Capítulo 158: The truth is out there
He promised Gaius and Co. that he would make the Master pay, which was kindly announced to us by Tom, who had woken up from his mental shakeup and was now moonlighting as a demonic translator.
Well yes, well yes. Because of the fault of this master there is a local apocalypse with magical zombies in the city now, the number of victims is probably approaching a thousand, but we will take revenge precisely because of the demon's deception. And even though the demon was actually a man before, and in general, it seems to be artificial, it does not change the essence of it... In any case, the voice jumped half a tone higher hinted that our friend once again succumbed to emotions, changing his head, and although this effect can not be compared to a real split personality, that is, the chimera has one memory, and he fully realizes himself exactly Simon Dark, and not someone else, the reaction to external stimuli may be slightly different.
As a result, the overexcited young man flared up with righteous anger and moved briskly along the tunnel, which suddenly ended at a fork in the road. He headed toward the highest concentration of dark energy, only to be faced with another difficult choice a few minutes later, but this time there were three paths, two of them leading further underground, and the last one toward the surface. Frowning under the mask the guy sat down on the ground and began to meditate. In principle, such a step is not without logic, because when connecting to the Infosphere he received a huge amount of information about Geo Populus, so there could be at least an approximate plan of the labyrinth. And as it turned out five minutes later, I was right.
Simon's blue eyes flashed a little, but he jumped up and moved on with a brisk stride, warning me in advance of any traps along the way. As I passed the wolf pits, lowered ceilings, and pressure plates with spears, I was tempted to contact the mysterious master and tell him to hire a WDF next time, not to do it on his own. This is someone who really knows about interesting puzzles and secret passageways, and this dull shit was boring after fifteen minutes. What can I say, if the room with numerous black spikes made of some strange obsidian-like material coming out of the wall was chosen as the coolest activity by the general vote. And even so, it took the honorable first place only because one of the spikes, despite all the warnings, managed to pierce the detective's shoulder, and I had to sew up the wound with magic, because it refused to heal on its own for some reason. And, of course, I didn't miss the chance to saw off one of the spikes as a souvenir, having a hard time stuffing it into my spatial pocket because of its unexpectedly heavy weight.
The occasional appearance of mindless inferior demons, driven by orders and the desire to taste human flesh, was also a pleasant change. But if it weren't for our new comrades, each fight would have been too long. Simon couldn't often use his Ulta to summon hundreds of tentacles, and the flying stone and expansive light particle ammo did a decent amount of damage, but there was so much alien energy that the monsters would only die if you ripped their heads off, and for the same reason I had to go into economy mode, because my seemingly endless supply of diamonds was suddenly running low. Fortunately, when faced with a pair of huge yellow paws, multicolored flexible tentacles or a huge mouth full of sharp teeth, the infernal creatures were quite quickly sent to their place of residence.
And frankly speaking, I'm a little surprised that the gateway to Hell turned out to be in the area of the cultists' lair. No, it's understandable that any demon worshippers want to be close to their masters, and to do so they're willing to build necropolises of flesh and bone and create gruesome altars and kill innocent victims, but as far as I know from asking Detective, comfortably traveling on a meatball after a serious injury, the Gotham Gate is literally a checkpoint under the control of the authorities, who allow the most adequate dark creatures to visit the Earth dimension in exchange for knowledge and magical materials with artifacts. Although it should be noted that such practice was observed exactly at the birth of the city, and then the Guardians still covered the shop, hinging a bunch of defenses on the gate and creating a special key. But they realized it too late, and otherwise it's hard to explain why there were so many psychos and bad places in the city. And the concentration of creatures from the underside is close to the amount that I could observe on the streets of Las Vegas, and there, by the way, one of the Lords has organized a small branch.
I didn't understand why such an important object was suddenly in the hands of strangers, and the previous Guardian had no idea about it, since he hadn't warned anyone from his entourage. It shouldn't have been too hard to get in touch with Zee or her father, the part-time Lord of Order, who should be in charge of this kind of devilishness, or maybe gather some fighting star from lesser-known mages. Heck, until the altar showed up, this place could do with a few SWAT teams and a couple of priests with a bucket of holy water.
Under the chimera's careful guidance, our friendly team to save the world reached the center of the labyrinth, where they came across a huge steel door, whose surface was decorated with skillful engravings telling the story of the confrontation between Light and Dark. Unlike traditional motifs, the dark forces were clearly winning here, plunging the entire planet into chaos at the end. All would have been fine, but an attempt to remove the obstacle by brute force suddenly failed. Gaius burned his right paw and shoulder when he tried to take out the door, so badly that they took nearly thirty seconds to regenerate, despite the fact that mana was almost visible here.
