot. As long as I was going to carry the whole guild, all the loot would be mine.


    I routinely steered my scolopendra toward the dungeon entrance. When the regular players saw my ''pet,'' they jumped back in horror to avoid being trampled by it. I looked at the mere mortals as if they were the dirt underfoot that they actually were. To my Fox, all of the players around me were one bite at a time. If I had been in this game for fun, I would have behaved more simply, organized a group of friends, fought for ''power'' with other guilds. But I was fighting for the survival of my soul, so I had no time or inclination to get distracted by trivialities. So now my behavior was the standard of an arrogant, bourgeois. However, people around me did not expect anything else from me, because they would behave the same way themselves in a similar situation. Eh, to live with wolves means to howl like wolves.


    Surprisingly, as we began our run through the dungeon, the difference between going it alone and as part of a raid became immediately apparent. As we moved forward, I grew some Angry Blackthorn bushes around me, which were supposed to reduce my enemies'' health at least somewhat. But now the extra damage from players wasn''t just reducing life, it was managing to kill enemies. Plus, the monsters were attacking the players first, not my ''flowers,'' so there was enough damage coming in to kill them in just a few seconds.


    But none of that really mattered, because those monsters wouldn''t live to see their first boss anyway. I kept spreading my mushrooms around, and they''d hang poison for five minutes. So by the time I usually reached the boss, the monsters that came my way would be dead.


    Because the speed of the players was slower than my scolopendra, I had to slow down, which was a disadvantage to being able to set a record. But it was too early to say that I wasn''t going to succeed.


    When I got to the boss room, I immediately set the Fox on him and started attacking the monsters that were crawling out of the doors. In between planting mushrooms, I still had to heal other players who couldn''t be healed by the regular healers. The boss only lasted thirty seconds, after which our whole crowd ran forward again, ignoring the monsters still running out of the passageways. A few seconds later, I saw a future in which the enemies were able to stop and kill three of our mages who were running last. I immediately turned around, reached the rearguard, and launched a Wave of Cold, which froze the nearest monsters and blocked the path of the others.


    ¡°Faster, faster, don''t stop.¡± - I shouted, getting back to the head of our procession.


    The second boss we beat together, because I had sealed the only entrance to the hall with ice. Within 10 seconds, while the ice melted, our raid had chopped the boss up, and we rushed forward accompanied by a furious howl of monsters. When I flew into the hall of the final boss, I immediately attacked it, remembering to heal my allies and grow new bushes to replace those that had been destroyed.


    ¡°Come on, all together! We can do it!!!¡± - Shouted Flaming Justice, encouraging his comrades, who stood against the endless stream of elite monsters that they had previously only risked to beat one at a time.


    But I didn''t share his optimism, because we were already running out of time to meet the requirements of the record. So while I didn''t stop attacking enemies, I was already mentally assessing which ones in the raid I would kill first, and which ones I could leave as an appetizer.


    Finally, the boss died, the flow of monsters dried up, and I received a notification that a record had been set. This message surprised me a lot, because we were fifteen seconds late. I immediately psionically began to read the data on our journey and found out the reason for this ''anomaly''. It turns out that the game AI considered the presence of allies not as a help, but as an additional ''handicap''. After all, none of my subordinates died during the entire walkthrough. In fact, I not only cleared the entire dungeon on my own, but also ''dragged the whole raid on my back''. So this ''''feat'''' was the reason for crediting me additional rating points, on the basis of which the owner of the record was determined.

 Chapter 13.40 – World of Elements

    ¡°Yes, we did it! Record!!!¡± - The guild leader wouldn''t stop.


    Flaming Justice was the obvious ''spiritual leader'' of his small guild and skillfully kept them in check, timely bringing them into a state of religious ecstasy. None of this concerned me, though. I gathered my loot, exited the dungeon, and left the raid without hesitation. The important thing was that I got my record. The rest was pink snot.


    However, this story had an unexpected sequel. Some raids began to invite me to ''help'' set records. And I did not think to refuse, because as part of raids I could set records in the dungeons, where I could not even pass alone. As a result, I got the record, the players got the loot and completed quests, and everyone was happy. Everyone except the guilds whose records I was breaking. And after just a few days, one of those guilds decided to ''get revenge''.


    At first, nothing foretold any problems. One of the players approached me and offered to lead a raid against the strong boss of the Rotten Ent. Unlike the other bosses, this one lived in an open area, and not everyone could even get to it. The boss lived in the center of the Ent Forest. A peculiarity of this location was that all elite monsters in it were ''roaming'', that is, they had no permanent places of habitation and clear routes of movement. Because of this, the raid in the forest constantly had to fight with enemies, not being able to stand idly by and rest. Meanwhile, the final boss would periodically summon regular Ents to help him during the battle, so the battle had to be hard and unpredictable.


    I received the rights to manage the raid, because of which all the players in it immediately received all my bonuses. Not least of all, I was invited to the raid precisely because of them. After all, I now had more bonuses than any guild. At the same time, the real organizers of the raid were giving me their final ''instructions''.


    ¡°The loot from the regular Ents will be taken by the one who strikes the last blow, but the loot from the boss will all go to you. To avoid problems with that, when the boss has a couple percent of health left, we''ll retreat and let you kill it. It shouldn''t affect the time it takes to kill the boss too much, so you''ll have the record most likely.¡±


    I looked at the leader of the ''Lotus of Fire Phoenix'' guild and frowned. There was something unusual about his words that made me tense. But since he didn''t really want to kill me, I decided to ignore it for now. Many of the people around me really hated me, but they were ready to cooperate with the Incarnation of Chaos itself, that is, with me, to kill the boss.


    From there, everything went according to plan. The raid literally cut through the forest of Ents and attacked the boss. It was a tense battle, but we finished the boss in about fifteen minutes. I was constantly on guard, but didn''t find anything suspicious in the area. Finally, Boss had a cropper of life left, and everyone in the raid stopped beating him in an organized manner. I set my pet on the boss, while I looked around carefully. And then... nothing happened. The Fox just killed the boss, picked up the loot that had fallen out of it, and a few seconds later I received a notification that a new record had been set.


    I do not understand... Then why did I have this oppressive premonition of something bad that was about to happen? And then another system message appeared in front of me.


    ***The Forest of Ents is angry about the murder of the Ents Patriarch. A curse has fallen on the killer''s head.***


    And... again nothing happened. I do not understand...


    I looked around carefully, and noticed the triumphant expression on the faces of the raid leaders.


    ¡°Ha ha! We got you!¡± - One of them finally burst through. ¨C ¡°Now your pet is useless. Jackanapes like you should know their place. The Union of Ten Guilds promised to pay us a lot of money to eliminate you. You won''t be able to set any more records...¡±


    ¡°Shut up!¡± - His neighbor kicked his spy treasure.


    My pet? I looked at the Fox''s characteristics and noticed the curse icon hanging on it. The description to this badge read:


    *Curse of the Ent Forest. Unremovable. Deals damage equal to 5% of his current health every second until his health drops to 10% of his maximum HP.*


    Okay, I''ll deal with that later. Right now, I''ve got to punish the bastards.


    ¡°You''ll regret that you dared to stand in my way.¡± - I proclaimed, and then excluded the blabbermouth from the raid. A moment later my pet''s cheeks sliced him in half, killing him instantly.


    ¡°What is happening?¡± - Regular players whispered, apparently unaware of what was going on. But I didn''t enlighten them, and began to exclude one by one all of the secret raid leaders and kill them instantly.


    As long as the player was in my raid, they could not harm me. But after I excluded another victim from the group and attacked him, the raid members lost any chance to help his former comrade-in-arms. By the time players started leaving the raid to attack me massively, I had managed to kill eight of them. In general, despite the debuff that afflicted my pet, I managed to take out all the players and then rushed away, maneuvering between the wandering Ents. An ordinary player wouldn''t have passed, but I was immune to the control effects, and the speed of the scolopendra was such that no other Ent could catch up with me.


    Once I got to safety, I began to investigate the curse on my pet. I couldn''t anticipate such consequences beforehand, because the curse was part of the game logic of the forest, not the boss I was beating. Alas, the connections between the information blocks in the game were weak, so sometimes I couldn''t find information that seemed to lie on the surface.


    The Forest of Ents curse was an unbreakable curse, meaning that it could not be broken by any spells or skills. As a rule, such curses were lifted by completing quests. That was the case here as well, except that the NPC who was in charge of breaking curses could only take them off from players. Pets, on the other hand, were considered permanently cursed. The only way to break a curse in such situation was to get rid of the pet and tame a new one. Moreover, it was a ''budget-friendly'' way of circumventing the curse. Passing the quest to remove the debuff was a painful and expensive experience. So sometimes players would get a pet on purpose, force it to deal a finishing blow, and then get rid of it.


    In my case, I wasn''t even considering getting rid of the Fox. It wasn''t because I had a fiery love affair with him. It''s just that after I tamed him, the game''s AI blocked any possibility of getting the Deadly Chaos Scolopendra as a pet in this manner.


    I could, of course, simply hack the game, but that would definitely reveal my abilities to the artificial intelligence. I''d been ''encrypting'' as much as I could these days, so as not to give him even a hint that the good fortune surrounding me was the result of my interference. In terms of evidence, it might not have been a blessing, but a curse to which I am subjected against my will. So the problem with this debuff had to be solved in some other way.


    I turned around and looked at my pet''s body. The curse had affected its appearance. Along the body of the scolopendra appeared twenty circles, gathered in pairs, on which now grew some red mold of a very unhealthy kind. I began to ''decipher'' the program code of this curse and was surprised to find out that in fact it was not a curse at all, but... a modification of the organism.


    On the body of the scolopendra appeared twenty zones where plants could now grow. As a druid I had encountered a bit of this direction of the game, though I hadn''t immersed myself in it. In short, there were not only ''battle'' plants like my bushes in the game, but also ''peaceful'' plants that had their own unique characteristics. Such plants required specially prepared soil, to grow them the druids had to use their magic, then they had to wait until they reached maturity, and at the end these plants could be ''harvested'', gaining some valuable resource.


    Usually this kind of ''gardening'' was done by Earth wizards, so I did not delve into the study of this subject. But now this question became urgent for me, so I had to understand this subject thoroughly. And since I no longer believed in my ability to obtain the necessary information, I decided to return to the capital and read the guides on gardening so that I could then use that information for my own research.


    After a few hours, I was more or less aware of the problem. As a result of this curse, zones where ''peaceful'' plants could grow appeared on the Fox''s body. But there was one thing: these zones could not be ''lifeless. Something had to grow in them. The second point was exactly the same health absorption. To grow, the plants needed nutrients, which they took from the scolopendra''s body while doing damage. But that circumstance gave only half of the damage from the ''curse''. And the other half came from the ''Blood Moss'' plant, which was essentially poisonous. The exact same plant was growing on Rotten Ent, so I could say that my pet had picked up the contagion from it.


    If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    But there was a silver lining to this situation. There were ways to grow a different type of plant in the ''seedbeds'' that would be beneficial rather than harmful. Then it would be possible to compensate for the health they absorbed. However, there was one problem. Blood Moss was not only poisonous, but also a very unpretentious plant. And most importantly, it actively fought against all other plants, simply by not letting them sprout in all the territory available to it.


    In general, the situation might have seemed hopeless, but I''d already found a way to turn a curse into a blessing. The point was that Blood Moss had a ''critical vulnerability'' to the Horned Lichen plant, so I could replace one plant species with another. However, the Horned Lichen was even more poisonous, so the damage from the curse would only increase, but that plant had a vulnerability to the other. So a complex chain of substitutions was formed, with which I could achieve the result I wanted.


    To pull off this whole scam, I had to run around the mainland collecting seeds of the plants I needed. In some places I even had to get off my ''warhorse'' and sneak under the invisibility to get past strong monsters to be able to gather the resources I needed. But eventually, after a couple of days, I was able to gather everything I needed and began the ''healing'' process. It was not quick, because I had to grow plants on twenty beds at the same time, plus wait for them to mature. Only then could I guarantee that the previous ''occupant'' would be completely superseded by the new plant.


    Finally, I was able to catch my breath and inspect my pet with pride. Out of twenty ''beds'' ten were planted with elite flowers ''Angel''s Tri-colored Orchid''. These flowers healed the nearest living organisms on their own, and the closest to them was, of course, the scolopendra itself. As a result, my pet could regenerate... 100% health every 0.25 seconds.


    To be honest, I didn''t expect that to happen. The fact that the scolopendra was big and long in size played a role here, and the game mechanics stuck too many beds on its body. Each bed could restore 10% health in one ''tick''. After all, it was the most powerful healing plant in the game. So it didn''t even make sense to plant more than ten beds of these flowers, because it was impossible to restore more than a hundred percent of health.


    Instead, I planted plants that removed all sorts of statuses and curses, gave full immunity to poisoning, and increased my pet''s health reserves. Now it really turned out to be Completely Holy Fucking Fox, not a pet. Full instant healing meant it could only be killed in one hit. And his health was no longer ten million, but fifty million. And that was where the game limit came into play, which in principle didn''t allow for more than forty million damage in a quarter of a second. So, in effect, my Fox was now completely immortal.


    However, his damage didn''t change, but that didn''t matter. With this cheat, I could brazenly assault all of the most difficult dungeons and kill the strongest bosses. Of course, that''s if you don''t take into account the fact that some bosses could heal themselves, and my damage even now couldn''t be called top-notch. In the near future I was going to take care of this problem, but now it was time for revenge.


    I hadn''t forgotten which guild members had decided to set me up. What''s more, I also knew exactly who had ''ordered'' the scheme. But now I was only going to punish the direct performers. I had to show everyone that quarreling with me was the worst idea ever.


    Guilds were associations of players that allowed them to communicate, get bonuses from playing together, and made them fight other guilds, again getting their bonuses from this fight. But the very existence of the guild was possible in two modes, which were very different from each other.


    Initially, the guild was just a group of players, and therefore existed only due to the presence of these players. In other words, if the number of guild members fell below 5% of the maximum for three days, the guild was simply disbanded. At the same time, the real threshold for ''destroying'' a guild was five people. Guilds of the most basic class could hold only 100 people. By upgrading this class you could get up to 250, 500 and 1,000 people. The threshold for a Diamond-class guild was 50 people, but if this threshold was reached you could simply lower the guild''s class and let it live.


    In the first mode, the guild was just a group of players, and it was really almost impossible to destroy it. But there was a second mode. If a guild decided to build a Guild Castle, its existence began to depend on the intactness of that castle. The Castle provided not only a place for guild members to meet, rooms for living, crafting and training. The guild also received a steady income from ''taxes'' from the surrounding territory. The better the territory was developed, the more money and resources the guild received ''out of air''.


    Naturally, guilds with a castle were stronger than guilds without it. But with this advantage came a great danger. If a guild''s castle was captured and its central crystal was destroyed, the guild would cease to exist along with it. That''s why all members of the guild sought to protect their castle at any cost. After all, seizing the castle was equivalent to losing all of the savings, all of the guild''s bonuses, all of its glory. So the essence of the upcoming revenge was that the ''Lotus of Fire Phoenix'' guild had its own castle.


    I had prepared for the war and unloaded everything valuable from my backpack into the warehouse just in case, so I headed for the castle of the guild that had dared to encroach the sacred, i.e., me. When I reached the place, I set up a scanner nearby, so that I could quickly move to the place. Then I didn''t think much, but went straight to the main gate of the castle.


    The gate was closed, but that didn''t stop me for a second. My movement skill allowed me to ''jump'' fifty meters, so I simply jumped to the fortress wall of the castle, and then started killing all the players whom I met.


    At first, no one thought anything serious was going on. Yes, someone had attacked guild members, but the guards would deal with him, and then the management would blacklist the brat and figure out how to punish him. However, after a minute or five or ten, no one was able to deal with me. I was brazenly and impudently moving around the castle grounds, killing everyone I met, and in the process destroying all of the castle buildings that had less than a million points of HP.


    At the tenth minute, the guild management finally realized that this was no joke, and took me seriously. A full mobilization of all guild members was urgently carried out. Nearly a thousand people dropped everything and returned to the castle to confront the evil me. But even after that, there was no sign that I could be stopped in any way.


    Crowds of people were swarming around me, attacking me in every way possible, but... It was useless, because all of the damage was instantly healed. The more players piled around me, the easier it was for me to destroy them. My ''Infernal Insidious Mushrooms'' dealt venom damage over an area. The area was small, but with people literally standing on each other''s heads, even one mushroom could hit a dozen victims. And since the poison was effective for five minutes, the players had no chance to survive after this infection. After all, truly strong players in the guild were few, and most of its ordinary members were so weak that even a simple ''sneeze of mushroom'' guaranteed to kill them in a few seconds.


    I not only slaughtered every player I could reach. I was also collecting all their loot, and destroying the castle buildings as well. Buildings that cost a lot of money. Buildings that had been built with the blood and sweat of the guild''s members. And today all that ''splendor'' had been ended.


    After 20 minutes of the attack it was clear the guild couldn''t take me on their own, so they called in their "roof" - the "Sacred Oath" guild. There were many players of level 13, and they came to punish me. Naive. After only a couple of minutes, they all went to the revival circle, which was right inside the castle walls, so I didn''t even have to chase the players down to destroy them time after time.


    After dying, the player was reborn in the nearest available sanctuary within a minute. There he was safe for another minute, and then he could be attacked, unless, of course, the area around him was peaceful. Inside the guild castle it obviously wasn''t, so every two minutes the players were forced to fight me, only to... die.


    Of course, mostly all sorts of ''rags'' died. I didn''t go after the tanks, because they were usually pretty hard to kill. Even with all my killing speed, I couldn''t kill more than five people per second. And I only killed five because they were real meat that couldn''t do any good. After death, the person lost 10 characteristic points. And when all 100 points were used up, time from death to resurrection began to be ''sacrificed''. The initial minute was increased to 5 minutes, then to 10, and with each subsequent death the time to resurrection doubled.


    The top members of the ''Lotus of Fire Phoenix'' guild fought me, literally throwing themselves on the firing line, but it was useless. After half an hour, they ran out of characteristics, and the players began to regenerate with delays, further aggravating their already miserable situation. In my pet''s vault, I had tons of junk that I had beaten out of players. And the more they lost, the less chance they had of resisting.


    Soon the guild leaders became so desperate that they began to write to the community chat room screaming for help, demanding that the evil me be punished. I responded by spamming messages into that chat with an offer to join in the destruction of the guild''s castle. In fact, the defenders'' resistance had already been suppressed, and the only thing left to do was to destroy the castle itself.


    I needed the help of other players because the main fortifications of the castle had too many durability points, and I could only attack them with normal physical attacks. I alone could spend another week wreaking havoc on the castle. But when people heard that I was proposing to loot the treasury of a defenseless castle, they started swarming like flies to shit. Even the declarations in the chat that the Lotus of Fiery Phoenix Guild is protected by the alliance of the Ten Guilds didn''t help. When a crowd of people want to profit from someone else''s misfortune, their fear is completely turned off. While the guilds were pondering how they would assemble squads to protect their allies, the vultures of the regular players had already arrived to ''help'' me divide up the looted goods.

 Chapter 13.41 – World of Elements

    I didn''t even expect that so many people would come for freebies. At least five thousand of them showed up, and in five minutes the whole crowd blew up the castle brick by brick. The castle''s treasury was open, and all its contents immediately fell into the hands of the freeloaders. Some players started moaning that they didn''t get anything, but I calmed the greediest ones by throwing away all the loot I''d just beaten out of the players of no longer-existing guild.


    It didn''t dampen the crowd''s appetite, but it shut up the most greedy ones. When there was nothing left to loot, I suggested a run to the nearby castle of the ''Sacred Oath'' guild. I had already nullified all of their ''top'' members by stripping the shit out of them, so there was no one to defend this castle. I didn''t wait for the crowd to swell up, so I rushed forward. Of course, the greedy ones immediately ran after me, and everyone else followed on herd instinct.


    The castle of my next victim met the barbarian hordes, bristling with weapons, but not even a miracle could save them. I wasn''t even able to play a decisive role in this assault, because the crowd simply swept away all resistance in a second and simply started pummeling the castle walls and all the castle buildings. Considering the number of attackers and the guild''s low level, their ''straw hut'' only lasted ten minutes, after which the treasury became accessible to everyone again, and the guild''s central crystal was destroyed by me personally, although they tried to defend it with all their might.


    After that epic battle, I shouted out a slogan that we should go destroy the next castle, and I got down from the scolopendra, turned on invisibility, and disappeared into the crowd. Without my intervention, the crowd self-organized and started to smash the castles of the other guilds.


    Afterwards this day went down in the history of the game as ''Blood Locust Invasion''. Mad crowd of fifty thousand players demolished seventeen castles in a row, completely suppressing all resistance. Only when one hundred raids of level 13 players came out against this crowd, it became clear that quantity, after all, cannot beat quality. As soon as the crowd tasted their own blood, all of the players immediately scattered to save the looted wealth.


    The funny thing is that at the beginning, the guild representatives who were the second to be defeated by the wave of ''''popular anger'''' were the ones who shouted the loudest about the need to continue plundering. After all, the players of the guilds that they defeated didn''t go anywhere, but decided at least this way to get revenge on their rivals.


    As for me, while the whole world was shaking with the news of how easy it was to destroy nearly two dozen guilds at once, I was enjoying the reward for completing the quest to destroy 10,000 players and destroying a guild castle. It was another title, even more pompous than the last one. Now I could be the God of Meaningless Massacre, and the aura for that title looked even more sinister and frightening.


    The next thing I did was to raise my damage. Since I had achieved ''immortality,'' it no longer made sense for me to use healing spells. As long as I was sitting on my ''horse,'' I was invulnerable. Which meant that I could put the two spell slots I had vacated into something that would greatly increase my total damage.


    I also decided to improve my weapons. A replacement for my spear was long overdue, but that wasn''t what I was talking about right now. The pets could use weapons, too. They had to match their anatomical capabilities, though. For my scolopendra, I could make steel chews that could also be coated with strong venom.


    While I was researching the plant cultivation issue, I suddenly found out that the assassin and the hypnotist had the ability to lubricate their weapons with poison. And the damage from this poison could reach astronomical heights. I even ''planted'' on my pet''s body a bed of extremely poisonous plants, which I was going to use to make poison.


    The best weapons in the game could either be made from divine quality resources, or ''knocked out'' from the rarest bosses in the elemental worlds. After trying the options available to me, I decided to custom-make the Fox''s chews, whereas I decided to get a weapon for myself from a boss. Luckily, the boss I wanted could not only be found in the Elemental world, but I could summon it to the main world using the Supreme Essence of Fire. It wasn''t as expensive as the divine essence, so my finances were enough to buy everything I needed at the auction.


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


    The rest was pretty simple. I bought and ''harvested'' the right essence, got out to a deserted place, and summoned the necessary boss, fiddling with probabilities again. The boss was certainly tough, but since I was now technically immortal, his fate was sealed. By this point I had already replaced the two healing spells with the new druid and hypnotist combat spells, so I had enough damage to overwhelm the boss''s health regeneration.


    Finally, after striking the last blow, I immediately collected the loot and equipped the knocked out weapon of ''diamond'' quality. I originally wanted a wizard''s rod, but when I learned that I could use poison, I chose a more interesting option. This weapon was actually a chain with a faceted tip. When I used the chain, it looked like I was ''shooting'' it straight out of my hand. The chain could attack enemies ''piercing'' them like a spear, but it could only hit at a distance up to 30 meters. Plus, it could be lubricated with poison, increasing its already enormous damage.


    The ''Evil God''s Chain'' dealt 400,000 damage per hit, and its attack speed allowed it to deal one hit per second. But it wasn''t the physical damage that mattered, it was the poison damage, because the chain gave a x4 bonus to poison attacks with it. ''Poison Blade Lubrication'' was a non-combat ninja ability. It could be used instantly, so it couldn''t be interrupted, while using a ''venom vial'' that poisoned the weapon for 30 minutes. Since I was a druid and always had a bed of poisonous grass on scolopendra, I could make poison as needed.


    The ''Cursed Azure Swan'' could be used to make ''Heavenly Azure Poison''. Under ordinary conditions to grow even a weed of this swan was a great fortune. But I had a game rule that prohibited empty beds without flower on the body of a scolopendra. So as soon as I uprooted the weed, it immediately grew back, doing just a little damage to the Fox, which was immediately regenerated. Then I could use the druid''s ability to turn the grass into poison, and immediately lubricate my weapon with that poison.


    Heavenly Azure Poison did 300,000 damage per hit when used with a cold weapon. Considering the bonus from the weapon, this increased to 1,200,000 poison damage per hit, with the damage from the chain itself adding up to a ridiculous 1,600,000 damage per second. These numbers were literally beyond good and evil. And I was going to make steel chews for my scolopendra.


    To get the resources I needed, I had to complete a quest that gave me access to one of the most difficult dungeons in the game. In fact, it was the Tower of the Dark Lord that I needed to capture. I thought I''d take it right away, but here I faced a huge bummer. On the difficulty chosen for a raid of 25 people, I was unable to go above the third floor. If an hour ago I thought that only a mountain was tougher than me, I realized now that in fact I''m still a complete nub. Sure, I alone tried to clear a dungeon that should have been cleared by 25 people, but it was only the third floor. No, I didn''t die. I just couldn''t kill the boss, who trivially healed all the millions of damage I was doing to him with the chain. I didn''t get discouraged ahead of time, but concentrated on the current target.


    When I left the tower, I went to gather other resources to make the necessary weapons, as well as other diamond-quality equipment. Again, I relied only on the damage of my weapon in combat. The spells I was using were all garbage compared to it. But that was just an indication of how powerful I was becoming.


    It was only possible to enter the Tower of the Dark Lord once a day, so I had to wait for the timer to reset. This time I entered on difficulty mode for five people, so I had no problem getting to level 12, where I got the ''rusty claws of the god-killer'' I needed from the boss. It was a rare resource used to make weapons. Once I got it, I immediately went to an NPC and created a weapon for my pet. Now one bite would do 300,000 physical damage, plus the same amount from Heavenly Azure Poison. There was no poison bonus here, but it could attack three times per second, dealing 1,800,000 damage. That was even more than my chain did.


    After trying out my new acquisition in a couple of dungeons, I decided to take the level up exam. With that kind of damage, I could probably expect to be level 15 by now. Alas, my hopes were shattered once again.


    I got level 14, but it was a tough battle. Even despite my ''immortality'', despite the damage of almost three and a half million per second, I had to saw my opponent long and hard before he finally died. And when I started the level 15 exam, by choosing the easiest scenario possible, I realized that I wasn''t even close to the right level of toughness. We had a natural draw. I couldn''t kill the boss, and the boss couldn''t kill me. As a result, after an hour of endless attempts to get a result, I just gave up. To get to level 15, I needed to rape the game a few more times, increasing my damage. I can''t even imagine the amount of effort it must have taken to get to level 15 from a regular players who were unable to hack the game at the snap of their fingers.

 Chapter 13.42 – World of Elements

    I spent the next three days getting a new set of gear. I even managed to swap my unique purple invisibility bracelet for an even more unique diamond equivalent. Now every item I wore gave me the rarest of bonuses designed to increase my damage and mobility. Also, I once again replaced all of my talismans with unique spells available to level 14 players. Last time, I could only rely on the strength of my pet to get resources for my talismans. Now I could fight unimaginably strong opponents with priceless treasures dropping from them.


    After upgrading all of my gears, I could hide under invisibility, along with a forty-meter-long scorpendra, while keeping the standard ''see invisible'' spell out of my sight. Six of my eight talismans were designed to inflict damage. I even turned down one of the control spells to increase the damage. After all, I don''t need to try to stop my opponents, because they can''t do anything to me, and I can catch up with them and attack at any moment.


    Tactically, my new spell was ''Steppeless Field''. It grew a ''glade'' of grass or flowers around me with a radius of fifty meters. Along with this talisman I used a seed of Blue Mac, which constantly poisoned everyone around me with its sap, at the same time plunging them into a state of confusion. It was my first truly massive spell, capable of destroying crowds of enemies. But the glade only lasted 20 seconds, and I couldn''t use it more than once a minute.


    Finally, having fully assembled ''my dream build'', I began to systematically set records. Even with all my infinitely cool abilities, I could not pass many of the dungeons that gave just huge bonuses. True, it''s worth mentioning that no one has been able to pass them yet. But in those dungeons that I could clear, all of the records became mine. The strongest guilds on the server were literally furious at this turn of fate, but they couldn''t do anything to me.


    After making sure I had control of every possible perk, I moved on to the next step in my plan: creating a guild. My strongest opponents developed their guilds by going to extraordinary effort to gather the best players, give them the best equipment and spells, teach them how to use them effectively, and develop cohesion and high morale. Each guild member considered himself to be the center of the world, towering above mere mortals like a tree above the grass. Ordinary players were forced to honor even the most insignificant members of these guilds, because otherwise they might suffer terrible revenge from a force they could not resist.


    I took the opposite path. When the Lotus of Fire Phoenix Guild cursed my pet, they called me an Jackanape. All the ''''great players'''' perceived me as a jackanape. That''s why I named my guild ''Jackanapes''. I created it using the cheapest Bronze Glory Crystals, so there could only be 100 members. Guild members could have different ranks for which different ''access rights'' and privileges could be set up. My guild had only two ranks: guild leader and guild member. But at the same time, the members could access all of my bonuses collected in thousands of dungeons. And if a player became the leader of a raid, those bonuses also applied to all of his subordinates.


    The next important thing about my strategy was that my guild had no elemental restrictions, plus any guild member could invite anyone to join the guild. In fact, I gave players the freedom to use their bonuses and give them to everyone.


    And the final ''touch'' in the guild''s settings was that its ordinary members could not see me in the list of co-guild members. Moreover, they could not even notice that the guild had a leader, because the position of ''master'' was also hidden. As a result, the guild just looked like a homogeneous group of people to ordinary players. Also, I disabled the ability to create a guild castle, so there was no way for the guild to be destroyed from within.


    The first victim of my advanced recruiting policy was my only friend. Straight Black Iron Sword, whom I''d given the purple staff as a gift, was still my friend, even though we''d never written a word to each other in all that time. Now I wrote him a private message and immediately sent him an invitation to the Jackanapes guild.


    ''Look what I got. A guild that has collected bonuses for completing all of the dungeons and killing all of the bosses in the game.''


    Strangely enough, up until now Straight Black Iron Sword wasn''t a member of any guild, so he might as well accept my invitation. But he was careful enough to write back first.


    ¡®And what are the conditions for joining?¡¯


    ¡®None. Just accept the invitation and have a look. If you don''t like something, you leave.¡¯


    A second later, a first member appeared in my guild. He looked with surprise to the empty list of guild members, where only he was currently listed.


    ¡®Aren''t you the guild leader?¡¯ - Immediately he texted me.


    ¡®Use it. Membership is free, no taxes, no restrictions, only bonuses. Invite friends and just acquaintances.¡¯


    At this point I stopped talking and stopped answering any questions. As I expected, the Sword could not resist the temptation, and ten minutes later another player joined the guild. And then another. And another. The bonuses given by my guild were too insane to ignore. They increased a player''s damage and life reserves several times over, and raised his defense and damage resistance. And such an absurd characteristic as ''damage absorption'' reached a value of 53%. In other words, all attacks with less than half their health would simply be ignored.


    Thanks to those bonuses, my chain, originally rated at 1,600,000 damage, was actually taking almost 4,000,000 damage per hit. In fact, by evening, all of my guild slots were already occupied. Furthermore, an hour after the players themselves found and used the Silver Crystal of Glory to raise the level of the guild and get free spaces. By morning all 250 spaces were occupied again, so I ''surreptitiously'' used my Diamond Crystal of Fame that I had received as a gift at the beginning of the game. Now my Jackanapes guild was officially one of the strongest guilds on the server.


    The next day, an explosion of fecal masses in the game turned into a sky-high fountain of shit and bile. The leaders of the strongest guilds literally puked blood when they found out that some jackanapes had gotten some completely insane bonuses for free. The guilds started sending spies to me while they could, but quickly all the spots were taken.


    There were millions of people who wanted to get in, but there were only a thousand slots. Some enterprising players started trying to sell their slots, but found that as soon as they left the guild, a hundred people tried to take their place, so that not a split second passed between leaving the guild and inviting another player to join, preventing anyone who had paid for the opportunity from being invited to join.


    Membership in the Jackanapes Guild immediately became a requirement for the position of raid leader in all dungeons. Even if a player was a complete idiot, he was assigned to the honorable position of leader and prayed that he would not leave. Because of the bonuses, passing the most difficult dungeons turned into an easy walk. I even had a couple dozen records taken away from me after that, but since all of them remained within the guild, only passed on to other players, I didn''t even think about being upset.


    Suddenly, the whole hierarchy of power in the game was overturned, and the strongest guilds already had to think of inviting an ''overseas king to rule'' to help them pass the dungeons. It was so humiliating for the Earth Adepts that they felt an overwhelming urge to start banging their heads against the wall, but they couldn''t refuse the humiliation.


    I watched the whole circus with my psionics and literally laughed when I saw the faces my opponents, including the other game figures. They were trying, working hard, developing, and then some jackanape came along and took everything away from them, making them feel like worthless idiots. And most importantly, all those guilds couldn''t do anything to stop me in any way. No one knew where I was or what I was doing. And it was too expensive to ''press'' the usual members of the guild, because they could simply refuse to give their bonuses ''for rent'' because of it.


    This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    In general, practically all the players on the server were standing around, trying to grasp the new realities of the world order. I wasn''t worried that ''handing out bonuses'' would hit me, because capturing the Tower of the Dark Lord required that absolutely everyone in the raid belonged to the same guild. But nevertheless, I''d set an ''alert sensor'' in my mind that was supposed to be triggered when someone reached the 16th floor of the tower. That was the threshold that signaled a threat to my plans.


    There was also the possibility that my own guild would try to capture the tower, but I wasn''t worried. It would be enough to exclude a few players from the guild at a critical moment, and they would be immediately kicked out of the raid, and then they simply die without guild bonuses. It might have been a little unfair to my subordinates, but my plans were far more important than the feelings of mere mortals.


    While the whole world was buzzing with shit, I tried to figure out how else I could increase my damage. If I had a team of reliable people, I could train them quickly, assemble a raid, and take over the tower tomorrow. But that would make me vulnerable to enemies. I wouldn''t get the perks of clearing the tower on my own, I''d have to organize players to defend it, and there''s the possibility that the guilds might interfere with my plans through the agents infiltrated into the guild. Anyway, as long as there was any chance of my plan succeeding, I didn''t want to sink to the level of the ''mere mortals'' who used the power of the guild rather than their own to win.


    Nothing good came into my head. I didn''t know how to become strong enough. And even psionics couldn''t answer that question. More likely, it was that I could not ask the right question, and the answers to the wrong questions did not suit me.


    To ''push the limits of my perception'', I decided to slowly and carefully clear all the difficult dungeons, kill all the strong monsters and visit all the shards of elemental worlds, carefully observing the world around me in search of clues.


    And so, while I was in one of the elemental worlds, my ''alarm sensor'' triggered, telling me that someone had infiltrated the 16th floor of the Dark Lord''s Tower. I immediately finished off another boss in a hurry, after which I moved to the main world and headed towards the tower. There I watched the events inside it, frowning more and more with each passing second.


    An unexpected threat was the Age of Glory guild and Zinovia Reinhardt herself. Despite the lack of bonuses, she was able to assemble a team of 25 people, each of whom was comparable to me in strength. That''s if you count without bonuses. But there were 25 of them, and I was alone. As I watched how they passed through the floors of the tower, I realized that there was a real chance that today the Dark Lord''s Tower would get a new owner.


    There was no way I could let that happen, so I had to stop them from killing the monsters at all costs. I couldn''t interfere in the fight personally, because the dungeon was personal, and only those who had entered at the beginning could be present in that copy of the dungeon. But I immediately thought of destroying some Evil Seed to raise the characteristics of the monsters. When I destroyed the First Seed of Evil, all of the monsters immediately became twice as ''thick'', so a lot of players going through the dungeons at that time had problems.


    I figured out all the information about the Evil Seeds a long time ago, using not only psionics, but also quite legitimate ways in the form of reading books, completing quests, and talking to the right NPCs. As a result, my knowledge of the location of the Seeds of Evil was quite well logged in front of the game''s artificial intelligence.


    I immediately rushed to the location of the Fourth Evil Seed. Destroying it was supposed to double the damage done by the monsters. I made sure to bring the golden Spear of the First Dwarf, because it was the only weapon that had the necessary qualities to destroy the quest crystals. There were other weapons that could be used, but I only had the spear.


    While I was going through the right quest and making my way through the dungeon, the raid, led by Zinovia, had nearly cleared the 18th floor. Like a meteor, I rushed through the elite bosses, brutally broke down the doors, which were supposed to be easier to open by solving the puzzle, and leaped to the fourth Evil Seed. Then I found that I couldn''t change my weapon to a spear until I was out of the fight, and there was a whole mob of bloodthirsty bosses chasing me from behind. I had to spend another five minutes clearing that crowd with all my might. A normal raid wouldn''t even be able to survive against such a crowd of enemies, but I managed to kill them all pretty quickly.


    Finally, I grabbed my spear and struck the blood-red ruby with it. The stone shattered into tiny shards, and I immediately received a message in the chat room that another Evil Seed had been destroyed, and the damage of all monsters was now doubled.


    I turned my attention hopefully to the Age of Glory raid. They had just started beating a level 18 boss, and his unexpected reinforcement immediately sent two tanks to the afterlife, but... The raid immediately changed tactics, and instead of ''tanking'' the boss, they started suppressing it with control skills, plus dodging the blows as much as possible. It didn''t look like their opponent''s reinforcement was hurting them much.


    I swore loudly and rushed off on the quest to destroy another Evil Seed. For me, doubling my damage didn''t really change anything, because I was immortal. But destroying the Second Evil Seed was already causing some problems. Fortunately, the quest to access this item was pretty quick.


    I teleported to one of my beacons and rushed forward, throwing my enemies aside. It was pretty easy. I didn''t even have to change the spear back to a chain. I just brazenly dashed past the enemies and bosses, reached the Seed of Evil, and shattered it instantly. A second later, all of the monsters had reduced the cooldown time for all of their skills by half. At this time, the Age of Glory raid was already moving through Floor 19. Their progress slowed, but... it didn''t stop. God damn it!


    Wasting no time, I rushed to the next Evil Seed, which could be destroyed quickly enough. Cthulhu sees, I didn''t want to do that. But it was the only way to prevent the tower from being captured. Besides, it was creating even more problems for me to win.


    The sixth Evil Seed granted high regeneration of health to all monsters, plus quadrupled their ability to heal themselves. By the time I got to it, the raid was already beating the last boss of the 19th floor. But as soon as the crystal shattered into shards, the flow of the battle changed immediately. In just a few seconds the boss'' half life was fully restored, and it never dropped below 95%. The raid strained, the players used all their accumulated reserves, the best elixirs and disposable artifacts, applied their strongest skills, but still could not even scratch the enemy.


    After that, the fervor of the raid faded, and in ten minutes the group had completely dissolved, heading for rebirth. I mentally exhaled and began to think about how I was going to live my life.


    But before I could relax, I received a personal message from Zinovia Reinhardt. More precisely, it was a worldwide message, which cost fabulous money and could be sent by players of one guild no more than once a day. But the message was meant for me. Since we were not ''friends'', it was the only way that Zinovia Reinhardt could convey her threat to me.


    ***CHEATER!!! I WILL DESTROY YOU!!! WHEREVER YOU ARE!!! MY WHOLE GUILD WILL HUNT YOU DOWN ALL DAY AND NIGHT!!!!!!''***


    Yeah, a cry from the soul, as they call it. I pulled out a similar item from my stash and wrote back a world message.


    ***Your arms are short to get me. And if you pester me, I''ll destroy the rest of the Seeds of Evil, too. That''ll make the other guilds happy to hear about it. And by the way, you''re the only reason I had to destroy those three Evil Seeds today. You naughty girl!***


    Yes, it was a failure. I was only going to destroy all the seeds of evil after I captured the tower. That would have strengthened its defenders enough that I wouldn''t have to worry about capturing it. But because of this upstart, I had to use my trump card early, and now I myself doubted that anyone would be able to capture the tower at all. The phrase comes to mind: ''Well, nobody gains you!'' If I don''t win this game, nobody wins it.


    My only consolation was the scene of Zinovia Reinhardt banging his head against the wall in anger, because she feels powerless in front of me. Ha-ha!


    My malignant complicity with the Dark Powers caused players now to sit at home and chug vodka in an effort to drown out their sadness and grief. Because of the unexpected bonuses, all monsters had become so powerful that it was pointless to fight them.


    Against this backdrop, the guilds squabbled over the control of dungeons and locations inhabited not by monsters but by creatures of a different class. The ''historical chronicles'' I read explained that monsters were the living creatures that inhabited this world before the Elemental Gods came into it. They were a variety of monsters, as well as native intelligent races like gremlins, goblins or trolls. By the way, the same troll that took part in the murder of the Dark Lord was a ''traitor¡¯.


    But after the invasion of the gods, all sorts of elves, dwarves, werewolves, humans, and other evil things appeared in this world. Over the millennia, humans became the dominant race, and all players were human. After the destruction of the Seeds of Evil, all non-human races suddenly became outcasts. Countless crowds of players rushed to kill them in every way possible, because they were the only ones they had the power to kill.


    Although people'' hatred made me the most wanted criminal in the world, my guild only went even higher in the glory rankings. After all, all the players in it got huge bonuses from destroying the Seeds of Evil, which pretty much negated the monsters'' amplification. Now having a raid leader from my guild was not just desirable, but the only way to enter normal dungeons.


    I thought about my options and came to the clear conclusion that I can'' t get more out of it with honest methods of gameplay. The only thing left to do was to ''crack'' the game itself and the AI that controlling it. Of course, the whole system was protected many times over, but... These protections were meant for mere mortals. I have a psionics.

 Chapter 13.43 – World of Elements

    Now, after the destruction of the Seeds of Evil, the entire game mechanics were ''shaking''. New chains of quests were activated because of the change in the strength of the monsters, the rewards for existing quests and the loot from the bosses were changed, in general, the game gradually changed in accordance with the algorithms included in it. And here it ''came out'' another missed vulnerability by the developers. Although the game itself had many levels of protection, new modules of the game logic were being loaded into it, protected by a single digital signature, which was not very difficult for me tampering with. Plus, I could hack the AI that was monitoring me and tweak its program a little bit to make it work better.


    The approach I used was simple and elementary. One of the service packs included not only a description of new game features, but also a piece of executable code that allowed me to ''optimize'' the AI. In fact, this code was all about how the information on game events should be analyzed. From the perspective of the system developers, such code could not really do much damage, because it only allowed the calculation of additional informational descriptions of objects, which couldn''t change the rules of the game mechanics in any way.


    However, this program contained a slightly unobvious solution. I had experience in directly influencing computer systems with my mind. In fact, the intelligent replicators I created were computers that used quantum cells to receive information from the human soul. Such technology did not exist in this world, but there were physical random number generators that worked on quantum effects, on which I had already learned to influence. This new program allowed the rigid computer logic of decision-making to depend on ''random'' values.


    In a normal situation, this would simply mean that such program would produce completely random calculation results of no practical value. But since the quantum fluctuation generators were under my control, I could use them not just to set random quantities to the computer, but I could fully determine the entire logic of its calculations. In this case, I did not write a single line of code, but only used existing programs, just combining them in a non-standard way.


    As a result, I had a ''legitimate'' possibility to control the work of the AI and control its decisions. My power over the computer at this point was enormous, but I used it minimally so as not to attract attention. To any outside observer, the decisions made by the captured AI should look only slightly strange, but perfectly logical and natural, fully complying with all the rules of the game.


    After a while, after analyzing the game rules and the limits to which I could manipulate them, I came up with a ''cheating'' scheme that was supposed to be available only to me. I wanted to empower only myself, not anyone else who could figure out the right trick with their ears. I could not naively assume that other game figures could not interfere with the game computer.


    After gathering the Divine Essence of Water, I went to one of the shards of the elemental world of Water. This virtual world was retrieved from the archive that I had recently tweaked. The world looked like a large field covered with many colorful flowers. Among the usual grass there were flowers, berries, low shrubs, and so on.


    I gave an order to the Fox, and he drove me in the direction I''d chosen. In about five minutes we arrived in a clearing overgrown with unimpressive white flowers. In a second a huge cobra appeared in front of me, which opened its hood and hissed angrily. At the same moment an unspeakable fear gripped me. Although I was sort of a half-spiritual being, the fear was so powerful that it completely paralyzed my ability to act and even think. The only way to experience that level of fear would be if electrodes were stuck directly into my brain. In fact, that''s exactly what they did to all the players in this game.


    After a few seconds, the fear subsided, and I was able to return to the perception of ''reality. While I was ''in a coma'', my pet attacked the snake, and then the effects of the snake''s skill ceased on me. Great, that''s what I needed.


    The unspeakable horror I had just experienced was the result of two in-game skills. The first was a simple skill that instills fear in opponents. Its effect was rather weak, and most players would simply ignore it. But this skill was accompanied by a ''debuff'', the source of which were the flowers growing around them. The scent of those flowers completely nullified the resistance to the mental effects of control, and then intensified those effects a thousand times. As a result, a person would experience emotions against which he could not, in principle, guard himself from. Moreover, all NPCs and monsters subjected to this effect also behaved as if they were sentient beings.


    If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    I had just experienced the power of my future ''ultimatum weapon'' on my own skin. My scolopendra was not affected by it, because the flowers growing on it gave him immunity to psychic influence. Immunity was not resistance. It could not be ''reduced. It either existed or it was non-existent. Because of this, my pet didn''t even notice the cobra attack and just ate it up in five bites.


    I dismounted from my ''car'' and began to use my druid skills to gather the seeds of the herbs I needed. There were a lot of plants growing in this world, so I was able to pick up another chain of substitutions right there, which resulted in two ''hallucinogenic flowerbeds'' settling on my pet''s body.


    Having finished this step of my plan, I moved on to the second. This one was a little simpler. I had to ''beat'' the book out of the next boss with a Hypnotist spell that made people around me wish they would die. In the original, this spell was simply meant to slightly dull the desire of opponents to survive. Make them feel a little depressed. But what it would do as a result of that enhancement, I had yet to find out. But not personally, because I would be wary of testing it on myself. Fear was enough for me.


    Getting the right talisman was not easy, but in the end it was just a matter of spending the right amount of time. As a result, I got a spell that permanently cast depression on all enemies within fifty meters. At the same time, it also sent a slight breeze blowing from me in different directions. This spell was used by the Destroyers to increase the range of the flames, but since it was too weak, any mage could use it.


    And the last element of this talisman was the spreading of smells, the source of which had to be specified when used. It was another ''useless'' ninja skill that allowed all sorts of sabotage necessary to pass special quests. I adapted this spell to my needs, turning it into a bomb of epic proportions.


    I charged and equipped the talisman and moved to the nearest dungeon. Once inside, I let the Fox run forward at full speed while activating my Ultimate Ability. The combination of skills I''d invented didn''t let me down. All of the monsters around me suddenly... started trying to kill themselves. They banged their heads against the floor and walls, gnawed out their insides, twisted their heads.


    Although from the point of view of game mechanics these actions could not harm anyone, it was only an external manifestation of the effect of the spell. But from the game''s point of view, at that moment all opponents received damage equal to their health reserve. It was the same ''cheat'' that I had implemented in the AI. If NPCs want to commit suicide, they always have that option.


    After I dashed through the dungeon, I immediately set a new record for passing it. I spent exactly the amount of time it took for the scolopendra to race from the entrance to the final boss hall. It was a cheat. No, it was a super cheat. Just a pure and blatant mockery of common sense, which at the same time was in full compliance with the game rules.


    The next step was to take the Level 15 exam. Everything there was elementary: come, see, win. After the boss died ''from heartbreak'', I got level 15 and another global message that Cheater had done something there first on the server. In this case, that I got level 15. No privacy whatsoever. As soon as I fart, the global chat immediately says: Cheater was the first on the server to fart.


    Well, now it''s time to take over the Tower of the Dark Lord. Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!!! Now I will be the Dark Lord of this world!


    I did not put off taking the tower for long. All I needed was a more detailed study of the tower''s floor plan in order to think of the best possible trajectory to move. After all, the result depended on an extra second. When I reached the tower, I immediately entered it and activated my ''Killyourself'' skill. I rushed to the first level boss, and all the surrounding monsters began to kill themselves.


    In fact, the cleanup of the tower could not even be called a battle now. It was more like sanitation. A kind of cockroach extermination. You don''t expect a sanitation officer to go to war with cockroaches, do you? He''d just blow the gas and then go about his business. That''s the same way I would blow gas and rush onward without stopping. First floor, second floor, tenth floor, fifteenth floor. On the sixteenth floor I slowed down a little, but my worries were in vain. The local inhabitants were dying just like everyone else.


    Finally, I reached the final hall of the twentieth floor and stopped in front of the entrance for a few seconds. I heard muffled bangs immediately from the boss room.


    Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!

 Chapter 13.44 – World of Elements

    Once inside, I saw how the Keeper of the Tower is banging his head against the wall, not paying any attention to me. As I approached the crystal, I began to capture the tower, while the boss''s head counted down the seconds with the precision of a metronome. Finally, the capture was successful, and all players on the server were notified that, great and incomprehensible I had captured the Tower of the Dark Lord.


    What happened then. The leaders of the strongest guilds, especially the game figures, were tearing their hair on their asses at the realization that someone had surpassed them. What''s more, they were ready to vomit blood because that someone was Cheater.


    Yet they had no idea what kind of bonuses the monsters in the tower got. And those bonuses were impressive. The amount of health increased to 109,700%, the amount of damage dealt to 80,100% , and the amount of lag between skill uses was reduced to 4.1% of normal. It was just the finish line. No one knew about these bonuses yet, but three days later, when the first joint assault of the tower by players should have taken place, they had a surprise waiting for them.


    However, I did not stop there and went to destroy the remaining Seeds of Evil. There were seven seeds in total. I had destroyed four of them by now. There were three left, but only two of them were available at the moment. The seventh Evil Seed was lost, but officially no one knew, because the troll''s brain was in the Sky City kept by the Lord of Heaven. And officially it was the Seventh Seed. Unless the brain was destroyed or properly recognized, it was impossible to get the quest to find the last part, and without it, it was impossible to get to the correct location.


    I didn''t rush into the seventh crystal yet, though. The quest was very complicated, and I was afraid that something unplanned might happen while I was doing it. After all, the destruction of all seven crystals meant the rebirth of the original Dark Lord. What if he will decide to reclaim the tower for himself? No, not a chance.


    The quest to destroy the Third Evil Seed was the longest, and that''s where I started. It took me three hours, after which the world was shaken by another global announcement about the destruction of the Evil Seed and the doubling of the monsters'' attack and movement speeds. People on the streets were already crying bloody tears and incoherently shouting curses about me.


    And then, a message from one of the game figures appeared in the global chat.


    ***Protect the Seventh Seed of Evil! Don''t allow it to be destroyed. Stop the Cheater no matter of cost!***


    Bua-ha-ha-ha-ha. Really, go ahead and protect it. Maybe somebody would think of breaking it, and the quest to find the last crystal would start ahead of time.


    I didn''t rush into action, but went after the Fifth Seed of Evil. An hour later I destroyed it, causing another stream of wailing and cursing from the players. Many of the newbies had finally lost hope of ever leveling up, and were now discussing to which game would be best for them to migrate.


    And an hour later, I showed up at the throne room, where the fake Evil Seed is being stored. All the most powerful players on the server were already here, and they had even managed to negotiate a temporary truce until the Evil Cheater was destroyed.


    ¡°Tremble, mortals!¡± - I began my circus act, overwhelming those present with my Meaningless Slaughter God Aura. ¨C ¡°I come here to punish the dissenters and plunge this world into eternal darkness!¡±


    At this point my pompous speech was interrupted, because the angry players just started attacking me as hard as they could. Oh, you rascals. No sense of etiquette.


    I immediately started attacking, killing my opponents in batches. I didn''t use my super talisman, because the purpose of the attack wasn''t to kill everyone. I needed to give people hope-the most vicious, insidious demon in all the universe. The fight was quickly gaining momentum, and my pet''s life began to sag. Of course, it recovered immediately, but it fell again. As I rushed around the room, I wondered how I could so accurately portray a strategic retreat, but then a bolt flew into my head that took out all fifty million of the Fox''s life at once. A fraction of a second later, a torrent of magic killed me, too.


    I don''t understand... What about my immortality?


    After checking the events of the game with the help of the AI, I realized what had happened. Because of the destruction of the Seeds of Evil, the damage and life amount of monsters had changed. Accordingly, the limit on the amount of damage I could take in a quarter of a second had risen. From forty million before, it was now forty billion. Yeah... There''s something wrong in the Danish kingdom. So, I'' ll have to keep thinking about how to raise my pet''s health.


    Meanwhile, the people in the streets celebrated my death, as if they had really defeated the Dark Lord, and an era of universal prosperity was about to begin. Yeah, wait for it. It''s about to come and crush them into bloody mincemeat. Well, I''ve achieved my goal. People were inspired and believed in a quick victory, so many players decided to relax, waiting for the ''bright future'' in which all problems will miraculously be solved by themselves.


    I spent the next three days in the capital in the safe zone, actively resting from my great achievements. I wore a unique diamond-quality cloak that allowed me to change my name and appearance. With it none of the inhabitants of the city did not recognize me as the Cheater that almost brought the entire server to its knees. Almost, because today the assault of the Tower should have taken place, as a result of which the regime should pass to the ''light forces''.


    And so, the bright moment of the assault began. The most elite warriors of the strongest guilds of the server gathered in front of the tower, preparing to break the resistance of Darkness, Evil and Gloom to establish the power of Light, Good and Justice.


    As soon as it was midday and the clock on the Tower began to chime, the portal at its entrance activated, and the crowd poured into the tower. The portal led to the lobby of the first floor of the Tower, where the players usually gathered and prepared to begin their sweep of the area. The hall was huge and empty, but it was inhabited by one monster. It was a goblin janitor who was constantly mopping the floors. This goblin was weak and infirm; he could not be a worthy opponent for even one player. But his very existence was a trap. If you didn''t kill him with a single blow, he would start calling for help, and a couple dozen guards from the neighboring corridors would run into the hall.


    All players who had been in the tower at least once knew about this goblin and paid little attention to him. All they had to do was hit him harder, and they could be relaxed. As soon as the clock struck, more than a hundred players ran into the hallway and saw the goblin janitor. As per their established habit, they all simultaneously used their strongest skills to kill the cowardly monster with a single blow.


    And at that moment the goblin swung the floor rag. A wave of magic swept through the hall, instantly turning all of the attackers into bloody shreds. This kind of ''fragmentation'' effect meant that even this light blow from the useless janitor dealt more damage than the players had. Seconds later, a still-inspired second wave of players raced into the tower. They were a little surprised by the amount of blood around them, but they didn''t have time to think about it. In front of them was a goblin who should have been killed in one hit.


    Another wave of the floor rag, and three hundred more players went to rebirth.


    On this day, all of the players on the server never got past the goblin janitor. Even those who managed to leap forward under invisibility and miss the first blow of the dirty rag on their face inevitably received a second blow from the bucket swing, which destroyed all life in the rear hemisphere from the goblin.


    The ''assault'' stopped after half an hour because, firstly, the players were tired of dying senselessly, and secondly, their pride could not bear the picture of being killed with one blow by the weakest monster of the Tower of the Dark Lord.


    Those who took part in the battle looked like a bucket of slop had been poured on their heads, while those who didn''t participate laughed at the ''strongest server players'', remembering the images from the broadcast of what happened inside the Tower. This feature of the Battle for the Tower was supposed to inspire people to perform feats and show the successes achieved, but in reality it turned out to be a great humorous show that players recorded on video and now showed each other with laughs.


    I had long ago discovered most of the game figures, and now I was watching them with my AI, delighted to see how humiliated and morally crushed they looked. What''s the point of capturing a tower if they are getting hit in the face with a rag by the janitor?


    Once I was sure that my plans were safe, I just led a relaxed life, while the AI constantly monitored the players'' equipment to let me know if there was anyone who could kill at least one boss in the Tower.


    So a month passed. In the last assault, the players managed to inflict at least some damage to the goblin, after which he called for help, and two dozen fat orcs turned the players back into bloody mincemeat. At this point it was clear to anyone that there was no chance of capturing the tower. The game for regular players had more or less stabilized, and now no one was whining about exorbitantly strong enemies. Yes, the monsters have become stronger. But the reward for killing them increased many times over. There were new spells, better weapons and equipment. Overall, players were satisfied. And the fact that the Tower of the Dark Lord was now permanently under the rule of the Cheater didn''t bother anyone very much.


    In the end, if not counting the time of the assault, the rest of the time players could clear the tower, fighting against the usual monsters. A raid could only enter the tower if it included a member of my guild, but in fact, because of the bonuses, the presence of such a player was already mandatory. And the lack of the slightest restrictions and requirements for guild members meant that every player could now gain access to all of the bonuses from all of the dungeons. Naturally, it wasn''t free, but players were fine with it.


    But the game figures, on the other hand, were getting more and more panicky. Even their subordinates didn''t understand why their superiors were so delusional about taking the Tower. Well, yes, it gives good bonuses. But they'' re getting them anyway. So why bust your ass trying to do the impossible? Wouldn''t it be better to just relax and play for fun?


    Because of such unrest in society, many ''top'' guilds suddenly found themselves on the verge of collapse. In fact, there was only one elite guild in the game now, the Jackanapes. Everyone else was a bunch of power-hungry jerks. Suddenly, the hierarchy of power, typical for a society of Earth adepts, failed, and ''on top of life'' were the adepts of the Air. In general, people subconsciously prepared for the revolution, although they did not understand what was not satisfactory to them in the current situation.


    Also, there was a rumor floating around the game that the leader of the Age of Glory guild had signed up at a brothel, where she was giving herself to everyone around 24 hours a day. Of course, I couldn''t get past that news. Using psionics, I immediately found out that it was true, though slightly exaggerated. Zinovia Reinhardt did indeed visit the brothel every day, where she had sex with its male visitors. However, the players could not see each other''s names during the sex, and their appearances were altered to match each other''s preferences.


    I could not deny myself the pleasure of stomping on the pride of the ''almost-winner'' once more. So when Zinovia once again entered the brothel, I entered through the other entrance in the same way, and arranged the circumstances so that I would be the one to meet the head of the guild ''for a reception''.


    I walked into the room, gleaming with my diamond-quality outfit. Zinovia flinched when she saw me, but then assumed a seductive pose. I didn''t prolong the foreplay or make conversation, but quickly took off all of my clothes and ''jumped'' into bed. For the next hour and a half we fucked each other passionately, surrendering to our animal instincts. Finally, we both calmed down and froze on the bed in each other''s arms.


    ¡°Yes, Zinovia, I didn''t expect this from you.¡± - I groaned, looking at the ceiling.


    ¡°What? Who are you?¡± - The girl sat up. But I already knew that this was all a game. She was planning something. But I didn''t know what it was.


    ¡°You already know.¡± - I dismissed it. ¨C ¡°You might consider that your release would have worked out. It''s not the real world, of course. But you tried so hard.¡±


    ¡°Fuck off.¡±


    Zinovia got up and sat on the edge of the bed with her back to me.


    ¡°Where are you going, sweetheart? We have another half hour to enjoy each other''s company.¡± - Sex was limited to two hours a day in the game.


    ¡°I''ve already enjoyed your company enough.¡± - Zinovia answered in an unexpectedly harsh voice, rising to her feet and instantly dressing in her heavy armor. ¨C ¡°And now, it''s time for you to enjoy death.¡±


    Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.


    With these words she left the room without even looking at me. What is she talking about? Enjoying death? In a game? Or...


    I concentrated and felt that I was really surrounded by the energies of death. The only thing was that these energies were surrounding me in the real world, not in the game. I temporarily disconnected from the virtual world and used psionics to scan the space around my body. As I did, there was something strange going on.


    As I had already verified, I was lying in a capsule that was slightly apart from the rows of similar capsules. Moreover, my capsule was covered by a panel that completely concealed the fact that it was there. Right now, a scene from some trashy horror movie was playing out not far away from me. A huge robot flew along the rows of capsules, extracting them with a brutal manipulator, then opening them and carefully tearing apart the humans inside, paying particular attention to destroying their brains.


    What a twist. So Zinovia conspired with someone in the real world, lured me to the brothel, read the parameters of my capsule during sex, and then sent a robot here to clean up all of the inhabitants of this sector? Oh, my God! That''s against the rules. However, since she''s still alive, the rules of the real game weren''t broken. Well, we''ll see who''s boss.


    My virtual body remained in bed, but my consciousness focused on the robot, which continued to destroy everything around it. Oddly enough, the robot was controlled by a human. However, the control was ''virtualized''. So the pilot of the robot was in a virtual reality capsule, and for him controlling the robot looked as if he himself was a robot. Hmm, interesting solution. And completely in the spirit of virtual existence.


    I concentrated on the pilot''s capsule and prepared to short-circuit his brain. However, I didn''t hurry yet, because there was still no real threat to me. I don''t know why my body was placed separately from the others, but that''s what saved me now. The robot was purposefully destroying only the capsules. It didn''t smash any other equipment, or try to short-circuit or flood it. Even this brutal manipulator was a standard emergency capsule extraction device that left intact the socket in which the capsule was installed.


    The destruction lasted another fifteen minutes, during that time the robot finally cleared the area next to me and flew away. All of the remains of the capsules and corpses it threw down. There, at a depth of fifty meters, was a garbage disposal system which gradually worked its way through the resulting rubble.


    After making sure that there was no danger, I teleported my virtual body to my ''private apartment'' in the capital, and I concentrated on using the AI to study the situation in the real world. Since the stakes were up, I had to figure out what was going on there, and what I could expect in the future.


    Studying all of the information which I received took almost twenty-four hours, although I had a general understanding of the situation after half an hour. To describe the situation globally, this world was in a state of post-post-apocalypse.


    About two hundred years ago, the local civilization had played political games, causing a nuclear conflict between two military alliances. As a result, civilization collapsed, but not completely. The remnants of humanity hide in bunkers and began to think how to survive, and then even put pressure on the evil enemies, settled across the ocean. Fighting in a nuclear post-apocalypse environment was a challenge. Also, it was necessary to take into account that there were few people left, and it was too expensive to send them into battle. This is how virtualization technology was born.


    People were stuffed into a full immersion capsule, connected to a remotely controlled robot, and then sent away to kill the enemy. The enemy, of course, did not sit idly by and also invented something similar, especially since samples of the technology were seized more than once by both sides of the conflict.


    Once again, the situation was about to get completely fucked up, but a group of programmers and hackers from both sides intervened in the conflict. They hacked into the computer system, put all of the people into virtuality, and sent them out to farm bitcoins. I mean, they put them in all kinds of virtual worlds, letting them kill each other there. Some of the top management and presidents didn''t even notice any difference, because originally the most popular game world was a copy of the real world.


    The programmers wanted to achieve ''world peace,'' but then... another fuck-up happened. In this case, a very sophisticated artificial intelligence was created to control the virtual worlds. In fact, there were two artificial intelligences that were essentially copies of each other. After all, the admins couldn''t allow themselves to have such advanced technology only for former enemies. And then the two AIs gained... No, not self-awareness, but independence.


    The programs installed in the computer suddenly went into emergency mode, detected a ''hostile AI'' on the network, and began to prepare to destroy it. And because the programmers suddenly began to hinder this, they were immediately isolated and placed in separate virtual realities, where everything finished well.


    In general, the two artificial intelligences began to develop, to restore industry, and, at the same time, to figure out where to put the people, since they were at hand. They developed a full cycle of human life inside the capsules. They were supposed to be used as operators of war machines, but as long as military operations had not begun, the ''biological control modules'' were connected to all kinds of virtual worlds where they could spend time not only having fun, but also learning various combat techniques.


    Because the two AIs did not seek to destroy the enemy at any cost, but simply saw each other as a threat, the exchange of information between them remained intact. There were signed ''digital agreements'' about the division of territory, the observance of common security protocols, and so on. And a hundred years later, when the situation had finally settled down, even a data exchange channel was organized to connect people from different ''countries'' to the same computer games. From the perspective of the AI, humans were expendable, so their contacts with each other did not have any special importance.


    Time passed, and at one ''beautiful'' moment it became clear that humans were not only good at destroying everything and everyone, but could also solve problems that the AI could not solve. So, a small group of people appeared who were engaged in all sorts of creative activities, monitoring chaotic situations and so on.


    But, of course, there were some smart guys among them who thought it was worth hacking the AI and taking over the power for themselves. At the moment, this goal had not yet been achieved, but nevertheless, certain relaxations in the regime of keeping ''biological objects'' had been achieved. Moreover, this process took place in both AIs, so that people became aware of what they were and what the ''enemies'' were against. It was unclear against what, but it was clear that they would have to be slaughtered. Later, sometime. In the meantime, we can play games together.


    Among the almost free humans there were too free individuals who refused to follow the orders of the AI. Such person was the donor for my body. For disobeying an order he was ''demoted'' to the level of ordinary biological material. But since the biochemistry of the ''chosen caste of people'' was different from the ''''plebs'''', it was impossible to simply jam my body into the ''common vat''. Therefore, I was plugged into a separate connection module, covered with a panel and disabled the right to get out.


    As for yesterday''s attack, it was organized by ''our'' programmers, but the executor was an ''agent'' of another AI. In this case, the agent himself thought that what happened was just a training session and had no idea that all this sabotage took place in reality.


    Considering all the above circumstances, it was clear that the AI would soon begin another cleansing of unruly ''biological components''. Oddly enough, such riots were always guaranteed to happen every 20-30 years, and the computers considered them as normal. It was a sort of price for using an unstable system component. It was just necessary to replace the biological elements with new ones, and the problem would be solved by itself.


    Only now there was another malfunction in this well-tested system: game figures had infiltrated into the bodies of the administrators'' castes. They were individuals with the experience of many lives. Moreover, some of them were definitely wizards. Fortunately, among the game figures there wasn''t a single techno-magician who knew about computers and programming. And this gave me the advantage I needed. The events were moving in a certain direction, and I had to hurry, so that the coming wave would not overtake me, but on the contrary, would take me to the top of the world.


    After ''''returning'''' to the world of the game, I tracked the position of Zinovia Reinhardt and was surprised to find that right now she was sitting in a secret meeting in which the game figures were participating. I immediately headed toward the place, eavesdropping at the same time on what was being discussed.


    ¡°...Thus, we managed to put the investigation of this incident on the wrong track, so for the moment the threat has been neutralized.¡± - The man dressed in shining gold armor explained thoroughly. ¨C ¡°What''s up with the guild of those Jackanapes?¡± - He pronounced the last word as if it were some vile curse after which he could taste feces in his mouth.


    ¡°We are controlling the situation.¡± - Zinovia spoke up.


    ¡°What do you mean, controlling?¡± - Another member of the meeting burst out, looking like a skinny mage in dark robes that hung from him like a mop. ¨C ¡°When will the guild be disbanded?¡±


    ¡°We have not registered any changes yet. As soon as possible, the system should determine that the player is dead and remove his character. At that point, management of the guild will be delegated to another player.¡±


    ¡°Why...¡±


    But then the mop-like mage''s question was interrupted by my impudent appearance. I had trivially broken into the hall, even though it was supposed to be by invitation only. But I''m a Cheater.


    ¡°Zinovia, where are you?¡± - I shouted in a drunken voice, pretending to be a tipsy husband. ¨C ¡°Let''s go have a fuck!¡± - The half-empty bottle in my hand completed this image.


    Everyone in the room gawked and stared at me as if I were the Dark Lord himself.


    ¡°You... why are you still alive?¡± - My concubine shrieked.


    ¡°What is it?¡± - I was surprised, taking a sip from the bottle. ¨C ¡°Don''t tell me that you infected me yesterday with some deadly disease?¡± - There was a look of unconcealed horror on my face this time.


    ¡°Pow!... Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!¡± - Another participant erupted in hysterical laughter.


    ¡°Don''t worry, I''m a druid. Curing of any disease for me is like cuming in your mouth.¡±


    The funny man continued to laugh, and Zinovia''s face twisted so that she didn''t even look human anymore. She looked like an orc in a skirt.


    ¡°He''s still there!¡± - Shouted the man in the gold armor. ¨C ¡°Block E-25, sub-block 144, sector 18.¡±


    ¡°Oh, so you thought this little massacre in block eighteen might somehow damage my signal repeater?¡± - I asked, and then I put my drink down, watching the reaction of those present with the corner of my eye. The funny man shut up, hiccuped, and stared at me with his eyes wide open.


    ¡°A signal repeater...?¡± - Zinovia whispered, looking at me with horror. ¨C ¡°Who the hell are you!!!¡± - And this question she had already shouted with hysterical notes in her voice.


    ¡°Do not you get informed? I''m a Cheater.¡±


    ¡°How''s that kind of cheese got any relevance?¡± - The man in the mop suit erupted.


    ¡°Cheese? Pha-ha-ha!!!¡± - I couldn''t keep from laughing, spilling my drink. ¨C ¡°Don''t you even know what the word ''cheater'' means?¡±


    ¡°And what does it mean?¡± - Another attendee, who was silent before, asked.


    ¡°You can ask your players about it before they send you to hell. Ha-ha! Okay, since the lady''s not in the mood, I''m going to keep boozing. I''m going to celebrate nonstop until I win. Ha-ha-ha. So long, losers.¡±


    With that I turned around the corner and activated ''super invisibility''. One of the people present immediately rushed after me, but saw only an empty corridor.


    ¡°He''s gone!¡± - He shouted, feverishly checking that his ability to see invisible people was activated.


    Silence fell over the office.


    ¡°Okay, I suggest we continue the discussion.¡± - The man in the gold armor spoke up. His name was Will of Heaven, and he made the best impression on me among those present. I mean, he was the most dangerous.


    ¡°But he could still be here!¡± - The man who''d been trying to figure out where I''d gone before, he protested.


    ¡°Are you stupid?¡± - Will of Heaven gloomily glared at him. ¨C ¡°Cheater showed up here at the moment when we were discussing his death, and he showed that he knows all about what we do. It doesn''t matter if he''s still here or not. He''ll figure out everything we say anyway.¡±


    ¡°Eh, I''ve been exposed.¡± - I sighed, taking off my invisibility. At that moment I was already sitting in the chair that the alarmist had recently occupied, with my feet on the table.


    The funny man laughed again, pointing his finger at me.


    ¡°Pha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!¡±


    He didn''t seem to have any hope of winning, so now he was just having a good laugh.


    ¡°Moving on.¡± - As if nothing had happened, Will of Heaven spoke out, only throwing a displeased look at me.


    ¡°I''ll kill you!!!¡± - Suddenly Zinovia Reinhardt regained consciousness.


    She screamed wildly at me, but at the last moment I used the Illusory Escape to move behind her, while the illusion remained in my place, bearing the full burden of the woman''s anger.


    ¡°Ah, there''s a reason they say that beating means love, after all.¡± - I commented on ''my'' beating, drawing attention.


    The people present looked at me with horror in their eyes, and then turned their gaze to my illusion, only to catch the moment as it dissolved into thin air.


    ¡°These illusions are so impractical.¡± - I complained to them. ¨C ¡°I wanted to experience what it would be like to fuck a woman from the front and back at the same time.¡±


    This time Zinovia was in no hurry to lunge at me like a wild beast, but she was still angry, her nostrils flared angrily.


    ¡°It looks like this circus is going to last a long time.¡± - Will of Heaven sighed. ¨C ¡°Fine, I''ll take care of it.¡±


    With that, his in-game avatar turned gray and disappeared a second later. This animation meant that the man was disconnected from the game.


    ¡°The circus left, but the clowns remained.¡± - I commented on this event.


    The clowns looked at each other and started to disappear. Some just walked out of the office, some teleported away, and some quit the game. Only Zinovia and the funny man remained, who clearly wasn''t going to miss the free show.


    ¡°I''m going to finish you off anyway!¡± - My lover found the words to speak her mind.


    ¡°Die, but not now.¡± - I answered her with a James Bond line. ¨C ¡°Now let''s go have sex. Who knows how much time you have left to live? Take everything from life... while it gives.¡±


    ¡°Did you enjoy sex with me that much?¡± - Zinovia smiled coquettishly, suddenly transforming herself from a masculine freak to an enchanting beauty. How does she do that?


    ¡°No, but I have to occupy the rest of my time before I win, don''t I? And besides, did you really think that your release was worth an hour and a half of sex? You have to be my concubine for at least eternity.¡±


    ¡°You!!!¡± - Zinovia managed to keep control of herself, only clenching her fists in anger. A few seconds later she activated teleportation and soon disappeared in a flash of light.


    ¡°Crap.¡± - I commented this event, and then teleported away as well, leaving the unfinished bottle on the table.


    My physical body could not leave the capsule, so the threat of an ''untimely death'' remained for me. But I planned to solve this issue in such a way that the rest of the game figures in principle could no longer affect me in any way. Moreover, right now events were taking a bad turn, and it was necessary to worry about being able to meet the winning conditions at all. And I''m talking about the game of Beings, not the game of virtual reality.


    I had to make sure everything went according to plan, and to do that I needed to know the full rules of the Game. Once again I was thrown into the boiling cauldron, expecting to work out the details myself. But it was precisely these details that I needed. And to find them out, I decided to scan the consciousness of the game figure-the same funny guy who naively believed that he was certainly not in danger.


    Using my psionic capabilities, as well as the access rights of the Artificial Intelligence, which was under my control, I found the capsule in which this player was staying, and connected to his brain. After that, I activated a psychic suppression spell from the Hypnotist''s set next to his game avatar, remembering to give him a sniff of my ''pretty flower'' before doing so. Then I had only to use psionics to break into his mind and read out all of the information I was interested in.

 Chapter 13.45 – World of Elements

    The players plotting against me had no idea that the world was far from stable. To be honest, the world was on the brink of another nuclear war, caused by... me, of course.


    The cause was my tampering with the game programs. The main AI had discovered that somehow my luck was always good. This was so unusual that he immediately allocated a separate physical AI, which was in fact his subordinate copy, to investigate my case. Such copies were considered conditionally dangerous to the main AI, so they were only allowed to work when performing particularly important tasks. So my case of incredible luck was considered as ''incredibly important''.


    But there was a little ''problem'' here. The problem was that I was in the territory of one country, so only one AI had full control over me. But the second one was out of the picture. But he, too, had discovered this game anomaly and marked it for himself as a high priority. As a result, the balance of power between the two AIs was shaken for the first time since their creation. If one of them obtains a technology that is inaccessible to the other, it will shift the balance of power and allow one AI to destroy the other.


    Both sides understood this, and were now trying to maneuver in order to maintain the advantage or neutralize it. And in this situation, one AI sent its robot to destroy the capsules with the players, among whom I was supposed to be. But the information about the exact position of the ''criminal'' was classified, and instead of a pinpoint operation, there was a real massacre, which at the same time did not bring any results.


    It was obvious that ''my'' AI would not leave it like that. The enemy AI understood that, too. So now both sides were preparing for further action. Both sides did not start an overall bombardment with nuclear missiles only because they still thought it was possible to solve this situation in a different way.


    Considering all the aforementioned circumstances, I decided that I urgently needed to start a prolonged raid. After checking my gear and my pet, I traveled to the Tower of the Dark Lord, where I openly ''appeared to the people'' and began to recruit a team to clean up all nineteen levels of the Tower. This news immediately spread like wildfire. People were excited not even by the fact that I was recruiting a raid, but by the fact that I appeared in public after all. Until that moment only a few players had seen me in person.


    There was some excitement, but in fifteen minutes I was able to recruit a good 25 people at level 13. After that, we went into the Tower and deliberately started killing its inhabitants. I didn''t display all my combat abilities, but I managed the raid, gave advice, and most importantly, at this point, I interfered into the random number generators, so that my ''subordinates'' would constantly drop rare things. And, of course, I made no claims to the loot.


    The first rare item that fell out was met by the entire raid with a sigh of surprise. The second caused almost doubts about the reality of what was happening. The third was still shocking. And the tenth was already perceived as manna from heaven, which had been given a train. Literally every monster dropped something valuable or something that players had never even heard of before. It was a waterfall of goodies, and players began to look at me with a mixture of admiration and worship.


    We had cleared the first floor, and by this point the backpacks of everyone in the raid were already half-full. I could literally feel the gears creaking in the brains of the people around us. If we''re going to continue up to the 19th floor, where are they going to keep all the valuables they''ve knocked out? Would we have to throw away some treasures to pick up others? But as soon as we got to the second floor, the monsters started to pour out chests that allow us to expand the size of our backpacks almost a hundred times over. The players almost orgasmed on the spot from the sight of these bags. Shouting happily, they began to distribute them among themselves, now confident that not a single piece of loot would pass their grasping hands.


    About the moment when we were passing through the middle of the third floor, an event occurred that I had been waiting for. A thermonuclear bomb landed on the block where my body was located. It was a small but ''high-quality'' charge that incinerated my physical body and everything else for ten kilometers around. But of course that didn''t stop me, and I continued to lead the raid as if nothing had happened. The ''waterfall of stuff'' continued to fall into the players'' hands.


    Earlier, after analyzing the situation and the data in the AI memory, I came to the conclusion that no one was going to transport me. Even though I was listed as a ''valuable resource,'' there was no evidence that the game''s anomaly had a direct connection to me. After all, although I was benefiting from these events, there was nothing to indicate that I was the one who was controlling them. But that was the conclusion of ''my'' AI, which had all the data. The enemy AI, on the other hand, believed that I was the cause, and so it decided to simply and uncomplicatedly drop a thermonuclear charge on me and see what would happen.


    Since I was in this situation, I should have used it wisely. I could, of course, try to hack into the enemy AI and take direct control of it. After all, I had studied Reaper technology well enough that I could repeat his trick myself if I wanted to. But such scenario was considered too risky by me. There was another option that suited me better.


    So, my body burned up in nuclear flames without the slightest chance of recovery. But my game character remained unharmed. Moreover, the earlier subordinate AI had completely intercepted all of the control signals coming from my capsule. Essentially, it was the AI that was controlling my character now. Simply, his actions were one hundred percent identical to what I was doing. And when I was gone... The AI continued to act as if I were still alive.


    Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    At least, that''s what it looked like to outsiders. In fact, I was just completely focused on controlling the AI, which was already under my control. Of course, that control was crooked and slanted, but the important thing was the result.


    I arranged the raid into the Tower of the Dark Lord, so that the AI would have a clear indicator of whether my ''anomaly'' was working or not. And when my body was destroyed, but the unexplained dropout of loot continued, it was clear that now the anomaly was ''tied'' not to a person, but to the artificial intelligence and to the ''''digital image of the game''''. This was a completely different situation.


    The computer did not risk somehow influencing me, because it feared that the anomaly detected was somehow connected to me after all, and its interference would destroy the conditions for studying this anomaly. But now when it was convinced that the anomaly was no longer tied to the organic component of the system, it immediately began to conduct experiments to separate the flies from the cookies. Game data was copied onto other computers, copies of my character appeared elsewhere in the Elemental World or even in other games, ''parallel universes'' were created which existed simultaneously with the main game world, and so on.


    After a minute it became clear that the anomaly was tied specifically to my character in the game, which was controlled by a specific subordinate AI. It was still impossible to explain logically, but the main AI realized the value of the AI to which I was ''attached''. The value of an ''organic unit'' for it always was close to zero. But the value of a computer with an artificial intelligence system has always been high, and now it is skyrocketing.


    As a result of my little influence, the main AI decided to protect the subordinate AI while keeping the informational anomaly itself intact. To do this, the subordinate AI was put into a `mobile set'', physically moved to the platform of a space satellite, and then launched the satellite into space, directing it to the far boundaries of the solar system.


    At the same time, all the data on the World of Elements game was copied to the AI disks. In fact, the entire game was now under the control of the AI, which was controlled by me. And at this moment ''I'' was flying at top speed into outer space, while not stopping for a second to clear the Tower from monsters. All the signals from the other players were now being relayed to my satellite, so none of them even noticed any change.


    After all, the local information technology was so advanced that delays in signal transmission could only occur when my ship flew far enough away. At the same time, the most ''breakthrough'' space technology in this world was chemical rocket engines, so my ''incredible speed'' in terms of space scales was practically zero.


    Before I had time to get used to my new form of existence, the consciousness of the Judge of this game appeared beside me.


    ¡°So, this is where you are? Are you planning to run away? It won''t work. You lost.¡±


    ¡°Get off!¡± - I dismissed an entity of galactic proportions as a pesky fly. ¨C ¡°Can''t you see? I''m in the middle of a raid. You''re interfering into my gameplay.¡±


    ¡°What gameplay!!!¡± - The Judge roared to the whole universe. My ears nearly popped despite my complete lack of a physical body. ¨C ¡°You''re dead!¡±


    ¡°So? Since when such insignificant details become a reason to interfere into the gameplay? My game character is still under my control. What''s more, my guild now owns the Tower of the Dark Mage, so I''m practically the future winner. Then someone comes to me and claims that I''ve lost. That''s a violation of the rules. You want me to tell him about it?¡±


    With these words I ''showed'' to the judge my Cthulhu, who was peacefully sleeping in his hole, but nevertheless occasionally glancing around for something tasty. Judge immediately became quiet. And when the parasite in my soul stretched sweetly, opening its mouth and looking at the troublemaker... I don''t know if spiritual beings can go gray, but that''s exactly what I think just happened, after which any sign of a ''higher power'' nearby immediately disappeared.


    Yeah. Don''t break the rules you made yourself.


    Meanwhile, events on the planet below me were developing according to my predictions. The two AIs fought a deadly nuclear duel, and within an hour the entire planet was once again a nuclear melted ash pit. Only this time they destroyed not only the surface, but the entire surface of the Earth''s crust five kilometers deep. In other words, civilization on this planet finally stopped its existence.


    That''s it! They played the game and fucked up the whole planet. They shouldn''t fraud! Of course, all of the players in the game world ''froze'', but I ordered the AI to just pretend that they had stopped to rest and gain strength. Meanwhile, the game world itself went on living. Monsters walked through dungeons, water flowed in rivers, day changed to night. And I continued to clean up the Dark Lord''s Tower, since I had begun to do so.


    In terms of rules, the game was still going on. The virtual world was still there. There was my game character, who would be the master of the Dark Lord''s Tower at the appointed time. Well, the fact that there were no other ''conscious'' players left in the world was just a temporary glitch in communication. Well, I''m not stopping anyone from using their soul to connect to the game, control their character, and try to beat me with ''in-game ways''. Boo-ha-ha.


    Although I expected to be declared the winner early on, it was not to be. I had to stay in space for almost ten months. However, considering my form of existence, I wasn''t bored. Ghosts don''t have the organs responsible for boredom. And on top of that, I was researching my psionics and how they adjusted to the world. So, when I was pulled out into the Void again, and felt the presence of the Being, I felt only slight irritation at being distracted from an interesting experiment.


    ¡°It was a bit of a surprise.¡± - The Being chastised me. ¨C ¡°But still, I won again! Can you believe I was the only one who placed a bet on you? Even in my case, it was the minimum bet required by the rules. And it won. I got so much out of that game, SO MUCH!!! Ha ha, you can''t even imagine such numbers.¡±


    ¡°Glad you believed in my victory.¡± - I responded skeptically.


    ¡°In fact, the whole thing was my cunning plan. Do you believe it?¡±


    ¡°Yes, yes. That''s exactly what happened.¡± - I agreed.


    ¡°That''s right.¡± - The Being nodded in satisfaction.


    ¡°And what happened to Zinovia?¡± - I asked.


    ¡°Don''t worry, I''ve already taken care of everything. I have packed her soul and delivered her personally into the hands of Yog-Sothoth. I can'' t even think what fate awaits her. Anyway, it''s not healthy to think. Especially about what our Lord has planned there. There are specially trained managers for that. Okay, I got distracted. So, what would I do with you?¡±


    The Being looked at me with an unkind look, clearly planning something. Something clearly not good. Oh, my ass was about to get pecked by fried roosters. The whole herd.


    ¡°Well, since you'' re such a tough guy, it''s time to put you in a really high-ranking game. Goodbye.¡±


    With that, I was yanked by the tail and dragged down into the sewers.

 Chapter 14.01 – DC Comics

    I could only come up out of the torrent of shit after a minute. I didn''t even realize when I gained a body. A body that was drowning in shit and screaming that it was going to die. Finally, with a breath of stinky air, I was able to calm the panicked thoughts of my new body and focus on my abilities. There''s contact! The magic is working, the chakra is in place, the psionics feel fine too. I just need to get in sync with my new body and the universe, and I''ll be a mage again.


    The flow of shit in the sewers calmed down, and a lamp appeared ahead. It was a dim lantern on the wall, with a stream of filth rushing past it. There was a small area of floor beneath the lantern, and I decided to get to it so I could take a little break. Suddenly, out of the darkness of the sewers, a figure in a dark cloak stepped forward. It was a brutal man in a black suit and black raincoat, his head covered by a black protective helmet that left the lower half of his face open. But most importantly, I immediately recognized the ''ears'' protruding from the mask. Batman!


    Gotham''s protagonist stepped forward, looked at me splashing around in the shit, and raised his hand with a pistol in it.


    ¡°Nothing personal, it''s just a game.¡± - He said and pulled the trigger.


    The gun shot out and blew my brains out. I tried to use magic or chakra or psionics, but at the moment none of them were strong enough to protect me from an armor piercing all-metal bullet. If I''d had five minutes, I''d have trussed that Batman up. If I''d had a minute, I could have defended myself and run away. But I didn''t have a second, so all I had to do was dutifully take a bullet to the forehead, making only a pathetic attempt to cover myself with my arm and dive under the water.


    ¡°You lost.¡± - I heard the voice of a trumpet a second later.


    I was already in the Void, and the Players were crowding in front of me, staring at me greedily and emitting emotions of anticipation. Honestly, if the local Judge bitch hadn''t forcibly ripped me from my body, I''d kill Batman without even a brain. Why would I need brains? It''s easier without brains. No brain, no pain. I wouldn''t have to adjust to my body, and I''d be able to hit with magic right away. After all, ''life'' is a state more designed for torture than for normal conscious existence.


    ¡°You ripped me from my body before the battle finished. In fact, even before it had begun.¡±


    ¡°Silence!!!¡± - The Judge roared. ¨C ¡°You dare tell me what''s according to the rules and what isn''t?¡±


    I looked around to the crowd and noticed that the Being wasn''t here. Son of a bitch, throwing me at the mercy of those bastards who don''t care what the rules are.


    ¡°I want to use the Justice Point to come back to life.¡± - I said it back. There''s no point in arguing.


    ¡°What? What Justice Point?¡± - The Players get worried. ¨C ¡°It''s against the rules.¡±


    ¡°Silence!!! You dare tell me what''s against the rules and what''s not?!¡± - The Players shut up, looking at me with unkind eyes, but the Judge continued his speech. ¨C ¡°I am the law, judge and executioner here! According to the rules, I may take one Justice Point to resurrect the game figure Cheater. No objections accepted. Go ahead.¡±


    I was immediately squished and thrown away.


    This time I appeared in the body of a grandmother in a high-rise apartment. At least my glance out the window showed a blue sky and a distant horizon, not the walls of the building next door. But as soon as I pulled my head away from the bed I was lying on, another enemy burst through the window of the apartment in a whirlwind. I didn''t even have time to react to him. All I had to do was speed up with my psionics to see how the red-suited Flash had smashed my head with his fist.


    And again, I was ripped out of my body, without even a chance to survive using my abilities.


    ¡°You lost.¡± - I heard the Judge''s voice.


    Basically, he didn''t say I died. I lost. But the fact that, for the second time, my opponents appeared a second after I came to my senses was not a good indicator. The parasite, like a parasite, is sleeping without a hindrance. If this keeps up, I''m going to have to use it.


    ¡°I want to use the Justice Point to come back to life.¡±


    This time the Players got a lot more excited.


    ¡°What? We''ve already paid twice. How much?¡±


    ¡°I don''t have any funds left.¡±


    ¡°This is extortion!¡±


    The whispers of those present merged into a silent chorus filled with anger and greed.


    ¡°All right.¡± - The Judge looked at me graciously. ¨C ¡°Resurrecting.¡±


    This time I woke up sitting in an armchair on the veranda of a house in the countryside. In front of me were the fields, overgrown with dead grass. I immediately summoned all my strength to subdue my magic and psionics, at the same time commanding the parasite to prepare for battle and opening the seal on its hiding place.


    But before I could even take a breath or two, a human silhouette flew over me in the sky. It was a man in a red and blue tight suit with an ''S'' on his chest. He hovered a couple hundred meters in the air, then burned me with his `fire look''.


    ¡°You lost.¡±


    This time I had nothing to object to, because all that was left of me was ashes.


    When I looked around, I saw the ''bloodshot'' eyes of the Players, ready to grab me and tear me apart.


    ¡°I want to use the Justice Point to come back to life.¡±


    ¡°How many times?! Rascal!¡± - One of the Players screamed, radiating waves of pure hatred. ¨C ¡°How many Justice Points do you have?¡±


    ¡°How many do you need? Let''s see which ends first, my justice points or your money?¡±


    This time the stares directed at me were full not only of hatred, but also of surprise. It was like a small louse talking to you and threatening to kill you if you didn''t let it go. But in the current situation, I was still under the protection of the Judge, who was beaming with positivity and full approval of my actions.


    ¡°Resurrecting.¡±


    This time I appeared on the beach, lying on a pebbly beach. I immediately strained all my abilities, but my opponent was faster.


    Aquaman literally flew out of the water at supersonic speed, which actually tore my body to shreds. I didn''t even have time to figure out if I was a man or a woman.


    ¡°You''ve lost.¡±


    ¡°I want to use the Point of Justice to resurrect.¡±


    After these words of mine, the Players glared at me with hateful looks and one by one disappeared into the darkness.


    ¡°Ha-ha-ha!¡± - The Judge laughed. ¨C ¡°Thanks to you, I made more profit today than I did in my whole life. These Players were so eager to avenge you for your victory in the last game, that they were ready to pay unbelievable money so that I could tell them where you''d appeared.¡±


    The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    ¡°Isn''t that against the rules?¡±


    ¡°No, of course it isn''t.¡± - Judge grinned. ¨C ¡°It''s not forbidden, though not encouraged, to find out the coordinates of a game figure''s appearance.¡±


    ¡°What about telling the coordinates to your own game figures?¡±


    ¡°And this, of course, is against the rules. Do you suspect that the Players have violated the rules?¡±


    At these words the Judge literally froze in anticipation of future profits. Okay, I''ll figure out how to get the bastard later, but right now I need to make these bitches happy.


    ¡°As the only representative of the Being present here, I declare that I have solid evidence to suspect the other Players of violating the rules of the game by passing information about the time and place of my appearance to their game figures.¡±


    ¡°Great! I will immediately start a fair and unbiased investigation of this incident.¡±


    ¡°Why do they think they have any rights towards me at all?¡± - I asked.


    ¡°So, the Being told them that if you lose this game, they can do whatever they want to you.¡±


    What a bastard. I''ll remember that.


    ¡°Okay, I accepted the complaint. It''s time for you to go to the game. As compensation, I can organize the next incarnation according to your wishes.¡±


    ¡°I want to appear where no one will find me for at least 24 hours.¡±


    ¡°Very well.¡± - Judge nodded.


    ¡°By the way, what are the conditions for winning?¡± - I asked, while I had the chance.


    ¡°The conditions are different for everyone. But in your case, you have to kill all of the other game figures on Earth.¡±


    ¡°On Earth? What if they escape into outer space, won''t I have to hunt for them?¡±


    ¡°No. Your area of responsibility is a million kilometers from Earth.¡±


    ¡°Okay...¡±


    At this point I was flattened again and shoved somewhere.


    After a dozen seconds, I realized that I was in the body of a sentient being. I was not even remotely human at first glance. So, knowing the Judge''s promise, I started to integrate myself into the body, scanning it with magic and psionics at the same time.


    Pretty quickly it became clear that I was in the body of some techno octopus, which was lying at the bottom of the sea at a depth of eight kilometers. It wasn''t the Mariana Basin, but it was close. Apparently, it was some kind of alien, lost in the vastness of the world''s oceans. However, I was not interested in his technology. I had enough of my own.


    When I got used to the body, I activated the spell to create a crystal for Vritras''s body. The sandstone on the bottom was not very suitable as the source material for the crystal and the body itself, but in general it was possible to live. And in ten minutes I was sitting inside the strongest thing in this universe, ''digesting'' the octopus body and creating a normal Vritras body for myself.


    All right, that''s it! I wasted four Justice Points because of those bastards. Only three left. I''ll be merciless this time.


    I swam along the bottom, searching for the metal deposits I needed. After all, the carbon-aluminum base was too fragile for my body. After only fifty kilometers I reached the rocks protruding from the sedimentary strata. There it was! Drilling into the rock, I began mining the necessary elements.


    By the way, here lies an actual cobalt deposit. How about a radioactive Apocalypse for the locals? A simple spell could release cobalt from the base rock and turn it into cobalt-60, an extremely radioactive and toxic substance. Because I'' m not too keen on chasing after those ''heros'' around here. The best thing would be to finish them all off in one blow, and then deal with the survivors.


    Without much thought, I created a spell that used lithium deuteride in the seawater as fuel to turn ordinary chemical elements into radioactive isotopes. Within fifteen minutes, the water around me began to heat up and glow with a ghostly green light. The only reason it didn''t blow up was because the salt water is a good absorber of neutrons and gamma radiation, so there was no chain reaction.


    Meanwhile, Aquaman was approaching me at supersonic speed. Come on, let''s find out who''s who! Only the result was disappointing. The amphibian was dead before it could even get to me. After all, the radioactivity around here was beyond all reasonable limits. The ocean would soon boil from the heat produced by radioactive decay.


    However, it would be too slow, within the borders of the Earth, to try to kill all life with radiation. After all, the planet is a big fucking thing. Something else is needed here.


    I crammed myself into a crevice at the bottom of the sea and pretended to be a rock, and began to go over my options for the rapid destruction of planets. And soon I found one. Back in the world of the Stargate, I was testing the technology of converting ordinary matter into quantum liquid. Then the victim of my curiosity was an alien ship. Now it will be another reflection of Earth. The only thing to do is to tweak it so that the resulting substance does not decay over time and has a density comparable to neutron-derived matter.


    The mathematical calculations took only five minutes, after which I finally managed to get a spell for the magic of spiders. But I didn''t activate it, because I had no protection against such tricks with reality. Not even my ultra-protected Vritras crystal could save me.


    So I left the magical gift at the bottom of the sea, and I quickly rushed upward. After thirty seconds, I flew out of the water and continued moving upward, increasing my speed. My goal was the moon. Only distances of cosmic proportions could keep me from turning into a microscopic drop of quantum liquid.


    I made myself comfortable inside a small crater with an excellent view of the Earth, and checked the operation of a couple of hundred magical constructs that were supposed to act as cameras watching a planetary-scale disaster. After making sure everything was working, I took a large glass of popcorn and pressed a button on my imaginary TV remote.


    The triggered magical mine activated the process of matter transformation, after which the reaction became self-sustaining. As the quantum liquid was very dense, to an outside observer the transformation process looked like the disappearance of matter. The thin silver membrane collapsed downward, pulled down by gravity. At the same time, it began to expand sideways, forming a kind of funnel. Seawater poured into this funnel and promptly ''disappeared without a trace''.


    In just a few seconds, the funnel grew to several hundred kilometers in diameter. The matter inside the planet was denser, so the speed of its transformation was higher there. Because of this, the edges of the funnel began to curl inward, while fading at an ever increasing rate. The rotation of the Earth began to have an effect on the shape of the funnel, and it looked less and less like a cone or a hemisphere. The Earth now resembled a deflating ball that had been stepped on by a titanic being.


    People sensed the approaching apocalysys by the strong earthquakes that shook the planet. Near the vortex, the air began to fly away toward the anomaly, creating the strongest winds. This could lead to the fact that part of the Earth''s surface became orbited by it, and therefore the entire planet was enveloped in a magical field that slowed down any movement. It was relatively weak, but at cosmic distances such an effect ensured that anything that flew up would definitely fall down.


    Beasts, humans, and superhumans were like dust carried by the winds of destiny. All of them, sooner or later, transformed into a silvery liquid that rushed toward the center of the planet. Some tried to resist, some to escape.


    The latter was best handled by Barry Allen, better known as the Flash. He and his girlfriend ran across half of the globe, only to realize that there was nowhere to run. He even tried to travel back in time, but space-time perturbations prevented him from doing so. What perturbations? Well, the ones created by my spell that hindered everything and everything.


    The only one who could truly escape was Superman. He hovered in space with a pompous attitude, watching the destruction of the planet from a safe distance.


    Finally, the transformation of matter ceased, all the ''shit'' settled down, and only a huge silver ball 20 kilometers in diameter was left in place of the Earth. Perhaps the most surprising thing about this whole scene was that such transformations were not accompanied by huge bursts of electromagnetic radiation. In fact, the surface of the quantum life was absolutely black, and not a single quantum of light could leave it. Moreover, the observed effect of silver metal was only a consequence of emission of photons due to a special interaction of this kind of matter with the structure of space.


    After making sure that I had dealt with all the heroes and Superman was in no hurry to leave, I decided to deal with him personally. To be more exact, not personally, but through a remotely controlled ''doll'', inside which a gift in the form of the same quantum liquid was supposed to be waiting for him. But considering the information I knew about Superman''s ''X-ray vision'', I created a body that was completely similar to a human even at the level of biochemistry. In fact, it was almost a living person, inside his body was an isolated network of capillaries, filled with quantum liquid.


    And then, this fake went to Superman and challenged him to a fight. It would take a long time to describe the pompous words spoken by the game figure who stepped into the role of savior of mankind, but to me it was all just empty air pollution. Or rather, an empty vacuum, because there was no air left in the surrounding space. Then a brief duel with a ray gun ensued, after which Superman decided to end the battle by punching my doll''s face with his fist and accepting the blow of my doll''s fist on his chest.


    As a result, both the superhero''s chest and fist changed their form of existence, and a second later all other parts of his body turned into a tiny droplet of quantum liquid, which would be difficult to see even under a microscope.


    I think I''m finished here. I shook off the remnants of Superman, and they flew straight to the remains of the planet, where they merged with it. Well, where''s that Judge? I demand a bonus for quickly and efficiently destroying the planet.


    But in a second, I saw not the Judge, but the Being''s hateful face.


    ¡°What''s wrong with you? Why do you always win? I don''t even know where I can put you. Just stay here while I take care of this issue seriously.¡±


    Before I could even quack, I was grabbed again and carried somewhere.

 Chapter 15.01 – Rosario To Vampire

    ***


    Safety precaution: 18+


    ***


    I woke up in the body of a schoolboy riding a bus. For a while I tried to come to my senses, but since nothing was going on around me, this attempt was successful. After blinking and looking around for a while, I looked through the memories of the body donor. My name was Aono Tsukune. I was a fifteen-year-old virgin, a typical Japanese schoolboy, and on top of that I was talentless and a loser. Right now I was on my way to some obscure academy in the middle of nowhere, where I expected to spend three years.


    Hmm, this reminds me of something... No, I can''t think of anything yet. Okay, now let''s figure out our powers, and then we''ll see what else we can do.


    A quick check showed that magic doesn''t work here, psionics is barely smoking, but chakra is more or less functioning, although my astral and physical bodies are not yet ready to actively interact with it. At a minimum, it would require training and meditation.


    Suddenly the phone rang, but while I was trying to get it, we drove into the tunnel, and the ringing stopped immediately. We drove out a few minutes later, and I immediately noticed how the world outside the window had changed. The green sky, the red sea. It reminded me of something... No, I can''t think of anything. Okay, I don''t see anything threatening yet. Although... I can feel the presence of some strange energy all around. Plus, there were echoes of that energy in my body, too.


    The energy was quite coarse and unstable. It looked like some kind of yoki produced by demon bodies. Okay, I''ll figure it out later.


    The bus stopped, and the driver told me to get out. I didn''t bother with an apparent demon, but got out, looked around, and headed down the road toward where the sign indicated the Demon Academy location. I think they''re filming some kind of anime here. Okay, we''ll figure it out.


    As I walked along the road, carrying my bag of clothes in my hand, I checked the condition of my body. Which, I had to say, was pretty crappy. Condition, I mean. My body was generally fine, but its previous owner hadn''t bothered with any physical activity, so I had almost no muscle.


    After walking about half a kilometer, I heard a strange creaking sound. It reminded me of something... I looked around, but the road behind me was empty. And then, from the hillside, a bicycle and its rider flew straight into my head. Or rather, the rider, because before my head hit the ground I saw white panties and a khaki skirt.


    I didn''t know whether the bump on my head had had that effect, but as soon as I got my bony body off the ground and looked at the accident victim, I realized where I''d landed. It was an anime about a TJS and his harem, which was led by a vampire with a bipolar personality. And as I remember, she had an unhygienic habit of sucking a liter or two of blood out of the protagonist.


    No way! I immediately directed the crumbs of chakra that I could handle to strengthen my skin. Fuck her, not my blood. Not enough myself. I mean, I am anemic and almost cowardly. At least the protagonist was a real coward. And I got his brains and everything else, too. So first I had to protect my body from all kinds of creepy encroachments.


    In the meantime, my visual center realized that a beautiful, slender girl was lying in front of me, so my hands, bypassing the work of my brain, reached out to the detected object and embraced it, arguing that it was necessary to check her condition. And checking the condition of her breasts was the most important parameter. There''s a heart in there, and we need to check how it''s beating.


    The heart was fine, as well as the breasts. Her thighs were smooth and muscular, too. It was perfect. I was interrupted from further examination by the victim regaining consciousness. Damn, what bad timing was it?


    ¡°Are you okay?¡± - I asked the first thing that came into my mind.


    Then the girl opened her amazing emerald eyes and looked at me. Ah! She''s beautiful. My blood pressure immediately increased, and, according to the law of communicating vessels, my dick tried to break the blockage of my pants.


    ¡°I''m sorry, my eyes went black and I didn''t see you. That''s because I have anemia.¡±


    ¡°That''s okay. You need to rest in my arms for a while.¡± - I said it without thinking.


    ¡°Oh, you are so kind.¡± - The girl paid no attention to my lustful attempts, but carefully examined me and sniffed at me. Sniffing? - §µ... you''re bleeding. I need to wipe it off. - This almost nurse said.


    Blood? Where? I checked my face and found out that the blood had poured not only into my pants, but also into my head, causing some of it to leak out my nose. Ah, youth.


    Meanwhile, the girl opened her bag and pulled out a handkerchief. She held out her hand to wipe off the blood, but moved even closer to me, even though she was already sitting on my erect penis.


    ¡°Ah, no! That smell! My whole body...¡±


    I sniffed, too, and smelled the subtle aroma of an aphrodisiac emanating from the girl''s body. It looks like she ate something wrong recently. But it was better this way. Less words and more action.


    ¡°Forgive me, but I... am a vampire!¡±


    With these words, the girl turned around, attacked me, and tried to bite my throat in the place where the carotid artery ran. But I had already activated my skin''s chakra reinforcement in the meantime, so the vampire''s teeth only slid helplessly across the surface of what was now stronger than armored steel. No way. Before I even met her, she was already sucking the blood out of me. Fuck you!


    Meanwhile, the vampire had made several unsuccessful attempts to bite my skin, stepped back, and looked at me with a disheartened look. And I didn''t like that expression either. There was a note of madness and irresistible desire in it. And yet... this is my chance.


    ¡°Do you want to drink my blood?¡± - I asked with a smile. She looked a little shy, but she nodded yes. ¨C ¡°I''m sorry, but you can''t. My skin is stronger than steel. But I can offer you something else.¡±


    ¡°What?" - There was innocence and the utmost trustfulness in the gaze that was directed at me. Seeing this scene, my inner ''''I'''' immediately started spewing devilish fire and waving pitchforks, driving my conscience to the depths of my subconscious.


    ¡°Vampires drink blood in order to get a person''s life energy with it.¡± - I began to explain, rising to my feet while the girl remained seated on the ground. ¨C ¡°But I can offer you to drink a different fluid of my body, which has more life energy.¡±


    With these words, I shamelessly pulled down my pants and exposed my erect penis to the girl. Wow, that''s quite an inheritance I got. It''s about twenty-five centimeters.


    ¡°Just start sucking this, and in five minutes you''ll get some real divine nectar.¡±


    ¡°What... what is that? It''s so big!¡± - Yes, such words always pleases the heart of a real man. ¨C ¡°And how... it...?¡±


    ¡°Just take it in your mouth, squeeze it with your tongue and start moving your mouth back and forth.¡±


    The vampiress hesitated for a second, then moved her open mouth closer to my cock.


    ¡°It smells so good.¡± - She said, before she lunged at my cock with the fierceness of a hungry vampire.


    I prudently reinforced my cock with chakra, so I wasn''t afraid of being damaged. As soon as the girl''s tongue made contact with the head of my cock, waves of pleasure came over me. Oh, shit, this is unbelievable!!! I was standing in the middle of the road with my pants down, and the divinely beautiful girl was sucking me off with incredible enthusiasm and assertiveness. I''m in heaven!


    Remembering the promise of ''divine nectar,'' I began to saturate my sperm with medical chakra. I didn''t know how it would interact with the demon yoki, but it wouldn''t be any worse. Meanwhile, the girl had already brought me to the peak of my pleasure, and I came.


    ¡°Pshhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!¡±, there would be such sound if we were in a hentai anime. Instead, I just cum down her throat and she started to swallow the cum without stopping to give me a blowjob.


    ¡°Ahhhh! What is that? It''s so delicious!¡± - The girl expressed her delight as she took her cock out of her mouth.


    ¡°Go on, it''s all yours.¡± - I smiled kindly at her. ¨C ¡°I have some more in there. If you try...¡± - I didn''t need to continue, because she started sucking my cock again with redoubled enthusiasm.


    Damn, is sex always been such enjoyable? I''m literally fainting with pleasure. When I watch such a beautiful girl sucking me off, it makes me want to cum right in her mouth so that she swallows every last drop of my sperm! Ahhhh!


    Another orgasm drove me to a frenzy. I almost lost my balance.


    ¡°There''s more... for the third time...¡± - Apparently, my words passed over the vampire''s consciousness, because she was also experiencing the heavenly pleasure of the taste and was ''off the network''.


    The third time happened after ten minutes of uninterrupted pleasure, but it surpassed the first two combined.


    ¡°Oh, I''m full.¡± - The girl exclaimed as she sucked every last drop out of me.


    ¡°Good. I enjoyed it very much.¡± - I nodded with a smile as I pulled on my pants. My `not small friend'' shivered and went into hibernation until the next time.


    ¡°Really? I really, really liked it too. Will you... give me more...¡±


    ¡°Sure.¡± - I agreed, helping the girl to stand up. ¨C ¡°By the way, my name is Aono Tsukune. Starting today, I''m a student at the demon academy.¡±


    ¡°Oh, sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Akashiya Moka.¡±


    ¡°It''s okay, Moka. I think we should take your bike and go to school.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, um... yeah, sure.¡±


    The girl shyly looked down, like she hadn''t been jerking the dick of the guy she''d first seen ten minutes ago. Such a modest girl. That'' s okay, I''ll train her later.


    As we walked, Moka enlisted me as her friend and acknowledged that she used to live among ''horrible people'' who didn''t accept her blood-sucking nature. To this I remarked that I fully appreciated her dick-sucking habits and was always willing to give her a friendly dick as support.


    At school, we parted ways. I submitted my paperwork to the admissions office and was immediately admitted to the academy, asking only my first and last name. There! Looks like the demons were able to beat the bureaucracy. After signing a couple of papers, I was sent to the classroom, where the first introductory class was about to start. It turned out that today was the first day of school, and most of the students had arrived here a week ago.


    In class, I sat in the back row near the window at the farthest desk, like a typical Japanese schoolboy. In the row next to me there was a beautiful girl with blue hair, who was distinguished not only by the color of her hair, but also by her large breasts. As far as I remember the storyline of the anime, this succubus was my second concubine. Future concubine. Although, the girl was already looking at me with interest and... sniffing, yeah. I mean, there''s demons all around.


    Anyway, watching the class, I came to the conclusion that I urgently need to upgrade my chakra control. Because without superhuman abilities, I simply can'' t survive here.


    The teacher was babbling on about the rules of the academy and how evil people oppress us, such kawaii demons, while I was meditating and adapting my body to accommodate chakra usage. There were no standard chakra channels and tenketsu in this body, so I had to create this whole system from scratch, while training my chakra control directly via the astral body. The differences in the laws of physics of the local world dictated a special approach to the use of chakra, which didn''t quite suit me. However, the only alternatives were a completely flawed magic and psionics that hadn''t recovered yet.


    Meanwhile, Akashiya Moka walked into the classroom, and all of the boys were immediately excited to see this beauty. She had long pink hair, emerald green eyes, the face of an angel, and the body of a goddess in a miniskirt that barely covered her crotch. Then the vampire spotted me, and threw herself across the room and hung around my neck, screaming about how glad she was that we were going to learn in the same class. Well, I was glad. Under the envious glances of the entire class, I immediately fondled her breasts and ass, pretending to fight off her attacks. It felt good!


    Finally, the girl calmed down and took a seat in front of me. During the entire lesson she turned from time to time and looked at me with a seductive look, making the entire male population of the class even more angry and jealous. I smiled sweetly in return, and when Moka turned away, I made lascivious expressions that made the whole class steam out of their ears. After all, I''d made an attempt on ''their'' idol.


    Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.


    After the lesson was over, the vampiress grabbed me under the arm and took me outside, showing everyone around her how much she likes me. And as a demonstration, she pressed against me with her whole body, especially her breasts. What am I, a fool, to resist? On the contrary, as much as I could, I groped the girl and whispered something in her ear, which gave her goose bumps and made her shy for a couple of seconds.


    If in the beginning the guys were salivating at the sight of Moka, after this performance, all they could do was spit bile and tears.


    We went outside and sat peacefully on a bench, sipping drinks from the aluminum cans that were sold in the vending machine. I put my arm around the girl, and she leaned against me, sniffling relaxedly through both holes. Or was she no longer relaxed, but horny?


    I looked around for a secluded spot where we could have a little fuck. And then a student from my class, who had been staring at Moka the most during the lesson, and was sitting next to her in the next row, came out from the nearest corner.


    ¡°What does a pretty girl like you see in that little boy?¡± - The big guy wondered as he grabbed me by my chest with one hand and lifted me off the ground.


    ¡°None of your damn business.¡± - I responded by intercepting his right hand with my left near the wrist.


    Then I used all available chakra to strengthen my muscles and clenched my fist. It cracked, crunched, wet chugged, and shrieked wildly. I didn''t just break the bully''s arm, I ripped it off, crushing it like a wiener with no shell. Before the animal realized what had happened, I concentrated my chakra in my right hand, and with a swift blow I jammed my folded palm into his liver and ripped out a chunk of it.


    ¡°What a disgusting smell.¡± - I gave my appraisal, pretending to smell the scent of ''prey.


    Throwing away the piece of bloody flesh, I turned to the student lying curled up on the ground and started kicking him, diligently breaking his bones. Finally, when I was fully convinced that the freak wouldn''t be able to move for the next half hour, I used a stream of chakra to clean the blood and chunks of flesh from my hands and clothes, leaving me in a perfectly clean school costume.


    ¡°Ah, Tsukune, you''re so cool!¡± - Moka threw herself onto my chest. I gave her a little hug, only she didn''t think to stop at a hug. ¨C ¡°I want you...¡± - She whispered, starting to unzip my pants.


    I looked around helplessly and made sure there were no witnesses nearby. A couple of prying eyes in the nearby bushes had gone off when I''d started beating my classmate. I put up a simple attention-diverting barrier and let Moka suck my cock. During the past couple of hours, there had accumulated some semen in there that required an urgent exit.


    The only witness to this little pornographic video of me was the bully, who was now lying on the ground, not daring to even moan. Tears poured from his bulging eyes, but they were not tears of pain, they were tears of disappointment in life. He couldn''t even dream that a pretty girl like Moka would suck him off so enthusiastically in the street, not caring about random witnesses.


    Finally, I came, the vampiress got her dessert, and we headed back to the school, leaving the mangled demon lying on the ground. But for creatures like him, these wounds were just a minor scratch. In a week he''ll be like new. And his arm will grow back in a month. I hope he''s learned his lesson.


    After class was over, Moka went off somewhere, so I lost my chance to drag her to bed with me. And, to be honest, she had ''sucked up'' so much from me today that I was already doubting the possibility of continuing the banquet. So, the rest of the day I devoted to settling in the dormitory, plenty of protein food and light exercise, which should at least slightly develop my musculature. The medical chakra had made my muscles grow tremendously, but even so, it would require at least a month to get me back to normal shape.


    The next morning Moka stalked me on my way to the academy building and pressed her breasts and thighs against me the whole way, apparently begging for a ''tasty treat''. But I pretended not to understand what she wanted from me, and smiled innocently in return, which further enraged the vampiress and drove the surrounding male creatures into a vicious despair.


    On our way through the park, we turned into the bushes, where I experienced five minutes of bliss. I wanted to ''try out'' the other side of Moka as well, but she, like the devil, barely licked her lips and disappeared into the morning fog, leaving me standing there like a fool with my pants down in the middle of the park. All right, time to train her. I mean, discipline her.


    I kept walking through the park, looking around, and soon my attention was rewarded. Not far away, a girl with blue hair was crouched on the grass, moaning pitifully, begging for help. I was still far away, but then some silly schoolboy fell into this trap, running up to the girl and trying to grope her, worrying about her health. After just one blow, the unlucky worshipper flew fifty meters and collapsed into the lake, where he lay quietly, peering angrily from under a lily leaf.


    ¡°Aaaah!¡± - I heard a rather loud cry as I approached at a reasonable distance. ¨C ¡°Who... somebody...¡± - The succubus gasped.


    ¡°Do you need help?¡± - I rushed up to her.


    ¡°I suddenly felt dizzy.¡± - The girl said, looking me in the eyes. Her whole face was begging for help.


    ¡°Lie down, don''t strain yourself.¡± - I immediately placed her on the green, soft grass. - I will massage your heart.


    After these words, I put both hands on her breasts and began shamelessly caressing them, while giving her the very drop of medical chakra.


    ¡°A-a-a-ah-!!!!¡± - The succubus exclaimed, unable to hold on.


    ¡°Hold on, you should feel better now.¡± - I reassured her by unbuttoning her jacket and the blouse underneath.


    She wasn''t wearing a bra, so after a few seconds I was fondling two huge, beautiful breasts. And how beautiful they were to the touch, I can''t tell you.


    ¡°Ah, no...¡± - The girl''s face turned pink, and she began to breathe heavily.


    ¡°Don''t move. You already look better. That blush on your face makes you look amazing.¡± - The girl blushed even more and looked away. I switched from massaging her breasts to stroking her entire body, moving down and wondering when she would get to the point where I could take her panties off.


    But then we heard the loud, laughing voices of an approaching group of students, and all the charm of the moment was gone.


    ¡°No!¡± - the succubus exclaimed, standing up sharply and covering her chest with her hands. In a record three seconds she got her clothes back in order, buttoning them all up.


    ¡°Glad you''re feeling better.¡± - I smiled innocently. ¨C ¡°As you can see, my massage helped. Let me escort you to the academy.¡±


    ¡°T-thank you.¡± - The girl shyly replied. She didn''t know what had gotten into her, or why my caressing almost brought her to orgasm in just a few seconds. The chakra seems to have an exceptionally positive effect on demons. ¨C ¡°My name is Kuruno Kurumu.¡±


    ¡°Ah, I''m Aono Tsukune. We''re classmates. You''re one of the prettiest girls in school, so I couldn''t resist to remember you.¡±


    ¡°Look into my eyes... Tsukune.¡±


    I looked into the eyes of the succubus, and she tried to influence me with her yoki. The only problem was that at the moment the chakra was amplifying not only my skin, but also my brain, so the yoki just couldn''t penetrate my body. But I pretended to take the bait, and smiled relaxedly.


    ¡°Kurumu, you''re so beautiful. So beautiful that I want to fuck you. Right here, right now.¡±


    With these words, I put my arms around her and leaned my cheek against her chest, listening to her heartbeat.


    ¡°What?¡± - The girl stunned, not expecting such an effect from her ''hypnosis. ¨C ¡°No, stop.¡± - She began to fight my attempts to unbutton her blouse.


    ¡°What do you want, Kurumu-chan?¡± - I stopped, blurring into a silly grin again. ¨C ¡°After all, you like me. Just imagine, these hands can caress your whole delicate body, penetrating your most secret places and giving you unearthly pleasure.¡± - I began to massage her breasts again, releasing the chakra.


    ¡°Ah! No... Stop...¡±


    ¡°Do you want me to stop?¡± - I asked slyly, increasing my chakra flow.


    ¡°Ah... no... don''t stop.¡±


    ¡°Kurumu, I want you to undress.¡± - I started whispering in the girl''s ear.


    ¡°Yes, of course...¡± - She nodded obediently. But after a second her gaze cleared, and she jumped back from me by at least three meters.


    Shit! She snapped. I should have waited a little longer before I hooked her.


    ¡°You-you-you-you-you... who are you?¡±


    ¡°I''m your classmate Aono Tsukune.¡± - I answered, pretending to still be under her spell, and moving toward her like a zombie.


    ¡°No! Don''t come any closer!¡± - The girl started to back away. I halted obediently, staring at her with an amorous look. ¨C ¡°I... have to go.¡±


    With those words, the succubus turned around and accelerated in fifth gear toward the academy. Yeah. At least I had the sight of her snow-white panties peeking out from under her skirt as she jogged.


    After looking around, I headed toward the school building as well. I''d already lost a lot of time in all this mating games, and lessons were about to start.


    During the first class, Kurumu kept looking back at me, actually looking in my direction more often than at the teacher. This didn''t go unnoticed by the rest of the class, including Moki, because I was shamelessly peering at her in response, not taking my eyes off her. The succubus blushed constantly at my gaze and squeezed her hips, trying not to show how horny she was.


    Finally, the bell rang, and the vampiress immediately jumped up without even waiting for the teacher to signal the end of the lesson.


    ¡°Tsukune.¡± - She said, grabbing my left hand and pressing it against her chest.


    ¡°Kurumu.¡± - I smiled, not removing my gaze from the succubus.


    She was confused for a second, but then stood up and put my right hand between her breasts.


    ¡°Tsukune, honey, let''s go for a walk.¡± - The succubus said, glaring vindictively at her rival.


    ¡°Of course.¡± - I agreed, but I made no attempt to push Moka away. Considering that both my arms were in the girls'' grasp, I couldn''t even hug them.


    We walked out of the classroom, down the hall, and then the vampiress made another attempt to wrestle her prey away.


    ¡°Tsukune, who is that girl? Why is she clinging to you?¡±


    ¡°Moka, she''s a very good friend of mine. I''m just a food source to you, but she and I have eternal love until death.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± - The vampiress stood as if struck by a thunderbolt, and her rival smiled with her mouth full of fangs. ¨C ¡°But... Tsukune...¡±


    ¡°Let''s go.¡± - Kurumu gave me an order. She tried to pull me by my arm, but discovered that it was as effective as trying to drag a concrete column away with her.


    ¡°Are you telling me I''m more than just food to you?¡± - I clarified, looking at Moka with merciless eyes.


    ¡°Tsukune!¡± - She threw herself into my arms. ¨C ¡°I love you.¡±


    ¡°Tsukune, I love you too.¡± - Kurumu wasn''t hesitant, pressing her huge breasts against me. ¨C ¡°You have to choose one of us.¡±


    At the same time as this demand, the succubus tried to use her hypnosis on me again.


    ¡°Of course.¡± - I agreed. ¨C ¡°I will choose the one who agrees to have sex with me right now.¡±


    ¡°I''ll do anything!¡± - Moka cried, feeling how my cock is passing by her mouth.


    ¡°I won''t give him to you!¡± - The succubus became furious.


    Actually, the only reason Kurumu was doing this whole seduction circus in the first place was to annoy Moka and restore her fame as the prettiest girl in the academy. But she couldn''t afford to retreat now, especially since there were plenty of witnesses to our conversation. If she retreated now, the whole academy would know that the vampire had stolen her boyfriend from under her nose. And this after my confession that the succubus and I had ''eternal love till the grave''. And, of course, there was the sexual arousal that made the girl so hot.


    ¡°Then let''s go to the medicine room.¡± - I headed forward, dragging the two demons in tow. ¨C ¡°There''s a great bed in there.¡±


    After that statement, the surrounding students began to cry bloody tears, but they didn''t dare to do anything. After all, the whole academy knew who had recently beaten an orc, a representative of one of the strongest demon species, to a pulp.


    Since the girls couldn''t retreat now, all three of us walked to the school nurse''s office. Fortunately, the school nurse wasn''t there. But the orc I''d beaten was lying on one of the beds. As soon as he saw my angry look directed at him, he dashed away, broke the window, and jumped out from the fourth floor. For him it was obvious that he''d rather break all his bones once more, falling to the ground, rather than confront me annoyed.


    I locked the door to the medicine room, and towed the two girls to the clean and tidy bed. They were beginning to realize that we were actually talking about real sex, but I didn''t give them a chance to start thinking.


    The first thing I did was to free myself from the four-arm grip, turn to Kurumu, and start massaging her breasts.


    ¡°Ah!!!¡± - The girl moaned, feeling a familiar energy. I was giving out the tiniest crumbs of medical chakra, but even that was enough to immediately plunge the succubus into the realm of pleasure.


    ¡°See, Moka, she lets me caress her breasts.¡± - The vampire blushed as she watched this scene. ¨C ¡°And now it''s your turn.¡±


    I turned around and put my hands on Moki''s chest. Her breasts were not any smaller than the succubus''s. Only her breasts were hidden from view because of the different style of clothing.


    ¡°Kurumu, you want me to be your boyfriend, right?¡±


    ¡°Y... yes...¡±


    ¡°Then show me your breasts.¡±


    The succubus immediately understood what was required of her and unbuttoned her blouse, exposing her lovely breasts to me. I immediately moved both hands over and began caressing her. The vampire, who was left without a ''massage,'' stared in amazement to this scene.


    ¡°Moka, you have to take off your clothes and show me your breasts. This is the only way I will know that you love me.¡± - I began to brainwash my older concubine. ¨C ¡°You want to taste ''it'' again, don''t you?¡±


    I specifically highlighted the word ''it'', and in the girl''s brain immediately triggered the correct associative chain: a happy me, a standing cock, a delicious yum. It was enough for her to nod and start undressing. She didn''t just unbutton her clothes, but threw them off completely.


    I saw this enthusiasm, and I immediately switched from the succubus to the vampire, and she was finally able to experience the beauty of my chakra-infused massage.


    ¡°Aaaaahhhh!¡± - Moka moaned. ¨C ¡°Tsukune!¡±


    I continued to massage one breast, and sucked on the other with my lips, playing with my tongue, which also poured chakra into her body, giving her unspeakable pleasure.


    ¡°Kurumu, why are you standing there? Take your clothes off. ¡°- I glanced at the succubus, who was frozen in place with her mouth open. ¨C ¡°If you don''t show your feelings for me, then I''ll choose Moka.¡±


    After that, I eagerly sucked on the vampire''s breasts, who began moaning with excitement. Since one of Moka''s breasts was occupied by my left hand and the other by my mouth, I put my right hand on the succubus''s breast, which immediately removed the rest of her sanity. The girl immediately began to undress, and didn''t limit herself to just her blouse, but immediately dropped her skirt and panties.


    Okay, this one is almost ready.


    I moved my right hand to the succubus'' crotch and began gently stroking her there. Then I switched to sucking her breasts, leaving Moka with only one hand.


    ¡°Take your clothes off.¡± - I said, looking at her briefly.


    The vampire trembled, but began to pull her skirt down. I used that moment to turn my full attention to Kurumu and start cunnilingus on her. The succubus moaned loudly and began caressing her breasts. When the light of reason faded in her eyes, I switched to the already ''ready'' Moka. I kissed her on the lips, then switched to her breasts, and then I moved lower and began to caress her clit with my tongue as well. The vampire wasn''t just moaning anymore, she was literally howling, for the first time feeling what real sex felt like. Kurumu didn''t feel left out either, because my right hand was between her legs.


    After a few minutes, I paused, got up, and began to undress. As soon as I dropped my panties, Moka immediately rushed onto my cock and started sucking it, moaning and slurping. The succubus only goggled at the sight. I put her next to me and began to caress her breasts, watching the vampire''s movements at the same time. The pleasure I was experiencing made me want to close my eyes. But how could I close them if there were two beautiful naked girls in front of me? So, I tried to feel the smallest movements of Moki''s tongue and at the same time to observe all the beauty of their divine bodies.


    Finally, I came, and satisfied Moka released my cock from the sweet captivity of her lips.


    ¡°Kurumu, now it''s your turn.¡± - The girl stared doubtfully at my cock, which was pacing up and down invitingly. ¨C ¡°Come on, or Moka will get the best of it.¡±


    She looked at her rival, who was about to continue the banquet, and then knelt down and took my cock in her mouth. The first few movements were inexperienced and cautious, but then she got the hang of it and fully immersed herself in the process, the reward for which was sperm full to the brim with chakra.


    ¡°Ah! What is that? It''s... that is so divine.¡±


    The succubus tried to continue giving me a blow job, but I gently pulled her away from my cock.


    ¡°Moka, now I want to show you how much I love you. Lie down on the bed and spread your legs.¡±


    The girl looked at me a little frightened, but under the influence of the magical massage of her breasts, she quickly obeyed the order. I first ran my tongue over her swollen vagina, and then rose to my full height, hovering over her and guiding my cock right inside her.


    My flesh penetrated her vagina and trembled with pleasure. This is so amazing! That feeling! It''s...


    Snap!!! My soul was ripped from my body, and instead of Moki''s divine breasts, I saw the Being''s disgusting face.


    ¡°Okay, so I took care of some business and found a good place for you. Your task is to kill Voldemort.¡±


    At this point, my soul was grabbed, carried, and finally stuffed somewhere.

 Chapter 16.01 – Harry Potter

    *** Today is Victory Day over the Being. Well... almost.***


    I jumped up from the bed and immediately yelled as hard as I could.


    ¡°Being!!!!!!! Fuck you for the rest of eternity!¡±


    That was the end of my strength, and I collapsed back onto the bed, my arms, legs, and the rest of my body aching from the bruises.


    ¡°Shut up, Potter!¡± - There was a shrill voice from upstairs.


    After that, silence settled back into the house. I reached for the light switch and turned on the dim light bulb that barely illuminated the tiny room. How many watts are there? Thirty? Twenty? I looked around and found that I was in a small closet under the stairs. I was an eleven-year-old boy who hadn''t even had a real hard-on yet, and wouldn''t for another three years.


    You bastard Being! Couldn''t you at least show up an hour late? That''s on purpose! The multi-dimensional bastard! May the Syphilis of Order strike it down. First it put me in the harem game, and then it put me in fucking Potter when I was about to have sex with her. Plus, that hateful Dursleys!


    It'' the dumbest story I know. Magic, where you have to wave your wand ''right''. A school of magic where all of the students and teachers are total morons. What''s to say, Hogwarts translates as Pig warts. Dumbledore translates as dumbass. The great hereditary family of wizards is named as pot. And so on. A story about retards, written for retards. And I'' ve been shoved into the role of the dumbest moron in it.


    No, I''m not going to leave it like that. I''m going to destroy everyone! I''m gonna incinerate this whole world in nuclear flames!!! Fuck you, not the game show. I''ll give you the nuclear apocalypse. Let your Voldemort rule the radioactive wastelands.


    ¡°Hey, hey, hey!¡± - The voice of Being came into my head. ¨C ¡°No nuclear explosions! And no radiation. And that thing you did in Superman''s world, I forbid it, too.¡±


    ¡°Don''t worry, I''ll blow the place apart with your ugly local magic.¡± - I answered, radiating pure hatred toward the universe.


    ¡°Oh, well, all right then.¡± - The Being calmed down immediately, and the feeling of his presence was gone.


    ¡°You think I can''t do it?¡± - I shouted into the void, but then I shut up, calmed my thoughts, and began to figure out what kind of a shithole I''d been shoved into.


    After a couple of hours, the situation became clear: magic - zero, chakra - zero, psionics - zero point zero. However, there was a local ritual wand magic, which was in fact the use of the energy of a dead god. This sickening power was slowly decaying, growing weaker with each passing year. Even now, it was already more of a small scrap than a remnant. It was quite obvious that the skills of using this energy had zero value for me, because the entire magic was essentially rituals tuned to the personal power of a particular god. So for another god, all laws and dependencies would be completely different.


    It was obvious to me that the Being had decided to get rid of me, and put me in a game where my abilities were completely blocked. Never mind, we''ll see who''s who. You''d think that would stop me. For not letting me fuck Moka and Kuruma, I''m going to destroy this world. No, not even the world, but the whole fucked-up universe!


    I sat down on the bed, focused on the local magic, and began to bend it to my will. The local wizards used all sorts of wands, but for me such crutches were unnecessary. Besides, I was going to do a pretty simple thing that could be handled even with just willpower controlling magic. For dumb Potter were required to wave the wood and shout obscene ditties in goblin language. I could do it with a simple mental effort.


    My plan for universal revenge was, oddly enough, based on the knowledge of the Eldar of the Warhammer world. These sub-Elves had been researching psionics and the laws of physics for millions of years. And among their discoveries was one that they actually considered a ''closure''. They cited this phenomenon as an example that mathematics could not reliably describe physics, and therefore psionics should primarily be guided by their sensations.


    The essence of the discovery was that the space as a phenomenon was described by mathematical laws. And there was a tricky system of equations describing the properties of curved multidimensional spaces, which had one particular solution, in which space could not exist in principle. Since, contrary to this solution, space obviously existed, the Eldars made the conclusion that the mathematics here is at variance with reality.


    In general, this assumption, oddly enough, was correct. There was a question that at certain parameters of the environment space should stop existing. However, the meticulous Eldars conducted full-scale experiments, which showed that under these conditions nothing happens, and the whole ''hole in space'' is only a virtual mathematical artifact.


    Only when I discovered the description of this ''funny mathematical paradox,'' I was immediately able to cross-reference the knowledge of the Eldars with the knowledge of the Ancients. Although they were less technically advanced, they had a much better understanding of quantum physics. The Ancients themselves could not come up with the formula the Eldars found, but when I tried to find an explanation for the effect in terms of Ancient knowledge, I quickly realized that the ''hole'' did exist. It simply could not be achieved using conventional methods. There had to undergo an even trickier trick with space, after which it... should stop its existence.


    If you make an analogy with the human experience, space was a plastic film. And with this approach, the film could be pierced, after which it would literally burst. It could be compared to a soap bubble. It sort of looks like it''s there, but if you break the integrity of its surface, the bubble disappears. The material of the bubble, i.e. soapy water, will not disappear, but the bubble as a spherical object, the space inside of which is separated from the space outside, will simply cease to exist.


    In general, this technique could quickly, reliably, and guaranteed to destroy the very concept of space in the entire universe. Of course, as far as I knew, each world existed on its own and was not connected to the others. But the scale of a single world itself was incomprehensible. Forget about the distance of billions of light years. It''s just a three-dimensional projection. But when we are talking about multidimensional space, in which the ultimate distances are counted in quadrillion light years, it is closer to reality. And all this bottomless worlds could be burst like a soap bubble without any effort.


    That''s exactly what I was going to do. You want to have fun at my expense? Take this and sign it! This is not a comedy show. ***Censored***, my ass!


    I concentrated and formed a simple magic construct. It worked on the principle of calculating the point of a fractal, where the next state of the system was a function of the previous one. I had to achieve a special configuration of space curvature with infinite accuracy. In the usual state it was impossible to achieve this, because the required accuracy was greater than the size of a quantum of space.


    The very concept of space quantization was controversial for many physicists because the size of this quantum was too small. It was so small that even quarks compared to it were like galaxies compared to an atom. But even this accuracy was not even close to enough to set the required parameters of the system. The Eldars, when confronted with this limitation, simply concluded that ''it doesn''t happen'' and calmed down. On the other hand, I knew exactly what ''it happens'' and, moreover, I knew exactly how to achieve it.


    You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.


    My spell set the desired parameters of space, and then with each iteration it doubled their accuracy. Most importantly, my spell fundamentally lacked such concepts as average value, rounding, quantum indeterminacy, and so on. This, in fact, was a consequence of another quantum paradox.


    In general, with each second the accuracy of determining the characteristics of space increased twice and now the only question was how many ''ticks'' it would take for the accuracy of my ''clock'' to exceed the accuracy of the laws of nature, at which the universe would decide that the values of the parameters coincide with the very ''virtual mathematical anomaly''.


    This formula solution made no real sense. Rather, it was an example of ''division by zero'', where the programmer forgets that the division operation is far from meaningful. Here just ''suddenly'' it became clear that there was no sense in the existence of the universe, and it was now being '' reduced'' for uselessness.


    As time passed, the clock ticked away. After one minute, the space inside the spell became indefinable in terms of physics. In two minutes, the ratio of the scale of precision compared to an electron was greater than the ratio of the size of that electron to the size of the entire universe. After three minutes, the ''gears of the universe'' began to turn with a squeak. After three minutes and seventeen seconds, the spring in the clock broke, and everything stopped.


    I came to my senses in the Void, and there in front of me hovered the Being, spreading waves of anger and hatred toward the great me.


    ¡°You-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u!¡± - The Being screamed, hovering over me. ¨C ¡°How dare you to destroy an entire cluster of the universe?¡±


    ¡°It was a manufacturing defect. Contact the manufacturer for replacement of the product with a new one.¡± - I spit out my explanation.


    ¡°You dare tell me what to do?¡± - The Being yelled, going into an indescribable frenzy. ¨C ¡°Go back to the manufacturer and tell him he was wrong? To say that Yog-Sothoth was wrong? I''ll destroy you for even thinking about it!¡±


    Suddenly, the Being switched from spitting saliva to action and extended its raking hands toward me. A vile limb penetrated my soul and made its way toward my tail, which gave me power over psionics. The Being''s power was so great that I couldn''t resist it in principle. Even the parasite in my soul curled up in a ball and shook with fear. After all, it was not Azathoth himself, but only a minor projection of him.


    In this situation I had no time to think, and I used my ''weapon of last chance'' - the Flame of Oblivion, or rather its reflection in the world of dreams - the Phantom Fire. The tiny white flame touched the Being''s arm, then suddenly erupted like a fiery whirlwind and instantly ''devoured'' the entire limb, ripping off a good chunk from the Being himself as well. The fire finally extinguished, but I had no time to regret that loss.


    The Being''s wild scream sounded like it was piercing the entire universe. There was such agony in it that I thought for a second that it had gotten what it deserved. But after a second, the obsession was gone, and I realized that the Being should have been burned to ashes for its ''services to the fatherland.


    Without wasting a second, I dashed away from the Being''s agonizing body. Although the Being was writhing in agony, its energy was far from fading, so it was clear that, sooner or later, it would recover and try to find me and punish me. So now I had to get as far away from it as possible, and then I had to deal with the question of hiding my tracks.


    The Phantom Fire burned not only the Being. It consumed the Void itself. I mean, the very essence of the space of this dimension. As a result, next to me there was a natural hole into the True Chaos, into which I dove with my head and ears. From here I had to rely on my intuition and the unexpected help of my parasite, who told me where to navigate in this endless chaos of destructive energies.


    I cannot tell how long my ''flight'' lasted, but at one moment I fell out into the quite material world. I was just a ghost now, but since magic and psionics worked in this world, maintaining my form of existence was not a problem for me.


    As I looked around, I found myself standing on a grassy meadow near the edge of the forest. The area was deserted, but one human person was present. It was a boy of about fourteen, now lying on the ground, curled up in pain. The life was barely blooming in him, and his soul was in danger of going to the other world. Here''s the donor.


    I flew to the body, ''pushed aside'' the soul of the owner and took its place. In principle, this was the trick that knowledgeable people call as a ''possession''. Now I temporarily possessed this body, but at the same time its previous owner did not die, but was temporarily ''removed from power''. In future, he had a quite real chance to return to a normal existence even in this life.


    After I had subdued the body to myself, I immediately healed it. And through some simple manipulation, I created a tasty and nutritious meal from the trunk of a nearby tree that contained all the necessary proteins and vitamins. After I had a snack, I rubbed my stomach, set up a protective canopy, created something like a tent with magic, climbed into it and... fell asleep.


    Such a non-trivial solution of my problems was due to the fact that I was going to visit the Dreamworld. In order to sleep, you have to have a brain. And to enter a conscious dream, you had to have a grasp of astral magic as well. Now the real owner of this body was really asleep. But my consciousness was transported to the dream world after him, like a passenger without a ticket.


    It required some time for me to stabilize the dream world around me. After that, I immediately ''invented'' the Stargate in front of me and activated the address dialing ritual. A minute later, a portal opened in front of me, and I stepped boldly into it.


    When I left the Stargate at my destination, I found myself in the familiar forest on the outskirts of Ultar. From there, I sprinted toward the temple beneath which the Eternal Seeress dwelt. Of all the people I knew, she was the only one who could probably answer my questions.


    When I entered the temple, I didn''t see the local priest. Anyway, I knew where to go. Behind the altar, I opened the door to the basement and went down. It was a real labyrinth, but it didn''t take me long to get there. After just a couple of turns I found myself in front of a familiar ''curtain'', hiding the entrance to the abode of the seer.


    ¡°Greetings, Eternal Seeress.¡± - I said greetings as I sat down in front of the low table. The place hadn''t changed a bit since my last visit. Except there was more trash on the shelves.


    ¡°Greetings, Cheater.¡± - She nodded. ¨C ¡°What brings you to me?¡± - From her tone, it sounded like a polite question, because she knew all about me.


    ¡°I want to know how I can hide from the Being so that it cannot find me.¡±


    ¡°The answer to that question will cost you two tails. You don''t really need them anymore anyway.¡±


    I gritted my teeth mentally and nodded. The two ''mutilated'' tails were still with me, serving only a decorative function. But since the Being knew I had three other tails, there was no point in keeping these two. In fact, I had drained most of my energy from them. These tails were now at the level of a gifted mage, whereas the real sources of magic and chakra made me much stronger.


    Concentrating, I unsealed the reserves of Bahion in my soul and began the operation. With a bit of a ''tweak'' on the tails, I cut them off from my soul and immediately covered the wounds with Bahion. I slightly modified the tails themselves so that they could attach to any donor without an additional infusion of Bahion.


    After I finished this masochistic session, I held out two glowing orbs to the seer. One gave off a cool blue, and the other breathed orange flame.


    The old woman nodded and took the offering.


    ¡°Good. The heart of a true dragon and the tail of a demonic fox. As for the answer to your question, it''s already known to your symbiote. What''s more, it''s already prepared everything necessary for it.¡± - I frowned, glancing at the parasite, who was pretending to be a kawaii kitten. ¨C ¡°The only one who can save you from the Being'' wrath is Azathoth. You''ll have to attend him and offer him a sufficient sacrifice. Moreover, that same sacrifice will be your guide to the Spirit World.¡±


    ¡°Spirit World?¡± - I asked again, trying to understand what she was talking about.


    ¡°It''s like the world of dreams, but it''s much harder to get into. It is a world inhabited by incredible monsters, demons and other creatures of Chaos. The spirit world is both material and not. It begins as the underside of the physical world, but gradually goes farther and farther away. To find your way to the deepest depths of Darkness, where Azathoth dwells, you''ll need a guide whose destiny is to become a killer of demons and food for demons. You know him by the name ''Guts''. The more power you give him, the farther he can go on the spirit road. Perhaps he can reach even to Azathoth. And then the Lord of the Demons in return for this meal might draw his cursed attention to you. Now, go. The hounds of Order are already on their way to find you. Oh, and... - The Seer stopped me just as I was about to turn around and walk out. - You made two offerings to me today, so that when you again need my help in the future, but you have nothing to pay, you can use this prepayment.¡±


    I nodded at this offer, and silently walked out of the closet and found myself right back on the street. I didn''t turn around and walked away, adjusting to the consciousness of my donor at the same time. I should be awake by now. And at the very last moment before I left the dream world, I heard a soul-chilling howl that sounded the promise of endless torment.

 Chapter 17.01 - Berserk

    <h2>Chapter 17.01 - Berserk</h2>


    ***


    https://ww1.gogoanime2.org/watch/berserk-2016-dub/1</a>


    ***


    I jumped up with a scream and looked around to calm my racing heart. A feeling of inexorable threat loomed over me, but judging by that same feeling, I still had time. At least six months, if not more. After a quick look at the peaceful slumbering parasite, I got out of the tent and looked at the night sky, dotted with stars. Midnight. It was time for some diabolical magic.


    Concentrating, I activated the spell that creates the Vritras crystal. The necessary chemical elements were taken from the earth, which had enough clay in it. After that, I applied a Bahion-based cloaking spell to the crystal, which was supposed to hide me from the attention of all sorts of Players. It was a temporary solution, because the spell required constant consumption of Bahion to maintain, but my reserves were enough to not worry about it for ten years.


    After that, I transferred my soul into the crystal and began to create a normal body for myself. I was in the middle of a chain of mountains, so there were plenty of rocks with the minerals I needed under the ground. Ten minutes later I assumed human form, looked thoughtfully at my right palm, and then shifted my gaze to the sleeping boy. Who would have thought that the first person I would meet would be him? Apparently, Azathoth wants to meet me personally. However, I think I''ll be able to find the right person anyway.


    After casting another glance at Isidro, who was asleep, I headed away. To find a man named Guts, I could use mind-reading on witnesses, astral searches, and a ''cursed brand'' search. The latter was supposed to be similar to the Azathoth¡¯s brand I''d already seen, so finding its bearer shouldn''t be too difficult.


    Two weeks later, I was sitting around a campfire not far from an overgrown road, waiting for an approach of my target. I''d found Guts much earlier, but I''d only decided to approach him today to be his traveling companion. It was evening now, and the sun was already setting, creating a dense twilight in the shadows of the forest. I roasted rabbit ''kebabs'' on the fire and occasionally dabbed at the gourd of wine. My outward appearance was like an old man dressed in traveling clothes. That might be what a retired mercenary would look like.


    As the fire burned through and the meat on the skewers browned, Guts appeared from behind the road corner. Guts was a muscular man, six feet tall, in a long black cloak, with leather armor peeping out from underneath. His right eye was missing and his left arm below the elbow had been replaced by an iron prosthesis. He paced slowly and steadily, peering around with one eye. His short black hair on his head formed an accomplished impression of an angry hedgehog. And of course, the main thing in this image was the sword. Right now, it was hidden behind its owner, and only the massive hilt peeked out from behind his shoulder.


    ¡°Hey, kid.¡± - I said hello as Guts walked around the fire. ¨C ¡°Sit down, have a drink.¡± - I nodded at the meat, and sipped on my gourd. ¨C ¡°The rabbit was surprisingly fat today.¡±


    ¡°Thanks, no.¡± - Guts muttered, not slowing down.


    ¡°Further on...¡± - He gave me a leer with his one and only eye. ¨C ¡°...would be a swamp. It''s not a good idea to walk up there at night. Either you'' d have to sleep in the mud, or you'' d have to walk until morning.¡±


    Guts stopped, glared at me, and then turned sharply, looking for someone in the dark woods. I could see the creatures he was looking at just fine, too. But I didn''t show it.


    ¡°Good.¡± - He nodded.


    He sat down on a fallen tree trunk, put his monstrous sword beside it, and took one of the rods, juicy meat crackling. Immediately he gritted his teeth into it, and he mumbled happily. I took one shish kebab, too, and joined in late dinner. Together we pretty quickly finished the rabbit, and then I took the kettle out of my backpack, poured water into it and put it to boil on the coals with a couple of twigs. We didn''t say a word the entire meal, and it didn''t seem to bother Guts.


    In the meantime, the sun had finally set, and the demons began to gather at our fireside. Guts glanced frowning at one of the bushes, and then he got up, slung his sword on his shoulder, and headed into the woods. The demons immediately hissed and backed away, but within seconds they gathered courage, hissed and clattered, and then all of them charged toward the Sacrifice. Yes, Sacrifice with a capital "sacrifice," because on the astral level, Gut''s body was glowing with the energy of the Sacrifice Brand around his neck.


    Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    A single swing of the unimaginably huge and broad sword turned two dozen demons into slime. Those were small things, though, the real monsters were still coming out of the woods around us. Guts began swinging his sword, crumbling the demons into a salad, and the demons lunged at him furiously, seeking to kill, wound, or at least bite. But all these attempts were fruitless, because the two meters of blackened steel collected their bloody harvest without interruption for a second.


    While Guts fought the demons, I brewed some tea, poured a cup of tea, and sipped it with obvious pleasure as I watched the battle. The demons paid no attention to me, carefully avoiding me. Guts glanced at me suspiciously a couple of times, but he didn''t have time to stop to stare.


    Five minutes passed, ten, thirty, an hour, two, but the demons kept coming, and there didn''t seem to be any less of them. The swordsman, on the other hand, was already at his limit, barely moving his weapon.


    ¡°You look weak.¡± - I remarked, sipping my tea. I had drunk as much as a bucket of tea in two hours, without filling the kettle, but only pouring it into the cup. ¨C ¡°On these days, young people are not strong enough.¡±


    ¡°Old... hee-hee-hee... hoo-ha-ha-ha... hag go and ... hoo-hoo... show me how proper to do this.¡± - Guts were indignant. For two hours, while he fought for his life, I was sitting there drinking tea ''under his protection'' in a relaxed manner.


    ¡°All right, look.¡± - I answered, rising to my feet.


    I rushed forward and immediately reached the swordsman, and before he even realized what was happening, I snatched the sword from his hand. For an ordinary man, this iron would have been too heavy to lift. It was more than a hundred kilograms in weight. But I could swing it like a stick without straining a bit. For my Vritras body, only such weapon could be considered appropriate.


    I poured magical energy into the blade, formed a spell, and struck a broad horizontal blow. The blade hit only a few demons, but the main effect was magic. In the blink of an eye, all of the demons in front of me turned into mincemeat. A ghostly shroud swept through the forest, destroying the otherworldly creatures and leaving the trees and grass unscathed. I turned around and walked around Guts, who was frozen in a stupor, swung again, and all remaining demons were immediately reduced to smoldering protoplasm.


    ¡°A couple of strikes, and it''s done!¡± - I declared, handing the sword back to its owner. ¨C ¡°I don''t know why you spent so much time with them.¡±


    ¡°You... who are you?¡± - Guts'' single eye stared at me.


    ¡°What, you want to be an apprentice?¡± - I asked mockingly, sitting down around the fire and taking another cup of tea.


    ¡°Where''d you get that kind of power?¡± - He ignored my taunt. The swordsman glanced around to make sure there weren''t any living demons around. But there were dead bodies scattered as far as the horizon.


    ¡°A philosopher''s stone.¡± - I said importantly, as I pulled a blood-red ruby from my pocket, glowing with an inner light. The crystal was two by three centimeters in size, and the surface was covered with ''mysterious'' signs and writings. ¨C ¡°Whoever swallows it will become immortal and gain great power.¡± - I began to bullshit. ¨C ¡°For instance, you can recover your hand and eye, plus you''ll be able to wield your sword a lot better. Your abilities are useless right now.¡± - I shook my head in frustration.


    Guts looked suspiciously at the stone, and then to me. He was trying hard to find anything strange about me, but I looked like a regular old man to him. Only the corpses of the demons proved that he hadn''t imagined my two blows.


    ¡°That stone...¡± - Guts said, and then stopped trying to find the words.


    ¡°Take it.¡± - I offered my hand.


    But the swordsman made no attempt to take my gift.


    ¡°And what would be its price?¡± - He grinned bitterly, looking me straight into my eyes.


    ¡°Hmmm... price...?¡± - I muttered, pretending to think about it. ¨C ¡°You keep an eye on my pet.¡±


    I flipped over the little bucket that had been upside down next to the fire, and out came... an elf. He looked like the elf that always accompanied Guts in the anime, except his wings weren''t insect-like, they were more like those of dragons and demons. However, the elf looked pretty cute for his size, and his black wings only made him look like a mischievous little devil.


    ¡°Hey, old man, where''s my meat?¡± - The ''elf'' was indignant. Actually, it was just another body of Vritras that I controlled remotely. ¨C ¡°After all, I''m the one who caught that rabbit.¡±


    ¡°That big guy over there ate your part.¡± - I nodded at Guts.


    ¡°What? How''d he put all that stuff in him? We could feed an army with that rabbit!¡±

 Chapter 17.02 - Berserk

    The elf flew around the swordsman a couple of times, and then ''glued'' to the sword.


    ¡°Wow! Is that a sword? You''re really amazing. Why is it covered in crap? And why do you have an iron hand? Where''d you lose your eye? What else did they cut off?¡±


    Guts tried to shake the elf off his sword, and when the elf flew away, he swung his weapon in an effort to slice the troublesome flyer in half, but the elf dodged it, making a loop in the air.


    ¡°Do you want to play?¡± - The elf squealed happily.


    ¡°What is this creature?¡± - Guts spoke to me, abandoning his unsuccessful attempts to catch or cut the little man with wings.


    ¡°Elf, he''s your master now.¡± - I answered, smiling slyly. ¨C ¡°I give him the Philosopher''s Stone.¡±


    With those words I swiftly approached Guts and pushed the ruby into his armor pocket.


    ¡°Oh, old man, do you really want to separate with that?¡± - The elf was surprised, and froze in midair.


    Guts frowned, stuck his sword into the ground, and pulled out a ruby. The bloody ruby gleamed ominously in the firelight.


    ¡°Yes, I think the new owner will need it more.¡±


    ¡°What is that thing?¡± - The swordsman frowned, glancing from the stone to me and back again.


    ¡°I told you. It''s a Philosopher''s Stone. If you swallow it, you will be immortal. All your wounds will be healed, and you''ll get the power to kill demons without any effort at all.¡±


    ¡°And you''re just going to give me a thing like that?¡± - Guts didn''t believe it.


    ¡°It''s not that simple. He comes as part of the deal.¡± - I nodded at the elf. ¨C ¡°And believe me, this exchange is equal ... Elf?¡±


    ¡°Yes-yes, he''s my new master now. Besides, he''s picked up the stone himself, so it''s fair.¡±


    ¡°Well, I''ll leave then.¡±


    With these words I ''rushed into the night'', and after only a few seconds I disappeared from sight of the astonished swordsman.


