Chapter 2: Nerubian

I woke up in a close confined space. I was surrounded on all sides by a solid springy shell, inside which everything was filled with me and a viscous liquid. I almost did not feel my body, and therefore I focused primarily on consciousness.

Walking through my memories, I focused on the tail of the bija. It regularly 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 is it, the mental images of the whole lecture on the topic "What is magic and with whom it is eaten" appeared in my mind.

Oddly enough, it was not a gift from the Being, but the genetic memory of my new body. In the same memory there was a description of my anatomical structure, the structure of society, the method of performing typical duties, and so on. In fact, having mastered the packet of these data, I had to become a prepared gear in the community of intelligent ... spiders.

Of course, in reality these were not spiders, but from the point of view of anatomy, these inhabitants of the Earth were closest to me. The head on the chest, abdomen, ten articulated legs, of which six are "legs" and four "hands", a mouth capable of absorbing only liquid food, and twelve faceted eyes - this is a short list of the distinctive features of this body. Well, the body that allows you to create a web, where do without it?

Having mastered all the necessary knowledge, I have more carefully examined my body and determined by its structure it belonged to the caste of workers. Yes, yes, these creatures were part of a large hive where the division of labor and specialization flourished. Of course, I was not satisfied with such a disposition, so I began to saturate my body with the chakra and drops of the magical energy available to me. This in turn activated the hidden mechanisms of development, creating from me a kind of hybrid between a warrior and a magician.

In general, the society of spiders (I will call them like that) was divided into three castes: workers, warriors, magicians. Within each caste there were additional specializations adapted to perform a particular job. Each such podcast occupied a certain rigid position from the hierarchy of society, on top of which stood the Queen, and at the very bottom there were "laborers", one of which I will to become in future.

The future caste of the spider was determined by the conditions in which the eggs were located during the development of the embryo. To become a magician, the egg had to be fed in large quantities by specially modulated magical energy. And to get the soldiers on the eggs put special spells that activate the growth of the physical component.

I filled my body with chakra bija, which began to transform it according to a very very strange program, activating all possible abilities in this body. Therefore, I clearly fell out from the local caste system. But it's better than being born a miserable spider-worker, incapable of anything but harvesting manure and spinning a web.

The process of my transformation and "ripening" was delayed. The egg-filled fluid soaked into my body and was used as a building material. Body size increased, acquiring a more pronounced "centaur" shape with four arms. Finally, I felt ready to hatch. By this time, I had long heard some sounds coming from outside. Looks like my brothers and sisters on laying left eggs. But here, the quiet rustling was interrupted by a foot beat on the stone surface, after which the words of thoughtlers penetrated my consciousness. Spiders mostly communicate telepathically, although they also had verbal means of communication.

“This clutch is already ripe. It remains to wait for the most underdeveloped and dispose of dead and defective eggs.”

I began to actively move my limbs, trying to break through the egg shell. It would be funny if they ‘dispose’ me before I can get out.

“I gave the order to teachers. It will take a couple of weeks for this party to be able to start grooming scarabs.”

“And what about the laying of hunters?”

“Maturation is expected in three days. Stocks are ready for ninety percent. So in two weeks we will be able to send them upstairs, appoint workers as escort.”

"What a strange egg."

Two sources of thought froze beside me. And at that moment the shell finally gave in to my efforts, and I was able to get out

“Never seen such a body shape.” I cleared my eyes and stared at two giant spiders, compared to which I was like a mouse in front of an elephant.

“Defective individual.”

“It is strange that the signs of the magician were activated in him. The background here does not exceed the normal.”

“Never mind. We need workers, not magicians. I see no reason to spend on him food.”

“Hey, I can be helpful.” I was indignant.

“Our colony is experiencing problems with the extraction of food. We can not afford to feed the extra mouth. Do you agree to do the work of a worker?” A spider answered me, which judging by its appearance, belonged to the top of the caste of workers.

“No, but I can solve your problems with food in another way.”

“How?” Interested the second spider, which my instincts identified as a magician-scientist.

“The specific way will depend on the exact circumstances in which we are. I have enough knowledge to solve this problem, whatever it is.”

“The genome of the ancients?” The magician was surprised.

"The Queen didn't say anything like that." Object worker-spider.

“Sometimes it manifests itself, if the colony is in a critical situation. And our situation can hardly be called not critical.”

“In any case, I have no food for him. I doubt that he will be able to perform the duties of a worker.”

“I'll take it with me. If it will benefit, then the food will be organized at the expense of the caste of magicians.”

The spiders exchanged glances, and the worker-spider stepped aside, taking up cleaning of the room from the remains of eggs lying around. At the same time, he drove small spiders to the center of the hall, there was something like a circus arena. I quickly looked around the room and looked at my "savior".

“Climb up on my head.” He replied to my unspoken question.

I had to climb his leg on his back, and then on his head. Then my vehicle moved along long corridors branching at all angles in all directions. Fifteen minutes later we got to the large hall, where I was dumped on the surface of the table, filled with all sorts of strange things. Most of all it looked like a lab.

“So, you say that you have knowledge of how to solve our food crisis?” Immediately turned to the case magician.

“I think yes. To find a solution, I need to know what you eat and how the process of food extraction is organized.”

“What do 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 the civilization of spiders. But there were references to the fact that this story is tens of thousands of years old, and spiders came to this world from another world about six thousand years ago.

“In different eras in different worlds, our species ate different foods.” I issued an abstruse phrase.

“It's true.” Agreed magician. “Well, I will tell you about our situation, but first you should eat, else you risk dying of hunger before I finish telling.”

I listened to myself and really felt a brutal hunger. It is strange that this feeling did not cause me such strong discomfort, as in human body. Meanwhile, the magician stepped aside and returned, dragging a beetle in his hand, about four times larger than me. Looking at this creature, I began to doubt who would eat who if we were left alone. The hungry squeak of a beetle confirmed my concerns.

The magician with a quick movement of his hand tore off legs of the beetle and put it in front of me. After that, he literally wrapped helpless victim to cobweb in a couple of seconds and injected his saliva into the cocoon that had formed. The beetle squeaked in displeasure and began to decompose to a state of mucus, crackling chitin.

I looked at the leg that was longer than my body, and with a mental sigh focused on the instincts that told me how to eat it. To begin with, I sucked the lymph flowing from an open wound. After that, slowly formed from the chakra technique of the air blade and cut off a small piece of flesh, which, following the example of my companion, wrapped with web and injected saliva to the package. Now it was time to wait, and I could start eating. Yeah, it's not for you to chew hamburgers, there is a whole technology of eating. Or would it be more correct to say the culture of eating food?

The magician looked at my actions approvingly, after which he sucked his "cocktail" in one gulp and began a story about my new homeland. I listened to the unearthly wisdom of ancestors, incidentally, piece by piece, devouring the beetle's leg.

Spiders actually arrived in this world six thousand years ago, bringing with them a standard set of power sources at that time. After some time, the colonies settled around the world, and for the most part settled in the rock caves, which they themselves dug. The general scheme of food production was as follows: chosen hunter spiders go outside the nest and collected plant materials. These materials were crushed, and a special mycelium was planted on them, which gave the first harvest after only a couple of weeks. Mushrooms were fed to scarab beetles, one of which I was savoring right now for both chelicera.

Of course, beetles were far from the only food that spiders could eat. Rather, it was food that could provide the spider's body with all the necessary substances at minimal cost. But besides the beetles, the spiders did not disdain the meat of terrestrial animals, the fruits of plants, and the feed mushrooms themselves.

Such a cycle of food reproduction could not be called optimal, but it ensured the food safety of the civilization of spiders for six thousand years. What has changed? The reason was commonplace - global warming. First, over the course of five hundred years, the air temperature on the planet has steadily increased. Given the overall humidity of the climate, this only increased the production of biomass. But about seventy years ago "Hour X" began.

On earth, a similar scenario was described as "Boiling of the atmosphere". An increase in sea surface temperature led to the formation of a huge typhoon. The air filled with moisture rose to a record height, where the pressure of the atmosphere could not hold back the expansion of water vapor, in fact, it re-evaporated. As a result, huge masses of relatively warm air rose into the stratosphere and partially evaporated altogether into space. In replace cold air come to the lower layers of the atmosphere.

At an altitude of ten kilometers the temperature at minus fifty degrees of celsius is quite normal. But when this air descended, all the land and a large part of the sea surface instantly became covered with ice. So this world came the next ice age.

The air cooling rate was so high that the animals feeding on heat-loving plants froze to death, before they could digest the food. Such remnants, by the way, were found on Earth in the stomachs of mammoths found in permafrost in Yakutia. In general, nothing unusual happened in this world, but now all the land around the colony of spiders was covered with snow. The situation was aggravated by the fact that this place was almost beyond the Arctic Circle. During the thaw, this location is quite allowed to feed not the largest colony. But now the supply of biomass from the surface has been reduced to almost zero.

The first time after the onset of cold weather, the spiders escaped, collecting the remnants of vegetation from the area. But then, the problem became so obvious that it was decided to "hibernate" until better times. Then there was still hope that the cooling will end soon. Most of the population of the colony was placed under the knife, and a smaller part hibernated, waking up once every few years to replenish the nutrient reserves in the body.

And now, after seventy years of the catastrophe on the surface, a catastrophe has occurred underground. All food sources were almost completely exhausted. The immediate surroundings were cleaned up, and the queen of the spiders decided ... to resort to the next idiotic "last resort".

In short, it was planned to grow a group of reconnaissance spiders, give them workers in reinforcement and send the whole mob to faraway lands, with the hope that there they would dig out enough food and then bring it to the colony. Hearing such a plan, I could not resist the hysterical laughter.

“Why are you laughing?” The magician stared in bewilderment.

“This is your ‘plan of salvation’ just a way to quickly finish off the colony. To some extent, it is justified. It is better to die quickly, engaging in useless activities, than to stretch one's agony for hundreds of years.”

“This plan came up with the Queen herself!”

“So what?” I asked puzzled, considering my interlocutor.

“Doubt about the orders of a superior is a deadly sin.” He explained, as a matter of course. “If the Queen made such a decision, then we should not discuss it, but carry it out.”

“Yyy ... It looks like the situation is even worse than I expected. But, in principle, we can use this campaign as part of a real plan to save the colony.”

“Do you already have a plan?”

"Rag Hack, whom are you talking to here?" Interrupted us ‘loud’ telepathic voice. In one of the openings in the wall appeared the carcass of a spider, one and a half times larger than my magician. As my instincts told me, it was a female being.

“Seg-Nim-Het, I greet you. I found in the clutch of workers a spider with an awakened genomic memory of the ancients. He declared that he has a plan how to provide our colony with food.”

“What? The memory of the ancients? That is a fairy tale.”

