Failed Strike

Ego created thousands of green leaves that flew to Vallynor. Vallynor sighed so strongly that a cyclone quickly formed, collecting all the leaves and heading towards Ego. Once inside, Ego unleashed lightning strikes that hit everywhere, somehow turning the cyclone into a black cloud filled with lightning.

Like rain, the lightning fell on Vallynor. He jumped and dodged each one until he hit the ground, causing the iron rods to grow upward. Instead of hitting Vallynor, every lightning bolt struck the rods.

Even when Ego tried his best to make the lightning hit Vallynor, it only reached ten centimeters and turned towards the iron rods.

Ego snorted and flew into the sky. But suddenly, he heard a strange hum. Looking at the ground, he saw a pipe emerging from it, with white beams bursting out and hitting Ego unexpectedly.

He quickly turned black and turned into ashes. Vallynor watched this and thought it was all over.

"Too bad it's not as easy as it seems at first glance," said Vallynor, watching as the ashes quickly turned into tornadoes. Vallynor took a deep breath and raised his newly-appearing cloaks. "I'll show you a secret weapon that's even deadly for you." Black tentacles filled with mouths emerged from the cloak, and these mouths were filled with teeth all the way to the base of the tentacles.

Pouncing on Ego, who was now dying, these tentacles opened their mouths and began to suck and devour Ego's new form.

His body rapidly diminished until it disappeared. Dragon wings hovered over the feasting tentacles, but Ego looked at them disappointedly and shook his head.

"And that's it? I expected something different from you. Like a ninja chicken or talking rye buns. And you just use clichés with tentacles that don't stand out in any way,", Ego didn't finish when he saw his little finger on his left hand turning black. After it, the other fingers, hands, and then the rest of the body turned black.

Ego cut off the black part of his body and grew a new one, destroying the old one with fire erupting from his mouth. When he started speaking again, his fingers turned black again, and the blackness spread across his body even faster than the first time. Ego cut off a huge piece of his body and ran away from the initial spot to destroy it.

When he was ready to shoot fire again, he stopped, noticing that tentacles had grown out of his black body, attacking his body and then themselves. Ego quickly looked at Vallynor, who was sitting with his hands behind his back and smiling, watching this. Ego's eyes lit up, and he was about to release two beams, but Vallynor just disappeared, and darkness engulfed the whole world. Eyes and mouths filled with sharp teeth appeared everywhere.

"What did he do?" Ego managed to think before he was interrupted by thousands of mouths attacking him. These hungry mouths tore and ate Ego every time he recreated a new body and tried to destroy them, but nothing worked. On the contrary, he only became weaker and weaker.

He was surrounded by chickens, and the karate masters were hitting each other on the eggs. He stood still like a statue. Eight pillars surrounded him, with strings connecting the pillars to his head.

He slowly but surely began to become transparent. Vallynor was already waiting for him to disappear completely. When he was almost supposed to disappear completely, he suddenly opened his eyes and, tearing the strings connecting him to the pillars, lunged at Vallynor. He grinned, and everything around him turned into mist. A black, dense mist quickly gathered and grew, forming a huge silhouette of a man made of mist. The mist wriggled on the surface like a small wayward bird, back and forth. There were two holes where the eyes should have been, and there was nothing where the nose should have been.

Opening its mouth, the mist creature said in conclusion, "It's time for you to become a part of me." After that, it swallowed the illusory body of Ego.

***

The manipulator Expertavith manipulated the clouds, slowly compressing and then enlarging them until they took on the shape of a cube.

"What do you want to see?" Expertavith asked apathetically, looking straight at Edward.

"Don't talk as if we're villains," Edward objected, settling himself more comfortably on the tree branch. "I'm curious if he encountered the magical world in his own world."

"Hmm..." Expertavith closed his eyes for a while, then opened them and replied, "Yes, he did encounter it, and quite often. What exactly do you want to see?"

"Magical creatures. Well, and all kinds of animals from his world, right?" Tod chimed in because he was bored.

"How do you know that magic and otherworldly powers are just fiction?" Edward asked.

"Boredom," Tod muttered disappointingly upon hearing that animals from another world were the most ordinary.

"If magic is not so widespread in his world, then science is developed there," Chen thought, approached Expertavith, and asked, "Are there beautiful women and men there?"

"You choose what memories you want to see," Expertavith, tired of answering all the questions, asked.

"Does he have experience communicating with demons?" Duke Mogil joined the conversation and asked his question.