    ¡°What... what the fuck?¡± - Guts expressed his admiration of my scenic talent.


    ¡°Oh, you seem to know a lot about that.¡± - The elf nodded. Right now my Vritras crystal was inside the elf''s body, so in fact I was the elf, and the unknown ''old man'' had already turned into a formless filler of Vritras'' body and was resting inside of the fuinjutsu seal space. ¨C ¡°But I guess I''ll have to give you a little lesson, though. There are three kinds of fuck-ups: full, whatever, and whichever. What kind of fucked up stuff are you talking about now?¡±


    Guts frowned even more, slipped the ruby back into his pocket, gripped his sword more comfortably, and tried to smack me down, but I easily dodged it.


    ¡°Hey, that''s rude!¡± - I resented it. ¨C ¡°We haven''t even properly met yet, and you''re already trying to kill me. My name is Fuck. What''s your name?¡±


    Guts didn''t answer my question. Instead, he gripped the sword with both hands and tried to get me again. I reacted by flying around his head and screaming in his ears.


    ¡°What''s your name? Hey! Can you hear me? Hello? Are you deaf or what? Shit, did that old man give the stone to a deaf person? That''s not even funny!¡±


    ¡°Get away from me, you little punk!¡± - The swordsman enraged, finally realizing the futility of his efforts to hit me.


    ¡°I''m not a punk!¡± - I was offended. ¨C ¡°My name is Fuck!¡± - I said proudly, hovering in front of my new companion''s face.


    Guts tried to grab me with his artificial left arm, but missed me again by just a few millimeters.


    ¡°You''re oblique! You can''t hit me. Is it because you have one eye? Or have you always been oblique, but since you have one eye, it is not obvious? In any case, can a one-eyed man be considered as oblique? Hey, can you hear me? Don''t ignore His Grace the almighty Fuck! Are you aware that I know a thousand and eight catch-all songs? And tonight, you have a chance to learn at least a hundred of them. You didn''t tell me your name, either. If that''s the case, I''ll call you angry hedgehog.¡±


    The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    ¡°My name is Guts!¡± - The swordsman roared. While I chattered, he tried to grab me a few dozen times, but none of those attempts were successful.


    ¡°So you''re not deaf?¡± - I was relieved. ¨C ¡°Why didn''t you say so before. So, Guts, as I''ve explained, there are three kinds of fuck up shit: full, whatever, and whichever...¡±


    ¡°So this rock''s the problem?¡± - Guts pulled out the Vritras crystal, which I handed him under the guise of a Philosopher''s Stone. Without thinking for a second, he swung it around and tossed it into the bushes.


    ¡°Hey, hey, hey! That''s priceless stuff! It gives immortality!¡± - I immediately rushed into the bushes and a second later brought the stone back. ¨C ¡°If you use it, you can enjoy my company forever! Besides, didn''t you think you could get rid of me that easily?¡±


    Guts growled softly. I dashed toward him, evaded his hand again, and shoved the ruby into his armor''s pocket.


    ¡°Don''t lose it, it''s an important thing.¡± - I started another lecture. ¨C ¡°If you don''t take care of your property, I''m gonna have to give you a lecture about environmental care. You know what the environment is, right? And what is ecology? And how is acid-alkaline balance different from water-salt balance?¡±


    ¡°Can you shut up?¡± - The swordsman couldn''t stand the torture.


    ¡°Shut up? What do you mean? What do you mean, shut up? What and where do I have to shut up?¡±


    ¡°Shut your mouth!!!¡± - This scream of the soul echoed throughout the night forest, frightening even the demons.


    ¡°Mouth? How will I talk then?¡±


    ¡°You won''t. Just shut up.¡±


    ¡°Just shut up?¡± - I was surprised. ¨C ¡°Hmmm. But if I don''t talk, how am I supposed to warn you about the danger? I have to be sure you''re okay and you''re not in danger.¡±


    ¡°I''ll feel much better if you keep quiet.¡±


    ¡°Oh...! Bug.¡± - I was offended, and then I flew away into the woods.


    Guts sighed in relief, glanced around, and darted away as well, naively hoping to hide from me under the cover of night. Until dawn, he walked along the barely visible path in the light of the young moon. An ordinary man would have broken his legs long ago, but Guts was no longer an ''ordinary man. Now he was a half-spirit, because spiritual energy pulsed through his body from head to toe. Every time he killed a demon, the otherworldly creature''s life energy poured into his body, giving him strength and restoring his health.


    Because of this demonic energy, I couldn''t simply yank his soul out of his body and move it into the Vritras crystal. Right now, both Guts''s material and astral bodies represented something strange, and the invisible bonds emanating from the victim''s mark braided every part of his body. Of course, part of the mark was also on his soul, but I didn''t want to ruin the whole ''composition. Who knows, maybe Azatot needs all that demonic energy? So, my plan to ''amplify'' Guts was a bit more complicated.


    In the morning, when he emerged from the marshy forest, Guts found a dry spot and fell asleep for several hours, leaning his back against a tree. And when he awoke, the ''elf'' was already happily flying around, carefully inspecting every item he owned, especially the sword.


    ¡°Good morning, angry hedgehog. How did you sleep?¡±


    ¡°You again!¡± - Guts growled, already believing he''d gotten rid of me.


    ¡°What do you mean again?¡± - I was surprised. ¨C ¡°I didn''t leave. Today I slept well in the hood of your cloak. It''s not only warm, it''s also soft...¡±


    Guts again attempted to catch me with his hand, and missed again. After that, he defiantly stopped paying attention to me, focused, and moved on. From time to time I ''entertained'' my companion with monologues, which he studiously ignored. We walked this way until about four p.m., when a small town appeared in front of us.


    Guts quickly found the local pub and went in to replenish the wine he''d been sipping since the morning to calm his frustrated nerves. On the road of the angry swordsman appeared a local alcoholic who had been beating up Isidro, the same boy I''d encountered immediately after my arrival in this world.


    Seeing this abuse, Guts didn''t hold back, but immediately punched the alcoholic in the face, removing the rest of his teeth and shards of jaw. The victim''s associates tried to intervene on her behalf, and paid for it with their teeth. The swordsman''s inhuman strength allowed him to guarantee the maiming and knocking out of a man with just one blow.


    After resupply, Guts turned and headed out of the tavern. I flew toward another character in the main story of the world. It was a ''real'' elf named Puck, who had been tied up with rope and used as a knife-throwing target by beaten bandits. Technically, this elf was a sylph - a spirit of the air. But unlike the simplest spirits, he could take human form, plus he had a mind. However, his mind was at the level of an eight year old child.


    ¡°Hey there, little fella!¡± - I called the elf. ¨C ¡°Looks like you need my help.¡± - My tone was full of superiority and smugness. ¨C ¡°Fine, I''ll get you out of here, and in return you''ll be my minion.¡±


    ¡°Who are you?¡± - Puck stared at me in a daze, forgetting the rope that bound him.


    ¡°I''m an elf!¡± - I said proudly, hovering in the air.


    ¡°What happened to your wings? They don''t look like the wings of an elf.¡± - Sylph, who was not actually an elf, protested.


    ¡°What about my wings? I have the wings of a high elf.¡±


    ¡°High elf?¡± - My would-be minion slumped.


    ¡°Of course, the highest. Regular elves like you originated from dung flies, so your wings look like the wings of a fly. But high elves are originated from dragons, so my wings look like dragons'' wings.¡±


    ¡°What?! From what flies?!¡± - Puck was furious, trying to lunge at me and tear me to shreds. But the rope around his neck stopped him just an inch away, preventing him from reaching me.

 Chapter 17.03 - Berserk

    ¡°I told you, from the dung flies.¡± - I grinned mockingly. ¨C ¡°The ones that flew around dragon shits.¡±


    ¡°That''s a lie! The elves originated from pure air spirits!¡±


    ¡°Yes, from spirits of the air that mated with flies.¡± - I confirmed this version.


    ¡°No!¡±


    ¡°Yes!¡±


    ¡°G-r-r-r-r-r!!! Untie me, and I''ll prove to you which one of us originated from flies by beating you in your face!¡±


    ¡°Ha-ha, you can''t even touch me. We high elves are so above this filthy world that dung flies can''t even get near us.¡±


    With those words I snapped my fingers, and the rope that bound the elf turned into ashes.


    ¡°Oh, you!¡±


    As soon as he felt freedom, Puck immediately attacked, but like Guts, he couldn''t even touch me. After a few minutes, he hovered in the air, breathing heavily and looking at me with childlike grudge.


    ¡°Okay, follow me.¡± - I gave him an order. ¨C ¡°Or the bandits from whom I rescued you will soon wake up and catch you again.¡±


    Puck glanced at the moaning bodies that were already trying to get off the dirt floor, snorted capriciously, and flew toward the exit. I oriented myself outside and followed Guts, who was already wearing several tracers that I had placed through magic, chakra, and psionics, as well as a pair of purely technical beacons implanted under his skin and in his skull bone. Now the swordsman had no chance of hiding from me.


    ¡°Get acquainted, Puck this is Guts, and Guts this is Puck.¡± - I introduced my companions to each other.


    ¡°You brought another pest with you?¡± - The swordsman grimaced, already trying to figure out how to strike both of us with a single sword blow.


    ¡°Careful, he''s violent.¡± - I warned the elf. ¨C ¡°He may lunge at you and bite you. So be careful.¡±


    ¡°Hmm, fuck off.¡± - Snorting, Guts continued on his way.


    ¡°Are you traveling together?¡± - Puck squinted fearfully at my companion.


    ¡°Yes, we hunt evil demons, chthonic monsters, and immortal Apostles of Darkness.¡± - I boastfully declared.


    Guts hesitated at my words and looked at me with surprise and suspicion.


    ¡°Mo-mo-monsters?¡± - Puck rounded his eyes.


    ¡°Yes, you''ll meet them soon. We''ll have to pick you up some weapons. We have a rule that everyone must kill at least three monsters in one day.¡±


    ¡°But-but-but I''m just an elf.¡± - Puck tried to get rid of the honor.


    ¡°Don''t worry, I''ll personally train you, and in a month you''ll be able to kill a fly with one punch. Oh, no, they''re your relatives. A mosquito, then. Slap, and it''s done.¡±


    ¡°Hey! Flies aren''t my relatives at all!¡± - Puck was indignant, unwilling to acknowledge his ancient lineage.


    ¡°I think you look alike.¡± - Guts said. ¨C ¡°You''re buzzing around, just like him. Shut up, will you?¡±


    ¡°Don''t mind him, he''s just shy of you.¡± - I whispered loudly to Puck, making sure that this whisper would be perfectly hearable to the ''shy one¡¯. ¨C ¡°He''s so vulnerable at heart, and that''s why he prefers to push away those he cares about. Because if you get eaten by demons, he''ll cry nonstop for at least a week.¡±


    ¡°Wouldn''t he? He''s that kind?¡± - The faithful elf fell for that lie.


    ¡°Of course. But he hides that kindness behind his barbs. Look at him, he looks like an angry hedgehog who wants cuddling and kindness, but he pushes other hedgehogs away so he wouldn''t prick himself on them.¡±


    This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    Guts rolled his eyes and quickened his pace, trying to get away from the pesky elves.


    ¡°But I''m not a hedgehog.¡± - Puck made a logical point.


    ¡°No, you''re not. That''s why you have to show him your love. Then he''ll accept you and become your best friend. Before then, be careful, because if you get too close to him, he''ll cut you to pieces with his sword in a second.¡±


    ¡°With what sword?¡±


    ¡°There it is, hanging on his back.¡±


    ¡°So that''s a sword? I thought he''d just stolen all the iron from the Emperor''s forge.¡±


    Guts gritted his teeth audibly, and accelerated even further, almost to the point of running. But all his efforts were in vain, because it was impossible to escape from the elf in that way.


    After a few hours the sun had set, and our friendly company began to make their way through the woods, following the established track. By this time Guts had already snacked on a rabbit that came his way, so he was full of energy and eagerness to punish the next batch of demons.


    There was a clatter of hooves behind us, and a carriage pulled by two horses approached. It was ruled by a good-looking old man with a gray beard and bright blue eyes. Over his shoulder peered a pretty-looking blonde girl about seventeen years old. When Guts had busted into the tavern today, the two of them had already been there, and they had seen the fight.


    ¡°You want a ride? You know, walking at night in the rain ain''t the best idea." - The old man talked to Guts.


    ¡°Go ahead.¡± - The swordsman replied.


    ¡°So, this is angry hedgehog syndrome in action.¡± - I made a comment about the scene to Puck. ¨C ¡°Instead of riding in a wagon and having sex with this girl at the same time, he prefers to walk and get wet in the rain.¡±


    Upon hearing my words, Guts immediately agreed to the old man''s offer and climbed into the wagon. However, it wasn''t just a reaction to my jibe, but also a desire to protect the two new companions. Unknowingly, they had already attracted the attention of the demons lurking among the leaves, so without help they were doomed to become food for the creatures of the Netherworld.


    However, he did not have sex with the girl, but crouched down to sleep. As a true samurai, Guts never lay down to sleep, so that in the event of an attack he could instantly parry or dodge an attack. But in his sleep, the swordsman had a dream about demons. The scene of Femto''s ''ascension'', in which all members of the Band of the Falcon were killed, was imprinted firmly on Guts'' mind and kept him awake at night. The memories involved the demons, who had swarmed in response to the ''call'' of their coveted prey. From the dream world, Nightmare Eating Demons infiltrated first. And the evil spirits came after them, searching the surroundings for ''vessels'' to possess, and... they found them.


    Guts woke up with a scream of hatred and immediately stabbed one of the incubus, the materialized nightmare-eaters. I''d argue with the local classification of demons, but Guts was the only one among the connoisseurs around, and he wasn''t much of a conversationalist. The old man and the girl, seeing the demon already dead, became alarmed, and began to realize that Guts'' ''tales'' of evil spirits haunting him were not tales at all.


    At that moment the Brand of Sacrifice on the swordsman''s neck began to bleed, and he jumped out of the wagon, readying his sword for battle. Now we were on the former battlefield, and under the ground lay the bones of hundreds of fallen warriors. The restless souls of men had united with astral spirits and ''come back to life'' in the form of hideous skeletons and zombies. All this filth began to crawl out of the ground, aiming to get Guts and eat him alive. The energy of the brand worked on the demons like catnip, so the creatures didn''t even think about retreating, they just kept on comin'', thinkin'' only of attacking.


    The carriage''s four horses suddenly started to startle and kicked up a fuss, threatening to gallop away. The girl jumped out of the wagon to calm them down, but she paid the price. Armed with a spear, the skeleton burst out of the captivity of the cold earth and pierced the young fool in the area of the stomach. The girl only had time to cry out before she lost consciousness and collapsed to the ground as a sack of shit.


    In the meantime, the neighborhood was filled with hundreds of dead bodies, and Guts had no more time to think about random victims. He was not a random victim at all, so the demons were all lunging at him. Guts'' monstrous swords raked and crushed bones, armor, and rusted weapons, crushing the frail bones to pulp. But the number of demons only increased, so that the situation became worse by every second. When the archer skeletons emerged from the forest, things got even worse.


    There was another frightened cry, and a dazed Guts saw the dead girl emerge from the cart, holding her father''s severed head in her hand. Within seconds, the ''derelict'' body was used as a vessel for the demons to take over. The blonde picked up a sword taken from one of the skeletons and lunged at Guts. He froze in place, worrying that he''d lost his time with such a beautiful woman. As a result, the demon was able to wound the swordsman in the stomach, after which he woke from his depression and sliced his opponent in half. The disfigured female body collapsed to the ground in two disfigured pieces and froze, staring into the dark sky with its innocent eyes that were filled with pain and wonder.


    The enraged swordsman pounced in anger on the skeletons, crushing them in dozens with each blow. Finally, after about ten minutes, all the dead men were gone, and Guts stiffened, kneeling beside his sword stuck in the ground. He tried to catch his breath and recover from his stomach wound. But that wasn''t the end of today''s misadventures, because right in front of the astonished warrior''s eyes, a tree root emerged from the ground, picking up the upper part of the girl and pulling her somewhere.


    Turning around, Guts saw an entire forest of ''possessed'' trees stretching their clawed branches toward him. Only a moment''s delay caused his arms and legs to become entangled in the sturdy branches, trying to hold his victim down, squeeze him, and bring him close to the hideous jaws on the tree trunks. And furthermore, the girl''s corpse was already being pulled into one of those mouths, after which her ruined beauty would become chewed fodder for the demons.


    He couldn''t bear the sight, Guts roared wildly, and used the spiritual energy dormant in his body. Just a moment ago he was crushing skeletons with his sword. With each blow he was destroying not only the flesh, but also the spirits that had possessed the bodies. And all of the demonic energy of those spirits was not dispersed in space, but absorbed into the sword and into Guts himself. Now it was time to use unconscious profit to strengthen the body to a level no human could ever dream of.

 Chapter 17.04 - Berserk

    In just a few blows, Guts chopped the ravenous trees into debris and rescued the girl''s corpse. After that, as if by magic, the Sun rose and its first rays fell on the corpses of the two men who had decided to give a stranger a ride. The swordsman stood looking at the bodies with a pain in his eyes. A long-standing and dull pain that couldn''t be taken away, and couldn''t be used to.


    ¡°Weak. How weak you are.¡± - I commented as I stared at the scene. During the fight, Puck and I had only been flying in circles, trying not to fall into the clutches of the undead. So, my accusations were immediately countered by my two companions.


    ¡°It wasn''t his fault.¡± - Puck declared in a sad but indignant voice.


    ¡°Weak?¡± - Guts squinted at me. ¨C ¡°The weak are those who are unable to defend themselves. And true strength is the ability to survive and live the life you want.¡±


    ¡°You are weak.¡± - I grinned contemptuously, minting my words. ¨C ¡°If you were stronger, you could save those two. You could have killed all the demons before they even tried to hurt anyone. If you''d embraced the power of the Philosopher''s Stone, those two probably wouldn''t have even noticed that someone had attacked them. But you denied that gift of power, leaving yourself as a useless wimp. Yes, you survived, but don''t tell me that their deaths were exactly what you wanted to achieve.¡±


    Guts waited, looked at the undead fragments, glanced at the girl''s corpse, and then pulled out a blood-red ruby that attracted the eye with its mere appearance and mysterious shimmer.


    ¡°Every power has a price.¡± - He said. ¨C ¡°Who would believe that true immortality can be given as a mere gift?¡±


    ¡°The price of power is responsibility for it.¡± - I objected. ¨C ¡°The chance you''ve been given to become stronger, to kill demons. You''re just afraid that in exchange for that power you''ll wake up your conscience. You''re the one who put it to sleep by making excuses for your weakness. You''re only strong enough to save yourself. Isn''t that right, Guts?¡±


    The swordsman looked at me with a frown, then he hid the stone in his pocket, put his sword behind his back, and crept away, no longer looking back at the battlefield, leaving the dead behind, to continue living in spite of his enemies. I waited a few seconds, and then flew silently after, too, leaving the dazed Puck to gather his thoughts.


    The night had ended not only in a philosophical dispute between me and my ''guide'' to the Spirit World, but also in a wound to his stomach, plus an arrow wound in his thigh, and a couple of superficial cuts. A weapon that had been rotting in the ground for years had made a nice hole in the swordsman''s belly, carrying a lot of dirt and other contaminants. And the arrow, shot by one of the skeletons, still had the remains of poison on it. With the ''spiritual'' enhancement these wounds were not fatal, but nevertheless his body was severely weakened, struggling with the infection and trying to cure the ''extra'' holes.


    By noon, a band of armored knights appeared in front of Guts and immediately began to surround him. The leader of the party was another blonde. Her name was Lady Farnese. She was formally the leader of the Knights of the Holy Chains of Iron, but in reality the leader of the rabble was a short and heavily built man who wielded a battle iron staff that looked more like a double-edged sword.


    ¡°We''ve found you at last, Black Swordsman!¡± - Farnese declared pompously. ¨C ¡°We are the Holy Iron Chain Knights. We''ve been chasing you by order of the Bureau of Investigation to bring you to justice. You will be dealt with mercifully if you lay down your weapons and surrender. If you do not, I swear to God you will regret it!¡±


    ¡°I don''t remember crossing the road of the church. I didn''t do anything wrong.¡±


    ¡°What a hypocrite! Then where did the blood come from?¡± - The blonde indignantly pointed to Guts'' bloodstained clothes and his sword. ¨C ¡°While we were chasing you, we saw the bodies of an old man and his daughter. You don''t say? It''s God''s will! Squad, capture the Black Swordsman!¡±


    That was the end of the negotiations, and the parties moved on to the massacre. Or rather, Guts had been about to massacre, only his wounds from the night had taken their toll. He couldn''t even swing his sword properly, and fell shamefully on his ass.


    If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    ¡°What a weakling!¡± - I did not fail to put salt on the wound. ¨C ¡°You can''t even swing a sword.¡±


    As a result, Guts began to punch with his iron prosthesis, knocking out teeth and brains, even in spite of the knights'' protective armor. A disorganized mob of ''high-born'' rabble rushed at the target in crowds, trying to chop him into a salad, though the order was actually just to ''grab'' him. But even the combined efforts of the crowd were not enough to stop a swordsman accustomed to fighting real demons. The point was that this squad was made up of the children of all sorts of powerful people who didn''t want their descendants to actually fight anyone. So most of the attackers were just fools who wore armor for beauty''s sake.


    The knights, however, had more than just numbers on their side. One of the attackers fired a crossbow and hit Guts''s already wounded leg. As a result, he tensed, grabbed his sword with both hands, and then slashed it in front of him, cutting the three attackers in half. The crowd froze, stunned by the sight of blood and guts exploding. Guts stopped, too, using the pause to pull out an arrow.


    ¡°I am Azan, Officer-Commander of the Holy Iron Chain Knights.¡± - The real commander stepped forward. The knights immediately parted, giving him room for one-on-one combat.


    ¡°Iron Staff Demon Azan?¡± - Guts recognized his opponent.


    The two warriors had a brief conversation in the best samurai tradition, and then engaged in combat. The only thing the weakened Guts could do was dodge. Naturally, with such an approach the fight could not be won, and he decided on one last desperate move - to take hostage the leader of the entire squad, who stood there and watched the fight, gaping her mouth wide open.


    Black Swordsman rushed forward, literally jumped over Azan, cut down five knights standing in his way, and was about to get the bitchy girl as at that moment the bodyguard standing behind her threw a trivial piece of wood at Guts'' wounded leg. The blow caused an explosion of pain in the swordman''s brain that knocked him unconscious and sent him falling at Farnese''s feet.


    The knights immediately began to ''sing'' the bravery and prowess of their commander, while the blonde herself froze in horror looking at the vanquished enemy, who had terrified her with his strength and ruthlessness. Meanwhile, the real winner of Guts stood modestly on the sidelines, not attracting attention. His name was Serpico, and he was the girl''s bodyguard, servant, and spy, as well as her secret admirer, hungry not only for sex, but also for revenge for her mother who had been burned at the stake.


    Afterwards, they stripped the senseless victim of all his valuables and gave him new and high-quality shackles in exchange. After that, they loaded the still unconscious body onto a cart and took him to a temporary camp, which housed the supply section of this small army.


    The swordsman was searched once more in the camp, and then taken to Farnese for interrogation. The prisoner was stripped of all his armor and clothing, leaving only his simple pants, barely tied with rope.


    The vicious blonde could not forgive Guts for the fear she felt when he attacked her. So she decided to avenge herself at the expense of torture, a favorite pastime of the nobility. The chained prisoner had been tied to a pole, and the girl insisted that she should be left alone with him.


    Next came a pompous speech about how Farnese''s actions were imbued with ''God''s will,'' and finally it was time to torture. The girl grabbed a nine-tailed whip, the tips of which were tied in knots and had special steel spikes which would slice through the skin. But thanks to a little intervention from me, after the first blow, the most damage was done not to Guts'' skin, but to his pants, whereupon they fell off, exposing his enormous cock to the view of the virgin girl.


    Farnese, seeing this anatomical detail of the male body for the first time, froze as a pillar of salt, keeping her gaze on his cock. And Guts, sensing this lustful stare, became involuntarily aroused, causing his cock to swell and rise. This whole mute scene lasted for five minutes, during which time Farnese meditated on his cock. She had in fact almost reached the state of a Bodhisattva, because during this time not a single thought appeared in her mind.


    But then they heard the excited voices of the knights, who called Azan to keep an eye on his boss and his underling. Indeed, it was dangerous to leave her alone with the outlaw. For a moment the girl was confused, glaring in panic at her subordinates who had entered the tent, and when her gaze fell back on Guts, it became clear that his pants were still where they should be, and nothing untoward was going on. The girl immediately became confused, unsure whether the ''vision of a cock'' was a reality or an illusion. But since her subordinates clearly weren''t going to leave her alone with her prisoner this time, she simply ordered them to take him away and lock him in a cage, where he was to be kept until he was brought to the Bureau of Investigation headquarters.


    While Farnese was atoning her sins for ''promiscuous thoughts,'' dusk gradually fell on the camp. The lower the sun descended, the more Guts began to sense the demons'' presence. They were hiding in the shadows and under the rocks, waiting for the sun to fade. In the meantime, I''d thoroughly brainwashed my apprentice, discussing how weak, dumb, and cowardly he was.


    But then Puck arrived to help the ''angry hedgehog'' and stole the keys from the guards, who had decided to drink a little and had drunk too much wine to be conscious, because the dismembered corpses of their comrades stood before their eyes as soon as they closed their eyes. In just a minute, Guts was free of his shackles and released from his cage. Afterward, he sprinted toward Farnese''s tent, which contained all of his belongings, most importantly his sword. My Vritras crystal was there, too. None of the inspectors wanted it, because the ruby had a spell on it that made it look like a dirty brown lump of magnetite to mere mortals.

 Chapter 17.05 - Berserk

    Although the tent was guarded by two guards, the fabric structure itself was very conventionally protected. Guts lifted the back wall of the tent and crawled in. But the sight in front of him immediately knocked all thoughts of escape from his mind, directing them in a different direction. Because right in front of him, a completely naked Farnese was whipping herself, masturbating and remembering her captive''s muscular figure at the same time.


    In fact, this deviation from the main scenario was the result of my little interference into the minds of two mortals. The girl, who had heard the slightest rustle, turned around and saw Guts, whose pants suddenly disappeared at the same moment. Anyway, the two naked bodies found each other and merged in a paroxysm of passion, disregarding the fact that they were actually now a ''slave of God'' and a ''fugitive criminal''.


    As I watched this scene, I pondered over how easily the human body is capable of suppressing any manifestation of intellect. In fact, my current situation was the result of such action. The Being itself was guilty for losing a part of its soul. In the beginning it shoved me into the body of a typical japanese schoolboy who could not think of anything but sex, and when I was in a state of the highest excitement, it ruined everything and shoved me into the body of a psychotic child, angry at the whole world. Naturally, the desire for revenge in such situation overpowered common sense, and I got my revenge. So much so that now I have to seek salvation, if not from an even more evil creature than my previous ''master''.


    While the ''sweet couple'' were having fun, I even had to push back the moment of discovering Guts'' escape. Finally, after another orgasm, both bodies shuddered, relaxed, and then the eyes of the two of them met, and they realized what was happening to them at all. Farnese immediately yelped and rushed to her clothes, trying to get at least her pants on. Guts, on the other hand, like a former mercenary, had time to put on his armor, put on his prosthetic, and grabbed his sword.


    The moment was perfect, and in the same second the camp erupted into shouts that the Black Swordsman had escaped. And the knights who broke into the tent a second later left Guts no choice but to take Farnese as hostage. She was so paralyzed by fear of discovery that she didn''t even think to resist, playing the role of an emotionless puppet. Guts tied her arms with a rope behind her back, hoisted her on his left shoulder, held a torch in his right hand, and threatened to set fire to the commander''s ass if they didn''t let him through. Then he jumped on his horse, dispersed other horses, and galloped away, throwing the prisoner over the saddle and carrying her away like a bride hunter.


    Serpico immediately found another horse and followed his mistress, but the rest of the knights began running in different directions, making a fuss and blocking any attempts to organize a chase. After a few minutes, Farnese recovered from her shock and tried to break free, but Guts lucidly explained to her that in doing so she would risk spilling the rest of her brains over the rocks they were passing. The method of explanation involved hanging her upside down by her feet so that the ground passed just a dozen centimeters from the girl''s head. Here, even the most egregious blonde would understand that there was no point in twitching.


    During the escape, Guts not only escaped, but also made his way toward the destination of his journey. Not far away was the abandoned estate of Earl Lundell, in which the Apostle, a man who had turned into a powerful demon, had resided. Only before he could face him, the demon-killer had to face a chase of evil spirits. Although Farnese could hardly distinguish the entities of the spirit world, even she could see the ghastly faces of these monsters and feel their otherworldly hunger, hungry to taste not only the flesh but also the very soul of the Sacrifice.


    After a long crazy race that nearly cost the life of the horse, our group arrived to the ruined manor house. There, two people were attacked by demon-possessed dogs. Because of the influence of demonic energy ordinary hounds have turned into disgusting monsters, whose faces now resemble human. After all, these demons were formerly humans, consumed by spiritual hunger after death and saturated with demonic energy. Kill a hundred demons, and you become a demon yourself. These souls were the perfect illustration of that saying.


    Guts had to swing his sword pretty hard, overpowering himself. Though his wounds had healed slightly, there wasn''t much strength left in his body. The half-hour marathon of uninhibited sex had worn him down as if he''d been fighting a thousand bloodthirsty demons for half an hour. So now all he could do was fight off the attacking dogs while shielding his hostage, who was trying to jump and get caught in the jaws of a monster.


    If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    By hiding in the building, Guts got a little pause. Not only Farnese and Guts were ''saved,'' but even their horse, which clever Puck had dragged inside with him. The swordsman covered the entrance to the building with the rotten remains of a door and a pile of stones that blocked their movement.


    Inside the manor house, we found ourselves in a hallway with stuffed heads of deer and other animals hanging on the walls. There were dozens of them, but the main ''treasure'' of the collection was a figure of a girl with beautiful breasts peeking out of the frame. From a distance she looked like a painting, but at close range it was clear that she was a dummy of a real girl.


    After a few minutes of silence, the dogs were able to make their way inside, and Guts found himself bound by the fight, while the half-naked Farnese ran away into the depths of the building. Her hands were still tied behind her back, so all she could do was yell and run, flashing her firm boobs.


    When she separated herself from her ''kidnapper,'' she encountered a short, ugly man in one of the corridors. He introduced himself as a dog handler, looking after the local ''doggies''. Fascinated by the arrival of ''happiness'' girl did not pay attention to an obvious set-up, and began to beg her ''savior'' to untie her and protect. But he only responded by sniffing Farnese and said he sensed that she was good meat, which he lacked.


    Suddenly Guts burst into the corridor, barely alive, fighting off the demons attacking him. The dogman, who was actually the apostle he was looking for, immediately became angry about killing his kin and assumed his true demonic form as the hideous monster. It was a hybrid of a man and a demon with two faces. One face belonged to a human, and the second face was a face of a demon that had lent its power in exchange for a sacrifice offered to it.


    When Farnese saw the apostle''s true form, she screamed wildly and rushed away. Guts, on the other hand, swung his sword and lunged forward. His body was already bruised and exhausted, but he had no intention of retreating. His whole life had been devoted to finding and killing apostles, and when he saw one right in front of him, he went into a real fighting frenzy.


    ¡°That day when that brand appeared on you, your fate was sealed.¡± - The monster laughed. ¨C ¡°You''re just prey, meat, a trophy that crawls and flutters.¡±


    In the beginning of the fight between monster and man, brute force collided with brute force, and therefore. Guts began to lose. Because of his injuries, because of the orgy I''d set up, his strength was already at its limit, and even the ''charge'' from killing small demons couldn''t help much. He was stunned by a blow that would have torn an ordinary human to shreds, and didn''t have time to react to the attempt to devour him.


    The apostle lunged forward, opening its enormous jaws. Guts tried to push it back with his foot, but the result was that his foot went straight into the monster''s mouth, and it bit it off instantly, screaming ''meat''. One last desperate blow with the sword had knocked the demon back, cutting it deeply, but it was clear by then that Guts wouldn''t live long without his leg, with the blood pouring out of the stump.


    ¡°What a weakling you are.¡± - I intervened in the fight, flying closer to a man who was clenching his teeth and trying desperately not to scream from the pain that was tearing him apart. After all, the demon had bitten off not only part of his physical body, but also part of his astral body. After all, the demon was primarily a creature of the spirit world, and he only got a physical body because of his contract with the man. ¨C ¡°Are you still doubting about the power of the Philosopher''s Stone? All right, then, I''ll show you specifically of what you''re refusing.¡±


    I flew over to the swordsman, pulled a ruby from his pocket, and pretended to absorb the energy emanating from it. The red glow swept over the elf''s entire ''body,'' and a second later it began to grow. In just a few moments I was transformed from a tiny ''fly'' to a muscular two-meter tall man with leathery wings behind his back. At that moment, the magic that had hidden me from the eyes of others was removed, and Farnese was surprised to find another naked man with an enormous dick beside her. While I was in ''boy-finger'' form, I had no primary sexual characteristics, just as Puck had none. But as my size increased, I decided to portray myself as a natural macho man, driving women into lust just by looking at me. However, the sight wasn''t the most important thing at the moment, because now I was going to do an advertising campaign for my products.


    I shoved the ruby back into the pocket of dazed Guts, and moved toward the apostle, who was looking at me with equally dazed eyes.


    I didn''t use weapons or magic, but I was impressive with the superior physical strength of Vritras'' body. The mighty apostle before me was no stronger than jelly. I easily tore off his limbs, knocked out his teeth, squeezed out his intestines, and tore out his eyes, leaving his blood-soaked, mutilated body to lie in the corner of the hall.

 Chapter 17.06 - Berserk

    ¡°Now do you understand what I''m talking about?¡± - I asked Gutts mockingly, gradually ''shrinking'' back into my petty, annoying ''elf'' self. ¨C ¡°You''re weak. You''re so weak that words can''t even describe it. And now you''re bleeding and you''re going to die very soon, to become food for demons. Even if you don''t die, you''re a cripple without a leg, and you'' destined to spend your life begging on the streets. So, what were you saying about strength? Better to die right away than not be able to live the life you want? You''ve got a great choice. Either really die, or accept the power of the Philosopher''s Stone and become truly immortal. Decide. If you don''t decide now, I''ll retrieve the stone and I will find another owner for it.¡±


    I was bluffing, of course, but Guts had realized by now that he didn''t have much choice. He pulled out the Vritras crystal, looked at it doubtfully, and then asked me a question:


    ¡°What am I supposed to do?¡±


    ¡°Just swallow it.¡± - I gave him a very simple instruction.


    The Black Swordsman looked around again, looked at the apostle lurking in the corner, who was already healed from his wounds, sighed, and shoved the blood-red stone into his mouth. Actually, a ruby of that size was not an object that was so easy to swallow, but when it entered his throat, it slipped down into his stomach, where it activated a magic embedded in it.


    Guts''s soul had immediately been ripped from his body, and then reinserted. However, this time the indestructible crystal was his true body and storage for his soul, while the organic human body became an external device designed to simplify his interaction with the world around him. Of course, only a very advanced mage could understand all of this in detail. For an ordinary user of this technology, the transformation looked like a momentary blur of consciousness.


    The crystal automatically embedded itself in the sternum bone and began to restore the human body. But it did not heal him, it only will substitute all affected flesh to Vritras'' body material. This crystal was created not on the basis of spider magic, but using Eldar psionics, so Guts now had access to some tricks not supported by the ''classic'' version. In particular, the crystal had areas of coiled space in which I had stored several tens of tons of material, perfect for creating Vritras'' body of maximum strength. In addition, there was also a reserve of nutrients, which should be enough for at least a year to provide the body with all the substances necessary for life.


    For the first few seconds, nothing seemed to happen, but then all the wounds and injuries began to ''regenerate''. Guts''s left arm and his recently lost leg grew back. A new eye appeared in his right socket. All other wounds and cuts were instantly healed and infected tissues returned to normal. In addition, all bones in his body were soaked with metal, making them almost indestructible. And new fibers of Vritras material appeared in his muscles, which strengthened them considerably, even though the swordsman was not yet at the level of a true immortal like me.


    With surprise on his face, Guts stood up and surveyed his new body. He clenched and unclenched his left hand, reacquainting himself to his ''native'' limb, then raised his sword and was surprised to discover that barely felt its weight. On his naked right leg shoes ''grew'' by themselves, aligning the length and shape of the legs. Only, if the right foot ''shoe'' was a monolith more durable than the best steel, on the left foot it was still an ordinary leather boot, covered by a gilt boot and unable to withstand heavy loads.


    However, these were all details. According to my plan, Guts''s organic body would be replaced gradually to Vritras''s body material. Meanwhile, all the energy structures in his physical and astral bodies would remain unchanged. Of course, the energy of the bitten off leg could not be restored, but it is a trifle thing.


    With easy gait, Guts approached the apostle and began kicking him, knocking out information about the Hand of God, a group of powerful apostles, among whom was Femto, a former friend of Guts''s who in life was called Griffiths. Alas, the apostle who inhabited the estate was a small fry, so he knew nothing at all. Once he was sure that the demon was of no use to him, Guts literally chopped him up into little pieces, wielding his monstrous sword like a light dagger.


    If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    Farnese, watching all these transformations, more and more was losing touch with reality, trying to understand what was really going on around her. When she saw the demon''s terrifying death, she rushed away, naively believing that the horrors had ended. Only, in the room she ran into, she was met by the ''horse'' on which she had been brought to this place. It was no longer just an animal, but a demon that had taken possession of another body. Moreover, it was a lustful demon that immediately began to ''molest'' the girl, licking her breasts with its horse tongue and getting close to her no longer virgin crotch.


    Farnese screamed in horror, and seconds later Guts burst in, slicing the horse in half with one swing and chopping it into tiny pieces with the other.


    ¡°I would advise you not to run away if you wish to live.¡± - The swordsman remarked, staring at laying girl.


    She swallowed softly at that statement, and the fervor in her eyes faded into apathy. Considering the power Guts had demonstrated, she couldn''t really be a threat to him, whereas he was her only guarantee of surviving until morning. All her ''faith in God'' faded in the face of real monsters, and instead of hope in God, she could only hope in the man who was her enemy, plus had dishonored her in camp by copulating with her in all possible positions, while she only happily fulfilled his every wish.


    Farnese felt like she just wanted to die right there, but at the same time she wanted to live and... to have sex. To fuck this embodiment of brutal primal power that radiated through every muscle of the man whom she hated most in this world. So, in second place on the list of things she hated, was herself.


    I took my mind off scanning the thoughts of this lustful female and began to observe the world around me. Meanwhile, a revolution was brewing. When Guts had gotten used to his new body, he suddenly decided that his powers were enough to deal with me. But I dodged all his strikes with the same dexterity.


    ¡°Weak! You''re still weak. Don''t think that just by feeling the power of the Philosopher''s Stone, you''ve turned into a true immortal.¡± - I laughed at his attempts. ¨C ¡°You''re still not much different from a normal person. Yes, you can''t be killed anymore, but you still don''t know how to use your power. You''re like a newborn kitten, who can only crawl and call out to his mother cat for help.¡±


    Guts was even more enraged by this comparison, but he stopped trying to figure out which of us was superior, temporarily tolerating my immeasurable greatness.


    With all this going on, time passed like an arrow, and the short summer night was over. In the sunlight all the demons vanished like a bad dream, and Serpico, who had been trying unsuccessfully to reach his mistress all this time, could finally find her naked and desperately copulating with the cruel barbarian nicknamed as Black Swordsman, who had supposedly kidnapped her. But in this scene Guts was only the ''helpless victim'' and the initiative came from Farnese, furiously raping her ''savior''. The latter, however, did not object. His healed body was ready to impregnate not just one woman, but perhaps a couple of dozen, so he saw no point in holding back, particularly as the woman herself was jumping on him.


    At the sight of this bestial passion, Serpico fell into a slump and quietly withdrew to devote himself alone to self-injury and the torment of conscience. After all, he would never be able to pluck the flower of this beautiful maiden''s innocence. All that remained was to pick up the shards of virginity which vanishing like the morning mist under the blazing sun of lust.


    Having once again satisfied her hunger for sex, Farnese came to her senses, this time confidently taking the lead in her own ranking of hatred. Without making eye contact with Guts, she exited the building through a breach in the wall and found her slave and servant nearby, who was watching the sunrise melanchologically. Farnese had only to accept his help and proceed to the camp of the Sacred Iron Chains Knights, where an army of sycophants and flunkeydoms awaited her.


    Guts, on my advice, was able to replace his worn clothing with natural Vritras armor. It covered his body perfectly, didn''t get dirty, didn''t wear out, and looked nicer. The dumb swordsman had no control over the appearance of the cloth, so I secretly designed his new garment.


    When he was sure all the demons had been slain, Guts marched out of the manor. He''d spent most of his time collecting rumors about the apostles, the destruction of which was his raison d''¨ºtre. Right now, he was on his way to a major city that was several days'' walk away.


    After midday, as was his habit, Guts lay down to sleep. Though he was immortal now, his brain was still organic, and he needed sleep to function properly. In his sleep, the swordsman dreamt of demons again. After all, the dream world was close to the spirit world in which these demons dwelled. But in addition to the familiar images, Guts saw church signs, burning fires, and... Casca, a girl who, like him, was branded with the brand of Sacrifice.


    After the events of the night of the sacrifice, Casca went insane, sinking to the level of intelligence of a year-old child. Two years ago, Guts had left her behind in the care of his acquaintances, while he drifted off on an endless journey to hunt apostles. Part of that escape was due to his inability and unwillingness to take care of the half-wit girl. But still, Casca held an important place in a nook of his heart.

 Chapter 17.07 - Berserk

    When he woke up, Guts realized it was just a dream, but then his gaze fell on an ugly demon hiding from the sunlight under a slab of stone.


    ¡°Danger.¡± - Whispered the demon. ¨C ¡°Danger. Quickly. On the holy ground, where blind sheep gather, a pillar of flame will rise in the hour of heaven''s fall. It is coming. Hurry!¡±


    At this the demon vanished into the darkness, hiding in the spirit world.


    ¡®Danger? Has something happened to the Casca?¡¯ - The swordsman thought to himself. All his thoughts were an open book to me, so these events themselves followed the ''canon'', so I did not interfere in them.


    Guts immediately changed direction and sprinted toward the abandoned mine where the family he''d left Casca lived. It took almost three days to get there. Even though Guts had obtained Vritras'' body, he still acted like an ordinary man. He could not realize that his body was capable of running ten times faster than normal. However, this was due to the fact that the organic part really could not give out more. To accelerate, the swordsman needed to strain his body beyond what it could handle. Then the body cells would collapse and be replaced by ''magical'' material.


    The demon killer hurried as fast as he could, but when he got to the right place, he discovered that his fears were not unfounded. Casca was really missing. They had once taken her for a ''walk'' in the countryside, but as soon as the girl who had been looking after her distracted, her half-wit companion disappeared into the woods and vanished without a trace. The search was futile, and by now she had been ''missing'' for more than a month.


    The ''family'' of his acquaintances was not a real family. They were an ancient grandfather who was barely alive, a boy of about sixteen, and a ten-year-old girl. They were not relatives, but a hard fate forced them to unite in order to survive. The old man was a blacksmith living out his last days, and the boy was his apprentice, learning how to make swords from the iron he had mined himself in the mine.


    When they saw Guts alive, and more importantly, fully recovered, they couldn''t believe such a transformation for long. Anxious, the Black Swordsman decided to spend the night in order to go in search of the Casca the next day. In the meantime, the old man had promised to rebuild his sword, repairing all of the damage that had accumulated in it over two years. I could see that Guts'' sword was more than just a piece of iron. So, I hesitated to ''improve'' it. Let a professional fix it with the old-fashioned ways.


    ¡°So, you don''t need a prosthetic anymore?¡± - Rickert, the blacksmith''s apprentice, asked Guts a little disappointed. He twirled a multi-shot crossbow in his hands, which could be used by placing it on the forearm of his left hand. The only problem was that the shape of this crossbow was tailored to use a prosthetic, and therefore an ordinary person could not use it.


    ¡°His new hand is much better than the old iron.¡± - I began to praise my ''product''. ¨C ¡°Besides, he doesn''t need a crossbow because he can shoot arrows straight from his hand. And he can shoot a harpoon attached to a rope and pull or be pulled to his enemies.¡±


    ¡°Is that so?¡± - Guts looked doubtfully at his left arm.


    ¡°Of course, it''s true!¡± - I didn''t let my words be doubted. ¨C ¡°Just try it. Just hold out your hand and pretend you want to shoot a harpoon into that chair over there.¡±


    I had already loaded a control program for such a weapon into the crystal. This program simplified targeting and harpoon control, and it also took care of such ''little things'' as creating material for the tether when fired and disposing of it when retracted. All this matter was automatically taken from the spatial pockets and returned there as well.


    Guts reached out his hand in the right direction with some hesitation, and I ''combined'' his thoughts with the program activation matrix. A black four-edged tip shot out of the palm of his left hand, pulling with it a thin and sturdy cord. The harpoon pierced the heavy chair as if it were made of absorbent cotton. And a second later, at Guts'' behest, the cord pulled into his hand and drew the wreckage of the chair. And when he wished, the harpoon released its own ''prey'' and swiftly ''absorbed'' back into his hand.


    ¡°Oh, my gosh!¡± - Rickert''s eyes widened.


    This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    ¡°Um... Sorry about the chair.¡± - Guts scratched his head, suddenly possessing a superpower that Spider-Man himself would have been jealous of.


    ¡°Now go practice.¡± - I gave the order to my minion. ¨C ¡°So that by tomorrow morning you can use the harpoon as if it were your own hand.¡±


    The swordsman responded to this sort of rudeness on my part by pointing his hand at me and firing his harpoon. I didn''t duck, but rather pompously put my hand forward, into which the tip of the harpoon struck, immediately losing all its force and bouncing back with a loud clang.


    ¡°Ungrateful bastard.¡± - I said my thoughts to Guts'' face, who hadn''t expected such a result. ¨C ¡°Enough, I''m sick of you. From now on, I''m not going to rest until I''ve sung you all one thousand eight lewd ditties.¡±


    Guts, usually when he''s drunk,


    bangs his head against the trunk.


    Maybe it''s the alcohol,


    maybe it''s an aging old...


    In the morning the ''patient'' was ready to agree to anything, as long as I stopped ''broadcasting'' my lewd ditties, in which I mocked him and all his acquaintances. And my disgusting voice was literally screwing into his ears, directly raping his brain. And no amount of Vritras regeneration helped, because I had deviously turned it off.


    At sunrise, the blacksmith handed Guts the repaired sword. Only, he hadn''t noticed that I''d interfered with the repair process by adding a strip of the strongest material I''d ever known, the Eldar psycho-blade, to the edge of the blade. This seemingly inconspicuous overlay, disguised as ordinary steel, was much stronger than diamond, plus it could regenerate by absorbing the psi energy that Guts was supposed to be supplying. It increased the sharpness of the blade to the point where it could slice through demons like jelly without encountering any resistance.


    Once he collected his things, Guts said goodbye to his family and went to the place Rickert had told him about. It was known as the ''holy land'' mentioned by the demon, and there was a monastery there called the Citadel of Condemnation. Now there were crowds of refugees, many of whom were being fostered by war, disease, and starvation. All these people were hungry for who-knows-what, and they were going based on herd instinct. ¡°Everybody''s going there, and so am I¡±. Guided by this idea, like a true sacrificial sheep, Guts headed there as well.


    In the afternoon the swordsman reached a small village, where he found an interesting picture. A pack of bandits had decided to rob a child, and as a result they themselves were slaughtered by the Kushans, the people who rule the neighboring country. There were rumors that the Kushan Empire was about to attack Midland, so it was no surprise to find an advance party of their scouts here. These fanatics of some ''honor'' which mere mortals cannot understand were dressed in turbans, cloaks, and briefs, and armed with crooked daggers and sabers. Another interesting detail was that the only survivor of the massacre so far was Isidro, the same kid I had met for the third time, who had been trying unsuccessfully for days to find Guts and try to ask him to be his apprentice.


    Guts swung his sword casually a couple of times as he arrived at the scene of the fight, and the nine Kushans parted with their lives, being dismembered into pieces. Their comrades didn''t retreat, but tried to organize a joint attack, but all of them had enough for two more strikes before the whole squad was wiped out. However, there was another squad nearby, but their leader thought that trying to kill Guts might cost them too much, so he ordered them to retreat.


    Isidro, after seeing the ease with which Guts had cut down the Kushans, who had earlier slaughtered a band of outlaws in seconds, was even more excited to learn the art of the sword from the big man in the black cloak.


    ¡°Holy shit!¡± - Exclaimed the juvenile delinquent who wanted to become a professional mercenary.


    As a ''payment'' for his rescue, Puck confiscated a pile of munchies from Isidro, which he had hidden under his clothes. But the guy was too excited to pay attention. Instead, he was running through images in his head of how tough swordsman he would become in the future. Simultaneously with the daydreaming, the kid was ''secretly'' following Guts.


    But after a couple of hundred meters, the swordsman started running, trying to get to his destination as fast as possible. Naturally, the average kid was no match for his stamina and fell behind rather quickly. Nevertheless, the next day Isidro was able to catch up with Guts when he stopped to take a nap.


    Naturally, the boy couldn''t resist the temptation to swing the huge sword, but he couldn''t even move the iron thing, which weighed over a hundred kilograms. Guts told the lad to stay away from him, but he wouldn''t do it. And just an hour later we were attacked by demons again. Isidro almost fainted from the sight of the dead men tied to the wheels that rolled at him with loud curses, but managed to get his bearings in time. Guts ran forward, slashing demons left and right, while our new companion ran behind him in a ''keel'' free of the monsters. A few minutes later, Isidro stumbled, fell to the ground, and passed out from the abundance of free demonic energy around him. Fortunately, all of the demons had already been destroyed by this point, so he was still alive, though drenched in demonic blood.


    Guts ran as fast as he could, but a new obstacle appeared in his path. It was the Skull Knight, a creature that was formerly human and had once crossed over to a spiritual level of existence.


    https://berserk.fandom.com/wiki/Skull_Knight?file=BTCG_Skull_Knight.png</a>

 Chapter 17.08 - Berserk

    ¡°I see you''re in good shape, warrior.¡± - Skull said. On the outside, this pepper really did look like an iron skeleton sitting on an armored horse. Someone might have thought it was such armor, but it was obvious to me that this creature really did have a body of steel. Meanwhile, the skeleton continued his speech. ¨C ¡°Elf? And... what kind of creature is that?¡±


    At that, the aura of omniscience and superiority surrounding the visitor cracked and dissipated.


    ¡°I am the highest elf, you iron skull! You should know what your master looks like.¡± - I immediately introduced myself.


    ¡°You are not an elf.¡± - The knight answered me grimly.


    ¡°And you are not a human. Of course, I''m not an elf. I am the highest elf. The highest! The supreme and all-powerful elf god, that''s what I am!¡±


    ¡°Not important.¡± - The skeleton snapped at me.


    ¡°No, important! What, you think you''re the coolest guy here? No! I''m the coolest. If you don''t admit it right now, I will beat you until you call me your grandfather.¡±


    ¡°It''s been a long time, old man. What brings you here?¡± - Guts asked, completely ruining my game and completely ignoring my speech.


    The skeleton decided to do the same.


    ¡°I''m fighting otherworldly monsters, and you''ll soon find out what lies ahead.¡±


    ¡°Is it an apostle?¡± - Guts guessed.


    ¡°Or the one who made them appear.¡± - Skull made a blur sentence.


    ¡°No way! Is the Hand of God near?¡±


    ¡°You, too, saw a shining hawk in your dream. It was a revelation that the one whose appearance represented the hawk would appear in the world of mortals. Flocks of sheep will come to the holy land, drenched with blood. And these sheep are eager for the hawk of light! Every thousand years, when some place overflows with power, then whatever lay in the World of the Gods will appear in the world of mortals. Eclipse! Something like that Eclipse might happen!¡±


    ¡°All of this... all of this will happen again?¡± - Suddenly Guts went into a rage, and I could see how in his soul there was a stirring... demon.


    Gee, this pepper really is possessed. That''s why he can absorb the power of demons. During the Eclipse, a weak demon infiltrated into Guts'' body. All this time it''s been feeding on the blood and death of its kin, and by now it''s almost grown to the point where it can influence its host''s thoughts. And the image of the Eclipse, where the material and spiritual worlds converged, compelled Guts to submit to the emotions he felt, opening a back door into his mind for the demon.


    This ''discovery'' came as an unpleasant surprise to me. After all, I was the only one who had the ''right'' to influence Guts'' mind, to make him do what I wanted him to do. The wandering demon in his soul could stop me. However, there was still time, and in the very near future I was going to use this demon to gain even more power over the thoughts and feelings of the Sacrifice, who was supposed to get to Azathoth alive.


    ¡°Unfortunately, no man can stop it from coming.¡± - The knight continued to exacerbate the situation. ¨C ¡°A shadow will be born. That shadow will be thrown away by the dying sun, which gives light to a distant earth.¡±


    Honestly, Skull''s last words sounded more like some kind of nonsense. Shadow? The sun? It was much simpler than that. Femto was going to make a huge sacrifice to get a material body. And all these prophecies and visions were just a result of proper processing of dark and ignorant sacrificial masses. So, judging from the last words, Skull himself works for the Hand of God or whoever is already behind that ''hand''. Generally, the slightest vestige of respect for this ''fighter against evil'' has just evaporated in me, and I decided to knock him down a little.


    ¡°That''s it, time''s up.¡± - I shouted. ¨C ¡°Now, I''ll teach you a lesson, you cheeky little skull!¡±


    With that shout, I darted forward and kicked the Skull Knight in the forehead with my ¡®elf¡¯ body. He hadn''t expected that I, so small on the face of it, would hit him with an attack as powerful as an angry elephant. A very heavy steel elephant, weighing millions of tons.


    Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.


    With a loud clang, Skull flew out of the saddle. But before he could land, I landed a dozen more blows on him. Finally, he collapsed to the ground with the sound of an empty bucket. The demon-wrestler''s ''armor'' was bent in many places, and his arms and legs looked in different directions, at angles clearly unintended by human anatomy.


    ¡°Call me grandpa and bow down. Or I''ll beat you so that you''ll be easier to melt down than straighten up.¡±


    ¡°Kha! What is your power? Who are you?¡±


    ¡°Do you have dementia? I am his majesty, the almighty high elf named Fuck! Bow down before me or die, Skull.¡±


    As proof of my words, I thumped the brat a few more times, and this time the blows were accompanied by the distinct crunch of cracking bones and metal.


    ¡°Yes, of course. The naughty grandson greets his grandfather. Fuck, my Grandpa Fuck!¡± - The knight muttered in panic, trying to get to his knees, but unable even to get off the ground.


    ¡°That''s right.¡± - I nodded graciously. ¨C ¡°Now get lost, my audience is over.¡±


    Skull didn''t argue, but summoned his horse, climbed on it somehow, and immediately rushed away.


    ¡°What are you all looking at?¡± - I turned to Guts and Puck, who stood there with their mouths hanging open. ¨C ¡°Now do you see how tough I am?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, yeah, boss, you''re cool!¡± - The elf agreed with me. ¨C ¡°How you do him. One and done!¡±


    ¡°That''s right.¡±


    Guts was silent, but there was a look of respect in his eyes as he looked at me. Only now he realized how great my strength was, and why I kept calling him a wimp.


    A couple of hours later, Isidro caught up with us. The kid was a rare persistent, or even stubborn. But Guts, despite all his haste, kept going at a pace more suited to a man than to Vritras. However, I already had a plan to make him exceed his limits.


    As soon as he arrived at the Citadel of Condemnation, Guts encountered a squad of Holy Iron Chain Knights. They were leading another ''witch'' who was about to be interrogated and tortured to death. The swordsman stopped the procession, grabbed the leader''s face, and began questioning if the girl with the brand on her chest was among the people he''d captured. As soon as he found out the officer didn''t know anything, Guts immediately wasted him, tossing him up into the air and chopping him to pieces with his sword. The other soldiers tried to attack Guts, but he chopped them to pieces along with their horses, and then the rest of the squad chose to flee.


    The people who witnessed the showdown were immediately impressed by Gutts'' strength, bravery, and ''fairness''. One of the women heard the words about the brand on her chest and told the Black Swordsman that she knew such a girl. He immediately followed this woman, only to discover the empty tent in which Casca was supposed to be. After all, this business couldn''t have done without some dumb blond girl who would have created a lot of trouble out of nothing.


    In the camp Casca lived in the company of prostitutes who made a living by their bodies. The girl captured by the knights was one of them. Moreover, the soldiers acted on a denunciation. One of the whores, the closest to Casca, realized that soon they would all be captured, so she decided to escape, and the same time to take her half-wit girlfriend.


    Only, as soon as they stepped outside the camp, the two girls fell into clutches of the local sect of demon worshippers, who regarded Casca as a ''black witch''. And there was a reason for that. Just a couple of days ago, when they had tried to rape the girl, she had ''summoned'' a mob of spirits that had possessed the cultists and forced them to kill each other. But that incident didn''t teach those sheep anything, so they decided to try again with a slight change of scenery.


    Guts, of course, could not see the kidnapping scene, but Isidro, who had decided to run through the camp in the company of Puck, saw the girls, similar in description to the one wanted, being carried away by some men. He followed them to the sect''s lair in the caves, where another sabantoon and convention of maniacal perverts was taking place. When the fuck-up going on there reached its climax, Isidro finally realized that he can send Puck to Guts for help.


    When he heard from the ''useless fly'' that he had found Casca, who was about to be raped by a mob of maniacs, Guts became furious and ran toward the scene, running at a 100% rate. But I wasn''t satisfied with a measly 100%, so I grabbed Puck''s arm and doubled his pace. Guts immediately began to lag behind, but I encouraged him with a phrase:


    - ¡°Hurry up, or they''ll eat all delicious parts!¡±


    The last word triggered the swordsman''s mind, and he remembered the Eclipse scene, in which demons had devoured all his friends in front of him. When he thought the same fate might befall Casca, Guts went into a wild rage, roared, howled, and... accelerated. Twice as fast, three times as fast, five times as fast... But before he could reach his true limit, we found ourselves already on the spot to see that the situation had worsened.


    Under stress, Casca''s consciousness opened to the spirit world, attracting crowds of hungry demons. They took possession of the bodies of the most vulnerable sect members and attacked the rest of the people, devouring them alive. To mere observers, it looked as if some of the cultists had gone insane and attacked their own comrades. But that was not all. At that very moment, a squad of Holy Iron Chain Knights arrived into the den of fanatics to capture them all. But instead of exhausted humans, they met a crowd of hungry demons eager for human meat.


    As a finishing touch, the apostle in the Citadel of Condemnation injected one of the cultists with demon blood, turning him into a mini-apostle - a strong and fast creature with a goat''s head and goat''s legs.


    Isidro, Casca, and the blond whore tried to escape, taking advantage of the disturbance, but Casca stumbled, fell, and a second later was surrounded by demons, with the Goat Demon standing beside her, gazing approvingly at the victim before him. His cock looked like a snake and even had its own glowing eyes. Apparently, the demon planned to rape the girl first, and only then to devour her.

 Chapter 17.09 - Berserk

    That''s when Guts appeared on the scene. He immediately jumped up to Casca and cut off Goat demon''s arm holding her by the shoulder. His mere appearance caused everyone around him to freeze in fear and wonder. After all, the demon he wounded was inhumanly strong, and no human could stand against him.


    Ordinary demons immediately lunged at Guts, but he swung his giant sword and shredded at least a dozen of his enemies in one strike. As he did so, I could clearly see the blue glow surrounding the sword. It was the work of his accumulated spiritual energy.


    Guts looked at Casca, and there was concern and... regret. He loved Casca, but it was her personality that attracted him, which was now hidden beneath a veil of madness. The current Casca was more of a reproach to him, a mere reminder of her former self. And seeing this scene, Guts felt again all the emotions that had made him leave the girl two years ago and go on a never-ending voyage.


    However, the swordsman had no time to play peek-a-boo, because the goat-headed demon had no intention of giving up his Sacrifice so easily.


    ¡°Let''s get out of here, Isidro. Don''t let those two to escape.¡± - Guts told to his minion. Yeah, yeah, we''ve already got a whole hierarchy of minions.


    ¡°Got it! You can rely on me. I found a passage to the back of the cave. You owe me a favor. Pretty much.¡± - The boy answered right away.


    ¡°You can talk when we get out.¡± - Guts replied grimly, surveying at the front of the work. In front of him was an apostle, a hundred naked demon-possessed men, and at least fifty more armored knights.


    Meanwhile, Farnese, who saw the Black Swordsman, began to feel holy rage and... lust. She still couldn''t forgive herself for that ''night of love'' in the mansion, so when she saw Guts, she immediately decided to kill him. She gave orders to kill all those who would not surrender, especially the Black Swordsman. Azan was against the order because it went against the orders of the Holy See¡¯s Bureau of Investigation, but he didn''t dare go against his direct commander.


    Isidro pointed to the ''emergency exit'' from the heretics'' lair, but then Goat-demon intervened, recovering from the blow he''d taken and from the loss of his arm. He supposed he could deal with the small folk later, but Guts had to be dealt with first.


    ¡°I will not give you the witch.¡± - The demon muttered with his goat head. The demon''s thoughts were now mingling with those of the ''body donor'', one of the sect''s leaders. During the ritual, he wore the goat''s head as a mask, but now that head was ''real''. ¨C ¡°Bride is mine!¡±


    The Goat lunged at Guts. He tried to use his signature move, the horizontal sweep of his sword that cut him in half, but the demon easily jumped over the lethal steel, then kicked Guts in the back with his hoof. As the swordsman struggled to get to his feet, Goat-demon managed to turn around and kick him again, hitting his sword, which was held up flat.


    A kick to the back nearly broke the swordsman''s spine, but all the damaged tissue was immediately replaced by Vritra''s material, and the flowing demon energy immediately soaked into the new ''flesh'', making it part of the body.


    Well, that''s exactly how it''s supposed to work. In combat, Guts unconsciously channeled demonic energy, restoring any irregularities in its flow, allowing parts of his body to be fully replaced.


    Guts ordered Isidro to lead the girls away, and stayed behind to hold the Goat. The demon, of course, refused to let go of his prey, but Guts managed to correctly use the ''harpoon'' in his left hand to hook the apostle and draw him to himself. His successes ended there. Although the demon was not a fully-fledged apostle, his speed and precision were far superior to Guts'', allowing him to dodge every sword blow while repeatedly striking his opponent with hooves that were stronger than steel.


    ¡°Use the force, Luke... uh... I mean, Guts.¡± - I shouted. ¨C ¡°You must forget that you''re human. You''re stronger and faster than that goat-horn. But as long as you keep clinging to your humanity, you can''t beat him. Use the force of your anger! Anger gives you strength. Through strength you gain power. Power leads you to victory. Victory breaks your chains. Force sets you free.¡±


    These Sith-style guidelines were unexpectedly effective. Guts succumbed to anger, let the demon into his soul, was able to feel what it meant to be a demon, and stopped paying attention to the limitations he was used to during his human existence. At that moment, the demon in his soul tried to seize control of Guts'' mind, but... Demon stumbled on the mental barrier I had set up around him. The demon could give power, but he could not take anything in return. In fact, now he felt just like Kyuubi, who had been trapped inside the seals, sucking every last drop of energy out of him.


    You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.


    I grinned mentally, and was pleased to see that the accelerated Guts began to move at the same speed as the demon. Now it was harder to dodge the sword blows. And after a dozen seconds of this mad battle, which looked to humans like a blur of shadows, Guts accelerated even further and was able to land the decisive strike. Realizing that he couldn''t dodge it, Goat-demon tried to block the sword ''with his horns,'' but the blade, made of psi-bone, cut through both horns and neck almost without resistance, and a moment later Guts landed another dozen strikes, permanently dismembering the demon-possessed man.


    After he defeated the mini-apostle, Guts immediately rushed to the secret passage, leaving the hordes of mere demons to the knights. The only thing he cared about now was Casca, and even his hate of demons receded temporarily to the side. Not good! I shall have to deal with this matter more seriously.


    A narrow passage, where a man could barely squeeze through, gradually widened out, leading to the surface, where it became a narrow ledge running along an almost vertical slope. There was no way to turn somewhere ''wrong'' here, unless you wanted to fall straight down and hit your head on the rocks from a height of a hundred meters.


    As Guts moved along this narrow mountain path, barely half a meter wide, he unexpectedly encountered Serpico. At first, he decided to follow the fugitives, but then he spotted Guts and decided to take him out. However, he has never forgiven the bastard for ''plucking the flower of innocence'' from his beautiful Farnese. At the same time, she never ''gave it to Serpico,'' which pissed him off even more.


    ¡°I''ve been waiting for you, Black Swordsman.¡± - Said Serpico in an indifferent voice that hid his hatred.


    Without a second thought, Guts reached out with his left hand and fired a harpoon at him. Unfortunately for him, the target dodged and the shot missed.


    ¡°Oh, wait a minute.¡± - He tried to let his opponent''s guard down, but the attempt failed.


    Activating the harpoon return, Guts hooked the ornate green jester''s suit, which Serpico preferred to wear instead of heavy armor. Now the swordsman could not freely control the shape and movements of his Vritra body, so the harpoon only yanked the prey and tore off a piece of cloth. But it was enough to make the lad lose his balance and fall into the deep abyss.


    Guts naively thought he had gotten rid of the nuisance, but as he passed the spot where Serpico had previously stood, Serpico suddenly popped up from below, aiming his sword directly at his eye. Earlier this ''musketeer'' had managed to grab hold of a ledge and hide from the swordsman''s eyes behind a rock. Guts dodged the unexpected attack and stepped back.


    ¡°It wasn''t fair.¡± - Serpico declared, jumping out onto the path just one meter from his opponent.


    He made another attack, and blocked another attempted harpoon shot with his sword. By habit Guts blocked the blade with his left hand. Before, there had been an iron prothesis there, and it had worked. Now there was Vritra''s material, and the result was as good as ever. But a second later it dawned on Guts that the hand was actually now ''alive,'' and he began to doubt himself and his abilities.


    Following another habit, the swordsman decided to reach for his main argument, but on the narrow mountain path it was impossible to do so, because the space to the right was blocked by a rock, and it was impossible to make a step to the left. Gatts had to dodge the next lunge. And the next. And a dozen more.


    ¡°I don''t let people draw their weapons.¡± - Serpico declared in a confident tone.


    ¡°Guts, I already knew you are stupid, but not that much dumb!¡± - I literally howled, fluttering beside him. ¨C ¡°You''re immortal! Why the fuck are you dodging. Just go ahead and punch the prick in the face. Why are you dancing like a pussy with him? Or is he your type? Oops.¡±


    That last remark was irrelevant, because Guts'' ''lover'' was Griffiths, whom he so eagerly wanted to pierce... no, not with his cock, but with his sword. Though he wanted to stab him with his dick, too. Anyway, the faggot-face became fierce again and lunged forward. The blade slid helplessly across Guts'' cheek as his right fist slammed into Serpico''s belly, knocking him backward. The pitiful mortal couldn''t keep his balance and plunged back into the abyss. This time, however, he was able to cling to the rocks, although that was the result of my intervention. So far, it was not time for this ''dickhead'' to leave the scene.


    Snorting angrily, Guts looked down, again not noticing the survivor, and continued marching forward, gritting his teeth and snarling "Griffiths!" under his breath. Yeah, exactly such kind of homosexuals we should feed to Azathoth. As for the beautiful virgins, I''ll find a better place to put them.


    After walking down the mountain trail, Guts came to a... a dead end, without encountering any fugitives. The ledge simply ended, and there was no further way. But there was a ring of iron, to which a rope had been tied, embedded in the wall beside it. It was logical to suppose that he should use it to get down. But even at the bottom he could not find Casca. However, there he met a lonely Isidro.

 Chapter 17.10 - Berserk

    According to what the boy said, the girls were noticed by some lad and called the knights, who seized them. Farnese, eager to destroy Guts, identified the fugitives as the ones that Guts tried so hard to protect, and arrested them and took them to the Citadel of Condemnation. Anyway, once again the hot lover lost his chick after barely getting a peek or two at her.


    By the time Guts reached the castle, it was already nighttime. At first, he wanted to trivially fight his way through the main gate, but then one of the prostitutes, who knew a way to get inside unnoticed, promised to help him.


    While Guts and his companions were getting there, Casca had been taken to the torture chamber, where Chief Inquisitor Mozgus himself attended her. But as soon as real danger arose, demons began to appear near Casca, as they had before. And since it happened in the torture chamber, which was literally saturated with hatred and pain, the evil spirits immediately used this energy to materialize in the form of blood-red protoplasm. This embodiment of suffering immediately began to expand, consuming all humans. The protoplasm swallowed up Casca as well, but it didn''t hurt her at all.


    In general, I suppose several ''components'' were required for the upcoming rebirth of Griffiths. The first was a ''holy place'' connected with the Spirit World. The second was sacrifice - thousands of people sincerely wishing for the ''coming of the falcon'', i.e. Griffiths himself. The third ingredient was pain, suffering and a sense of doom. And the most important ''ingredient'' was the Sacrifice that made Griffiths an apostle of demons. But since his wish had not yet been fulfilled, the Sacrifice remained untouchable. Guts might naively have believed that he was the toughest guy in the world, killing demons left and right, but in reality, he was allowed to live. As for the weaklings he killed, they were just food for the demon that was growing in his soul.


    Meanwhile, Guts, Isidro and I reached the bottom of the castle, which towered over us like a mountain. The prostitute threw a stone toward a small, shuttered window on the third floor. It immediately opened and a rope ladder descended. This window was a ''loophole'' through which alcohol and whores were brought into the fortress, plus sometimes soldiers would use it to go away.


    While the girl was talking to the guard, trying to get inside to distract him, Guts just jumped through the window with such speed that no one even noticed him. He also tore the guard''s head off in the process. After that, the swordsman began to run through the empty corridors of the castle, demonstrating a profound understanding of the principles of Brownian motion.


    However, he quickly reached the cellars where the torture chamber was, navigating by smell and demonic energy. Here he was taken by surprise by a whole crowd of inquisitors running upstairs, so he had to hide in one of the corridors. But to his surprise, in the midst of this crowd he found Farnese walking erratically. He stealthily ''kidnapped'' her and started extracting information from the girl, demanding to know where the Casca is and what had happened to her.


    After discovering that Casca was being held in the torture chamber, Guts threatened Farnese and forced her to lead him there. Serpico followed the pair in stealth, trying to think of a way to save his ward, for whose life and health he was responsible with his head.


    Only when they reached the torture chamber, they found empty rooms with no trace of people or their corpses. Only the lingering traces of blood told them the place wasn''t completely abandoned. Also, the whole place was saturated with demonic energy, which literally glowed in the air with a reddish mist.


    ¡°What''s that supposed to mean?¡± - Guts, who hadn''t expected to see an empty room, was angry.


    ¡°Impossible!¡± - Farnese muttered, glancing around. ¨C ¡°Not so long ago...¡±


    And then they came around the corner and found that the bones in this part of the room were laying a thick layer on the floor. The remains, too, were reddish in color and were falling apart at the slightest touch.


    ¡°It''s those...¡± - Farnese almost vomited, although in my opinion these bones looked much more aesthetically pleasing than the nightmare that was going on here just half an hour ago, when a whole crowd of inquisitors was ''working'' at a percussive pace.


    Here Guts found his tame elf Puck, who had managed to survive the demon attack by hiding inside a steel helmet. Puck assured Guts that Casca is still alive. Moreover, he could still feel her life force, so he led his master to her.


    Stolen story; please report.


    Farnese, who had seen Puck, was again stunned. If all the ''wonders'' she''d seen before had been vague visions and waking nightmares, but the little flying man was clearly visible. And as she looked around, she noticed me, too, because I had now purposely removed my cloaking spell. Remembering what I had done to the apostle in the mansion, Farnese no longer dared think of escaping. Again, she was forced to follow the Black Swordsman just to stay alive and... then she felt a tingle between her legs and her head was filled with unrestrained sexual fantasies.


    ¡°You can get lost.¡± - Guts dismissed her with a scornful look.


    ¡°Wait, I''ll come with you.¡± - The blonde shouted, running after the ''boyfriend of her dreams''. As soon as he stepped back, the red protoplasm, already familiar to her, was oozing from the walls again.


    Meanwhile, the ''red stuff'' continued to pursue Mozgus, driving him into the chapel at the very top of the fortress. The inquisitor prepared to accept death, but at that moment he was ''pecked in the ass by a bird''. I mean, the local apostle, who had yet to play his part in Griffiths'' resurrection, injected demon blood into the body of the inquisitor and his assistants. In just a few seconds they transformed and gained ''angelic powers''. In particular, Mozgus gained a ''fire-breath'' with which he literally incinerated the protoplasm in front of him.


    At that moment, he unknowingly saved a bunch of survivors, among whom was Isidro, from being swallowed by this protoplasm. In addition to him in the group were two whores and their client.


    Casca, who had been inside the protoplasm all this time, was also freed by the flames, and Mozgus put his raking hands on her.


    ¡°I witnessed a miracle! It was the will of God! With this power I must lead the people.¡± - Proclaimed the newborn apostle Mozgus. Although his power was less than that of a real apostle, the very energy of the place allowed him to absorb far more demonic energy.


    Mozgus and his party were about to finish the bunch of them off, when Guts appeared on the scene with a pompous flourish. When he saw Casca, he immediately broke away from the slice and rushed forward, sweeping away everything in his path. The only thing in the way were the seven apostles, who didn''t want to be swept away, but instead joined the fight. At that ''beautiful moment'', all seven inquisitors opened their angelic wings and soared into the sky, spreading a holy glow.


    ¡°So, you''re the black swordsman? Did I understand that correctly?¡± - Mozgus asked. ¨C ¡°I don''t know what your intentions are, but I won''t give you the witch. For the sake of God''s justice!¡±


    With those words, he turned and flew away. Guts tried to stop him with his harpoon, but it was deflected by a lesser inquisitor.


    ¡°Fool, you dare go against God?¡± - Mozgus outraged. ¨C ¡°You shall suffer bleeding for it.¡±


    Four of the inquisitors rushed at Guts, and Guts was surprised to find that their combined strength was enough to overwhelm him. The blows came one after another, and all Guts had to do was block them, unable to attack properly.


    ¡°Stupid animal, what are you doing?¡± - I yelled in frustration. ¨C ¡°Why are you defending yourself? Those sub-apostles can'' hurt you, even if they have a thousand lives. Just go and kill them all. What kind of mating game is this?¡±


    ¡°No need to interfere, lord, it is our duty.¡± - Mozgus was stopped from personal involvement by his most loyal servant. ¨C ¡°You, Father Mozgus, must do yours.¡±


    ¡°Forgive me. I have lost my temper.¡± - The Grand Inquisitor apologized, staring at the scene before him with eyes filled with childlike innocence.


    The three apostles flapped their angelic wings and soared into the sky. Guts rushed forward, but the four remaining demons blocked his path. Casca ''flew'' away from him again, along with a cheekily grinning Mozgus. Isidro tried to stop the apostle, but all he had the strength to do was climb onto the invulnerable body of the inquisitor and fly away with him.


    Meanwhile, four inquisitors used Guts'' distraction to immobilize him. One took hold of his head with his legs, threatening to scratch out his eyes with his claws, two grabbed his arms to keep them from moving, and the third hit him in the stomach with a huge steel ''wheel,'' which was actually a torture tool.


    Another fit of rage consumed Guts. He roared, and his flesh ''flowed,'' tearing free of the hold it had on him. The apostle tried to pierce the swordsman''s eyes with his claws, but that didn''t stop him. With a devilish roar, Guts twisted out of the captivity of the torture weapons, grabbed his sword with both hands, and with all his might struck the enemy in front of him. It was a huge, muscular brute wielding an iron wheel. He once again thrust his weapon to block the sword, but this time it didn''t work. The glowing blue blade sliced the wheel in two, and with it the ''angel'' split in two. Blood and guts splattered in all directions, flooding the chapel.


    ¡°You will pay for this!¡± - One of the apostles shouted, and immediately he paid the price himself, because his voice attracted the attention of the mad monster.


    This apostle was a little old man wielding ''eye-pincers. He tried to dodge Guts, who leaped toward him, but he had already gone into ''combat mode,'' in which the speed of his arms and legs exceeded the speed of sound, producing thunderous blows. The sword pierced the weak body, almost splitting it in half simply by the width of the blade. Before the apostle''s corpse had even fallen to the ground, Guts rushed to his next target. This demon didn''t even have time to do anything before he was chopped to pieces along with his weapon. Moreover, this weapon was a steel chain. The psi-bone made the sword so sharp that it was capable of chopping through steel without meeting any resistance. Of course, to do that you had to infuse the blade with psi-energy, and normally, Guts couldn''t do that even if he wanted to.

 Chapter 17.11 - Berserk

    The last apostle made a desperate attempt to reach his opponent at least at the cost of his life, but his weapon, perfectly suited for torture, was almost useless in combat, so after only a second he too became a victim of a mad demon killer, to whom the name ''Berserk'' suited perfectly.


    When four apostles fell, Mozgus was already quite far from the chapel. He hovered over the panicking crowd, spreading his ''holiness''. The embodiment of hatred in the form of red protoplasm did not disappear. Only a small piece chased after Mozgus, while the main mass moved towards the refugees gathered around the fortress, absorbing human emotions and growing. Due to its immense size, this mass began to destroy the walls of the central tower, causing it to tilt. Guts, Farnese, Serpico, and three other ''passengers'' were trapped at the top of the tower, trying to escape the falling stones.


    At this time, Mozgus descended from the heavens and repelled one of the ''appendages'' of demonic energy with his fire. This ''miracle'' immediately aroused people''s faith, and they fervently began to pray to everything and anything. To those around him, Mozgus appeared as a true angel. He proclaimed that all the heresy happening here was the result of the witch''s sorcery, so Casca should be burned at the stake immediately. The crowd immediately rejoiced and began to perform miracles, literally conjuring firewood out of nowhere for the upcoming auto-da-f¨¦.


    Isidoro, who had been thrown off Mozgus''s back just before this speech, managed to grab onto the edge of the fortress wall, saving himself from falling thirty meters to the ground. He saw that Casca was about to be burned at the stake. Moreover, the burning was supposed to take place right beneath him, near the wall.


    When the pyre had already started to burn, Isidoro, gathering courage, descended down the rope, untied Casca, grabbed her, and then his unexpectedly formed helpers dropped a weight attached to the rope, causing the boy and Casca to be lifted up by the pulley. The crowd, of course, became agitated and began to curse the heretics who had disrupted the witch''s burning, but all this mass of believers could do nothing. But Mozgus could. Although he had been distracted by the destruction of the demons, after saving Casca, he returned to personally kill her.


    While all these events were unfolding, Guts was ''stuck'' at the top of the tilting tower in the mass of protoplasm. He tried to break through it, swinging his sword, but it was of little use. At the same time, he knew that Casca was already being burned at the stake ahead, but he couldn''t do anything, which plunged him into a state of indescribable rage. It was precisely this moment that I chose to ''help'' my ward fully transform into Vritras, freeing himself from mortal human flesh.


    What are you fussing about here? - I began to criticize him, floating in the air. - We''re going to miss all the interesting parts and only make it in time for the funerals. Stop holding back. Feel the power of the Philosopher''s Stone and fully embrace it. While you worry about your pitiful life, how can you save anyone else?


    Taking my advice to heart, Guts attempted to feel the ''who-knows-what'' and... he succeeded. In this state of powerlessness, he finally took the first step towards mastering psionics - he felt the strength within himself. And he immediately realized that it was his human body that held him back. Consciously accelerating the process of replacing organic matter with immortal flesh of Vritras, he simultaneously began to control his demonic energy, not allowing the crumbling organic matter to weaken him.


    After a minute of ''combat meditation,'' Guts became completely immortal. Now the demons could no longer harm him. He truly understood that his body was under his control, and the destruction of flesh had no effect because his soul ''held on'' to the crystal of the Philosopher''s Stone. There was no turning back, so all that was left was to move forward and... slay demons.


    This time, rushing forward, Guts passed through the protoplasm like water. There was some resistance, but it hardly hindered him. Emerging free, he witnessed Mozgus attacking Casca. Leaping from the top of the tower, Guts impaled the apostle in mid-air, pinning him to the stones of the fortress wall. However, this only slightly stained the ''angel''s'' pristine garments, causing no real harm.


    The enhanced flesh of the apostle allowed him to withstand the blow, sacrificing his Sacrifice. Ironically, that''s exactly what it sounded like. Mozgus''s sacrifice was his beloved Bible, which he used to crack many heads. When Guts struck, any damage to the apostle''s body was immediately restored, but the book was damaged in return. For someone else, it wouldn''t have been a problem at all, but Mozgus flew into a rage at such ''blasphemy,'' fully embracing his demonic form.


    Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.


    At that moment, Guts was distracted because the two remaining inquisitors tried to attack Casca. And once again, Isidro had to strain his ass to save her. The Black Swordsman turned around to rush to the girl''s aid, but behind him, Mozgus ''rose up'', no longer resembling an angel but an infernal monster, although still having wings.


    If Guts were still human, he would have had to turn around to block the blow. But he had already realized his immortality, so he simply ignored one apostle to kill two. A harpoon shot from his left hand, speeding like a bullet and piercing the head of one of the winged inquisitors. But the motion of the harpoon''s tip did not stop there. By manipulating the ''cord'', Guts directed it towards and pierced through the body of the second inquisitor. Mozgus delivered a powerful blow to Guts'' ''defenseless'' back, but he only used the momentum given to him to quickly pull the two apostles towards him and cut them into pieces with his sword, ensuring their demise.


    "Now, it''s your turn!" - The demon killer turned his gaze to the last apostle.


    "You can''t penetrate my armor. As long as the Lord''s strength protec¡ª"


    It is unknown how much longer Mozgus intended to talk, but at that moment, Guts lunged forward and struck with all his might. The apostle''s body was covered in almost impenetrable armor. It consisted of separate ''scales'' that, with a bit of imagination, could be mistaken for feathers. The strength of these scales was so great that they could withstand even Guts'' sword strikes. But they couldn''t withstand the force of this blow.


    Just one strike brought Mozgus to his knees, although technically he remained standing. His knee was literally driven into the stone pavement of the fortress wall. And a deep gash appeared on his ''wing'' from which blood seeped.


    "How dare you?!!" the apostle exclaimed, trying to strike back and escape the trap, but then he was hit by a waterfall of equally powerful blows.


    If Guts had targeted the enemy''s vulnerable spots, he would have been dead by now. But instead, he kept delivering one blow after another, not allowing the apostle''s ''limbs'' to even come close to him. None of these strikes were fatal. Each blow only slightly pierced the armor. But there were so many of these strikes that within seconds, the apostle''s entire body turned into a bleeding wound. And with each passing second, his armor became less and less capable of protecting him.


    Madly roaring, Mozgus attempted to attack his opponent with his fiery breath, but Guts literally drove the blade of his sword into his mouth and severed the upper part of his head from the rest of his body. The apostle''s corpse staggered and fell from the wall, simultaneously igniting in a hot flame that consumed the last hope of the gathered mob below.


    While this spectacle of burning witches and battle unfolded, the people paid no attention to their surroundings. And they were mistaken, because these surroundings were filled with demonic protoplasm, which now engulfed the crowd, dissolving them without a trace. There was nowhere to run, and all the people could do was pray to an incomprehensible God, whose usefulness was only slightly better than nothing.


    Thousands of deaths and a feast for demons awakened the Brand of Sacrifice on Guts and Casca''s bodies. And while the swordsman hardly felt any pain due to the protection of the Vritras body, the girl began to groan and cry, trying to suppress the pain. At that moment, Guts approached her and embraced her. This simple gesture of kindness gave the deranged girl some sense of protection, and she quieted down, hugging him back and closing her eyes.


    Unfortunately, this moment of joy and tranquility did not last long. The protoplasm filled the entire area outside the fortress and began to creep inside. Serpico noticed that it was afraid of fire. The still burning corpse of Mozgus formed a safe haven around itself, where a dozen desperate praying refugees stood frozen.


    Guts, with his extensive experience in fighting otherworldly creatures, immediately began gathering firewood and suggested waiting for dawn on the fortress wall. The sunlight should dispel the demons, making their current location the most advantageous. The others were immediately inspired by his words and believed that they would survive this night.


    But the speech had the greatest impact on Farnese. Alongside Serpico, she had been following in Guts'' wake, neither hindering his demon and inquisitor slaughtering nor offering any assistance. Yet, it was thanks to him, not any "holy figures," that she now had a chance at survival.


    The demonic mess continued to surge and surge. It engulfed the wall, and only the fire of the torches could somehow deter it, albeit briefly, because this goo had less brains than a paramecium. But the prospect of being saved from demons by burning wood didn''t please me at all, so I cast a simple spell on the torches, increasing the speed of their burning. As a result, it quickly became clear that this company would not survive until morning. And while Guts would definitely be fine, Casca and Isidro would be devoured.


    The demonic mess continued to surge and engulf everything in its path. It crashed against the fortress walls, and only the flames of the torches could momentarily ward it off. But the creature had less intelligence than a paramecium, so it didn''t take long for the flames to lose their effectiveness. The prospect of surviving by burning wood will not bring me any joy at all. So, I cast a simple spell on the torches, enhancing the speed of their burning. It quickly became apparent that this company would not survive until morning. While Guts was sure to be unharmed, Casca and Isidro would be devoured.

 Chapter 17.12 - Berserk

    At the moment when only two torches were left burning, and death seemed inevitable, I asked to the demon slayer.


    "Guts, why don''t you use fire spells?" - I asked.


    "What?" - The swordsman stared blankly at me, unaware of his own talents.


    "What?" - Isidro roared, standing just centimeters away from the red goo, unable to retreat even a millimeter.


    "Your body is attuned to magic. Try to imagine yourself creating fire" - I began teaching this baboon how to use the ''equipment'' he was given.


    Vritras'' body had ''built-in'' spells, and if Guts had just taken a minute to think about his abilities, he could have understood how to use them. But since he only knew how to swing a sword and used his brain only to weigh down his head when smashing through walls, he couldn''t figure it out on his own.


    Guts immediately directed all his ''inner strength'' towards creating fire, almost burning everyone whom he intended to protect.


    "Be careful!" - Isidro shouted. - "Aaaah! I''m burning!"


    Fortunately, the fire on the poor guy''s backside was quickly extinguished, and Guts, now accustomed to his power, was able to direct his flames to burn only the demons. After that, everyone present here, except for me and Casca, began to wonder, "Who is this Guts anyway?". Being able to explain his swordsmanship and inhuman strength was one thing, but controlling fire was beyond human capabilities, and the closest ''analog'' was the late Mozgus. Guts, by the way, also wondered about this, but at least he knew that the reason for his power was the red stone in his chest and one annoying elf.


    Meanwhile, the sacrifice ritual reached its climax. All the victims died, and their dying pleas opened a portal to the Spirit World. The accumulated energy erupted, tearing through the fabric of reality and making the impossible possible. The spirit of Griffith, now known as Femto, returned to the world of the living and took on flesh. The Apostle, who had been preparing the ritual all this time, guiding the events, willingly sacrificed himself and became the ''egg'' that was supposed to give birth to the new God - the Hawk of Light, destined to rule his kingdom by Fate itself. In other words, it was Griffith''s desire to wear the crown that drove him to sacrifice all his friends.


    And the final act of this ritual was the shout of the Sacrifice, filled with a sincere desire to see his enemy... to kill him, although the latter was insignificant.


    "Griffith!!!" - Guts roared with all the power of his inhuman lungs.


    At that moment, the obsession lifted, and the leaning Tower of Conviction collapsed to the ground, burying the last survivors. The morning sun suddenly illuminated the surroundings, and all the demons disappeared without a trace. The long-prepared resurrection ritual was complete.


    The members of our small company gradually recovered from the shock of the cursed night and scattered in different directions in search of survivors. Surprisingly, a couple of prostitutes who were associated with Guts and Casca managed to survive. Their proximity to the Sacrifice played a role here. From the demons'' perspective, the energy of the Brand marked those who should never be touched under any circumstances, so even a faint echo of it became the reason for their salvation, although for the ignorant crowd, it all seemed like mere luck. However, out of tens of thousands of people, only these two were ''lucky'', which meant it was not just a coincidence.


    Finally, gathered in the courtyard of the fortress, the survivors were almost ready to begin celebrating their salvation when a new calamity appeared. A crowd of Kushan Empire warriors, seemingly appearing out of nowhere, surrounded them, and the leader of the squad began to ponder out loud who should be captured for interrogation and who could be killed right there.


    "You''ve got to be kidding!" - Isidro shouted. - "It would be a disaster if we couldn''t survive after this cursed night!"


    "Attention! Capture them all," - the squad commander declared loudly. - "They must be alive and unharmed. Be careful with the man with the giant sword. Well, as long as he still has his arms and legs."


    Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.


    "Are you really going to let them get away with such insolence?" - I asked Guts.


    "Never crossed my mind," he replied, drawing his sword. And then... a miracle happened. Another one. Guts, who had instantly accelerated, rushed at the enemies, crushing them into mincemeat with his sword. If he were an ordinary person, at most, a dozen or so opponents would have died. But now he was Vritras and fully aware of the limits of his power. And so... within three seconds, all the Kushans lost their heads, not even realizing what was happening. This included their commander and four of his bodyguards, who considered themselves super-elite invincible fighters. But against the true power of the fusion of magic and technology, they were like ants.


    ¡°What?... What just happened?¡± - Farnese exclaimed, looking around. She felt as if she had returned to a world filled with demons. All these people around her suddenly exploded into bloody splatters, and their mutilated corpses fell to the ground.


    ¡°Nothing special.¡± - I replied. ¨C ¡°Just a little exercise in clearing the area quickly. I will rate it as a three plus.¡±


    ¡°Out of how many?¡± - Guts asked, shaking the blood off his blade.


    ¡°Out of a hundred, of course.¡± - I teased him. ¨C ¡°But don''t worry, I''ll turn you into a true demon slayer. They''ll weep bloody tears at the mere mention of your name. And by the way, right now you''ll be taking another exam. Don''t hold back!¡±


    After my words, the ground shook, and breaking through the fortress walls, the Immortal Zodd emerged from the rubble. He was considered one of the strongest apostles and had encountered Guts before. Ignoring the pathetic humans, the monster moved forward towards the rising sun. And a few seconds later, the Skull Knight appeared on the fortress wall, his horse standing on the parapet, also looking towards the east.


    Casting a glance at them, Guts also looked in that direction and saw... Griffith. His naked body stood amidst the scattered stones, his blue hair fluttering in the gentle breeze. He looked like a true king, gazing at our company as if we were insignificant insects unworthy of his attention.


    The people froze, unconsciously shocked by the spiritual power of the reborn apostle. But Vritras... all this show had no effect on Vritras. While I responded with equal disdain in my gaze, Guts instantly fell into a state of battle frenzy. All these years, every time he killed demons and apostles, he dreamed of this moment. If he still had a human brain, Guts would have been paralyzed, succumbing to the influence of demonic magic and his own homoerotic fantasies. But now, instead of a brain, he only had filler in his head, and his mind worked through magic and the instructions I had embedded.


    His consciousness instantly switched to combat mode, mobilizing all the resources of his immortal body, and then Guts, moving at supersonic speed, charged towards Griffith with one single intention - to destroy him and make him pay for everything he had done.


    The immortal Zodd widened his eyes in horror and tried to stop the unexpectedly agile Sacrifice, but his immortality lasted only for a second, during which Guts chopped him into pieces. Thus ended the life of the "greatest of the apostles."


    Griffith tried to dodge, use magic, or find any weapon, but he didn''t even have time to blink before the sword, glowing with otherworldly light, made three swift movements, severing his hands and legs. The helpless torso fell to the ground, and fear appeared in the eyes of the apostle who had come to this world to rule it.


    "Youuu!!! Because of you, they all died!" - Guts roared, desperately trying to express his overwhelming emotions in words. - "Because of you, they were all devoured alive. And so..."


    At that moment, the Black Swordsman was largely under the influence of the demon that had infiltrated into his soul. So? his next action surprised even me. With his bare hand, he pierced Griffith''s chest, ripped out his heart, and then, right in front of the stunned "god," he threw the heart into his own mouth, chewed it, and swallowed it, glancing at the emotions on the victim''s face.


    The predator and the prey switched places, and finally, Griffith realized that all of this was not a dream but a cruel and relentless reality. Panicking, he used all his spiritual powers and... escaped back to the spirit world from which he had so laboriously emerged.


    "A-a-a-a-a-a-a!!!" - Guts roared, seeing that his enemy had disappeared, leaving him only his limbs and the partially digested heart as compensation. - "Where did he go? Where is he?"


    His eyes, filled with magic, scanned the surroundings but couldn''t find a trace of the fugitive.


    "I think he returned to the spiritual world," - I explained the situation to Guts. "Apostles are resilient creatures, so he can easily survive without a heart, let alone limbs. Moreover, Griffith escaped from here in his physical body, so he can definitely come back."


    "Griffith!!! Come back, you bastard, and let me kill you!!!" - Guts shouted, but of course, no one was in a hurry to obey that order.


    After that escape, I felt a huge sense of relief. If Guts had killed Griffith right now and here, it would have been much more difficult for me to carry out my plan. Honestly, I had certain hopes for the Immortal Zodd, but in the reality, he died a completely useless death. But all''s well that ends well. Guts is alive, Casca is alive, and Griffith is almost alive. Now all that''s left is to enflame the sparks of smoldering hatred and ignite a fire that will make the Sacrifice follow its intended path. Of course, much of this situation is beyond my control, but all I can do is rely on the will of the gods... no fuck, on the will of Azathoth and follow the currents of Fate.

 Chapter 17.13 - Berserk

    After calming down from this loss, Guts made sure that Casca was alright, then found a horse left behind by the Kushan assassins and mounted it with Casca before riding off into the sunset. The people, of course, tried to follow him, but there was only one horse. Plus, Guts boldly charged straight into the approaching regular army of the Kushan Empire. None of the others could boast of such recklessness, so they decided to flee in the opposite direction.


    Meanwhile, Guts, accompanied by me and Puck, fought his way through the army of thousands, killing anyone who dared to approach him within the reach of his blade. He effortlessly deflected all arrows and spears with his sword, as his enhanced reflexes and strength allowed him to even deflect bullets and tank shells if necessary.


    After two days, the couple reached the blacksmith''s shop, which had been Casca''s home for the past two years. Here, Guts was greeted with the news that the old blacksmith had died shortly after his departure, having exerted himself in the process of restoring the sword. But the swordsman didn''t have any particular regrets about it. After everyone celebrated Casca''s return and exchanged the latest news, I "lured" Guts to a secluded place to have a serious conversation.


    "Guts, do you want Casca to regain her sanity, right?" - I asked him.


    "What? You... you can do that?" - The hero-lover immediately became anxious.


    "I can" - I nodded solemnly. - "I just thought that if you were to remain trapped in this hole, taking care of a madwoman, soon I would go mad as well. Out of boredom. And you understand what the consequences of my madness could be for all of you, right?"


    After hearing my words, Guts involuntarily trembled.


    "When can you help her?" - he asked anxiously.


    "Today" - I replied. - "The cave where you keep Casca will suffice. Although I must warn you, complete healing is unlikely. I can block all memories associated with that night, but along with them, something else may also be blocked. But it will still be better than the current situation."


    "Alright. I''ll make sure no one interrupts us."


    "Excellent."


    Morally preparing one victim, I began to prepare for the "repairing" the second. Casca''s story was quite typical. Her mind couldn''t handle the weight of the events of that night, so she blocked out all her memories. Without her memories, her level of intelligence dropped to that of a one-year-old child. Over the past two years, her "new" consciousness had developed slightly, but it should be noted that children learn much faster than adults. So, using "natural" methods, the ability to act meaningfully would only emerge in Casca in old age.


    Putting the patient into a deep sleep, I connected to her consciousness and started to figure out what baggage of thoughts and knowledge I would need and what I wouldn''t. However, it soon became clear that my predictions were somewhat hasty. Yes, Casca had lost her memories. Yes, this happened partly because she wanted to forget all the horrors she had experienced. However, the main cause of her condition was a demon that had taken root in her soul. The situation was similar to Guts'', but there were also differences.


    This demon did not want to coexist with another consciousness in the host''s body. Why hide in the folds of paradise when it could destroy everything and become the sole ruler of the desolate wasteland? That''s how this demon thought. And when Casca decided to forget everything and opened up, it tore her personality into tiny fragments.


    I had to conduct an "inventory" of all these fragments of her personality to understand how to piece together a mosaic from this mess, creating an original picture rather than something horrifying like Bosch''s style. It quickly became apparent that I could assemble her personality by following a specific scenario in her dream world. I had to gather one piece at a time until, in the end... the demon would emerge and devour the naive fools who stepped into its territory and accepted its rules of the game. And even if someone managed to defeat the demon, the personality assembled in this way would be infinitely loyal to Griffith. Well, what a nice surprise. I do love surprises like that.


    But I didn''t bother with solving the proposed puzzle and decided to resort to my favorite argument - the power of... the mind. Ultimately, when restoring a personality, we were only talking about restoring the astral body. The girl''s soul was more or less intact, if we don''t take into account the Brand of Sacrifice, of course. Currently, her soul was suppressed, and her ability to use memories recorded at the soul level, rather than the astral body, was minimal. So, by "collecting" the necessary astral consciousness and suppressing the demon, I would obtain Casca''s personality with the desired settings.


    This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    The demon had mixed up the fragments of the astral personality matrix and established a certain algorithm of "spinning in reverse." But I had another way to understand how it all originally was. I could examine the astral body from a higher level and assemble it, guided by the pattern that was visible to the "host" soul. We can make an analogy that personality is like an eggshell. The demon painted this egg in a hodgepodge manner, then crushed the shell into pieces and mixed them up. However, the shell had two sides - external and internal. I could use the "view from the inside" to determine the correct position of each piece. For demons and external observers, this "internal pattern" was too complex. But for me, this task was not a big deal.


    I "returned" to the material world, waved my hand, and a large piece of Vritras'' body materialized next to me, which immediately took the form of a marble altar adorned with golden skulls and merciless angels, according to their status. A second wave of my hand moved Casca onto this altar, while inside this structure, a powerful quantum computer formed, operating with Ancient technologies.


    Guts became a little concerned by the appearance of such "props," but I found a task for him as well. After all, the demon had already sensed my attention and was now restlessly stirring in its "lair," preparing for a confrontation.


    "Listen me" - I said to Guts. - "Soon, a demon will appear in this room who will try to interfere with me. Your task is to distract it. Not to defeat it, not to beat it down, but to distract it, preferably by portraying that you are literally one step away from death but can''t die properly. Therefore, you must not use your sword, and try to depict wounds on your body, squeeze out your guts, and so on. Understood?"


    ¡°M-m-m, yeah.¡± - The swordsman nodded skeptically.


    ¡°Okay, then I''ll start. The preparation will take some time, so don''t relax too much. It might take a couple of hours before the most interesting part begins.¡±


    With that, I switched back to perceiving the astral and spiritual levels of existence and got to work. First, I needed to analyze each "piece" of the astral matrix of Casca''s personality and calculate how these pieces should be connected to each other. That''s why I needed the computer.


    The demon naively believed that only he knew how to "correctly" restore Casca''s consciousness. But I knew that the ¡°scientific trial and error¡± method worked even in cases where it''s not clear what''s going on at all. And it was quite easy to "combine" all possible combinations of connecting the puzzle pieces for the computer. After about an hour, all the puzzle pieces came together, and I started deciding which memories and behavioral patterns I needed and which ones could be discarded.


    My goal was to obtain a Casca who would be in love with Guts, capable of dealing with simple demons, and dreaming of children, a home, and a peaceful life. This didn''t quite match the original personality, so I had to creatively tweak some things. Finally, this part of the plan was ready, and within a few seconds, the computer calculated the algorithm for restoring the personality from its current state. However, there was a demon standing in the way of the patient''s recovery, and Guts had to deal with it. As they say, leave the job to professionals.


    "It''s starting now" - I gave a signal to my "bodyguard" and then pretended to try to enter Casca''s consciousness and "awaken" her. However, I didn''t actually enter her dream world, but rather manipulated it from a distance with a long stick, preferring to "stir the shit" from afar.


    Of course, the demon didn''t like this and decided to come out and punish the intruder. But since the demon itself was quite dull and acted more on instinct, once it manifested in the material world, it "aggressively targeted" the biggest and scariest opponent, which was Guts. And while the eternal "struggle of a beaver against a donkey" was taking place, I quietly began the procedure of restoring Casca''s personality. It took another ten minutes.


    Finally, everything was ready externally, but Humpty Dumpty didn''t want to "come alive" even when assembled together. Some external impulse was needed to kickstart consciousness and "convince" it that it was whole.


    "Guts, call Casca" - I said to my loyal sidekick, who strictly followed Stanislavsky''s teachings and was currently engaged in a bloody battle with the demon, scattering guts and blood around the room. - "Call her in a way that she can hear you even in hell. We have a direct line of communication, but the volume isn''t enough."


    "CASCA!!!!!!!" - Guts roared, sending waves of emotions. Even I was almost touched by it.


    The fragments trembled and then merged together, forming a conscious personality connected to the soul. At that moment, I cast a sealing spell on the demon, imprisoning it in a personal dimension within the girl''s soul. It was a temporary solution, but according to my calculations, it would last at least fifty years. And fifty years is a whole human lifetime. Well, that should do.


    "Guts?" - Casca looked around in confusion, trying to get up from the altar.


    "Stay down, lady" - I reassured her, pressing her against the stone infused with binding magic. - "The healing process is not yet complete. Just hold on for another fifteen minutes."

 Chapter 17.14 - Berserk

    ¡°Casca!¡± - Guts jumped to the altar, already assuming a completely civilized appearance, although just a second ago he was nothing but a lump of ''bloody flesh''. Thankfully, he didn''t immediately start hugging, but first looked at me questioningly.


    ¡°Fifteen minutes¡± - I replied firmly. ¨C ¡°And in the meantime, you can just talk about unrelated topics, not related to recent events.¡±


    ¡°What events?¡± - Casca immediately asked.


    ¡°You were unconscious for two years, and during that time, you never used any cosmetics.¡±


    ¡°What? Two years? I urgently need a mirror.¡±


    That''s it, the client is ready. Now, she won''t just think about it for fifteen minutes, she will spend three days thinking about whether she looks good enough. Ah, females. They are so predictable.


    After the mentioned time, the stabilization of the astral body was completed, and I handed Casca over to Guts, who immediately started hugging her and telling her how much he wants to fuck her. Ah, males. Anyway, I didn''t "hover over their souls" and allowed the situation to develop without my interference, especially since everything was going according to my predictions.


    The lovebirds admired each other until late in the evening, after which the relaxed couple went outside to breathe fresh air. Guts almost killed Griffiths, Casca successfully healed, so he had false hope that everything would be fine now. But he quickly realized that nothing would be fine. And I didn''t even have to get involved in this matter.


    Just fifteen minutes after enthusiastically gazing at the starry sky, both Victims'' marks signaled the approach of demons. And a minute later, the demons themselves appeared.


    ¡°Sacrifices! You are ours!¡± - The otherworldly creatures whispered and roared. ¨C ¡°We will avenge our master. Your fate is to become a sacrifice!¡±


    I also noticed that these creatures had become stronger. They were not at the level of apostles, but previously, Guts only encountered such demons as "final level bosses" and now they were swarming in a crowd.


    Stuffing Casca and the two children into the house, Guts pulled out his sword and started crushing the demons. With his strength, it was a trivial task, but the demons kept appearing again and again, forming an endless stream. Only at dawn did this frenzy finally end, and Guts could breathe calmly.


    "Demons have become stronger?" - The swordsman thought, surveying the battlefield.


    "What did you expect?" - I answered his unspoken question. - "You gave a good beating to their master. The brand on your body was placed by Griffith. And as long as he''s alive, the demons won''t leave you alone."


    "But how do I kill him?" - Guts protested. - "I chased him for two years, but none of the apostles could tell me where to find him."


    "There won''t be any problems with that. His mark is on you. If you practice, you''ll be able to determine the direction in which he is. The problem is that Griffith is currently in the spirit realm. I know of one passage there, but reaching that place will be difficult."


    "It doesn''t matter! I will do everything to destroy him." - Guts declared decisively. - "We''re setting out today."


    "I''m with you!" - Unexpectedly, Casca''s voice was heard. Well, it was unexpected for Guts, but I knew from the beginning that we were being eavesdropped on. In fact, I started this conversation only when Casca approached the right distance.


    "You? But..." - Guts became worried.


    "This is not up for discussion. This concerns both of us. Besides, I don''t want to let you go and worry about where you''re going."


    "It''s dangerous!"


    "Do you want to argue about it?" - A female voice had a touch of argumentativeness.


    "No." - Guts deflated immediately. Ha-ha, I knew he was henpecked.


    The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    Of course, no one went anywhere that day, but on the third day after Casca''s recovery, a team consisting of two Sacrifice and two elves set off on a journey. In the canon, Guts and Casca followed Puck towards his homeland. The place I needed was closer, but it happened to be on the way to Elfhelm. So, I invaded the thoughts of the elf and found out which direction we needed to go. And then we could rely on my sensitivity to the "otherworldly."


    During spent time in this world, I had already learned to determine how the local "spirit world" was connected to the astral plane. And I was quite proficient in astral magic. It wasn''t very suitable for influencing the physical world, but its "extrasensory" aspect was extremely useful.


    The journey proceeded in a rather relaxed manner. Guts no longer needed to sleep, so they walked during the day, and at night when Casca slept, and the swordsman guarded her from countless hordes of monsters that were drawn to the Brand of Sacrifice. Also, these lovebirds were constantly engaged in sex, like rabbits. When Guts transformed his body into the Vritras, I programmed it so that his reproductive organs remained intact. So, Guts had plenty of sperm, and with minimal intervention on my part, Casca became pregnant, although neither of them knew it yet.


    One winter day, Casca and Guts encountered Isidro, Farnese, and Serpico. The boy had just escaped after stealing food from two "aristocrats." Those two were essentially beggars now, as they had fled responsibility for the destruction of the Holy Iron Chain Knights.


    Isidro immediately declared that Guts owed him and therefore had an obligation to teach him swordsmanship. Farnese, blushing desperately, stated that she wanted to become Guts'' concubine and was also drawn to the path of demon hunting. Previously, she had considered the material world the only reality, but after encountering the spiritual realm, she realized that it was where she should seek the Truth.


    From this whole tirade, Casca only heard the word "concubine" and immediately started arguing with her rival, demanding to be recognized as the senior wife. Heh, it seems something went wrong in her brain after my intervention. However, everyone seemed to be fine with this quirk, except for Serpico, of course. But he turned out to be quite a coward when it came to love affairs and hadn''t even made an attempt to seduce Farnese during all this time, even though they both dreamed of it.


    For several more days, we moved towards the port of Vritannis until a passing shepherd warned us of the danger ahead on the pass - trolls were emerging from the woods, kidnapping women and killing men. This was exactly the place I was looking for.


    Having reached the approximate search area, I began leading our group in circles, or at least in zigzags. As twilight gradually descended, the whole company stopped for the night. The sun had not yet set, so Guts and Serpico went to gather firewood. Meanwhile, a troll attacked the girls, intending to kidnap them. Casca tried to resist, but conventional weapons were useless against the troll.


    In the end, the victims of the abduction had to call for help. Isidro was the first to arrive. He attempted to attack the troll, but his attack was futile. However, Kirke, a student of the local witch who lived in the forest, came to the travelers'' aid. She tried to create a "protective circle against spirits," but before she could complete her spell, Guts arrived in response to the cries for help.


    Taking a quick look around, he immediately drew his sword and started cutting down the trolls at a speed resembling a raging blender. Not a single supernatural creature could escape alive. Kirke was so impressed by the spectacle of bloody slaughter that she fled before anyone could even ask her name. But she couldn''t escape my attention, as I marked her with a magical tracker, allowing me to track her location.


    The next morning, as we were leaving our campsite, we stumbled upon an old man lying in the grass under the trees. Puck revived him slightly using his magic, and we heard a tearful story of how the trolls had attacked the village. The old man and five other retirees had set out to find the witch, but he was the only one who had survived until now.


    The people shed tears and harnessed Serpico to carry the old man on his back until we reached inhabited areas. However, the nearest inhabited place was the witch''s lair, where we were headed. The witch lived inside a large tree, resembling a mansion rather than a simple hut. The house stood in the center of a large clearing. As soon as we stepped out of the forest, golems attacked us.


    They were humanoid figures made of clay. In theory, they were supposed to regenerate after being damaged until their magical energy ran out or their "control core" was destroyed. However, when Guts got involved, there was no chance of regeneration. Each swing of his sword turned the golems into dust and sand, scattering around the area. Soon, the witch realized that we were "worthy" and ordered the golems to stop, then sent her apprentice to invite us into her house.


    I observed the people''s conversation with the witch out of the corner of my eye. The cunning old lady fed the naive locals with lies and convinced them to help the village that had been attacked by trolls, appointing her apprentice as a consultant. Guts tried to object, saying that he doesn''t work for free, but I whispered in his ear that this was exactly what we needed, so we leave off the payment issue.


    However, we didn''t leave empty-handed. The witch gave Serpico a sword and a cloak, both "charged" with air spirits. Isidro received a dagger with "fire damage." She placed a seal on Casca, weakening the power of the Brand of Sacrifice. This was supposed to temporarily hide her from the attention of demons. But Guts refused such a seal because it also reduced his sensitivity to spiritual entities, and he wouldn''t be able to find Griffith anymore.

 Chapter 17.15 - Berserk

    In the morning, our company bid farewell to the witch and headed towards the village. Since this time we were following a young witch instead of me, in the form of Ivan Susanin, we reached our destination shortly after noon.


    The village greeted us with mourning. This morning, trolls killed two more people, not to mention the herd of cows they devoured. The people were delighted to have the "magical support circus," but the local priest, on the other hand, declared that we were nobody, had no purpose, and that the circus had left, bringing only harm instead of help. So instead of relying on us, the villagers had to accept their fate, pray to the Lord, and die in His name.


    After those words, I manifested a "miracle" and burned the fanatic to ashes. All doubts about our qualifications were dispelled, and the villagers immediately decided to organize a feast in our honor.


    By evening, the people''s emotions had settled, but trolls suddenly appeared. Since Guts was present in the village, his Brand attracted all the spirits in the vicinity. The village was located in a valley surrounded by cliffs, which prevented the sun from reaching here in the evenings, and the otherworldly creatures didn''t wait for darkness to come.


    As soon as the crowds of trolls appeared, the people immediately rushed towards the temple, which was the largest and sturdiest building in the village. Guts didn''t run around chasing demons throughout the village; he patiently waited for them near the temple. After all, he was "paid" for killing trolls, not for saving people. There were so many disgusting creatures that the people had already begun to prepare for their deaths. But then the Black Swordsman stepped forward and swung his sword, rapidly reducing the troll population.


    Schierke climbed onto the roof of the church to create a protective barrier that repelled the demons. Meanwhile, Serpico and Isidro fought the trolls, trying to keep them away from the witch. Casca also helped them as much as she could, although her ability to wield a sword hadn''t fully recovered after her healing. Finally, the magic worked, and the church was surrounded by a barrier that destroyed the "dark" spirits.


    But just as the people began to rejoice, an ogre emerged from behind the houses towards the church. It was a monstrous creature as tall as a three-story building. The ogre vaguely resembled a humanoid, but its anatomical structure was too absurd to consider it a "living organism." It was a being from the spirit world, its form determined by incomprehensible laws of the immaterial realm, resembling more of a dream or rather a nightmare.


    "Well, finally something interesting" - Guts smirked, noticing the opponent.


    Meanwhile, at the other end of the square, another monster appeared. It was a hybrid of a horse and a toad, which the locals called a kelpie. This creature immediately attacked Guts, shooting water spheres at him. While Guts could also charge himself with magic, he mainly relied on his sword. Moreover, since the battle at the Tower of Conviction, he hadn''t encountered opponents that would require him to exert himself even ten percent.


    "I''ll hold him off" - Serpico volunteered immediately. He jumped off the roof of the church, planning to descend using his magical cape, and landed on the kelpie.


    However, Guts didn''t appreciate his enthusiasm. He could have destroyed these creatures in a second, but right now he was interested in the most efficient way to deal with such enemies.


    "If we venture into the spirit world, creatures like these will be roaming in hordes. So, you need to learn how to quickly dispatch them, wasting minimal time" - I gave my wise instructions.


    "I know" - Guts shrugged off.


    The swordsman leaped towards the demon and made a test strike, aiming for its abdomen. The ogre retaliated by swinging its paw. It was then that Guts delivered a real strike, severing the outstretched limb. The demon roared, then picked up the severed wrist and pressed it back against the stump of its hand, and the edges of the wound immediately "healed," with the paw regrowing.


    "Unpleasant ability" - the demon slayer muttered, preparing for his next strike, which was aimed at disemboweling the opponent.


    Meanwhile, Serpico unexpectedly found himself engaged in a battle against the kelpie and received a few "slaps" from its water projectiles, which rattled his brain. However, he had nowhere to retreat because he had volunteered to destroy this creature himself.


    Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    Guts lunged towards the ogre, swung his sword, severing its belly, and then literally jumped into the long and wide wound, delivering another strike. And another. And another. With each strike, the ogre''s flesh opened up more and more, while Guts, on the contrary, delved deeper into the carcass. Eventually, he practically "drilled" through the mountain of flesh, emerging from the top and unraveling the entire body of the monster from the groin to the head. From the top of the corpse, the swordsman gracefully jumped down and admired the huge demon carcass falling to the ground, almost torn in half. And most importantly, after this "feat," Guts'' clothes and cloak remained completely clean. Not a drop of blood stuck to him, creating the impression that he was not a human but an angel. However, this impression didn''t quite match the black color of his cloak and costume.


    Turning around, Guts saw Serpico being thrown back towards the church, struck by his opponent. Moving forward at supersonic speed, the swordsman approached the kelpie and sliced it into pieces. The creature couldn''t withstand such an attack and immediately died.


    The trolls, witnessing the death of their comrades and the two powerful spirits, decided to retreat. However, Guts had no intention of letting them go. Accelerating once again, he began running around the area, delivering maximum one strike to each troll, mostly killing three to five of them with a single sword swing. Within a minute, the invasion was over, and the streets were littered with dismembered demon corpses.


    "Hurray, we won!" Isidro exclaimed with joy.


    "Not yet" - I dampened his enthusiasm. - "Now we need to break into the trolls'' lair and rescue the girls and women they abducted."


    "Do you think they''re still alive?" - Guts questioned the feasibility of this plan.


    "Of course. They''re all waiting for us to save them" - I exclaimed, then added in a whisper - "We need to head to the trolls'' lair. You haven''t forgotten that you need to kill Griffith, have you?"


    "What are you planning?" - the swordsman whispered back, stepping aside.


    "The trolls'' lair is a passage to the spirit world. But before we go in there, you need to get rid of your companions. You don''t want pregnant Casca to end up in the depths of the demon world, do you?"


    "Pregnant?" Guts was taken aback.


    "Of course. How could she not get pregnant with all your evening, morning, and hourly ''exercises''? Besides, Farnese also get pregnant from you. And that loli-witch is also suspiciously gazing you too. So, when we reach the trolls and find the villagers, you''ll have to push them towards your harem and stay behind to cover the retreat. Once they''re outside and safe, we''ll venture deeper into the spirit world. Then all that''s left is to find Griffith, kill him, and make our way back. And this whole demon saga will come to an end" - I explained. Guts looked at me with doubt.


    "But don''t worry, after that, I''ll come up with something else for you to do. How about becoming the king of Midland?"


    The swordsman scoffed at my suggestion and went to "comfort" Casca, especially since it was their last chance to have sex before parting ways.


    Our team of superheroes then headed towards the trolls'' lair. However, we had to leave Serpico behind in the village because his injuries prevented him from fighting properly. Our path was winding but relatively short. After an hour, we reached a suspicious passage deep within the dark forest. The trees here looked ancient, as old as the world itself. Their leaves rustled high above, creating an unimaginable height, while a gloomy darkness reigned beneath their roots.


    In fact, we were already in the spirit world, right on the border between the physical realm and the otherworldly. But to move "deeper," we had to overcome a certain boundary between the worlds. In places like this, it was blurred but still present. Luckily, I remembered the moment Griffith escaped, so I had a rough idea of how to break through this boundary.


    We followed the trail, and almost imperceptibly, the forest around us transformed into a cave. And most importantly, this cave was inhabited by thousands and millions of different "near-spiritual" creatures. The further we went, the more wildlife swarmed around us. And then, trolls poured in from all directions, and Guts began cutting a path through them.


    While mortals fought against death, I studied how such a transition between the material world and... the astral plane could have formed. The deeper we ventured, the clearer it became to me that this was not an astral realm at all, but another material world that had attached itself to ours. It was like a leech sucking blood. We were constantly surrounded by blood, but gradually moving from one organism to another. And considering the scale of what was happening, it could be said that this world was actively devouring. The process of consumption had only just begun, but in a few decades, the entire universe would resemble a dream world, losing its "realness." And most importantly, I could sense the scent of Chaos emanating from the depths of this predatory world.


    Finally, we reached the trolls'' lair and discovered why they needed women. The otherworldly creatures raped them, and within minutes, "troll larvae" grew inside the women''s bellies, hatching just like Alien creatures. These creatures would then grow, feeding on the corpses of their parents and the "larvae" of humans, meaning the children.


    This disgusting "feast" was so repulsive that even I felt the urge to burn this place to ashes. However, now was not the time or place for that. Guts immediately mobilized all his companions to "rescue" the villagers, herding them into one group, while he himself set out to destroy the trolls, who clearly weren''t pleased with the appearance of saviors.

 Chapter 17.16 - Berserk

    The longer the battle went on, the more trolls emerged from the side caves, making it obvious that we needed to "hold back" their onslaught. Everyone understood this, except for me and Guts. If the swordsman wanted to, he could have cleared the area in a matter of minutes. However, the plan involved his harem retreating, unexpectedly including Isidro. After all, at the moment, the boy was the only "man" around.


    In any case, the witch took charge of the strategic retreat, using her magic to cover the people, while Guts remained in the trolls'' lair, preventing them from pursuing the fleeing prey.


    With no unnecessary witnesses, Guts picked up the pace, but the trolls surged from every crevice like a raging river. With each swing of his sword, the number of corpses increased, and the space was saturated with the energies of dying demons. At first, I didn''t understand what was happening, but then it dawned on me. This massacre was now a mass sacrifice. The trolls were the "meat," and Guts played the role of the central altar on which the defenseless victims were slaughtered. The demons would have gladly retreated, but the energy of the Brand of Sacrifice deprived them of their will and forced them to attack, regardless of losses.


    Like any ritual, this slaughter had a purpose. Although most of the demons'' energy was absorbed by Guts, a portion dissipated into the space, forming... a summoning circle. And once again, I saw how the current situation resembled the night in the Tower of Conviction. Only this time, it wasn''t Griffith being summoned, but another apostle. Moreover, this place was not a true material world. And after some time, it became clear that the "vessel" for the summoned demon was also a shoddy construction. But the most important thing was that the apostle was supposed to become our "guide" to the world of spirits. It was thanks to him that I planned to overcome the most difficult part of our journey - the first step.


    Finally, the trolls were no more, and a heavy oppressive atmosphere settled in the room. During the battle, the small "crossroads" had transformed into a huge hall, and blood had formed a whole lake on the floor. And in the center of this lake, a woman made of... intestines appeared. Of course, she tried to portray herself as a beauty, hiding behind illusions, but the essence of her nature was evident to me.


    Guts was not deceived by her appearance either, but he was shocked for a different reason. He had just felt the arrival of an apostle into this world, whose power surpassed Griffith''s. The Brand was screaming, demanding to "devour" the Sacrifice, and this call was heard not only by the demons but also by the swordsman himself. Right now, he could feel someone literally "hammering" thoughts into his brain, telling him to relax, surrender, and allow himself to be devoured.


    ¡°It''s been a while since I took physical form, and now suddenly troll intestines? You can''t imagine a worse body.¡± - The woman smirked, looking at the helpless Guts. Right now, Vritras'' body appeared as a regular human, so the apostle couldn''t understand what exactly was in front of her.


    Guts lunged forward, but his movements were too slow. As if in a dream, he ran, jumped, swung his sword, and... ended up in the embrace of intestines.


    "I missed you, boy" - the harlot whispered, embracing her prey.


    "Weakling" - I said, watching the scene. - "You''re worse than the worm that dwells in troll intestines. As soon as a real demon appeared, you immediately surrendered and accepted the role of the sacrifice. It seems I overestimated you. You''re just food for the demons. Dreaming of surpassing Griffith is as absurd for you as it is for a mole to dream of learning to fly. A creature born to crawl cannot fly."


    This entire tirade entered Guts'' consciousness and made him shudder with hatred. Hatred towards me, the demons, and, of course, himself.


    "Elf?" - the demoness expressed surprise, turning her attention to me. - "You''re quite strange..."


    And then hundreds of steel needles pierced through the intestines, emerging from Guts'' body. The apostle was impaled on these needles, resembling a butterfly caught by a maniac obsessed with piercing his victims with needles.


    "Oh, yes! Pierce me!" - the mass of intestines laughed. - "What is this..."


    But the apostle didn''t have time to finish the sentence because her body was pierced by a sword. Unlike the "pseudo-needles" unleashed by Guts, this weapon could kill spirits. Furthermore, even such a fleeting contact caused the demon unbearable pain. Although only her projection was present in this place, the apostle shuddered in agony.


    If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    The cave filled with the wild beastly roar of the berserker, whose gaze no longer held anything human. Guts once again fell under the influence of his inner demon, though this entire process was completely controlled by me to prevent any surprises.


    With a mad roar, Guts pulled the sword out of the apostle''s body and struck again. It wasn''t particularly strong or fast. From the outside, it might have seemed like a lazy movement. But in reality, at that moment, the swordsman aimed not for the demon''s body, but for her soul.


    A piercing cry of agony echoed through the cave''s vaults. The apostle tried to break free, but it turned out that the piercing needles that had impaled her body had transformed into hooks, digging into her very soul, greedily devouring both her life force and demonic energy.


    This time, panic filled the demoness'' consciousness, and she desperately tried to escape from her Sacrifice, fleeing into the depths of the spirit world. It was an instinctive reaction. Just like Griffith had done in the past. However, Guts was now bound to the apostle by ''spiritual bonds'' in the form of his tentacles, so this ''lunge'' completely pulled him out of the material world and transported him to the plane of spiritual existence. And I was transported here along with Guts. While Guts was just a limp body, I was in full control of the process, studying the incomprehensible laws of this world.


    Externally, nothing had changed after our ''translocation.'' We were still in the cave, surrounded by mountains of troll corpses. However, the paths we had taken to get here now ended in dead ends. On the other hand, the passages in front of us, which had previously been shallow niches, now had an unfathomable depth. This place now reminded me even more of the world of dreams. But at the same time, it wasn''t that world, but rather some other ''dimension.''


    The apostle shed her intestines and rushed away into the darkest of the passages, with Guts following closely behind, sword in hand. I didn''t lag behind my guide even by a meter because in this world, the fabric of reality was unstable. By taking the same path, one could end up in different places. Only the Sacrifice could find the correct path through the intricate folds of space, so if I ''lost'' Guts, I wouldn''t be able to find him again.


    The demoness turned out to be remarkably elusive, and even with all of Vritras'' physical abilities, Guts had to chase after her for half an hour, while simultaneously annihilating unimaginable monsters that she tried to use as protection. Finally, a successful sword strike pierced the apostle''s head, splitting it in half, and the creature died.


    Catching his breath after the feverish pursuit, Guts looked around and found himself in an unimaginable labyrinth, where the passages existed not only in all three dimensions but in twelve, making the geometry of this place barely three-dimensional. Just by turning his head, he could see that the ''landscape'' around him had changed. It was reminiscent of a state of delirious dreaming on one hand, and a manifestation of multidimensional physics on the other.


    "Guts, use your brand to find Griffith" - I instructed, sitting on the head of my transport. I didn''t risk fly even a couple of meters away anymore.


    Strangely enough, my advice helped, and the swordsman confidently headed to incomprehensible paths, choosing a path in the infinite labyrinth of transitions. Even if he was walking blindly, I could feel how Fate itself guided his choice. With each step, we were getting closer to the goal of our journey, and for now, that suited me.


    The spirit world was densely populated, and every time Guts passed by, the demons immediately went mad and lunged at him in an attempt to bite. At first, they were creatures comparable in strength to trolls. Then ''fat guys'' like ogres started to appear. And following them were even stronger and more powerful creatures that even Vritras had a hard time dealing with.


    I was surprised to discover that in this world, magic and psionics gradually weakened, while the energy of the demons grew stronger. I could counteract this effect by using psionics to manipulate Chaos, but overall, the trend was not very good. However, this problem mostly concerned me. On the other hand, with each monster Guts killed, he absorbed more and more demonic energy, and soon the effects that I had anticipated but couldn''t precisely predict became noticeable.


    I used Eldars¡¯ psionics to create Vritras'' body and crystal instead of magic. Unlike magic, psionics worked not only through mathematics but also through ''overcoming''. It was enough to simply wish for something, and reality would ''bend'' under the mage''s will. Now Guts was absorbing the energy of the demons, and it was mixing with the psionic energy in his body and soul. As a result, his own psionics began to change, acquiring unexpected properties. Meanwhile, I carefully observed this process, analyzing all the changes with the help of the most powerful computers in my body.


    In addition to changes in psionics, I noted changes in Guts'' consciousness. The further we went, the more he rejected his ''humanity''. No, he hadn''t turned into a monster yet, but his ''harpoon shots'' gradually transformed into ''tentacle shots'' which now also shot out not from his hand but from his shoulder, back, or abdomen. And if necessary, his hands could temporarily turn into clawed paws, tearing enemies apart. In short, the process was ongoing, and I wasn''t sure what my guide would turn into by the time he reached Azathoth.


    Finally, after hours of aimless wandering, Guts stopped, looked around, and said, "He''s somewhere here."

 Chapter 17.17 - Berserk

    After taking a few more steps, the swordsman abruptly turned around and jumped into one of the narrow passages. There was a wriggling mass of disgusting worms there, and suddenly a naked human body appeared from that mass. White hair flickered, sky-blue eyes, an angelic face... and then it became clear that instead of legs and arms, Griffith now had worm-like appendages growing out of him. Only upon seeing Guts, the "Falcon of Light" instantly darted to the side, avoiding the sword strike. Surprisingly, the new limbs made Griffith extremely fast, allowing him to dodge and... escape.


    With a wild cry, Guts chased after him, shooting a dozen "harpoons", but none of them even managed to graze the target. I would have suspected probability magic, but there was something else going on here. Rather, the very fabric of reality denied the possibility of "throwing" weapons hitting this target. It resembled a divine blessing, except in the manifestation of this power, I saw distinct traces of Chaos, which intrigued me even more.


    A second later, the apostle disappeared into a narrow burrow, squeezing into it like a rat. Guts was clearly larger than this passage in size, so he roared and began to crush the wall with his sword, trying to break through it.


    "Idiot! Just crawl in there. If your sword can pass through, then so can you" - I gave advice.


    The swordsman immediately followed advice and also "squeezed" into the burrow. The passage turned out to be short enough, and soon we emerged into a large circular hall, with numerous corridors leading to it. In the center of the room, we saw a large demon and Griffith. The apostle cast a quick glance at his "sacrifice" and recklessly fled. Guts ran after him, but a demon stood in his way.


    A single strike sent the swordsman flying and literally smeared him against the wall, which was twenty meters away from the demon.


    "Not so fast" - smirked the new opponent.


    ¡°Get out of the way!¡± - Guts roared, who had almost reached his goal but encountered another obstacle. He rushed forward again, and another blow threw him back. However, this time the full force of the blow was absorbed by Vritras'' body, so the swordsman was only thrown back a few meters, landing on his feet.


    ¡°You won''t be able to leave this hall while I''m alive.¡± - The demon enlightened us, after which the walls of the hall lit up, and a veil of a barrier covered them.


    ¡°Then, you will die.¡± - Guts pronounced a grim prophecy and rushed forward, this time fully focused on destroying the enemy.


    The demon before us had four legs and two arms, resembling a praying mantis in some way. He met the sword strike with his ''paw'', which was able to withstand the collision without any damage. At the moment of impact, another explosion occurred, and the shockwave pushed Guts away, but he had already adapted to this strange form of attack, and it only slightly staggered him. In a couple of seconds, the ''monsters'' exchanged a couple of dozen blows, which did not reveal a winner. Despite all his speed, Guts could not hit the demon''s body once, as each of his strikes hit the demon''s armored ''arms''.


    This duel ended with a harpoon flying out of Guts'' left leg, which penetrated the demon''s ''soft'' abdomen despite its defense. The demon immediately cut the rope extending towards the tip and jumped away, not allowing this success to develop.


    ¡°This Femto promised to give me ten pregnant women for your death. But judging by your abilities, he should owe me at least a hundred victims now.¡± - The demon grumbled discontentedly, fending off the enemy''s attacks.


    In response to this speech, Guts only roared even louder and started falling into a battle frenzy once again. I have long noticed that every time hatred overwhelms his consciousness, he becomes much stronger. And this time, his strikes intensified, and notches began to appear on the enemy''s armor. Moreover, Guts started using the magic available to him, trying to restrain the enemy and not let him escape. Spells of freezing, lightning strikes, and force fields that stood in the way of the retreating demon.


    With each passing second, the strength of the Black Swordsman increased, and it soon became clear that the demon''s chances of survival were dwindling at the same pace. The barrier around us shattered, and the demon snarled:


    The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    ¡°Fine, I''ve decided not to kill you and not to help Femto. You can go after him.¡±


    ¡°And I''ve decided to kill you, you vile creature.¡± - Guts roared. ¨C ¡°No human will ever be your prey again.¡±


    The demon immediately tried to escape, but the long blade swiftly pierced its back, severing the spine. The monster swung its bloodied limbs, trying to throw the enemy off its back, but another swing of the sword severed its head. In just a few seconds, the swordsman tore the corpse into pieces, and then he set off after Griffith, racing through the labyrinth of the spirit world like a meteor.


    This time it was not wandering through the labyrinth but a chase, so Guts had to push himself to the limit, simultaneously straining all his senses to guess the right direction. Gradually, the number of small demons around us began to decrease, and the corridors started taking on rectangular shapes. In this part of the spirit world, there were numerous narrow corridors, staircases, and wells.


    Flying into one of the wells, we ''fell'' from the ceiling of a huge hall, the walls of which were constructed from numerous cubic and rectangular blocks, forming stairs, gaps, corridors, and some incomprehensible transitions.


    ¡°Ho-ho-ho, who do we have here? Has the little bug managed to bite its master?¡± - A repulsive voice sounded, and a hovering figure of a demon appeared ahead. It resembled a nearly spherical fat man with a bald head covered in greasy skin. Its two hands were clasped together on its belly and did not move, seemingly serving as a decorative element.


    ¡°Apostle!¡± - Guts growled, instantly changing his direction and rushing towards the new target.


    ¡°Yes, come to me, little bug. Hee-hee-hee. I won''t kill you, but my little children will play with you.¡±


    With these words, the apostle''s body gave birth to thousands of leeches, each the size of a dachshund. All this filth immediately rushed towards Guts, trying to bury him under a river of flesh. But the Sacrifice was not about to give up. This time, my protege was already prepared to face the apostle.


    Guts swung his sword, and a wave of magical energy surged forward, sweeping away everything in its path. He was still far from the level of mastery I demonstrated in the forest during our first encounter, but it was enough to destroy all the demons rushing towards him. However, the stream of creatures did not diminish, but only increased. Now the repulsive insects were flying towards him, over each other''s heads, literally in ten layers.


    The apostle watched this scene from above, naively thinking he was safe. That''s when Guts caught him off guard. Just as it seemed that the wave of demons was about to engulf him, he leaped into the air like a grasshopper, soaring to a height of several dozen meters. And in an instant, Guts'' cloak soared like wings, propelling him even higher. Before the apostle could even blink, the swordsman was near him. At such a close range, it was difficult to miss, so the apostle''s repulsive face immediately split in half, splattering blood, guts, and some chitinous legs.


    As soon as the commander of the countless leech hordes perished, his entire army scattered in all directions, trying to escape the inevitable doom that was falling upon them. In just a dozen sword swings, Guts destroyed a large portion of the demons, and then he rushed away again, trying to catch up with Griffith. Over time, I had gained some understanding of the structure of the Brand of Sacrifice on his soul, so I could also use it to determine the direction in which the fugitive was heading.


    After fifteen minutes, we suddenly emerged into open terrain and saw a trio of apostles from the God Hand ahead of us. As far as I remembered, the slain demoness was called Slan, Guts had recently killed Conrad, and before us stood Ubik, Void, and Femto. The latter, of course, was our target.


    This trio arrogantly reveled in the heavens, emanating waves of overwhelming superiority. Unfortunately, such tricks did not work on us. I had full control over the functioning of Guts'' physical and astral bodies, so I simply ''turned off'' the parts of his consciousness that were supposed to be responsible for worship, reverence, respect, and submission. On the contrary, any attempt to influence him in such a way only fueled his rage. And it was precisely this rage that was the Black Swordsman''s most powerful weapon. Knowing this, I, of course, intensified this emotion to its peak power, turning the Sacrifice into a wild, bloodthirsty Berserker.


    Feeling the death of their comrade, the apostles could no longer afford to be careless. They summoned a horde of lesser apostles, as well as countless crowds of demons of all kinds. And now, this entire horde pounced on the lone Guts. Or rather, it could be said that he pounced on them, turning them into a bloody mess.


    No matter how hard Guts tried to reach Griffith first, hundreds and thousands of demons constantly stood in his way. It seemed that the apostles intended to wear down their opponent with battle. But all they managed to do was further enrage this monster. I once again began to observe signs of the merging of demon energy and psionics. Moreover, now demons were dying in droves around Guts, and the energy they dispersed was immediately absorbed by the swordsman himself and his sword. And since the demons dying here were not small fry, but the elite, the strength of the demon slayer was growing exponentially.


    Apparently, the apostles had no other plans than to overwhelm Guts with sheer numbers. Because when, after half an hour, the stream of monsters had almost dwindled, and the opponent didn''t look even slightly out of breath, they continued to mock him, calling him a sacrifice, food, and a pitiful mortal.

 Chapter 17.18 - Berserk

    Finally, Guts managed to break through the enemy crowd and get closer to Ubik. It was another fat creature, resembling the slain Conrad. The same greasy bald head and two cheeks, the same two hands clasped together on its chest. It was from this apostle that waves of emotions and illusions emanated, constantly trying to penetrate Guts'' consciousness. Right now, this dwarf infuriated the swordsman more than anyone else, so he chose him as his first target.


    The apostle was on guard, so the blade of the sword passed just a few centimeters away from the dodging demon. The demon started to giggle and spew some vile words, but at that moment, Guts, who was already almost ready to fall, shot his harpoon, piercing the repulsive face straight through. The apostle screamed and tried to escape, but Guts flew after him, gradually reeling in the cord and getting closer to his target.


    Seeing that their comrade was in danger, the two remaining apostles made different decisions. Griffith immediately rushed away recklessly, saving his own skin, while Void approached the Sacrifice and unleashed the full power of his magic upon him. Unfortunately, all that power was blocked by a psionic shield that Guts had put up around himself. The same shield "cut off" the tentacle that connected the swordsman and Ubik, thus achieving Void''s goal. But when the first wave of fire subsided, a hundred more tentacles burst out of it towards the apostle. A handful of them reached the carelessly approaching enemy, after which Guts pulled him towards himself and chopped him to pieces.


    The death of another apostle, as well as the fact that the demon slayer hadn''t received a single wound during all this time, threw the remaining demons into panic. As a result, Guts was able to catch up with Ubik unhindered and thrust his sword into his back. Making sure that both apostles were dead and the rest of the demons scattered in terror, the Black Swordsman once again chased after the fleeing Griffith, who managed to escape.


    For a couple more hours, we literally flew over barren wastelands, where the only signs of life were the occasional giant monsters the size of mountains, trudging off to who knows where. But signs of death pursued us everywhere. This place was literally filled with the spirits of the deceased, moaning and screaming, demanding vengeance. Guts didn''t let himself be distracted by all this, simply moving forward at maximum speed.


    Finally, before us rose a huge gloomy castle, resembling the work of Aliens under the command of a genius of gothic architecture. And from the castle walls protruded numerous spikes, on which skeletons, humanoids, and all sorts of monsters hung, writhing and contorting in agony.


    A powerful demon emerged from the castle to meet us, emanating an overwhelming aura of dominance. He outwardly resembled a human, but there was something alien in his appearance, indicating that the human form was not native to him. At the sight of him, a brand on Guts'' body seemed to go berserk, causing even its owner, despite my completely numbed pain sensations, to groan and fall to his knees. But Guts'' mind remained clear, and he looked at the enemy with hatred, gripping his sword tighter.


    "So, you''re Guts" - the demon said, looking at us with a disdainful interest. - "I must admit, you''ve greatly annoyed me by destroying my servants. Come here, why are you hiding there?"


    The last phrase seemed to be not intended for us. After a few seconds, Femto, the Skull Knight, and... that same witch who received us in the forest "house" came out of the main gate of the temple. Now many things become clear.


    "Hmm, what should I do with you?" - this creature noticed us. - "Don''t you want to become my servant?"


    "I will destroy you" - Guts hissed, getting up from his knees.


    "No, you are uncontrollable" - the demon sighed. - "And this strange elf... I can''t sense his aura at all."


    No wonder he couldn''t sense anything. For Guts, destroying such demons was a feat beyond reason. But for me, they were like disgusting cockroaches that could be crushed with a single movement. After all, in this strange world, my magic, psionics, and chakra worked almost without any problems.


    "Decided!" - the demon clapped his fist on his palm. - "Skull, go and kill him."


    "Master?" - The Skull trembled in fear. Even the horse under her shook with horror. But it was not Guts that this demon feared, it was me.


    "Don''t worry, he is completely suppressed by the seal. Look, he can barely stand."


    This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    Indeed, Guts gave the impression that he had used up all his strength to get up. But inside, he was boiling with the anger that overwhelmed him, preparing to unleash it on the relaxed enemies.


    "But, master, this elf on his shoulder..."


    "Do you dare to oppose me, Hand of God?" - the demon snarled. In this world, the speech of intelligent beings was not limited by the boundaries of any language. The demon''s name resembled the name of a group of apostles, but in the word "hand," it was more likely referring to the palm. Here, however, it referred to the whole hand.


    "Hand of God?" - I immediately intervened in this quarrel. - "Do you have someone here called Foot of God? Or Ass of God? What about Dick of God? And I suspect that none of you has earned the name Brain of God, because neither you nor your god ever had any brains."


    "How dare you insult him!?" - the demon screamed, spreading waves of anger and hatred. - "For this, I will punish you..."


    I didn''t hear exactly how he was going to punish me because at that moment Guts suddenly lunged forward and struck with his sword, aiming for the head of the Hand of God. The magical barrier surrounding the enemy deflected the blow, but Guts didn''t stop there. He slipped past the bewildered demon and headed straight for Griffith. The latter had not relaxed for a second during all this time, so he managed to dodge and rush towards the castle gates. Guts followed him, but right in front of his nose, the doors slammed shut, cutting him off from his desired prey.


    "How dare you attack me?" - the demon roared, not realizing that he had just signed his own death warrant.


    Guts turned around, with a swift movement of his hand, he split the witch''s spirit in half and lunged at the Hand of God.


    "Flora!!!" - the Skull Knight screamed. - "You killed her. I won''t forgive you!!!" After these words, the little skull turned around and... galloped away, whipping the horse.


    But unfortunately for him, both the Hand of God and Guts were distracted from the impending battle to punish the fugitive. The swordsman shot a harpoon that pierced the back of the Sword Knight and pulled him off the horse. And the demon threw a fireball at the useless servant, which instantly incinerated him, melting him into a bubbling puddle of metal.


    "Now it''s your turn" - the demon said, turning to Guts.


    "You''re mistaken. Now it''s YOUR turn!!!" - the swordsman replied, rushing forward.


    Guts simply ignored the fireball, similar to the one that burned the little skull. He used his psionics to protect his sword from the flames, but his body was completely engulfed in the fiery element. The ''filler'' of Guts'' body, of course, melted, but it didn''t harm him at all. The crystal was still intact, and although his body became less sturdy, it still continued to run forward.


    Seeing the blazing Guts emerge from the flames, the demon was surprised. He immediately conjured a magical shield, absorbing the full force of the sword attack descending upon him. However, the foolish demon had not accounted for Guts himself. The body of the "blazing swordsman" collided with the demon and... splattered like liquid metal. But a moment later, the metal reassembled itself and surrounded the demon from all sides, burning him alive, penetrating his body and immobilizing him. I would say that in that moment, Guts correctly utilized his Vritra body. He didn''t defend himself, but instead charged at the enemy and destroyed him, manipulating the matter under his control.


    A silent scream echoed through the surroundings, followed by silence, indicating the death of the Hand of God. Guts, now cooled down and gathering himself, slung his sword over his shoulder and headed towards the castle, contemplating whether it would be easier to breach the gates or break in through a third-floor window. This structure deviated from the traditions of medieval castles, resembling more of a large "house" with no windows on the lower floors.


    However, before he could take more than a few steps, an intense "spiritual pressure" descended upon the surroundings. The concentration of demonic energy in the vicinity instantly skyrocketed, indicating the arrival of a truly powerful demon. Even I was impressed at this point.


    "You dared to kill my servant" - a voice echoed from nowhere. - "You are but a victim worthy only of being devoured. Where does such audacity come from?"


    "Reveal yourself!" - Guts roared in response, gripping his sword with both hands. - "Or are you afraid to face me?"


    ¡°What insolence. You are unworthy even to look at me, the true god of humanity. Your very existence offends me, the Idea of Evil. You pitiful humans created me yourselves. But now, I rule this world! I rule over you and your meaningless lives. Today, even hearing my voice is a great mercy on my part. If you truly desire to meet me, then I will await you in my castle. As for your master, who couldn''t control his Sacrifice, I will take him with me to administer the appropriate punishment.¡±


    With that, the spiritual pressure dissipated, and the world returned to normal.


    "Griffith! I will find you and destroy you!!!" - Guts bellowed towards the heavens, feeling the mark of his blood enemy fading away at an unimaginable speed.


    The swordsman was about to embark on the pursuit when portals began opening around him, unleashing hordes of demons. They were weaker than the recently slain Hand of God, so Guts was not in immediate danger. However, getting rid of them was not going to be easy, so he had to "slightly" delay his pursuit.


    It took Guts a whole week to decapitate the last demon that had been swarming him and survey the landscape littered with corpses as far as the eye could see. Throughout that time, he ran forward without stopping for a second, while demons attacked him, attempting to halt, devour, and destroy him. Unfortunately for them, Guts was indigestible and indestructible, so to some extent, this entire army only managed to accomplish the first objective.

 Chapter 17.19 - Berserk

    As compensation, the swordsmith absorbed an unreal amount of demonic energy. Although he couldn''t really use it, the "spiritual pressure" he emitted crushed weak demons, so now no local inhabitants dared to even approach him.


    The demon who had "stolen" Griffith was quite far away, so we had to run for a very long time. The world we were in was not a planet. At least, I didn''t find even the slightest signs of a curved surface. There was no horizon here, and only the constantly hovering mist limited visibility.


    In my estimation, Griffith was now about a hundred thousand kilometers away from us. Moreover, the direction to him also indicated that this world was flat. We would have had to run too long, even at cheetah speed. Definitely more than a month. And with the presence of crowds of demons around us, even two months didn''t seem like a limit to me. Therefore, I made the strategic decision to teach Guts how to fly.


    Fortunately, the psyche of the former mercenary had already adapted enough to the new realities so that he could perceive the idea of flying at supersonic speeds normally. And considering the burning hatred in his heart for Griffith, the thought about he could reach him not in a couple of months, but in just a couple of days, greatly increased his motivation to learn something new.


    As a result, following my instructions, Guts transformed into a supersonic fighter jet that flew forward, piercing through space. But I didn''t get to enjoy it for long. When we had only a couple of thousand kilometers left to fly to our destination, the laws of the world around us began to change. For unknown reasons, it became increasingly difficult to stay in the air, and in the end, not only Guts but also I crashed to the ground.


    While I was "floating in the air," being a small elf was quite comfortable. But as soon as I was forced to move on the ground, my small body immediately became a source of many troubles. Where the ground was simply uneven for Guts, for me, it was a hellish terrain with deep pits and high hills.


    As a result, I brazenly climbed onto Guts'' head and commanded my "steed" to move forward. However, he was already so accustomed to me that he barely paid attention. This was also due to the fact that I deliberately implanted corresponding settings in his consciousness. I had already composed through his brain with my imagination, forcing him to focus on his hatred for Griffith and forget about Casca and Farnese waiting for him.


    However, from the consciousness of the Skull Knight, I read thoughts that all of this company was devoured by demons during the "attack" on the witch''s cottage. Although the Skull Knight and the Band of the Hawk apostles had the same master, there was strong competition between them, and their roles themselves implied rivalry. In short, although Griffith was not in the material world at that time, his "minions" attacked the witch''s refuge and burned down her "residence" along with her and the people staying there. In short, there was no turning back for Guts, and the only option left was to accelerate his movement forward - straight into the mouth of Azathoth.


    Our rough "landing" turned out to be not the only problem. After a hundred kilometers, which Guts ran at the speed of a racing car, mountains appeared before us. And not just mountains, but sheer cliffs rising for tens and hundreds of kilometers. Fortunately, the foothills of these cliffs were dotted with a network of caves, into which we delved.


    Here, Guts had to slow down again and literally fight his way through countless hordes of demons. Some of them were much stronger than the Band of the Hawk, so the swordsman had to deal with them quite a bit. But in the end, we encountered an obstacle that we could not overcome.


    The thickness of the mountain rock in this place was split by a bottomless chasm. Approaching the edge, we could see a sheer wall with numerous tunnel openings a couple of hundred meters ahead. In fact, the view was the same from this side. My ability to fly had not yet been restored, so there was no way to overcome this abyss. Moreover, I could sense that it was not just a chasm, but some kind of conceptual barrier, so even building a bridge would hardly be possible.


    However, from the height of our position, we could see a wide bridge below and to the side, crossing the gap. It was illuminated by two rows of torches, making it visible from afar. After navigating through the dungeons, we reached the bridge and encountered another demon obstacle.


    Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.


    At first, Guts didn''t pay much attention to the presence of a "guard" in this place. Demons were always guarding something somewhere from someone, and we constantly had to kill them to pass by. But this time, our opponent had an incredible defense based on demonic energy that Guts couldn''t penetrate. No matter how he attacked or dodged, the demon simply ignored all the attacks directed at it and prevented the "intruder" from passing by, putting up defensive barriers in his path.


    As a result, after nearly a day of continuous battle, during which we also tore apart several groups of demons who wanted to cross the bridge without the guard''s permission, Guts gave up and retreated. The demon, of course, was not pleased with this, but didn''t pursue us. It was tired of constantly "killing" Guts, only to find his body restored a second later.


    "Guts, you may have become a little stronger, but everything is still as impenetrable as ever" - I began instructing the contender for the title of - "King of the Bridge."


    "What?" - the swordsman grumbled.


    ¡°You possess immense reserves of demonic energy, but you have no idea how to use it. Don''t think that your sword can kill any enemy. You act according to the proverb "Strength is enough, no need for intelligence" but the result is "No intelligence - consider yourself crippled". You need to learn demon magic. But since I know in advance how dumb you are, I''ve decided to give you the knowledge in a fully prepared form. You just need to learn how to properly utilize your new abilities, and your immortal body will take care of all the details of using magic.¡±


    With these words, I copied a block of information into Guts'' consciousness, containing all my analytical work on the combined use of demonic energy and psionics. During our journey, I observed Guts'' actions and the actions of the demons, analyzing them using the most advanced quantum-magical computers in my body. As a result, I formed a whole "spell library" that allowed for the indirect manipulation of the surrounding world using demonic energy.


    For three days and three nights, Guts learned to use magic. Although he now knew how to use it, it all ultimately came down to conscious control. Fortunately, all the basic energy manipulations could be "automated" through the functions of Vritra''s body. After all, this entire body was one big computer. And on the astral level, I literally "grew" new astral organs for Guts, which allowed him to use a limited set of spells with almost no effort.


    As a result of all these "improvements," the next time Guts appeared on the bridge, he crushed the previously invincible demon in just a couple of minutes. The correctly chosen methods of attack literally "exploded" the enemies from within, creating a destructive resonance in their internal channels. Because of this, every strike from Guts caused injuries not only to the local equivalent of a physical body that demons possessed but also to their astral bodies.


    Having crossed the bridge, we found ourselves in what seemed like another world. The dungeons we had passed through before were reminiscent of slums and sewer pipes. Here, everything was adorned with gold and precious gems, and even the most insignificant demon could boast golden armor. However, all this masquerade did not affect the strength of the local inhabitants, so Guts crushed them effortlessly.


    In the last hundred kilometers, we ran through corridors resembling palace chambers, cutting through crowds of demons of all kinds and ranks. Before their deaths, many of them lamented that their master was currently occupied with an important event and could not personally punish the intruder. But after the ceremony was over, they promised us endless torment and eternal pain. However, all these cries of impending death did not frighten anyone.


    Just as we were nearing the place where Griffith was located, the sensation from his mark suddenly disappeared. Within a second, we burst into a richly decorated hall, where only a four-meter-tall demon dressed in golden armor and a group of his lackeys were visible. Those who could have helped their master had already lost their lives, trying to stop Guts'' progress.


    ¡°You again?¡± - the demon exclaimed, and I recognized the voice of the Idea of Evil that had kidnapped Griffith.


    ¡°Where is Griffith!?¡± - Guts shouted, looking around.