"And yet, his mind is much more developed than newborn worker. So I think that we should at least study his proposals.”

“Ha, so what can you think? Here I make decisions.” Seg-Nim-Het looked at me, doused with waves of contempt. “Well, come on, surprise me, a small worker. Tell me your plan.” She turned to me. "If I don't like plan, I'll eat you."

If it were not for my very precarious situation, in response to such a proposal, I would have torn this creature to pieces. Basically, I could do it right now. In the end, now my power is equal to the power of the one-tail bija. True, there is still an unaccounted parameter in the form of local magic. So for now it's worthwhile to set forth one's own considerations, especially since the solution did not simply not differ in originality, but on the contrary was completely obvious ... for anyone who had a bit more brains in his head than a spider.

“I think you should evolve and move from the culture of hunter-gatherers to the culture of organized agriculture.”

“What?” If the spiders had a mimic, then I am sure that on the face of Seg-Nim-Het would be described as expression of stupid fucking. This is exactly the kind of reaction to my phrase that can be expected from the intake knacker.

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

“Do you understand what he said?” The female spider turned to her subordinate.

“This is a dialect of the ancients.” He got out. “He offers us to grow plants in our dungeons, creating the same conditions as they were on the surface before the beginning of the Catastrophe.”

“Grow yourself? Is it possible? I mean, we don't have the ability to grow plants. And about this magic, I also did not hear anything.”

I almost broke and did not begin to laugh at the top of my voice. I even had to turn off my ‘speech apparatus’ in order not to inadvertently transfer my thoughts to this animal.

“I think he has information on how to organize this process.” Tactfully noticed Rag-Hak, pointing to me.

“Hmm ... Well. Then I order you to explore the possibilities of embodying my idea of growing plants. You can even use this worker. I will order enough food to be provided for him.”

“Of course, dear Seg-Nim-Het. I will execute your order and provide a detailed action plan that is in accordance with the will of the Queen.”

“Count on you.”

Female spider once again looked at me with a squeamish look and sped away, radiating hidden complacency and a desire to share her brilliant idea with the Queen herself.

“You should be more attentive to the hierarchy of our society.” Noticed Rag-Hak after Seg-Nim-Het's footsteps faded. “Doubt about the orders of a superior is a deadly sin. Also, as well as doubts in her mental abilities. Many of my brethren died without timely awareness of these simple truths.”

“Oh ... I, in fact, already realized. I realized that no matter what brilliant plans I promoted, your colony is doomed to extinction.”

“What? Why?” Looks like my revelation knocked the spirit out of a scientist.

“It's simple. If any doubt in the decisions of the authorities is punishable by death, then the chief had in the subordinates only individuals dumber than him. And since we are not immortal, the very top of society will die sooner or later. Their place will be taken by more stupid subordinates. Then the cycle will be repeated once more, and again, and so on, until extremely dull individuals will be at the top of the social pyramid, who will destroy themselves and the entire colony in one. This is the result of natural selection, and in such conditions, extinction is not just likely, but completely inevitable. Your current situation is just the result of the action of such a pattern. You could not find a completely obvious solution, because the paucity of the mind of those who lead you does not even suggest the possibility of the existence of such a solution.”

"Did you express in such a cunning way the idea that we are all stupid assholes who are incapable of solving the simplest tasks?"

“Yes, that is exactly what I wanted to say.”

The magician stared at me grimly, fingering his fingers. Thinking about, is it not easier to kill me than to hear the truth?

“I'll call you Chpok.” He finally announced. “Henceforth, you better communicate only with me. If it were not for the order of Seg-Nim-Het to provide a plan for solving the food problem, I would have already killed and devoured you.”

“Ha ha ha. Looks like you still have a grain of common sense.” I laughed to the face of a spider. "So, are you ready to listen to my ideas on how to save your pitiful lives?"

“Speak.”

"But first, lunch, and I need to release the my intestines. I don't think your table is the right place for that.”

Awareness of the basic principles of the organization of local society led me to the obvious conclusion: it is necessary to bring down. And not who, but where. In this society, I can take a normal position only if I kill all those who are more stupid than me, in short, all of them. Therefore, it will be easier to escape somewhere to the equator, and already there to organize your own utopia.

For the next couple of weeks, I ate with three throats, at the same time reading information from the local counterpart of books, which were special crystals grown with magic. Literature was devoted to three topics: history, physiology, magic. As I read books, I began to write my own, in which I was going to describe in detail the process of growing plants. Given the local mentality, in this book there was not a single abstract thought or explanation of why and wherefore. It answered only one question: how? It was an extremely detailed instruction.

The essence of the technology, of course, was simple - to organize premises for greenhouses, fill in the ground there, plant seeds, water it from time to time and, of course, organize sufficient lighting. Well, it is worth mentioning such important parameters as temperature, humidity and carbon dioxide content in the air. Naturally, most of the necessary actions were supposed to be performed with the help of magic, for which I requested myself a bunch of books in this area.

Also, the history of the local civilization of spiders was extremely useful. And, it must be admitted, was an example illustrating the ideas I have already expressed.

About six thousand years ago, several million spiders arrived to this world through a portal. The queen named Azjol-Nerub led this crowd. The same name was also used to name the new civilization of intelligent spiders, which immediately squeezed the local population, winning not a very small piece of territory for itself. In very deed, all these newcomers were deserters, dumped from their own world, in order to build here the utopia of the name of their queen. And since among the subjects there was a sufficient number of doubters, a law was introduced establishing the supremacy of the social pyramid of power over common sense. Since then, the civilization of spiders has slowly but surely degraded.

In the new world was almost two dozen intelligent races. And not even hundreds of years passed when the world war of all with all began. This bacchanalia lasted for no less than a thousand years, but in the end the spiders won. Still, the legacy they dragged from the portal contained a huge amount of knowledge. First of all, knowledge of magic. Form of government made civilization work for deterioration, acting on the principle "everything for the war, everything for victory".

Queen Azjol-Nerub did not survive her triumph for long. In the end, the maximum lifespan of a spider was measured at five hundred years. And the queen so much lasted only because of the knowledge of lost magic of rejuvenation. The next thousand years, the spiders mastered the captured world for undivided use, and also ... degraded. And after a specified period, the heavens opened up and opened ... no, not the heavenly abyss, but only portals from other worlds, from where all evil spirits flooded: elves, trolls, orcs, humans, goblins, vampires and so on.

Thus began another era of world wars. Spiders, relaxed for a thousand years, could not provide serious resistance, and quickly lost their leading positions. Time after time they were defeated, until the army of the orcs did not destroy the capital of their empire, along with the degraded elite of society.

Then only a small detachment under the leadership of a lower-level commander, who managed to pack up with most of the imperial library, escaped. Actually, she was her guard. And then, having received the sane command, the army of spiders multiplied, learned magic and broke into the invaders, destroying every single one. True, it took another thousand years.

During the conduct of hostilities, the power in the society of spiders changed several times, so that at the end, the adherents of traditions were again at the top. After the destruction of the external enemy, they quickly cleared all internal opponents and took up their favorite work - moral decay.

After another thousand years, the cycle repeated. But this time, the long-term degradation of the whole society has reached a critical limit, so the spiders could not fight back the invaders. All what spiders’ might enough is to disperse across different continents, to crouch in secluded holes and drag out their miserable existence there, hiding from the greats of this world.

A thousand years of countless wars have passed, the victor in which turned out to be ... spiders. As if in mock of fate, their strategy turned out to be a winning one. All other races and civilizations successfully ruined each other, simply forgetting that another side of the conflict was hiding somewhere in the gaps. True, we have to admit that by the time of their "victory" only three colonies were left from the spiders. One was located in the extreme north, on an island beyond the Arctic Circle. It was here that I was born. Two more dragged their existence on the southern continent, also not far from the pole.

Since then, almost a thousand years have passed. Alas, the victory was Pyrrhic, and our colony could not find a way to get to a more favorable area. Spiders were no mariners, and there was no growing normal forest from which ships could be built. About three hundred years ago, communication with the other two colonies was lost, so their fate was unknown.

The magic of spiders for this one thousand years has considerably degraded. And no, the point was not the loss of knowledge. The legacy of the ancients was all right. The problem was a fall in the level of intelligence. Six thousand years of directed selection gave their result. The current spiders could not master the magic of their ancestors, and used its pitiful stubs, simplified to the limit.

Fortunately, when I, while in the egg, imbued my body with the chakra, all the sleeping genes awoke, and my brain developed to a level quite comparable with the great magicians of the Ancients. So now I have absorbed all the knowledge accumulated by civilization, in one making up instructions for downs how to grow hemp.

Two weeks after my birth, the "rescue team", which included me, also went on the march. During this time, my size has increased from a couple of centimeters to a full-fledged meter in girth. This is without taking into account the legs. True, the growth of the physical body was not associated with the growth of magical abilities. More or less decent mages spiders became only ten years after birth. But my minimum ability was enough to use the spell of a thermal shield, which allowed me to protect myself from the cold. For one thing, I forced to learn this spell of all those who went hiking. Although now there was a local "summer", this meant that the temperature on the surface was not minus seventy, but "only" minus forty celsius.

I joined the campaign only because I was the only specialist able to understand how and where to gather the seeds of plants. Fortunately, an unexpected ice age began when it was winter in the northern hemisphere, so the seeds had to be able to survive the low temperature. True, they had to lie in the permafrost for seventy years, but I had every chance to find still alive grains.

Rag-Hak did not want to go with me, so I had to show miracles of resourcefulness in order to force the commander of our detachment, who was on the social ladder several steps above me, to carry out their orders. And even so, I found half of the seeds and excavated on my own.

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

The attitude of the local authorities towards me has not changed fundamentally. All of them considered me an object of their intrigues, and did not conceal that I would live only as long as there was use of me. After all, my knowledge and skills were a challenge to their stupid existence. However, I was not deceived, and therefore the necessary instructions were written slowly, carefully and only after studying a huge number of ancient books of magic.

A year after my birth, food production was finally put on stream. All the "old spiders" were wake up from hibernation, and in the manger grew the eggs of future workers, warriors and even magicians.

On one of the beautiful days, I sat and read a book of the magic of souls when this occupation was interrupted by the appearance of my boss Seg-Nim-Het. Old Rag-Hack only a week ago angered one of female-spiders, after which his disfigured body went to feed the scarabs. And now, judging by the emitted spider emotions, my time has come.

“Chpok, our queen decided to make you happy with an audience. You did a lot for our people, so she deigned to see you with her own eyes”

“Glad for her.” I expressed my enthusiasm for this fact, putting the crystal with the book to the side.

“Come on, 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.”

"Yes, the legacy of the ancestors must be safe." Despite the rules that prevailed here, respect for ancient knowledge was branded into the brain of everyone. So Seg-Nim-Het did not have much choice but to agree with me. It was possible to take out books from the library only under the guarantee of vigilant care for their safety.