"It's a dead end," Tom kicked the sash in anger, but it didn't even move, and instead gave out a small, dark bolt of lightning, causing the man to fall to the ground with a loud grunt and then look at the burned hole in his shoe.
"Ouch! - Simon shook his scorched glove. He had learned nothing from the previous experimenters, so he too had experienced the local hospitality. And the guy was not lazy and pumped himself with dark mana, creating a kind of barrier around the palm. - Is there any way around it? - he asked thoughtfully to himself. - Maybe in one of the branches...
"Ahn, rta-aah rorhu-r-r-r nhra," Susie wheezed. - Ruor gloom.
"He says there's no other way through, and that only cultists can open this door," Tom translated habitually.
I didn't even think about approaching the sparkling doors, rightly fearing for my health, but instead focused on the walls. They looked even stronger than the door, resembling granite, but the mana-swollen scanning spells told him that there were voids behind them. And the fact that the weaves were still working hinted that there didn't seem to be any defenses on them. I couldn't be sure of anything after the setup with the full-fledged altar, which had managed to hide its essence until now.
"Okay, as one proverb says: " if you've been eaten, there are at least three ways out ", the decision was still made."
"Mr. J, aren't there two? - My sweetheart clarified.
-You could also chew your way out ," I said with a satisfied smile, pulling out a couple of red sticks of dynamite that gave Harley an anticipatory twinkle in her eye. - Honey, can you give me a master class in controlled detonation?
***
The huge room, reminiscent of a gloomy Gothic cathedral, was "crowded" today.
At first glance, this place didn't look much different from dozens of other Gothic churches scattered around the world: black marble floor rubbed to a shine, high ceilings supported striving upward columns, creating a kind of semi-arches, stained glass on narrow windows reflected the light of magical lamps, on the walls there was a beautiful stucco, however, the subjects depicted on it a little frightening and clearly referred to some satanic rites; standing at some columns three-meter statues of angels with bloody tears flowing from their eyes and mangled wings behind their backs were also creepy. But if a casual visitor to this place could look beyond the edge of the familiar world, what he saw would naturally make the hair on his ass stand on end and take his breath away. Hundreds of bloody sacrifices had been performed within the walls of the Dark Cathedral, leaving their indelible mark, and the tortured souls could never be poisoned beyond the Fringe, imprisoned in the altar set on the dais. The altar looks like a stone table covered by a large piece of linen cloth with a pair of golden candlesticks on it, but when the time comes, it transforms, becoming the victim's worst nightmare.
A hundred of the cult's strongest adepts were stationed in the Dark Cathedral beneath Pinkerton Manor. Dressed in loose black robes with the symbol of an inverted star on the back and canvas sacks on their heads, they stood on special seals, sharing their energy and waiting for their lord to appear from the passage behind the altar stone, blocked by the swirling darkness. But more than an hour passed, and the dark veil did not even think of parting, and there was still no news from the master who had passed through it. Only occasional red sparks flashed in the depths of the black fog, indicating that everything was going according to plan and that the Gate would be opened. Here and there, the low whispers of bored demons merged into indistinct rumblings.
"How much longer? I can't wait to get back to the surface and eat Peterson in Human Resources. He refused to give me time off this week and made me run all over the place to get my badge reissued. Because the parademons destroyed part of the server room and all the data's gone... He didn't make Karen do that shit. I'm gonna get him now," the bifurcated tongue licked his sharpened teeth.
"You're an asshole, Frank. Your Peterson is old and has a lot of diseases. Why don't you just beat him to death and pick some teenagers to eat? They've got tender flesh and a tasty soul."
"No, no, no, don't even think about it," the adept standing on the neighboring pentagram suddenly intervened in the conversation. - I tried your teenagers once, and then I spent two days recovering from psychotropic poisoning.
"So pick victims in normal neighborhoods, not the docks. You should go to India and eat someone there. Not only is the flesh bitter from all the spices they've absorbed, but they're not hygienic. Disgusting," the demon shrugged in disgust.
"Quiet," the complaining monster turned his head toward the door. - Do you hear that? The guards at the entrance are fidgeting again...
"Must have gotten word of the invaders. It was strange that they'd lasted this long, they could have had the creatures from the lower levels descend on them long ago."
"Maybe they're to be presented to the Overlord. You know these mindless creatures are ready to eat us whole."
"Anything can be..."
~Bang! ~
Suddenly the echo of a powerful explosion reached the temple, making its doors shudder.