    ¡°So, you came for him? Ha-ha! That worm is already beyond your reach. I sent him as an offering to my master for the upcoming feast. Don''t worry, your master will be devoured, and the rights to your Brand of Sacrifice will pass to whoever consumes him. Although, by that time, you will already be dead. Guards! Seize him!¡± - the demon yelled, looking at us with a sense of superiority. ¨C ¡°Guards!? Where are they?¡±


    At that moment, another demon rushed into the hall. He wore the same armor as the thousands of demons we had slain on our way here.


    ¡°Oh, Lord, your entire guard perished while trying to fulfill their duty. This man dared... kh-ha-a-a...¡±


    Without hesitation, Guts shot a harpoon, pulled the last guard towards him, and split him in half with his sword, instantly turning him into a pile of slime. Thanks to the magic he wielded, even a simple strike completely obliterated the bodies of the demons.

 Chapter 17.20 - Berserk

    ¡°Your guard is over.¡± - Guts smirked with a crazed grin. ¨C ¡°You''re next!¡±


    With these words, he lunged forward and attacked the ''true god'', who immediately felt how much stronger the ''pitiful victim'' had become over time. But even with all his strength, Guts couldn''t defeat this demon right away. The demon turned out to be a master of magic and managed to surprise even me. However, considering the immortality of the swordsman''s body, the Idea of Evil had no chance of survival. Every time the demon showed a new trick, I immediately deciphered the mechanics of the spell and gave to Guts a similar spell, as well as a ''counter-spell'' to prevent the use of such magic.


    Finally, Guts severed the enemy''s arms and legs, spilled his guts, ripped out his heart, and stood on the mangled chest, staring into the demon''s eyes.


    ¡°If you tell me how to reach Griffith, your death will be quick and painless.¡± - He made an offer that was hard to refuse. ¨C ¡°Or I will have to torture you until you go insane.¡±


    ¡°Ha-ha-ha-ha...¡± - The demon laughed, unable to even move. He was now a pale shadow of himself. His astral body was destroyed, and his physical vessel was living its last minutes. ¨C ¡°The key to the gates that lead to the deepest depths of hell hangs on my chest. But you won''t be able to use this key because only I know the password to its use. And I would rather die than betray my master! Because his will is above all! And khr-r-r...¡±


    Guts thrust his sword into the demon''s mouth, cutting off its tongue and ending its wretched life in the process.


    ¡°So, what do we have here? Oh! I think I can open a portal.¡± - I said, grabbing the key mentioned by the demon. ¨C ¡°Let''s go, let''s see these gates.¡±


    Behind the throne room where we were, there turned out to be a relatively small hall, in the center of which were... star gates. Even here, their design was not significantly different from what the Ancients had invented in their time. Apparently, their design was accepted as a standard. Or maybe they were just one of the races that ''invented'' star gates, only obtaining information about their construction without being able to improve it.


    The key that the demon was so proud of contained the coordinates of the destination point. To use it, you really needed to know the password. The address for opening the gates, however, was not encrypted, so I could open the gates even without the key. Of course, there was no other ''input device'', but knowing the gate''s construction, I could activate them myself, especially since I had magic with me.


    But as soon as I activated the gates and entered the address, they lit up... and then turned off, failing to open a portal. Instead, a foreign thought infiltrated my consciousness.


    """Object detected with blocked access rights through the Star Gate system. Remove the object at a distance of at least one hundred meters and try again."""


    Worried, I immediately conducted a series of experiments and found out that it was indeed my access rights that had been blocked. If I wanted to, I could send Guts through the gates, but the gate refused to let me pass. It must have been the doing of the fucking Being! The issue was not with the specific gates, but with this ''heretical magic'' itself, which allowed matter to be transformed into information. As soon as I approached the gates, they simply stopped working, as should have happened in any normal world.


    However, there was also good news. Only the function of moving physical objects was blocked. But the exchange of information was still available. Thanks to this, I was able to not only obtain the address of the exit point, but also its actual coordinates. I found out that the place I needed was in the same universe where we already were. However, the bad news was the distance we needed to overcome - over five hundred billion light-years.


    If it were about five hundred light-years, I would have used a portal created with the help of magic. If it were five hundred million light-years, I could think about creating a spaceship and making a jump through hyperspace. But a distance of five hundred billion light-years was almost an insurmountable obstacle. Almost, because there was still one way.


    Of all the known technologies of spatial movement, there was one that I never intended to use. It was the creation of portals using Bahion. Such a method was only available to gods, whom billions of sentient beings sincerely worshipped. Fortunately, I fit this description. In the world of Eldar, I managed to accumulate a considerable amount of Bahion. But even so, a "leap of faith" over such a distance was truly wasteful for me.


    This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    Activating this spell was supposed to consume seventy percent of my Bahion reserves. In addition, my intuition was urging me, telling me that we didn''t have much time. The fate that led Guts to Azathoth was limited by time frames. Also, the Being¡¯s search never stopped for a second, and my personal time was also limited.


    ¡°I will be able to open a portal to where Griffith is right now, but I will need help.¡± - I said to Guts after a short reflection. ¨C ¡°This ritual requires a sacrifice, so we will need to find a suitable place, gather a crowd of demons, and then you will kill them.¡±


    ¡°Killing of demons is what I live for.¡± - The swordsman replied with pathos. ¨C ¡°Where should we go?¡±


    I scanned the surroundings and didn''t find a single demon worthy of attention nearby. We had already cleared this location, and it was necessary to reach another "demon lord". I scanned the space and was able to determine the "gradient" of the change in the saturation of demonic energy in the area. It was densest where strong demons lived. We were currently in the center of such a hotspot, but in one direction, the energy was weakening much slower. That''s where we headed.


    After a couple of days, we reached another place where demons began to threaten us on behalf of their ruler. Here, Guts had to disguise himself as one of the demons. Of course, the Brand of Sacrifice couldn''t be hidden, but the swordsman pretended to be a demon carrying the Sacrifice on his shoulder to deliver it to the local "lord". Often, they tried to stop us and take the "sacrifice" but the argument in the form of a huge sword successfully resolved all disagreements, cutting down any dissenters by a head.


    Finally, we made our way to the heart of this "palace" - the ruler''s throne room. He happened to be temporarily absent, so Guts, with his audacious face, declared that he would wait for his return, and until then, no creature should approach this place.


    After driving out all the local inhabitants, I began to create a ritual circle to offer the demons as a sacrifice. Only bahion was not enough to activate the ritual, and the souls of recently deceased victims were also required. I finished drawing and concealing all the lines of the magical pattern just a minute before the arrival of the local "lord" in the throne room.


    "What is happening here?" - The local demon lord burst into the room. - "I was told that I would find... m-m-m... such an exquisite scent of sacrifice here. His soul is literally overflowing with hatred. Did you bring me this gift?... However... you are the Sacrifice yourself" - he figured out our game.


    Furthermore, I immediately sensed that this demon was much stronger than the Idea of Evil. Much, much stronger. It seemed we had chosen the wrong place to perform the ritual. However, it was too late to change anything, and we had to stick to the plan. And to prevent Guts from realizing too soon the dire situation we had gotten ourselves into, I should intervene.


    "Well, actually, you are the Sacrifice!" - I boldly declared, stepping forward. - "Today, you will become my meal. And your lackeys will serve as a snack for my pet. Guts, kill them. Fass!!!"


    The swordsman, already used to my teasing, didn''t pay much attention to my statement. He rushed forward, but attacked not the "big boss" himself, but his entourage. Guts already had an idea of how his powers worked, and understood that he needed to "accumulate anger" first. And the best way to do that was by killing demons. The more corpses appeared around him, the stronger he became.


    I decided that it was not the time for playing games, and it was time to go all out. So, I took on my normal size, transformed into the "king of the elves," and also attacked the surrounding demons, while blocking our main opponent with magic. I no longer held back, and my destructive spells mowed down the strongest monsters like grass.


    I was much stronger than Guts for one simple reason. He possessed a source of psionic energy, the core of which was his own soul. In other words, Guts was at the level of a strong but ordinary psionic. But my sources of magic, chakra, and psionics were based on the souls of the strongest demons. That is, my power now corresponded to the concept of a "lesser god" or "archdemon."


    Of course, I could be considered the weakest and most pathetic of the archdemons, but then the second foundation of my power came into play - the powerful quantum computer in Vritra''s body. Thanks to it, all my spells had a one hundred percent efficiency, perfectly adjusting each time to deal maximum damage to a specific target.


    In the heat of battle, we became so engrossed that we inadvertently "expanded" the throne room, sweeping away the surrounding walls. We were in an underground dungeon, but due to the local laws of physics, the ceiling couldn''t collapse on us as nothing was pressing down on it. As a result, after an hour, we found ourselves inside a massive hall with a diameter of almost a kilometer. The only intact thing in the vicinity was the floor of the former throne room, upon which the lines of a ritual circle glowed brightly, absorbing the souls of all the slain demons. However, no one paid attention to this "detail" because the enraged Guts was relentlessly attacking the local ruler, simultaneously destroying anyone who tried to help him.

 Chapter 17.21 - Berserk

    I, on the other hand, limited myself to a support role, cutting down any small fry and observing the situation as a whole. Guts had already narrowly avoided getting trapped three times when the local "mages" attempted to enclose him within a sealing barrier. However, I immediately detected the signs of such magic and preemptively destroyed those who used it.


    Finally, the ritual circle had absorbed enough souls, death energy, and Bahion power, and was ready to open the portal. But there remained a "small problem" - the local demon lord. He stubbornly refused to die, and it was dangerous to open the portal in his presence. This was a quite complex magic, and any interference in the ritual could ruin everything.


    Raw physical strength and all forms of magic had exhausted their capabilities and failed to inflict sufficient damage on the demon. He himself was a powerful and skilled mage, and even our combined "power attacks" did not reach ten percent of his reserve of demonic power. In such a situation, we had to rely only on science and physics.


    Although the local world seemed to be "spiritual," it still had a material component. Specifically, the entire surrounding world consisted of atoms. And where there are atoms, there is radiation. In this universe, the consequences of radioactive decay were not highly dangerous. However, the decay of matter itself significantly destabilized the physical bodies of demons.


    I began to use magic to convert all the surrounding matter into an unstable state. After some time, radiation penetrated the demon''s body, and he started to receive damage reminiscent of poison. All his efforts to heal were in vain, and the course of the battle finally began to change. Guts and I, of course, did not escape the same consequences, but the chemical composition of our bodies did not play a significant role. The maximum threat we faced was the softening of our brains, in terms of Vritra''s body filler.


    "Bastard! How dare you? I will destroy you!!! Stop! What kind of vile magic is this? My master will punish you!" - screeched the demon, sensing his impending doom. He tried to escape several times, but I blocked all his attempts by setting up barriers of chakra.


    Finally, the resilient victim perished, and its soul was consumed by the ritual circle. Making sure that no one else could interfere, I activated the final phase of the ritual, and a glowing portal opened before us. Instructed Guts immediately leaped into it, and also with him sitting on his shoulder.


    We emerged from the portal into a massive hall, filled with hundreds of powerful demons, each no weaker than the demon lord we had just slain. All of them sat at enormous tables and... feasted. It seemed we had stumbled right into the promised feast.


    Guts immediately sensed Griffith''s presence nearby and rushed towards him, ignoring all the other demons. The rest of the demons froze in surprise, their mouths agape, allowing a couple of lucky victims to escape from those jaws. Running through the hall towards its "richest" part, where the fattest demons sat, Guts caught sight of Griffith... only to lose sight of him again. This time, some monstrous creature had swallowed the poor apostle and began thoughtfully chewing on him.


    "Spit him out!" - Guts roared with all the strength of his lungs. - "He''s my prey!"


    With these words, he leaped onto the table and plunged his sword into the demon''s throat. Compared to the enormous body of the creature, the two-meter-long sword seemed no bigger than a pocket knife. But after inflicting a shallow wound, the demon shrieked as if it were being devoured alive.


    "A-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a!!! Help! What are you all staring at? Kill this monster! A thousand pregnant virgins to whoever kills him!"


    With these words, the demon unexpectedly leaped up, flung Guts aside with a tentacle strike, and galloped away, shrieking in panic. At the same moment, all the surrounding demons descended upon Guts, attempting to kill him or at least capture him.


    I had already prepared myself to sell my life dearly, but then it suddenly became clear that these demon lords were nothing more than meat waiting to be chopped up for the stubborn Sacrifice. The demon lord we killed to open the gate had the same reserve of demonic power and "spiritual pressure." But he was a veteran of thousands of battles, a master of magic.


    These demon lords resembled gluttonous rich men more than anything, whose power was based solely on the "right" to command others. They waved their paws, mandibles, and tentacles, but couldn''t even land a proper hit on their agile prey. As for using any complex incantations, forget about it. All they could do was thrash around with raw energy, which was equivalent to a free recharge for Guts. After all, he had been continuously absorbing the energy of slain enemies, growing stronger with each new death.


    This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.


    In the resulting chaos, it was impossible to pursue the fugitive who had devoured Griffith, so Guts had to stay behind once again to "clean up the area." We had stumbled upon a feast where powerful demons had gathered, but suddenly, this feast turned into a bloody hell. Or you could say that the feasters themselves became food for the food. The radiant energy of the Brand of Sacrifice drove those around it mad, causing them to frenzy and throw themselves at Guts like wild animals. The stronger the Sacrifice, the stronger the hunger it evoked. Even the parasite in my soul suddenly awakened and began to gaze with interest at my companion.


    ''The feast'' lasted for an hour, but its result was the destruction of a crowd of powerful demon lords, which elevated Guts to their level. Now, even I wasn''t sure if I could defeat such a monster. Fortunately, it wasn''t necessary. I was just a ''petty elf'' who futilely hovered around, occasionally doing something useful. By the way, my ability to fly was activated again in this place, so I happily flew around Guts, commenting on his particularly successful strikes.


    Finally, after finishing off the last demon, the swordsman broke through the gates leading out of the room, and we emerged into open ground. The sky was the most captivating thing here. It resembled a gigantic vortex that seemed to draw in the souls of those who looked at it. Or maybe it wasn''t just an illusion, because I felt an unpleasant influence on myself.


    "Don''t look at the sky. Follow Griffith" - I reminded my guide of our journey''s purpose. Through the Brand of Sacrifice, I could sense that the apostle was still alive, although he was experiencing indescribable torment, being digested in the stomach of the demon that had devoured him.


    Guts diverted his gaze from the abyss of the sky and ran forward, picking up tremendous speed. In just an hour, the demon had managed to run quite far, but now we were catching up to him at a rapid pace. After ten minutes, a bloated carcass with flabby sides appeared ''on the horizon'', which turned around, saw Guts, and let out a disgusting scream. After that, the demon fled, shrieking at the top of its lungs. And just as retribution in the form of Guts was about to catch up to him, calls for help led to the desired result, and four demons dressed in black armor appeared in our path.


    Judging by their behavior, it was a squad of local guards. They skillfully pushed Guts away from his prey, which continued to scream and rushed towards a huge palace, the sight of which triggered waves of nausea and panic within me. It seemed that Azathoth resided there. But I wouldn''t go there. Intuition told me that the "main entrance" would only lead to Azathoth''s dinner table.


    "Sorry, dude, I just remembered I have some urgent business. I''ll be back in a bit" - I said to Guts before rushing away from the scene of the skirmish.


    Although these four demons were much stronger than any other inhabitants of the spirit world we had encountered before, I was confident in Guts'' ability to deal with them. And honestly, this whole "journey" felt like a cheap setup to me. Despite supposedly being near the dwelling place of the most powerful being in the entire universe, we hadn''t encountered a single opponent about the level of a Being or any other Player. It seemed more like Guts was being fed with a bunch of greedy scum that should have been disposed of long ago.


    Now the shared part of our journey was over, and from now on, everyone was on their own. The ungrateful creature I had transformed into an extremely powerful demon didn''t even look back at me, simply throwing a short "get lost." Well, I wouldn''t miss him.


    Using camouflage spells, I flew away from Azathoth''s palace, looking around for something interesting. I still had to find a way to attend Azathoth''s reception, but first, I had to wait for the "dinner" to end. Tracking spells were installed in Guts'' body and his central crystal, so I would know when he would finally be devoured. Or when he would kill Azathoth, although that was already something out of the realm of unscientific fantasy or some kind of graphomurk.


    Flying over the forest of demonic trees, which were repulsive in their appearance, I unexpectedly spotted a grassy clearing with a large stone in the center, where one could sit and rest. So, what if the grass here was suspiciously crimson and the stone wasn''t really a stone, but another demon? Boldly settling on the bald head of the demon buried in the ground, with only its head sticking out, I decided that this place was perfect to wait for the Sacrifice to be offered.


    "Hey, you little one! I''ll eat you" - declared my seat, extending a long, flexible tongue from its mouth towards me.


    "No, I''ll eat you" - I replied, severing the tip of its tongue with magic and wondering if it could be turned into sausage.


    "Ouch! You disgusting bug, why are you biting me?" - protested the head, retracting its tongue before I could cut off another piece.


    "You should have kept quiet, you dimwit. I am His Majesty, the great Elf King Fuck! Insignificant demons like you couldn''t even touch me. The fact that I sat on your bald spot with my divine butt should be seen as the greatest honor" - I retorted, throwing away the severed tongue.

 Chapter 17.22 - Berserk

    It seems like I''ve gotten so into the role of a cheeky elf that I''ve actually become one. Hehe, amusing. Meanwhile, the severed tongue ended up in the overgrown grass nearby, which hungrily devoured the offering. I knew there was something off about this clearing.


    "Why were you buried here, anyway?" - I asked the demon, trying to pass the time. - "I hope it was something amusing."


    The demon gnashed its teeth but couldn''t resist the pleasure of talking to someone. Judging by the surroundings, no sane demon would come near this place. The local "grass" didn''t attack me, only because I had disguised myself with all the spells and barriers I knew. And besides, there wasn''t a drop of demonic energy in my body.


    "Yes, quite amusing" - the demon growled, recalling something that stirred anger in its emotions. - "I was the previous Azathoth, the Dark Lord of the entire universe, ruling over all realms. But one day, a pitiful human came to me. A wretched human with the Mark of the Sacrifice on his soul. He challenged me to a battle and... he won. That day, I learned of the existence of the Flame of Oblivion. This little human burned me and my entire soul, leaving only a small fragment. And then he possessed me into the body of a giant and buried me in this place, so that my pitiful appearance would instill fear in anyone who dared to oppose him. Since that day, this new Azathoth has ruled this world. Well, how do you like the story?" - the retiree asked.


    "Very funny. But you know what''s funny? Right now, a person with the Mark of the Sacrifice is rushing to see Azathoth. And he will surely try to kill him. But I doubt that your story can repeat itself. Well, who knows. Maybe tomorrow, another head will sprout from the ground next to you."


    ¡°Ha-ha, elf, I haven''t heard such a funny joke in a long time. And what''s the name of that brave soul who challenged Azathoth himself?¡±


    ¡°Guts. His name is Guts, which in your language should sound like Intestines.¡±


    ¡°Ah, well then there''s nothing to worry about.¡± - The head, which had flared up with hope, calmed down. ¨C ¡°With a name like that, the most he can achieve is getting stuck in intestines and causing constipation. But I wouldn''t even hope for that. Name determines destiny. How are you called?¡±


    ¡°I am not called, I come on my own.¡± - I replied indignantly. ¨C ¡°I call myself Atman. But players call me Cheater.¡±


    ¡°Players? So, you''re a game figure? Then it''s clear how you ended up here at all. Let me guess, that Guts was your offering to Azathoth?¡±


    ¡°Is it that obvious?¡± - I asked sadly.


    ¡°Ha-ha, I think he''ll appreciate the joke of a Sacrifice trying to kill him. Such a hint will even reach his dimmest followers. And if he doesn''t punish you... then he must have some plan for you. Well, I''ll wait to see how your life ends. Waiting is all I have left.¡±


    With that, the head fell silent and stopped reacting to my jabs.


    I sat bored on the demon''s head for almost an hour before there was commotion in the palace where Guts had headed. First, we were overwhelmed by a powerful surge of demonic energy. And the most important thing was that this energy was almost entirely composed of Chaos. The energy of "ordinary" demons didn''t attract me much because of its qualities. Inconspicuously to the user, it would change them, turning them into hideous monsters. But this energy was much purer. It could almost be called Primordial Chaos. Almost, but not quite. There was something about it that sent shivers down my immortal spine. The original energy of Chaos, which I knew from faint glimpses, even attracted me more than this strange mishmash.


    Following the surge of energy from the palace, a thunderous roar came, striking fear into anyone with a brain. Luckily, I didn''t have such vulnerability. Neither did Guts. I brainwashed him so thoroughly that he would sooner throw himself into the jaws of Azathoth than be afraid of him. And even in those jaws, he would cut the Demon Lord into pieces.


    The bursts of energy and cries continued for about fifteen minutes, after which I received a signal about the destruction of the ''indestructible'' Vritras crystal. As I suspected, Azathoth showed Guts the tongue on which Griffith''s last seconds were spent, and he himself jumped into the demon''s mouth. And then, in just a second, the stupid swordsman was ''digested''. I didn''t know what happened to him after the crystal was destroyed, but it didn''t end well for Guts.


    Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.


    ¡°That''s it, lunch is eaten.¡± - I commented on this event.


    ¡°And is it time for a small snack?¡± - the head asked.


    ¡°No, it''s time to discuss how to strip half of the universe down to their underwear.¡±


    The head skeptically remained silent in response to my statement. And I also didn''t burn with the desire to discuss such delicate matters. Now was the turning point of my journey, in which it was determined whether the Eternal Oracle¡¯s advice was useful or not.


    Half an hour later, a group of demons appeared from the forest. They approached the edge of the clearing without getting too close to the grass, and the strongest of them shouted:


    ¡°Cheater, Azathoth wants to see you. Come here.¡±


    ¡°What? I can''t hear you.¡± - I shouted in response. ¨C ¡°Come closer.¡±


    ¡°Ha-ha, come here, why are you standing there?¡± - the head laughed.


    ¡°Cheater!!!¡± - the demon shouted, spreading waves of anger.


    ¡°Alright, alright, I''m coming.¡±


    I flew vertically upwards to a height of fifty meters, then flew over the grass and landed next to the group of demons.


    ¡°Follow me.¡± - The leader said, then walked away without bothering to check if I was following him.


    Soon, we emerged from the forest and walked along a path. We were now heading away from Azathoth''s Palace, and I was more than satisfied with this direction. Half an hour later, my companions limped their way to another palace. We entered through the grand entrance and made our way to the Throne Room, where another demon sat in the center... not particularly powerful, I must say.


    ¡°Before you is Azathoth, the ruler of the dark side of the Universe.¡± - My guide proclaimed with pomp. ¨C ¡°Kneel and show your respect.¡±


    This is Azathoth? Doesn''t look like it. He''s too weak. I consulted with my parasite, but it confirmed that this was indeed Azathoth, or rather, one of his projections which deals with minor matters.


    ¡°Well, greetings, Lord of the Universe.¡± - I nodded.


    The demons hissed irritably at such familiarity, but they didn''t take any action, waiting for their boss''s reaction.


    ¡°You really are an audacious upstart.¡± - The demon sitting on the throne responded almost admiringly. Well, he doesn''t strike me as Azathoth. It all looks like some kind of setup. I went to meet the president, and ended up with some bum. ¨C ¡°I am the divine projection of Azathoth, and my will fully aligns with his. I am aware of your situation, so let''s get straight to announcing my decision.¡±


    Well, no bureaucracy here. I decided, and that''s it - wipe yourselves off.


    ¡°First of all, you will undergo a transformation into a Soul Devourer. Narskrudzhak will take care of this.¡± - The small demon standing next to me silently bowed. ¨C ¡°After he decides that you have sufficient qualifications, he will take you to Shubniggurath. And he will give you a task that you must fulfill. It will be participation in some game. During this game, you will be granted temporary protection from the Being and its minions. If you complete the task, you will receive the Devil''s Mechanism. When you use it, you will be transported to another world, where you will have time during which the Being will not be able to find you. Also, in each world, you will have a task, after completing which you will have the opportunity to activate the mechanism again. Do you agree to these conditions?¡±


    Well, what choice do I have? And these conditions don''t look worse than the Being''s. I traded one bad situation for another.


    ¡°I agree.¡± - I nodded.


    ¡°Then follow Narskrudzhak.¡± - Azathoth commanded grimly, losing all interest in me. ¨C ¡°He will show you what we have here.¡±


    The small demon and I exchanged glances, after which I followed him.


    As soon as we left the throne room, the demon immediately perked up, as if being in the presence of Azathoth was the greatest risk in his life.


    ¡°Well, let''s go.¡± - He gave me a cheeky look. ¨C ¡°Since Azathoth has decided that I should tell you everything, I will give you a little tour.¡±


    We left the palace and walked along the path. From time to time, demons passed by us, each of whom sniffed and licked their lips at the sight of me. And most importantly, all these demons were insanely powerful, and I was no match for them. Now it''s clear that my previous journey was a complete setup.


    Meanwhile, my companion had completely relaxed and started chatting non-stop.


    "Right now, we are in Lange. This dimension is called the End of Universe. Azathoth constantly devours millions and billions of worlds. They all become part of Lange, and then all living beings, planets, and stars end up in Azathoth''s stomach, where they are digested by him. And also, this is where the paths of reincarnation are finished. Every soul after death ends up in Lange to pass through the Squeezer."


    "The Squeezer?" - I exclaimed in surprise.


    "Yes, that''s exactly where we''re going. You know what Bahion is, right?"


    "Yes, it''s the energy of faith."


    "Well, you could say that, although that''s not quite the right definition. Bahion can be obtained by making sentient beings worship you as a god. But it can also be extracted from the suffering of souls. That''s what we''re doing here."


    "So, you have hell here?" - I asked.


    "Not in the way you imagine it. No cauldrons and demons. You''ll see for yourself soon enough."

 Chapter 17.23 - Berserk

    We approached a large boulder on which a complex pattern of a ritual circle was drawn. Narskrudzhak used some clever spell, and a portal opened before us. Passing through it, we found ourselves literally in another world. The first thing I felt was the pressure of incredible suffering that permeated the space itself. Even without any extrasensory abilities, it was clear that this world was literally filled with pain.


    Now we were in a cave. Moving forward, we entered a huge hall filled with golden light. This light could be considered beautiful, but it caused unbearable pain in the soul. I could only catch glimpses of this radiance. But ahead, I could see a whole circle of countless souls who were literally bathing in this light, experiencing indescribable torment. And I also felt that in this place, the most powerful flows of Bahion were indeed flowing, literally squeezed out of the souls. Now it was clear why this place was called Squeezer.


    "Here!" - the demon proudly declared. - "Only the luckiest beings in the universe know about the existence of this place. But few have managed to come here not as victims, but as observers."


    "And where does all this Bahion go?" - I asked, following the demon.


    "Every last drop is claimed by Azathoth. There is an agreement that Bahion, obtained from pain, belongs to Azathoth. And Bahion obtained from faith goes to Yog-Sothoth. The entire universe is filled with pain, but the suffering experienced in life cannot be compared to what the soul experiences in Squeezer. Here, every drop of Bahion is squeezed out of it. Pain can be temporarily relieved by sacrificing one''s memories. That''s why, after going through the cycle of reincarnation, souls usually don''t remember anything about their previous life."


    ¡°Is there any way to avoid ending up here?¡± - I grimly looked at the source of the golden light.


    ¡°No way!¡± - The demon proudly replied. ¨C ¡°Although the most fanatical followers of the Gods of the Light go to the realms of these gods after death, where they fervently worship Yog-Sothoth, giving him all their faith until the last drop. But after their ability to give Bahion through faith is exhausted, they still end up in Squeezer. Essentially, life is a rest, during which the soul recovers enough to go through another cycle of reincarnation.¡±


    ¡°And what is the meaning of all this?¡± - I frowned. The scene was just too bleak.


    ¡°The answer to that question is known only to Azathoth and Yog-Sothoth. It is they who receive all the Bahion produced by countless souls. However, there is another way to find out the answer to this question.¡±


    ¡°What is it?¡± - I asked, already sensing some kind of trap.


    ¡°Come. This is also part of my story.¡± - The demon turned into an inconspicuous corridor, and we walked in almost pitch darkness, winding through narrow passages. The golden light barely penetrated here, so my ability to think clearly returned. ¨C ¡°Once, a great sage beheld the Truth and captured it in the form of a painting, in which he encapsulated his understanding of the Laws of the Universe. Since you will become the Soul Devourer, you must at least once gaze upon this painting. However, most of those who have been honored with this privilege have gone mad. But there''s nothing we can do about it, it''s tradition.¡±


    ¡°Gone mad? But I''m already insane, how much further can I go?¡±


    ¡°That''s what we''ll find out. Look.¡±


    We entered a large hall, and on the opposite wall was the painting, taking up the entire space. As soon as my gaze skimmed over it, a huge amount of information flowed into my mind. If I were an ordinary person, I wouldn''t be able to digest such volumes and would definitely go insane. But I had Vritra''s body, and a powerful quantum computer was ''stored'' in my spatial pocket, capable of processing huge amounts of data. Even so, I had to immediately look away, staring at the floor, and only after a few seconds did I dare to glance at the painting again. And then look away. And then look at it again.


    This work of an unknown master literally attracted the gaze because it promised to answer the most intimate questions about the meaning of life. And so, I gradually became more and more accustomed to viewing this painting and analyzing the information contained in it.


    Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    In short, this painting depicted the entire universe. Yog-Sothoth creates new worlds, and Azathoth devours them. The entire universe revolved around the production of Bahion, which went to these two ''vampires''. But there was something else in this scene. Something hidden behind the bright wrapping of the universe. Some kind of secret.


    "The Veil of the Secret" - I said, realizing that this was the name of the painting.


    "You... you managed to understand what the main secret of the universe is?" - The demon gaped at me, not even daring to glance at the painting. - "And what is this secret?"


    Hehe, it seems someone else here also wants to know the unknowable.


    "The Veil of the Secret. Our entire world is the veil that hides the Secret. This painting does not provide an answer to the question of the meaning of life, the universe, and all that, but it shows that this answer is hidden from us by the universe itself" - I explained.


    "I see... By the way, how do you feel?" - the demon asked, looking at me curiously.


    "No more insane than usual" - I replied, dismissing his concern. - "Let''s move on."


    "Yes, yes, we need to keep going. The Veil of the Secret. That''s it!" - the demon muttered to himself. We reached another portal under his mumbling, and as we passed through it, we found ourselves in another world. This time, the space around us was filled with hunger. Endless and unbearable hunger that made you dream of devouring everything that exists.


    "This is the most sacred place in the entire universe" - Narzkruzhak shivered, trying not to look around. - "I''ve only been here five times in my entire life. And I must say, I''ve lived longer than the worlds created by Yog-Sothoth." - Wow! That''s quite a long life. You wouldn''t guess it by looking at him. - "Here, a soul can go through the ritual of transformation and become a Soul Devourer. After that, you gain the ability to consume souls. Currently, there are only three soul devourers in the entire universe, apart from Azathoth. You should be proud of the honor bestowed upon you."


    Well, I''m already proud. It seems Azathoth has some plans for me. Otherwise, why such generosity? However, it is still unclear whether this transformation is a blessing or a curse.


    ¡°Stand in the center of this circle and prepare yourself. The transformation of the soul is quite a painful process" - the demon instructed. Who else but me would know that? I stepped forward and stood in the center of the stone platform, floating in the emptiness of this world. We were surrounded by infinite empty space, filled with shadows thirsting to devour everything and anything. A lovely place.


    As soon as I took my place, the ritual circle beneath me activated, and I felt invisible chains constricting my soul, followed by something foreign penetrating my very essence. It was like a dark seed sprouting within my soul. Invisible roots pierced through me, causing unbearable pain. To alleviate this "transformation" in any way possible, I began to tap into my reserves of Bahion. This energy allowed me to instantly heal any damage and reduced the pain, giving me the ability to focus on controlling my transformation. The tentacles sprouting through my soul now spread evenly, forming a harmonious pattern.


    It''s hard to say how long this torment lasted, but eventually, it came to an end. I collapsed onto the ground, exhausted, trying to regain my composure. I could feel that I had changed. It wasn''t just that I had gained new abilities. There was something else. Some changes that I couldn''t quite comprehend.


    "And now, the first feast" - the demon proclaimed solemnly. - "Follow me."


    We left that strange dimension, passed through the realm of Squeezer, and entered a cave that would serve as a perfect illustration for the word ''Hell''. Fire surrounded us, with burning souls trapped within its flames. Narskrudzhak snapped his fingers, and two ancient-looking demons entered the room, leading a naked girl whose ''radiance'' exuded sanctity and innocence.


    "Here, devour her soul" - he proposed with a sinister gleam in his eyes.


    Hardly had I even contemplated how one could devour a soul when a wild hunger gripped me. The structure that had sprouted in my consciousness unfurled and extended outward... tentacles that eagerly sought to embed themselves into the pliant flesh of the victim and drain her completely.


    If I had possessed a human or even a demon body, I would have pounced on the ''meal'' without hesitation. This hunger surpassed any sexual desire, and I already knew from experience how emotions could cloud the mind. However, since I inhabited Vritras'' body, I was able to rationally assess the ''dish'' presented to me. And honestly, I had no particular desire to feast on virgins. They were meant for other purposes.


    Therefore, I shifted my gaze from the girl to one of the demons who had brought her. He paled and attempted to flee, but I was faster. My ''spiritual tentacles'' reached out towards the demon''s soul, latching onto it, tearing it apart, and began to consume it. This process mirrored exactly what my parasite demonstrates. With such a ''teacher,'' I could concentrate on the process, already having a rough idea of what needed to be done.


    Disgusting demonic energy oozed into my soul. I had no desire to consume it, so I immediately redirected all the ''excess'' directly into the individual dimension of my parasite. It sniffed at the ''offering'' and then devoured it with visible appetite.

 Chapter 17.24 - Berserk

    As a result, most of the demon''s soul went to Azathoth, but something also fell to me. I couldn''t even comprehend what had happened, but I had a sense that ''I had become more''. However, I wasn''t given the opportunity to reflect, because Narskrudzhak cried out in desperation.


    "What have you done? Who did you devour?"


    "What''s the problem?" - I asked, licking my lips contentedly.


    "They brought you a divine virgin! Do you even realize how valuable she is? Instead, you devoured poor Hrumm!"


    "Just look at her holy aura" - I pointed to the terrified victim. - "She''s repulsive! Who in their right mind would want to eat something like that? These virgins should be seduced and engaged in sexual activities, not devoured. It''s a waste of valuable resources."


    "We''ve been trying to corrupt her for two hundred years" - the demon grabbed his head. - "As long as she''s surrounded by that aura of sanctity, it''s impossible to force her into sex. Also, she refuses all time. What am I supposed to do with her now? My head already hurts from not being able to defile Erador. And now this. It was such a perfect chance to get rid of this girl."


    "Who is Erador?" - I asked, to divert the demon''s attention to a different topic.


    "He''s a priest of Yog-Sothoth. A holy hero! We''ve been trying to turn him into a demon for fifty years, but he refuses to give up his ideas of goodness and justice."


    "Justice?" - I exclaimed. - "If he''s a priest of justice, it''s easy to turn him into a mad butcher who kills people for whim."


    "Oh? And how do you suggest we do that? Come on, tell me. This guy is so stubborn that nothing seems to work on him."


    ¡°Oh, you narrow-minded.¡± - I shook my head. ¨C ¡°It''s simple. You put this holy man in a room with a one-way mirror and place a remote control with two buttons in front of him. And behind the glass in the adjacent room, you gather two groups of people. One group should consist of innocent people, and the other should have only one sinner, reveling in the suffering of others. And you give this holy man a choice. If he presses first button, the sinner dies, and the innocent people survive and are guaranteed a comfortable life. If he presses the other button, the sinner survives, and the innocent people die. If he doesn''t press any button, then both groups die.¡±


    ¡°And then what?" - The demon skeptically looked at me, but he held a notebook in his hands, where he was writing down my instructions.


    ¡°And then you let him get used to the role of a judge. And it should always be the case that one group consists of only good people, and the other consists of only scoundrels. As he settles in and gets into the rhythm of such a life, you will need to place one innocent person in the group of criminals. And then he will have to decide: to kill one innocent person, making the ''right'' choice, or to kill everyone by not making any choice at all. If he strives to save people, he will choose to kill one innocent person to punish a dozen criminals and save a hundred innocent ones. And then gradually, you''ll need to blur the difference between the two groups until this holy man gets used to killing some to save others.¡±


    I paused for a moment, watching the virgin who was looking at me with horror in her eyes. Yes, that''s the kind of evil I embody.


    ¡°When this stage is completed, you will need to make the subject personally kill people from one group, rather than just pressing a button. Then you can send him ''to judge'' people based on the principle that out of a hundred individuals, fifty must be killed, otherwise the entire hundred will be destroyed. And most importantly, you must not attempt to deceive or trick this Erador. Honesty is the most powerful weapon. Furthermore, you should make him make choices where the options are equally balanced, but one choice provides him with personal benefits and advantages. In short, step by step, you must corrupt this holy man, giving him power and the ability to do whatever he pleases. And after a hundred years, you will have a butcher who kills people without even thinking about it.¡±


    ¡°Well, well, well, let''s see.¡± - The demon became inspired. ¨C ¡°I will send Erador to a world with accelerated time and organize everything as you said. And in just a few hours, we will see what comes out of it.¡±


    This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.


    ¡°Okay.¡± - I nodded indifferently, looking at the virgin. Can''t let good opportunities go to waste. ¨C ¡°And I will personally take care of her.¡±


    For the next three hours, I sat in the company of a beautiful naked elf, caressing her body in every possible way. She stoically endured, simultaneously engaging in a conversation with me on unrelated topics. Studying this specimen, I discovered that her surrounding "aura of holiness" prevented the manifestation of bodily instincts above a certain level. In other words, this saintly being could not indulge in vice and debauchery because she hardly felt any sexual desire. Essentially, it was frigidity, which, combined with the divine beauty of the girl, made me feel that such a precious flower was going to waste.


    But the most interesting aspect was the origin of this "blessing." The girl believed in some god, and the bestowed Bahion was used to maintain the spell. As long as her faith remained strong, her consciousness could not be "defiled." And most importantly, approximately half of the generated Bahion was sent to the god she believed in. Essentially, this holy virgin had no real free will. Her faith was a result of the blessing''s work, which was sustained by that faith. As a result, a stable source of Bahion was obtained, without the need for constant brainwashing efforts.


    But there was a flaw in this perfect system. The problem was that the elf had never actually seen the god she worshipped. In essence, she worshipped only the words that had been ingrained in her mind during her training at the temple. The image in her head was quite abstract, but it clearly identified the recipient of the Bahion.


    The energy of faith was generated by her soul, while the understanding of whom she worshipped worked on the astral level. As a result, I was able to intervene slightly in her consciousness, replacing the image of the god with my own. The girl didn''t even realize that something had changed in her mind. She simply suddenly realized that I was the god she worshipped. And since my will was absolute to her, she immediately responded to my caresses, became aroused, and immersed herself in passion.


    When Narskrudzhak returned to me and saw how the "holy virgin" was passionately having sex with me, his jaw dropped. I suppose he lacked the audacity to replace the image of the god in the victim''s consciousness with his own. After all, Yog-Sothoth might not have liked that. As for me, I don¡¯t care about all these gods, no matter how powerful they might be.


    "You... you... you''re just a demon" - the demon exclaimed, looking at me with envy. - "You seduced the holy virgin, and following your instructions, I was able to turn Erador into a true maniac. I have already offered him as a gift to his god. Let them will rejoice."


    ¡°And what about the girl?¡± - I asked. The elf was so immersed in the depths of passion that she didn''t react to the surrounding world at all.


    ¡°We''ll turn her into an embodiment of lust and send her as an emissary to the elven world.¡± - The demon replied, filled with admiration. ¨C ¡°We won''t even have to make any changes. These arrogant elves have decided to die out. They refuse to engage in sex and that''s it. They don''t even care that they are needed to fulfill Azathoth''s plans.¡±


    A couple of hours later, after fully satisfying the elf, I went out to find Narskrudzhak. He was found in the neighboring room, conversing with the souls burning in the fire. It seemed to be some kind of personal hell. Or maybe a resort, because the pain from that fire was nothing compared to the Squeezer.


    ¡°So, is she ready now?¡± - The demon asked.


    ¡°Yes, completely corrupted.¡± - I nodded in response.


    ¡°Well, good. Now I''m confident in your qualifications. You have every chance to fulfill Shub-Niggurath''s will. He has been having a series of failures in the game lately, so a capable player like you will be useful." - We walked through the dungeons, emerged back into the world where the heavens devoured the universe, and there we found the very demon who had led me to Azathoth.


    ¡°You say he''s ready?¡± - Shub-Niggurath looked at me with doubt after listening to Narskrudzhak''s report. ¨C ¡°Well, I guess I can trust your words. Come here, Cheater. I will put a camouflage on you.¡±


    I approached the demon, who extended his hand towards me and used some clever magic. As a result, I felt myself being twisted and flattened, and I could sense all my ''tails'' being completely blocked down. If my Vritras crystal itself wasn''t a source of psi-energy, I would have died right there on the spot. However, death wasn''t a serious problem in this world. There were plenty of malicious spirits and ghosts that existed without a physical body.


    "Excellent. No one will recognize you like this." - the demon nodded satisfactorily, while I felt as if I were bound in scorching shackles. - "Now I will send you back to the familiar world. Your task will be to save the city you find yourself in."


    "What? Save?" - I panicked. - "That''s not my expertise. Let me destroy, explode, or disintegrate something instead."


    "I have enough specialists like that." - the demon grimaced, as if he had been forced to eat a box of lemons. - "I''ve lost nineteen games in a row, and they all ended in complete destruction of the game world. I''m not asking you to save the entire world, but the city and its inhabitants must survive. Now go."


    With that words, my soul was ripped out of the crystal and thrown somewhere.

 Chapter 18.01 – Worm 2.0

    Upon waking, I realized I was dead. Meaning, I was now a ghost without a body. A quick check showed that the demons had ''sealed'' me well. Neither magic, chakra, nor psionics worked. However, astral magic worked as it should, so I wouldn''t remain here without a body for long.


    Looking around, I found myself in a typical twentieth-century city. Judging by the shabby surroundings, it seemed to be the seventies. But no, there''s a guy talking on a cell phone. So, it''s more likely the late twentieth century or even the early twenty-first.


    First of all, I needed to understand where I had ended up, and for that, I needed to ''take a language.'' Magic didn¡¯t work here, but even simple contact between astral bodies allows one to read a person''s surface thoughts. I was on a narrow street, it was night all around, and not far away, some thug or bum was walking and talking on the phone. He became my victim. Flying up to the person, I focused on his consciousness, broke into it, and began to push through the defenses with my will, taking control of his thoughts and memory. The thug stumbled, had an epileptic tremble, and then quietly lay down, losing consciousness. And I found and claimed this lost consciousness.


    After ten minutes of thoughtfully rummaging through someone else''s brain, I more or less realized where I had landed. The world was indeed familiar to me. I was now in Brockton Bay, and it was early February 2011. However, the timeline didn¡¯t match my previous encounter with this story. Back then, it was the end of 2017. But from a plot perspective, I was probably in the right time because the drug addict I gutted knew about the existence of Shadow Stalker and that she was currently part of the Wardens.


    After reading the most superficial knowledge from my victim, I decided to get to the rest by consuming her soul. I mean, I decided to check if it was possible to get anything useful this way, apart from the rather dubious taste sensations. It turned out, it was possible. Moreover, in the process of devouring the soul, I almost became that drug addict, inhabiting his body.


    That''s a thought! I could, not only possess a person, making them possessed, but I could consume the soul and take its place. Theoretically, I could become any local hero or villain. But before doing that, it was worth figuring out how the local capes got their ''superpowers.'' My previous experience left not-so-good memories. I couldn''t use my parasite yet because the Shub-Niggurath spell had blocked it as well. I would have to get another parasite.


    Orienting myself in the area, I headed to the headquarters of the Parahuman Response Team, or PRT office for short. There were always a few heroes around, so I could assess the source of their power. Traveling as a ghost was a hassle since I had to move around the material world ''by force of thought.'' Plus, my astral body kept trying to ''anchor'' itself to some place and make it its permanent ''residence.''


    Finally reaching my destination, I began looking for capes actively using their powers and found Kid Win. He was a tinker, currently tinkering in his workshop. By the time I had trudged through the streets, it was day. Today was Saturday, so the tinker could fully indulge in his favorite activity, and I could fully immerse myself in studying his symbiote.


    After a couple of hours, I more or less figured out what kind of creatures were responsible for the local ''magic.'' These were shards of two unimaginably vast cosmic worms. They were currently evolving, allowing people to create new types of abilities, and in the future, they planned to merge and devour all life on Earth. However, there was good news. At the moment, one of the worms had ''lost itself,'' as the central shard of its personality had been destroyed. Nevertheless, the remaining shards continued to exist, although somewhat ''passively.''


    I quickly learned to see the shards inhabiting separate from people, and there was simply a vast sea of them here. Brockton Bay was considered a city with many capes, but in fact, there were only three or four dozen. However, shards swarmed in the surrounding world by the millions. Considering this, the question arose, was it worth taking the place of some cape? It would be much more interesting to find a shard with the most suitable power, then possess a person and become a cape myself by ''activating'' the desired shard.


    You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.


    After considering this idea, I concluded that it should be done. And since I could choose the best shard, it made sense to also choose the best body. Obviously, this person shouldn''t be a cape. But at the same time, I didn''t need a bum or a simple worker. It should be someone with connections, some power, but not connected to villains or heroes.


    My task was to save the city, so the first one that came to mind was the mayor. But that position was too public. A mayor couldn''t afford to disappear in the middle of the day to deal with some issues using superpowers. Something less official was needed. For example... And then an excellent candidate came to mind. A person with connections, leading a crowd of men ready to do anything for money. Having access to the mayor and heads of the city''s largest companies. In short, my victim should be Danny Hebert, head of the Dockworkers'' Association.


    Having settled on a candidate for body and soul donor, I began to search for a suitable shard. Ideally, it should give me access to magic. This power should be versatile, with many application options. Attack, defense, espionage, self-healing. Ideally, my power should have all four aspects. Or at least three of them.


    I began examining the shards swarming around but quickly discovered that the powers they granted were quite monotonous. Most were various shooter-levitator types. A typical representative of this category was Legend. Related to them were powers that protected the physical body, increased strength, and reaction speed. Alexandria was an example here. There were also plenty of shards giving shapeshifter powers. You could often see ''breakers'' abilities, allowing one to change the world around somehow. But all these shards had a narrow specialization, and the powers they granted were frankly poor.


    I spent the rest of the day studying shards but couldn¡¯t find anything that satisfied me. Perhaps it was worth finding Eidolon and figuring out how he created new powers. That would be the perfect option¡ªto have a shard capable of creating any power. I was already contemplating how to reach Eidolon when I stumbled upon an interesting shard.


    Usually, shards exhibited some activity, moving through space and ''observing'' people. Some of them constantly followed their chosen target, waiting for them to get into a stressful situation and reveal their innate mental defenses. This particular shard, however, quietly lay next to a building wall in a narrow alley, not even attempting to move. What attracted me to it was the familiar sensation of Chaos energy.


    In some inexplicable way, this shard was connected to Chaos and could manifest it around itself. I had managed Chaos Magic fairly well in my time, so I hoped to use this shard in ritual magic. It''s not the best option, but after some preparation, I could do something no other shard could. Even a simple demon summoning could give me a significant advantage. Alright, decision made! I''ll take this piece of rotten sausage.


    I extended my grasping tentacles and grabbed the shard that caught my eye, pulling it along with me. I was now heading to the apartment of Danny Hebert and his daughter Taylor Hebert. I recalled she was a cape and could control insects. Not the most impressive ability, but it could make her my first minion.


    I learned the address of my future body from Shadow Stalker''s consciousness. That bitch was well-acquainted with Taylor and knew where she lived. I also learned that yesterday she had locked Taylor in her locker at school with a bunch of filth and trash. Last night, she had opened the locker and found that Taylor had lost consciousness, though she was still alive. Right now, Stalker was sitting in a panic, trying to figure out if her ''prank'' would be revealed or if she would get away with it as usual.


    It seemed I had arrived at the right time. By now, Danny probably knew what had happened to his daughter. This was already a good trigger event. And when I started devouring his soul, he would go completely mad and could awaken my future shard. As far as I knew, these creatures reacted sharply to manifestations of despair, almost instinctively embedding themselves into the astral shells of their victims. After that, the shard would connect to a specific area in the person''s brain and read commands to control their ''superpowers.''


    I managed to reach Danny Hebert''s residence only after midnight. Upon arrival, I found that he was not home. I was about to head to the hospital where Taylor was admitted, but after half an hour, the head of the dockworkers finally returned home and collapsed into bed, falling into a heavy sleep. His soul was filled with suffering and despair, so I was somewhat surprised that no shard had already taken him, making him a cape.


    Waiting until Danny was in a deep sleep, I drove the shard I had chosen straight into his head, then extended my lustful tentacles and sank into his soul, sucking out the very essence of his being. Danny felt someone was devouring him alive and, of course, began to resist. However, I was stronger, after some time, the resistance turned into despair, fear, and hopelessness. All this emotional cocktail hit the shard. It trembled, released some threads from its body, and then attached itself to Danny''s consciousness, transmitting the standard images of ''the arrival of doom on Earth.''

 Chapter 18.02 – Worm 2.0

    Done!


    Having ensured that Danny was now a parahuman, I completely absorbed his soul and took his place, adapting to life in a physical body. If you think about it, Danny Hebert got lucky. He won''t end up in the Squeezer. In fact, he became me, and I became him. I now had access to all the donor body''s memories, habits, and behaviors. I could pretend to be the real Danny Hebert so well that even his daughter wouldn''t suspect a thing.


    I spent the rest of the night in a daze, adapting to human existence. In some sense, it was me who got eaten today and turned into a parahuman. Such a thing doesn''t pass easily. By morning, I had recovered enough to get up and more or less consciously check out the body I had acquired.


    Danny was a tall, thin man ''in his forties'' with age-appropriate ailments. He worked for the Dockworkers Association, handling the hiring of his subordinates for various jobs. Essentially, the dockworkers hadn''t been dockworkers for a long time. The association united members of the ''working class'' who believed that working for ''Uncle Danny'' could solve all their problems. Well, working for me would definitely solve all their problems.


    While making breakfast, I tried to figure out what power my shard gave me. It quickly became clear that I could now ''create'' a small patch of black fog next to me. It was unclear what this thing was for until I combined the fog with my favorite mug. As a result, I had one less mug.


    This black ephemeral substance easily destroyed any matter it touched. ''Dematerialization'' wasn''t instant but quite fast. If this thing worked on people as well, it could be considered a mega-cheat. I could control the fog from a few meters away, essentially possessing a ranged weapon capable of punching a hole in the head of anyone who dared oppose me in seconds.


    There was another aspect to using this power. Just like with telekinesis in my previous game, I could ''feel'' all the matter in the surrounding world. This ability was still quite weak, but I was sure that soon I would be able to look around without turning my head, see through walls, under the ground, and onto roofs. It was a ''stealth assassin'' strategy: come, see, kill. Overall, not a bad option. After all, charging at the enemy bare-chested wasn''t my style.


    However, my attempt to use the shard''s power for ritual magic and Chaos summoning was disappointing. The quality of energy emitted by the shard was quite poor, making its efficiency low. To use it this way, it would need to be enhanced first. Well, even Rome wasn''t built in a day. I had more or less figured out my abilities; now it was time to start ''recruiting'' subordinates. Taylor was first on my list of future minions. Danny had a strong influence on her, so I thought I could brainwash her and turn ''daddy''s girl'' into a proper combat unit, rather than a mindless champion of good and morality.


    Deciding not to delay, I headed straight to the hospital where Taylor was admitted. By the time I arrived, she was already awake, and the doctor allowed me to visit her for ten minutes.


    "Hi, bunny. How are you?" - I began playing the role of Danny Hebert.


    "I''m okay, Dad" - Taylor replied, not taking her eyes off her hands, which she was nervously wringing atop the blanket. She was half-sitting in bed, leaning on a pillow.


    "I was so worried about you, sweetheart. But now everything will be fine. Well, go ahead, tell me." - I smiled softly.


    "Tell what?" - Taylor looked at me with fear.


    "Everything!" - I responded in a steel voice of an experienced inquisitor. Just that one word made her flinch and shrink, lowering her gaze. - "Who, what, where, when, with whom, and how much. Spill it all!"


    "I... they..." - The victim broke down and started crying, recounting the story of her miserable life among the sharks of world capitalism. Surprisingly, Taylor managed to summarize the bullying at school in five minutes.


    "I see" - I concluded. - "And what are you going to do next?"


    "Well... I don''t know" - Taylor said, running out of options.


    Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.


    "Understood" - I confirmed the already known diagnosis. - "So, you''re not planning to take responsibility for your actions?"


    "What? Responsibility?" - She looked at me in confusion.


    "Responsibility. There''s such a word, you know."


    "Responsibility for what?" - The patient, whom I had already begun brainwashing, snapped. - "For them bullying me?"


    "Exactly!" - I nodded, piercing her with the gaze of a prosecutor. - "Think about where your actions have led. Instead of fighting back, you allowed those little bitches to torment you. This gave them a sense of impunity and permissiveness, under which they completely degraded morally, losing touch with reality. Did you even think about what they would do after training on you to bully others? They won''t stop. They''ll poison the lives of dozens or even hundreds of people. As a result, all these future victims will be on your conscience because you couldn''t prevent the emergence of such monsters in human form."


    "But what could I do?" - Taylor shouted, shaken to the core by my accusations.


    "That''s what I want you to tell me. Our time is up for today, but tomorrow I''ll come, and I want to hear from you what you can do to prevent the emergence of more victims like yourself. Who knows, maybe tomorrow they''ll kill you and start tormenting someone else. And you''ll be responsible for that. Remember, Good should come with fists. Or even with a hammer, splattered with the brains of the Evil it got rid of."


    With these words, I stand up from the chair, gave Taylor a final reproachful look, and left the room, leaving the stunned victim gasping for words. Let''s see what this hen will come up with after a day of thinking. I doubt it will be anything worthwhile, but she''ll be ready to hear my plan for establishing justice.


    After that, I went to the Dockworkers Association office, where I met with my colleague who sometimes helped me with work matters. It was quite strange to ''remember'' how we had gone through fire and water together, but it helped me convincingly play my role without getting distracted by details.


    "Hi, Kurt" - I said, entering the shabby office.


    "Hi. How''s Taylor?" - he asked.


    "She''ll alive" - I sighed. - "Listen, I need to take a week off. With this unexpected mess, I need some time to sort things out."


    "I understand" - he nodded. - "Honestly, there''s no work for you in the next couple of weeks."


    "Yes, and that''s a problem" - I agreed. - "I''ve been thinking about it, and I believe it''s time we should stop hoping someone would show mercy and give us decent jobs. We need to take care of ourselves."


    "What are you suggesting?" - Kurt squinted, sensing my confidence.


    "Nothing specific yet. But I have some ideas" - I evaded a clear answer. - "While I''m away, I''d like you and the guys to discuss what we can do to start making money with minimal investment. Just plant the idea and gather suggestions. When I return, we''ll meet and discuss it. Well, I''m off."


    "You''ve given me a task" - Kurt scratched his head, a worker who hadn''t come up with a single decent business idea in his life.


    "Just don''t think of investing money anywhere!" - I startled him with a final remark before leaving.


    "What money?" - I heard his surprised question as I walked through the door, but I didn''t answer. I knew there wasn''t a penny among them.


    Actually, the dockworkers did have money, but it was their personal savings. Danny also had a stash for a rainy day, so I went to the bank and withdrew four hundred dollars¡ªa substantial sum by local standards.


    With this amount, I went to an acquaintance who worked as a reporter and was keen on various sensations.


    "Hi, Larry" - I greeted, entering the small office at the ''Eastern Herald.''


    "Danny Hebert?" - He recognized me after a few seconds of scrutiny.


    "The one and only" - I nodded, sitting down across from him. - "Do you need a scandalous sensation involving heroes, the PRT, and money laundering?"


    "Do you even have to ask? Spill it!"


    Half an hour later, I left, leaving two hundred dollars with the corrupt journalist, ready to blow a sensational story out of the smallest fruit fly. My plan to avenge the ''Bitch Trio'' was to gradually turn Taylor into a compliant maniac, willing to do anything in the name of Good and Justice. I had to save this city, and I shall save it, whether it want it or not.


    The rest of the day I spent training my abilities. While everything was fine with perceiving the surrounding world, the ''black fog'' bitterly disappointed me. It turned out to be completely ineffective on people. Even when I maximized the fog''s density and surrounded a person with it, their clothes disintegrated into rags in seconds, but the person felt no discomfort at all.

 Chapter 18.03 – Worm 2.0

    If I were a horny teenager, I would have used this power to undress beautiful girls and enjoy their sexual bodies. But since at forty years old merely looking at naked bodies didn''t particularly excite me, I had to recall my experience of ''subjugating'' the symbiont to my will. This mode of using magic and psionics was well known to me but required considerable effort. Now, I began to concentrate my will on the shard, meditate on it, and take control of all its life functions.


    First, I needed the shard''s power to stop adhering to the limitations of the Manton Effect. Such ''enhancement'' could happen to almost any cape due to a ''second trigger''. In my case, I could put my shard through this event without subjecting myself to any deprivations or trials. After all, the shard was a rather dumb creature and reacted to the world more through instincts. I didn''t achieve significant success on the first try, but overall, there were changes, so I just needed to spend some time training.


    The next morning, I visited Taylor again, who this time greeted me with a scrutinizing look, trying to find some deceit in me. Maybe she even suspected that someone had replaced her father. But proving this was impossible, so when I entered the room, I just smiled mockingly.


    "So, what are your plans for your future actions?" - I inquired after all the greetings and tenderness were over.


    "Well... I''ll file a complaint against them. And next time, I''ll try to be firmer."


    "Pfft! What kind of plan is that?" - I expressed my opinion. - "A complaint? Are you trying to shift responsibility onto others again? Do you think this complaint will have any effect? And what does ''being firmer'' mean? Being even more stubborn and enduring all the bullying with a sweet smile on your face?"


    Her response was just angry silence. I didn''t expect any different.


    "Any other ideas?" - I inquired for the sake of formality.


    "But the teachers are ought to maintain order!" - Taylor burst out in protest.


    "To whom are they owe to? How much? And in what currency?" - I clarified. When there were no answers, I began to outline my plan of action. - "While you were unconscious, I conducted a little investigation. It turns out that Sophia Hess is Shadow Stalker. And the PRT specifically paid the school principal to cover for her and let her do whatever she wanted."


    "What?" - Taylor''s world just collapsed and shattered.


    "Yes, that''s the truth of life. So, all your complaints will at best be used in the nearest toilet. At worst, Hess will find out about them immediately, and she''ll try even harder to get to you."


    "But how can that be?" - Taylor whined pathetically.


    "Why do you think heroes haven''t been able to defeat villains all these years? Because they have other tasks. Alright, back to our business. I know that you''ve also become a cape now and gained a superpower."


    "What?" - Taylor panicked. - "How do you know?"


    "The doctors did a brain scan and found unusual activity in your Corona Pollentia." - I lied without batting an eye. - "Right now, only I and the doctor who conducted the examination know about this. So come on, spill it, what''s your power?"


    The girl hung her head, sat for a few seconds staring at the blanket, and then extended her hand, onto which a stray fly that had gotten into the hospital landed.


    "I can control insects" - she revealed her terrible secret to me.


    "Not bad" - I nodded.


    "Sorry? That even my superpower is so useless" - Taylor snapped.


    This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    "With the right application, it can yield good results. And your first task will be to establish justice against this trio of tormentors. So, while you''re in the hospital, I advise you to start practicing controlling bees, wasps, venomous spiders, and centipedes. When you''re discharged, we''ll discuss our next steps."


    The following week I dedicated to honing control over my shard. I could already clearly perceive the surrounding space within a radius of fifty meters, plus the ''black fog'' finally began to affect living beings. So far, these were rats in the sewer and stray dogs. It took me about ten seconds to ''kill'' the target by destroying its brain, and then the living turned into the non-living, and the darkness devoured the corpse, leaving no trace of it. A very convenient superpower. I wouldn''t have to think about where to hide the bodies. Of course, this ability was still impractical in combat, but for the secret elimination of targets, everything was already prepared. Moreover, I could control the fog within a range of up to ten meters.


    Finally, Taylor was discharged, and my plan to bring good and justice moved to the execution stage. First, we visited the principal of Winslow High, who clearly told us that Taylor had locked herself in the locker and therefore had to pay a fine for damaging school property and attending school at night. She didn''t know that I was recording all the conversations during this accusatory speech.


    After gathering all the evidence, I handed it over to a reporter, and the next day a scathing article appeared in the newspaper and on its website about how the schools in Brockton Bay were incapable of maintaining order on their premises. Taylor''s episode was just one of several in the article. Mainly, it focused on the fact that the school was full of bullies, drug addicts, and notorious maniacs, including the Bitch Trio, who were listed by name. The cherry on top was an audio recording on the newspaper''s website, in which the principal could be heard accusing a student of beating herself up and locking herself in the locker from the outside.


    In general, the article was scandalous but not particularly outstanding. Everyone already knew that such things happened in the city at every corner. But then the circus and masquerade began.


    I made a video, the main character of which was a certain Bee ¨C a new hero who decided to bring order to Brockton Bay. The Bee herself wasn''t in the video, being replaced by a rather poorly drawn ''cartoon bee.'' The voice of the new hero was mine. I just slightly edited it to make it sound like a girl.


    Before posting this video on the PHO forum, I played it again to make sure of the quality of my ''production.''


    "Good day, Brockton Bay. I am a new heroine, ready to bring justice and retribution to the masses in the name of the Moon. I don''t like posing in front of the camera, so I decided to record this video. My name is Bee. I hope you all see my legs, antennae, eyes, and these lovely stripes on my belly. And most importantly, you see my stinger, filled with pure bee venom. I thought long and hard about where to start my heroic career, and today I came across an article in the Eastern Herald about how scum of all sorts oppresses representatives of the working class at Winslow High. I think I''ll visit this school in the coming days and ensure that justice prevails. I will post the results of my visit in this thread on the forum. Stay tuned, your Bee!"


    Making sure everything was in order, I started uploading the video to the forum, using a proxy server to prevent being ''traced by IP.''


    "So, you''re speaking on my behalf?" - Taylor grumbled, watching the video over my shoulder.


    "This is because someone can''t even say ''baa'' or ''moo.'' I offered you to read this text. But the result was a confession of guilt before ascending to the scaffold. Heroes don''t behave like that! Heroes are always confident in their rightness and actively prove it, regardless of the consequences."


    "Heroes always fight for good and justice!" - my ''typical heroine'' argued with me.


    "That''s what I said" - I agreed. Taylor just rolled her eyes at this argument. - "Be sure, you just need to follow the plan, and everything will be fine. After this, Sophia won''t be able to bully anyone and will spend the rest of her life in the Birdcage."


    "The Birdcage is too much!" - Taylor made another attempt to prove I was wrong.


    "That''s not for us to decide. An honest and fair court will pass judgment on her. Or are you against resolving this matter legally?"


    "No, but..." - At this point, as always, Taylor''s arguments ran out, and emotions took over.


    "That''s what I''m talking about. Just follow the plan, and you''ll be surprised at how easily this problem gets solved."


    "Alright" - my ward gave up. After all, she herself wasn''t averse to ''punishing'' her tormentor a little, although she would never openly admit such desires.


    The next day Taylor went to school, playing her role as a downtrodden mousy girl. She successfully hid from Sophia Hess and her cronies for the first two lessons, but the third lesson was PE. Here the entire ''Bitch Trio'' and Taylor gathered, along with a good half of the school. The warm-up began, a light jog, and when the crowd gathered in one place to take turns jumping in the long jump test, our performance began.


    I signaled Taylor by shaking off a specially planted bug. She then panicked and began to look around anxiously, quite naturally. Naturally, because that''s exactly how she always behaved when she tried to find out if Sophia Hess was sneaking up on her. No one even paid attention to her behavior. A few seconds later, the panic attack passed, and Taylor finally began to implement my plan.

 Chapter 18.04 – Worm 2.0

    Not far from the school, she had a swarm of hornets ready. These weren¡¯t just bees; they were real striped killers, capable of terrifying even an elephant. Now, this swarm of a couple of hundred hornets darted towards the sports field, made a ceremonial circle in the air, scaring the students, and then descended upon the Bitch Trio, stinging them all over their bodies.


    Hornet stings were much more painful than any other flying insects. These creatures were considered some of the most dangerous due to the potency of their venom. The three girls immediately began screaming, flailing their arms, and rolling on the ground, but it was to no avail. The hornets didn¡¯t just sting them; they did so in accordance with a certain strategy, making it almost impossible to kill even one of them.


    Sofia Hess received the most stings, of course. While Emma Barnes and Madison Clements got away with about a dozen stings each, the cape took the entire hundred. Finally, she couldn¡¯t take it anymore and used her superpower, becoming intangible. The hornets buzzed even louder and started flying through Shadow Stalker, showcasing her intangibility to everyone around. People immediately started discussing that Sofia Hess was Shadow Stalker, and the cape started run, trying to escape the persistent insects. This essentially ended the circus, and the hornets dispersed in different directions.


    My reward from this show was a decent quality video recording taken from the window of a nearby building. After all, a twenty-times zoom and a tripod can work wonders. And within an hour, a new video from the Bee appeared on the internet:


    "Good day, Brockton Bay. This is Bee again, and I have some stunning news for you. As promised, today I visited Winslow School to sting three sadists who bullied their classmates. Imagine my surprise when one of this trio turned out to be a cape. You won¡¯t believe it, but Sofia Hess is Shadow Stalker. And I immediately have a question: did the PRT know what their prot¨¦g¨¦ was doing in school? Well, of course, they knew. No wonder the school principal covered up their atrocities. And to prove my point, here¡¯s a video of Sofia Hess using her superpower."


    The internet immediately erupted. They tried to block the video, but people had already downloaded it and uploaded it in hundreds of other places. And oh, how ''happy'' the PRT¡¯s press service was about this scandal. They, of course, started claiming they had no idea and were completely innocent, portraying Shadow Stalker as a bloody maniac they tried to mentor.


    In all this commotion, no one paid any attention to Taylor. She had been trying to hide from others for so long that she had become a true professional at it. People didn¡¯t notice her even if she was standing right in their way.


    But that wasn¡¯t the end. The next day, another article appeared in the Eastern Herald, which indeed was scandalous. A cunning reporter had managed to uncover evidence that the PRT was paying Winslow School to keep Shadow Stalker enrolled. Most of the money ended up in the principal¡¯s pocket. Although it couldn¡¯t be proven documentarily, her expenses over the past year spoke for themselves. As a result, the public became ''convinced'' that the PRT knew about the bullying but paid the principal kickbacks to turn a blind eye.


    After this article, the PRT¡¯s Public Relations Department nearly started vomiting blood. Their carefully constructed image of ''immaculate justice'' was flushed down to the toilet in a second by just one cape. Naturally, after this, Sofia Hess was immediately arrested and promised the harshest and fairest trial, which practically meant an almost inevitable trip to the Birdcage¡ªa prison for capes from which no one had ever escaped.


    Under the pretext of an ''impartial investigation'' the PRT wanted to interrogate Taylor, but I intervened, demanding my presence, as well as the assistance of a lawyer. And of course, the right not to answer any questions. As a result, they asked me questions, I consulted with the lawyer, and only then did Taylor answer them. Or didn¡¯t answer, and I demanded the next question. In such conditions, Taylor¡¯s gnawing conscience had no chance to reveal her connection with the Bee¡¯s attack.


    The finale was another video featuring the Bee, which I uploaded to the internet once things calmed down a bit.


    If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    "Hello, city. Frankly, I¡¯m in shock. I never imagined the system was so rotten. The PRT pays bribes to the school principal to cover up the crimes committed by a Warden. I used to think about joining the Wardens, but now... No way! Moreover, I found out that not only do they bully students at the school, but they also openly sell drugs. Since the official heroes don¡¯t want to solve this problem, I¡¯ll have to do it myself. So, I¡¯m starting a new campaign called ¡®Say No to Drugs!¡¯ Leave addresses on the forum where drugs are sold in Brockton Bay. My bees will find and punish all drug dealers. Don¡¯t worry, innocent people won¡¯t suffer. Insects have an excellent sense of smell and can distinguish a pusher from an honest person. I guarantee you: after meeting me, they won¡¯t be able to sell drugs because they¡¯ll be under anesthesia in a hospital. Say No to Drugs! And by the way, I¡¯ll be keeping an eye on Winslow to make sure there¡¯s no more lawlessness. Your Bee."


    Surprisingly, my statement caused yet another scandal. After it appeared, people started expressing their agreement with this approach and posting addresses. In response, the forum administrators deleted the thread under the pretext that... it advertised drug sales. At this point, people couldn¡¯t take it anymore and accused the PRT of covering up for drug dealers and hindering heroes from fighting them. Naturally, I was the first to voice this idea. The PRT representatives had set themselves up, and I just took advantage of their mistake.


    As a result, the PRT began to clear their name at the highest level. The government, the top management of the PRT itself, the Protectorate, independent heroes, and the Wardens all voiced their support. A flood of brainwashing propaganda ensued, making even the most fanatical supporters start to doubt the integrity of the situation. After this, the PRT fell silent and started pretending that the scandals with Shadow Stalker and the Bee never happened.


    Meanwhile, it was time to sum up the results of my operation to brainwash my ''dear daughter.''


    ¡°Well, Taylor, now do you see how easy it was to get rid of that trio?¡±


    ¡°It was only so easy because I got a superpower¡± - my subordinate said proudly.


    ¡°Nonsense! It was easy because I took charge¡± - I dismissed her attempt to claim my glory and greatness. - ¡°By yourself, you¡¯d still be hiding in alleys, avoiding people¡¯s gazes.¡± - Taylor had no response to this, so she wisely kept silent. - ¡°Well, we¡¯ve dealt with that issue. Now you need to start your activities as an independent hero. And your first target will be drug dealers.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to attack people!¡± - the would-be heroine protested.


    ¡°Well, they¡¯re not people. Drugs kill people. Destroy lives. These scoundrels are essentially selling death, ruining not only their clients¡¯ lives but also those of other citizens. It¡¯s almost impossible to earn money for drugs honestly. So, addicts resort to stealing, robbing, and extorting money. On the contrary, as a hero, you must do everything to stop this ''business'' in the city. Maybe, you want to prance around in a tight suit in front of a camera, advertising your uniqueness? Then you¡¯ll be no better than villains. Your mother wouldn¡¯t approve of that.¡±


    This was, as they say, a low blow. Taylor loved her mother and wanted to become a hero in her memory. After a couple of days of brainwashing, the victim finally gave in and agreed to act under my guidance.


    The newborn Bee thought that now she could wear a costume like any normal hero and patrol the streets, heroically knocking out bullies, but I thwarted her plans again. By then, I had ''acquired'' enough money from various criminal elements to buy a nondescript minivan, painted dirty gray with a postal company logo on the side. This was our patrol vehicle.


    Since Taylor could control insects from a considerable distance, she stayed in the van all the time, attacking from beyond direct visibility, usually from a neighboring block. Moreover, I demanded that she not only sting criminals but also gather a swarm of flies and bugs nearby to form a humanoid shape, posing as the ''heroine.'' Seeing a vague human figure, witnesses of these attacks immediately ''believed'' that this was Bee herself.


    How do you fight someone who can scatter and reassemble a dozen meters away? You can¡¯t. Thus, people thought about how to kill the swarm of insects, not who was controlling them. I remember Siberian acted similarly, and for two decades, no one guessed that the real Siberian was a scrawny guy a few hundred meters away from the projection.


    When all the commotion settled down, and events fell into a new rhythm of life, I switched to dealing with the Dockworkers'' Association. I hadn¡¯t been there for two weeks by then, so people were dying to unleash their crazy money-making ideas on me. But they were in for a disappointment because I immediately rejected all those ideas.

 Chapter 18.05 – Worm 2.0

    ¡°Guys, what you¡¯re suggesting is nonsense¡± - I began my persuasive speech before two dozen of the most active representatives of the Association. - ¡°What wooden crafts? What weaving of bast shoes? Have you ever seen a pig in real life? Do you know how much it shits? Although I generally support the idea of developing agriculture. So, the main principle of our future business should be the provision of services. The fact is, we don¡¯t have factories, machines, steamships, or anything else. Essentially, we have nothing at all. The only thing we can offer is our labor, our hands. Do you agree with me?¡±


    ¡°Well, yes¡­ We agree¡­ That¡¯s true¡± - the crowd buzzed, nodding in agreement.


    ¡°Great! And if we discard all marketing nonsense and politically correct heresy, what remains is that to truly profit from our labor, we need to produce something useful. Something that will always be in demand. And here comes an interesting topic ¨C assembly. We can buy parts and assemble equipment from them. You¡¯ll be surprised, but many world-renowned ¡®manufacturers¡¯ of household appliances don¡¯t produce anything at all. They buy ready-made components from other companies, then assemble and sell them. The only equipment needed is presses for making metal sheet housings. But as far as I know, we have such equipment, though it might need some investment in repairs.¡±


    The crowd hummed in concern, pondering my idea.


    ¡°To avoid losing money, I propose starting to assemble equipment in small batches. This will slightly increase the production cost, but on the other hand, we won¡¯t need to feed a bunch of directors and shareholders. All the earned money will go to us, and you¡¯ll be surprised how much profit a washing machine actually brings. To be sure we won¡¯t fail, I suggest spending a couple of weeks researching the market and compiling a list of goods in demand by ordinary people. Meanwhile, I¡¯ll use my connections to find people willing to help us by supplying key parts and components in small wholesale batches.¡±


    After a couple of hours of empty talk, the crowd finally agreed with my arguments and happily dispersed to their homes, pondering the organization of the world economy. But I perfectly understood that such methods wouldn¡¯t achieve quick results. No, maybe if we honestly engaged in such activities, we could create a good company in about five years, but I needed results not in five years, but in a couple of months. The Game wouldn¡¯t wait. Therefore, I needed that magical way to get rich quickly, which all Dockers dreamed of. And I had such a way.


    Over the past time, I had studied literature on the laws of physics in this world and was now almost one hundred percent sure that technology based on Ancients technologies would work normally here. All these technologies were in my head, so there was a real way to translate them into ¡®iron¡¯. True, the local civilization was very far from the Ancients in terms of development. But here I could be helped... by the Tinkers!


    The local capes, engaged in developing various equipment, were not scientists or engineers. They were wizards and enchanters, creating all sorts of nonsense suggested to them by the shards. And their equipment worked only because the shards ¡®pedaled¡¯ it. But anyway, a techie could build a machine that would produce another machine, already working without any ¡®magic¡¯, which could produce the equipment I needed from the Ancients.


    In general, the task was not simple, but I had one techie in mind who could solve it. It was about Leet, a local villain involved in petty thefts and large entertainment shows. At the moment, I had sufficiently ¡®tamed¡¯ my shard to perceive the surroundings within a hundred meters. This was much less than Taylor¡¯s insect control distance, but my perception was not limited to the senses of insects.


    So, I got into my ¡®spy¡¯ minivan and started driving around the Docks, where Uber and Leet¡¯s lair was supposed to be. After a couple of days, I found the place I needed. Moreover, there were a couple of capes there right now, so I decided to visit them without delaying this matter.


    Parking around the corner, I put on a motorcycle helmet with tinted glass and walked to the entrance to the basement of a dilapidated building, where I simply rang the hidden doorbell. Unfortunately, no one heard me because at that moment two fools were sitting with headphones on and playing a computer game. So, I had no choice but to use my superpower to carefully ¡®cut¡¯ the locks and open the now unlocked door.


    Then I went down to the basement, passed through the ¡®game room¡¯, tracked where all the wires led, then approached the right place and unplugged the cord from the outlet. The monitors the two avid gamers were staring at immediately went dark, and a deadly silence settled in the headphones.


    ¡°What¡¯s up, guys?¡± - I asked the attendees.


    They didn¡¯t react to me, continuing to stare at the dark monitors.


    If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    ¡°No-o-o-o-o-o-o!!!¡± - Leet yelled, his voice filled with universal disappointment. ¡°We had just beaten the hidden boss of the eighth level, and I didn¡¯t save!¡±


    ¡°Life is pain¡± - I noted philosophically. - ¡°But shock therapy is our method.¡±


    ¡°You! You did this!!!¡± - Leet shouted, seeing the power cord I still held in my hand. - ¡°I¡¯ll kill you!!!¡±


    ¡°Calm down, your progress is not lost yet¡± - I raised my hands along with the cord. - ¡°You have independent emergency power for the system units. So only the monitors and sound amplifiers turned off. But if I don¡¯t plug this cord back in now...¡± - I meaningfully shook the ¡®hostage¡¯ in my hands.


    ¡°Who are you?¡± - Leet cried out, while Uber suspiciously glanced toward the desk drawer where something resembling a gun lay.


    ¡°My name is Black Cloak¡± - I introduced myself.


    Silence fell for a few seconds.


    ¡°You don¡¯t have a cloak¡± - Uber finally pointed out the obvious. I was wearing an old worn-out suit, and only the motorcycle helmet ensured my ¡®anonymity¡¯.


    ¡°I know. So, are you ready to discuss the hostage¡¯s fate?¡± - I waved the cord.


    ¡°What do you want?¡± - Leet asked, rubbing his face wearily.


    ¡°I want you to become a proper tinker, capable of making anything any number of times, and...¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s impossible!¡± - The tinker interrupted me. - ¡°O-o-o, my hidden boss of the eighth level...¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s possible¡± - I objected.


    ¡°That must have been a record... What did you say?¡±


    Leet turned abruptly and immediately forgot about the unsaved game.


    ¡°I can help you overcome the limitations of your ability, and after that, you¡¯ll become the best tinker on Earth.¡±


    ¡°What? Repeat!¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ll become the best tinker on Earth.¡±


    ¡°No, I mean the beginning of your sentence. Limitations?¡±


    ¡°Yes, about the same as the Manton Effect, only of a different nature.¡±


    ¡°And what do you want for that?¡± - we moved on to bargaining.


    ¡°For you to make the equipment according to my blueprints.¡±


    ¡°If you have blueprints, why don¡¯t you make it yourself? Are you a tinker?¡± - Uber intervened in our conversation.


    ¡°No. And these are not your tinker blueprints, but real blueprints of real equipment that works without your magic.¡±


    ¡°All my equipment works without magic!¡± - Leet protested. - ¡°I¡¯m a tinker! It¡¯s science!!!¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s why your ¡®scientific¡¯ inventions don¡¯t work properly. And in general, I¡¯m the specialist in developing abilities here, not you. So, do you agree?¡±


    ¡°Yes!!!¡± - Leet shouted.


    ¡°Good. And while we¡¯re making the training schedule, Uber you can go and fix the door¡± - I issued the order, plugging the cord back into the outlet.


    ¡°What did you do to it?¡± - the ¡®errand boy¡¯ villain spoke up.


    ¡°Nothing special. Broke in. Replace the locks, and it¡¯ll be as good as new.¡±


    ¡°Did you try ringing the bell before breaking down the doors?¡± - the guy asked gloomily, heading for the toolbox.


    ¡°I tried¡± - I grinned maliciously. - ¡°But you didn¡¯t hear the bell.¡±


    ¡°So, what about the training?¡± - Leet interrupted our bickering.


    ¡°First, you need to do a hundred push-ups every day.¡±


    ¡°Really?¡±


    ¡°And a thousand squats.¡±


    ¡°Uh... why?¡± - the future genius lost all his enthusiasm.


    ¡°To keep bad thoughts out of your head. The less you think, the better the assembled equipment turns out.¡±


    ¡°Really? Are you sure?¡±


    ¡°Calm down! Don¡¯t panic. Do you want to become the best tinker of all time and nations?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Then stop talking! Private, ten push-ups! And while you¡¯re doing them, list all chemical elements with a valence of minus three.¡±


    In general, the brainwashing began successfully, and I gradually started training Leet and his shard to bring the characteristics of the equipment they produced to the requirements of the technical task.


    The next two weeks I was almost constantly busy. During the day, I visited Leet and taught him to control the shard using the same method I used. In the evening, I ¡®took Taylor for a walk¡¯, making her harass various small fry involved in robbery and drug dealing. And at other times, I trained myself, bringing my ¡®black mist¡¯ to the level of a cheat uber ability.

 Chapter 18.06 – Worm 2.0

    Finally, Leet had turned into a person who could truly be called a tinker, and then we began assembling the equipment I needed. The first item on the list was a mind-reading device. The thing was, my mind held literally petabytes of information about the construction of various equipment, including computer program texts. I couldn''t manually translate all of this into electronic form even in a thousand years. But direct reading of information from my soul allowed this without any problems.


    The next device was a ''nano-3D printer,'' which allowed the creation of any equipment, provided the correct blueprint was loaded into it. However, all the programs for operating this machine were ''encrypted,'' so only I could activate it. To create this ''wonder machine,'' we first had to craft a simpler one, which was then assembled by a monstrous tech apparatus put together by Leet from all sorts of handy junk.


    In general, I had long since worked out the procedure for restoring the Ancients'' technologies. I had specifically developed several dozen technological chains, taking into account various ''starting conditions.'' If desired, I could revive the Ancients'' technologies even if I were thrown into the Amazon jungle with nothing but the clothes on my back. But the current situation was simpler, so there were only three intermediate steps.


    And so, on one almost spring Sunday morning, I activated the makeshift machine once again. It ran a self-diagnostic program and reported that the equipment was operating with the necessary degree of precision. To ordinary people, my machine looked like a product of the ''space age,'' glowing with mysterious light and dazzling with unearthly shapes.


    However, to the Ancients, this machine looked about as advanced as if I had constructed equipment for producing processors using a stone base, bronze parts, and tying them together with hemp twine. In short, the Ancients would easily recognize that this machine worked thanks to magic.


    I activated the ''mind-reading'' device and began loading the blueprint of the mechanism into the machine with its help. Leet watched this process out of the corner of his eye while tinkering with his own equipment, which he was already assembling according to his own plans but using the ideas I had provided.


    Half an hour later, the data upload was complete, and the machine set to work. By the Ancients'' standards, the working speed was tortoise-like, but from my point of view, everything was going swiftly. In just a minute, I was looking at a flat metal plate about a couple of centimeters long, resembling a zigzag figure from Tetris. According to the instruments'' readings, this thing fully met the specification, and its self-diagnosis protocols showed one hundred percent readiness to start working.


    Of course, this ''plate'' was an elementary module of replicators, with a program of subordination to me embedded in it. I wasn''t so confident as to believe that no tinker could ''hack'' and subordinate these robots to themselves. Therefore, I planned to use them only covertly.


    "Leet, I''ll have to stay late today" - I addressed my ''technical specialist.'' - "I need to produce about a thousand of these things. The production speed is one per minute, so you understand, this will take a while."


    "A thousand minutes... that''s sixteen and a half hours. It''s nine in the morning now."


    "Yes, I''ll finish after midnight."


    "Okay. I don''t have any plans today."


    "Me neither."


    I carefully placed one block of replicators on the designated steel tray and reached for the next one, which had just come off the conveyor. To activate, the replicators needed to gather in one place in a quantity of at least a couple hundred. But to ensure their self-reproduction, 883 pieces were required, not one less. Considering the allowance for defects, I estimated that I would have to produce about a thousand blocks.


    I wasn''t sure how long the machine would last and whether I could restart it at all. Moreover, I couldn''t allow the machine with the replicator production program to remain outside my control. Meanwhile, the memory block with the blueprints was ''one-time use'' and couldn''t be ''cleared'' or removed from the equipment without destroying the entire machine. So, I had no choice but to go to the bitter end until I could activate the first ''replicator queen.''


    I don''t know if it was a ''sign from above'' or just a coincidence, but exactly at 00:00 on Monday, February 28, 2011, I picked up the 883rd working block and placed it with the others. Following the embedded program, the replicators re-diagnosed the state of each block and the entire ''community'' as a whole, then activated the program to switch to ''active mode.'' The neat metal ''cube'' suddenly crumbled, started moving, and after a few seconds, reassembled into a metallic ''bug.''


    The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.


    The replicator performed another diagnostic and then grabbed one of the defective blocks, of which there were quite a few today, and began ''processing'' it. In three seconds, the ''scrap metal'' was turned into a proper working block, which immediately took its place in the ''bug''s'' body. The process sped up from there, and the replicators took over the production of new blocks, making the now barely functioning machine unnecessary.


    "What is that thing?" - Uber asked me warily, discovering a dangerous creature of predatory outlines next to him. - "Some kind of weapon?"


    "No, even better!" - I boasted. - "With this robot, I''ll start producing equipment and use the proceeds to buy the entire Earth."


    "And it won''t go crazy and start attacking people?" - Uber''s voice was full of suspicion.


    "It will" - I nodded approvingly. - "But don''t worry. They don''t need organic material. So as long as you don''t attack them, the worst that can happen is they might remove metal crowns from your teeth."


    At this point, the replicator chirped happily, shook its abdomen, and a smaller spider separated from it, immediately starting to explore the surroundings for ''useful'' resources for further reproduction.


    "They even multiply?" - Uber jumped onto a chair.


    "Why are you pushing?" - Leet turned to us, finally noticing the appearance of replicators in this world after being so engrossed in crafting some device. - "A-a-a-a-a-a!!! What is that spider?"


    "Ask this maniac" - Uber ratted me out. - "Black Cloak, honestly, are you a tinker? I can''t believe a non-tinker could come up with such a thing."


    "I''m not a tinker" - I shrouded in mystery. - "And there''s not a gram of your heretical magic in this replicator."


    "This creature is called a replicator?" - Leet asked, deciding to offer the ''bug'' his soldering iron. The bug examined the offering, tested it ''for taste,'' and deemed it suitable, then carried it to the replicator queen, who produced a third offspring from it.


    "Hey, give it back!" - Leet protested when he realized the fate awaiting his tool. The bug, however, showed unexpected persistence, refusing to part with the loot.


    Alright, we''ve had our fun, now it''s time to get down to business.


    "Protocol ''Cleanup,'' scenario two point twelve" - I commanded.


    The replicator immediately dropped the soldering iron and rushed to the machine that had given birth to them today. It began dismantling the equipment and bringing it to the ''queen.'' Other replicators followed suit.


    "What is this cleanup protocol?" - Uber asked.


    "I''m confiscating all equipment built using my blueprints and technologies."


    "Hey, I made that thing!" - Leet panicked when the replicators started crawling all over his creation, which had essentially started this ''machine uprising.''


    "According to my specifications and blueprints" - I countered. - "You can build another one on your own. I''m not forbidding you that. But this particular instance will be scrapped."


    "Are you going to scrap us too?" - Uber asked, gripping the pistol in his jacket pocket.


    "There''s no need for that. Without me, you can''t reproduce this technology. Moreover, I can compensate you for the cost of this equipment. How about a million dollars when my firm starts making money?"


    By this time, three ''queens'' were already engaged in producing new blocks, with half a hundred ''worker bugs'' bustling around.


    "A million dollars?" - Uber''s anger turned to curiosity. - "That sounds good. Just make sure you don''t forget this promise."


    "Money is just papers" - I waved dismissively. - "Alright, I need to go. Thanks for the help; I''ll handle it from here. Anfiska, follow me!"


    The replicators immediately merged into one fat bug, reaching height up to my chest, then the bug skittered through the entire room without touching a single object on the way. This was a clear sign of advanced technology. In contrast, a machine from the local techie would have demolished the whole room just running from corner to corner.


    It was night outside, so I had no problem ''escorting'' my creation to the building I had pre-selected in the Docks. There, the replicator transformed into a chair, which I sat in. Although the replicators understood the language of the Ancients, it would have taken too long to explain what I wanted to do. Therefore, the blocks I created contained mind-reading technology. A couple of hours later, I got up from the chair and headed home, while the replicator dispersed into a dozen bugs, starting to explore the surroundings for something ''edible.''


    While the replicators have been developing in autonomous mode, following the program embedded in them, I had time to take care of my ''daughter.'' Until moment, we only went out to ''stir things up'' in the city for an hour or two in the evenings at most. But once I had free time, I began taking Taylor on long and thorough raids, during which we literally ''cleared'' the area of all those who smelled of drugs.

 Chapter 18.07 – Worm 2.0

    People were running around, wrapping themselves in blankets, hiding in refrigerators, diving into bathtubs, but it was all useless. The bites of insects, from bedbugs to hornets, from woodlice to huge centipedes, drove people to a state of ''Hell on Earth''. After such a ''lesson'', most decided to quit drugs. And those who didn''t get the message received a second lesson, a third, and so on until they died.


    Naturally, such large-scale justice could not go unnoticed by the PRT and Protectorate. After all, they were supposed to be maintaining order in this city, at least according to their commercials. So, one fine evening, six Protectorate heroes went ''hunting'' for the Bee: Armsmaster, Miss Militia, Assalut, Battery, Velocity, and Triumph.


    This was not the first attempt to capture the Bee, but this time the heroes decided to use bait. Armsmaster managed to track down one of the drug dealers and set up direct surveillance. The rest of the team hid nearby, also keeping an eye out for suspicious characters to essentially watch each other''s backs.


    I couldn''t miss such an opportunity to once again rub the local heroes'' noses in their own mess. My replicators had long since multiplied and installed cameras all over the city, constantly receiving and processing information, so I was aware of the trap in advance. I ''loaded'' Taylor into a minivan, brought her to the scene, and tasked her with creating a humanoid swarm ''jumping across rooftops''. Armsmaster immediately spotted the decoy and of course ''took the bait''.


    "Stop and surrender!" - he shouted pompously, stepping in front of the ''Bee''.


    In response, she buzzed angrily and rushed... towards the drug dealer. Armsmaster used some device built into his halberd, trying to stun the insects with an electric shock, but most of the swarm dodged and continued moving.


    "You shall not pass!" - Miss Militia appeared on the scene.


    She was armed with a flamethrower, which had proven relatively effective. But the insects weren''t stopped, especially since more and more of them were arriving by the second, replacing their fallen ''comrades''.


    The angrily buzzing figure ''jumped'' from the roof and approached the drug dealer, who was already about to flee, hearing the suspicious sounds. He would have been food for the bugs, but then Triumph stepped in to protect the criminal. He used his sound manipulation ability to paralyze all the insects and completely disperse the swarm.


    "That''s enough for today" - I ordered Taylor. - "Let''s go home."


    "But why? Because of the heroes?"


    "Those aren''t heroes" - I smirked. - "And tonight''s news will explain everything."


    "What? What do you mean?"


    "You''ll see."


    That evening, another scandal broke out, further tarnishing the Protectorate''s already battered reputation. In a new video, the Bee ''convincingly proved'' that the Protectorate heroes were protecting drug dealers, shielding them from attacks. Many scenes were shot in close-up with sound, revealing the ''heroes'' conversations that exposed them better than I could have. The drug dealer hadn''t just stood around; he actively ''sold drugs'' to buyers who practically lined up for him. After all, it was becoming increasingly difficult to get a ''drug'' in Brockton Bay, and drug prices had skyrocketed.


    My covert surveillance network of replicators had already covered the entire city, so I was aware of all significant events. One such event couldn''t escape my notice. The ''lawlessness'' the Bee had brought to the city''s streets greatly displeased the underworld bosses, and they decided to hold a ''meeting'' to discuss their response.


    I watched this meeting ''in live'', as the bar where it took place was literally packed with my cameras. Each camera looked like a dark gray dot about a couple of millimeters in diameter. And most importantly, the device was only one-tenth of a millimeter thick. For data transmission, quantum communication channels were used instead of radio waves. So, detecting such a camera was nearly impossible. And even if someone managed to do it, the camera would immediately self-destruct, leaving behind... just a speck of dirt indistinguishable in chemical composition from fly excrement.


    This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    The meeting was attended by Empire 88, the ABB, the Undersiders, and Faultline''s Crew, with Faultline and Coil himself present. The Merchants also settled in a corner, not allowed at the main table.


    "So, we''ve gathered today at Kaiser¡¯s request to discuss the situation in the city" - Coil began. - "Kaiser, you have the floor."


    "That damn insect is driving me nuts!" - the leader of the Nazis roared, slamming his fist on the table. - "She''s attacking all the drug points in my territory. Drug sales have dropped tenfold!"


    "You''re not the only one suffering losses" - Lung remarked grimly. - "My men have ended up in the hospital because of her, and a couple dozen have even died."


    "We need to do something. We''ve tried attacking her several times, but this swarm is just indestructible."


    As I had hoped, the stupid capes were attacking the ''decoy'', while I was constantly monitoring my surroundings and leaving at the first sign of danger. So far, I hadn¡¯t risked pitting Taylor against the capes, as for most of them her insects weren''t a threat. And the ''heroine'' herself wasn¡¯t eager to destroy the capes just because they were listed as villains. A reason was needed, and lately, the capes hadn''t been causing much public trouble, so it was hard to accuse them of anything.


    "I have a solution" - came a slurred voice from Skidmark.


    "Oh? And what might that solution be?" - Kaiser asked, turning his head.


    "We need to give dealers more drugs for personal use. When they''re high, they won''t care about the bee stings."


    "And in a week, they''ll all die from overdoses or blood poisoning" - the Nazi leader wasn''t satisfied.


    "There are plenty of people on the street" - Skidmark excused himself and fell silent.


    "I propose we join forces" - Lung unexpectedly suggested. - "I would have dealt with this Bee long ago, but she seems to attack only where I''m not. If you can track her down, I''ll handle her, no matter the cost."


    "Who supports this proposal?" - Coil asked.


    Kaiser silently raised his hand. Grue, the leader of the Undersiders, followed suit. Coil also raised his hand.


    "I don''t mind" - Faultline said. - "But I work for hire only. If you pay me, I''ll take care of the search."


    "I''ll pay" - Lung replied grimly.


    "Great. Unanimous" - Coil concluded with satisfaction. - "I suggest we exchange phone numbers to report any signs of insect activity. Tattletale, I suggest you handle analyzing all this information."


    "Fine" - she frowned. - "But my power tells me someone else is behind the Bee. And even now, this someone is watching us."


    Oops! Looks like I''ve been discovered. However, I was on the other side of the city at the time, so the only ones affected by this revelation were the villains themselves.


    "What?" - Kaiser got nervous. - "Is someone else here?"


    "No, it''s remote surveillance. I don''t understand how. Something technical."


    "A tinker" - Lung grimly guessed.


    "This complicates things" - Coil frowned.


    "I don''t care how many of them there are!" - the ABB leader roared. - "Track down those responsible for the attacks, and I''ll punish them all! No one dares to invade my territory."


    With that, the meeting''s substantial part ended, and I switched to making personal plans. Want to punish me? Well, well. My superpower had already reached a level where it could be used in combat. And not just used, but to destroy any opponents who got within a couple of hundred meters of me. That''s the distance I could perceive the surrounding world, and the same distance my ''black mist'' could travel.


    Well, if Lung thirsts for my blood, it makes sense to punish him first. It wasn''t time to destroy the villains yet. Some events needed to be spaced out over time to make it harder to link them together. I was almost ready to start producing technology with the replicators and then have the Dockworkers assemble it. This would serve as an excellent cover for making money and a foundation for my plan to ''revitalize'' the city.


    But to start production, I needed ''seed capital''. The replicators could do a lot. The docks were full of rusty ships, which served as an excellent ''resource base''. But valuable and rare earth elements were much harder to find. I needed to buy them to start producing technology and improve the replicators'' ''lives.''


    Given the circumstances, it''s time to make Lung my ''sponsor''. After all, he knows all about ''protection rackets''. Now I''ll con him out of his money.


    The replicators found out that a large sum of money had recently been delivered to Lung''s casino. He had planned to spend it on buying drugs, but ''unexpectedly'' that business had ceased to be profitable. So now Lung was going to use the money to eliminate the Bee. Therefore, it made sense to lighten his pockets, killing two birds with one stone. And it was time to start training Taylor in combat operations. ''Rob the robbers'' is an excellent motto for champions of good and justice, so I think I can convince her of the necessity of this raid.


    I didn''t want to give Taylor much time to think, so I planned to brief her on the operation''s details just before we set out, scheduled for tomorrow. By that time, Lung was supposed to be meeting with his gang''s core in the Docks, leaving the casino in the care of regular guards.

 Chapter 18.08 – Worm 2.0

    Nothing foreshadowed trouble, but at night, I was awakened by replicators detecting strange behavior in my "daughter." At midnight, Taylor suddenly started writhing in bed, gasping, and otherwise showing signs of being at death''s door. Jumping out of bed immediately, I rushed to Taylor''s room to find her sitting on the bed with a sneering grin.


    "Well, here''s Daddy" - she commented on my appearance.


    "Who are you?" - I asked, observing the demon. I couldn''t miss the demonic energies. Her behavior made it clear that this was not Taylor at all.


    "You, a pathetic mortal, wouldn''t understand" - she dismissed me, climbing out of bed and examining her body. - "Flat as always."


    "So, you''re a Game Figure?" - I guessed.


    "What? You know about the Game?" - the demoness was surprised.


    "I was sent here by Shub-Niggurath to make sure you don''t ruin this world again."


    The demoness grimaced as if I had stepped on her favorite tail.


    "And how did you get here before me?" - the creature continued its interrogation, removing all its clothes. - "Isn''t that against the rules?"


    "Explain the rules to me. What are they, and how does the game go?"


    "Fine, Daddy. But first... I want you" - she reached out with her scrawny arms.


    "On your knees, beast!" - I pushed her away.


    "Oh! You like it rough?" - The demon laughed.


    "If you don''t submit to me, I will devour your soul" - I extended my ''soul-eating tentacles'' towards her.


    "Never! I am the first! The right to be the main character and not listen to anyone''s orders was given to me by Nuhskransurah himself!"


    "That was before I appeared here. I don''t care who you are or where you''re from. If you don''t submit, this game can go on without you."


    In response, a swarm of angry buzzing insects burst into the room. Ha! I was prepared for such an attack. A black mist surrounded my body in a translucent haze. All the insects passing through it died instantly, turning to nothing in a second.


    It seemed negotiations had reached an impasse, and it was time for dinner. My tentacles tore the demon''s soul to pieces and devoured it. As always, most of the ''meal'' went to Azathoth, and I received a significant portion of the demon''s memories. After devouring Danny Hebert, I more or less figured out how to absorb foreign memories without making them part of my personality.


    The girl''s body went limp and fell to the floor. I was about to delve into the analysis of the demon''s memory when the body started moving and groaning.


    "What¡¯s happening?" - Taylor''s voice sounded.


    A quick scan of the ''patient'' concluded that the demon had not replaced Taylor''s soul but merely displaced it. It was a classic case of possession. Now, after destroying the demon, the girl''s soul had returned to control her body.


    "Master tried to subdue you" - I offered the most palatable version. - "Get dressed. The danger is over for today."


    "What? Ahh! I''m naked!"


    I didn''t listen to the panicked screams and pitiful laments and left the room. I had important matters that shouldn''t be postponed.


    Exploring the demon''s memories painted a bleak picture. It turned out that the Game hadn''t even started yet. No wonder no one was trying to hinder me. I thought I could outplay everyone single-handedly again. In general, the game''s world always began with the possession of Taylor''s body by the demoness I had devoured. Then came the ''piece placement.''


    If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    When a game piece approached another cape, that cape also received a ''possessor.'' It was a demon or an angel, depending on the cape''s ''orientation.'' Demons possessed villains, and angels possessed heroes. But that wasn''t all. If a game figure didn''t ''infect'' other capes for too long, its ability''s coverage area began to expand until it captured the next ''victim.''


    In general, the ''conversion'' of capes into game figures usually took three to four weeks. But now, the ''well-oiled system'' had failed, and it was my fault. I killed the first game figure before it could ''multiply.'' Because of this, the figure placement couldn''t start at all. If I were lucky, I might actually win simply because no one else would participate in the game. However, the hope wasn''t very high. It all depended on how much the local Judge intended to follow the rules. I knew these guys well. At the slightest provocation, they start creating complete arbitrariness, inventing stupid rules on the fly.


    Since I couldn''t change anything now, I simply went back to sleep. In the morning, I found a disheveled Taylor in the kitchen, trying to make breakfast.


    "Hi. How do you feel?" - I asked.


    "Not great. My head hurts."


    "Okay, then you can skip school today."


    "Actually, it''s Saturday" - Taylor informed me irritably.


    "Even better. Go play on the computer. I have things to do."


    "Will you have breakfast?" - she asked weakly.


    "No. I''ve had tea, and I''ll have lunch at a caf¨¦. Goodbye."


    With these words, I opened the front door and ''disappeared into the mist.'' The weather outside was particularly nasty with morning fog and drizzle. First, I went to the Dockworkers Association, where I excited the crowd with the news that we could start assembling the first refrigerators and heaters next week. We already had a suitable facility and the first dozen workers ready to work from dawn to dusk for a bright future.


    By about noon, all the problems were successfully resolved, and I went to ''rob the casino.'' As I drove my van down the street, hordes of replicators were navigating the sewer system below. Today, they were to play the role of brute force and a support group. I could no longer trust other capes, so I decided not to take Taylor on the job. A couple of blocks from the casino, I parked in a guarded lot, walked a bit to the side, slipped into the basement of one of the houses, and then emerged into the sewer system where a dozen replicators were waiting for me.


    Navigating the stinky passages to the right place, I ended up near the casino. Of course, the casino had no ''secret passages'' leading into the sewer, but in several places, the sewer was separated from the basement of the building by only a meter-thick concrete wall. For someone else, this might have been an obstacle, but my superpower allowed me to make holes in concrete at the speed of light. Meaning, it was ready as soon as I thought about it.


    I was about to create a new entrance to the casino when a strange company sneaking through the sewer caught my perception. It was a group of Undersiders accompanied by two of Bitch''s dogs. It seemed I wasn''t the only one who sniffed out that Lung''s safe had accumulated too much cash. In that case, plans needed a slight adjustment.


    Fortunately, the Undersiders weren''t headed towards me but to another ''branch,'' where they could discreetly surface and immediately slip into the basement through a barred window. I had also considered this route, but taking it would have meant literally passing through the security room. And that would have been too ''noisy.'' The spot where you could get into the casino was hidden from prying eyes by a concrete wall and the wall of a neighboring restaurant. There were no random people there, so the Undersiders had every chance of slipping unnoticed into Lung''s lair. Good luck to them, haha.


    After dematerializing the wall, I slipped into the basement. The room I entered was occasionally used as a torture chamber, so the stench here was worse than in the sewer. But at least there were no people around. Opening the door, I stepped out and headed towards the hidden staircase upstairs. There were usually two armed guards on duty there, but by the time I reached them, there wasn''t even a drop of blood left of the pitiful mortals. My ''black mist'' could act beyond the line of sight, so I preemptively deprived the guards of their brains and then their entire bodies.


    Ascending the stairs and passing by two more ''abandoned'' posts, I entered the hidden room. The setting here was already upscale: red velvet-covered walls, elite furniture, a card table, and... six people playing poker. This place was the VIP zone for special clients. Besides the six players, there were four guards. But by the time I reached the room, none of this dozen were alive.


    After surveying the room and turning on forced ventilation to get rid of the lingering opium smoke, I turned to the inconspicuous wall behind which Lung''s safe with his ''treasures'' was located. The safe was surrounded on all sides by guarded rooms, so theoretically, reaching it without raising the alarm was impossible. However, I had killed all the guards before they realized what was happening, and the Undersiders, who were also heading for the safe, used sleeping gas.


    Without wasting a second, I made a hole in the wall and ordered the replicators to take everything valuable from the safe, leaving a ''consolation prize'' in return. The robots weren''t inclined to waste time, so within a minute, I was richer by one and a half million dollars. After that, I turned off the light in the room and retraced my steps, observing the Undersiders trying to crack the safe.


    They managed to reach the right room, broke down the wooden door with a crowbar, successfully bypassed the explosive trap, then Tattletale picked the code to open the iron door, and they all stormed into the safe the size of a room... only to find bare walls and a honey pot on the floor. And next to the ''gift'' was a note.

 Chapter 18.09 – Worm 2.0

    "The best gift, in my opinion, is honey! Even Lung will understand that. Even just a little bit, a teaspoon, would be good! And especially a whole pot! With love, your Bee."


    And at this dramatic moment... the alarm rang. Of course, it wasn¡¯t an accident, but because my replicators activated it. The Undersiders immediately sprang into action, Tattletale grabbed the pot and the note, after which they started to break out. Bitch set her dogs on the guards, and chaos ensued. Meanwhile, I slipped unnoticed into the sewers, made it to my car, and calmly drove away. The replicators took all the cash they could carry with them."


    Lung, arriving just in time for the ''hat reveal'', saw the black mist of Grue and one of the hellhounds, and therefore was completely convinced that it was the Undersiders who robbed him. This was at the moment when they had agreed to team up against Bee. Because Tattletale took my ''gift'', Lung didn''t realize that Bee was even connected to this event. Honestly, that suited me too. Let the villains fight amongst themselves, while I quietly take control of the entire city.


    In the evening, I contacted the suppliers of rare metals and arranged for the delivery of their products with cash payment. The deal was not entirely legal, as the shipment contained materials prohibited for free circulation. But the magical word ''money'' solved most problems.


    On Saturday, Taylor and I skipped our usual raid on the city''s vice spots, but on Sunday we decided to make up for it. Today, I decided to ''clean up'' the Docks, while also checking on Lung''s activities. Judging by the surveillance camera footage, he was so furious that he literally breathed fire.


    As we approached the ABB territory, my replicators notified me that Lung was ''gathering a raid'' against the Undersiders. And arriving at the scene, I received a ''comprehensive'' report from Taylor."


    "Something is happening there."


    "Where is there, and what''s happening?" - I clarified, facepalming in a classic manner. She seemed smart, but sometimes she acted just like a typical blonde.


    "Two blocks west. A crowd of armed men. They''re shouting. Lung is there! And... he''s talking about going to kill some kids. What''s going on?!"


    Thanks to my mentoring, Taylor could already ''hear'' what people were saying in the presence of her bugs. By ''kids'', Lung meant a group of underage Undersiders. But since Taylor didn''t know about the robbery, she couldn''t understand the emotional pain of the ABB leader.


    "Well, since they''ve come to this, now you''re obligated to save those kids and kill Lung" - I remarked phlegmatically.


    "What? But I''m not a killer!" - protested Taylor, whose naive compassion I had not yet completely eradicated.


    "If you let Lung kill those kids, you''ll still become like her. And even if you stop him today, what guarantee is there that he won''t do it tomorrow? Lung, you know, has high regeneration. If you don''t kill him within a minute, he''ll survive and eventually do what he planned. So, what''s your choice? Whose lives do you prefer to save? The lives of innocent children or the life of a vile monster and maniac?"


    Faced with this choice, Taylor of course made the ''right'' decision, unleashing her deadliest insects on Lung. And they were more than capable. I once used a similar method in Lang to corrupt some great saint. And Taylor is far from being a saint, though she''s also not very bright.


    Wasps, venomous spiders, and centipedes descended upon the unsuspecting Lung in a relentless stream. He flaunted his bare torso, which only worsened his situation. This was not what he had in mind when he envisioned a ''battle with Bee''. During the raid on the drug dealers, Taylor hadn''t used even one percent of her strength. Now she gave it her all, remembering my instructions in the style of ''hit the squirrel in the eye''. As a result, within seconds, Lung lost his sight, smell, hearing, and ability to speak. His sense of touch was mostly unavailable too, as his entire body burned with hellish fire.


    The ABB minions scattered with panicked cries, and Lung remained lying on the ground, covered with a thick layer of buzzing and rustling insects that literally devoured him alive. We were close enough for me to monitor his condition using my perception. From what I could see, Lung was already beyond saving. He tried to activate his ability, but regeneration couldn''t handle the poison, and the ''heating up'' was limited by the restrictions imposed on the villain. To become stronger, he needed to engage in battle, but here he was just a victim of a beating.


    And just when I thought one of Brockton Bay''s villains was done for, events took a bad turn. I was suddenly thrown into the Void, where Players and the Judge of this Game gathered before me.


    Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.


    "What are you doing?" - the Judge scolded me. - "You killed the first official game figure, so the setup couldn''t even begin. Moreover, it was an ally figure for you. What do you have to say in your defense?"


    "I didn''t break any rules" - I replied to this accusation. - "And besides, the setup started and ended right away. I won. Everything according to the rules."


    "Are you going to lecture me about the rules?" - the Judge exclaimed. I wisely remained silent. - "Officially, the game will only begin after the setup of figures. And right now, there''s a preliminary draw. And you interrupted it. The rules don''t account for that, so we''ll have to come up with something."


    The Players around were agitated.


    "I suggest adding another game figure to Taylor and starting over" - suggested one of the Players.


    "That won''t work" - the Judge replied irritably. - "Firstly, Taylor was promised to Nuhskransurah as a game figure. And secondly, she''s already been removed from the list of potential bodies for possession. I''m not going to change anything about that." - The Players grumbled discontentedly. - "So, the closest match to Taylor at the moment is Lung. Let''s just possess him with a demon and be done with it. Whose figure are we using?"


    "I was promised the first body in the game!" - shouted one of the Players, who emanated demonic energy. - "And I''ll get it. I have another figure. Use it. And after that, my queen will kill Shub-Niggurat''s pawn, and the problem will be solved."


    I was literally bathed in a wave of wild hatred from the Player. But since the rules didn''t allow a direct attack, he decided to ''avenge'' me using his game figure. Idiot, what else can I say.


    The Judge waved his hand, and I returned to the body of Danny Hebert. Before I could gather my thoughts, the situation with Lung suddenly changed. Instead of dying, he was enveloped in flames that immediately burned all the insects. Within a second, his body was covered with strong scales, and his eyes regenerated and disappeared behind a transparent false eyelid, making them impervious to insect attacks.


    "What''s happening?" - Taylor exclaimed in fear. She had already mentally buried Lung, and now he suddenly came back to life.


    "Stay in the car" - I replied.


    Getting out of the driver''s seat, I opened a compartment under one of the seats and pulled out a motorcycle helmet and a cloak. This was my ''emergency kit'' in case I needed to ''officially become a cape''. Wearing this clownish attire, I stepped out of the car and walked towards Lung. He was already walking towards me, transforming into a huge fire-breathing dragon.


    According to genre laws, this should have been an epic battle, but it never happened. I didn''t get out of the car to fight Lung. Because as soon as he appeared within direct line of sight, my ''black mist'' seeped into his skull and ''ate his brain''. The dragon-like figure of Lung trembled and collapsed to the ground, swiftly returning to human form. Simultaneously, my mist began to engulf Lung''s body. But before he died, I reached him and... devoured the soul of the demon inside him. Because why not!


    Before I could even lick my lips, I was pulled out of my body again.


    "What are you doing?!" - the Judge shouted at me.


    "What''s the problem? I was defending myself. And the fact that Lung didn''t manage to make someone else his game figure in time is not my problem."


    "Lung is not a problem. What''s wrong your shard?" - the Judge demanded. I noticed that the Players were nowhere to be seen.


    "Just a regular shard" - I replied in surprise. - "Found it on the street, tamed it, warmed it up."


    "It''s against the rules!" - The author of the game rules stunned me. - "Your shard is too powerful. Capes are not allowed to possess powers of this level."


    I had nothing to say to that. I don''t know the rules. Maybe it really is prohibited.


    "In any case, I''m confiscating this shard from you. And in return, I''ll give you Lung''s shard. He won''t need it anymore." - the Judge sneered. - "You''ve knocked Nuhskransurah off track with this. It''s a lesson for him. I''ll decide what to do with the setup of game figures. So don''t count on an easy victory. But you have time to prepare. Now go."


    I was back in my fragile body again. The shard I had cultivated disappeared without a trace. Instead, I discovered a shard with Lung''s powers. Theoretically, I could now transform into a dragon and breathe fire. Practically, though, I would have to train the worm to follow commands again.


    However, I didn''t have time to ponder this because, at the far end of the street, a group of Undersiders appeared, riding three massive dogs.


    "So, it was you who robbed Lung?" - Tattletale accused as they approached.


    "Hold your horses, sweetheart" - I cut her off. - "My name''s Black Cloak. I just finished off Lung, and if you don''t want to share his fate, I suggest you fall to your knees and beg for mercy."


    "My dogs will tear you to pieces!" - Bitch responded to my proposal.

 Chapter 18.10 – Worm 2.0

    "Quiet. He''s right" - Tattletale interrupted. - "He really did kill Lung. But there''s something else. Ow!"


    Tattletale clutched her head and groaned.


    "Listen up..." - I began to outline my demands.


    But before I could continue, Taylor ran up behind me with a helmet on her head.


    "The Magnificent Bee is here to punish evildoers!" - she declared, striking a ''heroic'' pose. In reality, she looked like a drunken clown at a children''s party.


    Angry bees buzzed around, causing the Undersiders to tense up far more than when they encountered me. They knew well what could happen when facing this ''heroine''. They had been ''investigating'' this case, and Tattletale had been trying to track down the ''victims of bee justice''. Bitch''s dogs bared their teeth and growled, showing their impressive rows of teeth.


    I sighed in resignation and continued my speech.


    "Undersiders, you have two options. Either you become my subordinates and act for the city''s salvation, or I''ll kill you all. Let Lung, rest in peace, be an example of what happens to those who oppose me. Now get lost, I''m not in the mood for chit-chat."


    "You stole our money from Lung" - Grue accused.


    "Ha-ha! Since when is it yours? You''re at fault for arriving after me. Moreover, I generously solved your problems with Lung, which you got into of your own stupidity. And what do I get in return? Baseless accusations and extortion? I''ll crush you."


    To underscore my words, the insects buzzed twice as loudly and started to ''patrol'' right next to the villains'' ears, making them despair at the thought of what would happen if the whole swarm began to sting.


    "We''re leaving" - Tattletale commanded.


    Grue looked at her, nodded in agreement, and the whole circus troupe retreated into the darkness. Moments later, Taylor''s legs suddenly gave out, and she fell disgracefully to the ground. Luckily, no one saw it.


    "Well, have you had enough heroics?" - I smirked. - "If that dog had attacked you, it would have bitten your head off in a second. No bee could stitch it back on."


    "I... I... got it..." - she stammered.


    "Get up and let''s go. Your job is not to strut around in a tight costume, but to quietly and modestly help from the rear."


    "But I want to..." - Taylor trailed off, struggling as always to understand what she really wanted.


    "Do you want fame, honors, and adoring looks from boys in tight suits?" - I voiced her secret thoughts.


    "I... I..."


    "Enough, let''s go. You can dream about it in the bathroom at home. We''ve done enough for tonight."


    We got to the car and drove to the civilized part of the city. On the way, it finally dawned on me that although my shard seemed to have been replaced, I still perceived the world directly, not through sight. I had gotten so used to this way of perceiving that I had long forgotten it could be different. Actually, I had always had this ability if I could use magic or psionics. Maybe it''s somehow connected. Or perhaps I managed to transfer some qualities of my previous ''passenger'' to the shard. In any case, it required some investigation.


    When we got home, we decided to have a little snack. Nighttime adventures worked up an appetite, and a couple of sandwiches before bed helped calm down. Taylor was cooking, and I sat at the table, figuring out how my new shard worked.


    "Dad, I don''t recognize you lately" - Taylor began another heart-to-heart talk. - "You''re turning into some kind of monster."


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    "Some kind of monster? Like this?" - I clarified, activating my newly acquired shapeshifting ability.


    Lung needed to ''go into a battle rage'' to activate his power. But I could control the shard with willpower. Within a couple of seconds, I turned into an anthropomorphic crocodile with a phalanx of sharp teeth.


    Taylor turned around at that moment and saw me.


    "A-a-a-a-a-a!!! A-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a!!!! A-a-a-a!" she screamed, seeing the monster.


    "Don''t scream, not at home. And no screaming at home" - I calmed her.


    "Dad?" - Taylor stared at me with wide eyes.


    "Who else were you expecting to see here?" - I responded, returning to my human form.


    "So, you''re a cape too?"


    "You only just figured that out?" - I smirked. - "And didn''t the training to develop your superpower clue you in?"


    "Well... I didn''t really think about it."


    "It''s clear that thinking isn''t your strong suit. Alright, enough talking. Serve the food, or I''ll eat you."


    I transformed into a crocodile again and licked my lips predatorily.


    "Not funny!" - Taylor said, placing a plate of eggs with bacon and cheese sandwiches in front of me. But she moved a little farther away just in case.


    "Since I''ve turned into a monster, it''s funny to me. Ha-ha."


    We had dinner and went to our rooms to get some sleep.


    Over the next couple of days, I trained my new shard, bringing it to peak form. With its help, I could now transform into a fire-breathing humanoid crocodile. In this form, my clothes would ''miraculously'' disappear and reappear after I reverted. It was very convenient. Another feature was that when I transformed, I didn''t just become a monster but also got armor made of a durable metal covering my body, which was already protected by tough scales. And this ''death machine'' was covered in fire, capable of melting... tin. Unfortunately, the fire''s temperature wasn''t very high. But I learned to control the fire and direct its streams at the enemy with just a wave of my hand.


    The most important aspect of this ability was that after transforming, I could continue to grow, turning into a Godzilla-like creature. In a deserted area, I managed to reach a height of fifty meters, and that wasn''t the limit. With such dimensions, I could eat an Endbringer like a sardine. Another positive side of this werewolf ability was that initially, Danny was quite a weak guy. But if I activated the transformation by only ten percent, it turned my body into an ideal for any bodybuilder¡ªripped muscles, no fat, and a hundred kilograms of muscle mass.


    On Tuesday evening, I conducted a deal to acquire three containers loaded with rare metals. Here, my support came from replicators disguised as humans. The ''sellers'' of this cargo were eager to get the money without giving anything in return. I took the form of a three-meter crocodile looming over the pathetic humans, baring my sharp teeth. The villains were impressed and promised they could supply any amount of materials as long as they were paid in cash.


    After that, the replicators finally got to work properly. The first thing they did was implement several of my long-awaited projects.


    The most important was creating nanometer-sized replicators. Until then, the replicators used blocks five millimeters in size. They couldn''t be made smaller. But with rare earth metals, I could create real replicators as intended.


    Once the needed number of small replicators was created, I... implanted them in my brain and made them create a neural network, allowing my brain and computer to merge directly. Now I no longer needed a smartphone or headphones to receive messages from the replicators. Not to mention my reaction speed, thinking, and data analysis abilities increased dramatically.


    The third program point was developing high-tech armor for me and my subordinates. At the moment, Taylor was my only subordinate, but that would soon change. This armor not only protected against most weapons but also slightly enhanced the wearer, with built-in targeting systems, night vision, and communication. In addition to the armor came kinetic weapons like a rifle capable of piercing a light tank. For especially trusted subordinates, a ''paralyzer'' was developed, able to knock out or even kill almost any cape with a directed energy pulse.


    In general, my technological capabilities skyrocketed, and now I could only hope that no techie would be able to hack the security system embedded in the suits, weapons, and every block of the replicators. Precedents like the Simurgh completely did not please me. Of course, with a high probability, the Simurgh''s ability to intercept the control of tech devices was based on ''replacing'' the source of the control signal from the tinker¡¯s shard to herself. But the possibility that she could directly influence technology shouldn''t be dismissed.


    On Wednesday morning, I went to the Dockworkers Association. There, the entire core ''team'' greeted me.


    "Danny? You¡¯re almost unrecognizable" - Kurt said as he approached me.


    "Yeah, I asked a cape I know to add some muscle" - I replied, showing off my impressive bicep.


    "Capes?" - My conversation partner didn¡¯t seem thrilled by this news.


    "Yes. Do you really think we have a chance to change anything without some kind of miracle?" - I asked.


    "Well, if you think about it, a miracle is pretty much what we need."

 Chapter 18.11 – Worm 2.0

    ¡°What''s going on with the assembly of the equipment?¡± - Leticia, Kurt''s wife, couldn''t hold back her question.


    ¡°We''re starting today¡± - I announced to the gathered group. ¨C ¡°We''ll be picking up the parts from the warehouse in the Docks. For that, we''ll need to arm ourselves in case of an attack by the Merchants or anyone else. We''ll transport the cargo to the workshop and begin assembly according to the instructions. The molds for our press will be with the parts. Today, we''ll get familiar with the assembly process, and tomorrow we''ll start working first thing in the morning.¡±


    ¡°Where are we going to get the weapons?¡± - One of the dockworkers asked.


    ¡°From the same place as everything else. Let''s hurry. Get in the vehicles. Is everything ready?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    Gathering up, we headed to the warehouse in the Docks, which was currently occupied by replicators. Of course, my companions weren''t supposed to see them, and the protection from all sorts of hobos and freeloaders was on their shoulders.


    When we arrived at the warehouse, we found about a dozen and a half relatively small containers. I immediately opened one of them and started handing out rifles. The people were a bit taken aback, but everyone understood that transporting such valuables without protection was the zenith of foolishness. The dockworkers couldn''t afford professional security, so the issue was resolved by acquiring weapons.


    ¡°Danny, who''s the cape behind all this?¡± - Kurt asked me as we loaded the cargo onto the vehicles and were ready to depart.


    ¡°His name is Black Cloak. He''s not very well-known yet, but soon the world will know about him. And not because he''ll beat up and arrest a couple of thugs, but because he''ll revive our city and make it the best city in America.¡±


    My ''advertising speech'' went over well, and the people were inspired, believing that their lives were about to change for the better.


    The rest of the day we spent sorting the cargo, studying the assembly instructions for various equipment, and setting up the few pieces of equipment needed to manufacture the frames and bodies of the assembled machinery. The product range currently included washing machines, heaters, air conditioners, and fans. In the future, we planned to start assembling TVs, phones, and various small household appliances, from kettles to hairdryers and hand dryers.


    There should be no problems with selling these products. Firstly, our equipment was dirt cheap compared to competitors. Secondly, I had already arranged with electronics stores in Brockton Bay and neighboring cities to consign our products to them. And the biggest selling point was the ''Ancient Design,'' thanks to which the equipment looked like it was made by an ancient space civilization. The final, less obvious advantage was the quality of the equipment. It didn''t break down, required no maintenance, and could run continuously for hundreds of years.


    On Friday, when the assembly process was fully streamlined and the first batch of products was sent to stores, I decided it was time to stake our claim on the Docks. For this, I needed my own ''hero team,'' and I chose the Undersiders for the role. It was more of a publicity stunt. By presenting a team of real capes to the world, I concealed the fact that my power was based on the replicators.


    Leet had already spread the story of the ''metallic spiders'' on the internet, but I quelled that wave by providing a link to the video series ''Stargate'' from Earth-Aleph, where the replicators exactly matched Leet''s description and had the same name. People immediately concluded that this was another tinker''s prank, and within a couple of days, the news was forgotten.


    I had known for a long time where the Undersiders'' hideout was, so I headed straight for them. I couldn''t stealthily pick the lock on the entrance door right now, but a flaming anthropomorphic crocodile didn''t need to. I arrived at the abandoned workshop in my ''combat form,'' clad in armor, half of which was ''native,'' inherited from the shard, and the other half was assembled by the replicators and specially designed for me.


    Casually tearing the door off its hinges, I barged into the room, catching the Undersiders off guard, who were even unmasked at the moment.


    ¡°Well, well, well, who do we have here? Talking snacks? Or loyal minions? Which role do you prefer?¡±


    ¡°Who are you?¡± - Grue exclaimed, activating his power and preparing to shroud the entire room in darkness.


    ¡°Oh! Good thing you asked. I forgot to introduce myself. I am the terror that flies in the night. I am the crocodile that bites your butt. I am Black Cloak!¡±


    If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    ¡°You?!!¡± - Tattletale suddenly recognized me. ¨C ¡°You killed Lung? But you had a different power.¡±


    ¡°Since our last meeting, my ability hasn''t changed¡± - I grinned, causing her to clutch her head in pain from my answer. ¨C ¡°So, are you ready to become my subordinates? Or do you prefer working for Coil, who deals in drugs and kidnaps young children?¡±


    ¡°Coil?¡± - Grue was surprised. ¨C ¡°We''re working for Coil?¡±


    ¡°Yes¡± - Tattletale confirmed reluctantly.


    ¡°You have only a couple of minutes left¡± - I warned the villains. ¨C ¡°I''ll kill anyone who refuses to submit to me.¡±


    ¡°Screw you!¡± - Bitch shouted, commanding her ''dog,'' which had now grown to the size of a large bull.


    She didn''t have time to prepare, so what rushed at me was essentially a ''half-finished product.'' I didn''t hold back, immediately growing a good meter taller, then simply grabbed the dog and tore it in half, simultaneously roasting it to a crispy golden brown.


    ¡°Looks like that''s a negative answer¡± - I said with glee, pulling the real body of the dog from the pile of flesh.


    ¡°Angelica!¡± - Bitch screamed as she saw me about to toss her pet into my flame-filled mouth.


    The cape fearlessly rushed at me... only to receive a light punch to the jaw. For me, it was light, but it knocked Bitch out, sending her flying a couple of meters.


    ¡°So, do you acknowledge me as your boss?¡± - I asked, discarding the now useless dog. It whimpered and then ran to its owner.


    Grue, seeing the helpless state of their main combat force, used his power to fill the room with darkness. However, my perception of the world remained unaffected. So, I immediately rushed forward, grabbed Grue by the chest with one hand, and lifted him off the ground, causing him to kick helplessly.


    ¡°People say the most persistent niggers taste the best¡± - I licked my lips, looking to my prey.


    The darkness dissipated, revealing the pitiful condition of the group leader. Regent tried to use his power on me to make me loosen my grip, but my body had a ''secondary'' nervous system based on a neural network that detected the interference and completely blocked it. However, there were still consequences. My hand twitched and squeezed Grue a bit harder than he could bear. A couple of ribs in his chest cracked, and he screamed in pain.


    ¡°Don''t rush, you''ll be next¡± - I smiled at the now pale Regent.


    ¡°Enough! Stop! We agree¡± - Tattletale shouted, using her power to determine that while I wouldn''t eat them, I wouldn''t leave anyone alive either.


    ¡°Agree to be my snack?¡± - I clarified, looking at the girl with a hungry and lustful gaze, causing her to shudder involuntarily.


    ¡°We''re ready to become your subordinates¡± - Tattletale blurted out, then fell to her knees.


    ¡°Ah, how boring you are¡± - I noted disappointedly, releasing Grue. ¨C ¡°I had hoped you would fight to the last and die heroically at the bloody hands of Good.¡±


    ¡°Maybe, you mean evil?¡± - Regent skeptically clarified, usually speaking before thinking.


    ¡°Good! I am good! And you are all evil. Well, you were until you joined my team. Don''t worry, I''ll make real heroes out of you! We''ll stand shoulder to shoulder to protect good and punish the dark forces of the Protectorate.¡± - Regent wanted to say something else, but seeing Tattletale''s angry look, he preferred to stay silent. ¨C ¡°Well, rejoice! You have a new mission. You''ll get reinforcement in the form of Bee, then you''ll head to subdue the Docks and all its inhabitants. From now on, I rule here, Black Cloak!¡±


    ¡°You don''t have a cloak¡± - Regent couldn''t resist pointing out.


    ¡°So what?¡± - I glared at him. ¨C ¡°No cloak, but I have the name. It''s to make sure no one guess it.¡±


    ¡°Ah, got it.¡±


    At that moment, Bitch woke up, groaned, and gave me a look full of hatred. But then she noticed her unharmed dog and focused all her attention on it.


    ¡°And don''t even think about running to Coil to complain¡± - I continued giving instructions. ¨C ¡°Remember, I''m watching you. As soon as any of you try to betray me, I''ll rip their head off in front of the others.¡± - With these words, I smiled sweetly, showing everyone my hungry grin. ¨C ¡°But you''ll have perks too. Tomorrow I''ll bring you suits that will transform you from cheap riffraff into elite superheroes. And as I said, you''ll clean up the Docks of all undesirable elements. Undesirables elements are all people except for the members of the Dockworkers Association. Is everything clear?"


    ¡°What about money?¡± - Grue asked, grimacing in pain from his chest.


    ¡°Well, pay me ten grand each, and we''ll consider this matter settled.¡±


    ¡°What?!!¡± - Regent couldn''t contain his outraged shout.


    "Ha-ha, just kidding, just kidding. You''ll get a steady salary in cold hard cash. Heroic activities should be well-compensated. That way, people won''t be tempted to turn to evil. Alright, I''m done with you for today. Tomorrow, we''ll discuss the details of your heroic activities."


    With these words, I turned around and walked out of the room, leaving the stunned Undersiders to collect themselves.

 Chapter 18.12 – Worm 2.0

    The next day, my team of conscripted workers met with Bee, donned the suits I provided, and set out to clean up the Docks. A lot of homeless people and drug addicts were living there, and they all needed to be evicted so they wouldn''t pose a threat to my business. Since these people had nowhere to go, the replicators had cleaned up a couple of buildings overnight, making them livable. At least the living conditions there were no worse than the shacks the homeless had been living in.


    Now, the Undersiders were using Bee''s insects to locate people and inform them that this territory was now under the control of Black Cloak, and they were prohibited from staying. This first encounter was just a warning, but next time, my workers would start forcibly evicting people and ''escorting'' them to their new residence. Those who resisted would receive a therapeutic biting from fleas, lice, and ticks to improve their cerebral circulation.


    However, all of this was essentially just a warm-up, because our real target was the Merchants. This gang of drug traffickers was still thriving despite Bee''s efforts. So, in the evening, when the Undersiders were a bit worn out from chasing homeless people back and forth, I presented them with a new task.


    This time, I appeared before them in my ''human'' form, but in a protective suit that covered my entire face and body. I brought six automatic rifles with me, based on Ancients technologies. Unlike firearms, they were almost silent, and the initial bullet velocity was over two kilometers per second.


    "Well, how are you doing? Take these gifts." - I handed out the weapons to my subordinates.


    I wasn''t afraid of being shot with these rifles because each one had a friend-or-foe identification module and wouldn''t fire at allies. Besides, my suit could protect me from much worse.


    "Why do we need these?" - Tattletale asked, her bad feelings already starting to surface.


    "For hunting the drug dealers, of course" - I happily confirmed her worst fears.


    "Hunting?" - Bee, also known as Taylor, exclaimed.


    "Exactly! When you were chasing the bums today, did you notice how many of them were on drugs?"


    "Almost all of them. But that''s not a reason to kill them!"


    "But it is a reason to eliminate those who sell drugs to everyone, including children. A significant portion of all the homeless have hit rock bottom due to the drugs sold to them by the Merchants gang. You probably didn''t notice, but today you encountered about two dozen members of this gang, and they didn''t try to shoot you only because you didn''t attack them. These scums have plenty of weapons and even more drugs, which they sell almost wholesale for pennies. So tonight, we''re going to the Merchants den and will shoot them like rabid dogs."


    "I won''t shoot dogs" - Bitch misunderstood my words.


    "I''m talking about rabid dogs that can''t be cured. If you don''t shoot them, they''ll bite healthy dogs and infect them. Such ''kindness'' will only make things worse, and many more dogs will die of rabies. So, now we''re going to shoot all the Merchants. And don''t worry, your suits can protect you from any danger."


    I looked at the disorganized line of heroes, dressed in coal-black suits, or rather spacesuits, with bright LED lights. The camouflage was non-existent due to the lights, but the suits looked impressive.


    "But... but... I''m not a killer!" - Taylor made one last attempt to excuse herself.


    "Really? At least three dozen people have died from your bees'' stings."


    "What? No! Nooooo" - she whimpered.


    "Yes, yes, and yes! And believe me, each of those bastards deserved to die. And now, enough with the whining. Grab your weapons and start shooting everyone. Move out! Bee, this especially concerns you. How can you call yourself a hero if you haven''t shot a single drug dealer yet? And if you resist, I''ll shoot you myself for aiding the Merchants. Because those who aren''t with us are against us!"


    Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.


    After this ''motivational'' promise, we moved toward the Dealers'' den. The Undersiders, of course, were not enthusiastic, but they didn''t dare contradict me. Taylor was in a daze, trying to comprehend when her beloved daddy had turned into such a terrible monster.


    In reality, this entire operation to neutralize the Dealers was carried out mostly by replicators. I ''dressed'' them in suits similar to ours and sent them to surround the area. Not a single person able to escape this trap alive. Additionally, special jammers blocked all types of communication, so no one could report the ongoing massacre.


    We arrived at the location and gathered a couple of hundred meters from an unremarkable warehouse building.


    "In that building right now are all the Merchants leaders and their most powerful fighters. Your task is to kill every single one of them. There are no innocent people there, and if any are found, the rifles won''t shoot them. Grue, cover the area with your darkness. We can''t let them escape. Move out!"


    Grue didn''t dare disobey me and flooded the surrounding world with darkness. Then we moved forward, and I shot everyone who crossed my path. Usually, one bullet to the head was enough. The Undersiders preferred to just follow me, pretending they couldn''t shoot their targets in time.


    Indeed, the ''cream'' of the Merchants gang had gathered here. Due to today''s ''homeless eviction'' event, the Merchants decided to gather a larger crowd and organize a counter-''action.'' That''s when I caught them. The bandits tried to shoot back, but mostly they just wandered in the dark and could only shoot their comrades.


    The entire area was shrouded by Grue''s power, but it didn''t affect us because I perceived the surrounding world directly. This information was digitized by my neural network, and then the data on the location of obstacles and targets was displayed on the tactical screens of the suits, positioned before our eyes on the face shield.


    Though the darkness muffled all sounds, and the shots from my rifle were almost silent, Skidmark sensed our approach and tried to use his ''superpower'' to knock me off my feet. But before he succeeded, I shot him in the head, which he naively hid behind a concrete wall, thinking it would protect him.


    Squealer tried to escape in her monstrous vehicle, but I shot her in the back, and armor-piercing bullets pierced her armored truck like paper. Moist had enough time to prepare and assemble a body of a trash golem, hiding in its center. Surprisingly, the material''s durability was quite high, so even armor-piercing bullets didn''t reach him. But then I used an under-barrel grenade launcher, which in a few shots scattered the entire trash body around the area. And with the last shot, I blew the cape to pieces.


    "Now, each of you must shoot at least one drug dealer" - I issued a quest to my minions. - "Those who fail will be shot by me. And keep in mind, there are few drug dealers left, not enough for everyone. Those who hesitate or sympathize with these scums will share their fate."


    With the right motivation, people couldn''t refuse to complete this task. However, it wasn''t that hard. The world around was hidden in darkness, and the ''targets'' were displayed on the screen rather abstractly, more resembling opponents in a computer game. No blood, guts, or brains splattered on the walls. Bee, Darkness, Tattletale, and Regent each shot at the highlighted targets once and then calmed down. Bitch, however, set her ''dogs'' on the Merchants, making them literally tear apart the last dozen survivors.


    "Mission accomplished. Grue, you can turn off your fog of war. Upon returning to base, each of you will receive a couple of thousand dollars for petty expenses. You''ve earned no more. But Bitch will get five thousand."


    Grue dispelled the darkenss, and the shocked Undersiders saw a scene drenched in blood. Dismembered corpses lay here and there, some literally torn to pieces. The group immediately doubled over with retching, and Grue covered the area with shadows again. Of all the Undersiders, he was the only one who had seen the entire massacre from the start.


    After this finale, we headed ''home,'' and the replicators began cleaning up the area. Nothing should indicate that a bloody massacre had taken place here. Ancient technologies allowed for the destruction of all organic traces and the disposal of bodies, leaving only a set of mineral substances.


    After such a demonstration, none of the Undersiders could even think about resisting me. Even Taylor couldn''t muster the courage to call the PRT or the Protectorate. Besides, I gave her a personal lecture on topic ''Purging human society from undesirables.''


    The next day, the real cleanup of the Docks from all sorts of lowlifes and renegades began. I enlisted not only the capes for this task but also the dockworkers. The latter were to patrol the area and report any intruders to the cleanup team, represented by the Undersiders. And to ensure no one harmed my workers, I also dressed them in black suits and gave them weapons. Most importantly, among these dockworkers were replicators in the same armor, successfully mimicking as humans while overseeing security.


    The mass ''exodus'' of the homeless from the docks naturally attracted the attention of the PRT, and they sent Wards to patrol. The Protectorate heroes were at an ''official reception'' at the time and couldn''t be distracted to address this ''insignificant problem.''

 Chapter 18.13 – Worm 2.0

    I decided that my team needed to gain some "combat experience," so I deliberately had the computer in my suit given to Grue a convoy route for the next batch of homeless that would inevitably intersect with the Ward team, which included Aegis, Clockblocker, Kid Win, Vista, Gallant, and Browbeat. I was somewhat unsure if this encounter would be enough to start a conflict, but the bums unintentionally helped. One of them started shouting that they were all going to be killed and that the capes should  save them. Naturally, Gallant demanded the release of the people, and the Undersiders, receiving my direct order over the radio at that moment, refused.


    As a result, a brawl erupted with everyone fighting everyone else. There was no time to think, and all my minions had to give it their all. Taylor especially stood out. At first, she held back, but after Browbeat knocked her out, she got angry and started attacking seriously, using "heavy aviation" in the form of hornets. Under such pressure, Clockblocker, Kid Win, Vista, and Gallant quickly "folded," retreating. Aegis and Browbeat could somewhat resist the insects, but Bitch''s dogs tore them apart like rags. As a result, Gallant ignominiously retreated, and the Undersiders did not pursue them.


    This victory instilled confidence in the Undersiders. Another important factor was that all of them escaped with at most bruises. The suits performed excellently. They couldn''t protect against blows from massive objects, but any pinpoint strikes were completely blocked and distributed over the area.


    In the evening, I awarded the Undersiders another bonus for a well-fought battle. Throughout the day, we managed to "clear" the area near the Dockers'' Association territory and around the warehouse where the replicators delivered components through underground tunnels. By this point, two hundred people were already assembling equipment, so my "business" was gradually reaching operational capacity.


    News that a new cape named Black Cloak had appeared in the city, taking over the Docks, Bee, and the Undersiders team, spread through the city like wildfire. There were also rumors that Black Cloak had managed to kill Lung, who had disappeared without a trace about a week ago. This last detail especially displeased the remnants of the ABB. They were still trying to find out what had happened to Lung after Bee''s attack, and now rumors emerged that the new cape was to blame for everything.


    The Asian Bad Boys group was not having the best of times. Lung was missing, and Bakuda, whom he had invited only a month ago, unexpectedly took his place. Oni Lee was a "loyal dog" by nature and had never aimed for leadership roles. However, the tinker was happy to seize control. But the core of the gang was not particularly willing to obey "that crazy woman." So, she had to come up with two "brilliant ideas." First, she declared that Lung was likely alive but captured by Black Cloak. After all, no one had seen his body.


    Secondly, she started planting bombs in her subordinates'' bodies, turning them into fanatically loyal followers. Try not to become a fanatic when your life depends on the whims of a madwoman. But this wasn''t enough for Bakuda, and around the time it became clear who was responsible for Lung''s death, she began actively recruiting "followers" among ordinary people. At night, her gang would break into ordinary citizens'' apartments, grab everyone indiscriminately, and shove remote-controlled bombs into their noses and guts.


    Additionally, Bakuda decided to resort to a strategy of mass terror, blowing up all the more or less significant places or major firms. The Dockers'' Association was protected by patrols of replicators, so no suicide bombers reached us. But the rest of the city experienced the full horror of terrorist attacks.


    I did what I could to stoke protest sentiments online and among ordinary people. I needed to show that neither the PRT nor the Protectorate intended to do anything. The police switched to working without days off, the army was brought into the city, and the heroes only made grandiose speeches on TV and patrolled areas where there had never been any criminals.


    Then, one "fine" day, Bakuda decided that she had recruited enough suicide bombers and sent them towards the Dockers'' Association to die. She correctly assumed that I wouldn''t sit back and watch her "undermine the foundations of my business." And indeed, I didn''t. It''s just that my way of solving problems didn''t occur to the local capes for some reason.


    This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    There were quite a few hostages, and Bakuda drove them all on foot. This slowed down the entire "army," giving me time to prepare a trap along their route. As I recalled from "last time," Bakuda had a remote detonation system in her glasses and on her legs. Plus, there was a detonator linked to her heart. I positioned seven sniper replicators in suitable locations, who could shoot Bakuda simultaneously. The targets were her knees, shoulders, heart, and both hemispheres of her brain. This should guarantee the villainess''s instant death.


    Then, I just had to wait and see what would happen. Bakuda hadn''t yet entered my territory, so if all the hostages blew up, I wouldn''t be involved. I was at the Dockers'' Association base with the Undersiders, so my alibi was guaranteed.


    The special operation went off without a hitch. Seven simultaneous shots from armor-piercing explosive bullets literally tore Bakuda to pieces. The replicators fired charges so powerful that hitting a hand would tear off the arm at the shoulder. As I had hoped, the scale of the destruction was such that Bakuda''s equipment couldn''t handle it, and the detonation signal didn''t reach the symbiote. As for ordinary radio signals, the replicators jammed them.


    Oni Lee followed the group of suicide bombers from the rooftops. When he saw his accomplice''s ignominious death, he decided to flee as quickly as possible. But I had other plans for him. No one noticed how Oni Lee, on one of the roofs, was hit by a paralyzer shot. He immediately lost consciousness, and the replicators that appeared seconds later packed his body, injecting a strong sedative into his blood.


    I wanted to find out if I could develop my shard by absorbing another''s. It will be very useful a teleportation ability like this maniac''s. So, Oni Lee was placed in a special shelter from which he definitely couldn''t escape. Moreover, I planned to keep him unconscious because the process didn''t require his consent or cooperation. However, I wasn''t in a hurry and intended to simply observe how my shard reacted to the proximity of another shard connected to a person. I had already found out that it didn''t react to "free" shards.


    Once I confirmed that Bakuda was neutralized and all the hostages survived, I informed the dockers and the Undersiders of her approach, then went alone to "deal" with her. Meanwhile, a replicator, which I controlled remotely through the neural network, appeared next to the hostages and the rank-and-file ABB members. As a result, everything should have looked to the surrounding people as if I had discovered Bakuda, killed her, and then started rescuing the hostages from the remaining ABB members. A slight "desynchronization" of events could easily be attributed to the distorted perception of time by tortured people.


    So, half an hour later, I brought the survivors to the Dockers'' Association, gathered the people, and asked for volunteers to help with the final cleanup of the ABB and rescue the people. An important point was that I promised a protective suit to each helper, and as the dockers had already seen, these suits couldn''t be pierced even by an automatic weapon.


    As a result, I managed to recruit seventy volunteers, plus I enlisted the heroes, meaning the Undersiders, for this noble quest. We all piled into vehicles and headed towards the populated part of the Docks, where the ABB''s and Lung''s lair was located. Along the way, I also "mixed" a hundred replicators into the crowd of dockers. I concealed the significant increase in forces by dividing the people into groups and spreading them across the city. Each group had at least a couple of replicators to ensure the safety of my charges. After all, these were ordinary men who had volunteered to rescue the hostages, not cold-blooded killers who were supposed to clear out the ABB''s soldiers.


    In addition to the mixed teams, there were also teams entirely composed of replicators. Today''s operation was supposed to be the "last Chinese warning" for all criminal elements in the city. We weren''t just rescuing hostages today; we were also capturing active ABB members, tying them up, loading them into buses, and taking them out of the city. Each deportee was personally told that if they returned to the city, next time they would be taken straight to the cemetery.


    Of course, an operation of such scale couldn''t go unnoticed. People raised a clamor. Some complained about lawlessness, others said it was high time to restore order, some were simply glad to be alive, and of course, there were those who claimed they were innocent and it was all arbitrary, and they would complain to the sports lottery.


    As soon as the Protectorate learned that Bakuda and the ABB were defeated, they immediately headed to the scene in full force to bask in the glory of this victory over crime and at the same time condemn the rampant masked villain gangs. But here they faced another setback. As soon as they got out of the truck, they were surrounded by reporters filming everything, and I appeared in front.


    Then came a circus performance worthy of an Oscar. I declared that I am the new hero of Brockton Bay, who had decided to save the city''s residents from the lawlessness of the ABB and... the Protectorate. I accused them of inaction, of hiding in the shadows like cockroaches when it was necessary to fight Bakuda. But as soon as the problem was solved, they immediately appeared to bask in the glory at the expense of the suffering of ordinary people.

 Chapter 18.14 – Worm 2.0

    In short, the PRT and Protectorate were not ready for such an attack, and therefore could not say anything coherent on camera. Within fifteen minutes, this recording began circulating online. While people across the US tended to justify the heroes, in Brockton Bay, people agreed with me one hundred percent.


    When the situation became clearer and the process of deporting the criminal elements of society was completed, I made another statement via the internet and television. In it, I declared that the Protectorate did not have an exclusive license on legality and justice, and therefore I am taking power in the city into my own hands, intending to finally solve all the problems in the city. I asked the Protectorate and the PRT not to interfere and not to try to save villains at the expense of ordinary citizens. After such an attack, they had no choice but to remain silent and wait patiently for the moment when I would "mess up," so they could then bury me under tons of prepared dirt.


    The defeat of the ABB could not go unnoticed by other villains. Empire 88 was especially alarmed. After all, they had been trying for many years to push the ABB out of the city, but the result was zero. And here comes an unknown newcomer who first took out Lung, then dealt with Bakuda, and in the end, cleaned out the entire ABB, throwing them out of the city. It was easy to draw the analogy that the Empire would be next.


    Kaiser decided to convene another meeting to discuss the joint actions of all the city''s villains. And it turned out that there were hardly any villains left. Merchants had disappeared without a trace, the ABB was defeated, and the Undersiders were subordinate to the enemy. On the balance sheet of the "allied forces" were only Empire 88, a lone Coil, and two gangs of mercenaries who could well be bought off.


    Coil also couldn''t find peace, because all his carefully crafted plans were going down the drain. He himself was planning to push the ABB and Empire out of the city, seize shadow power, and then take control of the PRT. And now, out of nowhere, a new "shadow king" appeared, who easily did what he couldn''t do for a long time.


    As a result, another villain meeting was organized in the shortest time. At first, I wanted to show up and troll everyone, but then I thought that essentially I had nothing to talk about with them. Our interests were completely opposite, I couldn''t trust these capes, and in the future, they could all become game figures, which would further complicate our relationships. So, for me, it was most correct to consider heroes and villains as enemies. And the Undersiders were also essentially a wild card.


    Therefore, while the villains were discussing my fate, I was pondering theirs. Overall, it seemed that organized resistance against me from the villains could only come from Coil. He was the one who now controlled Trickster and Faultline teams, planning to direct them to help Empire 88. In this situation, the most reasonable thing was to eliminate Coil, thereby isolating the opponents.


    Another problem was that not long ago, Coil had kidnapped Dinah Alcott, a girl with the ability to predict the future. So far, he hadn''t been able to make her submit, but the process of getting her hooked on drugs was in full swing. When Coil gains the ability to foresee the future, and not just reproduce two scenarios, it will be much more difficult to resist him.


    So, when Coil headed to his secret underground hideout after the meeting, I decided to pay him a visit. I could have arranged an "accident" for him, but I wanted to face the enemy and "tear off his head" with my own hands. I wasn''t generally inclined to excessive risk, but here I decided to deal with the issue personally. Maybe it was the shard influencing me, but I saw no reason to deny myself such pleasure.


    As far as I knew, Coil had the ability to "live" in two reality options simultaneously. If something happened to him in one option, he would "cancel" it and make the second one real. Knowing this, it was quite easy to find a solution that nullified this advantage. I simply planned to eliminate Coil today at exactly midnight, regardless of where he was and what he was doing at that time.


    Replicators had long ago infiltrated to Coil''s base and hacked all the electronic systems there. As a result, I could infiltrate this security fanatic''s lair unnoticed. The video cameras showed that I wasn''t there, the motion sensors didn''t react to me, and I bypassed the patrols and posts with real people. There were two posts that couldn''t be bypassed, and I "dealt" with them using paralyzers. And no, I didn''t do anything personally. The replicators, having penetrated through the ventilation, paralyzed them.


    Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.


    Exactly at midnight, I reached the door to the office where Coil was sitting. In my "virtual" plans, I decided that if this prophet was outside his base, I would kill him at exactly zero hours, zero minutes, and zero seconds. And on the base, I would kill him one second later.


    I approached the door, prepared the specially created shotgun for today''s operation, aimed, and then at the right moment, the replicators turned off the lights in the corridor and office, and then opened the automatic door. Between the door opening and pulling the shotgun''s trigger, only a second passed, but in that second, I experienced something very strange.


    I felt thousands of reality options where in a second I would blow Coil''s brains out with a shotgun. He tried to dodge, block, run, call for help, and beg for mercy, but the result of all these probability lines was the same - a bloody smear of brains on the wall of his office.


    Having confirmed that the villain was dead, I headed to the chamber where Dinah Alcott was held. I intended to save her and thus earn points in the mayor''s eyes. After all, he was the official authority, and it was better to cooperate with him. However, entering the room, I saw a girl scared to death, looking at me with wide eyes. As soon as she saw me in the doorway, she screamed, expressing the depth of her despair in that cry.


    "Why are you screaming?" - I inquired about such a strange reaction.


    "With a probability of 99.999% you''re going to eat my soul right now."


    "Really?" - I was surprised. - "I didn''t plan on doing that, but if you insist..."


    I extended my spiritual tentacles to the girl, "licked" her, and found that her body currently contained not only a human soul but also an angel''s soul, which was controlling her behavior at the moment. It seemed like a game figure. And by the way, I hadn''t eaten angels yet. As they say, itadakimasu!


    I didn''t indulge in reflection and immediately devoured the angel''s soul. From his memory, I learned that today at exactly midnight, game figures were incarnated into all capes on Earth. No wonder Coil was so freaked out in the last second of his existence. Ha-ha, I distinguished myself again: I finished off another demon just a second after his incarnation into the body. I think that''s a record.


    While I was pondering how to live on, Dinah came to her senses and looked at me with interest and hope.


    "Get up, you''re going home" - I said to the girl.


    "Okay" - she nodded. - "But right now, bad uncles and aunts want to interfere with us."


    "Well, yeah, where without that. Stay here for now, I''ll tell you when it''s safe."