Carefully squeezing the box in the lower left hand, I ran to the library, smartly turning over the legs. I was already beginning to like this body. It was much more convenient than human. When I reached the Vault of Knowledge, I slipped into one of the narrow passages, and after only a few seconds my shadow clone came out. Although he was poorly adapted to physically influence the world around him, outwardly he was practically indistinguishable from myself. A close physical contact among spiders was a kind of taboo, which made me hope that my deception would not be revealed until the very end.

While the clone was moving to the queen's chambers, I cast a disguise and teleported to one of the lower levels, where I had previously left the Hiraishin tag. Judging by the tracks, the last time in this place the spider passed a couple of hundred years ago. Here I lurked, watching what was happening with my clone.

Reaching the throne room, Seg-Nim-Het overtook me and was the first to enter a huge room decorated with a draw of glowing runes. This line of magic was used to create a variety of artifacts, and became the basis on which I created all the local agriculture.

"Queen, by your order, I brought a worker with the memory of the ancients, who made a small contribution to your plan for the development of agriculture.” Fawned spider, while retreating to the side.

When the carcass of Seg-Nim-Het ran back to the wall, a space filled with many spiders of different sizes stretched before me. And in the farthest corner of the hall stood a giant queen, whose size in height was not less than ten meters.

“So, I see you, the heir of the ancients.” The voice of the queen rang in my head. "Forbidden knowledge has distorted your body, so you cannot be called either a magician, or a warrior, or even a worker.”

In the thoughts of the governor there was disgust and ... envy. Envy of my magic abilities, which exceeded everything available to her and her surroundings. Only a small age did not allow me to stand on a par with her. And it was clear to everyone present that in ten years I will be able to make a threat to the established order of things.

“Like you have no place in our society.” continued the queen. “Therefore, in the name of common good, your life must stop. You helped me regain the greatness of our race, and therefore I grant you the right to ask me one question.”

Yes, indeed, the royal gift. The queen fell silent, and everyone present stared at me with bated breath. What would I say, finally?

"Seg-Nim-Het told me that because of my knowledge, she is now just a step away from becoming the queen herself. Is it true?”

The glances of everyone present darted to the side and focused on my boss. The same only found the strength to creak some sounds and fall to the floor from loss of consciousness. Hehe. Every day is not Sunday. The queen formed a spell that stretched from her to the failed rival with a ghostly whip and dismembered that piece of meat into pieces.

“No, she was wrong.” The Queen judge responded impassively.

I just smiled at that. Throughout the past year, I basically contacted only two spiders, which both were now dead. And the rest of the inhabitants of the colony did not even know what kind of abilities I possess. Having my chakra remained as secret behind seven seals, which allowed me to effectively and effectively hide my escape.

“Of course it was mistake.” I replied, broadcasting my speech to all those present. "After all, our colony does not need a queen, but a king, and I will be the king, after I destroy you all.”

With these words, I formed the AOE spell "Dust of Death", which I immediately threw to the crowd in front of me. The source of energy for this spell was a small crystal rock, the technology of creation of which I learned from the books. My glorious speech for a second stunned all those present, so they did not have time to defend themselves, and the spell destroyed several dozen targets. But after a second, a whole storm of magic came down on my clone, which destroyed all traces of my stay here, as well as the bodies of those spiders that were so unfortunate to stay around me.

I once again squandered the last events in my memory, after which I moved along the abandoned aisles to my hideout. The attempt of my murder did not come as a surprise to me. I have long been prepared for such a development. In the distant corridors, I organized my own plantation, where the best specimens of plants grew, mushrooms matured, and fodder beetles multiplied. That should have been enough for my comfortable life.

Over the past year I have read quite a few books on magic. To be more precise, I did not even read them, but copied it to my memory. I can deal with this heritage of the ancients for centuries. But even so, a significant and most interesting part of the library was inaccessible to me. Now I was going to correct this omission.

The next month I was busy plundering the library. No, I did not steal crystals with books, but only for a while took them away, leaving empty fakes. During this month, no one understood what was happening. First of all, because no one has read these books for several hundred years. Librarians followed the order in the library, and did not seek to make problems for themselves, gaining forbidden knowledge. At one time, I left a sufficient number of Hiraishin tags in the courses of the Storage of Knowledge in order to be able to penetrate there imperceptibly.

Finally, all the knowledge of interest to me took their place in my skull, and I began preparing for the next stage of my plan — escape. I was not going to just run away, but to establish my own colony, which required grabbing a few individuals of female spiders. I didn't see any sense in negotiating with adult spiders, so I decided to snitch eggs. But then the question arose of their preservation. From the moment of laying eggs to their hatching, only two weeks passed. And all this time, the eggs had to be in special conditions. It is extremely doubtful that I can escape with such a load, carrying it in my hands. Not to mention that my journey in search of a new home could be delayed. But after birth, spiders need abundant nutrition.

In general, after considering the situation, I decided to steal the eggs a couple of days after laying, and then seal them in a fuinjutsu print with time stopped. And in order not to lose precious cargo during the journey, I decided to put the seal on my shell. For a week, my clones were able to put the necessary patterns on my back abdomen. Three seals were meant for three eggs, and another one was to hold my food base - plant seeds, mycelium, scarab eggs.

Fully prepared for the journey, I waited for the queen to lay the next batch of eggs, and "went to job." Naturally, the clutches were well guarded. And best of all, the warriors followed the small room where the eggs of the future magicians matured, among which was planned the birth of females.

The plan for my entry into the protected area was simple: take the form of a nanny, wade into the room, grab three eggs, and get rid of Hirayshin. But after watching the guards, I came to the conclusion that I could not reliably portray the desired spider. They did not just inspect everyone passing by, but also communicated with them quite a lot. A fake telepathic "voice" was beyond my strength.

Fortunately, another method was found. The increased concentration of magical energy in this room was maintained with the help of special storage crystals, which dissipated the energy contained in them and were replaced every two days. All I had to do, replace one such crystal, with a Hiraishin labeled crystal. A few hours later, the worker himself installed crystals in the room, after which I could only wait a bit until all the extra witnesses left the place of the operation.

The rest of the century's scam went through the notes. My clone silently appeared in a guarded room, looked at the eggs, chose three among them, of which the females had to hatch, and just as silently disappeared along with the loot.

Finally, everything was ready for my escape. But I, naturally, decided not to leave my modest refuge, but sent a clone instead of myself. The situation on the surface was quite accurately described by the short phrase "ice hell". Frost is more than forty degrees, constant snowstorm and snow falling from the sky without stopping. For seventy years, it has already piled more than two hundred meters. If it were not for the special spells that regenerate oxygen, the spiders would have become extinct fifty years ago, when all the passages completely fell asleep. During the first expedition, I had to dig a long course to the surface, run more than two hundred kilometers, and then again burrow into the snow, digging up a thin strip of frozen vegetation. Now my clone got out and skied south to skis.

With such a snow cover it was already difficult to distinguish land from the sea. So I got to a small mountain range, from where I began to look at the endless snowy plains. Well, I think it's worth building here, especially since the rocks protruding from the snow gave access to building materials.

I decided not to reinvent the wheel, but to invent a boat-all-terrain vehicle, which had to move equally well through the snow and the water. The main material should have been aluminum and titanium, which I could easily distinguish from granite. It is good that the local rocks consisted precisely of it, and not of any limestone deposits. And so, the aluminum content in granite reaches 15 percent, and titanium to one percent. Considering my ability to isolate deuterium from sea water, the extraction of the required metals was not at least as difficult.

After just a few hours, I proudly examined the result of my labors. In shape, it was a punt boat. Approximately the same shape is usually given to river ferries. The width is three meters, length ten, height two meters. The titanium bottom was made weighted to prevent the boat turning over on the water. From above, it was closed by an aluminum roof, and in the front part there was a "cabin" with rather thick glass of transparent corundum. The boat was driven by four paddle wheels, similar to those installed on nineteenth-century steamers. And all this good rotated as a result of the action of fuin-seals. There were no amenities here, but a clone was not needed.

After running around the vehicle, the clone created another clone, which began to create a copy of the all-terrain vehicle, and the "original" sat down at the driver's seat and headed further south. As I was afraid, I had to get to the open water for a very long time. More than two thousand kilometers had to overcome my all-terrain vehicle through snow and ice. I already began to worry that the titanium bottom would be worn down to holes from such loads. I had to stop halfway and fortify it with fuin seals.

I sent a total of four clones for reconnaissance. Alas, the spider brain was not well suited for parallelizing tasks. Or in other words, schizophrenia in representatives of my species was very rare.

Having reached the open water, the boats successfully passed the test for the operation of the propulsion system in the new mode, after which they set off in different directions in search of continent. The journey was pretty long. If I went to him personally, I would die of starvation on the high seas. Of course, it would be possible to fish, but the spider's body needs several "vitamins", which can only be obtained from beetles. And so I sat on the base, studied magic and watched the clones’ surf the world ocean by the corner of my eye.

The plan for geographic research in general was quite simple — get to the equator, and then sail along it until I stumble onto the land. Alas, this plan did not provide for the fact that there maybe not a single continent in the equatorial region. The general map of the planet has not been preserved by spiders. It stayed in the defeated imperial library. And over the next thousand years, stupid insects never guessed to bring their knowledge of geography together. I was only aware of the presence of two continents at the poles, large islands near them and another continent somewhere in the middle.

Alas, the mainland was obviously not at the equator, as I secretly hoped. Despite the ice age, the temperature at the equator decreased slightly. Well, there was now not plus thirty, but plus twenty five. All the same, these were excellent conditions for living. Here are just nowhere to live. Somehow, I am still not ready to create a civilization that lives on man-made islands.

My clones had to go around the planet twice before they came across a nice island that stretched from north to south. I already began to think about how to invent a plane. The only thing that stopped me was that my knowledge of aerodynamics was limited to a school course of physics and knowledge of how to fold paper airplanes. And in good weather, the boats developed a good speed for a hundred kilometers per hour. Considering the average diameter of the Earth-like planets, the length of the equator was supposed to be around forty thousand kilometers, that is, the round-the-world trip my clones made in just twenty days.

Fortunately, at the end of the second month of swimming a group of islands was discovered, which was quite suitable for permanent residence. By area, the largest island was comparable to New Zealand. Yes, and geologically, it also looked like her - in the center passed a mountain range, the peaks of which reached a height of several kilometers, delighting the eye with snow caps.

I was already somewhat tired of sitting in my shelter, so I happily moved to the clone and took part in the landing. The study of the area showed the complete absence of traces of rational forms of life and the infinite tumult of life unreasonable. Having rudely caught a couple of little animals, I decided to finally move to a new place of residence. However, for this, I first needed to organize a farm for growing mushrooms and a pen for breeding beetles. That still hassle.