"Yes, I do, and it was quite a strange experience," Expertavith replied.

"Show us," Duke Mogil and Edward said in unison without hesitation.

The cube quickly filled with different colors and then depicted a room and a pair of hands that drew a pentagram, arranged candles in a circle, and placed one in the center.

Everyone watched attentively, hearing the spell in Latin. At first, no one understood what was being said, but after some time, they managed to decipher the meaning.

"A spell that calls Satan to make a deal He gives his soul, and desires are fulfilled in return," commented Krina, continuing to watch. Then she looked at Retos. Shocked, he sat on the floor. Although he was undead, he could still feel, and what he saw had a profound impact on him.

Approaching Retos, Krina hit him several times with her bony fingers. Retos quickly regained his senses and shouted, "Duke Mogil will become a mentor. Run!" He turned around and wanted to run, but remembered his self-control and stopped. He looked at everyone, feeling ashamed. Suddenly, he heard someone speaking in an unfamiliar language.

Retos turned around and saw someone trying to summon a demon. This person was depicted on the cube that held memories. Did that mean that this boy had once tried to summon a demon himself?

"Interesting, I need to check what effect this strange circle has. And also, how effective is this language?" Retos quickly changed. He stopped being frivolous and turned into an attentive and analytical person.

When Vallynor finished casting the spell, everyone waited, but nothing happened. At that moment, Retos looked around carefully, even ready to jump at the slightest wind. But in the end, nothing happened.

"Expervait, do you feel it?" Duke Mogil asked, looking closely at the memories. The spell created by Expervait was not just a visualization of a memory. It also conveyed the same feelings and sensations. An ordinary person cannot perceive mystical phenomena and magic unless they themselves want them to appear. But with this spell, even if the owner cannot see something magical, it does not mean that he cannot see or at least feel it.

"You too?" Duke Mogil asked with a common gesture of his hand. The picture quickly changed from color to black and white. And where the pentagram was, a small hole appeared, from which demonic miasmas came out. Like lightning, something flew out of the hole and entered Vallynor.

Duke Mogil and Expervait looked at each other and surveyed the others. They felt relieved, realizing that only they knew what they saw.

"And what was that? What kind of thing came out of that wormhole?" Retos asked thoughtfully, causing Krinu, Tod, and Chen to look at Duke Mogil and Expervait with anticipation for an answer to such a strange but curious phenomenon. Because what flew out like lightning was not a demon, they did not have time to see what it was.

Edward, on the other hand, looked in amazement at Vallynor's soul. Greed and the desire to take were born in him, but he quickly calmed down, remembering who he was and where he was now. Watching Vallynor's soul, he noticed that small changes appeared on the surface imperceptibly.

Expervait froze, quickly turned his head to the soul, and shouted, "Call everyone."

***

Vallynor fell to his knees and looked at his hands, which were slowly cracking. He felt tired and weak after the last battle. This battle was not just a battle of imagination. Everything that was embodied was used as energy of power or energy of soul, no matter what was used to embody the imagined. But now, Vallynor was dried up and couldn't resist the second part of the soul merging, which worried him.

"That was only the first part. And I'm already at my limit. Will I disappear?" Vallynor said, pondering that soon he would be filled to the brim with foreign memories and that in such a state he would not be able to protect his own identity.

Laughing at himself and his weakness, two figures appeared before him - one male and one female. Vallynor looked at them, but couldn't see their faces as their bodies were shrouded in mist. Lowering his head and looking at the ground, Vallynor said:

"I'm sorry. Your son killed you. Even if you were just puppets. I'm sorry." Both figures knelt down and silently embraced each other, crying with regret and foolishness. Vallynor watched as they disappeared.

The world quickly filled with cracks and like shattered glass, everything began to crumble. Behind the broken pieces of the wall, three trees filled with spheres that reproduced memories could be seen. Each tree was intertwined, and two of them were next to each other. Looking at the first tree, one might think that these trees had common roots.

As Vallynor watched memories arise on each tree, he remembered his own memories along with those of Neviss and Ego. He sadly watched as his body cracked and something fell to the ground. Looking at the source, Vallynor saw how one ball after another of memories fell, bursting when they touched the ground, like water bubbles. Milky-white liquid flowed from them, which increased with each fallen ball and turned into waves that engulfed Vallynor, trying to get rid of them.