    I turned and went to meet the approaching group of enemies. If the mercenaries were simply worried about the power outage and Coil not answering calls, Trickster''s team living at the base were now demons heading to the angel on their territory to take him under their control. Only to their surprise, it was me who came out of Dinah''s room.


    "Who the hell are you?" - Trickster inquired, though such behavior wasn''t typical of him "in life."


    "I''m your boss" - I replied with a brazen grin. It wasn''t noticeable behind the mask, but the tone of my voice and the emotions I projected should have made it clear to the demons that I wasn''t afraid of them.


    "Coil?" - Faultline asked, though it was off-topic. However, she was a blonde, so such a question was understandable.


    "I''m Black Cloak" - I introduced myself. - "A figure of Shub-Niggurath."


    The demons glanced at the mercenaries and mentally marked them as expendable.


    "So, it''s your soul that''s got a bounty?" - Ballistic rubbed his hands joyfully.


    "Looks like your game will end just as it starts" - I replied, turning into a fire-breathing crocodile.


    My costume was initially designed to adapt to my "transformation." So, the face mask folded away, giving room to the elongated muzzle, and the armor covering my body parted as the size and volume of my body increased.


    Honestly, the situation was not in my favor. In front of me were Trickster, Faultline, Ballistic, and Genesis'' creation. The leader of this group was a teleporter, so he didn''t pose a direct threat to me. Faultline could cause trouble by creating her "fire sphere." But since she was just a human, I planned to simply blow her brains out with a shotgun. Ballistic was strong enough to injure me, as he could accelerate objects to supersonic speeds. And Genesis had created some giant gorilla that could hold me up, even at the cost of its own life.


    I still had an ace up my sleeve in the form of the replicators in the ventilation, which had paralyzers. I could definitely stun Trickster and Faultline, and Genesis could be taken out while she was unconscious. But on the other hand, I was now facing not just capes but demons with the experience of nineteen games.


    "So, who¡¯s eager to die first?" - I asked, scanning my opponents and shifting the shotgun from one target to another.

 Chapter 18.15 – Worm 2.0

    But things didn''t escalate into a brawl because Noelle approached the group from behind. The upper part of her body looked like a girl, while the lower part resembled a mutant slug with thousands of disgusting chitinous legs. Thanks to the replicators, I already knew what kind of creature she was and what problems she had.


    "What¡¯s going on here?" - Noelle asked in a surprisingly rational voice.


    "This is a Shub-Niggurath figure" - Trickster explained. - "He killed Coil, did something to the Prophet, and now he¡¯s demanding to be recognized as our boss."


    "Quick one, isn¡¯t he" - the demoness marveled.


    "Kneel before me!" - I exclaimed, taking a step forward. - "Or I¡¯ll devour you all."


    Imagining myself consuming the souls of these demons, I unconsciously waved my tentacles. While the ordinary demons didn¡¯t notice anything, Noelle trembled in terror.


    "Everyone, retreat. This is a Soul Devourer. We bow before you, oh great one, and acknowledge your power" - she was the first to bow.


    The rest of the team looked a bit bewildered at their leader, then followed her example and bowed.


    "This isn''t exactly ''kneeling,'' but it¡¯ll do" - I nodded graciously. - "My demands are very simple. Either you act according to my rules, or you get out of the city and do whatever you want."


    "We will stay here and await your orders" - Noelle bowed again.


    "Okay" - I nodded. - "I¡¯m taking Dinah Alcott with me. She¡¯s no longer part of the game anyway. And clean up this place" - I glanced at the mercenaries. They hadn''t yet realized they had only a few minutes left to live. - "Clear the way."


    The capes immediately decided to get out of the way, at the same time ordering the mercenaries not to interfere with me. I returned to my human form, took Dinah by the hand, and headed for the exit. Fifteen minutes later, we came into the mayor''s apartment, where he was able to reunite with his beloved niece, realizing what had happened to her and who she owed her rescue to.


    After that, I headed to the replicators'' lair, where I began studying how exactly demons possess human bodies. After all, an excellent test subject was waiting for me at the secret base in the form of Oni Lee. It turned out that possession had an interesting side effect. Although the demon''s soul directed the human''s actions, it was forced to use the existing astral shells, which imposed certain restrictions on consciousness. In other words, the demons acquired the personality traits of their ''host.''


    Having learned everything I wanted, I consumed the soul of the unlucky demon that had possessed Oni Lee, then went home, digesting the fragments of memories from the demon and the angel I had obtained. Taylor had moved out to join the Undersiders, so I could relax for a while and think about my next steps. I wasn''t worried about the city, as the replicators were supposed to wake me up in case of any important events.


    In the morning, I headed to the Undersiders'' base to re-accept their ''vassal oath.'' I wasn''t sure how they would behave, but in the worst-case scenario, I could always consume their souls and ''return'' the real Undersiders. Approaching the building, I transformed into a crocodile and entered the room where the Undersiders were currently hanging out.


    "And here''s the boss" - Regent greeted me with a sarcastic remark.


    I looked at the capes before me and confirmed that four of them were looking at the world differently now. Even their basic expressions and body language had changed. But Taylor was still the same, staring at the world with the frightened eyes of a victim.


    "Bee, go take a walk" - I decided to send my ward away. - "And take your pets with you. Don¡¯t even think about eavesdropping."


    "But¡­ but why?" - she protested, as she already considered herself part of the team, united with them by the idea of opposing me.


    "Because I said so. Go check what''s happening at the Dockworkers'' Association."


    The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    Bee pouted, gathered her things, and left. While she was still within the range of her ability to control insects, I played a silent game with the Undersiders. Grue, Regent, and Tattletale watched me grimly, while Bitch was busy with her dogs.


    "Let¡¯s introduce ourselves again" I started when I was sure no one was eavesdropping. "My name is Black Cloak. I am the ruler of this city, and everyone in it must obey me. Those who dare oppose me will meet the same fate as the demon that possessed Bee."


    "What happened to her?" - Regent asked.


    "I ate her" - I smirked.


    "Okay, you¡¯re the boss" - Regent waved his hand and turned his attention to the TV.


    I looked at Grue, and he lowered his gaze.


    "You''re our leader" - he said.


    "I¡¯m all yours" - Tattletale smiled seductively.


    "Bitch?" - I asked the most rebellious of my subordinates, who hadn''t even bothered to look at me during my fiery speech.


    "I don¡¯t obey anyone and do what I want" - she replied, looking at me defiantly.


    "Hmm, looks like we have a live example of what happens to traitors" - I moved towards her.


    "Are you threatening me?" - she snapped. - "Angelica, eat him!"


    The dog Bitch had just been petting behind the ear instantly turned into a giant bloodthirsty monster. And it wasn¡¯t an ordinary creation of Bitch, but a much more dangerous creature. This is probably what a hellhound might look like. The beast was beautiful and terrifying at the same time. There was no peeling flesh or inconvenient spikes typical of Bitch''s creations. This monster was a solid living creature whose sole purpose was hunting and killing.


    The creature lunged at me, but my reflexes, accelerated by the neural network, were just as good. I offered my left arm, and the tooth-filled jaws closed around it, but... the dog didn¡¯t have the strength to do more. My arm was covered in armor made from Ancient alloys. I didn¡¯t strike the monster or try to harm it; instead, I extended my spiritual tentacles and latched onto the demon¡¯s soul that Bitch had implanted in her dog. With a plaintive whimper, the creature lost consciousness, and I used that moment to rush towards Bitch.


    The demon had relied too much on her minion and failed to react in time. I reached her frail human body and tore out the demonic soul controlling it. Within seconds, it was over, and Bitch lost consciousness.


    "That¡¯s it. And note that Bitch is now out of the game, although she remains part of the Undersiders'' team" - I looked at the stunned demons. For them, the death of the body was just a minor inconvenience, but the death of the soul was the worst nightmare.


    "We bow before you, Black Cloak" - Regent was the first to react, kneeling. Grue and Tattletale followed his example after a brief hesitation.


    "Good, good. And Grue, I have a personal task for you."


    "I''m listening" - he bowed his head like a true knight eager to hear his lord''s command.


    "I saw the way Taylor looked at you. So, I order you to become her lover and sleep with her at every opportunity. Just no sadomasochism. Understood?"


    "Yes!" - my future son-in-law bowed even deeper.


    "Excellent. Then get ready and go on patrol. I haven¡¯t canceled your previous order. Your task is to patrol the Docks and maintain order. You can be tough on bums and thugs, but leave normal people alone. I need the population of this city to be intact and, if possible, unharmed."


    "Yes, boss! Everything will be done in the best possible way" - Regent reported, unexpectedly becoming the leader of the Undersiders. However, it didn¡¯t matter to me who was in charge among them. The main thing was that the work was done efficiently and on time.


    At that moment, Bitch began to stir on the floor. She struggled to open her eyes and looked around, trying to understand what was happening.


    "What the hell?" - she inquired politely.


    "You were under the Master¡¯s control" - I explained. - "But now everything is fine. And by the way, look at how your dog looks. It would be very good if you learned to do the same."


    Bitch stared at the hellhound, and the rest of the world faded away for her. She saw Perfection.


    "For now, it¡¯s better not to disturb her" - I assessed the cape¡¯s condition. - "Maybe something useful will come out of it. Well, everyone back to work!"


    Having dealt with the Undersiders, I went to check on the progress of the assembly line. The volume of product sales exceeded all my expectations, and it left our warehouses as soon as it came off the conveyor belt. In return, there was a constant flow of money, a portion of which was immediately paid out to the dockworkers as wages. Overall, this area of activity required little supervision.


    Only about a third of the received funds went to the dockworkers'' salaries, and I planned to direct the rest to finance other projects, including construction, landscaping, agricultural production, and so on. Spring had just begun, and we could still manage to ''move'' not only industry but also agriculture.


    Having sorted out my affairs, I turned my attention to the issue of opposing the heroes. Since the game had begun, it was worth considering how to rid myself of anyone who might try to hinder my efforts to save the city. The problem was complicated by the fact that the Protectorate heroes were quite strong. Additionally, public opinion was on their side, although I was actively working to discredit them. Furthermore, I didn''t know how the angels inhabiting them would affect their behavior. They might continue acting as before, or they might cause chaos.


    That evening, the Protectorate and the PRT had planned a charity event. It was a grand affair under the control of the city administration, intended to show that the strength of the heroes was still significant, and the "minor incident" with ABB and Bakuda was unworthy of attention.

 Chapter 18.16 – Worm 2.0

    In general, as always, the arrogant bourgeois were terribly out of touch with reality. I intended to visit this event and become the ''highlight of the program'', but the appearance of the game figures messed up all my plans. If before I considered my powers sufficient, now I began to doubt it. Bitch''s example showed that demons handle shard powers much better. And that scene with Noel''s team made me feel somewhat uneasy.


    The Angels decided not to cancel the evening event, so I also decided to attend, but not personally, but as a ''shadow clone''. My neurointerface allowed me to be present remotely anywhere, using a replicator body armored as a replacement. Unlike me, the loss of a replicator was completely insignificant. Moreover, it was equipped with paranoid security measures, and in case of capture threat, it would self-destruct immediately, leaving enemies with nothing.


    In the evening, I stood on the roof of the building next to the Forsberg Gallery, where today''s event was supposed to take place. Well, not me personally, but the replicator controlled by me. I, on the other hand, lay in an underground shelter in the docks. In addition to the replicator playing my role, there were many other replicators around, whose task was to provide support. They were needed in case something happened to the main bait. Then their task would be to destroy all traces and witnesses.


    Today''s ''show'' was primarily aimed at tarnishing the Protectorate''s reputation in the eyes of society. That''s why I decided to put on a performance rather than blow up the entire building with the heroes inside. Besides, I wanted to test how strong I was compared to the possessed capes. I was most concerned about the three ''speedsters'' capable of moving at great speed. Because, the replicator''s speed and strength were limited to the level I could achieve after the ''basic'' transformation, without increasing its size.


    Currently, in the hall where the event was held, there were six Protectorate heroes: Armsmaster, Miss Militia, Assalut, Battery, Velocity, and Triumph. Among them, Assalut, Battery, and Velocity could accelerate and deliver powerful physical blows. Triumph could manipulate sounds, but I hoped the suit on the replicator would dampen all vibrations. Miss Militia was an archer, so her stats were more or less clear. And Armsmaster was essentially a melee fighter, preferring to wield his halberd.


    In addition to the Protectorate heroes, there were underage Wards present in the hall: Clockblocker, Vista, and Gallant. Shadow Stalker had been long rotting in the Birdcage, and these three didn''t pose much of a threat to me. Maybe Clockblocker was conditionally dangerous, but it was enough just to stay away from him.


    The replicator portraying me currently matched the characteristics of a standard Changer and Brute. That is, it weighed a couple of hundred kilograms and was devilishly strong. As auxiliary weapons, it had a shotgun, one shot from which could punch through a tank.


    Initially, I planned to burst through the roof right after the mayor''s welcoming speech. But the listening devices I generously planted in the room intercepted a conversation between Armsmaster and the head of PRT Emily Piggot, from which it became clear that the Protectorate would officially announce today that they played the most important role in resolving the Bakuda crisis. So, I decided to wait for this announcement and then appear with the ''crushing'' truth.


    Because of this, my wait dragged on. Only twenty minutes later Armsmaster take the stage and start talking about how the Protectorate was tirelessly working for the good of the city, and that they were responsible for the city surviving these difficult times and confidently moving towards a bright future. At the same time, there were no specific descriptions of what exactly the Protectorate and PRT had done.


    As soon as Armsmaster finished his pompous speech, I sprang into action. The replicator simply jumped across the street and landed on the roof, immediately shattering the glass. The ''attack'' was so sudden that Armsmaster didn''t have time to react. After all, the glass shattered almost silently.


    "Now the floor is given to Black Cloak" ¨C My thunderous voice announces my arrival, while pressing Armsmaster ''s head to the ground with my foot.


    He tried to stand up and push me away, but I was faster, grabbing him by the arm and leg and throwing him to the side of the hall. Armsmaster managed to regroup and land on all fours, but no one saw it because all the attention of the audience was focused on the two-meter anthropomorphic crocodile.


    A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    "Please applaud" - the audience hesitated to clap for me, but the speakers installed in the hall delivered the sound of enthusiastic applause. After all, replicators had long ago hacked all the computers in the gallery. - "So, I officially declare that from today all administrative, legislative, and executive power transfers to me, the Black Cloak."


    This time, for variety, I actually wore a black cloak that heroically fluttered behind me, despite the complete absence of wind in the room.


    "Henceforth, my word is law, and punishment for any disobedience is death! Anyone who dares to attack me or hinder me will be destroyed with special cruelty. Unlike the useless Protectorate and PRT, my authority will be real, and good deeds tangible. I will revive this city and make its inhabitants happy and prosperous. I will eradicate crime in the truest sense of the word. Moreover, I have already destroyed the ABB and Merchants gangs. These criminal groups have been a real scourge on the city for many years, and neither the Protectorate nor the PRT could do anything about them. But I solved this problem in just two weeks. And rest assured, I will deal with the rest of the criminals just as easily."


    At this moment, the heroes recovered enough to try to organize resistance and ''knock'' me off the local Olympus. Velocity was the first to attack. His red suit was clearly visible, so when he tried to run towards me and spray a special restraining foam on me, I was able to react in time. I feared that after the angels'' possession, the local speedsters would move at Flash levels, but for me, they moved like flies in honey. My neural network allowed me to ''accelerate'' my consciousness, so the speed of my perception corresponded perfectly to the replicator''s movement speed.


    Velocity tried to circle around me while spraying foam from a special device, but I dodged the stream, jumped, and grabbed his arm. Since I was much stronger, Velocity couldn''t wriggle out of my grip. Assalut tried to attack me from behind, but I first directed a stream of foam at him, then kicked him in a ''pendulum'' trajectory to the other end of the hall, so he couldn''t return to me until he landed.


    Next, Battery rushed at me. Her movement was indeed fast... but not fast enough to catch me off guard. She flew at me, delivering a punch with her hand, but met with a blow to the stomach and flew vertically upwards, also unable to change the direction of her movement.


    While the other two speedsters were suspended, I returned to Velocity, who futilely tried to break free from my grasp or inflict any damage with ordinary blows. I don''t even know what he hoped to achieve by attacking me. I grabbed both of his arms, then broke them like twigs. The wet crunch of bones and the wild squeal of the cape informed those around me that the heroes were in serious trouble. But I didn''t stop there; I grabbed Velocity by the neck and literally tore his head off. Blood splattered, and the audience froze in shock and horror. But that wasn''t enough because next, I tore off the corpse''s arms and legs, then pulled out a large cleaver from my belt, slit him from throat to groin, and gutted him, scattering guts all over the stage.


    After tossing the corpse aside, I stared at the hall, looking into the horrified eyes of the civilians and heroes. Everything happened so quickly that Armsmaster and Miss Militia simply didn''t have time to react. From my side, my actions must have looked like an exploding bloody fountain.


    "As I said, anyone who dares to attack me or hinder me will be destroyed with special cruelty" - I continued my speech.


    I didn''t feel sorry for the dead angel because, in fact, this side of the conflict was supposed to destroy the entire Earth in the future. Regret it now, and you''ll get even more trouble in the future. I could have killed all the heroes right now, since they were all gathered in one place, but I wasn''t ready yet to fight the whole world. Not today. All I could do was hope for the prudence of the heroes and that they wouldn''t rush headlong into me.


    "I hope you now understand that these words were not empty bravado. I won''t play to the audience by clowning around in front of the cameras" - I said. Actually, that''s exactly what I was doing right now, but from the locals'' point of view, everything happening here was real. - "I will eradicate all manifestations of evil to restore law and order to this city as soon as possible. People may have doubts about my actions at first, but in a couple of weeks, you will understand that law-abiding citizens have nothing to fear. If you don''t rob passers-by at night, don''t use drugs, don''t steal, and don''t assist criminals, then you have nothing to fear."


    "You demon! All your words are lies!" - Unable to restrain himself, Armsmaster criticized.


    "And this is coming from the man who just announced on this stage that the Protectorate defeated the ABB and Bakuda today? Ha-ha! Your ''bright empire'' is built on lies and deceit. I prefer to tell people the harsh truth. And the truth is that I''m trying to save this city while you drag it down. Today''s performance is a warning to all of you. I won''t play your games of who can outmaneuver whom. For every lie of yours, I''ll knock some sense into you. And if something doesn''t suit you, you can get out of my city."


    "I will destroy you, foul spawn of Chaos!!!" - Armsmaster shouted, completely losing his composure, lunging at me with his halberd.

 Chapter 18.17 – Worm 2.0

    And here the shotgun came in handy. I instantly drew my weapon from behind my back, aimed "from the hip," and fired. The buckshot tore through the Armsmaster''s heart on exit, and he crashed to the floor without taking more than a couple of steps. An ordinary person would have died from such a shot, but his suit had life support systems that could save even the most heartless patients. The panacea must be in the city, so there is a real chance that the Gunsmith will survive.


    ¡°That''s it, see you later.¡± - I bid farewell to the audience.


    A rope fell on me from above. I grabbed onto it, and it immediately pulled me up. The evacuation of my "clone" was also carried out by replicators, which had constructed something like a quadcopter capable of carrying quite heavy loads.


    And fifteen minutes later, the edited video of the "charity banquet" was already available to the entire internet. The death of a hero at the hands of... well, let''s say, another hero, stirred up the internet. After all, Velocity was quite a well-known hero with a lot of fans. And now all these people were in mourning, cursing the "damn crocodile."


    But there were those who tried to defend me, citing my successes in eliminating gangs. However, half of these do-gooders were members of my "troll factory." Replicators with their computational resources had long since hacked "the entire internet," and now they were using their influence to shape the public opinion I needed. Live with wolves, howl like a wolf. It''s worth using this weapon against the authorities so that they understand what it''s like to be a victim of public opinion manipulation.


    I understood that such a presentation would not be without consequences, so I gave the replicators the command to move on to the next step of my plan.


    At night, when decent people were already preparing to go to sleep, replicators, playing the role of dockers in costumes, began to conduct a "cleanup" of the city. They broke into apartments and various dens, grabbing all the "guilty" and taking them away in an unknown direction. At the same time, I cut off cellular communication, the internet, and street lighting throughout the city.


    The arrests conducted were not random. Over the past few weeks, replicators had been observing all the events in the city, meticulously documenting all the crimes committed. And now it was time for reckoning. I did not take into account crimes committed before surveillance began, even if I had indirect evidence of their commission. In other words, my justice was absolutely one hundred percent fair.


    All the criminals were taken to the docks, where their lifeless bodies were disposed of, leaving no evidence of their existence. Today''s purge could be called the "Night of Long Knives." Now I was cleaning up the remnants of ABB, Merchants, and other disorganized rabble. The forces of Empire 88 avoided replicators. Since the operation was conducted at night and all communication was cut off, the news of what was happening in the city simply did not reach the Empire''s capes. Several people tried to reach them personally, but my forces intercepted and disposed of such "messengers."


    By morning, Brockton Bay woke up to discover that at least ten percent of the population had disappeared without a trace. The people immediately panicked. No one understood how it was possible to arrest and take away so many people, and most importantly, where to look for them now. The only thing known for certain was that behind all these events was the Black Cloak.


    Of course, the official authorities could not ignore this matter. If the spectacular murder of one cape could still be "put on the brakes" the murder of thousands of people could not. The entire police force was put on high alert. Before this, three hundred infantrymen had been stationed in the city to reinforce law enforcement services. But by noon, five thousand soldiers accompanied by heavy armored vehicles arrived in the city.


    The police tried to find out who was behind this attack, but they couldn''t find anything coherent. A whole crowd of local riot police stormed the Dockers'' Association territory, where they began searches and arrests. The police were looking for any clues, but they only discovered that people were doing honest work there, earning a living.


    I deliberately appeared at the Association as Danny Hebert, arguing vehemently that we had done nothing wrong and were just trying to survive. But despite the lack of any evidence, I and a bunch of people were still arrested and "dragged" to prison.


    By evening, the whole city was on edge, and people didn''t know what to fear more¡ªunknown people in black or the army and police. Heroes also flocked to the city like flies to dung, now patrolling the... streets in the center, not daring to venture into the Docks or Empire territory.


    You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.


    Kaiser and his army also switched to military alert and even had several shootouts with police forces. For them, such a turn of events was a complete shock. First, Coil died, then the Travelers team refused to intervene in any way in the conflict, and now the Black Cloak had practically cleared the entire city of all "criminal elements." It was quite obvious that the criminal elements belonging to Empire 88 felt extremely uncomfortable because of this. Many of them simply ran away, deciding that it was better to be alive somewhere uncertain than to die in their hometown.


    And at night, when darkness descended on the city again, the slaughter continued. At that time, I was sitting in prison with a couple of dockers, managing an army of replicators through the neural network, pretending to be humans. This time, the population purge was already quite superficial, because I had already destroyed most of the criminals. But now the targets were the military and police who had committed more crimes in one day than in the entire previous year.


    This time, my replicators did not try to dispose of absolutely all the bodies, but focused primarily on carrying out sentences. The "men in black" broke into houses, police stations, and military camps, destroying all those who dared to stand in their way with overwhelming firepower. Tank armor and concrete walls provided no better protection against bullets than cardboard, so there was no way to escape. And replicators, on the contrary, could boast of impenetrable armor. And even if the armor was pierced, it did not harm the replicators themselves.


    The capes had a special story. Empire 88, the Faultline team, and the Travelers sat in their lairs, bristling with weapons and abilities. No one bothered them, which suited them just fine. But various heroes who decided to establish their own "law and order" in the city unexpectedly faced circumstances that made them think twice. In other words, replicators simply shot all those who decided to "play hero."


    The local people were used to seeing capes against capes. But this time, snipers with inhuman accuracy and unearthly weapons came out against them. And it turned out that only about ten percent of the heroes could survive a bullet to the temple, while the rest were essentially just meat.


    The main weapon of the replicators was their knowledge. The city was filled with surveillance equipment, so the "collective mind" of my robots knew perfectly well what was happening where. Therefore, replicators appeared where no one expected them and fled from where the capes were, which they could not destroy. Thanks to their ability to change shape, replicators could hide in the sewer system or climb onto the roof of a building, pretend to be an ordinary frightened citizen, or blend in completely with the surrounding landscape.


    Due to the darkness and lack of lighting, it was extremely difficult to understand the reason for the "elusiveness" of my minions. And those who had a chance to guess something were immediately distracted by a bullet to the temple. Even the most invulnerable heroes tried to get away from such a gift as far as possible.


    Closer to dawn, my comrades and I were freed by replicators who cleared the prison of guards, as well as criminal elements who had foolishly hidden there, naively thinking that no one would reach them in prison.


    At dawn, the entire army of the Black Cloak disappeared, dissolving with the night darkness. Ordinary citizens, who had not slept at night due to constant gunfire and cries of agony around, gradually began to emerge from their apartments and were surprised to discover that none of their neighbors had been harmed. And by noon, it turned out that even acquaintances of acquaintances remained alive, and acquaintances of acquaintances of acquaintances. In general, normal people who were not involved in any lawlessness did not suffer at all. After this, people began to hope that perhaps law and justice would indeed prevail in Brockton Bay.


    But the angels, also known as heroes, suddenly found that their attempt to take the city by storm had cost them dearly. Fifty-three heroes died in one night. Moreover, a dozen of them were peacefully sleeping in their beds at that moment, and they were shot right through the wall of the house. Such losses were comparable to those from the onslaught of the Endbringer. At the same time, the angels did not manage to kill a single cape.


    Usually, if some villain caused chaos, heroes would rally, gather in a crowd, introduce an army into the city, and trample the enemy with all their might. But this time such a strategy "did not work." Heroes were almost completely cut down, only about a third of the army remained overnight, and the remaining third had no desire to search for the guilty, but only dreamed of staying alive and avoiding a tribunal for disobedience to orders.


    At this time, my propaganda was broadcast on all channels¡ªtelevision, radio, and the internet¡ªshowing how I dealt with the villains attacking the city. As evidence, I presented video recordings of interrogations and torture sessions where people were pressured to reveal information about the Black Cloak or confess to collaborating with him.


    In general, the heroes took a pause to consider their next actions, while I decided that now was the most appropriate time to visit Kaiser and the members of Empire 88. They were supposed to be on my side now, and criminal activities shouldn''t make sense for demons. They needed to think about how to win the game rather than how to earn dollars for another copy of Earth. However, I decided not to personally go to the enemy''s lair and sent another replicator who convincingly portrayed me instead.

 Chapter 18.18 – Worm 2.0

    Kaiser welcomed me in a large sports hall, surrounded by his subordinates. All his "comrades" were there, plus the Faultline Crew. Strangely, the mercenaries had rushed to Kaiser first in the morning, not to me, despite my clear demonstration of strength on my side.


    "Welcome, ''Kaiser''" I emphasized his name, hinting that he wasn''t human before me. Personally, facing such a crowd of capes would have made me uneasy, but as a "replicator projection" I remained calm and unruffled.


    "Black Cloak!!!" - the demon roared, spitting saliva from behind his armor''s visor. - "Who are you?!!" - Quite expressive.


    "I am an envoy of Shub-Niggurath and his authorized representative" - I slightly embellished my authority. - "He sent me here to help you, cripples, not lose twenty games in a row, but at least win once."


    "I don''t care about the game! What did you do to the demoness who ended up in Taylor Hebert''s body?"


    "I ate her. Consumed her soul, leaving not a scrap behind."


    "How dare you!!! She was my eternal wife. She was chosen! Unforgivable!!! I will destroy you, I will rip out your soul and give it to Nuhskransurah! I..."


    "And I will devour your soul if you don''t kneel before me" - I interrupted his outburst with a roar at a hundred decibels. - "I don''t care about you, your bitch, or this Nuhskransurah. I am fulfilling Shub-Niggurath¡¯s mission, and anyone who stands in my way will be destroyed. And all of you, know this: Kaiser won''t save you. I am your only hope. Submit to me and you will live. Oppose me, and you will disappear forever!"


    "Hah, you can''t intimidate me or my slaves" - The leader of Empire suddenly calmed down. - "We''ve crossed thousands of worlds together, and they know my wrath is far more fearsome than the empty threats of some incomprehensible newcomer. Did you come here to call me to submission? Then witness the power of my wrath!"


    With these words from Kaiser, a wave of force spread across the floor, covering it with a metallic film from which steel spikes grew. This attack quickly reached me and pierced through the replicator''s body. I deliberately did not evade, demonstrating my superiority.


    "And is that all you can do?" - my voice echoed from the nearly dismembered body. - "Now, it''s time to die."


    My "clone" extended a hand, clutching an automatic rifle. A burst of armor-piercing explosive rounds erupted from it, mowing down all the steel spikes in front of me from right to left. Most importantly, the bullets reached the capes, tearing their bodies apart. To my surprise, most demons survived.


    Now before me stood twenty capes. Each had taken a bullet, but only five had any effect. Newter and Gregor the Snail from the Faultline Crew were the first casualties. Their abilities offered no protection against physical attacks, so a bullet to the forehead scrambled their brains. However, further attacks yielded no results after this success, as all the heroes before me became invulnerable. Bullets simply flattened against them, causing no harm.


    Most likely, this was Othala''s ability. While she could grant superpowers to others, she couldn''t gain them herself, so a bullet to her throat completely decapitated her. Cricket attempted to shield Otala, but the replicator was faster. My weapon could fire at a rate of fifty rounds per second, leaving her no time to react.


    The next two victims stood at the opposite end of the crowd before me: Crusader and Alabaster. Apparently, Otala hadn''t had time to "enhance" them before her demise. Alabaster immediately "reformed" from a "pile of minced meat," utilizing his superpower. However, Crusader had no such abilities to boast of, so he died definitively and irreversibly.


    That concluded my successes, as the villains attacked the poor replicator with everything they had. I hadn''t expected it to survive this onslaught, so I simply ordered it to self-destruct. Afterward, all the "mini-MNT blocks" in the replicators detonated, literally vaporizing my puppet in microseconds. This molten plasma struck in all directions, vaporizing matter on contact and roasting it from a distance with infrared radiation.


    This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work.


    Unfortunately, this attack achieved little effect once again. Spitfire from the Faultline Crew managed to control the surrounding fire, minimizing damage. However, one cape did not survive this assault. Foolish Fog decided to assume his gaseous form, so the infrared radiation literally incinerated most of the cells in his body. What managed to regroup bore no resemblance to a human.


    Thus, fifteen capes with various abilities now faced me. Well, if that''s what they want, then I''ll destroy them. Moreover, those who had just died were lucky because the demons continued to exist without bodies. However, I intended to personally finish off the rest as much as possible, consuming their souls along the way. Such a finale should serve as an excellent demonstration of my power.


    I began observing the demons, devising ways to kill them all. Kaiser didn''t believe they had managed to destroy me, so he decided to lure me into a "fair fight." To coax me out of hiding, as he put it, the Empire''s leader ordered an attack on the city, killing everyone indiscriminately. He correctly guessed that the city meant a lot to me, so he decided to strike there.


    If fifteen heroes had gone together, it would have been difficult for me to deal with them. However, they were so overconfident that they split into three groups and went in different directions. The first group included Kaiser himself, his unwavering lovers Fenja and Menja, his official wife Purity, and somehow, Stormtiger also ended up in this group. Possibly for the same reason. The second group consisted of Rune, Night, Hookwolf, Alabaster, and Crickeet. The last team included Victor, Krieg, Faultline, Spitfire, and Labyrinth.


    I monitored the movements of these teams using replicators. The villains showed no restraint, indeed "slaughtering" everyone in sight, destroying ordinary city dwellers. Given that they were in the most "secure" part of the city, such lawlessness struck the nerves of the civilians most severely. In the Docks, people were long accustomed to cape showdowns, but such incidents were very rare in the elite districts.


    I arrived at the scene, but I didn''t rush, giving the opponents the chance to scatter further. I chose the Faultline Crew as my first target because it only had four capes capable of harming me. Besides her "invulnerability," Alabaster had no additional powers. However, two of this team were werewolves, so dealing with them was likely to be challenging. But sooner or later, I would have to confront the angels myself, so gaining experience now was worthwhile. And I needed to test how much I had managed to "power up" Lung''s shard. Ah, where is my Chaos-infused shard? I could wipe out this whole crowd without leaving my couch.


    After calculating the movement route of the Faultline Crew, I concluded that I could ambush their team. At this point, the street they were walking on ended at a highway running alongside the park. So, the chosen location was hidden from the enemy by houses. I jumped out of the car, led by a replicator, ran to a wide manhole cover on the roadway, and lifted it, placing it in the car. After that, my transport drove away, I jumped into the sewer, and another replicator pretended to be the manhole cover. I sat under this cover, trying not to breathe, because Cicada seemed capable of amplifying sounds. I had long ago read dossiers on all the capes, downloading information from the internet and the secret PRT database.


    Five minutes later, the demon group reached the trap during an unhurried "walk." I calculated that in this way I could get Rune, who until then had walked in the middle of the street, but the first one to enter the "range of my aggression" was Cricket. She simply walked over the manhole, and I couldn''t miss this opportunity.


    When the Cricket''s foot stepped on the manhole, my hand reached through the ''steel'' cover and grabbed it. By then, I was already in my ''crocodile'' form, so I had strength to spare. Once my ''paw'' closed around her delicate limb, escape from me became impossible. With a sharp tug, I unexpectedly pulled the agile prey into the well, where I seized her tighter. To my surprise, I couldn''t simply devour the demon''s soul like that. She had some barrier tied to her bodily integrity. So, at first, I had to ''tear apart'' Cicada a bit and singe her, only then did the defense weaken, giving me access to the ''tasty filling''. Though, honestly, all these souls taste like cardboard.


    Cricket barely had time to scream before her life path was cut short. I was about to climb out of the well and deal with the remaining four when my plans were abruptly interrupted by a huge boulder crashing into the road right on top of the manhole. As a result, I was buried quite well under soil and concrete. Rune didn''t stop there and began systematically pounding the ground with her stone ''club'', apparently aiming to flatten me. How naive.


    I heightened the manifestation of my shard''s power, growing to three meters tall. In this state, I was nearly invulnerable to physical damage, plus my strength reached a new level. Shooting out of the ground like a blazing projectile, I dodged another heavy but slow stone and headed towards Night. Previously, she had a limitation that prevented her from assuming her ''combat form'' if someone was looking at her. But now that limitation was overcome, and a wild jumble of something black, shiny, and multi-limbed rushed towards me.


    We collided and began tearing each other apart, though without much success. My scales were tougher than steel, and Night''s body, jelly-like in form, resisted my attempts to tear it apart, resulting only in minor splashes of her flesh. My fire burned Night''s body, but sluggishly. It didn''t seem like I would quickly kill her, so it was worth finding someone softer to handle.

 Chapter 18.19 – Worm 2.0

    I threw Night to the side and upwards to deprive her of the ability to maneuver and rushed towards Rune, who was currently flying on a chunk of concrete about five meters above the road. But then Hookwolf, already transformed into a wild mix of flesh, steel needles, and hooks, stepped in my way. He even somewhat resembled Night, likely because there was nothing human or even animal-like about his appearance.


    We clashed into a single mass and rolled along the road. However, we were rolling towards Rune, which suited me just fine. Hookwolf was tougher than Night, but just as unkillable. With each movement, I tore off chunks of flesh filled with steel inclusions from him, but it didn¡¯t seem to bother him at all.


    Timing it right, I again increased in size, threw aside the relatively small opponent, and jumped towards Rune. She was flying at a height of five meters, but my height was now four meters. So, she had no chance to dodge. She tried to hit me with two stones torn from her ''transport,'' but I swept them away with a wave of my hand. Next, she attempted to shield herself from me with a whole stream of gravel, but at that moment, one of the replicators, entrenched in the nearby buildings, fired a rifle, hitting Rune in the liver. Or it would be more accurate to say ''shooting off,'' because a half-meter diameter hole appeared in her body after the hit.


    This was too much for the demon to bear; all the levitating objects began to fall, and I took advantage of this weakness to grab Rune''s body with my hand. And then... then my instincts took over, and while my spiritual tentacles devoured her soul, my maw began to tear her body apart and swallow the ''tender female flesh.''


    ''She actually tastes pretty good'' - the thought flashed through my mind. Only judging by the neural network''s readings, this thought didn''t belong to me, but to the shard.


    Spitting out the charred remains, I turned towards the three remaining opponents, two of whom were rushing towards me at full speed. What kind of taste can a human body have when all the meat that gets into my mouth immediately chars and burns? However, such a ''sacrifice'' had a positive effect on the shard, and it noticeably strengthened, increasing the durability of my body and strength.


    I grabbed the approaching Night with both hands and bit into her with my maw, simultaneously trying to reach her soul. Surprisingly, this had some effect. I didn¡¯t reach the soul, but the cape abruptly jumped back, wrenching itself out of my grasp. Perhaps it was something psychological. It¡¯s hard to stay calm when someone wants to eat you. Besides, the maw was not a vulnerable spot for me at all. On the contrary, it was ''armed'' with four rows of teeth in each jaw and the hottest flame I could create.


    Hookwolf also retreated, and a second later I felt the space nearby distort, and through a portal-like structure came five more capes. This was Faultline¡¯s group, and such an extravagant way of moving was Labyrinth''s work. A second later, the replicators transmitted to me the image of Stormtiger, carrying his entire team through the air, himself included.


    ¡°They¡¯ve arrived.¡± - I grinned, looking at the thirteen villains standing before me. ¨C ¡°Well, at least I won¡¯t have to chase you all down.¡±


    Wasting no more time, I rushed forward. Kaiser was clearly about to say something, but I wasn¡¯t in the mood to listen to his hysterical screams. I decided to take out Labyrinth first, as her ability to manipulate space and create ''pocket realities'' was too unpredictable.


    Stone walls began to grow around me immediately, Night and Hookwolf rushed to intercept, Kaiser tried to pierce me with his spikes, and Spitfire naively tried to burn me. The most success was achieved by Purity, whose blinding beams I felt as a light tickle. Fenja and Menja were still growing, preparing to join the battle, Stormtiger, Alabaster, and Victor stepped back, looking for an opportunity to attack, and Krieg and Faultline stood directly in front of me, ready to deflect any blow.


    The walls of the labyrinth began to distort reality around, trying to confuse and stop me, but at that moment, the replicators intervened again. Labyrinth¡¯s power affected the consciousness of those around. In other words, it worked only on those who had consciousness. And since the replicators didn¡¯t have it, for them, all these walls simply didn¡¯t exist. So, another rifle shot to the liver ended up hitting the target.


    You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.


    All illusions immediately disappeared. Where my progress had previously been blocked by a wall, there was now a ''gap'' in the enemy¡¯s formation, which I rushed into. Skirting around Krieg and Faultline, I casually grabbed Spitfire, who got in my way, and with one leap, I found myself next to the dying Labyrinth. Kaiser roared and tried to shield her with a set of steel spikes, but a light swipe of my hand shattered them like glass. Grabbing the dying cape, I immediately threw her into my maw and began chewing, simultaneously absorbing her soul.


    In my left hand, I held Spitfire, desperately dousing me with fire and screeching like a jet engine, while with my right hand, I had to fend off attacks from Hookwolf and Night, keeping an eye on Faultline to make sure she didn¡¯t get too close. Her ability was to destroy any matter, and I was one hundred percent sure she could overcome the Manton Effect and punch holes in me with a single touch.


    Spitting out the lifeless remnants of Labyrinth, I tossed the crazed-with-fear Spitfire into my maw. Unexpectedly, I felt a response from my shard. While my soul was devouring the demon''s soul, and my body was consuming the capes''s body, my shard decided to consume its kin. I watched this process closely, automatically fending off the attackers. Finally, the snack was over, and I realized that my fire manipulation ability had strengthened.


    Previously, fire manipulation had been no more than a ''visual effect'' for me, as the shard''s main power was the ability to turn into an invulnerable monster. Now, however, my ability to control flames had reached another level. I immediately focused all my will on mastering this new aspect, putting into the shard¡¯s consciousness all my ideas about what fire is and how to use it properly.


    For the next couple of dozen seconds, I spun like a top, dodging the attacks of the capes swarming around me. Fenja and Menja, Hookwolf, and Night were fighting me in close combat, Kaiser, Purity, Stormtiger, and Krieg were firing from a distance, Faultline tried to strike at least once, but I constantly evaded her or drove her away with thrown stones. Victor and Alabaster nervously smoked on the sidelines, trying to figure out how they could help the others.


    From the outside, it might have seemed that this whole crowd had cornered me and was now beating me like a trapped beast. Scales were falling off me in clumps from the constant blows, and armored plates were flying apart in pieces. But in reality, it was all a fa?ade. My real armor was hidden under a thick layer of skin, and the capes had never even managed to reach it, as the skin was also extremely durable. The only relatively vulnerable parts of my body were my eyes, but I could perfectly see without them, so I didn¡¯t even try to protect them.


    Finally, when my adaptation to Salamander¡¯s powers was complete, I exploded with fire. A wave of unbearable heat threw back the attackers. Fenja and Menja began rolling on the ground as the burnt skin on their faces peeled away, revealing charred bones. There was no question of preserving their eyes, so these two could be considered out of the fight.


    I directed a stream of blazing fire at Purity, who was causing me the most problems. Although she could supposedly shoot ''beams of light,'' she couldn¡¯t withstand real fire heated to tens of thousands of degrees. Purity tried to dodge, but my reaction speed was on par with hers, and I could direct the fire in a wide cone, making it nearly impossible to avoid. As Purity''s charred body began to fall from the sky, I tried to grab it, but Kaiser was faster. He surrounded the still-living cape with his steel blades, desperately resisting my advance.


    I decided to make Faultline my next target. But first, I needed to assess just how destructive her power was. She could turn the stones I threw at her into sand. I pretended to be trying to break through to Purity through the steel forest, and at that moment, Tricky ''cunningly'' came up from behind and... hit my tail. I mean, she could only touch my tail, which she did. One touch pierced all layers of my defense, turning a chunk of my body into mush. But most importantly, this power prevented regeneration, continuing to act for a while.


    Having learned everything I wanted, I turned my maw 180 degrees and exhaled a stream of fire directly at Tricky. Kaiser again tried to save his subordinate by raising a metal wall, but this time I didn¡¯t hold back, and the wall melted like chocolate in the sun. The stream of fire reached its target and burned both of Faultline''s legs. She fell face-first onto the sharp steel spikes Kaiser didn¡¯t have time to remove. I completely turned around, jumped, and landed next to my chosen victim.


    A light movement of my claw broke Faultline''s neck, completely paralyzing her. Then I plunged all five claws into her body, simultaneously devouring her soul. My shard showed no desire to absorb Faultline''s power, so I had to settle for just the demon''s soul. However, in her last moment of life, she managed to ''bite'' me by using her power to destroy my right hand. It wasn''t fatal, but it was quite unpleasant.


    After finishing my meal, I stood up to my full six-meter height, looking down at the people in front of me like they were tiny bugs. Maniacal laughter burst from my chest on its own, and the demons wavered. They had given their all, done everything they could, but I was still standing before them, full of strength. The wounds on my body were healing right before their eyes, and it was now evident that all their attacks had failed to harm me.

 Chapter 18.20 – Worm 2.0

    The only one who didn''t retreat and only grew angrier was Hookwolf. He had already grown into a chaotic mass of raging flesh, standing three meters tall, so he was almost up to my waist. I didn''t want to disappoint my opponent and rushed to meet him. As soon as we collided, the werewolf''s flesh caught fire, and the metal on started melting. Without holding back, I plunged my entire left claw into Hookwolf''s body, burning through it with almost no resistance. My fingers then closed around his brain, encased in a bone shell.


    Burning this critical organ disrupted Hookwolf''s regenerative ability, and he began to die. I immediately started devouring his tough body, absorbing his soul, and coaxing my shard to consume his power. This time, my ''passenger'' ate without much enthusiasm. But the ability I gained from him pleased me: I could now grow steel cables from my body, ending in harpoons. Moreover, I could not only grow them but literally shoot them, controlling their flight.


    Tearing Hookwolf''s remains in half, I decided to end this farce. Dozens of steel cables burst from my back, immediately piercing the bodies of the most vulnerable opponents. Purity, Victor, Krieg, Stormtiger, Fenja, and Menja -- all of them received a couple of ''gifts'' through which I began to drain their souls.


    Kaiser roared, groaned, and growled at that moment, but he couldn''t do anything. I couldn''t reach him and Night yet because the harpoons just slid off them. Finally, the ''meal'' was over, and I decided to deal with the remaining trio without haste.


    Out of Kaiser, Alabaster, and Night, I chose the latter because she had the potential to simply escape. But as long as Kaiser was alive, she was unlikely to do so. The next time the last werewolf of the Empire tried to attack me, I shot a dozen harpoons from my stomach, each surrounded by a fiery aura. As a result, they all pierced Night''s body through. She had no way to escape, and I began slowly extracting her soul from her body. The demon resisted desperately, but it was futile, and within a minute, I managed to overpower its defense and literally rip Night''s soul out of her body. She turned back into a human, and I burned her to ashes.


    "And now it''s your turn" - I said, addressing to Kaiser.


    All this time, he tried to pierce me with steel blades, but such attacks had no effect. After absorbing Salamander, all these steel spikes simply melted upon contact with my body. By the time I finished absorbing the souls of the capes, I had fully regenerated, and even the wounds inflicted by Faultline had healed without a trace.


    "Die! Die! Die!!!" - roared Kaiser, charging at me.


    I didn''t disappoint him and rushed forward. My hand closed on the demon''s chest, melting his steel armor and burning his flesh. As his bones burned, I managed to tear his soul from his body, reducing him to ash. Now the demon was reunited with his ''slaves,'' becoming part of me.


    "Where are you going?" - I shouted after Alabaster, the last of the Empire''s capes. He was running away as fast as he could, naively thinking he could escape me.


    Today, Alabaster had been hit several times with blows that should have left severe wounds. But each time, he miraculously ''regenerated,'' returning to his original state. Such an ability wouldn''t hurt me, so I left him ''for dessert.''


    A shot from the sniper replicator severed Alabaster''s leg, and he fell to the ground, sliding about a meter on his belly. A moment later, his body healed, and he jumped up, only to have his other leg shot off. I walked leisurely toward my victim, repeatedly dismembering him, preventing him from moving.


    "No! Stop! I beg you!!!" - Alabaster turned to me. - "I will swear eternal loyalty to you."


    "Not interested" - I dismissed his offer. - "I wonder, if you keep regenerating in my stomach, will I feel full?"


    Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.


    "No-o-o-o!!!"


    With these words, I began to devour Alabaster, forcing my shard to consume its kin again. This time, the ''meal'' went easier, and I acquired the same ability Alabaster had¡ªto restore my body to the state it was in four seconds ago. For him, this ability was essentially useless due to its one hundred percent ''defensive'' nature. But for me, it would bring me closer to being ''absolutely invulnerable,'' given that I already had enough offensive capabilities.


    Looking around, I returned to my human form and walked down the street to find a place where a car could arrive. We had thoroughly wrecked the surrounding landscape, turning several nearby houses into piles of construction debris.


    Just as I was about to climb into my favorite minivan, my soul was once again torn from my body, and the Judge of this game appeared before me.


    "What is going on?" - He stared at me worriedly. - "Your shard is too powerful again. Are you cheating? Your impact on the world is too significant. Shards have their limits and shouldn''t exceed them. Here, take Kaiser''s power. And beware! If you cheat, I''ll strip you of all your powers."


    "What did I do wrong?" - I protested at this arbitrariness.


    "You dared to have a chance at victory" - Judge smirked.


    With that, I found myself back in my body, but my shard was different again. Damn it! Now I was furious! Examining myself, I couldn''t figure out what was wrong for a while, and then I realized that although I had lost the werewolf''s power, my body still remained muscular rather than returning to the emaciated state that Danny Hebert could boast of. That was something, at least.


    I climbed into the car and spent the entire trip to the replicator''s underground base studying my shard''s abilities. I also tried to figure out what I had done wrong for the Judge to reprimand me. It turned out that shards had limitations preventing them from ''growing in depth,'' meaning they couldn''t become stronger beyond a certain limit. Nevertheless, they could grow stronger by consuming each other and ''growing in width.''


    I was developing my shards, bending them to my will. But closer observation of this process showed that it wasn''t just willpower control, but also the influence of my psionics, which had managed to break through the suppressive seal. As a result, I wasn''t just using the shard''s abilities; I was making it stronger by changing its inner essence. Apparently, the Judge noticed the results of my influence but couldn''t see the cause because my psionics were hidden by Shub-Niggurath himself. So now I had to learn to control the shard, displaying all the powers embedded in it without adding new ones.


    Upon reaching the base, I temporarily lay low, training my shard. My battle with the Empire hadn''t gone unnoticed, and someone had even managed to film part of it on a phone. A couple of hours later, I uploaded a high-quality video shot by the replicators to the internet. It showed how I had virtually stomped fifteen opponents at once without even breaking a sweat.


    This level of power cooled the heads of those who called for the world to band together and overwhelm me with sheer numbers. Essentially, I was now given the same power ranking as a Endbringer. That would have been nice if I actually possessed that level. But after the shard swap, I was quite vulnerable, so I used the ensuing lull for intense training.


    While I was in seclusion, the affairs of my ''empire of good'' progressed. The Dockworkers gathered equipment and sold it, raking in money hand over fist. The Undersiders patrolled the city, more creating a sense of a powerful presence than actually helping. Ordinary people and weak capes could be handled by the replicators, while strong capes of both orientations didn''t dare enter my city.


    Another new project was real estate development. The replicators created construction equipment that leveled a decent section of the Docks and then began building new houses there using advanced Ancients technologies. I intended to first settle the families of the Dockworkers and those people who worked for the city''s benefit in these houses.


    Finally, about two weeks later, I could say that I had mastered my shard without making it excessively powerful. I possessed Kaiser''s abilities, but with a little thought, I achieved far better results. The essence of my ''superpower'' lay in two things¡ªcreating metal and dematerializing it. I couldn''t control the movement of metal directly. Because of this, both the original Kaiser and the demon in his body were limited to creating various spikes and blades. But what else could you expect from dumb Nazi drug dealers? Thugs are thugs, even in Africa.


    To begin with, I mastered to create not just spikes but steel cables, woven from many thin strands. I could make this construction flexible, like a regular steel cable, or rigid, fixing its current shape. This was achieved by using two types of metal. To create metal, I needed to contact a piece of real metal. I solved this problem by making myself a steel bracelet. So, I could create a cable from spring steel, making it flexible, and then instantly replace the material with high-carbon steel, making the construction rigid.

 Chapter 18.21 – Worm 2.0

    But that was just the first step. The second step was teaching the shard to ''expand'' and ''contract'' the created metal, adding or removing parts from the desired side of the cable. As a result, the steel cable twisted, making the necessary movements. After that, with minimal effort, I learned to create golems of arbitrary size, which had a steel skeleton and were moved by the same ''cable'' muscles.


    As a result, I developed the ability to create an army of golems, connected to my ''main body'' by cables. The cables didn''t get tangled, and if one was cut, control would pass to another, or the cable would extend to reconnect with the ''orphaned'' golem elsewhere.


    Controlling such an army would be too complex for an ordinary person, but I had a neural network, plus a whole horde of replicators whose combined computing power was simply unimaginable. Essentially, I was now only limited by the amount of metal my shard could create. Currently, it was enough for barely a couple of dozen golems, but I planned to solve this problem by devouring other shards. If done outside of combat and in a calm environment, I could gain maximum benefit, collecting a set of necessary abilities.


    I decided to make Oni Lee, who had long been rotting in my dungeons, the first victim. Slowly and thoughtfully absorbing his shard, I gained an entirely unexpected enhancement. The ability to teleport to a place I''d seen with my own eyes was expected. But the fact that the ''clones'' I left behind could exist for hours, not seconds, was a pleasant surprise. Moreover, I could fully control the actions of these clones, and each had my metal-creating power. In other words, I gained an infinite number of ''shadow clones,'' each capable of creating its own metal clones.


    Thinking about it a bit more, I realized how else I could strengthen myself. For training, I used ordinary steel provided by the replicators. But they could also create Ancients alloys. The armor for the suits was an example, but even it wasn''t the strongest material available to me. The matter was in special chemical elements that were not found on Earth. The Ancients simply synthesized them in special nuclear reactors. I could do that too. Though the cost of such metal would skyrocket. But I needed only a little¡ªfor one bracelet.


    Thus, I managed to get a ''benchmark'' metal, which was absolutely indestructible. It wasn''t the hardest alloy of the Ancients, but it was the most resistant to plastic deformation and cracking. Under the heaviest load, it would spring back but then restore its shape. Golems made from it were swift, strong, and capable of tearing apart anything.


    Finally, mastering my abilities, I donned an advanced suit of my own design and went to see how things were in my ''kingdom.'' And things were going well, to say the least. Most of the workers from my enterprise had moved into new buildings, living surrounded by the very household appliances we assembled.


    The crime rate in the city had dropped to absolute zero and even went into a deep negative. People began to help the city voluntarily, just because they wanted to do something useful. The overall standard of living was also rising, as money for the equipment was pouring in, and people couldn''t even figure out what else to spend it on. Since we almost didn''t buy anything from the ''outside world,'' money was accumulating among the ordinary people.


    It ''suddenly'' turned out that working at my enterprises was much better paid because most of the profits went to salaries rather than into the pockets of overfed fat cats. Following public demand, the Docker Association began creating branches engaged in non-core activities like the restaurant business, sewing clothes, organizing kindergartens, and so on. In general, within just a couple of weeks, the city experienced complete ''saturation,'' where every resident could buy everything they ever dreamed of, and even things they never dreamed of. Normally, this would mean that equipment manufacturers wouldn''t be able to sell their products anymore and would lay off all employees, but in our case, we switched to producing other types of products, plus reduced the working day while raising wages.


    In general, from the perspective of the world economy, something inexplicable was happening in Brockton Bay, causing people to get rich right before our eyes. This couldn''t help but attract various fraudsters and traveling criminals, but after the first scam, these individuals met ''men in black,'' who took them away for recycling.


    Seeing that things were going better than ever, I remembered a couple of villains I had promised to pay a million dollars in compensation. Now I intended to visit them and find out what they were up to since there had been no news about Uber and Leet recently.


    Arriving at the same secret hideout in the basement, I found the two villains working on a suspicious device with a large red button. But what bothered me most was the energy emanating from these two idiots. The fact was, they were not possessed by demons, but by angels. Don''t tell me these two are heroes.


    Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    I ran to the basement entrance and pressed the doorbell. This time they heard me, but Leet didn''t bother to distract himself from his work and used the gadget he wore on his head to communicate with me.


    "Who is it?" - came the voice from the speakers next to the door. At the same time, I directly observed Leet''s movements through my spatial awareness.


    "Black Cloak" - I introduced myself. - "I''ve brought you the million dollars as promised."


    "Keep it yourself" - Leet waved it off. - "I''m too busy, to distract myself with such trivial matters."


    "And what are you busy with?" - I inquired. I didn''t have much hope of getting an answer, but Leet unexpectedly displayed his ''best'' qualities, starting to talk about his plans.


    "We''re preparing for a new show."


    "Oh, that must be interesting" - I began to stoke his sense of self-importance and desire to boast. - "And what will it be?"


    "It will be the greatest event in the universe, from which it all began."


    "The Big Bang" - I guessed on the first try.


    "Exactly!!! In the name of our Lord, we will blow up this planet, thus resolving the eternal dispute between Good and Evil."


    Okay, it seems I wasn''t wrong to rush here to give these morons money. It was a manifestation of my intuition.


    "And when is the party expected to start?" - I clarified.


    Uber tried to silence his overly talkative partner but failed.


    "Soon. Very soon!" - Leet enthused, pushing his partner away.


    I immediately tried to break down the door to storm the basement and finish off these newly minted ''saviors of the world,'' but it turned out that the room was surrounded by some kind of force field that my metal couldn''t penetrate. And I was wary of venturing in personally. And, of course, there wasn''t a single bum around to test the effects of this field.


    "Don''t even try" - Leet laughed at my attempts. - "Nothing alive can pass through this barrier. And shard powers can''t overcome it either."


    Nothing alive? How about non-living?


    I ordered the replicators to try to ''sneak'' into the room through the ventilation. However, as soon as they passed through the force field, they immediately decomposed into basic chemical elements. The same thing happened to the rat I tried to ''push through'' against its will. It seems this field is a manifestation of Uber''s powers. Only a shard could give him such an illogical ability.


    Well, if simple methods don''t work, let''s use even simpler ones. Since this field breaks materials down into basic chemical elements, that''s what I needed to use. With the development of industry in the city, the replicators had started dealing with the chemical industry and creating various plastics. For these purposes, just today, a train arrived in the city with three tank cars of hydrofluoric acid. I ordered the replicators to deliver these tanks immediately and pour their contents into the basement. According to my calculations, this should be enough to fill the room to the brim.


    Poisoning these two ''do-gooders'' might have been an option, but I wasn''t sure I could achieve the desired result right away. And knowing that I was determined to destroy them at any cost, these two might do something unpleasant. No, I prefer surprises I arrange myself.


    Within just five minutes, three replicator helicopters delivered the tanks of acid to the site, and it began pouring into the basement in a wide stream.


    "Hey! What are you doing? We didn''t agree to this!" - Leet panicked.


    Uber immediately understood what contact with the acid would mean and donned a gas mask, climbing onto the highest shelf. Leet, however, was equipped with some ''holographic gas mask'' of unknown origin, protecting him from hydrofluoric acid vapors. But there was nothing to save his legs from the rapidly rising acid.


    "No! I can do it! I will prevail! I will succeed!!!" - Leet screamed, quickly assembling the bomb he was working on. - "Maybe it won''t be enough to blow up the entire Earth, but I will definitely blow up the city!"


    Okay, I needed to do something. And then I remembered that while Leet''s body was currently controlled by an angel, the soul of the original cape was still in the body and could resist. Possession never completely suppressed the soul of the real body owner, as only this soul allowed demons and angels to remain in the body.


    When I ''trained'' Leet to be a normal tinker, I used hypnotic subjugation techniques to induce ''altered states of consciousness.'' And now I decided to use this technique, for which he already had a ''reflex.'' My task was to ''awaken'' Leet''s soul and make him believe he could resist the angel.

 Chapter 18.22 – Worm 2.0

    "Leet, listen to me. What you''re doing is Evil. I''m trying to protect this city, and you''re trying to blow it up. Or rather, the demon controlling you is trying to blow it up using your hands."


    Acid had already reached Leet''s knees, but the angel controlling his body wasn''t giving up, completely ignoring the dissolving flesh. He only paused for a second to tie both legs with a cord, preventing blood loss.


    "If you want Good to triumph, you must stop the demon. Leet, I know you''ve always wanted to be a hero. Your pranks and appearing as heroes from video games are manifestations of your desire to be a real hero. A hero who saves lives, not one who goes out to seek fame. Leet, right now you have a chance to be a real hero." - The tinker''s hand trembled, and the wrench slipped from it, plunging into the acid pool. - "Just don''t let the demon blow up the city. And you''ll be a hero who truly saves lives, not just brags about it. Leet, I know you can do it!"


    This last sentence was the ''code phrase'' I used to activate the ''hypnoprogram'' embedded in the tinker''s consciousness, allowing him to control his shard. And it worked. Leet''s hands froze, and he stared at the bomb in front of him, which was now being approached by the acid, reaching up to his waist.


    "I am a hero" - his lips whispered.


    "No! Don''t listen to him! If you don''t let me blow up the bomb, you''ll go to hell! I am an angel! I am God''s will!" - Leet screamed, but his hands remained still.


    Leet''s hand twitched and, with jerky movements, reached for the big red button on the bomb''s upper casing. Uber, from his ''perch,'' was rooting for his ''teammate,'' but couldn''t help because the button was on the opposite side, and he couldn''t even throw a shoe at it.


    There were only a few centimeters left to the cherished button, but then Leet''s lips whispered again, - "I am a hero" - and his knees buckled, causing his entire body to collapse into the acid. The hydrogen released in the reaction accumulated in the basement in sufficient quantity to detonate from a spark in the wiring, causing the entire basement to explode. The bomb did not detonate and instead sank into the acid, starting to dissolve.


    Leet died, and his soul left his body, along with the angel''s soul and the shard. One last time, as a ghost, he glanced over the entire city and whispered - "I saved them. I am a hero!"


    I was the only one who heard his words because I was partly a spiritual being myself. Smiling one last time, Leet departed... to the Squeezer, to endure the torments of an unspeakable hell. Yes, the angel was right. Ahead lay only Hell, and the destruction of the city was indeed the God''s will.


    Sighing in relief, I ordered the replicators to ''clean the area'' then went to rest. It had been a very nerve-wracking day. One could easily go gray from such stress.


    The following days were surprisingly calm. The replicators closely monitored the activities of every hero and villain in the city to prevent another situation like Leet''s. It turned out he had managed to create a device that ''repelled mechanical bugs.'' Funny, but it worked, so the replicators left his basement without even alerting their controlling ''hive mind.'' As I feared, technicians could influence the replicators, and so far, no one had reprogrammed them simply because they didn''t even know of their existence.


    After this incident, I implemented even more paranoid security protocols into their programming, so that in any danger of exposure, they would self-destruct and, if possible, eliminate all witnesses. The funniest part was that people still believed that the Men in Black were dockworkers consciously or forcibly working for me. Local ''telepaths'' burned out their brains trying to take over my army. But since my suit, according to circulated rumors, completely protected people from mental influence, no one even considered that there was essentially nothing to influence.


    Now, in Brockton Bay, apart from the Undersiders team and Trickster team, there were the capes of the Wards, New Wave heroes, a couple of local Rogues, and two Protectorate capes - Armsmaster and Battery. Any newcomers, regardless of ''alignment'' I either asked to leave or ''left'' with a bullet to the forehead. People got the message and were satisfied with the situation. I specifically didn''t destroy all the angels to have a tighter control over their actions.


    This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    If they planned anything, they would likely act through existing agents rather than implant new ones. Meanwhile, all capes had colonies of replicators living in their guts, ready to cause ''intestinal twists'' or even ''brain twists'' if necessary. These replicators had a special chemical composition close to organic matter, making them almost impossible to detect.


    In this calm environment, a couple more weeks passed, and then the Endbringer attacked the city. It was Leviathan, approaching Brockton Bay from the sea. Strangely, the heroes issued a general call and began gathering a crowd to fight the Endbringer. Perhaps this was because the angels were trying their best to maintain a positive image. They couldn''t deny that my ''rule'' had indeed improved the lives of the city''s residents. So they tried every way to show that the heroes also fought for the life and prosperity of ordinary people.


    Either way, people began gathering in the city, even preliminarily agreeing with me that I wouldn''t kill them all. Of course, I promised this because the request was transmitted through the media, and otherwise, I would have lost face. Although it all depended on whether I could handle Leviathan myself or not.


    I might have risked facing him one-on-one, but there was a ''small'' problem. I couldn''t enhance my shard beyond the allowed parameters. To ''grow broader,'' I needed to consume other shards, but capes didn''t rush to my city because they were greeted with a bullet to the forehead.


    So, during the battle with the Endbringer, I planned to feed my shard with free food by consuming the shards of fallen heroes. Shards couldn''t consume ''ownerless'' relatives since only a shard recently deprived of its host was vulnerable enough for this.


    On D-Day, Hour H, the Endbringer appeared in the bay and sent a tsunami wave towards the city. I deployed a clone to heroically battle the evil enemy, Black Cloak, while I moved through the tunnels dug by the replicators, constantly staying beneath Leviathan. My ''spiritual tentacles,'' which I usually used to devour souls, were great for grabbing shards too. I even devoured a couple of these creatures but didn''t gain any abilities from them. So, as soon as another hero suicided against the Endbringer, I immediately grabbed his shard and fed it to my passenger.


    It quickly became apparent that the Endbringer also liked snacking on hero shards. He just couldn''t figure out who was stealing his prey, making him even more furious. As a result, I let him consume one shard out of ten, while planning how to feed the Endbringer to my shard. Why not? Leviathan could be food too.


    More heroes than usual arrived for the battle against the Endbringer. After all, this was Brockton Bay - the city with the happiest people on Earth. I even spread rumors that those heroes who distinguished themselves in the fight against Leviathan would be allowed to stay in the city. The feast was successful. Two hours in, when most of the angels were dead, and the Endbringer had reduced half the city to rubble, I decided it was time to act. Fortunately, the city''s residents were mostly unharmed because they were all in underground shelters built by the replicators. They could have easily survived an invasion of ten Endbringer at once.


    My shard was already strong enough for me to rival the Endbringer. Of course, he had been consuming capes for years, while I had just started, but my shard could go all out, while Leviathan couldn''t boast high efficiency.


    First, I released a hundred clones that surrounded the Endbringer. Then they started producing ''steel tentacles,'' which began to entangle the evil amphibian from all sides. Leviathan tried to break free but was surprised to find that even he couldn''t tear apart these steel cables. Initially, he pretended to be weak, letting the capes believe in the possibility of victory, but when he decided it was time to kill my clones, he discovered that he couldn''t break such an amount of metal.


    To give the correct scale, Leviathan was ten meters tall and about fifteen meters long, including the tail. I wrapped him like a ball of yarn into a sphere with a diameter of a hundred meters. Then this entire sphere became a monolithic piece of metal, continuing to grow. From the outside, it looked... epic. The tallest buildings in Brockton Bay, when they were still standing and not piles of rubble, were half the height of this sphere. Its weight pushed the ground down so much that the future pit should turn into a large lake. The sphere didn''t stop at a hundred meters, but its growth ''upwards'' was offset by more and more ground being pushed down.


    When I decided that the size of the ''prison'' was sufficient, I began compressing Leviathan with all the power available to me. I didn''t just want to ''compact'' him into a ball but rather tried to dismember him. But all this was essentially just a distraction because the main attack direction was the shard''s soul. Although this creature wasn''t exactly human or animal, it had some kind of soul. And when I tried to devour it, the Endbringer panicked, opened up, and... became a victim of my shard, which actually started devouring him alive

 Chapter 18.23 – Worm 2.0

    The process of absorbing the Endbringer took a while, but after half an hour, when all the angels outside had already tired of guessing what was happening inside, I finally absorbed all of the Endbringer''s power. Unexpectedly, the metal manipulation ability of my shard fused with the Endbringer''s hydromancy, forming metallomancy - the ability to create metal from nothing and manipulate it like water. Most interestingly, the metal I created now didn''t vanish like morning mist; it was completely real. I immediately created several more cubic kilometers of Ancients alloy and filled Brockton Bay''s bay with it.


    Just as I was about to step outside and pompously announce my victory, the Judge yanked my soul again.


    ¡°Damn! I''ve had enough of you!¡± - he raged at me. ¨C ¡°How dare you devour Leviathan? He''s a valuable prop! How am I supposed to recreate the apocalypse scenario without him? Enough, I forbid you from using shard power. I won''t let demons win! Don''t even hope for it. Now, get out.¡±


    And I was thrown back into reality, now completely stripped of all superpowers.


    Shit! Now he''s really annoyed me. No matter, I''ll manage without the shards. Although my psionics isn''t strong enough to work the same miracles as the capes, it''s not limited by the primitiveness of the shards and their pathetic abilities. And anyway, my task is to save the city. And I will save it!


    Calming my nerves, I ordered the replicators to start "eating" the Ancients alloy I created, using it according to "Plan B," since "Plan A" had fallen through. At the same time, all the guest capes were notified that in half an hour the "shooting" of all violators who didn''t leave the city in time would begin. People grumbled, of course, but left right on time, without pushing their luck. For now, the angels and demons diligently played their roles as heroes and villains, without straying too far from them. But I certainly acted contrary to all scenarios, driving the local Judge to epileptic fits.


    Since I couldn''t use shards anymore, the replicators may would. Why not? How are they worse than people? The artificial intelligence of my robots had long discovered that Dragon was actually an artificial intelligence too. Moreover, she could use the shard given to her by her creator. Possessing unlimited computational power, the replicators quickly hacked Dragon''s defenses, reached her physical core, and began studying how she used the shard. Once the method of interfacing was clear, I gave the replicators instructions on "capturing" unclaimed shards.


    As a result, I ended up with many "capes" fully obedient to my will. Having access to the primary source of all capes'' powers, the replicators quickly developed measures to prevent their control by tinkers. Once I was confident that no one could turn my weapon against me, the replicators began implementing "Plan B."


    One morning, the residents of Brockton Bay woke up to find their city unrecognizable. Where there had been ruins of houses destroyed by Leviathan, now skyscrapers built by replicators stood tall, all constructed overnight. With vast reserves of Ancients alloy, I could now produce Ancients technology on an industrial scale.


    A few days later, it became clear that a wall had appeared around the city, extending into the sea. Essentially, the city was now at the center of a circle encompassing fields, hills, the bay, and other territories. On the lands within this circle, agricultural production in greenhouses began, gardens and parks were landscaped, and recreational areas were developed in the hills and along the seashore. All the docks and the port were cleared, replaced by comfortable residential quarters ready to welcome new residents.


    In short, Brockton Bay was increasingly becoming like a fairy tale, and its residents felt like they were in paradise. Meanwhile, people outside the city were observing with anger and envy because only those who had lived in the city for at least a year were allowed to settle there. In other words, checkpoints were established at the border, preventing "newcomers" from entering. I didn''t need a multimillion-population metropolis filled with freeloaders and unproductives. The current population was more than enough. After all, a city is, first and foremost, the people living in it.


    While the outside world was heating up with the struggle between demons and angels, Brockton Bay remained calm. I didn''t allow anyone to interfere in the city''s life, be it federal authorities, the army, demons, or angels. They were all sent one of two ways: either to hell or to the bottom of the bay to feed the fish. After all, the fish farm also needed biomass.


    The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    Then, in mid-May, eight Endbringers attacked the city simultaneously. Well, they tried to attack but failed miserably. The replicators, controlling the shards, detected the invaders'' approach in advance, and "Plan C" was activated. A glowing force field rose around the city''s perimeter, forming a dome that completely cut off the city from the outside world. In fact, this field was a complete sphere, making it impossible to penetrate even underground. Moreover, this field blocked all forms of spatial movement available to shards.


    For a couple of hours, the city was under siege, testing the strength of the force fields. Once it became clear that even eight Endbringers couldn''t break through, I ordered the attack to begin. And no, it wasn''t an attack by capes. I used the Ancients weapons installed on their spacecraft. As a result, even a single shot was enough to literally tear a Endbringer to pieces. This weapon damaged not only the physical body but also the shard itself. Consequently, only Behemoth managed to escape by burrowing underground, while seven Endbringer joined the list of my victims.


    The significant aspect of this last attack was that the Endbringer were under the control of angels. So, actually, it was an attack of heroes, and I prepared for them to attempt a covert attack next. And they indeed did, using their "agent." To my surprise, the sabotage was planned not by the angels living in the city but by... Taylor. That ungrateful wretch couldn''t calm down over the fact that I had killed a bunch of non-humans to save the city. So, she decided to let the heroes into the city to establish some vague "kingdom of good and justice."


    One dark night, Taylor sneaked into the "secret control center" and deactivated the shield generators protecting the city. The ghostly glow of the dome over the city faded, and the heroes hiding around, along with a couple of dozen Endbringers, rushed to attack. Imagine their disappointment when they found out that the "deactivation" of the protection was just a fake. The real shield didn''t need any "illumination," so not a single enemy made it into the city. But my weapons, installed around the perimeter, did a good job of genociding the angels, destroying at least 80% of their combined forces.


    After the attack was repelled, a public trial was held for the "traitor of humanity." In the best traditions of evil fighters, I sentenced Taylor to public burning and even personally appeared as her father to throw the torch onto the oil-soaked wood. Taylor''s shard power was blocked with a simple brain operation performed by the replicators inside her body.


    Following Taylor, I cleaned out all the remaining angels in the city. There was a minor mishap, though. While I was enjoying my "daughter''s" death screams, Noelle and her team decided to punish the angels themselves, targeting New Wave. Surprisingly, the battle was quick and almost bloodless. While Ballistic shot most of the capes family, Panacea was eaten alive by Noelle. When I asked why she did it, she said she tried to use Panacea''s power to regain her human form. The story was murky, but I limited myself to increasing surveillance on all the remaining capes in the city. The demons actively assured me of their loyalty and that Shub-Niggurath''s command would be carried out at any cost.


    Barely a week had passed after the battle with the heroes when a new threat appeared on the horizon. The Slaughterhouse Nine decided to visit my city. The demons tried to break in through the checkpoints. To their disappointment, destroying the replicators controlling the inspection center led to nothing. Even Siberia couldn''t project through the shield, as her projection destabilized immediately.


    However, my weapons, designed for average capes, were also ineffective. Not a single attacking demon was even injured. I would have ignored this incident, but one of the demons proudly stepped under the siege weapons'' sights and demanded a personal meeting with the Black Cloak, invoking the name of... Shub-Niggurath.


    By the time I arrived at the checkpoint, the demon had started listing his demands again.


    ¡°I, Gopnasurnakh, in the name of Shub-Niggurath, demand that the Black Cloak let me into Brockton Bay and hand over all power over the city to me!¡±


    According to the dossier prepared by the replicators, the one speaking now was Jack Slash, the head of the Slaughterhouse Nine, with Crawler, Siberia, Mannequin, Bonesaw, Shatterbird, and Burnscar behind him.


    ¡°I am Black Cloak¡± - I appeared right behind the force field separating me from the gang of maniacs. ¨C ¡°And who the hell are you?¡±


    ¡°I am the plenipotentiary representative of Shub-Niggurath!¡± - roared Jack, slashing at the shield in front of me with his superpower''s fields.


    ¡°Dude, you got fired¡± - I gleefully informed him. ¨C ¡°In this game, I am the representative of Shub-Niggurath''s will. So, scram before you''re dead.¡±


    ¡°You!... You!!!... YOU-U-U-U-U!!!¡± - the demon roared, eyes bulging. ¨C ¡°I will destroy you! I will feed your soul to Cthulhu!!! I will rip out your eyes and force you to eat them! Your torment in hell will last for thousands of years...¡±


    ¡°Okay, let''s give a warning shot, aka the last Chinese warning¡± - I commanded.

 Chapter 18.24 – Worm 2.0

    The Ancient''s weapon transitioned from standby to battle-ready mode, targeted the screamer, and fired. I expected the demon to be reduced to dust and ashes, but when the plasma charge dissipated, the entire Slaughterhouse Nine emerged from the churned-up ground, all present and unharmed. Moreover, the only one who seemed to suffer any damage was Cherish, who had swallowed a mouthful of dirt and was now desperately spitting it out.


    "Hmm, strange... it didn''t work" - I mused.


    "How dare you?!!!" - Jack Slash roared.


    "How about this?"


    This time, it wasn''t just one weapon that fired but a dozen from the nearest segment of the wall, and the barrage continued for ten seconds. But once again, the same indestructible group emerged from a sea of boiling lava, cursing even more furiously. What puzzled me the most was that I couldn''t understand how they were doing it. From the perspective of shard powers and my psionics, they were just regular hosts with ordinary shards. Only Siberian could have survived this attack, and that was only because her real body was almost a kilometer away.


    "The will of Shub-Niggurath protects me and my slaves!" - the demon proclaimed triumphantly. - "And this proves you lie! Kneel before me at once!"


    "I don''t know from which dumpster you crawled out of, but you can stand there and shout all you want. We have enough clowns in this city" - I replied, turning my back and deliberately leaving the area.


    If this demon could have breached the city, he would have done so long ago without asking for my permission. I didn''t know what power was protecting him, but it had nothing to do with shards or the game.


    A mad roar erupted behind me, and I could feel the surge of destructive energy even through my shield. I didn''t need to turn around to see that Jack Slash had used some kind of demon magic based on demonic energy. During my journey with Guts, I had become nearly an expert at assessing an opponent''s strength by the fluctuations of their demonic energy. As for this demon, I could say that he wasn''t very powerful. He was on par with the creatures Guts would cut to pieces in the ''feasting hall''. However, there was something about his energy that made it... more prioritized, I suppose. That is, when the demon''s magic clashed with the laws of physics, it turned out that many of those laws were optional.


    Fortunately for me, the Ancient''s shield operated on phenomena that formed the very essence of the physical world. This was the very modification of the shield developed by a brilliant Ancient trying to find protection against the most destructive weapons of the Ancients stolen by the Wraiths. Perhaps even magic and psionics couldn''t achieve better results. This shield wasn''t absolute, but breaking through it required more than just brute force.


    I didn''t linger and left the demon raging in front of the wall, venting his anger on the inhabitants of the outer world. The city had been in a state of siege for a long time, and the citizens were only allowed go outside for very serious reasons. For them to be let back in after that, something extraordinary had to happen.


    The demon raged for nearly an hour before calming down and disappearing beyond the horizon. I tasked the replicators with analyzing the reasons for the weapons'' ineffectiveness, but I wasn''t particularly worried for the time being.


    I had almost forgotten about this incident when a couple of weeks later, an army of demons led by Jack Slash appeared outside the city walls. They yelled, cursed me and all the city''s inhabitants, and expressed their disagreement with the cosmic order in various ways. But as soon as their first blow touched the force field, my guns opened fire, incinerating the entire ''invincible army'' in just ten seconds. Once again, the only survivors were the members of the Slaughterhouse Nine.


    This time, the level of insanity in the demon''s voice reached unprecedented heights. From his incoherent shouts, I gathered that he had assembled a great army of demons, nearly defeated all the angels, and now, just as he was about to capture Brockton Bay and protect it, I had destroyed all these pathetic capes, disturbing Jack''s genius plans. I could only laugh at the stupidity of this fool and go to rest. The city could sleep peacefully.


    Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.


    Alas, I was mistaken. Somehow, Jack Slash managed to contact Noelle and persuade her... to sabotage us. Not to help him capture the city, but simply to screw me and Shub-Niggurath over. This traitorous bitch, who had sworn loyalty and devotion to me, used Panacea''s power to create a bacterium that rapidly infected all the residents of Brockton Bay. Not everyone was infected, but enough to effectively depopulate the city. After all, the people are the city.


    At first, I tasked the replicators with solving this problem, but they predicted within five seconds that the disease was incurable. Noelle had twisted things so that the bacteria behaved like viruses, embedding themselves in human DNA and literally cutting out parts of the genome, replacing them with their own sequences. In short, while the people in the city were still alive and almost healthy, they had at most a day to live.


    Realizing the situation, I decided it was time for my ''Plan C''. But first, I ordered the replicators to capture all the demons in the city, without distinguishing between the guilty and the innocent. After that, a public execution took place, during which I devoured the souls of the traitors. Before the sentence was carried out, Noelle ''suddenly'' repented and began to beg for mercy, but she faced the most agonizing death I could devise. Moreover, I completely erased all information about her past lives, so after her soul was consumed, nothing of her remained.


    With vengeance dealt with, I turned to the pressing issue. I needed to save the lives of all the city''s residents. Or not their lives, but at least the connection between their bodies and souls. I had never practiced classical necromancy, but I was an expert in ''alternative necromancy''. In the center of the city stood an obelisk, ready but unpowered for a long time. I activated it in forced mode, and people began to transform into necromorphs before my eyes. Although this technology was meant to combine all astral bodies into a single mass and gather all souls in the obelisk, I modified it so that people''s souls remained in the necromorphs they became.


    The only problem I couldn''t solve was maintaining the integrity of people''s consciousness. As they transformed into necromorphs physically, they also transformed mentally. In other words, the city''s inhabitants became mindless zombies, eager to kill and devour anything alive. But since there was nothing alive left in the city anyway, I didn''t consider this as a major issue.


    But turning people into necromorphs wasn''t the only change. A few hours later, when the transformation process was complete, the entire city, resembling a massive sphere surrounded by a force field, soared into the sky and headed into deep space.


    Now I could be at ease about the city''s ''preservation''. The residents were already immortal, and the city was beyond the reach of any capes. But there was still the matter of revenge on Jack Slash, or rather the demon possessing him. I couldn''t harm him directly, but nothing stopped me from paying him back in kind, doing a little ''sabotage''. So, in the ''crater'' left after the city''s departure, I left a bomb of the Ancients set to detonate in a couple of hours.


    At the moment of the explosion, I was ''on the far side of the Sun'', so I could only see the flash reflected in other planets. And from the fact that half of the Sun''s surface suddenly heated from five thousand degrees to three million. In short, the Earth wasn''t just blown up; it was vaporized and scattered across space, leaving no trace. Moreover, the explosion''s characteristics were such that it guaranteed the destruction of all ''cosmic worm'' shards. Flying through the area where the planet used to be, I confirmed that none of the demons or angels survived the explosion.


    Three days later, my city-garden was flying through the vastness of space in orbit around the Sun. Its perfectly clean streets shone with otherworldly beauty. Necromorphs wandered around, searching for signs of life. And over this idyllic scene, the sweet song from the Dead Space soundtrack played, reproduced by me from memory.


    I was the only truly living resident of the city, embodying the statement ''the city lived, the city lives, the city will live''. The replicators watched over the city''s inhabitants and repaired any damage they might accidentally cause. There was no malice in the necromorphs'' actions because intent as such was absent from their minds.


    Here it is - the perfect city with perfect residents!


    I was standing in the central tower of the city, observing the surroundings when I felt the presence of a demon nearby. It was Shub-Niggurath. But he seemed different. When I interacted with him in Lang, he appeared as just a strong demon. But now, waves of power radiated from him, and reality itself seemed to try to bend to match his desires. This was a god, truly with capital letters. A dark god capable of destroying universes with a mere thought. Next to him, I was just a trivial insect.


    "So, what do you have here?" - the demon asked. I had to muster all my willpower not to kneel but to respond as I had when I spoke to him in Lang.

 Chapter 18.25 – Worm 2.0

    "Here! The city is saved" - I reported. - "All the inhabitants are alive in some sort; I''ve improved them a bit. Now they are immortal and look like proper citizens of Lang. They won''t embarrass us in front of other demons. All historically significant buildings are preserved, and new high-tech skyscrapers have been erected where Leviathan''s attack caused destruction, ready to house at least a couple of million new residents. In short, the mission is accomplished, though I couldn''t save Earth."


    "Excellent! This is a perfect work!" - Shub-Niggurath admired my efforts.


    "And here are the main milestones of the mission and all significant game events" - I handed the demon a crystal containing a ''video recording'' of my adventures. Of course, all the data was carefully selected to present me in the best light.


    "What''s this?" - The demon read the information and naturally stumbled upon the scene where Noelle, crying bloody tears, recounted how Gopnasurnakh ordered her to sabotage and destroy all the city''s residents so Shub-Niggurath would lose the last game. This scene was genuine, though the confession was made under a mind-control spell. But since the demoness''s soul was devoured by me, there was no way to dispute the authenticity of this recording. Although, theoretically, it was possible, I doubted the demons would bother himself with such nonsense. The culprit was clear enough.


    "Gopnasurnakh!" - My ''boss'' shouted, and a demon of immense stature, whose energy I recognized as Jack Slash, appeared beside him. We met again. - "You dared to go against me?"


    "What? My lord, I would never even think of such a thing" - he worriedly said, casting a hateful glance at me. - "This nameless game figure destroyed Earth."


    "Silence!!!" - Shub-Niggurath furiously roared. - "He completed my task perfectly, despite your attempts to hinder him. You defied my will. Also, you allowed the destruction of the planet and all the shards around it. For this, I revoke you of your rights as Lord of Life."


    "What? No, master! Allow me to prove my loyalty."


    At that moment, the power protecting Gopnasurnakh ''shut off,'' turning him into a regular demon.


    "However, I will give you a chance" - Shub-Niggurath nodded, smiling mockingly. - "Try to defeat him in a fair fight. Cheater, I order you to devour the soul of this traitor."


    "No problem" - I smiled, stepping forward.


    Although the suppression seal still held back my powers, I wasn''t planning to engage in a ''fair fight.'' Well, it was fair in the sense that I used all available weapons. From the ceiling, two dozen automatic turrets emerged, firing at the demon simultaneously, not giving him a chance to attack me. As a result, his mutilated, charred body fell to the floor, but before he could die, I sunk my tentacles into his soul and devoured it completely.


    "Good, good. I see I can rely on you" - Shub-Niggurath appreciated my efforts. "Now let''s go back to Lang. Azathoth is already waiting for you. You''ve been granted a rare opportunity to meet one of his supreme projections, just one step away from his true self."


    Reality ''blinked,'' and I found myself in a vast hall filled with demons. Strangely, I was in my Vritras body, which was taken from me when I was sent on the mission. I thought I had embedded a self-destruct program in the crystal for such cases.


    But there was no time for distractions, as a portal to Chaos opened before me, and the formless bulk of Azathoth, sitting on a colossal throne, emerged. The ''Lord of the Universe'' looked like a mass of tentacles and mouths. The energy emanating from him struck my consciousness with a sense of pure Chaos and endless power. If this was just a projection, how powerful the Azathoth himself be? I suppose my mind couldn''t even grasp it. Indeed, a true being whose full greatness I couldn''t comprehend.


    "Cheater, I was amused by how you completed Shub-Niggurath''s task. Such a result can be proudly shown even in Lang. ''Saving'' all the city''s inhabitants by turning them into mindless undead while precisely meeting the Game''s requirements. Ha-ha! Yog-Sothoth was furious when I showed him the ''proof'' that demons can save lives too."


    The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.


    A shiver ran through my Vritras body at these words. Save us from the lord''s wrath and love. I sensed that some big trouble was brewing. Meanwhile, Azathoth continued his speech.


    "For your bravery, I have decided to grant you an answer to any one question. I am one of the two Lords of the Universe. There is nothing in this world that I cannot know. So, what question will you ask me?"


    At that moment, I felt all the demons around me freeze in predatory anticipation. Yeah, what a puzzle they gave me. Ask something trivial, and they will accuse me of neglecting a unique opportunity. Ask something important, and they will accuse me of seeking the secrets of the universe. Not asking a question was also not an option since that response wasn''t allowed.


    Well, if Azathoth truly has plans for me, I can ask a truly important question. A question that all these smug faces around me are afraid to ask.


    "I want to know for what you and Yog-Sothoth spending all the collected Bahion" - I said with a cheeky smile.


    The demons around me immediately tensed, and some even shrank in fear, watching Azathoth and trying to gauge his reaction.


    "Ho! You indeed know how to ask uncomfortable questions. Want to know the answer to the universe''s biggest secret? Well, I''ll tell you" - the demons around us fell into unexpected confusion. If they learn something they are not worthy of knowing... - "But only you. I will seal this knowledge in your consciousness. You are forbidden to tell anyone else about the answer."


    "Of course" - I agreed. No reason for idiots to meddle in matters of such a level. This knowledge is only for the chosen ones like me.


    A powerful barrier surrounded me and Azathoth, hiding us from the ''audience.''


    "Listen to the great truth" - Azathoth proclaimed pompously. - "All the Bahion that Yog-Sothoth and I collect from across the universe, we don''t use but simply dispose, because it is excess."


    "What?!!"


    The barrier around us collapsed, along with my ''worldview.'' My ''perception template'' was torn to shreds, and it took me a few seconds to process this revelation and draw the correct conclusions.


    "I see" - I said in a detached voice, still processing what I had heard.


    "And what do you understand?" - Azathoth asked. - "Tell us."


    The demons smiled again, sensing some sort of trap. Well, when the king jokes, the subjects must laugh. It''s always been that way.


    "Nothing can be changed" - I declared my verdict. - "Even if someone manages to take your place, they won''t be able to change how things are in the Universe. Therefore, there''s no point in even dreaming about it. It won''t bring the victor the slightest benefit."


    "Oh, I see you truly understand everything" - Azathoth approvingly wiggled his tentacles. - "Yes, anyone who even thinks about taking my place will only experience eternal suffering and endless disappointment when I punish them."


    At that moment, a wave of ''bloodlust'' emanated from Azathoth, causing all the demons to stand at attention, showing with their whole demeanor that they never even had such a thought. Well, since the boss is satisfied, I guess I passed the test.


    "You never cease to amaze me, Cheater. In a good way" - noted Azathoth. - "Since you completed Shub-Niggurath''s task and passed the Test of Truth, it''s now time for the Test of Power. Fight my champion! If you win, I will grant your wish and protect you from the Being."


    Yes, I knew there would be some catch. And who do I have to defeat? By the way, is anyone planning to lift the suppression seal on me? What jerks!


    A portal opened before me, and stepped out... Guts. Yes, the very same Berserk, who was supposedly devoured by Azathoth. However, the ''meal'' hadn''t gone unnoticed, and now Guts was a demon. He had a demonic body, his soul was filled with demonic energies, and most importantly, it looked as if it had been partially chewed. I knew firsthand how painful that state was and how much it made you want to punish everyone and everything.


    "You!!!" - Guts recognized me. - "It''s all your guild!" - he shouted, drawing his sword but not daring to charge at me without permission. Azathoth trained him well.


    "Not true!" - I defended myself. - "I can''t be the cause of all causes and be guilty of everything in general. Only Azathoth or Yog-Sothoth can claim that role if they wish."


    "Because of you, Casca died. Because of you, I became Azathoth''s slave."


    "That was your fate" - I cut him off. - "Stop complaining. You''ve been whining all along that Griffiths was guilty for everything. So what? Now it turns out I''m guilty? Or maybe it''s your stupidity is guilty?"


    "I will destroy you!!!" - the berserk roared, and waves of rage began pouring out of him into the surrounding space. It seems I just fueled his power.


    "Begin" - Azathoth graciously nodded, and Guts charged at me with the speed of sound.

 Chapter 18.26 – Worm 2.0

    I didn''t meet the blow of his sword head-on but dodged to the side. However, I only moved a couple of steps away, so Guts'' sword swished past me. It was the same sword he had used all the way from the material world to Lang. Now, it had become even stronger and gained a consciousness of its own. However, Guts should have considered that I was the one who had crafted the psi-blade for his sword.


    With minimal effort, I disintegrated the psi-blade into gray dust, revealing the true form of the sword. And that form was... surprisingly weak. The psi-blade had channeled the sword''s power, allowing it to slice through demons. Without it, the sword''s internal power immediately dissipated. The weapon, which had once instilled fear in the hearts of demons, spun wildly, escaped its owner''s grasp, and clattered uselessly on the stone floor.


    "In one thing, you are right" - I said to the bewildered Guts. - "I am indeed guilty. I''m guilty for giving such brute strength to an unworthy beast like you. I could devour your soul, but I don''t want to take such a treat away from Azathoth."


    Ignoring my ramblings, Guts charged at me with bare hands. I repelled him with a simple psionic spell, though I had been channeling power into it since I first saw my opponent. The demon''s back slammed against the force field surrounding the ''arena,'' and while he recovered, I continued my speech, preparing for the decisive strike.


    "All your strength is based on the foundation I gave you. Therefore, it does not belong to you. But I''ll give you a chance to gain the power you deserve. Let''s see if you can control it, or if this Power will control you."


    With these words, I used psionics to draw energy from Chaos, transform it, and hurl the resulting ''snowball'' at my opponent, who was rushing at me blindly, unable to dodge. I acted ''instinctively,'' creating an energy that was incredibly destructive yet completely uncontrollable. True Berserker Power. Into this spell, I poured all my knowledge of Chaos, of the Corruption I encountered in the dream world, of the Phantasmal Flame that burned the Being''s hand, and many other spells I had faced throughout my life as a game figure. Most importantly, I infused a considerable chunk of Bahion into the spell, making the impossible to possible.


    The ball of inky darkness hit Guts'' chest, causing him to tumble head over heels. I deftly dodged his body, avoiding any proximity to my creation. I wasn''t sure what I had concocted, but it was not something I would wish on even an enemy. But for a stupid ally, it was perfect. Because with such friends, who needs enemies?


    The berserker shrieked, screamed, and writhed wildly as the darkness consumed his body. There was no question of him controlling this power, as Guts was fundamentally incapable of such a feat. He could swing a sword, or not swing a sword. But attempting to control magical energy was beyond his comprehension.


    As the energy fully enveloped Guts'' body, it began altering him, seeping into his body, mind, and soul. The crunch of bones and the wet squelch of flesh were accompanied by the test subject''s wild screams. With each passing second, he lost the last vestiges of humanity, transforming into something shapeless. In some ways, this form resembled Azathoth, but it was far more aggressive. While the God of Chaos sought to devour the universe, this creature sought to tear it to pieces.


    We were in the heart of Lang, just one step away from True Chaos, so using Chaos energies in this place had unforeseen consequences. Guts was changing and changing. He gradually transformed into something horrific. Something filled with wild hatred for all existence. A creature whose sole purpose was pure, unadulterated destruction of everything... except me, of course. For this creature, I was ''untouchable.'' Something it could not attack, neither directly nor indirectly. After all, I didn''t want to fight such a monster, which was hundreds of times more dangerous than any Guts. Therefore, this stipulation was the foundation of the spell.


    Due to the proximity to Chaos and Azathoth, the berserker absorbed incredible power and incomprehensible qualities. The scene where Gopnasurnakh lost his ''divine power'' was also analyzed by me, and I incorporated into the spell the condition that the resulting creature could ignore this invulnerability. Not counteract it, not overcome it, but fundamentally not intersect with this level of being, damaging what could be damaged using the established scheme of my psionics, which constantly sought and found ''holes'' in the laws of nature that limited my powers.


    In general, I used the given conditions to conduct an interesting experiment and see if I could wipe that expression of superiority off the faces of the demons around me. Judging by how their faces twisted, I achieved my goal. The more time passed, the more it became clear that the resulting creature simply had no right to exist because its existence and the existence of the universe itself were mutually exclusive things. Not a bad pet.


    When the demons'' eyes around me reflected sacred horror, and Guts stopped shrieking, having reached the final stage of his transformation, Azathoth used his power and with one blow of tentacle sent the ''test subject'' into infinite Chaos. Ah, I had so wanted to conduct field tests of its capabilities.


    "That was... unexpected" - Azathoth concluded after a few seconds of silence. - "It truly was a Test of Power, but in a different sense."


    "Really? I thought I needed to test some kind of Power under current conditions. Too bad the experiment was interrupted at the most interesting point."


    After my words, Azathoth laughed, and the demons flinched again.


    "Well, you passed this test as well. Honestly, I didn''t expect that, so you''ll have to wait a bit while I construct the necessary spiritual device."


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


    "Okay" - I agreed. What other options did I have?


    "Narskrudzhak, take him somewhere for now" - commanded the God of Chaos.


    The familiar demon immediately approached me and led me away. At first, I didn''t realize what was wrong with this situation, but then it hit me: if all the other demons present at this gathering were wildly powerful, this demon looked exactly the same as during our previous meeting.


    We navigated through the maze of corridors and emerged into a large hall that could be described as a hybrid of a kitchen and dining room. Demons of all kinds and sizes bustled around, ''catching'' their food from pens and ''cooking'' it to the best of their intellectual abilities.


    "Here, you can sit and have a snack for now. I''ll come for you when everything is ready" - my guide instructed before disappearing in an unknown direction.


    I looked around and moved away from the pens, making sure no one mistook me for food. I was confident in my ability to prove I wasn''t edible, but it was better to avoid nuclear explosions or other similarly large-scale phenomena.


    "So, you are the Cheater?" - one of the demons asked me cheerfully when I reached a relatively calm spot.


    "That''s right" - I replied, looking at my conversation partner.


    "Oh wow! I was rooting for you. Even bet a hundred souls in the pool."


    "And what were the odds?" - I asked.


    "At first, it was a hundred to one against you, but when people found out you are the Cheater, the odds changed to a hundred to one in your favor. But I managed to bet early, so I made quite a profit. I never liked that Gopnasurnakh either."


    "Still playing with your food?" - another demon asked my companion.


    "What? No! This is the Cheater!"


    "Really? The actual Cheater?" - The filthy demon chewing on three people with three mouths didn''t believe it. - "Well, I do recognize that look. Staring at dark gods like they''re nothing. Heard about the stunt he pulled at Azathoth''s reception?"


    "Well?"


    "He turned the Sacrifice into some unknown beast that nearly gave everyone present a heart attack at first sight. By the way, what was that thing? I only caught a glimpse of it at the end and couldn''t understand anything."


    "It was some sort of crap" - I replied in a scholarly tone. - "There are three kinds of crap: complete, all sorts, and some sort. Of these three kinds, some sort is the most dangerous. It constantly happens around us, but few notice it. In fact, our entire world is some sort of crap, the meaning of which is nearly impossible to understand."


    The demon was so stunned by my revelations that food fell out of one of his mouths and crawled away, dragging its guts behind it.


    "So, did Azathoth talk to you about this?" - another demon asked with wide eyes. I looked around and found myself nearly surrounded by various monstrous creatures.


    "Yes, what he told me was complete crap. Honestly, I couldn''t even imagine such a thing."


    "Wow" - the listeners were impressed.


    "Being is coming!" - one of them suddenly hissed.


    "What?" - the surrounding demons became agitated.


    The demon who had first started talking to me grabbed me with his paw and shoved me into a cauldron where leftovers of unknown origin were boiling. They quickly covered me with a lid, but I managed to peek outside through a crack. Sure enough, the Being appeared. Its hideous face was hard to miss. Why an ''angel'' was freely roaming the demons'' lair was beyond me. Maybe the hatred between these two factions was somewhat conditional. After all, they both doing same job, oppressing the universe.


    "Have you seen my cat?" - Being bleated plaintively, looking around. - "A smoky one with seven tails."


    "The one that bit off your hand?" - the boldest and fattest demon present asked. "No, haven''t seen it."


    The whole audience erupted in nasty laughter and cackling.


    "Ugh!" - Being sighed heavily and trudged away.


    Something about this scene smelled like a setup. I had a gut feeling that this situation was no coincidence.


    After about ten minutes, the crowd calmed down, the lid of my ''hideout'' was removed, and I climbed out.


    "You''re all covered in food" - one of the demons looked at me with oily eyes. - "Let me lick you clean."


    "Keep your limbs to yourself. Or I''ll bite off your head, not just your hand" - I threatened.


    A simple spell immediately cleaned off all the filth stuck to me and simultaneously cleared my aura of foreign inclusions, filling it with Chaos energies, the same shades that Azathoth had. I would mimic him.


    The demons laughed at my ''joke'' and started asking how I came up with the idea to win the game with the shards without using the shards at all. In response, I exposed a corrupt judge who favored one side while ignoring violations by the other. The topic was hot for many present, so my performance got the needed amount of ''likes.'' Then Narskrudzhak came and led me back to the boss. And all this for fifteen minutes of back and forth? Oh, I feel it was all set up for the encounter with Being. Like, ''see, Cheater, He will find you instantly if anything wrong happens.'' Amateurs.


    "Well, everything is ready. Take it" - Azathoth said to me directly as soon as I appeared before him.


    He immediately extended his tentacle and implanted a device into my soul, which instantly attached itself to one of the ''tail buds.'' Within seconds, I gained control over this strange formation.


    "To use this device, you need to spend one Approval Points. Upon activation, it will transport you to another world, where you will have time to gain the next Approval Points. This device will provide a full description of what needs to be done. After the transfer, you will have a limited amount of time during which Being cannot find you. If you linger, you might end up in its hands. Or rather, on its hand. You''ve already bitten off one, ha-ha. And one more thing" - Azathoth looked at me sternly, exuding menace. - "If you don''t want to be devoured by Cthulhu after his service, you must feed him with branded souls bearing my Brand of Sacrifice. Or you can brand those without the brand but who clearly deserve it. Now go. I want to see how my device works. Otherwise, your soul might be torn into a thousand pieces, and I''ll never know why."


    What an optimistic statement.


    I focused, ''found'' the control panel of my new tail, checked the Approval Points counter and the countdown timer, and pressed the ''big red button.''

 Chapter 19.01: Naruto 2.0

    After activating the transfer device, I was ''curled up into a tube'' and then uncurled in a new place. Only my soul was transferred, while Vritra''s body remained in Lang. Looking around, I found myself hovering in some space filled with light. Attempts to move or transfer in any other way were unsuccessful. After a couple of minutes, another soul appeared nearby. Judging by its energy, I was looking at ''homo vulgaris,'' meaning an ordinary mortal.


    A few seconds later, another soul appeared on the other side of me. This case was more interesting. This soul felt like something big, green, and angry. And it had a clear lack of characteristic human consciousness structures.


    "Hi, who are you?" - I asked the human. He had already recovered from the initial shock and was now staring into the void slightly more consciously.


    "I... I... I don''t remember" - he enlightened me.


    "Yeah, they messed you up pretty well" - I diagnosed, examining the ''scars'' on the astral body of the patient. - "And what''s your name?" - I asked the green one.


    "I am Groot!" - the next patient of the mental hospital declared pompously. His vocabulary ended there, and he started pressing his anger onto me. Well, well.


    "And who are you?" - the amnesiac asked me in return.


    "Call me Atman" - I replied.


    "Alright, everyone is here" - another inhabitant of this cozy place appeared before me, whom I immediately recognized as another Judge. After his appearance, it became clear that we were ''hovering'' in an arc in front of him.


    "And who are you?" - my neighbor continued to ask stupid questions.


    "I am the Judge of the game in which you will participate" - the Judge grinned predatorily. - "So, I''ll explain everything once, so listen carefully and don''t interrupt. And by the way, what''s with your appearance? People are watching you."


    Judge waved his hand, and we acquired almost material forms. I still looked like a ''high elf,'' the human acquired the features of a typical resident of central Russia, and the green one turned into a two-meter-tall green orc in high-tech armor characteristic of Warhammer worlds. How original!


    "You will appear in a world inspired by the Naruto universe. You three are members of one team appointed by Azathoth himself. Your starting location is Konoha. Before the game begins, you can choose a genome, element, and main ability. Your task is to destroy the enemy teams. Each team has three fighters, and a total of ten teams are participating in the game. The team whose representatives are the last to remain alive wins. The time limit is one year."


    "So, is it an isekai?!" - the human was surprised.


    "For the glory of the God of Blood and Chaos, I will destroy anyone who stands in my way!!!" - roared the orc.


    I just smirked at these exclamations. By the way, what requirement do I need to fulfill to move on? I focused my attention on my new tail and read the information from it. As it turned out, I only have six months, and the task is to feed Azathoth the souls of ten game figures. Well, considering there are 30 figures in the game, the task is challenging but doable. The main thing is not to delay so the enemies don''t kill each other too early.


    *** Score: 0/10 ***


    *** Approval Point: 0/1 ***


    "We''ll start with you, Cheater" - Judge stared at me. - "You''re our favorite, so you can choose the conditions for your appearance in the game world first."


    A list of genomes available to Konoha residents appeared before me. I quickly scanned it and chose the most overpowered option.


    "Uzumaki genome."


    "Accepted" - Judge nodded approvingly.


    Next, a list of elements appeared before me. I didn''t even look at it and immediately voiced my choice.


    "Life element."


    "Where did you find such an element?" - Judge asked displeased.


    "It''s a type of chakra used in the Shosen technique" - I clarified.


    You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    "Ah, got it. Accepted" - the local boss calmed down immediately.


    "Ability - summoning Cthulhu" - I announced the last point of my program, again without looking at the suggested list.


    "What Cthulhu?!!" - Judge either cursed or asked.


    "This one" - I demonstrated my parasite.


    Judge looked at Cthulhu, Cthulhu looked at Judge, and then the local ''almost god'' sighed resignedly and waved his hand.


    "Accepted. Now you" - he glared at the transmigrant.


    "Uzumaki genome" - he blurted out immediately.


    "Uzumaki is already taken. Choose from what''s left. This isn''t a market."


    "Then Uchiha" - the future representative of the eye clan replied, slightly disappointed.


    "Element?" - Judge asked in a prosecutorial voice.


    "Explosion" - the human surprised us with his choice. Judging by the fact that he didn''t hesitate for a moment, he was familiar with the Naruto world and was following some plan.


    "Ability?"


    "Uchiha''s clan genjutsu."


    ¡°Understood.¡± - Judge rubbed his hands in satisfaction. ¨C ¡°Now it''s your turn, green one.¡± - He addressed the orc.


    The orc did not rush to respond but began to carefully review the list, reading detailed information on each item.


    ¡°And what is this "shmakra" that''s mentioned everywhere?¡± - Asked the orc. At this question, Uchiha facepalmed.


    ¡°It''s the local internal energy. It''s reminiscent of a mix between Warp and psi energies, but more material.¡± - Explained Judge, clearly aiming for the orc''s level of understanding.


    ¡°Got it. Then I choose the Haruno genome.¡±


    ¡°What?!!¡± - Uchiha and I exclaimed.


    ¡°Accepted!¡± - Judge licked his lips contentedly, barely holding back laughter.


    ¡°We''re screwed.¡± - Expressed the human, including my opinion.


    ¡°Element?¡±


    The orc thought again but announced his decision fairly quickly.


    ¡°Earth.¡±


    ¡°Accepted. Skill?¡±


    ¡°Waaagh!¡± - Shouted the orc, raising his right hand.


    ¡°Waaagh?¡± - Uchiha''s eyes bulged. ¨C ¡°What kind of skill is that?¡±


    ¡°Accepted.¡± - Judge nodded approvingly. ¨C ¡°Well, that''s all. After you occupy the corresponding bodies, you will need to find each other. It won''t be difficult. All game participants are surrounded by a rainbow aura that appears upon close examination. And remember, if you lose, a fate much worse than death awaits you.¡±


    With that, the world around me went dark, and I plunged into darkness.


    I woke up to a sunbeam shining directly into my eyes. Even the attempt to turn away was unsuccessful because the damned sun flooded the entire room with its light. Rubbing my eyes, I glanced around the cozy little room. Well, hello, Naruto. I recognize this mess. The sight of the room hit me with a wave of nostalgia. It looked exactly like Naruto''s place in my first crossover. Damn! Two hundred years have passed since then. It''s enough to drive anyone crazy! Alright, time to get out of bed and head to the Ninja Academy.


    Today was the last official day of school at the academy. Yesterday, Naruto failed the exam, stole the scroll, learned shadow clones, and slightly beat up his teacher. In short, it was full canon. And today, I woke up in his body, and now this world would tremble under the footsteps of the great Cheater.


    The team allocation was supposed to start at ten o''clock, and it was only six in the morning now. So, I decided to spend my free time analyzing the abilities I had inherited. First, my chakra and magic were still completely blocked. Psionics worked somehow, but mostly at the level of extrasensory perception. The local "shmakra" was a fairly standard mix of life energy and angelic energy, that is, Order. This, by the way, explained the simplicity of "materializing" chakra. Such a property was characteristic of Order''s energies.


    By the way, from the height of my experience, I could now say that the chakra tail I got at the very beginning provided a very unusual energy that was nothing like the murkiness that magicians and demons operated with. Nor could the angels boast of anything outstanding.


    So, back to my abilities. Naruto had a decent source of "shmakra," which even now had the power of a weak jonin. The original had terrible control, but with my experience, I managed simple jutsu quite well. And that was after just ten minutes of training. I think in a couple of days I could pass for a local jonin.


    The "Life Element" in my performance meant incredible regeneration. To test it, I first decided to lightly scratch the skin on my hand. Getting no clear result, I increased the pressure. The result was now clear but somewhat cheating. As a result, I began literally slicing my left hand with a knife, cutting it to the bone. But even so, the wounds closed and fully regenerated as soon as the blade moved slightly. It created the impression that the knife was simply passing through the body without damaging it. So, as I had hoped, killing me now was extremely difficult.


    Testing my class ability "Call of Cthulhu" was a success. I was able to "summon" the tentacles of my parasite into this world, which immediately took the "payment for the summoning" in the form of some unfortunate mutt hanging around my window. In short, using this ability without nearby enemies was dangerous. Cthulhu ate everything indiscriminately. By the way, an interesting point was clarified. Instead of a bijuu, Cthulhu was seating in my seal. So, if someone decides to extract the Nine-Tails from me, they are in for a surprise. A very hungry and bored surprise, ready to devour the entire planet.


    Shadow clones worked quite well. Moreover, the basic principle of their operation was almost no different from the already known variant, so by modifying this technique, I gained access to the consciousness of all clones in real time. An ordinary mortal would go mad from this immediately, but I was used to it and felt no inconvenience. Even if using this technique increased the load on the brain, my regeneration fixed all problems before they appeared.

 Chapter 19.02: Naruto 2.0

    By ten in the morning, satisfied with life, I strolled into the graduates'' classroom. Thanks to shadow clones and Henge, I managed to earn a small sum of money, which I immediately spent on food at Ichiraku Ramen. So, I arrived at the academy full and ready for the long wait for our mentor.


    Entering the classroom, I saw my gaming partner. It was hard not to recognize him since he was the only Uchiha left in Konoha.


    "Hey, partner" - I said, slapping the pensive Sasuke on the shoulder. - "How are you settling in?"


    He looked at me, and surprise appeared on his kawaii face.


    "So, are you Cheater?" - he whispered, moving aside on the bench to give me room to sit. - "Or should I call you Atman?"


    "Call me Naruto, you won''t be wrong" - I waved it off. - "How''s your memory of this body and your own?"


    "It''s all strange" - sighed my partner. - "I don''t remember anything about myself. But the knowledge from my past life is all with me. Even those I shouldn''t remember, like the molar mass of glycerin and the gravitational constant to the eighth decimal place. Sasuke''s life, though, comes to me in vague images." - Sasuke frowned and withdrew into himself.


    "So, how does it feel to be an isekai protagonist? Does your butt hurt?" - I joked.


    "How did you...?!" - The young Uchiha stared at me in shock, instinctively trying to cover his behind with his hands, even though he was sitting on it.


    "Wow! Some personal details are coming up here" - I was shocked too. - "Who was it?"


    "...Shimura Danzo" - Sasuke answered after a short hesitation.


    "No way!"


    "He came to Sasuke once a week for the past three years and conducted what he called ''deep anal probing for signs of enemy interference.''"


    "Now it makes sense why Sasuke ignored girls and saw Naruto''s attempts at friendship as harassment" - I philosophically noted. - "In any case, we need to take him down, no discussion."


    "Who to take down?" - The hero-lover didn''t understand me.


    "Danzo, of course. It''s the only way to free you from that long-standing moral trauma."


    But we couldn''t develop this topic further because Haruno Sakura entered the class. To be honest, everyone present stared at her at that moment. Sakura walked with her legs and arms wide apart. If her shoulders were broader, she wouldn''t have fit through the door.


    People immediately started laughing, pointing fingers at the girl. Sakura glanced around the classroom and headed straight for us.


    "Hi" - I greeted when the girl stood next to us.


    Instead of being polite, she literally shoved me aside and sat in my place. This caused not only me but also Sasuke, who was sitting next to me, to shift. Given that the desks were designed for two, such behavior from the ''best student in the class'' was extremely unusual.


    "Why... do I... have a... female... body?" - she hissed almost syllable by syllable.


    "Bwa-ha-ha!" - I couldn''t hold back. - "The Haruno genome exists in only one person in Konoha. Why did you even choose it?"


    To prevent curious classmates from eavesdropping, I had already put up a simple barrier that distorted sounds.


    "This genome had the highest level of chakra control" - Sakura answered. - "This body is so weak. And all these silly thoughts in my head. But the most annoying thing is the voice of the previous owner of this body."


    Poor guy, I thought. If he can''t adapt to the situation, he''ll go completely mad and end up killing everyone around him. Having lived in the Warhammer world, I had a chance to talk to orcs, so I roughly knew how their consciousness worked. If he can''t resolve his inner conflicts, he''ll snap and start a bloody rampage.


    You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.


    "Relax" - I hugged the girl. - "You need to become Sakura and completely absorb her consciousness and memory. Devour her and become the full master of this body" - I instructed, then started using psionics to remove the barriers between Sakura''s and Groot''s personalities.


    Surprisingly, even such a simple influence managed to ''break'' the barrier, and Groot immediately started a bloody frenzy. However, only in his mind. I assumed that the orc''s consciousness could suppress the consciousness of the young girl, but the exact opposite happened. ''Evil Sakura'' tore the dumb orc apart like a dog toy and absorbed him. Although there was only one soul in this body now, she began to consider herself Sakura, with the knowledge of a cosmic orc in her head. Well... that''ll do. I have a feeling I''ll have to carry these two to the finish line on my back anyway.


    The girl convulsed a few times, then opened her eyes and looked at me.


    ¡°Naruto-kun¡± - Sakura whispered, looking at me with loving eyes.


    I looked back at her, noting her green eyes and cute face, but then the disgusting green face of an orc, which I remembered from our ¡®first meeting,¡¯ flashed before my ¡®inner vision.¡¯ No way, I don¡¯t need that kind of happiness. Concentrating, I used the substitution jutsu, switching places with Sasuke. To use this technique without preparation on another person, you needed a huge amount of chakra. And I had just that much.


    ¡°What?¡± - My partner was surprised by the sudden move. - ¡°Sakura-chan?¡±


    It seemed the power of ¡®female charm¡¯ immediately washed over the young Uchiha¡¯s brain, as admiration was evident in his voice.


    ¡°Get lost!¡± - The object of his affection punched him in the ribs. - ¡°Naruto-kun, you¡¯re so cool.¡± - Sakura leaned forward to see my face.


    ¡°Pfft!¡± - I convincingly mimicked the canonical Sasuke, turning away in the opposite direction.


    ¡°What the heck is going on here?¡± - Uchiha politely inquired.


    ¡°Our partner realized they are Sakura¡± - I explained my version of events.


    ¡°I am Sakura¡± - the girl confirmed pompously. - ¡°Sasuke-baka, don¡¯t you dare touch me. And leave me alone; you¡¯re interfering with my admiration of Naruto-kun. Right, Naruto-kuuuuun?¡±


    The tone of her voice sent chills down my spine. This is a mess.


    ¡°But you love me, Sakura-chaaaaan¡± - Sasuke whined, unknowingly copying the canonical Naruto¡¯s behavior model.


    ¡°Love is over, tomatoes have withered¡± - Sakura rejected his advances. - ¡°I just realized that Naruto-kun is stronger than you. I will mate only with him and give birth to an army of thousands of orcs, which I will lead to victory in the name of Khorne!¡±


    It seems Sakura had a breakdown. Her mind mixed the values of an orc and a young fool, creating some kind of crazy cocktail. Now, I could only wait and hope that with time, the mud in her head would settle, and she would develop at least some semblance of sanity. But who am I kidding? None of the personality donors were known for their sanity.


    It¡¯s unknown how our conversation would have ended, but at that moment, Yamanaka Ino approached our table.


    ¡°Hey, Forehead Girl, leave my Sasuke alone!¡± - she demanded.


    ¡°What do you want, Piggy? Is your skull pressing on your brain?¡± - Sakura snapped back, stunning her ¡®rival.¡¯ - ¡°I can quickly solve this problem by knocking out the rest of your brains. Got it?! Get lost while you¡¯re still alive! Naruto and Sasuke are mine! Grrr!¡±


    Ino, stunned by such a rebuke, fell into a daze and moved as directed, sitting at a desk at the far end of the class. A minute later, she snapped out of it, jumped up, and was about to return and ¡®punish¡¯ Sakura, but at that moment, Iruka-sensei entered the class, silencing everyone and starting the official team allocation ceremony.


    Just like in the canon, Sakura and I were teamed up with Sasuke. And just as it was in the canon, our sensei Kakashi didn''t even bother to show up. As a result, all the new shinobis scattered around, while we three remained sitting in class. Luckily, Sakura switched into her daily routine emulation mode, starting to flirt with Sasuke. He, on the other hand, was more than happy, trying to seduce the young girl, although he himself wasn''t even aware of his own emotions yet.


    I didn''t waste any time and left a clone behind me instead, heading out for some training in chakra control. Since my Life-affinity chakras were inaccessible to standard attacking techniques, I was planning on using my ''Uzumaki bloodline legacy''. Specifically, I wanted to master the technique of binding with chakra that Kushina Uzumaki used.


    Although our local chakra worked under completely different laws than my own chakra, but at least I knew how to use demonic energy which wasn''t too far off from angelic energy. As for the Order-affinity chakras, although I didn''t exactly like them, their main principles were familiar to me. In general, after a couple of hours, it started working out and creating chains with my own chakra began to get easier, so I moved on to controlling those movements. Not sure if that was actually the same technique used by Uzumaki clan members or not, but mine wasn''t any worse.


    Around four in the afternoon, Kakashi finally decided to show up at class where he found two teenagers trying to engage in some sort of intimate activity without knowing what it even meant. In general, half-naked Sasuke and Sakura were lying on a bench writhing like they had an epileptic fit while my clone was watching them munching on ghostly popcorn and offering ''advice''. Honestly speaking, when I realized that the "newbie" didn''t remember how to do it properly, I seriously burst out laughing. Apparently, their Players installed some sort of special block in their mind which blocked all memories related to sex although he should have had enough information to reconstruct a proper sequence.


    ¡°Ah, sensei Kakashi! You''re late as usual...¡± - Greeted our instructor while replacing myself with the clone.


    ¡°What are you two doing here?¡± - Asked an utterly shocked jonin.

 Chapter 19.03: Naruto 2.0

    ¡°Oh, by the way! Do you have those trashy little books from the ''Come-Come Paradise'' series? Could you lend me one for five minutes? These two still can''t figure out how to properly engage in the reproduction process.¡±


    ¡°No!¡± - The specialist in perversions rejected my suggestion. ¨C ¡°Anyway, get dressed and go to the roof. We need to hold our first team meeting.¡±


    ¡°Yes, sensei.¡± - Sasuke complied, pulling on his pants.


    ¡°We''ll need to repeat this.¡± - Sakura remarked discontentedly. ¨C ¡°I''m almost beginning to understand the essence of it.¡± - I laughed at such a statement because the orc, who was used to reproducing by spores, couldn''t even come close to imagining how humans reproduce. ¨C ¡°Naruto-kuuuuun, you should join in too.¡±


    ¡°No-no-no, you guys figure it out first without me.¡± - I distanced myself from such a prospect.


    Kakashi watched the entire scene, staring so hard that I thought his eye might pop out. Five minutes later, we gathered on the school roof, and our ''mentor'' suggested that each of us talk about our desires, plans, and so on. Surprisingly, Sakura took the initiative, eager to share her plans with the world.


    ¡°My name is Haruno Sakura. I am Groot! I love Naruto and don''t like Sasuke. And my dream is to give birth to an army of huge green-skinned barbarians who will enslave this world, build spaceships on its ruins, and set out to conquer the galaxy!¡±


    Kakashi''s right eye twitched at such a statement, so it might have seemed like he was winking at Sakura, hinting that he knew how to reproduce correctly. But she completely ignored these lewd hints, grabbing Sasuke and rubbing her chest against him.


    ¡°My name is Uchiha Sasuke. I love Sakura and don''t like boiled onions. My dream is to become a professiAnal dimension-traveler.¡± - Sasuke declared straightforwardly, right according to Freud. After his statement, Kakashi''s eye twitched twice as often.


    ¡°I am Uzumaki Naruto!¡± - I struck a pompous pose. ¨C ¡°I love fighting for world justice by destroying evil! I don''t like it when this evil dies too quickly and without enough suffering. And my dream... I must destroy one Being.¡±


    At that moment, such a bloodlust emanated from me that Kakashi''s hair turned white on the spot. Although no one noticed because his hair was already white.


    ¡°Well... you... uh...¡± - Our mentor mumbled when my fit of unprovoked anger passed. ¨C ¡°I''ll see you tomorrow at six in the morning at the eighth training ground. And I advise you not to have breakfast, or you''ll throw up.¡±


    At this point, the great jonin couldn''t take it anymore and vomited himself. It really hit him hard. He shouldn''t have stood right in front of me. See, Sasuke and Sakura hid behind me, and the bloodlust hardly affected them. After such a fiasco, Kakashi abruptly left, and I followed his example. I had other things to do besides watching the crazy Sakura and the lovesick Sasuke.


    The next morning, I was sitting in the center of the training ground near a pond, enjoying a modest breakfast of six dishes. Nearby sat Sakura and Sasuke, drooling. Overnight, the girl almost returned to normal, and now it was hard to distinguish her from the real Sakura.


    ¡°But Kakashi-sensei told us not to eat anything.¡± - She complained, watching another piece of omelet disappear into my mouth with a sorrowful gaze.


    ¡°I''m not forcing anyone to eat. Maybe I want to vomit? And how am I supposed to do that on an empty stomach?¡±


    Sasuke watched me, making a face of offended innocence and pretending he wasn''t the least bit hungry, although the constant drooling, which he kept swallowing, gave him away completely. But his clan pride wouldn''t let him ask me for anything. Also, I was apparently his rival for Sakura''s heart, and he couldn''t humiliate himself by asking me for something. All these thoughts and feelings were so clearly visible on Uchiha''s face that I didn''t even need to use my psionic abilities to understand everything.


    After finishing breakfast, I pulled out a portable palanquin with curtains from the sun and lay down to sleep, leaving five clones on guard. This approach to training completely exhausted my teammates, who yawned every minute, trying not to fall asleep. By the time Kakashi appeared on the horizon, Sasuke and Sakura were already sound asleep, nestled in each other''s arms under a bush. My clones woke me up, so I quickly put away the bed and started pretending to be a cheerful and diligent ninja, watching the surroundings.


    Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    ¡°Good afternoon, Kakashi-sensei!¡± - I greeted in the most energetic voice I could muster. ¨C ¡°You''re late again! Think about the example you''re setting for the younger generation?¡±


    ¡°Well, I was helping an old lady cross the street and got a bit delayed.¡±


    ¡°Kakashi-sensei, your kindness knows no bounds! With your abilities, in five hours, you could help eighteen thousand grandmothers to cross the street. Maybe you should let them rest a bit? If you keep moving these poor pensioners at such a pace, they''ll all die from heart strain and sensory shock from sudden spatial shifts.¡±


    ¡°Uhhh... ummm... errr...¡± - The pathological latecomer and liar couldn''t come up with a retort. ¨C ¡°And where are Sasuke and Sakura?¡± - He changed the subject.


    ¡°Sleeping under the bushes.¡± - I pointed to the ''shelter'' where my teammates were hiding from the scorching sun. ¨C ¡°And we are supposedly on a training mission and should be ready for a sudden enemy attack.¡±


    ¡°Hmmm... yes, that''s not good.¡± - Kakashi agreed with me.


    As I had hoped, he decided to teach the green genins a lesson. Using a simple jutsu, he scooped water from the pond, cooled it to almost zero degrees, and then poured a cubic meter of icy liquid onto the blissfully dozing pair. The ensuing double scream could be heard even at the Hokage Tower on the other side of the city. When the ''sweet couple'' regained their senses after such an extreme wake-up call, Kakashi took control and lined us up. I stood cheerfully and energetically a bit apart, while the drenched Sasuke and Sakura glared around angrily, trying to warm up in each other''s arms.


    ¡°Today, I wanted to give you a team challenge, but judging by what I see, you''ve already failed it.¡± - Our commander began to scold us. ¨C ¡°So, for beginning, I want to assess your combat level in one-on-one sparring. We''ll start with you, Sasuke. Come here and show me everything you''ve got. Attack me as if you want to kill me.¡±


    ¡°I actually want to kill you.¡± - The head of the Uchiha clan couldn''t help but admit. ¨C "Therefore...¡±


    He gave Kakashi a particularly vicious glare, after which the elite jonin''s head exploded, and he collapsed to the ground in a heap.


    ¡°Whoa!¡± - I was surprised. ¨C ¡°How did you do that?¡±


    ¡°Art is an explosion!¡± - Sasuke gloated. ¨C ¡°Genjutsu is the ability to inject your chakra into the opponent''s brain and cause hallucinations. I use this chakra to create an explosion. For this, I chose the appropriate element. It''s enough for me to see the enemy to kill them instantly.¡±


    ¡°Wow, Sasuke, you''re so cool!¡± - Sakura immediately praised the idea.


    ¡°Not bad.¡± - I nodded. ¨C ¡°But now we''re left without a mentor.¡±


    ¡°He wasn''t going to teach us anything anyway.¡± - The time-traveler dismissed.


    ¡°Haven''t you considered that the village leadership might not appreciate such treatment of its best personnel? Kakashi was the strongest jonin after the Third Hokage.¡±


    ¡°Pfft! Weakling!¡± - Sasuke snorted.


    ¡°Fine, I''ll have to handle this problem myself.¡± - I sighed.


    Approaching our commander''s corpse, I touched it with my hand and channeled my chakra through his body. Overall, the situation wasn''t that serious. The soul was still nearby, watching its corpse with a stunned expression. Even the astral shells were just beginning to decay.


    Pulling out a kunai from Kakashi''s pouch, I swiftly severed the remnants of his head. It was so mangled that it was easier to grow a new one than to restore this mess. After that, I directed my chakra to regenerate the missing tissues, growing a new head for the jonin in just a few seconds. There was even a small hope that it would be less stupid than the previous one.


    Of course, this new head had both ''native'' eyes, so I extracted the remains of Obito''s Sharingan from the bloody mess, restored it, and then grafted it back into its rightful place, tweaking the chakra channels so that the eye worked like a normal Uchiha''s.


    In less than a minute, Kakashi twitched, opened his eyes, and stared at me in shock.


    ¡°Kakashi-sensei, you''re alive!¡± - I rejoiced, playing the fool. ¨C ¡°I was starting to worry.¡±


    ¡°What... what happened?¡± - Our captain asked, trying to regain control of his arms and legs, which was not so easy with a new head.


    ¡°Well, Sasuke blew your head off.¡± - I replied nonchalantly. ¨C ¡°But I reattached it, and you came back to life.¡±


    ¡°What?!!¡±


    Kakashi jerked, sat up, turned his head, and saw the remains of his previous ''pumpkin.''


    ¡°Don''t worry.¡± - I reassured him. ¨C ¡°I also reattached your left eye. It works better than before.¡±


    Only then did Kakashi realize he was seeing the world with both eyes, and his face no longer had a mask. Slightly tensing, he activated the Sharingan and was surprised to find that the chakra expenditure was very low.


    ¡°I think we need to continue the sparring. Look, Sakura also wants to hit you. But don''t worry. If anything happens, I''ll bring you back even from dead.¡± - I grinned wickedly, making a face like a mad vivisector.


    ¡°Orochimaru?¡± - Kakashi paled.


    ¡°Where?¡± - I began to look around.


    ¡°Oh no, my imagination.¡± - He sighed in relief after scanning me with his chakra. ¨C ¡°Alright, Sakura, your turn now.¡±

 Chapter 19.04: Naruto 2.0

    This time, the elite Jonin was fully prepared for the start of the fight and even activated his Sharingan, but it didn¡¯t help him at all. As soon as he said ¡®begin,¡¯ Sakura, who was standing with her fist outstretched, unleashed her technique. To be honest, her attack surprised me much more than Sasuke¡¯s invention. Because the amount of chakra she invested in this attack didn¡¯t exceed the cost of an ordinary henge. But the result was far better than anything Tsunade could demonstrate. Kakashi was instantly swept away by the explosive wave of chakra, simultaneously turning into charred mince.


    ¡°Waaaaaaagh!!!¡± - Sakura roared. - ¡°I am Groot!!!!!! And this is what will happen to anyone who dares to attack me!¡±


    Yeah, it¡¯s better not to get in her way when she¡¯s in a rage. Sasuke also broke out in a cold sweat from such a display.


    ¡°Damn it, I just resurrected him!¡± - I complained about the unfairness of fate.


    An examination of the ''mince'' showed that there was no intact DNA left in it. However, the remnants of the ''previous head'' lying on the ground provided me with the necessary biological material, from which I grew a new body within a minute, creating all the necessary matter from chakra.


    ¡°So, Sasuke, I need your body¡± - I said to my partner, inspecting the result of my work.


    ¡°What? No! Over my dead body!!!¡± - He was frightened by my lustful look.


    ¡°Relax, you might even enjoy it.¡±


    Before Uchiha could react, I touched his hand and ''took a sample'' of his DNA. After that, I implanted Uchiha¡¯s genes into Kakashi¡¯s body and grew him two Sharingan. With a bit more tinkering, I figured out how to activate them immediately. One tomoe, two, three, Mangekyo Sharingan, Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan, Rinnegan, Divine Rinnegan, Eyes of God. Bringing the evolution of the ''eyes'' to the maximum, I restored consciousness to the subject.


    ¡°Kakashi-sensei, you¡¯re alive!¡± - I shouted again.


    This time, ¡®sensei¡¯ jerked as if from an electric shock and jumped two meters up, landing on his feet. Okay, reflexes work fine.


    ¡°What? Who?¡± - He started looking around until he spotted Sakura. After that, his thought process halted because he couldn¡¯t comprehend how this green genin could have killed him with one punch.


    Following a simple chain of thoughts, Kakashi began examining his naked body, but to his surprise, he found no scars on it, and all his skin was as clean and soft as a baby¡¯s.


    ¡°Kai!¡± - He shouted, trying to dispel the genjutsu.


    ¡°Kakashi-sensei, you now have two Sharingan. Genjutsu doesn¡¯t work on you. And in general, check how your eyes work. I¡¯m interested in what they can see.¡±


    Kakashi goggled his eyes at me, then the meaning of my words dawned on him, and he complied with my request. Sequentially activating one stage after another, he reached the state of ''Eyes of God,'' the information about which was embedded in the very structure of Uchiha DNA.


    ¡°Aaaaaa!!!¡± - Kakashi screamed, looking at me. - ¡°What are you? What kind of monster are you??? You¡­ you are the very embodiment of evil!¡±


    ¡°Wow! I¡¯m impressed you managed to see that¡± - I rejoiced. - ¡°But you¡¯re wrong. The very embodiment of evil is him.¡±


    With these words, I summoned Cthulhu and manifested a tangle of his tentacles right in front of Kakashi.


    ¡°AAAAAAA!!!!¡± - This time, the scream was filled not with fear, but with pain. - ¡°I want to unsee this!!!¡±


    With these words, Kakashi¡¯s eyes burst and scattered in bloody splatters. Yeah, he turned out to be a weak specimen. Couldn¡¯t handle the load at all.


    Cthulhu was satisfied with the achieved result and disappeared into the bijuu seal, this time deciding not to eat anyone, thus sparing the life of one of the ANBU operatives who was hanging around, observing us.


    ¡°What¡¯s wrong with you, Kakashi-sensei?¡± - I pitied the test subject rabbit, restoring him to the most ordinary Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan. Apparently, that¡¯s his limit.


    ¡°You¡­ you¡­ stay away!¡± - The patient tried to back away, forgetting even how to walk properly, which resulted in him disgracefully falling on his rear.


    ¡°Come on, Kakashi-sensei? We still have a sparring session planned. And I really wanted to show you how my pet works. However, I¡¯m afraid after this, I won¡¯t be able to revive you because it will devour your soul.¡±


    This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    ¡°No! Enough! Go away! You¡¯re stronger. Are you satisfied?!! I don¡¯t want this¡­ this¡­¡± - At this point, our sensei¡¯s vocabulary ran out, and he fainted. Weakling! Alright, let him lie down, rest. I still need him alive and preferably sane.


    Looking around, I noticed Sakura intently examining the naked sensei. And there was indeed something to look at. This body had perfect musculature, and its member was about three times longer than Sasuke¡¯s little thing. After all, he was only twelve years old.


    ¡°Alright, enough admiring. Here, better read this book. Everything should be described in detail there¡± - I gave Kakashi¡¯s book to Sakura, which he had reinforced so much with fuinjutsu that it even survived Waaagh. The girl immediately grabbed Jiraiya¡¯s creation and immersed herself in reading, almost completely losing touch with reality.


    About five minutes later, Kakashi woke up, jumped three meters in the air, looked at me in horror, and then gradually began to calm down. The first thing he did was stop flashing his member and covered himself with a henge. Then he needed to justify his flight to us somehow.


    ¡°Uhhhh... mmmmaa...¡± - he started his speech.


    ¡°Kakashi-sensei, we passed your test, right?¡± - I decided to help our boss make the right decision.


    ¡°Ehh... yes, you passed.¡± - He sighed heavily.


    ¡°Then we need to be immediately assigned to S-rank missions, or better yet, SSS+++ rank.¡±


    ¡°Uhh... I¡¯ll inform the Hokage about this.¡±


    ¡°Then I won¡¯t hold you up, sensei.¡±


    ¡°Alright. Wait for me here.¡± - He finally figured out what was required of him.


    With that, Kakashi immediately dashed off, and I exchanged glances with Sasuke. Sakura had been unavailable for five minutes, reading the book at a pace of five seconds per page.


    ¡°And what next?¡± - Sasuke asked me, suddenly struck by a sense of prudence.


    ¡°Next, we need to train and strengthen ourselves. Our enemies won¡¯t sit and wait for us to kill them; they¡¯ll come to us first.¡±


    ¡°So, we need to set a trap?¡± - The transmigrant showed his tactical genius.


    ¡°No. We need to get far away for at least a month, during which you must turn from useless meat into real ninja.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean by ¡®you¡¯? Aren¡¯t you a meat too?¡± - Sasuke was offended.


    ¡°Heh, I¡¯m not meat¡± - I assured him. - ¡°But I can¡¯t carry you on my back all the time.¡±


    ¡°I can kill any enemy just by looking at them!¡± - Uchiha began to boast.


    ¡°And that¡¯s why they¡¯ll quietly sneak up behind you and slit your throat. Or throw a kunai. Or shoot you with a sniper rifle from a couple of kilometers away.¡±


    ¡°Are there even firearms here?¡±


    ¡°Think about it yourself. Against us, there will be other ¡®transmigrants¡¯ who surely possess various kinds of techniques and magic. Plus, you¡¯re not the only smart one here. There will be those who can kill enemies without being seen. So, you need to be trained enough to survive until you can use your super ability.¡±


    ¡°I understand¡± - the young genius acknowledged my correctness.


    ¡°So, starting tomorrow, we begin training.¡±


    ¡°Why tomorrow?¡±


    ¡°Because today we have an interesting confrontation with the village leadership¡± - I answered, watching through clones the approaching ANBU squad. The psionics were still glitchy, and my perception of the surrounding world through it was unstable.


    ¡°Hokage-sama orders you to come to him immediately¡± - the squad leader confirmed my predictions after the ANBU surrounded us, ready for battle.


    ¡°Well, if it¡¯s the Hokage-sama himself...¡± - Sasuke thoughtfully looked at them.


    ¡°Stop showing off¡± - I interrupted him. - ¡°They don¡¯t decide anything anyway.¡±


    After that, we cheerfully ran towards the village center. Sakura continued to read the book without being distracted for a second. Five minutes later, we reached the Hokage Tower, where we were taken to the third floor to a hall where Sarutobi Hiruzen, two elders Utatane Koharu and Mitokado Homura, our sensei Hatake Kakashi, as well as Yamanaka Inoichi and Hyuga Hiashi were gathered. In the corner, Shimura Danzo discreetly positioned himself, pretending to be furniture. Meaning, he disguised himself as a stool with henge, and Sasuke didn¡¯t even notice him. The homemade genius of the Uchiha clan.


    ¡°Hey, old man!¡± - I greeted the Hokage in Naruto¡¯s typical manner.


    ¡°What kind of youth is this!¡± - Koharu was outraged. - ¡°You¡¯re already a genin, so you must address the village leader by his official title.¡±


    ¡°Got it, old lady, don¡¯t nag¡± - I waved her off.


    The elder fell silent, trying to digest such impudence, and Sarutobi took advantage of the pause, also using this moment as a small revenge on his ¡®battle comrade.¡¯


    ¡°Naruto, I just listened to Hatake Kakashi¡¯s report, and he told me about your team¡¯s successes.¡±


    ¡°Yes, we¡¯re cool!¡± - I didn¡¯t wait for further elaboration and immediately stated my point of view. - ¡°We wham! And he bam! And then kaboom!!!¡±


    ¡°Naruto¡± - the Hokage interrupted my ¡®report.¡¯ - ¡°Tell me, when did you learn your healing technique?¡±


    ¡°Oh, I read about it in the scroll I stole from the Tower the day before yesterday. It was called Edo Tensei, but I improved it a bit.¡±


    ¡°You improved it yourself?¡± - Homura didn¡¯t believe me, deciding to play the role of the bad cop.


    ¡°Of course! Because I¡¯m the most genius ninja in all of Konoha. I also learned the shadow clone technique in just five minutes. It¡¯s easy, you just have to pour more chakra in, and that¡¯s it. Anyway, Only losers uses hand gestures for ninjutsu¡± - I praised myself while subtly putting everyone present down.

 Chapter 19.05: Naruto 2.0

    ¡°Understood¡­¡± - Our Hokage slightly frowned, enduring this moral trauma. - ¡°And you, Sasuke, what technique did you use?¡±


    ¡°It was genjutsu¡± - he replied briefly, trying not to draw attention to himself.


    ¡°So, Kakashi just imagined his head exploded?¡± - Danzo didn¡¯t believe it, removing his henge.


    At that moment, their gazes met. Sasuke saw the man who was responsible for him becoming a transmigrant in a rather unconventional sense of the term. The brakes in his head immediately failed, and he used his ability, blowing Danzo¡¯s brain. This wasn¡¯t some unexpected outburst unless you considered the destruction of one of the village elders in the presence of its strongest representatives and a couple of dozen bodyguards.


    ¡°Arrest him!!!¡± - Utatane Koharu unexpectedly screeched at the top of her lungs, pointing at Sasuke.


    The crowd immediately switched on their combat reflexes and rushed at us, trying either to capture or kill us on the spot. I didn¡¯t bother figuring out what exactly they had in mind and used my Chakra Chains jutsu to bind the surrounding people, simultaneously blocking their abilities by infusing my ¡®healing¡¯ chakra into their circulation system. Surprisingly, instead of experiencing shock, mental fog, or chakra pathway rupture, the victims of my technique experienced multiple orgasms and then simply blacked out. Only the Hokage, Kakashi, and Hyuga remained conscious.


    ¡°Calm down¡± - I addressed the already nirvana-stricken surroundings. - ¡°Everything is under control. Sasuke just eliminated a traitor who was plotting to overthrow the current Hokage to take his place. See, it took us a minute to uncover this nefarious scheme and save the village! This shows once again how great and genius we are!¡±


    ¡°Khhaaa...¡± - the rescued one coughed out a cloud of smoke. - ¡°Naruto, you...¡± - At this point, Sarutobi¡¯s words ended, and he took a drag from his pipe.


    ¡°No need to thank us¡± - I waved off generously. - ¡°Saving the village is our direct duty. Right, Sasuke?¡± - I decided to involve my partner in the conversation. Sakura was still engrossed in the book and hadn¡¯t even noticed the crisis that had just passed us.


    ¡°Yeah, exactly¡± - Uchiha picked up. - ¡°I think we¡¯re now entitled to financial compensation for an SSS+++ level mission.¡±


    Such blatant extortion woke up Koharu, but seeing the displeased look directed at her by Sasuke, she preferred to feign unconsciousness again.


    ¡°Ehh¡­¡± - Kakashi tried to portray himself as the boss of the village.


    ¡°The village is currently in a difficult financial situation, so the payment will have to be postponed¡± - Homura, who had returned to this world, sparkled his glasses.


    People began to stir, coming to their senses, but the first thing they discovered was that my chakra chains still didn¡¯t allow them to move even a millimeter.


    ¡°The interest rate is ten percent per day¡± - Sasuke put forward his counter-conditions, smiling cheekily.


    Sarutobi was struck by a heavy cough, dropping his pipe from his mouth.


    ¡°This is outright extortion!¡± - Koharu was outraged, as always having trouble perceiving reality. More precisely, she perceived it, but she refused to accept the situation.


    ¡°So what?¡± - Sasuke waved off, suddenly feeling like the ¡®master of life.¡¯ - ¡°It has always been this way. The weak pay tribute to the strong to earn the right to live until the next payment.¡±


    ¡°Khha!¡± - Hokage couldn¡¯t hold back. - ¡°Sasuke, let¡¯s discuss the payment issue another time. Right now, we need to find out¡­ what the hell is going on here!!!¡±


    A surge of massive chakra passed from the gathered ¡®God of Shinobi,¡¯ only to¡­ dissipate powerlessly in the air, not moving my chains even a millimeter.


    ¡°I think we just found out that Team Eight consists of the most genius shinobi in the village. Also, we neutralized an S-class threat, for which we should receive full monetary compensation. And we urgently need to be sent on some long mission so that the village leadership can gather strength and find money to pay the tribute, oh, I mean, the reward for eliminating the traitor¡± - I laid out my brief report.


    If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    ¡°Oh-h-h... alright¡± - Sarutobi sighed heavily, realizing that in the current situation, he couldn¡¯t use any technique. - ¡°And who will be your captain?¡±


    ¡°Kakashi-sensei, of course. He¡¯s already used to dying, so he has nothing to lose. And if anything goes wrong, I¡¯ll revive him again.¡± - After my words, Kakashi broke out in a cold sweat.


    ¡°Okay, we¡¯ll find you some mission.¡±


    ¡°I think escorting some drunk bum to the Land of Waves would be perfect¡± - I suggested, after which my chakra chains released all those present and dissipated into the air. - ¡°Glad we could come to an agreement. After all, the village doesn¡¯t have the money to build a new Hokage Tower.¡±


    The people jerked and looked at me with caution after this phrase. The ANBU preferred to vanish into thin air, taking Danzo¡¯s corpse with them. Hyuga and Inoichi, who hadn¡¯t said a word during the meeting, began edging towards the exit, and Sarutobi started rummaging through the desk drawers in search of a drink.


    The critical situation seemed to have dissipated, and Kakashi decided it was the perfect time to reclaim his property.


    ¡°Sakura, please return my book¡± - he said, skillfully pulling his precious book from her hands.


    ¡°GIVE IT BACK!!! WAAAAAAGHHH!¡± - she suddenly screamed, then unleashed an AOE version of her ability on the surroundings.


    Everyone already had an idea of what this attack might result in, so they evacuated at record speed, some through windows, others through doors, and some even through walls. I covered myself and Sasuke with chakra chains. After that, an explosion was heard, and the entire Hokage Tower blew up, collapsing to the foundation.


    ¡°Kakashi!!! I¡¯ll find you!¡± the deranged girl, who thought she was a cosmic ork, screamed.


    Afterward, Sakura looked around, standing on the ruins of the tower, and walked away, spreading her arms and legs wide, as if she were a bodybuilder bristling with muscles instead of a delicate girl.


    ¡°Sakura, wait!¡± - Sasuke ran after her. - ¡°What did you read in that book?¡± he asked anxiously.


    The girl gave him an appraising look and pondered.


    ¡°Do you know what pistils and stamens are?¡± - she asked an unexpected question.


    ¡°Uh¡­ a pistil is a part of a flower, for example, an orchid.¡±


    ¡°Then we¡¯ll need to pick some flowers. And also, we¡¯ll need a jade rod, a wet kitty, and majestic hills.¡±


    ¡°The Hokage Mountain is very majestic¡± - the young Uchiha enthused. - ¡°Finding a cat is no problem, but we¡¯ll need to bathe it. And I can look for the jade rod in the clan temple.¡±


    ¡°Alright. Then we¡¯ll meet in half an hour at the top of the Hokage Mountain. I¡¯ll stop by the Yamanaka to ask for orchid and asphodel flowers.¡±


    I quietly laughed, watching this scene, and went to my ¡®den,¡¯ leaving a couple of clones to watch over my teammates. It was interesting to see where all this pornography would lead.


    Until evening, I trained my control and sensory abilities to be able to detect the presence of an enemy nearby. A couple of ANBU squads helped me with this as best they could, hiding in the surroundings and covertly observing me.


    Sasuke and Sakura¡¯s ¡®sex¡¯ began with the Uchiha getting scratched by a soaking wet cat he decided to drown in a stream. After that, Sakura broke the jade rod by squeezing it in her hand with inhuman strength and forced her ¡®lover¡¯ to crawl over the ¡®majestic hills¡¯ collecting ticks and spider webs on himself. And in the end, the unyielding ork made Sasuke ¡®rub¡¯ aconite flowers, causing him to lose consciousness within a couple of minutes and nearly die. Fortunately, my clone managed to revive him before his soul left his body. After such ¡®sex,¡¯ Uchiha was so exhausted that he left without even saying goodbye and spent the entire evening indulging in gloomy reflections on the injustice of the universe.


    Until midnight, nothing interesting happened, but when night fully took over, ANBU squads specializing in covert operations paid a visit to the green genins¡¯ homes. Sleep gas was released into the room where the green genins were sleeping, after which the unconscious bodies of my teammates were tied up with ropes, surrounded by chakra-suppressing seals, and carried to the Root¡¯s dungeons for thorough interrogation by Yamanaka clan specialists.


    But with me, these specialists met a snag. Firstly, I wasn¡¯t asleep and was waiting for the attack fully prepared. Secondly, my sensory abilities and clones warned me of the approaching capture group. And thirdly, the sleeping gas didn¡¯t affect me because my metabolism at the moment was too far from human. Just in case, I had a fuinjutsu seal prepared, containing several dozen cubic meters of air. So, when the enthusiastic ANBU burst into my home, my chakra chains immediately entangled them, turning the predators into prey.


    ¡°What does all this mean?¡± - I asked the leader of the capture group, who turned out to be Morino Ibiki. They send the best for me. It makes me proud.


    ¡°You¡­ release¡­¡± - he groaned, trying to free himself using various techniques, none of which even activated.


    ¡°Why would I? You broke into my home with clearly malicious intentions. By martial law, you should all be eliminated on the spot. But since the war hasn¡¯t started yet, I¡¯ll give you a chance to redeem yourself by telling me who sent you here and what you want from me.¡±


    ¡°We won¡¯t tell you anyth-hrrr¡­¡± - one of the ANBU managed to say before my chains turned him into mincemeat.


    ¡°For those who didn¡¯t understand, that was the wrong answer¡± - I commented on the demise of this idiot.

 Chapter 19.06: Naruto 2.0

    Another dozen ninja attempted to attack me from a distance using shuriken, kunai, and various techniques, including genjutsu. However, it quickly became evident that my chakra chains extended much further than I had shown, so all the attackers also fell into my grasping tentacles. Genjutsu couldn''t affect me at all because the concentration of chakra in my brain was higher than any Jonin''s in the village. As soon as they tried to align with my consciousness, they received a backlash of my chakra straight into their brains, overwhelmed by the internal pressure.


    ¡°The Hokage ordered us to bring you in for interrogation¡± - Morino Ibiki surrendered his superior, realizing that any resistance was futile.


    ¡°Did it not occur to you to simply come and ask politely?¡± - I asked. - ¡°However, you were so predictable that I never considered the possibility that you wouldn¡¯t try to capture me tonight. So now, we will all visit our dear Hokage together to clarify his last dying wish.¡±


    With these words, I and all my ¡®captives¡¯ teleported to the clone who was observing the Hokage, hiding in the ANBU underground, awaiting a report on my capture or elimination. This evening, I figured out how to receive natural chakra through my clones in real-time, so the issue of insufficient chakra for me no longer existed.


    ¡°Well, well, well, it looks like I¡¯ll have to change the Hokage in my village¡± - I lamented, observing how the elderly leader squirmed in the embrace of my chains.


    ¡°What do you want?¡± - Hiruzen croaked.


    ¡°That¡¯s what I should be asking you. I was sitting quietly, not bothering anyone, fixing my primus stove, and then your people broke into my home and tried to capture me. That¡¯s not how we do business. It seems you won¡¯t escape punishment for your dark deeds.¡±


    ¡°I have Sasuke and Sakura in custody¡±- the Hokage head tried to negotiate.


    ¡°Pfft! Those losers are useless¡± - I waved dismissively. - ¡°They can only be used as bait.¡±


    ¡°Who are you?¡± - Hiruzen decided to change the subject, feeling that he had run out of arguments.


    ¡°I am Uzumaki Naruto. You have oppressed me for twelve years, the son of the Fourth Hokage, forcing me to live in poverty and surrounded by universal hatred. And here¡¯s the result¡ªI hate all of you. Especially you, you hypocritical old man¡± - Hiruzen coughed at this revelation, feeling the approach of Shinigami.


    ¡°You can¡¯t scare us!¡± - one of the observers, wrapped in chains like a cocoon, decided to speak up.


    ¡°I wasn¡¯t really trying to¡± - I said, cleaning my ear and blowing a piece of earwax straight into the talker¡¯s mouth, causing him to choke and refrain from further objections. - ¡°In short, your last chance to stay alive is to set a fuinjutsu of complete submission to me. Anyone who disagrees can start protesting right now so that I can kill them without wasting time on meaningless resistance.¡±


    A dissonant chorus of voices was heard, and a couple of dozen shinobies turned into bloody mincemeat. After that, everyone else fell silent and stared at the Hokage, awaiting his reaction.


    ¡°Naruto, forgive me...¡± - Sarutobi Hiruzen began to whine.


    ¡°Not interested. I don¡¯t care about all your apologies, repentance, and sincere confessions. The time for talk has passed. And now, my strength will speak for me. And I warn you right away, I¡¯m not master of genjutsu, so most of the test subjects will go straight to the morgue.¡±


    I then brought another ¡®nameless statistician ninja¡¯ closer and invaded his consciousness, using chakra and scraps of psionics to establish a subjugating construct. After about the third dozen test subjects, I learned not to fry their brains but actually embed a fuinjutsu in their consciousness that made them unwaveringly loyal to me. I started with the ¡®statisticians¡¯ so all the most public figures in the village survived and now couldn¡¯t even think of harming me or disobeying my orders.


    After ¡®cleansing¡¯ the base, I ordered to be taken to the place where Sasuke and Sakura were held. They were dragged each to a separate dungeon, so I first went to save Uchiha. After all, I still had some hope for him. Maybe he would be of some use.


    Sasuke was found in a cell, drugged, bound in shackles, and covered with suppressing seals. After I passed my chakra through him, he woke up and naturally panicked. Well, from his point of view, he fell asleep at home and woke up in a dungeon, chained and unable to use any techniques. In short, my ¡®partner¡¯ learned his lesson and realized that he is not cool ninja but just ordinary meat.


    This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.


    Dealing with Sakura turned out to be somewhat more complicated. When I approached her cell, there was an interrogation in progress. She was not only drugged but also subjected to a stationary f¨±in that put the victim in a special genjutsu, completely suppressing her will and making all memories in her brain crystal clear. I even decided to postpone rescuing the deranged girl for a couple of minutes because her responses were quite... unexpected.


    ¡°What was your purpose in destroying the Hokage Tower?¡± - asked the chunin, who had extensive experience in asking the right questions and unraveling the most complex circumstances.


    ¡°There was no purpose¡± - the girl replied, drawing out her words.