Considering my origin from insects, I decided to make a house in the form of a termitary. So far, I was not up to a beautiful appearance. Instead, protection from rain, sunlight and various living creatures came first. I drew inspiration for interior decoration from cadres of films about alien nests. I built a small three-storey mansion Doton with the help of the chakra in just a day. After that, unpacked mycelium and scarab eggs and placed them in suitable conditions. I think, until I establish normal food production, I will eat local animals.

The next ten years, I just lived on the island, without denying myself anything. During this time, I explored it far and wide. Good thing housekeeping can be left on clones. I was in no hurry to create my own colony, because I was going to do this only after the full development of the magic core. However, I did not miss much. Magic, as in its time chakra, captured all my attention.

Moreover, the knowledge of the ancients described completely unimaginable tricks with reality: space travel, portals to other worlds, magical technologies that allow you to create any technique from a calculator to a space battleship, biotechnology to create new life forms, resurrection of the dead, immortality, and so on. Alas, I got only the crumbs of the described power. Queen Azjol-Nerub fled to this world with a baggage of knowledge of an average office clerk. Perhaps the opening of the portal between the worlds was the maximum of her abilities. But even so, I saw that scientific research on existing spells can provide the basis for the foundation of an interstellar civilization. It remains only to understand why I need this civilization.

Finally, I felt that I had mastered enough magic to use the most puzzling spells from my ancestral heritage. This moment I have long marked for myself as a turning point in my life. I moved to the place chosen for the construction of the future city and laid there a building in which my descendants were supposed to grow and train.

After extracting one egg from seal, I placed it in a special room and began to observe the process of maturation, simultaneously controlling the surrounding conditions. I, unlike my northern relatives, were primarily interested in getting a female with the most developed intelligence and magic. Two weeks later, a small spider was born, which I immediately began to bring up, inspiring the thoughts I needed.

I was going to build a society where the spiders would not be afraid to express their opinions, where the gifted could benefit the society, and the selfish, envious and power-hungry individuals were ruthlessly destroyed. The last moment was extremely important, because even a small stratum of such individuals is able to decompose any society into a wolf pack.

I never considered myself a good educator. Yes, I tried not to have anything to do with children, but then I had to pretty much strain, teaching the spider's pure mind to all the intricacies of the future life. Alas, this individual did not fit my strict standards. The queen put not only genetic memory into her eggs, but also her thoughts and emotions. And what could be expected from that fool? It is quite natural that her daughter began to show not the best traits of character.

Fortunately, the spiders reached sexual maturity within six months. So I waited for this time, fertilized the female, and then with the help of mental magic I controlled the whole process of the formation of the embryo. The second generation was already much better, since I completely isolated the new female from communication with her mother, sending her to the afterlife. Another half a year passed, and I brought out the third generation. This time, the reason for the culling was not consciousness, but heredity.

Spiders had no problems with closely related crossbreeding. We were created artificially. Our DNA had no defects, and errors in the reproduction process were corrected at the stage of development of the eggs. But at the same time, the DNA of the spider was extremely versatile. At the time of formation of the egg, restrictions were placed on the activation of different genes. This program could be partially circumvented by setting the external conditions for the formation of eggs, but in the end, it was too much influence on the spider born.

This knowledge was sewn up at the genetic level, but only females had access to it. Therefore, I learned about such details only from a completely loyal individual. And no matter how sorry I was, I had to sacrifice her to my eugenistic policy in order to overcome all the restrictions that had been imposed on spiders for six thousand years.

The third generation was considered successful, so I gave my future wife a suitable name - Lolth. It is quite symbolic, in my opinion. I even admit the possibility that one day she will truly become the goddess of the dark elves.

Then I started the breeding program at full capacity, and all my time for the next year was completely taken care of the offspring. But then, the grown-up descendants took the destiny into their own hands, and I could only direct them towards the development of civilization.

Ten years later, the island was covered with pleasing cities, fields for crops and lakes for fish farming. At the same time, concern for nature was one of the priorities, so most of the territory now resembled elf parks.

The island's population was divided into three castes — magicians, warriors, and workers. The latter moved the economy, magicians developed science, and the warriors ... the soldiers only sighed and arranged endless teachings. After all, no enemies within a radius of a couple of thousand kilometers were observed. However, I did not relax, but rather tried to adapt the ever-active warriors as the driving force of evolution. Under their vigilant supervision, the magicians developed spider aviation, the workers built a pair of flying aircraft carriers, and I got to the idea of conquering the whole world.

Of course, it was named not as a "conquest", but as an "extension of the habitat". First of all, scientists have designed a long-range aircraft capable of being in the air for months. The engines he worked on magic, fed by workers on duty. A long-term "autonomy" was achieved by placing on board a portal capable of carrying the crew or food through any distance directly to the base.

The plane itself was made according to the quadcopter scheme. Four engines could change orientation in space, providing decent cruising speed and vertical landing. The engine device was terribly banal too. It was a wide ring-artifact, which was cast spell pushing the air in a given direction. As a result, the similar engine carried out function of the propeller, but at the same time did not rustle and was deprived of moving parts.

Magic made the solution of many problems not simple, but very simple. The only problem was getting enough magical energy. I decided it by breeding a special breed of workers with particularly developed magic cores. These, perhaps, were the most respected and free members of society. Each such spider carried a battery on their back, where it threw off the generated energy. Every two hours, this energy was dumped into a common network and directed to the needs of society. A worker could engage in any activity of his choice, until it was time to discharge the battery again.

Alas, I never managed to create enough capacious drives so that there could be stored a lot of energy. It was just like with electricity. You can create a battery for the phone, but it is impossible to save energy sufficient for the life of the city throughout the year.

After the construction of the first two planes, I sent them to create a map of the planet. The first results were obtained after a week, and they were ... depressing. There were really only three continents on the planet. Two of them were at the poles and now were covered with a multimeter layer of snow. The third continent was half the size of Australia and could boast of impassable jungle occupying its entire area.

The only strange thing was the relatively small desert in the western part of the mainland. Strange border seemed to me between the jungles boiling with life and barren wastelands. And when one of the planes flew closer to look at it, an amazing picture opened up at all.

Thousands and millions of humanlike creatures walked along the jungle border and methodically destroyed all vegetation and animals. Moreover, they used magic. Through binoculars from the aircraft it was clearly visible that spells such as fireball or earth spikes were used. The description of this magic is found in the chronicles of past wars.

I decided not to cut with hot, and watch the mysterious enemies. Well, what else could there be beings that actually destroy the biosphere? After a couple of days, it became clear that the border of the desert was moving further and further east. Having made small calculations, I came to the conclusion that the invaders began their work no more than six months ago. And if they continue in the same spirit, they will clear the continent from edge to edge in five years. I did not like this prospect.

At first I threw a recon group into the jungle. Very dangerous wild creatures dwelled here, but they did not pose a special threat to trained soldiers. After that, an operation was carried out to capture one of the invaders, no matter how strange it sounds. An autopsy conducted literally on the knee showed that we are dealing with the undead. In particular, I got the corpse of an orc, in which the spirit of a forest elf was infused with magic. Alas, the mental magic available to the soldiers could not penetrate into the consciousness of the undead, and even my clone who took part in the operation did not achieve better results.

But there were also positive moments in the whole operation. Characteristic signs in the spells of necromancy said that there were demons behind the invaders. These creatures were one of the parties in the last war. Personally, they preferred not to go into battle, instead sending the undead forward. They could not multiply, but instead received reinforcements through portals leading to their demonic world.

I flipped all the information in my head about this race, after which I gave the task to the soldiers to find and capture the demon. The ratio between the undead and demons as a rule did not exceed one in a thousand. Fortunately, the undead did not pay any attention to the plane, soaring at a height of eight kilometers. Especially considering the fact that the aircraft was covered with a disguise. So my troops could only soar in the sky and watch.

A week later, we were able to find the camp of the demons, where not less than a dozen of them lived. After that, a hostage-taking operation was planned. In addition to the huge convertoplanes in service of my army, there were single quadrocopters equipped with heavy blasters. At least that's what these magical artifacts looked like. The plane went down to a height of a couple of kilometers, after which the sash opened in the back and threw three dozen quadcopters out.

The airborne landing dropped and conducted a massive bombardment of the terrain from blasters, destroying the undead. Though they possessed magic, they did not differ in special strength, and therefore could not hold shields under the pressure of high-tech magic. The demons tried to resist, but could not counter the massive shelling with paralyzing spells. Some of them fled and hid in the corners, but I got four prisoners. Given the lack of losses on my part, the operation could be considered successful.

The interrogation of demons, which I arranged on an underground base, quickly built in the mountains of the continent, showed an interesting picture. The current "invasion" was just a brigade of workers sent to clean the "no man's" world. Originally, the portal from the world of demons was opened in the north. It was a long-known passage, and the first visitors were greatly surprised to find a densely compacted mass of snow and ice on the other side. But then they excavated the portal site, made a "snow-covered" base and sent a small army to this mainland. The demons had a map of the planet, so the delivery of troops did not make any special problems. Initially, the undead moved to the south under their own power, and after reaching the open water, ships were made of magical ice, which transported the entire army.

The goal of this whole expedition was to transform the planet into another world of demons. And for this it was necessary to get rid of the local biosphere, correct the energy of the planet, and then arrange an icy hell at the poles and lava hell on the central continent. I had no plans for such plans, so I decided to engage in the genocide of the newcomers. Fortunately, their knowledge of geography also left much to be desired, and they did not even know about the existence of my islands. So I just had to put into practice the results of many years of training sessions of the warrior caste.

I decided to start with the simplest - air terror. Each of the airplanes became a mobile portal through which thousands of spiders on quadcopters were selected to the continent. Those flew at a safe altitude of a kilometer and bombed all targets within reach. Undead and demons were dangerous only for ground targets within a radius of hundreds of meters, and therefore could not do anything. Of course, the losses in my troops were, but these were isolated cases caused by successful hits of spells created by the strongest of lichas.

My "blasters" had an effective firing range of ten kilometers with each charge self-homing. The spell was so complicated that even a trained magician could create it in at least five minutes. That's just the use of artifacts, allowed to shoot at a speed of ten shots per second, which created an irresistible superiority in firepower. Knowledge again defeated brute force.

Simultaneously with the start of hostilities, I gave the command to begin mass production of aircraft carriers. Still, four aircraft - it is too few. Moreover, they were mounted tools more powerful, and they may be needed in the future. I did not want to use a nuclear weapon, because its efficiency was low, and it added fairly bad radiation problems. Nuclear bombs are good for big cities. And against the scattered forces of the enemy, it is almost useless.