"Invasion, invasion, invasion... - the ranks of demons murmured, but no one was going to leave their seats, remembering the master's order.
"They have a fucking elevator!!! - an indignant male voice came to the fanatics' amplified hearing. - We've been wandering around a fucking maze for almost an hour, fighting a bunch of mindless creatures, not you, Susan, avoiding lame traps, and these bastards just take the elevator down?!
"Come on, Mr. J. It was fun. Almost like Dungeons & Demons... Only with cool graphics and interesting gameplay."
"Ahem... Yeah, I really overreacted. Besides, where else can you get so many magic ingredients without going down to Hell?"
No sooner had the remaining adepts in the cathedral asked themselves where the guards had disappeared to, than a third voice with growling notes sounded, hinting that someone from the welcoming delegation had lost his temper and assumed his true form:
"How dare you invade here and ignore the presence of the true masters of the world!?!"
"Oh, right! I'm terribly sorry. Tony, be a pal and tear those bastards apart."
Some of the invaders must have gone completely insane, having been influenced by an energy foreign to the world, or else it was hard to explain his words and his attempts to use firearms. There was so much demonic mana in this place that even the worst wounds would regenerate within a couple of minutes, but to the surprise of the cultists gathered beneath the temple, the sounds of battle did not seem to stop, rather, they were getting closer and closer, as if the guards had to constantly retreat. Finally, a particularly loud gunshot rang out, followed by a loud slurping sound from behind the closed doors. Those present easily recognized the sound of bones being ground with sharp teeth. Satisfied grins blossomed on the faces hidden by the canvas bags. Even very strong wizards find it difficult to survive in this place, so the opponents had not even a shadow of a chance to come out of the fight victorious. It was only sad that the Overlord was still without such strong victims. Few people are capable of even moving near the Dark Cathedral on their own, let alone a full-fledged battle. But apparently, the guards were very angry with the stubborn prey.
The demons went back to idle chatter, discussing what had happened and future plans for the enslavement of humanity, when one of the doors opened abruptly, revealing a strange company of four humans and three grotesque monsters. A second's delay, and a pale green-haired man threw seven cylinders inside the room, laughing happily.
Before the cultists realized what was happening, blindingly bright flames erupted from the napalm grenades. And most striking of all, the fire caused the alien creatures terrible pain, vaporizing their flesh and causing them to scurry about the room, adding to the turmoil and chaos. The adepts trying to escape from the cathedral were met by flying stone on inconceivable trajectories and accurate shots performed by a satisfied blonde in a harlequin outfit. Naturally, the Master could have stopped the outrage long ago by simply ordering the flames to go out, but he had left through the archway, and now there was no one to control the altar stone to set new conditions. So now his main bonus, which gave demonic creatures amazing regeneration, was playing tricks on them, prolonging their agony and preventing them from going quickly into the arms of the Eternal.
Five minutes later, only the thirteen strongest demons were left standing. There was nothing human about them. They were more than two meters tall, with bulging, hypertrophied muscles, bent horns on their heads, red skin, and black eyes that looked like abysses.
"Raaaaah!"
The infernal creatures roared at their opponents in a friendly manner, only to be confronted by even creepier monsters.
***
With the support of the multicolored Pokémon, the fight was short. Although a couple of barlogs still put up a decent resistance at the end, managing to survive a couple of fatal wounds. Luckily, we had Gaius on our team, who clearly showed us who the boss of the rocker was. The potato, by the way, turned out to be quite strong, it just lacks speed, but if the enemy does get caught, he will immediately get acquainted with very strong limbs and a set of sharp teeth.
Harley and I were having fun too, but not too much. My supply of diamonds was almost at an end. Literally every spell required additional fuel, and I had to spend a lot of money on holy grenades with napalm for the final chord. In general, it's a little strange that we can still fight effectively, although still on the surface felt a decent pressure due to alien mana, and here its concentration was several times higher, because of which it even manifested in the material world in the form of a dark haze, flickering at the edge of vision.
In any case, our friendly team successfully killed the last cultist and stopped at the dense dark veil blocking the further path. And here the method of creating alternative paths suddenly misfired: behind the arch there was simply no empty space, because the fog was some analog of a portal. It smelled strongly of demonic emanations, clearly suggesting that people should not touch it. And the strange thing was that it was not only me and the girl, but also the detective and Gaius and the rest of the company. And everything would be all right, because there were a couple of sticks of dynamite in reserve, which would have been enough to blow up the arch, but Simon firmly said that he had to go there, well, and then took and just stepped into the fog...
Estado de energía semanal
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