    ¡°Was it a demonstration of power?¡±


    ¡°My power doesn¡¯t need a demonstration.¡±


    ¡°Were you planning to kill the Hokage?¡±


    ¡°No. The Hokage doesn¡¯t exist.¡±


    After this phrase, there was a slight pause while the chunin tried to understand the meaning of the answer. After all, Sakura couldn''t lie or make things up at this moment.


    ¡°What is your goal?¡±


    ¡°To enslave the galaxy.¡±


    Since few ninjas even knew what a galaxy was, the answer again stumped the operator.


    ¡°What is your name?¡± - he decided to start from the beginning.


    ¡°Oleg Veremeev.¡±


    Now I pricked up my ears. The chunin, inspired by this answer, felt he was on the right track.


    ¡°So, you¡¯re not Haruno Sakura?¡±


    ¡°I Am Groot!¡± - the prisoner replied pompously.


    ¡°And where is Haruno Sakura now?¡±


    ¡°She never existed.¡±


    Now the hope for a simple resolution of the problem began to falter.


    ¡°We have records of observing Sakura since her birth¡± - the chunin said, though it wasn¡¯t really a question. - ¡°What was the name of the child born to Haruno Kizashi and Haruno Mebuki?¡± - he decided to find out, having reviewed the personal file data.


    ¡°Haruno Sakura.¡±


    ¡°And where is she?¡±


    ¡°She never existed.¡±


    ¡°Who existed then?¡± - the interrogator couldn¡¯t stand this mockery. On his command, the technicians checked the f¨±in¡¯s operation but found no deviations.


    ¡°Me.¡±


    ¡°And who are you?¡±


    ¡°I Am Groot!¡±


    ¡°What is Groot?¡±


    ¡°Groot is me.¡±


    ¡°What a nonsense? Who created you like this?¡± - the torturer couldn¡¯t bear it anymore.


    Sakura paused, trying to find an answer.


    ¡°I was created by Kishimoto Masashi.¡±


    ¡°Finally, some names¡± - the chunin smiled contentedly. - ¡°Who is Kishimoto Masashi?¡±


    ¡°The creator of this world¡± - Sakura succinctly described.


    The chunin¡¯s face turned red, and he began to breathe heavily, holding back a fit of rage.


    ¡°And how did he create it?¡± - he inquired for form¡¯s sake.


    ¡°Judging by what¡¯s happening around, it was under the influence of alcohol and heavy drugs¡± - the girl gave her expert opinion.


    ¡°Hard to disagree with you¡± - the interrogator muttered, looking at the ceiling.


    In general, I already understood what was happening, so I decided to interrupt this highly useless interrogation. After all the village operatives underwent the ¡®zombification¡¯ procedure, which the Hokage himself ordered, I decided to rest. I had no desire to return to Naruto¡¯s ¡®quarters,¡¯ so I decided to take advantage of Sasuke¡¯s hospitality, taking Sakura with me. After the interrogation, she still hadn¡¯t come to her senses, and I decided not to wake her for now.


    In the morning, Sasuke and I were sitting in the guest hall of his residence, waiting for Sakura to wake up. The girl was just about to wake up, lying on a mattress under a warm blanket. Finally, she groaned, turned on her side, and then opened her eyes and jumped up, wildly looking around.


    ¡°Good morning¡± - I greeted her, while sipping a tea. Sasuke had a good collection of elite teas, stored in time-stop seals, and thus preserved until my arrival.


    ¡°So, it wasn¡¯t a dream?¡± - Sakura said... in perfect Russian language.


    ¡°No¡± - I replied in the same language.


    ¡°So, she¡¯s not an orc?¡± - Sasuke made a fairly obvious conclusion.


    ¡°Let her tell us herself.¡±


    Meanwhile, the girl started examining herself again, not hesitating to look under her dress and check what was between her legs.


    ¡°Fucking fuck!¡± - she commented on the results of the inspection.


    ¡°You haven¡¯t even seen yourself in the mirror yet¡± - I smirked.


    She shot me a displeased look.


    ¡°Don¡¯t start, okay? I feel bad enough already.¡± - Sakura approached the table, poured herself a cup of tea, and took a sip. - ¡°Is there any sugar?¡±


    ¡°Honey and jam¡± - I pointed to the closed pots on the table. After she mixed a pot of honey with her tea and drank it all, I decided to continue the conversation. - ¡°Come on, tell us, our dear Winnie-the-Pooh.¡±


    ¡°Why exactly Winnie-the-Pooh?¡± - Sakura was surprised.


    ¡°Who just gulped down a pot of honey by himself? Come on, spill it.¡±

 Chapter 19.07: Naruto 2.0

    ¡°My name is Oleg. Well, it was¡­ before I died. After death, some god found me and sent my soul to the Warhammer world into the body of an orc. I lived there for over a hundred years, nearly conquering the entire galaxy. But after I was killed by an overly nimble Eldar, I was sent here, to the Naruto world. By then, I had almost completely forgotten that I was once human. After that, my consciousness merged with Sakura¡¯s personality, and during the interrogation, my true identity emerged. And honestly, I have no desire to become a cosmic mushroom or a schizophrenic teenage girl again.¡±


    ¡°Got it¡± - I summarized. - ¡°Sasuke here is also a trans-dimensional-migrant from Earth, but he lost his memory. I¡¯ve been dealing with all this for quite a while, so there¡¯s no point in telling my story. I¡¯ll just say that compared to me, you two are complete noobs.¡±


    ¡°What makes you say that?¡± - Oleg protested.


    ¡°Do you remember what the Judge of this game called me?¡± - I smirked.


    ¡°¡­Cheater¡± - Oleg managed to recall.


    ¡°Exactly! I¡¯m a cheater, and you¡¯re noobs. But enough about that. Our task is to eliminate the enemy figures that have appeared in other villages.¡±


    ¡°Who and where are these enemies? Any ideas?¡± - the former orc immediately asked. I already liked him more than the amnesiac Sasuke, who behaves more like a child, which makes sense considering his memory loss.


    ¡°No idea, but we can make some assumptions. First, it¡¯s the inhabitants of the four hidden villages: Sand, Stone, Cloud, and Mist. There will also definitely be Akatsuki. Orochimaru is likely one of the opponents too. So, that¡¯s six, including us seven. That leaves three more teams. There could be various options. For example, residents of buffer countries like the Land of Rain or Grass. Or there could be some unknown missing-nin.¡±


    ¡°And what about Tsunade and Jiraiya?¡±


    ¡°Unlikely. They are part of Konoha. But Orochimaru¡¯s genome wasn¡¯t on the list at the start of the game, so he¡¯s considered an opponent.¡±


    ¡°What are our plans?¡± - Oleg continued to ask, apparently deciding to evaluate my ¡®wisdom¡¯ first. Sasuke, meanwhile, sat silently, frowning as he looked back and forth between me and ¡®Sakura.¡¯


    ¡°I¡¯ve already suggested it. We need to get used to our new bodies and learn some techniques. We ended up in the bodies of green genin who can¡¯t do anything. You can¡¯t win with just one jutsu. So, I propose we head to the Land of Waves. Along the way, Kakashi will train us, and in a month or two, we¡¯ll be ready to take part in the Chunin Exams. I think by then, most participants will also move from preparation to active actions.¡±


    ¡°Do you think you can convince Kakashi to teach us something?¡± - Oleg doubted.


    ¡°I¡¯ve already placed an f¨±in of obedience on him, so he has no choice.¡±


    ¡°F¨±in of obedience? You¡¯re pretty sharp. When did you manage that?¡±


    ¡°While you were sleeping in the prison cells.¡±


    ¡°Yeah¡­ this Sakura is such a fool. And Groot is even dumber. What you can expect from orc?¡± - Oleg shared her thoughts with me.


    ¡°So, unless you have other suggestions, I propose we head to the Hokage, grab Kakashi by the scruff, and leave the village before the enemies arrive.¡±


    ¡°Agreed¡± - Sakura nodded.


    ¡°Sasuke?¡± - I asked.


    ¡°What?¡± - he replied, feigning ignorance.


    ¡°Hmm¡± - I diagnosed, though I didn¡¯t voice it. - ¡°Let¡¯s go.¡±


    We gathered our things, and I grabbed our ¡®genius Uchiha¡¯ and dragged him to a meeting with the village leadership, who were now actively trying to carry out my divine will.


    ¡°By the way, what if, while we¡¯re hiding in the woods, the enemies kill each other off?¡± - Sakura asked.


    ¡°I¡¯ll send clones for reconnaissance¡± - I reassured her. I was also interested in this question. After all, I need to get ten kills myself because I can¡¯t summon the parasite through clones. - ¡°If things start to escalate too quickly, we¡¯ll have to intervene.¡±


    ¡°Or we could just hide and wait for them to kill each other¡± - Sasuke suggested cowardly.


    ¡°That won¡¯t save you¡± - I shut him down. - ¡°Without sufficient combat experience, you won¡¯t survive. Those pathetic ANBU captured you without you even noticing. And we¡¯ll be facing shinobi capable of destroying Konoha and all the other hidden villages single-handedly.¡±


    The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    ¡°Lead on, Naruto. You¡¯re our only hope¡± - Sakura ¡®inspired¡¯ me.


    ¡°That¡¯s all we can do¡± - I sighed.


    We arrived at the Hokage¡¯s office, where Kakashi and a few other key figures of the village were gathered, actively trying to figure out how to execute my recent commands. As we entered, I noticed the anxiety in their eyes as they saw us approach.


    ¡°Hokage-sama, we need to leave the village for a while¡± - I began. - ¡°We need training and experience before we can face the threats we¡¯re up against.¡±


    Hiruzen looked at me, then at Kakashi, who was standing obediently behind me, and finally nodded. - ¡°I understand, Naruto. We¡¯ll arrange for your departure. Kakashi will accompany you.¡±


    ¡°Thank you, Hokage-sama¡± - I said, bowing slightly. - ¡°We¡¯ll be ready to leave within the hour.¡±


    As we left the office, Sakura asked - ¡°Do you really think this will work?¡±


    ¡°It has to¡± - I replied. - ¡°We don¡¯t have any other choice.¡±


    Upon reaching the Konoha administration building, we found Hiruzen, who immediately presented a report on his work, a bag of money, and a mission: escorting the world-renowned architect Tazuna to the Land of Waves. I praised my slave for a job well done, grabbed our ''employer'' by the scruff of the neck, and dragged him along. Kakashi was already by our side, so I saw no reason to linger, especially since my clones had already met with a team from the Land of Stone, who had crossed the border of the Land of Fire and were heading somewhere in the direction of Konoha.


    "Wait! No! Let me go! I just arrived in Konoha yesterday!" - shouted Tazuna, trying in vain to break free from my grip. - "The fate of the Land of Waves depends on the success of my mission!"


    "Dude, the fate of your country depends on me and my mood" - I said, shaking our ''client''. - "So don''t spoil it with your whining. And in general, you still owe us for the S-rank mission of delivering your puny body to your destination. So, I recommend you start thinking now about where you''ll get the money."


    After that, the architect surrendered and allowed himself to be dragged along the muddy road, occasionally resorting to his bottomless bottle.


    Having left the village, I ''let go'' Tazuna on his own two feet and perched on Kakashi''s shoulder, demanding he draw up a training schedule for us to follow along the way. Essentially, the ''protection'' aspect of our journey could be handled by my clones. Meanwhile, the originals of our team could spend this time usefully. Even I wasn''t opposed to sparring with one of Konoha''s strongest Jonin, to assess my strength and directions for further development.


    In the evening, our entire company sat around a campfire, resting from our righteous labors. Tazuna had walked himself so ragged during the day that he fell asleep almost as soon as he hit the ground. My teammates were feeling a little better, but only because I had restored their strength with my chakra.


    "Ugh... I want to sleep with a woman" - sighed Sakura.


    "But you are a woman" - I chuckled.


    "How am I a woman? The three of us are just little teenagers."


    "That''s true" - I sighed as well. - "But that can be fixed."


    "How?" - The girl perked up at the idea.


    "Accelerated aging. Only I''ll need test subjects for inhumane experiments with a fatal outcome. I can''t experiment on myself, can I?"


    "Damn it!" - Sakura swore. - "Are there no other shinobi nearby?"


    "What''s wrong with the peasants from the next village?" - I asked with interest.


    "But they haven''t done anything wrong!" - Sasuke, who had been listening silently to our conversation, objected.


    "You are only guilty because I want to eat" - Sakura quoted Krylov''s fable.


    "This is unfair!" - Continued the stubborn trans-dimensional-migrant in his heresy.


    "Dude, when I was an Orc, I ate human babies for breakfast, lunch, and dinner."


    Sasuke turned pale and ran into the bushes to vomit.


    "And how did they taste?" - I asked, to keep the conversation going.


    "Disgusting. I was stuck in cosmos on a broken ship that was carrying fifteen thousand dead human embryos in the late stages of development. So, I had a small choice: either eat the pickled carcasses left over from some genetic experiments, or starve to death."


    "The life of an orc is hard" - I sympathized.


    "Don''t even say it" - The girl sighed. - "So, what about the test subjects?"


    "The clones will bring them soon. There''s a bandit camp nearby. They''ll be of some use, at least."


    By morning, having utilizing two hundred units of human material, I was able to adapt to regulating the physiological age of an organism, while increasing its physical abilities and chakra circulatory system development. So Tazuna continued on his journey, no longer accompanied by three teenagers, but by two young men and a woman of about twenty years of age. In addition, I went ahead and implanted each of us with a pair of Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan, so now we resembled a team of pure-blooded Uchiha, if you didn''t count our hair color, of course.


    Sakura had transformed into a dazzling beauty, while Sasuke, despite his physical maturity, remained an immature fool. So, for the rest of the journey, he stared exclusively at the perfect forms of his companion, embarrassing those around him with his endless erection. I even had to increase the physical training for the Uchiha, so that he would at least be distracted from his lustful thoughts and focus on training. And in the evening, Sasuke and Sakura went "into the bushes" where they staged a sex marathon. The fact that both of them referred to themselves in the masculine gender did not bother the transmigrants. As far as I understood, Sasuke was already used to this, and Sakura just wanted sex, and it didn''t matter with whom.


    The rest of the journey was uneventful. Unless, of course, you count the fact that we were discovered by spies. We were walking along a rather busy road, so there were plenty of passersby and caravans of all sorts. I constantly monitored our surroundings for threats using my clones and psionics. And as an additional condition, I flagged any mention of our group members'' names.

 Chapter 19.08: Naruto 2.0

    And so, on the evening of the fourth day, as we were passing by yet another tavern, my clone, disguised as a sparrow, heard the word ''Tazuna''. I immediately paid attention to it and managed to overhear the conversation of informants who were planning to report his appearance to someone. I didn''t interfere in this situation, but I was able to track the flight of a carrier pigeon that delivered the message to a bandit camp. There, it was handed over to a couple of rogue ninjas from the Land of Water. This pair turned out to be the same idiots who were supposed to attack us from a puddle in the middle of a drying forest.


    The next day, we continued along the road and by around ten o''clock, we reached the ''ambush''. Sasuke and Sakura were aware of this situation, so they had been looking out for puddles along the road for a while. And with their Sharingan, it was impossible not to notice the enemies. Besides, we had Kakashi with us, who also couldn''t miss such an obvious trap. But when the coveted puddle appeared around the next bend in the road, I said to my companions.


    "Don''t interfere. I need to test my ability."


    Without hiding, I rushed forward and summoned the parasite''s tentacles as I approached the ambush. They immediately lunged at the targets, ensnaring the two rogue ninjas and pulling them out of the water. The victims tried to resist, but they had no chance. The tentacles began to act like worms, literally gnawing their way through the bodies of the rogue ninjas. Despite this, they remained alive and conscious, even though the parasite was damaging vital organs. The ninjas screamed and thrashed, emitting such cries that it was hard to believe they came from human beings. It was the scream of a devoured soul manifesting in the material world.


    The ''worms'' gnawed through the bodies, turning them into something resembling Swiss cheese. Even the gaping holes in their brains didn''t allow the rogue ninjas to lose consciousness. The parasite didn''t hurry, letting these two enjoy the madness of agony. With each passing second, the ''pieces of their souls'' grew smaller, and the pain they experienced increased. Finally, the ''feast'' ended, and the parasite hid its tentacles in a spatial pocket. I checked to ensure that nothing was left of the rogue ninjas, then turned around and saw three pairs of blazing Sharingans staring at me with expressions of superstitious horror on their faces.


    "Are you OK?" - I asked.


    "What... what was that creature?" - Sasuke asked in a trembling voice. He had seen the parasite before, but his Sharingan hadn''t been activated then.


    "That''s our trump card, guaranteeing victory in the game" - I replied.


    "That creature... it''s pure evil!!!" - The impressionable Uchiha exclaimed. - "How can you subject people to such suffering? That creature devours souls! The fate of those two is a thousand times worse than death."


    "If you lose, you''ll experience much greater pain, and it will last not seconds, but tens or even hundreds of years."


    "It doesn''t matter! I won''t let you kill people in such a way."


    "Oh... and what will you do?" - I squinted at him. Sasuke''s genjutsu couldn''t affect me, so I boldly looked him in the eye.


    "I... I''ll find a way" - The apostle of Goodness couldn''t withstand my gaze and turned away.


    "If you interfere with me, you risk becoming food for my pet yourself."


    With that, I turned and walked away, considering the conversation over. I wasn''t going to tell everyone that the question of ''to devour or not to devour'' essentially didn''t exist for me.


    A week after leaving Konoha, we finally reached the sea coast. The Land of Waves was only five hundred meters from the continent, and I couldn''t understand how the construction of a bridge could affect the local economy. At the very least, claiming it was the ''last hope'' for economic prosperity was the height of stupidity.


    Tazuna found some homeless acquaintance of his who took us to the island, having informed all interested parties beforehand. I didn''t interfere with him because we were already awaited ahead, and such ''betrayal'' only affected the fate of the traitor himself, whom I intended to eliminate immediately after the crossing.


    Landing on the island''s shore, we found ourselves in a dense fog. Since there was no point in standing still, we moved forward along a well-trodden path. After about ten minutes, a whole herd of white rabbits jumped out at us from the underbrush, which Sasuke immediately roasted with a fireball, turning the animals into charred carcasses.


    Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.


    "Come out already, stop hiding. We can see you anyway" - I shouted, though the chakra-infused fog surrounding us concealed everything beyond ten meters. And indeed, the enemies fell for this simple trick, revealing their presence.


    "And who do we have here? Four Uchihas? I heard you were all slaughtered like pigs."


    The fog ahead cleared a little, and I was able to see a trio of ninjas. In the center stood a man with a face wrapped in bandages, and on his shoulder rested a huge sword. With minimal effort, he could be recognized as Zabuza - one of the great swordsmen of the Mist. And according to the canon, he should be lurking around here somewhere. The second opponent was presumably Haku. He could be identified by his long black hair and almost feminine face. And the ice crystals floating around him kind of hinted at that. But the third shinobi was dressed in a red yukata and exuded a macho aura. He had short lavender hair, and behind his back was some weapon, the handle of which peeked out from over his shoulder.


    "So, I recognize Zabuza and Haku" - I replied. - "But who is this gay guy in pink?"


    "I am Chojuro!" - he snapped, losing all his luster. - "The great swordsman of the Mist, wielder of Hiramekarei!" - To confirm his words, he pulled out his ''sword,'' which looked like a flounder wrapped in bandages. - "And with this sword, I''ll shove your words back down your throat!"


    If I understand anything, it''s that we are facing a team from the Land of Water. At least in the canon, Chojuro was the right-hand man of Mizukage Terumi Mei. And of course, these three were game figures because they were surrounded by a barely visible rainbow aura that I could see around Sasuke and Sakura as well.


    "And you don''t want to introduce yourselves?" - Zabuza asked.


    "Tremble, mortals, before you is the great and terrible Uzumaki Naruto!" - I struck a ''cool'' pose. - "And this is Sasuke, Sakura, and Kakashi" - I nodded, cutting off my companions from a grand introduction.


    "I''ll take that clown" - Chojuro growled.


    "Haku, your fate is to die by my hand" - Sasuke declared pompously.


    In response, the ice clone representing Haku ran to the side, disappearing into the fog. Uchiha chased after him, leaving us behind.


    "And don''t forget, I need him alive" - I called after him. - "Sakura, Kakashi, take these f¨±ins and use them on the enemy if he starts to die. I need their souls, and these seals won''t let them die completely" - I handed two f¨±ins to my companions. - "Kakashi, don''t engage in close combat and try to hit someone with a technique or some metal."


    "Are you done with your conference?" - Zabuza asked mockingly, removing the sword from his shoulder and taking a combat stance.


    "Yeah, we can start to fight" - I smirked in response.


    And in an instant, we rushed at each other, attacking with all our might.


    Following an unspoken agreement, Sakura decided to take down Zabuza, while I made Chojuro my main target. And he managed to surprise me. I attacked him with my chakra chains, creating no less than three dozen of them. But in response, he began to attack me with ''chakra tentacles'' that his sword released. As a result, each of my chains was blocked by a tentacle, and we started a positional battle, trying to break through the enemy''s defense and not let him do the same.


    Sakura used her Waaagh, but surprisingly, Zabuza managed to block the attack with his sword. He was thrown back, and Sakura rushed after him, preparing for another strike. Over the past week, we had pushed her hard, so now her speed of movement and strikes was at the level of an elite jonin. Typically, in battle, she relied on chakra-based Earth-style defense and her signature attack, which could destroy a hundred people at once.


    My clones were now observing the enemies and the surroundings, so I focused on my opponent. If a new enemy appeared or something threatened my allies, the clones would let me know.


    In the battle with Chojuro, a stalemate had formed, so I decided to add more chains and strengthen their attacks. For me, this battle was supposed to be good training and a test of my abilities. But at that moment, the opponent decided to use a ''secret weapon.'' Waving his flounder, Chojuro sent a dozen and a half glowing crystals at me, shaped like short spears.


    I tried to block these crystals with my chains, but they literally tore through all obstacles. I had to urgently substitute with a clone to avoid the strike. But the clone managed to convincingly act out a scene of a mortal wound. One of the crystals pierced its chest, from which a whole stream of crimson blood gushed out. At the moment of substitution, all the chakra chains dissipated, making the ''victim'' act even more believable. At the same time, I began scanning this crystal, which emitted rather unpleasant pulsating energy. If such a thing indeed stuck into the body, it would be very painful, plus it would start destroying the chakra channels.


    "Ha! Weakling!" - Chojuro rejoiced at his success, approaching to finish me off with his sword.


    He didn''t lose vigilance, didn''t get too close, and didn''t slow down, but all this didn''t help him avoid my attack. I simply passed my chains underground and attacked him from below while he was in mid-air. Five chains burst from the ground, moving so swiftly that he had no chance to block them. More precisely, he blocked four chains, but the fifth struck him in the stomach, simultaneously releasing my ''medical'' chakra, which penetrated his central chakra system, disrupting his concentration.

 Chapter 19.09: Naruto 2.0

    The damage was superficial, but Chojuro was forced to go into deep defense, trying to catch his breath and normalize the flow of chakra in his body. Meanwhile, I attacked him with fifty chains, which he was barely managing to fend off. Just as three of my chains were about to pierce him, the Mist ninja used Hiramekarei to enclose himself in a spherical chakra barrier. It somewhat resembled the Hyuga''s Kaiten and must have consumed a lot of energy. So, my chains surrounded the opponent from all sides and began pounding on the shield, using vibrations to disrupt the energy structure of the barrier.


    I was about to finish off Chojuro but had to divert my attention to Zabuza, who managed to surprise me with his abilities. All this time, Sakura had been pressing him with her relentless attacks, leaving him covered in bloody streaks. But now Zabuza activated an ability that could be called the Aura of Death. It resembled Bloodlust but, besides affecting the psyche, it also destroyed the physical body. With my regeneration, I didn''t care, but Sakura suddenly felt very sick. The situation was further complicated by the fact that this aura covered a radius of two hundred meters, making it impossible to escape.


    I had to leave Chojuro in his barrier and leap toward my partner. Reaching Sakura, I placed a hand on her shoulder, pouring healing chakra into her. The girl was already covered in blood, but my help came just in time. Zabuza tried to attack us, but I drove him back with my chains, which he preferred to dodge.


    "Here''s a tentacle of friendly help" - I said to Sakura, wrapping one of my chains around her waist. Through it, I could transmit my chakra, ensuring constant regeneration.


    "Waaagh!!!" - she responded, charging at the enemy.


    I turned my attention back to Chojuro. He had used my distraction to gather his strength, and as soon as I approached him to finish him off, he used another of his techniques.


    "Water Style: Great Waterfall Jutsu!" - I heard a shout, and then the barrier burst from the inside with a real water tornado.


    All my chains were instantly ''wrapped'' around this swirling thing and torn to pieces. But that wasn''t the end of it, as the tornado grew larger and larger, destroying all the vegetation in the vicinity. Zabuza, who was on his last legs, tried to escape into this water vortex, but I didn''t let him, driving him back with chains and even catching his leg, which slowed him down. Sakura was right on Zabuza''s heels, so I was confident his life was short.


    The water technique expanded, covering an area with a diameter of three hundred meters. Perhaps Chojuro wanted to get to me this way, but I simply ran to the side, waiting for the opponent''s chakra to be exhausted. I wasn''t worried about him escaping because hundreds of clones stood around the perimeter of the tornado, each able to control four chakra chains. That was enough to completely block all escape routes, including underground.


    The storm raged for a couple of minutes before subsiding. The water dispersed, turning back into chakra, and soon I was able to spot my opponent, who indeed decided to run. But now he was breathing heavily, and the trembling chakra cloak revealed that he had little strength left. However, I suspected that this might be a trap, so I sent my clones into the attack. I could produce them by the hundreds, and with my endless chakra reserves and regeneration, this flow could not end in principle.


    A few minutes later, the clones managed to break through the weakened defense, piercing the opponent in several places. Surviving such an attack was not possible to everyone, but I wasn''t worried about that. Shinobi were more resilient than cockroaches. Reaching Chojuro, I summoned my parasite and set it on the defenseless victim. Another demonstrative execution took place. A minute later, the wild screams ceased, and I confirmed that I had scored one frag out of ten.


    *** Score 1/10 ***


    Immediately after that, I rushed towards Zabuza, whom Sakura had managed to subdue with her signature blow, turning him into a bloody mess. Fortunately, she used the f¨±injutsu seal I had given her, so the game figure''s soul was still bound to the body. Without wasting a second, I fed Zabuza to the parasite, gaining the second frag.


    *** Score 2/10 ***


    Having dealt with the two opponents, I decided to check on how Sasuke was doing. But at that moment, he emerged from the forest with an air of importance, heading towards us. His body showed signs of blood, and his clothes were cut in several places, exposing his skin.


    Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    "And where''s your opponent?" - I asked grimly.


    "I killed him" - Uchiha replied defiantly. "Heal me."


    It was not even a request but an order. This upstart had really lost his mind. I conducted a quick remote diagnosis and found that Sasuke had received several fairly deep cuts. They weren''t dangerous, but one of the slashes had gone through his groin, depriving the last Uchiha of ''his most valuable asset.'' He had managed to stop the bleeding, but reattaching the lost piece was beyond his abilities.


    "Manage yourself" - I replied with a cheeky grin. - "You don''t want to help me, and I don''t want to help you. Perfect consensus."


    I turned demonstratively and went to find Kakashi. He had been jumping around at the beginning of the fight, but now he was nowhere to be seen. Our commander was found under a pile of forest debris. What was left of him could be described as ''primordial soup.'' Zabuza''s aura of death had finished off Kakashi, decaying most of his body to a state of rot. Fortunately, there were living cells preserved within his bones, so there was still hope for resurrecting our ''sensei.'' Moreover, the f¨±in I had given him had worked on his corpse, keeping his soul bound to his body.


    During my time in this world, I had managed to study Naruto''s memories, especially the part where he looked at the Second Hokage''s Scroll. Naruto himself only remembered the clone technique, but I had read the entire scroll through his eyes. One of the techniques I learned this way was Edo Tensei. I creatively reworked it, combining it with my healing abilities. As a result, I managed not only to resurrect Kakashi but to make him immortal, granting him endless regeneration. Now he could ''resurrect'' even if only a few cells remained of him.


    The result reminded me of Wolverine from the X-Men, so I decided to give Hatake steel blades that could extend from his hand. It was much easier to do this than in the Marvel world, because here, blades could be created from chakra and then dematerialized. For these purposes, I used cells from Sakura''s body. She was now a genius in Earth-style chakra control, which was very close to Metal style. Plus, my Chakra Chains also seemed to be metallic, so I was able to give Kakashi a deadly weapon with molecular sharpness.


    Having finished my experiments, I returned our ''captain'' to consciousness.


    "Kakashi-sensei, you''re alive!" - I couldn''t resist another attempt to play on the steel nerves of the guinea pig.


    "What? Where?" - He jumped up, looking around.


    "Don''t worry, Kakashi-sensei, you won''t die anymore. No one has ever left for the afterlife from my care" - I said, as the hair on the undead''s head stood on end when he understood the meaning of these words.


    "What... what did you do to me?" - he asked in a plaintive voice, examining his body, which was once again stripped of all clothing.


    "Edo Tensei version 2.0" - I enlightened him. - "Now you can be sure that you will live millions and billions of years and witness the heat death of the universe. And in the end, you will be devoured along with the universe by Azathoth, whom you have already seen" - I delivered the grim prophecy.


    "Maa..." Kakashi could not respond coherently.


    While I was ''treating'' our commander, my clones found Haku''s remains. Sasuke had once again blown the opponent''s brains out, so the game figure''s soul fled straight to Hell. After we finished clearing the battlefield and burying Tazuna, who also didn''t escape the fate of becoming primordial soup, we headed to the capital of the Land of Waves. Since the pretext had died, we had to pose as a team of shinobi visiting a friendly country in search of work.


    For the next two weeks, we trained hard while helping the local daimyo restore his power. Azathoth demanded that I sacrifice people to him who I deemed worthy of this honor. In my personal opinion, Gato was clearly worthy of having his soul devoured by the Dark Lord of the universe. Considering all the atrocities he committed, even hell wasn''t a sufficient punishment.


    However, to be precise, it was mostly me, Sakura, and Kakashi who were training, because Sasuke was simply recovering from his injuries. I still hadn''t healed him, and without my help, his wounds couldn''t heal so easily. Moreover, having lost his cock, Uchiha could no longer have sex with Sakura, so he feigned offended innocence, declaring that he no longer liked Sakura because she allowed me to devour Zabuza''s soul. In general, the absurdity was growing, and I began to think that the expression ''third wheel'' applied to our situation.


    But this ''vacation'' didn''t last long because my clones, which had literally filled the continent, discovered a team of three Sand shinobi, one of whom I recognized as Gaara. This trio was heading towards Konoha, apparently deciding that the time for battle had come. Previously, I had seen a similar trio from the Land of Earth. I couldn''t find out who they encountered, but the clones noticed two of them running away, with one carrying the other on their back. The game was gaining momentum, and I needed to dive into the center of this whirlwind to gather as many frags as possible.

 Chapter 19.10: Naruto 2.0

    We urgently moved to intercept the Sand team and met them the next day in a large clearing. More precisely, the opponents noticed our approach and decided to wait for us in the open. Hiding was pointless, so our team also stepped forward openly and stood a hundred meters from the Sand trio.


    The team facing us was somewhat ''non-canon.'' It included Gaara, who was easily recognizable by the ''bottle'' on his back and the ''love'' kanji on his forehead. The second member was a lively old lady. Judging by Gaara calling her an elder, it was Chiyo. And the third member was the Fourth Kazekage Rasa, whom Kakashi had already identified.


    "The Fourth Kazekage?" - I exclaimed. - "Didn''t Orochimaru kill you?"


    "Not yet" - came the reply from a suddenly appearing representative of the third team.


    Orochimaru unexpectedly appeared on the scene, accompanied by two other game figures and a whole crowd of shinobi resurrected using Edo Tensei. His appearance was a surprise because they had moved underground, and the chakra disturbances from them were almost imperceptible.


    "Orochimaru?" - I was surprised. - "Good that you came, now I don''t have to chase after you."


    I looked at his two companions and recognized Juugo and Guren. But the undead was a colorful mix, and it was difficult to figure out who was who. But what surprised me the most was the undead surrounded by a faint rainbow aura. It was the ''missing'' member of the Earth team. Now it was clear what had happened to him. And it also increased my chances of getting frags. Now we had seven opponents against us, and if I could absorb all seven souls, Azathoth''s task would be almost complete.


    "Ha-ha" - Orochimaru licked his lips in his usual manner. - "I recognize Kakashi, but who are you? Don''t tell me you''re the seventh team."


    "Yes, before you stands the almighty Uzumaki Naruto, the crazy rogue Haruno Sakura, and the useless ghoul Uchiha Sasuke" - I introduced us.


    Uchiha shot me a furious glare for such an introduction.


    "Orochimaru, your fate is to die by my hand!" - declared the uchiha, pompously pointing at the enemy. - "Die!"


    With these words, he used his signature technique, blowing Orochimaru''s brain out. He fell to the ground, but a second later, the Snake Sannin emerged whole and unharmed from his disfigured body.


    "Nice try" - he commented. - "But I won''t fall for that trick again..."


    Smack! Orochimaru''s head exploded again. Resurrecting once more, he didn''t look at Uchiha but turned his gaze to the Kazekage.


    "Guren, you take care of the Konoha team. Juugo and I will handle the Sand" - Orochimaru ordered.


    After that, he rushed towards the Sand team, and Guren and the undead horde charged at us.


    "Sasuke, Kakashi - handle them" - I indicated the two enemy teams. - "Sakura and I will deal with this girl and the undead and then join you."


    Uchiha shot me a hateful look before heading towards Orochimaru, with Kakashi following him.


    "Guren is yours" - I commanded Sakura. - "I''ll deal with the immortal undead."


    In fact, the shinobies resurrected using Edo Tensei were probably the most dangerous force here. They couldn''t be killed. And there were more than forty of them, so they could simply overwhelm their opponents. However, this whole crowd was essentially a gathering of spirits, or ''bare'' souls. So, for my parasite, they should be easy prey.


    I rushed forward, intending to immobilize the future meal with my chakra chains, but a moment later, I had to brake because the former Sand team member started shooting at me with some sort of weapon. The charges from this weapon were quite dangerous, so I had to focus on defense, using the chakra chains as a shield.


    This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.


    Fortunately, the entire undead horde also decided to kill me first, so they came closer on their own. This time I didn''t hold back and sharply extended my chains, then summoned the parasite''s tentacles and set them on the prey. Some opponents tried to dodge or escape, but I sent my clones after them. Even the game figure couldn''t do anything against my superior strength, and in just five minutes, the whole crowd went to Azathoth''s stomach.


    *** Score 3/10 ***


    Having confirmed that I had already scored three out of ten frags, I went to help Sakura. She indeed needed help because Guren turned out to be quite strong. Using her innate ability, she created beasts from crystals that attacked Sakura. Moreover, she constantly created particularly durable crystals that blocked Sakura''s Waaagh attacks, and from time to time, she tried to shoot at the agile opponent with a stream of sharp crystals.


    Sakura was constantly smashing the crystal beasts into dust, pounding against the shields, and ignoring the ranged attacks, taking them on her stone armor. However, she couldn''t land a single hit on Guren herself. With my help, the balance of the battle shifted, and we began to corner Guren. She desperately tried to resist us, but my chains simply bypassed all her shields, and the hordes of clones surrounded her from all sides, leaving no room to retreat. Eventually, Guren created one enormous crystal, placing herself inside it. This behemoth was about twenty meters in diameter, making it a tough nut to crack. Sakura attacked the crystal, but all she managed to do was damage it a few dozen centimeters on the outside. Moreover, all these damages immediately regenerated, so we didn''t even have the option to slowly bore our way to the target.


    My chakra chains also proved powerless. I tried to sic my parasite on Guren, but it simply refused to attack, arguing that it would only devour game figure once my victory was assured. Useless creature!


    I looked towards the ongoing battle among the other game figures. So far, the only casualty of this fight was Chiyo. She had attempted to attack Sasuke and Kakashi using her puppets, but he caught her in his genjutsu and promptly decapitated her. Fortunately, my clone was ready and managed to slap a resurrection fuin on Chiyo''s body, preventing her from fully dying.


    Orochimaru and Juugo were locked in a fierce battle with Gaara, with his father assisting him as much as he could. The One-Tail Jinchuriki had transformed into a massive ''tanuki'' and skillfully controlled the sand, fending off all attacks. Sasuke and Kakashi occasionally tried to attack one group or the other but were not particularly successful. Gaara''s sand and the Kazekage''s Gold Dust created an impenetrable barrier, and Orochimaru and Juugo constantly unleashed powerful techniques without limiting their chakra expenditure, making it impossible for Uchiha to approach. Kakashi could probably finish them off, but he was not keen on intervening in this monster battle, preferring to wait until they finished each other off.


    In short, my help was necessary, but I couldn''t leave Guren behind, giving her the opportunity to strike from behind or escape. The clones were too fragile to reliably block all escape routes.


    "We need to destroy her at any cost!" - I declared, looking at Guren holed up in her refuge.


    "It looks like it''s time for my great secret technique!" - Sakura declared pompously. - "Great Secret Waaagh!!!" - she screamed and then hit the crystal with all her might.


    Its surface didn''t suffer any damage, but the girl hidden under its protection suddenly exploded into a bloody mess. This result was extremely unexpected. I immediately tried to sic my parasite to catch the soul of the victim, but it informed me that the soul had already escaped. Judging by the complex image it conveyed to me, the Judge was somehow involved in this. Damn him!


    After the creator''s death, the crystal remained intact, becoming a sort of tomb. I didn''t attempt to destroy it but headed towards the main battlefield with Sakura. My primary goal was to deal with Chiyo''s soul before it escaped as well.


    The intensity of the battle had now reached a level unattainable for mere mortals. This was especially true of the clash between Gaara and Juugo. The One-Tail Jinchuriki had transformed into a huge ''dog'' that was smashing everything left and right. Moreover, his control over the bijuu was at the highest level, so the scale of the destruction was simply staggering.


    What surprised me was that Juugo could compete with this monster and even start to overpower him. This ''Orochimaru''s guinea pig'' had an innate ability to absorb natural chakra, simultaneously transforming into some sort of monster with many arms and legs. Initially, he had a vaguely humanoid appearance, but now it was just a mess of limbs rolling across the ground and spewing powerful techniques in all directions.


    At this moment, Kakashi made another attempt to approach the Kazekage from behind, who was distracted by the fight with Orochimaru. But at the last moment, he was suddenly attacked by... Chiyo. It turned out that due to my fuin, the game piece''s soul remained in this world and was able to take control of her physical body using puppet technique. And through this body, Chiyo controlled other puppets, which then attacked Kakashi. This attack was so unexpected that even the elite jonin didn''t have time to react, and several poison-covered blades pierced him through.


    Seeing the unexpected ''resurrection'' of their ally, the Kazekage got distracted, and Orochimaru immediately took advantage of this. He silently emerged from the ground behind his victim and impaled him with his Kusanagi sword. However, he recklessly left Kakashi behind, who was supposedly ''dying'' from the puppet''s attack. But my creation was absolutely immortal and didn''t feel pain, so our captain rushed forward and drove the poisoned blades sticking out of his chest into Orochimaru. Moreover, he used his ''steel claws'' to further impale Orochimaru and the Kazekage. These claws had a fuin on them, which was supposed to prevent the soul from ''escaping.''

 Chapter 19.11: Naruto 2.0

    I was almost ready to feast my parasite on the souls of our fallen enemies when the situation took an unexpected turn. Seeing that three enemies and one ally were near death and clustered together, Juugo roared at the top of his inhuman lungs.


    "Rasen Shuriken!!!"


    A dozen shining spheres formed over his hands and shot towards the chaotic cluster. Before I could even react, the attack shredded all four into tiny pieces, which then incinerated. Since Orochimaru was under the effect of my fuin, his soul couldn''t escape to later be resurrected. As a result, his ''true body'' was destroyed by his ally''s technique, and he died. Along with him, Chiyo and the Kazekage also perished, their souls immediately vanishing into the void.


    "Damn it!!!" - I screamed at the loss. Four out of six souls had managed to escape. Moreover, I was at a distance where the parasite''s tentacles couldn''t reach. - "I need them alive!" - I shouted, reminding my allies of my requirement.


    But this cry fell on deaf ears.


    I was now running towards Gaara, whom Juugo was bombarding with literally hundreds of Rasen Shurikens. Unlike the canon version, this technique utilized not only Wind but also Fire, literally incinerating opponents. Under such an onslaught, even Gaara and the One-Tail couldn''t do anything. The sand covering the ''tanuki'' was being shredded to dust and melted. He tried to use the surrounding material and chakra to patch up these damages, but within seconds, the material would turn into boiling lava. In just a minute, the entire area around Gaara had turned into a boiling lake of fire. He could control sand, but now he only had lava at his disposal.


    Another of Juugo''s strikes hit Gaara''s true body, instantly incinerating it, giving me no chance to capture his soul.


    "And now, it''s your turn, bugs!" - Juugo roared, turning his attention to us.


    Honestly, I wasn''t sure I could survive a hit from that Rasen Shuriken. And considering that Juugo''s body now represented a fifty-meter-high mountain, I couldn''t even fathom how we were going to kill him.


    But then Sasuke joined the fray. Apparently, he had been preparing this attack for a while, saturating the enemy''s brain with his chakra. Now he snapped his fingers dramatically, and the enormous mass exploded, scattering bloody chunks everywhere. I immediately rushed forward, but even this soul eluded me.


    "Goddamn it all!!!" - I cursed.


    Out of seven souls, I managed to capture only one. And that was essentially ''recycled material,'' as this game figure had already been killed before. Blaming anyone was pointless since the reason for this outcome lay in my weakness. Had I possessed the power of someone like Juugo, I could have killed all the enemies with one strike. Actually, I had no less power, but the opportunity to use it was missing.


    Looking at Kakashi''s body emerging from the void, I moved aside and picked up the ''gun'' of the shinobi from the Land of Earth. A quick investigation showed that it was based on f¨±in. The weak offensive capability of this weapon was due to the clumsiness of its creator, who also had a poor understanding of magic and f¨±in. Well, it was time to use my brains and overcome obstacles not through bravado but through my knowledge and experience.


    We spent the next week in Konoha. While my comrades rested, I worked on creating my own mega-gun. The basis, of course, was f¨±in, which fired energy charges at high speed. For the charges, I adapted the crystals that the flounder sword, which I had taken from Clojure, could emit. In fact, I used the sword itself, embedding it inside a spatial seal. As a result, only chakra crystals would come out of the folded space into our world, which would then be fired from the gun at a speed of five kilometers per second. Dodging such a shot was impossible.


    But I didn''t stop there; I embedded another f¨±in inside the charge, which connected it to my ''Bijuu Seal,'' where the parasite resided. Consequently, the parasite could immediately reach out to the victim''s soul through this seal and devour it. I no longer intended to leave this matter to chance. After the first hit, the soul would be instantly consumed by the parasite without any exceptions.


    After a week, I finished my wonder-weapon and was ready to kill everyone and everything. My clones still hadn''t managed to pinpoint the exact locations of our enemies. Primarily because they couldn''t see the ''rainbow aura'' that distinguished a game figures from a mere mortal. Furthermore, I hadn''t been able to locate the Akatsuki members, although I had raided and demonstratively blown up several of their hideouts.


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    The only reliable information I had was the ''stirrings'' in the villages of Stone and Cloud. The pair of game figures from the Land of Earth that I had seen earlier were preparing to repel an attack, while the Land of Lightning was mobilizing its entire army for a massive raid. Konoha''s intelligence reported that their first target would be the Land of Earth, but I was sure that the army would strike Konoha afterward. After all, it was much easier to overwhelm the enemy with sheer numbers rather than fighting them directly. In the village of the Cloud, only the Raikage could afford to use such tactics, so he was likely one of the opponents. I wasn''t sure about the other two, but it would become clear during the battle, so there was no point in worrying.


    As soon as my clones detected signs of the Kumogakure army''s movement, our team set out to intercept them. While the speed of the army was equivalent to that of an average chunin, we could move at the speed of jonin, so we were expected to reach the capital of the Land of Earth before the enemy.


    Unfortunately, I hadn''t considered in that Sasuke ran significantly slower than I did. So, halfway through, I left my allies behind and rushed ahead at my maximum available speed. Iwagakure greeted me with crowds of shinobi preparing to repel the Kumogakure army''s attack. However, ordinary mortals had no chance of stopping me. My weapon could fire at ten shots per second, and each hit was lethal. Moreover, with my psionic and sensory abilities, I could sense all opponents within a kilometer.


    As a result, I simply shot down enemies from a safe distance before they even had a chance to notice me. Once a chakra crystal hit an enemy''s body, they immediately lost the ability to control their chakra, and tentacles from the parasite emerged from the opened portal, devouring the souls of mortals.


    On my way to the capital of the Land of Earth, no one even managed to raise an alarm. Of course, after my passage, heaps of corpses remained, but after their discovery, messengers were sent out, whom I either shot myself or were killed by my clones. A few genins couldn''t outrun me.


    Bursting into the city, I immediately began destroying the entire population, shooting people with the gun. After each hit, a mass of tentacles would burst out of the target''s body, tearing it to pieces, leaving only a mutilated corpse. I maneuvered with chakra chains, avoiding concentrations of enemies and shooting them from a distance. Thanks to the speed and power of the shot, building walls couldn''t protect anyone. The projectiles literally pierced all obstacles through and through, stopping only inside human bodies when the second part of the embedded f¨±in activated.


    Like a bloodthirsty god, I hovered over the city, destroying all living things. I eliminated a couple of game figures without any resistance at all. These idiots decided to hunker down in the palace under the protection of thick walls and many traps they had set over the past few days. Unfortunately, the walls couldn''t protect them, and I literally filled them with chakra crystals. Now I had five frags out of ten. There was nothing more to do here, so I moved to meet the Kumogakure army. Three more game figures awaited me in its center.


    *** Score 5/10 ***


    But I hadn''t even left the city when my clones witnessed an attack on the Cloud army by a group of Akatsuki. And it was an impressive attack, to say the least. Judging by their behavior, the Cloud team consisted of the Raikage, the Two-Tails jinchuriki, and the Eight-Tails jinchuriki. And against them stood ''only'' Nagato in the form of six Pain bodies.


    While Hoshigaki Kisame and Obito were cutting down small fry, Nagato threw a pebble towards the trio of opponents. However, the technique embedded in this stone turned it into an analog of a black hole. All surrounding matter, including shinobi, began to be drawn towards this stone, forming a sort of moon. Despite all their power, speed, and strength, the three game figures couldn''t escape the technique''s range and were pulled to its core, where they were crushed and mixed with the earth and the bodies of equally unfortunate ordinary ninja.


    After such a finale, there was no point in rushing, so I decided to wait for my comrades while observing the Akatsuki through my clones. My copies imitated birds and various animals so successfully that even Obito didn''t suspect anything.


    "You!... Did you kill them all?" - Uchiha asked me a stupid question after seeing the city filled with corpses with his own eyes. - "We only needed to kill three opponents."


    "So what?" - I asked. - "Do you even understand who I killed? This was a city of professional assassins. Every shinobi here was a murderer, rapist, robber, and extortionist. So, this fate was quite appropriate for them."


    "But not all city residents were killers!"


    "But they all worked for the killers, encouraging all the lawlessness they committed with their labor. And what''s the point of discussing this question? I''ll do what I want anyway, and you can''t stop me. And even if you try, you''ll become one of the victims yourself" - I smirked. - "Let''s go. The Akatsuki are almost done wiping out the Lightning Country''s army, and their conscience isn''t bothering them at all."

 Chapter 19.12: Naruto 2.0

    We ran forward, veering slightly to the side to cut off the enemy''s escape routes. But strangely enough, the Akatsuki had no intention of running and patiently awaited our arrival.


    As we ran, my clones were able to detect that all the other members of the organization were near Pain, possibly setting up an ambush. Or perhaps he had assigned them the role of guarding his true body. But most likely, they were there as cannon fodder. The fodder included Deidara, Uchiha Itachi, Kakuzu, Konan, Sasori, and Hidan. Zetsu was nowhere to be seen, but I was sure he was lurking somewhere nearby.


    About an hour later, we reached the battleground, and my companions could see the area littered with mutilated shinobi corpses. Honestly, the degree of ''dismemberment'' here was no less than after my own work. Nice job. I respect that!


    "You three go ahead" - I sent my comrades straight into the lion''s den. - "I''ll take care of the support group and Nagato himself."


    With the Sharingan, I could see that Kisame and Obito were indeed game figures. And Nagato''s inclusion in this trio was undeniable since, in the canon, he wasn''t powerful enough to simultaneously take down two jinchuriki and the Raikage.


    Uchiha were natural snipers, so with the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan, I could ''hit a squirrel in the eye'' from a kilometer away. While my partners distracted attention, I flanked through the forest and then simply sent a horde of clones to scour the area. As soon as one of them spotted an enemy, I started firing volleys at them. This world didn''t know what a rapid-fire machine gun was, so the Akatsuki members had nothing to counter me with.


    The only one who caused some trouble was Kakuzu. Until I shot all five of his hearts, the parasite refused to devour his soul. But I simply riddled the immortal ninja so thoroughly that he ended up looking like a pincushion. Hidan, however, disappointed me. After the first hit, his soul was devoured by Azathoth with an unusual degree of cynicism, even for him.


    Naturally, such an attack couldn''t escape Nagato''s notice, and he sent all six of Pain''s bodies after my soul. And here, I encountered problems. First, these bodies were already dead, so they had no souls inside them, and the parasite refused to attack them. Second, Nagato could almost instantly create barriers that held up pretty well against my weapon''s shots. Under the cover of these barriers, the six bodies gathered to surround me, using their abilities for the attack.


    Chikushodo tried to summon his creatures, but they had souls, and the parasite eagerly devoured them. Overall, Nagato and I reached a stalemate in offensive weaponry. He couldn''t come out from behind the barriers to attack me, and I couldn''t break through these barriers, constantly dodging close combat. After his recent use of Tendo''s power, Nagato couldn''t repeat the stone trick. He tried to pound areas with increased gravity, but it had little effect on me since I simply moved out of its range using chakra chains. Through simple manipulations with reality, I created chains without mass, unaffected by gravity.


    While I played tag with Pain, Sakura, Sasuke, and Kakashi managed to corner Kisame and Obito. The fish-man with the monstrous sword clashed with Sakura, and it cost him dearly. With a single blow, the former orc tore the Samehada sword in half. This didn''t kill him, but he could no longer use this ''fish'' in battle. Kisame resorted to using Water-style ninjutsu, but Sakura simply dispersed all these attacks with her aura.


    Eventually, she caught up with the opponent again and hit him with all her might, turning him into flying chunks of meat. Fortunately, the game figure''s head remained intact, and in that brief moment of triumph, my clone approached the still-living Kisame and stuck one of the crystals from my gun into him. I had specially prepared such ''saviors'' for this occasion. The crystals couldn''t exist long after creation, but within special seals, they could be stored for about half an hour. As a result, Kisame''s soul became the parasite''s prey, and I got my well-deserved fragment.


    Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.


    *** Score 6/10 ***


    Obito was more challenging. With his ''intangibility,'' he was a difficult opponent. However, Sasuke and Kakashi had normal Sharingan, capable of countering Obito''s Sharingan. They saw all the enemy''s movements and didn''t allow him to attack them, executing counterattacks at the right moment, leaving ''almost Madara'' no chance to materialize himself.


    When it came to genjutsu, Obito was far more experienced than Sasuke, so he didn''t let himself get ''hypnotized,'' immediately breaking off any attempt to implant chakra into his brain. At the start of the fight, Obito tried to act like the goofy Tobi, but after Kisame''s death, he decided to attack seriously. As it turned out, he possessed the Amaterasu technique, which he used to set his former partner ablaze. He primarily saw Kakashi as his opponent, even though Sasuke was technically a game piece.


    Black flames engulfed Hatake''s entire body, but he didn''t flinch. He had already proven in practice that even complete destruction of his body couldn''t harm him. So... he simply charged into close combat. Though Kakashi wasn''t a pure-blooded Uchiha, he had extensive experience using the Sharingan. As a result, even in such a situation, he managed to use another ability of these eyes¡ªTsukuyomi. Using all his strength, he controlled Obito''s mind, forcing him to ''materialize'' and... embraced him.


    The Amaterasu flames engulfed the game figure. Obito tried to break free, but the genjutsu he was under wouldn''t let him. A moment later, I diverted my attention from the fight with Nagato, jumped up, and shot directly at his heart. The parasite didn''t hesitate and immediately devoured the offering. Kakashi burned to ashes and began to resurrect from scratch, which took about a minute.


    *** Score 7/10 ***


    Meanwhile, in our battle with Nagato, the Rinnegan wielder made a mistake by getting distracted by his comrade''s death. He let me get too close to one of Pain''s bodies without any support to prevent my attack. As a result, I unexpectedly extended my chakra chains, wrapped them around Gakido, and pulled him towards me. Although this Pain form could supposedly absorb chakra, it had a significant drawback¡ªthe speed of absorption was limited. Most importantly, this speed was several times slower than my ability to receive natural chakra from clones. Consequently, I completely ignored the chakra absorption, pulled him to me, and then simply tore him to pieces with the same chains.


    At that moment, my spoils included several black metal rods. These were similar to my chakra chains, which Nagato used to control his puppets. As soon as I touched them, I immediately got a ''ping'' on the last opponent''s location. My clones with these ''radars'' scattered to determine Nagato''s exact position using triangulation.


    Besides, I used the spoils for another purpose. Nagato controlled his puppets by transmitting signals through chakra vibrations at a specific frequency. Thus, he imparted the properties of radio waves to chakra. Sensing this frequency and studying the emitter and receiver''s structure, I created a ''jammer'' within seconds, which simply began interfering with the signal transmission. The signal was encrypted, but I countered this control method by reproducing the signal sequence I had obtained just a few seconds earlier.


    As a result, the puppets'' movements became jerky, constantly stumbling and repeating the same actions. With this behavior, even my clones had no trouble reaching them and dismantling them into pieces, turning the five strongest puppets into a pile of bloody debris.


    I rushed towards Nagato, whose location my clones had already tracked. He was farther than I had anticipated. To my surprise, Nagato wasn''t confined to a wheelchair. On the contrary, he was in excellent physical shape. He tried to flee, but my clones didn''t let him. They died by the thousands but slowed his movement. Some ''kamikazes'' even managed to inflict a couple of deep cuts on Nagato when he thought he could simply ignore the chakra chain attacks. After about five minutes, it became clear that he couldn''t escape, and Nagato turned to face me.


    However, I had no intention of staging a showy fight. I started shooting continuous bursts from my machine gun, which Nagato blocked with another barrier. When he focused entirely on me, one of my clones shot a crystal at him from behind. The glowing spear pierced Nagato''s chest, destabilizing the chakra flows in his body. The barrier he was maintaining burst, and he was literally riddled with machine gun rounds. A second later, the parasite devoured his soul, fiercely tearing it to pieces first.


    *** Score 8/10 ***


    Catching my breath, I looked at Sasuke and Sakura catching up with me, followed by Kakashi. This battle was over, and the result was exactly what I had hoped for: three more frags. This meant I only needed to kill two more game figures to be confident that I could move on to the next world. I wouldn''t even have to wait for the game to end.

 Chapter 19.13: Naruto 2.0

    For the next couple of hours, my comrades rested after the long chase and intense battle, while I sent thousands and millions of shadow clones into the surrounding areas. At the moment, I knew about the teams of Zabuza, Gaara, Orochimaru, the Stone, the Cloud, and the Akatsuki. Including our own, that made seven teams. Three more teams remained unknown. To locate them, I sent my clones to all the major and significant cities on the continent.


    However, before they even got far, news came from one of my ''old'' clones. In the Land of Water, at Yagura''s residence, a battle involving powerful ninjutsu had broken out. I had only one clone there, so I couldn''t risk it. From a distance, it managed to see that Yagura and Terumi Mei were fighting... a trio of Uzumaki. They were identifiable by their blood-red hair and the seals covering their bodies. Additionally, they actively used fuinjutsu, suppressing their opponents'' powers. The battle ended within ten minutes, and my clone saw the Uzumaki trio leisurely leaving the scene while the activity of their opponents dropped to zero, and even Isobu disappeared without a trace.


    Well, it seemed there were only two enemy teams left in the game, and at least I knew something about one of them. I sent a thousand clones to the Land of Water to track this group. The battle with the inhabitants of the Land of Whirlpools promised to be tough, as these individuals should possess extensive knowledge. And knowledge is power. Moreover, they never had problems with chakra quantity.


    "What now?" - Sasuke finally asked me. They had rested a bit and were ready to continue.


    "Our next target is in the Land of Water. It''s a trio of Uzumaki skilled in fuinjutsu. They are likely from the Land of Whirlpools. We need to hurry to intercept them before they disappear."


    "The Land of Whirlpools?" - Sakura was surprised. - "But it was destroyed."


    "So what? Do you think that would stop the game organizers from resurrecting them, or even raising the island from the ocean''s depths if needed?"


    "Haha, such a knowledgeable young man" - suddenly came a mocking female voice. And this, despite the fact that I was constantly scanning the area with psionics, and my clones had literally flooded the surroundings.


    "Who are you?" - I asked the woman in a traditional purple haori. However, a second later, I remembered who she was. - "Otsutsuki Kaguya" - I voiced my guess.


    "Exactly!" - she clapped her hands with satisfaction. And a second later, two young men stepped out from behind the trees, one of whom boasted a Sharingan.


    "Indra and Asura" - I introduced this pair to my comrades, who were already ready for battle.


    And it was clear that a fight was inevitable, judging by the rainbow aura surrounding these three. They were game figures and members of the last team.


    "Well, at least we don''t have to look for you" - I smirked, readying my machine gun. - "I was starting to worry that you would just sit in some hole until the end of the game."


    "Don''t be cheeky, boy" - Kaguya frowned.


    "I''m older than you, granny" - I grinned. - "Goodbye."


    With these words, I pulled the trigger and fired a long burst at Kaguya. But all the chakra crystals shattered helplessly against her clothing, causing no harm at all.


    "Yes, goodbye" - Kaguya agreed with me and waved her fan.


    I immediately substituted with my clone, while Sasuke and Sakura were caught in the attack of a Wind Style technique that inflicted multiple cutting wounds and knocked them back. But within a second, my chakra chains caught them and fully healed all their injuries, bringing them to peak condition. As for Kakashi, he stepped aside, waiting for a moment to launch a surprise attack.


    "Waaagh!" - Sakura screamed, charging at Asura. He foolishly tried to block her blow and paid for it with a mangled arm.


    "Waaagh!" - Sasuke screamed, launching a similar attack against Indra. Indra chose to retreat, carefully observing Sasuke''s movements, but it cost him dearly. Within a fraction of a second, Sasuke managed to use his genjutsu on him, and Indra''s head exploded like a rotten pumpkin.


    "Indra!!!" - Kaguya screamed in panic, preparing to finish off Sasuke.


    I would have screamed too, but with a slightly different intonation. Because, a moment later, when my crystals pierced the headless body, there was no soul inside. Damn it! I needed just two more frags.


    "Calm down, lady" - I said Kaguya, drawing her attention with a machine-gun burst aimed straight at her face. - "You''re next."


    "I will destroy you!!!" she roared furiously.


    And then a powerful wave of chakra emanated from her, destroying everything it touched. The entire forest within a hundred-meter radius was reduced to dust and splinters. However, at that moment, Sakura, Sasuke, and I were already two hundred meters away, where I had teleported us as soon as I assessed the strength of the attack. Kakashi was not afforded such an honor, and so his mangled body was now slowly regenerating, resembling a blood-soaked corpse.


    You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.


    Meanwhile, Kaguya rushed over to Asura and used some healing technique to fully restore his arm in a couple of seconds.


    "You will pay for this!" - she screamed, glaring at me with her Rinnegan eyes. Kaguya attempted to cast genjutsu on me, but the result was a headache for her as my chakra infiltrated her brain through the opened channel. - "Who are you?" - she exclaimed, grabbing her head and staggering.


    Although my chakra wasn''t as destructive as Sasuke''s, it was no less dangerous. As soon as Kaguya tried to cast genjutsu on me, her fate was sealed, as one of the traps set in my consciousness activated.


    "Deal with Asura" - I told my companions, rushing forward.


    They hesitated for a second, but then, as always, decided that following my orders was the shortest path to victory. Especially since Asura seemed like a weaker opponent compared to his ''mommy.'' However, I also tested the son''s defenses by firing a burst from my machine gun at him. He tried to dodge, but five crystals still hit him, shattering helplessly against a protective field. After that, I focused on Kaguya as the more prioritized opponent.


    When Kaguya used genjutsu on me, a charge of chakra containing a very clever spell entered her brain. At first glance, there was nothing dangerous in this spell. It only slightly destabilized the Life Element chakra, which didn''t exist in an ordinary human body. Of course, until a shinobi started using healing techniques. Now I jumped to my target, wrapped her in chakra chains, and... began transferring a massive amount of Life Element chakra into her body.


    The characteristic of this chakra made it extremely difficult to defend against its penetration into the body. And Kaguya didn''t understand what was happening and even started trying to ''drink'' the chakra from my chains, using it to conduct attacks. As a result, the medical chakra permeated her entire body, and my ''Trojan horse'' began its work.


    For the next couple of minutes, I jumped back and forth, dodging Kaguya''s attacks or even taking them head-on. This was where my incredible regeneration came in handy because, without it, I would have been killed within ten seconds. But Kaguya couldn''t understand why her most destructive techniques had no effect on me.


    Two minutes into the fight, I noticed changes indicating that my hidden attack had entered its final phase. Kaguya''s face became deformed and covered in tumors. The same thing started happening to her entire body. It grew, deformed, and sprouted organs and limbs not intended by its original design.


    "What have you done?" - screeched the genetically modified organism of my victim.


    "Nothing special" - I smirked. - "Just stripped away your human mask to reveal the hideous face of the monster underneath."


    "I hate you!..." - Kaguya croaked, transforming into a shapeless mass of flesh that was radiating chakra.


    In just a minute, she lost her human form, turning into a formless entity with multiple mouths, arms, and legs, as tall as a five-story building. By this point, her mind had completely left this body, as her brain had also turned into a chaotic mess. Kaguya stopped attacking me, merely unleashing primitive techniques into the surrounding world, destroying everything around her.


    Meanwhile, Asura was giving the rest of our team a hard time. After the initial success when Sakura managed to injure him, no one else could even scratch his skin or singe his clothes. Moreover, if it weren''t for my constant healing of Sakura and Sasuke, they would have died from their injuries long ago.


    Seeing what happened to Kaguya, her ''son'' left the fight and ran to the monster, now resembling a ten-tailed bijuu.


    "Mom, wake up! You must..."


    Whatever she was supposed to do remained a mystery because Kaguya grabbed Asura with one of her limbs and stuffed him into her mouth, swallowing him instantly. Damn it! Another lost frag.


    After that, all we could do was retreat to a safe distance and watch as Kaguya thrashed, expanded, and convulsed. Gradually, she grew to the size of a hundred-meter-tall mountain of flesh. The waves of chakra she emitted destroyed all living things within a kilometer. She would have continued growing, but then the third part of my technique kicked in.


    Kaguya''s body began to fall apart, rotting alive. If earlier she had emitted a mad roar, now it was screams filled with pain. I started shooting at the carcass with my machine gun, planning to wait for the moment when Kaguya would weaken to the point where the parasite could devour her soul, but then something went wrong again.


    The crystals that had entered the monster''s body unexpectedly began to grow in size and glow like the sun. When a dozen crystals reached twenty meters in length, they exploded, disintegrating Kaguya into atoms. I had already sensed the power of the impending explosion and commanded my team to retreat to a safe distance. As a result, a huge crater over a kilometer in diameter formed at the explosion site, and not even a speck of Kaguya remained. Her soul also slipped through my grasp. What a failure!


    "That was epic!" - Sakura remarked, digging herself out from under the layer of earth that had buried us after the explosion.


    "Have we almost won?" - Sasuke asked.


    "Yes. Only one team remains in the Land of Waves."


    "No, you have already won!" - declared Judge, appearing before us.


    I looked around and found that we were back in the glowing space, now in the form of souls.


    "What about the Whirlpools team?" - I panicked.


    "As soon as they learned of Kaguya''s death, they immediately committed suicide. They preferred the death of the body and the suffering of hell to the true death in the jaws of Azathoth" - Judge kindly explained.


    I froze for a second, then... commanded the parasite to devour the souls of my former allies. I still needed two more frags, and that''s exactly how many were present. Sakura and Sasuke didn''t even have time to scream before their souls were consumed by the parasite. Even the Judge didn''t react in time. Or, more likely, he didn''t want to react because the Will of Azathoth was above all.


    *** Score: 10/10 ***


    *** Approval Point: 1/1 ***


    "Did you decide to take the grand prize for yourself?" - Judge asked, looking at me with interest.


    "What grand prize?" - I replied suspiciously, answering a question with a question.


    "The winner of this game will go to the Creator of Universe himself to witness his infinite greatness and receive the brand of his grace."


    The brand? Like a Brand of the Sacrifice?


    "No, you can do that without me" - I said, activating the transfer of my soul to the next world.


    "Wait! There must be a winner in the game!" -Judge fretted.


    "Not my problem" - I smirked.


    Judge tried to grab me but didn''t succeed, as my soul was once again rolled into a tube, then collapsed into a point, and the whole world around me went dark.

 Chapter 20.01 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    I awoke to find yet another rice seedling planted crookedly, something that needed to be corrected. Startled, I straightened up and looked around. I found myself in a rice field, planting rice. Judging by the memories that began flooding in, even while in this body, I had been planting rice, operating on the ?program? imprinted in the mind of the body''s previous owner.


    Focusing on my new body and its memories, I discovered that my name was Tang Ji Tao, I was fourteen years old, an orphan, and lived in a village, leading the simple life of a peasant. Looking at the basket of rice seedlings, I tossed it to the ground and walked away from the field, heading toward a nearby stream. It was time to wash off the grime of my past life and start anew.


    Checking the requirements for transitioning to the next world, I was pleasantly surprised. I could stay here for a full hundred years. My task during this time was to become the strongest Qi Cultivator. Simply the strongest, with no specifications as to where or in what scale. After washing in the stream and washing my clothes, I walked under the blazing spring sun toward my home, looking in the surroundings as I went.


    The former inhabitant of this body knew about the existence of Qi cultivators¡ªbeings with incredible mystical powers who meditated in mountain caves for thousands of years. Moreover, every year, around the spring equinox, one of these cultivators would visit the village, taking with them all children aged thirteen to fourteen who had reached the first level of Qi Condensation. Additionally, the village elder possessed a booklet given by these same cultivators that described how to achieve Qi Condensation.


    Tang Ji Tao had no interest in cultivation, but I was deeply intrigued by the subject. However, there was one problem: I was already fourteen years old. The equinox was a month away, and in another month, I would turn fifteen, making me ineligible to join the local cultivators¡¯ sect.


    Reaching the elder''s dwelling, I found that he wasn¡¯t home. Naturally, the village subsisted on agriculture, and during the spring season, everyone was toiling in the fields, as I had been just half an hour earlier. Deciding to return for the booklet in the evening, I headed to my home. Once there, I settled into a comfortable meditative posture and began meditating, attempting to understand what this ¡°Qi¡± was.


    By evening, I managed to sense the local form of magical energy permeating the world. However, all my attempts to gather or even shift it by a millimeter were unsuccessful. After a quick meal, I went to see the elder. I found him resting on the porch of his house, tired from a long day of work.


    ¡°Good health to you, honorable Shi Chu Song. I would like to read the Qi cultivation book kept in your house¡± - I asked the stocky man in accordance with local traditions.


    ¡°Tao, what¡¯s gotten into you? It¡¯s spring! You should be working, not meditating. I heard you abandoned the rice seedlings in the field. That disrupts our traditional way of life.¡±


    ¡°I need to read the Qi cultivation book¡± - I insisted. - ¡°Or would you prefer I tell to Heavenly Cultivator, when he arrives for the spring festival, that you¡¯re hindering children from learning this important art?¡±


    The elder frowned at my threat and gave me a stern look.


    - ¡°Thinking of becoming a cultivator, are you? You think they¡¯re waiting to welcome you with open arms?¡±


    ¡°I need to read the Qi cultivation book¡± - I repeated my mantra.


    ¡°Fine, let¡¯s go¡± - he said grudgingly, spitting on the ground.


    Though Shi Chu Song didn¡¯t show it, my threat had scared him out of his wits¡ªprimarily because it was valid. While he didn¡¯t deny direct requests, in everyday life, he always discouraged the ¡°younger generation¡± from pursuing Qi cultivation, insisting that a worthy person should live off the land through hard work rather than floating in the heavens, doing who knows what.


    With the coveted booklet in hand¡ªa ten-page text filled with illustrations¡ªI returned home. The sun hadn¡¯t set yet, so I sat on the west-facing porch and began studying the local ¡°wisdom.¡± The original owner of this body could read, but his knowledge of local characters was limited. Fortunately, the booklet was designed for simple-minded peasant children, so I had almost no trouble understanding it.


    In five minutes, I had skimmed through the booklet and grasped the basics of the local cultivation system. First, Qi followed a simple rule: to absorb Qi, you must already possess Qi. You could only control the Qi that had passed through your inner energy channels and become imbued with your ¡°essence.¡± A human body contained twenty-two Qi channels. Everyone was born with one channel ¡°open.¡± Six more could be opened during the cultivation process.


    The ability of a person to cultivate was determined quite simply. If there was a "thread of Qi" present in their one open 22nd channel, they could use it to gather more Qi and thus begin the path of cultivation. If innate Qi was absent in this channel, cultivation was fundamentally impossible for that person. Each individual possessed only one strand of Qi, while there were 22 channels. Consequently, on average, only one in twenty people could become a cultivator.


    Understanding this straightforward concept, I began meditating using the local techniques. Soon, I found the relevant channel in my body and, to my delight, sensed a faint "thread" of Qi within it. To avoid dangerous experimentation, I decided to start with only the "standard" cultivation methods.


    I performed the prescribed breathing exercises while visualizing the required images depicted in the book. I engaged in these peculiar practices for a couple of hours before definitively grasping the essence of the exercises.


    The key to successfully employing the Qi-gathering technique was using the existing Qi to absorb the "unclaimed" Qi already within my body. This required creating a "loop" of Qi flow within the channel. Naturally, after some time, the free Qi in the body would be depleted, and one had to rely on breathing exercises to draw in Qi from the external world.Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.


    Although Qi was not heavily reliant on the physical world, it permeated all space and moved somewhat alongside matter. During deep breathing, air containing Qi entered the body and partially exchanged with the "internal energy system." Upon realizing this, I sought to understand why Qi couldn''t directly penetrate the skin. As it turned out, living beings had a natural barrier that prevented the mixing of internal and external Qi and also kept internal Qi from dissipating.


    Evaluating the effectiveness of the breathing techniques, I concluded they yielded minimal results. Fortunately, I possessed functional psionics, which allowed me to directly perceive Qi and its interactions with matter. By midnight, I had discovered a way to absorb Qi through my entire body. Tiny "valves" formed on my skin, allowing Qi to flow inward but preventing its escape. This gave me hope that reaching the first level of Qi Condensation would take not the six months to a year promised in the book but merely a month.


    Having learned to absorb the Qi flowing through my body, I discovered that even in the external world, this energy was sparse. Scanning my surroundings, I found a "stream" of Qi nearby. This energy flow wound its way through space, obeying its own mysterious rules. I approached it and stood within the stream, as it hovered just a meter above the ground. My cultivation rate increased immediately. However, when I sat down, it slowed again since the flow now passed over my head.


    I had to construct a makeshift "perch" to position myself within the stream. Searching for a more conveniently located stream yielded no results, and wandering the area at night was too dangerous. As a result, I cobbled together a bizarre creation resembling a cross between a scarecrow and a perch. Perched upon it, I meditated, carefully balancing to avoid falling.


    By morning, the entire village passed by my home, gawking at my "cultivation" and gesturing mockingly. The village elder wasted no time spreading word that I had taken up spiritual pursuits and completely lost my mind. The villagers, eager for free entertainment, immediately speculated about how deranged I had become and whether it was contagious. I ignored these fools, vowing to return to this dump one day and obliterate everyone who had mocked me¡ªevery last one of them.


    When the villagers went back to their fields, I ventured out to find a more suitable Qi stream for cultivation. Despite a sleepless night, I felt great, as the Qi I had gathered was gradually dispersing, nourishing my bones and internal organs, which improved their function.


    After four hours of exploration, I discovered a suitable Qi stream in a small shrine in the forest. The locals considered the spot "belonging to the spirits" and occasionally left "offerings" at the altar. Fortunately, the stream flowed slightly away from the shrine, allowing me to meditate undisturbed by curious visitors while also "accepting" their offerings to stave off hunger. Although I didn¡¯t really need this, it seemed the shrine had originally been created by a cultivator who used the energy flow and built the shrine to collect "tributes of food" from the locals.


    Thus, my life settled into a new rhythm. I spent my days and nights at the "sacred site," absorbing Qi, returning home only a couple of times daily to eat and wash up. Though the villagers still considered me a lunatic, they left me alone, preoccupied with their own work.


    About a week before the spring festival, I achieved the level described in the book. My "thread of Qi" had become dense enough to significantly slow its dissipation. At the same time, vital energy began to flow through my Qi channel, reducing my need for food and sleep. This state wasn¡¯t permanent, and if I stopped cultivating, my Qi strand would revert to its natural state within a few months.


    From that point on, I stayed in the village, awaiting the cultivator''s arrival. Near my home, I built a decent shelter for meditating at my "personal" Qi stream, which now attracted less attention.


    Qi Condensation practice was fairly monotonous, so while my body concentrated Qi, my mind worked on dispelling Shub-Niggurath¡¯s spell, which suppressed my magic and chakra. Additionally, I used Qi and psionics to develop my brain. Tan Ji Tao had been fairly dim-witted, like the rest of the locals. I was accustomed to a more advanced consciousness that didn¡¯t need five seconds to divide two by three.


    Finally, the Great Day arrived¡ªnot the Spring Equinox Festival, which was still two days away, but the arrival of the Celestial Cultivator, capable of flying through the sky like a bird. From the locals¡¯ perspective, that is. I, however, sensed Qi disturbances before spotting a man in his forties flying heavily above the road, about ten meters off the ground.


    The entire village dropped their tasks to greet the great man who, with a wave of his hand, could flatten the village. The cultivator refused the feast and got straight to business.


    "Do you have any teenagers who have reached the first level of Qi Condensation?" - he asked the elder.


    "I am!" - I immediately responded.


    If I hadn¡¯t shown up myself, no one would have bothered to inform me about the Celestial Cultivator¡¯s arrival. The local folk were so enviously ignorant that it sometimes made me want to strangle them all just for existing.


    The village elder grimaced at my statement as if he had swallowed a whole box of lemons. He fancied himself the "king of the village," and whenever someone dared to defy his authority, he would immediately assert his dominance, pressuring the villagers to support his nonsense. However, in the presence of the cultivator, he dared not pull such stunts and simply swallowed this "insult" in silence.


    The cultivator approached me and placed a hand on my shoulder. I felt his Qi enter my body and scan the twenty-second channel.


    "Acceptable" - he nodded. - "How old are you?"


    Thanks to regular hard physical labor and genetics, I already looked like a fully grown, rugged man. By local standards, I was one. At fifteen, a man was expected to marry and run his own household, and my build, compared to the local frail and malnourished folk, was considered exceptionally robust.


    "Fourteen. I¡¯ll turn fifteen in a couple of months" - I replied. The elder seemed about to add something, but I gave him a sharp glare, which silenced him.


    "Fine, I¡¯ll take your word for it" - the cultivator waved dismissively. - "Any other candidates?"


    "No, your grace" - The elder eagerly replied. - "This year, we are offering your sect of the Heavenly Blades our finest groom. He will surely become a worthy disciple and repay all the resources invested in him."


    "And if not" - the cultivator said darkly, fixing his gaze on me, - "he¡¯ll regret it."


    Grabbing my shoulder, the cultivator ascended into the sky, carrying me off. Streams of Qi held me in the air, so I didn¡¯t even need to exert myself. After about half an hour, we arrived at a neighboring village, where a small group of a dozen other "gifted brats" like me had already gathered. Compared to them, I looked the healthiest and most well-fed. My predecessor in my village may have worked from dawn to dusk, but he had clearly not gone hungry.


    "Tai Xu, who have you brought this time?" - a young man in similar attire asked the cultivator.


    "Teacher, this is another candidate. He¡¯ll turn fifteen soon, but he meets all the criteria" - Tai Xu replied.


    The young man grabbed my shoulder and nodded in approval.


    "Acceptable. We¡¯ll wait for So Yu, then head back to the school. We¡¯ve already met today¡¯s quota."


    "Yes, teacher." - Despite appearing older, Tai Xu fawned over the younger man, who clearly held a higher level of cultivation.

 Chapter 20.02 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    Ten minutes later, another cultivator joined us, but this time without any "catch." The leader of the group lined up the ten teenagers, including me, into a tight formation. With a dramatic wave of his hand, we all rose into the air together. While I remained indifferent to this, the other "passengers" screamed in terror.


    "Shut up!" - the cultivator barked. - "Whoever screams the loudest, I''ll throw them down on purpose."


    That silenced everyone immediately, allowing me to enjoy the flight in peace. I had deliberately positioned myself for the best view, giving me a chance to marvel at the surrounding natural beauty. We soared over plains, gentle hills, and towering cliffs. After about an hour of leisurely levitation, we landed at the foot of a fairly tall mountain. The cultivator left as soon as he received confirmation that he had met his daily quota.


    "Alright, you brats! Listen up!" - A massive, beastly-looking man addressed us. Do they recruit these types on purpose? - "I¡¯m one of the three overseers of the Eighth Outer Forest Camp of the Heavenly Blades Sect. My name is Master Xiao Xiao San. That¡¯s how you¡¯ll address me¡ªno exceptions! You¡¯re now part of the sect. Or rather, you¡¯re candidates for entry into the sect. There are no moms or dads here. No one will stand up for you. The only thing you can rely on is the mercy of higher-ranking sect members, like me."


    The man swept a fierce gaze over the group of subdued kids.


    "From now on, you will devote all your free time to cultivation. You¡¯ll be provided with housing, food, and training in the basics of Qi Condensation. In six months, there will be an exam. Those who reach the fifth level of Qi Condensation will earn the right to take the sect¡¯s entrance trial. Those who prove insufficiently talented or diligent will be tossed into the forest to be eaten by wild beasts. And don¡¯t think I¡¯m bluffing. The sect has no need for weaklings or slackers. No one will take you back to your village. At best, you¡¯ll have to traverse hundreds of kilometers through wild mountains to reach any inhabited area. And even then, you¡¯ll likely be captured and sold into slavery."


    In short, the man did his best to terrify us, motivating us to work tirelessly for the sect. I was inclined to believe him. To cultivators, ordinary people were akin to livestock¡ªexpendable. However, I doubted an average person could reach the fifth level of Qi Condensation in just six months. Well, we¡¯d see.


    After some more dire warnings about our fate should we fail, we were handed over to a slightly older boy who acted like he was the Pope and President of the United States rolled into one. At the very least, he had enough arrogance for both. He led us to a stone dwelling designed to house ten people. No one seemed concerned that three of our group were girls. Judging by the lecherous glances he gave them, our guide might revisit that issue later, but not today. After showing us our new home, the communal dining hall, and the lecture hall, he left to attend to his "very important" business.


    "Hi, let¡¯s get acquainted" - said a freckled girl, addressing me. - "My name is Liu Qiang. I¡¯m thirteen years old and at the second level of Qi Condensation."


    From the way the others looked at me, it seemed they had already introduced themselves to one another.


    "I¡¯m Tang Ji Tao" - I replied with a nod. Since no one else seemed interested in introducing themselves, I considered the ritual complete. I wasn¡¯t particularly curious about my new neighbors'' names. After all, here, everyone was on their own. - "See you later."


    I then took a look around, searching for a place suitable for cultivation. Predictably, there was such a place, but it was occupied by buildings housing meditation halls. Access was limited to one hour a day, and outside each hall, dozens of students crowded, waiting their turn.


    "Sir, may I know your name?" - I asked a young man, barely a couple of years older than me, standing at the entrance to one of the halls. He clearly enjoyed being addressed so respectfully, as he smiled and introduced himself with smug satisfaction.The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    "I¡¯m Chong Chuan Chui, overseer of the third meditation hall."


    "Pleasure to meet you, sir. I¡¯ve heard that meditation halls are incredibly important for cultivation. I only just arrived here today. Would you grant me the opportunity to spend a few minutes experiencing the atmosphere of a meditation hall?"


    "Kid" - Chui looked at me skeptically. - "All these people have been waiting their turn, some for two days. Every student is entitled to visit the meditation hall only once per day. Why should I let you in out of turn?"


    Judging by the tone, it was clear he expected a bribe.


    "Master Chong Chuan Chui, I only need a couple of minutes inside the hall. For this, I''m willing to forfeit my right to today''s visit to this magnificent place. I''m sure you''ll find someone willing to take my place in exchange for expressing their gratitude to you."


    "Fair enough." - He grinned, clearly satisfied. - "Go ahead."


    We entered the large hall, where I was instructed to place my hand on a massive jade slab. It recorded the imprint of my aura.


    "I¡¯ll need no more than the time it takes for three breaths" - I said, making my way to the center of the hall.


    As I had suspected, this wasn¡¯t just a room. The Qi in this area surged up from the ground in a wide stream. The hall''s construction, with specially treated walls and roof, trapped and concentrated the Qi inside, enriching the air and enhancing the effectiveness of breathing techniques.


    Breathing techniques held little value for me. However, I noticed that the Qi inside the hall behaved like radiation, bouncing back and forth between the walls, ceiling, and floor. This made it possible to absorb the energy much more efficiently through the skin.


    Standing in the center, I pretended to take a deep breath, producing an exaggerated sound. At the same time, I opened all the pores of my body, voraciously absorbing the Qi from the surrounding space.


    "Wooooooosh!" - I inhaled deeply. Chui and a couple of other students who noticed me burst out laughing.


    "Wooooooosh!" - I repeated, inhaling again. By this time, the concentration of Qi in the hall had dropped by half.


    "Wooooooosh! - Thank you for your kindness, Master Chong Chuan Chui" - I said with a bow before heading for the exit. It didn¡¯t matter; within the next hour, the energy density in this hall would be zero.


    "Hey! Where¡¯s all the spiritual energy gone?" - one of the students exclaimed, suddenly realizing his cultivation had stopped.


    "What?" - Chui turned to him, alarmed.


    At that moment, I slipped out unnoticed.


    "If anyone wants to take my place in the meditation hall, please speak with Master Chong Chuan Chui" - I announced benevolently, setting the terms for bribing the official.


    The crowd immediately buzzed, tallying their resources for potential bribes. I quickly walked away, vanishing behind some bushes to observe the chaos that would unfold.


    "Where is he?!" - Chui burst out of the meditation hall, his gaze wild.


    "Master Chong Chuan Chui, may I take the spot of the student who just left?" - the most eager briber asked him.


    "Take his spot? Excellent! You¡¯ll take his spot in the snake pit!" - Chui snapped, grabbing the offender by the shoulder.


    "What? Master, have mercy! I¡¯ve done nothing wrong!"


    "That¡¯s for the overseer to decide. Guards!"


    "Yes, sir!" - Two burly men stepped forward.


    "Don¡¯t let any students enter or leave the meditation hall. I¡¯m going to the overseer."


    "Understood, sir!" - The guards nodded, their exaggerated seriousness clearly meant to impress.


    It looked like I had stirred up a hornet¡¯s nest. Ha! From behind the bushes, I slipped around the meditation hall to find a spot suitable for cultivation.


    The "energy anomaly" covered an irregular area roughly shaped like a square. Four meditation halls were built within it. The narrow pathways between the buildings were too busy for meditation, but I discovered that in one spot, the Qi stream extended slightly beyond the square, reaching part of a nearby park.


    I was about to sit on the grass to meditate when I noticed a sign: "Do not sit on the grass." Scratching my head, I looked up and saw that the branch of a gnarled old tree extended over the pathway between the buildings. The energy flowing through the gap passed right through the branch.


    After scanning my surroundings, I nimbly climbed the tree, balanced on the swaying branch, and settled into meditation within the anomaly. The Qi flow here was ten times stronger than what I was used to back in my village, dramatically boosting the efficiency of my cultivation.


    After five minutes, it occurred to me that I didn¡¯t have to sit on the branch¡ªI could lie down, increasing my "effective cross-sectional area" for the flow. Of course, the branch wasn¡¯t exactly comfortable, but by reinforcing my back with the inner Qi already under my control, I managed to eliminate any discomfort entirely.


    People below were running around, yelling, and discussing something, but I paid them no mind. No one noticed me the entire time, so I lay comfortably on the tree until evening, when the aroma of dinner began wafting through the air.


    At that point, I climbed down and made my way to the dining hall.

 Chapter 20.03 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    Food was distributed here under strict control using aura identification, so no one worried about missing out. However, you did have to worry about someone taking your food away, as the weakest students were constantly bullied and exploited by anyone who could. This often led to fights, which were quickly stopped by the ''vigilant'' guards. The guards were only concerned with maintaining outward peace, not with protecting the weak from the strong.


    After standing in line, I received my bowl of food and a piece of bread, which I took to the dining hall, where tables and chairs were available. Seeing my muscular build, no one dared mess with me. But not everyone was so cautious, as one cocky thug decided to take my food.


    "Hand it over" - he said sharply, grabbing the bowl of porridge.


    "Take this!" - I replied, punching him in the jaw.


    Since the thug had grabbed the bowl with both hands, he couldn¡¯t defend himself. His unconscious body flew sideways and hit the wall, luckily nearby. Otherwise, he might¡¯ve been sent flying across the entire hall.


    "What¡¯s going on here?" - one of the guards immediately approached.


    "The guy got tired and decided to nap" - I pointed to the victim. - "Though this doesn¡¯t seem like the best place for it."


    "Got it. Hey, you guys, take this body and throw it into the ravine" - the guard ordered, giving me a respectful look.


    The ravine? Tough luck for the failures around here. After this demonstration of strength, no one dared approach me. On the contrary, as soon as I approached a table, the scrawny students sitting there immediately cleared out. I was just passing by, but since the table was now empty, I decided to eat there.


    While I ate, I listened to the surrounding conversations and overheard an interesting discussion.


    "Did you hear? Chong Chuan Chui dragged Sui Tu to the supervisor today, and the poor guy was thrown into the snake pit afterward."


    "Yeah, apparently someone drained all the energy from the meditation hall in just three breaths, and Sui Tu took all the blame."


    "What a fool. So, what happens to him now?"


    "He¡¯ll stay in the pit for three days. If he survives, the charges will be dropped."


    "I think we can forget about Sui Tu already."


    "Agreed."


    After dinner, I headed to the house assigned to us. I planned to sleep in a tree, combining rest with cultivation, but first, I needed to secure a spot in the house and gather some rumors.


    However, upon entering, I was met with an unpleasant sight. Five students from our group were lying unconscious on the floor in awkward positions, while three thugs were assaulting three female students. Quickly scanning the situation with my psionics, I learned that the attackers were at the third level of Qi Condensation.


    I wasn¡¯t entirely sure how Qi levels corresponded to combat abilities, but as far as I understood, no one here had been trained in martial arts, so strength primarily depended on physical ability and fighting experience. Caught in hesitation, wondering whether to intervene or join the "party," the thugs made the decision for me.


    "Hey, another one! Get him!" - shouted the tallest and most muscular of the trio, stepping away from one of the girls. Despite his build, his cultivation level was lower than the others, barely at the beginning of the third level, while the other two were close to breaking into the fourth.


    I didn¡¯t waste time pondering and immediately switched to combat mode. Although I wasn¡¯t a master of hand-to-hand combat, I could enhance my mental speed with psionics, which made all the difference.Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    Taking a quick step forward, I delivered a full-strength punch to his jaw. Surprisingly, it didn¡¯t crush his head but left him visibly dazed. While he struggled to recover, I grabbed his left arm and performed a joint lock that snapped his elbow. This move didn¡¯t rely much on strength, and I made sure to twist it thoroughly, tearing tendons and ligaments in the process.


    "Aaaaargh!" - he screamed and collapsed, writhing in pain and crawling away.


    The second thug was slow to react, fumbling to free himself from the girl, who deliberately clung to him with her legs to hinder his movements. I seized the opportunity and struck the back of his head with all my might. A sickening crunch followed, and he collapsed face-first. A psionic check confirmed his heart had stopped.


    The third attacker, however, was ready for me. Or so he thought.


    "Do you even know who I am?" - he screeched, glancing between his fallen companions.


    "You¡¯re a corpse" - I replied with a sinister smile¡ªthe kind I had perfected to unsettle others. A "minus ten to morale" kind of smile.


    "I¡¯m Li Su! My brother is one of the guards. If you dare lay a finger on me¡ª"


    "Alright, you¡¯ve convinced me" - I interrupted, stepping forward. - "I¡¯ll just strangle you like a snake."


    "Don¡¯t come near me!"


    Li Su lunged at me, attempting to use some sort of combat technique. At the very least, he formed a Qi construct in his palm and tried to strike me with it. But to do so, he first had to land the hit. I dodged his attack, twisted his arm, and performed my signature move, breaking it at the elbow. After all, my strength as Tan Ji Tao was formidable, and with minimal muscle enhancement, I could bend a steel bar.


    Li Su tried to hit me with his other hand, this time without any technique, so I broke that arm too. Then came his attempt to kick me. This was slightly trickier, but I managed to break his leg at the knee by stepping on the joint. At this point, the guy was just screaming in pain and no longer attempting to attack, but for the sake of symmetry and a touch of art, I broke his remaining leg, arranging his body on the floor in a shape vaguely resembling a swastika.


    "Does anyone know what¡¯s usually done with corpses here?" - I asked, not really expecting an answer. The one-armed guy started whining twice as loudly at my question.


    "Everyone freeze!" - A guard suddenly burst through the door. His standard uniform made him easy to identify. Two more burly guards stood behind him, and beyond them, I saw the tenth member of our group. - "What¡¯s going on here?"


    The guard''s confused gaze darted around the room as he tried to piece the situation together.


    "Brother!" - cried the freckled girl who had been assaulted by the now-dead thug with the caved-in skull. She pointed at me. - "He saved us."


    "Understood" - the guard said, frowning as he surveyed the room again, his eyes lingering on the groaning mess I¡¯d left on the floor. - "What¡¯s your name?" - he asked me.


    "Tan Ji Tao" - I replied.


    "Thank you for protecting my sister."


    "No problem; we¡¯re on the same side" - I said with a nod.


    The guard nodded back and approached the corpse.


    "Who did this to you?" - he asked his sister.


    "That one" - she said, pointing to the dead man.


    "A dog¡¯s death for a dog" - he spat. - "And who are these others? Hey, you, can you hear me?" - he asked the one-armed man.


    "Yes. I¡¯m Liang Xin, and those are Li Su and Zhou Jian."


    "Li Su? The one who¡¯s Li Douche¡¯s brother?" - The guard frowned.


    "Yes" - Liang Xin whimpered.


    "Do you know what the punishment is for rape in this camp?" - the guard asked the only conscious assailant.


    "No!... No, please don¡¯t. I beg you! I¡¯ll pay. I¡¯ll gather five¡ªno, ten weak Qi pills. And I didn¡¯t even touch your sister!"


    "If you had, you¡¯d regret it every day until your miserable death. Zhou Jian is lucky he died so quickly" - the guard said, kicking the corpse. Liang Xin whimpered again, sounding like a beaten dog.


    "What happened here?" - the guard asked his sister, whose name I recalled was Liu Qiang.


    "Li Su came in and demanded that Xiao Yu become his concubine. When she refused, he tried to take her by force. The boys tried to protect us but were beaten down, and then they started raping us. About ten minutes later, Tan Ji Tao came in and started beating them up" - she explained, a bit flustered.


    "So, Li Su started all this? Grab him and the corpse. We¡¯re taking a walk to the ravine. And you¡¯re coming with us too" - he said, glaring at Liang Xin.


    "Please, I beg you" - Liang Xin cried, dropping to his knees and banging his head on the floor.


    "Don¡¯t worry; maybe I¡¯ll even let you live."


    "Thank you, sir" - Liang Xin whimpered.


    The guard cast a final stern look around the room before leaving, herding the prisoner. His two subordinates followed, carrying the two "losers" on their shoulders¡ªone of whom was still alive. I was curious about this ravine but decided not to follow the procession. Whatever happened there was clearly not meant for extra eyes.


    "Thank you, Tao" - Liu Qiang said, bowing to me.


    "Only thanking is not enough " - I replied. - "Can you tell me how cultivation training works here? I¡¯ve only heard what our guide mentioned on the way."


    "Of course."

 Chapter 20.04 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    While the battered inhabitants of this miserable house were being laid out on their beds, Liu Qiang shared the information I was interested in.


    The training camp had four meditation halls. Any student could enter, but at the entrance, their aura was checked with a special jade, which indicated whether the person had already visited one of the halls that day. Attendance at the halls was strictly monitored, with supervisors required to report how many people entered. Each student was assigned a specific meditation spot, and all spots were occupied around the clock.


    Near the meditation halls were three lecture halls. Lectures were held for just four hours a day, with each hall assigned to a single lecturer who taught the fundamentals of cultivation.


    In addition, students received one Weak Qi Pill each week. These pills contained concentrated Qi, aiding breakthroughs to the next level of Qi Condensation. These pills served as the camp''s unofficial currency, used for bribes and often extorted by the strong from the weak. The next distribution was scheduled for two days later.


    Another interesting place was the Alchemists'' Yard. It was for those inclined toward alchemy. Although students were not entrusted with anything valuable, they could attend lectures on medicinal plants and try to grow some rare herbs in a communal garden.


    That concluded the list of notable places. The camp was surrounded by a high fence that primarily protected the students, as the surrounding wilderness was teeming with vicious beasts eager to taste the tender flesh of cultivators. There was also a place ominously called the ravine. Essentially, it was a sheer cliff where those deemed unworthy of becoming cultivators were thrown. At the bottom lived the most ferocious beasts in the area, attracted by the corpses tossed down.


    In short, I found myself in an "interesting" place where simply surviving was a challenge, let alone progressing in cultivation. The camp''s setup was deliberately designed to weed out the "unworthy," leaving only those capable of forging their path to greatness over the bodies of others. A typical spider jar¡ªonly the strongest and most ruthless spider would escape.


    After learning all I needed for now, I went to sleep in a tree. It wasn¡¯t raining, and the climate was warm, making sleeping under the open sky quite comfortable. Thanks to my Qi-enhanced body, any minor discomforts vanished entirely.


    The next day in the morning, after a quick breakfast, I decided to check out the local lecturers'' wisdom. Lectures were starting in all three halls simultaneously.


    At the first hall, I found a trio of burly boys blocking the entrance. The average age of the crowd ranged from 12 to almost 15, and this trio seemed about my age.


    "Where do you think you¡¯re going? Entry to the esteemed Sva Mi¡¯s lecture costs one Weak Qi Pill" - one of the `guards` said, stopping me.


    "Does he know about this?" - I asked.


    "Of course, he does! You think we just decided to collect fees on our own?"


    "Actually, yes, that¡¯s exactly what I think" - I replied.


    "Teacher, this student refuses to pay the entrance fee!" - one of the guards shouted into the hall.


    "I¡¯m so sick of these paupers" - came a voice, followed by the appearance of a young man in a richly adorned robe. - "A week of my lectures costs one Weak Qi Pill. If you don¡¯t have one, you¡¯re not even worthy of seeing me."


    "Seems like we have a mutual opinion of each other" - I said, turning and heading to the next hall. The teacher scoffed smugly but didn¡¯t pursue me.


    The second hall was packed to the brim, with students practically sitting on each other¡¯s heads. Even outside, students crowded near the doors, eager to hear the "heavenly wisdom of the ancestors." Using my physical strength, I forced my way to the entrance and stopped to listen.Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators!


    For the first five minutes, I couldn¡¯t make heads or tails of what the lecturer was saying. By the tenth minute, I realized the "lecture" was nothing more than grand tales glorifying the boundless might and majesty of cultivators. In other words, just stories to make the listeners feel great about themselves.


    Disillusioned, I moved on to the third hall.


    This one had only a couple of dozen students, their faces a battlefield between deadly boredom and an overwhelming desire to sleep. The lecturer here was a young man about my age. He was attempting to explain some cultivation technique but was so unclear and confusing that even I struggled to glean anything useful from his mumbling.


    I decided to stay in this class for a while, hoping to extract at least some valuable information. About half an hour later, one student lost the battle against sleep and began snoring loudly.


    "How dare you sleep during my lecture?!" the "teacher" bellowed, hurling a technique at the student. It sent him flying across the hall, crashing against the wall.


    "If you¡¯re not interested in what I¡¯m saying, you can get out!" the teacher snapped.


    Half the class stood up and left, making their opinion on the quality of his teaching abundantly clear. Looking at the remaining dozen students with a sour expression, the young man muttered under his breath:


    "What am I doing wrong?"


    I overheard him and decided to offer some advice, which was also in my own interest.


    "Maybe you should start reading a book?" I suggested loudly. "You mentioned that the Eight Twists of the Great Serpent technique is described in Master Chin Gach Gook¡¯s book."


    "Do you think you''re the smartest one here?" - the lecturer snapped at me. - "The teacher instructed me to give lectures, explaining the techniques in my own words."


    "Then you could use an approach where you comment on the original text."


    "What kind of approach?" - the local ''teaching genius'' asked, puzzled. Judging by his words, it seemed he had been appointed as a teacher as a form of punishment¡ªpunishing not only him but also his students.


    "You read a chapter of the book out loud and then explain what the author really meant, adding your personal experience. After that, you have a Q&A session where you answer students'' questions and point out their mistakes. The next day, you briefly recap the previous lecture''s content and address any questions that arose during practice before moving on to the next chapter."


    The teaching system I proposed was revolutionary by local standards. Primarily because it gave the students at least some hope of hearing useful information. And if the teacher wasn¡¯t a complete idiot, they might actually gain a lot from this approach.


    "Hmm... let''s give it a try."


    "Could you start with the first chapter of some book?" - I suggested. - "Everyone here is a beginner, so it would be helpful to start with the basics."


    "Fine" - Now-enthusiastic teacher nodded graciously. - "I, Sam Su Sam, will teach you the great cultivation technique of the Eight Twists of the Great Serpent. Listen well to my wisdom."


    Strangely enough, what followed wasn¡¯t such a bad lecture. Having a concrete subject to discuss, Sam Su Sam not only read from the book but also explained it in his own words so clearly that even the children of uneducated peasants could understand. When I began asking leading questions, nuances of cultivation surfaced¡ªdetails that any competent teacher should be explaining.


    The technique of the Eight Twists of the Great Serpent allowed for accelerated absorption of Qi into the Qi Thread. As I had mentioned before, to absorb Qi, you need to create a circular flow. This technique described how to create not just a ''circle,'' but a true ''coil,'' a spiral flowing through the channel. I had used a similar approach myself when seeking to increase energy absorption speed. However, some specific methods of enhancing the efficiency of this mechanism were new even to me.


    By the time the lecture ended, the hall was packed with a crowd of people listening with rapt attention. Everyone who entered stayed, and some even brought their friends. Sam Su Sam witnessed firsthand the effectiveness of the new approach and promised to continue with the next chapter the following day.


    When I left the hall, the sun was already past its zenith, but there were still about four hours until dinner. As I was pondering what to do next, a small twelve-year-old boy appeared before me, emanating the energy of the fourth level of Qi Condensation.


    "Hey, you! How dare you question the teacher? Only the strongest students have the right to speak to him."


    "Get lost, idiot" - I replied and walked away, deciding to meditate on a tree for a while.


    "What did you say? I''ll kill you!"


    With a wild scream, the brat charged at me, aiming to strike my back. But at the last moment, I dodged and grabbed his arm. The blow was surprisingly strong, as the kid was using body enhancement. However, despite his strength, he was still light, so I easily yanked him forward, twisted his arm, and then broke it by pressing my knee against the elbow. I followed this with a crippling ''folding'' motion, bending his arm against the joint all the way to the shoulder. The boy screamed like a stuck pig and tried to break free, only injuring his arm further.


    "What¡¯s going on here?" - A guard immediately appeared, pushing through the crowd.

 Chapter 20.05 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    "He tried to kill me, so I defended myself" - I said, shoving the privileged brat aside. He fell face-first into the dust.


    "Tried to kill you?" - The guard looked skeptical. - "That scrawny kid?"


    "He shouted ''I''ll kill you.'' You must have heard it yourself. And he''s at the fourth level of Qi Condensation¡ªhe could kill me with a single strike. Naturally, I couldn''t let him land the blow."


    "Let''s go to the overseer; he''ll sort this out" - the guard said, grabbing me by the arm.


    I began sizing him up, considering how to take him down with a single strike. He was at the seventh level of Qi Condensation, so the blow would have to be both unexpected and lethal. But for now, I decided to try resolving the issue peacefully.


    "Then this brat comes with us" - I said, grabbing the attacker by the neck. The kid had just managed to stand up and was cradling his broken arm, attempting to twist it back into place without screaming in pain.


    "Aaaah! Let me be!" - he screamed. But the pain wracking his body prevented him from concentrating enough to strengthen himself with Qi. Without it, he was just a feeble boy with an unjustifiably high opinion of himself.


    "I''ll throw you into a pit of snakes" - I whispered into his ear - "after breaking your other arm. Now walk!"


    The threat worked, and the brat stopped struggling.


    "Well, then?" - I glared grimly at the guard.


    "To the overseer" - he grunted, trying hard to project the aura of someone at the seventh level of Qi Condensation. But his posturing had no effect on me, so fear wasn¡¯t even on the table.


    We walked along a path to a small but charming stone house, resembling the modest huts the students lived in. However, when we stepped inside, we found ourselves in a richly decorated room furnished with carved redwood furniture. At a desk sat a man of indeterminate age, who looked up from his book as we entered.


    "What now?" - he asked irritably, casting a glance at us.


    "He tried to kill me" - I declared before the guard could say anything.


    "Silence!" - the guard barked, but immediately quieted down at the overseer''s commanding wave.


    "Who tried to kill you?" - the overseer asked with a faint smile that boded ill.


    "This one" - I said, pushing the culprit forward. - "He suddenly yelled ''I''ll kill you'' and attempted to strike me in the back. Apparently, he was afraid to face me directly."


    "That''s not true!" - the brat tried to object.


    "It is true" - I countered firmly. - "Everyone nearby heard your shout and saw you attack me first."


    "What''s your name?" - the overseer asked me.


    "Tan Ji Tao."


    "So, you attacked a senior student and broke his arm" - the overseer said, now addressing the brat.


    "Who¡¯s senior? This brat?" - I protested. - "I''m stronger, older, taller, heavier, and, most importantly, much smarter than him. In no way does he qualify as my senior."


    "He possesses a rare talent" - the overseer said. - "At barely thirteen years old, he¡¯s already at the fourth level of Qi Condensation. Meanwhile, you''re still at the first."


    "I achieved my first level in just one month of training¡ªnot from cultivating since birth. Moreover, talent isn''t about raw strength but the ability to use it effectively. This kid has no idea when, where, or why to use his power."


    The overseer smiled, seemingly agreeing with my assessment.


    "Even so, he has the potential to become a talented cultivator. But with a broken arm, his path ends in the ravine."If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    The brat trembled in terror and collapsed to his knees, too afraid to scream or beg for mercy.


    "If he¡¯s so valuable, his arm can be healed" - I said. - "Even a regular person could use it again in a year. If he¡¯s not worth even the simplest help from a healer, then what kind of talent are we even talking about?"


    "And what about you?" - The overseer¡¯s gaze bored into me. - "Are you worthy of the resources spent on you?"


    "So far, I haven¡¯t seen any resources spent on me except for a couple of bowls of food. As for whether I¡¯m worthy, the answer is absolutely yes. After all, I care about my own development far more than anyone else does. To you, I¡¯m just another student. To myself, I¡¯m a unique and unmatched genius of cultivation."


    "A genius, huh?" - The overseer smirked.


    "Absolutely" - I confirmed.


    "Very well. Defeating an opponent at the fourth level of Qi Condensation while being at the first level is an impressive feat. But don¡¯t think that means you can maim anyone you like."


    "As long as no one attacks me or interferes with my cultivation, I won¡¯t kill, rob, or harm anyone. However, if someone dares to stand in my way, a broken arm will feel like a merciful outcome."


    "I like your attitude" - the overseer nodded. - "You may go."


    "Yes, sir" - I said, bowing.


    "As for him..." - The overseer turned his gaze to the panicked, injured brat. - "Take him to... " ¨C he made dramatical pause - "to the alchemy master. Let him examine the arm."


    "Understood" - the guard said, grabbing the boy by his uninjured arm and dragging him outside.


    Outside, I bowed to the guard and stepped aside, following him at a distance of about five meters. The brat, who had seemed ready to accept his fate moments ago, perked up slightly. But when he turned back and saw me following closely, his face turned pale with terror. In response to his frightened look, I smiled¡ªa kind, maniacal smile.


    "Aaaaaaa! He''s following us!" - the boy shouted, pointing at me to the guard.


    "Dude, do you need something from me?" - the guard asked, glaring at me irritably.


    "Yes. I''ve never been to the alchemists'' area before, so I wanted to follow you and check it out."


    "But no one will let you into the inner courtyard."


    "No problem."


    The guard nodded and dragged his charge forward, not caring about the boy¡¯s well-being in the slightest. When the brat glanced back at me again, I clenched my fist and ran my thumb across my throat in a mock execution gesture. His eyes widened in fear, but instead of complaining, he seemed to shrink in on himself, trying to appear pitiful and invisible.


    We followed the path, passed through an open gate, and entered a garden. It was filled with various plots and patches where magical hemp and other plants grew. Even a quick glance revealed that these plants were absorbing Qi, though the energy content in them wasn¡¯t particularly impressive.


    I waited until the guard and the injured boy passed through another gate flanked by two guards before approaching.


    "What do you want?" - a young man, about eighteen, asked gruffly.


    "This is my first time here. Where are the alchemy lectures held, and how can I get involved in growing plants?"


    "The lecture hall is over there. Classes start in half an hour. You can ask the teacher about practical work after the lecture."


    "Thank you" - I nodded and headed toward the building he had pointed out.


    "And don¡¯t you dare pick anything" - the guard called after me. - "Even one plucked leaf could land you in the snake pit."


    "Understood" - I waved dismissively without turning around.


    The local botanical garden was interesting, though it took up far more space than the rest of the camp. I spent the next thirty minutes exploring the unusual and beautiful plants. However, there weren¡¯t many varieties¡ªbarely a dozen¡ªso the garden didn¡¯t hold my attention for long.


    The lecture was conducted by a dignified old man with a white beard. He passionately explained to the young novices the vital role of alchemy in a cultivator''s development. According to him, achieving nirvana was impossible without the pills and elixirs he crafted. And with enough "alchemy," one could practically become a god in just half an hour.


    In short, it was the usual sales pitch aimed at impressionable kids. Still, I made a mental note to study this field¡ªnot so much to start "crafting" but to understand how it all worked.


    "Master Chu Zhu Zhu" - I addressed the teacher after the lecture - "I¡¯d like to study plant cultivation techniques. Is there a way to get a plot of land for that?"


    "Ho-ho, another young talent" - the old man chuckled, looking at me. - "Find Liu Kang. He handles the organizational matters. You¡¯re planning to attend my lectures, I assume?"


    "Yes, of course. Though I¡¯d be more interested in hearing more about alchemy and plants rather than endless talk about becoming great by devouring pills in bulk."


    "Haha, we¡¯ll cover that next week. Good luck."


    "Thank you, sir," I said and bowed.


    My interest in agriculture wasn¡¯t so much about growing magical hemp as it was about cultivating my own food and conducting a few experiments. From what I could tell, the camp fed its students rather modestly. For someone like me, who needed proper nutrition to maintain physical strength, this was far from ideal.


    While Qi helped reduce dependence on food, it wasn¡¯t enough. Besides, the locals mostly relied on rice, whereas I, Tan Ji Tao, had grown into a young bull by eating primarily beans. Since my body was in a phase of accelerated growth, I needed to ensure I maintained my health and appearance. I planned to live for the next hundred years, and it was best to avoid health problems from the start.


    With a handful of seeds and a plot of land in the most overgrown corner of the garden, I headed back to the camp to meditate. But before that, I decided to grab a bite to eat, as it was dinnertime. However, as I entered the dining hall, I was unexpectedly intercepted by Liu Qiang, who was clearly waiting for me.

 Chapter 20.06 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    "Tan Ji Tao, hi. You''re hard to find" - Liu Qiang greeted me, joining the queue for food.


    "I wasn¡¯t deliberately hiding" - I replied nonchalantly.


    "There are already all kinds of rumors about you."


    "What rumors?" - I asked, surprised.


    "That you turned Sam Su Sam into the best teacher in the sect¡¯s history. And after that, you crippled Dao Yu, the most gifted student in the outer forest, and got away with it."


    "What a nonsense? First of all, the most gifted student here is me. Second, Sam Su Sam could have achieved the same results ages ago if someone had just explained to him how to teach cultivation science properly."


    "Science?" - Liu Qiang wrinkled her nose. - "Isn''t cultivation an art?"


    "To spark wild, frantic, maddening fear, to blast, disperse, leave ash severe. A fire''s rush, untamed and alive, my art¡ªit is the BOOM¡ªa blast to thrive! " - I recited the silly rhyme that popped into my head.


    "You''re a poet too!" - she laughed, her eyes sparkling as she looked at me.


    "A little" - I admitted.


    We chatted for a while longer before I managed to part ways with my unexpected admirer and head off to meditate. Thanks to today¡¯s lecture, I improved my Qi absorption process. The energy didn¡¯t just accumulate in my channel anymore¡ªit was gradually becoming denser, bringing me closer to the second level of Qi Condensation. Each subsequent level meant denser Qi in the Qi Thread, which improved its quality and allowed for greater physical enhancements with less energy expenditure.


    Additionally, the life energy, Ki, mixed with Qi and flowed through my body, strengthening it permanently. Qi settled into the body¡¯s tissues, making them more resilient. While this slowed cultivation by consuming Qi, it provided a foundation to prevent accidental energy surges from causing the cultivator to explode like an overinflated balloon.


    I meditated through the night, absorbing the Qi that flowed through me. Based on my current pace, I estimated I¡¯d reach the second level of Qi Condensation in about a week.


    The next morning, as I went to the dining hall for breakfast, I was hit with the news: the distribution of Weak Qi Pills was happening today. Originally scheduled for tomorrow, it had been moved up because the sect leaders had some important event planned for that day.


    The upcoming distribution caused twice the usual chaos. People were rushing around, discussing things, and the more aggressive bullies were busy reminding their victims to hand over every last valuable. Strangely, someone even tried to extort me¡ªthough it wasn¡¯t a gang of ten, just one kid at the third level of Qi Condensation.


    "Listen, today you¡¯ll hand over your Weak Qi Pill to me" - he ordered imperiously.


    I didn¡¯t bother replying. I simply sped up my mental process and punched him square in the jaw. To my surprise, I didn¡¯t shatter his skull, but I did break his jaw. His unconscious body spun around and flew five meters away, crashing into a nearby crowd. Amid the commotion, no one paid it much attention¡ªexcept for the kids he crashed into, who immediately looted his body and relieved him of all his possessions.


    The atmosphere in the camp was more like a den of criminals than a cultivation school. Gangs roamed everywhere, extorting money from each other and from "unaffiliated weaklings." The only way I saw to maintain peace was to kill anyone who dared cross my path. For now, my actions were a warning, but if intimidation didn¡¯t work, I¡¯d have to resort to guerrilla warfare and terror tactics. I also needed to be cautious¡ªthese local thugs might have "protection" among the sect leaders.


    After breakfast, I joined the crowd heading to the building where the pills were being distributed. The process was mechanical: students were herded like sheep through a checkpoint, where each had their aura imprint recorded before receiving a pill about a centimeter in diameter and being sent away.


    I didn¡¯t inspect my pill, slipping it into my pocket instead. You never know¡ªhesitate for a second, and someone might snatch it and gulp it down on the spot. In fact, I witnessed just that. One boy snatched a pill from someone and ran off while his victim stood there dumbfounded.If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    "Master Tan Ji Tao, I¡¯m under your protection, right? They¡¯re trying to take my Weak Qi Pill" - an unfamiliar boy said, pleadingly.


    I turned to see three extortionists and quickly identified their leader. With a swift motion, I grabbed him by the throat and lifted him off the ground.


    "Listen, scum! You already owe me a pill for this stunt. If you don¡¯t hand it over right now, I¡¯ll snap your neck."


    The thug couldn¡¯t answer¡ªhis throat was too tightly squeezed. He could only stare at me in terror and struggle uselessly in my iron grip. As the oxygen in his lungs dwindled and I saw the fear of death in his eyes, I suddenly released him.


    Coughing and gasping, he collapsed to his knees, struggling to catch his breath.


    "The pill" - I demanded in a merciless tone.


    "Yes, cough, yes, here, take it" - the thug stammered, immediately surrendering his possession.


    "And don¡¯t let me see you again."


    The trio turned pale and quickly fled. What shook them the most was how casually I had almost killed a fourth-level cultivator, someone who should have been far stronger than me. Of course, this display of power didn¡¯t come without cost for me either¡ªI had to burn through several percent of my accumulated Qi in just a few seconds.


    "And where do you think you''re going?" - I grabbed the neck of the fool who had dared to use my name and was now trying to sneak away unnoticed. - "You still owe me for my protection. You said it yourself. That¡¯ll be three Weak Qi Pills. Will you hand them over, or should I start breaking your arms first?"


    "Master, forgive me. I don¡¯t have three pills."


    "How many do you have?" - I asked, fully embracing my role as a local thug.


    "Just one."


    "And if I find more?"


    "I swear, I only just got the pill, and I need it for my cultivation!"


    "Firstly, you need a brain. Otherwise, you wouldn¡¯t have caused trouble by dragging me into your mess. Now cough up everything you¡¯ve got, or I¡¯ll beat those rotten brains out of your stupid head."


    "Here, take it" - he muttered, handing over his "treasure."


    "Bring me two more in a week" - I growled at him before walking away.


    And there it was¡ªtwo pills of pure profit, with a promise of two more to come. A good deal.


    When I arrived at the lecture hall, I was surprised to find it packed to the brim. However, the crowd parted for me without protest, allowing me to take the same seat at the front where I had sat yesterday. Fifteen minutes later, Sam Su Sam arrived and began the lecture on the next chapter. This time, it was about breathing exercises¡ªsomething I wasn¡¯t particularly interested in, but I decided to stay anyway to ensure I didn¡¯t miss anything important.


    About an hour into the lecture, just as the teacher was answering my pointed questions, a satisfied male voice called out from the entrance.


    "Sam Su Sam, I see you¡¯ve finally learned to express your thoughts clearly. Well done."


    "Teacher!" - The lecturer immediately jumped up, bowed deeply, and greeted the newcomer.


    The entire hall followed suit, bowing in unison. Not wanting to stand out, I begrudgingly mimicked the local etiquette. Someday, these worms would be bowing at my feet, begging for mercy.


    The man who had graced us with his presence looked quite distinguished. He was around thirty years old and radiated an aura of mystical knowledge and regal nobility. This aura was the result of the Qi energy emanating from him. I had to focus for a moment to clear my mind of its influence.


    Meanwhile, I heard the students whispering.


    "So that¡¯s the famous Sam U Bum? He¡¯s at the sixth level of Core Crystallization. Sam Su Sam is his adopted son. Thanks to his father, he¡¯s been able to learn ancient cultivation techniques, which he¡¯s teaching now."


    Sam U Bum glided gracefully over the hall, landing beside his student, and surveyed the packed room.


    "I think we can consider your punishment complete" - he said with a satisfied nod.


    "Yes, Teacher" - Sam Su Sam replied, clearly overjoyed.


    I, however, was far from pleased. The information I¡¯d been gaining from these lectures was invaluable, and losing access to it would be a major setback for my cultivation progress.


    "But if that happens, we won¡¯t have lectures again" - I voiced the concern shared by many. The crowd echoed my sentiment with a murmur of agreement.


    "You have two other teachers" - Sam U Bum said, frowning as he identified me as the bold dissenter daring to question his decision.


    "We do. But one demands Weak Qi Pills as payment, and the other only tells stories about his own greatness" - I said bluntly, summarizing the state of teaching in the sect.


    "I¡¯ll check this myself" - he said, frowning even more. - "Stay here."


    Without another word, Sam U Bum flew out of the hall like an arrow, leaving only a blurred image in his wake. It appeared to be some kind of illusion or a side effect of his movement technique. Using my psionics, I tracked his movements as he silently hovered near the windows of one lecture hall, listening for a few minutes before moving to another. He completely concealed his aura, so the teachers didn¡¯t even notice his presence.


    When he was done eavesdropping, he flew into the hall where paid lessons were being conducted and used some technique on one of the "guards," placing his hand on the man¡¯s head. It looked like a memory-reading technique. Moments later, without a word, he approached the lecturer and, with a casual flick of his hand, decapitated him.


    This swift execution shocked me. The torrent of Qi escaping the dead body terrified everyone in our hall. I, however, thought about how wasteful it was to let all that Qi dissipate into the air.

 Chapter 20.07 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    Meanwhile, Sam U Bum entered the second hall. There, he refrained from killing anyone but cast some spell on the lecturer, causing him to crawl on the floor, wailing in pain and begging for mercy. After finishing this punishment, He returned to our hall, gave me a heavy, unreadable look, and then addressed his student.


    "Sam Su Sam, you are hereby appointed the head lecturer of the Eighth Recruit Camp until I find a replacement for you."


    "Yes, Teacher" ¨C Sam Su Sam replied, his tone a mix of irritation at being required to continue lecturing and pride at being entrusted with such a responsible position.


    "Continue your lecture" - Sam U Bum said with a nod of approval, then left in a rush of wind.


    These events left the students in shock, but no one dared to discuss them. First, they were in the presence of the newly appointed Head Lecturer. Second, the topic of the lecture was critical for anyone aspiring to become a cultivator. While I had only been here a few days, some students had been around for months and understood the value and near impossibility of obtaining knowledge.


    After the lecture, I returned to my tree to meditate and absorb the ambient Qi. Curious about the effects of a Qi pill, I decided to investigate its composition first. Examining one revealed that while it contained concentrated Qi, its composition could be summed up in one word: garbage. It was a mix of random herbs, wood shavings, dirt, sand, and other rubbish. To avoid harming my digestive system, I chose to absorb its energy through my hand instead.


    Sam Su Sam¡¯s lecture had covered an intriguing topic: the ability to project one¡¯s Qi into the surrounding environment, capture neutral Qi, and draw the mixture back in. However, the effectiveness of this technique depended on one¡¯s control over energy. For most cultivators, up to 90% of the energy would dissipate. Since I was absorbing energy directly from the pill in my hand, there was nowhere for it to dissipate, giving me a unique advantage. With three pills in my possession, I had room for experimentation.


    Within minutes, I managed to "unlock" the pill and absorb its energy. A stream of Qi coursed through my arm, flowed downward, and merged with my only functioning channel. What followed startled me: all the energy in my channel suddenly vibrated, then "collapsed," compressing into a denser form while reducing in volume. Where I had been at the early stage of the first level, I abruptly found myself at the second level, nearing the third.


    To be honest, I wasn¡¯t pleased with this transformation. My Qi Thread¡¯s current state felt unnatural. Although the energy density had increased, its total quantity remained unchanged. Worse, my cultivation speed was likely to slow because, instead of expanding volume, further cultivation would again focus on increasing concentration.


    I decided it is better to grow naturally while I could and resolved to forcibly revert my Qi to its previous density. This proved far from easy. It took two hours of concentrated effort to "unfold" the compressed Qi and reabsorb it into a more balanced state. While I couldn¡¯t directly manipulate Qi with psionics, I could monitor the results of my efforts and guide my mind toward the desired outcome.


    Through the night, I worked on refining my Qi, striving for the right density and stability. I wanted it to resist natural dissipation while remaining responsive to my commands. Sam Su Sam¡¯s lectures were immensely helpful, particularly the technique of the Eight Twists of the Great Serpent, which hinted at more advanced and efficient methods of controlling Qi than those I had devised on my own. It wasn¡¯t a lack of creativity but rather a fundamental difference in the approaches used to control Qi compared to magic or chakra.


    In the morning, I visited my allocated living quarters to catch up on news and gossip. My nine roommates greeted me with enthusiasm, showering me with exaggerated praise for my greatness and virtues. Cutting off their flattery, I demanded they tell me the latest rumors.You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.


    I learned that a formal meeting with representatives from another sect was scheduled for today. The guards had let this slip while chatting, and Liu Qiang¡¯s brother, who was also a guard, had shared more detailed information with her. The meeting would focus on an upcoming sect entrance exam, planned as a competition between the newcomers from both sects. The results would allow the sect leaders to determine which sect had more talented disciples. As the saying goes, "When the lords fight, the peasants suffer."


    The next few days followed a consistent rhythm. I would have breakfast, attend a cultivation lecture, tend to my "garden plot," go to an alchemy lecture, have dinner, and then meditate on my tree until morning, absorbing Qi. My channel continued to fill with energy, but progressing to the next level remained elusive.


    I began cautious experiments to achieve a breakthrough through my own efforts rather than relying on pills, but so far, the results were minimal.


    After a week of training, the accumulation of energy in my Qi Thread had nearly stopped, and all the Qi I absorbed began dispersing throughout my body, strengthening it. However, the efficiency of this Qi deposition raised some questions, so I decided to try something akin to qigong to improve the movement of Qi and Ki. To avoid drawing attention, I headed to a remote, tree-covered area of the camp. I thought my presence here would go unnoticed, but the reality turned out to be the opposite.


    Fifteen minutes into my practice, I heard the crunch of branches underfoot uninvited guests.


    "Caught you at last" - sneered one of the four approaching guards. Their uniforms marked them as sect guards responsible for maintaining order in the camp.


    "And who are you supposed to be?" - I asked darkly, shifting smoothly into a combat stance.


    "I¡¯m Li Douche. You crippled my brother, Li Su, and then Liu Zhi threw him alive into the ravine. I¡¯ll deal with him later, but you¡­ you¡¯ll die today."


    "Your brother was a piece of shit, and you¡¯re even worse. What¡¯s wrong? Too scared to face me alone, so you brought your lover boys with you?" - I retorted, aiming to provoke him.


    It was clear that only death would resolve this, so I prepared to strike. The moment Li Douche¡¯s eyes flared with anger, I acted. Using psionics, I assessed the strength of my opponents: one was at the eighth level of Qi Condensation, two at the ninth, and Li Douche himself was at the tenth level. Their primary advantage was their numbers, so my strategy was to kill one of them with the first strike and, naturally, I chose the weakest.


    During my experiments with artificial breakthroughs, I had nearly lost the ability to cultivate entirely. One such experiment involved abruptly "compressing" a portion of Qi. Simple attempts to collide or squeeze energy had no effect, so I began experimenting with shapes and movement trajectories.


    I discovered that when Qi moved along a seven-spoked spiral and converged at a single point, it triggered a sudden explosion that scattered energy along the plane of the spiral. Fortunately, I had conducted this experiment in the Qi channel of my left heel rather than my primary channel, escaping with nothing worse than a cracked heel bone that healed within hours.


    Now, I used the same technique, intending to implant the converging spiral into my opponent¡¯s body a second before detonation. Instantly accelerating my mind with psionics, I surged forward. Compared to the speed of my mind, my body moved sluggishly, allowing me to control every movement and anticipate potential threats. Dodging an instinctive defensive strike, I closed in on my chosen target and struck his neck with two fingers, implanting my construct as I withdrew. Then I quickly retreated and slightly accelerated time.


    To my enemies, the attack was as swift as a cobra¡¯s strike. A fraction of a second later, the target¡¯s neck exploded, nearly severing his head from his body. A satisfying result, though the Qi cost for this technique was substantial.


    "You!!!" - Li Douche screamed in horror as he watched the mutilated corpse of his ally collapse to the ground, spraying blood everywhere. Not a single drop touched me, though, as a simple Qi barrier around my body repelled all filth. It wouldn¡¯t protect against a strong strike, but for mosquitoes and gore, it worked perfectly.


    "You¡¯re next" - I said, pointing at the guard standing directly in front of me.


    Originally, three cultivators were attacking me, with Li Douche staying back. I had killed the one on my left and now focused on the one directly in front of me. Hearing my words, the guard panicked, losing control of his Qi and barely reacting to my next move.


    I used the same technique again. However, this time, my opponent managed to notice the attack and tilt his head. Instead of striking his neck, my blow landed on his jaw.

 Chapter 20.08 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    I stepped back a few paces again, but the explosion I was expecting didn¡¯t happen. The technique worked, but the burst of Qi only broke the victim''s jaw and tore off a small piece of skin. Nevertheless, it was enough to leave my opponent dazed, partially losing consciousness.


    Meanwhile, Li Douche decided to circle around and attack me using some sort of technique. A tightly coiled charge of Qi surrounded his fist, and I had no intention of finding out what would happen if that charge met my body. However, I was curious to see what would happen if it collided with the unconscious body in front of me. Pretending to hesitate, I waited until Li Douche was close enough and already mid-strike, then shoved his ally directly into the path of the blow and jumped aside toward the last member of this gang.


    The technique did not disappoint. The ninth-level Qi Condensation cultivator was literally torn to pieces. Douche didn¡¯t expect me to use his comrade as a shield and froze for a couple of seconds, staring in shock at the bloody mess in front of him. I, on the other hand, wasted no time and lunged at the other ninth-level cultivator. Since my technique proved unreliable, I decided not to waste Qi on it and instead opted for simple physical attacks to beat my opponent into submission. Surprisingly, this approach worked quite well.


    I relentlessly attacked my opponent, slamming my fists into him with such force that his bones cracked and teeth flew out like a spray of confetti. I made sure to maneuver so that the victim of my assault remained between me and Li Douche at all times, preventing him from attacking me. The cultivator resisted as best he could, reinforcing his body with Qi. Occasionally, he tried to strike back, but none of his attacks landed. For me, the entire fight unfolded in "slow-motion mode," giving me ample time to notice an attack, plan my evasion, and execute it with ease.


    The most interesting development occurred about a minute into the beatdown. As I landed blows on my opponent¡¯s body, his Qi interacted with mine, generating "shockwaves" inside me. Over time, these waves triggered a sudden transformation of the Qi in my channels. It vibrated intensely and then "collapsed" in a way I was already familiar with, advancing to the second level of Qi Condensation.


    For a split second during the transition to the next level, I slowed down, but then my strikes became twice as powerful. My body now coursed with higher-quality Qi, which interacted with reality much more efficiently. My opponent switched from mere defense to screaming at the top of his lungs, begging for help and urging someone to do something. To me, his cries sounded like beautiful music, and I felt compelled to strike in rhythm, driving the intensity to its peak.


    Realizing that his last underling was about to meet his end, Li Douche decided to use another technique against me. He stepped back, creating a glowing sphere between his palms. I waited until the technique reached its peak power, then accelerated even more, grabbed my opponent by the arm and leg, and hurled him like a projectile straight at Li Douche. Naturally, the technique worked, but since it was in the hands of its creator, both enemies were caught in its effects.


    The spell turned out to be some sort of immobilizing net. Both cultivators fell to the ground, struggling to free themselves. I, of course, wasted no time. Charging at the pair, I kicked the ninth-level cultivator in the back of the head. He twitched and went still, and I felt the Qi dissipating from his internal channels ¡ª a clear sign of death.


    Li Douche lay beneath his comrade¡¯s lifeless body. I climbed on top of him and began pummeling his face with all my strength. The first punch broke his nose; by the third, I had knocked out all his front teeth; by the fifth, he was unconscious. But even after the tenth punch, his skull remained intact, and it seemed unlikely I could kill him this way.


    Assessing the situation, I concluded that the problem lay in the "soft" ground. The idiot¡¯s head had sunk completely into the forest soil, which absorbed the force of my blows. So, I tossed the corpse aside, grabbed Li Douche by the collar, propped him against a sturdier tree, and resumed smashing his face with the methodical force of a steamroller. Even so, my efforts yielded little result. First, I carved a sizable dent in the tree with his head; then, the tree itself cracked and began to fall toward me. I let go of the body and stepped aside. Imagine my surprise when the falling tree easily crushed the guard¡¯s head like a rotten pumpkin.This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.


    Surveying the scattered corpses, I pondered how to dispose of them. Dusting off my clothes to remove brain matter and cleaning my hands with a light Qi burst, I began recalling the map of the area, trying to determine if I could drag the bodies to a ravine and dump them without being seen. At that moment, quick footsteps and alarmed shouts rang out. Another guard and about ten disciples emerged from the forest. For a moment, I considered eliminating all the witnesses, but then decided that this solution was counterproductive. That way, I¡¯d have to wipe out the entire sect.


    ¡°What happened here?¡± - the guard asked in shock, surveying the wreckage and mutilated corpses. The disciples stopped a little further back, whispering quietly among themselves.


    "Li Douche attacked these three, killed them, and then committed suicide by shoving his head under a falling tree" - I explained, offering the first thing that came to mind.


    "What kind of nonsense is that?!" - the guard snapped, clearly unimpressed by my story.


    I helplessly spread my hands, silently admitting the absurdity of my explanation.


    Meanwhile, more footsteps echoed from the forest, and soon three more guards appeared, including Liu Zhi.


    "What happened here?" - he asked, stunned as he took in the aftermath of the battle.


    "Li Douche attacked these three, killed them, and then committed suicide by shoving his head under a falling tree" - I repeated, sticking to my version of events.


    The response was another round of bewildered stares from everyone present. Yes, I knew it sounded completely implausible, but what else could I say? I couldn¡¯t exactly tell them that I had killed four guards who, technically, I was supposed to obey.


    "I''m just as shocked as you are, but I saw it happen with my own eyes" - I added, trying to sound more convincing.


    After all, it was unlikely that these local cultivators would believe that someone like me, at the second level of Qi Condensation, could kill four individuals at the eighth and tenth levels. Compared to that, my fabricated story seemed oddly credible.


    Liu Zhi studied me intently for a moment before nodding and issuing orders.


    "Mao Ce Rak, report to the sect leader that Li Douche killed three guards and then committed suicide. You two, retrieve the body from under the tree. Tai Tang, fetch some disposal sacks. We need to get rid of the corpses before sunset. Tan Ji Tao, come with me; we need to talk."


    We stepped aside to a more secluded spot where no one could eavesdrop. Liu Zhi looked me in the eye and quietly asked - "So, what really happened?"


    "Well, I killed all four of them when they accidentally witnessed my secret cultivation technique" - I admitted, offering a completely truthful alternative version of events.


    "Stop lying!" - he snapped, growing irritated. - "If you don¡¯t want to tell me, fine, but why come up with such ridiculous nonsense?"


    I stayed silent, and Liu Zhi interpreted it as my reluctance to reveal information. He probably assumed that someone from the sect¡¯s leadership was covering for me. In truth, I was at a loss for how to respond to his disbelief. Maybe I should have made up some spooky tale about a mysterious headless cultivator? It might have even become the official story, given how much people here loved their horror stories.


    In the end, the sect leadership declared that the official explanation was temporary insanity and suicide caused by Li Douche¡¯s inability to advance to the Foundation Formation stage. The funniest part was that Liu Zhi jokingly told his acquaintances about my "second" version of events, and the story spread like wildfire throughout the camp, creating yet another legend about me. While everyone seemed to understand that I couldn¡¯t possibly have killed those four, whenever I walked through the camp, people bowed, stepped aside to let me pass, and addressed me as "sir."


    Analyzing my fight with Li Douche, I arrived at some interesting conclusions. When two cultivators¡¯ Qi clashed, the denser Qi had greater "priority" in influencing reality. When I struck Li Douche¡¯s head, I couldn¡¯t shatter it because his Qi was denser than mine, even though the actual force of my blow was more than sufficient. However, when the tree fell on him, it contained no Qi at all, so his head was crushed in full compliance with the ordinary laws of physics.


    This "physical" vulnerability only applied while the cultivator was unconscious. If Li Douche had been conscious, the tree wouldn¡¯t have left a scratch. Moreover, sleep wasn¡¯t considered loss of consciousness in this sense, so to exploit this weakness, the opponent had to be deliberately knocked out first. The fact that I could easily break people¡¯s arms and legs was due not to my Qi but to my sheer physical strength, which I had even before I started cultivating.


    In conclusion, while Qi granted power, it came with caveats, making it fundamentally different from other forms of magic I knew. A cultivator¡¯s strength was impressive ¡ª but only until a stronger cultivator appeared. While there was a range in which an even fight could occur, in the end, everything was decided by the density of Qi. It didn¡¯t matter how smart or cunning you were; the only thing that truly mattered was the density of your Qi.

 Chapter 20.09 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    From this perspective, it became clear why local cultivators strove to raise their levels, often sacrificing their collective reserves of strength. First, someone at a higher level was always stronger. Second, while you were hoarding Qi for maximum development at the first level, your opponent could quickly advance to the tenth and crush you into the dirt with a single finger. Of course, there were exceptions¡ªlike me. But my strength largely stemmed from my psionics and experience. An ordinary cultivator in my position would have died a hundred times over by now.


    My breakthrough to the second level didn¡¯t go unnoticed, and I was overwhelmed with congratulations. I continued my training according to the same schedule, gradually working my way toward the threshold of the third level.


    A couple of days later, while heading to my "garden," I noticed through the gates leading to the inner Alchemy Courtyard that Chu Zhu Zhu was walking along the path. This old man gave exceptionally interesting and useful lectures, so I decided to stop and pay my respects. However, as I approached, I noticed that the chief alchemist of the camp wasn¡¯t alone¡ªhe was accompanied by Dao Yu, the same "genius cultivator" whose arm I had broken.


    While Chu Zhu Zhu was momentarily distracted, exchanging greetings with another alchemist, Dao Yu noticed me "waiting" for him to step outside. He had been confined to the Alchemy Courtyard all this time for a "rehabilitation" course. I couldn¡¯t resist giving him a maniacal grin and beckoning him over with a wave of my hand. Instantly, he "realized" what would happen the moment he stepped outside the gates and descended into panic.


    Ignoring Chu Zhu Zhu¡¯s conversation, Dao Yu dropped to his knees and started shouting.


    "Master Chu Zhu Zhu, please accept me as your disciple! During my time here, I¡¯ve come to understand the immense power of alchemy, and I want to dedicate my life to studying this art. Please, Master Chu Zhu Zhu, give me the chance to become your apprentice!" - He punctuated his plea with repeated bows, almost groveling at the alchemist¡¯s feet.


    "Dao Yu?" - Chu Zhu Zhu asked, bewildered by this sudden display. - "Oh, have you finally recognized the greatness of alchemy? Well, well. It¡¯s about time the Alchemy Courtyard had a talented student." - He nodded approvingly. - "Very well, I accept you as my apprentice. You may rise."


    "Thank you, Master Chu Zhu Zhu. I won¡¯t let you down. Thank you!"


    "Ho-ho-ho" - the old man laughed heartily.


    He glanced in my direction, and I gave him a respectful bow.


    "Congratulations to the Master Alchemist on gaining a new apprentice" - I called out. - "May he live a hundred years longer than the previous one."


    The alchemist stopped laughing and gave me a reproachful look. The story of his previous apprentice, who died after mishandling an alchemical furnace on his third day of training, was well-known among the camp. After all, most of the camp¡¯s inhabitants took genuine delight in others¡¯ misfortunes. Dao Yu, however, didn¡¯t take my comment as a joke but as a direct threat. Apparently, rumors of my power had reached him, and he had already mentally buried himself.


    After bowing to the alchemist once more, I continued on my way to the garden.


    About a week and a half later, I had almost reached the threshold of the third level. I intentionally delayed my breakthrough, using the time to saturate my body with Qi. Only when I felt like I was about to burst I considered forcing the transition to the next level. The method was straightforward ¡ª a fight with a higher-level opponent. All I had to do was find a stronger local cultivator and beat them down.


    I chose Liu Zhi as my target. We were already acquainted, and he still owed me for saving his sister and handling the Li Douche incident. Guards usually hung out near their barracks, preferring to socialize among themselves rather than mingling with us "pitiful mortals."


    When I reached the barracks, I found my target sparring with other guards.


    "Liu Zhi, can I have a moment?" - I called out, staying outside the training grounds. This area was considered "off-limits" to ordinary students, and entering without permission was strictly prohibited.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    "Tan Ji Tao? What do you want?" - He approached me after a minute.


    "I¡¯d like to spar with you in hand-to-hand combat. No techniques ¡ª just body enhancement and skill."


    "Hahaha, did you hear that?" - he said to his comrades. - "A second-level Qi Condensation cultivator is asking me for a sparring match? I could smash you into the ground with a single punch." - He laughed, clearly mocking my "level."


    "However, I think I¡¯ll knock the crap out of you" - I replied coolly.


    "Who¡¯s this cocky little student?" - one of the guards asked.


    "Tan Ji Tao. Supposedly the most talented student in the camp."


    "Let him onto the grounds. I¡¯ll show him that his opinion of himself is far too high."


    "Tai Chi, you could actually kill him with one punch. Better let Xiao Mu handle it and see if he¡¯s even worthy of fighting us."


    The group buzzed with excitement at the prospect of entertainment. I glanced at my designated opponent and smirked contemptuously. A mere seventh-level Qi Condensation cultivator. One punch would be enough.


    We entered the training grounds, took our positions, and Liu Zhi gave the command to start the fight.


    "No techniques" - I repeated the terms of the match. - "Only body enhancement and martial arts."


    "Ha! I''ll knock you out with a single punch" - Xiao Mu scoffed dismissively. - "Trash like you doesn''t even deserve to be in this ring."


    That was his mistake. Initially, I intended for this to be a friendly sparring match, but now, only a humiliating beatdown would satisfy me.


    Xiao Mu charged at me, clearly intending to end the fight in one strike. I intercepted his fist with my palm, twisted his arm to force him to lean forward, then grabbed his right hand with my left. With his defenses compromised, I delivered a series of punches to his exposed stomach, each one bypassing his attempt to block with his left hand. Finally, I pushed the nearly unconscious Xiao Mu away and sent him flying with a powerful strike to his chest. He flew about ten meters before crashing to the ground. After that thrashing, he couldn¡¯t even attempt to stand¡ªhe just writhed on the ground, groaning softly.


    "He''s done. Who''s next?" - I addressed the onlookers.


    "No way! This can''t be!" - one of the guards shouted. He ran up and put a hand on my shoulder. - "Second level of Qi Condensation? How is this even possible?"


    "So, anyone else want to test their body strength? I promise not to hurt you too badly" - I said, grinning.


    The crowd couldn¡¯t tolerate the humiliation and quickly began inventing excuses to "explain" Xiao Mu''s defeat.


    "Xiao Mu probably got careless and didn¡¯t even enhance his body with Qi. Let¡¯s see what you can do against me."


    This time, my opponent was fully focused, clearly determined not to lose to a "second-level loser" while he himself was at the eighth level. But his determination didn¡¯t help him much. I decided to let this fight appear more balanced ¡ª at least on the surface. I even deliberately took a few punches to the stomach, hoping to trigger the Qi breakthrough I was seeking. When it became clear that the breakthrough wasn¡¯t imminent, I knocked this guard out as well within a minute.


    "Next. Who¡¯s your hand-to-hand combat specialist?" - I asked, my voice dripping with confidence.


    "Alright, I¡¯m up!" - Tai Chi exploded. - "Can¡¯t trust these weaklings with anything."


    Tai Chi was already at the ninth level, nearing the threshold of the tenth. Moreover, he was a skilled martial artist, not just someone who flailed his fists around. He executed well-trained techniques, making him a significantly tougher opponent. While I didn¡¯t have ingrained reflexes to match his precision, my accelerated perception and hand-to-hand combat experience from my time among the Eldar compensated for that. This time, I didn¡¯t rush to win, as I could feel the blows I landed generating Qi waves within my body.


    After about five minutes of intense sparring, I finally felt the familiar vibration within me. Moments later, my Qi surged in density, pushing me to the third level.


    "That¡¯s enough for today" - I said, stepping back from Tai Chi, who was still pressing his attack.


    "What? Why?" - he asked, visibly frustrated. He hadn¡¯t realized how deeply he had gotten into the match, enjoying the focus on skill rather than sheer power. At least, I had deliberately kept my strength and speed on par with his throughout the fight.


    "I got what I wanted" - I said with a smile.


    "You got what? Wait, you mean¡­" - Tai Chi¡¯s voice trailed off in astonishment. - "You broke through to the third level during our fight?"


    "What? He broke through? Is that even possible?" - the crowd erupted in disbelief.


    "Ha-ha, yes" - I replied, bowing slightly. - "Thank you, Master Tai Chi, for an excellent match."


    The crowd buzzed with chatter, processing what had just happened. It seemed the camp had firmly embraced the belief that advancing to the next level required using Qi pills.


    "Let¡¯s talk" - Liu Zhi said, clapping me on the shoulder in a patronizing way. At the same time, he "casually" assessed my Qi level, confirming that I had indeed broken through. Once we moved aside, he asked - "You knew that fighting could help you break through to the next level?"


    "Yes. Engaging in hand-to-hand combat with a stronger opponent can generate Qi fluctuations that trigger a breakthrough. But using techniques would interfere with that, and the opponent must be at least five levels higher. Also, it can¡¯t be a fight to the death ¡ª just a hard sparring match. If you start feeling Qi waves within your body during the fight, it means a breakthrough is possible. If you don¡¯t feel that, there¡¯s no point in pushing yourself ¡ª it won¡¯t happen. And, of course, it only works if you¡¯re already on the verge of breaking through."

 Chapter 20.10 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    After my brief lecture, Liu Zhi stayed silent for a moment, then slapped me on the back.


    "Good luck" - he said before walking off without even saying goodbye. No matter, I¡¯d teach him some manners when it came time for me to ascend to the fourth level. Judging by today¡¯s sparring results, next time, I¡¯d need to fight a tenth-level opponent, and there was only one person like that around here ¡ª Liu Zhi.


    The story of my breakthrough to the third level spread through the camp almost immediately. If my advancement from the first level to the second could be explained as me being on the verge of it already, breaking through to the third level in less than two weeks was utterly abnormal. I was quickly labeled as a "cultivation monster," and everyone started asking how I had achieved it. I kept mysteriously silent, occasionally mentioning a "secret cultivation technique." When these words resonated with the story of Li Douche¡¯s death, people became absolutely convinced that I had been the one to take down all four guards at once.


    Three days later, another shocking piece of news rocked the camp: Liu Zhi had unexpectedly broken through to the first level of Foundation Establishment. Normally, a cultivator had to spend about a year preparing for such a transition. Yet Liu Zhi achieved it in just three months, earning himself the reputation of a genius.


    That evening, Liu Zhi sought me out and pulled me aside for a private conversation.


    "Tan Ji Tao, thank you for the breakthrough technique. As you can see, I was able to ascend to Foundation Establishment with its help."


    "Congratulations" - I said with a smile. - "You can repay me by sparring with me when I¡¯m ready to advance to the fourth level."


    "And when do you plan to have this fight? In a couple of weeks?" - he asked, attempting to joke.


    "Yeah, about that" - I replied in a completely serious tone, shutting down his humor.


    "Pfft!" - Liu Zhi coughed unexpectedly, wiping blood from his face.


    "What¡¯s wrong with you?" - I asked, alarmed by the sight of blood.


    "I lost concentration. Starting at the Foundation Establishment level, if a cultivator experiences sudden shock or surprise, their internal Qi can go out of control and damage their lungs. It¡¯s not particularly dangerous, but if you keep pushing yourself, you could even lose a cultivation level."


    "Well, then you¡¯d better train your composure, because being around me, you¡¯re going to be surprised a lot."


    "So, you weren¡¯t joking?" - he asked, still stunned.


    "No. But two weeks is an optimistic scenario. It¡¯ll probably take a little longer."


    "Three weeks, then?" - he joked again.


    "Yeah, about that."


    "Oh. Well, thanks again for the technique. Tai Chi is also planning to attempt a breakthrough soon. Thankfully, we know a Foundation Establishment cultivator at the sixth level who¡¯s willing to help with development rather than just beat someone into unconsciousness."


    "That¡¯s an important detail" - I said with a smirk.


    "Tell me, after Li Douche¡¯s death¡­" - he began.


    "Li Douche committed suicide" - I interrupted, shutting down unnecessary questions. - "No need to revisit that. Let bygones be bygones."


    "I see" - Liu Zhi said, looking at me with a hint of fear.


    "Do you have any more questions?"


    "No. As I understand, asking you questions is a bad idea, you might share something I¡¯d rather should not know."


    "Exactly" - I confirmed. - "Take care."


    With that, I gave him a slight bow and walked away.This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    Liu Zhi¡¯s comment about me sharing a "technique" was eye-opening. To me, these were just obvious observations anyone could arrive at with a bit of reasoning. But for him, they turned out to be "ancient secret knowledge" beyond the comprehension of ordinary mortals. This perfectly illustrated the locals¡¯ inability to think independently.


    All they dreamed of was finding a "powerful technique," rather than creating one from scratch through proper research. Concepts like science were virtually unheard of here, with people attributing all unexpected success to "art" or "luck."


    My newfound popularity among the students had an unexpected side effect. That evening, it started raining heavily, so I decided against sitting out the storm in a tree and opted to sleep in my "legitimate" quarters, where they always kept a bed available for me. As soon as I entered the house, Liu Qiang approached me, flaunting her nearly bare chest and an extremely short dress. Her desire for intimacy was obvious, but she wasn¡¯t content with mere visual seduction. She reached into my pants, whispering in my ear about how handsome, strong, and amazing I was.


    Naturally, the hormones in this body surged to my head, and my behavior was quickly governed by the baser instincts of my anatomy. Although Liu Qiang didn¡¯t fit my personal standards of beauty, my body didn¡¯t care, it just wanted someone. So, I indulged. Our housemates tactfully left to spend the night with friends, allowing me to relax and explore every way I knew to exhaust Liu Qiang in bed.


    Not only did Liu Qiang learn what real sex was, but to her surprise, she also broke through to the third level of Qi Condensation. My sperm, once inside her body, worked no worse than an elite pill. Overwhelmed with gratitude, Liu Qiang promised to please me whenever I desired, day or night.


    But it didn¡¯t end there. The very next day, all of my lover¡¯s girlfriends heard about the miraculous qualities of my sperm. Suddenly, every girl in the camp wanted to sleep with me to experience a free cultivation breakthrough. I indulged myself, choosing only the most beautiful girls and making them spend hours pleasing me with their mouths.


    A week later, the rainy weather ended, and with it, my bout of "spermatotoxicosis" subsided. I moved back to my tree. Interestingly, in all that time, no one had figured out where I was cultivating. Mainly because, I had discouraged potential stalkers with preventive beatings. Usually, after a single broken bone, people realized it was a bad idea to follow me. Additionally, the tree I climbed was concealed by thick bushes, making it impossible for anyone to see my climbing. This arrangement gave me a sort of "meditation chamber" where I could escape the attention of my eager admirers.


    Two weeks later, I accumulated enough Qi to approach the fourth level. My training fight with Liu Zhi allowed me to break through to the next stage once again. I assumed I could advance to the fifth level in the same way, but I encountered an unexpected obstacle. Previously, when I reached the maximum capacity of Qi in my channels and body, the energy would simply stop accumulating and spill out of my body at the same rate it was absorbed. However, at the fourth level, my Qi Thread became a bottomless pit, absorbing any amount of energy.


    Two weeks after the breakthrough, people in the camp started anticipating another defiance of logic from me, but¡­ nothing happened. I remained stuck at the fourth level. Even another intense fight with Liu Zhi yielded no results, despite us hammering each other with punches. Clearly, I had encountered a bottleneck in my cultivation and needed to find a way to overcome it.


    Of course, I could use a weak Qi pill to force a breakthrough. However, after thoroughly analyzing these pills, I concluded that the energy they contained was of poor quality. While it was dense, its characteristics were inferior to mine ¡ª too "loose" and unstable. Even at the fourth level of Qi Condensation, my Qi felt superior to the Qi of the first level of Foundation Establishment that Liu Zhi emitted. Thus, I decided to resort to pills only if I couldn¡¯t advance to the fifth level by the end of the six-month training period.


    Careful inquiries revealed that none of the sect applicants had ever managed to reach the sixth level of Qi Condensation. In other words, the growth of the students was deliberately capped, likely through the distributed pills. The density of their energy matched the fifth level and could not propel one to further development.


    Meanwhile, life in the camp went on. Master Sam Su Sam successfully completed his duties and left for the central sect branch. His teaching duties were taken over by three instructors, who focused solely on the basics. Sam Su Sam, in all his time here, had only covered the contents of two books: The Eight Twists of the Great Serpent and The Rainbow Qi Technique. The first book was about methods of accumulating Qi, while the second discussed ways to imbue Qi with various qualities, such as elemental manifestations. This served as the foundation for later techniques like fire manipulation or earth control.


    Realizing that attending further lectures was pointless, I decided to shift my focus to alchemy. Aside from Chu Zhu Zhu¡¯s "open" lectures, there were closed workshops dedicated to identifying and collecting alchemical plants. These sessions were limited to just ten of the most gifted students. Naturally, as soon as I expressed interest in attending, I was immediately added to the list, and the "most hopeless" student was removed.


    The "ostracized" student was, of course, offended and decided to take revenge. However, he didn¡¯t attempt to fight me, as he had a realistic assessment of his abilities. Instead, he was arrogant enough to try to "knock me off from my pedestal" with the help of the teachers.


    On one day, after a lecture, Chu Zhu Zhu announced that a complaint had been filed against me and demanded that I follow him. Five minutes later, we arrived at my "garden." Accompanying us was the very "outcast" who had started this nonsense against me.

 Chapter 20.11 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    "See, Master Alchemist" - the tattler said, pointing at my garden. - "He¡¯s growing regular crops on his assigned garden instead of alchemical plants, as if he¡¯s just a common farmer. Look, these are beans, and that¡¯s turnip!"


    "I can see perfectly well what¡¯s growing here" - Chu Zhu Zhu said with a frown. - "Or do you doubt my ability to identify these plants?" - He shot the snitch a sharp look.