The destruction of the invading army quickly moved into a phase of struggle with partisan forces. And again, the circumstances were on my side. Undead practically did not take the initiative, and therefore could reasonably act only under the control of a magician. The wasteland created by magic did not have shelters, and in the forest the undead quickly became a victim of predatory animals. So the demons could only dig underground passages and hide in them. To their misfortune, I had scanning spells to detect sources of magical energy. As a result, after a couple of days, almost all the demons escaped through the portals to the main base, leaving the undead to their fate.

The population of my island was almost a million spiders, of which about a third were warriors. And they all sought to take part in the war, rightly believing that there would not be enough enemies for all of them. However, there was still hope for the demons to retaliate, so the industry of my civilization embarked on military rails, producing equipment and equipment for each of the soldiers.

While there was a final sweep of the central continent, intelligence was watching the enemy's main base. Here the demons have long got rid of the snow cover, so that the portal was on the site open to all winds. The next day after the start of the war, the entire territory was covered from above with a power shield that was supposed to protect against air attacks. And I did not try to disbelieve demons in its effectiveness. Everything has its time.

A week later, the scouts told me about increased activity in the camp. It soon became clear that the enemy is serious. If the previous army was in the millions, then this time the bill went to billions. A special network of spells opened many portals in the vicinity of the base, connected with the central interworld portal, after which troops were flooded onto the planet. It was difficult to find out their exact composition, because from above they were all covered with opaque shields, and ground reconnaissance risked landing on the enemy's head, since the army occupied almost the entire available surface. However, it was obvious that a large part of this army is again infantry or, at best, cavalry.

I don't know what the demons were hoping for, but as soon as the intelligence reported that the troop transfer was over and the portals were closed, I gave a signal to attack. Since then, we have been able to rivet in haste over three thousand aircraft carriers. And all this horde immediately rushed to the north. There, the aircraft lined up in a fighting formation at a height of ten kilometers and opened fire from all guns.

The power of aircraft carrier weapons was essentially limited to the power of the power source. Artifacts could convert almost any amount of magical energy into plasma charges. During the attack, more than a hundred spiders poured energy on each plane. But the development of the power of the magic core was one of the most important practices in the life of any spider.

In general, the plasma rain poured on the ground swept off all the shields in less than a second, after which all the assembled troops turned to ashes, especially since they were extremely compact, almost shoulder to shoulder. The area around the main portal defended much better, so that there the shield breakouts were sporadic.

After just ten minutes, ninety percent of the army of demons was destroyed. All the snow in the vast territory melted, leaving behind boiling lakes. And here, even I, on the other side of the globe, felt anger and rage emanating from the leader of the army of demons. However, this psychic attack did not make much of an impression on us. After all, spiders are innate telepaths. And broadcasting your emotions to others is actually signing up on your impotence.

Then the shield over the central portal was vanished, and thousands or even millions of dragons rushed into the air. More precisely, dragon zombies. From a distance, these animals looked majestic, but when looking through the optics, putrid stains were visible, peeking through the wounds of the bone and the mechanistic movements of the wings.

Millions of dragons against three thousand aircraft carriers. It would seem that my troops were doomed ... only I thought otherwise. In this battle I will win without loss at all. At my command, the aircraft carriers accelerated and began to gain altitude, while simultaneously shooting opponents from cannons. Dragons struggled to flap their wings, dodging my shells and soaring higher and higher. Two kilometers, four, six ... after reaching this border it became clear that the one born to crawl cannot fly. Although the dragons were magical animals, their wings were not for beauty, but for "pumping" the air. And the higher the undead flew up, the thinner the air became, and the more often they had to flap their wings.

The height of seven kilometers was the ceiling for necro-aviation. Dragons flapped their wings faster than flies, but they could not climb a meter higher. And in ten seconds the undead reached the limit of strength, and their wings began to fall off. Stupid zombies tried at all costs to carry out an order, destroying the joints and muscles that set the wing in motion. As a result, the flesh literally scattered into pieces, condemning the disabled to an uncontrollable fall.

At this time, my aircraft flew at a height of fifteen kilometers, shooting defenseless targets in a dash. In principle, by directing half of the available energy to the engines, the plane could reach a height of thirty kilometers. Even on Earth, not every earth-to-air missile can rise to such a height. But I didn't need additional tricks.

Desperate demons began to shoot up the strongest spells. Here are just all of these spells had one of two drawbacks. Or their attack was quick, but scattered in the air at a relatively short distance, or could fly away, but ... slowly. Fifteen kilometers is a pretty decent distance. So it cost the huge fireballs to rise above the level of the dragons, as each charge immediately sought to shoot each of the planes. It is quite obvious that in the end, enemy spells exploded too far from their targets. And the enemy could not arrange a massive attack with thousands of charges. Judging by the density of fire, the whole army of demons could be compared with a maximum of a dozen of my aircraft carriers.

It was a rout. Even before the last dragon was destroyed, intelligence recorded the opening of the portal, in which all the remaining demons disappeared. The remains of the army of the undead were again abandoned. Apparently the demons valued their lives above the "lives" of several millions of elite zombie mages.

Subsequent actions of my army could be described as "tedious clearing the area." Undead did not offer much resistance, but on the other hand, they strove to crawl around the neighborhood and crouch deep in the gap. This was complicated by the fact that I did not want to destroy the base of demons, where many of their magical artifacts remained. Also, we managed to capture a couple of dozen live demons who miraculously survived the bombarding. And most importantly, one of the prisoners turned out to be almost an archmage, whom my soldiers dragged out literally from the other world, healing him, if I may say so, from the almost complete fragmentation of the body.

For the next three years I studied the loot, at the same time directing the development of the central continent. The magic of demons was extremely unusual. I was most interested in the magic of souls. This direction was vital for any demon, and therefore each of them was a professional in this field.

The fact of the matter was that the demons had amazing control over magical energy. Any of the most difficult spells interlaced them in a split second. And at the same time, the rate of regeneration of energy in the magical source of their body was so scanty that they couldn't even speak of any use of magic from their reserves. But on the other hand, each demon could enslave the souls of living beings, which were used as a generator of the energy they needed so much.

It should be noted that the soul itself does not produce so much magical energy. About the same as the demons themselves. But it is worthwhile to place it in a suitable body, as this construction can make even archmags sob from envy. Of course, the demons could not create artificial bodies, but could make their ersatz counterparts on pure magic, using crystals as an anchor. As a result, the captured soul became a source of energy. Not the strongest source, but rather useful. And there were two approaches to their use.

First, the demon could take this energy to itself, creating incantations of insane power. This approach was limited to the maximum number of souls that a demon could unite into a common network. In addition, these souls were supposed to be in close proximity to him. So "the great archmage of demons" in fact appeared to them only if they constantly carried with them a car and a small cart of stones with souls.

The second use of stones was to raise the undead. It is quite obvious that demons took away the best souls for themselves, and tried to adapt any garbage somewhere. And the undead was a great solution. Even the very last peasant, being turned into a zombie, got the ability to magic. So it remained only to introduce into his consciousness the program of submission and send him to kill the enemies, at the same time providing traps for souls. It turned out a kind of network marketing, as a result of which the speed of conquering undeveloped worlds exceeded the growth rate of Herbalife branches in post-construction Russia.

For three years, I not only figured out how demons use people's souls, but also figured out how people use demons' souls. Due to their ability to subtly manipulate energy, the souls of demons were excellent blanks for the production of artifacts. For example, to adjust the production of "blasters", my scientists had to spend three years to calculate the structure of the spell, which could be put into an artifact. And then a similar effect could be achieved in a day. True, my artifacts could be stamped in the millions, but for the artifacts from the souls of demons these very souls were needed. It could even be considered a serious shortcoming, if not for one thing.

Demons could control spells of mind-blowing complexity. One average demon could create a spell that even a hundred spiders could not hold. It is good that rather primitive individuals opposed me. Perhaps, in their attitude to "magical research" the demons were even worse than the spiders from my "native" colony. All they could do was cast spells developed by magicians who had fallen into spiritual slavery.

So, it was enough to theoretically calculate the structure of the spell I needed, and then force the demon to create this structure and inject energy into it. So it was possible "on the knee" to create artifacts that are capable of completely impossible things. For example, I managed to create an anti-gravity engine that opened the way to space. Or I could open a portal with a diameter not in a measly three meters, but in all three hundred meters. After that, carry out a small adjustment of the parameters and expand the portlet to three kilometers.

In general, the whole society of spider-mages was clear that we need more demons. Naturally sealed in stones of souls and used in magical artifacts. What we were able to capture during the conduct of hostilities was enough only for experiments. And then, the queue by appointment was already busy for the year ahead. There was only one way out - to open a portal to the world of demons and mine them there on an industrial scale.

Before breaking into other worlds, I decided to send a reconnaissance expedition. It included a dozen warriors, a couple of magicians, a couple of workers and ... my clone from the chakra. On the entire planet, only I owned this kind of energy and could create clones. I was not sure how stable the clone would be when it was in another world, so it was also a kind of experiment.

Opening the portal was not a problem, because we had a demon who was well aware of the principles of his work. Although under normal circumstances the opening portal led to a strictly defined place, it was possible to form a so-called "wandering portal". There was no way to find out exactly where it would open, except that this point would be at a distance of no more than a few hundred kilometers from the main portal. Yeah, for example, hundreds of kilometers down or up.

In general, from the fifth attempt we managed to open the portal not in the depths of magma and not in near space, but only a couple of kilometers from the earth. It was extremely difficult to keep it open for a long time, so my clone jumped into the opened tunnel, and after I became convinced that it was functioning quite normally even in another world, although I was directly controlled from this, fourteen suicide bombers went to the portal. The way back for them was now possible only after the start of a full-fledged invasion from our world.

The flight went smoothly. Spiders used a levitation spell based on air flow control. In some ways it was an analogue parachute. I used a similar technique that works on the chakra. Alas, I could not transfer magical energy over long distances, and even more so to other worlds. The truth was unclear how the chakra dealt with it. In some matters, this energy was far less clear than ordinary magic.

While we were flying down, I looked at the neighborhood. How was the Bible said? Was the earth unthinkable and empty? That's exactly what the demons worlds said. I think even Mars would look more picturesque. Around stretched yellow-brown wasteland, only here and there decorated with sloping hills. There is no water, no plants. But, from time to time there are demons. These creatures either chased someone, or ran away from someone. This is life!

Our appearance did not cause much confusion. I think that simply no one noticed us, because the local inhabitants preferred not to look at the sky, but on the sides. The sky, by the way, also did not differ in special beauty - the slurred dimness evenly glowed with a light gray light, not giving even a hint that the sun somewhere exists.