***

Experavit ordered Toda and Chenu to summon everyone. He quickly created a magic circle filled with symbols and runes. In the center of the circle, on a stone table, sat the soul of Vallynor. The astral body turned blue, and the rotten heart beat wildly, giving the illusion that it was about to burst. Green cracks ran all over the astral body, like veins that had swollen and enlarged.

A Necronomicon appeared above Vallynor, which released several different spells, enveloping the soul of Vallynor, but nothing happened, and all attempts made only complicated the situation. The grimoire flew into the sky and disappeared.

***

The room was dark. A young handsome guy sat on an old chair. If Vallynor had seen him, he would have immediately recognized him as the God of Death. Sitting in the chair, the guy held an old book in his hand, which was very old and almost rotten.

Opening his eyes, he looked into emptiness and said, "Save," after which he closed his eyes and lowered his head back onto the book.

***

The Necronomicon formed a circle above the soul of Vallynor, rising 10 meters above it, and began to suck energy from anyone who responded to its call. From this energy, the grimoire began to draw a huge triangle with rounded edges inside, which looked like three half-circles connected to each other, symbolizing all three paths of the necromancer. Every necromancer knew this symbol, and it symbolized the unification of all three powers. Then various symbols and runes appeared that enveloped the entire sky. The Necronomicon rose to the top of the triangle, symbolizing the highest power of necromancy.

While most necromancers were stunned and trying to understand what was happening, Experavit, Duke Mogil, Edward, and Retos noticed how a green book flew out of the boy's altered physical shell, on the cover of which was written "Tremens Vitas." The book flew towards the triangle, but an invisible force appeared in front of it, which held it back and did not allow it to continue moving. The green grimoire emitted green rays directed at the Necronomicon, which in response released its lightning bolts that were stronger and more destructive. After receiving several blows, the green grimoire retreated and landed next to the soul of Vallynor.

The green grimoire emitted a feeling of sadness and helplessness, while the Necronomicon itself drew runes and magical symbols all over the sky. This green grimoire released a weak, almost imperceptible wave of energy that entered the soul of Vallynor.

Duke Mogil and Experavit watched as the Necronomicon tried to do something and couldn't help but be amazed, silently observing everything. Until:

"Has this grimoire lost its last bit of sanity? I knew it was already wacko, but to become one with this boy—that's just too much," said Retos, as a skilled lich, immediately understanding what this grimoire was up to but unable to comprehend what drove it. The green grimoire is understandable; it wants to save its creator, the father. But the Necronomicon, the book of the dead, was created by Death itself. It is essentially as cold as a corpse in the morgue, so there is no emotion driving it. Quickly thinking in his empty skull, many ideas and reasons were born. Maybe he's an illegitimate son of Death? Nonsense, as he can be considered impotent due to his nature, and his children are born as lifeless corpses without souls... Maybe... No, not a friend... Maybe he's some old god? No, I don't feel any divinity in him. And maybe what came out of the hellhole he saw in that memory is the reason? Perhaps. And currently, that's the only reason. Experavit and Mogil also know something about this. We need to make them talk somehow.

"It can't be said that everything will become one. I want to capture part of the power within myself and become a tool through which the power will come out," Experavit replied, wondering if he had made a mistake in his conclusions. He didn't say anything foolish himself.

"But why? And why did the boy's soul start to undergo such changes?" Krina approached Experavit and overheard the conversation between him and Retos. She couldn't help but ask. She's not as much of an expert on souls as Experavit, but she understands torture and the slow resolution of a soul well. She immediately realized that Valynor's soul had begun to deteriorate, but she couldn't understand why the process of merging three souls into one had caused such a reaction. Even if the one in charge was Experavit himself. They say he was even able to merge thousands of souls into one the first time, and she didn't even become a vegetable after that. So three souls are trivial for him.

"Who would have thought that the powers of the Queen of the Forest would so strongly resemble the powers of the Goddess of Life? You must know that the enemy of death is life and nature. The former is a natural and deadly enemy that we cannot tolerate. The lower undead, without reason, upon feeling life, will thirst to kill and eat it, having lost their own life and becoming a walking corpse. On the other hand, the higher undead, having reason, can suppress this desire, considering it a foolish instinct. Essentially, from the moment we appear, we already hate life, and unjustifiably so, because it can so easily destroy us, wipe us out, and deprive us of a second chance at existence. But nature is a part of the power of life itself. It is more directed towards supporting life in all things, which is why it is not as deadly for us. And with enough resources and strength, it is even possible to form some sort of symbiosis. But who would have thought that the soul of the Queen would have so much in common with the Goddess of Life? And so the two deadliest enemies cannot come to terms. And in the end, the soul of that little dragon has a connection with poison. Because of this, even he, an embodiment of poison, suffered from his proximity to poisons because he was weak. And now all of this has passed on to this poor boy."