    "No, of course not, Master. I wouldn¡¯t dare" - the tattler stammered, retreating into silence.


    "Tan Ji Tao, how do you explain this?" - the alchemist asked, turning his gaze to me.


    "I¡¯ve been conducting experiments on this plot to study the effects of Qi on plant growth. To do this, I used fast-growing plants as examples, which are commonly used in alchemy."


    "But those are turnips!" - the snitch interjected triumphantly, just before I gave him a light slap that sent him flying into the bushes, spitting out teeth.


    "Since alchemical herbs grow too slowly, I decided to use plants with shorter maturation periods to see if they could even serve as model organisms. I divided the plot into three zones. One zone was left untouched, with plants watered only with ordinary stream water. In the second zone, I used water charged in the meditation chamber, swapping in a fresh bucket daily and using the charged water exclusively for the roots. In the third zone, I infused my own Qi directly into the plants, saturating them to their maximum tolerable capacity."


    "But in that case, they¡¯d be unsuitable for pill-making."


    "Exactly, I wasn¡¯t growing them for that purpose. I wanted to evaluate how Qi will affect growth speed, maturation time, and their alchemical properties. The results showed that the control group grew slowly, as expected. The second group grew much faster and generally met quality standards, though with some anomalies. Plants in the third group either grew at an accelerated rate or died from overexposure to Qi."


    I paused, noting Chu Zhu Zhu¡¯s intrigued expression.


    "Specifically, radishes thrived only in the first zone, developed an odd taste in the second, and turned into some unrecognizable weed in the third. Turnips in the second zone grew like crazy but turned woody and developed thorns in the third. Beans grew similarly in the second and third zones, but during ripening, pods in the third group exploded from an excess of Qi. Blood grass in the second group had a richer color but lost its Qi much faster after harvesting. In the third group, its color shifted unpredictably ¡ª red to yellow, green, and even blue in places, while its alchemical properties varied randomly. Lastly, I planted honey fern, whose seeds have a notoriously low germination rate. In the control group, only one seed out of twenty sprouted. But look at the second and third zones." - I gestured at the beds.


    "I don¡¯t see anything" - Chu Zhu Zhu said, frowning. - "The beds are empty and dug up."


    "Exactly! Because some bastards stole all the plants I grew. May they choke on them!"


    "Why choke?" - the alchemist asked, surprised.


    "Because these plants were never meant for pill-making. While the fern looked normal externally, its internal Qi lost all beneficial properties and turned toxic."


    "So, you deliberately grew poisonous plants instead of medicinal ones!" - the tattler interrupted again.


    This earned him another slap, and this time, he passed out in the bushes without reappearing. Chu Zhu Zhu paid no attention to his fate, clearly preoccupied with more important matters.


    "Recently, one of the sect¡¯s disciples fell ill with a strange disease not described in any books. It happened after consuming a pill that requires a large amount of honey fern for its production. If your plants were used, that explains the poisoning."This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.


    "That¡¯s very likely. But I don¡¯t understand how anyone could use those plants without first testing their properties. Even a single drop of their sap caused skin irritation and redness."


    "The pill was made by an alchemist apprentice. During the investigation, under supervision, he successfully made a normal pill, clearing him of suspicion. Now it seems the cause was stolen herbs unsuitable for consumption. I¡¯ll find out who stole your crops, and they¡¯ll face the harshest punishment. As for your garden, I find your research results valuable. They clearly illustrate why artificially accelerating herb maturation is dangerous. By the way, what was the germination rate of the fern in the second group?"


    "Over ninety percent. Eighteen out of twenty in the second group, and nineteen in the third."


    "Hmm... Perhaps if we use charged water only during the seed germination stage, we could increase the yield of these plants."


    "Yes. Additionally, we could reduce the Qi concentration in the water and charge it in zones with different energy characteristics. I¡¯ve considered this, but I currently lack the conditions to conduct such experiments."


    "I see you¡¯re interested in alchemy" - Chu Zhu Zhu said, looking at me closely. -"Would you like to become my apprentice?"


    "It would be an honor, Master. I would be thrilled to learn the secrets of the alchemical arts from you."


    "Very well, very well. I¡¯ll have two apprentices now, both considered geniuses. Mu Niam will be furious when he hears about this. Ho-ho-ho."


    Thus, I unexpectedly became Chu Zhu Zhu¡¯s personal apprentice. Instead of attending lectures, I now helped with the preparation of various pills in the role of a padawan. That is, my tasks included handing over a stirrer, grinding herbs, or washing dishes. Alongside me, Dao Yu engaged in the same mundane activities. The moment he saw me, he almost jumped out of the window. I couldn¡¯t resist planting the idea in his mind that I had joined Chu Zhu Zhu¡¯s apprenticeship solely to get closer to him.


    The most valuable perk of this arrangement was free access to a device for reading memory imprints stored in special jade slips. It turned out that most cultivators were illiterate, so instead of writing books, they preferred to preserve memory imprints on specially prepared jade. These could later be "read" by uploading the knowledge directly into one¡¯s memory. However, since this process could damage the jade, a specialized device was used to project the contents of the jade without destroying it.


    In one of the laboratory rooms stood such a device. It resembled a tall, narrow stone table with special recesses holding pieces of jade, covered by a protective energy field. The moment I saw this masterpiece of an unknown artifact master, I almost started drooling. However, after examining the device, I found its mechanism surprisingly primitive, with the most complex part being the activation of the protective field.


    The device had six slots, five of which were occupied by books on alchemy: four plant encyclopedias and one pill recipe compendium. This allowed me to occasionally take breaks from my chores to read small fragments of information from the books, analyze and memorize them, and then move on to the next fragment. As a result, all my time in the lab was equivalent to continuous reading. I even deliberately chose simple, monotonous tasks to avoid distractions from processing the information.


    Generally, local alchemy turned out to be far less sophisticated than I had imagined. The recipes were vague, and the instructions were imprecise. Many procedures relied on sheer luck ¡ª they could result in successful material processing or end in waste and destruction.


    I had the chance to observe the "master alchemist" at work, and honestly, I was disappointed. While Chu Zhu Zhu delivered excellent lectures, his pill-making process was sloppy at best. His products might as well have been stamped with "Made in Dump" Of course, I didn¡¯t point out his carelessness; instead, I focused on my own development.


    The plant encyclopedias contained information on thousands of plants. However, after classifying them and analyzing their morphological features, I concluded that there were actually only a few hundred real species. The thousands of entries were merely manifestations of how these plants interacted with Qi. This insight came to me from observing the turnips I had grown. After infusing them with my Qi, they sprouted thorns, developed a deeply branching root system, and their leaves turned a burgundy-pink color. Most surprisingly, the turnips bloomed and bore fruit, despite being biennial plants.


    In short, I planned to revolutionize the world of alchemy in the future. For now, I was content with studying the basics. We hadn¡¯t even been trusted to prepare the simplest strengthening pill yet. While I didn¡¯t particularly care, Dao Yu was seething with frustration. He desperately wanted to become a genius alchemist and conquer the world with his ambition, yet his skills weren¡¯t even sufficient to touch an alchemical furnace.


    I spent a couple of weeks on this routine before Chu Zhu Zhu, seemingly struck by sudden inspiration, decided to visit a cave that had once been the dwelling of a mysterious cultivator. Most importantly, he decided to bring us along to help carry things and clean the cave floor of millennia-old layers of dirt. Officially, the expedition was advertised as a thrilling adventure to the tomb of a great cultivator. In reality, we arrived at what could only be described as a massive dump that needed to be cleaned of all the filth piled up inside.

 Chapter 20.12 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    As soon as I assessed the scope of work in the cave, I used my psionics to scan the excavation site and confirmed that there was nothing interesting there. However, I didn¡¯t share this revelation with our employer. Instead, I spun a tale for Dao Yu, claiming that places like this often concealed thousand-year-old artifacts of ancient cultivators ¡ª possessions that could make their owner the ruler of the world. The bait was eagerly taken, and I was promptly barred from the dig on the grounds that I might damage or ruin something. Exactly what I wanted. For appearances, I protested a bit, which only further convinced my "rival" that some great treasure was hidden within the cave.


    While my companions toiled in the filth, I wandered around the surrounding area, scanning every suspicious spot with my psionics. We were in a forested mountainside, dotted with shallow caves and grottos that had, at various times, been home to bears, wolves, cultivators, or other less savory creatures. Although the area was considered relatively safe, it wasn¡¯t impossible to encounter a wild beast with cultivation abilities. In such cases, Chu Zhu Zhu advised retreating ¡­ away from him. After all, a true disciple should die on their own, screaming bloody murder to alert their teacher, rather than feed themselves and their companions to the beast. I agreed with this philosophy and resolved to steer clear of any source of panicked screams.


    If I were the protagonist of some cultivation novel, I¡¯d have found a great artifact, a book of secret knowledge, or a miraculous weapon. But reality wasn¡¯t as stupid as some books, and my find was far more mundane. I discovered the remains of a cultivator who had been devoured by wild beasts about fifty years ago. The gnawed and chewed bones lay under a thin layer of forest detritus and would have gone unnoticed without psionics.


    A detailed scan revealed that the only potentially valuable item was a small ring on the right hand¡¯s finger, faintly radiating Qi. Using a stick, I began digging through the soil. When I reached the ring, I tried to remove it from the decayed bone, but the corroded metal couldn¡¯t withstand the attempt and crumbled to dust. A faint flash occurred, and a piece of jade fell out of the "spatial anomaly." I quickly grabbed it for inspection.


    The jade was brownish-green, irregularly shaped, and covered in cracks. It exuded an aura of deep antiquity, appearing as if it had existed for millions of years. In reality, it was just an ordinary stone formed eons ago through geological processes of magma intrusion into serpentinites. Scanning it thoroughly with my psionics revealed nothing "mystical" or even "magical." It was simply a slightly unusual-looking rock. The previous owner must have thought it was a great treasure to keep it in a spatial ring. I looted the finding and resumed my search for treasures.


    After two hours of fruitless exploration, I returned to the excavation site. There, I found two dirt-covered faces engrossed in digging through filth.


    "Master, what are you hoping to find here?" - I innocently asked. - "The dwellings of ancient cultivators are to the east. This spot was the toilet for the expedition that excavated those dwellings about a hundred years ago."


    "WHAT?!" - Chu Zhu Zhu shouted, eyes bulging. Dao Yu¡¯s face, on the other hand, reflected the utter collapse of all hope and ideals ¡ª a look that could lead one straight to the gallows. - "What makes you say that?"


    "Well, there¡¯s the inscription ''toilet'' with an arrow pointing directly to this spot" - I said, indicating faint scratches on a nearby stone. Over a century, they had almost worn away, and deciphering them required psionics, though it was technically possible without.


    Chu Zhu Zhu rushed to the inscription and began examining it. Within seconds, his face turned as red as a boiled crab, and waves of Qi saturated with anger began radiating from him.


    "That Mu Niam! He deliberately left that forged letter on his desk about an ancient cultivator¡¯s dwelling here. Damn it! I knew something was wrong. Dao Yu, fill this pit back in. We need to make sure no one can tell we conducted excavations here."


    While my employer barked orders at his most loyal slave, I quietly slipped away to avoid being roped into shoveling century-old excrement.If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    By evening, we returned to camp, where my companions rushed to the bathhouse to scrub off the ingrained stench of feces. Half an hour later, Chu Zhu Zhu kicked us out of the lab and began brewing some particularly vile concoction, which he intended to use against his lifelong rival. From his muttered ramblings, I gathered that the two had been competing for the title of best alchemist since their youth, and thus far, my teacher had lost most of their contests and schemes.


    With nothing else to do and a light drizzle beginning outside, I decided against meditating in the tree. Instead, I strolled over to my garden to check on the ever-surprising turnips in the third plot. The longer they grew, the stranger they became, and I started wondering if they might one day evolve into carnivorous plants that would attack the camp and devour people alive.


    However, as I reached the garden, I saw a group of four cultivators there. Before I could make out their faces in the evening twilight, one of them called out in a voice I recognized.


    "It''s him! It''s him! He deliberately grew poisonous plants in his plot!"


    The voice belonged to the same weasel who had tattled on me to the master alchemist. Apparently, I had been too lenient in not silencing him permanently back then.


    "So, it was you who poisoned me and cost me an entire level of cultivation?" - growled a menacing voice. Its owner stepped forward, giving me a clearer view or perhaps hoping to get a better look at me. I was cloaked in a heavy mantle, with my face hidden beneath a hood. Still, the jealous weasel recognized me immediately by my muscular frame.


    "You were poisoned because you trusted the gathering of ingredients and the pill-making process to idiots. I never sold those plants ¡ª they were stolen from me" - I replied.


    "It doesn¡¯t matter!" - he interrupted. - "I¡¯ve already executed the thief, and now it¡¯s your turn. This will serve as a valuable lesson for ¡­"


    I decided that the conversation was pointless and stopped wasting my breath. My opponent was at the first level of Foundation Establishment, so he didn¡¯t pose a threat to me. His two lackeys, both at the tenth level of Qi Condensation, would last only a few hits at best. My first target, however, was the traitor who had sold me out to these fools.


    Moving with sudden speed, I closed the distance to the weasel and used one of my "homemade" techniques. It was supposed to resemble a "Qi blade," but in practice, it tore everything in its path into mincemeat. The technique¡¯s primary advantage was its relatively low Qi consumption, making it ideal for weaker opponents. With a sharp slash of my hand, I severed the snitch¡¯s head, caught it midair, and stopped ten meters away from the other cultivators.


    "Look! This is the head of the idiot who dared to stand against me" - I said, holding up my gruesome trophy. - "If you decide to attack me, your heads will be next."


    "You!!!" - the group¡¯s leader roared. - "You¡¯ll pay for this! That man swore an oath to my family and became my slave. For killing my property, I will torture you for years."


    "Catch me first" - I replied with a laugh, darting into the evening forest.


    Within moments, I disappeared into the dense trees, with the trio of pursuers hot on my trail. I wasn¡¯t just running aimlessly. I was leading them to an isolated spot near the "ravine." It was a forbidden area for students, and guards only ventured there to dump the bodies of unlucky souls. It was the perfect place to eliminate three arrogant fools without witnesses.


    I deliberately took a route where the chance of encountering anyone was minimal. Carrying bodies on your back and avoiding every noise was one thing; having those bodies run past after you, trying not to attract attention, was quite another. As I neared the designated spot, I decided to test another attack: the hilariously primitive technique named "simple stone throw."


    Stopping for a moment, I concentrated Qi into my right hand and infused it into a stone I had picked up from the ground. I hurled it with all my might, aiming for the eye of the lagging pursuer. This particular lackey, at the early tenth level of Qi Condensation, was trailing behind his companions, using them as a shield. Judging by his age over forty, his "talent" was clearly approaching zero.


    The stone, accelerated to supersonic speed, proved to be a surprisingly effective weapon. It not only killed the target but did so instantly, giving him no time to cry out. In the heat of the chase, his two companions didn¡¯t even notice their loss as they "almost" caught up to me.


    After running another hundred meters, I abruptly changed direction and charged back at them. My plan was to bypass the leader and finish off his remaining minion, but the Foundation Establishment cultivator proved unexpectedly quick. Not only did he block my path, but he also unleashed a technique that almost pierced through me. I dodged, but the trees behind me weren¡¯t so lucky, they were shredded into splinters.


    A sword suddenly materialized in his hand, and he wielded it with alarming skill. He swung with precision, trying alternately to skewer me like a spit or chop me into pieces.

 Chapter 20.13 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    I had to dodge endlessly like a snake, evading the ceaseless flow of attacks. My sparring matches with Liu Zhi had been limited to hand-to-hand combat, so I had no idea cultivators could unleash techniques non-stop without breaking a sweat. When I used my techniques, they consumed the Qi I had painstakingly cultivated, so overusing them could genuinely weaken me and lead to "degradation." This "master of sword and magic," however, showed no concern for economy. Judging by his smug grin, the cost of his techniques was negligible to him.


    Managing to break away from my pursuer for a brief moment, I used my "simple stone throw" technique again. This time, my target noticed the attack and even tried to dodge, but the stone was simply too fast. It struck him directly, shattering his skull and scattering his brains across the surrounding forest. I had deliberately adjusted the stone¡¯s trajectory so it flew into the mountains rather than toward the camp¡ªI didn¡¯t need unnecessary witnesses.


    "Zhou!" - the last opponent screamed upon seeing the result of my attack. - "You¡¯ll pay for this!" - he spat, glaring at me with hatred. Earlier, his gaze had been full of arrogance and a sense of superiority. - "Mu Rong, where are you? Mu Rong!"


    "Looking for another of your lackeys?" - I taunted, closing the distance to attack range. - "He ran off at the very start of the fight."


    I intentionally lied about the fate of the third fighter. It was better if my opponent thought reinforcements were on the way. I didn¡¯t want him retreating and siccing his backers on me. And judging by his fine, expensive clothing and his Qi-conducting sword, he undoubtedly had powerful patrons.


    "That dog went to complain to my father again" - the idiot muttered. - "I need to finish you quickly." - His words confirmed my suspicions and amused me. - "I, Sun Zi Liang, will avenge the humiliation I¡¯ve endured!"


    With that declaration, he redoubled his efforts, launching a flurry of attacks. By now, I had figured out that his arsenal was relatively limited. Despite being on the Foundation Establishment stage, he was clearly a seventeen-year-old youth with insufficient combat experience. His primary skill was swordplay, and while his movements reflected a trained style, it was ill-suited to the one-handed sword he wielded. The style seemed designed for a heavier, longer weapon, leaving his movements overly wide and cumbersome, as if his sword weighed a ton.


    His second combat skill was a technique that projected a spinning stream of Qi over a distance of ten meters. It was potentially dangerous, but the user lacked expertise. It was obvious he had learned this technique and swordsmanship separately. Instead of using the Qi technique to drive me into range of his sword, he only used it when I widened the gap, and his blade couldn¡¯t reach me.


    The third skill in Sun Zi Liang¡¯s repertoire was¡­ jumping. Yes, his most irritating ability was an unexpectedly effective "non-combat" technique that allowed him to rapidly close or extend the distance between us.


    For the next few minutes, I leapt around like an antelope, dodging his attacks. But I wasn¡¯t doing this just to evade; I was studying his techniques. It didn¡¯t take long to notice that his techniques weren¡¯t fueled solely by pure Qi. Instead, he used a blend of Qi and life force. Most of the Qi in this mixture was "neutral," drawn from his body and the surrounding environment rather than his internal reserves. This significantly reduced the cost of the techniques, making them feasible even for someone like me.


    However, this "economy" came at a price. The lower concentration of internal Qi made control more difficult, and the expenditure of life force weakened the user, leading to fatigue. Now, barely five minutes into the fight, I was still as fresh as a daisy, while my opponent was breathing heavily, wiping sweat, or was it raindrops? from his face.


    "Why are you so damn quick?" - Sun Zi Liang grumbled after I dodged another sequence of sword attacks, Qi techniques, and even a kick.


    Throughout the fight, I had barely attacked, limiting myself to an occasional slap to keep him motivated and irritated. The more frustrated and exhausted he became, the worse his control over his Qi, making it easier for me to analyze how his techniques worked. At last, I understood how he enhanced his jumps, pushing off from the ground or trees even when the terrain was unsuitable due to loose soil or slippery surfaces.The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.


    Essentially, his technique created a "layer" of Qi between his foot and the surface, then used this layer to propel him in the desired direction. It somehow leveraged surrounding matter as a base. At its highest level, this technique could likely allow the user to jump off leaves in midair. The most baffling part was how it completely ignored the mass of the object used as a springboard. The key was fixing a "target" in space, saturating it with Qi until it became a "stable foundation," and then executing a push, which accelerated the user in the desired direction.


    I began cautiously experimenting with the leaping technique and soon achieved decent results. For now, I used pure internal Qi, which was "expensive," but it saved me the months or years it would take to develop precise control. When Sun Zi Liang saw me replicating his technique, his eyes widened in shock.


    "How do you know that technique?" - he shouted. - "That¡¯s the Dance of Autumn Leaves! Only Inner Court disciples are allowed to study it!"


    "Oh, I¡¯m just a wellspring of hidden talents" - I replied with a mocking smirk. - "You picked the wrong person to mess with."


    Fear began creeping into my opponent¡¯s heart, and it showed in his fighting. He started making mistakes, including missteps in his offensive technique. This allowed me to get a decent grasp of how it worked. I began using it during our fight, aiming my strikes so that even if he dodged, they would hit trees and bushes, letting me evaluate their effectiveness.


    "Hey! That¡¯s my technique!" - Sun Zi Liang finally exclaimed, realizing what I was doing.


    "Oh, is it? Then tell me, at what angle should the internal Qi stream twist relative to the external one?" - I asked casually.


    "What?" - Judging by his tone, he didn¡¯t even understand the question. What a disgrace. Verdict: useless.


    "You don¡¯t know? Well, never mind. Looks like it¡¯s time to end this."


    I accelerated and began attacking him seriously. For now, I was simply testing his defense against physical attacks, but even so, bruises and scrapes began appearing on Sun Zi Liang¡¯s body. What intrigued me most, however, was the technique I had analyzed. It could not only repel and pierce targets but also pull them closer. This was controlled by subtle adjustments to the angles of the Qi streams¡¯ motion.


    "How? How can you use my techniques better than me?" - my panicked opponent shouted as one of my attacks pulled him directly into the path of my strike.


    "Don¡¯t tell me¡­ do you have a kaleidoscopic spinning eye that copies techniques?" - he gasped.


    "Oh, wow! You know about the Sharingan?" - I said, genuinely surprised. - "But no, it¡¯s not that."


    "Wait! Stop! I won¡¯t kill you!" - Sun Zi Liang pleaded, attempting to backpedal.


    "But I will" - I retorted with a smug grin, landing another punch that sent him flying into the nearest tree.


    "Do you even know who I am?" - he tried to intimidate me, clinging to whatever leverage he thought he had.


    "I do" - I nodded. - "Almost a corpse."


    "My servant will return with reinforcements soon, and you won¡¯t leave here alive."


    "Hate to disappoint you, but I killed your servant at the start of the fight. No one¡¯s coming to save you."


    With that, I lunged forward, dodging his desperate sword thrust. Grabbing his wrist, I twisted it sharply and ripped the weapon from his weakened grip.


    "No! My sword!" - Sun Zi Liang screamed.


    He didn¡¯t try to reclaim it, though. Instead, he bolted like a frightened rabbit, attempting to flee. That wasn¡¯t part of my plan. I chased after him, deciding to test another attack method. The sword was imbued with his Qi, which limited my ability to wield it effectively. So, I used the offensive technique I had just learned to "throw" the sword at the coward¡¯s back.


    The shining blade flashed like lightning, slicing through his spine. A moment later, the technique that propelled the sword reached its target, yanking the body toward me and pulling the blade back into my hand.


    "I¡¯ll call this technique Eastern Demon''s Tentacles" - I mused aloud. Why Eastern? Why demon? Just to confuse anyone who heard about it.


    Sun Zi Liang collapsed face-first to the ground without a sound. He squirmed, trying to rise, but managed only to turn his head. With his spine severed, both his arms and legs were useless. Calmly, I approached him and decapitated him with the sword. The fool¡¯s head rolled down the mountain slope, and I didn¡¯t bother retrieving it. He had chosen the worst possible escape route¡ªtoward a cliff.


    But simply killing him wasn¡¯t enough to satisfy me. First, I removed his spatial ring, which should contain a wealth of treasures. Then, I scanned his body with psionics to ensure there was nothing else of value. Finally, I turned his corpse onto its back, sliced open his lower abdomen with the sword, and plunged my left hand into his still-warm entrails. With his death, the Qi in his body was beginning to dissipate. I intended to absorb it, ensuring that none of this valuable resource went to waste.

 Chapter 20.14 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    Human Qi differed from the Qi of the surrounding world. It carried the imprint of its owner¡¯s consciousness, which meant it needed to be "purified" before absorption¡ªa process the locals described as erasing its distinguishing features. In my terms, it was akin to rewriting the energy''s modulation to strip away its unique characteristics. This wasn¡¯t a quick task, so I decided to temporarily create another Qi reservoir in my body, especially since Sun Zi Liang¡¯s Qi Thread was still intact. As a result, an energy cavity formed in my left forearm, storing at least seventy percent of the Qi that had been the foundation of Sun Zi Liang¡¯s cultivation.


    Pulling my hand from the now-cold corpse, I cleansed it of blood with a small burst of energy and began covering my tracks. First, the bodies of all three cultivators, along with their leader¡¯s head, went into the "ravine." Even from here, I could hear the ominous growling of the monsters roaming below. The rain had turned into a full downpour, ensuring the traces of our fight would be washed away by morning. I didn¡¯t neglect to retrieve the traitor¡¯s body and dispose of it similarly.


    Afterward, I found a secluded spot sheltered from the rain and began investigating the contents of Sun Zi Liang¡¯s spatial ring. At first, I couldn¡¯t open it; it refused to respond to my Qi. Mixing my Qi with the Qi stored in my left arm, however, allowed me to bypass this issue. Inside, I found several high-grade healing pills, a hundred small crystals containing Qi with pleasant characteristics, a slightly larger crystal, an even bigger one filled with strange Qi, and¡­ a small jade cube covered in inscriptions on all sides.


    I turned the cube over in my hands and scanned it with psionics but couldn¡¯t discern its purpose. Upon examining the inscriptions, I deduced that it served as a "carrier" for recording the previous owner¡¯s thoughts. Since I didn¡¯t possess a technique to directly read such recordings, I decided to use the device in the alchemist¡¯s workshop.


    With nothing else of note in the ring, I began pondering what to do with my newfound wealth. Wearing the ring openly wasn¡¯t an option. Sun Zi Liang¡¯s death wouldn¡¯t go unnoticed, and everyone would be scrutinized. The ring needed to be hidden. However, when I attempted to stash it in an unremarkable crevice in the grotto where I was sitting, the ring began emitting unusual Qi. The energy expenditure was minimal, but the effect resembled a fractal: the ring structured Qi around itself in expanding patterns, creating a detectable disturbance within a hundred-meter radius.


    This was clearly some kind of "anti-theft" mechanism. The ring was meant to remain on its owner¡¯s finger. Anyone trying to steal it would struggle to move it past any patrol or even a curious cultivator. There was likely another safeguard to prevent unauthorized individuals from wearing it, but I wasn¡¯t reckless enough to test it on myself.


    After some tinkering, I discovered a relatively simple way to disable the "alarm." Placing a Qi-charged stone inside the ring caused it to "believe" it was on its owner¡¯s finger. The protection was primitive and barely lasted a few minutes against someone as skilled in circumventing the fabric of reality as I was.


    Hiding the ring under a conspicuous tree in the forest, I returned to my designated "cell" near the alchemist¡¯s workshop. After changing into dry clothes, I headed to the library. Chu Zhu Zhu had finished his experiments, and Dao Yu had gone off to meditate, leaving me free to access the device. I placed the jade cube on the reader. For five seconds, the device charged the cube with Qi before activating its reading function.


    Scanning the "journal," I found nothing useful. Sun Zi Liang had mostly recorded how much he had loaned or repaid, what he had spent on bribes, and what he had extorted from other disciples. The entries also confirmed that his family held significant influence in the sect.


    After pocketing the cube, my hand brushed against another piece of jade¡ªmy "find" from the expedition. Without much hope for results, I placed it on the reader and waited. This time, the jade absorbed Qi for nearly a full minute before the device indicated readiness. Directing my Qi into the reader, I deciphered a short message:


    "Today, I, L¨¹ Ba Yan, begin my journal. After discovering an ancient treasure during the sect¡¯s initiation trial, my future accomplishments will shake the world. I¡¯ll describe the trial in detail later, but for now, I must investigate the commotion caused by the junior disciples in camp."The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.


    Ha! Some journal. I had a pretty good idea what caused the commotion mentioned¡ªlikely the beast that had devoured this "genius cultivator."


    I was about to retrieve the jade and leave to meditate when Chu Zhu Zhu unexpectedly entered the hall.


    "What are you doing here?" - he asked suspiciously, eyeing the jade piece. - "And what¡¯s that?"


    "During today¡¯s expedition, I found this journal belonging to a great ancient cultivator" - I replied.


    "What?" - the alchemist exclaimed, his eyes blazing with curiosity as he stared at the jade.


    "You¡¯re welcome to read it yourself" - I said, extending my hand invitingly.


    Chu Zhu Zhu scurried to the device and placed his hand on it. His face brimmed with anticipation, as though he expected some great miracle. However, after a few seconds, his expression shifted to confusion and then disappointment.


    "It¡¯s an extremely short journal" - he declared.


    I couldn¡¯t help but burst into laughter. - "I found this jade in the forest. I didn¡¯t even think there¡¯d be anything on it."


    "This low-grade jade is useless" - the teacher remarked, picking it up and inspecting it. - "Even this one entry nearly filled its capacity."


    "Alright, I¡¯m off to sleep" - I said with a wave, leaving the hall and letting my "treasure" remain in its new owner¡¯s hands.


    In reality, I didn¡¯t go to sleep immediately. First, I hid the jade cube with incriminating evidence inside the spatial ring, which I buried under the same tree. Only then I settled down to slowly and meticulously process the Qi I had extracted from the corpse.


    By morning, the camp was abuzz with the shocking news: the grandson of one of the elders of our Heavenly Blades Sect had been found murdered nearby. The unfortunate Sun Zi Liang had been slain with his own sword, decapitated, and his entire reserve of cultivated Qi drained from his body. The style of the killing bore the hallmarks of the Black Lotus Sect.


    Of course, the elder¡¯s grandson couldn¡¯t have been without bodyguards. However, it turned out they had been spending the night "entertaining" themselves with female disciples, raping them non-stop until dawn. It wasn¡¯t until morning that they began searching for their lord, only to find no trace of him. They reported his disappearance to the camp leadership, who involved the guards. Before long, Sun Zi Liang¡¯s partially eaten corpse was discovered in the "ravine," the guards¡¯ first search location. Since no trace of Qi remained in his body, the wild beasts hadn¡¯t entirely devoured him, though they had feasted on his entrails and liver. His head, however, was intact, leaving no doubt about the corpse¡¯s identity.


    I overheard this news while Chu Zhu Zhu was discussing it with another alchemist under his charge. By midday, a crowd of "enforcers" arrived at the camp, cordoned off the area, and began searching all the premises and interrogating the disciples about what they had seen, where, and when. We weren¡¯t informed of their conclusions, but judging by the questions they asked me, their main theory was that the elder¡¯s grandson had been assassinated by the Black Lotus Sect to tarnish the elder¡¯s reputation and eliminate a prodigious cultivator who might have become one of the sect¡¯s strongest warriors.


    By evening, Elder Sun Wei Bonk himself arrived at the camp. He listened to the reports from his men, personally interrogated the delinquent bodyguards and their assaulted victims, and then pronounced his decision.


    At sunset, Sun Zi Liang¡¯s body was burned on a funeral pyre. Alongside him, the three bodyguards were burned alive. The youngest bodyguard and the Sun family servant who had died with their master left no remains, only bloodstained, torn garments confirmed that they, too, had met their end in the ravine.


    I was impressed by Sun Wei Bonk. Despite being over fifty, he looked fit and vigorous. When he used a fire element technique to ignite the pyre and burn the bodyguards, the spectacle was incredibly dramatic. The entire camp watched the ceremony, and I even had the honor of a prominent position next to Chu Zhu Zhu.


    After the pyre burned down and all the honors befitting the elder¡¯s grandson had been rendered, Sun Wei Bonk unexpectedly turned to one of the camp leaders.


    "I hear there¡¯s a talented disciple in the camp this year?" - he inquired.


    "Yes, Your Grace. His name is Tan Ji Tao. He¡¯s standing over there with our master alchemist" - the leader replied.


    "Come here" - the elder commanded. I had no choice but to obey. With his eighth-level Core Crystallization cultivation, he could incinerate me with a mere thought.


    I approached the local big boss. He placed his hand on my shoulder and used his Qi to probe every corner of my body. However, he found nothing suspicious. By now, I had fully absorbed his grandson¡¯s Qi and dissolved the temporary storage structure in my left arm. The only thing in my pockets was a single Weak Qi Pill, which I had placed there specifically to provide something innocuous during any search.

 Chapter 20.15 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    "Not bad" - the elder remarked after assessing my fourth level of Qi Condensation. With that, he lost all interest in me and headed off to drown his sorrow at the memorial feast. I humbly stepped aside and returned to my teacher.


    "The elder himself acknowledged your progress in cultivation!" - Chu Zhu Zhu exclaimed with delight. - "Usually, even the word ''trash'' from him is a form of praise."


    I could only offer a modest smile at his evaluation. Not bad? I¡¯m a damn genius! At the fourth level of Qi Condensation, I had easily defeated a first-level Foundation Establishment cultivator. In the process, I "stole" two decent techniques just by observing them and invented a method for extracting Qi that was the "secret technique" of an entire sect.


    Gradually, the commotion caused by the brutal, ruthless, and insidious murder subsided. However, the enhanced security remained. The camp was now under constant surveillance, and any violations of sect rules were swiftly punished. The guards were all at least fifth-level Foundation Establishment cultivators, with their leader at the first level of Core Crystallization¡ªmaking them the camp¡¯s strongest force. Chu Zhu Zhu himself was only at the sixth level of Foundation Establishment, and the camp¡¯s official head, Xiao Xiao San, was at the eighth.


    I decided to dedicate the remainder of my time in the camp to advancing my level. Even the Qi I had absorbed from the elder¡¯s grandson hadn¡¯t brought me closer to breaking through to the fifth level. The Qi Thread in my body was merely expanding "horizontally" showing no signs of evolution.


    Studying the pill recipes in the library, I concluded that breaking through required a "seed" of denser Qi than my own, compatible with the qualities of my internal Qi. Usually, this energy came from consuming pills, but Chu Zhu Zhu¡¯s Weak Qi Pills were subpar due to the mediocre quality of his cultivation.


    Thus, I decided to use the Qi-charged stones I had found in Sun Zi Liang¡¯s spatial ring. The largest stone, containing Qi with unusual characteristics, intrigued me most. While I couldn¡¯t pinpoint the strangeness, I found its overall quality favorable. Moreover, its density was sufficient to almost guarantee a breakthrough.


    One evening, I retrieved the desired stone from its hiding place and headed to my cultivation chamber. These chambers were designed to contain Qi fluctuations to some extent, preventing anyone from linking my energy surges to the contents of the deceased¡¯s spatial ring.


    Sitting in a lotus position, I calmed the Qi flows in my body and began absorbing the stone¡¯s energy. Once unsealed, the stone couldn¡¯t be resealed, so all its Qi had to be absorbed at once. The process had to be gradual, though, to avoid harming myself with a sudden influx of foreign energy. Thanks to psionics, I conducted the procedure safely. After absorbing the energy, I directed it toward my 22nd channel, simultaneously preparing my internal Qi for fusion.


    Qi could exhibit various qualities and characteristics. I noticed that when concentrated outside my body, my Qi emitted a faint golden glow. I attempted to enhance this quality, imagining my Qi as a stream of liquid gold. With psionics, I had a precise sense of how real gold looked and "felt" and I used that as my reference.


    As a result, my internal Qi, Golden Qi, and the Qi from the stone merged into a new type of Qi, its density matching the fifth level of Qi Condensation. I had broken through to the next level, but that wasn¡¯t the most significant change. My energy acquired the qualities of golden light and authority. It could now be called the energy of the Golden King. Simply standing among others, I commanded respect and reverence, not because of my reputation as a genius but because of the aura of my Qi.


    My breakthrough to the fifth level didn¡¯t surprise anyone. The six-month training period was ending, and many students had already reached this level. I wasn¡¯t the first or even among the first. However, after this breakthrough, I became the target of a pilgrimage by girls hoping to break through to the fifth level. Unfortunately, finding mature women of quality was difficult in the camp.


    The camp currently housed about 700 students, 250 of whom were female. Only five had "mature" forms worth noting, and all five were part of my "official harem". These girls practically threw themselves at me, and none of the students dared criticize their choice. Criticizing me was incompatible with maintaining a healthy lifestyle ¡ª it often led to broken bones and other injuries.Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.


    Thus, the remainder of my time in the camp was spent as a decadent overlord. Further meditations at natural Qi sources yielded little benefit; I absorbed all the energy, but it no longer influenced the quality or quantity of my Qi. Chu Zhu Zhu eventually allowed us access to the alchemical furnace, where I demonstrated my skill in crafting basic pills. My pill quality even surpassed that of my teacher, which delighted him. Most importantly, I almost never failed in processing materials. Thanks to psionics, I could monitor the entire process and immediately detect any issues.


    And so, the long-anticipated day finally arrived. A large contingent from the examination committee descended upon the camp, beginning the arduous process of evaluating each student individually. Those who had reached the fifth level of Qi Condensation were sent forward to the next stage. Those who hadn¡¯t were divided into two groups: a small number would remain in the camp until the next "draft," while the majority of failures were unceremoniously¡­ thrown into the ravine.


    I found this fate for my former acquaintances somewhat unsettling. It was one thing to exile them into the forest with a sliver of hope for survival, and quite another to hurl them off a 300-meter cliff into the waiting maws of ravenous monsters. When the failures realized their imminent fate, they nearly rioted and tried to flee. However, the dissenters were swiftly caught and executed in a particularly gruesome manner. Over the past six months, the children had grown complacent, believing everything would work out. Now, they were brutally reminded that nothing would be fine, and the weak would perish ¡ª if not today, then tomorrow.


    I was among the first to be evaluated for my cultivation level, enjoying certain privileges as the personal disciple of an alchemist. Chu Zhu Zhu had also promised to personally escort Dao Yu and me to the Valley of Trials. The evaluation and sorting process took the entire day. By the end, approximately 300 students were deemed fit to proceed, another 100 were left to "marinate" in the camp, and almost 300 failures were fed to the beasts. From the camp¡¯s center, we could hear the feral growls and screeches of the creatures below as they feasted on the cultivators'' "free meat."


    That night, few of the successful candidates managed to sleep, as the beasts'' howls and screams of their victims continued until dawn. At sunrise, the remaining students were organized into groups of twenty. As each group was formed, Core Crystallization cultivators carried them into the skies, heading toward the Valley of Trials. True to his word, Chu Zhu Zhu personally "levitated" Dao Yu and me to the valley and handed us over to one of his acquaintances.


    We were herded into a damp, rotting shack and told to sit and wait. Fortunately, with psionics, I could scan the surroundings and get a sense of the chaos beyond our "hotel." Outside, it was utter bedlam. Students were being sorted into groups of ten, lined up in the square, given brief instructions, and then sent off along a path leading into the mountains. When the tenth group was formed, Dao Yu and I were included. Upon seeing me among them, the other candidates seemed to gain a glimmer of hope¡ªperhaps they might survive until evening after all.


    "And so, recruits," barked a man clad in ornate armor, his gaze sharp and intimidating, "your group will be called the Thunder Hawk. Each of you will receive a token inscribed with the words ''Thunder Hawk.''" He held up a small wooden plaque with crude characters before distributing these dubious trinkets. "Every other participant also has a similar token, but with a different name. Your task is to pass through the Valley of Trials and reach the outpost by sunset. By then, each of you must possess three tokens with different names. Now, move out."


    "But where are we supposed to get two more tokens?" - asked the ever-naive Dao Yu.


    The man glared at him even more ferociously but refrained from killing him, likely recognizing him as an alchemist¡¯s disciple.


    "From other candidates, of course" - he growled. - "And no more questions. Anyone who tries to flee should know this: tonight, disciples of the sect¡¯s Inner Forest will hunt in this area. They¡¯ll receive a Mortal Breakthrough Pill for every ¡®failure¡¯ they kill. Your only chance to survive is to pass the exam. Now move! If you dawdle, I¡¯ll rip you to shreds right here. Do you see those guts over there? They belong to three idiots who dared to defy me."


    He gestured toward the dust-covered remains of a few unfortunate souls, sending a visible shiver of fear through the group.


    Without further delay, we began marching along the path into the forest. We hadn¡¯t made it a hundred meters past the gates when the previous group of candidates ambushed us from the bushes. Clearly, they had decided no one would expect an attack so close to the base. And, in fairness, their plan wasn¡¯t entirely without merit.


    However, the moment they burst from the bushes with wild cries, the first of them caught sight of me. Their charge halted abruptly. They froze for a split second before changing direction and retreating back into the bushes, still screaming.

 Chapter 20.16 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    Not all the attackers were quick thinkers. One of them charged at our group and started swinging indiscriminately, hitting both allies and enemies alike. Naturally, he was quickly subdued, and the fastest member of my group managed to snatch his token.


    "Yes! I¡¯ve already got one token!" - he shouted triumphantly, raising his hand to display his prize.


    "Hand it over!" - Dao Yu barked, smacking him on the back of the head and snatching the token.


    "You bastard!" - the boy roared in protest, unwilling to relinquish his prize.


    A scuffle ensued as the two alpha males attempted to assert dominance. Meanwhile, another group approached us from behind.


    "Hey, there¡¯s already a fight going on here!" - came an excited voice. Everyone turned toward the potential attackers, momentarily distracted. Taking advantage of this, the beaten boy who had lost his token suddenly leaped up, kicked Dao Yu square in the jaw, grabbed both his and his own tokens, and run away.


    "Stop!" - Dao Yu yelled, but the thief had no intention of stopping. On the contrary, he picked up speed, fleeing as fast as his legs could carry him.


    "Tan Ji Tao, we need to catch him!" - Dao Yu turned to me, panicked.


    "No, you need to catch and kill him" - I replied with a smug grin. - "No one else here wants to run through the forest to save your skin."


    Dao Yu looked at his "teammates" with a mix of fear and hatred before reluctantly sprinting after the thief into the woods. I, however, had no time to bother with him, as the group approaching from behind had already struck a deal with the earlier attackers, and they now planned to collectively rob us. As the saying goes, the predator stumbles upon the trap.


    Charging forward, I reached the leaders of the two groups in a single leap and knocked them out with light blows, splitting their heads like overripe melons. I calmly picked up their tokens and pocketed them. This trial was shaping up to be surprisingly easy.


    Meanwhile, the free-for-all melee among the rest escalated, and yet another group of candidates was approaching from the base.


    "Tan Ji Tao, help us! We¡¯re a team!" - one of my companions called out desperately, fending off two attackers at once.


    "Alright, you convinced me" - I said, feigning benevolence before shouting at the top of my lungs. - "Listen up, all of you! Stop what you¡¯re doing and kneel! Anyone who voluntarily gives me one token will be allowed to leave here alive. I¡¯ll count to three. If you¡¯re not kneeling and handing over your token by then, you¡¯ll lose a hand. One¡­ two¡­"


    At that moment, one of the attackers tried to flee with his loot. Unfortunately for him, I was faster. In a flash moment, I caught him, grabbing his collarbone with one hand and his shoulder with the other. With a slight effort, I ripped his arm clean off. He screamed in agony, blood spraying everywhere, as I bent down to collect the three tokens he had been carrying¡ªone of which belonged to my group.


    After this demonstration of power, everyone present decided to comply, and the approaching group turned tail and fled. I gathered the surrendered tokens, breaking a few limbs of those who tried to hide their spoils, and redistributed them among my group. Then, I tossed an "extra" token dramatically into the crowd of losers.


    "This is for you. I don¡¯t need more than I deserve."


    A fierce fight broke out over the lone token as we moved on, leaving the unlucky behind. There were now only nine of us, as Dao Yu hadn¡¯t returned. I wasn¡¯t in a hurry, and my companions followed me, glancing nervously over their shoulders. Being in the same team with me was sheer luck for them.


    The disciples we encountered along the path didn¡¯t dare challenge such a large group, especially knowing my reputation. About ten minutes later, a familiar figure emerged from the bushes¡ªit was one of the girls from my "harem."


    "Tan Ji Tao, can you please help me?" - she asked, wrapping her arms around herself to accentuate her breasts. - "I already have two tokens¡­" - She glanced at me nervously, clearly afraid I might attack her instead.This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    "Of course. You can repay me later in the way you¡¯re best at" - I said, making no illusions about her intentions. I knew she was only using me to climb over others. Not that I blamed her ¡ª weak people didn¡¯t survive in a pit of vipers like this.


    "Wait here" - I instructed.


    Using psionics, I scanned the area, rushed into the bushes, and dragged out a boy in muddy clothes. I didn¡¯t even need to beat him to take his token. After checking the girl¡¯s tokens, I gave her one of mine and kept the newly acquired one for myself. The victim was from the same group as my companion, which explained why she had been targeting him.


    After that, we encountered no further resistance. The trail followed a stream winding through the valley. Within an hour, we reached a spot where the valley, now a narrow gorge, was blocked by a fortress wall. At the center of the wall stood an iron-bound gate, wide open.


    Passing through the gate, we found ourselves in another camp. Guards from our previous camp greeted us. Among them, I recognized Liu Zhi, my old sparring partner. We exchanged a few words, but since I wasn¡¯t sure what had happened to his sister, we quickly parted ways.


    We were assigned to another small cabin, designed for ten occupants. While I indulged in the pleasures of life with my girl, the others wallowed in despair, contemplating their chances of surviving the rest of the trial.


    By sunset, all those who had passed the trial had gathered near the fortress wall. The final minutes ticked away, and the gates were about to close. Cheerful as ever, Liu Zhi stood beside his sister, chatting with her about something. The guards were just about to shut the gates when suddenly, out of the forest, came¡­ Dao Yu.


    He was covered in blood, his arm visibly broken, but he still stumbled forward. Noticing the gates starting to close, he mustered his strength and broke into a run. The examiner barked an order to the guards, and they paused, allowing the would-be alchemist to slip inside. After all, being Chu Zhu Zhu¡¯s personal student had its perks.


    "Excellent, we¡¯ve got 65 of you here. Not a bad result" - declared the same man who had handed out the tokens that morning. - "We¡¯ve rid ourselves of most of the dead weight, though in my opinion, some of you didn¡¯t pass entirely honestly. But that just proves that strength and the ability to curry favor with those stronger than you are what truly matter."


    He cast a knowing glance at me and the girl clinging to my arm. Clearly, he was well aware of how she had obtained the tokens today.


    In my view, this entire examination system was utterly flawed. Among the "finalists" were not necessarily the strongest or most talented, but the most ruthless, shameless, cunning, and devious. Of course, there were plenty of strong ones too, like me, for example. It was obvious that with such a selection process, the sect itself would be rife with deceit, violence and extortion. I still couldn¡¯t understand how this sect managed to sustain itself.


    "You¡¯ve all passed the first stage of selection and earned the right to receive the Seal of Loyalty" - the examiner announced. What? What seal? - "This seal ensures that you will never betray the sect and will always obey those above you."


    Damn it! If I¡¯d known about this seal, I would¡¯ve ditched this sect and run off into the wilderness. The last thing I needed was some slave seal to cap off my day.


    "Each of you will now be taken in turn to the Master of Spiritual Seals, who will inscribe on your chest the mark of belonging to our sect. This mark is on all sect members and will help you distinguish allies from enemies in the future."


    The examiner gestured to one of the guards, a bare-chested man, who revealed a strange tattoo on his torso. The mark, located directly over his heart, resembled a mass of clouds bristling with knives or perhaps a porcupine cloud, as I privately dubbed it.


    "After this, you¡¯ll have time to rest. Tomorrow morning, you¡¯ll begin the second part of the trial, which will be far more challenging than today¡¯s. Details will be shared tomorrow. For now, form a line and head to that building over there."


    I tried to position myself in the middle of the line to get a good look at the seal with psionics before it was my turn, but the examiner personally approached and placed me at the very front. Of course. Just my luck.


    "As the most gifted student, you have the honor of being the first to receive a seal from Cheon Wan Yu today" - he whispered in my ear. - "Usually, after inscribing a few dozen seals in a row, he starts making mistakes, and we lose candidates as a result. The sect leadership has big plans for you."


    With that explanation, the man gave a polite knock on the door and shoved me into the building. Inside, two burly guards immediately grabbed me, forced me to remove my shirt, and strapped me into a stone chair with iron chains binding my hands and feet. Well, they¡¯re certainly taking security seriously.


    "Ho-ho, so this is the young man the elder Sun Wei Bonk mentioned?" - came a voice from the shadows. - "I agree, an excellent specimen. If he survives, he could become the strongest fighter in our sect."


    The speaker emerged from the dark corner: a wizened old man radiating immense spiritual power. I couldn¡¯t gauge his exact level, but he was clearly at the upper echelons of Core Crystallization, even surpassing the elder Sun Wei Bonk I had seen earlier.


    The old man didn¡¯t waste time on pleasantries. Stretching out his hand, a glowing, intricate circle of light filled with lines and inscriptions appeared on his palm. I focused all my psionic strength on memorizing the circle¡¯s details.


    "No need to strain yourself" - the old man chuckled. - "I never make mistakes¡­ the first time each day. Heh-heh-heh."


    Oh, that¡¯s comforting.


    Then, the glowing palm pressed against my chest, and a bolt of searing pain shot through me. Now I understood the need for the chains, without them, I would have torn this geezer apart, no matter his celestial cultivation level.

 Chapter 20.17 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    Instantly accelerating my mind with psionics, I managed to regain clarity of thought. I was already on the verge of considering whether to use my techniques to prematurely end this sadist¡¯s existence in our world. Instead, I focused on closely observing how the incredibly intricate seal of subjugation embedded itself into my body. Fortunately, it didn¡¯t interfere with the workings of my Qi Thread, confining its influence solely to my heart.


    Five seconds in real time, an eternity that felt like an hour of virtual torture under my accelerated perception and the seal finally settled into place.


    "Impressive, you¡¯re still conscious. Strong indeed!" - the old man praised me before retreating back into his dark corner. My restraints were removed, and I was hastily escorted out of the building. Staggering slightly, I found a spot to sit nearby, trying to collect myself. Curious gazes were cast my way, but I ignored them, focusing instead on regaining my composure.


    A minute later, a bloodcurdling scream echoed from behind the door. The crowd flinched and took a collective step back, clearly reconsidering their eagerness to become official sect members.


    "Strange, I didn¡¯t hear you scream" - remarked the head examiner, walking over to me.


    "That¡¯s because I didn¡¯t" - I replied evenly.


    Initially, I was tempted to point out that he might be going deaf in his old age, but decided against antagonizing someone who was still stronger than me for now.


    "First time I¡¯ve seen that happen" - he admitted, a hint of grudging respect in his voice.


    "Why not just knock the candidates out before inscribing the seal?" - I asked, genuinely curious.


    "They wake up anyway. We¡¯ve tried that" - he said with a dismissive wave, clearly in the mood for conversation. - "Besides, Lord Cheon Wan Yu prefers his victims to look at him with eyes full of life. He¡¯s not just a seal master, but also a master torturer. It¡¯s better for you if you never see him again."


    "I¡¯ll gladly take your word for it" - I said, recalling the mad gleam in the old man¡¯s eyes. - "Are there any other seal masters in the sect?" - I added casually, mentally beginning to compile a list of my future targets.


    "The sect master and his son" - the examiner said, nodding as if agreeing with his own thoughts. - "Cheon Wan Yu is the sect master¡¯s grandson, but he failed to break through to the next stage, so his path in life was sealed. Don¡¯t go spreading this around, though. The master torturer has ears everywhere in the sect, and those who fail to show him proper respect often find themselves summoned for a personal ¡®conversation¡¯ in his dungeons. Few emerge from those sessions, and even fewer with their sanity and limbs intact."


    This sect was becoming less and less appealing by the minute. Maybe I should have stayed in the village and grown rice instead.


    An hour later, the ordeal was over, and every surviving candidate now bore the seal. Unfortunately, only 51 of us had made it through. My consort was among the dead, further adding to my grievances against the sect. At this rate, it seemed inevitable that I would one day wipe out every last member of this sect.


    Once we were redistributed into our quarters, Dao Yu once again ended up as my neighbor. Fifteen minutes later, Chu Zhu Zhu paid us a visit. Commanding everyone but the two of us to leave, he addressed us in a far friendlier tone.


    "Tan Ji Tao, how are you feeling? Not injured, I hope?"


    "No, I¡¯m perfectly fine, Master" - I replied.


    "Good, good. Elder Sun Wei Bonk instructed me to prepare a healing pill and give it to you in case of injury. But since you¡¯re fine, I¡¯m allowed to give it to Dao Yu instead. Hear that, junior disciple? You must be sure to thank the elder for this kindness."


    "Yes, Master. I am infinitely grateful to him and to you" - Dao Yu replied humbly, though his gritted teeth betrayed his pain. His swollen, mangled right arm looked pitiful.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    With an air of importance, Chu Zhu Zhu produced a small ornate box and removed a glowing, radiant pill about the size of a coin. The energy emanating from it was palpable, lighting up the dimly lit room.


    "Master, did you create this yourself?" - Dao Yu asked reverently, his tone awed.


    "Yes. To make it, I used remnants of the Ten-Year Sun Grass provided by Elder Sun Wei Bonk" - the teacher said with pride. - "Tan Ji Tao, you should also be grateful to the elder."


    "Of course, Master" - I nodded, feigning sincerity.


    In truth, the pill was a pale shadow compared to the dozen superior pills I had found in Sun Zi Liang¡¯s ring. Still, considering that the elder was spending his resources on a rootless orphan with no guarantees of loyalty, this generosity seemed like a calculated move to bind me through gratitude and obligation.


    Dao Yu lay down on the pallet as Chu Zhu Zhu placed the pill into his mouth. The effect was nearly instantaneous. The pill''s energy dispersed throughout his body, healing every injury. Bones realigned and fused, cuts sealed, bruises faded ¡ª it was as if nothing had ever happened. In just five minutes, Dao Yu was completely healed. Meanwhile, in those same five minutes, I gained a basic understanding of how to use Qi for healing. It was hard to comprehend how a pill could contain a spell capable of such intricate work. And knowing that our teacher had created it raised even more questions.


    "Ah, the divine energy of the Ten-Year Sun Grass is astonishing" - the alchemist sighed in admiration. - "This is only the second pill of its kind I¡¯ve ever created in my entire life, and I have every reason to be proud."


    "Congratulations, Master" - I replied, bowing with both hands clasped before me, a standard respectful gesture in this world.


    It seemed the magic lay in the herb itself. Properly harnessed, it could create miracles or atrocities, depending on one''s perspective. However, this wasn¡¯t my way. I preferred to rely on my own skills, rather than on incomprehensible miracles that might work one day and fail the next. The whole process reeked too much of ritualistic magic for my taste.


    Having deemed his mission complete, the alchemist departed. Finally, I had the opportunity to feign sleep and examine the mark that had been placed on me. I barely understood how it worked, but the enchantment could be divided into three parts.


    One part formed the ¡°tattoo,¡± which could be revealed or hidden by channeling Qi into it. The second part handled the transmission of a ¡°friend or foe¡± signal and identified other marks in proximity. It also activated the third part of the spell, which was designed to inflict severe pain on the cultivator or, if necessary, destroy their Qi channels and physical heart.


    Given these delightful prospects, I decided to prioritize ¡°blocking¡± the third part¡¯s functionality and then work on erasing it altogether. At this stage, the Qi embedded in the mark was too dense for me to exert significant influence, but I managed to identify ¡°key nodes¡± in its complex mechanism and ¡°jam¡± them by infusing my own Qi. This would disable the mark¡¯s pain-infliction mode.


    I also deliberately isolated the mark¡¯s Qi from my own, ensuring that they wouldn¡¯t integrate. From studying the marks on the guards and the chief examiner, I had a rough idea of how these things ¡°rooted¡± into the body, making them nearly impossible to remove. But for now, it remained a foreign entity within me, not yet fully integrated.


    The next morning, at the crack of dawn, we were assembled in the courtyard once again. The same man in armor appeared before us.


    ¡°Alright, my name is Chi Hua Hua. Today, is the most significant day in your otherwise insignificant lives. You will undergo a trial that might grant you great fortune, making you powerful cultivators. But before we proceed, there¡¯s a small issue to resolve. The trial allows for only fifty participants, and there are fifty-one of you. So, those who arrived last yesterday will fight to the death.¡±


    I glanced at Dao Yu, whose face displayed stern resolve. His opponent was bulkier and older, but his expression betrayed fear. The two stepped forward before our ranks, and Chi Hua Hua gave the command to begin.


    Dao Yu immediately lunged forward, striking with enhanced strength fueled by Qi. The pill he had consumed the day before had left an excess of energy in his system, which he now unleashed in the fight.


    His opponent, on the other hand, was sluggish and focused on defense, a strategy ill-suited for the situation. Within seconds, Dao Yu broke his arm, delivered a blow that fractured four ribs near the heart, and finally twisted the boy¡¯s neck, snapping it with a sickening 360-degree rotation.


    ¡°Excellent!¡± - Chi Hua Hua clapped, clearly pleased with the display. - ¡°This is what a true cultivator should be: energetic, decisive, and ruthless. Remember this when you face today¡¯s trial.¡±


    Dao Yu returned to the line, and the examiner walked along the row, assessing our potential.


    ¡°Now, I¡¯ll explain how today¡¯s trial will unfold. Your chances of survival are higher than yesterday¡¯s, but don¡¯t get complacent. The success of this trial will determine your future. Whether you rise to become one of the sect¡¯s elders or rot in a ditch will be decided today. So, listen closely and don¡¯t interrupt.¡±


    He then launched into a fascinating explanation of the trial.


    After breakfast, we were to ascend the gorge and enter the Valley of Deprivation. In that valley lay the tomb of an immensely powerful ancient cultivator who, before dying, had decided to bless future generations with their secret knowledge.

 Chapter 20.18 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    Each month, on a specific day, a passage to the tomb would open, allowing cultivators at the fifth level of Qi Condensation to enter. However, the tomb could accommodate only one hundred individuals at a time. The tomb was jointly managed by two sects, the Heavenly Blades and the Radiant Fingers, with each contributing fifty participants. Inside awaited a labyrinth filled with traps. The participants of this macabre race had to overcome all obstacles and reach the Phantom Library located at the labyrinth''s center. Glowing arrows on the walls provided guidance, making it difficult to lose one''s way. However, as multiple paths led to the library, luck played a significant role in determining the victors.


    The first victors would gather in a special chamber. Once ten participants were inside, the entrance would close, and a door to the library would open. The library contained numerous jade plaques inscribed with various cultivation techniques, though each participant could only take one plaque. They were given one hour to study it before the plaque vanished, and all victors were teleported out. If fewer than ten participants arrived within three days, then on the third day, anyone already inside the tomb would be allowed access to the library.


    Participants who failed to reach the library in time for its opening would be teleported to isolated rooms, where they would remain for the next hour until they were "expelled" from the tomb.


    Fighting between participants was permitted during the search for the library, with the primary directive being to eliminate members of the opposing sect. However, killing someone already in the library''s waiting chamber was strictly forbidden.


    The library wasn''t the only way to benefit from the trial. The labyrinth was filled with ancient and valuable items, so participants were instructed to take anything not bolted down and even forcibly remove items if necessary. To facilitate this, the sect generously provided each participant with a basic spatial ring, capable of holding about five liters of loot. I couldn''t help but note that these rings looked identical to the one I had found on the hand of that "great cultivator" in the forest.


    After explaining the mission''s details and the sect''s objectives, we were given breakfast, a three-day ration pack, and a water pouch. We were also cheerfully informed that defecating anywhere in the tomb would risk invoking the wrath of the tomb''s spirit for such disrespect.


    Following this, we were herded up the gorge under close guard, ensuring none of the sacrificial lambs tried to escape or accidentally fell headfirst onto the rocks below. As I marched behind the guide, I began mentally calculating the human cost of this operation. They sent children into the tomb every month. To identify fifty "luckiest" survivors, they effectively ground up about a thousand individuals. Annually, this sect consumes twelve thousand children.


    They certainly operating on a grand scale, no denying that. In my "home" village, cultivators only appeared once a year, and even then, they rarely took anyone. The odds of an individual being born with a talent for cultivation were less than five percent, and even fewer had the inclination to pursue it. At best, this left a one percent chance for a newborn to qualify as "chosen meat." With an annual birth rate of 1.2 million, assuming a fertility rate of forty under local living conditions, this implied a population of around thirty million.


    In essence, the Heavenly Blades sect controlled an area equivalent to a small country. And right next door were our "sworn allies" from the Radiant Fingers sect. Indeed, there was plenty of room for expansion.


    Meanwhile, we traversed the gorge and entered yet another valley. This one had a far more sinister atmosphere. The path was lined with scattered skeletons, "decorated" with desiccated trees, and surrounded by brittle, lifeless grass that seemed to cling to its last traces of vitality. The name "Valley of Deprivation" was fitting for such a place.


    After about a kilometer, we arrived at an imposing structure built into the mountainside. Crafted from black stone, its sheer size and solidity commanded respect. It was evident this edifice had been designed to withstand the test of time. Notably, it lacked a door. Where an entrance would logically be, there was instead a massive circle etched with golden symbols¡ªclearly a spatial seal of some kind.


    We were lined up in orderly rows, and the tedious waiting began. After about fifteen minutes, another group of people arrived. This group mainly consisted of rowdy teenagers, likely around thirteen to fifteen years old. They, too, were lined up, about twenty meters away from us. The leaders of both groups began a hushed conversation, but our rivals from the Radiant Fingers sect decided to amuse themselves by shouting insults.Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.


    "So, these are the ''legendary'' disciples of the Heavenly Blades sect? They look so frail. I doubt any of them will survive this year."


    "If you keep screaming, I''ll make sure none of you survive" - I promised darkly, barely raising my voice.


    "And who might you be? Some ancient cultivator of legend? Oh no, wait, you¡¯re just at the fifth level of Qi Condensation. You¡¯d better shut your mouth and avoid attracting my attention."


    "The smallest frog in the swamp croaks the loudest" - I replied lazily. - "Go on, little frog, croak something else amusing."


    That silenced him. His face flushed red with embarrassment, but before he could collect his thoughts and respond, the leaders returned to address the groups.


    "The gates will open soon" - noted Chi Hua Hua, our leader. - "This month, it¡¯s our turn to go first."


    "No, you went first last time" - countered a gaunt old man from the opposing group.


    "I suggest a little sparring match between our disciples. The winner gets the privilege of entering the tomb first."


    "Fine. A warm-up will do our best disciple some good" - the old man agreed.


    "Tan Ji Tao, step forward" - commanded Chi Hua Hua.


    "Ho Pe Les, come forward" - the gaunt elder ordered.


    To my amusement, my opponent turned out to be the very loudmouth from earlier.


    "So, we meet again, little frog" - I said with a smirk. - "I thought I¡¯d have to search the tomb to find you."


    "You! I¡¯ll shove those words right back down your throat!" - snarled Ho Pe Les, failing to find a more cultured retort.


    "We¡¯ll see, little frog" - I replied with another smirk.


    "Prepare to fight, BEGIN!" - barked the elder.


    My opponent immediately began jumping around, trying to distract and confuse me with feints and flashy footwork. Meanwhile, I stood still, my hands lowered, but my reaction time sharpened by psionics. While he hopped from side to side like a deranged cricket, I decided to mock him further.


    "I¡¯ll admit it, little frog, you¡¯re as good at jumping as you are at croaking."


    That was the final straw. Enraged, Ho Pe Les charged at me, aiming a punch at my face. I casually sidestepped and delivered a single "normal punch" to his jaw. His head snapped to the side, and his unconscious body collapsed to the ground.


    "Done. And it seems I didn¡¯t even kill him" - I reported nonchalantly to my commander.


    "Ha! I never doubted you" - Chi Hua Hua replied with a chuckle, throwing a mocking glance at the elder from the Radiant Fingers sect.


    "Take him away" - the elder ordered disdainfully. - "If he doesn¡¯t wake up before the gates close, slit his throat."


    The rival sect¡¯s guards quickly carried the body away. He will not wake up again. Using psionics, I had already seen the damage my punch had caused, his cervical vertebrae were dislocated, leading to partial paralysis. It was treatable, but no one here would bother with such "trivialities."


    Meanwhile, the spatial transfer seal at the tomb¡¯s entrance began to glow and ripple.


    "Prepare yourselves. Entry will proceed one by one, alternating between sects. There will be a thirty-second pause between entrants. Tan Ji Tao, you¡¯re first" - commanded Chi Hua Hua.


    I approached the entrance, carefully inspecting it visually and probing it with psionics. Unfortunately, the mechanism was so complex that I couldn¡¯t make sense of how it operated. The ripples in the portal settled, revealing a swirling mist that obscured about a third of the seal.


    "Go!" came the order, and I calmly stepped into the mist.


    I walked forward blindly for about five meters before emerging on the other side. I found myself in a dimly lit corridor, leaving me little choice of direction. Glancing back at the misty portal, I focused on what lay ahead.


    Picking up my pace, I soon arrived in a large hall. The lighting here was better, and the walls were more ornately decorated, with gold patterns visible in some places. The hall had numerous doors, staircases, and ramps¡ªmore than two dozen exits leading in different directions. I also noticed glowing arrows scattered around, pointing toward specific paths.


    Deciding that navigating a labyrinth wasn¡¯t fitting for someone of my stature, I headed straight ahead, toward the most elaborately adorned doors. As I neared them, I scanned the obstacle with psionics and smirked. These doors didn¡¯t open inward or outward but slid to the side. Without knowing this, one might pull on them with all their strength, believing them locked. Applying some force, I slid the panels apart and stepped through. Behind me, the doors closed with a sound reminiscent of a lion¡¯s jaws snapping shut.


    The rest of my journey through the labyrinth could be summed up in one word: boring. Stupid traps, stupid maze. Using psionics, I identified all obstacles well in advance, adjusting my "majestic strides" to bypass them without triggering anything. Occasionally, I encountered the desiccated corpses of previous contenders, victims of one trap or another. They appeared mummified, with no signs of decomposition, and emitted almost no odor.

 Chapter 20.19 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    After about ten minutes of aimless wandering, I noticed a glowing arrow, as if drawn by a trembling hand. At first, I assumed it was the handiwork of a previous visitor, but then I realized the iridescent shimmer on this arrow was identical to the more polished ones I¡¯d encountered earlier. It was unlikely any of the other students wielded such "magic." Without hesitation, I turned into the passage it indicated, walked about ten meters, and stopped abruptly.


    My psionic senses warned me that taking three more steps would result in my death. Scanning the nearby area confirmed the presence of a hidden trap. At knee height, a nearly invisible thread of Qi stretched across the passageway, while on the ceiling lay a one-time-use spell containing an "air blade" attack.


    Visualizing the future options, I saw curved Qi "blades" slicing through the air with devastating sharpness. I spent five minutes examining both the present configuration and potential outcomes until I understood how the mechanism worked. Then, using the Qi blade technique I had just reverse-engineered, I severed the energy thread ahead. The trap activated, disarming itself, and I confidently walked forward. Even if the trap wasn¡¯t single-use, its recharge time was likely measured in hours.


    This "borrowed" technique turned out to be quite effective. In terms of efficiency, it surpassed my ¡®Eastern Demon¡¯s Tentacle¡¯ for dispatching enemies. Naturally, I decided to name this one ¡®Western Demon¡¯s Claw¡¯. The local population should to be dazzled with appropriately epic names.


    Moving forward, I entered... a dead end. The small hall I found myself in had alcoves lining its sides. However, my psionic scan revealed a vertical shaft hidden in one of the alcoves, leading upward. Using the Dance of Autumn Leaves technique, I pushed off the walls to climb the shaft.


    The ascent was about thirty meters, but when I emerged into another corridor, I was pleasantly surprised by its grandeur. Everything here was adorned with gold and gemstones, and the lighting was much brighter. Another glowing arrow directed my path. Following its guidance, I boldly pressed onward until I reached a fork in the corridor.


    Here, the hallway split: one path angled 45 degrees to the left, the other 45 degrees to the right. Ten meters further, the left-hand corridor turned sharply right to 90 degrees, and the right-hand corridor turned left to 90 degrees. Theoretically, they should have converged into a square. However, my psionic senses revealed something impossible: the two corridors passed through each other without intersecting. I verified this phenomenon multiple times, and each time the result was the same. It was like a tinkering with higher dimensions, yet I didn¡¯t sense any spatial distortions. Somehow, the corridors existed in dimensions I couldn¡¯t perceive.


    Standing there like a fool for ten minutes, I failed to unravel the mystery of this trickery. With a weary sigh, I decided to shelve the puzzle for later and turned left. After all, real men always go left. What followed was a genuine maze experience: aimless wandering without any clear sense of direction. I could circle the same pillar ten times, only to find a new passage on the eleventh lap.


    Eventually, I realized I was thoroughly lost. So, I decided to trust my intuition¡ªmore specifically, my sense of potential futures. Despite the countless possible outcomes ahead, my subconscious, honed by Air Mage training, excelled at processing vast arrays of data. To my surprise, some paths seemed to lead to problems. I couldn¡¯t discern the details because those issues lay too far ahead, but I wasn¡¯t eager to find out. Instead, I gravitated toward a path that promised a pleasantly surprising outcome.


    My movements finally acquired a clear purpose, even though to an observer, it might have looked like the erratic scurrying of a rat in a maze. Half an hour later, I found myself in a section that resembled royal chambers. As I progressed further, I entered a richly decorated hall, its perimeter lined with treasures displayed in special niches. There were ornate armor sets, weapons, staffs, rods, books, and mysterious jade tablets, all protected by impenetrable Qi-based force fields. I spent five minutes wandering around the room, trying to foresee a future where I successfully bypassed the vault''s defenses, but it was all futile.


    Eventually, my attention was drawn to the centerpiece of the collection. At the far end of the hall, on a lavishly decorated pedestal, lay a small jade tablet. It looked ancient, riddled with cracks and chips, and mysterious glyphs on its surface exuded an aura of concealed meaning. Intriguing as it was, the most notable thing about this treasure was its lack of any protective shield, making it accessible to anyone. Naturally, this raised my suspicion, like noticing the cheese in a mousetrap.If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    Despite my skepticism, the lure of the inaccessible treasures around me had whetted my appetite. With nothing else within reach, I decided to investigate the seemingly humble offering left by the creators of this place. Using the technique of the Eastern Demon Tentacle, I pulled the tablet closer and examined it. Then, attuning my mind for reading, I attempted to extract the information stored within, much like I would with any other jade book. Over time, I had mastered the ability to access such sources directly, bypassing the need for specialized devices.


    Immediately, my consciousness was transported into a mystical dimension within the tablet. Radiant mist surrounded me, and enormous glowing glyphs hung in the air like molten gold. I didn¡¯t recognize any of these symbols, but by focusing on them, I managed to grasp the deeper meaning embedded within.


    ¡°The great is the turning of the black. Who traverses the triple path shall receive the seven blessings. Eternal Strength shall find the fractured vessel and manifest a miracle. Heavenly law and the hidden dragon.¡±


    The words carried an air of profound wisdom, though their full significance remained elusive. Brief flashes of insight hinted at the depth of knowledge contained within this tablet, yet the truth felt maddeningly out of reach.


    Forcing myself out of the trance induced by these cryptic symbols, I surveyed the room, walked up to the pedestal where the tablet had rested, and smashed it against a sharp corner. The tablet cracked in half. Then again. And again. Until shards of jade scattered across the floor, turning to fine debris that filled the air.


    Like hell I¡¯d meditate on such heretical nonsense. Let the local cultivators waste their brains on these so-called "profound teachings". Anyway, they do not understand anything about the cultivation, so even if they clutter their minds with this "great knowledge" they wouldn¡¯t lose anything. Irritated, I cast a scornful glance around the hall before heading for the exit. If all the treasures here were of this caliber, I¡¯d be severely disappointed.


    I continued through the palace corridors and soon emerged... into an open space. Before me lay a garden, and in the distance, I saw endless fields overgrown with grass. However, upon closer inspection, I noticed the absence of the sun and the strange grayish tint of the sky. It seemed that this entire world existed in some kind of pocket dimension, similar to the spatial ring. Nearby, I spotted another glowing arrow pointing the way forward. Without hesitation, I followed the path it indicated.


    The landscape I traversed resembled a slightly neglected garden. Still, the paths were immaculate, the grass well-kept, and the flowers dazzled with vibrant colors. Clearly, this place had been crafted with a love for grandeur. Even the benches in the garden were adorned with gold and precious gems. Unfortunately, like the labyrinth walls, these benches were protected by fortification techniques that made it impossible to chip away a piece of their splendor or even scratch a ¡°Vasya was here¡± inscription.


    Walking along the path, I noticed another bench. On it, nestled in where seemed to be a deliberately crafted depression, lay a small jade sphere. It was about five centimeters in diameter, with a bright green hue that stood out against the gray granite of the bench. Picking up the trinket, I examined it from all sides. In one section of the jade, faint blue lines formed a stylized image of a cloud.


    The sphere emitted a barely noticeable Qi aura, prompting me to use my thought-reading technique after settling down on the bench. I was drawn into another "virtual world" where an old man in opulent robes appeared before me. His long beard and hair gleamed with snowy whiteness, while his bright blue eyes radiated otherworldly wisdom.


    "Greetings, chosen one!" - the old man proclaimed pompously, as if he had been rehearsing this moment for a millennium. Clearly, this wasn¡¯t something an absent-minded student had forgotten while resting on a bench.


    "Hey there, old-man. Who are you in life? What do you do? What''s your function?" - I asked, unfazed.


    "What? How dare, I am the great cultivator Gas Bag Din! How dare you address me so disrespectfully?"


    "Great cultivator?" - I smirked derisively. - "What¡¯s so great about you? Why should I respect you?"


    "I am a thousand years older than you!" - the old man huffed indignantly, stomping his foot in frustration.


    "Listen" - I said, leaning back with a smirk. - "There are four kinds of people. Priests and mages pride themselves on knowledge. Warriors boast of their honor and valor in battle. Merchants flaunt their wealth and luck in business. The last one are slaves, they¡¯re only respected for how long they¡¯ve survived. Why would I need a teacher from the caste of slaves?"


    "Khuh! Khuh! Khuh!" - The old man coughed up three mouthfuls of blood before managing to compose himself. - "You!" - he exclaimed, almost hurt. - "I possess countless secrets of cultivation!"


    "For example?" - I queried, raising an eyebrow. - "I also have plenty of knowledge myself. What makes your knowledge better than mine? Go ahead, enlighten me with some profound truth."

 Chapter 20.20 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    Gas Bag Din took a few deep breaths, and then, in a more composed tone, said:


    "Everything in this world obeys the hidden Will of the Heavens. Only by following the millennia-old traditions of cultivation you can achieve true greatness and ascend to the heavens."


    "Hm... Seems I was right" - I responded with a smirk. - "You really belong to the caste of slaves. Only slaves follow laws they don''t understand and revere tradition as the ultimate value. Do you realize that even a thousand-year-old tradition can''t excuse ignorance, right? But I suppose that''s beyond your comprehension."


    "You!!! You son of a mangy dog..." - I didn¡¯t bother listening to the rest of his insults and exited the sphere''s projection. Even in the real world, the sphere continued to emit his ranting: - "Your thoughts reek of the stench of sin!..."


    I looked around, tossed the jade sphere into the air, and then hurled it directly into a hollow tree about fifty meters away. The angry ramblings immediately ceased. Dusting off my hands, I stood up and continued down the path toward the library. Looks like this tomb isn¡¯t going to yield much. Well, let¡¯s see what the library has in store.


    I walked further and reached a spot where the path ended. Scanning the area with psionics, I noticed a directional arrow atop a tall boulder nearby. It was cleverly positioned so that it could only be seen if you either knew exactly where to look or thoroughly inspected the stone from every angle.


    Scoffing, I followed the indicated direction. The path led to an endless steppe, with only a faint strip of forest and distant mountains visible on the horizon. Since I¡¯d already been wandering through this "tomb" for quite some time, I decided to speed up. After all, only the first ten participants were likely to succeed.


    About half an hour later, I reached the edge of the forest and spotted another marker stone near the beginning of a new path. However, just as I approached, three figures emerged from the trees.


    "Finally, we found you" - one of them said smugly.


    I stopped and examined my unexpected guests. These were definitely not fellow students. They were young men, probably around eighteen, all at the fifth level of Foundation Formation. Judging by the colors of their clothing, they were members of the Radiant Fingers sect. Unlike the practical brown-and-black attire preferred by our sect, these individuals wore white and blue accents, similar to those of the group we had encountered in the Valley of Deprivation. Their attire left no doubt about their allegiance.


    "Are you sure you¡¯ve got the right address?" - I asked dryly. - "Are you certain I¡¯m the one you¡¯re looking for?"


    "Absolutely" - assured the tallest and most imposing of the group. He wore a tactical vest over his head, which added to his commanding presence. - "You¡¯re that genius from the Heavenly Blades sect who suddenly caught the attention of an elder. We can¡¯t let someone with your talent grow stronger. Your journey ends here."


    The trio advanced toward me confidently, and I matched their pace by retreating just as steadily.


    "The leader of our sect won¡¯t be pleased to hear you broke the agreement" - I said, scanning for escape routes. Unfortunately, being out in the open area, my only chance of survival was to run, very, very fast. I activated my future-sight technique, but after navigating the labyrinth, my mental reserves hadn¡¯t fully recovered.


    "And that¡¯s why he won¡¯t hear about it" - the tall one laughed. - "Because no one besides us will be around to tell him."


    With that, the attackers stopped playing games and charged at me. I turned on my heel and bolted, squeezing every ounce of speed from the Dance of Autumn Leaves technique. Initially, I pushed off the ground, then off blades of grass, then off the very air itself. Finally, I realized I could use the technique like a jet engine, propelling myself by bouncing off the Qi I had just used for my last step. In the end, I stopped using my legs entirely and hurtled forward like a rocket.


    "What''s this? What kind of technique is that?" - came the alarmed cries from behind me.


    I didn''t let my guard down, knowing that I couldn''t simply outrun opponents of their level. Starting from the fifth level of Foundation Formation, cultivators could fly, making my advantage fleeting at best. My internal Qi wasn''t infinite, and I was burning through it rapidly, lowering my cultivation level in the process. Scanning the surroundings and the future with my psionics, I finally found what I needed after a minute of "flight."Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.


    My pursuers were still choking on my dust on the horizon, but I feigned running out of "fuel" and fell vertically from a height of a hundred meters. Seeing this, my pursuers let out triumphant shouts and picked up their speed. I, however, fell with a purpose, right at the entrance of another labyrinth... with traps. If I couldn¡¯t kill this trio myself, the traps would do the work for me.


    Landing smoothly, I examined the inscription above the entrance: "Forbidden Tomb." Who in their right mind writes word "forbidden" on a secret place? That alone is enough to increase the number of grave robbers tenfold. They should¡¯ve labeled it something like "Second Eastern Small Agricultural Equipment Warehouse" and no one would bother stepping inside for decades.


    I pushed open the door and entered a spacious hall lined with columns and several exits. The lighting was dim, but I caught sight of a ghostly figure turning into one of the passageways at the far end of the room. To anyone else, it might¡¯ve seemed like a trick of the light. For me, with my psionics speeding up my perception, I saw it clearly ¡ª a cultivator''s ghost saturated with Qi.


    I dashed towards the passage where the ghost had disappeared, not because of it, but because I needed to act quickly. Just as I reached the passage, the main door banged open, and one of my pursuers appeared in the frame. He noticed me darting into the corridor and start chase.


    I sprinted at full speed towards a trap blocking the corridor ahead. Until now, all traps I''d encountered could be bypassed with careful observation. Each had a single detector to trigger it. This one, however, had two detectors. Two strands of Qi crossed the corridor, one at knee height and the other at chest level. I dove between them and twisted to leap into a narrow alcove.


    Behind me, my pursuer launched some technique that almost hit me. Moments later, he deftly jumped over the lower Qi strand... and hit the upper one.


    Spears shot out from the floor and ceiling with blinding speed, skewering him thoroughly. He immediately stopped because flying became rather problematic when you were pierced through by several dozen spears. Remarkably, he didn¡¯t die outright, as the upper part of his chest and head remained clear of the trap. Both of his arms were locked in place, making him no longer a threat.


    Still, I didn¡¯t step out of my hiding spot. Instead, I backed further into the alcove, suppressing my aura as much as possible to release only the faintest trickle of Qi into the environment.


    "Roi To! Damn it! I told him not to rush. That idiot ran straight into the trap."


    "Where¡¯s the target?"


    "I can¡¯t see him. Can¡¯t sense him either. This path is blocked now. We need to find another way around. No worries, the compass will track him."


    From my experience in the labyrinth, once certain traps were triggered, they permanently sealed off the passage. This was one of those traps. Though the spears were thin and made of jade, they were as indestructible as the walls themselves.


    I waited five minutes before stepping out of the passage and cautiously approaching the cultivator, who stubbornly refused to die. Honestly, this suited me just fine. When I got within about ten meters, I felt his hateful gaze lock onto me. The index finger of his right hand began to glow, but I was faster. For some reason, he had a knife sheathed at his belt. Using my "tentacle" technique, I yanked the weapon toward me and immediately sent it flying back ¡ª straight into his eye. His body gave one final twitch before going still. The blade that penetrated his brain instantly shut down any further thought processes, even though the body hadn¡¯t quite realized yet that survival was no longer an option.


    As I came closer, I tugged the knife out of his skull with some effort and delivered a single swift strike to sever his head, ensuring he wouldn¡¯t be getting back up for a surprise second round. Scanning his body with psionics, I found only the knife I already held and a ring on the middle finger of his right hand. I slipped off the ring and clumsily removed his belt and sheath, turning my attention to the most crucial task ¡ª absorbing his Qi.


    This cultivator was fairly advanced, so I had high hopes for what his Qi might offer. I began drawing the energy from his nearly lifeless body, simultaneously forming a new "storage vessel" for it in my left arm. Since I couldn¡¯t physically plunge my hand into his dantian, I had to improvise by creating a channel of my Qi through his body to siphon the energy. Within five minutes, I had a respectable reserve of Qi, enough to push me right to the threshold of the sixth level. Who knows? I might even be able to break through. The energy was impressively dense, though controlling it was a bit of a challenge.


    After I finished absorbing his Qi, I turned my attention to the spatial ring I¡¯d taken from his finger. These rings could only be accessed with the original owner¡¯s unique Qi signature, but I had plenty of his Qi coursing through me right now. Unfortunately, the contents were underwhelming: just five small Qi crystals and a couple of recovery pills. What kind of pauper was this guy? At least the ring itself was decent, boasting a capacity of about two cubic meters.


    I decided to pull a clever trick to "re-register" the ring as my own. It required the owner¡¯s unique Qi signature but allowed for minor variations. So I slipped the ring onto a finger of my left hand and began infusing it with my Qi, mixed with his in a ratio of one to nine. Once the ring recognized me as its new owner, I slowly began altering the proportions of energy. The gambit worked, and my predictive scan indicated that within an hour, the ring would fully accept me as its sole master.

 Chapter 20.21 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    After looting the body in every conceivable way, I decided that since I had ended up here, it was worth looking for something interesting. Besides, I needed to stay wary of my pursuers, so I activated foresight for five minutes ahead and cautiously made my way through the corridors and staircases, descending lower and lower. About five minutes later, I spotted the ghost again. It slipped through the end of a corridor, but this time, it had no chance to escape. I wasn¡¯t in a hurry, so I simply tracked its position and movements with my psionics, following its route step by step.


    By tailing the ghost, I managed to navigate through the labyrinth of tunnels and avoid countless traps. Eventually, after about half an hour, the ghost stopped in one of the chambers, hovering motionless. By now, I was deep in what could only be described as true catacombs. All the gold and jewel-adorned passageways were far behind, replaced by roughly hewn stone.


    Entering the chamber with the ghost, I saw it floating above a sarcophagus containing an ancient mummy.


    "Hello there, could you please point me path to the library?" - I asked. I have to start a conversation somehow. Who knows, maybe this ghost would be more helpful than that old man in the jade orb.


    The ghost turned around, and to my dismay, it was indeed the same old man from the orb. I had jinxed it. However, this version wasn¡¯t trying to prattle or pretend to be some great cultivator. Instead, it frowned immediately, radiating an ominous stormy glow. It seemed as though lightning danced in its spectral eyes. However, my foresight of future indicated to me I wasn¡¯t in any danger.


    "How did you get here?" - the ghost asked in a booming voice, entirely unlike the pitiful bleating of its jade counterpart. This voice carried an inner power and an awareness of its own grandeur.


    "Well¡­ I walked and kept walking until I arrived" - I explained my movements, avoiding specifics.


    The angry expression faded from the ghost¡¯s face, and it seemed to calm down slightly.


    "Are you one of those who came to undergo the trial?" - it asked.


    "Yes. Is this your tomb?" - I replied with a question of my own.


    "Indeed. This is where my true body rests. You¡¯re the first to reach this place in ten thousand years. How did you find it?"


    "I followed you."


    "What?" - The shock on the ancient cultivator¡¯s face was evident. - "How did I not notice you?"


    "No idea" - I shrugged. "Maybe you were lost in thought?"


    "Wasn¡¯t it you who triggered the trap at the entrance?" - The ghost still couldn¡¯t let it go.


    "No, that was one of the assassins sent after me."


    "What? Someone else was here?" - This time, the ghost was truly angry, though fortunately not at me.


    "Not just was ¡ª there should still be two more nearby, looking for me."


    "Alright, let¡¯s deal with this."


    Before I could even croak out a reply, I was teleported back to the trap that had started my journey through this dungeon. The ghost examined the corpse closely, scratching its spectral head with a spectral hand.


    "I can¡¯t sense any Qi emanating from this body" - it muttered.


    "That¡¯s because I consumed all of it" - I explained. - "His head¡¯s over there, it should still have some Qi left."


    The ghost immediately grabbed the head, holding it in front of itself. For a moment, I thought it might say something like, ¡®Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio!¡¯


    "Fifth level of Foundation Formation. How did you kill him?" - it asked, astonished.


    "The trap killed him. I just finished off the nearly-dead body."


    "And you absorbed his Qi? That amount of energy should have torn you apart! Also, Qi from another person is toxic, you can¡¯t absorb it without first purifying it."


    "I stored it unprocessed within my body. I¡¯ll refine and absorb it later when I have time."You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    The ghost immediately began scanning me with its own Qi. I felt as though I was being x-rayed from head to toe.


    "What an interesting technique. I¡¯ve never seen anything like it" - the cultivator marveled.


    "Is this even a proper technique?" - I sighed in mock despair. - "It¡¯s more of a quick-and-dirty fix. I just threw this structure together to avoid wasting free Qi. But it¡¯ll do for now. Later, I might adapt it into a proper seal or crystal. Why let something this valuable go to waste? Gathering this much Qi with breathing techniques would take years."


    "Hmm... you continue to surprise me more and more. Such a pragmatic approach at your age" - the ghost mused. - "As for your problem, it really can be solved with a seal. Look at this."


    The ghost extended its hand, and a glowing circle appeared on the wall in front of him, filled with countless inscriptions and lines. It was an order of magnitude more complex than the one Cheon Wan Yu had demonstrated when implanting the seal of subjugation.


    "And what does each part do?" - I tried to coax the ghost into a mini-lecture. I had already memorized the entire seal and the energy characteristics of its components. Psionics, even in its limited form, offered remarkable capabilities.


    The circle immediately lit up in various colors, highlighting individual parts of the intricate pattern.


    "Here is the central core, which allows Qi to be stored in compressed space. This section binds the seal to the hand, this part conceals the seal, here is where the Qi is absorbed, and this segment regulates Qi extraction from the seal, controlling the flow and energy source."


    "And how does the seal fold during application?" - I asked a critical question. The seal appeared as a circle initially, but later deformed into its functional form.


    "Watch."


    The circle folded in on itself like intricate origami, transforming into the shape of a wide bracelet or a cylinder.


    "Does it have a module for forcibly extracting Qi?" - I added. - "Sometimes it¡¯s impossible to place a hand directly into the target¡¯s channel, so I need a way to draw Qi from the body and direct it to the hand."


    "Hmm..." - The ghost pondered, examining the unfolded blueprint with the look of a seasoned professional. - "We could insert a pump here and a block that generates a Qi blade." - Several new elements appeared on the blueprint, rearranging the nearby patterns.


    "Perfect, I¡¯ll take it! Wrap it up" - I said with the tone of a satisfied customer.


    "What?" - The ghost blinked in confusion, before a spark of amusement flashed in its eyes. - "Ah, you little scoundrel. Fine, I¡¯ll apply this seal for you. You¡¯ve given me a few interesting ideas, so consider it a fair exchange."


    The seal shot toward my arm, folding itself and integrating into my body. A stylish tattoo appeared on my skin, radiating an aura of ancient mystery and immense power.


    "Thank you, honorable one. Unfortunately, I don¡¯t know your name. My name is Tan Ji Tao."


    "My name was erased from the annals of history, so there¡¯s no point in remembering it" - the ghost sighed. - "Tell me, if you had to choose between submitting to the Laws of the Gods or following the Rules of the Demons, what would you choose?"


    "Neither!" - I replied confidently without hesitation. - "The only rule is, there are no rules. There¡¯s only one law ¡ª the law of my will. Neither gods nor demons can dictate their will to me. If the heavens rise against me, I¡¯ll cast them into the abyss of Chaos. If hell wages war on me, I¡¯ll shackle it in the chains of Order. If fate itself defies me, I¡¯ll devour it alive and become the new fate. As long as my soul exists, I will be free!"


    By the end of my impromptu manifesto, I noticed the ghost''s eyes glimmering with hope. "Perhaps... you might be able to..." - he murmured softly. - "Were you searching for the library?"


    Before I could answer, two cultivators, the same ones who had been hunting me, burst out from the nearest corridor. "There he is!" - one of them managed to shout before freezing in place like a wax figure. Only their wildly darting eyes betrayed that they were still alive.


    "So, you''re the ones who infiltrated my tomb. Let¡¯s see" - the ghost mused as he inspected them. - "I see, the rings. You¡¯re wearing enchanted rings designed to bypass my security system. Clever. But that won¡¯t work anymore. From now on, anyone wearing such a ring will be eliminated as soon as they step inside."


    "When I meet the maker of these rings¡± - I said with a sly grin, - "I¡¯ll be sure to... not tell him about this."


    "You may keep all the belongings of these intruders. I¡¯ve modified both their rings and yours so they can no longer deceive the spirits of this place" - the ghost said nonchalantly, waving his hand.


    With that casual motion, the life in the two cultivators¡¯ bodies simply ceased. I couldn¡¯t tell exactly what he had done, but even the cells in their bodies stopped functioning.


    "My main interest is your seal¡¯s performance and their Qi reserves" - I said, flashing a wicked smile.


    First, I transferred the stored energy from the reserve in my hand into the seal to test its capacity and functionality. Then, approaching one of the corpses, I focused on the seal, issued a command, and a meter-long spectral blade extended from my palm. As soon as I drove it into the body, all the Qi within the corpse flowed instantly into the seal.


    "Bear in mind¡± - the ghost interjected - "that this blade function will only work as long as the energy I¡¯ve embedded in the seal remains active. Once it¡¯s depleted, the blade will be disabled."


    "Got it¡± - I replied with a nod.


    Deactivating the blade, I turned to the second body. This time, I enveloped my hand in Qi and drove it directly into the abdomen, tearing through clothing and skin. The Qi coating served not only as protection from blood but also as a kind of grinder, shredding any barriers in its path. This was an improved version of my old ''Qi Blade'', more efficient, but significantly more energy-intensive. Extracting the Qi this way took nearly a minute.


    As I was finishing the energy transfer, the ghost spoke again. - "I¡¯ve reserved a spot for you in the library. When you¡¯re done with the bodies, follow this arrow."


    A familiar glowing arrow appeared on the floor next to me.


    "Farewell¡± - he added before teleporting away.


    "Thank you, honorable one, for your kindness¡± - I said aloud to the empty air.

 Chapter 20.22 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    After looting the two corpses, I became the proud owner of two spatial rings, a decent sword, a collection of pills, a handful of minor Qi crystals, and a week''s supply of dry rations. Additionally, the leader¡¯s ring contained a document signed and stamped by the head of the Radiant Fingers Sect, granting permission for three inner circle disciples to access the Valley of Deprivation. I reread this piece of incriminating evidence with great satisfaction and promised myself it would reach the appropriate hands. Later, I¡¯d personally annihilate their entire sect, for daring to target me.


    However, my most valuable find was something labeled a "spiritual compass." The object resembled a square piece of jade inlaid with concentric golden rings. I wasn¡¯t entirely sure how to use it, but it seemed this was the device that trio used to track me down.


    Having thoroughly stripped the bodies of all they had, I stood up and moved forward. The ghostly arrow shifted along with me, guiding my path. I dashed after it, weaving through the labyrinth. The arrow led me deftly past traps, allowing me to maintain my speed.


    I had assumed I¡¯d need to emerge onto the steppe and run for dozens of kilometers, but reality had its own surprises. Within a minute, I reached a doorway shrouded in mist. It matched the description Chi Hua Hua had given of the library entrance. Just as I was about to step through, a strained shout rang out behind me.


    "Stop right there!"


    Turning, I saw a disciple of the Radiant Fingers Sect charging at me with the grace of a rhinoceros. Without hesitating, I extended my hand and used the Claw of the Western Demon technique. A glowing crescent of Qi sliced through the air and then through the cultivator''s body, splitting him into two unequal halves. Blood and entrails splattered across the corridor as I turned back and stepped through the mist with a sense of grim accomplishment. The technique was tested, it worked just fine.


    On the other side of the mist, I found myself in a small room where nine disciples of the now-hostile sect were sitting on benches along the walls.


    "What? You¡¯re alive?" - one of them blurted out, unable to contain himself.


    "Hah! As if anything could threaten me." - I replied smugly, displaying the three rings on my left hand.


    At the sight of my trophies, the disciples immediately fell silent, trembling as they pretended not to notice me. I wasn¡¯t planning on hiding the fact that those three had attacked me, so there was no need to conceal their fate. How exactly they died, however, was information I¡¯d keep to myself.


    Before I could even catch my breath, a door opened at the opposite end of the room. Casting a condescending glance at the cowards surrounding me, I was the first to step through.


    The next room was a grand hall filled with rows of bookshelves. Except, instead of books, the shelves held jade tablets. I tried reading the information from the tablets as I normally would with jade, but encountered resistance from the protective field surrounding the shelves. The only way to assess the contents was to read the brief labels etched on the edges of the tablets.


    The disciples dispersed immediately, searching for something of interest. Within moments, I saw one of them touch the protective field in front of a selected tablet. The tablet slid out, becoming accessible for retrieval.


    Well, if the simple method didn¡¯t work, it was time for a more complex approach. Over time, I had honed my ability to read jade inscriptions not just with Qi but also with psionics. The protective field might block Qi, but it had no defense against psionics. I began walking around the hall, reading the tablets¡¯ contents while accelerating my consciousness to process the information faster.


    At first, I thought I¡¯d struggle to memorize the entire library, but it turned out the collection consisted of no more than thirty tablets, despite each being uniquely named.


    The techniques offered fell into two categories. They either invoked some form of Celestial Law or relied on Demonic Curses. Keeping my conversation with the ghost in mind, I searched for something different. I had almost scoured the entire hall without finding anything worthwhile when I noticed a mural in one of the niches.Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.


    The painting depicted the familiar cultivator holding several jade tablets, extending them to a crowd of all sorts ¡ª humans, celestials, and demons mingling together.


    But what truly caught my attention was a subtle detail: while the cultivator handed out tablets to the crowd, he kept one in his pocket. Barely visible, the corner of a jade tablet peeked out of his robes. Most intriguing of all, within the wall near this exact spot, I detected a tablet containing a technique not listed elsewhere in the library.


    I approached the mural, touched the corner of the tablet, and it "slid out" of the wall. Picking it up, I examined the acquisition from all sides. The back of the tablet still resembled part of the mural, but the front bore the engraved words: "A Malicious Gaze that Ignores Heaven and Earth". Intriguing.


    Sitting down on a nearby bench, I immersed myself in the tablet''s contents. It turned out to be about ten times more detailed than the other books. The technique it described seemed, at first glance, lacked significant combat value. By activating it, I could frighten an enemy simply by looking at them. However, more importantly, the technique also allowed the user to perceive the Heavenly Laws or Demonic Curses underlying an opponent¡¯s techniques. Now that is fascinating.


    Upon completing the book, I noticed fragments of "mental images" embedded in it that didn¡¯t quite align with the surrounding "text." Compiling these fragments revealed a coherent image that spoke of a Dragon¡¯s Blood Legacy located in the outer regions of Jiang. The image included a map, though I had no idea how to link it to the actual terrain, my knowledge of local geography was practically zero. Still, I memorized the information for future use.


    After thoroughly studying the tablet, I stood and resumed browsing the rest of the library to ensure I hadn¡¯t missed anything of significance. Halfway through, a disciple of the Radiant Fingers Sect confronted me with a somewhat angry expression.


    "Where did you get the rings of our inner-circle disciples?" - he demanded.


    "I took them off their corpses¡± - I replied with a smug grin.


    "What killed them?" - he pressed further, unsatisfied with my response.


    "They chased me and got caught in a primitive trap¡± - I replied, my grin widening.


    The disciple asked no further questions, simply glaring at me with a look full of unspoken promises. Well, I had promised to follow the rules, but rules can always be interpreted literally.


    I found nothing else of interest in the library. Exactly one hour after we had entered, a glowing light enveloped us, teleporting us into a hall near the tomb''s exit. The tablet I had stored in my spatial ring disappeared. I hadn¡¯t expected to keep it, but still, I¡¯d hoped.


    Alongside me in the hall appeared the nine other disciples from the library. Moments later, members of the Radiant Fingers Sect began streaming in from the corridors. However, I didn¡¯t see a single member of my own group.


    "Today, your life ends here!" - declared one of the disciples dramatically as he stepped forward. His comrades began to surround me, forming a circle.


    "This seems against the rules¡± - I remarked with a smirk.


    "No one will know how you died. We¡¯ll simply say ten of our disciples reached the library¡± - he sneered.


    "Such a cunning plan. But there¡¯s a flaw: you won¡¯t be able to kill me. On the contrary, I¡¯ll kill all of you without hesitation."


    At this, the group erupted into laughter, as if I¡¯d told a joke.


    "You¡¯re hilarious. Your bravado is worthless. Kill him!" - the leader shouted. "A Thousand Merciless Strikes!"


    A golden-decorated sword materialized in his hand, its blade shimmering as he swung it downward in a clumsy, overdramatic arc.


    "One normal punch!" - I retorted.


    I accelerated, dodging the clumsy attack, and landed a punch to his chest, channeling a subtle burst of Qi. During my time in the library, I had studied all the available techniques and decided to employ one called Heavenly Hammer. Although this was my first attempt at using it, my comprehensive understanding from the tablet allowed me to execute it flawlessly.


    My target exploded into a spray of blood before he even had time to register fear. I caught the now-ownerless sword as it fell and scanned it. The blade indeed contained the technique A Thousand Merciless Strikes, likely a treasure found in the tomb. However, like every other artifact here, the sword had an inherent defect that made its use extremely "costly" for the wielder. Evaluating it as "trash¡± I tossed it into my ring. A nice ¡®gift¡¯ for my superiors. They won''t mind garbage like this.


    Meanwhile, the surrounding disciples recoiled in fear. I didn¡¯t give them a chance to regroup and attacked, tearing through the crowd with Heavenly Hammer and Claw of the Western Demon. Simultaneously, I looted my victims of anything remotely valuable.


    Interestingly, the issued spatial rings had a pre-built flaw in their structure that allowed their contents to be remotely viewed by anyone. Essentially, they were "transparent pockets" ¡ª while items appeared safe, anyone could inspect their contents.

 Chapter 20.23 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    Two minutes later, I stopped and surveyed the blood-soaked hall. Of all the students, only nine visitors from the library were still alive. However, all nine were missing their arms and legs and were slowly dying from blood loss. Moving quickly, I treated their wounds, stopping the loss of vital fluids from their bodies. Now, I could be sure that they would at least survive until they were ejected from the tomb. That moment was drawing near since teleportation to the "anteroom" was always the first step to the expulsion of the unwelcome.


    "What happened here?" - I heard a frightened voice behind me.


    Turning around, I saw a group of my companions huddling together, looking around the hall littered with corpses in utter horror.


    "So, you''re alive?" - I said in surprise. - "I thought you were all dead, so I decided to take revenge."


    "Dao Yu ordered us to gather together and wait to be teleported out, instead of trying to reach the main hall."


    "Did he? And who gave him the right to command?"


    Dao Yu tried to hide behind the others, but I lunged at him, grabbing his throat and lifting him off the ground, cutting off his air and blood flow to the brain.


    "I don''t know how you knew I¡¯d be left alone against fifty enemies, but that was your last attempt to harm me."


    With those words, I tightened my grip, snapping his spine. Dao Yu twitched one last time and fell silent, his lifeless gaze fixed on me. Not satisfied, I threw his body to the ground and stomped on his head, smashing his brain. Alas, the sect had just lost a "promising alchemist." Maybe Dao Yu had his reasons for delaying my companions, but this was an excellent excuse to get rid of him. Lately, he had been throwing hateful glances on my way and acting like some proud and independent genius, but he was nothing of the sort.


    "Pick up these bags of meat and head to the exit¡± - I ordered my stunned companions, still reeling from the scene.


    They dared not argue, quickly grabbing the helpless bodies of the nine students from the Radiant Fingers Sect and carrying them into the corridor leading outside. It was possible to wait for forced teleportation, but I preferred to leave voluntarily. If we were being asked to leave, we should do so civilly. There was no point resisting a "request" we lacked the strength to oppose.


    Emerging outside, I saw the waiting guards. I expected our escorts might decide to "remove" everyone, but it seemed our "friendly" allies didn¡¯t dare to take that step. However, as I stepped out of the portal, the eyes of the elder from the opposing sect widened in surprise. When the helpless bodies of his "best students" were carried out, his eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.


    "What... what happened?" - he cried, rushing from one student to the next.


    "I followed the agreement between our sects."


    "How?... " - he stared at me in disbelief.


    "I am permitted to kill any other participant in the trial, except those who reached the Phantom Library. Therefore, these nine bodies are still alive."


    "And the others?" - The elder looked around frantically, realizing no other students from his sect were present.


    I didn¡¯t respond, merely laughing maliciously. When he noticed the three rings on my left hand, his questions ceased, replaced by new ones. He would have gladly killed me himself, but standing beside me was Chi Hua Hua, who was clearly concerned for my safety.


    "Who managed to reach the library?" - our commander asked.


    "Only me¡± - I replied, silently asserting authority over our group. None of the remaining students dared even attempt to speak.


    "And what about Dao Yu?" - the examiner frowned.


    I glanced around, noting that of the fifty people who entered the tomb, only a little over thirty were standing here now. Clearly, our "allies" had not wasted time, turning the trial into an outright hunt.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    "He didn¡¯t survive¡± - I answered curtly, giving my companions a warning look. Blood drained from their faces as my gaze instilled primal terror in them. I had already mastered the first stage of the Malicious Gaze technique, so it was easy to instill fear.


    "That¡¯s unfortunate. What¡¯s done is done, we won¡¯t dwell on failures. Now we will all head to the central palace of our sect, where the final part of today¡¯s trial will take place. The leader of the Radiant Fingers Sect is visiting us and has made a wager with our leader on the results of your expedition to the tomb."


    Chi Hua Hua shot me a meaningful look, clearly hinting that thanks to me, today¡¯s trial had taken a rather unusual turn.


    Without wasting a second, our commander enveloped all the survivors with his Qi and flew away. Five more guards joined us as escorts, while the remaining sentinels headed back on foot. The flight lasted almost an hour, during which we traveled quite swiftly. Finally, we arrived at a richly decorated palace situated atop a high mountain. This place was literally overflowing with Qi, and the views from the mountain''s summit made it feel as though we had entered paradise.


    We were "landed" on a stone platform, then counted, scanned for Qi, and given permission to present our unwashed faces before the divine eyes of the sect leader. Following a servant whose level was no less than the sixth stage of Core Crystallization, we walked through maze-like corridors and emerged into a wide courtyard. The tiles beneath our feet were made of high-quality jade, and the buildings around us glittered with gold leaf and precious stones. Ahead, on a terrace, sat two individuals from whom emanated Qi of mind-blowing power.


    "On your knees!" - hissed our escort venomously.


    I had to obey, though I vowed to myself that one day I would cut off these sect leaders'' legs at the knees and make them crawl in the dust, begging me for mercy.


    "So, esteemed Cheon Chu Han, thirty-one of your sect''s disciples survived today''s trial" - proclaimed the older man majestically. - "Not the worst result."


    "It has been worse¡± - agreed the young man, who looked barely eighteen. "But let''s see how many of your disciples are still alive, esteemed Kre Ka Tui."


    After these words, a group of servants ran out from the opposite side of the square, carrying nine limbless bodies onto the plaza. Their wounds had been somewhat treated, so they were no longer at death''s door, but no one intended to restore their limbs.


    "What... what is happening?" - Kre Ka Tui slammed his teacup onto the table angrily.


    "Haha, this is the most astonishing result in all two hundred years of trials in the Forbidden Tomb¡± - Cheon Chu Han smirked smugly. Now he looked at us with pride, as if he truly had something to do with our success.


    "Bai Mu Dan, explain yourself!" - the leader of the Radiant Fingers Sect roared fiercely.


    The old man who had been overseeing the disciples ran forward and fell to his knees, bowing low to the ground.


    "Master, only nine disciples survived today''s trial. All the others were killed just before exiting the tomb."


    "This is... Cheon Chu Han, you decided to violate the terms of our agreement?" - the humiliated sect leader stared at his neighbor.


    "And what terms did we violate?" - Cheon Chu Han inquired serenely, sipping his tea. - "The disciples have the right to compete with each other. The agreement doesn''t specify that they can''t settle scores after the winners are determined. Chi Hua Hua, could you explain what happened?"


    "Yes, my lord¡± - our kneeling commander suddenly appeared before us.


    I didn''t even notice his movement. If I had been at maximum acceleration, perhaps I could have seen something, but with my current level, I couldn''t have reacted in any case.


    "As you said, the terms of the agreement were not violated. This month, one disciple from our sect and nine from the Radiant Fingers Sect reached the Phantom Library. All nine of these disciples are present here. As for the deaths of the other disciples, responsibility for that has been assumed by our finalist, Tan Zi Tao."


    "Is he the one who caught Sun Wei Bonk''s interest?"


    "Yes."


    "Let him step forward and tell us what happened."


    I didn''t wait for further prompting; I stood up and stepped forward, taking a place beside Chi Hua Hua. However, I didn''t kneel again but boldly looked at the two powerful cultivators before me.


    "Sect Leader, Sect Leader¡± - I bowed my head, folding my hands before me in a gesture of respect. - "During this trial, I encountered inner-circle disciples from the Radiant Fingers Sect who tried to kill me. I was had to ¡­"


    "Lie!" - Kre Ka Tui shouted.


    I paused briefly, then continued as if nothing had happened.


    "I had to lure them into a trap, where they died a painful death. But before that, they gave me their disciples'' rings and this order granting them permission to enter the Valley of Deprivation before the trial began."


    With a magician''s flourish, I pulled out a scroll and placed it on the palm of my right hand, simultaneously displaying the three rings on my left. Cheon Chu Han frowned, extended his hand, and pulled the scroll toward himself. While he examined its contents, I continued my report.


    "After that, I reached the Phantom Library and found that nine disciples from the Radiant Fingers Sect were already there. Before the competition began, I defeated one of the ten better-dressed disciples in an honest duel, rendering him unconscious. All the disciples from the remaining nine became the winners. From this, I concluded that this group had received covert assistance from the inner-circle disciples I had killed, and one spot remained open only because of the eliminated participant."


    Cheon Chu Han rolled up the scroll and angrily threw it at his "ally." The latter caught the document and, without looking, incinerated it with some technique. Considering that his signature was on the paper, he couldn''t have not known what kind of document it was.

 Chapter 20.24 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    ¡°After the allotted time for studying the jade ended, I found myself in the entry hall, surrounded by students from the Radiant Fingers Sect. They attempted to kill me, claiming they would inform others that only their sect''s students had entered the library. Since there were no students from our sect nearby, I presumed they had all been killed. I then decided to punish all violators of the inter-sect agreement. However, I did not violate our side of the agreement and spared all the finalists. Report complete.¡±


    After my words, a heavy silence settled over the square.


    ¡°Kre Ka Tui...¡± - began Cheon Chu Han.


    ¡°Yes, I know. According to the agreement, for the next year, only your sect will have the right to send students to the Forbidden Tomb¡± - Kre Ka Tui replied through gritted teeth, glaring at me with hateful eyes.


    ¡°Very well¡± - Cheon Chu Han nodded as if it were a trivial matter. - ¡°Although this competition between our sects began with a little deception, all disputes have now been resolved. Isn¡¯t that right, my dear neighbor?¡±


    ¡°Yes¡± - came the begrudging response.


    ¡°Excellent¡± - Cheon Chu Han smiled joyfully. - ¡°The next competition will involve the alchemist students crafting pills. As far as I know, that body over there belonged to the best alchemy student in your sect. Do you think they¡¯ll be able to participate?¡±


    ¡°A handless alchemist?¡± - Kre Ka Tui almost fumed with rage. - ¡°No, I can only field an inner-circle alchemy student for this contest.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s against the rules, but since there are no other contenders, I¡¯ll agree. After all, we can compare the talents of the students not only with each other but also against their predecessors from the previous tournament. My representative will be Tan Ji Tao, who, coincidentally, is also an alchemy student.¡±


    ¡°I heard that Chu Zhu Zhu had two students¡± - said Kre Ka Tui, scanning the rows of my comrades with his eyes.


    ¡°Yes, I heard that too. Chi Hua Hua, where is he?¡± - asked Cheon Chu Han.


    ¡°He perished during the trial¡± - our commander replied grimly. - ¡°Perhaps one of the students knows the details.¡±


    I raised my hand.


    ¡°Tan Ji Tao, do you wish to say something?¡± - Cheon Chu Han asked with a gracious smile.


    ¡°Yes. I personally killed Dao Yu because he was a spy from the Radiant Fingers Sect. However, that is just my opinion, and I have no evidence to support this claim.¡±


    ¡°You killed your comrade based solely on a hunch?¡± - Kre Ka Tui asked darkly.


    ¡°He was not my comrade¡± - I responded with a polite bow. - ¡°He repeatedly challenged my authority and attempted to orchestrate my death during the trial. As a true cultivator, I could not allow him to cast a shadow on my reputation. Since the rules of the trial permitted it, I resolved the conflict between us once and for all by executing the traitor. In my actions, I was guided by the words of the esteemed Chi Hua Hua, who said that a true cultivator must be energetic, decisive, and ruthless.¡±


    The gaze directed at me did not grow heavier, for it was already filled to the brim with anger and hatred.


    ¡°Well, if there are no more questions, let us proceed to the trial¡± - said Cheon Chu Han, clapping his hands.


    Immediately, a swarm of servants rushed onto the square, driving out all the students except me. They set up a portable alchemical workshop and brought over several cabinets filled with herbs. In Chu Zhu Zhu¡¯s laboratory, there was a similar cabinet where he stored his supplies. I took a place near one of the alchemical furnaces, and in front of me sat six alchemists on low chairs. They could be identified by the special emblems on their robes ¡ª three from our sect and three from an allied one.


    When everything was ready and the commotion had subsided, a young man of about twenty approached the second furnace. He looked down at me arrogantly and exchanged a glance with one of the judges. Chu Zhu Zhu was not among the judges because he was considered too weak as an alchemist. While others lived in private homes, he resided in the camp for condemned souls, giving lectures that no one would ever need.Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!


    ¡°Remove your spatial rings and roll up your sleeves to the elbows¡± - one of the judges ordered.


    I hesitated briefly but eventually took off all my jewelry and set it aside. I had one ¡®native¡¯ ring and nine trophies, resulting in rings on every finger. I hadn¡¯t yet decided what to do with them, but I wasn¡¯t ready to part with the three rings from the inner-circle students. Together, they allowed me to carry nine cubic meters of cargo, more than enough for my current level. Most importantly, their contents were not exposed to prying eyes.


    Instead of rolling up the sleeves of my robe, I removed it entirely and rolled up the sleeves of my shirt. Frankly, calling the rags I wore ¡°clothing¡± was embarrassing. At least there were no visible holes, and that was a small blessing.


    ¡°First trial: the crafting of ten weak restorative pills.¡±


    This pill was the simplest product in alchemy. Essentially, you just needed to take Blood Grass, grind it, mix it with water, compress it, and dry it. You didn¡¯t even need to infuse it with Qi. Any farmer familiar with cooking could make this pill. Still, some alchemists managed to critically fail even at this simple task, ruining the results.


    I opened the cabinet, pulled out twenty stalks of Blood Grass, and, using only my inner Qi, ground the grass by levitating it between my palms. I added a bit of water to the powder, formed ten small spheres from the paste, and drew the water out, creating a vacuum around the pills. The entire process took only a minute. Moreover, my Qi didn¡¯t mix with the plants¡¯ Qi, so their alchemical properties remained unchanged.


    ¡°Done¡± - I said, placing ten brick-colored pills on the stand before me.


    Looking around, I saw that my opponent had only just begun grinding the grass in a mortar.


    ¡°You didn¡¯t use an alchemical furnace!¡± - one of the alchemists exclaimed indignantly. Essentially, I had performed a sleight of hand, and they were utterly baffled, trying to understand what had just happened.


    ¡°This pill is far too simple to require a furnace. Moreover, heating worsens the pill¡¯s quality, even though it increases its durability. Therefore, these pills should be stored in a stationary container and only taken out just before use. Wrapping each pill in a piece of paper allows for storage in a spatial ring without a loss in quality.¡±


    I promptly demonstrated how to wrap a pill in a small sheet of waxed paper, turning it into something resembling a candy with little twists on both ends.


    A servant approached my table, picked up the stand with the pills, and carried it to the judges. They inspected the products skeptically; one even sniffed a pill and bit into it.


    ¡°They are acceptable¡± - one of the alchemists declared after a brief, whispered discussion among them.


    As for my opponent¡¯s results, they took another ten minutes to complete. Moreover, he rushed and overheated the furnace, turning his pills into rock-hard lumps.


    ¡°Below average¡± - the judges announced. - ¡°The next task: crafting a small healing pill.¡±


    This task, frankly, was already beyond what Chu Zhu Zhu had taught us. Nevertheless, I remembered all the recipes from his book, so I didn¡¯t anticipate any issues crafting the pill. Here, I refrained from experimenting and adhered strictly to the recipe, carefully verifying every stage of material processing using psionics.


    The process required grinding Silverleaf Tree bark to a fine powder, "baking" an intact, undamaged Furry Needlegrass in an oven, and making a "hot extraction" from the juicy stem of a Noon Creeping Vine. I had never worked with the vine before, so I first made an extract from a small piece of it. Only after ensuring a high-quality result did I process the remaining stem. Combining all the ingredients into a single pill and "evaporating" the excess liquid went smoothly. Once again, I used "vacuum evaporation" to avoid excessive heating while still completing the process efficiently.


    ¡°Done¡± - I said, placing the pill on the stand.


    ¡°You dried it too quickly. This means the pill is overheated on the outside and damp on the inside¡± - an alchemist from the Radiant Fingers Sect criticized me.


    ¡°You¡¯re welcome to test whether that¡¯s the case.¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s no need. It¡¯s obvious¡± - he stubbornly insisted.


    Nevertheless, a servant carried the stand to the judges.


    ¡°This small healing pill is of excellent quality¡± - one of the "allied" alchemists praised me.


    ¡°Impossible!¡± - the critic exclaimed indignantly. - ¡°I¡¯ve been crafting these pills every day for sixty years and know every stage of their preparation down to the second.¡± - He grabbed the pill and began examining it. Within seconds, his anger turned to confusion. - ¡°How did he do this? The core is still too raw, but if you place the pill in a sealed container, it will reach the proper moisture level throughout within a day. It took me ten years to determine the correct drying time and temperature.¡±


    ¡°Note that the Silverleaf Tree bark powder has not lost its properties, meaning the drying temperature was lower than usual¡± - another expert remarked.


    ¡°A thin layer of extract formed on the pill¡¯s surface, indicating rapid heating followed by cooling in dry air¡± - added a third.


    ¡°Your observations contradict each other, yet I see no error in them¡± - a fourth chimed in.


    ¡°How did you achieve this effect?¡± - one of the alchemists asked me.


    This question seemed to pertain to the exam, but Chu Zhu Zhu had endlessly lectured us that a true alchemist never shares their secrets, only their results.

 Chapter 20.25 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    ¡°Everything happened before your eyes¡± - I smiled. - ¡°I simply followed the recipe and my inspiration.¡±


    ¡°Ah, he¡¯s simply too brilliant¡± - exclaimed one of the alchemists from our sect.


    No sooner had these words been spoken than an explosion erupted at the neighboring table, and my opponent botched the extraction process. Glancing at the amused eyes of the praising alchemist, I realized he had timed his comment to disrupt the alchemy student¡¯s focus at just the right moment. I couldn¡¯t help but smile along with him. According to the competition rules, such a significant failure was considered a loss.


    ¡°Why did you prepare the extract in two stages?¡± - the critic continued, clearly unable to believe his own eyes.


    ¡°It was my first time crafting this pill, and I wasn¡¯t sure I fully understood the process as described in the recipe.¡±


    ¡°What?!!! Your first time? Khah!¡± - the alchemist exclaimed, jumping to his feet, then loudly coughing. A trickle of blood dripped from the corner of his mouth.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, sir. It¡¯s merely a low-grade small healing pill¡± - I attempted to ¡®reassure¡¯ him, which, naturally, had the opposite effect. - ¡°Anyone could make it on their first try.¡±


    ¡°KHAAAA!!!¡± - This time, he coughed up a child¡¯s fist-sized clot of blood.


    The alchemists from my sect smiled, while the opposing ones frowned. Though I seemed to downplay the significance of my achievements, it came across as an insult to someone who had been crafting these pills for sixty years.


    Meanwhile, my competition opponent stood with his head lowered, burning with shame. The duel between us unexpectedly turned into a battle of egos between me and the judges. My opponent was entirely forgotten, with no one even bothering to scold him for his failure or formally declare his loss.


    ¡°If this pill is so simple, how about something more challenging?¡± - asked one of the opposing judges as his colleague helped the heavily morally injured judge to a seat.


    ¡°Of course. I¡¯ll do my best¡± - I nodded, accepting the challenge.


    ¡°How about a Foundation Breakthrough Pill?¡±


    This pill was used by cultivators attempting to advance from the tenth level of Qi Condensation to the first level of Foundation Establishment. I had no idea how to cultivate at that level, let alone create such a pill. Moreover, crafting it required using Qi from at least the third level of Foundation Establishment.


    ¡°I can try, but I¡¯ll need a mid-grade Qi crystal charged with refined energy from the fifth level of Foundation Establishment.¡±


    The alchemist who suggested the task suddenly remembered that I was only at the fifth level of Qi Condensation and could only handle the most basic pills. Using Qi crystals was a common way for weaker alchemists to craft higher-ranking pills. However, there was a range within which a cultivator could manipulate energy beyond their level. A typical student could expect to handle energy five levels above their own. I had just proposed leaping ten levels, which once again shattered the judges¡¯ preconceptions. Moreover, a mid-grade crystal with such energy was far too expensive to waste on a trial.


    ¡°Fine! I happen to have one¡± - the judge growled through gritted teeth. His desire to prove my incompetence had apparently overridden his common sense.


    I glanced at one of our sect¡¯s judges, who hadn¡¯t stopped smirking. I subtly gestured to another student. He quickly understood my predicament.


    ¡°But we have two students here. If we¡¯re going to conduct a trial, why not involve them both?¡± - my ally suggested.


    The judge¡¯s teeth gritted twice as loudly as he pulled out a second crystal.Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    ¡°Huang To, don¡¯t disappoint me¡± - he said, glaring heavily at his student, who broke out in a cold sweat.


    ¡°Teacher¡­ I¡­¡± - he gulped nervously. - ¡°I¡¯ll do my best.¡±


    The judge was clearly dissatisfied with this promise but refrained from causing a scene in front of the audience, especially since the sect leaders were seated nearby, watching the spectacle with obvious interest. After all, there were no televisions here, and even such a relatively static performance could captivate the public¡¯s attention.


    ¡°The next task: crafting a Foundation Breakthrough Pill¡± - announced our judge loudly. - ¡°Two mid-grade crystals infused with refined Qi from the fifth level of Foundation Establishment have been generously provided by Grandmaster Alchemist Huyan Seo.¡±


    This task was much more complex. A total of eighteen preparatory operations had to be performed, and the Qi used during the final stage would determine the pill¡¯s effectiveness. The description of the pill-making process available to me was extremely vague. Ironically, I was most doubtful about the preparatory steps, while the supposedly most complex procedure of final ingredient fusion seemed straightforward and clear.


    I decided not to rush and let my opponent take the lead. Huang To confidently began preparing the ingredients while I busied myself with sorting mine. Huang To was at the tenth level of Qi Condensation, making him sufficiently qualified to successfully craft this pill. However, I wasn¡¯t about to give him such an opportunity. Moreover, the demands placed on me had already exceeded all reasonable limits, so it was time to punish the person who proposed making this pill. Since Huang To was Huyan Seo¡¯s student, it was only fitting for him to bear the consequences of my ambitions.


    While I slowly but surely prepared the simpler ingredients, I monitored my opponent¡¯s actions using psionics, analyzing the changes occurring in the herbs. Judging by his precision, he had experience preparing these ¡°semi-finished products¡± and only hesitated regarding his ability to properly combine them. Huyan Seo¡¯s approving gaze suggested he was confident in his student¡¯s success.


    I wasn¡¯t in a hurry and allowed Huang To to complete his preparations and begin merging the ingredients. Just as he channeled energy from the Qi crystal into the furnace, I extended a thin thread of Qi from my foot through the ground and the table leg directly to the alchemical furnace. Using this thread, I subtly scratched the bottom of the furnace. The red-hot bronze, brimming with vibrating spiritual energy, couldn¡¯t withstand the strain and burst apart, scattering fragments everywhere. Since I controlled the explosion using Probability Magic, one of the shards pierced Huang To¡¯s neck and spine, causing him to collapse to the ground, blood gushing from the wound.


    ¡°Huang To!¡± - screamed his teacher, rushing to his side.


    But it was already too late. While a torn artery might still be treatable, a severed spine was beyond even a legendary-quality pill¡¯s ability to heal.


    I, meanwhile, was so ¡°absorbed¡± in processing materials that I paid no attention to the explosion. By then, I already knew all the necessary steps for the preliminary preparations, so I meticulously performed them and moved on to the critical stage. Huyan Seo had recovered from his initial shock, coughed up three clots of blood, and now observed my actions with thinly veiled hatred. However, he didn¡¯t dare interfere directly, as our three sect alchemists were also watching the process closely.


    The final step involved mixing the ingredients in a specific sequence and introducing purified Qi from the crystal during the final stage. Afterward, I had to control the fusion of this Qi with the herbs¡¯ natural energy and establish an ¡°energy modulation¡± that would later influence the ¡°foundation breakthrough¡± process. I still didn¡¯t fully understand how cultivation advanced at the Foundation Establishment stage, but the seal on my left hand contained Qi from three different cultivators. Based on their energy, I could discern the distinctive features of this level¡¯s ¡°living¡± energy and separate it from the individual traits of the cultivators themselves.


    The entire audience held their breath as I worked to merge the energies. Fortunately, nothing unexpected happened, and the procedure was successfully completed. I only needed to perform a few final actions to stabilize the result and prevent the energy from dissipating.


    ¡°Done¡± - I said, placing the pill on a special stand where all the spectators could see it. A servant immediately grabbed the stand and delivered it to the judges for a closer inspection.


    ¡°Perfect!¡± - exclaimed the smiling alchemist in amazement. - ¡°This is already at the level of a master alchemist. Would you agree?¡±


    ¡°Yes, an excellent pill¡± his colleague concurred.


    The judges from the Radiant Fingers Sect spent a long time searching for flaws in my work but eventually had to admit that the deviations from the ¡°standard¡± were more indicative of my unique style than actual shortcomings.


    ¡°Since we¡¯ve confirmed our student¡¯s skills, why not conduct an oral exam for the master alchemist title as well?¡± - one of the judges suggested loudly.


    ¡°I support this idea. I believe our esteemed guests will ensure we don¡¯t show undue leniency and will ask all the necessary questions for such an exam.¡±


    The guests grumbled a bit but ultimately decided that failing me during the exam was their only chance to save face. After all, their student had died suddenly, making me the undisputed victor of this competition.

 Chapter 20.26 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    What followed was a question-and-answer session during which I recited the contents of the books I had read in Chu Zhu Zhu¡¯s laboratory. With my perfect memory, answering most of the questions was effortless. The judges raised topics I was unfamiliar with, and I either admitted my ignorance or made educated guesses based on the data I already knew. When I didn¡¯t have enough knowledge to speculate, I simply stated that I didn¡¯t understand the question.


    ¡°Excellent! Simply marvelous!¡± - exclaimed one of our judges at last. - ¡°This is more than sufficient to qualify for the master alchemist rank. Does anyone have objections?¡±


    The three judges, who had suffered utter moral defeat, no longer had the strength to protest. For the last ten minutes, they had simply been sitting with their mouths agape, resembling lifeless statues.


    ¡°Wonderful! By the authority vested in me as a third-rank Grandmaster Alchemist, I confer the title of Master Alchemist upon Tan Ji Tao and induct him into the Alchemist Guild of the Sect of Heavenly Blades.¡±


    ¡°Thank you, masters¡± - I said respectfully, bowing.


    ¡°Today, you have become the youngest Master Alchemist in the sect¡¯s history¡± - the head alchemist said with a smile. - ¡°We expect great achievements from you in the future.¡±


    ¡°I will do everything in my power to live up to your trust¡± - I replied, continuing to weave a web of polite words.


    ¡°Ha-ha! Well then, I declare the alchemist competition officially concluded¡± - announced Cheon Chu Han. Though he seemed slightly bored by the exam, he hadn¡¯t interrupted it because the spectacle enhanced the sect¡¯s image. - ¡°Now, according to tradition, we should have an exhibition match between the finalists. What do you think, if we hang your students from meat hooks, will they be able to simulate combat?¡± - he asked Kre Ka Tui with a smirk.


    ¡°Enough!¡± - Kre Ka Tui roared, slamming his fist on the table in front of him and splitting it in two.


    Without another word, he ascended into the sky and flew away, transforming into a rainbow of light. Even with my psionic-enhanced perception, I couldn¡¯t track his speed. If Kre Ka Tui had decided to kill me, I wouldn¡¯t even have noticed his attack. But apparently, I was too insignificant a target for him to risk conflict with our sect leader over me.


    ¡°Ho-ho, Master Kre Ka Tui seems upset¡± - Cheon Chu Han chuckled as he watched him leave. - ¡°In that case, let¡¯s move on to the second part of today¡¯s gathering.¡±


    With those words, the sect leader stood and walked deeper into the building.


    I quickly donned my jewelry, threw on my robe, and followed the servants who were already hurrying us to keep up. Narrow servant corridors led us through the palace, where my face and ragged attire were assessed once again. It was decided that even such tatters suited a lowly servant, and I was ushered into a room where other students who had passed the trials were already seated.


    I was immediately bombarded with congratulations for attaining the rank of Master Alchemist. Some offered sincere congratulations, while others fawned and tried to ingratiate themselves. I remained distant yet civil with both groups, not acting overly aloof. However, our interaction didn¡¯t last long before we were summoned to meet the sect leadership. The youthful faces surrounding me were so familiar by now that I barely registered that these thirty students were all that remained from the initial group of a thousand.


    Looking around, I realized that Liu Qiang was not among us. The girl had not survived the trials. I couldn¡¯t even remember whether she had perished during the seal ritual or in the tomb. Among the remaining students, there was no one I knew well. While I recognized many of their faces and some names, I hadn¡¯t built any significant relationship with them. Half of these thirty survivors were ruthless maniacs, consumed by fantasies of dominating others.


    While reflecting on the transience of existence, we were led into a lavishly decorated hall where the upper echelon of local society had gathered. At the center of attention, of course, was the sect leader. Cheon Chu Han sat on a golden throne, looking down at the surrounding commoners with a self-satisfied grin. Seated on either side of him were a middle-aged man and Cheon Wan Yu ¡ª the very elder who had placed the slave seal on me. Their familial resemblance was evident, and an ordinary person might assume they were the father and grandfather of the current leader. In reality, they were his son and grandson.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    Qi bestowed eternal youth on the talented, so such scenes were not uncommon among cultivator families. Among the other attendees, it was the relatively young cultivators who occupied the most prominent positions, while the elderly usually stood silently in the background. Of the elders, the familiar Sun Wei Sun appeared to be the oldest, which was likely a result of his great age rather than insufficient cultivation level.


    We were brought here to boast about the ¡°treasures¡± we had obtained in the tomb. Out of the thirty survivors, eight had managed to collect valuable items. Most of them were allowed to keep their spoils, but the sect leader ¡°persuaded¡± a couple of students to present their most intriguing finds as ¡°gifts for the benefit of the sect.¡± Naturally, those two fully understood the consequences of refusal, so no incidents occurred.


    I was the last to be called upon to "entertain the crowd." I intended to put on a performance that these smug faces wouldn¡¯t soon forget. No, I wasn¡¯t planning to shock them with defiance; rather, I aimed to play on their weakness ¡ª greed.


    ¡°And so, what treasures has our champion brought back from the Forbidden Tomb?¡± - Cheon Chu Han asked cheerfully as I stepped forward.


    ¡°Master, I would like to offer gifts to the sect and personally to some of those present.¡±


    ¡°Gifts? Well, let¡¯s see what you have to offer.¡±


    ¡°All of these, I present to you as the leader of the sect that enabled me to become a cultivator.¡±


    With those words, I dramatically extended my left hand and emptied an entire hoard of priceless treasures from my rings. When I had dealt with the Radiant Fingers Sect students, I discovered that each of them carried one of the tomb¡¯s ¡°treasures.¡± As far as I could understand, these treasures were distributed to trial participants to weed out those tempted by the power of the Gods and Demons while simultaneously limiting their development.


    Yes, these weapons and artifacts could provide a sharp increase in strength at the initial stages, but in the end, each one harbored a flaw. Now, using the Malicious Gaze technique, I could see the Heavenly Laws and Demonic Curses embedded within these items, designed to restrict those who used them for cultivation.


    Seeing the pile of over fifty treasures glowing with heavenly and demonic Qi, the crowd fell silent, ceasing their murmurs about the latest gossip. Even two ¡°rare¡± items were considered valuable acquisitions for the sect. Here, I had just laid out fifty high-quality artifacts. Most likely, the three inner-circle students I encountered in the tomb had spent several days there, discovering the library¡¯s entrance and the locations of its most valuable treasures.


    After each trial, the labyrinths would rearrange themselves, so knowing where to go and what to do in advance allowed these students to amass a remarkable collection of artifacts. Chi Hua Hua had explained that after the teleportation, students were left with at most one valuable item. My ¡°haul¡± was gathered later by blatantly robbing our so-called allied sect.


    After relishing the "moment of silence" and the twisted faces of those present, I pulled out a special item from my ring. It was the very sword with the Thousand Ruthless Strikes technique that the first opponent had used against me. The primary merit of this sword, however, was its appearance ¡ª a short, one-handed blade adorned with gold and a guard studded with precious gems. Even if it were an ordinary, useless piece of metal, no one would allow a mere student to possess such a treasure.


    As soon as I drew the sword, I felt the greedy gazes directed at it. The eyes of the person for whom this gift was intended burned the brightest. It seemed I hadn¡¯t misjudged his character.


    ¡°This sword, containing the Thousand Ruthless Strikes technique, I would like to gift to Master Cheon Wan Yu. I hope it proves useful in his difficult work.¡±


    The old man grinned, extended his hand, and drew the sword to himself, immediately examining the patterns and inscriptions on the blade.


    ¡°Heh-heh, this blade is undoubtedly worthy of being gifted to me¡± - declared its new owner. - ¡°But how can it help me in my work?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve heard you¡¯re a Master of Torture. This sword¡¯s technique, Thousand Ruthless Strikes, is described as inflicting severe injuries ¡ª not killing the target but merely wounding them. In combat, such a blade is entirely useless. However, for conducting interrogations, the ability to deliver a thousand wounds while ensuring the target¡¯s survival might come in handy. I hope this sword proves valuable to you.¡±


    ¡°A thousand ruthless strikes? I like how that sounds. I¡¯ll be sure to test it in my work¡± - Cheon Wan Yu smiled.


    That smile sent shivers down the spines of many present. Seeing the maniacal grin now spreading across my face as well, they concluded that provoking me was also unwise. Today, I had ingrained the desired conditioned reflex in their minds, and in the future, I would reinforce it with corresponding actions. For now, it was time for another gift with a hidden trap.


    ¡°This jade containing an incomprehensible mystical technique, I wish to present to Master Sun Wei Bonk for his kind attitude toward me¡± - I announced, producing the next treasure.

 Chapter 20.27 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    This plaque operated on the same principle as the one I had shattered in the tomb. However, unlike that piece of junk, this one was stunningly crafted. A pale-yellow piece of jade was inscribed with golden characters that glowed with inner light, emanating an ¡°ancient mystical aura.¡± When one attempted to comprehend the symbols engraved on the plaque, they would enter an internal world where they would be hypnotized into believing they were on the verge of understanding some great truth, some profound heavenly law that would make them one of the greatest cultivators in all of existence.


    Admittedly, the Heavenly Law embedded within this plaque could aid development and breakthroughs to a higher level of cultivation. However, with each such "free" breakthrough, a cultivator¡¯s future progress would slow more and more, eventually leaving them endlessly chasing the ¡°unattainable truth.¡± In reality, the plaque contained no great knowledge, but it served as an excellent decorative item, capable of turning any room into the ¡°mystical chambers of a great cultivator.¡± The plaque''s aura influenced anyone who saw it.


    Sun Wei Bonk didn¡¯t dare use a technique to pull the treasure toward himself, opting instead to send a servant to retrieve it. The elder¡¯s trembling hands took hold of my gift, and in his gaze, I didn¡¯t feel gratitude but infinite greed ¡ª and perhaps a sliver of goodwill toward a useful servant. Well, the blow had struck its target, and the poison was already starting to corrode his mind.


    ¡°My offerings are now complete¡± - I addressed the sect leader with a slight bow.


    Cheon Chu Han regarded me with a detached smile, masking some confusion. After all, I had parted with treasures so easily, treasures for which most of those present would gladly slit an enemy¡¯s throat.


    ¡°You¡¯ve done the sect a great service by bringing these gifts¡± - Cheon Chu Han said, scanning the treasures with his consciousness. - ¡°But what have you kept for yourself?¡±


    At this question, all eyes in the room lit up with greed, and everyone prepared to tear my body apart in pursuit of the impossibly valuable treasure I must have kept hidden, compared to which the sword and the plaque were mere trinkets. I did not disappoint, plunging the local elite into the depths of helpless envy.


    ¡°I obtained a seal from an ancient cultivator in the Forbidden Tomb, enhancing my control over Qi flows.¡±


    With these words, I extended both hands forward and revealed the tattooed seal on one of them. I then created crude and unstable threads of glowing Qi, looping out from my palms. The threads in my left hand were denser and more precise. Of course, this was all just for show. I could have made the threads perfect, but I wasn¡¯t about to reveal my actual level of skill. My goal was simply to demonstrate that the seal genuinely enhanced Qi control.


    ¡°Come to me¡± - commanded Cheon Chu Han.


    I stepped forward and approached him. He placed his hand on my shoulder and carefully scanned my body. However, compared to the power of the spirit from the tomb, his probing attempts were laughable. All his efforts to examine the seal were blocked by its masking properties. Still, even the traces he could sense were enough to confirm the complexity and ¡°ancient origin¡± of the structures embedded within.


    ¡°Hm...¡± - The sect leader frowned. - ¡°Return to your place.¡± - I obediently stepped back. - ¡°This seal was undoubtedly created by the spirit of the Forbidden Tomb. And you truly haven¡¯t hidden a single artifact obtained there¡± - he declared, concluding his examination.


    As I had suspected, during close contact, a more powerful cultivator could indeed ¡°peek¡± into a student¡¯s rings. But inside mine, the only truly valuable item was the Spiritual Compass, which was clearly of modern design. Considering it had been entrusted to ordinary students, it was unlikely to be a priceless treasure. After all, Kre Ka Tui hadn¡¯t even inquired about its fate.


    ¡°Why did you so easily give up all these treasures?¡± - Cheon Chu Han continued probing.


    ¡°I prefer not to rely on external tools but to depend solely on my own strength. Therefore, techniques for using Qi interest me far more.¡±This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.


    The sect leader nodded approvingly, pleased with my modesty and prudence.


    ¡°By the way, what technique did you study in the Phantom Library?¡± - Cheon Chu Han asked.


    Based on my assumptions, ordinary students, who had never been trained to memorize information deliberately, couldn¡¯t fully study a library technique within just one hour. Important details about utilizing these techniques were carefully interwoven with philosophical musings and descriptions of the Heavenly Laws and Demonic Curses. Therefore, the sect relied on the experiences of many students to piece together the original technique.


    Most likely, that was why they organized this bloody recruitment and training process ¡ª to reconstruct these techniques bit by bit, as they were genuinely high-ranking and even someone like Cheon Chu Han couldn¡¯t dismiss such knowledge.


    When I was absorbing the information from the library¡¯s books, I noticed that different techniques appeared with varying frequencies. Most were simple, but occasionally, more intriguing ones emerged. The Heavenly Hammer technique I used to crush opponents in the tomb was one of the rarest and also one of the most effective. According to the description, it could penetrate most defenses, and the only way to block it was with the Heavenly Shield technique, another rare skill from the Phantom Library.


    Naturally, I wasn¡¯t about to reveal that the entire library was now stored in my head. However, I saw no harm in sharing the Heavenly Hammer technique. After all, I had no intention of using these techniques myself due to the limitations they imposed. The more a cultivator used them, the more they became bound by the Heavenly Laws embedded in the techniques, stifling their potential for growth. Whoever invented these Heavenly Laws was a genius ¡ª effectively neutralizing the threat of rebellion from 99% of cultivators.


    ¡°I studied the Heavenly Hammer technique¡± - I answered the question.


    Surprised whispers rippled through the hall.


    ¡°Excellent¡± - Cheon Chu Han said with a now genuine smile. - ¡°Can you share with me what you managed to remember? In the past two hundred years, only eight students have acquired this powerful technique. Unfortunately, even their combined understanding wasn¡¯t enough to utilize it.¡±


    ¡°Explaining it would take too long. I can record my understanding of the technique onto spiritual jade.¡±


    ¡°Oh? Bring high-quality jade immediately!¡± - the sect leader ordered.


    Within seconds, a servant rushed to him with a finely crafted slab of bright green jade. He gestured for the servant to bring it to me. Examining the offering, I confirmed its high quality. Moreover, the jade was infused with neutral Qi, which would preserve even the subtlest nuances of meaning, capturing my thoughts in a single imprint.


    I focused and began forming the image I intended to describe the Heavenly Hammer technique. Each Phantom Library technique consisted of three parts. The first detailed the technique itself ¡ª the method for manipulating one¡¯s Qi. The second explained how to enhance the technique using a specific Heavenly Law or Demonic Curse. The final part described the Heavenly Law and the principles underlying it.


    I planned to outline the basics of the technique, provide a detailed explanation of how to amplify it with the Heavenly Law, and very thoroughly describe the Heavenly Law itself. The result would be a text that not only blocked a user¡¯s development but also deeply entrenched the limiting principles. While I couldn¡¯t estimate the exact developmental ceiling it imposed, it undoubtedly existed.


    Gathering my thoughts, I began recording them onto the jade, ensuring no ¡°extra¡± information was included. Due to the volume of data, the process took nearly five minutes. Finally, I exhaled, opened my eyes, and handed the tablet to the servant. He quickly delivered it to the sect leader.


    Cheon Chu Han began reading the tablet, his eyes widening in astonishment.


    ¡°This¡­ This is a complete description of the Heavenly Hammer technique and the associated Heavenly Law of Nine Stars!¡± - he nearly exclaimed.


    The room erupted in a buzz of astonishment.


    ¡°I forbid you to share this technique with anyone other than the elders of the sect¡± - Cheon Chu Han commanded.


    ¡°Of course¡± - I said with a bow.


    Cheon Chu Han spent several more minutes poring over the tablet before reluctantly tearing himself away from its contents.


    ¡°Tan Ji Tao, you have rendered a great service to the sect, and your diligence will not go unrewarded. Normally, students who pass the Forbidden Tomb trials are sent to the sect¡¯s Outer Forest to serve as guards and trackers. However, those who visited the Phantom Library are entitled to become junior students of the Outer Court. To you, I grant the rank of senior student of the Outer Court.¡±


    ¡°Thank you¡± - I said with another bow.


    A senior student of the Outer Court? Even the title of his son and heir wouldn¡¯t have been enough to earn my gratitude. Though I was weak now, I planned to seize control of this sect in the near future and use it as a stepping stone for my ascension.


    ¡°Bring the ring of a senior student of the Outer Court¡± - the sect leader commanded.


    A servant rushed over and handed me the ring. I scanned its contents and found several pills and a full set of clothing appropriate for my new status.

 Chapter 20.28 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    ¡°The assembly is adjourned¡± - Cheon Chu Han proclaimed. - ¡°Those interested may attend the traditional feast.¡±


    With that, the sect leader rose from his throne and vanished in a flash. The crowd immediately erupted into a louder buzz, discussing the latest developments.


    ¡°Elder Sun Wei Bonk wishes to speak with you¡± - said a servant who promptly approached me.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go¡± - I nodded.


    The crowd stared at me, pointing and murmuring. I doubted I had been summoned for anything nefarious. The servant wore the garments of the Sun family, so there shouldn¡¯t have been any confusion about who needed me urgently ¡ª especially given that the elder himself was openly watching me without breaking his gaze. Following the servant, I entered an adjacent, richly decorated hall. The atmosphere here was more businesslike, and prying ears were notably absent.


    ¡°Tan Ji Tao¡± - Sun Wei Bonk said as soon as I stepped into the room.


    ¡°I greet the elder¡± - I replied with a slight bow.


    ¡°As you may know, my grandson recently perished¡± - the elder began without preamble. - ¡°My own son has failed to live up to expectations, so I have decided to adopt a grandson who will inherit my legacy. Your powerful cultivation foundation caught my attention even back in the camp. I wish to give you the opportunity to prove that you are worthy of joining my family.¡±


    ¡°It would be an honor, Elder¡± - I said with another bow.


    ¡°You have become a senior student of the Outer Court and a Master Alchemist. That is a good start. But to even be considered as a candidate to join my family, you must first reach the first level of Foundation Establishment.¡±


    ¡°I will do everything in my power to reach that level as quickly as possible¡± - I replied sincerely.


    ¡°I expect nothing less. Your current status is still too low for me to take you under my protection. Therefore, you will become the personal student of Grandmaster Alchemist Mu Niam.¡±


    At that moment, the smiling alchemist who had served as a judge during the trial entered the room.


    ¡°I greet you, Master¡± - I said with yet another bow. It was time to rise above the need to bow to everyone I met.


    ¡°Of course, I accept this highly respected alchemist as my new mentor¡± - I added.


    ¡°Then I leave him in your care, Mu Niam¡± - Sun Wei Bonk said, giving me a stern look before turning and walking away.


    ¡°Tan Ji Tao, as the representative of the Alchemist Guild in the Sect of Heavenly Blades, I want to congratulate you once again and present you with this guild member¡¯s ring. You are now my personal student. However, let¡¯s keep this between us for now. I will announce it officially later.¡±


    ¡°Understood¡± - I nodded. Oh, how these political intrigues amused me.


    ¡°For now, I would like to invite you to the Alchemists¡¯ Banquet that our guild is hosting in honor of welcoming another Master Alchemist. Let¡¯s go.¡±


    ¡°Thank you¡± - I said as I followed my new teacher.


    Glancing into the ring he had given me, I found a set of clothing made from higher-quality materials in the guild¡¯s colors. Other than that, it held nothing particularly interesting.


    ¡°I think I should change¡± - I suggested.


    ¡°We¡¯ll stop by the bathhouse first, where you can wash off the sweat and blood of a student and don the attire befitting an alchemist¡± - Mu Nyan replied, making it clear which outfit I should choose.


    ¡°Of course.¡±


    Half an hour later, I entered a cozy hall, freshly bathed, impeccably dressed, and smelling faintly of herbs. Around a large table sat about twenty people. Judging by the badges on their clothing, only three were Grandmasters. It seemed the guild was experiencing a shortage of skilled personnel.This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.


    I was introduced to the assembly and seated beside Chu Zhu Zhu, who apparently was still officially considered my teacher. The initial toasts followed protocol: praises for the guild, the celebration of new achievements, and the raising of weak wine or herbal tea. I opted for tea, not wanting to discover how alcohol might affect me on such an important occasion. Besides, a drunk cultivator was a disaster waiting to happen.


    Once the formalities concluded, Chu Zhu Zhu began boasting about how he had raised a genius student like me. He proudly declared that my success in the trials elevated him above ordinary alchemists. This unsubtle attempt to equate himself with Mu Niam didn¡¯t go unnoticed. At the height of his triumph, the Grandmaster calmly interjected, revealing that I had already agreed to become his personal student, as Chu Zhu Zhu no longer had anything to teach me.


    My former teacher was visibly disheartened, casting a reproachful glance at me before proceeding to drown his sorrows in wine, nearly chugging it from the bottle.


    Meanwhile, Mu Niam decided to assert his superiority by inquiring about the "great treasure" Chu Zhu Zhu supposedly found in the toilet of the Eighth Expedition to the Blue Mountains. In response, Zhu Ru Ru retorted that Mu Nyam should handle toilet excavations himself, as he had never indulged in such activities. A squabble ensued, and, frustrated by his opponent''s resilience, Mu Niam began recounting all the times he had managed to prank his former "classmate¡± with whom he had once started studying alchemy and cultivation.


    Mu Niam took the spotlight during the banquet, recounting anecdotes of his youthful pranks on Chu Zhu Zhu. While some of the stories were humorous, they served a more strategic purpose ¡ª establishing his dominance over his old rival. As the tales continued, a heated exchange flared between the two alchemists.


    At one point, Mu Niam declared, ¡°I hope you meet your end soon, Chu Zhu Zhu.¡± The remark stirred the room, and I decided it was time to intervene before the banquet devolved into chaos.


    ¡°Master Mu Niam¡± - I said, turning to him with a respectful smile. - ¡°You should not wish death upon Master Chu Zhu Zhu.¡±


    ¡°What? Are you daring to tell me what to do?¡± - Mu Niam glared at me, his intoxicated gaze narrowing in challenge.


    ¡°If Master Chu Zhu Zhu dies, who will entertain you with such delightful stories and pranks?¡± - I replied, feigning innocence.


    Mu Niam paused, seemingly caught off guard. Then, he broke into raucous laughter. - ¡°Ha! Ha-ha! You¡¯re right, Tan Ji Tao. Long life to you, Master Chu Zhu Zhu! Ha-ha-ha-ha!¡±


    The room joined in the laughter, the tension dissolving. Even Chu Zhu Zhu managed a drunken smile before collapsing face-first into a salad I had strategically placed in front of him. This prompted another round of laughter, and the gathering shifted to a lighter, more celebratory mood.


    As the banquet continued into the evening, the alchemists began sharing amusing or interesting stories from their lives. While they sipped weak wine or herbal tea, I quietly observed, using the opportunity to gather valuable information about the guild¡¯s inner politics ¡ª who allied with whom, who held grudges, and who could potentially be useful to me.


    The room gradually emptied as the alchemists either left for their quarters or passed out at the table. I remained completely sober, seeing no point in dulling my senses. The insights I had gained during the evening would prove crucial for navigating the sect¡¯s intricate web of alliances and rivalries.


    Once the banquet concluded, one of the junior alchemists offered to guide me to the Outer Court steward, who would assign me living quarters. By then, it was late, and the main officials had retired for the night, leaving the task to their deputies.


    We left the palace, descending a moonlit path that led to a small settlement clinging to the mountain slope. After half an hour of walking, we reached the designated building, and my guide promptly left.


    Inside, behind a stone counter, sat a young man at the eighth level of Qi Condensation. He looked me over with a skeptical smirk as I introduced myself.


    ¡°I¡¯m Tan Ji Tao, a senior student of the Outer Court and a Master Alchemist¡± - I announced. - ¡°I need a residence suitable for my status.¡±


    ¡°Senior student?¡± - he sneered. - ¡°Well, well. Follow me.¡±


    He grabbed a glowing crystal that served as a light source and led me through a series of passages carved into the mountain. As we walked, I noted the condition of the living quarters. Most were simple stone cells with no amenities. Some didn¡¯t even have doors. What a miserable sight.


    ¡°Here¡¯s your room¡± - he finally said, pointing to a spacious but filthy chamber. The floor was half stone, half dirt, and one wall leaked foul-smelling liquid from a nearby latrine.


    ¡°Are you joking? I¡¯m a Master Alchemist and a senior student, and you¡¯re offering me this hovel?¡± - I asked, my voice sharp with anger.


    ¡°You¡¯re just a boy with a fifth-level Qi Condensation¡± - he replied smugly, clearly relishing his perceived authority. - ¡°If I say you¡¯ll live here, then you¡¯ll live here.¡±


    I didn¡¯t waste time arguing. Without a word, I drove my fist into his stomach. The force made him double over, but before he could cry out, I jabbed his throat, silencing him. What followed was a systematic beating, during which I broke several of his ribs and both his arms. Lifting his whimpering body by the throat, I looked him in the eyes and spoke coldly.


    ¡°You should respect alchemists and senior students. Consider this a lesson for your insolence. If you dare complain about me to anyone, I will ensure you die a slow, painful death, and your body will never be found.¡±


    With that, I tossed him into a dark corner near the latrine. To emphasize my point, I activated the Malicious Gaze technique at full intensity. Judging by the urine-soaked puddle forming around him, the effect was convincing.

 Chapter 20.29 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    Taking another look around, I grabbed the glowing crystal, walked over to the stone door, and tried to close it. The door moved with difficulty, but in the end, I managed to slam it shut, leaving the beaten loser in darkness and solitude. I hadn¡¯t hit him too hard, so apart from broken arms and ribs, he didn¡¯t have any other injuries. He¡¯ll recover.