A clone of problems with physiology could not arise, but the spiders felt that the air pressure here is much less than on my planet. Yes, and oxygen could be detected only in the composition of carbon dioxide. The demons didn't seem to need to breathe. So my companions switched to life support through magic. It was one of our developments for interstellar flights. The spider surrounded its body with a protective barrier that kept the air under the necessary pressure, plus a special spell was activated in the lungs that turned water and carbon dioxide into oxygen and glucose. It did not replace a full power supply, but allowed to survive in a hostile environment for at least a month.

After landing, we immediately went for the nearest demon. We needed a "language" capable of telling where we were. After half an hour of rapid running, we became richer by one demon soul. He was spiritually poor, and therefore could not resist our magic in principle. He has no energy.

The interrogation of a soul sharpened in a crystal made it possible to understand that we landed in an area that even the demons called "Dead Wasteland". To the castle we needed with the portal was almost two hundred kilometers in a straight line. But it's too early for us there. Instead, we decided to visit a small "lair" of demons a hundred kilometers the other way. The gang sitting there was considered quite strong, and most importantly, they looked like spiders on the surface, which was quite interesting.

As we advanced, we hunted the demons running past. This behavior was not surprising to any of the victims. On the contrary, only seeing us on the horizon, they immediately began to run away, developing a maximum speed. Having reached the "lair", we found the entrance to the cave, around which something like a fortress was erected. Building materials were stones. Actually, there were no other materials here.

- Whoo are it , why do you need? - Mentally squealed by one of the denizens, it barely became clear that we were not just passing by, but heading straight for them. Because of the rarefied atmosphere, the demons also preferred to communicate telepathically.

We didn't get up to the polemics, but tritely attacked with dot spells, aiming at the demons who sat behind the walls. Those, it seems, did not expect anything else, because the first charges collided with power shields. After a small exchange of attacks, I appreciated the strike force of the demons as low, and then gave the command to use weapons. The "blasters" of the pistol caliber were brought to a combat state, after which the demons were destroyed in just five seconds. Reinforced charges without problems punched through thick stone walls and several layers of magical protection. The bodies of the demons could not provide any resistance at all.

After removing the souls from the mutilated bodies, the workers began to repair the fortifications, interrogating the soldiers, and scientists began an autopsy, trying to figure out the reason for the incredible similarity of this type of demons and us.

Putting what we learned during the interrogation with the results of the research, we found out that the spiders are distant relatives of demons. They were brought out artificially by crossing demons and ordinary insects, since magic allowed them and not so. After that, a part of the experimental persons escaped and returned to the world of demons. Then they somehow adapted to living on lifeless worlds, and then completely settled on a multitude of demonic domains, taking up not a bad position there. Unlike ordinary demons, spider demons retained the beginnings of magical cores, and therefore could "magish" without having captured souls.

It was good for us, because here we were going to organize a small base in which we could create an oxygen atmosphere and start growing food. For those around us, we remained the same demons as spiders, since the appearance of my relatives needed to be corrected not so much.

In parallel with the arrangement, we studied the local political situation. We were in a relatively small domain, the rules of which are tiny but archdemon. By the way, the domain was a planetoid with a diameter of a couple of thousand kilometers, surrounded by a force field that retains the atmosphere and creates artificial gravity. Here it was not the earth that attracted to itself, but the sky pressed on those who dared to be under it.

Fortunately, most of the time the archdemon was engaged in his personal affairs, and was absent in this world. He was last seen here more than three hundred years ago. And in his absence, a certain Rabator, whose army we destroyed a few years ago, led the affairs. In general, in a society of demons, greed was considered almost the main virtue. Over the thousands of years of his reign, Rabator has collected many souls of mortals. But he did not even think of sharing them with other demons, instead raising an innumerable army of the undead. Having lost it during the last campaign, the demon lost almost all respect for himself.

No one had accurate information, but rumors circulated that the whole army was destroyed in a flash by some rebellious god. Now Rabator was sitting in his castle and saving up his anger in order to launch an attack on one of the human worlds, where he was going to gain more "meat". His personal power did not suffer, because he managed to escape from the battlefield, along with all his stock of souls of great magicians.

While the subordinates were being mastered at the new place of residence, I was thinking how we would achieve our intended goal. The goal, in fact, was to capture the portal from this side and create a full-fledged base from which one could raid the souls of demons. A simple forehead attack was meaningless. We could kill wild demons with little or no resistance. But in the "capital" each had a property of at least ten souls. Rabator also showed his abilities during the battle on my planet. If it were not for the distance, it is still unknown which of us would be the winner.

Of course, it would be possible to use the already proven thermonuclear weapon, only an explosion of sufficient power could well damage the portal. Plus, there were too many strong demons in the city whose souls we needed so much. Fortunately, a few days later the solution to this problem found us.

In contrast to the demons that lived before us, we did not confine ourselves to simple external observation, but established a whole network of tracking spells, which made it possible to detect any enemy in advance. And just the group of such violators, we recorded, while they were still only twenty kilometers away. The demons of the wastelands preferred to live alone. And here they were a whole detachment of a couple of dozen individuals. They moved straight towards us, so that the entire population of the base was instantly raised in alert.

At about five kilometers the group was divided. A dozen hid in a small hollow, and the rest continued on their way to us. Similar tactics said that most likely they would not attack us. However, who knows these demons. I and a couple of spiders climbed onto the walls and covered themselves with shields, while the others hid not far from the exit from the cave to the surface, waiting for the development of events.

“Who is in charge here? Come out.”

“Do you want to fight?”

There was only one parliamentarian in front of us, in appearance resembling a cross between a slug, a monkey and a centipede. Among the demons some standard of appearance was not, so that the individual by local concepts could easily merge with the gray mass of "ordinary people". Eight of his companions stood at a distance, watching the negotiations from a safe, in their opinion, distance.

In response to my question, the demon cowardly retreated a couple of steps back and hurried to assure me of his peaceful intentions. Among the demons, this behavior was rather unusual. The presence of peaceful intentions for the local mentality was a dangerous anomaly, testifying to insidious designs.

“No. I came to give you an order from Rabator.”

“Can you prove? Something you do not look like a messenger. Rather similar to the ordinary wild.”

The demon swallowed the insult and squinted at his comrades. Separated from the crowd is another demon that looked more respectable. The point was not in an almost humanoid appearance, but in the magic shields surrounding him, which indicated that we had at least a few souls.

“I am the messenger of Rabator. And he order you, petty creatures, to arrive in his city in eleven days to take the military oath.” It seems that the fact that I did not kill the "parliamentary" as soon as I saw this messenger was perceived as a sign of weakness or of the very cunning peaceful intentions. Painfully defiant and impudent intonations were transmitted through his mental speech.

"Just because you stole a couple of souls from someone doesn't make you a messenger." - I objected. “Fall down and pray for forgiveness, if you do not want me to tear you to pieces and gobble up alive.” The demons were extremely tenacious creatures, so my threats were perfectly executable. Spiders would have disdained such a ‘breakfast’, but my clone could gobble up and not like that.

This time I guessed with the style of communication adopted here. No, the demon was not going to fall on his face, but the arrogance in his thoughts diminished.

“Behold the sign of Rabator, a vile creature.”

The ambassador stretched his arms up and a fire sign appeared above him, spreading the aura of the ancient demon. I turned to the memory of one of the previous inhabitants of the cave. His soul was sealed in stone, and reading the memory was only a matter of using a weak spell, the energy for which the clone took from the crystal.

Over all, it turned out that this is a real messenger. A military oath was one of the stages of preparation for a military campaign. The demons did not tolerate any restriction of their will in the form of magical oaths. But on the other hand, the leaders of the campaign were also not eager to invite demons into their army who could at any moment hit in the back. For such situations, and was developed by the military oath. It was a temporary contract subordinating one demon to another. The reward was, of course, the soul, but rather the opportunity to get them. Under standard conditions, the demon could get one soul out of ten captured. At the same time, the demon was obliged to kill the victim personally, since the souls of the slain by the undead belonged to the master of the undead. In general, the conditions were enslaving, but wild demons were happy and so. For them it was the only chance to get at least one soul.

Another important condition for taking the oath was that at one time it was taken from a relatively small number of demons. After all, Rabator did not need endless hordes of wild demons under the walls of his city. Such a situation could turn into a spontaneous assault. So demons were invited to take the oath in small groups. And it concerned only strong groups or outstanding singles. Such a group was considered the previous inhabitants of the cave.

Finally, the most important circumstance was that the Rabator took the oath personally. It is quite natural that he could not take an oath from millions of demons. Therefore, only a select few were granted a personal audience with him — future generals, who then themselves had to run through their territory and recruit wild ones, forcing them to take an oath to themselves. So the current situation was the rarest chance to meet personally with the ruler of the entire domain. Of course, I could not miss it. But one more thing remained.

This invitation was not only a way of communication, but also a test in which I had to show my leadership skills. And what is to be a leader in the society of demons? This, of course, strive to row everything for themselves, regardless of the consequences. For this, the second group remained, which now watched us with the help of tracking spells. But on the other hand, the manifestation of disrespect towards Rabator could also adversely affect the fate of a potential general. So there should have been a balance.

“I see that you have stolen not only the soul, but also the sign of the messenger.” I delighted the demon with his conclusion. “Let Rabator take care of your fate, but accomplices of this heinous crime will be my prey.”

I focused for a second and used one of the most punchy paralyzing spells I knew. The shining ball pierced the magic shield like paper, and the messenger huddled in convulsions. The spell combined paralysis, physical destruction of nerves and electric shock. Although the biophysics of demons was quite different from the protein life forms, the spell had a great effect on them.

“Dispose these rabble.” I gave the command to my two attendants.

Spiders rushed forward, on the move rushing killer spells. Of the eight remaining demons, three more were owners of souls. But it did not help them much. The previous inhabitants would have been here, even with the whole crowd they could not have caused the three of them at least some harm. Still, the magical cores of spider demons were frankly frail, and the entire stock of souls since the last war was confiscated after an attack by a large group of punishers who saved wild demons from excessive power. But my two warriors were veterans, seasoned by years of daily training and sparring. They passed through the demons like a red-hot knife through butter, leaving behind only mutilated bodies in which life was barely warm.

The demons, of course, tried to escape, but no one ran beyond a couple of hundred meters. I gave another command, and the five warriors rushed to catch up with the second group, which already ran off at full speed. But those chances were not any. Over the past few days we have seen that the only protection of local residents is their legs and their ability to actively move them. So I developed and taught my companions a spell that greatly increased the speed of the run. As a result, the spiders run through the local wastelands at the speed of racing cars, since there were no obstacles on the ground.

The prey, which itself fell into our hands, was good: eighteen still living demons and twelve souls of various intelligent beings - from goblins to elves. We dragged the messenger away to the wasteland, where we were left to come round. The label imposed on him was an excellent defense against the wild, as it made it clear that this demon was the messenger of Rabator, and therefore attacking him is the best way to ensure eternity of unspeakable suffering.