Krina couldn't believe what she had heard and looked at the others, asking if it was true. Duke Mogil simply nodded, while Retos just watched as the sky filled with magical symbols and runes, ignoring everything else.

"If the Necronomicon will control the part that represents death, then what will control the power of nature with hints of the power of life?" Edward, who appeared out of nowhere, asked his question of interest and looked at everyone else.

"That grimoire. But I don't understand why the Necronomicon doesn't accept it. But now we need to create the second magic circle." She said this, surveying the hundred necromancers, which were almost reaching a thousand. Nodding, she began to give instructions to each and explain to those who were slow-witted that this was the will of the Necronomicon, or rather, the God of Death. "Do you want to go against it? Yes, by all means, go ahead. But don't cry afterwards like a discarded prostitute."

***

Vallynor was surrounded by a milky white liquid that raged like a storm in an ocean. Strange memories flooded his mind.

Every second, he struggled to maintain his own identity, not wanting it to change or be destroyed. Vallynor saw snippets of memories belonging to the Old Woman and Ego. He tried to remember and preserve himself, but he couldn't think.

The struggle was very difficult. Every second passed for him like a thousand years in hell. His will to live slowly faded. At every moment, he began to observe the memories of others more and more.

He saw how the Old Woman, in the form of a dragon, killed hunters who had killed her son. How she buried him and his soul disappeared quickly. It was strange why she didn't bring him back while he still had a soul.

As the struggle weakened, Vallynor began to observe new memories. He didn't even notice how he began to forget who he was. He remembered his past and his dreams, but only briefly.

While he was forgetting and losing himself, Vallynor unexpectedly felt something strange, unusual - power. This power strengthened Vallynor, slowly restoring his memories. He remembered the danger he was in and continued to fight.

***

"Expertavit, it's done. What's next?" Krina approached Expertavit and quickly reported.

"What's next? We need..."

"We need two more artifacts that embody the path of the Lord of the Dead, the path of the Lord of a Thousand Poisons, and the curse of the underworld." Interrupting Expertavit, the Duke of the Graves replied for him.

"We need two artifacts embodying one of the paths of necromancy... But there are three of them. What about the Path of the Higher Undeath? As Retos likes to call the noble paths. What about it?" Tod, who was sitting nearby, asked, interested.

"The Necronomicon took its place... Hmm."

"What happened, Expertavit?" Retos, who had finished his part of the circle, had been using the spell of the Ears of the Dead to listen to their conversation all this time. And when he realized that Expertavit wanted to say something, he stopped, forcing Retos to ask.

"The forces embodying the power of death will control the Necronomicon, but what about the forces of life?"

"Logical, that green grimoire," Retos said, pointing to the book next to Vallynor.

"I thought so too. Until I analyzed both circles."

"Hmm. Don't drag it out. Just say what you mean. Don't become one of those fucking riddle people whose whole life is a mystery, and who have to decipher the meaning of every word." Retos was already tired of waiting and began to study both circles in detail himself. There is nothing unusual, the things he would control his forces with should be in special places. And what's wrong here...

"The green grimoire is not in the center of the circle." The Duke of the Graves immediately showed the problem.

"That's right. I was paying attention to the circles themselves and couldn't understand what Expertavit meant. With his human riddle game," someone among those present said.

"But we still need two things that embody the ways of poison, curse, and lord of the dead," spoke Edward, who had been sitting in the shade and listening carefully up to this point.

"Oh, oh. I already know one," said Todd, who quickly ran to Valynor's body, where Chen was still playing with Valynor's face, making him look like a refined Chinese man. "Why are you making him look like a girl? Are you crazy?" said Todd as he searched for the artifact he had recently seen.

"I miss my homeland and my culture, which made me think and didn't notice how I made him look like one of my old friends," melancholic Chen replied.

"Quickly change everything back before Experavit sees it. You know how much he hates your homeland. I'm still surprised he accepted you and didn't make you suffer," someone else said.

Remembering the past, Chen, like a madman, quickly changed Valynor's face while Todd took the pendant that held Valynor's army of the dead.