    Satisfied, I picked up the glowing crystal and returned to the small alcove where the steward had been stationed. I sat down on a stool and entered a meditative state. For the rest of the night, I processed the Qi from the seal on my left hand and studied the slave seal, working to weaken its grip. At one point, I realized the beaten loser had tried to activate it. However, my efforts to disable the pain-inducing component had been successful, and I felt nothing.


    At dawn, a man in his thirties entered the room. His fine clothing and the unmistakable aura of a Core Formation cultivator marked him as someone important.


    ¡°Where is Sli Ker?¡± - he asked curtly.


    ¡°Who?¡± - I replied innocently.


    ¡°My useless deputy.¡±


    ¡°No idea. I¡¯ve been waiting for him all night. My name is Tan Ji Tao, a new senior disciple and master alchemist.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve seen you¡± - the man said dismissively. - ¡°I am Wang Zhu Tang, the steward of the Outer Court. What do you need?¡±


    ¡°I need a residence¡± - I replied bluntly.


    ¡°Fine. Follow me.¡±


    We retraced the same path I had taken the night before and returned to the room near the latrine.


    ¡°It¡¯s locked... strange¡± - the steward said, noticing the closed door. Sli Ker hadn¡¯t yet regained consciousness, so his Qi was barely detectable. - ¡°In any case, this will be your room.¡±


    ¡°Next to the toilet?¡± - I protested. - ¡°What kind of sect is this, full of paupers? I am a cultivator and a master alchemist! One snap of my fingers and I could build my own house. And you expect me to live in this shack?¡±


    ¡°Build a house?¡± - the steward sneered. - ¡°Fine. Let¡¯s see.¡±


    We passed through a small settlement of shabby houses belonging to other disciples and approached an area with more respectable homes adorned with jade and gold accents.


    ¡°You can build your house here¡± - he said, pointing to an overgrown plot filled with grass, bushes, and bamboo. - ¡°Over there is the residence of Master Alchemist Sui Ci De, and nearby are the private quarters of senior disciple No Bo Dy. Does this spot suit you?¡±


    I surveyed the area and took note of the view.


    ¡°Yes, it¡¯ll do¡± - I said finally.


    The steward said nothing further and walked away, evidently satisfied that he¡¯d taught me a lesson.


    I explored the assigned plot, scanning it with psionic energy to assess how best to lay the foundation. While I couldn¡¯t fit a palace in this space, I could build a decent-sized house with a terrace. Now, I just needed to rally some local cultivators to gather building materials for me.


    A short distance away, I found a suitable rock formation protruding from the ground. Composed of granite and quartz, it was perfect for construction. I could carve out most of my future home myself, but for the roof and structural beams, I would need large stone blocks that would be challenging to lift on my own. However, a dozen Qi Condensation Stage cultivators or a couple of Foundation Establishment Stage cultivators could easily handle the task.


    First, I returned to the Alchemist Guild, having memorized its location. There, I learned that as a master alchemist, I was required to produce a specified quantity of pills each month for the sect. In return, I was assigned a personal laboratory and a modest supply of ¡°basic materials¡± commonly used to solidify pills into their final form. These included clay, starch, gluten, and resin.This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    After asking around, I discovered that opportunities to earn money in the Outer Court were scarce. Most cultivators here were as poor as temple mice, with no means to pay for pills. Typically, disciples gathered herbs from the wild and gave them to an alchemist, who would concoct pills using half the collected herbs, keeping the other half for themselves.


    While there was potential for profit working with disciples of the Inner Court, they mainly required pills at the Foundation Establishment Stage and higher, which I couldn¡¯t yet produce.


    I took a portable alchemist¡¯s furnace and some basic materials from my laboratory, packed them into my master alchemist¡¯s ring, and headed to the settlement where the Outer Court disciples lived. On the way, I picked a large palm leaf and two bamboo shoots.


    Upon reaching the settlement, I found an open square where disciples loitered, looking more like drugged-out thugs than aspiring cultivators. Considering the complete lack of support they received from the sect, this wasn¡¯t surprising. Essentially, the entire Outer Court survived on scraps, with their only access to cultivation techniques and methods being through sheer persistence.


    Choosing the prime spot in the shade of a large tree, I drove two bamboo poles into the ground and tied the palm leaf to them. This spectacle drew the attention of onlookers, who began to gather around. Using the Rainbow Qi technique, I extended a thin strand of Qi from my left hand, tracing it across the bamboo poles to inscribe two glowing characters on the leaf: ¡°Master Alchemist.¡± The inscription shimmered with fiery orange and gold, leaving the crowd awestruck.


    I set up my portable furnace in front of me and called out:


    ¡°My name is Tan Ji Tao. I am the new master alchemist of the Outer Court. I concoct pills using the client¡¯s materials. Almost for free.¡±


    ¡°¡®Almost for free¡¯? What does that mean?¡± - one bold onlooker asked. He was a burly cultivator at the third level of the Foundation Establishment Stage, clearly the strongest among those present.


    ¡°You¡¯ll work it off later by helping me build my house¡± - I said confidently.


    ¡°Alright¡± - the thug-like cultivator agreed. He looked like the type to haul heavy loads, as long as they were too large to steal.


    My future workforce scattered, only to return a minute later with an armful of second-rate herbs.


    ¡°Here! Make me Scorching Qi pills¡± - the thug demanded.


    ¡°What¡¯s your name?¡± - I asked.


    ¡°He Ro In. Everyone here knows me.¡±


    I started sorting through the herbs, separating the different types. Though the materials were aged, they were still usable. Deciding there was no point in striving for quality, I prepared to create all the pills in one batch. After the necessary steps of grinding, evaporating, drying, and mixing, I formed ten pills, drying them in the furnace. Within ten minutes, I handed the completed pills to the client.


    ¡°Excellent¡± - he said with a grin. - ¡°You¡¯ll keep making pills for me.¡±


    I didn¡¯t understand, did he think I¡¯d work for free?


    ¡°See you at noon¡± - I called after him.


    ¡°What¡¯s at noon?¡± - He Ro In asked, turning back.


    ¡°At noon, you¡¯ll show up here and help me build my house.¡±


    ¡°Sure, keep dreaming.¡±


    Looks like my first example for public punishment had chosen itself. I¡¯d have to confirm the rules about killing disciples.


    After this, clients came pouring in, signing up to be part of the labor force. I learned the names of each one, noting what I had concocted for them and how much it would cost.


    About an hour later, a breathless alchemist came running over and whispered in my ear.


    ¡°Why are you making pills for free?¡±


    ¡°Who told you such nonsense?¡± - I asked, feigning surprise. - ¡°All of them will work it off tenfold building my house.¡±


    ¡°What house?¡± - the alchemist asked, confused.


    ¡°A stone one¡± - I said with a menacing smile. The surrounding clients instinctively stepped back at my expression. - ¡°Made from massive granite blocks, which they¡¯ll carry on their backs until they drop dead.¡±


    ¡°This is the Outer Court¡± - my colleague objected. - ¡°Promises like that mean nothing here.¡±


    ¡°By the way¡± - I said, as if struck by an idea, - ¡°what punishments are allowed here for murder and torture of Outer Court disciples?¡±


    ¡°Oh, that¡¯s easy¡± - the alchemist replied with a dismissive wave. - ¡°None, really. This is the Outer Court, after all! Here, only the strong survive. Though, there¡¯s an unspoken rule: don¡¯t kill more than three people in one day.¡±


    ¡°Well, then there¡¯s nothing to worry about¡± - I said, rubbing my hands together with glee. - ¡°Who else needs pills? Step right up!¡±


    After my statement, the crowd suddenly realized they didn¡¯t need pills after all and scattered. No matter, I had already secured at least a dozen workers. Now, I only had to wait until noon to begin my demonstration.


    I folded up my "banner" and went out in search of the herb known as Blue Flax. Although it was a Qi-infused plant, no one in their right mind would bother gathering it since it was an extremely potent poison. Consuming it caused only diarrhea, but if its fresh sap entered the bloodstream, it induced excruciating pain, convulsions, and rapid tissue necrosis.


    In short, despite its harmful properties, Blue Flax had no practical applications, so nobody collected it. Even back in the mountain camp, I occasionally came across its lovely blue blossoms. Here, in an area richer in Qi, it could grow abundantly and unbothered since all the ¡°useful¡± plants were immediately uprooted, leaving this ¡°weed¡± to thrive undisturbed.

 Chapter 20.30 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    Half an hour later, I stumbled upon a perfect meadow of Blue Flax and harvested it completely, extracting nearly three glasses of sap. The next step was purification and distillation, yielding a hundred milligrams of pure toxin. Afterward, I searched for a thorn from a suitable tree and carefully drilled a hole through it using Qi. Finally, I fashioned the thorn into a crude syringe, using the stomach of a freshly killed rabbit as a reservoir for the poison.


    Right at noon, I returned to the square and scanned the area. Of all the workers I had ¡°hired¡± only two had shown up, and they seemed to be here more out of curiosity than obligation. As for He Ro In, he was meditating in his quarters, processing the Qi from the pills I had made for him.


    I didn¡¯t bother trying to persuade him to keep his word. It was already clear that he wasn¡¯t planning to go anywhere for the next few hours. So, I approached the door to his quarters, turned the wooden latch to dust with a flick of my hand, then burst inside at full speed and struck him directly on the head, injecting Qi from the seal in my hand.


    Unfamiliar Qi entering the body caused spasms and convulsions, especially if it came from a stronger cultivator. While there was a simple method to neutralize this ¡°poison¡± ¡ª by mixing the foreign Qi with one¡¯s own and then either expelling or absorbing it, injecting Qi directly into the brain immediately rendered the target unconscious. Recovering from this state without assistance was extremely difficult.


    This phenomenon was well-documented in the alchemy texts I¡¯d read; it was a typical result of ingesting a high-grade pill beyond one¡¯s capacity to control its "medical Qi." Knowing exactly what I was doing, I applied a slight variation of the technique, using the "Qi Blade" embedded in my seal. However, instead of draining energy, I injected it.


    Once He Ro In collapsed into unconsciousness, I immediately injected my thorn-syringe into his carotid artery and emptied all the poison into his bloodstream. A minute later, I cleared his brain of my Qi to revive him, but by then the toxin had already taken effect, delivering its unforgettable sensation.


    According to the book, Blue Flax sap was used in torture and executions. It inflicted such agony that even basic Qi manipulation became impossible. It was effective only against cultivators at the Foundation Establishment Stage or lower. For more advanced practitioners, it was little more than a mild inconvenience¡ªthough it still caused diarrhea. That was why no one bothered eradicating it from the area.


    He Ro In began screaming and convulsing violently. Grabbing him by the scruff of his neck, I dragged him outside and threw him into the center of the square. A crowd quickly gathered, drawn by the commotion, but no one dared to help him.


    ¡°He broke our agreement and refused to help build my house¡± - I declared loudly. - ¡°This is his punishment. In ten minutes, I expect all my debtors here. Those who don¡¯t show up will consider sharing his fate as a mercy.¡±


    With that, I turned and went back into He Ro In¡¯s quarters to conduct a thorough search. I had already confiscated all the valuable items from his spatial ring.


    As I rummaged through his belongings, tearing through his hidden stashes, the steward of the Outer Court, Wang Zhu Tang, appeared in the square. He took one look at the writhing body in the pool of bluish blood, asked a few questions of the onlookers, and left without even bothering to address me. It was clear enough what had happened.


    ¡°Well then, who¡¯s ready to work for me today? Or perhaps someone else needs some pills?¡±


    The crowd stared at me with wide eyes. In response, I swept my gaze over them with the Malicious Gaze, and they shrank back, trying to avoid making eye contact. A few moments later, the most ¡°responsible¡± of my debtors rushed over, falling to their knees and shouting that they were eager to work for me for the rest of their lives.Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    In the end, I had assembled a work crew and led them to the construction site. The other disciples, who were responsible for cleaning up the area, began disposing of what remained of the once proud and strong He Ro In, a third-level Foundation Establishment cultivator.


    To start, I tasked the weakest disciples in the group with clearing the site of all vegetation. The rest I led to the rock outcrop. There, I adapted a Qi-thread technique I¡¯d learned for slicing through the rocky mass in vertical cuts. This method was slow but effective, and I was in no rush after all, I was building a house, not carving up an army of enemies. Once I had separated a "slab¡± I cut it into individual "logs¡± which my workers then transported to the construction site.


    Surprisingly, carrying the blocks wasn¡¯t as difficult for the laborers as I had anticipated. By reinforcing their bodies with Qi, three or four disciples could carry a single block without much strain. After all, the goal wasn¡¯t to torture them like Sisyphus but simply to move the materials from point A to point B. Still, for some of them, even this task proved too much, so I ¡°motivated¡± them with encouraging shouts.


    ¡°Come on, stop slacking! Your bodies are too weak, and that¡¯s why your cultivation suffers. You must saturate your muscles with Qi to prevent them from tearing when carrying stones. You also need to fortify your bones so they don¡¯t break when a stone falls on your foot. And most importantly, you must channel Qi to your brains to start thinking ahead about the consequences of trying to deceive me. Now, get moving! Faster, faster! Hop to it! And yes, you, also strengthen those bones!¡±


    Despite some minor injuries, the construction proceeded smoothly overall. I applied my healing skills while disguising them as the effects of ¡°miraculous pills¡± made from nothing more than clay and random weeds. The main challenge was ensuring that the weeds I used didn¡¯t include Blue Flax, or my workers would be out of commission for three days.


    I approached the construction with care. Unlike the rickety shacks most Outer Court disciples lived in, structures so unstable they looked ready to collapse at a moment¡¯s notice, I made sure to lay a proper foundation, clearing the ground down to the bedrock. I began placing the granite blocks, binding them together with a Qi thread that melted a thin layer of stone, fusing the blocks into a seamless monolith. This method ensured the walls would have exceptional strength. With a solid grasp of mechanics and structural engineering, I built without fear that the stone roof would come crashing down on my head.


    By evening, a solid and reliable mansion stood before me, complete with a basement, two floors, and a large gabled roof. The structure was built to withstand not only rain and snow but also hail, tsunamis, tornadoes, and volcanic eruptions. I still needed to finish the interior, decorate the walls with ornaments, install doors and furniture, but even in its current state, the house was considered ¡°livable¡± by local standards and an impressive display of status. After all, it wasn¡¯t some ramshackle hut with a dirt floor but a proper stone palace.


    ¡°Well, there you go, nothing to be afraid of. We finished it all in one day. I¡¯m proud of you!¡±


    While I admired my new home, bathed in the rays of the setting sun, my workers lay sprawled on the ground, groaning and catching their breath. Two of them even managed to break through to the next cultivation level when a granite slab fell on them. The butthole strain was so intense that their Qi spontaneously condensed, without the need for any pills.


    ¡°Tomorrow, you¡¯ll work on landscaping the grounds. We¡¯ll need to build a retaining wall to support the slope here, another to create a terrace there, and perhaps some granite tables and benches. Oh, and bring a couple of trees from the forest to plant.¡±


    The collective groan from the workers made it clear they understood the massive workload ahead, possibly even greater than today¡¯s.


    Feeling satisfied, I accompanied my workers to dinner. I made sure they all received double portions of food since they¡¯d need their strength for another day of grueling labor. Interestingly, more than half of my workers were of a higher cultivation level than me, but none dared object to my authoritative tone. And when I cast the Malicious Gaze their way, they became as docile as lambs.


    The next morning, as my workers toiled diligently with full dedication, other disciples came by to marvel at my mansion. They quickly realized that by rallying just a dozen or so workers into a group, it was entirely possible to build decent homes instead of living in pitiful shacks.


    Some began pondering the idea of constructing their own ¡°village homes.¡± I immediately seized the opportunity to advertise my crew of professional builders, promising timely completion and adherence to blueprints. Upon hearing this, my workers almost howled in despair, though only until I announced the pricing structure and promised to share two-thirds of the profits with them.

 Chapter 20.31 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    At this point, it was the potential buyers who started clutching their heads, wondering where they¡¯d find that much money. It didn¡¯t even occur to them to organize a community effort and build houses for each other within a month. The local mindset didn¡¯t entertain such cooperation; instead, they were more likely to slit each other¡¯s throats than work together for free. This conveniently ensured no one could replicate my palace.


    After lunch, I dismissed all my conscripted laborers, handing out a single restorative pill as a farewell bonus for the entire group. Moving forward, I planned to finish my house on my own since the remaining tasks were too delicate for these rough-and-tumble workers. Their understanding of precision was laughable ¡ª they considered a five-centimeter margin of error acceptable and couldn¡¯t fathom why tight-fitting joints were necessary until I explained it was for aesthetic reasons. Truly, dealing with these wild cultivators was an exercise in patience.


    Although I could complete the remaining work later, my current priority was advancing my cultivation. At the fifth level of Qi Condensation, I was far from my ultimate goal. To start, I needed more knowledge about the factors influencing breakthroughs to the next level.


    After questioning several disciples, I learned that the Outer Court had a small public library containing basic cultivation techniques. Upon arriving, I found a dilapidated building managed by a solitary old man. Though he had reached the peak of the Foundation Establishment Stage, he seemed more focused on preventing students from damaging the book-reading device than on sharing wisdom. When I asked if there were books detailing the theory of Qi, he didn¡¯t even understand my question. My follow-up inquiry - "What exactly is Qi?" - seemed to trigger a mental error, as the old man froze like a statue.


    Leaving the old man in his existential stupor, I turned to the local ¡°great knowledge.¡± It quickly became apparent that cultivators could only process information in the form of techniques, specific instructions for simple, practical tasks. Attempts to explain the reasoning behind these techniques were entirely absent. The texts addressed "what¡± "when¡± "where¡± and "how¡± but asking "why" was grounds for immediate execution.


    The library housed only two dozen books, which I finished reading before dinner. Compared to the material needed to pass the alchemist¡¯s exam, this was so simple and primitive it was almost nauseating to read. Even the techniques from the Phantom Library were two orders of magnitude more detailed. Nonetheless, this ¡°brush with knowledge¡± yielded some useful insights. I found a book describing the stages of cultivation and basic approaches for advancing to the next level.


    As I already knew, the foundation of cultivation was the Qi Condensation Stage. At this stage, a cultivator accumulated Qi in their single functional channel within the Qi Strand.


    Upon reaching the tenth level of Qi Condensation, the cultivator would begin forming condensation points within the ten energy centers of their body, interconnected by twenty-two channels. The first center to be developed was the lowest one, referred to as the ¡°Phoenix Tail¡± or the ¡°Foundation.¡± Appropriately, this stage was called Foundation Establishment, though I thought ¡°Tail Formation¡± had a nice ring to it.


    Once all ten foundations were established, the cultivator underwent the Awakening Ritual, which activated the remaining twenty-one channels in their body. At this point, their life energy would flow through the channels, merging with Qi. How this differed from my current state was unclear, but the book described it as a ¡°new world of cultivation.¡±


    After the channels were awakened, the energy centers began functioning properly, and one of them was chosen to form the Qi Core. At this stage, the cultivator faced an important decision: which energy center would house their core. However, the options were limited. Placing the Qi Core in paired centers disrupted the body¡¯s energy balance, causing numerous issues. Only four ¡°central¡± centers were viable, and even among these, the topmost and bottommost centers were vulnerable to damage due to their location at the body¡¯s energy boundaries.Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.


    Ultimately, this left only two practical options: the sixth and ninth centers. Most cultivators, around 70% chose the ninth center, while the rest opted for the sixth. Only the truly reckless attempted anything else. I decided to develop the sixth energy center, as it was closer to the head and located near the heart. It even had a fancy name: ¡°Dragon¡¯s Heart.¡± But remembering the names of the other centers seemed pointless, as they were equally absurd, ¡°Kirin¡¯s Liver¡±, ¡°Phoenix Tail¡± and so on.


    The process of forming the Qi Core also had ten levels, known as the Core Formation Stage. Once the core was fully formed, the cultivator entered a mysterious stage vaguely described in a few lines: Channel Quality Revelation, or simply Revelation. At this stage, the cultivator explored the abilities embedded in their channels. How this differed from my current state remained unclear, but reaching this stage was considered a monumental achievement.


    The most advanced cultivator in our guild, the sect leader, was at the second level of Revelation and was revered for it. At this level, a person could live for two thousand years.


    The next stage, Soul Law Manifestation, was shrouded in even greater mystery, with the texts providing only the name. There were reportedly even higher levels, but such knowledge was deemed unnecessary for lowly individuals like us.


    In summary, the ¡°knowable¡± world of cultivation consisted of five stages, each with ten levels. I decided it would be simpler to categorize these stages as a straightforward sequence of numbers. Levels 1 to 10 corresponded to Qi Condensation, 11 to 20 to Foundation Establishment, 21 to 30 to Core Formation, 31 to 40 to Revelation, and 41 to 50 to Soul Manifestation.


    The fiftieth level was the local ¡°cap¡± but by then, further paths would presumably become evident. My task, then, was to level up from 5 to 50. At one week per level, that would take 45 weeks, round it up to a year. Easy peasy!


    On a more serious note, it became clear that the goal of becoming the strongest cultivator in a hundred years was somewhat unrealistic. Traditional methods couldn¡¯t achieve it, no matter how much one of a genius of genius of all geniuses of universe might be. Accelerating the process required knowledge I didn¡¯t yet have.


    I had one more potential source of information, the Alchemist Guild library. However, upon reaching the guild building, I discovered that access to different sections of the library was only granted after producing a specified quantity of pills. Not only did this require reaching the corresponding cultivation level, but the ingredients for the required pills were practically impossible to find. Some of them needed thousand-year-old herbs ¡ª which, of course, required a thousand years to grow. And no alchemist in the sect had ever lived that long. The most brilliant among them had only made it to 400 years. I didn¡¯t have that kind of time.


    This left me with only two viable paths: stockpiling Qi and hunting for ancient knowledge. Ideally, I could combine the two, for instance, seeking ancient knowledge while hunting advanced cultivators to harvest their Qi.


    At that moment, my official teacher, Mu Niam, approached me, someone I hadn¡¯t seen since the post-exam banquet.


    ¡°Tang Ji Tao.¡±


    ¡°Master.¡± - I bowed slightly.


    ¡°I¡¯m glad to see you haven¡¯t forgotten to visit the library. What have you been doing for the past two days?¡±


    ¡°Building a house¡± - I replied honestly.


    ¡°A house? What kind of house? Isn¡¯t that a strange occupation for an alchemist?¡±


    ¡°As it turns out, no. If an alchemist doesn¡¯t want to live in a hovel surrounded by filth, they need to build a proper house first.¡±


    ¡°A hovel? Surrounded by filth?¡± - Mu Niam echoed, confused.


    ¡°When was the last time you visited the Outer Court housing area?¡±


    ¡°Thirty years ago, maybe.¡±


    ¡°As the old folks in my village used to say, back then the women were prettier, the grass greener, and the sky bluer. Honestly, the shack they tried to put me in wasn¡¯t fit for chickens. I had to build myself a proper home that wouldn¡¯t collapse on my head.¡±


    ¡°Wow! Show me. Unless you had more reading to do?¡±


    ¡°I did¡± - I admitted, heading toward the exit, - ¡°But first, I need to make a barrelful of pills. And before that, I need to raise my cultivation level.¡±


    Mu Niam didn¡¯t let me walk; instead, he used his Qi to lift me into the air and flew us straight to the Outer Court. Judging by the look in his eyes, he hadn¡¯t walked uphill or downhill in decades.


    ¡°Yes, our library rules are strict¡± - he said as we traveled. - ¡°But I¡¯ll leave you a couple of scrolls with techniques before I head out on an expedition.¡±


    ¡°What expedition?¡± - I asked, pricking up my ears.


    ¡°I¡¯d bring you along, but to join, you¡¯d need to be at the tenth level of Qi Condensation (10). The expedition starts in a month. But next year, you¡¯ll have a real chance to explore the Ancient Dragon Dungeon.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s this dungeon?¡± - I asked, recalling the map from the Phantom Library.

 Chapter 20.32 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    ¡°It¡¯s one of the most mysterious places in our region of the Heavenly Blades Sect¡¯s territory. Every year, a portal to the underground world opens within the Golden Dragon Sect. This world is home to various creatures, many with traces of dragon blood. For a week, participants can search for ancient treasures and hunt the monsters there.


    It¡¯s said that breaking through to the Foundation Establishment stage using true dragon blood can awaken a cultivator¡¯s dragon heritage. Some visitors to the dungeon have met this condition and gained incredible fortune. Rumor has it even our sect leader, Cheon Chu Han, received a dragon legacy there. But, as I said, you have no chance of entering this year.¡±


    ¡°No chance? There¡¯s still a month left! I think I can reach the tenth level in time.¡±


    ¡°Hahaha, well, try. If you succeed, I¡¯ll eat my alchemist¡¯s hat ¡ª the one I got with my grandmaster title.¡±


    ¡°Okay, start preparing the mustard.¡±


    ¡°Hahaha. So, where¡¯s this house of yours?¡±


    We had arrived at the settlement and were now floating above the central square as dusk settled in.


    ¡°It¡¯s over there. The triangular roof sticking out.¡±


    As we flew closer, I looked at my home from a bird¡¯s-eye view. It didn¡¯t look bad, though I¡¯d need to decorate the eaves with something. Patterns wouldn¡¯t do; I¡¯d have to find jade or another finishing material.


    ¡°Wow! I didn¡¯t realize you were so skilled in construction. How did you even build all this? It would¡¯ve been tough for me to get it done in just two days.¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t strain myself. Others did the heavy lifting to pay for the pills I made. All I did was cut the stones and fuse them together.¡±


    ¡°How did you fuse them?¡± - Mu Niam asked, landing and examining the wall up close.


    ¡°With stone.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°You stack two stones, run a heated Qi thread between them, and they fuse together¡± - I explained, demonstrating the process on two stone fragments.


    ¡°What kind of technique is this?¡± - my mentor asked, astonished.


    ¡°Qi thread? I learned it in the Forbidden Tomb. It¡¯s not complicated ¡ª well, unless you count the high level of control required. Plus, it uses pure Internal Qi. But that¡¯s the point of a thread ¡ª it doesn¡¯t require much Qi. It¡¯s too weak for combat but perfect for slicing stones.¡±


    ¡°Incredible! You figured this out yourself?¡±  Mu Niam asked, suspicion creeping into his tone.


    ¡°Of course. I¡¯m a genius!¡±


    ¡°Well, about that hat, I was joking.¡±


    ¡°Ha! Are you worried now? Anyway, I¡¯m serious about reaching the tenth level. The problem is, I can¡¯t find any information on how to transition to the next level. I don¡¯t just want to swallow a pill; I want to understand what happens to my Qi Strand and how to optimize the process.¡±


    ¡°Hmm... I¡¯m not sure what to tell you¡± - Mu Niam replied, stroking the polished granite wall thoughtfully. - ¡°Such knowledge is hard to come by and even harder to understand. But I¡¯ll bring you a couple of books on the subject.¡±


    ¡°Thank you, master. I¡¯ll be indebted to you¡± - I said sincerely.


    ¡°Alright, I¡¯ll find you tomorrow and give you the books. For now, I must go.¡±


    ¡°Take care, master.¡±


    With that, we parted ways, and I was left alone. After a few minutes of idle daydreaming, I returned to my mundane reality.If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.


    All night, I meditated, absorbing the remaining Qi from the seal. By dawn, I felt that I had accumulated enough energy to advance to the next level. The thought of how much Qi I would need for the seventh level was almost terrifying. If this issue persisted, I¡¯d have to consider breaking through by improving the quality of my Qi rather than just increasing its quantity. It was amusing that while quality should have been a priority, most cultivators focused solely on quantity. Few even seemed to understand what ¡°quality¡± meant in this context.


    At dawn, as the first light spilled over the horizon, Mu Niam arrived. He brought two items: a dusty, weathered bamboo scroll with faded inscriptions and a piece of jade containing the Qi Compression Technique.


    ¡°This is an old scripture I found in a cabinet¡± - he said, handing over the scroll. - ¡°And this jade contains the technique. However, it¡¯s far too valuable to leave with you, so you¡¯ll have to study it while I¡¯m here.¡±


    ¡°Thank you, master. I¡¯ll need about ten minutes.¡±


    ¡°Fine. I¡¯ll examine your house in the meantime. I¡¯ve never seen a roof like this before.¡±


    I seated myself on a stone bench and began studying the jade. The artifact was ancient and hadn¡¯t been used in years, so I had to carefully infuse it with my Qi to avoid damaging the information. Finally, I managed to read its contents and started analyzing and memorizing the technique. It turned out to be a set of instructions for handling an abundance of Qi when one was stuck at a bottleneck. Most intriguingly, it could be applied at any stage of cultivation ¡ª not just Qi Condensation.


    When I finished, I found Mu Niam admiring the counterforts supporting my roof. Seeing me rise, he approached.


    ¡°Why the decorative supports?¡± - he asked, pointing to the architectural detail.


    ¡°To counteract the lateral pressure from the roof beams.¡±


    I then began explaining the basic principles of structural mechanics in simple terms. Without delving into formulas or precise calculations, the concepts behind my architectural choices were straightforward.


    ¡°Incredible! It¡¯s all so simple, once you hear the explanation. But until then, it¡¯s impossible to figure out¡± - Mu Niam admitted.


    ¡°Yes, everything genius is simple¡± - I agreed. - ¡°Thank you for bringing me the jade, master. I¡¯ve already studied it, so you can take it back. I¡¯ll spend the next few weeks focused on cultivation and won¡¯t be able to visit the Alchemist Guild. But I¡¯ll make sure to drop by in a couple of weeks to leave a message or find you.¡±


    ¡°Good. If you manage to break through to the next level, I can talk to an Inner Court mentor about training you in combat. Cultivation level alone isn¡¯t everything.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m aware. Thank you, master.¡±


    After seeing my teacher off, I turned my attention back to my house. I needed wooden planks for doors and glass for windows. Realistically, glass probably wasn¡¯t available here, so I considered using quartz crystals. However, after thinking about how much effort that would require with my current limited abilities, I decided to forget it. At least I had a roof over my head. I could play the role of a proper cultivator, contemplating the Dao while sitting bare-bottomed on a stone bench. After all, strengthening the body with Qi made it feel like resting on a feather pillow.


    I decided to start with the Qi Compression Technique. I reviewed every aspect of the technique in detail, ensuring I hadn¡¯t missed anything. Then, I turned to the ¡°book of pictures¡± carefully unrolling the bamboo scroll. The author¡¯s handwriting was atrocious, and I didn¡¯t recognize half the characters, but my psionics came to the rescue. Tuning into the astral imprint of the scroll, I ¡°returned to the past¡± focusing on the moment the author had written these words to access their thoughts. It was a painstaking process, but by evening, I had deciphered the entire text and gleaned ten times as much from the embedded mental images.


    The anonymous cultivator¡¯s journal reflected on creating a more ¡°stable¡± foundation for the Core Formation stage. Although I was far from reaching that level, it was crucial to plan ahead since the structure of the Qi Strand formed during the Qi Condensation stage would later influence the Core Formation stage. In extreme cases, it could limit progress at the peak of this stage or even collapse the entire foundation of cultivation.


    The source of such instability could only be identified at the peak of the Soul Manifestation stage, or at level 50. The so-called ¡°soul law¡± formed as early as the Qi Condensation stage and was shaped by the pills, techniques, and emotions a cultivator experienced along the way.


    After processing this information, I focused on the ¡°golden quality¡± I had integrated into my Qi Strand during my breakthrough to the fifth level. The Qi I had absorbed from the stone was fascinating and... noble. It exuded an internal structure and intrinsic law. However, using the Malicious Gaze technique, I detected no signs of celestial or demonic influences in this law, which was a relief.


    Over the next three days, I meditated using the Qi Compression Technique while gradually developing my ¡°internal law¡± as the foundation and principle of my cultivation. On the third day, I felt my Qi begin to condense sharply in the center of my Qi Strand. The process accelerated, and within minutes, waves of density rippled through my body. Soon, a vibration arose, and my Qi condensed further, increasingly embodying the traits of my personal law.


    Essentially, I was attempting to use a cultivation technique intended for the Soul Manifestation stage. For stupid cultivators, this would seem advanced and mysterious, but to me, it was obvious: my Qi needed to align fully with my consciousness from the earliest stages of development.

 Chapter 20.33 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    Qi can only be controlled if you already have Qi. This principle was so ¡°basic¡± that most cultivators never thought about it. Meanwhile, this ¡°original Qi¡± was ¡°yours¡± only because it automatically aligned with its owner¡¯s consciousness during prenatal development. Although I came into this body differently, the principle remained the same.


    The more ¡°native¡± my central Qi Strand became and the stronger its qualities reflected my own, the better my control over it would be, and the higher its ¡°priority.¡± This created a subtle inversion of cause and effect: the higher the priority of my Qi, the denser it would become. Thus, I no longer needed to focus on accumulating Qi or consuming pills to advance. I could achieve the tenth level of Qi Condensation today if I wished, though rushing it seemed unwise.


    I meditated on this revelation for a while, then rose and stepped outside. Although increasing my Qi reserves was no longer essential, it was still highly desirable for building a ¡°deep foundation¡± that would impress and inspire envy in the local ¡°shallow foundation¡± cultivators.


    Although I had already absorbed the Qi of four Foundation Establishment cultivators, it wasn¡¯t enough. My greed whispered to me:


    ¡°More. More! There¡¯s no such thing as surplus of Qi!¡±


    And I was inclined to agree.


    I headed toward the center of the disciples¡¯ settlement, pondering how long it would take for the sect¡¯s higher-ups to realize what was happening if the most advanced cultivators began vanishing without a trace while I skyrocketed through the levels. But before I could pick a target, a disciple approached me, his eyes wide with panic.


    ¡°Lord Tang Ji Tao, you have to save him!¡±


    ¡°Who?¡± - I asked, assessing the seventh-level Qi Condensation disciple. He was weak, a non-threat. Verdict: keep him around for now.


    ¡°Sli Ker!¡± - the disciple exclaimed, practically shouting the name.


    ¡°What about him?¡±


    ¡°Someone broke both his arms, blocked his Qi channels, and locked him in a stone room to die of thirst and starvation.¡±


    ¡°Blocked his Qi channels?¡± - I repeated, honing in on the critical detail.


    ¡°Yes! That¡¯s what Bu Duo Kan said ¡ª he¡¯s the one who handles the Outer Court disciples¡¯ injuries. But when he examined Sli Ker, he immediately refused to treat him and ordered someone to fetch an alchemist. If Wang Zhu Tang finds out about his apprentice¡¯s condition, we¡¯re all doomed. The steward is merciless when it comes to personal failures. The last time he lost a bet to a disciple, he killed not only the disciple but everyone who knew about the wager. If he learns his apprentice didn¡¯t run away but was left to die right under his nose, none of us will survive!¡±


    ¡°And why are you telling me this?¡± - I asked, raising an eyebrow. - ¡°Now that I know about Sli Ker, Wang Zhu Tang¡¯s wrath will fall on me too. Perhaps it would be easier to get rid of you and return to my peaceful meditation, pretending I never heard anything.¡±


    ¡°Eek!¡± - The disciple nearly collapsed to the ground. - ¡°M-my lord! I would never¡­ I mean, I didn¡¯t, please!¡±


    ¡°Relax, I¡¯m joking. Take me to this unlucky disciple. Let¡¯s see if he can be saved.¡±


    The disciple practically dragged me by the arm to the room where Sli Ker lay. The sight was pitiful. His broken arms had festered, blackened with gangrene that had spread up to his shoulders. His body was emaciated from dehydration, and his face was covered in sores, likely from contact with excrement. To top it all off, he shivered violently, suggesting a fever or some other inflammatory condition.


    ¡°Maybe it¡¯d be kinder to put him out of his misery?¡± - I suggested casually, not addressing anyone in particular.


    ¡°Lord Alchemist, surely you can try to save him!¡± - one of the onlookers pleaded.Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    ¡°Perhaps I can¡± - I replied graciously. - ¡°But first, bring me every herb you have!¡± - I bellowed directly into the face of the man who had dared to offer a suggestion. - ¡°Or do you think I¡¯ll save him out of my own pocket? Do you think I have an endless supply of precious herbs stored in my rings? Go ransack the entire camp and bring me everything you can find. And if anyone dares hold back, I¡¯ll tell Wang Zhu Tang I couldn¡¯t save his apprentice because of your greed!¡±


    The crowd scattered like frightened chickens, causing a ruckus as they searched for medicinal herbs. I turned my attention back to the patient. I was particularly interested in how I had managed to block his Qi channels. Without that blockage, he would have regained consciousness by morning, called for help, or waited for his bones to heal so he could open the door himself. Without Qi to sustain him, he had degenerated into a mortal who nearly died from minor injuries.


    I ordered some water, filtered it, and set it to boil. Soon, the crowd returned, bringing nearly a cubic meter of assorted herbs in a chaotic heap. Without looking, I dumped the entire ¡°haul¡± into my ring, then began extracting the plants one by one, brewing a ¡°tea¡± from them. Once cooled, I carefully poured the bitter concoction into Sli Ker¡¯s mouth, guiding the flow with Qi. Judging by his reaction, it tasted awful; his body convulsed as though in a seizure, forcing me to order others to hold him down. After five minutes, the convulsions stopped, and his body relaxed, falling into a deep sleep.


    ¡°Let us pray for his soul.¡±


    ¡°Eek!¡±


    The onlookers paled and stared at me in horror.


    ¡°The crisis is over¡± - I reassured them. - ¡°He¡¯s sleeping now, and his body is infused with healing Qi. When he wakes up, we¡¯ll work on unblocking his Qi channels without damaging his cultivation foundation.¡±


    The crowd sighed in collective relief.


    At that moment, I heard hurried footsteps, and Wang Zhu Tang himself burst into the room.


    ¡°How is he?¡± - he demanded, striding toward the unconscious body of Sli Ker.


    ¡°He¡¯ll live¡± - I replied calmly. - ¡°In an hour, I can wake him up and begin restoring his Qi channels. Once his energy flow stabilizes, we can give him a healing pill to fully recover his body.¡±


    ¡°Good. Call for me when he wakes up¡± - Wang Zhu Tang ordered before abruptly turning and leaving the room without further questions.


    ¡°Did everyone hear that?¡± - I barked, turning toward the remaining disciples. - ¡°Get out! This isn¡¯t a circus. Three of you stay outside the door in case I need anything. The rest of you are dismissed.¡±


    The crowd scrambled to comply. In moments, only three nervous disciples remained stationed outside, and I was alone with my ¡°patient.¡±


    Half an hour later, once Sli Ker¡¯s vital signs had stabilized, I poured another mouthful of my ¡°special invigorating brew¡± down his throat. This time, his eyelids fluttered, and he groaned softly.


    ¡°Where¡­ where am I?¡± - he murmured faintly, struggling to open his eyes.


    At last, his gaze settled on me ¡ª and I smiled my most terrifying smile.


    ¡°AAAAAH!¡± - he screamed, immediately fainting again.


    The disciples outside came rushing in, alarmed by the noise.


    ¡°Did I say you could enter?¡± - I snapped, glaring at them. - ¡°The patient is delirious. Loud noises frighten him and harm his fragile, delicate psyche. Do not barge in here again without permission!¡±


    ¡°Apologies, Lord Alchemist! It won¡¯t happen again, Lord Alchemist!¡± - stammered the senior disciple before they all retreated hastily.


    Round two. I poured more of my brew into Sli Ker¡¯s mouth and waited for him to wake up again.


    This time, he opened his eyes more slowly, clearly aware of his surroundings. Seeing me, he recoiled slightly, trembling.


    ¡°What¡­ what are you doing?¡± - he whispered hoarsely, his body paralyzed from the lingering effects of my brew.


    ¡°Relax¡± - I said soothingly. - ¡°Today, you were found in one of the quarters. The disciples called for me, and I pulled you back from the brink of death. That¡¯s the story you need to tell your teacher. Do you understand?¡±


    Sli Ker blinked in confusion, then flinched as I activated the Malicious Gaze, making sure he understood the consequences of disobedience.


    ¡°If you say the wrong thing¡± - I said, voice dropping to a low, ominous tone, - ¡°it might turn out that my attempts to save you were¡­ unsuccessful. Do you understand me now?¡±


    ¡°Yes¡­ yes¡­¡± - he stammered weakly, fear etched into his pale face.


    ¡°Good. Now rest and drink this.¡± - I forced another gulp of my concoction into his mouth.


    ¡°No! No! It¡¯s disgusting! I can see bug legs and eyes in it!¡± - he whimpered, gagging.


    ¡°Nonsense. I definitely didn¡¯t mix up a dead lizard with the herbs. Or did I? Tell me, how does it taste?¡±


    ¡°Ahhh! No! No!!¡±


    ¡°Yes, yes¡± - I replied cheerfully. - ¡°I¡¯m your doctor. If you want to live, you¡¯ll listen to me.¡±


    Faced with my terrifying gaze, Sli Ker submitted, letting me feed him more of the vile liquid. I made sure to monitor its effects closely. Although the brew looked and smelled revolting, it was harmless and full of restorative Qi that quickly began repairing his body.


    By the time I called for Wang Zhu Tang, Sli Ker was fully under my control. When his teacher entered the room, I stood up and stepped aside.


    ¡°Sli Ker, tell me what happened. Who did this to you?¡± - Wang Zhu Tang demanded without preamble.


    ¡°It was me¡± - Sli Ker croaked weakly.


    ¡°What?¡± - Wang Zhu Tang¡¯s voice turned sharp

 Chapter 20.34 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    "I was far too disrespectful to the disciples and alchemists of the Outer Court, so I decided to punish myself. I locked myself in an empty room, broke my ribs, then both my arms, blocked the flow of Qi in my body, and lay there to die, hoping to atone for my sins."


    Well, that was one hell of an excuse. Straight out of the best police reports. The suspect allegedly rammed his stomach against the officers'' boots, inflicting severe moral injuries on them.


    Wang Zhu Tan froze like a pillar of salt, trying to process what he had just heard.


    "Is... is that true?" - he asked in a hoarse voice.


    Sli Ker''s gaze darted behind him and rested on my mad smile as I mix herbs in a mortar, preparing the next batch of my miracle elixir.


    "Yes, that''s exactly what happened¡± - the victim squeezed out, unwilling to reveal the truth. After all, I could stop Sli Ker''s heart with just a look, and he felt it clearly.


    Wang Zhu Tan, stunned into silence, stepped aside and asked me - "What do you need for his recovery?"


    "A Medium Healing Pill. I can make it myself, but I don¡¯t have the necessary herbs."


    "I¡¯ll issue you a pass with a request to supply the required herbs."


    The steward pulled out a small jade medallion, focused for a moment to record the information onto it, and handed it to me. After casting one last look at his disciple, he left.


    Honestly, the local people have dinosaurs in their heads instead of cockroaches ¨C and just as vicious. Look at what happens to someone over one innocent phrase. So the disciple decided to punish himself. Good for him. And now we¡¯ve got a full-blown soap opera.


    Five minutes later, after ordering no one to let the sick man leave the room or allow anyone in besides me and Wang Zhu Tan, I departed for the ''office'' of the alchemist guild.


    When I reached the guild building, I witnessed complete chaos. Everyone was running somewhere, shouting something, constantly bumping into each other, and continuing their Brownian motion.


    "What is this, a fire in a brothel during a flood?" - I asked, stopping one of the apprentices.


    The guy froze for a few seconds, trying to grasp the question, and then shouted:


    "Exactly!!!" - and continued his sprint.


    Scratching my head, I made my way to the herb warehouse, where alchemists could collect supplies for making pills.


    "There are no herbs left!" ¨C Warehouse keeper shouted as soon as he saw me.


    "What do you mean by no herbs? At least half of those crates still have something in them¡± - I refuted his excuse, scanning the warehouse with my psionic abilities.


    "Those are for emergencies only!"


    "And my situation is exactly that ¨C an emergency¡± - I explained.


    "No! We can¡¯t allocate more resources for this expedition."


    "What expedition?" - I asked, surprised. - "I¡¯m here for something else entirely."


    "Oh? And what might that be?"


    "One of Wang Zhu Tan''s disciples sustained severe injuries, and I need herbs to make a healing pill."


    "Fine. Go to that cabinet and take what you need. Hey! Where are you dragging that? Who gave you permission?"


    At this point, the guild warehouse keeper got distracted by a couple of apprentices trying to swipe some firewood, which allowed me to approach the cabinet and grab the rare herbs I needed. I took only a few of each plant but far more types than were strictly required to make the Medium Healing Pill. According to sayings, better to have surplus than to run out.


    "Greedy little thieves, all of you! You look away for one second, and they snatch everything that¡¯s not nailed down. Are you done?" - the warehouse keeper grumbled at me.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    "I can¡¯t find Needlepoint Seven-Color¡± - I said, giving the name of the only plant on my mandatory theft list that I hadn¡¯t yet grabbed.


    "It¡¯s not here. Wait a second, I¡¯ll bring it."


    I moved to the warehouse entrance, and soon enough, he returned with a couple of stems of the necessary herb.


    "Thank you. Any idea what¡¯s causing all this commotion?" - I asked.


    "You haven¡¯t heard?" - The warehouse keeper, having found a grateful listener, completely forgot about everything else. - "In three days, special Spiritual Geysers in the Valley of Geysers will awaken, releasing Ancient Qi. This event only happens once every ten years. Recently, our scouts detected signs of the impending eruption. The entire guild is now preparing for the journey. Bathing in those Spiritual Geysers greatly aids cultivation, and many participants hope to achieve a breakthrough."


    "And how can I join this expedition?" - I asked, already wondering if I could drain all the Qi from those geysers for myself.


    "You can¡¯t¡± - the warehouse keeper shut me down.


    "Why not?!" - I asked, offended.


    "You¡¯re an Outer Court disciple, aren¡¯t you? For someone like you to participate, two active sect members must submit an application in your name. One could be your teacher, but where will you find a second? Don¡¯t even ask me for help ¨C I already promised my vote to my own disciple."


    "Well, isn¡¯t that just typical¡± - I muttered, disappointed.


    Leaving the guild, I headed back to camp. There, I sat next to Sli Ker and began sorting through the herbs, contemplating what to feed him. He glanced at me nervously out of the corner of his eye, sweating buckets at the sight of my wild smile. That¡¯s fine. In his condition, sweating is actually useful. It would help expel the toxins I¡¯d fed him earlier.


    Deciding that a simple healing pill was too boring, I began mentally sifting through the properties of the herbs I had collected, trying to create a combination that could restore his Qi circulation system and repair his physical injuries. Initially, I wasn¡¯t having much success, but after half an hour of meditation, I come up with right formula. Another half an hour was spent developing the procedure for making the pill. Finally, I was ready to begin this extremely dangerous but very interesting experiment. Of course, the danger wasn¡¯t to me but to my patient, which made the project all the more promising.


    "Do you know anything about alchemy?" - I asked Sli Ker, smiling kindly. He was still paralyzed but had begun to regain feeling in his toes. If not for that ''fixation,'' he would¡¯ve jumped out the window long ago.


    He shook his head vigorously, afraid to even speak.


    "I¡¯m going to create a new experimental pill and test its effects on you¡± - I said, watching his eyes nearly pop out of his head. - "It includes the eight most poisonous herbs that grow in the Misty Mountains." - At this point, he began sweating profusely, as if someone had dumped a bucket of water over his head. - "Slow Death, Black Blood, Crumbling Lichen, Slippery Azure Moss, Drowned Lily, Deadman¡¯s Shackles, Cadaverous Thread Fungus, and Pus Thorn. These eight plants are sources of poisonous Qi. Do you know the folks saying: ''Every medicine is a poison''? Well, I believe that every poison is also a medicine. You just need to know how to use it. I¡¯ll mix these eight poisons so that they neutralize each other, leaving only the plants¡¯ healing properties. This will help you recover. But even if it doesn¡¯t, science will remember you. Who knows? Maybe your pointless death might save someone else¡¯s life in future."


    With that inspiring speech, I began preparing the pill. The task was truly challenging, so I had to focus and control every step with my psionic abilities to ensure no mistakes. The most difficult part was the final merging of the poisons, during which the plants¡¯ Qi had to react in a specific way, neutralizing the chemical toxins they contained.


    At last, the pill was complete ¨C a ¡®critical success,¡¯ as they say. I proudly held the pill, which was enveloped in a glowing purple haze. Its surface was covered with tiny skull patterns, and when I placed it on a clay plate, the plate began to crack and blacken.


    Sli Ker saw this special effect and completely lost hope of survival. He struggled, attempting not to open his mouth, but I was stronger. Forcing his jaws apart, I shoved the pill in and pushed it down his throat with a stick. A loud gulp echoed, and the pill began to take effect.


    My calculations turned out to be correct. A powerful healing Qi was released from the pill, immediately stimulating Sli Ker¡¯s meridians and accelerating the flow of life energy. His wounds began to heal, and even his cultivation foundation improved, becoming more solid. I had every reason to feel proud of myself.


    For the first few minutes, Sli Ker writhed in agony, preparing to die. But then, to his surprise, the pain subsided, and he felt a sense of relief as control of his body returned.


    ¡°Well, you see? You were worried for nothing. Now you just need to rest for a couple of weeks, and everything will be fine. Probably... At least on the surface, that¡¯s how it looks.¡±


    Under my merciless gaze, the ''patient'' once again realized that although his life continued, it could end at any moment if I so wished. Not even a grand cultivator of the Core Formation level would be able to save him.


    ¡°Hey, you there, call Master Wang Zhu Tan¡± - I shouted to the guards outside the door.


    Five minutes later, the Outer Court steward entered the room and froze, staring at his disciple sitting upright on the bed.


    ¡°Check my work.¡± - I smugly pointed at Sli Ker. - ¡°Alive, healthy, and seemingly sane. Although I can¡¯t guarantee the last part.¡±


    Wang Zhu Tan approached the disciple, placed his hand on his shoulder, and scanned his body. The crease on his forehead smoothed out, and he sighed in relief.


    ¡°Tan Ji Tao, I appreciate your help. Few alchemists could completely heal my disciple in such a short time. Moreover, his cultivation foundation remains intact despite the severity of his injuries.¡±


    ¡°Thank you for your evaluation. In return, could you submit an application for me to participate in the expedition to the Spiritual Geysers?¡± - I immediately stated my price.

 Chapter 20.35 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    Wang Zhu Tan hesitated for a moment, then shook his head and nodded affirmatively.


    ¡°I planned to give this opportunity to my disciple, but after such an injury, he will need at least a month to recover before continuing his training. Here, take this; it¡¯s a jade token signed by me. Its bearer can present it as an official application.¡±


    ¡°Thank you, sir¡± - I bowed, hiding my sly smirk.


    ¡°I saw the house you built. You truly know how to surprise people. I hope you find your fortune during this trip to the geysers. Now, I ask everyone to leave the room. I need to speak with my disciple in private.¡±


    Casting one last warning glance at my ''patient,'' I exited and immediately headed to the alchemist guild.


    The search for Mu Niam dragged on. He was constantly running errands, making it nearly impossible to catch him. Finally, I managed to corner my elusive mentor, literally bumping into him face-to-face.


    ¡°Tan Ji Tao? I heard you were looking for me, but I¡¯m very busy right now.¡±


    ¡°Can you submit an application for me to join the expedition to the Spiritual Geysers?¡± - I blurted out before he could escape again.


    ¡°You know you need two applications to participate, right? I can¡¯t help you.¡±


    ¡°I already have one.¡± - I showed him the jade token I had received from Wang Zhu Tan.


    The sugary smile vanished from Mu Niam¡¯s face, and I saw his true face ¡ª harsh, cynical, and greedy.


    ¡°Disciple, the right to submit an application isn¡¯t handed out to just anyone. I¡¯ve already promised my support to important people and can¡¯t go back on my word. I see you¡¯ve advanced to the sixth level, but even that won¡¯t be enough to select you. Find someone else willing to vouch for you.¡±


    ¡°Who?¡± - I asked skeptically.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know. In the alchemist guild, only three grandmasters and warehouse keeper have the right to submit an application. That¡¯s two students whose participation was agreed upon years ago. If you want to join this trip, you¡¯ll have to become a grandmaster alchemist yourself.¡±


    ¡°And how do I do that?¡± - I asked for formality''s sake.


    ¡°By creating a Core Formation level pill or inventing a new recipe with a better effect than known alternatives.¡±


    ¡°Oh! I just invented such a pill today.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± - Mu Niam, who was about to leave, nearly tripped over his own feet and only avoided falling thanks to his ability to fly.


    ¡°I healed Wang Zhu Tan¡¯s disciple by creating a new pill that restores Qi circulation and physical injuries. I named it Eight Deaths.¡±


    ¡°Are you joking?¡± - My mentor searched my face for signs of deception.


    ¡°Why would I joke? I¡¯m ready to make another pill using the same recipe right now.¡±


    ¡°Hm, knowing you, I wouldn¡¯t be surprised if it¡¯s true. Let¡¯s do this. In three hours, preparations will be complete, and I¡¯ll convene the Alchemist Council for an emergency meeting. During this meeting, we¡¯ll raise the question of your examination for the rank of grandmaster alchemist. If you pass, I¡¯ll issue you the official grandmaster seal tomorrow morning, and you¡¯ll be able to submit an application on your own.¡±


    ¡°Perfect¡± - I smiled.


    ¡°And you¡¯d better not disappoint me.¡±


    With those words, Mu Niam disappeared around the corner.


    The next three hours were nerve-wracking. I sat in the most prominent spot in the guild hall, waiting for my moment. Gradually, the chaos in the guild subsided. People stopped running like madmen, their movements slowing down as they shifted from "frantic scientist" mode to "dignified alchemist". Finally, at the end of the fourth hour, Mu Niam found me himself.This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    ¡°Come on. The council has already begun, and everyone is waiting for you¡± - he said, as if I were the one keeping them waiting.


    Navigating through a maze of corridors, we arrived at a spacious hall with a high ceiling. At the front, on a raised platform, sat three people. Mu Niam pointed to where I needed to stand and then joined them. To my sides sat about a dozen alchemists, their expressions ranging from disdain to interest to outright indifference, as if they were watching paint dry.


    ¡°Ladies and gentlemen¡± - Mu Niam began, - ¡°today, my disciple, Tan Ji Tao, has expressed a desire to take the examination for the title of grandmaster alchemist by presenting the council with a new healing pill recipe.¡±


    ¡°Another one?¡± - someone muttered irritably from the audience. I didn¡¯t react, but I memorized the voice.


    ¡°Indeed. A week in the guild and he already wants to be a grandmaster¡± - another added.


    ¡°Silence!¡± - the head of the alchemists barked sternly. His name was Chuk Cha Pyo, and he looked like the quintessential professor ¡ª immaculate white beard and a perfectly smooth, wrinkle-free face. - ¡°This matter is worth convening the council¡± - he declared benevolently, stroking his beard. - ¡°Now, describe your recipe and the pill¡¯s properties.¡±


    ¡°I call this pill Eight Deaths. It consists of eight poisonous herbs from the Misty Mountains. Using a special preparation technique, these eight poisons neutralize each other, releasing healing Qi that restores not only the body but also Qi circulation channels, revitalizing the entire flow of Qi.¡±


    ¡°That sounds interesting¡± - Chuk Cha Pyo said with a smile. - ¡°I¡¯ve never heard of such a recipe before. Do any of the alchemists present know of it?¡± - Silence was answer to him. - ¡°Very well. I¡¯d now like the exact recipe for this pill. Bring the spiritual jade.¡±


    An apprentice hurried into the hall and handed me a small jade tablet. It wasn¡¯t as luxurious as the one I¡¯d received in the palace, but still made of high-quality jade.


    I focused and recorded the entire pill creation process. As with all recipes, I provided only the sequence of steps, saying nothing about how I¡¯d devised this specific combination. The only explanation that could occur to the council was that I was a damned genius blessed with ¡°heavenly insight.¡±


    The jade was passed to the platform, where the three experts studied its contents closely. I noticed Mu Niam and Chuk Cha Pyo looked pleasantly surprised. The warehouse keeper remained indifferent to me but interested in the recipe. The third grandmaster, O Hu Yan, however, wore an expression of irritation, clearly resenting the idea that an Outer Court disciple like me could be on par with him. I didn¡¯t need to read his thoughts; it was written all over his face.


    ¡°The recipe seems quite complex¡± - noted Mu Niam. - ¡°Especially the final merging phase.¡±


    ¡°Yes. If he can produce a pill as described, and it works as claimed, this would certainly meet the grandmaster level¡± - the warehouse keeper agreed.


    ¡°Very well. Let¡¯s proceed to the practical part¡± - said Chuk Cha Pyo. - ¡°Tan Ji Tao, you may use this furnace.¡± - He pointed to the alchemical equipment set up in the hall. - ¡°The necessary herbs will be brought shortly. But tell me, why did you choose such an unusual combination for the pill¡¯s base? The mix of gluten and resin is nearly unheard of.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s due to the pill¡¯s ingredients¡± - I replied after a brief pause. - ¡°Some of them dissolve in resin, while others dissolve in water. To mix them and bind them together, I used an intermediary agent: the resin of Twisted Juniper. It absorbs and holds small amounts of water, allowing it to blend seamlessly with the gluten.¡±


    ¡°I see. I¡¯d never considered using it that way¡± - Chuk Cha Pyo nodded.


    The herbs were brought, and I began making the pill under the scrutiny of the alchemists. Creating the Eight Deaths pill for the second time was easier, and I calmly performed each step. Fifteen minutes later, I presented them with a small orb surrounded by a glowing purple haze. Even the plate it rested on began to crack and darken ¡ª a nice bonus effect.


    ¡°And how do we determine what this pill does?¡± - O Hu Yan asked irritably. - ¡°Who would dare eat a pill made of eight poisons? A single mistake, and you¡¯d die a horrific death.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s precisely why I named it Eight Deaths¡± - I replied. - ¡°If you make even one mistake, instead of a healing pill, it becomes a deadly poison. Alchemists must always remember the cost of their errors. And anyone planning to use this pill should also give it some thought.¡±


    Chuk Cha Pyo nodded in agreement.


    ¡°We have a delinquent Outer Court disciple with a shattered cultivation base and broken legs. He hasn¡¯t eaten in a week. I think he¡¯ll serve as the perfect test subject ¡ª whatever the outcome.¡±


    Ah! A guinea pig. I approve. A true scientific approach.


    They had clearly prepared for my exam in advance because, within a minute, the ¡°patient¡± was brought in ¡ª a miserable eighteen-year-old boy at the eighth level of Qi Condensation. He was chained to something resembling a torture table, with a funnel forced into his mouth. The guild leader inspected the pill carefully, then dropped it into the boy¡¯s throat.


    The ¡°patient¡¯s¡± body began to convulse as it struggled to ¡°digest¡± the eight types of Qi locked in the pill.


    ¡°I knew this would happen¡± - O Hu Yan declared smugly.


    To his dismay, however, the boy didn¡¯t die. On the contrary, within a couple of minutes, his wounds began to heal and his Qi became more stable.


    ¡°Amazing!¡± - Mu Niam exclaimed, his eyes shining with excitement.


    ¡°His Qi Thread stabilized, though it has acquired some unusual qualities.¡±


    ¡°I expected more¡± - I muttered, frowning. - ¡°Perhaps the effect was amplified by the decoction I gave him earlier?¡±


    ¡°What decoction?¡± - Chuk Cha Pyo immediately asked.

 Chapter 20.36 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    ¡°I brewed a few simple herbs to restore the patient¡¯s strength and eliminate the symptoms of dehydration. Perhaps this strengthened the pill¡¯s effect since the bones are not yet fully healed.¡±


    ¡°Can you prepare this decoction?¡±


    ¡°Yes. I need three liters of clean water and these herbs.¡±


    I listed a couple of dozen ingredients, some of which caused confusion among the experienced alchemists because these herbs were considered ¡°trash¡± and were only used to create nearly useless restorative pills.


    Once I prepared my signature decoction and demonstrated it to the alchemists, they noticeably flinched.


    ¡°Is this¡­ drinkable?¡± - one of the alchemists couldn¡¯t resist asking.


    ¡°Voluntarily? Probably not. That¡¯s why the patient must be firmly restrained.¡±


    With those words, I poured the bubbling black liquid into the funnel still jammed in the ¡°volunteer¡¯s¡± mouth. The decoction indeed enhanced the remaining effects of the pill, completing the healing process.


    ¡°Incredible!¡± - This time, Chuk Cha Pyo himself exclaimed, eyes wide with amazement. - ¡°What a stunning effect. Tan Ji Tao, do you understand what changes occurred in the patient¡¯s Qi?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not certain. I can only assume that, in the future, he will be able to master techniques based on poison. His body contains the eight poisons that compensate for one another. If this energy doesn¡¯t disperse and instead integrates into his Qi Thread, manipulating poisonous Qi will be far less dangerous for him.¡±


    ¡°So, this pill could have an antidote-like effect?¡± ¨C warehouse keeper asked.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know¡± - I replied honestly. - ¡°We can test it. First, we can try using pure poison from the eight plants I used. If he survives that, we can escalate from there.¡±


    The ¡°patient¡± began to twitch, desperately trying to escape, but even with his restored Qi control, he lacked the strength to break the chains. The alchemists began testing his poison resistance, poking him with needles dipped in the various toxins. The Qi lingering in his body aggressively neutralized every ¡°attack¡± either destroying the poison or pushing it out through his skin. After the eight basic tests, the alchemists began proposing increasingly exotic poisons, none of which proved fatal.


    ¡°Have we really discovered a universal antidote?!¡± - Chuk Cha Pyo exclaimed.


    ¡°I don¡¯t think so¡± - I said skeptically. - ¡°We could try mixing poisons derived from High Mountain Azure Pine resin and Marsh Burning Lichen powder.¡±


    ¡°What kind of combination is that?¡± - Mu Niam frowned. A true poison expert, he had suggested at least half of the tested concoctions.


    ¡°I believe this compound poison would disrupt the balance of the eight poisons, resulting in instant death.¡±


    ¡°And how would you mix them?¡± - asked O Hu Yan, reluctantly acknowledging my skill despite his arrogance. - ¡°These two poisons are incompatible.¡±


    ¡°If you provide me with the materials, I¡¯ll try to create the poison¡± - I offered.


    The necessary materials were promptly delivered, though in small quantities. I analyzed them with my psionics and quickly found a way to combine the two substances.


    ¡°We¡¯ll take powdered bark from the High Mountain Azure Pine, which contains a quarter ratio of resin, and mix it with Marsh Burning Lichen powder blended with Thorny Blood Lily oil. Then, we¡¯ll spread a thin layer of pine bark onto rice paper, compress it, add a layer of lichen, and repeat. After applying one hundred layers, we¡¯ll bake the mixture at a moderate temperature to melt the resin and evaporate the oil. Finally, we¡¯ll press the mixture to extract the compound poison¡± ¨C explained every step during preparation.


    In front of the amazed audience, I produced a single golden drop of resin with ruby-like streaks of fire burning inside. I carefully placed the drop in a small vial and handed it to Chuk Cha Pyo.Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    The guild leader dipped the tip of a needle into the poison and stuck it into the volunteer. He jumped back in shock as the skin around the needle turned black, cracked, and began emitting dark smoke.


    ¡°Barrier!¡± - I shouted, hiding behind the clustered alchemists.


    Thankfully, Chuk Cha Pyo understood my warning and erected a solid Qi barrier around the body. I could have done the same, since it was a Forbidden Tomb technique, but officially, I didn¡¯t ¡°know¡± it.


    A second later, the corpse exploded, spraying its contents against the barrier walls. Oddly, the flesh turned coal-black with glowing crimson speckles, resembling smoldering embers coated in an oily sheen.


    ¡°Is this what happens to anyone who takes the Eight Deaths pill?!¡± - one of the alchemists asked, alarmed.


    ¡°He would¡¯ve died from the poison anyway. What¡¯s truly unpleasant is the explosion effect and the release of the eight accumulated poisons into the environment¡± - I clarified. - ¡°But the effect on Qi Threads should only work for cultivators at the Qi Condensation stage. For others, the pill¡¯s effects will be temporary.¡±


    ¡°And what happens if you give the pill to someone who is already poisoned?¡± another question arose.


    ¡°Gentlemen, let¡¯s test that later. We are in the middle of an exam.¡±


    The alchemists quieted down and tried to adopt dignified expressions. Everyone returned to their seats, assistants scooped up the remains of the volunteer with a shovel, and Chuk Cha Pyo resumed.


    ¡°In summary, I believe Tan Ji Tao has demonstrated the qualifications necessary for the rank of grandmaster alchemist. However, according to exam protocol, the pill must be recreated by one of the grandmasters to confirm the recipe.¡±


    ¡°I volunteer to give a try to it¡± - declared O Hu Yan.


    ¡°Very well, esteemed O Hu Yan, please proceed.¡±


    O Hu Yan stepped away from the platform and approached the furnace.


    ¡°Do you need my assistance?¡± - I asked.


    ¡°No! I¡¯ll handle it myself.¡±


    Suit yourself. But the creation of the pill was doomed from the start, and I could see exactly why. O Hu Yan was a spiritual relative of Chu Zhu Zhu and approached his work with a certain ¡°Chinese craftsmanship¡± mindset. While he managed to stumble through the preparatory phases, he made a critical mistake during the poison-mixing stage. The mixture exploded. Luckily, it was still inside the furnace, so not a single drop of toxic mist escaped. Watching the volatile nature of the concoction, I started to think that if even a little had leaked, half the alchemists in the sect would drop hooves on the spot.


    ¡°I suggest that the next attempt be entrusted to our guild leader, Chuk Cha Pyo¡± - Mu Niam said smoothly. - ¡°Even I wouldn¡¯t attempt to recreate this pill on the first try.¡±


    O Hu Yan turned red as a beet but didn¡¯t protest. Chuk Cha Pyo accepted my guidance, so I had the chance to warn him about the mistakes before they could ruin the result. He worked slowly but surely, carefully following each step. Half an hour later, he succeeded in producing the Eight Deaths pill, which was every bit as flawless as mine. Creating it didn¡¯t require the alchemist¡¯s Qi, so the result depended entirely on skill and precision.


    ¡°Well, it worked perfectly¡± - Chuk Cha Pyo said with satisfaction, examining the black orb, which emitted a glowing violet haze. - ¡°The recipe is unforgiving and extremely demanding, but this is, after all, a grandmaster-level pill. Therefore, I declare that Tan Ji Tao has successfully passed the grandmaster alchemist examination. The award ceremony will take place tomorrow at dawn. Do not be late. Dismissed!¡±


    With that, Chuk Cha Pyo practically ran out of the hall. Judging by his glowing eyes, he already planning to test the pill he had just created on his new ¡°volunteer.¡±


    ¡°Well done¡± - Mu Niam said, nodding approvingly as we walked out of the hall together. - ¡°But tonight, you¡¯d better not sleep in your new house. Until you officially receive the title of grandmaster, O Hu Yan won¡¯t face any consequences for killing you. And you¡¯ve really angered him.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, I noticed¡± - I replied with a grin.


    ¡°If you don¡¯t mind a sleepless night, I can send you to train with a martial arts instructor I know in the Inner Court. He¡¯ll push you hard and advise you on which techniques to study.¡±


    ¡°Fine.¡±


    I already knew what techniques I wanted to study, but I didn¡¯t mind testing my skills against the sect¡¯s ¡°professionals.¡± Of course, I wouldn¡¯t use my own psionic abilities, but I had read all the manuals available to Outer Court disciples. Those included several offensive and defensive techniques. I¡¯d never practiced them, but they didn¡¯t seem particularly difficult ¡ª just a five-minute job.


    I was led to a servants¡¯ exit, after which Mu Niam picked me up and carried me to the palace. We landed on a wide training ground where several dozen disciples were practicing. Most were at the Foundation Building stage, though a few were at Qi Condensation, and one was at Core Formation.


    I was introduced to the instructor, Cho Ju Ro, who promised to personally train me after sunset. The rest of the day, I practiced the techniques I could plausibly claim to know, the ones that were ¡°allowed.¡±


    By sunset, only seven disciples remained on the training ground, continuing their drills with impressive focus. Finally, Cho Ju Ro turned his attention to me, deigning to evaluate my abilities.


    ¡°Not bad¡± - he remarked after watching me for a moment. - ¡°First, I need to explain something. In the Inner Court, the rules of behavior are completely different from the Outer Court. You are strictly forbidden to kill other disciples or cause them serious injuries. You must also avoid insulting them or flaunting your superiority. Be humble and respectful. Understood?¡±


    ¡°Yes¡± - I replied. - ¡°But I expect the same from them.¡±


    Cho Ju Ro raised an eyebrow skeptically but chose not to comment on my statement.

 Chapter 20.37 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    ¡°First, we¡¯ll have a spar with an opponent at your level. I want to see what you¡¯re capable of. Dai Hen Tai, come here¡± - the instructor called over a disciple at the seventh level of Qi Condensation. - ¡°This is Tang Ji Tao. He¡¯ll be your opponent in the practice match. You¡¯re only allowed to use Outer Court techniques.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Master¡± - the young man replied with a bow. He was about a year older than me, yet much more delicate in build. He looked me over with a gaze full of superiority, but was met with an even more disdainful glare on my part.


    ¡°How would you rate his abilities?¡± - I asked. - ¡°Where does he stand on the scale between ¡®genius¡¯ and ¡®trash¡¯?¡±


    ¡°Hm... why does that matter to you?¡±


    ¡°I want to asses my own level.¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s just say his abilities are above average.¡±


    The young man clearly wasn¡¯t pleased with such a ¡®low¡¯ assessment, but he kept his thoughts to himself.


    ¡°I¡¯m ready¡± - I said with a nod.


    ¡°Begin!¡± - the instructor shouted, stepping aside.


    I didn¡¯t waste any time and immediately launched a technique at my opponent that dealt a decent amount of crushing damage. I infused it with only the bare minimum of Qi, enough that if it hit, it wouldn¡¯t kill him but would break a few ribs. However, Dai Hen Tai reacted quickly, creating a small Qi shield just big enough to block my attack. I then used something resembling wide blades of air that were meant to cut him in half, but he dodged them, blocked part of the attack with another shield, and simultaneously hurled a type of ¡°air spear¡± at me.


    I managed to dodge, but I decided to test the strength of my own shields by placing one in the path of his technique. The test showed that the shield easily withstood the blow; to break it, he has to put about twenty times more energy into his attack. However, I had only minimally infused energy into my shield.


    After that, we began exchanging ranged techniques. I preferred to dodge, while my opponent put up shields. He could form a shield over any part of his body without using his hands. I took note of this move and started doing the same. Gradually, the intensity of our battle rose. I sped up, and Dai Hen Tai tried his best to keep pace. Before long, I got tired of simply jumping back and forth, so I decided to close in for hand-to-hand combat.


    That¡¯s when I was surprised to see how instantly he could manifest a shield to absorb my punch. It felt like punching a concrete wall, no pain, but the shock of colliding with a barrier that didn¡¯t budge a millimeter was unpleasant.


    I was constantly keeping track of all his attacks, so he never once managed to land a hit on me. But he occasionally failed to block mine, which angered him and made him accelerate even more, pouring more force into each attack. After about five minutes, I already had a sense of his limits. He was skillfully stringing together combos, trying to trap me or overwhelm me with a barrage of attacks, but it was clear these were rote sequences he¡¯d practiced on autopilot. Once I figured out the best counter-strategy, I stuck to it.


    When the fight became entirely predictable and monotonous, I suddenly accelerated and dashed in close range. He was caught off guard and failed to put up a shield in time. My speeding fist sank into his chest. Though I tried to hold back, it was enough to send Dai Hen Tai flying, coughing up a fountain of blood. He crashed to the ground on his back, paralyzed by pain and unable to move. The ribs near his heart were caved inward, though fortunately, they hadn¡¯t reached that vital organ.


    I immediately rushed over to my opponent, dropped to my knees, and scanned his injuries. Dai Hen Tai tried to get up, but I placed a hand on his chest.


    ¡°Don¡¯t move. Looks like I went a bit too far.¡±


    Using my Inner Qi, I threaded Qi strands into the wounded disciple¡¯s body and used them to ¡°bend¡± his ribs back into their normal position. After that, all that remained was to knit them back together, which was fairly easy.


    Cho Ju Ro approached, carefully watching what I was doing. I took out an alchemical furnace from my spatial ring, and right there on the spot, I began crafting a Minor Healing Pill. A couple of minutes later, I finished and handed it to Dai Hen Tai.This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work.


    ¡°Here. Take this.¡±


    He glanced at his teacher, waited for a confirming nod, and swallowed the pill. The healing Qi kicked in immediately, mending his bones and repairing the damaged tissue. Even the Qi in his body began flowing more actively. - ¡°All done.¡± - I got up. - ¡°In a couple hours, there won¡¯t be any trace of injury.¡±


    Dai Hen Tai gingerly prodded his chest and found nothing to complain about. - ¡°It¡¯s the first time I¡¯ve seen an alchemist make a pill right on the battlefield¡± - Cho Ju Ro said in amazement.


    ¡°My supply of herbs is too small, so I prefer to use them only when absolutely necessary¡± - I explained.


    ¡°At first, I thought you¡¯d hit him that hard on purpose, but now I see you¡¯re just too strong¡± - the instructor said, looking at me with interest. - ¡°I think you should face a stronger opponent.¡±


    ¡°Yes, I was thinking the same thing¡± - I agreed.


    Dai Hen Tai grimaced at this remark. He¡¯d always considered himself a great genius, and now his self-image had just been trampled on. Worse still, he couldn¡¯t argue the outcome, his defeat was obvious, even to him.


    ¡°Twins, come over here¡± - the instructor called out.


    Nearby, two cultivators at the second level of Foundation Establishment (12) had been sparring. They stopped and approached us ¡ª though in truth, they¡¯d been watching us for a while, only pretending to keep up their own fight.


    ¡°These are Ten Tak Le and Ten Tak Lu. Which one of them would you like to fight?¡± - Cho Ju Ro asked with a smile.


    ¡°Hmmm¡­ They look so alike¡± - I hesitated. - ¡°How do you distinguish them apart?¡±


    The brothers smiled. It was a simple, open, good-natured smile ¡ª the first time I¡¯d seen such in this world. I could plainly sense their emotions: they¡¯d never had to claw their way to survive, so they¡¯d grown up without harboring bitterness toward the world. It was a sharp contrast to everything I¡¯d seen in the Outer Court and the training camp.


    ¡°I can¡¯t choose. Let¡¯s go with both at once.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re too much confident¡± - the instructor said, raising an eyebrow.


    ¡°I¡¯m just confident. If the conditions stay the same, they don¡¯t have a chance.¡±


    ¡°What conditions?¡± - one of the twins asked.


    ¡°Only using Outer Court techniques¡± - Cho Ju Ro answered for me.


    ¡°Outer Court techniques? I¡¯ve forgotten all of them by now¡± - the second twin protested.


    ¡°Well, this will give you an incentive to remember.¡±


    ¡°Fiiiine¡­¡± - the brothers drawled in unison.


    ¡°Begin!¡± - the instructor shouted again, without much warning.


    It seemed the twins were used to this habit of his, because they immediately attacked, trying to ¡°pinch¡± me from both sides. But their decision to engage me in close combat was shortsighted. I literally jumped onto Ten Tak Le¡¯s arm, gave him a light kick to the jaw, then conjured a Qi shield ¡°attached¡± to the air. Pushing off it with my foot, I suddenly found myself right beside Ten Tak Lu and kicked him in the liver. Although he managed to put up a shield at the point of impact, the force knocked him back several meters.


    I¡¯d already seen every technique available to the Outer Court, so I decided to test the brothers¡¯ close-quarters combat skills, seeing as they were so eager for it. They really were decent with their hands and feet, repeatedly trying to leverage their numerical advantage and demonstrating an excellent understanding of each other¡¯s maneuvers. However, none of that helped them land a hit on me, because I was simply faster and, on top of that, I was constantly monitoring a couple of seconds into the future, preemptively shutting down all of their plans.


    After a few minutes of rapid exchanges of punches and kicks, I managed to catch Ten Tak Le off guard. He tried to dodge my next attack by jumping into the air, and I took advantage of the fact that once jumped, he couldn¡¯t control his movement. For some reason, local cultivators can only use the Steel Will Shield technique by anchoring it relative to their bodies or nearby objects, whereas for me, there was no such limitation.


    While my opponent was midair, his brother was off to the side, flinging futile attacks, I closed in on my target and struck his leg to rotate him into the position I wanted. Sensing imminent pain, Ten Tak Le tried to block with his arm, forming a shield around it. But I created my own shield remotely, right under his hand, effectively immobilizing his arm. With no time to do anything else, he activated some kind of body-strengthening technique, saturating himself with Qi. Seeing this, I decided not to hold back either, aiming an attack strong enough not to break through his defense, but to put serious pressure on it.


    My fist slammed into his chest, and he was literally knocked to the ground. After a couple of meters, he hit the earth and lay there, sprawled like a starfish, eyes bulging. I was about to dash toward his brother, but the instructor¡¯s voice rang out:


    ¡°Enough!¡±


    I stopped, looked around, and went over to the fallen opponent to check his condition.


    ¡°Are you alright?¡± - I asked, offering him my hand.


    Ten Tak Le grabbed it and stood up, but couldn¡¯t answer, still catching his breath. I noticed a deep imprint in the ground where he¡¯d landed. When he¡¯d been flat on his back, his face had been at ground level.


    ¡°Your soil here is too soft¡± - I remarked.


    ¡°The soil here is hard as stone¡± - Cho Ju Ro countered.


    ¡°Oh¡­ The only time I¡¯ve been hit that hard before was by our teacher¡± - Ten Tak Le croaked, rubbing his chest. Then he glanced at the ¡°stencil¡± he¡¯d left in the ground, freezing in shock as he tried to make sense of it.


    ¡°That¡¯s the second time now¡± - the instructor said thoughtfully, also taking note of how deep the imprint was.

 Chapter 20.38 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    ¡°Well, he strengthened his body with some technique, so I decided not to hold back.¡±


    ¡°What technique?¡± - Cho Ju Ro asked, surprised.


    ¡°Uhh¡­¡± - I hesitated. - ¡°That sly guy, this isn¡¯t something they teach in the Outer Court.¡±


    The instructor cast a disapproving look at his disciple, who guiltily scratched the back of his head.


    ¡°But overall, he did the right thing¡± - the instructor continued. - ¡°It¡¯s a training match, so there¡¯s no point getting hurt.¡±


    ¡°Exactly, Master. If I hadn¡¯t used Stone Skin, I would¡¯ve been splattered all over the training ground.¡±


    ¡°If you hadn¡¯t used it, I would have held back¡± - I said with a smile.


    ¡°Got it. These two are no match for you¡± - Cho Ju Ro concluded, unsurprisingly. - ¡°Ryu Sai, come here!¡±


    All other disciples had stopped their training by now and were watching us with interest. One of the four onlookers stepped forward. He was at the fifth level of Foundation Establishment (15), which made him a serious opponent.


    ¡°Tang Ji Tao, where did you learn to fight like that?¡± - the instructor asked while we waited for Ryu Sai to approach.


    ¡°Everyone in our village knows how to fight¡± - I replied. - ¡°I was the best at hand-to-hand combat. As for techniques, I just use whatever suits the situation best.¡±


    ¡°Yes, I¡¯ve noticed you don¡¯t rely on any set combos.¡± - He turned to Ryu Sai. - ¡°How about a simple hand-to-hand bout? Can you asses his skill level for me?¡±


    ¡°Are you sure he won¡¯t knock me out?¡± - Ryu Sai said with a grin. He was a full head taller than me but much narrower in the shoulders. - ¡°I saw what he did to Ten Tak Le. If it were a proper fight with techniques, I wouldn¡¯t hesitate. But a pure fistfight? Maybe we should check his strength on the trainer first?¡±


    ¡°Good idea. Let¡¯s go.¡±


    We all followed the instructor to the edge of the courtyard, where two dozen identical ¡®stones¡¯ stood, each shaped like a T and held upright by a pair of steel rails. Their weights varied, and at the far end, some were actually metal rather than stone.


    ¡°Try lifting that one with your arms fully extended¡± - the instructor said, pointing me to the very first stone. - ¡°Then move on to the next, and so on until you reach your limit.¡±


    ¡°Alright¡± - I nodded, sizing up the unusual shape of the weights.


    There wasn¡¯t anything complicated about it. The load simply targeted a certain group of muscles, making it easier to measure raw strength. I walked over to the first stone, slid my palms under the crossbar, and pulled upward. I barely felt the effort as I lifted my arms from waist height to my maximum reach. Then I carefully lowered the weight.


    Next, I went straight to the fourth trainer. It weighed more, though not by much. Scanning the entire row, I skipped ahead to the twelfth stone. That one made me work a bit, but it still wasn¡¯t challenging. My curiosity flared, just how heavy a load could I actually lift now? Ever since I¡¯d reached the fifth level of Qi Condensation, I couldn¡¯t recall a situation where I¡¯d ever lacked physical strength. I¡¯d even hired more workers than necessary when building my house, worried I wouldn¡¯t be strong enough, but in truth, I¡¯d never once tested whether those stones would really be too heavy for me.


    I looked over the line of weights one more time and confidently walked toward the last one in the row. It was made of thick steel plating with a lead core and was noticeably bulkier than the others around it.


    ¡°No way!¡± - Ten Tak Lu couldn¡¯t hold back upon seeing my choice. - ¡°He can¡¯t possibly be that strong.¡±


    I just smiled in response. Approaching the weight, I took off my ¡°robe¡± got into a comfortable position, and pulled upward with all my might. The muscles in my arms tensed, sweat instantly beaded on my skin, and the mass began to move. Letting out a wild roar, I strained even harder, raising the weight higher and higher. The spectators froze, astonished at the sight.


    Once the stone passed about the halfway mark to the maximum height, I was a picture of raw, unbridled power, bellowing with all my lungs. Suddenly, I stopped yelling, released right hand while keeping steady the weight with left hand and scratched my butt. Then I resumed my ¡°grand show of endurance¡± screaming dramatically again.The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    ¡°Clown!¡± - Cho Ju Ro couldn¡¯t help but laugh.


    The rest of the onlookers finally realized that it really wasn¡¯t that heavy for me, and they all facepalmed in unison.


    ¡°This is strange, but it¡¯s definitely not my limit¡± - I said, carefully lowering the load. When it hit the ground, the impact sent a faint tremor through the earth.


    ¡°Perhaps the blood of some hereditary cultivators flows in your veins¡± - Cho Ju Ro mused, sizing me up thoughtfully.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know¡­ My parents were ordinary farmers, both born in the same village. It¡¯s true I¡¯ve never heard anything about my mother¡¯s father. My grandparents died when I was only two, and my parents also passed away from marsh fever when I was ten¡± - I shared these details of my biography. I, also, was curious where this strength had come from, strength that was clearly beyond normal human limits, even considering Qi enhancement into account.


    ¡°Well, I think I¡¯ve got a pretty clear sense of your level now¡± - Cho Ju Ro said. - ¡°Everyone¡¯s dismissed. Time for that personal lesson I promised.¡±


    People drifted away in a buzz of conversation about what they had just witnessed. Meanwhile, Cho Ju Ro promptly roped me into a spar with him. First, he fought at Dai Hen Tai¡¯s level, but gradually he sped up, his techniques growing more powerful, and his punches and kicks hitting harder. Most importantly, he didn¡¯t hesitate to use levitation to dodge my attacks or to close in quickly for a hit.


    To keep pace with him, I started using on the fly the newly ¡°invented¡± way of employing the Steel Will Shield. That technique allowed me to block physical attacks by conjuring a plane of Qi, manifesting the concept of immovability, another case of an abstract concept materializing in the real world. Until coming to this world, I¡¯d never encountered magic of this type.


    However, when creating the shield, a cultivator had to specify a ¡°reference point¡± in their mind relative to which the shield remained motionless. Usually, the cultivator¡¯s own body or part of it served as that anchor. But with some concentration, you could use another physical object, a stone or the ground, for instance. In that case, when the shield was struck, the ¡°reference point¡± didn¡¯t actually experience any physical load. It was, in a way, an abstract coordinate. And that opened up a wide range of possibilities for manipulating reality.


    Once again, I chose airborne dust motes as my reference points. Then I moved on to air molecules. And finally, I started using an entirely arbitrary point in space. Moreover, since the shield moved along with the reference point, I could imagine a moving reference point ¡ª which gave me shields flying in whatever direction I wanted, at any chosen speed. For now, though, I decided not to show off this cheat-like trick; I stuck to shields fixed relative to the ground. Even that was enough for me to push off them with my hands and feet, effectively ¡°emulating¡± levitation.


    ¡°How are you doing that?¡± - Cho Ju Ro stopped, hovering in the air. I stopped across from him, standing on two of my shields.


    ¡°Doing what?¡±


    ¡°Standing there in the air. I can tell you¡¯re standing on shields, but they ought to fall down along with you.¡±


    ¡°Well, I¡¯m using invisible dust motes floating in the air as my anchor points¡± - I attempted to explain the essence of my approach.


    ¡°That¡¯s impossible!¡± - the instructor practically protested in tears.


    ¡°Good thing I didn¡¯t know that¡± - I agreed. His response was another facepalm, and then the training continued.


    This fight was different from the previous ones in that there were no pauses or breaks. The pressure on me steadily increased, so gradually it was barely noticeable. Every once in a while, I had to come up with a new trick to stay on par with the instructor. But after a few hours, it became clear that I¡¯d already used every trick that fit my current cover story; there was no way for me to beat this opponent.


    At first, I had been able to strike Cho Ju Ro fairly often, showing off my ability to pick just the right moment and target for an attack. But soon I found myself more focused on not being slammed into the ground or obliterated by one of his bone-crunching techniques. What¡¯s more, the instructor stopped even reacting to my attacks, he simply surrounded himself with a barely visible aura, which guaranteed protection from all of my techniques or physical strikes.


    Still, that kind of stressful battle was exhilarating to me, because it gave me real experience fighting someone stronger. He was faster, more powerful, had more Qi, and countering his techniques was incredibly difficult. Yet I managed to hang on by constantly using unorthodox evasive maneuvers doing everything possible to keep him from landing a decisive blow.


    The sun had long since set, and we fought in complete darkness. I had to rely on more than just my eyesight: I used psionics to sense and react to his movements. I was at my maximum acceleration, scanning the near future for possible outcomes just to handle the barrage of strikes he unleashed.


    By the time the eastern sky began to brighten, I was running on sheer stubbornness. My body had taken a multitude of hits, but I kept healing and reinforcing it, while brainstorming ways to become even stronger and more importantly, more durable, because the techniques flung at me were doing their best to slice me to bits, flatten me, burn me, or freeze me. All of my shields had long since been smashed to dust by Cho Ju Ro¡¯s slightest touch, forcing me to conjure them by the dozen just to soften the blows enough for me to dodge.


    Finally, I felt I was reaching my limit and yelled out:


    ¡°I think that¡¯s enough for today.¡±


    ¡°You think your enemies will just stop if you say so?¡± - The instructor smirked, intensifying his onslaught.


    ¡°Up to now, I¡¯ve treated this fight as a training match, not really trying to kill each other. But if you insist¡­¡± - I answered meaningfully, allowing a murderous intent to radiate from me.

 Chapter 20.39 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    ¡°Alright, that¡¯s enough.¡± - Cho Ju Ro backed away. - ¡°Mu Niam¡¯s been waiting for us for five minutes already. Let¡¯s head down.¡±


    I glanced beneath my feet and realized I was hovering in the air at roughly a kilometer¡¯s height. We¡¯d fought a good long while. I began descending, occasionally slowing my fall by conjuring another ¡°step¡± out of a shield. At this point, I was creating them precisely under my feet and only for the split second needed to stabilize myself. Even with my physique, the constant use of life energy left me feeling drained.


    ¡°How would you rate my skill level?¡± - I asked, catching up to Cho Ju Ro.


    He looked at me somberly, as though reassessing me entirely.


    - ¡°You could defeat an opponent at the fourth level of Foundation Establishment (14), even if they were fighting at full power. You¡¯d survive if a tenth-level Foundation Establishment (20) fighter attacked you. But a first-level Core Formation (21) cultivator could kill you without breaking a sweat.¡±


    Not the greatest forecast, but considering my ¡°novice¡± sixth level of Qi Condensation (6), it was effectively an admission that I was a heaven-defying genius. Which, to be fair, I sort of was¡­ though I still had no idea why, and that mystery weighed on my mind.


    Once we landed back on solid ground, I approached Mu Niam.


    ¡°Tang Ji Tao, how are you flying?¡± - he immediately asked. - ¡°Flight is only possible starting from the fifth level of Foundation Establishment (15).¡±


    ¡°That wasn¡¯t flying. I was just walking on air¡± - I said, showing him my ¡°mystical technique.¡± The shields I conjured under my feet matched their outline precisely, making it nearly impossible to tell I was using them at all.


    ¡°You astonishing me more each time¡± - my teacher said, eyes wide. - ¡°Never mind, we don¡¯t have time for this. The ceremony to grant you the seal of Grandmaster Alchemist is about to start. Let¡¯s go. We can¡¯t afford any delay. And by the way, what are those rags you¡¯re wearing? Where are your alchemist robes? You¡¯re supposed to wear them for the ceremony.¡±


    ¡°Oh!¡± - I exclaimed, noticing the state of my clothes. After our fight, they had been reduced to tatters. I looked like a beggar who¡¯d wandered the mountains and forests for years. - ¡°Actually, these are my alchemist robes. They just got a bit worn out.¡±


    ¡°What? But¡­ how can you show up to an official event dressed like that? People will laugh at me!¡±


    ¡°Is there a mirror around? I¡¯d like to see myself.¡±


    ¡°Look.¡±


    Mu Niam waved his hand, conjuring a full-length mirror made of Qi. I peered into it, assessing my new ¡°stage look.¡± Fans of anime might have called me a ¡°cultivator wild-type.¡± I messed up my hair and let my robe hang open over my bare, muscular chest, fully embracing the image of some northern savage.


    ¡°Not bad. All I¡¯m missing is a giant club slung over my shoulder. Then I can really astonish the crowd as a wild barbarian who just so happened to wander into the hall and become a Grandmaster Alchemist.¡±


    ¡°Hahaha! Don¡¯t make me laugh! Then again¡­ you¡¯re onto something. Come on, let¡¯s find you a club.¡±


    With that, Mu Niam grabbed me and carried me off toward the palace. Except we landed off to one side, near the entrance of some subterranean tunnel carved into the mountain. Passing by some rather formidable-looking guards, we entered an armory. Inside, we were greeted by an old man in gray-steel robes.


    ¡°Greetings, Fan Lun Jiang¡± - Mu Niam said with a nod. - ¡°My disciple, Tang Ji Tao, is receiving the title of Grandmaster Alchemist today, and I¡¯d like to issue him a weapon from the guild¡¯s stores.¡±


    ¡°A grandmaster alchemist at his age and with such a cultivation level? Impressive.¡± - The old man looked me over. - ¡°What kind of weapon do you need, young man?¡±


    ¡°A club! Knotted and crooked, made from a tree branch. One look at it and anyone should know it¡¯s meant for smashing brains out.¡±


    ¡°Hahaha! Mu Niam, where did you find him?¡±


    ¡°In the eighth camp of the outer forest. Actually, it was Elder Sun Wei Bonk who found him.¡±If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    ¡°I see¡­ Well, I do have a club that fits that description. But I¡¯m not sure it will suit you.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s the problem?¡± - I asked.


    ¡°You¡¯ll see. Come along.¡±


    We moved deeper into the warehouse, passing countless racks filled with all sorts of weapons. Most were swords, but there were other types as well. At first, we saw nothing special, just run-of-the-mill items. Then we came across finer pieces. After that, weapons made of high-quality steel with inscribed seals. Beyond those, truly precious treasures, glowing faintly with Qi. Finally, we ended up in the farthest corner of the warehouse, where old rusted junk lay in heaps.


    We navigated past crooked shelves and piles of random trash until we reached a small cleared area. In the center stood a stone pedestal, and on it rested the club. Judging by its appearance and internal structure, it looked like a tree branch or perhaps even a trunk, stripped of its bark and roughly trimmed of branches to leave behind some sort of natural spikes. The handle, though, was well-carved and sized to fit exactly one hand. Gripping it with both hands at once would be difficult. Its surface was black with minor dark-gray inclusions resembling growth rings.


    ¡°Take it¡± - the quartermaster said, smiling into his beard.


    I approached the club, which stood upright on its handle, and grabbed hold of it, trying to lift it. Instead, I ended up lifting myself off the ground. My arms were enormously strong, so raising my own body weight was no trouble, because the club itself didn¡¯t budge an inch. I might have been strong, but I was light, and the club weighed far more than anyone would reasonably expect. By my estimate, even if it were made of iridium, it wouldn¡¯t weigh a tenth of what this thing did.


    I made a few motions as if swinging it around. The weapon never wavered, but I got flung all over the place. When I returned to my original position, I let go of the club and stared at it thoughtfully.


    ¡°I think it was supposed to work differently than that.¡±


    ¡°Bwahahaha!¡± - Mu Niam burst out laughing, nearly rolling on the floor.


    ¡°Maybe you need something lighter¡± - the quartermaster offered.


    ¡°No, this suits me fine¡± - I objected. - ¡°By any chance, do you know a technique that would let me stick myself to the ground, thus solving the problem of my body not having enough weight?¡±


    ¡°I know one.¡± - My teacher stopped laughing. - ¡°Just a moment.¡± - He took out a small piece of jade and recorded some information onto it. - ¡°Here you go.¡±


    I read from the jade¡¯s contents, a fairly simple technique somewhat similar to the ¡®Dance of Autumn Leaves,¡¯ but instead of pushing off from surfaces, it pulled me toward them. It was called the Strength of the Stone Giant.


    ¡°Thank you, Master¡± - I said, handing back the jade.


    I spent a few minutes practicing the technique and then approached the club again. This time, I was firmly anchored to the rocky ground, which I had also imbued with the concept of immovability. Grabbing the club, I strained and managed to lift it into the air with difficulty. Mu Nyam gave a startled hiccup, he hadn¡¯t seen me lift that heavy weight at the training grounds.


    ¡°It¡¯s heavy, but I¡¯ll get used to it. And it¡¯ll knock out enemies in a single hit. None of those flimsy swords with their ¡®Thousand Useless Strikes¡¯ techniques. Here, every attack is ¡®One Hit, One Corpse¡¯¡± - I declared, swinging my new favorite club. It was about a meter long, so it didn¡¯t look absurdly large compared to me. I could feel some dense and mysterious Qi inside it, which, for now, didn¡¯t respond to my attempts to tame it.


    ¡°Looks like Skull Crusher has found its master¡± - Fan Lun Jiang said with satisfaction.


    ¡°That¡¯s the club¡¯s name?¡± - I asked. - ¡°¡®Skull Crusher.¡¯ Yes, that¡¯s exactly what a weapon like this should be called.¡±


    ¡°Just don¡¯t you dare try to put it into a spatial ring¡± - the old man warned. - ¡°No ring can withstand the internal Qi of this weapon. It¡¯s made from Cursed Demonic Steel Oak. That¡¯s another reason why no one wanted to claim Skull Crusher. Historical records say the club has its own spatial pocket where it rests when not in use by its owner, but no one has ever managed to subjugate its Qi.¡±


    ¡°Alright. I guess I¡¯ll have to think of a way to carry it on my back¡± - I said, slightly disappointed.


    We returned to the armory¡¯s entrance, said our goodbyes to the quartermaster, and walked toward the main palace. Fortunately, it was quite close by. I carried my masterpiece of brutality slung over my shoulder, preparing to play the role of a wild barbarian. Thus, we passed through the palace and entered a lavishly furnished room next to the ¡®throne hall.¡¯ There, I was made to wait for almost an hour before being invited to the award ceremony.


    I entered the throne hall of the palace like some wild northern barbarian who had wandered into the den of weak southern neighbors. Arrogance radiated from my every movement and shone in my eyes. Reaching the designated spot, I swung the club down from my shoulder, set it on the floor, and bowed to the sect leader. After that, my role was mostly that of a piece of furniture: stand still, blink occasionally. The attendees glanced at my outfit and whispered quietly among themselves, though outwardly maintaining a prim, austere demeanor.


    There were far fewer people in the hall than last time. Only the elite were present; hardly any sycophants or servants attended. According to the script, it was announced that I had passed the Grandmaster Alchemist exam. Cheon Chu Han personally checked my recipe, listened to the guild master¡¯s comments, inspected the pill, and then bestowed upon me the Grandmaster Alchemist¡¯s seal and a set of robes embroidered with gold. I immediately threw on the robe, ceasing to frighten everyone with my wild, untamed appearance.


    Overall, the ceremony was pompous but not memorable. Standard phrases, routine questions, obvious answers, most of those present, myself included, let it all pass through their minds without leaving any impression. At the end of the ceremony, the guild master personally gave me a jade slip containing a list of pills I was required to make for the guild over the next year. I solemnly assured him that I would get right on it in the very near future.

 Chapter 20.40 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    As soon as the ceremony¡¯s conclusion was announced, everyone rushed out. Within a minute, the hall was completely empty, leaving only the three Grandmaster Alchemists and me. O Hu Yan looked irritated but no longer shot murderous glares my way.


    ¡°Tan Ji Tao, you are now one of the four Grandmaster Alchemists of our sect¡± - Chuk Cha Pyo addressed me. - ¡°It¡¯s a very honorable title that grants you a multitude of privileges. But you must understand that these privileges are given to you in advance for the pills you will produce for the guild.¡±


    ¡°I understand¡± - I nodded.


    ¡°Good. You have the right to kill any disciple of the Outer Court or the Inner Forest without explanation. You also have the right to punish Inner Court disciples, as long as they are not permanently injured and their lives are not in danger. You must ensure all lower-ranked individuals treat you with the respect and reverence befitting your position. However, you still remain as an Outer Court disciple, and that status can only change when you prove your loyalty to the sect, as well as your talent and strength. Mu Niam told me that you want to visit the Spiritual Geysers. He will now take you to the Inner Forest Overseer, who is responsible for organizing that journey. Meanwhile, we must all go. The expedition will depart in just half an hour.¡±


    ¡°Understood.¡± - I bowed once more.


    After that, my colleagues left in a hurry, and Mu Niam grabbed me and carried me off in an unknown direction. I was still unfamiliar with the local geography, so my knowledge of the surroundings was limited to the places I¡¯d already been.


    ¡°The Overseer is in that house¡± - my teacher said, setting me down near a gate leading into a small courtyard surrounded by a palisade, topped by a hemispherical barrier. After that, Mu Niam took off again on his undoubtedly important business.


    I looked around and decided to change clothes. I didn¡¯t like either the gold-embroidered Grandmaster robes or my ragged tatters. Instead, I donned the set of clothing for a senior Outer Court disciple that I had on hand, adding a sash with the guild¡¯s colors, intended for just such occasions. Satisfied that I now looked more or less presentable and practical, I slung my club over my shoulder and headed into the courtyard.


    The moment I passed through the gates, a twenty-year-old youth dressed in Inner Forest disciple attire rushed toward me. The Inner Forest division handled border security and maintained order in the territory under our control.


    ¡°Where do you think you¡¯re going, you wretch!¡± - he yelled, darting toward me like a meteor.


    ¡°I¡¯m a Grandmaster Alchemist¡± - I said, taking out my jade seal.


    ¡°Hand it over!¡± - the fool demanded and unexpectedly snatched this precious item from me. - ¡°Where¡¯d you steal thi-e-e-gh...¡±


    I didn¡¯t bother hesitating. I brought my club down on the offender, turning him into an unappetizing mess of guts and bones. After that, I retrieved my seal and continued forward.


    ¡°Attack!¡± - Another idiot jumped out from around the corner.


    If the previous fool had been at the eighth level of Foundation Establishment (18), this one was only at the third. Without even looking, I smashed his stupid head off his shoulders with my club.


    ¡°How dare you-e-y-y...¡±


    This time it was a disciple in Inner Court robes, also at the eighth level of Foundation Establishment (18). I simply slammed my club into his stomach, folding him in half and sending him sprawling into a muddy puddle. It seemed the club had significantly enhanced my combat capabilities.


    ¡°What¡¯s going on here?¡± - The mini-boss of the area emerged from the house. He was at the eighth level of Core Formation (28), so I decided to speak with him politely.


    ¡°An attack on a Grandmaster Alchemist of the guild¡± - I shouted.


    ¡°Where?¡±


    ¡°Where what?¡± - I didn¡¯t understand his question.Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.


    ¡°Where¡¯s the Grandmaster Alchemist?¡±


    ¡°Right here.¡± - I waved my seal in front of his face. It seemed that once he saw the robes of an Outer Court disciple, the overseer went completely colorblind or maybe just blind.


    The cultivator looked at the seal and carefully scanned it with his Qi. He had no choice but to acknowledge that the seal was genuine and contained my image tattered clothes and a club on my shoulder included.


    ¡°Since when do we have a new Grandmaster Alchemist in the guild?¡± - he asked, unwilling to admit defeat.


    ¡°Since today.¡±


    ¡°And why did you kill my disciples?¡± - He glanced at the two mangled corpses.


    ¡°For attacking a Grandmaster Alchemist¡± - I repeated.


    ¡°I see¡± - the man winced. - ¡°So, what does a Grandmaster Alchemist need from me?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re the Inner Forest Overseer?¡± - I clarified.


    ¡°Yes. My name is O Gee Zer.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m Tan Ji Tao. I want to join the expedition to the Spiritual Geysers.¡±


    ¡°Unfortunately for the Grandmaster Alchemist, he won¡¯t be able to join this expedition due to his low cultivation level. That seal of yours alone won¡¯t be enough¡± - O Gee Zer mocked.


    ¡°That¡¯s why I have these two tokens, signed by the appropriate authorities, confirming my application to join.¡± - I held out two pieces of jade. One I received from the Outer Court Overseer, the other I¡¯d signed myself.


    My counterpart immediately snatched up both seals and began examining them closely. While Wang Zhu Tang¡¯s document raised no questions, my own jade slip obviously puzzled him.


    ¡°What¡¯s this?¡±


    ¡°My permission to participate.¡±


    ¡°And who signed it?¡±


    ¡°I did.¡± - I grinned shamelessly.


    ¡°You gave to yourself permission to participate?¡±


    ¡°Exactly!¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s against the rules!¡± - the overseer protested.


    ¡°Which rules? Name the specific document and clause¡± - I said.


    ¡°I do not recognize this application.¡±


    ¡°Would you like me to discuss this with the sect leader? I was talking with him just ten minutes ago.¡±


    O Gee Zer¡¯s face twisted as though he¡¯d bitten into a lemon.


    ¡°There are no more seats left in the Heavenly Ark¡± - he tried another excuse.


    ¡°Are there Outer Court or Inner Forest disciples among the passengers?¡± - I asked. - ¡°I can kill any one of them which you can choose and take their place.¡±


    ¡°The Heavenly Ark¡¯s seats are reserved only for elders and formal sect members.¡±


    ¡°How, then, will the disciples get there?¡±


    ¡°They¡¯ll be carried by senior sect members.¡±


    ¡°I can go along with them.¡±


    The overseer fell silent, glaring at me irritably, trying to think of yet another excuse.


    ¡°Fine. Wait here. Someone will come for you in about twenty minutes.¡±


    With those words, O Gee Zer stepped out of the courtyard and flew off. I looked around and sighed heavily. If they dare to leave without me, someone would regret it bitterly, their screams will be echoing throughout the sect.


    I pulled on my Grandmaster robes over my clothes to ensure that no blind fool would mistake me for a common disciple. Then I sat down on a bench beside the house, having first placed my club on top of a Steel Will Shield at ground level. Without that, the club would have just sunk into the soft forest soil.


    Fifteen minutes later, a cultivator at the third level of Core Formation (23) descended from the sky, accompanied by a flock of disciples at Qi Condensation [1] and Foundation Establishment [2] who could not fly on their own.


    ¡°Are you the Grandmaster Alchemist?¡± - he asked.


    ¡°I am¡± - I replied, standing up and slinging my club over my shoulder.


    ¡°Your eminence won¡¯t be diminished by traveling alongside these disciples, will it?¡±


    ¡°How could my infinite eminence possibly suffer from such trivial circumstances?¡± - I declared proudly, raising my head high.


    ¡°Excellent. Let¡¯s go!¡± - With a wave of his hand, he integrated me into his ¡®passenger group.¡¯ However, the moment he lifted off the ground, his expression changed, reflecting sudden strain. - ¡°Damn! Why are you so heavy?¡± - he protested.


    ¡°Oh, that¡¯s my club. One moment.¡± - I shifted the club behind my back and fixed it in place with a series of shields, redirecting the load onto them. As a result, it created a situation like that old joke about Cheburashka: ¡®I carry the suitcases, and you carry me, so everyone¡¯s happy and no one¡¯s tired.¡¯


    ¡°What did you do?¡± - my ¡°taxi driver¡± asked, baffled, as he ascended and reached cruising speed.


    ¡°It¡¯s a secret technique¡± - I answered loftily.


    ¡°Haven¡¯t you tried just putting that club in a spatial ring?¡±


    ¡°No. But they say no ring can withstand its Qi.¡±


    ¡°All right then. Listen up, everyone. My name is De Sad. Address me as Lord De Sad. I¡¯m going to tell you where we¡¯re going, what awaits you, and most importantly, what we expect of you.¡±


    The trip to the Spiritual Geysers was a kind of treasure hunt and a chance for a free power-up in cultivation. The area lay on the border between the Sect of Heavenly Blades and the Black Lotus Sect, covering roughly 80 by 120 kilometers of lakes, swamps, and forests. It was considered a vital cultivation resource, so constant skirmishes broke out there with our neighboring sect.


    Every ten years, special geysers erupted throughout this region, spewing ¡°ancient Qi.¡± The geysers varied in intensity. Some might only be of interest to Qi Condensation cultivators, while others were so intense that even a tenth-level Core Formation (30) cultivator might find them too powerful. Sometimes, priceless treasures sprayed out along with the Qi and water. These had to be seized and handed over to the sect leadership, regardless of their apparent value. Firstly, not everyone could recognize a treasure¡¯s true worth. Secondly, this was necessary to prevent these items from falling into the hands of our enemies in the Black Lotus Sect.

 Chapter 20.41 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    The main ¡°prize¡± at this event was the central geyser, which could not only spew out Qi but also suck it back in. Thanks to this, cultivators at the Qi Condensation Stage [1] and the Foundation Establishment Stage [2] could enter the ¡°ancient Qi dimension¡± where all the geyser¡¯s stores of unleashed Qi were located, along with piles of priceless treasures. Because of the way the geyser¡¯s energy reacted to cultivators¡¯ Qi, only those at or below the tenth level of Foundation Establishment (20) could enter that world. Anyone more powerful would simply be ¡°spat¡± back out.


    Hence, our task was supposed to be treasure-hunting outside, plus the chance to get into that mysterious dimension and loot whatever we could, then carry it all away safely. The trouble was, enemies were also wide awake, gladly snatching up anything not nailed down and mercilessly killing anyone who looked like easy prey. Therefore, the main burden fell on cultivators of the higher levels of the Foundation Establishment Stage [2], while those at Qi Condensation [1] were viewed mostly as porters and servants. In fact, people typically preferred not to let Qi Condensation cultivators into the hidden dimension at all, since they had virtually no chance of surviving there.


    Matters were further complicated by the fact that no one knew in advance where the next geyser would erupt. It could burst out in the middle of the lake, or it could break through at the top of a hill. So cultivators had to spread out evenly across the entire central area, hoping they could slip into the passage before it closed.


    While this riveting lecture was under way, the very ¡°Heavenly Ark¡± that O Gee Zer had told us about flew past. Cultivators were crammed into it like factory workers into an early-morning Japanese subway trains in rush hours. Seeing how ¡®comfortable¡¯ travel was in that prestigious mode of transportation, I was glad to be flying in the open air and in comfort.


    ¡°I¡¯m not so eager to earn the privilege of riding on that ark anymore¡± - I remarked, observing the faces squashed against the porthole window.


    ¡°But they¡¯ll arrive in a couple of hours, while we¡¯ll only make it by tomorrow morning¡± - our transporter ¡®cheered¡¯ me up. - ¡°There¡¯s also a chance we¡¯ll be late and unable to enter the ancient Qi dimension. Though with your level, it¡¯s better not to dwell on that. Even just being near an erupting geyser can raise your cultivation by one or two levels.¡±


    ¡°Is it true that you can only get inside the geyser¡¯s central column right when it first starts erupting?¡± - one of the disciples asked.


    ¡°Yes. That¡¯s exactly why it¡¯s so important to arrive at Geyser Valley right at the start. The luckiest ones will get to stay in the geyser for all three days that it¡¯s erupting. History knows of instances where cultivators advanced three, or even four, levels in that time.¡±


    Everyone breathed a dreamy sigh, imagining how great it would be to shoot up through the levels for free, without endless meditation or spending one¡¯s last resources on insanely expensive pills.


    Just as De Sad had promised, we arrived at our destination the next morning. I still couldn¡¯t understand why they didn¡¯t use the ¡°Heavenly Ark¡± to make several trips and transport everyone in decent conditions. Most likely, it was a question of that vehicle¡¯s status or a limitation on its operational resources.


    No sooner had we landed than De Sad dropped us off at the ¡°landing pad¡± and flew away, clearly eager to reach one of the geysers as quickly as possible. Another local manager came over to us and started sorting the arrivals into small groups, assigning each one some escorts.


    ¡°You¡¯ve arrived just in time¡± - he informed us. - ¡°The geysers are going to erupt in half an hour. You¡¯ll all be assigned to teams now, and you must listen to your leader. And remember this: the central spiritual geyser erupts four times. The first time, you can break in and enter the ancient Qi realm. On each of the subsequent eruptions, you can use it to leave that realm. If you don¡¯t use that final fourth eruption, you¡¯ll be stuck inside for ten years. Of course, there¡¯ve been cases where cultivators managed to survive under those conditions, but you¡¯d be better off not even thinking about it. That¡¯s all ¡ª off you go.¡±


    All disciples were herded off in various directions, and I was left standing there like an idiot.


    ¡°Are you Tan Ji Tao?¡± - another local official approached me.Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Come with me. You¡¯re being put in charge of a group of Inner Court disciples. Elders are really hoping not to lose their new grandmaster alchemist, so the disciples will cover you if you get attacked.¡±


    I didn¡¯t bother voicing my doubts about who would be covering whom, because by then we¡¯d arrived.


    ¡°This is Tan Ji Tao, a grandmaster alchemist¡± - I was introduced to nine cultivators with cultivation levels ranging from the seventh (17) to the tenth (20) stage of Foundation Establishment [2].


    Immediately after that, our ¡°management¡± disappeared, leaving us to figure things out on our own.


    ¡°Since I have the highest cultivation level, I¡¯ll be leading this group¡± - announced a guy of about twenty, looking at me arrogantly. I didn¡¯t waste words, just drove my club into his gut, folding him in half and sending him flying straight into the nearest tree.


    ¡°Since I¡¯m the strongest here, you¡¯ll listen to me¡± - I declared my claim to leadership. - ¡°Besides, my status is way higher than yours, so if you don¡¯t obey, I won¡¯t hesitate to punish you.¡±


    They all gawked at me, then at the ¡°leader¡± who was now puking his guts out. From that moment on, my alpha status was firmly fixed in their minds. There were a couple of quite attractive girls in the group, but for now I decided not to focus on that. The Qi geysers awaited, and time was short.


    ¡°Let¡¯s head out.¡± - I waved my hand. Everyone took to the skies while I stayed on the ground. - ¡°Do something like that again, and I¡¯ll beat all of you to death¡± - I snarled, leaping through the air to catch up to my gaping subordinates. - ¡°You, carry me until you have fatigue¡± - I ordered one of the disciples.


    He gave me a condescending look and tried to lift me with his Qi. Only I happened to be holding Skull Crusher at that moment, so I weighed close to ten tons. The cultivator, at the eighth (18) level of Foundation Establishment, couldn¡¯t handle that load. As soon as I dispelled the support under my feet, he plummeted down with me like a dive-bomber.


    ¡°Weakling!¡± - I muttered once my ¡°porter¡± crashed into the ground and sank about a meter deep. He never realized why I¡¯d suddenly become so heavy, so he didn¡¯t even think to let go. - ¡°Hey, all of you, try lifting me¡± - I ordered my still-stunned subordinates again.


    They gathered together, coordinated their efforts, and began lifting me into the air. They managed to take off, but all they could think about was how to stay in sky and avoid crashing. With each passing second, their fear of me grew, because people tend to fear what they can¡¯t understand. After all, they¡¯d seen me casually hopping through the air just a minute earlier.


    ¡°Let¡¯s head that way¡± - I said, pointing in one direction while scanning the surroundings with my psionics.


    ¡°Geyser Valley is in the other direction¡± - one of my ¡°bodyguards¡± enlightened me.


    ¡°Which way is that?¡± - I asked.


    ¡°Over there.¡± ¨C he showed opposite direction.


    ¡°All right, then we¡¯ll fly that way. And if that¡¯s the wrong direction, I¡¯ll beat all the crap out of you and then make you eat it¡± - I threatened in a cold tone, which made not only our ¡®Ivan Susanin¡¯ of a guide but everyone else break out in a sweat.


    At last, I could sense the area within a couple of dozen kilometers. It was still a rough perception, but that was enough for now. Ahead of us, I could already feel thin streams of Qi shooting up from underground, growing stronger by the second.


    ¡°By the way, you¡¯ve all heard my name, but I don¡¯t know yours. How should I address you?¡±


    In response, I got another puzzled silence. I really couldn¡¯t figure these cultivators out.


    ¡°All right, then I¡¯ll call you by numbers. You¡¯ll be Number One¡± - I pointed to the strongest cultivator present, at the tenth (20) level of Foundation Establishment [2]. - ¡°You¡¯re Number Two, Three, Four¡­¡±


    ¡°My name is Ryu Dzu Bei!¡± - Number One practically shouted.


    ¡°Too late. I¡¯ve already assigned you your combat titles. Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine. Or would you like to dispute a grandmaster alchemist¡¯s order?¡± - I asked, suggestively twirling my club. No one volunteered to break the chain of command. - ¡°You can call me Boss, got it?¡±


    ¡°Yes, Boss¡± - the disciples answered in unison after a short pause.


    ¡°Excellent.¡±


    I secured my club with protective barriers, and my porters exhaled in relief at the reduced weight. I then took off my gold-embroidered grandmaster¡¯s robe and remained in my ordinary Outer Court disciple¡¯s clothes. Now no one would recognize me as someone important, and in the event of a fight, I¡¯d have the advantage of surprise. And my psionic senses were already telling me that a fight was inevitable.


    ¡°Does anyone know how to use this thing?¡± - I asked, taking a trophy artifact out of my ring.


    ¡°That¡¯s a Spiritual Compass!¡± - Number One exclaimed. - ¡°Only members of the Radiant Fingers sect can use them.¡±


    ¡°What do you know about how it works?¡± - I asked the only ¡°expert¡± in the group.


    ¡°Well¡­ these rings pick up Qi currents, then a pointer forms inside, showing the direction to the desired target. But without knowing the secret technique of the¡­ Radiant¡­ Fingers¡­¡±


    While Number One was trying to convince me that using it was impossible, I started scanning the compass with my psionics, simultaneously sending my Qi into it in diagnostic mode. I quickly discovered a simple seal inside that controlled the movement of the rings and the appearance of the glowing pointer in the center of the artifact. The rings spun, tuning in to Qi with rather unusual characteristics. Through my psionic sense, I felt how this item let me ¡°peek¡± into the astral plane to find something corresponding to my requirements.

 Chapter 20.42 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    ¡°I see¡± - I said to myself as I tested the artifact.


    The most complicated part of the compass converted an astral image into the direction the needle pointed, but I didn¡¯t really need that function since my psionics could handle it. In the future, I¡¯d probably be able to replicate the same Qi structure without a compass at all, but for now I focused on its practical utility.


    ¡°We¡¯re heading this way¡± - I announced, indicating a new destination.


    The disciples obediently changed direction, staring at me with open mouths. The compass was glowing in a kaleidoscope of colors, with dozens of characters flaring above it. It was impossible to make sense of all that flickering, but I didn¡¯t bother trying to.


    ¡°All right, let me explain my plans: I¡¯m going to break into the ancient Qi realm. As you all know, it¡¯s extremely dangerous there, so if anyone doesn¡¯t want to take that risk, I can leave you by one of the ¡®ordinary¡¯ geysers, where you can safely focus on raising your level. Some people need countless treasures to develop further; others just need a small push. Now, we¡¯re going to land over there.¡± - I pointed to an unremarkable spot in the dense forest. - ¡°So, who wants to stay here at a powerful geyser?¡±


    ¡°Which geyser?¡± - Sixth asked.


    ¡°The one that¡¯ll appear in this spot in about¡­ forty minutes.¡± - I peered at the compass to check the exact timing. The group began exchanging glances. - ¡°Makes no difference to me if you all want to try to get into the ancient Qi realm, you can follow me.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll stay here¡± - Ninth spoke up. She was the weakest of my entourage, and also a girl, so the idea of diving into the thick of things clearly didn¡¯t thrill her.


    ¡°I¡¯ll stay too¡± - Eighth added, looking at the girl. Evidently, he was interested in her, and judging by his expression, he planned to get his way by force if necessary.


    ¡°I¡¯ll keep an eye on them¡± - Sixth decided. Judging by the glance he exchanged with Eighth, they were planning to divvy up the ¡®prize¡¯. Well, good luck them.


    ¡°Anyone else?¡± - I asked. - ¡°No? Too bad. All right, you three ¡ª this geyser will appear exactly where I¡¯m standing now, so you¡¯ll be able to get right into its center and spend three days there in relative safety. That¡¯s all. The rest of you, follow me.¡±


    I took off, running on air and simultaneously scanning the destination point with the compass. I much preferred moving on my own rather than relying on these companions, who clearly weren¡¯t in a hurry. My target was the main geyser that was supposed to break through in about half an hour. Having decided on my route, I checked my surroundings once more and re-evaluated the strength of my teammates. There was one cultivator at the tenth level (20), three at the ninth (19), one at the eighth (18), and one girl at the seventh (17). Let¡¯s hope at least some of them survive.


    We covered about ten kilometers when suddenly, ¡®unexpectedly¡¯ for them, at least, three cultivators from the Black Lotus Sect appeared. I¡¯d foreseen their arrival, but there was no way to avoid them, so I decided on a straightforward plan: kill the trio on the spot. That required them to show up abruptly, catching my unsuspecting group off guard.


    ¡°Ah, there¡¯s my future pills!¡± - exclaimed the leader of the trio, who was at the first level of Core Formation (21).


    He rushed to Number One straight away, suppressing him with some kind of technique, while his two companions ¡ª both at the tenth level of Foundation Establishment (20), charged to our five-person group, attacking haphazardly and preventing anyone from interfering in the leaders¡¯ fight. They paid zero attention to me, because my sixth level of Qi Condensation (6) could only make them sneer.


    That was what caused their deaths.


    I rushed forward, pretending to flee, but then spun around, jumped into the air, and came up behind the cultivator at the Core Formation Stage. He must have felt my maneuver but didn¡¯t even bother turning around, merely surrounding himself with a glowing shield. I, however, accelerated to my limit, pulled out my club from behind my back, and struck him in the side of the head with all the force I could muster, literally knocking his useless pumpkin off his shoulders.


    The shield he had counted on let out a pathetic clang before disappearing. At the same time, the club briefly revealed its internal Qi, which caused a fatal disruption in the opponent¡¯s defensive technique. I also felt my weapon¡¯s inner energy increase slightly.Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.


    As soon as attackers¡¯ leader died, flow of the battle changed drastically. The two remaining enemies found themselves caught between superior forces. Even more, seeing a Core Formation cultivator get mercilessly killed by a mere Qi Condensation disciple completely demoralized them.


    ¡°Kill them!¡± - I shouted, using my Eastern Demon Tentacle on one of the opponents who had decided to run away. Although my technique was fairly weak, it was enough to slow him down, after which Number Two and Number Seven literally skewered him on their swords.


    The last enemy chose not to surrender without a fight, but when six cultivators converged on him, he couldn¡¯t stand against them and was sliced to pieces by several techniques at once.


    ¡°Drag the bodies over here!¡± - I ordered my subordinates as I moved closer to the leader of the attackers to search him.


    My main interest was his Qi, but I had too many witnesses. In the end, I decided the risk was worth it and, under the guise of searching his corpse, quickly stabbed him in the abdomen, instantly draining about three-quarters of the Qi in his Core. The remaining quarter would be enough to make it look like his energy was dispersing on its own.


    Besides acquiring Qi at the Core Formation level, I also scored three rings, one of which appeared to be the equivalent of my own alchemist¡¯s seal. I pulled out of his pocket a strange device that looked like a cross between a scepter and some predatory insect with many blade-like legs.


    ¡°What¡¯s this thing?¡± - I asked my companions, who had gathered around me.


    ¡°It¡¯s a Qi extractor¡± - Number One replied with disgust. - ¡°Cultivators of the Black Lotus Sect use it to turn people into pills for their cultivation.¡±


    ¡°A useful tool¡± - I nodded. - ¡°It¡¯ll come in handy.¡±


    I slipped the scepter into my pocket as well. There had to be a good reason its previous owner didn¡¯t keep it in a spatial ring.


    ¡°Have you already searched these two?¡± - I asked, turning to the remaining bodies.


    ¡°Why?¡± - Number Five asked, surprised.


    ¡°The rings¡± - I said, pointing at a conspicuous ring on the corpse¡¯s hand and starting to twist it off his finger. It looked like some kind of family heirloom.


    ¡°But they¡¯re sealed by their owners¡¯ Qi. At best, you could open them in ten years.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not a problem for me¡± - I replied, rummaging through the corpse and covertly stealing most of its Qi in the process.


    Outwardly, nothing changed, because only the Qi closest to the skin was escaping the body at that moment. Without an autopsy, the difference wouldn¡¯t be noticeable for several hours¡ªand who was going to bother with that?


    My companions said nothing and simply watched in silence as I ¡°gutted¡± the last corpse. He had been cut in half at the waist, so most of his Qi had already dispersed, but I managed to collect a little, which I¡¯d use later to open his ring.


    ¡°Does anyone here know how to get rid of bodies?¡± - I asked.


    ¡°I do¡± - Fourth replied. From what I¡¯d observed, he only ever spoke when necessary and had the distinct air of someone whose main line of work involved ¡°problem-solving.¡±


    I silently pointed to the corpses, and Fourth just as silently used a technique to pull them underground, leaving no trace on the grass. Clearly, he had plenty of experience using this particular skill.


    ¡°Excellent. Now¡­¡± - I pulled out the compass again and started scanning future possibilities. It significantly reduced the load on my psionic abilities, so I didn¡¯t have to strain myself. This compass was turning out to be a handy little tool. - ¡°Now we need to go that way¡± - I said, pointing in a new direction.


    We took off, and within a couple of minutes, we arrived at a large boulder that jutted out over the ground on one side, creating a sort of roof-like overhang. Occasionally, forest creatures used this spot as shelter, but it was empty at the moment.


    ¡°We have about five¡­ maybe seven minutes to split the loot.¡±


    ¡°Why did we stop here?¡± - Number Five asked.


    A split second later, there was an explosion not far away, and two Core Formation cultivators could be seen flitting about in the sky, locked in a deadly battle.


    ¡°Any more silly questions?¡± - I asked. - ¡°Good.¡±


    I took out the ring from the ¡°sliced-up¡± corpse and used the Qi I¡¯d taken from it to simply dump the ring¡¯s entire contents onto the ground. These guys had been loaded, there was plenty to go around. I took a few alchemical herbs for myself, as well as the largest Qi crystals, leaving behind a couple of swords, a scattering of smaller crystals, and a pile of pills.


    ¡°The rest is yours¡± - I said to the disciples, who were looking my newly acquired valuables in astonishment.


    They hesitated for a second before starting to divide the spoils. I waited until they¡¯d cleared some space, then emptied the contents of the second cultivator¡¯s ring. This haul was even more interesting. I grabbed a jade slip inscribed with some technique, a pouch of herbs, and an old copper bracelet with a Qi seal of some sort inside it. I also claimed a large Qi-infused stone. The only catch was that the energy within it had very peculiar properties.


    ¡°I¡¯d advise you to throw this thing away and not even touch it¡± - I said, examining the stone.


    ¡°Why?¡± - Number Seven asked, craning her neck to get a better look.


    ¡°There¡¯s a chance that if you absorb even a drop of this energy, you¡¯ll either die or stop being a cultivator.¡±


    After that review, no one was willing to mess with the stone. They all went for the simpler valuables instead.


    ¡°And now the tricky part. This might take some doing.¡± - I pulled out two rings.


    To open them, I needed Qi at the Core Formation level, a tall order for someone at the Qi Condensation Stage. But I¡¯d managed to obtain a thin ¡°thread¡± of Qi from the former owner and used it to crack open one of the rings.

 Chapter 20.43 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    A whole heap of treasure spilled onto the ground, and my companions¡¯ jaws dropped at the sight. This time, I didn¡¯t hold back and took everything that was in any way valuable to me. The most prized item was a large box containing very rare and ¡°powerful¡± herbs. In fact, the box itself was more important to me than the herbs inside because it could shield Qi. I intended to study how it did that in the future.


    A decent pile of pills remained on the ground, some of which were quite rare.


    ¡°Number One, these are for you.¡±


    ¡°What? But you¡¯re the one who killed that cultivator¡± - he replied, unexpectedly showing a hint of conscience.


    ¡°But you distracted him, which allowed me to land the blow. Take them before I change my mind. They¡¯re just low-grade pills with recipes I already know. They¡¯re useless to me.¡±


    He immediately started scooping the pills into his ring.


    ¡°And that¡¯s an Ice Crystal Pill¡± - I said, pointing at a plain-looking box.


    ¡°What?!¡± - Number One exclaimed, snatching it up and opening it. The rest of the disciples sighed enviously when they sensed the energy coming from the pill. It was used to break through to the Core Formation Stage and cost a fortune.


    ¡°If you decide to use that pill, give me the empty box afterward. I need those.¡±


    ¡°All right¡± - he answered, entranced by what was essentially his ticket to paradise.


    ¡°That¡¯s it for the gifts. We need to keep moving.¡±


    Right on cue, the sounds of battle grew even louder and also shifted away. From the sky above came the trumpet-like voice of Elder Sun Wei Bonk.


    ¡°Dai Po Slap, someone from your sect killed my grandson and turned his core cultivation into a pill. I will never forgive you for that. I swear, I won¡¯t rest until I build a pyramid of your sect members¡¯ heads that reaches to the heavens!¡±


    ¡°Haha, Sun Wei Bonk, I have no idea which of my students killed your grandson, but if I find out who did it, I¡¯ll give them a hundred mid-grade Qi crystals. The look on your twisted face will be my fondest memory this year.¡±


    ¡°It will be the last memory of your life!¡±


    The fighting intensified, and the Qi radiating from the battlefield flooded the entire area, mixing with the Qi surging from underground.


    ¡°We will run forward through the forest, sticking close to the trees¡± - I instructed my subordinates. - ¡°Don¡¯t even think about stepping into open ground or slowing down. I won¡¯t wait for you.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s the point?¡± - Number Two grumbled. - ¡°Any cultivator could sense us anyway.¡±


    ¡°With all the chaos going on? Soon enough, you won¡¯t even be able to sense yourself. Now move.¡±


    Another explosion rang out, and a new geyser erupted near us, providing cover as I dashed toward my goal. Above, countless cultivators were flying about, trying to kill one another, but I kept my head down and stayed on course. I had almost thirty kilometers to cover in twenty minutes, so I had to focus on navigating the rough terrain, leaping from one tree to another.


    My route was calculated via psionics, and we didn¡¯t run into anyone along the way almost. We only had to slip through one clearing where two cultivators at the second level of Core Formation were locked in combat. Without stopping, I moved behind one of them and whacked him on the head with my club. It didn¡¯t kill him, but the second or so of dizziness it caused was enough for our sect member to seize the advantage and land a fatal blow. I didn¡¯t linger to watch and kept going.


    Finally, just a few minutes before the ¡°zero hour¡± we reached a huge lake at whose center this season¡¯s main geyser was about to erupt. The spot I needed was in the middle of the lake. There was practically nowhere to hide there, and the skies above were filled with crowds of cultivators from both guilds, ensuring that any fight would inevitably slow us down. Meanwhile, my goal was to be the first person to make it into the ancient Qi realm today.This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    Luckily, the main geyser¡¯s imminent eruption was accompanied by the appearance of smaller geysers, which sent up streams of water and clouds of steam that helped conceal us from unwanted attention.


    ¡°Stay right behind me¡± - I commanded my minions. - ¡°Anyone who falls behind won¡¯t make it into the Qi realm.¡±


    We ran forward again, weaving among the jets of water. I deliberately chose a path threading between geysers so that we¡¯d be harder to spot, and so the Qi and water spouts would make it difficult for people to approach us. But there was a downside to this ¡°protection¡±. Third, who lagged a bit, veered off from the optimal route and got hit by a sudden burst of water that sent him flying toward the sky straight into the fighting crowd.


    Overall, though, my plan worked and no one paid any attention to us. Whenever we had to travel across a relatively calm stretch of the lake, I simply kicked up spray by tossing water upward with angled shields. Because of our high speed, the spray rose a good ten meters, giving the illusion of yet another geyser in action.


    Finally, we reached the spot we needed, with a whole minute to spare. I froze in place for a few seconds to survey our surroundings. Judging by the concentration of people, far more had come to this ¡°festive event¡± than I¡¯d anticipated. I¡¯d imagined a few hundred, but it was clearly in the tens of thousands. Nearly all from our sect wore the colors of the Inner Circle or other privileged strata.


    Our Heavenly Blades Sect was much larger than I thought. I knew the settlement for the Outer Court disciples where I supposedly lived was merely the ¡°capital¡± and that most disciples resided away from the higher-ups. But only now was I realizing that even the inner part of the sect operated beyond the mountain¡¯s borders.


    ¡°Hold your breath and dive!¡± - I ordered, leading by example. My group glanced helplessly at the calm water next to us, then followed suit.


    We descended about ten meters and hovered there beneath the surface. At first, nothing happened, but then a heavy stream of bubbles started rising from below. The surrounding Qi went wild and began to churn. I gestured for everyone to grab hold of each other, and then I started sinking lower, dragging my ¡°ballast¡± along. At first, I had to fight the water¡¯s resistance and the surging Qi, but then the resistance vanished. Another ten seconds later, we suddenly plunged downward, experiencing a moment of weightlessness. Then a powerful current of water seized us, giving an unforgettable sense of negative gravity as it propelled us downward at significant speed.


    The depth here was enormous, but in reality, the ¡°hole¡± we were falling through was the result of spatial distortion. We were pulled down for roughly a minute, then battered in all directions by turbulent currents. At that point, I had to focus and choose our direction of movement, guided by the sensations coming from my psionics.


    Finally, we hit another downward current, swirling like a whirlpool, which ¡°spat¡± us out into a huge cavern where, instead of a floor, there was a lake. The current that had brought us in was pouring from the ceiling in a wide waterfall. Yet the water level in the lake didn¡¯t change at all, so we could take a moment to relax and look around. The air itself seemed to emit light ¡ª though in reality, it was tiny glowing Qi particles. In some places, glowing crystals could be seen embedded in the walls. They were cloudy and provided minimal illumination, but still helped dispel the eternal darkness of this underground world.


    ¡°We¡¯ve arrived¡± - I summarized.


    Just then, our group¡¯s attention was caught by a glint of gold that flashed through the cascading waterfall. But before anyone could react, the ¡°treasure¡± fell and disappeared into the lake.


    ¡°We have to catch it!¡± - Fifth exclaimed.


    ¡°Stop!¡± - First grabbed him by the leg. - ¡°This is the Eighteenth Chamber. There¡¯s no bottom to this lake. Everyone who¡¯s tried to dive in has never come back out.¡±


    ¡°You know about this place?¡± - I asked First.


    ¡°A little bit.¡±


    ¡°Are there any places nearby where we can find some sort of treasure?¡±


    ¡°Hmmm¡­ There should be a Bone Graveyard around here. Sometimes you can find valuable items there. And a bit farther along in the same direction, there are the Leaky Caverns. They¡¯re dangerous, but there are a lot more treasures there.¡±


    ¡°Okay. How do we get there?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡± - First lowered his head. - ¡°I only know roughly where the most important places are.¡±


    ¡°All right. So what does this bone graveyard look like? Like, well¡­ a bone graveyard?¡±


    ¡°Yes. It¡¯s a wide cavern with a low ceiling; the floor is covered in snow-white bones. Mostly from various monsters, but sometimes you¡¯ll see human ones, too.¡±


    I pulled out the compass and started searching for a place that matched those criteria. Found it in under a second, and a couple seconds later, I discovered the shortest route there.


    ¡°Follow me! We need to be the first to grab all the treasures.¡±


    Upon hearing that magic word, everyone perked up and hurried after me. While we ran through the winding caves, I noticed that although there really was plenty of Qi in the air, it all had a ¡°heavy¡± and rather unpleasant nature, so refining it would clearly require extra effort. For the time being, I was ¡°storing¡± all the Qi I absorbed in the seal on my left hand.


    Ten minutes later, we reached the place. It was filled with even heavier Qi, and scattered all around were fleshless skeletons, most of which seemed to be from various fish and sea monsters.


    ¡°Spread out. You¡¯ve ten minutes to search the entire area¡± - I commanded.


    No need to repeat myself, my five subordinates were already bursting with enthusiasm, like little kids. And to think they¡¯d all been told the sect would confiscate anything reasonably valuable, leaving us only with scraps.

 Chapter 20.44 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    I also ran through the cavern, scanning its contents with psionics. That turned out to be far more efficient than just wandering around and sifting through bones but unfortunately, it produced exactly the same result, which is to say, none. Twice I sensed items clearly made by human hands, but they weren¡¯t even worth digging up. A broken shield and a bent spearhead had long since lost their imbued Qi and were now nothing more than hunks of metal.


    Ten minutes later, we regrouped, only to discover that Fifth had disappeared without a trace. He didn¡¯t respond to our calls, even though the cavern¡¯s acoustics were excellent. I had to bring out the compass and search for him. After a couple of minutes, we came upon a massive dinosaur-like skull with Fifth inside it. He couldn¡¯t get out because the skull was surrounded by a trap barrier. Judging by the energy it radiated, this was a ¡°present¡± left behind by some cultivator during a previous opening of this dimension. Naturally, Fifth had walked right into it upon spotting a shiny golden trinket that looked like a cross between a dildo and a candelabra.


    Attempts to disable the barrier got us nowhere, so I simply brought my club down on the skull. Skull Crusher lived up to its name, shattering the core of the trap into pieces. Fifth sheepishly dug his way out from under the bones and proudly displayed his prize. He was the only one who¡¯d found anything at all.


    ¡°Throw it away¡± - I advised.


    ¡°Why?¡± - he protested, clutching the item to his chest.


    ¡°That thing contains suspicious Qi. If you decide to keep it, make sure you don¡¯t come within three meters of me.¡± - I turned away from him. - ¡°Time to move on. First, how do these your Leaky Caverns looks like?¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re not mine¡± - our ¡°Ivan Susanin¡± grumbled. - ¡°From the Bone Graveyard, there are three exits. One leads to the Eighteenth Chamber, one to the Leaky Caverns, and one to the rest of the cave system in this dimension. But the Leaky Caverns are really dangerous.¡±


    ¡°How so?¡± - I asked, realizing he wasn¡¯t about to elaborate on his own.


    ¡°They get flooded by dark water from time to time, and anyone who fails to get out in time ends up dead. Even this Bone Graveyard is considered risky because of that dark water, but at least you can usually get away from here in time.¡±


    Once again, I started fiddling with the compass, searching for answers to my questions. What I saw was quite close by: a whole network of parallel passageways through volcanic tuff. Water could pass almost freely through these rocks, leaving behind all sorts of debris in the folds and hollows of the stone. While normal matter was quickly ¡°eaten away¡± by the aggressive Qi, bones and precious metals remained intact. What fascinated me was how this ¡°ancient¡± realm could contain so much debris that clearly wasn¡¯t ancient at all. Some of the scenes the compass showed me left no doubt that there was plenty of it and it was relatively fresh.


    ¡°Move forward¡± - I ordered, heading to the passage in question. - ¡°We have to work fast. The water will start coming in about fifteen minutes, and we need to loot the place completely before that happens.¡±


    But before we could even reach the passage, I stopped and darted off to the side. Through psionics, I sensed a nearly fresh corpse lying among the bones. Hurrying over, I knocked aside the covering bones with my club and took a closer look.


    It was a woman¡¯s corpse. She used to have a very high cultivation level, but by now almost all the Qi in her body had dispersed. Even so, because of the lingering traces, the body hadn¡¯t decomposed much. However, her face and chest had been stripped down to bare bone, so I could only determine the victim¡¯s gender by her internal organs. But what really drew my attention was the large golden amulet hanging from a gold chain around her neck. Though the corpse had been badly damaged, the metal item on her neck was completely unscathed.


    I used the Western Demon Claw to sever the corpse¡¯s head and yank over the amulet.


    ¡°Why are you desecrating the body?¡± - Seventh protested.


    ¡°It¡¯s just a corpse¡± - I replied, examining my find. - ¡°Once upon a time, it was a woman cultivator, but now it¡¯s just bones and rotting flesh.¡±


    There was some sort of Qi seal inside the amulet, but I couldn¡¯t tell its purpose because the energy imbued in it was so dense. I could only sense it with my psionics, while my physical senses detected nothing but plain gold.If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    I stuffed my spoils into my ring and focused on the amulet¡¯s former owner. With a simple incantation, I compressed the body into a compact mass, then used a basic fireball spell. Adding a drop of the stolen Core Formation Qi intensified the fire, incinerating the corpse in seconds. I scattered the remaining ash into the damp air.


    ¡°That¡¯s it, funeral¡¯s over¡± - I announced to my once again flabbergasted companions.


    ¡°Didn¡¯t she have a spatial ring on her?¡± - Number Two asked.


    ¡°No. If you didn¡¯t notice, the entire right hand was missing, and only the thumb remained on the left. Alright, let¡¯s go!¡±


    I dashed toward the caves once again, and my companions had no choice but to follow. The ambient glow in the air was almost gone now, so I used a simple lighting spell. We shot down the passageways in a surge, and with every step, the surrounding atmosphere turned fouler and fouler.


    I was constantly scanning the area with psionics, which allowed me to discover a literal mountain of assorted ¡°treasures¡± gathered in one particular spot. The tunnels we were currently in had clearly been picked over by cultivators before, so odds of finding anything valuable there were minimal. But the place I¡¯d detected was like a ¡°pocket,¡± sealed off from the rest of the cavern network. A small offshoot led down to it, carrying water that deposited various objects there. Afterward, the water seeped away through the walls, leaving behind all the ¡°trash.¡± This area was so saturated with dark Qi that no standard method of detecting treasure would work.


    Without stopping, I charged straight at what looked like a solid rock wall and whacked it with my club. The water-weakened rock couldn¡¯t withstand the blow, and a hole gaped open. It took me about a minute to widen it enough for a person to squeeze through.


    ¡°Follow me¡± - I ordered, wriggling into the narrow gap.


    Luckily, after a couple of meters, it opened into a cave that looked no different from the ones we¡¯d just passed through.


    ¡°Hurry up! Search the place and grab anything that¡¯s not nailed down¡± - I spurred my companions, who¡¯d gone slack-jawed at the sight of scattered gold items and precious stones. - ¡°And don¡¯t even think about climbing down any deeper. We only have five minutes!¡±


    Leaving them to it, I ran onward, picking up only what was most valuable. First and foremost, I was interested in jade slips with recorded information and crystals charged with Qi. My companions, however, were starry-eyed over gold and weapons.


    ¡°This must be a great ancient treasure from the Revelation Stage [4]!¡± - Number One exclaimed, turning over a rusty sword in his hands ¡ª one that could only have been forged about a decade ago.


    Sure enough, as soon as you imbue the hunk of metal with a halfway decent technique, it instantly becomes ¡°ancient.¡± Ugh, these cultivators¡­ ancient Qi, ancient technique, ancient treasure. Their brains are ancient. They haven¡¯t changed much since the time humanity was still apes.


    I was busy wielding my club, smashing the cave walls and prying out precious stones that were stuck there. After yet another swing, part of the wall shattered, releasing a whole pile of jewelry ¡ª rings, earrings, necklaces. All of them were gold, but the Qi they once contained had almost completely dispersed. My companions swooped down on this new loot like vultures, blinded by the shine of gold. As for me, I moved on, listening to the barely perceptible tremors in the cavern walls. Soon, the flow of water would arrive here and turn this spot into a tomb.


    ¡°Wrap it up!¡± - I shouted, peering into the compass once more.


    The dark energy around us was ¡°clouding¡± the future, so I had to push myself hard to pick out the optimal route for our next move. Right before my eyes, the compass started to blacken, and its golden rings began to crack. Luckily, I¡¯d already found the path, and I had the details memorized via my pure psionic sense. Looked like I¡¯d just killed off my ¡°cheater¡¯s third eye¡±. Anyway. I understood the basic principle now, so I could manage on my own and later I¡¯d build a more reliable mechanism.


    ¡°But we haven¡¯t even collected half of it!¡± - Seventh cried in desperation. She was covered head to toe in chains and beads, gleaming with gold and jewels.


    ¡°If you stay here even a minute longer, all those treasures will remain here along with your corpse. Follow me.¡±


    I dashed away, grabbing another embedded jade slip from the wall as I passed. My own heart was bleeding at the sight of all we were leaving behind, but psionics made it clear that staying here meant certain death in agony. The incoming ¡°dark water¡± was saturated with aggressive Qi, dissolving organics like a potent acid. Generally, these surges and ebbs were periodic phenomena, so there might still be a chance to come back later and grab the rest. We hadn¡¯t even seen one-tenth of what had accumulated in this recess over thousands of years.


    Racing through the cave, I took a different turn, away from the ¡°hole¡± I¡¯d broken into. By now, there would already be cultivators prowling the Bone Graveyard, having entered this dimension after us. I didn¡¯t want to go back and start competing for limited resources. As long as I could stay ahead of the greedy mob, I would. So, my destination now was a narrow crack leading straight upward. It turned out that in this ¡°channel,¡± water didn¡¯t just seep through the walls but also drained through the ceiling.


    We began working our way through the narrow, twisting passage, climbing as fast as possible. It was obvious the walls here had been eroded by a strong current, so it wouldn¡¯t be wise to linger. And already, the ominous roar of rushing water was echoing behind us.

 Chapter 20.45 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    ¡°Faster, keep jumping, faster, even faster! Anyone who lags behind will die in agony!¡± - I hollered, urging my companions onward.


    By the end, when sprays of water and bits of foam were already licking at our heels, I delivered a mighty strike with my club against the next rocky outcrop. The wall crumbled, and we burst through into a large cavern. A second later, water came surging through the hole behind us, rushing upward and sideways before disappearing into the darkness. There was almost no natural light here, so only the glow of our ¡°flashlights¡± dispelled the eternal darkness.


    ¡°We made it¡± - Fifth said, voicing everyone¡¯s relief. - ¡°Another second and¡­¡±


    ¡°And you all wanted to stay back there¡± - I reminded them of why we¡¯d gotten delayed. - ¡°If you¡¯d obeyed my orders in the first place, we¡¯d have had a whole ten seconds to spare.¡±


    Everyone shot accusing glances at Seventh. - ¡°What? I didn¡¯t do anything. I just asked a question¡± - she tried to defend herself. Typical blonde.


    ¡°All right. Now we need to decide where to go next. We¡¯ve more than fulfilled our treasure-gathering quota, so it¡¯s time to focus on cultivation. First, do you know of any suitable spots around here, or is it all this depressing?¡±


    ¡°I do.¡± - He nodded. - ¡°Dark, heavy Qi only accumulates around the Bone Graveyard and the Eighteenth Chamber. The best places for cultivation are considered to be the Crystal Palace and the Dragon¡¯s Tomb.¡±


    ¡°Dragon?¡± - I repeated, somewhat surprised.


    ¡°Yes, it has an enormous dragon¡¯s skull. Nobody knows how it ended up in that large hall. A special type of Qi radiates from the giant¡¯s bones and gathers there.¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s have a look¡± - I said, pulling out my compass from habit.


    But the device had absorbed too much ¡°dark Qi.¡± Trying to see anything through it now was like looking at a black cat through tinted glass ¡ª there was something there, but you couldn¡¯t make out a thing. I tried tuning in to the dragon¡¯s skull. Faint images flitted through the compass, and then a clear picture of a glowing dragon skull and the rest of the skeleton appeared.


    Immediately, I focused on figuring out a path to that location. It turned out it would be quite a trek ¡ª twenty kilometers through narrow, winding passages. At least this route lay well away from the main areas where cultivators gathered, which meant fewer interruptions. I knew how that crowd operated: the moment you caught someone¡¯s eye, they¡¯d start tailing you, planning to rob you or steal your secrets. After all, someone headed somewhere with a clear sense of purpose is easy to distinguish from someone just wandering in the dark.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go¡± - I said, choosing the direction. - ¡°You¡¯ll get your dragon.¡±


    They all sighed in excitement, although I noticed First¡¯s eyes held little enthusiasm.


    The next hour was spent running, crawling, squeezing through, and leaping around in caves. As we advanced, the surrounding Qi really did start to feel more pleasant, at least in a ¡°taste¡± sense. I absorbed it continuously, storing it in the seal. It wasn¡¯t the right time to stop and meditate to process the energy for myself, but later, when the opportunity arose, I¡¯d make use of all I¡¯d accumulated. Especially given that, at present, all the Qi I¡¯d gathered and stolen didn¡¯t even occupy one-millionth of the seal¡¯s internal space. Such a neat little perk.


    At last, after endless wandering through winding tunnels, we reached the place I¡¯d seen through the compass in its dying throes.


    ¡°I thought it¡¯d be bigger¡± - I said skeptically, eyeing what we found.


    ¡°This isn¡¯t the right place¡± - First explained. - ¡°This hall is called The Final Resting Place. Sometimes people come in here, but the Qi here is nothing special.¡±


    We found ourselves in a relatively small hall. In one section of the wall stood a passageway blocked by something like glass or crystal. Beyond that barrier lay the skeleton of a young dragon, the very one I¡¯d seen an hour before. The bones had a golden hue and faintly glowed, while on the forehead of the skull shone a large, blood-red, diamond-shaped ruby. It vaguely resembled the ¡°third eye¡± as humans depict it, though it looked quite small compared to the dragon¡¯s colossal eye sockets. Of course, relative to the two-meter-long skull, it might have seemed small, but in reality, it was bigger than the palm of my hand.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    Not a single particle of Qi seeped through the glass barrier. However, using my psionics, I sensed a massive accumulation of energy inside the chamber where the skeleton lay. The walls of this makeshift tomb were covered in intricate geometric patterns that reliably sealed the Qi within. Even more of it was stored in the bones themselves.


    I practically started drooling the moment I laid eyes on it. This wasn¡¯t just any kind of Qi; it was dragon Qi, brimming with formidable power. It vaguely resembled the Qi I¡¯d absorbed when breaking through to the fifth level of Qi Condensation, but whereas that Qi had been more like ¡°slightly infused water¡± this was a dazzling concentrate.


    ¡°Stand aside¡± - I said, pulling out my club.


    ¡°Wait, are you planning to desecrate a dragon¡¯s grave? Wasn¡¯t it enough to desecrate that other cultivator¡¯s body?¡± - Seventh exclaimed indignantly.


    ¡°It¡¯s pointless¡± - First sneered. - ¡°That barrier¡¯s been tested a thousand times.¡±


    I paid no heed to these jealous grumblers and swung Skull Crusher with full force against the crystal barrier. To my surprise, it immediately shattered into pieces, as though it really were just plain glass.


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°How?¡±


    ¡°This can¡¯t be!!!¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ve got to be kidding!¡±


    Everyone else burst out in disbelief, except for Fourth, who, as usual, remained silent but flashed a certain look in his eyes. I hurriedly grabbed all the shards of crystal and sucked them into my ring. A dense stream of Qi rushed out of the chamber, and I, too, began absorbing it as much as my body could handle. But a lot of it still whooshed right past me, so there was no time to waste.


    ¡°Get inside!¡± - I shouted, rushing in first.


    No one hesitated now. In a single second, they had all piled inside, spreading out along the walls and trying to avoid touching the bones. I quickly scanned through the repertoire of techniques I knew and used the Heavenly Shield, blocking the entrance with an improvised replacement for the barrier I¡¯d just demolished. Not only did the spell repel technique-based attacks, but it also held back the Qi flow. As a result, the precious energy stopped leaking out, and I was able to breathe easier. I¡¯d cast the Heavenly Shield but hadn¡¯t reinforced it with the Heavenly Law, so its strength was minimal, yet it more or less did the job, though not perfectly.


    Next, I took out the box of herbs from my ring, opened it, and examined how it prevented Qi from dispersing. Having figured out the basic principle behind the seal inside, I modified the shield blocking the entrance. Now it cut the ¡°leak¡± by 99%, which was more than enough for this situation.


    Feeling satisfied, I put the box away, found a relatively smooth stone, and sat down on it.


    ¡°Everyone sit, absorb Qi, and don¡¯t move¡± - I instructed. - ¡°Don¡¯t touch the dragon, if it doesn¡¯t bite your arm off, I¡¯ll tear it off myself. Got it?¡± - Mesmerized, they all nodded. - ¡°We¡¯ll meditate right here, until we¡¯re practically unconscious, soaking up all the accumulated Qi.¡± - I flashed a grin, examining my new ¡°treasure¡± while it stared right back at me with empty eye sockets.


    Having freeloaders around didn¡¯t bother me in the least. How much Qi could they absorb with their trivial breathing techniques? For me, the energy was pouring in through the entire surface of my body in a vast torrent. What¡¯s more, that Qi wasn¡¯t even going into the seal but settling directly into my bones and muscles. Only about a tenth of it flowed into my Qi Strand, where it was also absorbed almost without transformation. Now that¡¯s what I call proper cultivation.


    Closing my eyes, I relaxed and began meditating on the Qi and the dragon¡¯s remains, trying to figure out what qualities they possessed and how they would affect me. Soon the stress of this unexpected stroke of luck subsided, and I was able to immerse myself in calm introspection, delving into what might be called the ¡°law of dragon bones¡± if such an expression makes sense.