We spent the next ten days preparing for an adventurous operation to seize a whole city of demons. This was our only chance, so my companions had to either succeed or die on the way to it. Like a clone, this fate did not frighten me.

The plan was simple and bold. It based himself on the fact that none of the demons had ever heard of such energy as chakra. Everybody possessed magic here, but none of the locals even perceived the energy from the tail of the bija. And since the time of my existence Naruto still had a mega-bun - my "genjutsu". I was going to get to the Rabator at a distance of direct visibility and subjugate his consciousness. Each inhabitant of the city of demons, either directly or through the commander, swore an oath of allegiance to the vicar of the archdemon. Therefore, he could, by simple mental effort, kill or paralyze any of his vassals. That's what I was going to use.

After submission, the demon paralyzes the entire population of the city and orders to remove all types of magical protection. And my companions will use a massive paralyzing spell. After that, it remains only to open a portal to our world and start collecting souls. Of course, in a few minutes the Rabator will die, and the oath will cease to operate, but this time should be enough to provide us with the necessary advantage. Paralysis will give even more time, and on the other side of the portal more than one hundred thousand soldiers armed with the latest word of magical equipment are waiting for their turn. This we had to abandon almost all the artifacts, so as not to attract attention. And the main troops can even fight with an army of demons in their hometown.

I used all the captured demons to train my abilities. The first experimental subjects simply died in agony, but the latter were already completely in my power and were able to stretch not two, but ten minutes. Still, compared with humans, demons are much more enduring creatures.

And so, the D-day and H-hour came. Our detachment fled across the desert at the speed of an average demon, and the bulk of the city grew ahead. From a distance, this structure looked more like an anthill the size of a mountain. Or on a very, very conventional pyramid. As it approached, it became clear that the "construction of the century" is still ongoing. In some places the demons were busy building new walls, roads and rooms.

When there were about five kilometers to the city wall, we were surrounded by a crowd of hundreds of demons, each of which shone with magic like a New Year tree.

“Where are you going?” One of them asked, judging by the behavior of the squad leader.

“To meet with Rabator. He invited me to become the greatest general of his army.”

“Ha, so the greatest? All right, follow me. At your expense were special instructions.”

What was the essence of these instructions, the demon did not explain. Though I doubled my vigilance, I continued to radiate confidence. We got to the city, and I was able to assess the scale of this building close. Along the perimeter of a hundred meters, a continuous vertical wall rose above turning into a lagging surface in which windows and doors could be seen here and there, or even just aisle deeper. There was a gate right in front of us. From a distance, they seemed to be a small gate, but it was clear up close that even a battle tank would pass through them.

The flaps swung open, making it possible to gauge their thickness. More than a meter of enchanted metal shone with magic from spells embedded in it. It seems that I got excited that this structure can be destroyed with a thermonuclear bomb. More precisely, of course, it is possible, but at the same time there is a good chance to split the planet in half in one. On the other hand, soon it will all be mine. I smugly looked around, evaluating my future real estate.

Under the watchful guard, we were led through a maze of intricate corridors and stairs. I even got a little bored in the process. It has been a long time for our journey, which ended somewhere near the summit of the anthill. Finally, the next doors opened before us, and we entered a richly decorated hall, at the far end of which sat on a throne ... a very shabby-looking demon. The memory of the enslaved demons suggested that this is the Rabator.

We marched forward, and I found that the strongest magical barrier would separate us from the local ruler. The same barriers covered the walls, floor and ceiling. What is most indicative, our escorts did not enter with us, remaining standing in the corridor. Looks like a trap. I mean, my trap slammed shut, hooking up the booty.

“So here you are …” Uncertainly stretched Rabator.

“Yes, we are.” I confirmed. From the very first second I was in the room, I began to saturate the demon's brain with the chakra. Alas, I needed time to overcome his natural resistance. Those demons that I tried to subdue as quickly as possible, died before I got power over them.

“When the servants of the portal told me about the successful penetration of the scouts through the wandering portal, I wondered who was it so arrogant? But it turned out that these are the very creatures that vilely destroyed my army. Dike guess, this idea with the portal threw you Ighoral.”

“Ighural? The first time I've heard. Are you not talking about the demon that led the herd of zombie mammoths?”

“Mammoths? And yes, he managed a squad of siege beasts of forest elves. Looks like he managed to outwit you.” Demon ugly grinned at.

“I do not think so. Most likely, he was not asked about it, because no one was interested in whether you would know about our penetration here or not.” I brazenly lied. It will be necessary to wind the tails of our department of spatial research for the fact that they did not guess to ask such a question.

“How arrogant. The fact that you destroyed a detachment of my envoys caught my attention. You did not think that that group of observers was the only one?”

“So it was still your messengers? I had a better opinion of you. How can you be allowed to speak on your own behalf to such nonentities?”

The demon poured me a wave of irritation.

"So what did you want to achieve with all this fuss?" He asked, glaring at me.

"Well ... we planned to meet you in person, kill you, and then seize power in the city and in the whole domain." I listed, bending my fingers.

“As you can see, your plan failed.” Demon again smirked smugly. “You are trapped. Even the archdemon will not be able to get out of here. This is the most protected place in the city.”

“Actually, this is part of the plan.” The joyful grin of the demon turned into a frightened. “This is the most protected place in the city. So, when you and all the inhabitants of this city die, we will remain safe.”

“You are lying! The demon shouted, jumping up from his throne.” Want me to take off the barrier? Do not be this.”

"Oh ... and how are you going to kill us then? After all, we are protected from all sides.”

The demon again smiled and put his ass on the seat.

"I don't want to kill you. You will be tortured for centuries. And sooner or later I will find out the answers to all the questions that interest me. But the answer to one question I would like to hear right now. How were you going to impersonate demons, if your aura is not hidden?”

Oops! But this is a puncture. Apparently, the bodies of demons have some special way of perception. Spiders didn't see anything of the kind.

“It's a secret.”

“Ha. Better admit that you didn't even suspect that any demon is able to see through your game at a glance.”

I sent outward a feeling of irritation that I was really experiencing. That there should have been so fucked up. Something my security service does not catch mice at all. And I am also good, I did not recheck everything myself. No wonder they say: if you want to do something well, do it by yourself. In the meantime, the demon smiled and continued to speak.

"Though your disguise is very entertaining. You have no aura at all. What is it? Some kind of artifact.” My irritation increased. “Yes, I knew it! This is an artifact. Hey, when you grab them, hit the main thing not so much. I do not want such a valuable thing to suffer.”

"Do you really think this garbage is a valuable thing?" I pulled a small crystal out of the chitin fold that replaces my pocket. A simple spell was inserted into it, forcing it to shine with all the colors of the rainbow and emit a ‘powerful and mysterious’ magical aura. That came in handy toy. “If you liked him so much - hold. I still have at home.”

I waved my hand, and the shining crystal flew towards the demon. At the same moment I activated my ability and intercepted the control of his consciousness. The moment was so appropriate that Rabator did not even have time to realize that he fell under my influence. His eyes clung to the priceless treasure, flying straight into his hands. With a quick telepathic command, he removed the barrier from the trap and caught the crystal. Greed swept over him, another mental impulse paralyzed all the demons in the city, ordering them to stand still, remove their magical defenses and wait for further instructions. And then, his eyes focused on the magical glow of the crystal, and the mind no longer perceived anything but it.

“My darling ... “ Managed to think Rabator, before losing consciousness.

I was a little distracted from the control of another's consciousness and controlled the situation with my feelings. Fourteen spiders coped with their task and activated the highest paralysis spell, investing almost all of their energy in it, plus a supply of storage devices. The time has come for the second part of the plan.

I scanned the demon's consciousness and found out the location of the portal to other worlds. It was located in the city center at ground level. Actually right below us. The road there was long and winding, so I decided on a little vandalism. The spiders picked up the helpless ruler of the demons, after which I activated the Doton technique, revealing a hole in the floor leading to the desired level. If I used magic, then I would have to overcome the resistance of protective spells. But the chakra simply ignored this layer of reality, moving the spells together with matter.

A minute later we were standing in the hall of the portal. I was left to control Rabator, and my loyal minions began to activate the portal. To open it, I needed a breakthrough of energy, but it had to come from the side of my world. All we had to do was turn off the security module in the portal control mechanism and accept the ‘incoming call’.

Finally, after five minutes, the portal opened, and a stream of spiders rushed out of it, which immediately began to cordon off the premises, further immobilize the demons and spread through the buildings of the city. My plan to take over the world went into the main phase, where all I needed was general guidance.

The capture of the city of demons was, though not bloodless, but in general, in accordance with the plans. The number of rooms and corridors was so huge that we did not have time to clean them all up before Rabator died, and the oath of allegiance to him ceased to work. But the positive thing was that we still did not allow the escape of witnesses, so that no one outside knew about the change of power.

For the next few months, we sent demons subordinate to mental magic to recruit "volunteers" and bring them to give an oath of allegiance to the city. Naturally, all those who arrived lost souls, and the spiders began to remotely control the bodies of some of them, creating the appearance of a normal flow of events. The problem with the auras of demons was solved easily. It was precisely the aura of the body, so that the "zombied" demons outwardly did not differ from the ordinary.

While the spiders were stocking valuable resources in the form of demon showers, I studied their books on magic. The Rabator had quite a decent library, where many works of magicians of various races were kept. In the possession of the main demon were also the souls of powerful magicians, whom I plowed as consultants for the material under study.

I tried to find at least some mention of the chakra, but instead I came across a slightly different phenomenon. In the world of Naruto, it was called Ki. From the standpoint of an ordinary observer, it was just a projection of negative emotions. But in reality it was a special substance that could be called the energy of sacrifice or the energy of worship. Perhaps it was this energy on Earth that was called “Bahion”.

Powerful demons could absorb this energy and use it for their own gain. And since, to begin with, energy had to be taken from somewhere, and then accumulated in sufficient quantity, then for this ... ta-dam! .. the demons created their own domains — isolated areas of space where Bakhion had accumulated for thousands of years until its density reached the right level. The source of this energy was the suffering of the enslaved souls, as well as the suffering of the demons themselves.

And then it turned out another interesting thing. That chakra tail that the Kyuubi brought me was created with the help of Bahioni. Moreover, I found a ritual describing the process of creating such energy centers tied to the soul. The bottom line was that you could take the souls of powerful demons, clean them of personality and memory, and then turn them into a kind of energy node that can be remembered, and then begin to reproduce almost any type of energy.

That is, once one fox demon collided with the chakra, appreciated its advantages, created nine energy centers with the help of Bahion and set them all up to reproduction of the chakra. Thus, the usual demon-devoid of magical energy became the "beast of the chakras," which was later called the Nine-Tailed.