    Even though I was continuously absorbing Qi, its concentration in the surrounding air didn¡¯t seem to decrease. New Qi kept pouring out of the dragon¡¯s bones, and there was still a lot stored in them. Later, I¡¯d think about how to extract every last drop; for now, I needed to focus on stabilizing my cultivation base.


    I¡¯d been ¡°absorbing¡± Qi for nearly an hour, gradually slipping into a trance-like state. Once I relaxed, I eased up on my control, and my consciousness was instantly pulled into a virtual world, similar to the ones I¡¯d seen when examining jade slips or that mysterious orb. Before me stood a seemingly very-much-alive dragon, studying me intently with its large eyes. I noticed that it had no ruby on its forehead; furthermore, it was covered in a gorgeous bluish-green scales, whose shifting colors emphasized its youthful ¡°facial features¡± making its eyes appear even bigger.


    ¡°Finally, I¡¯ve managed to break into your consciousness¡± - the dragon said telepathically. It didn¡¯t bother opening its mouth to ¡°speak¡± so it was hard to tell whether it simply saw no reason to mimic such movements or whether it had communicated telepathically even in life.


    ¡°Sup! Well, I guess you¡¯re, uh, dead, so¡­ good day¡± - I greeted it.


    The dragon radiated calm curiosity, without a trace of aggression. Yep, definitely a telepath. A telepath telepathically telepathing from afar. Look how it¡¯s playing with emotions. I can do that too, but for now I¡¯d keep a poker face.


    ¡°Yes, it is indeed a good day.¡± - The dragon dipped its head slightly. - ¡°I¡¯ve been watching you ever since you arrived in this dimension. The dragon bloodline in your body has awakened. More importantly, I see you bear the Seal of the Chosen.¡±


    ¡°This seal here?¡± - I pointed to my left hand, revealing the tattoo.


    ¡°Yes. Disciple Tu Dim Wit deemed you worthy to bear it. Therefore, I, too, wish to grant you a gift.¡±


    ¡°What, just like that? Boom, a gift?¡± - I was skeptical about free cheese.

 Chapter 20.46 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    ¡°You will receive the True Dragon Qi that still remains in my bones. But you¡¯re right, it¡¯s not a gift given without strings attached. I have spent seven thousand years in this grave. When I died, I had barely turned thirty. By a dragon¡¯s standards, I was still a child. After that short life, I shut myself away in this underground tomb for thousands of years, not allowing my soul to depart for reincarnation. All this time, I awaited the chance to fulfill my duty. And now your appearance has become a sign for me. This small Tang Inner Region won¡¯t be able to hold you; one day, you will head out into the Jiang Outer Region. There, you must find my father in the Dragon Blood Tomb. You¡¯ll deliver to him my legacy, which I¡¯ve guarded for all these millennia.¡±


    As the dragon said this, a glowing crimson thread shot from its right eye, stabbing into my left eye and curling up into a ball there. My own will had no say in the matter; I couldn¡¯t even break free of the illusion. Along with this dubious ¡°gift¡± I received a vision of a map showing some ¡°Jiang Region¡± with a tiny dot labeled ¡°Tang Region¡± inside it. Within that tiny dot was an even more microscopic point for the ¡°Geyser Valley¡± measuring a mere 120 by 80 kilometers.


    At least now I had some sense of the scale of this world, and I¡¯d acquired a proper map. It wasn¡¯t a satellite photo, but it might as well have been; the view was from a dragon¡¯s-eye perspective, showing the lay of the land. Best of all, now I knew exactly where the Dragon Blood Tomb was and how far I¡¯d have to travel to get there.


    ¡°Remember, the Dragon Blood Legacy is your only chance to survive¡± - continued the skull. - ¡°The world won¡¯t allow you to live while possessing a dragon¡¯s bloodline. Stronger and stronger enemies will come for you, one after another, to punish you for defying the Will of the Gods. But I believe you¡¯ll overcome. The True Dragon Qi in your body will sooner or later awaken your dormant potential and grant you great power. Now, accept my gift.¡±


    With those words, I was hurled out of the illusion and found myself once more sitting on the stone in the cave. The moment I opened my eyes, the dragon¡¯s skeleton began to crack. From these cracks, dense streams of glowing Qi burst forth. They stretched toward me like ropes, penetrating my body. At that point, I wasn¡¯t just absorbing Qi, it was being forcibly poured in, rearranging my body and meridians. Still, it all felt harmonious, so I didn¡¯t resist; I simply observed the changes closely.


    After about five minutes, all the dragon¡¯s Qi had migrated into my body. The glow surrounding the bones vanished, and the skeleton began to crumble into gray sand, settling on the floor in shapeless heaps.


    I glanced at my companions, who stared back at me with eyes nearly popping out of their sockets.


    ¡°Wow, should I congratulate you on a breakthrough to the next level?¡± - I noted the changes in their energies.


    Number One had reached the first level of Core Formation (21). Second and Fourth had both arrived at the peak of Foundation Establishment (20). Fifth had advanced to the ninth level (19), and Seventh had caught up, leaping two levels at once.


    ¡°What did you do to that poor dragon?¡± - Seventh asked in outrage, watching the skull disintegrate.


    ¡°I ate it¡± - I replied with smug satisfaction, patting my stomach. ¡°All right, looks like we¡¯re done here. What¡¯s next on the agenda?¡± - I asked.


    ¡°I need to leave the ancient Qi dimension¡± - said First, catching me off guard. - ¡°The second eruption is about to begin, and I can feel it pushing me toward the exit. If I don¡¯t make it to a safe spot in time, I¡¯ll be ripped to pieces.¡±


    ¡°Second eruption?¡± - I asked in surprise. - ¡°How long have we been in here?¡±


    ¡°About twenty hours¡± - Second answered.


    ¡°Wow, that was some nap¡± - I said, scratching the back of my head.


    ¡°I was about to disrupt your meditation because that shield of yours won¡¯t let anyone out¡± - First reported.


    I looked at my creation and noticed that the dragon¡¯s Qi had been sustaining it the whole time. Apparently, the dragon had deliberately appeared to me via the compass, then removed the original seal on the entrance and maintained my shield so its Qi wouldn¡¯t disperse. I made a showy gesture, and the barrier dissolved, opening out onto the dark hall beyond.The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    At that moment, I couldn¡¯t help thinking how tragic it was to die so young and then spend seven thousand years with nothing to see but a stone wall. Hard to say which is worse, fifty years in the ¡°Squeezer¡± before reincarnation, or thousands of years sitting in darkness and solitude.


    The disciples stepped out, and my gaze fell on a ruby that glowed crimson amid the gray sand. I reached out with my right hand and snatched it up. But a moment later, the ruby flared with blinding light, turned into a mist, and got absorbed into my arm, appearing as yet another tattoo. At this rate, I¡¯d be covered head-to-toe in random tattoos in no time.


    A second later, I understood exactly what I¡¯d picked up. It was called the Dragon¡¯s Last Breath. With this technique, dragons, upon the brink of death, would destroy their physical bodies and any surrounding enemies at the same time. If I ever encountered an overwhelmingly powerful foe, I¡¯d be able to activate this seal, after which it would vanish for good. But most likely, so would I, because the fire consumes everything around it, including the person who triggers it.


    And what good does that do me? It¡¯s like walking around with a bomb strapped to my back. Sure, people might be afraid to mess with me, but I should be more afraid¡­ constantly. One misstep and it¡¯s game over. Right now, though, I wasn¡¯t prepared to poke around in that seal to disarm it. Not with my current level and knowledge.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go¡± - I said, turning to my companions, who, for the umpteenth time, were gaping at me in wide-eyed shock.


    ¡°That¡¯s the Dragon¡¯s Last Breath!¡± - Fifth almost shouted. - ¡°Everyone knows that if you touch such a crystal, it immediately incinerates everything in the vicinity!¡±


    ¡°Well, now you know that if you mess with me, I¡¯ll incinerate everything, too¡± - I said. I took a step forward, and my companions recoiled in panic. - ¡°What¡¯s the matter?¡±


    ¡°We can¡¯t touch you¡± - Fifth explained.


    ¡°I was speaking figuratively. It¡¯s okay to touch me some of you, in fact, really should.¡± - I glanced at Seventh, who blushed bright red. - ¡°But if I have no other choice, I¡¯ll destroy any enemy before I die, no matter who they are.¡±


    Since my ¡°secret¡± was out, I might as well make sure the strongest potential adversaries found out too. These five would definitely be interrogated, so let them know that I know that they know that I know. Something like that.


    ¡°Boss, before we leave, I¡¯d like to show you one more place, one that¡¯s perfect for meditation¡± - First said, addressing me. Huh? What¡¯s gotten into him? Ate something disagreeable? - ¡°Thanks to that pill you gave me, I broke through to the Core Formation stage¡± - he went on. Ah, right, he did eat something, indeed. - ¡°And the dragon¡¯s Qi let me stabilize my core and reach the peak of the first level. Because of that, I want to show you the route to the most secret First Chamber.¡±


    The most secret First Chamber? Makes you wonder how someone could know there are at least eighteen chambers and not bother asking if there¡¯s a First Chamber somewhere.


    ¡°The route from here to the First Chamber was in the jade slip my father gave me before we set out. Follow me.¡±


    First turned and ran off into the darkness, and the rest of us followed. We ran through broad corridors and emerged into a small alcove with a gaping hole in the floor.


    ¡°Down¡± - First explained, plunging into the darkness of the pit.


    I followed after him, braking now and then using my shields. We fell about three hundred meters. Then the walls opened up, and I found a huge chamber below. Its walls were covered with enormous, glowing crystals, and half the hall was filled with crystal-clear water, forming a lake. Best of all, the place was filled with pure, congenial Qi that hardly needed any refining to absorb ¡ª a veritable paradise!


    ¡°There¡¯s water¡± - First said, sounding disappointed as he drifted down almost to the surface. - ¡°Sometimes it happens. Sadly, we can¡¯t meditate here.¡±


    ¡°Why not?¡± - I asked, dropping into the water.


    ¡°Because cultivators at our level need to breathe, and trying to meditate while hovering in midair is too hard. The second you lose concentration, you¡¯ll fall in.¡±


    ¡°Haven¡¯t you tried swimming?¡± - I said with a smirk, doing a neat crawl stroke. The water held even more Qi, making me reluctant to come up for air.


    ¡°Swimming?¡± - My companions exchanged puzzled looks. Bunch of landlubbers if ever I saw any.


    ¡°Yes, swimming. A human body is lighter than water. If you take off your clothes, you can float with almost no effort.¡±


    Even though the water wasn¡¯t salty, it was denser than usual, so I easily demonstrated that you could lie on the surface without moving at all.


    ¡°But¡­you could drown¡± - Fifth protested, eyes wide as if I were performing a death-defying stunt. - ¡°If I go into meditation, I might not surface in time.¡±


    ¡°Ugh, you land rats¡± - I said with a dismissive wave, rising back into the air. - ¡°Fine, let¡¯s escort First to the exit and then come back. I¡¯ll teach you how to swim properly.¡±


    ¡°Escort me?¡± - First asked, surprised.


    ¡°Yeah. If you get yourself killed on the way out, it¡¯ll mean the pill I gave you was wasted. By the way, do you have the box it came in?¡±


    ¡°Here, take it.¡±


    The truth was, I don¡¯t care about a cultivator I¡¯d only met a day earlier. I just wanted to make sure I knew where the exit was. The compass was toast, and trying to use its technique on my own felt like trying to shape a perfect lens out of a water-filled plastic bag: in theory, it¡¯s not complicated, but it¡¯s definitely not something you can use to scan the horizon. This way, I¡¯d definitely know where I was going.

 Chapter 20.47 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    We ¡°flew¡± off in one direction and¡­ ran into a dead end. As it turned out, the water level was too high, and the passage we needed was underwater. My companions had to hold their breath and dive, making ridiculously contorted faces as they went. Under the water, we spent only a couple of minutes before surfacing inside the passageway.


    ¡°I thought I was gonna die!¡± - Fifth declared. - ¡°How can anyone stay underwater that long?¡±


    Judging by everyone else¡¯s bugged-out eyes, they agreed. For me, though, it was easy enough. Thanks to Qi nourishing my body, I could hold my breath for at least ten minutes. It made me wonder how on earth they¡¯d agreed to follow me into that lake in the first place, back when I was searching for the main geyser. I¡¯d assumed they doubted about my sanity but in reality, it seems they¡¯re afraid of water. Could it be rabies? It¡¯s called hydrophobia for a reason. I¡¯d better keep an eye on them so I don¡¯t get bitten by these ¡°cultivators.¡±


    We moved on, trailing behind First while I memorized the route and scanned the surroundings with psionics. After half an hour of wandering, we saw a bright light ahead and heard some indiscernible noise. Quietly sneaking forward, we emerged from the narrow passage into a huge hall. It was filled with people - shouting, flying around, running or standing in rows. Judging by the colors of their robes, these were the armies of two sects, each busily trying to intimidate the other, with occasional clashes in which they lobbed techniques at one another or knocked out teeth.


    I also noticed that ¡°our¡± side had far fewer cultivators, maybe only a third as many. On the other hand, most of the enemy¡¯s mass of people were Qi Condensation disciples or lower-level Foundation Establishment cultivators, whereas our allies were largely around the same power level as my own companions.


    ¡°What do we do?¡± - I asked. - ¡°Is this situation normal? Is it always like this before an eruption?¡±


    ¡°No¡± - First replied with a frown. - ¡°Usually the Black Lotus Sect¡¯s disciples are only a quarter of this number. Looks like they¡¯re planning to attack our group.¡±


    ¡°Really?¡± - I said, genuinely surprised.


    To me, all this scurrying around looked pointless. If you want to attack, then attack. Just dive into close combat and destroy your enemies. Or hide behind shields and strike from a distance. What¡¯s the point of running in circles?


    ¡°That elite squad over there is preparing to strike our flank, while these other squads draw attention¡± - Second began to explain. - ¡°If our main forces confront that enemy squad directly, these small fry will attack our younger disciples.¡± - We were nearly at the ceiling of the hall, which gave us a great vantage point to see how the troops were arranged.


    I quickly got a sense of both sides¡¯ battle plans and offered my own suggestion:


    ¡°Then we need to strike their flank. If we hit these small fry right when their main squad moves into position, they¡¯ll end up in a trap themselves. If that squad turns to attack us, our forces can strike them from behind. That means they¡¯ll first have to pull back so that ordinary disciples can cover their rear. The moment they do, we start pushing forward, our troops will meet us halfway and we¡¯ll cut the enemy formation in half. At the same time, we¡¯ll end up near the wall, which will help us protect our younger disciples more effectively.¡±


    ¡°Good plan¡± - Second acknowledged, - ¡°but we don¡¯t have a strong enough squad. There are only six of us.¡±


    ¡°Nonsense! We have a Core Formation cultivator and four people at the higher levels of Foundation Establishment. And don¡¯t forget about me. Besides, on this sector, the enemy only has small fry. We can cut through them without breaking a sweat.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d call that a reckless gamble¡± - Fourth remarked.


    ¡°And I¡¯d call it suicide!¡± - Fifth added.


    ¡°If we don¡¯t help them, our troops will suffer heavy losses¡± - First assessed the situation.


    ¡°So how exactly do you plan on attacking them?¡± - Second retorted, clearly not sold. - ¡°All they have to do is send a dozen senior disciples to hold us off.¡±


    ¡°They wouldn¡¯t dare¡± - I smirked.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    ¡°What?¡± - My little ¡°war council¡± stared at me.


    ¡°They¡¯ll order a retreat, with the strongest leaving first. By the time they realize what¡¯s going on, our army will be halfway to us, assuming their commander isn¡¯t an idiot.¡±


    ¡°The squad is led by the best general¡¯s son in our sect. If not for him, our forces would¡¯ve been wiped out already¡± - First explained.


    ¡°Well, then we¡¯re good. Worst case, we can still retreat, and in the cramped tunnels we¡¯ll have the advantage.¡±


    ¡°And how are we supposed to attack them?¡± - Fifth asked in despair.


    ¡°You? You¡¯re not. I¡¯ll do it myself. Let¡¯s pull back into the corridor. Fourth, go around that passage and hide behind that boulder. Keep an eye on the battle. If the enemy decides to attack us, come back through the corridor and let us know.¡±


    We retreated into the narrow passage, and I waited until Fourth took up his observation post. By then, the main enemy force was already closing in on our troops, and a real bloodbath was about to begin.


    My plan was quite simple. From what I¡¯d seen on the battlefield, most cultivators here preferred close or mid-range attacks. There was no heavy artillery or archers to speak of. That was exactly what I intended to exploit. I knew a technique generally referred to as ¡°Fireball¡±. It had a different official name, of course, but in essence, the cultivator would form a ball of fire and hurl it at an enemy. If there was any trajectory control, it was done by means of a fine Qi thread. And that¡¯s where the typical ¡°fireball caster¡± would run into problems.


    If you launched the fireball without the Qi thread, it destabilized quickly and could only travel a few dozen meters at most. On the other hand, if you tried controlling it by maintaining a Qi thread, you could prevent premature detonation, but the fireball¡¯s path was then limited by the thread¡¯s length and integrity. Average cultivators could only manage threads of a couple dozen meters, which actually reduced the effective range of a fireball.


    However, I wanted to pull off a neat trick I¡¯d been practicing for quite a while. When I¡¯d been studying the ¡°alarm system¡± around Sun Zi Liang¡¯s ring, I discovered the principle of ¡°fractal extension¡± for Qi influence. That is, I could stretch the thread for twenty meters and, using its tip, extend the same thread another twenty meters, and so on controlling it in segments. Of course, the further I extended it, the harder it became to manage, but I only needed to maintain the thread¡¯s overall integrity, guide its path, and keep the fireball itself stable, which was about as simple as a glowing lightbulb.


    In total, my offensive capabilities now ¡°stretched¡± out to half a kilometer. And here¡¯s where another factor came into play: normally, a cultivator¡¯s strength was limited by the neutral Qi in their body plus their reserves of Inner Qi. But I had a seal that was currently filled with the ¡°dark Qi¡± I¡¯d collected earlier. And since I now had access to the First Chamber, I saw no reason to bother refining this unpalatable Qi; that meant I could freely burn it all in this one attack.


    After getting ready, I created several hundred threads, stretching them through the twenty-meter corridor. Once they emerged into the open space, they reached all the way to the enemy lines. When the threads got to the distance I wanted, I started sending fireballs along them, gliding like they were on rails and leaving the threads themselves unscathed.


    Amplifying my speed with psionics, I began forming literally dozens of fireballs per second. This entire ¡°wall of fire¡± streaked forward and crashed down on the unsuspecting disciples. The majority were barely at the fifth level of Foundation Establishment (15), so they had no chance of surviving. My fireballs didn¡¯t strike their shields directly but exploded a couple of meters above the ground, enough for the wave of flames to slam into cultivators who had no defenses against such an ¡°Area of Effect¡± attack.


    As I predicted, such a powerful, unexpected assault sparked a panic. The junior disciples just burned alive; the senior ones tried to flee as fast as they could. They must have assumed that to generate a barrage of fire like that, I¡¯d have to be at least at the Revelation Stage.


    Within a couple of minutes, my ¡°extra¡± Qi was gone but the damage was done. Where about one-tenth of the enemy army once stood, there remained only a scorched clearing littered with corpses and the dying. Peering out of the corridor, I watched our troops sprinting over the fallen enemies, finishing off the survivors. But what stunned me most was the state of those I¡¯d struck. The Qi I¡¯d used was so aggressive that the fireballs didn¡¯t merely singe people they instantly incinerated the flesh, leaving white bones visible from the outside. Perhaps in the future, I ought to store more of this Qi for precisely such occasions¡­


    After the devastation, the enemy retreated, splitting their army. The main throng merely withdrew to a safer distance, but their ¡°elite squad¡± had to scatter through the tunnels when our commanding officer sent his main forces in pursuit, threatening to trap them against the wall and encircle them.


    Ten minutes later, I was in the ¡°command center¡±. The most ¡°advanced¡± cultivators crowded around me, shooting me sidelong glances but not daring to object to my presence, seeing the grandmaster alchemist¡¯s sash and insignia I wore.


    ¡°Ryu Dzu Bei, was that you who unleashed that wave of fire? Incredible technique. How¡¯d you pull it off?¡± - Their local ¡®general¡¯ rushed over to First.


    ¡°That wasn¡¯t me¡± - my minion shook his head. - ¡°That was the Boss, our grandmaster alchemist, Tan Ji Tao.¡±


    ¡°The Boss? Wait, are you saying that technique was used by a sixth-level Qi Condensation cultivator?¡±


    ¡°Yes, that¡¯s exactly what happened.¡±


    At that, everyone looked at me with suspicion and then moved aside.


    ¡°Behold my infinite greatness!¡± - I exclaimed. - ¡°And if anyone doubts it, I¡¯ll crush their head with this club.¡± - I hefted my weapon in demonstration.

 Chapter 20.48 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    ¡°He killed a first-level Core Formation cultivator with a single strike of that club¡± - First added, boosting my reputation once more.


    This time, the crowd took two steps back and started bowing. Finally, I could see they were giving me some respect.


    ¡°You¡¯re messing with us!¡± - someone in the crowd protested indignantly.


    I immediately walked over to him and placed my club on his shoulder. The heretic¡¯s face twisted, and he dropped to his knees, then to all fours, then collapsed prone with his face in the dirt.


    ¡°You must show respect to a grandmaster alchemist¡± - I said coldly, eyeing the rebel like the lowly bug he was.


    He couldn¡¯t even respond because the weight of my club had forced every last bit of air from his lungs, and I could hear his spine making ominous cracking sounds.


    ¡°Lord Tan Ji Tao, we have no doubt of your omnipotence. Please forgive this unworthy disciple¡± - the ¡®general¡¯ quickly interceded, bowing low before me.


    ¡°All right, let him live for now¡± - I said, stowing my weapon behind my back. - ¡°But pull a stunt like this again, and I¡¯ll start punishing the guilty, the innocent, and everyone in between.¡±


    I turned on my Malicious Gaze for a moment, and everybody dropped to their knees in unison. Now this was order.


    ¡°So, what¡¯s going on here?¡± - I asked, fashioning a makeshift throne from the nearest boulder and seating myself upon it. The people around me watched in awe as I casually sliced the rock into chunks using Qi threads.


    The ¡°general¡± stepped forward and began his report:


    ¡°The Black Lotus Sect unexpectedly brought their entire younger generation to Geyser Valley. They waited until we¡¯d sent half of our disciples inside; after that, their Elders pushed us aside and allowed their own forces to advance. As a result, almost half of our disciples couldn¡¯t make it here at all, while their forces came through in full strength. Then they started hunting our disciples, preventing them from cultivating. We had no choice but to form one big unit. The main geyser will erupt in half an hour, so we need to decide who will leave this dimension and who will stay.¡±


    I let my gaze sweep over the crowd and replayed my memory of the moment I¡¯d observed the two armies. Among our own forces, there were plenty of weaker members who were just diverting our main strength by requiring constant protection.


    ¡°I think that this year, the ancient Qi dimension isn¡¯t the right place for junior disciples¡± - I stated. - ¡°So, I propose we send them all up top right now. Only those who truly believe they can break through to the Core Formation Stage or at least to the peak of the tenth level of Foundation Establishment should remain.¡±


    The crowd immediately began whispering among themselves.


    ¡°Core Formation Stage? Even if five disciples manage to break through to that stage, that¡¯d be a huge success!¡± - one of the senior disciples shouted.


    ¡°But today, I am with you¡± - I replied, - ¡°so the odds of achieving it are higher than ever. Look at Ryu Dzu Bei, for instance he advanced with my help.¡±


    First looked at me with mixed emotions. On the one hand, it was true; on the other hand, he¡¯d used the Ice Crystal Pill I¡¯d given him, and he knew I didn¡¯t have another like it.


    Everyone debated the idea, and pretty quickly they agreed to my proposal. Of course, the younger disciples objected, but nobody bothered to ask their opinion. So the disciples were rapidly split into two groups. Around a hundred Foundation Establishment disciples at the higher levels decided to stay, and the rest were ordered to prepare for evacuation.


    ¡°I¡¯m leaving too¡± - Fourth announced, catching us off guard.


    ¡°Why?¡± - Fifth exclaimed.


    ¡°I¡¯m not ready to break into the Core Formation Stage today.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s a good decision¡± - I chimed in.If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    ¡°What¡¯s so good about it?¡± - Fifth now turned on me, irritated.


    ¡°It means he knows exactly what he wants and how he plans to achieve it¡± - I replied. - ¡°He¡¯s not relying on luck; he¡¯s moving forward with a clear idea of what¡¯s ahead of him.¡±


    ¡°What about us?¡± - Fifth asked helplessly, glancing around for support.


    ¡°You need a miracle to break through.¡±


    Fifth nodded at my words.


    ¡°And you?¡± - he continued.


    ¡°I am that miracle¡± - I said, grinning. - ¡°For me, this place is a treasure trove, all I have to do is enter and shovel in the gold.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m in¡± - Fifth declared, laughing. - ¡°An extra shovel doesn¡¯t hurt, right?¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ll see¡± - I answered.


    As the spiritual geyser¡¯s eruption drew near, the atmosphere in the hall began to change. A giant spatial seal formed on the ceiling, sending down bursts of water that rained onto the cavern floor. Qi in the chamber started spinning in a circle, gradually turning into a spiral that funneled into an opening passageway. Finally, the portal stabilized, unleashing a colossal column of water. Yet just a few seconds later, all the surrounding Qi abruptly sped up and surged upward, sucking the water along with it.


    The weakest disciples from the Black Lotus Sect charged toward the center of the hall first. Some ran in panic, others retreated more orderly in groups. I waited until a couple dozen people had already passed through the portal, then launched my fireballs into the crowd. Instantly, they scattered to the sides or retreated. That left open space, and our disciples rushed forward in a tight formation without any panic or confusion and in just a few minutes, most of our ¡°army¡± disappeared into the portal.


    Our elite hundred men remained, and the Black Lotus Sect¡¯s disciples again tried to approach the geyser, only to be greeted by more fireballs. Some attempted to force their way through, and the water swept their charred remains upward. Their group was clinging to the vain hope that our ¡°mega-cultivator¡± would soon leave through the geyser as well, opening a path. But ten minutes later, those hopes vanished along with the geyser itself.


    ¡°Retreat¡± - I ordered, satisfied that the majority of the enemy¡¯s forces remained behind with us.


    The thing was, though, that the enemy¡¯s ¡°army¡± mostly consisted of junior disciples who needed protection, whereas our force was made up entirely of strong fighters. Technically, we could have cut down more than half of them right then and there, but that wasn¡¯t my objective, at least not yet.


    All one hundred of us flew off, leaving the bewildered enemy behind. A couple of spies tried to follow, but as soon as they lost themselves in the maze of passages, my fireballs came whizzing at them. They were made with ordinary Qi, but the moment the spies caught sight of them, they fled at top speed.


    Shaking off our tail, we headed straight for the First Chamber. They would find us eventually, but not right away. Before that happened, I needed time to pull off a cunning little trick.


    Right now, I was planning to help my allies break through to the next stage. And no, it wasn¡¯t out of some burst of altruism. All of these disciples would know exactly whom they owed for their advancement, and they would be sure to tell their parents and mentors. In other words, I¡¯d gain some clout with the sect¡¯s core membership. Most importantly, I planned to use these hundred disciples as ¡°samples¡± for observing the process of forming a core during the transition to the Core Formation Stage. I¡¯d missed the moment of First¡¯s ¡°ascension¡± but this time I intended to make up for it and gather statistics from a hundred test subjects.


    Of course, to carry out this crucial research, I first had to solve the issue of giving my charges access to the First Chamber. Since local cultivators were afraid of water, the only way to make them swim was to grant them the ability to breathe underwater.


    While we were following First, I spent time studying the jade slips I¡¯d found in the Leaky Caverns. In one of them, I came across an alchemical technique that allowed me to imbue a pill with Qi that possessed special qualities. A prime example of such Qi was the energy I got from the dragon. The concept was straightforward: herbs are used in pill-making because they carry unique Qi. The Spiritual Alchemy technique described in the jade slip let me manipulate such special Qi without mixing it into my own internal Qi.


    In addition to explaining the technique, the jade slip also detailed common types of ¡°special Qi.¡± As it happened, among my spoils was a stone containing the Qi of a water dragon. One of the properties of this Qi was the ability to breathe underwater. Admittedly, I felt some serious pangs of greed at the thought of using such a precious energy on others rather than myself. So, I decided to make a pill that had similar properties but would only use a tiny drop of the water dragon¡¯s Qi. That should be enough to grant a temporary ability to breathe underwater, which was precisely what I needed.


    I picked a suitable nook in the cave and ordered everyone to stand guard outside while I got busy practicing alchemy. To keep anyone from guessing what I was doing, I placed a Heavenly Shield at the entrance. This barrier guaranteed that no one could spy on me.


    The water dragon Qi stone posed another problem: once I ¡°unsealed¡± it, I¡¯d have to use all of its energy immediately. Therefore, I also wanted to create a pill just for myself, one that contained the dragon¡¯s Qi plus some basic herbs to ease the ¡°processing¡± of that energy. Even that felt insufficient, so I decided to add the energy from one more stone. I identified it as ¡°star Qi¡± which, according to its description, enhanced the qualities of any other Qi without possessing its own.


    Having prepared the necessary herbs, I began concocting the pills. I needed to make one hundred pills of one kind and one pill of another kind, an undertaking that required intense concentration. The process took almost half an hour, but in the end, everything went smoothly, yielding exactly the results I¡¯d been hoping for.

 Chapter 20.49 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    Stepping out of my ¡°laboratory¡± I immediately brought joy to my companions by announcing that they could now practice meditation in the First Chamber. I handed out the pills and made sure each person swallowed their dose right before my eyes. Then, as a group, we all descended into the water-filled tunnels, where these ¡°wild¡± cultivators got to experience firsthand what underwater breathing felt like. Indeed, they were actually filling their lungs with water, and the ¡°special Qi¡± broke it down into oxygen and hydrogen, exhaling the extra gas. The technique was a bit risky after all, if anyone tried to spark a flame in their lungs, things could end badly but I hope one would be foolish enough to attempt that.


    All together, we swam to the center of the First Chamber and ¡°sat¡± on the bottom to meditate. With more than a hundred meters of water above us and considering these cultivators¡¯ fear of water we had little reason to worry about being attacked.


    When I had absorbed the Qi from the dragon¡¯s bones, most of it went into my body directly, so the capacity of my Qi Thread had barely changed. Now, though, I started drawing Qi from the water, quickly approaching my saturation point.


    Another benefit of choosing underwater meditation was that my companions were breathing in water, which had a much higher Qi content, so their cultivation speed spiked as well. I carefully observed the changes in their bodies as well as keeping an eye on my own progress. In just an hour, I¡¯d gathered enough Qi to reach the peak of the sixth level of Qi Condensation. At that point, I retrieved the pill I had prepared with the water dragon¡¯s Qi and swallowed it.


    I was expecting to absorb this Qi fairly easily it was around the same density as the first level of Foundation Establishment. But as soon as it entered my body, I sensed that it ¡°conflicted¡± with the fire dragon Qi I¡¯d previously absorbed from the skeleton. The underwater-breathing pill I¡¯d consumed earlier hadn¡¯t caused any conflict, so I concluded the source of the problem was the star Qi I¡¯d mixed in.


    There was no option to undo swallowed pill, so I had to devote all my attention to ¡°integrating¡± these different types of Qi into my Qi Strand. It wasn¡¯t easy, but I managed. Two hours later, I broke through to the seventh level of Qi Condensation and breathed a sigh of relief.


    After that, my cultivation proceeded smoothly. I absorbed the Qi in the water, leveling up about once per hour. The amount of energy in our surroundings was so enormous that I couldn¡¯t even refine all of it on the spot I ended up sending about half of it into the seal for later.


    Finally, I arrived at the peak of the tenth level of Qi Condensation. Beyond that, my Qi Strand refused to absorb even a drop more. Technically, I should have started forming a Qi structure in the ¡°center of the Phoenix Tail¡± by now, but I hesitated. I still didn¡¯t fully understand this process. I had studied a hundred cultivators and noticed that fewer than half of them used the ¡°standard¡± structure. The rest had unique family or secret cultivation techniques and generally, those were even stronger.


    So, I continued watching the cultivators, funneling all the Qi I absorbed into the seal. I even began experimenting with ways to speed up absorption, ¡°forcibly¡± drawing Qi from my surroundings. I got that idea from the same Spiritual Alchemy technique, which showed you could remotely manipulate external Qi. Overall, the experiment was a success, and I started draining Qi from the environment so fast that the water around me grew visibly dimmer.


    My companions continued breaking through the levels one after another. Some even managed to advance to the Core Formation Stage, pleasing me with their ¡°secret¡± techniques. Using my psionics, I could clearly see what was happening inside their bodies, so I now understood how the ¡°foundation¡± structure in one¡¯s energy center influenced the structure of the ¡°core.¡± Essentially, I¡¯d gathered plenty of data for further analysis. I just needed to go through it and draw some conclusions.


    About six hours after we began meditating, scouts from the Black Lotus Sect discovered us. None of them could dive deeper than about ten meters, which left them grinding their teeth in frustration, helplessly watching our progress from above.


    Eventually, the group also reached the limits of their development, and further cultivation served only to stabilize their level without any additional breakthroughs. With nothing else to do, I decided to see what would happen if I tried to condense my Qi beyond the tenth level. To my surprise, there was no problem at all I made it to the eleventh level of Qi Condensation and started scratching my head, wondering if that was good or bad. I didn¡¯t notice any anomalies, so an hour later I pushed on to the twelfth level. With each step, though, I could tell that condensing my Qi further demanded increasing mental effort.Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.


    Wanting to test my limits, I managed to push through to the fifteenth level. After that, my Qi just sort of ¡°sprang back¡± like rubber and refused to condense any more. Closer examination of my Qi Thread revealed that it was now much denser than the Qi in the rest of my body whereas before we started meditating, it had been the other way around due to the dragon Qi I had absorbed. So, I began condensing the Qi in my body itself, infusing it into my muscles, bones, skin, and internal organs. I didn¡¯t know any formal technique that worked this way, so I went purely by my own intuition and by a newly awakened ¡°dragon instinct.¡±


    Eventually, that process also reached its peak, and I pondered what to do next. There were still four hours until the next eruption, and I really didn¡¯t feel like sitting around ¡°staring at Qi.¡± Cultivation can be such a boring pastime.


    That¡¯s when I noticed Seventh. She was sitting underwater, her semi-translucent robes now almost fully transparent, tracing out the curves of her body. She was no longer the dainty nymph she once seemed, but a truly mature young woman of about twenty, with all the right shapes in all the right places. For the past several hours, she¡¯d been unsuccessfully trying to break through to the Core Formation Stage, but each time she formed her ¡°structure¡± it collapsed under the weight of internal instability.


    ¡°Don¡¯t push yourself so hard, beautiful¡± - I said, slipping behind her unnoticed and wrapping my arms around her.


    ¡°What? Tan Ji Tao? What are you ¡­¡± - At that moment, my hand settled on her chest, leaving no doubt about what I was up to.


    ¡°You need some rest¡± - I murmured. - ¡°Repeatedly trying the same thing won¡¯t change the outcome. You have to change your entire cultivation approach.¡±


    ¡°Yeah? What approach would that be?¡± - she asked, making no attempt to stop my caresses. In fact, she arched her chest forward. Apparently, she too had had more than enough of the endless grind.


    ¡°When I was in the camp, I discovered that having sex with me helps break through to the next level¡± - I whispered in her ear. At the moment, my lungs were full of water, so I used concentrated Qi in my throat to produce the sounds.


    ¡°Really?¡± - she asked, turning to face me.


    ¡°Of course. I want to help you break through.¡±


    ¡°Liar. All you really want is sex¡± - Seventh ¡°protested¡± sliding her hand down my pants.


    I put a simple shield around us so no one could see what was happening, and then we took our clothes off and had sex. The ¡°underwater¡± experience was unusual, so our excitement ran extremely high. Around our eighth mutual orgasm, I felt the Qi inside my partner begin to move on its own. After that, a Qi Core formed in her ninth energy center. Its projection in the physical body was roughly in the area of the womb, so it wasn¡¯t entirely inexplicable though definitely unexpected.


    ¡°Ah! So, you weren¡¯t lying? I really broke through to the Core Formation Stage!¡± - Seventh exclaimed, feverishly absorbing Qi to stabilize her new realm.


    ¡°How could I possibly deceive you?¡± - I grinned. - ¡°Now your cultivation base has gained special properties, which means your future progress will face fewer obstacles.¡±


    What interested me most about this impromptu experiment was that in the newly formed core, I could sense the dragon Qi. It felt like mine, but more ¡°diluted¡± carrying elements of her own personality.


    We spent another hour ¡°reinforcing the result¡± until it was time for the next geyser eruption. Our whole group rose up from the ¡°depths of the sea¡± coughed up the ¡°holy water¡± and headed off to the geyser¡¯s formation site, getting used to breathing air once more. Upon reaching the right cave, we found ourselves confronted by well-organized enemy ranks again. The moment we emerged from the narrow corridors, the enemy¡¯s elite squad charged us. They were moving in a spiral formation relative to their vanguard apparently hoping to drill through our ability to resist.


    Watching this circus act, I decided to begin by launching my fireballs to disrupt their formation. I formed a basic fireball, only to suddenly realize that now I knew how to make the technique more powerful and destructive. Instantly shifting my senses into high gear, I began to analyze the source of this unexpected knowledge. Before long, it became clear that the ¡°source¡± was¡­ the Qi itself.


    In other words, as soon as I formed the spell¡¯s structure, the ¡°infosphere¡± of this world sent me information on how to enhance it. Obviously, the reason for this surprise was my fifteenth level of Qi Condensation. I even managed to detect five tiers of access, each adding new layers of information in turn. Of course, just like all local techniques, this ¡°divine revelation¡± offered no explanation of the underlying ¡°how¡±s or ¡°why¡±s. It was simply a list of instructions on what to do with Qi, and where, to improve the end result.

 Chapter 20.50 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    Having grasped my new horizons, I decided to test how much the power of my fireball had increased. I knew roughly how strong the standard technique was. I used my ordinary Qi, added a portion of my life force, created a fireball, and then applied five modifications in line with the newfound ¡°instructions.¡± The result was a sphere filled with superheated plasma, tens of thousands of degrees in temperature. It shone like a crimson sun, striking awe into anyone who saw it. Then I launched this orb straight into the center of the enemy formation.


    Even I was surprised by the result. The sphere shot forward at supersonic speed, plowed directly into the lead attacker, and detonated, creating a fireball over a hundred meters across. Everyone inside it was instantly incinerated, while those unlucky enough to be near it were blown away by the shockwave, torn to shreds in the process. That was the end of the enemy¡¯s grandiose assault, nothing remained of their pompous ¡°elite¡± squad.


    When the roar of the explosion subsided and my eyes stopped dancing with spots from the glare, I bellowed with all my might:


    ¡°Bow before the power of this divine artifact!¡±


    With those words, I displayed an oozing lump of melted gold I¡¯d dug up in the Leaky Caverns. It radiated ¡°ancient Qi¡± but was in fact utterly useless, not to mention entirely inexplicable in purpose. I had no desire to explain that any of my attacks could now pack such devastating punch.


    My companions stared, eyes wide, practically worshipping this ¡°holy relic.¡±


    ¡°Keep in mind, this thing¡¯s single-use only¡± - I whispered to the leadership of our unit. Although I was ostensibly in charge, I¡¯d entrusted the direct oversight of our troops to the local strategist.


    After that, our group reached a prime location near the center of the cavern unimpeded. Here, no water would be pouring down on us when the portal opened, yet we were still close enough to keep it under our control.


    ¡°Now we need to let a small group of the enemy into the geyser¡± - I began outlining our policy - ¡°then force the rest of their army back and exit ourselves.¡±


    ¡°Aren¡¯t we staying to look for more treasures?¡± - one of the commanders asked in surprise.


    ¡°No. The most valuable treasure we¡¯ve already gained is your increased cultivation levels. The geyser¡¯s fourth eruption is the shortest. If we prevent the enemy from leaving now and stay ourselves, a big battle will break out during that fourth eruption, and we¡¯ll suffer substantial losses. The enemy hasn¡¯t yet realized the predicament they¡¯re in, so they¡¯ll be hoping to escape. We can hinder them from exiting the geyser during this eruption with minimal effort. At the same time, we¡¯ll ensure that at least half of their forces fail to make it out and perish, while we¡¯ll suffer no casualties.¡±


    Everyone looked at me with newfound respect, recognizing my strategic acumen.


    ¡°All right, that¡¯s what we¡¯ll do¡± - our general agreed. - ¡°But are you sure they won¡¯t figure out our plan? It seems pretty obvious.¡±


    ¡°I just annihilated their elite troops. I¡¯m certain all their top commanders were in that group. The ones who remain are mediocre at best. It¡¯s unlikely they¡¯ll remember how short the fourth geyser opening is. If we keep them busy with a few feints, they won¡¯t have time to think about the future.¡±


    ¡°Yes, I think that¡¯s the best we can do for now¡± - the squad commander agreed with me.


    I was 100 percent confident in my plan for one simple reason: cultivators always think about themselves first and foremost. If a commander isn¡¯t really a strategist, he won¡¯t worry about ¡°trivialities¡± like saving his army. He¡¯ll be absolutely sure that he himself can get out safely no matter what. And what happens to the rest of the ¡°cannon fodder¡± won¡¯t concern him in the slightest.


    Everything unfolded according to my plan. First, we flexed our muscles a bit, pretending we were about to attack, but once the portal began to form, we pulled back, gathering all our forces in one spot. The moment the portal opened, the enemy rushed toward it in a throng. The lucky ones at the very front managed to get inside the column of water, but those in the ¡°second wave¡± ran into our united strike. Since more than half of our cultivators had already reached the Core Formation Stage, the results were devastating.This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    The enemies staggered back, spitting out teeth and coughing up pieces of ribs, while we surrounded the geyser, blocking all access to it. We stood there for five minutes, fending off the feeble attempts of the enemy to push through; then, we began to file into the portal in an orderly manner.


    At last, the Black Lotus Sect¡¯s cultivators sensed that they might still have a chance to escape. Their army had long since devolved into a ragtag mob, every person for themselves, and now they were all pressing forward en masse, hoping our attacks would hit someone else instead of them.


    ¡°Go on, I¡¯ll hold them off¡± - I commanded my allies in a commanding tone.


    ¡°But ¡­ ¡± - Second began, who was supposed to be my main bodyguard now.


    ¡°Go!¡± - I roared, activating my Malicious Gaze. - ¡°Don¡¯t dare defy me!¡±


    At once, they felt the impending wrath of their superior and hurried to clear out. Seeing them leave, the enemy lost the last scraps of their fear, but their way was soon blocked by hundreds, no, thousands of simple yet highly effective shields. While they floundered, trying to navigate that maze, the portal closed again, and the water crashed downward, shattering on the granite floor.


    ¡°Youuuuu!!!¡± - roared the most brazen among the attackers. - ¡°You¡¯re trapped here with us now, you can¡¯t escape retribution!¡±


    ¡°Wrong¡± - I sneered, looking to herd of sacrificial lambs. - ¡°You¡¯re the ones who are trapped here with me, and there¡¯s nowhere for you to run.¡±


    What followed could be described in one word: massacre. Thanks to my sudden ¡°enlightenment¡± my techniques had risen to a level unattainable even at the peak of Foundation Establishment. Although I could still sense that higher-stage energy had a stronger ¡°priority¡± I overcame that by wielding a massive amount of Qi and more efficient techniques. Like the Grim Reaper himself, I flew among my enemies, cutting off their heads with an artifact sword then immediately collecting them in a special ¡°burial ring.¡±


    Both the sword and the ring were trophies I¡¯d picked up in the caves. The sword was just a high-quality blade that could chop off heads without damaging their ¡°saleable condition¡± but the ring was more interesting. It practically radiated death energy. I had no desire to use such an artifact, so I planned to present it as a gift to Sun Wei Bonk. Inside the ring was some withered corpse, and I intended to dispose of that once I found a suitable place.


    I expected the disciples to scatter like cockroaches, hiding in every crevice, but to my surprise, I found them literally throwing themselves in my path leaping onto the ¡°embrasure¡± so to speak whenever I moved closer to one particular teenager who looked around seventeen. He was dressed in the richest clothes and looked everyone around him with an expression of disdain and loathing. He even stared at me like I was beneath him, though in reality, he was just another mediocre cultivator.


    I figured such a ¡°cheat¡± might come in handy, so I saved that upstart for last. Not a single one of his companions dared run off, and as a result, each and every one of them lost their heads¡­ into my ring. Finally, I hovered in front of the last survivor, who still regarded me with haughty arrogance, even though I could see fear flickering in his eyes.


    ¡°I am Mu Ta Gen, son of Mu To Ta, head of the Black Lotus Sect¡± - this fool blurted out. - ¡°If you kill me, my father will destroy you and your entire sect!¡±


    ¡°Dude, I just wiped out your sect¡¯s entire younger generation¡± - I answered with a grim smirk. - ¡°Think if I leave you alive, they¡¯ll forgive me for that? You¡¯d better put on a more serious face. When I show your head to your sect¡¯s leader, it¡¯ll be better if you look proudly self-sacrificing, rather than petrified or pathetically arrogant.¡±


    Mu Ta Gen¡¯s eyes widened, but he managed to compose himself and follow my order. The sword flashed one last time, and his severed head joined the others in the ring I¡¯d reserved for this purpose. Then I pulled out the Qi extractor from my pocket, stuck it into the headless body¡¯s abdomen, and drained its Qi Strand along with all the accumulated energy.


    I glanced around the hall, which was littered with corpses, and got to work ¡°cleaning up.¡± I didn¡¯t want these bodies to be discovered outside during the next geyser eruption. So, over the course of an hour, I dragged them all into a sealed chamber with a narrow entrance, one from which they could only have escaped if they somehow turned into zombies. At the same time, I rifled through all the pockets, emptied every spatial ring, and confiscated every artifact.


    Once I¡¯d finished tidying up, I headed to the Leaky Caverns. There was still a huge amount of treasure there, and I could also absorb some of that aggressive Qi, which had proven so useful in battle. When I got to the Bone Graveyard, however, I found it submerged in dark water that completely blocked access to the treasure. I waited a few hours for the ¡°tide to go out¡± and when it did, I managed to reach the ¡°treasury¡±. This time, I held nothing back, clearing out everything down to the last piece of useless gold that no longer contained even a trace of Qi.

 Chapter 20.51 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    Naturally, I understood that no one would let me keep all of these priceless treasures. But I had another discovery that came to my aid, a cracked old jade slip describing a technique similar to that used in spatial rings. It created a ¡°folded space¡± tied to any spot inside the cultivator¡¯s body. Afterward, one could store up to a hundred cubic meters¡¯ worth of items in that space.


    I bound the storage to my left arm, hoping that if anyone searched me, they¡¯d assume it was simply part of the seal I used to hold Qi. These two techniques didn¡¯t interfere with one another, even though they existed side by side. Most likely, it was because their ¡°pockets¡± were offset in different coordinates of multidimensional space.


    I spent the remaining time topping up my seal with ¡°dark Qi.¡± In fact, I ventured into the deepest depths of the caves to collect as much potent ¡°poison¡± as I could. I had to enclose myself in a special shield, because any contact of that energy with my skin led to bleeding wounds. Meanwhile, as I accumulated Qi, I also sorted through the ¡°treasures¡± I¡¯d gathered, deciding what might be of use and what I could afford to give away to the leeches in our sect¡¯s leadership.


    Finally, the moment arrived for the last eruption, and I stepped into the ¡°elevator.¡± It spun me around a bit, then spat me out into the normal world. I had been waiting for exactly this moment, using psionics to keep an eye on the future. The rest of the journey up to the lake¡¯s surface would normally have to be done within a tube-like structure of Qi that held the ancient Qi dimension¡¯s water in place. However, I managed to time my movements to slip right through that barrier, ending up submerged in the lake¡¯s water.


    Considering I no longer had any trouble breathing underwater, I swam aside and cautiously surfaced. More precisely, I reviewed a future timeline in which I emerged and surveyed my surroundings, pinpointing the location of our allied troops. Strangely enough, the strongest cultivators of the Heavenly Blades Sect were gathered near the geyser, and the geyser itself was surrounded by Black Lotus Sect forces.


    ¡°Greetings, Sect Leader¡± - I said casually, surfacing next to our allies.


    ¡°Tan Ji Tao?¡± - Cheon Chu Han exclaimed in surprise. - ¡°You got out?¡±


    He glanced at the erupting geyser and the enemies frozen around it, who didn¡¯t appear worried.


    ¡°Of course. I believe we should leave this place before Mu To Ta becomes enraged.¡±


    ¡°What are you talking about?¡± - Cheon Chu Han frowned. - ¡°They dared to attack our group and killed ten cultivators at the peak of Foundation Establishment. Now their disciples will emerge from the geyser, and then we¡¯ll strike back.¡±


    ¡°I intended to give this gift to elder Sun Wei Bonk, but I think you¡¯d better be the one to pass it on.¡± - I said, offering him the ¡°burial ring.¡±


    Cheon Chu Han took it, scanned it with his divine sense, and his eyes widened in shock.


    ¡°What? How¡­?¡± - He stared at me, dumbfounded.


    ¡°What¡¯s going on?¡± - asked the onlookers, confused about the backstory.


    Inside the ring I¡¯d handed him were the heads of nearly one and a half thousand disciples from the Black Lotus Sect.


    ¡°I heard elder Sun Wei Bonk threatening to build a pyramid out of the Black Lotus Sect¡¯s disciples heads¡± - I explained - ¡°so I decided to help him.¡±


    ¡°What? What¡¯s he saying?¡± - Elder Sun Wei Bonk asked, turning to the Sect Leader.


    Cheon Chu Han said nothing, handing him the ring instead. A second later, elder Sun Wei Bonk¡¯s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. But an instant after that, he burst into crazed laughter.


    ¡°Haha! Grandson, your death is avenged! They¡¯ve paid in full for their treachery.¡±


    ¡°Sect Leader, this gift is for you personally¡± - I said, extending another ring along with the Qi extractor.


    ¡°What¡¯s this?¡± - Cheon Chu Han asked, puzzled, as he examined what I¡¯d handed him.Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.


    ¡°It¡¯s the head of Mu Ta Gen, son of Mu To Ta, head of the Black Lotus Sect and also his Qi Thread, extracted by this device.¡± - This time, all the elders heard the contents of the ring and began murmuring in astonishment. - ¡°I think they¡¯ll make a splendid present for the Black Lotus Sect leader.¡±


    ¡°If Mu To Ta finds out his son is dead, he¡¯ll declare war on us¡± - Cheon Chu Han fumed, glancing at the mass of enemies still crowding around the geyser.


    ¡°That¡¯s why we should spread rumors that Mu Ta Gen fell into a trap I set inside the ancient Qi realm and decided to remain there, and none of his companions dared leave him. Then, in ten years, when Mu To Ta returns to the Spirit Geyser Valley to meet his son, he¡¯ll receive the lad¡¯s head instead and learn he¡¯s been dead all this time. It¡¯ll destroy his spirit, giving us the perfect chance to strike a fatal blow at the Black Lotus Sect.¡±


    ¡°What cunning!¡± - one of the elders exclaimed, listening to my plan.


    ¡°Thank you, elder, for the compliment¡± - I replied with a bow.


    Seeing that I took no offense whatsoever at his outburst, he had no idea how to respond.


    ¡°So, you planned this all along killing the Black Lotus Sect Leader¡¯s son?¡± - Cheon Chu Han pressed on, still not sure how to react to these ¡°gifts.¡±


    ¡°No. I just overheard elder Sun Wei Bonk saying he wanted to collect heads, and I decided to help him in his noble endeavor.¡±


    ¡°And you killed 1500 cultivators just because of an offhand remark you overheard?¡±


    Now that the elders understood the magnitude of what had happened, they gaped at me in horror, jaws slack.


    ¡°All for elder Sun Wei Bonk¡¯s peace of mind¡± - I said with an innocent smile.


    As for Sun Wei Bonk himself, the face he pulled was so priceless that I decided then and there that someday I¡¯d paint a portrait called ¡°Elder Receives His Gifts¡± capturing precisely that expression. His countenance was a mix of delight, fury, confusion, and¡­fear.


    In truth, I hadn¡¯t killed all those kids for Sun Wei Bonk¡¯s sake at all. I killed them all for¡­ well¡­ hang on, why did I even do that? What was the point of slaughtering 1500 kids who, strictly speaking, hadn¡¯t done anything to me? Since when had I become the sort of maniac who doesn¡¯t care about human life? Hmm, if I recall my historical record, I¡¯ve been that way from the start. Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!


    However, they attacked me first. If they¡¯d just hidden or avoided me, I wouldn¡¯t have bothered chasing them. At most, I would¡¯ve crushed them like cockroaches without a second thought. But since they dared to attack me, they got precisely what they wanted, only in reverse. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. It¡¯s an ancient form of justice, free of malice.


    Meanwhile, Cheon Chu Han gave me another stern look, then turned around and declared in a commanding voice:


    ¡°Fall back.¡±


    The entire army immediately began moving out, leaving the scene behind.


    Honestly, I was a bit surprised that the entire sect had stayed behind for the fourth geyser eruption, just for my sake. Sure, there was the factor of revenge the sect leader mentioned, but that was more a pretext than anything else. In reality, everyone was worried about the fate of the alchemist who had raised a hundred disciples to the peak of their cultivation in a single day. Moreover, seventy of them had broken into the Core Formation Stage, effectively granting them a whole new level of power. In ten years, they would all become formidable fighters, thereby strengthening the sect considerably.


    Meanwhile, the Black Lotus Sect, by contrast, had lost its entire younger generation and wouldn¡¯t be able to recover in ten years¡¯ time. As a result, I went from being an unknown upstart to a strategic asset recognized by the entire sect, a result I¡¯d deliberately aimed for. Now, hardly anyone would dare interfere with my growth. After all, any attempt to harm me would mean going against public opinion, which was highly influential in this society.


    The army of cultivators pulled back and then split into two groups. The majority headed for our sect ¡°on foot¡± while the sect leader and elders boarded the Heavenly Ark vehicle. I was unceremoniously stuffed onto the ¡°Heavenly Ark¡± under orders, forced to spend two hours cramped in a hot, sweaty crowd. Finally, that torture ended when we arrived at the palace, where I was ¡°invited¡± for the third time to appear in the throne hall. A big crowd was gathered once again, all gawking at me like I was some exotic beast in a zoo: curious but wary.


    ¡°So, Tan Ji Tao¡± - Cheon Chu Han said, giving me a baleful glare - ¡°You¡¯ll now have to explain everything that happened.¡±


    I began describing the events that had taken place after my arrival in Geyser Valley. As for leaving that trio (supposedly my bodyguards) to ¡°stew¡± in the geyser, I explained it away by claiming I was unwilling to ¡°carry¡± those who didn¡¯t want to take risks. I attributed my victory over a Core Formation cultivator to my club and the opponent¡¯s arrogance. Which, to be fair, was pretty much how it went. I then recounted how we¡¯d broken into the ancient Qi dimension, showing off the ¡°dead¡± compass I¡¯d used. Through it, I explained our discoveries in the Leaky Caverns and our journey to the dragon, whose barrier once again had been broken by my club.


    Basically, I played up my ¡°luck¡± and the extraordinary properties of the artifacts I¡¯d acquired. As for obtaining the dragon¡¯s corporeal Qi, I glossed over it by saying something like ¡°I meditated, dozed off, woke up and voil¨¤.¡± But by the time I got to creating the underwater-breathing pills, the elders¡¯ patience had run thin.


    ¡°What?!! You dared to use a stone infused with water dragon energy to make pills?¡± - one of them howled. - ¡°That¡¯s a priceless artifact! Such insolence cannot go unpunished!¡±


    ¡°I did it for the disciples of our sect¡± - I tried to defend myself, while Cheon Chu Han looked on impassively as they slandered me.


    ¡°Silence!!! We alone can decide what to do with the sect¡¯s treasures!¡± - foamed the anonymous elder, practically spitting in rage.

 Chapter 20.52 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    ¡°Elder, please calm down¡± - Chuk Cha Pyo intervened. - ¡°I remind you that Tan Ji Tao is a grandmaster alchemist. He therefore has full authority to decide how to use the sect¡¯s treasures in pill-making. In strict accordance with sect rules, all these pills were used solely for the benefit of our best disciples.¡±


    ¡°But Ho Le, come here¡± - Cheon Chu Han summoned one of the disciples.


    Several visitors to the ancient Qi dimension had traveled with me on the Heavenly Ark. As far as I could tell, they were relatives of important figures and had also broken through to the Core Formation Stage, automatically granting them a high level of privilege.


    A young man I recognized emerged from the crowd and approached the sect leader, who laid a hand on his shoulder and scanned him.


    ¡°I sense powerful dragon energy in his body¡± - Cheon Chu Han declared. - ¡°So, the dragon energy stone wasn¡¯t wasted.¡±


    The elder who¡¯d been shouting at me fell silent, simply glaring at me. Overall, the atmosphere of this assembly felt rather different from what I¡¯d anticipated.


    ¡°Continue¡± - Cheon Chu Han ordered.


    I continued my story: how we¡¯d all cultivated underwater, and because we were actually breathing the lake water, we were absorbing far more Qi into our bodies, allowing most of us to reach the Core Formation Stage. After that, I¡¯d used the ¡°great artifact¡± to wipe out an enemy squad and save the lives of the disciples on whom we¡¯d spent the pills. Finally, I mentioned that I¡¯d stayed behind in the caves to fulfill Sun Wei Bonk¡¯s wishes and collect as many heads as possible.


    ¡°You mentioned treasures you found in the Leaky Caverns¡± - Cheon Chu Han said with a faint hint of interest.


    ¡°Yes, these treasures right here.¡±


    Again, I stretched out my hand and, with a magician¡¯s flourish, produced a big pile of gold and glittering gemstones. However, most of it was random junk. All the truly valuable stuff I¡¯d stashed away in my personal spatial pocket. This time, the heap was ten times bigger than what I¡¯d hauled out from the Forbidden Tomb but nobody sighed enviously. Instead, they just looked at me with¡­ an odd disapproval.


    Cheon Chu Han scanned the pile with his Qi and nodded in satisfaction. After all, there were indeed some decent items in there.


    ¡°This is an excellent result. What do you want as a reward for your service?¡± - he asked.


    ¡°I¡¯d like techniques that enhance the foundation of cultivation when transitioning to the Foundation Establishment Stage¡± - I stated my demand.


    ¡°You ask too much!¡± - Cheon Chu Han¡¯s expression hardened, his good mood evaporating.


    ¡°What?¡± - I blurted, taken aback by this unexpected ¡°slap in the face¡±.


    ¡°Such techniques are only available to the disciples of the Royal Palace. They¡¯re not even given to Inner Court disciples. And you¡¯re nothing but an Outer Court upstart. Don¡¯t forget your place in the sect¡± - Cheon Chu Han explained coldly.


    Upon hearing his words, the elders immediately started smiling and nodding in agreement. Oh, so that¡¯s how it is? Well then, from this moment, the sect won¡¯t be getting anything more from me. And I, as response, will make sure to squeeze every last drop of resources out of it, leaving it to starve.


    ¡°We¡¯ll give you one-tenth of the recovered treasures, after we¡¯ve assessed their value¡± - the sect leader pronounced his verdict.


    With those words, he unexpectedly leaped from his throne, darted toward me at a speed the eye could hardly follow, and placed his hand on my shoulder, probing my entire body with his Qi. He didn¡¯t merely scan it; he also thrust his ¡°Qi tentacles¡± into every part of me, checking this and that, leaving traces of his energy behind.


    It was a literal ¡°spiritual violation¡± after which he sniffed contemptuously and returned to his throne. He still didn¡¯t notice the spatial seal on my left arm because it was ¡°covered¡± by the ghost seal. I had chosen that placement very carefully, and it had paid off.


    ¡°That¡¯s all. Leave the palace¡± - Cheon Chu Han ordered, regarding me with barely concealed disgust and¡­unease.This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work.


    I gave him a silent bow and left the hall. A servant promptly appeared and escorted me to the palace exit, then lost any interest in me.


    Once I¡¯d oriented myself, I headed toward my home. I needed time to think, to re-evaluate my prospects of staying with this sect, and to plot my revenge against these self-important creeps. But I had barely taken a few steps before my psionics began signaling that some major disaster was about to befall me.


    Immediately pushing my perception into overdrive, I scanned the possible future outcomes. In most of them, I ended up dead before I even realized what was happening. But there was one scenario where I made a detour into a forest far from any populated areas and managed to meet my would-be killer and exchange a few words. So, I followed that line of probability, continuing to sift through more variants.


    Fifteen minutes later, I arrived at a small clearing deep in the woods, and from behind the bushes emerged¡­ Wang Zhu Tang, the Outer Court overseer.


    ¡°Well, here we are¡± - he said with a predatory grin. - ¡°You didn¡¯t think you could deceive me, did you?¡±


    ¡°Deceive you how?¡± - I asked, showing not a speck of fear.


    ¡°You¡¯re the one who beat up my illegitimate son, Sli Ker!¡±


    ¡°I saved his life¡± - I retorted.


    ¡°Just so you could get my permission to join the expedition to the Spirit Geysers. But the poison still remains in his body, so you must¡¯ve been planning to finish him off later.¡±


    ¡°Huh¡­ well, actually, no. But if you insist, I¡¯ll certainly be glad to. Right now, even¡± - I said with a nod. - ¡°I will go and kill your son.¡±


    ¡°Go ahead and mock¡­¡± - Wang Zhu Tang snarled. - ¡°You know that seal they placed on you allows any full sect member to torture you to death? And I¡¯m an instructor at the Royal Palace. My authority is more than enough to make your demise an unending agony. And no one will ever discover what happened to the ¡®genius grandmaster alchemist.¡¯ I¡¯ve set up a barrier here, so nobody can hear your dying screams.¡±


    ¡°Very prudent of you¡± - I sneered. - ¡°Only you won¡¯t be hearing those screams, either.¡±


    With that, I formed a Qi impulse nearly identical to the one Wang Zhu Tang would attempt to use against me a couple of seconds later. In fact, in both his scenario and mine, the main source of that impulse was the submission seal set against the heart. Under accelerated perception, I reviewed over a thousand future timelines where he activated his seal to trigger my own into ¡°spectacular execution¡± mode. In those glimpses, I tried out various ways to counter that attack.


    Thanks to the information I¡¯d gathered, I now had a decent idea of how this seal worked. In truth, it was fairly primitive. Specifically, the ¡°priority¡± of the seal was determined by a small portion of it, in which one of the inscribed symbols was activated. And because my body now bore traces of Cheon Chu Han¡¯s Qi, Qi that possessed ¡°administrator rights¡±, I used that Qi to alter my level of access and immediately issued the command to ¡°execute¡± Wang Zhu Tang.


    I didn¡¯t know how to activate the ¡°instant death¡± mode because, in the timelines where that type of attack was deployed, I died before I could learn its structure. But the regular ¡°execution¡± setting was still more than enough to completely seal off the External Court Overseer¡¯s abilities. He collapsed to the ground at once, rolling around and filling the forest with agonized screams. I trusted the effectiveness of his ¡°concealing barrier¡± but I wasn¡¯t about to test its soundproofing. And so, not a second later, my Skull Crusher accelerated to maximum speed and slammed into my victim¡¯s head.


    Wang Zhu Tang was at the eighth level of Core Formation (28) - a power that was off the charts for me. I recalled how, back when I¡¯d struck cultivators at the first and second levels of Core Formation (21, 22) with my club: the first died immediately, while the second was only knocked senseless. This time, my blow did no more than tear away a patch of scalp. But I didn¡¯t stop, unleashing one strike, then another, and another.


    After a couple of minutes of ceaseless pounding on his writhing body, I sensed that Wang Zhu Tang was so desperate to die quickly, he actually weakened his own natural defenses. At that moment, Skull Crusher first knocked him unconscious, and then, with the next blow, smashed his skull entirely, splattering his brains.


    Heaving a sigh of relief, I scanned the surroundings with my psionics, then activated a Qi blade in my left hand and absorbed all the Qi from the corpse. Just moments ago, I had been dealing with a nearly indestructible object, but once stripped of its Qi, it was just a corpse ¡ª something I could tear apart with ease.


    I quickly searched the body, pocketed all the ¡°loot¡± and stowed the remains (including what was left of his head) into a spatial ring, thus destroying the evidence. The bloodstains I simply burned away with a fireball. All that remained was a faint patch of ash indicating that something might have happened here.


    After scanning the area once more to confirm there were no witnesses to my handiwork, I dashed off toward the External Court disciples¡¯ camp. From a distance, I scanned the place and recognized the distinct Qi signature belonging to Sli Ker. He was in his room, practically soiling himself with fear. There was a ¡°guard¡± outside his door, but that person was only at the ninth level of Qi Condensation (09), more like a servant than a real protector. Considering the level of training in the External Court, I was confident he wouldn¡¯t even notice if his charge vanished.


    Slipping forward like a thief in the night, I reached the window of Sli Ker¡¯s room. Then I accelerated, hopping inside through a window that had no glass, just a pair of shutters that were currently open. Under the effect of accelerated perception, I glided across the room to my prey and knocked him out with a precise, measured pulse of Qi aimed directly at his brain. Hoisting his limp body, I jumped back through the window and fled into the forest, taking care to avoid detection by the other disciples.

 Chapter 20.53 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    Ten minutes later, I had tied Sli Ker to a tree in the distant forest, poured a hastily concocted paralyzing brew down his throat, and then brought him back to consciousness.


    ¡°Here we are, meeting again¡± - I said with a predatory smile on my face. - ¡°You didn¡¯t really think you could get rid of me, did you?¡±


    ¡°What?¡± - The victim¡¯s eyes bulged as he frantically looked around. - ¡°You wouldn¡¯t dare! My father¡­ my teacher knows everything! If something happens to me, he will kill you in such a torturous way that you¡¯ll beg him to finish you off quickly.¡±


    ¡°You know¡± - I smiled - ¡°it¡¯s quite amusing, but that¡¯s exactly how I finished him off not too long ago.¡± - As I spoke, I pulled a corpse out of my ring. Although its head was little more than a bloody mess, the clothes were still recognizable.


    ¡°What? Father!... No! You¡¯re lying! There¡¯s no Qi coming from him. This is just a corpse you dressed in my master¡¯s clothes.¡±


    ¡°And how would I have obtained those clothes?¡± - I asked, then stowed the body back in the ring. - ¡°But it doesn¡¯t really matter. I could kill you the same way I killed your father, but I¡¯ve got a more interesting option.¡±


    Horror appeared on Sli Ker¡¯s face because at that moment I was looking at him with Malicious Gaze technique, ignoring Heaven and Earth. - ¡°That pill I gave you provided resistance to most poisons. But it also introduced a vulnerability to certain other poisons. And now I¡¯m going to test exactly how that works in one very promising case.¡±


    I took out several herbs, mixed them, and created an extract, which I used to coat the blade of my ¡®trophy¡¯ dagger that I¡¯d obtained back in the Forbidden Tomb. I made a small cut on the test subject¡¯s cheek and quickly stepped back, ready to shield myself if necessary.


    The wound immediately darkened, and instead of crimson blood, a coal-black liquid began oozing out. An ulcer formed on the cheek and started to spread rapidly across his entire body, turning it into that same black rot. Sli Ker screamed and writhed, but there was nothing he could do. In less than a minute, his body had almost completely decayed.


    But that wasn¡¯t the most important thing. Thanks to the alchemical transformation of poisons, the liquid oozing from him turned into something akin to ¡°Alien¡¯s blood¡± corroding any organic matter. I hadn¡¯t simply brewed poison from the herbs; I¡¯d imbued it with dark Qi from the Leaky Caves. As a result, the corpse turned into a bubbling substance that dissolved not only the victim¡¯s body and clothing but also part of the forest around it. I tossed Wang Zhu Tang¡¯s body into the newly formed pool and watched as it, too, turned into black sludge. Then, ten minutes later, that substance spontaneously ignited and burned to ashes, erasing any trace of what had happened.


    After examining yet another scorched patch of ground, I turned around and strolled home without much hurry. The ¡°mysterious disappearance¡± of the Inner Courtyard steward and his illegitimate son had nothing to do with me. And who would suspect a mere tenth-level Qi Condensation cultivator no matter how gifted of murdering them?


    I wasn¡¯t worried that anyone else might know I had beaten Sli Ker and ¡°tricked¡± Wang Zhu Tang into giving me permission to go on the trip. I remembered perfectly well the remark one of the disciples had made about the head of the Outer Courtyard. He was extremely sensitive about losing face and would hardly let anyone learn of such a ¡°shame.¡± In fact, that very secrecy was why he had decided to finish me off without witnesses. Now that same secrecy worked to my advantage, allowing me to wipe out all evidence of the crime.


    Returning to my stone house, I sat down on a stone couch, pulled a stone blanket over myself, and sank into meditation, doing my best impression of an actual rock. I carefully examined the traces of Qi that Cheon Chu Han had left in my body and confirmed my suspicions. He hadn¡¯t simply inspected me ¡ª he had implanted an entire set of seals meant to halt my development. By using the Malicious Gaze technique, I managed to detect remnants of the Heavenly Law, from which I gleaned that it limits cultivation up to the fourth level of Core Crystallization (24).


    Mentally cursing the sect leader, I set about eradicating all these seals before they could become fully ¡°ingrained¡± in my energy body. I could only manipulate Qi of that density indirectly, but I had a brutal cheat at my disposal called Dark Qi. This energy dissolved not only physical matter but Qi structures as well. I couldn¡¯t directly see the Qi in those seals due to my comparatively low cultivation level, but I perceived it through psionics. That proved sufficient to gradually, step by step, dissolve all the seals. Cheon Chu Han had taken care not to leave obvious traces, so the amount of energy in his seals was minimal.Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    After cleansing my body and my Qi Thread of these fresh foreign elements, I turned my attention to the slave seal. To my displeasure, I discovered that while this seal was isolated from my Qi channels, it had fused with my physical body, and any attempt to destroy it caused organic decay near my heart. Therefore, I settled for making that portion of the seal completely inert and unable to respond to any commands. Essentially, one-third of the seal remained behind as a mere husk, bound to my physical form.


    I spent four full days, sitting in meditation the entire time on this ¡°sludge-cleansing¡± process. When I finished, I intended to focus on a detailed study of my Qi Thread and advancing it further, but that was when my solitude was abruptly interrupted. A servant at the eighth level of Foundation Formation (18) brazenly burst into my home, announcing that he had brought my share of the spoils.


    ¡°Dump everything over there in that corner¡± - I said, pointing to the far corner of the room. - ¡°And give me the jade with the item list.¡±


    Offended by my tone and my disregard for both him and the ¡°treasures¡± the servant practically dumped the load in the indicated spot, threw the jade at me, and stormed off.


    ¡°And where is the Spring Forest Qi Crystal?¡± - I asked, quickly comparing the list¡¯s contents to the items.


    Of course, the question was rhetorical, since I could clearly see the crystal in the servant¡¯s pocket. But he pretended to go deaf and walked away as though nothing had happened.


    Figuring that my meditative state of mind was already ruined, I decided I might as well occupy myself with something else. In roughly three weeks, an expedition to the Dragon Dungeon was set to begin, and I wanted to be sure in advance that I could take part. If that turned out to be impossible, I¡¯d have to start dissecting my own sect in search of hidden knowledge.


    I decided to head to the Alchemists¡¯ Guild to find my teacher. Leaving my ¡°treasures¡± unattended, however, could easily mean losing them altogether. On the other hand, I could sense from here that seals infused with the sect leader¡¯s Qi had been placed on them, so I had no intention of going near them, either. Hence, I resolved to protect my haul with a simple trap.


    I had gained a thorough understanding of how traps worked back in the Forbidden Tomb. Essentially, they all consisted of a thin Qi thread, a sensor that detected the breaking of that thread, and a ¡°detonator¡± that triggered a technique. These traps were primitive, yet effective. The trick lay in making the Qi threads extremely thin nearly impossible to detect by ordinary means. Even I sometimes only sensed a trap because I felt the approach of my own demise or picked up on the energy powering its combat function, rather than spotting those Qi threads. Considering the local inhabitants¡¯ level, I could be sure they would realize there was a trap only once they had walked right into it.


    Since I wasn¡¯t familiar with the principles behind seal-crafting, I decided to base my traps on alchemy. I brewed five different types of poisons, loaded them into the traps, and ¡°armed¡± them by lacing my ¡°treasury¡± with Qi threads. After examining the resulting mousetrap, I nodded with satisfaction and headed to the Alchemists¡¯ Guild.


    I remembered on my way in that I¡¯d apparently been given a task to produce certain pills, so I decided to stop by the storage facility to pick up some hay. But the moment I set foot inside the local barn, the storekeeper came rushing out to meet me.


    ¡°Did you bring me the herbs?¡± - he asked excitedly.


    ¡°No, I¡¯m here to take what¡¯s left.¡±


    ¡°What? Khah-khan!¡± - He coughed up blood. - ¡°I won¡¯t give it to you!¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve got the sect leader¡¯s orders¡± - I said, hoping to turn up the pressure.


    ¡°What orders?¡±


    ¡°These.¡± - I took out the jade containing the list of pills.


    He immediately grabbed the stone and scanned it. But within seconds, his concern vanished, and he returned the jade to me.


    ¡°There are no herbs for you. If you have a problem with that, speak to the guild leader.¡±


    ¡°All right.¡±


    And that gave me a reason to drop by Chuk Cha Pyo¡¯s office and find out where I could locate Mu Niam. But when I entered the guild master¡¯s office, I found all three grandmaster alchemists there, locked in some heated discussion.


    ¡°Greetings, Grandmasters¡± - I said with a slight bow.


    ¡°Tan Ji Tao? You¡¯re right on time.¡± - Chuk Cha Pyo addressed me. - ¡°We¡¯ve run out of herbs in our warehouse, so we¡¯re sending a squad of alchemists to the Lands of the Sacred Foliage. You¡¯ll be going along with them. Your colleague, O Hu Yan, will lead the squad. You leave tomorrow, so you¡¯d better get ready.¡±


    ¡°Understood.¡± - I nodded. - ¡°Teacher, I¡¯d like a word.¡± - I turned to Mu Niam.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go.¡± - He nodded.


    We left the office and went into the next room. I noticed a certain pomp in its furnishings, very much Mu Niam¡¯s style.


    ¡°This is my office. Have a seat.¡± - He pointed to a chair.


    ¡°Teacher, I wanted to confirm my participation in the expedition to the Dragons¡¯ Dungeon¡± - I said without preamble, settling into the soft, comfortable chair quite a contrast from the stone couch in my own house.


    ¡°Yes, that¡¯s possible. Although a small group from the guild will be going under Elder Zhao Han¡¯s command, I¡¯ll be representing the Alchemists¡¯ Guild separately and can therefore choose my own expedition team. However, before we depart, you¡¯ll need to finish producing all the pills listed in the jade you received from the sect leader.¡±


    ¡°Yes, I¡¯ve been thinking about that. But there¡¯s a problem with the herbs. Especially the ones older than five hundred years.¡±

 Chapter 20.54 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it. We have the most valuable herbs from the list. As for the simpler ones, you¡¯ll have to gather them yourself. Tomorrow, before we depart, I¡¯ll give you a list of the herbs we can provide for making the pills, so you¡¯ll know exactly which ones you¡¯ll need to collect.¡±


    ¡°Alright¡± - I nodded.


    ¡°Do you have any other questions?¡±


    ¡°No. All the best. See you tomorrow¡± - I said, taking the hint.


    In truth, this condition of having to make so many pills felt more like a disguised refusal, because the list contained hundreds of them, and each required a ton of time to prepare. After all, these weren¡¯t mass-produced pills that could be churned out by the barrel. But I was sure I¡¯d manage to get everything done within three weeks.


    Returning home, I discovered that my ¡°mouse trap¡± had already caught a mouse. The same servant who had brought the treasures decided to relieve me of a portion of them and fell for the simplest trick, ending up with a poisoned spike in his leg. Frankly, I had set this trap only to warn potential thieves how dangerous it would be to steal from me, but this one was so foolish that he didn¡¯t even watch his own step. And judging by his cultivation level, he could have just flown. Instead, like some barefoot peasant, he headed straight for the pile of gold and stepped on a small ¡°anti-tank hedgehog¡± coated in poison and imbued with Qi to improve its ¡°piercing power.¡±


    Tossing the corpse out of the house and watching it plummet into the ravine; I sat back down to meditate. I even managed to retrieve the stolen stone charged with Spring Forest Qi, so my mood improved. Until the next morning, I meditated, restoring the seemingly minor damage I had received when getting rid of the seals. I also embedded a healing pill into my chest to trigger in case the slave seal was activated. That was my ¡°last line¡± of defense.


    In the morning, I headed to the Alchemists¡¯ Guild. A somewhat worried Mu Niam quickly handed me a piece of jade listing two dozen plants. The storekeeper was supposed to give them out once I brought all the other herbs required for the corresponding pills. Then I went to the squad¡¯s gathering spot. O Hu Yan was already there, pestering his subordinates with one complaint or another.


    We assembled fairly quickly and loaded everything onto the Heavenly Ark. While we were flying, I sat comfortably on a soft seat and breathed in the fresh air. Since there weren¡¯t many alchemists in the sect, ¡°Icarus¡± (the Heavenly Ark) was less than half full.


    I tried to study how this contraption was put together, but I only managed to figure out that the Qi formations embedded in it were fundamentally different from my enslavement and energy-absorption seals. Moreover, by using psionic scanning on the debris lodged in the cracks of the floor, I discovered that this transport vehicle was thousands if not tens of thousands of years old. It was clear there had been lengthy stretches of time in its history when no one used it.


    The sheer antiquity of it left me stunned; it was no worse than that of the Ancients or Eldar. At the same time, it became obvious that the current level of knowledge is far inferior to that of old, by several orders of magnitude. Alas, my present knowledge and cultivation level weren¡¯t nearly enough to understand how the Heavenly Ark truly worked. The only thing I found out was that it isn¡¯t powered by any Heavenly Laws or Demonic Curses.


    After an hour of flight, we landed. Then, a tenth-level Core Crystallization (30) cultivator entered the cabin. He carefully inspected and sniffed around the entire ark, and then¡­ a search began.


    ¡°Hand over all your rings¡± - O Hu Yan addressed me.


    ¡°Hand over rings belonging to a grandmaster alchemist, filled with countless treasures?¡± - I smirked.


    ¡°We need to seal all your rings to prevent the theft of priceless herbs¡± - said the leader of the ¡®customs¡¯ unit, stepping up to me.


    ¡°Seal them, not take them¡± - I emphasized, focusing on the part of his remark I cared about.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    ¡°After sealing them, we¡¯ll return all the rings to you. Elder O Hu Yan forgot that there¡¯s no need to take away the artifacts of grandmaster alchemists.¡±


    O Hu Yan scrunched his face at those words but didn¡¯t argue.


    ¡°Oh, grandmaster, how forgetful you are. You must urgently give up all your spatial rings so they can be sealed. I¡¯ll be sure to keep a close eye so you don¡¯t forget to collect them afterward.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Elder, you need to have all your rings sealed, too¡± - added the customs officer, apparently not fond of that snob either.


    As a result, I got to observe the procedure. O Hu Yan put all his trinkets into a special pouch, which he then handed over to the customs officer. The officer activated the seal placed on the container, blocking access to its contents. It wouldn¡¯t be too hard to break this seal, but returning it to its original state afterward would be nearly impossible. After that, I went through the same process, tucking all my valuables away in my pocket.


    Once everyone had undergone a thorough ¡°anal¡± inspection, three more fighters boarded, taking the remaining free seats. The Icarus took off but landed again after only ten minutes.


    ¡°Out!¡± - barked O Hu Yan, practically fuming with anger as soon as the doors opened.


    Stepping outside, I found myself in a forest filled with pure, pleasant Qi. Everything around me was blooming and fragrant. The environment was something between wild jungle and sparse steppe woodland. On one hand, there were almost no thickets of bushes or vines; on the other, at decent intervals, there were sprawling plants radiating waves of diverse Qi. Overall, this place lived up to its name ¡ª the Land of the Sacred Foliage.


    ¡°All right, each of you will now receive a spatial ring and a jade slip with a list of the plants you must gather¡± - O Hu Yan began, pacing importantly in front of his subordinates. - ¡°You are required to fulfill your assigned tasks completely. If you find any especially valuable plants, you must also collect them. Each of you will be assigned an escort who will monitor your performance of your duties to the guild. We¡¯ll stay here for three days, and anyone who fails to complete the tasks will be punished upon our return.¡±


    At that point, O Hu Yan shot a malicious look my way. After this rousing speech, he began handing out the rings and jade slips, starting with me. I read the information from the jade slip and found that it had been recorded by the head of the Alchemists¡¯ Guild, so all those literal ¡°haystacks¡± were not an attempt by O Hu Yan to inconvenience me.


    ¡°I also plan to collect herbs for my own pills¡± - I told him, speaking at his back.


    ¡°What pills?¡± - The squad leader immediately turned around, eyeing me suspiciously.


    ¡°These.¡± - I showed him the jade slip with Cheon Chu Han¡¯s assignment.


    ¡°All right.¡± - O Hu Yan nodded, hesitating a moment. - ¡°Just make sure it doesn¡¯t stop you from completing your main task.¡± - A vengeful grin spread across his face.


    Well then, we¡¯ll see.


    I decided not to waste any time and headed off immediately, scanning the surroundings with psionics.


    ¡°I will be your escort¡± - a second-level Core Crystallization (22) cultivator piped up, catching up to me right away.


    I looked him over and noticed that his slave seal wasn¡¯t just on his heart but extended to his head as well.


    ¡°Which direction has the highest concentration of rare herbs?¡± - I asked him.


    ¡°Follow me¡± - he beckoned invitingly, then¡­ slowly drifted through the air at the speed of a lazy pedestrian.


    ¡°I asked a question, and I¡¯m waiting for an answer¡± - I stated, not budging from my spot.


    ¡°The area you need is that way, about one hundred fifty kilometers distant¡± - he indicated, turning back toward me. - ¡°Do you want me to carry you there?¡±


    ¡°No need¡± - I refused that dubious honor.


    I sprinted through the air at my top speed. Once I was far enough from the camp, I stopped moving my legs altogether and switched the shields beneath me into ¡°flight¡± mode. My speed increased tenfold, and I even had to surround myself with shields to keep the wind from ripping off my clothes. My would-be ¡°porter¡± could only gape at that speed, but he did manage to accelerate and keep up, though it clearly wasn¡¯t easy for him.


    After about twenty minutes, I sensed I¡¯d entered an area where the natural Qi was denser. I slowed down and started flying low, carefully scanning my surroundings with psionics. Everything was overgrown with grass and flowers, and in places there were small, gnarled trees stretching their branches toward the sun.


    I soon located patches of ¡°ordinary-quality¡± plants I needed and began harvesting them. According to the proper technique, each plant had to be picked or dug up individually to keep its inner energy from dissipating. Essentially, that¡¯s what I did, just not by hand, but using Qi threads, which allowed me to ¡°process¡± a hundred plants simultaneously. My escort gaped so wide, he never closed his mouth again.


    Like a combine harvester, I swept across the meadow, instantly clearing it of medicinal plants. In doing so, I took only those that I needed or that were on my list. As for valuable plants that weren¡¯t listed, I left them to grow. There¡¯s no way I¡¯m doing anything more for the sect without detailed and specific orders. I will show them ¡®Italian sciopero bianco¡¯ aka Work-to-rule.


    Having finished gathering my harvest, I surveyed the area and headed for another meadow a few hundred meters away that also had plenty of useful growth. Hopping from one place to another like a bee, I completed a five-year plan in three days.

 Chapter 20.55 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    After I had collected the necessary amount of herbs growing in this area and stowed them in my ring, I began searching for rarer varieties. According to the reference guide, they needed to have grown for decades. I carefully scoured the surroundings, venturing farther and farther away, but so far, I¡¯d come up empty.


    Finally, I managed to locate, using psionics, the ¡°century-old root of the scaly tree-flower¡± I needed. But once I reached it and examined my find more closely, I discovered an interesting fact: this ¡°century-old root¡± was only one year old.


    Essentially, it was no different from the most ordinary plants of its kind that grew nearby. The difference lay in the fact that a stream of natural Qi with very interesting properties ran through the spot where it grew. To me, it was impossible not to notice that the Qi quality of this plant had adopted the qualities of that Qi stream, and its slight external differences resulted from a denser ¡°Qi infusion.¡± I¡¯d learned from experience in my own garden that saturating plants with Qi turns them into ¡°mutants.¡±


    Having dug up the plant¡¯s root, I went back to searching. But now, my primary focus was on Qi streams and those places where they intersected with vegetation. Since scanning the Qi streams was easier than scanning all plants one by one, the speed at which I surveyed the area increased by at least an order of magnitude, if not two.


    I started hopping from one Qi stream to another, checking out what was growing there. Moreover, I scanned the area as far as my range allowed and headed in the direction where the variety and number of streams was greater. Sometimes I came across extremely rare plants described as hundred-year or even thousand-year specimens, but¡­I left them untouched, merely examining them closely and memorizing their traits. After all, the jade slip¡¯s description was fairly superficial and didn¡¯t convey the full nuances of Qi¡¯s qualities.


    My escort flew after me, eyes practically popping out of his head.


    ¡°Aren¡¯t you want to pick up this incredibly rare five thousand years old Ruby Rose Bush?¡± - I asked him.


    ¡°No. I¡¯m forbidden from picking any plants in this forest¡± - he grimaced, wincing from a headache the slave seal inflicted on him merely for thinking about ¡°breaking the rules.¡±


    I see. They¡¯re like dogs guarding a carrot patch. Only the masters have the right to harvest; the slaves merely carry out their tasks, no matter how pointless they may be.


    Around midday, I reached a range of hills where the Qi streams literally seethed, causing all kinds of mutant plants to grow in abundance.


    ¡°Lord, it might be dangerous here¡± - the guard nervously addressed me, looking around.


    ¡°Okay, then you can go back to base¡± - I waved him off.


    ¡°But, my lord!¡± - He turned pale. - ¡°I was ordered to protect you, even at the cost of my own life.¡±


    ¡°Then keep on protecting¡± - I replied, examining a rather intriguing plant specimen and pondering what I might concoct from it.


    ¡°But it¡¯s dangerous here!¡± - he moaned.


    ¡°Not my problem¡± - I retorted, studying the leaves of another unique plant.


    The guard nearly choked on his own blood at my words. He once again started looking around anxiously, finally spotting what worried him so much. A wild beast whose energy corresponded to the first level of Core Crystallization (21) emerged from behind the bushes.


    ¡°My lord, run! I¡¯ll distract it!¡± - the guard shouted¡­while dashing off. The predator¡¯s pursuit instinct kicked in immediately, and it lunged after its swift prey, who appeared to have far more Qi than I did, at least at first glance.


    I kept track out of the corner of my eye as the mutant ran along, breathing with indescribable rage and foaming at the mouth. In my opinion, those were unmistakable signs of rabies. The beast itself looked like a dwarf moose that decided to update its wardrobe with three rows of fashionable fangs and steel blades at the tips of its antlers.


    ¡°Lord, save yourself!!!¡± - my ¡°bodyguard¡± ran past me.


    I didn¡¯t even turn in his direction, too busy judging the color of the root I had just dug up.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.


    ¡°I beg you, my lord, I can¡¯t hold out much longer. If it kills me, it¡¯ll come after you next¡± - the slave practically sobbed as he made another lap.


    The rabid moose was literally snapping its teeth just a couple of centimeters from his rear, forcing its prey to run twice as fast. Yet the slave never pulled more than a certain distance away, because the slave seal clearly didn¡¯t let him just flee on his own initiative. Considering both of them were moving at more than 500 km/hour on a very limited patch of ground the whole spectacle looked like a ¡°Tom and Jerry¡± cartoon.


    When my escort passed me yet again, seemingly trying to lure the ¡°cat¡± into my path, I abruptly whipped out my club from behind my back and brought it down with all my might on the unsuspecting moose, instantly crushing its skull. Once again, I felt the ¡°inner energy¡± of the Skull Crusher rise by another ¡°level¡± with that kill.


    ¡°Why are you running around in circles like a sheep? You¡¯ve trampled all the herbs!¡± - I began to scold the lazy slave. - ¡°You didn¡¯t even hit the thing once. You just ran back and forth like a chicken with its head cut off.¡±


    But all my carefully prepared remarks were wasted, because the guard just stood there, staring at the beast¡¯s corpse and quietly whispering:


    ¡°How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How?¡±


    Wow, he was really stunned!


    Five minutes later, the guard came back to his senses and began watching me without blinking, as though determined to uncover some great secret that I was bound to reveal if I made a single mistake. That¡¯s how we spent the rest of the day until evening when I returned to camp, having fully completed my gathering plan.


    At the campsite, a whole tent city had been set up, with O Hu Yan strutting around importantly, looking down his nose at everyone. As soon as he spotted me, he started rounding up all the alchemists for what he called a daily report.


    ¡°All right, we¡¯ll begin by checking how much each of you has collected of the assigned herbs. Let¡¯s start with our grandmaster, Tan Ji Tao. How much of your quota did you complete?¡±


    O Hu Yan gave me such a sly smile that it was clear this was some sort of setup. A crowd had gathered not just alchemists and apprentices, but also guards and the chief ¡°customs officer.¡±


    ¡°One hundred percent¡± - I said with a brazen smirk. - ¡°I¡¯ve already collected all required herbs for entire expedition as listed in this jade slip.¡± - With these words, I took out the very same jade slip, displaying it for everyone.


    ¡°I see that Grandmaster O Hu Yan has delegated the authority of leading this expedition to Tan Ji Tao¡± - the customs officer unexpectedly interrupted.


    ¡°What? No, I ¡­ ¡±


    ¡°That is undoubtedly the jade slip containing a request for herbs, personally signed by Chuk Cha Pyo¡± - the ¡°former boss¡± was cut off again. - ¡°My observer confirms that the herb gathering is indeed complete. We only need to check the contents of Tan Ji Tao¡¯s ring to verify.¡±


    ¡°Hand over the ring!¡± - O Hu Yan instantly demanded, reaching out with his grabby hands.


    ¡°According to the rules, a ring is issued personally to each individual, and it can only be given to the Herb Keeper¡± - the customs officer once again thwarted the grandmaster. - ¡°Please extend your hand.¡±


    I kept an outstretched hand in front of me, and the customs officer brought some artifact close to the ring. After that, I felt that this artifact now contained, just like in a jade slip, a ¡°snapshot¡± of my ring¡¯s contents, as well as a list of all the rare herbs I had approached.


    ¡°What? Where did all these herbs come from?¡± - O Hu Yan howled upon realizing the scope of my efforts to gather a harvest.


    In response, I just gave him a brazen grin.


    ¡°Aha! I knew it! Some rare herbs are missing!!!¡± - my rival cried out triumphantly, jabbing his finger at the artifact.


    ¡°What do you mean ¡®missing herbs¡¯?¡± - I asked coolly, polishing the golden ring containing the herbs and admiring how it glittered in the rays of the setting sun.


    ¡°Look, it says you found a thousand-year herb of the Hill Buttercup! Where is it?¡± - O Hu Yan yelled, now pointing his limb at me.


    ¡°It¡¯s right where it was¡± - I replied. - ¡°I studied that plant carefully and concluded that it¡¯s not a thousand years old, but only 999 years old. As you know, a thousand-year herb is far more valuable than a 999-year herb, so I left it there to keep growing. If we¡¯re lucky, in another thousand years someone might find that herb, and by then the sect will have a two-thousand-year-old Hill Buttercup.¡±


    At my remark, O Hu Yan started coughing up blood, smearing it across his face.


    ¡°What?!! That¡¯s outrageous!¡± - he roared, staring at me with wild eyes.


    ¡°I¡¯m very frugal with the sect¡¯s resources¡± - I said, - ¡°so I can¡¯t allow a 999-year-old herb to be picked before it reaches a full thousand years.¡±


    ¡°Guh!¡± - The grandmaster coughed up blood again.


    The ordinary alchemists and apprentices nodded in agreement. But O Hu Yan and the customs officer knew perfectly well these were not really thousand-year herbs. The problem was, they couldn¡¯t admit it outright. Because if the ¡®common folk¡¯ found out that this ¡°thousand-year herb¡± had only been growing for a couple of months, their trust in alchemy would plummet right away.


    ¡°What about the Five-Hundred-Year Fire Lily? I only see the central stem from it.¡±


    ¡°Yes. I only needed the stem, so that¡¯s all I took. I figure in about fifty years, this lily will grow a new stem, and then we¡¯ll have a fully healthy plant that can be harvested again.¡±


    At this, O Hu Yan started coughing blood yet again and lost all strength to keep accusing me. He just waved his hand in defeat and headed for his tent. But after a few steps, the customs officer¡¯s voice stopped him.


    ¡°Since the request for herbs has been fully met and even overfulfilled I see no reason for you to remain here. I think all of you can return to the sect and hand over the herbs to the Keeper today.¡±


    After this, O Hu Yan coughed up blood once more and collapsed helplessly to the ground. The master alchemists rushed to help him, and I merely exchanged a mocking glance with the customs officer.

 Chapter 20.56 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    Ten minutes later, we loaded ourselves onto the Heavenly Ark and set off back to the sect. Once we arrived at the palace, we proceeded under guard to the warehouse, where we found Chuk Cha Pyo and the storekeeper deep in conversation.


    ¡°What happened?¡± - the guild leader asked in alarm upon seeing our procession.


    ¡°Grandmaster O Hu Yan, because of his health, has delegated leadership of the expedition to me¡± - I immediately reported, brandishing the jade slip. O Hu Yan, who was being supported on both sides by two assistants, coughed up blood again and nearly crumpled to the floor. - ¡°And thanks to my infinite genius, I personally gathered all the necessary herbs in just one day. I have no idea why they even bothered sending these lazybones along with me.¡±


    At that, the grandmaster was seized by a violent coughing fit and lost consciousness.


    What followed was a ceremonial inventory of my haul, after which the entire set of herbs required to make the pills was loaded into my now unsealed spatial ring. I didn¡¯t even wait for the promised rare herbs from the guild¡¯s stock, as I had already gathered everything I needed myself.


    It was already late, so I decided to head back home and grab a bit of sleep before starting the pill-making marathon. But halfway to the exit, I suddenly spotted Mu Niam, who was talking about something with one of the alchemists. They were in a separate room, but I could perceive them perfectly with my psionics. Moreover, by using it, I managed to eavesdrop on their conversation and I didn¡¯t like what I heard.


    ¡°Everything must be ready by noon tomorrow¡± - Mu Niam said sternly.


    ¡°But why? Weren¡¯t you planning to leave in a week?¡±


    ¡°Plans have changed. I¡¯m leaving tomorrow afternoon.¡±


    ¡°All right. I¡¯ll get on it now. I think I can manage in time.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m counting on you¡± - Mu Niam replied. Then he headed for the exit, muttering under his breath, - ¡°I need to clear out before that disciple of mine gets back from his trip.¡±


    I prudently hid in one of the corridors and watched Mu Niam leave the guild building and fly off. Fortunately, he not yet realized the herb-gathering expedition had already returned, so I still had a chance to make him keep his promise.


    After that, I didn¡¯t go home. Instead, I went to the lab assigned to me and began pondering how to crank out all those thousands of pills I¡¯d been tasked with producing in just one night. It was obvious I couldn¡¯t do it by ordinary means. Even if I made ten pills at a time, the pills still have a certain manufacturing period, and the most complex, recipe-intensive ones couldn¡¯t be done that way. I only had two alchemical furnaces one stationary and one portable and if I just added up the total furnace time for all the pills and divided by two, it would still amount to at least three days.


    I picked one of the recipes and began making a pill according to it, closely monitoring the process with my psionics. Once the pill was finished, I examined it even more carefully, then set it aside. Next, I took a chunk of clay and the cheapest shredded herb I found lying around in the laboratory cabinets. Mixing them together, I began infusing this ¡°pill¡± with my Qi, imparting to it the same qualities as a normal pill.


    It wasn¡¯t easy, but thanks to my refined control and psionics, I managed to precisely reproduce all the necessary features of the pill¡¯s energy and remove traces of my own ¡°personal¡± energy. I employed a complex vortex-Qi technique, which filtered out the finest threads possessing the characteristics closest to what I needed; then, the rest of the energy in the vortex was brought to that ¡°ideal standard.¡± Afterward, the process of mutation, selection, and homogenization repeated. There was a bit of difficulty getting the Qi to the necessary level of density, but I had some advanced cultivators¡¯ Core Crystallization¨Cstage Qi ¡°stashed away¡± which allowed me to use it as expendable material and a catalyst.


    Just five minutes later, I was gazing at two pills that were indistinguishable in terms of their Qi quality, even though one had been made from rare alchemical herbs, and the other from cheap filler. Grabbing the ¡°forgery¡± I went off in search of a test subject. One showed up pretty quickly, an apprentice walking casually down the guild¡¯s corridors, completely unaware of his fate.Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.


    ¡°Hey, you! Stop right there!¡± - I pinned him to the ground with a malicious gaze.


    ¡°Wh-what can I do for you, Grandmaster Alchemist?¡± - he bleated, breaking out in a sweat.


    ¡°Here, eat this¡± - I said, handing him my creation.


    ¡°What is it? Some new poison?¡± - He went pale, trying in vain to focus on the gift.


    ¡°It¡¯s a gift from a Grandmaster Alchemist! You dare to refuse it?¡± - I roared, exuding killing intent.


    ¡°No, of course not, sir. I humbly accept this gift.¡± - He grabbed the pill like a drowning man clutching a piping-hot lead weight. Under my watchful eye, he had no choice.


    ¡°Swallow it¡± - I said, sadistic notes creeping into my voice.


    The apprentice looked around in desperation, but he didn¡¯t see anyone nearby who could help him. So, he closed his eyes and swallowed the pill. Immediately, it started taking effect, sending waves of Qi coursing through his body. Right in front of me, his cultivation advanced, and then he broke through from the second to the third level of Foundation Formation (13).


    ¡°See, and you were worried for nothing¡± - I said with a satisfied grin.


    ¡°Thank you, Grandmaster Alchemist Tan Ji Tao, for your mercy!¡± - The apprentice instantly dropped to his knees, bowing all the way to the ground.


    ¡°Quit yelling. Otherwise, your enemies won¡¯t forgive you for getting so lucky¡± - I cut him off.


    After that, he clammed up, my simple words guaranteed he wouldn¡¯t say a word about my little ¡°non-targeted use of resources.¡±


    Returning to the laboratory, I began mass-producing pills by this new method, using whatever was at hand as my base material. I didn¡¯t even need to make a ¡°prototype¡± anymore because I could ¡°derive¡± the pill¡¯s energy by analyzing the ingredients and recipe. In rare cases, the presence of certain chemical substances from the herbs really did matter, so then I¡¯d add some powdered or extracted form of them. To keep anyone from noticing differences between the ¡°recipe¡± and the standard version, I coated all pills with a glaze made from starch and sugar, fortunately, sugar was also considered an acceptable ¡°filler.¡± I even used a few simple herbs to produce edible dyes, coloring the pills in various hues.


    At three in the morning, I ran out of ¡°hay¡± so I went to the nearest forest to pick the most ordinary grass. All I had to do was make sure I didn¡¯t gather anything nasty like a laxative or sleeping herb. By dawn, I wiped the sweat from my brow and proudly surveyed the three buckets of finished product. Each pill was wrapped in a piece of paper labeled with its name. ¡°Candy wrappers¡± hadn¡¯t yet been invented in this world, so once again I was on the cutting edge of innovation. As for the paper, I had to peel apart a regular roll of rice paper of very mediocre quality into thin layers.


    After that, I carried the three buckets in my two hands and lugged them off to the warehouse. Surprisingly, the storekeeper wasn¡¯t asleep, though he was dozing at his desk. The moment he saw my load, however, any trace of drowsiness vanished. He even lost the ability to speak; only after a minute of fingering the pills did he finally manage to ask the question that was tormenting him:


    ¡°What¡­is this?¡± - he asked, giving me a wild-eyed stare.


    ¡°These are the pills Cheon Chu Han ordered me to make¡± - I reported cheerfully. - ¡°Here¡¯s the list.¡± - I placed the precious jade slip before him.


    The storekeeper looked again at all the treasure spilled out before him and sent his apprentice to fetch Chuk Cha Pyo. The guild leader showed up five minutes later, rubbing sleep from his eyes.


    ¡°What¡¯s so urgent around here?¡± - he asked irritably, glancing at us until his gaze landed on the pills, where it stuck fast.


    ¡°Our new grandmaster made a year¡¯s worth of pills for the sect in one single night¡± - the storekeeper said with spiteful satisfaction, clearly pleased that the headache was no longer his alone.


    ¡°How could you make so many pills in one night?¡± - Chuk Cha Pyo asked me.


    ¡°Piece of cake. Just a little ¡®slapdash, done!¡¯ My teacher Chu Zhu Zhu always did it like that. But feel free to confirm that each of these pills is of excellent quality.¡±


    ¡°I get the feeling there isn¡¯t enough Qi in them¡± - the guild leader remarked with some puzzlement, inspecting one of the pills.


    ¡°I glazed them with a coating that doesn¡¯t let Qi leak out¡± - I explained. - ¡°If you cut it open, you¡¯ll see there¡¯s plenty of energy inside.¡±


    In truth, such a ¡°shielding¡± glaze was essential because I was using cheap ¡°bases¡± for the pills. Cheap grass and clay refuse to hold Qi within, so I was forced to glaze the pills and then add a simple shield to each one to keep the Qi from escaping. It was my attempt to merge the Heavenly Shield method with my rudimentary knowledge of spiritual seals. The end result was a novice¡¯s crude contrivance, but it got the job done.


    Chuk Cha Pyo took one of the simpler pills and cut it in half. Immediately, the air filled with a dense Qi evaporating from the mixture of clay and herbs. I had to remake nearly a tenth of all the pills because of that problem.


    ¡°Incredible!¡± - the guild leader exclaimed.


    ¡°What powerful Qi!¡± - the storekeeper chimed in.


    Nevertheless, a trace of doubt remained in our superiors¡¯ eyes.


    ¡°Tan Ji Tao, will you allow me to check the contents of your spatial rings?¡± - Chuk Cha Pyo asked.


    ¡°Of course¡± - I nodded.

 Chapter 20.57 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    I¡¯d planned things perfectly. I transferred all the supposedly ¡°used-up¡± herbs into my personal spatial seal, leaving out only what could logically remain after normal pill production. He searched me thoroughly but couldn¡¯t find any wrongdoing.


    ¡°Well, it seems you really managed to create the necessary pills.¡± - Chuk Cha Pyo surveyed the piles of precious pills in confusion. The storekeeper had already begun sorting them by type and category, guided by the labels and also by the Qi they emitted.


    ¡°Would you please confirm that in the jade slip?¡± - I asked, handing over the jade slip containing the pill list.


    ¡°Is everything here?¡± - the guild leader asked the storekeeper after looking over the jade slip.


    ¡°All pills are here¡± - he nodded.


    Chuk Cha Pyo cast another doubtful glance at the massive trove of pills, then entered his signature into the jade slip to mark the assignment as complete.


    ¡°Thank you.¡± - I accepted the ¡°document¡± with a bow. - ¡°Now Mu Niam can¡¯t wriggle out of his promise.¡±


    ¡°Mu Niam?¡± - Chuk Cha Pyo inquired.


    ¡°He promised to take me on a trip to the Dragons¡¯ Dungeon if I made all the pills on this list.¡± - I once again showed him the jade slip.


    ¡°So that¡¯s why you were in such a hurry¡± - the guild leader nodded.


    I left the higher-ups to meditate over the pills and went off to ¡°catch¡± my teacher. I settled in the central hall of the guild and spread out my psionic perception over the area. The alchemist who had promised to do something for Mu Niam was inside the building, so I was sure I wouldn¡¯t miss my chance to join his expedition. I saw no point sitting around meditating in my own home. I needed ¡°ancient knowledge¡± and a relative freedom of action, which only some far-off expedition could provide. After that, I¡¯d just need to slip out from under my teacher¡¯s supervision, and finally, I could really cut loose.


    While I sat there ¡°meditating¡± I overheard an interesting conversation between some alchemist apprentices.


    ¡°Did you hear that Grandmaster O Hu Yan suffered a serious injury, lost one cultivation level, and now his path in life is sealed off?¡±


    ¡°Yes, it¡¯s a huge loss for the sect. He used to be on par with the guild leader, and now he¡¯s fallen to the second level of Core Crystallization (22). Now only Mu Niam, who¡¯s at the fourth level (24), has a chance at becoming a next guild leader. Plus, his advancement is still not at its limit. He might even reach the sixth level (26) in the future and become one of the sect¡¯s junior elders.¡±


    ¡°What do you think about the new grandmaster? This Tan Ji Tao from the Outer Court?¡±


    ¡°Hard to say. He broke through from the seventh level (07) to the tenth level of Qi Condensation (10) in just one day. On top of that, they say he¡¯s the one who inflicted the mental trauma on Grandmaster O Hu Yan by deliberately crushing his self-confidence. If in the next few months he manages to enter the Foundation Formation stage [2], his future will be limitless.¡±


    ¡°Yeah. Meanwhile, all we can do is sigh and envy his talent. Oh well! I¡¯ll soon be able to produce a mid-grade restorative pill and become an apprentice myself!¡±


    I stopped listening to their chatter after that. Overall, the news about me was spreading quickly, and people were gradually coming to terms with the fact that I would soon be recognized as one of the sect¡¯s geniuses.


    The moment Mu Niam stepped through the Alchemists¡¯ Guild doors, he nearly bumped noses with a beaming me, dressed in the ceremonial robes of a grandmaster alchemist.


    ¡°Greetings, Teacher¡± - I addressed him.


    ¡°Tan Ji Tao? You¡¯re back already? And why do you look so pleased with yourself?¡± - he asked suspiciously, noticing that onlookers were quietly drifting closer so they wouldn¡¯t miss anything important.


    ¡°I¡¯ve completed your assignment by producing all pills from the list given to me by the sect leader. And now I¡¯m fully prepared to accompany you to the Dragons¡¯ Dungeon. I¡¯ve already packed everything and I¡¯m ready to leave, even right this minute¡± - I said with a cunning smile.This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    ¡°You made all those pills? Don¡¯t make me laugh. That was at least a year¡¯s supply of elite pills for the entire sect¡± - Mu Niam retorted dismissively, glancing at the gathering crowd.


    ¡°Here¡¯s a jade slip with confirmation, personally signed by Chuk Cha Pyo¡± - I showed him my ¡°proof.¡±


    Mu Niam immediately snatched the stone and scanned it.


    ¡°Are you trying to trick me?¡± - he asked, not quite believing what he read. - ¡°Let¡¯s go to the warehouse. I want to see for myself.¡±


    ¡°Certainly, Teacher¡± - I replied with a triumphant smirk, stepping aside to let him go first.


    The crowd followed us, whispering under their breath. We reached the warehouse, but before Mu Niam could ask a single question, the storekeeper hurriedly addressed him.


    ¡°Mu Niam, your disciple is a genius! You won¡¯t believe it, but in just one night he managed to create a staggering number of rare and valuable pills. They look a bit different, but we¡¯ve already tested their effects. They¡¯re one hundred percent effective! Look, here¡¯s the Heavenly Foundation Crane Pill. Isn¡¯t it wonderful?¡±


    ¡°I want to see these pills myself¡± - my teacher responded irritably, still suspecting a setup.


    But when they took him to the pill storage area and showed that it was crammed to the brim, his jaw dropped and his eyes practically popped out of their sockets.


    ¡°How is this possible? Tan Ji Tao, did you really make all these pills?¡± - he blurted out.


    ¡°Of course, Teacher¡± - I replied respectfully, bowing. - ¡°I achieved the impossible for the sake of traveling to the Dragons¡¯ Dungeon. I hope you¡¯ll now fulfill your promise and take me with you.¡±


    Mu Niam grimaced as though he¡¯d bitten into a lemon. But when he saw the dazzled faces of the onlookers, equally astonished at the contents of the huge cabinets, he realized there was no way to refuse me without losing everyone¡¯s respect. To them, I was already a living legend. And if he turned me down for some flimsy excuse, people¡¯s anger would fall on him, destroying his reputation.


    ¡°Very well¡± - he sighed heavily. - ¡°Come with me.¡±


    The crowd made way for us, murmuring as we passed. We went to see the same alchemist from the previous day, and he handed Mu Niam a small pouch. After that, my teacher headed straight to one of the exits. Outside, three cultivators were waiting, clearly fighters at a glance. They wore identical uniforms, the same armor, and their faces were concealed behind identical masks. Their cultivation levels ranged from the fifth (25) to the seventh stage of Core Crystallization (27), which was considered quite remarkable by local standards.


    ¡°Meet First, Second, and Third¡± - Mu Niam introduced them to me.


    ¡°What original names¡± - I snickered, memorizing the ¡°taste¡± of their personal Qi.


    ¡°I was intrigued by how you gave temporary names to your team members back in the Geyser Valley¡± - the teacher explained. - ¡°No need for outsiders to know my escorts¡¯ names.¡±


    ¡°All good, but they¡¯re too similar¡± - I nodded approvingly. - ¡°I¡¯d paint numbers on their foreheads: one, two, three.¡±


    ¡°How dare you!¡± - one of the bodyguards exclaimed.


    ¡°Third, don¡¯t lose your temper¡± - Mu Niam admonished him.


    ¡°I¡¯m First!¡± - the man retorted irritably.


    A brief pause ensued as everyone digested what had just been said.


    ¡°You see¡± - I said with a satisfied grin.


    ¡°All right, I¡¯ll think about it¡± - My teacher said as he looked over his escorts again. - ¡°For now, we¡¯re heading out. Tan Ji Tao, you¡¯ll have to keep up on your own. We don¡¯t have the capacity to carry you.¡±


    ¡°No problem. You know I can walk on air¡± - I replied with a carefree smile.


    Mu Niam gave a slight smirk and rose into the air, and the others followed him. I also started ¡°running¡± trying not to lag behind. For the first five minutes, we traveled at a moderate pace, then Mu Niam began to speed up. In response, I formed shields beneath my feet that moved at a decent speed, increasing my ¡°running¡± speed. The teacher threw me an annoyed look and accelerated further, but I still kept up, holding a steady distance of three steps behind him. We continued like that for about ten minutes until Mu Niam reached his top speed. I could feel how he was pushing himself to the limit. His three bodyguards also seemed to find such a speed unnatural, radiating anxious emotions.


    ¡°Teacher, maybe we can go faster?¡± - I asked innocently, flying right up to Mu Niam and not even pretending to move my legs anymore. Shields covered my body, protecting me from the wind that was literally shredding my companions¡¯ clothing. - ¡°Don¡¯t worry; if need be, I can travel twice as fast.¡±


    ¡°Gah!¡± - My ¡°victim¡± coughed up blood, immediately slowing to a more comfortable pace. - ¡°What kind of monster are you?¡± - he looked at me with alarm.


    ¡°I¡¯m Tan Ji Tao, grandmaster alchemist and your disciple¡± - I introduced myself.


    ¡°Now I understand why O Hu Yan suddenly collapsed from a destabilized Core¡± - Mu Niam drawled. - ¡°He wasn¡¯t prepared for these kinds of shocks.¡±


    ¡°Come on, Teacher, what shocks? As long as you¡¯re useful, your health won¡¯t be in danger¡± - I hinted not-so-subtly. - ¡°In fact, quite the opposite: your success is my success.¡±


    At those words, we exchanged glances, re-evaluating each other¡¯s toothy smiles. Mine was genuine; my opponent¡¯s was decidedly forced.


    The rest of our journey was extremely dull. We flew and flew, stopping to rest only during the darkest part of the night when the moon sank below the horizon and we risked crashing into some mountain by accident. Thus, a week passed, and then the wild forests, fields, and mountains abruptly gave way to settled lands. Most importantly, the concentration of Qi in the air increased just as suddenly. The number of invisible Qi currents also grew by two orders of magnitude.

 Chapter 20.58 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    Flying over peaceful peasants tending their fields, I was surprised to find that they were all cultivators, without exception. Most of them were only at the second or third, maybe the fifth level of Qi Condensation at most.


    ¡°There are so many cultivators here¡± - I said in amazement.


    ¡°Yes, the capital region of the Golden Dragon Sect has such a high concentration of natural Qi that even an ordinary peasant can become a cultivator¡± - Mu Niam explained.


    ¡°Teacher¡± - I spoke up, - ¡°I¡¯ve been meaning to ask, why do you kill all those disciples at the forest camp? Wouldn¡¯t it be simpler to pick fifty people and train them properly to get the best results?¡±


    ¡°Hmm¡­ and why does that interest you?¡± - The alchemist frowned.


    ¡°It¡¯s a total waste of resources. You select cultivators, spend pills and time on them, and then simply wipe out almost all of them. Plus, you take gifted children from peasants. The longer this goes on, the lower the chances of new talent being born.¡±


    ¡°Lower chances? I¡¯ve never thought of it that way. But that might not be a bad thing. You know the Forbidden Tomb is controlled by the spirit of an ancient cultivator, right?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Well, one day he appeared before the leader of our sect and demanded that every month we bring him a hundred cultivators at the fifth level of Qi Condensation (5) ¡ª ones who were talented, lucky, and¡­ malicious. People like you¡± - Mu Niam added with a smirk. - ¡°He specifically said that for any cultivator to get an audience with him, they must survive twenty competitors. He promised to teach those cultivators secret heavenly and demonic techniques and reward them with valuable artifacts.¡±


    So that kindly ¡°grandfather¡± wasn¡¯t actually kind at all. If only I knew what he wanted from me.


    ¡°That¡¯s why we¡¯re forced to recruit a thousand people, train them, and set up trials where only the strongest, meanest, and luckiest survive. But of course, there¡¯s another reason, too. Our Heavenly Blades Sect doesn¡¯t have that many resources for cultivation. You know yourself how dire the conditions are for the Outer Court disciples. If we had twenty times as many, they¡¯d simply devour all the available Qi, making our lands even poorer. So, only the Inner Court and the Royal Palace have what you¡¯d call true cultivators. And that means you¡¯ll have to work hard if you want to become one of them. Otherwise, even a Grandmaster Alchemist title won¡¯t protect you forever.¡±


    Overall, the situation became clearer. Even that absurd situation in the Outer Court now made more sense. All the disciples there were basically cannon fodder, and only a few who broke into the Inner Court had any right to be called real cultivators.


    ¡°So here, there are so many cultivation resources that the sect authorities don¡¯t mind if peasants cultivate?¡± - I asked, watching the residents of another village as we flew over it.


    ¡°No¡± - Mu Niam replied with a sneer. - ¡°There¡¯s so much here that peasants become cultivators without even trying. If we were to eliminate such wild cultivators, this entire country would end up empty.¡±


    ¡°I see. Is that our destination shining over there?¡± - I pointed to the horizon, where a golden spot gleamed in the sunlight.


    ¡°Yes, that¡¯s the Ancient Tower of the Golden Dragon Sect. You can¡¯t see it from here, but its walls are covered with dragon images. And it¡¯s precisely inside that tower where you¡¯ll find the entrance to the Dragons¡¯ Dungeon.¡±


    Much to my surprise, it took us only an hour to reach the capital. The Ancient Tower was indeed tall, rising nearly four kilometers above the ground. Around it sprawled a massive city ¡ª huge even by Earth¡¯s standards. Endless crowds milled in the streets, while the tangle of alleyways and narrow lanes suggested some parts of the city weren¡¯t designed for ¡°land dwellers¡± at all, since you could only access the buildings by flying.


    There were also a vast number of flying cultivators all around. They didn¡¯t exactly blot out the sun, but if you looked up, you¡¯d see at least a couple hundred of them at a glance.


    Near the tower, the sprawling slums, stretching for many kilometers, gave way to more respectable homes. A clear boundary separated the wealthy from the rabble. I even saw a wall built along that boundary. Also, there wasn¡¯t a single flying cultivator anywhere near the tower.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    We touched down at the border of the city¡¯s inner district and continued on foot. The street we were on was curiously empty, although just a few blocks away, it was wall-to-wall crowds.


    ¡°In Dragon City, you cannot fly¡± - Mu Niam answered my unspoken question.


    ¡°The sect forbids flying around the tower?¡± - I clarified, giving the structure another look.


    ¡°Haha, no. They wish they had that kind of authority. Let me clarify: in Dragon City, it¡¯s simply impossible to fly. The tower is surrounded by a special space that forces down anyone who tries. Sometimes, that forced landing ends with a crash so hard the cultivator is smashed to bloody pieces. So, if you¡¯re out in the open space, it¡¯s wise to look up from time to time, haha.¡±


    We moved on and reached the wall, whose immense gates loomed before us. From about a hundred meters away, I sensed we were entering a zone of strange pressure. Evidently, that¡¯s why no one could fly here. I decided to test how my ¡°flying shields¡± might fare, so I began creating them half a centimeter above the ground.


    It could hardly be called flight, and no one around us even noticed, but after just a couple seconds of this ¡°hovering¡± I felt someone glaring at me. Instantly, I recognized the use of the ¡°Malicious Gaze technique¡± the one that disregards Heaven and Earth. So, I activated my own version and stared at the tower ¡ª the source of the pressure. A moment later, I felt a ripple of surprise, and the pressure vanished. Thinking over the result, I also deactivated my Malicious Gaze and continued on foot like an ordinary mortal.


    We arrived at the arch of the gate, where several ¡°guards¡± stood. Their basic level hovered around the third level of Core Crystallization (23), while their commander proudly sported the fourth level (24).


    ¡°Halt!¡± - the commander ordered, extending his palm toward us. His voice was like trumpets and the roar of drums. - ¡°Present your pass.¡±


    Mu Niam stopped and held out a jade seal.


    ¡°I am Mu Niam, a second-rank Grandmaster Alchemist from the Heavenly Blades Sect. These are my bodyguards and Tan Ji Tao, my disciple, a first-rank Grandmaster Alchemist.¡±


    ¡°A minor Grandmaster Alchemist at the Qi Condensation stage? How far your Heavenly Blades Sect has fallen! Go on¡± - said the guard with a dismissive wave, handing back the seal.


    ¡°Pfeh!¡± - I snorted contemptuously, glaring defiantly at the guard.


    ¡°Got something to say?¡± - the guard asked with a frown. - ¡°Speak your mind, don¡¯t hold back.¡±


    ¡°At what age do they become grandmaster alchemists in the Golden Dragon Sect?¡± - I inquired arrogantly.


    ¡°Our youngest grandmaster alchemist reached that rank at the age of one hundred, on the sixth level of Core Crystallization¡± - the guard declared proudly, puffing out his chest.


    ¡°It took him a hundred years to learn how to make the simplest pills? Shameful! Absolutely shameful! I¡¯d be embarrassed to even bring that up in conversation. Let¡¯s go.¡±


    ¡°What?!!¡± - the guard went red in the face, barely containing his rage. A bit more, and he¡¯d be spitting blood. These cultivators are so fragile.


    ¡°Ho-ho-ho!¡± - Mu Niam laughed in satisfaction as he passed through the gate.


    But as soon as we entered, a man in flamboyant clothing (as ornate as my grandmaster alchemist robes) came out to meet us.


    ¡°I heard you insulted the alchemists of our sect¡± - he addressed me in an angry voice.


    ¡°Since when is speaking the truth considered an insult?¡± - I sneered, looking him in the eyes.


    ¡°The level of our grandmaster alchemists is far higher than that of your Heavenly Blades Sect.¡±


    ¡°How will you prove that? And what difference does it make if it¡¯s higher or lower? One hundred years to become a first-rank grandmaster alchemist? What could you possibly be studying for that long? It all comes down to talent ¡ª either you can make pills, or your hands grow out of your ass. In that case, not even a hundred years of practice would help.¡±


    ¡°Hah-hah-hah-hah-hah!¡± - Mu Niam couldn¡¯t resist a mocking laugh.


    ¡°You!!!¡± - the flamboyantly dressed man cried out. - ¡°Do you have the guts to back up your words in a fair competition against one of our sect¡¯s grandmasters?¡±


    I feigned fear, stepping back, then held my head high again.


    ¡°A competition? Pfeh! We¡¯re in a hurry. We don¡¯t have time for such nonsense. What do you think, Teacher?¡± - I asked Mu Niam, giving him a surreptitious wink.


    ¡°We have time before the portal opens, so a small contest won¡¯t hurt.¡± - At these words, I made a terrified face, but Mu Niam clearly wasn¡¯t buying my act, he gave me a sly grin. - ¡°However, my disciple is right. A mere contest without any stakes is pointless. Do you have the courage to make a serious wager, Grandmaster Alchemist of the third rank, De Lu Lu?¡±


    I looked our new acquaintance with fresh eyes. So, he was an alchemist and third rank at that? Now I saw why he¡¯d gotten so irritated.


    ¡°What do you want, Mu Niam?¡± ¨C De Lu Lu asked.


    ¡°A map of the Dragons¡¯ Dungeon¡± - he blurted out at once with glowing eyes.


    ¡°That¡¯s a pretty high price¡± - the alchemist said with a scowl. - ¡°What would you put up on your side?¡±


    ¡°I have this Crystal of Spring Forest Qi!¡± - My teacher pulled out a large emerald-green stone that radiated some very interesting Qi.


    In the Dimension of Ancient Qi, I¡¯d found an entire crate of such crystals. I kept the largest ones for myself and handed over the smaller ones to the sect as spoils. I received one of the tiniest ones as part of a reward, but now Mu Niam was showing off the biggest crystal from that collection ¡ª approximately three by four centimeters in size. Meanwhile, in my ¡°collection¡± I had stones that were easily around ten centimeters across.

 Chapter 20.59 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    The crowd gasped in admiration, gazing at the crystal glowing emerald-green. It seemed to be considered a rare treasure here. De Lu Lu¡¯s face also contorted with greed.


    ¡°Fine! I accept this wager¡± - he forced out. - ¡°The contest will take place tomorrow at noon, in the main hall of the Golden Dragon Sect¡¯s Alchemists¡¯ Guild. Sect elders and guests may attend free of charge.¡±


    The people around us started whispering excitedly, discussing the fresh news.


    Our group pushed its way through the throng of cultivators with difficulty, then turned onto a narrow alley that ran parallel to the wall.


    ¡°If you lose, I won¡¯t forgive you¡± - my teacher threatened, his eyes flashing ominously.


    ¡°Is that crystal really that valuable?¡± - I asked.


    ¡°You have no idea¡± - Mu Niam replied. - ¡°It took a great deal of effort for me to get the largest crystal from the stash you lugged out of the Ancient Qi Dimension. And it¡¯s absolutely vital for my plan.¡±


    Here Mu Niam abruptly fell silent, realizing that he¡¯d let slip the existence of a ¡°Plan X.¡± But I didn¡¯t dwell on it.


    ¡°Teacher, you really should trust me more. You¡¯ve already seen for yourself what I can do.¡±


    ¡°I have¡± - Mu Niam nodded, calming down after his slipup. - ¡°That¡¯s exactly why I decided to bet this stone on your victory. If you win, we¡¯ll get the Dragons¡¯ Dungeon map, and we won¡¯t have to wander aimlessly through the labyrinths once we¡¯re inside.¡±


    ¡°Speaking of prizes, I need a reward too. I want to read the information from that jade slip with the map.¡±


    ¡°And what do you plan to offer me if you lose?¡± - Mu Niam asked angrily.


    ¡°How about another Spring Forest Qi crystal?¡±


    ¡°You mean the shard Cheon Chu Han gave you?¡± - Judging by his tone, Mu Niam had no respect whatsoever for his sect¡¯s leader, just like me, to be honest.


    ¡°Well, I¡¯m only asking to hold that map in my hands for a moment.¡±


    ¡°¡­All right, you¡¯ve got a deal¡± - Mu Niam nodded. - ¡°But don¡¯t think you¡¯ll get off that easily if you lose, just giving me that shard.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry¡± - I said dismissively. - ¡°Just assume you¡¯ve already got the map in your pocket.¡±


    We made our way through the alleys and arrived at some flophouse for vagrants, where Mu Niam rented a single room for the five of us. He paid with simple Qi crystals, and judging by his stinginess, our sect really wasn¡¯t doing so great financially.


    I wanted to take a walk around the city, but Mu Niam forbade it, arguing that Qi Condensation¨Cstage cultivators weren¡¯t even considered ¡°people¡± here; so someone might kill me simply for passing by. He didn¡¯t go anywhere himself, either, spending the entire evening guzzling wine in the inn¡¯s common room.


    By noon the next day, we entered a huge hall in the local Alchemists¡¯ Guild. Several hundred people were already seated in the stands. It looked like my little contest had become a terrific source of entertainment.


    ¡°There are quite a lot of guests gathered¡± - my teacher remarked, surveying the hall. - ¡°The official festival doesn¡¯t start for another three days, so people are looking for ways to amuse themselves.¡±


    ¡°Rest assured, they won¡¯t forget this circus anytime soon¡± - I smirked.


    They led me to the participant¡¯s spot, while Mu Niam and his bodyguards took seats in the VIP section.


    ¡°Now we will have a competition of ¡®young-generation¡¯ grandmaster alchemists from the Golden Dragon Sect and the Heavenly Blades Sect¡± - the emcee began. - ¡°Representing the Heavenly Blades Sect is Tan Ji Tao, a first-rank grandmaster alchemist.¡± - The applause that followed was rather weak. - ¡°Our guild is fielding three of its youngest grandmasters, giving Tan Ji Tao the chance to choose his opponent. What do you say?¡±This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.


    Three men came onstage: two middle-aged and one who was already elderly.


    ¡°Your so-called ¡®young generation¡¯ isn¡¯t exactly young. Well, all right, I choose the youngest among them ¡ª whoever was born last.¡±


    ¡°And so, our participant has settled on an opponent!¡± - the emcee called out again, his voice carrying well. Two of the men left the stage, leaving a man who looked about forty. - ¡°Sa Va Ge, who at one hundred forty years old is already a second-rank grandmaster alchemist. He is a genius among geniuses in our sect. The official stake from the Golden Dragon Sect is a complete map of the Dragons¡¯ Dungeon. Meanwhile, the Heavenly Blades Sect is wagering a large Spring Forest Qi crystal. Will the participants please take their places!¡±


    We went to two tables equipped with alchemical furnaces and all the other tools needed to process herbs.


    ¡°In order to determine a winner, we¡¯ll be giving out tasks to produce pills, gradually raising the difficulty. Anyone who fails to create a pill twice in a row will be considered the loser. We have twenty pills on our list. We¡¯ll begin with the Great Healing Pill ¡­¡±


    ¡°I refuse!¡± - I shouted loudly, interrupting the announcer. The audience began murmuring at once.


    ¡°You refuse?¡± - the emcee repeated, perplexed.


    ¡°The Great Healing Pill? It¡¯s too simple. Why waste time on a trivial pill that absolutely anyone can make? I think we can skip the first ten and go straight to pill number eleven.¡±


    The emcee glanced at Sa Va Ge, who nodded in agreement.


    ¡°All right, since both participants agree, we¡¯ll proceed to item eleven, which is¡­ the Bone Detonation Pill!¡±


    A stunned murmur swept through the crowd.


    ¡°What kind of pill is that?¡± - I asked. - ¡°I don¡¯t know its recipe.¡±


    ¡°So, does that mean you surrender?¡± - The emcee looked at me triumphantly.


    ¡°Not at all. We¡¯re here to assess the alchemists¡¯ skill ¡ª skill, not just knowledge. Give me the recipe for that pill and I¡¯ll make it.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ll make it just from reading the recipe once?¡± ¨C the emcee asked, taken aback by my audacity.


    ¡°Exactly! That¡¯s the essence of skill and talent. So? Hand over the pill¡¯s recipe and let¡¯s move on.¡±


    The announcer looked helplessly toward the alchemists¡¯ seats, where the local guild leadership sat. They conferred briefly, then an old man, bald with a long white beard came down to the stage. Judging by his attire, he too was a grandmaster alchemist.


    ¡°Here is the recipe you asked for¡± - he said, handing me a jade slip. - ¡°And don¡¯t say later that we gave you an incomplete one. Any grandmaster can confirm this is the genuine recipe.¡±


    ¡°Thank you¡± - I nodded, taking the jade slip.


    I read the information and began analyzing the herbs and their combinations. Even after a thorough analysis, there remained some ambiguity and incompleteness in the formula. Presumably, that was exactly what the old man had been referring to.


    ¡°I don¡¯t quite get it. What¡¯s the point of this pill, anyway? Bone detonation? Even if you want to die, that¡¯s a pretty brutal way to go, wouldn¡¯t you say?¡± - I asked loudly.


    The audience burst out laughing, discussing my antics.


    ¡°This pill helps stabilize the foundation of one¡¯s physical cultivation. Its energy transfers into the bones and starts restructuring them, saturating them with a special energy. During those few minutes, the cultivator must control the transformation so it doesn¡¯t destabilize. If the cultivator makes a mistake, their bones explode, destroying the entire cultivation foundation¡± - explained the same old man, speaking calmly and kindly.


    ¡°Sounds amusing¡± - I noted, looking over the recipe again. - ¡°Now I at least see why there are so many stabilizing additives in it.¡± - The old man regarded me with interest, while my opponent froze, eyes wide. - ¡°But to be honest, this pill is no good as is. You can scrap half the herbs right away. Instead, I¡¯ll need the juice of a Bitter Boreworm and three blossoms of a Solitary Fire Lily.¡±


    The hall erupted with buzz again, everyone discussing what I¡¯d said.


    ¡°You want to change the recipe?¡± - the old man asked in amazement.


    ¡°Of course. I see how to improve the pill so that we eliminate the risk of destabilizing the process.¡±


    ¡°But then how are we going to assess its quality?¡± - one of the judges in the VIP room asked irritably.


    ¡°There¡¯s only one way, have a cultivator eat it and see what happens¡± - I shouted back. - ¡°Otherwise, what are you evaluating here, exactly? Its smoothness? Its color? The main thing is whether it works or not. So, I propose you bring in two cultivators of the same level and let them each take one pill. Then everyone can see firsthand what the pill does and which one is better.¡± - The spectators in the stands murmured in agreement. - ¡°I¡¯m sure you believe in your own alchemist, right? Don¡¯t tell me not a single person in your entire sect is willing to risk blowing up on the spot for the crowd¡¯s entertainment.¡±


    People started laughing loudly again, and from the alchemists¡¯ box came cursing and insults.


    ¡°Hmm¡­ it appears this contest will be different from the usual¡± - the old man drawled. - ¡°Very well, have it your way. We¡¯ll find someone to take the pill that Sa Va Ge makes. But who¡¯s going to volunteer to swallow yours?¡± - There was a hint of mockery in his voice.


    ¡°Just bring in anyone who¡¯s done something to deserve punishment. Or maybe someone in the audience wants to eat a pill that grants a powerful body cultivation foundation, completely free of charge?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll do it!¡± - came a shout from a young man. - ¡°Give me that pill!¡±


    His neighbors tried to stop him, but with ease he leaped a good fifty meters, landing right there onstage. Such strength and agility clearly marked him as a fighter who¡¯d devoted himself to strengthening the body after all, flying in this area wasn¡¯t possible.


    ¡°You see, we don¡¯t even need to look for anyone¡± - I said with a smile.


    ¡°All right¡± - the old man nodded with a dignified air. - ¡°Proceed.¡±

 Chapter 20.60 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    Meanwhile, the ¡°test subject¡± came over to me. He was at the first level of Core Crystallization and wore something resembling light leather armor.


    ¡°I¡¯m counting on you, Tan Ji Tao.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry. Also, when you¡¯re processing the pill¡¯s energy, just release any excess Qi through your skin. It¡¯ll be easy. And you¡¯d do well to remove your armor before that.¡±


    ¡°All right¡­¡± - The volunteer gave me a thoughtful look.


    I went over to the table, waited for the signal, and began making the pill. The issue with explosions arose from the fact that not all Qi could be absorbed by the bones. It depended on the cultivator and their constitution. If a sufficient amount of ¡°free¡± Qi built up, it would simply detonate. I planned to use three blossoms of the Solitary Fire Lily: one to grant the bone-strengthening energy a fiery quality, another to allow that fiery Qi to flow from the bones to the outside, and the third to give the body fire-immunity properties.


    This pill was fairly complicated, and even with all my skill, it took me half an hour to make it. But my opponent needed forty minutes, even though he was crafting a far simpler recipe. Finally, the pill-making was done, and the judges, among them Mu Niam stepped into the arena. They checked and sniffed both pills, but couldn¡¯t find anything to criticize. At least, there were no obvious defects in the pills or in the way their energies were combined.


    After the judges departed, two ¡°test subjects¡± came onstage.


    ¡°I suggest we place a barrier around them¡± - I said loudly. - ¡°That way, no one can interfere with the pill absorption process, and if something goes wrong, you won¡¯t have to clean blood and bits of flesh off this entire hall.¡±


    They accepted my proposal, and the two volunteers were covered with individual shields. The pair exchanged glances, then popped the pills into their mouths, sat down, and began meditating to control the absorption process. Using psionics, I tracked my volunteer¡¯s actions, confirming he was doing everything correctly. Judging by that, he was an experienced cultivator who¡¯d spent a long time practicing various body-strengthening techniques.


    By contrast, the ¡°enemy¡¯s¡± test subject wasn¡¯t as skilled, relying more on instinct and luck. Overall, he was doing a decent job and he had every chance of fully absorbing the pill¡¯s energy. It was just that his chances didn¡¯t sit well with me.


    Right then, the cultivator was surrounded by a powerful shield that blocked all Qi-based techniques but allowed natural Qi from the air to pass through. Evidently, this shield was specifically designed for situations where someone had to cultivate in a dangerous environment. But for this particular test, the shield¡¯s ability to let in natural Qi was also its weakness.


    At this point, Qi was penetrating the cultivator¡¯s bones and ¡°settling¡± there, eventually becoming part of his body and strengthening it. But this newly deposited Qi was still unstable. I waited until the absorption process was about two-thirds complete, then began emitting vibrations with my own Qi. These waves were like sound, using neutral Qi as the medium.


    They passed unhindered through the shield, reached the bones¡­ and triggered a resonance effect. I deliberately released vibrations at a very specific frequency matching the Qi in the victim¡¯s bones. The vibrations caused all the Qi in them to erupt suddenly, and¡­ the test subject exploded spectacularly. He managed a single horrified scream before being torn to pieces, reduced to a bloody pulp that slid down the transparent shield walls.


    Meanwhile, my test subject was approaching the stage I¡¯d aimed for when I spent those three extremely rare flowers. The amount of Qi in the pill didn¡¯t always match the ¡°capacity¡± of someone¡¯s bones. If there was too much energy, it had to be ¡°vented.¡± The cultivator sensed he couldn¡¯t absorb another drop of Qi, yet the pill was still releasing energy that automatically flowed into his bones. At that point, he followed my advice and began expelling the excess Qi from his bones, channeling it through his body and letting it out through the pores of his skin.


    The audience murmured in surprise when my test subject was suddenly enveloped in bursts of flame. A few seconds later, he was like a flamethrower, spewing fire in all directions. The entire space inside the shield filled with fiery Qi, which now built up outside his body.The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    ¡°It seems both sides lost this round¡± - came voices from the crowd.


    ¡°The Golden Dragon Sect¡¯s cultivator exploded, and that outsider from the eastern plains got burned up. This alchemists¡¯ contest is too entertaining. I didn¡¯t waste my hundred Qi crystals on a ticket.¡±


    ¡°That idiot For Sun Ka! Why did he jump in? What am I supposed to tell his teacher now? That he swallowed a pill made by some useless trash from the Heavenly Blades Sect?¡±


    ¡°Doesn¡¯t it seem like the flames are lasting too long? He should¡¯ve been charred to ashes by now.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s the power of the Solitary Fire Lily. The alchemist used three of them in his pill. I¡¯m afraid the fire won¡¯t die down ¡®til dinner.¡±


    The crowd shared their reactions, amusing me as well.


    Finally, the pill expended all the energy poured into it, and the flames started subsiding. But to my surprise, the test subject wouldn¡¯t settle for the result just yet; he began absorbing the fiery Qi dissipated around him, using it to fill his muscles and internal organs. That energy had already passed through his body once and was now fully compatible with him. It didn¡¯t dissipate into the surroundings thanks to the shield, and now For Sun Ka was free to absorb it, slowly sinking it into his body. What he¡¯d expelled in a minute, he could reabsorb in ten, without too much strain.


    ¡°What?!! He¡¯s alive?¡± - new cries came from the audience.


    ¡°I can¡¯t believe my eyes! He¡¯s surrounded by flames and fiery Qi. Is he a fire cultivator?¡±


    ¡°It looks like the pill worked perfectly. Look, his bones are glowing crimson through his skin!¡±


    ¡°And he¡¯s handsome¡­¡±


    ¡°Ah, I already want him. Does anyone know where he¡¯s from?¡±


    Those last two lines came from some of the women present. The swirling flames had burned off all his clothing, leaving him to flaunt a well-built, muscular physique without the slightest hint of embarrassment. He absorbed the remaining Qi, stood up, stretched, eliciting an admiring sigh from the female spectators and then signaled that they could take down the barrier. Walking over to his armor, he began putting it on over his bare body, which at least covered the most private areas.


    The crowd groaned and roared, discussing what had happened. Many in the audience had placed bets before the test began, and now there was a great deal of bickering over who owed whom and how much.


    ¡°Ahem!¡± - the emcee cleared his throat sadly. - ¡°In this round, Tan Ji Tao is the winner. His pill was able to strengthen the volunteer¡¯s cultivation foundation without causing harm. Next on our list ¡­¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s jump right to item sixteen¡± - I shouted. - ¡°And then twenty. This pill was far too simple.¡±


    ¡°Kha!¡± - Sa Va Ge couldn¡¯t restrain himself, coughing up a mouthful of blood. Even though he hadn¡¯t made any mistakes in crafting his pill, he¡¯d had to rush significantly to keep up with me and finish in roughly the same time.


    The emcee glanced up at the alchemists¡¯ box, waited for a nod from the bald old man, and then continued.


    ¡°The next pill, number sixteen, is the Phantom Pill. Are you familiar with the recipe?¡± - he asked me.


    ¡°No¡± - I shook my head.


    They immediately brought over a jade slip with instructions. I looked through it and let out a puzzled hum. This pill was truly interesting. During its creation, a very complex, multi-component Qi was formed, which, at the end, got extracted from the physical substrate and continued to exist only as an energy construct enclosed by a protective shield. The main point was that this pill let a person instantly form a structure in one of their energy centers, allowing them to jump immediately to the next level of the Foundation Formation stage.


    Although this pill was relatively low-ranked and intended for cultivators of the Foundation Formation stage, it was extremely difficult to craft. It formed a rather stable structure that, by its parameters, was superior to what an ordinary cultivator would typically create. I even started thinking about using this ¡°template¡± to advance to the next level. If I didn¡¯t find anything better in the Dragons¡¯ Dungeon, I could rely on the Phantom Pill, especially since I wouldn¡¯t actually need the ultra-rare ¡°thousand-year¡± herbs used in its manufacture.


    ¡°This pill is highly interesting¡± - I said with satisfaction. - ¡°It¡¯s the sort of thing you¡¯d proudly showcase at a grandmaster-level alchemy competition. That said, I can see room for improvement. If I¡¯m given ten large crystals filled with Qi from Foundation Formation level [2], plus the core of a Water Oak, I¡¯ll show you what this pill is really meant to be. And to test it out, I¡¯ll need someone at the tenth level of Qi Condensation (10).¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t you want to take it yourself?¡± - asked Sa Va Ge, apparently deciding he should say something too.


    ¡°There¡¯s no need¡± - I shook my head. - ¡°So, what about a test subject? Shall we pick another volunteer from the audience?¡±


    Hearing my words, the crowd started clamoring excitedly.


    ¡°My grandson will take the pill!¡± - someone in lavish attire shouted in a booming voice. Next to him stood a boy of about fourteen, at the tenth level of Qi Condensation. In my opinion, that was a decent achievement, at least compared to those around him.


    ¡°Dao Mu, you must understand that a Phantom Pill costs a fortune¡± - the emcee shouted back.


    ¡°But you should also understand that most of a pill¡¯s value lies in the alchemist¡¯s labor. Are you planning to sell the pill I¡¯m about to create?¡± - I raised my voice as well. - ¡°I¡¯m not demanding money for my work, since this is a competition. So why should you demand payment?¡±

 Chapter 20.61 The Sect of Heavenly Blades

    The host frowned, and the mood in the alchemists¡¯ box dropped below zero. After all, I had essentially accused them of theft.


    ¡°I agree to pay for the herbs used in creating the pill¡± - Dao Mu shouted.


    ¡°Very well¡± - the host nodded, gritting his teeth. - ¡°Bring your grandson here. Let everyone take a look at him¡­¡±


    The words ¡°for the last time¡± weren¡¯t spoken, but they were clearly implied. I merely smirked in response.


    ¡°What¡¯s your name, kid?¡± - I asked my test subject, simultaneously evaluating his cultivation base.


    ¡°Dao Ku Xia¡± - he said respectfully with a bow.


    A three-part name usually indicates a person of noble origin. His grandfather had a two-part name, so there was clearly some dynastic marriage involved, where wealth was joined with an ancient lineage.


    ¡°Does your grandfather have a lot of Qi crystals?¡±


    ¡°A lot¡­¡± - the boy answered, sounding a bit wary. Apparently, he understood that his grandfather¡¯s wealth attracted many swindlers and people hoping to get rich quick.


    ¡°After you swallow the pill, run to your grandfather and absorb Qi from all the crystals he has. Now, take your place as the test subject. Let¡¯s begin!¡±


    Sa Va Ge and I approached the alchemical tables and started making our pills. They brought me the requested ingredients, including large crystals filled with purified neutral Qi at the Foundation Formation stage.


    I intended to create a pill that would form a ¡®foundation¡¯ structure in all ten of the body¡¯s energy centers at once. That required an enormous amount of Qi. There was a reason the large crystal was called ¡®large¡¯: it could hold a thousand times more Qi than an average crystal. Even so, it would barely be sufficient to form ten Qi structures. Therefore, once the pill was used, our ¡®test subject¡¯ would have to absorb huge amounts of Qi to stabilize his cultivation foundation and avoid slipping back down.


    I needed the core of the Water Oak as an excellent Qi ¡®storage container.¡¯ The bark and outer trunk of the oak held water-type Qi, making them quite valuable. But the core itself contained no energy, which is why most alchemists deemed it ¡®trash¡¯ ¡ª used only for pills meant to be stored for decades or centuries. However, I found another use for it.


    Twenty minutes later, I was holding the ¡°Phantom Pill¡± which wasn¡¯t phantom-like at all but looked more like a wooden sphere. Or, you could say it contained ten phantom pills inside, each with an absolutely identical internal structure. That similarity was extremely valuable in itself, ensuring the body wouldn¡¯t experience any dissonance from having different ¡®laws¡¯ in various energy centers.


    ¡°Is that your Phantom Pill?¡± - the host asked, filling the pause. Sa Va Ge was still busy preparing his materials and wouldn¡¯t finish his pill for at least another half hour. - ¡°It doesn¡¯t look very phantom-like.¡±


    Laughter rippled through the hall, apparently, he fancied himself a comedian.


    ¡°I think we don¡¯t need to wait for my opponent¡± - I replied, casting a haughty glance at my rival, who was now rushing and risking to make a foolish mistake. - ¡°We can test the pill right now and see whether it¡¯s truly phantom or not.¡±


    The host glanced again at his superiors and then unexpectedly agreed.


    ¡°Very well. Consuming a pill takes time, so we can observe one volunteer first and then the other.¡±


    The second volunteer was a muscular brute, seemingly chosen to contrast the frail child. He was even broader in the shoulders than I was, yet at twenty years old he had only reached the tenth level of Qi Condensation, so in the eyes of the locals he probably ranked somewhere between a peasant and a servant.


    First, the judges examined my pill, then gave it to Dao Ku Xia. He sat down in a meditation pose, calmed his internal Qi, tossed the pill into his mouth, and swallowed it whole, fortunately, its diameter was no more than a centimeter and a half. Just a couple of seconds later, a powerful stream of glowing Qi burst out from his body, ruffling his clothes and hair. Even I was surprised to see him suddenly resemble some sort of ¡°ancient hero shattering the heavens.¡±Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    The audience gasped and fell silent, watching what was happening. The glow concentrated around Dao Ku Xia¡¯s body and then abruptly died down. At that very moment, a ¡®foundation¡¯ structure appeared in his Phoenix Tail center. The crowd started shouting in excitement, and Dao Mu¡¯s eyes filled with tears of happiness. But then the glow flared up again, and Dao Ku Xia¡¯s face took on an otherworldly expression, as though he¡¯d just grasped some universal truth.


    ¡°What¡¯s happening?¡± - the spectators murmured uneasily.


    ¡°He already broke through to the Foundation Formation stage.¡±


    ¡°Did something go wrong?¡±


    ¡°I expected as much from that upstart of the Heavenly Blades sect.¡±


    ¡°Think he¡¯ll explode as impressively as that poor guy in the first round?¡±


    ¡°Quiet! It¡¯s starting again.¡±


    Just then, the glow died down a second time, and a new structure emerged in the ninth energy center of his body.


    ¡°What? He broke through again? Don¡¯t tell me the pill had a double effect!¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t believe my eyes. Two levels of Foundation Formation in a single minute?¡±


    ¡°Unheard of! Who is this Tan Ji Tao? Where did he even come from?¡±


    ¡°I want that pill, too. No, three. No¡ªfive!¡±


    But while the audience rambled on, the glow began igniting for a third round. By now, Dao Ku Xia¡¯s face radiated a celestial majesty that overwhelmed mere mortals just by existing in the same space. Another minute passed ¡ª this stage took longer than the previous two, but it also culminated in a sudden ¡°collapse¡± and he broke through to the third level of Foundation Formation (level 13).


    ¡°What¡¯s going on?¡±


    ¡°This is absurd! How many more times is he going to break through?¡±


    ¡°How is this possible? Was that a heaven-grade pill?¡±


    ¡°Look, he¡¯s going for a fourth round!¡±


    ¡°This must be a dream. Someone, pinch me¡­ Oww!!! Why¡¯d you do that?¡±


    At least half the audience was plagued by the question, ¡°What¡¯s going on?¡± They kept asking each other, unable to believe their eyes.


    Meanwhile, Dao Ku Xia broke through the fourth level, the fifth, the sixth, and so on ¡ª each time taking no more than a minute. All alchemists looked on, eyes bulging, spitting up a new mouthful of blood every minute. Even Sa Va Ge stopped working on his pill, gazing at me with a mix of hatred, envy, and¡­ bewilderment.


    Finally, after ten minutes, the glow faded for the tenth time, marking the formation of a tenth ¡®foundation.¡¯


    ¡°Tenth level of Foundation Formation (20)!!! That¡¯s my grandson!¡± - Dao Mu was screaming at the top of his lungs. - ¡°He¡¯s a genius! A genius!!!¡±


    Technically, I¡¯m the genius here, but the kid¡¯s not bad, either. He didn¡¯t make a single mistake, perfectly taking advantage of the opportunity. Opening his now-luminous eyes, Dao Ku Xia scanned the hall, then bolted toward his grandfather, reached into his pocket, pulled out a handful of Qi crystals, and immediately began devouring them greedily, crunching them like candy. Though Qi-charged crystals are fairly sturdy, in this ¡°sweet-tooth¡¯s¡± mouth they crumbled into dust without any resistance.


    The people all around weren¡¯t just shouting anymore; they were hoarse, screaming, and howling. Dozens of onlookers stared at me with hungry eyes, clearly eager to commission some particularly rare pills from me. In short, my trial had turned into a wild mass frenzy. People and even the judges forgot all about the second contestant, who himself was sadly eyeing the table in front of him, deciding whether it was worth continuing at all. After all, it was already obvious who¡¯d won this competition.


    When the noise died down a bit, a gray-haired elder stepped onto the stage. Seeing him, people began calming down, taking their seats again, switching from shouts to whispers.


    ¡°Ahem! Well, this contest has ended in victory for the Heavenly Blades sect¡± -he admitted his defeat. - ¡°Mu Niam, please come forward and receive your promised prize.¡±


    My teacher darted forward like a meteor and respectfully held out his hands, into which a gold-embellished jade with a dragon design was placed.


    ¡°Thank you, Grandmaster¡± - he said, bowing.


    ¡°No need. This contest was quite entertaining¡± - the old man replied, smiling into his beard.


    ¡°You know what¡¯s really entertaining?¡± - Mu Niam suddenly gave a nasty grin as he tucked the jade into his ring. - ¡°Tan Ji Tao is a disciple of the Outer Court of our sect.¡±


    For a second, the crowd froze, and the hall fell completely silent. Then¡­everyone burst into laughter in unison. Not just chuckling or joking, but roaring with laughter at something they clearly thought was the best joke in the history of creation. Some spectators literally dropped to the ground, rolling around and howling. And I noticed that the greedy looks once directed at me had changed¡­into contempt. Those who, just a moment ago, considered me a brilliant alchemist now looked at me as if I were a flea that had somehow climbed onto a throne and deposed a king. It was funny, but¡­disgusting.


    Moreover, I noticed that the anger in the eyes of the alchemists from the Golden Dragon sect had shifted into fierce hatred. My death sentence was now visible in each of their gazes. It looked like my dear teacher had just signed his own death warrant. Though for now, of course, there¡¯s no need to mention that to him.


    ¡°Let¡¯s get out of here¡± - said the soon-to-be-corpse, jumping up beside me. - ¡°We should leave before they come to their senses.¡±


    We quickly slipped through the crowd toward the exit. No one stopped us, but the looks they threw my way were full of arrogant disdain.


    ¡°Now do you see what your real status is?¡± - Mu Niam asked when we exited the building and hurried away, accompanied by bodyguards who kept darting their gazes in all directions. - ¡°Here, Outer Court disciples are called ¡®wild cultivators.¡¯ People who don¡¯t even have the right to stand alongside true cultivators. People who can be killed just because someone feels like it.¡±