I also set about trying to create such centers for myself. Moreover, there were a lot of demons' souls and the whole world at hand, filled with Bakhiony. Only unlike the Kyuubi, I was going to adjust each tail to my own type of energy. Still, chakra and magic were quite different, and where one faced difficulties, the second easily overcame them. Moreover, I could leave my future "tails" in a sleeping state and activate them only when I encounter suitable energy.

By the way, the magic of demons and other races was very different from the magic of spiders, although they were based on the same type of energy. Our magic was an exact mathematical science. There was no place for fortune-telling in the tea leaves. There were spell schemes, rules for manipulating and converting energy, and so on. But the demons primarily concentrated on their innate abilities. That is, on those "spells" that were invested in their body. Also, they could repeat the spell, read from the memories of the soul of the magician, but did not understand how this spell is arranged and why it works at all.

The third group was conventionally related to "human" magic. Spells in it were created due to emotions, faith and magical egregors. That is, for example, all forest elves believed that a certain combination of thoughts, emotions, and energies led to accelerated plant growth. And it led. But the exact mechanism of this impact was incomprehensible to them. One hundred generations of ancestors used this spell, and you use it. That was the main argument of the teachers of magic. This approach did not attract me, and therefore I studied this direction only for general development - in order to have an understanding of what I may encounter in the future.

I completly moved to the world of demons, completely immersed in the process of developing the ritual of obtaining eight additional "tails". I decided not to be greedy, and limit myself to nine tails, like those of the Kyuubi. I think this restriction did not come from the ceiling. There was very little information in the books on this topic, so I had to think out quite a lot myself.

"The ritual of gaining tails" came out very difficult. The books on Bakhion were rather theoretical works, so I had to do a lot of experiments and in general become a kind of professor, the head of the whole Institute of High Magic. In order to accomplish the impossible for a mere mortal, I used chakra, the magic of spiders and the magic of sacrifices in ritual, the benefit of which the demons were no worse than the spiders or elves. I personally checked it.

Honestly, this plan in some way became my "Idea Fix". For days and nights I sat studying magic, artifacts, rituals and even sacred writings and philosophical treatises. Somewhere in the subconscious, I realized that my time was running out, and therefore I strove more and more towards my goal.

Much of my plan had to be simplified. I did something, based not on understanding, but on the results of carrying out full-scale experiments. Somewhere in the rush of creativity created an incredible fusion of magic and technology. But at one point, I realized - this is it! The whole ritual was completely lined up in my perfect spider consciousness, and I realized that I was just a step away from the fulfillment of a dream.

After that, there were three months of convulsive preparations, in which I somehow involved all the inhabitants of my world. Now all the resources of the civilization of spiders were focused on the fulfillment of my desire. After all, I was their ancestor, the source of all their knowledge, those who gave them the dream to reach the stars and gave meaning to their existence, bequeathed to spread the plague of life in the Universe. Millions of spiders built the Holy Ziggurat, traced the patterns of the ritual circle, cast spells, and prepared the victims.

And now, the moment of my triumph has come. Eight of the strongest demons I captured took their places in the sacrificial circles, and I was located in the center of a huge three-dimensional structure resembling a stepped pyramid. Oddly enough, the basic principles of the device ziggurat were copied from the city of demons by me. See, there they erected a temple to raise their archdemon. But the results of the development of this domain was destined to use me.

I was going to form eight "energy tails", using for this all the reserves of Bakhion in the domain. After that, one of the tails was to receive the setting for the magic of the spiders, for which more than one hundred thousand of my descendants had to support the ritual with their energy. And most importantly, I was going to invest in the structure of this kernel all my knowledge about magic. Even if I die and lose my memory, all the necessary knowledge and skills will pop up in my mind, after which the mechanism of restoring the memory of past lives will be activated.

Finally, all preparations were completed, and the ritual began. The most powerful streams of magical energy and chakras set in motion Bakhion, which began to concentrate inside the ziggurat and merge into me, at the same time undergoing the necessary transformations. Time passed, and the ritual went on. Minutes were compiled in hours, and hours in days. And all this time I was sitting in a trance, controlling the process of my exaltation. Here, the demons were killed, their souls cleaned, transformed and grafted onto my spiritual body. Divine energy poured into me, healing the spiritual wounds inflicted in the ritual process, filling me with divine will and transforming the once independent souls of demons into parts of me.

To a large extent, this ritual was an attempt to create a god. God from the machine, the sole purpose of whose existence was my exaltation. And now this essence has re-created me, giving my essence new qualities. And so, the ritual entered the final phase. Last but not least was a disguise.

It may have been naive of me, but I didn't want higher-order Being to notice the changes in me. I was going to hide the big after the little. Hide the presence of germs of the seven tails, parading the presence of two fully formed. The covers of mystery and divine veils hid the core of my soul behind false images and reflections. This part of the ritual was one hundred percent my own invention, albeit based on foreign scientific works. It was risky, but my research and experiments showed that this ritual should not have negative consequences for me.

After seven days and nights, the ritual was successfully completed. I got to my feet, stretched all four hands and carefully scanned myself in various ranges. I managed! Rejoicing filled me up. From now on I'm not just a man or a spider. I am the highest being that can conquer even death itself. Now it remains only to get used to their new abilities, and it will be possible to think about what to do next.

And here, the heavens opened, and the wrathful angels sounded, announcing the coming of the gods. The shield surrounding the domain burst, and the whole atmosphere began to evaporate into outer space. The magical underside of the world shuddered, and with a wild rattle a passage burst from it, from which a deity of incredible strength emerged. From the descriptions I learned the archdemon that created this world thousands of years ago.

“Who dared to destroy my domain?” There was an angry cry.

The power of thought of this deity was such that the spiders lost consciousness only after sensing its presence. Only the most experienced managed to build mental shields to maintain clarity of consciousness. The flow of anger, hatred, and the desire for death emanating from the archdemon forced every living creature on the planet to tremble. I did not escape this fate. Fortunately, my disguise made me indistinguishable from all other spiders, so I darted to the side and mingled with the crowd of my relatives.

"I will destroy! " The voice of the archdemon has reached such strength that thousands and thousands of my descendants died at that very moment. Even I received damage, unable to cope with the bubbling storm of wild magic. I gained a source of magical energy, but my control over it remained at the same level as an ordinary spider.

And here, as if only waiting for this moment, the heavens opened up once more, and I sensed the appearance of Being to this world, as well as several other entities similar to it. And although ... knowing this infection, you can be sure that It really was waiting for this moment.

“Fixed player attack on the opponent's figure.” Announced a strict and indifferent voice. In an incomprehensible way, I found myself pulled out of my usual layer of reality. The figures of Gods, Beings, Archdemons or by whom they were there more clearly manifested in my mind.

“What? It can not be!” The anger in the words of the Archdemon abruptly gave way to panic. “Just a mortal could not do that.”

“And nevertheless, the court found that the destruction of the domain was the result of the ritual of gaining strength. The lack of Bakhion in the inner loop led to the destabilization of the domain envelope, which collapsed due to careless following the instructions for its creation.” The voice continued its indifferent broadcasting. “The player Archdemon caused the destruction of the gaming domain, but at the same time in a fit of anger, he attacked the figure of another player and caused her incurable damage.

I did not consider my injuries as incurable, but, naturally, I did not declare it. From these comrades, they can tear off something vital from me, so that their words do not diverge from the matter. The overwhelming glances of the Deities converged on me and scanned in all the ranges available to them. To my relief, a second later they lost all interest in me. More precisely, the interest was lost by everyone except the Being.

“I take away his soul. In any case, this game can be considered complete.”

“I confirm.”

At this the divine visions let me go, and I again plunged into darkness. But this time I already realized my own existence. Now I was not just a soul, but partly a spiritual being. It is difficult to say how much I so hung in the void, but after a while I heard the voice of the Being.

“You again pleased me. I thought that you would simply disappear in this world, crushed by fate and circumstances, but you could not just survive. You destroyed the figure of another player, defeated his army, and then also substituted the Archdemon as idiot, forcing him to pay me a decent fee. You are also entitled to compensation from the Judge. Soon he will offer you to choose a special gaming ability. I advise you to think carefully before making a decision.”

“What kind of game? I don't even know the rules.” I was indignant.

“You could have guessed everything by yourself.” Being exclaimed with displeasure. “We prepare the playing field, arrange the figures, and then watch your life. Or do not observe, as it was at this time. In most cases, the figures are required to destroy all the figures of opponents. If there are other conditions of victory or some special rules, the figures are notified of them.” Yeah, and he did not say a word about the restriction on the use of thermonuclear weapons in the world of Naruto. “Scenarios of games are different, but I am going to put you where this script is more or less known to you. Or where your life experience can come in handy. A small fraud on my part, but all within the rules. If you are killed, then you drop out of the game and receive punishment from me depending on the degree of your stupidity and dullness. Well, that's all. Think. And don't you dare to bother me with your questions. I already told you everything I wanted.”

Yes, I got an employer. If we are talking about the gaming ability, then obviously you can ask not just some kind of spell, but something related to the game itself. What threatens me the most? Of course, death. All other problems I can somehow try to solve.

As soon as I came to this conclusion, a source of blinding radiance appeared in front of me, which spoke in an indifferent voice.

“As compensation for the attack of the player you are given the opportunity to get one playing ability. What do you choose?”

"I want to be able to rise after death in such a way that this death is not considered to be my defeat in the game."

“Again, these cheater’s habits.” In an indifferent voice heard notes of discontent. “Good. In order to rise after death in relatively safe circumstances, you will need to spend one Justice Point. To earn points, you need to sacrifice one of the pieces to the Judge of Game. To do this, it is enough to kill the figure and, within five minutes, utter the phrase "I sacrifice this figure to the Judge." At the same time, your player does not receive any bonuses from such a murder.”

Heh, it seems to me that I had a way to leave the Being without any profit from my use at all. Okay, I'll think about it later.

“Thanks.” I answered to Judge. It seems that it is to him that I will make sacrifices. And he, too, is still a bug. Surely these deaths in the name of him for needed for something. However, my business is small. Dispose everybody. Another would thing, how to distinguish a player from a mere mortal?”

I thought there was a sniff coming from the Judge, after which the glow faded away, leaving me hanging in the dark.

“Well, how did it go?” Being again appeared.

“Wonderful.” I grunted displeased.

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

"Well, if no one knows what your ability is, then it will be much more difficult to counteract it." Finally a Being was born. “Well, since you are so clever, cunning and successful with you, then it is worthwhile to entrust you with something non-trivial. I have one game in my mind.”

The darkness blinked, and I again fell into unconsciousness, despite all my improved spiritual characteristics.